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When Otabek's phone alarm went off on the morning of the big photoshoot, he heard a groan float up from the mound of pillows on Yuri's side of the bed. That groan was a pretty regular occurrence these days. "Good morning," Otabek said, tapping his phone screen to silence the alarm.
"Ugh."
Otabek rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and a little bit of dried gunk from the corner of his mouth. "How are you feeling?"
"Ugh. I have heartburn."
"So do I," Otabek said. "We shouldn't have eaten all that pizza last night."
On the other side of the mound of pillows, Otabek heard Yuri pick something up off his nightstand, then the rattle of something being shaken out of a bottle. Yuri's hand flopped over pillows: he was holding out an antacid. Otabek took it, and the sound of their chewing filled the quiet bedroom. "That was so fucking stupid," Yuri said. "Salt makes you retain water."
"I know."
"We have the photoshoot today. We're going to look all bloated."
"Yeah."
There was a beat of silence. "I just really wanted that pizza," Yuri said.
Otabek laughed quietly. He could still vividly remember how strong his own pregnancy cravings had been—cucumbers with Alisa, hummus with Ruslan—so whenever Yuri had a craving, he tried his best to indulge it. "It was really good."
He heard Yuri shift on the mattress without speaking for a few seconds. "Beka," he said finally. "I don't know if I can do this."
“Do what?”
“The photoshoot," Yuri said. "Letting people see me like this.”
Yuri had been acting enthusiastic about the photoshoot ever since they scheduled it—mostly because of the unseemly amount of money they were being offered to do it—but Otabek had wondered if he might be having secret doubts. Yuri had been noticeably camera-shy ever since his belly started showing, stepping out of frame whenever Otabek tried to take pictures of him with the kids. "Letting people see you like what?" Otabek asked. "Gorgeous? Radiant? Glowing?"
Yuri's hand flopped back over the mound of of pillows and gave Otabek's shoulder a thwap. "Fat, you asshole."
Otabek sighed and rolled onto his side. He started pulling away the pillows blocking Yuri from his view, and when Yuri’s face appeared, it was scowling at him. It was also blotchy and a little greasy, but no one could expect him to be glowing and radiant at 6:30 in the morning. “Pregnant isn't fat,” Otabek said, brushing his hand through Yuri's sleep-tangled hair.
"With you it wasn't," Yuri groused. "You had the baby bump and then the rest of you looked like a fucking model. I have a double chin."
He did, a very small one, and Otabek privately thought that it was cute. He hadn't wanted to mention its existence until Yuri did first, though. "I didn't look like a model by any stretch of the imagination," Otabek said. "And you look so good it drives me crazy."
Yuri's glower faded into a more general grumpiness. "Ugh," he said. "Shut up."
"It's true," Otabek said. "You always said you liked how I looked when I was pregnant. You think I don't feel the same way about you?"
"But you looked, like, objectively good," Yuri said. "You only like how I look because you're my husband and you have to."
Otabek gave him a dry glance. Then he moved over on the bed, close enough that he could nudge his head onto Yuri's pillow instead of his own. He slipped his hand over the firm, warm curve of Yuri's belly. "Trust me," Otabek said. "This isn't obligation. I can barely think straight when I'm looking at you." He caressed Yuri's belly in soft circles. "I never knew how hot it would be to see all the ways you're changing and know that I did that to you."
"Yeah, so you're the one to fucking blame," Yuri said, but there was a hint of humor underneath his grumpiness. Yuri had been the one to offer to carry their third and final child, and they had spent so much time talking and budgeting and worrying over it that the blame was fully shared. "Feel what she's doing to me right now."
Yuri moved Otabek's hand over on his belly, and Otabek could immediately feel several jerky, irregular vibrations. "She's literally kickboxing my organs," Yuri said. "That's on you."
Otabek smiled. While he didn't miss the annoyance of having a baby constantly kicking and fidgeting inside of him, he did sometimes feel wistful that he wasn't having the same deep, elemental connection with Natalya that he'd had with Alisa and Ruslan. Being on the outside looking in was a little lonelier than he'd expected. "Tasha," Otabek said softly, rubbing Yuri's belly. "There'll be plenty of time for kickboxing when you're older. Relax a little. Take a nap."
Yuri snorted. "Like we'd ever have a kid that actually listened when we told them to take a nap."
Otabek took a few more seconds to confirm that Natalya was completely ignoring him and continuing to kick, and then he lifted his hand and slid it through Yuri's hair again. He leaned in and kissed him: off-center and mostly close-lipped, as neither of their mouths probably tasted great just then. "We don't have to do the photoshoot if you don't want to," he said.
Yuri sighed. "It's so much money, though."
"We can get by without it."
"Yeah, until we have an emergency and start kicking ourselves for not taking it. You know magazines are going to stop giving a shit about us now that we're both retired. We're not going to get offered money like this again."
He was probably right. "I know it's stupid of me," Yuri said. “It’s just...it feels so fucking weird to go from everyone seeing me when I was in the best shape of my life, to everyone seeing me like this. I look so different."
Otabek stroked Yuri's hair. As much as Otabek genuinely adored each new centimeter of Yuri's growing belly, and the new soft roundedness of his arms and thighs, he also knew firsthand how disorienting it was to go straight from retirement into a pregnancy. Yuri had spent the last two decades being as lean as a stretched rubber band, watching his diet and exercising for hours and hours every day, and now all of that had been turned on its head. "It's not stupid," Otabek said. "And people probably are going to be rude about it. It's okay to not want to deal with that."
"Ugh, like they're not already rude about every other goddamn thing I've ever done," Yuri said. He reached out and put one arm around Otabek's waist, silently mulling it over. "Maybe we can get the photographer to sign something saying she'll Photoshop the hell out of me. Or maybe I can—" His voice cut off abruptly. "Ow."
Otabek raised his eyebrows questioningly. Yuri nodded his head toward the side of the bed, and Otabek lifted himself up on one elbow and saw a pair of small hands crooked into claws reaching up over the edge of the mattress, scratching at Yuri’s leg with clumsy ferocity. “I think I’m being attacked by a lion,” Yuri said, deadpan.
Well, five minutes of alone time at the start of the day was probably the most they could ask for. Otabek got out of bed and went around to the other side, where he found his two-year-old son standing on his tiptoes and growling as he scratched Yuri’s calf. “Ruslan,” Otabek said warningly, picking him up and balancing him on his hip. “Don’t attack your Papochka, please.”
“I not Ruslan!” Ruslan announced, baring his teeth at Otabek. “I lion!”
Ever since Ruslan had found out that he was named after the word for lion, he would periodically go feral and tear around the house, growling and roaring at everyone in his decidedly unferocious two-year-old voice. “And how exactly did the lion get over his brand-new, guaranteed-unclimbable baby gate?” Yuri said, looking pointedly at Otabek.
Otabek could only look at the ceiling in mute chagrin.
Yuri groaned and creakily got out of bed, tugging his dark gray nightshirt down over his belly. He grabbed a hair elastic off his nightstand, whirled his tangled hair up into a messy topknot, and held his arms out for Ruslan. "Let me see this scary lion,” he said.
Ruslan beamed as Otabek gave him to Yuri, and he let out a fresh batch of snarls and growls for Yuri’s benefit. “Very scary,” Yuri said, mussing Ruslan’s slightly-too-shaggy blond hair. Then he frowned and rustled his hair again. “Rusya, why is your hair sticky?”
“I not Rusya! I lion!”
“Beka, why is his hair sticky?” Yuri asked, despairing. “I just gave him a bath last night.”
Otabek came over and felt the tackiness of the strands. “He must’ve gotten into something.”
Yuri sniffed at Ruslan’s head, and then, to Otabek’s mild horror, he pinched a lock of hair between his fingers and licked it. “Yura, that could literally be anything,” Otabek said.
“I think it’s juice,” Yuri said. “How did he get juice in his hair?”
They found the scene of the crime in the living room: one of Ruslan’s sippy cups, which were supposed to be no-spill, was lying on the floor in a puddle of spilled juice. “Why doesn’t anything we buy actually work?” Yuri groaned.
“I’ll clean it up,” Otabek said, rubbing Yuri’s shoulder. “Do you want to start breakfast for him and Alisochka? We can give him another bath once he’s done eating.”
“Okay,” Yuri said. “Will you be all right if I make oatmeal?”
Otabek stifled a grimace. He had been sick last week after eating a bowl of oatmeal, and now the smell of it cooking made his stomach queasy. But it was one of the rare foods that both of their kids ate without complaining, so: “Yeah,” Otabek said. “I’ll be fine.”
Yuri took Ruslan into the kitchen, and Otabek went and found a towel and some spray cleaner. He spritzed the floor and started scrubbing up the sticky residue. The smell of too-sweet juice mixed with astringent chemical cleaner wasn’t doing any wonders for his stomach either: he went and opened a window for some fresh air before he went back to finish the job.
So far, they hadn’t heard a peep from Alisa yet. Otabek went and peeked in through her partially open door and found her bed empty. Of course. “Alisochka?” Otabek called.
He heard her little voice come dimly from down the hall. “I’m in the bathroom, Papa.”
He went over to the bathroom and found the door slightly ajar. “Do you need some privacy?” he asked.
“No,” Alisa said. “I’m just getting ready to take the pictures.”
Otabek pushed the door open and froze. His five-year-old daughter was standing on the step stool they’d put in front of the bathroom counter so she could reach her toothbrush, but she wasn’t brushing her teeth. She had found one of Yuri’s old eyeshadow palettes from his competition days, and she was carefully scraping her finger over the little circles and daubing pigment all over her face.
Otabek didn’t know whether to groan or laugh. “Alisochka, what are you doing?”
“Putting on makeup for the pictures. You said I could.”
Well, technically that was true, but he'd been thinking of things like lip gloss, and blush. Alisa had very thickly laid smears of green eyeshadow above her eyes, smears of blue below them, and big circles of orange and pink on her cheeks. “I think the people who take the pictures are going to do our makeup for us,” Otabek said.
She frowned at him in the mirror. “But I’m doing it already.”
He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He knew if he told her that she had to wash the makeup off, it would probably end in tears, and that was the last thing they needed on what was already shaping up to be a stressful day. “I’ll tell you what,” Otabek said. “Why don’t I take some pictures of you in your makeup now, and then when the photographers get here, we’ll let them do your makeup a second time? So you’ll have two sets of pictures where you’re wearing makeup.”
She looked dubious. “I’ll ask Papochka if I can wear it,” she said finally, climbing down from the step stool.
In recent months, Alisa had discovered that it sometimes worked to shop around for permission when one parent was being inflexible. “I think your Papochka will agree with me,” Otabek said.
“I’ll ask him,” Alisa said evenly.
The two of them walked over to the kitchen, where Ruslan was in his booster seat mashing banana slices around on a plate, and Yuri was setting a pot of water on the stove. When Yuri turned around, Otabek was fortunate enough to see the exact moment he saw Alisa’s heavily decorated face. Yuri made an odd croaking noise, like he had started to laugh and then abruptly realized it was a bad idea. “Oh,” he said, visibly fighting to keep his expression neutral. “Wow, Alisochka.”
“I did my makeup for the pictures!” Alisa announced proudly. She did a twirl, her long brown hair flowing around her, and then did a pantomime curtsy in her green pajama pants. “I can wear it when the people come, right?”
Yuri looked at Otabek, and Otabek tried to convey “please solve this with the least drama possible” solely through eyebrow movements. “Wow,” Yuri repeated, and he came over and leaned down a little to get a better look at Alisa's face. “Well, it looks really cool.”
“Really pretty,” she corrected him.
“Yes, really pretty,” he said. “This is really good makeup for when you’re skating or dancing, because everyone has to see your face from far away. But I think for a photo, where it’s more close up, they’ll want you to wear makeup that’s less...bold.”
Alisa’s face fell. “I told her that we should take our own pictures first, before they get here,” Otabek put in. “So she can have pictures with two different styles of makeup.”
“That's a great idea,” Yuri said, sounding relieved. He straightened, bracing one hand against his lower back with a grimace, and went over to the kitchen counter to grab his phone. “Why don't you do some poses for us, Alisochka?”
For a second they could see Alisa waver between taking a principled stand and her love of having her photo taken. Her principles lost. She flung her arms out into a dramatic pose and gave the camera a huge smile.
"Wonderful!" Yuri said. His phone made the shutter-click sound. "How about another curtsy?"
She went into a graceful princess pose. Click. "Okay, now a mean one," Yuri said. "What would you look like if you were an evil witch?" Yuri leaned over to Otabek and said, sotto voice, "I swear there was a season where Georgi had this exact look."
Otabek stifled a laugh. Yuri directed Alisa through a couple more poses, including a few wobbly pliés and relevés she'd learned at her ballet lessons. But as Yuri was racking his brain for something else for her to do, Alisa said, "I want to do a picture with Tasha!"
Yuri gave her a deadpan look. "You know I can't take her out on demand."
"No, like this," Alisa said, and came over and laid her eyeshadow-smeared hands on Yuri's belly. She tenderly patted it and gave it a kiss. "Like that. Because I love Tasha so much."
It was very sweet. It was also the exact thing that Yuri had been avoiding doing for months: committing his new look to a photograph. Otabek looked at Yuri, and for a second the look on Yuri's face was very clearly no. But then something in his expression seemed to waver as he looked down at Alisa's messy, hopeful face.
"Let's do the whole family," Yuri said at last. "Papa and Rusya, too. It can be practice for when the real photographers get here."
He looked at Otabek, and Otabek smiled and squeezed his shoulder. "That's a great idea," he said.
He went over and retrieved Ruslan from his booster seat, and Yuri switched to the rear-facing camera on his phone and held it out at arm's length. The screen reflected their image back to them: Alisa with her dramatic makeup, Ruslan with his sticky mane of blond hair, and Otabek and Yuri both in desperate need of a shave and a shower. "God, we're not photogenic at 7 in the morning," Yuri said. "If you post this to Instagram, I'll kill you."
"It's your phone," Otabek pointed out mildly.
"Okay, Tashaaaa," Alisa said to Yuri's belly in a sing-song voice. "I'm going to kiss youuuu."
For a second, Yuri hesitated, and then he turned slightly to one side so the curve of his belly was visible on the camera. "All right, on the count of three. One, two, three."
Alisa pressed a kiss to Yuri's belly, and the shutter-click sounded on Yuri's phone. "Let's see how it came out," Yuri said, bringing the phone back in.
They all looked objectively terrible. Messy-faced, greasy-haired, and still in their ratty night clothes. Otabek already loved it more than anything the professionals were going to take later that day.
"Well, it was good practice, at least," Yuri said, ruffling Alisa's hair. "At least we know the quality of the photos has nowhere to go but up."
...
When the photography crew arrived at 10 AM, everyone in Otabek's family was bathed, dressed, and not actively crying—which was, frankly, a miracle. Ruslan, the ferocious little lion, immediately got shy at the sight of strangers in the living room and tugged at Otabek's pant leg to be picked up. Alisa stared with wide-eyed fascination at the photographer, a thirty-something woman with pale lavender hair, and she whispered to Otabek, "She's so pretty."
"She is."
"I want purple hair, too."
"Maybe when you're older."
Yuri went up to the photographer. "Hi, Evelyn," he said. Evelyn had been the photographer the last time they'd done a magazine spread like this, when Otabek was pregnant with Ruslan. She was personable but direct, which was a combination that Otabek hoped would make Yuri feel more comfortable.
"There's the man of the hour!" Evelyn exclaimed in her French-accented Russian, leaning in to brush an air kiss over his cheek. "Yuri, you look wonderful."
"I'm pretty sure I don't," Yuri said dryly. "I'm as big as a house."
"You are very well-proportioned for 33 weeks along," Evelyn said, giving him a thorough once-over. "I was so glad you said yes to the shoot. I'm going to make good use of that beautiful posture you always have."
Otabek saw a little bit of the tension leave Yuri's shoulders. "I've been pretty nervous about doing this," Yuri admitted. "I don't feel very photogenic."
"That's what we're here for," Evelyn said, nodding to the small team assembled in the living room. "Hair, makeup, clothes, and only the most flattering angles. I promise."
Yuri exhaled and nodded. "Okay," he said. "What do you need us to do?"
The next forty-five minutes were a whirlwind of preparations: setting up lights, moving furniture around in the living room, getting their hair and makeup done. When Alisa and Ruslan got cranky from waiting, Otabek found their iPad and turned on the playlist of inane toy unboxing videos that both of them loved, and they were immediately transfixed. "All right, you're finished," the makeup artist said to Yuri, spritzing his face with setting spray. "Otabek?"
Yuri and Otabek switched seats. Otabek wasn't a stranger to makeup: even in his less flashy skating programs, he'd use it to highlight his eyes and even out his skin tone. But it had been quite a while since the last time he'd worn it. He wrinkled his nose at the cloying floral scent of the serum the makeup artist was rubbing into his face. Then she moved on to applying a cream foundation over his skin, and the first strong waft of it was so unpleasantly chemical-smelling that Otabek felt the toast he'd eaten for breakfast threaten to lurch back up his throat. "Yura, can you get me another antacid?" he asked.
Yuri brought one over. "Are you not feeling good?" he asked warily.
"We really shouldn't have had that pizza last night," Otabek said, popping it into his mouth.
Otabek made it through the rest of his makeup routine without further trouble, although once he stood up, he found that the unpleasant smell of the foundation now followed him wherever he went. He watched as a beaming Alisa sat in the makeup chair for her turn, and silently appreciated the makeup artist for making such an enthusiastic fuss over her. "Okay, let's get you into the first round of outfits," Evelyn said, coming in to check on them. "Let's do the nicer outfits first and get them out of the way, and then we'll do the sporty set."
Yuri and Otabek went into Alisa's room to change in private. "What the shit is this?" Yuri asked, holding up the hanger with his pants. The legs were charcoal gray, and the panel of fabric that was meant to go over his belly had large color blocks of white and brown and burgundy. "I'm going to look hideous. Is this trendy?"
"Probably, if she's making you wear it."
"Ugh," Yuri said, and grouchily started to pull them on.
Otabek's own trousers were a lighter slate gray, and when he stepped into them and pulled them up, they hugged him a bit more snugly than he was expecting. "Oh shit," Yuri said admiringly as Otabek struggled with the button. "I like the way Evelyn thinks. She's showing off my belly and your dick."
"I think I've gained weight since the last time I took my measurements," Otabek said ruefully. When he finally got the button fastened, he could feel the way it strained against his stomach. "Does it look bad?"
Yuri licked his lips. "Fuck no."
But from the way Evelyn's eyes lingered critically on Otabek's lower half when he walked into the living room, Otabek was pretty sure the tightness hadn't been intentional. "All right, we're almost ready," she said. "Let's get the kiddos dressed and we can start shooting."
When the four of them were finally assembled in their brightly lit living room, Otabek could safely say that Evelyn had delivered on her promise of making Yuri photogenic. Yuri looked amazing: his skin glowing, his blond hair voluminous and well-styled, the curve of his belly rendered crisply visible by the pattern of color blocks. "Wow," Otabek said.
"Yeah?" Yuri asked, sounding uncertain.
"Yeah," Otabek said. "Wow."
A small smile appeared on Yuri's lips. "Okay," he said. "Then let's do this."
This turned out to be five more boring minutes of waiting around, while Evelyn put them into poses and then asked for the lights to be re-positioned. Otabek had never been a fan of standing in front of bright studio lights for a long time, and he quickly felt the beginnings of a headache start to press in against his temples. The back of his neck was getting sweaty under his jacket collar. "Okay, Ruslan, you're going to sit right here at your Papochka's feet," Evelyn said, gently guiding him over to Yuri. "No no, sit," she said lightly, as Ruslan tried to wander off. "Sit. Right on your butt. There you go. Okay, Otabek, you're going to stand on Yuri's left."
Otabek moved over. As he did, he caught another whiff of that foul chemical smell from his foundation, and his stomach gave a watery, uncertain lurch. Ah, fuck. The photoshoot already had so many strikes against it—Yuri's nervousness, the kids' crankiness—and Otabek really didn't want to turn himself into another problem. He tensed against his rising gorge, forcing it back down, and breathed deeply through his nose.
Yuri glanced at over at him. He must not have liked what he saw, because his forehead creased with concern. "Beka, seriously, are you okay?" Yuri asked.
"I—" Otabek said, and then his gorge very abruptly decided it wasn't willing to be pushed down anymore. Otabek staggered three feet backward, looked around desperately, and vomited straight into the pot of one of the fake plants decorating the background.
"Oh shit!" Yuri exclaimed, coming over and putting a hand on his back. "Beka!"
Fuck. Fuck. It wasn't a lot of vomit, since he'd barely had anything in his stomach, but now his throat was on fire and he'd broken into a cold sweat all over. "What's wrong with Papa?" Alisa asked, her voice going high and upset.
"He's just got an upset stomach," Yuri said. Otabek heard his voice go brisk and efficient. "We're going to take a five-minute break, okay? Aliska, go get your iPad and sit quietly with Rusya. I'm taking Papa to the bathroom."
Yuri put one hand on Otabek's shoulder and the other on his waist and firmly steered him out of the living room. "Shit," Otabek said hoarsely. "I'm so sorry."
"If you knew you were fucking sick, why didn't you say something?" Yuri said.
"I just...I didn't think it was going to get that bad."
Yuri ushered Otabek into the bathroom, then came inside and shut the door behind them. Otabek stripped off his borrowed designer jacket and handed it to Yuri. He turned on the sink, grabbed a washcloth, and started scrubbing the foul-smelling foundation off his face. "Why are you ruining your makeup?" Yuri asked incredulously.
"It smells awful, it's making my stomach sick."
Yuri didn't say anything else after that. He just stood there and watched as Otabek scrubbed his face clean, rinsed out his mouth, then cupped his hand under the water and drank from it a couple times. "Fuck," Otabek said, turning the tap off. "I'm sorry. I really wanted this to go well for you. I just...stopped focusing on myself."
He looked over at Yuri. There was a very unusual expression on Yuri's face: a wary cautiousness, like Otabek was a skittish animal and Yuri was trying not to spook him. "Beka," Yuri said carefully. "You know that's the third time you've thrown up in two weeks."
"I know," Otabek said. "There's something going on with my stomach."
Yuri tipped his head to one side, still looking at him. "And you've been having a lot of heartburn lately. Almost as much as me."
"Yeah."
"And you're gaining weight." Yuri looked meaningfully at Otabek's too-tight pants, where the button was straining against his belly.
"I know," Otabek said. "It's probably all connected, somehow. I'll make a doctor's appointment on Monday to try and figure it out."
For a second, a look of disbelief passed over Yuri's face. Then he leaned down, swung open one of the cabinets under the bathroom sink, and pulled out a crumpled cardboard box. "Yeah, I'm pretty fucking sure they're connected," Yuri said, holding the box out to Otabek.
It said: Rapid Display Home Pregnancy Test.
Otabek stared at Yuri, baffled. "Yura, you had a vasectomy," he said.
"Yeah, I remember!" Yuri exclaimed. "Vividly! And I also remember that form they made me sign that said I couldn't sue them if the part they snipped, like, grew back together someday."
Otabek looked down at the box in Yuri's hand. They'd gone through a couple of those boxes when they were trying to conceive Natalya, but now there was just one stick left over that they hadn't needed to use. "Beka, you've been pregnant twice," Yuri said. "And this is all the exact same shit you went through both times."
Heartburn. Nausea. Sensitivity to smell. The slow creep of his waistband outward, until he had to switch from jeans to drawstrings.
A flood of ice-cold panic rushed through Otabek's veins.
"Oh shit," he whispered.
Yuri pulled the pregnancy test out of the crumpled box. "It's not oh shit until we see two pink lines," Yuri said. "So just pee on the thing already."
Numbly, Otabek undid the straining button of his designer pants and took them off. It had been three years since the last time he'd done this—back when they were trying for Ruslan. And after Ruslan was born, they'd talked about it, and they responsibly decided that Otabek's child-bearing days were over. They got Yuri's junk snipped and closed that chapter of Otabek's life for good.
How the hell was he back to clumsily trying to aim his pee at a stick?
When it was done, Otabek set the test on the counter and washed his hands. "How long?" he asked.
"Three minutes," Yuri said, pulling out his phone and setting a timer. "Rapid Display, my ass."
Otabek wasn't going to survive three minutes. The suspense was literally going to kill him. He braced his hands hard against the bathroom counter and closed his eyes.
"Hey," Yuri said, his voice going a little softer. He slipped his arms around Otabek's waist, pulling him in, until Otabek was tucked up against him. "It's okay."
"We don't know if it's okay," Otabek said dully.
"It is," Yuri said. "Either way, it's okay. If it's one line—okay. If it's two lines—" He stroked his hand over Otabek's back. "—then we have a conversation. Right? We figure out what we want to do next."
He meant whether or not they wanted to keep it. Because Otabek hadn't wanted to get pregnant again. Because four kids was a lot. Because they hadn't even experienced life with three kids yet, and Yuri still hadn't gone through labor yet, and the only thing harder than raising an infant was adding another infant to the mix five months later.
Fuck.
The seconds ticked by with torturous slowness. Yuri's hand rubbed back and forth over Otabek's back. "I fucking love you," Yuri said. "So much."
Otabek pulled Yuri in closer, tucking his face into the curve of Yuri's neck. "I love you too."
"You can be so pissed at me if it's two lines," Yuri said. "You can throw things around. Break the mirror."
Otabek huffed softly. "It's not like you did anything on purpose."
"But it would still be my fault," Yuri said. "Me and my bullshit dick."
Otabek lifted his head, cupped the side of Yuri's cheek, and drew Yuri in for a kiss. He kept it off-center and mostly close-lipped, because he was certain his mouth tasted terrible just then. "There's no blame here," he said firmly. "We're a team. We get into things together, and we'll get through them together. Okay?"
Yuri kissed him back, full-on, even though he had to know it would be gross. "Okay," Yuri said.
The passing seconds ticked, ticked, ticked on by, until finally Yuri's phone alarm went off. Yuri tapped the screen and silenced it. For a second, neither of them let go of each other, too tense to pull away. "All right," Otabek said. "All right. Let's find out what we're facing."
They unfolded from each other and looked down at the countertop.
And saw, for the fourth time in their lives, a slim white stick showing two pink lines.
...