Cliff invites Ilya over to his place one day in December 2016 because Ilya has been in a terrible mood lately, frustrated and angry and exhausted because he's trying not to show either of those in front of the team. And look, Cliff knows that on the team he is probably Ilya's closest thing to a friend, so he sits him down on his couch, hands him the remote and tells him that he'll make them some lunch, just watch whatever, dude.
And at first he thinks it's going well, because Ilya has actually turned the TV on - even if it is ESPN, the last channel Cliff had watched, with ESPN showing a rerun of what Cliff after a couple seconds realizes is the Hollander documentary that came out some time ago. Ilya has this faraway look in his eyes which, yeah fair, Cliff isn't that interested in watching Hollander talk about yoga either. Ilya obviously just can't be bothered to change the channel.
So he puts their plates on the coffee table and is about to reach for the remote when Ilya suddenly makes this choked off sound, staring at the tuna melt in front of him as if Cliff had just handed him a dead puppy. Which is when Cliff realizes that he hasn't asked Ilya if he even likes tuna, remembers his sister wrinkling her nose at him whenever he pulled out the tuna canes when he still lived at home, saying that even the smell made her nauseous. And Ilya has gone a little green, still staring at the plate.
So Cliff's like "Ah shit man, should've asked you if you like tuna. My bad, I'll just order us some pizza or some shit, yeah?" and puts the plates back in the kitchen. And Ilya just gives a sharp nod, not really looking at him. But he looks a bit less green so removing the tuna seems to have been the right choice.
They settle on the couch, Cliff quickly putting in an order for two pizzas before he finally grabs the remote - on the TV screen, Hollander is now talking about the well he built at his cottage, no chance Ilya would want to listen to that by choice - and flips through the tv channels to find something entertaining to watch that doesn't require them to pay too much attention. Finally he lands on some action movie.
On the tv screen Rose Landry is getting introduced to the other members of the X-Squad. On the couch, Ilya has gone pale again. Cliff can't help but wonder if maybe Ilya is coming down with something. Maybe it wasn't the tuna melts, maybe he just has an upset stomach and didn't bother to say anything about it?
If he's nauseaus, he probably won't like the pizza's either. Maybe best to give the guy something to settle his stomach for now, Cliff thinks as he gets up from the couch and heads to his kitchen. He always keeps a couple of ginger ales in his fridge for such occasions. Surely those will help.
romaincrisis
