Work Text:
dance(a$$): okay
dance(a$$): since last night was such a bust for you all
dance(a$$): we gotta go out and turn up
dance(a$$): just us
dance(a$$): the Cool Patrol
dance(a$$): the Yuri Katsuki Support Group
peach-eat: i’m in
el leon: me too
hollywoodhong: Me too!!
peach-eat: where do we wanna meet
dance(a$$): well I just left a meeting with my coaches so
el leon: what about yuri
yuri katsudon: Well…
yuri katsudon: I don’t know that I can ditch Victor for longer than, like, an hour.
peach-eat: don’t be a wet blanket
yuri katsudon: I’m not being a wet blanket!
peach-eat: leo tell him he’s a wet blanket
el leon: leave me out of this
el leon: oh
el leon: oh my god
el leon sent a photo
el leon: SPOTTED
Leo darted across the sprawling quad outside the arena, face set with mischievous determination. He weaved between a few tourists speaking in a language he couldn’t quite place and stopped, triumphantly, inches behind a tall guy in a tailored peacoat. He grinned and spread his arms, ready to grab his hapless prey in a hug.
“Leo de la Iglesia, if you hug me, so help me God I will end you.”
Georgi Popovich turned around, face smug, and took in the sight of Leo dropping his hug-attack defeatedly.
Leo pouted, “Don’t be such a wet blanket.”
“Don’t just repeat Phichit’s lame insults,” Georgi replied.
peach-eat: is that georgi???
peach-eat: where r u guys?????
el leon: main quad
peach-eat: I’M COMING
“Phichit’s coming,” Leo parroted.
“Oh, wonderful.”
“The others, too, I hope.”
Georgi sighed, “You were serious about making me go out, then.”
“Of course,” Leo said, “We made a promise.”
“I promised nothing.”
Leo shrugged, “Okay. We promised to drag you out.”
Georgi looked like he wanted to argue more, but a shout interrupted him.
“GEORGIIIIIII!”
Both skaters turned toward the sound, and before Leo could process it, a flash of blonde hair and green jacket barreled into Georgi, knocking him a few feet backwards on stumbling legs.
“What the fuck, Christophe,” came Georgi’s disgruntled voice, from under Chris Giacometti’s suffocating hug.
Chris laughed, “If I had asked to hug you, you would have said no!”
“So much for bodily autonomy.”
“Then I’ll ask,” came another voice, “Georgi, can I have a hug?”
Leo turned toward the sound, and Chris let Georgi go to call out a greeting. Phichit and Guang-Hong approached them from the direction of the hotel, the latter waving enthusiastically.
“Phichit, I would rather fistfight Yuri Plisetsky than have another hug,” answered Georgi sourly.
But Phichit just smiled. “Good thing Plisetsky is like five foot nothing, then.”
And Georgi disappeared into yet another hug, Phichit and Guang-Hong wrapped around him. Leo watched for a second, and then joined them in squeezing some emotion into their most apathetic squad member.
Another voice spoke from somewhere behind them. “Aw, you started without me.”
“Yuuri!” cried Chris.
Leo released Georgi to see Chris and Yuuri locked in a surprisingly genuine hug. Obviously the ass-grabbing earlier in the day hadn’t put any sort of dent in their friendship.
“So what’s the plan?” Yuuri asked, catching Leo’s eye from over Chris’s shoulder.
“Dunno,” replied Leo, “I’m not in charge here. Ask Phichit.”
Phichit, for his part, had already taken one of Georgi’s arms and begun to drag him away. Guang-Hong walked leisurely behind them, glancing around with the comfort of a local. So Leo ran forward to link his arm through Georgi’s other one as Phichit led them away down one of the bustling side streets.
“Beijing is so busy at night. Must be a great club scene,” said Chris, peering into one of the dozens of stall-like stores that lined the alley.
“I wouldn’t know,” smiled Guang-Hong.
“Well the way I see it, there are two options,” said Phichit, “We can buy booze at the grocery store and go back to someone’s hotel, or we can find a bar and have a few drinks there.”
Yuuri, who had been hovering at the back of the group, seemed to perk up at the idea of drinks.
“Why not both?” he said tentatively.
Chris turned back toward Yuuri, face dreamy. “That is the best idea. I love you, Yuuri Katsuki.”
“Thanks, Chris.”
“Victor is gonna have to get in line, because I’m marrying you first.”
“The fuck you are! He promised himself to me like three years ago!” called Phichit.
“I’m marrying you after Phichit,” Chris amended.
Leo laughed, making Georgi look down at him with a soft expression. But all tenderness disappeared when Leo stopped in his tracks and nearly wrenched Georgi’s elbow out of place.
“GUYS.”
“What?” asked Phichit.
Leo simply gestured.
Yuuri grinned, “McDonalds?”
“You’re from AMERICA, and the thing that gets you excited in China is a McDonald’s?” asked Chris.
“That thing is three stories! And I haven’t had chicken nuggets in like a week!” protested Leo.
Guang-Hong veered over to one of the storefronts, a clean white-tile-and-glass building with fluorescent lighting and soft music.
“Grocery store,” he said, “Did we want to buy anything?”
Leo nodded, “Let’s go.”
And the group shuffled its way into the shop, earning a few suspicious glances from the staff at their loud talking and laughing.
“What’s some good local alcohol?” Chris asked.
Guang-Hong’s face took on a slightly dark grin as he reached for a nondescript glass bottle with a plain white and red label.
“Baijiu.”
“Don’t make that face!” said Yuuri, taking the bottle from him.
Chris looked intrigued, “What’s baijiu?”
“It’s China’s national drink, basically. It’s just grain alcohol, but it’s way stronger than pretty much anything on Earth,” said Guang-Hong.
Yuuri flipped over the bottle in his hands, and his eyes widened, “This is fifty percent alcohol!”
“Exactly.”
“That stuff will get us fucked up,” said Georgi, almost reverently.
“Almost ruins your sense of national pride, doesn’t it, Russia?” said Chris affectionately.
Out of the corner of his eye, Leo watched Yuuri move toward the register with his bottle of baijiu. In front of him, Georgi had picked up a second bottle.
“How much do we need?”
Leo snorted, “Yuuri already bought one.”
Chris shrugged, “Get another, just in case.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Phichit, “Chasers!”
“Soda is the next aisle,” said Guang-Hong.
The two of them disappeared in search of an appropriate chaser, leaving Leo to follow Georgi and Chris toward the register. He walked through one of the empty checkout counters to join Yuuri outside.
“Is this a bad idea?” Leo asked him, smiling.
Yuuri, who was shoving the bottle of alcohol into his backpack, paused, “Probably?”
“We’re still gonna do it, though.”
“Obviously.”
“Okay!” announced Phichit, leading the remaining group members out of the store, “To the bar!”
Chris grinned, “We have to find somewhere that can fit all of us.”
“And for God’s sake, put that away,” grumbled Georgi, pointing at the bottle clutched in Chris’s hand.
“You don’t want people to think we’re getting drunk and disorderly?” teased Chris.
“Not yet.”
But Chris unzipped Yuuri’s backpack and dumped in the second bottle of baijiu, the glass containers clinking around revealingly.
“Great. Now. Pregaming!” said Phichit.
The six of them took to the streets again, wandering through the falling dark and ogling at neon signs and brightly-lit storefronts. Shops selling everything from Japanese electronics to French pastries beckoned to them, their owners calling out in Mandarin, Cantonese, English.
Leo had been to China before. To Beijing, even. Probably to this exact street, too, judging by how well Guang-Hong seemed to know it. But he still marveled.
He watched his friends, too. Phichit and Yuuri had taken the lead, talking and jostling each other with a comradery born of being college roommates for so long. Chris had fallen into step with Guang-Hong, one arm hooked around the little skater’s shoulders. And Georgi was typing madly on his phone while keeping pace with Leo.
“This place looks big enough,” said Yuuri after a while, pointing at one of the neon signs.
The bar in question was small, a two-story affair with open window frames and a small band playing American pop music in the corner. People laughed and talked over the busy scene, cigarettes and drinks in hand.
“Perfect,” Chris agreed.
He walked up to the host standing at the door, who eyed the group warily.
“How many?” the man asked, in shaky English.
“Liu,” answered Guang-Hong.
Immediately the host perked up and began speaking rapidly in Chinese as he headed into the bar. Guang-Hong motioned for the group to follow them inside.
There was only one open table in the bar, a circular booth in the very back corner that was obviously designed for a group half their size. But the line of beer pitchers on the counter of the bar was promising, so the six of them squished around the table under the host’s amused eye, passing drink menus around and chattering animatedly.
“Xiexie,” said Leo, contributing the only Chinese word he could remember.
The host smiled and replied in English, “You’re welcome.”
He lingered there politely, waiting for them to decide on their drinks.
Yuuri looked expectantly around the group. “What are we ordering?”
“Shots?” Chris suggested.
“Something pink and delicious,” said Leo.
Georgi nodded, “I second that.”
“One of those big pitchers of beer,” said Yuuri, pointing to the little pictures on the menu, “And three of…whatever that pink thing is.”
The host nodded and disappeared behind the bar.
Chris leaned back in the seat, one arm slung over the back of the booth behind Yuuri, and smirked.
“This is going to be so fun.”
---------------
By the time the beer pitcher arrived in all of its pale lager glory, the fruity mixed drinks had already been consumed, and another round ordered. Perhaps unwisely, because Yuuri has already unbuttoned the first two buttons of his dress shirt, and Georgi was leaning just a little too closely over Chris to fill his glass with beer.
“Touchy-feely when you drink, hm?” Chris all but purred, as Georgi sat back down.
Georgi only shrugged. “I don’t drink often. Anya hated it when-”
He stopped, expression darkening at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. Chris and Yuuri exchanged a worried glance. Quickly, Leo wracked his brain for something to clear the tension that was brewing. And then the perfect idea hit him.
“Okay, so,” Leo began, already choking back a laugh, “So Guang-Hong was telling me about the story behind his free skate, right?”
“Right,” agreed Yuuri cautiously, still eyeing Georgi.
“Oh, nooooo! Don’t tell this story!” Guang-Hong begged, grabbing Leo’s arm.
“And, and, the song is from this, like, gangster movie set in Shanghai, so he performs as if he’s the main guy, with a wicked sword and stuff,” Leo explained.
Chris nodded his attention, stirring his drink leisurely.
Leo grinned at his best friend, “He imagines me as the main guy’s partner, another badass gangster. Which, hello, real life.”
“Come on, Leo!” cried Guang-Hong.
“And Georgi is the bad guy!”
Georgi looked up, the hurt on his face replaced with curiousity. “Me?”
“I didn’t know you when I was learning the routine!” Guang-Hong protested, “It was ages ago and you were the oldest, most experienced person in our bracket!”
“Plus you’re Russian,” Phichit teased.
But Georgi only shrugged, “I can understand why.”
“But that’s not the best part,” Leo smiled conspiratorially.
“What else is there?” asked Chris.
“Then, Guang-Hong fuckin’ shoots Georgi in a street fight and kills him!”
Georgi coughed suddenly, sputtering around an ill-timed mouthful of beer. A resigned-looking Yuuri clapped him on the back.
“What?” Georgi rasped, “Why would you do that?”
Leo sat back in his chair, obviously enjoying what he had caused, “And then he takes a bullet for me and dies, and that’s the final pose of the routine. Pretty great, right?”
“Of course you think so. The only one who survives is you,” Georgi replied peevishly.
Chris hunched over the table, laughing so hard that a few wayward tears streamed down his cheeks. “I cannot believe that!”
“That’s fucking amazing!” Phichit nearly yelled.
Yuuri glanced at his best friend with something like hopelessness in his eyes.
“You’ve had too much to drink. You’re shouting,” he said.
“I don’t give a SHIT!” crowed Phichit, “Besides, it’s usually you we have to mop up!”
“Yuuri is a little bit of a whore when he drinks,” said Chris, nodding sagely.
Leo grinned, catching Guang-Hong’s eye, “This is feeling more like a party, now.”
Guang-Hong sighed fondly, “We should probably take them back to the hotel before they kick us out of here.”
---------------
The conversion rate between American and Chinese money never ceased to amaze.
“Forty-five,” the elderly cab driver barked, over the din that was Yuuri and Chris trying to wrestle a tipsy Georgi out of the car.
Leo handed him a few folded bills, and the man sped off.
“You just gave him a hundred,” Guang-Hong said.
“It’s like fifteen bucks. It’s fine.”
“America is terrifying.”
“No, that’s terrifying.”
Leo pointed at Yuuri and Chris, who had sat Georgi on a bench outside the hotel doors and handed him Yuuri’s backpack. The two of them, obviously drunker than Leo had thought, were starting to grind against each other to an imaginary beat.
“I knew there was a reason they both picked sexuality as their program themes,” said Phichit, swaying a little on the spot.
“Are we the only ones with any self-control?” Leo asked.
“I think so,” Georgi said.
Phichit offered him a hand, and the two of them ambled into the hotel lobby. Guang-Hong followed quickly, leaving Leo to seize Yuuri by the wrist and drag him away from Chris.
“We’re going inside,” said Leo, as Yuuri started to protest.
Chris trotted after them demurely, “We gave the drinks to Georgi!”
“Thank God for that.”
Inside the lobby, Phichit was talking animatedly to Georgi. But when he saw Leo, he turned his way.
“Whose room is the biggest?” Phichit asked.
“Not mine,” Leo replied.
Yuuri raised a tentative hand, “Probably mine.”
“Yeah?”
“I share it with Victor,” he explained, “So, like, we have rooms. More than one room. A living room.”
“I want to see Victor,” Chris murmured, a smirk on his face that made Leo wish he was somewhere else.
“Keep it in your pants!” Phichit half-yelled, “To Yuuri’s room!!”
---------------
Leo was impressed that Georgi, Chris, and Yuuri only tripped four times between them. The elevator had been iffy, but now they were staring at the door to Yuuri’s hotel room while Yuuri fumbled around in his backpack for the key card.
“I don’t know if Victor’s here,” he mumbled, “But…”
Guang-Hong rolled his eyes, “Oh, for the love of-”
He knocked on the door, loudly. Yuuri dug one of the bottles of baijiu out of his bag and handed it to Chris, who immediately began opening the plastic seal. The other bottle ended up in Phichit’s hands, the soda on the floor at Yuuri’s feet.
Just then, the door slid open, revealing Victor Nikiforov in his grey practice sweats. He glanced over the motley crew of skaters in front of him, and when his eyes rested on Chris holding the now-open bottle of alcohol, his face lit up.
“You brought drinks!” he cried, delighted.
Immediately he ushered Leo and Phichit inside, and hurried over to half-carry his precious Yuuri into the room and deposit him on the sofa.
“They’re drunk already,” Victor said.
Leo nodded sheepishly, “Yeah, we’ve been out.”
“Yuuri said you were going to party. I didn’t think he meant it though,” Victor smiled, “But between you and me, I love drunk Yuuri.”
Chris chose that moment to launch himself at Victor, slinging his arms around his neck. “I want to dance!”
Laughing, Victor untangled himself from Chris’s grip, “I think someone else does, too.”
He pointed at Georgi, who had wrestled the stereo into playing a Chinese pop station and was swaying softly. Chris made a small, satisfied sound, and grabbed Georgi around the waist, spinning him.
They danced like that for a moment, until Chris decided to let him go. Leo watched, horrorstruck, as Georgi went flying across the room and slammed into the minibar. Teabags and coffee packets rained down onto the floor, and with one mighty crash, a porcelain mug fell and shattered into pieces.
Georgi looked down at the mug. He sank to his knees beside the pile of white shards. The room was quiet except for the sound of the radio. And just as Leo opened his mouth to ask if he was okay, Georgi burst into tears.
“I’m sorry!” he cried.
Victor went to him quickly, “It’s okay! It’s the hotel’s mug. It’s fine.”
“Are you okay?” asked Chris, face concerned.
“I ruin everything!” Georgi sobbed.
Victor looked sullen as he picked up Georgi from the floor and held him by the shoulders. Chris came forward and wrapped them both in a hug.
“He’s still upset about Anya,” Chris said to the room at large, his voice muffled in Victor’s hair.
“Don’t be upset!” Phichit said, running over to join the hug, “You have us!”
Georgi tipped his head back to look at Phichit, thoughtful, “That’s true…”
Guang-Hong walked quietly over to the broken mug and began gathering the pieces before any of the drunker skaters decided to do it themselves and get hurt. Bless him.
“I think the mug forgives you,” added Yuuri helpfully.
Georgi gave him a watery smile, and tugged him into the group hug, too.
Leo just stood there for a moment, mouth agape. That had gone places he had not expected.
“…I’m going to bed.”
---------------
Leo woke up feeling surprisingly good. It had been a while since he’d been even a little drunk, but obviously the choice to switch to water back at the bar was a good one.
He glanced around. He was exactly where he had fallen asleep the night before, laying across the foot of Victor and Yuuri’s bed. Guang-Hong was curled up on a decorative chaise lounge by the window, still fast asleep. The others were nowhere to be seen. Curious, Leo got to his feet and went into the hotel suite’s little sitting room.
The vision before him, the other five skaters sprawled across the room, would be seared into his mind for days.
“Why am I the oNLY ONE WEARING CLOTHES?!”