#i don't feel liek double typing all the flower meanings

[modernart2012]

Green Thumb

for @unnaturalalien​

on AO3

Otabek has a green thumb. It gets him into trouble.

The first (second, on a technicality) time Otabek meets Yuri, he goes back to Almaty and plants gladioli bulbs deep in the ground. It will take time for them to grow, because it is still winter and the ground is hard, and Otabek is sure he should have put them in a planter then the green house. But. They are swords for a soldier, and they will struggle but survive and thrive, or not.

 “Gladiolus?” His mother asks incredulous when the flowers pierce through the soil come spring. Otabek hums noncommittally at the green spears poking through. Then he leaves his mother puzzling and goes to practice.

The gladioli have grown to their full height and bloomed an array of colors when Otabek is again moved to plant something. Or somethings. The only bulbs he could find were alstroemeria and yellow tulips, but they would bring a bright pop of color to the garden, but they are unapologetic in their cheerful color.

 He doesn’t get much of a chance to do more than stick them in the ground before Yuri’s flying in - ostensibly, because his flexibility has failed to go to shit even though he’s hit a growth spurt that puts him above Otabek in height, and Yakov’s freaked himself out into arrhythmia, so off Yuri goes to Otabek’s coach for a bit. “Yakov doesn’t believe in the power of yoga,” is what Yuri scathingly informs Otabek of when he steps out of the airport. Otabek nods, because that’s as good a reason as any, especially for as storied a coach as Yakov, and how set in his ways he reportedly is. Though why to Otabek’s coach is anyone’s guess, up until Minami comes in chattering like a particularly cheerful and/or excited chicken. The shock of red in his hair doesn’t help the impression.

 His coach tells him, in poor if passable Russian, “I know you told me you were going to get me a rooster, but I didn’t think you’d seriously do it.” If Otabek didn’t know the context - his coach has been complaining about her recent addiction to eggs causing her grocer concern - Otabek’d be making the same face as Yuri, who would later take him aside and inform him that if his coach has trouble waking up in the morning, maybe he should get a better coach? It takes some hurried explaining that his coach, in attempting to not stick out like a foreign Canadian thumb, has taken up learning Russian. And also probably forgot the word for chicken.

 The face Yuri makes then - awkward horror coupled with pity, eyes wide and green - is one Otabek will cherish forever. Mostly because he laughs so hard he has to take a moment to remember how to breathe right.

 That has nothing at all to do why he goes and buys a planter and pushes in tiny seeds of marjoram, green like meadows.

The marjoram makes for tasty western-style chicken, and quells the ache in Otabek’s chest that  is not homesickness, for all that it feels the same as when he longed for Almaty.

 Or as Yuri so helpfully puts it, the next time they meet, “Oh no, you’re a foodie.” Then spams him links about western herbs after Otabek beats him - a bad collision in the Free Skate warm up had left Yuri concussed and barred from performing. Yuri had understood and conceded with something like dignity to the ISU official, even if he raged about it privately between waves of headache. He’s glassy eyed and stormy, like the moss in Canada, but Otabek will never tell Yuri that.

 This means there’s only one thing to do. Otabek stares down Viktor - predictably going pure healthy in the grocery store and giving no thought to flavor, no you cannot make protein drinks for every meal - until Katsuki digs out Viktors wallet (and doesn’t that say something, that Katsuki holds his fiance’s wallet) and hands it over. Otabek buys sorrel, savory, thyme, tarragon, and sage as fresh as he can get them, then buys the seeds too - maybe one of those greens will be closer to the right green; the marjoram is too green and not enough tinges of sky blue to suffice.

 Then he makes dinner, because Yuri’s kitchen is off limits to Yuri as long as he’s concussed.

 The chicken takes the flavors well, but perhaps it would work better on something like pork? They discuss the idea at length, with Yuri baldly claiming it would work best in pirozhki. Because fried foods are a good idea to eat for an athlete.

 After, when Otabek is home, he pushes the seeds into the same planter as the marjoram. Then, upon further reflection, horehound and goldenrod, to balance the sudden infestation of green. Herbs are tasty.

Otabek knows his mother is quietly judging him. His father just believes he’s taking an interest in a hobby, and keeps passing him horticulture books discreetly. If blatantly passing books across the breakfast table can be called discreet.

 Still, it is tacit approval if anything, so Otabek uses it as permission to completely take over the garden. He’s always wanted apple trees, and the peach tree and cherry trees are more for beauty than function. He’s smuggled a blackberry bush over by the pond, and far more flowers than should be reasonably put in a garden.  Sure they don’t need azaleas burning red-pink in definiance - they’re fucking delicate to grow - but they’re pretty and all the Aunties are jealous.

 Yuri FaceTime’s to see the garden, hearing from Seung-gil through JJ that the garden is absolutely out of control. Otabek is planting larkspur, in thin long spears of blue and purple and pink. “Come to the gate, asshole. Let me in.” The background had seemed suspiciously familiar, but they FaceTime regularly, it’s not a huge thing for a place to seem familiar.

 Yuri’s in the garden almost immediately, “Holy shit. How many plants do you have in here.”

 Otabek looks away and tries not to think about the actual count. Its... larger than anyone would actually want to think about.

 Yuri spends a good portion of his illicit break - “I caught Viktor and Piggie,” being the most he says on the subject, leaving Otabek and his mother to fill in the blanks with (respectively) furrowed brows and pinched lips - in the garden, taking photos, and complaining about being bored whenever he’s not at practice or napping.  

 Otabek’s mother gifts him a book on flowers when Yuri leaves. Otabek doesn’t know what to make of that, but gifts Yuri a forget-me-not in a pot. He had too many plants anyways.

“Dude. How do you pick the flowers you plant.” The question comes out of nowhere, and ambushed Otabek blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

 “They remind me of you.” The he freezes, because he’s never meant to tell Yuri that in such transparent terms, and flees to ice for his Short Program.

Most people would think it’d be hard to run away from someone in the staging area of an ice skating rink. They’d be wrong. Otabek isn’t the largest person ever, so slinking around in a crowd without being noticed is something he can do easily. Granted, it only works around the people who don’t know him, and out of his costume and sports suit, but it works.

 He’s nearly completely out of the complex when he gets beaned in the back of the head with something that makes a soft swooothump upon contact. Otabek still stumbles, and is about to yell at whoever threw the whatever at him, when he notices what they are. Forsythia, gardenia, and sunflowers. An odd bouquet, a mishmash of colors and types of flowers that can only mean it was a specialty bouquet someone had made specifically. It’s the first  time Otabek has gotten such a bouquet, though more popular skaters like Viktor probably get their fair share. Otabek takes it, because it’s probably from a shy fan and while he’d certainly have preferred not to be hit with it, it’s still nice to get a bouquet like this. “Thank you,” he calls down the empty corridor behind him.

His mother falters when she sees the bouquet. She nearly drops her favorite teapot and trips over the family cat, then keeps sending him concerned glances for the rest of the night. Otabek has no idea why, though his father just pats him on the back and congratulates him. On what, he’s not sure. Hopefully the medal; if not then the strawberries. It’s a little late in the season, but maybe they fruited while Otabek was away?

 Otabek ignores it in favor of preparing for the next season. It’s almost the Olympics and he wants to go and represent Kazakhstan.

 Except his older sister comes home. She’s technically an international consultant and always in foreign places, so her being home is something of an event. She takes one look at the garden, at his bouquet flourishing in it’s vase, then drags him off by the ear.

 They go to a bar on their bikes, and she buys a round of beers. “So, who’s the special someone?” Otabek calmly finishes his mouthful of beer and then stares his sister down. She raises a single eyebrow and stares back. They both take after their mother like this, to their father’s eternal humor.

 This goes on for a bit, until his sister breaks. “Do you not know?” She gestures at him to not speak when he opens his mouth. “All your flowers and plants - they’re all pretty telling. Friendship, happiness, adoration, joy? Ardent attachment? And those one’s in the vase? All tell of someone who liiiiikes you.” She grins and Otabek freezes.

 “The last one was a fan bouquet.”

 She waves it off, “Fine, that one’s out. But the rest?” Her grin is deadly, and Otabek knows better than to cross that grin. But he doesn’t really want to respond, and that might be worse?

 “Oi, hag, back off.” Yuri yanks out a chair, spins it around, and sits on it backwards. How or why he’s here is certainly in question, but Otabek isn’t going to question someone saving him.

 “Yura, this is my older sister.” His sister waves in cheerful greeting.

 Yuri sizes her up. Then dismisses her, and Otabek will weep at Yuri’s grave. “Did you like the flowers?” Yuri asks apropos of nothing. His sister spits out her beer, Otabek is sweating bullets.

 “Did you throw them at me?” His sister’s shoulders are shaking. This is not helping.

 Yuri shrugs. “I was in a rush. Did you like them?” He crosses his arms over the back of the chair, eyes sparkling. “I used the book your mom gave me to look up their meanings.”

 Otabek swallows thickly. “They are lovely.” It’s the truth. His sister is dying. He prays for swift mercy.  

 Someone in Heaven must be listening, because Yuri’s phone rings. He answers it angrily. “What? You’re shitting me. That fucking asshole. You tell him to turn right the fuck back around -,” Yuri looks up and his eyes are storms. “Fuck you, I’ll be right there.” The to the world at large. “I’ll be around later - there’s an asshole I need to murder.”

 He leaves in a storm of punk. His sister leans over the table and murmurs sotto voce. “You certainly can pick them, Otabek.” Then she goes back to giggling.

Otabek likes to think he knows himself well. Daily meditation and yoga are supposedly good for that sort of thing, and he’s prone to self-introspection anyways. He leaves his sister and goes home, steals his mother’s favorite flower book and carefully looks up each and every plant he’s planted. While he’s been picking for color all this time - the colors that  look like Yuri, or something that reminds Otabek of Yuri - the meanings of each are damning too. He’s knowingly and unknowingly declared himself to anyone who’s cared to look, and he feels exposed. That Yuri knows too...

 But something his sister says sticks to him. He goes back in and carefully pages to the right flowers. Forsythia, gardenia, sunflower. Oh.

 Thankfully, his parents are out and his sister has informed him she’s going out with old friends while she’s in town and not to wait up for her. It means there’s a lack of audience, which is good and bad. Good because the fewer witnesses the better, but bad, because he doesn’t know what to do with this information. It’s not wrong, really, but it’s also - something fragile and new to him, something he wants to curl around and be firm in before he lets it go into the universe.

 He doesn’t have long to decide, as someone rings the doorbell impatiently. Probably Yuri then.  Otabek lets him in. “Sorry about that,” Yuri apologizes brusquely. “Old man was giving me shit.” Meaning Viktor most likely. Otabek nods sympathetically.

 Yuri grins, lightning bright. “So you did like my flowers!” The vase is still out, and the book still open. Otabek hopes he doesn’t look guilty. “You know, it figures you’d use something other than words to tell people how you feel. A whole garden is a bit much though.”

 Otabek busies himself with making tea. A whole garden isn’t much when you consider other people they know. Viktor and Yuuri Katsuki come to mind immediately, but so do JJ and Isabella. Perhaps the whole of ice skating needs to be written off as a wash overall? “The plants remind me of you,” he says uselessly. It’s not new information, technically, but it feels right to say.

 Yuri is startled, eyes wide. “Oh.” A beat, then, “I don’t know how to take that.”

 Otabek sighs, “Me neither.” Something twists across Yuri’s face, shock, anger, acceptance, despair. “But. I like it. And I like you.”

 The tea kettle whistles in the silence.

 Yuri hunches over, strange in his too thin too tall frame to be stooped over like a sleeping bird. When he looks up, his face is clear. “I like you too.” An admission, but another thing already known only waiting to be put to words.

 Which makes things easier and more difficult. “Perhaps, maybe.” He falters.

 Thin hands clasp his. “Selfies in the garden you grew for me?” Mischief abounds, and maybe the marjoram was green enough. “Then, you, me, and Breath of the Wild?” As Otabek is lead out, “That should be fine as a date right?”

 Otabek nods just once, even though Yuri can’t possibly see, and the answering squeeze of his hand is enough.

#otayuri #yuribek #otabek altin #yrui plisetsky #otabek has a green thumb #its cute #art writes #i don't feel liek double typing all the flower meanings #go check the AO3 for those