The Road to the Grand Prix Final, May, 2014 - Hasetsu, Japan

[fivetimechamp]

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!

 

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.

Comments

[fivetimechamp]

It's the same words Yuri's been using – maybe – but they sound different. Less like he's just trying to say or do whatever it takes to get Victor to leave him alone. Less like he's waiting for the axe to fall.

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."

[theglassheart]

Yuri gets help. A tongue licking at fingers trying to tie shoes, until they are buried in Maccachin's heavy wet hair playing with his head for just a second, before he uses a hand to push himself up, with a single "Hai!" at the demand on the end of Victor's comments. The springy readiness to meet it swelling him, almost impertinent to start right now, as he and Maccachin jog the few steps to catch up to where Victor is.

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.)

[fivetimechamp]

The ready response, quick and firm, gets a smile and a nod in reply, and Victor can't quite explain how, but it sounds different from every other time Yuri has answered him in an affirmative, agreed to do what he said, steeled himself for a challenge.

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!"

[theglassheart]

He doesn't quite laugh at Victor's enthusiasm -- or maybe it's impatience to get out of his wet, and must be now cold, clothes, that are leaving an impressively obviously trail of sea water, from soaked pants and shoes, on the side-walk behind him -- but it does get itself caught up in Yuri's chest, the so subtle curve of his mouth, regardless. A quickness to his step that keeps up with Victor, instead of feeling dragged down by each and every one.

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.