(OMG I just noticed that Michele Crispino is doing the YoI intro for his Free Skate at the Rostelecom Cup. He does everything to the point of Viktor pushing his hand out towards the screen. MICHELE, YOU FUCKER, THAT ISN'T YOUR PROGRAM. *takes it and gives it back to Yuri and Viktor and Yurio omg*)
CHAPTER NINETY NINE
"What!?" Minako banged her hands on the table, practically crawling over it as she gawked down at Yuri, who in turn was trying to sink as far back into his chair as was humanly possible, "How did you- What!?"
"It's my fault." Viktor said defensively, trying to draw attention away from his partner and pointing at himself.
"Don't try to take the blame!" Minako gawked at the Russian, "He's responsible for his own actions!"
"Sure, but...seriously...it is my fault..." Viktor insisted, putting his hand behind Yuri's chair before it tipped over and took him with it.
"Technically the first one was my fault." Mikhail raised his hand to interrupt.
"Don't take his side!"
"You agreed to the plan back then, too."
"Viktor wasn't supposed to let Yuri drink that night!"
"...He didn't drink that much..."
"Unbelievable!" Minako threw her hands up and then finally slumped back into her chair. She threw a finger over the table at the younger skater across from her, "If you skip out on the Banquet one more time, people are really going to think you're too far up your own butt to do the right thing! That's the whole reason you had your melt-down, isn't it? Because you were all upset that people thought you were being arrogant? How do you think it looks to skip the Exhibition AND the Banquet after winning Skate Canada? No one knows why you did it...so it just looks like you bailed for no good reason. Now they're making up their own reasons, and the whole thing isn't helped by the fact that neither of you two were answering your phones all night."
Yuri was practically melting in his chair, dripping onto the floor.
"It's not like he wanted to skip anything..." Viktor defended, scooping the man up to put him back in his seat, "At Worlds, he already was asleep, and yesterday night, he needed to sleep. I'll make sure he gets there at Cup of China, and I'll drag him to mine at Trophée de France and NHK."
"You said you'd make sure he didn't drink at Four Continents, too, but then you both ended up drunk." The ballerina pointed out, "Does someone need to chaperone you two?"
"You guys are practically around all the time already. Even Mari-nee-chan comes out to more events than before." Viktor gestured towards her, and her eyes widened for being put on the spot suddenly, even as she was trying to put a spoonful of food in her mouth at the time.
Minako raised her hand, her mouth open as though about to make some reply, but then she pulled her arms around herself and turned her head, "...Just because we're at the events doesn't mean we're around you guys all the time."
"Even Yurio skipped the Banquet at Worlds. It's not unheard of."
"It's a little different when a skater doesn't show up because he's been kicked off his team. Yuri just won gold twice in a row, and has become something of a figurehead in the JSF. People are going to start to wonder what's wrong with him again if he stops showing up at events he's expected to be at."
Yuri's eyes passed between each person as they spoke, wishing he could say something to stop them, but realizing there wasn't much point anyway, and thus was grateful that his voice prevented him from stirring up more arguments. He sighed and sucked on the straw to his orange juice, listening to the banter continue back and forth.
I actually wanted to go to both Banquets pretty badly, especially the one for Worlds... He thought to himself idly, We had booked our flight specifically so we could go, and then I ended up drinking too much at dinner and got tired... This time, I don't know that I could've prevented what happened. I barely made it through my Free Skate as it was. We slept for nearly 12 hours after we got back...or at least I did. I don't know about Viktor.
Brown eyes moved up to look at the Russian quietly, seeing how he was getting flustered at the lecture.
He always used to ignore or laugh off any lecture he'd get from Yakov. I wonder why Minako-sensei has him all bothered? I better do something before someone's feelings get hurt.
He slid his left hand over and set it against his husband's leg, sliding up and settling his palm high on the man's inner thigh. The Russian's voice suddenly stopped, and he glanced over at the source of the unexpected interruption, about to say something, only to have one end of a croissant stuck in his mouth.
There was an awkward moment of silence across the long table, even as Viktor blinked a few times in confusion. Yuri looked at him, then at the croissant...which he then leaned in to and bit down on as well.
Slate blue eyes peered into brown for a while. Everyone watched cautiously, waiting for something of a tug-of-war dog-fight to start up between them over the breakfast bun. It never came though. Yuri just lifted his hand and set it gently against his partner's neck, waiting for his pulse to drop a little before pinching the bread and tearing his half away, leaving Viktor with his own. The Russian just leaned his elbow onto the table to hold up his head and nibbled on the bread for a few minutes in silence. Yuri just smiled.
Minako was still looking at them from across the table though, wanting to say more but knowing it would be in poor taste to continue when Viktor had just been silenced.
"So how come Yurio isn't with us today?" Mari suddenly wondered, breaking up the tension, "You and him are practically tied at the hip, and yet..."
"He's with my kids right now." Mikhail said with a shrug, not even looking up from where he'd been glancing at his phone.
Mari blinked curiously.
Viktor and Yuri turned to stare straight at him, though neither was in a position to ask the man to repeat himself, so they just glanced at each other instead. They then turned their eyes to Minako, looking for a surprised reaction to match their own, though getting nothing. Viktor finally yanked the last bit of the croissant from his mouth, "...Okay, why is no one acting surprised?"
The older Katsuki was squinting at them, but said nothing, as she was still processing the statement herself.
"...I met them already." Minako pointed out, "You didn't know they were here?"
"No." Viktor answered, "...How did you meet them already if Mari-nee-chan hadn't?"
Mikhail was starting to look nervous, turning his head away as his nephew glanced at him again.
"Minako ditched me last night after the Exhibition, so I spent the night by myself." Mari explained tellingly, making Minako's face go red, "I'll let you guess why."
"...Okay?" The younger Russian avoided the thought to move on, "Then why did you leave them with Yurio?"
The elder coughed a little, trying to deflect, "Better than leaving them...in...the street?"
Viktor continued to gawk at him.
"It wasn't my idea!" Mikhail insisted sternly, "They just messaged me as they were coming into Calgary! I only took a week to see them over the summer instead of the usual month, so I promised that I'd make it up to them later. I had no idea they were going to just show up here."
"How did they even know you were here?"
"You think they never asked why I blew them off for 3 weeks in June while I was taxiing Yuratchka around all over Hell's creation?"
Yuri could tell his husband was getting apprehensive; he was internally unraveling just like before and during Worlds.
"Quit being so worried about it. They're here to see me, not you."
The comment was almost as much of a stab as their unexpected presence was, but the look on Viktor's face was half-comical. His eyes got small and he looked down slowly, stiffening up like an arctic breeze had just sent a chill down his back.
Yuri would've laughed if he could, but all he was able to manage was a quiet chortle at his husband's expense.
...He said it so coldly... Viktor thought to himself, staring at his reflection in outward curve of the untouched spoon in front of him. ...I feel like I should I be offended...
"So then why aren't you with them?" Mari asked from her end of the table, giving him a bemused look, "They're about the same age as Yurio, so I doubt he's babysitting them while you're here with us instead."
"I know it's shocking to think of it, but sometimes I like to spend time with adults." Mikhail said dryly, "And besides, we already had plans for this before they showed up, so I told them to wait for me to get back. They don't know anything about skating or the competitions that go with it, so they waited to get here until after the show was over."
"Guess they got lucky you hadn't left yet." Mari pointed out.
"Where would I leave to that they couldn't find me?"
"...What do you mean?"
"I have a house here, remember?"
"You said you had a house 'in Canada.' Canada's huge. You could mean practically anywhere."
"...True." The Russian nodded and pressed a curved finger against his chin, "But, no, it's in Edmonton, a bit north of here. My ex-wife and the kids are in Banff, west of here. It didn't take them long to get here at all."
"...Is the ex-wife here, too?"
"No. I'm not even sure if she knows the kids came. She'd probably shit a kitten if she knew I was here."
Viktor was trying to hold in a laugh, but was failing, and sputtered it out anyway, "Why, does she hate skating, too?"
Mikhail just looked at him, then brought his hands up to frame his face, "Behold, the ugly mug of the guy who didn't buy into her delusions, and thus failed her as a husband."
Yuri was listening quietly, but when he heard those words, pulled out his phone to write a message. Viktor had been stunned into silence by the statement, and was somewhat glad to have Yuri tap his arm to get his attention so he could look away.
'If his ex is that unhappy, what are his kids like? They live with her, so...'
"What's he saying?" Mikhail wondered, trying to see the screen past his nephew's shoulder.
"He wants to know if that means your kids are crazy, too." Viktor answered.
Yuri just gawked at him with an 'I didn't say it like THAT' face.
"...Not really." The elder answered, leaning back again with his mug of coffee, "They're surprisingly normal for what they put up with every day."
Viktor was skeptical, but just as he'd expected, he felt Yuri latching to his arm with a look on his face that was begging to meet them, "No."
Yuri grumbled.
"...No. No." Viktor repeated, "No."
.
.
.
Viktor was glaring, staring straight ahead, stiff as a board. He couldn't even process the words being spoken to and/or around him, even as Yurio was lumbering at the group like they couldn't have gotten there soon enough.
"Are you kidding me!?" The blond was barking, stomping right up to Mikhail as they piled out of the car in front of the Skate Canada guest hotel, "I was gonna get one more round on the ice before Yakov stuffs me into an Economy-class seat and you dumped your hellspawn on me!?"
"Oh come now, they're not that bad."
"They don't know their asses from a hole in the ground about skating!"
"I never said they did."
"It's already bad enough that I still have my regular fans skulking around, but at least I can avoid them when I want to." Yurio went on, "I feel like these three would walk out into traffic or something if I wasn't keeping half an eye on them."
Mikhail squinted his eyes as a brow went up on one side, glancing past the skater to where his trio were leaning against the side of the hotel's rotunda, each of them playing on their phones. He finally broke away from the rest of the group to go corral them, "You three at least look both ways before walking into the street, right?"
The closest one to him, one of the two girls, pulled out the ear-bud from her right ear, but then went from looking bored to seeming excited, "Papa!" Her sudden rise and rush got the attention of the other two, and they too pulled an ear-bud out to pay a little closer attention. The first of the teens ploughed headlong into their elder, "You're early! We didn't think you'd be done until later!"
Like most of the Rozovsky line, the trio had the same silver-grey hair that Viktor did, but had the grey-green eyes of their father. The two girls wore their hair long; the one that was still hugging Mikhail, the youngest of the three, had styled it in a wavy fashion, tying it back in multiple braids that came together, behind where most of it flowed freely down to her waist. Comparatively speaking, she looked rather like a typical 'girly-girl,' and despite the cold of Calgary's autumn, wore a skirt. The outfit reminded Yuri of the school uniforms from back in Japan with the thigh-high stockings and crisply-ironed jackets with their pleated skirts. The second of the two girls was entirely the opposite, styling herself more in the same vein as Yurio than anything else. She had a hoodie on under her coat, and her loose ponytail hung down the front of her chest where it flowed out from under the hood. She'd styled in a few streaks of purple, magenta, and blue from her bangs, and was holding the end of a candy stick in her mouth. Otherwise, aside from the white of the stick and the colors in her hair, the rest of her was done in black, from hoodie to skinny-jeans and the knee-high buckled-and-belted boots on her feet. The oldest of the three was the lone male, his hair cut short, but styled forward in front with gel, giving it a slightly darker, more rigid appearance. As Viktor's slate-blue eyes narrowed in on him, he could've sworn he'd just been reintroduced to JJ Leroy all over again, except with someone else's head cut and pasted onto his body. He even had the same kind of sunglasses on his head.
The youngest was still clinging to her father, peering around him like she was shy to the large group of strangers, and she turned her eyes up to get answers, "Are these the other people you said you were mingling with over the summer?"
"Mh."
"And I guess..." She moved her slender hand around him and pointed straight at Viktor, "...He's the one that-"
"...Got his ass handed to him at a funeral." The boy finished for her, stepping forward as he stuffed his phone into his back pocket, "...What was it again? Vicar?"
The entire rest of the group was staring from the upstart to Viktor, looking for some kind of reaction, or at very least an explanation for what he'd meant about the funeral butt-whooping, save those who knew what it meant.
"Sergio, that was inappropriate." Mikhail scolded, "You don't have to lay the bravado on so thick around these guys. No one here is going to judge you. Apologize."
"Does he even know what I said?" The teen wondered, "He's staring straight through me like he doesn't understand English or something."
"He understands English perfectly well. They all do. Especially that one." He thumbed at Yuri, making him twitch nervously at being targeted, "He almost doesn't even have an accent. Lived in Detroit for a few years."
Grey-green eyes descended on the Japanese skater, and Viktor suddenly stepped in front of him. Those same eyes rose up after that to meet the slate-blue irises glaring back at him, "What?"
The Russian wouldn't speak; he just kept staring, unblinking.
"These guys are weird, pops." Sergio finally said, backing off, "When you said they were a bunch of figure skaters, I expected them to be a bit more froofroo and dramatic."
"And when I said my kids were here, I expected you all to be a bit better behaved. What is all this? Tired from the drive or something? You're embarrassing me."
"Sorry, pipaw." The third teen finally said, pulling the candy stick from her mouth with her right hand, "Sergie's been like this all day."
Mikhail sighed and finally stepped around, pulling his youngest daughter along with him, "Everyone...my kids. Nikkita," The youngest girl waved, "Sergio," The older teen tilted his head up, "...and Viktoria." The darkly clad young lady lifted her candy-holding hand again, putting the small scarlet sphere back in her mouth.
"...Viktoria?" Yurio repeated; he was suddenly being Yuri's mouthpiece again, saying what he was thinking but too nervous (or unable) to utter.
"Yeah yeah," Mikhail was getting defensively nervous again, holding his arm across the front of Nikkita's shoulders, "I did."
Viktor's expression hadn't changed. Yuri was trying to see past his shoulder though, wondering if it was safe to step out from behind him by then.
"Anyway..." Mikhail started up again, starting to point at each person in the group from left to right, "That's Mari Katsuki, you already met Minako and Yuratchka...then that's Viktor Nikiforov in front, aaaaaand Yuri Nikiforov in back, Mari's younger brother."
"Shouldn't he be Yuri Katsuki then?" Sergio asked, blunt as before.
Viktor's eyes twitched.
"It was, and now it's Nikiforov. What's it to you?" Mikhail asked, trying to defuse the situation his own way.
Yuri was about to stroke out from the abrupt nature of the question, but instinctively threw his arms around Viktor's frame as he saw the man taking a step forward. Neither him nor Yurio could stop him though, and he walked the short distance towards his cousin like they weren't even there. His ringed hand came up out of his pocket and grabbed the teen by his face, pulling him close and staring straight into his eyes bitterly.
"...Vik...Viktor...!" Yuri pleaded, "...It's...not worth it...!"
Minako and Mari weren't sure what to do, wanting the tension to die down but not wanting to jump into the middle of it either. There were already enough warm bodies trying to deal with it.
.
"He learned that from his own father. It's a cycle. I hope you break it."
"Viktor's never hit anyone or anything in his life." Yuri defended, barging into the middle of the conversation.
"Is that what he's told you?"
"Viktor broke his old man's nose." Yurio chirped from behind, having overheard the conversation and remembering that Yuri couldn't have known because he was still out when it was stated.
The Japanese skater was stunned, turning from the blonde's voice and looking to his partner, "You what?"
Viktor wasn't proud of it, so he avoided Yuri's gaze.
"Viktor...!"
.
The Russian held his hand out, looking at the ring where it glistened along the horizon over the water. His eyes shot open in surprise as he felt a kick from behind, then several more.
"Viktor Nikiforov is dead."
When he finally turned around, it was Yurio standing there bitterly, staring at him like he was nothing.
"Why do you look so happy to be looking after that damn pig?"
The older Russian took a few steps forward, and then leaned slightly so he'd be right in the blonde's face, "Did you want to compete against me?"
"Don't be so full of yourself. Not all skaters look up to you." Yurio said stiffly, even as the older skater was smiling at him heinously, "Just go away already, geezer."
That was enough to make the silver-haired legend move again, grabbing the teen by his face and yanking him up to make him work a little to look at him evenly rather than the other way around. The wind was cold around them, whipping up their hair and clothing in a rush.
Yurio wouldn't quit though, staring straight ahead without resisting, "The ring you got from that pig is garbage. I'll win just to prove how incompetent its owner is."
Viktor just looked on him with those blue eyes, like he could crush him without another thought, but doing so with a hand as soft as velvet. He just huffed a single laugh to himself as the teen finally threw out his arm to free himself.
.
He still wouldn't speak. His eyes were cold and bitter that time. He'd had enough of his own blood trying to tear him down when they didn't even know him.
"You're wearing your rings on the wrong side." Nikkita interjected, instantly snapping the tension in the air, "...If you're engaged or married, the rings go on the left hand, not the right." She was pointing at where she could see the gold bands on both of their fingers.
Viktor finally turned his eyes away from Sergio, and looked over at the source of the voice. The younger teen was strong in her glance back, not backing down, but not looking threatening either. She actually smiled.
"I just thought...you should know."