There were many ways to get someone's attention, even if that someone was listening to music in bed with his eyes closed, and only one of them involved Gulshat dropping her full weight onto Otabek's stomach.

"Eugh," he gasped, glaring up at her reproachfully as he removed his headphones. "Gulshat, why."

"Are you coming to Makpal's place or not?" Gulshat asked cheerfully. She readjusted her seat as Otabek tried to push her off. "It's bad movie night, we- ah!" She shrieked and tumbled to the floor, where she lay giggling as Otabek scrambled to sit up. "Shit, that worked better when you were smaller than me, you just sorta dragged yourself around like a turtle until Dad rescued you, remember? Anyway, movie night. You in?"

"A nicer sister wouldn't use her butt as a weapon," Otabek grumbled. "It's at Makpal's apartment? I thought…"

"Asha canceled, she had to take an extra shift at the restaurant." Gulshat gave him a probing look as she climbed to her feet. "And no, her brother is back in Astana now, so you won't have to avoid him."

"I'm not avoiding anyone," Otabek said, laughing quietly and lifting an eyebrow. "I haven't been home."

In fact, his flight had landed in Almaty mere hours before he was due at the Kazakhstani Nationals, an arrangement that had him clutching the armrests with white knuckles while Ali sent a stream of emails to the organizers, assuring them that everything was on schedule. At least Otabek had reached a brief lull in the constant activity, while Yuri's texts grew less coherent and more vulgar as Russian Nationals approached.

"I don't care if you are, I'm just curious." Gulshat shrugged, but her tone belied her nonchalance. "You and Akan had your thing this summer, then you started ghosting whenever he was around, so I wanted to make sure… he didn't fuck up, or whatever."

"No, we weren't even dating, neither of us wanted that." Or at least he hadn't wanted it, and had slowly drawn back when his armor began to crack – when a flicker of warmth bloomed in his chest at a glance, or a touch, or a text, painting his weaknesses with the bright red dot that heralded the crack of a sniper rifle. "He's fine. Anyway, I think I'll pass tonight, I'm skyping Yuri later."

"Cool." She reached for the door and sighed. "Akan asked me if you were doing okay. If he hasn't screwed up- look, I know you're not… looking for anything right now, but don't be a dick about it."

Otabek's nerves were raw, exposed; he flinched away but didn't raise his guard.

"I'll talk to him," he said softly. "Thanks."

"When you want to," Gulshat replied, with no pressure behind her words. "Beka, it's not your- never mind. If you decide to come over, text one of us, her doorbell's broken."

She left. Otabek thought about fresh starts and old scars.

:: :: ::

In January, Otabek found himself back in St. Petersburg watching Yuri Plisetsky dance.

"Something like that, anyway," Yuri said with a shrug, dropping his leg to the floor from a standing split. "What do you think?"

Otabek paused for a moment, mentally translating the movements to the ice and the shriek of guitars. Yuri scuffed one foot against the wooden floor and stretched his arms overhead. "It's smoother technically, but you look bored."

For an instant, Otabek thought that Yuri would spit his words back at him – who was he to question Yuri's choreography, after all – but the pale eyebrows were furrowed into a frown instead of a glare.

"Yeah," Yuri grumbled. He dropped to the floor, legs splayed, and twisted his fingers together. "It fucking sucks. It's even worse than Angel of the Fire Festival. I don't want to skate this shit."

"Are you sure they won't let you keep Welcome to the Madness the way it was?"

"Hah, no," he growled. "Lilia wouldn't even… I thought I'd try and tone it down, then at least it would be my- our choreo, but she'd have me skating en pointe if she could. Guess I'll have to smuggle the costume in and do it anyway."

Yuri's gaze shifted out of focus as he scratched the floorboards with a fingernail, and Otabek pushed himself to his feet.

"Let's stop by the National Library before it closes," Otabek said, reaching out and pulling Yuri up. "I was too much of a little punk to appreciate it last time."

Something in Yuri's face snapped shut, and his expression cleared. "What, and that's changed?" He grinned. "Still little, still a punk, Beka."

"Hey, watch who you're calling a punk, punk."

An hour later, Yuri whispered to the library steps like he was sharing a secret, but the winter breeze whisked his words away from Otabek's ears.

"I said, I'm not going to skate Welcome to the Madness again," he repeated at Otabek's silent question, shoving his hands into his coat pockets as he kicked the stone stairs. "I got away with it then because- yeah. Next time, if I don't do Lilia's program, she might decide it's not worth choreographing for me because I won't use it anyway. Then I'm fucked for next season."

"Oh," Otabek said softly, feeling as though the confession might shatter if it wasn't handled gently. The specter of Viktor Nikiforov's return hung heavily over all of them, laced with adrenaline and hot lead, but for Yuri, it wasn't a ghost of the future. Viktor, with mere weeks of preparation and nearly a year without serious training, had gracefully accepted silver – but it had still taken everything Yuri had to claw his way to gold. "Ms. Baranovskaya… she doesn't seem like the type to compromise."

Yuri snorted and fell silent.

Something important, something invisible, rested in the space between them: ripe fruit, ready to pluck, but Otabek couldn't tell if it would taste of sugar or bitter poison. He watched the dark subway tunnels flicker past while Yuri shifted beside him, an ever-moving tangle of elbows and knees.

Yuri would be performing his exhibition routine again before the end of the season. For him, it wasn't a question. For Otabek, he might as well have expected to step onto thin air and have it hold beneath his feet.

Or perhaps, Yuri didn't have a choice but to close his eyes and walk into the breach with no safety net except for his cold certainty. He may have been a soldier, but for the first time, it occurred to Otabek that he might be marching under someone else's orders.

When they arrived back at Lilia's house, Otabek looked down at the ice-studded boots already beginning to drip onto the polished floor and wondered where Yuri lived before. He wouldn't just lose Lilia's choreography – he'd lose a home.

Yuri clicked his tongue and crouched. A cat treat had appeared in his hand, and he smiled as the soft pap pap pap of padded feet was followed by blue eyes and a plumed tail. When Yuri picked up Potya, the cat hung limply over his arm, staring balefully at Otabek.

"Brat," Yuri murmured into the fluffy white fur. "He'll get used to you soon, he's just a jerk. So, food?"

"Sure," he agreed, but Yuri didn't move except to stroke Potya's ears. "Yura?"

"If you're mad at me you can just say so," Yuri said after a moment's pause.

Otabek froze. You don't look like you're enjoying yourself much. Why did you even bother to come?

"I'm not angry," he replied carefully. "I'm sorry if I seemed to be."

Yuri's eyes widened, then creased into a scowl. "No, it's- never mind, it's dumb."

"I'd like to know, if you'll tell me." Otabek's heart had leapt into his throat, and he swallowed, trying to force it back down. "I don't care if it's dumb."

"People are mad at me a lot." He gave a stiff shrug. "I don't give a fuck."

Let it drop, Otabek told himself. Don't push and piss him off.

He put a hand on Yuri's shoulder, overly aware of the pressure and heat of his skin. Casual touches were a language Otabek used to know, but now it was rough and accented. Potya squirmed away from his fingers, but Yuri's fidgeting stilled.

"Yura, I-"

Yuri cut him off. "Welcome to the Madness. I'm not skating it."

"Yes?"

"You gave me the song," Yuri told him. "Then stayed up all night helping with the choreography. And now I'm ditching it."

"That's not-" fair, he almost said, but when had emotions ever been fair? Otabek closed his eyes briefly, and in the darkness he saw a vase of wilted flowers, the moments ticking by as he tried to feel for the invisible point at which he could throw them out without being deemed ungrateful. A museum, with every token of affection pinned behind glass like butterflies. "You don't… owe me, Yura. I was glad you asked me to help. I wish you could skate what you wanted to. You don't have to prove anything to me."

"Right." Yuri bent down and let Potya hop to the floor. "Yeah. I told you it was stupid. What are you making that face about?"

"I just realized that your cat has worn international gold more often than I have," remembering the Instagram photos that followed nearly every competition. He looked at Yuri, who had become as much of a teenage boy as a record breaking prodigy – maybe he'd fallen from that pedestal, but a perfect idol could never be human, never be alive. Otabek smiled. "Maybe that's why he's being snotty, he knows it."

:: :: ::

The Skype window was dark. Otabek closed the tab displaying a timed-out stream of the European Championships. He could barely make out the lines of Yuri's face peeking out from behind layers of blankets, illuminated by what must have been the bedside lamp in his hotel room.

"Hey," Otabek said, keeping his voice low. His clothing still smelled of cigarette smoke and stale alcohol. "Sorry I couldn't talk earlier."

"S'okay," mumbled Yuri. "I fell asleep anyway. You said it was a club?"

"More of a bar that's pretending to be a club."

Yuri leaned forward into the light, and Otabek didn't comment on the pink tinge of his eyes. "Do you get free drinks when you DJ?"

"As much milk as I want." Otabek grinned as Yuri snorted. "Drinking age is twenty-one here. They introduce me to the bartenders beforehand, tell them not to give me any alcohol."

The corner of Yuri's mouth twitched, but the nascent smile withered and died on his lips.

"Yura, are you-"

"You don't have to try to make me feel better, alright?" Yuri cut him off, the words snapping like a whip. "I got fifth because I fucked up. I wouldn't have deserved gold if I was the only one skating. I'll deal with it, I don't need you to feel sorry for me."

"I don't," Otabek retorted, and tried to sand the edges off of his tone. For most of his life, he would have given anything for an international fifth. "I don't feel sorry for you, I just… I know how you feel, and it sucks."

The confession was a gap in his armor. Otabek waited for a dagger, aimed by intent or accident, to slip through. After all, his scores were rarely a result of accident or missed potential – he simply wasn't good enough.

Yuri jerked his head back like Otabek had slapped him. "One of the reporters asked if I thought the Grand Prix was a fluke," he admitted. "They all wanted to talk about Viktor. I got- Yakov told me to leave until I could 'behave like an adult.'"

"At Worlds last year, they kept forgetting what country I was from." Otabek rubbed his temples as the memory resurfaced. "One journalist asked how it felt to represent the Middle East."

"Holy shit. Please tell me you kicked them with your skates on."

"I was really… out of it," explained Otabek. "I couldn't figure out what he was saying, so I just stared at him until he left."

Yuri snorted. "Reporters are fucking morons." He frowned. "If any of them do that again, tell me who it is. I might- I've got a damn army of preteens, I can blackmail Viktor, it won't do much but at least we can embarrass them."

"I- thanks," Otabek said. His thoughts flinched away from the possibility, though Yuri's offer made him smile despite himself.

Yuri's scowl deepened.

"Yura?"

"I don't fucking get it, Beka," Yuri growled. "I mean, we all get shit from journalists and whoever, the ISU fucking hates Viktor, but none of this happens to him. What the hell do they have against you?"

"What do you mean?" Otabek asked carefully, hoping Yuri hadn't noticed his luck, hadn't found a pattern that couldn't be corrected. That he wouldn't believe in it. "Kazakhstan isn't as well-known as Russia or Japan, we have to expect that."

"No, I mean… fuck," Yuri snarled, running his hands through his hair. "Barcelona. Jerkass Leroy. I was too- too distracted then to notice. But it didn't make sense. I watched the programs again and there's no way he deserved bronze, I scored it three times and I never want to see his disgusting grin ever again. It's fucking impossible. That was your medal."

"It- the judges know what they're doing," Otabek said. He picked at a tiny scrape on his thumb and winced as the skin gave way.

"Not this time they didn't," insisted Yuri. "Beka, you should challenge the scoring, it's wrong, I can prove it."

"No."

"But-"

Otabek sighed. "We already did, Yura. They rejected it."

"So do it again!"

Yuri, the soldier who would fight the battle long after it was lost. The difference was that Yuri might win anyway, but Otabek would fall long before that point.

"Then I get branded as the skater who throws a tantrum whenever I lose," Otabek said bitterly. "It was one competition. It's not worth it."

"What the fuck, Otabek? They're just going to-"

"I'm done talking about this," Otabek snapped, the sharp syllables of his name echoing in his mind. A tiny question bloomed, and he struggled to quash it: who would complain about fairness when it was their victory on the line? "Worry about your own career, and I'll deal with mine."

Yuri's mouth hung open for a moment, and Otabek forced himself to relax as the rush of tension left him flushed and shaking.

"I'm sorry," Otabek murmured. "I shouldn't have lost my temper, it was- I'm frustrated at other things, not with you. I'm sorry."

A broad grin broke out across Yuri's face.

"Beka, that was awesome. Like you were in a movie." His smile softened like he was sharing a secret. "And- you said what you meant. It's easier when people are blunt, it's not… I know what you want."

"I'm working on it." Otabek forced himself to look away from the drop of blood beading on his thumb. "I know I'm quiet a lot. It's hard to tell what I'm thinking."

Yuri lifted an eyebrow. "Beka, you're not quiet."

"The rest of the world would disagree, Yura."

"You talk plenty when people are listening to you," Yuri said. "And you say stuff that means shit, you don't make noise to listen to yourself."

Something lurched in Otabek's chest. "I… thanks."

"I just yell all the time," Yuri said with a short laugh. "Thanks for putting up with that, I guess."

"You don't," Otabek replied, letting a realization blossom. "You yell when people don't listen to you. Not all the time."

Yuri's lips formed a soft o of surprise, and Otabek smiled back.

They weren't the same, not exactly, but inversions: white to black, noise to silence.