{ 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]

That's why he moved, but not why his face looks like this. At least, Victor is pretty sure that's the case. "That's not what I mean."

The tray isn't going anywhere, and it hadn't seemed like Yuri was interested in going anywhere, either, and he had only been complaining about having to move, without actually doing it, and then something else happened, and now Yuri has this face.

"You look ..."

What is this, this expression, this face on Yuri's face? Worried? Unsettled? Unhappy? "...like you're thinking about something else."

Related? Unrelated? Something small enough that Victor didn't notice, but big enough that Yuri did.

Which could be anything, considering. Considering what he was just thinking, about how he's used to this, and Yuri isn't. Have there always been this many pitfalls? Or is it really just that Yuri wants him to let go so he can move?

He doesn't know, and the only way to find out is to ask. "Did I do something?"

[theglassheart]

"No!" it shoots out of him, horrified at hearing the question. "No, no, no, you didn't do anything."

Only just not flailing his hands like airplanes to stop that assumption.

As though Victor could, would. Victor, staring at him all canny and straight on, not looking away, and Yuri's heart is not helping. It's just stumbling into a run inside of him and making him want to look anywhere else. Why doesn't that ever stop? Why can't he?

Victor couldn't, wouldn't get any of this wrong. Isn't.

If anyone could manage to get any or all of this wrong it's only Yuri.

[fivetimechamp]

It's not that Victor doesn't believe him, mostly. He doesn't think Yuri would lie directly to his face, like this, right now, but it does feel a little like all the other times he's gotten something wrong: when he first arrived, on the beach, only a few hours ago in the garage.

He wonders if all of this will end with Yuri shouting at him again. That wouldn't be ideal, but at least Yuri was honest, finally said everything that had been bothering him.

(I've been wondering if you secretly want to quit!)

He should probably address that, too, at some point, but that isn't this problem, is it?

Is Yuri just stressed and tired from the day, too overwhelmed to be rational? Is he worried again that Victor will push him too far, or expect too much? There's a faint push at the corner of Victor's mouth that isn't a frown, but is shadowed by a faint line drawing itself between his brows. "Are you okay with all of this? Is it too much?"

If it is, would a break maybe be a good idea, for both of them?

[theglassheart]

Is he -- what? Is he okay with all of this? With this thing suddenly in his hands -- but not his hands-hands, that have finally found his lap, between his stomach and thighs, and the black of Victor's shirt, Victor under it -- that everyone else in the world would be appalled Victor could even be made to ask that by him. If Victor is okay, if Victor is too much.

Which of those answers, to the second question,

bouncing so fast and so hand on every floor and wall in his head, is even the worse answer.

That no, it's not too much, because it can't be, because it's Victor, and it doesn't make sense that it's happening, but he doesn't want to let go, even when he has already. Or yes, because shamefully he doesn't know how to do, be, say a single thing that is expected of him. Doesn't seem to be able to hold anything straight, aside from when he can't think at all.

Which is a little terrifying to acknowledge. Some absolute loss of control, of himself. Even if it was with Victor. Even if he trusted Victor. Trusting Victor wasn't the problem. (Even if maybe it was, too. How much of a fool is he?) His shoulders just settle low with a too long held breath quiet out his nose. "I'm okay. It's okay."

[fivetimechamp]

The question is not whether Yuri is lying –– even Victor, for whom deep study of the emotional foibles of anyone other than himself is rare, can tell that –– but whether Yuri even knows he's lying.

Which maybe means Victor isn't asking the right questions, and maybe means Victor should stop asking him anything at all about it, and just let Yuri come to whatever conclusion he's currently working on, staring down at his hands while his shoulders slump. "Okay."

He won't let his skepticism seep through to his voice or face –– that would be worse, wouldn't it? –– so just keeps his eyes steady and his expression soft. "Then hold on."

Before his right arm goes to bracket Yuri's lower back, while the other hand drops to the bed to help push himself up, turning almost like he'd just been picturing, but the other direction, away from the pillows and the tray, to flip them. At least this time he has the presence of mind not to just drop Yuri onto sore muscles and his bruised hip –– one foot finds the floor and braces him against their combined weight and momentum, so he can deposit Yuri safely down, and still be in range to flick a smile up from under his fallen bangs, and lean his forehead against Yuri's. "Please excuse me for just a moment, while I tidy up."

[theglassheart]

Yuri's eyes, and his shoulders shoot up fast at those words. Hold on. A momentary flash of fear so startlingly pure Yuri feels almost gutted on the clarity of it, like a skate blade slammed into and through the soft of his stomach, so hard he can't even hold on to it completely. Keep it in his stomach, in his hands, before suddenly the whole world is shift-swinging around him. He is.

Victor is putting him down, backward, on the bed, coming down right after him, and Yuri's eyes go wide, hands up. One hand trying to find the bed, gravity, sanity, even when his heart has lodged against his soft pallet like a brick, and his other hand is trying to, he doesn't know, ward off and grab on to Victor at the same time. A shattering terror, twined with a searing, snap of scalding want, both inescapably a rollercoaster suddenly everywhere.


But Victor doesn't lower himself down on Yuri. Doesn't kiss him.
(Doesn't even drop him flat. Just lays him on the bed. Careful.)

Just smiles, with their foreheads touching, and says. ... that.


He doesn't know what's more dizzying. Relief. Disappointment. Victor's eyes, while he's still just as impossibly smiling. Smiling now, about doing the things he'd complained about. Smiling now, even though Yuri's sure he just made a fool of himself again. How he's supposed to be certain of, or understand, anything is beyond him.

He blinks, behind his frames, at the nearness of those too bright, so blue eyes (and even that ache they leave in the mess the rest has left of his chest) and nods, even if it's a second or two late. "Okay."

[fivetimechamp]

Perfect execution, solid landing, high artistic merit, not to mention an unexpected move: +3 GOE, easily, and he grins, satisfied.

"Okay."

Yuri's blinking at him from behind his glasses, but at least whatever it was that had him looking like a turtle that wanted to pull its head into its shell and hide from the world is no longer camped on his face, so Victor chances it, leans in just enough to kiss him once before he straightens.

But not a perfunctory one. Not there and gone. His free hand lifting to Yuri's jaw, this kiss sweet and lingering, because he's still in no rush to actually pull away, even if he does, eventually. Pulls back, and eyes that tray that's been such a source of annoyance for him tonight. "You didn't want anything else, did you?"

Offering the tray after he picks it up, like an especially poor waiter who just wants his guests to leave so he can close up shop, but it's not like there's much left. Yuri was hungry and ate most of his meal, and there are only a couple of dumplings and sad, cold vegetables left to be had.

Still, he offers, before putting the tray back on the cart, and taking a moment to look around for the –– "Oh, there it is."

The tag for the dry cleaning bag that he'd dropped when Yuri got out of the shower. Its string gets looped around the hangar neck of the bag, which he zips up and throws over one forearm, like a jacket he got tired of wearing, before looking back at Yuri. "Do you need any more ice, Yuri? I can go get some while I'm up."

Translation: he'd really rather not have to get up again, once he's finished here.

[theglassheart]

Victor is grinning, too self-satisfied for anyone's good ever, and Yuri almost wants to follow along out of sheer reflective response, whether it turned out as amusement or disgruntled censure, but it doesn't really make it to his face. Not either. Which might not matter, because then Victor's fingers find the side of his face and Victor is kissing him. Soft and slow, and Yuri's attention can only focus on so many things at once.

Between Victor kissing him and the all too present bed (under every part of his body) the rest just folds. His heart and his head a dizzy set of waves that drifts and floats down toward something almost like bare calm, that burbled warmth, against the sweetness of this kiss, and then tips over like a wave, his fingers on the bed at little tense against the comforter, as though watching for the slide they haven't managed not to slip down yet, repeating Victor's solemn endless complaint.

About not wanting to let go of Yuri. Of both times, forgotten. Of both time, just forgetting and curling into him.

And now he's -- among too many things in his head, trying not to look flushed and jittery at his own thoughts. Which just makes Victor's first question go to all the wrong places. Too fast, too hot, too many images that make him try to swallow his tongue and stop breathing all at once. Like the whole of this thing had become some one-time offer, and he either had to sink or swim.

Except that the startled shock of the question and those images has Yuri looking over,

at Victor who is giving a pretty bland look at the tray while he picks it up -- and Victor meant the food, did he want anything else from their dinner -- and shows it off to Yuri, who can only manage shaking his head and not moving, like a word would make it all come pouring out and the only movement screaming out from his legs and hands would be diving for a pillow to die under. When did he even. How. In his own head. What was he even thinking?

Not that Victor needs much of an answer, taking it away, and looking for something on the floor. Ending up with the tray, and then the laundry bag, and Yuri should have thought about his costumes. When had he stopped thinking about everything? Was it, basically, the end of his own program? How long ago did he get off the ice? How long was it until went back on? What all did he need to do before the Gala, and before they left China, that are not this at all?

Victor's next question makes him wrinkle his nose. "It's fine." Not true, but, also, not like he's trying to make it so. More like he doesn't want to think about it, while acknowledging it exists. "Sore, and stiff. Like everything else." Like it would be. He'd never even gone into practicing Quad Salchow's intending to fall. Not that he'd intended to fall earlier. Only known it was beyond impossible that he would land smoothly.

Which was almost the same, except that it made the argument that it wasn't like everything else.

His face scrunched up, maybe like he was admitting a defeat to the logic in his head, more than to Victor. "Maybe."

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri looks like he wants to say no, which would probably be another lie, but at the last second, he scrunches up his face cutely and admits that it probably does want the ice, which Victor has to agree with. He's all too familiar with the stiffness and soreness after even a perfect performance, and there isn't a skater out there who doesn't appreciate a hot bath and some ice after a slam like Yuri's. "Okay, then I'll just be a minute."

First, he has to find the ice bag from before, and then he has to search for the room key (on the table by a lamp), and then he has to organize everything so he can hang onto the ice bag and laundry bag while pushing the cart, the room key clutched in one hand because these sweatpants don't have any pockets, and it all feels strangely domestic and normal.

Even if it's actually still strange, for them. This is their first competition away from Hasetsu, and only their third night in this hotel. All his memories of this being normal are from his own competition trips, and even that isn't quite the same: normally, he'd be alone. Normally, he'd be out at this time, with Chris, in all likelihood, hitting the town and enjoying himself, or he'd be lying on that bed alone with ice and a cold beer, watching his own performance to figure out how he could do it better, the next time.

Doing it all for someone else still feels strange, even as it doesn't, and it's the same feeling he gets when he reminds Yuri: "Drink some more water, okay?"

He's never spent this long this focused on someone other than himself. And yet, he can't imagine going back to how it was before. "I'll be right back."

[theglassheart]

Victor loads himself down with more and more, and really what ends up sinking into Yuri's head, while everything else is his own body trying to breathe through all of itself, is that it's odd to be doing nothing. To watch Victor pick up what's almost too much for only one person to be carrying, and not offering to help. It feels lazy, and odd, but Victor doesn't even look over once like he can't believe Yuri isn't helping.

Victor, in fact, doesn't once really look like he needs or even wants it. He just bustles about getting everything.
Making good on his strange, but true, please excuse me for just a moment, while I tidy up.

Everything a little foreign and strange, and if he narrows his eyes a little, it's not sharp.

It's more like he's trying to put Victor into focus. Victor, who is tidying the room, and telling him to drink water, which now that tray and tea is gone from the bed, will require relocating his cup or getting another one from the table or bathroom, and geting up from the bed, and Victor still had gone to trouble of leaving him laid out on his back on the end of his bed instead of sitting, before doing it all.

For no more reason than he could. Is it strange how absolutely unstrange that is?

Yuri made an affirmative enough sound from where he was and nodded at the same time, even if it wasn't apparents he was trying to stop the something like top the dozenth okay from being the only constant word that seemed to be coming out of his mouth. Water wasn't hard, and he probably should. He'd never quite planned to stop drinking the tea until it was gone, but that had gotten away from him, and them both.

But it would be cold, and he'd already said no, Victor laden with everything and vanishing with it, and water was fine.

[fivetimechamp]

The door clicks closed behind him, and he immediately wants to open it again, to take it back. Just like before, there's a sudden horrible image of pushing it open to find Yuri gone, or (worse?) Yuri absolutely unchanged, because everything that happened was a figment of Victor's over-active imagination, months of frustration, and delight with Yuri's performance.

(But he didn't make it up. It all happened. It would keep happening. Isn't he the one who told Yuri it's real and promised to prove it all over again in the morning?)

All of it good motivation to go about his business as quickly as possible: pushing the food cart to one side of the door, and hanging the dry cleaning bag from the door handle with the note clearly visible, before padding his way down the hallway toward the ice machine for the second time tonight. His bare feet make almost no sound on the hotel carpet, and it makes him smile to himself, this image: Victor Nikiforov, always impeccably dressed, a face that has graced billboards and sold products and been photographed almost as many times as he's walked outside, wandering a hotel hall in an old t-shirt and sweatpants and bare feet.

And not caring at all.

It's comfortable. He's learned to be comfortable over the last few months: comfortable with himself, comfortable with the Katsukis and Minako. Has learned to relax in the hot spring and on the beach, and realized that not every day needs to be pushed a little harder than the day before.

It's almost like he's finally learned how to be a real person, and he finds he enjoys it.





All things that roll through his thoughts as he scoops ice into the plastic bag and seals it back up again, before heading back to the room with the key card flipping impatient between his fingers, and how could the room be this far away? How have they been back only an hour, or less, when it feels like days have passed?

He doesn't know, only knows it's a relief when the door clicks open and he can step inside, blinking in the dimmer light. "Yuri? I'm back."

[theglassheart]

It's not a chore to get up and walk to the bathroom. It's a little annoying to find himself reorienting to the pain again, with the quiet pressing in. He doesn't exactly feel like the silence is smothering him, but he's still not against the idea of putting the pillow over his head. Even once he's off the bed. He can at least carry the feeling of it, and the mental image of it.

He's not going to get to now any more than he did earlier.
(But, maybe, when they go to bed and the lights are out...)

Water. He has a goal. Water. When the cup isn't that hard to find. Still sitting innocent and innocuous beside the bed where it was last left when he'd taken his pills and drained it of the water Victor had originally brought him. It doesn't matter that he's taken the painkillers. It still hurts, which somewhere means it hurts more than it hurts now, but it hurts like it always does, with a dash of angry reminder and coming the promise of more pain, training harder, even mid-qualifiers, on top of it.

He really shouldn't be leaning on the bathroom counter being momentarily glad for the distractions from it. That seems. He doesn't even know. Wrong. Rude. Discourteous. Belittling. Insulting. Especially when he's not the person here who'd have ever. Not for a distraction. Not ever before this night. Which does not play out well as a mirrored thought. His implication. The question of capability, and the inclusion of all too willing subjects, which could be found in the millions and who might not even care then.

He can tell himself that Victor wouldn't, not to him, but maybe it's a stretch and he's filling it drinking more of the water from his cup. Does he really have a clue about any of that. Except that Victor had said. Well. A lot of this, at this point. But those ones stuck, like he's lodged toepicks into Yuri's bones and let them there. Irremovable.

Telling Yuri what Yuri had done to him, as though it wasn't a thing those millions of people, who were very much not Yuri, would have probably actually tried hard to do. Make happen. Not simply be informed they'd done. He wasn't. He hadn't. He didn't. (But Victor said.) He drank more of his water and leaned on the counter with his good side, avoiding the mirror. Maybe a little too long, when the door sounds from not far away and is followed by Victor's voice sliding in to cut the silence of the rooms again.

Yuri finished his current swallow, and said, "In here."

[fivetimechamp]

For a second, Yuri's nowhere to be seen and there's a clenching in his gut –– but then that voice comes from behind the bathroom door and he relaxes, trying not to think about how his heart rate skyrocketed in less than a second, or the way his stomach dropped somewhere toward his hips.

"Okay, the ice is out here for you when you want it."

But it feels strange, now, this room. Even if this is only the third night, and only the first time overall, even if he has far more experience with being alone in a hotel room than with someone, it feels strange to be in it by himself. (Except he's not, Yuri's still here, just behind a closed door that Victor hopes he won't hide behind all night.) To distract himself, he rummages in his trouser pockets in the closet for his phone, but doesn't thumb it on. Someone else might try to play it cool by sitting there, scrolling through their phone when Yuri comes back out, but he doesn't want to play it cool, doesn't want this to feel like any normal night.

He ends up just plugging it in to the charging cable he'd set up on the side table near the head of the bed, and collapses back onto the bed itself with a sigh, the ice landing next to him on the comforter. It feels good to stretch out, after being so wound up with Yuri's weight on his lap and tension in his back: his knuckles brush the headboard and his toes stretch out past the end of the mattress, but it feels good, and it feels even better when he relaxes to just look up at the ceiling.

Different, and not different. He still doesn't know what changed, or when, or if it did, and even if it doesn't matter, he still wants to. Is wistful for it, the knowledge that there was some point in time when maybe Yuri felt the same way he has over these last few months, despite all evidence to the contrary. Is it really just because Victor kissed him? And if it is ...

How good is that, really?

For someone who has always avoided responsibility, he's a little bewildered to be holding so much of it now. Feeling responsible for Yuri. For his programs. His coaching. His mental and emotional state, as well as his physical one. Everything a coach should worry about, that makes Victor sympathize with every strand of Yakov's lost hair, but then, also ––

His first kiss. His first ... anything else that happens tonight, that Victor is aware he needs to be careful with, in a way he hasn't been since ... ever? And already he's almost lost it more than once.

He's got to do better. This is too important to screw up.

[theglassheart]

Yuri pushed off the counter, with what was left of his water in his hand and a catch somewhere in his center, as Victor existed, talking about the ice pack he'd gone to get on the other side. There's something that isn't quite a sigh, but he rights himself, weight shifting back onto both hips, knees, and ankles. There's a furrow in his expression, but it's whisper brief, before he leans into that, too, before walking to the door and out.

Victor isn't in the tiny makeshift hallway, but it's not like Yuri expected him to stand there waiting, was it?

(Or had he? Was he out of simple questions, with anything like simple yes-no answers now?)

He's not hard to find though, walking just past that small space, and there's Victor flopped down on his bed, stretched the whole length of the now-empty space on one side of his bed. Hands above his head and toes peeking out and over, pale and relaxed, with none of the bruises that come and go weekly with daily and weekly and monthly regularity on Yuri's own amid training.

There's a small pause somewhere, one he doesn't really even recognize he's taken, when he'd gotten halfway and just ended up staring at Victor, lying across Victor's bed, like some red (or gold) line that it wasn't even like shouldn't be crossed, that just stole away his doing more than thinking. More than simply looking at Victor there, stretched out, the long line of him, well defined by even his sleep clothes. Feeling the tick, tick, tick that birthed the scrabble in the back of his mind, his guts. Tightening his finger incrementally on his cup.

The tumble that asks what now?, and both wanted to be back there already and didn't know how to move, and that scoffed at the notion anything in the world was as simple as his brain's bounce back response of just take a few steps and sit down then. In the same place he'd been sitting (or laying) since they got back here. It wasn't like life's straightforward, simplicity helped him in most normal situations, and this had all become something that was nothing and nowhere near normal.

His eyes drag away from Victor -- or maybe tear is the more proper word, because it feels like the pain in his hip, his joints, shoulders, displaces to the action of looking away, just briefly -- and land beside him. Finding the promised ice pack, and at least he can say, "Thank you."

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri still has that look on his face.

Maybe not the exact one, but something similar: it's not quite wariness, and it isn't exactly uncertainty. It's something like the held breath before a curtain lifts, or the moment of tension on the ice right before the music starts. Something like expectation. Like he's waiting for something he isn't sure if he should be bracing himself for or not.

Which makes Victor push himself up onto a hip and one elbow, to reach over and pat the spot on the comforter next to the makeshift ice pack, inviting. "Come sit with me?"

Making it a question, instead of an order, because Yuri would probably just follow his commands like he usually does, and Victor doesn't want that. He doesn't want this to be the night he kissed Yuri and kept kissing Yuri and dragged Yuri onto his lap and Yuri just went along with it, without choosing any of it. He doesn't even know what Yuri really wants, because even if they keep falling into these burned-out moments of lost control, Yuri's still only kissed him of his own volition once that Victor can recall.

Seems unsure about touching him. About any of this.

So Victor leaves him room, and just rolls to his side to prop his head on his hand and watch what choice Yuri makes. If he wants to think through all of this, that's fine –– understandable, even. If he wants to talk about it, or not, or even if he wants to call a halt for now ...

Well, it's all fine. Some of those would be better, more pleasant options than others, but Victor can roll along with them, he thinks, as long as Yuri doesn't opt to just run away, instead.

[theglassheart]

Yuri's first beleaguered thought is that 'sitting' is not what Victor is doing. Victor is laying across half of his entire bed. It takes up a greater amount of space than Victor had sitting on his side of the dinner tray ... or even the same space Victor must have taken up while sitting with Yuri in his lap. A thought that somehow warms his face. Which must be stupid.

Still he slightly looks down, then nods, looking back up and stepping over toward the other side of the bed, around the end corner on that side. He can set down his cup on the floor on that side, making sure that it is balanced, and sit down on his -- this side of Victor's bed. The one he's been pretty much on since they got back to the room. Let go of the cup and sit down, curling one of his legs under him, and look at Victor sprawled out in front of him.

Surreal and watching him serenely behind those eyes that he'd gotten used to watching him, to think he knew what was behind and why, which all seems like someone picked it up and shook it. They are at once the familiar shades he's always woken up to and come back to, after every run, practice, performance, and something else. Again. Something like the sea. Shifting shades and shadows and he doesn't know what else anymore.

Only that he is watching, and everything about Victor the long graceful lines on his side. The curve of a shoulder, the curl of his arm and hand, and the press of his fingers on the bed, against his own head. It's a little much. Victor, like this, when it would never have been, even if they'd been here, just like this, exactly like this, earlier this morning (and something in him isn't sure it likes there being any shift to that now-broken ease between them, even in his head, especially in his own head).

He should say something, shouldn't he? But all of the words feel like they've flown off or dried up or drowned, and his eyes come down, to land on the ice pack again and at least he can do something about that. Can reach out and pick it up, making sure the towel is around it securely and place it against the space of his lower hip and upper thigh. There was no point in waiting on that, and it gave him another few seconds, even if all of those felt -- and were -- watched, too.

[fivetimechamp]

The silence in this room is stifling. It's quiet enough to hear the springs in the mattress squeak when Yuri sits down, quiet enough to hear the ice shift when Yuri picks up the pack to set it against his hip. Quiet in a way it hasn't been with them in a long time. Quiet in a way that Victor finds unsettling.

So, he may as well shatter it. "It's okay to not quite be sure about all this, Yuri."

It doesn't matter how sure he is. He's had years to come to these conclusions, and he'd fought against them nearly all the way. It hasn't been easy for him, either. "I did kind of spring it on you all at once."

Which is a little rueful. He's not sorry –– couldn't be, would have no idea how to pretend he is, because he feels more free now than he has in months, in longer, and he's never been someone who apologizes for his feelings. If it hurts Yuri, of course, he'd never want to do that, wouldn't feel a thousand apologies could be enough, but ––

For loving him? For wanting this?

He'll never be sorry for either of those things.

But he smiles a little, his bangs sliding toward his ear and obscuring the vision in his left eye even more than usual, but the right, which is watching Yuri, is soft. "Normally, like this, we'd be talking about the programs today, right? Everything that you did right, everything you did wrong, how we're going to make it even better. Or maybe we'd just talk about the day, and how you're feeling, or what Minako wants you to practice."

Everything they've gotten used to, all the precious familiarity they've found, all these little moments Victor treasures so much. "I miss that, a little, right now."

Not the topics themselves, but the ease of it. The way Yuri never before now looked wary of sitting down on Victor's bed, would come collapse on it as if it were his own to complain or talk or watch videos together of past programs, past excellence.

That's what he misses, or wants. Yuri said I'm not afraid of him, but even if this isn't fear, it's ... something, that's holding him apart, aloof, detached, and Victor wants it gone, wants to throw a rope across this yawning chasm and pull Yuri to shore. "You can still talk to me about whatever's on your mind, Yuri. Even if you think I won't like it."

Maybe especially then. This has to be both of them.

[theglassheart]

Yuri balanced the pack against his hip, even if it meant it ended up on only half of his body, and more at the top only for the balance point of placing the base away to get it to stay leaning on him when he lets go. His hands ending up against his ankle and the bed, while Victor is talking. While Victor is ... Yuri doesn't know quite what to call this.

There's something both soothing and irritating about it at the same time. Like Victor is trying to calm him down, or Victor is setting up a soft space for a hard landing. He doesn't know. He wants to know it's okay, some part of him clinging to those words in the first second, but being told it makes it seems so much worse, that it has to be said, that it just was. That Victor feels it has to be said to him. That there's some need to amend everything that's happening, too. Or how it did. Or ... something.

Yuri's fingers pull at the blanket a little, trying not to get distracted on the flash of Victor's smile, or the soft pain of recognition (of grief?) at the image he paints. The well-ordered and relaible pattern of an absolutely normal, that he's thought of a few times since they got back, but it doesn't even feel right to try and look back to his skate. What he remembers that he did wrong, whether to suggest they could just get one of their phones, or laptops, and watch it.

Feels like escaping. Feels like glossing. Feels tempting, and terrible, all at the same time.

Like Victor's first words. (He's not a coward. He isn't.)

He can't imagine what it is Victor would want to know about that's going on in his head. It feels like a ship being dashed this way and that. The longer he can think, the stronger the waves get. The want to say something -- along with the pressure of the several comments all about Victor wanting him to speak, say something, anything, that he's thinking -- just feels it's own version of suffocating. What was he even supposed to say now?

That if he looks at Victor for too long he forgets what he's thinking, and that at same time, if he looks at Victor for too long, he can't stop the disastrous spill of thoughts in every direction? That he's never not-known how beautiful Victor was, with all his posters, and being accosted with it daily this last year, but that looking at it, at him, head on, for what it is, he's blinding, and it's impossible to ignore, everywhere, like a flood lamp, and one that was shining just as blinding right at him?

That he wants to be so much closer to Victor than over here?
That he wants to be able to reach out and touch Victor, again, already?

That he means that in the way where everything thing seems more solid, more real, when he is, and in the way, where everything tilts sideways, turns into warmth or fire or strange giddiness in hard waves, that is risking every certainty left? That he trusts Victor more than anyone he's ever known in all of his nearly-now twenty-four years, and that means he believes Victor when Victor says it's real, but believing it, refusing to truly doubt Victor beyond the space of his too-quick razor-sharp doubtful thoughts, doesn't mean it makes any sense either?

There's so much of it. All of it stuck under the top of his ribs, bumping into the cage of his ribs with every step, whisper, thoguht.

"I don't know what to say," Yuri says, quiet frustration there, and need. It wasn't as though that never happened, or even didn't happen often. It happened all the time. Especially about things that felt fragile or wrong or definitely came from all of this thoughts only circling around the worst answers possible, or all of his focus being on something that wasn't happening wherever they were at the time.

But it wasn't like this. It wasn't like staring at all the thoughts in his head, even the ones he could have made into words, would not have questioned, and having absolutely no clue what was worth saying, or what he could, or shouldn't, what was right, and what was wrong, where any of the lines and walls for anything were anymore.

[fivetimechamp]

He wonders if any of this has to do with Yuri's meltdown in the garage, but dismisses it. The skate had been incredible, wonderful, and it had certainly seemed like it had put Yuri's fears mostly to rest, and, anyway, it's probably ridiculous to think that any of what Yuri's thinking about now has to do with what happened before Victor tackled him onto the ice. Everything else just seems to be taking a back seat in comparison.

Which is probably how it should be, even if how it should be doesn't include Yuri sitting so stiffly over there like he's afraid to push past some invisible line and accidentally touch Victor. "It'll be easier to ice your hip if you lie down."

That doesn't have anything to do with what he'd just said, or Yuri's response, and it doesn't even help with the frustration in Yuri's voice, and he wonders if now is the time to offer to just kiss him again, but that seems ... wrong, right? Probably wrong. Probably something Minako would have him by the ear for, while Yuuko hid her exasperated expression in her palm because it turns out Victor really isn't all that good with people.

Not up close and personal. Not when his own feelings are a confused mess. Or, were. They aren't anymore. Everything exists in perfect clarity for him on that count: what he doesn't know is what to do.

Which makes him sigh, disappointed with himself. "Ah, I'm not very good at this." Something he said before and is likely to say again, but that's only because it's almost certainly going to remain true. "What should I do? Can I hug you? Will that help?"

It'll help him, anyway, and that's probably why, even as he's asking, he's scooting over to butt his head into Yuri's side and reach to wrap arms around his middle, temple pressing into Yuri's stomach, which makes this next sigh sound entirely different: less disappointed, more content, deeply affectionate. "Oh, you're comfortable."

Half mumbled into Yuri's shirt in surprised gratitude, while his shoulders slump in delighted relaxation, blithely ignoring the fact that he'll have to move, if Yuri's going to follow his advice.

[theglassheart]

Victor says one thing, then another, then asks a question, and even before Yuri can more than think toward an answer, Victor's arms around his sides and Victor's head is against his middle and Yuri is left blinking. At the suddenness of it, and how it's the absolute opposite of where he'd started, and how ... easy that seems to be for him.

The same way it had always been so easy for Victor to throw his arms around Yuri's shoulder, and hug him, or drag him anywhere. It does help, but that's a thought that's just as quickly here as it is gone. When he's looking down at Victor, curled up on his lap from one side, and it's not entirely unpainful, the suddenness of it, the solidness and weight of Victor on him, but it's also, so vastly startling in different ways.

He can't really see Victor's face, and Victor is talking into another part of his shirt, making Yuri shift a little at the realization, but it's even more than that. He's looking down at Victor's hair and Victor's shoulders, all right beneath his elbows and hands, where they had been at first. There's something of a sigh, as he sets a hand down on Victor's shoulders, careful at first, like it might go through it, and but then with more weight, fingers curling around the bone there, under well-formed muscles. "I don't think you're doing anything wrong."

He's not sure he believes Victor could. (That's just him.) But what does he really know? He doesn't know anything. (Again. Him. Only him.) He still doesn't think Victor could be the one doing anything wrong. Not even when that thought seems halfway distant as he watches his hand unsettle. Drift over the round of Victor's shoulder, slow against the soft fabric of his black shirt, over the curve to the top of his arm. Solid. (Real.) How is he even allowed to do this?

He stops, looking back down and inward toward the pile of silver hair in his lap. (Surreal.)
"It's not--" But he stops there, too. Pressed his mouth a moment. Tries again. "There's so much."

Which isn't enough either. "But it all seems so--" It drags, hating the options.


Chaotic? Childish? Absolutely stupid?

[fivetimechamp]

There's a low sound he makes at those first words, and a lift of his shoulders, and against Yuri's stomach, Victor's expression is rueful. "If I were doing it right, it would be easier for you."

But that's not right, either, and he remembers the beach ––

(no one thinks you're weak, Yuri)

–– and puffs out a breath, wanting to clarify. "I don't mean you need things to be easy. But I want to make it easier for you."

Easier to talk. Easier to relax. Easier to breathe. Easier to ... do this, Yuri's hand landing carefully on his shoulder, and making Victor huff out another breath. This one heavy and contended, with no wry undertones, while his skin prickles gently under the palm and fingers that drifts across his shoulder, to the top of his arm. "That feels good."

Yuri might not know what to say, but Victor usually doesn't know what to keep to himself, so between the two of them, they make actually get somewhere.

Which might actually be true, and not just hopefulness talking, when Yuri starts searching for words, somewhere above Victor's head. "It seems so what?"

[theglassheart]

Yuri isn't quite sure how to take all the words that get said against the loose bottom of his shirt, and the press of Victor's head. The frisson of chill that seeps around everywhere, even while Victor is correcting himself. It was already there, but the fact Victor has to do anything he wouldn't elsewhere, he already knows he does, but it's a little harder to have the plain words for it. No matter how it's put.

It doesn't leave clinging to his bones, but Victor's next words make his shoulders draw in and press out in a shaky something that isn't really a breath pulled in or out. Commenting on what Yuri was doing. That it was okay? That it feels good? Which makes him hold for a beat, before he lifts his hand, again, not quite sure what to do with it now. It all feels new and big and somehow impossible, like ice that might shatter if he pressed his fingers down too hard.

He's probably far too tense, his eyes drift along the line where the black shirt meets pale skin at the base of Victor's neck, and his neck, the slender skin and the rise of his spine, up to his hair everywhere in Yuri's lap, back to the black shirt, the soft rise of his shoulder blades, ribs, his back, his side. A little too fast in Yuri's chest when trying to pick something, when everything seems like it would be overreaching. Except Victor said. Victor said it felt good Basically. That he could. No several times that he could. Before now.

Like closing his eyes in the middle of the ice, even without closing them, he tries to push his shoulders down.

Running two fingers against the black cloth right on the safe side of where Victor shirt gives way to his shoulder and neck. Tracing that space, the cloth-side of his simple stitch-folded collar, as it went up across the back of his shoulder, part of his back, making himself say it, quietly. "Stupid."

He tries. He tries not to lie to Victor. He really does. Most of the time. Maybe that didn't always work. Maybe it couldn't. Like so many times today had proved, buried so far inside his head. Not because he wanted to, but because he didn't want Victor to have to deal with all of that. That he shouldn't have to. That it wasn't his problem, his responsibility for. What Yuri could or couldn't handle himself. Which gets muddy here, too.

When there's never been a here. He doesn't know what to do with here and this at all.
But he keeps trying. Even when it feels terrifying and it does show he's as simple as a child.

Like it turns him inside out, and it proves everything that Victor just clarified his words about.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri's hand pauses, and lifts, and Victor is just about to look up and say ... something, he doesn't know what, about how Yuri doesn't have to touch him if he doesn't want to, even if the prospect makes him die a little inside, but before he can, there's a faint touch on his shoulder, tracking towards the center of his back, that has him shivering and arching up into it like a cat. He can't help it; it's such a novelty, being touched. Being touched by Yuri.

People don't do that, with him. Not Yakov. Not Chris. Nobody.

He'd forgotten how every single cell in his body could feel so attuned to the drag of a single finger. He'd forgotten how many nerves exist in the space of a few inches at the back of his shoulder, just under the collar of his shirt.

It's almost enough to make him miss that small word, that single, tiny word, but it drops into the silence of the room, and this time, Victor's grateful for the quiet. "Why stupid?"

Less tiny and less careful, but just as quiet, while his arms tighten around Yuri, one hand uncurling to settle gently over his ribs, thumb stroking softly back and forth over his shirt. "What's stupid?"

[theglassheart]

Me, is the ruthless, unremorseful, first thought, and Yuri stills against it.

The faintest wince that makes his eyes close and then snap right back open, looking down, at Victor, still not looking at him. Not looking up. Who didn't see, and who somehow misses that Yuri is an idiot sometimes. More often than he should be. More often than Victor should have to deal with. Victor who keeps staying. This year, and right now. As his coach, and as ... whatever this is -- and what is this?

Not moving at all, except when his arms tighten, and his thumb starts brushing Yuri's own ribs. A splash of unexpected warmth, that ripples outward from that touch, while the questions repeat, over and over in his head, vying with the remainder of the morning, and the skate that had somehow flourished from it, his medal, and Victor, this, his questions repeating, a small whirlwind, demanding some answer of him.

Some answer that wasn't his first answer. That couldn't be that one. He traces that edge of the fabric as far as he can reach before deciding to follow the same line back. Safe, when nothing else in his head really feels it. Maybe it makes his words that, too. (Safe.) "Not knowing what to say." Or do. Beat. "Now."

Circling back around, back to the beginning, back to what he was already on. Without actually touching them, or dragging them into the light. Not sure if he'd just given up without trying, or if he still didn't even know how to put his hands to them, or them into his mouth. Every stubborn, stupid million unending question. Confusing feeling. The way new ones crept in to reflect each small word he did manage.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri's fingers reach the far edge of his collar, and start tracking slowly back, and Victor's pretty sure he could fall asleep right here, just like this, under that touch. Head on Yuri's stomach, instead of his chest like it was earlier, arms wrapped all the way around him, every conscious thought slowly drifting along with that light touch.

But he can't fall asleep, because Yuri is still talking. Talking more, even, expanding on a few words that drop like pebbles and expand outwards in quiet ripples, and finally give Victor something to grasp onto, something to try and fix. "That isn't stupid."

None of it is. He might find it more alarming if Yuri did know what to say, considering. "I know that may sound useless, but it's still true."

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow and content. Yuri smells clean and Yuri's shirt smells like Yuri, and it's a heady combination, leaves him wanting to bury his face into Yuri's stomach and never resurface. "I think it's probably pretty normal."

From his own limited experience, and what he's heard and seen. "It's complicated, and not everyone is good at talking about it." Maybe most aren't. How many novels and poems and operas in Russia end tragically simply because the characters residing in them have no idea how to say what they feel?

"If you want ... pick something small, and focus on it. Like when we started working on your step sequence, remember?" Drilling each piece step by step, until the whole thing came together in a single, fluid, perfect sweep. "And go from there."