勝生 勇利, Katsuki Yūri (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
theglassheart) wrote2017-03-26 12:16 pm
theglassheart) wrote2017-03-26 12:16 pm
November 16, 2014 - Fukuoka to Hasetsu
The flights end up late, and it feels like he's chasing the ghost of a glimmer of light, one that he's already lost sight of, again, across an entire world of night. Leaving in the dark of Russia's night, and the windows never brighten. Even as hours and hours pass. He doesn't think he'll sleep, but he ends up sleeping in fits and starts anyway.
He didn't sleep well the night before, or the night before that. Which isn't all the unusual. Not during competition. But he wasn't forced by Victor to try to sleep during the middle of the day, and he didn't try to catch even a few hours sleep before his flight. He didn't touch the beds except to put his suitcase on it and fold things next to it.
Adding to those, his performance drained everything that was left in him.
He still dreamt shoddily. He dreamt he never made it.
He dreamed they recounted the numbers and he was too far under.
He dreamed and blurred the skate at Rostelecom with his one at his last Grand Prix Finale.
When he was luckiest, he dreamed of nothing. He simply slipped into that ebony, endless black. An embrace of pure exhaustion that didn't feel like sleep, and left him feeling more exhausted, more run over, but at least it didn't startle him awake in the middle of a panic, heart racing, eyes stinging, clutching the armrests, unable to catch his breath at first.
When he can't sleep, he stares unfocused out the window. Or at the barely there shape of his reflection in the double-paned glass of the window. Has the strangest, exhausted snippets of conversations. With Yakov, and Yurio, and Victor, so many times Victor. That start with words they've said, or might say, and ripple out from there.
Anxiety, and exhaustion, and too much waiting again, even more than before the skate. Unable to move from this spot. He looks at his phone more than he should, because he can't convince himself to let go of it most of the time, but he doesn't bother Victor. He's sleeping, he convinces himself several times. And when he might not be, with Maccachin, finally, he tells himself in others. Mostly he tells himself, he'll be there soon, closing the phone. Over and over. He can wait. He's made it this long.
There's so much time to wait, so much to say and he has no one else but himself to say it to. Which had always been true before, too, except now it isn't. Now he has so many things he needs to say to Victor. Victor, who still hasn't started lecturing him, and the longer that goes on, the more he starts to fret that is what is waiting for him in Fukuoka. Like skating to Victor at the side of the rink and it starting. Maybe when he walks in, then it'll start.
It makes his stomach tighten, even when he wants that if that's what it takes. If it'll put Victor back in front of him, he'll listen to the entire thing from beginning to end now. His stomach growls, after his exhausted anxiousness chases that tail for the next half hour, playing different tracks of that lecture, in the airport, with all of those people watching, and leaves him staring at the call button. Thinking about calling for another snack. Or another sealed meal, if he could.
(He's not going to eat the last Pirozh-katsu, long since cold, but wrapped up carefully in its brown paper bag, waiting in his backpack in front of his feet. It may have been given to him, a birthday present or congratulations, to be shared with Yurio, but that one, the very last one, isn't for him.)
What feels like an infinity of hours later still, the announcement overhead starting,
as the wifi finally picks up again, Yuri finally opens his phone, and starts typing,
He didn't sleep well the night before, or the night before that. Which isn't all the unusual. Not during competition. But he wasn't forced by Victor to try to sleep during the middle of the day, and he didn't try to catch even a few hours sleep before his flight. He didn't touch the beds except to put his suitcase on it and fold things next to it.
Adding to those, his performance drained everything that was left in him.
He still dreamt shoddily. He dreamt he never made it.
He dreamed they recounted the numbers and he was too far under.
He dreamed and blurred the skate at Rostelecom with his one at his last Grand Prix Finale.
When he was luckiest, he dreamed of nothing. He simply slipped into that ebony, endless black. An embrace of pure exhaustion that didn't feel like sleep, and left him feeling more exhausted, more run over, but at least it didn't startle him awake in the middle of a panic, heart racing, eyes stinging, clutching the armrests, unable to catch his breath at first.
When he can't sleep, he stares unfocused out the window. Or at the barely there shape of his reflection in the double-paned glass of the window. Has the strangest, exhausted snippets of conversations. With Yakov, and Yurio, and Victor, so many times Victor. That start with words they've said, or might say, and ripple out from there.
Anxiety, and exhaustion, and too much waiting again, even more than before the skate. Unable to move from this spot. He looks at his phone more than he should, because he can't convince himself to let go of it most of the time, but he doesn't bother Victor. He's sleeping, he convinces himself several times. And when he might not be, with Maccachin, finally, he tells himself in others. Mostly he tells himself, he'll be there soon, closing the phone. Over and over. He can wait. He's made it this long.
There's so much time to wait, so much to say and he has no one else but himself to say it to. Which had always been true before, too, except now it isn't. Now he has so many things he needs to say to Victor. Victor, who still hasn't started lecturing him, and the longer that goes on, the more he starts to fret that is what is waiting for him in Fukuoka. Like skating to Victor at the side of the rink and it starting. Maybe when he walks in, then it'll start.
It makes his stomach tighten, even when he wants that if that's what it takes. If it'll put Victor back in front of him, he'll listen to the entire thing from beginning to end now. His stomach growls, after his exhausted anxiousness chases that tail for the next half hour, playing different tracks of that lecture, in the airport, with all of those people watching, and leaves him staring at the call button. Thinking about calling for another snack. Or another sealed meal, if he could.
(He's not going to eat the last Pirozh-katsu, long since cold, but wrapped up carefully in its brown paper bag, waiting in his backpack in front of his feet. It may have been given to him, a birthday present or congratulations, to be shared with Yurio, but that one, the very last one, isn't for him.)
What feels like an infinity of hours later still, the announcement overhead starting,
as the wifi finally picks up again, Yuri finally opens his phone, and starts typing,
We just landed.
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He remembers when it used to feel like every new word and every new sentence had him on the tips of toes, jumping at attention, heart racing, unprepared and trying to hold on to each new one, like they were being shoved into his arms and he could never hold enough of them to pay close enough attention, to stop his heart, to keep from dropping words and sentences everywhere, without even beginning to make sense of why Victor was talking to him and why Victor wanted him to respond. That was so long ago. But he remembers it perfectly clear.
He doesn’t remember when this happened.
When every word, rambled against the background of his thoughts and stumbling emotions, feels like it absolutely belongs there, whether he can find the words to respond or not. The way it feels more like air than breathing in does, and he doesn’t even feel anxious when Victor jumps between two or three different things without waiting for him to answer. He doesn’t know why it makes him want to slump, want to curl up in a ball, want to close his eyes, dig the palms of his hands into them, and just breathe in deeper, breathe out longer.
It hurts, but it hurts in the way where it doesn’t, too. Like all of his aching muscles are finally loosening. Throbbing from the tension. Throbbing from the first second of release. Part of him doesn’t even want to respond. He just wants to keep listening to Victor’s voice babbling and rolling over him in waves against the constant noise of the rest of the airport. Simultaneously, like he could somehow fall asleep to it and like he hasn’t been awake, in days, until hearing it.
He thinks about the last question in there, at least for a second or two, and maybe he feels a little ashamed for it. He knows Victor likes to go out places, even places he’s been to a dozen times, and he loves to drag Yuri out to them, even if Yuri’s been to them all but five years of his life. But more people, after a weekend of crowds and cameras, and being slapped onto a contingent of Russians he couldn’t even understand, and more than half a day on a plane, packed into such a small place, sounds excruciating. He doesn’t want more people. If he could turn around and just be home, he’d do that.
“I’m okay. I ate not too long ago on the plane,” Yuri mumbles, apologetically.
He probably ate more than he should. More than likely. Absolutely. Fretting and spiraling in the silence of having nothing but his head and his music, worried about getting here, about what Victor would say about it all, and with too many regrets attached to the day he’d just had. Convincing himself he had weeks before the next competition and he’d be back to working hard starting that day or the next at home anyway.
“That one,” Yuri points toward where his suitcase has just come through the wall opening, even if it has to snake the conveyer belt toward them still, and even though Victor knows well and fine exactly what his luggage looks like. A worn, well-used, thing that has seen him through the last six years.
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He probably shouldn't feel so relieved that Yuri ate, that he won't want or need to stop on the way back to the house and the onsen and the end of this terrible day.
(But it is a relief. It feels like they're closer to home already.) "Oh, good."
He tries to imagine it doesn't sound so much more genuine than the offer to stop somewhere, if Yuri prefers, but it's a stretch. Fortunately, Yuri is already pointing, his luggage just now traveling along towards them at a sedate pace nothing like the anxiety with which Victor wants to leave, to be back already, to not have backpacks and luggage and coats and people in his way. "I'll get it."
Already making his way past Yuri and into the small group of gathering people, to cut the luggage off before it has a chance to even snake its way towards them. Maccachin opts to stay with Yuri, which is fine, because that leaves Victor with clear room to lift the luggage from the belt and set it on the floor, extending the handle to roll it along beside him. It's quick steps back to Yuri from there, and they're so close, he can feel it in his blood, like standing too near a source of electricity. "Ready to go?"
Yuri looks ready. Yuri looks beyond ready. Yuri looks like he wishes he could just will himself there and not have to deal with any of the travel in between, which Victor can appreciate.
Allowing himself to lift his free hand to the back of Yuri's shoulder, as a sort of compromise. "Let's go, Yuri."
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Victor is in his line of sight. He never leaves it.
Victor is getting his bag.
Yuri presses his lips together harder, blinking too much, and giving a little startle when he has to look down when there’s head butt against his ankle. Honestly, sometimes, Maccachin seems almost aware of things, and Yuri says, quietly, not sure if it’s actually to himself or the poodle. “I’m fine.”
He was exhausted. That was all. That was it.
He wasn't ever good at competition weekends even on a good day.
The disastrous little head-first dash into his ribs his heart does, when he looks up from Maccachin and Victor is almost right in front of him, calls him a liar outright. He’s nodding dumbly, hoping it’s not written over the entirety of his face. Instead just saying, “Thank you.”
Which happens just about at the same second Victor’s hand finds his shoulder. Over his coat, and next to his backpack strap.
A familiar weight even through his coat and a sweater. One that has been missing for too long, even if too long is pathetically short for someone who managed years away from everyone, and he can’t help, can’t stop, that he sags a little in the direction of that touch, it almost catching his step, before he keeps going, keeps following walking Victor is leading him now.
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Not when it's been so long. (Two, three days. Forever.)
It's times like this he envies Maccachin's freedom of affection. Maccachin can jump all over Yuri and cover his face with kisses and request to be held and stroked and no one thinks it's strange. Maccachin's antics spark warm smiles from the same people who looked sternly them earlier, hugging for too long in front of the arrivals gate. It seems desperately unfair, and he's still not sure he cares enough about what other people think to hold back --
But Yuri does. He hasn't forgotten the horrified way Yuri looked at the articles posted the morning after his Shanghai free skate, full of insinuation that Victor had only stoked instead of minimized.
Yuri is more reserved than him. Yuri worries what people will think. Yuri remembers when things are appropriate or not.
(Just for once, Victor wishes he didn't care quite so much.)
Still, Yuri gravitates towards him, making Victor's heart take a sharp little hop towards his throat. "We should be home in plenty of time to catch the exhibition, but then you need to get some rest, Yuri. You look tired."
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If it were anyone other than Victor, Yuri would say that he was fine. He can feel it, like it’s existing right there to the side of him in his own mind. He would probably even jump back, and try to deny any implication to the contrary, with his hands raised and his voice probably louder than it needed to be.
But it isn’t anyone else.
It’s just Victor, walking, talking, next to him.
Victor, hand on Yuri’s shoulder, directing him.
There isn’t a reason to do anything more, or less, than nod quietly. Something that is assent, and maybe even more than it. Maybe actually is agreement without argument. Especially when he thinks for a moment about his own bed in his own house, after a week and half in hotels, and it’s a thought that makes him feel more tired than the plane alone could even.
But it doesn’t stop him from stressing, even normal, “After.”
He still wants to see it first. He needs to. He wouldn’t change his mind about coming home, when he had, that he had — he can’t help looking to his side, to Victor at his side, just the profile of his face as he’s walking, at the thought, and Yuri’s not sure he could walk away, could have chosen to stay, even after what Yurio did, at all at this second, not even for a gold medal.
Which isn’t exactly a safe thought, or one he should be having here, is it?
Yuri picks something else, far safer. Back to what Victor said.
“Maybe I’ll sleep through all of tonight and tomorrow.”
It’s not something that’s likely to happen, being allowed to sleep in that long, through even half of a day, but it feels like it would be so easy to finally sleep. Maybe really sleep. Being back home, and Victor back in the same country, same city, same house. Maybe he could finally, actually, sleep. Between those and if he could keep himself from falling into fretting over the weekend, replaying the recordings from yesterday, to pull apart every worst step.
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(He still has a lot to learn about being a coach.)
Except everything has changed since that night in Shanghai, hasn't it? It's not just being Yuri's coach he needs to get right, anymore, it's this, too: how being without him for even a few days felt like barely living, like he was encased in walls of glass or ice.
It's Yuri gripping him at the arrivals gate like he never wants to let go. Yuri's shy acceptance of that date they never got to go on. It would have been tonight, wouldn't it? After the exhibition, maybe.
(If he'd been there, would Yuri have been in it?)
"You can sleep as late as you want to tomorrow."
Even without the extra stress of the last few days, he'd always advocated for a few days of rest after competitions, to keep from burning out before the next one. Four weeks isn't a lot of time, but it's enough to allow a day off before they really dig in. "We'll see how you feel in the afternoon, but I don't want you doing anything but some light exercises."
Something to keep Yuri's mind focused, while giving his body time to recover. "And a long soak in the hot spring."
The blast of cold air that greets them as they glass doors slide open and they walk through isn't as intense as Moscow's, but it's enough to make him happy that Yuri's as bundled up as he is. His own coat is still hanging open and his scarf is too loose to keep the winter air from slipping down around his throat, but it's fine. They'll be home soon enough.
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Yuri made a soft noise, more like he was acknowledging the words were said, more than truly thinking deeply about them or commenting on them. Though the idea of lazing about in the hot springs for a long time, maybe even long enough to just put his head down and fade out of his own thoughts, worries, and some of the soreness sounded almost too amazing to even just think about.
He didn't expect to feel like this -- this, what?? -- once he finally got here.
This feeling where he wants to just sag to his side, against Victor, or at least by the most partial on increments until maybe his shoulder on that side could just barely brush against Victor's shoulder, or Victor's side. An even more constant and stretched feeling, even just as he took steps, from his hand and further. That Victor really was here. That he was nearby. That he wouldn't vanish in a second, any second, when Yuri looked up to say anything.
This feeling like he didn't have to say anything.
This feeling where he still had no so much to say, but it only hovered. This feeling like he wanted to say all of it, and had no clue how to feel it less say it. This feeling like he could breathe. This feeling like he didn't have to remember how to, or force himself to. This feeling like he wanted to close his eyes and just give into that exhaustion rolled over his like a fog.
This feeling like he wanted to turn his head and just stare are Victor -- real, alive, here, with him, existing, the gait of his steps, the way he held his shoulders, the soft gentle bump of his hair as he moved -- and never look away. Like maybe a decade and half, and eight months, and less than one week, had never prepared him to remember enough when Victor was suddenly gone.
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(The onsen will feel better than ever in this cold weather.)
"Minako lent me her car –– it's over this way."
No, it's been a long while since he's been befuddled by all of Yuri's silences. True, there are some he still doesn't understand –– all those long, tense moments in Shanghai, before Yuri finally snapped, and afterwards in the hotel room when Victor couldn't seem to find solid ground on whether or not what he was doing, saying, wanted was okay -– but not this kind.
Yuri is relieved to be home. He's tired, mentally, emotionally, physically. He's had a grueling week and a half, and spent the better part of the last day on a plane. He'd been dumped onto a team of Russians he barely understands, who don't like him all that much and have no reason to, aside from the fact that Victor asked them to help him.
(Yakov. He asked Yakov.
He's not going to be able to leave that conversation ignored after this.)
Given the chance, Yuri would probably fall asleep right in the car on the way home. Except that he's determined to watch the exhibition and Victor is determined to stay with him, so it'll probably be a few hours yet before he actually does rest.
(Yes, tomorrow he can sleep as long as he wants.) "She'll be happy to see you tomorrow, too."
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It's winter everywhere, already settled in. It's hard to really think about it entirely straight. In the last eight days, he's been in three countries, all of them winter cold already, and all of them with less than five hours of sun at best, with and without the clouds. Moscow had been a little colder, but even Moscow hadn't been as cold as the winter's he'd gotten used to in the last five years.
It was winter and cold everywhere, and it made sense. Why Victor let go.
But Yuri's stomach still stayed slightly sunk even as the surprise ebbed away.
His own hands tightening against the urge to -- what?
Reach out? Demand Victor's already hidden away hand?
The center of his body only seeming to catch up with his head, or where they were, in time to make him feel more adrift, more exhausted, not close enough to home still. But at least they'd be in the car soon. At least soon it would only be Victor, and maybe that would be easier, too. His suitcase and bag in the back, and the drive back. Which would be another hour of sitting after the more than a dozen behind him.
At least it made the car easy to find, and turn himself toward after spotting in the direction the three of them kept going. Stopping by the back of the car, to wait for it to be unlocked, turned over more in his head though. He'd thought about that a lot, too, in the last few days. When Victor was suddenly gone, and it stood out even starker that this was the only competition Minako Sensai had planned not to fly out for, too.
"Was she there watching with everyone?" Either way, even if she wasn't, she'd have been watching somewhere else.
She'd probably have a number of things to say the first time he got back into her studio for practice, as well.
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"She watched at home, I think."
Unlocking the little car with with a beep, and hefting Yuri's luggage into the trunk. "It was pretty late here for the livestream."
The only reason he doesn't mind letting Yuri stay up to watch the exhibition is the fact that it's happening much earlier in Moscow than the final men's free skate had. "I think the triplets got in trouble for sneaking out of bed to watch, too."
Luggage in and trunk closed and he lets Maccachin into the back seat before turning to Yuri with a smile. "Come on, it's cold."
It feels even colder in the car than standing in the air outside, but he turns the engine and turns on the heat, waiting for Yuri to slip off his backpack and settle into the passenger seat. Waiting for the door to close. Waiting for the world to finally -- finally -- be shut away.
Enough for him to reach cold fingers and brush them back against Yuri's cheek, while his expression goes soft and his eyes go half-lidded. "I missed you."
In all sorts of ways. Next to him. At the rink. At the table. Saying nothing while Victor says too much. Laughing at his antics. Worrying over Maccachin with him.
Too far away, and performing on his own.
But like this, too: missing the night under the lights of the Red Square they were supposed to have. Missing the quiet breathing in the room in the middle of the night.
Missing the kiss Victor can finally lean in and give him, now that they're alone.
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It keeps catching up under his step, like a surprising patch of ice. Looking up and Victor being there. Looking up and Maccachin dashing around the car, and then turning around on the seat in the car. Looking up, and being home, after what has been too few days to feel like it was a year.
Yuri can imagine he might hear about the triplets antics, but he doesn't feel a sore spot of something like guilt for them the way he does slightly for Minako Sensei. Easily obvious, they all watched for more than just him, but there was a sense of failing her, too, attached to the idea of her being up late, watching what had happened.
Better than the worst behind him…
Not better than the weekend before that.
(He only gets one more chance.
To fail. Or, to win. (Gold.)
It’s more than most
— just six —
he has to remind himself.)
His head is everywhere, when he’s getting in, having to unclip and pull off his back, and almost feeling overly bulky in his coat. Or, maybe in himself, with his unhelpful thoughts. But it all goes still, soft pressure brushes over his cheek and his eyes have to look up, surprise and familiarity everywhere, even when the touch is cold. Tumbling into something both warm and a little painful, that only flares, as it goes from Victor touching him to Victor saying those words, to Victor leaning in and kissing him.
Everything in him slipping disjointedly sideways, on another one of those patches of ice. He’s exhausted, he’s all out sorts, he doesn’t deserve, they’re still in the parking lot, his seat belt isn’t even on … and none of that make it louder than a whisper or longer than a second. Not before something else pushes up overwhelming it.
That same feeling from the waiting area, when he crashed into Victor’s chest, sounding out louder from what feels like every single part of his body. Every fear about the questions about this, this, too — about how they haven’t been apart in months, since what happened in Shanghai, that maybe everything would change, especially with his nearly falling apart, again — echoing and obliterating all at once.
When Yuri fumbles, almost tumbling, just trying figure out where to even put a hand on the everything between the two seats he isn’t even looking at, in his haste to lean up, to find Victor, the lips pressed to his. The end of all this endless space and silence. Something desperate, and needy, and undeniable everywhere, cut open, again, reaching back out from it.
Not sure he’s ever missed anything like he missed Victor. Except for Vicchan, when it was too late. Maybe … maybe not even then. Maybe not ever at all. Wasn't it not supposed to hurt once Victor was this close, once it was over?
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Yuri pushes up to meet him almost instantly, hands fumbling between them, on the seat and the gearshift and the air that's suddenly crackling with electricity. Everywhere but on him, where Victor suddenly, desperately, needs them to be: fisted in his coat or tangled in his hair, curved around his neck, cupped against his cheek.
It's been so long. (It's been barely two and a half days.) He hadn't even had the chance to get used to kissing Yuri before he was gone.
Had barely gotten to where Yuri started kissing him back, like this, without hesitation or thought. Nothing but pure need, flaring and brilliant, lighting a bonfire in Victor's chest that feels like it fills the whole car, obliterates the winter chill in a flash of flame when he pushes closer, both hands going to Yuri's face. A sound that feels like the whimper his heart has been making all day drifting up, unswallowed, only muffled against Yuri's mouth, and it hurts. Aches, the way he supposes a scar would ache after a surgery, when everything has been repaired but it all still feels raw and fragile, too easily torn apart and bloodied.
Nothing is quite right yet. Not yet.
But it's beginning to get there.
He doesn't care if anyone sees, if anyone else is walking past the car on the way to theirs. He'd held back by not doing this at the gate, hadn't he? How on earth could he be expected to wait any longer?
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For someone who has spent his life balancing on centimeters of metal on ice, it’s disastrously unsettling how unbalanced he can feel while sitting down in a motionless car. He can’t really let go of whatever it is under his hand now, or turn sideways more than he’s twisted, can’t shift his knees, probably shouldn’t even if he could, but the can’t is louder. The can’t and the car, and the space being taken up by of his scarf and jacket, around him.
All of it somewhere under the impossible noise that Victor makes in the middle of kissing him, and the way his whole face is framed in Victor’s hands, and Yuri hasn’t a clue left whether it’s the last second of falling apart or something like coming back together. It feels like it’s the exact same thing with Victor this close. The all too clear memory of Victor somewhere else except here. Nearby. With him.
In the room. At the small sports arena. Like this.
Like this, that Yuri has nothing else to compare to. Nothing else to hold on to. Nothing else he’s ever wanted not to lose. Still no clue how it’s happening, but it is. While Victor is crowding closer, moving more than Yuri had even figured could be done and it’s hard to want to breathe when that becomes a necessity.
But it still happens, too. Both.
Victor kissing him, and the need for air.
Which leaves Yuri breathing faster and a little louder. Looking at Victor’s face so close again. The brilliance of his eyes, that is blinding. How exquisite every single part of Victor's every feature really is, tearing up Yuri's ability to keep any of the air he finds while looking at it all again.
Torn with the biting temptation -- of Victor this close, of the way his lips are throbbing just barely -- of just kissing Victor again, and not thinking about it, about anything except it, or maybe the new unchecked shock of kissing Victor again. Like days ago, that week ago, like that whole first hour, like it was impossible and miraculous and almost unbelievable, making his eyes fall toward Victor’s mouth, before climbing again.
Struck, again, with just how badly he doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be anywhere else. Anywhere in between. With anyone else to worry about, or feel like he’s being seen by. Just so done with everything and everyone else. With rules and requirements, and the demanding weights they all carry.
He just wants to be home. Home, with Victor and Maccachin.
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He lets Yuri pull away to take a breath and look at him, seeing ... he has no idea what, while his cheeks and mouth have gone pink and his eyes can't seem to help drifting down to Victor's lips. It's still a novelty to see that happen: Yuri, finally looking at him the way he's used to people looking at him, the way he had all those months ago in Sochi, before it was like that night never happened at all.
He almost thinks Yuri will actually lean in and kiss him back, or first, and that really is a novelty, one he's not sure he'll ever get used to. There haven't yet been enough kisses for him to lose count, or lose track, and Yuri's still testing the waters, still trying to get used to it all, and Victor can understand that. He's only a little over a week away from having been kissed for the very first time, and he's always been shy and uncertain.
So it's no surprise when he doesn't act on that look, while Victor's hands tighten just gently against the edge of his jaw, cold fingers brushing Yuri's travel-wild hair, before he lets go and sits back again, smile a sidelong curve. "I just couldn't wait any longer."
It's only been minutes, but it's been days, that felt like months.
At least the car is warming up now, and he reaches for his seatbelt and switches the radio onto something low, before slipping the car out of park and reversing out of the parkling slot. "Let's go: I'm sure you're ready to get home."
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Disorientation is the way everything in his head flips as neatly, and completely, as a switch changing a room from dark to light. One second, he's certain all he wants is to not have to be here, be near anyone else, and the next? The next, Victor's pulling away, taking the first step that makes that a reality, and everything inside of Yuri is certain that nothing else exists except the desperate want to make that stop happening. For Victor not to pull away. Victor not to be anywhere else.
Which feels winding and stupid. Childish. Embarrassing, when Victor is barely more than a foot away at best.
If he wanted to be exceedingly stupid, he could reach out and touch him. Or press his fingers to his mouth, again.
He doesn't know how anyone in the world ever didn't explain or describe being kissed like something branded on you. Absolutely overwhelming, but left on you in throbbing heat that feels entirely like it has to have left a mark burned into his skin. It hasn't at any point in the week before the last few days -- and he has looked, not that he's admitting that to anyone, especially not Victor, and not that he ever expected to see anything but himself, the way he's always been, in the mirror -- but it still feels like it.
Turning back right, Yuri tugged his seatbelt on, but that was as long as he made it before the first look toward Victor again. Even with Victor's hand's at the edge of his vision, and the car turning on and moving. Just a necessity, without thought, like breathing, like the simple, constant beat of relief as Victor's voice fills the space and he nods. "I missed it."
Maybe there's some surprise in those words.
Maybe it's more that the only thing he can think saying them is I missed you.
Maybe it's those few Russian words, suddenly there in his head again, still, and whether he missed entirely when he should have said them. Earlier. When Victor did. Or when he bowled straight into Victor in the waiting room, not caring. Maybe he shouldn't have cared and just blurted it out then, too. Why hadn't he been able to think them, think anything, then. If it's too much, and too reaching, and what was he even thinking.
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Yuri hadn't traveled at all last season, after all. Had skipped the whole thing after the Japanese Nationals the year before, and spent that last year in Detroit before coming back home.
(He can't imagine how Yuri managed to stay away for the five years beforehand. It seems impossible to imagine Yuri anywhere other than the onsen, or the Ice Palace.)
And there's that other thing, too. The one still niggling at him, guilt chewing away at his stomach even with Yuri here, Yuri who threw himself at Victor, Yuri who wanted Victor to stay with him. The apology that keeps crawling up his throat, even if he'd said it before he even left Moscow.
Sorry for leaving him. Sorry for dumping him on Yakov like so much luggage. Sorry for not being there when Yuri needed him.
It's over now, and everything is fine, but it still troubles him, that sorry that he'd whispered into Yuri's ear just before he left, but that seems to have stayed caught in his throat. "It shouldn't be too long of a drive. We'll be there before you know it."
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Yuri scoots down in his seat just a little, and maybe it's more than half as an excuse to shift just a little more into a position that makes it more comfortable, with his chin at the top of the seat back and his temple on the headrest, to go on looking in the direction of Victor driving. The profile of his face as he focuses on the world outside the window, the one Yuri doesn't more than casually glance toward before back.
There's a little bit of anxiousness about not looking away when he should.
But he doesn't want to look out his window, even if he just said he missed his home.
And he doesn't want to look at his lap, because he's spent the weekend doing that already.
It makes Yuri want to fidget, makes him shift a little, before trying to hold far more still. "Maybe."
He doesn't know if he's agreeing or disagreeing. Last year was ... bad. The only word that would ever fit was bad. All of it so bad. Only marginally up from terribly uncertain when he came home, and it was all different now. Not everything. Not the uncertainty. But Victor, there. Victor, driving the car, and picking him up, and coaching him, and ...
Victor as some more than that even. Victor, who said he missed Yuri and still wanted to kiss him after finally breaking away. When there are every chance he might just realize that he'd made some great error of inundation. Or stress. Or all the hours working together. But hadn't.
Not that Yuri could talk. Not that his own mind changed.
But hadn't Yuri been in love with Victor, in some part, forever?
Hadn't everyone he'd known teased him about in some amount?
But. Victor is Victor, whether Yuri adds or refrains from his last name.
It's not special. It doesn't make him different.
Except. Victor kissed him. Again. Didn't change his mind. Said he'd missed Yuri.
Told Yuri to come home, and joked about his request as though it was a proposal.
He'd said so many things. I believe in you and dream of me right next to you, and that's where I'll be. Victor who always had all of the right words. Beautiful, put together, heart-stopping words. Impossible, but always perfect. While Yuri just had all of these feelings. That he wished he could just show Victor. Pull him into. So he could feel them, too. How everything it was. Important, and confusing. Left him wanting to do more. Say more. With no clue no idea, what the right thing even was. Only the greater ache for its imprisonment.
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The heat in the car is really coming on now, and he takes one hand off the wheel to reach up and adjust first the knob on the dashboard –– so it doesn't get too warm while Yuri's still bundled up –– and then the scarf around his neck, tugging it loose from his throat. That hand drops to his thigh, unnecessary: it's an easy drive and there isn't much in the way of traffic. He can just relax.
Yuri's watching him every time he glances over, and something deep and pleased in his chest shifts and curls against itself, warming. He's used to Yuri watching him –– those first few days here, it seemed like Yuri never took his eyes off him, although his expression back then had mostly been shocked wariness. Yuri watches him closely through much of their training, almost as closely as Victor watches him, studying the lines he makes, his technique, his form.
It's never been like this, though.
It almost feels as intimate as a gaze across pillows, in the dim light of morning before anyone else in the house or hotel is awake, Yuri watching him. Head resting against the back of his seat, solemn brown eyes fixed on him. He could be resting, or napping, or looking out the window as they approach his childhood home, but he isn't.
He's watching Victor. "It'll be nice to have a full month before we have to go anywhere else."
A month to perfect Yuri's routines, but it's plenty of time. Everything has been timed for Yuri to peak at the Grand Prix Final itself, not before, and he's well on his way there. Even yesterday's free skate, disastrous as it began, finished all right because Yuri is only getting better and better. He could fix it on the fly, focus himself, bring it all together.
The Yuri of two years ago would have fallen apart completely.
(The Yuri of two years ago didn't have Victor.
"And to stop living out of our suitcases for a while."
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There's the urge to flinch or look away, or straighten up and look down at his lap, every time Victor looks at him. It prickles at the back of his neck, the way nothing seemed right when he looked at anyone in the last day -- two?; time is even hazier with the time in the air. He doesn't but every time it wiggles a little harder. Only helped by the fact Victor can't keep looking at him doing it, as Victor has to keep driving the car.
"Back to real beds," Yuri says, because it's the first thing to come to mind, even ...
Even if he's not really thinking about it at all. He is, in one sense of the way. He's not ignoring Victor's words. He's not sure he could not hear Victor right now even if he was deaf, even if someone sliced his ears off. It feels like Victor's voice and his words sink in on a nearly cellular level. Like they are the only real thing. Yuri can't even really explain it to himself. Like the wind in the trees around you, or the fall of snow, but, also, the ground keeping you steady.
It's doing all of that. It doesn't stop doing it. He doesn't stop yearning for each new word.
He doesn't stop feeling the tension catch just a little in his chest waiting between his sentences.
But.
He's not entirely paying attention to it either. Or not. To just it.
His gaze had fallen on the hand on Victor's lap. The one without a glove.
Just long, slender, pale fingers. Resting on his slacks. All but inert. Laying there.
His coat sleeve cutting off the image of the entire back of his hand. Delicate wrist.
Those hands, alone, have stolen hearts and (W)orlds. Those hands have been so far away.
Just gone. Like the rest of Victor, just gone. Just gone. Even for good reason, just gone. Yuri doesn't entirely think about it when he stops fretting at one spot of the end of his coat with his fingers, just barely, and reaches out for Victor's hand. Not certain, even in movement, whether he'd meant to just touch the back of his hand, or the tops of his fingers. Whether he'd has, had, a plan at all, and not just another desperate impossibility that refused all but compliance.
But his throat sticks when his palm covers the back of Victor's hand, fingers curling slightly under, and he tugs it toward himself.
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Some light response to Yuri's vague and faintly disconnected answer (maybe he is falling asleep, after all?), but it sticks first against a solid wall of rejection at the word beds.
Not the idea of it. The plurality.
More than one bed for them to be in. More than one room.
It's not as if he's dragged Yuri into a single bed after that first night –– even if he'd pushed the beds in the Star Hotel room together, they'd still been seperate in all the ways that counted –– so it shouldn't be a surprise. He shouldn't get that nasty pit dropping open in his stomach at the thought of getting home only to have Yuri disappear again.
Back down the hall. Back to the distance they'd had since last spring, until Shanghai.
Even if it makes perfect sense for Yuri to be looking forward to his bed and his room, Victor had almost forgotten about them. The beds. The rooms. Getting Yuri back only to give him up again.
He doesn't quite know what to do with it all, so he's searching for something light to say when there's a brush of something light and warm against his hand, and he looks, a laughing scold for Maccachin lifting to his lips, only to die there when he realizes it isn't Maccachin at all, but Yuri.
Yuri, shyly but with determination, taking his hand. Taking. Not just touching. Slipping his fingers around and pulling it toward himself, while Victor's heart swirls into a sudden tarantella and the hand on the wheel tightens in jealous reaction.
He has to watch the road, but he wants to watch this: Yuri, carefully taking his hand. It feels like the moment might shatter if he breathes too hard, if he says anything, calls attention to it, but he can't help it, it's like every nerve in his body is focused and electric only on this.
Only on Yuri's fingers, and palm. Making the pause he waits to see if it was just a fluke, a squeeze, or –– something else, he doesn't know what –– before he shifts his hand just enough to be able to slip his fingers between Yuri's, palm brushing against palm, while his gentle smile belies the way his heart is crashing itself against his ribs, head-on, helpless, exploding, and he finally knows what it is he should be saying.
"I'm just glad we're back together."
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Caught on the precipice of the way Victor looks down, looks out at the road, looks down, looks out again.
And Yuri knows he should apologize, be saying something, be doing something, other that feeling his cheeks go warmer than the heater is making the air, and not letting go. Trying to find any words. To what? What would he? How? Just that he's sorry, because -- because he just decided to take Victor's which he obviously would need for driving sooner or later? Because he's driving them home? Because he needed to touch Victor, needed to continue to be sure he was real, even this long after landing?
To be sure that he hadn't done exactly what Victor said;
Closed his eyes, and dreamed of Victor, and that was why he was here.
But before Yuri can think of words, to stammer out that he's sorry, find some way to reverse the trajectory of how his own hand tightening not loosened at being caught, Victor's hand shifts under his. His palm turning upwards against Yuri's (who is sure his lungs are gone again) and Victor's fingers lacing through his (while his heart makes a deadly kind of leap, as far up in the air over the ice as it's possible) and the pile of them is resting against his own thigh now.
When he barely had any clue which part of what is running this now, while his other hand closes over the top of Victor's hand, holding it for a second between his. Heart pounding a demon's march of drumline that he never knew until now that music never could do more than echo. His eyes snapping up, to Victor at those words -- Victor who is smiling softly -- before back down at their hands again.
Feeling like his ribs have been cracked open and the only thing in him is what he's looking at.
He doesn't know why the edges of his eyes are stinging, again, but he nods. "Me--"
He meant to say 'too'. He did. But he'd suddenly stiffened and looked up. Then, down.
Other words, specific words, crowded his throat and he stumbled, again, against his heart squeezing tight. "I -- "
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Yuri gives him a startled look, but he doesn't pull his hand away for being caught –– if that's what this is, and that's what it looks like, like Victor caught him sneaking some treat he's not supposed to be having. Instead, he looks back down, and carefully covers Victor's hand with his free one, cupping it between his palms and fingers like it's a baby bird. Something fragile and precious. Something as easily cracked as Victor's heart is, a bright aching line opening there like it tried to grow too fast all at once and the walls failed.
It's hard to swallow. This thing in his chest, how could he have ever thought it was love before? Before this. Before he really knew.
He'd somehow thought it would be a relief, back in those St. Petersburg days, to find Yuri and put all this out in the open. How could he have been so foolish? There's no relief here, only a swelling, expanding thing he can't control and can barely breathe or speak past.
(He can count the number of times Yuri's reached out for him on the fingers of both hands. It never happens.)
It's amazing how normal his voice sounds, when he finds it again, as his thumb strokes gently along the side of Yuri's. "What?"
There has to be some sort of end to that choked out, fumbled word.
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Victor's voice is calm, and the whisper warmth of the thumb that strokes his hand is soft and sure, and it feels like sometimes everything is too easy for him. That Victor always knows what to do, what to say, and he doesn't have to second guess any of this. If second is even anywhere near the furrow in Yuri's forehead, as he swallows, staring at Victor's hand between his, Victor's thumb stroking his skin.
Seeing it, and feeling it, while everything in his gets so tight. So certain. So terrified. It's wrong. It's wrong. He'll butcher it. It's too much. Too reaching. Too grasping. Conflated. Exaggeration beyond reason. He hadn't more than thought the words to himself since that first morning after. Even if they repeated in his head now and then, rarely, like a bruise pressing down on itself, he hadn't then. Not after he lost-but-won.
Not on the plane, when it seems backward from where he was going.
Pretentious and foolish and completely unbalanced by the new now.
A child playing in something he only barely even understood.
But it was everywhere, even when all he wants to blurt out is me, too or it's nothing, but he can't get get his throat to open for air, no less to throw himself on the mercy of covering up the blunders of his own mouth again. And try as he might, he can't look to the side now. Can't even can't his vision, or look out the corner of his eyes. He can't. He just can't.
Not even if there's no escape in this small space. No way to open the door. No way to disappear.
And nothing in the center of him is allowing his brain to do more than beat those words.
A sick, sad, absolute truth. That feels so much truer sitting here suddenly.
More than in bed. More than in the sports center. More than on the ice.
Here. With Victor's hand between his -- with Victor real, and solid, and his voice everywhere, easy comments on going home and innocent inquiry about what has screwed itself up in Yuri's head, again -- while Victor is calm and fine, and Yuri's cheeks are too hot, against his heart feeling whole heart feels one breath from passing out. About saying it, and about holding it in.
(About any world where he has to let go of Victor's hand, solid and soft between his.
The finger gently stroking his skin and setting all the rest of his skin into importance.)
Yuri doesn't mean to, maybe even doesn't realize it, that his head curls a little forehead, and his shoulders a little in, even though his eyes never leave Victor's hand. It takes too long. He thinks he might start crying, or suffocating, or throw up, before he can even push it up his throat. Even when it already feels carved on his mouth, on his tongue, on every tooth, in the silence of his not answering Victor's question.
His mouth frets too tight, along with his jaw, and his shoulders, and it's more apologetic than it is anything. If in fact, Victor can hear at all what he mumbles from that passenger seat of what's left and leadened itself into his memory of the words. Certain they're probably wrong in every sense that they can be without any reminder, refresher, sanity. "Мне тебя не хватает."
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Also placed on his tongue like a marble, balancing there, before becoming a cannonball and rolling down Victor's throat, crushing everything in its path and landing in his gut. A reflex that's almost followed by did you say? because for a second he doesn't think he heard Yuri.
And then he doesn't think he heard Yuri right.
Yuri doesn't speak Russian. He's picked up a few words here and there, but he's not up to more than the most basic of phrases. It isn't possible that he's speaking it now.
Just like it's not possible he said that, right now. Here, in the car. With Victor driving. A phrase he'd have no reason to know, to have at the ready without having his phone and a translator app out and at the ready.
Which means it might actually be a dream, this car ride. If Yuri's suddenly speaking Russian, it has to be a dream, right? He's still asleep, dreaming of their reunion, dreaming of a way where it would be possible for Yuri to know that, to say it, to say it here, now. Barely above a whisper, but the car is quiet with the music even low, and Victor's almost positive that none of this is real after all. No Maccachin, no Yuri, just him alone, dreaming of the two living things he loves the most in this world.
But his arm is getting a little strained from having his hand pulled towards the passenger seat, and it's all so detailed for a dream: the cars passing by, the ads on the radio in between the songs, and Yuri.
Yuri, trying to pull in on himself like he's embarrassed, like he doesn't want Victor to hear, but if this is real, and he did say that ––
That bowling ball in his stomach suddenly dousing itself with petrol and lighting itself on fire, sending a gout of heat burning through Victor's system, blushing up his throat and into his cheeks and along his arm until it feels like Yuri has to feel like the hand held between his is on fire.
Yuri. Saying that. Saying that in Russian, which means Yuri must have looked it up, must have memorized it, must have had it there, something he's been wanting to say. Now mumbling it into the dark, but giving it life, giving it sound, giving it to Victor, and the only reason Victor doesn't pull off the road right this second in order to gather Yuri into his arms is the fact that there's no shoulder here to pull onto.
It's in his voice, though. He can hear it. This utter feeling of being washed away, and away, and away.
(It's everything he's been feeling ever since he left the Star Hotel.)
Hand tightening into a grip that's probably too hard, but he doesn't know how to gentle it, doesn't know how to stop this love from being so painful, how else to express the way it feels like Yuri has cracked his chest right open and it's Victor's idiotic, selfish, unworthy, helpless heart cradled there instead of his hand.
His voice gone suspiciously thick and low, and what is there to say, when all he wants to do is show?
But he has to. Say this. Yuri's being so brave. Even four words a struggle, that sounded almost reluctant, while Victor's feel like they can't ever actually mean anything like what he needs them too. "I need you with me, too."
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He did it wrong again. Wrong like yesterday. He shouldn't have ever said, ever assumed, ever overstepped, dared, tried, electric and absolute, shooting through his nerve endings, up his arm, when there's a spasm of pain in the hand Victor's fingers laced into it. Confusing the hand over both of theirs woven together, torn between gripping Victor's hand, in surprise, and starting to pull away, some birthing combination of fear and shame.
for that unwavering truth,
even not right.)
But Victor is driving, and Victor is looking at him, through that driving, and Victor's words are ...
Yuri's mouth wobbles. Lips pressing and shifting. Like he can't quite parse his own reaction. Too loud. Too silent. Too physical for translable thought or even emotion. That he could try to hide behind the direct translation. Behind the repetition of the three words, instead of four, that Victor said in the parking lot. When Yuri hadn't been on top of it enough to more than be desperately glad Victor was there and still-shocked Victor was kissing him.
Except he knows that's not only it. That's not why he picked it.
That's not why his ears have gone warm, or his neck.
That's not why it feels like there's a spotlight on him.
That's not why he has no words in his mouth.
That's not why it feels too big, and too wrong, and painfully like crashing into a wall
(why his mind reminds him, Victor doesn't mean it, need him, like that)
from watching you at the rink, after all, Victor said.
Only yesterday morning.
It hurts. His hand. His heart. His head. His memory. Yesterday. (He won, but he lost.) Not an erasure or exact equality of what yesterday felt like it, but a completely permanent, over layered echo, of at least half of it washing over him all over again. Here. Now. Still. Since the second he saw Victor's face through the glass. Here. Now. In the car, not wanting to let go of Victor's hand, not understanding why his hand is throbbing, feeling embarrassed, feeling bare, but desperate not to let go still.
All he can do is stare at their hands. It feels feeble. It feels weak.
It feels like the only reason he knows he and this are real.
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