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Yuri is 19 when he first meets him on a Friday night at a frat party while he’s frantically chasing Mila down the stairs.
“Baba, you KNOW you can’t be up there without a brother!”
“Well,” she replies while rolling her eyes, “if you’d hurry up and get drunk, I know that Fun Yura would help me get up there.”
Yuri is just about to open his mouth to unleash torrential hellfire on her, because how dare she pull the Fun Yura card on him, when he is stopped by the sound of someone walking down the stairs behind him.
“Fun Yura, huh?”
Yuri spins around on the step at the sound of the new – and really very nice – voice, only to come face-to-bellybutton with the spirit of all fuckboys come to life. One glance up at the backwards snapback and popped polo collar tells Yuri everything he thinks he needs to know, and all of those things are less than positive.
“Well, I just finished showing uh…Erica?-“ Fuckboy Mcgee gestures at a slightly disheveled girl Yuri suddenly realizes is also on the stairs, as she nods enthusiastically – “yeah, Erica around, so I’m free to take you on the grand tour if ya want.”
Yuri realizes that at no point does this guy make eye contact with anyone but him and all of the lights and sirens on his ‘get the fuck outta there’ panel immediately start going off.
“I think we’re good, actually,” he says icily, before grabbing Mila by the wrist and dragging her the rest of the way downstairs as she cackles wildly in his wake.
When they reach the landing, Yuri swears to god he hears, “Oh, you’re more than good,” and if he didn’t also notice the guy’s cut-ass muscles (which he absolutely did not look at on purpose, okay), he would march right back over there and punch him in the teeth.
He somehow manages to get through the rest of the night drinking and dancing with Mila and a few other people he meets without seeing the guy again, and he feels a sense of great relief right up until he sees his snapchat notifications when he digs his phone out of his back pocket at 3 in the morning. He has 10 new followers, which is kind of unusual since he tends to stick to himself and the small group of friends he has. He assumes, though, that they must be some of the people he met at the party, so it’s really no big deal, until he scrolls further down and sees a name he doesn’t recognize buried in the list.
Otabek Altin
goldenaltin19
ADDED YOU BY USERNAME
Yuri clicks the name, and the user picture is just a set of abs. Well. Guessing it’s just another one of the people he met, he clicks +Add right along with the rest of the people on the list. He starts sorting through the stories of the new additions, and gets about halfway through when he receives a new chat notification from Otabek ‘The Abs’ Altin.
Otabek
wyd?
Yuri snorts hard, because, really?
Me
Wow. Smooth. Who is this?
Otabek
yuri im hurt
u don’t remmber me?
And then, a picture pops up and Yuri almost throws his phone across the room. It’s him. The fuckbro from the stairs. Wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off, because of course, and smirking into the camera.
Me
Oh no. Nonono. NOT TODAY, SATAN.
Yuri closes the app, shuts off his phone and dives into bed, burying his head under his pillow.
++++
Monday morning, Yuri is running out of the Biology building toward the Chem lab he is now definitely late for when he runs into a solid wall of muscle. His notebook goes flying, his pen skitters across the sidewalk, somehow he loses a shoe, and the sloppy bun his hair was in falls out, causing him to drown in a sea of his own blond.
“Well, then,” a very familiar voice rumbles out, “that’s one way to say hello.”
Yuri groans, because he knows what he’s about to see as he looks up into – yep, the new face of his own personal axe-body-spray-drowned hell. Today the snapback is, fortunately, placed on his head correctly (so, points for that, he guesses), but this shirt looks a lot like the shirt from last night’s snapchat conversation, and seriously, did this guy even go home?
“Look man,” Yuri says as he scrambles to grab his things, “I really don’t have time for this.”
“You ran into me, remember?”
Yuri fixes Otabek with the most impressive glare he can muster while jumping up and down to get his sneaker back on.
“Well, sorry about that, I guess.”
“It’s okay. It’s not every day a cute blond throws themselves at me.”
“OH MY GOD,” Yuri yells as he stomps off toward the lab building.
++++
A week later, Yuri hasn’t seen Otabek again, and thank god, he thinks his life is getting back to normal. He’s just walked into the campus coffee shop to meet with Mila for their weekly caffeine and catch-up, when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He looks around the shop, and when he sees Mila wave to him from their usual table, he pulls his phone out to see who else it could be if it’s not her.
Yuri feels his body go stiff and the color drain from his face.
It’s a snapchat notification.
From Otabek Altin.
Otabek
wyd?
Yuri frantically closes the app and marches over to the table, but he knows Mila saw the whole thing happen, and she’s always been able to read him like a book, so, being the mild-mannered and definitely not-nosey-at-all woman she is, she demands to know what’s going on. His phone buzzes in his pocket. It buzzes again. It buzzes a third time.
“Yuri, if you don’t answer me in the next five seconds, I’m taking that phone and reading it myself!”
“Baba, do you remember that guy from the party?”
“Ohhhh, yessss the hot one on the stairs with the muscles.”
“Ugh, yeah, that one.”
“What about him?”
“He uh, headdedmeonsnapchatandkeepsmessagingme.”
“What.”
“He added me. On snapchat. And keeps messaging me.”
“WHAT. YURI LET ME SEE,” she shouts and the whole coffee shop seems to look over at their table while Yuri burns to death in his seat. He squeezes the cup in front of him so hard he’s surprised the lid doesn’t pop off.
“No, Mila. I haven’t even looked yet.”
“WELL, LOOK AND THEN SHOW ME.”
Yuri sighs, because he knows there’s no winning with her, and opens the app again.
Otabek
yuri i know u saw this
i can see u yuri
u look cute today
Yuri chokes and spins around in his seat, looking for and failing to find where Otabek is, and in his panic, he doesn’t notice Mila grab his phone and go through their messages.
“YURI,” Mila squeals, snapping his attention back to her, “Otabek wants to give you that otabeef!”
“OH MY GOD.”
++++
Ever since the coffee shop incident, Otabek personally sends Yuri every single one of his snaps, which are literally all the same three things: Otabek at the gym in a sleeveless shirt, Otabek on a run in a sleeveless shirt, Otabek in his bed in a sleeveless shirt, and JESUS CHRIST, does this guy own anything else?
This changes, though, about a month after their original meeting. It’s a Saturday afternoon in October, and he gets another notification, only this time it’s a video of Otabek and a few other frat guys laughing and talking to the camera.
“ALRIGHT EVERYONE,” Otabek shouts, drowning out the guys in the background, “Make sure you come on out to the party over at the Sigma house tonight. It’s gonna be wild! BUT, HEY. No freshmen! We don’t want a repeat of the March incident!”
The snap cuts off, and Yuri is left to wonder what the March incident was. He doesn’t get to wonder for long, because Mila whirls into his dorm with her makeup bag, just yelling.
“YURI. IT IS TIME.”
“Ugh, time for what, Baba?”
“TIME TO GET YOU SOME COLLEGE DICK.”
“Mila, you know I’ve already had college dick, and if you’re talking about this party, I’m not going.”
“Yuri, you have to go. Everyone knows the guys in Sigma are STACKED, and you haven’t gotten laid in ages!”
“Okay, I don’t know how you think you know how long it’s been, but it hasn’t, and I don’t wanna go!”
“No, you just don’t wanna run into your boyfriend.”
“NOT MY BOYFRIEND. NOT MY PARTY. NOT GOING.”
Mila hits him with that look that tells him that if he doesn’t bend to her will, then she will definitely post something embarrassing about him just like the last time he defied her, and he sighs. Not his boyfriend. Not his party. He’s going.
Mila posts a photo to her Instagram of the two of them standing in the mirror smiling just before they leave and tags Yuri in it. As he’s shutting his door behind them, his phone dings with a notification that goldenaltin19 has just followed him on Instagram.
++++
Avoiding Otabek turns out to be much more difficult than Yuri anticipated.
Literally the minute Mila and Yuri walk through the door, four Sigma brothers spot him and start yelling for Otabek (‘Beks!’ ‘Bek!’ ‘Otabroooo!’ – this dude has more nicknames than a purebred stallion), who appears from around a corner, and Yuri makes a beeline for the booze.
After a couple drinks, Yuri is loosened up and grinding with Mila and some guy, when he feels the telltale prickles of someone watching him on the back of his neck. He turns around and, to his dismay, makes eye contact with Otabek who starts to make his way across the room.
“No,” Yuri whispers to no one in particular and bolts to lock himself in the bathroom until he’s sure his trail goes cold.
When he emerges from his cave of safety, Yuri is quickly latched onto by a flailing Mila who drags him off, babbling the whole way.
“Yura, he’s been looking for you all night, and you’ve been avoiding him, and everyone knows, and he’s put out a hit on you, and you should just go talk to him because I think he’s really into you!”
“If you’re talking about Ota-wait, a hit on me?”
“Yessssss. He has his whole squad looking for you for him!”
“Squad?”
“SQUAD.”
Mila must have yelled it on purpose, because before Yuri knows it, six frat boys in the room are chanting ‘SQUAD SQUAD SQUAD’, and Otabek turns up AGAIN to investigate.
“NoooOOOOOO,” Yuri screeches and runs out of the front door and onto the porch.
He’s sitting on the edge with his arms hanging over the rail, looking up at the stars, when someone sits down next to him.
Sighing, Yuri doesn’t even look his way before saying, “I heard you put a hit out on me.”
“That sounds dramatic.”
“Making a whole party look for me is dramatic. It’s the definition of dramatic. Open the dictionary to ‘dramatic,’ and there it’ll be – ‘Otabek Altin enlisting an entire party to find one guy.’”
“Hmmm. I don’t think so.”
“Oh, really?”
“I think the definition would actually say something along the lines of ‘really cute boy avoids really hot boy for an entire night, forcing him to ask a whole house full of people in the middle of a party to help him find said cute boy.’”
Yuri scoffs and looks at him out of the corner of his eye, “You have a really high opinion of yourself, Altin.”
“I just know what I’ve been told.”
“Well, people should be more honest with you then.”
“You don’t think I’m hot?”
Yuri shifts around in his position without saying anything, because this is the exact question he’s been able to avoid for damn near a month now, and he’d like to keep avoiding it. Otabek must be some new breed of douchebro that can hear thoughts, because he shoots Yuri this smirk and Yuri feels his spine go all warm and mushy, and NO. NO. THIS CANNOT HAPPEN.
“We’ve met before, ya know,” Otabek says, popping the tab of a keystone light, and Yuri feels his spine go rigid again.
“What?”
“Yeah. A couple years ago, I was a campus tour guide. You were in one of the groups that came to check out the science programs. I remember looking at you and thinking you had the most intense eyes I’d ever seen. You just looked so determined. I…might’ve made the usual tour guide let me tag along as her secondary.”
“You…I…What?”
“Yuri Plisetsky had the eyes of a soldier.”
“Really? Me?”
Otabek cracks that little smile again, “And the ass of an angel.”
“WELP. IT’S BEEN REAL.”
As Yuri makes to stand up, Otabek reaches out and grabs his forearm.
“Go out with me.”
“In your dreams, Altin.”
“You have been.”
“OH MY GOD. MILA, WHERE ARE YOU.”
++++
It’s late November now, and Yuri is in the library studying for finals. He’s nose deep in his chem textbook when a duffle bag plops down on the table in front of him. A whiff of degree and axe hits his nose, and he takes a second to close his eyes and steel himself before looking up.
“What do you want, Altin.”
“Go out with me.”
“No.”
“Then…do me a favor?”
“If the favor is going out with you, the answer is still no.”
“I mean,” Otabek scratches the back of his head that, Yuri realizes, is missing its usual hat. Otabek has an undercut. Of course he has an undercut. It really works for him. God, he’s so attractive. It’s infuriating.
“You can ask any way you want, the answer remains no.”
“Okay, then, let me have your number.”
“You are certainly persistent.”
“I have a goal. And anyway, I’d like your help studying.”
“Look, Otabek. I’m sure you’re a nice guy in your own way, but no. I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”
Otabek smiles at Yuri, a full-on smile that’s a little confusing to see on a man who just got soundly rejected.
“That’s the first time you’ve called me by my first name. I’ll get you yet, Yuri.”
Yuri blushes furiously as Otabek stands and leaves. Three hours later, Otabek likes 20 photos on his Instagram timeline.
++++
Finals week hits Yuri like a freight train. His eyes are glassy, his hair is a mess, his blood is pure caffeine, and he can’t remember the last time he did laundry, which, ugh, gross.
Finals week doesn’t seem to affect Otabek at all.
Yuri finds this out because he runs into Otabek again, only this time he’s coming out of the campus coffee shop with Mila as Otabek is walking in, and all three of them stop to survey the scene. Otabek looks wide awake and alert (annoying), he’s wearing a varsity jacket (aggravating), and his usual snapback is covered in little rainbow smudges (confusing). Mila is wearing her biggest shit-eating grin.
“Hey, Mila. Hello, Yuri,” Otabek says, but he only looks at Yuri, and this is becoming a pattern that really needs to stop.
“Oh, well hellooo, Otabek,” Mila says brightly, and Yuri feels the earth quiver in anticipation of whatever unholy act she’s about to perform just to get under Yuri’s skin. “You look great! Finals week treating you okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. All my finals this semester were filler courses, so no worries.”
“How nice! As you can see, finals are kicking some people’s asses,” her smile widens and she gestures at Yuri who mutters a quick fuck you, Baba under his breath.
“I dunno,” Otabek smoothly replies, “I think you both look beautiful today.”
Mila giggles and swoons. Yuri groans and rolls his eyes.
“Your hat is stained,” interjects Yuri, because he seriously needs Otabek to understand just how not perfect he is, and the only thing available is this, because the rest is ridiculously put together, and it’s fucking finals week for crying out loud, can he not.
“Oh, yeah,” Otabek says, taking his hat off to look at it, “I volunteer at a daycare in the city, and the kids got a little carried away with their paint projects today.” He chuckles as he puts his hat back on (backwards, the bastard), and finishes, “Those kids can be messy, but they’re super sweet. I love spending time with them.”
Mila’s eyes turn into actual heart emojis and Yuri wants to barf, because even the fucked up hat proves that this boy is actually perfect, aside from the whole douchey exterior thing. Something flutters in Yuri’s stomach and he swears to god, if he’s actually catching feelings for this dude, he’s gonna die.
++++
Yuri wasn’t, in fact, catching feelings. He was catching the flu. When he wakes up the day after finals are finally, blessedly over, he feels like every ocean on the planet is churning in his gut. He’s shivering even though he’s burning up, he’s soaked in sweat, and his feet are pruning up from baking in his socks all night.
Before he can get up to figure out what to do with himself, his phone pings as though the universe just knew he didn’t want to be bothered right now and decided Fuck Yuri, and he groans as he sees who the snapchat message is from.
Otabek
wyd?
Attached is a photo of Otabek’s face, but just from the nose up, looking directly into the camera. Up close, his eyes are actually pretty beautiful; they’re all burnt caramel with honey flecks of gold shot throughout the irises, and holy fuck, Yuri has got to be sicker than he thought.
Yuri takes a similar photo, only his hair is a bird’s nest, his eyes are swollen and bloodshot, and there is a mix of eye boogers and actual boogers dried to his face. Sexy.
Me
Dying of the plague, thanks for asking.
Otabek
u stay in howard rite
Me
…Why.
Otabek
Jus wndering
An hour later, there’s a knock on his door. Yuri wades out of the fog of sickness slumber he fell into and trudges over to open the door to Otabek wearing a full Adidas sweat suit and holding a grocery bag.
Before Yuri can protest, Otabek holds out the bag and says, “I brought you soup. Go out with me.”
“Jesus, Altin. I’m fucking sick, let me be.”
“I was hoping your fever would soften you up.”
“Sucks to be you.”
“Eh, I’m in your bedroom, so no, I don’t think so.”
Yuri sighs as Otabek shuts the door and sets the soup down on his desk. It's very sweet of him to do this, but also, Yuri would really like to know who told him where his room is because this is just not fair.
“Please get back in bed,” Otabek mumbles, sounding uncharacteristically nervous, “You look like you’re about to pass out, and I don’t know how I’ll deal with that.”
“Fine, fine,” Yuri replies and makes his way back to his sweat nest while Otabek unpacks the soup and follows him over.
“So, now that I’m going to be your nurse-“
“Oh no you are not!” Yuri tries to push him off the bed, but he’s feeling super weak and Otabek just steamrolls right on over him.
“-I figure it would only be right for me to get some important details out of you.”
“Like what?”
“Well, let’s start with your phone number.”
“You really are a piece of work. I’m dying in bed and all you can think about is how to get my number. For what? So you can really hit it home and send me dick pics?”
“I would never send anyone unsolicited dick pics.”
Well, that’s…not so much of a surprise, actually. Otabek really does seem to be one of those ‘fuckboy-with-a-heart-of-gold’ types.
“Oh.”
“But by all means, you’re free to solicit.”
Nevermind.
“IF I GIVE YOU MY NUMBER WILL YOU LEAVE.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
Yuri gives him his number, and pointedly scarfs down the soup as Otabek leaves his dorm, whistling like an absolute asshole.
++++
Yuri is 20 and midway through the next semester when he receives his first ridiculous accidental (that's what he tells himself, anyway) sext from Otabek. They’d been texting a little bit over winter break, after the whole flu thing, and Yuri had to laugh because most of the texts are just like the messages he used to get over snapchat, only now they happen more often throughout the day, and with slightly worse grammar. Yuri is almost impressed, because he didn’t think the grammar could even get worse, but Otabek types like he’s too excited to get the words out to spellcheck, and it’s pretty endearing.
He’s sitting in the library, studying for midterms, when his phone vibrates from inside his bag. Everyone knows he’s studying right now, so he’s curious as he pulls his phone out to check it out.
It’s a text from Otabek, and he has to keep himself from gasping when he reads it:
im not busy l8r so u can cum by n sit on my face 4 a while if u want
Okay, but like, what the fuck.
…I don’t think this was meant for me?
Three dots appear, disappear, appear for longer, disappear again, and then finally he gets an answer:
;)
WHAT THE FUCK.
++++
As the semester progresses, Yuri finds it harder and harder to ignore the fact that okay, Otabek is a fuckboy supreme™, but Otabek is a hot fuckboy supreme™. He’s also a sweet person. They start studying together, and he turns out to be smart as hell, too. Their programs are even complimentary, Otabek is studying to be a sports therapist while Yuri is working toward vet school.
The tone of their snaps changes, too. Instead of only getting the usual Sleeveless Shirted Selfies From Assorted Settings, Yuri also receives random pictures of Otabek’s day and stupid things like a picture of two full garbage cans with the caption ‘this cld be us but u playin.’ Yuri screenshots that one just for making him laugh so hard.
Yuri begins to willingly go to frat parties when Mila asks, and even chats with Otabek at a few. He considers them to be friends now, so it’s not weird anymore. On a Friday in April, Otabek sends out a video snap to remind everyone of another Sigma party that night. Yuri replies to Mila’s text that yes, he’ll go and no, he won’t “chase that dick.”
As he’s getting dressed for the night, he gets a notification of another snap from Otabek. This one is way different than any of the previous snaps and it makes Yuri’s mouth go dry. He wonders if he’s the only one that got it, but he doesn’t get a text from Mila, so he must be. That thought makes his mouth go drier. It’s a mirror selfie of Otabek fresh out of the shower (with the caption ‘so fresh n so clean clean,’ and jesus CHRIST, this guy). His hair is dripping down his shoulders, and the smallest bath towel Yuri has ever seen is barely wrapped around his hips, way too low to be doing any good. Yuri can see his pubic hair, for crying out loud. He’s never screenshotted anything so quickly in his life.
As soon as he does it, he realizes his mistake. Snapchat tells you when people screenshot your snaps. He knows this because Mila and Otabek both do it to him all the time (it’s annoying from the former and flattering from the latter). His phone pings in his hand. It’s a text from Otabek.
;)
Yuri sighs and posts a selfie of his outfit to his Instagram, tagging Mila in it.
Yuri.P getting ready to hang with @BabyBabi at the sigma party tonight
Otabek is the first person to like it. He comments, too.
goldenaltin19 lookn good yura
BabyBabi omg yura!!!
Yuri drops his phone. Otabek has never called him Yura. The thought of him doing so has literally never crossed Yuri’s mind. That’s a nickname reserved for his nearest and dearest. He…doesn’t hate it.
Later at the house party, Yuri is dancing with Mila like normal when he feels a hand slide along his lower back and settle at his hip. Yuri spins around to find the owner of the hand, and to his complete non-surprise, it’s Otabek. Yuri takes a deep breath to steady himself and Otabek leans forward, looking directly into his eyes.
“Good evening, Yura.”
“Otabek,” Yuri breathes out.
“You really do look good tonight, Yura.”
“Thanks, Otabek. You look…the same.”
Otabek laughs, and Yuri thinks it’s the most gorgeous he’s ever looked. His eyes crinkle up at the corners and he looks so young and playful, and okay. Yuri has it bad. He’s so fucked.
Otabek leans further forward, stopping just a bit in front of his face like he’s asking for permission, and Yuri nods just a little bit before Otabek closes the distance, grazing his lips lightly across the plane of his cheek and stopping just at his earlobe.
“Call me Beka, please,” he whispers.
Yuri shivers, which is not A Thing Yuri Does, and nods.
“Beka.”
Otabek hums in approval before leaning back out of Yuri’s personal space. Yuri shoots a glance over at Mila, whose mouth, he is pleased to note, is hanging open with no words coming out for a change.
“Now, then,” Otabek continues, getting Yuri’s attention back, “let’s talk about that screencap.”
“Oh my god, let’s don’t.”
“If you let me buy you dinner, I can forget it ever happened.”
It’s really not a bad deal.
“Okay. Deal.”
“Finally.”
“Aaand, if you take me somewhere good, I can forget that you asked me to sit on your face on a Tuesday afternoon.”
Otabek, wonderfully, looks completely ashamed. The blush that works across his face is Yuri’s greatest achievement to date, he thinks, and he’d like to post THAT on the gram.
++++
“So you mean to tell me that you have nearly perfect grades, you volunteer with children, you’re a perfect son and brother, and you make music?”
Yuri is incredulous, his world is rocked, this is insane, and Otabek looks completely blank.
“I mean, it’s just a hobby, but I can link you to my soundcloud some time,” he says around a bite of food.
“Beka, you have a soundcloud.”
“A ton of people have a soundcloud, Yura.”
Yuri pops another piece of chicken in his mouth and chews ferociously. Otabek is so cool.
“It’s too bad you’re such a douche.”
Otabek laughs full and deep before answering, “Please take pity on me. It’s all I know.”
++++
Yuri is 22 when he gets accepted to vet school. Otabek’s been in his graduate program for a couple years now, and graduate school is no joke. They don’t get to see each other very much, but they make it work. Otabek’s got his own place, and Yuri stays there a majority of the time for a multitude of reasons. One of those reasons is that he’s tired of his dorm. Four years of screaming freshmen will do that to you. Another reason is the fact that it’s right between campus and the coffee shop he’s been working at for a while, so it’s easy to bounce back and forth. The biggest reason, of course, is Otabek himself.
These days, Otabek’s fashion sense is much improved, but the man himself hasn’t changed too much. He’s still goofy and straightforward and worships at the altar of Yuri’s ass. He just does it in better clothes and real cologne now.
Otabek is standing in the kitchen when Yuri whips into the apartment with frantic eyes and a thick letter clutched in his hands.
“Beka! Beka, it came.”
Otabek walks into the entryway with a kitchen towel in his hand, takes one smooth look at Yuri, and smiles.
“Open it, then.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“Beka, I can’t. What if it says no? What if I didn’t do well enough? What else will I do?”
Otabek clicks his tongue, throws the towel around his neck, and takes Yuri’s face in his hands.
“Yura, you are the most brilliant and fierce person I’ve ever met. You got in. Trust me. Also, the envelope is thick; that’s a good sign.”
Yuri stares into Otabek’s eyes for a few seconds and then lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Then he tears open the envelope.
Otabek doesn’t say anything at all until Yuri starts to cry.
“Yura, babe. Please. Is this good crying or bad crying? I can never tell.”
Yuri can’t say anything because he’s too busy sobbing and hiccupping and snotting everywhere, so he just thrusts the letter into Otabek’s chest. Otabek takes it from his hand, reads over it for a minute, and then looks up at Yuri fiercely.
“Move in with me.”
“Wh-what?”
“I mean, this isn’t how I wanted to ask you. I wanted to be more dramatic about it, maybe give you a key in a little box or some shit like that, but this felt like the right time. Besides, they don’t have dorms in grad school. Where you’re going. So, move in with me.”
Yuri has way too many emotions and thoughts running through his mind, so he just laughs and says, “Yeah, okay. You douche.”
++++
Yuri is 24 when he finally meets Otabek’s family in person. At 26, and after 7 years of schooling, Otabek is finally graduating. Otabek is originally from Kazakhstan, but moved to America with his aunt and uncle during his teenage years for a sport he never followed through with, and the opportunity to visit with his parents and siblings doesn’t arise very often for him. A college graduation, however, is a Big Deal. A big enough deal that his whole family flies in to see it.
Sure, Yuri has met them all, and had multiple pleasant conversations with them, but it’s all been over skype and the phone. Now, they will be here for a solid week, and Yuri is pretty nervous. Otabek isn’t saying anything, but he’s terrified. Yuri can see it in the way he fidgets if he sits for too long, or the way he spaces out over the stove. The morning the flight is scheduled to arrive, Otabek drinks his coffee, then takes Yuri’s cup and drinks that, too.
“Oh, no,” Yuri drawls after Otabek puts his empty mug back in his hands, “I didn’t want that, it’s totally fine.”
“Shit, babe. I’m sorry,” Otabek says, and he’s literally wringing his hands, and holy fuck this is really something else.
“Hey,” Yuri stands in front of Otabek, running his fingers through his hair (it’s still undercut, but Otabek’s been letting the top grow out longer, and Yuri is so into it). “It’s going to be okay. You know them, you love them, they’re so proud of you.”
Otabek gives him that smirk that always makes him melt, and suddenly, Yuri is transported back to the front porch of a frat house where that asshole cracks open a cold one and compliments his ass.
“I’m not worried about them. I’m worried about you.”
“Me? I’ll be fine.”
“We’ll see.”
Yuri turns out to be totally fine, everything is going seriously well, Otabek’s family is really kind and complimentary, and he still doesn’t understand what all the nerves were for. Otabek’s mother, in particular, takes a real liking to Yuri. Sometimes, she’ll walk into whatever room he’s in only to take his hands and mutter something in Kazakh. Occasionally, Yuri will catch her just…watching him and smiling. That one scared the shit out of him the first time, but he figured it’s a mom thing so he let it go. He mentioned her affection to Otabek at some point, and he just smiled and said something about her approving of him.
The day of Otabek’s ceremony, Yuri puts his sole focus on keeping everything relaxed. He enlists the help of Mila and his cousin Victor, who brings his husband Yuuri along. Victor is honestly a mess, but Yuuri has always been a calming force, and with his powers combined with the dream team of Mila and Otabek’s mother, everything is handled smoothly. The after party is being held at Otabek’s aunt and uncle’s house, because their apartment is just too small to accommodate everyone. Otabek’s family does the cooking, Yuuri and Mila decorate, and Yuri plies Otabek with kisses and coffee until it’s time to leave.
Because Otabek is a little shit and will endlessly be one, his graduation cap has his frat’s insignia and the word OTABRO airbrushed across the top. Yuri rolled his eyes when he first saw it, but he dutifully holds onto it until it’s time for them to split up so Otabek can go take his seat.
After all is said and done, the after-party goes off without a hitch, lasting way longer than either Yuri or Otabek expected, and eventually they have to tap out. When they get home, Yuri grabs two keystone light tall boys he hid in the fridge and drags Otabek out to the patio, “For old times’ sake, you old-ass shitlord.”
They sit down to look at the stars and enjoy the quiet atmosphere and shitty beer.
“Yura.”
“Hmm?”
“Let’s get married.”
“Okay.”
“Good, because you’re gonna be Doctor Plisetsky soon and I gotta lock you down before you start making that vet money.”
“OH MY GOD.”
++++
Yuri is 26 when he becomes a doctor and a husband. He and Otabek agreed that it would be easier to just do everything when their families were already in town, and really, they don’t need too many people around for the important stuff.
Yuri receives his hood and cords and Otabek’s face is colored in so much pride that Yuri thinks his heart might burst out of his chest in some alien-style show of love, which would be so unfortunate because this degree took eight goddamn years and he’s not ready to die.
Three days later, they get married in a small ceremony in the back yard of the house they just bought together with their friends and family surrounding them. They both cry. It’s disgusting and mushy and perfect.
That night, they sit together next to a bonfire Otabek built up, and as the party churns around them, Yuri smiles at his new husband (holy shit), leans over, and whispers, “I’m not busy later, so you can come by and sit on my face for a while if you want.”
“OH MY GOD, YURA.”