Victor sounds confident in what he says and doesn't go about looking like he has any doubt about it the next second, or those after that one. Victor, who sounds absolutely confident in almost everything comes out of his mouth in a given day. Victor, who is lying there staring at him quietly, those beautiful, ever bright eyes, so certain in a way Yuri's not sure he's been certain of anything in his whole life.

The combination of Victor asking a question and answering it himself, which isn't all that un-Victor in the slightest, draws up the same thought he's had any number of times today, and more and more per day this week as they got closer to Rostelcom, and Russia. Maybe Yuri doesn't quite realize his fingers tighten a little, even if his gaze goes down toward the bed between them when he decides to brave saying it. "They'll wish it was you."

It's not new. It's been the truth since Victor announced. It's just greater here. These are Victor's people, in Victor's country, where he was their unbeatable, genius, world champion skater for more than the last decade of Yuri's own life. There weren't many ways he could imagine them loving this. Victor on the sidelines. Victor on the other side of the wall. Victor standing behind someone who didn't even have the grace to be Russian. They'd want him. Not Yuri.

They already did, but they'd want him even more here.
They'd be watching Yuri so much closer, and less charitably, for it.