Yuri spends too much of the walk with his eyes darting in a loop. Around him, to the people, back to somewhere a few feet in front of his shoes and then to his side, when Victor explains certain things. Next to them. In the distance. It's not what he was expecting but he's not sure what he was expecting. It's not quite the same to imagine Victor could be the embodiment of a whole country, no less a city, and somehow, not certain there even was a something he was expecting, he's not expecting it.
(He's definitely not expecting to round one of the corners and catch Victor's face on a far away building billboard, he can't tell whether is a hanging or attached there, three, or four streets up the way they aren't going, with letters beside it too far away and too small to read, in a language he probably wouldn't be able to read anyway, even if it was right above them.)
Victor stops them by a cafe wher his stomach gives some combination of whining about wanting desperately for more, being unable to survive without it, and gurgling about already being stuff with unknown foods it hasn't made up its mind about being in him, and he doesn't buy anything. He samples what he's handed, but he knows the fact he feels hungry has absolutely nothing to do with being hungry. He can feel it attaching itself to the back of his spine and the bottom of his lungs, like another whole lifeform.
A presence that has so much more to do with being here. Wanting to bury himself again the ramping realization of being here.
Rostelcom is tomorrow, and he'd been on a strict enough diet all of the last few months. One meal doesn't change that. Or being a foreign confusing place, that is only foreign and confusing to him, and not Victor, putting a glass wall of longing and uncertainty into him. Between them. Being hungry, as a reaction to all it, doesn't change that. It's actually the most normal thing that could be, is, happening.
Well. And the siege of faces and cameras at the door. Sending him back toward ramrod stillness, like his spine only had two settings for the day -- and when exactly had he relaxed even enough to feel that snap back, frozen-stiff? Somewhere between Victor's laughing and constant familiar chatter, a tune he never could shut out. Not like the crowd. Not like the newest barrage of questions, beginning to come fluently in both languages as different crews of interviews make their appearances finally in Moscow, here, too.
He isn't expecting Victor's suggestion, but it doesn't take even needing to glance around to know he will. Even if something tightens and sinks in his stomach all at the same time. But away is a relief, and Victor always liked this. The attention. Yuri nodded, and let Victor excuse him. In a way Yuri never could have, where the interviewers were smiling and tittering good-natured, supportive laughs at the reason for Yuri's exodus.
If he stops just before turning the corner toward where he'll find the hallway to take him to the right tower of the hotel, just to watch Victor surrounded on all sides by the lights and microphones and buzzing questions, it's not like Victor or anyone around Victor is looking at him to catch it either.
no subject
(He's definitely not expecting to round one of the corners and catch Victor's face on a far away building billboard, he can't tell whether is a hanging or attached there, three, or four streets up the way they aren't going, with letters beside it too far away and too small to read, in a language he probably wouldn't be able to read anyway, even if it was right above them.)
Victor stops them by a cafe wher his stomach gives some combination of whining about wanting desperately for more, being unable to survive without it, and gurgling about already being stuff with unknown foods it hasn't made up its mind about being in him, and he doesn't buy anything. He samples what he's handed, but he knows the fact he feels hungry has absolutely nothing to do with being hungry. He can feel it attaching itself to the back of his spine and the bottom of his lungs, like another whole lifeform.
A presence that has so much more to do with being here.
Wanting to bury himself again the ramping realization of being here.
Rostelcom is tomorrow, and he'd been on a strict enough diet all of the last few months. One meal doesn't change that. Or being a foreign confusing place, that is only foreign and confusing to him, and not Victor, putting a glass wall of longing and uncertainty into him. Between them. Being hungry, as a reaction to all it, doesn't change that. It's actually the most normal thing that could be, is, happening.
Well. And the siege of faces and cameras at the door. Sending him back toward ramrod stillness, like his spine only had two settings for the day -- and when exactly had he relaxed even enough to feel that snap back, frozen-stiff? Somewhere between Victor's laughing and constant familiar chatter, a tune he never could shut out. Not like the crowd. Not like the newest barrage of questions, beginning to come fluently in both languages as different crews of interviews make their appearances finally in Moscow, here, too.
He isn't expecting Victor's suggestion, but it doesn't take even needing to glance around to know he will. Even if something tightens and sinks in his stomach all at the same time. But away is a relief, and Victor always liked this. The attention. Yuri nodded, and let Victor excuse him. In a way Yuri never could have, where the interviewers were smiling and tittering good-natured, supportive laughs at the reason for Yuri's exodus.
If he stops just before turning the corner toward where he'll find the hallway to take him to the right tower of the hotel, just to watch Victor surrounded on all sides by the lights and microphones and buzzing questions, it's not like Victor or anyone around Victor is looking at him to catch it either.