Yuri doesn't know when the room went silent, not exactly, only that Victor takes what sounds like a faintly pained gasp after long enough that the sound defines the silence. Burns the edges of it. Tenses the muscles across the back of Yuri's shoulders, and makes the skin raise at the back of his throat.
It's not enough to have just that, to hold that much, because Victor shifts the next second and Yuri almost apologizes as Victor's fingers release the hand they'd been holding. It's on his tongue to let fall out more than a little panicked at what he might have done that he shouldn't, except Victor's hand doesn't leave. His fingers curl gently over the skin and bones of Yuri's wrist.
The small, fast beat of his blood beating there, so close to the surface, while he swallows, looking back.
He should have something -- a word, a sentence, an explanation -- but he doesn't. He turns the hand Victor had taken over, trying not to feel frightened by both the sheer simplicity and still absolute impossibility of that he's doing this. That finished with that next smallest shift, Victor's face is framed between his hands, and Victor is letting him. Victor. Staring up the very short distance between, with unwavering focus, on just him, in a way that decimates any words Yuri might have had.
Decimates his air. Sense. Rational direction. Breaks it down to the raw, tired, ache buried inside.
He's not sure there's a way he could put it into words, if he convinced his lungs or throat or mouth to work. That he knows any kind of proper response for I always want to be with you, or could ever dare the admission that it's, of course, easier to believe the other. A million times over even. That he hadn't questioned. Hadn't thought to question not questioning it. He's used to feeling, and thinking, so many things that whole world tells him that he shouldn't be. That they aren't. Haven't. Don't. Why wouldn't it just be him?
The way he's not even sure that is it entirely.
A good portion, maybe even a terrifying and shamefully large portion of it,
but maybe not all of it either.
When his eyes are tracking too many times over the space of Victor's face -- perfect cut features and palest skin, under his fingers -- and he wants to believe (find a way to believe, keep, deserve) these newest words, the same way he was willing to believe those. Because Victor said it.
Because he doesn't question that Victor will tell him the truth, more often than not with a caustic clarity that even America and the internet didn't prepare him for. About himself, about his skating, about everything. Because he doesn't coddle Yuri's weakness even when he finds himself helpless to do anything about them, not even when he finds himself continuously tripping over newer and newer parts of it.
no subject
It's not enough to have just that, to hold that much, because Victor shifts the next second and Yuri almost apologizes as Victor's fingers release the hand they'd been holding. It's on his tongue to let fall out more than a little panicked at what he might have done that he shouldn't, except Victor's hand doesn't leave. His fingers curl gently over the skin and bones of Yuri's wrist.
The small, fast beat of his blood beating there, so close to the surface, while he swallows, looking back.
He should have something -- a word, a sentence, an explanation -- but he doesn't. He turns the hand Victor had taken over, trying not to feel frightened by both the sheer simplicity and still absolute impossibility of that he's doing this. That finished with that next smallest shift, Victor's face is framed between his hands, and Victor is letting him. Victor. Staring up the very short distance between, with unwavering focus, on just him, in a way that decimates any words Yuri might have had.
Decimates his air. Sense. Rational direction. Breaks it down to the raw, tired, ache buried inside.
He's not sure there's a way he could put it into words, if he convinced his lungs or throat or mouth to work. That he knows any kind of proper response for I always want to be with you, or could ever dare the admission that it's, of course, easier to believe the other. A million times over even. That he hadn't questioned. Hadn't thought to question not questioning it. He's used to feeling, and thinking, so many things that whole world tells him that he shouldn't be. That they aren't. Haven't. Don't. Why wouldn't it just be him?
The way he's not even sure that is it entirely.
and shamefully large portion of it,
When his eyes are tracking too many times over the space of Victor's face -- perfect cut features and palest skin, under his fingers -- and he wants to believe (find a way to believe, keep, deserve) these newest words, the same way he was willing to believe those. Because Victor said it.
Because he doesn't question that Victor will tell him the truth, more often than not with a caustic clarity that even America and the internet didn't prepare him for. About himself, about his skating, about everything. Because he doesn't coddle Yuri's weakness even when he finds himself helpless to do anything about them, not even when he finds himself continuously tripping over newer and newer parts of it.