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The men’s singles presser ends, and Victor slips out before anyone can catch him. Chris, who has learned from the best, does the same. The bronze medalist lingers behind, probably in hopes of being pulled aside for an interview. Which means that when Chris finally reaches the locker room, it’s just the two of them.
Just Chris and Victor Nikiforov, who has been unstoppable since Vancouver, taking Olympic gold there and at every competition since. He’s a brilliant bright star, unmatched, unreachable.
Chris has been reaching for a long time, though. The GPF silver medal hanging heavy around his neck is proof of that.
“Hey, Victor,” Chris says, because they’re alone, and he has to say something. “Thanks for what you said before.”
Victor looks up from his combination lock. “What did I say?”
“You know, about working harder than ever.”
I think Chris is an incredibly talented skater, and I’m going to have to work harder than ever to stay ahead of him this season. That’s what Victor said. Verbatim. Chris will never forget it.
“Oh!” Victor says. “Of course. It’s true. And thank you for actually shaking things up a little. It was nice, hearing them laugh. These press things, normally, they’re all just…” Victor trails off with a shake of his head and goes back to his lock.
Chris frowns at him. “Hey. Is everything okay?”
Something flickers in Victor’s expression: a moment of… hesitation, maybe? Or doubt. Like he can’t decide whether to answer or to put the smile back on. The lock bangs against the locker door as he pulls it free.
“I’m tired, Chris,” he says, soft and serious. “That’s all.” He turns his head, and he isn’t smiling, and Chris feels his breath catch in his chest at the look on his face—open and unguarded. Vulnerable. He’s never seen Victor look like this.
He feels… honored, in a way. Like he’s been trusted with something precious, something that no one else gets to see. He also wants to do absolutely anything within his power to make the weariness in Victor’s face go away; to see him smile and laugh with this same level of openness. He wonders if anyone’s ever seen that.
“Do you…” Chris starts, stalls, starts again. “I mean, if you wanted... we could have a drink, just the two of us? Someplace quiet? My room is…”
Victor smiles: the same flirtatious smirk he uses on the sponsors and reporters. “Your room, huh?” he teases, and even though he can tell it’s calculated, Chris blushes.
“I didn’t mean—! It’s just, I… I have wine?”
The smirk fades, and Victor’s expression turns considering. Chris desperately wishes he knew what he was thinking.
But then finally, finally, Victor says, “Your room it is.”
-
The hotel is only a ten minute walk away, but there’s the ever-present gauntlet to wade through: paparazzi, fans, waiting outside the arena, waiting at the hotel. Victor smiles and waves and weaves seamlessly through the throng; Chris, who is far less in demand, follows suit.
Mercifully, nobody tries to follow them into the elevator.
Chris takes out his key card and leads Victor into the room—and then, before Chris can parse what’s going on, Victor is on him. Slender hands cupping Chris’s face, a lithe torso surging against his, broad shoulders crowding him against the wall.
And lips, pressing warmly against his.
A small part of Chris wants to respond in kind—how many times has he jerked off to this exact fantasy over the years—but the larger part of him remembers the calculated smirk from just a little while ago, and knows that this is… off, somehow.
Chris knows what he has to do. It takes all the willpower he’s ever had… but, ever so gently, he pushes Victor away.
“What,” he manages to say, “was that?”
Victor presses in again, purring directly into Chris’s ear. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been kissed before, Giacometti. I won’t believe you.”
“No,” Chris says, twisting to the side until they’re facing each other, shoulders against the door. His hands are still holding on to Victor’s biceps. “Not ‘what’. I mean, why?”
Victor cocks his head like a confused dog and looks at Chris. “You asked me to your room?” he says, like Chris is very slow and the answer is very obvious. “Why does anyone ask someone to their room? It’s always sex, right? And I agreed, so…”
He tries to lean in again and Chris sidesteps the move, heads decisively towards the credenza behind the couch, where the wine bottles are. “I honestly just meant a drink,” he says, hating himself a bit for turning down the offer of a lifetime and hating himself even more for considering taking it in the first place.
“I thought it might be nice,” he continues, “to have a few glasses of wine and just relax, with no press or fans or sponsors or coaches or anyone else around. No judgment, no pressure, just a couple of friends getting drunk together.”
Victor falls quiet as Chris selects a bottle, uncorks it, and fills two water glasses about halfway with bright red. When he carries them back over to the other side of the room, Victor is still lurking just inside the door. He hasn’t moved an inch.
“Chianti,” Chris says, offering one of the glasses. Victor just stares at it, blinking. “Probably give it a few minutes to breathe before—Wait. Shit. Do you even like red? I didn’t ask.”
“Y-yes,” Victor says. His voice is shockingly small. “I like red, I just…” He takes the glass, trying for a smile. It wobbles, and so does his voice when he adds, “Thanks.”
Chris smiles and nods, and turns around, feeling the moment teetering on the edge of awkward. He’s confused and turned on, and Victor seems confused and… nervous, maybe? Chris isn’t sure. Discarding his own advice, he drinks deeply of the wine in his hand and heads for the sofa. Halfway there he reconsiders, goes to get the bottle and bring it with him, setting it on the table as he sits down, turned sideways to lean against the armrest.
When he looks back towards the door, Victor is still staring at the wine, swirling it around. He takes a sip and closes his eyes, then takes another.
“This is good,” he says.
“As if I would tolerate anything less,” Chris says, huffing in mock offense. Victor laughs, and it’s small, but it’s also genuine, and maybe the prettiest thing Chris has ever heard.
“You can sit down, you know,” he says, gesturing to the wide expanse of couch in front of him. “I don’t bite.”
“Not even on request?” Victor says, and it’s not the smooth seductive purr of before. It’s playful and a little goofy, and Chris is so delighted.
“I do many things on request,” Chris replies, waggling his eyebrows.
There’s that laugh again, and Victor says, “Yeah, me too.” Except that by the end of those three words, Victor’s not laughing anymore. He’s looking into his wine glass, a faint frown line between his pale eyebrows. “Guess we all do.”
He sounds so fatalistic, and Chris can’t decide what he’s talking about. Is it sex, still? Is it skating, the press conference, the paparazzi?
Victor brushes his hair out of his face, just like before, and Chris is overcome with the urge to get up and hug him. He doesn’t, though. He doesn’t want Victor to misinterpret his intentions. So he takes a breath. He rewinds to that first moment, in the locker room, when Victor let down his guard.
“You said you were tired,” Chris reminds him.
Victor looks up. He nods, sort of warily.
“So come sit down,” Chris says again, smiling. “Talk to me.”
Victor takes another sip of his wine and goes, sits down on the opposite side of the couch like a bird perching on a branch, like he might fly away again at any moment. Chris just waits, takes another drink, and stretches his arm across the back of the sofa—reaching out without reaching out, exactly. Victor puts his glass down, pushing it closer to Chris’s side of the table—and falls sideways into the couch cushions like a puppet with cut strings. No grace to the movement at all. His head ends up next to Chris’s knee, one leg flopped over the armrest and the other half-bent underneath, his foot on the floor.
He looks up at Chris, kind of upside down. “Is it okay if I don’t want to talk?”
Chris can’t help grinning. “Of course. But I’m here if you want to.”
Victor nods, though the gesture is lost a little in the cushions. He shifts back, lifts his head just enough to rest it on Chris’s thigh, and looks up at him as if to ask, Is this okay?
“Anytime,” Chris says, and Victor’s easy, grateful smile feels better than any medal ever has.
“Chris?” Victor asks, after a long moment.
“Yes, mon chou?”
“...can you hand me my wine?”
-
Drinking while lying down should not be possible, but somehow Victor manages it. He lies there, head pillowed in Chris’s lap, and takes sip after delicate sip of wine. Chris keeps their glasses full, and they talk about nothing in particular, not skating, not their medals, until time blurs and the press conference is a distant memory.
It’s only when the bottle is empty that Victor, loose-limbed and heavy-lidded, looks up at Chris and says solemnly, “I’m sorry for kissing you before.”
A laugh bursts out of Chris. “Don’t be sorry for that. Don’t ever be sorry for kissing me.”
Victor’s eyes go wide and confused. “But… you…”
“You were kissing me because you felt like you had to.” Chris’s hand, the one not holding a glass, comes to rest on Victor’s hair. It’s soft and fine, and Chris’s fingers thread through it easily. “That’s why I stopped you. The kiss itself was…” He searches for a word. “Lovely.”
Victor’s free hand finds its way up to Chris’s face. Two fingers rest, feather-light, on his cheek. “So you wouldn’t mind if I…”
“If you…?” Chris parrots, teasing.
Victor huffs and sits up halfway. “Are you really going to make me say it?”
Chris winds his arm around Victor’s back, supporting him, though he doesn’t seem to need it. “I think it’s best that we both know exactly what we’re talking about here, don’t you?”
“Fine,” Victor says, and he shifts up and back until he’s sitting in Chris’s lap, arms wound around Chris’s neck. “I really want to kiss you, Chris, and I’d like it to last a very long time. And then, when our lips are tender and sore, I’d like to know something that you want us to do.”
Chris’s hand is still somewhat uselessly on Victor’s back, and it takes him a second to remember how do anything with it. He slides it up Victor’s spine, pushes his fingers into Victor’s hair and guides him down until he can taste Victor’s breath, wine-soaked and sweet.
“As you wish,” Chris says, and closes the distance between them.
It’s nothing like the first time they kissed. There’s no calculation behind the way Victor moves, no art to the way he devours Chris’s mouth, no elegance to the hungry little moans that escape him. He’s not trying to seduce, this time. He’s trying to take. And Chris finds that he desperately wants to be taken.
Heat radiates from Victor’s body as his tongue slips past Chris’s lips. His hips roll forward, and Chris arches to meet him, and Victor whimpers, and Chris can feel Victor hardening against him, as his own arousal pools deep in his belly.
The kiss does, in fact, last a very long time. Only when their momentum begins to slow does Chris remember the last part of Victor’s request.
What does Chris want them to do?
Far too many things. He wants to reach between them and feel Victor pulse beneath his fingers. He wants to give Victor his mouth. He wants to be offered Victor’s mouth in return. He wants to touch, to taste, to claim, to come, to…
He takes a deep breath and, for the second time that night, pulls away from Victor. This time, though, Victor doesn’t look confused. He looks deeply satisfied, with pink highlighting his perfect cheekbones. He looks at Chris with molten blue eyes, and says, “Well?”
Fortunately, all of the things Chris wants to do start with the same basic step. He slides his hands down Victor’s back, loving the way it makes Victor arch, cat-like, into his touch.
“Can I…” He tugs at Victor’s t-shirt, slides his fingers underneath it just enough to barely brush skin. “Can I take this off?”
Victor laughs, breathless and delighted, and it’s the best sound Chris has ever heard. He reaches up and grabs the back of his collar, yanks the shirt over his head and drops it on the floor. It’s not a striptease, or showy in any way, and Chris is utterly transfixed by the movement.
“That was easy,” Victor says, smoothing his hair back. His fingers card through silver and down over the side of his neck, as if he’s not yet used to the shorter length. His hand twists near his shoulder like it misses being wrapped around a ponytail, before he runs it down over his own chest.
His skin is perfect, pale ivory over carved muscle, the hint of faded summer freckles at the tops of his shoulders. But it’s the rose pink of Victor’s nipples that steals Chris’s focus now.
“Chris?” Victor asks, threading his fingers through Chris’s hair. “What else?”
Chris’s hands answer before his mouth can even begin; he takes one of those pretty pink nipples between his thumb and forefinger and pinches it lightly, eliciting a fluttery little gasp from Victor.
“I want to taste these. May I?”
Victor’s hips move, ever so slightly, as he replies, “You can taste any part of me that you want.”
Chris can’t help it: he reaches a hand down and cups Victor through his pants. Another of those little gasps.
“Like here?” Chris says.
“Nnnhhh,” Victor moans.
Chris moves his hand again, reaching around to dip a pair of fingers under Victor’s waistband, until he finds the cleft at the base of his spine. “Or here, maybe?”
“Chris,” Victor whines, the twin muscles of his ass clenching atop Chris’s thighs. His face is so flushed, so beautiful, and his chest…
Bending his head, Chris takes Victor’s left nipple in his mouth.
“Ahh,” Victor says, as Chris gives it a little suck. “Oh,” as Chris carefully scrapes his teeth over the little nub. Victor’s skin here is so sweet, and the sounds he makes, god it’s making Chris hard.
Victor shudders and shifts back, arches and twists to push his chest against Chris’s face, to put the slightest bit of space between their hips, and Chris doesn’t pull him back into place. Victor sighs, half-pleasure and half-relief, as Chris’s hands slide over his back: one teasing just under the waistband of his sweats again, the other pushing into the thick short silver at the nape of his neck, and Chris smiles around the skin in his mouth.
“Are you laughing at me?” Victor asks, mock-offended, even as he twines his long fingers into Chris’s hair to keep him close.
“Never, darling,” Chris says, laughing, trailing kisses across the plane of Victor’s chest until he can wrap his lips around his other nipple, taking it gently in between his teeth and flicking his tongue against it. Victor yelps, a startled sound that turns into a giggle and then a soft moan when Chris doesn’t let up. He presses a lingering kiss against the puffy pink flesh and then tips his head up to taste Victor’s lips again. Now they’re both breathless and smiling.
“I’m laughing with you,” Chris says. “That’s much nicer, right?” He means it rhetorically, but Victor hums softly and lifts a finger to his own lips - a gesture Chris once took as theatrical, but which he realizes now is just Victor thinking, grounding himself with his own touch, keeping himself hushed until he knows what he wants to say.
“Yeah, it is,” Victor says. He leans in and rests his forehead against Chris’s for a moment. “I guess I’m just not used to it.”
“You should be used to it,” Chris says. “Someone like you, you should be used to having a good time.”
“Someone like me?” There’s an edge of worry in Victor’s voice.
“Yeah.” Chris lets his hands trail down Victor’s back again. “Someone as lovely as you.” He pauses at the base of Victor’s spine. “Someone as kind as you.” He begins, with the lightest of pressure, to urge Victor forward again, to urge them together again. “Someone as sweet and deserving as you.”
This time, when their hips are flush together, Victor doesn’t pull back. He doesn’t move at all, not yet. He just keeps the weight of his forehead against Chris’s, and he lets his eyes flutter closed, and he breathes out, long and shaky.
Chris rocks his hips up, just a little, just enough to create a bit of friction—to let Victor know what he wants.
For a moment, nothing. Stillness. Quiet.
Then, like a sunrise, a smile spreads over Victor’s face. The kind of smile that could become laughter again at any moment. And he begins to move. His hips tilt forward, and he presses himself against Chris, rubbing, rubbing, and it’s so delicious that, somehow, Chris is the one who laughs first.
“What?” Victor says, his eyes sparkling as he lifts his head again.
“Nothing,” says Chris, pressing harder against Victor’s back, pushing them together even more tightly. “Look at us, that’s all. We’re so ridiculous.”
“I thought I was lovely and sweet,” Victor teases.
“That, too,” says Chris. “You contain multitudes.”
“Ah, fuck.” Victor rolls his hips against Chris’s; shifts to the side just enough that their erections aren’t right up against each other, but rub together glancingly, a kiss on every third stroke or so. It’s not enough pressure for Chris, not hard or fast enough to get him off, but Victor has obviously found himself a good angle—thrusting against Chris’s hip, his oblique, his stomach in slow pushes that are starting to stutter just slightly, just matching the hitch in his breath.
Chris keeps his eyes on Victor’s face, open and hungry now, as if the mask never existed, chasing his own release in slow, soft movements against Chris’s body. He drops his head back, exposing his long, elegant throat; then ducks it forward, pressing his sex-flushed face against Chris’s neck like he wants to hide. Moans helplessly, like he can’t decide which is better, and he’s so close, Chris can feel his legs trembling on either side of his thighs.
“That’s it, lovely,” Chris murmurs into Victor’s skin. “That’s right. Let me see you…”
“Oh god,” Victor says softly, barely a breath, as he shakes apart in Chris’s lap. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are scrunched tightly shut, his lips open and slack and it’s an ugly, uncalculated expression that burns itself into Chris’s brain and he never wants to see anything else, it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever seen, and he’s coming before he even realizes what’s happening, rutting up against Victor’s damp sweatpants and clutching his hips like he’ll never let go.
But for the sound of their breathing, gradually slowing, the room falls silent. Chris’s fingers are still holding Victor’s hips like a lifeline, and he watches as Victor’s face smooths out again, resolving itself into something a little more familiar. He is lovely again; Chris feels an odd pang of sadness at that.
Slowly, Victor’s eyes flutter open again. He looks at Chris, and then down to where they are still pressed together. Chris sees the exact moment Victor realizes—
“You came already.”
“Well, so did you,” Chris says.
“But you barely even—”
“I know.”
Victor stares, blue eyes wide and clear. “I didn’t even get to touch you.”
Chris laughs, the sound sitting warm in his throat. “I didn’t touch you either,” he points out.
Victor’s face falls. He looks so suddenly forlorn that Chris can’t help leaning up and kissing him again. “Next time,” he says.
The forlorn expression evaporates in a blink. “Next time?” Victor echoes.
Chris nods, reaching up to brush a lock of Victor’s silver hair out of his face. “If you want, yeah. We’ll take our time. Maybe even get some more of our clothes off first.”
“Next time,” Victor says softly, more to himself than to Chris.
“Yeah,” Chris says, and gives Victor another tiny kiss. And another, and another, until Victor is laughing again. Then he says, “Come on, lovely, get up. We should clean off.”
A light flush colors Victor’s cheeks. He ducks his head a little, almost shyly. “Or we could… stay here. For a little bit longer.”
The mess in Chris’s underwear is starting to cool. Soon it will be sticky. Normally, this would bother him. But here, tonight, with Victor’s weight on him...
“I’m comfortable here,” Victor adds.
Chris smiles. They have all night to clean up. They have all the time in the world.
“Me too,” he says. “Me too.”