CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY FIVE
Yuri had found seats in the very front row at the south end of the rink, close to where most of the skaters were entering and exiting the ice. He was slouching in his seat, feet up on the green metal railing in front of him, recording the shows as they came and went with his phone.
When Viktor finally found him, the Russian was decked back out in his full mostly-black team track-suit. He sat down in the seat to his partner's left and slouched just like Yuri had been, taking the man's hand where it was set on the arm-rest between them, and then lazily leaned against that same shoulder.
"Anything?" Yuri wondered, tilting his head to the side to set his cheek against the top of the man's silver head.
"No, but I can see my uncle way on the other side of the rink." Viktor answered, pointing to the spot under the red Bar sign, "He must be trying to get Yurio to go to him instead."
"I really hope this doesn't drag out." The younger skater sighed, "If this doesn't get fixed before tonight's over then it'll be sitting on the backburner until the Final. My hair's gonna start falling out over all this stress..." He tossed his head lightly to ruffle the fluff he had, "Minami-kun didn't give me this much grief when I missed his Lohengrin performance last year...and that was a copy of one of my own shows! You'd think if anyone had reason to be mad that I didn't watch, it'd be him, not Yurio..."
There was a slight silence between them while Yuri half-whined to himself.
"Do you blame me for this?" The Russian asked idly.
Yuri hesitated, trying to find the right words. The pause was long enough that Viktor registered it as a confirmation though.
"Sorry."
"I don't..." Yuri tried to recover. He looked at his phone and clicked out of the recording, realizing he wasn't even on the skater out on the ice anymore anyway. Once the phone was back in his coat pocket, he nudged his shoulder to get the Russian to lift his head, and looked at him squarely, "How could I blame you for this when it was my choice to follow you for that interview?"
"It could've waited."
"Hindsight is always better than what we see in the moment...and at the time, everyone involved was really high strung. Yurio wasn't going to suffer at all for us not being there to watch him skate, but you would for being made to stand around." He explained, "It might've only been for a few minutes, but even for me it felt like an eternity. I imagine it probably felt the same for you."
"...Mh."
Yuri sat back again, retaking his former position with his cheek against his husband's crown, "I wish I understood better why he's being like this though. He could've just said sorry when he saw how mad you got over it."
"That makes sense to you because that's what you would've done." Viktor shrugged a little, "Yurio's the sort who would stand his ground even if it makes him look stupid."
"...I really thought we were past all this after Worlds."
"He had me fooled, too."
They watched the end of the Ladies Silver medalist's performance, and the Bronze Ice Dancers started their own, before either of them spoke again.
"...What if something else happened?" Yuri wondered, "We haven't seen a whole lot of him since last year, save the few times Mikhail brought him back to Hasetsu for a weekend."
"Hard to know unless he tells us."
"Do you think Mikhail would've said something?"
"I don't know, Yuri."
"You guys look like you aren't enjoying the show."
Yuri nearly jumped out of his seat from the surprise, but he looked around for the source of the voice and eventually found Viktor waving at it.
"You're up next, Chris?" The Russian wondered, spying the Swiss skater through the bars of the dividing wall.
"Yep." He confirmed, "Good timing, too...I was starting to worry Yuri wouldn't be here to see it."
"Eh? Why would you worry about me not being here?" The younger skater echoed, sitting normally again, "...Why is everyone so concerned with me being around lately? You don't secretly have a bet with Plisetsky to see whose shows I stick around for, do you?"
Chris snorted with laugher, but winked, "No, no, I wouldn't make a bet about something like that. Not with him anyway. He's too tense for my liking." He leaned as well as he could into the space between the bars, "I meant that it's because my show is for you, just like my Short Program was for Viktor."
"...Eh?" Yuri deadpanned the blonde incredulously.
"Really?" Viktor seemed excited.
"You seem so shocked, Yuri." Chris mused, "It's not like we've been friends longer than I've been friends with him." He thumbed at the silver man.
"Oh right, you guys have known each other since Juniors." The Russian commented, turning his head and patting Yuri's arm with his free hand, "This is perfect!"
"Wow...Chris..." Yuri was still a bit stunned, but he finally found his feet and slipped over the top of the bars, dropping the few feet to rink-side before reaching to hug the man, "I can't wait to see it!"
As the Ice Dancers finally came off the rink, and Chris made his way over to the entrance to get on the ice, Yuri clambered back over the railing and retook his seat. His excitement for seeing the Swiss' Exhibition had almost made him forget about the problems simmering in his mind. It was a welcome reprieve, even if fleeting.
Chris was decked in mostly silver, shimmering on the sides and arms, and slashed with green and blue. The crowd cheered excitedly for him as he rounded the ice and made his way to center.
['Rise Up' by Andra Day]
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Getting Yurio out of the building was harder than Mikhail expected. Everywhere he went, people either wanted photos of the Russian Tiger, or they were wondering if he was kidnapping the teen. Every time the question came up though, he just spun around and let the super-annoyed-but-not-at-all-terrified look on the blonde' face do all the talking.
Mikhail took the teen fully around the corner of the block, almost getting to the back end where the truck-receiving doors were located, before finally putting him back down on his skates again. He did the teen the service of dusting him off and straightening out his coat and hair before finally nodding in approval, "There, now you can say words."
"I hate you."
"You'll have to take a number and get in line if you want to do something about it."
"When did your whole goal change from wanting to be around Viktor to wanting to be everyone's fucking bartender anyway? It seems like you've managed to get your damn tentacles into everyone's business at this point. Who the Hell do you think you are!?"
The older man quirked an eyebrow. He reached up and pulled his hat off, ruffled his hair to fluff it up again, and then ran a finger through it just above his right eye, and flipped the mess over to the left, "Do you see?"
"It's super creepy that you can do that, but styling your hair like Viktor doesn't make you Viktor."
"No, but I look a damn lot like him, and a lot of people were attracted to that. I've gone pretty far out of my way to make people understand that we're not the same person even if we're related. But I can't change what people are or what they see, and the fact that I look like an older version of my nephew got people to accept me into the group a lot faster than if I looked like, say, Konstantin."
"What's your point?"
"I got my tentacles into everyone's business because they wanted me there, so I'm here now whether you like it or not." He rolled the hat up and put it into one of his coat pockets, then crossed his arms, "We're all creatures of habit, and we flock to things we're familiar with. We gravitate towards the stuff that make us comfortable and push away the stuff that doesn't." He let the words sink in a little before bringing it all back around again, "I'm an older version of Viktor, so people feel comfortable coming to me because I feel familiar. But at this point, I've managed to separate myself from him, so people now see me as 'that old Russian fuck that doesn't mince words or hold punches.' I'm the closest thing to a dad either of you two twerps has ever had, and the way both of you act sometimes, it seems someone like me is sorely needed around here. After all, Viktor doesn't listen to Yakov, and you don't listen to anyone, so who's left?"
"We didn't ask for you."
"And I didn't ask for two more kids, but here we are anyway." Mikhail grumbled, leaning forward slightly, staring at that one emerald eye peeking from behind pale blond hair, "We develop customs that make us feel safe in the worst of circumstances...but unfortunately, when some of those contradictory feelings and rituals get merged together at the wrong time, we piss off the people we care about."
Yurio was quiet.
"But what I don't understand about you still is...after everything that those two boys have done for you, why are you still trying to hurt them?"
"Viktor didn't do shit. It was all Yuri."
"So you resent it that it wasn't Viktor's idea."
"I don't care!" Yurio barked, "I can't count on him for anything! Whatever promises he makes are meaningless because he's just going to forget! You already know that!"
"That's cruel to say about him." Mikhail sighed, "He's nearly twice your age and is coming to the end of his rope on a lot of things right now. You can't hold it against him that he's got different priorities than he used to."
"What the Hell would you know!? You've barely been around for 9 months! You barely know him anymore."
"I've known Viktor since he was born. I know where he came from and I know what his life was like before skating." Mikhail retorted, "I've looked up everything I possibly could about what his life was like after I lost track of him. To that end, I may even know more about him than you do right now. You probably think you know everything you need to know about him because you've been rink-mates, and don't care to learn about what made him who he's become." The older man said flatly, "You've gotten a tiny peek into what Viktor's life was like before. You got to meet the man who nearly blinded him on two separate occasions. Your own parents didn't give two shits about your skating, but imagine if they hated it enough to beat you for it and drive you from home? Come on. You treat him with the same kind of hostility that his own father did, just without the capacity to really hurt him physically, despite how much you've tried."
The blonde narrowed his eyes scornfully. It didn't stop the lecture though.
"So instead of that, you try to wound him in the only other way you know how...hitting him with a verbal assault right where he's most vulnerable. Can you really blame him for wanting to distance himself from you after all that? He gave you all the patience he had, and every possible chance, to show him that you were able to get past all that anger, but for every 10 steps you take forward, you take 9 steps back all at once. And like I said before...I'm utterly and thoroughly confused why you still hoist all your rage onto Viktor's shoulders anyway. Why do you focus on him to always be the target of your fury? You could stub your toe on a coffee table in your own house and I feel like you'd still find a way to blame Viktor for it just to spite him."
The teen just scoffed and turned his gaze away, looking down the street to avoid seeing the man before him.
"Maybe it's just easier to attack Viktor because you've known him the longest. Maybe you just like to see him hurting because you don't like hurting alone." Mikhail suggested, "It's easy to find him at fault for the things others do because you're so used to blaming him for everything already anyway. And this all started because Yuri didn't stay to watch your Long Program, right? Yuri wasn't there and you think it's Viktor's fault."
"He scheduled an interview right as I was going up." Yurio said bitterly, "He could've done it any other time, but he picked then."
"The interview involved someone he had history with. Did you not see his reaction to seeing Sophia for the first time yesterday?"
"I wasn't there. What difference does it make?"
Mikhail grit his teeth and pulled out his phone, doing a quick search online for a clip of the interrupted interview. Given the sensationalism of the skater's reaction, it wasn't hard to find footage, so he clicked into one and shoved his phone into the teen's sights, "Watch it."
Yurio glared at him, but bitterly took the device, holding it up and watching. It was a normal interview reel, with flashes all around as Viktor was explaining the music from his Short Program with Yuri at his side. The younger skater seemed distracted by something though and abruptly excused himself. Another 15 or so seconds passed before the questions came back around to Yuri's involvement in the music, so Viktor gestured for the journalists to move away a little to make a path for him to come back, and then waved, "Yuri! I don't want to answer all these questions about the music by myself! Come back already! It's your song, too! You said you'd only be a secon-"
The pause was unusual, and the cameras jerked a little, going from Viktor to whatever he'd been looking at. The new scene showed Yuri, Chris, and Sophia beyond the media mass, and then immediately went back to get Viktor on screen. He'd been completely dumbstruck by the sight, and a moment later, tears started rolling down his face. Yurio's brow crinkled at the sight of it, and turned up the volume to hear things that were being said off-camera. Chris suddenly appeared on-screen and was turning Viktor around by his shoulders to shove him away. The clip ended a few seconds later, and Yurio handed the phone back.
"I saw Yuri when he was getting Viktor's things." The blonde said, keeping his head low, "I helped them get back to the hotel afterwards."
"So you saw how much of a mess Viktor was."
"He wouldn't even speak."
"All he wanted was to get away from the situation. Most of his time here at Trophée de France has been a complete clusterfuck. Forgive him for wanting to get it dealt with in his own way, and forgive Yuri for supporting him in it."
"...I even skipped on a bunch of my own interviews to help them."
Mikhail was surprised to hear it, blinking grey-green eyes at him, "...Your little tirade earlier today must've really thrown them for a loop then. Being so supportive in one moment and then condemning them in the worst way in the next. To them, it's like you don't know which way is up half the time."
Yurio just grumbled to himself.
The phone in the older Russian's coat jingled suddenly, and when the man lifted it from its holster to glance at it, the faceplate read off a new message from Viktor.
[It's time. We're up in 10.]
[Spasibo.]
He pocketed the item once more, and pulled out his hat to unroll it and replace it where it was normally nested on his mess of silver-grey hair, "That was Viktor. Their pair skate is coming up. I want you to watch it with me." His event badge came out of the other pocket a moment later, and he placed the lanyard around his neck before reaching with his free hand in a gesture to the teen, "Idite za mnoy."
Yurio just looked at the hand for a moment, but then reached up to tug his hoodie a bit further over his head before reluctantly stepping forward. He felt the hand come around his back and hold to his shoulder, and he let the silver Russian guide him back towards the entrance.