CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY SIX
Yuri did his best to look inconspicuous as he pulled his skates from his luggage, hiding the gleam of gold blades from a chance encounter with a spotlight. Viktor and Chris practically stood point to make sure he was well obscured, one on either side of him behind the rink wall where he was tying his laces.
The British Pair skaters were still out on the ice, the last to perform before the presumed end of the Gala. A melodious piano-techno hybrid played overhead.
['Children - Dream Version' by Robert Miles]
Yuri finally rose back to his feet and clapped his hands down on the rink wall where he wedged himself between the two taller skaters, "Okay!"
"You remember how it goes, right?" The Russian mused, leaning against the same wall on one elbow, "It's been a few weeks since we last went through it."
"It'll be fine. I do this show every day in my head." Yuri answered, drawing in closer as his partner settled his free arm over his shoulders, "Not having the Ice Castle to sneak off to when I'm anxious has made me all antsy. I could skate this program half a dozen times in a row right now..."
"Save some of that spunk for the after-party." Chris pointed out, "You two promised to be there."
"We will be!"
.
Mikhail pulled the teen skater through the main doors as quietly as he could, though the skates made it too easy to be spotted. Yurio's own fanclub was loitering outside and had caught a glimpse of his straw-blonde hair where it flitted out from under the hood of his sweater, and started shrieking for his attention. The older Russian just grabbed the teen tighter and quickly made the last push inside to get out of sight. Ducking through different halls and corridors, going up a flight of stairs to the uppermost level, and almost-impolitely making their way to the railing, they finally had their spot. Mikhail only let go of the teen's shoulder once he was sure Yurio wouldn't just bolt.
It was hard to spot anything familiar at rink-side from so high up, but at least from where they were, they could see the entire ice field unobstructed. The Pair Skaters were still in the midst of their performance, but it looked like they were getting close to the end of it.
"Why do you want me to watch this thing anyway?" Yurio wondered suddenly, stuffing his hands into his hoodie's pockets and glaring from behind the safety of his bangs, "So you can rub them in my face?"
"You think I'm punishing you?" Mikhail huffed, "Au contraire, mon frère. I came to the Gala only wanting to see three shows, and their's is the last. It just occurred to me that making you watch Viktor and Yuri do their thing might be beneficial to you, too."
"Tsh... Like I've never seen them skate together before."
The music on high started to fade out, and the Pairs fell into their final position. The crowd roared with applause, cheering them on from the darkness off-stage. The pair waved, bowed, blew kisses, and spun around excitedly as they finally made their way back to the exit. The energy of the arena seemed to shift after that, as though the crowd was winding down, expecting the final bow-out from the skaters that had performed and for the show to end. The energy changed again after a good 45 seconds of nothing...but then a voice came over the speakers.
"I bet everyone's wondering what's going on?"
Clapping and cheering, albeit of the confused sort.
"What do all of you think about a last-second special performance?"
The thunder of the audience grew a little, but they still didn't know what to expect, so the tremble in the rafters was minimal.
"I don't know if you're properly excited for this! Let's try again. How about a last-second special performance by Viktor Nikiforov!?"
That got them going. Yurio grit his teeth as he watched four different spotlights converge on the opposite end of the arena, shining down on the silver Russian, decked almost completely in ragged white, come strolling casually out onto the ice.
"Look at him, he's practically glowing!" A nearby fan commented.
"Three shows by Viktor in one day! This is great!" Someone else mentioned.
Viktor slid around the rink, occasionally raising up one blood-red hand and arm to the audience as he waved and went by. He could almost feel the rumble from the crowd through his blades, and butterflies fluttered in his gut as he waited for the announcer to make his amendment.
"Ladies and Gentlemen...while it gives me great pleasure to welcome a World Champion onto the ice...how about we sweeten the pot a little bit, huh? What say you to a last-second surprise performance with two World Champions?"
The crowd went nuts with excitement, slowly starting to realize what was going to happen.
Spotlights changed colors and shot around the arena before finally coming down on the rink entrance again, and Yuri finally came out, skating quickly around the perimeter to the thunderous cacophony of cheering. Viktor slid idly around in the center of the rink as Yuri passed by, going backwards around the ice and twisting excitedly. When he'd made it halfway around, he spun a little and started making his way closer to Viktor, reaching out for his extended hand and letting the man rotate him inward.
The cheering was almost deafening, and Yuri was lost to the moment, "...They're really excited for this... I didn't think they'd get much louder after seeing you come out...but..."
"Two is always better than one." Viktor pointed out, his deep-red arms coming up under his husband's to clasp gently at the front of his shoulders, pulling him close to speak against his ear just to be heard, "Besides, you're the guy who beat me at Worlds and broke my winning streak. Who wouldn't be excited to see you skate?"
"Yuri and Viktor Nikiforov, everyone...in a special presentation just for Trophée de France!"
Mikhail leaned forward on the metal bars of the balcony railing, hunching over his elbows and watching proudly. He glanced over at Yurio, despite his lack of enthusiasm, "At least try to act like you're excited to see them skate."
The teen managed to clap half-heartedly, but stopped soon after he started.
The pair took hands and bowed together in front of the audience, holding their arms up as they parted and went to take their positions. Yuri was close to center, whereas Viktor was farther off, near the rink wall on the south end. The spotlights dimmed a little, darkening the rink into a neutral ambiance. The whole thing looked like the prelude to a concert, with sparkles of camera flashes coming from the audience in spite of it being too dark to really capture anything. Within the darkness, Viktor pulled a scraggy-looking white hood over his head, the rest sagging behind his back. His outfit looked like rags, but the pristine white color of the majority, save the 'blood dipped' red going up to just above his elbows, gave him a creepy wraith-like look, and he glowed under the bright spotlights from overhead before they'd dulled to start the show.
One thin beam of white light descended on each of the two skaters, bright enough that they could be seen amidst the darkness, but not piercingly so.
The audience was so busy cheering still that the start of the song was almost hard to hear, but as soon as the first deep thrum of the bass hit them, the applause quickly died down.
['NIVIRO - The Ghost' - NCS Official Video...but don't watch the video XD]
ARE YOU...AFRAID OF THE DARK?
Both of them moved slowly from their starting places, rotating and twisting, unable to see one another through the glare on the ice. Viktor kept close to the rink wall, but was making obvious gestures at his husband as he went by.
ARE YOU SCARED?
They almost figure-eight'd right over one another, but the Russian came up close behind his younger partner and shadowed him, the creepy sound of a little girl's laughter resonating overhead.
I...CAN...SEE...YOU...FROM...BEHIND...
Viktor's hands were deftly rising behind Yuri's back, barely not touching him as they skated in tandem, with the younger skater pretending not to know his partner was on his heels.
YOU...CAN...HEAR...ME...IN...YOUR...MIND...
Those blood-red hands came up around the outside of Yuri's shoulders, reaching past the sides of his head to cover his eyes, forcing him to lean back. Yuri's own hands went down, reaching back to hold fast to the side of the Russian's legs, letting the man be his rudder on the ice while he was 'blinded.'
RUN...SO...FAST...AS...YOU...CAN...GO...
Viktor's hands slid down his partner's frame; neck, shoulders, back, then around the front of his hips, grasping eager fingers to the upper part of his thighs. The silver skater was practically on the verge of making love to his husband right there on the ice, nuzzling in close against his neck, lips against his skin where he knew one of his love-bites was showing, even if only he could see it.
TIME...WILL...CATCH...YOU...
Yuri twisted about-face, arms above him as he spun, moving to skate backwards as Viktor kept pressing in forward. One white-clad knee went between Yuri's own, and Viktor brought up his right hand to gently touch it to his husband's cheek, the other against his chest, and a finger slid down the side of the man's jaw.
...BEFORE...YOU...KNOW...
The Russian had his thumb on Yuri's lower lip, but as the lyrics ended, he quickly put on the brakes, and Yuri went sliding out away from him. The younger skater moved into a 3-turn, and vaulted into a quad Lutz on the thunderous BOOM.
Viktor threw the hood off and took off at a break-neck speed, rounding the other end of the rink as Yuri came back around in turn, the music pounding overhead. They passed each other with dramatic flair, death-dropping into a variant arm-up sit-spin, kicking out as they rose back up, and finishing with an arm-up scratch-spin. Another BOOM echoed overhead, and they struck out in wide arcs away from each other, twisting over several times before landing into an outside spread-Eagle as they went past the opposite ends of the rink.
A calm rushed through the music, and the creepy child's voice started up again.
ARE YOU...AFRAID OF THE DARK?
Mikhail huffed to himself, "Those two are something else."
The teen's eyes were fixated in his Asian counterpart. All he could think of was how he had once ridiculed the man for being a GP Final washout, yet at the same time, wanting to know what it would look like for him to skate without any mistakes. Now, Yuri was skating with a legend, and was doing quad jumps like Flips and Lutzs like they were no harder than doubles.
ARE YOU SCARED?
The song was revving up again, and the pair were moving in a wide circle with a forward scissor-kick, then reverse, then forward again in quick succession. They stopped dead in front of each other, almost staring one another down. The music stopped.
I AM YOU.
They turned away from one another and broke off as the beat shook the rafters again.
Mikhail moved one arm back off the railing and set it over the edge of Yurio's closest shoulder, glancing back at him, "Do you see how they move? They're perfectly in sync with each other."
"Hmph...what would someone like you know about pair skating anyway? They could trip over each other and you'd still call it graceful."
"I'm a mechanical engineer. I know when shit looks right. I see the equations floating over everything I look at...and those guys out there, right now, they match up better than any of the other duos that took the ice today. There's just..." Mikhail paused, looking for the right word as he turned his eyes back down onto the rink, seeing the pair move through several choreography elements as they spun and twisted around each other, leaving creative serpentine streaks in the frost behind their blades, "...They have that unique something that doesn't happen between people just because they train together. It's...like moving parts that were custom-machined just to work with one another, and no other parts on this earth could possibly do the job half as well. But sometimes people try to wedge imperfect parts into the mix anyway, thinking they're helping, and maybe it does for a time, but eventually the machine breaks down and new parts have to be put in."
"Your analogies are the worst."
"Your face is the worst."
Yurio just gawked at him, "Give me a break already..."
"Oh, buckle up, buttercup, I'm just getting started."
The song paused briefly, the chime of a child's music-box playing before the beat overwhelmed it again, even harder than before. The whole stadium shook from the intensity. The dance moved the skaters much closer together again, kicking against the ice within mere feet of each other.
Mikhail tapped his fingers against the railing to the tempo, and he spotted several people starting to hold up bright lights on their phones, changing colors in a slow strobe effect, turning the arena into a proverbial techno dance floor, "Other skaters don't get the audience nearly as riled up as they do." He commented idly.
"Is there a point you're trying to make with all this?" The blonde grumbled discontentedly, "Or can we just watch and be done with it?"
"You're not going to be able to get them on your side again unless you understand who and what they are. You need to know your place in the pecking order." The older man explained, "Just because you knew Viktor first doesn't mean he's obligated to put you first."
Green eyes went wide, but then narrowed as the teen took particular offense, "That's not even why I'm mad at him."
"Ah, but see?" Mikhail tapped the teen's chest where his hand was slouching over his shoulder, "If it weren't true, you wouldn't have gotten all hostile about it. You're slipping down the ranks and you hate it."
"We already resolved my anger over Viktor leaving Russia. Why bring it up again like I'm still pissed about it?"
"Because this is a different kind of slippery slope."
The music boomed overhead again, and cut out to a less intense movement. The child's music-box returned, and the little girl's laughter filled the air. Viktor moved closer to his husband, even as the man was skating backwards, looking over his shoulder as though trying to find some way to escape. The Russian had his 'bloody' hands out, reaching for him in thrilling pursuit.
I'M COMING CLOSER...
Yuri was right at the rink-wall, hovering a few feet away from it, and twisting around to let the silver figure circle around him like a wolf. One red hand came out between them, and Viktor traced a finger across his husband's shoulder, around his back, moving to the other shoulder.
La lala lala lala lala lala lala...
He was in front of Yuri again, and he got right up into his space, grabbing both shoulders with both hands.
I WILL GET YOU.
Hand right hand went down the raven skater's arm, taking his hand and pulling him back out to the majority of the ice.
THE TIME...IT GOES...
They stopped. Yuri dug in his toe-picks, taking a short step forward with each lyric of the time.
Tick...tock...tick...tock...tick...
He stopped. Viktor pulled him back in hard, spinning the younger skater as he brought him close and locking his arms around the man's smaller frame, facing him.
...TOCK.
The song boomed again, and the intensity grew from an ebb to a roar. Viktor spun Yuri away to the ends of his reach, then pulled him back in again, switched hands and moved him out to the other side. One more pull inward, and they switched hands again as Yuri started to move around his partner in a circle. The younger skater started to tilt inward as the circling got faster, skates moving out as the Russian started to follow the turn, helping the descent.
Yuri could feel his hair brushing against the ice, but he held himself stiffly as he went around several times. He came up again as the intensity of the music waned again, and Viktor continued to hold to his hand as they started moving away in reverse. With the next boom, they let go, and vaulted into a split Flip.
ARE YOU...AFRAID OF THE DARK?