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The first one had been the cafe owner in Lisbon. While it had been in the service of a mission, the behavior was unmistakable. Napoleon had turned the charm up to blinding levels and convinced the man to give them all the information they needed. Illya had watched, completely stupefied, as Napoleon batted his eyelashes and leaned down on the counter and tilted his head and lowered his voice and utterly seduced the poor sap, the way he had with so many women.
On the one hand, that his skill set would carry over from one gender to another wasn’t entirely unthinkable. On the other hand, the fact that Napoleon had immediately figured out that the man would be susceptible to his charms was baffling.
After that, Illya began noticing others.
A male THRUSH agent he was trying to convince to go easy on them.
A scientist they needed a formula from.
Informants and witnesses.
Every situation was one with plausible deniability.
Except this one.
This one was a bit more difficult to explain away.
“Napoleon?” The man reached out for his sleeve with a growing smile. “Napoleon Solo?”
Napoleon turned at the touch and, suddenly grinning, threw his arms around the man. “Tommy Rourke, you old sunavabitch, is that really you?”
Illya stood awkwardly with his hands in his pockets. Another man stood awkwardly to the side of this apparent old friend as he and Napoleon exchanged greetings and well-wishes and slaps on the back. This second man, a slim Hispanic fellow holding a mai tai, gave Illya a quiet nod and sipped his drink.
“Jesus, I cannot believe I’m seeing you in the flesh,” the alleged Mr. Rourke sighed, pulling back from Napoleon. “I heard from Bill Braithwaite that you were working for the government or something.”
“Or something,” Napoleon smirked. “What are you doing these days? Last time we talked you said you were thinking of taking some accounting classes…”
Mr. Rourke laughed, slapping his thigh. He looked like he was around Napoleon’s age, with a classically handsome face and a conservative haircut, just slightly greying at the temples. The shirt he was wearing was rather garish, however, with a swathe of impressionist flamingos on a baby blue background. He and his friend didn’t appear otherwise dressed for tennis or swimming, but they were both walking around in shorts, same as Napoleon.
“Drunk at the farm and you remembered. But you hit the nail on the head— I'm an accountant.”
He turned and looked at Illya, as if he were seeing him for the first time. He offered out his hand. “Sorry to ambush you there, friend.” His grip was exceptionally firm, but so was Illya’s. The man pointed at Napoleon with his other thumb. “Army buddies.” He kept pumping Illya’s hand, enthusiastic to a fault.
Napoleon put his hand on Illya’s back, shepherding him out of awkwardness.
“This is Illya,” he explained. “My partner— we’re on vacation.”
He left out that it was a mandatory vacation— Waverly had forced them to go on leave. They had spent the last six weeks without a single day off, and as a result had very nearly very badly bungled the last case they were on. At the last minute, they had managed to prevent the Princess from being assassinated, but only as the result of an unbelievably lucky break— a THRUSH technician had fallen in love with her and couldn’t bear to see her come to harm, and so had reprogrammed the dissolving ray. Waverley threatened that next time THRUSH did their jobs for them, they were going to be demoted to desk work in the basement. Somehow, instead, Napoleon had convinced him that they simply needed to take the next week off, and that they would come back fresh as daisies, ready to right wrongs and take down criminal empires. And then, somehow, he had also convinced Illya that they ought to take at least a few of those days at a tropical resort. They had been there for less than twenty-four hours and he already had a sunburn and many mounting regrets.
Mr. Rourke very briefly touched one knuckle to his lower lip, mouth twitching up to the side. He shook his head, smiling with the gentle mischief of a shared secret. He put his arm over the shoulders of the quiet awkward man who had nodded at Illya.
“This is Alfie. Us too.”
Alfie shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with both Napoleon and Illya.
Illya suspected that it was probably not the same situation, since usually accountants didn’t get forced to go on mental health retreats.
“God,” Mr. Rourke sighed, his arm still around the other man’s shoulders, “I’m just so tickled to see that—” He laughed, all perfect white teeth and charming little crows’ feet. “Well, you know. I figured you’d have eventually settled down. Gotten married, had kids.” He cast Napoleon a look of melting nostalgia, incredibly affectionate. “Guys like you usually do.”
Napoleon suddenly looked like he had gotten a sunburn himself. His mouth flattened briefly into a line, and then into a nervous open-mouth half-smirk.
"Well, my line of work and—"
Mr. Rourke blew a raspberry in the air. "Come on, Napoleon, I of all people don't need an excuse.”
Illya had only been half paying attention, but now the entire conversation came into very sudden and very clear focus. These two men were a couple, and Mr. Rourke had come to the erroneous conclusion that Napoleon and Illya were as well.
In Illya’s experience, one’s ‘army buddies’ didn't usually jump to the immediate conclusion that their compatriots were homosexuals unless there was a reason to conclude such a thing.
This man was, almost certainly, someone Napoleon had slept with.
Illya's hand came involuntarily to his mouth to cover his growing smile. He pretended to clear his throat.
He had suspected, or perhaps more honestly hoped, for a while now, but all the deniable workplace flirting in the world could hardly prove someone had actual tendencies . An ex, on the other hand, was fairly incontrovertible proof. Even if it had been a youthful indiscretion, it had happened.
Illya wanted to milk this for all it was worth.
"Where are you off to, by the way?" Mr. Rourke asked.
"Oh, we—"
Illya didn't let him finish cooking up a convenient excuse. "We were on our way to lunch— would the two of you like to join us?"
"I was just about to suggest that! We'd be thrilled."
“I’m so glad,” Illya purred. “It’s so rarely that I get to catch up with old friends of Napoleon’s.” He looked over at him, but Napoleon refused to make eye contact.
Mr. Rourke punched Napoleon in the arm and flashed him a movie-star smile. Napoleon’s face cycled through an endless parade of expressions, trying to land on ‘smile’ but managing to look more like a cornered animal instead.
They continued their walk to the restaurant, now four instead of two.
“So Mr. Rourke,” Illya asked, picking up Napoleon’s conversational slack, “You said—”
“Wait, wait,” he shook his hands in front of him. “Mr. Rourke is my father. If I’m Tommy to Napoleon, I’m Tommy to you.”
Alfie raised an eyebrow. “Does anyone other than your mother call you Tommy?” He had a soft hint of an accent that Illya pinged as Cuban.
Napoleon suddenly perked up from his daze. “How is your mother?”
“She’s great,” Tommy nodded, still smiling winningly, “Still a real crackerjack. She and my father are up in the Catskills this week, actually— they invited us to join them, but,” he sucked air in through his teeth, “I dunno. Little hard to convince people of the swinging bachelor routine when you’re with your parents. And besides,” he gestured around the resort, “Tropical beaches.”
“Please tell me she still bakes. I would kill a man for one of her peanut butter cookies.”
Tommy laughed, just a fountain of schoolboy charm. He looked to Alfie and Illya, trying to include them in the conversation. “I thought this man was going to be court marshalled one time because our Sergeant threw a care package from my mom into a river. Napoleon was this close to assaulting a superior officer.”
Illya grinned. “Sounds like he’s changed very little since then.”
Napoleon ignored him. “Gibson deserved whatever hell came to him.”
“He was a real bastard, wasn’t he.”
They stopped outside one of the resort’s restaurants, a breezy tiki-themed affair that mostly served burgers and hot dogs. Tommy flashed his teeth at the maitre’d and asked for a table for four. Illya, the only member of the party in appropriate dining attire, had been continuously surprised by the resort’s laxity on the topic of exposed thighs at lunch. At least they expected pants for dinner.
“Heard he end up getting discharged,” Tommy offered. “Got caught beating a soldier over the head with his rifle or something.”
“That’s really not shocking,” Napoleon grimaced. “You know Colonel Morgan tried to overthrow the government of a small Middle Eastern country?”
“Wait, what?”
They were ushered to their table as Napoleon gave Tommy the cliff’s notes version of what had happened the last time Napoleon ran into an old friend from the war.
“How in the world did you even hear about this?” He turned away from Napoleon for a moment to address the waiter. “Can I have a Tom Collins, please?”
During the brief moment Tommy stopped paying attention to him, Napoleon’s expression went once more blank with terror. He resumed smiling in the instant Tommy turned back.
Illya ordered a sidecar and watched the interaction between the two of them with great interest.
“Ah, well, that’s a bit of a tale.”
Tommy squinted one eye and smirked. “This has to do with your unnamed government job, doesn’t it?”
“Guilty,” Napoleon shrugged, oozing boyish innocence. He changed the subject. “So tell me, you’re an accountant. Where do you practice?”
“You’re CIA, aren’t you.” Tommy crossed his arms and leaned back. He raised his eyebrows at Alfie. “Fifty dollars says he’s CIA.”
Alfie shook his head. “The only cash we have is in my pocket right now.” He looked between Napoleon and Illya. “He locked his wallet in the safe.”
“I’m not CIA,” Napoleon laughed.
“FBI, then.”
Alfie gestured at Illya with his mai tai. “I don’t know. You’re Russian, right?”
Illya nodded. “Cuban?”
“You got it. And are you a defector?”
Tommy’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Alfie—”
“I am not.” Illya raised his eyebrows at Alfie, just a little bit flirtatiously. “How about you?”
“Nope,” he grinned, and then put his finger up to his lips in a shushing motion. “But we should keep quiet about it lest this lunch group be classified as a branch of the Communist party.” He looked at Tommy. “A hundred dollars he doesn’t work for the US government.”
“Astute,” Napoleon confirmed. “You should give the man his money, Tommy.”
“Sure, if you have something I can use to blow open the safe.”
“I left all the explosives at home this time.”
Napoleon’s expression kept vacillating between nausea and adoration. Illya couldn’t help but feel like if he weren’t here, Napoleon might be trying to negotiate a ménage à trois. As it stood, he still hadn’t looked at or addressed Illya in any way since Tommy had dropped the “guys like you” comment.
Illya thrilled to his discomfort.
The waiter came back with their drinks and took their lunch orders. Napoleon continued making small talk about Tommy’s career and his family and their shared history in Korea, and Tommy continued to radiate affection for his old friend. Illya paid less attention to the words— vapid, largely— and more to the unspoken details. Tommy’s body language told him more about their shared history together than anything Napoleon would be willing to admit aloud.
Tommy answered an unheard question of Napoleon’s. “Oh, yeah— we’re in Chicago. Never thought I’d leave the countryside, but… it’s a little easier there. You?”
“New York,” Napoleon nodded. “But we do a lot of traveling for work.”
“So, you work together?” Alfie asked.
Illya smothered Napoleon with a look of total admiration. “That’s how we met.”
Napoleon’s eyes, wide, flickered to Illya’s face.
Illya hoped this luncheon would never end. Teasing Napoleon was always a joyous affair, but there might never be another opportunity quite like this one.
He launched into a sugar-glazed account of their relationship. “He was a bit of a pest at first— well, you know how he is. Overly familiar. Dishonest with himself. A tease.” He blinked affectionately at his partner. “You know he speaks fluent Russian? I didn’t until we had been working together for six months.”
“I’d hardly say fluent,” Napoleon protested, still not making eye contact with Illya.
“Better than your French,” Illya winked.
Napoleon abruptly turned his face to the door and tugged on the collar of his shirt. He had gone quite red. He could be shockingly cute sometimes.
Tommy laughed. “His Korean was always shit.”
“Still is,” Napoleon muttered, refusing to make eye contact again.
Illya placed his hand, just briefly, on Napoleon’s knee. “It took a while for me to figure out his intentions. He’s lucky he’s charming.”
Napoleon tensed for a split second, his eyes darting wildly anywhere but on Illya.
Illya removed his hand, but without too much hurry. He wanted to sell the role, but he also didn’t want anyone outside of their table to buy what he was selling.
Besides, he was getting a little overexcited. Heat swirled in the pit of his stomach. He and Napoleon flirted a lot, but up until this point it had always been dismissable, deniable. Dismissing this would require a level of doublethink Illya suspected neither of them was capable of.
He wasn't sure how well he could pretend he was fucking Napoleon without letting it be known that he really, really wanted to fuck Napoleon.
He changed the subject. “So how did you meet?”
“You’re very good at avoiding anything that would actually tell us what the two of you do for work.” Tommy sipped his drink. “Baseball. We’re on the same intramural team."
Alfie elbowed Tommy, smirking. "Where else would an Irish accountant and a Cuban piano teacher meet?"
"A piano store that's in default?" Napoleon suggested. His shoulders relaxed just a tiny bit as he wriggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.
Tommy snorted the sip of his drink he was taking, but Alfie looked at Napoleon, and then to Illya, with an expression of great pity.
Illya made the facial equivalent of a shrug. “He’s always like this. He thinks he’s very funny.”
By the time their meals came out, Napoleon had relaxed enough to joke around with both Tommy and Alfie. He wasn’t exactly playing along, but he also wasn’t wincing anymore. Illya found Tommy frankly exhausting, like a version of Napoleon with three times as much exuberance and a quarter of the guile. He struck Illya as an incredibly American sort of fellow. Alfie, on the other hand, he found himself quite delighted by. After the initial awkwardness, he was sharp and dry and joyfully willing to help Illya take the piss out of Napoleon. Under less bizarre circumstances, they could have easily become friends.
Two and a half drinks in, and Napoleon was just about his normal self, barring the fact that he had yet to look at Illya’s face for more than a microsecond. Illya continued gleefully sexually harassing his partner: touching his lapel or his thigh, stealing bites of his food, making ribald comments he wouldn’t have dared make in any other situation. When he and Tommy finished their cocktails at the same time, and Tommy suggested a smoke out on the patio, Illya wasn’t particularly surprised when Napoleon took the opportunity to escape his company, but he was a little disappointed. He hoped he wouldn’t tell Tommy the truth and ruin his fun.
Alfie turned to Illya with a rapid blink. “So is this as awkward for you as it has been for me?”
Illya started slightly. He hadn’t really thought about it, but if he actually was Napoleon’s boyfriend, he probably would be a little bit peeved that he was so obviously still attracted to his ex. He half-lied, “Running into one’s… friend’s ex is always a bit awkward. But honestly, I’m used to it.”
“This happens to you a lot?”
Well, not this exactly. But they did have their fair share of run-ins with women Napoleon had jilted, and he did usually hit on them anyway.
He sighed. “He’s a bit of a tomcat.”
Alfie tilted his head off in the direction of Tommy and Napoleon and breathed out through his nose. “Mm. Tommy’s not, but… he’s one of those people everyone just likes automatically. Sometimes too much.”
“The all-American boy type.”
“Exactly!” He pointed at Illya in agreement. “Sometimes I feel like he’s Cary Grant and I’m…” He shrugged. “The caterer.”
Illya nodded with enthusiastic agreement. Never in a thousand years would he tell Napoleon this— his ego would blot out the sun if he did— but he understood that feeling. “Too charismatic for his own good.”
Alfie smiled knowingly at him, and something twisted in his chest. God, how much happier would men like himself be if they just had the opportunity to talk to each other? He might have technically been lying to Alfie, but he was also being more honest with him than he had been with anyone in a long time. It was so freeing to not have to pretend— to feign interest in women and marriage and all that rot.
When Napoleon came back, he brushed a strand of hair from Illya’s face before he sat down. Despite the heat, goosebumps surfaced all over Illya’s skin. He glanced upward. Napoleon actually met his eyes for the first time since they had run into Tommy, and his gaze was completely inscrutable. He placed his hand on the back of Illya’s neck and announced, “So, are we all heading to the pool?”
For a moment, Illya was surprised that Napoleon apparently wanted to spend more time pretending to be a gay couple. But then he realized— so long as Tommy and Alfie were around, he and Napoleon didn’t have to have an awkward and potentially friendship-ending private conversation. Illya was fine with this so long as it gave him further opportunities to cause Napoleon grief.
When they arrived poolside, changed into swim trunks and cabana shirts, Illya tucked himself beneath an umbrella, not interested in becoming further sunburnt. He did, however, offer to help Napoleon with the tanning butter.
Napoleon looked at him straight in the eye, holding the tube of Sea & Ski up. “Sure.” One corner of his mouth arced up. “Right here, out in the open.”
Illya pressed his lips together, thinking seriously about how far he was willing to go with this charade. He wasn’t quite sure what kind of reaction he might get from the other hotel patrons if he started lathering up another man in broad daylight, but it probably wouldn’t be good. On the other hand, he wasn’t above taking an opportunity to touch Napoleon all over. And, if he was being honest, it’s not like they had never (under the auspices of helping a buddy out) done things in a similar vein before. Napoleon had rubbed Ben-Gay on him enough times that he should probably have considered buying stock in the company.
Illya stood up and smiled beatifically at Napoleon. “Of course. Lie down.”
Thus could have begun an unadvisable and potentially jailable game of chicken, but Napoleon took a deep breath, narrowed his eyes at Illya, and turned around theatrically.
“You know what, on second thought, I want to get right in the pool, anyway.”
Illya recognized that, given the crowds, this was the correct choice, but he still felt a little sore about missing a chance for further torment.
“Well don’t depend on me saving you if you get a cramp and start drowning,” Illya sighed, lying back and crossing his legs. He sounded significantly bitchier than he had intended, and vowed to dial back the jealous lover bit to less criminal levels.
It’s not like he was actually jealous, since he and Napoleon weren’t actually a couple.
If Napoleon took this opportunity to rekindle an old love affair, that was between him and Tommy.
Well, and Alfie.
It had been a surprise when Alfie implied they had a totally monogamous relationship. Illya knew it happened, occasionally, but the idea of ‘settling down’ was very far from his own reality of quick trysts and meetups at semi-legal drinking establishments.
He watched the two of them laughing together, side by side with their legs in the pool, and felt suddenly very determined to make sure that Napoleon did not rekindle an old spark.
Napoleon was standing waist deep in the water, chatting with his old friend and his beau. He turned his head briefly to look in Illya’s direction, as if he had noticed Illya looking at him. He raised his eyebrows a little bit and smiled, his head at a very slight angle.
God, he was so incredibly charming. Obnoxiously, irresistibly, damnably charming. He couldn’t wait to get him alone later—while there was still always the possibility he was mistaken, for the first time since he had initially realized how attracted he was to Napoleon, he felt like there was an honest chance they might end up in bed together.
He grabbed an inner tube and tossed it around Napoleon’s head, and then joined the group in the pool. Napoleon popped out of the middle of it, looking at Illya with something that started out resembling affection, and then quite suddenly became embarrassment.
After that, he didn’t quite return to reticence, but nothing Illya said seemed to bait him the way it had earlier. By the time Tommy and Alfie had to leave for an off-roading expedition they had booked, Napoleon was nervous and sullen. The four of them decided to meet for tennis tomorrow, and Napoleon and Illya were left alone.
Napoleon was quieter than Illya had ever seen him, shuffling, looking at the ground. That he agreed to come back to the room with Illya at all seemed fairly surprising; when they opened the door to their suite, he looked like a man heading to the gallows.
Maybe they weren’t going to end up in bed together after all.
Illya closed the door behind them.
“Well,” he began, trying to recapture some of the conviviality of the day’s earlier hours, “That was an enlightening afternoon.”
Napoleon flopped into one of the little chairs at the breakfast table by the door and buried his face in his hands, elbows pinned to his knees. “Illya, I…” He groaned.
“Oh, come on,” he consoled, poorly, “It’s not like I didn’t already have my suspicions.”
“I just…” Napoleon remained within the cocoon of his palms. “It’s not.” He folded his arms over his knees, but looked at the floor. “I wouldn’t have had you find out this way.”
“How would you have had me find out?”
“I…” He scrunched his mouth up and blew air out his nose, looking at the spot of carpet between his feet. “I don’t…”
“You wouldn’t have.” Illya shrugged even though he knew Napoleon couldn’t see it. “So now I know. At least this way I got to meet your charming ex and—”
“He’s not my ex, he’s…”
“What, a youthful indiscretion?” Illya crossed his arms. “He seems a bit overfond of you, then.”
Napoleon looked up. “No. We were best friends. We just…” He puffed his cheeks out.
“Happened also to sleep together?”
Napoleon’s eyes moved off to the window, but at least he didn’t start staring at the floor again. Silence spread between them for a moment, Napoleon biting at his lower lip. Illya contemplated cutting to the chase and simply telling him he was gay, but there was still a certain perverse pleasure in drawing things out that he wans’t quite ready to forfeit.
He sat down on the edge of the bed.
“So do you still sleep with men?”
“Occasionally,” Napoleon muttered, his voice gravelly and resigned. “If that’s going to be an issue…”
Illya shook his head. “I don’t care who you sleep with, Napoleon. If I did, I’d have requested a new partner the first time I found out you had a habit of bedding THRUSH agents.”
A tiny smile crept up one side of Napoleon’s mouth, but he exhaled through his nose like he had just been told how long he had left to live.
“I hope you didn’t mind me playing along, by the way,” Illya shrugged, leaning back on his hands on the bed. He looked at Napoleon from under half-lidded eyes, waiting for realization to dawn as he casually proffered, “It was nice getting to talk to other gay men for a change.”
Napoleon blithely ignored the admission. “Well, you didn’t have to go quite as far as you did.” He opened his eyes very wide before blinking exaggeratedly. “I think you may have ruined my chances of convincing any women to go to bed with me this week.”
Illya continued staring at Napoleon. He had to get it at some point, right?
The defeated look on Napoleon’s face said otherwise. His brain had shorted out hours ago.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Napoleon sighed, running his fingers through his hair.
“You’re a bisexual?”
Napoleon nodded. “That seems to have been established.”
“So that time in Lisbon— you were hitting on that man.”
Napoleon squinted, trying to place the incident.
“In the cafe. We needed to find out where in that cave system the gun runners were hiding.”
Recognition dawned. “Oh! Yes.” His expression changed about a dozen times as his eyes toured the tabletop and the window and the crown molding.
“And in Japan? The man we got those pastry fish from.”
Napoleon reddened slightly. “Yup.”
“The Egyptian fellow, the one who led us through the tomb?”
He closed his eyes and grimaced, muttering, “..yes…”
“What about the time we were off the coast of Italy and the sea captain tried to lock us in the boiler room? Him too?”
Napoleon crushed the heel of his hand up against his eyes and forehead and groaned, now the color of a raspberry. “Him too.”
“I see. And so then, how about me?”
Illya let the question hang in the air, waiting for Napoleon to look at him.
When he realized what was being asked, he stared unblinkingly at Illya, his mouth half-open, his eyebrows conducting the symphony of his thoughts.
Illya didn’t smile, but instead raised one of his own eyebrows. His skin prickled hot, but it wasn't from his sunburn. He wondered if Napoleon could see he was already a little bit hard.
“I… You knew?”
Before Illya could respond, Napoleon’s expression changed from nervous exposure to incredible annoyance.
“Wait a minute. You knew and you never said anything? No, ‘hey Napoleon, I can tell that you’re flirting with me but you’re barking up the wrong tree,’ or ‘why yes, thank you Napoleon, I’m also interested and we should go out sometime?’”
Illya sat back up, equally irritated. “I openly made a pass at you what, two, three weeks ago? You blew it off like it was a joke.”
“That wasn’t a joke?” Napoleon’s brows suddenly unfurrowed. “Wait. You—” He stood up and placed his hands on the top of his head, chewing at his lower lip like this was a great mystery. “You’re telling me that we’ve been—” He scrunched one eye half-closed. “That we could have—” He stopped, taking his hands from his head, balling them briefly into confused fists in the air, and then smushing his mouth and cheeks with one palm. He looked Illya up and down, as if seeing him for the first time.
He jammed his hands in his pockets and asked, with the look of someone confused about how much they were being charged for dinner, “Is the offer still open?”
A tiny part of Illya was tempted to say no just because Napoleon was being so obtuse, but he was also tired of punishing himself for his partner’s lack of observational skills.
He lolled his head off to the side and rolled his eyes. “Well when you ask so seductively, how could I possibly say no?”
For a split second, they both froze, unsure of how to walk through the door that had just been opened between them.
And then Napoleon was on the bed, and Illya was pinned on his back and his shirt was halfway off before he even managed to get his fingers to Napoleon’s buttons. Napoleon’s hands were on his chest and stomach, caught between reverence and prurience. His eyes were wild, and still just a little confused, like he wasn’t entirely sure how he had ended up straddling his coworker.
“So— you’re—” He stumbled, fingertips grazing Illya’s jawline.
Illya refused to be needlessly precious about any of this.
“I’m what?” He finished unbuttoning Napoleon’s shirt. “Happy to see you?” He smirked. “I’m… the most handsome man you’ve ever bedded?”
Napoleon pursed his lips in annoyance, looking the most himself he had all day.
“I mean, you’re also… you know.” He tried the label on for size. “A bisexual?”
Illya scrunched up his face on one side, showing his teeth a little. “That would imply I had any interest in women.”
“Well,” Napoleon sighed, an exaggerated show, “I can’t fault your taste in men, at least.”
“God, you’re insufferable,” Illya responded, bringing his mouth to the spot where Napoleon’s neck and clavicle met, his other hand working to undo his belt.
Napoleon pulled Illya’s shirt off his arms and threw it on the floor, running his hands down his back as he touched his lips to his ear.
He muttered, involuntarily grinding into Illya’s hand, “Hey, this isn’t a one-time offer, is it? We're not going to do this and then pretend it never happened, right?”
Illya slid his hand into the front of Napoleon’s shorts and grasped him. “Depends, I suppose,” he breathed, his lips still on Napoleon’s neck. “Are the rumors of your legendary sexual prowess true?”
“Well, you just met one satisifed customer,” Napoleon grinned, his hands on Illya’s zipper, “And I’ve had more than a decade of practice since then.” He hoisted Illya’s hips, giving him space to slide out of his clothing, and then abruptly stopped what he was doing.
He sat up very straight.
“I don’t think we locked the door.”
“We also left one set of blinds open,” Illya snorted.
Napoleon scrambled, pants dropping to his knees, off the bed. He pointed at illya with one hand and failed at wrenching his shirt off with the other. “Take your clothes off,” he grunted, hopping to the door and out of his shorts and button-down. He locked it and closed the blinds, and then turned back to Illya, smiling wolfishly.
Those brown eyes on his skin made the hair on his arms stand up. He slid his underwear off and tossed them off the bed, his stomach hot, his eyes meeting Napoleon’s. Napoleon did the same, and then sat down on the bed beside him, looking him up and down.
They had seen each other naked before, of course, but context mattered.
Napoleon’s eyes were on his cock.
Illya raised his eyebrows a tiny bit, smiling with tender roguishness. He started stroking himself, very slowly, not taking his eyes off Napoleon. A muscle in Napoleon’s thighs twitched as he watched this, but his hands stayed glued to the bed.
As with everything they did, there was a hint of a challenge.
Illya leaned back slightly, spreading his legs just a little. He could keep this up as long as he needed to, giving himself just enough as Napoleon grew hungrier.
Napoleon licked his lips, eyes roving over Illya’s body.
He watched, breathing shallowly, for a long time.
And then just as Illya was started to feel a little self-conscious, his hands and mouth were all over him. He kneeled over Illya, one hand on his ribs, the other on his hip, sucking aggressively on his neck. The tip of his cock brushed Illya’s, and Illya bit down the sound that very much wanted to escape from his mouth. Instead, he busied himself beneath Napoleon, stroking both their lengths together, spreading his legs to better accommodate Napoleon’s increasingly aggressive grinding.
Napoleon bit down slightly and Illya gasped.
“We’re at a beach resort you dunce,” he breathed, raggedly, still pumping his hand over both of them, “so I can hardly wear a turtleneck if you cover me in bite marks.”
“Well, we’re supposed to be playing pairs with Tommy tomorrow,” Napoleon growled, his lips brushing Illya’s neck as he spoke, “And you seemed very insistent on selling the fiction of our great romance to them, so I just thought…”
He pulled away and looked Illya in the eye, his arousal dangerously apparent. He smiled and sat back, legs crossed.
Forgoing any dignity, Illya scrambled into his lap. He spit into his hand and pressed their bodies close once more, then went back to stroking them both.
Napoleon’s hands were on his ass, getting as much leverage and friction between them as possible. He touched his forehead to Illya’s, eyes closed, biting his lip.
They stayed like this for a while, noiselessly pressed together, bodies hot and growing hotter. A worrying tightness near the base of his shaft convinced Illya to take a moment before the moment was over. He had wanted this for too long to come like a teenager getting his first handjob.
He knelt up and stopped touching both himself and Napoleon.
“Lay down.”
Napoleon pointed at himself. “Me?”
“No, I called for room service. You didn’t see him come in?” Illya’s heart was hammering in his chest. “Lie down.”
Napoleon gleefully did as he was told this time, settling his head in the mountain of pillows. He then raised one eyebrow, hesitantly. “You’re not going to tie me up or something, are you?”
“We both get tied up enough on the job. I think we can leave that out of the bedroom.”
“That is a fair asse—” He stopped mid thought as Illya’s mouth came down around his dick. “ Jesus , give a man some warn—” He covered his mouth, presumably trying to avoid alerting their fellow hotel guests to their activities.
In almost no time, Napoleon was thrusting into his mouth, his fingers just a little too tight in Illya’s hair. He kept muttering obscenities under his breath, and it was going straight to Illya’s groin. He ached for release, to grind himself into his hand or the bed, but he wanted it to be Napoleon’s touch that sent him over the edge.
Napoleon breathed his name, desperate and ragged, and that was Illya’s signal to stop.
He pulled away, wiping saliva from the corner of his mouth as he looked at Napoleon.
He wanted very much to keep sucking him off. But he also wanted to feel Napoleon’s mouth on him. He also wanted Napoleon to bend him over the side of the bed and fuck him. Or to pull Napoleon's legs up around his hips and pin him to the sheets, burying himself inside him and watching him as he lost control. 'How' mattered very little at this point so long as he came and it was Napoleon's fault. He took a deep breath.
“Napoleon, I’m not certain how much longer this experiment of ours is going to last.”
Napoleon gazed at him with soppy, aroused idiocy. “Well, you have been teasing me all day long.”
Illya grinned. It had been a fantastic afternoon.
Napoleon bit down on his lower lip with his front teeth, then pursed them. A little sheepishly, he suggested, “You didn’t happen to…” He tried to set his head at a rakish angle, but ultimately looked more like he was about to ask an awkward favor.
“You’re cute when you’re nervous,” Illya teased.
“I am not,” Napoleon annunciated, “ nervous , I just don’t want to be presumptive.”
“Presumptive about what?” Illya laced his words with toxic sweetness. He already knew exactly what Napoleon was about to ask, but he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of avoiding the question.
Napoleon scrunched his nose up and then breathed out. “Vaseline?”
“Well, my hands have been rather dry since we got here— you think it’s the chlorine?” Illya smiled a viper’s smile. “You need to borrow some?”
Napoleon’s eyebrows went up, his eyelashes fluttering with a mixture of embarrassment and amusement. “I would, but… not for my hands.”
Illya couldn’t let the joke go, but he also couldn’t help but grin as he asked, “You’re not going to use it for something weird, are you?”
He bit his lip, but it couldn’t keep him from laughing.
“Does anyone see pigs flying anywhere?” Napoleon queried. “Illya Kuryakin, world’s most inscrutable man, just broke trying to make a sex joke.”
Still chuckling, Illya sprang from the bed and unzipped his suitcase. He dug out a jar of vaseline and handed it to Napoleon.
“You get some kind of weird thrill out of making me state the obvious, don’t you?” Napoleon assessed, unscrewing the cap.
“You have no idea,” Illya snorted. “Where do you want me?”
“Oh boy is that a loaded question,” Napoleon whistled. He licked his teeth, still adorably nervous. “On your knees okay?”
Illya nodded, but waited to get himself in position until he had watched Napoleon stroke a handful of lubricant up and down his cock. When Napoleon ran his forefinger and middle through the container again and asked him to bend over, he did as he was told.
He breathed as Napoleon’s left hand was on his hip, relaxing as completely as he could. The first finger slid inside him with little resistance. He wanted this more than he would ever admit aloud.
Napoleon muttered thoughtless reassurances as he very slowly, carefully fucked him. Illya was a little surprised by just how gentle he was— he was such a lothario that Illya had assumed he was the quick and dirty type. But, maybe that surprising gentleness was part of why so many women were so enamored with him.
When a second finger pressed into him, his breath caught a little, barely audible.
Napoleon stopped for a second. “Still feels good?”
“Yes,” Illya swallowed, trying to sound less desperate than he felt. “You can go a little faster if you want.”
“As you wish,” Napoleon complied, a smile in his voice. One issue with being on his knees was that he couldn’t really see Napoleon’s face. On the other hand, that also meant they didn’t have the awkwardness of prolonged eye contact, so maybe it was for the best.
Just as he was starting to get into a pleasurable rhythm, Napoleon pulled his fingers out and wiped them on a spare tissue. He pressed the head of his cock to Illya’s ass, his hands on his hips.
He slid the tip against the entrance a few times, teasingly, before pushing in.
Illya’s shoulders tensed and he bit down on his thumb as Napoleon slid himself inside. He felt his cock respond with an involuntary twitch as the sensation of fullness and friction grew. When Napoleon was all the way inside, he took a deep breath against him, his belly pressing softly into Illya. One of Napoleon’s hands moved to his cock and he whispered further obscenities into his back.
He started thrusting, shallow at first, slow, moving just the base of his cock in and out of him. Illya could feel Napoleon’s legs shaking slightly as he picked up speed and depth, and in a moment he was stroking Illya in a frenzy, the length of his own cock sliding into him at the same rhythm.
“God, Illya,” he muttered, his name on his lips like a sacrament.
The intoxicating pressure of being filled and the tightness around his cock and the unbelievable reality that Napoleon couldn't stop muttering his name and kissing his back was too much. Illya felt his mind going white-hot blank as his pelvic muscles tightened.
He ground himself into Napoleon and came, making marks in his own flesh with his teeth to avoid screaming. He splattered the bed covers in multiple bursts, Napoleon’s hand pumping him for every last drop.
Napoleon’s thrusts grew frantic and he squeezed Illya’s hip so hard he thought he might be bruised the next day. He came growling Illya’s name.
Shaking, gasping, they fell still.
Napoleon carefully pulled out and handed Illya the box of tissues after grabbing a handful himself. He flopped back on the bed and sighed, “ Christ, ” as he wiped himself off.
“I don’t know if we need to bring him into this,” Illya muttered, carefully removing himself from the bed on his jellied legs. He tried to wipe up as much of the evidence of their tryst as he could, but the coverlet refused to cooperate.
Napoleon snorted, smiling contentedly.
He wanted to straddle him and kiss those bow lips. He wanted to kiss him and touch him and suck on the skin of his neck until they were both ready to go for a second round.
Instead, he went and tidied himself up in the bathroom.
When he came out, Napoleon beckoned him onto the bed. He flopped down beside him and immediately Napoleon’s hands were on him again. He ran a gentle line down the center of his chest to his bellybutton, sighing.
“So you’re telling me we could have been doing this since…” He visibly counted back the years of their partnership in his head. “The whole time?”
Illya tucked his arms behind head and made a noise of minor disagreement. “Not the whole time. I thought you were a bit of a louse when we first met.”
“But a handsome louse, right?”
Illya snorted.
Napoleon nuzzled into his neck, his hand tracing lazy circles in the blonde fuzz on Illya’s stomach. He fluttered his eyelashes against Illya’s skin.
“After dinner,” he purred, “I want to do this again.”
Illya looked at him from the corner of his eyes.
Napoleon grinned. “I mean, assuming I did well enough to warrant another opportunity.”
Illya closed his eyes. If he was too effusive, he might end up saying something stupid.
“I’m a firm believer in assessing someone over the course of their career rather than on one incident.” He nodded, businesslike.
Napoleon leaned up on his elbow, watching Illya’s face with alarming fondness. He brushed his blonde bangs off his forehead and Illya forgot how to breathe.
“I bet this wasn’t what Waverely had in mind when he sent us on leave.”
“Napoleon, if you think Waverly ever expects you to do anything other than have sex on vacation, you’re more naive than I thought.” He shot Napoleon a withering glance. “Speaking of that,” he began, not particularly wanting to say what he had to say next, “I don’t know that I can quite keep up with you, in terms of sex drive.”
Napoleon puffed one cheek out. “Well, if you’re not up for more tonight, there’s always tomorrow before tennis…”
“I mean… going forward.” He sighed, wishing Napoleon’s sudden cuddly enthusiasm meant anything other than pure unbridled libido. He knew him too well to think anything would come from this but more sex. “Was Mr. Rourke your only… ah, army buddy?”
“No, we both…” His eyes widened in recognition. “Oh. I see.” His jaw tightened, and he nodded. “I shouldn’t expect you’ll always be the most interested party.”
Illya thought he would be reassured by this— that he would want to know Illya wasn’t expecting any kind of relationship past casual sex— but he seemed a little put out. Maybe this wasn’t the sort of thing you were supposed to discuss before you even got dressed.
“Well, how many times a month do you have sex?”
Napoleon grimaced. “A month?” He pursed his lips and appeared to be counting in his head. The amount of time he took made Illya regret asking. He opened his mouth as if to speak and then closed one eye. “Let’s just say that’s not a question that has a polite answer. And you?”
“Let’s just say I don’t have to do mental algebra to get the answer.”
Napoleon laid back and breathed out, very slowly, through his nose.
“Maybe we should order room service.”
“Not until we clean the sheets,” Illya reminded him.
Napoleon ‘hrrmph’ed, and then sat up. He eyed the stain on the coverlet, got up and walked over to the mini-bar, opened a bottle of grape soda, came back, and dumped some of it out on the bed.
“Oops. Guess we need to call housekeeping.” He sipped from the half-empty bottle.
“Oh good, now some poor sap has to clean semen and Nehi from the sheets.”
Napoleon sat back down and offered Illya a drink, which he took.
He swallowed gratefully. He wouldn’t have chosen grape, but he was thirsty.
Napoleon looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll have to tell Tommy he was technically right, just off by a couple hours.”
“Oh, don’t disabuse the man of his fantasy.”
A mixture of guilt and devilry contorted Napoleon’s features.
“I… may have already told him he was making an erroneous assumption about the nature of our relationship.”
“What? When?”
“When we went for a smoke.” Napoleon tried not to smile, and failed. “But I told him not to let on, since you seemed to be having such a good time playing house.”
Illya picked up one of the pillows and threw it at Napoleon’s head.
“Put some clothes on, you degenerate.”
“Hey, all’s well that ends well, right?”
Illya rolled his eyes. On the one hand, Napoleon was a manipulative asshole, but on the other hand, so was he, and ultimately, they had tricked each other into the same thing. He got up to look for his clothes.
“Let’s go call housekeeping and get out of their way so they can’t ask us any questions,” he suggested, putting his underwear back on.
“Want to go practice our serves?” Napoleon mimed swinging a tennis racket.
“I’ll pass. I’m not that invested in beating your ex-boyfriend.”
Napoleon gulped the last of the Nehi and swung himself out of bed. He looked for a second like he might protest the ‘ex-boyfriend’ crack, but then instead his eyes crinkled with delight.
“You know, the best thing about today is that I now know you think I’m cute ,” he winked, “But the second best thing about today is… that. That we can joke around about it.” He pulled his shorts on. “You know, now that I know you’re gay,” he glanced at Illya from the corner of his eyes, “I’m never going to stop guessing which men you’re interested in sleeping in with.”
Illya buttoned his shirt. “I assumed. There’s a reason I never tell you anything about me.”
They finished getting dressed, called housekeeping, and left to take a walk or maybe get another round of cocktails.
On a largely deserted strip of beach, Napoleon picked up a rock and skipped it into the ocean.
He watched it plop, plop across the surface and then sink. The wind ruffled the little fringe at his crown that so often refused to sit nicely like the rest of his hair. When he turned to look at Illya, the early evening sun turned his eyes amber.
“After dinner tonight,” Napoleon began, looking from Illya’s face to the sand. He picked up another flat rock and squinted one eye to the sea. “You told me once you never stay the night.” He tossed the rock, but this time it sank before the first skip. He turned back to Illya with a rakish look. “Are you going to be on the next flight home?”
Illya gave Napoleon a sideways glance.
“I already booked another room,” he lied. He waited a beat to see Napoleon’s adorably hurt expression, and then admitted, “I’m kidding.” He looked out over the water. There was no one on the beach, but he still lowered his voice. “I’ve had to put up with your 2 A.M. small talk for years. I guess you’re my exception.”
Napoleon swayed slightly, all puffed up with pleasure, looking rather like Illya had just told him he loved him.
Illya stuffed his hands in his pockets and glanced at Napoleon as surreptitiously as he could.
He wasn’t ready to admit to himself that that was exactly what he had just done.