A/N:

What is this? Slice of life? Random conversations? Smut? Ah yes - it's smut with the faintest pretension of plot.

I genuinely don't know why this pairing still has such a hold on me, but if you're still out there too - do read, enjoy, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

/

Nika's point appears to be this:

1. Their neighbours expect him there;

2. If he isn't there, people will talk;

3. There's nothing he dislikes more than people talking about them;

4. Therefore, by all things logical, he should not only be there, he should want to be there.

"But why," 47 says for the second time. "Why do they expect me there."

Nika holds up another shirt to the clothesline, pegs in her mouth. 47 thinks it's a deliberate tactic to steal extra time to think before she answers, to allow her to give unintelligible responses to particularly pointed questions like the one just asked, as if her muffled tone of reason alone would be sufficient to leave her in the right and win the argument. It's been bewilderingly effective so far.

"Aecau ah-hood ehm oo'd eed," Nika says, between wooden pegs. 47 makes a noise that has been known to terrify lesser men in certain underground networks, and takes the shirt from Nika's hands and the pegs from her mouth. It takes him a few minutes to rapidly dress the clotheslines with the laundry in Nika's basket, which she obligingly carries and follows him with. She stands with her hands on her hips after, looking thoughtful. "You're so much faster than me. It must be because your reach is longer. Maybe it's more efficient for you to do this from now on."

"Why," 47 says, ignoring the vague sense that Nika had just delegated another of her domestic chores she has been carefully allocating to him lately, "do our neighbours expect me at this - meeting."

"It's more like a party," Nika says, brisk. "And because I told them you'd be there. I'm going to see Anton, do you want to come?" She's already walking. 47 takes a moment to absorb the injustice of it all before he follows.

"You told them I'd be there. Why did you tell them I'd be there."

"Because they expect you there," Nika says.

"Jesus Chris-"

"Because they do expect you there." Nika stops. She's tied her hair today, a low ponytail that curls past the line of her collarbone and makes her look younger. She's smiling at him, but her green eyes are serious and startlingly clear in the morning light, brought by the deep forest colour of her dress. There was a period of a few months, 47 is dimly aware, that Nika only dressed in grey and washed out shades, the colour that amateurs wear when they look the way that Nika does and are still trying to blend into the crowd. It had something to do with their little micro-society of neighbouring farms, of the women in particular that sat in those households and ran the markets in the nearest village with quick eyes and quicker tongues. Nika had never told him the details, and he had never pressed, but one day Nika had stopped dressing as if for a funeral and started dressing more like herself again, just with longer hemlines and more jeans, and 47 had assumed that whatever obscure social test that Nika had been navigating had passed.

Now Nika looks lovely as a young wife in her dress, playing house with a laundry basket in hand and standing in the soft amber dawn of her autumn vines. Not playing, he corrects himself belatedly: actually doing housework, living this life. This is what ordinary people actually do, all the time. He keeps having to remind himself.

"They already know about you," Nika says. "Well, as an engineer, anyway. You can't just conveniently have another work trip planned on the exact day that this happens. And you've not really talked to any of them, not really. People get curious, curious people talk. They expect everyone to come to this thing, it's been planned for months. Maybe it's better to give them what they want now and," Nika shrugs. "They'll get bored, then you never have to come to anything again. Even if you do live here."

There is a slight edge to that last sentence. 47 pauses. But Nika must have picked up on her slip as well, because her smile sweetens immediately and slips her arms around his neck, laundry basket falling forgotten; pulls him down to kiss him, light and playful. He lets her. It's a tell in itself, her automatic digression to physical distraction. Something is bothering her much more than she is letting on.

47 makes a decision. "How long is the event?" Nika lights up. "I'm assuming it'll just be-"

"No dancing," Nika says quickly, leaning back to watch his face. "Not for us anyway, we could even leave before it starts. It's just a feast, everyone brings something, in Ivanov's old barn. It's just this district and the next three around us, you'll know everyone. Well, you'd have researched everyone anyway." She clearly bites back a comment, no doubt a tease about his need for reconnaissance even on her rural neighbours, though she still looks amused. "There'll be no surprises. They do this every year," she reassures.

"Every year." 47 repeats flatly. But Nika just laughs, clearly still delighted by his concession. She leans up again to kiss him, briefly at first, and then more seriously when 47 pulls her in closer by the waist to taste her surprise and deepen their kiss. There is only the most fleeting of pauses between his pulling her close and Nika responding, unnoticeable if he hadn't been watching for it. They're in the middle of the vines, the yellow leaves thin but still winding up trellises past their head; there should be no one around to bother them here, this morning.

Still, still. 47 pulls back reluctantly. Nika resists a little, clinging; then she relents and lets go too. "Anton," he reminds her. Nika rolls her eyes but smiles.

"Cockblocker," she says. He raises an eyebrow, she raises one back. She slips her arm in his and they go together to see her head labourer.

/

He continues his ongoing personal project of building up Nika's fence line until deep into the afternoon, then goes over to the district's closest version of a mechanic's shop to fix up an old tractor that's been sitting there for a few days now.

He contracts occasionally for the shop, though nothing as formal as contract is ever used - more that Vadim leaves a message at the house or with Nika if a machine comes into his shop that puzzles him and requires a second pair of eyes or hands on it. Payment comes in the form of an unspoken tab, which has never yet transpired into actual rubles, but which has been topped up and netted off against other tabs that Nika runs up at the butcher, the bottler, the district's version of a convenience store in back of Alexei Sokolov's garage, which sells everything from nails (if it was stocked that month) to hunting rifles (which look in danger of being recalled by a museum any day now).

It's an incestous economy in-kind in this small part of the world. 47 follows it closely, more out of interest and habit than any fear of getting cheated, and is impressed to find Nika tracing it equally carefully from her end, given how she never goes into unofficial 'debt' for more than a week. Vadim has been particularly appreciative of his services at the shop lately: 47 makes a mental note to let Nika know of the increased credit for the Boronina household.

"What do you think," Vadim says. "Two days, three?" He taps the side of the radiator, which raises a large puff of black dust. "Or four," Vadim says glumly.

47 considers, wiping his hands on a rag. "It would be easier to buy a new engine," he says. Vadim grimances. "Then two days, if you drive into the city to pick up the parts yourself."

"The city," Vadim says, in a tone of doom. "One day I will be able to send my son to do these things." Vadim's son is ten. 47 politely refrains from commenting. Vadim looks sideways at him. "Unless… do you think your office will need you next week?"

"Unfortunately not."

"Very unfortunate," Vadim sighs. "Well, what can you do." He shakes his head and steps back from under the hood. 47 passes him the rag. "At least your woman will be happy that you're here." Vadim glances at him, pretending very poorly to be nonchalant. "As they say, a happy wife…"

47 ignores the leading silence. "Goodbye, Vadim."

The mechanic has the grace to look faintly abashed. "Yes, right. See you at the feast tonight?"

47 raises a hand in acknowledgement, already walking off. The light is fading in the pale sky and there is a bite in the air, each breath sharp as mint in his lungs. It's a short walk back to the house, where the rich scent of beef stew escapes past him at the door. 47 showers quickly and dresses - dark pants, cheap-ish navy collared shirt - clothes which edge between smart and worn, the outfit of a man used to dressing on a tight budget. There's nothing quite like appearing poor to diminish the relative exoticism of being a office worker in this part of the world.

He then goes the Nika's room, who appears to still be struggling with the look of her persona. He comes up beside her to look at the two dresses laid out on the bed. "When are we due?"

Nika is biting her thumb distractedly. "In half an hour or so. Which do you think is better?"

"They both look fine."

"You never help with this," she complains. It's true. And it's intentional. Nika needs to form her own cover, if she's in this for the long run.

Nika has showered too, a towel wrapped around her and another tied on her head. Her face is scrubbed fresh. She smells - pleasant. It would be a lie to say he moved unthinkingly, but somehow in the next minute, he's behind her, one hand on her hip, the other pulling off the towel on her head carefully. Her dark hair falls as a damp curtain, smelling faintly of vanilla. He leans down a little, his mouth behind her ear, breathing her in. His other hand trailing slowly up from Nika's hip, deliberate and intent as a heat seeking missile: sliding up the curve of her waist, over the soft swell of her breasts. To the edge of the towel where he pauses, waiting.

Nika turns, and in the split second before she smirks up at him, he sees her distraction still tense around her eyes. Then the towel is pooling around her feet, and she's smirking, pulling him down on the bed with her, her hands slipping under his shirt. Christ, she's not making it easy. 47 lets himself indulge for longer than he'd like to admit, tasting her mouth, her neck, down her breastbone - and beyond that, well. She's mouthwatering. She's addictive. Nika mews and arches against him and uses the distraction to slip a cool hand under his belt; 47 chokes off a groan and takes a moment to get himself under control before pulling her hand away.

"Why - what is it?" Nika sits up, brow furrowed. "What's wrong?" Her lips are swollen. 47 has to stop himself from staring, from kissing her again and moving down to taste her somewhere else, deeper and sweeter. He cups her cheek with one hand instead, presses his thumb against her lips; Nika looks briefly stubborn before she opens her mouth and sucks it in hard, her eyes never leaving his.

Jesus Christ.

He releases her; forces himself off the bed, steps back. Picks up the towel from the floor and holds it out. It takes an effort to control his breathing. "Later," he says. Nika stares; he tries for a comforting look. "Can't be late."

Nika looks disbelieving. But she must be used enough to this by now that she lets it go and gets off the bed, though she ignores his outstretched towel. She looks at the dresses on the bed for a moment, then shakes out the less crumpled one. "The yellow?" She looks at him.

"If that's what you like," he manages.

It takes a while for her to finish getting ready, which 47 is grateful for. By the time they reach the feast, he's fully recovered from the temporary madness and ready to meet the undisguised curiosity of Nika's neighbours.

/

The barn turns out to slightly smaller than comfortable for the number of people attending, and the overflow spills out into the yard before the barn, brightly lit orange in thick strips where the doors of the barn open out: the light morphing in shape to the shadows of the people in the barn, moving, drinking, laughing.

It's hard to maintain night vision in this lighting if you face wrong way, which most people are, so 47 finds himself automatically drawn to standing in this natural blindspot with his drink, his back against the light and a little away from the barn doors. Not too far to be unsociable but enough to require someone to actively seek him out if they wanted to talk to him, which most of the participants of tonight's gathering are too far gone to attempt.

It's not been a bad night, on the whole. He usually lets Nika take the lead in all matters relating to this world, preferring to follow and adapt to the life she's created with the vineyard. She's better than this at him, in all honesty: at building something close to the tender bone of the truth, capable of growing into something more than just a sleek cover. She's good at building something real.

Except this time she'd stuck to him when they'd come in, looked to him to answer first when their neighbours had awkwardly asked the usual pleasantries. He had been neutral enough, leaning on his reputation as a reserved city-born man who had come about the vineyard by way of an obscure inheritance, and was woefully ignorant of the ways of nature, viticulture, and women. That last bit: not by choice. Not that it actually bothers him to be thought of as particularly competent or incompetent in that area, but it had only taken a couple of visits to Nika in the early days for him to distill from stilted conversations with her heavily innuendo-dropping neighbours that there was a general impression that: a) he was the true owner of the vineyard, b) Nika had used her feminine wiles to let her live and run the vineyard, and c) he was too much a fool in lust to realise he was being played. And more importantly, that Nika had done nothing to correct these rumours.

It was only the last realisation that persuaded 47 to play along. It was difficult to imagine what advantage Nika gained from fostering this scenario, particularly when the title deed to the land was in fact in her name, but he could only assume Nika knew what she was doing. Besides, there were always other vineyards, farms, rural livelihoods he could move Nika to if this area didn't work out.

In any event, if tonight's round of interrogation was any indication, there appears to have been a shift in the story. Women who had previously generally looked at him with a mix of pity, contempt and - to be frank, interest - instead looked vaguely reproving and encouraging by turns, spoke meaningfully of the importance of timing in a harvest and life in general, and asked him to admire how beautiful Nika looked in her dress, bozhe moy, isn't she like a flower ready to be plucked. One older woman asked about his interest in kids, and how many; thankfully, Nika had laughed quickly and changed the subject.

Even the men seemed to know about the change in the game. They generally kept him at a polite but firm distance, as the cityborn outsider to their tight knit community; tonight, they nodded at him knowingly and passed him glasses of cold vodka. Vadim grinned openly when his wife questioned him about where his next work trip was, whether he'll be settling here for good this time. Even old Alexei Sokolov, who Nika had formed a close relationship to during the year and day and, perhaps unsurprisingly, had never taken to 47, broke his usual silent disapproval to pass him a glass and comment gruffly that it would be good to see him starting to put out roots at last.

47 takes the probing questions and the whispering stares and the vodka with equal mildness, and does not pull out his gun at any point. After all, he was known in certain circles for his famed self-control at one point; it won't do to let that reputation down now.

"There you are."

Nika, backlit by the amber of the barn light, smiling as she comes to him. She's glowing. She's been glowing all night, ever since one of the younger women asked her to help with the plating; she's been with that group of women since, laughing, speaking more freely than he's ever seen her with her neighbours, radiant with happiness.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stay this long," She stops before him, standing very close. She smells strongly of vodka, but her voice is clear. "We can go now, if you're ready."

"I don't mind staying."

Nika laughs. "You liar. No, let's go before anyone sees us. I shouldn't drink anymore." She starts moving ahead, a little unsteadily; 47 touches her lightly on the back and guides her, through dark spots in the yard, avoiding the groups of smokers, drinkers, and in one unfortunate off-key corner, singers.

They get on their gravel path home without anyone noticing and Nika hooks her arm through his, leaning against him and humming a little. There is a half-moon tonight, bright as spotlight in the country sky. It's nothing compared to Nika's joy.

"Did you try my beef stew?"

"Yes." Nika taps his arm, wanting more, so he adds, "I liked it. It was very… savoury."

"I knew you wouldn't like it," Nika sighs. "You don't like beef. But I'm not good at making big chicken dishes yet. Are you still hungry then?"

"No," 47 says. "It really was fine."

"Hmm. I hope you had some of the other dishes at least." Nika leans forward to look at his face. "God, you didn't. Your goddamn paranoia, I swear to god." But her tone is fond.

47 doesn't bother to object: it's an old argument. "Old habits," he concedes. Nika scoffs a laugh beside him.

They walk in silence for a bit, the path rolling through the knee-length dried grass, bleached white under the moonlight. Nika is humming again, an old folk tune for children. 47 thinks back on the evening, the pointed questions about family.

"Nika, what was tonight about?"

Nika stops humming. "It's the autumn harvest. They hold it every year, it's just an old tradition-"

"Yes," he says. He keeps his voice mild. "But what was tonight about?"

Nika looks embarrassed, then defiant. "It's nothing," she says. "I don't know what you mean." 47 says nothing. Nika flushes. "It's nothing, it was just - I love this place, you know I do. I love our vineyard. But it was - hard to fit in, in the beginning. Not that it matters," she adds quickly. "And not that I really cared. People always fucking stare." He looks at her, at the dragon snarling on her cheek, riding the sharp line of her cheekbone. She took out her piercings and grew her hair out, and yet all it did was make her look sweeter and somehow wilder, the promise of something barely tamed in a demure dress. No wonder they stared. And no doubt the women noticed their men staring. "But lately, tonight, I think…" Nika slows beside him, bites her lip. Her face is pale and uncharacteristically self-conscious under the moonlight. "You remember months ago, when you brought me back. You said it might be a while before you could come back."

"Yes."

Nika catches his expression. "I'm not still upset, I get it. You had to deal with that asshole." 53. "But I was upset then, I didn't like going back to the way we used to be. I liked the new us." 47 shifts uncomfortably. This is exactly the sort of conversation that he is ill equipped to handle, beginning with the dangerous scope of the word new and the equally fragile implications of us. Nika continues obliviously, "I was alone and it was hard and." She shrugs, clearly embarrassed. "Someone saw me crying and - it all came out."

"All-" 47 stops. "What do you mean, it all came out?"

"No, not like that, nothing about Belicoff or what you do. Just about how I was afraid you weren't going to come back, and how I was sad and didn't know what the hell to do and, you know. The usual." Nika waves with one hand vaguely, as if this wasn't horribly new information to him. "I was stupid, I know. God, I obsessed so fucking much over how you wouldn't commit to when you were coming back. Whether you were still alive." She rolls her eyes, smiling, clearly wanting him to laugh and move along.

47 isn't smiling. "I didn't know when I would be done. I couldn't tell you-"

"I know, I know. I said I was stupid. Come on." She catches and pulls his hand, trying to get him to move again. "Anyway, it worked out better than expected. I think word must have got around and people started to watch us, and I think now everyone just feels sorry for me. I think that's why they invited us tonight - to help." Nika makes a face, but it's clear that she's more embarrassed than actually troubled at the prospect of apparently the entire district switching their lovesick statuses and dubbing her as the greater victim in the relationship. It shouldn't bother him, this rural gossip, but he finds that it does, this time.

"They didn't invite you last year?"

"Well - no." Nika stops trying to drag him along. "I'd only been here a few months then. Maybe they'd would have invited you, you know, as a man and that usual bullshit, if you'd been here." A strange look flickers across her face before Nika shrugs. "Anyway, not that it matters."

"So they invited you tonight - out of pity." It's a hard realisation to swallow. "Why do they feel sorry for you? You don't need me here. You have one of the most productive vineyards in the district. And the freedom the run it as you please."

That look, again. "I guess people just like to talk," she says lightly. "I told you they do."

A pause falls between them. Nika is smiling up at him, but it's strained under the clear moonlight, perfect and staged as still art. 47 has the distinct feeling of having misjudged something terribly, like taking a step on a staircase and finding nothing but air. For a moment, they're simply staring at each other, the silence like a swallowed shout.

"Are you angry with me?" he says, at the same time Nika says -

"Do you really not know?"

The sound of voices in the distance answer them. They both turn. Someone is coming down the path - no, two someones, by the sound of it. Drunk and vocal, male and middle-aged. Nika looks back at him, and for a second, her frustration is stark on her pale face. 47 hesitates. Then he nods at Nika towards the grass rolling off the path, already moving, leading Nika by the wrist.

They move quickly through the fields where the grass whispers against their knees, rippling silent and silver under the cloudless night. It's just a short brisk walk to the edge of a small cluster of trees, where he positions Nika bodily with his hands on her shoulders behind a particularly stout tree, and listens.

A few beats later, the two drunks crest the small hill just behind the path they were on. Their voices carry clearly in the night air. 47 thinks he recognises one of them: Oleg Petrov of three properties over, telling a dirty joke with a schoolboy's relish; his companion snorting with laughter. Not the best backdrop to continue this conversation with Nika. But still better than letting these men interrupt them, or worse, join them, and have this - this, whatever it is, get buried like a landmine under Nika's smiling determination to make it work and his apparent blindspot in all such matters.

Nika, who has followed him instantly and mutely throughout his manhandling, shakes her head when he looks back at her. I don't want to fight, she mouths. So they were fighting after all. He raises an eyebrow and she has the grace to look briefly guilty before her jaw sets with a familiar and exasperating stubbornness. Not about this, she says. The branches overhead are thin, and it's easy enough to read her lips through the shadows. It's not important.

Of course: Nika would argue with him endlessly and creatively about the most convincing cover names and her personal road rules and the best way to tie a tie knot, but would classify something that he has no ability to navigate by himself as not important. Of course.

47 is saved from pointing this out by Oleg and friend staggering past, still snickering with laughter as they stumble along the path beyond the small field. It will only take only a few minutes for the men to move past enough to be out of immediate earshot. He is experienced in interrogations, at least. He is sure he can extract at least some intel even without resorting to the more traditional measures.

At least, that's what he thinks before Nika demonstrates her own skill set in this area by attacking first.

In one moment he has opened his mouth to speak, to begin to reason with Nika in an appropriately low and calm voice; in the next, her hands are under his coat and she's in his mouth, licking, demanding. She's pressed against him and her hands are warm against the thin fabric of his shirt, somehow already unbuttoning from the top: the first button, the second. He tries to speak again and Nika takes the opportunity to open his mouth deeper with hers, insistent; she arches against him, transparent and needy. It's an invasion. It's breathtakingly effective.

His hands are on her hips, though whether to hold her still or to pull her close, it's hard to say. Mostly he's trying not to touch Nika any further. It's hard to resist allowing at least a few greedy kisses, the taste of vodka sharp in his mouth. When he starts to brace himself to pull her away, though, Nika's fingers around his shirt tighten and she bites his lip, not lightly. "Don't you fucking dare." She leans back to untie the front of her dress, watching him, and smirks at whatever she sees in his expression. She's not wearing anything at all under the dress, fuck. She laughs and uncurls his unresisting fingers around her hip bones to move them up her body, pressing them to cup her breasts. "Surprise." She wiggles against him a little, meaningfully.

"You're drunk," 47 manages. His admonishment is slightly ruined by the fact that he can't stop staring, and not into her eyes.

Nika's laugh is a little softer this time. "So? Like that has ever stopped anyone." She does a complicated shrug and suddenly she's naked, her dress and coat pooling around her feet, Nika pale and so fucking gorgeous in the moonlight. She's shivering, which justifies him running his hands over the soft curves of her and backing her against the trunk, crowding her with a single-minded purpose before he remembers to stop, to swallow and check himself. Like that has ever stopped anyone. Right. Right.

Nika catches him by the wrist when he starts to pull back. "You're going the wrong way," she says, still smirking, teasing, but there's an indecipherable look in her eyes. She's watching him very closely.

It's perhaps this more than anything that makes him stop. "Am I?" It comes out perhaps more serious than he intends. He wants her very badly to say yes.

Nika seems to hear him. Her smirk softens even more until it is just a smile, disbelieving and a little wondering. She moves her hand down from his wrist, her fingers catching his, pulling him in and her head tilting up. It seems a natural move to catch her mouth with his, just a chaste press. Nika kisses back, simple and sweet at first too, then the kiss deepens and he's becomes extremely aware of the naked woman pressed up against him, doing all she can, it seems, to meld her body to his. 47 hesitates one last time - "I know what I'm doing," Nika whispers into his mouth - and then he stops hesitating, presses Nika back against the trunk.

If Nika has any preferences about how she likes to have him, she has never expressed it, and 47 suspects that she never will. Some things gets trained in too young to ever fully reverse. 47 understands that. It's possible that Nika doesn't even actually enjoy sex, not in the typical sense. 47 understands this too, though he tries not to think about this too much. He imagines that Nika tries not to think about what his hands are capable of when he slips one between her legs, presses two fingers into her sleek heat; in return, he tries not to think about whether Nika is acting when she hisses and arches back, when he catches her dusky nipples hungrily with his mouth, wet and messy. They both have their professional hazards to bear.

He adds a third finger, pumping slowly at first, then speeding up with her panting. He does it until his fingers are soaked all the way to his knuckles. 47 lifts his head to watch her - Nika is flushed and slightly open mouthed, grinding against his palm shamelessly, her eyes blown almost black as she watches him back. It's nearly too much.

The ground would be freezing, but fucking a naked Nika against a rough tree trunk isn't an option, so when Nika undoes his belt and pulls him close by his shirt, trying to get him to brace her up against the trunk, he lifts her up obligingly before he bears them both down. Nika huffs in surprise, looking exquisite and ethereal against the dark grass, but recovers quickly enough to wrap her long legs around his hips, dragging him closer. He presses open mouthed kisses down the soft curves of her, starting from the bullet scar just below her clavicle and licking down towards the sweet wet silk hidden between her thighs. He's nearly there too, when Nika makes a noise of impatience, tugs on his shoulders to pull him up, rolls her hips decisively, and then suddenly he's buried to the hilt in Nika, so tight and hot and fucking incredible.

His hips stutter of their own accord and he thinks he swears, because Nika's laughing by his ear, soft and smug. It takes a couple of beats for the sheer intensity of being inside Nika to pass, and then he starts to fuck her in earnest. Nika's breath hitches in a counter rhythm, her arms going around his neck. At one point, 47 dimly remembers reaching between them to press a thumb against her clit, Nika reacting as if electrified. He has to muffle her cries with his mouth, but it's possible that everyone in the fields over at the feast hears Nika anyway. The night air is crisp and clear, and the sounds that Nika is making are delicious: 47 wants to swallow them all, greedily, and so he does.

It doesn't take long, a little embarrassingly. It's been a while. Nika goes briefly quiet and boneless beneath him, and he follows shortly after, biting off a groan. He stays inside her for a while after, slowly coming back into himself, pressing hazy kisses to the tips of her ears, along her jawline, chasing a path to the edge of her mouth. Self-indulgent and unthinking in the afterglow.

Nika is looking at him when he finally returns to earth, her expression tender and terribly exposed in the shadows of the grass. He drops his eyes and rolls off, gets up to fix himself. Nika sits up and begins to dress herself, quick and neat; he shakes out her coat and holds it out for her to slip on when she stands up.

He was fully dressed throughout it all, more or less. 47 wonders if this is a bad thing.

"Don't tell me you're already regretting it," Nika says. She's blowing warmth into her hands and looking amused, but her tone is a hum in the base of his spine, quiet and happy. "I told you I know what I'm doing. You didn't make me do anything I didn't want." She starts to move through the grass, back to the path ahead. 47 is lagging behind a little from his surprise.

"I didn't say I regret this." He finds himself briefly at a loss of words. "So - you do understand then. Why I prefer - to wait, sometimes."

"Yes, you idiot, I'm not stupid." But Nika's voice is as soft as her expression earlier, almost a whisper. 47 doesn't dare look at her. They reach the path ahead and he feels Nika glance sideways at him. "Unlike some people I could mention," she adds, louder, and then the spell is broken and she's weaving away as if to avoid a comeback, spinning ahead and laughing at his expression. She's walking backwards along the path to look at him, arms swinging carelessly. She's glowing again. 47 is realistic enough to admit that it's unlikely to be only because of his skills in the bedroom - or in this case, in the grass - that has led to this startling radiance, gratifying though it might be to think so. But they had apparently been fighting, just before.

It's difficult to return to an issue which he doesn't understand the boundaries of. He follows Nika with a vague sense of helplessness, though it is not entirely unpleasant in the face of Nika's sudden and clear pleasure with him. It's well and truly late enough to be early morning now, and their breath comes out as white puffs against the deep indigo horizon. Nika slows to slip her arm into his as they walk, chatting about a rumour of a distant neighbour having a second family that was apparently the main gossip at the feast; about the warnings of an upcoming cold snap, a new recipe she wants to try, oh and she has to pick up their pot from Ivanov's tomorrow, don't let her forget.

"I can pick it up," 47 offers. Nika beams at him as if he offered to take down an underground base for her. It prompts him to continue, carefully, "I don't mind helping, if you had other tasks to complete. Whether it's hanging up laundry or -" His mind blanks as he searches for other domestic chores that ordinary people do. "-or similar," he finishes lamely.

"Or similar," Nika teases. "I don't know, do you think you could handle it? I've broken nails scrubbing pots before, just so you know what you're getting into."

"If I can survive teaching you to drive," 47 says gravely, "I can survive anything." Nika pinches his arm through his coat in retaliation.

"I might make up a few tasks for you just for that," she snips. But there is a reserved surprise in her eyes when she glances at him. Ah. Perhaps he should have offered his services sooner, except he hadn't realised he needed to. Nika is remarkably self-sufficient when it comes to her life in the vineyard, and it's all he can do to try to adapt to the spaces she's left for him in it.

They've entered Nika's land now, passing the familiar white stone marker that is the only visual boundary between her vineyard and the rest of the world. Nika is humming under her breath again, that same tune from before, low and clear in the early morning silence around them. The house is a hunched silhouette in the distance, peering down at them from the slight rise that it sits on. 47 knows instinctively that once they enter the house, any opportunity to ease out what's been bothering Nika would be lost. He has read about wilful blindness and domestic bliss used as shields in magazines; he just never thought such concepts would ever apply to his life.

It takes him about halfway to the house to find the question that matters.

"Nika," he says. "Are you happy?"

Nika looks startled. "Yes," she says, without hesitation. "Of course. Why, why do you ask?"

"You're sure?"

"Yes, of course." Now she looks puzzled. 'Why, aren't you?"

Well, so much for his interrogation skills. Perhaps he was reading more into things that there actually was. "I'm fine," he says.

"Fine," Nika repeats. "Oh good. Of course you are, you're always fine."

Or perhaps not. He stops. Nika stops too, though she doesn't pull her arm from his. For a moment, she looks more surprised than bitter; then she's shaking her head and looking embarrassed as if rolling off some minor social hiccup. "That came out wrong," she says. "I only meant - you're fine and I'm happy. That's all I meant."

"Did you."

"Yes." Nika smiles up at him, too bright. Trying to get him to move on, as before. Except.

"Nika," he says, as gently as he can. "Tell me."

For a heartbeat, he thinks she might refuse. Then Nika's smile falters and her shoulders drop. "There's really nothing to tell," she says, in that stubborn tone often preludes an argument. 47 says nothing, lets the silence stretch out and, as always, Nika can't help but fill it. "It's nothing - it's something, a small thing I just have to work through myself. It's nothing to do with you. I'm not strong like you, you know," she says with a quick shrug, as if pointing out the obvious. And it is obvious: he has always been the stronger of them both, by the traditional definitions of strength. Still, 47 has to hide his surprise at the easy acknowledgement. "Nothing bothers you, you adapt - you don't care what anyone thinks. You don't seem to even be afraid of dying." Her arm tightens around his. "But it bothers me. When you go away, and I don't know when you'll be back, if you can even fucking come back - it just bothers me a fucking lot, okay? I think about whether you're trapped, or hurt, or - whatever, I'm a fucking mess sometimes, and everyone sees it. You disappear for weeks. And then you're back, and you're fine, and you look at me like I'm overreacting and we both pretend like you never even fucking left - except even after all this time you still walk around like a goddamn tourist, asking about my vineyard and my neighbours - it's yours too, you know? You don't have to be here all the time, but don't you at least want some part of this?"

She stops for breath. It reminds 47 to take one of his own. His head is ringing faintly, like the aftermath of a kick to the head.

"Anyway," Nika says, calmer. "Anyway. God. Don't even worry about this. It's nothing, I told you. Obviously you still need to get away sometimes, I get it. Honestly, I do. And sometimes I do like that you're so - fine, all the time; it's steady, it's comforting. Rosa says my problem is that I love you too much," she adds, as if admitting a fault. As if acknowledging just another obvious weakness she has, compared to him; she says it so simply. "But I think I'd still worry, even if I loved you less; I'd still want you to be a part of all - this. It's just something I have work through. I told you it's nothing."

47 says nothing for a long time. Dimly, he is aware of Nika watching him anxiously. "Yes," he manages at last. "I see."

"Good," Nika says, clearly relieved by his evenness. She shakes her head slightly, as if laughing at herself. "God, I must be still so fucking drunk. It's Alexei's house vodka, I swear, it's trouble in a bottle." She leans into him. "Come on, let's get in the house and see what other trouble it can cause."

She has him well trained these days: even now, the dark suggestion in her voice is enough to re-awake certain parts of him.

47 follows silently - up the path, the front porch, through the stairs of the dark house. Rosa says my problem is that I love you too much. He finds himself in Nika's room, which was apparently built before insulation became a popular aspect of housing and is unforgiving in the early morning chill. Not that it seems to bother Nika, from the determined rate she seems to be undressing them both.

He catches her hands with his. "Wait," he says. Nika frowns, her anxiety rising clear in her face again. He generally tries not to sleep with Nika when she's in this mood: she tends to be at her most professional when she wants to sleep with him for security after some imagined or real fight, rather than because she wants to be with him at all. This time, though. "It's cold," he says after a beat. "Let's warm up first."

He leads them to the bathroom, where a large claw-footed bathtub sits in the corner. One of the earliest refurbishments made in this house - and Nika made it a point to order a bathtub large enough for two. Still, when the steam has filled the room and the water is lapping near the edges of the tub, he offers a hand to Nika and makes no move to undress himself.

Nika takes his hand but looks uncertain. "What about you?"

"I'd rather watch," he says. Not quite a lie. Nika hesitates, but she's always been at her most obliging when it comes to matters of his pleasure in this arena, and so she smiles after a second and steps into the steaming water, wincing at the heat. He steadies her with a hand on her elbow until she relaxes and eases down, the water sloshing out onto the tiles.

"God." She sighs, sinks in, her dark hair floating around her. 47 balances himself on the edge of the tub, watches. When Nika opens her eyes again, there is a flicker of - something, like a surprised tenderness - at the expression on this face, then she smiles, smirks, stretches to show off her body, sleek and deadly as a weapon, using her body's flush from the heat to her advantage. "Hello," she says, smirking from under dark wet lashes, clearly getting ready to put on a performance.

"Hello," 47 says quietly. He catches one of Nika's hands as it starts to snake deliberately down her body, holds it until the ripples around his arm stops. "Just - don't move, for now. Relax." Nika's brow furrows and predictably, immediately tenses. He adds, "I want to watch you relax."

It's as if pressing a button. The woman in the bath goes boneless, the line of her shoulders easing, though she still looks puzzled. 47 imagines Nika has experienced stranger kinks, in her line of work. He wonders how long it took for someone to drill such automatic obedience in her when it came to using her body. Perhaps that's why she resists so much in all other types of discipline now.

The room is very warm, and lit only by an amber lamp over the mirror. After long minutes of watching him, Nika's eyes grow half hooded, sleepy. Her wrist is still caught in his hand. He circles her pulse with his thumb slowly, counts it out. I'm not strong like you. Well, it's true, for a narrow definition of strength. And perhaps it was the only kind of strength that mattered, in his old world of blood and violence, but he has one foot in that world and the other foot in another, these days, and he's still building the muscles for Nika's kind of strength.

He thinks about this, and a number of other things, until the water is lukewarm around his arm. Then he shakes Nika gently awake, who looks momentarily afraid as she often does when waking in a new place, and helps her stand groggily to wrap a towel around her. Nika is very warm, and flushed, and shivers against him when he braces her out of the tub and, on a whim, lifts her to carry her to her bed, which has heated by now.

And perhaps he's not being entirely unselfish in doing this, because once he has Nika warm and pliant on the bed, it doesn't take very long at all before he finds himself making his way down Nika with his mouth, tasting the water on her throat, under the sweet weight of her breasts, the soft dip of her belly. Nika sighs, drowsy and still sated from the bath, but does nothing else to encourage him. And that should have been enough to stop him, when consent is a line he has treaded so carefully with Nika - except Nika always encourages him, whether she's actually interested or not, and the prospect of Nika being without pretense for once has him suddenly hard enough that he fucking aches.

He moves back till he's kneeling on the floor before the bed. Nika's leg fits perfectly over his shoulder and then her cunt fits perfectly against his mouth, warm and wet and still tasting of clear water. He laps greedily and perhaps he's been thinking about this for more than he cares to admit - something that Nika has always pulled him back from doing, uncomfortable with any generosity on his part in bed - and he can taste the moment that Nika fully awakens, even before the gasp above him and the sudden tension around him. He stops and waits in the darkness, forces himself not to cheat by pressing his fingers into her and licking her clit hard with the broad flat of his tongue. Then he feels Nika's hips pressing up, slow and uncertain, and it's permission enough to do both, eagerly. He eats her out until his jaw aches and he's so hard that he's lightheaded, and when she finally comes, quiet with a ragged gasp, he thinks for one dizzy moment that he might too, like some inexperienced teenager.

He pants against her, then wipes his mouth and crawls up to the bed. Nika curls around him immediately, trembling only very faintly; 47 pulls the covers over them and tries to push down the smugness light and bright in his chest, pulsing like a flare. Christ, worst than a teenager - an infatuated boy.

Rosa says my problem is that I love you too much.

"That was-" Nika breathes against his chest, then makes a strange sound. "You're full of surprises, Mr Engineer." Her voice is as intimate as curled fingers around his. She doesn't reach out though, just stays close to him, breathing.

"I live to serve," 47 manages. Nika laughs again, a muffled sound pressed into the sheets. Not to hide it from him but, he thinks, to maintain hushed silence around them like a cocoon, the darkness like a confessional. He can't see her face but he can imagine it, the same way he used to in the long nights during the year and day: the bright liveliness of her eyes, the soft curve of her mouth. Her dragon like a conscience he ignored until he met her, now ever watching him. It was just facial details, just descriptions in a mental file that made up a target profile, until one day it wasn't: he knew too much about her, and then it began to matter what she thought of him too.

It matters even more now.

"I do want it," he says abruptly, awkwardly, into the darkness. Besides him, he feels Nika still. Between them, the ghost of something more plaintive than an accusation, more fragile: don't you want at least some part of this. He does not know how to continue. He tries again, mostly steady, "It can be - difficult. For me. This life -"

"Yes." Nika's voice comes as a whisper. "I know."

Her fingers find his. He is suddenly, unbearably grateful. "There are different kinds of strength," he manages, very low.

A non-sequitur but Nika, as always, understands him. "You stay longer each time," she whispers slowly, approvingly, as if conceding a point. He thinks he feels her thinking in the dark, about what he said. About what he doesn't know how to say.

Nika takes a breath. Then her hand is on his chest, warm and firm above his heart. "I meant it," she says, "when I said you don't have to be here all the time." There is the beginning of a smile in her voice, tremulous but certain. "I'm used to being afraid, all the time. You're used to - doing your job. It'll take time for us both to adjust." She leans up with her elbow, pushing him gently down against the mattress. "I fuck with my own head thinking about these things sometimes, but you should know: I'm not - really - worried about us."

She straddles him, deliberate and careful in the cloaking dark. Ah. Nika has always been diligent with reciprocation. And, right now, 47 doesn't think he has it in him to resist her.

He reaches out blindly to catch the thick blanket before it falls to her waist, pulls it to sit over her shoulders; in return, Nika braces herself against his chest with one hand, reaching down with the other to ease him out from his pants. He breathes in sharply. "Teamwork," Nika whispers above him, a laugh held in her voice. She gives him a few encouraging strokes, not that any encouragement is at all needed, and a sound escapes him that is possibly less dignified than he intended. He wishes he could see her.

Nika holds him and holds herself above him for so long that 47 wonders if she expects him to beg. He wonders how long she would be prepared to wait. Then Nika starts to press down, so slow at first that he can feel her thighs trembling with the control of it. It's manageable as first, exquisite and breathless, until it very quickly becomes an exercise of self-control for him as well, in that it's all he can do to stop himself from jerking up or forcing her down, hard. He's probably leaving fingerprint bruises around her hips. He can't let go. His world narrows down to focus on the contact between them, until it seems like the only thing he can feel in the absolute black.

After a while, he either swears or threatens or says her name, he can't tell which, his mouth by her ear. The word please is involved at some point. And still Nika takes her time - so terribly, gloriously gradual in pressing him into the unutterably tight heat of her. It's only when he finally bottoms out, Nika exhaling shakily above him, that the world finally steadies again, in intense but bearable pleasure. That is, until Nika takes a breath, and then clenches.

He loses the game of control after that. It takes a few beats to regain a sense of rhythm, but Nika rides him with a focus that would be vaguely concerning if he wasn't so fucking turned on by it. She's not subtle about her win either; he can feel her smirking against his mouth, panting out laughs when he groans and nips raggedly at her throat and the tips of her breasts in retaliation. When he tries to sit up and reach between them to touch her, belatedly, she captures his hand by the wrist and holds it beside his hips, grinds down with her own hips until he stops trying. She rocks and undulates and clenches around him, gasping and relentless, and Christ he might be losing entirely in this unspoken, undefined contest, but it feels a lot like winning.

They fuck like this for longer than he privately expected to last - or rather, Nika fucks him. Then quietly, suddenly, it's over: he's coming harder than the first time, Nika rolling her hips and milking him.

When he comes back to himself, Nika is slipping off him to lie close, one arm still careless on him. They're both damp with sweat. 47 doesn't move away.

He listens to their breathing slow again in the dark. Beyond the bed, the faint sounds of the earliest of birds waking up are coming through the curtained windows. It is always in still moments like these, when he's filled with a hazy satisfaction so deep that it seems to come from his bones, that 47 thinks that perhaps this time he'd be able to stop. He could stay. Ignore the contracts waiting in his inbox, grating against a lifetime of training so absolute he never considered living as an asset outside the Organisation, before he met Nika. Living as a whole person.

He thinks he will be able to, one day.

"Burner phones," he says after a while, into the lightening dark. Nika jerks slightly next to him, as if startled awake. It's possible he had drifted off and woke again as well without realising, for an unknown sated period: the darkness is now softening into indigo around the curtain edges, and his low voice comes out raspy.

He would have dropped it and returned to sleep then if Nika hadn't turned her head on the pillow next to him, her breath warm and sluggish against his shoulder. "Uhm," she says, then mutters something indecipherable in Russian. She yawns. "No. Okay. What?"

He watches the faint grumbling outline of her. Rosa thinks my problem is that I love you too much. He wants her to repeat it all, suddenly, those words still burning in his brain, etched like the afterglow of the sun behind closed eyelids. To say it the way she had before, so easily and looking straight at him, as if telling him something he already knew and expecting nothing in return.

Well, maybe she should expect more. "We could use burner phones," he says slowly. His voice is still rough; he clears it. The sound seems to wake Nika up more. "I could set up a secure line. Several of them. It could help."

"Help?"

"If you could talk to me when I was away. Until I can return home."

Nika breathes against him for another few beats, steady and quiet; then she props herself up clumsily on her elbow, the bed dipping. "What do you mean," she says, and she still sounds groggy but her tone is alert, fully awake now. "Like - calls? Like we could text?"

"Well," 47 says, uncomfortably aware of Nika's tendency to take full advantage of the slightest open door. "It would have to be within certain times. I'd have to let you know when I'm available."

"Okay." Nika sounds stunned above him, wondering. "Yes. You'd better." He feels more than sees her lean over him, as if about to say more.

Then she settles down again, even closer. Her ankle hooks under his. Her pleasure at him so clear that it should light up the early morning, and perhaps it is, by the way he's starting to be able to make out her face. The hint of her smile, as if through a glass, darkly. "You said home," she says. Yes, definitely smiling.

"Yes. Our vineyard."

"You said our," Nika marvels. He makes a non-committal sound, the audio version of a shrug, but Nika sees through him, as always. She laughs softly and searches for his hand in the dark, catches it. "And to think," she says, "you almost didn't come to the harvest feast."

"I would have missed your beef stew," he says, and Nika shakes against him as she pretends not to laugh, outraged, while the day outside starts anew.

/

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