He dances himself into history on a cold Friday of December. 

His costume is blue as the sky, marine-dark patches spreading over his spine and shoulders like dark wings, and he wins with a score that goes down as a record in numbers and graceful, stunning beauty perfectly equally.

They kiss the same night.

A month later, it happens.

The newspapers tumble over each other in attempts of being creative. A fallen star, they say, the end of an era, they say, the unbelievable truth and all of them demand an interview with Viktor. He has no manager, he doesn’t know what to tell them, he doesn’t pick up the phone.

The internet is buzzing with anger and sadness and – he throws up after his mother reads him a few of the forum posts – conspiracy theories. Just a media stunt, they say, what is the truth, they say, it can’t be real and how he’ll be back on day anyways, too young to quit, impossible. A trick, surely. Former fans become critics, enemies soften into defenders of one of the greatest artists that figure skating has ever seen and don’t you dare talk about him like that, have a little respect.

The world demands to know. Their filthy little mouths screams for information like birds for a worm, and when Viktor holds a press conference, they only shut up after he sits there in silence for half an hour and lets them yell.

“It’s true.”

He gets up, then, turns and walks off the stage. His steps echo into the quiet, still room. Nobody holds him back.

“Can you tell us what happened?” The reporter that speaks up, finally, when Viktor is almost out the door, is young. His eyes are brown. Viktor looks at him for two, three beats of his own heart. Someone calls his name from outside; Yuri. His voice is soaked from tears.

Viktor closes his eyes. He thinks about waking with icy cold in his arms where a body had glowed with warmth just the night before. ‘Love you,’ Yuuri had whispered when another wave of the disease had shaken his body, forcing his weak limbs to shudder against the white hospital sheets. ‘Love you till I die.’

Viktor opens his eyes. The audience roars into motion when he slams the door shut behind himself.

The room is cold when he gets there. Nothing has been touched. It’s only been a week. He sits down carefully, lies down on his back, breathes in until Yuuri’s scent drowns out his thoughts.

Viktor thinks about the doctor’s diagnosis, his gently spoken “a month, at most”, and then he opens his mouth that couldn’t kiss the mutating cells out of Yuuri’s skin to the ceiling.

“Please.”

Crying isn’t a decision. The tears come with his breath, sob by sob, words curling out of his lungs with every little one until they swell to a wail.

“Give him back. Please. Please. I need, I need him. Oh God.” 

The ceiling is black. A dog howls in the garden.

All is empty. “Give me back my history.”