Maybe it's just because he's spent so long as a drifter, sleeping wherever he can find a spot to lay his head down, but Bourbon finds Exhibition to be a weird place. It's the people, he's decided, having already put a lot of thought into it. The people are so close-knit, so involved in one another's personal lives and drama, there's no room for comfort or privacy. Even Riga, with its wooden shacks built one atop another up to the ceiling, crammed in like headless fish, isn't so fucking nosy about a man's business. Your neighbors in Riga don't give a fuck what you're doing all night or all day, they don't want to know.

But in the Exhibition, it's like everyone makes it their own personal mission to investigate a man's every move. Everyone wants to know everything, wants to talk about everything--and the gossip is impossible to avoid. He's walked headlong into conversations that turned out to be blatantly about Artyom, about himself, and no one's even had the decency to look embarrassed about being caught talking about them.

Right in front of him!

Artyom doesn't mind, or doesn't notice. How he could have been raised in such an environment and turned out so meek and shy is beyond Bourbon. He doesn't even try to imagine an Artyom who gossips. There couldn't be such a thing--nevermind that Artyom has told him outright that he misses gossiping with Zhenya over tea, that he wishes his best friend was still alive to go visit and drink with...

Tea. That's his current objective. Exhibition is so fucking strict about their "no open flames or heaters or even fucking candles in tents" rule, he can't even boil tea from the comfort of their shared space. He has to go all the way out to the kitchens to get water and then boil the fucking thing out in the open, in front of other humans. And he just smoked, so he's going to feel all awkward and paranoid about people watching him, the whole time. Weed might not be illegal on this line like it is in Hanza, but he still gets to feeling all weird and nervous about it.

Artyom is such a good boy, it seems he doesn't even think to go against the rules, even for stupid shit like that. Artyom, who broke the first and most important rule of the Great Library, won't even let Bourbon talk about boiling the kettle inside their tent. He has to sneak that he's smoking inside, sneak it right under Artyom's nose, because if Tyoma knows he's lighting up inside the tent, he'll probably have a fit about it. As if he's going to burn the station down with a joint.

Right, the tea. He finishes pulling his boots on and grabs the kettle, standing in front of the tent flaps for a moment longer. He doesn't want to. Fuck tea, Bourbon thinks. But it is good tea... and maybe he can scrounge something to eat while he's up...

He's been holing up in the tent for over two weeks now, while Artyom is at "work" with Chell's rivals. He leaves to piss and make tea, goes out to get food once a day, maybe twice. He's tried to work out what's making him so anxious about this place, and he thinks it's the eyes. All those people looking at him, the man who brought Artyom home. And fucked him. They all know, he's pretty sure. Not that they've done a single thing in the tent! Not even since he started showing Artyom affection again... No, they save that for nights when Chell invites them over. She lets them have a private room sometimes. Gives them a half hour or so to work things out before she interrupts.

Artyom's desperate for touch though. He's tried repeatedly to come onto Bourbon, get him to reciprocate. It's not that he doesn't want to, it's that he knows there's no secrecy here. The people in the next tent may as well be listening right outside, and whatever they hear, they'll run to spread through the grapevine, and then Artyom's stepdad will be breathing down his neck about sullying his son. He's sure of that. No one in the metro is happy or comfortable with the concept of two men going at it, but a man can get downright violent if certain implications were to arise. Implications such as "your son takes it in the ass from that guy over there."

So is he afraid of getting his ass beat by Alexander Sukhoi, or some other men from Artyom's little home station? Yes, he is. He's not an especially strong guy, not great in a fistfight; good with a gun to a degree, but so is everyone else. Miller didn't let him into the Rangers for his physique or strength or anything; he'd been allowed to "enlist" and live at D6 for Artyom's sake only. Miller loves that boy like his own son. Artyom has that effect on old men.

He's had his nose broken a few times before, obviously. It didn't set right the last time. He doesn't want it broken again, or to be shot in the head or strung up from the ceiling in some backwoods fucking nowhere mushroom farming village, for the kids to dance around like a Maypole.

Just go get the tea, man, come on...

Fuck, he doesn't want to leave the tent. He takes a breath, fingers clenching on the teakettle handle, and forces himself to move, step out into the noise of the station.

It's daytime, at least here. Maybe aboveground it's night. He can't tell. Kids are playing, running about on the platform. People are hard at work; on the bicycles at the far end, powering the electricity, in the factory and the farm down the other way, harvesting mushrooms, manufacturing and packaging the tea. And in the pig farm, they're taking care of the hogs, feeding and slaughtering, scraping up the muck of blood and pig shit. Bourbon stands in front of the tent for a minute, reconsidering. No one has spotted him yet, he thinks. He could turn back, lay down and smoke the rest of his joint, before Chesha brings Artyom home.

He sighs and starts to walk through the grid of tents, hyper-aware of the din of the station. He tries not to listen, doesn't stop until he's got the kettle full of water and tea to brew over a fire somewhere. No one's using the firepit in the kitchens, so he hangs the kettle over it and squats, waiting, eyes on the flames.

He's been waiting less than a minute when two women enter the area, already talking. He tenses, keeping his back turned, eyes on the little tuft of steam that the kettle breathes out, waiting for it to boil and whistle.

"So I told him, Leonid! I won't come back until you clean this shit up."

"You don't even mean that," the other says, and Bourbon feels her eyes stop on the back of his head. There's silence for a minute as they look him over. A bead of cold sweat runs down his cheek to his jaw.

"Is Artyom alright today?" the second woman asks, and he exhales a bit shakily, nods. "Really... He hasn't been out of the tent all day."

Oh, fuck fuck fuck they're going to try to start a conversation with him. Run. Now.

"Does he have symptoms?" the other woman asks. The one in the fur coat. "Cough, chills... My sister had a wonderful remedy for cough and chills. I just don't remember what it is, exactly..."

"Does he need to see the doctor, do you think?" the other with a braid muses, and Bourbon's not even sure who she's asking, just shrugs and stares harder at the teakettle. Please boil. Please.

"He seems unwell," the other continues, and he glances carefully over his shoulder to see her preening her fur coat. "We barely see him most days... Well, it's not right for a young man. He should be out chasing girls. Even with his condition..."

Jesus Christ. He can hear it though, the water starting to boil.

"I'll ask Sukhoi to send the doctor around," the woman with the braided hair says. "Maybe it's just a cold."

He doesn't respond. This is his tactic for when people talk and he doesn't want to talk. He keeps his mouth shut and watches the steam start to spill out of the kettle, then grabs the handle to take it back to the tent with him.

They're both standing in the doorway when he turns, blocking the exit. This has got to be some kind of fucking hazing. The fur coat woman looks him up and down, patting her collar. The other woman taps her chin, thinking hard about something.

"He does kind of look more like a bandit than a Ranger," the fur coat woman says after a second.

"You see?"

Bourbon can't stand here taking this anymore; he ducks to the left to go around the other way, praying he doesn't get turned about in the market on his way. His tea's going to be cold by the time he gets back to the tent.

He's been to Exhibition before this, a handful of times in his huckster days. Never before has he noticed this feeling of discomfort at the station. Is it because he's with Artyom? Because he's not just some nameless drifter passing through, they notice him more? Or were they always talking about him like this before, too, and he didn't notice it then?

He makes it back to the tent and lifts the flap, ducking inside. He almost drops the teakettle. Sukhoi is seated in the chair beside Artyom's little bookcase, waiting for him.

"Bourbon," Alex says in greeting. He nods in response, mouth dry. He considers throwing the kettle at Sukhoi and booking it out of here. That's the weed talking, though. He won't run, no matter how badly he wants to.

His bedroll isn't laid out, he realizes suddenly, and gets nervous about that. Sukhoi will know they sleep in the same bed now.

"You can make yourself comfortable," Alex says, sounding amused. He thinks it's funny, having to remind Bourbon that this is his living space right now. Yeah, yuk it up, Sasha, I'm high as fuck right now. Bourbon steps in and crosses over to the mattress to sit down on the edge, and sets the kettle on the low table between them.

He doesn't dislike Artyom's stepdad. Not really, not even a bit. He thinks his tight rein on Artyom's leash as a youth may have pushed him to do stupid things later, may have eventually put him on the path of heroics... but that's not necessarily Alex's fault. He didn't put those thoughts in the boy's head.

He's just nervous. His hands shake, pouring tea for both of them. Look, see how polite he is? Just a polite little guy, and you wouldn't kill a polite little guy, would you?

Sukhoi is silent at first, and he takes a drink of tea. "I think we should talk, while Artyom is out," he says, not yet commenting on the temperature of the drink. Bourbon jolts and stares at him for a second. How does he know Artyom is out?

Oh, wait. Because he isn't in the tent.

"Do you mind?" Sukhoi asks, and Bourbon pauses, shakes his head as soon as his brain catches up with what he's asking. He hasn't touched his tea. The cup is barely warm in his hands.

Alex nods, setting his cup down, and folds his hands. He seems to be thinking over how to phrase something. "When Artyom left home this past winter," he begins, "I did not expect I would ever get to see him again."

Bourbon sits perfectly still, eyes on the other man's cup of tea. "I spent twenty years trying to keep him safe," Alex continues. "I didn't adopt him officially until after our second year together... he would have been six. Stop me if he's told you this before," he says, and Bourbon nods stiffly.

"Right after the war, he and his mother lived on the next line over, in Timiryazevskaya. The place is full of Satanists now, last I heard... a few months after the war, maybe six months, I was in that tunnel for some work, along with some other men from this line. I had been a metro employee before the war, so I was already part of the Exhibition leadership, but not the station head yet."

Bourbon nods again, not sure why he's being told all this.

"We were finishing up our trade agreement with the neighboring station. I got this strange feeling, this sense of impending darkness... then we heard the screaming. You see, the rats in that line... something happened to them. I'd never seen anything like it, and I hope I never do again. They were huge, like dogs, and they came swarming down the tunnel from the north, attacking everyone in their path, eating people alive. A wave of rats that wouldn't stop for anything. And as I was running, something grabbed my leg and cried out, "Please, take him with you!" It was his mother... I don't even recall what she'd looked like, just that she was young, badly injured, but still trying to protect her son. I grabbed him from her and ran."

A pause. Sukhoi regards the tea in his cup, but doesn't drink it.

"We booked it, back to our handcart. They kept coming, until we hit the ring line. Then they set up a flamethrower and filled the tunnel up with fire. The rats didn't seem to care. They didn't turn back or even stop, just ran straight into the fire and died. And they kept that flamethrower going until the tunnel was empty and silent, full of little charred corpses. I still hear the screaming sometimes, the people and the rats."

"I brought him home, thinking someone here would be able to take him in, a family with some other kids maybe... But no, they told me I'd taken him, he was my responsibility now." Sukhoi smiles fondly. "He didn't take to me at first, and I didn't either... For a bit, he was even scared of me. To be fair, he was a four year old boy, his mother had just handed him off to some stranger... and the rats--he's still scared of them, I think. Wary, at the very least." He finally picks up the teacup again to take a hesitant sip. "You didn't heat this enough."

"There--that's..." He can't possibly explain the whole thing with the fire, and his paranoid anxiety, and the women gossiping right behind him, so he shuts up and nods again. Sukhoi hides a grin. He's a bit gleeful to have made him uncomfortable.

"For me, it felt like a hassle, for a while. I'd never married... I was younger than you are now, no family or wife, and someone had handed me a toddler to deal with. How old are you, forty?" He asks as an aside.

"Thirty four," Bourbon says.

"Ah, I see. Well, you can imagine how it would feel then, at your age, to be given the responsibility of a child with no warning, no assistance. I think as a child, he felt like I didn't want him. And at first, it was true..." He looks sadly down at his hands. "It was. There was resentment, even if I never told him as much. A feeling that he was in the way of my happiness, and if I could just find some way to push the burden of Artyom onto someone else, someone who could love him, my life would turn around. As if there was a possibility for a happy ending for both of us, in this world."

"Sometimes I think he still feels that way. When he came home, right before he went to the Order, he threw a fit again. He wouldn't tell me, but I think it was because of his passport... As much as I didn't want a little boy to be my responsibility, he didn't want me as a father, back then. Or now. He would rather have his mother, or would rather have known his real father... He was so angry that they put my name as his patronymic..."

Alex smiles sadly and trails off. "It was clear to him when he was little that I didn't want him. Not that I was cold, or mean to him... Just distant. I didn't want him attached to me, in case someone did come along and take him."

He doesn't get it, this sharing of personal stories. Does Sukhoi expect him to do the same, spill his whole life? He won't. He won't share any of it; he doesn't share those stories with Artyom, and he won't tell Artyom's stepdad either.

"But over time," Alex says, and there's a warmth in his eyes, "I came to love him. Little brat that he was. And he was a brat, a petulant little thing. His tantrums were horrible. He had nightmares every night, wouldn't let me get a full night's sleep... He'd wet the bed constantly, dreaming about those damn rats, and I couldn't keep up with the laundry. I used to go complain to the defense commander all the time, "Boris, he did it again! How am I supposed to live my life as a man like this!" And he'd laugh and tell me "For God's sake Alex, YOU picked the boy up!" It took time for me to love him," he says, and lifts his head to look at Bourbon. "Months, maybe even years before we fully understood each other. There was no connection at first. We had to build it over time, together."

He stops there, silent, like he's waiting for a response. Bourbon doesn't know what to say. "Okay," he tries.

"Do you understand why I'm telling you all this," Alex asks, and he swallows, shakes his head. Alex sighs.

"Look, I'm almost twenty five years your senior... I had plenty of time before the war to learn to deal with people, and I've had twenty years since to perfect that skill. I've learned to read people. Humans are bad at communication. We don't like to talk, to understand each other. We prefer not to. It's easier to fire off a nuke and destroy someone you can't understand, a stranger, than it is to reach your hand out." He takes a breath, exhales slowly. He levels his gaze at Bourbon, locks him into eye contact. "I understand that you and my son are together."

Jesus Christ, Bourbon thinks, he's going to kill me. Alex laughs, shaking his head. Had he said it out loud, then? He swallows, tries to formulate a more intelligent response. "Sorry, that is... Did he tell you that himself..?" Because if not, maybe he can lie, claim there's been a misunderstanding...

"He did," Sukhoi says. "When I told him we'd send his Order friend home, the day you'd arrived with him. He cried and begged; he didn't want to explain it, but he did."

And then Artyom hadn't said anything to him about it. Well, they'd still been fighting at that point... Bourbon nods slowly, not sure how to respond.

"So you see, that's why I thought it would be good for you and I to talk," Sukhoi says. "Man to man." He pauses for a moment, as if waiting for Bourbon to say something, then continues anyway. "Artyom is in love with you."

Bourbon's face burns. He doesn't enjoy this kind of conversation, cornering him into talking about love and feelings and that shit. "Would you say that you two are... dating?" Bourbon nods. A nod is easy. "And you love him too?" He nods again.

Alex clears his throat quietly. Bourbon shifts in his seat on the bed. "So you're in love with him... I'm sorry, you seem uncomfortable with me saying that."

Does it show on his face? "Are you not?"

"I love him," Bourbon confirms. His face feels hot. This conversation, this whole thing is so uncomfortable, he's considering bursting from the tent, running down the tracks and across the metro, and hiding in Volgogradsky Prospekt for the rest of his days. Somewhere Artyom will never think to come look for him.

"Do you tell him that," Alex asks, tone polite. He swallows, shakes his head subtly. Alex's gaze sharpens a bit, and Bourbon looks away. "You don't," he surmises. "And why not?"

"I..." What the fuck does he say to that, huh? Sorry, I have some stupid trauma response to loving and being loved, being treated well; I feel the need to run away when someone is kind and gentle with me, and in fact I might kill myself right in front of you if you don't stop pushing the issue. Don't take it personally, it's not you and it's not your son, it's just that one of the bandits who raped me in my late teens through my twenties fucked up my brain a bit.

He thinks that may be a bit inappropriate to say out loud. "I have trouble talking about feelings," he says instead, throat tight and voice strained.

"I see," Alex says. Bourbon picks up his cold teacup to try to wet his throat. "Are you and my son having sex?"

He chokes, coughs up tea all over himself. Alex doesn't so much as twitch or blink, nor apologize for the uncomfortable question. In fact, he pushes the issue. "Well?"

"Yes," Bourbon says. "Christ."

"So my boy is a good enough fuck, but you won't tell him that you love him."

"Don't--"

Alex talks over him. "I would very much like to give you my blessing for continuing a relationship with him, Bourbon, but you're not proving to be a very good partner to him. From where I'm standing, at least."

Bourbon is silent. What do you say to that, anyway?

"I'm not looking to make him more miserable than he is, being injured and all," Alex says, "so I do need you to figure out how to turn this around."

"What do we even need your..." Bourbon trails off, feeling stupid. He knows the answer before Sukhoi even says it.

"If I tell him I don't approve, he'll listen, at least while you're in my station. He's a good boy. You surely know that."

"I know that," Bourbon murmurs.

"And do you understand that I love my son and want him to be happy? Not just used for someone else's sexual gratification?"

He nods, not trusting his vocal chords to be able to speak.

"That's great. Tell him that you love him, and we can talk again sometime. Have we reached an understanding, Bourbon?"

"Yes. Yes sir." Suck up.

"Good. I'll leave you be, then." Alex pats his palms against his thighs and stands. "You can let him know I dropped in, whenever he gets back... We can have some tea together later, maybe." Better tea, is the unspoken implication. He steps out of the tent, and Bourbon immediately deflates, sinking back onto the mattress. Fuck!

He's never dated anyone before, never had to talk to a boyfriend's father before... he might have had an easier time explaining portals, or his and Artyom's sex life, may have preferred that over the conversation they just had.

He pats his pocket, looking for the other half of his joint and his lighter, as the portable opens and Artyom steps in. He pauses, calling softly back through it to say bye to Chell-- "boka, Chellka!" --and then joins him on the bed. He leans over Bourbon, kissing his jaw.

"Hey," Bourbon says, voice weak. He clears his throat. "How was it, today?"

"It was good," Artyom says. He presses his lips to Bourbon's neck, climbing into his lap. His hand goes to the front of Bourbon's pants, settles there. "I helped guard again today, so..." He trails off, as if there's some correlation between guard duty and his hand on Bourbon's crotch.

"Your stepdad was just here," Bourbon croaks.

"Oh. He was?" Artyom leans back. He nods. "What did you talk about with him," he asks.

"You," Bourbon says. "He cares about you a lot."

Artyom nods, laying down atop him, and rests his ear on Bourbon's chest. "I know he does."

"You're lucky to... I mean, having someone take care of you is..."

He trails off, and Artyom is silent, waiting for him to go on. "I... uh. When the bombs came down..."

He feels Artyom tense a bit, surprised, and his hand moves away politely. He tilts his head, trying to get a look at Bourbon's face. He turns it away a bit. Artyom doesn't interrupt, but he knows what he's thinking: you never talk about yourself, from before...

He doesn't. He hates talking about himself, hates pulling up old memories to face them. But he has Artyom's full attention, so no matter how badly he wants to shut up, he forces himself to continue.

"That day, ah... I should have been at school. I was cutting class, for some stupid reason..." He closes his eyes, thinking. "I actually went that morning, but I was afraid of something that was going to happen that day. Whatever it was... I chickened out and couldn't go inside, so I headed back to the metro to go home."

"Then, you know... I was on the platform in Riga, wondering how I would explain to my mom why I was home from school, and the bombs hit. Nobody... we all thought it couldn't be that bad. They kept the doors sealed for a while, but we thought, you know, give it a day or so, and then someone would probably come find us, let us go home, help us find our families..."

Artyom lowers his head to Bourbon's chest again, listening to his heart. It's pounding. "It was months before people started to act like it was real, and permanent... I think almost a year in, a fight broke out, practically a brawl, because they started to set up housing. Permanent structures, and some people didn't want that, to acknowledge that it was more than temporary..." He sighs.

"My parents were dead. My home was destroyed... I went looking for it, a couple years later, one of the first times I went up. And then a lot of times after that. I'd go and climb up the ruined stairwells and sit on the tiles of our old kitchen and feel sorry for myself... looking for some way to believe that my mom would come walking out of the next room in a gas mask. Like she'd been waiting, looking for me too. I was fourteen, just before the war started, and nobody would adopt a kid that old. A baby or a child, sure, they felt obligated, but a teenager... I was a late bloomer, but even so, people thought I should fend for myself."

His throat's dry. This is hard, he thinks, clearing it to go on.

"I took up odd jobs... whatever I could do, to earn myself a bit to eat. It got a little easier to find work as the metro settled in, and we started trading with other stations. Caravan guard was an easy job to do... just terrifying, with the mutants and bandits. It didn't take long for people to turn to killing innocents like that. A couple years, three tops."

He goes silent. He doesn't want to talk about the years with One-eye and Hypocrite, their bandit gang. He doesn't have to. Artyom won't know the difference if he doesn't. Artyom looks up at him again, reaches out to touch his face, too gently. Like he thinks Bourbon is fragile. Not anymore, not this long after the end of the world.

It's not like he'll cry talking about it. He won't. He's not just telling himself that; he knows that physically he can't cry about it at all, no matter how miserable he feels about it.

But Artyom would look at him differently. Less of a man, less desirable. Even if he were to deny it, Bourbon would be able to see it in his eyes; pity and sadness, with a hint of disgust. He learned what that looked like years ago.

"I'm glad you have a good stepdad," Bourbon says, voice quaking. "It's good. You deserve to be taken care of and loved. And I lo--"

He chokes on it. Fuck, useless idiot. Come on. Three words, and you can't even manage that? He closes his eyes to mentally berate himself. "It's okay Bourbon," Artyom says after a minute. "You don't have to force--"

"Yes I do. I really... it's not that I don't. I do."

"I know," Artyom says gently. "I love you too."

Bourbon sighs, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. Fuck. Maybe if he could force out a few tears it would unblock things for him, allow him to say the shit he needs to say, but he can't even manage that much. He lets Artyom pull his hands away and lace their fingers together.

"Did Uncle Sasha say something...? That made you think about all this?"

He clams up, shuts his mouth. Artyom prods him in the shoulder. "Your stepdad is mad that we're fucking, and I can't even tell you... that thing."

Artyom is silent for a minute. "I'll tell Uncle Sasha to mind his business," he starts.

"Don't do that."

"He shouldn't be bothering you about it... and I already know you love me." Artyom sits up gingerly. His back might be hurting him. He pulls away to stand, slipping his hand out of Bourbon's as he does.

"Don't go talk to him," Bourbon says. "Artyom."

"It's not his business," Artyom replies, stepping away as Bourbon sits up on the bed. "I'm an adult, so... so it's probably only my business and yours what goes on between us." He seems unsure even as he says it; he's a boy who doesn't stand up to his stepfather's word. Probably never has, other than to slip away to Polis, and to ask him to let Bourbon stay. He fiddles with his sleeve, his willpower visibly waning with every passing second. He's losing the desire to argue with Alex already, and now the thought of it makes him uncomfortable, but he can't very well say he doesn't want to.

"Don't go starting fights," Bourbon warns. "Come lay down with me, smoke a joint."

"We can't smoke in the tent, we'll get in trouble," Artyom says, but his gaze is longing. He wants to.

"Who's gonna tell? Come here, Tyoma." He pats the mattress by his side, inviting him to come lie down again. "I bought some fresh weed just yesterday, good stuff..." He has the other half of his afternoon joint in his pocket, but he'd rather smoke half a new one than a quarter of the one he's got.

Artyom hesitates, wavers, and relents, settling back onto the bed with him. "You smoked all day already, didn't you," he teases, watching Bourbon start to roll a fresh joint.

"No, no..."

Artyom laughs, watching him lick the edge of the rolling paper, some section of a page from a book. "Were you high while Uncle Sasha was here too?"

"Of course not!" Bourbon protests, indignant.

Artyom giggles, laying his head back on Bourbon's chest. Bourbon lights up, takes a deep inhale, and holds it as he passes the joint to Tyoma.

"How is it," Artyom asks, waiting to take a hit. Bourbon exhales, wheezes a bit.

"Good. Better than the shit you can scrounge up in Hanza."

Artyom grins at him. "You'd have an easier time if you just went to Polis for weed..."

"I'm not paying Polis prices for weed!" Indignant again. Polis dealers know city people will pay more, so they jack the prices up... by contrast, Hanza weed is cheap, but it's terrible quality, hard on the lungs, and the dealers are desperate and shady as hell. They'll rip you off no matter which station you're in, leave you with a bag of stems and seeds, and probably pick your pocket a bit on their way to the next mark.

But it beats prices in Polis! Artyom chuckles and takes a hit, passes the joint back. He leans closer, kisses the corner of Bourbon's mouth. Bourbon turns his head a bit to kiss back, licks at Artyom's lips, and the younger man lets him straight into his mouth, eager and waiting. The joint dangles from Bourbon's fingers as they kiss, and he feels around carefully for the ashtray to set it in for the time being.

"Can I suck you off?" Artyom asks, pulling away for a second. Bourbon pulls him back down, into another kiss. Maybe... maybe he's relaxed enough to not care, or maybe the station is loud enough no one will notice... and he's getting hard anyway, with Artyom kissing him and squeezing his cock through his pants.

"Yeah," he decides, between kisses. Artyom pulls away immediately to kneel between his legs and unzip him. Bourbon reaches for the joint again, takes a decadent hit as Artyom pulls his dick out and strokes it.

"Oh, good boy," he groans in his exhale as Artyom licks up the underside of his cock and tongues around the edge of his foreskin. Artyom's eyes flick back and forth every once in a while, from his face to his shaft and the task at hand. The tent is mostly quiet, the noise of the station faraway, as if they could step outside and find it empty. Just the two of them left in the world, Artyom and his soft, wet tongue, working on taking Bourbon's prick into his mouth and stroking what he can't fit with a tight fist. Fuck, how could anyone think he doesn't love him? Bourbon moans openly, doesn't bother to bite it back and muffle himself. His free hand pushes through Artyom's hair, stroking it with care. He feels his cock touch the back of Artyom's throat and closes his eyes for a moment, focused on the feeling as his boyfriend bobs his head.

Of course he loves him. Of course he does.

"Ohhhh, fuck, Artyom," he hears himself groan, and shudders hard. The first time, in the bathhouse at Cursed station, when they'd crossed that line together... Artyom's technique has gotten so much better since then. Bourbon sets the joint back in the ashtray and places both hands on Artyom's head, rocking his hips with a bit of urgency.

"Fuck, fuck... good boy," he pants, eyes half lidded and fighting not to close as Artyom looks up at him. He's got his hand in his pants, stroking himself off as he works Bourbon's cock with his mouth and his other hand. God dammit. He wants to take him right here, push him down on the mattress and slide right into his tight, perfect little ass. "Fuck," he hisses, as Artyom pulls back, tonguing around the head again, toying with his urethra. He's going to cum. Artyom's hand moves faster, eagerly encouraging him to do just that, to fill his pretty mouth, to do whatever else he needs to relax. Kiss him, fuck him, anything.

"Oh God," he whines, pressing a hand over his mouth to shut himself up while he nears his peak. He moans low and loud, bucks his hips up and cums hard, and Artyom takes his tip back into his mouth to suck him through it, pumping him hard with his hand. Then he keeps going, doesn't stop even once Bourbon is spent, cock twitching from the overstimulation. He pushes at Artyom's forehead, groaning and trying to get him to stop, and ultimately cums a second time, a feeble finish of a couple ropes onto his tongue. He leans back and swallows, gives Bourbon's cock a kiss, and moves forward.

"Do you feel better?" Artyom asks, hand still in his pants, jacking off as he joins him on the bed.

"You fucking brat," Bourbon breathes, trying to come down from it. "How would you like it... fuck." He slides his hand down the front of Artyom's pants to take over from him, stroking and groping him. Artyom laughs quietly, gasps, and rocks his hips into his hand.

He leans over Bourbon, who pushes his shirt up to kiss and bite his chest, well below his collar, where no one is going to see it. He takes a nipple into his mouth and sucks it to hardness, his other hand moving to squeeze Artyom's ass. Artyom groans, holding his shirt up out of the way, cock dripping in Bourbon's hand.

Someone laughs loudly right outside, neighbors from the next tent chatting about something. They both jolt slightly and go still for a moment, but the conversation out there continues without noticing them.

"Fuck me," Artyom breathes, "come on, Bourbon." Bourbon glances up at him and doesn't answer, just moves to his other nipple. "Come on..." Fuck, god dammit, he's going to talk him into it. Bourbon pulls him down into a kiss, gives his cock a squeeze and drags his thumb persistently around the head. Artyom moans loudly, and the conversation outside of the tent stops, mid-sentence and mid-laugh.

"Was that...?"

"Artyomychka, are you alright?"

"Fine!" Artyom calls back, as Bourbon smirks smugly and keeps teasing him. "Fuck, stop it. Fuck, Bourbon-- I'm fine, just a stomachache!"

"I think that man is in there with him," the other neighbor says, just loud enough to hear through the tent wall, and Artyom fumes, pressing his mouth against Bourbon's shoulder and biting him to muffle himself as he cums. Bourbon chuckles, withdrawing his hand from Artyom's pants and licking his fingers clean as Tyoma rolls off him to catch his breath.

"They could have heard," Artyom complains once he's come down from it. Bourbon raises an eyebrow as he takes a hit, passes the joint over.

"Oh, I'm sorry, is that not what you wanted?"

Artyom huffs and plucks the joint back. He's in a good mood though, Bourbon can tell. Not really mad. He leans in to kiss Bourbon again, then gets up, taking the weed with him.

"We should have dinner."

"Sure, sure," Bourbon murmurs, sitting up and holding out the ashtray for him.

"I mean go and eat it, at a table like adults, not just go get it and bring it back."

Bourbon sighs, already exhausted at the thought, but he makes himself stand anyway. "Alright, let's go eat." Artyom holds open the tent flap for him, and the two head off to get dinner. It's not like they can hold hands on the way or anything, but... well, it's nice just to be together, isn't it? To sit down at a table together and eat in each other's company, Artyom's leg pressed against his under the table, a subtle show of love to ground him?

It's not the best, most ideal place. But they've been to worse places together, spent worse days in each other's company, and by comparison... It's not so bad, is it?

Alex finds them, sits down across from Bourbon without even mentioning their discussion earlier, and easily picks up a conversation with Artyom that doesn't seem to have had a beginning. Bourbon chews his mushrooms, the same mushrooms that everyone else in the metro eats, farmed the same way, cooked the same...

It tastes better, somehow. It's nice, to be around someone who you love. Nothing in the metro can pick that up and take it away.