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

[fivetimechamp]

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.

Comments

[yuri_plisetsky]

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?'

[fivetimechamp]

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?"

[yuri_plisetsky]

'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.

[fivetimechamp]

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?"

[yuri_plisetsky]

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.'

[fivetimechamp]

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."

[yuri_plisetsky]

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.'

[fivetimechamp]

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.)

[yuri_plisetsky]

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.