Chapter Text
“I saw that he placed first. He received another medal?” The voice on the other end of the line crackled before drowning in passing police sirens. Maybe he could blame his breathiness on the snowy night and not due to anxiety.
“I will not allow you to see him, Pyotr.” The receiver squeaked under Nikolai’s grip, ready to be slammed down or thrown aside before Pyotr could spew any more bullshit.
“Please, father. I want to know how he's doing.” He sounded like a father then. Desperate and kind. But Nikolai resolved to hear past the sound of his son’s voice, no matter how much he made it quiver, or snuck in a sniffle in his sentences.
Nikolai himself was a wonderful piroshki baker, if he did say so himself. His grandson, Yuri, a champion figure skater, and his son, Pyotr, a great liar.
“I've seen the videos,” the desperate man continued, his frustration bled through. “He's too small and too thin for his age, so you allow them to dress him up like a doll. Like a princess!”
Nikolai remained silent. He didn’t share his son’s distaste in his grandson’s expression. He admired Yuri’s grace and ferocity on the ice and saw nothing beyond that. Even an old man like himself knew there was nothing lesser about Yuri’s skill. Plus, it made Yuri happy. And he was a champion. He was proud of Yuri.
"The Russian Fairy,” Pyotr spat. The fatherly facade vanished. This voice, Nikolai knew. “Tch. The boy will become a man in a few years, no? He needs his father.”
Nikolai kept himself from sighing too loud, kept himself from giving Pyotr evidence of getting under his skin. He believed that his young grandson would blossom into a great man as long as he continued to find the drive to pursue his dreams.
“You'd keep a father from his son?” Pyotr tried a different tactic. If his father couldn’t listen to reason, maybe guilt could poison him.
It worked. Partly. Nikolai responded, voice shaking under some weight. Exasperation? Regret? Terror? All of the above. “It pains me to do so.”
Pyotr heard his father breaking slowly. He heard the old man pinching the bridge of his nose, and his posture sink, hand out against a wall or table to steady his quaking legs. Pyotr pressed further, allowing his voice to quiver softly, “Then why?”
Nikolai made one last attempt to end this ridiculous phone call. “It's not good for him. He's been… problematic, but he’s making friends now.” Nikolai quickly defended his grandson’s behavior but he wished he had kept his mouth shut in fear that Pyotr would find ways to harass his friends and rinkmates. But the words already spilled out and so Nikolai put his foot down. “What he has going on is really good for him and I'll be damned if I let anyone take that away from him. Even you.”
“You don't understand-”
“I understand very well. Circumstances have already kept me from my own son. I won't let you hurt my grandson.”
“It's been seven years…” Pyotr pleaded.
“Yes, seven years without you. Seven years ensuring that he doesn't get caught up in the mess you've woven yourself into. He's been fine for seven years, he'll be fine for seven more years. I don't know how else to get you to understand. You say he needs his father but you were never even that!” Nikolai didn’t realize he shouted into the receiver. Why he still hadn’t hung up, he didn’t know.
“…. Does she see him?”
Nikolai sighed. Despite his efforts, his son truly did not care about anyone else but himself and his own feelings. “Do not make this a competition. Do not use him to get back at that woman.”
“I take that as a no,” Pyotr said, triumphantly.
It made him sick practically hearing his son’s smile. “Please, my son. Please stop this selfishness.”
“Do not call me your son when you're preventing me from seeing mine!” This was the real Pyotr Nikolai knew.
But Nikolai had enough. “Good bye, Pyotr.”
“Wait no! I'm sorry. I miss you so much!” He whined. “At least you can meet me. We don’t have to talk about Yur-”
“I will no longer let your feelings manipulate me.You will not be seeing Yuri. And that is my final decision. Goodbye.”
He slammed the receiver down, hands shaking in anger. He almost sobbed.