The Depth of Green

Chapter 4

Chapter 3 recap: Otabek and Yuri meet for the second time, Otabek again giving the excuse of 'mother' (anyone else getting Psycho vibes from that? Just me? Huh.) for their meeting. While they talk, Otabek jokes that he lives to serve, which is obviously insulting to Yuri who literally lives to cater to the whims of alphas, and, when Yuri shows a negative reaction, Otabek insists on apologizing, doing so even when Yuri says (in so many words) that he never has to apologize to Yuri. More of Yuri's backstory is revealed and he Mila banter in the garden of the house when she tells him she's met a new alpha and teases him to pursue Otabek because "what could it hurt?". Yuri goes quiet and she apologizes, because they both know what it could hurt (and a lot of you have great guesses!).

~~~~~

Otabek wasn't going to come to the next showing. Yuri knew that. Otabek would be lounging on a beach somewhere along the coastline just barely visible from the grounds of the house, gulls white, sparkling specks in a clear, blue sky, and waves lapping lazily in the foreground. Yuri also knew that the weather of late, in typical early-November fashion, had been cold and dreary, rain a constant, light mist hovering over the ground, waiting with the winds and the damp to chill any stupid, outdoorsy soul to the bone. Still, though, Yuri's half-formed, quickly ignored wonderings of which particular way Otabek was luxuriating in his holiday didn't seem to take into account the fact that, inhabiting the same town, they shared the weather. No, while Yuri shivered and pulled his yukata more tightly around him at mealtimes, Otabek laid out on a brightly lit beach, staring not into grey, snow-laden clouds, but a bright, unmarred sky, the sun blazing heat down upon him.

Perhaps this was a subconscious association borne from the desperation Yuri's subconscious felt to remind him that his interactions with Otabek were no more; it made sense, as Yuri concluded after several hours of sitting on his hidden bench in the depths of the gardens, exploring the murky recesses of his own mind, that pairing Otabek with Bahama-esque surroundings and Yuri with his own, dreary ones would help enforce their separation in his mutinous thoughts. Help establish to the part of Yuri's omega that had been pacing and clawing within him for the past few days, that Otabek would not return to a house showing, his obligations fulfilled.

He wouldn't be discussing philosophy in that deep, velvety undertone of his. He wouldn't be anything more than a distant, removed memory, from this point on. He wouldn't be waiting outside of the gate as Yuri trooped dutifully down through the gardens on Monday's showing.

He was.

Yuri's mask of poise never faltered: not as he lined up; not as the gong sounded and he made his way to his usual, removed perch by the Koi pond; not as Otabek followed him. Yuri brought up the Wife of Bath, Otabek agreed that her character was very important to early omegist ideas, and neither dared to mention that Otabek, for all intents and purposes, didn't belong at the showing. That he wasn't supposed to be sitting across from Yuri, again, discussing crude, deceptively wise, female characters, without a care in the world. When they parted ways, it was close to normal (if Yuri could pretend there was any semblance of normal, anymore; if he dared to let himself) and the small, nagging worry seeded deep within Yuri grew when he saw Otabek waiting behind the gate that Thursday; when he didn't feel remotely surprised; when he refused to admit to himself that he'd become something dangerously close to expectant.

Their conversations were interesting; Yuri never failed to enjoy them, and even when they ventured tentatively (almost equally so on both parts, though Yuri failed to find anything Otabek could be worried about in regards to him) from the safe zone philosophy had grown to become, Yuri found himself eager to keep talking. Slowly, incrementally, little tidbits about Otabek's life were slipped into their discussions, too.

There was a small bruise on his hand where he'd managed to smack himself with something described to Yuri as a meat mallet which he could make no sense of, but that had apparently yielded enough damage that the space between Otabek's thumb and forefinger was several shades yellower than it should have been. Otabek had received a call from a business associate; creative people were difficult to work with, according to an offhand comment he hadn't even seemed to notice making, and the company Otabek ran (from what Yuri could gather of it) dealt with an awful lot of them. Sorry Otabek was late, he'd been tasked with retrieving his sister's cat (the sister who he had apparently been visiting frequently, now he was back in town) from the top of the tallest of her kitchen cabinets, and the claw marks on the shoulder of his leather jacket spoke volumes of Otabek's success in the mission. To his credit, his wince wouldn't be noticeable to most when he raised his right arm.