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

[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.

[fivetimechamp]

He looks surprised, but Victor only beams at him and shakes the jacket in invitation, chin lowering, looking up from under his own lowering brows, intent and heated, until Katsuki gets with the program, and shifts gears from competition, to play.

Arms pulling back, with fingers locked into horns, and charging at Victor with a suddenness that might catch almost anyone else off guard, but Victor's laughing as he pulls the jacket up, and begins to turn the other way, fabric trailing behind him like a cape ––

But his eyes widen, and his lips part in a breath he forgets to take, as a shock runs ragged through him, knifing through his gut and ripping into his chest, and emanating from the smallest of things: the solid contact of Katsuki Yuri's palm against the small of his back, delicate fingers tracing along after.

Did he –

That –

He didn't – ?

That is, nobody, except Chris, who doesn't count, because Chris has never seen a boundary in his life that he didn't feel an immediate need to shatter –

Blinking his surprise quickly away, because he's turning, and Katsuki Yuri is coming up on him, counterclockwise, leaving them suddenly face to face, as Victor's pulling his jacket back on in a graceful arc of cloth and a breathless, brilliant grin.

Stepping one foot back, and swinging his right arm across his stomach as he folds forward, in what might be a bow, if he weren't still keeping his eyes locked on Katsuki Yuri's face, cheeks sore from the way he can't to stop smiling, eyes wide and brilliant and delighted. Already searching for the next, move, considering his own. And thinking, somewhere beneath the childlike and innocent joy, and beneath the heated, too sharp to touch, other, that if this were on the ice, they'd be telling a story.

Thinking, somewhere beneath the way he straightens, with an arm lifting gracefully overhead, and a leg extending out before him, that maybe not every dance has to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Particularly not that last part. He'd be just fine with this one staying here, in the middle, until he can no longer breathe or move at all.

[theglassheart]

Yuri has made a lifetime study of Victor Nikiforov. A lifetime.

Enough that he catches the flicker, right at the edges of his vision. Right before it's swallowed up again. The consummate performer, golden and graceful. But he caught it. One of a million expression painted on the insides of his eyelids, that he knows the shape and scope of, more in its rarity than it overuse. Shock. Just for the barest second.

He'd shocked Victor Nikiforov.

He'd done something the man hadn't predicted. Prepared for.

Even when that suddenly winsome smile is being bowed toward him, it's there.

Just a notch off of perfect. The barest ruffle of a feather, of shining silver fringe and suddenly more luminous eyes.

It turns his own playful smile tinged predatory without any pause on his part. Rolling off warm delightful and winning. Like he scored a point, he hadn't expected anymore than Victor, and even if this was smiles, more graceful suddenly, and silly, as they all but bowed toward each other, it was still war, someone was still going to win, and that someone was going to be Yuri.

Yuri who didn't know where the room had gone, and maybe not the music or the crowd for the second he calculated, on the single solitary thing left in the whole of the universe, in pristine focus. The graceful raise and arc of Victor's arm, Victor's leg, before he surged forward instead of away. They all know each other's skills, each other talents, they watched the best of the best they can bring each time, and it makes nothing Yuri does a guess.

There's nothing half-hearted, no second of hesitation, to his step toward Victor. The way his arm moves entirely in a different way from Victor's, no longer mimicking the bow and not moving into anything like Victor's new graceful rise. Yuri's fingers instead catch against Victor's calf on his raised and pointed leg, over those very nicely pressed, expensive pants. Running down to his knee, as the trajectory of his forward movement demanded Victor's leg stretch higher.

A dangerous glee, heady with its own sharp sparkling bubbles, pop pop pop poping in his head, in his blood.

The music louder, against against small pockets of gasps and voices suddenly breaking out again, but there's nothing but Victor. Except testing a theory in action, in midair, before his feet can even land from this jump. Except he's not waiting, not to give Victor time to give him a sign if it's right, or safe. No one gets to give him any rules tonight, no one gets to define what he does, and he's going to knock him right back to where he was a second ago.

That perfect surprise he hadn't gotten to savor.

Victor surprised everyone, even Yurio, over and over and over.


It was his turn to be surprised.

The hand traveling up Victor leg in a downward stroke made it only to an inch past his knee, before it vanished, at the same time as the arm that had snaked soundless around his waist, grabbed the furthest fistful of Victor's jacket it could and pulled to twist him outward, to send him into a spin that would suddenly put his back against at least Yuri's shoulder and have him facing the crowd instead of Yuri suddenly.

[fivetimechamp]

If he was surprised before, it's nothing to what he's feeling now, when Katsuki –

- when Yuri –

moves in, and

(quite literally)

sweeps him off his feet.









Nothing compared to the sudden firm grip on his leg, that pushes him up, instead of forward, while an arm sneaks around his waist, and Victor finds himself staring into brown eyes gone sparkling, and a smile that's the curve of a gold medal and the brilliance of a spotlight.



No one touches him. (Chris doesn't count.) No one touches him like this. Like Yuri is, gripping his jacket, and spinning him on the axel of his one leg, that Victor is allowing without having any very clear idea of why, other than that is surprised him, and Yuri's hand feels good on his leg, and his arm felt good around his waist.

Making Victor want it back, even as he's spinning, and grounding himself against what must be Yuri's shoulder.

Leaning in, instead of leaping away.




Which is the most surprising thing of all.

[theglassheart]

The actual surprise of contact -- the widen of Victor's eyes, no longer just a flicker, but something made of an endless, teaming, blue-green sea, faceted on his face, like he was seeing something he'd never seen before in Yuri, maybe the world, shock great enough to take everything from any next action -- is something that slides into the notes of the music, when Victor is pulled against him. When Victor goes, leaning into and not away from.

Shinayakana. In his hands. That have a mind of their own. Sliding with the music, practice rough fingers, pressing themselves firm over small plastic buttons, that settle up into his palm, and rumbled shirt cloth. Half over hard, trembling stomach muscles, and the other, the bottom of ribs that are breathing in and out roughly. While his other hand had slid up Victor's jacketed arm, to tangle with just the first half inch of his fingers, and draw him into a turn with them, still pressed to him, as much as the sudden fall and twist of his own body a different direction.

Into something suddenly smoother. Silky long lines under grinding base.

Something that belonged on ice, in pairs, and in ballet, for pas de deux.
Together. Something smoother, something clearer. He'd never done this and he had.

Minako had taught him so many things. Skating with someone hadn't ever been the goal, but it'd been in his training from her regardless. That you had to know what it was to have a person there, dancing with you, to be able to evoke in others what it looks like to dance, or skate, with the ghost of someone missing beside you. The right curve of fingers holding a missing hand. The right movement of a body, sheltering inward or balancing. Except. With Victor pressed again him. It wasn't a ghost.

It wasn't a ghost whose fingers tangle with his.

It wasn't a ghost who shifts with him as he turned, lithe and subtle, drawing a body with him, in a different kind of mirror. Fingers and arms, in a delicate loop over their heads, coming down in an arc, that nearly grazes both of their heads, before he turns them again, following the music and the flow suddenly of the tall, lithe body against him. Not letting go, and not letting up from dictating where it was going.

[fivetimechamp]

That touch before, so startling, now seeming totally innocent and innocuous, but this is. This is.

This has purpose. A single purpose.

Claiming Victor's body, like it was up for the taking, and just casually deciding to up and make off with this sprinting heart in his chest, at the same time.

He doesn't stumble. Even when surprised, even when startled, even with suddenly wondering where his good sense and composure wandered off to, even as his heart tries to burst straight through his ribs and find Yuri's fingertips, he never skips a beat. Only allows the momentum, the meaning, to shift, as he finally understands –

That this is a story. The story of how he was seduced by, entranced by, Katsuki Yuri.

A Cinderella, after all, only it turned out that he was the prince, caught off guard and unprepared, and hoping the clock never strikes midnight.





Surprising himself with his own willingness, with how he not only allows, but gives in, like everything before this had just been playing at what it really was, all along. The competition with Yurio. The issued challenge. The way Yuri has decided to pursue him, when even Victor knows that would seem like insanity to almost everyone else here, because he doesn't, hasn't ––

He has training, and performance, and his friends, and his inspiration. There was never room for this.

L-words crowding up in his head. Lust? Life? It couldn't be...


Love?


It's not, of course. It's the giddy endorphin rush of surprise, and the sweet sensation of a strong, wiry arm around his stomach, and fingers tangling with his, and the strange excitement of letting someone else direct his body, while he follows in perfect harmony. It's only the pounding of his heart and the way he can feel Yuri's, like a hummingbird beating its wings against his back, as their dance comes together into a pas de deux.


It's not, but even with the crowd in front of them, he doesn't see them, too busy looking over his left shoulder, while allowing Yuri to support his weight, as if they've done this a thousand times, and bending gracefully forward, back leg extending like a swan's wing.

Too unable to keep his eyes off him. Realizing, with something like shock, that he had been watching him all evening, from the moment he realized Yuri was even here, looking miserable with his coach. And, now. Even now. When his smile is doing something different, now, something warm and sweet and almost shy, when he has never in his life been shy.

Something reflecting the way his heart is soaring, and his body is melting into this duet, as if he had always wanted a partner there, pressed next to him, close as skin, this whole time.

Something...hopeful.

[theglassheart]

When Victor turns his head to look at him, again, in the middle of a move, Yuri isn't expecting what he sees. The demand for complicity, even granted with the whisper of halted hesitation, didn't mean it changed, who was within the circle of his arms, who he was pulling along with him. The man who had stolen and demanded and won and secured every heart who saw him. But the face that turns to him, is not one of challenge.

It's soft. Mesmerizingly soft. The yearning of a million programs, all just too far from Yuri to remember the music from or names of, and he's sure he knew them a second ago. Knew them better than any table he ever memorized. He knew them once, but nothing will come to him through the haze. Nothing but the nearness of his eyes, when Victor's head is thrown back almost to his shoulder. The part of his lips to breathe in. The way his mouth has gone soft, too. A smile, so perfectly smooth as the moves that they are doing.

Unexpected, and yet, in a blink, Yuri finds himself smiling back. Pleased. Allowed. Granted this thing.

That doesn't have to be taken. Victor's just giving it into his hands, slipping into this role, too, as though there was never another.

Graceful shifts, that make it feel like they're already one. As though they've been doing this dance for a lifetime and not just seconds. When space between them, once taken with hard demand, dissolves even further. Yuri's hand sliding further in, and around, fingers curling the far side of Victor's waist, shoulders curving and chest pressing into Victor's back, or pulling him closer when a strain of music demands a swoop in the opposite direction. The way his cheek nearly rests against Victor's own when he's low enough and spreading out further.

The long lean line of Victor as he stretches his leg out again, behind this time, and Yuri supports both of them. Turns him, as though on display for himself. When pulling away, feels nothing like pulling away, and everything like the next step in a perfect story. Seconds elastic, stretching, only to bring them right back to each other with the music. Forgetting everything that had come before it. Everything that wasn't folding into and out of and right back into Victor as it went.

[fivetimechamp]

He doesn't know what the music is, anymore, only knows that it isn't what's soaring in his ears, reaching from his chest, from this thing that has cracked open and is pouring him out like the sparkling champagne from that bottle now left behind.


Orsù finisco presto questo calice di vino

Come now, I'll quickly finish this glass of wine

Yuri's chest, warm and solid against his back. Yuri's arm, strong and solid around his waist. Feeling the twin pounding of their hearts, merging into this dance that's now a duet, perfectly aligned.


Questa storia che senso non ha
Svanirà questa notte assieme alle stelle

This story that has no meaning
will vanish tonight together with the stars

Heart bursting, and yearning for more, when he sees that smile, when there's a cheek and a temple and silky hair pressed close to his, when the air burns like fire in his chest and this feeling burns even more fiercely than that.


Se potessi vederti dalla speranza nascerà l’eternità

If I could see you, eternity will be born from hope

Everything falling into place, like this was always meant to happen. Stretching his arms wide, in graceful supplication, as Yuri turns him so they're face to face, and Victor picks up the thread of the dance, that's more than a dance, that's two hearts calling out to each other, taking Yuri by the hand and turning him in a graceful arc even as he's stepping forward, in unconscious familiar steps, motions, pleas.

Following close, so when Yuri finishes this slow spin, it's right into Victor's arms, and against his chest, free hand seeking Yuri's waist, the other letting go of Yuri's hand to stroke the back of his fingers along his jaw.



Stammi vicino ––


Music he knows better than breathing, better than gravity; his feet and hands following choreography that had always called for an answering voice, this feeling that's more pure and deeper than both drowning him, wiping away everything but the golden lights, the rush in his chest, Yuri's smile.


Stay close to me ––


He never saw it coming.


Non te ne andare –– !


And now a willing fool, captivated, hypnotized.


Don't go –– !


Caught on the edge of a blade, and on the curve of a smile, and on the sparkle of champagne, on someone he's barely spoken more than two or three words to, at a time, over the course of years ––


Le tue mani, le tue gambe,
le mie mani, le mie gambe ––

Your hands, your legs,
My hands, my legs ––

–– who had decided he wanted Victor, and Victor –––


E i battiti del cuore
si fondono tra loro

And our heartbeats
Are blending together

–– who has never wanted anyone ––


Partiamo insieme

Let’s leave together

–– never needed anyone ––


Ora sono pronto

I’m ready now

–– has never been more willing for, has never wanted anything like he now wants this, in his life.

[theglassheart]

The world is made of fluid luminescence. Everything that isn't them is just a blur around their shoulders, beyond their movements. As though it, perhaps, hadn't existed at all. Never meant to, or banished itself from existence. But that isn't true either. Occasionally, there is still the flash of other faces. The intruding slash of cheering. Someone shaking someone else. People clapping, suddenly, something different about it he can't entirely place.

That would involve looking away from Victor, being anywhere but right there, taking every step with him.

He can't look away, won't look away. Doesn't want to miss it. Every connection of his fingers back against Victor's jacket.

The sway of his own head when there are the backs of fingers drawing a caress across his jaw, shivering through his entire system, a current of burning light, and he follows them, like a beckoning voice, trying to draw him in. Leaning into them, feeling the parch that drives up his throat, a dry crescendo of thirst, when his own shift into them only narrowly misses them brushing his lips, the movement of the air a caress against them.

A few seconds loo late, mingling too closely into what is obviously the endings strains of this song that had been playing.

The one they'd started with and somehow left behind them, dust in their wake. No more a part of what happened out here than the people at the edges were, but it was coming all the same. Stepping in with toes, stealing them away from where the music had taken them. Somewhere else. Somewhen else. This thing that drives him and demands more than the earlier just end, where they stopped, worlds apart, huffing, two opponents, and one obvious winner.

But not this one. That is not where this should go. The thought and its answer coming like the same strike of lightning. Obvious, and nothing else could be. When he has to put even further focus into just where, just when, where he'll need to be, how to slide to one side, and how much balance, how much support. Because this is still his, and he wants this, too. Wants this all the way to the very last second. The only world in Victor's eyes on him right until it ends

Until he's dipping the man back, across his side, twisted opposing him. One hand making sure to find the right purchase on his thigh. Enough to hold and never drop. But being forgotten almost as soon as he can see his other hand, his own fingers coursing up a graceful neck, cupping a perfect jaw line and cheek. The painted prime of finishing, with the last beats of the music fading out, bare inches from Victor's face, eyes on his. Close enough to feel the puff of his breath, or maybe it's the rebound of Yuri's own right off Victor's own skin this close.

He doesn't know where it comes from, doesn't care even, as the room explodes, while he's looking down at Victor's face.

Heavy gasps hitting his lungs, hinting to him finally how hard he had pushed himself, perhaps, without even feeling it. A burn that might be there in his calves, in his biceps. Still holding Victor's weight precarious. A slick sheen on the edges of his hair, where he can see it just barely clumping at the edges of his vision, when his vision is nothing but Victor's face, and he can't help the wide slice that is his mouth, when he just starts laughing.

Unfettered delight, like this was the best surprise ever, from the most unexpected place. Face. Partner. Person.

[fivetimechamp]

Around them, the room hushes, like a caught breath, as his fingers brush Yuri's cheek, even as the music continues to fill the air and his head, and he understands.

It's not the show they expected, but it is a show. Maybe the best one they could get tonight. After all – who would ever have guessed the gold medal winner, World Champion, and the Japanese skater who had suffered a meltdown and fallen to last place would ever dance a duet together?

And who could have predicted it would make him feel like this?

Smiling, as Yuri follows his lead, before taking it back again, as the strains of music begin to slow, the end slipping closer.

Smiling, as his body answers that request, and rises to the challenge.

Laughing, delighted, as gravity swings out from under him, because this, he understands: the finale, the unforgettable, showstopping pose, pushing it harder, and faster, as the strain of perfection burns in muscles and joints and gasps of air that feel like sandpaper against his lungs. Opposite leg and arm both thrown wide and graceful, while his near arm curls under Yuri's, and fingers delicate against the flat of his shoulder blade. Trusting him to keep them both up, even as they sink in a pose he's seen a thousand times or more from ice dancers and pairs: Yuri's thigh under his back, his own arched, one leg bent beneath him, shin on the floor, and the other long and languid in front as it drops from where Yuri's fingers had held it up.

Striking that pose with every inch of artistic integrity has has, every ground-in graceful reflex, head falling back against the hand cradling his jaw, close enough to kiss, close enough to feel his panting breath and the heat steaming off his shoulders, the fingers lighting fire on his skin, and laughing.

Laughing, breathless. Fingers gripping the back of Yuri's shirt. Outstretched arm returning, to mirror the one Yuri has at his throat and jaw, to cup Yuri's, while his chest heaves, bangs sticking to sweat he hadn't expected on his forehead, because he'd worn a three-piece suit tonight, with no expectations of needing to do more than shake hands in it.

But laughing. Breathless. A swell of satisfaction at the delight on Yuri's face, so different from the misery that had been camped there before like a shadow.

And saying, "up, up," with that laugh still in his voice, trying now to get his feet under him, but sliding his hand down Yuri's arm to his hand instead of letting go, even as he's standing, and turning them both to face the audience (that was once only guests, but is now and audience).

To raise their linked hands between them, and sweep them down again in a bow to their cheering crowd.

(Always give the people what they want...and leave them wanting a little more.)

[theglassheart]

Victor is glorious like this.

A million pictures -- his pictures, somewhere, he can't remember where, even what they are -- could not do this justice.

The brilliant vibrancy of those laughing eyes, when everything stops. Every crenellation of an ocean right below him. The color in his cheeks, that Yuri isn't sure when got there. When it got there, or they did. Both of them racing for a summit they got to together, twined up like this. Seconds ago feels like years. Minutes an eternity to remember. The wrong time, and definitely not the right place to be living when Victor's fingers cradle his cheek in return. Warm and soft and gentle, a brush of fingertips, and fingers, and palm, he thinks he can feel all the way to the soles of his feet, thunders in his ears to the same roar of the crowd.

A thousand muscles straining, and something else. Somewhere else. Pushing, swirling, getting everywhere.

In Yuri's eyes, in his teeth, when it would be easier than anything, to just lean down toward him, even the momentary wash of the thought of just letting his hands fall and catch around Victor's back, his waist, even if they fell, while they're both laughing and gasping, not exactly closing as pristinely as they could be, and neither of them seeming to care at all. Caught up in even that together, and he can't remember if he's ever seen Victor look like .. this. Even on a podium. Even the very first time.

There's nothing pristine and perfectly unwrinkled. More toward just wamed up than to needing to stop.

It's heady and sharp, sparkling everywhere when those fingers lift from his cheek and that laughing mouth says up, up, like a wake up from a drowning daze of everything before his eyes, and Yuri goes, pulling Victor's body up with him. Giving him back to himself, and feeling the slack in his muscles from the disappearing weight of balancing two bodies as something distant, barely connected to his own body as it releases. Slingshots somewhere else, as Victor's fingers clasp his and drag his hand and the arm attached to it upward suddenly.

Making Yuri laugh again. Broad, warm amusement at Victor's dragging it right back to a show that still hasn't ended. At the rise and fall of those shoulders still gathering air, and that smile that Victor seems to have frozen onto himself. Even if frozen it wrong, it's like that smile could melt the whole of a country in hard winter. That he has to stop looking at to bow, before coming up again, making himself focus on those people closest, cheering, jumping.

Even the kid from earlier looked stunned, for just over a second, before realizing Yuri was looking at him and scowled disgusted.

[fivetimechamp]

Around them, people laugh and clap and cheer, and Victor soaks it up, like he always does, but this time, not alone. Drawing Yuri's hand in front of his chest, before dropping it as he takes the other, stepping smoothly behind him and turning them, to acknowledge the appreciation from the other end of the room, and he loves this.

This, the applause.

This, Yuri's hand in his.

This, the thundering of his heart, and the ragged edge to his breath, and the sweat on his forehead, and the way it feels like he could dance on air, if they started again.

(How much he wants to start again.)

But not as much as he wants to see what happens next, now that Yuri demanded and he willingly capitulated. Now that he's been seduced, now that all he wants is to find that feeling from the dance floor, and see how it feels pushed up against a wall.

(That's how this goes, isn't it? If Chris is to be believed? He never – doesn't – but neither of those are words for tonight.)

Stepping to the side, to put his hand at Yuri's waist, arm around his back, while his other hand comes to the front of Yuri's other shoulder and leaves him in a sort of half-embrace, as he starts to navigate them off the floor, leaning close to speak into his ear.

Still laughing. Still breathless. Still brilliant, and wanting more. "Come on, Yuri."

Bulletproof in his certainty. Yuri reached for him. Pulled him into the pas de deux. Yuri wants him.


And he wants. Oh, he wants.

"I need some water. Let's get some."

At the edge of the room, where the water dispensers are.

Which are conveniently close to the doors to the hall.

Which is conveniently empty.

Which is exactly what Victor wants, right now. Because as much as he loves this crowd, and this rush, and being the entertainer, he wants this, more.

[theglassheart]

He focuses on the crowd, on the lights and the forms, unable to entirely tell where everything stops and starts. Well enough, but not perfectly. Even without his glasses, he knows it's not entirely that. That his breath is still coming hard and he pressed into his toes, trying to align with stillness and his own weight in a way that movement, and the most intricate of dance steps had not even phased him in the slightest.

Which was working for the half second before suddenly Victor leaned right back into him. One arm finding its way to his waist, and the other to his shoulder, and he's suddenly being escorted some steps toward the edge of the dancefloor. But he can't even focus on that, the momentary inability to handle his feet existing at all, when Victor's breath is warm on his ear, tickling the skin, shifting his hair, and his own name is being laughed, breathless in his ear.

Catching hard in his chest, making a hand shoot up and anchor on Victor's, right over his chest, just in reaction.
Makes him push back and in, against Victors side, the reverse of where he'd been what felt like seconds ago.

When he's looking up, at Victor looking down and out. Like he's won something better than gold, and it's alive in Yuri's skin. Even as he asks for water with a looking that's almost too calculating -- maybe even the tiniest touch unfocused, himself, and focused on something even harder for it, something across the room, that Yuri isn't quite sure what is, given the distance, the blur ... and it mostly looking empty.

At least it was before a body was suddenly blocking them. From what felt like nowhere.
Yuri wasn't positive anyone should be able to move that fast, even as he was blinking upward.

"Where do you think you're going?" There's a moment of confusion as Yuri realizes Chris is actually addressing him. "You don't think you're done already, do you?" It's something like an accusation, made of towering sinewy height, wrapped inside a laugh, and something ... almost like purring? It's overwhelmingly something, that leaves Yuri blinking and, even though his spine straightens, and he wavers forward slightly toward it.

Especially when, without missing a beat, Chris was suddenly looking to Victor, raising two fists, with new champagne bottles in them and whisper bright smiles of promise. "We found these while you were busy, too."

Yuri perked up, the hand at Victor's arm releasing to slap at the jacketed arm there, as he twists back with a ruthless peerless smile of someone who had won the lottery, granting it to Victor with ease of a breath. "More champagne. You're saved!" He threw that smile at Chris, as he looked back and held out a hand. "Arigatou!"

[fivetimechamp]

Everything is working perfectly, for a moment: Yuri stutters, but his hand comes up and catches over Victor's, making Victor's heart do a strange somersault in his chest, and there's a second where he leans his weight into Victor's side, his chest.

Smaller than him, but wiry and strong. Fitting perfectly, right here, in the broken circle of his arms.




He can see it, clearly. What will happen. The weight of the door against his hip, and the soft click as it shuts, before it melts into silence, stillness.

Before they're alone. And he can find out what it feels like when everything they just danced blooms into reality.

Those steps, those touches, feeling more intimate than a kiss, but he'd put that to the test. Waving away any thoughts of how little they know each other, how these might be the most words he's ever even spoken to Katsuki Yuri.

He doesn't care. He'll be happy to spend the whole night long talking, as long as he can have it. Everything that was just offered, and promised, and accepted.



Lost in pleasant thoughts, of how satisfying the sound of Yuri's back hitting the hallway wall will be, when his own chest bumps against it, and he looks up in confusion, to see Chris, smiling. But not smiling.

Predatory.


A grip of annoyance in his gut, that's tripped up by the way Yuri smacks at his hand, and Victor releases him, taking a surprised step back, hands suddenly empty, the space in his arms suddenly vacated, while looking from Yuri to Chris, to the champagne bottle, and back. "I don't –"

He doesn't want champagne. At least, not here, and not now.

Maybe later. In a hotel room. Ordered and brought in a bucket of ice, potentially with strawberries, but not here, when Chris is giving him a triumphant, sly look, that has Victor's expression flattening in exasperation as his hands fall to his side, annoyed and feeling too empy. "Chris – !"