He doesn't think that's quite it, watching as Yuri follows his example and bends to untie his own shoes. "Or different because I'm not competing?"
Different for both, in separate, but related ways. He never thought he'd leave St. Petersburg, because he never thought he'd stop competing – at least, not before forced into it by his own traitor body. He's almost 30, and that's getting close to old for a competitive skater.
But it doesn't really matter, because Yuri's offering a little more, himself, of himself, and it's all Victor can do to keep from latching onto it like a lamprey – but it clarifies what he'd meant, because Yuri took the last year off, in Detroit, before coming back here. "Yes. But different doesn't mean bad."
Hands sliding into his pockets, he looks up at the sky, the clouds slowly marching their ponderous way overhead, the wheeling gulls. Mouth curving, eyes gone soft. "I get to spend so much time with Maccachin, and eat whatever I like, and live here, in a new place, with you, and your family. I never got to see much of life outside the rink before coming here."
Or if he had, he hadn't cared. There was life on the ice, and there was everything else, and, until this past April, he'd never thought there could be something even close to a competition between them.
Yuri had changed that. In a three minute video in April, and less than an hour over a year before. That December.
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He doesn't think that's quite it, watching as Yuri follows his example and bends to untie his own shoes. "Or different because I'm not competing?"
Different for both, in separate, but related ways. He never thought he'd leave St. Petersburg, because he never thought he'd stop competing – at least, not before forced into it by his own traitor body. He's almost 30, and that's getting close to old for a competitive skater.
But it doesn't really matter, because Yuri's offering a little more, himself, of himself, and it's all Victor can do to keep from latching onto it like a lamprey – but it clarifies what he'd meant, because Yuri took the last year off, in Detroit, before coming back here. "Yes. But different doesn't mean bad."
Hands sliding into his pockets, he looks up at the sky, the clouds slowly marching their ponderous way overhead, the wheeling gulls. Mouth curving, eyes gone soft. "I get to spend so much time with Maccachin, and eat whatever I like, and live here, in a new place, with you, and your family. I never got to see much of life outside the rink before coming here."
Or if he had, he hadn't cared. There was life on the ice, and there was everything else, and, until this past April, he'd never thought there could be something even close to a competition between them.
Yuri had changed that. In a three minute video in April, and less than an hour over a year before. That December.
Yuri has changed everything.