For the past few weeks, all i can think about when hearing the song "December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" is Viktuuri on the night of the Sochi Grand Prix Final Banquet. I decided to write this one shot lightly inspired by the lyrics because I had to and I hope you enjoy it!
On the late December night of the Sochi Grand Prix Final banquet, the aging silver-haired gold medalist wasn't having it. Exhausted from being hounded by the press about his future and his feelings, the last thing he wanted to do was dress up in a suit, socialize with people and receive their surface level congratulations and smiles. He had been through it many times before, and there was never any change. However, he found himself yet again dressed to the nines in the ballroom, unenthusiastically socializing with fake smiles per his coach's insistence. A drink in hand as he talks to sponsors and members of the ISU, he pretends to be engaged as his mind and eyes wander.
In the corner of his eye he spots a young, raven-haired man who looks familiar to him. After a few moments of consideration, he places the face to the last-place Japanese skater who had rejected his photo offer when leaving the venue after the finals. Seeing how unenthused and uncomfortable the young man looks, he feels the urge to approach the man as a fellow bored soul. The glares from his coach and the "importance" of the people in front of him indicate that he can't leave to talk to the man, which he sadly concedes not to do so.
As he receives the same mundane praise for his routine, he scans the crowd the crowd for the raven-haired skater and finds him by the table of drinks guzzling down flute after flute of champagne. A question from one of the upstanding men pulls him back to reality, but he can't help falling away from it. After what feels like hours, he gets away from the group of men and searches once again for the young man who piqued his interest and with much interest finds the boy loosening his tie in drunken stupor with a flushed red face. Going to try and approach the man, he is called over, yet again, by some people of "importance" again, and feels any energy he has flee from his body. With a weak smile he continues to converse until he feels someone brush up against him.
He turns around to find the one he had been searching for all night, seemingly much more tipsy than before, with a bottle of champagne in hand and hair mussed up. The boy, although utterly disheveled, is quite a sight so the silver-haired man, on pure impulse, rushes the find his phone in his stuffy suit in order to get some pictures. The man, a bit up in his face and camera at first, fumbles about with a newfound sense of vivacity and confidence and the older man drinks it up and tries to snap as many photos he can, blurry or sharp it doesn't matter. As he watches the his drunk competitor move about and seemingly pose for him, he smiles a bit to himself and admires his shots and the man in them. He goes to flip through the photos, but when he looks up the man is gone and the champions heart drops a bit. He sighs to himself and tries to concede with the fact that at least the young Japanese boy had made his night better than intended and gave him a little bit of joy amidst it all.
He checks the time on his phone and decides he has made his presence known enough and it wouldn't be rude to leave anymore. Gathering himself to go, he stops in his tracks when he hears the anger-filled and unmistakably thickly-accented English of his young rink mate. When he turns around to try to figure out what caused the teenager to blow his fuse this time, he sees the boy verbally assaulting the Japanese man who is loudly doing what can be assumed as fighting back, in a poor mixture of mangled Japanese and heavily slurred English. As the Russian goes to break up their confrontation, the Japanese skater sheds his suit jacket off swiftly. When the Russian goes to pull the man from the young Russian's rage, he finds the foreign man's suit jacket shoved his hands while the man goes to dance.
As he steps back and carefully folds the jacket alongside his young rink mate, he can't help but gape in awe at the boy break dancing in front of him. He knew from his step sequences on the rink that he was quite the dancer, but he had never expected anything like this coming from the seemingly quiet and anxious man he thought his competitor to be at the finals. He quickly fumbles for his phone to hurriedly text his Swiss friend and competitor to do him the favor of helping capture the beautiful moments and evidence of this dance off for him. Almost knocking their female rink mate to the ground, the young Russian tears through the crowd to take up the challenge the Japanese boy his senior is posing. Setting the jacket down, the Slavic champion hurriedly uses his phone, captures the priceless moments and smiles at the Swiss man across the room helping him do so.
The moves get more intense and the two men fighting their dance battle propel themselves off the ground and effortlessly land moves with a sense of determination, confidence and pure testosterone. The completely mesmerized silver-haired man inches himself closer to the action to capture it and feels more and more compelled to dance, and dance specifically the man who was the life of the party and captured his interest for the night. He shares a knowing glance with the Swiss man, who gives him a nod, and with it, he shoves his phone where it won't fall out and joins right in with the action, dancing along with the other men happily. Enjoying the best of the music and watching the skaters dance, the Russian actually found himself having a good time and sincerely smiling for the first time in a while. Out of breath, the Russian tiger throws in the towel and the Japanese boy triumphantly wins their impromptu dance off. The Russian claps a bit to congratulate the other man and continues to wildly dance while the victor is still dancing, caught up in either the moment, the influence of the champagne or both.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the Swiss man give the young boy a clap on the shoulder and directs him to take photos while running off to drink and socialize. The blonde concedes, not looking thrilled to do so, but his older rink mate throws him a weak smile as he is further hypnotized by and drawn into the raven-haired drunk's trance. He starts to dance with his chosen partner for the night, starting out at a distance and dancing with him, while admiring him from afar. When carefully watching the other man dance unashamedly and passionately, he is stunned when they lock eyes and the hunter finds himself as the hunted.
The other man stalks back to him and starts to dance something akin to flamenco at him, which both the dancer in him and his instincts compel him to mimic. His body instinctually follows the other man's moves, making it easier to follow the man with his eyes to drink in and savor this moment. After a couple minutes of their dancing, the Russian takes the lead by turning around and shedding his jacket like a matador at the drunken boy, as if he was the bull to be fought and tamed. They lock eyes and continue their dance, now in closer quarters then they had been, which the Russian revels in as progress. As he struggles to shrug his jacket back on while dancing, he is surprised to find the boy inviting him to dance. He continues to mimic boy until his partner gives him a small bow as if asking for his hand to dance. He quickly and gracefully copies the gesture and in a blur finds himself in the other man's arms in a sort of tango.
The silver-haired man is held tightly around the waist with an arm of his seducer while they look deeply into each other's eyes. Their arms stretch out in front of them, the Russian wants to join their hands whenever they brush whoever they dance. As they continue to explore the allure of dancing with one another in close quarters, the older man drinks up every moment with a smile on his face, trying his best to capture every second of their encounter. He realizes life has never been this invigorating and wonderful and that these few moments in the drunk skater's arms is what having fun and enjoying himself feels like. He has been swept off his feet, both emotionally and physically by the man gripping his thigh and face with his strong hands while he holds the small of the younger man's back up and let's the young man take the lead. He could stay like this, dancing this way with the raven-haired beauty in front of him, in utter happiness, for eternity. He was never going to feel the same after finally understanding what it means to live and this gorgeous, tipsy man taught him that. They flash the biggest genuine smiles at one another as they move to the music, and the silver-man prays these moments will never end.
When the song ends and the young man almost falls over, looking sweaty and exhausted, but still invigorated. The Russian concedes to let the man rest and leads him to a seat as they continue to look at each other with dilated eyes that emanate happiness. Cursing the band for ending his moment mentally, he sits the other man down and admires him in all his disheveled, drunken glory. He tries to strike up conversation, but all he receives are the tipsy smiles and messy blend of Japanese and English coming from the boy. He doesn't care, understandable or not, he's captivated by the skater and wants to know everything he can about him and if that was just observing him tonight so be it. As the silver-haired man sips some alcohol from a flute, he sees the other man's eyes suddenly light up and looks across the room to see what had elicited such a reaction. It was indeed his Swiss friend's provocative pole dancing, which had come out of nowhere. A crowd was gathering to watch the man and as it seemed his captivator wanted to as well.
He gets up to follow the young man and help him up, but is shocked to find him trying to fumbling to get his pants off and to mount the pole. He picks up the man's pants from the ground and watches in awe as he moves his body around the pole like a professional. He hopes, that despite his rink mate's young age, his "personal photographer" for the night was getting evidence of this. Sure the gold-medalist had experienced sexual attraction before, but this was a whole new level. The boy oozes the essence of eros with every swing of his arms and legs, movement of his hips and contortion of his toned body . The young man makes eye contact with him and tosses down his shirt and too lost in gawking, the older man fails to catch it. The way this boy, who had seemed so tame before, who he had just shared an impassioned, surreal and enchanting dance with, could be this wildly erotic was a shock. His mind and body seem to rush and and his heart beat pounds quickly in his chest, which feels foreign to him. His head is reeling watching his scantily clad friend swing around the pole with his seducer and is filled with feelings he can't place. The moments seem to blur together as one as he tries to deal with the multitude of things going on within him at the moment.
As the song ends, the two men dismount and after collecting his captivator's clothes he tries to call the man over to him. The man is drenched in sweat and is breathing deeply, which isn't doing wonders for the Russian. The man tries to pull his tie over his head to eliminate every inch of clothing from his body that is trapping heat. The silver-haired man stops him to try to conserve the young boy's dignity and tries to wrestle him back into his dress shirt and the glasses he had found in the boy's pants pocket. A crowd starts to form around him, why wouldn't it, when the last placed skater and champion were joined at the hip for the night and one many was dressing the other. It was the perfect tabloid story.
After getting the man's shirt back on, he lets go of the boy in hopes that the crowd would dissipate, but it only grows when the young Japanese hugs him as what could be an expression of gratitude. It could have stopped there, but he finds the young man rubbing up his entire lower body up against him as he holds the other man, caught by surprise. Looking at the boy loudly rambling in slurred Japanese and feeling the eyes of the crowd beat down on them, he doesn't know how to feel until the boy looks up at him. Bespectacled brown eyes shine brightly up at him and the beauty of the boy's foreign tongue spills out of his endearing, lovely and large smile. In partial confusion and partial awe he just looks at the boy who is animatedly talking to him like he is the only thing in the world. Lost in drinking in the boy's eyes and face, he stumbles when he feels the boy's arms wrap around his neck while asking him in barely understandable English for him to be the boy's coach. The shock of the moment sets him back but doesn't stop him from looking down upon this gorgeous enigma with a fully flushed face.
As he holds this boy in his arms and the other has his arms wrapped around his neck, everything feels perfect. Just looking at the boy, he understands this slew of mesmerizing emotions as something akin to budding love. He had always searched to find joy and love in his life and had dreamed about it for years, never realizing that those dreams were coming true in front of him. He told himself after his many heartbreaks and lonely nights that finding a sense of purpose and someone to share it with was just something not meant for him, but the warmth in his arms, the beating of his heart in his chest and the adoration in his eyes tells him otherwise. This feeling, this man, it all seemed so right, so perfect and so much like a dream he never wanted to wake up from. This right here is the great singers sing about and poets write odes to, this rush of emotion. It is the feeling you have for someone else who turns your world around so you'll never be the same after they cross your path. This was what it was like to start falling in love with life and with love. This was fate and this was destiny. He questions why it took so long for him to finally understand what this is, but if he can have this for the rest of his life with the boy in front of him, he doesn't care. Every fiber of his being doesn't want this night to end and doesn't want to lose this feelings now that he has found through and for the gorgeous Japanese skater in his arms.
The next morning, however, he realizes that time doesn't stop for anyone. Despite his word being spun on its head, every night must end as that one had did, much to soon. He moves around and tries to get up and realizes the loneliness of his bed and hotel room. With a sigh he grabs his phone from his end table and realizes he doesn't have the number or contact information that he had intended to get from his love and and beats himself up for it in defeat. He does, however, check his text messages and finds a slew of images and texts from both his Swiss competitor and his Russian rink mate about last night. Ignoring the texts he saved and savors all of the photos they sent him. The heaviness of his heart seems t lighten as he relieves the memories of his mesmerizing and life changing encounter with the young Japanese skater. As he stares at the photos of them holding on to one another with shining smiles, he glosses his fingers over the screen with a sad smile. Flipping further through the photos he feels his heart fill once again with the force of a ball of thunder and let's himself fall back down on his bed and is reduced to the state of a young child with a terrible crush. He remembers the promise they made in that moment where all his reason fled him and only love filled him. He tells himself he will find his newfound love. He doesn't know when, he doesn't know how, but he will. He also doesn't know how he'll get over the banquet and be able to actually understand everything that happened. It's was a blur of love and and life and had a million different meanings for him. What did he get himself into? Oh, what a final; oh, what a banquet; oh, what a night.
Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! I plan on doing more writing too so any love, inspiration and criticsm is always welcomed. Thanks loves!
