#next post is going to be me sobbing about viktor probably

[l3ppa]

i havent been active on tumblr in so long but i watched arcane and hyperfix hit me so hard i had to return here

when the situationship divorce is so severe you become cosmic dust

[aschenink]

SUFFOCATE ||| 🎶 by COLD 

↳ Got a random flash of inspiration and came out with this, a post-Eosophobia Viktor/Jackal drabble… oneshot… thingy.  Hm.  It’s fairly long for a random piece, clocking in just over 4,100 words, so just a heads up ^^

Also, this is written in a non-linear fashion, as in there are flashback/memory scene thingies! They are italicized, for easier differentiation. 

Content Warnings: Lots of strong language and a tiny bit of incredibly vague sexual referencing.  Just two morons who can’t communicate and Nadege who communicates maybe a little too forcefully.

Suffocate: to smother, to asphyxiate, to stifle.  My hand on your throat.  I swallow metal: the taste of our kiss, the chain’s rattle when you shift your ankles.

“Oh, God,” you plead.  You’ve never prayed before.  You, and the blood smeared at the corner of your lips, the swollen mil-dots of bites on your shoulder.  Your oil-spill hair swimming atop the sheets, curled with sweat.  You don’t pray, but you do beg.  “God, p-please.”

“Yes, darlin’?”

“Please,” you sob.  Somewhere between laughter and cracking, equally desperate. Your fingers scratching up my back, carving angel’s wings.  Pulse trembling under my fingers. Your eyes open, spilling at the edges.

Your eyes don’t seem so broken.  Like rain falling in reverse, the morose clouds stitching themselves back together.  Were you sad, when I met your kisses with bites, your pleas with bruises?  Am I just callous, having worn out this memory, the emotional cogs grinding against each other in nightly repetition?

“Please.”  But you know I’m the kind of deity that listens to prayers only to shatter them.  ‘Sides, I’m torn between prayers of my own.  Between Don’t let this end, let me have this, let me suffocate in this memory, and begging you to Break, break, break.  I want to feel you crumble.  Just once, just this time–I want you to break, want to feel your shards slicing under my fingers as I piece you back together.

Your fingers curl into my hair.  Pulling me closer. “Viktor.”

Please, I pray.

God takes a page from my book–wraps his hand around my throat.  Plucks me right from the only memory I still have of you that doesn’t taste like the shrapnel of my heart.

Memories of Jackal spiral nonsensically from that first conscious ache when I wake up, spidering out along my body, coating me in the sticky webbing of cold sweat.

Remember that? the memories taunt.  Or the time in Pistol Beach, with the ocean salt still in his hair, the endless abyss in his eyes?

Funny thing, really. Pistol Beach wasn’t so far from Ashland, where the whole wreck started.  Like we hadn’t gotten anywhere at all.  Like we’d only been a dinky tornado spiraling towards the sink drain, a disaster that doesn’t spin far at all.

Pistol Beach, the memories coo, where I woke up with no blood circulation to my arm because of his damn heavy head, where his eyes were sticky and overcast, where I kissed him and kissed him and–memories spiraling nonsensically.  Where I said “I’ve wanted this since the moment I saw you,” where he laid on the sheets and traced the rose thorns printed on my throat, where everything was rushed and possessed and tasted like blood and morning rum and blurred together, still half-drunk and blinded by the dawn-light.

“Start as you mean to go on,” I chuckle.  I swallow ash in the silence that answers.

A shower, lukewarm and rattling the motel pipes, washes away the cobwebs. Brandy, a self-medicating dose, washes away the taste of ash.  Nadege stumbles out of the motel room next to mine, wrapped in a tattered pink hoodie.  The midmorning sun glares down while I smoke, daring us to speak.  Dege only hands me the carkeys and waits for me to unlock the truck so she can clamber into the passenger seat and ignore me for the next fourteen hours, arms crossing over her chest when I climb in, only breaking her silence to assure me that she’s still pissed as hell.

“You’re a dumb, selfish bastard,” she snaps.

Jackal’s ghost sits between us, unspoken.

There’s this thing about Jackal.  The rest of us, we’ve got our pride.  We clutch our masks to our faces until they meld with the flesh, half-phantoms roaming the opera house ashes, scavenging for the things that might makes us feel human again.

Jackal, though.  He wears his pride like he wears his clothes: tightly, but he isn’t afraid to peel ‘em off if he thinks it’ll benefit him enough.

Ever seen a crustacean without its shell?  The fleshy insides, the exposure–uncomfortable to look at, impossible to look away from.  That’s Jackal–shamefully shameless.  

That’s Jackal–mine, a voice whispers. Shame and all.

No.  That boy ain’t worth the trouble, I tell myself.  Everything he’s done to you, all the killing, all the misery.  What’ve I got to show for it? No coin–only scars, and memories of prayers to Gods that despise us.

The road thumps in agreement.  Nothingness stretches forward: abandoned fields overgrown and razed by fires, roads bursting with roots suffocated by the concrete.  All that civilization from the people before Dawn, and now they’re all dead and gone, and all that’s left to show for it is this nothingness.

See–that’s our problem.  All this hurt and nothing to show for it.  What is there to gain by being with him?  Coin, at first (a clever lie, the bait of his frightened eyes, luring me on by pressing cold quarters into my palm).  Then, just trying to survive (cell bars and conspiracies, brothers who prove relation through their bloodlust). You go through that, course you’re scared to leave each other, even if you aren’t happy, even if there aren’t promises keeping you locked down.

How do you love someone you can’t take from?  Me, I take and take and take.  And Jackal, for his all his broken edges, for all the undone zippers on his pride, is only a half-concept, still digging for the pieces he’s missing within himself. How do you love someone who isn’t someone?

Not like that was the only problem.  But the rest, they aren’t worth discussing, because I, I have all my pieces, and I like them how I have them arranged.  If Jackal doesn’t like my cards (even if my cards are a little bloody, and half the deck’s up my sleeves), we can’t play the game.

The truck bounces hard over the road.  Punishing my thoughts, my defiance.  Dege shifts in the passenger seat, cherry bomb screeching out of her earbuds.  Studies me for a moment, that gentle, pitying look she has, warm brown eyes and freckles bunched together curiously.  A different kind of silence than this morning, when she was punishing me for my insolence.  This time she reaches for me.  Puts her hand on mine, where it rests on the empty seat between us.

“I miss Smalls,” she sighs.

I snap my hand away.  Fire snaps and burns on my knuckles where she touched and spoke my thoughts for me.  “He’s fine where he is.”

“He’s hopeless.  Kal survives only cos that boy acts so strangely, no one can pin ‘em down enough to get a bullet in him.”

“Maybe.”  But you can’t love someone who calls you a monster and lies about love, and I, I want love. “But you and I, least we’ve got each other.”

“Sure,” she snorts, rattling off.  “That is, till you spot another wealthy rancher and leave to drain ‘er pockets, or till you get hired off to go shoot some important fuckface.  Ah! No,” she jerks a finger at me, shuts me up before I can form thoughts, “And I love ya, Giant, but I don’t touch anything below the belt. I can’t be that for you.  Even if I could, I wouldn’t.  You and I, we’re more family than friend, more blood than not.”  She sniffs, crosses her arms back over her chest. “Jackal was family too.”

“Family loves each other,” I snap.  “Jackal is fascinating because he’s heartless.  Apathy doesn’t make a family!  Apathy makes misery.  I–I’m better off without him. We are better off without him.”

She slams a fist into my arm, the force burning, stinging, spider-webbing up my shoulder.  “We were family, and then you left him behind. Now I’m stuck here, caught ‘tween losing Neda and Kal–I’m suffocating.  I love you, Vik, but right now I’m ‘bout as close to steering us into a ditch as I am to forgiving ya. You and I, we’ve got each other just as closely as we’ve got our miseries.”

She looks at me for a moment but seems to think better of the words stacking between her open lips.  She pushes the pink bud into her ear, right back to glaring out the window.  

I think about telling her the truth.  I try.  Try to form the words, try to form them into something that might make sense.  I try to tell her that I’m tired, tired, that I wanted to stay, that I would have if only Kal had asked me to.

But he didn’t ask.  Not because he has his pride, but because he didn’t see the benefit.

Kal’s probably made the right decision, not wanting me to stay.  If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, then you probably can’t teach a swindler to put love before profit, either.  

And I was probably right to leave.  If you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, then you probably can’t make a man like Kal grow a heart, either.

The words crack on my lips, a higher pitch than I intended. “I miss him too.”

But Dege is lost in her own world, mourning her surrogate brother abandoned far behind us.  

Let the record show that I spoke the truth, even if silence and misery are my only witnesses.

“I’m leaving.”

He looks up at me, overcast eyes still holding themselves together.  My heart runs like a Harley, heavy thrumming, ready be chewed up and spat out, trying to wriggle out my throat so it doesn’t have to leave with me.  He’s watching me and I’m here praying to Gods that probably ain’t real, to Gods that I’ve never prayed to before, praying that Kal’ll say what he’ll never say, something like I want you to stay or Take me with you.  But he shrugs, indestructible, looks back down at the scraps on the table in front of him and says “Okay.”

“I mean I’m not coming back, Kal.  I’m leaving.”

“I know.” His fingers wrap tight around the red screwdriver I got for him a thousand lifetimes ago, back when debts and brothers seemed like the problem and not us.

My heart’s already pushing on my tongue, trying to leap off.  It finds its way out in my sobs, crying, “That’s all you’ve got to say?”

He doesn’t look at me.  His curls look like smoke clouds, smothering the space between us, dizzying the thoughts.  “Always knew you’d leave.”

“But I told you,” I plead, going about this all wrong, “I told you I’d stay.”

“Yeah.” He looks, looks, stares right over my shoulder, indifferent.  “But not forever.”

“Kal.”

“I won’t make you stay. If you wanna stay, stay.  If you don’t, go.” Gray eyes catch mine.  Less like rain, more like thunderstorms, heavy, suffocating.  “I won’t be your victim.”

“I’m not asking you to be!”

“You are.”

“No!  Dammit, Kal, I’m asking you to—” to say you want me to stay, that you need me, that I protect you—that I keep you warm, keep you loved, that I and I alone have delivered you through hell, that your life is as good as mine—I’m asking you to love me, to promise, to be a victim of your heart—not mine.

I can’t say it. The words crash against my teeth. Air struggles to finds its way around the traffic jam.  

“Asking me to hurt,” Kal answers.  “And I can do that for free.”

“We could go back,” Nadege pleads.  “We could go back and take him with us.”

“We’re too far.  We can’t have wasted all this gas money just to go back.”

Her eyes suggest violence, but her hands only tighten on the backpack in her lap.  “We’re stumbling aimlessly like a kicked dog–ya kicked yourself, Giant!  The hand that feeds you is back in Dakota.  We should go back.  We’re family, and family stays together, lives, thrives, dies together.  You can’t just—just feel hurt and leave.  So your past caught up with you.  That doesn’t mean it gets to swallow ya whole, to suffocate the future!”

I open myself.  Can’t say the words I should say.  I should tell her yes, but I’ve already imagined it–crawling back.  Imagined a future where he opens the door and I plead Let me stay, let me stay, it might not be forever but it can be more than now.  But Kal, the Kal in my head, the Kal in my heart, he has no sympathy. Nor should he. Like every abandoned lover before, there are no open arms to go back to.

“He wouldn’t want me,” I grind out.  “Why would he?  I left him.  Abandoned. You and I both know how that tastes.”

She slams a hand on the dashboard.  “Yes! But what about me, Viktor!  What about me!  I’m part of this too—he’s like my brother, and you, you ripped me apart from him!”

“You helped,” I say, and I taste hysteria rising on my tongue.  Saying things I don’t want to say.  Is this how Kal felt, when he spat that I was a monster, that love meant nothing? Hysteria in his eyes, in the way his hands trembled?  “You helped.  You told him he had every goddamn reason to want me gone—”

“I did, ay!  I told him, I told the boy, told ‘em straight to the face: Viktor’s a swindler, a murderer, a fool, a drunkard, a gambler, a whorish ass who cheats everything he loves, even himself.  I told him! I told him your flaws, I ripped you apart for that boy, because I love him and he deserved to know.  If you weren’t a fool with sins longer ‘an the sun’s rays I wouldn’t ‘ve said a peep.  But listen to me! I told him, told him all the things you could never say.  I told him you loved him, you’d die for him if he asked. Each day you were free was a day you chose to stay with him.”  Her nails dig into the dash, her eyes warm, warm, burning, like gunpowder’s swimming in her tears.  “I told him love is a misery shared ‘tween hearts, and misery was what he chose.”

“That wasn’t your place,” I whisper, the steering wheel veering, knuckles white on the black leather.  “Telling him my sins when I never intended to cheat him, not by then.  He said I was a monster because of what you went around telling him, Dege!  Told me each kiss tasted like a countdown!”

She slams her palm again, a noise scraping up against her throat, pulling itself out angrily.  “And he was right!  Because you, you went and left!  If you had a sense better than a fool’s I wouldn’t have said shit, now would I?  But I, I’m not you, I ain’t such a fool.  I know how you looked at that boy!  I know how you looked at him, Giant, and it’s been a damn long time since you’ve looked at anyone like that.  Looking at ‘im like he’s more than prey, something more fascinating than a man on the other side of a scope.  You looked at that boy like he was a bottle, like you’d be scared of your own thoughts if he weren’t there when you woke up. Like your whole damn reason for living was to press your lips against him.”

“Yeah,” I swallow. “And now look.  Waking up every morning with only the bottle.”

“He deserved the truth. And then you left, ran away–I let him get one step ahead of you and you cashed out!” She shakes her head. “I ain’t saying you’re good for each other, that you’ll be espousing vows or sharing tender looks or shit.  I’m just saying, as miserable as you were together—all your sins and fears combined—you’re even more of a miserable bastard without.”

“Yeah.  I’m a monster and a miserable bastard.” The truck feels small, curling in on me. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“You whimper and whine but it was your dipshit decision to leave, and your decision to ruin our family. You are a monster, Viktor.  Doesn’t mean yer beyond love, but damn if you don’t make it harder than it needs to be.”

Jackal—the Jackal I love, the Jackal I miss, the Jackal in my head greets my wandering thoughts of what if I went back? with a rusted screwdriver and simple indifference.  “Didn’t think you’d be back,” he says in my head, peeking from around a hotel door.  His voice, the odd formation of his words, choppy and small, like a replacement for the voice of my sanity.

“Neither did I,” I’d say.  With a smile, I offer, “Guess it’s a surprise party.”

He wouldn’t think that was funny.  His fingers would curl around the screwdriver, clinging to it for comfort, half-prepared to dig it in my chest.  “Why?”

“I missed you.”  No–too simple.  “Couldn’t get you out of my head.” Better.

The way his eyes would rake up me, curious, hands loosening. “You aren’t staying,” he accuses.

No.  I don’t want to stay, to be always haunted by his rain-eyes, to only kiss blood.  But then… Yes.  I want to stay, want to taste his kiss in the morning sun, want to hear him beg, want to unzip his pride-suit and poke at his shame until there is less shame and more me.

“Nothing’s changed,” he says, and it sounds like an invitation.  If I’m still leaving then I’m still me, and if I’m still me I can go back.  Does this make sense? He and I, we circle one another, vulture and prey.  Our endings are terrified of our beginnings.

“Well, can’t say nothing’s changed.  Dege is pretty pissed at me.  Staged a coup till I came to my senses.”

“Found them at the bottom of a bottle?” He sighs, voice melting, like mist when the rain won’t commit.  He steps back from the door–a real invitation.  Something about his face is off, like I’ve forgotten the flaws in his skin, or the sound of his laughter.  What… what did his laughter sound like?  I called it music, once, if the harsh, shocking cry of a rifle and the way it melts into silence can be music.  

“Why try?” he asks me, his fingers on my chest, my shoulders, crawling up my neck. “Why?”

“Tired of leaving my heart behind.  I was born a human, not a swindler.” My hands on his, inked hands on calloused ones.  “Guess it took missing you for me to remember.”

“Can monsters shed their fangs?”

“No.  You’ll have to train me, teach me to kiss you, rather than to gnaw on your bones.”

Hesitation.  You’re a swindler, his eyes would say.  I won’t offer you anything to make you stay. I know your tricks.  I won’t fall for them.  I won’t be your victim.  This affair is just an affair—not a promise.

“Okay,” he says.  His fingers curl around my throat.  Smother, asphyxiate, stifle. Suffocate.  “You asked for it.”

Somewhere in reality, Dege pokes me in the arm.  She shouts over the music, eyes tired.  “Pull the damn truck over.  You’re weaving so badly—are you sobering up or somethin’?”

Grunt, scraping against the back of my throat, where his fingers should be wrapped, wringing me of my independence. “Tired.”

“Let me drive.” Her voice, soothing, a maternal coo. “We ain’t going anywhere in particular anyway.  How lost can I get?”

She hops out of the truck and I shuffle into the passenger seat.  By the time she pulls onto the road and meets the next bend, the cold glass of the window has already lured me away from the truck, back to where my heart always wanders, right back to you.

“You want me to hurt,” Jackal accuses.  The screwdriver in his hand trembling.  “To beg. I won’t.  Not for this.  I don’t waste breath on prayers—I won’t waste it on you.”

I don’t need you to beg mixes with Break, break, break.  Prayers and words all crashing against my mouth, riding on red waves.  Nothing comes out but pain. A gasp.  “After everything I’ve done for you.”

“No.  After everything you did before me. You’re more monster than man.  You take what you can take. Swindling and baiting. Feasting on flesh: cattle and kin alike.”

And I am, I am, I am. What can I say?  That I need him, that he completes me, that his wounds and mine mirror each other? No.  What could I say that wouldn’t sound like lies?  I know all the lies, all the falsities.  They work because they sound just like the truth—they both bleed, indecipherable. 

“I love you,” I plea, and the words that have always meant too much suddenly not enough, “You swore you loved me too.”

His lips, blood and lies, purse. “Maybe I’m a monster too.”

My heart, leaping forward.  Then let us be monstrous together.  We’ve hunted together, you and I; we’ve bled together, survived together, my freedom and your heartbeat entwined.  

But he—he scoffs.  “How could I still love you?  We precedes end.”

And he’s right.  I know me. We precedes end. But, see, even when he’s long gone, abandoned one morning in a hotel in Dakota, I’ll always remember what his pulse tastes like on my lips, how it sings under my fingers. 

But, see, that–that’s love.  Wrapping your fingers around their throat, but never daring to take all you can take.

Rain pounds against the windshield, in harried tempo to match the memory of Jackal’s pulse.  The map spread on the seat between Dege and I is marked in pink highlighter, a path going north.

“Should’ve known you’d go back for him,” I groan, pushing up from where I’m slumped in the seat.

Dege gasps, playful, invigorated.  “Not fighting?  No threatening to oust me from the truck—my truck, by the way, friendly reminder—for my decision?  My, my, old man, yer losing your stubborn streak.”

“Not really,” I sigh. The window is cool against my fevered face.  “Just tired of leaving behind the things I want to take.”

She peeks over at me, shadows crawling on her face in the evening light.  Laughter and fright mirror in her eyes.  “What sorta dreams are you having that changed your mind?”

“None,” I whisper.  Tasting blood in my dry mouth.  “Only memories.”

“Like he’s your present,” she whispers, “Can’t imagine a future without him, so now you’re suffocating in the past?”

“When’d you get so wise, Dege?”

She smiles.  Gentle.  Reaches for my hand on the empty seat, patting it softly.  “You’re just a damn fool, Viktor. ‘s why you need me around, to keep your head on.”

I know.  I know.  “A monster, a miserable bastard, a fool.” 

“So greedy,” you whisper, long fingers roaming through my hair, legs shamelessly spread open without the cuffs on your ankles.  “I’m still here.”

“I know.” Bringing your hand to my lips, kissing the tips of your fingers. “I know.  Still–I want you to stay.”

“I will,” you say.  Your eyes have that sadness again, whispering instead, I’ll stay, but you won’t.

You’re right.  I won’t. I always leave, always pick up first, always trying to stay a step ahead.  But you, Kal, you’re pondering the wrong questions.  It’s not about if I’ll stay or if I’ll go.  The question to ask is if I’ll come back.

You let me kiss you. Blood. How do you do that?  So indifferent, completely apathetic to the taste of my heart on your mouth.  I trace bitemarks with my fingers, your tired pulse thrumming under my touch.

“I love you,” I admit, half experiment, half truth.

And you.  The look in your eyes, like you want so badly to taste the truth, too.  “I know.”

You close your eyes.  Are you thinking of praying?  Thinking of the Gods we never speak to, hoping one’ll take pity, that maybe I’ll stay? Because I, I am–I’m praying to every deity I’ve ever heard the name of and praying to some others, too, covering all my bases, praying that one day I’ll wake up and your soft voice will sound less like the wind and more like the truth.

You mumble something quiet, too low to catch.  It sounds a bit like I want you to stay.

And me. The words in my throat, trying so badly to swallow down the truth, too.  “I know.”

About EOSOPHOBIA  ||  Vikal Drabbles ||  All EOS Drabbles ||  My Ko-Fi

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[onthewingsofpoesy]

Here Beside Me 1

First chapter of new long fic. I’m posting short chapters every other day. 

Yuuri Katsuki, a rare black kitsune, is kidnapped from his home in Japan and sold on the black market in Russia. Incredibly, he escapes from his cruel animal captors but is lost in the streets of Russia and injured, hungry, and weak.

Viktor Nikiforov was walking home after a late night of practice when he stumbles across a miserable, quaking ball of fur behind the dumpster in the alleyway next to his apartment. Before he even thinks about it, he takes in the dying little creature and brings it home with him. Surely it couldn’t be that hard to nurse a...a cat? back to life. Besides, Makkachin would love a new furry friend, kitty or not...

Russia was cold, so much colder than Yuuri expected.

The funny thing was, there was very little snow in the streets and on the sidewalks for this time of year in winter. It had poured heavily a few hours before and the rains had soaked up the snow and ice to leave the asphalt roads below slushy and sodden.

A gust of wind struck at the thin tarp draped over his cage. It lifted up the fabric and swept through Yuuri’s mangy fur with cruel and biting claws. The kitsune shivered and curled up in a tighter ball, willing what body heat remained inside him to spread evenly throughout his body.

It didn’t work.

The wind filtered away his body heat with every bluster. He was soaking wet even though he had tried bracing himself against one of the back corners of the cage when the rains had started. The combination of the two was surely mortally dangerous, but Yuuri had lost the will to care a long time ago. The only thing he paid heed to was the dryness in his throat and the hollow pain in his belly.

His captors hadn’t fed him in three days, and the water he was able to get was siphoned off the tarp after the rains.

He was miserable. Russia was miserable. His whole situation was miserable, had been for centuries.

And still he was alive.

Lovely.

A soft grumble escaped his throat and Yuuri tucked his chilled nose into his tail. One of his tails. He had five, but he usually concealed the other four with a basic, low-energy illusion spell. Humans wouldn’t take kindly to a fox with five tails. He could be experimented on, locked away forever, unable to ever return to his home in Japan. So he hid himself away from mankind.

Only time could tell if he could keep up with this simple magic. He was hungry and tired, and already his energy reserves were drained. There was little natural life around him here in St. Petersburg.

Japan, however, had been teeming with organic life and energy. Its plants, its people, and its animals were tightly bound together in a rich web of energy and life.

St. Petersburg felt dead. There was little joy and little life around him here.

Perhaps it was the state of the city’s people. St. Petersburg was cold and dreary, so the people must’ve been cold and dreary and miserable as well.

Or perhaps Yuuri was projecting.

He had been taken from his home in Japan, shoved into a cage, pumped full of drugs, and shipped off to cold, miserable Russia. He didn’t know where he was being taken now.

The cargo truck he had been loaded onto was dirty and rusting. Every pothole and bump in the road they ran over sent jolts through Yuuri’s body. It was hard to sleep with all the noise and movement.  Other cages filled with animals stolen from Japan, China, Thailand, and probably elsewhere in Asia were also shoved up against his own crate.

Yuuri felt uneasy staring at the wide, blinking eyes of the terrified creatures shivering in their cages. Many of them had perished along the way here and their still bodies remained unmoving against the cold steel bars. What animals remained alive looked just as miserable as Yuuri did trying to hide from the wind, rain, and snow in their cages under the tarp.

So they couldn’t be on the way to any zoos or rehabilitation centers. They wouldn’t have been treated so cruelly. This must be black market work. Illegal exotic animal trafficking.

Yuuri’s stomach twisted.

Perhaps he would be sold to an exotic animals dealer as a rare black fox. Or maybe he’d be forced into some breeding program by an animal keeper. Humans were never content to have something rare. They wanted many rare things. One was never enough.

Worst case scenario, Yuuri would be treated like the animal everyone thought he was.

And there was no way he could change forms. The drugs- expensive, heavy duty tranquilizers- leeched his energy reserves away and prevented him from shifting into his human form to escape. In Russia, there wasn’t enough organic life around him to replenish those reserves fast enough.

He’d be stuck here in his fox form for a long time, unable to change forms and escape.

A pained whine ripped its way out of his throat. Yuuri squeezed his eyes tightly. He wanted to go home so bad. Home was where his mother, father, and sister were. It was where the hot springs were, warm bowls heaping with katsudon, soft mats, gentle hands running through his fur, the familiar musical syllables of Japanese words, soft brown eyes melting with warmth and love. Home was basking on the rocks near the waterfall, watching the seagulls on the beach, strapping on skates for the first time and feeling like flying on the ice...everything he’d ever known was there.

Now there was nothing.

If Yuuri could’ve sobbed, he would have. But he was in his kitsune form and there was no telling how long he’d be like this.

The tarp over his cage fluttered again in the biting wind and Yuuri caught a glimpse of the grey sky overhead swarming like an enraged ocean. Soft white flurries rained down from the dark black carriages of the storm clouds. It was snowing again.

Yuuri squeezed his body tightly, willing the burning heat of locking his muscles to help warm him up. It would be another long, cold night here in the back of the truck.

Yuuri tried to empty his mind to sleep. The dreams would take him away from his cold body, his aching belly, and his parched throat. Dreams were where he could live in Japan with his family again and forget everything that had happened in the last couple weeks.

Still, he couldn’t escape the voice in the back of his mind that told him this was only the beginning of a long period of change. Something here was going to change his life forever. For better or for worse.

[4lyeskas]

hablar del amor, y defenderlo

read it on AO3 SERIES: Yuri!!! On Ice PAIRING: Otabek Altin x Yuri Plisetsky RATING: T  TAGS: post-canon, post wttm skate, hurt/comfort, mentions of injury, 5+1

an otayuri 5+1 // commissioned by @rainlikestars // @otayuriwriterscollective

¿quién puede hablar del amor y defenderlo? ¡que levante la mano, por favor!

1.

The first time, they’re not even together yet.

Yuri is in Almaty for a visit, a change of pace. After the exhibition skate fiasco and ahead of Worlds, Lilia has become much stricter about his choreography, while Yuri has become more stubborn about he wants to do for himself. Viktor was the one who’d convinced Yakov to let Yuri take a short break, cool his head.

Yuri doesn’t like being indebted to Viktor, but he’s grateful, however reluctantly. Getting to visit Otabek is a very welcome bonus.

Otabek is accommodating, happy to have Yuri in his home city. He’s lightened his training schedule as much as he can (although with both Four Continents and Worlds coming up, it’s not all that much lighter), takes Yuri around the city at night. Otabek’s family takes to Yuri immediately, showering him in extra food and affection. Yuri even gets to skate in Otabek’s rink, working on his quad flip.

It makes Yuri feel worse about the agitation that gnaws at his ribs, his lungs.

He doesn’t even know why. He’s here in Almaty, he’s with Otabek; he’s away from Lilia and Yakov and their nagging, away from Viktor’s overbearing concern and Yuuri’s overly sincere consideration. But whenever he and Otabek go out, Yuri is anxious and self-conscious; whenever Otabek smiles at him, asks him how he feels, if he’s okay, Yuri gets flustered. There’s a lump in his throat that refuses to go away. It’s driving him crazy.

It’s when they come across some friends of Otabek that Yuri snaps. It’s Otabek’s day off, they’re meandering through a commercial area near Otabek’s home. An unfamiliar voice rings over the chatter of the city, drawing their attention.

“Beshka!” Otabek reacts first, turning around with a big smile; Yuri feels a flash of irritation in his chest. There’s a group of boys, four of them, weaving through the crowd towards them. They arrive and start chatting in -- Yuri’s not sure, it sounds like an odd mix of Russian and Kazakh, but he can’t understand a thing and it’s pissing him off.

It’s a while before they notice Yuri standing there, glaring. One of them breaks off with a surprised look and smiles apologetically, says something to Yuri. Otabek puts a hand on Yuri’s shoulder, gives him a quick smile, then turns back to his friend.

“Russian, please, Maxim,” he says with a laugh.

“Oh, sorry, sorry!” The boy - Maxim - beams at Yuri. The others are looking at him curiously, shooting each other unreadable glances that only vex Yuri even more. Maxim throws an arm around Yuri’s shoulder and smirks. “And you are?”

Yuri shrugs the arm off with no gentleness and huffs. “Leaving,” he snaps, storming off the way they came.

“Hey, what--” Yuri doesn’t want to hear. He takes off running, missing the way Otabek calls after him, the way the boys exchange concerned looks.

Otabek still catches up with him a few blocks away.

“Yura,” he says sharply, grabbing Yuri’s wrist to stop him from heading off again. Yuri twists his arm petulantly and stomps his foot.

“Let me go.”

“No.” Otabek is searching his face, frowning. The way he holds Yuri’s wrist, his expression, it makes Yuri feel like some problem child who’s being patronized and scolded. He hates it. “Yuri, what happened?”

“I’m pissed off, okay!” he yells. Startled, Otabek lets go of his hand; Yuri hugs his arms to his chest and stares at the ground.

“Why?” Otabek asks. “They’re my friends, Yura, of course they want to talk to me.”

The resentment is climbing up Yuri’s throat and he hates it. “I know,” he mutters, hunching up further. This, whatever it is, it frustrates him. He can’t explain why.

They stand there for a moment, in a side alley that smells vaguely of lamb and smoke, Yuri looking at his shoes and Otabek looking at Yuri.

“Yura--”

Yuri cuts him off. “I’m done,” he says quickly, spinning on his heel and walking back in the direction of Otabek’s home. “I’m going back to Russia on the earliest flight, I can’t do this anymore.”

“What--” Otabek catches up with him again and this time actually blocks his way, standing in front of him (and fuck this, Yuri may be getting taller but Otabek is still bigger and in his way). He takes Yuri by the shoulders, trying to get Yuri to look at him, but Yuri won’t meet his eyes.

“Yura,” Otabek says softly, in a voice that makes something twist in Yuri’s chest. “Are you--” He hesitates. Yuri scrunches his face up. Otabek seems to be weighing his words carefully, uncertainly. He purses his lips, then looks at Yuri with an oddly tight expression. “Are you... jealous?”

Yuri’s eyes widen; his next inhale is sharp and painful.  He jerks away from Otabek even as he feels the heat in his cheeks, the chill in his lungs. “No,” he says breathlessly, adamantly, but the lie is obvious. “No--”

Otabek takes Yuri’s hands in his, holds tight despite Yuri’s protests and -- Yuri’s breath catches as Otabek presses Yuri’s palms to his chest, over a quick and nervous  heartbeat. One hand moves to card through Yuri’s hair, gentle as every other thing Otabek does with Yuri.

“Kotyonok,” Otabek says, and there’s a laugh lurking in the word. Yuri is still looking down. “There was never a need for you to be.”

Yuri’s hands close into fists, scrunching the front of Otabek’s shirt. He leans forward, pressing his forehead into Otabek’s shoulder. His friend just stands there and lets him, still stroking Yuri’s hair.

After a moment, Otabek asks, “still leaving?”

Yuri sniffs, shakes his head.

“No.”

2.

It’s not a good season for Yuri.

It was always going to be difficult to follow up his debut performances -- gold in the GPF, with  a world-record short program score; bronze at Euros; silver at both the Russian Championships and Worlds behind Viktor Nikiforov -- but Yuri is still frustrated, still angry, still desperately disappointed. When he finishes fifth in the Grand Prix Finals, a full twelve points behind Otabek in third, the feeling of failure threatens to drown him.

He stands through the awarding ceremony with shoulders back and head high in defiance, eyes firmly forward. He ignores JJ and the stupid silver medal around his neck; Chris and his stupidly teary eyes as he kisses his gold; Yuuri, who still has consolatory smiles for Yuri even if Yuuri himself had finished sixth although he’d scored well.

(Viktor, despite finishing fourth and not being on the podium for the first time in over a decade, is chattering happily with everyone and laughing. It makes something dark and ugly twist in Yuri’s gut.)

They all head back to the hotel to prepare for tonight’s banquet and tomorrow’s exhibition skate, and nobody notices that Yuri has disappeared.

Otabek gets the text while he’s looking for his suspenders.

> i can’t do this. i’m done,  you can go, it’s been real, goodbye

It’s a very Yuri text. Otabek looks at it, feels something cold and hollow in his chest. Reads and re-reads the words and forces himself not to panic.

Yuri is probably angry, resentful. He’d finished fifth, he’s disappointed, he doesn’t want to see people celebrating and congratulating when he feels like he’s failed. Even if he’s just seventeen, he doesn’t want to slip up, no matter how many people tell him he has room to make mistakes and grow.

(He’s still overshadowed by Viktor Nikiforov’s legacy, the way it hounds his performances; he fights and ends up trying too hard to escape it, hammering at the walls of the box that people have put him into against his will, to try and break them.)

Otabek looks for the key to Yuri’s room, and hesitates only a moment before heading over.

Yuri’s not in the bedroom.

His skate costume and team jacket are tossed onto the floor; the costume looks particularly badly crumpled. A lot of Yuri’s things are scattered across the room, though nothing seems broken.

Otabek finds him in the bathroom, sitting in the unfilled tub, hunched up in an oversized grey hoodie and a pair of tights. He has his chin on his arms, staring at the opposite wall with blank eyes. He’s terrifyingly still.

With careful footsteps, Otabek makes his way to the side of the tub and kneels down beside it. “Yura?” he asks softly, and then, “zvezdochko, are you with me?”

Slowly, Yuri’s eyes focus, flick over to Otabek, who can see the moment they recognize him -- those green eyes tighten, shutter, painfully. Yuri hugs himself tighter, as if trying to make himself small.

(And like this, he looks so unbearably hurt, and so young.)

“Yura,” Otabek says again, but this time not in asking. It’s one word, simple, rolling easy off his tongue; a quiet affirmation that Otabek is here, with him.

Yuri unfolds a little, drops his hands to his lap, hangs his head. Otabek waits.

A tiny, broken voice: “I lost.”

(Otabek wants to do anything to get rid of the way that voice shakes, get rid of of the sadness.)

Yuri inhales, exhales, curls further into himself. Says again, “I lost.”

“You did.” Otabek acknowledges the pain. Then he reaches out, cups Yuri’s face from under the fringe of hair that’s fallen over it. Says, “you are still more than enough.”

For a moment, they simply sit there, and then Otabek hears the wetness in Yuri’s breathing, feels something damp on his palm. Yuri tips his head, leaning into Otabek’s touch; hiding his face with his hair. His breaths come in muffled, hiccuping sobs.

“Yura.” This time, Otabek climbs into the tub with him, and almost before he’s settled in, Yuri’s thrown himself at Otabek, face pressed into Otabek’s dress shirt. His sobs get louder; his shoulders shake. His hands are clenched around fabric, crumpling it, but Otabek doesn’t care. He just gathers this beautiful, imperfect boy in his arms, and presses his cheek into sunshine hair, and lets Yuri cry.

(Otabek skips the banquet, spends the night in Yuri’s room. Yuri sleeps curled against him, one ankle slipped between both of his. Yuri also wakes up first; he’s lying on Otabek’s shoulder when Otabek wakes up, tracing idle circles on his friend’s chest.

Otabek takes his hand, kisses the palm, smiles. Yuri’s eyes are still red, and he looks so tired, but he smiles back.)

3.

It’s finally the off-season. Otabek is in St. Petersburg to attend a two-week training camp held by Yakov in tandem with the newly-retired Viktor, who is surprisingly serious about this whole endeavor. Instead of booking a hotel, he’s taken Yuri up on his offer to stay at his apartment. And for a time, it’s comfortable. Otabek cooks in lieu of payment, and Yuri’s delighted to find that Otabek is excellent in the kitchen. Potya already likes Otabek well enough, but it’s Otabek, so Yuri thinks it’s understandable.

Still, Yuri is careful not to be too close, keeps a wary distance. He’s still not quite sure what they are, this odd limbo of friends and lovers and something in between, and the uncertainty makes him cautious. But he wants to figure it out together, and for now he’s happy enough laughing with Otabek in his living room while they look up videos of the coaches back in their skating days (Celestino Cialdini is a pleasant surprise). If they touch less, if he stays a little apart, well, he doesn’t think it’s that big a deal.

But on a Tuesday, after a particularly difficult session on jumps, Yuri emerges from the shower to see that Otabek hasn’t started on dinner. Instead, he’s sitting in the middle of the bedroom they’re sharing (Yuri on the bed, Otabek on the floor) and staring at his open suitcase.

“Beka?” Yuri calls curiously. He tosses his towel onto his desk chair, frowns.

“I was thinking,” Otabek says, and then he pauses. There’s a shirt in his hands, half-folded. “Maybe I should leave.”

Yuri feels like he’s been slapped. “What?”

“It’s.” There’s a sharp edge to Otabek’s shoulders, his arms, his jaw. Yuri doesn’t like it. As if sensing his distress, Potya miaows and curls around his ankles, presses against his shin. Otabek sighs. “It feels like -- you don’t exactly want me here.”

“Why would I not?” Yuri’s confused, and upset, and a little scared.

For a moment, Otabek says nothing, and the tension in the room threatens to suffocate Yuri. Then Otabek turns his head, meets Yuri’s eyes with a sincerity so forceful it knocks the breath from Yuri’s lungs.

“I like you,” Otabek says, straightforward and simple. Yuri’s heart stutters in his chest. “I love you, Yuri, and if you don’t feel the same way then I’ll need to leave because I can’t--”

He doesn’t get to say what he can’t, because Yuri has bolted across the room and thrown his arms around Otabek’s shoulders, buried his face in the crook of Otabek’s neck. His whole body is shaking as he presses against Otabek so hard they’re in danger of toppling over.

“Don’t you dare,” he bites out, and his fingers dig so hard into Otabek’s back that it hurts. “Don’t you dare, you can’t leave, you can’t, I won’t let you.”

“Yuri--”

“No.” The word is loud, anxious, cracked. “Don’t you dare, Beka, you can’t, I-- I--” Yuri can’t get it out; the words keep getting stuck in his throat. He pulls away, scrabbling for Otabek’s hands. Presses them shakily to his chest, where his heart is thudding fast and frightened.

(He remembers Otabek and these same actions, more than a year ago, in a side street in Almaty. He hopes desperately that Otabek will understand.)

Otabek looks at their hands, at the way Yuri’s tremble even as he holds Otabek’s so tightly.

He could almost laugh with the relief and the happiness that crashes down on him.

Carefully, he leans forward so their foreheads touch. They’re both starting to cry. They’re also so very bad at this -- at this thing between them.

“Okay,” Otabek says, and his voice has a laugh. Yuri hiccups one of his own, and then he’s back in Otabek’s arms and they’re lying on the floor in a tangle of limbs. Otabek looks at Yuri and thinks that he’s never been so beautiful.

“Okay.”

4.

They’re in the living room of Otabek’s home, on the floor and leaning against the couch. Otabek is trying to read a book. Yuri has his phone out and is scrolling through Instagram, head on Otabek’s shoulder, occasionally holding out his phone to show a funny picture or make a comment on someone’s post. JJ actually has a throwback one of him and Otabek from their Canada days; Otabek’s haircut is awful, and JJ is wearing the ugliest shirt Yuri has ever seen.

“I’m sure you’ve worn something you thought was cool at the time but now consider horrible,” Otabek chides. He’s just about ready to give up on getting any reading done, if Yuri’s going to keep interrupting (not that Otabek truly minds). Yuri glances up, looking absolutely offended.

“Of course not,” he declares. His fashion sense is amazing. Especially his shoes.

Otabek just raises his eyebrows and looks at him.

“Shut up,” Yuri says, aghast, even if Otabek hasn’t said anything. He elbows Otabek in the side, and Otabek just grins. He takes the phone from Yuri, looks closely at the post. JJ’s captioned it kings of style!!! and hashtagged it into oblivion, including #partnersinfashioncrime. It makes him laugh.

“Ugh.” Yuri wrinkles his nose, swiping his phone back and scrolling past (but not before hitting the double tap). Otabek pokes him in the ribs; Yuri squirms.

“We looked good,” Otabek retorts, smirking. Yuri rolls his eyes.

“Why don’t I just break up with you so you can get with JJ and look good together then,” he snipes, although there’s no real heat.

“Hmmm.” Otabek presses a finger to his lips in mock-consideration, and Yuri smacks him with a pillow from the couch. Otabek laughs again, pulls Yuri closer, kisses him.

“I like looking good with you,” he says between kisses. Yuri huffs, blushes, calls him an idiot, but kisses him back anyway.

5.

Otabek purses his lips and thinks, it is not going to be a good season.

It’s September. He’s just come back from training and a particularly painful session, and he’s thinking. He’s in Russia for a few weeks, cross-training at Yakov’s rink among other things. He’s back in Yuri’s apartment, although this time there’s no mattress on the floor. His black zip-up hoodie is missing, presumably stolen by a little stray cat with golden hair.

(It’s his favorite pet name for Yuri, even if Yuri turns red and indignant whenever he uses it. But it suits him, with his brash affection and the way he refuses to answer to anyone, the way he’s weak to genuine care, the way he warms up to people.)

His phone is on the bed, open to a message thread with his coach. There’s a drawer in one of Yuri’s closets that holds his things, so his own suitcase doesn’t contain much. He needs to get started on dinner. Yuri’s extra training with Viktor should have ended a short while ago.

The door to the apartment opens with a bang, and slams shut just as loudly.

It startles Otabek, just like the angry footsteps like thunderclaps through the living room -- Yuri hasn’t even taken off his shoes. The door to the bedroom bursts open and Yuri is striding up to him with fury written all over his face.

“When the fuck were you going to tell me?” he yells, right up in Otabek’s face.

Otabek answers, eloquently, “what?”

Yuri stares at him in disbelief, then shoves him back, hard. “What the fuck, Beka?” He’s so angry he’s shaking. Otabek thinks he knows what this is about, he’s been dreading it, but that’s impossible, Yuri shouldn’t know, not yet, Yuri -- “You withdrew from the Olympics and you didn’t fucking tell me?”

Otabek closes his eyes, takes an unsteady breath to brace himself. It only pisses Yuri off even more.

“I had to find out from Viktor, of all people, he asked how I felt and if I’d be okay to compete. Do you know how humiliating it was to stand there and hear from someone else that you weren’t going? When the fuck did you even decide that?”

“Yuri--”

“All your big fucking speeches about relying on each other and asking me to trust you with the hard stuff -- what, were you all talk? Or did you just not trust me with -- fuck, Beka, you didn’t tell me anything.”

It hurts. It hurts that Yuri is angry, is hurt, is looking at him with an expression that’s equal parts betrayed and begging Otabek to say it isn’t true. It hurts that Yuri is obviously trying not to cry and Otabek wants to take that away, make it better, but this is… his fault.

“Was your knee that bad?” There’s a crack in Yuri’s voice that makes Otabek step forward, but Yuri backs off and it makes things feel worse. “You said the physical therapy was going fine, you… you came here to train and everything, Beka, you -- why didn’t you say?”

“I was going to.” It’s a weak excuse, but Otabek -- was scared, is still scared, didn’t want Yuri to have to shoulder that burden and strain in an Olympic season. In a season meant to be a redemption from the disappointments of the one before. But he should have said, he knows, he couldn’t have put it off forever -- “there just never seemed to be a… good time.”

(Pathetic, that’s what it is, that’s what he is.)

“Well when was it going to be a good time?” Yuri throws his arms up, gesturing wildly. “A month from now? Right before the Grand Prix series? Right before the Olympics? Never?”

“No, Yura--”

“Why did I have to find out from someone else?”

“Please, Yura, just listen--”

“To what? I’ve been here this whole time, I -- I’ve been asking if you’re all right, but you just -- kept lying to me and keeping me out, what, did you not trust me enough? Was I not good enough to be included in this?”

He wants to stop the words coming out of Yuri’s mouth, the pain bleeding through every one of them. He wants to say none of this is happening. He wants this discussion to not be taking place, to not ever have to take place. But Otabek can’t get that, can only stand there helplessly without reasons as Yuri looks at him so brokenly.

“That’s not true, Yura.” Otabek’s own voice is shaking. He doesn’t know what to say, except, “I’m sorry, I just--”

“Oh you’re sorry.” Yuri’s tone goes from upset to scathing in seconds. He’s standing in the middle of his room, their room, they’d kissed here just this morning, woken up tangled together. Yuri’s openly crying now, tear tracks down his cheeks, breathing coming heavy and short. Otabek knows the fury and disbelief in those eyes, has seen that directed at other people. He’s never been on the receiving end; he hates it. “That’s great of you, Beka, that really is.”

Then he turns and leaves, the door slamming in Otabek’s face.

Otabek doesn’t leave the apartment. Going out to look for Yuri is useless; Yuri knows this city far better than he ever will, can hide better. He’s tried calling, but each time it rings out to voicemail, and Yuri obviously isn’t going to answer any texts. He thinks about the lamb kofta still in the freezer that he was going to cook for dinner, and sits in the living room.

When the door opens, he springs to his feet, ready to beg if needed. But it’s Mila standing there, expression tight and eyes cold.

“Yura?” Otabek asks anyway.

Mila takes a quick glance around the apartment, then looks back at Otabek. There is none of the warmth in her expression that Otabek usually associates with her, no playfulness. “You should leave,” she says in clipped tones. Before he can reply, she’s striding towards the bedroom. Otabek’s suitcase is still in one corner, and Mila drags it over to the closet where his drawer is. It makes something twist in his chest.

“Mila--”

“Viktor is furious.” She cuts him off, goes to stand by the door and looks at him pointedly. “And I am too, so I’m telling you to leave. Now. I’ll wait in the living room.”

Otabek watches her head out, then looks at the suitcase on the floor, the closet he and Yuri share. At the things that had slowly migrated into the drawer, things Yuri had borrowed and never returned, things Otabek had left and never asked for. He’s sure that if he doesn’t move, Mila is going to take care of this herself and with no gentleness.

The suitcase is full in ten minutes. Otabek feels very emptied out.

Almaty is getting colder. Otabek goes home, announces that he’s taking a break for the season, that he’s withdrawing his participation in both the Grand Prix and the Winter Olympics. The local media and skate fans are disappointed, but send him well-wishes and get-well-soons. They’d been worried this might happen, when Otabek had taken that fall during the last Worlds.

JJ calls him up just a few minutes after the news drops, even if it’s almost midnight in Canada.

“Are you okay?” his friend asks without preamble, and Otabek has never been so glad to hear JJ’s warm voice.

“I’ve had a while to accept things,” he answers honestly. It’s been a point of contention between him and his coach since Worlds; Otabek had just been too stubborn about it.

“Do you want to come out here?” There’s a rustle over the phone; JJ’s probably in bed. “The hospital affiliated with my rink is good, you could do your rehab here -- wait, no, I thought you were in St. Petersburg? What happened?”

Otabek opens his mouth, closes it. Tries to swallow around the lump in his throat.

“Beka?” JJ’s voice has softened; the nickname comes out tentative and nervous. “What happened?”

He can’t answer. There’s a photo on his desk, a small one, taken by Mila during that training camp of Yakov’s and Viktor’s. He remembers that moment, lunch at Viktor’s shared apartment with Katsuki, everyone playing games in the living room while Katsuki and Chris cooked. Yuri’s practically in Otabek’s lap while he laughs, controller held up triumphantly. Otabek knows that out of frame, Viktor will be reaching for Yuri, accusing him of cheating. Otabek himself is half-laughing, half-telling Yuri to be careful or he’ll hit someone.

He takes a shaky inhale. “I think,” and his voice cracks. “I’ll consider it.”

“Okay.” Otabek presses the phone to his ear even harder and wishes his friend were here because he could really use a hug.

Canada is even colder than Almaty, though not as much as Russia. JJ and Isabella welcome him with warm smiles and a home-cooked meal; JJ gives him the spare room, saying Isabella will be staying with her family.

Otabek stands, weight shifted to his left leg, and smiles as best as he can.

He travels with JJ to all the Grand Prix events, much to his doctor’s and coach’s disapproval. He goes even if he knows JJ isn’t assigned to the same events; it’s a nice distraction. The rest of the series he watches on shitty online streams or hotel televisions. He tells himself he’s not keeping track.

(He’s lying.)

JJ makes the Final with ease. Isabella is so proud, and so is Otabek, although much less loudly. He squashes down the tiny bubbles of resentment in his lungs and congratulates JJ with a smile.

“It’s not as good without you, though,” JJ tells him in the living room of his apartment, where they’ve returned for a few days before flying to Vancouver. Otabek smiles tightly from where he’s sprawled out on the couch. The brace on his right knee feels so very heavy.

“I’ll be back next season. Maybe even for Worlds, if they let me.”

They lapse into silence. JJ fiddles with his phone. Otabek looks at the ceiling. There is a very obvious elephant in the room.

“He’s going to be there,” JJ finally says, setting his phone on the coffee table. Otabek closes his eyes.

“I know.”

(They haven’t spoken since September. Each time Yuri had won gold -- Trophée de France, Rostelecom Cup -- Otabek had considered sending him a short message, just a congratulations. He’d stopped himself every time.

Yuri’s skating is still a study of technique and control, of flawless execution. His program scores rival those of his Grand Prix debut. He’s a favorite to win the competition.

There is no smile on his face, just steel and determination. It hurts to see. It’s as if Yuri has simply shut himself off, left only his skating.)

Vancouver has changed in the short time since Otabek was last here, but in many ways it’s still the same. He checks in along with JJ and his parents (Isabella will fly in for the actual competition in two days). He tries not to look around, to listen.

JJ goes to do a short press run. Otabek goes out for a walk.

When he returns, there are other skaters and coaches in the lobby, milling around and chatting. It’s hard not to be drawn to the sunshine hair, the blue Russian team jacket, the yelling. Yuri’s already in an argument with Viktor, sniping something while Viktor looks offended. He’s grown taller in the last few months; his hair is even longer now.

It hurts to see.

“Yura! Vitya! Check in already!” Otabek recognizes Yakov’s voice from behind him. He also recognizes the fury that flashes across Viktor’s face when he turns and sees Otabek standing there, watching them. His lips curl up in a sneer that mars his usually cheerful, good-looking face. But it stings far less than the way Yuri’s eyes slide right past Otabek like he isn’t even there, the way Yuri just walks past him with no acknowledgment. The way his expression doesn’t change, not even a little.

(For five years Otabek had told himself it was fine; that he would wait until they were on equal ground, when he could face Yuri both on and off the ice and hold his own. For five years Yuri had walked past Otabek and it was fine, because he hadn’t known who Otabek was, had been focused on himself. Otabek had simply fought tooth and nail for every scrap of talent he could get, until he could stand on the biggest of stages and feel like there was enough of himself to offer.

Five years, Otabek had waited, and it was fine. But now Yuri walks past him again like he doesn’t know him. It’s different, and it hurts.)

He goes back to his room and sits there and thinks, even more than not being able to skate this season, even more than watching everyone move around him, it’s the loss of Yuri’s bright, answering smile that hurts the most.

He declines JJ’s offer to have dinner with his family, stays at the hotel. But being in the room has him on edge, anxious; eventually, he leaves for another walk. When he comes back, cheeks red from the cold and even worse off than when he’d left, there’s someone in front of his hotel room door.

For a moment, his heart skips in hope, but the person has short black hair, not blonde. It takes him a moment to recognize Katsuki, but when he does, surprised is an understatement.

“Did you need something?” he asks, trying not to sound too nonplussed.

“I think I should talk to you,” Katsuki answers. Otabek searches his expression, looking for signs of the same fury and vindictiveness in Viktor, in Mila, but he finds none. Katsuki regards him coldly but civilly, so Otabek figures Katsuki’s not here to kill him.

Probably.

They end up on the balcony of Otabek’s room, overlooking the city. Katsuki is fiddling his fingers, hemming and hawing and clearly trying to figure out what to say.

“I’m still disappointed with the way you handled this,” Katsuki eventually says; it’s not a very promising opener. Otabek blanches, but he knows he’d made a mistake. Hearing it from Katsuki of all people just weirdly makes it feel even worse. He braces himself for more reproach, but Katsuki just sighs and leans his cheek on his hand. “Viktor and Mila are furious, of course; I thought Mila was going to beat you up.”

Otabek grimaces. “I thought she would, too.”

It makes Katuski chuckle under his breath. “We talked her out of it.” He hums a little, looks out over the view. Says, quietly, “Yurio isn’t mad anymore.”

Otabek tries very hard not to hold his breath, not to hope for too much.

“Well, he still is, kind of.” There’s a tiny, fond smile tugging at Katsuki’s lips. “You’re supposed to be honest with each other about things like this, and you left him out. It hurt him a lot.” (Otabek knows this; it’s been haunting his thoughts since September.) “But I…”

Katsuki shakes his head, props his chin on one palm as he leans on the balcony ledge. “Two seasons ago, when I lost to Yurio in his senior debut, I’d actually decided to retire. But I didn’t tell Viktor about it until the night before the free skate.” Katsuki actually laughs, if a little sadly. “I’d thought that if I told him earlier, he’d talk me out of it, and, well… it was my decision. He was my coach, but I’d thought it would only be until the Grand Prix Final, and then he’d return to skating and I’d stop.”

Otabek doesn’t know what to say; he hadn’t even known this, not entirely. He also understands now, somewhat, why Katsuki had come to talk to him. He lets himself ask, “how did he take it?”

Katsuki shakes his head. “Badly. Or, well, he cried and he got angry, though not as much as Yurio did, from what I heard. And things were… difficult between us the next day. But when I just put everything I wanted to say into my skating as my apology and, well, confession. And he understood.” The Japanese skater glances at Otabek, then down to his knee, still in the brace under his pants. “Of course, you can’t exactly do the same… but Yurio will understand.”

Otabek looks at Katuski, who’s smiling softly, then turns his gaze out to the view. He inhales, exhales in a sigh. “Okay.”

“I’ll handle Viktor,” Katuski says, patting him on the shoulder. As he turns to leave, he adds, “be honest this time.”

Otabek swallows dryly, nods. “Okay.”

Finding Yuri the next day is simple. Otabek shows up at his hotel room door with nothing but himself and a jumble of words in his mouth. True to his word, Katsuki has spirited Viktor off somewhere, so it’s just Yuri in the doorway glaring at Otabek (and if looks could kill).

“Please, Yuri,” Otabek says, simply and sincerely. There’s a flash of uncertainty in Yuri’s eyes, and it hurts, but at this point the worst Yuri can do is close the door.

Thankfully, he doesn’t.

Leaving the door open, Yuri stomps back into the room and throws himself onto the couch, saying nothing and fiddling with his phone. Otabek takes the unspoken invitation and comes inside. He stands there awkwardly, trying to remember everything he’d rehearsed last night, then decides to follow Katsuki’s advice.

“I’m sorry,” he says, without preamble. He sees the way Yuri’s jaw tightens, his fingers still, but Otabek just presses on. “For whatever it’s still worth, Yura, I really am. I didn’t leave you out on purpose, and I didn’t mean to end up lying. I swear.”

Yuri doesn’t look up. Otabek steadies himself with a breath. “I was scared. It was a major decision, and I didn’t want it to affect you, too. I know it’s stupid, and it’s no excuse. I made a mistake. I won’t leave you out again.”

He can’t meet Yuri’s eyes like this, so Otabek simply lets every emotion bleed into his words and hopes it’s enough to get his message across. “I swear, Yura -- zvezdochko, I won’t shut you out again.”

The room is quiet. Yuri is still looking at his phone, cradled in his lap, and Otabek looks at Yuri and tries to swallow down the hope threatening to bloom in his chest. There is a moment, then two, then slowly, Yuri holds out one hand.

Otabek is across the room in a heartbeat, kneeling in front of Yuri, hands hovering. When he sees the tears pricking at the corner of Yuri’s eyes, he stops holding his breath.

“Kitten,” and the familiar nickname almost cracks as he says it, “I never wanted to hurt you, I swear. I know I messed up, but I am here, I -- I love you, Yura, I love you.”

He repeats the words, over and over, reaching up and cupping Yuri’s cheeks, threading fingers through sunshine hair. And Yuri crumples forward, into Otabek’s arms; pushes his face into Otabek’s shoulder, slender hands clutching at his shirt.

“Beka,” he says, wetly, hoarsely, and Otabek holds him tighter.

(Yuri doesn’t take gold; he finishes a point and a half shy of JJ’s total to come in second. But the steel in his skating has softened; his extensions and lines are less harsh. And when the initial congratulations have passed and Viktor has let go of Yuri, the young skater’s eyes search the crowd. When he finds Otabek, he smiles, a soft upturn of lips, and cheekily gives him a thumbs up.

Otabek shakes his head, but gives a thumbs up in return.)

+1

It’s morning in St. Petersburg, a rare day off for both Otabek and Yuri. They’re in the living room. Yuri’s with Potya, sunshine on his hair in its messy bun and on the old sweater he’s wearing, ratty at the cuffs. Otabek’s just come back from the kitchen, standing by the counter and watching them. It’s a soft and quiet morning, the cold seeping in just a little.

The early sunlight streams through the windows of their apartment, painting everything rose and gold. Potya miaows indignantly, having had enough of Yuri’s teasing, and stalks off to the sound of Yuri’s laughter. Otabek wants to kiss the crinkles at the corners of those bright green eyes, kiss him and kiss him.

A faint smell of bread and smoke wafts in from outside. There’s a blanket thrown over the back of the couch, which they cuddle under when they watch movies, or just sit and talk. There are photos, mementos littering various surfaces. There’s a cactus on the window sill.

Otabek looks at Yuri. high cheekbones and sharp shoulders, a slenderness that belies his strength; the line of his back that Otabek had kissed down last night. The warmth in his expression when he meets Otabek’s gaze and smiles, for no reason other than that Otabek makes him happy.

Otabek looks at Yuri, and the words simply come out.

“Marry me.”

Yuri’s hands still where they’re reaching for Potya; his eyes widen as he looks back at Otabek, stunned. Otabek just walks over to where he sits, kneels beside him, takes Yuri’s hands in his. Lifts them to his own lips for a kiss.

“Marry me.”

Yuri inhales shakily, eyes searching Otabek’s face. He finds nothing but certainty, a steadiness so characteristic of Otabek, that he relies on.

“Okay.”

The answer is quiet, gentle, sure. There’s the softest of smiles on Yuri’s lips, an immeasurable fondness in his gaze as he looks up at Otabek. The floor is cold under Otabek’s knees, Yuri’s legs. It’s eight in the morning on a Wednesday.

“Okay.”

Otabek kisses him.