I had. Trouble. figuring out how I wanted to lay out this chapter. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about it a few times, actually (waking up in the middle of the night thinking about writing isn't an unusual thing for me-thinking about the structure of a chapter though? that is). I couldn't decide what order I wanted things in or even WHAT things I wanted to put in!

This chapter is more of a look at Victor

I should have the final number of chapters for you all when next chapter is published!

Also: remind me never to write anything again that requires me to look up wind patterns in St. Petersburg (in general but especially wind patterns in St. Petersburg in the past)

Late December, 2011

Chris and Victor could not, even later, not sleep deprived and half deranged by the weight of their eyelids and the cold, silent, electric feeling of night, part this and that and disentangle things enough to explain to anyone why going to a park in the middle of the night seemed like a good idea to them, but that's what they do nonetheless.

Looking back through a less affected eye, the source of the idea can probably be traced back to bouts of mutual insomnia—Chris and Victor both finding themselves sitting in Chris's kitchen with mugs of hot chocolate (Victor is too tired to be skeptical of the combination of vegan hot chocolate mix and soy milk) in the truly ugly early hours of the morning. The decision to go out into the cold after they put their mugs in the sink is less easily explained; though, there are some sleepy murmurs about walking it or freezing it off.

They've been walking together with linked hands—partly because it's dark and scary and partly just because they can—since they first got to the park, stumbling out of their seats after Chris had driven them there in a dubious state of alertness and consciousness (his eyelids tended to flutter quite suspiciously and he would forget how to control his lights each time he had to change them), using their phones as flashlights in their free hands. "No one's here," Victor announces for the third time, "isn't that weird, Chris?" He looks all around, as if someone else will suddenly appear.

"Yes," Chris answers him, messily pressing his lips against his cheek.

They walk a few steps further before Victor lets out a loud gasp and tugs sharply on Chris's hand, tugging him along as he turns and walks to the left. "A bench!" Victor yells, like he's never seen one before. He climbs onto its seat, rising to his full height and striking a pose. He lets out an indistinct yell, losing the pose and spreading his arms out wide. Chris walks over and sits next to him, watching in silence as Victor stands with his arms out, eyes slipping closed and hair lightly moving with the wind. Opening his eyes, Victor says, "Sometimes, I feel like I'm on top of the world." Chris hums at him.

"Do you?" he asks, feeling, perhaps, less bitter at what Victor's alluding to than he ought to or he would in another situation. Victor hums in response, an echo of Chris a few moments earlier.

Victor stands a bit longer before deciding to climb down; his descent is less graceful than his ascent, and he slides halfway into Chris's lap with a slightly overshot movement of his leg. Instead of following his initial plan of sitting next to Chris, he settles himself fully into his lap, wiggling until he's resting less precariously across his thighs and then leaning back against his chest. Chris laughs a little—softly—, and Victor feels it as a slight rumble against his shoulder. He looks up and watches Chris's face. He slides his hands onto Chris's cheeks.

"You're my best friend; did you know that, Chris?" Victor says, tugging on his cheek a little.

"I did," Chris responds, and Victor moves just a few inches closer to kiss him.

They spend some time making out in the not-quite-pitch darkness, their phones turned off and the streetlamps too close. Victor slides his fingers up Chris's shirt, instantly warmed from the cold by the skin covered in three layers of clothing. Chris hisses a little against his mouth at the cold touch, reaching to wrap his fingers around Victor's forearms. "Your hands are so freezing all the time," he says, "I don't think you have any blood in them."

Chris and Victor kiss some more and then pull apart again, Chris squeezing his fingers in a pattern against Victor's forearms. Victor trails his hands up from Chris's stomach to his nipples, rubbing with his fingers in a motion that makes Chris take in a sharp breath. "I don't know how you ever get your hands warm enough to jerk anyone."

"That's what I've got my hands up here for," Victor says, licking at Chris's lips.

"Is that the reason?" Chris asks. Victor tweaks his nipple and he shivers.

"Well…."

Chris takes his hands away from Victor's forearms and moves them down to undo the zipper on Victor's jeans; he brushes his fingers over Victor's dick, and whatever spell the dark isolation of a park at night in winter has on Victor's brain discharges, and he's left with an unfortunate sense of sense. Victor hisses and groans. "Chris," he says, and he hates the word as soon as it slips out of his mouth.

"Mmm?" Chris hums, ghosting, ghosting fingertips, and maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just let it go on….

No. Victor has to say this. "We can't do this right now."

"Oh. Why?" Chris asks, withdrawing his hands.

"Getting arrested is only cute once, Chris."

—

Mid to Late February, 2012

Not a bit of the tossing and turning helps.

Yakov has been awake for hours trying to sleep to no avail; he doesn't really know what it is keeping him from sleep, but he has this strange feeling of foreboding that he really can't place whatsoever. Tiredly, he thinks it might have something to do with the wind.

St. Petersburg normally has light winds, only faintly noticeable. Tonight, though, bursts of air go rushing past Yakov's windows, causing whistles and bangs and thuds. Nonetheless, it's worth noting that on the other rare occasions when the winds in St. Petersburg have been beyond a faint breeze at night, Yakov hasn't had trouble sleeping, so he brushes the thought off. He rolls over, checks his phone, squints against the screen's light, and puts it back down once he sees that he has no new messages. He hates that his skaters have gotten him into habits like this, but in his defense, he needs to be more capable with a phone than the average person his age to keep track of his skaters, who are, frankly, usually causing some sort of trouble. Especially at night. Especially Victor Nikiforov.

(Even if he is—not-so-secretly—Yakov's favorite.)

It's around two in the morning (he knows because he checks his loathsome smartphone) when Yakov hears a banging that is much too loud and insistent to be that of the wind.

If it's Victor Nikiforov, the boy is dead. (Even if he is Yakov's favorite).

The knocking, which had stopped briefly, starts up again with even more force and insistence, and Yakov stares at the ceiling from his bed and contemplates death. He sighs after only a few moments of self-pity and takes up the arduous task of pushing himself up from bed, sitting and then standing despite the creaking, groaning protests of his joints (more of them pop each time, Yakov swears).

The knocking continues for the entire slow, dragging way Yakov makes across his house and doesn't stop until he wrenches his door open, sending the person behind it stumbling forward, nearly falling. Yakov is a bit more shocked than he should be to see that it's Christophe Giacometti, a billowing bathrobe on him like some sad excuse for a coat.

Yakov says nothing. Chris says nothing. They stare at each other for a while, both surprised at the sight in front of them.

"You're not Victor," Chris says finally.

"Vitya?" Yakov asks, even more surprised. Chris stares at him blankly, and Yakov sighs. "Christophe, what are you doing in Russia?"

"I'm here to visit Victor! I took a plane and thought I'd surprise him. I thought this was his address." Chris reaches into the pocket of his bathrobe and pulls out a piece of paper; he says, "I have it on my phone, but it was getting hard to read so I wrote it down." Yakov narrows his eyes at him.

"Are you drunk?" Yakov asks, snatching the paper out of Chris's hand and looking at it. It's his address in a scrawled, messy handwriting that offers not even the slightest hint of sobriety. Yakov sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose; Christophe and Victor both are goddamn messy excuses for human beings, and yet…. "Come inside," Yakov says, and if anyone asks later, he can blame his softness on the late hour or explain it away completely rationally by saying that Christophe Giacometti is his star skater's best friend and would cause him to stop skating as well if he died out in a ditch somewhere in St. Petersburg, "I'll call Vitya."

Yakov lets Chris in before him and falters a bit at the sight of the back of his bathrobe—the word 'Vic' across one side of his butt and half of an 'N' near his side. He doesn't ask. Chris stands in the middle of the hallway for a bit before Yakov leads him into his living room and makes him sit on the couch. He goes into the kitchen to call Victor, mostly because he doesn't really know what to do with himself around Chris in a casual setting, much less a drunken Chris.

Victor answers almost immediately when Yakov calls, making him suspect that he didn't catch him sleeping. It's something he should scold him for, but Yakov currently has a drunken and confused Christophe Giacometti sitting on his couch, so Victor's poor sleeping habits can go unmentioned for the moment. Victor sounds entirely too chipper for such an early hour; Yakov resents him for it. "Vitya," Yakov says after Victor greets him, "come pick up Christophe Giacometti."

"What? Is he there?" Victor asks.

"Yes! He's at my house right now, drunk and wearing a bathrobe!" Yakov can hear Victor snicker over the line, which only serves to make him angrier, "Come get him, Vitya, before I kick him out and let him sleep on the street for the night!"

"Alright, alright, yes, yes, Yakov, I'll come get him. Goodbye!" Yakov hangs up the phone.

Victor comes by minutes later, brightening up immediately when he sees Chris and taking him out to his car, smiling and laughing with him all the while. Yakov laments upon the fact that he has a heart.

—

Late January, 2014

Yakov claims no keys or leash to the whirling, stormy desolation inside Victor's mind: there are certain days when Victor seems thoroughly unlike himself, losing precision and luster in all of his jumps, skating aimlessly around the rink for minutes at a time, and Yakov is powerless to bring him out of it. It's unlike Georgi—whose drama can be alleviated by even the most brash and unpracticed attempts at comfort—or Mila—who usually takes power from negative emotions during practice—or Yuri—who has his grandfather to deal with him on worse days. Victor is untouchable, even in this.

The third Grand Prix gold medal, Yakov thinks, is the knot in Victor's noose—the visible one, anyway (like he's said, Victor's personal gloom is not something he is particularly adept at grappling or grasping). There's something different in Victor's eyes—a loss of light—, and something about the way he skates seems stale and nearly frigid. It's during this year that Yakov thinks he gains the most of his wrinkles, possibly etched there by the constant curl of his lips and furrow of his brow.

And it's during this year that Christophe Giacometti comes to his rink for the first and only time.

Victor's steps really begin to slow that year after the European Championships: another gold to add to his collection, another drop into the wide, still pool of realization. Victor's once occasional and fleeting bursts of sadness intensify in frequency and duration, and he can often be found slumped over the side of the rink rather than practicing, full of contemplation after a difficult jump or step sequence. He constantly questions himself, his theme, his style, his life, and Yakov, for all he can refine programs and jumps to the most minute of details, has no idea what to do with Victor's dejection and the weight-of-the-world questions it brings—his fears that he's reached a stagnant point at the top of the world, that he has no place to reach or to go, that he will never not be lonely and sad. Yakov has no idea what to say to any of it.

He has more of an idea of what to say when he spots Christophe Giacometti sneaking around in the seats of his rink, crouched down and nearly crawling to avoid being seen. Victor is skating around and around the rink, staring off into space, while Yakov's other skaters try to practice their jumps without barreling into him; Yakov only sees Chris because he happens to turn his head at the very moment he trips and lands across the seats. He opens his mouth to yell at him, but Chris notices his gaze and raises a finger to his lips before resuming his crouched gait. Letting out a forceful breath through his nose, Yakov decides to let him go; the only person he'd be here to bother is Victor anyway, and he's close to useless in terms of skating in his current state. Chris makes his way down to the barrier, waving at Yakov and then winking at him before peaking into the rink and then quickly taking off his skate guards (an explanation for the tripping) and moving onto the rink once Victor is turned away from him.

He skates over to Victor silently until he's only a few feet away, calling out, "How are you, Victor?" emphasizing the word 'you' by wrapping his arms around his friend's shoulders. Victor jumps and turns around to look behind him, blinking in surprise.

"Chris," Victor says, but it lacks all the excitement it usually does, as Yakov has heard it. Yakov can't see Chris's face from his angle, but he knows he must be frowning.

"I knew you weren't feeling well," Chris says softly, just within the range of Yakov's hearing. The rest of the conversation is too quiet for him to hear, but seeing Victor's expressions is enough for him to guess what's said.

"I never told you," Victor says.

In a tone near a whisper, Chris says, "Call it a best friend's intuition." He smiles at him, and Victor's bottom lip quivers, just the slightest bit. "How about I get you out of this rink?"

Victor sighs, eyes sweeping across the room. "Chris—thanks—, but…I don't think it'll…help." Chris frowns.

"Victor," he puts his hands on his shoulders, gets him to look him in the eyes, "it's okay that you feel this way. You don't have to deal with it alone." Victor grips one of Chris's arms with both of his hands, firm and unrelenting.

"Okay," Victor says after a bit of silence.

"Good," Chris says, linking a hand with Victor's, "I knew I didn't look up things to do in St. Petersburg for nothing."

From across the room, Yakov watches as Victor smiles the tiniest smile, the first he's seen in a while. He's suddenly hit by a wave of realization, one that makes the name 'Christophe Giacometti' soften and take a different meaning in his head; it's him, after all, who's making Victor smile. Him who flew across the continent for Victor's sake. Him who offers something to Victor that Yakov just…can't.

"Is it alright with you if I steal your charge for a bit, Coach Yakov?" Chris calls, even as he's slipping on his skate guards and walking away. Yakov's reply doesn't come immediately, and Chris turns around to look back at him, surprised and a bit concerned.

"…Just don't get into anything too terrible," Yakov says finally, very pointedly not looking in Chris's direction. Chris lets out a soft gasp, and Yakov turns his head to look at him; he almost wishes he hadn't for the touched, mushy expression on Chris's face. They lock eyes, and Yakov nods at him before turning back to pay attention to his other skaters.

—

Early December, 2010

There's the familiar sound of ice-skate firmly landing against ice—Victor landing a near perfect quad. The sound is followed by a whoop, which isn't familiar; Chris is watching Victor's movements with a small smile on his face, being encouraging whenever he can. Usually, Victor's perfect quads are followed by no sound whatsoever, the narrowed eyes of other skaters around him, thoughts of how to beat someone who can do jumps like these. No one ever cheers for Victor Nikiforov. No one who isn't a member of the audience or a fellow Russian skater, anyway. Yakov's eyes flicker to Christophe Giacometti.

He watches as his protégé abandons practicing his programs in favor of skating around the practice rink a bit too loose-limbed and casual for his liking, sometimes skating around Chris and getting particularly handsy with him. In any other circumstance, he'd yell at Victor to stop wasting his own time, but ever since Vancouver, he's been watching interactions between Chris and Victor carefully, trying to come to a conclusion on how, exactly, they'll work together once the newness of their friendship has worn away.

A voice to his right catches his attention before a presence does. "How are you, Yakov?" the voice calls out. It's Josef Karpisek. Yakov wonders if he has similar thoughts on his mind.

Yakov has spoken to Josef exactly once before, and that was when they were picking up their respective figure skaters from a Vancouver jail. Then, they'd only exchanged brief words at the door as Josef walked out with Chris and Yakov walked in to get Victor, but it'd been enough to learn each other's names and gain impressions of their skaters and each other. "Josef," Yakov acknowledges, rather than answering his question. He eyes the man through his peripheral vision.

"It appears our boys have become fast friends, haven't they?" Yakov lets out a low hum. "Listen, I know Chris can be a little in your face, but he really is a sweetheart, I promise you."

"I don't mean to question your skater's character, Josef," Yakov starts (That would be hypocritical), "I'm just…cautious about his presence around Vitya. You know what kind of trouble they get into together." Josef purses his lips.

In the rink, Chris and Victor have gone back to practicing their routines, though only a moment earlier they had been doing half-assed little spins, blowing each other kisses, and patting each other's asses as they'd gone skating by. "I'm not the one who's his coach, but Yakov, can you tell me the last time Victor Nikiforov had a genuine friend?"

"What's your point, Karpisek?" Yakov asks, eyes narrowing. He really can't tell him: the closest he might count are Victor's rink mates.

"I just think this might be good for them is all," Josef says, raising his hands in the air and starting to back away, "I'll leave you to your coaching, Yakov."

Yakov turns his eyes back to the rink to see Victor taking a moment out of his practice to clap and whistle after Chris lands a quad. He lets them be friendly with each other for a bit before telling Victor to get back to practicing, which Victor does only after melodramatically rolling his eyes and blowing a kiss at Chris.

There has been something a bit more eased about Victor—his skating and his personality—ever since Vancouver that only seems to be growing. Yakov will give Josef that.

bonus points headcanons: of /course/ Chris N Vic have matching bathrobes. Of course. (Victor's says Chris and half of the N and Chris's says Vic and the other half of the N). Also, if you ever ask Chris N Vic if they've ever fucked, the answer will be a solid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ;)