It takes more than a few seconds for Yuri's shoulders and back to relax entirely down from the assumption Victor will move him anytime now, or move himself. Then, Yuri would retreat to his pillow and sleep, gritty and chasing his every blink, will be the only thing left. Except. Victor doesn't move. At least, more precisely, Victor doesn't move away. Victor never stops moving entirely, especially this close. The rise and fall of his chest and the beat of his steady, slow heart.
The fingers that continue to card, gently, slowly, through his hair, tugging his eyes back closed with the end of near every stroke against his scalp. The slight pause at the edge driving his eyelids to crack back open, hard sticking and unkind, with small starts back to full awakeness from the darkness, from drowning, slow pooling warmth of the touch rippling across all of his head, down his neck and into his shoulders.
It's not immediate, the sleep chasing him down like a wall of already raining bricks, fighting through the malaise of stressed fatigue, from things both planned for that and those that never could have been. The not moving, or being moved, causes question enough, even as quiet and stillness becomes the room, only broken by the sound of Victor or Maccachin breathing. It drags up memories of China, with paralyzed stillness and tortured confused, while Victor was wrapped around him from behind, drunkenly refusing to let him leave.
It seems impossible that was only a little over a week. The Cup's. Maccachin. It seems all but impossible that he's here now, inside Victor's arms, pressed to his chest.
Yuri doesn't move, doesn't even open his tired eyes, but he listens to the slow, deep, even rhythm of Victor's breath. In, and out. In, and out. There's a world outside the bedroom door, and beyond his home and family, that would all but kill to be right where he is, here in Victor's arms and Victor's bed. Who might make more of either of those, or at least have something more to offer.
But he doesn't want to think of that, of them, yet. Again. Tonight. Not with the rusty hooks of darkness trying to pull him down and down. Not with the slow, steady breathing above his head, and the slow, steady heartbeat pressed itself against one cheek, that he only very barely rubs against Victor as he yawns again. His body trying to tell his mind to get with the program, as though all the rest of him except is ready, is already gone.
There's a soft count in his head -- maybe it was of Victor's breaths, or Victor's heartbeats, or even just seconds, just to make him focus on something that was nothing, that couldn't be chased in a circle, just to lull him to curl into the warm all around him -- but if he was asked later, he wouldn't be able to say if he even made it to ten before sleep came and stole the last of him left.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zaluzianskya and ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
skylark_photos
no subject
Date: 2017-09-27 11:51 am (UTC)It takes more than a few seconds for Yuri's shoulders and back to relax entirely down from the assumption Victor will move him anytime now, or move himself. Then, Yuri would retreat to his pillow and sleep, gritty and chasing his every blink, will be the only thing left. Except. Victor doesn't move. At least, more precisely, Victor doesn't move away. Victor never stops moving entirely, especially this close. The rise and fall of his chest and the beat of his steady, slow heart.
The fingers that continue to card, gently, slowly, through his hair, tugging his eyes back closed with the end of near every stroke against his scalp. The slight pause at the edge driving his eyelids to crack back open, hard sticking and unkind, with small starts back to full awakeness from the darkness, from drowning, slow pooling warmth of the touch rippling across all of his head, down his neck and into his shoulders.
It's not immediate, the sleep chasing him down like a wall of already raining bricks, fighting through the malaise of stressed fatigue, from things both planned for that and those that never could have been. The not moving, or being moved, causes question enough, even as quiet and stillness becomes the room, only broken by the sound of Victor or Maccachin breathing. It drags up memories of China, with paralyzed stillness and tortured confused, while Victor was wrapped around him from behind, drunkenly refusing to let him leave.
It seems impossible that was only a little over a week. The Cup's. Maccachin.
It seems all but impossible that he's here now, inside Victor's arms, pressed to his chest.
Yuri doesn't move, doesn't even open his tired eyes, but he listens to the slow, deep, even rhythm of Victor's breath. In, and out. In, and out. There's a world outside the bedroom door, and beyond his home and family, that would all but kill to be right where he is, here in Victor's arms and Victor's bed. Who might make more of either of those, or at least have something more to offer.
But he doesn't want to think of that, of them, yet. Again. Tonight. Not with the rusty hooks of darkness trying to pull him down and down. Not with the slow, steady breathing above his head, and the slow, steady heartbeat pressed itself against one cheek, that he only very barely rubs against Victor as he yawns again. His body trying to tell his mind to get with the program, as though all the rest of him except is ready, is already gone.
There's a soft count in his head -- maybe it was of Victor's breaths, or Victor's heartbeats, or even just seconds, just to make him focus on something that was nothing, that couldn't be chased in a circle, just to lull him to curl into the warm all around him -- but if he was asked later, he wouldn't be able to say if he even made it to ten before sleep came and stole the last of him left.