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theglassheartIf 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 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.
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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?"
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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.