{ 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

[theglassheart]

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

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

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

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

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


Shocked surprise.
(Victor. Kissed. Him.)

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


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

[yuri_plisetsky]

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

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

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



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

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

(through the sudden rush of blood in his ears)

-- but Katsudon is right there underneath him --

(he thinks he hears Baba let out a squeal)

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



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

[fivetimechamp]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[theglassheart]

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

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

Explaining.

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


(Yuri surprised him.

And Victor kissed him.)

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

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

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

[fivetimechamp]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[theglassheart]

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

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

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

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

(Victor Nikiforov kissed him.

In front of the whole world.


Is still looking at him like -- )


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


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

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

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

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

[fivetimechamp]

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

"Good."

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

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

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

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

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

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

[theglassheart]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Because that, too.

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

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

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

[fivetimechamp]

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

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

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

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

[theglassheart]

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

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

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

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


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

kissed him.
(That part is not.)

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

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

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

[fivetimechamp]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[theglassheart]

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

[fivetimechamp]

"Before Russia."

Instant agreement, before he's getting up, and pulling Yuri with him. Only a few days before the Rostelecom Cup, and that's not enough time, but they can make it work. That's what night practices and jump harnesses are for, and if anyone can teach Yuri the quad flip, it's him. It's his signature. If it wasn't, it could never have mattered so much.

But it was, is, and it changed everything. "Come on! They're going to need you to go accept your medal."

Silver, but that's acceptable. He hasn't seen Phichit's free skate, but he's willing to bet that when he sees it later, it'll be flawless. Would have to be, to beat Yuri's quads, even with Yuri's mistakes.

(But he did place above Chris, and Victor can't help feeling smug at that. Still beating Chris, even without competing himself ... that must frustrate him.)

It'll take a few minutes to set up the medal ceremony, but the other skaters are coming their way, led by Phichit and Guang-hong, who both throw themselves at Yuri to congratulate him, while Chris slants a look at Victor that's somewhere between annoyed and amused while he shakes hands with Josef and Celestino.

(Yakov and Georgi are nowhere to be seen, which is probably just as well.)

And it's all nice, and delightful, and he can't seem to stop smiling, but he's impatient, too. Looking back on it now, even the last two years doesn't seem like they dragged on as much as these few moments.

[theglassheart]

Victor agrees before Yuri can even put the words together to disagree, and it's all a little disorienting how fast and especially how unwaveringly certain Victor makes those words sound, bounced back at him. While Victor is pulling him up off the bench and the others are coming toward them.

Which makes him look to the ice, where the ice is still having the last of things picked up off it. Boxes going up. It's all really happening. It's strange, that lull, almost snag and tug, deep in his stomach, when Victor's hand slips away from him entirely, and he's walking off.

But Phichit is heading for him and Yuri is positive his smile is too wide, too aware, too obviously laughingly accusatory, for just the way Phichit clobbers him in a hug. There's a muffled shout of something like We made it! into Yuri's jacket, that blurs straight into half being left go, to having an arm slung around his neck, from a body much shorter than his, causing him to slouch down, while Phichit is saying, Picture! We need a picture! The first picture! and Yuri doesn't really question where the phone comes from.

He stopped questioning that years ago, and maybe it's not a perfect smile. At least not the first one. Or three.
It's not like Phichit doesn't keep clicking it anyway. Habits are habits and his smile changes in it.

Something red-faced and startled (when the first one or two flick by, while Phichit leans in flashing a V for Victory at his own screen, and he's on his toes for his head to brush Yuri's cheek) and then an uncertain something in his face (that he's sure Phichit will delete without labeling, but it's the first time Yuri feels it sink in as not Gold, not Gold), but it fades out, of his face at least, unable to truly fight Phichit's tease to smile.

Making him look at Phichit's, and that's infectious a bit, too.That absolute golden thing that has so much pure pride,
without a drop of arrogance, and is unwaveringly so glad to share this with Yuri. (That somehow makes it sting less.)

Before long, though, the lights are dimming, and there are spotlights on the boxes, and it's time. It's time, it's time, it's time. They are the three people who made it, and they'll all go on to different skates for the next qualifier, since neither Chris or Phichit was slated for Moscow. If it says something, and he tries not to let it, entirely, he can't quite keep his focus forward on the bright light in front of him once he's out there.

Weight hanging at his neck. Everything being recorded.
Several professional camera shots. Individually and then together.



But every once in a while, every long enough he feels like it's not just been two seconds, his gaze tries to travel back. To the edge of his vision. To the edge off his shoulder. The edge of the rink, where the ice meets the wall. To the place where Victor is waiting (... and the place where ... everything just happened).

[fivetimechamp]

It's a good feeling, leaning here on the wall and watching Yuri be presented with a medal, even if it isn't gold. It's satisfying in a way that has nothing to do with the last few minutes since Yuri decided to try that quad flip and the world turned upside-down.

It's vindicating. Heartening. All of those comments from Yakov and Celestino about how he could never be a coach, that he was just play-acting, like maybe he was bored one day and decided to uproot his career and play around with Yuri's just because he had nothing better to do, proven wrong.

(His skater beat Yakov's, and it might be petty and beneath him, but it does feel awfully sweet.)

They both came into this with something to prove, and they both proved it, underscored it, left it scrawled in permanent ink for the world to see. That Yuri's back, that Victor can be a successful coach as well as skater. His applause is as enthusiastic as the rest of the crowd's, and, better, once the short ceremony is done, Yuri's skating back to him. It's a strange deja vu moment, him waiting here at the gate while Yuri comes towards him, face alight with the knowledge that he'd done well, but this time, he restrains himself.

(He'd never admit, not even to Yuri, how hard it actually is.)

He just waits for Yuri to change his skates for his shoes and shoulder his backpack before they brave the gauntlet of cameras and interviewers, but they have to, and pretty much everyone only has one question: that quad flip. Was it planned? How did Victor feel about his protege using his signature move? Was it going to become a staple of Yuri's arsenal, as well?

All of which Victor smiles at, arm around Yuri's shoulders, until that last question: how is this change going to affect the next competition?

"Now that Yuri can do a quadruple flip, he'll definitely win at the Rostelcom Cup and advance to the Grand Prix Final."

Hands in the air, the pure serenity of absolute confidence smiling from his face. "I'm looking forward to going to Russia as his coach."

[yuri_plisetsky]

At the sight of Viktor's perfectly phrased challenge to his home country, Mila turns around, her hair falling across her face as a smile plays across her lips. 'Did you hear that?' she sing-songs, her eyes glinting with unconcealed delight at she looks at Yuri.





At Yuri, who has managed to fumble his way into a chair.

At Yuri, whose gaze barely flickers in her direction before it returns to the television screen.

At Yuri, who over the course of the medal ceremony and the interviews has somehow managed to eat exactly one-and-a-half spoonfuls of the borscht that he'd ordered because his body is threatening to stage a revolt over the lack of food, even as his mind is currently barricaded in an ever-darkening cell of all-encompassing rage, surrounded by thoughts like kegs full of gunpowder.

Viktor.

And the pig.

In Russia.

Facing him.

(In Moscow, his Moscow, where -- )

The plastic spoon in his hand suddenly snaps under the pressure of his thumb digging into it. The top half plummets into his borscht, and the resulting splatter of blood-red liquid from its impact gives the surrounding tabletop a gory, ghoulish appearance, a private murder scene staged for a solitary performance. And as the bowl of the broken spoon starts to sink into the thick vinegary soup, everything behind Yuri's eyes ignites.

I'll shred you into borscht in Moscow, you pig bastard!

[theglassheart]

That Victor jumps in to comment is about as normal as it can be, and there's something to that, because the world would want to know. How Victor feels about what Yuri did, and how long was it planned, and whether it was just a sign of things to come, their own dramatic, last second of the first Qualifier, knock it out of the park, above everyone's heads, statement of how they were taking the road to the Gran Prix Finale by storm.

It's a little easier, too. To subside into surprise when Victor jumps into the forefront, from a common arm against his shoulder, to that presence right behind him when Victor isn't, to pushing forward, hands in the air, and tackles the question with the kind of pride and obvious confidence that makes him look like none of it could have ever been a surprise to him. Even when it was. Maybe most of all to him.

Even though Yuri, with the weight of silver hanging around his neck still, can't help but flush, even as he smiles. That Victor isn't even just taking it in stride. He's running with it, in front of all the lights and cameras, the way he always had, always does. Saying there's no way he won't win in the Rostelecom Cup, not now, not with Victor's flip in his repertoire, and that he'll be so glad to be coming back to Russia as Yuri's coach.

All the same, Yuri is still relieved when it's over, and the second question that might be asked, hovering just as loud and just as present at the edge of his mind, doesn't get asked. Not that he's certain it's not there, just at the edge of the manic focus, smiles and shouting voices of the interviewers. But ... it wouldn't be entirely proper to ask, would it? About what everyone saw at the end?

Which maybe does leave him a little off footed, and when was the last time he wasn't comfortable next to Victor?

Aside from earlier today. Or the first night here. But even those aren't quite like ... this.

Uncomfortable ... is the wrong word. It's not about comfort. It's. It's.

Not quite certain without being entirely uncertain, while Victor went on being himself. Effusive. Bright. Unruffled. All smiles and ready answers. Perfectly himself, juxtaposed against a frozen moment in Yuri's skin, and his head. That to think about still causes him to get goosebumps and his hands to find his pockets, his phone, his thighs. Something solid, like the world, wasn't quite solid, then. Like he'd fallen off of it, and might again if he look at it head on.

"I'll go change." There was still the gala tomorrow, and he'd probably need an epic ice pack for his side tonight, and still he lingered just a step too long, like the most obvious of sentences, of next steps, at the end of skating, and medaling, and interviews, had the strangest of question marks attached to it, in the space and silence after saying it.

[fivetimechamp]

None of this feels like it's touching him at all. Not his feet on the floor, not the questions from the interviewers, not congratulating Phichit and Chris. Nothing seems to be leaving a mark at all, except for this itch under his skin that's saying go, go, go, go, that's looking for any possibility of a break in the flood of people, faces, questions, that require him to be polite and pay attention.

It's not hard, necessarily. Yesterday's exuberance is nothing to this giddy exhilaration, and the interviewers and cameras are soaking it up, and any other day he'd be happy to oblige, but any other day, Yuri would never have looked at him like that, soft and surprised and smiling. Any other day, the only things he could look forward to after leaving would be a celebratory dinner and an enjoyable dissection of Yuri's performance.

Any other day, Yuri wouldn't be standing there awkwardly, like he doesn't know what comes next: he'd be gone to change while Victor held court with the cameras, and Victor would just find him later.

But it's not any other day. It's this one, and Victor doesn't want to wait anymore.

(Twenty minutes, eight months, two years –– he's done waiting.)

The last thing he wants is for Yuri to walk off on his own, to vanish from his line of sight, but is there an option for gracefully extricating himself from these cameras and microphones to follow him? There isn't, but it takes only a second's worth of self-examination before he decides he doesn't care, and waves to the surprised press to take quick steps towards Yuri. "Think of some better questions ––"

Grinning at their laughter, even as he's directing Yuri away, down the hall, towards the locker room. "–– I'll be right back!"

Not unusual, for him to accompany Yuri to the locker room, to discuss his performance and how he's feeling, check in on any bumps and bruises or muscle sprains.

More unusual, probably, for him to grab Yuri's wrist once they're around the corner, and drag him into the room like it's the only place he can breathe, which might be true, since it's followed by crowding Yuri into the door, hands cupping his jaw, which solves two immediate concerns: the first being that someone might try to come into the locker room and attempt to use it as a locker room, which is unacceptable, and the second being that Yuri has been further than pressed directly against his body for the last twenty minutes, which was unlivable.

He should take a second to check in. He should give Yuri the opportunity to push him away. He should consider that maybe that moment on the ice was a fluke, allowed only because Yuri was so pleased with his performance.

But that means waiting, and waiting is impossible, so a quick flash of a smile and the low "there are too many people out there," is just about all he can offer by way of warning, before he's leaning to kiss Yuri again.

[theglassheart]

Victor announces he's coming, and that they should think of harder questions, like it's the best game ever. Even though something in his stomach twists and warms all at once, like he was picked and like he was denied the ability to slip off. All at once, a confused flavor, sweet and sour at once. Over something, he admonishies himself, that is completely, absolutely normal. He should have expected it even.

He isn't expecting the hand on his wrist and for one very quick burst he's sure Victor's about to change his mind entirely. That nothing is okay and great and I loved it! and every single word he's uttered since they were standing was all for the cameras, all for the world still watching. The perfect face. The perfect look. It's not okay. None of it was okay. He went further than too far. A universe beyond it.

All of it is gone in seconds, when his shoulders are pressed against a door, them hitting it, while it's hitting closed, and surprised confusion has him looking up into Victor's face. Suddenly. So very suddenly. Right above his. Gloved fingers cupping his cheeks, again, luminous eyes all he can see, and his heart is trying to escape his ribs like it's the only thing it was ever made for. Air deserting him like it was never there to begin with.

Victor's words barely registering, low and smiling -- people, there are people outside, people and cameras waiting, there might be people still in here, the stalls, the showers -- but it's gone as Victor's leaning in (again), those eyes and softest, barely colored eyelashes are closing (again) and he's kissing him (again, again). Victor is kissing him (again, again).

The whole world gone in less than a second. Replaced only with a series of rapid fire shouts.
The pressure of his mouth. The softness of his lips. The brush of his bangs.

Things Yuri isn't sure he can even remember outside of the shock of both quick impacts earlier. While his shoulders half lock, but he can't stop his head, himself, from this uncontrollable tip forward, something helplessly confused but also desperately necessary exploding too quickly, and his fingers, his hands, he can't, he doesn't, they press against the door and there's nothing to dig into there, but wood and metal, but it doesn't stop them from trying.

[fivetimechamp]

It's not what he'd imagined, two years ago. The first time he should have dragged Yuri away from a crowd of people and pushed him into a wall, the first time Yuri drove him crazy, that seemed to have been the first and final time Yuri wanted him, too.

Until now. Until Yuri on Ice, and his quad flip, and Yuri asking if it was okay, while it was all Victor could do to haul himself back tackling Yuri right there in the kiss-and-cry all over again.

But when he'd thought about it, pictured it, that night at the banquet, he'd pictured it differently: the soft slam of shoulders against the door is the same, but nothing else is. It's gentler, for one thing; not drunken desperation, not the collision of gravity from a high-velocity full-body tackle onto the ice. That had been as necessary as breathing, but he'd barely gotten the chance to register the fact that he was kissing Yuri before it was over again.

Not this time. He refuses. He stubbornly sets his foot down at the thought of finally getting to do this, and not doing it right, so even though every thud of his heart is only racheting higher and faster and tighter, and every muscle is screaming complaint at being held back, he'll be damned if this kiss, up against this door, finally alone, finally with Yuri, finally, finally, gets rushed.

Not least because when he'd imagined this before, Yuri's hands had always found their way back to his body, his face, his neck, his hair. The way they had on the dance floor, like he was assured permission, arrogant and firm.

But he isn't. Doesn't. Only tips in towards Victor like he's losing his balance and doesn't know if he's trying to push closer or pull himself right through the wooden door to run screaming down the hall. A cat surrounded by sleeping dogs might be more tense, but only just.

That's not right. It's not shoving Victor away, but it's not right, so when he pulls back, it's only far enough to rest his forehead against Yuri's, and let one hand slip down towards the side of his neck, thumb running along his jaw. If he were a believer in the old fairy tales he's skated more times than he can count, he'd say Yuri's ensorcelled him, somehow: stole his soul and won't give it back, not for a king, not for a kingdom.

His own mouth and eyes gone soft and warm, and he already wants to lean back in. "Don't run away, Yuri."

[theglassheart]

There's this small gasp that pulls in between his lips, not ready, not prepared, for movement, for breath, for anything when Victor pulls away. While something in his chest aches like it's being ripped from the center of him making his fingers slide, curl into his palms.

Except he doesn't pull away, not any further than. Yuri can't even do distance. Do anything when Victor's forehead bumps gentle into his, and there's Victor's hand, thumb running the collumn of his throat, while he can barely swallow and his heart is trying to press up his windpipe.

Toward the hand. Toward his pulse beating in his bottom lip.
Toward the place where Victor's skin is still touching his.
Toward where Victor's eyes are so close, so full.

The way the words Victor says, soft and confusing for a moment, when Yuri isn't even sure he could convince himself to blink, to look away for a second, and it's like he's utterly forgotten how to even understand English, all language ever learned. Except it permeates somehow. Bubbles of air in water, at once a screaming sound, in that smooth voice, and distant, under a completely different kind of screaming.

Run away. (Don't run away.)
As though he had any ability to move. (Legs.)

Any will to do anything that wasn't just stand there.

His face gone hot and chest rising and falling, with Victor's face right there. The fall of his light hair framing Yuri's entire line of sight on one side. The press of his forehead like a brand. The absolute clarity of his eyes, burning sunlight through the clearest water, the most faceted stainglass sky, so bright it's almost impossible to breathe, think, look away.

But only that.

Only. Almost.

Because Yuri can't stop this circuit even when he knows where it's going, can feel it threaded through every muscle, lack of thought, lack of control. He's not sure if he's ever been able to control his self, but certainly not now. Not now, when his eyes drift down, to Victor's mouth. Delicate, and loose, and familiar as his face. And more. More. Where those words had come from. That had been pressed to his only second before.

When he can't tell if he's trying to say something. There's just something piercing, something like suffocating and drowning and burning all at. Everywhere. That shifts his own lips completely beyond his control to keep them still, too. Except not for air, and not for words.

[fivetimechamp]

If he was worried for a moment that he might have read this wrong, it disappears like a popped bubble once he gets a look at Yuri's face. Flushed hot pink, eyes wide and stunned: it might be funny, if he didn't find it so charmingly adorable. Yuri appears to have swallowed all his words, Japanese and English both, and it looks like they're stuck like a fish swimming around in his throat.

But that look –– the one that drops from his eyes and wanders shyly down to his mouth –– that requires no interpretation at all, although it might require someone to drop blackout curtains around them to dim the way Victor suddenly shines up underneath it. Smile going from sweet to smug, a wide grinning flash of teeth and curve of lips that could put Maccachin's most appealing doggy to shame, that's doing its damnedest to make the sun itself sulk away behind some clouds, because Yuri is looking at him like this.

Eyes slipping to his mouth like they've been drawn by a magnet. Yuri. Who has never. In all the world full of people who have looked at him this way, Yuri hasn't been one of them since that night, and Victor had been sure, had known, he must have been mistaken.

But there's no mistaking this, just like there's no mistaking the way Victor brightens beneath it, smile shining, eyes sparkling and vindicated, so pleased he has no idea what to do with the feeling except kiss Yuri again, hands cradling his jaw, body pressing him flush against the door that could open any moment, and he doesn't care. How could he care. How is he supposed to give a single damn about anything in the whole world, medals or Yakov yelling or people gasping or interviews or someone coming through the door, when Yuri was looking at him like that.

Like he wanted him. Like Victor wasn't wrong, all those months ago, after all, like the sun really did come up on the correct side of the world this morning and sank again on the opposite one, and gravity still exists, and Yuri wants him.

What else could he possibly do, but give Yuri what he wants? Hasn't he been trying to do that this whole time?

[theglassheart]

The smile that tugs on to Victor's mouth while Yuri is staring (staring, and can't stop staring, and he's going to light up like a fire for that, too) is as familiar as it is foreign. A single solid shining curve of movement that feels like it's got a toepick hooked under one of his ribs, and the rest of a blade pressing down on the rest of his, as it widens, coming as sudden and bright as dawn when the sun finally flips over the horizon line, flooding everything sticky and golden.

He jumps, just barely, when Victor shifts, again, and if he could he might kick himself for the inability to see it coming or to stop it. But he can't, he can't even think. Can't even look down beyond the tip of Victor's nose back to his mouth, because Victor is leaning into him again. Victor's mouth presses against his, again, Victor's body does, presses him back against the door, and Victor -- Victor, Victor, Victor, the world's star, living legend, Victor, his coach, his -- Victor -- Victor is kissing him, him

And from nowhere and everywhere a soft sound, hollow and high, wrecked on itself, crawls up the back of his throat, into his mouth, against Victor's, before he even knows it's coming, like the last crash of anything like sanity, or maybe control. When his mouth moves with it, brushing Victor's lips, somehow flooding through his head, his skin, like a flash of light and lightning, fire bright and charring, blistering hard to think through and clarifying pointed all at once, when he pushes up from his toes thoughtlessly into it.

Because Victor is kissing him, kissing him, kissing. Again. A third time and he must be an idiot, an absolute idiot, that it took until this second (the third time) to parse that sentence -- the one he's been repeating for the better part of twenty minutes -- was a one-way sentence. Because the other side, the other side, is just as crazy, and it should have been there, he should have thought about that, then. But it's only happening now.

Now, with the realization, with that smallest friction, weight in the balls of his feet, even with his shoulders on the door,
hands somewhere in the air, confused, having absolutely no clue where, what he should be doing, or not doing,


Except that he has to kiss Victor back. Is. Is now.


Like it's the only clear thing left in the world. And even that is burning away fast.

[fivetimechamp]

There's a held breath of a moment where Yuri is still frozen, and maybe that look was a lie, or Victor's giddy brain melting its way into outright delusion as well as whatever insanity has taken him over, but then ––

But then there's a tiny sound, that's barely a sound, that almost can't be heard, but it lands in Victor's skin and burrows in, lighting a trail of fire in its wake and arrowing straight through his ribs, evaporating into steam that fills his skull and blots out anything, everything, but Yuri. Yuri, and that sound he just made. Yuri. Who is kissing him back.

Finally, finally, untying one knot in his stomach only to tangle a harder, larger one there, and the only thing he can do is try to get even closer. A factory whistle pouring steam couldn't have anything on the way his blood is boiling right out of his veins, leaving him light-headed and fever-warm; a single sound couldn't have hit him harder even if it had been the sharp report of a bullet, or the horn of a St. Petersburg car right before it smashed into him.

Like the slammed impact of a perfect landing, or the glint of a spotlight on a gold medal. Yuri against him, pressed all along him, and Yuri made that noise, and Yuri is kissing him back.

Even if it's cautious. Even if it's adorably uncertain. Even if it's unpracticed and a little messy, and he doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands aside from let them float in the air, like an insect that's been rolled over and picked up.

But here. With him. Not pushing him away. Not saying don't. And even if this kiss is heart-achingly, breakingly, shy, it's his. From Yuri. If he could catch it in amber and keep it forever, he would.

All of it perfect, no part of it possible, but happening anyway, and he's idly considering catching one of Yuri's hands to ground it, when there's a sudden shake of the door, and a pause before a confused voice sounds outside and pulls Victor to the surface with a sudden deep breath he hadn't realized he'd been needing.

Well, perhaps his choice of place could have been better.

[theglassheart]

Victor presses in further, and Yuri's heart is somewhere in his head, outside his head, pounding so fast and so hard, that it's both all he can hear and that there's absolutely nothing he can. Nothing in the world exists except the way Victor shifts even closer to him, making even more space evaporate, his head pushing back into the door, even if his mouth feels foreign and clumsy, and electric, impossible to forget and impossible to remember when Victor's mouth so much as moves, which is a constant thing, as everything about this becomes too complicated and too simple.

He doesn't know anything. About anything.

(And Victor probably knows everything. Ever.)

A million images from a million places, common knowledge, all of it deserting him like it never existed. When there's nowhere else to go between the door and Victor, and there's no part of him that can think further than a second before it all falls apart again, breath short and fast.

Until the door suddenly bangs, forcefully, into his shoulders and the back of his head and his hips (one of which gives an angry spasm), and there's a What the--? muffled from the other side of the door, while Yuri's hands finally grab Victor's coat in the shock between the door hitting him, him pitching the no distance into Victor, and back to the door, all while Victor is gasping in air right in front of him. Pulling it straight off Yuri's lips, right from the bottom of his stomach, lighting it on fire and emptying it out all in one go.

Dizziness, disorientation, despair, and panic sprouting up as though they'd been waiting at his ankles to sink their teeth in. His eyes going wide, as he remembers, his heart vaulting straight for the ceiling now, the locker room, the arena, they are still here, here, here, and one of his hands does push at Victor. "We have to --"

Move. Somewhere. Anywhere. Not here. They were -- they weren't supposed to. He'd -- He'd kissed Victor and Victor had kissed him, and everything had become a tumble from there, and there was a person, and Victor was far too solid to scramble straight through, and the lockers were far too far from him to be able to hide in one.