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Moments like these are sparse and treasured, where Yuri’s so close to touch, but isn’t at all. When he’s lying right there, the warmth of his body permeating through the darkness, yet the distance between them is cavernous and cold. When he’s sleeping in the same bed that’s witnessed the crimes of his loneliness, beneath the same sheets that muffle desperate groans of a name as he comes, the hand wrapped around himself too large, too rough to be the one consuming his fantasies.
It’s rare Otabek truly indulges in this, a shameful secret mellowed with moonlight, blurred by the covers that rise and fall like high tide over Yuri’s chest. It’s as if his fingerprints are cast from iron, magnetised to luminous skin and hair spun with silk and gold, coaxed closer until all that lies between them are mere millimetres and a few fleeting seconds to think I shouldn’t do this before ultimately, he does.
Fingers trail over the bridge of his nose, the enticing curve of his cupid bow, tracing Pisces, then Scorpio in the smattering of freckles across his shoulder. Laying to rest in the hollow of his collarbone, a pulse fluttering beneath him like a baby bird, caught in the porcelain cage that is Yuri’s throat.
Something within him aches, studying perfect shadows cast by long, light lashes shivering against his cheeks, pink lips ever so slightly parted, a taunting invitation he has to deny over and over again when he’d give anything to taste the dreams on his tongue.
So sometimes, he doesn’t.
Sometimes, he’ll draw those fingers back up until they rest on the plush swell of his bottom lip. Sometimes, he’ll wait, feeling soft breaths puff across the valleys of his knuckles, sinking deep into his veins until his blood is singing with a siren song of bittersweet intimacy, luring Otabek closer and closer until those same breaths caress the tip of his nose, skim over his philtrum.
Sometimes, when not even a slither of sanity within him can save him, he’ll replace those fingers with his mouth, taking and taking what Yuri doesn’t even know he’s giving until something within him screams at him to stop.
And sometimes, Yuri will stir, a tantalising little moan that’s too loud to Beka’s ears, too real, because in silence, there’s nothing, yet in sound there’s everything left unsaid.
Never before has Yuri awoken before him, eyes of spring blinking as they see through the darkness, see Otabek, hovering like the final hazy remnants of a dream.
Never has he murmured his name, Beka, the syllables dripping with sleep like a deeply roused secret, dragged to the forefront of his mind.
Never has he sat up, resting on his elbows until he’s so close Otabek can see the flecks of Neptune that orbit his irises.
The world between them shudders to a halt, caught between the breaths they hold in their lungs, frozen, until Yuri sighs, the heat of it burrowing under his skin as twin blushes blossom like Sakura on his cheeks.
Otabek sinks back because it’s too much, seeing Yuri exposed like this, softened by slumber with a thousand questions dancing among the colours in his eyes. He pinpoints the exact moment he chooses one, brow barely raising, a sliver of skin wrinkling between them.
“Why do you only kiss me when I’m sleeping?”
Something unyielding claws at his throat, squeezing, choking him until he’s strangling, barely able to breathe. It’s only when slender fingers wrap around his arm that Otabek realises it’s his own hand, a noose around his neck so tight he can feel the blunt crescents of his nail embedded into his skin.
“Beka, Beka,” Yuri coos, rubbing circles into the delicate skin of his wrist as if his thumb could unwind the tension coiling his muscles.
“How long?” he coughs out eventually, voice heavy and hoarse because Yuri fucking knew.
“A few months.” Months. Yuri had known for months, known that Otabek was a thief, stealing what didn’t belong to him, no matter how much he wanted it to be his. “Beka, it’s okay.”
“No,” he splutters, scrubbing his hands over his face until they rest before his eyes, hiding the intensity of Yuri’s gaze. “No, it’s not.”
“Beka, I promise, it is.” Yuri’s touch is gentle, tentative as he cups Otabek’s jaw with his palms. Wherever their skin meets prickles, a thousand little sparks rolling down his neck, bouncing down his vertebrae until they coagulate at the base of his spine in a fire that burns every sinew of his body. “I like it.”
And then it’s Otabek’s breath that’s stolen, drawn from him with the softest brush of velvet in a kiss so rich, so sweet, he can taste it like honey dripping onto his tongue. There’s a sharp tug and Yuri’s trying to savour it too, nipping and sucking his lower lip in a way that makes his soul leave his body with a soft grunt.
It’s when Yuri’s pecking at fingers still hiding his eyes that Otabek realises- Yuri could take everything from him, could leave him beaten and broken and bruised, just as long as he could stay by his side.
“Beka, look at me,” Yuri whines, nuzzling the back of his hand with his nose. It takes a few moments, a few more of those honey kisses, to convince him to relent, to gaze upon his undoing, a beauty bathed in the faded light of witching hour. The proof of what’s been shared lies naked before him in swollen skin and the glisten of saliva, the faintest scattering of pink decorating decolletage he longs to mouth over, to taunt with his teeth.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he whispers, reaching to stroke hair that’s fallen into Yuri’s face with fingers that tremble slightly. This has to be a dream. There’s no way this is real. But the evidence is right there beneath his fingertips, warm and breathing and alive.
“Why didn’t you?” Yuri retorts, though there’s not even a second to answer before he’s kissing him again. This time, there’s nothing sweet about it, all passion and desperately overwhelming heat, an exploration of tongue and touch, needy little noises trapped in the back of throats, hair that’s tugged and teased and trapped within fists that never want to let go.
And when Otabek finally returns to his pillow, and Yuri’s own becomes his chest, he can’t remember why he didn’t say anything, when doing so would have led him to heaven sooner.