[A couple content warnings this time around. Lots of swearing, as per usual, and this is intended for mature-ish audiences. There is one(1) mention of boners and nothing is done about it. Have fun.]

“How’d you get past security with a brick of lead in your bag?” 

Tyson sounds tired, deadbeat and quiet. Sergei laughs softly despite the newly dour mood, ducking his head before saying, “No lead. Hand knife over. Steal back once through,” and Tys lets out a quiet snort.

When Sergei turns to face Tyson, he’s standing a little stiffly, ballerina-like posture indicative of its contrast- a sore body. Sergei softens at the sight of him. Automatically, he reaches out to take one of the two duffle bags slung over Tyson’s shoulders, but the latter takes a step back, and even with that tiny movement he wobbles a bit.

“Gimme,” Sergei says, and Tyson relents with a small sigh, letting the smaller of his bags slide off his arm for Sergei to take. He still has his computer bag and a carry-on trailing behind him, so Sergei doesn’t ask before grabbing at the handle of Tyson’s suitcase.

For half a second, their fingers brush. The contact burns hot. A little too warm.

“You sleep on flight?” Sergei asks, stepping closer, and christ, Tyson is positively _radiating_ body heat. 

“Not a damn wink,” Tyson murmurs, his posture deflating minutely. He looks pale, but his cheeks are ruddy with warmth.

He looks sick.

Sergei disassociates for a good thirty seconds to mentally flip off the universe before zoning back in to the sound of Tyson muttering about being cold, redirecting his attention to the main source of his misery. 

Tyson’s eyes have slipped shut, and looks for all the world like he’s fallen asleep standing up. When Sergei gently presses the back of his hand against Tyson’s forehead- shit, yeah, he’s burning up- his eyelids flutter but don’t open. He jerks back and tries to swat Sergei’s hand away, but instead, Sergei just secures his hand around Tyson’s jaw, trying to pry his mouth open to check the color of his tongue. He’s reasonably uncooperative.

“Th’ fuck‘re you doin’?” Tyson grumbles, cracking an eye open to glare at Sergei. Apparently, dehydrated Tyson forgets his Canadian manners. He tries to slap Sergei’s hand away again, but it’s more of a weak backhand pat than anything else.

“Open your mouth,” Sergei says, and Tyson barely has time to reply with a faint “What?” before Sergei is forcing his mouth open with a thumb between his teeth.

_Pretty like this,_ says a quiet voice in his head, which- uh, what else is he supposed to think when he’s got his fingers in Tyson’s mouth? However, the thought is quickly replaced with _Fuck, they’re sharp_ when Tyson bites his hand in an attempt to make him let go. His assumption is correct, though; Tyson’s mouth is dry, his tongue has a yellow sheen to it, and his breath is too warm to be healthy.

Both of Tyson’s big stupid doe eyes are open now, narrowed in annoyance since Sergei hasn’t released him yet. His face has flushed darker, and this close, Sergei can just barely make out the marred patch of skin where Tyson had gotten surgery due to a fractured mandible eleven years ago.

Sergei snatches his hand away from Tyson’s face when he tries to nip at him again, wiping the spit off against his pants, much to the obvious disdain of the other man, who makes a _bleh_ sound and shakes his head.

“What’s your fuckin’ diagnosis, doc,” Tyson grouches, smoothing a palm over his jaw where Sergei had dug his fingers in. Sergei feels sorry, just a little, because he’d gripped the other man hard enough that it might bruise. Tyson is already feeling bad enough.

“Dehydration,” he says, just as Tyson mumbles, “My head hurts,” further confirming his suspicions. Sergei swears that one day this man and his terrible self-care habits are going to be the death of him. “You drink anything in Utah? At all?” 

Tyson doesn’t respond, but the flash of guilt across his face says it all.

“Jesus, Tyson. Go sit.” Sergei motions to the empty gate, and Tyson manages to shuffle over and drop his bag without toppling onto the floor. He does collapse into the end seat, though, and when he tucks his legs up- essentially fitting his entire self onto the chair without touching the floor- before wrapping his arms around himself, something in Sergei’s chest does a weird flip-flop and he has to tear his gaze away so he doesn’t have a fucking heart attack and die in the middle of the airport.

Not a lot of stores in Halifax airports are open after midnight, so he calls over his shoulder to Tyson, “Stay. Will be right back.” Tyson makes a noise that sounds like it might be an affirmative, squints at Sergei from where most of his face is hidden by the pillow of his arms, and gives him a small thumbs-up.

Sergei has no idea how many days Tyson has gone without water; they’d only been in Utah for three, but it’s probably not been long enough for him to completely reject his superstitions, so he wanders around for a good while before he finds an operating store that sells the brand Tyson likes. The cashier gives him a weird look- and rightfully so, because why is there a man buying six bottles of Eska at in the goddamn morning- but rings him up without a word. 

When Sergei returns, Tyson is out like a fucking light.

Which means that within the thirty-minute timeframe that Sergei was gone, Tyson had passed out from lack of water. 

This is exactly what he _didn’t_ want to come back to.

So Sergei does the only rational thing he can immediately think of. Which is, to anyone else, not very rational at all.

With a heavy sigh, he manages to balance Tyson’s two duffel bags on his right shoulder and his own bag on his left, letting the suitcase stand on its own for a minute in order to do this properly.

He’s glad he got those two hours of sleep on the plane- he probably wouldn’t have the energy for this if he hadn’t. Thank god for power naps.

Sergei worms his left arm beneath Tyson’s legs, making sure to pivot the man’s weight into his chest so he doesn’t fall over when Sergei picks him up. Tyson’s a fucking _dead weight, _holy shit. Sergei has to prop a leg up on the nearest chair to reposition him so he doesn’t tear a muscle or something.

It’s kind of an over-the-shoulder, but lower, as if he were carrying a child. Tyson’s face is resting in the crook of Sergei’s neck, with most of his weight resting on Sergei’s chest rather than his actual arm. Technically, it would be so much easier to just toss Tyson over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, but Sergei knows well enough to preserve his dignity. 

The walk from the terminal to the Uber that Sergei called is fucking agony, and in more ways than one. On one hand, Tyson is like two hundred pounds and pretty damn difficult to heft in one arm. On the other hand?

This is the closest Sergei has ever been to Tyson, and he is a _furnace _in his arms_._ Sergei is starting to sweat just from the sheer heat of him, and it’s at _most_ four degrees outside right now, so he’s got a decent idea of how ill Tyson really is.

When he gets to the pickup location, the driver is already outside the car with the trunk open. She gives the two of them a surprised look, but doesn’t say anything, just wordlessly takes their bags from Sergei and puts them in the back. It’s a huge relief, shedding about a hundred pounds of weight from his shoulders. He has to set Tyson down first, though, before he can give the woman his own bag.

Sergei gently slides Tyson off of his arm and into the backseat, shaking out his sore muscles, before chancing a look at Tyson’s slackened face- which he immediately regrets, because Tyson is always good-looking, but he’s even more gorgeous right now, for whatever reason. The blue light of early morning is just.. so pretty on him. Objectively. Yeah.

Forcing himself to remember his responsibilities, Sergei checks Tyson’s pulse.

It’s a little too slow for his liking. Sergei frowns, swearing under his breath.

The lady- whose name Sergei learns is Sam- seems to notice, because about two minutes into the drive, she asks, “Is he okay?” and motions between them towards the backseat where Tyson sits with his temple pressed against the window.

“Yes,” Sergei says, keeping his eyes trained on the road in front of him, even though he’s not even the one driving. “Not drink enough water.”

“I see,” Sam replies, and that’s the end of it.

When they arrive at the hotel, Sam offers to help with the bags, to which Sergei tries to decline, but she insists. She ends up carrying both of Tyson’s duffels to the lobby, though, and even a seventy-five percent tip doesn’t feel like enough to compensate.

The woman at the front desk doesn't say anything, but Sergei is starting to get tired of the weird looks people keep giving him. There’s the routine back-and-forth that comes with checking into a hotel, Sergei rattling off all the necessary details of his fake identity, and he readjusts his hold on Tyson as the woman hands Sergei the hotel key- room 871. 

Thank god there's nobody waiting at the elevator, because he’s not dealing with _that_ this early in the morning.

Depositing Tyson onto the single bed in the room, Sergei quickly googles, “how to rehydrate unconscious person,” and finds himself a little put off by the results. No way he’s doing this shit. 

The least invasive thing he can think of right now is just putting Tyson in the bath with his boxers still on, so he does. While Tyson marinates, Sergei hops up onto the vanity and fucks around on his phone for a little while, then goes to get familiar with the hotel room. It’s pretty basic as far as cheap Hyatt hotels go: king bed tucked against the far wall, armchair in the opposite corner, minifridge built into a desk, and a TV that’s probably from the early 2000s.

Fifteen minutes later, once Sergei deems him unlikely to die, he hauls Tyson up by the armpits out of the lukewarm water to attempt to dry him off. It turns out to be a bit difficult, seeing as Tyson is pretty much still a limp body, but he manages it, before putting him into the bed with a bottle of water and some Ibuprofen on the nightstand. He’s struck with a sudden sense of Deja Vu, but pushes it down in favor of not having any real coherent thoughts for the next hour or so.

As he steps into the shower, though, two things are going through his head right now: One, the fact that he's trying and failing to keep his mind off of Tyson, and two, how it’s leading to the more or less unorthodox thoughts he's having. Tyson is _literally _in the next room over. What the fuck is wrong with him?

He ends up straight up showering with a hard-on. Just. Entirely ignoring it. By sheer force of will(and also the effect of turning the water temperature down to the point where he feels like his junk is going to be dysfunctional forever), he manages to get his boner down before he has to face Tyson again.

Tyson wakes up while Sergei’s still in the bathroom, trying to scrub off the remnants of today’s bad decisions. There's a quiet _thump_ and a more prominent “Fuck” that follows it, and after a moment, Sergei can faintly hear Tyson shuffling around. 

He’s pretty sure what he just heard was Tyson falling out of bed, but then something slams into the bathroom door- and Sergei doesn’t _jump_, he’s not a scaredy-cat, but it’s a near fucking thing.

Two seconds later, there’s a quiet, unbelievably polite knock on the door, and Tyson mumbles, “Sergei? You in there?”

He doesn’t reply. What’s he gonna say? No, I’m not in here, you’re experiencing auditory hallucinations, go back to bed? 

“If you’re not done in the next five minutes I'm gonna piss on the floor,” Tyson deadpans, and Sergei turns off the water with a sigh.

-

Sergei grumbles the whole way through the evening, Tyson notices.

“Privyet, Tys,” He murmurs when Tyson finally emerges from the bathroom, not looking up from his phone. Starting right off with the targeted attacks, too, because Sergei is _only _wearing sweatpants _and_ he’s still damp.

It’s somewhat countered by the ridiculous way he’s lying on the bed, though, with his stupidly long legs propped up against the headboard.

“Eto chertovski otstoy, mne by khotelos' okazat'sya v svoyey komnate i podrochit',” Tyson hears while the other man rifles through his bags after Tyson had forced him out of bed so he could get comfy.

He pulls out Tyson’s gun and the individual ammo he likes and sets it out on the counter. Tyson feels his heart swell a little, even though whatever Sergei had said sounded anything but pleasant.

“Ty khot' pochistilsya? Ty chertovski vonyayesh', ty urod,” and Tyson can’t tell if this one is directed at him or not, seeing as Sergei is fussing over his temperature and how much water he’s drinking and doing everything except looking at him. Or speaking English.

“I don’t-” He starts, and winces at the way his voice cracks before getting himself under control. “I don’t speak Russian, Sergei.”

Sergei looks over at him from where he is crouched by the minifridge, sliding a few water bottles into the door rack. His expression is as neutral as ever. Tyson’s probably hallucinating the way his eyes look hooded and bored. Dark_._

“Good. Better you don't hear what I say,” He says, cracking a little smile, and turns his back to Tyson.

“What, are you shit-talking me to my face?” Tyson replies, straining a little as he sits up on his forearms. He’s pretty damn sore for a guy that hasn't done anything in five days.

Sergei snorts quietly. “Maybe I not talking to _you,_” he retorts. 

“Oh, I didn’t think about that,” Tyson says, sarcastically. 

Sergei snarks right back. “You do not think about anything,” he replies, and Tyson begs to differ.

“I heard ‘ty’ a few times in there, I know you were talking to me.”

“Ah! He is learning,” Sergei laughs, standing up to return to where he was cleaning his guns. The tri-blade he’d kept as a souvenir from all those weeks ago lies on the counter beside them.

Tyson stares at it, feeling a small pang in his shoulder just at the sight. He crosses his arm over his chest to stretch it out, suddenly feeling tense.

“Do you ever plan on using that?” He asks. His voice comes out quieter than he intends. He hates that he sounds almost _scared._

“Yes,” Sergei says, oblivious. “I say is useless, but anything can be weapon. This one just bad at it.” As if to prove a point, he slides the twisted blade over his palm, barely leaving an impression on the skin.

“Okay. You don’t need it right now,” Tyson whispers, dropping his arm. Both his hands fall in his lap. “Put it away?”

Sergei looks at him, eyebrows raised, looking a bit incredulous. Something about Tyson must be off, though, because Sergei takes a tiny sharp breath and immediately moves to find the sheath for the knife.

“Sorry, Tys,” he mumbles, and Tyson wishes he never said anything at all.

[Translations for the latter half:

"Privyet, Tys." - Hi, Tys.

"Eto chertovski otstoy, mne by khotelos' okazat'sya v svoyey komnate i podrochit'." - This fucking sucks, I wish I was in my room jacking off.

"Ty khot' pochistilsya? Ty chertovski vonyayesh', ty urod." - Have you even cleaned yourself? You fucking stink, you freak.]