Champagne, Cocaine, Gasoline

Chapter 17

Otabek dressed quietly and thoughtfully. This was completely uncharted for him, he had never talked about his upbringing to anyone. Ever.

Normally he took great care to block out any thoughts of his family or childhood from his mind as it just led to pain and suffering. He has been on his own from the time he was 14 anyways and was always more focused on surviving day to day with not a lot of time left over for self reflection.

He really should have just kept his mouth shut about his sisters. That would be a lot easier than feeling this melancholy sadness creep up into his chest at the thought of talking about them for the first time in almost decade. But something inside him felt the need to share this information with Yuri. After all, who knows how much time they really had left together and he wanted to give all of himself to the boy. Past, present, and future.

Drawing in a deep breath, he steeled himself and exited the room, heading through the closet and taking a seat next to Yuri on his chaise lounge. He saw the teen was trying very hard to be good and patient and it made Otabek beam with pride. Normally Yuri would be demanding answers, but here he was just sitting quietly and respectfully. He didn't really know where to start so he figured he would just start at the beginning.

"So I was born in a community on the outskirts of the city of Almaty called Shangyraq. Have you heard of it?" Yuri shook his head no. Of course he hadn't, no one born into a palace like this would have…

"Shangyraq was basically a squatter's neighborhood, full of abandoned homes and buildings, most of which did not have electricity or running water. My parents had just immigrated to Almaty when they found out my mother was pregnant with me. They were originally from small villages but thought that moving to the city would give them a better life. Unfortunately, it was very difficult for my father to get a job, and housing prices in the city were too high, so we ended up in Shangyraq. I don't remember alot from my early childhood, just that our house had no floors, just dirt, and that I had to walk a long time with my mom to get clean water to bring home. It was too hot in the summer, and too cold in the summer. When I was 3 years old my mother gave birth to my sister Sezim and apparently I was very taken with her." His heart hurt as he uttered her name, a name he hasn't said in years. HE didn't know how he looked right now, but he didn't care to hide his emotions much at this point.

"At this point my father was working a few different jobs in the city and my parents finally were able to save enough money to move us into an apartment in the city. It wasn't much, just an old Kommunalka apartment building, dyou know what that is?" He asked genuinely curious. Most people from the former USSR are familiar with the old soviet communal apartments, but he never knew how much Yuri really knew about the world outside of his little bubble. To his surprise, the little blonde nodded his head.

"Dedushka grew up in one." Yuri answered, which was a surprise to Otabek. He had never really given much thought to Nikolai Plisetsky's life before he became the ruthless gangster that he was today. It was strangely humbling to know that the Pakhan grew up in a situation similar to his own.

"We had one room to ourselves with a shared kitchen, washroom, and toilet between everyone on our floor. I'm sure if you saw it, you would think you'd never seen anything so disgusting, but from where we came, it was beautiful. We didn't have to draw water from a well anymore, there was electricity. I remember thinking we must be rich. My mother was much happier, and she enjoyed chatting and gossiping with our neighbors and my father didn't have to be gone as much because we lived closer to his work. He had finally found good work in a factory during the day, and was a part time janitor at night and we even began attending the local mosque together near our home. It seemed as if things were finally looking up for my family." He almost smiled at the bittersweet memories flooding through him. Visions of his happy little family, still dirt poor but just glad to be together. His mother sewing on the sofa, headscarf still on her head from her trip to the market earlier that day. His father reading the local newspaper at their kitchen table, his sleeping sister on his lap.

" When I was about 6, my youngest sister Nazira was born-" He started but was interrupted by the teen across from him.

"What are your parents names?" Yuri interjected, his eyes pure and wholesome, and it touched Otabeks heart that Yuri was listening intently and cared enough to ask him these intimate questions.

"My father was Sanzhar, and my mother Zhuldyz." He smiled softly, feeling like a breath of fresh air after saying all of his family members names after so long. Like cleaning the skeletons out of his closet.

"After Nazira was born, it was evident right away that she was unwell. She was always crying, constantly getting sick, and it really took a toll on my mother. She did everything she could to try and soothe the baby, but sometimes it was too much, so I would take her for walks up and down the hallways of our building, just to give my mother some peace. The neighborhood wasn't safe so my mother didn't want me taking her out of the building."

"When I was 12 and Nazira was only 6, she got really sick with pneumonia. Our family was barely getting by with my fathers paycheck from the factory, and he was working longer hours to try and make enough to afford her medicine, but it was never enough and she was only getting worse." His chest tightened as he continued to talk, remembering watching as the life faded from his baby sister, the light leaving her eyes, her strength grinding out, fading into nothing. He could feel the shake in his voice and the burning behind his eyes. Otabek may be a tough as nails man who had been imprisoned three different times in his life, but remembering his sister dying would always hurt deeper than any other pain he had felt in his life.

"She just… she was getting smaller and smaller. She stopped smiling, she would cry from the pain and coughed all hours of the day and night." He looked at Yuri and the expression the other wore was heartbreaking. Tears were sitting in his eyes, not yet falling, but flooding his turquoise orbs with the emotion of despair.

"One day when I came home, the kommunalka was eerily quiet. No mothers or grandmothers cooking in the kitchen, no men arguing or playing cards in the hallways. Just silence. As I approached our room I heard the sounds of crying and I knew before I opened the door that she was gone." The tears he had been holding back made their way forward as he remembered the sight of his mother crumpled on the floor beside Naziras body, a white sheet covering the frail body that was all that remained of his dear sister.

"We buried her in a small cemetery near our home, my father and I dug the grave ourselves and that was the first time it was difficult to respect the teachings of Islam and not weep. I helped him lay her into the ground and cover her body with soil, facing her body towards Qibla. After that I was very angry. Angry at my fathers factory for not paying him enough to help my sister, Angry at the state of our country where stories like ours were far too common. Angry at Allah for letting such a terrible crime such as a child's death take place."

"I'll admit I was not the best son after that. I couldn't face being in that room that we all shared, the room where she died. My mother rarely smiled afterwards, and our little home, which had been the center of happiness for us for years, felt like it was suffocating me. I started to spend a lot of time with friends I had met in the neighborhood and quickly I began getting into trouble. Fighting became a necessary skill, as the streets were rough, especially for younger boys. We began with small things, stealing from the convenience stores, graffitiing the alleyways, just kid stuff."

"Not too long after my sisters death, my father was killed in an accident at his factory. The factory didn't take any blame and offered no support to my mother, a traditional housewife who had never worked outside the home who now had no way of making money. She began taking on work as a seamstress and a laundress for women in the neighborhood, but we were barely getting by. I was only 13,but I had become the man of the house and knew I had to bring in money the only way that I knew how. By stealing it."

"I watched my father try and be an honest man and slave away at his low paying jobs for years. And what did that get him? A dead daughter and a family that could barely make ends meet. I was determined to provide a better life for my mother and Sezim, so I started working with some older boys on robberies and selling drugs. Mostly heroine. My mother knew what I was doing and she hated it, begged me to get a job in the market or delivering newspapers, but I refused to work for scraps like my father had."

"I was arrested for the first time when I was 14 robbing a wealthy house of a businessman that was causing trouble for one of their families. We didn't know the house had a security system and the cops were there within minutes. My mother was devastated, we couldn't afford a lawyer, and her and Sezim begged the judge to go easy on me, but the businessman that we robbed was apparently friends with the man, and he gave me 2 years in prison like he wasgiving away candy." He felt nothing as he talked about his first prison sentence, but felt everything even as he remembered his family's cries at his imprisonment.

"I was just a child when I went into the system for the first time, but after what I was subjected to inside, my childhood was dead. When I was released at 16 I tried to find my mother and my sister who had recently stopped replying to my letters. I went to my old apartment the day I was released but they didn't live there anymore." The emotion began to well up again behind his eyes.

"The landlord told me that my mother had died not 6 months before. Apparently she was very depressed after I was locked up and wasn't going outside, had no way to pay the bills, and eventually just died of a broken heart. And my sister…" his chest hurt talking about this, physically hurt, but he knew he had to finish the story now that he started it. "She was gone."

,

"Gone? What do you mean gone?" Yuri asked in trepidation.

"Gone. Vanished without a trace, apparently it had been right after my mothers death. Word around the neighbor was that she probably got picked up by sex traffickers. She was only 13 then." His voice wavered again as a mixture of hopelessness, anger, and disgust turned in his gut. He looked up at Yuri whose face was even paler than normal.

"After I heard that I went searching for her, I travelled, I shook down anyone that might have information for me, but there was only so much a kid with no money and no resources could do. Eventually I had to stop looking because I was getting nowhere and was driving myself mad-" he was going to continue but was cut off by the younger man launching himself forward into his lap throwing his arms around his neck tightly. Otabek could feel hot tears on his neck and was touched.

"Beka… fuck Beka I am so sorry. I can't- I can't even imagine. And I- I've been so fucking selfish. Always complaining, always saying how hard my own life is, when you- when you… " He trailed off looking so heartbroken that Otabek was able to forget about his own pain for the moment and focus on the weeping boy in his lap.

"Hush Yura, do not cry for me. It is all in the past now." And just like that his emotional wall slid back into place.

His story was sad, and he knew that. But that is how he became the man he is today. He doubted any man with as fearsome as a reputation as him would have any kinder of a story. Criminals were not born out of great childhoods. Killers learned death when they were young.

C He had spent countless hours asking Allah why his life was so desolate, why he seemed to be hated more than most, why his family bore so much pain and suffering. The mosques taught him when he was young that suffering revealed his hidden self to Allah. That suffering was born from sin, and disbelief in Allah, Muhamed and their teachings. So he tried to believe, he prayed and prayed, even when he was in prison the first time, knowing that suffering was a way for God to weed out the week.

But after his sister was taken, then his father, until finally he was all alone in this world, he stopped believing. Believing and caring was weakness, and weakness was the cause of pain. By 17 he had experienced enough pain in his life, so he resigned himself to become an emotional wall. A man who would not feel anything aso he would never have to feel pain again.

But Yuri had pain too. His parents were killed as well, and in a car wreck that he was also involved in no less. Then he was emotionally shunned by the only family he had left and essentially made to be a prisoner in the townhome for years.

"Yura, no one can compare pain to one another, and you have every reason to feel pain and sadness as I do. Your life has not been an easy one." He stroked the boys hair and felt calm in his caretaking role. Yuri pulled back and looked him in the eyes, curulean pools rimmed with puffy red.

"You think so?" He asked, trepidation in his voice.

"I know so." Otabek leaned forward resting his forehead against Yuri's own.

"Plus, every event in my life led me down the path to meet you, and I wouldn't trade you for the world kitten." He gave Yuri a reassuring smile, and the shy grim that broke across the others sad face was enough to warm his heart. He was rewarded with another over eager hug that knocked him a bit off balance, and that he had to chuckle at. This brat was always sweeping him off his feet.

They spent a while holding each other and just revelling in this rare time that they were allowed to be so candid. Otabek wished it could be like this always and he was determined to make that happen.

He had awoken early this morning and returned to his room making sure he was unseen by any staff, one false move could be fatal. Once he was there, he couldn't get himself to fall back asleep. He kept playing the recent actions in his head over and over again, imagining Yuri's perfect body arched in ecstasy, the beautiful cries he let out, the extraordinary feeling of being connected physically to the boy he loved after all this time. Then he thought of the events that led up to their coupling and felt himself once again become heated by the memory of Nikolai treating Yuri so harshly and laying hands on him.

He fumed and fumed and eventually began pacing around his room before he decided to go work out some of his aggression at the gym. Whilst there he came up with an idea. It was risky, crazy, and ultimately had about a 5% of Nikolai agreeing to it, but in his opinion was the only way to stop whoever it was that was trying to assasinate Yuri. His gut told him that this had something to do with the Solntsevskaya's trying to infiltrate St Petersburg, but he didn't have much to prove it.

Despite it being not much past 6AM he took a shot in the dark and texted Viktor to see if he was awake. To Otabeks surprise he received a text right back and the two met in the kitchen and Otabek shared his plan with the one person he thought could help convince Nikolai of his plan. The two talked for over an hour hammering out the logistics before they came up with the perfect plot. Viktor and Nikolai were leaving later that morning on business and wouldn't be back for 3 days. During that time Viktor would present the plan to Nikolai as if it were his own idea therefore making the Pakhan more inclined to go along with it.

Now Otabek had 3 days alone with his Yura in the townhome while Viktor did the dirty work, and for once he really didn't feel bad about it. It felt good to selfishly take time to be with the one he loved, the one he had been longing for for months.

He wasn't going to bring up his plan to Yuri just yet, he didn't want to get his hopes up until he knew that Nikolai had agreed.

He knew Yuri wouldn't be awake until closer to noon (teenagers, am i right?) so he took his time to go to Yuri's favorite cafe and get him his sugary coffee concoction and his favorite pastry. He just wanted to spoil his little prince rotten while he could, before the seriousness of the life they both lead caught back up with him. Which brings us back to the cute little kitten cuddled in his lap…

"Yura," He started and the teen lifted his head to look him in the eyes. "Your Dedushka and Viktor are going to be gone on business for the next few days. You know we cannot leave the townhouse, however I am perfectly happy with spending as much time as possible the next few days, while we have the chance to be together uninterrupted." He told the younger man whose face broke out in a wild grin.

And they did just that. Mostly they lazed around just enjoying each other's company. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they watched movies, sometimes they fucked each others brains out, but sometimes they just were quieter, and enjoyed the peaceful moments together. Like when Yuri would nap with his head in Otabeks lap as the older man stroked his head fondly, reading one of the classic books he owned for the 100th time. Or when they would bath oin the giant tub together just to be able to feel each others slippery skin rolling unabashed against the others

The only thing that was hard were the nights. Otabek would wait until Yuri fell asleep in his arms, and then slowly and quietly had to extract himself from the kitten's grip so he could return to his own room and sleep cold and alone. He knew he was already pushing it by spending all hours of his day in the teens bedroom, but he felt he could explain that away with notions of keeping an eye on an unstable Yuri who was emotional after the events that had recently occurred. What he couldn't explain was sleeping in said teenagers room, and the maids would talk if his own bed was not slept in every night.

When the three days were up and Nikolai and Viktor returned, Otabek was almost immediately called into Nikolai's office and the Kazakh prayed for the best but expected the worst. When he entered the room he was relieved to see that Nikolai, though ever serious, looked to be in good spirits and Viktor was standing behind him with a smirk on his lips that Otabek hoped meant that everything had gone as planned.

"Otabek, thank you for your hard work in watching and protecting Yuri all this time, you have no idea what an asset you have become to this family and a comfort in my own heart knowing that my grandson is being taken care of." Was how Nikolai stated this conversion and Otabek was almost taken aback by the words. It was almost as if he knew, but of course that was impossible. If he truly knew what was going on there would already be a bullet through Otabeks skull.

"Thank you sir." He answered strongly, not wanting any of his uneasiness to show on his face.

"That being said, I want to let you in on a brilliant idea that Viktor and myself came up with in regards to whoever is trying to assasinate Yuratchka." Nikolai began and Otabek had to keep the smile from blooming across his face. It had worked. His plan had worked.

"And it all starts with Yuratchka's birthday party."

Kommunalka: An old USSR communal flat that usually held between 5-20 families.

Notes:

After researching Poverty and low income families and neighborhood in Almaty I learned that their iver very little information available in English on the subject. I searched for hours trying to find exact locations or stories of actual families in Almaty and really came up with nothing in the end. It seems like poverty is spread all around the city and can vary from street to street. Some information was helpful in creating a little bit of the backstory, but if anyone reads this and finds it to be an inaccurate depiction, please let me know. I am trying my very best to respect and accurate depict Kazak people and their culture.

Also, Otabek had his own issues with his religion but in no way am I trying to bash the regligon of Islam. I think it's a beautiful and valid religion ️ I also hoped that I depicted Islamic customs accurately, I had to research them! If not let me know in the comments below and I'll make sure to make corrections!

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