#15n

“Ihope you like carbonara,” Solo’s voice announces from thekitchen, “I couldn’t find the ingredients for anything fancier.”

Illya,still halfway into the hallway with his hand on his gun, takes asecond to sigh and press at the headache budding between his eyesbefore he holsters his weapon. Solo must have ascribed some sort ofmeaning to the silence, though, because he steps out of the kitchenwith a shit eating grin and the most garish apron Illya has ever seenin his life. And that includes the cowboys and cacti model the manwore when he first did this, back in Berlin.

“Youreally need to take better care of your kitchen, you know.”

Illyagives him the kind of flat stare that makes his colleagues pause andthe new recruits reconsider talking to him altogether. It would bemore efficient if Solo hadn’t been immune to it from the beginning,but just because the stupid American doesn’t have any sense ofshame or decency doesn’t mean Illya needs to indulge him. He doesholster his gun, though. He can’t shoot an unarmed suspect,especially one without a violent history, and Solo missed far toomany opportunities to hurt him to play that card now.

“You’reand international thief,” Illya tells the man as he closes the doorbehind him, “I don’t take suggestions from you.”

“Internationalart thief,” Solo corrects, walking back to the stove, “andyou did ditch the bow tie.”

Illyarefuses to raise to the bait but, Solo is just conceited enough totake any kind of answer as a confirmation of guilt. It wouldn’trankle so much if he were wrong but, well. Illya did have doubtsabout the bow tie before Rome, and Solo may be many things, but he’sdefinitely not tasteless. Nothing in the world could make himoutright admit that, though.

Hesighs.

“Why?”

“Youforgot?” Solo tosses over his shoulder with mock hurt. “Tovarishch,I’m offended.”

Illyarolls his eyes and, because he knows he won’t have peace until heagrees to the stupid masquerade, goes to fetch cutlery in the drawersand set up a table for two.

“Oh,dining room, please,” Solo says when he realizes Illya is going forthe kitchen table. “I’m not having an anniversary dinner on aFormica table.”

“It’sa practical material,” he says.

Illyahasn’t learned enough French to catch the exact meaning of Solo’sreply, but the disdainful tone is easy to catch. He ignores it,leaving two plates with Solo and going to set the rest of the tableinstead. He can’t quite restrain a scandalizes noise when herealizes Solo pulled up a ten-hours loop of burning log on the TV.

“Itis an anniversary, Tovarishch. Did you expect me to put soccer on?”

“Ihear Marseilles is playing Paris,” Illya replies while he tries toremember on which side of the plate the fork goes in Italianetiquette. “The whole office talked about that today.”

“Andnot me?”

Solohas appeared in the living room with two plates in hand, apron tossedoff to reveal the pin-stripped three piece suit underneath: asingle-breasted navy thing that cost as much as Illya’s currentcouch. It’s still an Anderson & Sheppard, though, and Illyasuspects half the reason is because the shop is discreet enough notto let Solo’s appointment hours slip out to Interpol until it’stoo late or entirely unavoidable.

“Clearly,”Solo concludes as he sets the plates side by side on the coffeetable, “I need to put in some effort. I was thinking about aModigliani, next time.”

Solohates Modigliani, and even if he didn’t Illya knows better than toexpect a straight admission of intent from him. He makes a note tomention it to the team just in case, though, see if there’sanything more behind the reference than mere fancy. It isn’t as ifthey’ve had much to work with these past few months, anyway. Illyahasn’t heard anything new on Solo in weeks before tonight.

“Goingsoft, Solo?” He asks, frowning at the shiver of dislike thatcourses through his chest at the thought.

“Thinkingof retiring, actually.”

Illyaknows he shouldn’t have turned so fast. At the very least, heshould have avoided knocking his empty wine glass to the ground. Hehas been chasing Solo for thepast five years or so now, though. Hearing the whole thing might bein vain is bound to be a shock. A rather nasty one, too, if therhythm of his heart is to be believed.

“I’mforty-one—”

“Thirty-nine,”Illya corrects, just to remind the man he knows him better than that.

“I’mat a turning point of life is what I’m saying, Tovarishch,” Solocontinues as if he hadn’t noticed the interruption. “Believe mewhen I say this comes as a complete surprise, but these days I’vefound myself longing for some form of…long-term presence, shall wesay. Much as I love my job—”

“It’snot a real job.”

Illyadoesn’t realize he’s been expecting Solo to respond by defendinghis thieving until what comes out of the man’s mouth instead is:

“Yes,well, it still keeps me too busy for an actual social life.”

Illyastares at Solo, the shock of revelation pulling sarcasm out of hisreach.

“You’reserious,” he says.

Solosmiles, shrugs, and digs into his spaghetti like he didn’t justdrop the mother of all bombshells in Illya’s lap. The radius isextremely relative, Illya knows, but still! Five years of mostlysingle-minded pursuit took over hislife as well. He can’t even comprehend the thought of a lifewithout it, yet. It’s too vast, too abrupt, too…damn.

“Ihave what it takes to vanish,” Solo continues after a fewmouthfuls. “I could be gone tomorrow.”

Well,that bit, at least,was expected. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, though, andIllya reaches for the wine bottle Solo must have brought from theoutside, fills his over sized glass to the brim, and drains it in onego. His fingers shiver when he’s done, and he doesn’t feel anymore settled, but at least it catches Solo’s attention.

“Sothis is goodbye, then?” Illya manages through gritted teeth.

Theway Solo sets his fork and knife down on the table should probablynot be that satisfying, but then Illya gave up on ‘probably shouldnot’s somewhere between the third time Solo sneaked in his hotelroom for dinner and the first time he got Illya a Christmas gift. (Itwas a pair of silver cuff-links with a hammer and sickle on them. Thebox included a receipt with the words ‘the things I do for you’in Solo’s neat cursive at the bottom.)

Hehasn’t relented in his efforts to catch the man, far from it! He’sgot a couple of broken ribs and a messy cut on his hand to attest forSolo’s messier escape. It’s just that somewhere in the past fiveyears, his disdain for Solo shifted to grudging respect, toappreciation, to the sort of admiration that comes with worthycompetition. He still wants to catch him, he’s just much lesslikely to gloat about it when he does.

“Itcan be,” Solo says after a long time. “If you want.”

Hestill looks infuriatingly put together. Meanwhile, Illya’s handsache with how hard he clutches his fork, and he’s fairly sure he’sabout to break his teeth or something. It’s still a wildlyinappropriate reaction, but at least a minute ago it didn’t hurt.

“I…Iwould miss you, though,” Solo says at last.

Thistime, when Illya turns around, he finds the man looking down at hisplate, carefully chewing around a mouthful of pasta. Illya stompsdown on the ludicrous bubble of golden hope in his chest and asks:

“Areyou saying this because you’re hoping to get out of prison.”

“Please,”Solo protests, the veneer of self-assured sarcasm sliding back intoplace, “I’m not naive enough to think that’s possible. And likeI said, I don’t need your help to get out of a sentence.”

Hepauses, settling his cutlery down on the side of his plate and givinghis fingernails a careful look before he looks Illya in the eyes andcontinues:

“If,however, you aren’t too tired of my presence, I wouldbe…amenable. To negotiation.”