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“I can’t believe you did it! You fucking won the gold!” Yuri shouted as Otabek let him into his hotel room. The skater from Kazakhstan wasn’t grinning the way Yuri thought that he should be, but it was fine. He was excited enough for the both of them.
When Otabek turned, Yuri caught his fingers around the lanyard for the medal, pulling him forward gently. They were of a height now, Yuri having gone through a growth spurt years ago right after he had turned sixteen.
“This looks good on you, you know,” Yuri teased as he pressed in close. His lips brushed against Otabek’s jawline lightly.
“Thank you,” was Otabek’s only reply. Not that it was unusual. The skater wasn’t the most talkative on the best of days. Besides, Yuri spoke enough for the both of them.
“Don’t get too used to it though. Next time, it’ll be me wearing the gold when I beat you out for it.”
“...It won’t be me that you beat for the gold next time,” Otabek said. The statement made Yuri freeze, pulling back.
“What. What the fuck are you talking about?” Yuri asked, confused. “Of course it’ll be you that I beat out. It won’t be until the next Grand Prix, but I’ll beat you.”
“I’m retiring.”
With that statement, Yuri’s entire world screeched to a halt. Otabek was...retiring? He was leaving him all alone?
“No. You’re not retiring. That’s a cruel fucking joke.”
“Yura. Listen to me, please. I’m retiring. This was my last Grand Prix.”
As the words sunk in, the actual words, Yuri couldn’t stop himself from shouting, “Why?! Why the fuck would you retire?! You just won the gold!”
“That’s why I’m retiring.” Otabek sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Earlier this year, during training, I hurt myself. I missed a jump and broke my wrist when I landed wrong on the ice. I kept it quiet, worked through the pain and kept going. But it was a wake-up call. I’m twenty-six and I’m not getting any younger. The next time I get hurt, I may not get up again. I would rather leave on a high note than have my career ended permanently because I got hurt.”
“So, you had a fucking scare and decide that you’re going to abandon everything you’ve worked for? That you’re going to abandon me?”
“I’m not abandoning you, Yura. I just need to start thinking about what the next step in my life is going to be.”
“...Right. And that step doesn’t include skating.” Doesn’t include me was what Yuri left out. He wasn’t going to take the chance that Otabek would confirm that. “And doesn’t fucking include telling me until it’s too late to do anything.”
“That’s not what happened. I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“Yeah, well, now you did tell me.” Yuri turned around and headed to the door. “I need to get out of here. Enjoy your fucking medal.”
When Otabek didn’t stop him, that hurt, more than he could say, but he was too angry to change his mind now.
~*~*~*~*~
Yuri was laying on his bed in his apartment, exhausted. Not that that was a new development. Ever since the incident with Otabek retiring, the blond skater had hardly slept and all he seemed to do was train. Ignoring Otabek’s texts and repeated calls during the day made it easy to do that.
Not sleeping at night had more to do with the fact that he kept reading Otabek’s texts. The new ones that came in, the old ones that had made him laugh or smile or just...anything at all. Until they had stopped. It had only been a week since Otabek’s last communication and it made Yuri ache in so many ways.
It was easy to ignore when he was training. Heading back to his apartment though, that made it difficult to ignore the ache in his chest. Laying in his bed made it hard to forget that he had screwed up the best thing in his life because he was being a selfish brat who couldn’t apologize. All he wanted to do was sleep or go back to that awful night and take back everything that he said. Take back the last month where he didn’t respond to Otabek. He couldn’t do that though.
When there was a knock at the door, Yuri sighed. He didn’t want to get up and answer the door. If it was Yakov or Victor or. Well, anyone he happened to know, he knew that they wouldn’t leave him alone until he opened it. It was an effort to drag himself out of bed and down the hall to the door.
“Yeah, yeah, what the fuck do you…” Yuri trailed off as he caught sight of who was standing in front of the door. With a bag over his shoulder and a couple of suitcases next to him on the floor, Otabek was standing in front of him. For a minute, Yuri thought he was hallucinating. “Beka? Is that really...Are you really…?”
“I’m really here, Yura.”
“But. Why? What are you doing here?”
“I happened to be in the neighborhood,” was Otabek’s cheeky reply.
“That...that’s not what I fucking meant! Why are you here?”
“I said I wasn’t abandoning you, Yura. I meant it. Now that I’m retired, I can live where I want. I want to be here, where you are.”
“Wait. Wait. You left everything you have in Kazakhstan to be here with me, even though I haven’t talked to you in a month and left you in your hotel room without a fuck you?”
Otabek gave a nod, shifting the back on his shoulder.
“Why? Why would you do that, even though I was being an asshole?”
“Because I love you, Yura, and I want to be here with you.”
The Russian skater stared at the other man for a moment, shocked at the response. How was he even this lucky? How was it even possible that he had someone that was so good, that would even deal with him when he was being such a brat.
“Get in here,” Yuri said, stepping back to let Otabek in. After he had dragged his bags in and the door was closed, Yuri was on him. He pressed the older man against the door and wrapped his arms around him, their cheeks pressed together. “I am so fucking sorry. I’m sorry I’m such an asshole and I wouldn’t listen to you.”
A sigh ruffled his hair and Otabek’s arms came around him, hands rubbing over his back soothingly. He couldn’t get any closer, but god, Yuri wanted to.
“I knew how you would react when I told you. It’s why I put it off.”
“I’m still sorry and I can’t believe you still want to be with me. How can you even want to be with me after everything? How can you just accept the shit that I pull?”
“Because I love you. Because you are you, and I love who you are.”
“That doesn’t make it okay though. That doesn’t make what I pulled okay.”
With a sigh, Otabek pulled back to look at Yuri. The look on his face was serious, but there was a faint and fond smile on his lips.
“No, it doesn’t, but I’m willing to work through it. Are you willing to as well?”
“I. Yeah, yeah, I am. I don’t want you to leave.”
“And I won’t, for as long as you want me here.”
Yuri finally smiled, resting his forehead against Otabek’s.
“That’s going to be a long time then,” he told the retired skater.
“Good,” was the reply, before he was cut off with a kiss.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Otabek had first told Yuri that he was retiring, the gold medal winning skater couldn’t believe it. Yuri had yelled and screamed, gotten mad about the way Otabek was abandoning him and finally stormed out of the Otabek’s hotel room without even saying goodbye.
Yuri had fumed for a month, not responding to any of Otabek’s texts or calls. When they finally stopped, it wasn’t relief that the younger skater had felt. Instead, all he felt was a bone chilling numbness. He covered it up by working even harder on the ice.
It had taken Otabek moving to Russia permanently only a week after that for him to realize that, even though Otabek was leaving the competition circuit, he wasn’t planning on leaving Yuri. It hadn’t been easy, of course. It had been the most time they had spent together in, well. Ever. But after some missteps and some truly epic fights (well, epic from Yuri’s point of view, Otabek was pretty laid back even when they fought), they finally found a routine that worked for them.
Every single morning, Otabek would get up with Yuri to go to the rink with him, no matter how late he had been up the night before DJ-ing. He would spend the time that Yuri was on the ice working on whatever set he planned to be playing at his next gig and watch the golden-haired skater. If Yuri was lucky, Otabek would join him toward the end of the day on the ice. He couldn’t do any of the difficult jumps that they all had strived to complete, but it was nice. Fun, not having to worry about what was going to happen in the next competition.
It was one of these mornings, when Otabek was sipping his coffee while Yuri stretched in the corner when the Russian skater had a revelation. A life-changing revelation. One that would move mountains. Or some shit like that. He had never been any good at all of that descriptive nonsense that Victor seemed to love so much. What he did know was that he couldn’t wait a minute longer.
“Hey, Beka,” Yuri started as he stretched his leg over his head, trying to get the other’s attention. Otabek just raised an eyebrow at him, causing Yuri to snort. The blond skater was quiet for a moment as he switched into another stretch before continuing, “We should get married.”
It was silent just a bit too long, just that second too much. Which is what made Yuri stop stretching to actually look at the former skater. Otabek was staring at him, mouth agape. It was the most shocked Yuri had ever seen him.
“You. What?” was all Otabek could seem to get out. Normally, Yuri would laugh at the gobsmacked look on his face, but now that the words were out, he was nervous.
“I just mean. I want to marry you. We’re going to be together forever and I love you. So why don’t we get married?”
As the silence dragged on, Yuri started to fidget. Over the years, he had gotten better at being patient, but this was killing his nerves.
“You know what? Just forget it, it was stupid…” he started, moving away a little.
“Yes!” Otabek cried out. For a moment, the skater was startled, since Otabek never yelled like that. Ever. “I...yes, I want to marry you, Yura.”
“You really do? No jokes?”
“No jokes.” Otabek reached for Yuri, pulling him close. He caught the blond man’s lips in a fierce kiss, holding him tight. “I want to be with you forever too. Let’s get married.”
With a whoop of joy, Yuri pulled Otabek into another kiss. It took a while to get there and a lot of missteps, but this was what Yuri wanted. And there was nothing that was going to change that.