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Here are the things Eric Bittle knows for absolute certain when he walks into the Olympic Village in PyeongChang, South Korea:
- Team Canada is undoubtedly going to win gold in men's ice hockey, bringing a whole lot of glory to the Bittle-Zimmermann household; and
- There is a very attractive and vaguely familiar man glaring daggers straight into his soul.
Admittedly, Bitty's not supposed to be kicking around the Olympic Village. Despite Team U.S.A.'s very best efforts, he's not competing at the games, and ordinary spectators are supposed to stay in their hotels. But far as Bitty can tell, nobody's willing to tell Canada's best and brightest that his husband needs to stay at arms' length for the next couple weeks, and what journalist worth his salt (or South Korean won, for that manner) is gonna pass up the chance to witness an infamous Zimmerkiss?
Still, the guy in the expensive suit bristles the second he spots Bitty, and his scowl's deep enough that, first chance, Bitty points it out to his self-styled tour guide. "That is not glare!" Tater assures him, clapping him on the back. "He is intense coach! That is just intense-coach face!"
Bitty frowns. Across the courtyard, the stranger tightens his jaw. "If you say so," Bitty mutters, and he staves off his shiver by digging his hands deep into his coat pockets.
Three days later, though, Tater amends, "Actually, I take back answer. That is not Nikiforov's face. He is mad at something."
Instantly, Bitty chokes on his soup. All around them, the food court buzzes with activity, but Tater's studying the stranger from the other day. The still-scowling stranger, a man who promptly tosses his hair when he and Bitty lock eyes.
All the blood drains right out of Bitty's face and pools in his shoes. "Say that again."
Tater blinks. "He is mad at something?"
"No, the whole thing. 'Cause I could've sworn you just said—"
"Ah, yes!" Tater cuts in, a grin splitting his face. "Glaring man is Viktor Nikiforov. He very famous figure skater in Russia. Five-time world champion. Six, if you count his student Katsuki winning gold at Grand Prix. When he won silver in December, he retired, but he still coaches Katsuki and maybe angry little Russian fairy boy."
Somewhere deep inside Bitty's heart, a fourteen-year-old boy with a shameful number of Viktor Nikiforov posters hanging in his bedroom releases a banshee scream. In the present, though, Bitty just asks, "You're sure that's Vik—uh, that the guy over there's really who you think? 'Cause the village is full of all kinds of folks, and I'd hate to tarnish his reputation."
"No, no, I am sure," Tater promises. "You want to meet? Maybe glaring is explained if you talk face to face. After all, Viktor is good person, and B is definitely good person, so together . . . "
"Tater, don't you dare!" Bitty half-squeaks, the pitch only audible to dogs and maybe, in the right circumstances, the Haus ghosts. But no matter how hard he flails, it's too late; Tater's on his feet in a flash and straight-up bellowing Viktor's name across the crowded food court.
Mature adult like he is, Bitty buries his face in his hands and prays the ground'll open up to swallow him alive. Or, better yet, he prays that Jack's practice'll break early and provide him an excuse to run right out of the room—not that there's a snowball's chance of that. Even all these years later, Jack Zimmermann still works harder than god.
"Alexei!" Viktor Nikiforov's voice reminds Bitty of warm syrup, and right away, he's hit with the overwhelming urge to hide under the table. "I did not know I would see you. I thought you would be at practice."
"Not even Team Russia ice hockey practices as hard as the great Viktor Nikiforov!" Tater replies, and Bitty peeks through his fingers just in time to witness one of his best friends hugging the greatest figure skater in recent history. The fourteen-year-old living in his heart feels warm in a lot of uncomfortable places. "Meet my friend B, yes? He thinks you are glaring at him, and I think, 'No, Viktor is just mad at something, and that is just his mad face.'"
Tater claps Viktor on the shoulder hard enough that he sways, and Bitty— Well, Bitty is a recent college graduate with a Food Network audition next month. His boys unanimously voted him captain of a Division I hockey team that turned around to win the NCAA tournament. He married one of the NHL's top rookies, for goodness's sake. He is definitely in control of the situation.
He draws in a breath, steadies his spirit, and drops his hands to look straight at the legendary Viktor Nikiforov.
Viktor's easy smile slides into something tense. "You are Eric Bittle," he says. "I know just who you are."
In some far-flung alternate universe, fourteen-year-old Bitty keels over dead.
This Bitty, the adult one, swallows audibly. "I— Uh, well, that's certainly—"
"I hope you have a good games," Viktor continues, his tone icy-cold as he adjusts his scarf. "Good luck to Russian hockey team. And Canada."
He walks away immediately after, the memory of expensive cologne trailing behind him, and Tater frowns. "Little B, I ask with no offense," he says, "but what the fuck?"
==
"He hates me," Bitty laments that night, rage-cleaning Team Canada's kitchenette. Well, rage-cleaning the seventeen glasses crusted with the forgotten remains of protein-based smoothies. Lord, how quickly he forgets the horrors of living with a bunch of other hockey players.
Leaning against the counter, Jack shrugs. "You don't know that."
"I don't— Jack Laurent Zimmermann, did you not listen to a word I just said?" Jack raises his hands in mock defeat, and Bitty shakes his head. "Viktor Nikiforov is one of my skating idols, and he's glaring daggers at me every time we're in the same general vicinity! Do you know how many posters of that man hung in my bedroom before we moved to Madison?"
"Depends. Did you discover him before or after Beyoncé?"
"Do not bring her good name into this," Bitty warns, and Jack dips his head in a piss-poor attempt to hide his grin. "I collected every magazine spread, every newspaper article, every limited-edition print, and now—" All at once, the fight drops right out of him, and he stares at the brackish dishwater. "I just wanna know what I did."
"Hey, bud, c'mere," Jack murmurs, and Bitty slides right into the perfect puzzle-piece fit of his arms. Even all the way in South Korea, his shirt smells like home. "I don't think you did anything. Isn't Nikiforov known for being, euh, difficult?"
"More like a shallow show-off than anything else. He tried to push the envelope, do the opposite of what everyone expected from him. It's why he's one of the best."
"And he pushed it with his student, too, eh?" Bitty frowns, peering up at Jack, and he shifts awkwardly. "At the Cup of China, and again at the Grand Prix? The news said—"
Suspicion prickles along the back of Bitty's neck. "Since when do you follow international figure skating?"
"I don't," Jack defends, half-heartedly at best. "But I watch enough sports coverage to catch, well, points of interest. And after we won the Cup, in the off-season—"
"You know he's talking about the figure-skating version of the Zimmerkiss, right?" Jack startles, almost jerking away from Bitty, but his teammate Corey just waves a hand from the couch. "The whole skating world lost their freakin' minds. Nikiforov tackled Katsuki in front of god and everybody. Points for style, sure, but it lacked your patented tender loving care."
The inevitable heat flashes across Bitty's face. "Now, I don't know if our kiss—"
"They covered it on, what, ESPN2?" P.K. asks, glancing up from his Switch. "Talked a lot about Nikiforov copying off you guys. 'Zimmermann did it best,' somebody said."
"Didn't they make t-shirts?" Corey wonders.
P.K. nods distractedly. "A bunch of American and Canadian fans wore them at some international tournament. I think maybe J.J. even had one for a while?"
That blood-loss feeling sweeps back over Bitty. He closes his eyes. "Please tell me you're talking about somebody other than Jean-Jacques Leroy, or my heart's gonna explode."
"If Leroy's the guy who chokes at international competitions on the regular, yeah," Corey provides, and Bitty groans aloud. "Hey, didn't you skate for a long time? How'd you miss all this? I mean, I'm pretty sure it even landed on a couple episodes of SportsCenter."
When Bitty bites his lip, hesitating, Jack says, "Bittle's on a self-imposed figure skating hiatus since his twitter feud with Johnny Weir."
"Not a feud," Bitty retorts, scowling at him. "Just a minor disagreement over certain technical aspects of Leo de la Iglesia's short program from last year."
"You cursed him and his triple salchow."
"Well, it's certainly not my fault the man is wrong!" Bitty ignores Jack's snorted little laugh to pinch the bridge of his nose. His head suddenly hurts something awful. "Are y'all suggesting right now that one of my skating idols hates me because I kissed my boyfriend before he kissed his? Is that the world we're living in?"
Corey shrugs. "You said it yourself: Nikiforov is a showboat. Likes grand displays with a lot of flair. Sort of like when you guys necked at center ice for all the world to see."
"The world less Viktor Nikiforov, apparently," Jack chimes in, and when Bitty smacks him, his teammates cackle.
==
After that, Bitty straight-up changes tactics.
Jack, Tater, and the rest of the Olympic hockey contingent disappear into the chaos of the tournament, leaving him mostly to his own devices. Sure, Bob and Alicia invite him sight-seeing and sit with him at the games, but you don't grow up gay as a Maypole in the south without learning how to duck away and grab a little private time.
Or, in Bitty's case, a little light snooping.
He skulks around the Olympic Village, bundled up to his eyebrows and cursing the existence of winter, and tries to avoid Viktor's piercing gaze. In other words, he spends a lot of his downtime hiding behind garbage cans and apologizing to strangers in about thirty different languages.
Admittedly, by day four, he feels pretty damn ridiculous.
Turns out, Nikiforov sticks to the same routine every day, popping up outside of Team Japan's housing block and lingering until his student wanders out for practice. Well, not quite student, if they're all being honest. According to a whole lot of Google Translate, Viktor married Yuuri Katsuki right after he won gold at the Grand Prix, and the Olympics count as their honeymoon. Not that Yuuri knows that, really; every day, he grumbles a lot as he steps out into the cold, leaving Viktor to throw an arm around him and babble nonsense 'til they disappear out of sight.
"They're cute," Bitty laments on day five, his head resting on a weirdly sticky table at the hotel's in-house restaurant. "Like, y'all remember those times me and Jack got fined for being too cute? That level. Maybe worse."
Holster sighs wistfully. "Bro, I miss those days."
"Tell me about it," Ransom echoes, and Bitty knows deep in his soul that they're fist-bumping across the table. "But really, who cares if they're cute together? If this Nikiforov guy's got a hate-boner for you and Jack—"
"And it sounds like a massive one," Holster chimes in.
"—you either need to man-up or— Ow, ow, hey!" When Bitty glances up, Ransom's rubbing the back of his head. His Team Canada snapback, signed by pretty much the whole team, lies abandoned on the floor. "C'mon, Shits, I didn't—"
"'Man-up' is a misogynistic bullshit phrase born of the patriarchy," Shitty says sagely, stealing some of Bitty's fries. "In this house, we say 'fortify.'"
Holster squints at him. "You know we're not in an actual house, right?"
Shitty shrugs. "There's definitely a case to be made that we're in a dwelling, if you wanna go deep-ass technical with Black's Law Dictionary." The former D-men roll their eyes in unison, and Shitty leans forward on his elbows. "Listen, my littlest and softest bro—"
"Can't call him soft after that time we walked in on them," Lardo comments offhandedly, and Bitty blushes right down to his toes.
"—the only way to resolve the, like, Grand Canyon trench between you and this beautiful specimen of figure skating magnificence is to face him head on. Tell him you're not sorry for your first-in-time and infinitely better ice-kiss, and drop the mic." He steals another fry. "Proverbially. Unless you somehow dig up a mic for the occasion."
Bitty scrubs a hand over his face. "Their kiss had a lot going on," he admits quietly. Not, of course, because he's watched it twenty-seven times in the last couple days. No, that'd definitely count as a sign of madness.
Lardo shrugs. "Still nothing compared to touching the Zimmerbutt," she reminds him, and all four of his friends high-five.
==
Four days later, Yuuri Katsuki says, "This needs to stop."
He looms next to Bitty's couch in one of about a dozen VIP lounges, looking as imposing as Chowder on a three-Redbull afternoon. The fogged-up glasses and messy hair hide all the on-ice intensity Bitty's studied in the last week, not that he's surprised. If he's learned anything about Yuuri Katsuki since arriving at the games, it's that underestimating him is literally your funeral.
Ten feet behind him, Viktor Nikiforov huffs like a child and crosses his arms.
Bitty closes his magazine. "Are you talking to me?" he asks, all Sunday school smile and smooth Southern charm. "'Cause I'm not sure who else is around here, but I don't have even the faintest clue what you're talking about."
"You are Eric Bittle," Yuuri says stubbornly. "You are married to Jack Zimmermann. And my husband, for some reason, thinks that you purposely slighted him."
"I do not think anything, Yuuri!" Viktor stalks over, the last word sounding more like a whine than anything else. "This man, he stole our moment! You showed the whole world the power of our love when you announced your theme last year. But when I tried to show them the same, everyone said that Jack Zimmermann is better!"
He tosses up his hands, dramatic as a theater major, and Bitty rolls his eyes. "Oh, bless your heart," he says. "You don't actually think we planned to snatch your thunder right out from under you, do you? 'Cause that logic's about as sensible as a trapdoor on a canoe."
Viktor brightens up so quick, he misses Yuuri's amused little snort. "You admit that you interfered?"
Yuuri sighs. "American sarcasm, Viktor," he murmurs, and his husband's face falls all over again. Yuuri lets him sulk for a good ten seconds before he asks, "If Viktor stops glaring, will you stop following? I know he has been difficult—"
"Yuuri!" Viktor protests, definitely whining this time.
"—but it's hard to enjoy the games when we're being stalked."
Bitty considers protesting—opens his mouth and everything, really—but something about the earnestness in Yuuri's face stops him in his tracks. He feels suddenly guilty, like his hand's all the way in the cookie jar. "Honestly, I didn't mean to stalk. I just wanted to see y'all together, you know? Actually, I admired your husband a lot, back when I skated. But I missed out on the whole story of you and him 'til Jack and the boys told me, and now—"
"Wait," Viktor interrupts, blinking owlishly. "You did not know about our kiss?"
Bitty shrugs and tries hard not to pick at the spine of his magazine. "Watching skating still kind of hurts, even after all these years. Plus, ever since Johnny Weir went on that rant about how Leo structured his short program—"
"That step sequence fell at just the right place!" Viktor protests, and despite the tension of the last week, his enthusiasm creeps right into Bitty's bones. "When I saw Johnny at the Cup of Canada, I told him he is terrible at timing. His opinion does not count. Right?"
He prods Yuuri in the ribs, and immediately, the other man smiles. "All weekend."
Viktor beams, ten times brighter than the weak winter sunlight creeping in the windows, and glances back at Bitty. "I am sorry. For the glaring at you, if not you stealing my moment." Yuuri shoots him a warning look, but he just raises his hands. "J.J. Leroy wore a shirt saying that Jack Zimmerman kisses better than me. I am not apologizing to any person who causes that."
For some reason, his indignation coaxes a surprised laugh out of Bitty. "You know what? That's a good enough apology for me. Even if I'm pretty sure my kiss was better."
Yuuri's laugh drowns out the wounded sound Viktor releases, but not for long. 'Cause all of a sudden, a blond teen with a truly horrendous bedazzled jacket storms into the lounge. "Oi, piglet! Old man! What are you doing? We've been waiting for a year."
Despite the sharp edge to his tone, Yuuri and Viktor exchange indulgent smiles. "I'm hungry. Otabek is hungry. And you're just standing in a lounge, chatting with—"
The teen glances huffily at Bitty, obviously ready to write him right off—but then, his face changes. Bitty's not sure how to describe it, this complicated battle between shock, awe, and full-out embarrassment. All he knows for sure is that the kid blushes something fierce.
The severe-looking young man who crept in behind him tilts his head slightly. "Is that the YouTube cook you watch?"
Immediately, the teen whirls around and grabs his friend's arm. "He is a baker," he hisses, "and we are leaving!" His buddy blinks in surprise as he's physically hauled out of the room.
Viktor at least waits 'til the door slams behind them to burst out laughing. "I am sorry for Yurio," he says, wheezing. "He is like a street cat. He wants everyone's attention, but he refuses to admit it."
Deep in Bitty's heart, that fourteen-year-old with all the Nikiforov posters climbs back up out of his grave just to swoon. "Wait," he says, holding up a hand while Viktor fans his face with his scarf. "Are y'all saying the Olympic gold medalist knows about my YouTube channel?"
Shrugging, Yuuri flashes him an angel-sweet smile. "He likes your savory pies."
Bitty, a mature adult with a lot of good in his complicated life, hides his face in his hands. "Just when I thought we'd reached peak ridiculousness," he mutters, and Viktor laughs all over again.
==
"Sounds like you had a good games, eh?"
Settled into his first-class seat (thanks, Bob), Bitty scrolls idly through his Instagram feed—or, as Jack called it last night, his virtual figure skater autograph book. "Hmm?" he asks, glancing up as Jack raises an expectant eyebrow. "Oh, sorry, honey. Got distracted. But if you're asking about the games, my highlight's still kissing the gold medal."
Jack's grin warms Bitty up in all the right places. "That all?"
"For the most part, sure." He's rewarded with a sweet little kiss for resting his head on Jack's solid shoulder. "Well, and when I convinced Viktor the legendary Zimmerkiss blew his out of the water. Can't forget that one."
"According to Tater, that took three days and a lot of vodka."
Rather than scowl, Bitty just presses his nose into Jack's shirt. "An underhanded victory is still a victory, Mr. Zimmermann," he retorts, and as always, Jack's laugh turns his resolve to mush in about three seconds flat.
He's just closed his eyes, warm and content where he's nuzzled up against his husband, when the flight attendants remind them to switch their cell phones into airplane mode. He lights up his screen, ready to limit his reception to the in-flight wifi, when that blood-dropping feeling sweeps over him for what he hopes to god is the last time.
Jack tears his attention away from his latest documentary to frown. "Something wrong?"
Wordlessly, Bitty holds up his phone to display the brand-spanking new twitter notification that's waiting on his home screen.
@viktor_nikiforov: hey, @johnnygweir, @omgcheckplease is right about leo's short program
Jack snorts a tiny laugh. "Yeah, that looks like a good games to me."
And despite his blush (and that fourteen-year-old version of himself shrieking like a madman in the back of his head), Bitty smiles. "More or less," he answers, and shuts off his phone.