After skating with my new knee brace, Yuuri asks me if he can help me with physical therapy for the first time. In all honesty, relearning how to skate has taken priority over my old routine, so I'm sure even before we start that it'll be exceptionally difficult. My old ROM moves are oddly specific, focusing on bending the knees into naturally easy positions that grow difficult with lack of practice, like sitting with both calves to the sides of one's thighs-in a "W" position-and then stretching your back to the floor.
Regardless, I'm grateful for the offer and take him up on it. We wait until we're back home, and within the privacy of Yuuri's bedroom, before starting the therapy. I give him a brief explanation of the poses and how he can help-that is, mainly by pushing my muscles into the positions they belong, much like athletes help each other stretch before practice. We start with basic things, but it's like my knee has forgotten how to communicate with my brain again. Yuuri ends up pushing it along with a lot of his own force, though I'm sure he's hardly even realizing it with the biceps he's sporting. My face is already in a perpetual wince throughout the first few minutes, but once we start intermediate positions it's hard to resist his pushes or hold back suppressed grunts.
"Hngh," I let out, following it up with "shit," at my abdication of composure.
"I...didn't think you'd have this much pain," he admits, letting up a bit. "Have you taken your medicine?"
"I…" I pause. Have I? I rushed out of the resort so fast earlier that I didn't even have time to consider it.
He pushes back down in agitation. "Victor."
"Oh, whoa," I respond to the sudden change in pressure. He begins to loosen the muscles again, pulling them back into a straight angle. I sigh in relief, but the same breath soon evolves into a moan-like expression as his fingers message my left knee in the smoothest, sweetest way.
"Yuuri," I sing out, "Where the heck...did you learn this?"
He just smiles at me, keeping the secret. The variety of intentions he's been hiding behind those smiles baffles me, but I don't press him for information. I can't risk the chance that he might stop to answer me…
His fingers soothe away the pain in the most complete way possible, and I almost forget that this is for therapy, not pleasure. He finishes just as the bliss starts to make me sleepy.
"That's enough for today, right?" he smiles.
"No," I smile back, my eyes focused on his innocent, oblivious expression. I sit up, the pain inexistent, and latch onto hisunprepared lips. This is it, I realize as we kiss, my lips curling uncontrollably with glee, I've finally broken through his brick hard facade. We move onto the bed after a minute or so on the floor like that, throwing the covers over our mufti-clad bodies. I missed this comfortable, dominating sensation over him. Somehow his hot blood, his sudden independence, had thrown me for a loop. He'd confused the hell out of me with all that "tsar" talk, turned me into the receiver rather than the dealer, but tonight the tables will turn, even if it's only my sudden painlessness that catalyzed the mood. Tonight I make the rules again.
"Who's your coach?" I ask, releasing him for a moment to discern his features under the darkness of the sheets.
"You're my coach, Victor," he says, passion thick in his voice and eyes. I'll never let him go again. Not alone.