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Cowboy takes a halting step back, a look of puzzlement in his brilliant blue eyes. His hand drops to his pastel blue shirt, catching the spreading bloodstain with trembling fingers.
Reality seems to dawn on him as he puts two and two together- the crack of Illya’s gun, the weight that must have slammed into his chest.
Pain scrabbles across his handsome face, his hand shaking as he sits down hard on the bed, shaking his head as though he can hear a buzzing in his ears.
“Peril...” It comes out in a stunned mumble.
Illya stands like a man hewn of stone, arm shaking, the muzzle of his Special smoking like a lit cigarette. He is numb, Oleg’s voice ringing in his ears. The order to Kill the American if necessary.
The after-fog of his episode hangs like a shroud over his senses as he tries to force himself to move. To do something. To wipe that look of pain off Napoleon Solo’s face.
The American huffs a short breath that chokes off into a cough and lets out a groan as he slides down the bed- a hand clasped tight to his chest, beside his heart. He ends up sitting on the floor looking down at the red blood seeping over his fingers in a detached shock.
“Il...Illya...?”
Illya watches in a horrified fascination as a bead of red slides from his partner’s mouth. Napoleon coughs again, back arching slightly as he gasps a breath through clenched teeth.
“Fuck,” he pants. “Illya... Per...Peril, what...?”
Illya finally manages to force himself to move. The world is spinning, but somehow he manages to stay upright. He manages to snatch up the computer disk with trembling hands, manages to stuff it into his jacket. Then he kneels before Napoleon, reaching out with a hopeless agony.
Knowing he did this.
That he has killed Cowboy.
What can he say to that?
I’m sorry?
I couldn’t control myself? I never can when they send me into an episode?
“Please don’t die,” rips from Illya’s raw throat instead. It comes from somewhere full of panic and fear. Fear that this man who has come to understand him will go where he cannot follow. “I...”
A small smile curls the corner of Napoleon’s bloodstained lips. “Well... if you didn’t have such good aim...” He coughs again, the pain on his face tearing Illya’s heart in two. “Hey... Peril?”
Illya cannot bring himself to move. He is frozen, unable to reach out a hand and touch Cowboy’s arm. To hold the red tide back with his large hands.
Hands that have broken everything.
He never finds out what Napoleon Solo wanted to tell him, for all the American manages further is a small gasp- before his head falls onto his shoulder, brilliant blue eyes dulling to the hue of a clouded sky.
Then Illya finds the strength to move. To move and gently run his fingers over Cowboy’s lashes, closing them over those eyes that he has blinded forever.
Something hard is caught in his throat, a knot of pain, and Illya knows that if he dares to open his mouth, a scream will burst free.
So he doesn’t.
Napoleon’s arm falls and something slips from his slack hand. Illya hears the rattle as it hits the wooden floor, and his heart wrenches in his chest.
His breath catches in his thickening throat as he picks it up with shaking hands.
And his heart breaks with a shudder.
It’s his father’s watch.