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Falling in love with Otabek came as easily to Yuri as breathing. They were watching a movie together on their laptops, Skype open on their phones so they could talk and react in real time, and it just hit him all of a sudden. The movie was some stupid comedy one of Beka’s friends from the club he worked in had recommended, and Yuri was actually finding watching the older boy more entertaining than the movie, if he was being honest. He had just glanced at his phone screen to see Beka with his head thrown back in laughter, mouth hanging open and just looking so happy that it made Yuri’s heart skip a beat.
‘Oh. I love this asshole,’ he realized, then set the thought aside for later consideration.
~*~
The following morning during a break in practice he approached Mila, speaking quietly so the others around them wouldn’t overhear.
“Mila, I need your advice,” he started, almost glaring at her as if daring her to comment.
“Me?” She pointed at herself, surprised.
“Well I’m not going to ask Vitya because he’s so fucking extra it physically hurts,” she raised an eyebrow at him as if to say you’re one to talk but kept silent, “shut up. Katsudon would be fine except he can’t keep anything from Vitya, and then see point one. And d’you really think I should be asking Georgi of all people for relationship advice after he spent the whole of last season skating his heartbreak and being kind of a creeper?”
“Relationship advice?” Mila’s eyes lit up in excitement.
“Oh my god say it a bit louder,” Yuri growled, grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the main rink and into the sound control booth where they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Alright you have a point there,” she conceded, “what can I do?”
This was one of the reasons Yuri liked Mila. She would tease him like an older sister, but she was always there if he needed something serious and of everyone on Team Russia she was the only one who never took his outbursts to heart.
“How do you get a guy to go out with you?”
“Yuratchka! Do you have a crush? Is it a girl I know?” She grabbed his hands and grinned manically at him.
“Not a girl, I literally said guy, Mila, it’s Otabek,” he answered, meeting her gaze and again challenging her to mock him for this. Instead of a tease her gaze softened and she ruffled his hair fondly.
“Oh Yura, looks like Georgi is the straight minority on Team Russia, huh?”
“Well we knew that,” he groused, “are you going to help me or not?”
“Of course I am, little one. Do you know how he feels about you?”
“I only figured it out last night, hag, it’s not like we’ve had a heart to heart since.”
Mila looked thoughtful, tapping one delicately painted fingernail on her lips and staring off at some point over Yuri’s shoulder.
“Well, you could always just tell him how you feel. That would definitely clear things up quickly. But,” she added hastily, seeing the frown beginning to form on his face, “I know you might be worried that he won’t want to be your friend if he knows you have a crush on him.”
“I don’t have a crush, I’m in love with him.”
Mila blinked, surprised.
“That does complicate things… Are you sur-” she began to ask, but snapped her teeth shut with the question unfinished at the serious look on his face. If Yuri said he was in love he meant he was in love, dammit, and he wasn’t going to entertain any stupid questions or insinuations that he was too young to know what love was. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew that first love didn’t always work out well, but he wasn’t going to just sit back and ignore it on a ‘what if’.
“Do you think he’d understand if I did just tell him, and he didn’t feel the same way?” Yuri asked in a small voice.
“Otabek? I think of all the people we know he’s one who would, you know. He waited five years just for the chance to talk to you again, I don’t think he’d throw that friendship away so easily.”
Yuri hummed thoughtfully, turning the idea over in his mind. On the one hand Mila had a point; Otabek didn’t seem like the kind of person who would just throw a friendship away over some feelings that weren’t reciprocated, and he was sure that if Beka didn’t feel the same way he would be able to set his own feelings aside if it meant he didn’t lose his friend.
On the other hand, though, some people were really weird about feelings - especially when it came to gay feelings, and although Beka had never seemed anything but comfortable around Victor and Katsudon, for example, that didn’t necessarily mean he would be okay with knowing for a fact that Bisexual Disaster Yuri Plisetsky had feelings for him. And Yuri wasn’t entirely sure he was willing to throw away his first real friendship outside of, well, Mila, just for that.
“I think we need to figure out how he feels first. I don’t want to drive him away over something that I can just keep to myself.”
“Yura… it’s hard to be just friends with someone you’re in love with…”
“I know,” he nodded, his face determined, “but I’d rather pine over a relationship I can’t have than lose the one I’ve got. And besides, if I love him then I’ll want him to be happy, right? Even if that means he’s happy with someone else.”
“That’s shockingly mature for you, Yuri,” Mila sounded amused, she was teasing him again but he didn’t mind. She wasn’t wrong, after all.
“That doesn’t mean I’m giving up without a fight though,” Yuri grinned up at her, “I’ll just wait to tell him until I’m sure it’s not going to ruin everything.”
“You didn’t really need me at all, did you?”
“I guess… But thanks anyway, hag, I needed to talk to someone and this has been pretty helpful.”
“Maybe helpful enough that you’ll stop calling me hag,” she laughed, wrapping her arm around his shoulder and messing up his hair.
“Not fucking likely,” he shot back, but there was no venom in it.
~*~
Opening Skype for their usual evening call later, Yuri was satisfied with the plan that he and Mila had concocted over coffee and medovik after practice. He wasn’t willing to outright tell Beka how he felt, he was still too concerned about losing his friendship, but he was going to test the waters a little and see if he could at least ensure that Beka wasn’t secretly some sort of homophobic jackass.
“Hi Yura, how was practice?” Beka’s voice was tinny through the speakers of his laptop, but it still brought a smile to Yuri’s face and a flutter to his heart.
“It was okay,” he laughed, leaning back on his bed and stroking Potya who had settled down alongside his leg.
“Victor behave today then?” Yakov was making loud noises about retiring, and Victor had decided this was his way of implying he should take over coaching Team Russia - he’d been unbearable about it for days. As if Yuri would ever let that old man be his coach, he’d quit skating first. Or so he’d claimed to Otabek a few days earlier, but Beka had shut him up with a skeptically raised eyebrow and he’d had to reluctantly concede that Victor wouldn’t be the worst coach in the entire world.
“Not really, he’s still being a bossy fuck, but at least Yakov doesn’t care if we all just ignore him. I wish he’d make up his mind and decide if he is gonna retire and pass everything on to Victor though, at least if we knew he might take it more seriously and stop being such a fucking drama queen.”
Otabek laughed, and Yuri took the moment that his eyes were closed to drink in the way his nose crinkled slightly in a way that was, frankly, adorable. He never really laughed this way in public and feeling like these moments of openness were just for him made him feel all warm inside.
“Yakov is probably enjoying watching Victor be an asshole, the guy has a sense of humor after all,” Beka said, brown eyes twinkling merrily.
“Yeah, probably. How was practice for you?”
He relaxed as Otabek launched into a story about one of his rinkmates, then moved on to complaining about how hard his program for the upcoming Grand Prix was. Yuri had seen a few videos of bits and pieces, though Beka’s coach had flipped out when he found out and accused him of sabotaging his own chances by showing ‘the enemy’ his program ahead of time. Yuri hadn’t, and would never, used that information to do anything but motivate him to work harder, but after that he’d only been allowed to see very short, coach-approved clips.
“Yeah, Mila was driving me crazy today too,” he started when Otabek finally finished all his stories, “since last year’s GPF she’s been getting closer to Sara Crispino - you know Michele Crispino’s sister?” Otabek nodded.
“Anyway, turns out she has a massive crush on this girl and she’s finally making headway. Apparently they’re going to hang out at the final whether they’re both competing or not. Then Georgi started whining that he was the ‘token hetero of Team Russia’, so getting to mock him for a while was pretty fun.”
Yuri’s heart was hammering in his chest, unsure if Otabek would pick up on his subtle coming-out, and not entirely decided on whether or not he wanted him to.
“Frankly at this point I think Georgi is the token hetero of men’s figure skating in general,” Otabek laughed, shrugging one shoulder nonchalantly.
Yuri blinked a moment, trying to decide if that meant what it sounded like it meant. Was Otabek flipping his subtle hint back on him?
“Ha, yeah, probably,” he answered with a chuckle, putting the thought to the back of his mind to examine later - probably with Mila.
“Speaking of, how has Katsuki Yuri settled in? Is his Russian still terrible?”
“Oh my god Beka, it’s so bad,” Yuri put his head in his hands and groaned loudly, “his accent is atrocious, he has no idea which letters change whether consonants are hard or soft so he fucks up his pronunciation all the time, and Victor just thinks it’s cute!” Yuri launched into a full-blown rant about how gross Victor was and how he was the worst person in the world to teach Katsudon Russian.
He’d almost offered to do it himself except that it would mean going to Victor’s apartment regularly for lessons and he didn’t want to spend that much time in the presence of the older man. He admired him, sure, he’d even admit under duress that he liked him, but he drove Yuri crazy. And Yakov had only just let Yuri move into his own small apartment - though in the same building as Mila and Victor because he wanted some adults around in case there was some kind of disaster, as if Yuri was some kind of child incapable of looking after himself - so he wasn’t about to tell Katsudon to come to him and have him looking around the place all judgy. He’d seen Katsudon’s bedroom in Hasetsu, it wasn’t exactly spotless.
“So,” Otabek started once Yuri had finally calmed down, “I know assignments for the GPS are coming out soon, but I talked to coach and he said if Yakov agreed to let me skate with you guys he’d be fine with me coming to visit for a long weekend, if you’re interested?” He sounded nervous, but Yuri grabbed his laptop and pulled it closer, his face filling the tiny box in the corner of his screen.
“You want to come here?!”
Otabek shrugged, looking kind of nervous by Yuri’s estimations.
“It’s been a while since Worlds, I thought it would be fun to hang out again before the stress of competing really kicks in.”
“That would be awesome Beka! I’ll text Yakov right now!” Yuri scrambled for his phone.
Yuri
20:33 Bekas coming to visit b4 GP he can use the rink 4 practice right
Yakov
20:35 Yuratchka, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t want him reporting everyone’s programs back to his coach.
Yuri
20:36 wtf thats bullshit beka wudnt do that
20:36 and hell be skating his program
20:37 y r u worried about beka not katsudon
30:37 wtf is ur problem
Yakov
20:37 Okay Yuratchka that’s enough.
20:39 Otabek can use the rink if he gets his coach to call me.
Yuri
20:40 hell call u 2moro
20:40 thx yakov
“Okay he wants your coach to call him, but he says it’s okay!” Yuri’s eyes sparkled with excitement, looking forward to showing Beka around St Petersburg.
“Fantastic,” Otabek answered, stifling a yawn, “text me his number and I’ll get Askar to call him tomorrow.” Yuri whooped loudly, startling Potya, who gave him a filthy look as she leapt off the bed in search of a quieter place to sleep.
“Now go to bed, Beka, you look exhausted.”
Otabek just nodded, too tired to even argue with him. Yuri knew he’d been working all weekend in the club and the beginning of the week was always hard for him to kickstart his energy again.
“Talk to you tomorrow, if all goes well I’ll try to get there by Thursday night.”
Yuri couldn’t wait.
~*~
That did mean he was going to have to alter his plans, however. He and Mila had to spend a bunch more rubles at the coffee shop the following day throwing more ideas around. Yuri hadn’t expected to see Beka for a few more months, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to see him in person without at least finding out if he’d be receptive to a relationship. Or something. With Yuri.
Yakov had grudgingly agreed to let Otabek stay with Yuri - he had a sizeable couch and Otabek had answered his questioning text saying he could sleep anywhere and that a couch would be perfect. So they were going to spend pretty much every waking moment of the full four days together, and Yuri wasn’t sure if that was necessarily going to be good for him. Now that he knew how he felt about Beka even just that conversation last night, or the selfie he’d sent by text that day, was bringing a goofy smile to his face.
“Oh my god am I the only straight person in this fucking rink!” Georgi had lamented loudly when he spotted the look on Yuri’s face as he was texting Otabek on his break. Yuri thought last night’s slightly-untrue story coming true was hilarious, and cracked up laughing.
Victor had lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, but Katsuki - who was significantly more tactful and less of a gigantic pain in Yuri’s ass - had grabbed him by the collar and insisted he needed Victor’s help with his quad flip before he could come over and start harassing Yuri.
In the end he decided he was going to have to tell Beka by the end of the weekend, at the least. He had thought he would be able to just pretend nothing had changed, but now faced with the older boy being right there in front of him he realized that was absolutely not going to be possible. Even just the thought of it made him want to kiss him senseless, and that thought should probably embarrass him but it just made him smile and nail a quad with a flair.
“I should let the Altin boy visit more often,” Yakov grumbled as Yuri left the ice to head to his ballet lesson, “you worked harder today than you have in weeks.”
Yuri flashed him a bright smile as he left, feeling like he was walking on air.
He was eternally grateful to Mila, who misdirected Victor before meeting him in the café, and her invaluable advice. She agreed with his hopeful assessment of Otabek’s comment about Georgi, as well as with the comment in general, which amused her to no end. Answering Beka’s call that evening he felt fairly confident that at least one way or another, by the end of the weekend he was going to know where he stood.
~*~
Standing outside the arrivals gate at the airport with Yakov glowering beside him, Yuri was a mixture of nervous and excited. Even the constant glares from his coach, who wasn’t exactly thrilled that he’d been roped into picking Otabek up, couldn’t stop him bouncing on the balls of his feet and peering over the heads of everyone as they exited. They’d arrived in time to see the flight switch from ‘On Time’ to “Arrived’ on the board, and Yuri was anxious that he was going to miss Otabek and he’d think they hadn’t come to meet him.
“Beka!” Yakov flinched as he yelled, almost falling over the barrier they were forbidden to cross as he leaned forward to wave at the familiar face meandering through the crowd.
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, “I only brought carry on, but they made me check my skates since they’re sharp.”
Yuri snorted, forever amused by airport security and their paranoia about international athletes’ sportswear, and pulled Otabek into a tight hug.
“It’s great to see you Yura,” Beka hugged him back with equal enthusiasm before he shook Yakov’s hand and thanked him for driving to pick him up.
“I’d have been happy to rent a bike,” he offered.
“Nonsense,” Yakov growled, turning and walking away from the two teenagers.
“He likes you really,” Yuri confided, grabbing Beka’s hand and tugging him forward to follow. It was really, really hard to let him go once they’d caught up, but there was no reason for them to continue to walk holding hands so reluctantly Yuri released him, though it left him feeling a little bereft.
“Even Lilia let me have the weekend off,” he babbled, filling the silence that had fallen between the three of them, “apparently she isn’t ice all the way to the core and she thinks it’s nice that I want to do some normal shit for once.”
“Language Yuratchka,” Yakov said, reflexively. Not that anyone ever really expected him to listen no matter how much they lectured him, he had a filthy mouth and gave zero fucks about it.
“It’s Russian, Yakov,” Yuri shot back with a grin, and Beka chuckled quietly beside him.
The car ride back to the apartment block was short, but Otabek still fell asleep. It was quite late in Almaty, and he’d been training all day despite the fact that he was flying that evening, so it was unsurprising really. Steering him half-asleep into his apartment and dumping Beka’s gear by the couch, Yuri pushed Otabek down on his own bed and decided to sleep on the couch himself tonight. He hadn’t thought to set up the couch before they left for the airport, and he didn’t want to keep the other boy waiting while he did it. Otabek was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow, so Yuri tugged his shoes and sweater off, though nothing in the entire world would have convinced him to remove Beka’s jeans for him. He’d just have to wake up uncomfortable. His own stupid fault for travelling in skinny jeans. That made his ass look incredible. Yuri patted his head - he absolutely did not pet his hair - and left to make up the couch, leaving the door ajar so he could hear if Beka happened to wake up confused in the night.
~*~
“Yu...ra?” Otabek’s voice, thick with sleep, roused Yuri from his own sleep in the lounge.
He sat up and looked around as Beka appeared in the hall, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Glancing at the clock Yuri saw it was already 6am and wondered why his alarm hadn’t woken him. As if reading his mind, Otabek held up his phone. He must have left it on the nightstand out of habit.
“Your alarm woke me up, why are you out here?”
“I thought you could probably do with a good night’s sleep after the flight, and I hadn’t set up the couch yet.” Yuri shrugged then stretched his arms up above his head, feeling his back and shoulders crack and click as his bones realigned.
Deciding that he would rather pick up coffee and breakfast on the way to the rink, Yuri showed Otabek the bathroom so he could rinse off the travel grime, even though it was a short flight. Once he was dressed and Beka was ready they left to make the short walk to the coffee shop to grab takeout, waving at Mila as she left her own apartment for her morning jog, but not inviting her to join them. Yuri preferred to get to the rink as early as possible, even if that meant arriving before Yakov. They were lucky enough to have one that was designated for athletes, meaning they never had to worry about public skates taking over their time, and Yuri was making the most of it. Besides, he had ballet class with Lilia most afternoons so he liked to get the extra time in while it was quiet. It seemed to be paying off.
“Yurio! Otabek!” Victor’s voice cut through their comfortable silence like a trumpet in a library, and Yuri’s face contorted into a scowl as he rounded on the older man.
“The fuck d’you want old man?” Victor put on a look of hurt and actually staggered back a little as if Yuri had physically assaulted him. It was all an act, and one that Yuri was not falling for.
“Yuratchka I am surprised at you! I just wanted to greet your friend!” He grinned, jogging forward and holding out his hand.
As Otabek took it to shake, his politeness knew no bounds it seemed, Katsuki burst out of the door to the apartment block with his sneakers still untied, looking harassed.
“Victor! Oh my god you are impossible,” he ran over and all-but physically dragged Victor back inside with a backwards wave yelling “hiOtabekgoodtoseeyoucatchyoulater,” and then muttering something at a beaming Victor, who was completely unphased by his fiancé yanking him around and stretching out his t-shirt.
“I never thought I’d say this, but thank fuck for Katsuki,” Yuri growled.
The silence that fell between them was no longer the comfortable, easy silence it had been. Yuri was too angry with Victor for apparently waiting for them to leave so he could pounce on them. Frankly, he was surprised Victor hadn’t shown up knocking on the door at six in the fucking morning. After a few moments Otabek began to hum, some song Yuri didn’t know but liked the sound of, and slowly, slowly, the tension in the air dissipated.
“Sorry about them,” he managed to mutter, finally, as he held open the door to the coffee place for Otabek.
“It’s fine, I know what Victor’s like,” Otabek smiled at him, and Yuri felt his heart do a backflip. Which was completely stupid, and he couldn’t hide the color that rose in his cheeks - half embarrassment and half pure ridiculous happiness at getting to see that sweet smile directed at him in person. How the hell was he going to last the entire weekend? He was going to spontaneously combust, or blurt out his feelings at the most inopportune moment, he was sure of it. Actually, Yuri wasn’t entirely sure he was going to last the day.
Because… Here was Otabek, all tiny smiles and quiet Russian, ordering his favorite coffee for him because Yuri was still standing in the doorway holding the door open like some kind of idiot. He rushed forward, letting the door shut almost in the face of some woman coming in behind him, and he pulled out his wallet to pay before Beka could get there first.
“No way, you’re my guest,” he insisted when Beka began to protest, and the fierceness in his face must have been wild because Otabek held up his hand and actually took a small step back.
Once equipped with their to-go cups and little paper bags of breakfast, they walked at a leisurely pace to the rink to give them time to eat. Yuri was glad they weren’t really able to spend this time talking, because he just knew he was going to say something stupid. Shit, Otabek hadn’t been here for even a full 24 hours yet and he was going to explode.
Fortunately as soon as they had their skates on they were set-upon by Yuri’s rinkmates, all eager to greet Otabek; or, in Yakov’s case, lecture him about not sharing details of the programs he saw while here and how his coach, Askar, had given Yakov strict instructions on what to scrutinise him on. Yuri couldn’t help but roll his eyes. Beka was only here for the weekend, for fuck’s sake, how much could they really get done? But it was a relief, too, since it meant it didn’t seem at all weird that Yuri sped out onto the ice while everyone else was still harassing Otabek. At Beka’s pleading ‘get me out of here’ look he finally relented and hissed at them all until they returned to their own practices, but at least that had given him enough time on the ice to calm the fuck down.
The ice was safe. It knew him, and he knew it. They were friends. He’d had some of his greatest moments on this ice - and some of his hardest falls. And the easy scrape of the blades across its surface did more to quell the emotions within him than anything else. The practiced pattern of breathing he needed to skate grounded him, and by the time Yakov was yelling at him to take a break Yuri felt almost human again.
“You were really good out there, Yura,” Beka said after taking a long drink from his water bottle, which Yuri absolutely averted his eyes from because damn.
“Yeah? Shame you sucked so bad,” he grinned back, slurping obnoxiously from his own bottle and laughing at the way Otabek’s mouth turned down at the noise.
“Shut up, you love me,” Otabek laughed when Yuri had put his bottle down.
“Yeah, so?”
Shit shit shit shitshitshit. It just slipped out, and he couldn’t take it back, so he just skated backwards with a shit-eating grin, away from a stunned Otabek and back into his safe zone of ice. He began running through his step sequence again, even as Mila’s peals of laughter echoed around the rink. Okay, that hadn’t been quite how he’d intended it to go, but whatever. What’s done is done. In his peripheral vision he saw Otabek return to his own skating, though it was much sloppier than it had been before and he kept stumbling. Yuri rolled his eyes and went over to yank him to his feet after a particularly spectacular tumble.
“Get it together, Altin,” he groused, helping Beka dust the light coating of ice from his sleeves, “anyone would think you’d never been on the ice before.”
“Did you mean that?” Otabek’s words were almost slurred, they fell out of his mouth so quickly as if he needed to say them all at once or not at all.
“Do I say shit I don’t mean a lot?” Yuri raised an eyebrow and Otabek laughed suddenly.
“You mean like ‘I hate Victor with the power of a thousand suns’ or ‘one of these days you’re going to have to help me hide Katsuki’s body’?” This seemed like safer ground for Otabek, the easy teasing that had become a staple in their friendship. Yuri sighed heavily, like he had the whole world on his shoulders, then grabbed Otabek by the front of his shirt and pulled him in. As their lips met he felt rather than heard Beka’s small gasp of surprise, then had to break away to steady him as he wobbled on his skates like a newborn fawn.
“So, are you gonna be my boyfriend or not?” Yuri didn’t wait for a reply, just skated off with his face flaming red while Mila and Victor whooped from the boards.
“Congratulations, Otabek, you’re officially the last to know!” Mila yelled while Victor spun Katsuki around in delight.
~*~
“Of course,” Otabek answered Yuri, later that evening as they lazed together on his couch eating cheap takeout and watching trashy reality TV.
“‘s what I thought,” Yuri mumbled sleepily into his neck, their legs tangled together and Otabek’s hands in his hair.