In retrospect, none of it is surprising.
The way he walks, careful, regal and threatening. The way he talks, brusque and efficient, the edge of a growl seeping into his words. The way he smiles, on those rare occasions, with a little too much teeth. He’s broad, powerful, always a little hungry. His eyes — that perfect ice blue. When he runs, he lopes along with a singular purpose.
When he fights, he eviscerates.
It doesn’t surprise Gaby, either, when it happens to her. When, in lieu of a kiss, he sinks his perfect teeth into her shoulder. When she opens her eyes again, the world is just a little more colorful, and her beautiful, sweet Illya is hovering over her, concern and apology written all across his usually icy face. He tries to apologize, to make amends, and she shoves them all back down his throat. She has all the power she needs now.
And Napoleon, clueless Napoleon, is a little less clueless this time. Little by little he picks up on the hints they leave for him, until he’s locking the doors with unspoken understanding before it happens, and sliding into the warmth of their bed afterwards.
It’s been nearly a year since the foundations of their partnership — partnership in the strictly business sense of the word. Nearly a year since Illya and Gaby first realized the weight of their relationship. Nearly five months since Napoleon swallowed his pride and admitted he wanted them both.
They know themselves best, how they fit together like a set of clues. And they manage.
*****
They’ll pay the expenses for the room, or Waverly will, most likely. There’s always expense forms to fill out, but anyone familiar with Illya understands his rages. It’s an easy excuse. And anyways, it’s nearly true.
Gaby does not envy the poor housekeeper who will have to clean it all up.
The room is a complete disaster. Ripped curtains, shattered mirrors, overturned furniture showcasing its upholstered guts. There’s a few long gouges in the wall by the kitchenette — scars where Illya dashed a nightstand to death.
At least, that’s what it looks like to the untrained eye.
Gaby steps gingerly over a minefield of scattered chess pieces and broken glass. “You idiot!” she calls.
Illya looks up at her from behind the capsized dresser. He is not smiling, but Gaby catches a shard of humor in the set of his lips and jaw. Illya is so careful, so calculated with his mask, but he forgets that she knows him.
“How many times now?” she asks, climbing onto the bed to spare her slippered feet from the glass. “I have been doing this for much less time than you, and already I know how to avoid making a mess.”
Illya shrugs at her, folding a pair of pants with military precision. His hands are steady and sure, and for a moment she lets herself get distracted by his graceful long fingers.
“Have you no self-control?”
Gaby watches his mouth for the barely-contained smirk she’s so familiar with by now. If it were anyone else asking, she knows, Illya would have destroyed them. Proved the point with the weight of his fists and then moved on to raze the room. It would corroborate the story, at least.
Gaby, however, is not just anyone.
Illya smiles, lazy and lupine, and flips his suitcase shut. “Now is not for lecturing me, my little chop shop girl. Are you getting dressed? I do not want to be late.”
Gaby slides off of the bed, careful of the mess on the floor. She digs her own bulging case out from under the bed. “Should I wear the green or the orange?”
Illya pauses for a second, and she watches him consider, haloed in the sunlight refracting off of the glass on the floor. “Green one. Is more fitting for Portugal, I think.”
“Portugal is green?”
“Green on flag,” calls Illya, as Gaby pulls out the green dress.
Half an hour later, Napoleon struts in through the door, cuffs still unbuttoned, tie half-done. Gaby, sitting on the counter, takes great delight in watching him stop on his toes, just short of the ruined carpet.
“Rough night?” he asks.
“Don’t ask questions you aren’t prepared to have answered,” snaps Illya, though the words are warm. “We are going to be late. Come on, cowboy.”
“I’ll do your tie,” offers Gaby. Napoleon lets himself be pulled closer, frowning over his cuffs, and Gaby can’t resist pressing a kiss to his aquiline cheek when she’s done.
“Thanks, darling,” he murmurs, smoothing his wet hair back with a broad hand.
Gaby is last out of the room. She casts a glance over the clawmarks on the wall one last time before she closes the door.
*****
She awakes on the train, trapped in between the shoulders of two uncomfortably large men. Illya’s head rests atop hers, his fingers curled loosely around his shoulder holster as he sleeps. To her other side, Napoleon is still fussing with his hair. She dodges his elbows, careful not to jostle Illya, and shoots him a look.
“Oh, come on, Gaby, don’t look at me like that,” he complains. “I didn’t have time to finish at the hotel!”
She just shakes her head at him. “How long until Lisbon?”
“A few hours, likely. Listen, I need to ask you something.” Napoleon’s face is carefully even. Even after all this time — nearly a year of working together, nearly five months of sleeping together. Gaby isn’t exactly keeping track, but she counts herself lucky every time a day goes by and they’re all still alive, afloat, together.
Napoleon, stupid spy with his stupid spy habits, sets his jaw. “Is Illya alright?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” says Gaby. “He’s fine, happy, maybe. Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I’ve noticed, just thought … “
“You know he’s not that good at acting, Napoleon. He’s fine.”
It’s adorable how caring Napoleon is, jumping at the slightest hint of anything wrong. Gaby smiles to herself as the warm weight of Illya shifts on her shoulder.
“I thought to ask, what with the room, and all,” says Napoleon. “What happened there?”
“The moon just caught him off guard. You know how it is.”
“Wow.” Napoleon humphs to himself. “And he didn’t go out with you? Doesn’t that usually take care of it?”
“It does,” says Gaby, “but he didn’t eat enough beforehand.”
“Ah,” says Napoleon. “You know, you’re always more prepared than him. Why is that?”
“Oh, I know. I keep track, that’s why, unlike him. More practice, too.”
“How so?” asks Napoleon.
“My monthly,” Gaby says, and laughs at the face Napoleon makes. It’s half-disgusted, half-apologetic.
“I forgot,” he says. “We’ll be better prepared next time. I’ll write it down.”
Gaby’s heart flutters in the cavity of her chest. We, he said.
*****
And maybe Gaby hasn’t truly realized how much she loves her partners, really loves them, until everything is going spectacularly wrong.
It’s Napoleon — he’s stranded. Stranded in the middle of an unfamiliar mansion, above a remote cliff, entangled in what was supposed to be a simple seduction that he assured them he could handle. Now he looks so small in the scope of Illya’s rifle, trying and failing to bluff his way away from the knife against his neck.
“How do we get in?” Gaby nearly shrieks. “There must have been some plan for this. How do we get him out?”
Illya’s voice crackles in the comm. “Was not supposed to happen,” he pants. “There is no plan.”
Gaby swears and lets her head hang back for a second. “Where are you?”
“Down in garden,” comes the response. “Gunmen on roof, guards all around, trip wires, more I have not seen. No way in.”
No, no, no. There must be some way — they can’t just leave him in there. They can’t just leave him to die!
“Unless,” she says, willing her heartbeat to slow.
“Unless,” agrees Illya. “Yes. You know what to do.”
And suddenly, this is it, what Illya has been preparing her for. What he himself has been preparing for. Countless hours spent in back alleys, Illya cursing at her in his brusque Russian — now is the time to put it to use. The transformation is hard, and she’s not sure if she can do it, but she has to. She has to. For her Napoleon.
And she is ravenous.
Gaby can feel herself changing, her bones cracking and reforming stronger. She feels the familiar pricking of fur at the small of her back, her arms, everywhere. Below, in the garden, she can hear Illya changing as well.
And she’s off. She feels more than hears Illya’s howl in answer to her own, the only thought on her mind Napoleon.
The guards by the garden door don’t stand a chance. “É um maldito lobo!” cries one, just before Gaby sinks her terrible teeth into his stomach. She barrels on through the looming mansion, leaving blood and fear in her wake.
She and Illya reach Napoleon at the same time. He’s bleeding from the neck, all over the carpet and his suit. “It’s superficial,” he gasps, but Gaby still feels the fear of loss humming down her spine, flattening her ears and raising her hackles.
Because she loves him — she loves him enough to kill for him, enough that she can’t imagine a world without him. Illya, too. Her partners, wolf and human both, are hers. She cannot bear to watch either of them die.
*****
It doesn’t leave her until they’re all safe back at the hotel. Gaby is shivering in her tattered dress, the remains of her wolf-self hidden safely away until the next moon. She sits on the sofa and watches Illya, the great lupine shape of him, hunched over Napoleon as he tends to his wounds. She watches as Illya carefully places a bandage on Napoleon’s neck, at the spot where the knife had been held to his throat. Napoleon hisses at the sting of the alcohol.
“You idiot,” says Gaby. “You could have been killed.”
“I wasn’t, though,” says Napoleon. “I’m still alive. I’m here.”
“Because we were there to save you. If we hadn’t been there —“ She doesn’t finish. The thought is too horrible to confront.
Napoleon winces, and when he opens his eyes again Gaby can see a tentative understanding. “But you were. I’m sorry if I scared you, but —”
“But nothing, Cowboy,” growls Illya. “Listen to Gaby. You must be more careful.” His voice wavers slightly, afraid.
Illya swallows, brushing a hand across Napoleon’s jaw. He turns to close the bottle of alcohol. Gaby gets up from the sofa and settles on the arm of Napoleon’s chair. Illya sits down at Napoleon’s feet, rests his head on the other man’s knee.
“Why must I?” asks Napoleon.
“We could have lost you, Napoleon.” Gaby looks down at Napoleon, his perfect eyes, the way his mouth twists just so. “We can’t lose you.”
“And why is that?” His voice is soft, careful. “Our profession is dangerous, you know. People are lost every day. We are replaceable because we have to be. Why should I be any different?”
This time it’s Illya who answers. “Because, Napoleon. Because we love you.”
Napoleon is quiet, but Gaby knows him. She knows him, and knows that he loves them, too.
And with that realization, her anxious mind slows a bit. At least they’re alive, and safe, and happy. And together. However and whoever they may be.
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