Yuri can’t stop the startled question that comes out of his mouth, matching both Yakov and Yurio's own. He doesn’t feel it coming, and he hardly manages to more than hear it before he’s forgotten it came and happened and went, staring at the back of Victor, all bent pleading posture, and bright hair, in something deeper into baffled shock that even makes sense.

Somewhere is must make sense. (To Victor it must make sense.)
But not to Yuri, whose eyes have gone wide along with his mouth.

Yakov Feltsman? Victor wants Yakov Feltsman to take over for him tomorrow? As Yuri’s coach? The only coach he’d ever had? The man behind the best skater a decade and half? Who never once seemed to crack a smile? Yurio’s coach?

Results notwithstanding, he’d done his own last Nationals alone.




The idea is insane. It's downright horrifying.