He loves this story they built together, wrote together. Yuri's story, everything he could pour pain and loneliness and disappointment into, back when he was frustrated and felt he was fighting alone. Every wistful dream he was convinced he fell short of achieving, every attempt and failure at climbing to the top.
The flurry of confusion and cautious hope, a flash of skates and growing confidence in jumps, representing when he showed up and offered to be Yuri's coach. The uncertain dance they took until that morning at the beach.
(I won't go easy on you. That's how I show my love.)
The calm centering of the piece as Yuri realizes something like love, understands that it's been there for him this whole time: from his parents, his sister; Yuuko and her family. Minako. Phichit. Even Celestino.
And Victor, of course. Always from Victor. (How could Yuri think he would want to quit? How could Yuri ever believe, even for a second, that Victor could leave?
He's never loved anything, or anyone, the way that he loves Yuri.)
His heart aching through this step sequence, as Yuri realizes his own potential, bolstered by the support and love of his family and friends. Inspired by his love for them. Minako's hard work evident in every clean line and perfect grace of motion. Yuuko's friendship and encouragement in his ease on the ice, the stamina he's built up because he's always had a place to train, where he felt safe and secure, where he could work through everything racing through his head and attacking his heart. Victor, too: there in the technique and precision. Every time he fixed an element, or lectured Yuri on finding the depth beneath the choreography, or helped him come to understand his own feelings.
(In the front rows, audience members are applauding with tears in their eyes, but he can't, can't, can't, can't let anything blur his view of this ––)
All of it the perfect build-up to the toe l ––
Yuri soars into the air, and there's a belated second before realization hits, showering a frisson of ice followed by fire and a sheeting wave of goosebumps across his skin as Victor's heart stops with a jolt that makes that crash landing look soft by comparison. Feeling it like a car wreck. Momentum slamming into a sudden brick wall of shock, dropping his jaw.
Was that ––
That was a ––
A flip?
A quad flip?
His flip?
The audience on their feet, screaming. Something in his head smashed open, yelling. Something in his chest –– that thing, that traitorous, impossible thing, that heart of his that hasn't obeyed him now for almost two years, that breathed hope into impossibility and acceptance into disappointment and never stopped, never fixed itself, kept limping along, kept reaching out, kept glowing at Yuri's smiles and exploding at Yuri's triumphant pleasure at getting it perfect, kept breaking at Yuri's frustration with himself and bleeding alone in the dark when he couldn't sleep and reminding him with pictures and videos he kept trying not to look at or watch ––
Cracking. Like a heart made of glass, tapped with a hammer. A solid line racing straight through it, the caught breath before it shatters.
That's his. That's his. That's his. His signature. His jump. The technique he made his own, that the world sees and knows is him. Viktor Nikiforov written across the ice in broad strokes for everyone to see.
At the end of Yuri's love story, at the final moment, is ...
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zaluzianskya and ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
skylark_photos
no subject
Date: 2017-04-10 12:42 pm (UTC)The flurry of confusion and cautious hope, a flash of skates and growing confidence in jumps, representing when he showed up and offered to be Yuri's coach. The uncertain dance they took until that morning at the beach.
(I won't go easy on you. That's how I show my love.)
The calm centering of the piece as Yuri realizes something like love, understands that it's been there for him this whole time: from his parents, his sister; Yuuko and her family. Minako. Phichit. Even Celestino.
And Victor, of course. Always from Victor. (How could Yuri think he would want to quit? How could Yuri ever believe, even for a second, that Victor could leave?
He's never loved anything, or anyone, the way that he loves Yuri.)
His heart aching through this step sequence, as Yuri realizes his own potential, bolstered by the support and love of his family and friends. Inspired by his love for them. Minako's hard work evident in every clean line and perfect grace of motion. Yuuko's friendship and encouragement in his ease on the ice, the stamina he's built up because he's always had a place to train, where he felt safe and secure, where he could work through everything racing through his head and attacking his heart. Victor, too: there in the technique and precision. Every time he fixed an element, or lectured Yuri on finding the depth beneath the choreography, or helped him come to understand his own feelings.
(In the front rows, audience members are applauding with tears in their eyes, but he can't, can't, can't, can't let anything blur his view of this ––)
All of it the perfect build-up to the toe l ––
Yuri soars into the air, and there's a belated second before realization hits, showering a frisson of ice followed by fire and a sheeting wave of goosebumps across his skin as Victor's heart stops with a jolt that makes that crash landing look soft by comparison. Feeling it like a car wreck. Momentum slamming into a sudden brick wall of shock, dropping his jaw.
Was that ––
That was a ––
A flip?
The audience on their feet, screaming. Something in his head smashed open, yelling. Something in his chest –– that thing, that traitorous, impossible thing, that heart of his that hasn't obeyed him now for almost two years, that breathed hope into impossibility and acceptance into disappointment and never stopped, never fixed itself, kept limping along, kept reaching out, kept glowing at Yuri's smiles and exploding at Yuri's triumphant pleasure at getting it perfect, kept breaking at Yuri's frustration with himself and bleeding alone in the dark when he couldn't sleep and reminding him with pictures and videos he kept trying not to look at or watch ––
Cracking. Like a heart made of glass, tapped with a hammer. A solid line racing straight through it, the caught breath before it shatters.
That's his. That's his. That's his. His signature. His jump. The technique he made his own, that the world sees and knows is him. Viktor Nikiforov written across the ice in broad strokes for everyone to see.
At the end of Yuri's love story, at the final moment, is ...