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Einstein’s happiest moment
occurred when he realized
a falling man falling
beside a falling apple
could also be described
as an apple and a man at rest
while the world falls around them.And my happiest moment
occurred when I realized
you were falling for me,
right down to the core, and the rest,
relatively speaking, has flown past
faster than the speed of light.- Richard M. Berlin, "Einstein's Happiest Moment"
An object in orbit exists in a constant state of falling, caught on the edge of the gravity well sunk in spacetime by something far greater than itself, existing in a perfect velocity, a journey of endless return.
It's a shame that thinking about physics and convoluted metaphors does absolutely nothing to help the fact that Victor, leaning on the boards at Hasetsu Ice Castle and watching Yuuri work through the step sequence from 'On Love: Eros', cannot seem to keep his mind on coaching for more than a minute at a time.
Yuuri's timing is slightly off. The way he's moving indicates that that little twinge in his right hip hasn't entirely gone away yet; they'll have to stretch that out carefully later. The musicality of his movement is as vivid as ever, though, and there's a fresh sensuality to it too, something in the cant of his head that makes him look the way he had last night, in the lamplight, one hand pressed against Victor's mouth to muffle any noises while the other-
Victor shakes his head. If he's not careful he's going to end up skating out there and tackle-kissing Yuuri onto the ice again, which would be completely fine and fantastic except for the fact that Takeshi's beginners class will be needing at least a part of the rink in fifteen minutes' time. Also it turns out that while making out on the ice is just as dramatic and romantic as he'd always hoped, it is also very, very cold. It would be bad for Yuuri's thigh muscles. Yuuri has such incredible thighs.
"So how was that?"
He blinks. Yuuri has skated over to him, incredible thighs in tow. There's a little sheen of sweat on his brow, his hair mussed, and he reaches for the water bottle by Victor's elbow. He takes a swig and looks back expectantly, eyes flicking down just for a moment to Victor's lips.
Maybe he could develop a system of feedback based on kissing? One kiss for 'that was good'. Two for 'let's run it through again'. A little tongue to indicate 'watch your ankles on that jump approach'. Full-on, open-mouths-with-butt-grabbing for 'I am completely seduced, let us return home at once before Yuuko kicks us out for making a scene'. He's pretty sure Yuuri would understand that last one perfectly, at least.
"It's good," he says, finally, "beautifully expressive, but your hip is still throwing you off. I don't think any more ice time today will be helpful."
Yuuri nods, and when he takes another drink from the bottle a drop escapes his mouth and trickles over his chin and down the side of his throat. Victor's eyes track it completely of their own accord until it slides over his collarbone and soaks into the collar of his t-shirt.
Does he do this on purpose, Victor wonders. Does he know just how ungodly, incredibly hot he is, the things it does to Victor's brain when Yuuri just exists there like that in his general direction? Yuuri sets the water bottle back down and gives Victor a little smile, hesitant but still devastatingly charming. Fuck. He does know.
Victor is going to die, in the best possible way. He hopes Chris gives a nice eulogy at his funeral. Maybe Yakov will cry a little bit.
Yuuri is centimetres away now, only the boards dividing them, and his eyes flick downwards again before he leans across the remaining distance. Apparently, Victor needs to watch his ankles on that jump approach.
"So, Minako's for the afternoon?" he says after, still entirely too close.
"No, you need something more relaxed for the rest of today. We'll take a nice long walk." It's too cold now to swim in the ocean like they'd done so often in the summer, and Hasetsu's only public pool is an ancient seventies throwback that has probably evolved its own unique and specialised strains of foot fungus in the men's showers. And a walk means they can bring Makkachin, means he can hold Yuuri's hand, means they can kiss in the park by the river and on the hill overlooking the harbour and in the street outside the post office and… well, everywhere really.
Victor thinks about the version of himself that exists in the press and certain sections of his fanbase, the suave and carefree bachelor breaking hearts left and right. It's always been a regular source of amusement to him, but these days it's gone far beyond simply ridiculous. He giggles.
"What's so funny?" Yuuri asks, still standing on the ice in front of him, their eyes level. Victor should really tell him how much he loves the fact that when Yuuri has his skates on, they're practically the same height. It had been rather an awkward thing to notice for the first time when Yurio was in Hasetsu and being loudly fifteen everywhere, after Victor had already spent so many months hanging his fantasies on the idea of Yuuri sweeping him off his feet on the ice just like he had on the dancefloor.
He shakes his head. "It's nothing. I'm just happy."
Takeshi's class are changing into their skates when they come out into the locker room, and Yuuri is immediately swarmed. It doesn't seem to matter that they see him almost every week; he is the star attraction of the rink, a bright centre in so many of these kids' lives. Victor seems to register primarily as 'that guy who's always around Yuuri' or 'the reason there's sometimes a dog behind the front desk'. Makkachin's popularity ranks only a fraction below Yuuri's.
He loves it so much it feels like his heart could burst. He could do this for hours, stand back and watch Yuuri get the smallest fraction of the attention and adulation he deserves, watch his wobbly smile as he says awkward but encouraging things to these kids who idolise him, and have him every so often glance over at Victor for a moment of reassurance, like all of this is down to him. Yuuri had been incredible, inspiring, spectacular, since before Victor had even learned his name, but if his part is in helping him to finally see it for himself, then that's absolutely fine.
When Yuuri finally extricates himself from the children for a shower, Victor takes his time packing their things away. The Ice Castle feels like the complete opposite of any rink he's ever trained at, even as a very little boy, scuffed paint and worn floors and yet the whole place suffused with the love of the people who keep it afloat. It's like Hasetsu itself in that respect. He's been travelling the world since his age was in single digits, but he's never been anywhere that felt so much like a home.
It's a few more minutes before Yuuri re-emerges, dressed but with his hair still damp and a towel slung around his shoulders. Victor reaches for it and gives his hair another once over.
"You'll catch a cold," he fusses. "If you're going to let it grow out you'll need to start using a blow-dryer." Yuuri glances up to give him a look as if he'd just suggested he start bathing in yak's milk, but dips his head down again so Victor can continue to dry his hair.
He wants to do this every single day, for as long as Yuuri will have him.
The first two nights after they returned from Beijing, Yuuri had insisted on making a show of going to bed in his own room before, once he thought everyone else had gone to bed, sneaking into Victor's. On the third morning Mari had made a loud remark to him over breakfast that involved the words 'overnight training' and Yuuri turning the approximate colour of the umezuke on his rice, but after that, he'd just come straight to Victor's room in the evenings.
He's sitting on the end of the bed when Victor comes back in after taking Makkachin out to relieve herself, looking at something on Victor's laptop with an expression of deep concentration on his face. Victor fusses over Makkachin as she settles herself down on the tatami, watching Yuuri out of the corner of his eye as he smiles slightly and then bites his lip. A moment later a familiar song starts to play from the laptop's tinny speakers.
Yuuri looks up, as if seeking approval, and Victor comes over to sit next to him. "My gala programme from 08/09?" he says, meeting Yuuri's eyes with a smile. "I haven't listened to this in ages. Ahh, it's taking me back to my feminist Swedish experimental electro-synthpop phase."
"That's a very specific phase."
"It was a good one, I highly recommend it." He watches Yuuri turn back towards the laptop screen and catch his lower lip between his teeth again. Victor should make it clear that he has no need to do that for himself anymore. It's a burden, but one that Victor happily accepts.
"I liked that exhibition," Yuuri says, and his cheeks are dusted with pink as he adds, "a lot."
Victor reaches out and takes his hand. "You can't very well say something like that and not elaborate." It had been a fun programme to choreograph and skate, trying to channel the music's infectious brightness and the strange and sexual overtones of the lyrics into his movement. He can feel the muscle memory of it as the song plays, the smooth, deliberate crossovers into the split jump, the triple loop combination, that playful step sequence. He wants to know how Yuuri saw it, to relive it through his eyes and have it be new again.
Yuuri doesn't elaborate though; instead he stands up and sets the laptop back on the desk, and then takes his glasses off to set down alongside it. There's a little shift in his posture as he rolls his shoulders back and Victor feels a sudden thrill at the base of his spine. Yuuri can completely undo him with a word, a glance, the slightest movement of his body; Victor is all disassembled atoms and Yuuri is the only force pulling him back together again. He turns slowly, looks at Victor with heated eyes, and comes back towards him.
"That was the year I turned sixteen," he says, stopping at the foot of the bed and then lifting a knee up and straddling Victor's lap, the universe's most beautiful thighs settling either side of Victor's hips. "The Junior Grand Prix Final was going to be hosted with the senior final for the first time, and I thought, if I make it then maybe I'll get to meet Victor, even if we're not skating in the same division. But I fucked up at the Madrid Cup and didn't qualify. So when the final came around I commandeered the TV remote in the common room and watched everything they showed on J-Sports, which wasn't much. But they showed the exhibition. And when I saw that bit where you were coming out of the lunge and you sort of tossed your hair-" he mimics the motion and Victor's heart and dick do a synchronised somersault "-and looked straight into the camera, I just… I felt like…" His blush deepens and he turns away. "Ugh. It's really embarrassing. I was such a kid."
Victor has settled his hands on Yuuri's back and begins stroking softly. "I bet you were a really cute sixteen year old. Not embarrassing at all."
"I was trying to grow a moustache," Yuuri says. "It was awful."
Victor makes a mental note to ask Hiroko for another look through the family photo albums, because he needs quite desperately to see visual evidence of that. "I refuse to believe you were any more embarrassing than I was at sixteen."
Yuuri leans back and gives him a slightly incredulous look. "When you were sixteen you made your senior debut after becoming the three-time consecutive World Junior Champion."
"Yes, yes, I was almost as accomplished as I was idiotic." Victor looks up into Yuuri's face. "You weren't the only teenage skater with aspirations to meet his idol. I was less concerned about doing well in my first year in the senior division than with the fact that I was going to be competing at the Cup of China with Stéphane Lambiel."
"You looked up to him?"
Victor runs his hands down Yuuri's back again and slips them underneath his t-shirt, drinking in the smoothness of his skin and the way his breath catches. "I admired his skating, yes. I still do. But I was also quite convinced that if only I could skate beautifully enough to catch his attention, he would instantly fall in love with me, propose to me on the podium, and we'd marry and move to a castle in the Swiss Alps and adopt at least thirty dogs." Yuuri snorts. "So as you can see, not only was I an accomplished sixteen year old, but a very realistic and sensible one."
"I had this elaborate plan for what I'd do if I ever met you, too," Yuuri says. He's looking away again, still blushing deliciously. "I made Yuuko pretend to be you so I could practice my speech about how you'd inspired my skating career."
"See, that's cute. When I met Stéphane I almost crashed into him at the start of public practice, and then I did crash into the boards when he complimented my footwork. And after having made such a suave first impression, I asked him to have dinner with me after the competition."
Yuuri laughs. "Did he accept?"
"He did! And he took me to a restaurant right next to the hotel that was full of other competitors and coaches and ISU officials, and he was very kind and encouraging about me making the transition to seniors and offered me some thorough critique on my free skate. I couldn't have had a less romantic evening if I'd gone to dinner with Yakov. It was mortifying."
Yuuri ducks his head against Victor's shoulder and laughs again, harder this time. "I'm sorry you never got to live in that Swiss castle."
"Oh, it's okay. Think of the scandal it would have caused when I abandoned my long-suffering husband and our hundreds of dogs because I had been bewitched by a beautiful Japanese man."
The Lambiel thing might be silly, but really Victor can't imagine a world in which anything could have kept him from chasing Yuuri down after Sochi, one way or another. His own career, his life in Russia, all his old promises and obligations couldn't stop him. He'd have thrown aside any other man in the world too. Yuuri is kissing his neck now, mouth hot, and he must have put the song on repeat because it's still playing in the background, bright synth beats and cool, accented vocals. Victor moves his hands higher, rucking up Yuuri's t-shirt.
"But I think it would be fair, since I told you my much more embarrassing story," he says, "for you to tell me exactly how this exhibition skate made you feel."
Yuuri paused. "Do you promise not to laugh?"
"You just laughed at me!"
"Do you promise?"
Victor doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to keeping promises, but he hasn't broken one to Yuuri yet and he doesn't plan to. "Alright. Fine." He wriggles back slightly on the bed, pulling Yuuri with him, and adds with only a hint of a whine, "Now tell me. Please."
Yuuri kisses his neck again and sighs ever so softly. "Well. I always admired your skating. And I always thought you were-" he pauses, searching for a superlative that Victor definitely doesn't deserve "-beautiful, ever since I first saw you compete. Honestly, it's how I figured out I was gay. But I always thought, one day I'll meet Victor and he'll tell me my skating is really good and if I'm very, very lucky we'll hold hands or something. I couldn't bring myself to imagine anything more. But that programme…"
He pauses again and Victor fights down the urge to prod, to tease; Yuuri doesn't share anything lightly, and the last seven months have been lesson enough in how quickly he'll shut down if he feels intruded upon. Victor splays his fingers wide against Yuuri's back, feeling him lean back into his touch.
"It was all of it together, I think," Yuuri continues eventually, "this song, the way you moved, the way it seemed like you were looking through the camera and right at me, and I was so frustrated that I hadn't made it to the final, that I couldn't live up to what I wanted for myself, and I… I thought, gods I want to shove him up against a wall somewhere and rip all his clothes off."
Victor's mouth goes dry. Why on earth had Yuuri thought that he would laugh? This is probably scientifically provable as the sexiest thing that has ever happened to anyone on the planet. He kind of wants to poll Twitter just so everyone can agree. He's not going to poll Twitter. That would involve having Yuuri get off his lap so he could get his phone, and that's not allowed to happen ever again.
"I told you it was embarrassing," Yuuri continues, as if he's not sitting right on top of categorical proof of Victor's actual opinion on the matter.
"It's… it's really not, Yuuri," he says roughly.
"I didn't even know you. You were so distant, like something I could just put whatever feelings onto and it didn't matter. And now I do know you and I…"
"And you don't want to rip all my clothes off anymore?" Victor can't help the little note of worry that slips into his voice. This… whatever this is, with Yuuri, is surely too perfect to last. Everyone walks away from Victor eventually, unless he can beat them to it.
"No! I mean… no, it's not that. It's just that you're so real now." Yuuri leans back and looks him in the eyes again, at last. "It's embarrassing to remember how I used to think about you, now I know who you really are- and how much more than that you are."
"Oh," is all that Victor can manage. He remembers suddenly, vividly, the moment Yuuri wrapped an arm around his waist in that Sochi ballroom and drew him into a tango, like they were the only two people in the room, like he'd reached through all the fake smiles and PR bullshit and seized hold of who Victor really was. He'd spent two decades of his life in the public eye and every moment of it waiting, waiting to really be seen.
Yuuri leans in and kisses him on the mouth and it's somehow sweet and hungry all at once, his hands cupping Victor's jaw. He doesn't know if it's just that Yuuri is a spectacular kisser or if there's something different about kissing someone he feels so impossibly deeply for, something that makes every nerve in his body light up at once and sends his brain careering off its rails.
He's not all that different than he was at sixteen, really, because the only thought that stays steady is an image of Yuuri coming down from the podium at the Grand Prix Final, meeting him at the edge of the ice with a gold medal gleaming around his neck, and going down on one knee. Ice Castle Hasetsu is better than anything they've got in the Alps. It's so dangerous to want this much, but Yuuri draws all his thoughts in and in until there's no escaping him.
"Anyway," Yuuri says, pulling his mouth barely centimetres away, "I'm pretty sure I already ripped all your clothes off back in Beijing."
"Mmm. I'm going to have to get that shirt mended." Or maybe he'll just wear it again as is, missing buttons and that tear alongside the placket as a feature not a flaw. Combined with a sharp two-piece suit and some love-bites on his neck it would make an excellent look for Moscow in a couple of weeks' time. He draws his hands up Yuuri's back again, pushing up his t-shirt, and smiles when Yuuri reaches down to pull it off entirely.
"I also always kind of wanted to make out with someone to this song," he says, and Victor wonders if he ought to check if it's actually legal for Yuuri to be shirtless in a building with paper walls. It seems like a fire hazard.
"Well I'm happy to volunteer."
The way that Yuuri looks at him defies any vocabulary, any laws of space and time that might want to have their say. All Victor can do is pull him closer to kiss him again, and let Yuuri's solid, steady weight bear him back onto the mattress.
Yuuri's on-ice training time is focused on refining his competition programmes, of course, but he wants to polish his exhibition skate too and Victor is more than happy to let him. He'd almost fallen on the lutz at the Cup of China, perception skewed by the spotlights, and is insistent now that he wants to make the flip a quad rather than a triple. So they're back at the Ice Castle in the late afternoon, Yuuri running through 'Stammi Vicino' with the light of the setting sun spilling through the tall windows on the other side of the rink.
Victor could watch him skate this programme a thousand times and never once cease to be captivated. Yuuri is probably the most passionate, expressive skater he's ever come across, and the longing and loneliness of the song spill out of his every movement just like the heated sexuality of 'Eros' or the bright and resolute unfurling of 'Yuri On Ice'. Victor had skated it with his heart dead in his chest, one last call out into emptiness, and somehow, miraculously, Yuuri had answered him.
Yuuri doesn't have quite enough speed in the approach to the flip and tumbles out of the landing, and he stays crumpled over on the ice. Victor pushes open the gate with something horrible twisting in his gut, and tugs his own skate guards off to go over to him.
"Fuck," Yuuri says loudly, in English.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"Why can't I get it right," Yuuri continues, his face a study in self-directed anger. He doesn't seem to be injured at all as Victor offers a hand to help him up. The exhibition would still be beyond gorgeous if Yuuri did all the jumps as singles, but Victor knows that's not what he needs to hear right now.
"Give it time. You know it took me years to get the flip consistent. You need more speed going in, and a little more precision on the takeoff." He pulls Yuuri in towards him and settles his right hand at his waist. "And most importantly you need to believe you're going to land it, like you did in China."
"I fucked it up in China too," Yuuri says dismissively.
"Well yes, but you'd never attempted it in competition before, you hadn't slept properly since before the short programme, and we'd just had a very stupid fight in the parking garage. But I could see it on your face the instant I realised what you were about to do. You didn't hesitate for a second, did you? You were going to land my jump, in front of everyone, and show us all what you were really made of. No wonder I had to kiss you. It was glorious."
Yuuri's face softens slightly and really there's nothing for it but to kiss him again, a seal on Victor's praise. "Do you want me to try it again?" he asks when Victor lifts his head.
"Do you believe you're going to land it?"
A knowing little smile curls at the corner of his mouth. "No. You know I flub my jumps when I'm distracted. And you're definitely distracting me now."
"I'm such a terrible coach," Victor says with a sigh, and slides his hand up from Yuuri's waist to his shoulder. Yuuri follows suit, and takes hold of his other hand to complete the waltz hold, and Victor starts to lead them in lazy circles around the ice.
Yakov likes to make all his singles skaters learn the basics of ice dance, apparently because 'you idiots have to learn artistry from somewhere', but Victor had never really kept up with it once it became clear where the future of his career lay. It had been a surprise to discover that Yuuri knew a little too, that he and Yuuko had danced together when they were young, before his talents started to outstrip hers and everyone else's at the rink. She'd carried on for a while afterwards with Takeshi, and it's largely thanks to their help and some practical assistance from Minako that Victor has been able to put together something even better than Yuuri performing his last season's free skate for the exhibition at the final.
Washed-up and a little overweight, Yuuri had still performed 'Stammi Vicino' better than Victor ever could. Watching him is intoxicating. Skating with him, in a version of the programme adapted specifically for the two of them, makes Victor feel giddy and light-headed, like his whole life has been leading up to this from the first moment he put on a pair of skates. In a month's time, in Barcelona, he's going to skate out to his gold medallist, take his hand under the spotlights, and dance in orbit around him, a wandering planet finally come home to a star.
If he's honest, part of him wishes they'd danced the programme in Beijing, wants to do it two weeks from now when Yuuri wins gold in Moscow. He doesn't want to wait any longer, doesn't want another second without the whole figure skating world knowing exactly who he really is, what Yuuri really means to him. Yuuri's already said it out loud with that quad flip and Victor answered as best he could, but it's not enough.
"I've been thinking about the Rostelecom Cup," he says, as Yuuri turns away from him and then back into a Kilian hold, his shoulder against Victor's chest. "I'm going to attract a lot of attention, being back home in Russia."
He can't see Yuuri's face like this but the wince is obvious in his tone. "Don't remind me."
"I think we need to make it very, very clear why I'm there." Victor moves both hands down to Yuuri's waist and waits for the subtle shift in his balance before carrying him up into the lift, his heart leaping up to follow.
"Do you want to change the exhibition?" They move apart into the synchronised footwork. Neither of them is used to keeping track of another skater's movements like this and they're still not spot on, but it's better every time.
"No. This is for the final, and I want it to be perfect. And besides, I still haven't had my costume back with the alterations." They're going to look so good on the ice together it makes his mouth water just thinking about it, Yuuri's princely blue costume a beautiful counterpoint to his own.
They do a single flip in perfect harmony and then Yuuri is behind him, holding Victor's arms out wide, and he's not sure if he's gliding or falling or if he's finally squared the difference and started to fly.
"Then what do you want to do?"
You. This. Everything. Nothing else. They turn and turn and they're hand in hand, holding each other in against the centrifugal forces. Victor had never appreciated before just how much pair skating and ice dance rely on trust, on a carefully-built connection between the partners. When he'd first suggested the idea of a joint exhibition programme back in the summer, and seen Yuuri look as if he might explode, he'd worried they might never get there. He shouldn't have. He's belonged in Yuuri's arms from the moment they met.
It's where he ends the dance, Yuuri's hands firm and strong against his back as he dips Victor low to the ice, their faces close and Yuuri's full of a passion that no amount of coloured spotlights and shadow could ever conceal. Victor wonders if he could persuade Yuuri to kiss him when they actually perform it. They're close enough to practically be there already. And when they've both stood back up and caught their breath for a moment he does, one hand curling into the fabric of Victor's t-shirt to keep him near.
"I can think of a few other ways to get the point across," Victor says after. "Let's go home, and I'll tell you."
It's a while before they actually talk about it. Over dinner Hiroko relates a long and hilarious incident that occurred when she'd taken Makkachin with her to the supermarket earlier that day and Makkachin had noticed the truck delivering fish. Victor has owned her for most of his life and he still can't entirely tell if she's actually highly food-motivated, or has just figured out that pretending to be gets her a lot of extra treats.
After they've eaten Yuuri gets a Skype call from Phichit, and Victor washes the dishes with Mari and they discuss the repeats of ON: Special Agent Hinako Todo she's been making him watch. He's not sure that her taste in television is the best for helping him improve his day-to-day Japanese, but at least now he has a lot of the right vocabulary in case there's ever a grisly murder in the onsen.
Once he and Yuuri are alone in his room the things they talk about at first are hushed and laughing and not really fit for public consumption, and then of course he has to spend a substantial period of time getting his breath back and marvelling silently at the way Yuuri looks with his hair all askew from Victor's hands and a broad, satisfied smile on his face. Victor settles his head on Yuuri's shoulder, traces circles on his stomach with idle fingers.
"So," Yuuri says eventually, voice slightly gravelly in a way that's tingling up Victor's spine, "you wanted to talk about the Rostelecom Cup?"
"Yeah." It seems even more pressing now, somehow, with the ghosts of Yuuri's handprints everywhere on his skin. "People are going to want to focus on me. To talk about my career. To ask if I'm planning to make a comeback."
Yuuri looks sideways at him and his throat bobs. "What do you want to say?"
"Ideally, I don't want to say anything about me at all. I want to talk about you." Somebody else, some idiot, might think it was pathetic that his real answer to any question about his potential return to the ice is 'whatever Yuuri wants'. He'd come back to competition tomorrow, if Yuuri wanted him to, if they could somehow find a way to make it work alongside Victor coaching him. And he'd hang up his skates for good too, if that was what Yuuri needed. What Russia wants from him is beyond irrelevant now.
"Okay. But what do you need me to do?"
"Well it's not just going to be people coming right up to me and saying, 'oh, Victor, are you sure you don't want to bend over backwards and invent the quad axel and tear your ACL again for the good of Mother Russia', to which I can straightforwardly reply, 'but have you seen my amazing student Yuuri and his amazing amazingness, I can't wait to kiss his gold medal and make him wear it in bed for a week straight'." Yuuri giggles and his chest shakes with it, and Victor smiles against his skin. "People are going to be looking at me, too, when they ought to be looking at you. I'll need your help to get them to do that."
Yuuri runs a hand up Victor's back to stroke his hair. "You know exactly how I like my skates tied. You could lace them up for me."
Perfect. "I'll get on my knees," Victor says, and feels Yuuri's fingers curl in his hair. He probably wouldn't want Victor to bring a sign that says 'it was like this last night too', but then it's not as if Yuuri can read much Russian. "You know what? When you blow the whole field out of the water in the short programme, I'll kiss your skate. And then both of them when you win."
Yuuri makes a slightly anxious noise at the back of his throat, like if they talk any more about gold medals and winning it'll put a hex on his chances, but he kisses Victor's forehead and his voice drops a little lower. "And what will I do if you get distracted by all the praise and adulation?"
"Un-distract me," Victor says, and looks up to see Yuuri's tongue flash across his bottom lip. The way this conversation is going, they're going to have a very thorough 'overnight training' session indeed. "Don't let me look anywhere but at you. Grab me by my jacket. Push me up against a wall. Drag me away from everyone like you've decided its time to have your way with me and they're inconveniencing you. Show my whole country just how much they've been underestimating you."
The noise Yuuri makes at that is more turned-on than anxious, but he's still a little hesitant when he says, "I want to. Gods, Victor, I want to. But I feel like I might just make an idiot out of myself."
Victor shuffles himself upwards on the bed so his face is beside Yuuri's on the pillow, and Yuuri rolls onto his side to face him. "It's like landing the flip, Yuuri. You have to believe you're going to do it." Inspiration strikes then and he grins. "Or don't believe in yourself. Believe in the me that believes in you!"
Yuuri's whole face creases delightfully in laughter. "I need to have a word with Mari about the kind of TV she's letting you watch."
"It's part of my cultural education."
"That show is a decade old. And weird."
"If you want weird there's some great old Soviet cartoons on Youtube. Actually, I should teach you the song from Kitten Named Woof for when we next see Yurio. He loves it." If Yurio hasn't got over his adorable little crush on Yuuri yet he's going to be the easiest person to wind up at the whole competition. Victor should probably feel bad for torturing a kid, but he just makes it so tempting.
"I'm sure my terrible Russian would offend him."
"Well that's half the fun. Hey, maybe I should refuse to speak to reporters in anything but Japanese. Tell them I'm so besotted, I've forgotten how to speak my native language."
Yuuri moves his head a little closer to Victor's on the pillow, and his eyes are dark as he asks, "Are you?"
"Oh, Yuuri," Victor says, and it feels like taking off from the ice, like spinning into the air and trusting in the surety of gravity, "sometimes the only word I can remember is your name."
And Yuuri catches his heart as it drops, takes Victor's face in his hands and pulls him inward into a kiss hotter than the sun. Victor kisses back, delirious, and wraps his arms around Yuuri's waist.
They're going to leave Moscow with a gold medal and half the country in love with Yuuri, but only Victor can have him. Victor is the only one he wants. Yuuri's desire, his need, his stubborn and dogged insistence, drew Victor all the way to the other side of the world, and keep pulling him in still, and he's never been happier to crest the arc of a jump and fall.