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Napoleon wakes on a beautiful beach.

Waves crest just beneath his feet, pushing and pulling on the seashells littered all around. The current makes them twirl in graceful figures, small fish ducking just beneath. The foam glistens in the sunshine, and the sky is piercing blue— too blue, like a vacation advertisement photoshopped to lure rich tourists into luxury hotels.

Napoleon blinks. His eyes are as dry as his parched lips. He tries to stand but he’s too dizzy to get any footing in the slush of wet sand. He gives up for a moment, breathes, tries to reorient himself in the surreal beauty of this strange place. He starts by taking stock of his body:

His feet are cold and wet but he can move them still. He’s wearing a suit ripped to pieces that smells like the ocean but must have dried in the glaring sun. His hair is long and there is a painful bump on the back of his skull. It hurts to swallow and at first he thinks it’s dehydration, but when he touches the side of his throat, the skin lights up with pain.

In the process of figuring out how screwed he is, Napoleon gathers the strength to roll to the side from his back. The movement is dizzying but when the haze before his eyes lets off, he sees a shape in the sand about 10 feet away.

It’s a man lying on his stomach, water up to his knees, the sunlight glistening red around him. Napoleon can’t see his face, but his hair is blond and he’s wearing some kind of tactical gear, dark cargo pants with too many pockets, and empty holsters around his arms. He looks strong, be it immobile, and Napoleon follows the trail of his muscled arms until he realises that the red isn’t the sundown after all, but cruel streaks of blood mixed in the sand.

Napoleon breathes slowly. He props his hand under his body and pushes himself up with the utmost effort and care. He tries not to make a sound, and he’s almost made his first unstable step when the figure moves.

The man groans as he rises up off the sand. He cradles his arm against his chest, and starts to march out of water with confident strides. Despite the obvious injury, the man seems capable and awake. He hasn’t looked towards Napoleon yet, his head towards the sun and then to what Napoleon guesses is north. He moves his injured arm experimentally, hissing through his teeth but doesn’t seem awfully bothered by the injury, nor as unstable as Napoleon feels.

Napoleon doesn’t dare to move. Nothing in him recognises the stranger, but the back of his mind is categorising the build and pace, the movement of his body and the shape of his figure. Military trained, but more than just a soldier. Maybe special forces, a mercenary or a spy. There is something about him that makes Napoleon want to run.

The stranger searches his pockets, and the sun catches the glint of metal as he brandishes a knife.

Napoleon flinches at the sight, a hitch of breath escapes his throat. Shit, shit shit. The rush of adrenaline makes his stomach sweep down, and Napoleon should move, use the surprise and get ahead.

Too late.

The man swivels around at the sound. His eyes latch onto Napoleon with a furious glare. He lowers his body in a prowling stance, the knife in his uninjured hand. But it isn’t the weapon that makes a ice cold shiver go down Napoleon’s spine— it’s the eyes, intense and focused, that do not spell anything but killer.

The gaze pins him down like a deer in headlights. He needs to go; the man might be able to fight but running with an injury cannot be pleasant, and there might be another wound hiding under the layers of clothes. Napoleon has a chance to flee, but instead a excerpt from a nature documentary stutters into his mind:

“When a predator sees you, do not run. Back away slowly, keep eye contact, don’t be a threat, don’t do anything that resembles prey.”

The man doesn’t speak, and Napoleon can’t find words through the terror that crawls up his throat. His lungs expand and collapse in thunderous intervals and Napoleon knows in every fibre of his being that if this man touches him, he will die.

Hands around his throat. Tight. Tight. Black consumes green and Napoleon can’t breathe anymore, can’t move, can’t speak. The grip too strong. He’s too weak.

The man – predator – beast – killer, takes a step closer. Napoleon doesn’t dare to move, but he prepares for a fight, a fight he won’t win.

Napoleon prepares to die.

“Who are you?”

Napoleon flinches.

The man frowns, and with it Napoleon’s heart rate recedes at once. The stranger’s emotions bleed into his face and Napoleon can read them like an open book; confusion, frustration and a moment of hesitation, but nothing that resembles the murderous focus that had flashed over him just seconds before.

His own reaction disturbs him— one expression and he feels utterly and completely calm.

“Who are you,” the man repeats. He lowers the knife in a placating gesture, but that’s not what breaks Napoleon out of his frozen state. It’s the little frustrated sigh that comes with the words. This is a man who seems as confused as he is, has at least broken an arm if not more, and somehow he seems more annoyed with having to repeat himself, than the situation they’re in. Napoleon doesn’t know why, but he suppresses the need to roll his eyes.

“I don’t know,” Napoleon lies, automatically. It isn’t much of a lie; he knows his name, but everything else is blank. He can’t trust himself, can’t trust this stranger, and the lie feels familiar on his tongue. He hopes the stranger doesn’t notice it, and then catches up with what he said. That was Russian. The stranger speaks Russian. He speaks Russian. What the fuck is going on.

“American,” the man says with a huff. “You’re American.”

“Is my accent that bad?” Napoleon says, with a grin he doesn’t understand. His face falls into it like a habit— like he is used to smiling this way. Sleek, smooth, teasing; covering the panic still tightening his throat. Despite what the stranger seems to prioritise, Napoleon is of the opinion that their situation is more than an excuse to indulge into a full fledged freak out — he’s lost his fucking memory and the suit he’s wearing is Armani and absolutely destroyed, it almost makes him want to cry. But Napoleon’s body keeps a casual stance without his say so, his breathing calm and regular while his heart races in his ears.

He must have learned to be like this, somehow. Just like the stranger must have killed before, as Napoleon saw in the flash of his eyes.

“Passable,” the man says, pulling Napoleon out of his thoughts.

Napoleon huffs like he’s offended. “For someone who doesn’t know he could even speak Russian I’d say I’m faring fairly well. I wonder what other languages I speak. By the way, your English is atrocious.”

The man narrows his eyes at him for a moment but only says, “Where are we?”

Napoleon sighs, taking in their environment. The beach is small and rocky and plunges into an ocean that stretches as far as the eye can see. Thick jungle bush fills the other side and Napoleon can hear animals screeching and barking, but besides nature’s loud song, there nothing that sounds like coming rescue. No boats, no cars, no planes, no voices; no signs of civilisation. They’re alone.

Napoleon swallows. “I have no idea where we are. Or how we got here.”

The man is silent for a second, his breathing a steady presence beside Napoleon, and then says quietly, “I don’t remember my name.”

Napoleon keeps his gaze away, focusing on a tall palm tree on the edge of a rocky cliff. “Me neither.”

The man lets out a breath and then hisses. Napoleon twists around to see him carefully holding his wrist. He’s wearing a watch covered in blood. “Broken, I think.”

“The watch or the arm,” Napoleon says.

The man’s jaw twitches as he carefully inspects the watch, worry splattered all across his features. Napoleon mentally revises his guess for who this person actually is— there is no way he could be anywhere near a spy if his emotions are so clear for any stranger to read.

“The arm,” he eventually grinds out, but under his forced frustration there is a clear breath of relief.

“Great,” Napoleon says. “We don’t have medical supplies, unless your pockets are magic and you’ve got a whole hospital stored in there. If so, could you conjure some water that doesn’t taste like anchovies piss? I’m parched.”

The man gives him a look.

Napoleon shrugs and moves on. “Are we going to stay here to keep our feet wet or are we going to look for a place that’s more, I don’t know. Dry?”

The man frowns again, and for a second Napoleon thinks he fucked it all up; he shouldn’t have included a stranger, someone he doesn’t know, in a plan, in a we. They’re not. Maybe the man is lying about his memory loss and he’s actually the person that made Napoleon forget. Maybe the man is here to test him, to kill him, to otherwise manipulate him. He cannot trust what he sees.

But then then the man’s frown smoothes out and he nods. “Agreed. Lead the way, Cowboy.”

Napoleon raises an eyebrow.

“If we’re going to work together, we need names,” the man says with a serious face, but there is a glint amusement in the corner of his eyes. “You’re American.”

Something warm bursts in Napoleon’s chest.

“So you went with Cowboy?” Napoleon tries to repress the laugh that pushes itself out of his chest, but he cannot stop it. His smile stretches his sun-burned face painfully but he feels too fucking relieved to worry about that too much. The terror and disorientation is still there, but with the slight smile the stranger is now giving him, everything seems a little less hopeless, a little more okay. It is completely irrational, and Napoleon theorizes that the bump on his head has made him insane.

The man doesn’t deign the question with a reply and marches forward himself, a roll of his shoulder tells Napoleon he expects him to follow.

Napoleon does so without hesitation and almost blanches— fast acting Stockholm Syndrome, that might be it.

“Well, Peril, I applaud your creativity on that one,” he jabs, trying to cover up his own confusion. “I hope it’s a sign for more to come because we sure need some ingenuity to get out of this alive.”

Peril. The word fell off his tongue like butter and Napoleon doesn’t know where it came from, but it feels correct. He’s Russian, of course, but the term is about 50 years outdated. There is something else about it that just fits.

The man’s shoulder hitches, and Napoleon assumes it’s amusement. “One of us has to be smart. It is not you. I can tell.”

“Can you now?” Napoleon says. “You don’t know who I am. I could be— I don’t know, a chess champion.”

Peril shakes his head, and Napoleon can see his grin once he catches up with his quick gait.

“No. I know,” Peril says. “Because you must be stupid if you wear suit to beach.”

Napoleon laughs, surprising himself. They both know that they’re not here by choice. They both know that something horrific happened to get them here. But that makes it all the more hilarious, because sometimes you just need to laugh at the bullet coming your way. And as the sand finds its way into Napoleon’s beautiful vintage dress shoes, he cannot help but agree with Peril’s conclusion. Whatever situation got them here, he must have been stupid to wear this and get himself thrown into the sea. It’s just wasteful and tragic to get a glorious suit destroyed like this.

When silence grows comfortable between them, Peril touches his arm and pushes a flask towards him. His eyes gleam when he says, “Maybe, I am magic, after all.”

Napoleon shakes his head and gratefully drinks.

They find a little cave on the edge of the beach to weather the first night, and Napoleon feels like he deserves a Nobel prize for sacrificing the remnants of his suit jacket to fashion a sling for Peril. The summer air saves them from freezing as the sun falls behind the waves, but the cramped space still makes them touch more than not. Peril doesn’t seem to be fazed, just plops down on the makeshift mattress of palm leaves and dry grass. Napoleon follows suit, expecting to be uncomfortable, but instead ending up being relieved to have him by his side.

Despite what he saw on the beach, that very first flash, Napoleon cannot help to be comforted by the brush of fabric against body, the soft breathing besides his ear.

It’s then that the nickname clicks.

Peril– danger.

Strong hands wrapped around his throat. No breath. Potential death.

He needs to remember that. No matter how safe he feels. No matter how pretty the stranger smiles. No matter how his body responds to his presence— be it the hit to his head or some strange coping mechanism to survive this traumatic experience, he cannot forget that this man is a killer. Peril it is.

In the morning, they decide that they have to find food and a fresh water source. Their memories are still blank, but they patch some knowledge together on how to survive in the wilderness. First they need to make sure they won’t die of dehydration or starvation. Second, they have to make sure Peril’s arm doesn’t get infected— Napoleon tries his best, and his fingers itch for a needle and thread, like he has experience patching up injuries of this magnitude, despite not remembering a single thing.

And third, they have to find help, get to civilisation or flag down rescue from the sea or the sky.

“There might be ships passing through,” Napoleon says, as he helps Peril redo the makeshift sling. Peril doesn’t seem affected when Napoleon lingers on his arm a bit too long. Just grunts in agreement to Napoleon’s musings.

“We should keep close to the beach, make something that would burn so pilots could see it from the sky,” he adds, letting his hand fall down to the back of Peril’s shoulders, tugging on the sling unnecessarily. His fingers spread out further, gliding from his shoulder blades to his neck.

“Does this hurt?” Napoleon murmurs, as if he was doing this to check.

“No,” Peril says. “It is stiff.”

It’s an golden excuse, and Napoleon takes it with a spark of delight that almost makes him ill, digging his thumbs carefully into the harsh lines of Peril’s muscles. Napoleon lets the warmth of his skin distract him from the aching hunger that has been tearing itself through his stomach.

He’s noticed the urge to reassure himself with Peril’s presence by touch and despite the hours of rest, he’s too exhausted to suppress every instance of it.

Peril doesn’t touch him the same way, but he doesn’t pull away either, doesn’t even seem to notice. And as any sense of identity remains absent, Napoleon learns in about 10 hours that he isn’t the kind to resist indulgences.

Napoleon follows Peril away from the safety of their cave to the bowels of the jungle. With every step, nature looms larger over them, a constant buzz of insects and the crying of apes. Nothing is visible between the thick layers upon layers of leaves and bush, and Napoleon looks into the tropical maze with a sick feeling growing in his stomach. They had been exhausted yesterday, falling asleep the moment they laid down, but now he realises they might have made their first mistake right then and there. Their flask had gone empty through the night, and after an hour walking they still haven’t found a source fresh water, or seen any fruits safe enough to eat.

Slowly Napoleon realises they are in deeper shit than he has the capacity to think about. He has no idea how they’ll get through this. He has no idea where even to begin.

So he just follows, and hopes his blind trust in this stranger will not somehow become the death of him.

———

It isn’t, miraculously, for the first few days.

They find a small river clear enough that they trust to drink the water after boiling and straining it. Peril proves quite adept at rigging makeshift supplies out of the gifts of nature, and Napoleon surprises himself by being able to keep up in kind. It’s his fishing pole made from a curving stick, the twined vines and a nail ripped out of driftwood, that catches them their first true meal.

They both discover that trying to remember only leads to headache and hurt, but whatever skills they had collected in the meander of their lost lives, their bodies have the access their minds have not. After a while Napoleon ceases to be surprised when he recognises edible plants just by the smell of them, though no memory of their sweetness sparks when their flesh hits his tongue. He learns to laugh at Peril’s frustrated grunts when he tells Napoleon something of importance like it’s obvious, and gives a shake of his head as if the source of this knowledge might fall out of his ear.

Out of the two of them, Peril seems to be bothered the most by their memory loss; the frustration often merging into a tense sort of fear, and it’s this portrayal of emotion that leads Napoleon to let go of all his suspicions; much earlier than he intended to. Peril is peril: capable, dangerous and unknown, but Peril is also Peril: snarky, soft-smiled, and a strange comfort of goal-oriented practicality that Napoleon desperately needs during the endless work of survival.

They stay on the beach, watching and hoping for a ship to breach the horizon or a plane to pass the sky. The food is just enough to get by, the summer sun grants them easy nights, and their companionship staves off insanity and boredom enough for Napoleon to laugh and smile. It’s only when Napoleon sees the skin around Peril’s injuries turn angry and red, that he realises that their relative peace is nothing but an illusion.

Napoleon watches the horizon from dusk to dawn, always trying to get his task out on the beach just in case the looming trees cover the sound of their salvation. Peril has been relegated to the simpler tasks; even with a broken arm he’d built their shelter or carried more drywood onto the beach for when there are people to signal to. But Napoleon saw the strain around his eyes, the hunch in his shoulders, and finally got him to stay put and rest for a little while.

It took badgering, bickering, and a threat neither of them want to repeat—

“If I have to watch you work yourself to death I rather be done with it now, Peril. Sit down, don’t kill yourself, or I’ll fucking get into that jungle and get help by myself.”

“You won’t survive.”

“Do I look like I give a shit?”

But eventually Peril agreed, and Napoleon feels a sick mix of relief and eternal concern as he watches Peril tend to their fire with his good hand.

The problem is there isn’t much he can do sitting still without both his hands available.

The problem is that after seven days, no ship nor plane has passed by.

The problem is that Napoleon feels the hunger bringing a haze before his eyes, their food supply never really enough. His skin is burned in flakes and his lips permanently cracked. The soles of his feet ache with every step and he cannot remember a time where he was without pain.

But it’s nothing compared to the sickly white sheet Peril’s face has become.

The problem is that Peril will die before he will, and Napoleon doesn’t want to think about why this keeps him up at night more than the starvation does.

They don’t talk about it.

The way they’ve become intertwined like the vines in the jungle, unable to separate more than moments before their heart trips out of their throats.

They don’t talk about it.

The way the evenings are too hot to lie together in the shelter large enough for two, but they still end up with legs tangled and faces pressed until the morning comes.

They don’t talk about it, but they both search each other out in comfort, their fights short and unwanted, their silences more soothing than fresh water from the spring. Napoleon knows it’s a way to survive, that two people without true memory could never build a true relationship upon the ashes of their mind. They don’t know their interests, their needs and wants or if their lives would fit together like they do now. They’re just two people with a common goal, the need to survive, and the human mind is beautiful in its ability to wield attachment like a weapon.

Two have more chance than one.

But Napoleon knows that no matter who he was before all this, there will always be a part of him that only lives for Peril. He keeps going, through the pain and hunger, because he knows that without him Peril won’t last two days. He keeps going because he cannot cope with watching Peril slowly fall into a fever as his body tries to fight off the infection growing in his arm. He wipes away the sweat in the dark of night with a ripped piece of his shirt. He takes the last of his meal and glares daggers until Peril opens his mouth and takes the bites one by one. Napoleon cares for Peril as best he can and does not think about the possibility that he’ll wake one day, and Peril won’t.

Napoleon realises that no matter who Peril is — a killer, a murderer, a true fucking danger — he won’t ever want to leave his side. Even if he turns out to love Russian novels while Napoleon is fairly sure he can’t stand them, or even if Peril has never in his life dressed in anything better than tactical gear. Napoleon has slowly accepted that for him, none of it matters anymore. He won’t leave until Peril wants him to.

So far, he doesn’t.

“Fine. I’ll sit. Do nothing. If that is what you want. But don’t you dare leave me. Don’t you dare. I will find you. Even if it kills me, too.”

———

Napoleon swears to never ask god or any entity of power, may they exist or not, for a favour of any kind for the rest of his pathetic life.

After three days of gaunt eyes and sleepless nights, Peril’s fever breaks.

———

“You saved my life. I would have died if you had not— You could have left.”

“I won’t.”

“Why?”

“I’d have died, too.”

———

The don’t talk about it still. But as Peril’s health slowly recovers — as much as possible in their hell of sweat and vine — their touches linger and their voices curl tenderly around soft words of gratitude, neither of them denies that at least here, on this island, their tentative bond seems without end.

But they never cross the line.

The closest Napoleon came was brushing a kiss over Peril’s face when he thought he was going to die, and there is a very simple reason why.

Peril has a golden band around his ring finger.

Napoleon finds him twisting it idly in the last rays of sunlight. The sight is like barbs through skin, dragging him back from this false reality to one single harsh truth: Peril is not his.

There is someone looking for him. Someone with a heart broken in pieces as they have not seen nor heard from their other half in at least two weeks. There is someone out there who will sob and cry once they fall into Peril’s embrace, who will thank Napoleon with tears in their eyes, clutching his hand, for saving the one they love.

And Napoleon will bite his tongue to keep from hissing, “I didn’t do it for you. I didn’t do it for him. I did it for me because I have lost all that I have except for his presence beside me.”

He will smile and wave when Peril walks into the sunset with the one he belongs to, and not speak a word of how his absence scares him more than the hunger ever did.

There is, of course, another option.

After long days of working, waiting and worry, Napoleon falls asleep with his thumb rubbing the place where a ring could have been, but isn’t. It’s become routine by now: a vague flutter of hope, a ghost sensation of cold metal against his skin. Maybe he lost it. Maybe it’s on the bottom of the ocean, caught by a current, stolen by the sea.

Maybe Peril—

It would explain their familiarity, the base instinct of trust. It would explain the way none of this feels wrong, or treacherous, even if they do not technically stray to the side of infidelity. Maybe it’s why Peril is never the one that puts a stop to their closeness like drawing a border in the sand. It’s Napoleon who keeps their touches in bounds never to cross, though he sees Peril watching his lips when they rouse in the early morning light.

But it could also be projection. Peril could be used to being truly cared for, so when Napoleon did, those feelings transferred to him. Napoleon’s own confused emotions support this theory; as comfortable and natural their dynamic feels, everything also has a sense of novelty to it. More than just the absence of memory— his hands do not know Peril’s body like they know the balance of his knife. He knows how to care for injury; dress wounds and watch for dehydration and delirium, but there is nothing but surprise when Peril softly groans as Napoleon grazes over a certain dip between his ribs.

So Napoleon allows himself the fantasy like he allows himself to dream of a Michelin star meal when the torture of mind is preferable to the torture of day. But he does not truly believe that the person who has lost Peril to the bowels of the sea, is the very same man who has been with him every step of the way.

——

Peril confirms it at the start of their first week. They’d decided, now that Peril feels better again and the sky has yet to show signs of life, that they are better off trying to find civilisation by following the stream into a river, and hopefully, into a village of some kind.

About two days days into their trek, Peril stares into the flames of their small campfire, his ring in the palm of his hand. “I keep dreaming about a woman,” he murmurs, so soft Napoleon almost misses it over the cracks of the fire. “A woman’s voice, speaking into my ear. Telling me to come back. Telling me to run.” Peril looks up, his eyes muddled with uncertainty. “It could be a memory?”

Napoleon looks away. His stomach rolls with the answer to a question he never planned to ask. He wants to flee, lick his wounds in the illusion of privacy between the trees. But Peril looks at him like he might have the answer to all the missing pieces in his mind and Napoleon can’t— he can’t hurt him more. As much as he wants to say no.

“Yeah,” Napoleon says. His lips are dry as sand. “It could be.”

Peril’s shoulders sag. His piercing gaze finally releases Napoleon from its clutches and Napoleon learns to breathe. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t think, doesn’t imagine this woman’s matching ring, as gold as the one in Peril’s trembling hands.

It takes a while for Peril to break the silence. “Do you dream?”

The true question Peril tries to ask brushes like a arctic hiss of air over Napoleon’s spine: Do you remember anything too? Do you dream memories like me?

Napoleon doesn’t know. His dreams are infrequent and hurried, like his brain forces itself through the motions in a desperate attempt to get some more rest. The only ones Napoleon remembers are the same daydreams that keep him company as he pushes through another exhausting day.

Peril keeps watching him, keeps asking with his eyes.

Yes, Napoleon wants to say. Yes, I dream. I dream about you. I dream about kissing you, about having you, and I don’t even know your name. The words were already impossible to begin with, but now, the golden band around Peril’s finger feels like a taunt. Silencing Napoleon to the point of pain. Napoleon lost everything, but he had gained Peril, at least until they either die, or find their way back to life.

Now that Peril remembers, he’s lost even that.

“No,” Napoleon says. “I don’t remember anything when I wake up.”

Peril’s expression turns sympathetic, understanding but not comprehending. Napoleon would give anything to forget the dreams now. He’d known— better yet accepted, that Peril has never once been his to keep. But selfishly, he’d hoped that Peril would not think so until the moment the stranger’s arms were around his. A burst of anger explodes inside his chest. He hides his face from Peril by turning his back to the heat of the flames. In all their days of desperately trying to remember, why couldn’t this one thing wait? Why couldn’t he just have taken the opportunity where it lay, kissing Peril before he had the memories to keep him away?

He had known that Peril wasn’t his, but he could have been a little bit, if he’d just taken his chance.

Which, in itself, is proof of how selfish Napoleon truly is. Maybe he’s better off not knowing who he was, what he’s capable of. It can’t be anything good.

For the first time in more than two weeks, Napoleon falls asleep alone.

Surprisingly— torturously, Peril slides in besides him the very next night. Like nothing ever happened.

Like he doesn’t have a wife that should have been there instead.

———

The river becomes wider and wider, the current a constant roar around their steps, but still there is no sign of life. They build camp, eat, drink, sleep, and then pack what little they have back up and continue on for another day. Peril’s arm is slowly healing, the cuts no longer their angry red, and Napoleon cannot help to feel dizzy in relief that maybe they have a chance.

The dreams come with the rain.

Flashes of the hands around his throat, choking him, killing him— No, Cowboy, NO!

A rush of air, warm hands against his chin.

“Breathe, Cowboy, breathe. He’s dead. I shot him. All clear. Breathe. I’ve got you.”

A sudden shift. Blue eyes filled with fear. They’re falling and falling and falling and—

There is only the sea.

Until even that is gone.

———

“Do you remember?” Napoleon asks quietly. His hand drags through Peril’s sweaty hair, as he tries to fight for breath resurfacing from a nightmare.

It takes a few moments, but Peril eventually replies. “I remember a name.”

Napoleon closes his eyes, does not ask.

“Gaby.”

Napoleon didn’t know a name could hurt so much.

Peril’s hand touches his, keeps it from pulling away. “Do you remember anything now?”

“I remember a gun in my hand. I remember blood. I remember drowning,” Napoleon says, honest and raw, opening his eyes again. “Or, I just dreamed it.”

Peril nods solemnly, his thumb dragging across the back of Napoleon’s hand. “Or we just dreamed it.”

———

If Napoleon has been counting right, it has just been a month when Peril kisses him.

The surprise of it almost breaks him.

He pushes him away, hard, and makes a run for it into the bushes. His lungs are crushed by the heat within seconds, and the pleading voice behind him makes him turn right back.

He cannot leave. He will never be able to. The kiss still burns on his skin.

———

They do not talk about it, until they do.

“I do not know her.” Peril’s face twists in anger and frustration, pushing Napoleon against the side of a thick palm tree. He continues with clenched teeth, but his hand is gentle and soft. “I don’t know if I will ever know her. But I know you. I know I— I— want you. Do you think that will change when we are finally saved? Do you think this— us— what we have done for each other, has no consequences?”

“You will remember her, true love is like that,” Napoleon says snidely, the words piercing painfully through his tongue. “When you do, I will be nothing but the person who you survived hell with. You will try to forget me so that you won’t ever have to remember the horrors we have experienced together, and I won’t blame you for it. Please Peril, I’m trying to keep you from making the biggest mistake of your life. Don’t do that to her.”

Peril growls, pure unadulterated anger slashes groves into his face. “You are stupid,” he grates out, eyes spitting fire and voice trembling. Napoleon would have been scared, would have remembered that first moment on the beach, if it weren’t for the way Peril has curled into him, almost hanging off of him, like he cannot help but try for an embrace.

“I know, I have no idea why I don’t just take what is so blatantly on offer,” Napoleon snaps, and then he drags a hand through his hair, laughing to himself darkly. “I guess I care about you enough to not ever want to use you.”

“You are not using me,” Peril says. As full of steel his tone is, there is an element of pleading just below it, almost enough to make Napoleon crack. “I want you. Not this— stranger. We don’t know if she is what you think she is. Maybe she is friend. Maybe ring is not mine, or it is gift from family like watch. We do not know, Cowboy. What I know is that we both— We both—“

Peril seems to struggle for his words and in the moment of silence he slowly deflates. His hand takes Napoleon’s and despite his best efforts, Napoleon does nothing to stop their fingers from twining together. He flinches when the ring grates against his skin and Peril catches the movement with soft eyes. The hand slips away from a moment, and Napoleon watches in a quiet mix of horror and sick euphoria as Peril takes the ring off.

“Peril, you can’t—“

“I do not care,” Peril says, softly but such surety that Napoleon loses his breath. “I am not the same. I will never be. When we go back, we go back together. We stay together. Promise me.”

Napoleon closes his eyes, drops his head with a sigh.

“Promise me, Cowboy,” Peril says. A hand— a ringless hand, cradles his chin and tips it up. “What ever I don’t know. I do not care. I have chosen you. I care about you, alone.”

Napoleon feels his determination crumble under the words, and he knows that Peril can read him as well as Napoleon reads him.

“Good,” Peril whispers, a smile in his voice, “I promise. Remember that.”

Napoleon keeps his eyes closed, huffs a breath in and out. A thumb caresses over the corner of his lip and he cannot keep the word from spilling out. “Okay.”

When Peril kisses him then, Napoleon feels anything but surprise.

It feels like coming home.

———

As they pack up the remnants of their camp, Napoleon spies a glister of gold between the rotten leaves. He waits until he’s sure Peril isn’t watching, and then he pockets the ring, pretending to tie up his shoe. The ring is a heavy weight against his leg, more in meaning than in reality, but it is a good reminder to have. Whatever happens, Napoleon will not keep Peril to his promise. He will not deny himself — them— what they want in this moment and time. But when Peril is face to face with the one he belongs to, Napoleon will be the one to press his ring back into his hand, tell him to forget what they had and be happy in his truth.

Napoleon cherishes every single moment Peril’s eyes land on his, but he will not demand this for eternity based on a false promise. He will just remember for them both, and hope that will be enough.

———

Peril—

It’s as if Peril had been holding himself back all this time, and now that Napoleon gave in, there is so much. Napoleon never imagined having something like this.

His memories might be gone still, the dreams nothing but a trickle of time, but he knows that this— this isn’t something he ever had.

Peril listens, Peril cherishes, Peril keeps to his every step. They work together like halves of a whole, almost able to read each other’s thoughts, and this proves to be essential when they are awoken by the sounds of gunfire.

Peril’s hand goes tight against Napoleon’s chest, pressing like he’s afraid Napoleon is going to jump up into the path of bullets. Napoleon keeps his lips tight but gives a sharp nod, trying to communicate that he won’t.

Like one, they gaze around the premises, keeping guard in tandem, covering every base.

Like one, they shuffle towards cover, both able to be inhumanly quiet despite the bushes underfoot— and Napoleon realises then that whatever they are, who ever they are, they must have trained together before. Because his body might not know Peril’s as he’s learned him the last couple of nights, but his body knows this: complex hand signals, bodies shielded on both sides, and the sound of their strained regular breaths, just barely kept out of adrenaline’s grasp.

So Napoleon knows exactly what Peril is about to do when a branch snaps behind the bushes before them. He reads the twitch in his shoulders and the shape of his spine as he prepares to jump between him and the attacker and—

But Napoleon doesn’t let him. He slides in front before he can and comes face to face with the shining barrel of a gun.

“No! Cowboy!”

Napoleon closes his eyes to the coming shot.

All sounds fall away. There is only the beating of his heart, frantic and desperate, awaiting its final thud.

But—

“Napoleon!”

A woman’s voice, instead of a bullet.

Napoleon opens his eyes— the gun is pointed to the ground, the hands of the woman clicking the safety back on. She’s got brown hair tied into a sweaty braid and her expression is one of unregulated surprise, and then relief as her eyes flick from Napoleon to a point just behind him.

Napoleon feels it, when Peril’s breath hitches.

“Gaby.”

Napoleon blinks. The woman smiles. Peril steps out from behind Napoleon and makes an aborted movement towards her, hesitant but intent, when realisation falls into Napoleon’s mind like a car-crash.

Gaby.

Getting shot would have hurt less.

The woman, Gaby, puts her gun away and reaches out for Peril. Her face grows full of worry and then hardens when she puts her hand to Peril’s injured arm. “We have to get you to Medical.”

Peril seems to be frozen, transfixed by the woman before him, allowing her to touch his arm without even a flinch. A part of Napoleon wants to run right back into the bushes. He doesn’t. He can’t. He promised.

“Ah, yes,” he says instead, his voice grating through his throat. “I tried my best, but I’m sorry I got him back to you a little worse for the wear.”

Gaby raises an eyebrow at him. “You’ve been MIA for more than a month in a fucking jungle with no supplies or resources, in enemy territory. The fact that you’re still talking is enough to brag about, Solo. Never thought I’d have to encourage you to do so. But anyway, I’m glad we found you before they did. No offence, but you’re in no shape to be fight.”

She smirks at him, and Napoleon is surprised to see concern beneath it, directed towards him as well. Her tone is one of familiarity, and the way she looks between the both of them— Oh god. She’s not only Peril’s wife. She’s not some stranger of a stranger he’s done wrong against. No, she’s his friend; someone that knows him, trusts him, and he’s stabbed her in the back as much as he has Peril.

“Cowboy,” Peril turns around and he sounds— hopeful, no— Elated. “Cowboy. I know her. I remember her. She’s—“

Yeah, definitely worse than a bullet ripping through his heart. But in retrospect, he shouldn’t have invited fate in such a painfully obvious way. As Peril’s happy re-acquaintance with his memories is interrupted by a loud bang, and the agony in Napoleon’s side is enough to wash away the rest of Peril’s words.

Napoleon lists to the side, pressing a hand against his abdomen and seeing his vision go double as he comes away with blood. He looks up at a excruciating sound coming from Peril’s chest and Napoleon just has enough time to see Peril’s delight morph into incomprehensible fear before his knees buckle under him and everything goes dark.

Napoleon’s last thought before everything disappears, is the sick satisfaction that he’d at least saw Peril care for him just one more time before he stepped back into his wife’s waiting embrace.

———

Napoleon wakes to a beautiful blue sky, sand corse under his body and his lips parched from the—

No. Wait.

Napoleon wakes to a ceiling painted light blue, stiff hospital blankets grating against his skin and there is no pain but only the tell tale numbness of morphine, enough to conclude a serious injury.

He’s still patched though, that hasn’t changed.

Napoleon tries to pull himself up from the mattress for a better vantage point in his search for a drink, but a gentle hand pushes him back down.

“No, Cowboy. No moving. What do you need?”

A stranger— No, Peril sits in a white plastic chair besides his bed. His tall form folded into the tiny thing like a giant on a children’s seat. He has an iv-drip in his arm, the bag of fluids hanging on a stand just by his side. His arm is covered in bandages and though his face is gaunt and body way too thin, but he seems lively, healthy even, considering the circumstances.

Though this isn’t what catches Napoleon’s breath mid-way through his lungs. It’s the expression Peril shows him, so openly: A gentle smile but worried eyes, and Napoleon has to close his own to a sweep of dizziness because he— he—

He remembers.

“Illya.”

The hand stays there, a comforting weight, and Napoleon blinks his eyes open in confusion. They were never— This isn’t—

“ Come on, Peril, this isn’t the first time you’ve played a married man for a job. Show some enthusiasm, you have to convince them you actually do love your wife, even though technically she’s nothing but a paper trail.”

“I’d never love wife who give me this. I do not do rings, Cowboy. They get in the way when you need to shoot.”

The assumptions they made; a dark laugh almost rips itself from Napoleon’s chest. Based on absolutely nothing, they had build this narrative that had lead to fights, guilt and everything in between, and it turns out none of it was real. It would have been comical if Napoleon didn’t feel like he’s being slowly cut apart in tiny pieces, from embarrassment, loss or both.

“What the hell were we thinking,” Napoleon says tiredly, mostly to himself. “I assume that we were drugged?” He fully expects Illya to take the out, spin some story about the cocktail in their bloodstreams that had lead to the series of impossibilities to cause Illya fucking Kuryakin to want to hold him through the night.

But Illya doesn’t. He keeps his hand exactly where it is, and his smile remains stubbornly soft— though there is a hint of anxiety at the corner of his lips, which Napoleon never has seen on him before.

“We were drugged,” Illya says. “We infiltrated the cruise ship according to the mission, but in some way we were caught. They tried to erase our memory of their human trafficking ring, but gave us too much. Gaby had anti-dote ready before she even located us. But we were thrown off the ship, after I killed one of the men torturing you.”

Illya leans forward slowly, his thumb catching Napoleon’s throat. Those bruises had healed long ago. “We were drugged, yes, but only to forget. Nothing else. Do you understand?”

Napoleon doesn’t, not really, but he nods anyway. Illya is close enough to feel the warm breath against the skin of his face and Napoleon doesn’t know what to do to keep him there.

“So, we did not know who we were. But we could still feel, Napoleon. I trusted you the moment I saw you and you did the same. I loved you, the moment nothing was keeping me from admitting it— no supervisor, no handler, no worry about team. In the absence of everything, I could only see the truth.”

“Peril—“ Napoleon can’t get the words out of his throat. The silence stretches a moment too long.

Illya’s smile falls in slow increments, and backs away slightly, hesitance quickly erased into a familiar blank expression. “I hoped that you saw it too.”

Napoleon clutches on his wrist before he can get away. The movement gives him vertigo and tugs on his injuries enough for sudden pain to pierce through the veil of medication. Napoleon ignores it.

“Peril,” Napoleon says, “Illya. I made a promise. I made a promise and I intend to keep it but I won’t force you to do the same. You chose me, but you did not know what you chose. You know who I am, what I am.” Napoleon cannot help but to smile bitterly, a ghost away from his usual grin. “Please, remember all the reasons why you didn’t want this before you lost yourself— be it the nature of our working relationship or my fantastic personality. You didn’t want this. You never did. And I cannot force you again— I cannot use you again.”

Illya’s mask shatters into something close to flabbergasted. “Napoleon—“

“Look in my pockets, you’ll find it—“ Napoleon spots his suit pants folded as well as they could be on his bedside dresser and fishes the golden ring out of the pocket, holds it up for Illya to see. “I planned to give it back to you, so you could be with your wife again. I promised myself to let you go.”

“I don’t want you to!”

The voice is thunderous, and the kiss is bruising. Napoleon is panting against Illya’s lips by the time Illya pulls away to continue. “I don’t want you to leave. I want this— I want us. I’ve always wanted this. Since— since Berlin.”

Napoleon shakes his head sharply, and starts laughing more out of shock than humour. He cannot believe it. He can’t.

Illya just kisses him again. “You are going to heal, we are going to heal, and then we are going home, and I am going to show you. You promised not to leave, so you won’t— I know you. You stay beside me, I will show you, Cowboy. I will show you that you always have been loved.”

And, despite everything, Napoleon feels himself give in.

“Okay.”