Chapter Text
Otabek's apartment in Almaty is not terribly large, but it doesn't need to be since it's only for one person. His family is less than an hour's drive across town and the apartment is located conveniently a Metro stop away from his rink just in case he doesn't want to drive, which he often doesn't (even though people stop him for autographs from time to time). He has a bedroom and a living room and a kitchen, neighbors he rarely hears, and a beautiful view off the balcony of the southern mountains.
His bathroom was another draw. There's a large enough tub that he can mostly submerge himself, and the shower-head is a new fixture that detaches from the wall and has a massage function. The whole room is decorated with fancy, artistic tile, and there are two sinks. He pushes back his hair, studying his face in the mirror as he brushes his teeth.
When he's done he drops his toothbrush into its holder, next to a second, fiery red one that isn't his. He tries not to think about how much he likes it there.
The sound of the television is a quiet murmur down the hall. Otabek detours from his intended path to his bedroom, drawn down the hallway to the living room, where the lure of the television and the person watching it is too much to ignore. He doesn't say anything. He stops, leans against the wall, and looks.
Yuri stands in front of the sofa, hands on his hips, feet square to the floor, hair up in a messy bun that Otabek watched him spend way too much time on. He stares at the tv, his body turned away from where Otabek watches. Otabek's view is of the long line of Yuri's neck and the set of his shoulders, which are broader now than all those years ago when Otabek first caught up to him in Barcelona--but not by much, and that hasn't stopped Yuri from looking like he's made of porcelain.
There's a blanket on the sofa, and a pillow. Yuri's suitcase, spilling over with clothes that he tosses onto it instead of folding away neatly, is shoved against the wall.
It's been three days, and he still doesn't know why Yuri is here. The only forewarning he'd gotten was a text: Open your door, and a sharp, unapologetic knock five seconds later. Otabek had opened the door with some bemusement to find Yuri, his face set and stubborn.
"Can I stay here?" he asked, like he thought Otabek could possibly say no.
Since then, Yuri has made himself aggressively at home. He lounges indolently on the couch and spits poison at the tv loud enough to be heard from everywhere in the apartment. He's eaten all of Otabek's yogurt and filled Otabek's bathroom with hair products and even a hair dryer when all Otabek owned was a comb and some gel.
It should irritate Otabek; he's never been good with people pushing close into his private life, and the apartment, perfect for one, is crowded with two. But it doesn't. It's easy in a way that's dangerous and makes his blood warm.
The light in the living room is poor. In fact, no lights are on at all. Only the flickering brightness of the black-and-white program on the tv, an old-fashioned one that Otabek doesn't recognize, casts a strange glow into the room, chasing at shadows but unable to banish them. Yuri, covered with it, seems even more unearthly than he already is. Sometimes, Otabek thinks he's like lightning taken form, or the electric shock of static that you don't anticipate. Other times he's the sharp cut of glass and the glare of the summer sun on closed eyelids. But right now he's pale and ghostly, like he's about to disappear, standing in Otabek's living room wrapped in shadows and slithering gray light.
"Creep," Yuri says, and the sudden normalcy of his voice over the murmuring television makes Otabek startle. Yuri turns his head, unerringly finding Otabek, and half his face falls into shadow. His eyes shine with tv light. His expression is half fond, half guarded. It's better, Otabek thinks, than the subtle undercurrent of pain that's haunted his face in between bouts of bristling anger, which has been the way of things since his arrival. "It's late. You should be sleeping."
"So should you," Otabek says, quite reasonably in his opinion. Yuri is three hours behind him still, not used to the time here in Almaty and probably not sleepy at all, so he's been staying up later than Otabek these last two nights, scrolling through Instagram when Otabek closes his bedroom door. He doesn't know when Yuri finally turns off his phone and closes his eyes.
Yuri's gaze narrows, and Otabek readies himself for another spark of anger. A tendril of hair that's fallen loose from Yuri's bun drifts against his cheek. Yuri is a study of contrasts like this: soft, but razor-edged. Always a moment away from bursting into flames.
But then Yuri lets out a breath, and his hands drop from his waist. He finds the remote and turns off the television, plunging the room into a deep dark. The afterimage of the screen is seared into the backs of Otabek's eyelids. He blinks, and it wavers.
Instead of the rustle of bedclothes being pulled back on the sofa, he hears footsteps, Yuri's socked feet shushing against Otabek's fuzzy carpet. He feels more than sees Yuri come to stand in front of him. "I'm going to sleep with you," Yuri says, his words sharp, prepared to fight for it.
"Okay," Otabek says much more calmly than he feels. But Yuri can't hear his heady pulse, so it's fine.
There's a pause. He wishes he could see Yuri's face right now. Otabek hears a small hnf, and then feels Yuri brush by him. He follows, letting Yuri lead the way into his own bedroom, open the door to the tidy, small space. Too small, if Yuri intends to fit himself into it.
The light on Otabek's nightstand is on, giving the room a warm, intimate glow. Yuri is already stripping off his t-shirt, pulling it up the narrow length of his torso without looking back. It falls to the floor in a puddle. Otabek halts, waiting, as Yuri strips off his jeans next and then nearly pounces onto the bed in only a pair of leopard print underwear. He knows Yuri owns these. He's seen them before, he just never expected to see them in his own bed.
He steps around Yuri's clothes, letting them be. Yuri has already pushed himself toward the wall, burrowing under the covers, leaving room for Otabek on the other side, although he's stolen Otabek's favorite pillow to plump under his head. Otabek lets him have it. It's a small price to pay for Yuri's comfort, and not worth a fight. Otabek climbs into his side gingerly, tugging the sheets up, and rearranges the pillows to lean against. He keeps on his gym shorts, even though he usually takes them off.
"I'm going to read," he tells Yuri's back.
"Knock yourself out." Yuri tugs out his hair tie, and a golden avalanche of hair falls across the pillow. Otabek can smell it: something floral and light. Yuri twists, handing the elastic to Otabek, who dutifully places it on his nightstand, ignoring the spark of warmth he feels at this sudden domesticity. That part isn't real, and he won't pretend it is. The world isn't only about what he wants, after all, and Otabek has learned too well that when you're chasing after dreams of gold, there is no room for anything else. The world is too big, and the distance too great.
But still, he likes having Yuri in his bed, even just like this: comfortably tucked around the light of his phone, the tap of his thumb against the screen quiet like a cat's paw. It doesn't have to mean anything.
Otabek opens his book and finds his place, his fingers ghosting over the page. For a while, he sinks into the words and lets himself stop thinking about the line of Yuri's pale shoulder beside him and his body disappearing beneath dark sheets.
Then Yuri scoffs, rolling onto his back and holding his phone over his face. "Katsudon and Viktor need to get a life."
Otabek thinks mildly that they actually have one, and a good one against all odds, but he only says, "Oh?" because he knows the direction this is going.
"They might as well be having their fiftieth fucking honeymoon." Yuri's mouth pulls into a sneer. "Every day there's more of this shit on my feed."
Yuri's not wrong. Otabek follows Viktor, too—it's a small skating world and the skaters who don't follow Nikiforov are few and far between, even now that he's retired, because it's not like he stopped being a legend—and lately they seem to be somewhere with a beach and a lot of sun that results in shirtless photos of Katsuki standing in the ocean shallows with a wide, endless sky as a backdrop. Otabek doesn't bother to read the captions anymore because any actual words are lodged between an excess of heart emoji. But it's cute. He admires the happiness they've carved for themselves.
"You could stop following them if it bothers you that much," he suggests.
"Ha!" Yuri is not amused. "How do you think that would go? Because I'll tell you: Viktor would flip." He glares at his phone, scrolling again. "I'd have to fend off all his texts and calls because he'd get all blubbery and hurt. He shouldn't be offended, it's me who has to look at them. Ugh, I want to bleach my eyeballs."
There is also this. Yuri's steadfast scorn for anything romantic. It doesn't stop at Viktor, although his relationship with Katsuki is the one that Yuri complains about the most; understandable, given Yuri's constant proximity to it. But Otabek has heard plenty about Mila and her flirtatious ways and, back when Georgi was at the rink, about his "dumb-ass insistence on tripping over his own two feet anytime he thinks he's in love." Yuri has opinions, and Otabek has heard them all. He knows precisely where Yuri stands when it comes to romance.
"Let me know if you can't find the bleach," Otabek tells him.
"Dick," Yuri mutters. "You know what I mean."
Otabek smiles and goes back to his book.
--
Otabek is not surprised to discover that Yuri is much the same asleep as he is awake: he looks like an angel, but behaves like a devil. Otabek is woken no less than three times by some part of Yuri colliding with him. First a smack to his face thanks to a flailing hand, and later two separate kicks to the shins. The first time Otabek rouses gummily from sleep and blinks against the dark, nudging the hand out of his face before falling back into unconsciousness moments later. But the fourth time he wakes, Yuri has stolen all the blankets.
Not only has he stolen them, he's basically twirled himself into them. Otabek rouses slowly as goosebumps prickle over his skin, the situation slowly starting to make more sense as his brain catches up. He turns on the light, squinting against its offensive brightness.
Yuri's eyelids flutter, but otherwise he doesn't move. He looks startlingly innocent in sleep, his expression smoothed of all its normal vitriol, long blond lashes caressing his cheekbones, hand tucked by his face like a kitten's paw. Otabek lets himself stare, drinking in the dip of Yuri's jawbone, the soft curve of his mouth. Then he carefully, reverently brushes Yuri's bangs back from his brow.
"You drive me absolutely crazy," Otabek murmurs, meaning it in every way imaginable.
Since he's not going to be getting his blankets back, Otabek slides out of bed and digs around quietly for a sweatshirt. Then he heads to the living room to get Yuri's unused bedding from the sofa. Yuri, of course, has abducted the middle of the bed by the time he gets back. Otabek shakes his head, easing back into the sliver of space Yuri left on his side of the mattress; he could sleep elsewhere, but he's unwilling to see what happens when Yuri wakes up in the morning and realizes he's banished Otabek to the sofa.
Yuri stirs as the bed shifts again, muttering under his breath as he flops away from Otabek and curls into a small ball.
For a moment, Otabek let himself imagine the impossible: waking up to Yuri in his bed day after day, Yuri curled against him with intent, sleep-soft and willing. It would likely come with a lot of bruises, Otabek thinks wryly, remembering Yuri's well-placed kick to the shin.
Then he quietly puts his fantasy away and shuts it tight. Yuri is his friend, and that alone is precious.
He turns out the light with a quiet click.