Work Text:
Yuri Igorevich is spending more time than ever before at Ivan the Gorgeous: the Kremlin's best and least racist bar. I know because I am always on top of his schedule, and currently I am standing on the prettiest and most toothpastey dome of the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, antique telescope attached to my best eyeball, watching his fine form stroll across Red Square, belt cinched around his trim waist just so. Gosh, why cannot I be so chic? Gosh, why can't he be mine?
"Why, why, why?!" I ask the pidgeons lurking on the blue and white roof with me.
The answer, of course, is the usual one: money. I'm not rich enough, and therefore not beautiful enough. But anyway, he's spending half his days at the bar, historically a very bad sign, because if the non-magical Russian man's life expectancy is fifty-one, then the magical Russian man's life expectancy is thirty-three. It's a mystery as to why this number is so low, but it might have something to do with inherent magic level, and my crush is very magical.
"Shouldn't you be doing work of some sort? We've got files to look at." My lips flap at my squad leader when I corner him in the bar, where he sits on his favourite black leather sofa in his favourite black leather booth all the way in the back of the black leather place. He's not really cornered, because he can teleport or walk away, but he has a three litre bottle of vodka before him, thus signalling that he won't be going anywhere till it's empty.
The man looks up at me through his highly attractive psychopath eyes. "No. But you definitely have work to do and files to look at, Yekaterina Igorevna."
"Are you depressed?"
"What makes you think that?" He asks, lifting the bottle of vodka to his lips, forgoing the use of a glass.
"You've neglected shinning your third button."
Yuri looks down at his uniform, and blushes.
So, he's refusing to leave his lair, however a genius idea strikes me, occasioned by my mother asking me this morning what it is I actually do for a living. Returning to the office, I gather up all the files we have in our possession, and return to the bar, where I proceed to lay a breadcrumb trail, from Yuri's table (where I scatter some plastic sleeves tantalizingly), aaaaaall the way back to the Ministry. Like a vampire, the dark and gloomy aristocrat at first attempts to resist his natural impulses, and then, when he can fight no longer, leaps to his feet and begins picking the files off the floor, gathering them into his arms. Everything is going well, and, because nature is calling, I leave him making his slow way across the Kremlin, and head to the little girl's room.
💝💔💝
"It's been a while since I've seen Yuri Igorevich. Where is he? I need an opinion on hair straighteners." Olga has come to visit me at my cubicle, where I have nothing to do because all the files have gone missing.
"Why would you ask me that, Olya? I am not my colleague's keeper." I reply, indignant.
Olga stares down at me, deadly amused. "You always know where he is. I'm pretty sure you have an illegal tracking charm on him."
That is true. And it's true that I haven't seen him for a while…oh.
"Um, excuse me. I just need to check on something…" On the way out the office I pass Nikolai Alexandrovich fighting a wizard's duel to the death with the Medvedev Twins over a game of checkers. The pealing laughter of Mitya accompanies me out into the blasted cold and or heat of the greatest city on earth.
Where has my crush got to? He should have made it back by now. Ducking into a secluded alcove of the Venetian style Ministry building casually nestling between two palaces, I check my highly illegal tracking charm. It says my target is nearby, within the Armoury, in fact…Why the heck is he inside a muggle museum? I thought purebloods imploded if they stepped foot in such places. Maybe he is dead, and my spell has yet to update. If so, I will have to throw myself from the nearest bridge. Goodbye cruel world, I hardly knew ye.
I have to endure a great deal of tourist crap, tour guidance, and yapping about ancient pieces of junk before I manage to locate my gentleman in distress, and when I do, I come across a mild annoyance at the same time.
"I don't want to do this, Yura. This is your brain we're talking about. You could end up a drooling idiot. Or dead. Or, worst of all, facially challenged."
"I can't stand never forgetting anything. There's too many shopping lists in my head and you owe me for the last time I beat you into next week, Vitya."
"…Fine. But don't cry to me when one of your eyes ends up three inches out of alignment. When that happens, your days of being a girlfriend-free boy begin."
Turning the corner, I wander upon Viktor Krum beating the hell out of his bestie with an ordinary plank of wood. For some reason, Yuri is wearing the Imperial crown, and it doesn't suit him, it being made for a woman. It sits atop his huge and glorious head like a miniature hat. Every time the quidditch champion swings at him, he ducks, enraging Krum so that every subsequent attempted blow is even stronger than the last. The wood whistles as it slices through the air.
I turn my ass around and skedaddle back to the office.
"Viktor Ivanovich is murdering Yuri Igorevich in the Armoury!!" I scream at the top of my lungs, when I apparate into my work environment, accidentally demolishing Mikhail Mikhailovich's antique desk in the process. My squad don't even stop to help me up, but leap to their feet and stampede out of there, causing an ambulatory Boris Romanovich to yelp and dive out of the way, knocking himself out on an empty steel filing cabinet.
Luckily, I'm very fit, and I manage to hobble after the herd, finding them already engaged in violence in the museum, the sticks they picked up on the way employed, not in beating Krum, but in helping him to beat the stuffing out of Yuri, the latter kneeling with his face down on the floor and with his arms over his head. It's a very farcical position, and he STILL manages to be atrociously good looking performing it. Why is this my fate??
"Pinata! Pinata! Pinata!"
"I don't think he contains any sweet-" Someone hits me in the face with a stick and I pass out.
After work we all find ourselves back at Ivan the Gorgeous, drinking our sorrows away. No shower of sweets was forthcoming, and all the men, plus Olga, are very despondent. All except our fearless leader, who has cheered up mightily and now smiles at me dazedly from across the sticky, wet, filthy table. I know he's recovered from his depression because the bottle of vodka before him is only one point five litres. He's not even black and blue, or damaged in any visible way, although his shiny hat continues to be too small.
"Nice eye makeup, Katya. That's a lovely shade of green. What brand is it?" asks Anna, of me. I'm sure she is the one who hit me in the face. It certainly was not Krum, who asked me, the second I regained consciousness, to visit him in Bulgariastan.
"My mom is going to wonder if I got myself a bad boyfriend." I say. "Then she's going to hunt him down…Could be fun, I dunno." I say, eyeing my beloved, meaningfully.
He smiles lopsidedly like a fool…Well, brain damage is as brain damage does, I guess.