Chapter 11: The Weight Made Lighter

Victor opened the door to his house and stood back to let Eva, Filip and Yuuri, then the children enter before him. The elder couple and the children headed down the hallway together, while Victor stopped Yuuri in the entry and closed the door behind them. Yuuri gave his husband a questioning look and Victor sighed and lifted a hand to cup his cheek.

"I want to thank you, Yuuri," Victor said gratefully, "Today was a very difficult day for all of us, but now that Patya has been remembered and buried, it's time for us to focus on the things that we have had to neglect."

Yuuri gave him a gentle smile.

"We haven't neglected anything," he assured his husband, placing his hand over the one that rested on his cheek.

"We've been married for a week and we haven't made love since our wedding night," Victor reminded him, "and we should make new plans for our honeymoon."

"Those aren't the most important things," Yuuri argued, "Victor, we needed to say a proper goodbye to our friend…and now, we need to think about what is best for our friends' children."

Victor smiled sadly and nodded.

"We will begin dealing with the legal things tomorrow. I have a meeting with my attorney and Patya's to arrange for the children to be placed in Filip and Eva's custody."

"Hmm, you really don't want to raise the kids, yourself?" Yuuri asked.

Victor sighed again and moved closer, hugging Yuuri and resting his chin on top of his husband's head, letting Yuuri burrow into his shoulder.

"How could I?" he mused, "You know that Renat and Larina are going to be contesting custody, and part of that would be pointing out that I am married to a man. Russia has been changing for the worse when it comes to that, so…it is likely that if I try to take custody of the children, Renat and Larina would grasp on that to try to take the children away. Of course, I…"

Victor paused, and Yuuri peeked out from under his husband's chin to meet Victor's distant eyes.

"What was that?" he asked.

He felt Victor tense for a moment and read the uncomfortable look in his eyes.

"Vitya, is something wrong?" he asked.

Victor hesitated a moment longer, then shook his head and hugged Yuuri more tightly.

"You know that we're not considered married here," Yuuri reminded him.

Victor frowned and stepped back, meeting Yuuri's brown eyes questioningly.

"To the Russian government, we are just living together."

"Yuuri, don't talk like that," Victor chided him, "I don't care what anyone here says, we are married."

"I know," Yuuri acknowledged, taking Victor's hands in his, "We are married, and even if the Russian government doesn't accept that we're married, they know we're in a relationship. That's going to cause trouble for you. That's why you don't want to try to take custody of the kids, isn't it?"

Victor sighed wearily and gave a little nod.

"The laws are clear. Although as a single man, I could adopt the children, I am a celebrity who engaged in a public marriage ceremony with another man. No judge would give me custody of the children after that, even if…"

Victor paused and closed his eyes, paling.

"I could…" Yuuri began.

"Nyet!" Victor snapped, cutting him off, "Don't even say something like that to me, Yuuri!"

"But Victor…Liev and Akilina…"

"Yuuri, I won't be forced to choose between you and the children. I would die first! I won't let myself be put in that position."

Yuuri gave his husband a deeply troubled look.

"I think you know, deep down, that it could very well come to that. Wait…I'm not saying that I would ever leave you, just…we might have to consider how things might have to change so that we could all be together."

Victor bit his lip gently and let out a soft, defeated sigh.

"You mean leaving Russia, don't you?" he mused, "I don't really want to do that, not while I am still skating with Yakov as my coach. Everything I know is here. I just…don't know if I could."

"I understand," Yuuri assured him, "As much as I know you loved your visit to Japan, you seem very connected to the people you grew up with here. I get how it would be hard to leave. Anyway, it's late. Why don't we get some sleep and talk more when we're rested?"

"I think that is a very good idea," Victor agreed, slipping an arm around him and kissing him tenderly, "It's been a difficult day. I'm so tired now. I feel exhausted."

Yuuri nodded.

"I'll go make some soothing tea for us while you get settled in," he offered.

"Thank you, solnyshko," Victor sighed gratefully.

As Yuuri headed for the kitchen, Victor walked back to the guest rooms and gave each child a goodnight kiss before returning to the master suite to wait for his husband. He slipped out of his clothes, laying them over a chair, then he frowned and glanced at his dresser. He hated wearing pajamas, but he put them on anyway in case there might be an emergency during the night, then he climbed into the bed to wait for Yuuri. Sighing again, he placed his hands behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling, his mind replaying what had happened after the memorial.

"Vitya," Larina said quietly, earning a guarded look from Victor as he stood with Patya's parents and their lawyer, just inside the cemetery gates, "we are going now, but Renat and I want to assure you that we do mean what we said before. I think that if you give consideration to the loss that all of us have suffered, you will see that care must be taken that the children do not suffer from the same confusion that their father did."

"And I have told you that I also think they should be protected from confusion, but I think we disagree on what the source of Patya's confusion was."

"Come now," Renat argued, "You know that you confused Patya with the way you represented yourself as a very feminine man when you were younger. While we are glad to see that you are embracing normality more now, you still live with a man, and one with whom you had a pretend wedding."

"My wedding to Yuuri was plenty real, I assure you," Victor snapped angrily, "While it is not considered a legal wedding in Russia, it is legal where we obtained it. Just because Russia does not recognize it, doesn't mean that our marriage is a lie. Yuuri is my husband in every way that matters."

"You must listen to reason," Larina said stridently, "Renat and I do not want to make things any harder for you, but we will do what our hearts tell us we must. We are going to seek custody of the children, and I am sure we will obtain it over a gay man and his lover, and two people who pander to such nonsense!"

Victor gritted his teeth, noting that Yuuri had spotted him and was heading his way.

"Listen," he hissed in Russian, "you need to stop this now. I am doing everything I can so that all of us can heal from this loss of Patya, but…if you don't stop…if you take me to court, none of us will win…not you, not me, not Filip and Eva, and not the children. I am not going to accept custody anyway."

"You're not?" Larina mused, giving him a surprised look as Yuuri reached them.

"Vitya," the Japanese skater panted in English, "are you okay?"

"I am fine," Victor said shortly, slipping a hand into Yuuri's, "Let's go."

"Vitya," Renat said, meeting the skater's narrowed eyes and laying a hand on his arm to stop him, "you understand that even hiding behind Filip and Eva will not be enough. We are going to sue for custody and we will win. If you are not willing to admit your part in our son's death and mend your ways, then we will have no choice but to keep you from seeing the children at all. You know the laws in Russia favor us. If you try to take custody, no judge will grant you, a gay man, the right, and if you try to have Filip and Eva help you, we will expose what you are doing."

"And I told you," Victor said in a low, warning voice, "that the only thing you will do is to destroy the only peace that all of us know. It should be enough that the children will be with Filip and Eva and not with Yuuri and me."

"But, we don't know that at all," Larina insisted, "and as it stands, we have no ability to see our own grandchildren. How can you think that is right?"

"You want to see them?" Victor asked sharply, "then make plans to spend time with Filip, Eva and the children, but do not try to take them away. I swear to you, it will make a nightmare for all of us!"

"What do you mean?" Renat said sarcastically, "I think you mean to discourage us, but it won't work."

"I am not trying to discourage you!" Victor managed in an exasperated voice, "I am trying to save all of us unnecessary pain!"

"Explain yourself!" Larina demanded, "If you are not just trying to scare us, then tell us why you are…"

"I don't owe you an explanation!" Victor shouted in Russian, "I don't owe either of you a goddamned thing! You took everything away from me already! You made Patya hate himself, so that he would leave me, convinced him to marry an asexual woman and have children with her, and you drove him mad so that when he couldn't handle all of the lies, he lost control and killed himself! I am telling you for the last time, let this be the end of it. You have already destroyed Patya's happiness, Letya's and mine! You can have supervised visitation with the children, but you will absolutely never gain custody."

"Are you saying that you will defy a court order, Mr. Nikiforov?" the Pechkin's lawyer asked, frowning.

Victor met the man's eyes icily.

"I am saying that you will not win in court. You can't."

"But you will not explain why?"

"No."

"Then, we have no choice but to carry forward."

Victor's eyes slid closed and he breathed slowly to try to slow his heart that had begun to pound at the return of the memory.

Oh god, I have to say it out loud. I have to tell Yuuri. I don't want to. I don't want it to be true. All of this time, I consoled myself with the knowledge that this painful truth could be hidden, and that all of us who needed that lie the three of us told…could have the peace that it offered.

Still, if I have to be honest? There was never peace for me.

Whether the truth remains hidden or is revealed, I still feel its sting. I still know.

Tears flooded his eyes and leaked onto his face.

"Oh, Vitya!" Yuuri whispered, startling him.

He heard the tea tray being set on the nightstand and the bed moved, then he and Yuuri were on their knees with their arms entwined around each other. Their lips crashed together and they sank into a torrent of desperate kisses while tears continued to roll down Victor's flushed cheeks.

Maybe I understand now why Patya couldn't bring himself to just ask me to help him. Sometimes there are truths that are too horrible and painful to unleash aloud.

Like this one.

It's not that Yuuri wouldn't understand or that he couldn't accept it. It's that once it escapes, there will be so many people who misunderstand and misconstrue what happened. There are only the raw facts, and I am the only one who was there to witness what really happened. I am going to have to speak that miserable truth in front of a judge, in front of Patya and Letya's parents, in front of Yuuri…and then everything will come crashing down.

I know what it will look like, what a lot of people are likely to think, and I would do anything to go back and somehow tell Patya that the lies weren't necessary. I would go back and tell him that I would willingly help him. If I could go back, I would do more to comfort him and to make him talk to me.

Could I save Patya's life if I could go back?

But he knew it was a useless question. Instead, Victor forced his eyes open and pulled back slightly to look into Yuuri's calm, gentle sad expression.

Yuuri is sitting here, wanting to help me like I wanted to help Patya. He is only desiring to know what he can do to comfort me. Patya couldn't open up. He couldn't share the worst of himself with anyone.

But, I am not Patya, and I will not walk the doomed path that he did.

It may not be easy, but I will choose to do what I feel is the right thing. I will force myself to be truthful and take the consequences of that truth. It will be painful, like pulling a band-aid off of a still oozing wound, but we will not heal well if we do not drain out the bad things.

"Vitya," Yuuri said softly, "I'm really getting worried for you. Please tell me what's eating away at you."

He knows…maybe not what it is, but that something is there.

"I know you."

Yes, I have opened up with Yuuri Katsuki in a way I never could with anyone else.

"I know this is even more than losing Patya."

Yuuri sees through me.

"Something has been eating away at you for awhile. Maybe it goes back pretty far."

He senses what I can't say.

"It's all right. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I'm here for you, okay?

He is there for me in the way I wish I could have been there for Patya, and that's why…

"It's okay."

It will be okay.

I will be okay.

I will put myself back together and I will take care of the children…our children, even if they cannot live with me. With Yuuri, I can get through this, and I don't have to do it alone.

The words.

I have to say them.

"Yuuri, there is…something I have to tell you."

He put his lips to his husband's earlobe and loosed the wicked truth softly as Yuuri's brown eyes rounded and filled with shock, then flooded with sympathy and tears of understanding and acceptance. Victor wasn't sure how long he rested against Yuuri, all of the fight gone from his body and feeling ragged and exhausted, but at some point, a little sigh escaped him and he laid down and curled into his lover's arms, feeling something unexpected.

It feels lighter.

The weight is so much lighter when we share it.