I'll start this off completely honestly: this fic is basically a love letter to Chris and Victor's friendship. It's been affectionately dubbed by me and Vir 'Chris N Vic', so that's what you'll see me referring it to across the course of this fic (mainly in the notes).

So, this fic is pretty much completely influenced by the thoughts and ideas of my dear friend Vir as well, so check her out at her main tumblr at glingulata or on her yoi tumblr at plzetsky. This fic probably wouldn't exist without her! (As for me, you can find me at guccimetti)

Chris and Victor's friendship is really so interesting, and I really love it, so I wrote this whole multi-chaptered fic about it. There'll be multiple styles of writing in this fic (one chapter, for example, is going to consist of texts), and I've already got about 6k words written down for it, and I'm not done yet!

Ultimately, I've been shook ever since Chris and Victor had that little exchange at the pool in Barcelona. "I was hoping to go skinny dipping" "Don't let me stop you; I'll even take pictures if you want!" Like! You /know/ there's an /interesting/ history behind friends that act like that with each other-you /know/ it.

This first chapter focuses on how Chris and Victor met, which me and Vir determined to be by Victor getting him and Chris arrested in Vancouver.

(Chris and Victor talk to each other in English in this chapter because Chris isn't aware that Victor speaks French)


Late February, 2010

Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov meet in 2006 at the European Figure Skating Championship. Victor wins gold; Chris hadn't quite made it to the competition, sitting in the audience and watching with rapt, wide eyes. Chris calls out to Victor, and Victor throws him a rose. From then on, they see each other at various skating competitions but never really talk.

This much is true.

Christophe Giacometti and Victor Nikiforov meet in 2010 at the Vancouver Olympics.

This much is also true.

Victor doesn't quite know how it happened; someone on the Canadian hockey team's brother knows this guy who knows another guy, and now, somehow, he's part of the gaggle of Olympians who are having a party at a house just outside the Olympic Village. Victor is 21, his hair freshly snipped for his first Olympic debut in which he's 'not a child,' as Yakov puts it; he's had just a few drinks too many and is slumped over a particularly tan couch. The music is still as loud as it was when he arrived and there are hardly fewer people up and dancing than there were at the beginning of the night, but Victor still feels that nothing would be better than going back to his room in the Olympic Village and getting some sleep. Pulling out his phone, Victor notices that he can't really see clearly. Fuck.

Victor presses somewhat blindly at the buttons on his phone for a bit, trying to remember how to make a call and trying to think of who, even, to call. Yakov seems like the most likely to actually come and get him, but he definitely wouldn't be happy about it. It occurs to Victor, suddenly, that he doesn't know what the Canadian number for the police is. A couple next to him on the particularly tan couch has been making out for the past five minutes or so, and while they've been losing their clothes at a quickening pace, they still have their team jackets on, proudly bearing their maple leaves. He calls out to them, "Hey," and when they don't answer, he keeps saying it louder and louder until they turn and look at him. "What's the number for the police here?" Victor asks, thinking long and hard about each word of English he says.

"911," one of the two athletes answers him, and then, they go back to kissing. With some effort, Victor enters the number into his phone.

"911, what's your emergency?" a trained voice on the other end of the line answers in a practiced, precise phrase and tone.

"Hi, um," Victor thinks, trying to convert Russian into English quicker than his drink-fuddled brain will allow, "there's, um, a party here. It's…loud?" It seems like a valid complaint for a party.

"Okay, we can get them to keep it down. Where is this party?" Victor laughs.

"I don't know. We're near the Olympic Village." Victor hangs up the phone and leans back against the couch. He hopes the police will pick him up once they get there; he doesn't know much about Canadian police. Though, the truth is that he's never tried to get Russian police to take him home after a night of drinking either.

Victor distances himself from the music and voices and lets his eyes fall closed. He might have managed to fall asleep had someone not picked this exact moment to notice him and call out his name. "Victor Nikiforov!" someone calls, and it sounds familiar.

Before Victor has a chance to look up and see who's calling for him, someone places themself rather soundly in his lap; focusing in front of him, Victor sees that beyond the blur of red and white, it's Christophe Giacometti, very proudly wearing his Switzerland jacket. "I didn't know you were here," Chris says, shifting so he's halfway facing Victor.

"I barely know I'm here," Victor says without thinking about it, and he and Chris start laughing, leaning all over each other and watching the world spin through the lens of alcohol. Chris shifts a little, settling himself even more against Victor.

Victor is, perhaps, a little more drunk than he thinks he is because he pulls Chris towards him and starts kissing him. No one really notices or cares, and the somewhat sloppy kisses turn into an even sloppier make-out session. This is how Victor spends the rest of his time waiting for the police—a time longer than it might have been if Victor had given them an address rather than a vague location.

Someone answers the knock on the door Victor doesn't hear, but not many people notice until there's a shout of, "Excuse me, everyone!" Chris and Victor break away from each other to look up at the police officer standing in the doorway. She starts talking about noise ordinances and how loud the party is—perhaps blatantly ignoring the 17-year-old American skier very obviously dumping his drink into a fake potted plant—, but neither Chris nor Victor are paying much attention.

"Who called the police?" Chris asks in a whisper, breathing against Victor's lips and sending shivers down his spine. Victor responds by very roughly shoving him off his lap.

Here's the thing: Victor has never claimed to be an exceptionally tactful person, and alcohol does nothing other than make this even more true. To 21-year-old intoxicated Victor, getting arrested seems like the best plan for getting taken home, and the best plan for getting arrested seems like starting a fight, and the best plan for starting a fight seems like starting it with the person right in front of him. Chris looks comically dazed, face-up on the floor with wide, surprised eyes; Victor hops on top of him, messily and halfheartedly shoving and hitting at him, trying to get the police officer's attention without actually hurting Chris. Chris shoves back at him, equally as messy and uncoordinated.

Victor's plan works, and before either of them actually get hurt, he and Chris are being pulled away from each other. "Hey, officer, I—" Victor starts, and then he's being handcuffed. Victor blinks very deliberately a few times, trying to piece together what's happening.

Being arrested involves being handcuffed, he tells himself. Yeah, but. I'm handcuffed, he also tells himself. The room has gone very still and quiet around them.

"Alright, listen you two, these handcuffs are just restraints, and I'm not actively arresting either of you—yet. How about we come outside and talk this out after I talk to whoever's the organizer of this party?" the officer says to the two of them. Of course, that won't do for Victor, who's planning on getting arrested and doesn't have anything he needs to talk out.

Victor makes a few aborted motions with his hands, trying to figure out what to do to escalate the situation now that he's restrained. "No," Victor starts, and the restraint of his hands is really not doing anything for his balance while he's drunk—figure skater or not—, and he feels himself starting to fall. Victor purposefully knocks his shoulder into Chris on the way down, causing him to go toppling over with him.

"What's your problem with me, Victor?" Chris asks, kicking at Victor's shin without much fire.

"Alright, alright, quit it," the police officer says, separating them and pulling them to their feet. Victor immediately kicks at Chris once he's back up, and the police officer yells at them again and tries to put herself between them, only to have Victor kick at Chris by moving his leg around her. She lets out a longsuffering sigh. She pushes at both of them a bit roughly. "Come on, you're under arrest. I'll read you your rights at the car." She calls out to everyone else at the party, "I'm going to call to have another officer come and talk to the organizer of this party, but if everything checks out, you should really just have to promise to keep it down!" Victor can feel Chris's glare on him without even turning his head.

Even days later (and sober), Victor doesn't know what happens with the party. Even the ride to the police station becomes foggy and distant in Victor's mind after the fact: it's mainly his and Chris's time spent in jail that he remembers after the alcohol has buzzed its way out of his blood. He and Chris are put in separate holding cells, across from each other. Chris is alternating between glaring at him and sending him a sad, pouty gaze reminiscent of a scolded puppy.

"What?" Victor asks, giggling. He did it!

"What was that about?" Chris asks, not finding it as funny as Victor does.

"I was tired and wanted to go home, so I called the police."

"You called the police?" Chris asks. Victor nods. Chris seems to think about it for a bit before he seems to understand, his drunken brain coming to the same conclusion as Victor's had. Then, he starts laughing too, causing Victor to laugh harder. "Why me, then?"

"You were there!" Victor says, and he and Chris dissolve into giggles. "Was it not a good plan?" Victor asks.

"No!" Chris says. A few minutes later, the same police officer who had arrested them comes around the corner and tells them they can make their phone calls.

"Could you not just take me home?" Victor asks. Chris snickers louder.

"I'm afraid I can't, Mr. Nikiforov," the officer says, apparently connecting their names to their faces now, "but what I can do is let you two go quietly and go back to being Olympians. That is, unless either of you have any objections." Victor shakes his head a few times—which he thinks might actually be rattling his brain as he quickly slows his movements—, and Chris tells the officer no through giggles.

Victor ends up having to call Yakov to come pick him up anyway, despite his elaborate plan. Naturally, Yakov is not very thrilled at having to pick up his charge from jail; though, Chris's coach is a bit more jovial about it—but not to a point beyond reprimanding. While they wait for their coaches to come and get them, Chris and Victor talk back and forth from their cells about figure skating and the Olympics and Vancouver and alcohol and sex. By the time that Chris's coach gets there (first—Yakov is probably deliberately being slow to be spiteful), Chris and Victor are having a very lively discussion about the ideal length of hair for hair pulling during sex. The officer who's been babysitting them for the past two hours or so interrupts their conversation with a brisk, "Giacometti." She opens Chris's cell and says, "Your ride's here." Chris stands up and blows a kiss at Victor.

"Hey, Chris," Victor calls.

"Yes?"

"This isn't the last I'll be seeing of you, is it?"

Chris laughs. "Vic," Chris says, and while Victor has never been called 'Vic' is his life before this point and can't exactly tell how he likes the shortening, the nickname sounds right on Chris's mouth, "this is just the first of you'll be seeing of me!" It doesn't exactly fit right, some mistranslation made in alcohol and fatigue. Victor thinks he understands it better that way.

Victor has a feeling that Christophe Giacometti has just become his best friend.


Bonus points headcanons: 12-year-old JJ had tickets to a late-night thing for meeting Chris and Victor but never actually got to meet them because they were. In jail. And /that's/ why JJ fucking resents them.