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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.
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.
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Date: 2017-05-17 01:30 am (UTC)“It was private.” His eyes flick through the darkness, toward Victor, because it sounds wrong. It’s the wrong word, and it’s not: “Not a secret.” Not. He hadn’t. Even if he wished hard that it could be now, suddenly, so much, now that it felt like was everywhere else but right here, between them. “Just—“
Not a secret. Not private. “Personal.”
Except that was wrong, too, and he shifts. Agitated. Breath catching in his teeth. Right, but wrong, in the same way private was right, but wrong. The second one made it sound like it was just his, and it wasn’t just his. He hadn’t thought it was just his. Which becomes.
“It was just—“ He pauses, looking up, shaking his head, with nothing else coming up, having to swallow, feeling overwhelmingly stupid and childish and uneducated in everything he'd been suddenly drug into, for the word coming. For the fact it’s wrong, and he’s wrong. Again. “—just ours.”
And now it wasn’t.
Now a world of people, a whole world, anyone with the internet, or access to the news, had it. More than just another picture on some street, where Victor had apologized to for kissing him front of some small, forgotten crowd. Instead, it was confirmed by Victor, in front of millions. Billions. The whole world.
A world with opinions and questions, and assumptions, who would start making and leaving comments on all them, about things Yuri hadn’t even gotten to sit here to figure out and know he had questions about or wanted to know or do or learn. When most of him was only back to his old favorite: wanting to know how to vanish into thin air again.
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Date: 2017-05-17 01:50 am (UTC)It's the only thing he can say, as Yuri picks out words, discards them, tries to find the right on, and he's shifting closer before even realizing it, only wanting to clear away that unhappy, bereft look on his face. "It's still just ours."
Nothing has changed. Not really. Has it? These photos and theories were going to be all over their notifications today, anyway, because Victor couldn't hold himself back and kissed Yuri in public, in full view of hundreds and maybe thousands of cameras, on a live television stream, and again outside, right on the sidewalk where anyone walking by could see.
His comments haven't changed that, the inescapable nature of media coverage. They maybe fueled the fire, a little, but he didn't say anything inappropriate, did he? Didn't say they were dating, or anything about anything other than his own personal feelings.
Did he?
But it doesn't look like that matters to Yuri, and he looks so miserable Victor doesn't know what to do, isn't sure if he should reach out to pull him into a hug, or touch his cheek, or do anything other than try to convince him it's all going to be fine. "That hasn't changed. It's still just you and me."
Everything else is opinion no one needs to care about, because it has nothing to do with them, in the end. He doesn't want this to be used to push article clicks or headlines any more than Yuri does, but whatever gets published is likely to be more fiction than fact, anyway.
But it's a strange ache in his chest, watching Yuri's face, hearing those words. Like Yuri just wants to keep this ... safe.
Like it's too precious to be shared with the world. Like he feels as though he just lost something treasured, and didn't know how to get it back.
(When was the last time anyone felt that way about him?) "Whatever they think they have, it's not this."
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Date: 2017-05-17 02:17 am (UTC)"Whatever it is?" It's barely a whispers the first time. Whatever it is, the world thinks it has, Victor meant. Like there'd even been enough time before Yuri passed out for Yuri to even have a clue, a guess, an idea at whatever it is he's supposed to have now. Or not have. Or had. He's an idiot. That's all he has. Victor is talking to him like this is absolutely normal, and maybe it is.
Maybe this is normal for Victor. Maybe he was supposed to know this was all part of it. When he finally kissed Victor back. But half was already done, then, wasn't it? From the ice and the sidewalk, and the other half as he slept. Bookends. Covers of a book already shut. Everything already happened, that needed him for it, in the middle, without paying attention, known to pay attention, to everything that would stand out stronger in comparison.
"Whatever it is," Yuri starts again. Then, shakes his head. "You didn't have to help them."
Choose them. Go looking for it. So happily dropping comments and emotes on it all.
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Date: 2017-05-17 02:49 am (UTC)That Victor didn't have to help them. "I didn't ––"
Paused, and drawn off, because maybe he didn't mean to help them, the media, the people talking, but he supposes he did, whether that was his intention or not. "I wasn't trying to help them, I was just ..."
Trying to help me is how that sentence ends, but he pauses with it, again, even feeling the words like marbles in his mouth, because there's something wrong in there, too. Something that feels off, something that niggles at the back of his brain and sounds like Yakov, suddenly and alarmingly.
That man thinks only of himself!
Which he'd fought against all last night, trying to make sure Yuri felt safe and happy and protected, trying to make sure he didn't railroad Yuri's wants and fears for what he wanted.
Trying to think. About someone else.
And then Yuri had fallen asleep, and it's like all his restraint had gone out the window. He hadn't meant to help them the ambiguous Them Yuri means, but he had only helped himself.
How Yuri would feel about it hadn't even crossed his mind.
It's a thought that leaves him aghast, a cold hard chill shivering across his skin and up into his hair, lifting it like he's just noticed a pair of eyes watching him from out of the corner. "I didn't think of it like that, I was just ..."
Thoughtless? Selfish? The juggernaut he'd been trying so hard not to be?
Unable to finish that thought with anything other than "...happy."
It feels lame. It feels like an excuse. It feels like he should have known better, and he should have. How stupid can he be in a single twenty-four hour period?
Even as he's lifting a hand, helpless, to card into his hair. "I didn't think there was any harm in a few comments saying so."
Because he's an idiot. And Yakov was right.
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Date: 2017-05-17 03:10 am (UTC)Was it worth it? Are you still happy?
Except that's the wrong side of his head.
That's the worst voice in his head.
His eyes clench for a second.
He knows the answer and even, sitting here in the dim morning with Victor, he knows it and he doesn't want the answer to be what it is. That Victor is confused. That Victor didn't think about it. That Victor didn't understand. That Victor is absolutely nowhere near happy, even if he'd probably still be happy, if Yuri just didn't open his mouth, just didn't have problems with everything under the sun.
That saying this now. Poked and prodded until it found words, that somehow took purchase somewhere, and Victor even seemed to get a glimmer of it, while his defense of only meaning well, which Yuri doesn't really think is wrong, gets weaker, softer. Didn't make it better.
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Date: 2017-05-17 03:56 am (UTC)He tries to make sure they don't sound too desperate, those words, but he's not really used to saying them and they come out in a sort of burst, like Yuri has banged his knee and an apology came out instead of a kick. He's not even sure what, exactly, he's sorry for, only knows that it's whatever he did that put this expression on Yuri's face, instead of the sweet and trusting one he'd had at the end of the night before, right before dropping off to sleep.
All he knows is he has to fix it. That he can't have ruined everything with a few dumb comments on Instagram simply because he was overly excited at the idea of finally having Yuri, after all this time.
He can't lose him because of it.
But Yuri isn't saying anything, closing his eyes in pain even after he nods, like he's trying to figure out the best way to phrase something terrible, and Victor has to leap on it, to stop it, desperation welling so thick in his throat he thinks he might choke on it.
This is not what he meant to do. "I wasn't thinking about how people might take them. I ... wasn't thinking."
Not straight. Not carefully. Maybe not at all.
(If he'd thought this was a possible reaction, even in the slightest of chances, he never would have opened that app at all.)
Yuri isn't looking at him, and he has to reach out, shifting onto his knees at Yuri's side, one hand lifting, wondering if he'd even be allowed to touch Yuri's face, his neck, his shoulder right now. "I felt so lucky, it seemed wrong to keep it to myself."
Yuri hasn't grown up in the public eye the way he has. Over a decade of every move being watched, recorded, dissected, and discussed, and he's gotten used to it, almost considers it to be the norm, now, even if he knows it isn't. That it isn't for Yuri, and not for most people even in his position, either, but he's never minded. Probably he should have, this time, but it's impossible to know for sure now.
Which only leaves him feeling even more helpless, as his hand drops again, to his own knee, and he's searching Yuri's face for some sort of sign that this isn't it, but all he has in his own defense is still, only: "I'm sorry."
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Date: 2017-05-17 05:03 am (UTC)The kind of sense where Victor forgot about what time it was all the time. Forgot when the buses and trains stopped running, while still two cities away. Forgot he'd already eaten enough for three people when the next shining thing existed on a counter or advertisement. Forgot that no one had a bathing suit and then went running into the waves anyway. Forgot where they were supposed to turn to find a new restaurant, several times, while needing to have Yuri answer every question about buildings, and nicknacks, and signs, and seasons, and everything he could see still three-quarters of a year in.
With Victor, it's not the same how with someone else it would be not caring.
Victor just ... forgets things. Whatever the most important, exciting things to him aren't.
Yuri's not sure he wants to tangle with the snarl of any part of that circling loop. Victor was so happy about him (and how is that real?) that Victor forgot about him (and how is that real?). It doesn't help to eye that spinning circle. What he likes even less, and wants to stop even more, is Victor apologizing. Victor's plaintive tone. Raw in the darkness. The sudden sharp wail in his chest when Victor's hand in the air had dropped back to own leg without touching Yuri.
Yuri's mouth has given a thousand more apologies than the wind knew what to do with, and he's done something two days running that suddenly had Victor apologizing. Victor who said he'd stepped down, take the brunt of the fall, if Yuri didn't make the platform. Victor who was so happy, so lucky, he just wanted to tell everyone he didn't know, who didn't know him. (Not really? Not the real him under the gold and lights?)
Nothing much makes enough sense, except it's wrong, too. Victor just apologizing. Again. Frantic for the words to mean something. Do something. For them to change into gold in the air, or do something to Yuri. Something that isn't making his heart and stutter frantically at both the wrongness of it, and something like the slow thaw of dizzying (but still wary) relief.
He wants to just tip like a small mountain, or crumple like a ball of paper and bounce, and either way, just push himself against Victor. Bury himself. When relief feels just as damning and just as desperate. What did he say. What did he do. What does he say and do now, when Victor is even more desperate for an answer to his apologies than when he'd been saying Yuri's name over and over, worried, wanting him to explain. He doesn't know that there are more words. He's not mad. He's just tired all over. In some new way.
But his gaze, looking down, lands on Victor's hand again. The one on Victor's knee. That Victor raised, almost reaching out, only to drop. Maybe Yuri could not just throw himself into Victor's arms, even if most of him just wanted to be there, again, somehow. Something that seemed trapped in last night, before waking, before dreams, before falling asleep even. But. It takes a second. A breath in. A steady of his spine. Before he does. He reaches out and picks up Victor's hand with both of his. The back of his palm and below his wrist.
Trying not to let himself think too hard and hesitate, Yuri pulled it up, while curling slightly forward. Until he could place Victor hand against his head. Palm against his cheek, finger clumsy against his ear and what must be the absolute mess of his hair. Close his eyes and try, try so hard, just for a second to just repeat it to himself. Without any of the questions. The biting thoughts. The snide whispers. The upended feelings. The panic. The despair.
Victor didn't mean for it to hurt. Victor had been happy. Victor was sorry.
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Date: 2017-05-17 12:44 pm (UTC)He probably doesn't deserve for this apology to be taken, but that doesn't make it any less sincere, even if he's not sorry for all of it.
Not sorry for feeling the way he does. For wanting to show the world. For shouting from the rooftops how amazing Yuri is, how beautiful, how special. Treacherously, he still wants to.
What he's sorry for is this other part of it, the unintended part. Hurting Yuri, when all he'd meant to do was love him, in the way he's used to loving things: loudly, exuberantly, publically.
He's sorry for not thinking, the way he so often doesn't think, and there's no excuse for that. He might have been getting better at putting Yuri first as a skater, but he still has a long way to go in every other way.
All of it meaning that Yuri probably shouldn't accept his apology, because it doesn't make things all right, even if Victor still doesn't understand why they've gone so wrong, and that is a desperate, choking thought. That maybe it isn't. Won't be. Couldn't. Even if Yuri understands, and he looks like he does, watching Victor with that closed and faintly weary expression that only makes him want to duck his head, slump his shoulders, dissolve into a puddle of apology. If he had a tail, it would be between his legs.
But then there's a pressure on his hand, of Yuri's hand, and Yuri is pulling it back up to that spot Victor wasn't sure he'd be allowed to touch: palm against his warm cheek, fingers curving instinctively into his hair, careful around his ear, and Victor takes a sharp breath that feels like cracking glass and makes the whole room pause for a long second before he's in motion.
Pushing forward to wrap that arm around Yuri's shoulders, fingers against the back of his head, his other arm going around Yuri's waist, face into Yuri's shoulder, while Yuri's phone has already fallen somewhere on the bedsheets, forgotten in his sick relief and the need to protect Yuri from that look on his face, even if he's the one who put it there. "I won't say anything else, I'll stop. You can take my phone and ground me, I am terrible. Please forgive me."
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Date: 2017-05-17 02:38 pm (UTC)About the edge of the bed, or the idea of falling, and anything but Victor diving into him.
Just the need to meet that collision, his arms slide around Victor's and hug him impossibly tight right back. Warm and solid, almost still not solid enough. While Victor bounces from one extreme to the other and Yuri almost wants to huff a laugh, which makes no sense, because it's not funny. None of this is funny, and Victor's words aren't either.
It's stupid. It's deeply over dramatic. Yuri'd roll his eyes, if they weren't shut tight in Victor's shoulder. Tight as Yuri is pressed against Victor. Has his arms stretched far as they can be around Victor's neck and shoulders, finger sunk into that soft night-dark fabric over the solidness of muscle and bone right below it.
Yuri doesn't want to take Victor's phone. He just wants Victor.
Yuri doesn't want the whole world to know it's real. He wants to.
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Date: 2017-05-17 03:03 pm (UTC)So maybe he screwed up. (Again.) There's a learning curve to all of this, and it involves him being more thoughtful, and maybe Yuri being more open, but it doesn't matter. As long as they're here together, they can figure it out. Relief a cold sweep of water pouring down over his head and along the back of his neck, everywhere Yuri is touching. His chest. Shoulder. The crook of his neck. Those arms around his neck and shoulders, fingers hard and gripping too hard. Not painful, but harder than Yuri should feel like he needs to hold on to Victor, which is why his own arms loosen enough for him to shift, lift his head to find the side of Yuri's neck with his mouth, even as quiet, coaxing words are coming out. "Come back to bed."
Come back to him. Here. This quiet, safe place where the world is still shut out, and no one will bother them, and they have ... not all the time in the world, but some. Some more.
What Yuri said was supposed to be just theirs. When in reality it's just his. Victor is. If there's a world outside that window, he doesn't give a damn about it, or what the people in it think. All he wants, he has, right here and now.
Already leaning his weight down and backwards, pulling Yuri with him in a slow but inexorable drop, to find the bed with his back with Yuri on his chest, long arms securing him like a seatbelt.
He'd said nothing would change, and he'd meant it. And nothing has. Nothing that matters. It's still just them.
Lifting his head to brush his nose into Yuri's hair, lips over his ear. "This is just ours." Except that's not even quite right. It is, but even more, it's. "Yours."
This is. The important part.
All of him. Even if he doesn't always get it right.
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Date: 2017-05-17 03:51 pm (UTC)About being in Victor's bed, having fallen asleep, slept and woken up in it. Was still in it.
There really isn't time to say something, even think about what to say before Victor is already tipping himself, without letting go in the slightest. Just going to fall against the bed, without trying, and Yuri eye's go wide, one hand trying to fly out to find the bed to their side, with an expulsion of Victor's name.
Not that it saves him -- when does half-shouting or even shouting Victor's name like it should be some warning against his next crazy thing, before Yuri's even adjusted to the first, ever? -- and not that it even matters to him, next. Not when Victor's mouth has moved from his neck to his ear. Not when he says this is theirs, making Yuri's heart stumble hard at the use of his own badly chosen words, and then, even more unexpectedly, this is his.
Which makes Yuri shiver for a completely different reason.
Makes him start to duck his head, only to stop, instead look up at Victor.
A hand on his chest to lift just a little, just wanting to look at Victor's face.
It's still nothing like bright and nothing like light, and there aren't any on in here. There's only the slow dim, and the shape of Victor's face in it, and things that don't need his eyes. Victor's voice, still repeating those words in his ears, and Victor's heart, beating, through his chest and shirt, somewhere not far from the place Yuri's hand was.
no subject
Date: 2017-05-17 04:30 pm (UTC)This is better. More like what he expected the morning to look like, even if Yuri is still tense and probably still annoyed. He lets himself be dragged, even if there's a surprised scold of his name as they go down, but that's fine, he's used to that. Yuri half-shouting his name, as if Victor needs to be brought back to his sense, while Yuri still goes along with whatever it is Victor's doing that seems so insane.
It's a good sign.
So is the way Yuri pushes up, without pushing away, to look at him, with his hand on Victor's chest, directly over his heart, which Victor has to cover with his own, while his other hand lifts to brush back Yuri's hair over his ear, only for it to fall out again, too short and rumpled to stay put without gel, leaving Victor grinning and fond. Eyes gone soft as they track over Yuri's face, no glasses to break up the soft lines of his features or hide his eyes. "You're so beautiful."
Too simple to say, maybe, but it is simple, and it's true. Yuri is, has always been. Fine features and dark eyes that make him think of that old song, that pops up almost every skating season like clockwork, as reliable as Firebird or Scheherazade.
(He could skate it perfectly, now.)
The clean, graceful line of his neck, curving to his shoulder. The soft and rumpled mess of his hair, that seems made to have fingers carding through it. His hands, delicate and nimble. All the strength hidden beneath simple black shirts and pants, under a winter jacket, unassuming and shy.
Could anyone really blame him for losing his head over that picture, over having this in his arms?
Is he really going to be able to restrain himself if the temptation appears again?
How wrong is it that he already wishes he could show this off to the world? Not this, this ... private. Personal. Thing.
But this feeling. This bewildered sense of good fortune he still can't quite believe.
"How did I get so lucky?"
no subject
Date: 2017-05-17 05:34 pm (UTC)(Again.)
Again bursts his heart, remembering for a too long, too sudden second, about Victor taking his hand and laying his hand over his heart when Victor was kissing him, feeling it pounding out a rhythm Yuri thought of belong to running, and skating. Not himself. It's softer now. Slower. But Victor's hand is there. Firm on the back of him, over Victor's heart. (And he's still not even postive how that's allowed. Not really. The words are there. But ... eveything else.)
Which only made more than not a little too self-aware that he's mostly laying on Victor, and that Victor did that, while Victor's other fingers pushed his hair back, only for it to come flopping, messily, forward again. It almost makes him sigh, want to grumble something about it, that his hair is always a mess (that he is), until his heart stops at Victor's words.
Victor's words that hit with so much more force than that photo. It's not the same as Victor leaving some tiny graphic beneath it. He sees it -- barely, rarely, sometimes -- in the pictures. There are posters. Banners. He's seen videos of his skates. Yuri never sees it in the mirror. Never.
But somehow Victor does?
At all, but -- now? Like this?
Victor who just goes on staring at him, making the back of Yuri's neck feel warmer the longer this pause goes while Victor seems to be just looking at him. Keeps staring, making him more and more self-concious, more uncertain whether to hold still or just put his head back down and hide from it.
Before -- Yuri doesn't even know how to think. Open his mouth. Victor? Victor feels like he got lucky? With this? With Yuri? That seems incredibly impossible, more like something Yuri should be saying. Should be asking. Has been asking since the second he could hold on to anything last night.
But not like this either. Not the way Victor says it. Not the way his voice ...
It's light, happy and quiet. It sounds almost awe touched.
(Yuri's did not have those emotions.)
It doesn't change that Yuri's brow knits a little, his head finally dropping, even if that means he ends up with his chin and cheek slightly against their layered hands and Victor's arm. "Isn't that backward?"
The world certainly is going to feel that way, isn't? Just like his coaching?
Which Yuri had to wonder, suddenly, if it was even really allowed. What did this do to that?
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Date: 2017-05-17 06:06 pm (UTC)Absolutely certain, while Yuri is dropping his head to settle against their hands and his arm, a comforting weight against his chest. His hand smoothing over the back of Yuri's head, and settling at the round of his shoulder, holding him here, stable and close. "It's not."
He doesn't know if he thinks Yuri is lucky to have him, too. He'd never really thought about it that way. Not like this anyhow. Of course it's lucky for Yuri to have his resources and his talent and his help as a coach: it might be vain to say so, but it's also the truth. Without him, Yuri might never have even tried to reach his potential as a skater, might not have even known there was so much more he should be trying for. In that sense, yes. Yuri is lucky to have him.
But like this? When it's been less than a day, barely even twelve hours, and he's already made so many mistakes? He still doesn't know if he'll be any good at this, only knows he's never wanted to try so much, for anything. A different sort of goal than another medal or title or championship, harder to strive for and reach than simple physical perfection.
Lucky. He's always been a lucky person. Has shaken out a good fortune every time he's gone to the Hasetsu temple, has never failed at anything he's tried to do. Even made this happen, somehow, after spending so long thinking it was impossible.
Still has it, even though it's morning and Yuri should know better, and he's already managed to fall all over himself even before he's had his coffee, a thought that makes his mouth press, rueful, while his thumb strokes lightly over the skin just past the collar of Yuri's t-shirt. "I'm sorry I didn't give you something more pleasant to wake up to."
This is truly not how he thought the morning would go, if he's being honest.
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Date: 2017-05-17 07:35 pm (UTC)It's not that he doesn't know people like him. Even love him. His family. Minako. Yuu-san and her family. Phichit. Celestino had never disliked him. And Victor. He does know that Victor loved him, before last night, before what he knew of that changed entirely. He'd known that he and Victor have always had something between them, something bigger than anything he'd ever felt in his life, something he said he was calling 'love' on national tv.
But he'd, also, said he'd always felt he was alone, fighting alone, doing all of this alone. Until this year. Until Victor. Who suddenly makes him shiver, again, when his thumb starts stroking gently on the nap of Yuri's neck, before speaking again. He wants to say me, too. It beats against his lips. He's sorry. He is. That he woke up Victor with that. That that was how Victor woke up. That that was how Yuri feels like he was shoved from quiet, fuzzy awareness to this. By Victor. Too. That this is what they made of the first morning (and is this an example of how nothing will ever work for them?).
Except, is it even really morning yet? When the room is still far more dark than light? When it's more than that the curtains are still out. It's still earlier than either of them really had to be awake. Not yet time for getting up. Getting ready for the exhibition, or even just to see what the breakfast buffet might have today. It's not really there yet, is it?
It's an odd thought, and maybe that's why it happens. A quiet not quite whisper, as he's realizing he can feel Victor's heartbeat against his cheek, the side of his head, through their hands, "Morning isn't over yet."
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Date: 2017-05-17 08:49 pm (UTC)It's a surprise, those words, and they feel like the verbal equivalent of the shy, sweet kisses Yuri gave him last night. Like he doesn't know if it's the right thing to say, but he wants to try it out, anyway.
And it is the right thing to say. "No, it isn't." Not over. Really, it's barely morning at all. He hasn't even been awake ten minutes, and they don't have to be anywhere for hours upon hours.
Except it doesn't even feel like Yuri's saying that, does it? It feels like Yuri's giving him another shot, a chance to do it right. A do-over, like earlier was just a bad warm-up, and this is the performance that actually counts. "You're right."
As he often is, when Victor is despairing about one thing or another, a thought which only suffuses him further with gratitude, arm tightening around Yuri's shoulder briefly, before he shifts down, a little, beneath him, tucking his chin while his hand lifts from Yuri's shoulder to under his, to tip his face up to where Victor is smiling at him, soft and warm. Close enough to lean, curling inward, to press a gentle kiss to that mouth, that only lingers for a second too long until he pulls away again.
"Good morning, Yuri."
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Date: 2017-05-18 01:25 am (UTC)Before Victor lifts his chin, and curls up, instead of just pulling him down, and kisses him.
A spangle of surprise tightening his shoulders, but warmth blowing up and popping ripples in the center of his chest.
Leaving him staring at Victor, flushed with something that is a little surprise (not even certain whether it should be, but still is) and something ... else. Flustered smile at Victor's words -- that doesn't, it can't make it go away. The rocks in his stomach, stubborn small balls cold sunk. But it makes it ... better. Both of them. Somehow. A little better. Which he doesn't know if is right, or wrong, or just the same inability to deny Victor for long that he's always had.
But it feels like more than that, too. Like the echo of something lost, that might not be.
Like a second chance to try and do something. Victor's kiss lingering on his lips,
Caught in the pink high on his cheeks, and his somehow still shy, "Hi."
Like somewhere in the middle they could start over. Together.