Yuri Plisetsky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
yuri_plisetsky) wrote2017-05-23 02:39 pm
Moscow: Rostelecom Cup, GPF Qualifer Short Program (1.08)
The Rostelecom Cup is the last event of the 2014 ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating series. In the men's figure skating division, two competitors -- Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan and Christophe Giacometti of Switzerland -- have secured their places in the Grand Prix Final. The remaining four slots will be determined by the final standings of the six skaters competing in Moscow, based on their scores in previous ISU Grand Prix events:
- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada
As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...
...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.
On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
- Michele Crispino (Italy): 3rd Place, NHK Trophy
- Yuuri Katsuki (Japan): 2nd Place, Cup of China
- Seung-gil Lee (Republic of Korea): 2nd Place, NHK Trophy
- Jean-Jacques Leroy (Canada): 1st Place, Skate Canada
- Emil Nekola (Czech Republic): 3rd Place, Skate Canada
- Yuri Plisetsky (Russian Federation): 2nd Place, Skate Canada
As the competitors arrive in Moscow, two particular skaters are the focus of much press and fan speculation. Fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky is making his senior debut in his first major competitive event in his home country, after a strong showing at Skate Canada in Kelowna, British Columbia. At the same time, Japanese skater Yuuri Katsuki has arrived in Moscow with his coach, the long-reigning world champion Viktor Nikiforov, and based on his remarkable performance at the Cup of China in Shanghai...
...but all of this is only to be expected from the official press coverage.
On the ground, the reality is a little more complicated than that.
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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.
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(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.
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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.
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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?
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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."
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'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.)
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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?
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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.
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(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
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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.
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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.
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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."
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( 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.
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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.)
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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?"
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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.
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'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.
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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.
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The combination of Victor asking a question and answering it himself, which isn't all that un-Victor in the slightest, draws up the same thought he's had any number of times today, and more and more per day this week as they got closer to Rostelcom, and Russia. Maybe Yuri doesn't quite realize his fingers tighten a little, even if his gaze goes down toward the bed between them when he decides to brave saying it. "They'll wish it was you."
It's not new. It's been the truth since Victor announced. It's just greater here. These are Victor's people, in Victor's country, where he was their unbeatable, genius, world champion skater for more than the last decade of Yuri's own life. There weren't many ways he could imagine them loving this. Victor on the sidelines. Victor on the other side of the wall. Victor standing behind someone who didn't even have the grace to be Russian. They'd want him. Not Yuri.
They already did, but they'd want him even more here.
They'd be watching Yuri so much closer, and less charitably, for it.
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It's a mostly older crowd, mostly men, mostly with drinks in their hands. Yuri has to let go of Mila's arm when the handshakes start, though thankfully they're never more than a few feet from each other the whole time. He knows how to give a firm handshake -- his grandfather had taught him that from a young age -- and it's a tiny boost to his wavering confidence every time the smiling adult who's taken his hand can't quite conceal his or her surprise at the strength of his grip. All the same, he's grateful when the immediate press of crowds seems to recede a little and one of the hotel's waitstaff hands him and Mila drinks as well: some sort of sour cherry kompot, he notes with a faint scowl, so obviously different from the alcohol that nearly everyone else around them has in their glasses. But then there's a crackle of microphone feedback, and suddenly Yakov's voice booms out over the room's speaker system, momentarily too loud until an unseen hand hastily adjusts the volume.
'On behalf of myself and my skaters, I would like to thank you all for your kind hospitality and support here in Moscow this year. We hope that our performance in this penultimate event in the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating' --
('In case you've drunk enough to forget why you're here already,' Mila murmurs right next to Yuri's ear, forcing him to turn his snort into a cough.)
-- 'will continue to showcase the internationally renowned strength of Russian figure skating, and give you an indication of the bright future that we expect to have for many years to come.' There's a pause, and though Yuri can't actually see where Yakov is standing he can tell that everyone appears to be raising glasses in preparation for a toast. 'Mila Babicheva and Yuri Plisetsky -- to their success!'
As the toast echoes around the room, Yuri quickly buries his nose in the sour-sweet kompot so he won't have to make eye contact with anyone who might be looking his way. This is only the start of the evening, and his mouth is already as dry as dust.
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It would be patronizing and incorrect to tell Yuri he's wrong. He sees it all the time, as comments on his social media profiles, fans asking when he'll be coming back, hears it from reporters and coaches and other skaters. When the World Champion suddenly drops out of competition, it rocks the boat more than a little. There's a large hole in the line-up that the skaters this season are scrambling to fill, and none of them, even Yuri, are quite managing it.
It's even more complicated here, in Russia. He's belonged to them, given them something to boast about, the strength of the Russian figure skating programs, the collection of gold medals that were nearly as much his country's as his own. After years of hard work and strife, rotten ice, crooked judges, dismal training facilities, he'd risen to become their favorite son.
Then he'd left, but they haven't given up on him, still call him their own, and maybe that's all a little more than one person should have to shoulder, but he'd never considered it a burden. Still doesn't, even now, even if thinking about it all makes him feel a little uneasy, like he'd forgotten to call an old friend and was past the point of being able to apologize about it.
So Yuri isn't wrong, but even if Victor has to admit it's probably true, it isn't the entire story. "But not once you've finished."
Eros will win them over. Yuri will win them over. Eros is all about the seduction of someone who doesn't want or expect to be seduced, isn't it?
His thumb runs up and down along Yuri's side, a small motion meant to comfort. "They'll never be able to resist you once you start skating."
He certainly couldn't.
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Maybe he wishes it wasn't the truth. Just a little. Could picture just barely, hazy images, that are more like hazy would-not-feelings, what that might be like. But not long enough to hold on to it. He doesn't want to keep thoughts that aren't true. That will just get gummy and slip him up. He thinks enough things in a day that aren't true to not have anything kind of want to pick up more of them if he can help it.
It would be easier if it wasn't true, here or anywhere else, but especially here, but Yuri isn't certain -- especially laying there, looking into Victor's eyes, that even as much as he wants this (a comeback worth forgetting the last year, a good year to go out on, to make it to the Grand Prix final) -- that he wouldn't pick Victor, too, if there was a chance that he could see Victor skate, perform, compete instead of himself.
He'd loved Victor, and Victor's rise, and Victor's constant record-shattering, like the rest of the world for more than half his life.
Still something in his troubled expression softens the smallest bit against the feeling of Victor's fingers running along that small section of his side, through his night shirt. Soft warmth, he has no defense against, snaking its way through his skin into the spaces between the loops and knots in his stomach, and after a few seconds of that, he finally gives into turning on to his side to be able to face Victor.
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'Mila, I believe that Lilia wants to introduce you to someone who works with the Bolshoi's corporate relations division. She'll be with you shortly.' Yakov manages to get a hand around Yuri's back, half-pushing and half-pulling him forward. 'Yuri, come with me.'
Mila's apologetic smile is the last thing Yuri sees before he's hauled off, and she's swallowed up by the crowd.
It's another whirlwind of introductions, only this time he's actually expected to do more than simply shake hands and say his name and a polite nice to meet you. The Rostelecom contingent is large, but there are also a number of other ISU sponsor representatives -- everything from high-end watches to financial services to sporting goods -- in addition to the rest of the Moscow figure skating community. And they're all at least a little curious to meet this young kid (a two-time Junior Grand Prix and Junior Worlds champion, but a kid nonetheless) who seems to be Yakov Feltsman's new golden hope in the aftermath of Viktor Nikiforov's sudden and baffling departure.
So with Yakov right at his elbow, Yuri keeps his answers simple and bland. Yes, he's happy to be back in Moscow. Yes, he is proud to represent Russian figure skating at the Rostelecom Cup. Yes, he's being very well looked after by Coach Yakov, and yes, he is truly privileged to have the opportunity to work so closely with Lilia Baranovskaya. And of course, he greatly appreciates the continued support of the skating federation, which has allowed him to devote himself wholeheartedly to the sport. One or two of them try to coax a few more personal details out of him, and so he feeds them acceptable morsels in return -- he's fond of listening to Rachmaninoff, he's been reading the poems of Anna Akhmatova for school, he's never tried to play hockey but he would be happy to teach the Dynamo Moscow lineup to do quad salchows if it'll help them win the Gagarin Cup. (This last remark, said to a group of sports ministry officials, gets a roaring laugh from all of them, though Yuri suspects it has more to do with their vodka than his wit.)
All in all, things could be going a lot worse. Until one of the Rostelecom middle managers, four glasses in and eager to show off what he looked up on the Internet shortly before coming to the hotel, unwittingly asks Yuri the absolute wrong question: 'You must be very proud to have a short program choreographed by Viktor Nikiforov. Are you looking forward to showing it off here in Moscow?'
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In the end, it's never about the audience, as much as Victor always performed for them. Every skater is out there alone. As much as the audience can help or hinder, it's always up to the single person on the ice to determine their own fate.
...Although it helps to have a goal to try and attain.
A thought that makes him grin, slow and fond, laughing at himself as he lifts his hand to brush Yuri's hair back, tuck it with deft fingers over his ear. "If you can seduce me, you can seduce anyone."
It's funny because it already happened, because Victor never stood a chance. Yuri swept him off like a piece of driftwood in a storm, and he's never been able to make his way back to shore ever since.
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There's nothing he'd rather be looking at on it, in comparison to the sight right here in front of him, even if he's still not anything like adjusted to and entirely comfortable with the abject intensity of Victor swelled to a higher key, that's comes in waves so suddenly often this close now. It tangles up his tongue, and his thoughts, and everything between his chest and his stomach at different times.
Especially when Victor talks about Yuri seducing him with an even, easy self-amused simplicity like it doesn't take the air and the ground from Yuri. This reference, changed entirely, to mean something more like this and less like the muddle of gray confusion and misplaced reactions that were at least their own kind of normal. Unlike the one now that stumbles, coltish confusion in the wall of his ribs, his lungs, his heart.
More than half the time he can't help that he still looks for some of the mad genius in that, the exaggeration and overinflation he's translated those word into for all of these months. Before. Maybe even might be waiting to see if it's just a joke or phrase that is just a current amusement Victor will just forget. Except none of those thoughts stick as well when Victor's hand raises toward his face, and suddenly his fingers slide, soft as a breath, across the soft thin skin above his ear, and just barely the shell of his ear, tucking back piece of his hair.
It probably won't stay pressed back all that long,
but that doesn't keep Yuri's eyes from closing just a little at the touch, with a soft, "Okay."
The smallest, shortest trail of soft friction in Victor's touch, and the way somehow he wonders if he's been waiting for all of this since ... yesterday? This morning? Somewhere just before? At the same time as not knowing if it would? Whether it should? If he'd just utterly missed some strange ache for it, only noticing suddenly as it seemed like something else, somewhere else, instead loosened itself a few centimeters, and he seemed to recognize its existence only as it grew lighter.
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