He makes his hands focus. Pulled up. There's a hesitation, but his fingers flatten the back of the jacket and settle the collar, and he knows he's -- maybe he was wrong. Maybe the word is afraid. Maybe it's one of thousands. Just another drop in the sea that falls into and then out of him, to prove to him he's wrong, always wrong, always been wrong.
When his hands don't stay and don't shake, and Victor's turning to face him. His hands left in the air, with no purchase and no purpose, even when they hadn't been solid a second ago. Like his bravery, if it was even bravery to take three steps and help someone, without the ability to help themselves, put a jacket on in freezing weather is bravery, is gone.
Because Victor is staring down at him like. Like. He doesn't know words for this. Not in any language there. It's an unfocused and turbulent blue-green, familiar and lost all at once, and before he can even think to swallow, Victor is reaching out to him, again. To his face. And he freezes. Without that breath, but without running away or pulling away. His eyes shifting between the hand almost touching his cheek and the face above him.
Except Victor seems to be looking at his fingers, too. And everything is frozen like that.
Yuri's heart thudding in his heart. Ears. Uncertain. Painful. Trying to hold still. Maybe with a tremor. His eyes staying on Victor's face, even when Victor is and isn't looking at him back. Is looking at, Yuri doesn't even know what. In his face. Or on his own hand. Everything is just stuck. Frozen. Time counting seconds only in his labored heartbeats.
Too much. Too little. Almost something that would have been normal. Maybe felt real.
But then Victor drops his hand and everything in Yuri's heart goes right down with it. It shouldn't be possible to feel this much, so quickly, without having taken a drink.
He isn't done, though. Victor. Victor who goes about asking one question, and then another. Basically, the same question for all intents and purposes and Yuri has to reach up to rub at his glasses, the way he's pretending he doesn't want to push them into his hair and scrub hard at his eyes. Not here. Not after everything else that's already happened here.
He pushed them back up on his nose and makes himself breathe in -- out -- take in this wistful, hopeful, sad expression above him and put out something the feels far more certain than he does about anything other than the fact two seconds ago his lungs proved they do still, in fact, work.
"I can't let you go anywhere else." It tries for something casual, but Yuri isn't sure it works. Isn't sure he's truly, honestly, known what casual was a day in his life. (But maybe he'd thought he was getting there. Before.)
Still, he makes his shoulders settle, like he does before starting, even if there isn't any music, willing himself to be more, be better, because Victor needs him still, and he slides an arm through Victor's closest arm, and takes a step toward the exit the others had gone toward, tugging him that way. "We should get you water, too."
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When his hands don't stay and don't shake, and Victor's turning to face him. His hands left in the air, with no purchase and no purpose, even when they hadn't been solid a second ago. Like his bravery, if it was even bravery to take three steps and help someone, without the ability to help themselves, put a jacket on in freezing weather is bravery, is gone.
Because Victor is staring down at him like. Like. He doesn't know words for this. Not in any language there. It's an unfocused and turbulent blue-green, familiar and lost all at once, and before he can even think to swallow, Victor is reaching out to him, again. To his face. And he freezes. Without that breath, but without running away or pulling away. His eyes shifting between the hand almost touching his cheek and the face above him.
Except Victor seems to be looking at his fingers, too. And everything is frozen like that.
Yuri's heart thudding in his heart. Ears. Uncertain. Painful. Trying to hold still. Maybe with a tremor. His eyes staying on Victor's face, even when Victor is and isn't looking at him back. Is looking at, Yuri doesn't even know what. In his face. Or on his own hand. Everything is just stuck. Frozen. Time counting seconds only in his labored heartbeats.
Too much. Too little. Almost something that would have been normal. Maybe felt real.
But then Victor drops his hand and everything in Yuri's heart goes right down with it.
It shouldn't be possible to feel this much, so quickly, without having taken a drink.
He isn't done, though. Victor. Victor who goes about asking one question, and then another. Basically, the same question for all intents and purposes and Yuri has to reach up to rub at his glasses, the way he's pretending he doesn't want to push them into his hair and scrub hard at his eyes. Not here. Not after everything else that's already happened here.
He pushed them back up on his nose and makes himself breathe in -- out -- take in this wistful, hopeful, sad expression above him and put out something the feels far more certain than he does about anything other than the fact two seconds ago his lungs proved they do still, in fact, work.
"I can't let you go anywhere else." It tries for something casual, but Yuri isn't sure it works.
Isn't sure he's truly, honestly, known what casual was a day in his life.
(But maybe he'd thought he was getting there. Before.)
Still, he makes his shoulders settle, like he does before starting, even if there isn't any music, willing himself to be more, be better, because Victor needs him still, and he slides an arm through Victor's closest arm, and takes a step toward the exit the others had gone toward, tugging him that way. "We should get you water, too."