"So..." Solo said, drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair he was in.
Gaby made a disgusted noise. Illya ignored them both.
"This is cozy," Solo pushed on. And it was – for a given and fairly creative definition of 'cozy.' One which prioritized the connotation of confinement over that of comfort, for example, or one which completely ignored the latter and in fact actively contradicted it. Cozy like a coffin, or a vaguely claustrophobic dungeon. Snug as a bug in a rug, if the bug were actually three bugs and the rug were damp and decidedly mildewed, and the eponymous bugs were sharing the rug space with several other, less charismatic, and long deceased bugs. Practically homey.
It was all about the framing.
"Downright quaint," he said cheerfully. This time, Gaby made a noise that was identifiably a gag.
"Saying it will not make it true," Illya grumbled. He was sitting in the other chair, holding very still to keep it from creaking ominously. He didn't even seem to want to talk too loudly for fear of disintegrating its last vestiges of structural integrity.
Solo shrugged. "Can't make it worse."
At that, Gaby turned from the window to level a glare at him. "Don't tell me you're an optimist now," she said scathingly, looking almost physically sick at the idea.
"Hard to be anything else in comparison to you two," Solo said with his sunniest grin.
"What does that mean?" Gaby snapped. "I'm sorry we aren't happy about this, Solo, but some of us don't enjoy being stuck in a filthy tiny room with you."
"I don't think any of us enjoys that," Solo said evenly. "But stewing in it won't make it any more bearable, and there isn't room in here for both you and your bad moods."
"'Bad mood.'" Illya scowled. "Bad mood is when you trip alarm or get me wrong shoe size. Bad mood is missing debriefing or causing annoyance. This – stuck in rotting, unheated root cellar in New York during snow storm, with no way to complete mission or let Waverly know we have failed – is more than bad mood, it's— Is пиздец."
Over at the window, Gaby had crossed her arms and was nodding along, fixing him with an expression that Solo had learned to associate with imminent blunt force trauma.
He blinked. "Hang on, when did we decide that this was my fault?"
"What?" Illya seemed surprised by that. "No, that's not—"
"It's not your пиздец," Gaby admitted after shooting a glance at Illya, "it's just a пиздец."
"Ah." Articles were great clarifiers in times of strife. "Well, no arguments from me there. I won't deny that this is far from ideal."
"Then stop being cheerful," Illya ground out.
Solo smiled. "No. Because if I'm not, then there will be no one to keep you two from spiraling into unbearable grumpiness, so you can either put up or buck up."
"There's nothing to buck up about," Gaby grumbled, turning back to the little window. All that was visible through it was snow, and even that was clouded by the condensation on the inside.
It wasn't a root cellar, but everything else in Illya's assessment had been unfortunately accurate. It was damp, it was unheated, and while it had clearly been wired for electricity at some point, none of the dusty light fixtures would turn on.
It was partially underground, though, backed up against a hill that spilled over onto the low roof of the little building. That obviously accounted for some of the dampness, but it also provided a bit of much-needed insulation. Not enough that it was comfortable, but it was definitely preferable to the sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds outside. They probably wouldn't die if they spent the night here, as opposed to the definitely of trying to weather the storm without shelter.
See? Framing.
"If I recall," Solo said, "it wasn't too long ago that someone was saying something about how much they'd give for a chance to get out of the snow. And it seems to me that that person got their wish."
Gaby scowled even more darkly, but didn't argue.
"I also recall," Solo went on, looking pointedly at the ceiling just above Illya's head, "that someone else threatened to commit acts of physical violence if they were forced to spend even a single minute more around capitalist American Christmas displays. Do you see any of those in here, Peril?"
Illya said nothing, but his chair gave a particularly horrible shriek as he leaned forward to glower, and he stood up in a hurry.
"I thought not," Solo said, and stood as well. "So. Feeling cheerful yet?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Excellent. Now, let's see what we have to work with. Peril, you search those shelves, and Gaby and I will dig through these chests."
The room looked to have been a storage space of some kind, albeit not one overly protected from the elements. If it had been abandoned for more than ten years, it likely wouldn't have anything useful – mold, water damage, and pests would have seen to that. It didn't seem quite that out of date, though, so there may be some tins or blankets that could still be serviceable.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Gaby asked snippily. "Because unless it's dead spiders and old concrete, I don't think we're going to find it here." Despite her words, she'd followed him across the small space to the two steamer trunks shoved up against the back wall.
"We're not looking for anything," Solo said. "We're looking at what's here." He dropped into a crouch in front of one of the chests and examined the closures. Simple flip latches, no key holes or obvious locks.
"What are chances this is bomb?" Illya asked, deadpan, from his spot in the middle of the room.
"Funny," Solo said, and turned the latches.
"Boom."
Gaby sniggered.
"If it's a bomb, you won't have to worry about being stuck in a room with me anymore," Solo pointed out as he hefted the lid on rusted hinges. Then, to Gaby, "The other buildings nearby looked like hostels, rather than houses, so I'm betting this was an additional room for one of them at some point." Hence the wiring and the traces of adhesive residue on the poured concrete floor – might have been a rug or two acting as a paltry defense against the chill and gloom.
"So they took out all the furniture and left...what? Dry firewood, working radios, and edible food for three people?" Gaby's tone was acidic enough to strip paint.
"People frequently make inexplicable decisions, and I'm an incorrigible opportunist. Aha."
The chest was filled about two thirds, and the top layer, at least, was paper. "Peril, how're those shelves going?"
Illya grumbled something unflattering but began rummaging around in the cardboard boxes stacked on the rickety shelves. Solo lifted out the sheaves of paper and stacked them on the floor next to him, assessing. Not enough to last overnight by itself, but enough to get some larger pieces of wood started. A chair, for example. Maybe even two chairs.
On his other side, Gaby had wrestled open the second chest and was already arms deep in it. "Oh look, dead spiders."
"Wanna switch?"
She scoffed. "Remember Australia?"
He did, unfortunately. He had nightmares about it sometimes. By the time they'd finished their mission there, Gaby's aim with everything from handguns to rifles had improved tenfold, and the local population of giant arachnids had been correspondingly devastated – with the sole exception of a whistling tarantula that Gaby had refused to kill because it was missing a leg. It was the biggest damn spider on the continent and she'd declared it under her protection and named it. He shuddered at the memory. "Point taken."
When he looked up, she was wearing a wicked grin. So she'd seen that, then. "Do not," he said, sternly, "remind me of anything else about that mission."
"Okay," Gaby said, but she was still grinning.
"You are not a sane woman," he told her.
She stuck out her tongue, then mercifully went back to digging.
He did as well. Under the papers, there were more papers; under those, there were boxes. In one of the boxes were about a dozen small white candles. Jackpot. "Gabs." When she looked up, he tossed the closed box over to her. She looked down at the box, opened it, and her expression did something strange, though he probably wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been looking.
"Tonight's the third night, isn't it?" he asked casually, turning back to the chest. If there were candles, then there were probably matches. If not, he had a lighter, but he'd rather save the fuel if he could.
"Third night of what?" Illya asked over the thump and rattle of a heavy box hitting the ground. Then he swore vociferously in Russian. "I don't believe this," he said, sounding somewhere between awe and dismay. "Cowboy."
"Edible food for three people?" Solo guessed with another bright smile. He'd thought the box had sounded like cans.
"Did you set this up?" Illya demanded, looking up from the box with a can of Dole peaches in each hand and a deeply murderous expression on his face.
"Not in the slightest, but keep digging. See if you can find something to drink." Illya turned back to the box, rummaged around a bit more, and then froze. "No," Solo said, delighted. "Did you really?"
"I hate you."
"Don't waste the effort," Solo told him. "It won't change who I am." He turned back to the chest and caught Gaby staring at him from the corner of his eye. "I don't think they'll bite," he said softly, nodding to the box still in her hand. "Want to set them up somewhere? I don't think we'll get lucky enough to find an actual menorah, but you can probably rig something up if you set your mind to it."
"How did you know," she said huskily. She was pale, he realized suddenly, her eyes hard.
"I didn't think it was a secret," he said slowly. "Did you want it to be?"
"It had to be. For so long. I didn't... How did you know?" she asked again, more forcefully.
"I grew up in New York City," he reminded her. "Half my classmates were Jewish, and besides, I'm a thief – details are important to me. Especially the little ones."
"I don't..." She trailed off, eyes unfocused as she looked down at the candles. Then she sniffed, and seemed to come back to herself. "I don't want to talk about this right now," she said.
"Okay," he agreed easily. "I didn't mean to force anything, but Gaby, come on. Did you really think it would be a problem with us?"
"I didn't know," she said sharply, eyes snapping up to meet his, "because you never know until you know, and the people you trust the most are always the most dangerous."
"Okay," he said again, because that was all there really was to say. "Okay. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," she muttered, looking away again. "I always think you're going to herniate something."
"Only when I'm lying." And when she looked back up at him, he gave her a small, careful, genuine smile.
The storm died down as darkness fell, leaving only the quiet closeness of deep snow. Tomorrow, if they were lucky, they'd be able to dig their way out. If they weren't lucky, they'd have to spend another night, but even that might be bearable.
Inside their tiny, filthy, horrible little room, things weren't quite as horrible as they'd seemed earlier that day when they'd stumbled in from the howling winds and stinging ice. It was still tiny and filthy, but the skeletons of two shattered wooden chairs provided enough wood for a small, cautious fire on the bare concrete floor, and the cardboard of the many boxes on the shelves provided some insulation as they sat around it and ate a motley meal of peaches and beans out of cans set to heat in the flames.
They'd have to pile together to sleep, even with the fire, but their search had indeed turned up a couple of moth-eaten blankets (along with some moths who'd apparently died doing what they loved), so while it wouldn't be the most comfortable, it would allow them to get some much-needed rest.
And on the shallow sill of their only window, a skinny plank of wood held up four white candles, and four steady lights reflected in the frosted glass.
...
Written for the 2022 TMFU Winter Holiday Gift Exchange over on AO3; prompt was for the trio celebrating (or not celebrating) the holidays far from home, perhaps early in their partnership while they're still figuring out what they mean to one another.
I ascribe to Solo the Sterling Archer model of stupidly good luck in unlikely circumstances, becaues that's just fun for me.
In addition to Gaby being Jewish, for the purposes of this fic I headcanon Solo as agnostic and Illya as orthodox but carrying too much childhood trauma to really engage with any of the traditions he grew up with, hence this is not a story About Christmas(TM).
Thank you for reading! As always, please feel free to leave any feedback you'd like to.