It feels a little like being chastised even when it isn't. He knows the voice Victor uses then, the disdained sharpness that is not as calm or easy as the tone he has right now. The one that makes Yuri follow along, and want to. That makes him not look away even when it feels like his heart stumbles through what couldn't have been more than three or four sentences, five at the most. Not an either-or, not that Yuri any disillusions about what is more important if it is an or, but it's not for this second.
Not when Victor clarifies it's both. Both of those things at once. Maccachin somewhere in danger, and Yuri, left alone, behind, to face the rest of everything. Both. Both, the way Yuri hadn't let himself, except in the furthest back of his head, and almost only when alone, apart. Not a single word of it had been spoken. Not to Victor on the phone, or in the text messages. Not to Yurio on either of the nights. Not even firmly inside Victor's arms, against Victor's chest, in the airport.
Yuri wasn't even certain he had a way to put it into words, could ever have even implied both, at the same time, without being ashamed of it.
Not to compare himself.
Not to even consider comparing himself when not in any danger. Not even when he'd been terrified he might ruin everything all over again.
Which wasn't the same as not missing Victor even though Maccachin and his family needed him, was it?
Every touch against his skin is wearing away at the edges of him, like water running up against sand, and pulling more of it, more of him, away, with every brush of Victor's fingertips. It would be so easy to close his eyes and just lean his whole head into that hand, or to lean forward into Victor again. Except they are in the middle of talking, too. Yuri's mouth presses and releases a few times, before he finally gets to, with something a muddle, quiet voice, that isn't entirely evenly. "I don't miss you now?"
It's not entirely true. He knows that when he's saying it, maybe more than he did before he said it. But.
He, also, knows it's truer than it isn't. Truer right now than it was a day ago. Or two. He is not missing Victor now the way he did the night he kept waking up, or the morning Victor called, or worse, right after the call. After what Victor had said. About this all being the same for him, when Yuri couldn't help but feel like everything he'd come to consider normal had gone.
With one call and one cab and one plane, it was more clear than ever how much everything had changed for him. Not even just from wherever he'd been the year before in Detroit, or the one before when was still skating, but ever.
It's more ... that he knows what it is to miss Victor now.
How terrible it is in reality, and not theory. For Victor to be just gone. For Victor to be there one moment, and all of him, his person and all of his things, to be completely missing the next. Never to return to a place. He knows what it's going to be like when that gets here, and he never lets himself forget how soon it is going to happen, or that it'll never have this on the other side of it to soften it.
no subject
Not when Victor clarifies it's both. Both of those things at once. Maccachin somewhere in danger, and Yuri, left alone, behind, to face the rest of everything. Both. Both, the way Yuri hadn't let himself, except in the furthest back of his head, and almost only when alone, apart. Not a single word of it had been spoken. Not to Victor on the phone, or in the text messages. Not to Yurio on either of the nights. Not even firmly inside Victor's arms, against Victor's chest, in the airport.
Yuri wasn't even certain he had a way to put it into words,
could ever have even implied both, at the same time,
without being ashamed of it.
Not to compare himself.
Not to even consider comparing himself when not in any danger.
Not even when he'd been terrified he might ruin everything all over again.
Which wasn't the same as not missing Victor even though Maccachin and his family needed him, was it?
Every touch against his skin is wearing away at the edges of him, like water running up against sand, and pulling more of it, more of him, away, with every brush of Victor's fingertips. It would be so easy to close his eyes and just lean his whole head into that hand, or to lean forward into Victor again. Except they are in the middle of talking, too. Yuri's mouth presses and releases a few times, before he finally gets to, with something a muddle, quiet voice, that isn't entirely evenly. "I don't miss you now?"
It's not entirely true. He knows that when he's saying it, maybe more than he did before he said it. But.
He, also, knows it's truer than it isn't. Truer right now than it was a day ago. Or two. He is not missing Victor now the way he did the night he kept waking up, or the morning Victor called, or worse, right after the call. After what Victor had said. About this all being the same for him, when Yuri couldn't help but feel like everything he'd come to consider normal had gone.
With one call and one cab and one plane, it was more clear than ever how much everything had changed for him.
Not even just from wherever he'd been the year before in Detroit, or the one before when was still skating, but ever.
It's more ... that he knows what it is to miss Victor now.
How terrible it is in reality, and not theory. For Victor to be just gone. For Victor to be there one moment, and all of him, his person and all of his things, to be completely missing the next. Never to return to a place. He knows what it's going to be like when that gets here, and he never lets himself forget how soon it is going to happen, or that it'll never have this on the other side of it to soften it.