Welcome to The Madness (of getting engaged)

The anniversary of when Otabek and Yuri kissed on the podium and subsequently made the internet explode (spewing out punk and pastel edits, gifs, and far, far too much fanfiction) was quickly nearing, and Otabek soon realized that getting married was harder than it seemed. It's well known that the wedding part of it can be stressful and hectic and so damn difficult, but what people often don't think about is the engagement part.

Proposing to your significant other? Really fucking hard! Especially for Otabek Altin and Yuri Plisetsky.

They had talked about it, obviously, and knew who was going to propose. Yuri had insisted that the "honor" fall to Otabek since he would, in his words, "throw the goddamn ring at your face and then run away doing a Darth Vader impression". At the time, Otabek had laughed and smiled and hadn't worried about what this whole proposing shebag entailed. Now, you bet your tiger patterned skinny jeans that Otabek was freaking out over this entire thing.

Otabek knew that the classic thing to do was to just take Yuri out to a fancy restaurant, get on his knee right before dessert, do that whole romantic speech thing, and then enjoy a slice of chocolate cake as an engaged man. However, there were many things wrong with that. One, both Yuri and him weren't sappy. That engagement scene was definitely painted for Yuuri and Viktor, not two quiet boyfriends who only really spoke to each other in the privacy of their bedroom. Two, if Otabek really did give a speech, which he totally could by the way, Yuri would definitely tear up and then leave immediately, probably screaming "abort, abort, ABORT" over and over again. Yeah, there was no way they could pull off the classic romantic proposal.

So what else could Otabek do? Put the ring into a pirozhki? That wouldn't work, since Yuri either took tiny, tiny bites of the pastry, or put the entire thing into his mouth and swallowed. In the first instance, Otabek would be reduced to a melting ice cream cone flavored nerves and Yuri would know what was coming, and in the second, Yuri would choke on the ring and have to say yes during the Heimlich.

The only thing that was keeping Otabek sane during this ordeal was the promise that Yuri made.

"I'll say yes, Otabek, no matter what. No matter how horribly wrong it goes, I promise that I will say yes."

That thought almost made Otabek want to make it as bad as he possibly could, to see if Yuri really would say yes while covered in glitter and Dora the Explorer stickers in the middle of the Grand Prix skating rink.

Otabek had asked Viktor and Yuuri for tips, since they had been successfully married for a while now, and although the sickeningly cute couple had a lot of sickeningly cute ideas, none of them really fit what Otabek wanted for him and Yuri. The Kazakh had jokingly suggested that they should make a blog and post all the ideas, which Viktor and Yuuri actually ended up doing, and now they were kind of popular on Tumblr. The whole being famous ice skaters thing really helped out.

After Viktor and Yuuri had been a bust, he had asked Phichit, who he had become very good friends with since the last year, but all Phichit could do was offer up his ice skating rink and some glorified hamster costumes. Otabek had already been in one of those once, and he was in no rush to go back. He did consider a proposal on ice though, but quickly ruled it out, as Yuri and Otabek were of the opinion that all skating did was slow down their relationship. Though, to be fair, the only reason they met was because they were both skaters.

A week passed, leaving just under a month left for Otabek to plan this thing, and he grew so desperate that he asked Lilia Baranovskaya and Yakov Feltsman, which was just as awkward as you'd expect it to be. Oops.

Proposals were officially harder than a quadruple axel on a trampoline in ice skates, not that Otabek had ever attempted that, but it seemed pretty hard.

Suddenly, inspiration struck, and Otabek spent a whole day planning a recreation of that time in Barcelona when they agreed to be friends before realizing that both Yuri and him despised plane rides and suffering through two just to get engaged was ridiculous.

Eventually, with one week left until the agreed day that Otabek was going to propose, Otabek's plan was to just slip the ring on Yuri while they were sleeping and, when he woke up, insist that Otabek had done the speech last night but Yuri didn't remember because they had celebrated with alcohol. The plan was a little mean, but you have to admit, pretty damn funny. Nobody thought of pranking their significant other during a marriage proposal!

Because it was a bad idea, yeah, okay, whatever…

And then, with two days left until The Day, as Otabek was now calling it in his mind, disaster struck.

Otabek lost the ring. And his sanity, but that didn't matter.

Otabek fucking lost the ring. This was almost as bad as the time somebody crashed into his motorbike! He never did stuff like this! He was always calm and collected and put together and definitely not the type of person to lose a ring two days before the day he had to propose!

The skater looked for it, by god, he turned over his entire apartment looking for it while Yuri perched on their kitchen counter, drinking a juice box, watching Otabek with amusement and, somehow, uninterest. Otabek had even retraced his steps for the day, riding his motorbike in the exact same way the day of fated accident.

The Day came, crashing into their apartment like a drunk Chris, whipping off its clothing and pole dancing in Otabek's stomach.

Otabek made breakfast, hands shaking, and spilled green tea everywhere even though he hadn't even been brewing tea.

The day had still managed to be good, Yuri being particularly touchy-feely since he picked up on Otabek's nervous aura. The Kazakh collected himself, deciding to be a sappy romantic and take Yuri out for dinner and propose like every other human ever, and get this over with. He would give a speech, explain what happened, Yuri would laugh, and everything would be fine.

Lunch came and went, and six pm was a train barrelling into the station. It was clear what was going on when Otabek offered dinner and put on a suit, so Yuri took a deep breath and pretended he was cool, chill, totally relaxed.

They got on the motorbike to go to the restaurant, and everything was fine.

The motorbike sputtered out halfway to the restaurant, and everything was not fine.

Yuri began to take the bike apart while Otabek tried not to scream.

"I think something's jammed? Or there's something stuck?" Yuri said, obviously confused. "Damn."

Otabek was now screaming silently into his hands.

"Maybe if I just remove," the Russian paused, pulling a pipe out. "this thing."

Yuri peered into the bike, fishing around. "Hey, Otabek, there's something in here! It must be a rock."

He pulled something out, and his jaw fell open.

The ring. The ring had falllen into the bike. And Yuri found it, right on time. Otabek cheered, wanting to jump into the air.

"Well," Yuri stuttered. "it is a rock. A diamond kind of rock. Fuck. Do you have a speech to give?"

Otabek shook his head, eyes as wide as they could physically be.

"Here I was think that you'd do it at a restaurant like Viktor and Katsudon," Yuri said, holding the ring up to the light in wonder. "How did you pull this off?"

Otabek just shook his head again, then regained control of his body and mind, took the ring from Yuri, and slipped it onto his now fiancé's slim hand.

"Yura Plisetsky," Otabek said, voice steady after months of worrying. "Will you marry me?"

"I guess so," Yuri said, acting uninterested, but his eyes were sparkling. "Since you finally got gold."

"Gold?" Otabek questioned in Yuri's ear, resting his head on the Russian's shoulder, wrapping his arms around him. Yuri reached behind himself and removed Otabek's hands, keeping one for himself. Yuri gestured to his own body, smirking.

"Yeah, I'd be the gold medal, because you've finally won me over."

Now all they had to do was get the engine grease off that damn ring.