Illya reading Gaby a book? Bonus points if cuddling.
Fine PrintYugoslavia, 1964
Gaby is shaking — cold, fear, rage — when Illya finds her at the Skopje station. He bundles her in his winter garb, hers with Solo at the club from which she did fine work getting abducted. The experimental drug she procured is zipped into Illya’s coat. Two of her marks are laid out blocks back.
The third has staggered in, hunting for a lone German woman. Illya curls around Gaby, their heads bowed toward the pages he reads aloud in Russian. She relaxes into his voice, stilling even as a psychopath hellbent on revenge passes close enough to strike.
•••••
Illya rescues the book of fairytales before Gaby can further abuse the archaic prose. Gaby’s demand that Solo enable her delusion of perfect pronunciation forces their partner to quit the cramped compartment altogether.
The moment the door catches, Illya flips the lock and Gaby climbs onto his lap. The shade is still drawn from the last time they smoked Solo out — bickering like an old married couple for the chance to attack each other like newlyweds.
Gaby blames their lack of control on the purr of the engine; Illya knows it’s her sex kitten rasp, provocative even when incomprehensible.
•••••
One look at their flushed smirks as they exit the train and Solo books them a honeymoon suite in nearby Lake Bled. They’re meant to be lying low in the city, but Illya can’t protest so slight an adjustment to the mission with Gaby sunlit and beaming.
They play tourists for the morning. Solo meets them for lunch, a package tucked under his arm. “More inspiring reading material,” he says with a wink. Gaby unwraps it in the car — “Ivan Barkov” — and casts an eyebrow for context. Illya’s rising color tells her everything she is delighted to know.
•••••
Illya traces the line of Gaby’s hip as it stretches with her reach. She flips through the bawdy poems. She is collecting obscenities to use against him. He’s powerless to deny her their thrill.
Gaby tells him about coming of age in a theatre, the banned books they accessed in the West — Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Madame Bovary, Venus in Furs. Illya has seen such books incinerated, but he has no ire for them. “At least you are well-read.”
“Great literature teaches you about yourself.” Brow arched, she slips a hand down her belly to show him all she learned.
•••••
Illya carries Gaby up the ninety-nine steps to the Church on the Island; their cover demands it, laughter makes it light work. He holds her hand as they ring the bell together. Their wishes they keep safe, unsaid.
Looking out over the lake, they picnic on fine wine and cheeses. Gaby’s head in his lap, he reads Pushkin aloud. He doesn’t offer translation; she doesn’t ask. Her understanding is mapped onto his skin. Pressure builds when he reads “The Dream.”
They have run out of wine, cheese, borrowed time. They will wake tomorrow in London: gray skies and watchful eyes.
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So I know you have a thousand or so prompt requests, but here's mine too. Never too many ideas :) Would you write a piece where Illya has been homesick but he won't admit it because he has mixed feelings about home but really all he wants is some borscht. So Gaby picks up on this and thinks what the hell I'll indulge him, and that kind of starts them on a path to learning about each other's cultures and doing little things for each other. Not in an official relationship yet but heading that way.
Cultural ExchangeEngland, 1963
•••••
“English are suspicious of foreigners,” Illya tells a Hyde Park duck pond. “Mistakes justify their superiority.”
The bundle of scarves on the bench behind scoffs. “Justify your own you mean. ‘Articles aren’t Russian way.’”
“If only your consonant clusters were as accurate as your impressions.”
Gaby hums a tune: anything he can say she can say better. They saw Annie Get Your Gun Tuesday, rows apart.
“Sentence: Dastaprimechatel'nast.”
“I saw every attraction — ” unintelligible “ — in London.” She sighs. “Alone.”
Illya gropes for solace; he often lives where he is alone, foreign, suspected. Has never had to make it permanent.
•••••
Illya stares at the card, jostled as Gaby copies lines. A newly-minted citizen would belong to her local library. A travel agent might have a Russian tutor. Gabriela Schmidt builds her life like an air-tight cover.
Another bite of Kinder Surprise, movement to check her watch. Caught out again, Gaby packs early. Coffee plans, dance lessons.
He helps with her coat toggles.
Russian buzzes his neck, asking after his plans. “Classified.”
She was craving German chocolate; what might someone bring him from home? His ministrations turn brusque. “Borscht.”
Something’s missing in her laughter. In him, according to her softened eyes.
•••••
Through Illya’s peephole: a grocery sack, an agent who knows better.
Gaby hangs her coat on Illya’s, lines her wellies beside. “Downgrading from paranoid to cautious won’t kill you.” Flushed cheeks, tousled hair in his kitchen might.
Beets, carrots, cabbage. “Don’t gawk. Fetch a recipe.”
He reaches for a cookbook, hesitates. Returns with fading instructions in his grandmother’s hand. Gaby is careful not to crinkle, not to spill. The cosmopolitan has endless questions about his childhood visits to the village. Illya praises imperfect grammar, belly warm and full.
“Moy instruktor? Effectively bribed?” Admonishment is undercut by socked toes finding his.
•••••
Gaby’s snow-brushed cheek flinches at Illya’s German greeting. Her suggestion; if she runs into anyone at the Christmas market, she’ll say he’s visiting London. They walk, hands deep in pockets.
Holding back consumeristic critiques, Illya compliments intricate angel figurines. She snorts. “Don’t you mean Jahresendzeitfigur?” No angels in East Berlin. Father Christmas never delivered toys to children of the partition. The Vopos cracked down hardest on Weihnachtsmärkte, didn’t he find that odd?
Illya finds common ground lamenting mulled wine and spins tales of its Russian origins. She smacks his arm, takes hold. Her free hand he loads down with presents.
•••••
Illya waffles in the lobby until Waverly, in a jaunty paper crown, raps on glass with his telephone.
Solo, aproned, carves a roast while Gaby wobbles a fruitcake. Illya and his meager offerings receive an overly warm welcome, confirming suspicion of a bet. Clamping Illya’s shoulder, Solo calls out: “My cooking could make anyone tear up the Communist Manifesto.”
Gaby says she waited for Illya do the honors. He takes her by the waist instead, lifting her to top the tree with a red star.
It’s a hodgepodge celebration; blended cuisines, music, decorations. Everything out of place so nothing is.
I'm just obseeesssssed with the idea of Illya teacking Gaby Russian pre relationship and just feeling nervous and antsy about spending time alone with her and just relishing the down time they get to share. Bonus points if Illya is turned to soup by her gorgeous husky voice!!
Useful LearningTurkey, 1963
•••••
On a rooftop, Illya adjusts dials for sound and aims binoculars at the hat concealing Gaby’s çay, her French novel, her boredom he will pay for. Crackling Russian plots turn to scraping chairs. Bumped, Gaby accepts the mimed apology of the arms dealer her proximity has damned.
Ring finger tapping her chin, she huffs. “I hope they weren’t discussing football. I’m as useful as this table.”
Approval radiates. Professional interest; is better for the mission, UNCLE’s uncertain future. Illya ignores second thoughts. Damned by proximity already.
•••••
Istanbul has been a drawn-out affair without occasion for an oil executive’s wife to visit the grim apartment of Soviet gunrunners. Knocking halts Illya’s pacing. He ushers Gaby in, pays her German-speaking cover.
Gaby’s fingertips skim the dictionaries, books, slates he acquired for her learning not amusement. Illya squares off against his pupil, seated at the makeshift desk by the window.
They begin with what she knows.
Pencil denting her bottom lip, Gaby thinks. Raises a slender hand; waits out exasperation. “Teacher.” She rasps each syllable.
“Again.”
Huskier still.
Sunlight glints in her eyes, heats the back of his neck.
•••••
Lessons are half-day sessions, per customs of hospitality. His guest brings Turkish Delight, leaves fine powder on everything she touches.
“Translation.”
Illya cannot say much for East Berlin schooling, but Gaby is quick to re-learn basics, mimics well, retains what strikes her.
“Recitation.”
His languages were acquired by drill, route. Fear of humiliation.
Gaby tests his rigor with whimsy. She leans across him, folded in her chair, to point out her most fanciful sentences. He conjugates to save himself.
Pouting, she smoothes his hair. “Aren’t Russians poets?”
They part like springs.
Solo smirks at Illya’s hairline, marked by something sweet.
•••••
They kiss beside the Bosphorus; the mission turns. These events only feel related.
Days on end, Illya, Gaby, and Solo hunker, inoperative. Language lessons are battlegrounds for proxy wars.
“Teach me something useful,” Gaby spits. Thinks Illya holds her back.
She is untrained, a liability. “Twelve years of schooling, you learn nothing!”
He is right. Toe to toe, hard as flint. She learned from older girls — “Have pity. Think of your sister. Don’t hurt me; I won’t scream.”
Solo makes the call Illya cannot: “There are Russian girls crawling all over that warehouse.”
Chalk crumbles, dust in Illya’s fist.
•••••
Fresh unpleasantness on hold until morning, the agents of UNCLE stroll the Grand Bazaar separately, together still; improbable is their new status quo.
Injuries concealed, Illya’s welcome lira buys: a backgammon set too well-made to flip off a balcony, glittering protections from the Evil Eye, the curly-whorliest shoes in ‘Ishtanbul.’ Trifles stacked beside life debts.
At a bookseller, acquaintances meet over Cyrillic texts. Illya scrutinizes Gaby’s vowels; “You will practice.” Rolling eyes, hoisted grammar guides. Illya slips in fairy tales, earns her smile. She thumbs poetry, bruising him. “Challenging. Time is needed.”
Pushkin presses against his chest. “You will practice.”
Ok, they've all just completed a mission successfully and Waverly has commandeered a small military base for debriefing etc. Napoleon is off doing his thing and Gaby disappears off for a shower. Illya, not realising, walks in on her. The cubicles are small but cover enough so he only sees head and shoulders and from her calves downs. It's lucky she's so short as otherwise he'd have seen a lot more! Because he moves silently anyway she doesn't hear him come in and he's entranced watching her tbc
In Soviet Russia, Landmine Disarm You [series] [ao3] [aesthetic]
Chapter 3: Jilted One Minute, Worshiped the Next
Illya steps out from behind the cubicle into a humid fog that had not been there when he started his shower at a reasonable temperature less than five minutes prior. The massive klonka in the corner roars with exertion as if the entire regiment had returned to hit the showers at once. The row of narrow cubicles along the wall on this side remain empty. The fog is rolling in from a narrow gap separating the two shower blocks.
The thin towel Illya wraps around his waist chafes his skin. What makes him frown is that he notices. He is becoming as soft as the monogrammed linens of the endless luxury hotels their missions take them to more often than not. Three days picking their way through border villages avoiding live mines has been a much-needed deviation. There are many aspects of his life with UNCLE Illya would be better off not becoming used to.
And some aspects he never will get used to — like Solo’s thieving fingers. The scent of his own soap sends Illya through to the other block of showers. Sure enough, the leather toiletry case he thought lost to the river is perched on a squat wooden stool next to the source of the haze.
The insult he has prepared catches in his throat when brunette hair arcs above the low dividing wall.
Small chin, long neck, slender shoulders. Shapely calves and delicate ankles. Concrete in between. Gaby closes her eyes against the spray of water before bending behind the dividing wall.
Illya has neither seen nor been seen. He is free to leave. Must leave.
Gaby reappears with a near-empty, lableless bottle of what he guesses is homemade vodka pressed to her lips. She drinks lavishly, shuddering at the taste and chuckling when alcohol spills from her lips to join the streams of water flowing down her neck. Vodka finished, she hums a line of a song into the bottle before placing it on the narrow wall.
Three grueling days with no hot water, no drink, no music. But she never complained about the mission. Only sniped and snarled at his own clipped tone and gruff demeanor.
Gaby gathers her hair in a pile atop her head. Suds drip from her temple down her cheek, from her elbow to the hollow of her armpit and out of sight to pool at her feet.
He is cemented to the floor, weighed down by every moment he has made himself look away. In this moment, Illya does not feel like the respectful man his mother raised. Nor the honorable soldier he learned to idealize from books. He is far from the professional agent he assured Waverly he is and will be. For Gaby’s sake, Waverly said. For his own sake, Illya agreed.
Gaby turns, dipping behind the wall. One foot lifts to settle on the stool. Two hands extend from behind the wall to spread a white lather onto golden skin from the tip of her toes to mid-thigh. She reaches inside his toiletry case and draws out his straight razor. A flick of her wrist and the blade opens.
He will leave. Just as soon as he can remember how to work his lungs.
Like everything she does, even inebriated, Gaby shaves with grace. But the stool is not well made. It almost topples when she changes legs. His razor nicks her skin.
The involuntary noise he makes is louder than hers is. The stool does topple then, the clatter almost lost in a string of colorful German profanities.
Propelled by the dread of a sliced artery, Illya is kneeling down in front of her cubicle in a heartbeat. Where he expects rivers of blood he finds only a thin smear of red.
Her foot jerks back from his hovering hand. “Christus,” she bites off, shaken. “I bolted the door.”
Eyes clamped shut, Illya replies, “There is second side.” He cringes at the absurdity of his position, the certainty of her nudity. The heat of the shower is nothing to the heat of his skin. His straight razor, by contrast, is cool where Gaby sets it under his chin.
Voice arch and not a bit slurred — she must have shared most of the bottle with Solo — she remarks, “Surely the UNCLE Code of Conduct prohibits one agent from sneaking into another agent’s shower.” She nudges his chin up. “I think there might even be laws against it.”
Shame doubles the heat churning under his skin. “I came for case,” he replies, forming his words carefully to avoid pressing his adam’s apple into the blade. “I thought Cowboy was only thief in UNCLE. I make mistake.”
Gaby tsks. “Poor excuse. The Code prohibits all manner of naked confrontations,” she mocks.
“I’ll go.” He means it this time. He’s fighting to keep his eyes closed. If she touches him, he’ll be lost.
She places her foot in his lap, millimeters from where he is constrained against the thin, rough towel.
Illya’s eyes fly open. Standing over him now, Gaby is everything he has been trying to forget from their interlude as lovers. His gaze roves over her body, small and firm and perfect. Her expression is arresting, demanding. And — dropping to the outline of his cock — triumphant. Remembering the below-the-belt insult she threw at him an hour ago, he almost preens.
Gaby lets his straight razor fall to dangle from two fingers. “While you’re down there.” Her voice, husky with intent, washes the arrogance right out of him.
For two weeks he has been strong.
Her smirk falters and all at once her nudity is vulnerability, an attribute he rarely sees. For all his training, Illya cannot pretend to even want to be unaffected.
He takes the razor by the blade. Holds his hand out for the bar soap. Their fingers don’t brush when she places it in his cupped palm. The soap glides down her skin, forming a lather that gathers on the blade as he makes careful upward strokes.
When he has finished shaving her, he sets aside his soap and razor to inspect her leg. There is a bruise, a small scrape just below the cap of her knee. Something of the panic he felt when she slipped in the torrential rain and rolled down the hill toward the minefield compels him to press his lips there.
Gaby sighs. Her palms settle on the bristles on his cheeks, lifting his face to meet her scrutiny. She sighs again. “Dummkopf.”
Lost, Illya’s arms move of their own accord. His fingers grip and knead her thighs.
He is an idiot. Not for trying to lengthen the meager time he has left with UNCLE by means of good behavior. Not for trying to lessen a future blow. Illya is an idiot for thinking he would be strong enough to deny Gaby anything she wants. Even if, impossibly, what she wants his him.
Walking her forward, he stops the rivulets of water dripping from her lower belly with the press of his mouth. He breathes in the scent of his soap mixed with her need. She shivers against him despite the heat.
Gaby has made an idiot of him from the start. She’ll make a liar of him, too.
She leans down, her elbows biting into his shoulders and her lips brushing his ear. He can barely make out her words over the spray of water and the furnace roar: “I won’t tell if you won’t tell.” It’s a softer stance from her, one that acknowledges at last something of the consequences he might face.
Illya seals the agreement with a kiss he has been holding back for two long weeks. The sharpness of the vodka behind her teeth, of her nails sinking into his back meet the need surging in him.
He tugs her hips closer and lifts her knee over his shoulder. Her urging grip shifts to his back and arms. As he mouths his way up her inner thigh, she tilts toward the showerhead. The line of her body directs the water to cascade over his crown and shoulders. Illya licks past it, finding the wetness that is hers alone.
The concrete surrounding them echoes with Gaby’s low moans. A fine tremor begins to rack her legs. He moves them so her back is to the wall and both her thighs are pressed against his ears.
She finishes with his wet hair tangled in her fist, his name a sharp cry in the back of her throat.
Her legs slip from his shoulders, and she steadies herself into a crouch. She rubs the ache from his neck while he shifts his weight to ease the ache in his knees. The ache in his cock only intensifies when she presses forward to stroke her tongue inside his mouth. She can be tasting nothing but herself. He groans. Her hum of satisfaction goes straight through him.
Standing, she peers down at him and traces his lips with her thumb. “Jilted one minute, worshipped the next.” Her chuckle is exasperated. “What am I to do with you?”
“Jilted,” he scoffs, offended for them both. “I would never — ”
“Oh, so now you want to have this conversation?” Gaby lifts the sopping towel from his lap and drops it in a heavy pile next to the overturned stool.
Illya shakes his head. Her thumb returns to trace his features. He watches for the moment her gaze dips low, the weight of her eyes enough to make him throb. She leans over to stroke him, and he knows he is in danger of not lasting long.
Gaby helps him to his feet and directs him under the showerhead. The water has cooled to warm instead of scalding. They drink each other in.
With one hand, Gaby works his cock and with the other she glides her fingernails over the patch of hair on his chest down to the lines of his hips. She pulls a noise from him that makes her smirk up through the spray of water. He is ready to spill in her hand.
Ever cruel and kind in equal measure, she moves away to lean against the cubicle. That smirk stays fixed on him as she turns. Her fingers curl over the dividing wall. Her hips cant high in invitation.
Illya shuts his eyes against the pulse that has spread to his stomach. When he can, he steps forward to run his hands along the curve of her spine and up her ribs to cup her breasts. She wiggles her ass, smirk lost to impatience. He would like to tease out that impatience — will do exactly that, the next time they find themselves on a feather mattress with room service and other decadences Illya will forever associate with Gaby. For now, he is grateful to give in.
He eases the head of his cock into her, pausing to readjust himself to her tight, slick heat. She circles her hips, and his hands move to grip her there. “Gaby…” He means to slow her down, stop if he has to, make her come a second time. She arches back to claim his full length.
Adopting the long, hard strokes her deep moans demand, Illya loses himself in the rhythm she sets until he’s throbbing with the need to sink into her. She tightens around him and his own acute release of pressure drives him forward.
Illya catches himself on the wall, knocking over the vodka bottle in his pursuit of her fingers. They grip hands.
After he feels he has kissed his gratitude into her back sufficiently, he sinks them into the corner opposite the shattered glass to rest their shaking legs. Illya drops his face into the crook of her neck and Gaby lays her head against his.
They are tangled again but awake and holding fast.
But the rising sun is beginning to filter through the windows. With the light comes worry. The soldiers will be returning soon from assessing the minefield he and Solo and Gaby have mapped for them. The UNCLE secondary unit will be finishing up their investigation. Gaby may have bolted the door on this side of the showers, but Illya didn’t bother with the other side.
“We were lucky not to be caught,” Illya grumbles, nose dipped into her collarbone.“For once.”
“I was caught,” Gaby corrects. “Lucky it was you.”
He kisses the swell of her breast. “I am lucky one. You should have thrown me out. Had me disciplined.”
“There’s still time for that later.” She nibbles his throat then pushes against him to get to her feet. “But we won’t test our luck.” She says it like a compromise. He has learned that, for her, any bit of ground given is.
His response is more an acquiescence: “We will need it.” It is not her fault that Gaby believes she can use Waverly’s sincere fondness to mold UNCLE into what she wants it to be. Waverly has never let on to her that he is building an edifice from interchangeable parts.
They dress in clean uniforms for lack of better options. She pins her hair back into the cap for the fun of it while he shaves his face. Gaby admires her look in the mirror. He admires the subtle but undoubtedly feminine curve of her backside.
“The General was blind,” he tells her.
Illya has been nursing a worry that she will not want to touch him in the uniform of a Soviet soldier, but Gaby drags him down to claim one more wet, heated kiss before they relinquish each other to duty.
