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"He doesn’t believe in waiting,” Yakov grimaces, “as I suppose any young boy in his position would.” He resumes pacing. “I have assigned the new Altin kid to him.”
“Otabek is good at what he does,” offers Victor. “Yuri will be in safe hands.”
=-=-=
These are the things that Yuri Plisetsky knows:
He knows his way around a gun, how to put the pieces of one together and take it apart again to clean it. He knows how to aim, to fire, one foot forward and the foot back, perfect stance, body angled just so, watch for the recoil. His mother had been the first to teach him, when he was still too young to be allowed near real firearms, her voice gentle but firm as her hands guided his grip on the handle of his plastic pistol. Her father had taught her how to shoot the same way, she had told him in a faintly conspiratorial whisper. She would have been the head of the Plisetsky family.
He knows that he won’t be seeing his mother again, not since she died in a bloody turf war at the hands of Sergei Timofeyev and his men. All the same, the Plisetsky family is still one of the influential families in Moscow, for all that its hold over the city these days is not quite as expansive as it was before, and Nikolai Plisetsky is still a formidable man despite his years.
He also knows that he’s being raised as the Plisetsky heir. Grandpa hasn’t actually said anything about it yet, but then, he doesn’t really have to. He’s let Yuri follow him around on family business since Yuri was nine, since his daughter had died. Nikolai Plisetsky’s little, blond shadow. Yuri knows how the right sort of smile and a well-time handshake can lead to a deal being struck, as much as he knows how a carefully placed heel on a gunshot wound can make a man talk. It’s all been part of his training.
Training which, for the past three months, has been under Yakov Feltsman’s watchful eye in St Petersburg instead.
Yuri doesn’t mind this too much. Relations between the Plisetsky and Feltsman families have always been good, and if it’s training that will make him stronger – well. Yuri Plisetsky would have offered to sell his soul for less.
He just wishes that Yakov will stop treating him like a kid.
With a burst of irritation, Yuri squeezes the last two bullets into the target board, emptying his magazine. He shoves his ear muffs back, and stomps on the pedal to retract the target board. His shots are still too wide apart, he notes grouchily, grouped closely around the centre but not close enough. With a sigh, he ejects the spent magazine.
“You should square your shoulders when you shoot.”
Yuri jumps, then swears. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to sneak up on people in a firing range?” he calls out as he turns around.
“You’re not supposed to leave the main house on your own,” replies Otabek mildly from where he’s lounging against the wall, unaffected, as always, by Yuri’s glare.
“Isn’t Timofeyev trying to get a toehold in this city?” Yuri retorts. “Shouldn’t you be out there trying to do something about it?”
“My orders are to stay with you.” To make sure you don’t do something stupid, hangs in the air between them, unsaid.
It nettles. “I’m fifteen. I’m not a child.”
“I never said you were,” Otabek responds, straightening. “Although you should square your shoulders when you shoot.”
“What do you mean?” Yuri asks sharply, angling his head to look up as Otabek steps beside him.
“You shoot in a classic weaver stance,” Otabek says as he pulls the target board off its mounting and puts a fresh one up, before sending it back to the other end of the range. “It’s a good stance, great for keeping your hold stable and absorbing recoil, but the slant of your body leaves the left side of your torso open. One lucky shot towards your heart…” he trails off, shrugging. Then he grabs a set of ear muffs from the rack, and gestures for Yuri to put his back on too. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Otabek draws his gun, and fires shot after shot in quick succession. When he retracts the target board, the bullet holes are clustered tightly in a circle around the bull’s eye.
“Let me try,” Yuri says sourly, reaching for the box of fresh magazines.
Otabek’s fingers catch lightly around his wrist. “Not now. Yakov wants you to attend the charity gala tonight.”
Yuri swears again.
=-=-=
The charity gala is a shimmering affair, a collection of St. Petersburg’s who’s who sipping champagne and nibbling canapes, celebrities and socialites and the odd politician or two or three or five or ten, cigarette smoke mingling with small talk and genteel laughter beneath crystal chandeliers.
Everyone needs a respectable avenue to launder their money. Even the mob. Especially the mob.
Yuri allows himself a sardonic smirk as he takes it all in from his corner of the ballroom. Otabek stands silently at his elbow, a discrete half-step behind and only just far enough that his presence isn’t too obtrusive. Yuri does his best to ignore him.
It’s the first time he’s seeing Otabek in a suit.
“Someone looks like he’s having fun.” Mila’s voice is teasing as she sidles up next to him on his other side in a faint cloud of floral perfume.
“Go away, old hag,” he responds automatically, shooting her a scowl.
As always, she laughs. “That’s mean. I’m only three years older than you.”
“Three years is plenty.”
“Beka is three years older than you too, you know. Or is it four?” She turns towards Otabek then, throwing her arm around his back. “I hope you’re not as mean to him as you are to me.” She props her chin on Otabek’s shoulder, standing on tiptoe to do so. “Don’t let our little Yuri be mean to you,” she tells him with mock seriousness, when Otabek inclines his head towards her, a faint smile ghosting across his lips.
“I’m not mean to Otabek at all,” Yuri snaps, perhaps louder than he intends. Two ladies nearby turn to look at him, and he glares at them until they look away again.
“Really,” Mila drawls. “And who was it who tried to run away from his guard again just last week? Poor Beka spent at least an hour looking for you.”
“It’s not my fault that Yakov thinks I can’t look after myself,” Yuri snarks, just as Otabek murmurs, “I don’t mind,” and winks.
He still hasn’t moved away from Mila.
Yuri swallows against the sudden of flash of irritation. He grabs a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and takes a quick gulp of the bubbly liquid, just to give his hands something to do.
“Are you sure you’re old enough to drink that?” Mila asks laughingly, while Otabek raises a brow.
Yuri hopes that the tips of his ears aren’t pink.
“Not a child,” he reminds them both. He downs the rest of his champagne defiantly, grimacing slightly at the dry aftertaste. On impulse, he gestures at another waiter, and swaps his empty flute for another full one.
“Yuri,” Otabek begins.
Yuri cuts him off. “Who’s that with Victor?” he asks, gesturing with his champagne flute towards where the heir of the Feltsman family was making his rounds with his arm around the waist of an Asian man. Some of champagne slops over the rim of the glass and onto his hand. Yuri ducks his head to lap at the spilled drops on his skin, and almost misses the look Mila trades with Otabek. “What? Can’t I ask about Victor Nikiforov’s latest date?”
“Just someone Victor ran into, quite literally,” Otabek offered, finally stepping away from Mila. His hand reached for Yuri’s champagne. Hastily, Yuri steps back, raising the flute to his lips for another swig.
“He had coffee spilt all over him,” Mila chimes in, “but he decided that he liked what he saw. You know how much Victor likes to play around.”
Yuri hums. From the corner of his eye, he watches as Victor drops a playful kiss on his date’s cheek. The Asian man laughs, and runs a teasing hand up Victor’s arm.
A dull heat pricks his cheeks. Abruptly, Yuri turns away, and tosses back the last of the champagne. “Get me another,” he orders Otabek, brandishing his now-empty glass, even as he avoids Otabek’s eyes.
=-=-=
The world is swimming.
Yuri thinks that he’s being carried.
He also thinks that he should maybe protest about being carried.
But Otabek’s chest is warm. And Otabek’s arms are strong around him. Otabek’s arms are only steady thing that’s keeping his head from floating away.
Yuri lets his eyes flutter shut as he rubs his cheek against the worsted wool of Otabek’s suit.
This close, Yuri can smell his cologne, sun-warmed leather, a tantalising hint of musk. He noses happily against Otabek’s collar.
“I really shouldn’t have let you drink that third champagne,” Otabek is saying. His voice rumbles in his chest. It tickles, and makes Yuri laugh.
“Yeah, I really shouldn’t have.”
Gravity tips. Yuri grumbles his protest, but the bed is soft beneath him, and the pillows smell like Otabek too. He lets the hands strip him of his jacket, his belt, his tie. “Not a child,” he reminds the hands. “Am old enough to drink.”
There’s a huff of laughter. Yuri thinks that maybe the laughter is laughing at him. It’s hard to care though, not when the sheets are smooth and cool beneath his overheated skin. He burrows into them, moaning his relief.
After a while, he realises that the hands are trying to get him to sit up again. He considers ignoring them, but the hands are insistent, so he give in.
There’s a cup. Cold water spills against his lips. Instinctively, Yuri swallows.
“Drink up,” the hands say, “or you’ll probably regret this even more tomorrow than you already will.”
Yuri drinks, and the hands allow him to lie back down again.
“Am fifteen. Can hold m’ alcohol,” he says earnestly as the hands draw the blanket up to his chin. Fingers brush his hair away from his forehead, gentle and warm.
“Go to sleep, Yuri,” someone tells him.
So he does.
=-=-=
In the morning, he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room.
Yuri sits up slowly, careful not to jar the pounding that’s building up between his temples.
A quick check tells him that he’s still in his clothes from last night, although his shirt and trousers are both hopelessly crumpled. When he turns his head cautiously, he spots his suit jacket hanging from the back of a chair, his tie and belt coiled neatly on the seat. His shoes are placed tidily beside the chair, his socks balled up in them.
He’s in someone’s apartment, he guesses. The room looks lived in, the furniture worn but well looked after.
There are voices coming from behind the closed door, a man and a woman, both speaking too low for the words to be heard clearly through the wood. Wincing, Yuri slides gingerly out of the bed.
Otabek and Mila fall silent as he pads out, barefoot, into the living area beyond the bedroom. They’re seated on a single, overstuffed sofa, each with a mug of tea balanced on their lap. The makings of a cold breakfast are scattered haphazardly on a flimsy, tray table: dark bread, butter, slices of sausage.
Wordlessly, Otabek stands, placing his mug on the tray table too before heading for the tiny kitchenette, where he busies himself with making a third mug of tea.
Mila is studying him. Yuri meets her gaze coolly. Abruptly, she smiles, and pats the seat beside her.
Warily, Yuri lowers himself onto the sofa. Only then does he notice the blanket that’s neatly folded and draped on one arm of the sofa, and the pillow balanced on top of it.
Mila follows his gaze knowingly. “He let you have the bed. All proper and gentleman-like.”
“Mila,” Otabek says sharply as returns to the sofa, a blister pack of pills in one hand and a fresh mug of tea in the other. “Painkillers,” he explains, offering Yuri the former.
Gratefully, Yuri pops two pills, and chases them down with the tea which Otabek hands him next. The tea is perfect, with the right amount of sugar and lemon, exactly the way he likes it, and Yuri blinks his surprise as he sets the mug down.
Mila is still watching him.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” she says, finally looking away, her smirk poorly disguised around a bite of her sandwich.
“What are you doing so early in Otabek’s apartment anyway?”
“Aren’t you nosy,” she retorts calmly. “I’m eating my breakfast, of course.”
“Really.”
“We don’t all eat breakfast in the main house. Besides,” she says as she darts another glance at him, and she’s definitely smirking, “Beka and I go way back.” She crams the last of her sandwich into her mouth with a flourish.
“Gross,” Yuri responds automatically. Then, “How far back?”
“She introduced me to Yakov,” Otabek replies as he hands Yuri a slice of buttered bread and sausage.
“He was wasted in the fight rings,” Mila adds. “He did me a couple of good turns. I heard that Yakov needed good men. It all worked out.” She shrugs gracefully, and stands. “I’m going,” she says to Otabek.
“I’ll see you out,” he offers, standing too.
Yuri pointedly takes another bite of his sandwich. He does not watch Otabek walk Mila to the door, Otabek’s head bowed towards hers. He definitely does not try to make out their furtive whispers.
“About this morning…” Mila murmurs, and Yuri’s mouth suddenly goes very bone dry. He swallows his mouthful of bread with effort, and his fingers tighten on the handle of his mug of tea, his knuckles white.
His tea, he tells himself, and takes a stubborn sip. His tea, which Otabek made for him.
He’s feeling marginally better, but only just, when Otabek returns.
“I should probably take you back,” Otabek says, standing over him. He looks pensive.
Impulsively, Yuri lifts his arm, tugging on the hem of shirt. “The main house is boring.” He keeps his tone light, his smile winsome. “Can’t I stay around a little longer?”
Otabek blinks, seemingly startled, before he collects himself again. “I thought you hated having me follow you about.”
“But now I’m the one who’s going to follow you around,” Yuri points out. “It’s different.”
“Why?” Otabek asks. He looks wary, the centre of his brows dipped in the slightest of frowns.
Yuri stands. Daringly, he reaches up, and massages the furrow away with the pad of his thumb. “Because I have realised that you know so much about me, and I do not know anything about you at all. I think we should even the scales.” He says this casually as he can, and congratulates himself on the easiness of his voice, even his heart trip-hammers at the back of his throat.
“Hm,” offers Otabek. He still looks perplexed.
“Come on,” Yuri coaxes. “It’s your day off today, isn’t it?” He steps forward, close enough that he has to tip his head back, craning his neck, to hold Otabek’s gaze. “Why don’t you show me what you do when you’re not minding me?”
The moment stretches. Then, Otabek shrugs. “Alright,” he concedes with a quiet sigh, even as Yuri’s mouth curves in a genuine smile.
Which is how Yuri finds himself straddling the back of Otabek’s motorcycle as they weave through the traffic on the M10, heading ever closer to Velivky Novgorod. Otabek’s body is a welcome source of heat in the wind, warm even through the layers of riding leathers, and Yuri allows himself to lean into the strong curve of his back, wrapping his arms ever tighter around Otabek’s waist.
In Novgorod, they wander through its streets desultorily, taking in its sights, its cathedral domes and ancient towers. Eventually, the wind up along the shores of Lake Ilmen, Yuri peering out at its glittering, blue expanse while Otabek leans against his bike, seemingly content to peer at Yuri instead, rather as though Yuri is a puzzle he hasn’t quite solved.
Yuri figures it’s probably not too far from the truth.
Eventually, he tires of studying the play of sunlight glinting gold on the cresting waves, and turns to regard Otabek properly instead.
“So this is what you do on your day off?” he asks. “Take your bike out, explore new sights?”
“Sometimes.” A soft smile teases the corners of Otabek’s lips. “It’s nice to get out every now and then.”
“I’ve never been to Novgorod before,” Yuri confesses.
“Do you like it?”
Yuri hesitates. “I do,” he decides. Then, “Do you do anything else?”
Otabek laughs. “Yes. Maybe I’ll show you later.”
“Good.” Yuri shifts his weight awkwardly, his mind casting around frantically for another question. “How long have you known how to ride?” he blurts.
Otabek cocks his head. For once, he is easy to read: not quite certain of the direction of the conversation, but more than willing to humour Yuri, if that’s what his younger charge wants.
Yuri is suddenly, thoroughly sick of being Otabek’s charge.
“A few years,” Otabek is saying. “I taught myself when I was your age.” He pats the handlebars contemplatively. “I can teach you too, if you like,” he offers, when Yuri doesn’t say anything else.
“That would be cool,” Yuri nods. He tries to sound enthusiastic about the idea – would love to take Otabek up on it in a heartbeat – but, “I have a question,” he announces in a rush.
Otabek looks at him enquiringly.
“Are you dating Mila?”
Otabek’s brows lift.
Yuri looks away, certain that he’s blushing furiously, his cheeks hot despite the brisk breeze blowing across the lake.
“Where is that question coming from?” Otabek asks. He sounds as though he’s trying not to laugh. It’s enough to make Yuri jerk his head back with a glare.
“Nowhere,” he snaps, and tries very hard not to think about how he’d very much like the ground to swallow him whole instead. “Look, I’m fifteen. I know what dating is. And, and stuff. Just, just answer the question.” His voice rises, cracking on the last couple of words until Yuri breaks off with a grimace.
“No,” says Otabek coolly.
“No, what?”
“No, I am not dating Mila.” He’s definitely laughing now at Yuri now, his lips twisting with ill-concealed mirth.
Yuri exhales, suddenly aware that he had been holding his breath. “Oh,” he says, fumbling for the right words, his tongue clumsy in his mouth. “Oh. I just… wondered. The both of you seem close.”
“We grew up on the streets together,” Otabek offers with a shrug, the corners of his eyes still crinkled with amusement. “After my family moved here from Kazakhstan. That’s all.”
“Oh,” Yuri says again. He bites his lip. “I have another question.”
“What’s with you today and all your questions?” Otabek asks teasingly. It’s the first time he’s ever taken such a tone with Yuri, and Yuri can’t help but duck his head, that accursed blush sweeping across his cheeks again.
A hand rests lightly on the crown of Yuri’s head, ruffling his hair gently. “I don’t mind,” Otabek says, and his voice is gentle. “But on one condition.”
“What?” Yuri mumbles, still not quite daring to risk a glance up.
“You answer my question.”
Otabek’s hand falls away, his fingers carding softly through Yuri’s hair in its passage, and Yuri, embarrassingly, mourns the loss. “Deal,” he says, and is proud that his breath doesn’t hitch.
“Do you really dislike having me as our bodyguard?”
“What?” Yuri exclaims, jerking his head back up to glare at Otabek again. “Who gave you that stupid idea?”
Otabek spreads his hands, a casual shrug. He arcs a brow meaningfully.
It is ridiculous, Yuri thinks, just how much Otabek is able to convey without saying anything at all.
Out loud, he retorts, “Of course I don’t.”
Otabek crosses his arms.
Eventually, Yuri glances away. “It’s not you,” he mutters to the lake. “I just hate it when people treat me like a kid.”
“Who’s treating you like a kid?” Otabek asks. He sounds genuinely curiously, so Yuri obliges him.
“Grandpa, for sending me here. Yakov, too.” He huffs a sigh. “I’m fifteen. I know how to shoot. I know how to fight. I’m not weak.” He raises his chin stubbornly. “I don’t need some kind of bodyguard watching over me.”
There’s a rustle of cloth, the whispered creak of bike leathers as Otabek comes up to stand beside him. They remain like that for a while, shoulder to shoulder – or his shoulder to Otabek’s bicep, Yuri reflects wryly – watching the waves lap on the edge of the shore.
“I never thought you were weak.”
Startled, Yuri turns his head involuntarily to regard him.
“I never thought you were weak at all,” Otabek repeats quietly.
“How do I know that you’re not just saying that to make me feel better?” Yuri bites out, because he can’t help it, not even now.
“Yuri Plisetsky has the eyes of a soldier,” Otabek says absently, his gaze faraway. “That’s what I thought, when Yakov first introduced us. I thought you were strong. I thought you were – ” he breaks off, shaking his head absently. His smile, when he turns to face Yuri, is rueful. “I definitely didn’t think you were weak,” he says again.
“Liar,” Yuri retorts, even as his lips quirk.
He’s not expecting the gun that Otabek holds out, handle-first.
“What,” he starts, at a loss.
“Perhaps it would help,” Otabek suggests, “if you thought of me as someone to fill your blind spots.” His smile broadens. “And I would be honoured if you could fill mine.”
Laughter wells in his belly, bubbling up. “Yeah,” Yuri says, an answering grin stretching wide across his face, “yeah, I think I can do that.”
Their fingers brush as Yuri takes the gun, and something – shifts. Yuri busies himself with tucking the gun away, suddenly shy. “What about you?” he asks, just to fill the silence.
“I’ve another,” Otabek answers. “Never hurts to bring out a spare.” He shrugs easily, seemingly to content just to watch Yuri smooth the line of his jacket over his now-concealed gun, the bulge of the firearm barely visible beneath the thick fabric. He waits until Yuri finally stills, then pulls away, heading back to where he had parked his motorcycle along the kerb. “Shall we?” he tosses back over his shoulder.
“Where are we going?” Yuri calls back, scampering to catch up.
“Back to St. Petersburg.” Otabek tosses him his helmet. “I said I’ll show what else I do on my day off, didn’t I?” His eyes are dark and mischievous, and Yuri’s breath catches in his throat. “If we set off now, we should get there just in time.”
There, it turns out, is a club on the fringes of Feltsman territory, a squat building close to the docks, its weatherworn walls covered with graffiti paint.
Yuri eyes it speculatively. “What is it you do here?”
“DJ, mostly,” Otabek laughs, coming up to stand next to him. “My friends and I take turns.” He holds out a hand, which Yuri takes. “Shall we?”
Yes, Yuri starts to say, just as Otabek yanks him to the ground. He lands hard, his breath punching out painfully, while the sound of gunfire explode all around them. Yuri lets the momentum of the fall carry him over, rolling and coming out in a crouch, wincing, Otabek’s gun out and ready in his hands.
Two paces away, Otabek is already firing back. Drawing fire away from him, Yuri realises, as he darts around the corner of a wall, taking cover. He leans out, firing out a quick shot, and then another, buying Otabek the space to take shelter in an alley.
More shots in quick succession from their assailants – two men, Yuri realises, both of them coming from the docks. Probably untrained, their aim swinging wild and wide.
Otabek lunges out from the alley, gun arm extended, and one of their assailants goes down. The other hesitates, staring at his fallen comrade before spinning back towards them, raising his gun, and Yuri senses his chance. He angles his body, feet falling automatically into position as he brings Otabek’s gun up once again and fires.
“Yuri!” Otabek yells.
For the second time, Yuri finds himself knocked hard onto the ground. The gunfire has stopped, both assailants presumably dead, or at least in too much pain to fire back and Otabek –
Otabek is a heavy weight as he sprawls on top of Yuri. He pushes himself up slowly with one arm. His face is white.
“What did I tell you about squaring your body when you shoot?” he asks, gasps, just as Yuri realises that Otabek is bleeding.
=-=-=
These are things that Yuri Plisetsky knows:
He knows the terror that follows a gunfight, the hot and sticky pump of blood, red-red-red everywhere, his mother dying as she crouched over him, shielding him from the bullets that had sprayed through the window of the tiny café where they had been having their lunch.
He knows that it’s the same terror now, recognises it as he watches the red spread on Otabek’s arm, red-red-red turning dark, turning black as it seeps into the torn leather of Otabek’s jacket, the horror irrational but still no less paralysing. He stares numbly as Otabek fumble out his cell phone and puts a call through to Mila. He manages to last until the call ends, something about the intelligence being a day off, and I’m fine, Yuri’s fine, just as get us out of here, I’m hanging up now, good-bye, before he’s lurching to his feet, a hand cupped desperately to his mouth. He barely makes it to the alley before his stomach heaves, and he’s throwing up the last of his lunch. He throws up until there’s nothing left but the taste of bile in his mouth, watery and sour.
“It’s not that bad, surely,” Otabek jokes weakly as he comes up to stand beside Yuri, rubbing Yuri’s back with his good arm, and Yuri knows, finally knows, what it is that makes him steel himself, that makes him peel of his jacket, then his hoodie, bundling up the latter and pressing it to the wound to staunch the blood.
Otabek yelps, and tries to bat him away with his other arm.
Yuri ignores him, holding the makeshift compress tight against Otabek’s wound. “Shut up, stupid, before you bleed to death.”
“I’ve had worse,” Otabek hisses, and Yuri rolls his eyes.
“Shut up,” he says.
He also says, “Tell me if I’ve been reading us wrong.”
Then, very carefully, he stands on tiptoe and presses a kiss on Otabek’s cheek.
“I’d kiss you properly,” he remarks lightly as he draws back, “but I think I taste of vomit.”
Otabek blinks. And blinks again. “It’s probably the blood loss speaking,” he replies hoarsely, “but I think I’d want to kiss you even if you taste of vomit.”
“Please don’t,” suggests Yuri, and Otabek barks a laugh.
“Yuri Plisetsky has the eyes of a soldier,” he grins, grimaces, shudders against a sudden jolt of pain. “That’s what I thought, when Yakov first introduced us. I thought you were strong, and I thought you were beautiful. As beautiful as an angel, Archangel Michael just before the battle.” He reaches out with his good arm, tucking Yuri’s hair behind his ear, then cupping his cheek.
“That’s definitely the blood loss speaking,” Yuri snorts, even as he leans into the touch, turning his head slightly to nuzzle at Otabek’s palm.
“Beka,” Otabek says, just as Mila and Georgi pull up in a black car. “Yuri, you should call me Beka.”
=-=-=
Georgi takes them all back to Otabek’s apartment. They crowd in the living room, suddenly too small with four people all at once. Seven, when Victor stops by shortly after with his Swiss bodyguard and, oddly enough, Victor’s date from the gala, the Asian man.
Victor waits while Georgi finishes wrapping the last of the bandage around Otabek’s arm. Then, he inclines his head towards the bedroom door. Otabek stands shakily, unsteady still on his feet, and files into the room after Victor and his entourage, closing the door behind him as he casts Yuri an apologetic look.
On the sofa, Mila puts an arm around his shoulders. “Victor would be debriefing him now,” she explains.
“Did he tell you?” Georgi asks from the kitchenette, where he’s packing up the rest of the first aid kit on the counter-top.
“Tell me what?” Yuri snaps.
“I guess you’ll find out,” she says, smiling mysteriously. “He’s probably asking Victor right now if he can.” She reaches out to ruffle his hair, and Yuri dodges her hand with a scowl.
“Not a child,” he reminds her sharply.
“I never said you were.” Her smile is soft, and maybe, just maybe, Yuri suddenly realises, perhaps even a little fond. “Be good to our Beka,” she says gently as she stands. Then, more loudly, “Georgi, come on. We have two men to interrogate.”
They leave in a flurry of coats, and Yuri is suddenly quite alone. He investigates the contents of Otabek’s fridge, largely bare, the butter and sausage from breakfast, a bottle of milk, a half-empty tub of sour cream, and plastic container of leftover soup – borscht, Yuri realises after a cautious sniff. He scrounges up a pot, pours in the soup and places it on the stove to heat.
Then, with nothing else to do, he throws himself onto the sofa, and waits.
He blinks sleepily awake to Otabek’s hand on his shoulder.
“Where’s Victor?” he asks around a yawn, struggling to sit up.
“He left a few minutes ago.”
“Good.” Yuri yawns again, and stretches. “I heated you some soup,” he offers as he lowers his arms.
Otabek’s lips quirk. “I know. I saw.”
“Mila said you might have something to tell me about Victor.”
Otabek shrugs. He still hasn’t made any move to join Yuri on the sofa. His expression is guarded, but his voice, when speaks, is easy. “He’s started a raid unit against Sergei Timofeyev. I told him just now that you might be interested.”
“Good,” Yuri says absently, patting the seat beside him. He waits until Otabek has settled himself comfortably, then crawls on Otabek’s lap, straddling his hips. “You can tell me all about Victor’s new project tomorrow.”
A pink flush creeps into Otabek’s cheeks. “Yuri?”
“Beka,” Yuri purrs, closing the distance between their lips.
It’s a long while before either of them speaks.