Rule 34 wasn't working out for me, so I took matters into my own hands. Have soda voyeurism with a side of modern gay sensuality and Soren angst.

He was reclined against the side of the museum, his eyes scanning the street before him, stray wisps of blue hair jostling out of place in a whimsical breeze. The early spring air was unusually warm this late afternoon; his worn shirt, the color of the bricks behind him, stuck a bit beneath his arms and along his back. Slowly, he brought the red-and-white aluminum can to his lips, unsilently slurping a bit of liquid into his mouth. The beads of condensation on the can gathered and pooled around the outlines of his large fingers.

Soren opened his mouth to say something and felt his voice catch. We've probably missed the bus's last stop for today, he was going to say, but at the last moment he thought better of it. Instead he continued to watch as Ike brought the silver rim to his lips, curling around to catch the dark foaming liquid as he casually took a gulp and his jaw and throat moved in brief harmony.

Despite the weather, Soren had come out in a long black overcoat, closed in front down to his knees. He told himself that heat was pooling in his chest and face because he was overdressed. He kept his hands in his pockets and the front of his overcoat buttoned anyway. Although Soren's tongue was hot and thick, when Ike again absently raised his drink, Soren felt a cool tingle run down the length of his throat.

Ike didn't seem to notice. He might have been thinking about something – he pondered occasionally, despite any jokes to the contrary – or he might have been engaging his mind in nothing at all, letting his attention fade into the sheer pleasure of the day on his skin and the prickling cool liquid on his tongue. Soren's hands curled a bit in his pockets, contorting an increasingly damp ticket stub.

Ike was remarkably clean-shaven for the time of day. His lips pressed together momentarily as he glanced down at the can, then back up at the street. Nonchalantly, he lifted it again, and Soren watched his profile – well-defined with an air of Grecian beauty – as his lips pursed around the can's flat opening and caught its contents in a careless dip. Soren couldn't see his tongue, but he imagined it thoughtlessly brushing around the insides of his mouth, quashing tides of sweet foam against the ridges of his palate and the back of his teeth. Ike closed his lips with a movement almost like a grimace, as his eyes impassive and carefree reflected a gaudy shop sign from across the street.

In Ike's presence, Soren was minuscule, thin shoulders curled slightly toward his bony chest, uneven ends of hair around his half-breed pauper's face. The collar of his overcoat brushed against his jaw, and he lowered his head to hide his lips behind it for whatever that was worth. Still he watched, Ike's muscles shifting the contours of his sleeve as he raised and lowered his arm, his rippling bare neck as he swallowed. His unkempt hair fell in an ordered mess, a tousled spiral with the front tossed forward and the rest falling back briskly against his head.

Soren would have liked to replace the can, press his tongue to the syrup of soda and saliva coating Ike's, lay his fingers on his large tanned body, his neck and feel his Adam's apple bob under his fingers. And at once he didn't, content to stay wide-eyed and paralyzed, in the safety of his overcoat and a foot of spring air.

At last, Ike glanced at him. Soren looked away, over the street with its no-parking sign and worn vacant bus stop shelter, impatient cars and wind-tossed plastic bags.

"Thirsty?"

Soren unaverted his eyes and found the soda can offered to him. Shaking his head quickly, he said, "No. I was just … thinking."

Ike shrugged and returned the can to his mouth one last time, turning it in one smooth bottom-up motion before crushing it in his fingers. With a satisfied sigh, he pushed himself from the wall and strode over to deposit it into a trash receptacle. While Ike's back was still turned, Soren took a deep breath and prepared himself for what he was about to say.

When his companion returned, Soren said with his usual calm, "We've probably missed the last bus. We should catch the sixty-seven, at twenty-first and Ribahn."

"All right," said Ike, simply. Soren cut his way through the thinning sidewalk crowd, thankful that his overcoat hung loosely down to his knees, obscuring his incomprehensible pleasure at watching Ike drink a soda.