November 16, 2014 - Fukuoka to Hasetsu

[theglassheart]

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,

We just landed.

Comments

[fivetimechamp]

He can sometimes be more intense than is comfortable for people, can remember with perfect clarity Yakov's reserved expression and faint aura of weariness as he realized that Victor at twenty-five was no less excitable and overly passionate than Victor at fifteen. He knows people get taken aback, aren't sure what to do or say, sometimes find it laughable.

Yuri sometimes has. Laughed at him. When he'd been as thrilled during a trip to a ramen stand in September as he was to have his first katsudon back in April or see the parade floats, Yuri had laughed at him, amused, if also a little bewildered. But fond. Never with annoyance or disdain.

And now, he doesn't laugh, either, even though what Victor's saying is patently impossible, even if it feels like the clearest truth he's ever known, to still miss someone who is right here, in his lap, even as Victor's fingers trail down along Yuri's neck to rest his hand at the crook where his neck curves into his shoulder. Full of too many things he doesn't know how to say or express, when he's not on the ice, when he doesn't know how much touch Yuri's comfortable with.

While Yuri reassures him, his hand landing lightly on Victor's arm and making Victor smile, faintly. It's true: Yuri had asked Victor to be his coach until he retired, and that means Victor will get his wish, will get to stay by Yuri's side. He'll be here to coach and encourage and push, and to take Yuri's hand and kiss him and hold him afterwards, too. Nothing ended. Nothing broke. He still has everything he's been so desperate for over the last two years. "Good."

It's not enough. There isn't a good that's good enough for this feeling, the one that's so aching and sore and keeps reaching out for Yuri as if it could somehow coax him into laying his hand over Victor's chest, over his heart, to convince him it's all real. "I forgot how empty a room like this can feel."

Without Yuri in it with him. As empty as the Sports Palace's cathedral-like rink, arching ceiling and echoing space, where not even Stammi Vicini was big enough to fill it.

This is so much bigger than that.

"Having to only watch you on tv instead of being able to be there made it that much worse."

[theglassheart]

Yuri's eyelids flicker, eyelashes almost touching several times.

Small shivers running down the skin of his neck with Victor's fingers, chasing themselves down past his shoulders into the still sore muscles of his back. Tingling snaps of electricity that fade off the way waves do, sliding back into the ocean like the water hadn't seconds ago been under your toes. It makes his fingers tighten barely, on his lap and Victor's arm, and his shoulders shift. There's not a lot of Victor to lean into with a hand, but maybe his body tries a little anyway.

Yuri understands too well about the space. He'd slept as much as he could, but then he hadn't touched the beds, again, after waking up the next morning, and even the night before last -- or two, or one, whichever, however that's counted, the last one in Moscow -- he'd checked out early and stood in the snow, rather than spend his last hours in that room he'd gotten with Victor and was suddenly only his.

It's familiar until everything pauses, like Yuri's heart skips an entire beat, maybe several, at Victor's last words. Dark eyes looking at him with uncertainty. Or maybe it's not uncertainty. Maybe it's something more like a very still and solemn wariness. Searching his face, even as Yuri says, "You said that wasn't a problem."

Except that's not true. He didn't say it wasn't a problem.
He'd said it wouldn't be different. Being there, or not being there.

Yuri's not sure he thought out those words. Had even thought to think about asking himself the question. Any question. About whether it's a lie or the truth. Whether he wants to break it already, a second after being said, when he could just choose to keep it, no matter what it is. Both of them, sitting side by side in his head.

His mouth presses, embarrassed at the idea he'd given himself away by the few words. That it shouldn't have bothered him either if he was better at all of these things he never is. At whatever he was supposed to be better of this part. That part. That it had stuck, like a burr under his skin, a splinter embedded in it, a tear somewhere too far under to see or know how to close. At least until he'd finally been able to see and touch and hear Victor again.

[fivetimechamp]

"What else could I have said?"

He'd wanted that lie to roll off his tongue as convincingly as possible. In some respects, he supposes it might have been true –– he could no more help Yuri from the side of the rink than he could from in front of the television –– but it isn't about whether or not he can step onto the ice and rush to Yuri's side if he's needed, is it?

(He doesn't know if he would have been fine if Yakov hadn't been with him for a competition because Yakov always was, but he thinks so. It wouldn't have felt like this, like part of his soul and body was torn away, left behind when the plane left Moscow.)

He'd had to try, hadn't he? To keep Yuri's spirits up, not keep from saying things like it won't be the same not to be there because that wouldn't have been helpful. Still, he's a little surprised Yuri didn't see through what he'd felt had to be an obvious lie, a thin veneer of ostensible truth he barely felt like a layer of tissue over everything it was trying to hide. And yet Yuri looks taken aback, with a faint flush of embarrassed pink high on his cheeks. Had he really been thinking about that? Worrying about it, what it might mean?

That question pulls Victor out of his own thoughts to study Yuri a little more carefully: the pressed mouth, the blush, the way his eyes are searching Victor's face like he's looking for the truth. It certainly looks like Yuri is having to reassess something he'd been certain of, and that makes Victor frown, a faint line drawing between his eyebrows. "Of course it was a problem, Yuri. It could never be the same without being there, you know that. I just ... didn't want you to worry about it."

[theglassheart]

You know that, Victor says, starting to frown, and Yuri's knows he didn't, isn't sure even hearing it, that he does.

Which makes it even stupider, doesn't it?

Having said that out loud, having given that obviously, he didn't, that he hadn't, at least not entirely, not enough to not need to make that point, contradicting Victor's words, shouldn't have said, when he could have been silent and it could have passed without making a show out of his newest foolishness. Of holding on to whatever he could still have, whatever Victor had to give him, or not give him, said was true for him, or not true for him, even from so very far away, and losing his direction without Victor nearby.

Except, skate. Except, win.

Except he hadn't had those until it was almost too late, had he?

"Oh," is quiet. It's own kind of abashed note of being corrected, like a child, or a student, his still in that respect, too.

Not that Yuri's certain his voice needs to give the heat flushing warmer in his face any help at this point. For believing, for not knowing, or not questioning, not jumping to it like it was a conclusion. A basic lie, to pretend everything was okay. Like Victor wasn't gone. Like Maccachin wasn't hurt, possibly dying. Like Yuri wasn't alone.

Even the idea that one sentence from anyone, even Victor, could stop Yuri or Yuri's head from worrying then.
Even Victor present hadn't helped in China until after he'd ended up yelling and crying. That even from winning.

Why couldn't he do any of this well? Gracefully? Sanely? Like everyone else?

[fivetimechamp]

Oh, says Yuri, like he really hadn't thought of that and probably Victor should feel terrible that he worried, but it's difficult when he finds Yuri's abashed expression so adorable right now. "Yes," he confirms, free hand dropping to find the one Yuri left curved on his forearm, bringing it up so he can kiss it and then tuck his cheek against the back of it. Yuri's hand, in his. Pressing Yuri's hand to his lips, and his own cheek. Yuri right here, a pile in his lap. Yuri who had leaned against him like he was a sofa or headboard while they watched the skaters.

Yuri who somehow thought Victor would be alright with just watching him on television. "I always want to be with you. Didn't I come here for you to begin with?"

Yuri might have been the one to skate Stammi Vicino and leave it as a message online, but Victor was the one who flew out to Japan and declared he was staying, that he'd decided to take Yuri's invitation even if it was a year and a half late, that he finally had the answer to that request Yuri had pushed at him so earnestly that night in Sochi.

Maybe trying to lie was the wrong thing to do, but the more he thinks about the last few days, he doesn't know what any of the right choices might have been. Maybe there were none, maybe this was a time when no matter what he did, it would have been the wrong thing.

It worked out. Maccachin alive and well, Yuri on the way to the Grand Prix Final, both of them back together here in Hasetsu. Even if Yuri hasn't said if he'll stay tonight, there is very little more Victor could ask for.

[theglassheart]

He's never sure if he's feeling it or seeing it more, sometimes when Victor does these things.

A vertigo of momentary uncertainty if this is the real world and really happening. He's long since accepted that Victor is here, Victor is training him, and that's a real thing. There are weeks and months, hard days and harder nights. Grueling work and even the outings Victor drags him on, here and there and everywhere Yuri might never have gone.

But this thing. This one right here. Where fingers find his hand and draw it away from being not far from his own shoulder. The way Victor presses his lips to that hand, soft, specific (again, the second time since he stepped off the plane). The way Victor tucks his hand against Victor's cheek, holding it between that cheek and his fingers, like it is precious. Like it could be lost, and thus can't be. Making it seem so much less like it's his, connected to him, about him. Somehow.

His fingers are there, he could wiggle them and his fingertips would shift in his own vision. He knows that. Knows it is his hand. But he doesn't -- not even while his heart pounds a touch faster watching Victor, watching it -- move at all, like moving those fingers might break the image. Like it was made in glass and might shatter. Or an image, caught on the reflection of water that could be scattered and diluted with the smallest touch, rippling it away.

Victor's voice, and the words that come with it, tug his gaze upward the little space between his hand and Victor's own eyes. The soft, but certain way he says that he always wants to be there. Placing it into a tug-of-war with those minutes after Yuri hung up the phone that morning. Alone, in that so empty room. Staring at his knees. Unable to move at first. Feeling his heart tearing more and more. With that. With this.

The way Victor doesn't look away from him. Saying it with the same voice, same certainty.
Even when it means everything it hadn't. The reverse of what he'd held on to, even if he shouldn't have.

Beautiful and earnest, even through the gentled exhaustion, is the way he looks now. Still compelling and overwhelming. All of it bits that aren't in the other, when Victor was too far away to see. To touch. To even hear right, when all he could do was hear it. He wants this more than that, even if his mental fingers are sticky with it and he was a too tight grip on it in his head still. An acceptance of time in that constantly repeated to himself. For days. Until this. I always want to be with you.

Yuri can't point to exactly where it comes from, only that it's happening when it's happening. That he moves, trying to get closer, not caring about the pile of legs, and the bed, and the forgotten laptop. He scoots a lot closer up Victor's lap, and there's a moment, a hesitation before he brings up the hand that's been dormant and just as forgotten in his laptop. It hesitates for just a second before touching Victor's other cheek, like the ripples will happen or he'll wake up in the airplane, all of it still just exhausted, stressed dreams.

One of his hands held by Victor with the back against a cheek. The other brushing fingertips and then a palm with aching slowness against the other cheek. He wants this to be real, more than anything else inside of him. He wants to believe that this part is truer than the other part. He wants to remember this more, but even more he wants to be in right now, when Victor's skin is soft beneath his, and not think about beyond this second, this touch, Victor.

[fivetimechamp]

He's really not sure he'll ever get used to Yuri touching him.

Certainly not when it seems like Yuri will never get used to it, every new attempt another foray into personal bravery for him. It's obvious in the nervous way he watches Victor, and his own hand, as it carefully lifts. Slow, like he thinks he might startle Victor away, as if Victor hasn't stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped doing anything other than sitting here careful and still and not going anywhere.

His legs shift as Yuri moves, and there's a crinkling sound as one shin meets that paper bag still on the comforter top, but it's hardly a priority. Even the pirozhok that must still be sitting on top of it, that should really be put in a refrigerator if it isn't going to be eaten right now, is nothing he's thinking too hard about. Not when Yuri's fingers are brushing his cheek, and then his palm is cupping it, and Victor's held breath comes in a painful tug, a breath like he forgot how to breathe, and his body, unwilling to let him simply asphyxiate, is sharply reminding him.

It doesn't matter. Air. Anything. Anything but the way Yuri, all solemn dark eyes and uncertain mouth, is looking down at him right now. Hand cradling his head.

Victor's hand releasing the one he's held to his cheek, so Yuri can turn that one, too, if he wants, Victor's own fingers trailing to come to a rest at the delicate bones of that wrist. If it were anyone else, he'd swear he's seconds away from being kisser –– but Yuri is still never quite sure about that yet, is he? If he can, should.

When there hasn't been a single moment over the last eight months, or two years, when Victor would push him away or tell him not to.

[theglassheart]

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.

[fivetimechamp]

He's not used to looking up at Yuri, on a daily basis. Yuri is shorter than him, slighter than him, and it's rare that they're in a position that would leave Victor staring up into his face –– although less rare than it used to be, a fact of which Victor is continually and breathlessly grateful.

But it is new, this perspective. Always demanding a little bit of recalibration, the way it had that very first time Victor blinked up into Yuri's face, framed by the golden and diffused light of the banquet hall and hotel ballroom. The first time he ever had a thought about who Katsukie Yuri was aside from just another would-be competitor, a rival for Victor's throne and crown. How could he have known then that this was the clearest way to see Yuri's solemn brown eyes, to watch the way his shaggy hair falls over his forehead and glasses?

He wants to move, to push up and steal this kiss that's breathing between them, paused and uncertain, but he can't. Not yet. He, occasionally, has to let Yuri come to him instead, doesn't he? Not just to push and push and push, take and take and take. Not make those words true. That man thinks only of himself!

Be better than that. Himself. His base instincts and desires. Skating is all about the elevation of those feelings, this want, isn't it? Taking love and making it theatrical. Something larger than it could ever be.

That was what he'd always thought, before he fell in love.

But there's something else happening here, too, he thinks. It's not just that Yuri's uncertain about taking that last step, although he seems to be thinking about it. There's uncertainty there, too, in his face, his eyes, the faint wrinkle of his forehead, like he doesn't know if he can believe what he hears. If Victor's telling the truth, when Victor can't think of a world in which it could be a lie. He wants to be with Yuri, right here. By his side. Always.

He'd already spent too much time fighting it to have recognized it as anything else.

"I won't leave you alone again."

Not on the ice. Not by the boards. Not for a competition. Not for anything, ever, if there's anything at all in his power to keep it from happening.

Eyes tracking across Yuri's face, and down, to his mouth, before sliding back up again, trying to convey the magnitude of all this. How certain he is. How he couldn't imagine wanting anything else.

[theglassheart]

That one is the most untrue of them all.

Victor will leave, and Victor will leave him alone,

And all the things in this room -- that Yuri doesn't look to see, because he doesn't look away from the frame of Victor's face in his hands, those dazzling eyes and the fall of his hair just slightly more to the side looking up, almost uncovering his other eye entirely, too, almost -- will all go, too, and then this room will be empty, like the hotel was empty, like Yuri's whole world suddenly was,

And it is terrifying. Somewhere else. Somewhere not close enough. He knows he should be able to feel that clearer. But he can't. Not when Victor's eyes are making this impossible circuit between his eyes and his mouth, and Yuri knows -- okay, Yuri knows, at this point -- that he probably should just kiss Victor. That anyone else in the world would just kiss Victor. Maybe just kiss anyone looking at them like this. Stop thinking. Stop stressing.

Just stop. Just kiss Victor. The most eligible person on the planet. For the world, if not for himself.
But he can't. He can't and his thumb strokes a little against Victor's cheek when his own lips press firmer.

Because something else is happening. Somewhere he can't point to. Behind his breast bone and so deep inside of him there's no physical spot for it. Something almost too familiarly stubborn and defiant, and maybe even to a point stupid. Because. He's not promised Gold in Barcelona, but he wants it, but he's going to try his hardest for it, right? And either way, after whatever happens, happens, his skating career will end.

The better part of a year with no promise of glory,

Just the promise to try, to fight, to be brave, to not look back.

Could he be brave like that, here, too? Here, with Victor's earnest expression under his fingers, and the strange exhausted feeling like he just wants to throw his arms around Victor and burry into him until the lines between them vanish. Like maybe December could vanish. But it can't. But it won't. (Like Barcelona won't when the panic and the spirals come and they have to get on the plane and the scores are flashing.) But.

Maybe.

Maybe it's not about that either.

Maybe he could just be brave? He could just pick this, too, pick Victor, pick whatever that is, and becomes, and breaks down to, in the words he can never find, and even less manages to say right, and accept everything that is, at it is, everything as it's given to him, everything that he could have or be offered, until then, and try to only worry about the then (of the emptiness and absence, of the hotel, and January) when then comes?

Just be here. Just give what he can of his all. (Just love Victor.
Just not regret any of this time when it's gone and he didn't do enough now.)
And maybe until then Victor won't ever leave him. Yuri could believe that much, easily, couldn't he?

Maybe that's enough, Yuri thinks. Yuri hopes it even, for one or two long seconds, as his fingers slide back from Victor's cheeks, to his ears and his hair. But his lips are just touching Victor's when it feels wildly, suddenly, so clear, that it could never be truly enough. Never enough-enough. Not to not want more, want everything, want the world where it was even a choice. Want Victor to mean it forever.

[fivetimechamp]

There's a long moment where Yuri just looks at him, mouth firming slightly, and Victor wants to ask what? What is it, in his head? What's he thinking that has him looking so serious, why's he watching Victor instead of leaning in for that invitation, stealing the breath right out of Victor's lungs, making Victor remember that he's here again and everything is fine.

They made it to the Grand Prix Final. Maccachin is fine. They're back together again, and Yuri has a real shot at the gold Victor promised him all those months ago. Why are they even talking about the possibility of being apart again? It won't happen. It isn't happening now. When they've both wanted this for the last few days, why not just give in to it?

He's almost at the point of asking, when Yuri's hands shift gentle against his cheeks and into his hair, and Yuri is bending towards him finally, finally, and whatever he was just thinking is wiped out of existence when Yuri's mouth brushes his.

His hand dropping from Yuri's wrist to Yuri's waist, the other sliding to Yuri's back, and both of them threatening to just haul Yuri closer, harder, because this kiss is innocent and gentle and Victor thinks he might break on it like water on glass. And he shouldn't. This is all still only a week, a little over, old for Yuri. Yuri who had never even been kissed before. Yuri who still doesn't always react well when Victor loses his head a little, Yuri who gets annoyed when Victor has the presence of mind to pull away and take a breath instead of just burning them both down, damn the consequences.

So he does try, but he can't help shifting forward a little, mouth parting because a tiny sound of longing wrings its way out of him, and that does tighten his hands, pushes him forward even as he's tugging Yuri to meet him because it's been days and it may as well have been years for the way he couldn't stop thinking about this, about him, about everything he's wanted in the last two years that suddenly became a possibility.

He doesn't mean to, but then, he never does.

[theglassheart]

Victor is right there, pressing up gently into him, hand dropping to his waist and the other one finding his back, and Yuri can't quite make his own hands stay still. Sliding further into Victor's hair, until his fingertips are running into each other. He can't tell if he's cradling the back of Victor's head, through that soft, silky, silver hair, because he's pushing in, pushing Victor back or if his hands are trying to pull Victor up closer, more into Yuri. Is it one? Is it both? Is that possible?

Yuri doesn't know. Isn't sure it matters in the slightest. Doesn't know if he has the capacity to think about it, when Victor's hands are gentle and still on his body, but Victor's mouth is moving under his. Decimating his thoughts one at time, faster, with each one taken out, a rolling wave. Victor, like the unerring answer to a question, every question. Victor, like the unwavering promise of that soft hiss sound the first moment your skates touch ice. Victor, who --

-- gives this small plaintive sound that feels like it punches something in the center of Yuri in the face, tightening his fingers almost a little desperately, at the same time that Victor's own hands tighten on him, pull him in. His chest bumping into Victor's, and his glasses pressed to his cheeks and nose, but he doesn't want to pull away. Not when it feels like that sound from Victor, that slingshot itself into Yuri's chest, is a mirror to the feelings buried there.

Like a sledgehammer on the door trying to beat them back,
push them down, not get them everywhere. (On Victor.)

But that sound slices through it all, and Victor's hands, Victor's grip, the collision of a tighter closeness, all highlighted on that sound, is a single sliding, burning path. With Victor's mouth under his, opening gently against his, making him follow suit, giving him a surprisingly frantic stab of want to, and regret that he hadn't, shifted even more than he had. To be facing Victor head on, to curl around him, more than like this, more like last weekend. But not enough, not enough to want to do a single thing in the world, with any breath,

any choice that is
to stop kissing Victor now.

Not now that he is again. Finally. Finally.

[fivetimechamp]

It's like some key suddenly gets turned in Yuri, and he comes alive under Victor's hands, against his mouth. Fingers sliding through Victor's hair and melting nerves along the way until he feels like a dripping scoop of ice cream, all befuddled delight torn between tipping his head further into those fingers and pushing against Yuri's weight nudging him backwards. If it were just those fingers sliding along his scalp, he'd probably be out in minutes, if not seconds, but it's not: it's Yuri's lips parting and muscles tensing under Victor's hands at the same time as those fingers tighten in Victor's hair. Glasses bumped askew, and Victor's heart racing, and his breath shortening. None of it quite like the pause in the earth's spin when his toepick catches the ice and sends him hurtling skyward, but it's the closest thing he can think of to this feeling.

Up, and up, and up. Certain that there's no possible way to stick this landing, but throwing himself into it anyway.

He's so tired that his nerves feel fuzzed at the edges, and even Yuri's touch lacks its usual sharp immediacy, but that only makes it more dreamlike and wrenching than usual, doesn't it? With this sensation that it might not be real, in the same way none of his dreams after Sochi were real, the same way nothing, even practice until he was dead with exhaustion and his feet throbbed and his muscles threatened to tear, felt real. Something he could never manage to explain to Yakov, even if he'd ever thought to try. He doesn't know how much more real it gets than Yuri's weight warm and solid against him, in his arms, Yuri's mouth on his, Yuri's hands in his hair, but he doesn't know how to hold onto it, grasp it, make sure. Make really sure that he won't just blink awake with a pillow clutched against his chest and Maccachin whining to go out into the dim blue morning of a St. Petersburg winter.

There's really nothing to do other than pretend that it is, is there? Even in those dreams, he'd wanted to make the most of them, and he shifts now to draw Yuri against his chest, while his back hits the headboard. It's not quite comfortable, and it's not quite the best possible way to settle against each other, but the ache in his spine is something he can hold onto as unlikely to happen in a dream, and so is the pause he has to take to breathe, before pushing back for another kiss. There's a rustle of paper near his knee, and the quiet sounds of the mattress and bed from shifting, and Maccachin snoring, and Yuri ––

Yuri's breath fast and shallow, and the thundering in his ears that he thinks must be his own heartbeat, even if he can't tell if it's one heart racing against these held seconds, or two.

[theglassheart]

This is not like the kiss in the car, with too much of the car, like too much of the world, still in the way, and it's not like the day Victor left, the day Victor didn't kiss him at all, when the day went from brilliant to terrible, from rousing success to certain terror ...

... and it's not like the day before that either, when kissing was still new (the way it still was now, even, a slightly fumbling, slightly fuzzy, almost a little frantic, yet more necessary than air, thing) but the world was languid and the only concerns were possible idiotic embarrassment via knowing nothing, and, of course, that every second bringing him closer to Free Skate the next day.

He hadn't hugged Victor goodbye. Twice. He hadn't even thought to think about kissing Victor goodbye. Twice.
He'd convinced himself, a hundred times, a million, that all of this would be gone whenever he found Victor again.
That Maccachin might be dead and gone, and it would go. That he hadn't placed, and it would all go.


But.

It's still here.

Victor's fingers digging into the battered, worn fabric of his t-shirt, and Victor's breath growing fast on between their lips. Or maybe it's both, because his chest is aching. Which could be his heart trying to crash through the front, or his lungs not getting enough air, or getting too much. But Yuri can't focus on that. Being pulled further in and further back and further down, in, and in, and in, to Victor, and Victor's arms, and Victor's bed even more, with that small bump at coming to rest on the back of it again.

The whole of which, even as a thought, might make him flush more if his face hadn't already gone warm before this second, if it didn't remind him of something else. Because of it. And when he has to pause, they do, when air has to be demanded of them, Yuri wrinkles his nose a little, pulling back one of his hands to reset his glass and looking over his shoulder.

Even if he knows what he'll see, the same as he's started saying it before getting there. "We need to close the door."

Even if he's a little chagrin about the sound of his own voice. About that we. About the fact it's an answers, isn't it, for the question he hadn't answered? For one he knows he probably shouldn't be giving, even by that much. About the fact his tone sounds as winded, slightly rougher, and reluctant as he feels to let go of anything, to follow any rules, to do what he must, should.

Anything that isn't being near Victor until he can't be anymore.

[fivetimechamp]

He takes the chance while Yuri's looking away to lick at his bottom lip and try to catch his own breath, but all thoughts of centering himself go flying directly out of his head at what comes out of Yuri's mouth. "We do?"

His delight is impossible to hide, and not at all dimmed by Yuri's wry tone or the reluctance in his voice. Yuri said we. Yuri said close the door, with both of them behind it. Yuri is staying.

At least, that's what it sounds like. "You'll stay?"

It would be so easy for Yuri to say instead that this wasn't right, that they should cool off on their own, that this is home and not a hotel and he still doesn't really know what they're doing, all of which is true, but he isn't saying that. He isn't leaving. Not yet, anyway, and Victor can feel it shining out of him, for the first time in days, cutting through the exhaustion and the fuzzy uncertainty and the misery of being apart. "Here?"

With me? wants to follow, tripping unbidden out of his mouth, but he manages to swallow it before looking –– he hopes –– too desperate. Still, it echoes around the room almost as clearly as if he'd said it out loud, and off to the side, he can hear Maccachin shifting.

All three of them in this one little room feels like fate, doesn't it? Like it's the way it was always meant to be. Victor, and the two living things he needs most in this world.

[theglassheart]

It should be impossible, but it feels like Victor's words catch even harder in his throat than the realization of his own. The sliding slippery want and the already present guilty about everything he knows he should do. Which should make it harder to look back at Victor, especially with the door opened, but looking back is

b l i n d i n g.

His shoulders still, but Victor's face has gone radiantly bright even as the combination of his own feeling and Victor's sudden look of something mixing hope and delight sends his heart galloping unevenly. He should say no. He should take it back. He's not even certain quite how to breathe ever when Victor looks like this.

And Victor is looking like that
At him. Because he implied... said.

"I should--" He shouldn't is what his head says, even if his mouth stalls on anything that still even agrees he shouldn't have said that, shouldn't be not saying it now. The only taking over his head is the want to reach back out and let his hands frame this expression too. Wants to lean in toward the sudden brilliance of his eyes. Wants to kiss the heart shape his mouth pulls toward when he looks like this.

It makes his inside tremble, his stomach tying itself in knots, dropping his voice softer, uncertain how he can feel both embarrassed about staying and embarrassed about instead saying, "I -- we'll have to get up early." Beat. "Or," there's an awkward little gulp, owning that Victor doesn't actually have to care, Victor, even months later, is still given the grace of being a foreigner.

It finishes awkwardly. "--I should." Blinking, and sure this is probably the least cool thing to say suddenly. "But," slides out next, a little fast, not wanting to sink himself instantly, not wanting to have it pulled away just as suddenly, for not just not caring about his home, his family, the way it's supposed to be, for not being cool enough, for the whole situation here not being what it was a week ago, even days ago. "I could?"

Could stay, if Victor didn't take it back.



Wait.


No.



No, no, a question sounds like he's not even sure, himself,
and it tumbles out of his mouth. Even smaller. "I don't want to leave yet."

[fivetimechamp]

Relief is a cold wave breaking over his skin, momentarily washing away his exhaustion and fuzzy uncertainty. It doesn't matter how shyly Yuri says it, or how many qualifications he adds to it (Victor will be astonished if Yuri wakes up early tomorrow morning, no matter what bed he might be in) –– he said it, and he meant it. "Good."

As uncertain as Yuri is, he's just as sure. There's nothing small or waffling about his opinion on all this. "I don't want you to leave."

Although if Yuri's going to stay, he's right that there are some small things they ought to take care of, first: not least of which is the paper bag that keeps rustling near Victor's knee every time one of them shifts. He looks over at it now, mouth twisting. "I should probably put that in the fridge downstairs, shouldn't I?"

Food in the fridge. Door closed. Lights off. And then, finally ––

Maybe they'll be able to get some sleep.

(He knows he must be tired when that's truly all he wants, even with Yuri staying here with him: sleep, deep and dreamless and rejuvenating. Sleep that they both need. Sleep that neither of them have had for days.

Surely not even Yuri;s parents could begrudge them that.)

He looks back into Yuri's face with a gentle smile, arms slipping around Yuri's waist. "Do you think you can stand two minutes without me? You can get a head start on getting comfortable."

Really, Yuri ought to claim his part of this bed while he can: Maccachin very rarely spends all night on the bed on the floor.

[theglassheart]

It's hard to entirely look at Victor head on after that first good, and especially at the warmth trying to push itself into his already and still flushed cheeks when Victor mirrors back his own words. Not just repeating that he'd wanted Yuri to stay, had asked Yuri to stay, but mirroring Yuri's own words about not wanting him to leave, and it should all be the same.

But it still all gets warm under his breast bone, and the bottoms of his glasses, and it's only a small glance back up and over to make sure at those words, like the sun was rising too hard, too fast right under his skin. A strange echo, and one that some still feels insanely impossible, even if Victor asked first, if Victor has just been kissing him. When it all feels like a strange, dizzy spin -- and one no one else might understand in the slightest -- but at least Victor is looking at the bed and not him.

Making Yuri take a second to catch up with where Victor had gone.

His words making this gargantuan leap from not wanting Yuri to leave to talk to going downstairs right after.

It takes a blink and a second to realize Victor's talking about the half-eaten piroz-katsu, half-forgotten on the bed. Reminding him, somewhere in the far back, ripple of his thoughts of his almost-entirely forgotten phone, and how it's probably still on Yurio's page. There really isn't that much time to think about it, though, before Victor's arms are sliding around his middle and he looks up not quite, but almost confused.

This face here. The one looking at him. All soft edges, and this beautiful, soft smile. This is why no one on the whole Earth would deny Victor something if they were under the receipt of this kind of look. It takes the warmth all muddled splatter in his chest and makes it a rope that is suddenly knotted all around his heart, making it stumble and flutter like he'd never known what his feet or gravity or the ground were for in the first place.

Not that getting past that is any much less confused. Victor asking about leaving, while wrapping his arms tighter on Yuri's waist. It seems the least sensible thing to go along with the question, but he doesn't want to point that out either. Doesn't want Victor to let go any more than he wants to leave, even if both are logically what should be done, too. Yuri nods, even if Victor leaving seems like the anthesis to letting himself get away with this.

But it stays at a silent nod, leaning in toward Victor's soft smile more than pulling away, more divesting himself from Victor's lap, still taking in this pleased and all too perfect expression on Victor's face, lest he open his mouth and somehow let his mouth change his mind, take it back, all of it, before Victor can even leave to come back.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri nods, but he doesn't move away and Victor doesn't, either, looking up into Yuri's face with a smile that's almost certainly more smug than it ought to be, but he feels so vindicated. It's not just him, none of this is. Not anymore.

Somehow. After having changed somewhere along the line without him realizing it. Sometime between the beach and Shanghai, well after he'd given up, Yuri somehow started wanting him back. He doesn't understand it, can't put his finger on it, but there isn't a thing he owns in this world that he wouldn't give up just to make sure he can keep it.

The shy way Yuri looks down at him like this. His agreement, qualified or no. Yuri who doesn't want to leave yet, even if he thinks he should, ought to, as if Victor can imagine caring about what's appropriate or polite or expected in a moment like this. Yuri who agrees that Victor should go put the pirozhok away, but who isn't moving. Yuri who has been caught more than once over the last week, breathless and uncertain but unwilling to let go.

How could he ever be expected to give this up?

Or to keep himself from leaning up to kiss Yuri again, chaste and gentle, before laughing. "One of us has to move, Yuri, so I can go and then we can go to bed. But you aren't making it easy on me."

All his life, he's had ironclad willpower when it comes to what he should do, what was best for training, for his career. That all seems to have gone out the window now, but he can't quite bring himself to care. "Maybe I should see how quickly I can make it downstairs and back up again."

[theglassheart]

Yuri can't defend how anything in the slightest is supposed to make sense when Victor is looking up at him radiant, and unremorseful, and unwavering, under his originally slightly untidy, and now slightly even more mussed, by Yuri's hands, somehow, hair. It's only exponentially less anything like sensible when Victor goes about tipping himself upward, kissing him, again. Making Yuri's brain sputter into a puff at the touch of his lips.

Soft, short, and then turned into nothing more than Victor's laugh that gets stuck in Yuri's teeth and his chest and that ache that sparked right as the kiss ended instead of just beginning and the soft sound started. All of it dazing, and not entirely comforting, it touches a note somewhere deep down, maybe always, being laughed at, floundering for the reason. Even though Victor is still smiling up at him, and then teasing him.

About. Oh.

Yuri's hands suddenly pulled back -- pushed back, off of shoulders he couldn't remember when his arms had found, or fingers had left hair, but he finds them all the same, pushes back. Because -- "Sorry." -- and it should be impossible to feel like he could blush more, he'd like to not have reasons to keep staying this warm, but -- Victor is right, and he's an idiot. "Sorry." He's all but sitting on Victor and not even in an easy, straight forward position.

Or. Well. He was. Before he was pushing Victor back at the same time as himself and plopping on to the bed. All ungainliness, that has him fixing the tilt of his glasses again, catching his weight, along with the new ground, on one hand, and trying not to wince at Victor's words. Not about going and coming back fast. About the fact he's going downstairs. Which is where he has to go. To get to the fridge. Which is downstairs. But, so is his parents' room, and Mari's.

It's the wrong sudden sort of panic to think maybe not how quickly, but maybe don't wake up anyone and don't say anything, as though it might not be possible to see that triumph on him, as though anyone could ever keep Victor from speaking his mind without a win to propel him more. When it had involved even more of Yuri more than a week ago, and people neither of them even knew, or ever would likely, and these were his parents, and his sister, all of whom Victor liked, and they liked him, and it's really the wrong things to say, "Okay,"

When he's already fretting a little that quickly might not be quickly enough if one of them is awake and up right now already. Because neither of those is even polite. Or appropriate. They might even be insulting. Especially if they came out of his mouth as fast as they were shooting about his head, now that he had pulled away.

(And. And. Victor hadn't done anything like that since that morning either, had he? At least not that Yuri knew of? Right?)

[fivetimechamp]

It's hard to remember how miserable he was in this same room, in this same bed, only last night, when Yuri is awkwardly shifting, forcing Victor to let him go and apologizing for something that isn't even his fault. That's Yuri, though: forever serious, only recognizing teasing when it's pointed out to him. Victor will have to remember that Yuri has a tendency to take him, if not literally, then certainly at face value –– but it's nothing to worry about right now, watching amused and affectionate as Yuri slithers unceremoniously off his lap and onto the bed. "I'll be quick."

Promised lightly, as he's moving, himself, reaching for the pirozhok and pushing it back into its crumpled paper bag, now gone limp with many wrinkles and folds. His legs and feet are tingling from the sudden rush of blood back into their veins, and they feel a little fuzzy as they hit the floor and he stands, paper bag in hand, but he centers himself easily enough. It's a few quick steps from there around the bed to lean in and press a kiss to Yuri's cheek, just in front of his ear, so he does. How can he be expected to leave without a kiss goodbye?

(Even if it is only for a few moments.)

Maccahin, across the floor, had lifted his head at the first signs of movement. Always ready for a walk and some companionship, he levers himself off his dog bed and trots pertly over, following Victor's quick footsteps with absolute loyalty and surety. Just hearing those dulled claws click quietly against the floor makes something that had felt kicked and sore in Victor's chest sooth itself, and his free hand comes to rest on the poodle's head before he makes his way downstairs.

The little inn at night is just as companionable and welcoming as during the day, though silent and sleepy. He tries to move as quietly and quickly as he can, familiar now after long months here, enough to not depend on the room lights. He doesn't have to feel his way around in the dark, and the fridge light, when he opens the door, makes him blink as if he'd been doused with ice water.

In goes the pirozhok, and he turns back toward the stairs, only just barely holding back from running up them, his mission now accomplished.

All there is now is to close his door, hit the lights, move his laptop, and everything he's been wishing for over the last few days will be in his grasp.

[theglassheart]

It shouldn't feel like he's left alone on a small island. Not when Victor is still there, within feet of him, standing and putting the food back in the bag. Especially not when Victor leans in and places a kiss on his cheek, before walking away with Maccachin in his wake. There one second and gone the next, leaving Yuri swallowing uncertainly down a dry, dry throat, eyes flicking around the room and still returning to the door.

Victor said quickly, but Yuri doubts it's going to be anything like taking the stairs and the floor beneath them at a run, and it's left Yuri sitting there on the not (but-sort-of) island of Victor's bed. Self-consciousness catching him like a hit to the ice, when the air all seems to leave your chest and your lungs can't entirely remember how to pull it back in yet through the impact. Why had had he said yes? Said? Implied? Agreed? Admitted he didn't want to leave?

And what if someone happened to make it up here, bypassing Victor entirely while he was in the kitchen and found him here? It wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep on Victor's bed, no, but those were different. Those were days that had been long with practice and overwhelming with exhaustion, and, eventually, he'd been woken and made it back to his own bed. This wasn't the same. None of this was the same.

He was exhausted, but Victor wasn't going to send him away in twenty or thirty minutes. Or an hour. And he wasn't going to fall asleep on top of Victor's bed. Like he was this very second. Not asleep, but currently still on top of. He was going to be in it. With Victor. In his sleep clothes. The door still a slim yawning mouth of darkness looking at him everytime his eyes slingshot back to it, checking the boxes again. No Victor. No anyone else. It can't have been more than seconds, maybe the most of a minute.

He swallowed and looked down at the bed, again. Then, the door. Then, the bed again. Or, more specifically, the covers under him. Because he should probably get under them, right? Except then it would almost impossible for it to look like anything other than it was if anyone else got up here, wouldn't it? Except Victor had told him to get comfortable, too. It tugged and tore in different directions, as his eyes finally found his phone.

Everything still tight in his chest, not yet having moved, as he picked it up. It's a single press of a button, more franatic distracting habit than curiosity, and it was still on the blank white message screen with Yurio's username at the top and the three symbols flanking the "Write a message..." box at the bottom. Nothing at all in between. Yuri looked toward the door, again. For Victor. For his mother. Dister. Then, back down again at the blank box, with a different kind of sigh.

He'd forgotten. Maybe wanted to forget. Not Yurio. But the weekend. Maybe been unable to remember, or think, when Victor declared Yuri should stay. Before Victor was kissing him, and he was forgetting what air and ice and gravity was, too. When all he wanted to remember in the world was Victor. (When he wasn't sure he was done with that grasping, wanting feeling, needing to fill up all the weekend's holes still lurking inside of him.) It wasn't like he could forget the last few days. It wasn't like he could make any real sense of them either. Or even wanted to spend time pulling it apart.

Maccachin was alive, and in good enough health to be home.
Victor was here. Victor wanted him to stay the night.
Yuri lost, but was still going to the Grand Prix.

But that wasn't everything, the blank screen said to him.

He's still uncertain. He wants to be right. That somewhere in that crowd of thousands was Yurio's grandfather. Especially while sitting right here. When he'd been wrapped up in Victor's arms, with Victor's chin on his shoulder. But it's the idea that if he wasn't that makes it impossible to close the application of the accusing empty white window and go back to fretting about just getting under the blanket before Victor got back. If there was no one there, like the first night.

Like Yurio had explained about why he was angry and turned the beginning of Agape into ruthlessness.
Like Yurio who had still drug Yuri off to Milliways full of that feeling, and while having clipped his own score.

Yuri lifted a hand and fretted (eyes drifting to the door and back again fast), before raising a hand to type Made it home in time to watch the Gala. Reading it, empty and conflicted about this, too, before remembering and adding to the same line: Victor said to tell you that you looked good. It looks stilted. It looks bare. It looks nothing like enough. But he has no clue what else to say. Not really. It wasn't like having conversations face to face with Yurio was any easier.

Yuu-chan would know. But he wouldn't see her until tomorrow, or the next day, and it'll be too late if no one is there today. It wasn't enough, he's not enough if the other is true, too, but Yuri had no clue what was or would be (except his grandfather, the way no one who wasn't Victor was Victor), and so he hit sent. Staring at it for a few seconds longer, before he did close the app, at about the same time as he could hear the top of the stairs being cleared.

[fivetimechamp]

He can't actually run back up the stairs or towards the room, even if Maccachin is trotting along ahead of him: Yuri isn't wrong that they probably shouldn't advertise him staying in Victor's room tonight, no matter how unlikely Victor might think some sort of judgement might be. If nothing else, it's more polite to try and keep from waking up his hosts in the middle of the night, so he tries his best to be stealthy, even if it takes nearly all his willpower to keep from hurtling through the doorway and back onto the bed at the sight of Yuri still sitting there.

He looks awkward, but then, Yuri often does, adorably so: hair rumpled, sleep clothes loose, and Victor can't help but smile, even as he's issuing a warning. "I'm going to turn the lights out, Yuri."

But not before closing the door first. It's not really a promise of privacy –– not like the hotel doors were –– but it does give the impression of being back in a world all their own again, and that makes it even easier to hit the light switch on the wall. There's still a desk lamp burning, but he has to put his laptop back, anyway, so he crosses to pick it up from the mattress and deposit it under the light before turning that off, too, and waiting for his eyes to get used to the dark, enough to keep from tripping over something on the floor: clothes, or Maccachin.

He hasn't ever before, but there's a first time for everything.

What it really means is that he can finally take the few steps back to his bed and tug the covers back on one side, to slip beneath them, but that's not enough, either.

Nothing is until he can find wherever Yuri is, at whatever stage of getting into bed he is, and drag him back against Victor's chest, and into a deep, contented breath and a heavy sigh out into the dark and the pillow.

[theglassheart]

The relief feels almost like a wave breaking on him when Victor walks back through the door. Still himself, still here, still in his sleep clothes, still alone save for Maccachin. Victor smiles in a calm, cool way Yuri can't help envying against his inability to think he looks anything like. Tonight. This weekend. Ever. It's almost absolute, except that Yuri thought there was a flicker of something else right before that smile lit Victor's lips.

Just a for a second as Victor rounded the door from the hallway.
Just before his eyes found Yuri. Right here, where he'd left him.

But maybe he's just reaching for that to be there, too? Maybe?

The shred of nerves tries to dissipate with the light, as it turns off and Yuri's hands clutch his phone on one side and his knee, through sleep pants on the other. But it's not dark yet. Only dim, as Victor comes for his things and Yuuri realizes he should move. Even if he looks back at the door for a second again (again, again). Absolutely insubstantial. Nothing like the hotel. Nothing like a lock. Nothing really stopping anyone from opening it. His parents still right below him.

But the desk light goes off next, leaving Yuri confused for a second at the actual darkness, and aware of his own foolishness about still not having moved. Still having his phone clutched in a hand, and nowhere to really put it, and no cord to charge it. Plus, his glasses. How none of this feels thought out, smart, sensibly explainable. Still, he manages to shift and get his legs and middle under the blanket as Victor is tugging it, his too fast heart probably the loudest thing in this room.

Yuri leans off this side of the bed, patting the floor with his fingers and finding a place to set his phone and his glasses for the night. He tucks them both just slightly under the bed so he can't step on them, either in the middle of the night or in the morning. Then, turns back into the bed, one arm curling up under the pillow between it and his head, blinking at the darkened shadow shapes and the fuzz of his own vision to be able to find Victor not far from him.

[fivetimechamp]

He can hear Yuri shifting in the dark, and feel the mattress moving with his weight, but when Yuri settles, it's on the other side of the bed, and that's not good enough for Victor. "Yuri..."

A wheedle, a complaint, a coax, even as he's shifting, a hand under the covers reaching for the pocket of warmth he can already feel. "You're too far away."

Still. Still. After days, and thousands of miles, and too many planes and trains and cars and interruptions, somehow Yuri is still too far away from him, even lying here in the same bed, in the friendly dark, with nothing ahead of them except a long night stretching into a long morning. (Whatever Yuri says, Victor isn't waking him up before Yuri's own body does, and Yuri sleeps in even on days when he'd gotten plenty of rest for days on end.)

He's scootching forward and following his hand under the sheet until it finds Yuri's waist and Victor's arm can slide over it, tightening and tugging. "Come here."

Closer. Close enough that Victor can fall asleep with his mouth in Yuri's hair and Yuri's back breathing against his chest and Yuri's side gently rising and falling under his arm. Close enough that Victor won't have to wake up at any point tonight and remind himself that Yuri is several countries and thousands of miles away.

There's a shuffle on the floor, and then a mighty dip of the bed down by his feet: Maccachin, seeing the mattress shift and sway, must have been feeling left out, because he tromps out a circle down between their ankles and settles with a bone-melting suddeness and a heavy huff of breath. He must be tired, too: the last few days have been as tough on him as they have been on Victor or Yuri.

Yuri, who Victor at least has in his grip now, encouraging him to move closer, to slip in under Victor's arm. "You're more comfortable than any pillow. I need you to sleep."