Chapter Text
He’d known Otabek was sick, he’d known, he should have fucking done something, “Otabek!” Yuri said, his voice cracking. “Come on, please, goddammit.” He shook Otabek’s shoulders sharply.
Otabek’s head came up with a soft grunt and Yuri exhaled heavily, his hands curling in Otabek’s coat. “Hey, hey, can you hear me?” he said. “Otabek, it’s Yuri, talk to me.”
Otabek’s eyes opened groggily and his arm came up to touch Yuri’s arm, glancing sideways as if disorientated. Yuri leaned back slightly, realising that his heart was hammering.
Otabek look at him blearily for a second before he lifted an arm to his face and started coughing, great heaving hacks that made Yuri flinch.
No fucking way was he leaving Otabek like this, not after he’d been half convinced that he was- that he was-
“You recognise me?” Yuri said over Otabek’s coughing. Otabek jerked his head, yes, but kept coughing. “Alright, you want to come upstairs with me? Come and get warm, have a bath and some soup and stuff?”
Otabek closed his eyes as several particularly hard, painful-sounding coughs wracked him and then he wheezed and stopped.
“You…sure?” he said, his voice thin. Yuri nodded so fast that he jerked something at the back of his neck.
“Yes,” he said, “Yeah, come on.” He took hold of Otabek’s arms, broadcasting his movements so as not to startle the bigger man. “I made soup, but I can come back down for it,” he rambled. “God fucking hell you scared me,” he muttered, before he got to his feet to help Otabek. Otabek staggered up but started coughing the moment he was fully upright. Yuri winced at the sound of it. He should have done something sooner.
The blanket around Otabek’s shoulders was sliding off and Yuri caught the corner and tucked it back over Otabek’s shoulder before he bent down to pick up Otabek’s rucksack, only for a gloved hand to land heavily on his shoulder, pushing him away. He stopped surprised to find Otabek looking at him warily, even as one arm was still covering his mouth as he coughed.
Yuri backed off a step. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “It’s your bag.” He should have realised. Otabek didn’t have much but what he did have was probably important to him. Otabek managed to stop wheezing and he picked up the bag himself whilst Yuri grabbed the soup and mug. “Alright, you okay?” he checked. Otabek nodded but didn’t try to talk. His gaze was lucid, though, and he followed Yuri with sharp eyes as Yuri headed over to the apartment door to let him in, setting the mug down on the floor as he unlocked the door.
The lift was slow enough that Yuri usually took the stairs but this time he waited for it, sending worried glances at Otabek. The dark-haired man’s shoulders were hunched up but he was still obviously tall, taller than Yuri, and Yuri found himself wondering what Otabek would look like with his shoulders back and stood proudly, clean-shaven and the pallor of sickness gone from his tired face.
Yuri let them both into his apartment, feeling a cringe of shame at the obvious nice-ness of it all. It wasn’t even Yuri’s money but his father’s but Yuri shoved the thoughts aside as Otabek started wheezing again, persistent and grating.
“Bath, or soup and tea?” Yuri asked as he ushered Otabek into a chair and went to turn up the heating.
Otabek gestured towards the soup bowl that Yuri had left on the counter and Yuri brought it over with a spoon. Otabek didn’t speak but just nodded in thanks before he curled over the bowl and started spooning it into his mouth.
Yuri moved away to make fresh cups of tea for both of them, and to see what medicines he had. He briefly considered whether Otabek might be addicted to something, but the painkillers were only mild and Otabek’s cough sounded agonising.
“I have painkillers and something specifically for cold and flu,” he said as he passed a mug over to Otabek, who watched him quietly from the armchair except for the slight drag of his breathing. “You can’t have both, apparently. So…?” he offered them and Otabek pointed at the cold and flu and Yuri handed it over. “Want me to run a bath?” he offered when Otabek handed back the package, swallowing a tablet with his tea.
Otabek nodded and Yuri went to do so. The evening passed quickly, with Otabek bathing, his coughing audible from the kitchen, and then flopping down on the couch to lie curled up, his breathing sounding awful. Yuri turned down the volume on the television when he saw Otabek’s eyes closing and he found himself studying Otabek’s face. He’d shaved his face while he was in the bathroom and, to Yuri, he seemed to have an air of nobility, with his proud chin and sharp jaw. His lips were chapped and his cheeks flushed unhealthily and Yuri chewed on his lip in concern, but there wasn’t much to be done except wait and Yuri eventually sighed and headed off to bed.
*
Yuri couldn’t sleep, not with how he could hear Otabek coughing, and then he couldn’t sleep when it stopped, either.
Eventually he pulled himself up out of bed to pad softly into the dimly lit kitchen, both to check on his house guest and to fill a glass of water.
Otabek was lying slackly on his side, apparently dead to the world, except that his face was tight with a frown and Yuri crept closer, wary of waking the other man, but Otabek didn’t stir. He looked badly flushed and his breathing was still bad enough to worry Yuri.
Yuri stepped away to fetch himself that water and look up the symptoms for pneumonia on his phone. Maybe it was just a bad flu. He hoped so. Yuri chewed his lip as he flicked through the medical pages on his phone before looking back at Otabek, finding the man blinking back at him, making him startle.
“Sorry,” Yuri said softly, his stomach twisting in guilt. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Don’t worry,” Otabek said, his voice rough in a way that both sounded painful and sent an inappropriate shiver down Yuri’s spine. An image of Otabek pushing him up against the counter, looking down at him, and kissing him, rushed into Yuri’s head before he pushed it away, blushing. “Can I-” Otabek said, before breaking into coughing and Yuri put his phone away, realising that it was water Otabek wanted and he quickly fetched him some, coming over to hand it to him. Otabek nodded his thanks, looking exhausted and making Yuri feel doubly terrible for waking him.
“Could I check your temperature?” Yuri asked hesitantly, remembering what he’d been reading on his phone.
Otabek lifted his brows before a slight smile crossed his strained face, making Yuri stare at him. “Sure,” he said and swallowed a mouthful of water, “as long as you don’t stick a thermometer up my ass.”
Yuri snorted, breaking into a grin. “No promises,” he teased, before heading off to his medicine cupboard to rummage around. Ah, there it was. He’d never used the thermometer before and he unwrapped it as he came back over to Otabek. It needed batteries and he found some as he was looking over the instructions. Otabek watched him from the couch with dark, tired eyes.
“Goes in your ear, apparently,” he said, poking at the buttons to turn it on. Otabek coughed a little before stopping. Yuri looked up and offered the electronic thermometer to Otabek, who shifted a little to take it, looking bewildered. “Just, um, press the button and hold it in your ear ‘til there’s a beep.” Yuri said.
Otabek did as he said and then they both peered at the screen, “Fuck,” Yuri muttered. “You’re running at 40 degrees.”
Otabek glanced wearily at him, “Is that bad?” he said.
“Yeah,” Yuri muttered, pulling out his phone again to check what he’d read. “If it doesn’t go down in a few hours, you’re meant to call a doctor.” He met Otabek’s eyes, before Otabek just shrugged. “Just keep drinking water, okay?” Yuri said anxiously and Otabek nodded, letting Yuri hand him the water glass again. “And if you get too hot, I’ll run you a cool bath.”
Otabek looked up at him as he drank, and Yuri tried not to notice how Otabek’s throat moved when he swallowed.
“Good of you to do this,” Otabek said roughly, putting the water aside to watch Yuri with that steady, intense gaze, though he looked tired and sick. “I mean it,” he added, when Yuri shrugged awkwardly.
“S’okay,” he said. “Just get better, okay?”
Otabek smiled slightly, “Do my best,” he said before shucking out of the jumper he’d been wearing and slumping back down to close his eyes.
Yuri looked down at the jumper and the other bits of winter clothing that Otabek had shed, “I’ll wash these?” he offered. Otabek just grunted, half-asleep and Yuri picked them up quietly.
Yuri stayed close by for most of the night, tiredly keeping an eye on Otabek and waking him up twice to take his temperature again. It went up a degree the first time, which left Yuri fretting, before it went down. Exhausted with worrying, Yuri collapsed down on the couch opposite Otabek’s, listening to the other man’s rasping breathing in the few seconds before he sank into deep slumber.
*
After his fever broke, Yuri went with Otabek to the doctor to get antibiotics for his cough.
“Pneumonia,” Otabek said offhandedly, coming out of the doctor’s room and Yuri’s stomach dropped.
“What?” he said dumbly, remembering with a sudden panic all the stuff he’d read online about complications and hospital and people dying, “Are you okay?”
Otabek raised his eyebrows, parting his lips to reply before he grimaced and turned away to cough thickly into his elbow for a minute or so. “Yeah,” he said when he’d finished. “It’s mild. I gotta get antibiotics but it’s fine.”
“Oh,” Yuri said, utterly relieved. They walked slowly to the pharmacy, which was only around the corner, in silence, both lost in thought. Yuri fretted over what he was making tonight for dinner for them and whether he would be able to persuade Otabek to take his bed and Yuri sleep on the couch. He just felt guilty coming out of his room in the morning to see Otabek’s large form curled up on the couch.
“Guess you want me gone, huh?” Otabek said, as they were leaving the chemist with Otabek’s medicine. Yuri looked both ways down the road but couldn’t see the taxi that he’d called for them. Otabek was too sick to walk home and Yuri didn’t drive.
“Huh?” Yuri said, frowning.
“You look like you’re sucking a lemon,” Otabek said, his tone light but his eyes unhappy. He started coughing again and Yuri waited, Otabek’s words bumping around his head, for him to finish.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said quietly when Otabek had finished. “I just wanted the taxi to get here faster, ‘cus I don’t like you being out here in the cold.”
Otabek looked down at him, frowning slightly and Yuri hesitantly met his gaze, “You know I’m not your responsibility, right?” Otabek said slowly. “I don’t- I didn’t ask for charity, Yuri.”
Yuri felt a rush of something that felt absurdly like rejection and swallowed as he looked down. “Yeah I know,” he muttered. “But it’s not charity, its just- fucking human decency.”
The taxi arrived and they got in, although Otabek’s frown deepened. “I don’t like feeling like I’m in your debt all the time,” he said and Yuri turned to give him a pained look.
“I never meant to make you-”
“I know,” Otabek interrupted, “but I do anyway.”
“What do you want me to say?” Yuri said, hurt making his tone sharper than he meant. He turned away to look stubbornly out the window, hating the idea of Otabek leaving. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Why not?” Otabek said.
“’Cus I like you,” Yuri muttered. “’Cus I’d worry.”
Otabek was silent for the rest of the short journey home and Yuri climbed out of the car to pay the driver, bracing himself for Otabek to tell him that he was getting his things together. Otabek coughed wearily as the car was driving off and Yuri miserably led the way to the apartment block to let them in.
“I’ll get a job,” Otabek said suddenly, as Yuri was opening the door. “Let me pay you back, I swear I’ll do it.”
Yuri turned in shock to find Otabek looking at him, “Really?” Yuri said, hope creeping into his voice. “You’ll stay?”
Otabek’s mouth twitched up at the corners, “I dunno why you want me to,” he said, “but yeah, okay. ‘Til I get my feet under-”
Yuri cut him off by throwing his arms around Otabek with a soft cry of relief, inordinately pleased. “I want you to stay,” he said awkwardly, as he was backing off, rubbing his arm. Otabek smiled at him fully, then, and Yuri smiled back.
“Then I’ll stay,” Otabek said simply and they smiled at each other for a second, before Yuri remembered the chill of the air and the fact that Otabek had fricking pneumonia and he ushered the bigger man inside.
“Got to get you warm,” he said. “I’ll make you some soup and toast, and tea because you’ve got to keep drinking. And you should take your antibiotics- why’re you looking at me like that?”
Otabek was grinning at him and Yuri stopped talking, self-conscious of his rambling. Otabek wrapped an arm gently around Yuri’s shoulders and Yuri flushed, “I just have a feeling you’ll take good care of me,” Otabek said gently and Yuri ducked his head and smiled, all but vibrating with happiness when Otabek kissed the top of his head.
“I’ll try,” Yuri mumbled, and he did.