{ 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]

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."

[theglassheart]

Millions and millions of plays and stories, operas and ballets, tv shows and movies were not written about this as something perfect and magical, when it all went right, for that to sound like it made any extra sense. Even if those are all just stories, like all the stories they weave and spin, mining for three or five perfect minutes on the ice, or to entertain themselves with off of it, it still feels stupid.

Like it makes even less sense the whole world is dedicated to these things if everyone in them feeling stupid and useless is normal. Yuri tries his best not to huff a note of complaint at the combination of the unhelpful words and the even less helpful tangle of his brain trying to pull that apart, injecting too much and too little. A million things he doesn't know, from his parents to the world around him.

Things he'd never though he'd really have to worry about. Even if that just increased how different he was.



It's even harder not to sigh at the last suggestion. One thing? How was he supposed to choose one thing? His thoughts were like fish, swimming under the water, scattering at a shadow and flying from him to hide in the shadows, when his lips tried to form this much, and when it didn't work they just schooled themselves back in, tumbling one over another in the space of his head.

He lifts his hand when it comes the opposite edge, staring at Victor beneath him, at the dangerous edge of consideration, and it's stupid, what does half an inch really matter. How few millimeters thick is the thin shirt that's been under his fingers. Maybe it all has to happen at once, maybe there isn't any other way. Crossing a line that feels so solid, even when he can't point to it existing, but only by moving a few breaths, a few millimeters.

"I don't like it." Yuri's voice is quiet, even in the silence of the room, when his fingers land softly against Victor's pale skin. "I don't want to feel like--" Tracing only the tips of themselves up the side of Victor's throat. "--I can't." He can feel his heart in his chest, like each word and touch is carving a layer of skin off the top of his heart. Handing off something he might never get back, that it would hurt to watch burn. "Again."

Except it's not just that, is it? It's not that simple. Because there's a whole world of people that's still true of.

And only one who isn't as true of as it is for anyone else. There's a moment his teeth are against his lip. Then. "With you."
It wasn't perfect. He was never perfect, and he knew there were still more times that he couldn't talk than he could.

That he got quiet, and he couldn't put together his head for a normal day, no less a day like today. But the idea of losing the ones he had, the more than he'd ever had in his life before these. Losing all the pieces that had come together, that made him try so hard, even right now, against the tension in his chest and the danger of the silence all around him. He wasn't sure he could lose the little he'd grown to be so glad for, so reliant on, for anything. Even this, whatever this was.


Then, hated, just a little, how little of him seemed prepared to have a clear feeling agreement to that. To not wanting to lift his fingers away, not wanting to let go of what he had yesterday, and not wanting to stop this, stop pressing slowly down the soft pale line of Victor's skin, watching his own fingers like he might forget to breathe entirely if he had to stop touching Victor now.

[fivetimechamp]

It's not so bad, this. Lying here with his head in Yuri's lap, arms around Yuri's waist, while Yuri's fingers draw slow lines back and forth across his shoulders and they're finally getting somewhere. Slow and halting, maybe. Even if there's a slight pause, and a faint huff of breath that sounds like Yuri doesn't believe him.

He's not surprised, but he ought to argue it, except then there's a butterfly's kiss of a touch on the thin skin at the crook of his neck, and his eyes, which had been slipping closed, open wide. That's –– Yuri's ––

He can't freeze up, but he doesn't know how to describe the sudden buzz of full body tension that strings through him, like a sequence of lights flicking on. It's barely a touch at all, so light he can barely feel it, can track it as much by the trail of lifted fine hairs and goosebumps that try to follow it as the fingertips themselves. Tipping his head on instinct to lengthen his throat, and give him more room, while his heart starts pounding.

Again. He won't have to do his cardio all week, if this keeps up.

But Yuri's saying something, at the same time, which Victor finds deeply unfair. How is he supposed to be able to pay attention to words, when all he can hear is the rush of blood in his own ears?

Except he has to. It's important. Yuri saying he doesn't like it, the not knowing what to say. Not wanting to go back to being that way.

Not wanting to go back to being that way with him. "I don't want that, either." If he's lost Yuri's trust, or everything they've built up together, everything that makes Yuri want to confide in him and joke with him and tease him and talk to him about anything, everything ...

He wouldn't change this. Even if he had to chance, he wouldn't go back in time and un-kiss Yuri, not say all those things he said or do all those things he did, but ––

But if they've lost that, how will this ever work? "Nothing about ..." He trails off, wondering what it is he's trying to say. What distinction he's trying to make. How to help Yuri understand that this, them, him, it hasn't changed. Not like that. Not enough to mean Yuri can't talk to him anymore. "... before is different. There's just, just –– more on top of it, now."

He's still who he was yesterday, and who he was with Yuri yesterday, and Yuri could talk to him yesterday. Sort of. "Is it really –– does it feel ––"

He's not sure he wants to finish that question, not sure he wants to hear the answer, but it should be asked. "That different? With me?"

When the only thing that's really changed is that Yuri knows, now. But maybe that's all it takes.

[theglassheart]

None of the answers for that question are right enough or wrong enough, and he poses them for the air and himself but, all of them sounding more like questions than answers. All of them just feel foreign in his mouth, the way he feels foreign in his body, and would probably have -- on any night before now, before Victor was half laying on him -- just flopped back on either of their beds, with his arms out and a frustratedly loud huff of annoyance at the ceiling, with no true need for caution or self-examination in expressing it.

He can hear Victor, again. Language is clumsy.
Clumsy. Fragile. Flimsy.


Like his fingers and the skin beneath them.

When he can feel every swallow Victor makes, watch the shift in his skin as he breaths. The way he stretches more, pressing to those fingers that tried to be so soft, to not ruin everything with too much. Like there was an idea of too much. Like he hadn't been wrapped around Victor, with Victor's mouth pulling his own skin somewhere near where his fingers were on Victor.

When the building urge, curiosity or necessity, is to know what it would feel like if he curled down and placed his lips right there.
(Who is he that even has these thoughts now? That he's allowed? To do this? Touch Victor? Kiss Victor?)


He doesn't curl down, and he adds, admits, after a breath, "Everything feels ... a little different."

That was probably a lot truer at its outset and quick than most of the things he'd said in a while. He felt different, from who he understood himself to be, and he was feeling things that felt different from any way he'd ever considered them or felt them or imagined them to feel before. Like everything in certain parts of him, before Victor kissing him had been cast off shadows burned away by him.

His understanding of how Victor felt about him, and even his own understanding of how he felt about Victor, that there was so much more under all of his carefully figured and martialed out feelings for him. To have the odd thought, strike him only now, about how much of this morning might have been touched by this, too. All of it.

The first night here, in this bed right beneath him, and then, Eros, and worrying about Victor leaving, and sobbing and screaming when Victor answered his every irrational fear saying he would leave, and, then, Yuri on Ice after all of those. Like some strange trail of feathers and snow and pebbles, he should have seen something more in before he got this far.

Before Victor was in his lap, and he was half-curled over him, one elbow on an aching knee balancing his cheek and an aching shoulder, while running his fingers slowly up Victor's neck enough the front of his first knuckle knocked lightly into the bottom of Victor's head. Victor who was so much to so many, and yet it felt like he couldn't be the same more, same everything, that he was to Yuri after these months to anyone else, too.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri's fingers trace a cool path up along his neck, towards the base of his skull, and he's trying not to let it ruin him, but it's all getting a little difficult. Wanting to push up into that touch. To turn over so he can catch those fingers and kiss them. Breath coming a little more shallowly as his pulse picks up and stays there, thrumming like a wingbeat under his skin.

Unable to keep himself from shifting a little more closely to Yuri, until he's lying with his chest against Yuri's hip and his stomach against Yuri's one extended leg, eyes open and listening, feeling a little like Yuri's just talking to the room and he's eavesdropping on something that isn't his business. "Different doesn't have to be bad."

If it is different. And how could it not be? He's just surprised by it because he's never felt any other way about Yuri, has only ever started out lost and only fallen in deeper. For him, none of this is new, except for Yuri's fingers against his throat, and Yuri melting into his kisses, and Yuri knowing everything.

But it's true, too. He's spent his life and career trying to be different, chasing surprises, never settling for doing the same thing twice. Different can be an adventure, something new and exciting, and even if what they had was good, it can always get better.

Underneath it all, he's still him, no matter how Yuri might scoff at that simple statement, and Yuri is still Yuri. The important parts haven't changed.

He hopes.

[theglassheart]

Different doesn't have to be bad. Those words wing around the space in his head, hazy space, hazy shadows, hazy filled everything, like they are seeking purchase, but don't know where or how to land. When it makes him think about Victor showing up in Hasestu, and when he moved to Detroit. How the beginning of both was harder than he knew what to do with it, but hadn't been terrible once some of that was worked through.

Even if Detroit had ended mostly in darkness and slinking home, and this thing with Victor. It wasn't over yet, but it's ending, no matter how well the next few weeks went, was so close it hurt to think about even without this. With this -- with Victor in his lap, rearranging himself even closer, even more against what part of Yuri he could reach -- it feels end more winding. How much worse could that be already than the other. How often did he worry about crashing at the end no matter how hard he, or they, tried.

At least it had a steady, unwavering progression. A reliable line of expectations and dates to check off. The season.
This doesn't feel steady, doesn't feel unwavering, doesn't feel like what he should do is clear anywhere.

But neither had been figuring out what to do with Victor originally.
Not even, if he was being honest, meeting Phichit had been way back when.


He's not always right. There's a lot of times the last thing in the world that's right is him, or his thoughts.

It's not like he wants this to be bad. Like he wants to know, to have more than imagine every worse ending. Right?

Not when he tilts his head, looking at his fingers, against Victor's skin and the frame of the silver shore of his hair, as they brush the back of his jaw. The round of the line the leads to the bottom of his ear, before stopping. Before lifting, a little hesitant just to set down again at the top of it, and trace around the curl of his ear in a gentle line, catching Victor's hair, so soft against his fingers and pressing them back behind his ear, away from his cheek.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri might say something in response. It's certainly a possibility, but if he does, Victor misses it.

For a good reason, though. For a very good reason, that very good reason being that Yuri's fingertips are tracing along his jaw up towards his ear, and he'd forgotten how sensitive that skin is. Hasn't thought about it in years, only ever touches it himself when he's pushing his hair back over his ears or rubbing at his jaw while deep in thought.

Not like this. Yuri's finger almost too light to feel, moving almost unbearably slowly, so gentle it could just be an errant breeze, but it isn't. It's Yuri, touching him. On purpose. Yuri, tracing along the edge of his jaw like he might find the answers he's looking for at the end of this path he's taking, while Victor's heart squeezes and founders and stumbles all over itself in surprised, confused need.

Needing more. Needing Yuri never to stop. Needing to stay absolutely still so Yuri won't snatch his hand away, but needing to push into it, too, to ask for his fingers to keep going, keep melting Victor away drop by drop down the back of his own skull.

A tiny sound that would probably be embarrassingly needy if he heard it, or cared, escaping as Yuri's fingers slip around the curve of his ear and tuck a few strands of hair back, while Victor's arms tighten and he buries his face in Yuri's shirt and stomach, sighing huge and shaky.

There was something he'd been thinking, but he's lost it, which is probably just as well: he can't imagine caring about absolutely anything else in this moment.

[theglassheart]

He doesn't understand so much of this. Not sure he would even if it was written on cue cards in front of him. So he could just keep looking down at them every time his mind balks and tries to start over like a computer turned off, restarting. It basically is, isn't it? When Victor's arms tighten around his protesting ribs and stomach and back muscles, sore from the day, from the whole weekend, but not sore enough to care when Victor is doing that.

Victor. Is in his lap. There. Still there. Every time he looks down. Everytime he breathes.

Hugging him closer, making this soft plaintive sound, and then sighing so hard it shakes his whole upper body. Making Yuri stop for it. Victor's hair only just pressed back ending up everywhere again and Victor's face pressed into him. Yuri's hand curling, lightly, on the back of his head, as the only place to really land without any weight because he's waiting to see if Victor's going to move again.



This isn't how he pictured this. Not that he pictured this. Not really pictured this. Not even truly pretend-pictured this. This isn't how ... his panicked worst exploded in terror thoughts at the beginning, or even brightest, confusing dreams, like that, even to recently get stuck on the wrong reactions and days of exhaustion with only one sensible, worldwide agreed, focal point, went. They never made sense, to begin with, and they weren't real, but they weren't like this.

They weren't ... Victor suddenly curled up on top of half of him like he was a life-sized pillow.
Like he was emulating his own poodle. Flopped down and unmoving. Sighing like it's all he wants.

Both that sound and the one before it caught in Yuri's chest. Messy in his lungs. Kicks him back to. Victor wants him. Victor loves him. More than in any of the ways Yuri has already both had so many problems believing and grown so reliant, so supported on being real, at the same time. Everything so very real and not before this, and this just shifted it up a million notches.

Every word Victor said, every movement Victor made. When he takes a breath in and his fingers shift, gently, against Victor's hair, fingertips sliding into his hair, even though watching his hand makes it so he can't even breathe in. How many people would -- and he's. There's a wave of everything. Overwhelming everything as he cards his fingers so very slowly and lightly down, uncertain again, ready to pull back.

Strange like he can't breathe. Strange like his eyes are slightly stinging. Strange like he wants to hug Victor. Strange like everything is different. Strange like ... he doesn't even know ... light. So much light. Silver and silent. But he doesn't do anything more than that, watch his fingers and feel Victor's hair, until both reach the softer shorter end and his neck.

[fivetimechamp]

He shifts, and Yuri stops, making Victor crack one heavy eye, like a sleepy and suspicious dragon, but before he decides to do or say anything, Yuri's fingers slip down into his hair and he stops thinking altogether.

It feels like warm water pouring over his head, down the back of his neck and along his spine. He's gone boneless and heavy, and he probably shouldn't be putting the weight of his whole head and half his torso on Yuri when Yuri is sore and tired, but Yuri's fingers are in his hair and he doesn't have a choice. It's like being slowly liquefied. He wonders if this is how ice feels when the sun kisses it in the spring, if it's happy to melt, to pool into warm water and shimmer there under the gentle rays, and, really, it's just unfair. Yuri dismantling him with no more than a few fingers in his hair, barely touching him at all.

But touching him with purpose. Touching him on purpose. In a way that can't be mistaken for all the other ways Yuri has touched him, leaned on him like he's furniture or fallen against him when he crashes after a long day of practice. It's not even anything like that night at the banquet, when Yuri had reached for him like Victor's body and skin were things he owned, was entitled to. It's just ...

Nice. Nicer than anything. So nice his eyelids are heavy and he's relaxing so deeply that he might actually fall asleep if he's not careful. Which is why he shouldn't say: "Don't stop."

Mumbled just loudly enough to hear, while his fingers stroke the back of Yuri's shirt lazily, right where the edge of it has rucked up against the small of his back and a thin sliver of bare skin is exposed between the edge of the shirt and the waistband of his sleep pants. It's soft, and warm, and Victor spreads his hand to cover it, too, feeling protective of that tiny, vulnerable spot.

He'd blanket Yuri entirely if he could, until he knows. Until he believes. There's nothing to be afraid of.

[theglassheart]

It's the first words since -- since something else and in the reverse of helpful, of listening, it makes Yuri go still, in surprise at the sound in the silence. Even the mumbled whisper of it. Takes him a second, while his cheeks are warming in surprise -- or, or, or, no something else, too, something warm, with wide nebulous arms, pushing everywhere in his chest right above where Victor's head is pressed -- and he is blushing, by the time he puts his hand down again.

Starts closer to the top of Victor's head, of what he can reach of it. Which touching down, again, reminds him of poking the top of his head and then patting it before his skate. How as that only a few hours ago? When he'd wanted to point out that everything was fine, but he didn't have the words for that any more than he had the words to explain his head was broken, and he knew it was, and he was trying his best. That Victor didn't have to look so distant or confused or frustrated.

That he'd decided to play off his own so much earlier embarrassing loss of control and Victor's own vanity, like a reminder.

Victor's perfect hair and concern over it, and everything else about how he looked. As fussy and pointless, and impossible for Yuri to even pretend he or anyone human could emulate as it seemed on a daily basis. Yuri wasn't certain Victor knew how to look one hair out of place from perfect. Not in a suit and not in a single robe. Even now, curled into him, like this, while Yuri was running his fingers through it. Still soft, but with just a tiny bit more pressure against his head, and just a little less slowly, like he might not need to stop after each new millisecond.

When everything is pushing up toward the top of his chest and he doesn't have any clue how to catch it into words. It's just getting so big and so nebulously warm, curling up inside his chest and rising like a balloon, the way Victor is curled up against him, sinking and holding him where he is on the edge of this bed. Everywhere, everything, all at once.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri's fingers are back in his hair, running a little more firmly and quickly through it, and it. Is. Bliss. It must be how Maccachin feels when he gets his ears rubbed, and it makes Victor shift and melt and mumble something incoherent directly into Yuri's stomach.

He feels like a warm sauce being slowly poured, or like a gradually dissolving sheet of tissue paper in a warm bath. Yuri's fingers rubbing against the thin skin over his skull, and there are so many nerves there, it feels nothing like shampooing or brushing his own hair, or even like running his own fingers through it. Laying him absolutely low, a useless puddle of himself. He'd had such good intentions: intentions of talking, figuring things out, explaining. If he'd thought about this at all, he would have pictured it the other way around, taking care of Yuri and Yuri's sore muscles, and letting Yuri, who must be exhausted, rest against him.

He hadn't considered this, and he's too selfish in this moment to give it up, even to flip the image. Even as his fingers sneak lightly under the hem of Yuri's shirt, to run the pad of his thumb over the skin at the small of his back before flattening his palm and fingers there.

(He's so warm.)

An unintelligible mumble slipping from somewhere between his mouth and Yuri's shirt, that has no effect on the looseness of his shoulders, the heavy pool of him trying its best to sink into Yuri's side and leg. Thinking, blearily, that Yuri should stop, if he's ever going to be able to answer any of Yuri's questions. Absolutely certain that Yuri should never stop, because nothing in his whole life has ever felt this good.

[theglassheart]

Yuri shivers at the hand that finds his skin, but sits up, pushing his spine straight in surprise at the bare touch, which only presses him into Victor's face. Victor being behind him and in front of him. Fingers on his skin, that make his whole lower back feel suddenly aware of itself. Fussy, strained muscles, that feel like they've already forgotten the hot water from the shower, forgotten his shirt, forgotten there was anything they were made for, but suddenly laying there under the flat of Victor's hand.

Holds. Holds still a moment longer still. But Victor doesn't move. His skin tingling everywhere under and around that hand. Victor just holds on, hand against his bare skin, mumbling something Yuri can't hear clearly enough to tell if is or isn't words, into his shirt and Yuri has to press a breath of out of his filled chest and his still warmed cheeks. "I can't hear you, if you're talking."

Somehow, even surprising himself, is the way his voice sounds light. Amused, and soft.

Like it could just drift away, unheard and unanswered and that would be fine.

Maybe everything could just be fine, even without words, if he just didn't have to move, or stop running his fingers through Victor's hair, staring down at his hand doing it, and Victor curled around him. Every second of it still beating a ragged, running, blossoming whisper of real, real, real that was getting sticky warm everywhere in his chest.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri stiffens, but Victor waits –– he's learning to wait, all over again, like he did those first few weeks when it seemed like everything he did pushed Yuri a step too far –– and after a breath or two, he relaxes again. Not enough, because Yuri's sitting up when he should at least be leaning against the headboard, and Victor's mulling the thought over when Yuri's voice breaks through the fog, and he cracks that eye again, half rolling his head to try and look up.

Was he talking? Probably. A running list of everything that's wonderful about this, the way he does when he's somewhere new that's amazing, or has just bitten into an especially delicious new food. It's such perfect bliss that he should be shouting it from the rooftops, extravagant in his joy, and he would be, if it weren't also so relaxing. "You feel good."

That's not enough. His arms shift, and tighten, fingers firm against the bare skin of Yuri's back, and he's starting to shift, too, head pushing up towards Yuri's chest, using his weight to coax Yuri into leaning back towards the pillows and headboard. He might be close enough to use them as a brace, or he might be too far away: Victor's not sure he cares, either way, just wants more of Yuri's fingers in his hair and more of Yuri's skin under his hand and Yuri's heartbeat under his ear. "You should relax more, Yuri."

It's almost back to his old wheedling tone, but there's no sly look accompanying it. "But don't stop, I love it, it feels so good."

Sighed against Yuri's chest, now while his eyes slid shut again, and his hand has slid further up Yuri's back, the other arm still wrapping his waist. "It makes me want to fall asleep right here." He's so comfortable. The most comfortable he's ever been. He wouldn't have thought Yuri could be so soft to lie on, after that first month when he leaned out, but he's perfect, and Victor just wants as much of it as he can get. "But you should be the one getting sleep, not me."