9 - 10 December, 2014 - Barcelona

[fivetimechamp]

There's a swift, fleeting moment, between his toes breaking the water's surface and the waves he'd created closing over his head, where he imagines himself on vacation. On a break from the hectic stresses and mundanity of everyday life, floating high above a sea of lights. Free to be himself, to relax. To lose himself in those self-indulgent fantasies only possible when daily training and errands, practice and diet, aren't demanding every second of his undivided attention.

He floats on his back, spread-eagled in the water, letting it buoy him, letting his thoughts trickle along whatever path they most wish to take –– which, these days, means they wander along a well-worn path from sleepless nights and newly-opened gates. Life and love –– two words he's neglected for over twenty years, that suddenly knock at the door of every thought, nudging him further down the path before he even recognizes he's headed that direction. 

Whispering, for the first time, in glimpses and sidelong glances, of a tomorrow past today.



"Ah-choo!"

A sneeze brings him out of tantalizing reverie, and he sinks further into the water to sniffle, the moment broken. It turns out even Barcelona's cold in December –– not the bone-deep freeze of St. Petersburg or Moscow, a thin wind biting through coats and scarves and jumpers with ease, but still probably a little cool to be lazing in a rooftop pool, here at the official hotel for the Grand Prix Final. Still, it's peaceful up here, and the water is heated even if the air isn't, and he has no place special to be. Yuri is still sleeping off his jetlag –– that's why they got here early to begin with. They have all of tomorrow to practice and acclimate before the Final begins. 

Steps, and the gentle tinkling of crystal against glass, distract him before the words even come, but then, Chris is a prodigy of distraction. He's made it into an art form.

"I thought, other than me, only a Russian would be stupid enough to get in the pool this time of year." That robe is scandalously short, and Victor allows himself an amused moment of picturing Chris, and the accompanying distress, at the baths at Yu-topia. "I guess I was right."

And dark glasses, even at night. Victor can't hide his amusement. "Chris!"

"Hi, Coach Victor." From anyone else, that tends to sound like an insult, but from Chris it only feels like a fond nickname. They've known each other too long and too well to stand on ceremony, so Chris' complaint that Victor is in the way of his skinny dipping rolls right off Victor's back like water droplets. 

"Don't let me stop you. I'll even take photos for you."

It wouldn't be the first time.

And just like that, the illusion of a vacation is over, drowned and smothered by the dozens of photos Victor finds himself taking of Chris mugging for the camera like he was born to do it. Sometimes it's difficult to remember that this sex bomb was once an angelic-looking little boy with golden curls, the sort Victor could picture most clearly skipping through a Swiss meadow full of flowers, but Chris has become a force to reckon with in his own right. 

He can't imagine a skating season without Chris. They've shared the podium so many times it's almost begun to feel like tradition. 

But then, it's already been eight months since he came to Hasetsu, too. How much time does it really take to change the things that can't be imagined?

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[yuri_plisetsky]

'...a soldier?' It's strange, how Yuri's voice sounds far too harsh and loud in his own ears, even though he feels like he's barely repeating the word above an exhale of breath. Maybe it's because something deep within him has suddenly gone quiet, dead silent and entirely still, and so any sound that fills the space left behind would ring through him like the echoes of a shout. 'Me?'

Five years ago. Five years. Ten years old, and leaving behind everything familiar, the things he loved and the things he hated, for an uncertain promise, the chance of a lifetime. A narrow dormitory bed and a gruelling schedule, hour upon regimented hour of endless critique and sparse praise. Flickering images from those days still slip into his mind once in a while, some half-recalled instruction or correction now drilled into his core. He remembers the pressure of the training sessions, the intensity of everyone around him, the concentrated drive and the passion, all keeping his own insecurities and fears at bay...and the anger, of course, bringing everything into focus as it always did.

(But he hadn't always been this angry, had he?)

To be invited to Yakov Feltsman's summer training camp at that age had marked him even among the junior skaters as someone to watch with envy and distrust -- or so he had thought at the time. He can't remember the young teenager that Otabek Altin must have been then, in that place. He can only remember who he was, and what it had been like: unforgettable it itself, because he had never been able to forget it.

'I had just moved my home rink from Moscow to St. Petersburg.' Memory rushes to fill the vacuum left by the silence inside, and somehow it comes out of his mouth as words that no living soul, not even his grandfather, has ever heard him say aloud. 'I was desperate. I decided that I wasn't going to complain until I was good enough.'

He hadn't complained. He'd taken everything they'd thrown at him. He'd done what he had to do. And of all of the people in that one novice class, he and Altin are the ones standing here today, with the sun-streaked city of Barcelona spread out before them.

Almost as if they've closed a circle, somehow. As if this moment had been suspended in time, waiting for them to catch up to it.

[fivetimechamp]

"After that camp, I moved around to train."

As so many of them do, blurring country lines but never loyalties. Always searching for that thing to give them an edge: a new coach, a new rink, a new training partner, a new diet, a new crosstraining regimen. "From Russia to the US and then to Canada. I only managed to return to my home rink in Altamy last year."

Yuri Plistetsky, he thinks, understands this. This feeling of needing to be the best, for his country and his people and himself. Otabek had watched his performances in Moscow, how he fell and then redeemed himself.

He could almost feel that bruise forming on his own hip. "Now, more than ever, I want to win the championship for Kazakhstan."

All of it spoken out toward the city, while the breeze tugs at his hair, his collar. Is there a point to telling Yuri all of this? Perhaps not. But he thinks that if anyone here could understand, it would be him.

[yuri_plisetsky]

Even if Altin's matter-of-fact voice makes his words sound simple, almost banal, Yuri can feel the weight behind them. It had taken all of Yuri's own courage to leave Moscow for St. Petersburg, but in the end the two cities are only a few hours apart in the same land of his birth. To have moved around to so many places, spending year after year away from home, in search of any opportunity to become stronger --

He gets it. He understands. How could he not?

And yet at the mention of Kazakhstan, Yuri's hands clench reflexively, mirroring the sudden tightness in his chest. This isn't just some other skater talking to him, sharing the details of his own solitary path through their sport. (Though it's not as if he'd ever listened to anyone else like this before. It's not as if anyone's ever talked to him like this before.) This is one of the five senior skaters that Yuri has to beat, to crush, to grind beneath his toepicks, in order to take the Grand Prix Final gold medal here in two days' time. Only one of them can stand at the top of the podium. Why on earth would Altin go out of his way to tell him all of this, when tomorrow morning they'll be out for each other's blood and none of this will matter anyway?

He turns on his heel. 'Otabek, why did you talk to me?' He's standing up straight, facing this challenge head on. 'I'm a rival, aren't I?'

No games. No excuses. He can shut this down right now, if it's a threat to his chances of winning.