Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
Moscow: Rostelecom Cup, GPF Qualifer Short Program (1.08)
The Rostelecom Cup is the last event of the 2014 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. In the men's figure skating division, two competitors -- Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan and Christophe Giacometti of Switzerland -- have secured their places in the Grand Prix Final. The remaining four slots will be determined by the final standings of the six skaters competing in Moscow, based on their scores in previous ISU Grand Prix events:
- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada
As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...
...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.
On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada
As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...
...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.
On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
no subject
Well, back by way of a small café near the hotel, which offers a wide variety of the sort of sweets Victor never thought he'd crave, but found himself missing in Japan: pastila, bird's milk cake, vatrushka, piles of chak-chak glinting with hardened honey. All of it toothsome and tempting, all of it too heavy for Yuri to eat right now, but that doesn't stop Victor from hauling them off their route to beg for samples from a rosy-cheeked, laughing girl behind the counter, who willingly hands over not only a few bites of pastry, but also the large coffee in a to-go cup Victor requests.
(Yuri needs to sleep well tonight, but he still has some preparations to see through, has old sponsors to meet and catch up with, has too much on his mind to succumb to the coaxing, gentle fingers of jet-lag, even if the prospect of stealing a few hours to curl up with Yuri in a dim and quiet room away from the hubbub is a tempting one.)
It's still in his hand when they walk back in through the hotel doors, only for the call to go up –– his name, Yuri's, the scurry of shoes against the lobby floor, the sudden flash of cameras –– before they're surrounded. Not unexpected, but Yuri looks like he'd rather be anywhere else than answering questions or taking pictures, and Victor leans down to him, first.
"Yuri, why don't you go on up? I'll be right behind you."
no subject
(He's definitely not expecting to round one of the corners and catch Victor's face on a far away building billboard, he can't tell whether is a hanging or attached there, three, or four streets up the way they aren't going, with letters beside it too far away and too small to read, in a language he probably wouldn't be able to read anyway, even if it was right above them.)
Victor stops them by a cafe wher his stomach gives some combination of whining about wanting desperately for more, being unable to survive without it, and gurgling about already being stuff with unknown foods it hasn't made up its mind about being in him, and he doesn't buy anything. He samples what he's handed, but he knows the fact he feels hungry has absolutely nothing to do with being hungry. He can feel it attaching itself to the back of his spine and the bottom of his lungs, like another whole lifeform.
A presence that has so much more to do with being here.
Wanting to bury himself again the ramping realization of being here.
Rostelcom is tomorrow, and he'd been on a strict enough diet all of the last few months. One meal doesn't change that. Or being a foreign confusing place, that is only foreign and confusing to him, and not Victor, putting a glass wall of longing and uncertainty into him. Between them. Being hungry, as a reaction to all it, doesn't change that. It's actually the most normal thing that could be, is, happening.
Well. And the siege of faces and cameras at the door. Sending him back toward ramrod stillness, like his spine only had two settings for the day -- and when exactly had he relaxed even enough to feel that snap back, frozen-stiff? Somewhere between Victor's laughing and constant familiar chatter, a tune he never could shut out. Not like the crowd. Not like the newest barrage of questions, beginning to come fluently in both languages as different crews of interviews make their appearances finally in Moscow, here, too.
He isn't expecting Victor's suggestion, but it doesn't take even needing to glance around to know he will. Even if something tightens and sinks in his stomach all at the same time. But away is a relief, and Victor always liked this. The attention. Yuri nodded, and let Victor excuse him. In a way Yuri never could have, where the interviewers were smiling and tittering good-natured, supportive laughs at the reason for Yuri's exodus.
If he stops just before turning the corner toward where he'll find the hallway to take him to the right tower of the hotel, just to watch Victor surrounded on all sides by the lights and microphones and buzzing questions, it's not like Victor or anyone around Victor is looking at him to catch it either.
no subject
At the moment, all he wants to do is go flop on his hotel bed with his feet up on the wall and listen to something loud, full of screaming, and totally unconnected with his skating, but that's not an option right now. He'll probably only have time for a shower and some light stretching before he has to show up at Lilia's door, second-best suit on and necktie in hand, for her inspection and approval. Tonight's the standard clusterfuck of pre-event publicity, where he'll have to play the Russian Fairy flitting around the sponsors and the sports ministry representatives like some demented reject from Tchaikovsky's own personal hell, but he knows that it has to be done. This is his senior debut, and the ice isn't the only place he'll have to perform this weekend.
Maybe Mila will let him stick close to her for a little while. It'll be more tolerable than being paraded around by Yakov or Lilia the whole time. Or maybe --
It's at that point that Yuri notices a gaggle of press off to one side of the lobby, and his train of thought promptly derails itself.
Because right in the middle of the group of reporters, wearing his designer sunglasses indoors like the royal asshole he is, is Russia's National Hero, casually giving an off-the-cuff press conference as if he hadn't fucked off to Japan to skate with a pig for most of the past year.
no subject
That's not even the right term. He enjoys it. The attention, the questions, the photos. He loves talking about skating, and he's never minded being open about himself and his personal life, and he's still the reigning champion, and that makes him a favorite of the press. He knows that would be a vain thing to say, but that doesn't make it any less true: what might come across as simple arrogance from someone else is often charming, even magnetic, from him.
So he's glad Yuri took the out. He'll have to talk to all of these people sooner or later, but right now, Victor just wants him to rest and focus, and he'll have a harder time doing that when "How do you feel about returning to Russia?" is one of the first questions launched his way, swiftly followed by: "When will you return to skating?"
It's not surprising that the press corp here is focused more on his return than on Yuri's comeback, but Victor's an old hand at deflecting them, easily, with a polite enough delivery that he can appear flattered by their interest but remain firm on this line. "Until the Grand Prix Final is over, I won't comment on any future plans."
He'd looked forward to coming back here, he'd said earlier. As a coach. He might be the problem with the press right now, but he can also be the solution: if he wants them to focus on something other than him, they will. "Right now, I see a lot of potential in Katsuki Yuri's skating. I'd like you all to focus on Yuri at the Rostelecom Cup."
It's a good line, and a firm one, and he's mentally patting himself on the back for directing attention away from himself and towards Yuri, when another reporter leans in, smiling. "If the skater Katsuki has that much charisma, don't you want to face him as a fellow competitor?"
no subject
It's not like listening to Yakov or Lilia respond to questions. Every word that comes out of their mouths is perfectly calibrated to have the correct effect, lessons learned in a time when saying the wrong thing to the press -- especially to the foreign press -- could end much more than their own careers. (Which is not to say that the local crews come off any better with them; Yakov will still sometimes mutter things about TASS sports reporters that Yuri doesn't fully understand, and frankly doesn't want to understand.) Mila and Georgi, with their bright cheerfulness and serious intensity, are less inclined to treat each reporter's question as a potential interrogation, but they still have their rehearsed answers even if they're delivered with relative ease. Whereas Viktor...is Viktor, and that really explains most of it, doesn't it?
It also explains why Yuri not infrequently wants to set him on fire these days.
Still, Viktor's noncommittal answer about waiting until after the Grand Prix Final is pat enough, a perfect soundbite. And even though it makes sense that he'd follow it up with a plug encouraging everyone to watch his own skater, the bloom of black jealousy that unfurls in Yuri's stomach has him gritting his teeth, remembering the feeling of the plastic spoon snapping in his hand back in the Sports Champions Club cafe. I'm in it, too!
But it's the follow-up question, by a reporter with more cunning than Yuri has come to expect from the usual crowd, that really makes him frown. Viktor skating against Katsudon? What the hell kind of question is that?
(And yet it tugs on his memory, a prickle of discomfort: 'I wanted to skate against him, not against you.')
no subject
A sudden distraction he can see, just over the shoulders of the reporters in front of him, and he's pointing, even as he grins. "Oh, it's Yurio!"
It's the perfect bait-and-switch, as the reporters look, their curiosity about his plans giving way to the necessity of covering Russia's newest up-and-coming elite skater, the little hellion who is as ready to break his own neck as he is to shout at everyone around him or to slink off on his own in sullen silence. That last conversation had been like getting repeatedly bitten on the ankle ––
See you in Moscow, Coach Nikiforov.
–– and it's running through his head as the attention and cameras and tape recorders turn towards Yurio, as he pushes forward.
Yurio who looks startled, who looks unsettled, who looks off-footed in a way that brings another memory floating to the top: If you're not too busy showing off for the cameras to remember that anyone else even exists. That face, wide-eyed and uncertain, with teeth baring as if to bite, reminding him of another day, much longer ago: warm weather and large crowds and the smoky, salty scent of grilling squid.
He'd sent the dogs after Yurio (and was it because he was a convenient distraction, or because he knew Yurio would hate it?) but he can run interference for him, too. An arm going around Yurio's shoulders, companionably, while he slips off his sunglasses for the pictures that are getting snapped in quick succession. "Did you all see the short program I put together for Yurio?"
Agape is something he never gets to talk about anymore, and there's so much to be said, about how Yurio fought for it, found it, began to make it his own. How much it's changed, and how he's ––
no subject
(Can't retreat. Can't escape.)
He doesn't know how Viktor manages to end up at his side before everyone else can get there, but when Viktor's arm goes around his shoulders and pulls him even closer, all perfect hair and clean clothes and coffee breath right next to his face, Yuri can't do anything but be swept along for the ride. His brain is not processing any of this fast enough to be remotely helpful, so takes him a second to actually hear the words that Viktor is saying as the cameras click and flash, something about the short program, his short program, his Agape --
And that's enough of a bolt to his ego to shatter the paralysis that had come over him.
When in doubt, lash out. A growl rises up from his chest, and as he starts to twist himself free his right hand automatically shoots up to dislodge the arm draped around his back. When he smacks Viktor's hand away from him, he feels as much as sees the coffee cup that had been in Viktor's hand go flying through the air to land with a heavy splash, its steaming contents cascading across the hotel lobby's polished floor. At least one of the reporters gasps in alarm at his violent reaction, but Yuri doesn't give a shit about them now. With the surge of territorial possessiveness racing through him, retreat or escape is suddenly the furthest thing from his mind.
'Quit acting like you're still the top Russian figure skater,' he snarls at Viktor, full of contempt. 'I'm the star in this event!'
The Russian flag flies for him here at this Rostelecom Cup. He'll carve it into their hearts with his skate blades before he lets anyone forget that.
no subject
There's a short gasp, and a hush that makes the falling coffee cup sound like the crash of a guillotine, but while the reporters murmur behind him, Victor says nothing. He's been dealing with Yurio all wrong from the beginning, it seems. It's not even unusual to be smacked away, even if it's normally verbally, rather than with actual physical violence. He'd probably love it if Victor rose to the attack.
Not as much as the reporters would, though, and Victor's been doing this too long to let anything slip past the carefully curated half-smile on his face, all the animation he'd just been deploying wiped away and replaced with something bland and blank, although those looking at him head-on might feel a sudden shiver, the way one might if a chilly wind had blown across an otherwise mild spring day.
There's nothing to do but to let him stalk off, before bending to retrieve the fallen coffee cup, shrugging off that sudden cool stillness like someone had hit a button marked play on his back, only to turn with a wide smile to the reporters, shoulders relaxed, to lift the cup and lid in exaggerated mournfulness. "Looks like I'll need a refill."
It gets the laugh he'd intended, which relaxes the mood, and as he focuses back on the questions coming his way, it leaves him with his back turned to the elevators and the black storm cloud currently headed that direction.
no subject
(That being said, Yakov and Lilia would never have let things escalate in such a manner in the first place. But the necessity of keeping Viktor Nikiforov and Yuri Plisetsky apart had not entered into their minds as a top priority in these early hours of the Rostelecom Cup.)
Yuri, of course, doesn't need to actually hear the lectures to feel himself writhing under their combined attack. They're already playing out in his mind, their words burning like acid in his blood and making his eyes sting treacherously. His backpack is a solid weight on his shoulders, and right now it feels like it's the only thing keeping him from completely flying apart.
Fuck everything, and everyone, and Viktor Nikiforov in particular.
Once he's on the ice, at least, none of it will matter anymore. He'll get through tonight somehow, and tomorrow he'll be where he needs to be. For now, he can go up to his room and crank up his music as loud as it'll go. The elevators are right around the corner; soon, he'll be away from all of them.
no subject
Yuri rubbed at his cheek and kept walking. He wouldn’t mind laying down. He’s not certain he could sleep exactly yet, but he wouldn’t mind laying down. Maybe to just lay down and scroll his feed, and listen to his music for a while. Think over the pieces he needs to most work on, most focus on tomorrow. Before Victor would reappear, and they'd end up going over the same things for tomorrow.
The first sound to bring Yuri back from his thoughts to the empty space, is the sound of steps that has Yuri looking to his side to find Seung-Gil Lee. The Korean skater, who got approval for a mambo, and showed up last week in the NHK Trophy. Yuri is certain it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out how to open his mouth, but all he finds is the feeling of suddenly being further adrift from the skaters that will be here for Rostelecom than China.
There isn’t anyone he knows here. Not like he’d known Phichit.
Which was almost like being drug into knowing everyone.
The elevator doors open the next second, on a far more unexpected scene as Yuri blinks at two more of his competitors — Michele Crispino, also, from the NHK Trophy, and Emil Nekola, from Skate Canada — in the middle of what almost looks like a fight. The Italian skater, clutching a girl to his chest, who it becomes quickly obvious is his sister, due to the yelling about her.
It’s an awkward pause, as the two men in the elevator keep talking but don’t yet get off, and Yuri and Seung-Gil stand there staring at them. Yuri would already like to be somewhere that is not here, even as it’s clarifying that it seems to all mostly belong to Crispino overreacting to something, while Emil is laughing through an apology and his sister is defending whatever it was.
The girl turns and says hello to both of them outside the elevator, and Yuri wonders for a long second, with no response poised or appearing by any stray strike of luck, if he’s met the smiling girl who winks at him, before. If she was in China, as well. But he never has to decided on a response, because Seung-Gil soldier’s into movement and moves to walk into the elevator, brushing off the hello from the girl.
Stumbling right over her invitation to come out with them.
Then, right into asking if there is any value in being polite to her.
With a not quite hunch of shoulders, Yuri slides toward the other elevator, as it dings to announce itself, wanting nothing more than to escape without being the next person drug into everything over in the other elevator.
no subject
He'd assumed, seeing Viktor in the hotel lobby preening for the press, that the pig had been somewhere else. Taking a nap or unpacking or out for a run, doing something useful with his time. But if he's at the elevators, with Viktor right over there....
(if you're not too busy showing off for the cameras to remember that anyone else even exists)
The elevator is starting to close. And so Yuri stalks past the squabbling morons and jams his foot into the closing door before it can shut all the way.
Inside the elevator, the startled look on the pig's face untwists a knot inside him. Yes, this is how it's supposed to be, throwing off his competitors' balance even before the competition starts. 'Why are you sneaking around?' he asks, half-accusation and half-criticism.
Why aren't you with Viktor? Why isn't he parading you around on a leash? Why isn't he showing you off, if he's so proud of how well you've been imitating him all this time?
no subject
His shoulders drop with the surprise and some of that gathered tension goes right out of him. There's something that never truly makes itself into a smile, but it heads in the gray nebulous direction of that realm more than the one it had been in. The words are perfunctory, but he's alarmed to note that it's true, too. "Good to see you again."
It's been months and even the whole of a good amount of time since he was last following Yuri in the Skate Canada performances and scores.
"Um." Even if the words are true, it makes having any clue what to say after those perfunctory words as completely new kind of grey and fogged endlessness. Has him reaching his hands into, even just to produce something else perfunctory. "Good luck to both of us in the Rostelecom Cup."
no subject
'Huh?' he says, laying the scorn on as thick as he can. 'You'll suffer a miserable defeat here in Moscow. I'll make sure Viktor stays behind in Russia.'
To be honest, at this point he really doesn't give a flying fuck what Viktor does with himself. All he wants is for Viktor's little travelling shitshow to crash and burn, preferably as spectacularly as possible, right here in Moscow. The pig can take his good luck and shove it right up his ass; Yuri knows what's expected of him at this competition, and luck doesn't have anything to do with it.
(Very lightly, almost imperceptibly, he's tapping the fingers of his right hand against the side of his leg.)
no subject
It’s familiar. It’s exactly what Yurio should be like.
Sullen and shatteringly sharp, unwavering about Yuri’s doom.
He shouldn’t smile, but he does at the beginning. It’s the first truly normal thing aside from Victor (who even seems a little different here, too). Which is an odd half-thought to already be in, when Yuri mentions he’s going to have Victor stay when he wins, and Yuri's smile does fall away, like it was gossamer dissolved against the touch of the air, and …
Hadn’t Yuri been thinking that earlier?
If he doesn’t rank high enough.
If he doesn’t make it to the Grand Prix Finale.
If Victor no longer has a reason to return to Hasetsu.
What would Victor do, then?
no subject
When it finally does, Yuri wastes no time in stepping up to the door and shouldering through it before it can open all the way. At least this means that the pig and Viktor aren't on his floor; he'll take whatever small comforts the universe can throw his way right now.
The keycard opens onto a single room, looking much like any of the dozens of hotel rooms he's been in for competitions. Single bed, single desk and chair, door to the closet and bathroom off to the side. There's a large bottle of some fancy European water and a grossly over-the-top bouquet of flowers in a vase on the desk -- he doesn't have to look at it to know that it's from Rostelecom, the usual welcome gift to the members of the national team -- and his luggage is set to the side of his bed. He takes off his backpack and drops it on the bed, then opens it to take out the bag of pirozhki. They're mostly cool now, but he grabs one anyway, and takes a bite of it as he walks over to the window to look out over the sprawling panorama of Moscow at night, the glittering lights of cars and billboards and buildings all casting a wan glow onto the overcast winter sky.
I'll show them all, Dedka. The hand that isn't holding the pirozhok fists in the drapes, wadding the thin fabric in a crushing grip. I won't let anyone beat me this time. You'll see how far I've come.
He'll win his first senior gold here. No matter what it takes.
no subject
(Has the rivalry with rising star Plisetsky inspired him to return to Russia and compete on the same team? Will they be seeing a second showdown between Japan and Russia? How does he think Katsuki compares to Plisetsky, younger and apparently already on a roll? Has he found that staying with his skater has perpetuated a deeper, more personal relationship than is usual between skater and coach?)
Sala and Michele Crispino walk past a few moments after Yurio stalks away, followed closely by Emil Nekola. Sala gives a little wave that Victor nods at (and that makes her brother scowl), but he doesn't wave back, or greet them. He doesn't know many of the skaters here this weekend –– not well, anyway. Not the way he knows Chris, or Georgi and Mila. He's friendly with most of them, but to tell the truth, he can only place most of their faces right now because he'd taken a glance at the assignments again earlier this week and looked them up. Emil: a strong but inconsistent skater with a bright and charming affect. Michele: moody with occasional flashes of brilliance and a tendency to attempt jump combinations he shouldn't. He's almost more familiar with the sister's skating than with Michele's –– she has a few combinations under her belt even the male skaters would blanch at –– but they're both fine. Decent, solid skaters.
Neither of them can hold a candle to Yuri on his best day.
Yuri, who is probably back at the room now, so Victor excuses himself, with a winking request that they pay close attention to Yuri during the next day's short program, because they're likely to see something amazing, before he heads towards the elevators himself, with a sigh, reaching into his pocket to dig out his phone and text Yuri:
On my way up
no subject
Which seems almost too good a comparison for them, and or the world. This distance between. At least for a moment, before the doors close again and the elevator moves just fast enough to invoke that feeling of buoyant weightlessness in his stomach before it's stopping again at his own floor. Dinging and swishing open on the top floor, which looks for the most part almost exactly as the one before it had. Without Yurio striding down the empty hall. That was empty. Except for lights and doors and placed decor.
Yuri walked back down the hallway, digging in his pocket for his door key and let himself back into the empty room. The lights flicked on, he steps out of his shoes and jacket both by the door, and then went for his bag. He found his sleep clothes and toiletries, taking both to the bathroom. To change, and brush his teeth. There's the hazy consideration of shower, looking at it through the mirror in front of him, but he doesn't feel entirely like he wants to be up for it, and he'll have to take another in the morning either way.
The small bathroom bag gets left on the counter, and his clothes from the day folded and put in a different bag, before, phone in hand, dropping on his bed, again. Dragging the pillow back up from the middle of the bed where he'd been using it earlier, to the bed itself. Wedging it under his head and starting to scroll through his notifications.
There's an email from Phichit with more emotes and exclamations than will ever be necessary, but it still makes him smile, and there's no doubting Phichit's sincerity about wishing him well for the weekend. Not even when it just tangles the coils in his stomach tighter. He shoots a response back for that one, and is just about to hit send on an email to his parents and Minako, reporting they got in safely, when Victor's messages pops up at the top of his screen.
It doesn't need a response, but everything still pauses for it regardless. He still stares at it for a second, two, three, a few, before finally scrolling it up, finishing his earlier message and hitting send. With those done, he pops open his feed and starts scrolling people's pictures for most of their travel day.
no subject
The shower's water pressure and temperature are decent, even on the upper floors of this hotel. Once he's done, he picks the most ear-splitting death metal he can find on his playlists to listen to while he gets his clothes in order. Just as he's putting on his socks and shoes, his phone buzzes with a message from Yakov: Room 812. Five minutes.
Yakov's room, not Lilia's.
This was going to suck.
The song he'd been listening to ends, and Yuri shoots back a single k to Yakov before he sets his phone down and goes to brush his teeth. There are two more pirozhki in the bag, and they won't keep until tomorrow, but they'll do for a snack before bedtime while he checks his skates and his costumes for any last-minute problems that might need fixing. Once he's rinsed out his mouth and smoothed his hair down, he glares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. 'All right, suck it up and just fucking do it already,' he mutters to himself.
Wallet, keycard, necktie in hand. Time to go have his ass roasted.
no subject
Surprise isn't the right word for it, but he feels annoyingly unsettled, like there's a thorn in his shoe that pricks him every now and again without warning, on an otherwise perfectly nice stroll. His pleasant mood –– the enjoyment of being full, for once, of familiar food, the delight in hearing his own native language spoken fluidly around him –– seems to have evaporated, and he just feels tired and a little peeved. What was he supposed to have done? A year ago that might have annoyed Yurio. He might even have struck Victor's hand away in a mirrored motion. None of that should bother him, or does.
His mouth tightens as a brusque, young voice goes slicing through his head. Stop acting like you're still the top Russian figure skater.
All of it frustrating, and aggravating, and it's a good thing the elevator hauls him up to the ninth floor without stopping on the way, because it's all a little easier to push away when he's back in motion, glancing at room numbers as he finds his keycard, until he finds the right one. "Yuri?"
It's quiet in here, and unlike the silence of the elevator, it helps quiet his head, too: darkening night outside the window, familiar cheap hotel furniture, and Yuri there on one of the beds, scrolling through his phone and quieting something in Victor's chest and head that had been spinning, spinning, spinning, without a spot or slowing momentum.
He's already shedding his jacket as the door closes with a soft click behind him, tossing it and the sunglasses on the foot of the other bed, before he's crawling next to Yuri and settling against his side with his nose and face in the crook of Yuri's neck and an arm over Yuri's stomach, to breath out a comforted, content breath. "What a long day."
no subject
( Three-quarters of a picture of Leo de la Iglesia with headphone cords dangling around his neck, caught in the middle of laughing, his hair caught in motion, on a couch somewhere. The caption and tags not skimmed yet. )
There are long hours in the day Yuri has to question the validity of his own mind, and it is a constant enough thing without reason, but there've been a lot of new reasons. It's not for granted. It's not expected. Even with something like odd consistent, but absolutely unbalance, Yuri still freezes when Victor's knee lands on the end of his bed. Which only shifts into a shiver when Victor's arm curls across his middle and his face pushes into Yuri's neck, letting out a very warm breath against so thin skin there.
It's a near thing, but he manages not to drop his phone.
Not on his face and not on Victor's head.
Movement isn't quite back, but he lowers his phone slowly and then his shoulders, stealing a sideways look at the wash of Victor's hair and the round of his shoulder at the edge of Yuri's vision more than any part of his face. "Tomorrow will longer."
Words that tangle up those coiled vines in his stomach tighter. Promising it.
no subject
If they all make it through this weekend alive and in one piece, he'll consider this year's Rostelecom Cup a smashing triumph regardless of who ends up where on the podium.
When Yuri shows up at his door in response to his message, necktie in hand and a look in his eyes that falls somewhere between loaded for bear and desperate to be anywhere else, Yakov says nothing. Lilia is already there, waiting to take care of the few final touches, and he leaves her to it -- tying Yuri's tie, running a brush through Yuri's mostly dry hair, picking a few stray cat hairs off Yuri's suit. The familiar routine, calm and unhurried, trying to prove that there's nothing all that different about this particular competition. And by the time Lilia finishes, a little of the tension in the room has fallen away.
Two lifetimes of experience have given them one solid rule: Performance is often more psychological than physical. There's enough pressure here on Yuri without adding to it unnecessarily -- and reminding him of his own faults is not what he needs this close to the start of the performance. So there's no lecturing, no scolding, no criticism tonight. There will be time enough for that later. Right now, Yuri needs to know that his coaches have his back, no matter what.
(And Yuri does know this, deep down. It's why he knows what they ought to be saying to him, and can guess they aren't saying it. He'd be more grateful if he were any less frustrated with all of it. But he keeps his mouth shut as they leave the room and head downstairs to the lobby to meet Mila and Georgi. He can do that much for now.)
no subject
A rumble of agreement, caught somewhere between Yuri's neck and the pillow. At this time last year, if he were here in Moscow, he'd be pressed into his best suit and marched off with Yakov and the others to shake hands and smile with the sponsors, taking care of all the annoying but necessary chores demanded by etiquette and the Russian Skating Federation.
This is better. It's a thought that comes with only a slight pang, that he brushes off without allowing it to gain any purchase. No claws sinking into his shoulder so a derelict and aggravating crow can chide him directly into his ear tonight: not when he has Yuri right here, and the short program is tomorrow, and he isn't the one pretending to enjoy being out with the sponsors instead of relaxing in his room or out at a bar somewhere.
(Yurio will probably hate it.)
"Which is why you should get some good rest tonight."
The first wave of annoyance now faded away, he pulls back enough to settle his head on the pillow and look into Yuri's face, even if no part of the rest of him moves. (He will. Just. In a minute.) "How are you feeling? Anything giving you trouble?"
That bruise on his hip had blossomed into a spectacular purple flower, but it's already fading away only a few days later, and he's certainly looked fine on the ice. Nothing stiff or painful, just determination and flow.
He tips his head towards the phone resting on Yuri's chest. "Any word from Hasetsu? Did you let them know we're here?"
no subject
But even more because it is here. Russia. Victor's Russia.
Where it'll cut closer to everyone there. Yuri on ice, and not Victor.
There's a slow, but present, nod. "A few minutes ago."
Victor had nodded to his phone and he looked down at his hand, then just beyond it, a pause lingering there, before lifting his hand from his phone. He moved it a few inches to lay his hand against the space of Victor's arm right above his elbow, even while speaking. "One from them, and another from Minako-san, mostly filled with pointers and reminders."
Reminders they would all be watching and cheering him on, even if they felt not an ocean but worlds away removed now. Like a hallucination, he might have dreamt. But at the same time, he missed them in brilliant color. Missed details now, a week away, that he'd somehow forgotten while he was away for five years.
The smell of his mother cooking in the morning. The precise texture of salty sea air being breathed in. The warmth of the onsen, and the easy luxury of it. The feeling that filled him, skating in Ice Palace, in the middle of the night, that no other rink gave just the same.
"The rest is fine." As fine as things get. There's a level of soreness that is as prevalent as breathing, but the day without moving much and without pushing himself the same as he had all other days of this week, has even added a small layer of reprieve to that, too. "I'll be ready."
It sounds certain. Even if it feels less certain by the time it's off his tongue.
no subject
'These things are always terrible,' she says, smiling down at him. 'But you'll be more fun to be around than Georgi, so stick with me, okay?'
'Quit messing up my hair, Baba,' Yuri grumbles, jerking his head away slightly, as Georgi lets out a disgruntled rumble of his own and seems on the point of saying something in protest.
'That's enough, all of you.' It's a reprimand for form's sake, rather than one with any of Yakov's usual force behind it. 'We'll be expected in the main banquet room shortly.'
'Yuri, it would be good of you to escort Mila into the room.' Lilia takes a moment to adjust the neckline of Mila's dress, and with her other hand she guides Yuri over so that Yuri can take Mila's arm. 'Be gracious, but if anyone makes either of you uncomfortable, excuse yourselves politely and come find me.' Not a warning she would like to give, but Mila is eighteen and Yuri is fifteen, and she and Yakov are as much chaperones as coaches at a reception such as this.
Yuri is acutely aware that he must look at least a little bit ridiculous, escorting a woman who is visibly taller than he is even when she isn't wearing heels. But it's only Mila, and she's more fun to be around than Georgi (though that isn't exactly some epic triumph, because Georgi), so whatever, he can do this. 'Fine,' is all he says, and Mila tightens her arm in a brief squeeze against his as they set off for the banquet room.
no subject
He couldn't be more confident in saying so than if it were a pep talk to himself. Yuri has worked so hard, and come so far, and what's come out of it all is something that's so much more than just the choreography he'd put together, or the jumps Yuri's learned. It's taken on a life of its own, incendiary and breathtaking. For all Yuri has said right along that he has no experience with eros, he now embodies it so fully that –– for everyone else watching –– he might as well be a completely different person entirely. The magic lying in the fact that it is, still, wholly Yuri, now fighting with his own charms, telling a story of seduction his own way.
It's only getting better and better, and it's still not at the very best it could be, which is perfect: he'll peak at the Grand Prix Final, and keep blowing away his own scores until he gets there. Yuri might not be certain about his success, but Victor is. He's worked so hard to get back here, and he's never been this good. Together, they'll show the whole world.
For now, he only shifts a little closer as Yuri's hand settles on his arm, expression softening. "It's probably a little overwhelming being here, isn't it?"
At the second of his qualifiers. In Russia. Victor's home, but not Yuri's. He's not putting much credence into Yurio's snarled comments about whether or not he's still acting like the top Russian figure skater, but it's probably a little complicated for Yuri.
(Or is that a vain thing to think?)
Either way, just being up here with him has settled Victor's thoughts and relaxed his shoulders, and he should really be focusing on Yuri, not Yurio, anyway. "They're going to love you tomorrow."
Nobody appreciates good figure skating like Russians. He has every confidence that Yuri will win their hearts, just like he won Victor's.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)