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Let’s talk about space for a second.
Space expands at the current rate of approximately 68 kilometers per second per megaparsec, and that rate of expansion is always gaining speed. The velocity at which a distant galaxy recedes from the casual observer is increasing all the time. Additionally, the idea that there is no sound in space in inherently untrue. There is no sound in the vacuum of deep space in the large distances between stars and planets, but sound does have the ability to jump around in the interstellar clouds of gas and star remnants if those clouds are dense enough. The thing is, the sound is imperceptible to human ears. There’s more science there, but for the purposes of this metaphor, that’s enough.
The speed of light in space is 299,792 kilometers per second. Theoretically, nothing travels faster.
Now let’s talk about Yuri Plisetsky.
On ice, Yuri Plisetsky travels at a rate of approximately 25 kilometers an hour as he enters his quads, and he seems to be skating faster all the time. The velocity at which he recedes from the casual observer is increasing all the time. Yuri is also, by nature, loud. His voice and natural noise precede him in nearly every environment. His sound has the ability to jump from room to room, building to building, screen to screen with very little resistance. His sound is perceptible to damn near every ear in a three-block radius, but it means just a little bit more when it vibrates a specific set of bones in the middle of a specific set of ears.
Yuri is light personified. Theoretically, nothing on Earth causes a very particular heart to beat faster.
Yuri Plisetsky is a universe unto himself. He’s an entire galaxy full of stars, planets, asteroids, and comets. Curiously enough, however, his universe only carries one moon. The scientific name of that moon would be something along the lines of Devotum Perpetuum I, however, in this particular application, the colloquial name would be spoken as Otabek Altin. This moon circuits the very edges of the Plisetsky universe, where it watches over and consistently turns the tides of every celestial body within the space it guards.
From a scientific standpoint, there are no two beings in this - or any other - universe better meant to be together. This is Otabek’s well-researched hypothesis, anyway. Late at night, when he’s elbow deep in physics textbooks and two separate calculators, when he’s flipping hurriedly through theoretical mathematics worksheets, or when he’s rewriting fifteen page papers about the Partial Impact theory, he thinks about the stars, he thinks about the sun, he thinks about all things bright and beautiful in the universe and he can’t help but think they seem dim in comparison to Yuri. No pull is quite as strong as that of Yuri’s gravity. Otabek couldn’t tear himself out of orbit even if he tried.
This poses an issue for a couple of reasons:
- While he definitely could, he absolutely can’t write fifteen page papers about Yuri’s brilliance and importance to the very fabric of the Altin Spacetime Continuum.
- These very flowery metaphors and very ardent thoughts and feelings are things Otabek has never uttered a word of to anyone but himself in the safety and privacy of his own apartment, at midnight, while eating bowls of cold cereal and squinting out over the starry lights of his city through smudged reading glasses.
As one could probably imagine, this is very inconvenient.
Another source of inconvenience: Otabek’s impending retirement from the very thread that originally connected him to his personal stardust dispenser. It’s a subject they’ve only broached twice in the last year, but it’s touchy for both of them, albeit for differing reasons. For Yuri, the final pillar of the generation of skaters he’s used to competing against is leaving. They’re both older now, pushing the boundaries of what is considered a serviceable age to be competitive anymore, and so Yuri is constantly reminded that his own time is drawing near. For Otabek, this means that seeing each other, being near each other, will be so much more rare than when they could hang out at competitions and spend time alone after them. He’ll be finishing his degree in a year, and then it’ll be onto a PhD program and perhaps a residency in a lab somewhere.
At the very least, Yuri still has a good two years of skating and three more of school to meet Otabek where he is currently. Otabek would very much like Yuri to meet him where he is. And stay. Forever. Forever is a mighty long time, when you consider the current age of the galaxy and the time left before our sun implodes and takes everything with it.
Either way, in the nebulous stretch of things that have yet come to pass, Otabek feels a specific itch beneath his skin every time he thinks about the moment he and Yuri will split paths for good. Like water through the atmosphere, he pictures it - Yuri continuing out in the world, a blazing meteor of success, while he wisps away, turning to a quiet life of research and presentations, a dog and a yard, two-point-five kids, and a spouse with a muted face and beige personality. It’s not a very appealing picture, so he shakes it from his mind and returns his focus to his skype call with the center of his galaxy.
“-and anyway, it’s not like I’m a fucking moron, you know? I know when to stop. She acts like I’m still fifteen!”
“To her, you’re still a child.”
Bright green eyes flash through his laptop monitor. They look like supernovas, catastrophic and beautiful. If he were a lesser man, Otabek would easily succumb and let those eyes drag him out into space until he suffocates.
“A real vote of confidence there. Thanks, Beka,” Yuri drawls, annoyed and tired.
“Look, I’m just saying that she thinks of you as a son whether you want her to or not. She’ll always see you as young. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. Lilia’s just looking out for you.”
Yuri’s eyes soften. He won’t admit it, but he loves her too. “I guess so. Anyway, your mom called me today.”
Otabek’s spine stiffens, a notebook falling out of his lap. His mother calling Yuri never ends well for him. It’s not that she doesn’t like Yuri, quite the opposite in fact. Otabek’s been best friends with Yuri for years now and through constant phone calls and visits, run-ins at competitions, and the odd card or two, his mother has come to think of Yuri as a second son. Which would be fine if she didn’t think of him as ‘Yuri Plisetsky, my adoptive second son and future son-in-law, who I am constantly vetting in the least subtle of ways to ensure that when my true son is ready to take him, he will be ready to become my married second son, amen.’ Otabek closes his eyes to brace for impact.
“She thinks I should come visit you once the season is over and you’ve fully retired.”
That’s not so bad. They haven’t visited in a while, actually. It’s been a busy eight months or so for them. He opens his eyes and glances up at Yuri, his shining emerald gaze boring holes into him.
“And did she say why she thought you should come visit? Not that I don’t want to have you, Yura.”
Yuri waves his hand casually through the air. “Something about you and your crushing existential dread and needing a distraction from your crumbling self-confidence.”
Otabek blinks at Yuri through the camera. Yuri blinks back, mouth wobbling and nostrils flaring. It’s the face he makes before he bursts into the kind of raucous laughter that haunts Otabek’s dreams. All that’s missing is the customary-ah, there it is, the nose scrunch. Yuri rips a throaty snort, enough to startle a sleeping Potya from his lap, and slaps himself in the chest.
“Nah, she just said you could use a friend for the transition. I get three weeks off after the season, and we haven’t hung out in a while, so I figured it’d be good, you know?” he cuts his eyes down to the floor, a sure sign that he’s suddenly feeling bashful. He doesn’t get that way often, and if you didn’t know him, it’d be hard to tell. But Otabek may as well already have his Masters in Plisetsky-ology, so he sees it plain as the sunshine hurtling toward Earth. “Besides, I miss you.”
In recent years, scientists have managed to figure out how to stop a beam of light in its tracks and restart it again by trapping it in a crystal. If he were to picture the steady thrumming of his beating heart as the physical waves on an EKG, Otabek imagines it would look much the same. The peaks and valleys of his pulse, steady steady steady, then I miss you , a crystal, stopping the motion in its tracks. I miss you , flowing through his veins, particles of silicate collecting and clogging until finally, his blood pressure regains, flushing out the stoppage and once again returning to homeostasis. He feels it like a hand around his throat, tightening and constricting, but in a pleasant way. It’s the kind of smothering he doesn’t think he’d mind. He smiles at the thought.
“I miss you, too. You should come.”
Yuri smiles, bright and beatific, and Otabek considers changing his comparison. Perhaps Yuri isn’t the universe, but instead the very being who brings the universe to pass.
+++
As stated by the theory of relativity, time dilation is the phenomenon wherein time measured by two separate observers elapses differently. This can be due to a difference in relative velocity or in the two parties’ situation around a gravitational field.
The season at large slips by as though Otabek is both parties and time is dilated to the maximum, and when the end appears after a lifetime but no time at all, so does Otabek’s last stand atop a podium. It’s a strange feeling, taking his final bow with gold draped over his shoulders. He feels nostalgia for a childhood gone by, uncertainty for an adulthood yet to come, regret for things left unaccomplished, and pride for all he’s managed to achieve, whether he’s earned recognition for it or not. Yuri beams up at his chest from the silver platform, a plane ticket to Almaty for three days from now tucked in his suitcase back in their shared room, and that’s enough for him. He’s made his country proud, he’s earned his title as Hero, and now he can step aside for the next generation to come forward and take their place in the chronicles of time. All that stands between Otabek and his next step is a press conference and a banquet.
Yuri grabs him by the wrist and tugs him toward the locker rooms, in the opposite direction of the waiting throng of rinkside reporters with a mumbled, “You don’t need that shit right now.”
Otabek tries to smother his grin at Yuri’s gruff caring. The years have softened him, helped sand down his harsh edges, but he still can’t help but get cranky when he’s tired and in public. It’s impossibly endearing.
“What do I need right now, Yura?” Otabek asks, cocking a brow when Yuri looks back at him over his shoulder.
“A drink.”
Ah.
“Ah.”
“But first,” Yuri continues, tugging him through the door and planting him down on a bench, “you need this.”
Yuri reaches into the depths of his assigned locker and tugs out a small package, tossing it down on Otabek’s lap. It’s neatly wrapped in star patterned paper, silver bow placed dead center on the top, with a little moon shaped tag tucked under the ribbon. Otabek flips the tag over to read here you go, asshole, and snorts softly through his nose.
He tugs the ribbon off, slips a finger under the tape, and slowly, carefully pulls the paper away from the box. When he takes the lid off, he’s faced with a single key attached to a keychain with an enamel charm in the shape of Saturn dangling from the end. He lets the key drop into his hand from the box and darts his eyes up to Yuri’s face, tinged the slightest shade of red.
“Yura, what is this?”
Yuri clears his throat and rolls his eyes. “It’s to my apartment, dickweed. That way you know you’re always welcome to come visit whenever I’m home. I know you’ve been worried we won’t be friends anymore, which is fucking stupid by the way, but there’s no way we won’t be. This is just to prove it.”
Otabek rushes from the bench and scoops Yuri up into a hug. He’s grown taller than Otabek at this point, but he’s still lissome enough that Otabek can easily heft his weight with minimal effort. Otabek presses his face into Yuri’s chest and breathes in deep.
“Thank you, Yura.”
Yuri awkwardly pats his shoulder from above. “I’ll always be here for you, Beka. You know that, right?”
Otabek presses his face forward again, inhaling moondust and sunbeams. Yuri is the fresh scent of ozone and the sparkling light of shooting stars. It makes his head spin, he loves him so much.
“I know,” Otabek breathes, muffled by the silken fabric of Yuri’s team jacket. He finally sets Yuri back down and gazes up into clear, sea glass eyes. They shift and shimmer like the tides, and Otabek can’t help but wonder if for once, his gravity is affecting someone else. Yuri nudges his shoulder with a hand.
“C’mon loser, we’ve still got work to do.”
They change and march into the press conference, taking their respective seats at the table and Otabek prepares for the tiring onslaught of end-of-an-era comments and questions about what he’s going to do with his life now. Everyone knows he keeps his cards close to his chest. He hasn’t even thought about what his comments today will be. It’s still a blurry framework, what he plans to say. His coach tried to talk him through it, but he just shut down on him until the conversation was over. Now he wishes he had saved some patience for that prep.
He zones out, letting the minutes swim by him in nondescript motion, barely hanging on to what’s being said. Yuri gesticulates wildly beside him as he describes how he’ll be crushing the new generation of skaters beneath his bladed feet, and Otabek comes back to himself just in time for the questions to reach him.
“Mister Altin, to say that today is truly the end of an era would be an understatement, I think,” a reporter begins, and he braces himself for the question. “Now that you’ve proven yourself to the world and your country, what will the Hero of Kazakhstan do?”
Otabek pauses a beat and leans forward to the microphone. “Rest.”
The room erupts into laughter. Otabek doesn’t think it was that funny, but Yuri presses his knee into his thigh, and he forgets his annoyance and continues.
“I’m going to rest. I’m nearly finished with the current phase of my education, and then I’ll be ready to move on. It’s time for new athletes to represent my home and make a place for themselves. I am ready to look to the future.” Otabek pauses long enough to glance at Yuri. His face is unbelievably soft and proud. Otabek’s soul nearly escapes through the stratosphere. “I’m very happy with what I’ve done and proud to have had the chance to represent Kazakhstan for these many years. I’d like to thank my country for their support. That’s all I have to say. Thank you.”
The crowd of reporters continues on shouting for attention, but the athletes are jittery and ready to go, so the conference is brought to an end. As Otabek shuffles out, gaze locked to his medal and head in the clouds, Yuri strides alongside him, the back of their hands occasionally brushing against one another.
“I’m proud of you, Hero.”
By definition, a black hole is an area in spacetime that holds such a strong gravitational pull that it is impossible to break free from its clutches. Nothing, not even light, can escape it. This tends to be used in the negative, such as describing the underneath of a bed, the back of a closet, or the trunk of a car. In this case, however, Yuri’s pride is of the supermassive variety. The event horizon in which Otabek is trapped and pulled in with no hope of escape is wide and all-consuming. The difference here is the fact that the black hole is welcoming and kind. It’s endlessly supportive and whip-smart. It’s beautiful and soft and it’s everything Otabek aspires to reach.
He’ll gladly succumb with open arms.
+++
Yuri and Otabek emerge from a plane, slightly rumpled and very tired, to a warm Almaty day. Otabek’s mother is busy readying the house for his return home, so she’s sent his brother to retrieve them. Serik grins and lazily waves to them from next to the baggage carousel and Yuri grins back, punching him in the shoulder as they approach.
“What’s up, Sasquatch?” Yuri asks. Otabek still isn’t quite sure why that’s a nickname that happened, but he also doesn’t think he wants to know, so he’s never asked.
“Not much, Firefly. How ya been?” Otabek does know where that nickname came from, and he quite agrees; Yuri is a tiny, furious ball of light that comes alive in the most amusing ways.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Kicking ass, taking names.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“Oh, also, I brought your brother home.”
“Ehh, I see him enough.”
Serik and Yuri laugh, and Otabek casts his eyes heavenward, praying for strength. Yuri spots their luggage and wanders off to grab it from the conveyor belt, leaving Otabek and his brother alone.
“So,” Serik mumbles, nudging him with an elbow, “you sweep him off his feet yet?”
Otabek feels his face go hot and his hackles raise. He cuts a sideways glance at his brother. It falls just off-center of nonchalance.
“Dunno what you mean,” Otabek says.
“C’mon, man. You’re both gross-nasty over each other. It’s obvious that you think the sun, stars, and moon shine out of each other’s ass, so get it together already.”
Yuri makes his way back over with two rolling suitcases and a duffle bag. Serik nudges Otabek again.
“If you don’t, mom’ll murder you in your sleep. Is that everything, Yuri?”
Serik strides away to take a suitcase and lead them out to the car. The drive home is comfortable, full of familiar chatter and the banter that only the two biggest shit-stirrers he knows could volley. Upon their arrival, Otabek’s mother is already standing on the front porch. As he straightens up in his seat, he sees Yuri slip his phone in his pocket, leading him to deduce that the blond is the reason she stands ready for them. He really wishes she would bring it down a notch.
They step out of the car, and his mother makes a beeline for Yuri, squealing and hugging and pinching his sides. The usual mothering begins, and in between questions about what Yuri’s eating and how tall he’s gotten, Otabek slips in a peck to her cheek and heads inside with their luggage. Whenever Yuri visits, he camps out on a pull-out bed on the floor of Otabek’s childhood room, so he makes it his first stop to drop their bags and collapse face first on the bed.
Not long after, he hears the front door slam and the delighted screeching of his little sister, Aisulu, tearing through the halls as she launches in Yuri’s direction. One day, Otabek thinks he’ll start to be offended at how much more his family loves Yuri.
The house fills with the warm sounds of welcoming as Yuri descends further into its depths, and Otabek smiles, struggling against the pull of sleep. His door swishes open, and he flops his head over, spotting the silhouette of his mother as she steps into his room and settles at the edge of his bed. Her fingers brush through his hair just like they used to when he was a child.
“He gets more beautiful every time you bring him home, my son.”
“He gets more beautiful every day.”
Her hand stutters in his hair briefly before she continues her previous ministrations.
“And when will he come home as your fiance?”
“Mama, please,” Otabek sighs. “I don’t know how he feels.”
“Ah, but I do. You can trust your mother’s senses! We have intuition for these things. That boy would marry you tomorrow if you asked.”
A knock at the door interrupts them, and Yuri pokes his head in.
“I’ve been sent to fetch the missing Altins for dinner.” He tosses a wink at Otabek and his mother before leaning back out and padding down the hallway. Otabek’s mother turns back around to face him again.
“Please, Beka. I’m begging you. I love that boy and so do you. Ease your mother’s poor heart.”
Otabek rolls his eyes fondly and stands from the bed, holding his hand out to help her up.
The evening passes with quality family time and a rousing recreation of the day Yuri met Otabek’s father as told by Aisulu, complete with finger mustache and deep baritone when she speaks as the eldest Altin. Otabek sits at the end of the couch, with Yuri cross-legged beside him. Each time he laughs, his sharp knee knocks against Otabek’s thigh, and Otabek’s mother’s eyes focus laser-sharp on the contact.
In astrophysics, spectroscopy is the study of the way matter and electromagnetic radiation interact. The easiest way to mark this interaction is to view light through a prism, wherein the individual colors of the beam are scattered out in a visible rainbow.
Here, in the Altin family living room, Mama Altin is the prism, and Yuri and Otabek the beam of light. Each interaction filters through her notice and scatters out into the individual threads of their relationship, where she gives each color a name and meaning and assigns importance to them all.
“Yura,” she says abruptly, once Aisulu has taken her final bow for her performance, “tell us about your plans for the future.”
Otabek chokes back his scream.
“I mean, I’ve still got a couple years of skating in me. I started school last year. So, I dunno, really. I’d like to teach literature.”
“Oh really? And do you know where you’d like to teach?”
“What like, a place? Or a level? I’d like to teach university, if that’s what you mean.”
“Hmm, but is there a particular school you’d like to teach at?”
“Ehh, I don’t really know.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” she answers, raising her eyebrows in Otabek’s direction. “I know some schools that you might look into.”
The whole family looks Otabek’s direction and he does his level best to not melt into the couch. They go to bed that night with his family’s judgement still lingering on his shoulders, and Otabek tries very hard to remember why it is he still visits them.
The next day, they get up early and go to Otabek’s home rink for some recreational skating. Yuri challenges him to laps around the rink, and even though they both know how it will end, he still takes the bait. The day slips by with Yuri passing him by while talking Otabek through his thoughts for his programs for next season, and when they finally step outside again, the sun is already settling over the horizon in a cascade of pinks and oranges.
They ride Otabek’s motorcycle through the city so he can take Yuri past their usual tourist stops for his customary instagram photos, and then make their way back home for dinner. Aisulu steals Yuri for the night, so Otabek, Serik, and their father sit out back on the porch and talk about the future.
“You’ll be done with school soon, won’t you, nerd?” Serik asks.
“Yeah,” Otabek confirms. “I’ve got a year left on my Bachelors.”
“You still gonna get that PhD?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. I wouldn’t mind being called doctor.”
“I bet you wouldn’t mind Yuri calling you doctor.”
“Son,” their father warns.
“What?! I’m just saying. Those two need to get their act together already.”
“Be that as it may.”
“Be that as what may?” Otabek demands.
“Your crushing, passionate love, my son.”
Otabek sputters into the night air and Serik loud laughs at his misfortune.
“You should address these feelings, my boy.”
Otabek was wrong, his father is the biggest shit stirrer of them all. Yuri’s snort rips through the sliding glass door, and Otabek smiles at the sound. His father reaches out and pats his hand.
“We all love him, son. We really do.”
Serik smirks at him. “Get you some Russian booty, bro!”
“OKAY,” Otabek announces, surging up from his chair, “I’m going to bed.”
The following morning, Otabek wakes to an empty room and trudges into the kitchen to find Yuri and his mother cutting fruit and laughing softly with each other at the island. Otabek pauses in the doorway, but his mother spots him and beckons him in.
“Beka, my light, I was just telling Yura about the summer cabin! You should take him.”
“Yeah, Beka,” Yuri says, leaning forward over the bowl of fruit, “I wanna see this thing!”
“Hmm, maybe we’ll go,” Otabek concedes, stepping forward and popping a piece of strawberry in his mouth.
“Yura dear, take that bowl to the table, I think we’ve both cut enough for one day.”
Yuri grabs the fruit salad and makes his way into the dining room. Once he’s fully out of earshot, Otabek’s mother grabs him by the collar and yanks him over the counter.
“Otabek Altin, you listen to me and you listen to me well. You will pack up your things, you will drive that boy to that cabin, and you will stay there until you sort yourselves out. Do not come back home until he is yours. If you fail, I will never look at you, I will never speak to you, and I will never acknowledge you as my son ever again. Do you understand?”
The theory of special relativity as posited by Albert Einstein asserts two things: first, the laws of physics do not change in any non-accelerating environment, and second, the speed of light in a vacuum is the same, regardless of its motion, for all observers. Currently, special relativity remains the most reliable model for motion at any speed when gravitational effects are insignificant.
The theory of motherly relativity as posited by Otabek Altin asserts these two things: first, the laws of self-preservation do not matter in any motherly-accelerated environment, and second, the speed of a relationship in a mother-initiated vacuum is never fast enough, regardless of its motion, for all observers. Currently, motherly relatively overrides any other model of physics at any speed whether gravitational effects are significant or not.
“I understand, mama.”
+++
The Big Bang theory explains that our universe came to being through a process of rapid expansion, originating from an extremely hot and incredibly dense point of matter. This singular point was knocked into sudden expansion, and continues expanding to this day. According to scientists, this expansion will continue inevitably and infinitely, and recent measurements show that this expansion is constantly accelerating. Inside of this expansion, our Milky Way galaxy, as well as many others, were formed and exist in their own right. Eventually, our sun will reach its death, expanding and then ultimately folding in on itself to become a white dwarf before finally, sadly, burning itself out. Our sun, after all, is not an altogether high-mass star, and so it will hobble along to its end, rather than screech its way to the grave.
It’s almost poetic, how our universe began with an explosion and will end with an implosion.
To say that arriving at the Altin family summer cabin feels like Otabek’s personal Big Bang would be very dramatic, indeed. So Otabek doesn’t say it. He merely thinks it, feels it, folds it into himself to become an intrinsic part of his being. He watches Yuri’s face light up as they pull up the drive to the front of the house, he listens as Yuri catapults from the passenger seat, leopard-print high tops crunching loudly in the gravel, he smiles as the warmth of the sun and the humid lakeside breeze brush his face. He compartmentalizes all these things and files them neatly away in the spaces of his mind that hold his fondest memories. Still, he heavily feels the implication of new beginnings wrapped up in their arrival.
Yuri races back to the trunk of the car to help Otabek pull their bags out, excitedly hopping from foot to foot and rapidfire shooting questions his way (Jesus, Otabek how rich are you guys? Has your family always had this place? How come I’m just now learning about it?! Can your mom adopt me? Can she just, like, write me into her will or something? ). Otabek laughs openly at his enthusiasm and walks toward the front door rather than answering the questions (Not rich, just fortunate. For as long as I’ve been alive, at least. It never really came up. She would love nothing more. Hopefully, someday, she’ll have a reason to.), leaving Yuri to trail up the stairs behind him.
They spend their first few nights in the cabin dusting and putting away groceries and clothes. They have to return to the nearest store twice, first when Yuri realizes he forgot to bring sunblock, and again when Otabek realizes there’s no toilet paper in the cabin (they remembered three types of pretzels, but no toilet paper - it’s very them).
On the fifth day of their stay, Otabek wakes Yuri up early, tempting him out of bed with a cup of hot coffee and the promise of something awesome. They eat breakfast in comfortable silence, and after cleaning up the kitchen, Otabek shows his hand.
“We’re going for a hike today.”
“All of this mystery for that? Beka, you know I’m not afraid of nature.” Yuri scoffs as he throws on a pair of beat up running shoes. Otabek does know this, he knows it intimately, because they very often do things outside when they visit each other. The thing is, this hike is a little different than their normal excursions. Otabek has plans for this hike.
“Yeah, Yura, I know. This one’s gonna be kind of a long one, though. As in, I’m bringing a tent and we’re staying there overnight kinda deal.”
Yuri’s eyes go saucer wide. “You brought me to a cabin so we could leave to go camping? We came to the middle of the woods so we could go further into the middle of the woods?”
Otabek huffs a breath and nods.
“Wood-ception,” Yuri breathes with a laugh. “What do I need to carry?”
And that’s that. With a tent slung across his back, and a backpack thrown over Yuri’s, they make their way through the trees to a well-worn path up the side of a low mountain. It’s a path Otabek has traveled many times over in his life, from the moment he could toddle up until he left home for bigger goals. This is the first time he’s walked it in a handful of years, but it feels as though his last hike was just yesterday. He still remembers every curve and dip, every bush and branch, every familiar birdsong and squirrel chirp.
Yuri follows along beside him, effervescent and bright, as they prattle on about everything and nothing. He updates Otabek on his Dedushka ("That old goat’ll never die. He’ll look the Grim Reaper in the face and laugh before he accepts the end.”), Potya’s current state of being (“She’s just as magnificent as ever, Beka. You know how they say old age makes women more majestic? She’s like, the fucking Queen or something. So fuckin’ majestic."), and how he still does not understand the point of movie trailers ( “If you say the movie starts at seven, then the movie should start at fucking seven! Not ‘well, the trailers that we play before the movie start at seven, so the movie will start at seven twenty, hold on to your ass until then’!”). Otabek laughs and interjects his own observations as they go, telling Yuri stories of the new antics his siblings have gotten up to in the last few months, and how his friends have tried to start a new gambling ring in the city, but they can’t figure out how to advertise it without getting busted. Yuri laughs at their idiocy and tries his best not to act like he’s definitely going to text them to ask if he can help.
Finally, after a few hours of walking, they reach the familiar clearing that shaped so many of Otabek’s childhood memories. It’s just as beautiful and untouched as ever, looking out over the lake at the bottom of the valley, framing the view with tall, strong trees. Yuri gasps as he breaks through the treeline and spins back around to face Otabek with his hands spread wide.
“Otabek Altin, how dare you keep this from me, your best friend and greatest ally?! This is betrayal of the highest order!”
Yuri’s eyes squint with his laughter, and from his eyelashes, stars are born, twinkling and shining in the space between them. The clearing lights up just a little bit brighter, the mottled yellows and greens of foliage-filtered sunbeams joined by the hot-white expansion of pure light and energy. Yuri’s eyes reopen, and the supernovas are back, flashing brilliant before him and him alone. Otabek is a greedy man, he brought them here for this very purpose. To spend a day, just him and that dazzling light.
Yuri drops the bag next to a log in the center of the patch of forest and reaches out to Otabek. He draws closer without thought, a satellite pulled in by a passing planet. Yuri smiles up at him.
“Where do we put the tent?”
A measurable side effect of time dilation is the fact that time on Earth moves just a hair faster than time in space. This is due to the Earth’s rotation on its axis, as well as her location within our solar system. All of this to say, Otabek very much feels like the clearing is Earth and the rest of the forest is space itself. Their daylight slips quickly by in a hazy cloud of clacking tent poles and laughter and hunting for firewood. Night draws her darkness over them in a crystalline shroud, and suddenly, they’re on their backs on a blanket, with a fire crackling beside them and their hands raised high, pointing out constellations and distant heavenly bodies. Yuri asks about all the things Otabek spends hours in books to learn, and he does his best to break down the concepts so familiar to him.
“So you’re telling me that planets happened from dust?”
“In so many words, yeah. We’re made up of the same stuff, too. We’re all dust.”
“Dust-ception.”
Otabek laughs. “Dust-ception.”
Yuri rolls over on his side, a hand planted to the side of his head, propping him up on an elbow. He stares at Otabek’s face for a moment, bottom lip pulled between teeth the way he so often does when he’s considering something. Otabek remains as he is, facing the heavens. Yuri will speak when he’s ready, and Otabek will always give him his time.
“So, what’s your favorite thing? Your favorite space thing, I mean.”
Otabek cocks a brow and glances at him from the corner of his eye. “My favorite space thing?”
“Yeah, I wanna know.”
Otabek rolls over, mirroring Yuri’s pose. He knows what he wants to say. The words bubble and froth behind his lips, begging to be released, dispersed over the blanket, left to float on the air. Otabek clamps his teeth against the tide. He’s not quite ready yet.
“I think,” he begins, pausing to consider, “I think my favorite space thing is the thought that we’re not alone.”
Yuri chuckles at him. “Otabek “Dark Horse” Altin admits that he doesn’t like being alone.”
Otabek frowns a bit and shakes his head. He enjoys specific company. He enjoys specific personal time. It’s a balance, really. Either way, that’s not the point. His next words spill forth before he can catch them. “No, I like being alone. I just know who I want to give my time to when I’m not.”
Yuri stills, a light swath of pink coating his nose and cheeks. Otabek continues, pretending that he didn’t possibly admit what he definitely possibly admitted.
“It’s not that, though. It’s that...okay, so humans are a really self-confident bunch, right? We think we’re the apex, the end-all-be-all. But with as huge as the universe is, and with as many galaxies as there are out there, it only stands to reason that there may be some other civilization of beings out there that think just the same way. We might behave similarly, we might do the same kinds of things, we might make the same sorts of connections,” Otabek gives Yuri a meaningful glance, “and we’re doing all these things while being none the wiser. Some day, when everything disappears for one of us, the others may still be able to keep going. They can keep growing and learning and innovating. I think that’s incredible.”
Otabek finishes, sucking in a deep breath, but Yuri stays still. His eyes skate over Otabek’s face, bouncing between his eyes, tracing the line of his nose, dipping to his mouth and back up.
“I think you’re incredible, Otabek Altin.”
Astronomers use the Doppler Effect to derive information about stars and galaxies. The Doppler Effect can be summed up as this: whenever the source of any type of wave is moving in respect to its observer’s location, there is a perceived shift in the frequency of those waves. This doesn’t mean the frequency is actually changing, it just means that as the source moves away, the waves have to travel further and therefore, they spread out a little more as they travel and are experienced at a slower rate. In astronomy, a shift in the frequency of electromagnetic waves around a central mass point that trends upward (i.e. the frequency sounds faster) would indicate that a particular star is rotating toward Earth.
Were there to be a batch of observers monitoring this event, this I think you’re incredible, this ripple across Otabek’s atmosphere, they would note an astronomical upward shift in the frequency of his waves around a particularly blond central mass point. This bright star that keeps him tethered to Earth while his mind is in the clouds, this central density that draws him forward with every flick of a wrist and snort of laughter, this neutron star of a man, hot and dense and steady, pulls him forward and encourages him.
Otabek’s hand raises before he realizes what he’s doing and rests itself across a smooth cheek, thumb brushing the sharp angle of time-defined bone. Yuri’s eyelids flutter, his own hand raising to lay cool fingers across Otabek’s superheated flesh. Their fingers interlace, and Otabek summons every ounce of courage simmering in his bones to drop his hand to Yuri’s waist and pull. Yuri drags across the blanket, slotting below his chin, silken hair brushing his neck, warm breaths puffing out across the chest of his t-shirt, ragged and moist. He is a satellite returned to Earth. He is an escape pod splashing into the ocean. He’s been out exploring for some time, collecting samples and gathering data, and now he’s back where he belongs. Now he’s home.
“We should talk about this,” Yuri yawns into Otabek’s throat.
“Yeah,” Otabek breathes. “We should.”
They don’t. Their tent goes unused. They fall asleep beneath the stars.
They wake up in the morning, shivering and dew-drenched, but peaceful and fulfilled. The camp is packed away, their fire pit fully extinguished, and they return to the footpath that continues to mark important days in Otabek’s life. As they approach the cabin where the week began, Yuri trails fingertips across Otabek’s waist as he passes by without looking back. They still haven’t said a word. There are many words to be said. They’ll get there, he knows. There’s still a week left.
Otabek follows Yuri inside, he’ll always follow Yuri, he thinks. This is just his destiny. He sets the tent down on the kitchen floor and removes his hiking boots, padding through the kitchen toward his bedroom for a change of clothes. As he rifles through his suitcase, Yuri appears in the doorway, arms crossed and lazily leaning against the frame, dressed in swim trunks and the same beat up sneakers he wore up the side of the mountain. He looks resplendent, bathed in the dust-laden gold of the sun’s light trickling through weathered windows.
“My grandpa says that the best thinking is done in water.”
Otabek straightens from his crouch. “Does he now?”
“Mmhm. Let’s go swimming.”
So they do. Yuri drags Otabek to the lake by his wrist and throws him off the pier, laughing as he jumps in behind him. They swim close, not quite touching, but enough to feel each other’s presence through the water.
“So,” Yuri begins, “last night happened.”
Otabek barks out a laugh and looks out across the lake. “It certainly did.”
A hand softly brushes Otabek’s arm as Yuri paddles around to face him. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
He’s thinking of metaphors, mostly; stars and moons and comets, faith and exploration and dedication, trust and hope and expectation. These metaphors are too big for his body. His love is too big for his body. It buzzes under his skin and sets a soundtrack that flows through him, sending his fingers tapping patterns in the water.
“I’m thinking,” he says instead, “that I love you more than anyone has a right to love anything. That I love you more than maybe I should. That I love you more than anything in this universe.”
Yuri’s smile is blinding, his laughter melodic, his movements pure grace as he presses closer in the water, hands resting against Otabek’s neck.
“I already knew that, Beka.” Warm lips press themselves against Otabek’s mouth and his world explodes, dazzling colors and sizzling sparks dropping around where they float, weightless and alone. Yuri pulls away, smiling with a softer edge, looking for all the world like the angel that he is. “I love you, too.”
Yuri’s hands work their way up to the sides of Otabek’s face, back past his ears, around his head. His fingers comb through the buzzed back of a long-worn undercut, playing through the hairs like breeze across a wheatfield. Otabek’s eyelids slip closed, reveling in the sensation, the soft heat of want growing in his core. Yuri’s right hand slips back around to rest on Otabek’s jawline, an ice-calloused thumb brushing gently over his bottom lip. Otabek’s eyes snap open to take in Yuri’s face, open and attractive, eyes half open and clouded with desire. He reaches up, grasping Yuri by both wrists.
“Let’s go inside, Yura,” he rasps.
Time is a hotly debated concept. Time itself does pass in noticeable ways. The measurement of time, however, is a man-made construct. It only passes the way humanity says it does because humanity says it does. Time, therefore, is subjective in a sense.
In this sense, in this cabin, in the final week of their stay, time passes honey-sweet and molasses-thick. Time is measured in the slide of skin against skin, lips against lips, breaths fanned out sweetly against bodies. The cadences of their pulses rise and fall in time with their joint motions, spinning out in hot waves and trapped, with them, beneath a dark expanse of sheets. They burn themselves out, twin stars freshly ignited with a new source of fuel.
On their last day, they slow, laying back and luxuriating in the feel of just being. Their fingers trace patterns across each other’s skin, their mouths spill feelings and emotions previously kept tightly under lock and key, their eyes drag beneath the wool-soft heaviness of impending sleep.
“Yura,” Otabek whispers, petting Yuri’s hair with all the delicacy and care housed within his soul. “When you’re done. When you’ve reached the end. When you’re ready, I mean-”
“Yes.”
Scientists say that we have approximately 5 billion years until our sun dies and takes everything with it. Of course, before then, any number of things could occur: in 4.5 billion years, Earth could collide with Mars, decimating both planets, in 4 billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies could collide, ejecting stars and planets from their confines, in 1 billion years, the rapid expansion of the sun in its quest to go boom could evaporate the oceans and take all of humanity out with them.
With Yuri’s drowsing head pillowed on his chest, rising and falling steadily with the circulation of his breaths, Otabek thinks that maybe, maybe that’s just enough time.