{ The China Cup GPF Qualifier, SP } November 7-8, 2014 - Shanghai, China

[theglassheart]

It takes Yuri all of about two minutes to realize that down might have been just as bad an option as up.

That downstairs in the hotel, at the buffet, involved a world of national jackets. Dozens and dozens of men and women, in various states of dress around and under and without those jackets, some picture perfect and some all but in pajamas and bare feet still, in various states of awake and asleep. Still on their feet, putting food on plates, sitting on their own and others, carrying them back upstairs. Not to mention those fans who could afford to stay here, watching from nearby tables and occasionally thrusting one of their own with a pen and napkin at some skater's table.

There are so many more of them here. There hadn't been this many last time.

(But, by last time, he means in October.

There were totally this many last time
- this time, two years ago.
A sea of people.)

His body snags back and forth between the urge to clutch his plate full of food to his chest, and gulp each bite down, while dragging it under the table with him, and just to slide under the table, without it or someone else, especially Victor, noticing he's vacated his seat and relocated there.

It doesn't help he can't quite seem to focus right. To hear what Victor is saying. To know what to say when he can. When he can't seem to more than flit his gaze that way and away. (That he was an absolute idiot, and jumped like he'd been hit, or expected to be, the first time Victor threw an arm around his shoulder headed to the elevator to come down here. Even though Victor's been nothing but sane and sober and normal since they woke up.)

People keep laughing and talking. Nails on the chalkboard inside his skull. His jacket feels odd at the edges of his shoulders. The booth is too big. The room is too small. He watches the clock. Time is slipping away already. Practice, then performance. Practice, then performance. Breakfast ends. Uncertain if he ate too much. Trying to counter that he didn't eat enough last night. (Or maybe sleep enough. And what if he crashes on the ice because he didn't take care of both of those?

What if he's ruined it all because he couldn't even manage his first twenty hours in the Prix Qualifier even?)

They leave when they have to. Early enough to look at everything. Early enough to make sure everything is ready for practice, and practice is practice. He's so in his head. He can't stop watching the people around him as they practice their routines. His skin prickles at just the bite of the air on it. He can't outrun the itch in the back of his head.

It's like a wall in front of him, always two inches in front, no matter how fast or how slow. Goading him to run, with sharp prods, but staying two inches away. Always two inches away. Never closer. Never in reach. His feet are a hiss on the ice, jumps a little too sharp, and his mind still won't stop tossing up and out, in front of his skates, all the things that don't belong out here.

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[theglassheart]

Careless. Arrogant. Certain. All the things he's never been.

And has. He's won with this already. Once that counts. Twice that mattered.

He makes his body follow his arms. Tries to dampen that impatience that seems to only ramp when forced to quiet. Movement helps, though, and he slides through the footwork, hands and feet in tandem. Thinking of the dance. Certainty without question. A seduction no one could stand against. (The one person who could sell that most believably.) Breaks in focus splicing through for those he passes, for realizing where he needs to end up is where someone already is.

Throwing himself from one death drop into another within near minutes, because of the strain, because he can't think beyond the momentum, the required focus of tension, tightness. The rigor of it that demands all of his focus, from all that places it's spooled off to. Sending him back up, but not into his ending. Not yet. It splices from the near end, with a cross back, across one-half end that is free except for one other skater, into enough space to try the salchow after his axel.

The first which is goes like breathing and the second ... which isn't flawless, but he manages not to drop a skate or need his hand. There's a wobble, and he can feel every frustrating inch of the wrongness there, in his back, his arm, his leg, but he still manages to slide into the next move with it. Not slamming the ice. Close, but not close enough. Frustrating, when he's gotten it less times than he hasn't, even without this many people watching. But they are watching. But they have seen it now.

Something in that biting too deep, when he turns, throwing himself directly back at it,


just as the announcement comes to clear the floor.

[fivetimechamp]

It's not as relaxed as Victor would like him to be, and it lacks the flow they've worked so hard to create, but neither of those things are unusual in a practice session, when last problems are being ironed out and the final edges to technique are being honed.

But it is better, and he makes a small and satisfied noise when Yuri lands the Salchow and manages to hang onto it, tension blossoming and unspooling again between his shoulders when Yuri tosses himself at another, wanting it right, wanting it perfect, just as the ice begins to clear. Considering everything, he looks good, and he'll look better later: Yuri might be nervous, but Victor has no doubt he can turn it on when it counts. He did at Yu-topia, at Onsen on Ice, and he fought through it last month. He can do it.

(Even if Victor hasn't seen this kind of nervous energy from him before, isn't sure how to deal with it, whether he should be stoking it or trying to make it dissipate.)

Still, he's pleased when Yuri skates back over, and hands over one, than the other, skate guards. "Good. How did it feel?"

Better, he thinks. At least, more focused. Even if Yuri was still tight, it seemed like his mind was on what he was doing, and not running away with him, and with Yuri, that can be the vast majority of the battle.

[theglassheart]

Yuri follows somewhere in the middle of the bunch, frustrated he can't do it, again. One more time. Ten more times. (Even if ten is far too many to still manage the performance and rebound, too. He's aware. Point notwithstanding.) He bends down to wipe the accumulated snow on his blades off, hooking the guards on, and there's Victor waiting. Water and tissues. His jacket, and badge.

Asking that question as the world's gravity suddenly shifts from fluid silkiness to hard, clunky stillness.

"Good," sounds less than just Good,
more like a repetition of Victor's own chosen word.
Unhelpfully so, when Yuri saddles it with, "I guess."

Especially as he's glancing back over his shoulder. The look of the practice carved ice evoking such a torn feeling of not enough, not enough, not enough. He's not done yet. But not knowing if he means right now. Or the salchow. Or Eros, itself. Or in practice. Or later today. Or. Or. He doesn't know. It's just there. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Not done yet.

Except he'll have awhile now. Hours to wait. Hours to fill. Hours to fret.
Hours to warm-up everywhere but the ice now.

[fivetimechamp]

He's not sure if Yuri's mood is on the good or bad side of the very thin line that separates motivation from frustration: the drive to keep doing it until it's perfect can be useful during training, but on competition day, it can just exhaust a skater, both physically and mentally. And Yuri –– hard on himself, prone to over-thinking, with so much to prove –– already looks tired and jittery.

"Well, we have a few hours before we need to be back." Time to eat, to relax, to discuss strategy, to do whatever needs to be done to get a skater's head in the game. Personally, he'd always just gone back to the hotel to sleep for a few more hours: usually jet-lagged and tired from a long flight, and secure in his ability to perform perfectly, only wanting to keep his energy high.

Yuri has no such security in himself, but he should: even if he isn't always perfect, he's far more consistent than he used to be. All the hours and days and months they've spent working out every last detail of these programs, drilling them again and again, drilling basics, drilling jumps, working with Minako, they've all forged Yuri into something totally different than what he once was.

And soon, the whole world will see it, just like Victor does.

But for now, he stands by, handing Yuri his water bottle when it's needed. "I'll wait for you outside the locker room."

[theglassheart]

Victor's voice is smooth and calm, the way it's been the greatest percent of the day so far. As much as it grabs his attention, and he does listen, it feels like something in the breeze just out of touch, too, when he's making sure that he, and they, far enough out of the way of the gate to not be in the way of the skaters behind him, or their coaches coming to them, too.

He's never loved this part. The part between. When everything is waiting. Counting down. The clock both too fast and too slow.

Yuri changes back out of his outfit and looks around nearby to make sure he hasn't dropped anything, before thinking he's ready to just let Victor drag him away from wherever he's going to for the next while. Like he's this small boat caught up in Victor's undertow, tethered to the sound of his voice, walking something that looks like steadily, even though it feels like he'll just be bobbling the whole time. Even now. Standing still.

Flawless. He needs to be flawless. That thought caught on his fingers when he's stepping out of the locker room. The others out here in small groups. Familiar faces, colors, and emblems readying themselves. But ... not Victor? Yuri looked at all the faces, again, but there was no urge to go anywhere else. Victor said here. He might have been pulled away by someone, but Yuri could just wait. All he had was waiting now anyway. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

All of it pinpricks on the back of his eyelids. The hold of his shoulders. The awareness of his weight shifting in during walking steps.

Instead, he dug in his pocket and pulled out his phone, while walking back toward the main waiting area. Pulling up his feed and scrolling, distractedly. Glad for a moment to just pause, breathing, not told what to do, where to go, given a new barrage of questions, and hating it all at once. The conflicted wash of a mess. Until his own face slides across the screen. Catapulting his boat into the deep end without a second's warning, the bottom of the boat gone entirely in less than a breath.

Because it's there in front of him. The thing he's been trying to shove back, shove aside, brush off the tendrils of. His hand might be shaking. Or maybe it's his whole body. (Making the whole thing seem in movement more than stuck.) Eyes darting around those gathered with him. (Victor's muscles back, and his arm around Yuri.) Finding the source of this - this - this sudden - (His own face, askew glasses, wide eyes, flushed face) "Phichit-kun!"

There's a shrill note of panicked dread, shock, embarrassment flaring upward in his mouth, his voice. (Victor's eyes, glassy and slit, looking barely focused, warningly against whatever's distracted him.) He's with the other two from last night even, though Yuri isn't sure how he crossed the room or even has legs anymore. (His own face, looking shocked at the taking of the picture ... and not so much ... the everything ... the all of it. Phichit-kun's half-cut expression of amazement. Victor.)

"Yuri!" It sounds excited, and then chagrin, when his gaze is bouncing back and forth between Yuri's face and Yuri's phone in Yuri's hand. Back and forth and back and forth, like a ping-pong ball, while Yuri is certain the feeling in his hand is gone. (It has more than 3,000 likes already. Had he even opened his phone since waking up? Where else could it be already?) "Oh! Ah!" Phichit was rubbing at his hair. "Gomen! I couldn't stop myself from sharing it online!"

The other two next to him, the same ones who came last night, are grumbling at Phichit while Yuri is certain his head is about to just snap from his neck and roll down his shoulder like a weighted ball. This isn't. It wasn't. It didn't. Not like this. Not like it looks like. Like he and Victor were. It wasn't like. His mind can't even grasp enough to add. Flickers. Distorted. Stopping before starting. No traction. There's oil under his shoes. How many people have seen this. Already. Today. This morning. Here.

How many of them think he and Victor have been --

[fivetimechamp]

With Yuri out of his line of sight, he can start working through everything he just saw, make mental notes (and a few jotted on the small notepad in his coat pocket) and take a careful look at the line-up. Yuri's last in his group, which isn't a bad spot to be: he won't be able to tweak his program to counter whatever Chris and Georgi do, but Victor doesn't want him making sweeping, unilateral changes to the routines anyway.

All he needs to do is skate clean and get a technical score to match his performance, and he'll hit the podium for sure. No one else has the level of technical difficulty they've worked into Eros, so if he gets it right, the way he has been, he'll blow them all away. The judges. The audience. The skaters coming after him. It's a simple matter of numbers ... or should be. Would be, for him. Has been, in all the hours they've spent calculating what Yuri needs to win, and how to build a program to showcase his skill and artistry to their best effect.

Was, before Yuri woke up this morning like ... whatever this is, that doesn't seem like simple nerves. It's not like before, when Yuri seemed distracted and low-energy, and it's not like Onsen on Ice, where it seemed like any errant breath might shatter him into a million pieces.

This is something new, and Victor's tapping the stub of a pencil at his lips, considering how best to utilize it or settle it, when there's a click-click-click of skate guards on carpet, and he turns to see Georgi, who returns his wave, with Yakov behind him, who doesn't, but who pauses after Georgi turns towards the locker rooms, even if his back stays to Victor.

Hmm?

"I hope you're enjoying yourself."

Making Victor bark a short and startled laugh, that sounds more uncertain than he'd like. "Of course. Don't you find coaching to be fun, Yakov?"

The shoulders in front of him tighten, and then there's Yakov's bulging eye, glaring at him from under the brim of his ever-present hat. "If it's a joke to you, you'll ruin his career as well as your own. But when have you ever thought of anyone but yourself?"

He can't count the number of times in his life when Yakov has called him selfish. Arrogant. Self-absorbed, thoughtless. It's easy enough to pretend this one doesn't land, either, but there's a cool tension to his smile and it never makes his eyes crinkle, even as Yakov turns to stomp away, obviously feeling he'd done his duty by issuing his dire warning.

That wasn't helpful.

[theglassheart]

Yuri staggers off to Phichit's weak laughter, and even weaker will where it comes to his Instagram feed and selfies therefor, and the other two boys berating him, with more sense than Yuri can even manage, while still caught up in clutching the phone and needing to find the darkest hole possible. Looking at it so hard he runs right into someone. Apologizing even as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, apologies more frantic than necessary, but he can't stop them even as he's hearing himself.

His next steps are unseeing, because he can't look at it, but he can't unburn it from his mind's eye.

It wasn't like that. He and Victor aren't like that. He wasn't fooling around with Victor. He wasn't sleeping with Victor. Well. Except for literally. Last night. The once. But not. Like. That. Not even with. Prickles flicker and flood at his neck, remembering friction, the barest, hot whisper in a hard language, just as a hand lands, curved and cupping ownership on one cheek of his ass, and Yuri nearly scrambles out of all of his skin, all the way on his toes, shoulders high as they can push, with such undignified noises hiccuping up and up and out and out of his mouth, he can barely hear the voice next to his ear.

Not Victor. (Even when his blood is pounding Victor, Victor, Victor, infused shock, a hand on his chest, lips against his ear, his neck, his shoulder, drilling up stay and I only want you). But not Victor. When another long and lanky body curls up to his back and shoulder, another mouth brushing his ear, and his cheek, another voice, while he can't stop shaking, stop squeaking noises shooting out his mouth. Chris? Chris Giacometti - who has his hand on Yuri's - ???

Chris who is drawling his name, low and dark, asking, plaintively, "Why didn't you invite me?"

But Yuri can't even follow the words. Every bones, muscle, never confused, jangled, sharp, screaming. "Chris ... "

It's supposed to be an answer. Or a question. Or. He doesn't. It squeaks. He can't. That is still. Why is it. Is he. And he's so close. Confusing. Brilliant, deep hazel eyes, that seem more like fire only just this side of in check. His hair, and his always far too rugged face. Not even inches from Yuri's. His chest and his heart in that sputtering, confused, rejected, unable to react with any sanity and sense over his own limbs.

"Looks like you got into shape. Guess your master's giving you very thorough training."

[fivetimechamp]

When he gets to the locker room, Yuri's nowhere to be found, but he's not hard to spot, once Victor heads towards the main hall: he's the one squirming under the too-close gaze and smothering figure of Christophe Giacometti.

A visual which, any other day, might amuse Victor –– Yuri, who blushes at the drop of a hat, and Chris, who has never met a boundary he didn't want to shatter –– but he doesn't need Chris intimidating his skater today, no matter how genial it might be. (Or how welcome a certain sequence of photos might suggest it is ... but then, he's been proven wrong on that count before.) "Chris!"

Lifting a hand in greeting as he saunters up, looking a little out of place, maybe, in his crisp suit among all the skaters in their warm-up gear, but he doesn't mind. "How's it going?"

Chris detaches –– there's really no better word –– from Yuri, and Victor's not surprised either by the way his tone drops into annoyance or how he appears to forget Yuri's there entirely, reaching to take Victor's ID badge and glancing at it with a scoff. "I'm not motivated without you."

Also nothing new: "You're always like that at the start of a season." Chris has been chasing him for as long as they've been skating together, and they've shared many a spotlight and podium together, but Chris has always viewed their rivalry far more seriously than Victor has. Being scolded for disappearing out from under him hardly comes as a surprise.

"Victor!"

Josef, with his red glasses and the same badge Victor's wearing. "Chris is right. He can't get serious without you."

Whether Chris can get serious at all is a better question, in Victor's mind, but that's hardly a politic thing to say, and, anyway, how do they expect him to respond to come back into the fold, anyway? Chris' career isn't dependent on Victor's, anymore than Yurio's or JJ's or Michele's are.

(There are times when he feels like the mechanical bunny released at the start of a dog race: just another unreachable goal for the others to try and catch.

And where's the inspiration in that?)

But there's no time to say anything, even if he found something less cutting and more appropriate, because he's being called again, and it is nice to see familiar faces and talk to them, even if they're all saying essentially the same thing: Come back. Why did you leave in the first place? Are you really a coach now?

The amused laughter following just split up with him, you know it won't last and don't you feel sorry for him? never touching the mildness of his smile, or his polite remarks.

It's not long now, and then Yuri will prove them all wrong, for both of them.

[theglassheart]

Chris lets go and is gone as fast as he'd latched on, and Yuri is almost astounded he doesn't plummet to the ground. That he isn't flapping like a fish on the ground like a marionette with cut strings. His body still shaking while Chris and Victor start talking like nothing happened. No. Like he isn't even there. While Yuri is drowning on air, and his cheeks are hot. (And he can't stop looking at Victor. Frozen. Staring at him.)

While the world moves on around him. The trio has come back from the same place Yuri had and there's a commotion of cameras, and another coach -- Chris's coach? -- and they are talking about Chris now. Because Yuri doesn't exist. Yuri's almost delirious with relief at not existing. Even at the same time as something hard balks against it. Aches sharply. Because Victor is one of them, and Victor just looked over him. Too. Just pulled into the conversation with the coach and Chris.

Then, just pulled away, without a second glance for Yuri, by a pair of laughing girls, in practice jackets. One specifically from Russia. They are smiling and laughing, calling him over like friends, and he's staring. He knows he is, because he blushes, feeling suddenly hot when Chris, says his name, and slides on to, "The sin of keeping Victor to yourself is grave."

Like Victor is is his. Like Victor isn't over there, holding court, with his untouchable smile, as the girls are bursting into peels of laughter with him, while Chris continues, not touching him, but dropping something that feels like it slams home so much harder on that same road. "The whole world is hoping for his return."

His heart, personal bastion of sedition, hard winded, still thumping too fast, in his chest, in his ears, teeth, fingers, somehow manages to hit the floor Yuri can't at those last two words. The whole world is waiting for his return. His return. His.

(Not Yuri's.)

[fivetimechamp]

Somehow, the hours between practice and the afternoon always seem to slip away without giving any kind of warning or leaving any sort of sign: there's a light lunch that Victor tries to make sure Yuri eats, and run-ins with reporters and announcers –– the Japanese commentator who came to Onsen on Ice and the Southern Regional Championship is there –– and they're familiar enough, but all of their questions seem as directed at Victor as they are to Yuri.

Victor, will you be returning to compete after the Grand Prix Final this year?

Aren't you interested in defending your status as World Champion?

Do you think Katsuki Yuri will be able to beat your scores? Has it been difficult to find momentum after he took the last year off? What do you think of his chances, is he ready? Is it strange to be back here as a coach and not a competitor?

All of which he fends off with the same handful of answers: He won't decide on any plans until after the Grand Prix Final; coaching has been a new and exciting challenging for him, and coaching Yuri, specifically, has been hugely rewarding; it is strange, he's happy to be able to be here and eat absolutely whatever he wants.

(Pause for laughter.)

Somewhere in the mix, Minako appears, banner in hand, and it's a strange sensation to be a little relieved to see her, a small piece of Hasetsu here.

It makes him feel almost homesick.

He gives her as much time with Yuri as he can before they're called back to the locker rooms and she has to go take her seat, walks back through the crowd of people and press with one hand on Yuri's shoulder and the other waving amiably at the faces they pass, tossing smiles and a few short answers to shouted questions, but it's all just running interference. Under his hand, he can feel Yuri thrumming like the engine of a car left in park, ready to burst at any second.

He just needs to let it out at the right time, and Victor can help with that.

And then they're back: Chris stretching nearby, Guang-Hong looking pale and a little green around the gills in a corner, Ciao Ciao and Phichit in deep conversation ... and Yuri, focused on some inner thought, lost in his own world.

And, outside, the crowd beginning to grow.

[theglassheart]

The seconds of minutes crawl by, etching themselves in his skin, only for the hours to pass in the puff of a breath. Exhaled and unable to be pulled back on realization. Lunch is an event of anxiety he can't even truly convince himself to stop as it's happening. As though if he puts enough food in his mouth at a consistent rate it'll make it harder for Victor to be able to talk to him, or for him to have to respond immediately.

Filling his mouth shoves words off his tongue -- but it shoves nothing out of his head.

(You're the only one who ... )

In fact, it feels like the more he puts in his mouth
and doesn't put into the air, his head just doubles and triples it.

(They'll be wanting more than good, more than good enough.
They'll want him good enough to be worth the loss of Victor.)

By the time Minako shows up, he's not even surprised that she looks at him sideways, that dangerous slant to her eyes, before laughing and telling him he's going to fine. With that faint quaver to her voice, before he's been bussed to the side of a mostly empty hallway. Before she's quizzing him. On the line of his spine, and the tilt of his hips. Having him put away his phone, down his water.

Making him start the beginning part, the harder eyes of his teacher tracing every line of his body as it flows even on solid ground. Talking about having watched him earlier, and he didn't know she was there, but he's not surprised. Doesn't talk back to her, because it would involve more that he had. He lets his body do it. Start. Flow through. Tries to pay attention. Correct for two fingers touching where a shoulder should be down, a forearm should be closer, hand pressed more flush into touching himself.

He hasn't cared about touching himself like this in weeks and weeks and months now. It's become clinical how often, how harped. But it's the second when something goes wrong. Catches in his chest, at his own hand on his arm, his chest -- just for a second's flicker it's not his hand. Or not his skin. Or both. Somehow. Eyes cutting to the wrong place. (Wrong person.

Victor. Watching quietly nearby.
Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Weight-ing, even.)

Once, twice. Again, but only certain parts. He doesn't mind the movement. Doesn't mind having direction. Something to throw it into. This reckless restless biting up under him. He's used the yawning darkness. But the inability to stand still, sit still. It's like he can't stop some part of himself from moving. Like if he did, the rest of the world would start moving instead. Shaking, until it shook him off the skin of itself. Minako doesn't miss it, either, he doesn't think.

There's something in the way she keeps looking at him. He knows this look.
She's been through all of this with him before.

(It feels different, but he can't point to how.
It's just another breed of madness in a consistent one.)

Eventually, she goes, and his shoulders drop. Trying to settle. Victor finding one of them, leading him through the crowd. That hand as normal has it ever had been (before). The same can be said of the way he effortlessly drives and leads, both at once, Yuri through the crowd, while handling every question thrown at him, at them. As many about Victor as there are about Victor's opinions about Yuri.

He tries to hold on to them. Repeats them. Blurring faces. Being pushed and led, if without any driving force. He knows where he's going, but he doesn't want Victor to let go either. Everything is a derivation of a problem with itself, and everything else. He can't help the way his eyes slide to Victor everytime they ask him a question about himself, breathless for the smallest hint, and Yuri can't tell what he's feeling, in that pause, before Victor brushes it off, effortlessly, again and again.

Crowds grow. The warm-up time is called for the first group, and he has to go. His skin feeling both bigger than him and too tight for his bones. But the ice under him is almost a hiss of relief. Set free from the hard ground. He throws himself into moves he hasn't stopped making for hours. Days. Weeks. Months.

The timer is up before he knows it, leaving something aching. Something unfinished. Not enough, not enough, not enough.

His jacket goes back on. He turns down water, shaking his head, while his stomach becomes a knot that trying to strangle his ribs and his throat, and he keeps stretching. Keeps moving. Not meeting Victor's eyes. Not getting in anyone's way. Torn between the clock and the tv that shows the start of The Cup of China beginning, touching down in the broadcast. No longer just those in the stands, but everyone across the world could be watching now.

As Phichit-kun comes out, and Yuri's heart becomes a stricken sprint of itself, again. Conflicted longing, nausea, and demands for calm that no one seems to hear. The music he'd talked about for so many years, and that Yuri had heard over and over in those years, that Phichit was finally making his own. Throwing all of his dreams and himself into his skate. Giving everything he had to this season. Even when it isn't flawless, when Yuri is cringing for his fall, Phichit has made the music his own. Like he always promised.

[fivetimechamp]

He's grateful for Minako, familiar and focused, and glad she was able to come, not only to cheer Yuri on, but to coach him and correct him as she has been for the last eight months. Getting to know her was a big leap forward in understanding Yuri: unlike Yuuko and Hiroko, she doesn't cast an affectionate eye on Yuri's weaknesses, and she doesn't pussyfoot around. Her manner is blunter than he'd expected in Japan, and her demand for precision rivals that of his own past ballet instructors, Bolshoi legends with ice in their veins and what seemed like a physical inability to smile.

Minako is in many ways very nearly Russian, and that makes her easier to understand and to talk with, and she's and excellent instructor, which makes her useful ... and she knows Yuri better than anyone else, and that makes her invaluable.

So he doesn't miss the glances she slides his way, but waits on them as she patiently corrects Yuri's posture, his shifting weight, the line of arm and neck and back and leg, how to let his fingers drag gracefully through the air. Everything looking like it should, and Yuri almost beginning to relax, but it doesn't last. Not Minako's time with them, and not the slight reprieve from tension for Yuri, but she does pull Victor aside briefly as she heads on her way out.

It's nothing he doesn't know –– that Yuri looks and is tense, that his nerves act up before a competition, but that he looks good, and that Minako will be cheering for them in the seats –– but he appreciates it nonetheless, and tells her they'll see her after the performance, but he doesn't mention what he saw, in their practice.

That what she taught Yuri, the backbone he wrapped this program around at Onsen on Ice, picturing himself as the beautiful woman who seduces the playboy, isn't working anymore. Was never supposed to work. It was always just a method of getting Yuri back to that place, that golden, perfectly unbreakable place, winning on the ballroom floor. If he had to imagine katsudon and women to get there, that was fine, but Victor built this program with one purpose in mind: for Katsuki Yuri to sweep in, and steal the hearts of everyone watching. Not a character. Him.

Letting the thoughts roll about his mind in a calm circle without trying to pin them down, as Yuri warms up and the tension in the room stretches and stretches. He's glad to see Yuri pauses to watch his friend Phichit, at least. That doesn't seem to be preying on him: he looks stressed, but not with the performance on the screen. So it's internal, then.

And the reprieve doesn't last long: soon, Yuri's jogging up and down the short hall as Victor stands nearby, but he goes longer than usual, like he's forgotten how many miniature laps he's done. It's odd enough that even Chris, in the midst of his own warm-up routine, leans over to ask Victor if Yuri's alright, but Victor only shushes him, smile mild as ever. Yuri is alright, but he's something else, too. Something Victor hasn't see before, some shade of his anxiety that has simply never shown itself in the last eight months.

He's never seen Yuri quite like this, before, but their mission is the same, and hasn't changed, and neither has his certainty, which remains unwavering and clear.

He seems to be focusing better now, at least, and that's good, because on the television, Guang-hong is finishing, and that means it's just about their turn.

[theglassheart]

Phichit's music comes to a close triumphantly and the crowd errupts, in the back of the tv screen and throught the walls of the building. Yuri's eyes raising for a second, even as he's straightening. His time is cutting, and cutting, and cutting closer. Minutes slipping away, like the bottom of his lungs. Harder to reacher, harder to hold in.

Phichit claims a new personal best, and it's almost time. Again.

The next person cuing up and in. Which means Yuri has only minutes. Minutes, minutes, minutes. The short program is. Short. Almost. But not yet. Now. So close it's too close and yet not yet. Everything moving inside of his skin. Too fast, too much. He has to move or it'll tear him apart just to stand still. No one is doing turns in the long hall anymore, the only place anyone can with their arms wide out and open, and he starts jogging back and forth.

The pounding of his feet almost solace, even too heavy, even not fast enough, even not letting himself go fast. He can't wear himself out either. But he can't stand still. And walking isn't fast enough. In seconds (minutes - seconds) it'll be him. He'll be out there, and it won't be like before. It won't be like his last competition, and it won't be like years ago, and people won't be just looking at him to represent Japan.

It's bigger than that. Bigger than just his country, just himself,

It's a sin, Chris's voice says, blurring into Takeshi from weeks ago.
They'll think you stole him. Maybe all the skating fans hate you now.

There's no uncertainty in that. People who wanted to see Victor skating, wouldn't be satisfied with his skating. (With him.) The people who were there for him, cheering for him, wouldn't be satisified with the old him, the person he'd been before. If he had to choose one, there was only one to choose. That wasn't a choice. Had it ever been a choice.

When had Victor ever been a choice. Anymore than breathing.
Or panicking. Or the sun rising. Or time sliding, clawing, tearing away.

How impossible was even hearing, even thinking, any other option. There was no other option. No other path. No road here without Victor. (That wasn't Victor.) Victor, and Victor, and Victor. Everyday. Everywhere. There was no other option, no other world, and if that mean it, too, then, he wanted to be hated as the man who took Victor from from the world. If he only gets one, he only wants --

But turning has Victor standing at the end, and he knows that look.

He's seen it three times now.




It's time.



Stopping him. Throat dry. Heart rate high.

But there's no stopping anything now, and his feet are already walking him back to Victor.

[fivetimechamp]

He wishes Yuri didn't look so much like he's heading to the gallows instead of just walking down the hall back towards him, but it's difficult to focus, even for him. The energy of competition day buzzing through his veins like wine. It's not his performance, but he's not immune to the tension, the expectation, the hard curl of anticipation in his stomach. This is the world he knows best: the locker room halls and the sound of laces through leather, the clumsy click-click of skate guards, how the hall between locker room and rink seems to expand, growing longer with every step they take.

All of it folding together into a blur with a single focal point: his hand on Yuri's shoulder, the nearing doorway. Even the roar of the crowd seems to come from underwater. (But he recognizes it, loves it; some part of himself reaching back as they reach for him, wanting more.) Minako is up there somewhere, and plenty of Yuri's other fans, many of whom have been ecstatic at the prospect of his return. He's far more loved than he knows or believes, but all that can wait, and right now, he doesn't want Yuri thinking about them and getting overwhelmed, anyway. He has to bring Yuri's focus back, somehow, let him send Eros off as an arrow speeding directly for a single heart, and, in that, win them all.

Taking his jacket and skate guards, setting them to the side as Yuri steps onto the ice, a slim sleek line of black. Looking gorgeous. Looking dangerous.

There are only seconds left, but Victor doesn't want to rush this, leans forward to rest his hand over the one Yuri has fisted on the top of the rink wall, warmth filtering through the material of his gloves. "Yuri, listen."

He's ready. The program is ready. This is how he's going to make it his own. This is how he'll win. "The time to seduce me by picturing katsudon and women during your skate is over."

No tangling egg or ecstasy of taste, no matter how delicious. No beautiful seductress. No crutch. He doesn't need it. Calm, but with absolute confidence in his assessment, he continues. "You can fight with your own personal charm."

A force no character he might portray can ever live up to. A fickle playboy, stealing hearts and setting souls afire; a sweet and uncertain young man; a world-class athelete. Victor's demon and doom and delight. It feels like electricity is crackling off him –– off them –– already. He hasn't touched Yuri this specifically in months, but he allows it now: an index finger, sliding along the back of his hand. The pad of his thumb, sliding along the back of Yuri's. "You can envision it just fine, can't you?"

He should. It's easy. All he has to do is look at Victor's face, and read what's written there for anyone to see.

All he has to do is remember how he did it before, when he burned down the ballroom and brought the banquet to a screeching, screaming halt.

[theglassheart]

It's all in ragged, racing heartbeats.

Beat. He's tying his skates (with Victor's feet in his perphery.)
Beat. He's taking off his badge and jacket (handing them to Victor).

Beat. There's ice under his skates and he's standing by the wall (with Victor above him).


Victor's hand lands on his on top of the rail. The same as on his shoulder. But inside his gaze, and Victor is talking. Victor is telling him. Telling him. To stop picturing everything he has. Stop using every story and image every day and practice was built on, for, wrapped through, written in Victor's voice and Yuri's thoughts. But even when he can hear the words, even as his heart is catching, frantic spike at the idea of letting go even more, of just what he's supposed to hold on to in it then, when Victor's fingers move suddenly.

Victor's fingers. Victor's thumb.

Rubbing a raw wire that he expects to make him shiver or shudder and happens like the crack of a whip snapping. When he can see it, feel it, the back of his hand, the tension in his shoulders, down into his calves, and his eyes snap up. Because he is there. Victor is there. In front of him. Staring down at him. Touching him.

Not hidden behind him. (As the one, on the ice.)

Not hidden by darkness. (Over his shoulder, on that bed.)

Yuri's teeth nearly snapping at the violent force of just meeting his eyes, just feeling that touch. (Fingers suddenly shoving into Victor's hand, fingers between fingers, fingertips digging into the back of his hands, his gloves, demanding.) Looking up into Victor's eyes this time. (Jumping to the toes of his skates, pushing his forehead to Victor's, staring into his eyes and the fall of his bangs, chest shaking, noses brushing, mouth demanding.)

"Don't ever take your eyes off of me."

Victor. Victor, who did this. Victor, who kept doing everything. Victor, who everyone wanted most. Victor, who Yuri couldn't look away from. Couldn't not want most, too. Wanted. Wanted not to be able to look away. (Who said.) Not able to not feel everything the way Yuri did, couldn't make himself not feel all of it, excruiating and agonizing sharpness, everywhere in him, around him. (He'd said.)

In this sudden almost violently demanding force.

Even as Yuri ripped himself back. His hand from Victor's; his face from Victor's, pushing himself off the wall, defiant, out into empty rink, without letting Victor say anything, do anything, else. The hushed silence of thousands and thousands of people. Rustling, readying, holding a breath, murmuring. Too close. Too far. Breathing in as one as he curved into the center, sliding backwards to a stop. Heart racing, shoulders lowering, letting his fingers graze his thighs as his eyes closed.

[fivetimechamp]

To say he isn't expecting Yuri to take his hand would be to say he isn't expecting the ground to open up beneath his feet and swallow him whole.

To say he isn't expecting the flash in Yuri's eyes, and the force with which his hand is suddenly gripped –– no, taken. No, claimed –– is only to say he's gotten to know Yuri over the last eight months. Polite, reserved Yuri, who only ever occasionally blurs those lines, and it's only ever innocent on his part, and only ever anything more on Victor's. Yuri, who might hug him, or sling an arm around his shoulder, or allow Victor to move him on the ice until he's found the right line, the correct pose. Yuri, who last time said Please watch in a tremulous request.

Nothing like the dull shock of his forehead hitting Victor's, even if Victor lets it hit, without flinching or stepping back, fingers gripping on instinct. Nothing like the sudden burn of his eyes, or the harshness behind don't ever take your eyes off of me. Yuri has never been nearly violent before. Yuri has never demanded that of him before. Yuri has never demanded anything before, and Victor is starting to worry, as Yuri rips himself away, that what he'd thought was something new might in fact be something far too different. Something's flipped his switch ... but what?

(It's more like that night than anything. Calling out Yurio, Victor, Chris in turn, challenging, throwing demands like darts. Grabbing Victor out of nowhere. A force of perfect confidence.)

He barely hear the cheers of the crowd, or the voice on the loudspeaker announcing from Japan, Katsuki Yuri. The rush of blood in his ears is too loud, the sudden quick sprint in his chest that he needs to calm, because Yuri is sliding into the center of the ice like he owns it, and ––

And it looks familiar. Feels familiar. And when the music starts, sultry guitar strings raining music onto the ice, and Yuri starts to move, it looks familiar. Not like the program they've been practicing for months, that they could both dream in its entirety.

Like something else. Like someone else. From a lifetime and two years ago.

[theglassheart]

No more story, Victor's voice demanded.

No more time, the music answered, starting.


Yuri leaning into it. The light, the music, when his eyes open, and his tongue brushes his lips, hands a fluid dance of movement, caressing over his shoulders, the air around it, flung outs, until it pops at the end. All intense demand. His knee, hip, shoulders, the point of a blade, and the snap of his gaze back over to where Victor was. The tip of his head, tilt of his smile flashed. All arrogant invitation.

The first look and the last, before he's turning. Before all he can think is where his hands go, and where his feet. The music loud. In his ears, racing beside the stomp of his blood, the pounding of his heart. No one else to see. No other noise but the music, but the bite and hiss of his skates cutting the ice. Focus elastic and raced, but even racing it seems to slide off of him. Stubborn annoyance burning at the edge of his own thoughts.

Those grappling fears. Digging sharp points into his lungs, trying to wrap around his ankles.

That overwhelming, inescapable, presence of thousands of eyes looking at him, looking through him, looking for Victor in his every movement, or the person he'd been before. Everything but him now. (They could laugh at him.) They could look for the wrong things. (They could think it wasn't like him.) Wasn't who he was. (They could be wrong.) The music weaving in and out, as he turned.

His body knew where to go, where to linger and slide and flare. This dangerous dance.

This demand, that was all a heated assault for already assumed acquiescence.

(The way she swept in--

But Victor said No.
Victor said ... himself.)

Victor said, (He said --) that wasn't him either now.
No one else. Nothing else. Him. (And his own charm.)

That was what he wanted now. (I want only--) And if that was what Victor wanted, that was what all of them wanted, then, wasn't it? To know this new version of him. Fluid and fast, feet weaving between who and where, and what. Only the ice and the rhythm in his ears, and his veins. To be drawn in and pulled away, into this dance, with him, the new him, didn't they? As thought no one was watching, or as though it didn't matter even if the whole world was.

[fivetimechamp]

The music starts, sinuous and seductive, and Yuri's moving with it, and it looks right –– it's all the same movements, everything he and Yuri and Minako have worked over and over again –– but not, too.

Not wrong. More right than right.

A low, thoughtful sound at the base of his throat when that look burns across the ice towards him, and he still doesn't get it, where all this was for the last eight months, for the last two years, but he's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, because Yuri has never owned Eros, or the audience, or even his own body, the way he is now. Each step and turn and slide taken in a perfect fluid dance; no hesitation, no questioning. Whatever had been worrying him seems to have dropped away, leaving nothing but the demon from Victor's dreams and memory and more photos still saved on his phone than he'd admit to keeping –– but it's not like that, either. Not even that night was anything quite like this.

But it's certainly working. Victor watching, finger pressed to his mouth, eyes following Yuri everywhere around the rink, as his hands go above his head and slip down to send him into a modified Ina Bauer that pushes Victor's spine straight, sudden delight diffusing his uncertainty.

"Perfect!"

All of it is. Even without Yuri's demand, he could never have looked away from this: this is no katsudon, and it's no beautiful woman. It's pure masculine sex appeal, barely contained, never coy. It's a huge triple axel that soars over the ice like a boast, followed by a perfect quad Salchow that Yuri hadn't nailed in practice, but which now seems impossible to miss. Just like it's impossible for the audience to do anything but fall for him, the way Victor has, is, keeps doing. Every step, full of arrogant confidence. Every jump proof that arrogance is warranted. Every coaxing, graceful slide of his hands feeling like they're running over skin instead of through air.

Impossible to look away. Impossible to register. Impossible to breathe.

[theglassheart]

All of his steps gliding into a camel spin, hands clenched together, as the air whips his bangs around the edges of his face, against his ears, and he strains from the top of his head to the flat of his foot. As straight, and level, and smooth as possible. Before dropping down and springing right back up from it.

Half of his elements down, but all of his jumps to come, meaning he's almost there. Almost through the first half, almost to the rise of that challenge. The rigor of placing them all in the second half, increasing all physical wear and exhaustion in the even smaller time window between them. The flying spin, into the first combination sit, again, and for the first time, the last time, the right time. Fingers curved around his calf, back curved, face parallel to his knee, while momentum tore through him again.

Until even that is in movement. His hand switching their hold. Long enough to be clear. Then leg position, for his one required shift. Then, finger curled around his blade, over his back, still crouched. Until he pushes up with the last of his rotation, and demands more speed on the first step back into the crossover coming out of it. Everything, everything in momentum now, even as the crowd starts applauding.

To be coming in fast enough on the triple axel. A burning certainty that never came with any doubt, up and up and up, and down, sliding down, foot behind him cutting the air. To slide right from if into his salchow. A burst of relief that feels overpoweringly hot, flaring through his skin. That he can. That he is. Showing them. This. This is what they came for. What he came back for. What he can do. What Victor has done.

And if they don't care, if they can't see it, can't feel it,


It didn't matter.


It was that simple. That sudden.

As certain as every step and spin that declared it.

Because Victor can. Victor does. Victor who was there. Every morning, and every night. Who was every voice in his head. Who created these moves, and whose face, when he got them right, got all of it right, was better than any sunrise, or snowfall, or award that Yuri had ever even seen his life. Victor, who said he was the only one. The only would who could satisfy him. That he was the only one. The only one, in the whole world, who knew Victor's love.

The only one who Victor called his. A fire burned moniker.
(A glide that sent him forward, fast, knee almost but never touching.)

He didn't need them, if he had that. Had Victor. But. He could prove it to them. Show them.
That they all wanted Victor, but only he had Victor. Only he had what Victor wanted. Just him.

Throw himself to the air for his combination jump. Quad toe loop first, coming down on the one foot, only long enough to thrust back up and into the spin again, for a triple toe loop, and he doesn't know when the roaring became a thunder in the rush of the music, the rush of the air, of his blood.

When his body straightens into a camel, again, but only long enough to slide into the death drop, second combination, without the flying entrance this time. Speed fighting with air, giving up breathing, teeth grinding in the tension, for speed picking up and up and up, the tighter he coils, the harder he holds close, spinning on one blade, so close to the ground. Holding one foot, only to let go, and thrust upward, and backward.

The arc, that pulls him right back into the center, throws his arms and everything in them, out, away, beyond him,
rejected, unwanted, unwelcome to him anymore, and everything he's given out, pulled them in for, to one side,

then to the other, and, then, closed in, on only himself, with the snap of his arms as the music ends.

[fivetimechamp]

It's incendiary. Around him, the crowd is on its feet, thrilled: they can't stop cheering, applauding, calling Yuri's name, and when he slams to a stop, arms wrapped around himself, hair in disarray, flace flushed, taking, taking, taking, a roar runs through the arena that feels like it won't ever stop, and Victor's arms are in the air, head thrown back in a triumphant yell.

Everything they needed to prove, and more. Yuri delivered it all. Seamlessly. Excellently. Setting the rink on fire and carelessly letting it burn, and it was perfect, perfect. Beyond anything Victor's ever seen him do. Meeting every impossible expectation Victor's ever leveled at him, and doing it flawlessly. Owning the program, and himself, absolutely.

Leaving Victor in a state of shock as he watches Yuri bow to the audience, arms spread to accept their cheers and love, and modestly returning it with the grace of a dancer, and he still can't look away. "That was perfect."

Numb surprise, but he shouldn't be surprised, right? He'd known, all along, saw it was possible, knew that if Yuri had the right motivation he could get there, and he did, had, better than Victor could have ever dreamed. Overwhelming him with joy and pride. "Yuri!"

Calling to him, arms open, face beaming.

"The kiss-and-cry's that way."

"Huh?" Knocked from the blissful world where only he and Yuri exist, to see Chris making an exasperated face at him, and pointing back in the direction they came from. Where Yuri's skating, apparently oblivious to Victor and Victor's mistake. "Right. Good luck, Chris!"

Before he's gone, walking quickly, waving to the crowd and to the cameras, smile brilliant, every worry laid to rest. He knew it. And Yuri did it. And they proved it to the whole world.

[theglassheart]

It's dizzying. Those first few seconds. The world is a wash of confused brilliance and his entire body throbbing everywhere, as waves and waves of cheering hit him just as physically as everything in his body pushing outward, while his mouth is gasping air, like he just broke the surface of the ocean.

Things are already being thrown down around him, and he, or his body, or some fluid amalgam between those two, knows what to do next. Slide to the side, one foot behind the other, against the toe pick, and throw his open his arms. Accepting the cheer that just seems to go on and on. And on. Dizzying dots. Heart in his throat. His eyes. The whole audience a blur of movement and colors and screaming. Everything is. More than normal.

His hands still high, with that roar, as he goes sliding toward the open gate waiting for him.

Where Victor -- isn't?

But he isn't hard to find, when Yuri's confused gaze swings to one side and he can spot the rapidly approaching and clarifying brown of his jacket. It means his fingers can clutch the top of the wall and he can let those ragged breaths still demanding to stuff air into his lungs, into the phantom and cement of his body, win for a few longer seconds.

The world is still a roar of sound, but everything narrows, floods, around Victor. Victor. Breathless with the high. (The crash that's already started.) His face more numb than aware of the stretch that had been a smile, that needed more. Even floundering in and out of the focus of his vision, of his thoughts, of his body winded beyond belief. Good enough for the pandemonium of the room, the excrucriating pace of his heart, but not certain where Victor would start this time.

What might have been wrong. (Whether it was good enough for him.)

[fivetimechamp]

His steps become a quick dog trot when he sees Yuri looking for him, skate guards in one hand, tissue box in the other, Yuri's jacket under his arm, the grin on his face threatening to crack straight through to his chest. "Yuri!"

All he can do for a moment is hand Yuri the skate guards, one after another, and wait until he's wiped the snow from his blades and put them on, but it feels like an eternity before Yuri can finally step off the ice and Victor can embrace him, arms tight around his neck, cheek pushed against Yuri's sweat-damp hair. "That was perfect! You were perfect."

It's not even the right word. "Everyone loved it, listen!"

The crowd, still cheering as girls skate around the rink picking up flowers and stuffed toys and small gifts. Still on their feet. Still lit from within. "I knew you could do it."

Every word suffused with proprietary pride. He has known for months. Years. He saw what no one else did: not Celestino, not the fans, not even Yuri himself. He'd always known Yuri was capable of this, that if his confidence was high enough, nothing could stop him, that if he could lift his skill level to meet his artistry, he'd be unforgettable.

Finally pushing back enough to see Yuri's face, laughing, before handing him his jacket and starting the short walk to the kiss and cry. "It's going to be a personal best for you, I know it." There's no way it couldn't be. He's never skated that program like that before. He's never skated that way before.

Arm finding it's way back to Yuri's shoulders, while he waves at the fans who are still cheering them off, feeling like this smile is untouchable, feeling like there's a tiny sun glowing in his chest that won't ever go out. "Let's go see!"

[theglassheart]

Victor swims into view, clearer and clearer, and the smile on his face is better than any of the air Yuri hasn't the faintest clue whether is making it into his body at all, regardless of the work of his mouth, shoulders, and lungs. Even swallowed and swamped it's that single shout of his name that makes everything around it seem that much louder, that much more present.

His pulse is a race, throbbing numbly and too presently, all at once, as he pulls on his skate guards, and steps through the gate, only to have Victor suddenly swallow him next. Arms around his neck and head pressed down against him, and if Yuri was expecting something else, even for the barest, far away, drowned down, flicker, nothing but bubbling relief, getting everywhere, as Victor hugs him with the exuberance Victor does everything.

Yuri is sure his shoulders, are probably being swung around, and his head, maybe even the rest of his body, but all he can tell -- not even sure if the word is feel, again, yet -- is his face pressed into the collar and shoulder of Victor's jacket, his arms might be tight around Victor, fingers in his jacket, but everything is the underwater burble of Victor's tilted American filling his head.

And everything is light. Spacey. Protracted.

Ebbing pain that he knows will return fiercely but isn't now.

Isn't pain. And. Isn't ... whatever it was, that it wasn't anymore. Either.

When Victor pulls back and his face swings into view smiling, mouth moving rapidly. Faster than Yuri's brain is truly caught up to, when Victor is giving him his jacket, and he's pulling it on, looking at the cheering people that Victor is talking about, and toward the girls coming to the edge, bearing handfuls and armfuls of options. When he should pick something and it's a bleary blink before he's reaching for triangular Onigiri plushie.

Tucking his arms around it, like he needs something to do with them or they might just float off into space, away from his shoulders, without any warning. The shoulders Victor has swung an arm around and is directing him with, still shining up at his side, all smile and ebullient tones. A brilliant light silver and white, fuzzed just barely by his vision, the way the sun fuzzes everything if you stare at it straight on.

And like plants under the sun, all Yuri can do is lean into him, follow him.

Sliding down with a thump he thinks he feels more as rebound than landing this time. As the elastic rippling relief of weight off his legs, his knees, his ankles numb in his skates, shifting to the lower part of his spine, compounded at his hips, but even that feels distant, as Victor waves to the crowd, flapping his arms and his hands, and Yuri leans on the small padded object in his lap, stomach trying to curl up as he tries to blink and focus on the screen high above.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri looks shellshocked, too tired and wrung out to respond, but he folds into Victor's hug like that whole performance was a gift just for him, and he follows along when Victor directs him towards the kiss-and-cry, sitting without any argument. Cheeks flushed, hair in disarray, sweat-dislodged bangs that have started falling into his face, and an unconscious grip on an onigiri plushie some lucky fan brought and tossed onto the ice for him.

(He doesn't always remember it, but he does have fans, and Japan is well represented in the seats tonight to cheer on their hometown hero.)

He doesn't resist or seem to pay much attention when Victor sits and pulls him in with an arm around his shoulder, but that's fine: of the two of them, Victor is the one who prefers playing to a crowd, and he waves at the cameras facing them, steals his arm back from Yuri's shoulder to make a heart with his hands, beaming, unable to recall the last time he was so thoroughly pleased, even if Yuri is still looking too tired to be happy with his own performance.

Making Victor slid a fond glance over his shoulder in his direction, amused. "Yuri, did it feel that great?"

Great enough to wipe him out, great enough to remind him of who he is and what he can do? As great as Victor feels?

It should.

[theglassheart]

His water bottle is in his hands. He's not entirely positive when that got passed off. Probably with his jacket. It's nice and solid in his hands, while the world cheers and the Victor is tilting toward him again. Hmm. Or maybe not tilting. But look at him, while the world continues to ebb and flow, dropping him back and back.

The chill of the air on the sweat dripping and drying on his skin, while Victor asks that question and it echoes inside his head. Had he been thinking about how it felt? Had he thought about that at all out there? What it felt like while it was happening?

He'd thought. He'd thought ...

He's too disjointed to blush at the first thoughts to show up.
The brazenness unapologetic -- almost arrogance? -- of them.

It does keep him from looking over immediately to Victor. Certain it'll be all over his face, even if he can't entirely tell what his own expression is at the moment. Can't entirely feel his face, even if he can feel his skin. Beyond that thought, and because of that, mixed up in the rush of whatever it took, whatever path or phrase or words or feelings it became once you were out there. He'd wanted the rest of them to know, didn't he.

How that felt. How it had changed him. How Victor had.
(Having Victor had, at the cost of them all having him.)

"Well--" Cobbles itself together. His first words, the soreness as his ribs expand and his voice vibrates his chest, even without any force behind it. "I was hoping everyone else felt great watching me."

Or the opposite. Or both. It all blurred together, in the rush. It felt like pieces of it were falling out from under his mind and memory. No flaws he could remember. No falling. No lecture from Victor. Yet? But it felt like the Eros he just finished was rooms and rooms away, only seconds of time and years ago, but both beyond his fingers. There'd be videos later. But the score would tell him what it really was.

[fivetimechamp]

It's not long to wait, because no sooner has Yuri finished speaking than Victor catches the change of the screen out of the corner of his eye and turns to see the scores:

Yuri KATSUKI

Technical Elements 58.91
Presentation 47.93

SP SCORE 106.84 PB
RANK 1

He feels like a suddenly filled balloon, hands fisting and elbows thrusting back in triumph, while his smile goes from expectant to incandescent and his palms feel numb from clapping. 106.84 –– a personal best for Yuri, demolishing his previous scores and skyrocketing him into first place.

He knew it. That high technical score could only be brought to life through Yuri's skill. That high presentation score could only come from Yuri's ability to express himself, andhe can no longer containt himself, throws himself at Yuri in a bliss of ecstasy, arms squeezing around his shoulders, temple pressing into his damp hair, the bridge of his nose against Yuri's cheek. "Yuri!"

He did it. They did it. With style, grace, precision, and that particular element that is only Yuri.

He's the only one who could ever skate that program this way.

[theglassheart]

The colors change, from a reflection of them sitting there, into red's and golds, and the audience goes crazy, again. Victor is already moving suddenly beside him, but Yuri still has to squint at the far screen. Leaning forward, elbows dropping onto his thighs, just short of his knees, water hanging between them as disoriented confusion meets with a need greater than it, and the faintest, familiar tendril of dread that springs in through concrete and slowly settling reality.

He really only has time for it to shift mostly into focus -- not really even time to process; he's in first? His. He scored a -- before Victor all but plows into him from the side. Arms circling Yuri tight, from over one shoulder to just below the other, Victor's head meeting his head, cheek, and temple and ear, and he's shouting Yuri's name with the kind of excitement Yuri thinks he's only really heard Victor use to describe food or to talk to Maccachin.

Except it's not that. It's even better than that. It's more somehow.

[fivetimechamp]

Against him, Yuri is nearly limp, still staring at the screen like he thinks the numbers on it are going to dissolve into a laughing face, but Victor doesn't know why he's so surprised. He was superlative, extraordinary, a devil of seduction both passionate and playful. His technical elements were perfect. His performance was sublime.

Of course the judges noticed, and rewarded him. How could they not? How could anyone be anything but swept away? "Of course they'd feel great, watching a performance like that."

There's no room for doubt in any cell of his body, and there shouldn't be in Yuri's, either, but he can't stop smiling and he can't let go of Yuri and he can't douse the thrill of excitement at being in the lead, the only place he knows how to be. And Yuri ––

Yuri has brought them both here. Fought hard, trained well, learned everything he could, and made it his own. It's all overwhelming, dumping bucket after bucket of happiness over Victor's head, making him give Yuri another squeeze. "You're the best student."

Tipping his head against Yuri's, he grins at the cameras in front of them without letting go, gratification in every centimeter of his smile's curve. "You've earned half a katsudon tonight, anyway. You can get the rest tomorrow."

[theglassheart]

He's not sure how he gets there, from one helium balloon to another, without really ever fully touching down to the ground. He's in First Place. He's in First Place. It's not the same as last time. Everything is different here. The level. The skaters. His score is over ten points higher than the last time it jumped. And Victor is still holding on, whispering just beside his ear without touching it, as the crowd goes on, and Yuri stares, trying to even hold it all still.

First. (But there are still three more people to go.

But, Phichit had -- First.)

While Victor calls him the best student, and Yuri's sure some of his blood is remembering how to find his face, even under the wear and tear that makes it feel like his face hasn't given it up entirely, ever, not with the level of the exertion from the routine. But those words. Victor saying all of them near his ear, not letting go. The tuck into the numbers stamping themselves suddenly on the walls of his brain.

It's all fighting up, bubbling, against and under it. Surprise and shock and something tremulously and tremendously bright, like triumph. He did it. He did it. Victor's words about the katsudon, about tomorrow, and what's next, are against realizing their faces are up there again. Every earlier second, a handful he lost to shock, and Victor didn't in the slightest. Victor pressed to him, up there, smiling pure radiant illumination against Yuri's cheek, and he's staring at that, at him, at them, before suddenly realizing he should do ... something.

Freeing up a hand from his bottle, and waving at the camera, even without detaching Victor from over it.
His own smile looks small, even as it breaks, like a laugh at the lateness of itself, while he waves.

A personal best over 100. First. First for -- at least the next while?

He lets his hand drop from its wave onto Victor's arm. "There's still the second group."

[fivetimechamp]

Whatever possessed Yuri to grab his hand and demand his attention in front of all the crowd here and those watching at home seems to have departed and left no trace of itself, but that's all right. It served its purpose, he supposes, pushed Yuri into his best performance yet, and the boy left next to him is the one he knows better, even if it's the one he came to know later. Uncertain of his own ability, even after proving it without a doubt, and worried about the next three skaters to come.

None of whom are likely to be a real threat for the short program, even if Victor bases his assessment on the possible technical scores alone. Of the three, Chris is the only real threat, and he almost never peaks with his short program, preferring to put his best foot forward in the free skate. Added to his usual slow start at the beginning of the season, and Victor would be surprised if he knocked Yuri out of first place tonight.

As for Leo de Iglesia and Georgi ... their programs don't have the technical components to compare to Eros, and neither of them are likely to get anywhere near Yuri's level of PCS points. "I'm not worried about them tonight."

No: Yuri's in first place, and he's likely to stay there, and Victor couldn't be more pleased, but the reporters are clamoring, and they'll have to go answer questions if they want to be able to watch the rest of the performances, so he gets up, hand dropping to Yuri's arm, and tips his head towards the waiting cameras. "We can watch them in the back with the others, but first, I think some people would like to congratulate you on your new personal best."

[theglassheart]

Victor isn't worried, even if Yuri's mind is remembering to, and Victor's right about needing keep moving, there being more to do, and somehow there's nothing under that. Nothing pinches somewhere under his skin, somewhere inside his head. He can just hear it, watch the words roll through his head, and look in the direction Victor's head is pointing him.

It's simple, straightforward, like the sun rising in the morning and setting at night, like snow coming at winter, and plants bursting green in the spring. Just truth. He might be exhausted, as wear settles like an elephant, or twelve, on his body, joints beginning to bloom into an ache everywhere bones are attached to other bones, but he's not done yet.

He needs to go smile for those cameras, as well, and this time to say things.

Yuri passes the water bottle and his new sushi plushie to Victor, before using his hands to lever himself off the bench. He's in First. First, First, First. It's bouncing around his skull. He finally did what Victor wanted, what Victor had been crestfallen about at the Championships. Over 100. And First. It's clouding up his chest.

He doesn't stumble on his way there, but it's hard to say whether he stumbles or not when the questions are being slingshotted at him and the camera light is in his eyes, and his brain won't stop saying first, first, first, while congratulations are first given and then easily left behind, like a party greeting.

Replaced with asking how is feeling now that he's won first by a landslide, and scored a personal best in his first skate at his first Grand Prix Finale qualifier and if he's just as confident the power of his love will carry him through the free skate tomorrow to the gold and does he credit his amazing win to his new coaching from five-time Grand Prix and World Champion Victor Nikiforov?

(The answer is . . . )

(The answer is even more . . .)

(The answer is of course, he does.)

He's not positive any of the answers from his mouth are anywhere as clear. Except the last one.

The relief is palpable when the attention turns to the cueing up of the second group, and Yuri is given the heads up to go on. Even though he's pretty positive the guy holding the camera is giving him an expression Yuri can't entirely parse, something that is confusion and sympathy and something else. Still, two steps away and he's out from under their gaze, and the light of the camera, stepping back to Victor who is waiting.

[fivetimechamp]

He hangs back to let Yuri get the spotlight, as he should, and just watches with a smile on his face and his arms full of the onigiri plushie, the poodle tissue box, and Yuri's water bottle, and it's a little bit of a strange feeling, honestly, but he thinks it's a good one, watching someone else answer questions and blink against the photographer's flashes.

Besides, Yuri is doing fine. He's obviously too tired to think clearly, but he answers politely and modestly, exactly the way he should when there are still three other skaters to come. Even if everyone knows it would take a miracle to bump him from first place tonight. Even if it would seem like the height of vanity to say so.

But he looks relieved when the next group finishes their warm-up, and Georgi is being announced, so he can squirm his way out from under their peering eye, and Victor sidles between him and the reporters and interviewers, smiling and waving and brushing off their questions with the ease of long practice.

Is he proud of Yuri's performance today? Absolutely, he was as blown away as everyone else who saw it was.

Does he think the competition that's left is stiff enough to steal Yuri's current first-place position? They're all excellent skaters, he's looking forward to watching them do their best, just as Yuri did.

This program was such a departure from Katsuki's usual style, where did the inspiration for it come from? Well, he's seen great potential in Yuri's skating to go far beyond what he had attempted before, and between the two of them they had created a program to maximize his strengths and show off his technical ability as well as his artistry.

Which is the last question he answers before he ushers Yuri into the waiting room where Phichit and Guang-hong are watching Georgi's Carabosse routine, but splits off, briefly, to set their things down and move over to chat quiet with Celestino, who gives him a grin and a pat on the shoulder that Victor returns.

They've done all they can do, today, and tomorrow isn't here yet: might as well congratulate each other on a brilliant start.

[theglassheart]

Yuri flounders for a few seconds when he's looking at the other two and Victor peels away, all decisive stride and light steps still. Back toward Celestino, and the night before flickers for a second, but it doesn't come up far.

It's an uncertain floating feel between his head and his legs, but he drifts over to the two watching the skate. Maybe he's expecting more, but even when they look up, and Phichit grins unchecked and Guang-Hong looks a touch crestfallen, neither look long, and it only takes a second to realize why.

Georgi on the screen is a sight that even he can't look away from once he spots it. There's ... Yuri isn't even sure about what the words are. It's flamboyant. Almost to the edge of mania. All fast movements, that are technically clean, but the expressions. They're ---

It's Phichit who whispers, "Is he crying?" and they all peer closer.

Guang-Hong voice almost a lament saying, "He's really into his theme."

There's a moment searching his memory, but Yuri can't remember what that theme was, but there's something painful about watching the routine on the screen coming to an end. Something painful, something desperate and sad.

[fivetimechamp]

There's some chatter from the skaters clustered around the tv about first Georgi's and then Leo's short programs, but Victor only needs to glance at the scores to know he was right and neither of them are going to be offering up a challenge today. Tomorrow will be a different story, but that's tomorrow: right now, he waves to Celestino (who seems to be a little off-kilter today, himself, and keeps shooting Victor annoyed looks) and wanders over to join Yuri and the others as Chris takes the ice.

Chris. No shrinking violet, in his shimmering catsuit, with choreography that looks as if it was taken directly out of a strip club, and Victor's amused as he leans in to wrap his right arm around Yuri's waist, left hand cupping the inside of his shoulder so Victor can settle his chin on Yuri's shoulder and rest his cheek against the side of Yuri's head, while on the screen, Chris' quad turns into a triple. His laugh is a quiet huff of amusement: Chris is good, and he's widely regarded as a sex symbol among their community, and Victor can't say it doesn't have its appeal, but he prefers the fiery, playful passion of the skater he's currently using as a full-sized body pillow to Chris' overt sensuality.

On the television, Chris recovers, and Victor snorts a breath of fond laughter. "He said he wasn't finding motivation, but Chris never goes into a major slump." Which is what he'd said before, earlier. Even when he was competing, Chris never started the season off as strongly as he ended it. "He's a slow starter, so he doesn't try to peak in the main event."

Amused, as Chris sweeps about the ice to a throbbing, sultry song: "But today he's really going all out on sex appeal."

Not that it matters. A totally different animal from Eros, where the chase is part of the point, and passion's fickle nature is both highlighted and criticized. Chris lays it all out there for anyone to see or have, there's no subtlety to it anywhere, and he can't agree when Yuri says Chris won the day's sex appeal award, though he pats Yuri's shoulder encouragingly. It doesn't matter: he was right. Nothing those three did was enough, and now?

Now they'll fight their way to the top.

[theglassheart]

Victor is very suddenly very much everywhere.

There's an arm lopping his waist. Another catching his shoulder. Victor's chin on his shoulder. Yuri knows he should jump. Any other time he'd jump. He was shaking last night. The thought is almost academic there, but the idea of moving toward it, jumping, is exhausting even. He's not entirely sure he can feel his body, and it's not all that different from Victor throwing himself around his shoulders a few minutes ago on camera.

It's almost orienting more than the disorientation he expects. Weight in his toes, on his shoulders. It doesn't entirely stop that his cheeks flush a little, the very tops of themselves when Victor's cheek brushes his as he settles. Yuri's eyes only shifting over enough to catch the pale of his skin and silver-grey of his hair, before he shifts back to watching Chris Giacometti, missing the two pairs of eyes lingering on them first.

Chris' outfit is more aggressive and sexier than Yuri could even dream of having the confidence to wear. It's shimmers everywhere, every time he moves, drawing the eyes to every part and angle of his body that catches the light. The whole thing makes his stomach coil tighter and even as it makes him want to curl in, he leans back slightly, into the weight of Victor, watching the comparison of what he'd done at a completely different level.

One he wasn't positive he could ever touch, no less pretend he could be.

It doesn't matter that the elements are downgrading from expected, Chris has set the audience and the ice on fire. The flush of his cheeks and the sensuous movements of his body above and beyond that. There's no way everyone watching that wasn't moved. Even he was. Phichit looks in shock, Guang-Hong's hands are at his mouth, and Victor might only be commenting on his elements, but that can't be the only thing he sees either.

Not Victor who has been skating beside Chris since Chris joined the senior division.
There's absolutely no way that Victor can't feel it, like all of them here, all the audience out there.

"I guess today's sex appeal award goes to Chris," Yuri says glumly, while Victor's hand is patting his far shoulder. "Even the ice looks soaking wet."

They stand there, waiting. The four of them, as Chris and his coach appear in the kiss-and-cry next, and then the screen bars finally blink into place. Yuri staring for what feels like an insanely, confused moment at the Rank 5, especially as Chris is on his feet playing to the adoring crowd like it's the exact opposite of that number.

All of it startles a soft sound of true surprise from Yuri's mouth, "Huh?"

Chris didn't displace him, and if Chris didn't --

"Then, am I--" First? He was still in First?

[fivetimechamp]

As the roar from the crowd goes up at the realization, Victor gives Yuri a squeeze, grinning into his cheek, saying "I knew you could do it!" before letting go to run interference with the reporters and cameras until Yuri is ready to talk to them.

Hearing Phichit say he's gunning to pass Yuri tomorrow in the free skate, and walking past a determined-looking Leo de Iglesia and his coach, there's a sea of tossed congratulations and an exuberant feeling of accomplishment saturating the air. No one is going to feel like they're out of the running after the short program, with the much higher possible scores of the free skate to come, so the skaters are effervescent and optimistic, congratulating each other and posing for selfies before heading out to talk to the cameras waiting outside.

For his part, Victor can't stop smiling, even if he tries to make it look like he knew this would be the result all along. Is he surprised that Yuri is currently in first place? No, he is not: he's always known Yuri had the ability to do as well as he had today. Does their success in the short program make him pleased with his decision to turn to coaching? Well, he'd already been pleased with it, but this is nice, too. Is being back at the rink during a competition enough to make him want to come back as a competitor himself? It's good to be back, and interesting to be on the other side of the wall during the perfomances, and, look! Here's Yuri! Please focus on him, after that outstanding performance.

Stepping to the side, alight with pride, as Yuri stammers through his answers, steadily gaining steam and confidence, even if his voice shakes a little when he declares they'll win together tomorrow with the power of love, making Victor step into frame, beaming genially and tossing up victory symbols. "Win, win!"