fivetimechamp | Let's get hotpot! 6 November, 2014

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

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?"

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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."

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.

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.

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.

Edited 2017-03-09 13:28 (UTC)

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.

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.

Edited 2017-03-09 15:37 (UTC)

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?"

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.

There's a hiccup in Yuri's step, but it's okay. Everything's okay. Yuri might be nervous, but Victor has more than enough confidence for them both. "I'm excited."

It's not the debut of Eros, but it is the first time it will really count, and the first time it will be in front of such a large audience, both live and live-streaming. It's ready. They've worked so hard on it: Yuri's thrown his whole self into it in a way Victor could never have expected from imagining a pork cutlet bow, and it's almost perfect.

Almost exactly like what he remembers. Katsuki Yuri, melting the ice, stealing hearts and breaking them: just as Victor asked him to do. Love me and leave me.

Except there is no leaving. There's work on Yuri on Ice, and on landing jumps, and there are miles to run, mountain paths to run up, laps at the beach to swim, ballet classes to take, family dinners, baths, late nights up talking. Yuri going from quiet to shy to comfortable to almost talkative, lying there on his bed or Victor's, talking about whatever came to mind. About the programs. About his childhood. About his fears, and how they manifest.

And everywhere, that underlying beam of determination that never fails to surprise, like biting into a marshmallow and finding steel. "I can't wait for everyone to see you."

Victor says those words like Victor isn't excited about half of everything he see or does everyday.

Like it doesn't do dangerous things to Yuri's stomach he can't even describe, because it's hard enough to feel.

This combined, confused thing about a shot of elation (at the fact Victor wants him there, out there, already, everyone watching him do what he's done almost singularly only for Victor, save The Southern Regional Championships, has no doubt in him, somehow) and stab of dread (at the idea of messing up entirely, on Victor, who says he's excited, while everyone is watching him, and Victor, who gave up everything, including all of them, for Yuri, and if he fails then).

He can't say that though, and he can't say nothing again, because then who knows what Victor will feel compelled to say, to possibly keep going like Yuri just hadn't heard him, even though it's been said right next to his head. "It not like you'll have to wait long now."

Edited 2017-03-09 19:03 (UTC)

There's a low hum in the back of his throat, that's almost a laugh. Might be, if it were less wistful. "It's been a long wait."

Eight months. Two years. He's never waited for anything in his whole life like he's waited for the day when the world sees Katsuki Yuri as he really, truly is. Everything he can be. And the proof of everything Victor's felt and done, woven into the programs he choreographed, the practice and drills he oversaw, the help he offered. Be my coach, Victor.

And that love letter, still gaining hits and views on YouTube, more and more as they get closer and closer to the Grand Prix Final.

(Even if he isn't still sure that's what it was. A love letter, and not just a reminder. Or invitation. Or challenge.)

He tips his head up to the sky, cold air washing at his cheeks to cool the wine-fueled flush there, eyes falling closed, and trusting that Yuri will steer him clear of any obstacles in his path. "I think you're going to surprise everyone."

Yuri doesn't say that he'll manage that if he just stays upright.

He knows he's being stupid. Negative. That it's not going to help him. It doesn't give it any less claws, digging gouges into the ice that makes up the inside of his head. But he still knows it's stupid. Too. Knows he's being just as overdramatic as Victor can be, in his own way. That the pressure is going to be bad enough without his giving in, making it worse, helping it along. He tries to stuff it down.

They've practiced over and over and over again.
He's gotten it right so many times when he just gets out of his own way.

When it's just the music and the ice, it's just throwing himself wholly into every word and every move. When there's nothing but it.

The thing that comes to mind next, in that emptied space, is wanting to say he'd settle just for placing, except something else happens to that thought. Something clunky. Defiant. In his head. In his guts. Because he doesn't want to settle for, to just place. He doesn't want to just survive tomorrow. And the day after. (His life. Skating.) That's not what they've been doing for all these months. Making him just good enough to manage to sneak by, if and when no one is watching.

He wants more than that. Which is just as cloudy in his guts. He wants it. That want pulsing there just as deeply.
Never drowned out by what happened before Victor. Before coming home. Only having dug itself in deeper since then.

It's there, in that space, that silence, that he does. He does. He wants to surprise them all.
The way Victor did every time he stepped on the ice. The way Victor did when he arrived that first day.

The way Victor never stops surprising him in real life, even when he's been here so many days Yuri has lost count.

He wants to surprise them, but even more, so much more it makes everything fragile as falling cherry blossoms and harder than ice?

He wants to surprise Victor. To show Victor. He's listened. He's learned. He can take everything he's been given, every snap and smile and undiscussed sacrifice, and he can make it every bit as perfect as its supposed to be, trained to be, could ever be unless Victor, himself, were out there on the ice skating.

He doesn't say you've already surprised me, although maybe he should, because it's true. Yuri surprises him all the time, has, ever since that first time two years ago. He's fairly sure no one he's ever known before has surprised him quite as much or as often as Yuri has.

On the ice. Off it. Inspiring feelings Victor had no idea he was even capable of.

And, tomorrow, he'll show it to the whole world. Make them all fall for him, seduce them, flirt with them, leave them aching for more. If it worked on him, it'll work on anyone. Everyone.

He's not sure how, but things seem to be getting even fuzzier. Or, really, it's more like time is passing in hops: they're walking down a street, and a blink later, they're in front of a storefront. He's not sure how long ago they were at the restaurant: it could have been ten minutes or ten seconds or ten hours.

(He probably shouldn't have had those last few glasses.)

Huffing out a sigh, and trying to focus on keeping the walkway in front of him from splitting into two mirroring images: "Aren't we getting close, yet?"

All he wants to do is lie down and pass out. Or. Well. Maybe that isn't all he wants to do. That would mean letting go of Yuri, and he doesn't want to let go of Yuri. Not when Yuri should know, right. By now? Why Victor tried that, back there. And he's sorry, but he thought, was sure –

He should explain, He tries to put a pin in the thought but it slips away like nailing jelly to a wall, and all that's left again is the sound of their footsteps and the wavering sidewalk in front of them.

Edited 2017-03-10 23:36 (UTC)

Yuri's looks up and over, not much of either required with Victor right there agaisnt him, tries not to look a shade away from amused. It's not anywhere the first time he's heard Victor whine about something, but it's the first time if came out sounding like a child's sulking. With that huff of a breath that sent all the hair on Yuri's head anywhere near him blown briefly, by him instead of the wind this time, warm instead of cold just for a second, since he hasn't let go of holding on to or leaning on to Yuri.

As though this walk had suddenly become untenable to bear.

Victor's not always good at being patient, but this is ... it's almost ... what is the word?

It's faintly warm against the hooks of Yuri's ribs, and there's half an urge to roll his eyes and half an urge to smile.

Something that calls him impossible but is utterly woven through with that warmth, almost shaking his head at the whole of it. That isn't a no by any sense, but the final escape of this ruefully unnamed feeling inside of him, when he raises a hand and points at a tall hotel building shining in the far distance.

"It's right there. You can even see it now." Not exceedingly close, but not all that far.
Not nearly as far as Yuri has gotten used to running nearly everyday.

Edited 2017-03-11 00:13 (UTC)

"Oh, good."

A relieved sigh, even though he groans a little to see how far the building still is. It's not close enough, the hotel, the room. Their room. That he's sharing with Yuri, this time, which is both wonderful and torturous, although it has its benefits. "Back to the room. Our room."

Pausing, trying to haul his thoughts back around to where they were hovering only seconds ago. "Celestino won't take you away."

Not this time. Even if this time, Victor is the drunk one, and not Yuri. Yuri should have had something. Victor would like to see that again.

After the Grand Prix Final. After the gold. After they prove to the world that they can both be these things they've declared themselves to be: a champion and a coach.

(Even if he's not sure, right this second, which one of them is which.)

"I don't think he likes me very much."

When Victor starts responding most of it doesn't need an answer.

It isn't like Victor didn't carry his fair share of conversations. More at the beginning than now, but even now sometimes.

When he couldn't get out of his head and it was all just so much harder to hear, or act, or talk though. But the first words there, and even the groan, which nearly surprises a laugh out of Yuuri at the at the surprise and almost ... childishness? .... of, still doesn't really require anything of him, but to keep Victor walking in a straight line. Which works more than it doesn't, even if Victor does try to drift now and then, without seeming to notice he's doing it.

A thing Yuri is correcting for, again, when Victor mentions Celestino taking him away. Which really has to be the newest, oddest, things Victor's said since they left the hot pot restaurant. Surprising him enough he actually repeats, "Celestino?"

He hadn't thought about Celestino wanting him back, but then he hadn't ever considered going back. Not after graduation and it being time to come home. Was he supposed to have thought of that? With Victor here, already filling those shoes? (Also, unasked, but never denied. Yuri'd never once thought about replacing him.) Would Celestino have? He hadn't said anything like that the one time Yuri had called him, in the early months of training in Hasetsu.

But the next thing, even more personally aimed, makes Yuri look at Victor out of the side of his vision.
Because that seems even more unlikely. He wasn't sure anyone did, or even could, truly not like Victor.

Except for, unless he meant -- "Because of your taking off the year to coach me? He didn't seem to mind that much at dinner."
Enough to have made the same comment he'd made all those years ago. But he hadn't seemed angry, or disingenuous, to Yuri.

Oh, right. "That, too."

Nodding amiably as they stroll along, while the world blinks in and out of focus around him, occasionally spinning like a top, sometimes gently undulating. He closes one eye, and then the other, trying to keep his vision from splitting in two.

That's probably part of it. Celestino, like Yakov, hasn't been impressed with Victor's decision to become a coach, or with his confidence in his own ability. Saying he's pretending. Playing at being a coach. As if he somehow could be anything but deadly serious about the thing he'd given up a year of his career for.

But Celestino had been there that night, and he'd been the one to drag Yuri away right after Yuri had asked Victor to be his coach, and that had to have been unpleasant. That, and ... Celestino had been there, that night. So he saw. Knew. That perhaps Victor's intentions weren't so entirely pure.

Well, he'd gotten more out of Yuri in eight months than Celestino had in years, so what does it matter? Yuri listens to him, works hard for him. They understand each other. Mostly. And the things they don't understand only mean what they create is that much more beautiful and complex, isn't it?

That's what he thinks, anyway, fondly tugging Yuri closer, as the hotel grows larger in front of them.

It still tugged at his thoughts. Victor's first words a second ago. He supposed, maybe, he should have thought of it. Not that he'd ever had considered it realistically. Phichit had gone back to Bangkok, too, but he was still appearing with Celestino. But how was Yuri supposed to have been able to even think beyond Victor showing up and deciding to be his coach?

And then meaning it. During and even after the Hot Springs.

Meaning it so much Yuri was worked from morning to night most days of the week.
Meaning it so much that even drunk he'd said he was excited, that he believed Yuri would surprise everyone.

Victor pulled him in closer, arms tightening, body pressing tighter, cheek bone and jaw, smoothing firmer against his hair, his head, with no warning, and Yuri tried not to wobble into Victor, or curve his shoulders inward, for not seeing that coming in the slightest, and might have failed at both, but he kept them moving at least.

He lost the focus of his thoughts but eyes on the prize. He wasn't rushing them, given Victor's disorientation and use of him, pretty completely, for all of the standing and walking. But it would be nice to sit down, lay down after it. Listen to his music. Maybe take a shower. He was used to running himself ragged, but he wasn't used to carrying someone his own weight or a little more for those distances.

"If he dislikes you for anything, it'll probably only be for the headache he has tomorrow."

The one he could only hope Victor wouldn't be nursing too badly himself.

Victor's not listening.

Or, more accurately, he hears Yuri, but the words go in one ear and straight out the other, like water spilling through loose fingers that only barely, belatedly, try to catch at it.

The things Celestino dislikes him for. His red face, and shaking voice, and his hand fisted in Yuri's shirt, and then at Yuri's chest, blocking him from Victor. Hauling Yuri away, out of the ballroom, while Yuri called out. "You should have come back."

After Celestino took him away.

(non te ne andare)

They're going to a hotel room. It's Sochi, and all Victor can taste is champagne and all he can see is diffused golden light. It's Shanghai, and all he can taste is rice wine, and all he can feel is an icy breeze kissing his cheeks and tugging his hair, and he has to look down to make sure Yuri's still there, because he can't feel him there under Victor's arm, anymore, and he doesn't understand. It's been two years, and it's been eight months, and he still doesn't understand, and it's frustrating, because being frustrated is better than being hurt. Even if that's there, too.

Alone in the hotel room. Humiliating himself with the wait. Every petty, sore feeling that he put into the story of Eros, riding right alongside the seduction and the passion: the fickleness of the playboy, how easily he casts his conquest aside.

He doesn't understand it. It isn't Yuri. But it is. Was. It happened, even if Yuri's been pretending it didn't. "I waited for you."

It's still sore. He hadn't thought it was. Had thought he'd gotten over it: the disappointment, the embarrassment, the longing, the frustrated inability to understand.

Thoughts running like water, connecting and breaking apart again, and he doesn't remember how he got started on this, or what he's said already, but it just keeps spilling. "I didn't change my mind."

Which is a little desperate, because it's the only thing he can think of. The only reason Yuri didn't. He didn't call, and he didn't come right away, but he didn't change his mind, and Yuri should know.

Yuri focuses between his feet and the building that they are finally gaining on. That isn't really all that far away now. Maybe two blocks now and fading fast, even without Victor really being there to help much. Victor who seems to keep only blearily remembering he's there.

Looking down with that confused question in his face that breaks on finding Yuri's only looking right back up, still where he's been since he decided to slip under Victor's arm. Unable to do anything but smile. A little helplessly. He's never seen Victor look like this, and he's not sure he'll forget it entirely, even when it melts back into Victor being himself, and his coach, tomorrow for The Cup.

His face wrinkled at Victor's first words, and he didn't answer.

That was better, right? Not answering, and not trying to jump to conclussions about it. About not understanding. About not taking it personally. He could take it with some patience. He didn't understand, and Victor might not even have any clue what he was talking about anyway. Five seconds ago it was Celestino stealing him, and now, without any comment on the topic again, it was about how Yuri should have come back to him, that he'd been waiting for Yuri, when he's not waiting anywhere.

When Victor hasn't had to wait anywhere, except during his interviews, all today.

But something about his tone when he speaks again -- sounds desperate? Panicked? Like he's afraid Yuri isn't listening? Like maybe Victor had forgot for a moment and remembered, and had to remind Yuri, so Yuri hadn't forgotten, too. In the last four or five minutes.

It shouldn't make something warm in his chest strangely.
It shouldn't be annoying, shouldn't it? But it isn't.

It's not even truly exasperation this time.

Yuri just glances to the side Victor is all but laying on him, toward his face, "That's okay." He's still not going anywhere, and he thinks maybe he has a slightly better grip on this. Maybe. "We're almost there now, and then you can lay down."

It's not okay. Nothing about it is okay, and Yuri is either ignoring him or not understanding him and either way, Victor needs to get this point across. He didn't change his mind. He came, even if it was later than he should have.

Maybe too late?

But then why would Yuri skate that piece. Why would he be here. How could the last eight months have happened.

The closer they grow, the more confused he gets.

And now Yuri's brushing him off, like he's rambling, like he's not making sense, like he's just being Victor, the way Yuri sometimes does get when Victor is enthusing at some new thing or another, or changing his mind, mercurial, or when he's forgotten something. When he's being Victor, the easily distracted, the forgetful.

But he didn't. "I didn't forget," he protests, even as Yuri's directing him towards ... something, he isn't paying attention, looking more at Yuri than at the sidewalk or where they're headed, because this is important. Maybe the most important. "I didn't. Forget."

Victor is suddenly not trying to walk forward, but sways more into him, insistent, chin and cheek bumping the side of Yuri's head, his temple, his eye, making him wince slightly. Though it is more surprise, along with Victor's suddenly dead set focused voice (even slurred, even no longer pristinely cultured English), needing his attention, needing him to listen, than anything even remotely like hurt.

"Okay." He's trying to rebalance them. They really are so close. When he's tightening his fingers in the jacket in case Victor decides to suddenly move in any other direction right after, even as his other hand is catching the front of Victor. Not quite sure what he'd aimed for, but ending up somewhere below his shoulder and not quite the center of his shirt, and to keep them moving.

Trying to make his voice placating, even when he's uncertain what will help.

"Okay. You didn't forget." Whatever he didn't forget. Whatever it is that seems suddenly so important to Victor that it's replaced any other focus he'd had about complaining about the hotel being too far, or wanting Yuri to stay. About, he doesn't know.

He tries, maybe for distracting, while tugging Victor forward still, adding quietly and more gently chidingly, "That's definitely not something you would do."

Except for how it absolutely kind of is. Which they all know.
His showmanship and his showing up not exactly on the same lines.

He sighs, hair falling into his eyes, even as his free hand comes up to cover the one Yuri's got flat against his chest. It's hard to keep everything straight: what Yuri's saying, what Victor's saying. What he should, and shouldn't. Competition starts tomorrow.

But. "It was supposed to be the story."

A new one, for him: old hat for everyone else. All those things he'd acted out, on the ice, without knowing how they actually felt, relying on music and choreography and the few flings he'd had here and there, that had never measured up to the way he loved to skate or his need to surprise.

(He can still surprise people.)

"The story ... любовь с первого взгляда."

Like Cinderella. Except he's blinking in sudden light, now, and there's a glass door, not slipper, in the way, that he has to let go of Yuri's hand to push at, even though his fingers and palm feel numb when they press against the door. "We're here."

The hotel. The room. Almost. But Yuri said they're going together, so that's fine.

It changes again, and this time Victor loses his English entirely, while holding Yuri's hand to him.

There's only a single word Yuri understands -- любовь.

In anything other than the year he's currently living, it would probably be far more awkward to try and explain how the first things he learned in Russian, at least to recognize by ear, were words in the categories of love and seduction. It doesn't help him with the rest of the sentence, or the Russian itself, which is complicated for what research he has done into in rare spare moments.

Complicated seems a good word for the whole Russian language. Yuri doesn't know whether Victor is talking about a love story, or something he loves about a story. Or whether it's wholly unrelated to the beginning of that sentence, when he shifted languages, maybe shifting topic just as fast as he had only minutes ago. The uncertainty, laced with the thickness of Victor's speech, makes it even easier to doubt himself.

But it isn't that that stumps him. Not the Russian, and not that one possibly right-heard word.
No, it's not either of those. It's the way Victor's voice suddenly sounds almost ...

sad?

That even to get to that word, that idea, it takes a second of basically trying to trace through every interaction he's ever had with Victor. Because Victor is sunlight, and snow, and absolute magic ice, and yes, exuberance, exasperation, belabored lists of what he's done wrong, so much tact bluntness Yuri still blushes at the brashness of it sometimes, even used to it. He's even heartstoppingly hard to look at sometimes, especially because he knows it just as much as the rest of the world does, likes to play with and off of it.

But Yuri doesn't think he's ever seen Victor sad. Heard this tone of his. In any language. Ever.

It leaves him blinking at the next statement, and the realization they are at the door, because that had stolen his focus finally. From the building and his feet and the room, and it's still tangled around his feet, like his laces came undone in the middle of his skate. Trying to place whatever that had been in Victor's voice with the unhelpful nothing all that different in his face. Wanting to know, suddenly, how that sentence ended.

Even as he's catching up to the next two words, shouldering in through the door Victor opens, "I did tell you."
He pushed them across the lobby and headed toward right hallway, and elevator, asking, "Keycard?"

"Hmm?"

Beneath the blurriness, his expression has gone wistful, and he makes no move to pat his pockets or find his wallet, only obediently walks with Yuri through the door and into the hotel lobby, their shoes making soft sounds on the hard floor.

"A fairy tale."

Said to no one in particular, as he's directed into the elevator. As soon as he speaks, he forgets, in favor of leaning against the elevator wall with a sigh, shoulders slumped and eyes drifting closed. He's tired, and it's a relief to lean on something.

Even if he'd just been leaning on Yuri. Making him crack an eye open, to try and remember how he got here: the door opened, they went through the lobby, Yuri hit the button, and then deposited him here.

He thinks.

It takes him a second, but he finally finds Yuri still there in the elevator with him, and relaxes, eyes drifting closed again.

(If he'd heard the question earlier, it's a good bet he's already forgotten it.)

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