Виктор Никифоров (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fivetimechamp) wrote2017-03-01 11:20 am
fivetimechamp) wrote2017-03-01 11:20 am
Entry tags:
The Road to the Grand Prix Final, May, 2014 - Hasetsu, Japan
He's not sure what he's doing wrong.
None of this is going quite like he expected. Yuri just isn't bonding with him as a coach the way he thought he would. In fact, Yuri doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with him, as a coach or otherwise. It seems like every time Victor reaches for him, Yuri pulls back. Still.
It's been over a month.
It's been over a month, and every time he thinks he's got the problem figured out – Yuri needed to get back into shape, Yuri lacks confidence, Yuri has no faith in his own decisions and ability, Yuri has trouble landing quads, Yuri needs some external motivation to finally fight – another day breaks and they're still out of sync with each other.
So he's not sure what he's doing wrong, only that it's something.
Or maybe that he is.
There must be some reason Yuri's avoiding him. He'd worked so hard to win Onsen on Ice that Victor had been sure that Yuri wanted him here, but morning after morning, he's late to the rink.
(A little later each time.)
Morning after morning, he mumbles one or two word answers to Victor's questions, hunched and awkward and not meeting Victor's eyes.
Day after day, he works, and listens, and does what Victor says, but doesn't offer anything of himself aside from his presence and his obedience. Outside the rink, there's barely anything at all, like Yuri can only be around him when they're on the ice, working on Eros.
And night after night, he turns red and looks away in the bath, he sits in silence across the table, he shuts the door, and won't let Victor in.
So he must be doing something wrong, or maybe he's just wrong, entirely, after all, and Yuri doesn't want him here, but –
Don't forget!
Spending the nights when Yuri is a hallway and a closed door and further away in the same house than he seemed when he was continents and oceans away lying in his own bed with Maccachin at his side, scrolling through old pictures, old videos, laughter and applause and loud voices tinny through his phone speaker.
Going back, time and again, to the one that brought him here. The message in a bottle. The reminder. Trying to find any other explanation for it than the most obvious one, the only one that makes sense.
So he's here, but Yuri refuses to meet him on the same page, and time is starting to get away from them, and Victor has never been a particularly patient man:
And when –
– on the morning after the morning after the morning after the morning, Yuri simply never appears at the Ice Castle –
Victor?
Is done waiting.
None of this is going quite like he expected. Yuri just isn't bonding with him as a coach the way he thought he would. In fact, Yuri doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with him, as a coach or otherwise. It seems like every time Victor reaches for him, Yuri pulls back. Still.
It's been over a month.
It's been over a month, and every time he thinks he's got the problem figured out – Yuri needed to get back into shape, Yuri lacks confidence, Yuri has no faith in his own decisions and ability, Yuri has trouble landing quads, Yuri needs some external motivation to finally fight – another day breaks and they're still out of sync with each other.
So he's not sure what he's doing wrong, only that it's something.
Or maybe that he is.
There must be some reason Yuri's avoiding him. He'd worked so hard to win Onsen on Ice that Victor had been sure that Yuri wanted him here, but morning after morning, he's late to the rink.
(A little later each time.)
Morning after morning, he mumbles one or two word answers to Victor's questions, hunched and awkward and not meeting Victor's eyes.
Day after day, he works, and listens, and does what Victor says, but doesn't offer anything of himself aside from his presence and his obedience. Outside the rink, there's barely anything at all, like Yuri can only be around him when they're on the ice, working on Eros.
And night after night, he turns red and looks away in the bath, he sits in silence across the table, he shuts the door, and won't let Victor in.
So he must be doing something wrong, or maybe he's just wrong, entirely, after all, and Yuri doesn't want him here, but –
Don't forget!
He hasn't. Can't.
Spending the nights when Yuri is a hallway and a closed door and further away in the same house than he seemed when he was continents and oceans away lying in his own bed with Maccachin at his side, scrolling through old pictures, old videos, laughter and applause and loud voices tinny through his phone speaker.
Going back, time and again, to the one that brought him here. The message in a bottle. The reminder. Trying to find any other explanation for it than the most obvious one, the only one that makes sense.
Please come.
So he's here, but Yuri refuses to meet him on the same page, and time is starting to get away from them, and Victor has never been a particularly patient man:
And when –
– on the morning after the morning after the morning after the morning, Yuri simply never appears at the Ice Castle –
Victor?
Is done waiting.
no subject
It echoes just a send, stilling his hand on his shoes.
He knows Victor is talking about his question. Maybe even some allusion between the one he just made between his last year and this one, and it makes him look up from his shoes, because it makes him think about something completely other -- at just the wrong time. Or the right time. Depending on whose view of the sudden event of Maccachin dashing up and licking him in the face, across his mouth and his nose and part of his glasses
The surprise knocking Yuri down on his bottom. Him down, the sand up, one bare foot and one shoe hanging off the other, as the large poodle only dashes back only two or three steps, front paws and head toward the ground, bottom waving in the air. Like this is a game, and Yuri is taking far too long over here.
He can't help that he goes straight from the pink of surprise to a laugh, in spite of himself and the cold sand under his fingers.
"I'm coming," he says, even though he takes the time to put his first shoe, by his second, hopping for a second to get his last sock, and leaving them together, down here, on the sand, rather than tossing them where Victor's had gone. Dusting sand off his hands onto pants half covered with it, to head out to where Victor is, Maccachin bounding off in front of him, only to look back at him, before settling, with one last bounce, over by Victor, like Yuri somehow needed leading there.
no subject
Katsuki Yuri, laughing and pink, relaxed and happy, squirming as Maccachin swipes a tongue across his face, before darting away and settling into a tail-wagging, tongue-lolling invitation to play.
Leaving Victor, still taken aback – not by Maccachin's misbehaving, but by the sudden flood of happiness across Yuri's face, like the sun breaking through clouds. Like nothing he's seen before.
But he wants to.
And finally laughing, himself, as Maccachin comes bounding over, to lick at his hand, and run towards the water, before stopping, and looking back at Yuri, now hopping on one foot, still grinning, cheeks still pink, eyes bright, and Victor wishes he'd thought to take his phone out, to capture it. Rumpled and adorable, nothing like the femme fatale of Eros or the challenger on the dance floor or the wistful beauty of his Stay Close to Me tribute.
This is something new. Something heart-wrenching in its appeal. Innocent and pure.
Making Victor's smile widen, even as his heart aches, even as he throws an arm up in the air in a wave, and an invitation, taking steps backwards towards the water. "Come on, Yuri!"
no subject
Even though he's mostly certain Victor heard him the first time, saying it to the poodle, and it would sound like a grumble maybe if he wasn't smiling and shaking his head, eyes more down than up. But constantly shooting up, too. The sand is cold under his feet, but Victor isn't wrong about what he said when he put his feet on it first. It does feel good.
Tendrils of cool shooting up his skin, balm against soreness, even when it sends a small shiver up his back, as it hits his system, coming full circle. It crisp, that coolness. Not cold as snow, or ice, even if the water might be. More like a sudden tugging breeze blown up into his skin, like it would blow up into the leaves of the wisteria outside his bedroom window.
Maybe his last steps are a little faster than a walk, but not quite to a run to get to where Victor is now.
The sand getting denser and colder where the water was earlier, before the tide pulled out.
Stopping only a few feet from Victor and the frothing surf right beyond him.
(Thinking for for the briefest second of stopping here, like stopping, right at the edge of the rink, after skating Eros, right before Victor threw his arms around him, still all out of breath, surprised, at the hug, that he couldn't figure out what to do with arms or hands at all during, or the sudden proud compliments from Victor for winning, before he let go and proceeded to lecture him on whichever thing he'd messed up that time.)
no subject
But he waits, because Yuri is coming towards him, with that same new looseness to his shoulders that makes Victor want to sling an arm around them, silky black hair rumpling in the same playful breeze that's toying with Victor's, making him want to run his palm over it, fingers through it.
Keeping one hand at his side, and the other in his pocket, instead, and only turning to walk down towards where the water is lapping gently at the sand once Yuri has caught up.
Past the tideline, the sand is packed and wet, and his steps leave perfect imprints that are and are nothing like the shining lines of water and carved ice he leaves on the ice. Stopping just where the clear sheets of water begin to fall back, once they've slid up on the sand, before taking that last step.
Dissolving into sudden bright, breathless laughter, at the cold, too chilly to be comfortable, but that lights all his nerves up at once, as if someone threw a switch. "Ah, it's cold!"
Dancing back out of the surf with a laugh, until Maccachin comes running past him to splash headlong into the water, and Victor runs right after him, the splashes from his toes spattering the ankles of his pants and making them cling, cold and clammy.
But the sun is out, and Maccachin is barking, and Victor is laughing, and he can't remember the last time he played in the ocean like a child.
no subject
That breathless things that isn't a real complaint.
There's too much wind and lightness, breathless surprise, getting spangled inside Yuri's chest, as he laughs at Victor's words, and then Victor running after Maccachin into the wavelets, all regard for any other life flown away with the wind blowing his silver-grey hair back behind him and then all around him. All joyful abandon even at the first brush, more than Yuri thinks he's felt about things he's known he's loved forever.
Yuri's is not quite sure when he ended with his ankles all the way in the water already, cold sliding between his toes and into his bones. Like the ice, the water is, but kinder. No sharp feeling of burns scratching through his skin at its kiss. It's up inside his chest and his arms, cold snaps, that feel like they are blighting out the clouds that were left in his head, and he hears those words again, watching Victor and Maccachin splash at each other.
Different doesn't mean bad.
Different from all he'd expected, when looking at Victor was still partially like looking at the sun. Not like looking at him through the corona of the podium light (or maybe just a little bit, he's trying, to not see it, or see past it, past himself, past the boxes and roles they could give or take). It's still like the sun, itself, made every effort to catch itself in his hair, and corners of his mouth, as he laughed. Still just as gorgeous as the rest of the world had known, still reported on now ... but maybe even more. Here, now, in this absolute simplicity.
Maybe they are both are -- maybe all of this is.
Different, but not bad, when Maccachin comes half bounding half swimming back toward him, half attack and half retreat from Victor, all flopping and flying water, and Yuri leans down to splash him back, before realizing, only as his hand comes up with the arc of a swing (getting half his sweatshirt sleeve wet) that it's aimed at Maccaachin, but it's going to hit Victor full on, too, coming up behind him.
no subject
The two of them staring at each other for the space of a breath, that feels like an entire rotation of the Earth, before Victor's running at him, grinning like a lunatic. "Yuri!"
Obviously a mistake, but not one he's going to let slide, even if the water is slowing him down, and it's hard to catch his breath between his laughter and the drag of water against his ankles, the way the sand shifts underfoot.
Giving Yuri more than a good chance to run, too, but if he does, Victor isn't going to just let him get away. Even if he won't bodily throw himself at Yuri, and tackle him onto the sand like he might have a few weeks ago (or even just yesterday), he can kick water at him, and threaten worse, if he catches him.
Maybe it's undignified. Maybe it isn't attractive, maybe it's pointless –
But Yuri told him to be himself, and this is the best way he knows how. "You can't just splash me and get away with it!"
no subject
hadn't seen -- hadn't meant -- not when everything had just gotten --
he was -- he was so--
But Victor's face shifts from the startled slap of shock into (not a frown, not blank, not anger) a sudden smile, with Yuri's name on that mouth, like a song and a promise, and some something-something something more, when Victor suddenly is trying to rush at him through the water. Sending him back on uncertain, suddenly wobbling legs, calling out with a yelp of his own surprise at the sudden focus that wasn't -- well, everything it wasn't, "Gomen! Gomen!"
Except there's that lunatic smile, brighter than the light from the clouds on the water, so familiar from every time Victor had to try some new treat or spotted something he'd decided was the newest amazing thing in Yuri's world, focused on him. Charging toward him. Even as he's apologizing and trying to run backward in the water and still not slip, which means having to flip it. Backward on ice and backward in water aren't the same. "I didn't mean to!"
Cold water sliding against his skin, soaking more of the bottom of his pants with the splashed half-running, full-retreat and -escape, steps, getting colder as his heart races to match his feet, and as a reflection of the expectation of payback, goosebumps his skin and checking through all his nerves like a test flight for the readiness of it.
no subject
To catch him, with an arm around his middle. To drag him in. To enact revenge in the most satisfying possible way, and muffle those apologies until they turn into a laugh as giddy and breathless as his own.
(This is going to take some getting used to.)
But he doesn't think it long, especially once Maccachin decides that they're both just playing with him, and comes splashing over to tangle with Victor's ankles, which shifts his priorities from chasing Yuri to the much simpler stay standing, which shouldn't be hard. His livelihood is based on his ability to stay upright on ice, and his nimble feet, and his athletic prowess –
– none of which turn out to be a match for Maccachin, who gets so solidly underfoot that Victor trips, arms pinwheeling, desperately trying to find some handhold in the air, before sitting down, hard, while glassy wavelets run up around him and Maccachin jumps to lick his face.
Leaving him struggling with wet dog, wet self, shifting sand underneath, and unable to get up. "Yuri!"
Laughing, and extending one hand in a plea.
"Help!"
no subject
Even forgotten for years and years, it's not forgotten entirely.
Beach days with rink mates, beach days with his family here, as a child.
Slides into his muscles like the push on the ice, hours in, even when the pull of the water on his feet and ankles is heavier than his skates ever do. Not like choking tight laces that make his boots into his feet, every move what he wants and needs it to be. Effortless melding. This drags him back, this slows him down, but he can feel the muscles and the focus, surging through his legs, bursts of energy billowing down and up, not used already this morning.
Dashing far away, concerned with getting away, until there's suddenly a large splash, a yelp of surprise and Maccachin's happy barking, while Yuri looks over his shoulder and stops entirely. Chest heaving, cheeks flushed with the wind, the water, the embaressment, the extertion, and even play-fear. It's all a wash in his face, swimming in his chest, when he sees something he absolutely doesn't.
He's on the ground, Maccachin jumping at him, head butting his shoulders, licking his face like this is the best turn of events. Like Victor Ni- Victor isn't down. Fallen into the water. Water lapping up at all of his pants, water dripping from his hair, his chin, hands. Trying to fend off his own soaked poodle, laughing and calling out to Yuri to rescue him now.
Who can't help the laugh that startles out of his mouth -- surprising even him, wind blowing his hair across his forehead, almost in his eyes -- as he takes tentative, surprised steps, the quicken as he's getting back there. Even if there isn't actually that far away, and he looks. Victor looks like a surprised kid, a sodden mess, and even painfully perfect even then. But even more real in it. Like a normal person.
This is Victor, his mind whispers, strangely giddy, one hand trying to find Maccachin's neck, and the other Victor's hand.
Victor who said he never got time to be with Maccachin, never got time to be anywhere but the ice before now. (Before Yuri.)
no subject
Not that he's sure he'd care much either way. It's too nice a day, the weather is too mild, the water too fresh, and his cheeks too sore from laughing. Everything smells like salt and wet dog and fresh air, and even as he's trying to push Maccachin off, he's not struggling too much. Why would he?
It's the most fun he's had in months.
But Yuri comes to his rescue, jogging back towards him, windblown and brilliant, and if Victor were still trying to crack open that shell instead of coax it, he'd yank down on the offered hand and pull Yuri straight down into the wet sand and lapping wavelets with him –
But he's not, so he doesn't. That would be a bad way to earn the trust he's telling Yuri he deserves, wouldn't it?
So instead, he braces himself on his other hand, and pulls himself up instead of tugging Yuri down, trusting that even if he's smaller, that wiry strength of his will keep them both up, until he's on his feet, only to bend down and scold Maccachin, finger wagging.
"Maccachin! That was very bad!"
(It loses a little of its impact when he's laughing, and when Maccachin, the unrepentant, just swipes a wide tongue across his face, instead of looking ashamed or even the tiniest bit guilty.)
Leaving Victor to try and brush himself off, and shiver a little in the wind. Even if it's warm in the sun, it isn't warm enough to be standing around in soaked clothing, with a fresh breeze sticking it directly against his rapidly chilling skin. "Ah! Not warm enough to swim. Come on, Yuri, let's go back – I need a hot bath and a change of clothes!"
no subject
He expects the freeze, the sudden clench of his stomach, the tension to put him tight, rigid, but it never comes.
Victor letting go of his hand as soon as he's upright and already bending down, away from him, scolding Maccachin in a way he hadn't even gotten to scolding Yuri before dashing after him, and Yuri's world feels like the sand under him is shifting, rocking, like the waves, but it's not dizzying. It doesn't feel like it's trying to knock him over, drive him down under the water, even only inches high here.
It's tremulous and so new he can't look at it. The same way he can't look away from Victor swinging to look over at him, again.
He's dripping from everywhere. He looks nothing like --
(no, no, no)
-- nothing like anything Yuri wants to forget. Not now. He wants to see this whenever he thinks about that now. Transpose it. Victor shivering in the wind, hair sticking to his cheek, over his eye. His ear. His neck. Sand speckled and a mess, but still so effortless cheerful about it being a mess, about being tripped up, about being knocked down and covered.
(And maybe his being a mess isn't so bad? That Victor is fine with ... even his mess somehow?)
Yuri starts walking toward the beach and their shoes, wind and water and this strange, strange, new space. Words bubbling from some space he can't name, define, place, with the wind tugging his mouth toward a smile even: "The Genke doesn't warm up until later. In mid-summer."
no subject
But he isn't used to soaking clothes, and a fresh sea breeze, and he's shivering as he follows Yuri back up the beach, even as he laughs at Maccachin trotting ahead and shaking the excess water out of his curly coat. "Maccachin! We don't all have fur coats. Go shake somewhere else."
Reaching up to brush sodden hair out of his face (even if it just falls straight back down again), and jogging a few steps to catch up to Yuri, just as he's opening his mouth to tell Victor about how long this water will stay cold. "Oh?"
That's good to know: he makes a mental note of it, and hopes he won't forget.
"We'll have to come back for a swim then."
A day at the beach in mid-summer will be a good way for Yuri to take a day off. They'll be in the thick of training by then, and the strain will be high, so it'll be important to keep a few ways of blowing off steam in mind.
Besides, by the time summer rolls around, he may miss the afternoons at Laskovy, or the Fortress. "We could have a picnic!"
It's actually just about warm enough for that, but he'll have to keep it for another day. Sitting back on the sandbank, he grins, shaking damp hair out of his eyes to see Yuri a little more clearly. "We have to appreciate the nice weather while we have it, right?"
no subject
But even when Yuri is wiping at his face and next, more than half smearing more water from those hands, from that half drenched sweatshirt sleeve, also collecting the chilly wind, the suggestions Victor is throwing out -- excited, always so excited at his own brilliance and new ideas -- ... they don't sound so terrible anymore?
They'll still be training. All the time. Even heavier. Leading up to Nationals to even lead up to the Prix qualifiers.
Even if it's uncertain, that thing inside of him pulls in a breath, because it's not a terrible idea.
"Yeah--" His own voice a little breathless and light even under the wind, and winded, heaviness. "--maybe."
Maybe if it's still like this then? Victor laughing and Maccachin's heaving, tongue lolling, huffing breaths, wiggling his water-laden body and dancing around them, dashing back and forth between them, like he can't even decide who to be with, when he could be helping both of them, still playing, as they divide to get their own socks and shoes from the sand and the shelf.
no subject
So maybe this helped, after all.
It certainly helped Victor: even if he's chilly and soaked and starting to get hungry again, he feels like he has a better grasp, now, of what to do. How to coax Yuri into opening up, so Victor can meet him halfway, instead of chasing Yuri all the way back behind those walls of his.
And Yuri looks more relaxed, too. Something Victor notices, while he's brushing sand off his feet and pulling on socks, and shoes. "Let's go to the rink after lunch," he says, tightening his laces and their knots, and finally standing up. "Until then, do whatever you want to take a break and relax. You've been working hard, and I don't want you to feel burned out, okay?"
it's important that Yuri stay happy and energized, and that he feel like Victor's on his side, so that if things start to go wrong, he can feel comfortable saying so.
Trust may be a difficult thing to cultivate, but he'll do his best. "
And he did say he wouldn't go easy on him. "Because we're going to hammer out every mistake until your programs are perfect."
no subject
Navigating falling into step, while Maccachin circles closer to Victor than he does.
It's been impossible not to feel affection for Maccachin, who delighted in following him about, but did so without any requirement. The deepest demand he's caused for a moment's attention, to let to be landed on Yuri, or get sleepily pet on the head when somehow shows up on the bed, in the middle of the night, again. He can understand that part, as it plays in his head again. About how Victor never got time to be with him this much, when he was on the ice.
It's been five years (six now) since he'd moved away, and he'd missed Vicchan, but he'd been one of the many necessary sacrifices. He could at least imagine what it might have been like. If he'd never gotten that call. If he'd been here, waiting to greet Yuri when he got home, the same as Maccachin had -- if a little lighter and bit smaller -- when he'd first bounded back into Yu-topia when Yuri opened the door that morning.
Simple things. All the simple things they put away.
(Simple things Yuri isn't entirely certain if he's ever had or understood entirely.
Things translated easier in the slow glide of silver carving ice, a slow turn, with his hand out like the wind, the curve of the earth.)
no subject
It's not I'll give it all the eros I've got!, declared over the ice, or please watch me, requested with quiet desperation, or all right, I'll try, said without confidence or meeting his eyes.
Something's changed. Some switch flipped, or decision made, and he thinks that when they're back at the rink this afternoon, Yuri will be a totally different animal than he's been the last few weeks. There's a glimmer there, now, in the determined set of his shoulders, and the carefree laugh as Maccachin chased him down, and the firmness with how he's meeting Victor's gaze, now, that reminds him of the Katsuki Yuri that brought the roof down over the banquet, that beat Yurio in a dance off, that challenged Chris, that swept him off his feet. There's a cord of steel that runs through him, and that's what will take them all the way to the Grand Prix Final.
That steel, and the appeal with which he skates. (There won't be a safe heart in the whole rink, when he gets it right.)
"Okay, good."
And there's this, too: somehow, he's both. The seductive, challenging eros, and this innocent, windblown boy: two sides of Katsuki Yuri, both brilliant, both irresistible.
It's a pang, but he swallows it. Just be Victor...huh?
And who is Victor, if not a perfectionist, someone who loves the ice, who loves the work, who always seeks to surprise?
"Come on, let's go!"
no subject
There's a glance, or two, in Victor's direction now and then, as they walked. Something bubbling up slow in that same space. The space of his chest, where it had been tight, and he's not sure he has a name for it yet. It's almost too reliving just not to feel like he's choking, like he's drowning.
Still surreal, not quite steady, to realize it's like he somehow isn't. Everything is dry and flat. Nothing is over.
Some anxiety to it. A need to get on everything right this second, like the pendulum has swung diametrically opposite. But there's still time before anything will start. Time for Victor to find clothes, or even take a bath if he wanted. Time, again, for Yuri to put himself down in front of the paper, to try again capturing the mood and meaning into the music he'd been trying to detail into a list for a while now.
"Maybe she'll still have leftovers from breakfast out, when we get back." Food. He could eat food. Food sounds amazing suddenly.
He might even make his bed, if he went back to that paper. Start over today. Not erase it as though it hadn't been. He did want to remember the last little bit of it. The last half hour. But maybe he could restart everything else. Maybe it could all be a little different today everywhere, maybe he could.