December 23, 1965. The eve of Christmas eve. Two agents slip into an office after a series of very long but successful days. They type up their reports and hand them in to the secretary, who smiles back coyly at one of them. Stepping out of the door as they exit the building, they stop, smile at each other, wish each other well on the holidays, and continue on home to their own separate brands of loneliness.
Wait. Please, there is a memory here (a dream, a fantasy). Maybe one turns to the other with a look of, almost, hesitation in his eyes. And there's a moment he thinks that maybe, just maybe he too, and might they spend the holiday together? And there's a smile and a nod, and a gut-churning head-spinning cab ride home in silence, and once inside they're suddenly slamming up against the wall and knocking over a potted plant and fumbling under each others' clothes and everything is heat and fire and possession and need.
Path A (cold, impassive, familiar), Path B (passionate, honest, vulnerable).
Path B, Path A. Which is the truth, and which is fabrication? Can you even tell the difference, in the early morning hours, in that half-rising state where dreams and reality merge into one?
But this is not a dream. It is not the early morning and Napoleon is wide awake, and the answers are clear. Because Illya had looked, hesitated, and Napoleon, coward that he was, had swallowed away the burning in his throat, smiled, and turned away.
And as Illya stands before him once again, smile lopsided, hesitant even now, Napoleon cannot help but think of all the times they've been exactly here, a million years ago.
"Happy New Year," Illya offers.
(A thousand moments he'd let slip away like silt between his fingers.)
So Napoleon steps out into the cold, into the moonlit shadows that streak across Illya's face, and kisses him.
Once upon an age, Napoleon had dreamed of fire. He'd dreamed of the shoving up against walls and the feasting of mouths and of desperate heat and the struggling for dominance, and that might have been how things had been, once. But that time is past. That is not how these things go, not anymore. Not with something so precious.
Instead, there is tenderness in the way hands brush across skin. Illya's mouth is sweet with longing, and Napoleon cradles him close as they make love, rolling into each other in gentle waves until at last the pleasure crests and he comes with Illya's sharp gasp echoing in his ear.
Napoleon studies him fondly.
"What?" Illya says, not unselfconsciously.
"I have always wanted to see you like this," Napoleon says.
Illya smiles, his eyelids already beginning to drift.
"Always?"
"Always."
Illya's eyes are closed now, but a hand reaches out for him.
"And I you, Napoleon."
When he wakes some time later, Illya has propped himself up a bit against the headboard and is gently carding his fingers through Napoleon's hair.
"That's a nice thing to wake up to," Napoleon murmurs. He revels in the moment, in soft caresses that threaten to lull him back into dreams, before rolling over and pressing a kiss to Illya's waiting mouth. It deepens, as though through sheer emotion and force of will, Napoleon would make himself understood, and understand Illya in return.
He rests his temple against Illya's cheek, breathes him in.
"Illya," he says. "Why did you come back?"
Illya is quiet.
"Everything changes."
He has always been like this, speaking in symbols and pictures. Explaining himself in a roundabout way so that Napoleon has to dig beneath the surface and root for the answer inside.
"Not everything."
"Yes, everything. Do you think my love for you could have survived all these years if it had not steeped in loneliness and bitterness and been forced to transform? Could yours have?"
Napoleon turns.
"You knew that I loved you?"
A sigh. Warmth, as Illya curls into his side, presses into his shoulder. The weight of the unspoken admission settles between them, heavy. Napoleon breaks the silence.
"Would you have stayed, if I asked you?"
"No."
It cuts, even though Napoleon had known it was so.
"I would have been so angry with you," Illya goes on, "for making our parting harder than it already was. But," he smiles now, and it's bittersweet, "I wanted you to, all the same."
Napoleon looks at him now, really looks. Hair still long, silvery now in the moonlight. He wonders if it is still golden in the light, or if it has turned grey with age.
"Illya." He asks again. "Why are you here?"
Illya's eyes are bright in the dark.
"Everything changes," he says.
Napoleon reads in the spaces between the words, and thinks he understands. He reaches out his hand, palm open, waiting.
"Stay with me," he asks. And Illya reaches back, rests his fingers in his own.
"Alright."
