CW for: mentions of body image problems, past suicide attempt, scars

I love depressed otabek ok leaf me olone

I. The feel of his freshly shaven undercut as you run your fingers across his skin, feeling him sigh deeply and relax at the sensation. He always did have a sensitive scalp. It embarrassed him for whatever reason, and when you found out he had stuttered and blushed like a silly idiot and wouldn't shut up until you kissed him. You loved to take advantage of the way goosebumps would run across his arms every time you tugged a little, dragged your lips from his earlobe to the base of his skull, when you washed the shampoo out of his hair in the shower. And you quickly found that it was a great way to calm him down whenever he was overly stressed or anxious or in one of his moods. "Come here, Beka, sit in front of me." You would smile softly and gesture to the space between your knees. You would smile wider at the look of pleasure already gleaming in his eyes, and when you bathed in his sighs and moans as you ran your fingers through his hair, you swore it was almost better than making him cum.

II. His thighs. Fuck, whether he was wearing baggy sweatpants or nothing at all, those thighs were the first thing your eyes fell to. Thick and muscular and so, so soft. You would remind him how much you loved them every time the two of you were intimate; you knew how self-conscious he was of them. Too big to belong to a figure skater, he was always told. Too big in proportion to the rest of his body. Too big to be elegant and beautiful. Too big to be loved. You would kiss those words away whenever they fell from his lips, and then you would shrink down the bed to kiss his skin and the old hickies you had made and remind him that Otabek Altin, you are fucking beautiful. A couple of times he had cried after you said that. He didn't believe it, was convinced you were lying, because he had always been told that his body was bad. But that was okay. The tears were okay. You'd kiss those away too and remind him that you'd get through this together.

III. The colour and shape and depth of his eyes. Popular media always made brown eyes seem boring, undesirable, plain. But they clearly didn't look deep enough. Because in the eyes of this fantastic man you would find so much love, so much passion and dedication and bravery. So much strength and courage. Warm pools of chocolate- no, chocolate was too sappy. Too romantic. Otabek's eyes were like fire embers: the flicker of brown on the tip of a flame, and they took your breath away and left you begging for more. Though he didn't like them much either, did he? He had muttered to you once in the dark. How he hated his monolids, how he wanted big bright green eyes like you had, that if only he could change himself, that he had considered surgery as a young teenager. You held him through the night and repeat those words over and over again. Otabek Altin, you are fucking beautiful.

IV. You loved the stretch marks that embroidered his hips, arching around to his lower back, the dip of his perfect ass, the back of his legs. They reminded you of how much he had to work to get where he was. He wasn't the most flexible person in the world, nor was he the most elegant, but he'd be damned if that ever stopped him from climbing the ladder to become one of the best figure skaters in history. Pale lines that smiled from his brown skin, almost begging to be kissed. You had some too, of course; growth spurts hadn't been easy on you. But yours were fewer in number and blended into your pale complexion. You could ignore yours, forget they were even there, but he couldn't do the same. His brain wouldn't let him. Whenever you caught him running a finger over them with a frown on his face, you would gently take his hands and kiss every knuckle, then bend down to kiss every mark, and tell him how spectacular he is.

V. When the lighting in the bedroom was perfect, and fell only on his curves and the high points of his body, you couldn't pull your eyes away from the structure of his collarbones. They were the first things you sunk your teeth into when his shirt came off. Sucking and licking and biting until they were stained with bruises of purple and blue. It was one of your favourite things to do. Especially when he was going somewhere important the next day and had to furiously try to cover them with makeup in the morning- just in case, he always said, trying to look annoyed and failing miserably. Just in case someone saw them and thought bad of him. But that was bullshit, and you both knew it- he just wanted to keep those marks between you, him, and your bed.

VI. You loved his cheeks. To an outsider, he was stoic and apathetic and seemingly emotionless, however you knew this wasn't true. Whenever he was flattered or embarrassed (usually the latter came alongside the former) his cheeks would flush a soft shade of rose, starting just below his temples and gradually spreading outwards the longer you stared and smirked. If he was tired, the apples of his cheeks seemed to be stained a cherry colour, and in the rare moments you witnessed him angry that cherry would morph into red wine and spread across the rest of his face. Once you walked in on him crying in the bathroom. His cheeks were dark and splotchy- though whether that was his body's response or because he was pressing his hands against his face, you weren't sure. You took him to bed and held him close and stroked his cheeks until he fell asleep, lying on your chest.

VII. They say that someone's hands can tell a story, and this was especially true for him. When he first nervously intertwined his fingers with yours, you couldn't help but notice just how rough his skin was; callouses and scars and a palm only slightly softer than sandpaper, feeling so out of place when you considered your own skin and the hand cream you applied every morning. It took a while before he talked about it. One evening you were leaning against him, watching a shitty film on Netflix, when you noticed him picking at his fingers out the corner of your eye. He saw your frown and clenched his fists with hesitation. It wasn't until the credits rolled when he took a deep breath and turned to you, mouth opening and closing, not knowing where to start. You just waited. And wasn't very surprised when he explained that he used to scratch at himself when he was anxious; rip skin off his fingers and bite his nails until blood pooled. Immediately afterwards you went to eBay and purchased various stress balls that he could rip apart instead. You kissed each knuckle, looked him in the eye, and said the words that never failed to make his eyes glitter: Otabek Altin, you are fucking beautiful.

VIII. His shoulders. So broad and strong and made him seem like the tallest, most grounded person in a room, despite his 5'6" frame and his tendency to stay close to the outsides to avoid attention. Shamelessly, you would stare at the way his shoulder blades moved when he worked out, biting your lip and scanning your eyes over the vast plane of his upper back. So perfect. Perfect for staring at, perfect for kissing, perfect for dragging your nails down in moments of intimacy. But they also allowed you to sit securely atop them so you could get the best view for sight-seeing and photo taking whenever you both travelled somewhere new.

IX. His eyelashes. How they would catch glimmers of sunlight when you were standing on the balcony at 6am, cups of coffee in your hands, glaring at the morning and the tweeting birds and wanting nothing more than to go back to bed. How there always seemed to be a stray one in the corner of his eye or lying on his cheek. How they were as black as night, as black as the hair on his head, framing his brown eyes with a curtain of ebony. How you could feel them as he gasped and squeezed his eyes shut against your shoulder when you were both under the covers. And you especially loved how they curled up slightly when he smiled and laughed.

X. You didn't find out your favourite thing about his body until a couple of months into your relationship. He purposely had kept it covered- kept them covered- because it had been engrained into him that they were bad. Disgusting. That was the words he used: disgusting, as if he were a grotesque monster, and it was the first thing he had ever said that made you cry. You remember it perfectly: it was just gone midnight, you were drifting off to sleep, and suddenly you felt him shift next to you and tell you that he needed to talk.

With all the grace of an 18-year-old who was running on empty, you sat up and turned the bedside lamp on. Immediately you could tell he was uncomfortable, perhaps even scared. You raised an eyebrow with curiosity as he pushed his sleeves up.

There were five of them. Two on one arm, three on the other. On his left arm they were horizontal, perfectly parallel, faded to a pale pink colour but still standing proudly on his skin. They were thick and raised and you knew they wouldn't ever disappear. On his right arm they were vertical and begun where his palm joined his wrist, and these were a much brighter red and even thicker. One was maybe three inches long; the other closer to six.

Through watery eyes and a sore throat, he explained. Explained how a childhood of a violent father led to teenage years of loneliness coupled with body image problems, all piling, all building, until he couldn't take it anymore. He had gotten therapy, he promised you. He wasn't going to do it again, he told you. He wouldn't blame you if you left him for it.

You didn't leave. Of course you didn't- you loved this man and some marks on his skin wouldn't change that. You kissed his scars and told him that he didn't need to be ashamed, or embarrassed, or disgusted with himself. You told him that were here for him and that you would help him through anything and everything.

You kissed his rose-dusted scars and that was the first time you told him that Otabek Altin, you are fucking beautiful.

thank u for reading i loaf you all

please review if u have a spare 10 seconds, it makes me feel super happy. I'm going to be posting a slightly longer fic in the near future going into detail about Otabek's depression and suicide attempt and stuff so uhhhh follow me if you'd wanna see that I guess. Ok cool lov u