Home sounds magical. Home nearly makes him cry harder. A drill pressing into a dissolving crack even deeper. He’s barely been gone two weeks this time, nothing like those five years, and it feels like there’d been so many more years in those days than he can’t count them. They’re etched soundless and too deep in his bones.
Even when Victor goes stumbling forward a step, two at the most toward and into Yuri, laughing, confusing Yuri about how there is anything to laugh about in the world that Victor could touch, until his words find Yuri’s ears and the name in it and he’s pulling away, trying to rub at his face, his nose with the side and the back of his hand, looking down when Victor is.
Watching the poodle scramble between jumping up and down at Victor, excited and hardly seeming like it could have waited through all of their running and hugging and words. (Like he hardly could have been on the edge of dying less than a day ago.) But Yuri remembers his shoes and legs being snuffled and head butted, right? Just barely?
“You look good,” Yuri says, voice sticking in his throat and mouth, when he’s crouching a little, eyes still wet and vision still a little blurry. He’s already getting jumped at for coming down to the proper, appropriate level. Having to catch Maccachin around the sides of his squirming body, and keep them both balanced from upending on the floor entirely, especially with the extra weight of his backpack thrown into it.
Face buried for a second in short soft fur, and only that, given the ducking and weaving head before Yuri. If there were any tears left on his cheeks, they’re gone under the tongue that attacks his cheeks with ruthless enthusiasm and has him ducking away, with something the tries to resemble a laugh. It's a little broken, but it still tries itself.
We were worried about you, sits in his head, but his throat and his chest can't say it. The edges of his eyes prickling fiercely, so he rumples Maccachin's ears softly instead.
Good, is was the wrong word.
It’s too simple for how many people were worried.
For Mari’s voice on the phone, and his parents, and Victor — Victor, throwing himself on his old coach, and Victor flying to Japan, and Victor making it in time. And, him. Him, for the right reasons, and even the wrong ones. Even if he couldn’t really see that, too, until he heard Maccachin was fine. Until this second, when it feels even harder. The selfishness and the impossible grief, at the idea of losing Maccachin, too.
He wants to bury his face back against that fur again, even though he just swallows. Everything feels sore and broken open, but Maccachin’s adoration is simple. Pure. Straightforward. Unlined and undesigned. No confusion anywhere.
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Home sounds magical. Home nearly makes him cry harder. A drill pressing into a dissolving crack even deeper. He’s barely been gone two weeks this time, nothing like those five years, and it feels like there’d been so many more years in those days than he can’t count them. They’re etched soundless and too deep in his bones.
Even when Victor goes stumbling forward a step, two at the most toward and into Yuri, laughing, confusing Yuri about how there is anything to laugh about in the world that Victor could touch, until his words find Yuri’s ears and the name in it and he’s pulling away, trying to rub at his face, his nose with the side and the back of his hand, looking down when Victor is.
Watching the poodle scramble between jumping up and down at Victor, excited and hardly seeming like it could have waited through all of their running and hugging and words. (Like he hardly could have been on the edge of dying less than a day ago.) But Yuri remembers his shoes and legs being snuffled and head butted, right? Just barely?
“You look good,” Yuri says, voice sticking in his throat and mouth, when he’s crouching a little, eyes still wet and vision still a little blurry. He’s already getting jumped at for coming down to the proper, appropriate level. Having to catch Maccachin around the sides of his squirming body, and keep them both balanced from upending on the floor entirely, especially with the extra weight of his backpack thrown into it.
Face buried for a second in short soft fur, and only that, given the ducking and weaving head before Yuri. If there were any tears left on his cheeks, they’re gone under the tongue that attacks his cheeks with ruthless enthusiasm and has him ducking away, with something the tries to resemble a laugh. It's a little broken, but it still tries itself.
We were worried about you, sits in his head, but his throat and his chest can't say it.
The edges of his eyes prickling fiercely, so he rumples Maccachin's ears softly instead.
Good, is was the wrong word.
For Mari’s voice on the phone, and his parents, and Victor — Victor, throwing himself on his old coach, and Victor flying to Japan, and Victor making it in time. And, him. Him, for the right reasons, and even the wrong ones. Even if he couldn’t really see that, too, until he heard Maccachin was fine. Until this second, when it feels even harder. The selfishness and the impossible grief, at the idea of losing Maccachin, too.
He wants to bury his face back against that fur again, even though he just swallows.
Everything feels sore and broken open, but Maccachin’s adoration is simple.
Pure. Straightforward. Unlined and undesigned. No confusion anywhere.