Blue Echo (Yuri On Ice / Victuuri Mermaid AU)

Victor, searching

Yuri's heart breaks when he sees the seashell.

It shatters.

His trembling hands hold on to the hardened rocks, his fingertips touching the shell tucked between its gaps.

Don't wait anymore. Don't die here alone.

It's what he had told Victor. What he had wanted at the time. But now... now...

A high pitch cry escapes from Yuri's lips — his thoughts twisting — remembering what he had told Victor.

Forget about me and live a long life.

He didn't want to be forgotten. He wanted Victor to be here. Waiting for him, like he had many times before. Yuri takes the seashell from the rocks and stares at it. Knowing that Victor had touched it, that Victor had been here...

The cry escapes again as he drops the shell and covers his mouth instinctively.

He can't think. Can't hear the ocean anymore. Can't feel warmth.

His aman was gone. His mate.

Yuri paces. The water becoming like pressure around him. What was he supposed to do know? He sinks in the water until he reaches the bottom just a few feet below the surface. What was he supposed to do?

He sees the seashell on the bottom as his fingers touch the sand, disappearing beneath it. He needs to hide. He's not safe in the open, here he's just prey...

Without thinking Yuri digs.

---------------

Victor holds a tiny ball of mud in his hand as he sits by a lake deep inside the island. He looks at the ball with resignation as he smears the mud all over his shoulders and back as far as he can reach. Grimacing as he feels the sting of his skin from the peeling sunburns.

His stomach rumbles and he runs a hand through his dirty hair in frustration. It sucks being stranded. It was a pain. Every day trying to find something to eat and hoping the water was safe to drink. Every day watching the open sea in hopes of seeing something in the distance while his skin burned under the sun.

He wants things, wishes for things, and regrets twice as much.

He wants to not be hungry. He wants to stop hurting every second of every day. He wants to be rescued. He wants to go home. He wants to be able to catch a goddamn fish without feeling like a complete inept failure.

Every day here alone has been a nightmare. From the moment when he opens his eyes at the crack of dawn — startled by the sound of birds calling and things rustling in the bushes. When he can barely see in the twilight and knows his mind is betraying him. In those moments he wishes he'd wake up and realize this was all a bad dream. That he hadn't survived the wreck after all — that he had drowned and was trapped in limbo — being punished for being himself.

Then there are the moments when he's caught off guard in the water. When he hears a splash and his heart fills with hope only to find it was only a wave. Is those moment when he wishes he had swam further down to the dark.

He regrets not telling Yuri how it felt to have him here. Regrets not admitting that he would take all this pain — all this discomfort and guilt — if the natare would never leave his side. Because what he wanted and wished most of all was to see Yuri again and to tell him everything he had kept in. Everything he had left unsaid.

The mud helps a little bit to ease the pain, but it is only a temporary relief. Victor lost count already of how many days had passed since Yuri told him he would not come back. He left the cave the same night, knowing that the only reason he had stayed there was due to the natare. It was the only place they'd silently agreed was theirs. The place he knew Yuri would go find him. But Yuri wasn't coming back and staying in that cave would only guarantee he would never be found.