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Before the radio devolved into nothing but static on every channel, weather reports had been full of warnings about the severity of the blizzard bearing down on them and the inadvisability of any travel. They have a sturdy enough place to weather the storm, at least, even if Illya is wondering what god he offended to be stuck in a one-bedroom mountain cabin with Solo for an indeterminate length of time.
The place has no modern heating, just fireplaces and a wood-burning stove in the kitchen, so while Solo and Gaby take stock of the supplies inside, Illya chops and carries as much wood as he can while he can stand to be outside. Gaby finally comes out on the porch bundled up to her eyebrows, which look fantastically annoyed.
"If you catch pneumonia from staying out here, I'm washing my hands of it and leaving you with Solo for a nursemaid," she calls.
"You're not that cruel," Illya shouts back over the wind, but gathers one more armful of kindling and follows her inside.
He adds his armful to the pile of wood by the door, and he and Gaby stand there for a few moments, stamping and shaking off snow. Gaby gets momentarily tangled in her coat and scarf and Illya automatically moves to help her out of them, trying not to get too distracted by the sight of snowflakes melting in her dark hair.
"I put some water on to boil," she tells him. "I think there's some tea in the pantry."
There is, a strong black tea that reminds him of the kind his mother used to make. Gaby sweetens hers with what is, in Illya's opinion, far too much honey, while Solo sticks to the red wine he unearthed earlier.
"I think we've got the makings of a decent soup here," he says, surveying the canned and dry goods in the pantry. "How are you at chopping vegetables, peril?"
He probably doesn't mean it as an intentional challenge, but Illya still gives in to the urge to show off his knife skills on an unsuspecting onion.
Gaby goes back into the main room for a moment; there's a triumphant "ha!" and then music filters into the kitchen, mid-tempo American jazz.
"Is the radio working again?" Solo asks as she walks back into the kitchen with a slight sway to her hips.
She shakes her head. "There's a record player. Don't worry, Illya, I'm not going to try and make you dance this time."
Illya allows himself a small smile and waggles his knife mock-threateningly. "Not while I have sharp object, anyway."
"Dancing after prep work," Solo says with utterly unconvincing sternness, and holds out a potato and a peeler. "Come earn your keep, Teller."
As he chops carrots and the potatoes Gaby hands him, Illya's struck by the domesticity of it. Their work means close quarters and frequent companionship whether they like it or not, but there's a difference between him and Gaby playing at being a couple in a posh hotel, or in Istanbul when he and Solo spent three days running surveillance from a two-room flat, and this. The kitchen is an island of warmth with the storm outside howling and rattling the windows, music floating in from the other room and enticing smells starting to rise from the stove.
They leave the soup to simmer for a while and move back into the main room. The thermometer near the door informs them the temperature's continuing to drop, and the edges of the room are chilly even by Illya's standards, but if they stay near the doorway to the kitchen or the great stone fireplace it's nice. The record switches to a faster track, and Gaby leans against the back of the sofa and eyes the two of them.
"So I know getting Illya to dance is like pulling teeth," she says. "But maybe you're a little more cooperative, Solo?"
In reply, he makes a little half-bow and holds out a hand, pulling Gaby close and putting an arm around her. They're both graceful dancers, moving together easily. Illya feels a stab of possessive anger he knows he has no right to and goes to stoke the fire.
He hasn't tried to kiss her again since Rome. He doesn't know how she feels about that, except that she hasn't tried to kiss him, either. It was always a bad idea, wanting something real out of a fake engagement, but now that they're two thirds of a team it's an even worse idea, too messy, too complicated.
Except that it's not as if not kissing her has let him avoid complication, as evidenced by the fact that Solo's hands are in perfectly gentlemanly places and Illya still wants to punch him in his stupid, handsome face.
The track changes again, the new song softer and slower, and Illya looks up to find Gaby moving away from Solo and toward him.
"I promise I'll behave," she tells him, holding out a hand. The words bring back the sting of his own hand against his cheek, the look of challenge on her face and the slight weight of her barreling into him, but also the moment when they were all but kissing, the smell of her hair, the way she'd held onto him even in sleep.
Illya rises from where he's kneeling by the fireplace, Gaby tilting her chin up to keep eye contact as he stands. He steps toward her and takes her hand, settling his other hand on her waist.
The tempo is easy even for such a reluctant dancer as him, more just swaying gently and shifting his feet a bit than anything else. Gaby keeps looking at him for a moment, then lowers her gaze.
"My neck's getting sore," she complains. "You're too tall."
"You could stand on a table again, but that might make dancing hard," Illya replies.
The corners of Gaby's mouth quirk up, and then she moves closer and leans her head on his chest. "You're just the right height for this, though."
"You two do fit together rather nicely, I have to say." Solo, having stepped into the kitchen for a moment, comes back with a freshened wine glass and leans against the wall, watching them.
Illya slides his arm more firmly around Gaby's back, swallows hard, and keeps his tone light. "I'm glad you approve, cowboy."
Solo swirls the wine in his glass around and takes a sip, still watching them over the rim. The look in his eyes isn't that of the suave, glib gentleman spy he likes to play so often. It's more closely akin to the serious, driven man Illya glimpses sometimes in the field, but it's not quite that either. This is a new Solo, one Illya doesn't know yet, and he wonders briefly just how many there are.
"Dinner should be ready soon," Solo says as he lowers his glass.
For a meal consisting of off-the-cuff soup and stale saltine crackers, it's pretty good. Between the three of them, they finish off the wine, and Illya brews more tea while Gaby raids the liquor cabinet and comes up with a bottle of vodka.
"Are you sure that is good idea?" he asks halfheartedly.
Solo shrugs, holding out a glass for Gaby to fill. "Not like any of us is going anywhere tonight. We may as well enjoy ourselves."
"That's what I'm worried about," Illya replies, but also pours a little vodka into his mug of tea.
They wash the dishes in an assembly line--Solo washing, Gaby drying, Illya putting everything back where they found it--and then go back into the main room, settling in for the evening. Gaby changes the record, Napoleon produces a deck of cards, and Illya unpacks his chess board.
"I'd ask if you want someone to play against, but that didn't go too well for us in Istanbul," Solo says.
"No," Illya replies with a faint smile. Solo plays chess the way he works a mission, technically competent but in a way that manages to offend nearly every one of Illya's sensibilities. He glances at Gaby and gestures to the board, eyebrows raised in a silent invitation.
"I'm not much of a chess player," she tells him. "I know the rules, but I never had a talent for the strategy."
Solo looks at her with fond amusement. "Was that before or after you became an MI6 agent with no prior military or intelligence training, spent two years undercover waiting for your objective to come to you, and completely pulled the rug out from under two more experienced agents?"
Gaby looks at him for a second and then smiles wryly. "Well, when you put it that way, I guess I've just never learned how to apply my talents to chess."
Illya gestures to the board again. "Would you like to?"
Gaby sits on the sofa across from Illya. Solo sits next to her and mutters advice now and then, until Illya glares at him and he puts up his hands and starts a game of Solitaire on the rest of the coffee table.
It gets later, the blizzard rages on, and the cold creeps further and further into the room. Gaby shivers, even in the thick sweater she has on, and Solo reaches behind him to the blanket folded over the back of the couch. Gaby puts it around herself gratefully and offers one end to Solo, who moves closer to her and drapes an arm across the back of the sofa. Illya drinks his cooling tea and studies the chessboard carefully.
He thinks about letting Gaby win, but she'd know and she'd probably be annoyed. When he takes her king, she sighs and settles back against the sofa cushions, draining the last of the vodka in her glass and snuggling into the blanket.
"Not bad for a novice," Illya tells her, and means it.
The record runs out again and no one gets up to change it this time. Illya sets his chess pieces up for a new game, but doesn't start one. Solo's still putting cards down, but lazily, and Gaby's just watching the fire with half-lidded eyes, her head on Solo's shoulder now.
Solo finally breaks the silence, still looking at his cards. "I've been thinking," he says. "With how cold it's getting, it might be best if we all share that bed in the other room."
"It's big enough," Illya says neutrally. It seems pointless to argue with Solo when he can feel the chill trying to wrap its fingers around him. He's already ended up figuratively in bed with America and Britain; may as well go the rest of the way.
"Gaby?" Solo asks, looking down at her.
She's burrowed so far into the blanket that only the top of her head is visible, but her slightly muffled answer comes a moment later. "I've slept in worse places than between the two of you, I suppose."
Solo banks the fire in the main room and goes to see to the one in the bedroom, while Illya gets Gaby up. She keeps the blanket wrapped around her like a cloak, and stumbles a bit, her leg jostling the coffee table. Illya's hands go to her shoulders and stay there, guiding her toward the bedroom.
"I bet you'd carry me if I asked," she says with a hint of smugness, leaning back against him and dragging her feet.
"Don't push your luck," Illya grumbles at her.
Gaby takes the bathroom first, Solo second, and by the time Illya steps out in pajamas the two of them are already in bed, nestled under the covers. Illya ignores the tightness in his chest at the sight of them together and retrieves another blanket from the closet, draping it across the foot of the bed in case they need it in the night.
When he climbs into bed on Gaby's other side, she rolls to face him. Illya puts his hand on her arm and hears a soft noise as she reacts to the coldness of his hands.
"Sorry," he mutters.
Gaby smiles in the dim light of the fire, moving to take both his hands between hers and rub them. "It's all right," she murmurs, their folded hands resting on the bed between them.
On Gaby's other side, Solo moves closer and drapes an arm loosely around her waist, which she doesn't seem to mind. "'Night, peril. Gaby."
"Goodnight," Gaby says, nestling into her pillow and still holding onto Illya's hands.
Illya looks at her face, already relaxing into sleep, and over her shoulder at Solo's tousled hair and finely drawn profile. "Goodnight," he murmurs.
Illya wakes up to gray morning light, no sound of wind outside, and Gaby snuggled against him, her back to his front. His arm is wrapped around her, her hand clasped around his wrist. Solo's arm is still around her as well, his hand trapped between her back and Illya's stomach.
He should get up, check to see if it's stopped snowing entirely and how difficult it's going to be to dig themselves out. But he finds himself reluctant to move, to break the peace and quiet and turn them from three people sharing warmth and human contact back to three spies with a delicate international partnership and a mission to complete.
He lies still until Solo stirs, opening his eyes.
"Good morning," Illya says in the same carefully neutral tone he used last night.
Solo props himself up on one elbow, smirking a little. "Morning. Well, this is all very cozy, but I suppose we can't stay here forever, can we?"
"I don't think our bosses would appreciate that much," Illya replies.
Solo sighs heavily, then throws back the blankets and rolls out of bed. "I'll go see about breakfast. Get Gaby up?"
Illya allows himself a quiet sigh of his own, only once Solo's left the room. Back to being spies, then.