Chapter Text
3 April 2016. World Figure Skating Championships. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Yuuri storms into his room, forcing himself not to slam the door behind him. He wants to make noise, break something, have some sort of actual effect on the world around him.
His coach, Kanako Odagaki-sensei, had looked so smug as he came down off the podium, he could practically hear her unsaid “I told you so.” But he doesn’t care! It’s not like anyone’s going to care about the medals he won in Juniors once he moves into the Senior division, no matter how gold those medals are.
Yuuri looks down at the gold medal now sitting on his bed. It’s true that he didn’t take gold at Junior Worlds last year, Plisetsky had really upped his game from earlier in the season. But Yuuri had still taken silver, and he’d gotten gold at the JGPF before that.
Gold medals are meant to be won, not collected. And that’s all he did this season. He practically phoned in his performance during the short program a few days ago, and he still came in first.
He falls face first onto the bed and screams into the blanket.
It helps a little.
Putting on a stupid suit and going to a stupid banquet are the last things he wants to do right now. He turns over and stares at the ceiling of his hotel room.
Plisetsky made his debut this year and he still took silver at the GPF. Yuuri thinks he should have taken gold, but fucking Nikiforov has had that shit on lock for years. At this point the judges probably hear his name and start giving him a glowing PCS and high GOEs. His free skate yesterday was a mess and he still came in 4th.
(Plisetsky took silver again. Yuuri is just as good as Plisetsky, and he’s a year older. He could’ve made his debut last season if he wanted to.)
Yuuri thinks about turning over and screaming into the bed some more, but instead he just sighs and gets up to put on his suit.
Yuuri has been inside the banquet hall for less than 30 seconds and he already wants to run away. Instead he steps to the side of the room and focuses on keeping his breathing even. Being alone in a big crowd of people makes him feel so small and helpless. It’s why he likes figure skating. He doesn’t have to answer to anyone other than the ice and he doesn’t have to worry about getting overtaken by a crowd.
Going to events like these is just a price he has to pay if he wants to skate. Thinking about it like that makes it easier for him to move further into the room. It isn’t any less overwhelming, but at least it no longer feels pointless. Even if the point is just to keep his coach happy. He may be angry with Kanako-sensei right now, but he can still admit that he would never have gotten this far without her.
He keeps moving, trying to crane his neck to find her. If he leaves before she sees him she’ll never believe he came, no matter how many eye witnesses he’s able to provide.
Luckily, it only takes a minute of wandering around for him to manage to make eye contact with her from across the room. Once that’s done, he’s able to let out a sigh of relief, and starts trying to decide where to go next.
Now that he can say that technically he went to the banquet he really wants to leave. But Kanako-sensei is going to come looking for him to force him to talk to people. He probably has 5 minutes, 10 if he’s lucky.
If he has to smile and make nice with sponsors and officials, he’s at least not going to do it on an empty stomach. When he finds the table with all of the food he can’t seem to do more than stare at it. The season is finally over but he still feels guilt crawling up his esophagus like toxic slime at the idea of breaking his diet. There’s a table of drinks a few feet away, and he’s been told that he’d be better at socializing if he had something to drink. No one really drinks underage in Japan, and he’s never cared enough to try it. But right now he’s angry and tired and bored , and he just wants to go back to his hotel room, jack off, and sleep like the dead.
He’s about to take a step towards the drinks table when he hears someone clear their throat behind him.
“Congratulations.” Yurri turns around and sees a guy looking at him with dark hair, broad shoulders, and no facial expression.
“Uh…” Yuuri wants to kick himself as he, once again, tries and fails to have a basic social interaction.
Luckily the guy speaks again, “You just won Junior Worlds, right? You were good.”
“Oh, thanks.” Yuuri can feel himself smile, just a little, he might even be blushing. Ugh, he’s such a loser. Any second this guy is gonna realize that Yuuri’s a lame nobody and walk away.
“I’m Otabek Altin,” the guy says, extending his hand. Yuuri takes it.
“Yuuri Katsuki, nice to meet you,” he says. When Altin starts to pull his hand away, Yuuri’s grip tightens as realization sparks in his head. “Altin! You just won bronze!”
“You can call me Otabek,” Otabek says, actually looking slightly…amused? It’s hard to tell with just how little his expression changes.
“You too. I mean, you can use my first name— Oh! Sorry!” He realizes he's still holding Otabek's hand and abruptly drops it, arms flailing spastically. Total. Loser. “Call me Yuuri.”
“What about Yuri?” Plisetsky says, sauntering up behind Otabek. “Oh. Hey Katsuki. Juniors gold, huh? Aren’t you a little old to still be playing with children? Or maybe you just knew that you didn’t stand a chance in Seniors.”
“Yura stop.” Otabek chides. Plisetsky scowls and crosses his arms, but doesn’t say anything else. Otabek turns back to Yuuri, “You really are good enough to be in the Senior Division. You definitely could have medaled with your programs this season if you raised your jump difficulty.”
“Really?” Yuuri asks, incredulous. He knows Otabek is just being nice, there’s no way he could possibly mean that.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Plisetsky and Otabek respond at the same time. Yuuri has no idea how to respond to any of this, so he just stands there. It’s so awkward. Why is Otabek even talking to him?
“Ugh,” Plisetsky makes a disgusted scoff, “screw this, I’m getting something to drink. Beka, you want one?”
“You know you’re not old enough to drink here.” Otabek says, giving Plisetsky a fondly reproachful look. Plisetsky rolls his eyes, and then looks back at Otabek, waiting for an answer.
“No.” Otabek says. Plisetsky shrugs and walks off, and there’s something about it that makes Yuuri think that they’ve had that exact exchange before.
A moment after he leaves Yuuri, like the idiot he is, suddenly says “I should have congratulated him on his silver.”
Otabek chuckles, Yuuri feels irrationally triumphant at getting him to make a facial expression.
“Don’t worry, Yura’s ego is very healthy.”
Yuuri laughs, less because what Otabek said was funny, and more in relief from the diffused awkward tension.
“I hate these things. Do these banquets get better when you get to Seniors?”
“No. If anything they get worse. When you’re a Junior people don’t mind as much if you’re bad at socializing because they see you as a little kid. In Seniors, you’re an adult, you have to pay attention and have things to say, no matter how old you are.”
“I would leave, but my coach will kill me if I don’t let her drag me in front of a few sponsors or officials. I hate talking to people.”
“Most people are either boring or irritating.” Otabek makes eye contact with Yuuri. “Not everyone, though.”
Yuuri’s face heats up. He knows Otabek isn’t flirting with him, Yuuri is just that bad at taking compliments.
“Yeah.”
Over Otabek’s shoulder Kanako-sensei is making a beeline for Yuuri.
“My coach is coming over, but…” Yuuri clears his throat and pushes down his anxiety, “maybe I can find you when I’m done? Help each other get through this whole thing.” Yuuri says, waving his hand to indicate the banquet in general, and desperately hoping that Otabek can’t see the sheer terror he is experiencing.
“That'd be cool.”
“Cool. I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck,” Otabek says wryly. It makes Yuuri laugh, and when he walks up to Kanako-sensei he’s actually smiling.
The door to Yuuri’s hotel room closes behind Otabek as he walks over to where Yuuri has flopped down on the bed. He shakes his head in amusement, and lies down next to Yuuri.
After Kanako-sensei was finished with him, Yuuri found Otabek again. Yuuri hates talking to sponsors and officials. They never do anything except make small talk, until suddenly they’re clearly talking about something Very Important but Yuuri can never figure out what it is or when the subject changed.
But once he found Otabek again he managed to relax a little. By that point he had gotten so hungry he knew he was going to have to eat something soon. Luckily, Otabek seemed to be thinking the same thing and they both went back over to where the food had been laid out. For a moment Yuuri felt paralyzed all over again, tables and charts outlining his diet running through his head. Otabek clearly wasn’t having that problem. He went up to the table and started helping himself to whatever he wanted. Seeing Otabek be so carefree about his food intake was enough to help Yuuri keep enough of his guilt at bay to eat something.
They found a place to sit off to the side of the room, as far from the people socializing as possible. They didn’t talk much. Occasionally sharing anecdotes about family or funny stories about competitions. It was nice. Really nice.
Yuuri doesn’t have much in the way of friends. He trains with Kenjirou Minami, who’s his age, has no international gols medals, and still started in Seniors this year.
But Minami isn’t really his friend and that doesn’t matter right now anyway, because Otabek is next to him, and Otabek is his friend. He asked and everything. The question had startled Yuuri, it wasn’t something people usually asked that bluntly. Not that Yuuri has experience with the different ways people become friends.
It was sweet though, if a bit odd. Otabek is really sweet, once you can see past the (mostly) unmoving facial expression. It makes him and Plisetsky a weird combination, but Yuuri guesses they must balance each other out.
Otabek raises an eyebrow at him, and it’s then that Yuuri realizes he’s been staring. He sits up, he’s sure his face must be bright red with embarrassment.
“What were you looking at?” Otabek asks, sitting up next to him. From anyone else it would sound confrontational, but Otabek sounds like he genuinely wants to know.
“Nothing, just um, lost in thought.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Really?” Yuuri sounds much more surprised than he meant to. Otabek shrugs one shoulder.
“Yeah. You don’t have to, but you can.” People don’t usually say things like that to Yuuri. He’s not used to being asked questions that don’t secretly have a right answer. Somehow Otabek has said the exact thing Yuuri needed to hear.
“Sorry. I just... I don’t have a lot of friends. I have an older sister, but she’s got her own stuff going on. We’ve never really been close. I guess Kenjirou, uh… Minami? He started in Seniors this year, but hasn’t really competed in bigger competitions. He um… we train together. But we’ve never hung out or anything. Honestly, he’s so annoying. Um… I mean— I don’t mean he’s a bad person or anything and I’m probably being too sensitive, I’m sure he’s actually fine. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that—”
“Yuuri it’s ok. You’re allowed to think people are annoying.”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m—”
“Why do you find him annoying?”
“Uh, well… He always has a lot of energy? Too much energy. And he’s so happy about everything, and he wants me to be happy too, but happy like him, you know?” Yuuri looks over at Otabek, waiting for him to decide that Yuuri’s an asshole and leave. But Otabek just looks at him and cocks his head.
“Sounds pretty annoying to me,” Otabek says, and there’s something in his eyes and in his tone that tells Yuuri that Otabek is laughing, but not at Yuuri. He’s laughing like he knows that type of person, and he agrees that those people are annoying. Otabek’s expression shifts into something simple and open. “You really don’t spend time with anyone else?”
“Well… I guess I used to spend time with Guang Hong Ji, and… I guess we were sort of, um, dating? We’d talk on the phone or facetime and see each other at competitions. We’d talk some in person, but mostly we’d get off together. And, you know, it was… it was good. We were horny teenagers willing to try anything once, as long as it didn’t interfere with our skating.” Yuuri shrugs. “We stopped a couple of years ago. He wanted to focus more on his skating the season before his Senior debut. It made sense. At the time I thought I was gonna be going into Seniors then, too— What?”
Otabek is giving Yuuri a curious look. And he just keeps… looking. Yuuri tries not to fidget and fails.
“Um…” People don’t look at Yuuri, and definitely not like that.
“‘Willing to try anything once’?” There's a smirk at the corner of Otabek's mouth.
“Oh,” Yuuri flushes beet red, “anything uh… things we could think of and had the patience for. We were both pretty new to things, and usually too horny to do anything too involved but… He, um... He spanked me once.”
“Yeah?” Otabek asks, the look in his eyes has only gotten more interested. Yuuri nods. “Did you like it?”
Uh.
What?
Is he really having this conversation right now? A very hot, internationally ranked, Worlds bronze medalist is looking at Yuuri like Yuuri is worth looking at, and he wants to know if Yuuri likes being spanked.
And Yuuri wants to tell him.
He knows he has no interest in dating Otabek, but he’s definitely interested in the look Otabek is giving him.
Slowly, Yuuri nods.
“Was that it?”
Yuuri shakes his head. No, that wasn’t it, but Yuuri doesn’t want to think about the stuff he did with Guang Hong right now. Not when Otabek is in front of him and starting to get hard in his suit pants.
“You’re really hot, you know.” Yuuri’s pretty sure he chokes on air when Otabek says that. “Especially when you’re skating. I saw your free skate, your spins are so beautiful. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way your back arched in your Biellman, how tightly you folded into your sit spin. I thought about your Ina Bauer and how you looked like you wanted to stay in it forever. I wondered if you’d look that way sitting on my cock.”
“Oh.” Yuuri lets out a moan that is too loud and too filthy considering Otabek hasn’t even touched him yet. Fuck, Yuuri is so hard. He needs Otabek to touch him soon.
“Can I touch you?” Otabek sounds out of breath, like he might be as affected by Yuuri as Yuuri is by him.
Yuuri lets out a grunt that was meant to be “yes,” but Otabek must understand anyway because he wraps his arm around Yuuri’s waist and brings Yuuri’s body to his. Then Yuuri is settling comfortably with his legs on either side of Otabek’s lap. Otabek’s hands feel like they’re everywhere, and the thought is slowly occurring to Yuuri that he could be touching too. But his hands are busy desperately clutching at Otabek’s shoulders, so Yuuri can keep himself from falling apart.
“Can I kiss you?” Yuuri nods even as he’s already leaning in and pressing his mouth to Otabek’s.
From there Yuuri gets lost in the feeling of Otabek’s hands and mouth. At some point they lose their clothes, and there’s a point where all Yuuri can feel is the sensation of sweaty skin sliding against sweaty skin.
There’s no way they’re not making too much noise. But Yuuri can't bring himself to care, because this is definitely better than any of the gold medals he won this season. They both come, faces close and breathing heavily. They take a moment to catch their breath before Yuuri rolls to the side and lands on his back, lying next to Otabek on the bed.
“Fuck.” It’s the only word Yuuri knows right now.
“Mmm, yeah.” Otabek groans with a sigh and stretches his arms above his head, but he doesn’t get up. Instead he looks over at Yuuri, propping his head up with his hand, and looking extremely pleased with himself.
“Now who’s looking,” Yuuri teases, “What?”
“Definitely hotter than your Ina Bauer.”
Yuuri grabs a pillow and hits Otabek in the face with it, but Otabek just laughs and pulls Yuuri along with him. “I’m never going to be able to do them again." Yuuri gets out between bursts of laughter. "I’ll just get hard.”
“Works for Giacometti,” Otabek says, shrugging.
“Ew. Gross.”
“Welcome to the Senior Division Katsuki.”
“Ugh, I am suddenly rethinking all of my life choices.” Yuuri pauses trying to catch his breath, but the thought won’t go away, “Does Christophe Giacometti really —”
“No one really knows for sure, but I’ve heard people say that certain areas of his costume are always darker coming off the ice than going on.”
They lie there in the quiet, minds wandering until Yuuri sits up and looks down at Otabek.
“Wanna go again?” Yuuri asks.
“Fuck yeah.”
Yuuri smiles at Otabek’s enthusiasm and reaches out for him. They don’t take their hands off each other for at least another few hours.
4 April 2016. Yuuri’s hotel room. World Figure Skating Championships. Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Yuuri wakes up to the sound of shrieking.
“Nooooo,” Yuuri groans, pulling his pillow over his head. Someone laughs, and the shrieking stops when a body leans over him. Yuuri reaches up and puts a hand on the side of whoever they are, in the hopes that it will give him answers.
His hand touches warm skin, and he feels it vibrate as the person he’s touching laughs again.
“Good morning to you, too,” the body says as it pulls away, voice horse from overuse.
It’s that detail that sparks Yuuri’s memory, mind filling with the sound of Otabek’s moans from the night before. He comes out from under his pillow to look over at Otabek.
Otabek is looking down at him, expression calm, but amused. His hair is a mess and his chest is covered in bite marks that Yuuri now vividly remembers putting there. He blushes, but doesn’t look away. Otabek is so hot, and in his bed, and holy shit last night was so good. Yuuri hadn’t even realized how badly he needed to get laid.
Yuuri lets his eyes travel back up to Otabek’s face, thinking about getting his hands back on Otabek before they have to part ways.
But before Yuuri can say anything the shrieking starts again. He turns his head towards it, and feels like an idiot. It’s his phone alarm, which he purposefully has set to the shrillest most ear splitting option he could find. Otabek must have hit snooze before. Yuuri flails out his arm and hits it again, taking a second to glance at the time.
“Ugh, I need to get up,” Yuuri croaks, wincing at how horse he sounds. After all, Otabek wasn’t the only one overworking his vocal cords last night.
“How long is your flight?’ Otabek asks.
“At least 20 hours, maybe more if there’s more than one layover. You?”
“About the same I think, plus a few more after the time difference.”
“I hate time zones. Definitely the worst part about competing.”
“Really? Not the press, or the officials, or annoying know-it-all skaters who think they’re better than everyone because they managed to get bronze one time?” Otabek teases.
“You won bronze two days ago,” Yuuri points out.
“Yeah, but I’ve medaled more than one time, plus I don’t think I’m better than everyone else.”
“Plisetsky does that enough for all of us.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you met JJ. And Yura isn’t as bad as he seems. He’s good and he knows it, but he hates not being challenged. Competitions are only worth winning to him if there’s someone else there who could’ve beaten him.” Otabek shrugs. “It’s why he liked skating against you, and why he was so pissed when you didn’t move to Seniors this year.”
Yuuri stares at Otabek, because it sounds like he’s saying that Plisetsky thinks that Yuuri is actually… good? Like all the times Plisetsky said that Yuuri wasn’t good enough to even skate on the same ice as him, it had been, what? A front? Yuuri puts that revelation away for later. He is way too tired to reexamine his world view.
Yuuri pulls himself up and out of the bed. He reaches his arms up, stretching. When looks back over his shoulder he catches Otabek staring openly at his ass...
“I need to shower,” Yuuri says. “Wanna come?”
Instead of answering, Otabek looks Yuuri dead in the eye, gets up, and starts walking toward the bathroom.
Clean, satisfied, and in a fresh set of clothes, Yuuri takes time to appreciate Otabek’s ass while he towels himself off and collects last night’s clothes from Yuuri’s floor.
“This was really great.” Yuuri says, swallowing his fear that Otabek is going to tell him that it was a big mistake and actually Yuuri is a sick freak and Otabek never wants to talk to him again (despite he fact that Yuuri came in Otabek's mouth less than 20 minutes ago).
Of course, Otabek doesn’t do any of those things. He turns around, giving Yuuri the smile that’s just a little twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“We should do this again if we’re at the same competition.” Otabek says.
“Yeah definitely,” Yuuri says,
Otabek unlocks his phone and hands it to Yuuri.
“Put your contact information in there. We should keep in touch.”
“Oh, ok.”
“Don’t look so surprised, friends message each other.”
“Even friends who…” Yuuri trails off.
“Who fuck?” Otabek laughs, “Yeah definitely. The sex doesn’t change how the rest of the friendship works.”
Yuuri gives Otabek his phone back, and hands his own over as well so he can get Otabek’s information.
“Text me ok? You promised me pictures of your pets, and I’m holding you to it.” Otabek quirks his lips in a small smile that Yuuri is becoming more familiar with. He nods, smiling back.
Otabek finishes pulling on last night’s clothes and heads to the door.
“Have a good flight,” Otabek says.
“You too.” And then Otabek is gone.
Yuuri has a text from Kanako-sensei telling him to meet her in the lobby in 15 minutes. Sent 12 minutes ago.
Yuuri jumps with a sudden burst of adrenaline brought on by the prospect of being late.
He runs around his room gathering all of his things and dumping them into his suitcase carelessly. The only things he takes time with are his skates and his costumes, the season may be over but they’re no less beautiful and definitely no less expensive.
Only a few minutes behind, Yuuri flies out of his hotel room toward the elevators. He catches one just as it’s about to leave, only noticing that he isn’t alone once the elevator doors have already closed.
Yuri Plisetsky stands there, looking up from his phone and raising a very unimpressed eyebrow at Yuuri. It makes Yuuri feel off balance, like Plisetsky is waiting for Yuuri to finish presenting his case before Plisetsky passes judgment.
“I–” Yuuri clears his throat, “I have a plane to catch.”
Plisetsky’s eyes flick up to Yuuri’s — wait, was Plisetsky looking at his neck? Plisetsky glances down. Yeah, he’s definitely looking at Yuuri’s neck. Yuuri's hand comes up and lands on a small slightly sore spot low down on his neck.
If Otabek was trying to leave the hickey low enough that it would be covered by Yuuri's shirt, he failed.
Plisetsky's mouth quirks and he looks back up at Yuuri’s face. Yuuri may not always be the best at reading people, but there is no doubt in his mind that Plisetsky is laughing at him.
The elevator dings, signaling that they’ve reached the lobby. Yuuri grabs his suitcase, and turns toward the doors.
“Don’t forget to text Beka, okay?” Yuuri’s head whips around to where Plisetsky is now standing with his arms crossed, chin jutting out like a challenge. Yuuri is still trying to stammer out any kind of response when Plisetsky continues. “He always sulks when people ghost him after sex.”
“I… we—” Plisetsky rolls his eyes as the elevator doors open. Plisetsky moves toward them, stopping half in and half out of the elevator to turn around and give Yuuri a lingering once over. It makes Yuuri’s neck flush and his palms sweaty.
Plisetsky is still looking contemplatively at Yuuri’s body when he speaks, “I don’t get it, your thighs aren’t that great.”
Yuuri must have been shunted into an alternate reality, there’s no other explanation, because there is no way that the Yuri Plisetsky he knows has actually spent time thinking about the merits of Yuuri’s thighs.
“He’s right about your Ina Bauers though.” All of the fuses in Yuuri’s brain blow out at once. He stares at Plisetsky, mouth open as though he’s about to say something, despite the fact that Yuuri couldn’t string two words together right now if he tried. Plisetsky smirks back, his eyes locked on Yuuri’s. Smug and unwavering.
Seemingly satisfied with how dumb Yuuri must look, Plisetsky walks away with a cocky tilt to his hips and Yuuri has to scramble to get out of the elevator before the doors close again.
A minute later Yuuri is looking around as Kanako-sensei finishes checking them out, and sees Plisetsky staring at him from across the lobby. And Yuuri could swear that he’s… smiling?
Definitely an alternate reality.