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Chapter Text

Day 5 Prompt: Rogue Organ (two days late)

Achoo!

“You know, you get more head colds than anyone else I know.”

Illya mopped his nose with a handkerchief. “It’s just the law of averages: the average person gets two and a half colds a year, some lucky devils” – he glared – “hardly get any, and some of us make up the difference.”

“Alright, I’ve seen The Apartment too, but did you ever think you might do something differently?”

“Do what? I don’t court them, you know.”

“I wasn’t saying you did, I just wondered…”

“If it’s the inequality that bothers you, why don’t you come a little closer and we’ll see what we can do about it?”

“Tempting, but I’ll pass this time.” Napoleon paused. “Really, Illya, why don’t you just try talking to a doctor about it, that’s all I’m saying.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“She’s a smart woman.”

Achoo! “Fine, I’ll go.”

“Well?” Napoleon looked up as his partner re-entered their office and sank onto the lounge in the corner.

“Apparently, my adenoid glands are enlarged.”

“I always thought there was more to you than met the eye.”

“Ha ha. I’m glad the cause of my recurring sinus congestion is so amusing.”

“What’s the upside, then? Is there a treatment?”

“Yes, surgical removal, but it carries a recovery period of two to three weeks.”

“Good. Get me your leave request by the end of the day and I’ll approve it.”

“Absolutely not, Napoleon. I refuse to let you take on the satrapy in Vancouver while I rot in bed for two weeks. And then we have the western regional conference next month in Mexico City, and I’m due to teach a demolitions refresher the week after that. And…”

 Illya woke up to a grating soreness in his throat, far worse than the gritty dryness he normally associated with anesthesia. His eyes gradually focused on his partner, sitting by the side of the bed, marking up paperwork against a notepad balanced in his lap.

When Illya tried to speak, the soreness in his throat flared into a searing pain. That, he was sure, was not a typical side-effect of having one’s leg broken.

He must have succeeded in making some feeble noise though, because Napoleon looked up. “There you are! How are you feeling?” He flipped a few pages on the yellow legal pad and handed it to Illya, along with the pen he’d been using.

‘WHY CAN’T I TALK?’ Illya wrote, in large letters.

“You don’t remember?” Concern flickered across brown eyes.

Illya drew three bold strokes, underlining his question.

“I guess maybe you were a little out of it. The good doctor was about to put you under to reset your tibia when you stopped him and asked if he could grab the adenoids too, while you were there.”

Illya thought for a moment, trying to remember suggesting such a thing. He scrawled on the pad, ‘Highly efficient, it does sound like me.’

“It does, doesn’t it? Now what flavor ice cream can I bring you, chocolate or strawberry?”

Chapter Text

After their first handful of missions together, and especially after he’d sacrificed whatever scraps of dignity he’d thought he’d possessed during that episode with Thrush’s so-called ‘Fear Gas’, Illya had entertained the desire to see his new partner, the great Napoleon Solo, jostled out of his usual state of perfect composure. He genuinely liked the man, most of the time at least, but there was something about his neatly pressed suits and polished shoes that set Illya’s teeth just a little bit on edge. He found, at moments, that he wanted to muss Napoleon’s slickly pomaded hair with a vehemence that startled him. Although, of course, he had always kept a firm hand on that particular impulse, just as he had never openly expressed his desire to see Solo slip, just a little, from atop his habitual pedestal.

Now that he had got his wish though, the effect was – disturbing.

Looking at the figure slumped on the bed in front of him, face pale, hair in disarray, tattered shirt clinging in a damp ‘V’ to his chest, Illya was reminded of nothing so much as the day his father had finally come home from the front, when the boyishly good-looking phantom from his mother’s photographs had been replaced overnight by a hollow-eyed old man with hands that trembled and bitter liquor on his breath.

“Napoleon?”

He responded to his name at least, fixing Illya with a blank stare.

“Are you hurt anywhere else? Anything but the drugs?” he corrected.

A slow shake of the head. Illya wasn’t sure he should believe that.

“I’m going to check, alright?”

“Okay.” Napoleon’s voice, normally light and smooth, was almost as ragged as his shirt. Illya undid the few remaining buttons and pulled the fabric away, looking for bruising on his abdomen. He slid his fingers over clammy skin, feeling for breaks or swelling. Napoleon was silent the whole time.

Satisfied that Napoleon wasn’t in any immediate danger, Illya sat back on his heels. He almost wished, perversely, that their roles in the mission had been exchanged. He was a passable field medic, he’d had to be, but he wasn’t good at this sort of thing.

“You seem perfectly well to me.” Surely, he thought, once the words were past his lips, there had been a better way to phrase that – more reassuring, and less testily impatient. Napoleon, of course, would have known what to say.

Calm. Focus on the problem at hand.

“I’ll run you a bath, shall I?”

Not waiting for a response, he went into the adjoining bathroom and turned on the taps. He returned to Napoleon’s side while the tub filled and watched, in profound relief, as the senior agent managed to remove his trousers on his own initiative. Illya took the shed clothes and draped them over the back of a chair – the shirt could only be cut up for rags, but maybe Del Floria could salvage the trousers, if Napoleon brought them in. Not that Napoleon would do either of those things, he reminded himself, when he could submit them as losses on his expense account and purchase new.

Illya shadowed Napoleon across the carpet and into the bathroom, sure the entire time that he was a moment away from falling, but Napoleon’s balance seemed to improve somewhat with the steps he took, and he gripped Illya only lightly as he stepped into the tub.

“Would you like me to help?” Illya felt himself blushing, a response to male nudity to which he’d thought himself thoroughly immunized – it wasn’t for nothing that he’d spent his late adolescence in the close quarters of a submarine.

“No, no,” Napoleon sounded a bit more like himself now, too, “I’ll be alright. I don’t suppose I have anything to wear?”

“Your suitcase was in the car when you were hijacked. I’m afraid recovering it wasn’t my highest priority during extraction.”

“I’m ah, grateful.”

“Don’t be. That would have been the Mustang, but unfortunately the garage was under constant guard, so I had to move on to my secondary objective.”

That surprised a tired chuckle out of Napoleon. Illya felt something in his chest unknot at the sound.

“I’m sure I have something you can wear.”

Digging through his own case, he pulled out a pair of pants and a cotton sweatshirt. He had only one spare set of trousers with him, and he was fairly certain they wouldn’t fit Napoleon, but they had nowhere to go at the moment anyway, not until Napoleon had recovered a bit more, and ultimately not until the nearest rental car agency opened in the morning. He brought the items into the bathroom and watched as Napoleon, yawning, toweled himself off, rubbing clumsily at his hair until it stuck out at all angles. He fought with the sweatshirt for a moment, apparently unable to find the opening at the top. Illya reached out and held the collar open, as though he was dressing a small child. When the dark head popped through, he gave the tousled hair an unthinking ruffle, turnabout being, he supposed, fair play.

Settled into bed, Napoleon really did look disarmingly young, stripped of the suit he wore like armor and the careful shellac that went with it. The arms of Illya’s sweatshirt were just a touch too short for him, and the sight of his wrist bones, protruding from each cuff, added to the impression of him as just a little boy, growing up too fast.

Maybe, thought Illya, as he slid into the opposite side of the bed, that was part of what Napoleon was so careful to conceal. And maybe – he remembered the dangerous game of hide and seek he’d played that day, and the helplessness he’d felt once he’d found what he’d been seeking, maybe he and Napoleon weren’t so different in that respect, for all that his own armor was less polished.  

Chapter Text

Strong hands shoved Illya through a doorway. It was cooler inside than in the hall, and the quality of the sound changed. He fell forward. Hands bound, he broke his fall with his forearms, elbows scraping against cool, damp stone. A dungeon. How did Thrush find such places?

Rather than leave him be, the hands hauled him up and pushed him against the wall, a bit of stone digging into the small of his back. Then, he heard the telltale clink of chains and felt a chill weight settle around his right ankle. Finally, the hands let go and departed, taking with them the faint light he’d been able to make out through his blindfold.

Once he judged he was alone, Illya reached up and removed his blindfold. It didn’t change much. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. He felt along the chain on his ankle until it reached the wall, finding that he had about a meter and a half of leeway. Feeling about at the radius of his captivity, he failed to reach the opposite walls, confirming his sense that the room was quite large. He struck upon nothing useful, however, no loose bricks or stones and certainly nothing that could serve as a lockpick.

Finally, head spinning in the disorienting darkness, he leaned back into the corner to rest. Once the jangling chain stilled, though, he realized he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought he was. There was another sound in the dungeon, the sound of ragged, labored breathing.

For a moment, just a small one, he felt frightened, mind crowding with old stories and images of some panting Cerberus waiting in the dark. He shook himself and reminded himself of the most likely scenario – another wretch like himself, likely even worse off.

“Hello,” he called, “can you hear me?”

“Illya?”

The question triggered a violent coughing fit, but it was worth it to know that his partner was there. Between hacks, Napoleon heard the jingle of a chain from the opposite corner of the room.

“Napoleon! I can’t reach any farther; can you come towards my voice?”

Recovering himself, Napoleon crawled towards the center of the room, stretching out his hands in front of him. He strained his streaming eyes in the hope they had somehow successfully adjusted to pitch darkness.

“Here.”

“Damn,” Illya cursed. He sounded closer now, but not close enough to touch.

“You alright?” Napoleon ground out, holding back a new volley of coughs.

“I’m fine. What about you? I don’t like the sound of your breathing, Napoleon.”

“Neither do I,” he mustered a joke, “but it beats the alternative.”

Illya didn’t laugh.

“I’m okay, really. They got me with some kind of gas grenade. I’ll be alright in a minute.”

Illya made a skeptical noise in his throat, and Napoleon almost laughed, he was so clearly able to picture his partner’s face. The stifled chuckle though, ignited a new paroxysm, and Napoleon found himself on his side, wheezing, unable to catch his breath.

“Napoleon? Napoleon? Hang on!” Concern ran sharp through Illya’s voice.

A dull thump sounded in the darkness, accompanied by the harsh jangle of chains, as though someone had hurled their full weight off the wall, attempting to yank the chain moored there loose.

“Any… luck?” Napoleon gasped, once he could breathe again.

His question was met with loud retching, accompanied by an unwholesome splattering noise. Napoleon winced and wrinkled his nose as the sour tang of vomit layered with the dungeon’s preexisting bouquet of damp and abandonment.

“No,” Illya’s voice was hoarse, “no luck. I’ll just see if I can…”

“Wait a minute, you didn’t” – Napoleon suppressed a cough – “sound okay to me just then.”

“Well, I am. Now if I could just…” 

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“What would be the point? There’s nothing you could possibly do about it.”

“Illya.”

A long silence from the other side of the room.

“I’m your partner. I need to know these things.”

“I may or may not have received a blow to the head from my welcoming committee.”

“And now you may or may not be dizzy, nauseous, and vomiting?”

“No comment. But Napoleon, in case you manage to get out of these shackles before I do, you’ll want to be careful not to tread along the wall here.”

Chapter Text

Napoleon lay still, trying to figure out where he was and what had woken him. The first answer came easily – his back told him with certainty that he was lying on Illya’s couch. It was as unforgiving an article of furniture as it had ever been, but that, alone, shouldn’t have woken him, not with how exhausted he’d been, anyway.

After their somewhat arduous escape from Thrush captivity, they’d been further detained by UNCLE medical, Napoleon receiving a nebulizer treatment while Illya was taken for x-rays. Finally, the doctor had suggested they could go home, as long as they each found someone to stay with them overnight. They’d ended up at Illya’s only because Napoleon had been too tired to insist on his own place, a sign, he thought, considering the lumps in the couch, that he needed to have his own head examined.

Napoleon continued taking stock: his chest ached, but he wasn’t coughing. He’d set an alarm for his next nebulizer treatment, but it wasn’t chiming, and when he looked at the glowing hands of his watch, there was still an hour left ‘til time. What then?

A light flicked on in the bedroom, followed by a hoarse, sleepy string of mat. Of course, Illya.

Napoleon levered himself up and knocked on the bedroom door. “Are you alright?”

He opened the door without waiting for his partner’s answer. He found Illya sitting up in bed, hunched over a basin. Napoleon stepped towards the bed, picking up a glass of water from the night table, and handed it to Illya. He took a sip, then gagged and spat it into the basin, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“I guess that’s my answer.” Napoleon mustered what passed for an encouraging smile under the circumstances. “How are you feeling?”

Illya scowled down at the soiled blankets. “Lousy. And I’ll need to put in remedial time on the firing range once I’m cleared for duty. My aim is off.”

“I’m not sure that translates,” said Napoleon. “Anyway, don’t worry about it, I’ll, ah, deal with it.” He wasn’t eager to, but it came with the territory, and he knew Illya would do the same for him if their conditions were reversed. “You just go to the bathroom and make sure you’re all finished.”

He saw Illya off down the short hallway, then returned to the bedroom and steeled himself to strip the sick-spattered sheets. Once he had them balled up with the worst in the center, he remembered that Illya’s building didn’t have laundry on the premises. He carried his bundle to the bathroom, where he nearly tripped over Illya, sitting on the floor with his back to the tub and his elbows resting on the toilet rim. “Where should I…?”

“Oh. You needn’t have. Thank you. Just throw them in the bath. I’ll bring them to the laundromat in the morning.”

“Alright, and where do you keep your clean linens?”

“Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“I haven’t got any. The spare set is on the couch.”

“The spare?”

Illya tipped his head back against the tub, looking miserable. “Why would I need more than two sets of sheets? That one goes on the bed while the other’s in the wash.”

“Call me decadent, but I like to have options.”

“You just don’t want your guests to detect the traces of one another’s perfumes. Fortunately, I am neither physically nor sexually incontinent, and my two sets suit me fine.”

“I’ll let that comment go, seeing as you’re not at your best, but it seems that your system has left you in a bit of a pickle this time.”

“No, thank you”- Illya groaned and leaned forward over the toilet- “I don’t think I could eat.”

“Funny. Look, I’m due for the nebulizer in half an hour anyway. Why don’t you take the sheets from the couch and try to get a little more sleep, huh? I’ll make the bed.”

Illya sat up, apparently forgetting his nausea. “Don’t be ridiculous. You need to rest while your lungs heal. You take the bed and I’ll sleep in the bath.”

Napoleon considered the bath, cold and cramped and full of dirty linen. “You won’t get any sleep there, and we’re both being ridiculous. How many times have we shared a bed in the field?”

“Plenty.”

“That’s right. Now, I’m going to make the bed and start my treatment. You come in whenever you’re sure you have things, ah, under control in here.”  

Setting the nebulizer aside, Napoleon laid his head on the pillows and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, he felt the other side of the bed dip as his partner climbed in. Already breathing easier, he drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Text

Illya set his burden down on the tray table beside the hospital bed and kept an evaluative eye on his partner as Napoleon worked its lid off. Definitely an improvement over yesterday, he decided, when Napoleon hadn’t shown any interest in food.

Napoleon looked into the carton. “You brought me borscht?” He leaned closer and took a deep sniff. “Mmm, garlic. I think that’s the first thing I’ve really smelled since Venice.”

Another positive sign.

“My Bobe used to say that the best thing for congestion was…”

“…plenty of garlic!” Napoleon finished, “My Nona used to say the same thing.”

Chapter Text

Illya had thought his first three days on Survival Island had taught him heat, but standing at attention under the blazing equatorial sun, he realized he’d broken through to a new level, one where warmth wrapped around to the other side of the spectrum and began to feel cold again. Sweat trickled down the back of his unforgiving, black uniform, triggering a hastily suppressed shiver. Maybe this was what they called habituation?

Schooling himself, he returned his attention to Cutter’s drone, “…course will take you across a broad range of terrains, including sand, gravel, and the mud pit. After the final vertical net, you will proceed to the simulated entrenchment. And, now that you’re all seasoned veterans here,” Cutter scoffed, “you will be facing live ammunition. Repeat the circuit until I say you’re done. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Illya broke into a run alongside the other trainees. His muscles ached from the previous day’s workouts, and he found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he’d managed to keep up his gymnastics training rather better than he had during his time in the Navy. Although, to be fair, there was not very much room for such things aboard a working submarine. Dropping to the ground to crawl under the first round of machine gun fire, he choked on a mouthful of dust, igniting a smothered coughing fit that set his lungs burning in his chest.

Ultimately, though, the obstacle course was merely a matter of endurance – and Illya had endured far worse. He guided himself into a kind of rhythmic fugue: up the rope, down the wall, across the beach, through the swamp, over the ladder, under the gunfire. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until finally he’d lost track of the number of circuits he’d done. He thought he must have been at it for quite a while, though, because the sun was setting.

Or… that wasn’t right. Not setting, but dimming, a strange phenomenon that must occur only in the tropics – all the colors in the world fading all at once. And then suddenly he felt warm sand pressed against his cheek, and the sun went out.

Illya woke to the understanding that he was lying in a room with clean, white walls, and that those walls were melting and reforming, bulging and warping towards the bottom only to ripple slowly back towards the top, against the force of gravity.

This realization would have been particularly alarming on the submarine, but then, he wasn’t on the ship anymore, was he? He searched his memories, piecing them together as each one surfaced, as though from a thick fog. He’d been on a long flight, trapped between a young mother and her inconsolable baby and an old man with a grating, incessant cough. Then he’d taken a train, then an oxcart, and finally he’d boarded a ‘fishing vessel’ that had brought him wherever he was now. The UNCLE Survival Island. It came back to him then, all the way up to his last memory, crawling out from under the rattling machine guns and attempting to stand at the start of a new lap.

Was it possible that he’d been shot? He considered the idea. His uncle Syoma, crippled since the war, had always maintained that you couldn’t see or hear the bullet that finally caught you. But, he should have felt it, shouldn’t he have? He assessed his condition. Aside from a dull ache everywhere, the only parts of him that really hurt were his throat and his head, and he suspected that if he’d been shot in either of those places, he wouldn’t be in any position to wonder about it.

At that moment, a man in a khaki uniform with a red cross sewn over the breast appeared, looming over him.

“Hold this under your tongue,” the medico ordered, sticking something cool and smooth into Illya’s mouth.

“Where was I shot?” Illya croaked around the thermometer.

“What?” The medic laughed, then, and smiled, apparently startled out of his brusqueness by the question. “Where did you get the idea you’d been shot? On the basis of a cursory examination, I’d say you have a whopping case of the ‘flu, exacerbated by a touch of heat exhaustion. You’re going to be just fine.”

Oh. Illya couldn’t decide if being felled by influenza was more or less embarrassing than being shot in the ass by a machine gun in the first week of training.

The man retrieved the thermometer, frowning at whatever reading he saw on it. “Stay right there,” he said, as though Illya could possibly have entertained any other option. He returned with a cold compress, settling the cool weight of damp cloth across Illya’s forehead and over his eyes.

“Now get some rest,” the doctor added, “that’s an order.”

Illya didn’t need to be told twice.

When he woke again, some indeterminate time later, it was to the sound of a slamming door, followed by the voice of Jules Cutter, his ill temper spreading through the room like a low-pressure front.

“Well, how’s the runt?”

Feeling unequal to parsing the question, let alone responding, Illya feigned sleep.

He recognized the medic’s voice from earlier. “I’ve got him on IV fluids, just until I’m confident he’ll keep down oral re-hydration. Temp’s still higher than I’d like, but he’s a remarkably fit young man, and I expect he’ll make a full recovery in a couple of days or so. I’d give it until the week’s out before you send him back to the barracks, though, unless you want an outbreak on your hands.”

“Back to the barracks? Hell, I’ve a mind to throw him back altogether. Kid can’t hack it, that’s all.”

Damn. What a stupid ending to what had been, up until that point at least, a reasonably promising career.

Illya’s heart was pounding in his ears, making it difficult to eavesdrop, and he felt his eyes prickle under their damp shroud. A physiological response, no doubt, to his illness.

He almost missed when the medic spoke up. “Sir, if what I hear is true, that ‘runt’ just made it twelve laps of the advanced course with a 103-degree fever. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but me personally, I’d rather have that kind of capability on my team than off it.”

“Hmph,” Cutter grunted, “maybe so, but don’t forget, Napoleon Solo did thirteen with acute appendicitis.”

Chapter Text

1967

“Would you like a Quasimodo Delight?” Napoleon needled his partner, knowing full well what his answer would be.

“Coffee. Black.” Illya repeated.

“I can’t, ah, tempt you?”

“Once was enough. I’ve learned my lesson. Besides we have a considerable drive home ahead of us.”

Napoleon smiled to himself. It was a measure of their friendship, he thought, that Illya tolerated his teasing, and that he could refer now, even obliquely, to that little incident back in their salad days.

1962

“Hi there, how are you settling in?”

The new agent looked at Napoleon blankly. Napoleon had found him responsive enough when they’d been introduced in Waverly’s office earlier that day, and his English was certainly more than adequate, contrary to Napoleon’s concerns, but now, some ten hours later, the young man seemed somewhat dazed. The New York HQ orientation, Napoleon recalled, was extremely extensive.

“Long day?” he asked.

Kuryakin nodded, slowly.

“Are you hungry? I thought we could get acquainted over dinner, my treat.”

The young man brightened instantly. “Yes,” he said, “I would like that very much.”

They made their way together to the exit, Napoleon waiting while Kuryakin carefully unpinned his temporary badge and returned it to Nancy at the reception cum security desk.

Out on the rain slicked sidewalk, Napoleon cleared his throat. “Look, uh, I’d like to show you the best New York has to offer, but, it’s ah, the end of the month, you understand?”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you. If you could just direct me to a shop where I can purchase…”

“No, no, no.” Napoleon waved him down. “I’m not trying to get rid of you. Just managing expectations… we’ll go to the diner.”

The diner was mostly empty and Napoleon picked a booth in the back, sliding across the vinyl covered bench to sit facing Kuryakin. The young man caught his reflection in the chrome napkin holder and quickly combed his fingers through his damp hair, bringing the short, rain-darkened bangs back into array.

The waitress, a maternal type in a pale pink uniform and too much blush, bustled up to their table and unloaded two thick menus, then left and returned with a pitcher of ice water.

“So, what can I get you boys?”

“How about a Western Omelet, with toast please. Thank you,” - he checked the nametag pinned to her bosom – “Dot.”

“And you, honey?” She turned to Kuryakin, cheeks turning, if possible, pinker. He didn’t seem to notice, instead paging through the menu with increasing urgency and an expression of faint bemusement. Napoleon realized belatedly that he probably should have thought twice before bringing the new arrival out to a place that billed its menu as ‘100’s of choices – made quick and fresh to order!’

“My friend will have the hamburger special, alright?” Kuryakin nodded, looking relieved.

“Dinner special comes with a milkshake or a malted.”

“Have you ever had a milkshake?” He asked Kuryakin.

“No, I –“

“You’ll love it,” he promised. “One chocolate milkshake, please.”

“Coming right up.” Dot smiled and departed.

Their dishes arrived as promised, quick and hot.

“Here,” Napoleon shook ketchup onto his hash-browns and slid the bottle towards Kuryakin. Receiving it, he uncapped the bottle and gave the contents a cautious sniff before sealing the ketchup and pushing it aside with a look of revulsion.

“No, thank you.” He said, firmly.

Digging into his own dinner, Napoleon kept an eye on his dining companion. Kuryakin ate quickly, but very precisely, giving the impression of a ravenous appetite kept on a very tight lead. He made short work of his burger and fries and then moved on to the thick shake sweating in its metal vessel. Napoleon noted with satisfaction the near rapturous expression that spread across his face as he sipped.

“That’s very good.”

“What did I tell you?”

“Would you like some? There’s more than enough for me.”

Napoleon thought about it, but then he remembered that barely restrained hunger and figured Kuryakin was just being polite. He decided not to deprive him.

He demurred, “No thank you, I’ve got to watch my figure.” He patted his midsection self-deprecatingly, knowing there was nothing wrong with his figure.

Napoleon took the (very reasonable) check to the counter to pay once Kuryakin had sipped the last drops of the shake, then the two of them slipped back out onto the street. Napoleon looked at his watch. It was still early, and he knew from experience that the on-call rooms in UNCLE HQ where they put up newly arrived agents were awfully bleak places provided you weren’t actually ready to collapse from exhaustion.

“If you’re not too jetlagged, how would you like to come to my place for a nightcap?”

Kuryakin looked surprised. “If it won’t put you out?”

“Not at all, it’s my pleasure as your host.”

In the car uptown, Napoleon kept half an eye on the road and half on his passenger. He watched for signs of weariness, worried he was keeping the Russian out too late, given the time change from Europe, but, contrary to growing fatigued, he seemed to become restless, even fidgety, the longer they spent in traffic.

Finally, they reached Napoleon’s apartment. He held the door open for the other man and then disarmed the security system. If he’d expected Kuryakin to be impressed by his place though, he was doomed to disappointment. He looked cursorily around, but didn’t seem to be taking much of anything in.

Kuryakin appeared to be perspiring, though it wasn’t particularly warm in the apartment, not by Napoleon’s standards anyway. He supposed maybe it would feel warmer to him if he’d lived through twenty-eight odd Russian winters. He made a mental note to turn the thermostat down once he’d served their drinks.

Napoleon crossed the living room to the bar cart.

“What’s your poison?” he asked.

“What?”

“Er, what would you like to drink?”

“Oh, anything, thank you. May I ask, where is your lavatory?”

“Down that hall, on your left.” Napoleon waved a hand. Then he filled one glass with scotch and, after careful reflection, one with vodka, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After about twenty minutes he began to be concerned. He made his way to the powder room door and knocked, gently.

“Mr. Kuryakin.” No response.

 “Ah, Illya, are you alright in there?”

There was a loud flush followed by the sound of running water, and the door suddenly opened. Kuryakin emerged, flushed red to the tips of his ears.

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. Although if it’s not urgent I, um, I might suggest that you wait just a little longer.”

Napoleon looked into the face of abject, miserable humiliation and, to his credit, he thought, wasn’t even tempted to laugh.

“Don’t worry about it. I have another bathroom.”

“You do?!” Illya’s eyes widened, then, and he peered down the hallway as though seeing it for the first time.

“I do. Now, why don’t I fix you up with some Pepto-Bismol and we’ll never speak of this night again.”

“Thank you, Napoleon, that sounds wonderful.”