Виктор Никифоров

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

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

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



"Ah-choo!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

It wouldn't be the first time.

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

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

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

 It's a much longer plane ride, this way.

(It's actually an hour less to go east from Moscow to Tokyo than the other way around, but if anyone told Victor right now that he's on the shorter flight, he'd call them a liar, and to their face, no less.)

In the end, it was faster to get a direct flight to Tokyo and take a commuter flight from there to KMJ than to Kumamoto directly: he couldn't stand one lay-over, let alone two. If nine and a half hours (and then a wait, and another two, and then the time it will take to get to Hasetsu from Kumamoto) seems unbearable, fifteen would have driven him to madness.

Not that it doesn't seem like he'll be heading that way soon enough, as it is.

It didn't take longer than getting into the taxi outside the hotel to regret leaving, the first moment he'd had a chance to breathe and think since Yuri cornered him in the hall after the interviews ––

(you have to go!)

–– and pushed him out the door.

Or, just stood there, as he left, looking more alone than Victor can bear. Stricken and pale, and stubborn.

(He should never have left. His duty is there. He's a coach, and he'd abandoned his skater. A lover, who'd selfishly left. Yanked Yuri's support out from under him. 

Even if Yuri was the one to tell him to go.)

Yakov will take care of him, Victor knows, but Yakov doesn't know Yuri, and he isn't overly fond of Victor these days, either, and Victor's fingers have been drumming such an anxious tarentella on his thigh that the nice old lady sitting next to him pats his hand gently and tells him there's no need to be afraid of flying.

(Nine hours to go. Plus two. Plus...)

His phone is in his hand, and he keeps checking it, until he remembers he has to actually connect to the inflight wifi in order to get (or send) anything, and once he does, he flounders, thumb hovering over the text box in the thread in his messages with Yuri's name at the top.

(To text anything now would be unbearably selfish. Wouldn't it? Him reaching out for comfort, when what he should be doing is helping Yuri get ready for tomorrow's free skate.

He won't even see it, unless he can find a way to be near a television. It might be over before he even reaches Hasetsu.

He should be there. 
Maybe he really is too inexperienced as a coach.)

Either way, he scrolls through pictures he doesn't really see, and updates he never reads, until a brush against his shoulder makes him jump, and he looks to find the flight attendant offering him a selection of canned sodas, with a smile, but water is all he wants, and when he looks at his watch, it's beginning to turn towards night in Moscow. Close enough that Yuri should be going to bed, and getting some sleep.

Which reminds him, collecting his scattered and shattered thoughts like pieces of a broken toy on the floor, that when he does get in, it will be too early to call Yuri. That if he hears anything during the flight (no texts from Mari yet), it will be the middle of the night in Moscow, and Yuri needs sleep more than he needs to hear from Victor. Tomorrow is important.

(He should be there.)

But he can do this: hit that text box, and write out a few sentences.
this seat is less co he deletes, along with I'm sor and I know you'll and in the end, he just closes the app with a sigh, to lean his head against the window.

Six hours to go.

He's not sure what he's doing wrong.

None of this is going quite like he expected. Yuri just isn't bonding with him as a coach the way he thought he would. In fact, Yuri doesn't seem to want to have anything to do with him, as a coach or otherwise. It seems like every time Victor reaches for him, Yuri pulls back. Still. 

It's been over a month.

It's been over a month, and every time he thinks he's got the problem figured out – Yuri needed to get back into shape, Yuri lacks confidence, Yuri has no faith in his own decisions and ability, Yuri has trouble landing quads, Yuri needs some external motivation to finally fight – another day breaks and they're still out of sync with each other.

So he's not sure what he's doing wrong, only that it's something.

Or maybe that he is.

There must be some reason Yuri's avoiding him. He'd worked so hard to win Onsen on Ice that Victor had been sure that Yuri wanted him here, but morning after morning, he's late to the rink.

(A little later each time.)

Morning after morning, he mumbles one or two word answers to Victor's questions, hunched and awkward and not meeting Victor's eyes.

Day after day, he works, and listens, and does what Victor says, but doesn't offer anything of himself aside from his presence and his obedience. Outside the rink, there's barely anything at all, like Yuri can only be around him when they're on the ice, working on Eros.

And night after night, he turns red and looks away in the bath, he sits in silence across the table, he shuts the door, and won't let Victor in.

So he must be doing something wrong, or maybe he's just wrong, entirely, after all, and Yuri doesn't want him here, but –


Spending the nights when Yuri is a hallway and a closed door and further away in the same house than he seemed when he was continents and oceans away lying in his own bed with Maccachin at his side, scrolling through old pictures, old videos, laughter and applause and loud voices tinny through his phone speaker.

Going back, time and again, to the one that brought him here. The message in a bottle. The reminder. Trying to find any other explanation for it than the most obvious one, the only one that makes sense.




So he's here, but Yuri refuses to meet him on the same page, and time is starting to get away from them, and Victor has never been a particularly patient man:

And when –

– on the morning after the morning after the morning after the morning, Yuri simply never appears at the Ice Castle –

Victor?

Is done waiting.