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INTERLUDE II ❆ VICTOR

Author's notes, TW & CW
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April 30, 2014

Eros and Agape. Agape and Eros.

Is it cliché, to make your theme "Love"? Of course, Victor's not skating this season, for the first time in too many years to bother to count. But this might as well be work, might as well be the season. He works on choreography. Bed to breakfast to the rink, lunch, back to the rink, to home. Write. Plan. Dinner. Back to the rink again if he's lucky. Then bath and bed. The only difference is, no Yakov. Then again, the all-consuming fear has faded a bit too. It helps to be in a safer country.

He watches Yuri and Yurio train. He thinks. He plans. He listens to those two pieces of music until all the meaning's worn out of them, and then he listens some more. There's lots of time talking to Yuri, figuring out what makes him tick, trying to be a coach, but there's lots of time to sit and wait too. He pretends to be watching Yuri exercise. Really, he's thinking.

Eros and Agape. Agape and Eros.

He's already decided that Yurio's going to skate Agape, and Yuri's going to skate Eros. He can't wait to see the look on Yurio's face, oh, it's going to be priceless. Poor Yuri is probably going to have a fit right there on the ice too. He grins just thinking about it.

Agape. Like the love of a parent, or God.

When Victor was little he'd been part of the Russian Orthodox Church, not particularly out of faith so much as family obligation. He'd gone to church every Sunday in his nice little kid clothes and rejected the Pope or whatever good Russian Orthodox children do and blah, blah, blah. Eventually he hadn't the time anymore, skating practice eating up most of his Sundays, and he'd stopped going without much fuss. Church was boring anyway. He'd still considered himself religious just because it was too much of a bother to decide he wasn't. Like many things in his life, it has recently decided to become a problem again, though he hasn't stooped so low as to actually go buy a Bible and read it. Yet.

Weirdly, when he thinks of a parent, Yakov comes to mind along with Victor's own family. It makes his stomach turn. Ironic, that Agape—parents, friends, God—it's all pinned to his life, or all his life has ever been—Yakov, Yuri, the heights of the Smolny cathedral in St Petersburg.

And Eros...

Well, he's been well known for Eros on the ice at times, not to mention dates and flirting with fans, but that's just acting, just for fun. It's to see how much he can polish his performance to a mirror shine of model sexuality, it doesn't mean anything. It's not the same as that uncontrollable tug in his chest, on his tongue. It's not the same with poor little piggy Yuri Katsuki, spluttering helplessly as Victor smirks at him, gazing shamelessly up and down the length of him through half-lidded eyes. It's funny how he doesn't even try to pretend that Victor's hand on his face doesn't bother him. It's like a dance, both parties acting like they don't know what's going on. So very coy. So very slow burning. So very Eros.

Eros and Agape. Agape and Eros. Those are the two things that hang in the balance, and Victor is about to sacrifice one over the flame of the other and hope nobody notices it. It can't be a coincidence that Agape is pure, serene, and Eros is dirty, dangerous. He tries to shake it off, but the desperation clings to him. He's surprised people can't smell fear on his breath at this point. Maybe it comes out in the routines. The rabid new pleasures of Eros, mysterious and irresistible, dancing after some fanciful dream as his whole life burns to the ground around him—and then, how hard he's clinging to Agape, begging it to stay with him, degrading himself for it, grasping at the air as if he can catch it and hold it in his hands, keep it from being swept away in a wave of disgust.