GPF Banquet, 9 December, 2012 – Sochi, Russia

[fivetimechamp]

He's never quite sure how long he should stay at these things.

It's not that he doesn't enjoy the banquet – he does. After winning his fifth consecutive Grand Prix Final, the champagne tastes all the brighter, and the company around him is more delightful than ever. He enjoys seeing his peers and companions, sharply-dressed and relaxed for the first time in months, the strain of competition dropping away, even if only for a single evening. The food is tasty, the attention warming, the evening sparkling, the room filled with all the brightest stars of their world. Yes, he enjoys the banquet.

But there's a part of him that itches to make his excuses, and leave. To trade out this suit for a loose part of pants and a warm shirt; these polished shoes for the clean glide of his skates.

He can make the program even better. He can perfect it.

So there's an element here, too, of detachment. He notices it with the others, too – with Chris, who fell short of him, again, and JJ, full of boundless confidence. Eventually abandoning polite small talk and gossip to dig into their craft, to discuss music selections and jump compositions, to compliment and rag on each other. No one used to being off the ice for long.

He talks less, but thinks more. Already working through the choreography in his head, even as he laughs over champagne, and greets his friends.

It is who he is. The champion. And tomorrow will be more of the same.

Comments

[theglassheart]

He didn't want to be here.

If it wasn't for the propriety of the banquet and mandatory attendance to it, and it not being possible to move up his flight back to Detroit, or anywhere else in the world, anywhere else, to any minute now, he'd rather have stayed in his hotel room. Under his blankets. And his pillow. All of them scrunched hard into his face. All night. Until he could drag his suitcase and whatever was left of his season, and his life, behind him, wherever they went next.

Except it wasn't wherever. It was the Japanese National Championships.
It might as well have been a death sentence now. That's what it really was.




Celestino has said no. Celestino has said he had to be here. In his suit.





So, he was.


Here. In his suit.



In a room of people he hadn't been able to figure out how to speak to before, when he'd been a contemporary and proving his was able to hold his own against them, the pride and hopes of his whole country resting on his shoulders. Before --


Before what had happened. Before all he could convince himself to do was watch the crowd, the swirling dancers, unable to move, except to keep taking a champagne glass from each waiter who walked by offering one. He knew where the other skaters were. Watched them in the room. Lost Celestino at some point. Somewhere. He never drank during a season.

But the reasons why didn't matter as he downed the newest countless one,
starting to realize that champagne glasses themselves were actually far too small.

[fivetimechamp]

The best part of the banquet is the same thing it always is: a chance for all of them to be together. Victor treasures it, even while his internal clock is telling him that if he isn't training, or eating, he should be sleeping, or preparing.

Chris: he's enjoyed watching Chris grow from the angelic boy he'd met those years ago, into the sleek and seductive powerhouse he is now. Chris has no shame and now boundaries, and Victor appreciates his bluntness, his talent, his skill. This season would not have been the same without Chris pushing him every inch of the way, fighting for the top of the podium at each meeting, laughing with him over drinks after the evenings practice or competition is done.

JJ: Someone none of them know well, but pleasant enough, and a true force on the ice. Unlike Chris, Victor might not consider JJ a friend, exactly, but he is a peer. They all were, the final six, the ones who rose to this challenge like an unstoppable tide, and those who fought and bled and suffered for every inch of the path here.

Like ––

Katsuki Yuri. Another mystery. Victor saw him, earlier, as Yuri Plisetsky, fresh from a gold medal of his own, was talking to him about...something or other. A program. Choreography. Victor had been paying attention, but he'd happened to glance towards the waiter bringing him another glass of champagne, and caught a glimpse of Katsuki Yuri and Celestino a few feet away, and for a second he'd considered going over to congratulate him on making it here, for the first time, but...

But, he'd looked miserable. Slunk into an ill-fitting suit, pale and sunken-eyed. Like Celestino had dragged him here, against everything he wanted. Like he wanted to sink into the floor and vanish like a spilled drink.

Victor had lost sight of him then, as Yuri demanded his attention, but now and again, as he moves through the party almost an hour later, he catches a glimpse of him. Cheap suit, shaggy hair. Face turned to the floor, shoulders slumped with shame. A flush just beginning on his cheeks, that Victor can't tell is from the warmth of the room, Katsuki's embarrassment, or the champagne, but it moves him, nonetheless.

He means to go over, and say something. He means to go over, and offer some condolences, remind him that he did a fine job, that getting here at all was a statement on his competence. Victor hasn't lost in a long while, and lost that badly in – well, ever – but it strikes something, deep in his chest.

He's spoken to everyone else, congratulate everyone else. He should speak to Katsuki Yuri, too. And he will – unless Katsuki walks away, again, like he had before.

But maybe he'll give him a little more time, first.

[theglassheart]

The night wears on, and on, and on, seeming to never end, while he grows a garden of clear glass. First one, then two together. Then, the third makes a triangle. Six makes a really indelicate clump. Enough that he can't set the seventh glass down from his fingers because it's just an affront to his eyes.

His head tilts and he thinks about blade lines and ice, and how nothing is cleaner than those straight cuts, and he can't quite remember which waiter asked and handed him an eighth, while he was lining them up perfectly. He hadn't looked up. He'd said yes, and no, no, don't take his glasses. These were his. He might not have anything else to his name, even have his name anymore, not after today, who wanted the name of a failure, but these were his now.

An island of glass, in the back corner, before the lights of the world that would go on.

Just like him. Like that name they gave him. A glass heart making a glass line.



The line keeps growing, and his hypothesis about champagne glasses only gets truer and truer, until he almost asks a waiter to just stand there, joking that it's easier than waiting, before turning red while the man walked on nodding. Because it is, true. A champagne glass is really only so much. You take one large swallow, the world explodes in sparkles and bubbles on your tongue, nothing like beer, and even further from saké, and then one gulp later it's gone entirely suddenly.

The world kaleidoscopes if he moves too fast, but that's fine, because he doesn't have to move too fast. Movement is like music. It's own language, and it's own grace. You can play its game, like there are invisible strings in the air, connected to every part of you, that make you glide. It's fine. It's good. The dancers are still dancing. The drinkers are still drinking. The talkers are still talking. The laughers are still laughing. Everything is still good.



Except he's honestly reaching a second problem with the champagne glasses now, too.

Not the one that is the strained face the waiters keep making. The face that blur into the fans outside the ice ring earlier.
Not that face. Not that problem. No, this is a bigger problem. A much, much, much worse problem than whatever that was.



He's running out of table.


Enough that the next time he's asked he says no.


At least he thinks he does. But it might have been in the wrong language. (いいえ) Japanese, without thinking. Though, it's harder to remember suddenly what the German for the word he's thinking is (flas...he?), until it twists back to English. Bulkier but just as fluid as his skates, just as long trained. "No?" Right, yes? Yes. Yes, that's the right word. He leans. Totters a little. "No. I think no more glasses. Does it come in those bottles?"

There's a point, tilted dangerously, impossible balance, like a lurch semi-stuck in freeze frame, as he points at one of the doors they keep coming from.

[fivetimechamp]

So far, it's a nice party, if a little...tame.

He can see it in the other skaters' faces: Chris and JJ and the others are all laughing, chatting, occasionally taking a spin or two on the dance floor with a partner, but it's nothing like how they cut loose when it's just them. People at the height of their game, in peak shape, all with shatter-resistant egos around their too-easily shattered hearts. Drinking too much, dancing too much, daring each other, insulting and friendly all at the same time.

It's a camaraderie they're missing here, and he can't help but wish it was just the few of them. The six.

(Perhaps then he could even manage to get something out of Katsuki Yuri.)

There's a slight commotion just over his shoulder – he begins to turn towards it, but the couple he's talking to drag his attention back to them with a question his manners can't let him leave unanswered.

He's beginning to wonder, again, just how long he needs to stay before he can politely leave...and if he can convince Chris and a few of the others (and a few of those bottles of champagne) to come with him.

[theglassheart]

By the time the girl walks off, Yuri can't remember exactly what he told her, or maybe it was told her to tell him, them, whoever. He thinks he might have had his hand on her shoulder or maybe he just thought about it.

Maybe he just thought it.


The dance floor is starting to dance.
Not the dancers. The dance floor.
But he narrows his eyes at it.


Given how much this is their party, almost none of the skaters are the people out there. Which seems. That must be wrong, right? He's terrible at these things, remembers the horderves more than the people, and even he knows that is wrong at this kind of thing. This is a party -- no, a celebratory banquet. It is supposed to be for those people is this room who slaved and wasted, trained and traveled, everywhere to end up on those boxes. Not in chairs.

It's supposed to be a night to celebrate all the broken toes and scraped-up faces, every ruined pair of practice skates, pulled muscle that had you counting the minutes you were behind, the debuts of new costumes, new successes never tried before. One more well-earned step. It might not be his. But somehow, none of them were making it theirs either. Which seemed.

Just. Wrong.


That was wrong. Right?


It must be.


Yuri jumped and swayed, when the world rudely unoriented, for a hand waving in front of his face. Some girl. She looked familiar even. Just barely, before his focus shifted entirely again. To the bottle she shoved into his frame of vision and then into his hands.

"Danke schön," he said with a little too much determination, as he watched his fingers, having to focus, to curl them in the right place. Looking at the floor, and back to the bottle, before lifting it to his mouth, and deciding to push off from the wall. No. No, not the wall. He wasn't on the ice. The table, it was the table, right? Same difference. Someone had to stop these people from being dead, before their time.

Only one person in this room had the right to be cloistered away, moping, and it wasn't them.

[fivetimechamp]

Someone comes up behind him, an arm circling his waist, hand sliding flat onto his stomach over the buttons and thick, expensive material of his vest, but he doesn't even blink: the weight of a chin on his shoulder is familiar, the voice purring into his ear even more so.

"Victor."

"Chris."

Amused, covering that hand with his own, while he leans back for a second. Chris doesn't know how to soften his affections: he is all eros and no agape, all sex appeal and lean attraction, all promises and coaxing, lacquered over the real kernel of affection and friendship he doesn't quite know how to express with his clothes still on.

It seems unbalanced, to Victor, but he can't argue that Chris is always a good time. Overt sexuality has never bothered him, even if it isn't his preference.

(Besides, the day Chris ceases flirting with him is the day he's lost all his charms...and he isn't quite ready for that, yet.) "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"I could be enjoying myself more." But the arm loosens from around him, and when Chris steps back, Victor turns to him, already smiling, fond and warm.

He really does like Chris...in small doses. Now, he watches him sigh, and wave a lackadaisical hand. "Oh? Can I help?"

It's Chris' turn to smile. Sometimes it feels like their entire relationship is built on trying to one-up each other. "Of course. This party is dull, isn't it?"

Victor looks around, as if he hadn't noticed. The lights all still on, the music still sedate. Guests in cocktail attire still talking quietly amongst themselves. "Cocktail parties aren't meant to be exciting, Chris."

Even if they're meant to be a celebration. They're meant to be classy, sophisticated, sparkling. Full of good wine and passable conversation.

They aren't meant to be fun.

Chris sighs, again, waves his champagne glass in the direction of the DJ. "I wish he would put something else on, at least."

Victor does, too, but as he starts to reply, there's another flurry of motion just outside his range of vision, and this time, he glances over, to see a semi-circle of men in black suits and women in sleek dresses begin to back away from a corner of the dance floor, the way they might if there was a spill of water beginning to flood towards their expensive shoes. He can't see what's causing the tidal shift, but it's at least interesting enough to spend a moment trying.

"Maybe you'll get your wish, Chris, and Cinderella has finally arrived at the ball to start the dancing."

[theglassheart]

The people are moving, with gasps and hushed whispers, pointing or nodding his direction, but moving all the same, and all Yuri can think is good. Good, they don't belong here. Sure, they held doors, and arms, and cheered, and clapped. Supporters of every standing from friends to backers, coaches to fans. But they don't belong out here. In the room is fine, but they are clogging up the space.

They are suffocating this room, and it's been suffocating since he walked in, hasn't it?

They could even be on the edges of here, but it shouldn't be owned by them. Nothing is owned by them.
They weren't standing on the boxes, and Yuri survey's the rocking waves of people around him, pushing back from him.

In their demur dresses and suits, and that's suffocating, too. None of them live in these either, and he pulls at his tie, while still stepping forward, and while his mouth and the mouth of the bottle meet again, with a long gulp of champagne that doesn't end as fast as a flute. Heavenly. Longer. Deeper. Richer. Bubbly and sharp, a waterfall on his tongue instead of a trickle. Boldness in a bottle. He doesn't care when he opens his eyes and there's basically a ring of space. A hush of near-silent whispers and more people turning, but he doesn't care. He really doesn't. Not even when they edge back every step he goes forward. (Or...is it sideways?)

Because they are quiet enough he's hearing the music more than them. Seeing it in the air. Feeling the count begin to tangle with his own pulse. It's the wrong music, but it doesn't matter either. Music and ice are the twins that made him, even in the wrong key and the wrong clothes and he has no skates, or even flats, it pulls at him. A jittery electric need screaming in his muscles, that don't feel anywhere near as exhausted as they were earlier, somehow, pushed on by the heady feeling of everything else.

Enough that his eyelids flicker half-hooded for a second, listening to the music.

The music and nothing else, only the beat under the song,


before one knee comes up and the arm with the bottle goes out, and his body, turns fluid to follow it.

[fivetimechamp]

Chris makes a quiet, curious sound deep in his throat, and Victor might be annoyed at the fickleness of his attention, or amused by it, except he's turning, too, because the trickle of motion rippling through the room has become a lowering tide, leaving the dance floor he can now see over the heads of the others in the crowd bare and bereft of everyone.

Everyone, except. "Katsuki...Yuri?"

Blinked and spoken, both, in astonishment so complete he doesn't even notice the people bumping into him as they shift away from the dance floor, and away from Katsuki Yuri, who is holding a bottle of champagne in one hand, and loosening his tie with the other. Undoing the button at his throat, letting the too-soft folds of his collar fall open, while Victor's own suddenly feels like it might be choking him. Too tight. Caught up against the dip of his throat, and constricting breathing.

He swallows, hard, against it, aware, somewhere past his surprise, that Chris is clapping, next to him, grinning like a cat about to catch a canary. "I think maybe you're right, Victor."

Taking Victor a second to remember that he'd just mentioned Cinderella, and dancing, because that's precisely what Katsuki Yuri is doing: arms lifting, and legs following, and his eyes slid half-lidded, like every muscle in his body relaxed at once. Nothing like how he was on the ice, earlier today, when it seemed like he was fighting every step and every note of the music, when his feet were his enemy and his movements so wooden Victor wondered for a moment if it wouldn't be better for him to skate to Pinocchio ––

But this is nothing like that. This is seamless, liquid movement. Untangling music from the air and spinning it into something that begins to make sense, in a way nothing ever has for Victor unless it's between his blades and the oblong walls of the rink, the pulse of applause, the glitter of lights.

Like he's making his own music.

There's another flurry, and he's pushed to the side, only just now realizing that he'd pushed upstream against the crowd to the edge of the dance floor, hand dropping from where it had been resting at his mouth, elbow in the other, forcing him to look down and see Yuri Plisitsky, red in the face, blue eyes blazing, looks as furious as though this was his party, that had been crashed.

"What the hell are you doing?" he yells, at the dance floor, but Victor only laughs and pats him on the shoulder.

"It's a dance floor, Yuri. It's for dancing. Don't you think he has the right idea?"

[theglassheart]

Better. Just a little better. The faces blur. They always do. Like on skates, both one with you and not there at all. They don't matter, just as much as they can never be erased or forgotten. One with the minutes, before and during and after. Another color, scent, and feeling in the air, you navigate. And maybe it's not completely graceful when his dress shoes slides on the first landing.

None of the resistance in a toe pic or a pair of ballet flats. Made to be soft and smooth. Clipped steps. He'd almost rather be barefoot. But that would take more caring than he had at hand. Especially, given his hands were busy. One gliding over his head and around his shoulders, bottle still in hand, and actually ending up with some champagne on himself in the process but not enough to care about that either.

Falling on ice, skating on ice, living on ice, got you used to being constantly wet and pushing through it, too.

It's the sudden screech of a voice that blast through into his reverie of movements. Familiar, but also, sharp as a blade, shattering glass, and when he finds the face of the bellower it's the first time he blinks. A young, aggressively agitated teenage boy, who looked .... he looked familiar, too. One of the junior skaters? One of the medal ones, yes?

There was something biting at his heels, in the too tight cling of his jack, even loose at his side, on his arms. Something he should have said, would have said, should have felt, it was trying to creep up his spine at that yelled question, cold and familiar, but then Yuri's eyes had shifted to the two men next to him. Victor Nikiforov. Christophe Giacometti. Perfect. Poised. Standing there. Watching him. Commenting to the boy. Looking .... interested, as well?

And somehow, somewhere,

even not sure entirely what it was,

with its icy fingers in his guts, still unnamed,



he pushes back. Refuses.
That unnamed thing driving up, dissolving against him.

He points out with the mouth of the bottle at the boy. Gold hair. (Gold medal?) His words cutting the whispers, direct gaze unwavering, "Dancing." Not pausing, for his affronted face to being spoken to as though he was slow, Yuri adds. "I haven't seen you doing any better." As though earlier today was nothing. Yesterday was nothing. Everyday before now is nothing. Every hour, and minute, and second, before this one, right here, was nothing.

The boy scowled in a way that seemed to take up more space that his face, into all of the space around him, outraged at the insult. "I can do better than anything you're doing!"

Yuri didn't know where it came from, but he stopped checking the sign posts. It came without thinking, without caring, broad and wide. His arms were thrown open, wide from his chest, the bottle still dangling from one, and hands fingers wide on the other, gesturing to the space that had been widened all around him, space enough to well hold another person, or even five or six with their won space. A challenge in gestures of all this space, and no one else but him stepping up to it.

[fivetimechamp]

He's not sure what happened to Katsuki Yuri's glasses: he knows they were there earlier, hiding his eyes behind a mirror of glass, but they seem to have disappeared somewhere, now, and ––

He looks different. More like when he's on the ice, but not, too. No perfectly slicked back hair, or tailored, sleek, glittering costume; only the flush on his cheeks and the jacket that's getting sprinkled with champagne, and the shirt underneath that's working steadily looser, never meant for this sort of movement. Looking almost...

Debauched. It's a strange word to have come swinging into his head, but Katsuki is moving to music that Victor stopped paying attention to a few minutes ago, that is probably still not appropriate for...whatever this is. That's nothing like how he expected this evening to go.

Just like he could never have expected how he can't seem to look away.





Well. He may as well take advantage of that, then –– pulling out his phone and setting up the camera, while laughing at a fuming Yuri Plisetsky next to him. "Oh, Yuri? That sounds like a challenge to me. I don't know, do you have another competition left in you?"

Certain to set a fire under the younger boy's skin: he's proud, and impatient, and temperamental, and Victor is already framing the dance floor in his camera sights, as Yuri storms onto the dance floor.

"Yuri vs. Yuri!"

This is a truly delightful turn of events. "Go, Yuri!"

Not sure which he's cheering on, only knowing that this party has suddenly become one he deeply wants to stay at.

[theglassheart]

He's not surprised to see the kid come charging out at him, and he actually laughs.

No clue where it comes from either, but it feel good. Across his warm cheeks and down his shoulders, and then he catches part of what Victor is screaming behind the man and his eyes wide, and then narrow, confused. About his name, and the kid. And his name. And, seriously, if they are taking this seriously, he has too much on to move the way he wants to move, and he want to move.

More than he thinks he's felt driven to move in so long. It's strange to be certain of that while looking at Victor Nikiforov. Victor Nikiforov whom he own almost every poster, and article on, has seen every interview and skater piece on, but could not for the life of himself bring himself to say more than a passing mumbled hello at the floor more than his face at any of their competitions. Not even this one. Somehow never. Not once. And can still hear his name in the man's voice. That strange, high-pitched, excitement. It's an electric skip in the music that still isn't right.

That voice cheering for him for some reason, and it actually sends him tottering toward him for a second.

Even if by the time he's taken three or four steps, and has made half the distance towards the man, the boy behind him is yelling again. Screaming about where he's going and making him turn in a far too fast twist, to raise a finger, to tell him -- but there's a bottle there, and for a second, he almost loses his hold on the neck, and the end of his sleeve tightens the fabric at an elbow, also, no helping, but he has a finger up, clumsy and true, and he's saying, "Hold on."

Before spinning back, not quite sure why. What was he going to say? He needed his hands-free, right?
Right, that was it? He needed his hands free to be able to move.

"Take this!" He thrust the bottle at the champion, of the world, and his day, with the camera out, but his hands free, freer than Yuri's, before he was already yanking his jacket off one arm.

[fivetimechamp]

There's a small crowd gathering now, replacing the one that had skulked away, and Victor's not surprised to see who it is: the skaters, mainly, looking amused and delighted in turns, accompanied by dates and friends, who look decidedly not, while Yuri Plisetsky is busy shrugging his jacket off and rolling up his sleeves, with steam very nearly coming out of his ears.

And Victor, watching through his phone's camera, suddenly blinking in surprise as the screen is taken up by Katsuki Yuri's face, filling the frame. "Eh?"

It's as much as he can get out, before there's a bottle being shoved into his free hand, and he'd do something about it, except that Katsuki is similarly shedding his jacket, only he's doing it inches in front of Victor. Tugging the collar of his white shirt even looser, with the loop of his tie slung low on his chest.



(Taking a swing of ice-cold champagne suddenly, insanely, sounds like a very good idea.)

One he has no time to act on, though, as the jacket gets shoved into his hands, and he grasps it reflexively, eyes gone wide and bewildered, feeling awkward and wrong-footed even without moving. "––Eh?"

A short hiccup of surprise, but Katsuki's already gone, leaving Victor blinking, feeling strangely adrift. Uncertain.

It's a strange feeling.

Hearing Chris laugh, next to him, low, with an undercurrent of amusement Victor's not sure he understands – nothing that just happened is funny, exactly, is it? In the way where he very nearly imagines that Chris is laughing at him, and his surprise – before his hand lands on Victor's shoulder, and then slides off. "I'm going to go talk to the DJ."

Making Victor look over to see him wink, already moving towards that table in the back of the room. "Give them some real music."

Them. Looking back towards the dance floor, where Yuri Plisetsky is up in Katsuki Yuri's face, and Katsuki is smiling. Every joint gone loose and relaxed. Looking like the prince of those few square feet, secure in his confidence, in his ability to defend his tiny kingdom.






(If he'd held himself like that, today, if he'd shown the judges this, unfazed and flushed with triumph and challenge...

Victor would have liked to have seen that.)

[theglassheart]

The boy is yelling at him. All fuming fire, or maybe there's something else where he's from. Something scary and...Russian. Yes, Russian, because he was with the Russians. But isn't he related to some kind of house pet? There's an odd, smooth smile that goes serene on Yuri's face and only seems to enrage the kid even more. On his toes, trying to yell, well, he is yelling, but most of it is bouncing off Yuri's chest and shoulders, even with the boy on his toes, and the rest.

Well, nothing is stick, all together too fully. The room has turned a warm, sort of golden, and the crowd has changed. There are some people cheering and yelling their names now, sporadically clapping even though they haven't started, and no one's got rules, when Yuri actually puts a hand on the kids' shoulder and spins him toward a different piece of space, not in his face, and he searches for the beat again, finding it just as the music stops.

"Nani?" It's slipped out of his mouth as he's turning toward the DJ, because they can't stop now. They haven't even started.

But his eyes get there, and he kind of laughs, again, even as he can here the kid grinding his teeth, because they both get there at the same time. There's a man at the computers for music, but he's accompanied now. Christophe Giacomet. Arm slung over the man's shoulder, and leaning in, over, around him, cheek to cheek, as though he's helping himself to the man's system through the man, himself,, and it feels like the whole mood of everything shifts. Heightens.

He's not the only one. Or at least they're all going to make it worth their while to watch this now.

When the music comes it's thundering. The base is hard, beat electric, and it's faster. So much faster. Something wicked sparking at the edge of Yuri's mouth, that isn't a smile, but is, it really is, before he starts moving. He can't remember the last time he got to just dance. Not skate. Not ballet moves for skating. Dance.

He'd learned every single kind of dance he could from Minako, when he was training with her. Every single way that he could learn to move his body. He'd been ravenous for it. Got lost and found in every single new piece and style she showed him. Music, movement, new things he could take from his feet and her lessons and put to use once he was back on the ice. But this, this was its own type of enjoyment.

Like his body had never forgotten. Like he'd learned yesterday. Every muscle and bone felt more fluid than even water.

Like he was becoming one with the air, and the music thumping through it, through the floor, through his blood.



And if the kid looked like he was starting to sweat, like he hadn't quite expected this, Yuri couldn't help smiling right back.

[fivetimechamp]

Yuri Plisetsky is looking sullen on his corner of the dance floor, and Victor's laughing, lifting his phone (a little awkwardly, with Katsuki Yuri's jacket in the crook of his elbow, and that bottle of champagne taking up his other hand) to take a picture of Yuri's scowling face. "Have fun!" he says, cheery, but that's all he manages before the music cuts out, and then back in again with a record scratch of difference.

Suddenly something you might hear at a club, or at a very particular kind of party, that this one is apparently turning into. Which Victor is fine with. The bass dropping, thud into his bloodstream intoxicating as any liquor. Making him want to move, too, instinctual and fluid.

But nothing like Katsuki Yuri.

He's in the middle of the dance floor, but it looks like he's stopped even noticing the wood under his feet, his shirt gone rumpled and half-untucked, now, flashing occasional glances of the pale, creamy skin of his side and back. Moving to the beat like it's his own pulse, like gravity has only ever been a suggestion for him, in some strange combination of ballet and break-dancing and something else entirely, that's almost like watching a matador spur on an enraged bull.

Dipping and leaping. Arms graceful in the air, long, tracking around his head and shoulders. Apparently ignorant of the cheers and wolf-whistles erupting around him, while his cheeks go pink, but his focus never wavers.

Making Victor wonder if he really is as drunk as he'd seemed a second ago, when it looked like the floor was a see-sawing deck he could hardly keep his balance on. Now ––

Now, he's sure-footed as a mountain goat, and claiming this music, this beat, this pulse hammering through Victor's bloodstream, for his own.









And he's winning.

Which is more than enough to make Victor laugh, and cheer with the rest, snapping pictures where he can, and whistling appreciation when he can't.

Because, finally? It's a party.

[theglassheart]

The kid isn't bad at all, and they end up mirroring each other from time to time. There are dances everyone knows, moves everyone knows, moves that go to the song, and the beat of the one they are listening to, that happens to not actually be a song, but end up being a mix. Which he thinks he might have cared about somewhere, somewhen else, but here and now, he loves it.

He can pull out other things he hasn't done in years. The floor is slick for some reason, but he slides with it, instead of reacting from it. Lets his body move in ways he wouldn't dare on the ice. Not even in the Ice Castle, back home, when he was alone and it was early morning, and there was little possiblity anyone would see him. His knees going too wide, body long lines and sliding bounce, the burn in his calves and lower back muscles glorious, like a tribute more than a hindrance. Shoulders, back, wide, lost in the beat thundering in him.

It comes in clip shots, and it's almost surprising sometimes that when he opens his eyes it's still the golden ballroom of a reception area, and not somewhere else. Somewhere darker. That the lights aren't strobing. He actually almost applauds the kid on a move he does. He has to give it to him for getting out here. For staying out here. For looking challenged, looking angry, and never giving, only bringing more and more of himself to the dance floor.

Even harried, even blonde hair everywhere, and his tie flying in all those directions that aren't in his jacket. It's fun, though. To be out here. The two of them. Together, and apart. Both at once. Two different spaces, two different dances, bluring, matching, mimicking, opposing, a constant roll toward the mode of one-upping each time they look over and the other is doing something more complicated.

The clapping and calling of his name. The way they should have been earlier. He should have made them.

But he'd show them now. He'd shown them all. No one was going to beat him at this tonight. No one.

[fivetimechamp]

Victor loves this.

Somewhere behind him, he can feel a pressing wall of icy disapproval, but he doesn't care: he, and Chris, and JJ, and the others are circling the dance floor, hooting and applauding every perfect mirroring line, only to erupt in approving cheers when Katsuki Yuri suddenly flips towards the floor, only to catch himself on a palm, the long lean line of his body hung for a moment into the air, arcing like a bow and leaving Victor feeling the bright tension of a plucked and vibrating string.

Setting the things in his hands down for a moment, to move closer, and take more pictures, laughing the whole way, and –


Click. Katuski Yuri, breakdancing, feet in the air, shirt gone all the way untucked, the muscles of his stomach and sides and back tense with holding himself up against gravity –




Click. Yuri Plisetsky, red in the face and sweating, but fighting to keep up. He'll lose, Victor knows, because he cares too much about winning, and subsequently is worried more about the moves he's making than the fun he could be having.



Moving back to the edge of the circle, to pick up the abandoned bottle of champagne again, and Katsuki's jacket, and –


Click. A selfie with Chris, who has returned from the DJ, to reappear at Victor's shoulder and smile for his camera, while loosening his own tie.

At this rate, Victor may soon be the only one still pressed and polished, suit kept in clean lines, and tie still snug against his throat.

[theglassheart]

Camera's are snapping.

That's not even surprising, but the occasional flash makes him blink, the occasional suddenly realizing someone's calling his name, trying to get him to open his eyes, to look at them, smile even broader, bolder, smugger, daring, crouched down, or tackling trying to stay with him in the perfect circuit of existing somewhere between the music and the applause, which was just a second strain of music, mixing in and under and around, another beat, another part of the floor and the song.

He doesn't remember quite when he decided to do a flip, and then to up it even from there, all of his weight shifting to one hand, fingers sticky on the floor, when he decided -- even though he was already well shot into beating the kid, who was young and couldn't, who was red in the face and running on sheer, impressively impossible, determination to not be left behind, not be shown up, even as his tension and his expression showed the anger at knowing he was and exhaustion of keeping up, tripping up his moves, making them too sharp, fast, sloppy -- that he wanted more than to win.

He wanted to own this floor. These people. That boy. The skaters watching. The music. The air. Everything.

He wanted his name stamped on every breath of air going into and out of them. The memory of this song. Night. Everything.


It's a stagger of confusion, when the song comes to an end, and even his shoulders are shaking.
A smaller twin mirror to the boy with his hands on his knees, looking like he'd rather hit the floor than stand.

While Yuri's body weight is reacquainting itself with his feet, adrenaline on a spike, almost blackout dizzing like something else is wrong, spots in his vision, body parts suddenly not certain entirely how to move as the music stops and the small crowd is pressing in, going insane, and he can't stop grinning. It's plastered across his whole face, every muscle, and how he doesn't even wait for the spots to end. He twists, again, with a flash, throwing his arms across himself, elbows stacked, one hand flat above his shoulder and the other to his side.

Always an ending pose. Always. Dramatic and dynamic and never forgotten.

Leave them with something to remember, Celestino always said.

[fivetimechamp]

It's a thunderous end to an unexpected and sudden delight: Katsuki Yuri, posed and poised in the middle of the floor like there's a spotlight on him. Making the rest of the crowd here disappear into the corona of light, melting into shadows instead of individual faces.

Showboating. And Victor can't take his eyes off him.

Blinking at the struck pose, that looks almost like his own ending, at the end of the story he's been telling, when the heart-rent, wistful lover clasps his beloved to his chest, grateful eyes lifting to Heaven. Except it isn't.

(Because Katsuki Yuri is showboating, and Victor can't take his eyes off him.)

Except there's nothing of longing in this. Except there's nothing of purity. Except it's all avarice, and certainty. Except it looks like a claim, and not an embrace.

There's a wave of applause that washes over him, buffeting him like a current, tugging at his skin and ankles and stomach and his heart, that suddenly started racing, some few minutes ago without him noticing.

Only noticing it, when his eyes crease and close in a laugh, as he claps, before he has to open them again, eager to see what might happen next, and not expecting it to be what does, which is:

"Victor!"

Called from someone in the crowd, and finally breaking his focus on the boy in the spotlight, blinking him back into reality, where there is no spotlight, and there are other people here, suddenly returned from a muddled mass and back into individuals. Yuri Plisetsky slinking back towards him, looking flattened and annoyed, as Victor searches for the source. "Eh?"

Him?

"Victor!"

From someone else, and he half-turns on his heel to look for the voice, wondering what they might want, as a ripple of encouraging applause rushes through the crowd like wind through rushes, and his pulse quickens in response.

(Always entertain.)

Grinning a laugh, and lifting the hand with his phone, and the jacket in the crook of his arm, in a wave. "What?"

[theglassheart]

Yuri's still gasping, and it's sweet, even if the air is not bitter cold in his lungs, not electrifying the inside of his body into more shock and certainty the air coming in is too thin, too crystallized, not going to hit his blood stream fast enough. Here and now, it's a light headedness, blurring, blending, with the lights bending, rainbow arcing, circle around everything, especially upward, and the noise.

Throwing his arms up with the kid stalks off, not even enough left in him to make a salvageable insult or dirty face. Just slinking away, like he might need something to hold him up just a for a second, until his next wind comes to him, too. While Yurio's is pulsing alive, like the rush, the drain, the sway of everything is only amping up the electricity in his body, thundering and thumping as the music goes into the next song, with little pause.


The crowd starts shouting something that isn't his name, first layered in with his, confusing him momentarily. Then, he catches it.

Victor. And his head swings, his vision blurring the faces across the space betweeen where he was looking and where he ends up. The smiling champion. The world's silver haired prince. He's laughing. His hair fluttering in the air as his head turns to look at different parts of the people cheering his name. He's eating it up. His too perfect smile. Like he has no clue what's being aske--

Wait.

Is that his jacket? And his bottle of champagne?

All collected in Victor's arms like the most awkward bouquet ever?


He's not sure if it's the face or the champagne bottle he's coming for, when those cheers feel like they are a tide rising, louder and louder, pushing him right back to Victor Nikiforov. Both. Both is just fine. His throat is dry and he's not about to give a single inch anymore. To anyone. Not even Victor Nikiforov.

With his perfect hair and collection of shining medals, that have nothing on his face in Yuri's vision.

His mouth is saying, "Well?", even as his hand is just reaching out to yank his champagne bottle back.

[fivetimechamp]

It's no longer just a few people calling his name: it's become a chant, rising and falling like a heartbeat, and it's not unusual. People have been chanting his name for the last five years; for the last ten. The crowds that love him, that he loves right back, glittering under their lights and basking in their support, lifted on the swelling wave of voices and applause until he can stand right here, at the top of the world, under a warm sun, under a cascade of sparkling stars.

He's grateful for it. Always is. Their love, that he returns wholeheartedly. Their expectation. Their delight at being entertained by him. Their captivation, when he weaves them a fairy tale. The trust they give him, asking him to break their hearts, and hand them back the pieces like clear, colored glass. Wanting everything from him, while he's always been happy to give it, accepting their adoration and thanking them for it the best way he knows how: by giving them more, and more. Living for their surprise, the crash and roar of applause.

He didn't quite expect it here, but he isn't accustomed to backing down, or refusing, when he's being called for. And –
Katsuki Yuri might be able to beat the gold medal winner of the Junior division, but Victor doesn't lose. The gold he had around his neck earlier tonight proof as much as the numbers that sit comfortably higher than every other on every scoreboard, now, for years.

Acknowledging the call, while he steps into Katsuki's reach, allowing him to grab the bottle, before Victor is taking a quick step back and behind, turning in a quick, sharp circle, that drags Katsuki closer to him through momentum, smile going sly, and eyes going half-lidded, but bright with laughter.

"Well, what?"

Tossing his challenge back out there, before pushing the bottle of champagne into Katsuki's chest, and handing the jacket and his phone off to Chris, next to him, as the chants of his name dissolves into a loud cheer that brightens in his blood, quickens his pulse, as he's cracking his neck, and stepping in towards Katsuki, throwing his dare and arrogance and certainty right back into his face, on a glowing bed of delight and perfect, unbreakable composure.

"I won't go easy on you."

[theglassheart]

The roaring isn't for him, and Yuri doesn't like that.

Victor soaking it up, right in front of him, like Yuri's only been warming up the spotlight for Victor to decide to finally get off the sidelines and wipe the ground with everyone in there all over again. For the second time today. It's riding the line of Yuri's shoulders, when the world suddenly spins, upending everything.

Victor turns him, and Yuri's eyes would narrow but at first nothing that is anything is standing still, the only thing even remotely in focus those bright, brilliant blue-green eyes, made to cut glass with a glance. He refuses to reach out and stabilize himself on the slender, but taller, Russian man, who is suddenly the only thing not dancing before his eyes. That clarifying smile, a taunting line of acceptance and challenge, arrogant, like Yuri is that boy who just slunk away, tail between his legs.

Which matches his words, when they come and Yuri steps in. Not away.

"Good." A hairsbreath from right into him, even three inches shorter. "I won't either."

A hand comes up and he pushes Victor back and it's more cut-slashes. The hand on Victor's shirt, jack, tie. The bottle at his lips. Sparkling, smooth, easy and light as water now. Several gulps more than breaths. Then it's gone, maybe on a table, maybe in someone else's hands. It's just gone. Jitters. He knows. He knows he isn't as good on the ice as Victor of the four medals, aimed for five and the one contender everyone is expecting.

But. He won't lose again. Not again. Not today. Not again.

He steps on to the floor, listening for the new song, pushing aside the swishing, swirling world, to find the music already playing through the first verse of its new piece, and there's the pulse. Like his blood has been trying to drag him back out here the whole time. Screaming at him for stopping at all. If his eyes slide too easily first to the man on the other part of the floor, and his mouth is a little firmer, that's just fine. His arms rise, and his back curves and he just goes into it.

[fivetimechamp]

He expects Yuri to – he doesn't know what, against his dare, and his certainty, but whatever he was expecting, it wasn't this: Katsuki Yuri shoving back into his space, eyes blazing, face set and determined, and Victor blinks, surprised, as his heart jackknifes sudden, hard and violent in his chest, under the hand that has suddenly planted itself there.


That was –


A quick thud or two of his heart against the palm on his chest, and then its gone, and Yuri is stalking back onto the dance floor like he's headed for a duel to the death, leaving Victor feeling strangely light-headed, before he shakes it off with a self-deprecating laugh, and follows, grinning.

Arms already lifting, hands already graceful, the beat of the music already shifting his blood, his pulse, dictating his steps. He is better. He's the best. It isn't ego, when it's fact, and music and movement are the two languages he has always been most fluent with. The dance floor under his dress shoes as welcoming as ice under his blades, the laughter and clapping of the crowd fuel tossed on the fire, and he could make this his own, but why?

They're out here together, aren't they?




And he's finding it strangely difficult to take his eyes off Katsuki Yuri, over there, only a few feet away, with his hands lifting into the air like a prayer and a sacrifice all at once, eyes closing, carrying away with the vibrating beat of the bass. The line of his throat clear for a second against the lights, the lines of his body clean and fluid all at once.


They're here together, so Victor lets him take the lead, watching him, and perfectly mirroring each move with delight, and keen curiosity, and his own joy in the movement, all at once, as he wonders where this was, before.

Where it ever was.

How he never knew this was in Katsuki Yuri, at all.

[theglassheart]

There's a hushed sort of pall against the something that isn't silence at all.

The music is loud. The music is vibrating the air, the floor, the world. But there's a hush all the same. Scattered shouts of both of their names, but with pockets of space, as they are watching, and if Yuri's surprised anyone in this room is on his side, shouting his name, cheering him on, Victor's name is still just as loud. Louder. In this small ring of familiar faces and their companions.

Everyone else has retreated as slowly as was still proper to those corners Yuri, himself, had been in earlier. Their places changed. Almost none of them anywhere near here, and none of the faces that fly through his vision in that circle restraint to a demur politeness and the whisper of expected conversations, topics. Their hands are up. Their faces are animated.


He's perfect grace --Victor-- in the seconds that Yuri finds himself turned in a way he can see Victor.

Made to move. Everything Yuri has always loved beyond the idea of love, reached for, wanted to be like, reach for even the shadow of, in every copy of every routine with Yuu-chan's laughter in his ears, smile in his eyes. An idealization encased in childhood awe of glory and deepest desire of self.

He was made to move. Made to win. And something aches in some place Yuri can't even place.

It's a nebulous cloud like the golden-white light of the room.

The ache. The light. The music. The stubborn fire.



The other part. The part he doesn't realize quite until a good four or five things later, is that Victor is following him. Copying him. Not exactly. Not entirely. But close enough, it'd be impossible for anyone else to miss it outside, where the cheering and whistling hasn't stopped. Only rising for moments one of the other them edges something faster, smoother, more drastic.

In those moments where something is different. Where the flare or choice for exact posture, where their hands up, the bend of a knee, the flat or point of a foot, the landing between legs, is different. He's not sure he likes it. This mirroring. Even if it's not all that different from the first time either. He can feel it like a strange tingle on the back of his neck.

Something else. He needs to unfoot his opponent, again. Somehow.

Stop giving him the ability to take whatever Yuri starts and change it, spring board it for himself.

[fivetimechamp]

This is –

Fun!

Fun like he hasn't had in months, or possibly years. He loves training, and he loves performing, but it's rare now that he gets to simply dance: not to think about choreography, or presentation, or the next jump, or how many points he needs for the gold. He never simply gets to move.

Not like this. Arms up, hands trailing graceful arcs through the air, toes pointing into kicks, leaps that carry him across half the dance floor. Free from keeping his arms and elbows in tight, to create the most perfect spiral he can: free to let them swing and lift and trace patterns through the air, like the music is a fogged mirror he can draw on. While near him, Katsuki Yuri is – it seems like – creating his own.

Catching Victor's attention again, and again, and refusing to let it go, and now holding his gaze with his own brown and brilliant one, while Victor laughs, breathless, thrilled, his heart flying, his spirit soaring. Katsuki Yuri staring him down across the floor, pushing him. Katsuki Yuri, whose hands are tracking fire through the air, and whose body is forming a melody it seems like only he and Victor can hear.

That Victor suddenly, desperately, wants to harmonize to. Wants to ratchet higher. Push it further.

When it's already pure electricity, crackling between them. Feeling more like lightning striking his heart, than shoes hitting a dance floor. Feeling like those fingers are stroking down his bare skin, more than through air. Heat pulsing faster and faster, and it's not like he doesn't recognize it. How hot it is.

How could he have thought –

How could what Chris does be even close to this?


( Eros. )


Needy, greedy. Always wanting more. There is no song that could be long enough for this, for the way his body is loving this movement, for the way he can't keep his eyes off someone he barely knows.

They're athletes, at the top of their game. There is no such thing as too far, when Katsuki Yuri is watching him, and Victor's heart is exploding in response, in a brilliant explosion of light. "Okay – "

Accepting this newest challenge, and letting his jacket slip off his shoulders in a dare, before whipping it around, and holding it near a cocked hip, while he stands, arrogant, laughing, joyful. For the first time, in a long time, unconcerned with winning –

Only with following, and leading, and taking, and giving, as long as they never stop moving.

"Toro!"




Challenge, and invitation, both clear, in his laughing face, brilliant eyes, suffusing happiness.



Come and get him.

[theglassheart]

It's the first time Yuri has stuttered at all since coming out.

It's not a lost step, or wobble. He doesn't miss up a move. It's more like a pause of a moment that he stares too hard at Victor, brow forming in bafflement, s he's suddenly whipping his jacket our and calling out those two words, with a face that looks so happy it's almost childlike. It's nothing at all like war cry of every single second he connected gazes with Yuri. Who was burning down his every atom with every look.

Victor is . .. happy? Smiling. Acting like a fool. Like this wasn't set up as a competition of prowess and precision.

Which might be the very last thing Yuri ever expected after those words on the side. From the man was all of both, and more.


There's a wrinkle in his brow and there something in the roll to his shoulders, that might be the most graceful shrug only a dancer might recognize, because nothing about it moves up and down only and he just goes with it. Hands coming up and forming horns, chest puffin up, foott in a brushing step on the ground, that would be more perfect in flats, that is twice sided with something almost like a leap, before Yuri goes straight for him. In a move that is decidedly and absolutely nothing like it had been earlier. In their own boxes.

Ducking under against the snap of fabric brushing his forehead, and shoulders, and the way he doesn't think about.

Pulling in tight in an arc, the graze of fingers, and heavy palm like an announcement or a warning, running whisper quick, but solid, across the back Victor's waist, the well defined, if hidden by his shirt, curve of the small of his back. There for only the breath of the twist he executes. Not a thought, as he's rounding Victor from behind and half guessing the man is going to end up twisting to face him someway again, too.