CHAPTER THREE HUNDRED FIFTY EIGHT
To retell the tale came with more crying in fits and starts, but Viktor listened patiently, sitting on the edge of an angry outburst but somehow managing to hold it in. There was a slight edge of anxiety creeping in every time Yuri mentioned Riku.
He doesn't seem to remember that I mentioned the name just this morning. I guess he didn't take a mental note about it.
"...I just...want to hate him so much for this...but with all the other things he said, I can't get myself to feel that way towards him..." Yuri went on, staring tiredly at the ceiling, "More than anything...I guess I'm just...scared of him now."
"He forced himself onto you. Feeling scared is natural."
"...It's not just that..."
"Hm?"
Yuri hesitated a moment, but then curled forward to sit up, twisting on an elbow to push himself upward and turn around. Facing his partner, it had been the first time they'd seen one another's faces since Yuri had retreated into the bathroom, and the stress of the whole event was as easy to read on his as a book. He reached one hand forward to tap lightly on his spouse's closest knee, "Cross your legs for a minute and sit up."
"Oh...sure." Viktor answered, hands sinking into the bedding as he hoisted himself up as asked. Once he was done, he watched carefully as his partner inched closer, propped up on one knee before him.
"It was like this when he did it..." Yuri explained, "I still had my skates on so I was a bit clumsy...and then he just...moved so fast..." He said, reaching both hands forward to press his husband's arms into his own sides, "He was so much stronger than me...his fingers went around my arms like I was just a kid. It felt like they were welded to my sides, because I couldn't move anything above the elbow..." He could see how his own fingers couldn't wrap all the way around Viktor's biceps, and that just made him feel worse, and he pulled back again, "...He just...overpowered me... He held me where I was and I couldn't move a muscle. It's like he looked into my mind and saw how quickly I shoved Tess off before, and went out of his way to take that away from me..." Yuri could feel the tears coming again, and he slouched where he sat, reaching a wrist up to rub on his eyes, "I was just so powerless. I've never felt so weak before..."
Seeing that despair made Viktor's heart sink. He scooted closer, and lifted one arm forward to reach for the bathrobe as it was sliding off his husband's shoulder. To see Yuri instinctively cringing away from him though...that was worse than hearing the story.
"...I don't...think I can do..."
"I'm not trying to undress you." The Russian said calmly, "I was trying to pull the edge up to cover you. I don't want you to catch cold."
"...I'm so sorry...I'm not...trying to be like this..." Yuri brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, burying his face against the fluff of the robe that covered his legs, "...Asahi did this to me and now I'm just passing it on...I tried so hard to wash it away but I still just feel so gross..."
"I'm covered in anti-Asahi Teflon." Viktor explained, "None of his grime can stick to me. You don't have to worry." He managed to get close enough to pull the edge of the bathrobe up over his partner's shoulder like he said he wanted to, and wrapped one arm and leg around the trembling younger man before him. He held there for a moment, resting his chin on the shoulder closest to him, but then an idea came, "Hey."
Yuri lifted his head, turning it enough that he could see past the edge of one arm.
"Come shower with me."
"I scrubbed myself raw in there...I don't know that it will help..."
"You did it though. This time, I'm going to wash you." Viktor explained, moving off the side of the bed to stand up, and turned back to lean down with his hands on the blankets as he tried to coax his spouse to follow, "You're so worried about passing on the dirt he left on you...but if I tell you that you're clean again, then you will be. You'll believe me, right? Nettoyage Rituel par Nikiforov...or Ritual Cleansing by Viktor."
Yuri blinked up at him, but after a moment of thought, he nodded and started to uncoil himself. Every joint felt like a rusted hinge as he moved, but he soon was standing, and he took his husband's hand, letting the silver legend walk him back towards the shower room.
It took a moment for Viktor to gather up all the clothing that had been discarded on the floor in there, and most of it was wet or damp in some regard, too, but he just set it all into a pile on the floor in the main room and came back to look for dry towels. There were three left; one large, and two hand towels. There were a few face cloths still rolled up and put up as well, and Viktor reached for that first before finding his partner's hand again to gently coax him into the small space. The door was closed behind them, and Viktor stepped aside to pull a small stool out from the back of the shower space, setting it up just in front of the shower nozzle before unhooking it from the wall and turning the water on.
"...I'm sorry...for not listening to you." Yuri started again quietly, "For putting you through all this."
Viktor glanced aside slightly, looking past the edge of his bangs as he felt the water warming up in his hand. With it already luke-warm, he twisted the shower-head so it would be a single stream of low-pressure gurgling rather than a spray, and reset the whole thing into the holster it had come from. Both hands went gently to the outside of his husband's shoulders, and he stepped closer, sliding his hands up to either side of his spouse's neck, thumbs grazing lightly over Yuri's cheeks. He bent his head down and pressed his brow to the mess of cool, damp black hair, "You have nothing to apologize for. What Saito did was a violation...of your body, mind, and spirit. You were trying to find a way of letting him down so he could move on, and he took advantage of your trusting nature. Nothing about what you told me came across like an invitation to him. You never offered to let him have that one kiss so he'd know what it was like. He stole that from you, and in doing so, did a lot of damage to you." He felt the younger man stepping closer to him as he spoke, arms around under his own as they wrapped around his sides, and fingers gripped the shirt behind his back. He hugged the man close, one hand behind Yuri's head to bring it down to his shoulder, "The important thing now is to make you feel safe, clean, and whole again." Viktor took a step back then, looking at his spouse's stress-addled face, "Ready?"
Yuri nodded quietly, pulling his hands back to undo the loose knot he'd tied the robe closed with, his naked frame coming into sight as he let his partner slide the damp fluff off his shoulders. He didn't say anything as he could feel those slate eyes scanning him, seeing the red claw-marks he'd left in his own skin where he'd tried to scratch the corruption off of himself...but mercifully, Viktor didn't comment on them, even as he hung the robe on the hook at the top of the door. Yuri spotted the hand that came out beside him then, and took it nervously, letting the Russian guide him around the front of the small stool so he could sit.
He's seen me naked a thousand times... Yuri thought anxiously, staring at the tiles before him, keeping his knees together and resting his elbows against his thighs where he sat, ...But I feel so ashamed now... Not just because of what Asahi did, but because of what I did to myself after...
One hand stayed on the younger man's back as Viktor reached for the shower head again, pulling his hand away only to twist the nozzle into a gentle spray setting. The water cascaded over Yuri's whole frame, warm but not hot. One hand softly caressed every inch of skin, sliding down from neck to back, around his sides and waist. Viktor coaxed one arm away from where Yuri had pressed it against himself, and ran his fingers down the length of it as the water flowed. He took extra care to lightly massage the middle of his partner's upper arms, wary of where he knew his husband had been grabbed and held still. There weren't any marks there...not yet anyway. Whether bruises in the shape of handprints would manifest over the course of the night had yet to be seen. Viktor moved to the other side and did the same thing to his partner's other arm, though he stayed on that hand for a little while longer, lifting it to his lips to kiss the ring there. He caught a brief smile on Yuri's face as he lifted his eyes, but a second later, Yuri turned away again, snuffling under the cascade of water, letting the run-off from his saturated hair hide a few lingering tears.
It took a moment to coax Yuri to sit more upright so Viktor could continue his make-shift ritual, but when the younger man finally opened himself up to it, the Russian moved in, one hand softly stroking down the front and sides of his husband's chest as the other followed with the water. Legs that were pressed together came loose, one after another, and the same stroke and rinse went down each one to his feet.
"...I thought you were going to be furious with me..." Yuri said quietly, barely audible over the shower's spray, "When you asked me at the arena if what I had to say would make you mad later..."
"I was angry." Viktor answered, putting the shower-head back into the holster for a moment as he went after the small shampoo bottle already set out nearby, and squeezed a dob into the palm of his hand, spreading it out between both palms before starting to massage it into his partner's hair, "But the truth is...over these past two years that we've been in each others' lives, and this past one year that we've been together, the more I've learned about how to manage your responses to things." He explained, fingers moving in circles as he pressed the shampoo right down to the roots and scalp, "You were already terrified when you came back to me from the changing room. What good would it have done if I flew off the handle?" He wondered, rinsing his hands off under the slow singular stream from the shower-head, then pulled it free to twist it back to a wider spray, and started rinsing the shampoo from raven-black hair. He combed his fingers through it as he made circles around the crown of his husband's head, "As much as I thought that I was entitled to be angry...and I still am...I don't think that my yelling or crying would've done much to help make you feel safe again. Even if all my rage was directed at Saito, and the horrible position he put you into...without him here for me to actually target my yelling at...it would've just been you, and I'm sure that would've made you feel worse." He explained, twisting the nozzle back to the slow singular stream and setting it aside to reach for the conditioner next, doing the same thing with it to massage it into his husband's hair, "Saito already violated your trust. It would've compounded the problem if I lost my mind over this. I want you to feel like you can always come to me. The longer you went, saying you didn't want to talk about it until we got back, the more I wondered as to why that might be the case... How you thought I might react was just as critical as anything. You thought it would be bad, so you refused to say anything that might set me off. That just made me do a little introspection."
Yuri listened closely, though he kept his eyes closed and his head down, letting his senses be cleansed by the attention.
"In that way, despite how bad you already felt, and how scared you were about everything that was happening...you were still trying to protect me, even if from myself." Viktor said, reaching for the water spray again, and resuming the finger-comb as he rinsed the conditioner away, "If I had found out what Saito did to you before the technical panel, I probably would've tried to confront him. It would've been brutally public, even on camera...what kind of impression would it leave on my new bosses if I started a fight with one of their established athletes? As much as I hated not knowing for sure what had happened to you, it was probably for the best that you didn't confirm my fears until it was impossible for me to act out on them."
"...I wish I could say I did that on purpose..." Yuri sighed, "That I was smart or wise enough to be able to think about all those possibilities... But really, I was just scared to see you get angry at me. I was postponing the inevitable."
Viktor set his hand on one shoulder and gave a meager smile, "Take the credit for it anyway. You're incredibly smart...way smarter than me. Even if it wasn't something you actively thought about, I know for sure that 'If Viktor lashes out right now, everyone will see it' was an undercurrent to everything else."
"...Maybe..."
The silver legend gave his husband's shoulder a gentle squeeze before moving off again, setting the shower head aside to reach for a wash-cloth. He unrolled it and let the warm water make it damp, then reached for a small bottle of liquid soap, squeezing some onto the wet fabric and rubbing it around briskly to spread it out. He took a knee behind his partner's back, caring very little for how wet his clothes had gotten since they started, and pressed the wash-cloth to Yuri's red-streaked skin, "Maybe the smartest thing I did in all this was just consulting Google on what to do."
Yuri turned his eyes, but stayed still, "...Google?"
"I told you once, more than a year ago now, that I was terrible at handling people who cry in front of me." Viktor explained, gently sliding the soapy lather around, "It's taken me a long time to really understand how to help you when you're upset. But this is not something I've ever had to deal with before...I really wanted to make sure I did this right. So, when you were in here earlier, I used my phone to try and find insight. I asked it...what do I do if I think my partner's been assaulted?"
That made Yuri's heart sink, and he lowered his face a little.
"I was actually kind of surprised how few results came back that answered the question I'd asked it." Viktor went on, moving the cloth in slow circles over every inch of skin, leaving a soapy trail as he moved to the left and started lathering up the shoulder and arm, "Most of the stuff I saw was about helping people who were abused as kids. A really disturbing number of hits came back, twisting my question into something like, 'I think I raped my partner, what do I do' or, 'I think my husband raped me, but I'm not sure.' Things that really made my heart break. In the end, I only found a single webpage that actually answered the question I asked. One of the first things it said...was not to get angry in front of the person who'd been hurt." He carefully massaged the cloth around each finger, each nail, trying to clean away any evidence that Yuri had scratched himself in his despair, then moved over to the right arm to start again, "Someone who's been violently attacked doesn't need their loved ones acting violently angry, too. Likewise...doing things in retaliation without giving the victim a say in it. I won't lie, I had a few aggressive thoughts pass through my mind when you finally told me what happened...but that website's advice held me back. Saito took away your right to control what was going on...it would be worse if I did the same thing, by retaliating in a way you didn't want. The whole thing defused me before I had a chance to explode."
"...I don't want you to hurt him." Yuri said, lifting his head again and turning his gaze aside to see his partner's face, "I don't want to forgive him for what he did, but I can't help but feel like he didn't mean for it to be as bad as it was. He's suffering, too. I even told him, that if you died in my arms like Riku did in his...it would kill me. I can't face this life alone anymore. I don't even know how I made it so long before finding you. The idea of going back to that...living a life without you...is unthinkable."
"It's the same for me." Viktor agreed, "But I can't change the fact that he hurt you. That's an attack on me, too. Whatever was going through his head at the time, there is no excuse or justification for what he did."
"...I know..." Yuri sighed, turning back to center again.
The silver Russian finished with the second hand, and moved around front to start lathering a leg, "But I don't want to worry you all night about what I might do or say later. Tonight is just about us. My primary concern is making you happy. So, once we're done in here, we'll order some room service, sip some hot cocoa, maybe watch some garbage television...and just be us."
Yuri nodded quietly, feeling the later as it went down to each ankle, then roamed up to his abdomen and chest, and finally down to his feet. Viktor rinsed that cloth and set it aside, then went for a fresh one, unrolling it and making it wet, added soap, and crouched down in front again. Though Yuri's mind was clouded and full of doubts and worries, seeing Viktor's smile was a comfort, "Thank you..."
Viktor nodded, and wrapped the second cloth around his hand and fingers, using his free hand to push the wet hair away. He gently pressed the cloth to the skin of his spouse's face, softly stroking it from cheek to forehead, the other cheek, over his partner's closed eyes, chin, nose, and finally over his mouth. Yuri's lips were still a bit red from how hard he'd scrubbed them earlier, so Viktor went very carefully, and ended it with a slide of his thumb across them both. A quick boop of a finger to Yuri's nose, and the Russian reached for the shower-head again, rinsing the man's soapy frame from top to toes. The water was cut off a few moments later, and Viktor offered his hands to help his spouse stand up, moving them up then to start pressing the excess from his husband's hair before reaching for the first of the two small hand towels. Using it to pat Yuri's face dry first, he then moved down each arm, over his front, then his back, then reached for the second of the smaller towels to finish drying his partner's legs and feet. The singular remaining large towel ruffled Yuri's hair to dry and fluff it a little, then went down to get tied around the man's waist. Viktor set his palms against the crests of his husband's hips, and looked forward to those hazel eyes, tired as they still looked, "There. All clean. You're practically factory sealed."
Yuri's cheeks pinked a little as he glanced down, nodding quietly as he looked at his arms and hands. Just as the man had said, the whole 'ritual' really did make him feel like the taint was finally gone. His throat clenched up as he felt a few last tears finding their way to the surface, but the hiccupped breaths were half a laugh, and he reached one hand up to wipe his eyes, "...And he thinks...you're just messing with me. That you're only in this for yourself and that you don't actually care about me at all."
"He clearly doesn't know what he's talking about, my love." Viktor said simply, rubbing one thumb where it barely reached over the edge of the towel and felt velvet skin, "We may be unorthodox...but for as long as I live, I'll never forget that sweet, flushed, drunk face that asked me to come to Hasetsu and be your coach while the rest of you grinded on me."
Yuri couldn't help but snuffle another laugh at that, "...I still can't believe you fell in love with my ugly mug in that condition..."
"You're quite the charmer, Yuri Nikiforov. And you're extremely handsome, even when you're drunk as a skunk."
He kept his head down in spite of it, though he smiled anyway, finally getting the courage to look up again and see into those crystal blue eyes, seeing his reflection in them. A nervous swallow followed, and Yuri raised his arms, sliding his hands across his husband's damp shirt, settling them against that broad chest, "...I think I understand what you mean now when you said you find yourself falling in love with me all over again at random times... I thought I did already, but now I really understand..."
Viktor just smiled sweetly at that, "Right? I've completely lost track of how often that's happened."
Though Yuri's heart raced again, this time it was exhilaration and joy rather than the early onset of another panic. His limbs seemed to move on their own then, left hand sliding up and over Viktor's shoulder, the other cupping around the side of a shoulder, and he leaned in closer, finally feeling clean enough to kiss him. Hands went from his hips and slid up around his back, holding him closer, the right coming further up to slip fingers around the side of his neck and behind his head, cradling there gently. As he pulled back a little, Viktor leaned in again, stealing one more kiss just for good measure.
"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." Those accented words sounded, "I'll fight to the death to protect you."
"Don't tempt fate," Yuri advised, nosing his husband's lips lightly, "I expect you to stick around for a while yet. I love you too much to lose you now."
"I'm not going anywhere."