What Now?

The Storm

A/N

And thus, my children. It begins.

Anxiety can strike at the strangest of times. It is a ruthless attacker, it creeps up then holds your mind captive. One day you will be the happiest you ever where, the next it all falls apart.

It was cold in the spare room compared to the rest of the cosy apartment. Yuri didn't mind though. The cold sensation never really seemed to fully register with him. His mind was occupied.

Maybe occupied was the wrong word. It was more like his mind was tearing itself apart. Every thought pulling him further and further down into the depths of his anxiety, all hope of being able to breathe underneath the pressure of it was lost. His sense of time was distorted, the only mark was that of the light emanating from behind the shut curtain and the occasional visit from Victor.

Every now and then he would hear Victor walk down the hall, his footfalls coming to a stop and Yuri's door for a moment, then continuing on to the rest of the building. Nothing seemed to help ease the burden upon his mind and it was becoming impossible to deal with. His thoughts were irrational, distorted... but he believed them anyway.

You're not good enough. He is skating now, you will just be a burden to his success. Do I even want to be here? Weak. Weak. Weak.

He will never love you for who you are.

These thoughts swirled around. The thing about anxiety is it makes you so over conscious of the people around you. But it also makes you hyperaware of yourself. Avoiding your insecurities by staying away from them seems to become your best friend. To appear weak and reach out seems like the ultimate taboo. So you suck it up, tell yourself to stop being a weak idiot for letting your thoughts get to you, and you push people away when you need them most, because when the people who -in actuality you love- know that you are struggling, is a horrifying thought at the time, a last resort. So you push them away, because you have no other control over your life, and that's how it all goes wrong.

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It had been a little less than a week since Yuri had moved to Russia with Victor. In the beginning Yuri had spent meal times with Victor and would leave the room often, he seemed fairly happy from what Victor saw. But slowly he started to retreat to his room more and more often. When it first started happening Victor tried time and time again to coax Yuri out of his room and comfort him, but to no avail. He figured his constant interruptions whilst Yuri was still adjusting were of no help. Countless times Victor would find himself standing outside the door, wanting nothing more than to hold Yuri close but he didn't know if that was what Yuri wanted. Victor was never good a comforting people, it wasn't something he was good at, especially when it came to Yuri.

For the past couple of days Victor had gone skating at his local rink, he was greeted warmly but something about skating without Yuri by his side made the experience seem off. Yuri was the whole reason he was skating at all anymore.

Victor was beginning to worry that being Russia wasn't a good idea. Something about it had triggered a change in Yuri. Victor told himself that today would be the last day he left Yuri alone, if he wasn't comfortable yet, Victor would have to help him through it.

He was just approaching the apartment building after skating practice, the chill of the Russian winter was fierce on his exposed face. The sky had begun to darken as the sun was obscured by clouds in its slow decent towards the horizon. The warmth of the inside of the building was gladly accepted by Victor, his face prickling from the change in temperature as he make his way to the elevator.