Chapter Text
Furniture of ebonized wood with gilt decor of sunflowers, gas lamps with ornate adornments, and a fainting couch with carved mahogany and blue brocade were a welcoming sight; for even if Victor seemed surprised by the room being bedecked in a way looked much like his time, Yuuri knew this was home.
“This…”
Yuuri smiled, setting his suitcase down and working to untwine their hands. “It’s my room. I’m um...a little bit fond of your time, as you can see.”
Victor let Makkachin free from her leash, the dog happily going to sniff around the room before settling on Yuuri’s bed; the green curtains around it swaying at the sudden weight.
Slowly, Victor let his suitcase down to the floor, his gaze sweeping around the room and clearly trying to take it all in.
Yuuri could see how his eyes had stopped at the window, the sight outside clearly not the streets of London despite the interior looking so much like home. But even that didn’t catch his attention the way the bookshelf did, his eyes going wide as he realized the title of the book seated in the center.
“Is that...my book?”
“First edition,” Yuuri clarified. “The cover’s a bit worn with age, but...it’s the same one Emil was talking about. Green cloth boards with gilt gold flowers and in the center…”
“Yakir and Vitale embracing,” Victor finished, walking closer to it. “May I?”
He nodded and gently, Victor opened up the glass doors of the shelf and pulled the book out into his hands almost reverently. And as he flipped through the pages, his face filled with wonder, Yuuri found he couldn’t resist asking the one question that had still eluded him.
“I never asked. What inspired Stammi Vicino , Victor?”
Blue eyes flicked up to meet his, clearly surprised. “You don’t know?”
Yuuri shook his head. “I’ve read thousands of theories and speculations as to everything from the symbolism of the musical instruments to critics claiming the story was all allegory and not actually a romance. But I’d rather hear it from you.”
At that Victor flipped the pages back to the front and he walked towards Yuuri with a smile.
“ To KY - my life and love. ” He gave Yuuri a tender look at that, “K.Y. - Katsuki Yuuri, it was dedicated to you for a reason.”
Suddenly, and at last, it all made sense.
He’d thought it a coincidence at first, thought that perhaps events like the fire were inspired by Victor’s own life, but never had it occurred to him that Yakir and Vitale’s story was their own.
He dropped the hand that was over his mouth, closing the distance between them as he threw his arms around Victor’s neck.
“I always knew this book spoke to me in a way like nothing else,” he murmured quietly. “Now I know why. It’s our story, isn’t it?”
Victor nodded. “The most beautiful love story ever told.”
Yuuri kissed him at that, trying to express even an ounce of the overwhelming emotions he felt; for how could he explain it, that without even knowing he’d been drawn to this story, had felt as if it spoke to his very soul. Of course it was meant to reach him, a story of love written across time itself that would become self-fulfilling.
“Yuuri, if you two just stay in that room and make out when you’ve got the rest of your lives to do that, me and all one hundred and twenty-eight of my rodents are going to be very upset,” Phichit’s voice called through the door.
They pulled apart at that, smiles wide and hearts full.
“Victor Nikiforov,” Yuuri began, “would you like to go see your new home?”
He just smiled. “I’m already looking at it.”
Books are timeless.
Those were the three words gracing the entryway to the library, and those were the words every literary time scientist took to heart.
For no matter when something was written, that story could still touch so many lives far beyond the author’s reach; each story carrying within themes and messages that people throughout the ages could relate to and fall in love with.
Yuuri Katsuki had been one such person.
Now, it was his job to write a book of his own.
The amount of fanfare and welcome they received upon arrival was surprising to say the least, Yuuri not expecting anyone but perhaps his friends and family waiting up for him that night.
But the story, like all good stories before it, had spread.
As they made their way from the pods across Alexandria to the Dōgo Onsen the Katsuki family called home, so many people stopped them to give them congratulations, to wish them well and to ask if what they’d heard was true.
“Yeah, Yuuri almost died,” Guang Hong explained to one person as they passed through the bustling science sector; Yuuri having to get Victor’s health checked over before they enforced any sort of quarantine on him.
Upon reaching the library, they’d been practically mobbed by fellow time scientists, all eager to see the author that their Yuuri Katsuki had brought back with him.
“I really think you should make Stammi Vicino into a musical,” Leo had insisted. “If you’re up for it, I bet I can get some of my sector to develop one.”
Another stop, this time in the zoological sector to have Makkachin checked over, resulted in Phichit recounting the story of how Yuuri had fallen in love with a book, gone back in time to save the author’s life and ended up falling in love with him too.
By the time they’d arrived at the Dōgo Onsen, Yuuri’s head was spinning with the amount of attention it seemed his simple little mission had gotten while he was gone.
Minako, who was waiting outside the onsen with a welcome home banner in her arms, was probably partially to blame. She’d given Yuuri a fierce hug before inviting Victor into her arms as well.
“Come on now, I feel like I know you already, Victor.”
And perhaps in a way, she did. Because so much of Victor was in between the words of all the books he’d written, it was easy to feel like he was an old friend, finally coming back home.
Yuuri’s family had been just as excited to welcome him in, the banquet hall prepared with their son’s favorite meal awaiting for both of them. And by the end of the night, everyone had a full stomach and a full heart.
In the quiet guest room at the onsen his parents had prepared for them, Yuuri shifted a bit closer to Victor on the futon, his fingertips tracing the front of his jinbei where it hung a little loose.
“I’m sorry if tonight was a little overwhelming,” he said quietly. “I really didn’t think anyone but my family would wait up.”
Victor was quiet a moment, watching as Yuuri’s fingers slid under the fabric and pressed over the scar near his heart. It was something he’d seen Yuuri do multiple times since he’d gotten the injury, and he had a feeling there was something comforting about seeing this wound healed and closed.
He’d never asked Yuuri for the specifics of what happened in those two failed times in which he’d died, but he could caution a guess that this wound had hit a little close for comfort.
“There’s nothing to apologize for, love.” He reached up at that, pressing his hand over Yuuri’s and feeling them both settle over his heart. “It’s the hero’s welcome you deserve for all you’ve been through.”
His brown eyes darted down at that, but after a moment they came back; this time shining brighter than before.
“The only hero’s welcome I need is right here,” he replied, sliding his arms around Victor and melting into his embrace. “Knowing you’re safe, knowing you’re here...it means more than words can say.”
“I can think of a few words, but they only come so close.”
“Hmm?”
“And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,” Victor began, reciting the poem from memory.
As he expected, Yuuri knew it as well.
He smiled, pressing a gentle kiss to Victor’s lips, before continuing it. “And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend, And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores, I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me.”
They were both smiling now, curled in each other’s arms, as they finished the verse together.
“For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night,
In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I was happy.”
It was true, some words were timeless. Just like love itself.
Everyone's life is important.
Every single person makes connections, forms relationships, and touches the lives of those around them each and every day. It's like a ripple in a pond, once started, reverberating outward until it reaches to each and every shore. All it takes is one moment, one chance meeting, one small seemingly unimportant thing, and you've done it. You've left your mark on history whether you know it or not.
Victor Nikiforov had never expected to be important.
In fact, he'd spent much of his life feeling like nothing he ever did would amount to anything. A lost child wandering through life, trying to keep himself afloat as the world around him tried to bring him down. He'd never thought his words would mean much of anything to anyone but himself, never expected them to touch even one life let alone many.
Victor had resigned himself to being unimportant, abnormal, and forgettable much like many others in life had done. But that one thread of hope, that one little ripple, was something that he never knew he'd started.
His words reaching others who felt the same, reassuring them that they weren't alone after all. His stories telling others that maybe there would be a struggle, maybe everyone in your life wouldn't be kind, but that being true to oneself was admirable above all else. And his final book did one thing that didn't just create ripples, it created waves.
It told each and every person who felt like they were different, who feared that they would never find a place that they would belong, that there was hope.
Don't give up! Keep going! I believe in you!
Even now, centuries upon centuries after his book had been written, his story was just as important to people. The first English novel to allow a gay couple to have a happy ending. It was historic. And despite countless so-called scholars and critics trying to tear it down, they couldn't stop the impact that it left.
Now, centuries and centuries after it was first published, Victor was still discovering how many little things his life, and Yuuri's place in it, had changed things. Scientists from other divisions in Alexandria often coming up to one of them and sharing some little detail they'd discovered connected to their story.
A literary scientist made the first connection, tying a short story Emil Nekola had written about time travel to H.G. Well's famous story The Time Machine . Another discovering that a young Isaac Asimov had grown up playing with Victor's cousins in New York, hearing tales of a time technician from the future and the person from the past they fell in love with that would later influence The End of Eternity .
Even little ripples still had great impact.
After Yuuri, Christophe paid Seung-gil's way into the university, allowing him to continue the studies of English he'd traveled so far to achieve. But he didn't mind having to do more things around the house himself, for he'd settled down with the bartender from the Green Carnation, and the two spent the rest of their lives together.
Sara went on to continue her fight for women's rights, using her social standing to help form some of the early Suffrage Unions; she too finding love with the last member of the League of the Green Carnation, Mila Babicheva.
Georgi, at Yuuri's prompting, had shifted his focus to poetry and found great success in it; his odes to love earning him many admirers, one of which he finally married.
And Victor's family had, with the money he'd left to them, been able to open a bakery; the business thriving generation after generation and becoming one of the city's best kept secrets.
The thing about their story, about Victor's story, was that it had touched so many people and without Yuuri, he would have never known. He'd learned about so many people- from artists to writers and beyond- that would only gain fame and notoriety after their deaths.
So when Yuuri asked him to pick something to be a closing message to his book on Victor's life, he knew immediately what it would be. The final paragraph of Stammi Vicino still holding true after all these years.
If there was one thing, most of all, that loving Yakir taught me, it was this: life was meant to be lived. There may be times of struggle and strife, times in which survival was all that could be managed; but live, keep on living, and someday you will find a reason for it. Someday, you will find a someone who loves you for who you are, impossibly, irrevocably, and your whole world will change.
Life and love are two things so woefully neglected by many people, most of us simply existing instead; but if you live to the fullest and love to the fullest, then you will change the world for someone else.
Truly.
The End.