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

[theglassheart]

If Yuri thought the night before this one never ended, he was wrong. It's this newest night that feels like it never ends. Oppressive, pressing, darkness, digging into his eyes, his mouth, his nose, his ears, while Victor breathed heavy and easy in the adjoining bed. Yuri had tried to sleep. Turning this way, turning that way, staring at the backs of his eyelids toward the ceiling, pressing his face into his pillow. He tried and tried and tried (and most of all found himself trying not to let his breathing race so fast it might wake Victor).

The evening had been bearable, if not entirely enjoyable or unenjoyable. Less stressful than the one before it, if only marginally, while Phichit and Victor drug him from place to place. Too late for museums or anything with middaytime, there had been rather quick tours through the Yu Garden, the Oriental Pearl Tower, and the Jade Buddha Temple, and in the cases of closed doors, pictures with their iconic buildings. As well as everything else that looked interesting between them.

It took forever, and then it was just over.

He'd enjoyed some of it, but none of it stuck for long.
Not even the late calls from his family and Yuu-san had.

Not with the Free Skate looming. Not with every single person he was skating with gunning for where he was standing, and every person watching wondering if he could somehow pull out o f himself the miraculous performance that had seemed to come from almost nowhere. Like it hadn't even belonged to him. How many times had he performed Eros and it'd never been that?

How badly would it be when (if - when) tomorrow couldn't match it?
What would they say about him, then? What would they say about Victor, then?

Yuri would fall asleep only to startle awake what could only have been seconds later, nerves sharpening with each new jolt, until it felt like ice was splintering more and stabbing up harder through every part of his veins, until each second asleep seemed to only contain the certainty he would fall, he would fail, he would forget. He could never reach whatever he'd touched for that brief two minutes and eighteen seconds.

It'd been a fluke. He'd only dreamed it. He couldn't explain it. He couldn't sleep.
Every minute in that dark reaching, but, also, clutching his pillow.
Eyelids clenched tight, or eyes open, staring at the other bed.


Over and over, he counted his breaths down.
Over and over, he repeated that he had and he could.
Over and over, he told himself this was all in his head.

Over and over, he slipped right back as soon as it finished.




That morning comes at all only changes the color of the sky.

Breakfast is a blur, piling food into himself, like maybe it would give him any solidness. Weigh him to the seat, to the ground, to reality. It should be impossible, but his head feels even heavier than his body. Hot water had shaken some tension from his skin, but none at all from his mind. It hadn't mattered whether he was in the bed, in the shower, in a booth, at a table.

His foot tapped under the table, all the way up to his knee and thigh, and in the moments he could make himself stop, his fingers drum against the side of his thigh or the seat instead. Desperate to try and keep it from Victor's sight, when Victor won't stop looking at him, smiling like that, talking about how Eros was perfect, and what he should do as soon as they arrived at practice.

How would he look when he realized Yuri couldn't reproduce what he done. Couldn't even look at the things that compounded to get him there. Words Victor'd said, but entirely in a different way than he'd said them. That Yuri'd blown them out of proportion and reality out there, during Eros. What would he do if Yuri couldn't place at all?

What would he do when everyone no longer was cheering his name as the reason Yuri had done so well? When there would only be that gut-wrenching pity on every face and Victor's name was smeared with his failures the same as his already was? Why was he even going to put himself through that? Why was Yuri?





Practice is a comedy of uncertainty.
He doesn't even want to return to the wall and Victor during it.

His feet hardly feel like they belong to his body, and thinking about love doesn't produce his love, his family, Hasetsu, or Victor, it brings up more and more knots in his guts. It tears up the ice under him with images of last year, of every fall, of every day spent in his bed, avoid being awake, avoiding the rink, Celestino, Phichit. The flip of what that could -- will -- look like again.

Except at home. Except with his parents, and Minako, and Yuu-san, and his family.

Their sad faces, their disappointment, as Victor's back went vanishing away in the background of his loss.

Even the ease of his long earned and long loved turns seems to be slipping from him when his focus won't pull itself together. At full speed it makes it a fumble of something he hasn't fumbled in half his life, even if he doesn't fall. It's better the next time, and gone the third, but it still there. He can do this. He can. He's done it how many hundreds and thousands of times.

It makes him sloppy. It makes him reckless. It makes him stubborn. It makes him hesitate.

It ends all too soon. The alarm sounding for them to come in, and he trails in.

Comments

[fivetimechamp]

Georgi's music is tinny through the wall of the stairwell as they climb back up, but Victor's not listening to it, anyway. Was that the right thing to do? He doesn't know. Should he have even opened his mouth at all?

You don't need to say anything!

Whether Yuri meant that or not, they've both lapsed into silence, now, but it's a troubled one on Victor's part. He should have prepared for this somehow, or guessed that it might happen. If Yuri had woken up this morning with a broken wrist, or a cough, or a sudden inability to remember his choreography, he would have known something was wrong, right? How had he been caught so off guard?

Yuri had done so well yesterday. He'd been sublime, yesterday. Victor thought he knew how well he'd done, and that it would bolster his confidence. How could he have predicted it might have the opposite effect? But he should have. He's Yuri's coach. He's let those lines get too blurred, and it ended up harming Yuri today, and whatever Yuri says about only needed Victor to stand by him and have faith, he'd done this wrong.

Up through the green room now, Yuri's face is dry, but his eyes are red and puffy, and Victor's throat feels swollen and painful every time he swallows, like there's some clump of razor blades down there he can't figure out how to breathe past. He's keeping their pace slow and steady, and he only lets go to find the water bottle Yuri hadn't been able to open earlier and the tissue box that is sadly not as comforting as the real Maccachin would be while Yuri put on his skates. Georgi's music is an aggressive swell as they head in towards the rink, and he wishes it didn't sound like such an accusation.

I'll save you now, really?

But they're approaching the end of the line, now, and there's nothing else to do when the music ends and Georgi bows but take up his spot at the rink wall, and try to figure out what he can say now.

As if there were some last-minute confidence to impart into Yuri. As if he knew what to say at all.

(He probably should have asked Yakov what to do in situations like this.)

[theglassheart]

That hand stays on his shoulder, as they walk back up the stairs. Victor quiet and present, a weight hovered at his back and his side, while Yuri wipes at his eyes, and cheeks, and chin, with his fingers, and hands, and the cuffs of his jacket. He probably doesn't have time to splash water on his face, and he doesn't want to ask.

He's not sure if there's a point, while their steps echo up the stairwell the same way they'd echo'd down. The same silence, but it feels different. When Victor beside him, looked at only in the barest glance now and again, is silent. He might not have been talking the whole time earlier, but this is different. Victor, hidden behind the curtain of his bangs, and his face a quiet seriousness and distance.

One Yuri doesn't know the shape or sound of. What it means. Only that he made it. He did, didn't he?

He shouldn't have yelled, but somehow, he's not sure he's sorry either. Which is just an impossible feeling. A curious, empty, impossible feeling that stretches and stretches in the question of itself across the space of his thoughts. Ready and waiting for the shame and recrimination, the doubts and second guesses, that will land on him and swallow him for that. But it doesn't come.

He really doesn't have the time to ask why, because the dividing curtain is moved, and they are walking outside of the practice area. Georgi is on the ice, in the middle or end of his routine, all straight shoulders, more dignity, and grace than Yuri remembers from what little he could remember of watching Georgi yesterday. But his eyes don't stay there either. He finds a bench and starts putting on his skates. There's only minutes.

Only minutes as that music comes to a close and a cheer goes up.

A breeze ruffling his skin, but his fingers on his laces only hesitate for the barest breath.

Then he's pushing up, looking up long enough to see the disappointed curve of Georgi's shoulders as he says something to Yakov that isn't relayed on the big screen the way the third place marking is. Third. He's in third and Yuri has absolutely no real clue who is in any of the other four places. None at all. No idea how well or badly they did, or at what. It's a strange thought. A strange feeling, elastic and formless, but touching everything, when he hands off his jacket and steps onto the ice.

Simple stroked steps sending him over to where Victor is waiting by the wall. Skates guards, tissues, water bottle and this face. This troubled face like Victor, himself, had done something wrong that. He looked so ... young. Uncertain. Lost. Frustrated. Guilty. Yuri continued to look at him as he took one of the tissues from the box and blew his nose. Something answering, even from the rung dry state of himself.

Something quiet, exhausted and exasperated, and ... fond? ... was it fond? Fond ... and almost sad? ... when he crumpled the tissue. He held it out, watching Victor's hand dropp like a mechanism. More reflex than thought, and before he could second guess the nature of the inspiration, Yuri moved his hand.

Inches to the side of where he'd been only right over Victor's hand, and dropped his tissues toward the ice.

[fivetimechamp]

Around them, the rink is hushed in anticipation: Georgi's scores put him in third place, but Victor has no idea where anyone else stands. It's not something he's cared much about, in the last few years, and it feels strange to have his mind run up against those thoughts like a wall.

Not that it matters. All Yuri has to do is skate the way Victor knows he can, the way he has been skating when it's just the two of them and the music and the story they've been telling together.

At least Yuri looks a little more pulled together, now. He's still pale and his eyes are still red, but for the first time today, he looks calm and focused, and Victor is a little envious. Crying might have made Yuri feel better, but it had the opposite effect on Victor. Reminded him he doesn't know what he's doing, as a coach, and that as much as he'd thought he was helping Yuri, maybe he'd been wrong the whole time.

But he still knows to hold out first the tissue box, and then his gloved hand for the used tissue, but he's not expecting Yuri to suddenly move his hand and drop the ball of tissue towards the ice, sending Victor over in an ungainly, graceless lurch to catch it before it hits, teetering over the rink wall with his toes just touching the ground. It's a second before he can even get his balance back without topping head over heels and crashing facefirst into the ice, but just as he's about to stand up, there's the pressure of a finger on the top of his head, right where his hair parts.

"Huh?"

(I can't recover from this.)

It's only a second, and then Yuri's finger lifts, to be replaced by the flat of his palm, and then it lifts, too, and Victor watches his skates move away, before finally levering himself back up to standing, hand on his head where Yuri's had just patted his hair. That spot he's afraid is thinning. Poking at his vanity, teasing him ... now?

After everything that just happened?

Blinking, while the announcer informs the crowd that on the ice, representing Japan: Yuri Katsuki! and they lift in a cheer, but Victor barely hears it.

What on earth was that?

[theglassheart]

Victor's hair is soft against his finger, and then his palm, in the soft pat,
and for a moment he almost regrets that he's not going to see Victor's face.

Not going to know if Victor gets it. Wondering if even he does . Anything more than a seconds brush of contact to intimate a million things his mouth can't, and didn't. That there is no time for now. He won't see the face that comes up, not when he's already shifting his weight to push off. His minutes are down to seconds now. He has to skate. He has to try and show the world. His love. The story they wrote together.

But he won't leave Victor looking entirely so alone, so adrift, so apart. He isn't.
Whatever he is, they are, even now, especially now ... it isn't that.

Yuri knows better than all of those things, even if he's only just thinking them as he comes across the ice. A long fluid movement and the soft hiss of ice, backed by a roar of cheering that coasts over every inch of his thoughts, his hearing, his self as slides into his starting position. Closing his eyes. One foot behind the other, hands down and fingertips all but not touching his thighs.

Face tipped down and he breathes. Out. In again. Feeling it fill down and down into him, nothing stopping it. The music starts and he breathes through it, hands lifting in time to it. Muscles answering the music and his own direction, with an almost disorienting amount of ease. Everything flowing, upward, and ... there's so much s p a c e. In his head. In his skin. In the music.

He felt so much better after crying. And Victor's expression when that had started. Had he ever seen Victor so shocked? It seemed priceless now. Now, removed. Now, flickering against the glide of the first easy spins, turning his mouth. The beginning of this story. He'd cried after a competition before. Several. Most, even. But not before. Never before a competition. Everything was so spaced out, and he was already coming into his first jump.

A glide that turned out his combination quad toe loop, and then a double toe loop, with even surprising ease. The effort was there -- he still had to throw himself off the ice, catch himself, continue, right into the same again -- but not the wall he'd slammed into earlier. He trailed straight through it. Surprise and relief like twins settling on his shoulder, trailing in the icy air between his temples and his hair, buoying up something warmer in his chest. The smoothness rounding out all of his still slower beginning movements.

As the music began to only slowly introduce the more and more complicated strains. Of Love. This paths he'd taken.

[yuri_plisetsky]

Seven thousand kilometers and five time zones away, Yuri is standing in the cafe at the Sports Champions Club.



So he'd forgotten to watch most of the China Cup free skate. Not that he particularly wanted to watch Georgi vomit his toxic soup of emotions all over the unfortunate people of Shanghai, but Yakov had told him to keep an eye on Giacometti -- that oversexed brick of a Swiss who'd been chasing Viktor for most of their careers -- in particular as a likely competitor for the Grand Prix Final. He'll have to pull up the videos on his phone later; if he catches the tail end of the free skate, at least, it won't be an outright lie to Yakov that he'd been watching it live.

The cafe serves a reasonably cheap and healthy menu, and after more than an hour going over his own free skate step sequence his body is screaming for food. A hot bowl of borscht, the specialty of the little old Ukrainian chef who runs her cafe's kitchen with the wonderfully soulless efficiency of a missile production factory, is exactly what he needs. And Baba's there already, watching the free skate with that friend of hers from Tomsk whose name Yuri can never remember -- Petru-something, maybe, or maybe not -- and so Yuri can hang back and keep half an eye on the television.

And of course, because he has the best luck these days, he's just in time to see the cameras follow Katsudon as he glides into position.

Yuri on Ice. Stunningly imaginative.

Even the best camera work is no comparison for watching a performance live at the rink, but Yuri's eyes focus on Katsudon's skates as he starts in on his routine, queuing up his first couple of jumps (ha, quad salchow, so you finally figured it out, Katsudon?). His movements look cleaner than they were in Hasetsu, true, and right now he's in the top spot, but there's still time for him to choke.

The borscht isn't going anywhere.

[fivetimechamp]

It doesn't make sense. Yuri was just a mess, sobbing in the garage, but now he's ... smiling? Why is he smiling?

Out there, in the middle of the rink, slipping into Yuri on Ice like he'd never even skipped a beat, and if Victor hadn't just seen him break down, if Victor hadn't just heard him yell all his fears into the echoing shadows and a fleet of innocent cars, he would never have guessed that Yuri had even second's worth of self-doubt.

Which is ... good? Right? All he's wanted all day was for Yuri to relax, and now he is. Out there, moving like water, opening steps into the first jump combination –– quad toe loop, double toe loop –– which he nails. Makes it look easy. Makes it look beautiful. Whatever happened down there, whatever Yuri needed to say and said, or needed to hear, or didn't, it seems to have snapped the tension that's been stringing through him all day. If anything, he looks more relaxed now, in these steps between his jumps, than Victor's ever seen him.

Taking off for the quad Salchow, that's he hit right on the money yesterday: gorgeous, again, and Victor's arms shoot into the air in triumph. Making it look easy. Making it look like breathing. Making it look like everything Victor always knew he could, as Yuri's soul shines bright across the ice, brilliant as a spotlight, candle-warm. "Perfect, Yuri!"

[theglassheart]

Victor's too inexperienced as a coach. It's not like his mental weakness started now. Not like it wasn't there before now. Not like it wasn't there for all of the years he trained with Celestino. He should have been prepared for this much. Stupid Victor.

Yuri's feet touch the ground in more realization, catching his weight and turning it into momentum, than any realization that he'd gone into his jump. The salchow landed, without quite thinking about it beginning. Surprise that he'd made it, surprise that he'd simply gone straight through it. That everything in him knew where he should be going, what it should be doing. That his thoughts are a ribbon of surprise, without shock, without recourse, as his fingers wrap his back and his camel spins level.

Each piece flows into the next, the music filling his mind. The triple loop brings a flare of applause, of release, and it's such a relief while his hands are thrown out and his face is up, eyes briefly closing, to just let himself go with it. Smooth all the way down, as the music draws out, and he lowers, hands coming down across his body as his legs spread and his back one nearly, but never, touches the ice behind him.

Ebbs into a handful of delicate turns, cross-backing the ice, to match the gentle tinkle of the piano keys.

The triple axel starts well enough, but the counterbalance proves that wrong barely the second later on landing when it's all he can do to make sure it's only his hand that touches down. To push himself back up, press himself back into the ramping music. It went well enough, for not having practiced it at all earlier. But still. It's a frisson of clarity coming with the first blaring error, and the need for something else to push it from there.

Especially as his focus and precision sharpens, pressing the edges, riding control and demand, and the triple flip next is perfect. Again. The crowds cheering, but he's stuck with a thought from the far edge. Because. What if. How would Victor react if he made the last quad toe loop a flip instead?

Barely enough time to think it before, he's sliding across the length for his last combination. To get enough space, enough distance, enough speed to start. The triple axel is perfect that time, but the jump into the single loop isn't, and it sends his loop into an overrotation. One where he does catch his weight without overbalancing, but while eradicating the trained leap into his triple salchow. But.

No. No. It was overrotated, but he's not as tired as he should be having not slept.
He's not tired and he's not done. He's not giving up now.

There's a cross-back only one length and the speed to throw himself into a triple lutz.

Not stop. Not slowing. Only letting one foot, then the other touchdown, before he's back up for a triple toe loop, too.

[fivetimechamp]

The triple loop is perfect, too. The edge of the rink wall digging into Victor's stomach as he leans against it, gloved hand at his mouth, elbow balancing on his forearm, watching Yuri somehow knock out his best performance yet, picking up momentum like each element is energizing, not fatiguing. The lunge, into the spread eagle, followed by the Ina Bauer, achingly beautiful.

This love letter they wrote together. The one he tattooed even beneath that, putting in every gorgeous held position he could think of to showcase the beauty of Yuri's skating, the way he holds himself, how it seems like every note is being written across the ice and in the air by his blades and his hands and his body. The appeal of it, that maybe even Yuri doesn't see or recognize, but fills each movement with the sore perfection of love. (Unrequited and impossible. Discovered for the first time. Finally recognized.) Textbook lines, graceful extension, deep edges, sending him soaring around the rink as the music pauses, allows for a breath.

Not just for Yuri. For him. For the audience. Everyone enrapt, and Victor can't quite place what's different about it, until Yuri tosses himself into his triple axel (a hand down on the ice, and an accompanying grip of fear in Victor's chest) and there's a sudden explosion of applause that's so surprising he thinks it must have been silent, before. Has he ever heard a rink full of skating fans go completely silent, before?

But there's no more time to breathe, now, because they've reached the halfway point, and the jump combinations are up, and somehow Yuri still doesn't even look tired. Not even when he over-rotates and double-foots the landing of his triple Salchow, and Victor shakes off his own disappointment and swallows down the stomach that's trying to make a run for his throat –– triple lutz?

And a toe loop? He's changing the jump elements again, this late in the game?

Victor can barely feel his own hands at his face, can't feel anything except the rush of being caught along with this performance. With Yuri, heading now into the climactic step sequence like he's never made a mistake in his life, everything from seconds ago washed aside already. Still chasing perfection, as he heads into the final moments of this absurd skate, and the celebration of the love all around him.

Certainly the audience loves him. At least, Victor thinks so, or would, if he hadn't stopped paying attention to them two minutes ago.

[theglassheart]

They both land soundly, and he won't know about perfectly until later, but there's no more time, when he's chasing the music, for the seconds that passed to take those, into the step sequence that follows. Certainty already settling in around him, as he moves into them with the absolution they were made for.

Each step of his feet weave the story of the complicated dance his life has become since he labeled it love all those months ago. His home, and his family, and Victor. The foundation under him. The support behind him. Always pushing him forward, but never demanding more than he could give. Never doubting him, even when all he seemed to do was doubt himself.

He wanted to be stronger. He could be stronger. He could surpass even Victor's wildest imaginings.

All of himself that he ever could be he pushed into it. Every sharp spin, every faster step, every sudden high-speed bracket turn, every twist of his arms and sinuous follow through with his body, while his feet moved. Never stopped moving. Faster and faster, toward what could only be one thing. No longer a question. Not when he pushes off from the ground and no part of him is questioning how it will end, is even thinking about that part.

He's slammed the ice more times than he can count in his life. They all have. It's part of this. But he never thinks about that part of it. No more than a breath in thinks about the breath out. Not even when he knows that an attempt, of this scale, in this place, without a cent of practice is certainly not going to have the miracle landing to match his earlier perfect triple flip.

Except into the ice.


Except, it wasn't even about that.

It was about the perfect expression how he felt. Beyond words.




It wasn't about fault, or forgiveness.

He wasn't mad or sad because of Victor.

Everything about Victor sent him higher and higher.
Everything about Victor made him so much stronger.



All of everything else slipped away, every small and great error, the crying and yelling, every silence and every word and every thought, and it felt perfect, in the air. It was in his blood (Victor) and his ears (Victor) and his whole body (Victor). Victor in every part of him, always lifting him up, spreading him out, sending him flying higher and higher, making him want to show that he could be even more than that, could exceed every wish ever shared, dream ever dreamt, in from every darkness turned to light.

What came right after that moment couldn't hold a candle to that second twisting in air.

Not the excruciating obliteration of air as the pain slammed his hip, his side, his thigh, trying to relocate his bones into his ribcage. Not the desperate thought to get back on his feet nownownow. Not the way the whole arena, the whole world, had seem to have drawn in a shocked breath, silencing everything to a death pall, before pandemonium exploded around him.

Not when he can't look up (not yet). He can't look out (not yet).
He has to follow the music, back to the center (not yet).
Has to finish first (not yet).

Spin (not yet), and drop (not yet), and follow his hand right back up (not yet).

Throw them out wide, even as his heart is racing every hard thundered sprinting beat for the coming second, to match the screaming all around him, all but drowning out the end of his music, when he can finally draw his arm and his hand out across his body to look to where Victor is at his closing pose. Gasps for air demanding a focus he can barely feel and feels in every single inch of his body, more alive in this second than maybe ever before in his life.

[yuri_plisetsky]

The television is the cafe is an old one, and the volume on it isn't turned up very high, so the cascading piano notes that accompany the step sequence sound thin and tinny against the bare walls and floor. But even with the poor quality of the music, the flurry of flashing blades seem to ring out with a music of their own for those who have eyes to see it...and Yuri finds that his mouth has gone strangely dry, and his nails are digging into the thin fabric covering his palms.

This isn't the teasing seductiveness of Eros, where even months of work haven't quite been able to wipe away the impressions of Viktor's fingerprints all over it. Something entirely different is spilling out of this free skate, unwinding like bright ribbons across the glittering ice of a rink half a world away, and not even a certain amount of unevenness in the execution is enough to unravel the story woven into every turn and gesture, from the tensely gathered moment of an approach to the sweeping extension of an arm or a hand.

The seconds are slipping past, and only the hard plastic of the table against Yuri's side feels like it's keeping him from wanting to somehow climb inside that television as if doing so could make him be there, in the cold brilliance of the rink, to see how it ends --

Until the final jump quite literally stops the breath in his mouth.

A quad flip. Ending in a crash landing that Yuri can feel in his bones, a visceral sense of pain without the impact, but undeniably the right number of rotations for it to count.

The very last jump. At the end of the free skate. The signature technique that Viktor Nikiforov had made his own over the years, and here was Yuuri Katsuki staking his claim on it as if he were planting a flag on a mountaintop for all the world to see. Defying the announcers' expectations, the crowd's expectations...and Yuri has no words in any language he knows for the feeling that surges through him in those final moments, as the performance ends and the last notes of the music echo from the cafe television's second-rate speakers.

All he knows is that he can't look away.

[fivetimechamp]

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 ...

Him?

[theglassheart]

V‭ictor is at the end of his fingertips, and the whole arena away, and Yuri can't catch his breath to have it caught. It doesn't stop his chest from catching anyway behind and inside of the gasping, as the far, far, blur of Victor doesn't move, at the end of both of those, and his mind races. Is Victor crying? Is he mad? Was it too much? Did he reach too far?

The whole audience is losing it, not seeming to think he has at all, and Yuri feels like it's louder right now than it ever could have been yesterday when he looks around. To them. To the judges. Back to the --

Walking -- no running, running now -- figure of Victor?

It's a disjointed second, looking forward before it doesn't matter. He turns and he's skating toward the gate. Running as fast as he can for the same spot Victor is, must be. He should be exhausted. Everything should be slowing down, dropping, running out, turning from adrenalin to tension to pain. But he's on fire, every single cell in his body feelings filled with lightning.

Only brighter and bolder, more blinding, with each new second, as Victor stops before the gate, while he's still coming toward it. Perfect settled shoulders and perfect mild smile, and his arms aren't out, but Yuri's are. Because he might not stop before he throws himself at Victor straight through the gate, without stopping. There's no stopping this now, no stopping anything in the last few minutes.

Stopping isn't anywhere near him when he's shouting, "Victor!"

When he knows, the audience hasn't started quieting at all, but needs -- needs Victor to have liked, to have loved it -- even though everyone, including himself, already does. He needs Victor more. "It was great, right?"

[fivetimechamp]

He can't look, any more.

Gloved hands covering his face. (He knows the ending of this.) Shoulders hunched. (He knows Yuri will be looking towards him, reaching for him.) He can't look. If he looks at Yuri now, that crack is going to explode into a million brilliant shards of glass, and he won't be able to stop the wild sobs that are clawing at his chest, his throat. He can't breathe.

You have to do the opposite of what people expect. He'd said that. Told Yuri and Yurio that they had to learn how to surprise and delight, by doing the unexpected. He'd said. He'd said. He'd said.

He'd said don't you want to come with me? and Yuri had never answered.

He'd said little piggy can't enter the rink until he drops some body fat, still swallowing cold anger, taking satisfaction in being cruel.

He'd said seduce me with everything you have more times than he can count. Had never added like you did before because it was never needed, and it was never appropriate. Because Yuri had said no, no, no, no. A million no's. Wanting everything Victor could give except that. And Yuri had been afraid of losing him.

But Yuri had said. And all this time, it was only Victor, even if he couldn't understand why: after the banquet, nothing. After a year, nothing. Nothing until that video, that he'd thought was a message in a bottle, a love letter written across thousands of miles, but wasn't. Coming to terms with adjusted expectations, and feeling all right with it most days, in the same way he could get used to not being able to breathe or see.

It was only him. He blurred the lines. He knew that, that it wasn't real, that when Yuri relaxed and fell into a pile on the floor with him and Maccachin, it was just a game, it was just because he was comfortable with them. Yuri never touched him like that, the way he did on the dance floor. Yuri never looked at him like that, the way he had from that slim silver pole, all challenge and invitation and desire, unless it was at the start of Eros, Victor's own perfect vehicle of torture. Reliving that night again and again. He'd thought –– he was sure ––

But this. His jump. Yuri's pose. It's as clear as his dance floor challenge, as certain as his request for Victor to come visit him. No matter how the audience cheers, it was for him alone. It couldn't be anything else.

Hands dropping, but he can't look at Yuri, or else this careful clarity is going to break all over again. Taking off from his spot like a shot, arms pumping, coat flapping out behind him as he runs, heart sprinting out in front of him, tugging him impatiently along. Unable to run fast enough. Unable to run back to that moment, when he should have kissed Katsuki Yuri in front of God and everyone. Unable to take back two years of being wrong.

There's only now. Breath rasping. Heart leaping. The thud of his shoes against concrete. Catching himself on the open gate of the rink, and pausing before he can finally look, and it makes him glad he didn't before, because Yuri is radiant. Thrilled, running towards him with open arms and a brilliant face lit with joy and accomplishment, and there's nothing to do. Nothing else he could do. No other answer. No other way to show Yuri how he feels, how Yuri made him feel, how he can't think and he can't breathe and his head is spinning somewhere in the clouds while his heart makes a suicidal attempt to burst straight through his ribcage to reach Yuri.

Impossible to wait for Yuri to come to him, when Victor should have done this all along.

Throwing himself at Yuri, arm wrapping around his shoulders, fingers sinking into his hair. His weight and momentum pushing them back. Seeing surprise widen those eyes, before his own slide closed. The whole world screaming to a halt, and he can't hear anything except the wild thunder of his own pulse.

The collision of this kiss the final strike that shatters his heart into shimmering powder, jolts him harder than hitting the ice ever could, but he doesn't feel it, can't feel anything but the hummingbird sprint of his heart against Yuri's chest, and the relief of two years' worth of uncertainty and frustration and despair all exploding at once.

Finally.

[theglassheart]

The first moment of confusion comes when Victor bounces up on his feet, finally, finally a reaction, something, something enthus-- but doesn't come down. He's coming closer. Too close, past the gate, before Yuri can even reach it to meet him, right there on the cusp of the line that divides them, even here.

But he doesn't stop. Coming closer. Closer. Closer. Closer.

Midair. Victor's face inches from him and still coming. His own eyes widening in realization. His heart stopping, when Victor's eyes are closing, and Victor's mouth hits his. His hands still out, still up, and he's falling. Everything is falling. Everything is the impact of Victor's mouth, while he's falling, falling, weight lost, airborn, no way to catch himself, no way to breathe, fingers digging into that coat, and then the slam of his back into the ice, compounded by the weight of Victor's body on top of his (again, again, again).

The world distorted yelling that seems to to crescendo with the shock in Yuri's head, and he can't raise his hands any further, can't touch his mouth, because Victor is on top of him. Victor's head has fallen to his shoulder, to the ice, and the ceiling is so far away, everything is a blur of his heart sprinting. Out of his body. Out of his head. Out his throat. His mouth.

Shocked confusion.
(Victor ... kissed him?)


Shocked surprise.
(Victor. Kissed. Him.)

Shocked - Shock.
(The world is crowd is screaming.
The world is still there. They are -- )


Yuri's fingers still in his jacket. Victor's hand in his hair.

[yuri_plisetsky]

With the end of the China Cup men's free skate, the cameras are tracking the final skater off the rink, over to the kiss-and-cry. Anyone who watches these competitions on a regular basis can expect a predictable assortment of queued-up shots timed by the producers in the control booth: a quick cutaway to the judges, close-up on part of the cheering crowd, perhaps a shot of one of the commentators delivering some preprepared thoughts, all leading up to the cameras returning to focus on the kiss-and-cry as the final scores come up.

But of course the television producers know where the real money is in this segment of the event, and of course they know that their audiences want to see Viktor Nikiforov's reaction to his skater's performance. So the camera stays on Yuuri Katsuki as he picks up speed, riding high on a ecstatic burst of delight as he prepares to celebrate with his coach --

None of the camera operators or control booth producers were expecting to witness a full-on tackle that sends both skater and coach crashing to the ice.



Yuri stares at the television as if he'd just seen the entire rink go up in flames before his eyes.

No. That wasn't. Couldn't be. Can't be what. Viktor didn't just --

(through the sudden rush of blood in his ears)

-- but Katsudon is right there underneath him --

(he thinks he hears Baba let out a squeal)

-- and it's all on live television with a crowd that sounds like it's going to blow out the goddamned television speakers.



'What the actual fuck.' Yuri's voice is almost inaudible.

[fivetimechamp]

They slam the ice, and the shock reverberates up through Yuri and into Victor, because they're pressed together like pages in a book, and he has no intention of letting go, even as the roar of the crowd washes back into existence like a storm-swollen river bursting its dam.

Heart pounding, every cell alive and electric. He pushes himself up enough to see Yuri's face, and can't help wanting to laugh at the surprise painted there, cheeks flushed now with shock as much as exertion, eyes gone wide and blinking like Yuri can't parse what just happened.

Yesterday, he would have apologized. Yesterday, he wouldn't have even considered it. Yesterday, he would have expected Yuri to already be on the other side of the rink, running the way he did those first few days any time Victor touched him or even came close ––

But Yuri isn't moving, isn't shoving at him, is only looking at him with those startled eyes, and Victor can't tell if it's a laugh or a sob that's threatening to shred his throat, if it's happiness or adrenaline or sheer stupidity trying to burst through his chest.

Propping himself here, but he's not getting up and not letting Yuri go. Affectionate amusement coating every word, slipping into his smile, shining, shining, shining. He feels like a cascade of exploding fireworks, like the final crashing crescendo of a Rachmaninoff concerto, like saturating himself with rising applause after a perfect performance.

Like all that. But better. "This was the only thing I could think of to surprise you more than you've surprised me."

[theglassheart]

Victor pulls back and his face clarifies where the far away, arena ceiling and those brilliant, blinding lights far far above him, that are blinding him even when he can't see them in the slightest. Can't remember them, that they even exist, when Victor pulls back, and the whole world reorients on his face.

On the hand that kept his head from smacking the ice. On the fall of his bangs, right above Yuri's brow, just barely not touching him. On the vibrancy of those eyes staring down at him, the clarity and certainty, that don't seem to hold a single question like the thousand, and absolutely not enough sense to form a single word no less a thousand questions, Yuri's head is racing in. On the curve of his mouth and ease, smooth English that he uses with those words. The tone of his voice. This glowing, smooth, happy tone.

Explaining.

Explaining, about needing to surprise Yuri more than Yuri surprised him.


(Yuri surprised him.

And Victor kissed him.)

It seems insane. It seems -- it's bubbling up, covering that next word, the warmest, tingling, tickling overwhelming warmth. In his cheeks. In his chest. Everywhere. His breath is short -- no, shallow. His heart is beating too fast, never stopped, but somehow even faster, even louder, even more everywhere in his body. It's pushing up, straining upward, into the weight pressed into him, and he can't stop himself from smiling. It's crazy. It's real? The whole room can, everyone saw --

But he can't. It won't. No one, nothing, is Victor. Looking down at him. Like this.

Is Victor having kissed him. Right here. Right now. "Really?"

[fivetimechamp]

If he'd thought to worry at all, or think he'd read this wrong, or that he'd misunderstood what Yuri was saying on the ice, with that flip, with that message, that smile would wash them all away.

(He didn't. It never even crossed his mind.) "Really."

All warmth, all affection, and it's possible he's totally forgotten that he's pinning Yuri to hard ice, immediately after a physically punishing athletic performance, in front of thousands of people both here and watching on television.

(He has. He's forgotten it. What does it matter? Does anything matter but this?)

And still, Yuri's not pushing him away. Has his fingers in Victor's coat, head cradled in Victor's palm, and his cheeks are bright and so are his eyes, but the panic that had been there every time Victor got even this close back in April is nowhere to be seen.

But he should probably make sure. Right? Someone should. Two years might have been vastly different if he'd just asked. "Should I apologize?"

Even if it's said with gentle humor, the meaning is clear: did you mind?

It doesn't look like it. In fact, it doesn't much look like Yuri would mind if Victor did it again.

[theglassheart]

That single word. It feels like that word glows. Caught between them. Caught, impossibly, on the way Victor is looking down at him. Victor, isn't moving. Victor, isn't leaving. Even as the noise is slowly filtering more and more into Yuri's ears, the shocking draining away like water.

But that question, that question makes Yuri's gaze flicker away. To a side, down, cheeks flushing even more. Fingers shifting in that coat. When the last thing that he wants is that, isn't it? He doesn't even - what does he - but not that, right?

He didn't want one when Victor had asked about kissing him in the garage,
He wanted one even less not that Victor actually had.

It's winding. Winds in his stomach. His heart stumbling like it's hiccuping.
Eyes having to finding his face again. Because he did. Victor. Victor kissed him.

(Victor Nikiforov kissed him.

In front of the whole world.


Is still looking at him like -- )


"No." It's a mumble, the word rushed, and somehow it he's out of breath and still using too much air at the same time. Desperate for it not to be taken back, and desperate for it not to sound desperate about it, about the whole idea, about the way it's only picking up speed in his head the more real it becomes. Louder. Firmer. Real, real, real. Victor. He. They.


There's -- Yuri looks to the side, more toward the ice and the wall nearby, and his eyes don't more than flick to the fact there are people (and cameras) just beyond that wall. Those ones who'd been prepared for the Kiss-and-Cry. Who are, all of them, no longer all the way over there. And oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Because there's the whole arena. Filled with people.

And cameras. And the whole world. Watching them. This.

Making him swallow, cheeks turning a spectacular shade that must be making it to his ears and his neck, suddenly feeling like his skin there is going to blister, even while the rest of him is pressed to perfect frozen ice, even if his fingers don't want to let go. "We should probably get up now."

[fivetimechamp]

Even if he'd been sure, even if he was only checking, he can feel muscles relaxing, and his own expression softening at that single word.

"Good."

No, Yuri said, in a tiny voice that's so shy Victor can barely hear him, but it's loud enough in the tilt of his mouth and the way his eyes shine and cheeks flush, and Victor's not sure his own mouth will ever be able to stop smiling again. How has he ever been anything but happy? How could all this time have seemed to have dragged for so long, when suddenly it feels like it passed in a flash?

Because Yuri isn't telling him not to. Yuri isn't pushing him away. Yuri isn't running away. Yuri ... wants this. Like Victor was so sure he wanted it that golden, ridiculous night at the banquet.

Yuri is looking back at him like he can't keep his eyes off Victor's face any more than Victor can keep his off Yuri's, and it's absurd, all of it. His head feeling lighter than a balloon, because Yuri is looking at him just the way he has in all those dreams Victor knew were an unhelpful fiction, and even when Yuri looks around and seems to realize they aren't they only people here, he's not letting go, and he's not pushing at Victor to get off him. "Hmm?"

He leans a little closer, teasing –– because he can tease like this, now? Is that possible? How did everything change so quickly? –– "Why?"

Because there are people, but he doesn't care. Because the ice is cold and is probably starting to soak Yuri's back –– well, he cares about that, a little, but he has a coat and Yuri can take it if he's cold.

Because Yuri's scores are probably up ... and he does care about that. Wants to see where he placed, how high, who he beat, and that's enough to make him sigh a little, and lift his free hand to Yuri's cheek, before smiling and shifting off, holding that hand out to help him up. "Well, we should probably check your scores, at least, after a performance like that."

[theglassheart]

If he expected Victor to be sensible and scramble to his feet and let Yuri get his skates back under him, so they could try to politely exit the skating arena without any more preamble and reasons for the suddenly very loud cheering, gaping faces -- he was sorely mistaken.

And he should have known better, might have, if it wasn't now. If his eyes weren't going wide, and there wasn't the sudden world of possiblity Victor isn't going to let him up. Isn't going to stop. Might just -- he might -- again -- Yuri's can't even tell where, what, how. His chest tightens, shoulders pressing, breath suddenly starting a sprint in his chest between his lungs and heart, not sure which part of that might be worse, or better, disasterous, but dizzying possiblity, throat dry.

Except Victor relents. With this smile like maybe he's laughing at his own joke, and even though Yuri suggested getting up, knows they need to get up, he feels almost entirely weightless once Victor's weight has come off of him.

Except Victor relents, with a sigh that sounds so soft and put upon Yuri swears it's going to break the bones inside him it falls on. Especially when Victor reaches out at touches his cheek so softly Yuri swears for a second it's gone again -- all of the noise, all of the world, even his own heart, his own lungs, anything but the place where those covered fingers touch him, straining to ache for the touch of his fingers in them, suddenly, impossibly, his absent heart like a desperate fluttering of wings.

Before it's gone and there's his hand, being held out, like every other time Yuri ever fell down near him, in practice, amid jump drills, and Yuri has to push himself up. One bare hand on frigid melting ice and the other in Victor's own, gloved hand, warm and slim, but strong. Helping him lever up, but it's impossible to figure out where to look. The whole world is looking at him. (Them.) Victor is looking at him.

Impossibly, his left leg trembles uncontrollably, first, as his weight settles into his standing, proving his humanity is still attached, with a throb of angry, sharp pain at his hip.

Because that, too.

He doesn't know how he forgot about that even for a second. But a flicker of a glance toward Victor, even under his eye lashes, and not entirely even just that. He does. He does know. He's not sure he's got a grasp on it still. He tried Victor's flip (and Victor kissed him). The whole world seems surreal aside from the pain, from the moment he has to wait at the gate to wipe his skates, and wonder how he's even supposed to answer anything about ... that.

How did he do. Did it work. What will they say.

The questions bursting into life with air, with weight, with space.

[fivetimechamp]

There's a fresh wave of applause as they get up, that makes Victor laugh, and lift his free hand in a wave, with the other still firmly holding Yuri's. Smile, wave, while the crowd cheers and he's helping Yuri over towards the gate, where a grinning assistant hands him Yuri's skate guards, jacket, and the tissue box, all of which he'd left behind in his rush to get over here. He doesn't want to let go even to let Yuri get the guards on, but people are waving them towards the kiss-and-cry, and they've barely sat down before the scores are up, and ––

Second place. Second! It isn't gold, but at the moment, Victor couldn't care less, and if he'd thought a moment ago he couldn't be more thrilled, he was wrong. The touchdown on the triple axel, double-footing the landing after that combination, and falling on the quad flip all knocked points away, but not enough to diminish what he'd done. What he'd proved.

Sending Victor towards him again, this time to hug him tightly, beaming against his cheek and ear. "I knew you could do it! Well done, Yuri. That was amazing."

Performance. Technique. How he'd owned the audience. And, of course: that flip, that's got ludicrous pride beating wings against Victor's ribs, threatening to burst out and leave him unable to keep from shouting how fantastic that was, did you see that flip? Maybe it didn't land, but he can do it. Did it. Something even Victor would never have done, at the very end of a free skate. "I'm so proud of you!"

[theglassheart]

Victor is laughing and waving like this was all just another part of the show. Like Yuri's heart isn't still pounding in his ears, while his body catches up with him. Victor's hand staying in his, almost not letting go, even when he's going to need both of them. Until he does. Leaving Yuri's hand, finally fully adrift, to handle his skates, and then to be pushed with him into the seat, Victor pressed beside him.

Scores being up, and Yuri squints at the screen. His points, his rank, and -- he feels it slam his heart, the somehow still stumbling, beating, startle-stopping-never stopping thing -- at the same time as Victor suddenly throws his arms beack around Yuri. Victor's head against his, hair and cheek and voice an excited exclamation, and Yuri can't tell if he's about to start laughing.

The whole world feels impossible and somehow it's all still so real.

He's in Second. He's in Second. Silver. He's going to Russia.


Victor
( Victor pressed against him,
like he was yesterday, this part is normal)

kissed him.
(That part is not.)

Those words snapping him from that thought. Victor. Victor proud of him, and he turns catching a hand on one of the arms around him. Suddenly important, suddenly isistent, having to know, what he'd had to know originally. Before the whole world turned upside, that whole world still twisting, clenching, when Victor's face is not even inches from his, and the rest won't stop even for this, but he needs to know even more.

With those numbers, with that rank, with Victor as the person behind every question that will come about his ending. "It was -" They will all ask about it. About him. Assuming. About. Victor, who never knew. Who he never asked. Never trained for that with. Never even once implied he'd considered, because he never had, until that second. Never even thought about it before he was doing it. "Was it okay?"

Because it won't matter. None of the cheering, singing with his blood, filling up his head and the arena. None of the things those people might say. Any interviews, any comments online to any and all video coverage and still frames and fan vids. None of it will ever matter if Victor says otherwise.

[fivetimechamp]

He doesn't let go when Yuri shifts to look at him, but he does relax his hold ... even if that face and those words, that earnest question, only make him want to kiss him again.

Right here. Now. In front of these cameras, in the kiss-and-cry (that was never meant to be so literal). Was it okay? Was it okay?

That performance, that stole the hearts of everyone in the audience? The one that sent Victor sprinting around the rink because the only thing he could do after it was kiss Yuri like he's wanted to every day since that first one? The one that ended with that gutsy, stupid, perfect attempt at his quadruple flip?

Laughing before he can help himself, like he might after riding a particularly suicidal rollercoaster, feeling so relieved and boneless and full of affection that he can hardly feel his feet touch the floor. "Okay?"

He shouldn't kiss Yuri right here, but he can cup Yuri's face with his hands, and kiss one cheek, and then the other, unable to resist this too-sincere, too-adorable expression on Yuri's face, and then haul him into an embrace, right against his shaking chest. He doesn't know why he's laughing, this isn't funny. Could it be from pure happiness? Is that something that happens? "You did great."

It's not even the right word. He changed everything. Everything Victor knew was true, turned on its head in less than five minutes. The stress and worry from the garage wiped clear like it had never existed. "I loved it." That is the right word. Even if it wasn't perfect, he loved it. Loved Yuri. Can barely feel anything at all aside from this thing flooding in waves through him, overwhelming him over and over again.

Yuri did his flip. Yuri loves him. Was there ever a chance he'd do anything but love it, and him, right back?

His laugh threading through every word. "But we'll have to work on that quad flip."

[theglassheart]

There's a long second where he thinks Victor doesn't understand what he just asked. Even when Victor looks pratically ready to vibrate off the seat, and it's as infectious as it is kind of humbling. Making it impossible not to smile, when Victor echoes that word back and reaches for his face, instead of answering.

In Yuri almost certain he's about to get kissed, again. Shoulders seizing, eyes widening, not sure if he's about to pull and curl or stay still in something like surprise, but not quite shock this time. but Victor's lips pressed a kiss to one cheek and then another, and Yuri's trying not to curl faintly in on himself, having a harder time fighting off theduck of his head and lift of his smile, cheeks staying flushed, even against the whine in his head that whether he did great -- even whether he did okay, cumulatively -- wasn't the question. The score said that.

He was asking about the only thing he could ask about. Had to ask about. Had never been planned.
The one thing that wasn't on a board, and would be on everyone's mouth. He'd done Victor's flip.
Possibly very badly, if his hip and the angry pain and clipped memory, was anything to go on.

He'd done it without asking, or even mentioning it, and possibly failed it, too.

(Except his score didn't reflect failure, did it?)


Except Victor is laughing and Victor is dragging Yuri into himself, almost toppingly Yuri straight into his lap. Head crushed for a second against Victor's chest and his shoulder, while he's laughing like he's heard the most brilliant joke ever. And Yuri's not certain Victor got what he asked at all. Even though he sounds like he has everything there is. Somehow. And it's really very hard to look confused and concerned, even about this, with how important it is, when Victor looks so ... happy. When it lights up everything in his face in a way Yuri has seen anything do. Any memory. Any picture.

It's mesmerizing even before he's dropping those words. Finally. Something. The fall like the first words of what could be a lecture, except Victor is still laughing. Still holding on to him. Still sounds like everything is best joke he's ever heard, that the world ever told. But Victor thinks they'll have to work on it. Which means ... they are? They will? They'll be working on it now? And Victor is okay with him doing it now, and again?

"Before Russia," Yuri blurts, and he meant it to be a question, it was a question, but it doesn't come out a question at all from him. Because he's going to Russia and the whole fact of that seems to jam into his teeth at the same moment. He's going to Russia. He's in second place. Victor isn't mad. He's one step closer to the Grand Prix Finale. They are.

Even if the way it comes out is insane, and he goes more crimson, eyes widening, again, at the realization of those words in his own ears. When that's insane. Moscow is not even a full week away, with at least one more day for the Gala, maybe two, and flights, and settling into a new hotel, and it would mean renting a rink somewhere that wasn't even arranged for currently. Possibly two in two different countries. Which is insane. It's insane. It's absolutely insane.