Chapter Text
“Well, it was kind enough of them to let us ride to the next stop,” Phichit points out after they are unceremoniously booted from the train in a nowhere town at the north edge of Poland.
“Yes, Phichit, it was very nice of them to not literally throw us off a moving train.”
“It was nice of them not to arrest us,” Victor says, picking up one of their suitcases from the dusty train platform, “It seems I did choose my traveling companions wisely, between Phichit’s acting and your handwriting, Yuuri. Our visas were so good that they believed we were duped.”
“We were duped,” Phichit insists with an uncharacteristic scowl, “After all the dealings I’ve had with Mikael, he thought he could scam me. He’d better hope I never make it back to St. Petersburg or he’ll be in for the talking to of his life .”
“You put yourself at risk, back there, with that bit about buying the tickets,” Yuuri says to Victor over Phichit’s grumbling, “Thank you.”
Victor shrugs. “I thought, like you said, if the lie came from a ‘proper’ Russian, they might look the other way. It was probably foolish to speak up, I don’t doubt you or Phichit could have handled it.”
“Well you could have done worse,” Yuuri says, “Or just thrown us to the wolves and saved your own skin. You wouldn’t have been the first, and the officer would have taken your word over ours.”
“We shook hands,” Victor replies, aghast, “I would not have betrayed either of you so easily. I’m just sorry the lie wasn’t more effective.”
“Well, we’re in Poland and not on our way to Siberia in shackles,” Yuuri says, picking up his own bag, “Safe to say it was effective enough.”
Victor grins. “A collective effort,” he cedes.
“Alright, with the smiling and the complimenting each other,” Phichit interrupts, back to his cheerful self after a few licks from Makkachin, “We need to figure out a plan B, and I need a sandwich. Let’s see what passes for a pirozhki stand around here.”
“Lead the way, comrade.”
Still worn out from the stress of the train, Yuuri lets Phichit do what he does best, make friends and find information. The locals don’t seem thrilled to hear Russian from his friend, but they understand each other well enough and after a few rubles passed Phichit finds out what he needs to know.
“There’s another village, about ten kilometers that way,” Phichit informs them over a pint of beer at a local public house, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb, “It’s on a major roadway, lots of trucks passing through with shipments bound for Germany. Our comrade behind the bar thinks if we get lucky we could get a ride all the way to Stralsund.”
“Stralsund?” Victor repeats around a mouthful of stuffed cabbage.
“It’s a port city,” Yuuri explains, “It’s likelier we could book passage on a ship to France than hitchhike all the way there. Shorter and safer.”
“I see you’re both determined to get me on every possible kind of transport,” Victor says, “Why don’t we just take an aeroplane to Paris?”
“Would if we could pal,” Phichit replies, ignoring Victor’s gentle sarcasm, “We’d be there by dinner.”
“At this rate we might make it to that village by dinner,” Yuuri says, looking out a thick glassed window to check the height of the sun, “Which would give us our best chance of catching a driver to give us a ride, so we should get going soon.”
“Right you are,” Phichit agrees, offering the crusts of his sandwich to a delighted Makkachin, “Onward to victory!”
~
Whether it’s leaving Russia behind them or just spring finally arriving, but walking down the thinly wooded lane leaves Yuuri feeling hot under the mild sun. After an hour or so of their march he can even shed his coat, packing the heavy wool away in his suitcase. Victor and Phichit follow suit, and with a cool breeze at their backs they continue on. With nothing but time and the road ahead, they do their best to make conversation and keep up a good pace.
In no time Phichit is gushing about Paris, and all it’s cosmopolitan delights, with Victor listening attentively.
“And the food ,” Phichit says, pretending to swoon, as they pass over a little stream with footbridge, “So much butter in everything! Christophe says--”
“Christophe?” Victor repeats curiously.
“I forgot, you don’t know Chris yet,” Phichit says, excited, “He’s gonna love you, you’re just crying out for a makeover.”
“Eh, hang on--” Yuuri tries to interject, but his friend is not be distracted.
“Chris the Swiss!” Phichit exclaims, “Only the coolest cat in all of Paris. He came for the Olympics and stayed for the nightlife. He knows where all the best clubs are. And his style! We could only dream of having Christophe’s fashion taste.”
“Phichit--”
“Maybe he’ll take us shopping! No more production clothing for us!”
“ Who is this Christophe?” Victor asks loudly, “And why are we seeing him? I thought we were going to see Duke Yakov.”
Great , Yuuri thinks. The cat is out of the bag.
“Christophe Giacometti is our friend,” Phichit explains, “And Mila Babicheva is his friend.”
“There’s a Mila as well?” Victor follows, “Why are we dealing with all these extra people?”
“Mila is Duke Feltsman’s first cousin, once removed,” Yuuri concludes, hesitantly, “Anyone who thinks they’ve found the missing prince has to convince Mila first. So we’ll be meeting her, so you can prove you aren’t, well, a fraud.”
There’s a decisive thunk and Yuuri and Phichit stop to find that Victor has dropped his suitcase in the middle of the road, and is standing stock still. His arms are crossed over his chest and there’s a dangerous glint in his eye.
“ Yuuuuri ,” he says, drawing out the vowel impossibly long, “This was not part of the arrangement that we discussed. You never said there would be a test .”
“You agreed to be the Tsesarevich--”
“No, no no,” Victor snaps, wagging his finger, “I agreed to see if I was the Tsesarevich. Be polite, let you dress me up, if you insisted, to meet this duke as if I am better than my fellow workers--”
“Victor--”
“But pretend?” he continues, ignoring Yuuri, “ Lie ? To a woman I’ve never met?”
“You don’t know that it’s a lie,” Yuuri points out, “What if you really are him?”
“It will still be a lie if I show up pretending to have memories and information that I don’t have!” Victor shoots back, “I don’t know anything about the Nikiforovs except that they were awful and we are better off without them! How would I prove to this Mila that I am one of them?”
“We’ll help you!” Phichit assures him, “I worked in the palace before the revolution. Yuuri and I both did. We know things about the imperials that hardly anyone else could in this day and age.”
“And what we didn’t know, we learned,” Yuuri reveals, “While we were looking for you. We found all kinds of hidden documents and artifacts in the palace, even after the Bolsheviks stripped it. We can teach you what you need to know.”
Victor groans in frustration, taking off his cap to run his fingers through his silver hair. “I don’t want to be dishonest,” he grumbles, “And you saw yourselves, I am hardly an actor. I thought--”
“What? We could just drop in on the duke for a call?” Yuuri asks, “Yakov Feltsman is extremely private, not to mention one of the last living relatives of a royal family that was very famously and recently executed.”
“He doesn’t see many visitors,” Phichit concludes, “We’re lucky we have the connection through Christophe at all. This is our best chance. Your best chance, to know for sure if you’re the prince or not.”
“You can tell Duke Yakov the truth, as soon as you meet him,” Yuuri promises, “And let him figure it out. But this is what it takes to get that far.”
Victor turns to stare back to the east. Back to Russia, and St. Petersburg, and the village orphanage that he’s already made clear he isn’t welcome back to. Yuuri feels guilty seeing the indecision written on Victor’s features, but this is a commitment that has to be made, and nothing Yuuri or Phichit say can make the decision for him.
“Would you really go back, at this point?” Yuuri asks.
“I…”
When Victor seems frozen with uncertainty Makkachin intervenes, trotting to Victor’s side to nose at his hand with a whine. Victor shakes his head, kneeling down to pet the poodle.
“What do you think?” he asks her seriously.
Makkachin offers what Yuuri hopes is an affirmative boof .
“Your advice is going to get me into trouble one day, silly girl,” Yuuri hears Victor mutter before giving Makkachin one final pat on the head and facing Yuuri and Phichit once more.
“Teach me what you know,” he asks, “Make me this Tsesarevich you remember. I do not like it, but I can only do my best.”
“Yes!” Phichit cheers, slapping Victor on the back, “You can do it. We have the utmost confidence in you.”
“You do?” Victor asks, looking directly at Yuuri.
“We do,” Yuuri agrees, with a firm nod.
“We’ll get started right away,” Phichit says, picking up his suitcase again, “Now, you were born on Christmas day in nineteen-oh-seven…”
~
In the end it takes nearly three days before they’re finally nearing their destination and the possibility of a sea voyage to France. With a few bribes and one memorable afternoon helping to unload a delivery of live chickens Yuuri, Phichit, and Victor take a truck, a bus, and a farmer’s wagon full of hay bales nearly all the way to Stralsund. It’s cramped seating, hurried meals and breaks for Makkachin, and learning the highs and lows of traveling in close quarters. All the while Phichit and Yuuri instruct Victor on hastily drawn diagrams of palaces and place settings on the backs of newspapers and napkins. He absorbs their lessons like a sponge, listing dates and names as if he already knew them, and only required a reminder to bring the knowledge to the surface.
As he may well have , Yuuri reminds himself more than once. As miniscule as the odds may be, there is the slimmest chance that Victor is actually on his way to meet his own great uncle.
Yuuri ignores the strange kind of unhappiness that begins to hover around that thought as the three travelers and their canine companion make their way slowly but surely across Germany.
They’re still nestled in among the hay bales as they near sunset on the third day of their overland journey. Their driver is trying to push through the night to make it to Stralsund before morning, which is fine by Yuuri and his companions. Aside from the occasional bounce from a rough patch of road it’s been an easy ride. Victor is taking a well earned break from memorizing the lineage of the Nikiforovs, snuggling with Makkachin while Phichit tries to teach him some simple French for getting around in Paris. Yuuri listens contentedly, enjoying the golden evening light catching on Victor’s figure as he parrots back “Ça va?” and “S'il vous plaît” to an impressed Phichit.
“Your pronunciation is really good,” he admits, “Do you have French relatives or something?”
“I have no idea,” Victor reminds him, “Can I take a look at your booklet? I want to try something.”
“You probably won't be able to read the lettering. It's not Cyrillic,” Phichit warns, but Victor still takes the pamphlet, scanning the Latin script with a curious focus.
“Je ne comprends pas,” he reads aloud in halting but correct French, “ Pouvez vous parler plus…plus lentement, s’il vous plait?”
Yuuri can only stare in shock.
“Did they teach you that at the orphanage?” Phichit asks incredulously.
“Certainly not.” Victor looks as confused as either of them. He flips through the little book, reading selections out loud with only the occasional correction from Phichit or Yuuri.
“Okay, I’m gonna call this a significant clue to your past,” Phichit says as last, “You can read and speak a grammar school level of French. Not something your average peasant’s son learns in Imperial Russia.”
“I must have been born into the bourgeoisie ,” Victor realizes, looking as if he's bitten into a lemon.
“So your lost memories are no joke,” Phichit says, ignoring Victor’s dramatics, “I wonder what other languages you’ve forgotten you learned.”
“ How about English?” Yuuri asks, calling up his rusty British vocabulary, “ Can you speak it?”
Victor tilts his head, a furrow between his brows. “I understand what you said,” he decides, “Asking if I speak English. But I wouldn't know how to reply.”
“Khâo jai mái?” Phichit asks in what Yuuri has come to recognize as his friend’s native Thai, but Victor shakes his head right away.
“Sorry, nothing there,” he says. Phichit just shrugs and laughs.
“It was a long shot,” he admits, “How about Japanese? Yuuri?”
“ Hajimemashite, Victor-san ,” Yuuri says after a moment's hesitation, inclining his head in a short bow, a habit nearly forgotten, “ Nihongo wa dekimasu ka ?”
Victor startles. “I didn't get everything,” he says, eyes wide, “but the first part was ‘how do you do’, yes?”
“Ugh, Japanese but not Thai?” Phichit laments, “Victor, how could you.”
“I hardly chose one over the other,” Victor objects, “Why on earth would I have learned Japanese as a child?”
“Well, the two empires have certainly had their dealings,” Yuuri says, thoughtful, “And there was the war, just before our time. Maybe your father was in the military, or you parents were involved in trade or diplomacy.”
Or royalty , goes unsaid between the trio.
“Ugh, all this is going to make my eyes cross,” Victor declares, collapsing onto a hay bale, “Let’s go back to memorizing the cursed nobility.”
~
Another hour or so of genealogy leaves them all mentally exhausted as the sun sets and Phichit can no longer see the chart he was quizzing Victor off of. With nothing better to do they get as comfortable as possible against the bales of hay and try to get some sleep before they get to the city the rest of their journey.
Victor nods off first, stuffing his unneeded coat under his head to cushion the prickly straw. Phichit too is soon snoring, enjoying the coziness of being Makkachin’s chosen human cushion for the night.
Despite his discomfort, Yuuri is nearly asleep himself when Victor suddenly shifts and turns. When he settles again, arms curled around his rolled up coat, he’s pressed against Yuuri from hip to ankle.
Yuuri can feel his cheeks heating as Victor mutters something unintelligible and curls into Yuuri’s side, no doubt unconsciously seeking Yuuri’s body heat. He’s fortunate at least that Phichit has already dozed off on his own makeshift pillow, and Yuuri doesn’t have to bear his pointed teasing.
Victor’s cap is practically hanging off one ear, his silver hair spilling onto the plain tan of his coat. With a guilty sort of fondness Yuuri removes the hat and settles it in Victor’s lap for safekeeping, lest it fall off while they’re asleep and be lost. Despite knowing they are practically the same age, asleep in the starlight Victor looks terribly young and beautiful, all the worried lines smoothed from his brow. He murmurs something in his sleep, and edges a bit closer.
Yuuri doesn’t quite know what to do with his developing feelings for the man asleep next to him, or even a name for what those feelings might be. Victor is ludicrous, theatrical, and prone to passionate outbursts. He’s also sweet, and he’s made Yuuri laugh more times in the last handful of days than he can count. It's an infuriating, and terribly exciting balance, one that has Yuuri stroking Victor’s loose bangs out of his face with a tender gesture. The Russian stirs, but does not wake, a half smile on his lips from whatever dream has him in its embrace.
With a contented sigh Yuuri settles against the firm hay bale at his back and enjoys Victor’s warmth as the truck trundles along the moonlit country road.
He’ll deal with the goings on of his emotions once they’re safe on a ship to France.