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

[yuri_plisetsky]

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.

Comments

[theglassheart]

There's still music playing, the din of cheers and applause, echoing through the hallways and the walls. In the middle of this building, dancers at their mark, fighting for their chance, on the first competition day. The show still going on, with everyone's eyes on it, for however much longer it has to go.

For how close it is, it feels so far away. Another world. (Was Victor kissing his skate in the Kiss and Cry so very little time ago?) It feels like another day, another year, maybe a whole other person. Divided by one phone call. He remembers that. He remembers that too well. Maybe he hadn't remember that the last few months. But he does now. It bites at the back of his throat and soft top of it inside, sick in his stomach, spinning his thoughts for any crack, every time he swallows.

Every time he glances toward Victor.

But what to do is clear enough.

Get through the hallways and outside, and flag down a cab. All things Yuri can at least do, so Victor can focus on the only thing he should. His phone, his plane ticket, getting to Maccachin as soon as possible. The drive wouldn't be short -- hadn't been that morning, when it was his bunching nerves and Victor pointing out things for the second day in a row; which made it seem interminable to contemplate now, gallingly in the way -- but maybe that will just mean it's more likely Victor can finish his arrangements by the time they get there.

When the side door of the Luzhniki opens, to where there are already a line of cabs waiting, Yuri has to blink himself from surprised back to the recognition. That it does actually makes sense. There are thousands on thousands of people in this building about to be done for the night, all of whom will need to be taken back to places.

"Well-" It's quiet, but something of an attempt at sound. "At least we won't have to wait."

[fivetimechamp]

He can hear Yakov barking at that hapless event staffer until nearly halfway down the corridor, and though it isn't as amusing tonight as it would be at any other time, it almost makes him tuck a wry shadow of a smile into one far corner of his mouth. It isn't far, from here to the exit, but it feels that way, feels like the corridor floor is unrolling beneath his feet, gaining length, yawning out before him as if he were stuck in a bad horror movie, and maybe he is. The suspense, at least, certainly makes him wish he were watching this happen to someone else.

But they get there in the end, and Yuri's right: there are plenty of cabs, so they make for the one at the front of the line, and Victor pulls the door open for Yuri before sliding in himself, only pausing long enough to give the driver directions in rapid Russian before his hand is going for his phone, there in his pocket.

He meets Yuri's eyes across the seat, as he's saying: "I'm sorry, Yuri, this will go faster if I ––"

Before his call is picked up and he reverts to the Russian he'd been about to apologize for. Moscow scrolls by, and it's both too long of a car ride and not long enough: if he's going to go, he needs to go now, but he also has to be sure he can catch the next flight out, or there won't have been a reason to ask Yakov to take over for him, after all, because he wouldn't be able to go until morning, and that would make leaving before the free skate pointless.

It's when he's put on hold that his eyes track back to Yuri, who looks as pale and reserved (but determined, certain) as Victor has ever seen him and it isn't fair. None of this is.

It's not fair that he has to go. Not fair that he can't stay. Not fair that he had to make sure there was someone for Yuri still here, instead of trusting that Yuri could do it himself. (He's come such a long way, but...)

But he reaches for the Yuri's near hand, even as he's being taken off hold, and told there's a ticket available on a flight to Tokyo, that he could be routed from there, and even as he's agreeing, paying to leave Yuri all alone, his hand gives Yuri's a squeeze, before he has to take it back to go searching for his wallet and the credit cards inside.

[yuri_plisetsky]

Something about Yuri's phrasing of his apology makes Lilia pause. Not I won't do it again, but I won't let it happen again. That same struggle for mastery and control that she has seen over the past months of their training...but here combined with the look she had seen in his eyes when Yakov had told Yuri that his grandfather would not be there to watch his short program. Trying so hard to not appear vulnerable or weak -- or afraid.

(And Lilia Baranovskaya has made a few interesting observations of her own today, not all of which she intends to discuss fully with her ex-husband. In particular, while Yakov had been focused on Viktor's explanation for why he needed to fly back to Japan, Lilia had seen how Yuri's gaze had remained completely fixed on Viktor's Japanese skater, that Yuuri Katsuki. And without drawing any immediate conclusions, she will be paying very close attention to how her Yuri acts and reacts tomorrow, when Katsuki will be part of their group for the duration of the free skate.)

In the end, she rests a hand on his shoulder, feeling the muscle tense and then relax under her light touch. 'I'll be up for a while yet,' she says. 'And our doors are always open to you, Yuri -- mine and Yakov's. If you need anything else tonight, let us know.'

The too-old eyes in a too-young face look up at her for a long moment before Yuri nods once, still determined but a little less stiff than he had been earlier. 'Thank you, Lilia,' he says. 'I'll probably just go to bed, but...but thanks.'

It's as much of an answer as she had expected. So Lilia lets go, wishing him a quiet goodnight before leaving the room. And Yuri responds in kind, waiting until the door closes behind her before flopping back on the bed with a long sigh, sprawled out with the ice bag tucked against his hip and with one arm over his eyes. Even with only the bedside light turned on, it's a little too bright in the room.

He's tired. He ought to get some sleep. But sleep isn't going to come easily tonight.

[theglassheart]

It’s a quiet sort of descension. Door, car seat, window. Fingers on his lap on his warmup pants — the lagging realization that he’s still suited up under it and everything else is inside, behind them — only long enough to remember he’s supposed to be doing something. It gives him some movement. Digging into his pocket for his phone and pulling it out to send a quick, short text to his family that Victor will be coming as soon as he can, while directions are being given in the background.

It’s only a few words and it leaves him already looking up, just holding the phone in his hand, as Victor starts apologizing, and Yuri can’t for his life in that second come up with anything that Victor should be apologizing for. The surprise of it, and wash of denial against the idea of that being needed now of all time, takes longer in his head than getting to even understanding what the apology is was supposed to be for.

His phone call. The one Yuri, himself, has pointed out should be had in here. As soon as possible. It doesn’t matter. Victor’s voice permeates the small vehicle and Yuri leans back in his seat, trying to look out the window and not stare at Victor. He’s not sure he sees any of it, and yet some of it still looks familiar, from it being pointed out. Something about that high rise, or something about that food place. Voices from half a day and a day ago, like the faintest echoes. People talking somewhere else, on the other side of a wall.

The fragile foolishness of those people who seemed recklessly carefree now.

The pressure on his hand is still somehow a surprise, when his is moved suddenly, and he looks down to his hand, before he’s looking up to Victor’s pale, troubled expression, while those fingers squeeze his. That faint pressure registering even just as Victor lets go and goes digging for something of his own. Yuri gives up on his window without trying a second time, staying just slightly canted toward Victor, leaving his hand where it had been as the sensation of that touch evaporates too soon. Staring at some amalgamation of Victor’s hands and his knees, or, maybe it’s the car door on that side.

It doesn’t sound like bad news at least. (And. Good. That's good.) Not if Victor needs his wallet. His money. (The sooner he can get to Maccachin the better.) Last step and first (and he’s actually going, he’s actually leaving). There’s a line cutting itself somewhere right on the inside of his breast bone. A strange sort of sharp chill radiating into the bones right around it.

Yuri does wait until Victor is finished and hanging up, before asking, quietly, “How soon?”

[fivetimechamp]

"Seven."

He's really going to have to run, if he's going to make it, but it was the only non-stop flight he could get. Sliding his wallet and phone into his coat pocket, he runs a gloved hand up into his hair and sighs. "I'm going to have to change and pack as quickly as possible."

Maybe fifteen minutes at the hotel. A cab to the airport. A rush to get on the plane at all.

All that, to hurry up and wait on the nine-plus hour flight back to Japan, when he won't even be able to fly straight to Fukuoka. "I have to go through Tokyo, and then the Kamamoto. I'll take the train to Fukuoka and call Mari or Misato to come get me."

It's so roundabout. It might not even be enough. Might still be too long, too far, too slow, but even if he's the five time reigning world champion, he can't make the distance between Russia and Japan any less than what it is. (He knows. He would have done it before, if he could.)

The Star Hotel is beginning to loom in the distance, and he's gathering himself, even as he turns to look at Yuri, who seems ... quiet, but not dangerously so. He's tense, but not in the way he was last week, when everything was cracked glass threatening to shatter at any given second. "It's not the best possible flight, but it'll get me there around midday tomorrow."

He says it because he's not sure he can say everything else he wants to say right now: that's he's sorry for leaving, that he wants Yuri to get some sleep tonight, that he knows Yuri will be fine tomorrow, even without him. Everything throwing itself on the creaking glass of his thoughts, as the cab pulls up and Victor exchanges a few brief words with the driver and hands over the fare. Even getting out onto the sidewalk feels like he's going too slowly, taking too much time, but he waits for Yuri, even if his steps heading into the lobby are swift ones.

He'll call for another cab from the room, and have it waiting when he comes back down here in less than twenty minutes. "I guess it's a good thing we packed light."

Relatively speaking, anyway.

[yuri_plisetsky]

The cold, hard lumps of ice against his hip are keeping the ache to a minimum, though perhaps the radiating cold itself is another kind of ache that overrides the one inside him. Regardless, it's not particularly comfortable to sit on directly, so Yuri rolls over a little, enough to keep the ice bag in place but still reach for his mostly charged phone. He'd had it turned off ever since the start of the short program, but it's better to get the worst of everything over with now -- and that includes clearing out his personal notifications and doing a quick round of his usual sites.

(Don't think about tomorrow. Not yet.)

Even as he opens up Instagram, scrolls through Twitter, skims the various forums and news round-up sites he's bookmarked, he knows that none of this is a good idea. He knows this. Reading the various comments on his Skate Canada performances, seeing how they'd been dissected in real time, had been uncomfortable enough. And that had been the English commentators, who naturally preferred their homegrown asshole to the ones who'd been challenging him for a spot on the podium. Yuri is well aware that the Russian commentators, here at home, aren't likely to be any kinder to him for his performance today; if anything, they'll actually delight in picking him apart. And whatever they say, good or bad, will set off his fans, until the forum postings and website comments sections look like someone had taken napalm to them. But seeing what they have said is better than imagining what they might have said --

Or so he thinks, until an unlucky click to a Russian skating news aggregator makes him sit straight up on the bed, gripping his phone so tightly that the case feels like it might crack in his hand, as a word emblazons itself across his brain: Figurist-uzurpator.

Usurper skater.

Yuri Plisetsky, the usurper skater.



For once, his usually colourful vocabulary completely deserts him.

[theglassheart]

Seven, Victor says, and Victor keeps talking, but Yuri’s head keeps repeating that number (Seven Seven Seven), while his hand shifts so he look at the time on his phone (Seven Seven Seven). If it was any other time, he’s not possible anyone would believe they’d make it.

But Victor has to.

Victor will.

Which makes it confusing why blinking at his phone and then Victor paying is making it feel strange, at the inside corners of his eyes. Like they’ve gone too dry and he has to blink too many times. His eyes and his throat, and maybe it’s good he doesn’t need to say anything, because he’s not sure he’d know what to say or if his body would even work to let him say it if he knew what to say, what to do besides stay out of the way, besides follow beside or right behind Victor in motion.

Which he’s been doing for months.

He can do that even at dawn in his sleep.

Across the lobby and into an elevator, everything feeling, backwardly, like the faster and closer it gets suddenly the slower the world seems and the tighter everything inside of Yuri. He makes his mouth do … something. A curve or a press, he’s not certain when Victor is making some relieved comment about not having to pack much. Which is good. It’s good for getting to Maccachin. It’s good for the plane. It’s good for Victor.

That’s what Victor needs.

That’s what Yuri wants for all of this.

So why does it feel like it’s just the beginning of a second act
in the show of just how easy it would be under any circumstances
for Victor to disentangle himself from all of this?

A few minutes and everything legally binding is changed.
A few minutes here, of light packing, and
every physical proof could be, too.

Which makes everything so confusing when he’s still impatient outside the door to the room, caught in the necessary forward momentum to do whatever it takes to keep the worse from coming. No key, no backpack, no roller bag. He doesn’t even have his jeans or his winter jacket, so he definitely doesn’t have his room key, stored with everything else that would have been waiting in the locker room for after the whole day on finish. None of it matters. It'll be there tomorrow. Maccachin might not be (and Victor won't either way).

[fivetimechamp]

He's already shucking the jacket from his shoulders as he heads into the room and flips on the first lamp he comes across, trying not to think about the way the jacket puddles at the foot of both of their beds because he'd pushed them together earlier. He focuses instead on what he needs to do: pull out some casual traveling clothes, pack his suit and the gray one still hanging in the closet, along with his toiletries and all the various items that have been thrown around this room because he expected to be here for at least one more day, and probably two, or even three. Apologies bubbling up in his throat, only to be swallowed, hard, while he's slipping the knot of his tie loose and tugging it over his head, fingers going to the buttons of his shirt and waistcoat even as he's sifting with his other hand through his suitcase for trousers, a loose collarless shirt, his traveling coat and scarf.

There's so much to say, and not enough time to say it in, and if he starts saying anything, he might wind up saying something he shouldn't. Something about how he won't go, after all, how he's being crazy, he can't abandon Yuri.

(Each time met with a memory of Maccachin so clear and immediate it slices a pang of exquisite pain into his chest.)

"I'll have to call down for a cab."

Thinking out loud, because he can't stand the silence, but he can't say anything of substance, either, as he's pulling off his shirt and waistcoat and replacing them with the soft top he'd pulled from his luggage, toeing out of his black patent dress shoes to switch trousers, dig out the more comfortable brown loafers he wears on the plane. "It's a little over nine hours, so it'll be in the middle of the night here when I land. I'll call once I get on the train, it should be late enough by then. Go to bed early tonight, so you can get some sleep before you meet Yakov."

He'll know if Yuri's tired, if Yuri hadn't slept, even if he barely knows Yuri. He has a sense for these things that must come with decades of doing the job, decoding and interpreting skaters in all their myriad moods and idiosyncracies.

It's probably for the best that he's too busy to really look at Yuri, as he's packing, his travel clothes hung on him without any of his usual polish. "And you still need to get dinner tonight. Don't eat too late, or you won't be able to sleep."

[yuri_plisetsky]

Of all the things he'd expected to be called

(quit acting like you're still the top Russian figure skater)

this one had never entered his thoughts

(​they'd probably let you walk right into the Kremlin and crown yourself in the Dormition Cathedral)

and yet really, isn't it the one that makes the most sense?

Yuri has to set his phone down before he does something he'll regret with it. And as he leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees so he can bury his hands in his hair and rest his forehead on his palms, he tries to slow his breathing in order to get his pulse rate under control.

The usurper. The imposter. The fake. Is that what people -- his people, the Russian people -- think of him? That he'll never compare to the real thing, the legend they'd spent more than a decade building up into something almost like a national folk hero? He'd heard the cheers in the arena today, seen the reporters flock around that familiar figure. If that's what they think of Viktor Nikiforov now, after he went and fucking abandoned them all at the glittering height of his career, how much harder is he, Yuri Plisetsky, going to have to work to even remotely come close to being more than just a pretender to Russia's empty throne?

And the worst part of it is, he can't even find the rage to fire him up and give him the push he needs to overcome this sick, helpless feeling in the pit of his stomach. Because every time he tries to conjure up a suitable focal point for his anger -- that faux-friendly embrace and blandly dismissive smile in the hotel lobby yesterday afternoon, that absolutely disgusting display in the kiss-and-cry a few hours ago -- it's overshadowed by the memory of a halting, frightened voice pleading for Yakov Feltsman's help. No posturing for the cameras, no posing for an adoring audience of one or a hundred or a hundred thousand....no other thought in the man's mind but finding someone who he could trust to look after his skater so he could fly halfway around the world to be there for his deathly sick pet.

'Fuck this,' Yuri whispers to his knees, closing his eyes against the burning feeling at the back of his eyelids. Beside his hip, the bag of ice shifts, melting slowly with his body heat.

[theglassheart]

Walking into the room feels like walking into another world. Victor is all movement toward the middle of it, and Yuri stands there holding the door for long moment as the realization strikes him (again? for the first time?) that Victor won’t walk back into this room again. The door closing sounds more finite than Yuri knows what to do with, never saw coming, like all of this. Steps slow, while Victor is already starting to undress in the middle of the room, dropping things around him in his haste, and Yuri has to swallow hard.

Except for the first time, there’s no other feeling like there’s ever been with it before. No warmth. No swell of embarrassment. If anything, just for the briefest second he feels sick. Everything is different, and he just looks down and to one side, toward the bathroom, knowing he needs to snap out of his thoughts. This isn’t the time. This isn’t the place. Victor’s talking about the cab, the plane, his time, his train, all sensible details, all forward direction, and Yuri needs to focus. Focus. Focus. Focus. Help with whatever he can.

Instead of walking forward, he turns and flicks on the bathroom light. As much as he can avoids the mirror entirely, and starts putting Victor’s things into his case. While Victor’s voice continues to come from the room proper as he scoops everything from the counter into it. Then, takes the bottles from the shower area and adds them in, too.

Having to give the counter a last look, to be sure he has everything, but all that’s left is his stuff, and this stinging bite at how it all looks like so little in the vista of endless empty space around it. The little he has, has ever had, ever brought, with nothing thrown around it in use. But even as it tries to crawl upward, Yuri shoves it back, making himself turn, hit the switch and come out after that voice.

“Okay.” Because he doesn’t know what else to say, doesn’t know what the not-so-slowly spreading sore ache turning into a pressing wave in his chest will let him say. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to say anything. He just needs to help. He just needs to make sure he’s not in the way, and that Victor can catch his cab, and his plane, and get to Maccachin. That’s what’s important.

He hears himself (more than feels like he chooses himself to) add, “Here.”

He sets Victor’s toiletry case on the end of the bed beside Victor’s suitcase. Then, turns, without looking up, to look over the tops of everything in the room. Table, and dresser, and bed tables, and chairs, for any of the small things that shouldn’t be forgotten.

[fivetimechamp]

He's so focused on getting everything together, on checking off all the items on his increasingly short list of things he needs to do, that he hadn't even noticed Yuri wasn't in the main part of the room with him until the small toiletry case gets set on the corner of the bed, and he hears Yuri's voice for the first time in what feels like hours. Making him look up, from where he's setting his unworn gray suit on top of the pile of clothing, to see Yuri already turning away, scanning the room, and ––

(He can't remember the last time he hugged Yuri. Touched him, aside from taking his hand in the cab. Was it back in the kiss and cry, that felt like years ago?

When was the last time he kissed Yuri? Was it really last night?)

–– overwhelmed by a flood of gratitude mixed with guilt, he reaches for Yuri, not the case Yuri had just set down for him.

It's nothing like hugging Yakov, except for this feeling of helplessness that's in every cell of his body: impossible to go, impossible to stay. Impossible to leave Yuri, except for how easy it is in every way but the most important one. He can buy a plane ticket, sign a piece of paper, call a cab, but none of it will stop this thing inside him that's tearing and tearing and tearing.

He isn't being a very good coach right now, but maybe Yuri won't mind if, for tonight, he's just Victor again, the way Yuri asked him to be on the beach, who Yuri could trust and befriend and, yes. Even love.

He doesn't know what to say. All of his words in moments like these have been to support and help and inspire Yuri, and now that he's the one breaking, he finds he has nothing, no words of wisdom, no advice. All the firm foundation under his feet is slipping away. (Maybe he really couldn't ever do this.)

Finding, in the end, only the same thing he'd said to Yakov, with the same apology beneath it: not in Russian this time, or even English, but scraped out of the few words of Japanese he knows. "Thank you."

It isn't actually easier to say than goodbye.

[yuri_plisetsky]

It's right there, playing out behind his closed eyes like a movie he can't shut off. Viktor, and Yakov...and a few feet away, Yuuri Katsuki, looking lost and uncomprehending in a sea of Russian faces, Russian voices. When a few hours ago, he'd looked as happy as Yuri had ever seen him, flushed and triumphant but still a little shy, not quite sure how to feel about his success. Only now all of that's been ripped away, and tomorrow --

Tomorrow, he won't have his coach with him. Because Viktor might not have his dog.

(But you know it's not just Viktor's dog, a little voice in his head reminds him. Even for as little time as he'd stayed in Hasetsu, he'd seen how the entire Katsuki family seemed to dote on that poodle. Always ready with loving pets or little treats; eager to ruffle that curly fur or stroke those shaggy ears. Because there was another poodle, once, that isn't there now. Only a photograph of that poodle being hugged by a smiling little boy, and a set of metal tags.)

Yuri might not be a dog person by any stretch of the imagination, but he knows that kind of love. And he knows that Katsudon's big sister wouldn't have called her little brother like this, right in the middle of a competition when he's thousands of miles away from home, unless she was really afraid of what might happen. And Viktor wouldn't have thrown himself on Yakov in absolute desperation, with no real hope that his old coach would forgive him enough to come to his aid, if he wasn't afraid of what might happen, either.


It's too much, all of this. He can't just stay here. The hotel room feels like there's no real air in it.

But where the hell can he go?

[theglassheart]

There’s a moment of confusion when Yuri goes from decisively having the shred of a plan, trying to look for things that need packing, while possibly very specifically not looking at others, when suddenly there are arms thrown around him. One would think he’d be used to that. This many months in.

Isn’t he? (Wasn’t he?)

Except, he startles into a frozen block of unprepared stillness at the shock and the something far greater it sets free. Yuri’s not sure how he thought anything hurt, anything knew what hurt was, before this second when it suddenly felt like the inside of his chest shredded and blew up at the same second, when there were suddenly arms around him. Victor’s chest, his ribs, the side of his face, pressed into him. The sound of his voice this close. The simplicity of the Japanese he uses.

It feels like an overwhelming testament to any strength Yuri has left that he doesn’t suddenly tear up under the overwhelming onslaught of both breaking everything he’d had in his hands, in his head. (Victor is leaving.) The same can’t be said for the shake that slides through his slim figure, instead. (Victor will be gone in minutes.) Or the way he has no clue how to move his arms at the moment. (Victor has to go.)

He might be the worst person in the world, because he suddenly has the urge to beg Victor not to. Go. Leave him. Except. Except. Except. Maccachin. Maccachin (is at the vet right this second, possibly dying) and Vicchan (who Yuri could never have had the chance to even make it back to).

And Victor is hugging him. Victor is thanking him.

For understanding? Letting him go? Telling him to? Giving Victor that chance he never got?

Yuri nods against the pressure — of everything shoving upward in his chest, his throat, pressing in against eyes from the muscles below them and to the side, Victor around them, around him, the way Victor’s voice sounds raw through that single word. He has to be better than the coldness falling everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, than the feelings suddenly, with Victor this close, that he’s already gone, that Yuri was already alone again, that this was always coming.

[fivetimechamp]

He doesn't actually have time to say or do anything else. The clock on the bedside keeps inexorably ticking closer to the moment when it will be too late for him to leave, and what else is there to say or do up here that won't just make it worse for both of them?

(If he kisses Yuri now, he thinks he'll never be able to go.)

Yuri doesn't hug him back, but he trembles and Victor's arms tighten before he lets go and steps back, feeling as if the ties of gravity binding him to the floor, this room, the ground, are already fraying and snapping. "I have to call for my cab."

A few sentences of rapid-fire Russian and an acknowledgment from the front desk, and he's back to his suitcase, which suddenly seems so small for everything that he has to push into it, everything that has been the last two weeks away. Just some clothes, two suits. His skates. Toiletries. It doesn't seem like he should be able to fit everything he's feeling into one suitcase, but it zips easily, and the room suddenly feels and looks empty. Emptier, maybe, for the way Yuri's things are still in place, with only his missing, but he can't stop to think about that now, can only look to Yuri with a faint try at a smile that doesn't come anywhere near his eyes. "Walk me down?"

Except it isn't even really a walk, is barely twenty steps to the elevator which will take him to the lobby, where his cab will be waiting and a bellhop will load his luggage and then he'll be speeding towards the airport and towards Hasetsu, without Yuri by his side.

Even as he wills the elevator to move faster, he wishes there were one more thing to do.

[yuri_plisetsky]

In his need to get up and move around, the first thing Yuri does it to take the bag of melting ice into the bathroom and empty it into the sink. His hip is about as good as it'll be for now, and the cold isn't doing anything except to make the ache turn inward.

Lilia's door is open to him. She'd said as much, and she wouldn't have said it if she didn't literally mean it. But this isn't really something he can take to Lilia, is it? She'd probably just tell him that he shouldn't read so much into one reporter's comment, that it doesn't matter to anyone who really understands their art, that it isn't something Yuri should worry about because it isn't something he can control. And Yakov (who isn't here; who's dealing with the fact that he'll be looking after one more skater tomorrow) would have even more choice words to share about the idiocy of the press -- as if it wasn't something that they all lived with, day in and day out. As if Yakov himself hadn't spent most of his working life cultivating his skaters' images and reputations, the faces they all showed to the world, the internationally envied strength and prestige of Russian figure skating. How could they ever understand, even if they wanted to?

(The dark secret shame, hot and thick in his chest, is that he really wants to go home. He wants his grandfather. Wants to know that he's all right. Wants to curl up next to him on their worn-out sofa, resting against Nikolai Plisetsky's warm, solid bulk, and tell him everything. About Viktor and his dog, and Katsudon, and Yakov and Lilia, and everything that had gone wrong during the short program, and how he's sorry, he's sorry that he hadn't skated Agape like he'd wanted to today, that his grandfather deserved better than that, so much better, and he'll work harder to do it right next time...and when he finally ran out of words, he could just sit there and not say anything at all, because he wouldn't have to. And maybe this horrible weariness inside him could go away for a little while.)

He can't go to Lilia's room. He can't go home. And it's probably cold enough outside to freeze his balls off, because it's Moscow in November. But he can grab his jacket and jam his feet into his sneakers, and go wander downstairs for a little while. Maybe buy a candy bar or some other cheap snack from the kiosk in the lobby. Give himself something to do so he doesn't go running out screaming into the night.

He stuffs his keycard, his wallet, and his phone in his jacket pockets. Right now, that's all he needs.

[theglassheart]

It feels like it’s both an agonizingly slow crash that keeps slamming through his center and absolute less than a second, before suddenly Victor squeezes him tighter, again and then is gone. His words make sense, but Yuri can really only stand there as they sink in, while Victor is picking up the phone and Yuri can only assume calling for the cab Victor just said he was, had to.

When he’s just staring, and he doesn’t know the words, and. He didn’t hug Victor. Seconds ago. Which seems to catch up like something large cracking from up high, only to fall and go smashing. Too late. When it all feels too late, and everything else is moving so fast. Too fast. The dizzying spill of fear and pain that blur together at the thought of that being the last chance, when something in that still cracking, still crashing certainty knows he can’t just walk over and hug Victor to change that.

Isn’t certain that if he could manage to do just that, he’d be able to let go.

Not while he’s watching Victor right his suitcase and the bag that slides on top of it. When everything is in it, everything is gone from the room, and it’s only the breath of however many minutes or seconds left, before that’s Victor, too. Victor’s voice is the only sound in the room, not even the air, and he still has to blink to focus, even when the only thing he’d been looking at was Victor.

There’s another nod, gaze slipping to one side, before coming back to Victor’s face. “Okay.”

The idea of walking Victor down to his cab, to the thing that will bring this all to an end, to watch him vanish entirely from this sudden upside down tilted night, is a pervasive pain. The idea of saying no and just watching Victor walk out the door less than twenty feet from them, right there, at the front of their — his? his room, now? — is worse.

Yuri takes small breaths walking down the hallway with Victor and the soft sound of the rolling suitcase, trying to reach for anything that will make this even out, taper at least to a manageable roll, but there’s a problem with trying to find anything like to hold on to, ground into. He finds it in the elevator, while the numbers are counting down so fast.

When he’s trying to tell himself it’s fine, they’ve done this.



But they haven’t.

No matter how he looks at, how he twists it.

They haven’t. In the greater part of a year the furthest he’s been from Victor has been what? The opposite side of an airport, recently? Half of Hasetsu, before the Qaulifiers, for the summer and spring? Because when Victor decided he wanted to go so much as a town away Yuri was no longer cajolingly invited to attend things, but all but kidnapped into acquiescence. Not days or nights away. Not weekends. Not competitions.


When had that happened? How? How many months now?

Had he ever spent that much time with anyone before? Ever?




Yuri needs to stop. He has to stop. Before he can’t breathe at all.

This isn’t about him. It’s about Victor. It’s about Maccachin. Victor deserves this, and more. Anything, he could want, could need, right now, if Yuri could give it to him. Or just not stand in the way of it. Victor’s done so much. For so long. He’s never asked for something this important. He was never going to have to tonight. He'd done so much, given so much, every single one of those suddenly painstakingly clear days.

Yuri just had to make it through the next few seconds — minute, if it’s even that long? — and then he can go somewhere and give into being stupid and selfish. Whatever that was, whatever it even looked like, when the last time he'd ever been it, without Victor, felt like a whole life, was nearly a whole year ago.


But only once this part is done.

[fivetimechamp]

The cab is already waiting by the time the elevator door slides smoothly open: he can see it through the lobby, past the glass doors leading out into a snowy Moscow night. He rolls his bag to the door ––

And then there's nothing else to do, and no time left. He should have spent these moments going over what Yuri should expect and focus on for tomorrow, but his time has run out. He can almost hear the cab driver grumble under his breath as he turns, eyebrows furrowing, grasping for the few seconds he has left. "Ask Yakov anything you don't understand."

Yakov may have agreed to look after Yuri for him, but Victor's under no illusions about how poorly the two of them might communicate with each other. He's familiar with Yakov's ways, but Yuri isn't, and the last thing Victor wants is for all of this to end ignominiously, in failure, because Yuri was shy or uncertain or Yakov was too brusque. "If you're in trouble ––"

Two quick steps, and his arms are around Yuri's shoulders again, cheek pressed to Yuri's hair, and he has to go, but he has to say this, first. "–– just hug him, and he'll help you."

Yakov might seem like an impenetrable wall, an unscalable mountain, but Victor knows better. He remembers being just past childhood, when everything seemed too big to handle. He remembers being eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and not knowing how to say what he needed, but the way Yakov always seemed to know, anyway.

Even tonight. (He can still almost feel the pressure of that hand on his back.) "Sorry, Yuri."

Whispered in Japanese against his ear, the first time he's said it aloud tonight, but not the first time he'd thought or felt or meant it. "Even if I'm not here, I'll always be with you in spirit."

And then there really is nothing else to say, or do, and the cold Moscow air is biting his cheeks while the snow kisses them, and then the door of the cab is slamming, and then the hotel –– and Yuri in it ––

is gone.

[yuri_plisetsky]

The hotel's creaky old Moslift monstrosity is taking longer than normal to make its way up to the eighth floor. So Yuri leans back against the corridor wall, and pulls his jacket hood up over his head. (If it wasn't the middle of the night, he'd have his sunglasses on as well.)

Outside the room, it's a little easier to breathe. He's going somewhere, doing something. Not just sitting and watching the numbers change on the clock-radio.

Tomorrow. Numbers. Third place. Fifteen fucking points behind that prick JJ; almost twelve behind Katsudon. (And Lee's only six points below him, so he can't ignore that threat entirely, either.) He's got to make up the difference somehow, or his senior debut season might end with a bang right here. It's too late at night to be messing around with mathematics, but he'll have to change something about his program tomorrow if he's to have any hope of knocking one of the three of the off the top of the podium. It's something he can file away to discuss with Lilia tomorrow during warmups: one question that he won't have to deal with right now.

Finally, the doors open, and Yuri shuffles in, punches the button for the lobby, and slouches against the side. It's not likely to be a total zoo downstairs, since the reporters will all have gone out to file their stories and the competitors should be sacked out in their rooms for the night. Maybe he'll buy two candy bars while he's downstairs -- something chewy and comforting and tooth-rottingly sweet, like Ptichye Moloko, would be good. Yakov had said not to eat too many pirozhki tomorrow, but he'd never told Yuri not to eat his feelings with chocolate tonight.

When the floor settles with a lurch that he can feel in his stomach, and the doors creak open onto the ground floor, he stuffs his hands in his pockets and steps out, stopping for a moment to inhale some of the lobby's cooler air. The hood of his jacket blocks his peripheral vision, but he can still see a few people hanging around the front desk, coming and going through the entrance. He's not exactly dressed for stealth, so he'll have to make this quick --

-- but that's when he sees who's standing in the lobby. All by himself, facing the entrance. Alone.

[theglassheart]

The world plays through a sieve Yuri can't seem to get his hands around, can't remember why he's supposed to, as he stands there. Staring through the glass doors. At the empty space where the cab, and Victor, aren't. Where the snow is falling. While the people in the lobby who've been watching him, or not watching him (them, when there was a them), still are or aren't. Are existing. Too many eyes. Too much movement to his stillness. His inability to move. To breathe.

Just enough to press at all the edges of Yuri's inability to forget them, salt stinging against fresh blood.
He doesn't want to care. He doesn't want to look away. Doesn't feel like he could. He should. ... But.




The cab doesn't come back.

(Isn't coming back.

Victor said, to hug Yakov?

Victor's gone. Just. Gone.
The cab won't come back.

Victor said, he was sorry?

He's just gone. For real this time.
He was always going to go
eventually, wasn't he?

He said -- )

Yuri has to swallow. Has to ball his fingers up in the pockets of his black and blue country jacket, still layered right over his Eros costume. Everything. Everything so out of sync. Out of sorts. The snow is still falling outside the doors, and the cab is still not coming back, and he tries to tell himself, he does. It's not the same thing. Victor didn't leave him. Victor went to Maccachin. Victor went where everyone, including Yuri, said he should. Wants him to. And he does. He still does, needs him to get there in time, which only hurts more.

(Since when does anyone listen to him?)

It's too fast, too layered. Victor trying to tell Yuri no, while Mari was still on his phone. Victor's voice, in a hundred unknown words, pleading with Yakov. Victor saying, thank you. Victor saying, I'm sorry. Victor saying he needs to eat, and he needs to sleep. Tomorrow a million miles away from when it had seemed real, and two breaths from happening in that late night gloom outside the glass doors. He doesn't want to eat. He doesn't want to sleep. He doesn't want to move, exist, breathe.

He doesn't even want to think about skating at this second. Or even changing.
Like if he dares any of those it will make everything else take out the very last strut.

Somewhere the large crowds are getting out, day one is ending, and people will be coming back.
People in anther world, who don't know how much has happened in how little time. Barely to hours since.

(He wants to call home.
He wants to know if there's any word, any update.
Desperate to know. Terrified to hear. If Maccachin is-- )

It's too late and he still has no words, and he didn't hug Victor goodbye (twice), and he didn't say anything real, not after telling Victor he should go, maybe an hour and, but not even to two, before he did, so fast, everything so fast, and maybe it's good Yuri didn't, so Victor couldn't see how weak he really was, and how it's all he can now do to hold his breath, hold every muscle in his body still, and will himself not to cry now. (Not now, not here, not yet.)


In the middle of this too well-lit foyer of a too nice hotel.
Where people were watching him stand there, alone.
While he watched the darkness consume the snow.

[yuri_plisetsky]

Katsudon is standing in the middle of the lobby like he's been turned to stone -- or ice, more likely, because he doesn't seem to notice or care that he's right in front of the doors, and if anyone goes in or out he'll be blasted in the face with the cruel cold of a Moscow winter night. And it doesn't take Yuri more than a second to figure out that if Katsudon is here in the lobby by himself, that means that Viktor is gone. Left. On his way back to Japan, to be there for his dog.

Which means that Katsudon is on his own.

But it's the expression on his face that makes Yuri freeze where he stands, because...because it's wrong. That's the only word he can think of to describe how strongly every gut instinct he has rebels against it, that desolate emptiness that's too sharp for grief and too numb for loss. It's wrong in a way that strikes through and erases and rewrites something deep inside of Yuri's core, and suddenly every other priority he has at this moment pales in comparison to the overwhelming need to do something, anything, that will take that look off Yuuri Katsuki's face.

In his pockets, his hands clench into fists. Or rather, one hand clenches into a fist, and the other hand tightens around the thin piece of plastic he'd been toying with not a moment ago: his room keycard.

At first, it's another thought to rebel against. He can't drag Katsudon back to his own room. There's nothing for them there but a window and three walls and a bed; nothing that could make that (wrong) look go away. And there's really nothing for them outside the hotel, either, out in the cold and the snow that would only solidify that frost in their hearts. There's no possible escape, inside or outside, because they're still --

(we're still in Shanghai)

-- and that's when everything slams into place, as impossibly possible as a quad axel. He knows where they can go. All he needs is a door to get them there, and he has the key to that door right in his hand.

It'll work. It has to work. He'll make it work. He's kicked his way through plenty of doors before; this one won't be any different. And he'll kick Katsudon through this one, too, if he has to. Because he has to.

Yuri's left hand is still clenched around his keycard, but he takes his right hand out of his pocket and uses it to flip his hood back and away from his face as he stalks across the lobby with his gaze locked on his prey. He doesn't call out or try to get Katsudon's attention from a distance, because there's no point in wasting his breath or his strength. Instead, he steps right up and plants himself in front of Katsudon, glaring up at him with an near-feverish intensity in his eyes.

'Katsudon.' It's not Yakov's commanding bark, but it has an authority of its own. If he has to be the one making decisions for both of them, to get them where they need to be, he can't falter in this. 'You're coming with me. Right now.'

[theglassheart]

It's a washing, sloshing sea of everything, in between the snow and the darkness, when that familiar teenage snarl and Yurio's face appear between Yuri and the door. Enough of a confused surprise, and an onslaught attack he'd expected earlier, in a completely different hall, that Yuri startles and sways slightly in both catching himself and his equilibrium in the seconds after it.

Yurio's stereotypical teenage glower makes everything else focus down, and the why could be any reason.

The why for the reason Yurio is here, or talking to him, or looking at him the same way he has all day, but Yuri feels it mostly through too much. Doesn't really feel it at all. A jangle close and distance at once. Not beyond that first blush of shocked startlement. He doesn't argue -- though his gaze darts back to the door and the dark, when the cab and Victor aren't, before back again -- and it could be Yakov or Lilia wants something. Victor said to listen. Victor trusts Yakov.

(Victor's gone.)

He's not sure how connected and even if his shoulder can droop, but Yuri turns from the door.

[yuri_plisetsky]

It's like watching someone try to walk underwater. Slow and heavy, barely coordinated. No real understanding in his face of anything that's going on, like he can't even manage enough of a reaction to be surprised. The Star Hotel could be on fire and actively burning down around them, and he probably wouldn't even blink.

Fuck it. Whatever. If Yuri has to think for both of them, too, he can do that.

Admittedly, he knows he should be more patient, more considerate, in how he handles this next part of his plan, but he's hyperaware of everyone in the lobby -- the front desk clerks, the scattered other guests, people who can identify their team jackets and might be able to figure out who they are if they don't know already. Another skater, another coach, another reporter could walk by any minute. Already they're starting to attract attention, heads turning to look at them, remnants of interest that could develop into something Yuri can't fully trust himself to deal with in a way that doesn't involve creative combinations of Russian and English expletives. So he doesn't try to take Katsudon by the wrist or arm and drag him along; instead, he gets a hand behind him to steer him from the back, like a life-size puppet with a pork cutlet brain, and propel him across the lobby.

'We're getting out of here,' he says, low and tight, as they move. 'Just keep your mouth shut and walk.'

(He probably doesn't need to say that much -- right now Katsudon doesn't look like he knows what words are, let alone how to make them come out of his mouth -- but the last thing he needs is to try to come up with explanations for where they're going.)

The ride up seems to take a lot less time than the ride down. Yuri has his card out and ready, his face set with concentration, as he pushes Katsudon down the corridor. By the time they reach the door to his room, he's pulled up a picture in his mind's eye...of opening the door to his bedroom in St. Petersburg and finding something more than his bed and his cat on the opposite side. As he reaches around to slide the card into the reader, and the little LED light flashes red-red-red and then green, his mind is a single point of focus: Please. Please be there.

And when he opens the door, it is.