Intention By Design

Bodies Safe To Shore

Chapter Text
Swipe, tap, swipe, tap. A lull in the cognizant connection between his fingers and brain was all it took for Viktor to go from insta-stalking Demitry to searching through the photos tagged 'GPF2019'.

Everyone looked so happy, their faces warm like nutmeg and clove. Some posted photos with mulled wine, conglomerated into large groups, their backdrops familiar upscale bars. Others shared more intimate glimpses into their lives, arms wrapped around their lover's waists in downtown Turin, bulky winter jackets pressing against one another to create a serene scene of domesticity.

It drove him insane, both their happiness and his aversion to it.

After the banquet, he'd bundled himself up into threadbare wefts, wholly presentable to the public but one unnecessary conversation away from disintegration. His unchanging complexion was hard to rattle, pale peach remaining prominently uniform even after a downpour of tears threatened the peace, warring beneath the surface but never disturbing the water's surface. As a boy, he was often accused of wearing spoiled crocodile tears.

They weren't, but adults, hive minded and stern, paid his whimpering complaints no mind. Mama had been the exception to that rule, but she hadn't stuck around to pamper him.

Both a blessing and a curse was it that no one knew to ask him if he was ok. He was for once unsure of how he'd answer.

That night, accompanied by the embers and amber of the false hotel fireplace, Viktor chose to stay awake, methodically scrolling and by extension, coveting. He wanted to have what they all had. Whatever he was lacking, something deep and fundamental had stripped him of the right to be seen as human.

In exchange for the realization of his quixotry, Viktor would forever remain incomplete, at least that was the way it seemed.

What had they done to earn them, their burgundy and wheatgrass, their technicolor movements and pliable expressions that were tickled by the slightest twinkling trinkets, by mini window shop Christmas trees aglow with cheap ornaments and half hazardously strewn tinsel.

He'd worked so much harder, bled more in a week than they did in a year, just to live in a disconsolate monochromatic sphere where not a single treetop carried an angel or star on its crown.

The torch he had relit over and over again was about to crumble away, and the tipping of the scale was too reminiscent of his mother's own downward spiral for comfort.

He continued perusing, eyes seeing but not understanding.

Was it noticeable? Viktor was fairly certain he'd hidden the worm's birth and growth with due diligence. Yuuri called him insane. The man's desultory words had no right to beguile him so. What did he know? It's not like he'd even allowed Viktor the chance to speak.

Oh, someone posted a picture of him and Chris hugging during warm up. Cute. He followed the account, some fan page he'd seen around.

Shit, he'd said fifty words at the most. In his anger, Yuuri had simply tossed around whatever insults he could think of in an attempt to stir Viktor from his forced copacetic stupor. Just because he'd been referred to as unbalanced didn't make it the truth. This weird state of absence and withdrawal was a temporary after effect, nothing more.