Open

[yokunaru]

WHO: Yuuri Katsuki & You
WHERE: All around the ship
WHEN: After his arrival (Dec. 29)
WHAT: Exploring the ISC ELUVIO
WARNINGS: None. (Both prose or brackets work for me! Will match.)


A. Closed to Viktor

By the time Yuuri's done with the orientation, his protests have stopped and an odd sort of numbness has taken over. He takes the duffel bag they hand him and lets the crew members usher him into the main promenade, where he's promptly left to his own devices. His stomach churns.

It was an anomaly, they'd said. As Yuuri takes in the passerby (all strangers), the unfamiliar technology, everything, it really starts to sink in: he's stuck on some ship in space with no way to get home. He's never going to see his family again, or his friends. Or Viktor. With that last thought, Yuuri's hit with the realization that he's going to miss the Grand Prix Finals. That after all the work he's put into getting there, he's let Viktor and everyone else who supported him down--

Yuuri chokes, duffel bag dropping to the ground to sit there, forgotten. He sinks down to the floor beside it, back to the wall, hands pressed to his temples. Caught up in his panicked thoughts, all Yuuri can do is struggle to keep his breathing steady and wait for this to pass.

B. Residence Lounge

"Fine" still isn't the word to describe him later, after a few hours have passed. Even knowing that Viktor's here with him doesn't entirely take away the sting in his chest, not when he's still missing the Finals, and everyone else they know is still back home.

So Yuuri does what he does best: distract himself. Without a rink or ballet studio to turn to, Yuuri latches onto the shelves of books instead, brown eyes scanning the titles with curiosity. Though he pulls out a few to flip through idly, he ends up putting them back quickly, apparently having no luck finding what he's looking for.

Finally, he stands back with a sigh. There's no helping it. Yuuri turns, biting his lip as he walks up to whoever's closest. "E-excuse me," he says hesitantly. "Do you know where I can find books on space travel? Something like an introduction, if it's possible."

C. Atrium

There's something soothing about the atrium, Yuuri thinks as he wanders among the flowers. It's not what he would have expected to find on a spaceship of all places, but he's not going to complain. Having Makkachin trotting along beside him is a familiar and welcome sight, too.

Or it would be, if Makkachin actually stayed there. When the poodle suddenly perks up and dashes off, Yuuri breaks into a run after him. "Makkachin, wait up!" In his haste to catch up with his wayward companion, Yuuri almost runs right into someone when he makes a sharp turn down the path.

Comments

C

[nodyinteam]

Yuuri can breathe easily, as he just narrowly averted running into a towering wall of a very manly teenager. Nekomaru crosses his arms and frowns as he surveys the other boy.

"What's your hurry?" His eyes narrow suspiciously. "And what's your business with Makkachin?!" Sounds like he managed to hear Yuuri's shouting...

[yokunaru]

"E-eh?" Yuuri stammers, completely thrown off from the apology he was just about to make. Being stared at like that makes Yuuri fidget in place, lamenting the fact that he's already managed to upset someone on his first day here.

"Nothing! I just don't want him wandering off and getting lost."

[nodyinteam]

Nekomaru stares at him for a moment, with intense scrutiny.

But then he quickly transitions into a barking laugh. "Gahahaha! You could stand to lighten up, you know. I can feel that your intentions are pure!"

He then turns to face the direction in which the dog fled. "Come on... He can't have gone far!"

[yokunaru]

At first, Yuuri flinches with surprise at the sudden, loud laugh, but begins to smile tentatively a second later.

"Um, thank you!" Relieved that this didn't turn into the disaster he was expecting, Yuuri falls into step with him. "If you know Makkachin, that means you know Viktor...?"

[nodyinteam]

Nekomaru grunts in confirmation as he matches forward. "Viktor's a good man. We just met recently, after arriving in this place."

He glanced at Yuuri with a smirk. "Are you his new dog walker?"

[yokunaru]

Yuuri laughs a little awkwardly. "He's--he's my coach. From home."

His smile dims, and he falters at the reminder. "I just got here earlier today," he says, sounding much more subdued now.

[nodyinteam]

He perks up as he hears that. "You're the skater he's coaching? He must be glad to see you."

But he gives a more thoughtful look as he considers his situation. "How are you holding up? The first day in an unusual place is never easy!"

[genice]

Viktor's life has fallen into a series of new patterns over the last two weeks and then some. Space has become a visible concept, but not one he's had to directly engage with if he avoids looking out the "windows" into space. Since the ship had gone into hyperdrive, the tension has been almost palpable amoung the newest arrivals, and amoung the members of the crew who served the ship directly under the Captain's chain of command, but so too have the vistas been less imposing. It's allowed him some mental disconnect from how disconcerting it is to be constantly under a metal ceiling, fooled into the pretense of a sky in the atrium as long as he didn't look too closely to unravel the illusion. He's been able to collect himself in degrees and focus on what he can do, this far away from home. Possibly in another universe. No, probably in another universe.

The details still mattered, knowing that the person he'd wanted to watch over most had been left on his own to face the Grand Prix Final while he was here, immeasurably far away, with Makkachin dogging his heels.

He'd headed out on a run this early part of the day cycle, smiling and tossing a wave and a hello to shopkeeps he recognised on his way to the fitness center. With all the plans submitted to the proper ship authorities, he knew that eventually he'd be responsible for introducing an absurdity into space: ice skating. In the meantime, he maintained form best as he could. He had at least another month before anything would be worked out, but he was inspired, unfortunately inspired, to skate even now. Redirecting that urge into a half-assed attempt at figuring out how to work as an unrelated businessman (leaving the work to the employees has worked out best) hadn't been producing results worth speaking on; for the most part, he was sticking to a regiment of fitness and endurance training, with and without Makkachin in tow.

Walking back through the promenade, his thoughts turn inward, picking at the hurt that came with missing his life and the love of the people who weren't here. It's both difficult and too easy to turn those feelings over, let them wash through him as so many cresting waves. How is anyone supposed to conceptualize never? A loss that has no framing, no resolution, no...

He sighs, bringing his hand up to shove the fringe of his bangs off his forehead. He needs a shower. He's looking forward to it, even in the cramped bathroom attached to his studio flat. It's not where he wants to be. Where he wants to be is standing next to Yuuri, watching him step out on the ice that he'd have already skated over two weeks ago. Hell, by now, the Russian Nationals would also be over, but that doesn't feel as real as the visceral want to be by his side and not a unknown universe away.

His hand falls away, picking up into a jog. Better shake off the maudlin turn of mind creeping over him. Makkachin is resting back in his newest home. He'll collect on hugs as comfort and talk to his dog and the tiny furball that'd been living with them the last four days, and while it wouldn't make him miss Yuuri (or so many of the others he knew) any less, it would —

Viktor stumbles, coming to an abrupt stop as a break in the people walking past shows a man crouched down, sitting in the floor. His back is pressed against the wall, the familiar dufflebag issued to all new anomaly arrivals at his side. His hands are pressed to the sides of his head.

Viktor can't breathe. For an impossible moment, his mind grapples with the improbable, eyes widening as he jerks himself a step closer. "Yuuri?" He swallows, the rough word barely carrying past his lips. The vise around his chest tightens, and tightens, and his heart beats sluggish, as if time's slowing down, but it's not, it's not. Viktor feels the prickling of tears in his eyes. He simply lets them do as they will.

Because it's when he breaks into a run, bridging that distance between where he walked in his unfamiliar work out clothes, an athletic, sweaty mess to where Yuuri sits trying to hold himself together; it's when he's calling out Yuuri's name, unabashedly crying even as he's looking shocked, uncomprehending; it's when he's crashing down with artful, ingrained grace to his knees and reaching forward and giving no choice to Yuuri at all about being pulled into his awkward, warm, too tight, crouching hug; it's with all of this that he allows himself to believe, for this moment, that he's not dreaming. That this terrible thing, this terrible displacement, has claimed someone he cares about, and that the terribly selfish part of himself doesn't think it's worse that he's come than having him stay safely away.

"Yuuri! It's you, it's really you — I'm so sorry, I'm the sorriest man alive, I didn't mean to leave you there, I never — oh, Yuuri." He needs a moment to process his own immense relief, burying his head in his arms where they're locked around whatever he can hold of Yuuri, before he can properly register how he needs to pull together and help Yuuri, too.

He's so happy, and it hurts so much, that he doesn't know what to do except for cry, with that stupid, stupid expression of heartbroken relief that overtakes his face.

"Yuuri."

[yokunaru]

It's one of the few voices that can cut through his panic like this, a distant part of him realizes as he's pulled into a tight hug. Surprise flickers through him, followed by disbelief as he sits there, frozen in place and unable to return the hug immediately. He's barely had any time to come to terms with his loss before Viktor came crashing into his life for the second time in a year. Could it really be him? The pessimist in Yuuri warns him not to get his hopes up, in case he's wrong, and yet the solid presence before him isn't disappearing. His breathing begins to slow from its panicky, quickened pace as Viktor's voice continues to wash over him, making no sense at all. Yuuri finds that he doesn't care, as long as Viktor is really here with him.

Tentatively, and still shaking from the anxiety that had gripped him moments ago, Yuuri puts a hand on Viktor's chest and pushes him back just enough to see him clearly. It doesn't matter what his other senses are telling him; he needs to see Viktor's face. "You're...crying?" Shock ripples through him with the realization. But even that isn't enough to drown out the flood of relief that comes a second later.

"It really is you," Yuuri whispers, feeling his own eyes prickle with tears. "How? I didn't see you at the orientation or by the tubes." Yuuri is certain of this, if only because he had been looking the entire time, hoping to see a familiar face.

i stg this is probably one of the only time's he'll cry and i have no icons im laughing

[genice]

He doesn't pay much mind to the shocked surprise behind you're... crying?, just as he doesn't pay attention to the tears rolling down his cheeks. They're not important. Or they are, yes, they are, because he's feeling everything intensely enough this is his body's response. Pushed back, staring into Yuuri's face, the details start filtering in through his own heart-pounding shock. Through the elation and the confusion and the smaller weight of guilt burrowed in the pit of his stomach. He doesn't want to let go, but clinging is impractical, as is huddling on the ground in this public space. He should move.

He moves his hand, fingers tracing lightly over the curve of Yuuri's cheek. He ignores the slight trembling in his fingers just as he's ignored his tears. It is what it is.

He's not wearing his glasses. It goes further than that, of course — his hair is slicked back for competition, which doesn't quite make sense, unless more time has been passing and... but he's still competing! There's a fierce sort of happy joy in that thought even as he blinks, registering what he's been asked.

Viktor shakes his head, swallowing the thickness in his throat down. "After the first week it felt like moping to spend time hovering around the medical bay. I've been keeping busy —" he says, and he laughs at that, breaking into a smile for the first time since he's seen him, "God, Makkachin's here too, did you know? Somehow he came from Hasetsu even when I came from Barcelona." His hands are restless, thumb stroking Yuuri's cheek again and again, soothing himself as much as trying to be any reassurance to Yuuri. He wants to pull him into another hug. He doesn't want to let him go, to chance that this isn't real, but oh, he's awake. This is as real as anything else here in space, and it's that truth that has his smile fading, dimming a bit. His other hand squeezes Yuuri's shoulder.

"You don't have your glasses." As if the thought has only just struck him. "Do you have those tags they gave you? We can find the studio they assigned you, see if they're there." They can get out of this foreign public space, and into someplace where they can talk without the non-crew denizens of the Eluvio looking on. (At least, not obviously. He hasn't made presumptions on not being monitored everywhere on board; at least with theoretical capacity, if not active intent.)

this feeling

[yokunaru]

Eyes briefly sliding shut, Yuuri leans into Viktor's touch and lets that ground him. It's both welcome and needed after the scare he's just had, though Yuuri can't help but feel guilty at the same time. If Viktor's here with him, then Yuuri wonders how their disappearances are being explained back at the Finals. For one brief, hysterical moment, he realizes that Yurio's going to kill both of them. If they ever see him again. Actually, Minako and Mari are a cause for worry, too, after they took the time to fly to Barcelona to support him.

Strangely enough, those quick, nonsensical thoughts calm him, despite the ache in his chest. Did he ever thank them properly for their encouragement? What about his parents? Or Yuuko and Nishigori and their daughters? He'd always thought he would have the time to work up to it after the Grand Prix series were over, but now it seems he'll never really have the chance to vocalize the feelings that have been ever present in his mind since he chose "love" as his theme for the season.

Suddenly desperate not to think about home, Yuuri latches onto Viktor's voice instead. He reaches a hand up to brush those tears away, touch lingering longer than necessary. Yes, okay. He can do this. Yuuri draws in a shaky breath. "Um, yeah, I think they're still in the bag somewhere," he says, fumbling for the straps.

Then, the rest of those words catch up to him, making him scrunch his brows together in confusion. "Wait, what are you talking about? 'After the first week'...?" He must've heard Viktor wrong, or maybe something had happened during that anomaly thing? Yuuri peers at him in concern.

[genice]

It should be more discordant than it is. Viktor closes his eyes for a beat of his heart, subtly leaning his face into Yuuri's touch. Belatedly, his brain catches up enough to go oh, right. He's known he was crying. Now it registers, and it's dismissed. His tears won't last for long.

Blue eyes at times too sharp to be considered anything approaching kind open, searching Yuuri's face. The surprise doesn't make sense to him. So much about this doesn't make sense to him. Does he need to be more of a physicist? Study time theory? Alternate universes and realities? By now he's even made himself accept that there's not just one Earth, that there can't be, but that there might be many shared points in time from any one universe, including his own.

But he hasn't thought to apply that to him and Yuuri, so he answers in his own earnest confusion. "I've been here since... okay, I was counting, and I've started keeping a calendar as of four days ago. I've been here since... for the last eighteen days. Almost three weeks." Both hands find themselves on Yuuri's shoulders, holding the both of them steady in this mounting confusion. Viktor expects anger, or sadness, or... he doesn't know, but not this confusion.

"By the calendar I'm keeping now, Makkachin and I arrived on ship and were let out of the medical clinic on the eleventh of December. It's about the twenty-ninth now."

What it says about his priorities that he started keeping a calendar in space, stranded so far away from everything he knows as familiar, one that almost matches the Real Time that would have passed back home is something Viktor hasn't examined. At all.

[yokunaru]

"Eighteen days?" Yuuri's eyes widen as he protests immediately. "That can't be right. I was with you until that anomaly thing happened!"

To think that being transported away in the blink of an eye isn't the weirdest thing to happen today. Though Yuuri is certain Viktor was there with him in Barcelona, he also can't think of a reason Viktor would lie about how much time has passed. Besides, Viktor looks just as confused as he feels.

Yuuri can't help but stare, dazed, when Viktor brings up the dates. Quietly, he says, "Viktor, it's still the eleventh back home." None of this is making any sense.

b for bringing the brackets,

[allweather]

[Where there are books there is also Reim, usually, like right now in the lounge. It hasn't been long since he arrived, but since he's fairly convinced he's the most out of touch person on board the ship period, it's been long enough for him to get cozy with as many books as he can read when he's not at his new job selling them.

And even then, he gets this wonderful employee discount, and really it's almost absurd the way his whole face lights up when Yuuri asks him where to find a book. Finally, his moment has arrived.]

I do! How much of an introduction do you need? That is to say, would you consider yourself a "beginner," or are you somewhat familiar with the concepts involved already...?

[let him Help]

you rebel

[yokunaru]

U-um. [The enthusiasm takes Yuuri by surprise, and he's left blinking at Reim for a moment. He supposes this is much more welcome than being brushed off, at least.]

A...beginner, I think. I've never been in space [never planned to be] but I've heard about about it.

[allweather]

Oh—well. [That... is more advanced than his Space Experience, so maybe that's not the kind of beginner he meant, but he can adjust on the fly. No one has to know!] That's fine!

But we're going to have to go for a bit of a walk to one of the other lounges.

[Not every lounge has Space Travel Tips for Dummies.]

[yokunaru]

Thank you. [This time, the words roll off his tongue more easily. Quiet as his voice is, the gratitude is there.]

I don't mind walking to the other lounge, if the book you're thinking of isn't here.

[allweather]

[The literary enthusiasm will continue, but maybe he'll dial it back just a little.]

Then, if you'll follow me- [He nods slightly and turns to head for the lift to the other floors. Let's go, let's go.] I believe the population of people who know about space travel is much higher than those who don't, so the book I'm thinking of should still be there...

[One short journey to the other lounge later, anyway.] Ah, is there anything else? I—well, they've put me to work selling books here, so if there's anything I can do, it's no problem.

[yokunaru]

[Falling into step beside Reim as they walk, Yuuri glances at him.] So there's a lot of catching up to do for those who aren't familiar. [He says, with a sigh.]

I...I just got here today. [Yuuri's gaze drops down to the floor as he bites his lip nervously.] Aside from the book, if there's any advice you might have for adjusting here... [He trails off.]

c

[finethanks]

Oh, if it isn't the cute little doggy from before. Hello again... Are you all alone?

[He can hear someone calling after the dog, but he chooses to playfully ignore it, crouching in front of Makkachin instead. You see, he's carrying around a nice slice of fresh made bread, so clearly this must be what the dog wants! He tears a tiny piece off and offers it to the dog.

So, by the time Yuuri rounds the corner of plants, he might nearly trip over Eichi and Makkachin here.

Looking vaguely surprised, Eichi smiles up at the stranger.]

Fufu, be careful. If my head hits the ground too hard, I might die, you know.

[yokunaru]

Sorry! [Mortified at the close call, Yuuri quickly backs up a few steps.]

I was just looking for... [Yuuri gestures helplessly at Makkachin, who bounces over, tail wagging, as soon as he's finished his impromptu snack. Placing a hand on the poodle's head, Yuuri glances back at Eichi.] He wasn't bothering you, was he?

[finethanks]

[A new face!! A friend of Victor's, maybe? He doesn't look like the dog-thief type, and it would be a little silly to steal a dog on a spaceship anyway.]

Not at all~. He's a sweet dog who listens well to instructions. [Eichi reaches to scratch by one of Makkachin's ears a little, then carefully stands with the rest of his bread.] He must have smelled this wonderful bread. I just bought it fresh from one of the bakeries in the shopping center. Would you like to try a piece?

[Holding out a piece of bread to Yuuri... a little too similarly to how he was just feeding Makkachin, this is fine. Have some bread, stranger.]

[yokunaru]

Oh! [The offer takes Yuuri by surprise, but he takes the bread after a second. He smiles at Eichi hesitantly.]

Um. Thank you. [Yuuri pauses.] Which bakery is it? I haven't had a chance to really look at the rest of the ship yet.

[finethanks]

The name was so creative that it slipped my mind... It's on the first floor of the shopping center, between a clothing store for men and a candy shop. I could show you some time, if you'd like!

[All of these creatively named businesses are easy to lose track of. But with Yuuri taking his piece, Eichi tears off another for himself, popping it in his mouth.] Well, I'm rather new myself, but I wouldn't mind giving you a tour. You're walking Makkachin here, aren't you? He could come along. ♪

[yokunaru]

[At first, Yuuri hesitates. A bakery sounds like a dangerous place to be when he's on a strict diet for the season, but... how much of that even matters anymore when he's stuck here?

His smile trembles a little.]

A tour would be nice. I should start learning where everything is anyway. [He scratches Makkachin behind the ears.] And I'm sure Viktor wouldn't mind if Makkachin came along--he wanted me to take Makkachin with me when I left just earlier.