Lover's Touch
by elfin
tag for "The Master's Touch Affair"
Not until he got his partner inside the car did Solo finally manage to
take a good look at him.
In the cell he'd been more concerned with getting Illya out alive.
Getting them both out alive. He'd tried his best to ignore the incoherent
sounds, knowing they were the effects of prolonged "treatment" - the regular
administration of a concoction of drugs, THRUSH's own cocktail recipe.
Illya demonstrated all the signs of having been subjected to hours of mind
probes and torture. The rubbing of his face told Solo of the internal
struggle to remember his own name and the battle against a likely headache
threatening to explode through his skull. He was drowsy from the ingredient
meant to keep him docile but he was fighting that too.
Brainwashing was an art and THRUSH were definitely artists in their field.
Getting out had been difficult and dangerous, he'd had to drag Kuryakin
most of the way. Now that they'd stopped running, Solo could see the
glazed expression in the usually clear blue eyes. The blood on the snowy
white shirt. He knew the guard he'd shot had hurt Illya; that much
he'd gleaned from his partner's silent indications back in the cell.
He thought about what he'd said as they'd been escaping.
*"Is my name Illya?"
"Who cares?"*
"I care," he murmured to himself, watching as Illya - sitting sideways
in the passenger seat - started to lose his battle to stay awake as Solo
had ordered him to do during the rescue.
Reaching out, he stroked a lock of golden blond hair from the side of his
partner's grubby face.
Blue eyes shot open and he tried to scoot back.
"It's okay, Illya," Napoleon reassured. "You're safe now. You
know who I am, don't you?" But for a terrible moment he thought that
perhaps Illya didn't.
His relief when the other man nodded once and settled again was palpable.
The one thing THRUSH couldn't take from them was their memory of each other.
With some visible effort Illya spoke. "Can...." He swallowed,
licked his lips once. "I...." To Napoleon, it looked as if he
was trying to remember how to form the words. "Sleep?" he managed
eventually.
Solo nodded but he was forced to add, "but not for too long, not yet.
I'm sorry, I know how tired you are."
Illya closed his eyes. "It's okay."
It wasn't, Napoleon knew. But he also knew his partner would fight
the effects of his torture for as long as it took them to wrap this mission
up. Only then would he go home to his cold apartment and take a shower,
drink a bottle of vodka and sleep for two days straight.
"Illya, I have to ask. Did they... hurt you in any other way?
Do you need a doctor?"
It was a moment before he was answered. "Blood. My blood."
"I know. From where?"
"Beating... before the... headache."
Nodding, Napoleon sighed softly, leaned forward and touched a chaste kiss
to Illya's forehead.
"When this is over," he started quietly, "I'd like to come home with you."
Illya didn't open his eyes, but one corner of his mouth turned up in an
amused smile. "For... my sanity... or... yours?"
Napoleon laughed, relieved. He threaded his fingers into his partner's
hair, clutching a little too tightly for just a moment. Illya allowed
it, not even flinching this time as he had in the cell when Solo had been
manhandling him.
"Both of us I think. When Mandor told me what he'd done, that he'd
betrayed you... I wanted to kill him."
To betray emotion in front of an enemy was dangerous, he was trained to
keep personal feelings locked up inside, to keep anger and fear from his face,
even from his eyes. But to think of his partner - his lover now and
again - in the clutches of THRUSH had scared him to death.
It always scared him to death.
"You didn't." Illya's eyes were closed, his body relaxed finally
as a prelude to sleep.
"I should have done," Napoleon whispered, but they both knew it was an
idle threat. He sat for a time, stroking his partner's hair in long,
rhythmic strokes until Illya's breathing evened out and he slept.
A few minutes later, Solo started the car's engine and drove to the rendezvous
point carefully, determining to keep Kuryakin with him, in his sights, until
all this was over.
Later he could look forward to a couple of days of keeping him in his bed.
He glanced over at the blond man and released the tension inside him.
"Love you, Tovarisch." One day he'd have to tell Illya when the man
was awake. Before THRUSH managed to take his partner from him once
and for all.
fin
elfin
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