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Race day. This was the moment that Minami had been training for since the first time he had thrown his leg over the modified bike, and the energy coming from him was electric. Smiling with pride, Yuuri took a chance on glancing at the other competitors, catching Victor’s eye as he walked through warm-ups with Yuri. They exchanged quick winks before returning their concentration where it belonged.Victor felt the familiar adrenaline surging through him, this time covered with a layer of anxiety for his athlete. With the reassurance of morning equipment checks, Yuri’s prosthetic was ready to help carry him through the race. All of the qualifying races, every ounce of sweat and tears had led to this moment. When Yuri struck out with his first stroke across the water, he would finally be ready to prove to the world how strong he really was. Sucking in a breath, Victor tapped Yuri on the back when the time to line up was called.Minami dropped into the water, cautiously bracing on the wall with his right hand. With his eyes closed, he began kicking lightly, feeling the difference between the rush of cool over his bare skin, both where his leg ended in his own foot and where his other leg ended above his knee. He calmly assessed the resistance on the joints of his prosthetic left hand, adjusting to the feeling in his mind and letting the sounds around him drop away. When he opened his eyes, vision tunneled in the direction of the shore, he was startled to find Yuri Plisetsky staring at him. With a nod and a smile, Minami spoke. “Good luck. May the best man win.” He quirked an eyebrow at Yuri when he smirked.“I intend to.” There was no malice this time as Yuri turned toward their end goal and he found himself smiling when Minami elbowed him in the side. He felt the pressure of the world around him, but found comfort in his supposed rival floating next to him. Today was no longer about beating everyone else, it was about proving to himself that he deserved to be there. Waiting for the starting signal, Yuri forced himself to breath.Movement. All around him the water was rushing as the line of swimmers took off toward the shore. Minami felt his adrenaline build, the muscles in his back burning as he pushed his body through the water. Without turning his head he knew Yuri was keeping time with him, and he pushed himself harder, breathing through the burn as he raced toward the water’s edge.The swim was a blur. Surfacing to a line of people in red shirts, Yuri shoved passed them, propelling himself forward as he yanked on the zipper of his wetsuit. Slowing only to ensure that his prosthetic leg was completely dry, Yuri yanked his bike from the stand, throwing himself over it and setting off in pursuit of Minami.He had the lead. Minami had known from the moment he had stepped from the water that this race was his to lose. Concentrating on the internalized voice of his coach, he navigated the course in front of him. The whir of another bike caught his ear and Minami pushed himself to move faster, clipping a turn a little too close and hearing the sharp intake of breath from the crowd. Leaning forward on his bike, he grinned, spotting the holding racks at the beginning of the last leg of the race.Yuri stumbled. Dismounting his bike, he caught the curved edge of his leg on the bike stand, taking a few clumsy steps to right himself. His thigh was burning, the ache made worse by the pull of metal-on-metal as Yuri dislodged his leg from the bike rack. Ignoring the warning signs of the impending cramp, Yuri turned, moving into his run with his eyes trained on the back of Minami’s brightly-colored head.Watching the monitors, Yuuri winced when Yuri almost fell. He wasn’t Yuri’s coach, but a glance in Victor’s direction told him that Victor had seen it too. The quick flash of tightened muscle on Yuri’s thigh, the slight hesitation to put weight on his leg. When Yuri refused water at the first offer, Yuuri made a move to shift closer to monitor, the worried pinch of his eyes drawing Victor’s attention. He didn’t look when Victor stepped to his side, both of them terrified to see the concern in the other’s eyes. Silently, they laced their fingers together, continuing to watch the race with their worries hanging ominously around them. Yuri was racing to prove something, but his body was sending messages that he was ignoring.Minami could see the broad strip of the finish line banner. Around him the cheers began, legions of fans began to chant his name, his heart soaring as he closed toward his goal. He slowed down to savor the moment, only a foot away from all his dreams when the crowd gasped in unison. Turning over his shoulder, Minami saw Yuri’s body fall toward the ground.Everything went white. Yuri had seen Minami begin to slow down, and he had taken the opportunity to speed up. His leg had protested the increased speed, but Yuri had forced the resistance away. He could recover once he held the gold. The pain was instantaneous, stealing the breath from his lungs and knocking him forward toward the ground, his vision blanking as all his hard work vanished into nothingness.“Get up.” The words were so close to Yuri’s ear that he shook his head and lifted his eyes to find Minami staring at him. “I’ve got you,” Minami was speaking in gentle command, hand linked under Yuri’s arm and supporting him as he stood.“You can’t hold me,” Yuri choked, the pain making him waiver, hand grasping Minami’s arm. “If you help me advance, we’ll both be disqualified.” A pathetic sob almost tumbled from him, as his body slacked onto Minami’s for support.“You’re finishing this race,” Minami’s fierce look of determination had Yuri nodding back. Pushing away from him, Yuri took two steps, stopping to dry heave through the pain while Minami held his waist. Side-by-side, they moved toward the finish line, never advancing while touching and crossing the banner together, collapsing on a ground in crying pile.Racing toward the finish line, Victor and Yuuri were a mess of their own tears. Their athletes had tied for gold, and while the world would celebrate that, they were prepared to celebrate what really mattered. “I’m so proud of you,” Victor whispered in Yuri’s ear, both of them crying in a unexpected display of emotion. “You did it, Yura.” He held Yuri tight to his chest, feeling his pride bursting with every word.“We did it,” Yuri said, clinging to Victor with his hands fisted in the back of his coach’s jacket. “I couldn’t have gotten here without you. I wouldn’t have trusted Minami to help me if you hadn’t taught me how to trust.” The words weren’t explicitly a thank you, but Yuri knew that Victor understood.“I have never been so proud of you,” Yuuri choked, pulling back from Minami’s embrace to tug his bright hair. “What you did out there, that was braver than anything I could have taught you.”“But you did teach me that,” Minami hiccupped, his emotions overflowing and swimming between exhaustion and pure happiness. “You taught me to support those around me. You taught me the strength in building others up.“ Leaving his thoughts unfinished, Minami felt a hand on his shoulder, blindly turning to tackle Yuri into a hug.“You’re still my rival,” Yuri said, wrapping his arms around Minami’s waist to hug him back. “Next time I am going to kick your ass.”“Keep dreaming, Plisetsky,” Minami laughed. “And we have bigger problems,” glancing over his shoulder, Minami nodded towards Victor and Yuuri who were now wrapped in a tight embrace of their own, their lips pressed together in a smiling kiss. “Our coaches are in love with each other.”“Idiots,” Yuri spat, rolling his eyes and letting Minami pull him forward.“Now that we can definitely agree on,” Minami shook Yuri’s shoulders one more time, dropping his arm to wave toward the top spot on the podium. “After you?” he offered, smiling as Yuri shoved his shoulder, both of them taking their place to wait for the official announcement and award of their medals. The conference room was stifling, filled to the brim with people dressed in their best suits and most expensive dresses. Yuri tugged on his tie impatiently, the potential for disappointment souring most of his evening. From across the table, Minami threw a dinner roll straight at Yuri's head."If you don't stop worrying, you are going to get wrinkles," playfully Minami pretended to whisper as he leaned over the table. "Just look at my coach.""I heard that," Yuuri remarked, head resting on Victor's shoulder and his speech sounding suspiciously slurred. "I'm going to remember it and you're going to do run so many miles."Smirking at Minami, Yuri couldn't help poking the drunk beast. "How many miles Yuuri?" Even after years of time spent with the other three men at his table, Yuri still questioned how he had been deemed lucky enough to have them in his life. When Yuuri drunkenly slurred "so many, many miles" into the crock of Victor's neck, Yuri couldn't help wondering if it was actually luck and not some obscene curse. Before he could ponder the thought any further, there was a tap on the microphone attached to the podium in the front of the room.It was easy to tune out the boring opening of the man at the front of the room, his voice was boring and uninteresting and Yuri decided to focus more on buttering the roll Minami had thrown than to anything being said at the front of the room. His defiant desire to be nonchalant and aloof dissolved at the start of the man's next sentence.“This year, we have the honor of awarding a BP Courage Award to an athlete who has shown great strength in overcoming physical adversity to rise to the top of his sport. Not only did he recover from a life-threatening injury, he returned to his training and competed in the Paralympics in under four years. Since that time, he has gone on to advocate for more opportunities for the Special Olympics and for other aspiring Paralympic athletes." Yuri felt his hands sake, letting the roll and the knife dropped onto his plate. He knew Minami was staring at him, but he couldn't do anything but stare forward and blush.Swallowing hard, he tried to will away the static in his ears to listen to the rest of the speech. "He has taken part in research and development of new prosthetics, and started a scholarship fund for young paraplegic athletes. Today, I am honored to present this award to this year’s Paralympic gold medalist, Yuri Plisetsky.”The cheers in the room erupted as Minami shoved Yuri from his seat, playfully pushing him toward the stage. At the same table, sat their married coaches, hands only breaking their hold on each other to enthusiastically applaud Yuri on his way to the stage. Yuri didn’t need to look at Victor to know he was crying, but he did anyway, smirking through his own tears as he watched matching ones roll down his coach’s cheeks. With shaking hands, he accepted the award, stepping toward the microphone while taking a deep breath.“If someone had told me nine years ago that I would be standing here, I would have told them to shove off.” Yuri paused to let the chuckle ripple through the crowd, smirking again at Victor’s concerned look. “I was going to be the best. I was going to break all of Victor Nikiforov’s and Yuuri Katsuki’s records, and I was going to do it before I even turned twenty.” The tears sprang to his eyes, and Yuri paused again to collect himself. “But plans change. Victor used to tell me that the greatest joke in life was having a plan, being convinced that we know exactly where we are going. I never thought I would lose my leg at sixteen. I never thought I would end up with Victor as my coach. And I never dreamt that I would someday be winning gold medals as a Paralympian. Yet, here I am. And because I am here, I have learned a few things.” Nodding at Victor, Yuri swiped a hand under his own eyes and continued. “I’ve learned that yelling doesn’t fix things, but sometimes it’s cathartic. I’ve learned that friends and family never see you as broken, even when all you can do is fall apart. I’ve learned that the things that are worth it are the hardest to achieve and that I don’t have to fight alone.” A glance toward Minami was almost his undoing, his rival turned best friend openly crying into his napkin. “But most of all, I’ve learned that not all that glitters is gold and the best things in life aren’t things… their people. So thank you, Victor, Yuuri, Minami, Grandpa, and all the people who loved me when I didn’t deserve it. This,” holding up the award, Yuri felt his breath hitch, “and every medal I have ever won, are all for you. Thank you.”As Yuri returned to his seat, the applause of the crowd thundering in his ears and the arms of his favorite people thrown around him, he felt like the greatest winner of all.