SUNSETZ
CIGARETTES AFTER SEX
ok but why does "toxic" by britney spears fit really well with this story?
yuri was lying on akio's couch, head pounding, eyes aching, throat dry, body slow, squinting in the dying light. he didn't know how long he'd been there, and the memory of a boy in denim jeans in his and luca's bedroom, chris giacometti's voice down the phone line and akio tanaka tying a blue tie around his forearm.
yuri lay still, closing his eyes again, and wishing, wishing he was still so, so far away from it all.
this isn't real.
this isn't real.
this isn't real.
he tried to pretend he couldn't hear akio whistling in the other room, nor see his jacket over the end of the couch he had been out on. from the softening of the sky's hue, yuri's bleary eyes could make out that it must have been close to sunset.
victor🌅; i want to take you to the beach someday
victor🌅; to watch the sunset
he could hear his phone ringing, though it's sound seemed to grow, at first muffled as if yuri were underwater. he reached for it, and it took his eyes moments to adjust to what he could see on the screen.
contact "victor☀️" is calling...
yuri took a deep breath, rubbing over his face to try and shake the effects of losing the heroin in his blood, before he sniffed and answered to call.
"yuri? yuri?"
he was taken aback by how panicked - how desperate - victor sounded, and stammered to respond.
"v-victor?"
he could still hear akio whistling from the room to his right, and got up at shaking legs - the room spinning - to shut the door so that he could talk to victor alone.
"fuck, yuri, where've you been? god, i've been calling you over and over...look, i don't know what chris said to you - "
"victor's sort of...busy, now..."
" - but listen, yuri, i know...i know that thing happened between chris and i at that last party...what i...did with him last night...it was just meaningless sex, yuri, i swear it..."
victor🌅; i want to take you to the beach someday
victor🌅; to watch the sunset
victor🌅; and see that light catch your face
victor🌅; the breeze brush your hair against your face
victor🌅; i'm lying here thinking about it
victor🌅; right now
"victor..." yuri started off, the room tilting, akio still whistling, the smell of coffee and shower gel on his neck.
he didn't want to be there. he wanted to be anywhere - anywhere - else but on akio tanaka's couch. he rubbed both hands over his face again, as if to wipe it all away like water drops.
"yuri? yuri, what the fuck did luca do to you? are you hurt? are you alright?"
"i..."
"tell me, yuri, i - "
"you said you'd take me to the beach," yuri sighed, leaning back on akio's couch and looking at the peach light glowing behind the thin curtains. "to watch the sunset."
he heard victor laugh softly, and draw in his breath slowly.
"yeah," victor replied, quieter, as if giving up on something. "yeah, i did, didn't i?"
he laughed again, but it was too soft. yuri bit at his bottom lip, too tired for tears or thoughts of shattered glass and blood-stained white shirts.
"why don't you, then?"
~
the sun was nothing more than a orange light as it lay across the line of the grey sea, and it was getting colder. yuri had both hands in his pockets, his thin black coat too thin, knees missing the cold, suffocated by black denim. there were pills for the comedown in one pocket, the foil edge of blister pack rustling under his fingers. he was sitting against the stone wall of the pier beside victor, whose cigarette smoke was exposed in the receding light. the skies overhead were grey, and yuri thought it would rain. he breathed in nicotine, vanilla, aftershave and lemon to keep his head clear.
he was surprised his hands weren't cold.
"you want to start, or should i?" victor said, taking another drag. yuri breathed in deeply, and watched the tapes play one by one; that boy's denim jeans on the bedroom floor, blood on his mouth, the rush as akio's pushed down on the syringe. he read the text in the marlboro packet lying on the sand.
SMOKING KILLS
"you want to die?" yuri asked, watching the sun try to cling to edge of the sea. victor laughed softly, as he had down the phone line, and shrugged.
"go on," he said, looking over at yuri with the start of a smile on his soft, slightly chapped lips.
"say what?"
"say that i'm a fucking cliché, that i love myself - "
"fuck...i do love myself, don't i?"
victor swallowed hard, and there was that pain in his chest again; that feeling of sinking, as if underwater; that this - this - was all his fault, that it was all his fault everything had crumbled to dust, dust, fucking dust.
" - that i'm famous from a young age, and destined to end up a hot mess of a junkie in a nice suit with good hair."
yuri remembered the words he'd said over the thudding music and intoxicated voices of drugged-up rich kids, and smiled down at the grey sand. the sun lingered a little while longer.
"the usual," he said, and looked over at victor from under soft, dark, dark hair. "how original."
victor smiled at him, and god, he hadn't felt this feeling with any - any - of those whose lips he'd tasted, skin he'd felt, voice he'd heard moaning his name.
he wanted to kiss him. god, did he want to kiss yuri katsuki again.
"god, i love you," victor said, voice low. he brushed back a strand of soft, dark, dark hair, and god, did yuri want to kiss victor nikiforov.
"you know i love you, don't you?" vivtor said, cold sand under his right hand. yuri shivered under that thin black coat, and leant his head back against the stone wall. it was times like these he wanted heroin again, even if he knew it was killing him.
"i'll start then, shall i?" victor said, and the sun let go of the sea for a split second. yuri said nothing. he wanted victor to hold him again, and his hands were getting cold as they had done when he'd let akio tanaka kiss his neck on grey bedsheets.
"you know i slept with chris," victor started off, and hated the taste of the words and the grey skies overhead. yuri wondered if cigarettes would make anything - anything - any better. he wondered if victor's mouth tasted like nicotine. "you do, don't you?"
"yeah," yuri said, and the sun was losing its strength. "i do."
"like i told you," victor went on, "meaningless sex, i swear."
"why should i care?" yuri said, shaking his head, the pills he'd taken to help with the comedown doing nothing, nothing at all, just like the painkillers he'd downed in the white-tiled bathroom of that ground-floor he knew all too well. "why should i care if you fuck somebody else now, vitya?"
he wanted the sun stay longer; the skies overhead were to grey, and his hands were getting, oh, too cold.
"i'm not yours," yuri said, and oh, did it hurt victor to hear the words he'd been telling himself over and over again. "so you can fuck who you want. i'm not yours," he repeated, more to tell himself than to tell victor.
"i love it when you call me that," victor said, and leant his own head back against the wall. "reminds me of when you were mine, baby."
yuri opened his eyes. his fingers were so close to touching victor's own over the grey sand; the sand was the same colour as those grey bedsheets had been, so yuri slipped both hands back into the pockets of his thin black coat.
"i know this is all my fucking fault," victor said, and sighed again. "that it's all my fucking fault everything turned to dust, baby."
victor stubbed out his cigarette on the sand, leaving a spot of ash like the ruby red dot on yuri's left forearm, and shook silver hair from his eyes.
"this is all such a fucking cliché," victor laughed wearily, looking out a the sun stretching across the sea towards soft lips and the scent of bubblegum. "i should tell you that you're my light spreading over the sea, shouldn't i? page 98 of your yellow book."
yuri laughed, but it died on his lips when luca glanced at him bloodied on the floor as he kissed that other boy's mouth right there for yuri to see and akio's unfurling a black roll to take out a thin needle broke the surface.
"a fucking cliché," he nodded, looking back at that empty marlboro pack on the sand, near the dot of ash.
yuri📼; wouldn't it be such a cliché
yuri📼; if my boyfriend started hitting me
yuri📼; and i let him
"but i only like it when it's with you," he added, voice quiet, pulling the sleeves of his thin black coat over his hands. victor looked over at him, and silver hair covered his eyes.
"yuri," he started off, and yuri loved that soft smell of nicotine and vanilla. "are you alright?"
yuri smiled softly.
"i think i want to kiss you," yuri said, because the sun was drowning as if it were underwater and the thought of akio tanaka, blue ties and his head hitting the wall as luca pushed him backwards was making him want to stop holding his breath.
yuri looked over at victor, his chocolate eyes hidden by the hair that had been blown by the soft, cold breeze. victor leant across and kissed yuri's mouth, tasting the soft lips he'd been longing for, suffering withdrawal from, a cold hand on the side of yuri's face.
he's not yours.
he's not yours.
he's not yours.
"yuri," victor said, pulling away, his hand still on the side of yuri's face, "i-i can't...fuck...you're not mine...this fucking hurts - "
"you didn't kiss my neck," yuri said, his hand on victor's wrist, as victor's hand was still on his cheek, inches away from the bruise luca had left. it was the wrist a man in a boss suit yuri knew all too well had almost fractured.
"so what does it matter?" yuri breathed, a lump in the back of his throat, hands cold, chris's voice in his ears drowning out the 1975 and the swish of bathwater.
the sun sighed, took its hand away from yuri's face and slipped away from the sea to the whisper of "he's not yours" from the grey skies.