CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY SEVEN
ARE YOU SCARED?
The music started to rise again into a crescendo, the pair twizzling out of the split Flip before rounding the short end of the rink again, heading side-by-side back to center. As the beat became so fast that it was more like an audible strobe-light, Yuri scratched over a little, moving directly in front of his partner. Viktor moved in close behind, hands reaching for the man's waist, knees bent as Yuri's right foot extended back between the Russian's skates, getting ready...
I AM YOU.
BOOM
Viktor threw him straight up; the younger skater spun four times before coming back down again into his husband's waiting arms, getting set down gracefully to land on his right blade, left extended out behind him. He spun around and took his husband's hand again, crossing over together as the thrum of the beat went on. The music carried them into another step sequence, spinning and kicking out one leg or the other on each thump of the bass, spinning and bringing their arms up, perfectly in time with one another.
The music-box resounded again, and the tempo of the beat changed. The skaters single-Toe-Looped and then launched into a quad Salchow together on the Boom. As they landed, they twisted off again in another intense foot-work sequence. Halfway through the 'stanza,' they came back together again; Yuri had one hand gently on his husband's cheek as Viktor had both of his around the man's waist once more. The younger skater spun around a few times, their tandem-step-sequence keeping the audience members on the edge of their seats. The big finish was coming up.
Hazel eyes met slate blue, and Yuri readied himself, crossing one ankle across the other to turn back around as the music box echoed overhead. On the final thunderous thrum of the beat, Viktor threw him forward with all his strength. Yuri spun four times, landed, and quickly descended to his knees in one fluid motion, rotating several times as he came to a stop and the music overhead faded to silence.
The audience roared.
Viktor followed soon after, falling to one knee and sliding backwards right into him, completely neutralizing Yuri's attempt at a serious closer. As the younger skater fitfully tried to regain his balance, he sat back on his heels and looked down to see his husband comfortably resting his head on his knees, looking back at him.
Both were still out of breath from the show, but suddenly the whole thing was reduced to the smallest microcosm of the whole event.
Just you, and me, and the ice.
"Viktor..."
The Russian smiled warmly and propped one leg up onto the opposite knee where it was held up on the heel of his golden blades, and he reached his hands up to pull his husband's head down. The audience's cheering rose up in a new wave as they witnessed the unexpected kiss. Chants of 'Viktuuri' came up over the applause, just like they had at Four Continents when they'd first performed 'Duetto: Stay Close to Me.'
Mikhail joined the rising wave of hoots and hollers, putting two fingers to the corners of his mouth to add his own whistle to the clamor. He grabbed for the nearest spectator and pointed unashamedly at the ice, "That's my nephew and nephew-in-law out there!"
Yurio just pulled the hood of his sweater down even further, trying to avoid the embarrassment by association.
"THAT was intense!" The overhead announcer called, "Yuri and Viktor know how to put on a SHOW!"
The two skaters finally got back up to their feet, using each other as support while they started waving at the audience, reluctantly letting themselves be pulled out of their own little world.
"Trophée de France would like to thank every one of its athletes tonight! Let's have them all come out for a final curtain, okay!?"
Several other skaters started pouring out onto the ice after that, and when Chris came, he went straight for the pair, tossing an arm over each of them excitedly, "That'll teach me to trust in your level-headed descriptions about all your future pair skates, Yuri. You entirely let me down!"
The younger skater just smiled nervously, "Well..."
"Yuri doesn't know what it means to bring sexy back." Viktor taunted, winking at him from his side of the Swiss skater, "...But, maybe the answer is that we should take the average between our descriptions. I almost feel bad that the ice didn't actually melt."
"Oh, it melted well enough, don't you worry." Chris mused.
The two had a good laugh about it, much to Yuri's chagrin.
.
.
With all the excited adulation and congratulations, even from all the other skaters, it took Yuri and Viktor the better part of 30 minutes just to get into the changing area, let alone get to change into their Banquet ensembles. Chris had departed almost as soon as they got off the ice, having wanted to go back to his hotel room first rather than changing at the event and walking there in all his finery.
Yuri was busy washing the gel out of his hair at one of the large sinks when Viktor finally came back, decked out in a suit and vest as befit his taste. The Russian barely gave Yuri time to notice him before latching to his back, pressing in close from behind and wrapping his arms tightly around his smaller frame.
"You were really great out there." He purred, rubbing his cheek against the upper part of his husband's bare back, "We'll have to see about doing another pair skate soon."
The four or more love-bites on Yuri's neck were as obvious as the nose on his face, but he'd waited until the changing rooms were empty before he bothered risking their exposure. Proud of them as he was, it was still a little embarrassing to show them off to anyone but the man who'd put them there.
Warm water dripped in excess from where he'd been scooping it out of the sink and over his head, trickling down the sides of his face and neck where it didn't risk getting Viktor's suit wet, "We should think of one for the Final. We'll be able to practice it at the Ice Castle once we're done with NHK." Yuri suggested, reaching up to start pressing the water out of his hair, and then reached blindly for the towel on his right. Just as he could feel it, he also felt a not-so-subtle push from behind...and then another, "Viktor..." He blanched.
The Russian didn't say anything. He just pulled back, slid his hands from Yuri's chest to his waist, and spun him quickly around, looking deeply into those brown eyes as he pressed in hard from the front. He smiled and reached up to rustle the towel over the man's hair, turning it into a spiky mess before laughing to himself and sighing, "I know, I know... But mark my words, Yuri...one day, I will take you in the middle of an event."
"You already do that. At every event." Yuri raised a skeptical brow, "Sometimes multiple times a day."
"I don't mean in the hotel room." Viktor retorted, having thought the implication was obvious in itself. He reached up to boop the man's nose with a finger, and then moved to push him along to finish getting dressed, "Go on, I'll wait here. The sooner we go, the sooner we can get back, and I can have my way with you again."
Yuri's cheeks went pink, as they usually did, but he reached for his rolling suitcase with one hand before reaching with the other to set it on his husband's hip, "Post-conflict carnal urges?"
"A successful end to the unexpected Sophia Saga." The silver Russian replied, returning the gesture with a gentle hand on his partner's cheek. He kissed the man lightly, "I hope she saw every minute of us."
"Hm... Would I be a horrible person for saying I hope we never find out?"
"Not necessarily." Viktor laughed, kissing him quickly again while he could, and then turning to lean his back against the long multi-sink vanity as Yuri pulled away to go get his own suit on. When the younger man disappeared around a nearby corner, the Russian pulled out his phone and clicked it on to pass the time as he waited.
The memory of the 'news' article from earlier in the afternoon had been lost, and Viktor was all too happy to see Instagram awash with content from the Exhibition. People were already posting freshly-written bulletins about how he and Yuri had 'killed it' with their surprise show. He even found his new wallpaper image; a front-shot of a moment from the beginning of the show, where he'd been right up against his husband's back and had his hands clenched around Yuri's upper thighs. Viktor grinned proudly as he set it, and then clicked to his home-screen to admire it.
His mirth was abruptly interrupted by the sound of the door opening just to his left, and he lifted blue eyes to see emerald green looking back at him. Not one to act surprised, Viktor turned his gaze back to his phone and continued trolling through Instagram as though the teen hadn't shown up at all.
"Oh wow, what are you still doing here?" Mikhail's voice followed, forcing Viktor to lift his head again, especially after he felt the man sliding in to take the spot on the vanity ledge next to him, "I thought you'd left ages ago."
"Nyet, we were mobbed as we got off the ice at the end." The younger Russian explained, entirely ignoring Yurio as he passed in front of him with his own gear, "Yuri wanted to wash his hair anyway, but he didn't want to get all the way into the showers, so I agreed to wait for him so he could just use a sink instead." He looked at the time, "He should be up in a minute or two."
"Do you want me to drive you guys up to the other hotel? It'll be a tight fit with Minako, bu-"
"No." Viktor answered flatly.
"No? It's a long walk and it's getting colder." Mikhail was a bit surprised.
His nephew just clicked out of his phone and slipped it into the front of his long-coat's inside pocket, "We already planned on walking, so this is hardly a sacrifice." Viktor's left eye was obscured by his silvery bangs, but at least he made eye-contact with the teen in front of him with the other, "We'd rather not impose."
Yurio just sneered, and let his better judgment get away from him, "You have something to say, old man?"
Mikhail smacked his face so hard he thought he'd given himself a bloody nose.
"A dog doesn't concern himself with the opinions of fleas." Viktor retorted coldly, "Unless those fleas are about to issue an apology, anyway."
"I'm not apologizing for shit. You brought this onto yourself." The blond snarled, "You're so fucking blinded by your own self-pity that you don't even realize the position you're putting everyone else into!"
"Yuratchka-" Mikhail tried to quench the blaze before it got too hot, but he felt Viktor's hand come out in front of him, stopping him from where he'd tried to push off the ledge.
"My own self-pity?" Viktor echoed, "How about you try to check yourself? The world doesn't revolve around you and you your massive ego."
Yuri's ears perked from where he was buttoning up his black dress-shirt, eyes turning a little in the direction the voices were coming from.
"See!? There you go again!" The teen barked, "This isn't about me. It's about how you negatively impact him, and how that impacts everyone else." He gestured away from the two silver Russians, knowing Yuri was somewhere nearby.
Both men gawked at him in confusion.
"He goes where you go, and he always does what you tell him to! He even said so himself!" Yurio went on, "That if I happen to piss you off just enough, and apparently it's not that fucking hard anymore, and you ditch me? He'll ditch me, too."
"Well, I don't know what to tell you then. All that's part and parcel to the fact that we-"
"I SWEAR TO CHRIST IF YOU PEOPLE REMIND ME ONE MORE TIME THAT YOU'RE MARRIED I'M GOING TO FUCKING LOSE IT."
Mikhail side-eyed his nephew, not sure how to interrupt the whole thing. He decided against trying, and pushed off the ledge to go find the missing member of the quartet. Neither of the remaining two seemed to notice him leaving.
"Maybe you should stop trying so hard to make me mad then." Viktor pointed out, "Because it sometimes seems like you're going out on a limb in the attempt."
"I wasn't trying to piss you off, I was trying to protect him from your shitty choices!"
"So this all really does boil down to how you're angry that I did that interview during your Free Skate."
"You're just like your goddamn uncle! Stop oversimplifying me!" The blonde snapped, causing Viktor to glower at him rather darkly, "It's just like I already said, you're too self-absorbed to realize how your pity party is impacting others. Don't you know how much it meant to me that Yuri was going to watch my show!? Did it even occur to you that it would hurt me when he left to go with you instead!?"
Yuri had moved to sitting on the small bench inside the changing stall, his blazer pulled over the top of his head. Mikhail was just a few feet away, looking down the short corridor of half-open curtain doors, looking for the one that was fully pulled over.
"I already told you that he wanted to sta-"
"SHUT UP." Yurio screamed, the first hint of tears in his eyes.
Mikhail stood just behind the curtain, "Yuri? You in this one?" He asked quietly, though not getting an answer. He drew a quick breath and squeaked a finger under the fabric, pulling it back just enough to see if there was a human in the stall, but not enough to see what it was doing; he spotted the trembling black mass just within, "Yuri..."
"You're not making any sense." Viktor growled, "There's plenty of occasions where we've all missed the shows our friends have put on. Why are you suddenly so worked up about Yuri missing one now?"
"It's my first set of events since Yuri got me reinstated on the Russian team, idiot!" Yurio snapped, "After all the shit that happened last year with my grandpa, and Worlds...I wanted him to see how hard I worked to do everything right, and show him that helping me wasn't a waste of time!" A few droplets fell from his eyes as he shook his head angrily, "He'd already seen my Short Program at your damned wedding party, but this was different! These were my only two shots to get into the Final and redeem myself."
Yuri cringed to hear the words, and Mikhail saw the twitch. He quickly moved into the small space and set his right hand gently on the back of the younger man's shoulders, "Yuri, don't listen to them-"
Viktor was taken aback, but then his brow furrowed and he looked at the teen with an incredulous expression on his face, "...Are you in love with him?"
The snarl he got in response would've made the biggest tiger in Siberia tremble, "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?"
From under the blazer, it was difficult for the elder Russian to see what Yuri's condition was, but when the teen screamed, the coat opened a little, and he could see it all too clearly. Yuri had his hands over his face, his eyes barely visible through where his fingers parted over them, and he was numb, looking blankly straight ahead.
Yurio's fists were balled up so tightly that if his fingernails were any longer, he'd like to cut his own skin on them, "HE SAID THAT HIS ANXIETY GOES AWAY BECAUSE YOU HUG HIM, SO HE STARTED DOING THE SAME THING FOR ME TO MAKE MY ANGER GO AWAY. BUT BECAUSE OF YOU, BECAUSE YOU'RE TIED TO HIS FUCKING HIP, I HAVEN'T GOTTEN A SINGLE MOMENT ALONE WITH HIM SINCE HE TALKED TO ME AT THE AIRPORT IN FUCKING HELSINKI." The teen unleashed, "DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO DEAL WITH THAT? TO REALIZE THAT THE PERSON WHO GOT ME BACK ON MY FEET AGAIN IS COMPLETELY INACCESSIBLE!? THAT ANY INTERACTION I GET WITH HIM IS CONDITIONAL ON YOU BEING THERE, TOO, AND IF YOU'RE NOT, THEN HE ISN'T!?"
Mikhail saw the tears starting to fall, even as Yuri did his best to contain them behind his hands. The young skater lowered his face into his palms, his ragged breaths giving him away. The Russian was quick to get down on one knee and pull the figure to his shoulder, but all that did was temporarily stifle the sound of Yuri's agony.
"I helped him get you and your shit back to the hotel after your run-in with that ex of yours, and for a fleeting moment, I thought I was important. I thought I actually meant something to him. That I wasn't just some burden, some kid to be taken care of or babysat. And then YOU brought all that crashing down! You made me realize exactly how in-fucking-significant I really am, EVEN TO HIM."
"He doesn't think you're insignificant." Viktor pointed out, "But he can't be in two places at once and he was genuinely torn over what to do. If not for the fact that I'd reacted so badly to seeing Sophia, Yuri wouldn't have hesitated to stay and watch you. But we can't choose the cards we're dealt and he had to pick the thing he thought was more important. Your Free Skate was already half-over by the time he decided to go with me. We both thought it'd look disingenuous if he went back at that point."
Yuri had suddenly appeared from behind the corner, and though Mikhail tried to stop him, the skater shrugged him off. Viktor lifted his head, a worried look on his face, and Yurio turned around when he saw it.
"I can't believe you guys." The Asian skater said through shaky breaths, tears still wet on his skin, "How long are we going to fight about this!?" He glanced between them, giving each one a deliberate stare, but settling on the blonde directly in front of him, "If it's that important that I spend time with you then I will! I didn't know it was that big of a deal to you! I'll do whatever you want!"
"Yuri-" Viktor started, taking half a step forward before he saw his husband's hand come up to make him stop. He grit his teeth and went quiet.
Yurio just continued to glare.
"I never meant to make you think I didn't care. I just...thought you were strong enough to do this on your own again." Yuri explained, "You've always been stronger than me, and you gave this impression like you were ready to take the world by the horns again like you used to. Everything had fallen so well into place, and your skating had gotten so good again...I just...I thought I'd get in your way if I stuck around..." His voice was starting to crack under the pressure, the last few words coming out half-sobbed.
Emerald eyes looked down and away, and the teen tightened into himself, pulling his hands up to hold his elbows.
Viktor pushed passed him, desperately wanting to comfort his partner, only to find the man hold up his arm defensively to keep him from doing so. The Russian was stunned, "Y-Yuri...?"
"If I let you hold me then I'll just keep crying and never get this out." He explained through his tears, turning his eyes back to the teen, "Yuri... I once told Viktor, under these same sort of circumstances, that he didn't need to tell me anything...all he had to do was stand by me, and believe more than I did that I could win." He reached his arm up to rub his eyes on his sleeve, though it didn't help much, "But you and I are completely different kinds of people...and what works for me might not work for you..."
Yurio's own sleeve came up to rub his face, though he tried to look inconspicuous about it, turning his head away to make it look like he was just scratching his nose instead.
"And you've changed so much over the last year...the kind of person you used to be would kick me in the head for even getting near you, yet now you get mad at me if I don't..." Yuri went on, "I don't know what you need from me..."
For the teen, that was easy enough, but for Viktor, it was hard to watch. He still hadn't forgiven Yurio for the words he'd chosen to use as a ballistic missile earlier in the day, so letting him touch his husband was hardest thing he'd had to do since choosing not to dropkick the teen off the podium. But since Yuri had asked for it, Viktor grudgingly allowed the hug, even if it lasted much longer than he was comfortable with at that moment.
"I want you to keep doing what you were doing before..." Yurio finally said, unclenching his fingers from the back of Yuri's dress-shirt, but keeping his eyes low as he pulled away, "And don't stop just because I look like I know what I'm doing."
Admitting that he was faking it half the time was a bit beyond the teen's capabilities, but he hoped Yuri got the message even if it went unspoken. It seemed to work, because the older skater nodded, snuffling and reaching up again to wipe his eyes.
"Then I just...need one thing from you in return." Yuri said, his throat raw.
The blonde looked at him curiously, a pit in his stomach growing suddenly.
"Apologize to Viktor for what you said earlier." The older figure said squarely, "Even if the message was on point...you had no right to use the words you did to get it across."
Mikhail and Viktor side-eyed each other, surprised to hear it, and then looked to Yurio for his response.
The teen was noticeably apprehensive. He drew in a breath, chancing a glance at the older skater, but finding a dubious stare coming back at him. It was clear that he knew a forced apology would be unacceptable, so he shook his head and looked at the man straight-on, "Hurt me however you want to make this better."
Viktor gawked at him, "...You want me to hit you?"
"I'll accept whatever punishment you deem appropriate for what I said. Saying sorry won't cut it, not like this, not right now." Yurio said flatly, "So..."
Yuri's eyes widened when he saw his husband make good on the offer as quickly as he did, stepping side-face to extend his hand and set his fingers nail-side directly on Yurio's cheek, and then bring it back to wind up the strike. Yurio clenched his eyes shut, but withdrew the hood over his head to give him a clean angle, and both Yuri and Mikhail stopped breathing as they watched, neither of them sure if they were really seeing what was happening.
Viktor wasted no time, and swung hard...
.
.
...and stopped half an inch from the teen's skin. Instead of smacking him clean in the mouth, which he felt the youth no-doubtedly deserved, he just turned his hand and flicked the top of his ear with his middle finger, and then walked right past him.
"Let's go. I'm hungry."