CHAPTER THREE HUNDRED TWO
By the morning, and with the sound of Yuri's phone going off to the alarm he'd set, nerves had settled a little and it wasn't as difficult a chore to wake up as one might have worried. Yuri rolled to the right to fumble for the device, pulling it from the charger and looking blearily at the time before clicking out of the beeping window and setting it down again to yawn and stretch. By the time his taut frame relaxed again, a pale hand was already roaming over him, and silver hair was tickling his skin where a pair of lips was trying to get at his neck. The prod from behind was as obvious as it had ever been, with each of their frames' nightly unconscious 'practice' leaving them both standing at attention...but Yuri still had a clearer head.
"...Viktor...we can't right now..."
The Russian practically snorted in stunned horror, eyes wide open as he pushed up onto an elbow like he could hardly believe those words had been uttered, about to demand a cranky explanation...but from that risen vantage, he spotted the slow rousing of the two late-night ladies on the floor just behind his husband's side of the bed.
He narrowed his eyes behind those silver bangs and collapsed with grit teeth to his spot in the sheets again, pressing his face tightly to his husband's upper back, "...If one person says 'good morning' to me today after it's started like this..."
"Try not to get so worked up. You've only been awake for like 15 seconds."
"And that's all it took to remind me of how cranky I was last night."
"Shh." Yuri twisted in his partner's grasp, wedging his left arm under the man's neck while the other went over the other side, and kissed that pale forehead before hugging the Russian close. He could feel his partner bristling even in that hug, and it took a good few seconds before he felt the reluctant exhale and that tight frame start to relax again, but eventually it did, and Yuri just held on, rubbing his thumb back and forth where it brushed against his spouse's hair.
Just before he had turned over, Yuri had spotted the two older women quietly getting their things together, and by the time his attempt to soothe his husband had started to show results, he caught sight of the duo walking past the end of the bed. He turned his face slightly, keeping the Russian's wedged firmly against his left shoulder where the man wouldn't see what was going on, and waved the two by, saying nothing, but nudging his head towards his phone as though to say he'd text them later.
Minako mouthed the words that they'd just go downstairs, and Yuri nodded. The pair left quickly after that, their blankets folded neatly and set with their borrowed pillows on top of the mattress, and the door unlocked, opened, and closed as silently as was humanly possible.
When it clicked shut, Yuri released his partner's head, "There, now we can if you want...?"
The Russian just grumbled, "...I lost it."
.
The tray of empty plates and wine glasses was set outside the door on the hallway floor, and Yuri dusted his hands as he rose back up to his normal height. He looked up as Viktor came out, dragging their shared rolling suitcase along, with all its poodle stickers, past travel bands, and [I HEART HASETSU] labels, and reached to make sure the door latched properly. He reached forward to help unburden the silver legend of the jackets that he had tucked under an arm, as well as the scarves draped around his neck, and put them both around his own as they began to step down the hall towards the elevators.
A few other competitors and coaches were in the hall as well, but none from the Men's Singles event were on their same floor, so most were unfamiliar faces from different disciplines. Viktor kept his crankiness in check as well as he could, burying his attention into his phone and taking the chance that Instagram would have good news to help cheer him up. As they waited for the elevators to come up though, he saw the small window of a text message coming down from the top of his phone's screen. Cyrillic text greeted him, and he quietly nudged his husband's shoulder, clicking into that message pane and showing it to his partner.
"It's Yurio. He wants to know if Otabek can come with us for the drive to the arena." He whispered.
Yuri pulled his own phone out of his back pocket, and thumbed through the security screen to get to his own last message he'd had with the teen, "It's fine with me if it's fine with you."
"If it's fine with you then it's fine with me."
"Hai." The younger skater quickly typed a short message, [If you guys want to meet us in the restaurant, we were going to hit the buffet before we leave. We can all leave together from there.]
[...Oh, hey Yuri. Was I...supposed to message YOU about this?] The Russian Tiger answered, clearly confused.
He showed the reply to Viktor, who quickly typed a message of his own in Cyrillic again, [Ыури отвечает]
There was a palpable pause in the reply to that, as the 'Seen' notification on Viktor's screen was present for a good few seconds before anything else happened. Eventually though, the three jumping dots arose and Yuri waited for the answer on his own phone, [So I have to message you about everything now?]
[If you need something from US, yeah. If you need something from HIM, it depends.] Yuri typed, [Best to just send everything to me for the time being. Viktor's kind of cranky.]
[How come?]
[I mean, why is he cranky, not why do I have to go through you to get to him...I got that]
[Minako and my sister showed up late last night when we were trying to sleep, looking for somewhere to stay. He wasn't thrilled about it.]
The elevator arrival ding'd through the small hall, and the six-or-so people who were waiting to board shuffled forward, waiting for the two who were already in the carriage to depart before piling in. Yuri pressed himself into the corner, and Viktor leaned against him.
[WOW they came all the way HERE?] Yurio answered quickly, [Nikki was texting me about how the old man wanted to call it an early night, but I didn't think anyone had actually LEFT]
[They're both still here. I messaged them just before we came out of the room so they'll be eating with us, too, but after that they're on their own]
[Вас понял]
Yuri quirked a brow at that, and showed the message to his partner, "What is this?"
Viktor turned his eyes and looked at it, "Oh...'Vas ponjal.' It's like the Russian version of 'Roger that.'"
The younger figure went back to typing, [Ok, we'll see you two in a few minutes then] He closed the screen down and put his phone into his back pocket again, reaching to take his partner's hand as the doors opened and people starting moving out. The duo held back though, not meaning to get out on that level, and waited for the doors to close again. When the glossy panels moved aside a second time, the parking garage was ahead of them, and they stepped through, moving off to find their rental.
Yuri rubbed a thumb across his partner's loosely-held fingers, "You going to be alright...?"
"We'll need to stop at a bank or something so I can get money out." The Russian answered oddly, "I need to pay my way into the Exhibition again."
"Ah, yeah, that's fine." The younger man answered, spotting the vehicle just up the tilted roadway of the parking garage.
Viktor paused a moment to fish the key fob from his pocket, and clicked on it to turn off the alarm and pop the trunk before putting it away again, and reached for the telescoping handle of the rolling suitcase. The sound of the wheels echoed through the concrete halls, barely heard over the sound of traffic outside, and a few cars elsewhere in the building. They stepped up to the car and put their gear within, and with the trunk closed, Yuri offered the man his jacket.
When Viktor took it though, expecting the scarf to come next, he found it looped over the top of his head and pulled gently tight around the back of his neck. Yuri pulled him closer as he himself took a step forward as well, letting the scarf go then to wrap arms around his sides.
"I'm going to keep doing this until you cheer up a little." The shorter man said, hands flat around his husband's back.
"That'll just encourage me to pretend to be cranky even when you've succeeded." The silver legend answered, sliding his own arms over his partner's shoulders to return the hug.
"But you know just as well as I do that as soon as you see Minako-sensei and Mari-nee-san again, you're going to get irritable."
"They ruined our morning ritual."
"We don't even do that every morning though."
"When don't we make love in the morning?" The Russian retorted, pulling back a bit to look at his husband squarely, though keeping his arms where they were over those shoulders.
"When one of us is up way earlier than the other, among other times."
"Usually those 'other times' have reasons. When we're just in bed and the alarm wakes us up at the same time though..."
"We made love four times yesterday."
"...I think you meant to say that we made love only four times yesterday." Viktor pouted.
Yuri huffed a laugh, but lifted up a bit onto the toes of his sneakers and offered what he could, closing his eyes as he pressed his lips to his partner's. After a few seconds, he pulled back a little...not far enough to lose contact though, and gave a second kiss for good measure, "I'll make it up to you after the Exhibition."
"Really~!?"
"...If you can make it through breakfast without throwing shade at Minako-sensei and my sister."
"I have nothing against your sister."
"They sit together and I don't know if Mari-nee-chan is aware of why you're irritated."
"Showing up at our door at 2am wasn't enough...?"
"Do you really think you'd have been so upset if there wasn't a familiar reason for it though? One that you nearly clocked your uncle for on Friday?"
The Russian paused, but then made a comical face, "I guess not." He shrugged and pulled out of the hug, reaching to find his spouse's hand again like before and started moving towards the elevators, "If the only option I had was sleeping in the same bed as Mikhail, given the mood he's in, I wouldn't want to either. I tried before. Even when he's in a good mood, it's precarious at best."
Yuri blinked, but then gave his husband quite the look, "When and why were you ever trying to sleep with Mikhail...?"
Viktor managed a laugh, "It was when I went back to get him before NHK. I haven't slept alone in years...if I'm not with you then I'm with Makkachin. But I had neither at Mikhail's condo in Moscow, and given that I was catching a fever and having screwy nightmares...I was desperate for something. I was hopelessly unable to fall asleep, being in that huge bed all alone. I needed some warm body nearby." He offered.
"That just sounds weird."
"It's not like I tried to cuddle him." The Russian huffed, "I tried to at least be close enough that I could tell he was there, but I had my back to him. He kicked me off the bed a bunch of times anyway so it wasn't exactly easy for me."
"...How much sleep did you actually get while you were back in Russia?"
The two waited for the elevator to come down and get them.
"Not a whole lot." Viktor answered, "Between my fevers and everything else that happened, I think I was getting by on a couple naps."
"No wonder you were so squirrely when you got to Sapporo."
"Oh if only you could've seen me while I was still in my hometown... You'd never let me go anywhere alone again."
"You're starting to give me palpitations about letting you go to Nationals."
The chrome-plated doors started to open, and after three people came out, the pair went in, hitting the button to go up to the main level.
"I'm sure Nationals will be fine." Viktor insisted.
"That's what we've both thought about every event we were going to, and then each event got progressively worse. The idea that Nationals somehow won't follow this same pattern is unlikely."
"What else could go wrong though?" The Russian wondered, "We've sorted things out with Yurio, so he's fine. It's just the Russian crowd back home, too, and I'm pretty popular there."
"Given how the RSF has treated us this weekend, and the fact that Minako-sensei has bailed on being there with Mikhail...? And what if your father decides he wants to watch a home-game and turns up?"
Viktor had his mouth open and a finger up as though he were about to respond...but then closed one and lowered the other, leaning against the glossy metal wall, "...Touché." He then threw his arms over his partner's shoulders from behind and nuzzled in close adoringly, "Whoever thought in a million years that I'd say I prefer the company of my papa over everyone else around at the time?"
"You think you'd actually want him to be there...?" Yuri was stunned.
The elevators opened again and the pair spilled out into the lobby area, looking around for the signs to the restaurant.
"Well, I told him he should come." The Russian explained, "Back at NHK after everything started working out. He said he'd consider it. If he actually did come, it might actually be good for us. I mean, he'd be in familiar territory, people would all speak and read the same language as him, plus he's on good terms with Mikhail..."
"...And I won't be there." The younger man sighed.
"I think my papa likes you. Kind of."
"I wouldn't push it that far." Yuri huffed, spotting Yurio and Otabek with the two anxious ladies in the restaurant reception area, and he raised a hand to wave at them all, "I think I might've gained a slight bit of his respect, but I doubt he'd ever ask about me or invite me around."
Viktor paused, using the younger man's hand where he held it to pull him back and make those brown eyes face him, "Care to make a bet out of that?"
"...Eh?" Yuri choked, a confused look behind those blue-rimmed glasses, "A bet? That your father will ask about me...?"
"Yeah. If he turns up at Nationals. I'll stop whatever I'm doing and text you as soon as he does, whatever the hour."
"...If he turns up."
Viktor nodded, a smirk on his face like the challenge was far too exciting to be real. He let go of the hand he held between them and held it up in expectation of a hand-shake, "If he does, and he asks, you'll owe me $5."
"We share a bank account."
"Five untraced bucks that I can do whatever I want with."
"You're just going to buy sake or something. That's not even worth being all secretive."
"Fifty then. You've given me dirty looks a bunch of times when we were in the department store and I was looking at something interesting."
"That's because you've wanted to spend that much on single-color t-shirts and beer steins."
"Okay, the shirt was made of cashmere and the beer steins were imported from Germany. There were reasons!"
"Fifty on any single shirt is outrageous and imported German beer steins don't hold drinks any differently than regular glasses."
"Yuuurriiiii~ Fifty bucks. If he comes and asks about you." Viktor held the hand a bit higher for emphasis.
"Ah fine." Yuri reached back and they shook on it, much to the Russian's delight, "Now let's get food before I wither away."
"Haaaai~!" The silver legend turned on a heel and started making for the group, only to find himself getting pulled back again, and he looked on curiously, "...Nani?"
"No shade. Best behavior. Sexy-time later tonight is counting on it."
"...Oh! Yes!" Viktor nodded, "...You'll hold to that only about as long as you did when you grounded me after NHK." He laughed, giving a knowing look.
Yuri's face went red, but he allowed the man to start walking them the rest of the way to the waiting area, "...I wonder if your apology bouquet will still be alive when we get home?"