(Author's Note: Taking suggestions for what to draw next. - Those who aren't on FB, you're missing out. Also, get on FB XD [ facebook dot com /NightsAfterDreams/ ] I'm working on figuring out how to link the page to an Instagram account I physically have but don't use, so if you like that better, expect it...eventually...ish...)
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE
Viktor slid the key-card into the latch-slot and heard the click, and ever-so-quietly pushed it open, just in case Yuri was asleep. With the door open just enough to let light in from the hall, he confirmed the lights inside were out, as he'd suspected, and turned to face the woman behind him.
"He's probably out cold." He whispered.
She smiled and nodded, keeping her voice low as well, "Remember...be nice to him. He was looking over his shoulder the entire walk back, like he thought someone was going to come after him for leaving early."
The Russian reached back with his free hand and touched it to her shoulder, "Thanks for coming, and for talking to him. Are you going to be okay going back on your own?"
"Mikhail's getting the car right now and says he'll be out front in a bit. We're going out to get something to eat before the Exhibition tonight."
"What about Yurio...?"
"He was left with Yakov."
"Oh..." Viktor managed a smile, "Not sure who that's punishing more."
"Right?" Minako huffed a laugh, trying not to make a racket, "Anyway, go in and get some rest. We'll see you two tonight."
"Da. Spasibo." He waved a little before reaching down for the rolling suitcase again, pushing the door open just enough to squeeze inside without letting too much light follow him. When he was finally past the heavy panel, he set the case against a nearby wall and purposefully closed the door as gently as he could, hearing only the quiet click of the electronic lock as it went.
The room was almost entirely dark; the curtains had been drawn and all the lights were off. There was still enough sunlight casting a hazy glow through where the curtains weren't quite completely overlapped that Viktor could see around the room without having to turn on any extra lights. His eyes adjusted quickly anyway, after having worn the sunglasses all the way back from the rink. His long-coat came off quietly, and he set it over the edge of a chair instead of hazarding the noise of opening the sliding-doors of the hall closet. Shoes were deftly pushed off, set against the wall neatly.
He had no way of knowing Yuri had actually been awake since the door clicked open. The young figure hadn't moved a muscle, lying on half on his side and half on his stomach in the middle of the bed, with his phone abandoned next to the pillow, fingers loosely touching it.
I wonder if he fell asleep watching the LiveStream?
Yuri had managed to keep the blanket over him, save one leg that stuck out freely off the edge of the bed.
Viktor came up stealthily, gently lifting the stray foot and setting it under the comforter. He then put one hand on the edge of the mattress while the other reached over to pluck the phone away. Yuri heard the two clicks and double-buzz noise of his phone being set to Silent and getting plugged into the wall-charger; it was down to 7% by then. He then felt where two fingers had come up just above his eyes to brush a few spikes of his bangs away, but still, he refused to open his eyes and confess his wakefulness.
The Russian pulled away after that, and before Yuri knew it, he'd left the room again entirely. It was hard to tell without his phone, but it felt like almost 20 minutes before Viktor came back. He'd pushed up to sitting and was about to reach for his hand-held when he heard footsteps outside the door, and the gentle click of the door-latch unlocking, so Yuri quickly dropped down again. On his back this time with arms splayed out to either side, hair tousled on the pillow, he tried not to let the brightness of the exterior hall make him flinch. Turning his face away from the light would've given him away.
Yuri could hear the rustling of what sounded like thin plastic, and this time, the sliding doors of the closet were moved. Viktor did his best to do it all quietly, but he couldn't stop the plastic from rustling like leaves in the wind. He placed the two long, clear bags onto the high metal bar in the space, and used both hands to slowly push the door back into place. Sweater and undershirt came off quickly after that, but he ended up leaning against the wall with his phone in-hand instead of settling into bed like he'd meant to.
His thumb hovered over the Instagram app again, but this time he clicked into it.
What's the harm in looking at what people said, now that it's all done and over with? Maybe there'll even be take-backs posted by now...
812 Comments, 2,315 Likes, 189 New Follows. The little orange box was like a giant middle-finger for being absent for a whole entire day.
He ignored it though and went on to the feed; it was awash with hundreds of new posts, and the majority of the initial posts were relating to the results of the weekend's event. A dozen or more were discussing his 'triumphant return to the top of the podium' as though it had only happened by some miracle, which made him raise a brow.
...Maybe I'm being too critical...
Content further back into the archive of the last 29 or so hours was showing clips and photos of all the different Free Skates, composite images showing all the more difficult jumps, whether landed or flubbed...and then, there was his.
'Viktor Nikiforov skates on Blades of Rage: What's he REALLY mad about?'
The photo that went with the caption was his frost-throwing sit spin, making it look like some wall of ice around him. He squinted his eyes at it and clicked the link that went with it.
...This ought to be hysterical. What do they know?
Another page loaded up, and an article appeared, continuing the thought from the Instagram post, 'Fans of Team Russia will remember a terrifying moment last year, just after the GPF, when Viktor emerged with bandages around his head, covering his left eye. He disappeared from social media for weeks and tried to play it off like nothing had happened. His coach, Yakov Feltsman, made an unofficial statement that Viktor had been in a minor car accident, but...' There was a photo of his car, parked at the airport when he'd given his keys over to his uncle; he could even see the group of them standing just on the other side of it, saying their farewells, '...as you can see, in this image of Viktor's Audi, there's no damage on it whatsoever.'
Viktor had been no stranger to having candid photos taken from afar by people who didn't make themselves known. But, in this case, he still felt a little unsettled. There were more photos, some having obviously been taken with a telescopic lens, showing much greater detail of his days with the eyepatch, and he felt his eye twitch just over his cheek at the sight of it.
'A few days after the bandages were first noticed, we'd gotten notice that two strange men arrived at Viktor's home-rink in St. Petersburg. Rumors flew regarding Viktor's then-fiancé, Yuri Katsuki, going completely ballistic at the sight of the larger one. He hasn't been seen since, but the smaller one...turned out to be a family member; Mikhail Rozovsky, an engineering equipment salesman, and Viktor's Uncle.'
There was an embedded video just beneath the text, and Viktor set his phone to mute before starting it, clicking Play and hitting the CC button for subtitles to replace the sound. It was a clip of the random interview Mikhail had been thrown into at Worlds, when everyone realized their resemblance and called him down for 'questioning.'
"...I hadn't seen Viktor since he was just a little guy skating on the pond behind his house. When I heard from his father that he'd made it to the big leagues and was killing it there, I knew I had to see what he'd been up to all these years!"
"So Viktor's parents support his skating? Why are they never at Nationals to show support?"
"Aaaeeeehhhhhh..." Mikhail struggled for an easy answer, "...They're...not...really into skating, that much... Actually... They're into industry, not athletics. It was just an offhand comment the man made."
Yakov had looked particularly unnerved by the whole encounter, standing around with Viktor's poodle-plush tissue box in his hand the whole time, almost acting like some North Korean minder, making sure Mikhail never said anything he shouldn't.
The article went on.
'Does that mean this man, who'd shown up with Mr. Rozovsky at the St. Petersburg ice rink...' A zoomed-in photo of Konstantin appeared below the text; courtesy of Yuri's Angels, '...is the Nikiforov Patriarch, and Viktor's father?'
Slate blue eyes were narrowed at the sight of him, but just as Viktor was about to keep scrolling, he suddenly found his phone being yanked straight out of his grasp by a hand that emerged from the darkness beyond the tiny screen's bright white glow. Before his eyes could adjust to the room again, he felt a tug on one of the belt-loops of his dress-pants, and then the edge of the bed against his knees. He huffed a surprise protest, but then felt hands coming up over his bare shoulders, pulling him down, and before he knew it, he was listening to a heartbeat through a warm t-shirt. The arms that had gone over his shoulders were then wrapped loosely over his head and the back of his neck. His eyes, blind as they were in the dark, were wide open.
"How long were you going to stand there looking grim?"
"Depends on how long you were going to lie here awake watching me do it." He answered, still a little shocked at the whole transition. Viktor turned his head though and looked ahead, where he could only assume Yuri's face would be, "...And on how much longer the article was. It was kind of important. I need my phone back."
He heard Yuri give a slight sigh, but then felt him twist a little to reach for where he'd let the device fall to the sheets and set it by his hand. Viktor clicked into it quickly, trying to find his place again as he held the iPhone in front of his face right where Yuri had pulled him down.
"Must be important if it'd stop you in your tracks when you looked like you were getting ready for a cat-nap." Yuri commented, feeling the Russian lift his head up a little to reply.
"I made the mistake of checking Instagram too early. Found something I didn't like."
"Oh..."
"Not about Sophia though."
"...Oh." Yuri blinked and rose up on his elbows, "Wait, what?"
"Someone's asking if I lied about the source of my Free Skate anger." He answered, "Turns out they know a lot more about what's been going on than I'm happy with."
"...How much more?"
"You swiped my phone just as I saw that they'd posted a picture of Konstantin." Viktor explained, pushing back up to sit on his knees and keep reading, "They're speculating on who he is."
"As if things couldn't get worse." Yuri sighed, dropping back down again with his arms out like before, "Here I thought we could just have a nice, quiet couple hours and then do the Pair Skate and be done with this place."
"If only." The Russian agreed. He glanced past his phone to see Yuri staring at the ceiling miserably.
...I left in a hurry so I could find Yuri and make nice with him, not make him feel worse...what am I doing?
"Sorry."
"Huh?" The younger skater lifted his head just enough to see his partner twiddle around on his phone for a second longer, but then turn it off.
Viktor leaned forward, right over top of him, to set his phone on the nightstand next to his own, before moving to make a pile out of the pillows that were lining the headboard. That done, he moved down to wedge an arm under the small of Yuri's back and picked him up just like Yuri had done to him on the airplane, and moved him until his smaller frame could be settled into the plush pile. Confused brown eyes watched quietly, closing briefly as the Russian leaned in to kiss him, opening again only when the man pulled away and turned around. Blankets were moved, legs were found, and Viktor settled to put himself between them, leaning back with his head against the upper part of his husband's chest. He pulled the covers back over them and stared out into the room blankly.
Yuri waited a moment for Viktor to stop moving before sliding his right arm over his shoulder, setting his hand on the Russian's chest, then moving the left down to go through silver-grey hair. He kissed the not-even-slightly-balding crown of his head before dropping his own back into the pillows again, "Did you sort things out with Yurio?"
"I didn't talk to him."
"Mh..."
"I guess that means you weren't watching the stream when you got back here."
"I couldn't get it to work." Yuri said, still idly toying with his partner's hair, brushing it back in long, slow strokes, "Did you get your Gold?"
"Da."
"One more to go."
"Hoping Shanghai and Sapporo go a lot more smoothly than this." Viktor commented, crossing his arms over the comforter, "The GP Series is a lot less fun when one or both of us ends up crying before it's over."
"...I was...going to say something about that." The younger figure said dubiously, making Viktor tilt his head back a little to try and see him.
"What is it...?"
"I think...we're doing your Free Skate thing in the wrong order." Yuri explained, "I don't want to have to remind you of all the bad things that've happened, just to help you stoke the flames of your anger. I don't like being part of that."
Viktor listened quietly.
"It goes against the whole 'sanctuary of warmth and peace' thing that I swore to be for you when we said our vows in Barcelona." He went on, "So...if you can figure out how to get your rage on without me, I'd rather be there at rink-side to help bring you back from the edge once you're done. I couldn't be that for you today, and I feel like it just turned into some messed-up Rube Goldberg machine, where every little thing we did just needlessly compounded on the anger that I initially stirred up. Dealing with Sophia, and the interview, and then Yurio... I don't know that either of us could've stopped those things from happening, but I feel like we would've responded differently if we hadn't already been so amped up."
"You're upset that I grabbed Yurio."
"...Not...necessarily. What he said was really inappropriate, even for him. I don't think he really meant it specifically as an insult against us though... I think he just...took the 'head up your butt' jab one step too far. On its own it would've been meaningless. He might even feel bad about it now, and like you said last year, getting an apology from him is a rare thing, so I doubt he'll be coming to us to clear it all up."
"If he expects me to apologize for scheduling an interview during his Free Skate-"
"I won't let you do that." Yuri said, cutting him off, "You could've been interviewing with literally anyone at that same time, and a lot of press had thought you were going to do just that. Let him be mad at me for choosing to stay by you instead of him. That's the crux of the whole thing anyway. He doesn't want to be mad at me, so he's deflecting the blame onto you instead."
Viktor let the words sink in for a moment, then uncrossed his arms and reached his right hand up a little to curl his fingers around where his husband's were settled on his skin, "I just wanted it over with."
"I know..."
"I didn't even see her again after I stormed off. I went out of my way to make sure I couldn't run into her by accident..."
"...What'd you do?"
"I took a page out of the 'Yuri Katsuki Grand Prix Final of Tears' playbook and hid in a bathroom."
Viktor couldn't see the look on his face, but Yuri wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry, "The...Grand Prix Final of Tears? Seriously?"
"Well, you cried in that bathroom, sooo..."
"Did you?"
"No, but good try." He held up his left hand and gave a thumbs up, "A+ for effort."
"Viktor..."
The Russian huffed an amused sigh to himself as he lowered his hand back down again, staring blankly out into the room after that. His mind wandered a bit, and he lifted Yuri's fingers where he'd clasped them, kissing the ring there, "...You know..."
"...Hm?"
"I wonder how different things would've been if I had found you in that bathroom instead of Yurio."