Chapter Text
He is too flustered by far. It's unbecoming.
This is what he tells himself in the mirror, after his shower.
The tepid water, the methodical nature of it, gave him a chance to clear his head. In eight hours, Gaby will have a new suitcase, a new wardrobe. He will see to it. There is no reason to be so worked up over a travel mishap.
It was not until afterward that he realized that he had brought his pajama bottoms with him to change into. It is practical; they are more comfortable to sleep in than any of his trousers, and Gaby is not using them. And yet, it is also nigh unthinkable, that they should be sharing a single set of pajamas between the two of them, a casual intimacy that flies in the face of every careful step in the dance between them since Rome.
This is when he must take stock of himself. They are just pajamas, ones he has worn a hundred times, he reminds himself fiercely. Gaby borrowing the other half does not make them more than what they are.
He steps into the pajama pants, pulls on a cotton undershirt to take the place of his usual one, and nods grimly to himself in the mirror. In the morning he will go out before she is awake, buy her the absolute necessities, and then take his "fiancee" on a high street shopping trip for niceties to tide her over until he can rebuild her wardrobe properly on the continent. For now, all there is to do is catch up on sorely-needed sleep.
Except when he steps out of the bathroom, he finds their room has been rearranged.
Where there were before two single beds with a night table between them, there is now one bed in the room. Or, rather - the two singles have been pushed together, to form a sort of double bed.
It takes him a shamefully long time to process this, and he looks questioningly to Gaby.
Gaby, who is sitting in one of the chairs that had been positioned to the side the beds, now pulled out away from the wall and angled so that she can prop her feet up on the mattress. She has a paperback in her hand that she has been keeping in her purse for the past few days - something tawdry that’s no doubt banned in the GDR - but what disrupts his initial question for her is the long stretch of her bare legs. Even the shortest skirts don’t reveal so much of her thigh, and only the way she has crossed her legs keeps her modest. He swallows thickly and has to look away, lest she catch him staring.
Of course, that brings him back to the problem of the beds - the bed -
"You did this?" Illya asks. This is not precisely what he means to say; it is obvious that she did this, perched as she is like a smug little cat next to her handiwork. What he wants to know is why she did this.
"What?" Gaby demands, tossing her head a little, as if she has anticipated the question he meant to ask. Refuge in audacity, one of her favorite defenses - this he has already learned about her, in the month and a half since their acquaintance. "You're twice the size of these beds. I can't sleep if you're tossing and turning all night. It will be Rome all over again."
He blinks, then the indignation catches up with him. "I do not toss and turn," he frowns.
"Good," Gaby says, breezy. "Then we should get along just fine tonight."
This does nothing but stoke his irritation higher. He does not like to be caught wrong-footed, and he has been wrong-footed all evening, from the moment he could not bring Gaby's luggage to her as she waiting under the wing of the airplane.
He does not know why she has done this, why she is making it about him, when he has made no complaints to warrant it.
"This is not necessary," he insists. "It is a bad plan."
"So put them back yourself, if that's the way you want it," Gaby snaps, her narrow shoulders rising like hackles, the open collar of his shirt showing the fine lines of her throat, her collarbones. Like water over flame, the sight douses him, extinguishing his stubborn desire to fight.
He feels as though the world has gone mad - is he actually arguing with Gaby in order to not sleep with her tonight, in the same bed? To not know what it feels like to have her against him in the dark, to see what she looks like from inches away, in the earliest morning? Would he really rather fold himself into a single bed, half a room away, and do so knowing that he could've been lying next to her?
It is very poor manners, he has always been told, to refuse a gift.
"This is fine," he says, gruff, and turns away. Behind him, he can hear the click of Gaby's tongue, likely as she rolls her eyes at him, then a little sigh and the sound of her turning a page in her book.
He retakes his seat at the desk, to resume the check of his equipment he abandoned earlier; he needs the distraction, something familiar to resettle his harried nerves. How she does this to him, he does not know, but he always finds this kind of work soothing.
A movement catches his eye, and he glances up and realizes that he can see Gaby reflected perfectly in the vanity mirror attached to the back of the desk. He glances subtly back over his shoulder, gauging where she has placed that chair, how she has angled her body. If it is not intentional, then it is the most extraordinary coincidence he has ever seen.
He sets his jaw, turns to his equipment. But he cannot help glancing up every few moments; his eye is drawn by her every little movement - every page turn, every subtle shift in her posture.
At one point, he notices Gaby turning her head a little, brushing her cheek against her shoulder. A few moments later, he watches as she plucks at the collar of his shirt, folding the fabric up to sniff at it.
“What is it?” he asks.
She looks up, locking eyes with him in the mirror, definitively answering the question of whether she knew they would be able to see each other like this, then lets the corner of the fabric drop from between her fingers. “It smells like your aftershave,” she says. Then, “It’s nice.”
He is not expecting the jolt of heat that goes through him from that statement, delivered so casually. Gaby holds his gaze for an impossibly long moment, like there is something else she might say, or that she expects him to say. Then she tilts her book back open and returns to reading.
Illya must mentally shake himself. He would like to say that he is growing used to this sensation where Gaby is concerned, the sensation that the moment that has just passed could've gone another way, but each time it strikes sharp and new. He turns back to the work at hand, trying to put it out of mind.
But with Gaby - or her reflection - in his line of sight, he cannot ignore her completely. That is only his nature: to take note of his surroundings, to keep tabs on others in his space through constant brief checks. It is ... perhaps less in his nature, the way he cannot stop looking at her. The delicate soles of her slim feet face him in the mirror where they are propped up on the bed, her graceful legs crossed at the ankle. If she were to uncross them, spread her knees even a little, he would have an unimpeded view of -
He drops the transmitter he was holding with a loud clatter upon the desk top, and curses viciously under his breath.
"All right, Illya?" Gaby asks, and he glances once, twice over his shoulder, not trusting himself to look at her reflection again, hoping there is no color in his face.
"Yes," he says, casting around desperately for an excuse. "But it is late."
"If you're tired..." she says, inclining her head toward the bed.
He supposes he cannot avoid it forever. It would be better if they could both get some sleep. He has his task to complete in the morning, and then they both must go shopping before Solo joins them in the afternoon.
There is the awkward dance to navigate first, of turning down bedding, of deciding who will get in first, and who will be the one to turn off the lights. Logistics is usually a strong point for him, but Gaby is always a wildcard.
Fitting into beds made for men much smaller for him, this he is used to. But sharing a bed? Less so. He is out of practice, and suddenly very aware of the amount of space he occupies, compared to Gaby's comparatively slight size.
Even with both beds pushed together, he is too tall to fit easily, like he always is. Now, though, instead of merely wedging himself against a wall, or folding himself into the best approximation of comfort he can, he is taking up Gaby's space. Finally, after much quiet squabbling in the dark, Gaby pushing his limbs this way and that, she decides upon the best way for them to both fit: she lies on her side, her knees bent, and he folds himself into the space left around her. She is close enough that her hair falls across his pillow; if he moves just so, it tickles his chin.
It was indeed a bad plan, to agree to this, he realizes.
He keeps his arms folded in front on his chest, not sure what else to do with them. Gaby's shoulder blade is digging into his wrist; although, from the uncomfortable way she shifts, perhaps it is equally fair to say his wrist is digging into her back.
"We can - " he starts. He means to finish ' - separate the beds,' but in the next moment, Gaby reaches behind her, seizes his forearm, and forcefully tugs it free of how he's tucked it. She pulls his elbow over her waist and, then sighs, settling back against his chest. Like that, they are settled.
Long minutes pass, counted off in seconds by the ticking of the bedside clock. There is no way that he will sleep like this, he realizes. It is nearly two in the morning, he has been awake for over a day, and yet now sleep seems an impossibility. He is too aware of Gaby in his arms, the rise and fall of her side with each breath, the warmth of her body bleeding through the layers of cotton. His eyes have adjusted to the dark, now - even with the gloomy rain outside, enough light from the street below bleeds through the curtains to make Gaby's outline visible, in colorless grey and black.
She isn't asleep either; he's not surprised. She rarely sleeps well, unless she is drunk enough.
His internal clock has always been excellent, but still it feels like an eternity, lying there in the dark, neither of them moving. Finally, Gaby sighs, twisting a bit, to curl more into herself. He adjusts to her new position, the familiar well-worn cotton of his pajama top beneath his arm, the less-familiar warmth of Gaby's side beneath that. She shifts in his arms again, tugging on the hem of the shirt beneath the blanket. It is too loose on her; it probably twists and bunches uncomfortably.
Illya sighs himself, and feels Gaby shiver in turn.
“I will buy you new clothes,” he promises her, quiet.
“I don’t know, this is quite comfortable,” she says, wry. "I was thinking I would make it my new style."
Illya huffs. "I don't think so."
"Think of how practical it could be," Gaby says. She twists to look over her shoulder, glancing up at him from beneath her lashes. “I could borrow one of your sweaters for tomorrow. I’d just need a belt for the waist. What do you think?”
He has no rejoinder for that, because now he cannot think of anything else but the idea of her wearing one of his shirts like a minidress, of going out in public like that, with nothing underneath.
“What do you think, Illya?” she repeats, with more intent now, as though she has spotted a weakness. She rolls over in his arms so that she faces him now, her dark eyes glinting in the indirect light. “Do you think I could make it work? Or would everyone know it was yours immediately? The things people would assume...”
“Gaby,” he says, and it feels as though it’s been punched out of him.
She closes the distance between them, and for once there is nothing to stop them - it is only her mouth against his, electric and immediate.
Illya doesn't know why he is surprised to learn that Gaby kisses much in the same way she fights: sudden, unpredictable, overwhelming. The minute their lips part, she is at him again, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth, her hand twisting into the material of his undershirt, knuckles biting into his sternum.
He instinctively brings a hand up to bury in her hair, only half-dried from her shower and so soft and fine that it feels like silk. Even this does not help him take control of the situation; Gaby grabs him by the back of the neck with her free hand in turn, drags him up into her. Her mouth is sweet with fading toothpaste, but she has no patience for lengthy exploration. He can only try to keep up, get what he can from these quick tastes of her, from her roving touch.
It is a pleasant attack, it's true, but his pride won't let him be mauled forever. When Gaby breaks for a breath, he rolls over, using his superior size to twist her with him. Gaby gives a sharp little laugh at finding herself pinned, then shifts until his weight settles between her thighs, flush to one another.
Illya grunts, using all the willpower he still holds not to rub up against her. "What has gotten into you?" he asks. As recently as an hour ago, rain-soaked and trying not to argue with the concierge, he could not have expected the night to have ended like this: Gaby beneath him, her bare legs bracketing his hips. But from the moment she emerged from her shower, it seems she has been set upon this course.
"You don't want to?" she asks, throaty, and rolls her hips up into his, where how much he wants to is ... quite apparent.
"I did not say that," he manages, as she brings her small hands up to cradle his face. "But I did not think, after the day you have had - "
"What more do I have to lose tonight?" Gaby says, as light and as brittle as blown glass. In the half-light, he can just make out the corner of her mouth lifting. "And I think, after the day I have had, I deserve something nice," she adds, her thumb brushing against his temple, against the scar next to his eye.
"I am not nice," he counters, low. To his own ears, it comes out a little mournful - nice is a world away from what he is, what he has been formed into, but that has never been a problem until now. There has never been anyone he has particularly wanted to see him as nice, before her.
Gaby hums, and still her thumb smooths little circles against the side of his face. Of all the places where they are touching at the moment, all of the heat of her body pressed against his own, somehow this feels the most significant. "Maybe not," she says at last. "But I would settle tonight for something that's mine."
He does not know how to put into words that this may be an even more impossible request than her last one, that the complexities of who belongs to whom in their line of work leaves little room for choice. But from the shadowed look on her face, perhaps she already knows - she knows the weight of what she has requested. All evening long, has he not struggled to give her whatever he could, to comfort her, to make amends? She had not asked him for any of it, for his clothes or the spare toothbrush, or any of his plans to leave early in the morning while she is still asleep to start rebuilding her wardrobe. All she has asked him for tonight is to share her bed, and give her this.
"So I am yours," he tells her, roughly, and ducks in again to kiss her.
Her hand slips to cup the back of his neck, to hold him there, but this time he kisses her as he has meant to all this time: slow, thorough. First her mouth, then he moves on to the all of the other places he has found his attention fixed upon, these last weeks. The perfect hinge of her jaw, the last fading pink mark of the scratch on her chin, the soft spot behind her ear that robs him of his concentration whenever she wears an up-do.
"Turn on the lamp, Illya," Gaby pants, as he nips along the line of her neck, where her wet hair had curled earlier in the evening. He has not heard a plan of more simplicity and brilliance in ages; as lovely as it is to kiss her in the dark, he desperately wants to see her properly. He wants to see how her hair has been mussed by his hands, how much color he has put into her cheeks.
He leans over, searching for the standing lamp that had been by his bedside. It is too far away now, since she has rearranged the room, and even with his long reach, he nearly falls out of bed trying to find it. He has to catch himself with a hand on the floor, or risk toppling. Behind him, he can hear Gaby start to laugh, a low breathy thing, and her arms wrap around his torso, to give him balance. Finally, he finds the chain and manages to pull it, and the room is flooded with the golden light and warm shadows provided by an incandescent bulb.
"It would've been easier to stand," Gaby smirks, as he rolls his center of mass safely back onto the mattress. He has no argument for that, except that he has not been thinking clearly for a long while now, and that he had not wanted to leave the bed, for fear that it would break the spell.
She is gorgeous, in the light. It is as if he is seeing her anew.
Thanks to the way she has propped herself up, the neckline of his shirt has finally made good on its threats and slipped off one shoulder. It is more than any man can bear, and he ducks in to press a kiss to the exposed skin.
But when he goes for the buttons, Gaby shifts away from him. He leans back and blinks, but only until she plucks at the seams of the white undershirt he is wearing. "You first," she tells him, and he scoffs impatiently, but sits up enough to strip it off.
Gaby's hands find his sides, as if to help, but even after he has pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it away, her palms remain against his skin. She strokes down to his hips, then high up to his ribs, where her right hand finds a knot of old scar tissue running in a long arc to his back. She hums contemplatively, then drums her fingertips against it. "All right," she says.
He does not need more invitation than that, and he bears her back again into the pillows. His own hands look impossibly large, when they are against her delicate collarbones. She's looking up at him with a lazy half-smile, as if she is nothing more than indulgent for his sake, but beneath his knuckles he can feel the anticipatory kick of her heart.
He opens the shirt slowly, each button that slips free revealing more of her bronze skin. He follows the trail with his mouth, inch by glorious inch. She is perfumed by the hotel's soap, sweet lemon and lavender, but beneath it is her own scent, warm and clean and maddening. Her breasts are small and perfect, and he loses long moments to mapping them with his mouth, until the restless hitching of Gaby's hips draws him back to the task at hand.
Even rucked up as it is by their rolling about, his shirt is long enough on her that the last few buttons cover her hips. Gaby's breath grows quick and shallow as he undoes the second to last, revealing the taut, impossibly soft skin below her navel, the edge of trimmed dark hair. Her fingernails scratch against his scalp, like she is afraid that he might stop - as if anything could keep him from her, at this point.
With the final button slipped free, the tail of his shirt falls away, and there at last she is. He cannot help but push up onto his elbows to get a fuller view of her, her fine-figured body standing out in stark relief against the pool of dark blue cotton beneath her. He wets his lips and swallows hard. It is nearly too much. For a moment he cannot believe that this is his luck.
"Illya," Gaby says, after a moment, a little impatient, a little unsure.
"I have not forgotten," he assures her, and bows to press a sucking kiss to the crease of her thigh. He is rewarded with a high inhale, and ever the quick study, he immediately does it again.
There is not as much space as he would prefer, but Gaby folds her body with the ease and grace of a lifelong dancer, slinging her knees over his shoulders, leveraging herself up to give him better access.
The skin of her inner thighs is half a shade paler than elsewhere, and incredibly soft. He drags the bridge of his nose along the line where her garter sat in Rome, remembering how she had felt under his hands then. There are no complaints from her about a chill now, his fingertips firm in the small of her back.
He had intended to take his time here as well, draw it out, but then Gaby clutches at his head, her deceptively powerful thighs tensing around his ears as if in warning, and he quickly revises his strategy.
He shifts to get a hand free and finds her soaking wet already, his thumb slipping slick and easy between her folds. He follows with his tongue, and floods his mouth with the taste of her, sharp-sweet and perfect.
It is not hard to read her in this: she is vocal, and the better he does, the more indignant her noises become. No soft gasps or kittenish sounds from his chopshop girl - he sucks her clit and she hisses obscenities down over him that would make an infantryman blush.
She comes on two of his fingers, curled just so, and does so with a cry that is so outraged that he actually laughs. Her cunt is throbbing around his fingers, against his mouth. He is painfully aroused himself, and yet he must turn his face and bury it against her thigh in an attempt to quell the shaking in his shoulders.
It does not work, and as the aftershocks die away and Gaby comes back to herself, she hits him with a balled fist. "Are you laughing?" she demands.
"Nyet, who would laugh," he lies, swallowing down any evidence to the contrary and settling upon the blandest expression he can manage, though its effect is likely lessened by the slick mess on the lower half of his face.
He glances around and spots his discarded undershirt, then rolls off of their makeshift double bed to fetch it, using it to wipe at his face.
In the time it takes him to do that, Gaby has rolled to her side, her chin pillowed on a palm, and now her eyes are roaming over him.
"What?" he asks her, sensing trouble.
"I am deciding if I am going to let you back into bed," she says, eyes falling to where he is tenting the front of his pajama pants before leisurely traveling back up to his face.
"Ah," he says. "And what have you decided?"
"I am still thinking," she tells him. "Take those off."
He obediently hooks his thumbs into the waistband and pushes it down off his hips, then steps out of the pants altogether, not breaking eye contact. Gaby tips her head, making a sweeping appraisal of him, now fully naked himself. Finally, she sits up and pats the mattress next to her.
He crosses back over and sits on the edge of a mattress, then twists until his back is braced against the headboard. Gaby follows his movements, kneeling up next to him, then settles herself in his lap. She folds her arms around his neck, languid and unhurried now that she has come once herself. She rubs her cheek against his own, humming at the feel of his stubble against her skin. It is ... nice, yes. Half an hour ago, even moreso. But the time where he wants to take things slowly has long passed, and he clutches at her thighs with a grip that probably needs to be gentled.
But Gaby just sets her teeth to the lobe of his ear, a momentary flash of pain, before leaning back.
She takes his cock into one warm palm, then angles her hips to press him against her cunt, still sopping wet from his attentions, her orgasm. Illya hisses in a deep breath, head falling back to the wall and eyes screwing shut, as she rubs herself against him, his cock gliding against her slick folds. She has no idea of how close he came to shaming himself earlier, just by getting his mouth on her - if the angle had allowed him the bed to rut against, things may already have been over. If she keeps this up for much longer, it certainly will be.
"Gaby," he manages, and she hums. It's a flippant sound, but she does stop.
She takes just a moment to look him up and down. She looks wild herself - she has still has her arms through the sleeves of his unbuttoned shirt, and she's shrugged it back up onto her shoulders, where it hangs, hiding absolutely nothing.
She reaches out and rests one palm against his cheek, thumb circling again over his temple; she may act as if he is not forgiven, but that touch tells him otherwise. He cannot help himself - he tips forward to catch her mouth with his own. Gaby allows it for a long moment, before shoving him back against the headboard again. With her free hand, she lines him up at her entrance, then slowly sinks down onto him.
They both inhale as her body adjusts around him. She is impossibly hot and tight, maddeningly so, and within moments he feels sweat prickling across the small of his back with the effort of letting her control the pace. Gaby braces herself against his shoulders as she begins to ride him in earnest, her dancer's thighs flexing as she works him deeper, until she is nearly bottoming out each time. His hands find her hips and he rolls up to thrust into her with her every downstroke. He must hit something good for her, because she gasps resentfully, then reaches down to touch herself, rolling her clit between her fingers, and he swears he can feel it as she does.
He cannot last long, not after so much lead up. Gaby, already primed, manages to get there first, and he cannot outlast the sharp pulses of her orgasm. A few final sloppy thrusts and he comes with a grunt, pulling Gaby flush to him.
As their breathing returns to normal, he hums. "Missed your chance to laugh at me," he rumbles, nosing indulgently into the sweat-damp hair behind Gaby's ear.
"I will start laughing, Illya, when you start being funny," Gaby scoffs, but she does not unwrap her arms from around his neck.
--
He is not, in fact, up before dawn, making good on his intention to slip out and fetch Gaby some new things.
But who could really tell when dawn is, with the whole city still blanketed in low-hanging clouds? Illya cracks an eye open at one point, notices the clock says 7:38, and then decides to ignore it in favor of the warmth of Gaby's naked body draped along his side.
The sun has made a weak attempt at showing itself by the next time he wakes, but it is Gaby stirring that brings him around. Her hair is a mess, there are pillow creases on her cheek - and something warm and traitorous unfurls within him when she looks up at him and gives a muted "hello."
The phone rings suddenly, loud and shrill, causing them both to wince and pull away. Gaby had put it on the floor last night when she moved the central nightstand, and he leans heavy over the side of the bed to reach it, pulling the whole thing up with him.
“Mr. Zvyagin?” a tinny voice says, when he finally says hello. “We’ve found your wife’s bag. It arrived on another flight this morning.”
“Oh,” he says blankly, looking over the bare expanse of Gaby’s back - and then, because he can, spreading his hand there as well, marveling at how much of her he can cover. “That’s - we are very glad to hear that, yes. I will come pick it up soon.”
Gaby quirks an eyebrow at him as he replaces the handset on the receiver, after the brief exchanging of a few more pertinent details. "They have found your suitcase," he says. It seems wonders truly will never cease. "I am to go retrieve it."
“I’ll go as well,” Gaby says, brushing her hair back over her shoulder, mischief in her eyes. “Just let me borrow another shirt.”
“No,” Illya says immediately, alarmed, as she gives him a toothy smile. “Or I will never make it to the airport.”