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Being in the novice class wouldn't be so horrible if Otabek didn't doubt himself constantly.

Everyone else could succeeded in Yakov Feltsman's training camp with their practice routines and understood basic performance techniques and stances. So… why couldn't he…?

He passes a group of older male ballet students, in leotards and toe-shoes. They don't notice him, passing around an unmarked vodka bottle and taking hefty, burping swigs, laughing. One of the teenage boys smacks the heel of his palm against a box of cigarettes, and his friend plays around with a silvered, big lighter, flipping it open and shut, burning whole pieces of paper malevolently.

Otabek knows to avoid eye contact. They're speaking in a gruffer, more severe form of Russian, and he's a thirteen-year-old with no muscle mass to be defending himself from a confrontation.

Down the corridor, there's one or two recital rooms and then the washroom. Mostly unused spaces. Otabek peeks into a large, vacant room with a polished wood floor and a harp, glimpsing the shine of yellow-blond hair twirling. Not vacant — a pensive-faced Yuri Plisetsky stretches himself gracefully.

A younger boy who Otabek instantly felt a connection to. For no discernible reason. Yuri is famously apt for ballet and for ice-skating, or so all of the adults have whispered within hearing range. Yuri would grow up to be conventionally attractive and a star athlete with unrelenting passion and dedication and a hardhearted perspective of winning. No acceptance of failure would be tolerated.

The very moment that Otabek looked into Yuri's eyes, during that ballet lesson, Otabek believed every word they said about Yuri. And he wants it for himself too. To be the best.

Before he's spotted by his newest rival, his idol, Otabek races to the washroom, remembering how badly he needed to empty his uncomfortably full bladder. He doesn't rush cleaning his hands, going over what to prepare for his next studies and when to call his Momma in Kazakhstan, air-drying off.

Exiting the washroom, Otabek smells something awful and burning that wafts in his face. Back from the way he came, there's so much dark, billowing smoke that Otabek can't make out the staircases.

An echo of laughter, gaining distance. Stomping feet. And more and more smoke.

Did those older boys set fire to this place?

Otabek wheezes out, his lungs tightening, panic and fear climbing up from his belly. Yuri hurries out of the room he had been practicing in, staring at the black smoke-permeated hallway and then Otabek with mounting confusion and horror. "In here! Go!" Otabek yells, reaching out and pushing Yuri back into the recital room with both of his hands, slamming the door behind them and locking it.

Yuri pushes him back in retaliation, glaring.

"What the HELL was that—!?"

Overhead, the fire alarms suddenly go off, white strobe-lights blinking from the ceiling. "Crap…" Otabek mutters, looking up and then waving his arms defensively, attempting to block a still glaring Yuri from heading for the only doorway. "Where are you going? No! It's not safe!"

"We're gonna get trapped, you dumbass!" Yuri barks out. They argue with each other for another few minutes before the eleven-year-old curses in Russian and snatches onto the door-handle. He immediately lets go, crying out in agony and grasping onto his own wrist. Otabek yells again, this time Yuri's name, wrapping his fingers over Yuri's hand on his wrist and leading him away roughly.

Yuri's palm and the inside of his fingers turn into a deep pink from the first degree burns. He cries out more softly, angrily, but doesn't jerk away from Otabek's purposeful, examining touch.

Underneath the reddish-tinged crack of the door, more of that billowing smoke creeps in, soot-black.

"I think we already are…" Otabek replies to Yuri's earlier comment heedlessly, looking up again towards the ceiling and then to the opposite side of the room. "Is there another door? A vent?"

"This is YOUR fault!"

He doesn't blame Yuri for getting scared like this, when it seems like there's nowhere they can go, and decides to ignore the accusation in Yuri's voice. The other boy scowls at Otabek, breathing erratically, his little green eyes welling quickly with tears and bloodshot. Otabek's heart clenches.

"Hey… it's gonna be okay, Yuri…" he insists, touching over Yuri's shoulders and gripping lightly. Otabek meets his gaze, nodding firmly. "We're getting out here… I promise. I promise."

Maybe it's the resolve Otabek has, but Yuri finally calms, gulping for air and more confused.

"… How do you know my name?"

Otabek's mouth flattens into a hard line. He tries to think of what to say when they both hear noises outside the recital room, like heavier footsteps and men shouting out orders. The door splinters open, with the help of a fire-axe and Otabek ducks, protectively covering Yuri's head.

He doesn't remember much else — separating from Yuri as the firefighters picked them up, carrying them out of the building and putting them into separate ambulances. Otabek does remembering gasping into a oxygen mask, puking out bile and all of the toxic sludge from his body, and then leaving Russia. Leaving without seeing how Yuri was doing. If he was ever really okay after that incident.

But the world moved on, and he and Yuri thrived with their skating careers. Just not together.

Yuri's hair shines yellow-blond against the sunshine pouring in, where he sits casually on the edge of Otabek's hotel mattress, rubbing his neck littered with bruise-purpling hickeys. After a long moment, Yuri gazes over his shoulder at Otabek watching him softly, the corner of his mouth quirking down.

"What?"

The Russian syllables drift in, low and familiar.

Otabek props his head up on a white, too-thin pillow. "Nothing… just thinking about you," he answers back in English, grinning when a bare-chested Yuri tenses up, wide-eyed and flushing.

"Dumbass," Yuri mutters, still in Russian, distracting himself by gathering up his hair into a ponytail. He succumbs to Otabek's embrace from behind him, muttering wordlessly as Otabek's mouth traces over his nape and the slope of his back, leaving faintly suckling, admiring kisses.

Doubt can't exist like this. Not with Yuri here.

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Yuri On Ice isn't mine. ALRIGHTY WELL. IT'S TIME FOR MORE POSTING. I did the Yuri! On Ice Secret Santa 2018 and for vanille-n-chocolate who wanted Otayuri! And I only wanted to do Otayuri so wooo! A good match! Hope you all enjoyed this and any thoughts/comments are deeply appreciated! Thank you so much!