Work Text:
et quand le jour se lève, je reviens vers toi
ce que je reconnais, ce n’est que vide en moi
d’abus, je vis d’erreurs, tes mots comme une loi,
comme une prémonition, on ne changera pas
Yuri likes taking nudes. He liked it better when Otabek took them. He picks out a good one, all artsy and shit, and sends it. Sweat is gluing one of his legs to the suede couch, but he can’t risk moving and reminding Otabek that he’s there before he gets the picture. The notification pops up on his laptop next to the six monitors and two keyboards on his desk. Yuri watches with bated breath as he opens it. Otabek squints, then spins around in his chair to glare at him.
“What’s this for?”
“Dead wife montage.”
Otabek snorts, a harsh little sound dampened with rancor.
“So you have photos to cry and jerk off to when I’m dead,” Yuri explains. “Like in the movies.”
“I wasn’t aware you were so invested in the future,” Otabek says glibly.
“Well, you’re boring me to death, and you don’t get to kill me,” Yuri snaps. “So I’m killing myself.”
Half the truth, inverted like a camera obscura, is still more than he wanted to say. Otabek deletes the photo. Yuri wonders if he’ll ever sample the sound of “move to trash” in a track. He sure seems to like it.
“If you’re bored, then go,” Otabek says. “Nobody told you to be here.”
“Pay attention to me,” he whines.
“I’m done with you,” Otabek shifts in his seat and shifts his gaze up to the fifth monitor as if to emphasize the point. He grabs some weird box and plugs it in to continue whatever the fuck he’s doing. Yuri doesn’t know what it is, only how much it costs with expedited shipping.
“Fine, you piece of shit,” Yuri mumbles. He sends the same nude to a guy whose profile picture shows dark hair and an undercut and whose messages are steeped in the funny kind of desperation. The reply is instantaneous: Baby u know im not in town long I want to meet up .
Yuri lays flat on the couch again, careful not to drop his phone on his face. how bad do u want it?
So bad. Anything i can get. Can i get a video? Is the other guy there. i Want to spoil you ill give u anything
Magic words typed with one hand. Yuri teases him a little more before deciding to go ahead with it.
send me $100 usd for the address and ill decide how much i want when u get here
The guy, JJ, writes a gross note in the memo for the payment. Yuri is constantly amused by the sheer stupidity of horny men on the internet.
“I got a live one,” Yuri drawls, barely looking up from his phone. “He’s got money, so get lost unless you’re joining us.”
“You gonna tell me every time you do this?” Otabek sighs. He doesn’t look up from his computer, either. Whatever he’s doing is lost on Yuri, all the waveforms on the screen echo the same sound: I’m ignoring you. “You’re fucking mean when you’re scared.”
“Every time. You feeling lonely yet? He wants to share.”
Telling Otabek who he’s fucking is Yuri’s second favorite thing to do, actually, right after fucking Otabek. There’s a corporal pleasure some words have in common with what their bodies are supposed to do.
“Not in a million years.”
“You’re a bad liar,” Yuri glares at him. “You have twenty minutes to leave.”
Otabek turns away, back to his screens and the rainbow light-up keyboard Yuri had bought for him with money from other guys. It’s hard for Yuri to pretend he only misses the sex. It’s second nature for Otabek to pretend he doesn’t miss anything. The last bouquet isn’t even dead, five pale peonies drying stiff with their heads bowed to pay respects.
“I’m working on something,” Otabek says, then turns on his mic to speak into it. “Go fuck yourself.”
He unplugs his headphones for just a moment to play the clip back, louder and louder, but there’s half a hopeless smile dancing in his eyes. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself. The words don’t hurt, they’re teasing and almost comforting. Getting under Otabek’s skin is almost as good as getting under his body, but the two together are electric.
“Someone else is paying for that honor,” Yuri says and tightens his grip on his phone, still open to all his nasty messages. i want to fuck you while he watches. can he join? ill pay double. triple. Youer so h ot. “God, fine. You don’t even want to watch?”
“I really don’t,” Otabek hisses, and the vowels roll in his mouth just a little too hard.
He rolls his eyes and lies back on the couch in Otabek’s little office setup. Something on the screen dims, then casts Otabek in florid light. If he concentrates, he can imagine the hum of the computer is benign, not a reminder that he’s no longer invited to this party. Whatever’s happening between the headphones is private now.
“Do you want my share of the rent or not?” It’s a weak argument, but he’ll try anything.
“Why don’t you delete those fucking profiles and get a real job again?”
Otabek doesn’t really mind, but he has to show off his disdain just like Yuri has to show off his boy toys. He’d half-confessed, in a moment of weakness during one of their happier months, the longest they’d ever been together, that hating it made it hotter to participate when he did. Yuri can’t wait to lick all the lies out of his mean little mouth when Otabek lets him come crawling back.
“Joined for the parties, stayed for the parties. Why would I go back to work?” Yuri snarls. “Keep your headphones on.”
Otabek nods. He won’t do that.
Yuri pulls himself upstairs to get ready. He finds a green satin robe, the one he’d gotten for the only anniversary they’d ever shared. Just enough mascara to smear, his hair just neat enough to get fucked up. Otabek likes to see him absolutely wrecked. He tells him every time they end up back together: you’re so fucking pretty right before you come . That, perhaps, is why he’s so hard to get rid of. The accidental discovery of penultimate beauty is cruel. The constant search for it, doubly so.
On their fifth first date, Yuri bought him peonies still tightly wound into fat marble-like buds.
What’s the point of getting them like this?
We get to watch them bloom.
And when they did, so desperate to begin living they could only claw forward before spreading out:
See? Fucking explosive.
Like you. Little firebird .
Otabek let them stay in the kitchen until they died in the vase, and another week after that until Yuri knocked it off the counter.
Yuri’s phone buzzes with an im outside message, because nobody their age knows how to knock on a goddamn door. He stomps down the stairs and, in the corner of his eye, sees Otabek slide one cup of his headphones off.
“How do I look?”
“Like a whore.”
He can’t even see the robe. Otabek isn’t even looking at him, still perched in his stupid chair wearing his clingiest grey sweatpants, facing his computer setup. He raises a middle finger and doesn’t turn around. Yuri snorts.
“Good to know,” he says under his breath.
He can practically see Otabek on the other side of the black leather seat, hard and fuming about it. Yuri bought that chair, too.
He takes the next few steps to the door as quietly as he can, watching the figure behind it shift and warp through the mottled glass. He’s tall, which Yuri likes. In their messages, he’d been eager and annoying, which Yuri finds suitable for today. He would’ve hooked up with this guy just for the fuck of it, but he likes knowing they would pay, and rich tourists don’t know the value of their money.
pay first , he texts back, then slips his phone back into the pocket of his satin robe where it rests warm and heavy against his thigh. A soft, irritated groan comes through the door and Yuri leans up against it to touch himself a little while he waits for a reply. The mirror in the hallway gives him a glimpse of Otabek in the other room, still pretending to focus. He moans a little, high and throaty, and watches Otabek put the headphones back on. Asshole.
The money comes through and Yuri pulls his robe a little looser before he opens the door. The guy’s face has some of the same framework as Otabek’s, if he had to draw him from memory. His light blue eyes gape like something’s missing, so unlike the dark eyes Yuri’s used to seeing on a face like that. He’s wearing tight slacks and a nice dress shirt, as if this is some kind of fucking business meeting. Maybe it is for him. To Yuri, he’s another hookup dumb enough to give him money.
“Yuri?”
A muttered curse in the other room distracts him. Otabek hates when he uses his real name.
“JJ,” he purrs and wets his lip with his tongue before he drags his teeth across it. “Nice to meet you.”
All the guys he meets up with are shyer in person. He looks flighty, almost nervous, a butterfly landing on the wrong flower. Probably doesn’t do this a lot, judging by the amount he’d offered Yuri without asking his rates. It would add up fast.
“You’re even cuter in person,” he says, and Yuri postures a little for him, tilting his head up to smile. He knows.
“Oh, you’re tall ,” he breathes and runs his hands over JJ’s shoulders, keeping his touch light to seem more delicate. Breakable. Yuri catches the minute hesitation in JJ’s face, like he’s deciding whether to believe it. “I like that.”
JJ smiles and steps inside. He’s a good kisser, his lips soft and tasting of sweet mint. The guys that brush their teeth before aren’t any different, but Yuri likes them just that much more anyway. They take a minute in the entryway, exploring each other’s mouths and waists.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Yuri suggests with another sweet kiss. He presses his back up against the door to Otabek’s office and pulls JJ’s weight against him as he pulls it closed. They both know who’s in there.
“That the guy in the video?” he asks. Yuri doesn’t know which one he means. He has a lot of videos with Otabek. Online, polished and hidden from the fights and breakups, it looks like they’ve been together a lot longer than they have.
“Yeah,” Yuri pulls him in for another kiss, guiding JJ’s hands to his ass. His hands are bigger than Otabek’s, gentler, too.
“Boyfriend?”
“Sometimes,” Yuri shrugs.
“That’s so hot,” JJ mumbles, and Yuri can almost feel it echo in his mouth. “You’re so hot.”
Up close, Yuri can tell that’s why JJ had messaged him to start with. Exhibition and cuckolding? Some kind of homewrecker fantasy? He’s paid rent with weirder things for dumber men.
“He won’t be joining.”
“Damn,” JJ says, and pushes Yuri back into the door with a loud thunk , and the thought of Otabek hearing it goes straight to his dick. “It was worth asking.”
Yuri puts his hands on JJ’s chest, playing with his nipples through his shirt before pushing him away so he can turn to knock five times before opening the door. JJ leans against him again, draping his arms around his shoulders.
“You sure you don’t wanna join us?” he coos.
“I’m making a beat,” comes the muffled, bored reply.
“Come on, babe ,” he whines. Putting on a show is his favorite part of the guys who pay, and Otabek likes to watch. “He’s gonna fuck me real good.”
JJ tightens his grip on Yuri’s shoulders and starts mouthing at his neck. Something hits the other side of the door and it clicks shut again. Yuri smirks and turns around.
“Forget him,” Yuri pants, acting breathless. “You came here for me.”
“I did,” JJ smiles into his mouth. “Let’s go.”
Yuri giggles and pulls him towards the stairs, leading him in an easy chase. Yuri’s room is his own again, and he lets JJ push him onto the bed, tugging at his robe and combing through his hair. It’s pleasant enough, and JJ is hot. He’s clearly the kind of guy who gets off on the shame of what he’s doing. Probably Catholic. Yuri wants to write his name in lipstick on his dick and make him fuck it off.
JJ looks around the room a bit, and Yuri follows his gaze to see what he’s after. He doesn’t have a problem with people in his personal space, but he likes to know what they think they’re seeing. Stupid posters on the wall, twinkling fairy lights and strip LEDs. He keeps the room tidy so it looks good in the background of a video. Most of the time he doesn’t sleep here. JJ stops at the desk, the little bag of pills there next to a testing kit.
“You rolling, kitten?”
It’s not an ideal situation for that, but god, it sounds fun. It’s a really stupid idea. It would piss Otabek off. He might take care of Yuri afterwards.
“Sure, if you can get it up,” he says with a suggestive smile.
“Not a problem,” JJ winks at him. Gross. “I want to make you feel good.”
“Thousand roubles.”
JJ pulls some cash out of his wallet, then gets off the bed and grabs two, inspecting them as he comes back over. They’re purple, shaped like Hello Kitty, and Otabek had picked them up specifically for him. A Yuri-sized dose, he’d said. Yuri rocks up onto his knees on the bed and holds his hand out.
“Let me,” Yuri says, putting one on his tongue and pushing it into JJ’s mouth before taking one himself. He starts unbuttoning his shirt, pressing little kisses onto his chest after opening each one. This guy won’t leave his hair alone, and it’s becoming undone and wild across his shoulders. Yuri likes that.
Yuri’s pushed into the bed again, then JJ pulls at his robe one sleeve at a time like he’s unfurling the petals of a rose. He fucks me, he fucks me not . They don’t have long for Yuri to blow him before the molly hits, but he takes his time with it so he can cut it short. Yuri’s an expert at looking good when he blows Otabek on camera, and he has a feeling from the tips he’s left that JJ will be equally appreciative of this talent in person.
He isn’t sure how much time passes by the time the first flutters of feeling good hit him. What he knows is that JJ is amazing, Otabek is amazing, and he really needs to go get him. The familiarity, the way Otabek knows exactly how to touch him, the way JJ so clearly wants to be in the middle of something messy. Every facet of a thought crystallizes and melts into itself like raw honey.
“I’m…” he starts, trying to sort out the tangle of sensations into words. “You want me to go ask him again? I’m gonna go get him.”
JJ can’t do anything but nod and smile. Yuri steps away from the bed a little wobbly, the old parquet creaking beneath his feet. JJ gives him another warm caress, then hands him his robe like he knows what it means.
“Be pretty, kitten,” he smiles. Nobody gets to give Yuri orders , but he’s feeling too floaty to care. JJ’s hair is soft when he runs his hands through it again, and slippery under his fingers when he pulls it tight.
“Be right back,” Yuri whispers.
He rests the second bone of his index finger in the valley between lip and chin, then drags his thumb across the bottom of JJ’s lower lip. The way his lip bounces under the pad of his thumb is mesmerizing, so is the gentle ridge between soft pink and tanned face. He shakes his head to pull himself out of the daze, a smile pulling until it hurts his cheeks.
“Be right back,” he repeats.
The room is warm, pulsing with hope for the glow of euphoria. Taking steps is fun. One, two, out the door, onto the stairs. Rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, feeling the weight as it spreads across the bones wrapped in callouses. He takes the stairs slowly, carefully placing each foot onto the step below rather than dropping his weight. The veins in the wood reach up into his own, pulling him down, through it until he’s at the base of the stairs, but then he’s really only halfway there.
“Yura?”
“Beka,” he smiles, taking in Otabek’s bare chest, the shadow under his dick where it’s hard in those thin grey sweatpants. “There you are.”
Yuri takes another step down and fills his hands and mouth with Otabek, kissing him wet and sloppy. That’s a good idea. Everything is a really fucking good idea right now. Otabek lets him, for a while, then puts his hands on Yuri’s shoulder and pushes, pulls him away.
“You’re being nice to me again,” he says, feigning unaffected. He frowns, and Yuri wants to put his fingers in between the crinkles in his brow. “That’s weird.”
There’s a long pause, standing in the middle of the stairs, and Yuri giggles. Otabek takes Yuri’s face between his hands.
“Yura, did he give you something? Look at me, let me see your eyes.”
Yuri blinks, slowly, feeling his eyelids drag across his pupils and cataloguing the way they stick together in the folds and hollows of his eye sockets. Weird. Otabek’s eyes are perfect, shaped to catch every sparkling light in the room.
“No, it was ours,” he says. “The purples.”
Otabek looks somewhere over Yuri’s shoulder to disapprove, then his eyes flicker as they catch on something behind him. Some instinct, far away from what Yuri can understand right now, pulls his face into another taut little frown.
“Let’s take this downstairs,” he says.
Then there’s a warm, pliant body behind him as well, static electricity quietly fuzzy between them where they don’t quite touch. Otabek leads Yuri, and Yuri leads JJ, down into the little office and the grey suede couch. Otabek settles into the chair, finally taking off those clingy fucking pants so he’s the first one naked.
Yuri straddles JJ on the couch and pushes him until he’s laying flat with all his skin ready to be explored. The lights dim, flash magenta and blue, and a steady beat works its way into the pattern Yuri is drawing with his hips. Kaleidoscopic sound bursts into his field of vision, sparkling and flickering with twirling lasers from a projector on the desk. Otabek is giving them a show. Yuri doesn’t recognize the song. Ma bouche sur ses lèvres, je rêve de ça toute la nuit. Ses ongles dans mon dos, j'ai suivi toutes ses envies.
Yuri clambers off JJ long enough to take his pants off, then throws his own underwear at Otabek, who holds them like a stress ball. The feeling of raw skin on skin is all-consuming, beyond light and warmth. Floaters in his eyes blur his vision like moon jellyfish swirling under blacklights. JJ is gentle with his touches, chasing the same sensations Yuri does. A condom lands on JJ’s chest, and he traces its trajectory back to Otabek’s hard glare. JJ opens him up with the bottle of Swiss Navy conveniently next to the couch— had Otabek put it there? They laugh when lube spills all over the suede, and in the back of his mind Yuri thinks about asking JJ to pay to get it cleaned. He can feel Otabek’s eyes on him as if they were his hands, brushing his arms, stroking his neck.
“Come on, baby, ride me,” JJ whispers, two hands on Yuri’s waist.
Yuri does as he’s told, lost in feeling as much as he can: JJ inside him, the suede under his knees and toes, the music vibrating in his teeth where they meet. The hungry pressure of Otabek watching, tense. He wants a show, too.
JJ tries to grab at his dick with a few solid strokes until Yuri pushes his hand away, looking at Otabek intently. The sex isn’t even good, because for all intents and purposes JJ is a toy with a disobedient mind of his own, but Yuri feels fucking fantastic. He does all the things Otabek likes, just so it goes to waste on someone else. The robe starts slipping down his shoulders and he reaches automatically to pull it off.
“Leave it on,” he hears, and that’s Otabek’s voice, isn’t it, coming closer. Those are Otabek’s hands on his back, Otabek’s warm breath on his neck.
“This doesn’t mean we’re getting back together,” he presses the words to the spot behind Yuri’s ear, traveling through the bone to meet up with his contrary thoughts.
Yuri gives him a sugar-spun smile and a coquettish giggle, then turns to kiss him. Even through a closed mouth, Otabek is still decadent and sour, like overripe figs and balsamic at the rotten end of summer.
It’s part of their cycle, the beginnings and endings more essential than the staying. It’s Otabek ending it so they can start over until they have to make it work. It’s Yuri starting it so it gets really good before it ends. It’s love subletting its room in his body to human error. There’s no counting how many times it’s happened, only hoping for it to happen again, here and now, a genesis under neon lights.
Otabek steps away to watch them as he jerks off, tied up with some recalcitrant refusal to participate. JJ groans under their tension and his eyes roll back in his head as Yuri rides him harder.
“Beka, come back, Bek- ah, please, come back,” he whispers, each stuttered word interfering with his movements. “I love you.”
Five syllables, in Russian.
That might be when JJ comes. Yuri can’t really tell and doesn’t care. Otabek leans over to kiss him again, his deep groans meeting Yuri’s happy humming as they vibrate through the divot in his chest. Otabek pulls back and turns to come on JJ’s face. Yuri grinds down on JJ’s dick still inside him, not hard enough to give him what he needs anymore.
“Please, I’m so close, I can’t— need— nngh!” He’s cut off by Otabek smashing their lips together, then reaching down to get Yuri off as well, his hand still slick with come. He kisses him with each breath as Yuri soars higher and higher, panting into his mouth, five short, slippery kisses between them. The intensity of his orgasm takes him by surprise, and he’s vaguely aware of himself making a lot of ridiculous noise. JJ bucks underneath him in wild aftershocks.
Yuri drapes himself over JJ’s chest, and Otabek rubs his back through sweat-dampened satin.
“Oh my god,” JJ pants. “That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life .”
He reaches up to stroke Yuri’s hair and Otabek slaps his hand away.
“Don’t touch him,” he sighs, half defeated. Yuri giggles, feeling the shake of his chest bounce on JJ’s. JJ, for his part, just grins.
“My bad, dude,” he says, still just happy to be used. “My bad…”
The next twenty minutes are awkward, calling JJ a cab and finding his clothes, thanking him and requesting the doubled payment he’d offered. When Yuri’s done walking him out, the peonies are in the trash, umbrous mold clinging to the stems sticking out the top. There will be a fresh bouquet by the end of the week. This might even be one of the rare occasions where they both buy one.
Yuri sneaks upstairs for half an outfit, a shirt so thoroughly washed and worn he can look through it to see the heart line in his palm. He finds Otabek out on the balcony, leaning up against the railing and twirling a little hand-rolled joint between his fingers. He is a vision in the last dregs of summer evening, silver moonlight embossed on bronze skin.
“I wish you wouldn’t do this,” Otabek says as he lights up. Yuri steps close enough to prop his elbows on the railing and leans his head on Otabek’s shoulder.
“I wish you wouldn’t ditch me every time you get scared,” Yuri replies, still blissed out of his mind and smiling recklessly.
“I wish you wouldn’t start shit up with me every time you get lonely,” Otabek smirks.
Yuri hums thoughtfully and snatches the joint out of Otabek’s mouth.
“Nah,” he inhales and opens his mouth wide to blow a smoke ring that perfectly frames Otabek’s face. “That’s the best part.”
Otabek crinkles his nose but doesn’t outright disagree. Yuri leans on the railing, the joint still long enough to reach out and touch Otabek with the ashes as embers climb steadily towards Yuri’s hand.
“Stop grinding your teeth,” he murmurs.
“Beka.”
Another smoke ring. It hangs in Otabek’s face long after it’s supposed to be there, beautiful and persistent. The twilight has dimmed, and the grey smoke fades into lavender clouds at the horizon, blurring the point where the earth ends and the sky begins.
“Come here.”
Yuri plucks at Otabek’s hand on the railing, turning it until he can hold it in his own. He’s still happy, warm, chemically carefree, even easier now that the stranger is gone.
“I’m sorry. I like you. You make me feel good. You’re so cool. You’re the coolest person I ever met,” he rambles. He pauses to look stupidly up into Otabek’s face and his jaw clenches shut again as he smiles. “I’m sorry.”
Otabek laughs at him, which makes Yuri laugh, too. Otabek pulls him close to kiss the back of his hand five times.
“That‘s Hello Kitty talking,” he mumbles into Yuri’s knuckles.
“Hmm,” Yuri giggles again and tries to kiss him, but is gently stopped. “Depends if you believe it.”
It’s not just the molly, and Otabek should believe it, but Yuri’s better with his tongue than his language. The chance to be good at both dies in his mouth.
“I could be convinced,” Otabek shrugs, then looks down. “You’re wearing my shirt again.”
Yuri sticks his tongue out. It’s his favorite shirt to steal, a shitty band t-shirt from high school that Otabek had been wearing the night they met at the club. That it was on top of the pile was not even half the reason Yuri picked it up.
“You said we weren’t getting back together,” Yuri says, and raises their joined hands to point at Otabek.
“Did we break up?”
He’s backtracking again, letting Yuri decide. Sometimes it’s easier for Otabek to pretend it was just a big fight, so he feels less guilty for running away every time it looks serious.
“God, I hate when you do that,” Yuri says, and the Sisyphean effort it takes not to love Otabek crushes him again. “You asshole.”
“It’s up to you, poor little rich boy,” Otabek smiles and shrugs again. His neck is soft when Yuri tucks his face into it. “How much money did he give you?”
It’s such an absurd redirect that Yuri lets a short shriek of laughter escape. He probably could’ve hooked Otabek faster if he told him from the start, but Yuri’s beginnings have always slighted efficiency.
“A lot,” he says coyly. “Too much. Rich tourist on a bender.”
“So are you buying us pizza or not?” Otabek squeezes his hand. “I have to babysit you a few more hours.”
“The cheapest shit I can find.” He ashes the joint and places it back between Otabek’s lips, letting his fingers dip in between them as he does. “What’s in it for me?”
Otabek pretends to think for a second, then pulls a pink Starburst out of his pocket and tosses it Yuri’s way.
“Me?”
“Don’t get cocky, Altin.”