Let's get hotpot! 6 November, 2014 - Shanghai, China

[fivetimechamp]

 Probably he should be more bothered by what Yakov said –

(I feel sick when I see you playing pretend-coach)

 

– but it's difficult to worry too much about a cranky old Russian coach when he's in Shanghai, and it's competition season, and Yuri has two of the best programs he's ever choreographed up his sleeve to wow the judges with. He has no interest in discussing with Yakov whether or not he plans to return to competitive skating, or if he ever wants to come back to St. Petersburg, or his own skills as a coach.

(All right. That last is a bit of a lie: Yakov is the best coach he knows, and there have been more times than he'd anticipated when he'd wished he could ask the old man's advice.

But he's not pretending. He never was, and he isn't now.)

And, anyway, his focus is on Yuri.

As it should be, as a coach. Over the last eight months, he's gotten attuned to the shifts of Yuri's moods, his nervous tics, the tells when he's feeling stressed or uncertain, and right now, Yuri is distracted. He's been lost in thought since their arrival interview, and quiet during their walk through the Shanghai streets, although not uncharacterisically so.

Sometimes Yuri speaks loudest when he uses no words at all. It's another thing Victor's learned about him, noted, kept in the back of his mind for afternoons like this. Yuri gets nervous near competition, and there's already mounting pressure to succeed after the failure of the last season. There's a nervous energy Victor can feel humming under the arm he's got slung around Yuri's shoulders, distraction in the short, one-word or belated answers to Victor's comments. He's not even sure Yuri notices when Victor's steered them into a hot pot place (almost universally agreed upon as the best one by the fans he'd asked for recommendations on social media), or when they're seated in a private booth, or when Victor orders.

It's all right, Victor decides, smiling gently across the table at him. Yuri's been able to overcome his nerves on the ice, and they both have absolute faith in the programs they've built together, practiced together, perfected together. Tomorrow, Yuri will seduce the whole of China, and everyone else watching: Victor has every certainty in his ability to win.

He could hardly be more confident if he were skating them himself. "Look, Yuri!"

(But he still needs to find a way to distract Yuri tonight.) "Shanghai crab! Drunken shrimp! Duck blood!"

Everything looks so colorful and delicious, he almost doesn't know where to start: hands up, an expression of pure bliss settling over his face.

"Doesn't it all look great?"

Comments

[theglassheart]

"Victor." It's soft, almost a grumble, when the two at the end of the table aren't really listening. "What are you saying?"

Not when they seem to still be taking in the fact every quadrant of this table has turned upside in the last five minutes, more than seems possible. Because they were just called? It's only been five mintues, right? No. But. But it wasn't even this crazy five minutes ago, was it? It wasn't. But it is. And there's no way he's letting Victor leave to anywhere now, with anyone. Especially as he's still softly, singing, slurred words about Yu-topia.

He's turning back to tell Victor they can't go anywhere because they need to go to the hotel now -- but that never happens. He never finishes the thought to get to the words even. His head turns, and his mouth opens, but Victor is looking down at his lap, all entirely distracted away from Yuri now, and that makes Yuri's eyes drop, and he doesn't even have the second to be relieve of being fallen from focus because everything is too clear.

His eyes drop, and Victor's lower body is aerobically twisting in his chair, the flash of the tensed muscles in his stomach, and the dip of a very bare slender hip and ... and .... a n d ... all of which are more familiar to Yuri than he'll ever admit. Except in a second like this when it is what it is what it is, and what it is is Victor getting naked at the table in this restaurant, that is not a bath house, or a bathroom, or anything of the like, making him snap suddenly, shattering glass too loud,

"Hey! Don't strip!"

Except he's saying it too late. Victor's pants and his briefs are already in his hands, and he's smiling like he just completed a perfect program on his chair, eyes all hazy and full of nothing but delight. And they aren't going to stay, Yuri can see that, even as Victor's just bringing them up, the coil in his bare arm muscles, and it's already too late, when Yuri's following his first snap with another desperate pleading order, but not loud, meant for Victor, only Victor, "Don't."

Except he does. Because Victor always does what Victor wants.

The pants and the underwear go flying past Yuri's head, and the table.

Because Victor has no shame. He's never heard of it even. He's beaming at Yuri, naked, in his seat, all liquid pale, snow white, even though his reddened cheeks are betraying his warmth, and sheer warning is blaring and exploding in Yuri's head. Between needing to look to where Victor's clothes landed, and being almost terrified of looking away from him, lest Victor jump the table or do something even crazier without being watched every second now. "Hey! Someone help!"

[fivetimechamp]

Yes. Someone help! Isn't that what Victor's been saying this whole time? Isn't that what he's here for, to help Yuri?

"Goryachaya vanna," he clarifies, because Yuri was asking him what he's saying, before pausing, and trying to nail down the slippery thought that isn't quite right. "Dzhakuzi?"

Still no. The hot springs aren't a Jacuzzi, even if he sometimes thinks they're similar. "Goryachiy ... istochnik."

That's better. More like it, even if not exactly. Not that it's something he had in St. Petersburg. In Russia, people bathe in ice water in the morning, for energy and alertness and to improve circulation: they don't steep themselves in natural hot springs after dinner, although they should. Everyone should.

Specifically, Yuri. And him.

Except Yuri still has all his clothes on, which doesn't seem right if they're going to go in the bath, and, worse, he's being handed Victor's clothes back, by two fish-mouthed boys Victor doesn't recognize, although they look sort of familiar.

But Yuri shouldn't be trying to put his clothes back on. If anything, Yuri should be helping him keep them off, just like Victor was so sure was going to happen at the banquet. It was written on his face, even if it never became words.

(Don't you want to come with me?)

He had. Did. Victor was sure of it.

Except the face he's staring at now, trying to find that expression again, is just going red and annoyed, and he's not sure why. Making his eyes narrow, in consideration. How he could find it again. Make it come back. Get that answer he's been due for almost two years.

Even as clothes are getting shoved back in his hands, and he's putting on briefs, more by reflex than anything else. But he's pretty sure this is the opposite of what's supposed to happen.

[theglassheart]

Yuri is going to die right here. Not yet. But soon. He can feel it coming.

Somewhere between the shock that won't stay frozen and the fear, it's only going to get worse, and then, because Victor can't remain predictable in even the smallest part -- he starts talking in Russian. Simple words, and singular. First looking like Yuri understands him, finally. Before, he pauses, looking up, trying to figure something out.

All of it words Yuri doesn't know in the slightest,

except that he can recognize certain pieces of syllables ... or more aptly how Victor says them.

He usually likes the sound of it, foreign and smooth, mysterious like smoke, with sudden surprising hard edges and then unexpected perfect fluidity, reminding him of exactly how Victor skated, even as it crawled down his skin, prickling it like a late winter breeze. Usually. Right now, he just doesn't have any room for it. It's just another sign that Victor is so far gone not only is he naked, he's indecipherable, and still has the gal to look happy about being both.

Until he doesn't.

Until someone is pushing the clothes back on them, with so much haste you'd think they were scared they might get caught up in the middle of this, too, if their hands weren't away as soon as the clothes dropped. (And, he's pretty sure, none of the phones have stopped. This is it, too. This is how his appearance at the Grand Prix starts. Not with just shooting his mouth off, but with Victor naked and drunk at the hot pot.)

He's holding on to Victor's pants while Victor pulls his briefs back on, looking, for all the world like a confused chastised child, a puppy that got left outside, even when he's all -- Yuri can't even drop his gaze below the work of the muscles in Victor's shoulders and the way his expression is almost ... blearily crestfallen? How he can be the most unfair person on the planet is beyond Yuri, but he manages it.

Every day, in new ways. Unfair. Absolutely unfair. And Yuri's heart stumbles about even more. He can't even swallow, and he needs to focus on the one thing he needs Victor to focus on, so he forces his voice to work. "Good. Good." Numb words, "Thank you."

When he's waiting for the first to get done, and judging it by posture, and when Victor is back to more upright, because he doesn't want to look directly down, he doesn't. Even the thought just makes his cheeks and the muscles across his ribs sore. His face might never stop straining, or being stained at this point. He just holds out the pants. "These now."

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri's pushing pants at him, but Victor's still just considering him, through slitted eyes. Thinking. Even if it's treacly and slow.

A golden night. The taste of champagne. The music. The dance floor. Yuri's hand against his cheek.

"You never answered my question."

it comes out a little too thick, a little to Russian. Like the joke of an accent in old spy movies, and not the one he's cultivated through years of traveling through Europe, learning languages and perfecting his English and French. It sounds a little more Boris and Natasha, and he can feel it trying to escape in Russian, instead:

(Ты не ответил на мой вопрос)

But he hauls it down, forces the English instead, even if it's without the smattering of Japanese that he's been using for the last four or five months.

It's important that Yuri understand him. That Yuri know he's still waiting. That in two years, and in eight months, he still hasn't answered a simple question. A yes or a no. After Victor had let him do what no one ever did. Touch him. Reach for him. Shatter him.

Yuri's holding out the pants, and Victor's gaze drops to them for a moment, before his hand shoots out: not for the pants, but for Yuri's wrist, to tug him sharply close, even as his fingers let go so his arms can come up around Yuri's neck again. One hand sinking into black, silky hair, the other flat against a shoulderblade, and he should have. Should have. Should have.

Should have demanded an answer.

Should have pulled him out the door when Chris wasn't looking.

Should have dragged him away before Celestino could.

Should have flown to Japan the next day.

He should have kissed Katsuki Yuri when he had the chance.

But he's not going to miss it again.

[theglassheart]

Yuri has no idea which question Victor could even be trying to reference, why or how, or even when. Victor badgers him for the answer to questions from the moment he wakes up until he sleeps, and he almost always gives up whatever the answer is, even if he's ashamed of it. He hasn't avoided anything serious since at least before dinner, and he tries not to let it dig fingers in.

Even if it does. Even if he's still hearing that absolutely unfamiliar thick Russian on the words in his ears, when he shakes the pants. It's better than words it's more important than anything he could come up with to say. There was no question, and he needs to get dressed, and they need to leave.

There's the blink of a moment's relief -- when Victor's hand shoots out -- before everything explodes.

Fingers curling his wrist, slim and strong and so hot, to jerk him forward. Hard into Victor's body.

The pants slipping from his hand, then hands, because his eyes shoot up and widen with something akin to horror. When he can't stop himself from pushing back, except there is no back, because the chair back is gone, and Victor's arms are sliding around his neck, Victor's finger are in his hair, just as capable, just as steady and strong, and demanding as ever, somehow.

There's a noise that's almost entirely unintelligible, bordering and then bursting through shock flares (Victor is so drunk Victor is trying to kiss him) slams, like hitting that wall without expecting, but it's not like possibly breaking his nose, it's like tearing off the first level on his bones. It only tosses him into freezing, panicked, desperation. The word no is everywhere in his head, in his skin, but not his mouth. He doesn't want this -- even if something sour and sharp, shackled to his shoe, and the ice and dark night, says that's wrong.

(That he doesn't want it






like this.)

His glasses are shoving up his cheeks and into his forehead (Victor's hair against his skin, silvering his red vision, the way it tickled and now .. the way feels like getting hit), and his heart has become faster than seems possible, painful at the bottom his throat, worse than choking, and the smell of the miju is back, so sweet he swears he can taste it on his tongue already and the one name about to be screamed from his mouth, before the world actually dies, changes in a single second, in the only moment he's trying to find someone --anyone -- to help him -- it becomes

"PHICHIT!" And it's worse. It's all of that shock and horror and something more like impossible betrayal added to it.





(Because his friend is turned around backward,

lining up a selfie, through his camera, on what's happening over here.)

[fivetimechamp]

There's the rustle of fabric, and the thudding of his own heart, and Yuri's eyes going wide, and the room around them spinning, and then –

– And then Yuri's yelling something, and his eyes are off Victor's face, making Victor glance that way, too, eyes narrowing. He doesn't care about pictures. He doesn't care about the people who might see them. Everything he cares about, he has, right here. The ice, and the music, and the choreography, and everything he's been searching for, everything he's ignored for so long.

And Yuri.

Who is.

(He'd been leaning in again, but he stops, lips a bare breath from Yuri's skin, blinking. Feeling a little like someone's doused him with water, or like he's suddenly surfaced from an icy pool and gasped air for the first time in minutes. Because Yuri, he's –)

Terrified. Horrified? Insulted? Leaning away. Eyes wide and face pale. Hands up, held away from Victor's bare skin, like he can't even bear to touch Victor long enough to shove him away.

But drawing as far away as he can. Because. Because.

Because he told Victor. All those months ago. Be my coach. Just be Victor. And all the things he shouldn't be. All the no's that landed like darts, and that he's remembered every day since, until now, and why did he think, he didn't think, he was so sure.

That it wasn't just him. Blurred lines and too-long looks. Careful, and then casual, touches. Everything they are. Were. Have been. Could be.

Stabbing him in the chest with an icicle that doesn't melt, only freezes its way through his veins, as he lets go, pushing himself back as violently as he'd moved forward, eyes wide.

He feels sick. And it isn't from the wine, or the shrimp.

Sick. At the way Yuri looks. Sounds. Betrayed.

What was he thinking?

"I'm – "

Hands up, words feeling too clumsy. Too English. Too ... nothing's right. It was, and then it wasn't. Yuri's looking at him like that. Sounding like that. " – sorry."

Which doesn't cover it. The horror at himself. How he needs to go stick his head in that hot pot and let it boil away. How badly he behaved. How selfish.

He's been trying. He has. He has to be the best coach possible for Yuri. Coach. That's what Yuri wants. None of this is supposed to be about him. Not even if Yuri's been re-enacting that moment at the banquet every day now for months. Even if, somewhere, Yurio is skating the angel to Yuri's demon. "I'm sorry."

He doesn't want to accidentally touch Yuri, but he leans down to find those pants, feeling, for the first time, how drunk he actually is. How the world spins and dips, confusing him. Even as he's taking his wallet out and leaving cash that he thinks is enough for the meal, and more. Looking up too often, sneaking glances towards Yuri's face, to see if he's angry. Hurt.

Scared.

Thinking there isn't a hard enough to kick himself. He knew. And he did it anyway.

Even the pants, now on, buttoned and zipped, can't hide the flush of regret now climbing up his chest towards his throat.

[theglassheart]

As fast as Victor had suddenly pulled him forward and up, he's let go. Finding the bottom of his chair, uncertain when he'd come off it, that he had, and the back of his chair with his back, and none of his body wants to work. It should feel like a relief. But it feels like going from one sense of drowned screaming to another one.

When suddenly Victor is looking at him. He knows it's Victor. Somewhere too far away, where the air isn't coming into his lungs, where his arms are weightless without the weight and force of Victor's. He knows it. Somewhere. In there. Where the air isn't. The way Victor's eyes are suddenly wide and startled open. Like he hadn't known. What he was doing.

Because he hadn't. He's drunk.

(Why does that hurt, too?

His cheeks still red and his eyes suddenly painfully dry.)

As Victor apologizes. That first sound like he couldn't even make words work, and Yuri can feel his heart hitting the bottom rungs of his ribs. He can hear the sudden silence pressing on him after Victor finishes the second, that isn't just Victor, but three or four different pairs of eyes, when he nods. Because he knows. He does. Even when his cheeks aren't getting any paler and he feels like an idiot. For. He can't. Because. He does. He always does.

Why did there have to be so many people?

(Who in this world pushed Victor Nikiforov, even drunk, away?
There's a crinkle in his expression for the slip.


But not for the truth of it.)

But then Victor says it. Again. Even though no one's said anything. Even though he nodded. He said it again while leaning down and if Yuri tenses a little, even not meaning to, Victor doesn't touch him. Victor just picks up his pants, and Yuri can't help feeling both that he should say something and that nothing in the world exists that can be said. Not right. Not in English. Not in Japanese. Not with his own mouth.

It's all. He swallows, watching Victor pull out money and put it down, making it clear they are done now, and Yuri has to say something. He can't just not say anything. Not after two apologies and a whole table of people staring at them, like no one has any clue if the earlier part of this or now is the part to be more engrossed in.

"It's okay." Except it's not. It's not on his tongue. But it is. Has to be. Because Victor looks stricken, and he's an idiot -- even a drunk idiot, this is who he is, too, even if it's not something he's ever done near or with Yuri around -- but he didn't do anything. Not actually. Didn't end up doing anything.

The younger of the two at the end of the table catching Yuri's attention, holding out the shirt that Yuri never had figured out where went. He tried to offer something that looked like a grateful smile, but it felt more like the muscles in his face distorted themselves. Worn and sore under a constant state of heat.

He held the shirt out to Victor, picking up Victor's jacket from the back of his chair, it all still feeling unfinished. Like he couldn't stop yet. Hadn't said enough. Still. Somehow. Even when nothing was sticking and air was only starting to find him. So maybe something else, something more ... true, real, honest? "We should go back to the hotel."

[fivetimechamp]

усраться.

A vicious snakebite of a thought. Fuck up. And more. The worst things he can throw at himself, as he's accepting the shirt Yuri's handing to him, while careful not to make contact with Yuri, himself. To soil oneself. That seems right.

Yuri's saying it's okay, but it isn't. He's. Все испортить. Spoiled everything. Maybe. Probably. Possibly.

Everything they'd moved towards, grown towards, everything he'd coaxed out in eight months. Ruined because he couldn't restrain himself, because he was feeling too good to stop, because he'd had much too much to drink.

Sending the floor tipping out from under him when he stands, even if it looks like Celestino has it worse. Phichit is hauling his coach up with a laugh that's only a little strained, and one of the boys from the end of the table is helping, which is good, probably. Victor can at least walk, he thinks, even if it won't be in a very straight line.

Even if he feels like a kicked dog, and just wants to slink under the table to curl into a ball and try to forget what he just did.

Shoes back on, somehow, and when he looks, Yuri has the jacket Victor had left on the back of that chair, which is good, because Victor forgot it was there. Like he forgot where they were.

(Where are they?)

Trying to parse what Yuri's saying, but it feels like the words are landing somewhere just out of reach, and he has to keep his distance, even if it's wobbly. "Okay."

Nodding along with whatever it is, because he'll jut do whatever Yuri says to do right now, okay. As long as Yuri talks to him. Is still here.

And even now, he doesn't know how to not be swamped by it: this need to reach out, and just be closer. How he feels when he sees that face. The faces he'd wanted to see, and not the one he got. That he still remembers, crystal clear, even when everything else is a haze. He remembers. He didn't forget. Yuri told him not to and he didn't, he didn't.

But Yuri's moving, and watching Victor like Victor's supposed to be doing something, too, so Victor follows, bumping his hip into the table and steadying himself, for a second, on the wall, until he's free from the booth, and Phichit, with Celestino's arm thrown over his shoulder, and the other over the shoulder of the taller boy that Victor doesn't know, is smiling at them like this was the best night he's ever had.

So Victor smiles back, and waves, even if it's a little loose and a little pale, before – where's Yuri? Is he still here?

Looking around, until he catches sight of him, and relaxing, even when he shouldn't.

It's okay. It's not okay. But he'll make it better. He has to.

[theglassheart]

He's not certain he's ever seen Victor look suddenly so small or so still.

He doesn't get any shorter, nor does his coloring stand out any less than it always does -- always will. But he looks ... smaller. In a way that Yuri can't make fit into that word or another word, even when he's racking his brain for it. While Victor puts on his shirt and shoes, and the boys are helping Phichit with Celestino.

Yuri wants to be a little annoyed when Victor smiles and waves at the others leaving, like he's the star somehow still and he's saying goodbye to his people, but it's like a landing that just won't stick. It tumbles over itself, on edges that are melting beneath his grasp, because Victor can't even seem to manage to be upright for longer than two steps without bumping into something.

A chair. The table. Things on the table rattling. Reaching out for the wall to steady him before he's looking suddenly for something -- and only stops, only looks less suddenly worried, when he stops on Yuri's face. When Yuri doesn't know what to make of that, not while, also, coming to the realization, obvious though it might have been before this second to the rest of the world, that there are limited walls for support between here and the hotel.

Victor might be able to stand better than Celestino, but his ability to walk is only just barely above. With help.
Help he won't have as soon as they step outside of the building, and ... Yuri's not really even that mean, is he?

Even if mean is the wrong word, too. (And scared is, too, even when he feels like every single nerve in his body is at the highest alert its been in months.) The wrong feeling, the wrong feeling, none of them the right words, the right feelings, nameable, labelable, when he's walking back closer. There's a tension in his stomach about that, but it's on the same line as the one that was forming just standing over there instead.

It's different, but it strikes the same cord.

His voice low, when he shifting Victor's jacket in his hands. So that the right arm hole on this side is ready for him to just reach out and slip an arm into, just on this side. So he doesn't have to figure out anything for himself. "You're going to need this." It's Shanghai in winter, out there. The two who came never even took off their coats.



Even if it's not the same thing he's thinking when he says it;

He's going to need Yuri,

and there's nowhere else Yuri could even process to be, to run ... not with that truth.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri's there, and then, when Victor looks again, he's gone, sending a spark of panic deep into his roiling stomach, freezing his chest and breath, until –

"You're going to need this."

From behind him, and to one side. Making Victor look at the thing he's holding – the jacket, open and ready – before glancing back up at the face above it, while everything to the side swims. The spotlight on Yuri. Where it always is.

So maybe Yuri's not afraid of him. Maybe Yuri isn't going to recoil from him every time.

Maybe, maybe. While he slips his arm into the jacket, and then the other, and Yuri is helping him shrug it on, before Victor turns to face him, and say, he doesn't know. Something. Anything. Apologize again. Say he'd never purposely do anything to hurt or scare Yuri, because Yuri is the only thing he's ever wanted that wasn't at the top of a podium, or behind the flash of cameras, or the sound of his blades on ice.

Leaving him staring down, wordless, and reaching before he even knows it. Towards Yuri's cheek, fingers careful and wary, like Yuri might bolt at any second, a rabbit sprinting for its hole. Wanting to run his thumb along the line of his jaw. Some sort of promise, or apology, or comfort.


(But he can't risk it. Even if he's not leaning in. Even if it's just a touch, the kind they've shared dozens, hundreds of times, once Yuri grew more comfortable with him.


It's for him. It shouldn't be. It has to be for Yuri.)


His fingers curl back before they touch skin, and he pulls his hand away, feeling chagrined and stupid and like the floor might buck him off any second. "Are we going?"

Except that's not quite right. It's not what he wants to ask, what he needs to know.

Like that question. The one Yuri never answered.

Except not that one, either. He gave up that right. The one where Yuri should come with him. Or would want to.

He tries again, searching. Maybe a little more wistful than he has any right to be right now. "Can I come with you?"

[theglassheart]

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."

[fivetimechamp]

He doesn't know what this face is, on Yuri's face.

(He might have thought he knew before, but that was before. Before five minutes ago. Before it turned out he couldn't read Yuri as well as he thought.)

It doesn't go away when he drops his hand, and he's not sure if that was the right thing to do, or not. He's all turned around, and he had way too much to drink: it's all hitting him now, like a freight train. He'd felt so good before, but now he just feels woozy and tired, and like he wants his bed.

(And.

Yuri.
To stay.)

But Yuri isn't pulling away, at least, and better, he isn't going anywhere. Which shouldn't be relieving, but it is, even when sounds more like you can't be trusted by yourself, and that's probably true. He's not sure what would happen, if he were left to his own devices tonight: call Chris, maybe. Gp to another bar and drink until he's insensible. But that would be selfish, too, wouldn't it? Yuri's first program is tomorrow.

And Yuri's arm is slipping into his, anyway, and Victor looks down at his dark head with the beginnings of a surprised and hopeful smile. "Okay."

Walking where Yuri directs him, as if Yuri hasn't dictated everywhere he's gone and everything he's done for almost two years. "I don't need water."

Testing the waters, to see if things are really okay, and. Alright. It's true, too. Trusting and simple. "I just need you."

[theglassheart]

He doesn't know why he isn't expecting it, when nothing is remotely stationary, except the ground, in the last ten, or twenty, or however long it's been or hasn't been. When he's both certain he heard that wrong -- and even before his gaze swings up, he's already certain he didn't, and that somehow that doesn't make it better.

Because he did. And it is. And Victor ... is smiling down at him now.
Flighty hope and starting light, where that space had been empty.

And Victor is drunk.

Which makes Yuri's gaze go back down the next second. Because that's what it is. What all of this is. Even if Yuri almost wants to roll his eyes at it, and the familiarity of it. Almost near to a hundred other things he'd say, somewhere that isn't here, isn't part of all of this, so close it makes the hairs on the back of his neck itch a little.

He's -- he doesn't know. Why it matters now. Why it hits harder at this second. That normal, every day, in and out, mischievous, teasing intensity of Victor's that keeps him on his toes, keeps him chasing the wind, every spin, every jump, every start, every ending, every second in-between. (But ... he does. ... doesn't he. It's too close. Everything is still so close. Victor is; and he can't let go of him.) Maybe it's what puts the extra of touch of willfulness in his voice, and makes his steps out of this place just a little faster.

"You're still going to drink the water."

[fivetimechamp]

"любит командовать," grumbled. Lyubit komandovat '. Bossy.

And he is. Has been. Is rebellious towards Victor's orders and ignores Victor's suggestions and defines Victor's days, weeks, months. "You don't get to order me around. I'm the coach, not you."

Even if his arm tightens, and his free hand comes across his own body find Yuri's forearm, as if to keep him there. Here. Next to him. Walking with him, even if it's a little faster than Victor, or Victor's head, would like. Even if Victor's feet, trained through decades on the ice, manage to keep up just fine.

The hostess waves as they head to the door, and Victor nods to her, but doesn't let go of Yuri. (He's got no idea what might happen if he did, how fast Yuri might disappear, how much more difficult to walk to their hotel, even if it's close by.

Is it? He can't remember.)

Outside, the air bites, but he barely feels it: even after a summer in Hasetsu, he's still used to the cold. Loves it. The way it pricks at his cheeks with an icy kiss, how it cools his flushed face and forehead.

Making him take a deep breath, that doesn't help with the spinning world around him, even if having Yuri's arm through his does.

Helps. He's forgiven enough to be able to touch him, at least: that's a good sign.

[theglassheart]

He doesn't know what the Russian is, and makes his head tip, almost to taking the bait. Not certain whether he wants to know if he just went from being called the only thing to the one being insulted in Russian, in less than a second. Which only backs up his earlier point to himself. The next words just cementing it, when Victor balks at the one thing Yuri is absolutely sure of.

That Victor is drunk, and Victor will need water.
He's seen it, often as Yu-topia. With Minako, his father, others.

He's had at least one day of history with it, too. Not that it was anything like this or those.

And instead it's petulance that's tossed at him, and something just shoots outward from inside of him. He can feel the words about to come out of his throat, about how he won't be if he's still drunk come morning, and it. He only means it one of the those two ways and not the other, but it never makes it out of his mouth, because Victor shifts again.

Right on the heels of his complaint to suddenly gripping Yuri's forearm with his other hand. Like he'd decided Yuri might suddenly push him off or away, or step away, or something? Just because of his words? And that just bricks everything back. Thorns and stones in his throat, taking away his voice. And what would be the point? If Victor is drunk and Victor can't keep anything straight from one sentence to the next.

If this was where this all went, why didn't he just have one drink?

(Why didn't he just let -- no.

No. No, he knows why he's here.
Tomorrow is bigger than all of this. )

Yuri's shoulders dip a little back, and he slows back down. He doesn't pay attention to the hostess, or the nice man who had helped them, or even the front door as they leave, but he stops for a second when they do step outside. When everything shifts from warmth and low warm yellow light to the breath of ice and the nightlights of Shanghai.

When the first thing he's found to say again is so completely innocuous, but he can't help wanting to say something and not being able to stop himself anymore, not knowing how long ago he stopped stopping himself, stopped needing a reason to justify it most of the time, "See. You needed your jacket."

And the rest of his clothes, and shoes. And the water. Yuri would just have to think for both of them, and try not to fall off the flat of the earth every two seconds when everything Victor said or did came from every angle he wasn't expecting it to. He looked up, a little beleaguered by the idea, but bolstered by the cool air finally taking fingertips and brushing away the lingering heat from the tops of his cheeks and neck.

"You can go back to being in charge once you're in the hotel room."

[fivetimechamp]

He didn't need his jacket, anymore than he needs anything past the weight of Yuri's arm in his, or Yuri's warm shoulder bumping into his, or the way Yuri looks up into his face, questioning enough that Victor has to thing back to make sure he's been using English.

(He can't remember.)

Scoffed: "Since when does cold bother Russians?"

(Sounding more like Yurio than he might know.)

It doesn't. Bother him. After the warmth inside the restaurant, it feels nice, even, and he's about to suggest that maybe he and Yuri walk around for a little bit, until Victor's head has stopped spinning and his feet have stopped floating and his stomach has agreed to settle back into its usual spot, when he says that.

And. Victor can't help but look down at him, blinking a drunken fog out of his eyes. Did he hear that right? Because it sounded like...

Like last winter. The winter before, even. The banquet. The Katsuki Yuri who took no prisoners and held his ground and implied everything, even if he never showed up.

(Even though Victor waited. Longer than he should have. Longer than anyone smarter than him would have. Waiting there in Sochi, until it became abundantly clear that Yuri wasn't going to show up at his door and make good on his promises.)

Unable to keep any of his thoughts from flooding across his face, he's sure, because he can barely feel his face, and Yuri just. That. He said that. And Victor knows that's not what he meant, but he can't help it, picturing it. Listening for the sound of Yuri's back hitting the door. Pushing, directing Yuri the way Yuri is pushing and directing him.

Not what Yuri meant. But it kicks the cover off the raw and pulsing want that has had nearly two years to expand and take on a life of its own, and he can feel it as a distant warmth in his cheeks. The way he did in those first few days at Yu-topia, when he couldn't take his eyes off Yuri.

Like now, except they're walking, and not looking where he's going is only going to make him stumble, no matter how many years he's trained to be light on his feet.

Annoyed with himself, when he catches his balance, because he knows better. Or did, before tonight.

And, yes. Maybe a little annoyed with Yuri, too. With the wait. With the hours that night, and how foolish he felt the next day.

With the whole year after, when he couldn't ever get it off his mind or out of his program. "Don't make promises you aren't willing to keep."

[theglassheart]

There really isn't any winning, is there? Wasn't he just telling himself that?

Just three or four seconds ago, before he was having to try and help Victor stay on his feet, which Victor scoffed at even the lightest thing he could think to say, scoffed at his needing to say something, inability to not try and help, as though he couldn't need help, and certainly not Yuri's help, and then started, and went about muttering a retort under his breath, like Yuri had been the one to insult the pride and honor he had for himself, or his country, or who knows what.

His having skills. Or a hoard of gold medals.

Or any fully present inability to keep anything straight. Which was, of course, Yuri's fault.

At least it's all in English this time? He doesn't even know it that's a plus or a minus. Like maybe Victor wants him to be able to hear it this time when he contradicts Yuri once again. There's something a little sterner as well as a little more than just stung in his tone, when he stops walking to ask, as obvious for being heard as it is having heard, "Do I need to make it a promise?"

"Do you need to be able to make me run the stairs or do a hundred sit-ups?"

Or -- but Yuri can't bring his throat or his mouth to form the rest bubbling up his head.

Even just to promise he can and that if Victor commands it there, he'll stop talking altogether and just leave him alone. Stop trying to help. Would it matter? Should it matter? If he can just say anything that would get Victor to agree to just walk a little further, drink some water, go to the hotel. Because he'd do it. The wind is blowing the ends of his hair, chill air starting to steal the edges of his ears, the tip of his nose, and he knows, he knows more than he should, that he would.

If it would help, somehow, someway, anywhere, even Victor's pride, but especially Victor's state, he'd do it.

He'd run the length of every floor on the building, before even considering going to sleep.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri stops walking, which pulls Victor around though momentum, until he's more facing Yuri than the sidewalk, and his arms have fallen to his sides, letting Yuri's go, leaving him staring at Yuri in bewilderment.

Run stairs? Do sit-ups? That isn't what he meant. None of it is what he meant, or wants.

Or, it is. To know that he'll be listened to, as a coach, of course. But he's almost sure they weren't talking about that, not really. Yuri had mentioned the room, and that had made him think of the last time he was in a hotel room, waiting for Katsuki Yuri, feeling stricken to the core. "No."

No, he didn't want that promise. No, he doesn't want Yuri running stairs, or halls, or streets. He wants Yuri here, with him. Of course he does. Obviously he does.

Reaching forward again, and this time his fingers do brush Yuri's cheek, before Victor's folding into him in a hug, arms around Yuri's neck, the way a child might hug a stuff animal.

It shouldn't be so hard, to say just don't leave. Muttering instead: "Of course you shouldn't be training that hard the day before a competition."

Reluctant to let go, reluctant to say more. What is there to say? That just having Yuri there is what he needs and wants. That he doesn't know what to do, or say, because Yuri is the only one he's ever loved this way. That he's perfectly satisfied, just with this. To have him there.

But Yuri's face is looking worried, or uncertain, and he likes that almost as little as he'd like the horror at the table, so he should find other words. In English. Make sure he understands. Victor can explain, he can, if he has the chance.

"Just come back with me."

[theglassheart]

Victor's no is so certain that it makes everything else even more uncertain.
Because. Because. Because even if he offers to give Victor what he wants it's not right.

He's doing everything wrong, just trying to get this part right, trying to help, to take care of Victor, and he's not expecting it, eyes not quite on the ground, but closer to Victor's knees than anything higher. Which gives him less than part of the second to realize that Victor's hand is in his visions, only right before there are fingers against his cheek, so soft and just this side of cold, making something in his chest crack.

But it doesn't end there, because Victor swoops in, like earlier, while he stands there. Something, disastrously, like anything, anything at all skittering, desperately needing in a completely different new way, across his brain before he realizes it's not. Before he realizes Victor's arms are around his neck, and Victor's head is nestled next to his, part on his shoulder, part against his head, his neck.

And ... holding him tighter than earlier. Not letting go.

When Yuri can't even think but his hands don't need him for that.

Because they are around Victor's back an instant later and he's pushing his faces into Victor's opposite shoulder, hard, eyes closing, eyes clouding up, not caring if his glasses dig into his face. Something impossible hiccuping in his chest on top of that crack. While Victor says the first thing of all of the last minute or two that even seems to make a bit of sense. That sounds like him. Ending with those few words, while Yuri nods his head into Victor's shoulder.

Of the anything he could give, of all that he would, that one is so small, and Victor already has it.

Leaving him nodding, just nodding, again, saying, "Okay," soft, tacit, like it isn't everything he's wanted the whole time.

[fivetimechamp]

At least he didn't wreck this. At least Yuri doesn't pull away.

Even better, he folds into this embrace, face into Victor's shoulder, voice muffled against Victor's jacket, arms around him. Saying okay like there was never a reason to even ask. Like it's so obvious, the only possible answer.

And maybe it is. All their stuff is in that room. Yuri's skates and his costumes, his earbuds and MP3 player, their passes. There wasn't really any other option, or anywhere else too go. Except that sort of thinking is too logical for Victor's rice wine-soaked brain, that's feeling less and less coherent with every passing moment, as more and more alcohol absorbs into his system.

Which is probably why he says, low and certain: "I only want you."

Mumbled into Yuri's shoulder, his hair. Just about at his ear. Meaning everything, and nothing like everything, all at once, because he's not sure how to put this feeling into words Yuri will understand. He'd though Yuri understood it, before, when he copied Stay Close to Me, but maybe not: and his drink-addled brain is having difficulty finding the English for what he wants to say, what Yuri should understand.

That he probably shouldn't be saying out here on the street, anyway, but is, because he's not sure he can stop. Trying to explain himself. Trying to express himself.

Distracted, over and over again, by Yuri soft and warm against his chest, in his arms, under his chin and mouth, nestled into his shoulder. "And you didn't, before."

Didn't come back with him. Didn't show up. Didn't, didn't. Maybe he's breaking their unspoken taboo on this, but it's like Yuri's turned him upside down and is shaking the words out like change. Yuri hasn't brought it up, so he hasn't, either, but he hasn't just forgotten. Yuri told him not to, and he didn't.

Even if he tried to ignore it, until tonight, when it all came bubbling out again, like shaken champagne.

Huffing a sigh into Yuri's shoulder, wanting to just go limp here, on top of him, instead of walking all the way back to the hotel. it's cold, but he doesn't feel it.

All he feels is Yuri. It's all he needs.

[theglassheart]

Low and certain, those words, fall into Yuri's head, in the silence and space this bubble has made the whole world, and he couldn't ask for anything simpler, could he?

It's something Victor already has. It wasn't as though Yuri was going to go somewhere else, as if Yuri would have even come out tonight if it wasn't for that arm slung over his shoulder and the cheerful voice in his ear claiming a need for the best hotpot reviews could sell. It's not like he was ever going anywhere but back to the same hotel room with Victor.

Who adds four more words to the first four and makes Yuri's forehead wrinkle, because it doesn't make as much sense. He didn't want --Yuri blinked against the coat under his cheek, his mouth, not wanting to move, but not wanting to get more of it wrong. He didn't what, what was Victor trying to say?

Didn't want himself before? (That wasn't a lie, but ... he didn't think so. ) Didn't want Victor before ? (That was a lie, but not one he could have meant. Or say.) Did he mean 'before,' back at the hotpot place when... (...but no, Victor apologized. Twice.) Or did he mean -- did he mean it as simply, as those same words five minutes ago?

The ones Yuri just passed up as teasing, when it was need instead of want, in opposition to his demand about the water, when maybe that was heartless, not saying anything, because nothing was making sense in Victor's head after drinking all of the miju, and somehow it had mattered? That that was why he suddenly got snappy?

Somehow he thought Yuri just wanted to take him back and leave him there? Alone?


Maybe he's trying too hard to make sense of it even now?

When all Victor wants is for him to be there now?


Especially, when Victor just huffs a sigh that gets half in his jacket, and the other half of it ruffles his hair, warming the side of his neck and part of his ear, just for a second, while Victor just lays into him. When Yuri says the only thing he can think to say at all, like it just needs to be said. "I'm staying."

It's so obvious to him, but if nothing is to Victor. He say it, too. "I'm not going anywhere."


But they are. They need to, and Yuri can do better. Better than the last five minutes. Better than he's ever needed to. For Victor, he always can. He finds a way. Find it inside himself, makes it something of himself, so he takes a breath in and pulls back. Not far, a few inches, to be able to look up at Victor, and then not entirely at all.

He says, softer, "We're not far now," nicer than earlier, even when they haven't left sight of the restaurant, and he can do better, stop stumbling over not understanding, not being ready, just plain not knowing what to do or how to deal, or feeling stupid ... for earlier, if Victor needs him, wants him now.

He lets of one of his hands drop from Victor's back, but he just slides the other further. Just slips himself under one of Victor's arms, under his shoulder (the way they'd already been carrying out Celestino ; the way Victor latched on to him half of the time even sobber) and tried to give him something of a smile.

[fivetimechamp]

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.

[theglassheart]

It takes Victor too long to focus, but his expression is more solemn now.

Almost confused, contradictory, just for a second, lost, deceived, before it softens back under while he stares at Yuri, gaze shifting until it can center on Yuri's own, and when Yuri moves he just forms to Yuri the way he always does. They way he throws his arms around Yuri's shoulder and leans him almost a third over in his exuberance after his first two performances, when they were somewhere in Hasetsu and Victor just couldn't contain his joy at needing to share something, like Yuuri hadn't lived in the country most of his life.

Victor who tugs him closer, until their legs are bumping gently as they shift, and Victor's cheek and chin finds its way against his hair, making him some combination of crutch and teddy bear. Victor's less in control of the directing, but it's still absolutely familiar. Like pulling his jacket around his shoulders.

Grounding. Feels like it steadies everything in his chest, even though it was meant to steady Victor.

He lets his fingers dig softly into Victor's jacket on the other side and he looks up, again, but out, instead, this time.

Taking his bearings on where they are, and remembering how they got here after the interviews, how they got to the interviews after dropping everything off in the hotel. Considering what the shortest paths are, even if it'll still be a dawdling walk at best, and starting them back off in that direction again.

[fivetimechamp]

It's the same way they walked to the hotpot place, his arm around Yuri's neck, side by side, but Yuri hadn't been holding onto him, then, too, had he? He'd been lost in thought. I ran my mouth too much at the press conference.

It feels like years, instead of only hours ago, and he's not sure how he managed to forget it until just now, reminded in a moment of clarity.

(And instantly forgetting again, when Yuri shifts under his arm and Victor looks around, too.)

Shanghai. He likes it here. Has been here before, even if he can't recall, at the moment, exactly when, or for what. Some competition, among dozens of competitions. Yakov nagging at him. His time spent between the rink and the hotel and the bars nearby, probably, like usual.

What a lonely existence it seems, now, to look back on. Even with the fans, and the crowds, and the interviews, and the other skaters. It was always just him. He'd never minded being held apart. Wanted it, even. Enjoyed it. Being the best. "Yuri..."

Changing everything. Always staying close, now. Doing exactly what Victor had been asking of him for so long. "Do you like Shanghai?"

He can't remember if he asked before, or not. "Are you excited for tomorrow?"

[theglassheart]

The first question is one that makes him pause.

When these walks between buildings are the closest he's gotten to seeing much of Shanghai since arriving. The buildings were ... nice? The hot pot was ... an experience? He vaguely remembers the golden columns, and Phichit's face rapture. Phichit'S excited response to that question would be unequivocal. He'd already be in love with the place. Before his plane even set down.

The second question catches him unprepared. Again. As always. It almost trips up his step.

Excited. Excited? Was he --

There's an unhelpful noise at the press of his lips. His reaction to this one is even less one he wants to give words to, but it is at least definitive. The word is not excited, when it catches him, under foot, in these finally calm, smooth few seconds, like stepping out on the ice in his tennis shoes instead of his skates. His return to the Grand Prix, with the China Cup he won. That went well ... for the most part well.

He could not mess up here the way he had there. (Some part of his mind trying, perhaps, not winded enough to help, to remind him he'd made it through his qualifiers the first time, too. He'd done well enough to move through each of them and reach the GPF competition.) He could not mess up here the way he had there either, or at the Nationals after either.