Moscow: Pirozh-katsu!...and the Rostelecom Cup Free Skate (1.09)

[yuri_plisetsky]

To say that Yuri had been able to go back into his room and go to sleep after leaving Milliways was an accurate but misleading statement. He had indeed gone back into his room, spent ten minutes staring out the window at the Moscow lights as he iced his aching hip with the bag of fresh ice he'd grabbed at the bar, half-assed some stretches, taken a shower in water turned up as hot as he could stand it, pulled the blackout curtains over the windows, checked his phone alarms, and flopped into bed. Between the day's physical (and mental, and emotional) exertions, the scalding shower, and the several cups of mint tea he'd consumed, it was only a few minutes before his eyes closed. But the sleep that came over him was less like sleep and more like simply not-being-awake: it was a heavy, overwhelming sort of blankness that wasn't particularly restful or refreshing.


When his alarm goes off, shrill and disorienting in the darkened hotel room, it takes a moment for him to resurface from the blankness into a groggy half-awareness as he paws at his phone to shut off the noise. As consciousness trickles in, it brings with it a steady flow of memories of everything that had happened the night before -- Viktor, Yakov, Katsudon, the hotel, the bar, the door -- and Yuri grinds his teeth hard enough to hurt as he rolls over and pounds the lumpy hotel mattress twice with his fist.

Idiot. You idiot. Could you have fucked things up any more than they already were?

On any other day, he'd pull the covers back over his head and give himself five more minutes to wallow in his own misery before hauling himself out of bed. But Lilia is expecting him at her door in fifteen minutes, with all of his gear and a polite good morning for her. He can't sit around and sulk. Besides, there's still an asshole Canadian who needs taking down a peg or two or twelve -- and considering how badly he'd screwed up yesterday (on and off the ice) he can't afford to think about anything else.

Comments

[theglassheart]

Which just really, it opens a completely different kind of can of worms. Though he's not certain he ever expected that one not to be opened. Not when Victor is gone, and everyone knows Victor's gone, and he keeps hearing his name and Victor's name, and Victor's name more than his, whispered in rooms he's just walked into, and even by people who don't realize he's walked up nearby, and the reporters are bound to know and want to know more.

Even if he demurs with things that mumble off. Too sharp, too jangled, too quiet.
It's a family emergency. It's private. He's fine. It'll be fine. Yuri will what they've practiced.



He runs away nearly as soon as not actively rude. (Any longer and he may have melted into the floor.)

Though he has absolutely nothing to run to. There's no Victor waiting to tell him what he should because this or that looked too tight, looked too sloppy. There's so many hours between right now and the next time he'll step back on the ice. Nearly one-fourth of the day, two hours until the first group of Ladies Freeskaters, and it suddenly seems vast. The space of a desert. Empty and burning. Sand in his eyes, sliding down the tunnels of insides.

He takes a seat, not paying too much attention to the Ice Dancers who've started practicing, or the larger than normal crowd backstage. His finds himself hunched over, hands pressed together to his mouth, trying to think only seconds later. He needs a plan. He needs something to hold on to. Something to guide him. Something to hold on to. He's never done this like this. Never. Never without Celestino even.

He should have planned this last night. He should have asked Victor on the phone.
He should have asked for more. Should have said more than one or two words.


Victor said, it won't be so different (and some part of him, something curled in his chest shudders, throbbing worse than his feet and the muscle in the back of his shoulder, too raw for ruthless reminder), and maybe Victor's not wrong (maybe Yuri is wrong ; Yuri is so often wrong). Because he needs that, too. He needs this part to still be the same. He needs to make it through this. He needs to warm up. He needs to keep snacks light. He needs to not lose it completely (again).

He needs to show them. He can do this. Victor hasn't wasted this year on him.




(His foot, even with his toes pressed hard into the floor, still starts bouncing.)

[yuri_plisetsky]

'Dedka, I thought you weren't feeling well.'

Even as he says it, he's trying to hide his concern, and it only makes him come out sounding petulant. Much as he's happy to see his grandfather -- he nearly fell down half a flight of stairs in his haste to get outside, because he's here, he's here, he came to see me, he came to watch -- Yuri knows how hard the seats in the Moscow Small Sports Arena can be. It's a long time to have to sit in one of them and wait for one person to perform, if your back is bothering you. The pain of a bruised hip is nowhere near as bad.

Oddly, his grandfather doesn't seem to notice. Brushes it off completely, like he always does when Yuri tries to get him to look after his health more. (Eat better food. Go for walks. Move to St. Petersburg, where the air is a little bit cleaner and a two-bedroom isn't that much more expensive.) 'Just try these,' he says, and then there's a paper bag, and suddenly the bag is in Yuri's hands.

The bag is slightly greasy and full of warm lumps, and Yuri doesn't have to open it before the rich smell tells him what's inside. Pirozhki? Now? It doesn't make sense. He doesn't usually eat a full meal the day of a competition; his grandfather knows this better than anyone. And even then, he wouldn't eat something as solid and loaded with meat as a pirozhok mere hours before he's scheduled to take the ice. Still, they're Nikolai Plisetsky's own recipe, so of course he'll have one now, but he's not some little kid who needs to be placated with a snack --

The first bite is a revelation.

Instead of the seasoned ground beef he'd been expecting, a swell of warm and chewy rice (rice?) fills his mouth, and his teeth bite down hard on something firm in the middle. And there's something else mixed in with the rice and the meat, something savoury, and then there's a little burst of vegetable on the tip of his tongue, just like....

Stunned, he looks down at the interior of the half-eaten pirozhok, and he can't believe his eyes. It's the same basic yeast dough on the outside, but the inside is as far from the traditional filling as...as Kyuushuu is from Rostov-na-Donu. 'There's pork cutlet, scrambled eggs, and white rice in here?!' he exclaims. 'What's with these pirozhki?'

'It's katsudon pirozhki!' his grandfather declares triumphantly.

And then, before Yuri can say a word or even make a sound, there's a warm hand on his head. A familiar weight, so easy and perfect and reassuring that the katsudon filling can barely make it down to Yuri's stomach for the lump that's formed in his throat. The lump only swells further when his grandfather smiles at him and says, 'Eat them, and do well in today's free skate, Yuratchka.'

A handful of simple words and a warm paper bag...and somehow, it's everything he'd been missing. Everything he hadn't known he'd needed.

If only he were performing Agape today --

(Viktor isn't here)

-- but not even that thought can quell the smile that's dawned on his face, cheeks flushed with an excitement that fills and warms him like the pirozhok in his hands.

'Okay,' he says. Because for the first time all day -- no, more than that, for the first time since he left Hasetsu, since he'd been beaten, since he'd lost -- it really does feels okay. More than that, it feels right, like that moment in an arabesque when it goes from painful to perfect. This is his city, his country, his home. Third place after the short program? He's come back from worse. The sponsors and the sports ministry breathing down his neck? He'll show all those snide bastards that he's no usurper skater, no second-rate upstart, no pale shadow of a living legend, but the true heir to the empty throne.

With Viktor gone, I'm the only one who can win. Everything should be on my side.

And afterwards, once he's crushed them all and the Rostelecom gold is his by right, he'll have the rest of the katsudon pirozhki that his grandfather made for him. And then maybe, just maybe....