MILKSHAKEKATE

6 was also a belter!! I might take that one, too!! Thank you, love! xxx 

The Taste of Sunlight

“Mamochka, it hurts my hands.”

“Put them in your coat.”Illya let go of his mother’s hand to stuff his little red fingers in his pockets. “It is cold in there, too.”Stopping at the Nikolskaya street crossing, his mother peered down to study him closely. They were in a hurry to meet his father for lunch, a rare luxury, but something here had slowed her. Pulling him aside and off the street, Illya’s mother crouched down to wipe at his chilled-pink nose with a tissue. Her leather gloves smelled new, and she removed each from her hands to slip them onto his. There was so much room his fingers nearly got lost, but she quickly righted them for him.“Don’t think about the cold, Ilyusha,” she said, as she checked the fastenings of his coat. “Remember our holiday to Sochi? How warm it was in the sun?”Illya sniffed and the ice stung his chest. “Yes, Mama.”“Think about that. The nice memories, too. That same sun is in your pockets and it is keeping you warm. Now, come. We will buy new gloves on the way hom—

“You don’t speak Russian now, Kuryakin?” Illya blinks hard. In the rear view mirror ahead, a set of black olive eyes are scrutinising him. “What are you talking about?”

“Too much time with the English and your tongue will stay that way,” tuts another.The third agent beside him removes the dossier from his lap and gives it to those in the front seat. “You have gotten slow,” Agent Kuznetsov warns him, grim. “Wake up.”

There is breath on the inside of the windows and ice on the out, and they have put him in the cramped back seat. He can’t have dozed off, not in this cold. He has only glazed over again. Now, Moscow is frozen over with memories. He can’t work here without thinking of his mother. 

Illya has missed Russian company, but not company like this. This is a routine KGB assignment with three unwilling fellow agents, one of whom he has worked with before, but that makes the man no more friendly. They’re here to trail another corrupt Official. After so much time neglecting the Motherland, Illya’s handler thought it smart to reacquaint him with the concept.

The assignment has been gruelling. Long nights, rushed travel, and an open deadline; as long as they wanted him in Moscow, he would stay in Moscow. He could not choose his work, his schedule, or his company. He should be grateful to be back in the city. Glad for the shards in the wind that have spiked his nose and cheeks for weeks now. It’s where he belongs.

Illya might wish for the other agents not to berate him, or ignore him. He might wish for his reputation and authority to hold as much weight as they used to; both have suffered here since U.N.C.L.E., though his skills still keep him tolerable. He is only half Russian, now. On loan. He has known forgiveness, and acceptance, and that has ruined him.

But tonight he doesn’t mind. He isn’t running in this race anymore. In Moscow, he will do as he is told. In the quiet, in his corner of the car where none of them want anything to do with him, Illya can practise his own discipline. Self-preserving discipline, gentle on the heart. He cuts out the bitter world he’s been dropped back into, and sinks back into the one he has taken by choice.

Illya doesn’t think of Sochi to stay warm anymore. He thinks of Istanbul.

When Kuznetsov cracks open the squeaking window to smoke, and the blistering wind rushes back in to bite him, Illya thinks of the breeze from the Bosphorus strait, billowing the sheers from the balcony and into his room. When the Moscow streets reek of wet cold cobblestone and damp wool coats, Illya feels nothing but sweltering heat, black tea, and how his sweat had plastered the bed sheets to his back.

Then street lamps are a pair of sunny yellow earrings. His hands, no gloves, are brushing dark hair over a soft, bare shoulder. Warm, slow. He hadn’t thought it would be slow. It wasn’t, until he’d insisted on it. Taking his time, his palms on her thighs to gentle her. Skin to skin. Nothing was cold, there. Only stickily, breathlessly hot. So much so, it was only cool enough to touch at night, so all day they waited, standing too closely, talking too quietly, holding glances steady enough to burn.

At dawn, golden with prayer calls down all the white walled streets, was Gaby sprawling in the sun of his ruined bed and stroking his aching jaw. On him, under him, around him, she radiated with all the surprise and power of a Spitfire. Sparking under his hands, his mouth. She’d tasted of sunlight, salt, clean sweat. Shivering only for his words, and shaking only for another cause entirely. She’d laughed. And to Illya’s surprise, even now, so had he.

“What’s he smirking about?”

Sleet splashes mutely on the windscreen, torn up by the wipers. They’ve reached the checkpoint, the white beam of a guard’s searchlight cutting everything in half. 

“This is what the West does to you?” 

Illya snatches Kuznetsov’s hand, threatening now to slap the back of his head, and he shoves it away. The agents and the guard discuss schedules, papers, and a boxing match they had all missed tonight. Illya takes his papers from his coat pocket, blankly hands them to the front seat. They’re cleared, and they drive on.

oh wow!! love, this is the sweetest!! thank YOU so much for taking the time to be such an angel, giving such lovely affirmations like this!! I hope I can jump back in after a lil time away. Thank you, love, and here’s a picture of a v round rabbit to repay you xxx 

So perfect, I received this prompt twice!! So here’s the ridiculous interpretation, first. Thank you for the prompt, love! I’ll follow up with a softer one in a bit!! xxx

“You lost it?!”

“It was stolen,” Illya mutters. He scowls at the platform edge, considering whether or not to jump off it and onto the rain splashed tracks below. It would save him the embarrassment. He can barely look Gaby in the eye. “They took only your ticket. Restroom was very busy, it could have been anyone. I was… concentrating.” 

Solo’s amusement is humiliating enough without Gaby’s dropped jaw to top it. She had forbidden him from using the restroom in the first place, so close to their departure time, but his hatred for cramped train car toilets had overruled. 

“Well, are they still here?” Gaby asks, searching the platform. “You couldn’t catch them?”

“I did not see them.”

The train has arrived. Weary passengers pour out of the carriages, weaving between the gaggles of those waiting to board. Umbrellas clatter open and people huddle closely as the platform begins to fill.

They don’t have long.

“Now what?” Gaby presses. 

Illya scans the bustling platform and hums grimly. At last daring to meet Gaby’s eye, he lowers his voice and leans down to her. “You take my ticket. I will enter train another way. There is door from luggage car to the engine room. When the train departs, I board this way and go to the dining car. I will meet you there after tickets have been checked.”

Napoleon draws air through his teeth. “While I’m sure you’ll befriend a number of streetwise urchins on your travels, I don’t think that will work.”

“Why not? It has been done before.”

“Because that leaves Gaby here with the ticket of Mr. Evgeny Konstantin.”

The first whistle blows, and the conductors wave the streams of new passengers to board. 

Illya grits his teeth. “Then she will take your ticket.”

“She doesn’t look like a Mr. Harvey J. Williams either.”

“You forge documents. You change the name!”

“Peril, I’m flattered, but even I need more than thirty seconds to do that.”

“Then what is your plan, Cowboy?”

“My plan was to keep three tickets in the first place.”

“Illya, empty your suitcase into Solo’s.”

They finally notice Gaby at their elbows. She’s taking off her hat and her jacket. 

“What?”  

The whistle blows again. 

“Go behind the toilets and empty your suitcase, Illya.”

“Why his suitcase?”

“It’s bigger.” 

Solo purses his lips.

“You—” starts Illya. He stares at her incredulously. He wouldn’t put it past her, this ridiculous plot, but he hopes he is wrong. Hopes that she is only joking.  “The intelligence. The documents—” 

“I have the documents.”

Illya’s ears burn. “Where have you put them?”

“Somewhere you won’t lose them. Now, open your suitcase.” Gaby grapples for the handle by Illya’s knee but he immediately tugs it out of her reach. She lunges again but he dodges her, and he won’t give in. 

“Fine,” Gaby says, with an adult calm that embarrasses him. “Follow me.” She glares up at them both, then rounds the corner of the redbrick ticket office and out of sight. 

Napoleon is close behind. “I’m sure you don’t need to be told twice.”

With a despairing glance at the quickly filling train they’re due to catch, Illya follows.

Gaby snaps both suitcases open. Cushions of neatly folded shirts, trousers, and paired socks are torn from their beds with reckless abandon. Beneath them, his expensive surveillance equipment. Gaby couldn’t care less. She stuffs it all into Solo’s already snugly packed case, bouncing her weight down into her palms to squash it. She shoves several tiny boxes down the corners, and stabs Illya’s large brogues down with them.

Napoleon bats at her arm. “Be careful with those, they’re sterling.”

“Who wears four pairs of cufflinks in three days?” 

Illya ignores them, fuming alone. She’d told the truth; the documents have been stolen from the lining of his case, judging by the carefully ripped seams. He’d taught her this, and she has used it against him. Illya can barely hold in his protest before she insults him again. 

“I’m glad you’re both so vain,” she notes. “There’s lots of room in here.”

Solo, apparently, has only just cottoned on. “Oh, Gaby. You can’t be serious.” 

She pulls off her heels and stands on the wet concrete in her stocking feet.

Illya sighs hard through his nose. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, but he knows there will be no dissuading her. “This is very bad idea. You will get caught.”

“Caught? Only if you can’t carry me. But you can, can’t you?”

Once. Illya’s lips pinch. He shakes his head at Solo’s enquiring little smirk. 

The final whistle blows.

And now he has lost even Napoleon to this ridiculous plan. “She’s a ballerina, Peril. She’ll last half an hour. Try to calm down.”

“This is not happening. Get her out of my suitcase”

But Gaby is already kneeling down in his suitcase. Her dress is wrinkling and Illya is horrified to find that she fits very neatly, lying on her side with her knees bent. She glares up at him from the ground and, if it weren’t for the furious authority burning up at him, he could perhaps smile as if it was a game.

“Illya,” Gaby says firmly. “Close this suitcase.”

“No. This is ridiculous idea. We get new ticket. We take the next train. We have until eight o’clock toni—”

“Solo, close it.”

“As the lady wishes.”

Illya grabs his wrist. “You close this case and I close your eyes for very, very long time.”

“All aboard! All aboard!” 

“Enough!” Gaby slaps at their clasped wrists above her. “Close this case, or I’ll tell Waverly that you lost my ticket.”

“I will tell him myself. I compromised mission. It is my fault.”

“Then I’ll tell Solo about the time you carried me.”

Gaby smiles at Napoleon. Napoleon smiles at Illya. Illya closes his eyes, smiles at no one, and breathes a curse against them both before tucking Gaby’s soft, spilling hair inside and clasping the case shut.

Picking up both Gaby’s and his own, significantly heavier case, Napoleon accompanies his partner to the train and tips his head generously. “Ladies first.”

my love, sorry for the wait!! real life happened!! but...

It’s up!