Blue Echo (Yuri On Ice / Victuuri Mermaid AU)

Side Chapter - Victor, remembering

Victor felt like he had fallen into another world, into the darkness as he swam further down. He had no idea where he was going. His body convulsing with the need for air. But there was nothing to see, nothing to find, nothing to hear but the thundering of his own heart.

He broke the surface. His chest burning savagely as he took sharp breaths. "Yuri..." It was so dark. He could barely see a few feet in front of him. "Yuri!" The ocean moved around him quietly. "...please come back."

"I'm not coming back."

Victor reluctantly swam back to the cave. Everything was as he had left it. This makeshift home that helped him survive while he remained stranded. How many days had it been already? How many weeks? Months? He no longer kept track of time. He'd only kept track of the days it took Yuri to come back, because he had always come back.

He remembers the first time he saw the natare. A night he sometimes wants to forget, and sometimes he doesn't. He still has nightmares of everyone screaming. Still has nightmares of seeing the crowd that had been watching him suddenly crash into each other and go over the rail while he flew further than them. How such a small difference in positions meant that he survived while everyone else died.

He tried to save others. He tried to save Mila when he found her face down in the water, pulled her close and kept her head above only to find a nasty gash on her forehead and that she was already gone. It was hard letting the water claim her as he searched for the other voices in the dark. Far away voices he never reached and before he knew it was just him and the ocean, shaky fingers strapping the life jacket he'd found.

The ocean and the silence. As if nothing had happened. As if hundreds hadn't just died here. Victor looked around, knowing full well he was the only one left.

Then suddenly the silence was broken by something splashing around.

I'm going to get eaten.

Victor stilled in the water and for a second he wished he hadn't survived the plunge. Whatever was splashing around was not a small creature and it was coming closer.

I'm going to get eaten.

The splashing stopped close to him. Victor took slow inaudible breaths. Something grabbed his life jacket then disappeared beneath as if bitten.

I'm going to get eaten. I'm going to get eaten.

He felt the creature in front of him. Victor opened his eyes and saw a boy. Someone else had survived. He wasn't alone. "Are you the rescue?"

The boy froze. Victor noticed trembling fingers on the straps of the life jacket.

"I don't remember you," his own voice sounded distant and weak. The adrenaline was fading and the cold of the water finally hit him. "Are you from the crew?"

The boy stared. Beautiful brown eyes wide as he shook his head.

Was the boy searching for a life jacket? Had he thought Victor was dead? "You don't have a life jacket? Stay close to me then." Victor made to pull the boy to him, but when he did a strap came loose and the jacket slipped slightly from his shoulders, making him sink under for a second. Victor felt water go up his nose and down his throat, he struggled to rise back up, coughing as he tried to catch his breath. The boys' eyes were wider than before, frightened. "Do you see another life jacket? I don't think this one will hold us both."

The boy tried to speak, but the weak noise coming from his mouth were undecipherable. Victor felt the cold take over his body. The water numbing everything and he came to a realization. He wasn't going to make it. He was going to die here. He would be claimed by the ocean. His life would be lost, but he could save the one in front of him.