Friday evening finds Illya glaring into the middle distance above Mrs. Vanlian's head as she fusses with the tie (the noose) around his neck. She slides the knot up against his throat with a masterful flick of the wrist, and Illya thinks of a short drop and a sudden stop. He scowls, forgetting that mothers have eyes on top of their heads. The pat on his cheek is a bit more forceful than it might have been after that, and her warm brown eyes have a glint of steel in them.

"Behave," she says firmly, in English, and then in Russian, "you dug yourself into this, now you must climb out."

"Yes, Mrs. Vanlian," he mutters in sullen Armenian, and she yanks on his tie so she can smack him on the head.

"You are good boy," she says, still holding onto the tie. "Act like it." Then she kisses his cheek and lets him go with a smile. "And have fun! It is not every day you get to go to fancy dinner party, is it?"

"No, Mrs. Vanlian," he agrees with a stiff smile, and wishes to god it weren't today, either.


Lest there be any doubt, this is entirely the fault of Napoleon Solo and his croissants.

As if there could be doubt about that.


The preceding Tuesday is an otherwise normal day of the week, all things considered. Illya goes to work, stopping at La Mie on his way to pick up his now-regular order of croissants. He has learned to endure the crowd inside and only occasionally finds himself fighting down the urge to break his own fingers simply to pass the time. The brown paper bag is ready and waiting on the counter by the time he gets to the till, but he checks inside partly for practicality's sake but also just a little bit to be annoying. Four croissants, perfect and warm, as usual.

"Peril," Solo says, with his strange, wry amusement and rings up the order. Just once Illya comes in covered in plaster dust, and Solo nearly has an apoplexy shooing him away from the counter because for God's sake, I just put these out! Stop imperiling the palmiers and go brush yourself off!

"Cowboy," Illya returns, and earns himself a flat look. Solo's apron is plain white while the bakery is open, but he has an array for when he's off the clock. The one with the horses and cactuses is permanently imprinted on Illya's brain, and he's never going to let Solo forget it.

He goes to work, eating one croissant on the way, and remarks — as always — that Solo has not yet taken his advice.

That doesn't stop him from eating the rest of them with just as much relish later on, but still.

It starts to rain a little after his lunch break, which is miserable but, according to his supervisors, not really a problem. It's only roofing — it's not like he needs proper traction to avoid falling to his death, or anything, and God forbid this block not be completed to deadline. He's in far too sour a mood to return to La Mie afterwards, and so he goes straight home.

On Wednesday, Solo is a mess.

That would be too strong a descriptor for anyone else in the same situation, but compared to his usual pristine presentation, it is apt. His hair is just a touch too rumpled and his smile just a bit too rigid. There is a noticeable smear of something on his apron, and his sleeves are rolled unevenly. There are five croissants in Illya's bag. There's nothing outside to suggest that the world is ending, and yet it would seem that Judgement Day is upon them. "You okay?" Illya asks, shelling out the extra coins despite the fact that Solo doesn't seem to have noticed the surfeit.

"Fine," Solo tells him with an overbright grin that doesn't hide the crazed gleam of exhaustion in his too-wide eyes.

"I'll come back later," Illya says carefully, somewhere between a question and a promise, and takes the bag from the counter with slow, deliberate motions.

The grin falters for half an instant before returning a few shades more forced. "Please don't."


Illya heads straight home after work to clean up and offer his apologies to the Vanlians.

"Yes," Mariam agrees darkly when Illya describes Solo's state that morning. "I went after school, and he had flour in his hair. Is he cracking? Is he dying?" She gestures expansively, as if to indicate that this is a question that may never be answered.

Illya rolls his eyes, which encourages her only marginally less than smiling. "He's not dying, he's busy."

"That's what he wants you to think."

"It is good of you to help him, jans," Mrs. Vanlian interrupts, and steers Mariam towards the kitchen table, where her two sisters, Yeva and Siran, are very obviously not doing their homework. "Mariam, gna anek' dzer tnayin. Yev ognel dzer k'uyrerin," she adds, with a meaningful stare at the forgotten books. She comes back to the doorway, where Illya is waiting and trying not to hunch over. He always feels far too tall in this home of small people. "No apology necessary," she continues, returning to Russian. "We will do another night, and if not, the party will come soon enough."

Illya thanks her, stumbling only slightly over the Armenian syllables, and returns to his own apartment across the hall to inhale a decidedly unimpressive meal before heading out again.

The bakery's door is locked when Illya arrives, but he's learned to recognize the faint light emanating from the hidden kitchen, and he didn't leave Russia with no skills. It takes perhaps longer than it should, but he gets the door open with two hairpins and a friendly shove, and then manages to stifle the bell above before it can make too much of a racket. Not that it would have mattered — given the noise coming from the kitchen, Solo probably wouldn't notice if someone smashed in the front windows.

Illya relocks the door behind him and slips across the room, behind the counter, and around the partial wall that screens the kitchen entrance from the seating area.

The kitchen is a maelstrom of activity. All three of the industrial stand mixers are running, along with most of the fans, and the ovens and refrigerators fill what's left of the silence with a low, faintly vibrating hum. Steam rises from pots pushed back to simmer on the stovetop along the far wall, and there's flour everywhere.

Not for the first time, Illya recalls that this building had previously belonged to a milliner, and had seemingly changed hands very quickly. Consternation has long since faded to a feeling of resigned inevitability, however, and it no longer galls him to think of how much work — plumbing, wiring, ventilating, tiling, plastering, and on and on and on — must have gone into the transition. The more he has gotten to know Solo, the more he has realized that hard work veiled as effortless happenstance is no less taxing for its appearance.

Needless to say, this is not something he ever plans on admitting out loud.

Solo is visible only from the neck down, head obscured by a line of shiny copper pots hanging down from a rack on the ceiling, and the large knife in one hand stops Illya from announcing himself. He's chopping…mushrooms, it looks like, at a rate that for anyone else would be ill-advised.

"Do you often skip dinner with your neighbors to break into bakeries?" The question is casual, and the knife doesn't falter, so Illya feels he isn't risking life and limb (his own or anyone else's) by snorting.

"The two are not mutually inclusive, but one or the other… more often than you might think. How did you know?"

"Well, I was fairly sure I'd locked the door—"

"Cowboy."

A portion of Solo's head appears in the gap between pan, one bright blue eye and half of a grin. "Mariam told me," he admits after a bit, and disappears again. "It's her birthday this weekend, did you know? I think she wants me to make her a cake, but she never quite got around to asking."

"She thinks you're dying," Illya explains, wandering a bit further into the kitchen.

"Really? That's unfortunate." He sounds not at all concerned.

"Or 'cracking,' I think she said. Something to do with flour in your hair."

Solo hums. "Afraid she's not too far off the mark, there." He doesn't specify which remark he's referring to, and Illya doesn't feel the need to ask since it's almost definitely both.

"So, will you?" Illya asks. He sizes up one of the refrigerators, figures it's at least as sturdy as it looks, and leans against it. The metal is cool against his back, almost soothing in the warm, close air, and he has a better view.

"Will I what?" The knife flicks across the cutting board, sending the mushrooms neatly into a waiting bowl, which in turn is whirled away and up-ended into a pan on the stove. They sizzle and spit, and Solo gives the pan a few sharp swirls before covering it and turning back to his cutting board.

"Make her a cake."

Solo smiles the same forced smile from that morning. "I would love to, Peril, really I would, but you may have noticed that I'm just a bit swamped at the moment."

"I had noticed," Illya agrees.

"Then for God's sake get over here and make yourself useful," Solo snaps, and so begins one of the longest, strangest nights of Illya's life.

Solo makes him roll up his sleeves and wash his hands to the elbow, then tosses him an apron and gives him a lightning-quick tour of the kitchen before putting him in charge of the pie crust.

"Ingredients are simple, technique is straightforward, but I want it rolled out six times and it should be no more than a quarter inch thick when you cut it." Solo slaps down a recipe scrawled in what is no doubt far from his best handwriting, and opens his mouth to continue being exacting and pretentious, but Illya takes him by the shoulders and forcibly turns him back to the intimidating pile of bell peppers waiting to be chopped.

"I know how to handle a pie crust, Cowboy," he says, and proceeds to handle it.

The quiches — twelve dozen mini-quiches, to be precise, all stuffed with ham and mushrooms and peppers and perched in impeccably flaky crusts — are finished, wrapped, and stacked in the refrigerator by nine o'clock. Solo had to stop partway through to pull the dough from the mixers and shape it, so when the quiches are done, the bread begins. Illya attends to the baking while Solo turns his knife to a mountain of tomatoes, and so it goes.

They don't talk much, so it takes Illya a little while to figure out what's happening, but he's not an idiot. Solo is having him assist with the baking for the day ahead, while Solo himself prepares incrementally for something else entirely. Rolls, pastries, and appetizers that Illya has never seen sold in La Mie take gradual shape — a filling here, set aside or chilled for later, a topping there, a practice run of things for which even Solo has to consult recipes. Illya, meanwhile, is given the straightforward breads and some of the simpler tarts, things that require time and attention but not great amount of finesse.

Around two in the morning, Solo glances at the clock, does a double-take, peers at it like he doesn't quite believe what he sees, and sends Illya home. He doesn't apologize for keeping him late, although he has to know that Illya needs to be at his own work in only a few hours.

For the first time in years, Illya oversleeps, and doesn't have time to stop for his croissants.

It's oddly upsetting.


Thursday evening, Illya goes home, showers, and returns to La Mie to find it - and Solo - in much the same state as the previous night (down to the locked door, which Illya thinks is solely for his personal irritation) Solo just points to the sink once he sees him, and Illya dutifully begins to scrub. "When is your event?" he asks, to break the silence.

"Tomorrow," Solo tells him, and Illya stiffens. If yesterday had been bad, tonight will be hellish. "Tomorrow night," Solo clarifies, and Illya relaxes a bit. "So we have twenty-two hours," he concludes, which is not at all conducive to relaxation.

"Have you considered closing bakery tomorrow?" Illya asks as he dries his hands.

"And why would I do that?"

"So you can sleep?" Illya suggests.

"Hah," says Solo, tonelessly. Illya doesn't bother trying to persuade him, just resolves to match him, hour for hour. Solo obviously hasn't slept in some time, and if he can manage, so can Illya.

Tired Solo is quiet, Illya discovers, almost taciturn. His directions are curt, his observations brief, his answers to Illya's questions succinct, and his responses to Illya's comments nonexistent. He has a list of all that they need to do, which he passes to Illya in lieu of speaking whenever it's more convenient for him. Regular Solo is a chatterbox (a word he picked up from Davit, the youngest Vanlian, whose teacher has apparently used it to describe him on several occasions), and Illya finds he almost misses it: the casual ribbing, the off-hand remarks, the good-natured denunciation of his technique.

They do another batch of quiches — the first had been a test-run, apparently, to gauge their reception — then Solo turns Illya loose on the bread and starts mixing up several kinds of batter.

Illya loses himself to the background noise and the feel of the dough under his hands; he looks up a few dozen baguettes later to find Solo wordlessly holding out a cup of coffee.

"I thought you didn't make coffee," he says after a moment, recalling their first meeting.

Solo actually quirks a smile at that. "This is New York, Peril," he says. "Everyone makes coffee. More importantly, everyone drinks it."

"Not me," Illya tells him. "But thank you."

"You'll need it eventually," Solo says drily.

"Perhaps," Illya agrees, "but not yet."

"You sure?" Solo asks, with just a little too much nonchalance.

Illya sighs. "Drink your coffee, Cowboy."


It's been a while since Illya's had to work through the night, but like most habits, it's not hard to fall back on. The work is soothing, in a way, and he and Solo slip into teamwork far more easily than he'd expected. Solo checks the timers on the bread when he passes, taking out and turning batches as he needs to while Illya's up to his elbows in dough that needs a bit more flour; Illya wipes up his counters when he's away at the mixers or making more coffee, and chips away at the mountain of dirty dishes and utensils whenever he finds a free moment. They know when to get out of each other's way and when to offer a hand, and Illya is rapidly becoming proficient in reading Solo's minute expressions and gestures, which can mean anything from come here to you're using the wrong knife.

Night gradually turns over into morning. There are no windows in the kitchen, but the clock has been marching inexorably onward, the small hours becoming larger. Solo is icing tiny layered cakes with the careful precision born of exhaustion and too much caffeine, so Illya takes the croissant dough from the refrigerator. It's already been laminated and folded three times, but there's enough time until opening for one more. He rubs a handful of flour into the countertop and goes searching for a rolling pin.

"Croissants are already done," Solo calls without looking up.

"No, they are not," says Illya. "You still have not taken my advice." He locates a rolling pin in one of the drawers near where Solo is hunched over the rotating cake stand. He half expects Solo to physically stop him, but Solo is either too tired or too far past caring to do anything other than glare. That, or he thinks the glare itself is sufficient.

It isn't.

Unfazed, Illya takes the rolling pin back to his area and unwraps the dough.

"Peril," Solo says mildly, with steel underneath. "Baguettes are one thing, but croissants are a whole other—"

Illya folds the dough in thirds and rolls it out with one long sweep of the rolling pin. "You wanted me to help," he says, "so I help."

Solo takes a breath, as if to give Illya a piece of his mind, but after a brief pause he simply sighs and goes back to his cakes.

"If you ruin them, there will be consequences," is all he says.

Illya doesn't believe him.

This is a mistake.


Thanks for reading! Please feel free to leave any feedback you'd like to, and I hope to have the rest up soon!