It's the first thing he notices, when his eyes crack open, feeling full of glue and sand. It's brighter than it should be, and brighter than he's used to, and it's when he's blinking at the window, where nobody closed the drapes last night and the early morning light of Shanghai is flooding in that he notices something strange.
That the other bed is empty.
He blinks at it, lizard-slow, while his brain tries to gain some sort of footing, but it keeps slipping and sliding, wanting to let go again and drift back into sleep, but if there's one thing that could wake him the hell up without so much as an apology or gentle nudge, it's that his skater is missing on the morning of the Cup of China, and he's pushing himself up, rubbing the heel of a hand into one eye, before it even really registers.
Yuri isn't a naturally early riser. He gets up to run, because he has to and because Victor makes him, but Victor has been up before him almost every day of the last eight months, and it's not like Yuri to wander off without telling him.
Probably. He actually has no idea what Yuri's like at competitions away from home, yet: this is their very first one. Maybe he is up. Maybe he went for a run, or a dip in the pool, or for an early breakfast.
Making Victor reach to turn the bedside clock to see the time (early, still, plenty of time) and consider his options –– stay here? go down to breakfast and try to find Yuri there? –– only to pause with his fingers an inch from the black plastic as something next to him shifts.
A soft rustle against the sheets. Weight dipping the mattress.
That isn't his.
None of which prepares him for the surprise of looking over, and seeing a dark head there against the pillow, or the way everything stops in a long hiccup of confusion, while his heart slams against his ribs and stumbles all over itself trying to –– what. Remember?
He can't. Can't even try. Each attempt at explaining this getting clotheslined and choked, sucker-punched at the sight of Yuri. There. In his bed. Black hair muddled against crisp white pillow. Shoulder gently lifting and falling with his breath. Peace and quiet at jarring, jagged odds with the cliff of bewilderment Victor is currently windmilling off, like a shoe planted itself in his gut and pushed.
What is he doing here?
It was never going to happen. He knows. Knew. Everything Yuri didn't want, that he stopped pushing for, asking for, expecting. Yuri and his string of no no no no no panicked on the beach, Yuri who ran from him every time he reached out, Yuri who looked like his head was going to melt right off his shoulders with the heat of his blush every time Victor got too close, suggested too much.
So he'd put it away. In a back pocket. Chalked it up to wanting different things. (Yuri wanted to win the Grand Prix Final, and Victor wanted Yuri.) Focused on coaching, on growing trust, on learning everything he could, and being as satisfied with that as he knew how to be.
But. Now.
Running a hand through morning-mussed hair, and wondering, trying to work through it, while his mind keeps trying to throw him straight back into bewilderment.
What exactly happened, last night?
(And –– with a dawning sense of delight that's too stupid to be careful, too sleepy to be smart, too thrilled to be worried ––
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It's the first thing he notices, when his eyes crack open, feeling full of glue and sand. It's brighter than it should be, and brighter than he's used to, and it's when he's blinking at the window, where nobody closed the drapes last night and the early morning light of Shanghai is flooding in that he notices something strange.
That the other bed is empty.
He blinks at it, lizard-slow, while his brain tries to gain some sort of footing, but it keeps slipping and sliding, wanting to let go again and drift back into sleep, but if there's one thing that could wake him the hell up without so much as an apology or gentle nudge, it's that his skater is missing on the morning of the Cup of China, and he's pushing himself up, rubbing the heel of a hand into one eye, before it even really registers.
Yuri isn't a naturally early riser. He gets up to run, because he has to and because Victor makes him, but Victor has been up before him almost every day of the last eight months, and it's not like Yuri to wander off without telling him.
Probably. He actually has no idea what Yuri's like at competitions away from home, yet: this is their very first one. Maybe he is up. Maybe he went for a run, or a dip in the pool, or for an early breakfast.
Making Victor reach to turn the bedside clock to see the time (early, still, plenty of time) and consider his options –– stay here? go down to breakfast and try to find Yuri there? –– only to pause with his fingers an inch from the black plastic as something next to him shifts.
A soft rustle against the sheets. Weight dipping the mattress.
That isn't his.
None of which prepares him for the surprise of looking over, and seeing a dark head there against the pillow, or the way everything stops in a long hiccup of confusion, while his heart slams against his ribs and stumbles all over itself trying to –– what. Remember?
He can't. Can't even try. Each attempt at explaining this getting clotheslined and choked, sucker-punched at the sight of Yuri. There. In his bed. Black hair muddled against crisp white pillow. Shoulder gently lifting and falling with his breath. Peace and quiet at jarring, jagged odds with the cliff of bewilderment Victor is currently windmilling off, like a shoe planted itself in his gut and pushed.
It was never going to happen. He knows. Knew. Everything Yuri didn't want, that he stopped pushing for, asking for, expecting. Yuri and his string of no no no no no panicked on the beach, Yuri who ran from him every time he reached out, Yuri who looked like his head was going to melt right off his shoulders with the heat of his blush every time Victor got too close, suggested too much.
So he'd put it away. In a back pocket. Chalked it up to wanting different things. (Yuri wanted to win the Grand Prix Final, and Victor wanted Yuri.) Focused on coaching, on growing trust, on learning everything he could, and being as satisfied with that as he knew how to be.
But. Now.
Running a hand through morning-mussed hair, and wondering, trying to work through it, while his mind keeps trying to throw him straight back into bewilderment.
(And –– with a dawning sense of delight that's too stupid to be careful, too sleepy to be smart, too thrilled to be worried ––
How can he make it happen again?)