『 R E Q U E S T S , C L O S E D 』AnimeCharacters x Reader

42. Otabek Altin x IceSkater! Reader | Red Light

》character: Otabek Altin | Yuri!!! On Ice

》requested by: SasheeTadashee

》06212017

》wherein the love songs were more than just the things that get her skating in the way she does. the love songs are about him. about the way his hands take hers when she returns from the rink, victor or not.

[a/n]: this was unjustifiably short but i tried to make it sweet?? and oh god i don't know a thing about ice skating fuck

xx

"That was an excellent performance," Otabek tells you when he takes you by your cold, sweating hand only after you've forgotten the words of your coach. His thumb is pressed into your palm, and you find it comforting; you want to take him home, where he can wipe the frost off your cheeks and the despair from the blades of your skates that you throw to the corner of the room that hurts your neck to look at.

Otabek doesn't tug you towards him, but you fall backwards on his chest anyway. Delicately, like how branches kiss the imprints of their leaves goodbye for the harsh autumn.

"You say that about every performance I have," you reply, because you don't think it was an excellent performance. The noises of friction against ice echo in a sound Otabek can't hear, and each time you nearly slip and fall gets louder each ring, the memory unnerves your bones, like you're back in the rink and the chill slithers in through the under of your nails.

"Because every performance feels magical," he reasons, truthfully. Otabek's hands fall lower, gliding over a path of skin that glistened at the cheap lightbulb overhead. He finds your arms effortlessly, as if they were his own, and he grips them tenderly. His hands were cold, slick but his soul, a mismatched thing that stood while everything else breathed heat and pollen, kept warmth that people turned blind eyes too. Like a hearth kept where only intimacies were exchanged, like a pile of jewels a king only trusts his best and most scarred to guard for as long as his greed thinks for him.

"Are you going home soon?" he asks after eight heartbeats of silence, appalling enough that you hear the lasting conversations of people away from where Otabek kept you against his breastbone in an embrace that didn't feel correct. People, with time and a coat they preened at, exchanging their criticisms among themselves or other skaters who walk in pairs of panting huffs, who never seem to talk about anything besides ice skating.

"Yeah," you say thoughtlessly, "Coach told me to relax, and great timing, too, 'cause my friend's arriving here later tonight and I promised to show her around to places she could Instagram about. You?"

"Probably going to stay a little bit longer," Otabek sounds like he's talking more to himself, "it's going to be colder outside, you better not be going out dressed lightly."

"You, too. Before nine in the evening, Beka," you point an accusing finger at him, tutting at him. He looks at you, confused, and the ends of his brows meet between his eyes. The towel he hangs around his neck nearly slips off of his shoulder, which he rights with a jolt.

There's not much more to be said about the rendezvous by a wall as characteristically cold as the ice that seeps into the air like a paranormal entity with a vengeance, except that the only conversations you hear are yours and Otabek's. He kisses your knuckles before you leave, feels your coat just to make sure it's enough to keep you from shivering where he can't nurse you. He nods approvingly, as if he was your doctor; you shake your head, and your hair follows with you, yet you appreciate his honest sentiments.

You think of Otabek when you stop at the first red light of the evening, listening to a radio you don't follow, ducking your head at the blares of headlights that weren't yours. You think of him in the silences of time, when your friend flashes the lights of her phone as she snaps a picture.

You wonder if, in these allowances, these pockets of hollowness, a ravine in continuity, if he stops himself and thinks of you, too.