Yuri slams into him like a wave breaking against a lighthouse, but nothing shatters except for the tension in Victor's chest, and that goes all at once in a release that feels like the sudden bursting of a glass bubble, shards slicing into his heart and lungs and stomach and throat.
(Maybe when tears are held inside for this long they turn to glass and only cut instead of fall.)
Yuri's arms around his ribs, clenching around his back. Yuri's face buried in his chest and then his shoulder, glasses pushing into his collarbone and then the side of his neck. Yuri a blob of winter coat and backpack and a tired travel mess, and the only thing he can do is wrap his arms around Yuri's neck and tuck his face against the side of Yuri's head. Maccachin is wandering around their legs, and he can feel the nudge of a nose that's trying to remind him there's more than one beloved companion here, but he can't let go even for that, can't make a joke, can't find a way to lighten this thing that's expanding and expanding inside his chest until it feels big enough to threaten the whole airport. To crack the glass that was between them until only seconds ago. To race across China and the Siberian plains and all the way to Moscow to turn the long night there into glowing, brilliant day.
He feels like seaglass, transparent and fragile and rounded after being buffeted by waves and rocked by storms and polished by sand. He wants to be held tight in Yuri's palm and pressed to his heart. "Yuri..."
He barely knows what to say, now that he can say it to Yuri directly, instead of through a text or over the phone. He can't believe he ever took having Yuri right there beside him for so many months, never further than a hallway away. Had he thought he was miserable in St. Petersburg?
He no longer thinks he could survive being separated again, even for a minute.
But there are things he should say, as well as things he wants to, has to say. First and foremost.
(He thinks of Minako sitting with him at a booth, toying with her noodles and telling him to man up, you big Russian baby, and be the coach Yuri needs you to be.)
"I've been thinking about what I can do for you as your coach from now on."
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(Maybe when tears are held inside for this long they turn to glass and only cut instead of fall.)
Yuri's arms around his ribs, clenching around his back. Yuri's face buried in his chest and then his shoulder, glasses pushing into his collarbone and then the side of his neck. Yuri a blob of winter coat and backpack and a tired travel mess, and the only thing he can do is wrap his arms around Yuri's neck and tuck his face against the side of Yuri's head. Maccachin is wandering around their legs, and he can feel the nudge of a nose that's trying to remind him there's more than one beloved companion here, but he can't let go even for that, can't make a joke, can't find a way to lighten this thing that's expanding and expanding inside his chest until it feels big enough to threaten the whole airport. To crack the glass that was between them until only seconds ago. To race across China and the Siberian plains and all the way to Moscow to turn the long night there into glowing, brilliant day.
He feels like seaglass, transparent and fragile and rounded after being buffeted by waves and rocked by storms and polished by sand. He wants to be held tight in Yuri's palm and pressed to his heart. "Yuri..."
He barely knows what to say, now that he can say it to Yuri directly, instead of through a text or over the phone. He can't believe he ever took having Yuri right there beside him for so many months, never further than a hallway away. Had he thought he was miserable in St. Petersburg?
He no longer thinks he could survive being separated again, even for a minute.
But there are things he should say, as well as things he wants to, has to say. First and foremost.
(He thinks of Minako sitting with him at a booth, toying with her noodles and telling him to man up, you big Russian baby, and be the coach Yuri needs you to be.)
"I've been thinking about what I can do for you as your coach from now on."