For a long time, he watched from the shadows. The gypsies were in town and he'd always been fascinated by them.
"Hide your daughters and wives," the men had shouted, but they said nothing about little boys. Besides, Illya could take care of himself. He watched them in their colorful wagons and brightly patterned clothes.
He was concentrating so hard that the hand on his shoulder nearly made him jump from his skin. An old woman stood there, her fingers twisted and gnarled with age, her gray hair tucked into a dirty red handkerchief.
"And who have we here?" she said softly.
"I haven't taken anything," Illya blurted out, although he wasn't sure way.
"A very gypsy thing to say." Her grip lessened, but Illya didn't move. It wasn't fear, but curiosity that kept him rooted to the spot. He'd never been this close to a gypsy before. "What's your name? Mine is Luyba."
"That means love," Illya said, and then his eyes grew round. "You have a Russian name!"
"I do… and yours?"
"Illya Nichovetch." He was in the square with many people nearby. She couldn't hurt him. If she tried to grab him, he'd run away. That knowledge made him brave.
"I'm very pleased to me you, Illya Nichovetch." She stretched out her hand. "Let me see your palm. I won't hurt you."
Hesitantly, Illya held his grubby hand out to her. "You've had a busy morning, I see." She spit on a corner of her apron and rubbed it over Illya's palm until it was fairly clean. Then she studied it for a long moment. "You had quite an adventure ahead of you, Illya Nichovetch. You will travel far and live the life of a gypsy. And just when you have given up hope, your dreams will find you." With her free hand, she reached into a pocket and pulled something out. She pressed it into his palm and closed his fingers over it.
"I have no money," Illya said softly.
"And I ask for nothing except your kind thoughts and to take my gift, from one gypsy to another."
He'd run home after that and carefully examine her gift to him, a small talisman. Without quite realizing it, he found a bit a string and fashioned a necklace for himself. He kept it out of sight from Mama and Papa. They wouldn't understand the ways of a gypsy.
****
"Illya Nichovetch, wake up!" Grigory was pounding on his hotel room door. He waited a whole minute before opening it, sending a shaft of light directly into Illya's face. Illya rolled over in bed with a groan. He could actually roll over in bed!
"Leave me alone, Grigory Ivanovich!" He pulled the pillow – he had more than one pillow! – over his head.
"I can't believe you are going to sleep your leave away." Grigory grabbed one of Illya's feet and tried to tickle it. Illya kicked himself free.
But why shouldn't he? For the last ten months, he'd been locked way on a submarine, sharing a bunk too narrow for one person with a fellow sailor. Here he had a bed to himself, with sheets that didn't stink of sweat and semen. And when he finally decided to rise, he would have a hot shower, alone, with a towel that wasn't damp from someone else's shower.
"Come on, we'll go find some girls!"
"Grigory, right now, I am not interested in a woman, unless she is Mother Slumber."
"I don't believe you!" With a dismissive wave, Grigory was gone and Illya sighed happily. He just wanted to sleep.
He woke and the room was very dark. His internal clock was befuddled from months beneath the sea. He tried to drag a wrist to his eyes to squint at his watch when he realized he wasn't alone. Wasn't that just great?
"Who are you?"
"Who do you think?" The voice was a purr in his ear and Illya frowned. It was Russian, but there was an odd accent to it, perhaps Kazakhstan?
"I don't…" The hands were running over his body in a way that was both familiar and yet alarming. While Illya wasn't against relieving a little sexual tension with his fellow sailors, he was always the one in control and he never permitted pene… he heard himself groaning as a penis slid home. He felt ripped in two and he never felt more complete.
"Love you, Illya Nichovetch," the voice moaned, breathless in his ear. Illya was too busy grunted and pressing back against the man, his lover?
Then with a sensation that he was about to exploded, Illya climaxed, feeling the man follow suit a second later.
Illya rolled away panting and then turned to face… no one. He was completely alone and he blinked in as the harsh light of afternoon pushed past the threadbare curtain.
Alone… just like always.
Illya tilted his head back to catch the last couple of drops from the glass. The vodka he'd bought was cut rate, but that was okay. It burned its way down Illya's throat in a comforting and familiar way. He let the hotel curtain drop and he turned back to his empty hotel room. Somewhere, Napoleon was out on the town, tomcatting his way from one lucky woman to the next. Lucky women.
Illya unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it and his tee shirt off in one motion. He tossed them to the floor below his suitcase. Tomorrow he would stuff them into the white plastic bag in preparation for leaving. Tonight, he would be a slob.
He turned and caught sight of himself in the mirror. Hanging around his neck was his gypsy talisman. It had made the transfer from string to a chain now, but Illya still remembered that morning. He could still smell her, feel her hands holding his. Still remembered her words -"You have quite an adventure ahead of you, Illya Nichovetch. You will travel far and live the life of a gypsy and of a hero. And just when you have given up hope, your dreams will find you."
It was true he'd certainly done and seen more than the average Russian. He wasn't quite sure about the hero part, but UNCLE had certainly made a gypsy out of him, running here and there, hiding, watching, ever-cautious of those around him.
He splashed more vodka into the glass and downed it. It was too bad the other part wouldn't come true, couldn't come true. Napoleon saw him as a friend, a partner, but nothing more. Life's great irony was making Illya Nichovetch fall in love with a confirmed and committed skirt chaser like Napoleon.
With a final sigh, Illya set the glass down, stripped out of his pants and pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms. He'd prefer to sleep without. The hotel room was stifling, but THRUSH had made a believer out of him when it came to wearing pajamas to bed.
Yawning, he climbed into bed and read until he couldn't keep his eyes open a minute longer. Turning off the light, he hoped Napoleon would sleep safely tonight.
Movement on the bed woke him and he slipped his hand slightly to rest upon the butt of his Walther.
"Don't shoot, it's just me," Napoleon said and Illya sighed, letting himself back away from the cliff of adrenaline he'd been about to ride.
"What's wrong?" Illya rolled over. Napoleon was sitting on the edge of the bed taking off his shoes. There was only one bed in the room, but Illya hadn't thought much about it. Rarely did Napoleon stay in when they had a layover.
"Couldn't find anything that I fancied tonight." Napoleon stood and walked to the bathroom.
Illya made a face and rolled over to the other side of the bed. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to share with Napoleon; it wouldn't be the last, not with Waverly's cost-cutting measures in place.
He'd nearly drifted off to sleep when he felt Napoleon climb back into bed… and then settle against him.
"Napoleon?"
"Who do you think?" Napoleon's hands were skimming Illya's stomach, strangely familiar, but alien too. How many times Illya had tried to imagine what this would feel like. "I'm sorry, Illya, I can't… I've tried so hard to… resist…"
Illya's gut clenched at the words and he let his hand find and clasp Napoleon's. "Why?"
"Isn't it obvious? I love you, Illya. I have for what feels like forever."
Illya's body must have carried his confusion to Napoleon for his hands stilled. "What's wrong? Don't tell me I've read this wrong?"
"No, it was just a feel of déjà vu. For the first time in my life, everything's right." As he turned and proceeded to love the night away, a bit of Illya's mind, the part that could still lay claim to rational though, whispered a message of thanksgiving and love to a gypsy he'd once met in the town square a half a lifetime ago.