CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTY NINE

BREEP...BREEP...BREEP...

The still-sleepy old-timer opened one bleary eye as his phone alarm went off where it was charging, face down, on the night-stand just in front of him. He unfolded his left arm from where it was nestled under his head and the pillow beneath it, and reached for the device. He grabbed it and pulled until the charge-cable clicked free, and then rolled onto his back.

Sort of.

Grey-green eyes turned suddenly to the side, the man's shoulder having hit something he hadn't expected to be there. A mound of blankets, wrapped like a cocoon around a particular restless figure within.

Mikhail drew in a hissed breath through flared nostrils, annoyed as all get-out as he pushed to his elbows and further to sit fully upright. In the time it took to finally turn off his phone's alarm though, he saw the big pile cringe a little, and his irritation turned to pity. One eyebrow raised skeptically as the older man wondered if the younger had woken up within the protective layers.

"Viktor."

Nothing.

"Hm." Mikhail scratched the side of his head, then finally shrugged and got up from his side of the bed. A brief and lazy stretch, interrupted by a slight twinge in his back, and the elder Russian shuffled out of the room. By the time he'd showered, dressed, and returned...the blanket-burrito had retreated. It hadn't gone far though, only into the living-room at the end of the hall...and not even onto the couch, but into the foot-space between it and the glass-top coffee table. The Russian crossed his arms where he stood, still holding to hid phone, but then flipped it up to look at it and unlocked the device. He clicked into the World Clock app and saw the times...7:49am for Moscow...1:49pm for Tokyo. For a moment, he considered calling his nephew's spouse, thinking Yuri might be able to convince the man to get his act together...but then he thought better of it.

It'll just make Yuri worry even more. Plus, he's probably still asleep right now...

"C'mon, Vivi..." Mikhail said, stepping closer to nudge Viktor's feet where they were barely poking out of the blanket, "The sooner you get ready, the sooner we can leave and get this whole thing over with."

Those pale feet just withdrew into the covers until they were out of sight again.

Sighing, Mikhail retreated to the kitchen. With any luck, maybe the smell of coffee would perk his nephew up. The television came on a moment later as he clicked the remote where he'd left it on the bar the night before, shuffling through various channels until settling on some local news. Grey-green eyes keyed in on the weather, huffing a quiet sigh of relief to see that the area north of St. Petersburg wouldn't be in any sort of snow-storm while they were in the area. As he was looking at the huge flat-panel, he caught sight of the blanket-heap rising up from the space beyond the edge of the couch, slithering on top of it and creating a nest of sorts in the corner. For a split second, he even saw the briefest glimpse of silver-grey hair sneaking out from the top of the pile, only to be covered over again a moment later.

"Looks like it's going to be decent out there today, Vivi." Mikhail said casually, turning his attention back to the espresso grinder he'd been pouring beans into a moment before, "I was worried your little adventure would get side-lined."

No answer...so he flicked the switch on the bottom of the little machine and let the beans be ground into fine powder. As the machine finished and shut down again, the elder Russian reached for two tiny ceramic cups from the cupboard above, scooped the espresso powder into the machine that would brew it, and placed the two small cups under the spouts in its front. Before letting the espresso brew though, Mikhail grabbed some heavy cream from the refrigerator behind him and poured the cups half-full with it; maybe just over an ounce each. He grabbed two small spoons after that and, holding them curve-up with one hand over each cup, flicked the switch with the other and watched as the caramel-colored liquid started to sputter out. The streams struck the top of the spoons, and spilled gently over the sides. With the hot espresso sitting just on top of the cream, he set the two spoons in the sink and took the cups out to the living-room.

"Vivi. Coffee." He said quietly, "I made it special and it goes bad fast. Five seconds till I drink them both."

The blanket moved aside rather quickly after that, and Mikhail gaped at the pale, clammy figure that reached out from underneath of it, taking the cup from where it was hooked to his finger. He was almost too stunned at the sight of his nephew to remember to drink his own creation, simply watching as Viktor downed his in one swig before hanging the little cup from the same finger it had just been taken from. It was only then that the elder regained some presence of mind and remembered to drink his cup as well, "Yeesh, you look absolutely wretched."

"...Please...don't be mad...at me..." Viktor said weakly, slumping back into the blanket pile after that, only to slide down the back-rest of the couch onto his side. If the dark circles under his eyes gave no indication of how miserable he felt, then the fact that he was sweating despite looking severely chilled gave him away.

A pang of worry went through the older man, and he stepped around the corner of the couch to set his wrist against his nephew's forehead, "You're burning up. Forget about seeing your father, you need to see a doctor."

"...I have to go..." The younger Russian insisted, twisting his head to get away from the wrist, "I'll just keep getting worse until I deal with this."

Mikhail sighed and went back to the kitchen, replacing the cups with a cold cloth, then returned and put it where his wrist had been a moment before, "What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this trip? You had zero obvious desire to go back after the last time. Why do you suddenly want to go now? What about Konstantin can't wait until after the Final, when you're going to be back here for Nationals anyway?"

Slate-blue eyes just looked at him, "I'm not going for him. It doesn't even matter if he's there." Viktor tried to explain, "I'm going...to make peace with her."

"Oh." Mikhail said flatly, though a little surprised, taking a seat on the end, just past where his nephew's head had come to rest, "I thought you did that already...when you stayed in the cemetery for a few minutes after Kon left."

"I said some words." The younger silver grumbled weakly, eyes a bit sunken from lack of sleep, "But back then, I'd still refused to let myself remember what I was even there for. Now..." He reached up from under the folds of the blanket and unraveled the cold cloth against his skin, pressing it against his whole face before putting it against the back of his neck instead and closing his eyes, "...Every time I dream, I see her face... I'm remembering all these things that I made myself forget about before, so I could move on."

"Vivi..."

"It's gotten so much worse since I got on the plane." He went on, "Ever since I set my mind to the fact that I was coming here... Ever since I said 'I'm going to Uncle Mimi's house,' it's been nothing but flashbacks since the last time I'd done so on the day you left."

Mikhail wasn't sure what to say. He already knew about the earlier dream his nephew had mentioned, but with this new context, he just felt even more guilty than he'd been already.

"I can't sleep anymore. Every time I close my eyes and nod off, it's another memory forcing itself from the recesses of my mind. It happened a little bit, back before Worlds...when you texted Yuri your congratulations on his and my finally getting married... I remembered the moment my father hit me. That was the last time I ever saw him, before the funeral, and the last time I ever saw her." Viktor explained, suddenly feeling a few bitter tears in his eyes, though he brushed them away before his uncle could see, "I told Yuri I didn't want to remember...and being with him kept the memories away. But with everything that happened this weekend, and coming back to Russia, leaving Yuri to go on to Japan without me... It's like I set myself up. Now it's all I can think about. She's haunting me."

"You were supposed to leave your grief at the grave." Mikhail said, his tone more sober and understanding than before, "Though, I guess you didn't really feel any back then. After being gone and out of contact for so long, you probably felt like the whole thing was just a chore."

Viktor stayed silent, feeling a sense of finality with the way the older man was putting things together.

"When was the last time you even spoke to your mother?"

"When I was 18. My second year in the Senior Division." He answered, "Though it had been two years since we last spoke before that." He paused for a moment, reluctantly thinking back on that day, "She'd sent a post-card to the ISU after I'd won gold at Skate America, and the ISU forwarded it to Yakov, who gave it to me. I called home a few days after, not really sure what to say to her. The first time though, Konstantin answered, so I hung up without saying anything. I forgot about it for a little bit...went to NHK and won silver, securing my spot in the Final. When I got back to Russia though, I saw the postcard again and decided to try calling one more time...she answered that time. The conversation was tense and distant. I'd mention the skating and she'd avoid it, but eventually she said that she'd seen photos of my shows in the newspaper, and that she liked my outfits. The next thing I knew, I could hear my father screaming in the background about...all of it."

"What do you mean?"

Viktor pushed up a little, trying to sit normally, keeping a hand on the cloth so it wouldn't fall from its place around the back of his neck, "He made fun of my long hair. He raged about how he was right, that his son had died when I left, that I'd been reborn as a freak... That soon, I'd be sleeping with men for money, and the whole family would be shamed for it." He said with dead eyes, staring straight ahead to where his knees peaked under the blanket, "'This is what I've been saying would happen all along,' I heard him yelling, 'Viktor ran away from home to go skate, and now he's an abomination in the sight of God. He wears his hair long and dresses like a woman, shaming the place God made for him as a man.'"

"...You didn't cut your hair after that because of him, did you?" Mikhail wondered suddenly, "I can't remember when I noticed the change in the photos...but you were older..."

"No." He shook his head slightly, "I trimmed it back a little a year after, but I cut it short like this only after Sophia left me." The silver Russian paused a moment, then looked down even more, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, "I did something even worse."

"...I wouldn't really consider a haircut to be a bad thing." The older man said flatly, not really understanding where the point was going.

Viktor continued to look like he felt he'd committed a crime, keeping his eyes low, hidden behind where his bangs lay messy over his face, "I was so angry over what Konstantin had said, that when I got to the Final, I..." He started, drawing in a ragged breath, "I took advantage of a lady Ice Dancer who was nice to me."

"...You did...what?"

"Do I really have to spell it out?" Viktor asked stiffly, turning his head slightly to peek past his hair, "I was a horrible person. I was angry and I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't a freak like my father thought." He looked away again, "Because of my focus on the sport, and all the home-schooling Yakov put me through, I'd never been with anyone before...but I made sure to be with her. I snuck off with her any chance I got, trying to gain her trust...her skating partner realized it and they started to argue. I wasn't leaving without getting what I wanted though, and I got it right before the Exhibition. We went at it like animals in heat, and I went out on the ice an hour later...but she and her partner got into a huge fight about it and ended up having to cancel their own Gala program. He tried to confront me in the prep area, but I put on that sweet, innocent face again and went about my business like nothing had happened... She was just a means to an end, and I felt like I'd been able to prove a point. The arrogant superiority-complex I'd had about it lasted only until the plane landed in Moscow though. By the time the team got back to St. Petersburg on the train, I felt like I'd just barely gotten away with murder. I swore I'd never take advantage of someone like that again...so when I met Sophia 2 years later, I took it really seriously. Maybe...I took it too seriously...or maybe she didn't...since she threw me out as soon as the going got tough. I was devastated for a long time after...it ruined the rest of my season." He half-slid down the couch again, the blanket rising up past his shoulders as he slipped back into it, and pulled it over himself a little more tightly, "It was just me and my dog for a while after that...Kubochin...and then he died in the off-period between Nationals and Euros..." He sighed quietly to himself, remembering the big brown woofer, "I was still a bit depressed when I got there, and met this fan as I went to the rink for the Official Practice. I guess I was craving attention or something, so I got involved with her. She'd be really sweet and affectionate when we'd get together at events, since she was from America and would go back home after...but as soon as we went back to long-distance status, she'd get controlling. I put up with it through Worlds, went to visit her once over the summer...she found a poodle puppy that looked just like my old dog; I named him Makkachin. I took him back to Russia, then she came to visit me there in the fall, and then the GP Series started again. We met back up at Skate Canada, but she couldn't make it to Skate America, even though it was in Oregon and she was only a few hours away in Washington State. I don't even remember what the reason was. All I remember is her FaceTime Freak-Out where she tried to tell me I shouldn't talk to fans while she wasn't there. I'd had it up to my eyeballs by then and cut her off. No one tells me when, where, how, and least of not whether I'm allowed to interact with my fans."

Mikhail nodded as he listened, "Does Yuri know all that?"

"Huh?" Viktor looked at him, a bit surprised, "Sort of. He knows the general timeline of my past relationships, and he knows where Makkachin came into things, but he didn't want any details. That's twice he's cut me off while I'm trying to tell him about my past." He held up two fingers for emphasis.

"Your past and your past girlfriends are very different topics. One makes him uncomfortable, the other doesn't." The elder pointed out, "If you're trying to figure out clever ways of avoiding the topic with him later, this wasn't the best attempt."

"So I don't get to avoid the topic when it makes me uncomfortable?" The younger silver said flatly, "That's not fair."

"I'm trying to convince you to talk to him about where you come from because as your spouse, he deserves to know what made you who you are. You've also told me about all this by now, so why not him?"

"You're different. You grew up in the same place I did. You already know all the people, places, context...I don't have to explain it all. I just tell you what happened." Viktor pointed out, pulling the cloth off his neck to rub it against his forehead, leaving it there and sighing, "The sooner I can get all this out of me, and put it behind me again, the better. I want to go back to Yuri feeling like I did before all this happened. I don't want him to get hurt again."

"All you're doing is cutting him out of a situation where he feels like he should be able to support you." Mikhail said grimly, "Yuri isn't stupid or oblivious. He knows you're struggling. But if he knows how you've been with those women, then he's probably also terrified that if he pushes too hard to get involved, you'll just push him away...maybe permanently, just like the fangirl who was too controlling."

Viktor kept his sights low. His chest felt tight as the words sunk in, and his heart hurt. He lowered the cloth from where he'd held it to his forehead and put it over his eyes instead, hiding them where he knew they'd give away his fear.

"Don't sideline him while you fight this battle alone. It's not going to be over just because you go to Tatiyana's grave and mutter some things in front of a statue." The older man's words cut like knives, "She's dead and gone, and you know she won't hear a word you say. You're only going there to admit to yourself that you were a jerk for cutting her out of your life, just like you've done with everyone else whose love stopped being easy to maintain." He paused for a moment, feeling like a massive hypocrite given how he'd done the exact same thing not too long ago, even showing videos of skating events to that self-same statue. But as long as Viktor didn't know about it, it didn't matter, "You could just admit it right here and now, and save us the trip...but you've already made up your mind that we're going, so we will."

The younger Russian just growled at him as he lifted his head, "I can kind of tell you're trying to offer advice...but you're really just being cruel now."

"No crueler than you've been to your own husband at the best of times." Mikhail threw back, pushing to stand, and walking slowly behind the couch, "Telling him you'd cut your losses and leave if he didn't get on the podium last year, refusing to tell him what he should know about your past, sidelining him when he wants to be in the fight with you while you deal with that past."

"I'm just trying to protect him."

"From who? Konstantin? Or you?"

Viktor's eyes were wide as he gawked at his uncle. He couldn't even muster the strength to react when he felt the washcloth being swiped from his hands as the man stepped back into the kitchen with it.

"You're not a bad person, Vivi." Mikhail explained, wringing the cloth out under the faucet and making it clean and cold again, "You're dealing with a situation that caused you a lot of pain and suffering when you were younger, and I understand that you don't want to put Yuri through that same Hell. You escaped from the worst of it and made something of yourself in spite of it, made mistakes along the way, hopefully learned from them, and met and married the love of your young life. I entirely understand that you want to protect that at all costs. But telling me about it isn't going to help you heal and move on. I know what you went through because I went through part of it in my own way, too, like you said. Sometimes though, the only way you can get past it is to share the burden with someone who isn't already weighed down by their own part in it."

Viktor could practically hear the echo of those very words in Yuri's voice. It made his heart hurt even more to truly realize that he had never actually made the effort to do anything about it.

I've let him participate in a few things, and regretted it every time. I thought if I could keep him ignorant of the rest, I wouldn't regret at least that much. Now it just feels like I'm making a mistake no matter what I do...

"You know...in a lot of ways..." Mikhail said, getting the skater's attention again, "Even though you've gotten bigger, you're still that same poor kid that fell in the mud as you chased after my car. I've carried the guilt of that ever since. I've tried to make peace with it by reconnecting with you when I saw I had the chance, but it's still a work in progress." He stepped back into the living-room and squished the cold cloth against Viktor's forehead again, pushing him back down into the corner of the L-couch, "I expect I'll be sorting through the fallout of that proverbial Armageddon for a long time. The same goes for you. Apologizing to your mother's grave is a well-intentioned first step, and if it helps you somehow, then great. But I promise...telling Yuri will do you a lot more good than telling the face of a stone angel."

Viktor nodded, and felt as Mikhail withdrew his hand, leaving the cloth to cool his skin unaided.

"Now...it's going to be a long day, so I'm going to make breakfast. We'll eat, you'll shower and get dressed, and we'll be off." The elder said, resting his hands on the stiff back of the couch, "And once we're on our way, you should try to get some actual sleep. You'll get what you need out of having another warm body close by, and I won't have another heart attack from finding another man in my bed again. Deal?"

Blue eyes raised to green, and again, Viktor nodded, feeling a little embarrassed. He felt a hand come down on top of his head, mussing up his hair a bit before withdrawing again.

"Good."