yuri_plisetsky | Moscow: Rostelecom Cup, GPF Qualifer Short Program (1.08)

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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.

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He's watching Yuri skate back towards him when it starts: at first, just white noise blocking out the trickle of applause as the other skaters exit the rink. It's low at first, then louder, and when he finally recognizes it, he supposes he should have known it right away. He's heard it enough times, after all: a loud, rhythmic chant that swells until it fills the arena, bouncing off the ice and the walls.

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.)

If the name, a creshendo'd shout only getting louder and louder, digs iced claws straight through Yuri's chest, skin and ribs and lungs and all, it's still not the worst part of it. He looks to Victor and Victor is looking somewhere else. Victor, who knows he only has seconds to hear whatever it is Victor is supposed to be telling him. Victor, who knows intimately if he doesn't get to the center before that time end, he'll be penalized before he even starts.

Victor, in front of him, but turned sideways, facing not Yuri, but the audience.

It comes back too sharp. His own words.
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."

Edited 2017-06-17 22:00 (UTC)

It feels like he got his tie stuck in the door of a moving car: the tug pulls him right around and then jerks him forward, while he windmills his arms to keep his balance, and to keep from toppling directly into Yuri. Yuri. Yuri who has him by the tie, and is still not letting go, hauling him close and tight until Victor is pressed into the rink wall and he can feel the brush of Yuri's lips almost against his cheek.

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.

There’s something about Victor’s voice. He can’t entirely place what it is even. Low. Thick. Even in two words. (Not quite breathless? Not quite a tremble?) But Victor doesn’t jerk back, and Victor doesn’t pull away. Victor stays exactly where Yuri’s pulled him to, only agreeing with him and leaving it there, and — they don’t have time. Yuri doesn’t. Not even to wait for Victor to remember to tell him anything now.

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.

He has to do that first.

Keep refusing. Keep demanding. All of them.

He's there, and gone, sliding off across the ice, and Victor can't quite tell, but he thinks there's might be a flush of pink staining Yuri's cheeks.

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.

He doesn't look to Victor.

(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.

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.)

Even through his headphones, the crowd noise is audible, and Yuri knows the structure of Eros well enough to identify from the crowd's shouts of approval how far the program has progressed. So he doesn't hang back or hesitate when Lilia draws the curtain aside so he can return to the main arena.

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.

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.

Edited 2017-06-19 01:10 (UTC)

Victor can't get to his feet the way the crowd has –– he's been on his toes nearly the whole time, watching with enraptured delight with his hands pressed palm to palm at his mouth, and now he throws his arms up in the air in celebration, head tossing back in triumph. "Yuri!"

That was perfect. Perfect. He needs a new word for it, because Shanghai had been perfect, but this was even better. Incendiary, a fickle, charming personification of passion enticing the audience with every coaxing turn of a hand or flirtatious step to fall for him, to long for him, and they have. Every one of them that Victor can see outside his focus on Yuri, now bowing in graceful acceptance of their stormy applause and collecting a few of the tokens they toss for him, is on their feet, calling out and cheering. There are so many flowers being tossed onto the ice it looks like a strange sort of rain, and maybe he'd said he didn't care what the audience thought, but he does. They all do. They live for this almost as much as for the skate itself, the brief shining moment of reward and gratification after all their hard work.

They love him, and Victor's heart has never felt this full, even when the cheers were for him.

Somehow it means more when it's for Yuri, and he might, were he inclined to, consider that feeling to be worth some further examination, but not right now, not in this moment. Yuri's skating back towards him, tired and flushed with exertion and elation, and Victor's focus is for him, alone. "Yuri!"

His gloves muffle his clapping hands, but he applauds anyway, thrilled to the core. "That was perfect ––!"

Mouth open to continue when there's a shift of motion to his right, and he looks over, bemused, to see Lilia Baranovskaya sliding Yurio's warm-up jacket off his shoulders, revealing the slinky, glittering material of his old costume. It sparkles in the light of the arena, but that's not what catches his attention: it's Yurio's expression, set into a mask of grim determination, while Victor makes a hiccupping, questioning sound. "Huh?"

The audience's roar of approval for Yuuri Katsuki's short program performance is full-throated, strong enough to completely drown out the music in Yuri's ears. So he shuts it off, removes his headphones, lets it wash over him like waves crashing against the rocks. The only comfort he can take is that there's one person who isn't here to see it or hear it...but that's hardly a comfort at all, with the way his thoughts are running ahead of him. Shit. And here I thought I'd be able to perfect Agape by having Dedka here to watch me. His own fault, his own weakness, to pour so much of his hope and anticipation into this one moment --

But the clock is ticking, and there's no more time for regrets. Without another word, he lets Lilia take off his jacket and gives her his skate guards. As he sheds his outer garments, he lets his training take over, and he rolls back his shoulders and lengthens his spine to carry himself with dignity and grace out onto the ice.

Except that there's someone blocking his way as he reaches the gate.

Eros. The seducer. The betrayer. The deceiver.

Something in Yuri's expression shifts, studying his opponent. It's no longer the look of a young prince steeling himself to face his execution with determined composure, but that of a swan queen prepared to banish her dark double and break the sorcerer's thrall. So he lifts his chin -- calm and regal, faintly contemptuous -- and issues the only command that he knows will be obeyed:

'Out of my way, pig.'

The cheer goes on, filling his head even as his head feels like it might burst from the thunder of his own blood, and the thinness of his own breath. Like his breath wasn't going far enough, getting into enough of that blood. Kept running into the bottom of his lungs like a wall, while he blinks against the brightness and raises a hand to all the noise.

The only tumbling thought that they must have heard his message.
To go from the whole stadium cheering for Victor, and not cheering for him.

Bouquets start falling all around him, fluttering paper and petals, and then stuffed foods. Several sushi and shrimp and he thinks he saw a donut somewhere in the air while he was waving and it was falling to the ice, but he can't place it when he's looking for something that made it nearby, or between him and the gate. He settles for one of the pieces of sushi that looks like tuna based on the color, and the shrimp.

Skating back with them both held under an arm and against his body, back to where Victor was, back to where a look at Victor will tell him how it went, if it went as well as he hoped, as well as it felt -- but it isn't Victor who is waiting in the doorway. It's Yurio, and his eyes widened with surprise as much as suddenly reignited remembrance.

Jeweled silver and white feather, glimmering, gilt and glitter under the lights. The way this costume always looked on camera; had for that one day back in the spring in Japan. Yurio, standing there cased by it, and the new fall of the hairstyle from last time. In Canada, weeks ago. All of it, there, blinding his eyes briefly and stopping his tongue, but that's never been a problem for Yurio.

Yurio's the picture of cool, almost cold, grimness, and with it comes Yurio's familiar child's icy disdain.
The same voice as that promise from the elevator last night, except this time Yurio denigns to look at him for it.

Surprise seems to be the only thing that sticks, high in the warmth of Yuri's own cheeks and upper body and legs, everywhere, with the dawning remembrance of Yurio being next. A thing he's known since for months since Qualifiers were set, and hours since they arrived to find the performance schedules up, and only minutes ago when he'd stepped off the ice to step back on.

But it like everything else in the world had vanished on the ice.

Coming back at the glittering distance of that insult that comes from too far away to hit, as he gets out of Yurio's way through the gate, even if it puts him on his blades without his skate guards. His head and his mouth seeming to find words only as the rainbow brilliance of Yurio's back is leaving his periphery, words only for Victor even if more people hear it. "T-this is Yurio's real agape!"

The words leaving his mouth with the same kind of skipping, inflating, expanding buoyancy as he'd realized the crowd was going crazy, as he realized the Yurio was next, and with those words his mouth breaks finally, for the first time since stopping in the middle of the rink, into a smile. Warm and pleased, excitement uncurling behind it, like a cat deciding to stretch, even if Yurio means for him to feel elsewise.

He doesn't care about that at all. Elation flooding his skipping stone mind.
To see it for themselves, not on videos, how far it's come. How far Yurio has.

Edited 2017-06-19 03:30 (UTC)

He's still blinking in surprise as Yuri steps through the gate to let Yurio pass, striding as firmly as he can on thin blades, gossamer hair floating around his shoulders and chin, all ice and determination. Despite his young age, it doesn't fall as flat as it would with someone less dedicated to their focus (or image, he supposes), but it does put Victor in mind of the military training Yurio will probably be exempted from –– or a reasonable facsimile thereof, with some artistic license taken.

It doesn't look like Agape, but it does look like Yuri Plisetsky: there's the glint in his eye that suggests he may well find some ledge to throw himself from, in order to melt this ice in a blaze of glory. While it might not suggest unconditional, divine love, it's certainly effective.

Which is what Yuri seems to be thinking, too, as he leans towards Victor and they grin at each other, Victor suddenly more curious to see Yurio's Agape than he has been since Onsen on Ice, all those months ago.

(How has it changed, how did Yurio make it his?)

Exclaiming "good!" as Yuri chimes in at the same time, before they both turn to watch Yurio step onto the ice. They were never going to ignore his performance, but Victor has to admit, it will probably be easier for Yuri to watch now that his own is finished, and so spectacularly at that. Which reminds him –– "Come on, Yuri."

Handing him the skate guards, and stooping to pluck Yuri's jacket from the chair it was on, offering it when Yuri has a free hand. "Time to go see how much you beat your personal best by."

That first transition step out onto the ice always makes Yuri's heart give a little leap before the familiar sensation takes over and skating becomes as natural as walking. Only this time, for some reason, it's not a little leap but a juddering skip, and even as he glides over to face Yakov and Lilia his heart rate isn't returning to normal as it usually does. In fact, as he hears cheers and squeals of delight start to ring down from the rafters of the arena (except that this isn't Sheremetyevo, there's no escaping them this time) his heartbeat seems to be increasing in pace, a heavy thudding that he'd swear he can feel in the veins of his neck and under his arms.

At Skate Canada, before the short program, they'd merely given him a few general words of advice in this moment before the clock starts for him. Keep your shoulders loose. Don't rush the step sequence. Pull the sit spin as tight as you can, or you'll lose the momentum and have to work harder to come out of it. But for some reason, there's a strange sort of urgency in their tones, and as far as he can tell they're not talking about his performance at all.

'Yuri, there's no need to be tense just because it's the Rostelecom Cup --'

'All the work you did in practice won't betray you. Listen to us and have confidence in yourself -- '

(Why are they talking like this? Is there something he's mishearing? It's too damned loud in here, all this extra noise, and it couldn't have been this noisy before, could it? It's like being in that horrible hotel banquet room again, straining to listen to what the people in front of you are saying, but it might as well be mouths moving in silence for all that he can hear properly. Is that where he is, still trapped in that suffocating crowd? That can't be right, he must be on the ice, but if they're on the ice and Yakov and Lilia are right there, then why is it so hard to hear them?)

I can't hear very well, he wants to tell to them, but his own mouth isn't moving, either. A cold trickle of sweat is tracing a thin line down his spine, like the blade of a knife against his too-warm skin, as his heart pounds in sickening escalation. Calm down. Calm the fuck down!

Suddenly, a pulse of sound, shouts and cheers, splinters the deafening silence in his head. And there's movement off to his left, in the kiss-and-cry -- a point of focus, the final outcome -- and out of pure reflex he turns his head just enough to see what's going on there.

His skate guards go on before he takes many more steps on the ground, red and white and nothing like matching, but absolute a comfortable normality. Something solid in his hands, when he's balancing between holding the plushies and bending over to hook those guards on. The sound in the room still going on, with a brief peak of new cheering for the hometown boy as Yurio steps out behind them.

The jacket is next -- as being out, being done, having one big thing left to do, begins to actually catch up finally. Sticking his arms in and zipping it up over his outfit, while air and focus, and Victor standing there at his side, beaming brilliantly bright, is all collecting together in something more than snap, snap, snap bounces of his uncollected thoughts. They start stringing together, like lights.

That hum with sudden and undeniable electric nervousness when Victor easily implies he's already beaten his best.

There's a quick exiting shuffle through the gate of the girls who'd gone skating out to collect the flowers and gifts. They'll be waiting for later, but Yuri can't help but manage a slightly more-than-not wan smile for one of the younger girls waving a large onigiri plush at him. All of his are usually food, but the onigiri has become the signature thing his fans have latched on to and he takes it. Trading her own for the two he'd come skating off with.

Slightly because it's comforting, familiar, as grounding as anything is when he can't quite feel his feet at all still, and more than that, because the young girl, who can't be more than ten or twelve, just looks so excited and even a little bashful, dashing off with the other girls right after giving it to him and blushingly blurting something about how what he'd done was amazing.

Yuri is still blinking, when an arm gets thrown around his shoulders and the next minute there's Victor's voice and he's half walking, and half directed toward the Kiss and Cry, where all the lights and cameras and reporters are waiting. Where he sits, swallowing thick and dry down his throat, more body pieces coming with more seconds building into more minutes, and his hands are tight on the plush in his lap, as his heart starts to pound harder and harder. Just as much pushing out everything that had been coming back into focus. It's coming. It's coming. Any minute now. Any min--

Before the entire room bursts into rowdy screams and cheering again and Yuri's eyes jerk from his blurred knees up to the board with a squint. Victor's arm back around him, pulling him suddenly in against Victor's side, shouting that he did it, while his own mouth drops open at the 109.97 on the screen above, under his name. He beat his record. He did. He beat it. By two points, three points. He can't remember. The crowd is cheering. Victor's laughter is in his ears.

And he's first again. By something like a twenty point margin.

109.97! Shattering his own personal best, again, and Victor is so thrilled that waving to the cheering crowd simply won't cut it. Yuri's performance deserves something else, some demonstration of how happy he is, how proud, how grateful. Something as bursting with adoration as he feels right now, like a dessert soaked in liquor and set aflame to burn, and burn, and burn.

Dropping to a knee and reaching for Yuri's skate again, but not to fix the laces: to lift it and press the kiss he can't plant directly on Yuri's mouth there, instead. These skates! Blessed, brilliant, following Yuri's commands to greater and greater heights with every slice across the ice.

He's laughing and the crowd is screaming and even Yuri is glowing with delight, even as his face turns pink with the combined flush of his recent exertion and embarrassment, until something catches his eye. Victor is putting his skate down, but Yuri is raising both arms over his head, calling: "Yurio! Davai!"

And, indeed, Yurio is still right there, staring at them, and Victor pops up to wave, his free hand going to his mouth the magnify his voice. "Yurio! Ganba!"

Smiling and waving, surrounded by camera flashes and the audience's overwhelming delight, the brilliant twinned firework bursts of a personal best score and a smashingly triumphant grab for the first place slot...but more than that, it's the look on their faces that stirs a strange dull ache in the pit of Yuri's chest. Like there's no one else in the world but them; nothing else in this moment; nothing else that matters. And it's an ache that spreads, slowly but inexorably, like that terrible hot thick feeling from a few minutes before --

But then Viktor slides out of his chair, down onto one knee, and his lips touch the side of Yuuri Katsuki's skate, and the crowd lets out a collective shriek of gleeful surprise as the press photographers voraciously capture the moment

(if you're not too busy showing off for the cameras)

and that ache in Yuri's chest abruptly collapses in on itself like a dying star giving way to a black hole.

And then the pig (who is actually blushing) looks up, and calls out to him (wait, shit, was that Russian?!), and it sends Viktor springing in out front of him (in front of the cameras) to wave and call out to him (and fuck, fuck, that's Japanese) -- and suddenly it's not a black hole in his heart but a supernova of absolute fury that sends him exploding away from the rink wall, flinging himself out onto the ice to put as much distance between him and THEM as he possibly can.

(Yakov might have called out his name as he pushed away from the wall. Yuri has a distinct lack of fucks to give at this particular juncture.)

The cheers and applause rise in volume as he flies out across the ice, building up speed as he aims for his starting position. The announcer's voice echoes high above, ricocheting off concrete and steel. Even though his rage is still at the boiling point, training and instinct take over to keep him in enough control to whip back and forth in order slow to a stop. Yet even as he settles into his opening pose, the last thought in his mind as he waits for the music to begin is as far from Agape as he's ever felt:

Damn it, I'm not so down on my luck that I need you assholes cheering me on.

There are no waves for it to break into, because it's nothing that simple yet. All of the blood that hasn't figured out how to settle out under his skin, shoots for his head, and Yuri feels lighted headed. Like he might pass out. Stop breathing. Relief breaking like someone dropped something hard on his head, and even when he's smiling he's almost tearing up, from the full swing of that same crash. Delirious relief and triumph in a swoop that might have sent him right into one Victor's exuberant hugs.

Except Victor isn't there, when he turns to. There's a blink of confusion for that,
followed a by the second for his confused gaze to land on Victor suddenly at his feet.

Again. At his feet. But there's no seriousness there. Even in profile, while Victor is lifting his skate and Yuri is unable to decide if he should flail for balance, having to shift and get his hands on his chair at his side, Victor's face is all blinding brightness. That's all it is, and then he's kissing Yuri's skate. Yuri's face flushing in surprise, and something. Something else that worms around actively muddling warmth and lightning hot all at once, watching Victor.

Victor, who shouldn't. Victor, who is. Victor, who doesn't do this for anyone. Doesn't. Shouldn't. Never gets on his knees for anyone. Victor, who never let anyone do it for him. (Again, again, again, it thrums.) Victor, who looks so happy that none of Yuri's rapid fire first thoughts have any ability to gain traction. When it's totally inappropriate, it is, but what slams through next is that he wants to tip forward.

He wants to be in Victor's arms. To hear whatever Victor would say, could say, will say. Later is too long away. He wants it now already. Wants. Victor. This happy. About him. What he did. They did. There are a million cameras and people looking at him, and it's too much, what Victor is doing, and it's over the top, and everyone is watching, and it's as embarrassing as it is humbling as it just soaked relief and triumph, turned sideways and giddy. And perfect.

He has to look up, or he will do something equally as overcome, possibly fling himself on to his own knees or Victor, even with all the cameras pointed at him, them, and that's when he sees Yurio, and the reaction is even stronger. Everywhere. Delight and certainty and the heady wave of what he's done, and Victor holding his skate, and everyone watching, and it doesn't matter still. If he's not supposed to be proud and hopeful and helpful, and Yurio doesn't want it, Yuri is shouting before he's even thought it into words.

"Yurio!" His arms fly up and his voice is loud. "Davai!"

There's only a single second where his aloft skate is still, like maybe Victor hadn't expected that even, but then Victor is in front of him and his skate is hitting the ground, while Victor is shouting in Japanese, too, and it's perfect. All of this is perfect and Yuri wants to start laughing, and he wants to cheer on everyone. Even when he has to take a hand and get up from the Kiss and Cry to walk with Victor to where the interviewers are.

He can't help looking back. He wants to see it, and even more he can't look away when he sees what he is seeing. There's a confused and distracted pause, in the middle of being introduced to someone's on camera audience, before he realizes he's not wrong. The beginning is a gorgeous, entirely known pose of serenity. But everything after it -- isn't. It's not even that it seems angry. It's that every move is agressive. He'd watched it dozens of times while Victor taught Yuri in spring. He'd watched it weeks ago in replays.

Everything that is supposed to be self-less is self instead.
It's so present, so sharp, and so is Yuri's wince when Yurio falls.

Even when there's a microphone pointed at him and a man just finishing off, "--having an outstanding season, one more personal best in the books, how do you feel you're doing? Do you think you'll be able to cement your performance tomorrow with another best just effortlessly?"

To Yuri, caught up in the whirl of the moment, this short program is starting off on an even worse foot than he'd experienced at the Onsen on Ice competition. There, he'd been so lacking in anything but his knowledge of the basic steps and movements that he'd had to pour all of his concentration into the technical aspects to have any hope of finishing without collapsing. Here, now, he has months of dedicated coaching and countless hours of on- and off-ice conditioning under his belt, and a much stronger sense of how he knows it should be...and yet he still feels like he's clinging to the piece by the very tips of his fingers, digging in his nails just to keep from losing control entirely.

Shit! I'm not feeling agape at all. The sweet, clear voice of the boy soprano, singing of faithfulness and love and devotion, seems to be mocking him from on high, taunting him with the exact thing that he can't find in himself. I'm so pissed off I could puke!

(And whose fault is it? Even his anger is a flailing, grasping thing, mindlessly lashing out yet somehow knowing exactly where to strike to deal glancing blows to all of his weaknesses. Moscow. His grandfather. Viktor Nikiforov. And -- )

The triple axel is the first jump of his short program, and he's learned that it works best to think of it as something like a springboard, a vault that launches him straight into the heart of the piece. The takeoff here is clean and well-timed, but too much of his rage seeps into the rotations to keep the necessary equilibrium, and instead of the solid landing he's done a hundred times before his blade slips out from under him, sending him crashing to the ice.

The burst of pain on impact zings up the nerves in Yuri's hips and back, blotting out everything else for a nauseating fraction of a second. Yet no figure skater is a stranger to the aftermath of a missed jump, and he knows how to break the fall, how to stop it from completely knocking him cold. Even as he uses the momentum of the crash to roll onto his side, he's taking stock of muscles, bones, ligaments -- nothing broken, nothing sprained, get up, don't stop, keep going -- and shoving himself back to his feet.

Fuck! I haven't missed that triple axel once all year, and now --

Yet somehow, it's the pain from the fall that helps to save him, pulling him out of his mind and back into his body. There's no room for extraneous thoughts when your hip and leg feel like one big exposed nerve. Yet at the same time, it's familiar. It makes him concentrate. For months, he's been running through pain, dancing through pain, skating through pain...and he has been learning how to let his strength and beauty shine through regardless. This time won't be any different.

For the first time since he'd stepped out onto the ice, he can see the path opening up before him.

Edited 2017-06-22 02:32 (UTC)

"Oh ... uh ..." No matter how absolutely normal and expected, even dreaded but unavoidable, interviews after performances are, Yuri still finds himself blinking owlishly trying to remember how to put words together. Somehow in a way that doesn't show that he still feels lighter than a feather, and like he might drop, and like he hasn't really said less than two sentences worth of words since stepping off the ice.

When he'd like nothing better really than to find a way out of this without questions, and to get a chance to watch the next two performances through ramping nerves, but with Victor at his side. He can't remember when or where or how Victor over-excitable, over-exuberance became normal, became preferable, comfortable even, but he'd rather have to only be jostled by it.

"I'm going to try my best?" Yuri tried not to cringe a little at the lilted end of a question there like he wasn't sure.

Even when he'd done it in China. Both skates had bested his numbers in from the Championship in Japan. By around twelve points for each one. Even falling apart on Victor before and crashing into the ice during his free skate hadn't kept it from being a new personal best for the latter of the same caliber in counting, too.

He'd just managed it, too. Maybe not ten more points. But beaten it, was still beaten it. Still a new personal best. Still over 100. On the first day. Whether either of the next skaters managed to shift him down, that wouldn't leave, and with the sudden flicker of remembering Victor, the fringe of silver hair brushing his boot, while Victor kissed it, Yuri tried again, firmer even if it came out a lot more rapidly. "Yes."

And, then. "Yes, tomorrow--" And maybe there's a partial glance toward Victor, before it's back to the camera light, and reflective cold circle lens, and the offending microphone. "--I'll continue to show Russia the power of my love."

He's so high it feels like he's never going to come down again. The flashes are going off again, and reporters are calling out, but it's all for Yuri: he's in the center of each photo, he's the one they're directing questions to, and Victor has no idea how it happened that he loves this even more than when it was for him, but that's how it is.

He loves it. Yuri deserves it, and more. Yuri broke his own personal best, again, and he's looking better than Victor's ever seen him. He's in his best form yet, lean and strong and certain, and the blush on his cheeks right now as the reporters clamor for his attention is the best public relations move he could have asked for. Yuri's fans love his humility, his awkwardness, his shy demeanor. The brightening flush high on his cheekbones lends a degree of credibility to his determination that someone like Jacques-whoever will never have. Yuri may not have gotten here on spectacular talent, but his story of hard work and failure and dragging himself up from the bottom resonates with more people than he knows, and they love him for it.

As they should. As everyone should.

He's never been content to be out of the spotlight before, but he could stand here at Yuri's side, bursting with pride and watching with rapt attention for hours. Even when Yuri glances over at him ––

( don't worry, I'm going to show my love to the whole of Russia )

–– he doesn't jump in, only waits with an expression of near-smug vindication.

(He'd known it was possible all along. Yuri has always had this in him.)

He might be itching to haul Yuri off to some quiet corner, but he can wait, let Yuri have this moment in the sun, stand here at his side, just behind his shoulder, and try to stay afloat this feeling of perfect happiness. Did Yakov ever feel this way about him, standing here listening while Victor answered questions? If he did, he never let on.

Victor's not sure anyone in the whole universe has ever felt quite the way he feels about Yuri, or in this moment. It's washing him out like a crashing wave, buoying him up, going straight to his head like the purest of vodka. First.

And just wait until tomorrow.

The next element is the flying sit spin, and there's no wavering on this one; Yuri hits it straight on. It's a chance to pull himself in tightly, to take stock of everything, one last checkpoint before the second half of the program is upon him. The spin is low and tight, and even with the irregular throbbing in his hip it feels right.

(It's better than it was in Hasetsu. He's better than he was in Hasetsu.)

I've been pouring blood, sweat, and tears into this since that humiliation. Working himself to the bone under Yakov and Lilia's instruction, ending his practice days more often than not by soaking his bruised, bloodied feet and ankles in Lilia's bathtub, face buried in a towel to stifle any little sounds of pain that might slip out of his mouth, any involuntary tears that might leak from the corners of his eyes. One fall on the ice can't compare to months of that. So why should he let that one fall stop him in his tracks, if day after day of hard work never stopped him before?

Before he knows it he's out of the spin, into the lead up to the second-half jumps. Why should he feel like this is the end? It's only the beginning. Fifteen years old and skating against men with years of experience in the senior division, already with one silver medal to his name -- and why shouldn't he be able to hold his own here as well? I just lack overall experience, that's all. And that's the thought that carries him into the light, chasing steps across the ice and the graceful whirls that build up to his jump combination. Driving forward into the quad salchow (his jump, always his) and through to the triple toe loop, with all of Lilia's double tours en l'air under his belt to polish his height and flow, and this time the landing is strong and true.

But it's still not the end, as the soprano voice soars above him, calling him on, that search for the unconditional love that won't elude him forever. The audience's cheers have barely died away when the final jump is upon him. Quad toe loop, with the power of Yakov's strict conditioning regimen to give him this burst of strength, and the crowd sounds even more delighted than before.

Only the step sequence and the spins left. He'll give it all he has until the very end.

Yuri's manages to half-stumble, half-flounder it through two or three more questions before it happens. The rush of success still warm in his chest gathering a sibling in the fast fading endorphins that are leaving his muscles and bones throbbing everywhere. Making him wish this part was done already, and he could lean on a wall and just drink some water, while Victor was the only person this close, or talking this persistently at him. (Victor who would keep talking, but not be a problem if he just didn't answer for a few long breaths. Or more.)

Still, he tries. Something light here. Something definitive there. A warbled gratitude for those implied to be watching for him and cheering on, an anything but warbled gratitude for any reference that he qualifies back to the relation of Victor. The unwavering support and focus of what they were doing with these programs. The way he has to try not to let his gaze linger too long to the side, even when he can feel Victor just off from his shoulder. Not close enough to bump into without meaning to, but not far enough that it's forgettable.

But it happens all the same. You could almost time it to every single one of the after Kiss n' Cry on the spot interview.

A roar of applause comes from the audience, washing over where they are, overshadowing whatever had come after the light laugh of the man talking to him, when Yuri had looked out to see what had caused it. Except that it's already over, whatever the move or jump was, and Yurio is a far away shape on the other side of the ice. A small and soft, but gleaming, blur to his vision in the bright floodlights against the massive, all but endless, white ice, but even at that Yuri can see that he's chasing the thing he'd been missing earlier.

Trying to grasp it with his fingertips. The missing thing, and what was left of this performance. It's much cleaner, if not graceful, and demanding perfection, if not unconditional. It looks hard in a way Yuri knows it shouldn't, but he's familiar to the feeling of all too well. Yurio isn't giving up out there, and it shows. Strongly. The refusal to give in to whatever it was that had hamstrung him through his beginning.

But it's all Yuri has time to see or think before that voice is talking more loudly at him, again, trying to maintain a high lit and innocent, but demanding, question, and Yuri looks back with a blink, only catching the last few words while his vision shifts from focusing far to near. "Sorry. What?"

"I was asking--" The reporter starts again, and Yuri is dragged back into the undertow and the closer faces and brighter, more immediate lights and clamoring voices, that want answers he still feels he has to spend far too long putting together than makes any reasonable sense for how good his English actually is. Each question dominating into the next and the next. While Victor remains disquietingly quiet at the corner from him, more thn Victor ever has. Making this feel at least as much, if not more, like he's still on stage.

And he is. One for performance, and one for commentary.

Even as Yurio skates, and even as the music comes to an end, with loud cheering.

Yuri isn't certain when he ended up with a towel in his hand, but he rubs it against his neck and chin, more as an absent tic than in the need to brush anything off of his skin just now, as someone frames a question as to him having surprised them all, his coach included, at the end of China's Free Skate and should all his fans be expecting more of that tomorrow, the smile of reporter just as indicative of the question under it as the words, which leaves him with a mumbled Uh...., whether that's about Victor's flip and their plans or not having them for tomorrow, or Victor kissing him, before a rumble turns everyone's head. To a side and then up.

Yurio and his coach and trainer appearing on the high screens in preparation for the next score reveal.

When had two minutes felt so long and so short? (Aside from only, what felt like seconds ago, when he was out there himself.)

At each of these competitions, he's backed off a little further, let Yuri do a little more of the talking, and it's paid off. Yuri will never be a naturally comfortable public speaker, but he's doing exactly what he ought to do: answering concisely and clearly, attempting a little levity, acknowledging the difficulties he's faced and the challenges yet to come. He's nervous, and exhausted, but even when he glances sidelong as if to make sure Victor is still there beside him (as he always is, always will be), he doesn't falter.

Nothing distracts him aside from the crowd reactions to Yurio's short program, the Agape Victor had created as a way of reminding himself what his duties were, when his heart lay so far away from everything he knew he should be, ought to do. Even when Yuri glances that way, he doesn't, stays focused on this moment and this interview.

(It's been made clear to him that their interest and support aren't welcome, momentary excitement in the kiss and cry aside. If Yurio would prefer to cut Victor out of Agape and out of his life altogether, it's a wish Victor can respect.)

The reporters won't be distracted, however, and soon enough Yuri is back to chatting with them, as Victor maintains a carefully bland expression of satisfaction. (After Yuri's dismay that morning in Shanghai, he has no desire to give the media any more fodder than he already has.

At least, not since he regained his sanity after his joy at Yuri's most recent perfect performance.)

It might be too late in the program to gather up all of the threads of the story he'd meant to tell, but here at the end, Yuri can push himself through the steps and spins by drawing on that sentiment he'd articulated so hesitantly all those months ago: Even if it's not perfect, even if it hurts, he feels better for trying. He won't give into despair or regret, because this is all for something bigger than himself, so much more important than these scant few minutes under the flash and glare of lights and cameras. And although he feels like that last combination spin is threatening to fray his nerves at the edges -- damn it, it shouldn't be this tough, not now -- he can pull himself through with his own power, into the rising spirals, reaching for the peace and joy that he alone can represent here in the city of his birth.

(As he strikes the final pose and the high, clear music fades away, the sensation of the cooling sweat on his face invokes the thinnest of memories, the fine mist of a freezing-cold waterfall somewhere more than a thousand miles away.)

Crude muscle memory often takes over in these immediate ending moments, when the higher thought processes are still somewhere else and post-performance fatigue is on the point of commandering everything above the brain stem. Drop the pose, partial turn, acknowledge the crowd. Start moving again before your joints lock up; avoid whatever's landed on the rink surface so you don't break your kneecaps tripping over a wrapped flower or a random plush object. And usually, all of this is enough -- except that one of Yuri's fans has an aim that should qualify her for her country's Olympic marksmanship team, because the cat-eared headband that she tosses out onto the ice lands squarely on Yuri's head, giving him a pair of pointy white ears that couldn't match his Agape costume better if they'd been part of the ensemble all along.

Bad enough that the crowd's cheering gives way to the kinds of fevered squeals that had greeted him at Sheremetyevo. Still worse that the final skater on deck to see all of it in real time is Jean-Jacques Leroy. And when he greets Yuri at the gate with loud applause, a sweeping bow, and a drippingly faux-polite 'Oh, ladies first', Yuri has to dig deep into his dignity to fight the urge to emasculate the asshole Canadian on the spot with a toepick to the groin. I forgot there was someone even more annoying than those two...JJ!

Yet he still has the judges' verdict to come, and so he storms off to get his skate guards and jacket. For whatever reason, Yakov doesn't start in on the lecture the second they're in the kiss-and-cry. But when Yuri plops down to sit in the most inelegant pose he can come up with on short notice -- leaning back, arms tucked behind his head, feet propped on the table, knees up and spread wide, giving the main camera a prime view of his crotch -- his coach has to at least make the effort to enforce decorum, where the microphones won't pick up.

('Sit up straight,' Yakov snaps. 'I'm stretching,' Yuri snaps back, not entirely a lie.)

As the scores come up, it's hard to say whether the 98.09 or the 2nd place designation is more irritating. Because the first day of the Rostelecom Cup isn't over for him just yet. Right outside the rink's main entrance are the press and the sponsors and the skating federation, all circling like sharks who've scented his blood in the water. He'll have to make it through tonight alive before he can face whatever awaits him tomorrow.

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theglassheart - 2017-07-04 14:21 (UTC) - Expand

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