Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Yuri takes a deep breath to calm his nerves. When that doesn’t help, he tries to convince himself that he has no nerves to calm, but he’s just not persuasive enough for that to work either. He’s just anxious as hell and, really, he kind of knows that he should be. This is big. This is important. This is something he’s never done before.

“Are you nervous?” asks Otabek, sitting down on the edge of the bed, next to him.

It takes a second for him to reply, a second in which he decides he shouldn’t lie to Otabek. “Yeah, but… I want to do it.”

“All right.”

Then there is silence, silence so harsh and thick that the ceiling fan’s blades can barely cut through it. Three weeks of having Otabek in Saint Petersburg with him seems like a good long time, but time spent well is always time spent fast. He’ll be back in Almaty in less than a week, the off-season will flick on like a switch, and the power to be together in person will get quite out of their hands for much longer than either of them likes. There’s just not enough chances, not enough time.

“Beka, you want to too, right?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Yuri catches sight of those dark eyes looking at him and has to look away. He’s staring down so intently that he doesn’t realize Otabek’s reaching out to him until he feels his hand on his cheek, an enticing thumb just near the corner of his mouth, the gentlest motion to bring them back face to face. It’s such a mushy gesture that Yuri doesn’t know if he should kiss or punch his stupid beautiful face. Luckily, Otabek acts before Yuri has any chance to, and presses his lips against Yuri’s. He closes his eyes, giving himself a moment to soak in the wonderful warmth of Otabek’s mouth and just enjoy the moment, then raises his outstretched arm, phone in hand. The camera clicks.

Their mouths part away, and they both look at the picture. Yuri took it from an angle slightly over Otabek’s shoulder, so while you can’t actually see their lips lock, it’s obvious to anyone that they’re kissing. Yuri’s free hand is just visible, his fingers combed into the longer hairs of Otabek’s undercut – he didn’t even realize he had done that, but it looks pretty good, he admits to himself. Besides that, the rosiness of Yuri’s face is prominent, but what draws his own attention is the slight flush in Otabek’s cheek. His eyes shift from the boy on the screen to the boy in the flesh and, yes, that flush is still there.

“I’m impressed you took this with your eyes closed.”

“I’m good, right?” Yuri grins, then starts tapping on the keyboard, excitement now more than anxiety making his hands shaky. Nevertheless, he writes what he wants written, shuffles through a few filters before finding the right one, breathes deeply again (it works a bit better this time), and looks back at Otabek. “Ready?”

“Go for it.”

He taps to post it, the page takes a second to load, and then it’s done. This won’t be a surprise to some people – Yuri’s dedushka and Otabek’s parents, nosy but otherwise tight lipped Victor and Katsudon, and suspicious fans – but now, after nearly two years of trying to keep it to themselves, the world knows.

this man is MINE @otabek-altin #myboyfriend, the words below the photo reads.

It’s liberating. It’s exhilarating. It’s a little terrifying. This intimate part of both their lives, private until now, or at least as private as anything that two people in the public eye do can be, had been set free and could never be reined back in. Certainly by now someone from the other side of the globe had already shared it with someone back on this side of the globe. How will people react? Would they be happy for him? Will they go nuts for some fresh ,celebrity dirt? Will the Yuri’s Angels (the ones who haven’t figured it out already, anyway) start screaming at Otabek online for stealing Yuri away, not knowing that social media-abstaining Otabek would probably never see any of it? Would Otabek’s fangirls scream at Yuri online, only abstaining from shooting back a “Yep. Hands off, bitch” for Otabek’s sake? Would Yakov chew him out for posting something like that? (It’s not that suggestive. Pretty innocent actually, he thinks) Would that asshole Victor, no longer sworn to secrecy, make every post he makes about how cute they are, and what a good influence Otabek is for Yuri, and how much he’s looking forward to the wedding, the shithead.

Whatever they think about it, with each passing second, more people would know that Otabek Altin was his. All his.

Holy shit, this is one hell of a rush.

“How are you feeling, Yura?”

“Kinda horny.” He puts his phone on the bedside table, his hands shaky from excitement. “Really horny, actually.”

Otabek raises his eyebrows just barely from where they naturally rest on his brow, in that way that somehow expresses both surprise and no surprise at all. “Hm” is the only sound close to a word he makes. Overall, an underwhelming reaction.

“Really?” says Yuri. “Got nothing to say to that?”

“No,” he responds bluntly. “Not really.”

Before Yuri can call him an asshole, Otabek kisses him, muffling what there was of the first syllable. It’s not like the kiss they had for the camera, that’s obvious at once. It’s hungry and hot, tongues and saliva, the kind of kiss that belongs only in the bedroom, the kind of kiss that doesn’t stay just a kiss.

They part for a breath. Yuri catches Otabek’s lower lip between his teeth, keeping them connected just a second longer, before he slips free.

“Asshole,” Yuri huffs, forcing the word out so Otabek feels it against his face.

Otabek laughs softly at Yuri’s oddly endearing term of endearment. And, really, laughter from Otabek is such a rare privilege that it’s almost more intimate for Yuri than having the man’s tongue practically down his throat. Even besides that, it just sounds so good. It makes him weak. Weak and hard.

“Ugh, just shut up and get naked.” Yuri, the kind and benevolent soul that he is, begins to help Otabek out of his jacket. Why is he still wearing this thing, anyway? Can he not feel how insanely hot it is in here?

 “So do you want me to say something, or to shut up?”

Otabek’s messing with him, but at least he seems to have understood the “get naked” part, since he’s pulling his shirt off over his head. Yuri gets a good glimpse of his bare abs before following suit himself, and then he’s back in Otabek’s arms, skin against skin and mouth against mouth. Yuri feels a hand slip down past his waistband and around his cock, and feels his skin prickle in response. Kisses punctuate their sentences, and interrupt them.

“You’re already pretty hard, Yura,” Otabek comments, fondling him at his leisure.

“Duh. I already told you I’m horny.” Yuri gropes him back, from the outside of Otabek’s jeans because the waistband’s too stiff for him to just shove his way in like he did. He’s not as hard as Yuri is, but he’s well on his way there.

“Isn’t it uncomfortable,” Yuri begins to ask, pausing to swallow the pathetic little sound Otabek’s roving palm nearly wrings out of him, “keeping your dick like that in those pants?”

A couple seconds later he thinks of adding “when it could be in my ass instead” to the question, but he’s already lost his chance to say it. He’s pissed about it. He nips at Otabek’s lip again because he’s pissed about it. He gets significantly less pissed about it once Otabek guides him down onto the bed. He takes hold of Yuri’s pants and tugs them down, along with his underwear, working with Yuri’s wriggling to get them off with minimal effort. Yuri kicks them aside sets his fingers on Otabek’s buttons and zippers to likewise free him, and he’s just on the cusp of pulling his pants south of his hips…

… when the grating sound of his phone vibrating against the wooden table suddenly fills his ears, and his hand desperately darts out on cue to grab it. But before he can get it in his grasp, Otabek gets his wrist in his grasp, pinning his arm down against the mattress.

“I’m muting this entirely,” says Otabek, crossing over with his free hand to grab Yuri’s phone to do as he declares, eluding Yuri’s attempts to reclaim his property.

“What the hell, Beka?” Yuri tries to swipe at it again, and fails again. “Just let me check it.” After all, it’s probably about the photo he posted. No, it definitely is.

“You can check later.” Otabek puts the phone back on the table, then looks down and keeps looking down at Yuri with those dark eyes of his. “Right now, you’re mine.”

Fucking Otabek Altin. For being such a man of few words, he sure knows which ones go straight to Yuri’s dick, reminding him of the much more pressing issue at hand. Speaking of dicks, pressing and hands, Otabek managed to distract him enough with his deliciously suggestive gaze and voice to slip his dick out of his pants, press it against Yuri’s, and grasp them together in his hands. He gives them both a lazy but firm stroke, just enough to force Yuri to inhale.

“Can I trust you?” Otabek asks, giving Yuri’s still-trapped wrist a small squeeze to clarify the question. It is, in full, “If I let you loose, can I trust you not to act like someone who’s been frozen for a thousand years and REALLY needs to see what everyone’s been up to?”

Yuri looks at the strong hand forcing his own down, catching a glimpse of his phone, then looks at Otabek’s other hand, fingers tight around the pre-cum streaked heads of their cocks. The phone is shamefully tempting, he can admit to himself, but the winner here is clear.

“Y-Yeah,” Yuri answers, behaving himself as promised when his wrist is released. Otabek wasn’t being unduly rough with, but there’s still a slight throb when his hand moves away, felt more in the absence than the presence. On second thought, maybe he wouldn’t have minded if he’d been kept pinned down like that.

“Do you want lube for this?”

Yuri, sidetracked by his own contemplation, almost misses the question entirely, but does manage to catch the word “lube” and piece it together well enough. He shakes his head. “Nah, this is fine.”

Yuri remembers it fairly well, how the first time they tried this out went. Yuri was still 17 at the time, high as a kite off of winning his first gold medal at Worlds and eager to try something new with his boyfriend to celebrate. Otabek generously provided the idea and a three-ounce bottle of water-based “personal” lubricant, artificially flavoured and scented with raspberry and pomegranate. Yuri didn’t bother questioning the choice. Once they got down to business, Otabek, who later admitted how nervous he was about making sure it felt good for Yuri, poured out what seemed like the whole damn bottle on their crotches. Seriously, Yuri swore that he, or at least part of him, smelled like the stuff for weeks. In the end, the result was a comically slippery mess, the action of which lasted between thirty (Otabek) and thirty-four (Yuri) seconds. It was still pretty good.

Now it’s better. Much, much better. He prefers it with lube for the most part, but sometimes Yuri craves this friction of just skin against skin, the slower grind that becomes necessary in its absence. Otabek leans down to kiss him, pushing their chests together, rolling his hips in tandem with his fist, getting firmer and just a bit faster with each thrust. They breathe moans into each others’ mouths, Otabek’s delicious growls escaping as their kisses get clumsier. Everything about this is better now, not least of all that Yuri can last long enough to enjoy it.

Shit, even so, he’s close. Part of him wants it, the fast and suspense-free orgasm he’d get right now rubbing against Otabek, part of him just wants to let himself come undone right now. But there’s also the small but very adamant voice in his skull screaming the virtues of delayed gratification over it all, reminding him how much damn better it’d feel if he could just hold out a little longer. And the little fucker is right, he knows. Almost begrudgingly, because he’s literally a stroke or two away from bursting, he breaks away to speak.

“W-Wait, Beka, wait,” he pleads, with it coming off as pleading more than intended. Otabek stills himself, loosening his grip. Yuri exhales, both in relief and the lack of it.

Otabek nuzzles absentmindedly against his cheek, leaving behind the welcome sting of day-old stubble. He hadn’t bothered shaving this morning. “Had enough?”

“Of the warmup. yeah.” He positions his hands on Otabek’s chest and shoves him off to the side, immediately feeling it in his arms. Yuri may have gained an inch or two on his boyfriend’s height since their relationship began, but their overall physiques have remained fairly constant. True, Otabek’s broad frame and the bulkiness of his muscles does things to Yuri; it just also makes him hard to push around.

“How do you want to—“ Before Otabek can finish the question, Yuri flips himself over, wraps his arms around one of the pillows, and lifts his hips off the mattress. “Ah. All right.”

From behind him, Yuri can hear the rustle of denim – so he’s finally, actually taking his pants off – and then the conspicuous pop of the bottle of lube opening.

“We’ll need to pick up more soon,” Otabek says casually, as if they’ve run out of eggs or milk.

“This is not the time for shopping lists, Ota—nn.”

His boyfriend’s slippery fingertips are against his hole, tracing circles while his other hand keeps Yuri spread open, his thumbnail digging into one ass cheek. Otabek knows just how long to taunt him like this – the jerk – before carefully sliding in a single finger, taking his damn sweet time before adding a second. Yuri huffs into his pillow.

“I don’t need all this prep.” Not after getting plowed into the bed on a daily basis after those first few gentler and more restrained reunion sessions post-ride home from the airport. “Just do it already.”

Otabek makes a noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, his fingers pumping and twisting steadily. “You’re so impatient.”

“Quit acting like you’re not dying to fuck this,” Yuri shoots back, with a not-at-all subtle wriggling of his hips. Yuri’s not above playing the “just look at my perfect butt” card to get what he wants in bed. If anything, he’s been conditioned to – it always works.

Otabek withdraws his fingers and uses them instead to tear open a condom, the sound of which is enough to make every hair on Yuri’s body stand on end in anticipation. And it doesn’t disappoint. Slicked up, Otabek slips in with little resistance, filling Yuri so perfectly that he swears this Kazakh cock must have been made just for his Russian ass. And if he wasn’t already convinced of this, he would be by the time Otabek positions himself at just the right angle to rub against Yuri’s already roused prostate in just the right way. After a few thrusts he can’t even handle it. His knees give out and he melts into a prone puddle moaning into his pillow.

“Doing okay?” Otabek asks, his voice noticeably pleasure-strained, even with so few syllables to be affected.

“Mm-hm!” The same can be said for Yuri, even without words.

That’s when Otabek sinks down, bringing down the whole of his weight against Yuri’s supine form, locking him in between the mattress and skin hot with sweat, trapped and vulnerable and ecstatic. It doesn’t take long for Otabek to find his bearings again, to find the rhythm that lets his attention wander elsewhere, into the crook of Yuri’s shoulder or the nape of his neck, hair swept away to give his lips unimpeded contact with nerves eager for it. The loud, wet slap of skin against skin mingles with grunts and groans and names and swears, creating the delightfully obscene soundtrack to the performance. Yuri yearns for this part, when sensation overcomes thought, when he shifts from thinking human to feeling animal, when nothing else matters and nothing else exists but the pleasure he’s being given.

“Beka, Beka, Beka,” he repeats mindlessly, like it’s the only word he knows anymore, his mouth half-covered by pillowcase, his strangled voice urging Otabek to hold nothing back. And he doesn’t.

Yuri’s climax hits him hard, electric tendrils needling into his every muscle, making his whole body shake beneath Otabek’s. It’s not long before he can feel the cock inside him pulsing, the mouth at his ear forcing out shaky grunts, the boy against his back going slack and heavy in his exhaustion.

How many times would they have to do this for Yuri to get tired of it? Never. Never’s the answer, he’s sure.

Yuri whimpers when Otabek, still more-or-less hard, slides himself out from extremely sensitive flesh. “Sorry,” he whispers, briefly kissing the spot where Yuri’s earlobe and neck meet. “Good?”

Yuri sighs and licks his too-dry lips. “Gold medal good.”

“That implies I have competition.”

“Then take the silver and bronze too. Just take it all.”

The hazy trip that always follows a good round in bed begins to make way for reality, specifically the reality that Yuri’s lying in what feels like an entire small lake of his own cum. Otabek’s already flipped over and started dealing with his own cleanup, so Yuri doesn’t have to try and shove him off again. Good, because he certainly doesn’t have the energy to. He lazily drags himself up onto his knees to survey the damage done to the blanket. It’s not quite a lake, but it’s still an impressive stain, a monument to Otabek’s hard work and well-utilized skill. In other words, it’s going into the laundry.

Otabek retrieves his clothes and excuses himself to wash up a bit more thoroughly. Yuri wipes off the mess that he got onto his abdomen, tosses the tissues in the trashcan, and bundles up the sullied blanket, leaving it on the floor to be dealt with later. Chores dealt with, Yuri flops onto his back, and the warm bed and his hormone-driven bliss nearly knock him out right then and there. Nearly.

But not with his phone right there.

Roused back into complete wakefulness, Yuri swipes his phone off of the table, steadying his hands enough to unlock it. Holy crap, that’s a lot of notifications. He has to check when he posted the photo to actually know how long Otabek kept him busy, and the amount of attention he’s reeled in seems even more ridiculous with how much ttime has actually passed. It may be partially because, as Yuri is quick to realize, Victor has apparently decided that a simple “like” and an exclamation-filled comment isn’t enough to demonstrate how happy he is for them. He’s taken it upon himself to share the photo with his added comment of “YOUNG LOVE~!!” several times across several social networks, including some that Yuri’s sure nobody’s touched in years, leaving a trail of heart emojis in his reposting wake. It’s kinda creepy. No, it’s extremely creepy, but it’s at least seemed to have gotten the photo more attention than it would have otherwise. Yuri tries not to think too hard about how inexplicably invested Victor Nikiforov is in his love life, and scrolls down.

The reactions seem pretty positive, lots of stuff about how good they look together (duh), more than one comment about how their babies would be amazing (duh, but…), and one guy going on about how they’re almost as cute as his wife and him (ugh, he thought he blocked JJ). At some point, someone started commenting with #powercouple, a hashtag that his fans seemed to quickly gets fond of, and one that makes his grin a bit bigger every time he sees it. He’s definitely stealing that for future selfies with Otabek.

Yuri’s thumb barrels through mountains of similar responses, not giving any of them more than a quick glance, when something that doesn’t seem to automatically fall into any of the patterns catches his eye. He scrolls back up, having sped past it, and reads it fully:

so which one’s the girl?

In a bizarre moment of naiveté after having so many fuzzy warm reactions wash over him, he reacts with an audible “huh?”. He scrolls through the replies, many of which are just his own name, but several go beyond that.

lol do you really need to ask

Hey it says right there that otabek’s the man

It’s the hero of Kazakhstan and the Russian fairy, what do you think?

If you don’t think the fairy’s the one taking it up the ass you’re #delusional

i wish I was as pretty as @yuri-plisetsky so otabek would bend me over and make me his bitch #justsaying #sodreamy

 “The fuck is this?” Yuri blurts out, his hand a vise around his phone.

“Did you say something?”

“Huh?” Yuri looks up and sees Otabek stepping out of the bathroom, his outfit back on and his hair combed back into place. You can’t even tell that he just had sex, unlike Yuri with his beet-red face, wind tunnel hair, and complete lack of clothes. “No… I didn’t say anything.”

“Hm. Must be hearing things.” Otabek absentmindedly scratches his ear and shrugs his shoulders then walks back over to the bed. “I guess people have seen it by now?”

Yuri flicks his thumb down, making the page speed away from those comments before Otabek gets any closer. “Yeah,” he says, “tons of ‘em.”

“How are they reacting?”

They think I’m your bitch, Yuri thinks, biting his tongue down to keep the thought locked up in his head. “We’re a power couple,” he says instead, with a smile. It’s forced, partly, and doesn’t stay around for long. Somehow it’s not resonating with him the same way it did a couple minutes ago.

“Is that so?” The subdued but definitely genuine smile on Otabek’s face tells Yuri, at least, that he’s not opposed to the title. “You can tell me more later,” he says, picking Yuri’s clothes up from the floor, avoiding the balled-up sheet as he goes to hand them to their rightful owner. “We’re running late.”

Trying to ignore how sore he is and why, Yuri gets dressed and makes himself presentable, slips on his shoes and grabs his backpack, shoves his phone into his jacket pocket, and he’s ready to go. They hurry out front to where Otabek has his rental Harley parked, strap on their helmets, and get going. Otabek drives; Yuri, of course, rides behind. When the engine roars to life and the wheels start turning, he instinctively wraps his arms around Otabek’s waist, pressing himself against his back.

Otabek’s learned the route to the rink well enough by now, so Yuri doesn’t have to pay attention to make sure they don’t end up on the other side of the city. He kind of wishes he had to give directions, at least to give him something to do instead of mentally rereading those bullshit comments over and over again. Is it really so unthinkable that Yuri Plisetsky could top Otabek Altin? For fuck’s sake, what would those shitheads say if they knew that he does top him?

Well, did.

Twice. Twice-ish.

Both-ish times over a year ago.

Then they switched.

And he’s been bottoming ever since.

“Tch,” he scoffs, the bike so loud that he can barely hear it himself, so it certainly doesn’t reach Otabek’s ears.

At the first red light, another motorcycle pulls up beside him. At the handlebars is a man with a leather jacket that looks surprisingly like the one Otabek has on, although Otabek looks leagues better in it, and behind him is a woman, her light blonde hair peeking out from under her helmet, her arms wrapped tight around the driver and her cheek smooshed against his shoulder. It’s not until she suddenly looks extremely uncomfortable that Yuri realizes not only that he’s been staring at her like a huge creep for this entire red light, but that he’s been staring right into a mirror.

Son of a bitch, he is the girl.

Chapter Text

Last year, Almaty

Yuri presses the skip button on Otabek’s laptop again, to be greeted by the unmistakable trill of a flute.

“My Heart Will Go On?” He looks over at Otabek, who’s busy looking at Yuri’s phone.

“I had a coach that thought it could be a free skate possibility years ago. I thought the song was all right,” he says, with a small shrug, “but we decided against it.”

As the song plays on and the vocals slide in, Yuri tries to picture Otabek skating to a Céline Dion power ballad, then grumbles to himself. He still looks cool as hell, and it’s kind of infuriating.

“Never did see that movie,” Otabek adds offhandedly.

“You’ve never watched Titanic? Even I’ve watched Titanic!”He somehow let Mila and Georgi force him into it, and even sat through all their bawling, thankfully so loudly that neither of them noticed Yuri choking up a bit during some key moments – otherwise, he would have had to drown them himself. “We’re watching it, Beka.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because!” When that answer doesn’t seem to be accepted, Yuri takes a second to think. “There’s a naked woman.”

Otabek raises an eyebrow. “Yuri, you of all people should know—”

“And the boat snaps in half,” he interrupts, having suddenly recalled the scene. “It’s pretty cool.”

“All right, I’ll download it later.”

Satisfied with his victory, but unsatisfied with the song, Yuri goes to the next one. He will not be losing his virginity to Céline Dion.

Finally, tonight will be the night that they, as Yuri sees it, have sex for real.

when I come to almaty, I want us to do it , he told Otabek over Skype a few weeks ago. He typed hastily to add, unless you still want to wait.

His second message popped up at the same time as Otabek’s response: I’d like that.

Yuri’s heart damn near exploded when he saw it. Those three words were so full of suggestion and potential, their power in that moment rival only to another string of three words coming from Otabek. His fingers quivered as they sped across the keyboard.

wish I was there right now , he sent. don’t wanna wait .

A familiar sound and notification popped up over the window. Yuri accepted the video call, and Otabek said the same thing back to him, without words.

Now that the distance has been closed between them, there’s only one thing in the way: the music. Yuri’s insisted that there must be music for this, and Otabek has no problem with that. All they just have to narrow it down to what music will actually be playing.

They’ve been here for awhile, seated facing one another on Otabek’s couch, their feet gathered together on the middle cushion. They’ve been here for… well, they wouldn’t be able to say how long, exactly.

Otabek’s music library is a mash-up of music from programs, both potential and realized, tracks he’s accumulated from sideline stints as a DJ, and stuff he just plain likes. Yuri keeps pressing next, through Vivaldi, Florence + The Machine, Frank Sinatra, Daft Punk, Madonna, Carmina Burana, the theme from Gladiator, Il Divo, Led Zeppelin, the national anthem of Kazakhstan (“Wanna make it patriotic?” Yuri jokes, then very, very clearly says it’s a joke), Rihanna, Beethoven, David Guetta, the entire soundtrack from Mulan… The list made from the shuffle continues in this manner, whatever this manner is, exactly. Sometimes he forgets what he’s actually supposed to be doing because he just wants to know what’s going to come up next.

Yuri’s tastes are somewhat more uniform: heavy metal, speed metal, alternative metal, symphonic metal, punk metal, metal covers of non-metal songs, with some kawaii metal he picked up on while in Japan thrown in. Babymetal’s his musical guilty pleasure right now.

“Found anything you like yet?”

“It’s all been a little too… intense.”

Otabek goes to the next song, one that’s decidedly un-intense: the music from his Agape routine. Yuri notices that he’s lingering on it longer than any song before it.

“No, Beka.”

“I was just listening—“

“No,” Yuri repeats, giving Otabek’s calf a small kick.

He just smiles, like it tickled. “Understood.”

Yuri’s relieved when Otabek goes to the next one, reminding Yuri to the do the same. The opening, the mellow croon on an electric guitar, instantly grip his ears. So close, no matter how far / Couldn’t be much more from the heart. He’s not surprised to find some Metallica in Otabek’s collection, though it does catch him off guard after everything that led up to it. Without thinking, his head begins to nod along softly to the restrained rhythm. He does notice something odd with the audio, though – some kind of weird reverb.

“Love this song,” he tells Otabek. “I think the file’s busted, though.”

“Yura.”

Never opened myself this way / Life is ours, we live it our way.

Yuri looks up and sees Otabek holding the phone up for him to see the album cover on the screen and hear what’s coming out of its little speakers better.

All these words I don’t just say / And nothing else matters.

It’s the same song, the one on Otabek’s laptop trailing behind by only a second, at the most. Yuri doesn’t really believe in fate, or destiny, or any of that stuff, but he can at least recognize the implausibility of their two massive music libraries, flipped through at random, converging like this. So maybe this really is fate, or they’re in some cheesy romance movie where something like this would happen. In either case, Yuri’s speechless.

“I think we have our song,” Otabek says, a tinge to his voice that’s so warm that, if Yuri wasn’t already 100% inclined to agree, he would be now.

Putting the laptop aside, Yuri crawls over to the other side of the couch, straddling Otabek’s hips, slipping into ready arms. He had intended for this to turn into a kiss, heat of the moment, hot and heavy, the kiss that would set off the rest of the night, but when he gets close enough, his body has other ideas. He slumps down, arms slung around Otabek’s neck, face buried into his shoulder. When he breathes in, he catches the almond scent of Otabek’s soap. The song keeps playing over itself.

Otabek envelops him with his arms, nuzzles against his hair. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Yuri mumbles into skin. It’s all so soothing, his voice, his warm body, the hand rubbing circles into the small of his back. He could stay here forever.

“I’ll bottom, if you’d like.”

That wakes Yuri back up, the one other little thing besides the music that was in the way. He straightens up, just enough to be face to face with. Otabek’s cheeks are flushed pink. Yuri’s sure his are too.

“You sure?” he asks. “I wouldn’t mind…”

“I want to, Yura. For you.”

Yuri’s heart is pounding in his too-tight chest, looking at Otabek’s eyes, soft and half-lidded, as he tells him this.  When words fails him, he leans in and gives him the kiss he meant to, long and slow, giving him enough time to know what he wants to say.

“Thanks, Beka.”

Present day, Saint Petersburg

Unsurprisingly, Yuri’s ass is still sore.

He’s gotten used to dealing with practice after having sex, but generally from the night before, not from about twenty minutes ago. There’s a reason they know better than to do it before a competition, no matter how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other and bad they want to: it’s throwing him off, making him wobbly on his blades, screwing up his jumps. He usually just works through it, eventually gets used to it like he would with a stiff calf or something, or can at least focus hard enough to ignore it. But that’s not working today. Today, each and every little ache and twinge he feels is a reminder that the entire internet thinks he’s the girl, a reminder that they’re not wrong.

The word “bitch” slices through his head, like it’s being screeched right into his ears, as he launches into a triple axel, knowing immediately how bad he’s botched it. Without composure or focus to guide him, all he has is muscle memory and a jolt of adrenaline to make the fall not as bad as it could be. He slams down hip-first onto the ice with a thud, the shock of the impact stunning him too much to jump right back up onto his feet. Yuri’s inaction does not go unnoticed; the scrape of blades, graceless and hurried across the rink, grows closer.

“Are you okay?” Otabek asks, kneeling down beside him.

“Yeah,” he mutters, fumbling to flip over onto his knees. Otabek lends his arm as Yuri gets up, keeping a cautious hand on his waist, even as Yuri starts to skate again, despite the pain that’s growing worse.

“Yuri!” Yakov calls from the sidelines. “Take a break.”

“I’m fine!”

“You’ve been falling down all morning. Go sit down.”

“I said I’m FINE.”

“And I said sit down. Now!”

Yuri huffs. His muscles are tense and his hip’s beginning to throb.

“Come on, Yura,” says Otabek, quiet enough just for Yuri to hear. “Just for a few minutes, at least.”

He wants to refuse again, to just skate off all this anger and shittiness he’s feeling, but the adrenaline that saved him from a broken leg or a concussion is all but gone now, leaving only pain behind.

“Tch. Fine.”

With Otabek’s hand around his shoulder, he glides over to the edge of the rink, then hobbles over to one of the benches, wincing when he sits down.

“Do you need anything, Yuri?”

“No.”

“Ice pack? Water?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

“I’m fine.” He hunches over, elbows on his thighs, head held up in his palms. He feels like a child who’s been sent to sit in the corner. “You can go back.”

Otabek tarries, shifts slightly in that way he does when he’s thinking of something to say, then turns away to get back on the ice. Yuri watches him progress from a set of steady, disciplined compulsory figures, to a run-through of his free skate, set to Beethoven’s Turkish March. Even in the mood he’s in, Yuri’s eyes are hopelessly glued to every step and spin and jump. Every motion that Otabek makes radiates power and control, and his face remains composed even as he pushes his muscles, sturdy and solid, to the unforgiving vivace tempo. To Yuri, Otabek’s body epitomizes so many things. Athleticism. Force. Masculinity.

And him, he’s still the Russian Fairy.

“I knew it!” A pair of arms squeeze around Yuri from behind, and a head rests on top of his. Yuri groans.

“Knew what?”

“About you and Otabek.” Mila says with a sly chuckle.

Yuri wants to tell her it’s none of her business, but he very clearly made it everyone’s business this morning, so he just groans.

She goes on, apparently not all too concerned with not getting a reply to play off of. “I wanted to ask him out awhile ago, but I could tell you wanted to get into his pants, so I backed off, like a good big sister.” She almost sounds legitimately proud of herself.

“Otabek would’ve never gone out with your slutty ass, baba.” He quickly adds, “And you’re not my big sister.”

“Yuriii, you don’t have to be so mean!” she whines, her voice oozing melodrama. She sighs wistfully. “But just between you and me, I really am jealous. That way he came to your rescue when you fell, like your own knight in shining armour.”

“So what am I?” he asks, trying to ignore the tightness in his throat. “The fucking damsel in distress?”

“Maybe if you watched the language.”

The closing notes of the Turkish March ring out, drawing Yuri’s attention back to the rink. Otabek comes out of his combination spin and holds his final pose, looking exhausted for the first time during the rehearsal. When their eyes meet on another’s, Yuri doesn’t even think twice about giving him a thumbs up. Otabek deserves it.

“Aw, you’re so in love.”

“Shut up, baba.”

Yuri returned to the ice about ten minutes later, still tender, though only superficially injured, as far as he can tell. He didn’t take another fall as rough as the one that got him sent to the bench, but nothing about the rest of practice was encouraging — nothing could keep his mind where it needed to be to skate. He was both pissed off and relieved when they were getting shuffled out for the public skating hour. Pissed off because he’d been embarrassing himself from pretty much the moment he stepped on the ice today, relieved because he at least got forced to stop embarrassing himself.

It may be too soon to call it a habit exactly, but since Otabek arrived in Saint Petersburg and starting coming along with Yuri to stay in practice, they’ve gone to a café near the rink afterwards each time. So, even when Yuri feels more inclined to just go home, when Otabek says “Coffee?” Yuri doesn’t miss a beat to echo back “Coffee.”

They place their orders and settle into a booth away in the corner, their usual spot. Again, they haven’t really set enough of a precedent to claim it as their own — as Otabek had to point out when Yuri was dead set on telling another couple to get out of “their” seats a couple days ago — it’s still the coziest spot in the place. The afternoon rain that just started drumming against the window makes it even cozier. With Otabek there across from him, it’s perfect. He should be nothing but warm and fuzzy.

“Hey.” Otabek reaches out to squeeze his hand, halting the finger tapping against the table that Yuri didn’t realize he was doing. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t a serious fall.”

“Not that. Are you feeling all right?” He rubs his thumb against Yuri’s knuckles.

He thinks about telling him. He doesn’t want to tell him. He doesn’t even want to think about telling him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Otabek does that thing again, that little bit of shifting around — it’s less noticeable than when he’s standing, but Yuri can still recognize it even when he’s sitting down. Otabek takes out his phone with his free hand and starts typing. Ah. He wants to say something that can’t be said aloud in public.

Yuri gets his phone out in preparation, checking the text as soon as it reaches him.

Was I too rough this morning?

It puts the morning’s scene in the forefront of Yuri’s mind. He wasn’t too rough — he was exactly as rough as Yuri wanted him to be. For all of the initial teasing that he likes to do, he didn’t hold back when he pushed him into the mattress and fucked him like all he was good for was his tight, round ass. Yuri loved it. He loved everything about it. He kind of hates how much he loved it.

He looks at Otabek; he looks worried, clearly concerned that he did something wrong. Yuri texts back:

you were great. perfect

“Really, Beka,” he adds aloud. Otabek gives him a small smile of relief to show that he believes him. He should. It isn’t a lie.

“Here you go, you two,” the waiter announces his presence, drink tray in hand. Yuri’s and Otabek’s hands disentangle on cue. “One Americano, and one white chocolate mocha, extra whip.” He places the drinks, respectively, in front of Otabek and Yuri.

Without saying a word, Yuri takes hold of both of the cups and slides them to the opposite sides of the table, slowly, so the ceramic drags audibly against the wood, all the while not breaking eye contact with the server.

“Um.” The waiter clears his throat. “Enjoy.” Then he leaves them as alone as they can get in a café in the middle of the day.

“Do you want any?” Otabek offers, scooping up a spoonful of whipped cream.

“Nah. You’re gonna get fat if you keep drinking those.”

Otabek shrugs, the gestured version of “your loss,” and puts the spoon in his mouth. He starts tapping away at his phone again. “It’s my only indulgence.”

Yuri’s phone buzzes with another message:

Besides you.

When he looks up, Otabek’s taking a casual sip of his coffee-that’s-barely-coffee, acting like he didn’t just send Yuri a text with the laser-focused purpose of turning him on. The calm and collected jackass. Two can play at this game. Yuri types:

mb you can burn off all those calories if you nail me hard enou

He stops, his brain catching up with his fingers, and stares at what he wrote. A second later, he backspaces it out of existence, puts his phone aside, and drinks some of his coffee, abstaining from adding cream and sugar. He doesn’t like how it tastes, but keeps drinking it anyway.

With his side facing his bathroom mirror, Yuri hikes up his shirt and yanks his waistband beneath his hip, getting his first good look at the damage. As he assumed, there’s a big, purple bruise there. He prods at it with his fingers and winces, but only slightly. He should be thankful, he supposes; it looks a lot worse than it actually is.

His eyes drift from the mark to the flesh it’s on, to the shape of his exposed hip. He hesitates, then pulls his shirt up to his neck. Scrawny isn’t the right word, exactly — he obviously wouldn’t have made it this far in the figure skating world without developing some muscle, and he’s grown a bit since his senior debut, but he’s definitely thin. His abdominal muscles show, but it only seems like it’s because his skin is pulled taut over what little muscle there is, not like with Otabek’s abdomen, prominent and defined. He swivels to face his reflection head on, an angle from which he can’t ignore that gentle inward curve of his waist, the shape of which makes his uncovered hips jut outward noticeably.

When Otabek spirited him away to the Parc Guëll in Barcelona, when their friendship was barely even in its infancy, he told him that the park’s architect designed it with a simple belief in mind: “Straight lines belong to men; curves, to God.” Yuri had never and still really doesn’t give a damn about architecture, but he was surprised with the rapt attention he gave the uncalled for lesson, even if he didn’t really get it.

Well, whatever-his-name was at least half-right. Straight lines definitely belong to men.

He sighs and leans against the countertop, letting his shirt fall back more or less back into place. His fingers brush his hair, long and silky, out of his face. His Angels imitate his braided hairstyles, which have only become more elaborate as he let his hair grow unhindered. Girls ask him what brand of conditioner he uses. Women blanket his selfies with #hairgoals and cry in the comments about how their hair will never look as beautiful as his.

Being a couple inches taller than Otabek counts for nothing. Nobody would ever mistake Otabek for a girl. Next to Yuri, nobody would ever mistake him for the girl. And Yuri can’t even say they’re wrong. He can’t prove anything to them. He can’t even prove anything to himself.

He can’t even...

The idea hits him like a bullet to the back, hits him so fast it doesn’t even give him time to think past the initial thought. Yuri swings the door open and marches through, his feet moving heavily with purpose towards the couch where he sees Otabek seated, Yuri’s cat on his lap.

“Otabek,” he says, his voice clear and raised to ensure he’s given attention, even if it’s not at all necessary. After all, his boyfriend has been staring at him since Yuri started suddenly stomping across the floor.

“Yeah, Yuri?”

“I want to fuck you in the ass tonight, and it’s gonna blow your mind. Hope that’s cool with you.”

The cat starts butting her head against Otabek’s hand, clearly displeased that it has suddenly stopped petting her.

Last year, Almaty

There’s not much to say about their first time. Really. Yuri had just managed to get most of the way inside when Otabek’s already tight ass clenched even tighter, setting off Yuri’s raspberry and pomegranate-soaked cock like a wild animal hearing a twig snap. The opening lyrics of Nothing Else Matters’ chorus taunted him from the stereo, giving him too clear of an idea of just how long he did, or did not, last. It was, without a doubt, one of the most embarrassing moments of his life.

But Yuri Plisetsky is not a goddamn quitter.

Thankfully, being 18, in exceptional health, and in bed naked with his unreasonably attractive boyfriend meant that Yuri didn’t have to wait very long to have another go at it. So, once the opportunity arose again, quite literally, he reset the song, got another condom, doused himself in more lube, crawled back on top of Otabek, and carefully entered him again. He didn’t come immediately this time. Things were already looking up.

“You feel so… fuck, wow,” said Yuri, the poet.

He kept himself still, mostly for Otabek’s benefit, partly for his own. He had never felt so much constriction, so much sweltering heat. It was no damn surprise why the first time went the way it did. Once he had the go-ahead from Otabek, he put his hips into molasses-slow motion, pulling back so that all but the tip was left inside, and pushing back all the way in. It made Otabek wince.

“Just give me another second,” he insisted, telling Yuri he was ready a moment later.

Yuri was even more cautious, getting in a couple more thrusts before a sound, indistinct but clearly not pleasurable, escaped from Otabek’s throat. Yuri stopped.

“Beka, are you okay?”

“It’s fine. Keep going.”

In his gut he knew that it wasn’t fine, but he was used to Otabek speaking candidly, used to taking what he said at face value. So he penetrates him again, this time with just an ounce more force. It felt a punch to the gut he wasn’t listening to when Otabek cries out in what can only be pain.

“I’m hurting you,” Yuri said, horrified.

“N-No, it’s all right—”

“You should have stopped me. Why didn’t you stop me?”

Otabek hesitated. “I know how much you wanted this.”

“Not if I was hurting you, Beka.” He threw his hands against his brow, guilt twisting his stomach into knots. “Shit, Beka, shitshitshit…”

After he pulled out, Otabek pretty much spent the remainder of that night trying to convince Yuri that he wasn’t the enormous asshole that he felt like — he hadn’t pushed him into doing it, he really was quite gentle with him, and his actions showed he clearly cared far more about Otabek’s well being than any asshole would. He persuaded him, eventually. Again, Yuri was used to taking Otabek at face value.

“We’re both still new to this, Yura. We can try again tomorrow,” he suggested.

“Okay.” He looked Otabek straight in the face, his expression and voice resolute. “But I’m bottoming.”

That first time, despite all the times that Otabek asked if everything was okay, everything actually was okay. It was mostly weird and uncomfortable, and just as Yuri was starting to warm up to it, Otabek was done. Yuri remembers the absolutely insane blowjob he got from a very grateful boyfriend afterwards better than the “actual” sex.

Memorable or not, it definitely went better than their previous attempts, so when the mood struck, as it often did, Yuri insisted on receiving. Otabek insisted back that he didn’t have to, but would appreciatively accept the offer anyhow. They kept it slow and easy, experimented with different positions, talked about what worked and what didn’t. Yuri didn’t mind doing it – it didn’t hurt, it felt all right, if still a bit strange, and even if Otabek didn’t want to admit it then, Yuri could tell that he really, really liked doing it. And if Otabek loved giving it, that was enough for Yuri to keep taking it.

That was until Yuri came just from getting fucked. It was unlike any orgasm he’d ever had before, more intense than anything he’d ever felt. He swore he could feel it in his eyes, fuck if that made any sense, as he blew the biggest load of his life without even having his dick touched. He was shaking so much and moaning so loud and panting so hard that Otabek actually asked if he was okay . And all Yuri could say to him was, “Holy shit. Do that again.”

The question of who should be topping never really came up again.

Chapter Text

The muffled but still soothing sound of water hitting ceramic tiles travels through the apartment. It nearly, but not entirely, covers the rapid scratch of the emery board. Cross-legged and hunched over on his bed, clad in just a tank top and boxers, Yuri runs the top of his index finger against the pad of his thumb, the edge of the nail scraping unpleasantly against his skin. He grumbles, then pares down the spot he missed. He’s been at this for what feels like way too long. Otabek needs to put so little effort into it that it’s kind of sexy when he does it, and not just because what he’s readying those perfectly formed hands for; Yuri looks more like he’s trying his damnedest to scrub a stain out of a kitchen counter.

The familiar squeaking of his shower’s faucet puts an end to the rush of water, spurring Yuri to redouble his efforts. A short while later, Otabek is at the threshold with still-damp hair and only a pair of sweats, waistband low on his hips, drawing and keeping Yuri’s attention to the tantalizing v-shaped ridge there. He flinches when the emery board slips and grates fast against his skin.

But he still catches the smile that Otabek gives him as he lounges beside Yuri, the mattress shifting under his weight.

“Hey,” says Otabek, propping his head up on his elbow, eyes turned upward.

Yuri nods back, his voice failing him for a second, then holds his hand out, nails facing outwards. “How’d I do? Do they look okay?”

“It’s fine, Yura.” He gently pushes Yuri’s hand aside, so there’s nothing between their faces. “Don’t worry about it.”

“ You should worry about it. You didn’t even look, what if they’re all jagged and shit?”

“You’re tense.” More tense than Otabek, apparently, since he’s the one rubbing Yuri’s knee to try and calm him down. “Lie down with me?”

It’s an invitation that’s difficult to decline, so Yuri emerges from the cocoon that he’s bent himself into to recline beside Otabek, more or less mirroring his posture. It does take some of the tension away, actually, but much in the same way that taking a cup of water out of a full bathtub takes some of the water away.

“So,” Yuri begins, “you’re actually okay with this, right?”

“I wouldn’t let you do it if I wasn’t.”

“Even after last time?” he asks reluctantly. The boldness that made him proclaim that he was going to blow his boyfriend’s mind tonight is wavering beneath his memory of that last time.

Otabek utters a small “Ah” from grasping the situation, then takes a second to consider what to say. “It was our first time trying that. I think I was just too nervous.”

And if he’s nervous now, he’s doing such an incredible job of hiding it that he deserves some kind of award. But that’s not Otabek — there are many things that he’s good at, but acting is far from one of them.

Even so, Yuri has to ask, “And now?”

He looks him right in the eyes to say, “I’m really comfortable in bed with you.”

It’s not what he expected to hear, and he’s caught off guard by how good it is to hear, how good it feels to have someone at ease with him even at their most vulnerable. And sure, he already pretty much knew this — just because it’s his first serious relationship doesn’t mean that he’s completely ignorant about all this stuff. Sex was awkward as all hell at first, but he knows that Otabek wouldn’t be doing the things he does with and to Yuri if he wasn’t comfortable with him. Hearing it just feels better than knowing it.

“So what’s the best way to do this, you think?” Otabek asks, the lack of discomfort in his voice lending further assurance to his words. “Like from behind or…?”

Yuri supposes he is the one who should be asked that, being the resident expert at taking dick here and all. He tries not to think too hard about that as he delves into the depths of his experience to give a honest answer to an honest question.

“Mm, no, probably not. Makes it easier to go fast and deep.” Hence why Yuri so frequently insists on getting down on all fours himself. “Might be too much if you’re not used to it.”

“Fair enough. I’d rather be able to kiss you anyway.” Weird how that makes Yuri blush more than talking about screwing Otabek doggy style.

“Well, if that’s what you want, there’s missionary, obviously.” At once, he remembers with a bitter sting how maybe, after last year’s debacle, Otabek wouldn’t be up to try the exact same position. Or maybe he would. Yuri isn’t. “Or… you could ride me? It might be easier, you’d get to be in control.”

In control, but with Yuri’s cock inside of him. The distinction is extraordinarily important.

“And you can kiss me all you want,” he adds.

Otabek inches closer and does just that, lips on his lips, hand firm on his hips, on the bare boundary between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his shorts. Yuri’s already half-melted from the pure heat of it when Otabek draws away, leaving him aching for more.

“All right, I’ll ride you then.”

Ugh, what makes Otabek think he has any right to make Yuri this damn flustered? And in that flustered state, Yuri counters by pushing Otabek onto his back — it doesn’t take as much buildup as shoving him off of him — and flinging himself on top of him to straddle his newly supine form. He keeps himself hovering above Otabek; he doesn’t want to press against him just yet and give him proof of how aroused he already is.

“Don’t we have this backwards, Yura?”

“You can’t just start with that, dumbass. You know that.” Yuri wishes he had known that the last time they tried this. He’s not going to fuck it up this time.

He dips down and kisses Otabek, letting his mouth linger, letting him sate himself after having their lips apart for so many hours — hours that feel like eternities to him, as young and as in love as he is. He’s happy Otabek wants them to be face to face, otherwise it might be too hard to tear himself away now, as he does, if only slightly. For now, he has other things to do with that mouth.

“I could suck you off first,” he suggests. “It helps me… It should help you relax if you come first. Sound okay?”

He feels Otabek exhale softly against his kiss-slick lips, and it makes him shiver. “I won’t say no to that.”

Yuri begins to trail his mouth downwards, spoiling Otabek with kisses all along his body, from his firm Adam’s apple, his well-defined collarbone, his sturdy chest, his furrowed abdomen and, with no small amount of personal satisfaction, to the groove that peeks out from Otabek’s pants. Unable to keep himself from the indulgence, and knowing that nobody in his position would be able to either, Yuri momentarily stops his clear descent to run his tongue up along it and kiss his way back down, where he brushes against a smattering of short, thick hairs before meeting waistband.

“Take them off,” Yuri orders as he straightens up to quickly pull his hair back, utilizing one of the several hair ties he always has at the ready on his wrist. Beneath him, Otabek does not delay in obliging, slipping his pants beneath his entirely erect cock and wriggling them down to his feet.

A moment later his fingers are curled around the root of Otabek’s dick, holding it completely upright to slide right between his lips. The salty, slightly acrid taste of pre-cum diminishes as it mixes with saliva, until all he can taste is skin. He wavers between simply bobbing his head up and down and using his tongue to trace intricate but aimless patterns into the underside of the head, just like he knows Otabek likes, so it doesn’t at all surprise him when his boyfriend starts moaning. Not at all surprising, no, but incomparably satisfying, and hot as all fuck.

“Yura?” he says with some strain, the little inflection in his voice telling Yuri that he’s saying his name to get his attention and not just because he’s blissed out of his brain and can’t say anything else.

“Mm nnm mmm?” Yuri responds, his nose against Otabek’s pelvis. He always did have a problem with speaking with his mouth full.

“Do you want to finger me?”

That makes Yuri pause, then free his mouth to make actual words. “You mean while I blow you?”

“You like it when I do that to you, right?”

Right he is. Next to his cock, there’s nothing Yuri likes more up his ass than Otabek’s fingers, not even the sizable plug that gets so much use when they’re forced to be in different countries. Silicone has its uses, but it can’t even begin to compare to the sensation of skin against such nerve-laden flesh, can’t compare to fingers that are out of his own control but still know how to take the air straight out of his lungs. Having his mouth on him at the same time just makes everything go from incredible to damn near overwhelming.

He’s not thinking about anything else now. Yuri just wants to overwhelm him.

“Give me the lube,” he tells Otabek, who sits up and grabs the bottle from where they left it on the nightstand and places it in Yuri’s open palm. He takes a look at it. Otabek was right, they are running low, but there should be enough for tonight, so he coats his fingers amply, with more than he knows he would need for himself.

“I’ll go slow,” he says, and adds in a clear, insistent tone, “Tell me if anything’s wrong.”

“I will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Yuri,” Otabek answers warmly. As the words leave his lips, he leans back into Yuri’s pile of invariably big cat print patterned pillows, leaving his bare, magnificent, partly wet body on display. He is a work of art, one that would belong behind glass and velvet rope, but Yuri — Yuri can touch him. He needs to touch him.

He slips his hand between Otabek’s somewhat spread thighs, kneading his fingertips against the pliant flesh of his taint, spurring a low hum out from Otabek’s throat. Once he works his way down to his ass, Yuri bends down to suck his cock back into his mouth, licking all over the shaft as he massages wet circles around his boyfriend’s hole. He pushes just his index finger halfway in, then stops. Otabek twitches against his tongue, dribbling a fresh bead of pre-cum on it. Yuri holds him to his promise, trusts him when he’s not told to stop, and moves into him all the way up to the knuckle. When he feels that little rounded bump, firm but not unyielding, a rush of excitement flows through Yuri’s body, knowing what he’s found and knowing what he could, at least in theory, do with it. He just has to put theory into practice.

Bobbing his head at a rhythm that he can easily keep without paying much attention, he turns his attention to Otabek’s prostate, rubbing ellipses into it, opening him up wider with the movement, pulling out to slip back in, always returning to that sweet spot that he knows drives him crazy, that he’s dying to drive Otabek crazy with.

“Another,” Otabek says between husky breaths. “Try another.”

It’s not quite him begging for Yuri to fuck him with his fingers, but it’s close enough to make him even more turned on than he already is, to make his neglected erection ache even more for contact. All he can do for now is rub against his boxers, to get just that sliver of friction to take the edge off. That’s all right; it’s not his moment yet tonight. Right now, Otabek deserves all of his attention. Right now, Otabek deserves to be spoiled.

The next time he withdraws from Otabek, his middle finger joins in, entering together at a deliberate pace as his mouth keeps working to take the tension out of his muscles.

“That feels, ngh,” Otabek rasps, his breath hitching, “it’s good, Yura, so good...”

It’s getting harder for him to hold back his reactions, to keep himself from jerking his hips and moaning like a porn star, loud enough for the neighbours to hear. Otabek’s fingers mesh into blonde hairs, and Yuri’s not certain if he’s turned on more by that slight yank on his scalp he feels each time he bobs his head or the way his ponytail is getting messed up or how he’s getting so antsy to be touched that this is doing it for him but all he knows is how fucking bad he wants to make Otabek come.

His fingers give up the intermittent thrusting and scissoring to dedicate themselves entirely to laser-focused stimulation, crooking up at an even more severe angle to put as much pressure as possible around this one spot. At the same time, he starts slamming Otabek’s cock into his mouth, like he’s trying to fuck his own face with it, and he’s going so fast and deep that his eyes are watering like crazy but he doesn’t dare stop. It’s not long at all before he hears all of his favourite Kazakh swear words and breathless chains of his own name start gushing out like water out of a burst pipe, the kind of things Yuri only hears when Otabek actually is blissed right the fuck out of his brain, like when he has Yuri on top of him, mercilessly riding his dick—

Fucking focus , he screams at himself, jerking his head down so fast that his throat twitches at the intrusion, and holy shit is he thankful that he only gags a bit and the liquid quickly welling up in his mouth is Otabek’s, not his own. Yuri perceives the payoff of his busy fingers and his unintended attempt at deepthroating: it’s viscous and warm, strong but not overpowering in its flavour, but there’s more of it than he’s used to, and after the second or third pulse some leaks out of the side of his mouth, dribbling down Otabek’s shaft. Surprised but undeterred, he catches as much as he can until Otabek is spent, then pulls himself back, carefully pulling his fingers out at the same time, lips pursed and mouth overfilled. But still, he waits for Otabek to look right at him, so he doesn’t miss the way Yuri’s pale throat moves as he swallows it down.

And then he opens his mouth and practically wheezes.

“You okay there?”

“Uh-huh.” Yuri catches his breath runs the back of his hand across his lips, wiping away what didn’t make it to his mouth. “I think I almost barfed, but I didn’t.” Obviously — and mood killer, much? Shit, maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “And… you just came so damn much . Holy fuck, Beka.”

“Sorry,” Otabek murmurs, pushing his hair away from his brow. “What you were doing… it just felt so good.”

He’s already gleaned that from all the writhing and swearing, but Yuri still sighs quietly in relief, mostly because he enjoyed it, partly because he seems to be politely ignoring that Yuri told him he nearly threw up on him. “So, you liked having my fingers in you?”

“Mm-hmm,” he replies as he sits up, eyes warm with lust as they wander all over Yuri’s kneeled form. “I have a feeling I’d like your dick in me even more, Yura.”

“Jesus, Beka.” He involuntarily smacks Otabek’s thigh with his hand because he is way too keyed up right now to hear something like that. It’s also throwing him off how bold Otabek is, acting like the last time didn’t even happen, while that mess has carved itself so clearly in Yuri’s head. It’s an anxiety that hasn’t always been at the forefront since they started this tonight, but it is continuous, an incessant hum in the background.

“So, are you going to let me ride you or not?” Those words do well enough to drown out the hum, at least.

“Tch, who’s the impatient one now?” says Yuri, with no small amount of satisfaction from getting to turn the tables like this. “You’re gonna be too sensitive right now — at least wait ‘til you’re hard again.”

Otabek cups Yuri’s face, leaning forward as he pulls Yuri to him, and kisses him, apparently with no regard for the still-fresh smattering of cum, his cum, on Yuri’s mouth. His lips are barely apart from his when he says to him, “Then kiss me until I’m hard.”

Yuri smashes his swollen lips back against his and slams their bodies together onto the mattress, intent on doing just that. He slackens against Otabek’s too-warm body and loses himself in his too-warm mouth, the burgeoning erection against his stomach giving him a vague idea of just how long he had been mindlessly enthralled by their kisses. Through wordless and albeit somewhat awkward coordination, they manage to trade places, so Yuri has his back against the headboard with Otabek straddling his thighs.

“Here.” Otabek’s the one to finally break the kiss. He grabs a condom from their shameless pile on the nightstand, then rips the packet apart. The noise makes Yuri’s skin tingle as it always does at the prospect of getting fucked, making it somewhat confusing when he feels the latex unroll down his newly-exposed length, freed from his boxers with a quick tug of Otabek’s doing. Oh. Right .

The bottle of lube is retrieved from where it ended up buried in the blankets, and Yuri slicks himself up, until the remainder of the bottle’s contents sputter out, the ominous warning that this will be his only shot at this until the drugstores open again not quite matching up with how childishly comical the sound is. Otabek moves closer, shifts his hips to line himself up just right, then sinks down on Yuri’s cock, taking him in at a measured pace, inch by inch, but not stopping until he’s sheathed him wholly — which is coincidentally the same time that Yuri remembers that he needs air to live, and inhales. He feels just like Yuri remembers, way too tight, way too hot, way too good, even as he’s not moving. And thank God he’s not moving, because Yuri has no doubts that he’d be coming immediately if he was right now.

“You all right, Beka?”

“Y-Yeah,” he says with a nod. “It’s just… you know you’re pretty big, right?”

Well, it’s not like he hasn’t compared himself to Otabek in this regard as much as any other, having had so many opportunities to do so. Maybe that’s what the problem was all along.  As that possibility goes through his head, he wonders if it’s ironic that he’s ended up as the girl in the relationship because his dick is just too big. Yeah, he’s pretty sure that’s irony, and now’s not the time to dwell on crap like this anyway.

“You’re doing great,” Yuri assures him, resting his hands on Otabek’s waist, feeling the slight tremble there. “Relax. Breathe.”

Otabek does, and then his needy lips are back on Yuri’s for what feels like the thousandth time tonight, and even if it really was the thousandth time it still wouldn’t come anywhere close to overdoing it. Otabek begins to rock his hips back and forth, slowly and experimentally, the sounds he’s pressing into Yuri’s mouth hitching along with the motion. Even the paltry amount of friction that he’s making is enough to for Yuri to start moaning, to have to control his hips from spontaneously thrusting up, which is getting more and more difficult as the rocking picks up momentum. Otabek slants his body forward and grabs the headboard, giving himself leverage as he raises himself up and drops back down, letting out a soft and low moan as he does. The movement, slow and gentle, plays out again, again, again, again.

“Good, good, you feel so fucking good,” Yuri rasps, sliding his hands up the back that he’s scratched up so many times, feeling the muscle, gripping into his skin.

“Touch me,” he breathes unsteadily against his ear. “Please, Yura.”

He doesn’t delay in obliging him, drawing one hand back to Otabek’s front to wrap around him, jerking him off as Otabek keeps pushing him closer to his limits, making the heat pooling in his groin more and more unbearable with each passing second.

“Beka, fuck, I’m so close, Beka, I can’t, fuck —”

Bright white stars cloud his eyes as Otabek suddenly snaps his hips down in a single motion, the single motion that wrecks Yuri completely. He moans like mad, never having felt such insane pressure around his pulsating cock, never having felt a pleasure quite like this before. It’s so intense that it doesn’t even quite feel like relief in the way it should, but it’s amazing, holy shit is it amazing, and it’s so overwhelming that he doesn’t really register how furiously he’s stroking his hand up and down, all he can perceive is how loud Otabek is getting. As his own climax dwindles away, he feels Otabek’s back arch against the hand he still has against it, as cum splatters on his chest and belly, dribbling all over his slackening grip.

They go through the bare minimum of cleaning themselves up, going through a few tissues and tossing the condom away, before they collapse back together, Otabek’s head heavy against his chest. Yuri throws his arm around his shoulder, holding him tight, feeling both odd and extremely satisfied to be in this position. It’s only adding to the intoxication he’s feeling.

“You felt incredible, Beka.”

“I know. You were very vocal about it.”

Yuri’s cheeks puff up, not that Beka can get a very good look at his immature defiance. “Pshh. Like you weren’t loving it just as much.”

He only hears a small, indistinct sound in response. No words. No confirmation.

“Right?” Yuri urges, suddenly uncertain. “Did you like it?”

“It was, uh… not bad?”

Not bad.

When Otabek fucks Yuri, he turns into a writhing, moaning mess that’s begging him to never stop slamming into his ass as fast and hard as he possibly can.

When Yuri fucks Otabek, it’s not bad.

Well, fuck.

“Hey, Yura,” Otabek murmurs, his voice growing heavier as he continues. “You said you’d blow my mind and you did.”

“Just not with this, huh…”

He waits for an answer, any kind of answer, but gets none — until he hears Otabek breathing at a consistent, unambiguous pace. He’s fallen asleep. No, it’s probably more accurate to say he’s passed out. Almost automatically, although with some caution so he doesn’t disturb Otabek, he picks up his phone and snaps a picture, capturing his boyfriend’s sleepy, relaxed face nuzzled against his chest, with his own fairly neutral expression just barely in the corner of the frame. He knows it’s probably not a good idea to keep a photo like this on his phone, even there’s not much to be seen and even if it’s just for himself, but it’s a moment he couldn’t stop himself from preserving. He’ll delete it, just to be safe, but not yet.

But, for a shameful split second, he thinks about uploading it. No, of course he wouldn’t do it, it would be an astonishingly stupid move, and Otabek definitely wouldn’t be okay with it, and even Yuri wouldn’t be okay with it, but he still imagines it, with a racy caption beneath it, something like Someone needs a nap after the fucking they got.

Yeah, that’d be stupid as hell. And a lie. A stupid as hell lie.

Something that maybe only Yuri’s diehard fans have found out about him was that, when he was younger, he had tried out hockey for awhile — that while being pretty short lived. It wasn’t that he was terrible at it, he was even decent at it, really, but figure skating was what he was good at, and a figure skater was what he was. Maybe this was the same kind of deal, trying to force himself into something that’s not for him, to be someone that’s not him . Maybe it’s time to for him to stick to what he’s good at. Maybe it’s time for him to accept what he is.

And what he is not.

Yuri spends the next morning, as he spends pretty much every off-season Thursday morning, in Lilia’s dance studio, throwing himself into leaps that seem to defy gravity and fouetté turns that are dizzying just to watch, under the hawk-like vigilance of his ballet coach. Otabek’s not here with him; the last time he tried to tag along, Lilia did things to him that gave Yuri terrible flashbacks, like forcing Otabek’s mouth open to examine his teeth and nearly breaking him in half on the barre when she “assisted” him into a standing vertical split. She later told Yuri that she would keep no distractions in her studio, perceiving (correctly) that Otabek could be quite a distraction, and Yuri had to admit that she did an impressive job of scaring him off. So he’s back at Yuri’s apartment, doing whatever it is he’s doing to entertain himself for a few hours and cheering his ballerina boyfriend on from a distance. At least, Yuri assumes that’s what he’s doing.

When Lilia’s finally satisfied with his grand jeté, she’s just about to let him go for the day, telling him that he still needs to work on channeling his strength into the feathery grace she knows he’s capable of, or something like that.

“Yeah, fine, I’ll dance more like a woman next time,” he says offhandedly while he tries to stretch a cramp out of his calf.

“Stand up and look at me, Yuri.”

Given her tone, he’s more than a little concerned that he might turn to stone or something if he does right now, but he follows the order anyway. Her eyes are narrow and severe, like always, but somehow even moreso.

“Do you know why you’ve won so many medals?”

“Because I’m really good?”

“Because you know how to express your beauty. It is not a matter of masculinity or femininity. It is your strength. Don’t squander it.”

Yuri sighs. “Okay. Can I go now?”

Lilia just waves him away. She knows when she’s said all she can say.

After changing back into his casual clothes, he slings his bag over his shoulder and gets back outside, taking his phone out to message Otabek.

hey come pick me up

He gets a reply not long afterwards.

Your cat fell asleep on my lap. What do I do?

don’t move. text me when she wakes up

You sure?

yea i can kill some time.

And, to do that, he starts going through his SNS feeds, wandering down the sidewalk with just enough attention to not walk into a pole or another distracted person looking down at their own phone. He’s scrolling past a selfie Victor took with Katsudon in the background, holding their new goldendoodle puppy flopped on his back, asleep in his arms, which he has sickeningly labeled with My Yuuri is such a good daddy! with an explosion of hearts and smiley faces, when something in the periphery of his vision stops him dead in his tracks, one of the few things that can make him do that: leopard print.

He turns his head and takes a look at what it’s attached to, his spirits dampening when he realizes it’s a super short miniskirt, placed on a leggy, female mannequin in a clothing store’s window. Embarrassed that this is what he stopped for, he huffs and keeps walking forward, his feet falling heavily on the cement. But his legs don’t carry him far. He doesn’t even make it to the end of the block before he finds himself stuck in place, his mind stuck on that little scrap of fabric that would barely cover anything, just thinking about it, just wondering. The image of it is gnawing at him like an itch that he just has no way of scratching.

Well, no, that’s not right. There is one way.

“Goddammit,” he says beneath his breath, then shoves his phone into his pocket and turns around.

Otabek pulls his bike up to the side of the street, where they agreed to meet, having finally been freed from his feline burden. For Yuri’s part, he’s glad that his cat is such a lazy brat who hates with every ounce of her fluffy being being woken up by anyone but herself; she bought tons of much-needed time for him.

“What’s in the bag, Yura?” he asks, removing his sunglasses to get a better look.

Yuri grips the handles tightly, his heart suddenly pounding as curses himself for not thinking of something to say earlier, then pounding even harder when the words come.

“It’s a surprise.”

Chapter Text

When what feels like the longest bike ride ever is finally over, and Yuri’s back in his apartment, Otabek’s eyes fall expectantly on the large bag in Yuri’s hands. He reaches into the bag to take out a second, much smaller bag from a drugstore. “Here. Take this.”

Otabek does, peeking into it to find a bottle of lubricant, the same brand as the one that’s been rinsed out and tossed into the recycling bin. “Is this the surprise?”

“Just… wait for me in the bedroom, okay?”

He quirks up an eyebrow, intrigued at how this is unfolding thus far. “All right. Don’t keep me waiting too long, Yura.”

“‘Kay,” Yuri mumbles back. Once Otabek is on his way, he vanishes behind the bathroom door, locking it and leaning his weight against it with a long, heavy breath.

Okay. Go time.

He dumps the bag on the counter and hastily strips off every piece of clothing currently on him, the hooded jacket, the t-shirt with the roaring tiger on it, the skin-tight torn jeans, the socks and briefs, kicking everything off to the side, in a pile of the thrown off lendings of his supposed masculinity. He has no use of them now.

Rifling through his purchases, he takes out what he assumes anyone would put on first — underwear, even if it’s absolutely nothing like anything else he keeps in his underwear drawer. It’s sheer, skimpy, and an absolutely lurid red, probably about the same shade as his face as he holds it up in front of him and asks himself for roughly the millionth time what the hell he’s doing.

Getting the question out of the way once more, he bends over to stick his feet through the openings and pull it all the way up his legs. It’s a snug fit, and he’s not entirely sure if it’s supposed to be that way or if he got too small a size or it’s because they’re not designed to have a dick in them, nor is he sure it’s supposed to feel like he just gave himself a wedgie. Catching a glimpse of his lopsided bulge in the mirror, he spends the next few minutes with his hand shoved down under the lacy fabric, trying to pin down which orientation of his junk is the most aesthetically pleasing. He settles on keeping it dead-centre, angled up; he’s still soft, but the thing is tight enough to hold him right in place.

Impulsively, he turns around — trying to ignore that unsightly bruise on his hip as he does — and looks over his shoulder, unable to stop himself from whispering, “Damn.” He can’t even deny that his ass looks outstanding right now, with the curves of the thong accentuating the curves of his cheeks, and the way that the fabric just disappears between them. If Otabek doesn’t react at least as impressed as Yuri is right now, he is either going to punch him or just fall over and die. Maybe both.

All right. One step down. Next, he throws on the shirt without even glancing at it. It’s a black sleeveless turtleneck, by far the least intimidating thing in the bag, bought only as something to go with the actually intimidating garment, somehow even more intimidating than the panties, the damn siren song leopard print miniskirt that put this whole bizarre plan, that could still actually be a vivid dream that he’s yet to wake up from, into motion.

He considers for a moment if there’s any possibility that he fell so hard on his hip yesterday that he somehow gave himself brain damage, then sighs and puts it on, tucking the shirt beneath the waist and reaching around to pull up the zipper at the back. It looks just like it did in his head when he saw it on the mannequin, and just like it did in the fitting room mirror, just barely covering any of him. The hem lies an inch, maybe two, below where his ass ends and his thighs begin.

One more thing, there’s just one more thing in the bag, and it’s there because Yuri knows that, even if he’s only going to be wearing this get-up in his apartment it’d look incomplete without it. He pulls out a shoebox and takes off the lid, where, amongst a heap of paper stuffing, lay a pair of black, faux-suede pumps. He takes out the shoes out and puts them on the floor, aware that his ass is showing as he bends over to do so, and then steps into them. They’re a little too big, but he figured that wouldn’t be a problem, what with him never having to leave his house in them, and he’s wrecked his feet so much breaking in new ice skates that he might as well be kind to them for once. When he looks back up, he notices that the very top of his head is now cut off by the mirror, and he’s thrown off by the the sudden three and a half inches he’s added to his height. It’s weird, being as tall as he thought he’d be when his growth spurt finally hit, all thanks to a pair of women’s high heels.

Now all that’s left is the final touch. He undoes the bun that he did up for his ballet practice and combs through his soft, golden hair with his fingers, smoothing it out without taming it entirely, letting it fall, presentably messy, over his shoulders and back. There. Done.

“Aw, fuck,” he says, checking himself out from top to bottom, then as one complete whole. "I look like a hooker.”

This is a bad idea, this is such a bad idea. He’s just about to take it all off and pretend that none of this even happened — but shit, he told Otabek there’d be a surprise, and he can’t just have nothing now. Okay, he just needs to think of a surprise. Surprise, surprise, surprise. No, just repeating in his head a bunch of times isn’t helping him come up with anything, it’s just making the word surprise sound weirder and weirder. Maybe he could tell him something like — surprise! — he’s into exhibitionism, and get wants to get railed on his apartment’s balcony. First problem: no, he doesn’t want that at all, and he doesn’t know why he even thought of it. Second problem: why the fuck would he have to buy something for that? Okay, okay, so the shopping bag gives the surprise parameters: it has to be something material, something within his reach, and something that would be brand new to Otabek. But no matter how much Yuri thinks, the only thing that fits those requirements is the outfit he has on right now. The only thing that even comes close to a halfway feasible idea is stripping these clothes off, handing them to Otabek, and saying, “Hey, put these on. Oh, they’re too small? Well, damn .”

The mental picture of Otabek in women’s clothes is so absurd it manages to interrupt Yuri’s panicking for a second. Man, he’d look so ridiculous in this get-up, in clothes so at odd with the rigid lines of his broad form. You know, unlike Yuri, who knows he would be lying if he said he didn’t look good right now. It suits him. It suits him a little too well.

Why is he even doing this? Is it just because he’s already the girl, so he might as well go ahead and look the part as well? It’s the thought that sent him marching back to the store with the leopard print miniskirt in the window, more or less. But maybe that’s not it, not entirely. Maybe, if he can go through with this, he can prove, to himself if nobody else, that he doesn’t give a single fuck about what other people think. It’s like Otabek always drinking those girly white chocolate mochas with mountains of whipped cream without even the smallest hint of shame, and it doesn’t at all take away from that cool, steely impression he gives off. In a way, caring so little about being feminine would make him even more masculine.

There, that’s why Yuri’s doing it — because he has a reason based on simple, valid, absolutely waterproof logic.

This is such a good idea.

While he’s still convinced of that, he leaves the bathroom and forges ahead, one deliberate step after another, the fabric of the skirt shifting against his thighs as his hips sway. The formidably tall heels of his shoes force him into a slower, smaller stride to keep him from wobbling, but he’s managing fairly well, all things considered; he can probably thank his good posture, his strong core, and his proficiency with boots that literally have blades attached to the soles. With the way that his apartment’s designed, Otabek won’t see him until he’s right in front of the bedroom door, but he must be able to hear the rhythmic click-click the shoes make as they hit the wooden floor, he must be wondering just what that noise could be.

When he reaches the threshold, Otabek’s eyes go wide. Whatever he was expecting, if he was expecting anything, it certainly wasn’t this .

With those wide eyes scouring him from head to foot, Yuri feels naked, even more naked than actually being naked. He unconsciously crosses his arms against his chest. “Say something.”

He does, even if it’s just, “Wow.” It’s more of an intrigued “wow” than a what-the-hell-do-you-think-you’re-doing “wow,” which makes Yuri feel a little less like he’s been caught with his pants down in public.

“Say words, Beka.”

Otabek gets up to his feet, his gaze turned upward, Yuri’s turned downward. He’s gotten used to being the taller one, but this — this is almost disorientating. Maybe he should have gone with flats after all, he can already tell it’d be way kinder on his feet. Otabek’s hand at his side puts an end to those wandering thoughts, and just about every other thought for a time.

“Ädemi,” he says, giving him a word as he craves. Beautiful. “You look amazing, Yura.”

Yuri knows that he’s being completely sincere, turning the words into an aphrodisiac, beginning to turn his anxiety into arousal. That shift continues as Otabek’s hand inches down, feeling the cloth of his shirt almost with a reverence, sinking down along the contour of Yuri’s waist to pay that same reverence to the skirt. When he gets to the hem — which doesn’t take long at all, even at such a dawdling pace — and he fingers brush the skin of Yuri’s thigh, he slips his hand under to feel beneath the patterned fabric, inhaling sharply a second later, when his touch has found the lacy panties underneath it all.

It’s more thrilling than Yuri thought it’d be, seeing Otabek’s reactions — thrilling enough to make those already tight lacy panties even tighter.

“What do you want me to do?” Otabek asks, his fingertips teasing the lace.

“Me,” Yuri answers without delay.

Yuri sees him smile before he’s pulled down into a kiss, a clash of lips and tongues that seems to be over as fast as it's begun, leaving him with a keen hunger for more. A quick trail of kisses goes down Yuri’s torso, against his shirt, and in what feels like an instant Otabek is down on his knees, face level with leopard print.

Otabek hikes up the skirt, not that there’s much skirt for hiking up, and drinks in the sight of that sheer red fabric already overstrained by Yuri’s half-hard cock. He plants a kiss on his bare thigh, then at the very edge of the panties, and finally his lips are against that quickly swelling bulge, running his open mouth from root to tip along the cloth, and then back up again, this time with the flat of his wet tongue. The heat of his breath, the lingering slick of his saliva, and the delicate texture of the lace mingles together into a sensation quite unlike any Yuri has felt before, into a sensation that he doesn’t want to end. As Otabek keeps doing what Yuri can only think of as making out with his erection through his underwear, his strong hands wander around his ass, fondling the bare and covered parts with equal enthusiasm. And, all the while, having Otabek on his knees with Yuri’s feet in high heels is giving him the dizzying but not at all unpleasant sensation of towering over him.

Holy shit.

This is so hot.

This is so weird.

But this is so fucking hot.

This is the hottest thing he’s never jerked off to, never even considered jerking off to, and he spends, to put it lightly, a significant amount of his time jerking off to plenty of imagined situations involving him and Otabek — him licking the crotch of his frilly thong just never came up, which now just seems like a shame.

He doesn’t even care how bizarre the act is anymore; it’s so insanely hot that when he feels Otabek’s thumbs hook around the sides of the underwear to slip them down, he comes real damn close to telling him to stop and keep them right where they are, but the word “stop” all but flickers away when Otabek takes Yuri into his mouth, having pulled down the panties just far enough to slip his dick out, and no further. One hand drifts from Yuri’s backside to between his thighs to palm at his balls, rubbing the smooth fabric against them, as his tongue swirls around in devious circles around the head of Yuri’s cock. It’s not long at all before Yuri’s legs are trembling, and even with one hand against the doorframe and the other on the top of Otabek’s head, fisted into his hair, he can barely keep himself stable. The shoes are not making things any easier.

But the worst thing to deal with isn’t having his legs twitch, it’s having his hole twitch, having those muscles squeeze desperately around absolutely nothing. This is ridiculous — it’s only been since yesterday morning that he’s had Otabek’s dick and his body is screaming for it. Fuck, it hasn’t even been two days and he feels like he’s one step away from yowling like a cat in heat. With all the time they have to spend apart, how does he not wither up and die from all the thirst?

But they’re not apart now, so to hell with delayed gratification — he needs this now.

“Otabek,” he says in the instant between his shudders for breath, still losing some of his composure as he forces out that final, rough syllable. He has to work with the very barebones of that composure when Otabek looks up, giving him the image of those jet black eyes, ruddy lips full of him, and rucked up leopard print all together. But he manages.

“Just take me before I Iose my mind.”

He releases Yuri’s cock with a wet pop, giving him that subtly sly look he tends to make when he’s teasing him, and enjoying it. “You don't want me to make you come first, Yura?”

“I know what I want,” Yuri says firmly. “So either you give it to me or I’m taking it from you.”

His voice has an authority that would be surprising even to himself, if he were paying attention to himself. But, as it stands, he’s not much interested in that right now, not when the most handsome man alive is kneeling in front of him. And, right now, that impossibly handsome man’s eyes are blown wide, even wider than when he saw Yuri waltz through the doorway in drag, with his mouth hanging slightly open and his brow raised in amazement, maybe disbelief. Whatever it is, within the moment it turns into pure, undeniable lust.

He’s used to Yuri telling him what to do, used to hearing his requests and his pleas and his demands always so tinged with neediness. But Yuri’s never had the nerve to outright order him to do something in the bedroom — not until now, anyway — and Otabek’s never looked so much like he was going to outright jump him.

It’s a whirlwind of movement as they get everything out of the way that needs to get out of the way, a flurry of sounds of things being undone, the condom wrapper, the plastic seal on the bottle of lube, the zipper of Otabek’s pants.

“Fingers first?” Otabek asks in a tone that says he already knows the answer.

“Nope.” He underscores his prompt answer by pulling down Otabek’s briefs, soaked through one spot with pre-cum, and freeing a cock clearly so in need of attention that it trembles at the incidental brush of his fingers. It makes Yuri smirk. “Doesn’t look like you can wait, either.”

A moment later, Otabek’s hands are on Yuri’s ass, and he’s about to snap at him that he just said no fingers, when he’s suddenly lifted off the ground and slammed against the wall. Knee-jerk instinct makes him throw his arms around Otabek’s neck and wrap his legs around his hips, the split-second sense of danger, even if there really is no danger, making him entwine himself with his lover with a heart-pounding desperation that’s setting his nerves all on fire. It takes some time, an unbearable amount in Yuri’s mind, to get the positioning just right, but when everything finally aligns and the fabric riding up his ass is just enough out of the way, he has the whole of Otabek’s length inside him in a single motion. His whole body trembles, all of his limbs holding on tighter to the body keeping him pinned against the wall.

“This okay, Yura?”

“If you can talk, you can fuck.”

Otabek obviously must find some truth in the logic, because he shuts his mouth and starts thrusting. It smarts more than if Yuri had let himself be fingered first, but he doesn't care. In this position, the rhythm takes some time to go from awkward to smooth, but he doesn’t care. His shoulders and hips are being crushed against the wall, but he doesn’t care. There’s a hollow clunk on the floor as the power of the thrusts actually manages to knock off one of his shoes, but he doesn’t care.

“Make me come,” he moans into Otabek’s ear, still managing to keep some of that authority even as the constant jolt of Otabek’s hips are making his voice fail him. “Make me, Beka, feels so fucking good , Beka.”

He can’t even comprehend how good it feels, would never be able to put it into words. So what if he’s Otabek’s girl, or his bitch, his slut, his whore, his fucktoy, as long as he can have this — this, this, this — as much as he wants? Who wouldn’t want to be in Yuri’s position right now, how much would they pay, how fast would they kill for this? And they would never get it, not while this love was all his, not while this cock was all his, not while this man was all his.

He buries his face in Otabek’s shoulder as he climaxes, groaning to the rhythm of his pulsing cock, clawing into Otabek’s back, through his shirt, as much as his tapered nails are able to, as his legs quiver uncontrolably, barely keeping themselves locked around Otabek’s hips. A familiar orgasmic grunt reaches Yuri’s ears as Otabek leans forward, pressing him with even more force against the wall to keep both himself and Yuri supported as the pleasure coursing through him does everything it can to bring him crashing down. But he endures, even as the panting, exhausted mess he becomes, he endures. He slips his spent cock out, and helps Yuri get his feet back onto the floor before pivoting to lean his side against the the wall. Yuri remains where he is, his back against the wall as it has been for however long this took, one knee awkwardly bent to compensate for the the three and a half inches missing from his other leg. He lazily kicks off the shoe that remains, standing flat on both feet with a small sigh of relief.

Seeing those two faux-suede pumps together on the floor — that’s the thing that makes him realize he’s in women’s clothes, a detail that his brain just kind of swept away while he was getting fucked out of his brain. He wasn’t unaware that his cum was all over his front — that was just pretty much an accepted part of doing anything of this nature with his boyfriend — but it’s then that he looks down at himself and becomes aware of exactly where his cum ended up, a few ambitious streaks on the shirt, more caught in the miniskirt, and the most pooling in and around the panties, completely drenching the sheer fabric. He stares at it with a dumbstruck awe, waiting for this surreal wet dream that he’ll never speak of to hurry up and end already. It does not.

“That was amazing, Yura.”

Yeah, it was.

Otabek’s fingers prod at his hip, touching the creases of the hiked-up miniskirt, the one he had hiked up himself, even. “What gave you the idea?”

Yuri shrugs. “Saw it in a window.”

“Have you wanted to do something like this for awhile?”

No, the thought has literally not crossed his mind until about two hours ago, but he supposes when he looks the way he does it makes sense to assume that it’s been a long-running, secret fantasy of his. So he just mumbles, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Without all those crazy sex hormones rushing through him that assured him that he didn’t care, he finds that, yes, he actually does care. He really cares to a not-at-all insignificant degree that he just had sex in a miniskirt and high heels and — holy shit an actual bright red thong — and it was, without a doubt, the best sex he’s ever had. He cares about what that says about him, not that he can exactly put into words what it says, or maybe he just doesn’t want to face what it does.

He wants to cover his face with his hand and just scream into his palms, but Otabek’s moved over and tilted Yuri’s head to kiss him before he could just devolve straight into unbridled melodramatics.

“What do you want to do now?” asks Otabek, sounding justifiably drained, still. “After we change, of course.”

Yuri thinks for a moment about what would be an apt follow up for what he just did with Otabek. The dribble of jizz that has escaped from his panties and is slowly making its way along his inner thigh helps him come to his conclusion.

“Get drunk,” he says. “Maybe watch a movie. Maybe order food. But definitely get drunk.”

Chapter Text

The very first thing Yuri does, the most critical thing he has to do after all that, is change. The unwashed-but-less-unwashed-than-his-other-clothes pair of sweatpants and old t-shirt, with “STOP STRESSING MEOWT” written across the printed silhouette of a cat, while making him look sloppier than he’d really like, is a huge, giant, colossal step up from the outfit that preceded it. Now, the rest of the night can continue, as if the day before it didn’t even happen.

“Still can’t believe you’ve never seen Titanic,” the newly-clad Yuri huffs as he throws himself onto his couch, his back against the armrest.

“I tried to watch it with you last year.” Otabek hands him a bottle of beer and settles in opposite him. “Remember?”

Yuri does, of course; he remembers how they managed to make fifteen or maybe twenty minutes worth of progress before someone’s hand ended up down the other’s pants, or someone’s face ended up in the other’s lap, or someone ended up bouncing on top of the other (the latter someone, of course, always being Yuri). With such engaging activities so readily available to the two, the movie’s more-than-three-hour runtime was hard to commit to, and they never even got as far as the ship actually hitting the iceberg. But, right now, Yuri feels sexed out for once, and as he presses play and fiddles through the options to put on the Russian subtitles, he feels pretty confident that they’ll be able to get through all of it tonight. That, or he’ll pass out first. Either works.

He twists the cap off what he assumes to be the first of many bottles and takes the first of many swigs. It’s not bad, thankfully. They have case of the stuff in his fridge that he doesn’t exactly remember acquiring, which is a little troubling, but not enough to make him not drink it. He also dug some shot glasses and a mostly full bottle of vodka out of his kitchen cabinets, something he’s kept around because how can he really act as a representative for Russia without some of the stuff lurking somewhere in his house, right? Besides that, Mila gave him a colourful collection of wine coolers for his birthday, which have been in his fridge ever since, and will remain there unless absolute desperation sets in.

“Hey.” Otabek holds out his own bottle. With an apologetic mumble, Yuri leans forward and clinks the glass necks together, a sound that Otabek follows up with a Kazakh toast, which Yuri tries his best to echo back.

“Getting better,” he says with a smile, taking a sip to properly cap off the toast.

“What’s it mean?”

“To new experiences with the one I love.”

Yuri wonders if he’s referring to the crossdressing sex or the movie, or both. He gulps down more beer instead of asking.

The Greek takeout arrives while Jack is talking down Rose from jumping off the boat, by which point Yuri’s gotten through two bottles and a couple vodka shots and feels a little less like joining her. With the food in tow, Yuri sits closer to Otabek, knowing by now that it’s not going to take long for them to start offering mouthfuls of their own meals to each other and it’s just less trouble and less of a mess this way.

“I could hold that for way longer,” Yuri says when Rose goes en pointe to impress a bunch of smoking, drinking, arm-wrestling men, spitting out some of the spanakopita he just took from Otabek’s hand. “Here, look.”

But Otabek catches Yuri’s arm before he can stand up to prove it. “Don’t mix ballet and drinking, Yura.”

“But I really can—”

“I know you can.” The expression that accompanies his words is so warm and disarming and goddamn kissable that Yuri feels the need to practically shove pita into it to try and make it go away.

Nuns abstain from dick for their entire lives. Surely Yuri can last just three freaking hours without it. Remembering how much of that three hours is left, given that the Titanic is still entirely afloat, he grabs another beer to go with his souvlaki.

Otabek is not making this whole not-constantly-craving-his-dick thing any easier for Yuri as the night goes on. He can chalk up the few times that Otabek’s mouth brushes against his fingers while taking food from them to Otabek trying to pay attention to the movie, but him licking that stray dollop of tzatziki off of Yuri’s fingers is definitely on purpose, the bastard. Once they’re done with the food, and the styrofoam containers have joined the few empty bottles on the coffee table, Otabek seems to decide that the best new place for him to rest his hand is on top of Yuri’s thigh. Now he’s rubbing some absent minded circles into it that really do seem like they’re actually absent minded instead of being diabolically calculated to make Yuri’s mouth keep going completely dry despite the near-constant flow of liquid going into it. Next thing he knows, that hand has managed to snake behind his back and rest on his waist. The touch, intimate but gentle, is enough to make Yuri’s mind draw up the image, the phantom sensation, of that hand gripped hard around his waist, steadying his body for the man behind him to slam into.

“She kind of reminds me of you,” Otabek tells him, right after Rose flips off the guy her douchebag fiance sent after her, but Yuri hasn't been focusing on the screen for who knows how long. He can feel Otabek’s breath against his cheek, like he’s pressing the words into his skin. Words comparing to a woman.

God, who's he even trying to kid anymore?

Yuri knocks down the rest of his beer and slams the empty bottle down on the table. “You know what?” he blurts out, a passion in his voice as if he’s about to say something grand, perhaps life-altering. “I realized something while you were smashing me against the wall so hard you knocked off my shoe.”

He catches Otabek mid-sip, causing his only response to be a sideways glance and a “Hm?”

“I love your dick.”

Otabek raises an eyebrow but still gives him a bit of a smile. “Thanks, Yura. That’s nice of you.”

“No, nonono, you don’t understand,” he blabbers frantically, then, enunciating each syllable, repeats, “I love your dick. I. Love. It. It is my favourite thing in the world. I am not goddamn kidding when I say I want it in me all the damn time . And if that makes me a girl, well then so-fucking-be-it.”

With that he practically throws himself at Otabek, eager to put his lips on his mouth and anywhere else on him so long as it leads to getting bent over something and filled in the way only Otabek can fill him, but the kiss that should start it all doesn’t even connect. Otabek’s palm is firm against his chest, and he’s backed away, doubly keeping Yuri’s lips at bay, as confusion knots up his brow.

“What did you say?”

Yuri freezes, the words he said replaying in his mind before coming back out of his mouth.

“I’m the girl.” Maybe it’s supposed to be liberating to say aloud. It doesn’t feel like it, though. “And I’m... I’m okay with it.” He’s stumbling over these words, and probably still would be even if he were completely sober. “Really. I know what I look like, and what I like, and what people think…” He has to force himself to add, “And I don’t care.”

“Yuri.” The hand against his chest moves over to his shoulder, a gentler touch that still keeps him at a distance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Beka, you can stop playing dumb.”

“I’m not.”

Yuri sees his face, clearly concerned, completely serious, the kind of face that reminds him once again that Otabek can’t act for shit and wouldn’t try to.

“What’s going on, Yura?”

Yuri doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t even know where to start. But he knows where this all started, and maybe that can say it better than he can himself.

He takes out his phone, finds the post he made a couple days ago, the kiss he froze in time and sent out for the world to see. He scrolls down through the comments, past all the fans who are happy for him, past Victor’s overflow of heart emojis, down to that post that still feels like a punch to the gut when he sees it: so which one’s the girl? He notices a few more comments added to fray, among them obv @yuri-plisetsky’s hair was made for otabek to pull and Staring at the fairy’s childbearing hips doesn’t make me gay, right? That’s all he can stomach, and barely, before handing the phone over to a patiently waiting Otabek.

With an apprehension that’s twisting his insides, Yuri follows the fluctuations in Otabek’s expression as he reads those same words, but can’t quite place what the tension in his features is telling him — whether he’s confused, or disgusted, or angry. But when he puts the phone aside, all Yuri can see in that face is a sober kind of sadness.

“Yura,” Otabek says to him, nearly in a whisper, soothing and warm. “None of these people know what they’re talking about.”

“Don’t they?” Yuri counters. “They know I’m the one taking it — they know if just by looking at me.”

“That’s none of their business.”

Yuri’s hands tighten into fists on his lap. “See? Even you can’t say they’re wrong.”

“They are wrong,” says Otabek. “Just because you bottom doesn’t mean you’re a girl.”

“Then what does it mean?” he demands. “What does it say about me?”

“It doesn’t have to say anything.”

“That’s a goddamn cop out and you know it.”

If Yuri hadn’t filed down his nails so much beforehand, they’d be digging right into his palms right now. He’s angry, but at what, exactly? He doesn’t think it’s possible for him to be angry at Otabek, but maybe he is, because why won’t he just agree with Yuri so they could just move on and this would all be so simple, wouldn’t it?

No, he supposes it wouldn’t.

“Sorry,” says Yuri, slackening his empty grip. “You didn’t do anything, Beka. This is all me.”

“If it’s been bothering you this much, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He looks over at Otabek, whose eyes have sunk low in defeat, maybe in shame.

“I thought I could fix it myself.” Yuri looks off to the side, unwilling to even face Otabek in the periphery of his vision, and tries desperately to swallow the lump in his throat. “Thought if I topped you, I could prove I was the man, or if I put the skirt on, I could prove I didn’t care I was the girl, or if I could just sit next to you for three goddamn hours and not want you to fuck me stupid, I could prove… something? I have no fucking clue anymore, and I didn’t fix fuck all.”

His eyes sting. Christ, not now — he’s cried on international television and this is still worse, letting his emotions make himself into such a mess in front of someone he respects so much, likes so much, loves so much.

He feels Otabek’s hand graze his cheek, pushing the hair in front of his damp eyes out of the way.

“You have nothing to prove to me, Yura.” His fingers linger in Yuri’s hair, tracing around the curve of his ear. “Nothing to fix, either.”

His hand slides to Yuri’s cheek, and he finds himself leaning into the sturdy support of his palm without even meaning to. Then, he’s barely aware of his whole body slumping forward until he’s in Otabek’s arms, held tight against his chest, chin rested against one broad, strong shoulder. A part of Yuri just can’t divorce the way they’re positioned now from a clearcut notion of male and female but, mostly, all he can feel is the warmth, and he’s thankful for it.

“You’re real good to me, Beka,” Yuri says with a small sniffle. “I’d rather be your girl than anyone else’s man.”

“You are my man.” He kisses the side of Yuri’s head, pressing his lips to his hair. “The most extraordinary man I know.”

“Beka…”

Yuri allows himself to be embraced, still and silent save for the little rustles of hair or fabric as Otabek’s hands move to calm him. He wants this — right now, he might even need it. There’s a comfort in knowing that he has someone who can provide it for him, even more of a comfort having someone who knows when he needs it better than himself.

The cry of “Iceberg, dead ahead!” out of his TV’s speakers draws his attention out of the soothing bubble Otabek’s made for them, alerting Yuri not to an iceberg, but to how much of the movie they’ve missed.

“Shit, we never paused it,” says Yuri, peeking out to see a panicked flurry of shots of justifiably panicked characters. “Go back, go back.”

Urged by a rapid string of pats on his shoulder, Otabek grabs the remote and gives the movie the pause it needed quite some time ago.

“We’ll talk more later?” asks Otabek, his voice insistent but far from forceful.

Yuri hesitates, but decides that he can’t deny him this. “Yeah, okay.”

Otabek nods and makes a small noise to acknowledge the answer, and presses no further, instead setting himself to barreling backwards through the scenes they missed. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“‘Draw me like one of your French girls,’” Yuri quotes.

Otabek finds the scene easily enough, and Yuri takes the opportunity to reposition himself, seating himself between his boyfriend’s thighs, leaning back against his chest. Otabek’s arms wrap instantly around his middle. It doesn’t bring them any closer together than they already were, really, but it still feels like it does. The intermittent, offhand commentary they provide as the film soldiers on gives Yuri ample chance to distract himself from the more unpleasant things they’ve swept under the rug for the time being. But, even with the obligation suspended, at least until this ship is at the bottom of the ocean, something keeps nagging at his curiosity, and so persistently that he just needs to bring it up even if it opens the discussion back up before he’s really ready for it.

“She’s telling everyone in the present about this?” says Otabek, as if pondering aloud, as Jack and Rose lay together, naked and sweaty and panting in a fogged up, old-timey car.

“So did you like screwing me in drag?” Yuri asks, able to do so with so much frankness probably by the virtue of the most recent bottle he’s been working on. “And be honest.”

Otabek’s reply is delayed, presumably because of the out-of-nowhere quality of the question. “Well, yeah, I did like it.”

“But?”

“No buts.” Otabek pauses. “Although—”

“That’s another way of saying but.”

“ Although ,” he repeats, a tad more firmly, “there was something I liked more. I guess it might be related to you being in drag, but it’s not exactly—”

“Can you quit being so mysterious and just tell me?”

“The way you were acting. I really liked that.”

“How was I acting?” Yuri asks, trying to recall it himself. “Horny? Slutty?”

Otabek cuts off any further guesses to just outright tell him, “In charge.”

“Huh?”

“Or… maybe dominant is the right word?” It seems like Otabek’s struggling to find the right words, which isn’t much at all an Otabek thing, and thus completely capturing Yuri’s attention. “Like when you told me you’d just take what you wanted if I didn’t give it to you?”

That does sound kind of familiar. “Uh-huh…?”

“I kind of wanted to see if you would,” he admits — that what it sounds like to Yuri, in any case. “But I also really wanted to do what you ordered me to, so…”

“So you like it when your boyfriend dresses like a woman and bosses you around?”

“I guess I do.”

“Pff. Weirdo.”

Otabek chuckles and gives him a good, tight hug, seeming to willfully accept the jab at his expense to see Yuri enjoy himself. Yuri uses his free arm — his other hand occupied with his drink — to layer over Otabek’s arms, hugging him back in the only way currently available to him.

By the time that shit really starts hitting the fan in the movie, Yuri’s flipped over onto his stomach, head turned to keep watching the movie, with a blanket draped over them that might have well materialized out of thin air because he has no idea where Otabek got it from without even getting up. It’s cozy despite being inexplicable to Yuri, anyhow.

“Gimme a dress, I woulda been off that boat so fast.” Yuri can imagine it, maybe flipping off some guy who insisted on “ladies first” as he held open a door earlier to let Yuri pass, as the lifeboat he was safely in was gradually removing itself from this shitshow of a transatlantic voyage. After indulging in the bizarre fantasy, he feels a bit guilty — but solely for someone else he just implicitly imagines would be with him on his hypothetical doomed voyage. “I’d stay and drown with you, though, Beka, since you’d be stuck and all.”

“You don’t have to do that.” He interprets Otabek rubbing his back as an appreciation for the thought, anyway. “But you don’t think I could pull it off too?

“Not with this.” Yuri looks upward and pinches Otabek’s jaw between his fingers and thumb. “You have the manliest man-face of any man that’s ever manned. I swear, you must have pure fucking testosterone leaking out of your pores. Like chicks get knocked up if they look straight into your face for too long, right?”

“How much have you had to drink?” Otabek asks between a mostly stifled laugh.

Instead of answering, Yuri flops back down, his cheek smushed against Otabek’s warm chest. “Ugh,” he groans in exasperation, “so damn rugged.”

The damn ship finally goes under, and, despite all the alcohol in Yuri’s veins that are beseeching him to sleep, he’s watching the movie more intently than any other point at the night.

“You dumb bitch, just move your ASS!” he yells at the screen, with enough passion that he might just believe he can get Rose to make room for her rapidly-freezing star-crossed lover. “Oh, hey, speaking of asses,” he says casually, taking advantage of what he assumes is an absolutely  seamless segue, “didn’t mine look fucking amazing in those panties?”

“I’m sure it did, but I didn’t actually see it.”

“Whaddya mean you didn’t—” It dawns on him as fast as his dulled reaction times will allow for. “Oh, fuck , I never turned around. Fuuuck.”

The realization makes him groan and pound his forehead against Otabek’s sternum, startling the air out of his lungs at the surprisingly impactful impact. He goes on to mumble, “I could put ‘em back on, if you want….”

“Only if you want to.” Otabek does sound a little hopeful, though.

Yuri just sighs. “Well, I can’t return them. Don’t think I can return any of it.”

“‘Cause of all the semen?” Otabek suggests, totally blunt.

“No, I took the tags off.”

There are several long seconds of silence, broken by an uncharacteristic snort that briskly devolves into uncontrollable laughter, at which point Yuri finally realizes that, yes, Otabek has been, in fact, drinking all night too.

“Hey, knock it off, Beka,” he snaps, gesturing in protest at the TV. “Can’t you see how freaking sad this is?”

Griping at Otabek for killing the mood is the last mostly clear memory Yuri has of the night. He vaguely recalls the credits beginning to roll, even more vaguely remembers rambling along to the words of “My Heart Will Go On,” before falling asleep, nestled up awkwardly on top of Otabek, in the arms of the man who was utterly, undeniably in love with the man Yuri’s still not entirely convinced he is.

But that can wait for tomorrow.

Chapter Text

Yuri wakes up in the morning when nature calls, although, with how much he had to drink the night prior, it’s more like nature is blowing up his phone. He tries to move his limbs with the urgency that his bladder’s demanding of him, but he’s sluggish and sore and kind of numb, having apparently maintained an awkward position for the whole time he’s been asleep. It’s now that it hits him why he was in such an awkward position, as he notices Otabek out cold beneath him, one arm still wrapped around Yuri in that last place he can hazily recall feeling it. He tries, half-awake and definitely hungover, to furtively disengage himself from Otabek’s drowsy embrace, as to not wake him, though the effort doesn’t seem necessary; even stepping on Otabek’s foot, which has slipped off of the couch and settled on the floor, and hissing “Shit!” for doing do, only rouses an indistinct mumble, after which Otabek unconsciously pulls his leg back up to the couch and continues sleeping as if nothing happened.

Reassured that Otabek is both undisturbed and still alive, Yuri gets back to the next major priority in line and stumbles over to the bathroom. He flips the light switch on without even thinking about it, and immediately regrets the impulse, squeezing his eyes shut because he might as well be staring straight into the fucking sun with how bright this bathroom feels right now. A bit more stumbling, this time blinded, he gets where he needs to be and does what he needs to do, taking what to him seems like an inhuman and perhaps worrying amount of time to be done with. Taking this into consideration, he has no idea how he didn’t just piss his pants while he was sleeping on top of Otabek, but holy shit is he grateful that he didn’t. There are some things a relationship cannot recover from; that’s probably one of them.

One bodily need follows another in the form of a grumbly stomach, a noise so loud and a pang so sharp that he doubts he’d be able to just go back to sleep like this. He lumbers into his small and serviceable kitchen and rifles through the cupboards for cans of instant oatmeal and instant coffee, too groggy to make anything close to the kind of stuff he’s been impressing Otabek with during his stay. After putting the water on to boil, Yuri rolls his neck from side to side, massaging it to try and get the crick out of it, but to little avail; his neck feels just as cruddy once the water’s ready. He ignores the irritating stiffness that’s making him lean to one side to get everything prepared, slicing up a banana into the two bowls oatmeal, both for the potassium and to make it look like he at least put some effort into this. With one set of bowl, spoon and mug in hand, he goes to deliver it to the person that he, to the best of his current abilities, so lovingly prepared it for.

He’s just about to wake Otabek up, but before he does, something catches his eye. He’s not actually sure what it is for awhile, but he’s intent on finding out what it is, so he just keeps staring at his boyfriend, asleep on his couch, wondering why it looks so familiar — the slight twist of Otabek’s torso, the relaxed hand that’s not quite brushing against his forehead, the arm cast over the armrest behind him…

Shit, how’d Yuri not notice it sooner? It’s freaking uncanny.

He puts Otabek’s oatmeal and coffee down on the table, finding space for them amongst all the empty beer bottles and styrofoam takeout containers, then foraging around said bottles and containers to find his phone, with the same urgency as when his cat’s doing something cute and he needs to get the picture before he stops or moves. He lines up the shot, getting the angle just right for maximum resemblance, and takes the photo.

Perfect. But posting it will have to wait.

“Yo, wake up,” says Yuri, giving Otabek’s shoulder a few nudges. “I made you breakfast.”

“Huh?” Otabek blinks his barely-open eyes a few times. “Yuri? What time is it?”

10:57 AM, but the correct answer is, “Time to eat. C’mon, it’s gonna get cold.”

He’s disoriented, but manages to sit up at Yuri’s urging, accepting the bowl that gets shoved into his hands.

“I made your favourite — bland, healthy mush.”

Yuri makes the trip to and back from the kitchen to get his own mush, plopping down next to Otabek, who’s already started eating.

“S’good,” Otabek mumbles between spoonfuls.

“It’s just the instant stuff.”

“Everything tastes better when you make it, Yura.”

“What the hell—” Yuri sputters. “How can you already be so goddamn corny? You’ve been awake for like thirty seconds!”

Otabek shrugs sleepily, making it even more absurd to Yuri that he’s able to break out the sweet talk. And, as corny as it is, it still makes butterflies start fluttering in his stomach to hear Otabek being such a sweet dope.

Wait — no, okay, those are just butterflies. For a second there Yuri was worried it might have been vomit.

They work through the oatmeal and coffee, gradually regaining consciousness as the calories and caffeine do their thing. Though, for what it’s worth, Yuri would much rather be unconscious right now.

“Ugh, I feel like I got hit by a truck,” Yuri groans. “And then a train. Fuck, everything hurts.” Even bringing the spoon up to his mouth is enough for him to feel the ache in his muscles. “What about you?”

Otabek swallows his coffee and spends a moment either savouring the aftertaste or thinking — almost certainly the latter — before saying, “I have a headache, I think?”

His answer causes Yuri to scowl. This, too, physically hurts. “You think ? How are you not hungover as hell? You drank as much as me!”

“Maybe.” Otabek does not sound entirely convinced. “But you do weigh quite a bit less, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. That skirt was a small.”

Yuri says it without thinking much about it, hearing it but not processing it until a second later, when he’s stuffed his mouth full with oatmeal and banana. He slowly gums at his already soft food, recalling with increasing clarity his time in that outfit the night before, and for a moment his throat grows so tight that even this mush hurts to swallow. The discomfort on his face is impossible not to see. The memories of his wildly fluctuating feelings on the matter — the doubt turning to determination, the confidence turning to shame, the sheer excitement of it all turning to a lingering disgust — all these conflicting absolutes jumble together all at once in a way that’s taxing his brain harder than the hangover ever could, though the general shittiness his body’s going through to avenge itself for last night’s drinking isn’t making this any easier for him.

“Yura…”

But what does make it easier is having this man beside him.

“God,” Yuri huffs out in a laugh, “did I really start raving about how much I love your dick? Did that really happen?”

“Yeah,” says Otabek, laughing a bit himself. “You said it’s your favourite thing in the world,”

“Christ, that’s embarrassing,” he snorts, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Well, not like it was a fucking mystery or anything. Did I spend the rest of the night stroking your delicate ego?”

“You did say looking at my face could get girls pregnant.” Otabek tilts his head slightly to one side, his mouth slanting similarly in some small bewilderment. “That was a compliment, I think?”

“What the— no, I didn’t say that.”

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t—” He stops himself, the vague echo of words in that vein, definitely in his own voice, returning to his thoughts. “Wait, shit, did I?”

“Mm-hmm. Never had anyone say that about me before.”

Yuri really wishes it would have stayed that way. If the aches and pains weren’t enough to make him consider giving up the relatively few times he drinks himself drunk, hearing the dumb stuff he can barely remember saying is making a very strong argument for never drinking again.

“Okay, on second thought,” Yuri begins, putting his bowl with what remains of his breakfast in it next to his half-empty coffee cup on the table. “How about we don’t go through every dumb thing I said last night.”

He doesn’t catch what Otabek says through the rustling of the blanket, the one that Otabek covered them with last night, as Yuri retreats beneath it once more, covering his head along with as much of his body as possible before slumping against the armrest. Light cannot penetrate it, making this soft rectangle his new friend, but sound still can, which complicates the relationship.

“What are you doing?” asks Otabek, a tinge of amusement in his voice.

“Stopping being awake,” Yuri grumbles back, pulling the blankets tighter around himself. “I’ll try that shit again later.”

“Giving up already, Yura?”

The couch shifts as Otabek’s weight leaves it to move in front of him, as the sound of his footsteps and the direction of his voice tells Yuri.

“Come on, let’s get you some ibuprofen and clothes. We’re going for a run.”

Yuri slowly pulls the blanket up, in such a way that there’s the smallest possible opening for him to peek out of, and looks up at Otabek.

“You can’t be serious.”

He was completely serious.

And, for what it’s worth, it did start out as a run. Yuri put on a pair of sunglasses, despite the mostly overcast weather, and Otabek did the same, but Yuri isn’t sure if it’s because he’s more hungover than he’s letting on or if he just wants to look cool. He, of course, looks cool either way. Shielded from the eye-stabbing glare of a sun that’s barely there, and driven by an ingrained need to not be outdone by anyone, Yuri pushes himself to keep up with Otabek’s pace, in spite of every muscle in his body fighting back against him with each lumbering stride. He feels like he might as well be slogging through three feet of water with how much effort propelling himself forward takes. It’s not before long that Otabek starts slowing down and, even though he’s not saying it, Yuri knows he’s doing it so he doesn’t wound his pathetically hungover boyfriend’s competitive pride. And Yuri doesn’t call him out on it, even when it gets to the point that they’re just walking, because all he wants, more than anything else in the world right now, is for his surroundings to stop spinning around him.

It’s not that he doesn’t believe all that stuff Otabek said to convince him to get outside — that the fresh air and exercise would make him feel better, and something about sweating the alcohol out. Sure, he believes him, he’s just wondering when the hell it’s supposed to kick in, because he’s plenty fucking sweaty and he sure as fuck has been breathing.

“How about a break?” Otabek kindly suggests, as they pass by an empty playground.

“Pshh, now who’s giving up already?” says Yuri, promptly walking over to a blue, elephant-shaped slide and drooping down onto the end of its “trunk.” He stretches his long legs out in front of him, his heels digging a shallow path into the sand. Then, after chugging down the water Otabek offers, he shows just how much he's not giving up by leaning back until his back is flush against the incline.

“You all right?” asks Otabek, nudging his way in to sit next to him — a tight fit, but they manage.

Yuri lifts up his glasses to check if the world is still too bright for him It is. “I dunno, Beka, how do I look?”

“Miserable but still stunning.”

“I think I'll put that on my tombstone. Y’know, the one I'll need later today.” He groans and tries rubbing some more futile circles into his temples. “Ugh, I can't even drink like a man. S’there anything about me that doesn’t scream that I take it and love it?”

“I don’t actually think that’s something you can tell from looking at someone. Or their alcohol tolerance.”

“Easy for you to say. If I looked more like you people’d think differently.” Yuri spends a moment mulling over that. “Hm. Maybe if I looked more serious, like that face you make all the time — how do you do that?”

“That’s… just what my face does, Yura.”

But Yuri’s already deemed that a dead end and moved on to his next thought. “Or if I really started pumping iron, protein powder, raw eggs, all that stuff, get some muscles like you.” He pulls up his shirt to expose his pale, svelte abdomen, like a “before” shot to the muscular, more Otabek-like “after” shot in his head.

Otabek just calmly reaches over and pulls Yuri’s shirt back down. “You should probably stick to the regimen Yakov and Lilia have you on.”

Yuri ponders some more, fiddling with the end of his loose braid idly as he does, then holds his woven hair in front of his eyes. “What if I cut my hair real short? Got an undercut or something.”

“You’d make a lot of Angels cry,” says Otabek, sweeping Yuri’s disheveled bangs out of his face.

“And you too, right?”

His fingertips tarry in the hair above Yuri’s ear as he replies, “I’d be devastated.”

He might be exaggerating, but Yuri knows he’s not joking, not with how often Otabek has his hands in Yuri’s hair, whether it’s absentmindedly while they’re just watching something or kissing, or intentionally to style it. In the time they’ve been dating, Otabek’s gone from having no idea how to make a braid to being responsible for the flawless French braid that Yuri sported at the last Grand Prix final. There was a unique sort of thrill to it, going out on the ice with a mark of Otabek’s presence on him that nobody would even be able to recognize, even when it’s just there for all to see. He wouldn’t want to lose that.

“Fine, Beka, no haircut.”

“Good.” And he really does sound relieved.

“What about a leather jacket? Fingerless gloves?” He gasps quietly. “A motorcycle.”

“I don’t know if you know this, Yura,” says Otabek, lying down next to Yura, head turned to face him. “I don’t want to date me. I want to date you.”

“I know, I know, I just want…” Yuri’s voice trails off as he thinks about what he wants, and all he can think about is that stupid photo and the mess it’s made for himself, and just how badly he wanted to post it and have it seen.

He feels Otabek’s hand on his, meshing their fingers together. He brings Yuri’s hand up to his lips, giving him one soft, lingering kiss on his knuckles, before squeezing his hand tight. Yuri squeezes back. This is it, moments like this. This is what he wants, and this is all he wants it to be.

“I just wanna show off my cool boyfriend to everyone, post tons of pictures of us together, doing couple stuff and all that cute crap, without getting any shit about being the girl for it,” Yuri huffs, working through his thoughts as he puts them into words. “That’s not so goddamn unreasonable, is it?”

“Not at all.” Otabek nuzzles against Yuri’s hand. “But you can’t stop people from being shitheads, so you just have to have to be stronger than them — and I know you are, Yura.”

It makes Yuri dumbstruck for a moment.

“Aw, Beka,” he says, when he can finally speak again. “You actually said it. You really called them shitheads.”

“They are shitheads,” he assures him, with a conviction and an anger that rarely appears in Otabek’s voice. “We’re both men. It didn’t make me less of a man when I bottomed for you, and it’s no different for you.”

He sounds pretty hot while pissed off and talking about bottoming, but that can only distract Yuri from the issue at hand for so long — especially when it brings the less pleasant parts of their recent role reversal in bed to the centre stage of his mind.

“Well, okay, but… we are kinda different, aren't we?” The confused look Otabek gives him, or at least what Yuri can discern from what’s left uncovered by those sunglasses, prompts him to continue. “I mean, you didn't even like it when you bottomed. I know ‘not bad’ means you hated it. And that’s fine, really, but you already know how much I like it, how much I’ve always liked it so… maybe it was stupid to try and fight against. It’s just the way things are, right?”

He’s not sure if he’s expressed everything as clearly or thoroughly as he could, or wanted to, but there is some relief in just having it out there now. He may be a man, as much as the man beside him on this plastic elephant slide but, for whatever reason, there’s clearly one man here built for giving it and one built for taking it. That’s a fact; everything just works out better if Yuri accepts it.

“Yuri, do you… do you not remember the first time you bottomed?”

Yuri spends a moment replaying the question in his head to decide if that was really what Otabek just said, because what kind of question is that? Who the hell forgets something like that?

“Uh, why wouldn’t I remember?” Yuri answers, incredulous. “It was amazing.”

“I really don’t think it was.”

“You’re like over a year too late to try and be modest, Beka — I came buckets.”

“Yeah.” Otabek pauses before emphatically adding, “Afterwards.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“I blew you after I finished. You said the sex was weird and uncomfortable. Pretty sure you described it like when you put the wrong key in a lock but keep trying to open the door with it for awhile.”

That is definitely not the sex Yuri is thinking of — so why does it sound familiar?

“Something like that, anyway,” says Otabek. “I might have jumbled the words a bit.”

Yuri’s resistant, but even so it’s all coming back to him in waves, slowly but surely: their protracted attempts to get Otabek’s dick all the way inside him, the awkward position they were in, the totally unsexy and totally terrifying (but thankfully misleading) sensation of needing to go to the bathroom, the huge relief he felt when it was over, even if it only lasted a couple minutes, tops, and the lock-and-key analogy he made sometime afterwards, which he realizes with a guilt-induced knot in his gut is infinitely worse than Otabek’s “not bad” from the other day.

The best explanation Yuri can come up for being so acutely mistaken is that Otabek fucks him so good that he cannot even comprehend having bad or even mediocre sex with him, and thus his brain just went ahead and blocked out anything that would contradict that. That at least seems more plausible than aliens abducting him and implanting false memories, but he can’t completely rule out that possibility, because how the hell does anyone forget something like this?

“You’re right. You’re totally right,” says Yuri. “Holy shit, I’m going senile.”

“You just got things confused,” Otabek offers as comfort. “It happens.”

“Ugh, do you think spending time with Victor and Katsudon kills brain cells?”

“Yura,” Otabek cuts in before this train of thought spirals out of control. “I didn’t hate bottoming for you. It really wasn’t bad, just… weird and uncomfortable, like how it was for you, I’m assuming.”

It makes Yuri cringe to think about it again, but still he says, “Wrong-key-in-the-lock weird and uncomfortable?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Look, my point is that we must have done it about… five, maybe six times before you actually liked it. We had to figure it out. Together.”

With that last word, he presses Yuri’s hand tight again, as if to emphasize that, yes, they are together, and this is a relationship all about figuring things out, because neither of them has done anything like this with anyone before. That’s what gets across to Yuri, hangover fuzziness and all, but it’s not the only thing he gleans from what Otabek told him.

“So… you’re saying I need to top you four or five more times?” Yuri half-asks, half-states. “To see if you actually like it?”

“However many times it takes,” Otabek says, his voice smooth and perfectly low — the kind of voice that hits Yuri below the waist, the kind of voice that makes him turn over to go and kiss the lips that voice came out of.

And he nearly, just nearly, makes it to Otabek’s mouth before a childish squeal takes him right out of his reverie. They both look over to the side, where a young mother pushing a stroller is chasing after a three or four-year-old child, who is running over to a nearby horse on a spring with audible excitement. It is at this point that Yuri remembers that they’re in a public playground, which is not exactly the most appropriate place talking through your sexual hangups or making out.

“Crap,” Yuri whispers, sinking down lower like he’s trying to hide behind Otabek. “You think she heard anything?”

“I don’t think so. Don’t worry, she probably just thinks we’re getting high.”

Some combination of the completely straight delivery and the enduring alcohol sets off a flood of laughter for Yuri and, just as quickly, that enduring alcohol puts a stop to it.

“Ow, god,” he groans, wincing and clutching his head in his hands. “Laughing hurts. Stop being funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” Otabek says with a small laugh of his own as he gets up to his feet. “Come on. Let’s get back to your place.”

“Can’t you just carry me home?” Yuri suggests when he tries to sit back up and every muscle the action uses burns hellfire for attempting such a crazy athletic feat. “I know you can lift me up, Beka.”

Even if it was a joke, at least ostensibly, Yuri is actually slightly disappointed that Otabek doesn’t carry him home. But he does take Yuri’s hand back into his, and doesn’t let go for the entire walk back. Yuri decides that’s better anyway.

Chapter Text

Yuri shuts his eyes and tilts his head upward, letting the warm water hit him right in the face. It glides down his body to the tiles below, droplets catching onto his skin along the way. He stays still, letting the feel and the sound of the steady rush of water lull him into a trance, emptying his mind of all words and thoughts, basking in the simple tranquility of this simple sanctuary — until his busted showerhead sputters, launching a sudden, high-pressure blast of water at him, making him jolt back and totally killing whatever zen he’d managed to conjure up.

“Guh, this goddamn piece of—” He spits out the water that got into his open mouth. “I need a showerhead that doesn’t give me flashbacks of the first time I blew you.”

Otabek steps in behind him, closing the frosted glass door shut. “Don’t see why. It’s a nice memory.”

“For you! You coulda blinded me.”

“You exaggerate.”

He does, maybe a little, and they did laugh at it afterwards, to put things into perspective. A combination of Yuri’s untested eagerness and Otabek’s untested sensitivity, along with a poorly timed gasp for air, was the perfect recipe for an unintended money shot. It wasn’t that Yuri was disgusted by the idea or anything, but after spending a good deal of time mentally preparing himself to swallow, convinced that Otabek would think it’s the hottest fucking thing possible, he felt more than a bit slighted by his plan quite literally blowing up in his face. He did manage to shut his eyes fast enough, but he’s certain he can recall the less than pleasant sensation of getting semen in his eyelashes while Otabek apologized furiously and pressed tissues into Yuri’s hands. While he impulsively rubs his eye at the memory, Otabek brings him back to the present by wrapping his arms around Yuri’s waist.

“H-Hey.” Yuri wriggles in his embrace, but more for show than in earnest — taking a hard fall in the shower is possibly the worst and most embarrassing career-ending injury possible. “I’m all sweaty and gross and shit.” The nap he insisted on, and eventually got, did give his body time to deal with the hangover, but obviously did nothing for the funk he’s self consciously sporting. “Can you not rub up all against me yet?”

“There’s very little space in here,” Otabek says with a devious streak in his voice, holding Yuri even tighter and bringing their bodies closer together, calculatingly emphasizing said lack of space. “Not much I can do, Yura.”

“So do I have to put on a skirt and heels to get you to do anything now?” Yuri teases, continuing his lazy wriggling. “Or maybe I need to smack you. You could be into that, for all I know.”

“Could be. Depends on where and how hard.”

This infuriatingly smooth jackass.

“Tch. You really need to get your ass spanked one of these days.”

But it’s not going to be now, and not just because of their positions and the already-illustrated size of the shower; Otabek pops his head over Yuri’s shoulder and positions it under the showerhead, the water weighing his hair down against his forehead, then running down the sharp lines and strong bones of his face. Even as a half-blur out of the corner of Yuri’s eye it’s a wonderful and temporarily mollifying sight.

“I don’t think I’ve ever asked,” says Yuri, a growing guilt creeping out from his throat as he becomes certain he hasn’t. “What are you into? For sex,” he then adds, pretty unnecessarily, “with me.”

The tip of Otabek’s nose brushes against his skin. “I’m into doing what you want me to do.”

Yuri’s about to say that that’s not a real answer, but it does check out with how readily he obliges Yuri’s demands, not even taking last night into account. And while he tends to tease and rile Yuri up before giving him what he wants, once Yuri decides what they’re doing — the act, the position, the intensity, whatever — that is what Otabek will do, down to the letter, no objections, no questions asked. So Yuri supposes he has to accept it as an answer — a half-answer, at least.

“Okay, I believe you, but c’mon, you gotta have something more specific. What do you like ?”

“Hm.” Otabek is quiet for a moment, long enough of a moment to make Yuri start to worry that he’s not really enjoyed anything they’ve done together this entire time, no matter how unreasonable that worry is. His fingertips graze idly above Yuri’s navel before moving with purpose to Yuri’s hand. “I like what you did to me with your fingers. You’re very good with them.”

Yuri does have the torrent of cum that he nearly choked on to back the claim up — a result he’s quite proud of, to be honest — but, again, he just can’t accept it as a full answer.

“Yeah, I’m great and all, but that’s the only time I’ve done that to you,” he says, as Otabek’s thumb smooths slowly over Yuri’s knuckles, as if to recall their shape, the feel of them. “What about before that?”

Otabek exhales. Yuri can feel it on his nape, through his wet hair. “You’re getting real picky with this.”

“C’mon, just answer.”

“Is that an order, Yura?” His voice is low, just on the cusp of blending in with the water.

“Uh, sure.” Yuri’s cautious, but does want to see where this will end up. “I’m ordering you.” There is a pause, ample time for his apparent “order” to be carried out. “Well?”

“Hmm. Maybe I need some encouragement first.”

Yuri runs that sentence through his head one more time before saying, “Are you asking me to spank you?”

“That’s one way to interpret it.”

His lips press into Yuri’s shoulder, planting kisses around the curve of it, as his hands find their way to either side of Yuri’s waist, the start of an erection nudged against his backside. Part of him isn’t sure if he should be happy or concerned that Otabek can still get aroused while Yuri smells something like a sweaty sock that’s been floating in a vodka still, but a much more eager part of him is wondering why he hasn’t already swiped up the opportunity Otabek’s handed out. As soon as his mouth breaks contact, Yuri turns himself around, Otabek’s hands remaining at hip level, running over his skin without moving themselves. With the water pelting him from behind, Yuri wraps one arm around Otabek’s waist, steadying his hand into the small of his back, then, going against his previously adamant decision that now was neither the time nor place for this, tests the waters with a restrained, but definitely not gentle, slap on Otabek’s ass.

“That okay?” asks Yuri, catching the little quirk in the corner of Otabek’s mouth and in his brow.

“Yeah.”

“Cool.” He gives him another smack, throwing a tad more force behind it. “Now answer me.”

“I like being face to face.” There’s no delay now, like Yuri’s flipped on a switch. It’d be jarring if it wasn’t exactly what Yuri wanted. “Seeing what I do to you show on your face.”

“That so?” Spank. “Go on.”

“I like your hair, when it’s all over the place, spread out on the bed when you’re under me — grabbing it when you blow me.”

The things he’s saying to Yuri should be flustering him, making him stumble over his words and his actions. He supposes that in any other situation they would, but there’s a power behind what they’re doing that’s relentlessly tapping into his self-confidence, letting nothing get in the way of it. All he wants is to hear is what Otabek has to say, and all he wants to do it make Otabek speak, all he wants is—

“More,” he orders, with his voice and wrist alike.

“And your eyes, I like seeing your eyes,” says Otabek, inching closer. “Your eyes are unreal.”

On second thought, it’s possible that Yuri’s the one inching closer. In any case, Otabek’s well-stiffened cock is now brushing against his own — softer, but certainly not immune to this unexpected little game they’re playing. Yuri more than wants to keep the game going; though, on a greedy whim, or maybe just to give the stinging in his hand a chance to subside, Yuri breaks the rhythm they’ve built by just grabbing a handful of firm ass.

“What else, Beka?”

“I like when you say my name.”

“ Beka .” He lets it drip from his mouth, slow and heavy, his lips smoothing out those harsh, back-to-back plosive syllables into a warm, inviting sound, as his fingers squeeze tight. “Like that?”

It’s all the little things in Otabek’s reaction that makes it one incredibly satisfying whole — his eyes opening wider, his teeth biting into his lower lip, the little noise of pleasure that sneaks out from his throat, the fact that he still hasn’t said anything more, apparently left dumbstruck by hearing his named practically moaned out. Yuri can’t blame him — even he’s a bit surprised that he can just pull that out of nowhere. Nonetheless, he lets go of Otabek’s ass to whip his hand back against it, a loud crack ringing out as skin meets skin. This time, Otabek grunts.

“Shit, that was a good one,” says Yuri, amazed at the sound. “You still okay?”

“Better than okay.” He complements his response by grinding once against Yuri, hands on his waist to keep him close. Yuri gives himself a split-second to peek downward, catching sight of that which he drunkenly declared his love for, completely hard, glazed with plenty of precum. He can’t help but smirk.

“This is really turning you on, huh?”

“It is,” says Otabek, “so I guess I can say I like you smacking my ass.”

“First time.” Spank . “Could be a fluke.”

“That’s at least the fifth time.” Spank. “Ah—Sixth. Switch sides?”

Yuri does, changing the hand on Otabek’s back for the other, fingers dug harder into his skin, almost like it’s a shirt he’s trying to keep hold of him by. Then he smacks the other cheek, spoiling unspoiled flesh with a novel glee.

“I like your legs around my waist.”

Spank .

“When you grab the sheets.”

Spank.

“When you ride me.”

Spank.

“When you tell me to get you off.”

Spank.

“Just… getting off with you,” he huffs, his voice unable to keep its steadiness as his hips rock forward. “At the same time. Together. It’s so fucking satisfying.”

“Fuck, it’s hot when you swear.” Yuri’s not the one getting answers smacked out of him, but it needs to be said. Yuri knows Otabek only talks like that when he loses his grip on his emotions. Yuri also knows that he’s one of the few things that can make him lose that grip, again and again. Every time he hears him hiss those words into his ear it’s like winning a goddamn prize.

“Just—” Spank . “Fucking hell, Beka.”

“I like your filthy mouth,” he mutters, running his thumb down the corner of Yuri’s mouth, folding his lip down before it springs back into place, “whatever you do with it.”

“What do I do best with it?” Yuri accentuates the question with a nice, hard smack and a fiendish grin across that filthy mouth of his.

“Kissing.”

“Really?” he says, surprised, with a small laugh that weaves its way into the words that follow. “Am I that bad at sucking your dick?”

“No — you’re just that good at kissing.”

“Hmph. Never seen you come just from kissing.”

“Maybe,” he admits, “but fuck if it doesn’t make everything better.”

This seems to push both of them over a threshold, into a place where these little glimpses and hints of pleasure can no longer suffice. They both move in, both trying to beat the other to the punch, clashing their mouths together into a perfectly ravenous kiss, soft and hard at once, and as tongues and lips slip and slide over each other Yuri can understand Otabek’s fixation — how a kiss can whet the appetite and sate a hunger alike, and, perhaps above all, how deliciously it can be paired with the right, thirst-quenching libation.

Yuri doesn’t dare break the kiss, not that he thinks Otabek would let him, as he inches back, hands on chiseled hips to compel Otabek to stay close to him, not that he thinks Otabek would fail to follow of his own volition. As their bodies shift, the falling water shifts from the crown of Yuri’s head to his brow, spilling over to inundate both of their faces, slipping down between their nearly flush fronts. Yuri brings him closer until he’s trapped himself in the corner, his back against the wall, just where he likes it to be — and Otabek, more than well-versed in what Yuri likes, puts his palm up against the wall, thumb and wrist brushing against ear and shoulder, fencing him in from every side, submitting to his wants without a single word to spur it on.

Yuri doesn’t even know how well he has him trained.

Slinging his arm over Otabek’s shoulder, Yuri’s head dodges to the side, feeling Otabek’s eager mouth graze against his moving cheek. “I want you to come with me,” he sighs into his ear before nipping at it, then folding his slender fingers around both of their cocks, making Otabek throb at the tiniest of squeezes. “Think you can last long enough?”

“Sure,” he responds, with far more composure than Yuri thinks him capable of at this point. “If you let me help you catch up.”

He looks back at Otabek, curious, and finds him with two of his fingers in his own mouth, running his tongue between them, slicking them up with his saliva, the look in his heavy-lidded eyes wavering between smugness and submission. With water raining down above them, the act is unnecessary, merely a way to tantalize Yuri. And it sure as fuck works; the sight hits Yuri everywhere, his knees, his chest, his stomach, his dick — his dick in particular — but who the hell is supposed to be in charge again?

“Just get on with it, you fucking tease,” Yuri rasps, snatching up a fistful of Otabek’s hair before pushing his lips back onto his.

Everything quickly becomes frantic and sloppy, every little piece of the whole losing precision but none of the pleasure: fingertips kneading circles into his rim and taint, manipulating every super-sensitive nerve there is there to manipulate; wet bodies rubbing up against each other, hips rocking to a wayward beat, thrusting eagerly into Yuri’s grip; Yuri’s hand just trying to keep that grip steady, keeping the friction where it’s best, thumb inconstantly swiping across the top of ruddy, pliant flesh; kisses landing on their mark less and less, the touches hitting their marks elsewhere forcing lips open, moans and sighs overflowing, Yuri’s head spinning from inhaling nothing but steam and the air straight from Otabek’s mouth.

“I’m close,” Yuri chokes out, thrown off by the hand stroking his hole — fuck, even when they’re not going inside him, this boy needs some kind of trophy for how maddeningly good he is with his fingers. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice so wonderfully throaty that even the single syllable brings Yuri that much closer. “If you just… hold a bit tighter.”

“Like this?”

“Ngh, y-yeah, that’s…” That’s it. He can hear it in his voice, feel it in the tension of his muscles. He’s past the point of no return, and Yuri’s there with him.

“Come with me,” he mewls, “now, Beka. ”

He pulls his hand off of the wall to take ahold of Yuri’s jaw, crashing their lips together hard as their orgasms, no more than a second or two apart from each other, swell and overtake them completely. Their mouths exchange strained groans and darting tongues in between full kisses, all while Yuri’s hand keeps moving out of pure, needy reflex, pumping their shafts up and down together, wringing every last drop out of the both of them. In the moments that follow, there are only the sounds of their soft panting, water dripping down to the tiles, and Yuri’s racing heart pounding in his ears, growing a little calmer with each strong beat.

“Whew,” Yuri exhales, content in the way that really only follows something like this, along with the kind of big, dopey smile that only Otabek gets the privilege to see — what with him being the cause of it and all.

The slack hand at Yuri’s jaw, no longer tense in the heat of its owner’s passion, traces a tender line up his grinning cheek.

“I like this,” Otabek says gently. “Seeing you happy. Making you happy.”

“That's really sweet of you, Beka.” It is, it really, really is. “Now I'd be real happy if you'd lemme wash this mess off.”

Yuri lifts up his hand, calling Otabek’s attention to a palmful of cum, strands of the stuff clinging between his spread fingers. It’s impossible to tell whose is whose, which Yuri is surprised to find kind of romantic in a weird, slightly gross, actually pretty gross way. Peculiarly romantic or not, Yuri is glad when a somewhat dazed Otabek kindly backs off and returns Yuri access to the showerhead, which bursts suddenly again after he sprays his hand clean.

“Kind of missed the moment, didn’t it?” Otabek comments, with no visible sign of him being startled.

“Ugh, don’t make it sound like we had a threesome with my shower, you freak.”

Getting back on track to the supposed plan Yuri had in mind when he got into the shower, an actual shower follows. For the most part, Yuri and Otabek work independently of each other, scrubbing themselves down with mildly abrasive shower poufs lathered up with body wash. When Otabek turns around, accepting Yuri’s offer to help him out with washing his back, his eyes are immediately drawn to Otabek’s ass, bright red and blotchy, moreso on the cheek that took the better half of Yuri’s onslaught. The sight fairly effectively makes Yuri forget what he's supposed to be doing.

“Something wrong?” asks Otabek.

“Nah. Just checking out your butt.”

“Admiring your work, then?” he says back, sounding amused, perhaps satisfied.

“I didn't think there was a way to make your ass look better, but there it is.”

That, and the fact that Otabek seemed to really enjoy Yuri doing this to him, is pretty much just enough fuel for another erection, but he instead tries to focus entirely on scrubbing Otabek’s back, nipping it in the bud through sheer, iron determination. He knows what will happen if he indulges himself like this; they'd be all over each other in the shower all day.

It's happened before, after all. It noticeably affected Otabek’s utility bill for that month. Also made them both extremely pruny.

All cleaned up, they step out and towel themselves off, tying towels around their waists more out of habit than any need for modesty. In the time it takes for Yuri to pat down and shake off all of his hair enough for it to at least stop dripping everywhere, Otabek’s managed to cover his face in shaving cream and start running a razor down in quick, short strokes, starting close to his ear, moving methodically from one section to the next. Yuri watches for awhile, entranced by how effortless Otabek makes it look, like he could be put into a commercial for that razor right now and it would be perfect. Sure, it’s not like Yuri’s never shaved before, it just takes so long for him to justify having to shave that he almost forgets that it’s a thing he has to do sometimes — once a month, more or less, like some kind of sad werewolf that just sprouts peach fuzz every full moon.

He rubs his palms against his cheeks and the phrase “smooth as a baby’s behind” arrives uninvited in his thoughts. So, instead of reaching for a razor for himself, he grabs a tube of face scrub cream, pulling his hair back with a stretchy headband before squeezing a dollop onto his fingers and rubbing it simultaneously into both sides of his face.

“Hey, Yura.”

“Hm?”

“I want to ask you to do something. You can say no, of course, it’s just… since we seem to be talking about what I like.”

That takes Yuri’s already caught attention and yanks it. He notices that, while waiting for a response, Otabek’s shaving becomes much slower, a lot more deliberate without the I-know-exactly-what-I’m-doing confidence he was exuding just a moment ago. He’s also beating around the bush more than it seems humanly possible for Otabek to do, so while Yuri trusts him completely, he still instinctively feels that he should be wary right now.

“Out with it, Altin.”

Otabek tilts his head up to get a look beneath his chin as he takes the razor to it, giving Yuri a good look at the taut cords of his throat. If it wasn’t his intent to placate Yuri before requesting something crazy, it’s still working anyway.

“Could you dress like that again sometime?”

There is a silence before Yuri huffs out a small laugh and grabs more cream. “Like a girl, you mean?”

“Well, yes,” he replies sheepishly, a sense of urgency swelling up in his voice as he continues. “If you’re not comfortable with… I shouldn’t have asked—“

“Yo, calm down, Beka.” He gives him a little reassuring pat on the shoulder with the clean back of his hand, an awkward gesture, but it seems to get its point across. “If that’s all you want, sure.”

“Really?” He sounds like he was expecting a straight-out no. “I don’t want you to do it just because I want you to.”

“You know I wouldn’t do it if I didn't want to,” says Yuri. “I could get a new outfit, something I didn't throw together at the last minute.” In a bizarre turn of events, he's actually starting to get disappointed at himself over this. “Ugh, I half-assed it so hard.”

“You looked incredible, Yura.”

“Yeah, and just imagine how incredible I'd look if I full-assed it.” He can imagine it himself, albeit vaguely, something with makeup and hair done, maybe some sheer stockings, and heels, definitely — the discomfort was more than worth the fun of getting to be nearly a head taller than Otabek.

“To be honest,” Yuri continues, “if I wasn’t worried about how you’d react, I think it woulda been kind of fun — like, I dunno, picking out a costume. But if I dress up, you have to dress up too.”

“Fair enough. What in?”

Yuri thinks it over while washing the excess scrub off his hands, having finished making a mask of it on his face. He’s certain of his answer by the time he turns off the faucet. “A suit. A nice one. With a tie.”

“Deal.” Otabek offers his hand.

“I’m gonna pull the tie, just so we’re clear.”

“I assumed.”

They shake on it, unable to keep from smiling at the ridiculousness of shaking on something like that.

Yuri leans over the sink to rinse his face, patting it and his hands dry with a cloth afterwards. Otabek quickly looks himself over for any spots he missed (none, of course) and follows suit.

After seeing himself in the mirror again and again over the past few days, seeing them together is a change. It’s odd though; while it’s the perfect opportunity to mull over their obvious differences, put right on display side by side like this — muscular and thin, curved and rigid, strong and delicate, masculine and feminine, “obvious” top and “obvious” bottom — Yuri’s mind just glosses over the comparisons. Right now, all he can see is how good they look together. They look really good together. And, now that he thinks about it, that was more along the lines of most of the comments he got on the picture he posted.

Speaking of posting pictures—

“Oh yeah!” exclaims Yuri, bolting out of the bathroom, oblivious to any reaction on Otabek’s part. He scrambles for his phone, holding up his quickly unravelling towel with one hand — again, habit over necessity — then looks for the photo he took that morning. By this time, Otabek’s followed and caught up with him.

“Can I post this? You gotta let me post this,” Yuri says excitedly, showing Otabek the photo he miraculously managed to get of him sleeping in just the right position.

“Sure? I don’t mind.” Given the slightly puzzled, otherwise blank on Otabek’s face, the startling significance of the shot seems out of his grasp.

Yuri raises an eyebrow. “Do you even know why I want to post it?”

“No, not really.”

Baffled but determined, he goes to post it, typing out his intended caption without actually posting anything. Then he lets Otabek read:

draw me like one of your french girls, yuri. @otabek-altin

His eyes go wide — not super wide, definitely not my-boyfriend’s-in-a-miniskirt wide, but wide enough to tell Yuri that he understands why Yuri’s so eager to share the photo.

“Okay, I see it now,” says Otabek.

“How'd you not see it before? It's her exact pose. You didn't do this on purpose, right?”

“I was asleep, Yura.” He pauses, tellingly shifting from side to side once before saying, “Actually, how about if you post a picture of me, I post one I took of you?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says without giving it much thought, as he types up some hashtags: #titanic #sleepybeka #notstaged. “Nothing embarrassing, right?”

“Right.”

“Then knock yourself out,” Yuri tells him, posting Otabek’s Rose DeWitt Bukater impersonation, basking in all the likes he knows it’s going to get before even getting a single one.

It took some convincing, a lot of vouching for Otabek’s character, and more than a little begging, but Yuri did eventually manage to get permission to share the Plisetsky family piroshki recipe with his boyfriend. His dedushka, firmly against it at first, succumbed to the massive soft spot he’s always had for his grandson. Actually sharing said recipe was one of the things Yuri was absolutely set on doing before Otabek went back home, and their time together is quickly dwindling down, so here they are, folding up the Plisetskys’ top secret ratio of ingredients into pockets of handmade dough as the cat does figure eights around their calves and begs. They take turns giving into her pleas.

“I haven’t told you about the first time I made piroshki, right?” Yuri asks, using his flour-dusted fingers to throw intriguing air quotes around the word “made.”

“Pretty sure you haven’t.”

“Oh, god, okay,” Yuri laughs, a little defense mechanism against the embarrassment that’s already welling up in anticipation of the story. “I was like five or six, and I woke up real early one day and grandpa was still asleep, so I decided I wanna surprise him by making piroshki for him, all by myself.”

“I can see where this is going.”

“Ha, no shit. It looked like a hurricane hit the kitchen, I got flour all over the place, broken eggs on the floor, but I ended up with something that sorta looked like dough so I just kept on going. You’ll never guess what I used as a filling.”

“What?”

“An onion.”

“A… whole onion?”

“A whole raw onion! I wasn’t allowed to use the sharp knives, so I just covered a big yellow onion in this ‘dough’ that probably coulda doubled as glue and threw it in the oven, right on the rack. Probably would’ve burnt the house down if I had any idea how to turn the oven on.”

Otabek chuckles. “This is precious.”

“Yeah, yeah, I was an adorable little dumbass. All right, so eventually gramps wakes up and walks in, and finds me sitting on the floor, in a pile of flour, staring at the oven door, blubbering ‘cause I’ve been waiting for like half an hour and what I made looks nothing like piroshki, and pretty much all the dough ended up in this pile of goo at the bottom of the oven. And he goes,” he lowers and roughens up his voice to imitate his dedushka, “‘Yurochka, malysh, what happened? Are you hurt?’” He goes back to his normal voice. “And at this point I realize that I’ve really fucked up, because he sounds so worried, and I start apologizing my ass off, like ‘Please don’t be mad, I just wanted to make piroshki for you.’

“He wasn’t even mad. He said he was proud of me — that wanting to feed and take care of people I love shows that I’m becoming a man.” The words linger on his mouth, the heavy warmth of a good memory. “He taught me how to actually make them; we made them together.” He snorts, trying not to break into a full-on laugh. “After he made me help clean up the mess I made. God, what a disaster.”

“Your grandpa sounds really kind.”

“He is,” Yuri says with pride, “but he'll still track you down and make you regret it if you tell anyone this recipe — and don't think I'll protect you just ‘cause I'm sleeping with you.”

“I'm a man of my word, Yura.”

His mind keeps playing bits and pieces of the memory for him, some parts fuzzy, some parts clear as crystal, as if they happened yesterday. What he remembers best is how happy his dedushka looked when he took that first bite, and how grown up Yuri felt seeing that.

“He made being a man sound real simple,” he muses aloud, neatly pinching the edges of the dough together, just as he was taught. “Nothing about the way you looked or what you did in bed. Just… this.” He gestures at all the circles of dough in front of them. “Making piroshki, feeding people piroshki.”

“Maybe it is that simple,” says Otabek, who is honestly trying his very best to close his piroshki without the filling leaking out from the seams — and looking uncharacteristically pouty when it still does. It’s a large comfort to know that he isn’t instantly an expert at everything . He momentarily abandons his work to continue, “The way you talk about your grandfather, he seems like he knows what’s he talking about.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“At least, I think your grandfather knows more about being a man than people who have nothing better to do than tell you you're not one.”

“Those shitheads, you mean?” Yuri says, with a growing grin.

Otabek sighs, but nods. “Yeah, those shitheads.”

It inadvertently makes an already fair point much more convincing to Yuri.

Once the piroshki are in the oven and Otabek’s in the bedroom, changing out of his clothes which couldn’t be saved by a simple apron, Yuri gladly takes the opportunity to finally check his phone again. He flings himself onto the couch, petting his cat when she curls up at his side, and goes through his notifications. He quickly finds the post he made, now with a satisfying amount of likes and plenty of comments to scroll through. The photo seems particularly popular with Otabek’s fans, who’ve spread it amongst themselves with as much excitement as can be expressed with chains of exclamation points and emojis. Mixed among all that is a handful of reactions from more familiar handles.

milababe: Draw him wearing his gold medal. Just his gold medal. ;D

v-nikiforov: (three heart emojis) (three boat emojis) (three more heart emojis)

katsuki-yuuri: Why is he sleeping on the couch? Did you two have a fight? Yuri, you should make up. Good luck!

v-nikiforov: @katsuki-yuuri Wait… have you never seen Titanic? (shocked emoji) We need to watch it together right away!

+leo.de.la.iglesia+: Beware of hibernating Otabeks! (bear emoji)

mama-nishigori : Now there's a side of Otabek Altin we don't get to see. He looks so comfortable when he's around you. :)

Comfortable, passed out and hungover, same difference, really. Yuuko’s sentiment is nice in any case, and it reminds him that he should really text her sometime and ask how things are going at the rink.

He scrolls through a few more before he takes notice of a different notification, about a picture he’s been tagged in, and remembers that Otabek posted something too — and Yuri actually still has no idea what picture he used, being far too entranced by his own photo to even consider vetting whatever Otabek wanted to upload. Intensely curious, he clicks on it.

Yuri immediately recognizes where the photo was taken, not that it could be mistaken for much else. It’s the Leningrad Zoo, one of the first places he took Otabek when he arrived in Saint Petersburg, and one of Yuri’s favourite places in the city, for reasons that the photo itself reveals. In the photo, Yuri’s standing outside the tiger enclosure, his face beaming and his arm outstretched, pointing with clear excitement at a couple of barely visible tigers lazing in the sun. Yuri definitely remembers telling Otabek to get some pictures of the tigers, just as he remembers looking at those pictures later, but he had no idea that Otabek took one focused on him beforehand. At the edge of the frame, their free hands are together on the railing, fingers haphazardly intertwined. It’s a detail Yuri almost misses before his eyes move on to what Otabek wrote to go along with the photo.

This man is mine. @yuri-plisetsky #myboyfriend

Yuri swears his heart skips a beat as the words wash over him, and that if he were talking, he would’ve been left utterly speechless then. He reads them intently, again, once more, letting the link between them and the picture of him solidify. They are the same words he used for Otabek, the exact same words.

Just four words, his name, and a hashtag. It’s such a simple gesture, so simple that it’s almost embarrassing how much it’s stirring up his emotions, but it is. It’s a simple little gesture that says what Yuri sees in Otabek, Otabek sees in him. It means everything to Yuri. It is everything to Yuri.

“Hope you’re okay with the picture I picked,” says Otabek. “I really like you in that one.”

Yuri was, and still is, so captivated by the post that he didn’t even realize Otabek sat down next to him, and his tongue is so tied up in knots that all he can do in response is pounce him into the tightest hug he’s capable of, cheek flush against shoulder. Words still fail him.

“Hey there,” Otabek says softly, wrapping his arms around Yuri. Yuri doesn’t know how anyone’s body can be this warm. Yuri doesn’t know how he doesn’t melt when Otabek holds him like this.

“Thank you,” says Yuri, quiet but utterly sincere.

“What for?”

“The picture,” he mutters. “What you said.”

He feels Otabek’s hand on his arm, palm rubbing up and down languidly. “You said you wanted to show off your cool boyfriend. I just want to do the same. That's all.”

Yuri backs away just enough to see Otabek’s face, to see a face radiating pure adoration, all for him and only for him. Sometimes it's still hard to believe he has someone who looks at him like this, but he does. He really does.

“I love you,” Yuri tells him, words he's said many times over before now just as wonderfully dizzying as the first time he said them. “I love you so fucking much.”

“I love you too, Yura,” he says, gingerly brushing wayward blonde hairs behind Yuri’s ear, making his skin tingle. “I know I can't change how you feel about yourself. All I can do is tell you how I feel, that I wouldn't change a thing about you. I love you just as you are.”

“Beka…”

They lean into each other and slip into a slow, tender kiss. There’s an innocence to it, almost a shyness, as their lips press gently together. It's far from the kind of kisses they shared in the shower, maybe even the complete opposite, but it rouses something in Yuri all the same.

“You're wrong, by the way,” he says when they part.

“About what?”

“You can change how I feel. You already have,” Yuri says with an impish grin. “You're making me pretty full of myself, y’know.”

Otabek chuckles beneath his breath. “You have every right to be full of yourself when you're perfect.”

“See, there you go again, making me even more full of myself.” He can feel his cheeks go red, but he doesn't let that stop him from going where his brain insists upon going next. “Besides, I'd rather be full of you.”

“Is that so?” Otabek’s hands slip downwards, teasing the skin just beneath the hem of Yuri’s shirt. “Think we have time before the piroshki’s ready?”

For some prep and a quickie, sure, maybe with a little foreplay if they don't waste any more time. That'd be perfectly doable, but it's not what Yuri’s in the mood for right now. While Yuri still has him here, he doesn't want to just race to get off with Otabek; he wants enjoy having him all to himself for a nice, long time.

“Let's wait for the piroshki,” Yuri suggests instead, backing away but still keeping his hands linked together behind Otabek’s neck. “You're gonna need the energy for everything you'll be doing to me tonight. I wanna see you beat your record.”

The only shift in Otabek’s composure is a slightly raised brow and a slightly flushed face, seemingly little things that speak so much louder to someone who's become familiar with them.

“You sure you can handle that, Yura?” He's taunting him, having his fun — Otabek knows damn well what Yuri can take, but Yuri doesn't much mind reminding him,

“Of course I can. I'm a man, aren't I?”

Yuri knows what he looks like, and what he likes, and what people think, and it’s not always easy to just not care. It’s not like he stops looking in the mirror and wishing things were a bit different, or a lot different, sometimes. It's not like it never bothers him, not like all his hang ups disappeared over night, or over weeks, or even months. Maybe they'd never go away completely, not while he still lived in his own skin, not while there were people who took one look at him and could only see the girl, the Fairy, whatever.

But there are times when all that noise just gets drowned out. When his phone buzzes with a text out of the blue, when he hears his voice on his speaker, when he sees his face on his computer screen, when he gets photos of where he wishes he could be with him, when he gets on a plane knowing he’ll get to see him soon, when he spots him from across the hotel lobby, when he jumps into his arms and nearly knocks him down, when he hears his “Davai!” as he steps onto the ice, when they finally get to be together, alone.

These are times when he is absolutely comfortable, with who he is with, and with who he is.