el mono de alambre

Hey yall!

Just some shameless self advertisement trying to promote my story.

The gist of it is all here, I do update often (or often enough) so if anyone is interested in some gay figure skating rivals to lovers project here’s just the thing 🫡

Thanks in advance to anyone who checks it out, hit me up for any questions, comments, concerns, etc.

Excerpt, whole chapter on ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83972436/chapters/225216236

Roman

Turin, Italy — February 16, 2006

Roman had not expected Italy to smell like this.

He did not know what he had expected.

Something warmer, maybe. Older. Something closer to the photographs in guidebooks and the short, careful descriptions federation staff gave when trying to make the Olympic schedule sound less like a military campaign.

Turin, they said, was beautiful.

Historic.

Elegant.

Roman had seen very little of it.

Mostly he had seen the inside of the Olympic Village, the rink, the bus between the two, hotel-like corridors, security checkpoints, dining halls, practice ice, and the backs of adults walking too quickly ahead of him.

Still, sometimes the city appeared without asking.

A street through the bus window. Pale buildings with dark shutters. A church dome rising unexpectedly beyond traffic. Mountains in the distance, too large and blue-gray to seem real at first. The kind of light that made everything look painted.

He liked that.

He liked the mountains most.

They reminded him of Alberta only in the broadest way, which was almost better. Familiar enough to understand. Different enough to look at.

On the morning of the free skate, Roman stood in the Olympic Village with a paper cup of hot chocolate in both hands and watched a group of speed skaters walk past laughing.

They were loud.

Everyone was loud here.

Not constantly. Not rudely. Just full of themselves in a way Roman did not understand. Full of country, of language, of team, of having made it here. Athletes moved around the Village like they belonged inside their own bodies. Like their jackets and credentials and flags were not costumes but extensions of something already true.

Roman did not feel like that.

His Team Canada jacket still felt slightly too large.

His credential bumped against his chest every time he walked, the plastic edge tapping a rhythm he found irritating but did not remove because he was terrified of losing it.

He was an Olympian.

This was a fact.

The credential said so.

The newspapers said so.

Dmitri said so.

The wrong birth date said so.

Roman felt, most of the time, like a child wearing someone else’s proof.

“You are not supposed to drink this.”

Roman turned.

Dmitri stood behind him in his red jacket, hands in his pockets, expression already resigned to Roman’s existence as a source of minor professional disappointment.

Roman looked down at the cup.

“It’s hot chocolate.”

“I know what it is.”

“It’s not poison.”

“Sugar before practice.”

“It’s not before practice. Practice is in two hours.”

Dmitri looked at him.

Roman held the cup closer to his chest.

“I wanted it,” he said.

The sentence came out smaller than intended.

Dmitri did not answer immediately.

That was usually bad.

But this time, his expression shifted in a way Roman could not place. Not softness exactly. Not approval. Something quieter. Like he had been reminded, briefly, of a detail he kept forgetting.

That Roman was fifteen.

That Roman wanted hot chocolate.

That Roman was standing in the Olympic Village holding a paper cup with both hands because the world had become too large and this was one thing he could hold.

Dmitri looked away first.

“One,” he said.

Roman blinked.

“What?”

“You drink one. Not three.”

Roman’s mouth moved before he could stop it.

“I wasn’t going to drink three.”

“You would if I say nothing.”

“I would not.”

“You would think of it.”

Roman looked down at the cup.

Maybe.

Dmitri made a low sound that was almost a laugh.

Almost.

Roman held still around it.

These moments were dangerous because they looked like ordinary life.

A father finding his son with hot chocolate. Mild correction. Almost laughter. The morning cold outside the building. Athletes passing with damp hair and backpacks and lanyards. The Olympics, briefly, becoming something a person could survive.

Dmitri stepped beside him, not quite touching.

“You sleep?”

“Yes.”

Dmitri’s eyes narrowed.

“Some.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

“That is not number.”

Roman took another sip of hot chocolate.

Dmitri sighed.

“Your warm-up group is late. You have time after breakfast. Thirty minutes rest. No phone. No walking around.”

“I don’t know anyone to call.”

This came out too honestly.

Dmitri looked at him.

Roman wished he had not said it.

He did have people, technically. Federation staff. Training partners. A few junior skaters in Canada who had sent emails full of exclamation points. Elaine Porter had told him to enjoy every second, which was the kind of instruction that made enjoyment impossible.

But he did not have friends here.

Not real ones.

Not people who would know what to say if he called.

He had been homeschooled for almost two years now, ever since school had become less a place he attended and more a logistical problem everyone kept trying to solve badly.

The elementary school had been ordinary.

Too ordinary, sometimes. Too loud, too slow, too full of boys who asked if figure skating made him gay and girls who touched his hair without asking because they said it was so black. But it had been a place with desks, lunch periods, library days, spelling tests, and children who did not know what triple-triple meant.

Then training increased.

Competitions increased.

Absences became meetings.

Meetings became letters.

Letters became Dmitri standing in the principal’s office saying the administration was irrational, incompetent, and provincial in a tone that made the principal’s mouth go white around the edges.

“They make exception for hockey,” Dmitri had said afterward in the car.

Roman had said nothing.

“They make exception for sickness. For family trip. For stupid things. But for elite athlete, no.”

Roman had watched the school building shrink in the side mirror.

“I liked the library,” he had said.

Dmitri had glanced at him.

“Then we go library.”

It was not the same.

They both knew.

Now Roman did schoolwork in the car, in airports, at kitchen tables, in hotel rooms, in quiet corners of rinks while younger children stared at his jacket. He knew algebra. He knew history. He knew how to write a five-paragraph essay about Confederation.

He did not know how to speak to other athletes his age when they asked what he did for fun.

Dmitri turned his gaze toward the passing speed skaters.

“You do not need phone,” he said.

Roman huffed faintly.

That was not the point.

Dmitri knew that.

He said it anyway.

A group of Canadian athletes came in from outside, red jackets bright against the gray morning. One of the women from freestyle skiing recognized Roman and smiled.

“Hey, Roman. Big day.”

Roman straightened.

“Yes.”

She waited.

He realized too late that more was expected.

“Thank you,” he added.

Her smile widened slightly, not unkind.

“Good luck out there.”

“You too,” he said.

She blinked.

Then laughed.

“I’m already done.”

Roman’s face went hot.

“Right.”

“It’s okay,” she said, still smiling. “I’ll take it retroactively.”

Her teammates laughed as they walked past.

Not cruelly.

That almost made it worse.

Roman stared down into his hot chocolate.

Dmitri said nothing.

Roman waited for correction.

It did not come.

Instead Dmitri said, “She knows what you mean.”

Roman looked at him.

Dmitri shrugged once.

“Everyone says stupid things here.”

Roman almost smiled.

This time, he let himself.

Just a little.

————

End of Arc I, story continues…

Hi y’all, Mona again!

Just wanted to share the playlist I’m using for my project “Purple Rain.”

Quick note for those who haven’t checked it out yet, my story follows two different points of view of the two main characters in an alternating manner. For Roman’s chapters I use bird species as titles for Danny’s chapters I use songs (especially 90s and early 2000s).

These are the songs that I use (and will use) for the remaining of the story.

If anyone in interested in checking out the story it’s posted on my blog here on tumblr as well as on ao3:

If it’s not your thing, check out the playlist, that’s fine too!

Also is June so happy pride to those who celebrate 🏳️‍🌈✨

Excerpt, full chapter on ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83972436/chapters/224758641

Danny

Brooklyn, New York — February 14, 2006

Danny had not checked the Olympic roster.

This was a lie.

Technically.

He had not checked it officially.

He had not gone to the federation site and clicked through names like a desperate person. He had not printed anything out. He had not circled anyone. He had not done the thing where he sat at the family computer waiting for the dial-up to stop screaming so he could refresh a page that would not change no matter how many times he asked it to.

That would have been pathetic.

Danny was not pathetic.

He had standards.

Low ones, sometimes, but still. Standards.

He had heard names, obviously. Everyone had. You could not spend your life inside rinks and not hear things. Olympic team selections moved through skating circles faster than actual news. Coaches whispered. Parents repeated everything badly. Skaters pretended not to care while absorbing every word.

Whitaker.

Lowell.

The Americans.

He knew them.

Not personally.

But of course he knew them.

They were the reason he was not there.

Once again, not personally. They had not broken into his house and stolen Turin from him. Danny understood that, technically. They had earned their spots. They were older, cleaner, more reliable internationally. They had senior experience and reputations that fit into Olympic broadcasts without anyone having to explain why this kid from Brooklyn had almost crashed into a wall because his skates were borrowed.

Fine.

Great.

Good for them.

He hoped they skated well.

He hoped they fell.

He had not checked the Canadians.

Why would he?

He was not Canadian. He did not care. Roman Petrov was a junior skater who had won Scottsdale and insulted his limp at six in the morning outside a hotel. That did not make him relevant.

Danny had not checked the Russian team either. Or the Japanese team. Or the French team. Or any team other than the one he was not on.

Because again.

Standards.

He had heard Roman’s name once, maybe twice, after December. At the rink. In passing. Something about Skate Canada making a bold choice. Something about a prodigy. Something about youth. Danny had assumed people were exaggerating because rink people loved nothing more than turning a sixteen-year-old with a clean triple-triple into the second coming of Christ on blades.

He did not ask.

Asking would mean interest.

Interest would mean Roman Petrov had occupied space in his head longer than absolutely necessary.

Which he had not.

Mostly.

“Danny!”

His mother’s voice cut through the apartment from the kitchen.

He was lying on the floor in front of the television with one leg propped against the couch, a biology textbook open on his stomach and the remote balanced against his chest. The textbook had been open to the same page for twenty minutes.

Cellular respiration.

He hated it.

Not because it was hard.

Because it was boring in a way that felt personal.

“I’m studying,” he called back.

Katya, sitting upside down on the couch behind him with her feet hooked over the backrest, snorted.

“No, you’re not.”

Danny lifted one hand without looking and shoved at her leg.

“You’re watching Olympic coverage and pretending the textbook makes it academic.”

“I’m absorbing information environmentally.”

“You’re absorbing stupidity.”

“Same thing, public school.”

Katya leaned over the couch enough that her hair fell forward in a dark sheet.

“You have homework?”

“Do you?”

“I graduated, idiot.”

“You’re still at community college.”

“That’s called being educated affordably.”

“That’s called still having homework.”

She threw a throw pillow at him.

It hit the textbook and slid onto the floor.

From the kitchen, their mother called, “No fighting.”

“We’re bonding,” Danny said.

“We’re not,” Katya added.

The apartment was too warm.

It was always too warm in winter, either because the building heat came on like punishment or because his mother cooked as if feeding not a family but a medium-sized village preparing for siege. The windows fogged around the edges. The kitchen smelled like onions, chicken broth, and dill. Somewhere beneath that was the old apartment smell: radiator heat, dust, detergent, the faint metallic tang of pipes.

Outside, February had turned Brooklyn gray and wet.

Not pretty snow.

Not even real cold.

Just slush at the curb and dirty ice pressed into the corners of sidewalks.

Valentine’s Day.

Which meant at school everyone had acted either in love or angry about not being in love, and Danny had spent most of the day accepting candy from girls who said, “It’s not like that,” while absolutely meaning it like that.

He had smiled.

Of course he had.

He was good at that.

Photogenic, according to the sponsors.

Marketable, according to Adrianna.

Annoying, according to Katya.

All useful categories.

The television broadcast cut from a speed skating segment to a commercial. A red car drove through fake snow while some man talked about reliability. Then a jewelry ad. Then another one. Valentine’s Day made even commercials unbearable.

Danny reached for the remote.

Katya snatched it first.

“No.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were going to change it.”

“I was going to improve our lives.”

“You are not changing it.”

“You don’t even like figure skating.”

“I like the Olympics.”

“You like men in tight shirts.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Danny turned his head slowly and looked at her.

She grinned.

Mikhail sat at the small kitchen table, not quite in the kitchen and not quite in the living room, where he could see the television from the side without being too close to the noise. He had headphones on, big padded ones Sergei had bought after Mikhail had started slamming doors whenever Katya played music too loud. He was lining up playing cards in a long, uneven trail from one end of the table to the other.

Not by suit.

Not by number.

By something else only he understood.

Red, black, black, red, red, black.

Pause.

Adjust.

Red.

He was now tall enough that his knees bumped the underside of the table when he shifted. His shoulders had broadened over the last year, still not fully grown but moving that way. Sometimes Danny forgot until Mikhail stood too close and suddenly the little brother in his head did not match the body in front of him.

Mikhail did not look at the television.

But every time the crowd noise rose, his fingers paused.

Danny noticed.

Their mother noticed.

Everyone noticed, in the silent way they all had learned.

Babushka was in the armchair by the window, knitting something that looked either like a scarf or a collar. She wore a dark green sweater and the same floral headscarf she wore indoors when the apartment felt drafty, which was always. Her glasses sat low on her nose. She had been watching Olympic coverage all day, switching allegiance depending on who looked coldest, poorest, or Slavic.

She loved the Olympics.

Not peacefully.

She watched them like she had personal grudges dating back several regimes.

“That man,” she said suddenly, pointing one knitting needle at the television during a replay of some ski jumper from earlier. “Too skinny. Wind take him.”

“That’s the point,” Katya said.

“Point is bones break.”

Danny said, “You’re a natural commentator.”

Babushka nodded once.

“I know.”

Sergei was not home yet.

He was supposed to be.

Then again, supposed to be meant very little where work was concerned. A job in Queens had run long. Bad wiring, he’d said over the phone. Old building. Someone had done something stupid behind a wall twenty years ago, and now Sergei had to argue with it.

He had promised to make it back for the men’s short.

Danny had not checked the Olympic roster.

This was a lie.

Technically.

He had not checked it officially.

He had not gone to the federation site and clicked through names like a desperate person. He had not printed anything out. He had not circled anyone. He had not done the thing where he sat at the family computer waiting for the dial-up to stop screaming so he could refresh a page that would not change no matter how many times he asked it to.

That would have been pathetic.

Danny was not pathetic.

He had standards.

Low ones, sometimes, but still. Standards.

He had heard names, obviously. Everyone had. You could not spend your life inside rinks and not hear things. Olympic team selections moved through skating circles faster than actual news. Coaches whispered. Parents repeated everything badly. Skaters pretended not to care while absorbing every word.

Whitaker.

Lowell.

The Americans.

He knew them.

Not personally.

But of course he knew them.

They were the reason he was not there.

Once again, not personally. They had not broken into his house and stolen Turin from him. Danny understood that, technically. They had earned their spots. They were older, cleaner, more reliable internationally. They had senior experience and reputations that fit into Olympic broadcasts without anyone having to explain why this kid from Brooklyn had almost crashed into a wall because his skates were borrowed.

Fine.

Great.

Good for them.

He hoped they skated well.

He hoped they fell.

He had not checked the Canadians.

Why would he?

He was not Canadian. He did not care. Roman Petrov was a junior skater who had won Scottsdale and insulted his limp at six in the morning outside a hotel. That did not make him relevant.

Danny had not checked the Russian team either. Or the Japanese team. Or the French team. Or any team other than the one he was not on.

Because again.

Standards.

He had heard Roman’s name once, maybe twice, after December. At the rink. In passing. Something about Skate Canada making a bold choice. Something about a prodigy. Something about youth. Danny had assumed people were exaggerating because rink people loved nothing more than turning a sixteen-year-old with a clean triple-triple into the second coming of Christ on blades.

He did not ask.

Asking would mean interest.

Interest would mean Roman Petrov had occupied space in his head longer than absolutely necessary.

Which he had not.

Mostly.

“Danny!”

His mother’s voice cut through the apartment from the kitchen.

He was lying on the floor in front of the television with one leg propped against the couch, a biology textbook open on his stomach and the remote balanced against his chest. The textbook had been open to the same page for twenty minutes.

Cellular respiration.

He hated it.

Not because it was hard.

Because it was boring in a way that felt personal.

“I’m studying,” he called back.

Katya, sitting upside down on the couch behind him with her feet hooked over the backrest, snorted.

“No, you’re not.”

Danny lifted one hand without looking and shoved at her leg.

“You’re watching Olympic coverage and pretending the textbook makes it academic.”

“I’m absorbing information environmentally.”

“You’re absorbing stupidity.”

“Same thing, public school.”

Katya leaned over the couch enough that her hair fell forward in a dark sheet.

“You have homework?”

“Do you?”

“I graduated, idiot.”

“You’re still at community college.”

“That’s called being educated affordably.”

“That’s called still having homework.”

She threw a throw pillow at him.

It hit the textbook and slid onto the floor.

From the kitchen, their mother called, “No fighting.”

“We’re bonding,” Danny said.

“We’re not,” Katya added.

The apartment was too warm.

It was always too warm in winter, either because the building heat came on like punishment or because his mother cooked as if feeding not a family but a medium-sized village preparing for siege. The windows fogged around the edges. The kitchen smelled like onions, chicken broth, and dill. Somewhere beneath that was the old apartment smell: radiator heat, dust, detergent, the faint metallic tang of pipes.

Outside, February had turned Brooklyn gray and wet.

Not pretty snow.

Not even real cold.

Just slush at the curb and dirty ice pressed into the corners of sidewalks.

Valentine’s Day.

Which meant at school everyone had acted either in love or angry about not being in love, and Danny had spent most of the day accepting candy from girls who said, “It’s not like that,” while absolutely meaning it like that.

He had smiled.

Of course he had.

He was good at that.

Photogenic, according to the sponsors.

Marketable, according to Adrianna.

Annoying, according to Katya.

All useful categories.

The television broadcast cut from a speed skating segment to a commercial. A red car drove through fake snow while some man talked about reliability. Then a jewelry ad. Then another one. Valentine’s Day made even commercials unbearable.

Danny reached for the remote.

Katya snatched it first.

“No.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were going to change it.”

“I was going to improve our lives.”

“You are not changing it.”

“You don’t even like figure skating.”

“I like the Olympics.”

“You like men in tight shirts.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Danny turned his head slowly and looked at her.

She grinned.

Mikhail sat at the small kitchen table, not quite in the kitchen and not quite in the living room, where he could see the television from the side without being too close to the noise. He had headphones on, big padded ones Sergei had bought after Mikhail had started slamming doors whenever Katya played music too loud. He was lining up playing cards in a long, uneven trail from one end of the table to the other.

Not by suit.

Not by number.

By something else only he understood.

Red, black, black, red, red, black.

Pause.

Adjust.

Red.

He was now tall enough that his knees bumped the underside of the table when he shifted. His shoulders had broadened over the last year, still not fully grown but moving that way. Sometimes Danny forgot until Mikhail stood too close and suddenly the little brother in his head did not match the body in front of him.

Mikhail did not look at the television.

But every time the crowd noise rose, his fingers paused.

Danny noticed.

Their mother noticed.

Everyone noticed, in the silent way they all had learned.

Babushka was in the armchair by the window, knitting something that looked either like a scarf or a collar. She wore a dark green sweater and the same floral headscarf she wore indoors when the apartment felt drafty, which was always. Her glasses sat low on her nose. She had been watching Olympic coverage all day, switching allegiance depending on who looked coldest, poorest, or Slavic.

She loved the Olympics.

Not peacefully.

She watched them like she had personal grudges dating back several regimes.

“That man,” she said suddenly, pointing one knitting needle at the television during a replay of some ski jumper from earlier. “Too skinny. Wind take him.”

“That’s the point,” Katya said.

“Point is bones break.”

Danny said, “You’re a natural commentator.”

Babushka nodded once.

“I know.”

Sergei was not home yet.

He was supposed to be.

Then again, supposed to be meant very little where work was concerned. A job in Queens had run long. Bad wiring, he’d said over the phone. Old building. Someone had done something stupid behind a wall twenty years ago, and now Sergei had to argue with it.

He had promised to make it back for the men’s short.

Danny had said he did not care.

Sergei had said, “I do.”

That had ended the conversation.

Danny shifted on the floor.

His ankle popped.

Still did that sometimes after Scottsdale.

Not painfully anymore. Just enough to remind him.

He had no assignments right now.

Not real ones.

The season had folded strangely around the Olympics. Everything important seemed to have moved overseas, leaving him in New York with practice ice, school, sponsor obligations, and the feeling that his life had been paused in the middle of a sentence.

The federation people kept saying things like development year.

Building year.

Visibility.

Momentum.

Adrianna kept saying Vancouver.

Danny kept saying nothing back because every time someone said Vancouver, he wanted to throw himself into the boards.

He trained anyway.

Of course he trained.

Every morning before school. Every afternoon after. Edge work, run-throughs, jumps, choreography revisions. Ballet twice a week now because Adrianna had apparently decided his arms were a national embarrassment.

“You skate like you’re trying to mug the music,” she had said yesterday.

“It owes me money,” Danny had answered.

She had not laughed.

She almost had.

That counted.

No competitions this month.

No flights.

No hotels.

No credentials.

No lanyards.

No warm-up groups.

No chance to prove anything.

Just training.

Just waiting.

Just everyone else doing the thing he had gotten close enough to smell.

The broadcast returned.

Olympic theme music swelled through the living room.

Katya sat up.

Danny did not.

He stared at the textbook and pretended the sound did not change anything in his body.

“Coming up next,” the commentator said, bright and polished, “the men’s short program from Torino, where experience, youth, and ambition collide on Olympic ice.”

Danny made a face.

“Jesus.”

Katya laughed.

“Experience, youth, and ambition,” she repeated. “That sounds like your diary.”

“I don’t have a diary.”

“You have feelings and bad handwriting. Same thing.”

“I’m ignoring you.”

“You’re doing amazing.”

The camera cut to the arena.

The Palavela.

Danny had seen pictures, but television made it stranger. Blue seats, white ice, Olympic rings everywhere. The lighting looked different from regular competitions. Cleaner. More theatrical. Too large. Like every ordinary thing had been inflated until it became symbolic.

He hated how beautiful it looked.

He sat up without meaning to.

Katya noticed.

Said nothing.

Good.

The first skaters were not people Danny cared about.

Not really.

He watched anyway.

He couldn’t help it.

A man from France with elegant arms and a shaky landing. A Japanese skater with terrifying speed. Someone from Germany who looked thirty-five but was probably just twenty-four. One of the Americans, Lowell, skating early enough that everyone in the apartment went quiet in a way that made Danny want to leave.

Lowell was clean.

Mostly.

Not spectacular. Not awful.

Olympic clean.

Senior clean.

The kind of clean that made sense on a selection sheet.

Danny watched his triple axel land solidly, watched the combination hold, watched the step sequence stay controlled if not particularly alive.

“Good,” Sergei said from the doorway.

Danny jumped.

Nobody else did.

Sergei stood there in his work clothes, jacket still on, tool bag in one hand. His hair was damp from melted snow or sweat or both. He looked tired enough that the room seemed to make space around him.

“You’re late,” Katya said.

Sergei took off his boots.

“Building tried to kill me.”

“Did you win?”

“Yes.”

“Congrats.”

He set his bag down near the door and looked at the television.

“Who?”

“Lowell. USA.” Danny said.

Sergei nodded once.

No expression.

That was kind of him.

Danny knew his father understood enough not to say what Lowell represented.

Older.

Ready.

Chosen.

There.

Lowell finished. Bowed. Smiled like a man who knew exactly how much of his life had led to those two minutes and forty seconds.

The crowd applauded.

Danny looked down at his textbook.

Mitochondria.

Powerhouse of the cell.

He wanted to die.

Not literally.

Mostly.

Sergei came into the living room and stood behind the couch rather than sitting. He did that when he was too tired to admit he wanted to sit because sitting meant he might not get back up.

Irina came out of the kitchen with a towel in her hands.

“Eat first,” she said.

“After this group.”

“Is ready.”

“After this group, Rina.” Sergei repeated.

She sighed like this was his worst quality.

"I put in microwave then."

The next few skaters blurred.

Danny watched them with the vicious attention of someone pretending not to study.

He told himself he was learning.

That was allowed.

Watching Olympic competition was professional development. Adrianna would probably approve if he phrased it that way. Study the field. Observe transitions. Note how senior men controlled pacing under pressure.

He was not sitting on his living room floor on Valentine’s Day watching the Olympics because he was jealous.

Absolutely not.

Then the camera cut to a close shot near the boards.

A red jacket.

Dark hair.

A familiar stillness.

Danny stopped breathing.

Not dramatically.

Just enough that his body noticed before he did.

The commentator said, “And now, a fascinating entry from Canada. Sixteen-year-old Roman Petrov, coached by his father, Dmitri Petrov, a former Olympic medalist for the Soviet Union.”

Danny sat up fully.

Katya looked at him.

“What?”

Danny did not answer.

On the screen, Roman Petrov stood beside the boards.

Older than Scottsdale.

No.

Not older.

It had been four months.

He just looked different here.

Or maybe the Olympics made everyone look different because the camera expected them to be important.

Roman wore black.

Of course he did.

Black costume, high at the throat, fitted cleanly through the torso, some dark blue detail catching light only when he moved. Nothing flashy. Nothing desperate. His hair was shorter than Danny remembered, or styled better, pushed back from his face and already trying to fall loose.

Dmitri stood beside him.

Danny recognized him immediately.

The old Soviet-looking coach from Scottsdale. Severe face. Broad shoulders. Hand at Roman’s neck for half a second before Roman stepped away.

There.

That.

Danny saw it.

The touch.

Not affectionate exactly.

Not not affectionate either.

A command with fingers.

Roman nodded once.

The camera stayed too close.

Roman looked pale under the arena lights.

Not scared.

That was the thing.

His face did not say scared.

It said nothing.

But Danny had skated enough competitions, stood at enough boards, watched enough boys pretending not to fall apart, to know that nothing could be a form of panic if you held it hard enough.

“Holy shit,” Danny said.

His mother made a sound from the kitchen.

“Language.”

“He’s there,” Danny said.

Katya leaned over the back of the couch again.

“Who?”

Danny pointed at the television.

“Him.”

“That tells me nothing.”

“Roman Petrov.”

Excerpt, full chapter on ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83972436/chapters/224108451

Roman

Calgary, Alberta — November 2005

The room was too warm.

That was the first thing Roman noticed.

Not the people. Not the table. Not the Canadian flag folded neatly in the corner beside the federation banner. Not the row of officials with their folders, water glasses, and careful faces.

The heat.

It pressed at the back of his neck and settled under his collar, making the skin there feel too aware of itself.

Roman sat between Dmitri and Elaine Porter from Skate Canada, hands folded neatly in his lap, spine straight, ankles crossed beneath the chair. His posture had already been corrected twice that morning and neither time out loud.

Once in the car, when Dmitri had looked at him in the rearview mirror.

Once outside the meeting room, when Dmitri’s hand had settled briefly at the back of his neck.

Not hard.

Just there.

Roman had adjusted.

Now he held still.

The room smelled like coffee, paper, and the faint stale sweetness of pastries no one had touched. Beyond the windows, Calgary sat under a flat, pale sky, the kind of winter light that made everything look washed and undecided.

Roman focused on the condensation gathering near the base of one water glass.

A drop formed slowly.

Hung.

Then slipped down the side.

He watched it instead of looking at the folder on the table.

He already knew what was inside it.

Not all of it.

Enough.

Elaine Porter was speaking.

She had a soft voice, deliberately so, the kind adults used when they wanted a conversation to feel less dangerous than it was.

“Obviously, this is an extraordinary situation,” she said.

Dmitri did not move.

Roman could feel his father’s stillness beside him.

Extraordinary.

That word had been used several times already.

Extraordinary talent.

Extraordinary opportunity.

Extraordinary pressure.

Adults liked words that made dangerous things sound polished.

Elaine continued, “Roman’s results over the last two seasons speak for themselves. His technical content is significantly ahead of the domestic field at his age, and internationally—”

At his age.

Roman’s fingers tightened once in his lap.

Then loosened.

No one noticed.

Or if they did, they were polite enough to pretend otherwise.

The man across the table, Gerald Something, turned one page in his folder. Roman could not remember his last name. He had introduced himself at the beginning. Roman had nodded. Dmitri had shaken his hand. The name had left Roman immediately after.

Gerald had small glasses and a face that suggested he had never once been late for a flight.

“The concern,” Gerald said, “is not talent.”

No.

Of course not.

Roman knew what came next.

He had heard versions of it for weeks.

Not in meetings. Not directly. Through half-sentences in hallways, lowered voices at rinks, phone calls Dmitri took in the kitchen when he thought Roman was asleep.

Too young.

Too soon.

No senior debut.

Limited international senior experience.

Olympic environment is different.

Risk.

Roman knew all of it.

He also knew that they wanted him anyway.

That was the strange part.

The wanting.

Everyone in the room knew he was not ready, but they were arranging themselves around the possibility that readiness might not matter if he was good enough.

Good enough had begun to feel less like praise and more like a trapdoor.

Gerald looked at Roman directly.

“You understand this would be a very large step.”

Roman nodded once.

“Yes.”

His voice sounded calm.

He was good at that.

“Senior Olympic competition is unlike anything you’ve experienced.”

“Yes.”

“You would be competing against men with far more experience.”

“I know.”

Elaine smiled gently.

“He knows,” she said, as if helping.

Roman did not look at her.

Dmitri spoke for the first time in several minutes.

“He is prepared.”

The room shifted.

Not visibly.

But Roman felt it.

People always responded to Dmitri’s voice. It cut differently from theirs. Lower, heavier, still shaped by an accent that refused to disappear no matter how many years had passed. People heard it and listened, sometimes because they respected him, sometimes because they were uncomfortable not knowing whether they should.

Dmitri knew that.

Used it.

Roman had watched him use it for most of his life.

Gerald turned toward him.

“Dmitri, with respect, no fifteen-year-old is fully prepared for the Olympic Games.”

"Roman's sixteen. Next month."

The sentence sat in the room.

Sixteen.

Roman looked down at the table.

His reflection blurred faintly in the polished wood.

Sixteen.

That was true.

And not.

His birthday sat elsewhere on paper now.

Moved.

Adjusted.

Corrected, Dmitri had said.

The first time Roman had seen it, he had thought it was a mistake. Another one. Like Rowan. Like people who looked at his face and then at his jacket and failed to make the two things belong to the same country.

But this was different.

The date was wrong by months.

Not enough to be obvious to someone who did not already know.

Enough.

Enough to make rules bend.

Enough to turn no into yes.

Roman had stared at the form in Dmitri’s office, one hand still on the filing cabinet, while his father stood behind him.

“That’s not my birthday,” Roman had said.

Dmitri had been quiet.

Only for a second.

Then, “It is your official date.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“China records are not exact.”

Roman had turned then.

Dmitri’s face had been unreadable.

“They gave you estimate when you were baby,” Dmitri said. “You know this.”

“I know my birthday.”

“You know what they told us.”

“That’s my birthday.”

“Roman.”

“No.”

The word had come out before he could stop it.

Small but hard.

Dmitri’s expression had changed then. Not anger. Not yet. Something colder.

“You want Olympic team?”

Roman had not answered.

Because yes.

Because no.

Because the question was not fair.

Dmitri had stepped closer.

“You want to compete with best in world?”

Roman had stared at the paper.

“You are ready,” Dmitri said.

“I’m not old enough.”

“Paper says you are.”

“That’s lying.”

“That is bureaucracy.”

“It’s lying.”

Dmitri’s hand came down on the top of the filing cabinet.

Not a slam.

Almost.

“Do you think they care?” he said. “Do you think sport is clean? You think everyone tells truth and waits politely for permission?”

Roman had said nothing.

Dmitri’s voice lowered.

“You are my son. I know what you are. I know what you can do. Some clerk in China writes date because no one knows, and now this decides your life? No.”

The paper sat between them.

Wrong and possible.

Roman remembered feeling like the floor had shifted under him, though nothing moved.

“I don’t want—”

“You do want.”

Roman looked up.

Dmitri’s eyes were pale and absolute.

“You want. Do not lie to me.”

That was the worst part.

He did.

He wanted so badly it made him feel ill.

The Olympics had always been there, distant and impossible, less a goal than a shape at the edge of everything Dmitri had built. Roman had known about them before he understood what they were. Knew Dmitri had gone. Knew Dmitri had medaled under another flag, in another country, in a life Roman could only imagine in fragments: grainy photographs, old footage, a younger body moving with frightening speed, Soviet letters on fabric.

The Olympics were not a competition in their house.

They were proof.

They were origin.

They were the place where Dmitri had become real to the world.

Roman wanted that.

Not the same way Dmitri wanted it for him.

But enough.

Enough to make the lie feel like something he could stand beside if he did not look directly at it.

So now he sat in the warm room while Gerald called him fifteen and the paper in the folder said something close enough to sixteen to pass.

Dmitri said, “He is not like other sixteen-year-olds.”

Gerald sighed.

“No, he isn’t.”

Elaine looked at Roman again.

“That is part of why we’re here.”

Roman hated the softness in her voice.

She was not cruel. That was the problem. Cruelty would have made this easier.

Everyone in the room was being reasonable.

Everyone was helping him.

Everyone was standing around the wrong date and pretending it was solid ground.

Gerald folded his hands on the table.

“We would not be considering this if the field were deeper.”

Dmitri’s mouth tightened.

Roman noticed.

The insult was not meant as one, but Dmitri received it anyway.

Gerald continued, “Or if Roman’s recent scores had not been so compelling. The Junior Grand Prix result was exceptional. The technical panel notes were—frankly, unusually strong. Domestically, there is no question he’s ahead.”

Ahead.

Roman pictured the results sheet from Scottsdale.

His name at the top.

Danny Markov somewhere in the middle.

Not relevant.

He thought of him anyway.

Not now, he told himself.

But the thought arrived regardless, like a blade catching unexpectedly in a rut.

Markov would not be going.

Roman knew that.

Not because anyone told him directly. Because the American selections had come through the gossip circuit the way all things did. Whitaker and Lowell. Experienced men. Sensible choices. Danny Markov not selected.

Dmitri had said nothing about it.

Roman had said nothing either.

But he had thought of the bus outside the hotel.

Don’t get used to it.

I won’t need to.

He had won that exchange.

Technically.

Now he was here.

And Markov was not.

That should have felt like proof.

Instead it felt like one more thing that did not fit cleanly.

Elaine slid a paper forward.

“We’re prepared to recommend Roman for the Olympic team,” she said.

Excerpt, full chapter posted on ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83972436/chapters/221382656

Danny

Brooklyn, New York — November 2005

Danny knew before Adrianna said it.

That was the worst part.

Not because he was smart.

He was smart, technically. People said that sometimes, usually in the same tone they used when they were about to explain why he should be making better choices. But this wasn’t a matter of intelligence. Not really.

It was pattern recognition.

It was the way Adrianna had called and said, “Can you come in before practice?” instead of “I’ll see you at four.”

It was the way she had not made a joke when he said, “Am I dying?”

It was the way her voice had gone flat around the edges.

Not cold.

Careful.

Careful was worse.

Careful meant something had already happened and now everyone was deciding how much of it to tell him.

The rink lobby smelled like wet carpet and coffee burned down to the bottom of a pot. It was early enough that the public session hadn’t started yet, but late enough that the serious people were already there. Parents with travel mugs. Little girls in leggings and tight buns. Coaches speaking quietly over notebooks. A hockey bag abandoned near the vending machines like a dead body.

Danny stood just inside the doors with his backpack over one shoulder and his skate bag in his hand, not moving.

His own skates were back.

Finally.

The airline had located his bag three days after Scottsdale, sent it with the wrong flight, then to Newark for reasons nobody could explain, then eventually back to Brooklyn with a printed apology and no apparent understanding of the fact that Danny had nearly skated his foot off in Arizona wearing someone else’s cursed boots.

His ankle was better.

Mostly.

The swelling had gone down. The bruising had faded into something yellow-green and ugly. Adrianna had watched him like a hawk for two weeks, which meant she yelled every time he tried a jump she had not cleared him for and once threatened to call his father.

That had worked.

Briefly.

Now his boots were his again. Broken in exactly where they needed to be. Laces the right length. Blades sharp. Heel locked. World restored.

Except not.

Because Adrianna was waiting near the rink entrance, arms folded, and she looked like someone had handed her a knife and asked her to make it sound like a spoon.

Danny smiled before she could speak.

“Good news first,” he said.

She did not smile back.

“Office.”

“Great. Love the office. Big office guy.”

“Danny.”

“Right. Office.”

He followed her down the short hallway, past bulletin boards covered in competition schedules, registration forms, faded photographs of skaters who had either quit or gone somewhere better. His own picture was up now.

That was still weird.

Not just up.

Centered.

A glossy photo from Sectionals the previous season, him in black costume, one arm thrown out, hair in his eyes, face caught in that half-feral expression he apparently made when he was either performing or about to do something stupid.

Someone had written beneath it:

Daniil “Danny” Markov — Junior Men’s Champion

Next to it was a newer clipping from some local paper after Scottsdale.

BROOKLYN SKATER SHOWS GRIT ON INTERNATIONAL STAGE

Grit.

That word had followed him home.

Grit. Guts. Fire. Heart.

People loved heart when it did not require them to look too closely at the score sheet.

The article had not said he finished in the middle of the pack.

Not in the headline.

Not where it mattered.

It said he had competed through equipment issues. It said he had impressed spectators with a fearless performance. It said the young American skater had become one to watch.

One to watch.

Danny had read it three times.

Then pretended he had not read it at all.

His father had cut the article and put it on the fridge.

His mother had cried.

Katya had said the photograph made him look deranged.

Mikhail had pulled the clipping off the fridge twice and tried to fold it into something that was not paper anymore.

Babushka had taped it back both times and told everyone to leave Danya’s newspaper alone.

Now Danny walked past his own face and did not look at it.

Adrianna’s office was not really an office. It was a storage closet that had accepted defeat and become administrative. There was a desk jammed against one wall, two folding chairs, a filing cabinet with a dent in the side, and boxes of old competition music stacked beneath the window.

Danny sat before she told him to.

Mistake.

It made him feel younger.

He sat up straighter immediately.

Adrianna closed the door.

That was worse too.

“Okay,” Danny said. “Before you say whatever you’re about to say, I just want to point out that closed-door meetings are terrible for morale.”

Adrianna leaned back against the desk instead of sitting.

“Danny.”

“Unless this is about money, in which case, also terrible for morale, but more expected.”

“It’s not about money.”

“Cool. Great. Love that. Big fan.”

She gave him a look.

He shut up.

For almost three seconds.

“Is it about the ankle? Because it’s fine.”

“It’s not about the ankle.”

“Then why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to talk a hostage down.”

Adrianna inhaled slowly.

Danny’s stomach dropped.

There.

That was the moment.

The last joke before the fall.

He knew it.

She did too.

“They made the selections,” she said.

The room became too small.

Danny looked at her.

He waited for the next sentence, because there had to be one. The first sentence was too incomplete. Too obvious. Too much like the hallway before the door opened.

Adrianna’s mouth tightened.

“You’re not going to Turin.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83972436/chapters/222646146

Roman

Junior Grand Prix, Scottsdale, Arizona — October 14, 2005

Roman won.

That should have been the important thing.

It was the important thing, technically. Mathematically. Officially. His name sat at the top of the list where it belonged, printed correctly this time on the final results sheet after Dmitri had spoken to someone in a tone that made the volunteer at the desk go pale and overly polite.

Roman Petrov. Canada. First.

Roman.

There it was.

Correct.

Not Rowan.

Clean.

Settled.

He should have felt better.

Dmitri certainly did.

Not visibly, not in any way that would mean much to someone who did not know him. He did not smile when the results came in. Did not clap Roman on the back or say anything careless and warm. He simply looked at the sheet, read it once, then again, and folded it in half with a short nod.

“Good,” he said.

Roman nodded.

Good meant enough.

Good meant everything had happened the way it was supposed to happen. Good meant the delayed flight had not mattered, the hotel room had not mattered, the spelling mistake had not mattered, the heat and bad sleep and tightness behind his eyes had not mattered.

He had done the job.

They had done the job.

Dmitri folded the paper again, smaller this time.

“You see,” he said, tucking it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “When you do not rush, they cannot touch you.”

Roman looked across the lobby.

Past a cluster of skaters in national jackets. Past a girl from France crying quietly while her coach spoke into a phone. Past two American boys throwing a plastic bottle back and forth until someone told them to stop.

Danny Markov was not there.

Roman did not look for him.

Not directly.

“I know,” Roman said.

Dmitri glanced at him.

“You are tired.”

Roman blinked, attention snapping back.

“I’m fine.”

“You are not fine. You are tired.”

Roman did not answer.

Dmitri looked at him for another moment, expression unreadable in the way that meant he had already decided something.

“We go back to hotel,” he said. “You eat. Then sleep.”

“There’s medal ceremony.”

“After.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you looking?”

Roman went still.

It was not visible.

Not much.

Only the smallest tightening through his shoulders, the tiny pause before his breath resumed.

“I’m not.”

Dmitri’s eyes stayed on him.

Pale. Sharp. Too clear under the fluorescent lights.

Roman hated lying to him.

Not because of guilt, exactly. Guilt was too simple. It was more that lying to Dmitri felt pointless. Like putting a hand over glass and insisting nothing could be seen through it.

Dmitri did not always know the truth.

But he almost always knew where to press.

“You did well,” Dmitri said.

Roman nodded once.

“You should think of this.”

“I am.”

“No,” Dmitri said. “You think of something else.”

Roman looked away.

The lobby doors opened and heat came in with a group of skaters returning from outside. Dry air, white-bright even through the glass, a thin strip of desert visible beyond the parking lot. Palm trees, asphalt, low buildings the color of dust.

Everything in Arizona looked unfinished to Roman.

Too exposed.

Too much sky.

No place for the eye to rest.

He missed cold already. Real cold. The kind that settled over things and gave them shape. Snow made sense. Ice made sense. This heat was different. It made everything seem loose at the edges, as if the whole city might blur if you looked at it too long.

Dmitri followed his gaze briefly.

“You need water?”

“No.”

“Then sit.”

Roman sat.

There was no reason not to.

The chair was plastic and slightly warm from whoever had been there before him. He disliked that immediately but did not move.

His legs ached now that the competition was over. Not badly. Not enough to matter. Just the usual deep fatigue through thighs and calves, the faint pull at his right hip from the lutz, the pressure along the top of his foot where the boot had been tied too tightly.

He liked those pains.

They were understandable.

Earned.

They belonged to him.

Other things did not.

Across the lobby, someone laughed too loudly.

Roman looked before he could stop himself.

Not Danny.

A pair of junior dancers, American, one of them still in full makeup, hair sprayed into a shape that looked painful. The boy said something, and the girl hit his arm with a program booklet.

Roman looked away.

Dmitri saw that too.

Of course he did.

He sat beside Roman, not close enough to touch. He did not crowd him unless he needed to. That was one of the things people misunderstood about Dmitri. They saw the control, the correction, the hand at the back of Roman’s neck, the way he spoke and Roman listened, and thought Dmitri always moved in.

He didn’t.

Sometimes he gave space.

Only it was still his space.

Measured. Granted. Watched.

“You are thinking about the American,” Dmitri said.

Roman’s jaw tightened.

“No.”

Dmitri made a sound under his breath.

Not quite a laugh.

“The one with skates.”

Roman looked down at his hands.

There was a small cut near his thumb. He did not remember getting it.

“He didn’t have skates,” Roman said.

Dmitri turned his head slightly.

“So you are thinking about him.”

Roman said nothing.

That was a mistake.

Dmitri leaned back in his chair, one arm resting along the back of it. He had changed out of the heavier jacket he wore inside colder arenas, and in the hotel lobby lighting he looked more tired than he had at the rink. Older too. The gray at his temples more obvious, the skin beneath his eyes shadowed.

He had been up as long as Roman had.

Longer, maybe.

Dmitri was always awake first.

Always.

“Undisciplined,” he said.

Roman’s attention flicked toward him.

Dmitri did not look at him.

“The American,” he continued. “This is what happens when there is no system. No preparation. No serious coach.”

“He has a coach.”

“Then she is not serious.”

Roman did not answer quickly enough.

Dmitri noticed.

“She lets him skate in broken boots,” Dmitri said.

“He would have skated anyway.”

Dmitri’s mouth tightened.

“That is not argument in his favor.”

Roman looked across the lobby again.

Still not there.

“He landed most of it.”

“Badly.”

Roman’s fingers pressed lightly into his palm.

“Yes.”

“Then why defend?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Roman inhaled through his nose.

He could feel the conversation narrowing. Dmitri did that without seeming to. Took something loose and drew it into a line until there were only two possible places to stand.

With him.

Or against him.

Roman usually knew where to place himself.

This time, he did not.

“He shouldn’t have skated like that,” Roman said.

Dmitri nodded once, satisfied too soon.

“No.”

“But he did.”

A pause.

Dmitri looked at him now.

Roman kept his gaze forward.

“And?”

Roman thought of the American on the ice.

Not the whole program. Not clearly. He had only seen fragments at first, half-watching while Dmitri spoke to someone beside him. The name over the speakers. Daniil Markov. United States. A Tchaikovsky cut, loud and bright and almost too large for the rink.

Then the first jump.

Ugly.

Saved.

Then another.

Worse.

Saved again.

Roman had tried not to watch after that.

He had watched anyway.

There had been no elegance in it. Not in the way Roman understood elegance. No quiet line, no finished shape, no proper use of stillness. Markov’s arms cut through the music rather than carrying it. His shoulders rose too much. His landings fought him. His edges were rougher than they should have been at this level.

And still—

Still.

There was something there.

Not polish.

Not control.

Something Roman did not have a good word for.

Velocity, maybe.

No.

Want.

That was closer.

————-

Full chapter on AO3 follow the link above.

Thanks for reading!

Hit me up for any comments, concerns, or just conversation 🫶

Excerpt — full chapter found on AO3 use this link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/83972436/chapters/222644221

Danny

Junior Grand Prix, Scottsdale, Arizona — October 14, 2005

Danny had made a tactical error.

Not a small one either.

Not the kind of error you could dress up later as bad luck or poor timing or a misunderstanding between airport staff and the natural laws governing baggage claim.

A real one.

A stupid one.

The kind Adrianna would call avoidable in that voice of hers, which was worse than yelling because it meant she had already skipped past anger and gone straight into disappointment.

Danny hated disappointment.

Yelling, he could handle. Yelling was noise. Yelling had shape. You could push back against yelling, make a joke, get louder, turn it into something else.

Disappointment just sat there.

Heavy.

Accurate.

His bag was gone.

Not delayed. Not “waiting at another carousel.” Not “on the next flight, sir, we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Gone.

The woman at the desk had said it with the careful expression of someone trained not to look afraid when giving people bad news.

“We’re still locating it.”

Danny had stared at her.

“You’re still locating it,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“So you don’t know where it is.”

“Not at this time.”

“But you will.”

“We’re doing everything we can.”

Which meant no.

Which meant Danny had stood there in the airport with his garment bag over one shoulder, backpack digging into the other, and a hollow feeling opening up somewhere under his ribs while everyone around him moved like the world had not just tilted ninety degrees

No skates.

No boots.

No blades.

No competition.

He should have told Adrianna immediately.

That was the smart thing. The obvious thing. The thing any person with a working brain and a survival instinct would have done.

He did not do that.

Instead, Danny had said, “Okay, cool, great,” in the same tone he used when something was absolutely not cool or great, then taken the claim number from the woman, shoved it into his pocket, and decided he would fix it before anyone needed to know.

Because that was possible.

Probably.

Maybe.

Someone would have extra skates.

People brought extra skates. Rich kids brought extra everything. Extra laces, extra blades, extra costumes, extra parents. Someone here probably had a second pair sitting around like a spare toothbrush.

He would borrow a pair.

Worst case, he would buy a pair.

Worst worst case, he would steal a pair.

Not actually.

Probably not actually.

But the point was, there were options.

Danny liked options.

Options meant the problem was not real yet.

The problem became real only when someone else saw it.

So he didn’t tell Adrianna.

He didn’t tell his father.

He didn’t tell anyone.

For almost forty minutes, this felt like strategy.

Then it became obvious that it was not strategy.

It was just being an idiot with confidence.

“Size ten?” Danny asked for what had to be the thirtieth time, cutting across the locker room with his hands lifted slightly, like he was approaching a skittish animal and not an entire room full of boys in various stages of sweat and panic. “Nine and a half? Eleven? I’m flexible.”

“You don’t look flexible,” someone said.

Danny pointed at him. “You don’t know my life.”

A few guys laughed.

Good.

Laughter was good.

Laughter meant this was still funny.

Funny was manageable.

“Come on,” Danny said. “Somebody here has extra boots. Somebody’s rich enough. Don’t be selfish.”

“You lose yours?” another skater asked.

Danny shrugged. “The airline lost mine.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“What size?”

“Ten.”

The skater winced. “I’m an eight.”

Danny looked down at his feet, then back up. “Well, can you grow?”

—————

So they meet… origin of the rivalry.

Chapters will be posted as excerpts from now on as some of them are a bit too long to be supported by this format.

Thanks for reading!

Any comments/thoughts/etc welcome

Chapters: 7/60 Fandom: Original Work Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Additional Tags: Figure Skating, Coming of Age, Rivals to Lovers, Rivals to Friends to Lovers, Rivals With Benefits, Queer Themes, Adoption, Olympics, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Interracial Relationship, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Tumblr Summary:

Roman Petrov has spent his entire life moving in straight lines. On the ice, under his father’s control, toward something that was never really a choice. Daniil Markov has spent his doing the opposite. Fighting his way into elite figure skating through instinct, stubbornness, and the need to prove he belongs. In a sport built on repetition, pressure, and constant scrutiny, they become inevitable to each other: appearing across competitions, seasons, and Olympic cycles, their names slowly tangling together in ways neither of them fully understands.

Purple Rain (Temporary Title)

Hi!

First two chapters of my project are currently out on AO3 if you want to check them out, I've mentioned it on previous posts, it is my chaotic enemies to lovers/figure skating story.

There is currently more chapters out on my profile here on Tumblr if you want to check those out but I'll be uploading them to AO3 and posting periodically cross-platform.

Temporary title for the story is Purple Rain but might be subject to change the second I think of something better.

Thanks for the support, more to come soon!

Grad school's been kicking my butt but I needed a break so here’s a slightly more organized “get to know them” :

Roman Petrov (he/him/his)

Born: May 3, 1990 Zodiac: Taurus Nationality: Canadian (born in Guangzhou, China) Birth Name: Jiāng Lí From: Alberta, Canada

Family: Dmitri Petrov - adoptive father + head coach

Appearance: 5’7 compact, muscular, solid straight black hair, constantly changing it during late teens/early adulthood (ie. short, long, dyed, bleached, platinum, and regret) softer face, full lips, dark eyes that always look a bit distant default expression: unreadable, mildly annoyed (slavic resting bitch face)

Style: Athletic, minimal and unintentionally expensive (luxury brands without realizing)

Life & Habits: Outdoorsy (running, hiking, anything outside) Loves dogs (eventually gets a huge one later on in the story) Zones out mid-conversation constantly Doesn’t text back (not personal, just forgets) Terrible at basic life logistics if left alone 100% only child + homeschooled energy

Favorites: Food: Danish Pastries but really anything sweet (sweet tooth) TV: Big Brother, Top Chef, American Idol, Movies: The Shining, Final Destination (all of them), The Craft, Edward Scissorhands, and anything with Keanu Reeves Music: Britney Spears, Madonna, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, David Bowie, Prince, Jeff Buckley, The Cure Favorite song: Fantasy by Mariah Carrey

Strengths: Disciplined, focused, extremely precise Observant (notices everything even if he says nothing) Loyal to a fault Very handy in the outdoors Caring when allows himself to be (expresses love as acts of service)

Weaknesses: Poor communication (socially stunted) Emotionally repressed Controlling when attached Comes off rude or stuck up Can be a people-pleaser (especially to authority/parental figures)

Roman is the kind of person who gets labeled cold within five minutes of meeting him. Not because he’s actually cold, but because he doesn’t perform warmth the way people expect. He’s quiet, observant, and very often somewhere else mentally like he’s half in the room, half in his own world. He doesn’t fill silence, doesn’t over explain (if anything expects people to just understand), and when he does speak it’s usually direct enough that people take it the wrong way. He grew up almost entirely around adults and in training environments, so he just missed a few normal social development steps.

That said, he’s not humorless or robotic. He’s actually kind of funny in a dry, slightly mean way, and he enjoys things very genuinely, he just doesn’t show it outwardly. He likes watching drama that doesn’t involve him, likes being outside, likes quiet routines. He’s also more emotional than he lets on, just very bad at expressing it, which can turn into being controlling or jealous when he cares about someone.

Daniil “Danny” Markov (he/him/his)

Born: December 12, 1989 Zodiac: Sagittarius Nationality: American (Russian American) From: Brooklyn, New York

Family: Irina Markov - mom Sergei Markov - dad Galina Markova - grandmother Katya (Kat/Kittie) Markov - older sister Mikhail (Mickey) Markov - younger brother

Appearance: 5’11 (6 foot if you ask him, but really 5'11) tall, lanky, sharp hair is messy, wavy, brown, never fully styled strong cheekbones, freckles, dimples when he smiles default expression: open, expressive, easy to read

Style: Street / Grunge Hoodies, layered fits, thrift vibes Once he has money he spends it immediately but somehow same aesthetic

Life & Habits: Basketball whenever possible Thrives in noise, crowds, movement Hates being alone too long Always fidgeting and moving Talks when nervous (which is often)

Favorites: Food: pizza, anything fast and cheap (a good old patriotic cheeseburger) TV: MTV (early 2000s era), The X-Files, Gilmore Girls (even if would say it's because of Katya) Movies: Lord of the Rings, Rush Hour, Kill Bill, Enter the Dragon, Fist of Legend (obsessed with old Kung Fu movies as a kid) Music: Nirvana, Radiohead, The Killers, Green Day, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gorillaz, Smashing Pumpkins, Muse, Eminem, Michael Jackson favorite song: I Miss You by blink-182

Strengths: Charismatic, adaptable, socially intuitive Resilient, determined, family oriented Emotionally perceptive (even if he ignores it) Insane musicality Raw athletic power

Weaknesses: Impulsive Avoids serious conversations ("bad at feelings") Says the wrong thing under pressure Withdraws when overwhelmed Can be manipulative without realizing

Danny is the opposite kind of first impression. He walks into a room and immediately feels easy, smiling, talking, joking, connecting with people fast. He grew up in a loud, crowded apartment in Brooklyn, so he learned early how to take up space and keep attention. He’s very good with people, almost instinctively, and knows how to charm his way through situations.

But that’s also a defense. He overcompensates for feeling out of place by being louder, funnier, more confident than he actually feels. He’s emotionally intense but avoids dealing with it directly, which means things build up and then hit all at once. He can also be a little manipulative in a very unintentional way, more about survival than malice. When things get too overwhelming, he tends to withdraw completely.

————

They meet young and immediately get each other wrong. Roman thinks Danny is loud, careless, and exhausting. Danny thinks Roman is cold, arrogant, and impossible. Neither of them are entirely wrong, but neither of them understand what’s actually underneath yet.

They grow up in the same spaces, competing, watching, orbiting each other for years. What starts as rivalry turns into something more complicated because they recognize something in each other, ie. the same kind of obsession, the same kind of pressure, the same lack of normalcy.

Roman pulls inward when things get intense. Danny pushes outward when things get intense.

And that dynamic just keeps colliding.

They do make each other better in some ways. They also make each other worse in ways they don’t know how to fix. And truly at the core of it, they probably love each other in a very simple, uncomplicated way, they just never learn how to handle that without breaking everything around it.

Just a quick introduction as of my characters and what the story will sort of shape around.

Actual story update coming soon!

Sooo... I am new to this app and decided to start posting my current project.

This is a story I have been working on for a while (currently working on editing first arc of the story while still working on drafing the rest).

This is an enemies-to-lovers romance and sports drama set in the early 2000s, following fictional figure skaters Roman Petrov and Daniil Markov. Spanning their childhoods, junior careers, and three Olympic cycles, the story culminates at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

So if you like:

figure skating

rivals to lovers

90s early 2000s alt (radiohead, lots of it)

messy/toxic/complicated relationships

questionable amounts of yearning

and characters who make bad decisions but you sort of get why

please give it a chance!

I will soon be adding this to AO3 (once I solve an account issue) to post this there as well. So far, first 7 chapters are on my page, here on tumblr. I will be posting more about the story and the characters (blurbs and such) to make it easier to follow, but for now, all you need to know is: they skate, they compete, they meet, and they can't escape each other.

Happy reading,

Roman

Junior Grand Prix, Scottsdale, Arizona — October 14, 2005

Roman would remember this as the day he met Daniil Markov.

Not because of how it happened.

There was nothing remarkable about it, at the time. No sense of beginning. No shift in the air, no moment that marked itself as important.

Just a locker room.

Too loud. Too crowded. Too warm or too cold depending on where you stood. Boys between childhood and something else, all pretending they knew what they were doing.

Just a question. A bad first impression.

Something already forgotten before he stepped onto the ice.

But later it would stretch.

Outward.

Forward.

Years of it.

Competitions and flights and cities that blurred together. Training cycles. Injuries. Wins that mattered and losses that mattered more. The slow, uneven process of growing into something.

And him.

Always him. Somewhere in it.

Not always close.

Not always kind.

Not always anything Roman could define.

But there.

Until he wasn’t.

And even that would take time to understand.

At fifteen, Roman didn’t know any of that.

He knew only that he was tired.

The flights had gone wrong in small, accumulating ways.

Nothing catastrophic. Nothing that could be pointed to as the problem.

Just delay layered over delay. A connection that should have been easy but wasn’t. A gate change announced too late. A physio appointment back home that had been pushed by a day, which had pushed everything else with it, which meant they hadn’t left when they should have.

They should have been here yesterday.

They weren’t, and Roman felt it everywhere.

In the weight of his legs. In the tightness through his back. In the faint pressure behind his eyes that made everything feel a fraction slower than it should be.

Scottsdale had greeted them with heat.

Not proper heat, not the kind that pressed close and damp the way summer could back home, but something flatter and more relentless, sunlight like a white hand shoved against the face. The hotel had been worse somehow. The lobby had smelled faintly of citrus and industrial carpet cleaner, and the air-conditioning, despite its constant hum, seemed only to move warm air from one corner to another.

Dmitri had taken one step into the room, set down his bag, and immediately marched back downstairs to reception.

Roman had stayed.

He had stood in the middle of the room for a moment, too tired to sit, too tired even to be irritated, while his father’s voice rose in the lobby below, first clipped, then cutting, then louder still. The room is too warm.

No, I do not care what it is set to.

The room is too warm.

Then send someone.

Roman had stared at the air-conditioning unit rattling under the window and thought, vaguely, that it was probably fine. Uncomfortable, yes. But fine. He had considered going downstairs and telling Dmitri to leave it alone. He had not. That would only have prolonged it.

By the time Dmitri returned, still muttering in Russian about incompetence and standards and Americans, they were later than they should have been.

Not dangerously late.

But late enough that everything afterward felt slightly compressed.

Check-in was rushed. Slightly disorganized, volunteers smiling too brightly while everything lagged just enough to be irritating.

Dmitri caught it immediately.

“They spelled it wrong.”

Roman looked down.

ROWAN PETROV

“It’s fine.”

“Fine—fine,” Dmitri said immediately. “This is the Grand Prix, Roman.”

“It’s one letter.”

“It is your name.”

Roman shifted his bag higher on his shoulder. “Dad—”

Dmitri’s mouth tightened. “I will speak to them.”

“Please don’t,” Roman said, more sharply than he intended. “I need to change, I'm already late—”

“They must correct it.”

“They won’t reprint everything before my group,” Roman said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters.”

“It doesn’t.”

A beat.

“We address it later, da?”

They moved on.

That was how it worked, most of the time.

Not quite conflict. Not quite resolution.

Just containment.

He was late. Not disastrously. But enough. Roman could feel it in the way his father checked the time twice in quick succession, in the way their steps didn’t quite match as they moved down the corridor.

“You should already be warming up,” Dmitri said.

“I will be.”

“You need time.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You are tired.”

That was the closest Dmitri came to saying I’m worried.

Roman looked away first.

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

Dmitri exhaled through his nose.

“I am at the boards.”

“I know.”

Roman pushed the locker room door open before anything else could be said.

The smell followed. Metal, damp fabric, melted ice, something faintly sour.

The room was already full.

Too full.

Junior Grand Prix always was.

Bodies in transition. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, mostly. Old enough to understand what this was. Young enough to still pretend it didn't faze them.

Roman didn’t waste time. He grabbed a towel and headed straight for the showers.

He hated locker room showers.

But then again, who could say they enjoyed them.

Too open. Too loud. Too many people moving in and out, water pressure inconsistent, temperature worse. But there hadn’t been time at the hotel, and he refused to skate feeling like travel.

Quick.

Cold.

Done.

By the time he came back out, hair still damp, shirt sticking slightly to his shoulders, the room had shifted again. Louder now, closer to warm-up time.

He moved to an open space on the bench and started changing fast.

Everything automatic. Earbuds in, iPod clipped to the waistline, wire threaded under his shirt. Music low. Not enough to block anything but just enough to dull it.

He bent over his skate. Left first. His fingers worked the laces quickly even if they felt clumsy, fraction slower than usual.

Around him were voices. Fragments. Someone laughing. Someone swearing. A coach reminding someone to hurry up.

“Hey— does anybody— seriously, anyone?”

A voice cut through. Not louder. Just clearer.

“I need skates. Like—right now.”

Laughter.

Roman tightened the lace.

Not his problem.

“My bag got lost— no, I know how that sounds—”

More laughter.

Roman adjusted the tongue of his skate, pulling it straight.

The voice moved closer.

“Size ten—nine and a half, eleven—I don’t care—”

Someone behind him said something Roman didn’t catch.

The reply came back quick, easy, almost amused.

“Yeah, I know, I know, I’m aware how bad this is.”

Roman’s jaw tightened slightly.

He tied off the knot on his first skate and reached for the second.

The voice came closer still.

“Hey—hello—?”

Roman ignored it.

He slid his foot into the boot, heel settling back, and started threading the lace.

“Hey—”

Closer.

Too close.

Roman looked up.

The boy in front of him didn’t belong.

That was the first thought.

At this level, you knew people. If not personally, then by name, by federation, by placement, by reputation carried ahead of them.

This one… nothing.

Roman’s gaze flicked over him, quick, assessing, automatic.

Brown hair, slightly too long, falling into his eyes like he hadn’t bothered to fix it. Sharp features. Too sharp for his age, like he hadn’t quite grown into them yet. Freckles across his nose and cheeks, faint but visible under the harsh locker room lights.

Tall.

Or at least taller than Roman. And thin. Not the controlled, trained kind of lean Roman was used to seeing. Something loose and less refined.

He looked unfinished.

Not settled into this level.

Not quite shaped by it yet.

And still he was standing there, too close for comfort.

“You—uh—” the boy said, slightly out of breath. “Do you know anyone—”

He hesitated.

Looked at Roman properly.

Roman realized he hadn’t reacted. Hadn’t acknowledged. Had just been sitting there, silent, lacing his skates, earbuds in, looking through him.

“You speak English?” the boy asked.

Roman stared at him.

Not blankly.

Not confused.

Just—

what?

For a second, he didn’t even answer. Just looked at him like he’d misheard, like there was still time for the question to correct itself into something else.

The Canadian crest sat clear on his chest.

Red, white, and obvious.

The boy waited.

Then, like silence meant misunderstanding, he kept going.

“Like—do you—uh—” He gestured vaguely, like that would help. “Understand—?”

Roman didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

Just looked at him.

The boy shifted his weight, glancing briefly at the crest, then back at Roman’s face, then back to the crest again.

A flicker of realization.

“Oh—wait—are you—”

“I’m Canadian, dickhead.”

A beat.

Then laughter.

Not the whole room, but enough. A couple of sharp exhalations, someone choking on it, someone else muttering shit under their breath.

Roman felt the attention shift.

The boy blinked.

“Oh—no, I just—” He dragged a hand through his hair. “You weren’t saying anything, man, I thought—”

“I didn’t need to.”

Another snort nearby.

The boy flushed. Quick and visible and let out something halfway between a laugh and a wince.

“You could’ve said something,” he added, trying for a joke and not quite landing it. “Would’ve saved me this whole—”

He gestured vaguely between them.

Roman didn’t respond.

The boy nodded once, like he was closing that door himself.

“Right. Sorry,” he said again, quicker now, words starting to trip over each other. “I’m just—” He exhaled, half-laughing under his breath.

“My bag got lost. At the airport. Like actually lost. Not delayed. They don’t know where it is, which is great, because I kind of need—”

He cut himself off, refocusing.

“Do you know anyone with extra skates?” he asked. “Size ten? Nine and a half?

He was closer now than Roman liked.

Too close.

Talking fast. Leaning in without thinking. No sense of space.

Roman stared at him.

“No.”

The boy nodded, like he’d expected that.

“Yeah, okay. Figured,” he said quickly. “Still had to ask.”

A breath.

“Can I borrow yours?”

Roman went very still.

A second passed.

Then another.

He wasn’t sure if that was a joke.

It didn’t sound like one.

“I’m going on now,” he said.

The boy followed the logic instantly.

“Right, yeah, no, I know,” the boy said quickly. “I just—like after? Or—”

“No.”

That landed harder.

The boy stopped.

“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Roman looked away.

He finished with his skates, hands moving faster now, tighter than necessary.

Everything from the morning, flights, heat, his father, the name error; sat under his skin, still unresolved.

This was just one more thing but the difference was that in all of those, this one was very much not his problem.

Behind him, the boy was already moving again.

“Hey, any chance—?” he called to someone else, already halfway across the room. “Please tell me you’re a ten—”

Laughter again.

“You’re so screwed,” someone said.

“Yeah, I’m getting that impression,” the boy shot back easily like the gravity of his predicament didn’t quite reach him.

Roman reached for his guards, snapped them onto his blades.

His bag sat open at his feet. He shoved his shoes inside, then the towel.

“Come on, man. Please. I’ll owe you—like, forever—”

More voices now. More movement.

The room was shifting toward the door, toward the ice.

Roman zipped his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

He glanced up once. Just once and saw the boy again, leaning in toward another skater, still talking, still trying, still somehow smiling through it.

Not panicking.

Just refusing to stop.

Roman frowned, faintly.

Then looked away.

“Warm-up group two!”

That was him.

Roman didn’t look back.

Behind him, still—

“Anybody? Please—last call—”

Laughter.

Roman pushed through the doorway.

The noise cut cleanly behind him.

The ice stretched out ahead, bright under the lights. Dmitri was already at the boards watching.

Roman stepped on.

The blades caught and everything else; the flights, the heat, the argument, the boy— fell away.

He pushed off.

That should have been the end of it.

But it wasn’t.

Daniil Markov.

He would learn the name later.

At the time, it had meant nothing.

Just noise. Just interruption. Just a boy asking the wrong question at the wrong time.

Roman didn’t think about him again.

Not that day.

Not really.

But later, when everything became something else, he would look back and know:

This was where it started.