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There’s a rhythmic thumping coming from the room next door. The pace varies, hard and fast one minute and then slowing the next, but never fully stopping. With his noise cancelling headphones on, Yuri Plisetsky can almost imagine he’s in a room next to the world’s smallest club and the thing that’s shaking his bed frame is only a heavy bass line.
Sparing a glance at the time, Yuri sighs. It’s been an hour. Shouldn’t they be finishing up by now?
The part of the game that he’s playing through features bright, cheerful chimes and flutes in the music. It’s Yuri’s least favorite part of the score and pausing the game should be a relief, leaving him in just the muffled, noiseless world created by his headphones. Instead, he cringes as he lifts one speaker away from his ear, breaking the bubble of quiet.
The noise hits him harder than he hit the ice at practice the day before, trying to land that damn quad flip. Sex noises. Grunting and groaning; mattress springs squeaking and that headboard hitting the wall between him and them over and over and over. There are words, too, but the wall muffles the sound enough that he is mercifully spared from knowing the intimate details of what’s being said. He can’t even make out the language, although sometimes the tones sound familiar.
If Yuri ever figures out which loser has the room next to his, he’s gonna give them hell for this.
Actually, on second thought, Yuri thinks when the couple behind him hits the wall particularly hard and one of them lets out a high-pitched cry, I don’t ever want to find out who the hell that is. I’ll just kick their ass on the ice in revenge.
He lets his headphone fall back against his ear with a snap , once again muffling the worst of the sounds.
There is no doubt in his mind that whoever is going at it next door is an ice skater. The whole hotel is stuffed to the rafters with skaters, coaches, and ISU officials; they’ve basically taken the place over for the week. And with the stamina at hand, at least one of the idiots is a competitive athlete. Maybe even both.
Idly, Yuri wonders if he’ll be able to tell tomorrow based on how the other skaters perform at practice. Does that kind of sex leave a mark? A tell in how you stand or glide on the ice? Something in their expression or…?
Yuri cuts the thought off with a shake of his head. Like hell he’d want to know that about anyone he has to skate with this week. It’s his third Grand Prix Final, his first back after a bad sprain took him out of the running a year ago, and he plans to take home his second gold medal. If two idiots want to risk their chances of winning to get laid, then that’s none of his business.
THUD
A sudden increase in pace and impact makes Yuri jump out of his skin and then finally abandon his handheld for his phone. He pulls up his most recent text thread.
Eta?
7:30. Gonna check in, grab some food, and crash
Yuri had responded to the last message with a thumbs up. Riveting conversation. He wasn’t sure if the mention of getting food was supposed to be an invitation or what. But he hadn’t asked and Beka hadn’t said, so Yuri left it. If Beka wanted him around, he should ask him directly.
It’s a little after ten now. Past Beka’s preferred bed time, but sometimes it takes a while to settle into a new place after a long day of dozing on planes and in terminals. There’s still a chance Beka would answer a text tonight.
He doesn’t notice he’s been chewing the nail of his thumb until a bright speck of pain alerts him he’s hit the quick. It’s a nasty habit he picked up from Japanese Yuuri over the three months he spent recuperating, wondering if the changes his body was going through at the same time would render him an uncompetitive mess on the ice. Quickly, he curls his hand into a fist, putting pressure on the abused skin to reduce the pain.
With a determined huff, Yuri sends a new message.
Room #?
There’s a pause of a few seconds that almost makes Yuri start chewing on his nails on purpose. And then…
1202
Oh, perfect. That’s two floors up and on the opposite side of the hotel. Yuri doesn’t bother to text anymore info, just gathers up the few things he thinks he might need for the night and heads for the door, letting it slam shut behind him.
Just before walking away, and against his better judgement, Yuri curiously lifts his headphones, staring at the neighboring door with a disapproving glare.
Ugh, even out here it’s audible. More muffled, but definitely unmistakeable. In the otherwise quiet hallway, Yuri growls, “You’re animals! Filthy animals!”
He doesn’t shout it, he’s learned to not yell full volume in a packed hotel after ten o’clock, thank-you-very-much, but it’s plenty loud and he walks away with his headphones firmly around his ears and hopes that one of those damn mattress springs finally breaks and manages to puncture someone’s spine.
It takes less than ten minutes for Yuri to find Beka’s room. There’s a Do Not Disturb sign dangling off the door handle, but Yuri knocks anyway, loud and impatient two times in sharp succession. There’s a pause. Yuri listens, but doesn’t hear any movement from within. He frowns, then knocks again. Louder this time.
Feeling awkward and exposed in the hallway, his charger, room key, and sleep mask dangling from his hands, Yuri types quickly and without thinking.
Let me in
A muffled, but audible Ping! reaches the hallway through the closed door and Yuri is gratified to hear a slow shuffling step finally approach the door. He’s practically bouncing on his toes as he listens to the door’s deadbolt and chain both open methodically. Beka opens the door slowly, only a sliver at first.
“Yuri?” He asks, his voice husky with sleep, pulling the door open wider. “What are you doing here?”
Oh, I should have texted before coming over, Yuri thinks when Beka’s eyes drag up and down his body, dark and heavy. At the touch of those honey colored eyes, a shiver works its way down Yuri’s spine.
“Oh, um,” Yuri finds himself acutely aware of his appearance in a way he usually isn’t. His tiger print pajama set fit him better about a year and a half ago; now it exposes his ankles and part of his midriff that he’s usually fine with showing off. Tonight, though, he tugs the hem down as if that could do anything to help him at this point. He wishes his feet would somehow turn invisible or that he’d thought to take off his stupid, fuzzy pink socks before shoving his feet into his otherwise sensible black slippers before coming here.
Otabek watches him struggle for words – Yuri Plisetsky! Struggling for words! – and blinks twice, slowly. It’s like a switch being flipped and the sultry look drops away in an instant. Beka suddenly seems much more alert, eyes clear.
“Is something wrong?” He asks, his voice still rough but lucid. He’s wearing earplugs, the nice kind that connect with a string so you never get stuck with just one. One end dangles loose over his shoulder, and he pulls the other one out of his ear with the hand not holding the door open, giving Yuri a look of intense and focused concentration.
“No!” Yuri says, quickly, except there is something wrong and it’s the fact that this is not fair! Yuri is standing in this terrible hallway lighting, looking like an idiot, meanwhile Beka is in his darkened doorway with fuck-me eyes, messed up hair, a crease across his flawless cheekbones, wearing no shirt at all, and he still manages to look cool and sexy and…
Freaked out by whatever is going on with Yuri, if the way his eyes widen and he opens the door wider is anything to go by, so Yuri tamps down his mental panic and blurts.
“ Two idiots in the room next to mine are trying to fuck up their hip flexors before the competition! ”
Beka blinks again, his panic receding as he translates the words from Yuri-word-vomit into actual, useful information. An unfairly handsome smirk slides across his face. “That sounds annoying. For you.”
Yuri’s aversion to sex – talking about sex, thinking about sex, witnessing acts of even a vaguely sexual nature – is something of a running joke between them by now and it makes Yuri’s face flush bright pink.
“Yeah, well,” Yuri folds his arms stubbornly over his chest, “It is annoying. So, you should let me crash here. Tonight.”
“Oh,” Beka says, shifting his weight and sparing half a glance over his shoulder into his dark room. “Um.”
Shit. Fuck. Bad idea. Terrible idea. This was a mistake. He should have just slept by the pool, who cares if it’s winter in the Mediterranean? Yuri’s Russian! He’ll be fine!
The not-so-secret thing is that Yuri likes asking Beka for favors. Join my exhibition program; bring me a birthday present; let me borrow your eyeliner, grab my bag for me? Whether it’s big or small, there’s an easy, effortless way Beka always gives in to his demands. It makes Yuri feel powerful, knowing that his friend will always give him what he wants.
Except, apparently, Yuri’s finally found the limit. Beka’s hesitation feels like a physical blow.
“Er, nevermind,” Yuri is quick to say, taking a step back. “That’s weird. I’ll figure something out, they can’t go at it all night, I’m pretty sure, so–”
“It’s fine.” Beka’s hesitation melts away at the sight of Yuri so nervous and he swings the door wide open, motioning him through. “I already picked a side of the bed, though. Hope you don’t mind.”
“That’s fine,” Yuri says automatically, relief and that familiar old head-trip of power flooding his body. He’s slept more in dorms and hotel rooms than he ever has in his childhood bedroom; he can fall asleep basically anywhere as long as someone isn’t trying to break down his damn wall.
It’s only when he’s standing in the room properly that he understands what Beka was telling him and finally gets the hesitation. It’s a hotel room like any other – same shitty, uncomfortable chair in the corner, same lousy dresser, same crappy TV – and an exact replica of Yuri’s two floors away. Except…
“There’s only one bed.”
Yuri processes the realization out loud, always terrible at keeping his thoughts to himself. Beka’s still at the door, resetting the chain and deadbolt, but he looks over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” Yuri shakes his head, stomping over to the unoccupied side of the bed. “Our travel agent didn’t give me the option of choosing a king bed. That’s shit. I need the extra length.”
He really does. He’s taller than Beka now. They haven’t talked about it, because why would they? How would Yuri even explain how that makes him feel when he doesn’t fully understand it himself. At fifteen and eighteen, Beka had seemed impossibly taller and sturdier than him. Yuri fit perfectly against the curve of his back when they rode Beka’s motorcycle together.
He misses that feeling of having something solid supporting him.
But he also finds himself wondering if Beka wouldn’t like the same feeling. If he could wrap his arms around Beka’s solid shoulders and make him feel sheltered.
But here’s the issue: Yuri doesn’t have a problem talking about sex, sexuality, or witnessing even the vaguest of sex acts. Not even a little bit. In many ways, he worries he likes those things too much .
It’s only that when he’s with Beka, he can’t help but wonder what it would be like to do all these things with Beka. And that’s a dangerous road Yuri is terrified to navigate.
So here’s the strategy: avoid, distract, deny.
Avoid discussing any and all sexual matters with his best friend.
Distract his friends and rinkmates from ever noticing his hopeless crush by destroying all of them in competition.
Deny having feelings of any kind for any one no matter who.
And it was working.
Except now they’re going to share a bed after Yuri sent him a less than subtle series of texts, practically begging for a hookup. And Beka gave him that look when he answered the door. He has to wonder what Beka was thinking when he saw the messages… Could he possibly have thought Yuri was asking to…?
But Beka only grunts in acknowledgement of Yuri’s excuse. The door is now sufficiently locked, so he steps around Yuri’s frozen form and sits on the edge of the bed where the covers have already been pulled back and lets out an enormous yawn. He raises an eyebrow at Yuri, still standing at the edge of the short hallway. “You waiting for an invitation or…?”
He gestures to the open side of the bed and Yuri stomps his way around the room, throwing his phone, charger, and room key down on the other nightstand. “Don’t be annoying.” Yuri says through gritted teeth, moving quickly to hide his body’s sudden spike of interest. “I’ll get in bed when I’m ready.”
Beka makes a sound suspiciously like a laugh and lays against the headboard, pulling the covers up over his long legs with a sigh. The lamp on his nightstand is the only source of light in the room, and his face is thrown into shadow in the corner of Yuri’s vision, deepening the dark circle under his eye.
“Sorry,” Yuri apologizes, tentatively sliding under the sheets on the opposite side of the bed. His body is tense even as he reclines against the pillows, trying to affect an impression of relaxation he doesn’t feel. “I know you need your beauty sleep.”
Beka snorts, “Says the beauty queen. How much glitter are you planning to wear to practice tomorrow?”
“That was one time!” Yuri hisses, reaching over to smack his friend’s shoulder. “And it was all Mila’s idea – so we could see who danced with the most people.”
Mila had beaten him handily; the only person Yuri danced with that night was Beka, who magnanimously does not throw that information in his face.
Leaning over enough to reach Beka drags Yuri off the very edge of the bed and when he settles back down against his pillow, he’s a little looser. Beka’s barely looked at him since they entered the room, exhaustion from travel clearly weighing on him. Any interest Yuri thought he perceived must have just been confusion from being woken up unexpectedly.
Any disappointment Yuri feels at that, he tries to offset by enjoying their easy, longtime camaraderie. The familiar banter, the easy way they fit into each others lives without having to exchange more than a few words. The impersonal hotel room, glowing with yellow-orange light from the lamp, feels almost cozy with the two of them sharing the space.
Beside him, Beka is sliding deeper under the covers, head hitting the pillow with another yawn. “I know we haven’t had a chance to catch up in a while, but I’m beat. Do you mind if I go straight to sleep?”
“It’s fine,” Yuri shakes his head, “I’m not really in the mood to talk tonight anyway.”
“Cool,” Beka sighs, shoving one plug back in his ear before gesturing to the lamp, “You want the light on?”
“Nah,” Yuri says, “I’ll just be on my phone for a bit before I pass out.”
“Terrible habit.” Beka says thoughtlessly, “Blue light messes with your REM cycle.”
“Fuck off,” Yuri tells him for the millionth time, “It’s gotta be better than pulling a hamstring two days before a major international figure skating competition.”
Beka’s laugh is little more than a huff of air through his nose, but it makes Yuri smile anyway, until he adds, “Everybody knows that after competition is best. You’ve got to let yourself get a little pent up. Makes the celebration sex so much better”
And then Beka’s second ear plug is in and he reaches over, flicks off the lamp, and plunges the room into darkness. The only lights are a sliver of moonlight through a tiny gap in the curtains and Yuri’s phone, aimed directly at his own face. Beka settles against his pillows, lets out a heavy sigh, and then seems to fall asleep in an instant.
A few minutes later, he begins to snore. Not loud and rumbling like Yuri’s grandfather, but soft and gentle. Almost like a cat’s purr. And Yuri can’t even enjoy learning that fact because what. The actual. Fuck.
Beka likes to have sex after competitions? Celebratory sex? Since when? Most importantly, with who?
Sure, Yuri’s aversion to sex and sex-related things in Beka’s presence meant they didn’t ever really talk about Beka’s experiences, but surely he would have mentioned it if he was seeing someone. Yuri glances at his friend who is sleeping on his side, facing away, completely unreadable except for the slow expansion of his chest as he breathes.
No, Yuri thinks, suddenly sure, He would have told me if he was dating someone. I’m sure of it. But then who…?
The thought of Beka on Grindr or Hinge is almost laughable. He barely texts the people he knows; his friends and family. Yuri can’t picture him spending time swiping through the endless pictures of total strangers for any meaningful length of time, much less answering one of those stupid get-to-know-me prompts. It just doesn’t fit.
Beka has fans, not on the order of someone like Viktor who appears regularly in ad campaigns and magazine covers, but the ones he has are a dedicated bunch. There are even a few people from his home country who regularly fly out to his international competitions to cheer him on. They come often enough to be recognizable and Beka knows several of them personally, always grateful for their support. They call him the Hero of Kazakhstan and bring flags to show their national pride.
That’s right. Yuri thinks. They’re proud of him, hold him in high esteem. They’re not weird and sexual about it like the Angels . Would Beka sleep with someone who puts him on a pedestal?
It seemed unlikely. But who did that leave?
Sleeping with ISU officials and arena workers is generally frowned upon and in some cases could get you disqualified from competition. Most of the coaches on the circuit this year are on the older side… Yuri can’t picture Beka with someone like that. But all that is left to think about now are other skaters.
Ugh. It's too awful to contemplate. Yuri moans to himself, but can’t stop thinking about it anyway.
When did Otabek last medal? It was just a few weeks ago at the Trophee de France. He placed silver, trailing a few points behind Yuri himself. They went out together after, drank wine by a quiet spot with a view of the Seine and didn’t get back to their hotel rooms until the small hours of the morning. Yuri’s reasonably confident Beka hadn’t slept with anyone at that competition.
But his previous competition… At the Cup of China Beka got gold and Yuri was assigned to Skate America earlier in the year so he had to watch Beka skate on the shitty live stream with everyone else. He remembered thinking Beka looked dignified and determined on the podium, a soldier with a long fight still ahead of him.
But maybe his mind wasn’t on the competition at all – or at least not on skating. Did he already have someone in mind to celebrate with while standing at the podium? Or did he choose them after the fact?
It’s after midnight and Yuri’s down an Instagram rabbit hole. He’s been on the profile of every single skater who competed at the Cup and is currently two years deep into a random Chinese skater who just debuted this year and didn’t even make the podium at either of his Grand Prix events, when he finally forces himself to turn off his phone.
“Fuck you.” Yuri repeats, breaking the near-silence for the first time in two hours, his voice giving a feeble wobble at the end.
Beside him, Beka shifts under his covers then coughs, but stays asleep.
Turning on his side to face away from his friend, Yuri curls up into the smallest ball he can manage with his new, elongated limbs and slips his sleep mask over his eyes. If they catch the first slip of salt water that spills over his eyelashes, well, it’ll be dry by morning and that’s nobody’s business but Yuri’s.
“Good morning, Yurio!”
“And what have you been up to?”
The idiotic wonder duo is entirely too much for Yuri’s brain to process at 7 o’clock in the damn morning when there’s so much else already swirling around in it. He’s been standing at his own door for what feels like one million years, but the stupid lock thing keeps blinking red at him and refusing to let him into his own room. Oh, god, please don’t let him have grabbed Beka’s by accident…
He’s so distressed and overwhelmed by the events of the morning that when Katsudon and the old man materialize over his shoulder, he can only assume that God spawned them in the hallway just to enact some sort of torture as payment for his misspent youth.
Not that he’d been anything but saintly in his youth, with his slavish devotion to an ultra competitive sport and a permanent crush that left him with little time to contemplate any of the big sins. But priests always made it seem like you’re doing something wrong in their sermons, so Yuri digresses.
Back in the hallway, Viktor’s leaning in with a too-playful smile on his lips, scanning over Yuri’s body for evidence of… something. “Well?” He asks, “How’s the walk of shame going?”
That’s rich coming from Viktor, who has a glazed over look in his eyes, and an obvious hitch in his gait from even the few short steps he’d taken to observe Yuri up close. Katsudon’s not any better off behind him, seemingly floating over the ugly carpet as he wraps an arm around his husband’s midsection, smiling like a dope the whole time.
Yuri stares back at him, uncomprehending for long moments, and then the door behind Yuuri slides closed with an accusatory click and it all hits Yuri at once.
“YOU!” He points at both of them, outraged, “You’re animals! This hotel is full of people who paid good money to get a night’s rest, you know, not be subjected to your filth for hours! ”
“Oh no,” Yuuri’s stare flickers from Yuri’s face, to his key card, to his hand on the door of the next hotel room over, and he goes white as he makes the same realization several seconds delayed. “Yurio, I’m so sorry–!”
“Don’t call me that!” Yuri snaps and it’s harsh enough to make Yuuri flinch back; it’s been ages since Yuri lashed out like this, but he can’t seem to stop himself. “If he fucks up his skating, I’m blaming you !” He turns his finger on Viktor, who’s teasing smile has an edge to it. “You’re his coach, you're supposed to make sure he conserves his energy before the competition, not give him a repetitive stress injury! And you should know better, too, you stupid pig! Always just letting him get away with–”
“Yuri,” Viktor says, his deceptively light tone filled with sharp edges, as he interrupts Yuri’s tirade. “That’s enough now. We’ll be mindful of your room placement in the future, but if you speak to my Yuuri like that again, you and I and Yakov will be speaking to the ISU about your harassment of fellow skaters.”
Yuri blanches at the cool threat. It’s a conversation he’s had before and it isn’t one he’s looking to repeat. Ever. Not in the least because a third strike could get him permanently barred from certain competitions.
“Hey, it’s alright,” Yuuri soothes Viktor first, stroking his waist absently with his thumb, before turning to Yuri. “We are sorry for disturbing you last night.”
“I just don’t understand…” Yuri shakes his head, his voice lowered but still upset. “Before a competition, why would you–? It’s an unnecessary risk!”
“It’s really not that bad,” Yuuri’s expression is open and gentle, dark eyes magnified by the lenses in his glasses, “We stretch before and after, you know. It technically falls under low-impact exercise.”
On another day, in another mood, Yuri might have more questions. Might allow Yuuri to turn this into a Teachable Moment about sex and sexuality; might be convinced that this isn’t the monumental, stupid risk Yuri assumes.
Like he said, with anyone other than Beka, Yuri doesn’t actually have a problem talking about sex.
But not in this hallway, after the morning he’s had. Yuri folds his arms, turning his face away from the brewing lecture, and insists, “It still sounds stupid to me!”
“Oh, Yura,” Viktor says, overly sweet, and Yuri braces himself for whatever condescension is going to follow. He’s obviously pissed Viktor off this morning. “Someday you’ll understand.”
Yuri’s hackles raise at the same time tears spring into his eyes and he turns towards his door sharply, ignoring Yuuri’s noise of concern, throwing all his energy back into getting the stupid door to open.
“No,” He growls, happy when his voice isn’t choked by tears, “I won’t .”
Yuuri says something. Viktor reaches for him. But finally, the lock flashes green and Yuri’s door clicks open and he throws himself into the safety of his room, slamming the door shut behind him.
He sits in the relative quiet – Yuuri and Viktor’s voices are muffled but still audible – and lets his weight fall back against the closed door, breathing heavily. When he finally has control of his voice and tear ducts again, he whips the door open one more time.
“And hide that stupid hickey before someone sees!” He snaps, pointing at the offensive red mark high on Yuuri’s neck.
From Yuuri’s squeak of panic, he obviously didn’t know about it. From Viktor’s self-satisfied smirk, he obviously did. Yuri slams the door shut yet again and goes to have the rest of his breakdown in the shower.
One time, when Yuri was sixteen and Beka was nineteen, the European Championships were in Munich, Germany. Beka got a DJing gig the night after the Free Skate and he learned his lesson after their first Grand Prix Final, bringing Yuri to the club with him rather than letting the younger skater sneak in alone. Yuri didn’t drink at all – he had an exhibition to skate the next day – but he danced for hours and hours, ignoring Yakov’s texts demanding to know where he was. As he swayed and moved with the music, Yuri thought he could feel Beka’s eyes on him, like a physical force.
He knew he looked good that night. He brought that specific crop top and skinny jeans and heavy boots specifically for this purpose. He’d even gone through the indignity of vetting the look through Mila, who approved and teasingly asked him who he was dressing up for.
They took the long way back to the hotel, riding around the city with bass still ringing in their ears. They took a breath in a park surrounding a monument to some war Yuri didn’t know anything about.
Yuri thought he was going to get his first kiss that night, but it never came.
The morning didn’t start out awful. It became that way over time.
The morning actually started out pretty nice. Their alarms went off at the same time, 6:30 AM. Beka’s was a soft chime that rang out once and then paused; it’s a Tuesday, so Yuri’s alarm is a heavy metal song that sounds like shit on his phone’s crappy external speaker, so he is motivated to actually push himself up out of sleep and turn it off.
Beka stays asleep, drooling slightly on his pillow. They’d turned towards each other in the middle of the night. Not like it was a big deal or anything, the bed was huge. But Beka’s hand is stretched towards the center of the bed, almost like he was reaching for Yuri in his sleep…
Yuri shakes the thought away at the same time Beka’s alarm chimes again. The chiming gets louder and more frequent with every minute that passes with Beka failing to silence it. The sound is vaguely familiar and pretty fucking annoying.
“Hey,” Yuri says insistently, poking Beka’s hard cheek, “Wake up, loser, your phone’s going crazy.”
The chiming seems to reach a maximum volume and then stay there. Ping! Ping! Ping! one after the other.
Yuri prods his friend harder and Beka finally opens his eyes long enough to blearily glare at him before rolling over with the cutest pout on his face and shutting off the alarm.
He falls with a huff back against his pillow. “...annoying.” He complains.
“Don’t fall asleep again,” Yuri instructs, choosing not to ask if Beka means him or the alarm, “I’m not your coach; I won’t wake you up and I will take advantage of extra ice time with one less person on it.”
“So ruthless,” Beka sighs before slowly pushing himself upright. “Don’t worry; once I’m up, I’m up. It just takes a minute to get there.”
Yuri’s cheeks turn pink and he buries his face in his phone, studiously ignoring the innuendo. That’s a record amount of sex talk for him and Beka after last night’s reveal. Yuri would really like to go back to never talking about it and it’s clear from the way Beka casually begins rolling out his shoulders that he didn’t mean any double entendre.
His shoulders and wrists crack satisfyingly and he swings his legs over the edge of the bed, stretching his ankles and his knees before standing up. “You want tea?” Beka asks, going to the tiny in-room coffee maker, “I think I’ve got English Breakfast and Peppermint.”
“Either is fine,” Yuri says, already scrolling his phone, “Thanks.”
A few minutes later the tiny room is filled with the acrid smell of coffee and there’s a softly steaming cup of English Breakfast tea brewing on Yuri’s beside table, two packets of sugar awaiting him whenever it’s ready to drink. Then, because he’s a menace, Beka throws the curtains open with no warning.
“Augh,” Yuri complains, covering his face with Beka’s abandoned pillow. “My eyes.”
“Sunlight is good for you in the morning.” Beka lectures, standing with his bare chest exposed to the outside world for anyone to see, “You should always try to get direct sunlight as soon as possible in the morning.”
“Now who’s being annoying?” Yuri complains, abandoning the pillow when he realizes how much it smells like Beka and how quickly his body tries to respond to that realization.
His friend only laughs and begins working his way through a series of stretches. It looks like a familiar routine, halfway between active stretching and actual yoga, that gets Beka’s heart rate up without making him break a sweat.
Yuri would be impressed by the flowing movement of his muscles under tan skin, if he wasn’t studiously studying his daily schedule rather than risking a single glance over.
“What’s your schedule look like today?” Beka asks, after he’s finished his morning exercise and is sipping his shitty hotel coffee at the tiny hotel desk, still shirtless like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
“Yakov wants me on the ice first thing,” Yuri reads off – today that means a 9 AM start, “And then I have cardio and strength training in the afternoon. Then back on the ice for jump practice”
“Does your slave driver of a coach leave you time for lunch?” Beka asks with a raised brow.
Yuri rolls his eyes at him; Beka works just as hard. “Thirty minutes from 12:30 - 1:00.”
“Sick,” Beka nods, “I have a break then, too. I’ll bring something to the rink for you.”
“Won’t you be at the rink?” Yuri asks curiously.
“I’m not doing any public practice until after the Short Program,” Beka says mysteriously, all dignified silence and perfectly arched brows when Yuri tries to wheedle the why out of him. All he’ll say is, “It’s my coach’s idea.”
“Keep your secrets, then,” Yuri flips him off and goes back to his phone in protest.
“I’m gonna wash up,” Beka says, rising from the terrible office chair, and heading for the bathroom. “Feel free to hang out if you want.”
“Thanks,” Yuri says, still sipping on his tea. Unlike Beka, he likes to stay in bed as long as possible before surrendering to what will surely be an unrelenting pre-competition practice day.
Besides, his morning Instagram scroll is serious business. Yuri has to keep tabs on all of his competition leading up to the event. He’s scrolling through pictures of everyone’s travels, what they got up to last night, who gave in to the urge to party versus who seems to be locked in already. It’s important work.
It doesn’t stop him from noticing Beka’s phone on the other nightstand. It lights up periodically. Yuri doesn’t know enough Kazakh to read the messages, but he recognizes a few of the names. A text from his coach; one from his sister; two from his rinkmates back in Almaty. The messages flash on the screen and then disappear again in silence. Every time a new one comes through, Yuri gets a weird itching feeling in the back of his head.
His brain is trying to make a connection, he’s just not sure to what.
Then he thinks about the chime alarm and how strangely familiar it sounded. He thinks about Beka, who sleeps with earplugs in, not responding to four knocks on his door. But there was a Ping! and then…
Suddenly desperately curious, Yuri thumbs over to their text thread, selects an emoji – a cat’s paw, the one he uses when he wants Beka’s attention but doesn’t have anything particular to say – and hits Send.
An instant later, Beka’s screen bursts to life and a sharp Ping! echoes through the room.
Beka’s head, brows furrowed and a toothbrush hanging out of the corner of his mouth, appears at the bathroom door. “Did’oo jus’ ‘ex me?”
But Yuri’s not looking at him; he’s frowning at Beka’s phone.
What. The. Fuck.
“What the fuck?” He asks out loud for good measure.
Half in, half out of the bathroom, Beka’s eyes blow wider than Yuri’s ever seen them.
Yuri finally looks at him, hopelessly confused, “Why do I have a custom ringtone in your phone?”
“Can eshplain!” Beka holds up a hand, begging for time, “Jus’a’sec!”
He disappears back into the bathroom. Water runs in the sink. Yuri’s already on his feet, stuffing them into his slippers and making a beeline for the exit.
He can’t think about this. Not the day before the GPF Short Program.
“Yuri!” Beka narrowly avoids breaking his nose with the speed at which he opens the bathroom door, stopping Yuri’s forward progress toward the exit. “Hang on, just let me–”
“Let you what , Beka?” Yuri snaps, pulling away when Beka tries to touch his arm
“It’s because of the time differences!” Beka says quickly, his breath minty and a smear of toothpaste in the corner of his mouth, “When we’re out of sync, I don’t like to leave you waiting. I use my alarm tone, so that I always wake up when I get a message from you.”
“That’s,” Yuri’s heart is beating so frantically, he has a panicked thought that Beka must be able to hear it. He puts his hand over it, as if to muffle the sound. “What does that mean ?”
It’s a nonsensical question, but Beka’s answer still stings. Dark, almond eyes are almost pleading with Yuri, when he replies, “It doesn’t mean anything!”
Fuck , Yuri thinks. And that thought must have been out loud, too, because Beka flinches.
“You’re just really important to me,” Beka says, trying again to touch Yuri’s hand or shoulder, “You’re my best friend and I –”
“I can’t be here right now,” Yuri shoves Beka’s touch away, shoves past him entirely, and his long strides eat up the distance between himself and the door. “I need – I think I need some space.”
If Beka replies, Yuri doesn’t hear him, mind filled with a static hum and the door already falling shut behind him.
He half expects Beka to come racing after him, lingers by the elevators just in case, but he doesn’t. He gives Yuri exactly what he asked for, just like he always does. The elevator door chimes as it opens and Yuri steps inside, his chest heaving, and just says, “ Fuck! ”
It echoes, cold and lonely, in the small metal room.
After an embarrassing trip to the front desk to get a new key card, that’s the state in which Yuri stumbled into the idiot wonder duo and then had a messy and embarrassing breakdown in the shower.
Here are the facts as Yuri sees them:
- Beka fucks. Preferably in celebration, possibly also in other circumstances.
- Yuri wants him so bad, he sometimes can’t breathe because of it.
- Beka has never, not once, shown a single ounce of sexual interest in him.
- Beka remembers how Yuri takes his tea, shares a bed with him because he has obnoxious neighbors, and gives Yuri a special ringtone in his phone just so he never misses a text message because Yuri is that important to him as a friend.
- Yuri is the biggest asshole in the world, because friendship just isn’t enough for him anymore.
It’s so, so hard to admit that last part to himself, even in the privacy of his shower. But he can’t hide from it anymore. Being with Beka but not with him is, sooner or later, going to drive him insane. With longing, with jealousy, with heartsickness. Whatever it is, it’s not good for Yuri’s soul.
Space. That’s what he needs. No more asking Beka for things just to see if he’ll do it. No more sneaking out of events together, hanging out too late in the night. No more dancing for his attention. If Yuri can just get some perspective, maybe he can eventually go back to just friends .
That’s what Yuri tells himself while he towels off the last of the shower water and tears before getting dressed and cleaned up in record time, already half an hour behind schedule. Yakov’s going to kill him.
He has to straighten his head out before it ruins his figure skating career, to say nothing of his friendship.
Yuri’s so focused on this new goal, that he doesn’t even notice the absence of a familiar weight in his jacket pocket as he tears out of the hotel and towards the arena.
Meanwhile, his phone lies, abandoned, under the hastily thrown covers of Beka’s bed.
The only thing worse than training is not training because you aren’t allowed.
Yuri becomes intimately familiar with this feeling the winter he turns eighteen. He spends the last week before the Grand Prix Final under no-weight-bearing orders, praying the swelling in his ankle goes down and the big sprain magically becomes a little sprain that he can tape up and grit his teeth through in order to defend his title.
Instead, the GPF comes and goes and he’s stuck viewing it through a live stream on the beat up couch in his Grandfather’s flat in Moscow. When all of his rinkmates come home and start prepping in earnest for Russian Nationals, he’s stuck in a fucking boot like a clown, stomping around the arena with nothing to do but yell at the teeny boppers, and Katsudon, and Viktor, and basically anyone else who looks at him for more than two seconds.
By the time he’s finally allowed to resume – limited and heavily supervised – training of any kind, he doesn’t give a shit that it’s mostly PT and body weight conditioning, he missed having something to keep his mind off his rapidly growing body.
The only bright side through it all was that it got him a promise out of Beka: he would win gold at Europeans and use the prize money to visit St. Petersburg and cheer Yuri up.
The promise sticks and as an unusually warm February gives way to March, Yuri is finally allowed to walk normally as much as he wants for as long as he wants, while being actively restricted from skating or heavy exercise.
So when Beka finally lands in St. Petersburg, they go straight from the airport to the club with barely more than ten minutes spared to throw his bag in Yuri’s apartment. Mila and Georgie, with his newest girlfriend, join them and they toast Yuri’s official rise to the age of majority with shots at midnight.
That was the night of the body glitter. Mila had pasted it all over him and herself, called it a birthday challenge to spread it on as many people as possible. As her neon green glitter gradually filled the room that night, Yuri’s diamond dust only ever landed on one other person.
Beka, only in town for two nights, didn’t let him get more than an arm’s length away all night. Usually, they were a lot closer than that. Beka put his hands on Yuri’s side, waist and hips and moved against him in time to the music. Although it was too loud to talk over the music, Yuri was so sure they were speaking the same language, operating with the same assumptions.
Yuri was finally eighteen. They were both out, in public and private. There was nothing holding them back anymore.
But two am turned into four am which spilled them, stumbling, out into the weak light of morning. They had coffee and omelets at a shitty diner on the way back to the apartment, then collapsed into an exhausted sleep on the couch as soon as they sat down. Yuri didn’t even manage to latch the front door all the way.
But Beka never kissed him. Not later that day or the next night, either. And he went home without them ever talking about it.
That’s around the time Yuri stopped being comfortable talking about sex.
“I know you’re there, please open the door.”
If it was anybody else, Yuri would still be face down on his bed, not hovering in front of the door with his hand over the handle. But it was Katsudon, and Yuri was already rude to him once today, so he is at least considering opening the door a crack. And then he says the magic words.
“I have your phone!”
The door opens with an audible whoosh and Yuri glares out into the hallway. “Well, where is it!?”
“Here,” Yuuri holds it out, the black screen gleaming white as it reflects the harsh overhead lighting from the hallway. He looks nervous, like he might need to count his fingers after this interaction. “Altin gave it to me. He asked me to apologize to you, but didn’t say what for. Yuri, did Otabek steal your phone?”
It’s too much, listening to Otabek’s name in Yuuri’s concerned voice. All of the feelings Yuri has been unsuccessfully trying to bury all day swim straight back up into his throat and threaten to overwhelm him.
Morning practice had been sufficiently exhausting, especially with the number of drills Yakov made him skate to make up for his tardiness. But then Yuri’s lunch came and went with no Beka in sight, despite his promise that morning. It’s only then that Yuri thinks to look for his phone and realizes with horror where he must have left it.
So, Yuri ends up going to conditioning with nothing in his stomach, and then throws up bile when he overdoes it in the weight room.
A nutritionist lectures him on calories for the millionth time in his life, and he goes to jump practice with a protein bar sitting lead-heavy in his stomach.
It’s better not to talk about jump practice.
Yuri retreated to his room as early as humanly possible and, after a frantic ten minutes of pulling the place apart, hoping against hope that his phone was there somehow, had simply collapsed against the bed with the understanding in his heart that his phone was forever lost to him.
It’s not like he could just go back to Beka’s room and get it. He’s the one who asked for space; Beka’s the one obeying his request, as always.
And now here’s Yuuri, with that lost phone and guileless eyes and if it was anyone else, Yuri would snatch the phone and slam the door in their face. But Beka gave the phone to Yuuri .
Instead of grabbing the offered phone, Yuri grips Katsudon’s wrist and hauls him into his room.
“Yuri!” He squeaks, but doesn’t put up a fight. He could; Yuri can feel the strength in his arms and in the steps that trail his. But Yuuri lets himself be manhandled, because that’s easier for Yuri than just asking him to come in. “What’s the matter!? If Altin did something, I’ll go with you to talk to the officials – Fuck, or the police if it’s really–”
“Shut up , Katsudon!” Yuri snaps, finally taking his phone back and throwing it on the bed. He’s learned not to throw them at walls anymore. Phones are expensive, and this one he got for free as part of a promo gig. Replacing it would be annoying.
Obediently, Katsudon clams up and watches Yuri face plant onto the bedspread once more, right next to his rescued phone.
“That’s the whole problem,” Yuri complains to the mattress, “Beka never does anything!”
“O-okay,” Yuuri says, uncertainly, and perches on the edge of the bed. “Why is that a problem?”
“I used to think ‘okay, he says he doesn’t want to date anyone until he comes out to his family’,” Yuri barrels on, “And I thought that was kind of cool, you know? Like he wanted to be authentically himself before he started a relationship. And then after he came out and everybody was so supportive, I thought, ‘oh, he feels weird about the age gap.’ and that was fine, too, because we’re so public, you know? And I wouldn’t want anyone to think there was something weird or inappropriate going on and have that mess with his career. But then after I turned eighteen and he still didn’t do anything, I didn’t know what to think! So I stopped thinking about it! Or I tried to!”
“But feelings don’t work like that,” Yuuri says softly. “When you try to bury them, they can start to hurt.”
Instinctively, Yuri wants to bristle and protest at his tone, but he takes a breath and reminds himself that Yuuri is being sympathetic, not patronizing. It’s a fine line, but Yuri is slowly learning the difference. And when he considers the words on their own terms, without his insecurity and anxiety obscuring them, they feel like the truth.
See? This is why Yuri likes Katsudon. He just gets things; puts them into words that make sense when Yuri can’t do it for himself.
Yuuri once confided that it was related to his anxiety; he spent a lot of time dwelling on his own thoughts and feelings, trying to describe them exactly so he could sort out what was a real concern and what was generalized anxiety making his life harder. It makes it easier to recognize the same feelings in other people. Yuri feels terrible about it but, privately, he is very grateful for Yuuri’s shit mental health.
Yuri manages a nod, salty tears leaking from his eyes onto the bedspread.
“He has a special ringtone,” Yuri explains, fumbling for his own phone to distract him. There’s missed calls and messages from Yakov from the morning; a message from Yuuri asking if he’s alright; endless tags and notifications from social media; and a series of notifications from Beka. The notifications are stacked to save space on his screen, so Yuri can only view the first message preview. It reads:
Shit. You won’t even be able to see this until I…
The preview cuts off there and Yuri shuts off the screen. “It’s really loud, so that my messages always wake him up. Even though he sleeps with earplugs. He remembers how I take my tea and lets me share his bed when my neighbors are being rude late at night.”
“Sorry, again,” Yuuri adds, weakly, patting his shoulder.
“It’s fine.” Yuri admits, “I liked sharing a room with Beka, even though it made me feel like crap in the end.”
Katsudon is cautious as he tries to tease apart Yuri’s problems with him. “But Yuri… those are all really nice things? Why is it a problem?”
Yuri exhales hard, flopping over to stare at the ceiling and confesses, “Because he doesn’t want to have sex with me.”
“Oh,” Yuuri says, then blushes darkly, looks away and repeats, “ Oh! But you do?”
Yuri nods desolately. “So much.”
“Okay,” Yuuri nods in return, face thoughtful. “How do you know that for sure?”
Yuri gives him a hard look out of the corner of his eye. “Uh, because if I look at him for too long I get hard?”
“Not that!” Yuuri swats at him, cheeks still blush-stained. “I know you know your own feelings. But how do you know there’s a lack of interest on his side?”
Yuri sighs. Back to staring at the ceiling. “Because he’s had, like, one billion chances to make a move and he never has!”
“Have you?” Yuuri asks, open and curious.
“Have I what?”
“Made a move?”
Yuri chews his lip. “I… used to try. I’d dress up and make him dance with me and touch him a lot whenever we were together. I’d send flirty texts and innuendos and stuff, but he never responded. And after a while it just felt embarrassing.”
Yuuri shifts, coming to lie beside him lengthwise on the bed. Yuri’s legs now dangle farther off the bed, but Yuuri’s fingers are longer where they rest against his toned stomach. Yuri watches him with his head tipped to the side, but Yuuri only hums in thoughtful concentration and keeps his eyes on the ceiling.
The extended quiet eats at Yuri, but he makes himself be patient. Katsudon thinks before he speaks and Yuri’s learned to appreciate that over the years even when he really wishes the pig would just spit it out already.
“Have you thought about what your relationship with him would be like without sex?” Yuuri asks, a finger against his lips.
Yuri scoffs. “Obviously. It’s, like, the main thing I think about besides skating.”
“Not what your friendship would be like without sex,” Yuuri clarifies, “I mean, what if you had a romantic relationship but not sexual?”
“Is that–?” Yuri blanches, “Is that a thing?”
Katsudon hums a yes. “For some people.”
“I don’t know,” Yuri shakes his head, “It would be better than this, maybe, but I don’t know–”
“You don’t have to know right now,” Yuuri soothes him, “But you should think about it.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know why you two haven’t had sex,” Yuuri says, “But I know you’re important to Otabek. There has to be a reason your relationship hasn’t progressed the way you want it to. Maybe you’re right and he’s not interested, but that isn’t the only possibility.”
“What else could it be?” Yuuri asks, pulling a pillow from the head of the bed so he has something to curl around, turning to face Yuuri.
“Do you remember that night at the banquet after the Sochi GPF?”
The question is out of the blue and Yuri frowns at the sudden change of topic. “Obviously? How could I forget – it was totally embarrassing.”
“Yeah…” Yuuri sighs, turning his head to meet Yuri’s confused glare and offering an appropriately mortified smile. “I don’t remember any of it.”
“What?” Yuri asks, mouth dropping open. “Seriously? None of it?”
“It’s a complete blank.” Yuuri says, “I had no idea I did anything other than drink in the corner and go to my room at the first opportunity. I don’t remember the dance off, stripping, approaching Viktor. Absolutely nothing.”
“But you asked Viktor to coach you!” Yuri insists, “And then he did! Why did you think he’d do that?”
“I had no idea he why he showed up when he did,” Yuuri says with a helpless shrug, “And I was too scared to ask any questions because I thought that any day he would realize he was making a monumental mistake and I’d lose him forever. I never could have considered the possibility that I was missing a key piece of information.”
“Okay,” Yuri rolls his eyes, hugging the pillow tighter to his chest. “That explains why you guys were so weird in the beginning, but why are we talking about you and Viktor and not me and Beka?”
The look Yuuri gives him is so fond it prompts Yuri to roll his eyes.
“For so much of that first year together, Viktor and I felt like we were constantly half a step out of sync. It seemed like our goals for each other, ourselves, and our skating careers were fundamentally incompatible and I couldn’t ever figure out why,” Yuuri tells him, “Until I found out about the banquet and everything started to make sense. Once we were both honest with each other and on the same page, everything fell into place.”
“Ugh,” Yuri rolls his eyes, flopping onto his back and smacking Yuuri with the pillow as he does, “Do not tell me to talk to Beka. It’s too embarrassing.”
“I think you two are way past the point of talking this out.” Yuuri admits, shocking the blonde on the bed beside him. He pushes up onto his elbows, grinning as he fixes his glasses, “If you were going to talk, it would have happened sometime in the last four years.
“Then what are you suggesting?” Yuri asks, eyes narrowing.
Viktor Nikiforov has a reputation as an airhead and a drama queen – jumping headfirst after crazy ideas and rarely thinking through the consequences. Yuri’s born witness to this behavior for most of his professional skating career and is usually the first person to call him out on it.
What people tend to miss, in the whirlwind of Viktor drama, is that Katsuki Yuuri is just as crazy. He’s only better at hiding it and occasionally at managing the fallout. Yuri has no doubt that whatever Yuuri’s about to suggest is going to rival Viktor’s impromptu trip to Japan four years earlier.
“I think you need to skate it out!”
“What?” Yuri asks, disbelief threaded through his voice.
“Think about it!” Yuuri says, nudging him into a seated position, “Think about your theme this year! It’s perfect for you and Otabek – you just need to change up a few elements, focus on your choreography and play the story a little differently than usual.”
“Oi, Katsudon, we’re not you and your lameass lover,” Yuri narrows his eyes skeptically, “We’re here to win medals, not send each other hidden messages on the ice.”
“If you’re paying enough attention, everything on the ice looks like love,” Yuuri sighs with a smile on his face, “Why do you think I’ve stayed competitive for so long?”
“Because you’re an idiot who doesn’t know when to give up?” Yuri goads instinctively, but without any bite.
“Because as long as Viktor’s watching me, I feel like I can do anything. I’m unstoppable and I’m not ready to give that up.” Yuuri confesses before his eyes change from fond and light to glittering with challenge, “And when you capture Otabek’s attention the same way, you’ll understand why.”
Cautiously curious, Yuri leans in and asks, “Okay, but how do I even do that?”
“I’m skating with him in the second group, so I can make sure he watches you,” Yuuri says, leaning in with a wicked grin, “And all you have to do is change your entire jump composition one night before the short program.”
“WHAT!?”
When Yuri is sixteen and Beka is just a few weeks shy of turning nineteen, Yuri visits Almaty for the first time. It’s the off season; he has money from his GPF Gold and his World silver, plus a few good sponsorship deals. Beka is his first real friend and it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Almaty is… weird. Nice, but weird.
Different from Moscow or St. Petersburg, but also just a city like every other city in the world.
Beka’s family lives in a big house an hour from his home rink. He has three sisters who like to snoop and two parents who are warm when they welcome Yuri into their home. His mother cooks dinner and the entire family eats together every night of Yuri’s seven day stay.
“What? No. It’s always like this.” Beka tells him when Yuri asks if that’s something they’re doing for his benefit. “I missed it a lot when I had to train away from home.”
“Oh,” Yuri says, feeling very small and childish for asking, “I don’t have a family like that.”
For some reason this makes Beka shift over on the bed – the bed which they are sharing because Beka refused to let him sleep on the floor – and pull Yuri into a tight hug.
“You can have mine,” Beka tells him, “If you want it.”
And at the time Yuri thinks that’s almost better than a love confession.
A Russian skating to Stravinsky isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but Yuri isn’t obsessed with surprising the audience like some people. He skates to the music he thinks suits him best while also impressing the judges. And judges like classical music with a strong story, so this year Yuri is skating to Stravinsky.
The Soldier’s Story is a long, winding piece based in Russian folklore. For his short program, Yuri uses a modified version of the first movement – cut down to fit the time restriction and focusing on the biggest, most sweeping dramatic portions. On the ice, he dances the story of a soldier travelling home from war. The Devil offers him knowledge of the future in exchange for his old violin. It takes the soldier three days to teach the Devil to fiddle and be taught in return.
When the soldier finally reaches home, however, he learns that three years have passed. His parents are dead and his lover has married someone else. With his new-found knowledge of the future, the soldier achieves great wealth and success, but can never regain the love he lost.
When he confronts the Devil about the trick, his violin is returned to him. But when he tries to play it no longer sings for him.
Yuri likes the program because it ends on a dark, melancholy note that doesn’t break until his free skate, where he performs the second movement of the piece which is brighter and more triumphant. Normally, he embodies the devil for the first half of the program, offering the audience temptation, tantalizing them with the promise of things to come.
The back half of the program is jump-heavy and he becomes the soldier, frantically trying and failing to make up for everything he’s lost.
That’s how he’s skated it all throughout the Grand Prix series so far.
“Please watch him,” Katsuki speaks strong English with a confident American accent, but still favors short, to-the-point sentences. Otabek likes talking to him during competitions, usually.
Still, he finds himself resisting the request, pulling against Yuuri’s touch on his arm and trying to exit the arena for a quieter backstage area. “I don’t think that’s a good–”
“No,” Yuuri tugs him back toward the boards, where Yuri’s coach is standing next to Viktor Nikiforov, “I promised I’d make sure you see this. He wants you here.”
So, helpless, Otabek follows him, taking a place he doesn’t deserve at the edge of the rink. Only Katsuki Yuuri and Viktor Nikiforov would get away with so blatantly breaking protocol during a major competition.
Yakov Feltsman is shouting last minute instructions over the sound of the crowd, but his skater is barely listening, green eyes searching, searching, searching for something in the crowd, almost frantic as his thirty seconds to take the ice tick away.
With only fifteen seconds remaining, Yuri’s gaze drops to the rink’s edge and he makes eye contact with Otabek, whose mouth opens in reflexive apology for being so distractingly close just moments before his short program.
But long before that apology can escape, Yuri’s face lights up with a smile, something frantic and wild settling in him when their gazes meet and he takes his starting position with only seconds to spare.
“You changed your short program for me.”
Beka’s all heat and heavy hands, pressing Yuri against a row of lockers as they exchange breaths, lips locked together with only the tiniest of spaces reserved for a few slipped words.
“Me?” Beka exhales heavily, moving to trail a line of kisses down Yuri’s slim neck, “I’ve been practicing that for months. You changed your program overnight .”
Yuri moved all but one of his jumps to the front half of his program, so he could focus on his step sequence and choreography in the back half. His technical score was lowered, but it was nearly made up by his performance of longing for something he didn’t know he had surrendered until it was too late. He cried in the end, thinking about Beka and how much he wanted but could never ask for.
“I’ll make it up in the free skate,” Yuri promises with a gasp. He’s never been dead last coming out of the short program before, it makes a cold ball of anxiety appear in his stomach that’s only soothed by Beka tugging frantically at his shirt, seeking bare skin to caress.
And then Beka went out, first in his group, and skated like that . Not a prima ballerina, exactly, but as a dancer. The same program he’s skated all season, but with a new movement and flow that had eluded him since childhood. After years of high technical scores and low performance, he danced to prove he was more than just technical; he was an artist who deserved his place among the ranks of Katsuki, Nikiforov, and Plisetsky.
He danced to prove his worthiness.
Beka smiles and Yuri feels it against his pulse point. “I look forward to it.”
Beka’s never been first coming out of the short program before. He thinks he should be elated, ecstatic, out celebrating his success after months of hard work to bring his performance to this new level.
But all he feels is hungry .
“What do you want?” He asks, because they still haven’t really talked about it and he needs to know.
But Yuri just drags his head back up so their mouths meet again and exhales, “Everything.”
And neither of them is able to string together a coherent thought for about another twenty minutes.
“Oh, this one’s nice,” Viktor hums thoughtfully, “Delete!”
It’s been two years since Viktor Nikiforov last attempted a quad of any kind and he’s far from competition fit. He indulges himself in good food and lazy mornings, so his six pack abs and cut pecs are forever lost. But he still spends hours on the ice and at the gym both with his students and for his own benefit, so even in retirement Viktor maintains a level of fitness most people would call enviable.
The reporter trembling in his hold would agree, Viktor is certain.
“Oh, wow, they really let themselves get carried away, didn’t they?” Viktor chuckles as he deletes a series of images of Otabek Altin getting on his knees in front of a flushed Yuri Plisetsky, whose costume is hanging off his shoulders. When it becomes clear that the photos don’t stop there, Viktor changes tactics. “You know what? I think I’ll just take the card.”
Viktor saw his former rinkmate and the Hero of Kazakhstan slip away from the crowd of media and fans while most skaters were still making their compulsory post-short program interview rounds and it didn’t take a genius to know what was on their minds as they searched for the nearest empty room. Even if his Yuuri hadn’t been keeping him up to date on the younger Yuri’s romantic troubles this competition, Viktor would have known from both of their performances alone that a great shift was happening in their relationship.
Except apparently the room wasn’t as empty as they thought. Viktor found this man deep in the arena’s backrooms, going through his camera roll with too much enthusiasm for someone who was far from the sanctioned media areas. He moved without thinking about it – sweeping in from behind, locking his arms around the man, and cheerfully taking over control of the camera seemed like the only reasonable thing to do.
“N-no, please!” The reporter – if a tabloid paparazzo even deserves to be called that – finally finds something of a backbone as Viktor deftly removes the SD card from his camera. “I’ve been here all week and my editors are expecting something !”
“Your editors?” Viktor rolls his eyes in disbelief, “Please. You’re not from any reputable magazine I know. You sell to the highest bidder, no? Well, too bad. You lost out when you decided to intrude on two young, consenting adults.”
“They were the ones in public!” The rogue photographer dares to get defensive as Viktor pockets the SD card, face pinking with outrage.
“They were alone in a locker room,” Viktor lets the camera fall to the photographer’s chest and uses a hand on the man’s shoulder to spin him around, smile jagged as he stares into his eyes with no mercy, “They had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Get out of here or I will have you banned from every ISU sponsored competition for the rest of the foreseeable future.”
Viktor’s no stranger to scandal, real and imagined, in the press. He’s had photos leaked, private messages sold to sleazy magazines, and ex-lovers threaten to drag his reputation through the mud. He learned to bear through it all with a smile, head held high, until the pressure stole the joy from his heart and nearly ended his career.
Viktor refuses to let anything like that tarnish the memory of Yuri and Otabek’s first time together, even if it was, maybe, possibly, not a great idea to do it in a busy arena full of reporters and photographers who are there specifically to create a record of their performances this week.
The man gulps, audible in the quiet hallway, and goes pale. “O-of course. I’m sorry, Mr. Nikiforov.”
“I’m glad we understand each other,” Viktor grins, aggressively patting the shoulder he was just gripping, “Run along now; I’m tired of this conversation.”
The man flees, chin tucked and shoulders hunched, and Viktor watches until he disappears around a corner. Then he lets his too-tight smile fall with a sigh and fishes his phone out of his pocket. The line he calls only rings once before being answered.
“Viktor?” His Yuuri asks, voice distorted by the poor signal so deep in the arena, “Where did you go? I’ve been looking for you!”
A much more natural smile pulls at Viktor’s lips as he replies to his husband, “Oh, I was just dealing with a little rat problem – the good news is that I have a surprise for you! Evidence that all your hard work this week is already paying off.”
“I’ll make it up in my free skate,” Yuuri says with conviction and Viktor can perfectly picture the focused, determined look on his face, “I won’t settle for second place!”
“I know you will,” Viktor agrees with a nod, but then adds, “But that’s not what I meant. You skated beautifully, but you were also an effective romance mentor for Yurio!”
“Oh,” Yuuri sighs, “Did they make up then? How do you know?”
“I have photographic proof!” Viktor grins, fingering the SD card in his pocket, “I can’t wait to show you!”
“Oh, wow, okay,” Yuuri says, unaware that he is sealing his fate, “I can’t wait to see!”
“We should probably talk.”
Otabek’s track record as the mature, level headed one in their pairing has taken a number of serious blows today. Blowing Yuri in a public locker room was a pretty significant one, as was the hickey he insisted Yuri put high on his neck. The kiss in the elevator was not a great example of his restraint nor was initiating a second round of frantic handjobs less than ten minutes after the first.
“Do we have to?” His dry response to Yuri’s statement earns him a smack on the shoulder and is yet another hit to his reputation.
But the truth is they’ve spent so long not talking about it, that he’s half afraid Yuri’s about to turn around on him again somehow and this is only going to be about sex and Yuri won’t return any of the cloying need that Beka feels for him and that’s just…
“Hey,” Yuri’s voice is uncharacteristically soft as he threads his fingers into Beka’s sweat-slick hair, calling him back from the edge. “Where’d you go?”
“Sorry,” Beka mutters, loosening the tight hold he’d unconsciously taken of Yuri’s body. They’ve been lying in bed together quietly for a while now, silence only interrupted by the patter of people moving down the hallway. Yuri’s on his back, head propped on a pillow. Beka’s plastered beside him, head pillowed on the younger man’s firm chest, arms wrapped around the delicate taper of his narrow waist.
“It’s okay.” Yuri tells him, following the words with a kiss to his forehead. “We don’t have to talk right now.”
Beka sighs and shifts, wincing at the way each movement rubs his over sensitive skin against Yuri’s equally bare flesh. Yeah they definitely jumped into that second round too quickly. Yuri seems less affected, moving to the side so Beka can put his head on the pillow, too, eyes meeting finally.
“No, we shouldn’t put it off anymore,” Beka finally relents. “How did you know about my feelings for you?”
He puts the ball in Yuri’s court because, well, he brought it up and Beka’s not ready to be the mature one in the relationship again just yet.
But he doesn’t expect Yuri to simply blink at him, frowning. “I didn’t know you had feelings for me.”
Beka shakes his head, how can that possibly be true. “But you skated them perfectly. How out of touch your love felt even though I longed for it so badly I thought it would kill me.”
Yuri, still frowning, sits up and gives him a hard look, “You’re kidding me, right? Beka, that’s what I thought about you .”
“What?” Beka asks, the revelation pinning him in place. “But you never said!”
“Neither did you!”
“Well, you were younger,” Beka swallows, throat feeling dry, “I wanted to let you take the lead.”
“But you were older,” Yuri returns, “I thought you were setting the pace.”
“I didn’t want to push you into a relationship before you were ready.”
“I didn’t want to push away your friendship by being too forward.”
“Well.’ Beka says.
Yuri says, “Hah.”
And then he collapses face-first into Beka’s chest, giggling like crazy. “Oh god,” He curses, “We’re idiots.”
Beka’s answering laughter is slower coming, but deeper, rattling through his bones. It’s true. They’re a pair of idiots; it really is that simple.
“God,” Yuri curses again, pressing his nose to the bruise he sucked on Beka’s neck less than an hour prior, “I really want to have sex with you.”
“I don’t have condoms or lube.” Beka confesses; he never brought those to competitions, it seemed presumptive, and they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other long enough to find an open shop after the competition.
“I don’t know about condoms, but I know where we can get lube,” Yuri says with a determined glee in his eye. “Katsudon and the old man still owe me for the other night.”
“You’re brilliant,” Beka kisses the wide, feral grin splitting Yuri’s face, “And terrifying.”
“A beautiful monster?” Yuri asks with an arched brow, gleaming and perfect in the low light.
“That, too.” Beka says with a smile.
“Perfect. Now put your clothes on so we can go steal lube.”
“Of course,” Beka allows himself to be pulled from the warm bed without a fight, “Anything for my beautiful, ever-evolving monster.”
Anything indeed.