He says that, flooding Victor with simple happiness, but then he's pulling away, so it's already a lie, but it's only a few inches, even if it takes Victor's eyes a little too long to find his face and focus on it. This painfully earnest face, that he knows better than his own, that called him all the way from St. Petersburg.

That he dropped everything for. His career. His new programs. His legacy. The legacy he's been carrying for years, now, that Yakov will never let him forget, because Viktor Nikiforov isn't just one person or one skater, but the product of generations.

(He knows. That it's not his coaching that Yakov hates, but the betrayal. The abandonment. He was always supposed to belong to Russia more than to himself.)

Leaving him nodding, as Yuri's arm slides around his back, and his own curls around Yuri's neck, and he leans a little to settle his cheek against Yuri's hair, hip bumping into Yuri's side. "Okay." Back to the hotel. Where Yuri won't leave, because he just promised he'll stay, and Victor is going to make sure he makes good on that promise, this time.

Even as he's affectionately tugging Yuri closer to his side, and relaxing, trying to wrangle his brain into thinking ahead, instead of sticking itself in a past he can't help, right now. (It's difficult: he keeps getting distracted, has to pause to remember to use English instead of Russian.) "Good. I'm tired, and you need sleep."

It's not even that late, but it feels like it: bone-tired, heavy-eyed, every muscle loose and warm. The wine is spinning in his head and simmering in his blood and he's pretty sure there was something important he had to say or do, but he can't remember what it was: latches onto an errant thought about what Yuri needs from his coach, and sleep is certainly part of it. He'd always slept late before competitions, it's a lot of energy to expend.

That's not how Yuri works, usually, but it's fine. They just need to get back.