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fivetimechamp) wrote2017-02-19 01:26 pm
fivetimechamp) wrote2017-02-19 01:26 pm
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GPF Banquet, 9 December, 2012 – Sochi, Russia
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
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.
no subject
- 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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
Svanirà questa notte assieme alle stelle
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.
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.
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.
He never saw it coming.
And now a willing fool, captivated, hypnotized.
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 mie mani, le mie gambe ––
My hands, my legs ––
–– who had decided he wanted Victor, and Victor –––
si fondono tra loro
Are blending together
–– who has never wanted anyone ––
–– never needed anyone ––
–– has never been more willing for, has never wanted anything like he now wants this, in his life.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.)
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
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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!"
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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 – !"
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He's handing over one of the two new bottles to Yuri's outstretched hand (the one that isn't his, because it's already opened, but full and maybe he looks back, toward the too large crowd and it sloshes in his vision, uncertain where that one went, whether he finished it, or someone has it, a person or a table), but he's lifting it for a drink. Ice cold, still sweating, glass against heated fingers, lips, a parched throat, all the same, as the Chris replies.
It's. There's. Something. In that smile. Triumphant. But that isn't it.
Like there's a conversation he's not involved in. Over his head.
That makes Yuri's brow twitch, a furrowing between them, at the top of his nose, for the blink of a moment, before he pulls the bottle back down and away, because he doesn't want to be left out of anything again. Not anymore. He's shown them already, twice, and he'll keep doing it, if he has to, and he interrupts instead, "Was that a challenge?"
It has none of the aggressive forthrightness of the way it had started with Victor. In his face. A need to prove himself, hot off the press from his junior competitor. There's still a rise of color all across the rise of Yuri's cheeks, and even his nose. A soft crimson that has everything to do with exertion and nothing to do with distaste.
His voice this time, in that question, is all silken vibrato. Just this side of not quite having fully caught his breath, but still all confident nonchalance, as he tilted his head considering another of his companion-competitors. Green eyes and blonde hair and even more of a need to look up. But Yuri refuses shifting back from his poised lean-in. Not even when Chris laughs first. His eyes leaving Victor, and coming back again.
Yuri held out the bottle to Victor, even without looking to him, because more than anything he's ready for the answer (even if some small, drowning, voice says he should have handed it over to Victor first, because of what he said, and then himself, but it doesn't matter, it's already done). Not when Chris looks beyond their shoulders, and the small space between them, to the area they'd left, to Victor again, something sharp and sweet, in cutting heat, made his eyes shine even more by the time they made back, again.
"It is a pity they don't have a real dance floor here. My specialty--" That word blurs in Yuri's hearing, and he's not sure how, it's like it doubles, triples. Is too long. Too warm. Too. Insulting. Implying. Inviting. "--is not in ballroom."
He takes the bait, even with a pressed his mouth, at the cat and mouse non-answer, demanding clarity. "Which is?"
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Less claiming, more friendly.
(Or maybe a little of both.)
But he does understand it. This look on Chris' face. It's the same look he gets when he's trailing Victor after the short programs, and is determined to catch up and beat him during the free skate – even if he never has (and, Victor is smugly, shruggingly certain, never will). This expression that says this competition isn't over until he gets a turn.
Except it is. Should be. Victor never loses, and certainly not to Chris, and anyway, Chris should understand, too, shouldn't he?
Isn't he the one always finding someone, or someones, at these things, and disappearing with a bottle of champagne to find a place with fewer people and fewer clothes?
(Except, even more annoyingly, he thinks Chris does understand.
It's extremely vexing.)
But his laugh is light, and cheerful, and his shoulders are relaxed, because he has no intention of letting Chris get to him. "Pole."
He's seen it. Many of the skaters here have. And most of them know it, too: excellent core workouts, focusing on grace and control and the denial of gravity, and Chris, of course, excels at it. But...
Hand coming off Yuri's shoulder, and the other lifting the bottle, in a light and breezy shrug. "Where would you find one of those at a place like this?"
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That laughter all tender pleasure at stealing the last word, and flying off with it. His hand like a bird, taking off, again, already.
Even as something is clicking, slotting, in the back of his mind. His mouth giving an -- "Oh," of realization.
A dozen pictures, scattered throughout months (and years, really), of Chris caught in various poses, all lean muscle, with dripping sweat and those luminous (filtered) eyes, and there's a knot trying to rise somewhere in the back of Yuri's mind. But he doesn't want it. Like he's not sure he wanted Victor's hand to think it was allowed to go anywhere. Or for Victor to go on holding the champagne bottle like it's a flag he's not waving.
Especially when he asks that question, as though he's in agreement.
It's to Yuri's loss that there's no way to take this up. Prove this as well.
"They must have something here," Yuri says, undeterred. About the grand hotel.
Refusing to be given something he can't at least attempt. He will not be played with and for. Not tonight. Not again. Not after that Russian Kid (....that's not the right name, something is wrong, left footed, off balance, no glide, not the right feeling), and then Victor. All hard lines, and then soft folding. He hadn't dropped yet. Hadn't let anything slip.
"Have you asked?" Rolls off Yuri's tongue, as though it's as simple as that. Because it is, isn't it? They are the people playing for the. Paying for this room. For perfect golden light, and sparkling champagne like a fountain. For the forgotten quiet, elegance. "Ask."
If Chris looks anything it's even more intrigued. It's. It's even more than that. It's sparking considering, barely there flicker of surprise, like a one-third second of consideration that becomes a sudden roaring bonfire. A hand flying out, and one finger pointing at him. Determined and determining. "Don't go anywhere."
Yuri's mouth tugs toward a frown, like he'd been accused, like he was going to vanish, even as his response is fast, a little tottering even in the definitive. "I'm not running away."
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Which Victor isn't at all sure he likes. Chris shouldn't get to have a say in whether Yuri stays or leaves, and he shouldn't be vying for his attention, when.
Watching Chris make his way back towards the DJ's table, before he looks back over at Yuri, so near his shoulder and looking as determined as if he's taking another shot at the gold, and Victor isn't used to this. Having to try for someone's attention. Wanting to steal it. Needing to order that spotlight back on him.
Where was this earlier?
He wants to ask where Yuri learned to dance that way. How he learned pairs moves, when he's always skated alone, and never seemed to have a close friend or peer to practice with. How someone as shy as he usually is could demand a competition on the pole with Christophe Giacometti, the seductress of their world.
Wants to grab Yuri's arm, and drag him away, distract him with his smile and hands and mouth and laughter. Wants to drown in a flood of finding out everything he can about him, after years of knowing next to nothing.
Settling for setting his hand at the small of Yuri's back, and tipping his head as winsomely as he's ever known how to do, the way that usually has cameras flashing and fans screaming. "Yuri..."
"You're leaving me already?" His smile coaxing and confident, and winning.
"How cruel."
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Because of him. Because of those words. Why had he sai--
There's suddenly a shadow on his face. A hand on his back, and he looks up into pale creamy skin, and impossible bright eyes, and the silver-grey hair that run its fingers over the right side of those eyes, like a half mask. Everything is slipping, sliding, gliding away from him. Colors. Division between shapes and distance.
No part of his body left except where those fingers press into him, a message he can't quite hear, because he can't hear anything. The world. The room. The music. The crowd. There's nothing but that silver voice and the way those lips fold over his name, when he's memerized, hynotized, eyes on those lips as more words come, and he wants his name again.
Doesn't understand how Victor knows it,
or how he ever thought he knew what his own name was until now.
Especially as Victor flashes his far too perfect play boy smile. His head tipped just so, his hair a softening fluff from some movement a second ago, or something errant blow of the air conditioning. The only thing missing is that perfect, well documented, wink of his. The one that makes hearts explode, and everyone weak. Dust beside the light of.
Dazzed, he only remembers those words were words he was supposed to be listening to specifically, not just the cool way Victor's tone and syllables made music out of the air and the silence, the whole of the universe defined by his mouth. There was a question and something coy and teasing at the end. About leaving him.
When he's not -- not sure anyone could. Knows how to. Victor owns the universe. It's a ball he spins on his fingers, and rolls across his shoulders, as he does to ice skating more than any lesser can even dream of in their wildest. None of this makes sense, but he's not leaving. He's not letting go.
He's struggling to remember anything. Air. Existence. Anything but those eyes. Hand reaching for the bottle in Victor's other hand, holding on but not using it, uncertain if he needs something between them, or Victor's hand free, or something to drown this sudden drowning feeling.
It coming with the low, topply, listing, impress of, "I'm not going anywhere?" He was just told not to. He just said he wouldn't. Wouldn't run away. There's no running tonight. Hadn't he said a second ago? From some reason, before this. Before it was even more impossible to consider. How could he. The whole world was in his hand. That included Yuri. Who would have dissolved, on command, if that was the next thing he whispered.
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He gives up the bottle willingly enough, because it gives him his other hand again, and means he can step forward, as his index finger hooks under Yuri's chin and his thumb traces his bottom lip.
Bending towards him, never minding the confused murmur of the people around them. He doesn't care about them, right now, or Chris' plans, or anything, but the look on Yuri's face in this moment: Perfect. Surprised. Eyes on his face like there's nothing else in the world to see, which Victor appreciates. Isn't that what it felt like, earlier? Just the two of them, and no one else, nothing else around? "Don't you want to come with me?"
He's never this way. Never invites anyone to come this close, or imply that they could come much, much closer. All his flirtations have always been for his audience and his fans, for the show. For the stories he tells, of love and loss and heartbreak and triumph, sorrow and joy. He's never wanted anything else but that, for himself.
He's never wanted anyone quite like this.
Eyes gone hooded and voice turned low. He's never put this effort into anyone, before. No one has ever made him wait. No one has ever said no. No one has ever made him make an effort.
He sort of enjoys it.
If he can keep Yuri's focus on him, the whole night could unfold. If –
If there wasn't the low laugh from behind him, that makes his expression turn from coy and promising to flat exasperation, because Chris, truly, has the worst timing tonight.
Or he's doing it on purpose.
Turning, with his arm sliding to around Yuri's shoulders, as his smile flips back towards cheery warmth. "Well? Did you find anything?"
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The sudden dryness of his throat.
The sudden necessity to move into that touch.
The pressure of his lip against the finger, when his breath gets hard, heavy, fast.
As Victor asks that question and suddenly a million images explode in Yuri's brain. The offer to go somewhere, anywhere, with Victor, low and sultry. Voice gone seductive in a way that Victor only is when he's on the ice, and hasn't been in a while. Not since the most recent stories and surprises he brought them.
His whole body is fire, and--
Victor turns suddenly, making everything swing, swim, go cantering, sideways. The whole room rocking upside down, gravity entirely giving on Yuri in one hard yank, when Victor's thumb is suddenly gone, hand is no longer on him, and everything is a creshendo of ache and a matching heat. In his cheeks. In his throat. Chest. Hands. Stomach. But nothing as much as his bottom lip.
Where his tongue strayed to, rubbing at the spot on his lip, once, twice, starved and inverted and swaying, before he can even realize where or why. Anything expect that he can't swallow, can't breathe, can't think, and Chris. Chris got here at some point. Is staring down at them, all burning triumphant green eyes (even if he thinks something shifts there, shifts, or narrows, or something .... something) and that smoldering smug slide of lips echo'd in everything about how he's holding himself.
"They're bringing it now."
Yuri isn't sure words are a thing. Air, at all. What Chris is talking about at all. That anything at all anywhere is anything except that Victor just asked him whether he wanted to come away with him, those words burning in his guts, coats all of his non-existent bones, and he hadn't even gotten to answer. The only answer anything could ever go.
It was the sun asking if a plant if it wanted to learn toward it.
"You'll need more than your fancy footwork now." Chris was saying.
He was talking, but Yuri wasn't quite sure he was real, or that any word but yes burned on his lip, on his tongue, that kept. He had to stop touching. Raised the bottle and took a drink. Cold glass on his skin, liquid clinging to his lips, dribbling down his skin, from the corner of his mouth, in his wreckless haste to have something pressed on his mouth, something to stop him, something that wasn't good enough, wasn't Victor's hand, finger, mouth, an image burned on him, and having to be be wiped off with the back of his hand. "We'll see."
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"Okay." Laughed, while his free hand waves at Chris, before he lets go of Yuri to pat his old friend on the shoulder. "I look forward to seeing what you can do, Chris."
Eyes sliding back towards Yuri, who has slipped back into determination, and that, for some reason, delights him as much as anything else tonight has.
That he wants to win, too. To prove them all wrong. To remind them of why he's here to begin with. "You, too, Yuri."
Enjoying the way that name rolls off his tongue, musical and cheery, before he looks back at Chris and holds out his hand. "I'll need my phone back, Chris. Someone will have to document this face-off."
It's not like he'd miss any of it. Not now. Not when he's already looking forward to the next surprise of the night.
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