Chapter Text
Napoleon kisses him, and Illya really should have seen this coming.
It’s just a peck on the cheek in greeting, perhaps nothing unusual if they were two Frenchmen in France. But they are a Russian and an American, and they are in Little Italy, in a restaurant Illya has often heard Napoleon praise: exquisite wine selection, music loud enough to promote the intimacy of leaning close just to hold a conversation, and an unspoken arrangement of sorts in which Napoleon ignores the chef’s more Sicilian connections and the chef brings out the best wine and makes a show of being surprised that Napoleon has found himself a girl to dine with for once.
Illya knows all of Napoleon’s tricks, knows the up-inside of his sleeve with the familiarity of what was first assumed to be a co-conspirator, then later appreciated as a safe confidante once Napoleon figured out that Illya would never offer any competition in the divvying up of female attention.
He should have known that when Napoleon asked him to meet at this restaurant, it was going to end up—or start out—with Napoleon doing something awkward. And awkward is exactly what this kiss is. Napoleon’s lips are a soft, dry brushstroke at the corner of Illya’s mouth, and Illya inhales sharply in surprise, breathing in the scent of aftershave and skin that makes Illya’s stomach drop and his brow knit in longing, despite himself. His inconvenient longing for Napoleon has been part of him for so many years now it feels part of his wiring, though letting go of the longing the moment it occurs is just as much part of his hardware.
Illya’s exhale takes the longing along with it, but fails to dissipate the awkwardness as Napoleon steps back, his hands lingering uncertainly at the tops of Illya’s arms. Illya shoots him an amused glance. One corner of Napoleon’s mouth quirks sideways, and Illya knows he is biting the inside of his cheek as he often does in his less confident moments.
“Funny,” Illya starts, pulling free to turn to the table and help himself to the chair across from the one Napoleon was seated in a minute ago, “I always assumed you were the fashionably late type.”
Napoleon cocks his head and flicks his fingers in the air before shrugging. Sliding into his chair with a minor fuss of rearranging fabric, he announces, “Tony should be by soon with the Fiano.”
The music is loud, so Illya leans over the table to be heard. “Is that a red?” he asks, clasping his hands and resting his forearms, elbows and all, on the tablecloth.
Meeting Illya’s gaze almost guiltily, Napoleons replies, “Ah, no.” The expression on his face is the one he makes when Mr. Waverly asks him a question he doesn’t know the answer to, or when he calls a girl by the wrong name, or when his mother calls him the day after her birthday.
Illya enjoys the expression privately. He flattens his hands on the table, amused by the way Napoleon watches the movement as though he has never seen a man’s hands before. “Don’t worry, Napoleon,” Illya says pityingly. “Nobody’s perfect.”
Dinner continues with many anecdotes about Oklahoma and a thankfully small number of Napoleon’s cumbersome attempts at making Illya feel comfortable. Illya tries to be patient—has been patient for weeks now—but he has waited through this before. It’s a certain stage in his friendships with heterosexual males. It occurs after they finish being painfully unsettled by their new knowledge of Illya’s preferences, and before they become able to spend time around Illya without giving it a second thought. It’s the transitory period of condescendingly assuming things of Illya that simply are not true: that he wants his attractiveness verbally validated by all men, that he wants to be looked at, that he wants his chair pulled out for him and his cheek kissed upon greeting, that he wants to hear his friends discuss the timeless ethical dilemma of whether Paul Newman is more attractive than Steve McQueen.
Each of the few times he has been through this before, it has never been quite so upsetting as this, however. He finds himself angered instead of bored, and frustrated rather than insulted. It isn’t that Napoleon is acting any worse, let alone differently, than Illya’s previous friends with whom he has been so open; it’s that in the case of those previous friends, Illya didn’t want them to compliment his appearance, stare at him, kiss his cheek, or claim to be open to the idea of sleeping with a male movie star.
But with Napoleon, Illya can’t help hearing what he wants to hear, can’t help thinking Napoleon likes fair-colored men best even as his reason—trained by consecutive years of physical attraction toward his partner that was over and over again proven to be one-sided—pops the hopeful bubble before it is even released to float free in his chest.
So as Napoleon brings up the subject of the latest film Peter O’Toole is starring in—discussing how very charming he finds the actor’s features and how compelling his eyes and suggesting to Illya that they should go see it together some time and he should wear that lovely blue sweater that cuts his figure so nicely—Illya scowls at his now empty plate, thinking that perhaps he shouldn’t have eaten so fast, because his stomach is twisting in knots.
“Napoleon,” Illya says, finding strength, as he always has, in saying the name, reducing the man down to four syllables over which he has power. “What’s this all about?” he asks, impatience dragging his voice down to make it sound more like a demand than a question.
“What’s the matter, you don’t like tiramisu?” Napoleon replies innocently. Illya wishes that Napoleon were intelligent enough that his innocence could clearly be identified as feigned or sincere at all times, but that is not the case. Flipping the dessert menu between his fingers, Napoleon meets Illya’s heavy sigh with direct eye contact. “Tell you what. Let’s stop and pick up some ice cream on the way to my apartment. You can pick the flavor. I know you like the ones they come up with just for the kids.”
“Says the man who can’t drink vodka unless it’s doused in fruit juice,” Illya fires back.
Napoleon sets down the menu and pulls out his wallet, shrugging. “A little sugar, a little spice…”
Illya smirks, feeling for a moment like things are back to the way they were. “Yes, it’s too bad you don’t have an appreciation for the salty things in life,” Illya yells over the volume of the music, waiting for Napoleon to fix his gaze on the nearest thing in high heels and retreat behind the wall of discomfort the way he used to, back when it was still fun to push him around by making him think of things he didn’t want to think about. Back when the joke wasn’t on Illya.
Disappointingly, Napoleon flicks his eyes up from his wallet to cautiously study Illya’s face, as the wine-induced flush at his neck smudges further up his skin. In the past few weeks, Illya has learned that Napoleon’s obliviousness, disgust, and then obsession with distancing himself from the abnormal had all been superior to Napoleon’s open-mindedness, which has only resulted in pity. Hung up on a man who would never isn’t so bad, in retrospect. But lovesick as a schoolgirl over a man who might, but doesn’t? That joke is on Illya.
Illya retrieves his own wallet and throws some bills in Napoleon’s general direction without looking.
Together they walk all the way to Napoleon’s apartment, stopping for ice cream since it was so generously offered. Illya has a standing policy of taking whatever Napoleon offers him. This policy may have its origins in a sort of youthful desperation, but it has developed into something practical: Illya has no investment in preserving his romantic feelings for his partner. Perpetually broken hearts and emotional masochism were for poets, adolescents, and Americans with nothing else to define themselves by. If taking something that Napoleon offers—and ultimately retracts—hurts enough to replace Illya’s affection entirely with resentment, it won’t be any great loss.
Or perhaps in addition to being not a great loss, it would be a relief to have one more thing to resent Napoleon for. Illya already resents him quite a lot. He resents Napoleon for his obliviousness, for his cruelty, for the embarrassing weakness of his insecurity, for every time he has teasingly flirted with Illya from within the safety of a girl’s arms, for every time he was tender one moment and guarded the next, and for the fact that Illya still finds him charming despite being able to see right through him, despite having studied him enough to know that there’s nothing objectively attractive in his plain features, his awkwardly bulbous chin, his soft figure. Perhaps accepting Napoleon’s proposal for a friendly dinner out, only to wait for hours and end up eating alone, will be the final brick in the wall of resentment being built around Illya’s heart. Perhaps taking Napoleon up on his offer of ice cream will result in the drugstore counter-girl taking Illya’s place in Napoleon’s evening plans, and Illya will breathe a sigh of relief as the last wave of his resilient affection breaks itself against his resentment, and disperses.
It is too warm in the building after walking briskly in the night outside, so as they wait for the elevator, Illya starts to shrug out of his jacket. Lightning-quick, Napoleon steps terribly close and pulls the jacket free of Illya’s arms, the way he does when Illya has a bruised rib or a shoulder wound. The smell of Napoleon’s tender proximity makes Illya’s heart clench, as always, with the remembered pain of bullets and broken bones and Napoleon’s insecure callousness.
But nothing is so bad as the light touch of his hand to the center of Illya’s back as the elevator slides open and Napoleon guides him to enter first. Illya’s eyes slide shut as he leans slightly into the careless pressure of that hand; it is the cruelest thing Napoleon could do.
Illya makes himself move, and as the elevator doors shut to show a smudged metallic reflection of his own coat tucked between Napoleon’s folded arms, he thinks of Napoleon’s cautious, inquisitive touch on the flayed skin of his back, weeks ago, in the prison cell that had seemed a luxury resort after a certain sadistic, THRUSH-appointed headmistress had deemed his flogging sufficient.
He has relived the moment over and over, in his mind. He can recall every detail: the drop of his stomach as Napoleon lifted his shirt; the humiliation of being inspected; the gentle stroke of Napoleon’s fingers; the sting as they dragged sweat across his wounds because Napoleon Solo doesn’t think about such details even when he is trying his hardest to be kind; the pity, the overwhelming pity, as Napoleon touched him like something breakable; the hot shame of sudden arousal despite all these things; the smell of the pillow he pressed his face into, holding himself entirely still, hoping pathetically to prolong the moment, to keep Napoleon’s pitying hands on him, to keep Napoleon’s pitying voice cooing into the air behind him.
Wrapped up in these memories are the equally vivid ones of each time he has brought himself to climax while thinking of these things. Illya is not one for fantasizing, and rarely imagined Napoleon in more than a vague way while engaged in anything sexual; but lately, on several occasions, halfway to finishing, his mind has been infiltrated by memories of Napoleon’s cool, pitying hands, of the breathless anticipation of Napoleon assessing his damage and deciding his fate, of Napoleon’s thumb brushing down his spine.
Illya doesn’t break his stare until the elevator opens and he can no longer see the reflection of his jacket in Napoleon’s pitying arms. He steps out into the hallway before Napoleon has the chance to guide him again with a hand beneath his shoulder blades.
Instead of the ice cream, they have more wine, a bottle of red something or other which Illya helps himself to from Napoleon’s collection. Napoleon crinkles his nose at Illya’s selection when he sees the label. The gesture serves as encouragement rather than the intended disapproval, because Illya doesn’t care whether it’s a wine that’s not suitable for after dinner or one that’s distressingly too expensive for Napoleon to want to waste it on Illya, but he does care about making Napoleon upset one way or the other.
With a habitual smirk, Illya props his feet up on Napoleon’s clean coffee table and sips loudly from his glass.
The dipping of the couch nearly makes him spill his second drink as Napoleon sits down next to him, saying, “Your cheeks get so pink.” Suddenly the backs of Napoleon’s cool, narrow fingers are brushing the skin just beneath Illya’s cheekbone. It’s a terribly presumptuous move, assuming that Illya’s general enjoyment of masculine touch entitles men to touch him however they like, even as a fawning auntie would touch her feverish favorite nephew. Illya has no right to complain about the presumption, however, as he bears this touch by providing as few indicators of discouragement as he has every other time; he stares at a spot on the ground, breathes carefully even breaths, and silently waits for it to end.
It does, eventually, end. Illya feels more deeply flushed than he was from the wine, and he leans forward to refill his glass to make up for it, bracing his elbows on his knees and spinning the stem of the glass in the space between.
In the warmth of his third serving, Illya finds the ambition to protest Napoleon’s presumptuous treatment of him. “As happy as I am, Napoleon, that your stomach no longer seizes up in terror of my proclivities, I do wish you could treat me like any other man—”
“Mm, but I can’t treat you like any other man,” Napoleon says in a certain level, yet melodic, tone of voice, cutting Illya off.
Suspicious of the warmth in Napoleon’s voice, Illya looks over his hunched right shoulder at Napoleon, only to find him leaning closer than necessary. Illya retreats to slouch with his back against the seat cushion and asks, warily, “Why is that?” He watches Napoleon press his mouth flat and tilt his head to the side, his usual pantomime of considering a response that’s already planned out. Illya breathes, and tries to unravel the confusion building up around him in the wake of Napoleon’s unrelenting invasion of his space.
Then Napoleon shifts, uncrossing his legs and twisting to rest his elbow on the back of the couch, near Illya’s head. “Because you still make my stomach seize up.”
Feeling the sting before understanding the meaning, Illya casts a wounded, cautious glance up into Napoleon’s earthy eyes, which are frustratingly the most inscrutable feature in his generally exaggerated face.
The next moment, Napoleon kisses him, and Illya really should have seen this coming.
Napoleon’s awful, counter-productive attempt at flirtation, the invitation back to the apartment, the light touches, the careful negotiation of space, the nice restaurant: this has been Napoleon’s aim from the beginning. This is Napoleon’s foolish, ill-advised, ineffective attempt at seducing him.
Illya is kissing him back before he even decides to start. As though from a great distance away, he feels his own lips soften under the taste of Napoleon’s breath, feels the press of Napoleon’s soft cheek against his nose, feels his own heart drop low into a hard, speeding rhythm. He does not feel thrilled, and he certainly does not feel relief. He does not feel as though he is finally getting something he has coveted for years.
Suddenly, Napoleon settles a hand gently upon Illya’s jaw while producing a soft, tangled sound in the back of this throat—a precisely choreographed combination that Illya has seen performed upon countless women—and in this moment, Illya is overwhelmed by an intense desire to send Napoleon reeling, make him slip up his own choreographed steps. He lets his eyes slide shut as Napoleon’s are, and surges forward into the heat of Napoleon’s mouth.
He slides his fingers around the cradle of Napoleon’s skull and holds him there, feeling with his thumb as the hinge of Napoleon’s jaw opens to allow Illya’s tongue past his teeth.
Illya’s chest feels as broken as a sob when he tastes the abrupt snag in Napoleon’s breath.
Illya bites, inhales, and tries to taste as much of Napoleon’s lips, tongue, teeth, as he can. Absurdly, he’s equally motivated by the desire to prove himself as he is by the desire to experience the sensation of kissing Napoleon Solo. For years, Illya has had to patiently bear Napoleon’s bragging tales of his prowess with women, while any slight mention of his own sex life sent a visible shiver of discomfort up Napoleon’s spine. Illya knows all of Napoleon’s tricks, but Napoleon knows none of his, and the countless times Illya has thought to himself, You don’t even know, are all assembling in this moment, driving him to show Napoleon just how clueless he has been, just how much he has been missing.
It feels somewhat more sad than victorious. Illya is too swept up in the feeling to care.
Blindly, he sets his wine glass down on the coffee table and brings his newly freed hand up to Napoleon’s neck, sliding his fingers down just under the back edge of his shirt’s collar. He flexes his hands slightly, relishing the delicious vulnerability of Napoleon’s flesh in his hands—caught between Illya’s palms, holding his jugular and his skull in place. It’s a tender position, one Illya could use to snap a man’s neck, and he’s intoxicated by using it to show Napoleon what kissing is supposed to feel like.
With a soft whine which he does nothing to stop from spilling into the mess of lips, Illya gets one knee up on the sofa, molds an upward curl into the neck between his palms, and has his way with Napoleon’s mouth.
The next time Illya opens his eyes, pulling back for a chaotic breath and looking down at the chaos in his hands, he realizes he is thoroughly drunk—if only off the shining smear of his spit on Napoleon’s parted, wine-red lips, and the hungry gape of his wide, lost pupils.
Before he has the chance to sober up, Illya lets go and strips his own torso bare, pulling his sweater over his head and dropping it to the floor. He reaches for Napoleon’s hands and plucks them from their useless hovering, and on the very next breath, he presses those manicured fingers tightly against his expanding ribcage.
Napoleon flattens his hands. He doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. Illya keeps Napoleon’s open gaze locked into his, watching with a note of bitterness for a flinch that hasn’t come. When Illya slides their joined hands slowly across his chest, dragging Napoleon’s touch upwards, it is with a strange, deep churning in his gut. He waits for Napoleon to pull away in distress at the flatness of Illya’s pectoral region, but it doesn’t happen, and Illya perversely feels something akin to disappointment. He bends to kiss Napoleon again, then pulls back to challenge, “Did you want to take me to bed, Napoleon?” in a tone of voice over which he has no control.
Napoleon is staring at Illya’s mouth, and so Illya half-consciously wets his lower lip with his tongue. The fingers at his chest tighten, claw-like. “I, ah, did offer to buy you dinner, first,” Napoleon replies, his voice dreamy and distracted.
Illya stands, and draws Napoleon up to him. “You can,” he bites out, while their bodies inch closer together, their hands lain naturally on one another’s shoulders. Illya’s throat is thick with desire for all the things he wants. From his slight height advantage, Napoleon leans down, going in for a kiss which Illya dodges. “But,” Illya says, before tripping Napoleon easily and knocking him directly onto his back. Before the breath that was knocked out of Napoleon on impact can return to him, Illya gets a knee digging into the hardwood floor on either side of Napoleon’s waist and folds over to place his lips just centimeters above Napoleon’s. “I prefer the floor.”
There is no protest as Illya begins to work his mouth down Napoleon’s neck, across his throat, tasting every pore he can reach. There is tension in the tendons beneath his tongue, however, and in the tentative hands alighting on his sides. Illya makes quick work of Napoleon’s tie, collar, and first several buttons, and tastes every exposed inch of his sternum, with no goal in mind but to taste.
“How Russian…of you,” Napoleon chokes out, the moment Illya pulls his shirt far enough to the side to lick across his nipple.
Startled, Illya lifts his head just enough to ask, “What?” because he has no idea to what Napoleon is referring. It occurs to him that Napoleon is very unused to being on the receiving end of such attentions, to have someone finding his skin beautiful and kissing across it, but none of these things have to do with Illya’s homeland.
Napoleon shudders under him, and Illya tilts to look up and meet his gaze. “To prefer the floor,” is what he says, his voice as shaky as his chest is, trembling under Illya’s chin.
And he looks so pathetic, lying there, so desperately trying to keep up, struggling to produce confidence where he has none, taking blind shots at being charming but only revealing his uncertainty instead.
It was so easy to take him down.
Suddenly Illya identifies the churning in his stomach. It is the hollow space carved out by, and typically reserved for, disgust—but instead of disgust, it is occupied and activated by desire, so strongly that it almost doesn’t feel like disgust at all, but merely a confusing ache of complex, violent want.
In this moment, Illya realizes that following through on this is a very bad idea. They have already done enough to ensure that Napoleon will be seeking a severe amount of distance tomorrow morning, and Illya hasn’t even begun to take him apart in earnest, hasn’t even touched him. He should stop, before going any further with such complicated intentions.
But Napoleon seems to be filled with an equally messy cocktail of feelings because even though Illya can see that he is, in some way, frightened, he also tastes like lust when he curls up to press his mouth into Illya’s once more, and he feels like something not-quite-contained when he spreads one hand across the back of Illya’s belt and pulls him down until their bodies are flush and hard and fitting together with sinful perfection.
A moment later, they gasp in unison. This is everything Illya wants.
Illya rolls onto his back, dragging Napoleon with him and sending the coffee table skidding with his knee. His spine presses into the ground but he moans at the sureness of its resistance. Without breaking the seal of their lips, Napoleon settles delicately, braced on all fours above him, and Illya slides his hands into the unbuttoned shirt to push it off one shoulder, then the other. Very obliging, Napoleon lets Illya free his arms and wrists from each sleeve, and then shoves his hands in Illya’s hair and sighs into Illya’s mouth.
Pressing his palms up the naked expanse of Napoleon’s back, Illya compels Napoleon to lower himself, until finally, Napoleon’s chest is warm and heady against his. Illya breathes into its pressure, his skin slipping against Napoleon’s faint sweat, his ribcage expanding under Napoleon’s bones.
He feels as though he is melting in the best way, as though Napoleon’s kisses and the weight of him are transforming Illya into something less solid and definitely not human. It’s not enough weight, though, and he grunts in annoyance when he realizes that even though their chests are touching, Napoleon is bracing his hips up at a respectful distance, the way he surely would above a blushing maiden who would be frightened by the demanding pressure of what Napoleon has to offer. It’s not as if Illya has never felt an erection before.
In fact, he desperately wants to feel Napoleon, and he arches his hips up to find that heat before it even occurs to him that Napoleon might be the one who is frightened, who is wary of the difference between his reaction to his own erection and another man’s.
And the thought is not at the forefront of Illya’s mind as he feels the thick, hard pressure of Napoleon’s cock, secure against the inner juncture of Illya’s thigh, which is sensitive even through two pairs of trousers. He rubs up into the pressure, his own cock aching and growing against the blissful tuck of Napoleon’s pelvis.
And if Napoleon goes still in panic, it is for a moment so brief Illya can barely sense it, as he is overwhelmed by the way Napoleon’s body lights up and shoves Illya’s hips smacking straight back down onto the floor with the insistent weight of his own. Napoleon rubs wantonly against him, and Illya can barely breathe for how good it feels, for how hungrily Napoleon’s lips work to swallow his exhalations.
He grabs one of Napoleon’s hands from his hair and drags it down his body, electricity coursing through his skin in the wake of that callused palm. He bends and twists and shoves until he gets Napoleon’s hand between his legs, curled and cupping the fabric and flesh of Illya’s ass. Illya moans, squeezing Napoleon’s hand hard enough that his flesh pulls apart a little bit, just enough to hint at being stretched open. He tucks their joined fingers between the floor and his tailbone, and trusts Napoleon to keep the heel of his hand pressing into the space just behind his testicles. Napoleon makes a choking sound against Illya’s lips.
Without much thought, Illya reaches for the arm that Napoleon is currently bracing himself on, and turns his face to draw Napoleon’s hand toward his mouth. Their balance is unstable for a moment, until Napoleon settles on his elbow and lets Illya take control of his second hand.
Illya wraps his mouth around Napoleon’s first two fingers and sucks them down, feeling like he’s starving for them. With his eyes shut in concentration, he swirls his tongue across them, and curls up to slide his lips all the way down past the knuckles and to Napoleon’s palm. With a groan, Napoleon curls his fingers at the edge of Illya’s throat, but it still doesn’t feel deep enough.
Feeling crazed, between the warm pressure massaging his ass and the not-quite-enough fill of his mouth, Illya hollows his cheeks around Napoleon’s fingers and slides off before driving them back in again. He starts a rhythm, choking himself and straining his neck until Napoleon says, “Fuck,” and his fingers spasm hard, pressing the back of Illya’s tongue into place.
It’s uncanny, hearing Napoleon use such an uncharacteristic word. As Illya pulls back, releasing Napoleon’s hand to gag and cough, he opens his eyes to look at Napoleon, and sees warm brown eyes gone cold with overwhelm.
"Do you want me to leave?” Illya asks abruptly on his next full breath. It’s the first thing he can think of. He must know. It’s natural. It’s self-defense, to make an effort to leave before being asked to leave. He breathes hard, knowing that at least Napoleon knows him well enough that his words won’t come across as passive-aggressive.
Napoleon’s brow crinkles, and he withdraws both hands from where Illya placed them and rests them on the floor once again. Cocking his head to the side in a puzzling way that Illya does not necessarily find comforting, Napoleon says, “What?” Half a breath later, “No.” He looks down into Illya’s eyes, searching. “No,” he repeats, sounding particularly confused.
His lips follow and drink up Illya’s heavy sigh. Illya watches, and realizes that he feels less heated than he did a minute ago, and he’s not even sure exactly what changed.
But when Napoleon lifts himself and rolls onto his side, Illya doesn’t take the opportunity to stand up and leave, despite being distantly aware that it would probably be the smart thing to do. Instead, he follows the soft warmth of Napoleon’s body and settles himself lengthwise against it, bringing his lips to Napoleon’s sternum. There, he mouths the name, Napoleon, giving no voice to it, just tasting the skin against his teeth.
Together, they tumble so that Napoleon is on his back again, with Illya halfway on top of him and his knee between Napoleon’s thighs. So tentative, Napoleon’s hands come to delicately hold Illya’s head, and tangle in his hair. Illya feels absurdly on the brink of feeling wildly emotional at the gesture, as he buries his face in the skin over Napoleon’s ribcage, as he breathes in the human smell of his skin. Moisture gathers in his mouth, or maybe behind his eyelids.
Quiet and slow, Napoleon murmurs, “Just tell me—show me—what to do,” as his hand pets softly across the back of Illya’s head.
Illya bites down on the skin at his teeth, unable to constructively channel everything those words make him feel. The frustration—at Napoleon, for being so inexperienced, for assuming that Illya is willing to teach him new tricks to satisfy his curiosity, for being too cowardly to take the lead despite his insecurities. The desire—making Illya painfully hard against the front of his pants at the promise of Napoleon putting himself in Illya’s hands, open and ready for the taking. The disappointment—also at Napoleon, for being too not-in-love with Illya to know in his body exactly what to do—the way Illya knows in his body exactly what to do to Napoleon.
Illya ignores Napoleon’s request, and instead, does what he knows in his body to do.
Within moments, he has Napoleon’s thighs clenching beneath his forearms, Napoleon’s coarse black hair scraping his splayed, hungry palms, and Napoleon’s cock filling and twitching under his searching kisses.
As soon as he gets his lips wrapped wetly around Napoleon, sucking hard and working the marble-hard flesh down the length of his tongue and back up again, Illya shuts his eyes and barely hears the sounds Napoleon is making through the static ringing in his ears. It really isn’t fair, how good this feels. He fills his mouth, his throat, then empties it again, building a selfishly fast and sloppy rhythm. This is an act he enjoys in general. His enjoyment is only intensified when the other party is particularly responsive, twitching and leaking and yelping and arching beneath him. His enjoyment is only further intensified when he is already helplessly, physically attracted to the other man beyond comprehension.
So altogether, he feels as though he may have never felt so good in the history of his life.
He uses every trick he knows to make Napoleon come undone under his touch, relentless as he would be on himself, relentless as though Napoleon’s release will be his own, relentless like rubbing himself down into the unforgiving hold of the chilled wooden floor.
As intrinsically as he would know when he himself is about to come, he can tell when Napoleon is close, and he presses his palm against Napoleon’s balls and strokes his thumb just behind them and fists tightly around Napoleon’s shaft to feel every second, every subtle movement of release. The first searing pulse hits the back of Illya’s tongue, and Illya moans hungrily around the second one, drinking in every sensory detail like any one of them could be his last.
He licks, and swallows, until there’s nothing left to swallow, and then he licks Napoleon clean, momentarily mourning the loss of Napoleon’s foreskin—another few centimeters of flesh Illya could have tasted, if it was there. He keeps his lips light across the slit, until Napoleon starts to shrink and pull away from him, oversensitive.
Then Illya is breathing heavy air all over Napoleon’s spent cock from inches above it, looking up at Napoleon’s flushed, vaguely upset face, and he can’t think of where to go from here.
Napoleon curls into a sitting position, pitching Illya back until he is on hands and knees. With neither a word nor more than two glances, Napoleon tucks himself back into his pants and fastens them, while disentangling himself from Illya’s limbs in order to twist and lean with his back against the nearby sofa. He makes a rough sort of face and touches his back, now that it is no longer digging into the floor. Illya watches this all very carefully, waiting for some clue of what to do or feel next.
Eventually, Napoleon turns his head, very calculatedly, to regard Illya. He wears a smile that falls short of confidence but not of warmth. “Why are you all the way over there?” Napoleon asks from two feet away, between still labored breaths. He sets his hand, curled palm downward, on the floorboard beside him, before patting the spot twice.
It seems an incredibly awkward gesture, but Illya follows it anyways. He sits down next to Napoleon, not quite relaxed as he props his knees up at a loose angle.
It’s only a moment before Napoleon is pressing close again, his face settling atop Illya’s shoulder, which rises as his chest fills with excited breath yet again.
“Ah, may I?” Napoleon asks. His face, Illya realizes, is so close to Illya’s neck in order to hide, but the thought doesn’t make the touch any less riveting. Napoleon shoulders his way even closer, sharing some of his weight as he frees both hands to land lightly on Illya’s belt. Illya wonders if Napoleon notices the small wet spot just inches from his fingers.
Illya’s voice quakes on its way out, veined with uncertainty and desperation. “You don’t have to do…anything.” He doesn’t say it to give Napoleon the option to stop. He says it so that he will feel less foolish if Napoleon does stop. He holds his breath as Napoleon’s exhales onto his bare chest, as Napoleon’s fingers work open his belt.
“If that’s the way you approach these things,” Napoleon says, sounding oddly at ease, “it’s no wonder girls don’t call you back.”
They both go deadly still, the joke falling flat between them. As a rule, Illy really wishes Napoleon thought about his words before speaking. Sometimes, he wishes that he himself was the kind of person who could laugh about a joke about dating women made by a man who had just come in his mouth. For the hundredth time tonight, Illya wonders what it is that Napoleon wants, and then realizes that he doesn’t want to know, not yet.
The moment passes without laughter. Napoleon pulls down Illya’s straining zipper. “Get on with it, then,” Illya says, not sounding half as impatient or annoyed or humorous as he hoped he might. His words don’t seem to have any effect, anyways.
Napoleon uses both hands to pull him free of his boxers, making Illya moan pitifully at the warm, light touch. Illya straightens one leg out in front of them to offer better access. Napoleon uses the space to curl further in toward him.
Hating the breathless sounds he is already making, Illya watches attentively as Napoleon holds his cock in a loose fist with one hand and delicately explores the wetness at the tip with his other fingers. There’s no trusting his voice right now, so Illya gives up on having any control over what happens, and buries his face into the hair on the crown of Napoleon’s head.
Napoleon is blessedly quiet, despite the fact that he is clearly thinking a lot, observing what’s between his palms and experiencing reactions to it. But he says nothing, even as his fist stutters into a slow, dry rhythm.
It feels awfully good, especially when Illya drags in long inhales from Napoleon’s oily scalp, and when Napoleon licks his hand to lubricate his way just the slightest bit. And that there, the knowledge of Napoleon’s spit smeared over his cock, sears into Illya’s mind in a way he is sure will scar permanently.
Almost unconsciously, Illya grabs hold of Napoleon, curling inward to clutch at his neck with one hand and his spine with the other. He feels Napoleon’s free arm slide under his lower back so he can grab at Illya’s waist and fit him close. The embrace feels unsustainable, like a held breath. It burns in Illya’s veins.
The worst part of it all is that Napoleon doesn’t transform, the way Illya has felt men transform before: men who didn’t know that they wanted to touch other men, but who, the moment their hands touched him, began thrumming with tangible desire and a desperate awakening Illya could taste on their lips. Acute shame radiates from Illya’s realization that he hoped Napoleon would be one of those men. Some part of him has been hoping that for a long, long time.
The shame sidles intimately into Illya’s tight bloodstream, slipping alongside the oxygen depravation of Napoleon’s unstable hold, the hot running pleasure from his chaffing hand, and the filthy knowledge of Napoleon’s taste and scent, which Illya took and is keeping for himself, trapped in the watery hollow beneath his tongue and in his veins.
Illya begins to spurt against Napoleon’s wrist, and Napoleon hums out, “There you go,” pleased and encouraging and sounding for all the world like he’s murmuring to a baby who has just ceased its crying. Illya finishes quickly, with Napoleon’s hair catching between his teeth, with his heels digging into the ground.
A minute later, Napoleon moves in as though to kiss him. Illya jerks away before Napoleon can reach his mouth. In the awkward, silent space between their faces, Illya realizes how stupid his reaction was. Napoleon is surely familiar with his own flavor, and has surely kissed girls who had him on their tongues. Still, it seems different. “You wouldn’t like the taste,” Illya says, staring at the kitchen door.
He tilts his head just enough to watch Napoleon consider his implication. Solemnly, Napoleon nods, as though seeing the wisdom in Illya’s words. Illya’s throat aches with disappointment.
It’s so quiet in the apartment that Illya first begins putting his clothes back on just to fill the space with the sound of fabric rustling. It’s better than the thoughts that might run through his head if he stops. Once his belt is clinking, he realizes he’s standing almost completely dressed above Napoleon, who hasn’t moved a muscle, hasn’t said a word.
Once he’s tying his shoes, Napoleon speaks up. “Did you want to, ah, stay?”
Illya pauses, the absurdity of Napoleon’s timing striking him to stillness. Now, once Illya’s already dressed and moments away from being ready to walk out the door, once Napoleon is safe from him even considering the offer, now Napoleon asks. On top of that, he doesn’t even look Illya in the eye; he seems to be staring into space, lost in his own little—so little—world of thought.
It all makes Illya so angry, he can’t bring himself to properly respond. “See you at eight tomorrow,” he says tersely, running his hand through his hair and over his face before heading for the door.
The worst part is that when he says it, Napoleon looks relieved.
Illya should have seen this coming, and he vows to have better foresight in the future. All foresight, and not hindsight. If Napoleon wants to pretend this mistake never happened, (and it’s pretty clear to Illya that that is the case,) then Illya can pretend it never happened, too.
“See you at eight,” is the last thing Illya hears before he shuts the door quietly behind him.