Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-03-21 08:09 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-03-21 08:09 pm
Entry tags:
Moscow: Pirozh-katsu!...and the Rostelecom Cup Free Skate (1.09)
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.
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.
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(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 so frustrating. So frustrating. Yuri can see how it should look, a vision of smooth lines and fluid turns and compelling steps superimposed like a ghost over this too-careful, tremulous performance. Through the spiralling music, he can see where Viktor's touches have blossomed into something incredible, something that he wouldn't have thought possible when he and Katsudon skated together back in Hasetsu. Agape and Eros together can't hold a candle to what this performance could really be...and if the only reason why he's not seeing it here today is because Viktor Nikiforov doesn't have his fucking priorities straight, Yuri will gut him like a fish the next time they're in the same time zone.
You abandoned him, old man. You left him here. None of us can help him; we're not what he needs here. How can he skate this piece properly when the one person who's supposed to be seeing it isn't here to watch him?
'You idiot,' is what actually comes out of his mouth, a furious hiss that's directed at both Katsudon (who's right in front of him) and Viktor (who isn't, but deserves it more). And suddenly, he's got his hands cupped to his mouth, because of a bare handful of Japanese words he can recall there's only one that matters here, and in a sea of Russian and English cheers maybe it'll get through to him, maybe it'll be enough: 'Ganba -- '
A low whistle cuts him off, and Yuri's head whips round to see a certain asshole Canadian, Jean-Jacques Leroy in all his self-satisfied glory, smiling at him (looking down at him) with a too-knowing expression.
'Yu-ri,' he drawls pleasantly, his North American vowels turning Yuri's name into something sweet and cutesy. 'All supportive now that you've clinched your spot in the Final, eh?' Not quite laughing at him, which makes it that much worse. 'Cheer for me, too, will you?'
Yuri's got a clear shot with a hard right, and even with the height difference he could wipe that smile off that prick's face in one blow. But suddenly, Lilia's voice strikes the air like a whip-crack of command: 'Yuri, let's go.'
Fuck. Fuck, he can't stay. Because this is Moscow, and there are important people he has to pretend to give a shit about, and this is the price he has to pay for doing the only thing he has ever wanted to do with his life. There's nothing he can do. Katsudon really is on his own.
(Fuck you, Viktor Nikiforov -- whatever hell you're in right now isn't nearly hot enough.)
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Victor's voice echoes, blurs with his, about flubbing when he does.
He can do this. (He can.) They've done this before. (He has.) Even if Victor were here, it would still only be him, alone, out here on the ice. The only one who could skate this program. He can do this. (He can ; has to.) He'll push through. Yurio look like he'd kick the bucket on his last three-jump combination. (Idiot!) He has more stamina than Yurio.
He's in the air, again, and this is breathless. The right way. Just for a second.
How many times has Victor told him that? A joke, a laugh, a complaint about his stamina. Hours early, hours late, more and more and more, not wanting to stop until his body or Victor makes him. Because Victor sees him. Victor always sees him. Whether Victor were with him or not, it would still feel this tough. On the ice. On the clock.
The triple flip passes that same as the axel. Not easy, but better. Leaning into the movements, giving himself to it. To the music. (To Victor.) Nothing else. Simple. Keeping it simple. He is the only person who can skate this program with this much appeal. This much feeling. Everything lengthens, even as the speed never changes. The music winding through his arms and his legs, body following.
Another triple axel. The single loop. A triple salchow. They all burn, his muscles, but the transition is smoother. There is no pop. There is no use of the wrong foot at the wrong time. He'll hold a death grip on the tension of his rotation. He does. There's no time for more than the briefest glance at relief, the briefest flicker of pride. (He knows where he's going.) Another triple axel, and straight into another triple flip, and.
These steps. (These steps he loves.) This story he loves. (This story of his love.)
He is the only one who loves this program Victor and he made most in the world, and he's not finished yet. (The air is gone, and it's just the music, just his hands in symphony with his feet, just his feet in symphony with the music.) Making it. Meeting it. Demanding it. Of all he has left. All he was, and ever will be. This isn't where it ends. This isn't where anything ends. (He'll only be done when he gets the gold with Victor.) Then. Only, then. Only then.
It fills him, floods him, sends him, chasing hard (harder ; then harder still) through his next combination. Stays, even when he overbalances, when he catches himself on his fingers (and refuses to fall any further). No further. No. He's not done. (He's not.) Not even as the music is pulling him toward the end, he way his sit spin sends him upward, and the music is dying as the crowd gets louder.
The blur over his fingers, when his arms flies out and stops, holding, is wrong (wrong shape, wrong color ; somewhere else Victor is watching him, Victor said), but the pounding in his head doesn't keep it. He holds the close seconds that feel longer than any of the ones he just skated. (His body shaking everywhere.) Harder to hold still suddenly than the war to keep moving. The hardest program he'd ever skated. (Ever.)
Before falling to his knees, one elbow and forearm, the other hand, face nearly meeting the ice itself.
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Not that it's any easier for the stuffed suits, really. After an utterly insane performance like Yuri's, their congratulations are a little nervous, the handshakes quick and not inclined to linger. Between Lilia Baranovskaya's silent and forbidding gaze and the coldly fanatical gleam in Yuri Plisetsky's eyes, no one quite seems to know what to say to them beyond the usual platitudes. (At least Feltsman is a man they can joke with, drink with -- how do you work up the nerve to make small talk with a Bolshoi legend and a child who has a demonstrated death wish?)
Yuri's replies, to direct questions only, are monosyllabic. Exhaustion, of course, is a good explanation for it, but he's never been more alert in his life. He'd just caught the tail end of Katsudon's performance, seen him slump to the ice under the weight of his own exhaustion. The television volume is too low, so he can't hear the Russian commentators, but his jaw tightens as he sees Katsudon start to recover enough to head for the kiss-and-cry.
Don't pity him, Yakov. The thought burns his mind. Yell at him. Tell him off like you'd tell me off, or Georgi -- or Viktor. Don't let him think this is the best he can do.
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He's not Victor, because Victors not here. The winded breaths forcing air into his lungs remind him.
Which makes it a little more surprising that he doesn't say anything at first.He gets his skate guards and jacket from where he left them before heading out, while Yakov hovers like an impending cloud. No. Like a barely held in volcano. That Yuri just keeps expecting to start and doesn't, and he has to wonder if he did that. It he's going to get nothing from Yakov, because he's given precisely nothing to Yakov since this day started. He can't think clear to know what he should think of that.
They end up walking toward the Kiss-and-Cry and a juice box is pushed into his hands and he can't focus really expect on breathing and drinking. Isn't entirely certain when he ends up sitting down even. The grey and spotted edges of blurred vision, his muscles still screaming at most every moment, gulping his drink, even though his stomach is threatening to send it shooting right back out, but the cool liquid on his throat is the only relief he can feel. Can't stop.
"Привет." Yakov's voice is the same cracked whip of earlier. Making Yuri blink, and look over. "You totally failed to take advantage of the program Vitya made for you!" And there's the intensity, bulging eyes and slashing words, even in faulty English, Yuri was expecting, has seen on cameras, focused on him, through the blur of grey and spots and down a long hallway, even two feet away. "Why didn't you practice for the possibility that you might flub a jump?"
He's just like Victor. Which is a strange thought when Yakov is saying, "Victor never did, either." Comparing them instead, the same, while Yuri isn't sure he has more in him than to just sit there and stared, dazedly, barely even able to feel his thoughts, no less the words shot at him (and Victor). "I guess he never learned differently as a coach."
Yuri's still staring, at Yakov's rapidly moving mouth, more than hearing, when the crowd goes into a roar and they both have to turn to look up the screens. Where the mirror image of themselves, along with his results pop up. His free skate pulling up a 172.87, which seems to start the shock, and ends it with his, still staring, at the fact it says he got third place. With everything that happened ... he got third place?
Yakov grumbles, "That's a higher score than I expected," putting Yuri's feelings into words faster than Yuri can. Like Victor, he thinks. Victor who gave him to Yakov. (He's in third place.) Who isn't that terrible. Wasn't. (He didn't come in last.) He should have listened better to what Victor had said. "What's wrong?"
Yuri turns to Yakov, seeing, and not seeing, and still not quite able to, and he does what Victor told him to do first. (He's in third place. He might--) Last night. In the lobby. (The thing he wouldn't have even hesitated from doing, from knowing was coming next, at the end of his skate, if Victor had been there, the right blur at the edge of his fingers, but never blurred in his head.
He throws his arms around Yakov and hugs him, hard, burying his face in that rough jacket and scarf. "Спасибо."
(He's in third place. He made it. He did it. Maybe it'll only last the next five minutes. But he did.)
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The number barely registers. The rank does.
Third place. Third place.
More than a few of the people in the room have started to pay attention to the results as well, not least because Feltsman is on the screen when he should be here with them. That's Nikiforov's skater? The Japanese one? Low murmurs. Could've been worse. But, then, compared with yesterday....
Yuri's teeth are gritted, listening to them. Like any of you greasy apparatchiks would know a salchow from a sausage. Suddenly, he can't stand being in this room anymore -- but then movement on the screen catches his eye, and he inhales sharply through his nose, because why the hell is Katsudon hugging Yakov?
The camera cuts away before Yuri can figure out exactly what's going on in the kiss-and-cry, because that prick JJ is about to take the ice...and it's also at this moment that a horrible wave of fatigue, his body's delayed response to being pushed to its absolute limits, makes him weave a little on his feet. Shit, I need to sit down --
Bless Lilia for all things, because she comes to his rescue with a hand on his arm -- right where his upper arm meets his shoulder, just like he'd done to Katsudon last night -- and some blandly calm remark that he only half-hears about how Yakov will be with them in a moment, gentlemen, the press will need a word with Yuri about his performance today, and Yuri obediently lets her guide him out of the room.
Dimly, he supposes that he should watch the last skater of the day, to find out whether he's actually won the gold that he nearly killed himself to secure, but all he wants to do is sit down somewhere quiet and not move until he's told to do so.
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Maybe the shocked confusion on his face last night
is the one reserved for Victor,
like he's utterly foreign and alien is his.
The rest is still too much of a blur. An interviewer ask him how it feels to be in third place ... and he says something. He barely has the acuity to clarify that he's aware he is and isn't. JJ is going on next, JJ who won gold yesterday, and he knows what that could mean, but he can't touch it. It's hazy. When his answer isn't declarative enough for them, they ask for Victor would feel about it, and Yuri blinks.
Yuri gets so far as putting Victor's name in room with JJ, his thoughts about his score comparing to JJ, and --
Suddenly Yakov is snapping something so sharp, short, and blunt it can't be more than ten words, that makes even Yuri jumps from the crack of the first word. But it's the reporter still looks like he just got hit in the face with a ruler for implying something dirty. Swallowing and trying to play it off as a joke. That, of course, his coach must be proud of him wherever he is. There was never a question.
Yakov gives the man a look Yuri is sure he never wants to be on the receiving end of and says he's leaving to find Yurio.
Where Yuri ends up will be settled within ten minutes, but where Yurio will be already is all but set. He'll medal no matter what JJ manages to pull off. It's understanable, and he's Yurio's coach. He hadn't even gotten to congratulate him on getting first place, because he had to be there, at Yuri's side, for his skate. Yuri doesn't watch him go, because there are still more reporters, other reports asking him questions now, and JJ's performance is starting, too, behind them all.
His jumps are flawless right out of the gate, and his confidence is loud in every single movement he makes, and Yuri feels clarity coming to him with the weight of the building starting to drag down his stomach. Churning with the still unhappy juice, and siezing around it, like it's an invader. When JJ even makes his hydroblade look majestic, the tips of wings on his fingers that barely grace the ice itself, Yuri wants to slink off towards where the curtains to go backstage are.
He doesn't want to be out here to watch the rest of it.
He knows this part better than he knows this whole year.)
The audience is going crazy. The way it did for Yurio, and Michele. Which makes it even more confusing when, right off stage from them, he, and everyone near him, stop to listen to the people who are speculating up about his scores to go with these, and for a moment he can't even comprehend the words he hears. Until he does. Until he looks back to JJ. (JJ will take first, take gold, in the freeskate.) Posing on the ice. (Which would slide him into fourth.) The stylized double J's up. (Yurio still in second, bound for the silver, again.)
And Michele still in third.
And. But. His brain doesn't want to wrap even when it grasps the words being spoken.
He's in fourth today, but with his second place yesterday, his total score maps him the same place as Michele on the board.
He hasn't been able to breath, but it sinks, and sink, and sink, suddenly, through his head, chest, stomach, to his feet.
Five-hundredths of a point difference. So slim ... and it changes e v e r y t h i n g .
Because Michele will get the bronze today,
to stand on those boxes, to skate the exhibition --
outranking five-hundredths of a point
is going to go to Grand Prix Finale.
It falls through him, hitting every rubbery bone and screaming muscle, like he might hyperventilate if he breathed in.
He's going. (He's going.) He's going. (On the narrowest slice of a blade.) He's going. (He made it.)
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'I hope you are satisfied with the outcome of your break with sanity out there?' There's no preamble or pleasantries, no congratulations, as he stumps over to Yuri's spot. 'In spite of your efforts to do yourself in, you're still on my hands, and I will expect to see that final combination from you a dozen times with no mistakes once we're back in St. Petersburg. The score totals are out, and -- '
'I know.' Yuri's voice is slightly muffled under the towel. 'Second place.'
'Save it for Barcelona.' Which is a direct echo of what he'd said at Skate Canada -- save it for Moscow -- but it holds true all the same. 'What's done is done, and if you're going to eat your heart out about it, do it somewhere other than the podium. The sports photographers don't need to see you scowling at Leroy for the entire ceremony; I'd like at least one picture of you that doesn't look like a hooligan's mug shot.' He pauses, and the silence lasts a little longer than his usual moment of consideration before his next attack. 'Anyway, in spite of his placement, that Japanese friend of yours is going to the Final as well.'
'He's not my friend.' Still muffled, though a little more forceful. 'He's just Katsudon.'
Yakov huffs. 'Regardless, you can't count on him to choke there like he did here. Remember that the next time Lilia has you in the studio. Now get that towel off your head and meet me outside in two minutes. You have half of Minisport thinking that you're a loaded gun with the safety off, and most of Rostelecom's senior management betting on whether your heart will actually explode in the Final' -- and for the first time, the old Russian's mouth twitches in thin amusement -- 'which is not bad for your first Rostelecom Cup.'
The fleeting moment passes, and his face returns to its usual flat lines. 'Two minutes, I said. Do whatever you have to do.'
Exactly one minute and ten seconds later, Yuri pulls the towel off his head. His eyes are dry, and his expression is set in stone.
The medal ceremony is a formality, as formalities go.
Jean-Jacques Leroy holds his gold medal up at just the right height to let his brilliant grin glint directly above it.
Michele Crispino has a soft, sad smile that looks very good on camera, no matter what his innermost thoughts might be.
Yuri Plisetsky is a model of self-restraint.
(Yakov doesn't get his photograph.)
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He's nearly grateful for the existence of JJ coming off the ice, because it means he can clear away from them.
Anyone else would call it running. But he can't move fast enough to run yet. His body is still in shock. He walks back to the curtained off areas, and slips into them. Finding himself a chair and when he's sitting down, he's planning to get some water, and find tissues, when he can get back up. But back up is an exhausting thought, and down, not moving, is almost sheer bliss, even with everything throbbing, in comparison to the standing, and moving.
He never does get them, because he ends up watching the broadcast of the medals from backstage.
The chair is close enough for that. Yurio looks about ready to take JJ out the whole time, but he doesn't do it.
Yuri pushes himself back up to his feet a minute or two after the broadcast ends. His legs are angry, but at least he doesn't feel like a spinning top. Sloshy. It's a better word. It never made sense. It does now. Everything is slipping (he lost) and shifting (but he won). He should find Yakov. He should -- his finger rest on his phone, over the pocket in his jacket, but don't slide in.
He lost, he won,
He isn't expecting Michele's sister to suddenly coming running at him, Michele in the background, medal-decked and flower-holding, to congratulate him. It's all he can do to just stare at her face, while she says suddenly, "I knew you'd make it."
It's so unexpected and so completely what Victor would have said, and suddenly he's leaning forward, and hugging her. A hand on her shoulder, and one wrapping her back, thanking her. (Even at the odd thought that she is so very small, and her hair is everywhere.) Which starts Michele yelling behind her, and when Yuri looks up, he's not even surprised. It's not a surprise. He remembers. He does. Two years ago. And for five heart-pounding minutes earlier. He knows what Michele is feeling.
He remembers, and he throws his arms around Michele next. (Even when he screams, hands up, not touching Yuri.) All but fainting and falling, dramatically, like his flowers. Which brings the next loud voice into the area, with Nekola, shouting about Mickey, and he just throws himself there.
It feels like jumps. Jumps in combination. Airborn, one toe touching down between. One to one to one to one to one--
Nekola is taller, his face fits right, but the goatee scratches, even if his giddy readiness about hugging is closer;
Seung-gil, he hugs even harder, even startled and hands up, too, he remembers the tears, his own, how it felt;
When JJ comes in, too much swagger, it's just one more impossibly-possible leap, as the medal bites back;
And when the door opens on Yurio, Yurio, Yurio, who took him to Milliways last night --
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It's a waking nightmare that will startle him out of a sound sleep in a cold sweat at least three times in the next week: Katsudon, with unseeing eyes and outstretched arms, shambling toward him with mindless (or is it single-minded?) purpose. Looking like something out of that one horror film he'd picked up from a bootleg street vendor's stall back in St. Petersburg, the one he nearly hadn't been able to finish watching on his own. And for what reason? To choke him? To shake him? To hug him?
(Oh, crap, he'd hugged Yakov -- )
And with that realisation, Yuri, for whom the fight-or-flight decision usually comes down in favour of the former, opts for the uncharacteristic latter: he bolts.
'Whaa?' One glance over his shoulder tells him that it's worse than he thought, it's worse, it's so much worse, Katsudon's finally snapped, he's being pursued, and though he knows exactly how fast Katsudon can run his own poor abused legs are only just able to stay ahead in the chase. 'Stay away from me!'
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(Something about the voice is as right as it is as wrong. Something about the hair ... shouldn't be?)
But it's more like the backfiring of a car. A relieving, golden glorious burst, and then sputtering.
Sputtering. Sputtering. His legs don't have this in them yet. They gave it all away already. Start shaking.
He finds the world gummy and uncertain. The floor holding his feet to long. The air stealing his speed from him.
It's not defeat (he won, but lost, but won), but still he loses sight of Yurio, and his steps slow until they are disjointed sways between his weight having to shift between his feet when he takes steps. Did he know that happened when he walked? He must have. He ends up wobbling down the hallway, arms still up, he thinks for balance, or was it for something else? Looking for ... something.
Something ... just out of reach.
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Emile is the first to manage to put thoughts into words. 'What...what was that all about?'
'Maudite marde,' JJ grumbles, though he sounds more than a bit shaken. 'Katsuki's a train wreck.'
'He looked so lost,' Sara says, her own voice wistful and pained.
Draped over Emile's arm, her brother moans quietly. 'He hugged me....'
To everyone's surprise, even Seung-gil is shocked into speech. 'I don't understand.'
It's left to Yuri to take two steps forward and turn on his heel, sweeping them all with a scathing glare. 'All of you can go to hell,' he declares with finality, and then stalks off on his interrupted journey to the men's locker room.
He'd told himself last night that if he had any more bright ideas about helping someone else, he'd keep them to himself. It's a good thing that the idea starting to take shape in his head isn't a very bright one, possibly not even the right one. He'll have to give Yakov the slip for it. He can't get Mila to cover for him while he does. It probably won't even be worth it.
But bad ideas have never stopped him before.