yuri_plisetsky | Moscow (and Milliways): Rostelecom Tea Time [1.08-1.09]

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Moscow (and Milliways): Rostelecom Tea Time [1.08-1.09]

He hadn't been certain that it would work. He's only ever reached this place through his bedroom door before, only in St. Petersburg, only at the end of the day. There's no guarantee that it would show up here in a random Moscow hotel room just because he wanted it to appear badly enough.

But it does. Perhaps because he does. When he swipes the keycard in his hotel room door and opens it a crack, the bar is on the other side.

There's no time to be surprised, or grateful, or concerned about what this might mean. Yuri simply pulls the door open wider and propels the Katsudon through it, steering him over to the nearest empty booth with one hand.

'Sit here,' he commands, with a touch of Lilia's steel in his voice. 'Don't you dare leave.' And he's off to the bar before he can hear a word of protest. Not that he'd pay attention to it if he heard it.

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When Yuri returns, he's carrying a tray with a large white china teapot and two cups. The cups are the Japanese kind, with thick, straight sides and no handles, just like the ones at Yu-topia.

(He hadn't requested them specifically. But the bar knows, somehow. He won't argue with it.)

He sets the tray on the table and plunks one of the cups down in front of Katsudon. 'Mint tea,' he says unceremoniously. 'No sugar, no caffeine.' He picks up the teapot and fills the cups -- Katsudon's cup first -- and a wave of refreshing, clean-smelling steam rises into the air between them as he pours. Once the cups are full, he drops into the seat opposite, and gives Katsudon a stern look. 'Drink it.'

He surprised for the space of a blink. Then, another. Because if he was expecting anything else from Yuri (and he really wasn't quite exactly), this isn't Russian tea. It looks like home. There's no lemons, milk, sugar, or jam. All of these things aren't his and once seemed strange, but he's come accustom to seeing Victor ask for with tea when he's in the mood for tea.

It smells good though, when he picks up (feels good and warm in his hand, and when did his fingers get cold?). Steam raising and he breathes it, feeling like it might be the first time since right after he came off the ice. Relieved there's no caffeine. He's not sure he could take this ... all and the jitters (on top of trying to sleep tonight, of trying gather himself to focus at all on the Freeskate, still just as soon as it was this morning).

"Thank you," doesn't seem enough, but at least it's somewhere to start,
as Yuri's shoulders finally shift, melting down and a little forward, as he takes a drink.

At least he doesn't have to pour the tea down Katsudon's throat. It had crossed his mind that he might have to, considering how little resistance he'd felt on the way up to his hotel room.

'If you're a wreck tomorrow, there's nothing Yakov will be able to do for you.' Brutal but pragmatic. His eyes narrow slightly. 'And I'm not letting that prick JJ walk all over us just because Viktor's gone.'

He's so caught up in murderous thoughts about asshole Canadians that he doesn't even hear himself use the word us. But now that the immediate problem is taken care of, he uses both hands to lift the cup and inhale the clear, sharp scent before drinking as well. His shoulders start to go down as well as he sips the tea, the knot of tension in them visibly beginning to dissipate.

Yuuri doesn't miss it, focusing over his cup, through the steam at Yuri. That us.

Like Yuri, of all people, has entirely accepted this situation as for granted. Without complaint. Not yelling at Yuri over this table about being saddled with him. Not a single complaint after the shock he showed while Victor was asking Yakov, explaining why he had to go right then, on the next flight or flights he could get back to Hasetsu.

Doing what Yuuri could not have done so long ago, and had not even considered letting Victor not be there. Be with Maccachin. It wasn't even a question when Victor fought him on it. Yuuri had regretted not having another minute, even a few last ones. He wouldn't be the reason that happened to Victor, too. Even as he hoped beyond hope it wouldn't be that. They'd have gotten it in time.

But he doesn't miss it. The us. The way he's somehow a forgranted object with Yuri. Like they are a team suddenly.
It isn't as though he and Victor haven't cheered for Yuri, haven't both been impressed with how far he came. Not from Yuri though.

"I won't be." Even if it's not exactly to Yuri's eyes. He doesn't have an option, does he? Victor won't be there if he suddenly slides the way he did right before the China Cup Free Skate. He won't be there to get it wrong, and make Yuri burst into tears. He won't be there to get it right, and send Yuuri hurtling across the ice at the end, into his arms. He just ... won't be there.

He has to be somewhere else. It's so much more important. Yuuri will figure it out.

He'll have to show them he's stronger because of Victor. On the ice, and off. (Somehow.)

'Fine.'

And...and shit, what else is there to say? That stupid dog that can't keep its nose out of food is the reason why Viktor is on a plane to Japan right now, and there's nothing that Yuri can say that'll change whatever happens to it. All he can think of is that picture of a similar dog on the little altar-thing in the Katsudon's house, with the license tags in front of it.

Tomorrow. The free skate. That's the only thing he can talk about. Keep Katsudon's mind off the dog, off Viktor. Make him focus. Don't let him get into his head. 'Yakov's English is all over the place sometimes, so if you don't get something he says to you, don't just guess what he means. But he'll deal with the press if they try to get in your face -- if you hear them shouting at you, ignore it. He's used to the Moscow crowd.'

Even though it wasn't a lot of information, his mouth has gone dry. He drinks the next sip of tea too quickly, and makes a slight face as it burns the tip of his tongue.

Each sip of tea makes him feel a little more like he's in his body, at least. In the booth. In the bar. It's the evening, and the night is sliding away faster than makes sense. But that made sense. There was so much to handle before they'd even gotten out of the building, and then he didn't have to be moved for the night, but he was glad he hadn't had to go back to his (their) room yet.

He dug his phone out, and scrolled the notices on the lock screen of his phone (not that he got how service even worked here). A hundred instagram links, with names, from everyone (except one), but there were no new popped messages with the little green iMessage graphic lit up on the front.

Victor would still be in the plane. Maybe halfway. But no update from Mari or his parents either.

Yuuri looked back up as Yuri started talking about Yakov, trying to tell himself to pay attention, because this was his life, his tomorrow. Maybe longer. No one how things were or would go. It might be longer. No one knew. Which made these things more important. "And the others?"

There were others. He knew who Lilia was by sight, as one of the two flanking Yuri every time he came out now. He hadn't seen her severe face as close as he had finally seen this night. Didn't know if he'd be anywhere near her. And he knew Gregori by name from the earlier competition, but nothing about him. And. There was a tall girl with short red hair, right?

Edited 2017-03-02 19:18 (UTC)

In answer, Yuri takes out his own phone, flicks quickly through pictures with the speed of someone for whom it's second nature. The one he finds isn't the best, but at least it has his rinkmates in it. (He was testing out a new filter, and it makes Mila's hair look like it's on fire, which is the main reason why he kept it.) She's leaning against the side of the rink, sipping from her water bottle and chatting with Georgi, who's frozen in one of the few candid moments where he doesn't look like he's completely constipated.

He spins the phone around, showing it to Katsudon. 'Mila, and Georgi. They've got their own problems; you don't need to bother with them.' Something in his expression shifts, a retreat from the business-like firmness he's managed to maintain so far. 'Lilia choreographed my free skate, so I'll be with her tomorrow beforehand. She can help you with stretching if you need it.'

(Yuuri will hear the shift in his tone when he speaks about Lilia. It's something that would never come across in English, but spun directly into Japanese it's more polite and respectful than Yuri has ever sounded about anyone.)

He stores away the new name, even though he's not all that surprised about the way Yuri describes them. People with problems. People Yuuri can just ignore. The way Yuri ignores them, and Yuri is being drug along with him. It's a very odd thought to suddenly consider Yuri introducing him to his the world, the way he translates it. This almost ... he doesn't know what to call it.

It's almost helpful. Even brusque. Bulleted. Almost as for granted as his presence.

But he doesn't know what it is. Just that it's different.

Not the same way it suddenly changed again, his voice, his tone, when he says the last words. But it's noticing the earlier that makes him pay even more attention to the latter. It's not how he talks about his coach, the way he mentions Lilia. He can't help but stare a few beats longer. That almost more surprising than anything else.

He's not sure he's seen Yuri show deference to anyone without it laced in acid.

(It's better than that path of the thought that tugs him about being with the person who choreographed...)

"I'll keep it in mind." He might need it. He might need anything he can get his hands on, if he can't figure out how to do it on his own. He hasn't been on his own for all of these months. Hadn't felt like he wasn't in his whole life, and it was disorienting to -- That was it, wasn't it?

How long had it been since he'd last felt that, and suddenly that space was empty? That he hadn't felt alone ... suddenly did?
Because there wasn't suddenly Victor everywhere? Inserting himself into every conversation? Trying to drag him somewhere? Suddenly sliding up and basically clobbering some part of his shoulders.

He's only halfway down his first cup of tea, and already he's running out of things to talk about. But he has to keep going. It's not as if Viktor ever let that sort of thing stop him. Even when he doesn't have anything important or useful or helpful to say, you usually can't get him to shut up.

(It's a long plane ride between Moscow and Japan. A long time with nothing but the thoughts in your own head, if you're flying by yourself.)

'Do you have any other questions?' he asks, as he pulls his phone back and lets the screen fade to black. If Katsudon's ability to ask questions has improved as much as his jumps have, it'll at least be a pleasant surprise.'There might not be time for it tomorrow.'

A sudden silent realization, cutting across his thoughts like a skate blade slicing through the skin of his palm in the middle of a spin: I won't be able to talk to you like this tomorrow.

In too many ways, Yuuri's not surprised by what Yuri says last. That part is normal. The part he says and the part he doesn't, because Yuri doesn't talk to him (or to Victor) except to nash his teeth, glare promised death and retribution, call insults, or turn away brusquely if they cheer him on when he hits the ice.

It's not surprising that tomorrow he won't, it's more surprising that his at all right now.

That he's actually prompting Yuuri to think of things to say to him, to ask of him while he can.

Yuuri looked down at his tea, before raising it to his lips. What would Victor want him to know, tell him to do.

He thinks, first, oddly that Victor would actually tell Yuri how well he did today, and he did. He's come so far with Agape, even if he'd been rushed. His movements sharp, almost reading angry in the beginning of it, before he blew it out of the water, seeming to realize what he was doing and changing course entirely, against himself and whatever it was, pulling it in for an amazing second half.

But Yuuri isn't sure that's the way to go either. Because he did place above him, even if JJ is above both of them.
JJ who Yuri has already mentioned in scathing tones, while threatening Yuuri that he better not trip up on him.

Something else. Something else. Yuri is far more fond of telling him what not to do rather than anything else, so maybe -- "Is there anything I shouldn't do or say near Yakov?" Beat. "Or Lilia?" Think, think. Even the tea is heavy in his stomach, thinking about Victor's eyes, and the way Victor held him so tight those last seconds in the lobby,

telling him to hug Yakov if he was confused. Which suddenly seems like the least correct thing to do ever.

(As though Yakov looked like the type to hug anyone.

As though Yuri hugged anyone else.)

"Anything that they usually say that I might not understand tomorrow?" He assumed most of it might come in Russian, and while he's gotten better at understanding it from Victor -- he's good at reading Victor through the words he doesn't know, piecing it together on tone and action, as well sheer luck, and even the willingness to duck his head and ask, or tilt it and point out, more brazenly than anywhere, with anyone else, that he has no clue what Victor is saying

(like Victor is just spouting nonsense for the sake of nonsense and noise

Because he can; they can).

Edited 2017-03-03 18:48 (UTC)

He hadn't planned for any of this. All he'd wanted to do was get both of them out of the hotel, away from the press and Yakov or anyone else, before the shock had worn off. And now he's having to figure things out, right on the spot, like being in the middle of a flagging performance and knowing that your only hope is to let the momentum of a spin or the glide out of a landing buy you enough time to determine how to make up the difference.

'You don't need to talk to them just to be polite.' Yuri pushes a strand of hair out of his eyes. 'Tell them if you want anything, if there's something wrong with your skates or you need tape or a bandage or anything like that. But they won't bother you if you don't want to be bothered, and it won't offend them if you don't ask them for help. Yakov wouldn't get in the way of anything that someone else's coach has had them do.'

The tea might have helped the tension in his shoulders, but only enough to let it move to his chest, strained like a rubber band pulled too far. It's that tension as much as anything else that makes him glance away then, and mutter:

'Anyway, I'm the one who screwed up today. So they've got other things to think about than what you're doing.'

He can still feel the impact from that stupid triple axel at the start. Hitting the ice right off the bat, like he'd never landed it a thousand times before. All because the agape wasn't there.

It, actually -- it's strange, really, that this is the first thing Yuri says that actually sounds comforting. Not like it's meant to, Yuri isn't trying to be comforting, but it lands somewhere inside Yuuri's chest, and spreads in a comforting way. That maybe he won't really have to talk to them, if he doesn't want to. They won't bother him. He can just go practice everything Victor said, and he's only been handed off in the most basic of ways.

Someone to stand next to him and hold Victor's place, but maybe not in Victor's role, truly, at all.

"It wasn't that bad--" It bursts out of his mouth, without remembering to check with his brain. He's in the top third, even with everything that happened when he burst out of the gate more uncontrolled that Yuri had ever seen him. Something angry ... maybe hurt? He's never sure if there isn't some of that behind every time he sees that flare of fire in Yuri. He can't tell. He's not sure he knows Yuri well enough.

Not sure Yuri wants anyone to know him that well.

Is certain Yuri doesn't want anyone to see any weakness in his armor. Anywhere.

"That was the strongest ending I've seen you do--" He doesn't know where the drive that flares into his voice is pulled from.
He hasn't felt anything this strongly, this clearly, since fighting Victor that he had to go, while Victor tried to tell him that he couldn't.

Like that. It's just a truth, undeniable, and demands to come out his mouth. And if it gives that he's watched Yuri's other performances, between now and then, it doesn't matter. It's a given. They all watch each other. They should be. "--since Hasestu." No. Not good enough. Not true enough. "Ever."

It had been. So driven. Demanding perfection in his correction. Smooth and fluid, pressing for more stamina than ever.

Intellectually, Yuri can believe him. It's meant to comfort, but it doesn't sound like a lie. Even Yakov and Lilia hadn't taken him to task as much as he'd thought they would...but paradoxically, that only makes it worse.

'It still shouldn't have happened.' The fire is no less vicious when he turns it on himself than it is when he directs it at someone else. Colder and quieter, perhaps, but no less harsh. 'I wasn't focused. If I hadn't made it up in the second half, I'd be a lot farther behind you than I am now.'

Especially compared with how Katsudon's routine had looked right before his own. He knows, in a way he hadn't before today, that he never could have skated Eros properly, no matter how much he'd wanted to back in Hasetsu. He needs Agape more than ever now.

(He's not even going to get into the whole thing with the cat ears. Or Katsudon and Viktor cheering for him like a pair of idiots, with smiles that made him want to sail across the ice and choke them both.)

His teacup is nearly empty, but he isn't interested in refilling it just yet. The tension's in his stomach now. 'And it had to be in Moscow, of all places.'

There is none of the vicious return of insult in his response that Yuuri assumed might come from defending Yuri's skating to himself. He doesn't look comfortable with it, but he looks ... he looks like a lot of them do. Between the beginning and the end, between the doubts, the regrets, and the unsatisfied need and inability to look away from the podium.

He looks like Yuuri's seen how own face look so many times.

He looks like Michele Crispino and Emil Nekola and Seung-gil Lee. Like he didn't really place at all.

(He looks like what Yuuri thinks he might look like if he could collect his mind enough, fully grasp onto the shock of second place here in Moscow, not first, again, but still with a near four-point higher score for his program than he made in China, in the first slot. It's all words, gaining too much weight abstracted by feeling. Turning into stones in his guts that are there next an unexpected sudden boulder.)

He can understand the last words, too. About doing it at home. He didn't fail. He placed on the podium for the first day. But Yuuri remembers how much more devastating it felt to not place at home, to destruct at home, in his own country. It's harder. It hits home with more force. Somewhere between that and the lack of the yelling, Yuuri ventures something still on that path,

"You didn't seem--" There's the faintest hum of pause, barely there, not even half seconds breath, of uncertainty for what word, against understanding his thought. "--very yourself at the beginning."

The rage, yes. Yes, that was undeniably and absolutely qualified as something Yuuri associated directly with the boy who sometimes seems a bit demon-monster child at turn. But not on the ice. On the ice, he wasn't that boy. He was focus. Dedicated. His all was in his skating. Showing the world how good at everything he could so he was at so early an age already.

That ... hadn't been there when he'd started. He'd been somewhere else. In something else.

It would be so easy to shut this conversation down right now, and any number of reasons for doing so are crowded at the forefront of Yuri's mind. (Don't make excuses for yourself. Katsudon doesn't care. He doesn't need to know. He's got enough to deal with. It won't help you anyway.) But it's late, and it's been a very long day, and he's tired, and he's currently in third behind Katsudon and that prick JJ, and Katsudon's right there and for once he isn't falling all over himself with apologies or flailing because of something stupid that Viktor said or did. And Viktor isn't there, because he's on a plane and his dog might be dying right this very minute and that, as much as anything else, is what makes Yuri say what he says next.

'Before I moved to St. Petersburg, I grew up in Moscow. My grandfather still lives there.' And once he's said that much, there's no point in stopping there. 'He hasn't been well lately -- he's got a bad back, and he doesn't get out as much as he should.'

A pause, his gaze still fixed on the bottom of his teacup. 'He wasn't there today, at the rink.'

So much of the anger has bled out of his voice that it almost doesn't sound like his own.

He's surprised at the fact Yuri continues to answer, his voice getting lower, softer -- there's more there than even the shift of key his tone had taken speaking of Lilia. For his grandfather. Making Yuuri remember in a burst how little he does actually know about Yuri, even while it's been trampled by Victor's voice.

Victor's voice in every shade (patient, frustrated, understanding, removed, and on ... ).

About how his defeat a year ago, his nerves now, how it could happen to anyone.

That they all held together and fell apart on the same inch of ice, the same centimeters of silver blade, under a stress so overwhelming no one else but themselves understood, and how anything -- anything, especially something that could hit the heart, slip their ability to focus, even think -- could shift the balance of everything.

His own shoulders drop a little more at this whole unexpected turn. This -- seeing this disappointed, softer, not quite but almost sad, side of Yuri. He set his own empty cup down, and picked up the teapot, moving to fill Yuri's cup first. Custom, but, also, sympathetic. Slim words, against the soft burble and splash of the tea. "I'm sorry."

And, then, even, while pulling back to his own cup. "Have you gotten to see him while we've been here?"

The sympathy, well meant and genuine and nearly unbearable, makes Yuri press his lips together tightly. His eyes never lift from his cup as Katsudon refills it, and in that brief interval it's possible to see a vicious internal war written across his face. It's short and ruthless, over before the teapot is back on the table, and then his stiff control is back in place.

'Sheremetyevo.' An hour and a half on the plane, anticipation making it increasingly difficult to sit still until Mila had to tell him to stop jiggling the seats with his bouncing foot. 'He met me there when our plane arrived. Drove me to the hotel.'

Not nearly enough time together, even with fresh warm pirozhki to enjoy, but before a competition there's never enough time for anything. And then to have to leave his grandfather at the door and walk into the hotel, and see Viktor -- preening and posturing, all fake smiles and photographers' flashbulbs, with that cup of coffee that Yuri should have smashed into his smug face instead of smacking it out of his hand.

(Viktor's not here.)

'He might've watched it at home today. It was all over the sports channels.' His mouth twists, and this time when he sips his tea he doesn't seem to care that it's still a little too hot to drink without blowing on it first. 'Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he was resting.' His hair is falling into his eyes again, and he doesn't try to push it away. 'I don't think he would've liked some of the things that were being said about me, anyway.'

Yuuri hasn't perfected saying the name of the Moscow airport in the slightest (the three vowels still don't seem to slide or separate right on his tongue at the beginning), especially not in comparison to just calling it that (aeroport), but he can recognize it when it's said. The name, linking it to the place.

The smooth way it sounds in proper Russian from the young boy.
(Like all the rest of Victor's when he slips in words of it.)

"He wouldn't have cared." It's certainly on his tongue, thinking about his parents, Minako, and Yuu-chan, but it falters on the breath right after the last English syllable. He doesn't know Yuri's grandfather. Who he is. What he's like. "Right?" A little less certain, but without stopping. "He must have been proud to know you were performing here at home."

His grandfather has never been anything less than proud of him, ever. That's what makes the whole thing so much worse.

'You know what the commentators were calling me today? The usurper skater. Usurper.' Yuri all but spits the word out. (It's never a good idea to go on social media during a competition, and today he'd learned that lesson the hard way.) 'Like Viktor's the fucking Emperor of All Russia, and I'm just some little bastard who's trying to stab him in the back, who thinks he has a right to his throne -- '

In his haste, he moves the teacup a little too quickly, and some of the tea splashes over the rim and onto the skin of his hand. It's not hot enough to burn any longer, but Yuri makes a quiet, disgusted noise and lets go of the cup, shaking the water off his hand with a single impatient flick of the wrist. In that moment, at least, it's enough of a distraction for him to lose his tight grasp on that particular flare of anger, and by the time his hand is dry the fire inside him has burned itself out, and humiliation at what he's just confessed to Katsudon floods into its place.

It would be one thing if he'd won all those months ago. If Viktor were his coach instead, Yuri might have had a different word attached to his name. Protégé. Successor. He'd even have accepted tsarevitch, if they really wanted to talk about Viktor as if he were God's Own Anointed instead of a mere national hero. But Yuri is none of these things...and here he is, complaining about it to the one person who probably doesn't have the slightest clue about what he's walked into at the Rostelecom Cup. Who's got enough to freak out about without dumping something else onto him, and wasn't that the whole reason why Yuri dragged them to the bar in the first place?

'Forget it. Never mind.' He drinks some more tea, trying to lower the level in the cup so it won't splash on him again. 'I shouldn't have expected it would be any different for me. Not in Russia, at least.'

Even if Yuuri blinks a little at the sudden vehemence that comes with the next words, leading to the sudden spillage of tea from Yuri moving too fast, and it's not ... it's not that he doesn't understand. Sure, there's a part of him that wants to jump to the defense that even Victor would laugh at that as nonsense. Except that Victor laughs at everything ...

... and none of them are laughing about the fact Victor, even without competing,
holds all the record lines in front of them. All. Of. Them. He'd laugh at that, too.

(Victor who isn't here.
Victor who might not be laughing anymore.)

But Yuuri isn't. Doesn't. Not even Victor as his coach has changed that. Yuuri knows some things have changed, but at the base a lot of them might not have, too. He's still himself, even three-quarters through this year that has been full of more surprises than expectations. It's what he thinks Victor would do that comes to mind, more present than his own pattern for quiet.

To let it peter out. To let it be dismissed.

The admonishments always cut deeper.

(How can someone who can't motivate others motivate himself?

How can someone who can't motivate others motivate himself?

How can someone who can't motivate others motivate himself?)

There's a press of his lips, searching the rim of his cup, a second, before, "Victor wouldn't agree."

"If he had he wouldn't have choreographed your piece, or given you the music." He would have been the worst traits they all known he can be. Flightly, forgetful, dismissive of what doesn't interest him to pay attention to. "He'd say--" What would he say? What would he tell Yuuri, if he was sitting here at this table, trying to pick him up?

"--that it doesn't matter what other say. It's only you out there on the ice. Only you who can show them who you truly are."

It's exactly what Viktor would say. It's uncannily like what Viktor would say. (Always here, always with them, even when he isn't.) But there's something missing from it, and Yuri doesn't know if he can explain it properly...but he has to try. So after a long moment of silence, he lifts his head and fixes his gaze on a point somewhere over and behind Katsudon's left shoulder.

'When I was little, everyone always told us stories about what it was like in the old days. Before I was born. When things were falling apart.' Layer upon layer of others' memories, until they're as much as part of you as your own skin. 'When the ice was bad because you couldn't keep the rink cold enough for it to set properly. Or you had to resurface the ice by hand because there wasn't enough money to run the machines -- or you didn't have machines, or you had them but they didn't work and there wasn't enough money to fix them. When our people went to Europe or America because they had the best rinks, the strongest coaches, the endorsements, the sponsors, anything you wanted. Everything we didn't have.'

Viktor knows. Viktor had grown up with it, taken his first steps on the ice in those hard years. Carved out a name for himself by sheer force and drive and talent, as his country struggled to find itself in a world that had changed so much in such a short time. And though Viktor himself would never say such a thing -- probably doesn't even think of such a thing consciously any longer, knowing him -- there's no denying that his legacy at home is so bright that it casts a very, very long shadow. One that hasn't quite reached across the thousands of miles separating St. Petersburg and Hasetsu, even now.

(In every comment and critique and point deduction, the silent refrain: If Viktor Nikiforov could succeed under such conditions, what excuse does Yuri Plisetsky have for falling short?)

'It's better now, but people still remember.' Yakov. Lilia. Viktor. And me. 'So I can't forget it.' His face hardens. 'And I have to show them -- show everyone -- that I haven't forgotten it.'

He doesn't even know if he's making sense anymore. The tea is starting to kick in, and he takes another long swallow just to feel the hazy warmth in his blood.

Yuuri sipped his tea slowly, trying not to get mired in his own voice, the words that had come from his own mouth. Ones he could piece together, with some effort, but that weren't in the right voice. Except in his head. Victor, still not here. Not here to gasp, overdramatically, and cover his mouth, pretending to cry, like being evoked, or even copied, wasn't something half the world, or more, did.

Even if Yuuri knows he's not half the world, or more. (Not anymore.)
Like them, but something more now, too. Off the ice. (In Victor's arms.)

Something so fragile, and hazy, and new, and suddenly so, so suddenly empty in realization, connection, that it just aches to even cut a glance in that direction of tonight, with Victor slipping further and further away by the minute, Door or no Door, frozen time, or not, unhelping. (Like the thought of returning to that hotel room. Going to sleep alone. Waking up alone. Unbothered and uncrowded. All the silence Victor effortlessly smashed.)

It helps when Yuri starts talking, dragging his attention back to the conversation, in far too large part, because he doesn't get it.

He follows the words, but even when those are clear, he wonders if it means something different in Russian. The way Yuri is saying it means something different in Russia. Something about needing to remember how bad it was, showcase that ... as the reason for why he has to do so well? Even when everything isn't bad anymore?

Trying to piece that into any of skating he's seen Yuri do. As some backbone or side message to it?

It doesn't make sense, so maybe his voice quiet a little, even in refrain, "Then, you'll show them that tomorrow, too."

Edited 2017-03-06 17:17 (UTC)

It's...no. It shouldn't be enough, just to hear those words. Those were words that he'd wanted to hear from Viktor, not Yuuri Katsuki. But would Viktor have been able to say them truthfully, honestly, without the weight that both of them carried? Or would he have tried to ruffle Yuri's hair, and laugh it off with a cheerful you're overthinking things again, Yurio, and joke that he'd been listening to too many grumpy old men like Yakov, pining for their younger days when they'd been pampered by a system that was rotten to the core?

He doesn't know. He'll never ask. He already wishes that he hadn't said anything at all. But there's only one thing he can think of to say in response.

'Then you'd better bring everything you have to give tomorrow, Katsudon, because I won't lose to you in my own home.' He swallows another mouthful of tea, trying to clear the thickness in his throat. 'I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.'

It's still sore at the edges, where he doesn't want it to be, beading and lapping inward.

Like maybe it had been around his feet and he hadn't noticed, but thawing feels like falling toward it.

Slipping into cold water, even with his hands around the warm small cup, even with the warm tea slipping down his throat, familiar and home, when home is far away, further than just a few weeks ago, and his second constant (or its it really ... his first ... ever?) is gone now, too, further than a few hours ago, and he knows what he's saying maybe less than he doesn't.

Striving for someone else, for something else, from that all,
when it only tugs his heart further into the muddle of his guts,

shivering, shifting, nesting snakes, coiling up on it.

"I will." There's not as much conviction as the snap of sound that had come when Yuri insulted his own skating, his own placing, but he tries to push his own will into it. He has to. He has to for Victor. Find it in himself. Not slip, down and down and down, like he did at the Cup. Show them (show Victor) how much stronger he can be because of all he's learned, been given, been taught.

Even if the thought of it, even the trying for it, alone now, just tightens and sours everything even more in his center.

'Good,' Yuri says firmly. 'Because I'll be watching you. And I'll know.'

It's a threat, of course. He's not going to let Katsudon think that he, Yuri Plisetsky, is going to hide away until it's all over. But it's a simple fact as well. He's going to watch every second of it. He needs to know, first-hand, what he's really up against.

Today, the short program, was all about Viktor. (Ugh, what a fucking narcissist, Yuri grumbles to himself, as his tired brain makes the connection for the first time.) Eros and Agape. Seduction and selflessness. His steps, his jumps, his stories, all acted out through them. But tomorrow they're skating to show who they really are, to tell their stories instead of his.

(And to grind that prick JJ's face into the ice while they're at it. Can't forget that.)

There's enough tea left in the pot for one more refill, and without hesitation Yuri picks up the pot and empties it by topping off Katsudon's cup.

'You need more?' he says, a little gruffly, holding up the empty pot. Time doesn't pass properly here; they'll arrive back at the hotel no later than when they'd left it. It'll still be a long night for both of them.

Yuri goes right back to hard nails and threads, which (even if Yuuri's mouth tightens in the unexpected surprise of it coming so suddenly) does not hit with the same kind of power as more than half of Yuri's threats and posturing do. Not when it's only seconds ago Yuri looked as uncertain and young as he never had before.

Speaking about what had tripped up his ever constant unflappability. His grandfather. His country.

Maybe Yuri didn't understand entirely. Maybe it was something lost in translation. But it still changed things, too. That moment's glance (not stolen, not blundered on to, but given to him) at something between and under all the sharp edges and defiant demand of the world.

Something fragile -- no, important enough to shake everything,
and to need, maybe even more, the sudden sharp demand for control, to be met.

It's not that he won't be watching, not like he won't know, but it just comes differently to Yuuri's ears, his head, watching Yuri pour the tea, before asking that question and Yuuri shook his head. "No. I should probably try to sleep after this." That with a faint movement of his now, once, again, full cup.

Even if sleep felt like the last thing that would come to him, he should try.
Victor would want him to. His performance would need him to. And it ...

... it just might be easier to take this back to that empty room, where Victor wasn't,
and just put his face in his pillow until there was some update or the morning, and the free skate, came.

Yuri's shoulders twitch in a shrug of acceptance. At least the Katsudon doesn't look as disoriented anymore -- he can probably take care of himself from here. (Probably.) And considering how his own hip is starting to throb, it might be a good idea to get some ice from the bar when he takes the tray back.

'Yakov's room is two down from mine, to the left as you leave,' he says. 'Though he'll probably be stuck dealing with some of the old drunks from Rostelecom and Minisport tonight, and he sleeps like the dead, so unless you have an emergency you're better off waiting until morning to talk to him. We'll be down in the lobby early -- don't think we're going to come kick you out of bed.'

Rostelecom and the sports ministry. Yakov had mentioned to him that regardless of the outcome of the cup, the sponsors would want to speak with him and Mila after the free skate...with a look in his eye that said that Yuri would be in serious trouble if he was anything less than scrupulously polite during their conversation. Bad enough to be in third after the short program, with a fall right at the start. Worse to think of how polite that conversation will have to be if he can't place higher in the free skate.

(And if Katsudon doesn't qualify -- )

There's a confusing mass of something weighing on his chest, something that's probably nerves and definitely exhaustion and more than a little bit mint-scented, and he's already babbled about enough things tonight to have him cringing everytime he replays this little tea party in his mind. So he sticks with the simple, the basic, the obvious:

'Do whatever you have to do.'

Except that isn't what he'd do, is it?

He's not that person. He's never been that person.

Yuri is, with a ruthless and bare lack of shame for that fact. Yuri, over there, with his uncaring shrug, who keeps reminding Yuuri, just by existing, over there, trying to look suddenly icy aloof and untouchable: that he isn't at all. There are lines even Yuri doesn't want crossed or to have to cross, things he doesn't want to give up and do without, himself.

He took a sip of his tea, grateful it was cool enough not to fog the bottom of his glasses, even as feeling torn settled into a too perfect, even if not perfectly felt, answer. "I'll do what Victor and I have been practicing all this time, as though he were still right there on the other side of the wall."

It's the right answer. Even as it's sour in his stomach and on his tongue, he knows its right, too. That it should be enough. Has to be. They've practiced these routines thousands of times. Over and over and over, until he could do them in his sleep, and in costume like it was his very skin. Until his muscles and his bones knew it at least as well as his mind, better -- in case they had to carry where focus couldn't.

Right there. On the other side of the wall. And doesn't Yuri know what it's like to try to imagine that the one person you want to be watching you is really there, even when they aren't?

Stupid Viktor. That damned dog of his had better be well enough to do triple toe loops by the time he gets off the plane at Fukuoka.

Yuri leans back a little in his seat, swirling the dregs of his tea idly with one hand. 'At least one of us has to kick JJ's ass tomorrow. Better if we both do it.' He gives Katsudon a final hard stare, as if to drill home exactly how much he expects out of both of them tomorrow, and then looks away. 'So...good luck.'

Don't make me regret this. A quiet pang, like the memory of a bruise. I don't want to regret this.

That was what he'd said to Yuri, wasn't it?

What felt like a million hours and days ago, even though he knew it wasn't. It simply felt like it suddenly had become that. Like everything between now and what had come before now was somehow somewhere somewhen else.

But he'd said that, hadn't he? When he wasn't entirely sure what else to say when Yuri stopped his elevator and pushed into it. It wasn't exactly not-filler for the silence, but he hadn't not meant it either. Even if Yuri was all prickles, and Yuuri wasn't positive he wanted to be trapped in an elevator with him, it'd been good to see him, too.

Even if all Yuri said was that he would suffer a crushing defeat here.

There's a second of silence even after that, maybe making it a touch too long, but even still, "You, too."

He knows -- picking up his cup to finish off the tea in it -- that Yuri means it, this time, about the luck, about placing, about beating JJ, and he knows he means to do his own best, too, even if ... Even if. It's the only option if he's going to make the Grand Prix Final. To get the medal he's sworn time and time again he'll get. To even have a reason for Victor to stay after tomorrow.

This is all fine and dandy and probably a historic triumph for international figure skating diplomacy or some shit, but it's getting them nowhere fast. 'Suppose I'd better open the door for you,' Yuri says with a sigh, as he starts to slide out of the booth. 'Or who knows where you'd end -- '

He has his eye on the door and one foot on the floor before the real implication of his statement catches up with him, so suddenly that it knocks the breath out of his lungs.

Even as his words die out in mid-sentence, his mind is already racing so fast that his head is spinning, because he knows exactly where Katsudon would end up. If Yuri had been desperate enough to succeed in finding the door to this place anywhere other than his bedroom in St. Petersburg, who's to say that it won't work the other way, for someone who was equally desperate -- even more desperate -- to be somewhere else? Why shouldn't the door open up onto one particular random storage closet in Yu-topia?

Katsudon could go home.

(Why the fuck hadn't this occurred to either of them earlier?)

It would make absolutely no sense for Katsudon to show up back in Hasetsu when he ought to be in Moscow, but does that even matter right now? The thought is overwhelming, almost frightening, and Yuri's sure that some of his uncertainty must show on his face as his gaze flicks from the door back to Katsudon. If it does, he's past the point of caring.

'The door,' he says, under his breath. It's the only way he can keep his voice under control. 'If I open it, it'll be the hotel. If you open it -- '

He doesn't even want to finish that thought. He's not sure what would be worse: if it didn't work, or if it did.

It's like tripping without moving.

It catches him like -- he doesn't even know what like.

Like the boulder the snakes were making of his guts, of his already entrenched anxiety about today, about tomorrow, and now Maccachin, and Victor gone, and Victor if Maccachin isn't ... , decided to drop on to the floor. Hitting his feet, gluing them, for just a moment too long, to the floor of the bar, when his eyes suddenly went to The Door, bypassing Yuri altogether.

Just as innocuous and simple as it has been the whole time since they walked in.
Yuuri isn't even certain he'd looked at it until now. Not while coming in. Not while sitting.

Except nothing like that now. Innocuous. Simple.

Tangling his ribs right into his lungs. Branches and grates becoming iron bars pressing in and in and in. Even when he can't breathe it. Can't even think to breathe. Because that must be impossible, right? Except that he's never been quite sure that word applied here. With its magical bar of appearing and disappearing nearly everything, so far as Yuuri can tell.

(Not to mention the nauseatingly unsettling window. The existence of it entirely.)

None of it sticks. Nothing. Yuri is talking. Again. But Yuuri can't make his eyes track away from it at the right time. His shoulders turning, but his eyes refusing to leave it except for a second. Long enough to be certain, not of what Yuri is saying exactly at first, but more just that his mouth is moving. He is talking. Before his eyes are back to the door again.

Impossible.

(Possible?

Who is he to say?)

And if it did --

How did that thought finish. It drags. It's a sharp pain like cutting his palm on a blade unexpectedly. It's want and denial so vast it feels violent. Bigger than his body. Than the bar. That Victor could be on the otherside of an inch or so of wood. Close enough to touch. To just launch himself into the arms of, lose himself to.

(Victor's head tucked down against his hair, those long arms wrapped all around him tight. Laughter filtering through Yuuri's ruffling hair as he spoke through it, through Yuuri's very skin, weaved into his words, his voice, no matter which language.

He could be there. With Victor.

Victor wouldn't have to be alone either.
No matter what might happen there.)

Except.

Except.

Except. It's all wrong. Too.

All the wrong place. Something upended in the nest of his stomach is an even harder rock hardening at that. Obstinant. Terrified. Sickened at the vehemence of his own flip, his own reaction. Desperate want. Because he's not supposed to be there. Not in Hasestu. Not even if he wants to be. (Not even if he wants Victor beyond an understanding of the word want. Of anything that could ever try to compare in so small as four letters. When the space Victor filled is empty for the first time in almost a year.)

He's supposed to be in Moscow. He needs to be in Moscow.
He has to skate. Has to compete. He doesn't hide.

Not anymore. Not since Victor.

( ... not even without Victor?)

He can't place. Can't get to Barcelona.
Can't keep Victor at his side.

If he isn't here.

Except.

Except he can see his hand

( -- when did he start trembling?

And ... when did he make it to the door? )

In the air

( -- even if it does
-- even if he doesn't

-- does

-- might

-- can't)

Trembling, in the air, imposed over the door knob

( He has to know. )

Right before it, and The Door, vanishes entirely when his hand settles on it.

Quite a lot happens all at once.

Yuri's not sure that he's ever seen Katsudon move that fast off the ice. It's entirely possible that he's never seen anyone move that fast, on or off the ice. One moment, he's watching Katsudon's expression shift into something that makes his own hands clench reflexively because it's too much to look at directly (he wants to rip that look off his face, it shouldn't be like that, no one should have to look like that), and some misplaced fight-or-flight instinct that he's never been good at suppressing makes him dig his nails into his palms to provide a kind of insane counterpoint to it. The next moment, he's out of his own seat a split second too late, because it's just in time to watch as Katsudon reaches blindly for the door handle...and to Yuri's eyes, his fingers seem to pass right through it.

Like it's not there.

Like it had been there for him, and then it wasn't.

Like he'd seen it disappear before his eyes.

(It's a small, twisted, wretched, helpless feeling, dredged up from a time almost before memory, when he'd tried to help set the table and a too-full glass of water had slipped out of his fingers and shattered on the floor. It's liquid spreading inexorably across tile and light reflecting off the fragments and a pleading voice that at first he doesn't recognise as his own. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it -- )

(But it doesn't make the glass any less broken, does it?)

When he reaches Katsuki's side, he doesn't hesitate to take hold of the door handle. The very solid, all-too-real door handle that will give at the slightest pressure of his hand. But he doesn't open it, not just yet.

'I shouldn't have brought us here.' His voice is a cold half-whisper. His gaze is fixed on the door handle as if he could melt it from the force of his glare alone. 'Go back to your room.'

Because there's nothing more he can do. He's not what Yuuri Katsuki needs, or wants, and what more proof of it is there than this?

So he turns the handle, and the sterile light of a Moscow hotel corridor floods in around the edges of the door as it opens a crack.

It hits like --

-- it should have --

-- fingers finding nothing but air.
Eyes nothing but blank wall.

And. He can't breathe. He's not sure he ever was. But he can't. At all. Now. Relief and insane panic feel like slamming the ice. There's only coldness and something so hard slamming every part of his body, unable to breathe. The weight of impact. The bite of ice. Burning everywhere. Freezing everywhere. The shock. Panic. Dread. Shame. Embarrassment. He can't tell if he wants to tear up. Or breathe out. Or pound the wall. Or say no until he can find or lose his voice. If he wants to be aware he'd wanted this, too.

When nothing holds. Nothing stays. Except the wall. Except. Inside his head is a kaleidoscope suddenly.

Victor's face above him when he woke up this morning. The walk to the rink, an arm thrown over his shoulders. Skating back to him after warm-ups. Fighting in the hallway. The worried look in Victor's eyes. About Maccachin. (About him.) The knowledge Victor hugged him tight before leaving, but everything is a wave of cold numbness. He can't feel that in his head. Victor's arms. (The last time Victor kissed him.) Can't hear the sound of his voice.

For a moment everything is White. Brown. Grey-Silver. Blue-Green.

Silence screaming from every pore. Numbness spreading like a disease.

Before, just as suddenly, in what must be seconds but feels like years, feels like making Yuuri reorient with more unprepared pain for the shift of the wall, again, when Yuri pushes inward, grabbing the empty air (and suddenly it isn't, suddenly the door is back, suddenly the knob is turning under his small pale hand), and Yuuri can't tell if being sick might be easier.

Easier than watching the knob turn. Easier than hearing the cold-bite to Yuri's voice has returned.

(He's made a fool of himself. He's not supposed to have wanted. Not supposed to have gotten up. Not supposed to--
Everything is too bright, too solid. Except him. He feels so small. Paper thin. Insubstantial. The idiot Yuri always calls him.)

The door opens on the hallway they'd come from, when Yuri pushed them in here instead of into his own hotel room. Yuri ordering him away, and the insult (to his being weak and being it in Yuri's presence again) is there, he's sure it is, even when, for some reason, Yuuri can't ask about or look to or point at, he doesn't tack it on to the beginning or end of either of his hissed sentences.

Yuuri nods, whether he meant to speak completely irrelevant to his mouth --

(He will go to bed. He will skate tomorrow. Victor or Mari or his parents will call when they can.
Even he doesn't believe his own lies, even if none are lies, when he says them this time.

Everything will be the way it was always supposed to be before they came here.)

But he doesn't move.

And there it is at last: the anger. Beautiful, blissful anger. It burns away enough of Yuri's extraneous emotions to show him an escape route, a way out for both of them -- the second in as many hours. He's got one chance to make this moment work .

His free hand catches hold of the upper back part of Katsudon's arm, right below the shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make it clear that this isn't a opportunity to do anything but listen.

'So now you have our schedule, yes?' he says in firm English, forcibly overriding any lingering translation magic provided by the bar. Their shared second language sounds rough and crude after the fluidly translated Russian he'd been speaking for the past however many minutes, but that's most of the point. It's unmistakably Yuri Plisetsky's voice ringing out in English in the empty hotel corridor, deliberately pitched for an unseen audience. 'If you're late, we'll leave without you. Now get the fuck out of my room -- I want to sleep.'

His grip shifts, switching to a hand at Katsudon's back. And there's just enough pressure to propel him forward, into the corridor, without actually shoving him head-first out the door...which, coming from Yuri, might as well be gentle guidance.

All the same, he doesn't shut the door just yet. He waits, one hand on the door and one on his hip, allowing the anger to settle on his face in his natural flat stare. It remains to be seen whether he will have to literally kick Katsudon's ass down the hall and fling him into an elevator before they can both pretend that they'll be getting any sleep tonight.

(Viktor would have handled this better. Made it look easy. Made it look natural.)

(Viktor isn't here.)

Edited 2017-03-21 13:47 (UTC)

Contact is a shock. Another in the dozens and dozens that seem to be buffeting through him like strong, bone-cold, winter wind. But the pressure (real pressure, not quite to pain, but real, unimagined, this time with a location, a reason, a pintpoint exactness, when his eyes find the hand on his arm) helps. Oddly.

Easier not to question why. Answers haven't been forthcoming for minutes.
(Even Milliways, the impossible place where nothing is impossible, said no.)

The English is rough, ruthless in his ear, all harsh Russian accents (nothing like the glide of Victor's inflections). Demands his attention like the hand on him. On his arm. Then his back. Not asking, because Yuri never asks. But even more than the original, hard order, made even harder.

Because Yuri wants him out of his room, his space, near him, too. Like he's sullying even the air. There's a part of him trying to say that's absolutely normal. The same as every other time he's been near Yuri. The same as Hasestu months ago, and those seconds right before his skate today.

Except.

Minutes that feel like more years. He remembers that face. The one Yuri made.
He remembers the tea, and Yuri talking about them together. Wishing him luck.

(Except.

It doesn't want to hold either.)

It doesn't matter (or it matters more than he knows how to translate with everything else he doesn't know how to translate, suddenly feels like it's all in a language he's never been taught) because he's already stumbled the propelled steps in the hallway. Found motion again. The lights too bright for late night, and there's only one place to go.

(Their room.
The one Victor arranged.
The one Victor won't be in.

The one Victor won't return to.)

Not yet.

Or is it -- not still?

He looks back over his shoulder, searching for something, the words Yuri had just said maybe. Newest insult jangling ice shards into everything else nebulous and overwhelming everywhere -- he's suddenly so tired, in every bone, made of bricks (not music) even if he's sure sleep won't come easy. But he remembers anyway. The words. The insult.

"I'll be there." It's deflated, even unwavering.

Before he does turn back toward the hallway and start walking back to the elevator.

Edited 2017-03-21 14:42 (UTC)

Yuri watches him leave. Stands there in the doorway, making sure that Katsudon doesn't turn around, doesn't need anything else from him -- but then again, why would he?

'Fuck you, Viktor Nikiforov,' he whispers in Russian, the barest exhale of breath, and he has to close his eyes because they're starting to burn. From exhaustion, of course.

When he steps back into the bar and shuts the door behind him, everything feels detached, slightly out of phase. But he can't leave just yet. He started this whole thing, and he has to finish it. The empty teapot and cups go back to the bar proper. While he's there, a muttered request for a bag of ice, which appears without fanfare or comment. The coldness radiates from it into his hand as he carries it back to the door, and he takes out his room keycard again.

Outside. Close the door. Hear the locking mechanism click with an unpleasantly final sound. Look around, pretending as if he'd heard a noise or something.

(Katsudon's gone.)

Swipe the keycard. Open the door...and it's an empty hotel room once more.

The next time he gets a bright idea about helping someone out, he'll keep it to himself.

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Moscow (and Milliways): Rostelecom Tea Time [1.08-1.09]

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