“But those with an evil heart seem to have a talent for destroying anything beautiful which is about to bloom” - Cynthia Rylant
There is a certain magnitude to the awed silence that strikes the ignorant audience like the raw edge of a battered cleaver. As if there’s a weight tied down to that unsteady handle that changes its presence from a looming threat to a murder in the few short seconds it takes a tepid, choked breath to spill pass paling, curling lips. Like a wild beast locked in the deepest depths of a well-contained cage; his snarl is silent and hungry as bright, cerulean hues dance about the shifting faces of a focused, worthless crowd. And he wonders; wishes he could count, how many heads had rolled from the dull impact (all of them, is the fleeting answer that buries its somewhere between his hot throat and livid fangs).
Because Viktor Nikiforov is a graceless, vicious man when tucked away in the shadows of bright lights and frigid air. He knows the maps painted upon the thick surface of the ice like he knows the scars that contort the backs of his hands from too many falls and more than his far share of bruises. He knows; today, that map leads to a home at the hands of silver blades too young and too stupid for this maddening frustration boiling up within him. But home is a place that can burn, and he has became an arsonist the moment Yuri had slipped into the rink.
Pride is a faceless, greedy monster that Viktor knows well; he keeps stored away within his steel heart just in case, and when it’s painted across his distorted features it is something terribly ugly. But it’s hidden by thick, silver locks and a breaking heart that shows beneath them more than he would ever admit because the sound of Yuri’s skates striking ice mimics the tone of his shattering heart and the noise of failure. And he’s heard it before, but never this loud; never this apparent.
It’s like watching himself D I E; slow, methodical, and too soon. He could look away, but a sick part of him is still praying for a catastrophe because it’s too cruel. Yet the song he’s become deaf to still drums on in the background; the seconds ticking away like the hands of a lost love, and he knows it’s too late long before that mute melody comes to a screeching halt and is replaced by the agonizing scream of a crowd that Viktor isn’t a victim of quite yet.
And he tells himself the score that flashes upon a screen he can barely see through the angry gel that seeps into his crystalline eyes is just another number; like age. But it’s not just a number to him. It’s his pulse; the blood that flows through his veins, and the air that fills his lungs. And it’s G O N E; left to perish somewhere long forgotten and desolate, just like him.
The echo of guarded blades pounding against concrete doesn’t cry like sorrow though when it strikes his ears; they hiss like anger instead. Viktor is a callous man with too many hardships and demons to count, and he breaks like something messy and hideous. So, it’s a smile that graces his immaculate features where a frown should be; like he’s never had a wicked thought in his mind. But his lips curl like the devil’s on a bad day, when Yuri wanders into his line of vision.
“Oh, Yuri,” He hums like he’s composing a song about lovers instead of monsters, “Congratulations,” he adds like an unneeded verse used to fill in blank spaces, “But I can’t feeling disappointed when your performance was so lackluster,” he sings like its the chorus to a well-loved tune. and never once does his expression dare to falter.
