recolle | [OPEN]

WHO: Aleksi and OPEN
WHERE: Around Recollé
WHEN: End of February/Beginning of March
WHAT: Catch-all!
WARNINGS: N/a

NIGHTCLUB - A

[The club is dim, the music loud and Aleksi's sitting at the bar with a drink. If he's enjoying the music, well. He sure is going through shots like they're water. Still he looks at the person sitting next to him with a smile and raises his glass, smile on his face—]

Enjoying yourself?

NIGHTCLUB - B

[The alley behind the club is one of those single light harshly coloring everything a washed out white and making the shadows darker than the Mariana Trench types. Which is great for how it keeps Aleksi and the two blatant thugs he's fighting with fairly obscured.

Except for the part where their quiet scuffle makes it easier for bystanders to stumble right on top of them. Step out for a breath of air at the wrong time? Or maybe you saw the two coerce Aleksi outside and realized trouble was afoot. Whatever the reason here's hoping you can hold your own in a fight, stranger.]

THE PARK

[Sitting in the park sipping coffee is nice. One of those things right out of a Hollywood movie where people don't have real jobs and all the free time in the world. Which is kind of Aleksi's current situation right now, hunh. So this is what it feels like to be in a Silver Screen world... Except for maybe the pigeons. They're everywhere around him. On the ground at his feet, the tree behind him, the back of the bench, hell sitting on the bench right next to him...

He's just going to keep still, keep drinking his coffee and hope this doesn't end in bird bombardment.]

ICE RINK - CLOSED TO YURI

Don't let your knees wobble.

[Aleksi watches Yuri skate. It's the sort of thing they work on when there's no one at the rink. Gotta fill the hours somehow. It's not particularly thrilling, but Aleksi supposes it's better than sitting down with a book while he waits for his next student.]

For someone who works at an ice rink I would have thought you'd be better. How often did you skate before you started here?

[The friendly laugh in his voice and the amused grin on his face soften the words at least...? But yeah bro, dafuq's up with that form.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Never.

[ Yuri grinds out, coming to a stop with more effort than he'd like. Since this had been passed down the line as one of the Necessary Skills, he'd undertaken it under duress and with no admissions elsewhere; he has the strength and control of his body, but no applicable skills for the ice.

Which makes him grumpy; which makes him listen to his elder coworker, though not with the grace he finds in movement. This is frustrating, it's extra bruises every time he falls, and this is secretly just prep to make him skate around in Comet.

He knows it! Still, as he glides out and holds himself in better form, he tosses a small frown Aleksi's way. ]

How was that.

My five year old class could outskate you.

[It's not cruelly stated. Just Facts. Which is the kind of guy Aleksi is. Just The Facts. Skating over himself he takes Yuri's arm and shakes it out like they're doing some odd dance move. But the kid is just way too tense.]

If you're tense you'll keep making mistakes. Is this how you dance?

[He's no expert in that field besides some bad breakdancing he learned in Paris, but some things should just stay at university.]

[ He jerks his arm away, ubt he's not sure how to be less tense when this still doesn't feel like his idea. Screwing up on the ice? Can screw him over where it counts. It's appealing — the speed, the grace of people who know anything about what they're doing — but it sounds like it needs practice and work. How's he going to have time to add even more in? ]

No. Who would? You can't be a tense dancer.

[ He makes an effort to loosen up, much as Aleksi had been trying to prompt literally shaking his arm out. It seems to work. He's at least less obviously tense, though he's frowning and looking over at Aleksi. ]

Now what.

[Aleksi lets go, watching. Yuri's a kid. Has an attitude. But he puts in an effort. He's a good kid. Aleksi's at least willing to meet some of that genuineness with a bit of work on his own part, not least of all because maybe that try hard attitude reminds him a little of his own family. So how best to communicate with a kid who doesn't even want to be on the ice in the first place—]

Now you try again, naturally.

[Looking over at one of the security cameras whose feed Aleksi knows goes to the manager on duty's office ~~it's just important to know these things okay~~, he raises an arm to catch attention and ups the volume of his voice.]

Steve! Can you grab Yuri's [ipod/phone/don't you fucking having an hipster walkman son/etc] and play it over the sound system?

[And that's how very soon some music Yuri is actually familiar with ~~and isn't hellspawn retail radio~~ begins playing after thirty seconds or so.]

You have dance steps for this, right?

[ Look it's probably his phone but that works perfectly and Yuri gives Aleksi a look even as he straightens up and listens to what comes on over the speakers. He snorts; ]

Should you even be playing that here?

[ His music, that is. He's never gotten what's important about the technical rules behind what's allowed to be played during on hours. Not that he particularly cares, shaking his head and shaking himself off, skating forward. The weight on his feet is different, but the way of moving, at least in theory, that's not new.

It's older music, from a recital he was part of last year. He's a little amused to hear it now. ]

So now I dance on ice, just like that.

[ He quips, but the truth is he's already moving better by loosely testing out how he'd even attempt to move as he would were he on firm ground. Ah, but for this, he'd have to turn; somehow, he does manage that much, though he nearly falls from stumbling and not bringing his skate up high enough. ]

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made.

[He says it jovially like a joke. They're just normal people doing normal things. Aleksi's a simple man from Finland, not a cartel captain with a trail of blood behind him and the death of a young man who regarded him as a brother purposely on his hands. So. A joke.

Which is overall nothing because the focus here is Yuri. The boy seems to be relaxing with the familiarity of the music easing the foreignness of the movements. How to increase that... Aleksi places an hand on his hip, watching.]

When you're sick or wearing a costume during a performance you have to compensate, don't you? Now you have weights on your feet. It's the same thing. —Speed up.

[Because the more thought Yuri put into it the less he was going to feel the adjustments he needed to make. Overthinking could be as much a weakness as anything else.]

( He'd argue none of it is the same at all, and he does grumble, but it turns into a bitten off; )

Whatever —

( Before he does exactly that. It's not perfect; but it's smoother, simply because determination and a different muscle memory are being relied on. This time when he spins and lifts his arms up overhead, he moves through it without the former hesitation; not quite the speed he needs, but it works for him to break out of and skate off in an arc as he leans into the turn. He knows crossovers, and he moves into those now, compensating for the kind of footwork he can't manage on ice. It has a different flow, he finds; similar in intent, but the way one is carried by momentum is different from being carefully locked into your own immediate physical sphere. )

[Aleksi watches, Yuri's confidence spike obvious in the way he carries himself and as he moves into more difficult movements. ...The kid's a pretty good natural, isn't he. Shame he's all about dancing. As Yuri glides by Aleksi raises his hands and&mash;

Claps.]

It looks like you can get somewhere if you put your mind to it after all. Imagine. [But he does smile.] Now just tell the owner you're still struggling for the next three weeks unless you want to be wearing the mascot outfit at the hockey games.

( Yuri immediately brings himself to a stop, stumbles, feet sliding out from under him as he relaxes into a fall on the ice. Pushing himself up, he shoots Aleksi a look somewhere between irritated and tentatively believing. )

They wouldn't!

( "we have a hockey team" he almost asks; honestly, he'd forgotten. he's on his knees, throwing his arms out to his sides as he gets back up on his feet with relatively little fanfare. )

I don't have time for sh— stuff like that.

[Aleksi watches Yuri fall down. Maybe he should have waited until they were off the ice for the reveal...?]

Hate he ice that much, do you.

[...Yuri says to a guy who's livelihood is ice skating. He's just messing, but hey where there's an opening—]

Edited 2017-03-01 04:19 (UTC)

I'm a dancer, not a skater.

( He grinds out, dusting off his legs like it does much more than get the thin veneer of iceshards off him. )

I just work here.

( This is clearly why he can toss his head and... frown, still hearing his music, feeling that intensive urge to move, and kick the ice. )

Isn't it time for the Zamboni anyway?

[OPEN]

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Pretending I have a smiling icon laughs I really need to make some smh

i need to do the same i feel you PRETENDS REAL HARD

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