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They approached him after the fight.
“To St Petersburg?” Otabek repeated, incredulous, as he paused in unwrapping the bandages from his knuckles.
“We’ve been watching you,” the nameless suit on the left said, after exchanging a quick glance with the one on the right. It was all very cryptic, Otabek thought wryly. Hardly the sort of thing to win friends and influence people, or whatever it was which that book said.
“You have potential,” the other suit added without missing a beat. “We could use someone like you.”
Otabek felt his lip curl. “What are you two, some kind of double act?” He resumed unwrapping his knuckles, dropping the used bandages on the bench beside him in a crumpled heap. “Well?” he prompted.
The suits traded another look. The first one sighed. “Have you ever heard,” he began as he caught Otabek’s gaze and held it, “about the Tsar’s Men?”
And that was how Otabek found himself on board a private jet to Russia, his clothes still damp with the sweat from his last underground boxing match, with the title of a Tsarsman candidate tagged to his name.
=-=-=
The Tsarsman was a private intelligence service that operated under the cover of ice skating complex. Otabek found this incredibly funny.
“It just is,” he tried to explain to the suits – his sponsors, he corrected himself mentally, Feltsman and Baranovskaya – when they checked in on him, two weeks into his training. “All these families wandering in to skate, not realising what’s going on beneath the rink.” Ten candidates and twice as many probationary agents, all of them vying to become a permanent agent in the event that one of the permanent agents actually died. Only the crazy or the desperate signed up for this gig; the people who had nowhere to go.
Otabek still wasn’t sure which category he belonged to – only that he was going to beat them all.
Feltsman cracked a smile. It made Otabek wonder if the old man was finally warming up to him. “Just try not to get yourself killed,” he said gruffly. “She and I, we have a bet.”
Otabek schooled his face into stillness. “A bet?”
Baranovskaya smiled thinly, still as cool and elegant as at their first meeting. “You’re not our only candidate.”
“I understand,” Otabek nodded politely, because that was the first rule of this new place: Manners maketh man.
Right above the second rule: Trust no one.
=-=-=
Every day was a test.
Otabek learnt this on his first night when, without warning, the shared dormitory they had been shown to was filled to the ceiling with water. Otabek had made it out, but only just barely. Afterwards, he remained crouched on the cold linoleum of the corridor outside, his arms still trembling from the effort it had taken to punch through the two-way mirror, his chest heaving as he gulped each new breath of air greedily. Behind him, another candidate retched.
In the morning, they discovered that one of their number had not survived.
Otabek collected his breakfast from the counter and made his way to one of the tables in the corner of the canteen. The other candidates were clustered around one of the larger tables in the centre of the room, more subdued now than they were yesterday. None of them paid Otabek any mind, which did not surprise him in the least. He was, after all, a scrappy nobody from Kazakhstan, without a family or a ruble to his name. He had seen the way their eyes had shuttered when he had introduced himself the day before, and the way their attention had cooled from calculated curiosity to polite disinterest.
Otabek told himself that he didn’t care.
He took his seat quietly, and scrutinised the food warily for poison before digging his spoon into the bowl of kasha.
Every day was a test, and any day could be his last. He had no time for making friends.
At least the food here was better than when he was living off the streets in Almaty.
=-=-=
They were three months into their training when the powers-that-be decided that they were ready to spar against each other. Otabek had been looking forward to just such a moment.
He dispatched his first two opponents easily enough, and took a vicious satisfaction in the way they limped out of the sparring circle. He was debating internally whether to go easy on his third opponent when Yuri Plisetsky stepped into the circle.
Their eyes met.
Held.
For the first time since coming to St Petersburg, Otabek had the distinct feeling of being looked at, properly looked at, and noticed. It was altogether disconcerting.
“What – “ he faltered, his body dropping its defensive stance.
On the other side of the circle, Yuri Plisetsky’s gaze hardened. "See something you like?" he snarked, a split second before snapping a swift roundhouse kick at Otabek’s knees.
Otabek leapt out of the way, but he was too late. A sharp elbow met his solar plexus, and Otabek landed on his back with a resounding oomph. He blinked dazedly at the ceiling as a blond head loomed into view.
"Give?" Plisetsky smirked, bright and dazzling and cruel.
Humiliation flashed through Otabek’s body, hot and blinding, before being replaced almost immediately by an impossible calm. Suddenly, Otabek found himself hyper-aware of the rough texture of the floorboards beneath his back, of the cracks in the ceiling, of the pungent smells of sweat and adrenaline that permeated the gym.
Of Plisetsky’s weight centred above him just so.
The world around him hung on a balance. All Otabek had to do was to snap it.
Plisetsky's eyes widened in shock as Otabek hooked an arm around the other boy's back. He flipped them neatly, straddling Plisetsky's slim hips between his thighs.
Otabek let the grin stretch across his lips, feral, half-wild, triumphant. "Never."
Their match ended quickly after that, in Otabek’s favour.
=-=-=
There was a knock on his door.
“Come in,” Otabek grunted, as he lowered himself down into yet another push-up.
Instantly, the door swung open. There was a pause as a Plisetsky glanced about the room, clearly confused, before his gaze dropped to the floor and his mouth fell open in a small o of surprise. He watched wordlessly as Otabek finished his set.
“What is it?” Otabek asked as he climbed back onto his feet, breathing heavily. He snagged a towel from the back of his chair and wiped his bare chest down.
Plisetsky blinked. He seemed oddly distracted. “I…”
Otabek shrugged on t-shirt, before turning to face the other boy in his doorway.
“I didn’t know you had tattoos,” Plisetsky said, his words strung together as though in a rush.
Otabek felt his eyebrows climb. He was not expecting that. Still, “No reason for you to,” he offered awkwardly. “Not like I go around here topless, much.”
“They look cool,” Plisetsky added, his voice still sounding oddly strangled. Now that Otabek was looking at him more closely, he could tell that Plisetsky’s cheeks were flushed, enough that Otabek wondered if he should perhaps offer to take Plisetsky to the medical bay instead. For a moment, he thought about lifting his hand and feeling Plisetsky’s forehead for fever. But that would be overstepping the fragile lines that suddenly lay between them, and so, he didn’t.
“Thank you,” was what he said instead, before lapsing into silence. They stood together awkwardly, Yuri’s attention seemingly glued to his hands, Otabek shifting his weight from one foot to the other, until Otabek cleared his throat. “So, do you want to go with me to breakfast, or not?”
Plisetsky’s head whipped up. “Yeah. Alright.”
They sat together in the cafeteria that morning, and all other mornings after that.
=-=-=
Over time, Plisetsky became Yuri. They took to spending their free hours together, in the sparring room or the firing range. They even ventured to the ice rink above ground, where Otabek had allowed Yuri to teach him how to skate, the both of them taking obvious pleasure in pretending to be normal.
Now and then, however, they just talked.
Yuri, it seemed, had an insatiable curiosity about Otabek’s previous life in Almaty. To his surprise, Otabek discovered that he was more than willing to comply. In turn, Yuri regaled him with stories about growing up in Moscow with his grandfather, about his training in ballet school until two of the Tsar’s Men happened by.
“You’re Feltsman’s and Baranovskaya’s,” Otabek deduced.
Yuri made a face. “More Lilia’s than Yakov’s, I think.” Otabek chuckled, and Yuri scowled. “What?”
“Nothing,” Otabek said, biting his lip to keep himself from smiling. (They would spend the next two minutes in an impromptu wrestle.)
One evening, Otabek found himself speaking about what it was like growing up in the orphanage, about how he had learnt to fight from the bigger boys outside. He had been so terrified, that first fight in the underground ring, but the money had been too good to resist, and somehow, Otabek had won.
Yuri was slumped against Otabek’s chest, curled in like a cat. He stirred drowsily now, his hair on the crown of his head tickled Otabek’s chin. His voice was muffled against the fabric of Otabek’s sweater. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I trust you,” Otabek heard himself say, and was surprised to realise that he even meant it.
=-=-=
They were in their eight month when they finally were promoted to probationary agents, the only two of their batch to have made it this far. They celebrated that night with a bottle of vodka, split evenly between them in the hushed dimness of Otabek’s room.
“To being full agents,” Yuri intoned solemnly as they clicked their glasses together.
“Not if I beat you there first,” Otabek laughed, tossing his shot down.
After that, they took took turns to call the toasts, each toast more silly than the last. At some point, Yuri’s head found its way onto Otabek’s lap, his blond hair pooling across Otabek’s thighs. Otabek carded his fingers through the smooth strands absently, marvelling at their softness.
Yuri blinked owlishly up at him. “Do you think there are others out there?” =
Otabek tilted his head. “Others?”
“Others,” Yuri repeated, struggling to sit up. He immediately slumped into Otabek’s chest, and laughed against Otabek’s shoulder.
“Lightweight,” Otabek accused.
Yuri lifted his head. “No, you too,” he pouted.
“You,” Otabek returned, before he remembered what Yuri had said just before. “Others?” he prompted.
“You know. Like, like us. In America. Or, I dunno, England. Do you think there are others like us?”
Otabek shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Yuri’s eyes were wide and green, and his lips were so close, his mouth soft and pink and tempting. Otabek wondered how Yuri’s mouth would taste.
“Mmm.” Yuri swayed closer. “Wonder if we’ll ever get to meet them”
Yuri’s mouth, it turned out, tasted like the cheap vodka they had been drinking, of fire and sin and every dirty dream.
=-=-=
The summons came in the middle of the night: a pick-up from an abandoned airbase, in and out, no fuss.
Except, the airbase wasn’t as abandoned as their intelligence had suggested.
“Huh,” Yuri breathed beside him, while Otabek blinked, adjusting to the sudden light.
Then, instinct took over.
BY now, fighting for Otabek came as naturally as breathing. He ducked beneath the nearest pair of guards as they converged towards him, slamming the butt of his pistol into the first guard, winding him, before drawing his arm back to whip his pistol across the temple of the second. Both guards collapsed, and Otabek moved on to the third, the fourth, the fifth, until he had fought his way to the briefcase they were supposed to pick up. His hand closed around the handle of the briefcase just as Yuri swore, “Shit.”
Otabek turned in time to watch Yuri stumble and fall onto his hands and knees. There was a large gash across Yuri’s side, and the guard above Yuri was cocking his pistol
Unthinkingly, Otabek lifted his own gun and pulled the trigger.
=-=-=
Part of their training had including protection detail simulation. At that time, Otabek had found it tiresome. Now, however, he was grateful for it.
Their extraction point was two miles north. With their luck at the airbase being what it was, Otabek was unsurprised to discover that the way to their exit was now crawling with more guards too. Still, they made it: Yuri hugging the briefcase protectively against his chest, Otabek keeping Yuri curled close with one arm while shooting at whoever got in the way of their escape with the other.
Otabek set Yuri down carefully onto the grimy floor of the disused shed before heading moving to the other side of the shed to make the call. After that, he returned to Yuri’s side, where he did his best to dress Yuri’s wound.
Yuri’s skin was clammy. Otabek swallowed.
“Stupid,” Yuri slurred, his eyelids fluttering open at Otabek’s touch. His lips twisted into a bloody rictus of a grin. “Should’ve just gone ahead without me. I’m competition.”
Otabek brushed Yuri’s hair away from his forehead gently. “Wouldn’t be fair to win like that.”
“Idiot,” Yuri insisted with a sigh. But he turned his head to press a kiss brush a kiss against Otabek’s palm, and Otabek bit back a smile as he settled down to wait for their back-up to arrive.