CHAPTER THIRTY

-The flames of rage! Passions burn red-hot, but so does hate!?-

Not even the mighty caffeine could stave off the need for a mid-day nap. Moving to the bedroom had made sleep easier to capture though, and with tensions from the previous night released - at least tenuously - it was a much more relaxed atmosphere.

Victor's early-afternoon appointment was almost forgotten in the haze. But, true to his uncanny sense of timing, even though no alarm sounded, he woke up with plenty of time to get there...or do other things.

When Yuri started to wake up, he realized his t-shirt felt tight. He reached one hand up to put a thumb under the edge of his night-mask and peeked around, only to find a big lump under his clothes, barely visible in the dimness of the room. He quickly realized it was Victor though; he'd put his entire head under that shirt and settled his cheek against Yuri's upper abdomen, right arm draped over him, and both holding onto him tightly. Yuri dropped his head back down, settled the hand that had lifted his mask onto where Victor's head was under his shirt, and tried to go back to sleep. For once, he didn't even care what time it was.

Except when he suddenly did, and both eyes shot open, "The appointment!"

Makkachin trotted into the room as if on cue, and jumped up onto the edge of the bed. The poof had actually brought his food bowl with him, and dumped it on Victor's side of the bed before sitting back down proudly, panting lightly as he always did.

"Meggershin...goway..." The Russian mumbled blearily, and raised the hand that was draped over his fiancé to try and wave the dog off. Instead of the poodle, he found the food bowl, and nudged it off the edge of the bed to land somewhere on the floor. The adamant boofer would not be dissuaded though, and barked once loudly as the bowl hit the ground, causing Victor to jerk with surprise and finally pull his head out from inside Yuri's shirt, "Makkachin I swear...! You know the rules, one bork per day and none before noon!"

Makkachin seemed to understand the rules just fine, and jumped up onto the bed with a muffled half-bark. He flopped down on Yuri's side and set his head on the man's chest, putting himself nose-to-nose with his tired human as Victor dove back inside his partner's clothes. That big pink tongue jiggled lightly with the poodle's happy pants, but he soon lifted his head again to piffle-whine a second time.

"I think it 's afternoon." Yuri commented, "It's time for lunch."

"Mmmhhh..." Victor grumbled feebly.

"We should get ready to go."

"Quit playing; you don't know what time it is." He grumbled.

Yuri raised one hand lazily into the air and pointed, "That is correct, sir." And then dropped it behind his head. He could feel Victor turning under the shirt, breath hot against his skin.

"...Five more minutes..."

Yuri hummed a breath in agreement, and fumbled to reach for his phone on the nightstand. When he was sure he finally had it, he gathered it up and reached with his free hand to pull the night mask off his head entirely. When he clicked the phone on, he was a bit surprised to realize it was barely 12:38pm.

"Yup, right on time...it's about noon-thirty."

"Less talking, more sleeping." Victor mumbled, and settled his chin against his beloved's sternum to keep dozing.

"You're appointment's in an hour and a half." Yuri pointed out. He realized he could see a little of the man's hair through the stretched neck-hole in that shirt, and as he lowered his phone-hand down, he used the other to pull the opening up a little to glance within, seeing one slate-blue eye peeking back at him, the other covered by silver-grey bangs, "Cozy in there?"

The eye closed as the Russian smiled, "This is my house now. I live here."

"I'm afraid I'll have to evict you."

"What?" Victor's eye opened again, "Noooooo..."

Yuri started to push himself up on his elbows, and slowly forced Victor down and out, try as he might to stay where he was. Eventually, Yuri was successful though and he was able to twist his legs off the side of the bed, even as Victor was still holding onto him with both arms around his waist. He looked back down at his fiancé from where he sat, and patted the mussed-up hair on Victor's head, "You can stay here a bit longer if you want." He offered. Victor's arms finally went lax, and Yuri headed for the door, stretching his arms as he walked through.

Victor watched him go, rolling himself up into a blanket-burrito as he whined about being left homeless.

The poodle jumped over him and ran for the door as well.

"You've taken away my home and my dog!" Victor called out pitifully, "Makkachin, you're a traitor...!"

All he got was a second full bork in return... "Hey! Rules!" ...and he finally rolled himself off the foot of the bed and into a heap on the floor. Unexpectedly, he felt the wind get knocked out of him as he landed that largest of bruises directly on top of his folded arms. One fist went straight into the middle of the black patch, and Victor felt as though he deflated like a balloon right there under the pile of blankets. His legs flopped down to the floor, and he grunted a pained but comical breath, "Oof..."

Yuri managed to get into the kitchen as Makkachin ran up behind him excitedly, and the pup sat next to the one remaining dish, tail swaying happily. Remembering where the actual food bowl was though, Yuri told the dog to sit and stay, and headed back to the bedroom to get it. When he arrived, the pile of blankets on the floor was unmoving. He could see Victor's feet poking out the other side though, and after he collected Makkachin's bowl from nearby, he went over to kneel next to the head of the 'nest.'

"Is this your house now?" Yuri asked, poking at the top of it, "Victoooooor...are you home?"

"I think I'm dying." He answered, his voice muffled from under the comforter, "In fact, I'm pretty sure I am..."

"Hehhh...?"

"I rolled off the bed and fell and now everything hurts."

"You fell like half a meter onto a down-feather blanket."

"...I landed the biggest bruise right onto my balled-up hand...I regret everything..." Victor whined, and wiggled in place until he could get his knees under him, "I'll bet I brought my mother's ghost back with me from the funeral..."

Yuri cocked a brow, "...Whaaaat are you talking about?"

"I came back home with all the blood and tears from the funeral. I should've discarded everything before coming inside." He tried to explain, "Everyone else did...they threw the tissues away before going home..."

"I literally have no idea what you're talking about right now. Are you suggesting you should've stripped naked on the front lawn before coming into the house?"

Victor pushed himself up to sit on his knees, but kept the big blanket pulled around him, "Russian tradition says you should leave your tears behind at a funeral, otherwise you invite grief and bad spirits into your home. Maybe even the ghost of the person who died!"

"You think your mother's ghost is haunting you because you fell out of bed."

"That's exactly it!" Victor replied, and the blanket slipped off his head, "You should've, too!"

Yuri gawked at him, "I'm not stripping naked in the middle of Russian winter." He puffed, cheeks a bit flushed, but he reached forward and lifted the bangs away from that swollen eye, "Come along... We really need to get going."

Victor reluctantly agreed...but not before he did one last thing.

Kasssss...shff...

A match was struck, and Victor tossed it to a stone pit in the middle of the back yard. It landed on a pile of clothes, doused with lighter fluid, and quickly caught fire. Coat, scarf, shirt, pants, socks...even the shoes were overlooked. It wasn't long before the whole messy pile was up in flames, and black smoke rose into the sky. Victor watched closely as the fibers singed and curled, taking to the conflagration to wither away into black dust.

Yuri watched quietly from the concrete stairs by the house, casually propped against the metal hand-rail.

"Everything on the ice is a display of love." Victor suddenly said, stealing his beloved's attention away from the billowing smoke, "Except when it isn't."

"When it...isn't?"

"The opposite of love is hate." He started to explain, "I'm going to create a program that no one's ever seen me do before, and I'm going to show the world all the hate I have trapped inside me."

"That's a bit intense, don't you think?"

"It's the one thing that keeps holding me back." He answered, and looked up to the trailing plume, "I need to channel this negative energy into something productive. So next season, I'll skate your song for my Short Program to show my love, and then for the Free, I'll skate to this." He said, and turned to head back towards the steps. As he walked, he pulled out his phone, and unwrapped the head-phone cable that was plugged in and ready, "Tell me what you think of when you hear this song."

Yuri accepted the device and put the ear-buds in, tapped the play button on the touch-screen...and waited.

The song started out calmly; Yuri wasn't sure how this could be what Victor had meant if he was serious about skating to the theme of rage. But then the guitar riffs and drums banged into his ears, and he felt like he could see the dance Victor was planning in his own mind, "There's so much energy..." He said, listening closer as the lyrics began; an operatic-style chorus featuring a woman's voice. She sang of the forces of nature, the elements, its viciousness but also its beauty and serenity. He thought he could feel the moments when certain jumps would be used in time with the beat, where skating would be slow or when it would speed up as quickly as blades would carry. He even thought he could see the step-sequence in his mind's eye, "Are you sure you can do a program to this? It's even more demanding than I thought it could be."

"Yurio's Free Skate worked because he channeled his greed into his composition...his jumps were energized by envy and lust. A performance is only as good as the emotions behind it. With everything that's happened since we got back from Four Continents...I feel like this is the best time to think of a program that would channel all the anger and frustration I have inside me. A high-intensity Free Skate with a song like this to match it...I think it would be perfect. It would be the complete opposite of the hopefulness of your song."

Yuri pulled the buds from his ears to hand them and the phone back, "If you're sure about it, then I can't wait to see it."

"There's also another thing I want to tell you about." The silver added unexpectedly.

"Huh?" Yuri lifted his head, worried something bad was about to come up, "What is it?"

"We should..." Victor started, and put the phone back into his coat pocket before he reached out to take his fiancé's hands in his own, "...after Worlds...or maybe even before...we should have our wedding."

That glass heart skipped a beat, but Yuri's eyes lit up, "Before! We should do it before! I want the whole world to know about it when they announce my name at competition, just like you said!"

For the first time in days, Yuri saw the happy smile that he knew Victor still had somewhere inside him, dying to get to the surface again, and he felt a gentle squeeze against his hands. The uplifted silver leaned in to touch his nose to his beloved's as well, "Taking to the ice next, representing Japan...Yuri Nikiforov."

Yuri could feel butterflies rise in his stomach from the excitement over it, "I can't wait!" He said happily; a few tears of joy started to bead in his eyes.

"Me neither."

.

The day pressed on after that, and Yuri finally shoved Victor into the clinic that could look at that swollen and likely-broken orbit. X-Rays were taken, eye drops and mild pain meds prescribed, and an eye patch given, along with instructions not to touch his eye, rub it, or even use it for at least a week.

"And the bloody sclera?" Yuri asked, "When will it be normal again?"

"It should be gone within two weeks." Victor explained, and looked at his pitiful reflection in a pane of glass where they'd stopped outside, inspecting where the physician had put a loose bandage wrapping around his head for the time being, "I have to wear this horrible thing for the next three days...the doc says the eye patch would put too much pressure on the screwed-up area around my eye right now, and I'd be even more miserable than this..."

"You did take some pretty substantial hits."

Victor turned away from his reflection indignantly, "I've settled on the car accident as my excuse."

Yuri sighed, his hands in his coat pockets to hide them from the cold, "I know why you're doing it...and I...I guess I understand." He said grimly, and reached his nearest hand to touch it to his partner's arm, "I've been thinking about it since you got back... What father could possibly hate his son so much? You've been so successful in your life; you're a huge celebrity, Russia's hero! How could he not be proud of that?"

"I don't know." Victor grumbled, "He hates my career choices, he hates my romantic choices...he might as well hate my wine choices, too."

"He poured vodka on your head. He probably does hate your wine choices." Yuri sighed, and pulled his partner's hand into his pocket.

Victor just looked at him for a moment, but then realized the humor in it and smiled a little, "Yeah, probably..."

"You still haven't told me about your program plans for Worlds, you know." Yuri pointed out as they started walking back to the car, "And your costumes still aren't here either. I'm starting to worry they're lost."

"Oh...no, they've arrived." Victor corrected, and gave a hopeful smile, "I checked the package tracking link while I was waiting in the exam room. The delivery was made after we left. Let's go back. I can show them to you."

Yuri got excited and skipped a few steps, "Really? And you'll let me hear the songs that go with?"

Victor allowed himself to get a little excited despite his predicament, "Let me back up a bit. 'On Love: Phillia' speaks to the bonds between people who are not related; friends, soldiers, maybe even humans and their pets. In my head, because I want to do something epic and memorable, I want the music to be orchestral with a choir, so the bond I'm focusing-in on is the kind between brothers in arms, with a song that's almost militaristic-sounding."

"What's the song name?"

"'Sol Invictus.' It means 'unconquered sun.'"

"Ooooo... And the other one?"

"The song is 'You Only Live Once.' It's kind of peppy, but since I came up with it before all this happened," Victor explained, and lightly cocked his head up to tease a hair-flip, "I just wanted a program where I could have fun. I had something else planned originally, but it doesn't make sense anymore."

"Really? What was it?"

"It was a goodbye show." The silver answered, making Yuri's excited expression drift a bit to confusion, "If I had skated this season like normal, without having gone to Hasetsu to coach you, I think this would've been my last year...so I put together an Exhibition that would've been my swan song."

"You've shelved it though at this point, right? Since you're still skating next year."

"At this point, yeah." He nodded assuredly, "Let's get back though. I'm really excited to see what they sent me. I need something fun and exciting to get my mind off these last few days."