Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
Moscow: Rostelecom Cup, GPF Qualifer Short Program (1.08)
The Rostelecom Cup is the last event of the 2014 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. In the men's figure skating division, two competitors -- Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan and Christophe Giacometti of Switzerland -- have secured their places in the Grand Prix Final. The remaining four slots will be determined by the final standings of the six skaters competing in Moscow, based on their scores in previous ISU Grand Prix events:
- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada
As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...
...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.
On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada
As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...
...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.
On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
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The one small blessing and it seems almost hardly one in the midnight dark, during coming awake too many times: he doesn't actually have to be concerned with a too early start really. Even if he has plans, routines, requirements for the morning, starting before the dawn, if dawn even shows up under all the Moscow winter gray, they won't skate until mid-evening. They won't even have their longround of on-ice warm-ups until just before midday, and even then Ladies, and Pairs, and the secondary, on-ice, Opening will come before they perform, still.
Hypothetically, he could even be elsewhere for those, until it really was their time. He could be here.
In the hotel. In his bed. Again. Like Victor had drug him last time. Not that he'd likely sleep more, or better.
But Victor had said he spent all his pre-skate time sleeping, and that left it tucked somewhere in his head. An option.
It's still dark when Yuri gets up, and does his first round of stretching and exercises for the day. Keeping all of it gentle, but pushed to where he can feel all of his sore muscles ache and shiver back under the strain he makes them hold. He'll go harder in the greater time after breakfast, and he might have Victor work on his hip. But, after breakfast. Which Yuri agrees should be downstairs. Whatever's available and recognizable he'll take, and the rest at least will be filled with familiar things for Victor to eat, instead of having to limit himself to some ordering menu.
The downstairs is crowded, but it's the normal cacophony. Bunches of people here and there. Some in the same colors for countries and some in clumps he can tell are mixed, because they some have their country jackets with them, and they don't match. There's another pang, looking at this sea of tables and heads, the noises of them rolling at him, that makes him feel even more adrift again for the same reason as last night. He doesn't know anyone here like last time. He hadn't thought it mattered so much then, and yet suddenly it stood out.
Yuri breakfast plate ends up having more on it than he could ever eat, but it's not entirely like he'll admit it was easier to go on stacking things than quite knowing what to do more than half-stutter at the people who were likewise spooning and placing things on their plates, but, also, wishing him a friendly good morning and asking how he thought the day would go. On the other hand, as he watched the room, while shoveling bites in, maybe he would finish it.
He wouldn't eat another meal in the next ten or eleven hours, in case his nervous took a truly disastrous turn.
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Yuri has a tendency towards silence when he's preparing for a performance, so Victor does the talking for both of them, chatting lightly about the various options available for breakfast, the stretches he wants Yuri to focus on when they get back to the room, what the morning's practice should look like –– along with commentary on the hotel itself, the weather, what Moscow was like the last time he was here, and where they should try to go sight-seeing if they have a chance after the short programs. His preference before competitions was always just to go back to the hotel room and sleep until Yakov called him, but Yuri, with his tendency to get lost in his own head and spiral into panic and uncertainty, usually prefers structured activity.
Even with a day this long ahead of them, that's doable. It only means they don't have to rush from one thing to the next, and Victor can appreciate that: a long breakfast, followed by a return to the room for Yuri to stretch and for Victor to work out knots in his shoulder and the small of his back and help manipulate that hip until movement is easy and fluid. Yuri's nerves don't seem as bad this time around as they had been in Shanghai –– his success there might have improved his confidence –– but Victor won't leave anything to chance, if he can help it.
No more breakdowns in garages because he misread the situation or didn't know what to do.
( just believe in me ! )
He can do that. Yuri has nothing to prove to him: he's known this was possible all along.
But it feels good to get to the rink, breathe the cold air, and watch Yuri trace his familiar patterns across the ice.
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For more an hour, in the quiet of their improvised studio, Yuri might as well be in another ballet lesson. Full, deep stretches, some light calisthenics, and a simple set of turns and jumps counted out in the 6/8 time signature of Agape. A pause for some water and additional stretching, and then a set of slow, deliberate adagio movements -- the fondu to rehearse the act of sinking into a jump landing or a sit spin, the devéloppé for strength and control and balance over his working and supporting legs, and others, all counted out to the same time signature as before. In this windowless room they might be anywhere in the world, or nowhere at all; for Yuri, all his focus is bent on his reflection in the mirror, searching for the vision of strength and beauty that Lilia demands of him.
It is during the pause that follows, as Yuri sits on the floor to drink more water and stretch his legs again, that Lilia speaks words beyond instructions for almost the first time that day. 'You were testing different arm positions on your jumps, in the days before we left,' she says, a neutral observation that is anything but neutral. 'Are you intending to use them to increase your technical difficulty points?'
At her question, Yuri freezes in mid-stretch. He recovers in the next second, though he knows immediately that his pause was a second too long. 'If I have to,' he says, without looking up.
'Hesitation.' Lilia shakes her head. 'You must commit to them fully, without reserve, if you choose to do them. It will throw off your balance if you change your mind at the last second.' But today is not a day for criticism alone, which is why she does not leave it there. 'The program is strong enough without them. You've improved it since we returned from Canada; that much will be evident from the moment you step out onto the ice.'
It had been a very long series of plane rides between Kelowna and St. Petersburg. Plenty of time (save it for Moscow) to think about what he could have done better. 'I won't change anything unless I have to,' Yuri says, drawing his legs up under him in order to get to his feet. 'But if I have to,' he adds, more firmly, as he stands, 'I won't hesitate.'
It's enough of an answer to end their practice on. And it is also nearly time for the men's first warm-up session, so without another word they leave the conditioning room and head down to begin the first day of the Rostelecom Cup.
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Victor has the long list of what he wants Yuri to work on, and they do that, but at the sametime he prattles about other things, too, and Yuri doesn't know that he could explain how much that helps. It's, maybe, not even the words. Victor talking about Russia, all of which and whom will want Victor, today today today especially. Reminding him of every gasp of his name, and the sign on the building, and being told, so close to his ear it was singed in with shock, it was a sin to keep Victor to himself.
Even when everything, it circles, settling, making his heart speed up too often, he waits for it to start tripping him up, to bite in and start shaking him in place, shattering his thoughts to shredded startling jumps -- and it doesn't, which only makes him quieter, more sure that it's about to start every next minute, next second, jumpy at the shadows of shadows that haven't fallen on him yet. Because it is yet. It's always yet.
Which doesn't stop Victor's voice, whether it's instructions or commentary, and somehow that helps. Moors him against falling away, drags him into focus every other step from what drags him right out of it. They play a teeter-totter game, and maybe Yuri has short sentence answers less often than nods, or agreements to do whatever he's supposed to next. But it still helps. In ways, he has no words for.
As does finally getting to go to the rink. As much as he doesn't want to start this day, he wants to start it, too. It's a nauseous restlessness knotting in his stomach, wanting to run both forward and backward, even when it's not yet an insane spiral. (Yet.) Not even when he's in the building (yet), in his clothes (yet), and handing Victor his guards (yet), listening to Victor tell him, again, what he thinks Yuri should work on (yet) and what he should avoid overdoing (yet).
Outside the ice, the crowds are already filling more than half the stands. The warm-up itself feels too short, and too long. Looping circles and easier moves that won't be complicated by the close skate of four others while on the outer circuit. He waits his turn through the three people in the order before him -- watching more than he should, he knows, it's not about comparing, it's about showing, but he still watches them all, marks what they work on, where it fit into the things they'd done before, and what's new -- before taking his turn in the center.
Five minutes that feels more like one, but he practices his combination. He considers hard at it but doesn't do the flip. Even if there's a temptation in it, and he swears he catches more than one or two people watching him closely. Something to throw to the wolves in his bones. Yuri throws himself into his closing spins and drops. His other quads. There are turns and long switches, giving himself into the speed he can't take with others right by him. His axel is a given, and he does it even when he knows it won't falter.
He does it because it gives it to himself. Last. Like breathing.
Before gliding out at back to the edge when he should.
It's only ten minutes more and those go just quickly.
Ten minutes, before the bell is ringing, and the bite under Yuri's skin isn't about performing, isn't about eyes, it's a banging need telling him to do more, push harder, now, now, now, not to stop. Even though he does. Stop. Or at least follow the group of those closer, when the bell had sounded, back to the gate between the ice and the walk around the arena. Where Victor is waiting, and he takes a tissue first to blow his nose and fold over twice, then rub at the sweat on his cheeks and forehead.
"That wasn't too bad." He'd definitely had worse warmups. At least he hadn't fallen down this time.
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That's a pleasing thought. Of course, Yuri should be comfortable in any rink he has to skate in, but Victor would have to be blind and deaf as well as unobservant to think that Moscow might hold a greater challenge for Yuri than Shanghai had, and not only because the line-up here is likely to be more difficult to beat. He hasn't forgotten Yuri's tear-soaked confession in the garage ––
( I've been secretly wondering if you want to leave! )
–– and though Yuri hasn't brought it up, he wouldn't be surprised if there are some worries about his own ties to this city and this country that he'll have to dispel.
It doesn't look like it yet, though. If anything, Yuri seems more relaxed than Victor's seen him yet before any competition, so maybe things really are improving. It's a pleasing thought, as he hands over the water bottle for Yuri to take a sip. "Does anything feel tight? How are your blades and boots feeling?"
Everything should be fine, exactly as they left it the night before, exactly how it should be. They've both done this dozens of times; Yuri knows what to expect, even if Victor has to constantly remind himself of what he should be looking for and remembering as a coach.
In many ways, this is the most important competition so far for him, too, a constant reminder as he's pushing the gate open and handing Yuri his skate guards, one after another.
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Even when he'd lived in Moscow, he'd never trained here. It's a far cry from the outdoor public rinks he first skated on, wobbling through swizzles and testing out shaky crossovers on blades that were nearly as worn and fragile as the ice itself. It's bigger than the rinks he'd done his earliest training on, before he'd chosen to leave home for St. Petersburg in order to dedicate himself completely to the sport. It's the Small Sports Arena, where in a matter of hours he'll be skating as a contender for one of the four remaining men's Grand Prix Final slots.
Once he's on the ice, there's no turning back. This is where he'll rise or fall.
When he pushes away from the wall, he lets himself glide almost to a complete stop before he picks up the pace again and considers his plan of attack. Above all else, at this first warm-up he needs to take the muscle movements of his work with Lilia and translate them into an almost exaggeratedly slow run-through of his steps and turns. The technical tests of his jumps can wait for the immediate pre-skate warm-up; it's the transitions and the performance elements that he needs to lock in completely, those critical PCS points that so frustratingly elude him when he focuses too much on nailing the required jumps and spins. He can't risk thinking too much about the story itself just yet -- for now, he needs to remind his body of what it has to do to let that story shine through.
Smooth moves. Clean lines. The bright calm and unshakable serenity that come with unconditional love.
Even when it's time to leave the ice, they still have several hours to go before the first group of men's skaters go on. Yuri knows that his grandfather won't even have left home yet -- but again, he can't seem to help pausing before he steps off the rink, letting his eyes scan the innumerable rows of seats just for a second in some sort of twisted anticipation.
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Aside from Victor throwing out words like that, like somehow it's as simple as that, and Yuri knows he's thinking too fast. Maybe even breathing too fast. That it's conveniently spiked at the end of half an hour of warming up, on the day when everything is a hundred ratchets tighter and higher. But. Still. He works as sipping his water slower to try and make his heart find its way back to beating at anything like a normal speed. Victor goes on, not seeming to even care -- or register? -- what he said, and at least it does give Yuri something else to respond to.
Shaking his head as he finally lowers the water bottle. Caps it, so that he can tuck it under his arm, up near his armpit, where he can use the most muscle to hold it and still move enough of his arms, to use his fingers to take one skategaurd at time in one hand, using the other to slide the snow off his blades, before hooking his guard over his blade. Answering as he reached for the second, "Nothing feels loose."
He would have been able to tell out there, because of the speed, the movement required by his turns, or the inability to take his weight in landing his triples and quads, especially, but nothing had felt off. (Nothing more than himself. Occasionally, and that was normal, too.) His boots were well worn in. His blades were still sharp enough for deep edges, so long as he took the time, even if it was only one second, all in, to do them right. Didn't get caught up in his head.
Didn't try to race too fast to correct mistakes.
Didn't make too many mistakes to not be able to come back from.
(Didn't lose Victor entirely when, or if, he lost this last round of the entire Qualifier to the Prix.)
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He steps back to let Yuri through and falls into step next to him. "Your jumps looked nice and clean. I want you to stay loose so that hip doesn't tense up and give you trouble later."
There are hours still to go, but there are ways to fill them all: walk around the Small Sports Arena, watch the other skaters and discuss the programs (or gossip about their various personal lives), get a snack, stretch out. Anything to keep Yuri happy and relaxed until it's time for him to change into his competition costume, slick his hair back, start readying in earnest.
Victor doesn't suggest taking a nap again. It hadn't worked last week, and Yuri doesn't seem to need it today, anyway. He looks a little pale, but his jumps were strong and he's focused in a way he wasn't before the free skate in Shanghai. No: weariness isn't something Victor's concerned about today. He knows Yuri is ready, has every faith that this will be an even better performance than the one offered only a bare week ago. There's no quad flip in Eros, so he doesn't have to worry about Yuri attempting a jump he hasn't yet fully mastered. The choreography and jumping passes are so well known now Yuri could almost certainly win at least silver with them in his sleep.
It's just that there are people everywhere. Reporters and representatives that he's sure he never had to deal with to this extent before, because Yakov always herded them away somewhere, coaxing with tidbits of information or threatening to blacklist them if they bothered his skaters right before a performance. They don't bother him, but Yuri gets easily flustered, so Victor is grateful that the lion's share of the attention won't come until after the performance itself.
It's getting closer.
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When one of the camera crews comes by, collecting B-roll footage to be spliced into the broadcasts, he decides to give them a bit of a show -- left hand against the wall and right leg up in a full vertical stretch, graceful and natural as if it's the easiest thing in the world. (What, can't everyone practically dislocate their hips without thinking about it?) It's something that might be expected from one of the more experienced skaters in the ladies' division, but hardly in the senior men's group, and one of the camera operators actually flinches at his flexibility. But he barely has time to glare at them properly before they're gone without a word, none of them eager or foolish enough to brave the twin dragons of Yakov Feltsman and Lilia Baranovskaya to get too close to their skater before the short program.
(Almost time. Yakov should be getting a call any minute now.)
The six men's skaters are split into two groups, and that's where chance and fate collide like a badly timed twist lift in a pair skate. Yuri's not sure which of his more infamous countrymen he must have pissed off in a previous life, but it was probably Stalin or somebody equally vindictive, because that's the only satisfying explanation for why he's ended up assigned to Group 2 with the pig and the prick. Even jamming his headphones in his ears and cranking up his music to near-maximum volume isn't enough to drown out Jean-Jacques Leroy's loud, braying voice. (Maybe if he drinks enough water, he can drown himself from the inside-out and die without ever having to hear it again.) Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the asshole Canadian applauding for some reason, saying something to Viktor and the pig that Yuri doesn't give enough of a shit about to put forth the effort of translating it to himself.
Lee. Nekola. Crispino. The pig. Then him.
Until then, he can lean against the wall with his hood up and his headphones in, and do what he should have done yesterday afternoon: pretend he doesn't know them -- any of them. They won't get anything out of him.
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Time isn't his friend. In one minute, time isn't moving at all, and he's never going to make it to tonight, because tonight is never going to get here, and in the very next, half an hour or an hour has passed, and he's going to hyperventilate because if he blinks too many times it's going to be his turn to go back on the ice right now.
It's unnerving, and it flips back and forth in his head, as the first group of the ladies takes the ice, and then the second. As the first group of the pairs skaters take the ice, and then the second. He watches some of the earliest ones, when they end up anywhere near a prompter or a tv. Even though Victor seems dedicated enough to not keeping him incredibly close to them, or at least watching him when he's watching them.
It isn't long after that the first three of their group head for the curtain, none of them returning, and Yuri checks his earplugs even though he's been switching between them and his headphones for hours. But it's silence right now. It's just the sound of the wheels in his head spinning, around and around and around, while he gets up from having been at using a roller on the lower muscles of his thigh below his hip.
It's too close really to just stay focused. He ends up back up, walking, but even walking isn't what he wants, and he ends up standing still, hands balling into the fabric of his jacket, so they won't shake, thinking through the circuit of his routine. How many beats. The lineup. What could use more focus. Losing himself in a series of deep breaths, that even if he wants them to go incredibly slow, are still a little too fast on the tail end. But that's right when he notices the flapping, clapping hands in his vision of Jean-Jacques Leroy.
Who is staring directly at him. Mouth moving through silent words. Expression expectant and triumphant.
Startling Yuri into a surprised sound as he reached for his ear plugs, apologizing. "Oh, sorry. I didn't catch that."
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It's Emil Nekola now, and then Michele Crispino next. Skaters he isn't worried about, and barely thinks about as anything other than dominos to be knocked down before Yuri's performance.
(At any other time, he would enjoy socializing with them, even if he forgot everything they said or did fifteen afterwards, but that's social. This is competition.
No matter what side of the rink wall he's on, there's nothing he cares about more for the next hour.)
Yuri is listening to music next to him, while Victor leans on the wall, arms crossed, going over everything they'll need in a continual checklist: tissues. Tissue box cover. Water bottle. Skate guards. Jacket. Gloves. Yuri's jacket. Idly flipping through what he should say to Yuri at the gate to inspire him, to motivate him. The things he needs to check: Yuri's costume. His boots. Laces. Whether he needs water or lip balm. All the last-second adjustments Yuri trusts him to make, and to make sure are set and ready.
All of which is infinitely more important than the Canadian skater –– what's his name, again? –– sauntering over with that wide, white, sharktooth grin, asking about quadruple loops. It's difficult to tell who he's trying to talk to: the words seem directed at Yuri, but the skater –– JJ? Jack, something? –– pushes right past him to beam directly into Victor's face. "Victor did the same jump at last year's exhibition."
Which is true, but it's annoying to have one of Yuri's competitor's bring it up, as if it might shatter Yuri's carefully controlled nerves. Victor has never liked this fellow much to begin with –– he's one of the few skaters he's never bothered to get to know, even though he is apparently climbing the ranks rapidly in Victor's absence –– and he likes it even less when the man –– George? Jason? –– continues. "I want to see that again!"
It would be annoying at the best of times. This is Yuri's competition, not his, and just like he'd told the reporters last night, he wants everyone to focus on Yuri, and Yuri's performance, and Yuri's progress. The never-ending digs at whether or not he'll be returning –– or even if he could return –– are growing increasingly wearying, and it's only been a week since Yuri confessed he'd been worried that Victor wanted to leave.
There's really no other response than a flat, uncaring expression, arms still crossed. "I don't recall."
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The Group 2 skaters catch the tail end of Crispino's performance, and to Yuri's mind it's nothing to write home about. He can tell that the Italian has a decent sense of the music and the story he wants to convey, but there's something weirdly stilted about it. He's obviously got something up his ass here today, and it shows -- to Yuri, it's like watching a bizarre inverse of Georgi, where it seems like they should be watching Crispino vomit his emotions out all over the ice but instead he just keeps swallowing them back and plunging ahead. But at least he finishes without choking on them, and goes to meet that sister of his over in the kiss-and-cry to wait for his scores.
It's a packed crowd in the seats, no hope of spotting individuals with any amount of ease. There are plenty of flags and banners, some professionally printed and some homemade, all just bright splashes in a sea of blurred faces. Yuri's as loose as he can be, runs through his last warmups as fast as he dares, but that restless energy is starting to build up to the point where he can't take it any longer. And yet when he clacks his way over to where Yakov and Lilia are standing, the look on his coach's face suddenly stops him cold...because it's not Yakov's usual stolid mid-competition expression. If anything, he looks oddly tired, and more than a little downhearted -- and that's where the dread starts to creep in.
'Your grandfather called me a few minutes ago,' Yakov says quietly. He pauses, and shakes his head slowly. 'He won't be able to make it here today, Yuri.'
Strange, how the blood in Yuri's veins suddenly feels like it's turned into ice water, but at the same time there's something thick and hot and heavy spreading through his chest. He barely hears himself murmuring a question that isn't a question at all:
'Dedka...you're not coming?'
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It was Victor's tone, more than anything JJ didn't ever say to him again or said to Victor, that stuck with him. Part of the cycle of his ramping heartbeat as time continued to grow shorter and shorter. The second skater of the first group already being replaced by the third, and Yuri can't entirely stand still, and he can't entirely not watch the tv. The scores. The jumps. The footwork.
(The same way he finds himself unable to not wonder everytime he finds his eyes drawn back to Victor. Victor, here. Victor, in Russia. Whether Victor thinks he's ready. Whether Victor is distracted by everything here. If he's changed his mind now that he has come home again. Whether Yuri, actually, is ready. Victor's all too elusive calm, and the cold, door shutting, rejection in those words he'd said earlier.
The tone Yuri recognizes, if not why, and now is not the time to ask.
Now is not the time when he thinks he would make much sense.)
There's no time to ask, and no way to keep it center and front in his thoughts. The third performer is on and it means their whole group needs to be out to prepare for their warm up. The whole of the 2nd group moving from behind the curtain to the right outside the rink for the end of Crispino's performance and its ending embrace with his sister who skated earlier. Crispino heads off the to Kiss-and-Cry with his coach and sister, and Yuri leans back against the rink, and Yuri has to wonder, before it too is forgotten the next second, what it must have been to do that together, always supported.
But it fades as fast as it forms. The same way the people near him and not near him do.
The same with the knowledge so far the ranked scores are still fifteen below his best in China.
Trying to keep his breaths even when he closes his eyes for a second, against the cheering crowd starting to blur around him. More than when he first stepped out. Score, then their warm-up, then he's on. Score, then their warm up, then he's on. It's about to start. It already had so much longer ago than this minute.
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He's a comma of black ink sloped against the rink wall, one lean line from the top of his head to the bottom of his skates. Victor is only human, but he tries to shove his appreciation for this picture (he wants it painted, he wants it emblazoned on the backs of his eyelids: his normally awkward and uncertain and endearingly mussed Yuri, slicked back into this sinuous creature) to the back, focusing instead on purely critical observation. " –– wait."
One of those laces is coming untied, and he steps quickly forward and sinks to a knee, trenchcoat puddling around him, as his gloved fingers make short work of the loosening laces. It's an unusual thing to do, but only when he stops to think about it –– he'd have taken a hand off if somebody had tried fiddling with his skates right before a competition –– but he knows Yuri.
And Yuri trusts him.
It's there in the bland way he watches Victor fix the laces, fingers tying a quick and solid knot, still leaning against the wall. There in how he meets Victor's eyes, and there's no question or worry, only firm determination, and Victor finds himself smiling back, a sharp, heated expression totally unlike his usual casual warmth.
Eros is a grenade, and Yuri is about to pull the ring out. Only the two of them know what will happen next, and Victor, kneeling here before his skater in front of live cameras and an audience of thousands and the entirety of his home country outside these few walls, is more than ready to let it all explode.
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'I had tried to call him earlier, but there was no response,' Yakov says. It's nothing like his normal brusqueness, and there's a quiet sympathy in his tone that makes the hot heaviness in Yuri's chest swell and fester like an abscess. 'But he called me back when you were finishing your warmups. He said that he was very sorry, but that he wasn't feeling very well...and he said that he would do everything he could to be here for your free skate tomorrow.' Another pause, as he studies Yuri carefully. 'If you wanted to call him back and talk to him before -- '
'No.' Yuri cuts his coach off forcefully, before Yakov can finish the suggestion. He knows his grandfather better than anyone else, and if Nikolai Plisetsky says that he's not feeling very well then the pain must be truly terrible. Almost certainly bad enough for him to have needed a full dose of the painkillers that he hates to take, which are too strong for him to drive safely at the very least. 'If he's not well, he needs to rest. It's late enough as it is; I can call him tomorrow morning, maybe.'
I won't make Dedka feel bad for taking care of himself. It's a thought he can cling to, a knife driven into place to pin his resolve firmly against his heart, lancing that toxic heaviness before it can swell even more and choke him completely. I'm not a little kid anymore, damn it -- I can take care of myself, too. I won't let him down. I'll make him proud.
(His gaze is fixed on the curtain that's drawn over the entrance, so he doesn't see the look that Yakov and Lilia exchange. Which is possibly for the best, because one look at the sadness and concern shared between them would have cracked his fragile determination possibly beyond repair.)
With the second set of skaters about to begin, starting with Japan's Yuuri Katsuki, the noise of the crowd is audible even in the anteroom. And just as Yuri is about to put his headphones back in and lose himself in his music, he starts to hear the repeated chant that he'd been anticipating all weekend: a heady and excited Vik-tor! Vik-tor! rising from the mostly Russian audience.
Just as I thought. His eyes narrow, and his mouth twitches in a mirthless half-smile in the shadow of his hood. No one cares about the pig. Hope you're happy, Coach Nikiforov -- all your hard work promoting your skater certainly paid off, didn't it?
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Victor studies him, compliments him, and then adds one word, that makes Yuri freeze. A correction of something, that Yuri doesn’t even entirely have the time to question what might have torn or detached and how they have no time, because the next second, even as the images explode in his head, one after another after another, Victor is lowering himself to the ground, to a knee, making Yuri blink confused.
As long, slim pale fingers find his laces and something flutters, more than tightens in his chest. A confused slam of butterflies and new frisson of uncertainty, freezing his stomach, that shoves out the earlier images entirely, wondering if this is even proper, no one has ever, he hasn’t ever seen, even though he doesn’t flinch. As Victor ties his lace again, before looking up at him from there, and Victor’s face is so clear there’s no room for the uncertainty either.
There’s none looking down into Victor’s face as his hands fall back.
It makes him push everything down. Or maybe Victor does it. Just this look on his face. Makes Yuri feel this surge of certainty shoving everything else back. He can do this. He can. Victor believes he can. That he can do this, and he does, never stops talking about how Yuri is only getting better and better every time they step out on the ice together or apart. He can do this. He has to.
It's almost as cathartic, as it a sprint in his chest aiming to be heart attack, to finally step out onto the ice for their six-minute warm up after Crispino’s score goes up. Still no one within fifteen points at the end of Group 1, and he needs to see even that fifteen as something to beat. To blow past. Has to find it. Holds onto with a death grip.
Barely ten minutes and he'll be on. He pushes himself. He needs to use it to his advantage. He's the person closest to the warm up round. Without a pause that will allow any cool down of his muscles or body or mind, before he is performing. He pushes himself hard. Harder. Iced air whipping his face. Ruffling against his cheeks, his ears, the skirt on his costume.
Complex turns. The combination with the toe loop. Speeding into his more complicated footwork.
Even if it's not as fast as he wants, or as broadly expansive as it will be, when not sharing the ice.
It's only seconds, it can't have been more, when the buzzer sounds again. Choking itself in Yuri's throat, as he heads for the gate with Yuri and JJ. Six minutes gone in a blink, and in half that from now he'll already be done and someone else will be on the ice. It's hardly really the pass of a minute to step off, so the everyone is officially off, and then to wait for his name. Not long enough to put his skate guards back on even. Just long enough to stand still so as not to damage his blades, feeling his heart thunder through his whole chest, pounding in his ears.
Before it's time to step back on the ice. Body a stillness that feels a single breath from shaking all over. From needing to escape into a twitching, telling, movement, requiring him to be even more still. Which only makes all of it tumble tighter, harder, faster as he comes to a gliding stop on the ice across the rink wall from Victor. While the cheering from the crowd swells loudly into a repeating chant it takes Yuri a second to place.
Victor’s name.
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Vik-tor! Vik-tor! Vik-tor! Vik-tor!
It's as familiar to him as his own pulse. A rising tide of sound he once would have directed from the center of the ice, arms raised, waving them on until the entire arena rang with his name, shouted by hundreds (sometimes thousands) of thrilled fans, each believing they could lift him to new heights simply by the power of their love.
It's as impossible for him to ignore it as it would be to ignore the sunrise. His whole life, he's been accustomed to loving his fans back the way they love him, to showing his appreciation for everything they've supported and helped him through. Even now, even without skating, still it rises, and rises, and rises, until he has to half turn and wave to them, laughing, and for just this moment, there's nothing but this. Their love for him, and his love for them.
Even when he isn't skating. They might be disappointed, but they still call his name, clapping, chanting so loudly it's almost impossible to hear anything else. It's a swell he rides up, and up, and still further up, a pleased flush on his cheeks, his gloved hand waving in wide sweeps as a response:
I hear you.
(He can't say he hasn't missed it.)
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Victor, in front of him, but turned sideways, facing not Yuri, but the audience.
They'll wish it was you.
Victor, who'd said, they wouldn't be able to resist him once he started.
Victor, who's busy waving to the crowd shouting for him. Victor, who is laughing, and not even looking at him. Victor. Not even them. (Which he expected, feared, dreaded. Even dared to admit.) Victor. Who. He'd. Hadn't he. Wondered. Said. But. If even. Victor. But something tumbles too hard in that, snapping too sharp, almost violently in denial of proof, and his hand shoots out. Fisting Victor's tie just below the knot and jerking him forward with all the force he can, between the wall under his hand and the ice beneath his feet.
It's not everything on his tongue, but when Victor's hair is nearly brushing his nose, Yuri says it anyway. His voice strangely so much calmer than anything in him suddenly feels. Like he was reprimanding a child, and not his coach. (Not his ... ) "The performance has already begun, Victor."
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It's wildly intimate, in a massive public setting, but he can't hear the chant anymore, can't hear anything anymore except a tidal rush of blood slamming his eardrums, and Yuri's voice, low and promising and seductive. Seductive. Yuri.
(He blinks at the sudden flood of golden lights, the flirtatious nip of champagne on his tongue.)
Where it had been the whole of Russia calling for him, now he can't imagine a world containing anyone but the two of them, here, now. Yuri's grip still hard on his tie. Victor doing nothing to pull away, only acquiescing.
(He hasn't done anything like this since –– )
"You're right."
Just as low, just as layered. There's so much more happening here than anything they're saying. (Yuri's mouth is only a breath away.)
It's not the time or the place, but Yuri is making it the time, the place. And the performance –– the seduction ––
Yes. It has already begun.
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It’s futile, but at the same time there’s a surge of hot, steadying, mollification curling in his gut, too. That he has Victor’s full attention (taken it from them, taken him from them) although Victor has no time to use it. He doesn’t let go of the slick fabfic fisted in his partially gloved fingers, inverting what Victor should have said to him. Taken the time to. Wanted to. Remembered. Comfort. Promise. Advice. Pointers. Inverted outward, when he leans closer, his cheek barely brushing Victor's, in his first next two words. “Don’t worry.”
More of them falling, warm and backward. “I’ll show my love to the whole of Russia.”
Then, he lets go, all at once. All movement, all force, using both of his hands to push off of the wall, and twists to make toward the center of the ice. Not looking at Victor. Not looking back behind him. The audience is still cheering. They never stopped cheering. But now it’s changed, too. There’s screams and claps more than any single word — single name — that can be heard, except for the announcement of his name on the loud speaker.
Everything catching up with him as the space widens and widens. Warmth hitting his cheeks with hot recognition. The slick heat of embarrassment. For the crowd chanting for Victor and not him, and Victor, with them and not him, and what he did because of it. Right here. Out the open. Did. Said. While his stomach tries to suddenly wobble like a loose screw.
Threatens to unspool in a way it hasn’t this whole morning and night. Hadn’t gotten that bad. Even as he waited for it. Suddenly feeling the sickening intimidation of being right. About every person out there watching him. But he can’t. He can’t not now. Not seconds away. He can’t let them intimidate him now. Here. In Russia. Not after he got this far.
Keep refusing. Keep demanding. All of them.
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It might just be the lighting.
What is certain is that Yuri looks motivated, focused, ready to go, and when the music begins –– that sultry tangle of strummed strings –– he moves with it like he owns it. (Like he's creating it.)
The pose and popped head aren't directed at Victor, this time (Victor, currently trying to swallow hard against the knot of his tie, wondering if it was this tight before). They get tossed with a flirtatious blown kiss at the panel of judges, and Victor almost laughs out loud and claps with sheer delight, because this is what Eros was always supposed to be. The playboy, blowing into town, stealing hearts left and right.
The audience is getting into it too, as the music picks up and Yuri swings into his step sequence, twisting and twirling around the ice like a licking flame. For all he'd been worried about the Russian audience, he seems more confident than ever: maybe he feels more motivated away from home, away from the pressures of performing under the eye of his hometown fans.
Victor's not sure, but either way, he's in his best form yet.
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(He knows, somehow, Victor is watching him.)
Yuri can feel it, the way he can feel the music sinking into his skin, with his eyes closed, when his hands raise and then fall, before his eyes and his hands come up. It's a different direction, but this is the performance. Seduction. Like Victor had said last time. Using his own charm, and nothing between it and the performance.
His eyes shoot on the judges table and he blows a kiss, watching all their eyes widen before he slides into faster steps and turns, giving himself to his step sequence next. Fluid and loose, but strong and smooth. It's still there. One daring moment doesn't mean those hooks aren't still in his chest. That the tension isn't a taste crawling up the back of his throat, plucking at each stretched muscle. That his thoughts stop spinning as fast as his feet, or his arms.
The knowledge only sharper and colder out here. If he loses this weekend, the Rostelecom Cup, the last Qualifier for the Prix, this two minutes of his life, right here, right now, slipping seconds as he thinks of them, may be the last time he skates this program with Victor at his side as his coach. That maybe no one in the sports area, or this country, or even the whole world watching right now, that wants him to win. The chill that lances up his spine in a turn. Makes the clap over his head, harder. Defiant.
He's the only one who can change that. He's the only one who can make that happen.
He can't think so much. He can't get caught in his head. He stretches his torso and his leg straight and long as possible through his camel spin, closing his eyes again, counting the turns, fingers locked tight. Flows through all the twists and arm movements before dropping into the flying spin. First combination sit. Again. Fingers curved around his calf, back curved, face parallel to his knee, while momentum kept him turning.
Yuri's hand switching their hold. Long enough to be clear. Then leg position, for his one required shift. One set of fingers catch and curl around his blade, to his side and his back, still crouched, still spinning. Until he pushes up with the last of his rotation and demands more speed on the first step back into the crossover coming out of it. The crowd is loud, but he can't listen to them either.
Just the music. Just the movement. Just every part of his body and training here.
Knowing where he's going. So clear he can see it, could almost reach out and sink his fingers into it, if he wasn't so focused he just blows straight through that thought, too. There's no time, and he doesn't want any. Just enough speed to throw himself into the air for the beginning of the second half of his program. The jumps that always start with his favorite. A burning clarity for a familiarity and fire that give him no doubt there.
The spread eagle that ups the difficulty because of it's required pause for holding, before he throws himself forward over his own shoulder for the triple axel. All of it sending him up and up and up, off his left outward edge, three and half times the world spins, faster than he could count or see them, and then down once more. Clean, without a wobble on his right foot and forward still. No pause for a breath. No need or want for either.
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That triple axel is as clean as he's ever seen it, and the crowd cheers, only to explode in appreciative applause at the flawless quad salchow that follows. Victor's own hands hurt from clapping, and he knows Yuri can't hear him, but he can't stop himself from calling it out: "Yuri! Amazing!"
Even better than his performance in Shanghai, and as much as Victor expected it, was certain of it, he feels a certain sense of vindicated pride to see it happening, to hear the response of the crowd. They love it, just like he told Yuri they would, but he can't care too much just yet, is getting too carried away on Yuri's jump sequence. Every element is perfectly clean, gorgeously executed. Eros –– indeed, Yuri –– has never looked this good.
(He's hardly recognizable as the skater who collapsed under the pressure of the Grand Prix Final two years ago. Not only in the difficulty of his program or the cleanliness of his execution, but his confidence. He isn't hesitating for a single second.)
The vibrant strings of Eros seem to lift him up, up, further up, twirling him like a partner, spun out again on the lines left cut by his skates into the ice.
(No matter how many times Victor sees this, he's never found a way to resist it.)
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All the same, he doesn't have to hurry. Agape doesn't hurry. He's spent all day working on slow movements, deep breaths, graceful positions, reaching deep inside himself in search of the calm and silence at the core of his piece. It's what he has to fall back on to slow his racing heart, keep his resolve in place. One foot after the other in measured, even steps.
On the ice before him is a dark, glittering vision of passion, a whirl of playful seduction like the flash of a smile, the encouraging glance over a shoulder, the twist of a beckoning hand. Triple axel, quad salchow, all the steps and turns he remembers from that too-short time in Hasetsu -- but cleaner now, sharper now, honed to point where there is as much threat as promise in its execution.
(Lilia beside him, murmuring in his ear. This is the opposing force. Odile to your Odette. Albrecht's false promise, Siegfried's broken vow, the art of the betrayer and the deceiver. You will show them the beauty and strength of true love, Yuri -- not this temporary enchantment.)
For all that he knows she's right, as the jump combination flows into the final spins, Yuri is seeing another narrative spiralling out before him, parallel to this one: the hours and hours of work that Yuuri Katsuki and his coach must have put into this piece, pushing every bone and muscle and nerve to their limits in order to reach these heights. He's refined the program this much since the Onsen on Ice event, huh? And if the noise of the crowd is any indication, they're being completely swept away by the force of it.
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Backstroking a crossover to gain the speed that will push him off the ground and have him land the salchow, landing both left and fast in the opposite direction from where he's facing. Hard and fast and clean, he can feels it even as it surges relief, and triumph, and then blows right away again, leaving only a momentary awareness of chilled air on the beading sweat rising on his skin. More things he has no time, no focus for. Because the end is coming. The last big push.
The moment reprieve from launches into a winding step sequence that requires him to move his feet faster than his breath could ever follow, and yet it feels easy. It feels perfect. It feels like he could do this for hours and hours more. Half there and half not, half a dream, flooding through him as every close, fast shifting step completes itself exactly how it's supposed to, sliding right into each next one.
Before it comes. Heading there, always heading there. Taking only enough time to ready for it through it.
Straight and straight and straight gathering speed, before he turns backwards in the three-turn and launches himself into the air by only the grace of the bare inch of metal that is his toe pick. Quad toe loop, landing the exact same way, and slamming right back off his quad and his toe pick, into a triple of the exact same jump, before the momentum can even begin flag. It too lands, without a wobble, but he has no time. No time, no time.
Sliding next into his another camel spin, but this one only long enough for the graceful, perfect line, before it drops into the second sit spin combination. Not flying this time, but a death drop. Around and around and around, at midlevel with his arms out, before it lower, tighter, coiling in and in and in faster. Speed fighting with air, giving up breathing, picking up and up and up, the tighter he coils, the harder he holds close, spinning on one blade, so close to the ground.
Holding one foot, only to let go, and thrust upward, and backward.
Not holding on now, but throwing everything off, everything away.
Himself and the whole of everything he's done. Closed in, on only himself, with the snap of his arms as the music ends. Blood pounding in his ears, through his whole body, muscles pushed to every limit, as his lungs finally catch up with the need for air at the same time as he realizes the audience is a riot of noise beyond the floodlights.
Stamping feet, screaming voices, clapping, and cheering,
a blur of waving and jumping bodies, on their feet.
All of them.
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