fivetimechamp | March 2014 – Sports Champions Club, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

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March 2014 – Sports Champions Club, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

There is no slowing down the sweeping minute hand that ticks implacably about the face of the clock which marks out their season: Grand Prix, Nationals, Worlds, break that never really is a break, as much as it is a chance to delve into everything that had been wrong the season before.

And this year, the Olympics. Putting Victor back in Sochi.

(Back in that hotel, the source of so many frustrations.)

Commentators falling all over themselves to discuss how much his routine has changed in the last year: it has a new dimension, he thinks one of them called it.

Idioty.

A bare month between the Olympics and the World Championships, but he wouldn't want a break, even if one magically appeared in his schedule. A break would only mean time to think, or time to wander around social media and annoy himself by not finding what he's looking for (and then being annoyed at getting annoyed) and he doesn't want that.

He wants to skate. He wants the gold. He wants to win. Everything else is an annoying distraction.

Like how Worlds are in Japan, this year.

(He didn't qualify. Didn't even try, this last year. Hasn't been anywhere since the crushing defeat at the Japanese Nationals.

Not that it matters.)

More pressingly, his current annoyance is Yakov yammering in his ear while Victor sips water at the wall and tunes him out. All the same thing: worry about next year's programs after World's, Victor! You never listen to me, Victor! My grandmother could land that triple axel better than you, and she's DEAD, Victor!

Boring.

Yakov's not even finished, but Victor is finished listening to him, and pushes back off the wall, but instead of picking up where he left off with Stay Close to Me, he calls up a memory of the music he's been listening to, trying to decide between.

The seductive strings of Eros, or the unearthly beauty of Agape?

Just another annoying distraction. No matter how many times he listens to them at night, with Maccachin curled at his feet, and pretends he's just planning ahead.

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One of these days, he idly considers, he's going to crack an egg on Yakov's bald head once his face has reached this shade of red and see how long it takes to cook –– but for now, he only laughs, and waves off his annoyance. "Yakov! You should be happy he's here. Aren't you always saying we should focus on training more?"

At least, he's always said so to Victor, and Yuri Plisetsky –– as talented as he is stubborn –– seems a likely target for it, as well. In fact, Yakov's scolding hasn't seemed to change much since Victor was in Junior's: it is as implacable as that black hat Yakov will never give up.

His pretense at coming to study is a pretty thin one, but Victor can respect the intention behind it, even if the attempt at subterfuge amuses him, and he looks towards Yuri as he leans on the wall and Yakov grumbles something about dance in the damn water and get some resistance training. "Oh, just experimenting."

There's a half-grin that's playing at his mouth and eyes, but it's as curious as it is amused. Yuri is hungry, but that's to be respected. And he certainly has the talent to do well. "Why, did you like it?"

Edited 2017-04-01 02:47 (UTC)

'It looked interesting.' Which is not a yes and not a no, because Yuri isn't stupid enough to either go for the obvious flattery or pretend to turn up his nose at it entirely. 'Like you were playing tag with yourself, or something. Though I wasn't sure where you were going with it the whole time -- whether you were trying to get away, or to be caught so you could be it next.' He almost leaves it at that, but then adds, 'Anyway, I wanted to see who might win.'

The winner is a foregone conclusion, of course. When you play tag with yourself, there are no second places. The game ends when you say it does.

You can't ever lose.

As if he'd been anticipating the chance, Yakov takes the opportunity to pounce. 'If you put half as much thought into working on your own sequences as you do into describing his,' he says, his pointed glare that rakes Yuri from top to toe, 'you might look less like a newborn calf staggering around on the ice in the middle of your free skate.'

It's a weak shot, and Yuri treats it with the bland disinterest he feels it deserves. 'He asked me if I liked it,' he says to Yakov, not giving an inch more than demanded of him. 'I told him what I thought.' Intent green eyes turn back to Viktor. 'Was I right?'

Tag. That's one way to think about it. After all, it started out as a game (and, it turned out, ended as one), but to make it into a program that will surprise and delight, he'll have to focus it, refine it. Drill down and down and down until he finds that feeling again, and flips it. Seduction treats love like a game, and that's what he envisions for this.

(But if he can't decide if he's the chaser or the chased, the program will be muddled and hard to understand.)

Still, Yuri isn't wrong, and that makes his grin flash, pleased. "Very good." Right now it does feel like tag, as he's chased around the ice by his own indecision. Purity or iniquity? Angel or demon? Does he let it all go, and continue chasing immortality, or give in to human desires?

"Do you think an audience will want to watch a grown man playing child's games on the ice in a serious competition?" Yakov is grumbling, but he's not telling Victor to forget about it: after so many years together, they've reached a kind of understanding about each others' foibles.

... or he's learned to cut his losses where he can.

Victor doesn't say I think they'd want to watch me, but it's in the light arch of his eyebrow and the knowing glance he shoots Yakov before turning back to Yuri. "I want to know who wins, too."

Edited 2017-04-01 14:53 (UTC)

That triumphant gleam in Yuri's eyes at the sight of Viktor's answering grin

(I know who'll win)

quickly fades into his usual semi-indifferent expression, though it's modified by the faint smile around his mouth.

'Kids play to win.' Said to Viktor with the so-very-adult tone of someone who has left childhood well behind him. 'It's only grown-ups who say that kid's games are all about having fun.' With that sage proclamation, he glances at Yakov, and holds up his phone again. 'So do I tell Baba that I talked to you about the pipe bursting, or what?'

'Do it and quit interrupting,' Yakov snaps, waving a dismissive hand. 'You said you came here to study, so get to it.' A thought catches him before Yuri can turn away. 'And shut off whatever noise you're listening to right now. If you're staying here, either you listen to your performance music or you don't listen to anything.'

In response, Yuri reaches up and deliberately takes out his remaining headphone -- a simple gesture that conveys an equally simple, if unspoken, fuck you. 'I'll listen to your coaching,' he says, not looking at Viktor at all. (He's not sure he could keep a straight face if he did.)

Edited 2017-04-02 05:18 (UTC)

Yuri's rudeness shouldn't make him laugh, but it does. He's a little punk, all brusque arrogance and unsheathed claws, like a street cat, and Victor winks at him as he's pushing himself back out onto the ice, even though his words are to Yakov. "Let him listen, he'll be a senior soon, right?"

Following along the same path Victor himself took, and that makes Yuri interesting. In terms of personality, they're very different, but the fierce junior skater from Moscow reminds Victor of himself more than anyone else has in years, and that makes him someone to watch, even if he's too impatient to listen to Victor's advice on his step sequences and choreography.

He'll learn, or he won't. He'll make it, or he'll burn out. None of it is Victor's problem just now, because the only problem he has is one of simple timing: when your career is built on an ability to surprise, but no one is surprised by anything you do anymore, how do you continue?

A much thornier issue at hand than the more immediate problem of performing Stay Close to Me at Worlds in a few weeks, but informed by that performance, too. In an Olympic year, they'd decided to stay with the winning programs from the season before, which was a strategically sound but creatively boring choice. He loves Stay Close to Me as much as he's loved any of his programs, and it's brought him a wave of success, but his goal is to surprise, and how can he do that if he keeps skating the same thing over and over again?

And what will shake things up to the level he demands?

"It's different," he calls to Yakov, stroking backwards, and slipping into a sequence, hands meeting above his head, slipping back down and sending him into a forward-leaning spread eagle. "You know it has to be different."

He has to do something no one expects, or else what would be the point? He might as well just retire now.

Yuri does, at least, retreat briefly to the bench where he'd dumped his backpack. He pauses long enough to reply to Mila -- told yakov about pipe and your gross saggy bras, now bleaching my fucking brain kthx -- and shuts off his music before putting his headphones away. A moment's rummaging in his bag, and he comes up with a pencil and a battered copy of Eugene Onegin.

Eugene Onegin. The frivolous St. Petersburg dandy who attempts to seduce a young lady out of boredom, kills his own best friend in a pointless duel, and ends up loveless and alone after the sadder but wiser young lady rejects his heartbroken, remorseful appeal to her to take him back. A bunch of romantic bullshit; no wonder that mopey bastard Tchaikovsky made an opera out of it. If he didn't have to read it, you wouldn't catch Yuri cracking the spine.

(It's not the first, second, or even the third time that Yuri has been through this old warhorse. But it's a different experience in a classroom with more than a dozen other students all sweating over its stanzas than with a personal tutor who won't let you get away with mumbling your way through it. So he can't entirely half-ass this reading.)

He could sit on the bench and review his assigned pages without making so much as a peep, as Yakov doubtless would want. Or he could take the book back over to the wall, where he could stretch and keep an eye on the ice.

He reaches to the wall just in time to see Viktor's spread eagle, and hear Yakov's grousing in return.

'Different, different -- you think that Sochi was more of the same?' Yakov throws his hands in the air. 'Tch, just another damned Olympics; they happen every year, so tiresome, just down the road, hardly worth lacing up my skates.' His hands go back on his hips, but when he continues something has softened slightly in his tone, the sound of ice settling on a frozen river. 'If it must be different for Worlds, after Sochi, then let it be the tease for next season. Not the end of the ballet, but the last scene before the interval -- something for the audience to talk about over champagne before they return to their seats.'

Yuri thinks of the ballet studio covered in water, and snorts quietly into his jacket. Leaning on the wall, he shifts his weight, and extends his back leg out straight behind him.

Victor's laugh carries as easily across frozen water as it would a pond or pool; clearer, for their being only the two of them here.

(And Yuri, sitting reading his book and thereby disappearing from Victor's frame of reference or zone of interest, for the time being.) "If anyone was bored, I'd think it was you, Yakov. What does that make -- your hundredth Olympics?"

Of course Sochi was more of the same. This whole year, it's been more of the same: train, perfect, perform. Everyone knows his routines by now almost as well as he does: the only way he can surprise them any more is by bringing a new depth to them. Sochi was a bygone conclusion, and so is Worlds, and next year is likely to be the same, unless someone new comes along to shake things up.

Unless he can't find inspiration. Unless he can't find motivation.

"Anyway, who was surprised at Sochi?" No one. Not fans, not other skaters, not even the audiences who tune in for the Olympics and no other skating events. Even they know his name, expect to see him win. Being predictable is the most aggravating thing to be, but he doesn't know what direction to take, where to go next. Shaking his head as he skates back towards Yakov, wiping sweat off his forehead with the hem of his t-shirt and letting it drop, rumpled, back against his stomach. "It's not Worlds I'm worried about."

Voice quieter, but over ice and in a large and echoing chamber like this, it stills carries.

Yakov's scowl turns black. 'In my day, the Olympics used to mean something. Not merely another chance to show off how many rotations we could do. Even the Americans tried to put in some sort of effort back then, and that was a surprise in itself.'

But with his sour complaint, he hasn't missed the change in tone, or the unexpected shift in mood, as Viktor glides over. 'So what is it, then?' he says, and this time there's less scolding and more concern in his voice. 'Forget Sochi, forget Worlds for now. You've been talking like you have something in your teeth and you don't know what to do with it. What's going on with you, Vitya?'

It's at that moment that another sound carries across the ice, a faint clittering noise of something hitting the surface of the rink. It's followed by an irritated hiss, a low thud, and a grunt -- the sound of Yuri hauling himself bodily over the top of the wall, feet kicked up well over his head and right arm outstretched in a near-handstand, as he teeters on the fulcrum of his waist to retrieve the pencil that he'd dropped onto the ice.

For a moment, his balancing act doesn't look like it'll succeed, but a second later he's managed to grab the pencil, and with another kick of his legs he tips himself back into place on the right side of the wall, landing lightly on his toes.

And then he picks up his book again as if that completely didn't just happen.

What's going on with you, Vitya?

He wishes he knew, himself.

Infatuation isn't unusual for him, he knows, but it's been difficult to accept that, after a year and a half, infatuation might be the wrong word for it. It's a distraction, a splinter niggling at the back of every thought, sending him vivid dreams when he needs to sleep, shattering his focus in practice. It feeds new life into his programs, but it doesn't stay on the ice; is something he's been carrying around like a backpack, digging into the back of his neck and tying knots in his shoulders for too long. Frustration a metallic taste in his mouth, when there is no hard enough or far enough to push himself.

His train of thought is interrupted for a moment by the clatter off to the side, but when Yuri doesn't fall on his head and need immediate assistance, he shrugs it off and turns his attention to Yakov, while reaching for his water bottle.

What's going on with him? In the end, it isn't the annoying non-presence of Katsuki Yuri that's troubling his days and kicking him out of sleep. The much more immediate problem is that of his own career, and that is something Yakov will understand. "I can't afford to become predictable," is what he says, finally.

Years of all rise. Of being on top of the game. Records shattered and new jumps unveiled. Every year a little harder, each new birthday a warning that this might be the year everything changes. "They expect surprises, but I don't know if these new pieces will be enough. Maybe nothing I do will be."

It's been a long season for all of them. The glitz of the Olympics one more strain on their resources, their talents, their physical and mental stamina, all the more so for the games being on their own soil. St. Petersburg's interminable winter nights can stretch out before its people like a black hole, and for all that the literati talk about the inexpressible depths and yearnings of the Russian soul there are certain warning signs that even a famously brutal coach like Yakov simply cannot ignore.

Not that he would, because in spite of what Viktor (and Yuri) might think of his iron-fisted demand for control over every waking and most sleeping moments of their lives, there is nothing that he would not do for his skaters.

So instead of keeping up his stern front, he lets out a quiet sigh. 'Whatever you were going to do this evening,' he says, 'do something else. Go to the Mariinsky, the Mikhailovsky. Go see whatever's being put on at the Alexandrinsky this week -- don't worry about tickets, I'll call the box office myself if need be. There's usually some student performances at the Conservatory around this time, too. Hell, go find some awful bar with a band playing whatever ridiculous noise that young hooligans like this one are listening to these days.' The last is said with a jerk of his thumb at Yuri, who catches just enough of what's being said about him to splutter in outrage that Yakov pretends not to hear. 'See what's inspiring other people for a change, Vitya. Find out what they're doing to make old things feel new again, and come back to your own work with a clearer head.'

His gaze shifts to Yuri over at the wall. 'And you,' he says then, in a much darker tone, 'will do fifteen extra laps after your warm-up, with no more than three seconds' difference in timing between each lap. One more interruption out of you, and you'll be doing them backwards as well.'

Yuri's eyes, just visible over the top of his book, flash fire, but he says nothing.

Whatever he was going to do was the same thing he always did. Wasn't it? Go over programs. Jot notes for the next practice, the next competition, the next season. Listen to his music and try to find the heart of it. Do calisthenics, walk Maccachin, eat dinner, go to bed early, wake up early, repeat. It's what he's done for years.

Maybe he does need something different. Maybe he does need a break. Yakov is probably right about that: rest is a part of training, too, and when he looks back at the last year, all he sees is an uphill slog from Sochi to Sochi, Grand Prix Final to Nationals to Worlds to Grand Prix to Olympics to Worlds again. It's the other part that doesn't quite land for him: finding how other people are inspiring themselves. Making something old into something new.

He doesn't want old that looks new. He wants new. Needs it, has built his entire career and professional persona on it, and the whole world will know if he's just recycling something or slapping a fresh coat of paint on an old theme and calling it a surprise.

Fortunately, Yakov is busy grousing at Yuri, and that lightens the mood, making Victor laugh and pat Yakov's arm. "Yakov! You shouldn't be so hard on him. Don't work him to the bone right before Junior Worlds."

Yuri has energy enough to spare, when he chooses to use it, although he seems to enjoy spending most of his time pretending he's gone deaf while Yakov shouts himself hoarse, and Victor can sympathize. Yakov is of the old school, and considers this beautiful rink with its always-frozen and carefully maintained ice and heating system and massive windows to be a luxury none of them quite deserve. Thus far, he hasn't had Yuri skate on rotten ice just to see what it was like not so long ago, you little punk, but Victor's not sure he'd put it past him, the way Yakov's grumbling now.

"If he doesn't win that gold, he'll find out what hard work really means. Talent isn't an excuse for laziness."

But Victor's moving over towards Yuri, now, peering at the cover of the book –– Onegin, really? –– worry smoothed from his face and seamlessly replaced by mild amusement. "I'm looking forward to seeing how your program has improved, Yuri."

Fifteen extra laps. All for dropping his damned pencil. If Worlds wasn't so close --

But it is close, and the fire inside him is burning hotter than ever now. Last year had been his first Junior Worlds, the first one he'd been old enough to compete in, and even if he hadn't absolutely walked off with the gold he'd won it by a comfortable enough margin to paint a target on his back for the following season. Which was exactly what he'd wanted. And hadn't that been fun, seeing skaters three and even four years older than him start to look uncomfortable when they spotted him in the locker room? Feeling the sweat on their palms when they'd had to shake hands with him, because the coaches were right there and other people were watching and something something good sportsmanship? Hearing the tightness in their voices as they wished him good luck, and seeing the way they tried not to squirm when he wished them luck (for all the good it'll do you) in return?

So it hadn't been perfectly smooth skating. The other skaters weren't complete pushovers, especially those who could hear the age clock ticking against them. Yakov's critiques had only become more merciless as the Junior Grand Prix Final approached. And the temptation of the quad was always there, always waiting, as his competitors' point totals rolled in. But Yuri's sights were set on a much higher goal, and that temptation never overcame his knowledge that if he could win without quads -- and cut a swath of destruction through the juniors circuit for the second year in a row -- he'd make his senior debut with a program choreographed by the only person who mattered.

The person right here in front of him, who wanted to know whether he would rise to meet the promise they'd shaken hands over all those months ago.

That amused look on Viktor's face, though...something isn't right about it. It's not what Yuri wants to see. And it puts a bit of steel in his spine, though his gaze flickers over to Yakov and back again before he replies. 'It'll be better than everyone else's. Even without quads. I have to prove that I'm ready for the next level, don't I?'

'Which you won't be, if your mouth keeps running away with your head.' Yakov has made his way over to them, looking dour as ever. 'Not that there's much of anything in your head for your mouth to run away with.'

For the moment, Victor ignores Yakov, studying the boy in front of him. Yuri Plisetsky is intense and highly competitive, but even last year, his eyes had been set not on what he was doing, but what he wanted to be doing. Where he thought he should be. Frustrating for Yakov, familiar to Victor. "Better than everyone else is a pretty low bar."

He'll have to skate impressively to win without quads, even as a junior, but Victor has seen him: it's more than possible, it's the only probable outcome, unless there's some other brand-new prodigy with a feisty disposition making their way up the ranks.

Not for everyone, but for Yuri, imported from ... where was it, Moscow? –– simply being better was never going to be enough motivation. "Be better than yourself, and people will really pay attention."

"Or they'll ignore their coaches." What humanity had found its way into Yakov's face has slipped back under the brim of that hat, and the lines around his mouth only look deeper and more forbidding as he frowns. "Perhaps you both need a dip at Laskovy to clear out your ears so you can listen better."

Yuri takes the critique for what it is, or at least for how it sounds in his ears -- you're better than everyone else there, so make me want to pay attention to you and I'll make you better still -- and his expression doesn't change.

'I'm listening now, Yakov.' Said without actually looking at his coach. 'Fifteen extra laps, you said, and I'll do them backwards if you want.' A sly look crosses his face, making his eyes spark. 'Do you want me to recite Pushkin while I do it, too?'

Suddenly, he stands at attention -- no stalwart Young Pioneer in a red neckerchief could have had better posture -- and his diction is crystal-clear as he declaims the familiar verse:

'Like fashionable parquet floor
The river glistens, dressed with ice
As flocks of boys let spirits soar,
And skates ring out in songs precise.'

Yakov wasn't going to go easy on him today anyway. But it's barely a week until Sofia, and he's been feeling the itch of anticipation and excitement crawling under his skin already. He's so close, so close, and some days, working yourself into exhaustion is the only way you can sleep properly at night. Even when he hears Yakov snap out an infuriated 'thirty laps, you little brat, forward and back, and you won't have enough breath left in you to say Pushkin's name,' he doesn't look away from Viktor.

Not much longer now.

Yuri's unfazed, and for some reason that amuses Victor more than the recital did: he laughs and waves Yakov off, before pulling his right arm across his chest to stretch it. "Yakov, you're getting soft! When I was a junior, you'd have me reciting while doing laps."

He likes the aggressive spark the junior skater has, even if he seems to lack the control he'll need to succeed at the next level. Still, he's quick, and he's observant, so Victor turns his attention back to him as he switches arms, feeling the tug of the stretch in his triceps and deltoid. "You better get started if you want to have time left to practice after! If you can still breathe, that is."

As if in show, Yuri huffs out a breath. 'Might as well get changed anyway,' he says calmly, shoving the book under his arm and tucking his pencil behind his ear. 'Sorry for interrupting your practice, Viktor.'

With that, he bends from the waist in a little bow, executes a sloppy pirouette, and makes a beeline for the bench to grab his backpack and head for the locker room. He's out of sight in moments.

'Mark my words,' Yakov says, looking up to the high ceiling of the rink as if addressing the Almighty directly, 'one of these days I will drown that boy in the Neva. With a full confession written up beforehand, because a shared cell in Kresty would be like a Black Sea holiday compared with hauling him around by the scruff of his neck.'

It's a common enough declaration, from Yakov. Viktor has probably been on the receiving end of it once or twice.

Pushing back onto the ice, Victor laughs. Yuri is the best sort of distraction, the kind he knows and is familiar with. Arrogant skaters, with their too-fragile hearts sewn onto their sleeves. New ones, year after year, gunning for records that were just shattered, for scores that had been unimaginable only months before.

The whole game has changed, and it's changed during his time, and he loves it, the kind of challenge he knows and can meet, and surpass. All his training in elegance and artistry from a decade ago now braided up with the physical spectacle everyone expects: it hasn't been possible to win without at least one quad in years. A sea change that had wiped out some of the greatest skaters in the world, because they couldn't adapt while he thrived.

He understands this world. Even the nagging worry that keeps itching at the back of his neck like sharp and biting fleas is one he understands. He's comfortable with the way it keeps him up at night. Is used to obsessively and coldly dissecting his own performances and abandoning them as soon as they become predictable. He hates being bored, and refuses to be boring.

Which is perhaps why he can't give the other thing up, the one he pretends doesn't exist, that has him up and running at five in the morning instead of sleeping. He hates it, feeling off-balance, when he has never known anything but perfect movement since childhood. It leaves him feeling stupid and clumsy, when he's used to brilliance and grace, and it unsettles him, but he can't figure it out, and that fascinates him.

But he can still take refuge here on the ice, in the well-known choreography of Stay Close to Me, where even after a year a and a half there's still room for perfection.

It's even a relief to watch Yuri and Yakov bicker, like a reminder that the world is still spinning in the same direction it always has, as familiar as his fingers working at the laces of his skates when he's finished, and sitting on a bench just outside the rink wall.

For all of Yakov's vitriol about too many years of working with ungrateful, undisciplined brats, there's no denying that he's been one of a select few coaches who has a definite eye for spotting potential brilliance in raw and untrained talent. Viktor Nikiforov, his greatest success, hadn't merely been a lucky find. Georgi Popovich, though still overshadowed by his more famous rink mate, is capable of turning out truly artistic (if occasionally erratic) performances on the ice. Mila Babicheva, currently number three in the world in her division, can sail cheerfully through routines that Yakov's own generation of skaters would have struggled and quite possibly failed to master. And Yuri Plisetsky -- on the occasions when he gives it his all -- seems prepared to break his own neck rather than back down from any challenge to reach greater heights in their field.

And Yakov would not have it any other way. He would like his current record of national and international wins to continue. He would like his skaters to take pride in themselves, their achievements, their careers, the legacy of those who came before them. But it's a little difficult to summon that sense of goodwill in the face of an insubordinate little hellion and...and Viktor, who is definitely old enough to know better, and who still seems unsettled in a way that any coach would find unsettling in turn. It's enough to make him follow Viktor as he moves away from the wall -- following, always following.

'I meant what I said earlier, Vitya.' He slows to a stop with a gentle hiss of blades; still in perfect control after all these years. 'Consider it an order, for this evening at least.' A pause. 'But not before you redo that step sequence.'

In what seems like an inordinately short amount of time for getting changed, Yuri emerges from the locker room, dressed for practice but with his skates in his hand and his water bottle tucked under his arm. He sets his gear on the bench and flops down into a stretch, disappearing below the wall of the rink as suddenly as if he'd vanished through a trap door.

This is the sort of work he understands, the kind he loves. The sort that leaves his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, his feet and ankles and knees and hips and back aching in a way they never used to, ten years ago. Skating is quantifiable. Even when Yakov is having him do compulsory figures or laps or stretching for hours at a barre, he at least knows what's expected of him.

(It would be difficult not to, when Yakov is forever reminding him exactly what sort of legacy he's carrying on his shoulders. No wonder his back is so sore.)

Now, he blows at a piece of his bangs that's sticking over one eye, and tries to shake it out of his vision to give Yakov a sardonic smile. "Only once? You do want me to take a break. Do I really look that tired?"

He feels tired. Even more so with Yuri Plisetsky wandering back in and dropping into the sort of stretch Victor hasn't been able to do since his own fifteenth birthday.

Annoying little shit. But talented, and he can't ignore that, and he even likes Yuri, for a given definition of the word. Well, as much as he likes any of his rink mates. Those who manage not to burn out in the first few years ... and Yuri is only stoking that fire, not succumbing to it.

However, his own annoyance at growing older doesn't make Yakov any less right, or that step sequence any less in need of attention, so he pushes off after tightening his laces, and glides back to the center of the rink to pick up at the beginning again.

Yakov is not about to rise to that bait. 'Unless you want to prove me wrong by joining Yuri on his laps, you already have the answer to that question.' His arms have settled across his chest, chin dropping forward a little as his focus sharpens. 'Or you can correct my assumptions right now. Begin.'

Just in time, Yuri's head pops up from behind the wall. He knows that he should take every opportunity to sit down while he still has the chance -- after sixty laps, he'll be lucky if he can manage a clean double without feeling like his shins are poking out from below his kneecaps -- but he's not missing this. So he stands, and brings his arms behind his back in a vertical stretch so he can observe silently.

He'll have to figure out Viktor's schedule, once Worlds are over and they have a bit of room to breathe. Even with schoolwork, he'll make it work out somehow. Maybe the two of them could split a pot of tea and some of those honey cakes from the coffee shop across the street from the sports club while they talk about possible short program and free skate themes. That bit of footwork that Viktor was testing out earlier looked like the start of something intricate. No chance that he'll do it again right now, not with Yakov watching him like a hawk, but still interesting. Still intriguing.

For now, though, he'll wait and watch the familiar moves of Stay Close to Me.

(Stay close to me. The day is closer, and closer still.)

When he'd first introduced this program, he'd had a story in mind. A character, frustrated by love but a slave to it regardless, who moves from reluctance to bitterness to longing to a final calm acceptance: a universal love story, something anyone might understand.

It's different now. Even without the music, he can hear it, humming through his bones, his guts, his lungs, tugging and imperfect. All the more furious for being so hopeless.

Con una spada vorrei tagliare quelle gole che cantano d'amore

With a sword I wish I could cut those throats singing about love

Anger. He lets it seep into his straining muscles, rasp in his quickening breath, fuel his pushing pulse. He's never been an angry person, has spent his life either delighted by the beauty in the world or ignoring the rest. Anger has always seemed like such a waste of an emotion, but he falls into it now with relief. The simplicity of it. The immediacy. Anger the impermanent black and purple mark or bloody slice over a deeper, invisible injury, a cracked and bruised bone that keeps hurting every time he presses it, even after the skin over the top has healed.

Questa storia che senso non ha

This story that has no meaning

No matter how he searches for one in these familiar steps, the sweep of the choreography, the familiarity of pain and burning muscle exhaustion. It's all stopped meaning anything at all, and he hates it, suddenly and with a burning fury, hates this restlessness and uncertainty, this lack of inspiration, the inability to do anything but throw himself into the step sequence like he's throwing himself off a bridge, into a fire.

It's not even a relief when the steps come to an end, and his only thought is that he should do it again.

Edited 2017-04-19 15:34 (UTC)

Yuri is stretching, of course, but his grip loses some of its tension as he watches the step sequence unfold. To think that Viktor choreographed this whole thing himself, pulling all of the elements together -- this never, ever fails to captivate him. What must it be like to decide what to keep, or what to exclude? To understand that this gesture works better to convey that feeling, to move a hand or an arm to accentuate the flash of a blade or change of foot? It's so different from the rote steps and jumps and mimes he does in ballet class, precise but predictable, every movement already planned out in advance.

It's powerful. It's bold. It's a little scary, like watching someone caught in the middle of a fight. And he wants it so badly that his fingernails are suddenly digging into the underside of his fingers, where he has his hands clasped behind his back.

As Viktor's movements slow, Yakov doesn't immediately start needling him right away. He doesn't have to. He could point out one or two small things that had caught his eye, but he knows Viktor's body language on the ice better than perhaps anyone else alive, and his immediate silence will do as critique in a way that actual words cannot.

That sense of frustration and anger bleeding out into his steps and turns...it isn't an act. It's painful to watch, as a skater and as a coach. He might not know what has his Viktor so restless, but it is infinitely better to watch him work out some of that frustration here in his performance, rather than turn to somewhere outside the rink for relief.

(Skaters' hearts are fragile as glass, and Yakov have been around long enough to see how the lights that burn brightest can shatter without warning. The world might see the strain when it turns public and violent -- that nasty business with the American ladies' skaters before the Olympics a few decades ago, for instance -- but the struggles that never leave the ice are no less visceral.)

It isn't often these days that he can read Viktor's thoughts in his movements so clearly, but this is one moment where he can take the risk of sounding clairvoyant. 'If you do it again, will it give you what you want?' Low and even, carrying across the ice in a way that a shout could not. 'Will you let it be destructive? Or will you allow it to be constructive?'

It's silent in the rink against the rasping of his breath, and Yakov's disapproval feels more like a relief than anything else he's thrown at himself today. It's a constant he can depend on: the world spins on, the sun rises and sets, and Yakov is never satisfied. Hands on his knees, breathing in clean cold air that feels like a steel blade once it hits his suffering lungs, gulping at water that isn't there, his hair a sweat-matted mask stuck over his left eye. That question coming like a command, and it makes him frown.

What he wants is nowhere on the ice, not here, and certainly not at any competition, on any podium, or even in any rink that he knows of. What he wants won't be sitting for him at the end of the program, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow or a sleeping princess in an ivy-twined tower.

What he wants is so stupid and childish that he can't even stand the thought of it. He's stupid, stupid, it means nothing, would mean nothing to anyone else, certainly means nothing to ... well. Idioty a vicious snakebite in his head, as if a sharp enough, annoyed enough thought would distract from the pang in his chest that has nothing to do with being out of breath.

Destroy, create. He's not even sure where the line between the two is, anymore. If he pulls it apart enough, allows it to pull him apart at the same time, won't he be able to build it all back up stronger than before? Why does it feel like he keeps pulling bricks from a wall that only repairs itself, growing taller and stronger, when he's not looking? "It's angry. He's angry. The ... character."

I'm angry, he doesn't need to say. "It's not a happy story, Yakov."

Was it ever supposed to be? He can't remember.

There's a glance at Yuri, watching him from over the rink wall, and he straightens, making it look as easy as his complaining muscles and tired back will allow, running a palm over his hair to sweep it back out of his face and directing his next question back to Yakov. "Don't you think it destroys, to fall in love when you don't want to?"

'You say that as if we ever get to choose.' Yakov shakes his head a little. 'We don't. We choose only what we do about it. And that is the story, happy or not.'

From the outside, he and Lilia had been an ideal match for their day. The figure skater and the ballerina, Soviet strength and grace and beauty on display for the world to see. His career could not have compared with hers for prominence -- no one ever took foreign diplomats to an ice-skating rink, whereas it was nigh-impossible for them to escape the obligatory Bolshoi performances -- but they had not been competitors in that sense.

Would it have ended differently, if they had been? Would they have loved differently, in this world that children like Viktor and Yuri live in, where so many more doors are open to them and the ice is always as smooth and perfect as glass?

Perhaps it is a luxury to be old, and not have to worry about such things any longer. And yet Viktor is here now, looking tired and lost and trying to hide it, as he did when he was no older than Yuri over there. This next part is where he must be careful.

'But if you are breaking your heart on the ice over and over again, are you really trying to tell the story? Or are you trying to punish yourself for telling it?' He reaches up to push his hat up with the tip of one finger. 'One is constructive. The other...is not.'

To Yuri's ears, from what he can hear, this is a strange sort of conversation. Viktor has always been one to throw himself headlong into his stories, and Stay Close to Me is no exception; it wouldn't be as good as it is if he'd half-assed any part of it. But why are he and Yakov talking about all of this now? Isn't this the sort of thing that they would have discussed much, much longer ago, when the program was first taking shape? Or is this like what Yuri himself has had to do in the middle of a program, when he wasn't happy with the first half and had to figure out how to do better in the second half?

The Olympics must've messed everything up. Everyone's season had gone crazy because of them, and it wouldn't surprise Yuri at all if even Viktor Nikiforov was feeling frustrated afterwards. Yakov might be a grouchy old fart on the best of days, but he's still the only coach that Yuri would've wanted, and for once he actually is listening. To both of them.

He's pushing it too far: even as warm as he is, he can feel the chill of the air cooling his sweat too quickly, the light tremble in his fingers that means his muscles are nearing exhaustion. If he tried to do even a double right now, he might wind up collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut, but it's not just physical, and that's what confuses him, and confusion is a thing he hates.

Everything has always been so simple, so clear-cut and obvious. Every year spun out in the same pattern of training, Grand Prix, Nationals, Worlds –– this year with the Olympics tossed in again for good measure, so it would make sense if his body was simply worn out. He's not as young as Yuri, over there, with his rubber joints and burning ambition.

Maybe he does need a night off. Maybe he needs more than that.

But that's as annoying a thought as any other, and he huffs exasperation through his nose, hands on his hips as he traces a slow circle and then an idle figure eight, just to keep moving. Maybe it is punishment. Perhaps it ought to be, for allowing himself to be so foolish.

No matter what Yakov says about choices and having no say in how these things happen, he knows he could have stopped it. Should never have even let the thought cross his mind. "It has to be perfect."

Nothing less is expected of him, and he'll deliver nothing less. He can't afford to be merely good, or even great. It has to be exceptional, every time. And if he has to break his heart to do it, well ––

His won't be the only one shattering.

But Yakov's right that he can't let it stay like this, either, so his shoulders lift and fall in a sigh, and he cracks his neck, head tipping from one side to the other, before lifting a hand in capitulation, with a flashing hint of his usual careless smile, even if it, too, feels a little forced. "Don't worry, Yakov. I'm not going to break anything important. I've been ordered to rest tonight, remember?"

Oh, so now you listen to orders so cheerfully? Even if that smile of his is so insincere that it wouldn't fool an infant. If it wasn't for the fact of Junior Worlds coming up so quickly, Yakov would consider dragging this young idiot out somewhere for a quiet drink, somewhere private where he could try to get to the bottom of all of this odd melancholy. But there's not enough time between now and Sofia for something like that, and at this point he's not even sure that he'd get a straight answer if he tried. (If there is even a straight answer for it, which is by no means certain; stress and exhaustion may play tricks on the brain in ways that defy any type of logic.) Yet in the meantime --

'If you have time to stare,' he calls out, looking over his shoulder at Yuri, 'you have time to add more laps onto the ones you'll be doing shortly!'

'I'm stretching, Yakov!' Yuri shouts back, raising both arms high above his head in a sudden grand sweeping motion before leaning from side to side. 'Keep your ratty old hat on; it's not like I'm going anywhere, am I?'

Yakov looks back at Viktor, his gaze flat once more. 'We choose only what we do about it, Vitya,' he says again, this time in a voice that is not meant to carry. 'Even if it feels like our choices have already been made for us. Think about that tonight, while you rest.'

Yakov looks unmoved by his smile, but for some reason that only makes Victor want to make it brighter, cast an aura of superficiality over the last fifteen minutes: the conversation, the step sequence, how it still doesn't feel right.

Angry isn't right, even if it's there. It's not angry. He's not. He's ...

But that would mean taking a harder look at this yawning ache in the center of himself than he wants to do with Yakov watching him like a hawk and Yuri there keeping one sharp eye on everything that happens, ears nearly twitching with the attempt to listen in. "If I think about anything past a hot bath and a good dinner, I will," he promises, shaking a fringe of hair out of his face to flip a wink that only makes Yakov's frown etch itself more deeply into his jowled face.

Surely that expression must be permanent by now, right?

But before he skates to the gate the way he might normally, blithely ignoring Yakov's demands for his attention, he takes a sip of water and only asks: "Is there anything else?"

Anything to work on. Anything to fill the next five minutes with, that isn't his cooling sweat and his screaming muscles and how his feet will complain when he unlaces his skates.

Maybe he'll walk home, to clear his head, instead of taking the train. "Or should I let Yuri get a head start? Otherwise he might not finish his laps until tomorrow morning."

Is there anything else, he asks.

(Alarm bells should be going off all over the rink, because they are certainly going off in Yakov Feltsman's head.)

'Take your time cooling down,' he says firmly. If Viktor is in this strange pushing-back mood, he can be the wall to push against. It would not be the first time that his main purpose in his skaters' lives is to plant his feet as if there were solid ground instead of ice beneath his blades. 'Full strokes, deep breaths, clean extensions, all of it. And keep your arms loose; if that shoulder of yours tightens up, you'll need an hour on the massage table to put it back to rights.' He drums his fingertips on the folded edge of his arm. 'Don't just go running off to pretend that you're following my instructions to the letter. You couldn't get away with it when you were the brat's age, and you damned well can't get away with it now.'

Speaking of the brat, he briefly glances back again at Yuri, who by this point has vanished once more below the wall of the rink...with the exception of his left leg, which is pointed straight up in the air, ankle rotating slowly, as he does something repulsively flexible with an advanced bridge pose. Shamelessly showing off, of course, but soon enough it will take all of Yuri's stamina to simply stay upright, so Yakov ignores the sympathetic ache in his own hips at the sight. A pause, one last moment to think things over, and then:

'Everything else can wait until tomorrow.'

Yakov's expression is the settling, deepening lines of weathered granite, as if he is the foundation beneath Saint Isaac's, creaking and groaning under the weight of the cathedral, but, like that foundation, he remains firm. His back may be older now, but it is no less ramrod straight, and strong enough for his skaters to lean on, if they need it.

A weakness which Yakov's expression suggests is evident here, but Victor doesn't feel weak, or tired, even if he'd been exhausted only a quarter of an hour and two run-throughs of his step sequence before. He feels jittery and restless, like he'd indulged in too many sweet treats and tea, even if he's been on the same bland, boring, nutritious diet for what feels like centuries. "Fine."

Everything feels a little off. He's distracted, and it's showing. Yakov is unsettled, sharp eyes piercing through him, seeking the source of all their troubles, but he doesn't feel like giving a detailed account of something Yakov would only find sentimental and absurd, and Yakov has Yuri there to focus on for the next few hours.

All of which sends him pushing off from the ice to take his cooldown, strokes long and smooth, breathing in deep to feel the bite of cold rink air, arms extending as he traces wide loops and figures around the ice.

(He wonders how loudly Yakov will yell if he uses this time to work out some of the smoother kinks in Agape.)

Viktor pushes off, and Yakov watches him go. His critical eye notes that the first few strokes are not quite as smooth and full as they could be; he is trusting that the simple deep breaths and long, repetitive motions of the cooldown period will gradually ease the tension that has been building up in Viktor over the course of practice -- and for some time before today, it seems.

There's movement at the edge of his vision, and he sees Yuri tapping the toe of his skate on the rubber matting, making a final adjustment to the fit before he too steps out onto the ice. What a pair, these two; barring some utter catastrophe involving fractured kneecaps or food poisoning, they'll both take gold at their respective Worlds. No one else in the field comes close to them. And even at the end of a too-long season, when they're all exhausted and snapping at each other's heels, Yakov still hasn't lost his interest in seeing what his skaters will do in the next one.

(The day he loses that interest is the day he'll hang up his own skates and find some high-windowed place overlooking the Black Sea to fade quietly from view.)

'All the way through on your left leg there -- you're pulling it up short,' he calls out to Viktor (I'm watching you, so you'd better not try anything, is the unspoken warning), and turns to glance at Yuri as he steps away from the wall. 'Now then, do you still feel like running off your mouth at your coach? Get on with those laps, and if you lose count you start over again from the beginning.'

'Yes, sir,' Yuri says, the polite response not at all matching with the sour look on his face, and he launches out into his first lap. But he can't quite resist a parting shot at the old man, so a quick dredge of his memory produces one of the sappier lines he remembers from Pushkin, the drippy, melodramatic poem written by Lenski right before Onegin shoots him in their duel: '"Oh! Whither have ye winged your way / The golden days of my young spring?...."'

He hears Yakov growl something, but he doesn't really care what it was. It's all he says before he puts his mind back to his task; the laps won't skate themselves, and if he has to do thirty of them forward and back then he can't afford to miscount any of them. And Viktor's still there, cooling down. Too much to hope that he'll deliberately distract Yakov for him, but any time on the ice with Viktor is worth it. In fact, maybe he can show Viktor how his own skating has improved -- he's definitely built some strength and speed since that competition, so it'd be good to show off what kind of form he has now. Give him a sense of what kind of raw material he'll have to work with for the choreography.

So Yuri lengthens his strides, letting his arms hang loose, and falls into a calm, steady rhythm. A proper warmup, for all that it has an ulterior motive.

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March 2014 – Sports Champions Club, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

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