There was something a little off about Illya from the minute I sprang him from the jail cell. He was moving slow, slower than I would expect him to from a mere beating. I've seen him at Death's Door and still able to out-run a top athlete in a moment of need. He pays for it, but the reserve is usually there. To me, that meant he was hurt more than he let on.
I let my hand drift to his arm, half expecting to find it trembling with repressed pain, but nothing. Illya frequently comments upon my need to touch people. I'm tactile, I believe there are things that touch can tell you that nothing else will. Illya, coming from a country in which they were very physical, seemed almost to welcome any contact he received those first couple of months and now is so accepting of my casual touches that he's to the point of nearly demanding them, so it caught me as strange that he pulled free of me almost instantly. He did that with other people, certainly, but never with me.
Still, there was an escape to be made and we made it, if only by the seat of a very expensive pair of pants. It was only when we were watching the THRUSH satrap go up in flames that I noticed his very obvious lack of interest in events. There's not much more that will hold my partner's attention than a nice earth-shattering explosion and it caught my attention that he seemed more eager in getting back to HQ than anything else. Again, I racked it up to the mission, but I made a mental note to make sure we got him to Medical the minute the plane landed in New York.
Waverly, however, had other ideas. Our feet hadn't hit the front stoop of Del Floria's when he demanded we report to him. The trip through reception was fast and painless and it was only in the elevator that I gave voice to some of my concern.
"You doing all right there, partner of mine?"
"Yes, Napoleon, I am fine, just a little tired." He rubbed his forehead, a gesture I've seen him use a dozen times when he's getting a headache and yet it somehow seemed different this time. I reached out and titled his head back to look into his eyes. He jerked out of my grasp as if startled. "What's wrong?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing." I tried again and this time he permitted the touch, albeit reluctantly. "You get a knock?" Head injuries were practically a way of life for us and would certainly explain his behavior.
"No, it was just your average not-very-creative beating." Illya moved a step away from me, out of reach, and looked straight ahead, shoulders squared and his jaw set.
We hit Waverly's office and the Old Man chewed on us for the better part of an hour. Any worry that I had vanished as I watched Illya in action. He was in top form, able to anticipate the line of questioning before I'd even had a chance to think about it. He was concise, he was brusque, he was Vintage Illya. I began to wonder if perhaps I was the one who should pay a little visit to Medical. It didn't matter because we were both sent there at the end of the meeting.
Dr. Samuels was a straight-forward sort of chap, nice enough for a doctor, if you like the sort. I don't, but, unlike Illya, I do try to play nice with them.
I sat on his examination table while he went through the routine of checking my basic functions and finally gave a voice to my concern.
"Hey, Doc, when you were examining Illya, did you notice anything?"
"No, aside from someone playing football with his ribs, he was fine. Why do you ask?"
Of course, he chose that moment to stuff a thermometer into my mouth and I clamped down on it, almost to the point of biting it in half.
"Nothing I guess, I just thought…"
"What?"
"Nothing." I put it down to nerves and sat quietly through the rest of the exam.
"I give you a clean bill of health, Napoleon." The doc made a couple of marks on the clipboard he held. "You can get dressed."
And he was gone. I was buttoning up my shirt when my favorite nurse, Nellie, came in. As usual she was wearing this slightly oversized sweater with the sleeves pushed back. I like Nellie; she's kind, affectionate, truly gifted, and besotted with Illya to the nth degree. I suspected she and Illya had danced a time or two in the past, but he was always pretty close mouthed about his conquests. A true gentleman in that regard, Illya never kissed and told.
"Thanks for coming back in one piece, the two of you."
"Always happy to oblige." I draped my tie around my neck and saw her hesitate for just a moment. "Nellie, is there something else?"
"It's probably nothing, but…"
"But?"
She started looking around the exam room like a kid with her hand caught in the cookie jar. It was almost as if she was afraid of violating a confidence.
"Illya… Mr. Kuryakin, I mean, did he have anything happen to him during your mission? Aside from the obvious?"
"Not that I know of, why?"
"He was just acting a little, oh, I don't know, off."
"How do you mean?"
"Just a little… I don't know… like he's a split second behind everything else. It doesn't make any sense." She laughed and brushed a wrinkle from my jacket. "I'm probably just tired."
"Yes, I'm sure that's it. You're just tired." Mentally I added Then I'm tired too because there is something going on. And it was at that point that I decided to go for broke
"Just go easy on those ribs for the next couple of days," the doc was saying to Illya as I exited the exam room.
"Ready to go, partner?" I gestured to the elevator and Illya headed in that direction, pushing past Nellie as if she didn't exist. That was cold, even for him, but not completely out of character. She caught my eye and I nodded.
The elevator doors closed and I hit the button for street level. "So you want to grab dinner tonight?"
"Don't you already have a date? I mean, you've been back all of four hours."
Again, that comment would make sense if anyone else has said it, but not Illya.
"I sort of thought that's what I was doing," I said, keeping my voice low in case anyone was listening. The elevators were routinely but randomly monitored, so you could never predict when you might be overheard.
He smiled and nodded. "Of course, I'm sorry. I'm just a little…"
"Tired, I know." The elevator doors opened to reception and I led the way out. We hit the street a minute later and I flagged down a taxi. "How about we order in instead?"
His look was wary, but he again nodded. "If you'd prefer that would be fine."
Dinner moved along normally enough. We talked about the mission, what we would have or should have done differently had the opportunity presented itself. Illya was a little off his feed, but considering the way his head was drooping, I chalked it up to exhaustion.
"Leave stuff for the morning," I said, standing. "I think it's time to put you to bed." It was just as well that I had no other plans other than a good night's sleep myself. I don't think Illya was up for anything else.
Illya stood slowly, one hand against his ribcage and started to walk towards the door.
"Illya, where are you going? The bedroom's over here." I pointed, smiling, but all my senses were in hyper-drive now. Something had been holding me back all night. Usually by this point, we are all over each other, especially if one of us had had a close call. Of course, we're mindful of injuries, but short of being holed up in Medical, and sometimes not even then, did we refrain from expressing ourselves.
"I'm sorry?"
"Bedroom, this way." I pointed again. "You sure you didn't get hit in the head?"
I saw conflict in his eyes. "I'm really tired tonight, Napoleon. I'd rather just go home."
"Illya, you are home. What are you talking about?" Well, that wasn't exactly true. He still had his apartment, but he'd not stayed there for more than a few minutes in the last few months, just as long as it took for him to grab clothes and head back here until most of his belongings were piled in amongst mine. For all intents and purposes, he lived here now.
"I don't…"
That's when I kissed him and I knew. They could make this man look like my partner, but they couldn't replicate the way he tasted to me. They could train this man how to think like my partner, but they couldn't make his skin or hair feel exactly the way Illya's skin and hair feels to me. Everything looked right, but nothing felt right. Still there was one way to know, one way that would tell me more truthfully than anything else.
I'm not proud of it, but I took him to bed. I seduced him, I fucked him, and then I put a bullet right between his eyes even before his climax was over.
"Open Channel D, emergency. We have been infiltrated." And all the while I hoped beyond hope that my partner hadn't still been in that building when we blew it up.
It took longer than I'd have liked, but we found Illya. He was none too happy about the tardiness of the delay, but being a guest of THRUSH never made one sanguine. He'd been pumped full of truth serum, slapped around and chained to a wall, but was still annoyed enough to start kvetching at me the minute I started to undo the manacles.
"Took you long enough."
"Sorry, I was busy."
"Busy? Too busy to look for me? Now I am hurt."
"Too busy looking for you." I corrected and started chaffing his wrist to get the blood back into his hand. He leaned his head against me and I smiled. Yes, this was right. Illya taking comfort in my presence, trusting me enough to let the human side of him peek through a bit. I grinned and undid the other hand, immediately wrapped an arm around his waist as his legs protested the burden of having to support the whole of his weight again.
It wasn't until we were in bed that I told him the whole story.
"So it wasn't until you had sex with him that you knew he was a ringer?" Illya was tracing a pattern on my back with his forefinger, the roughness of his fingertip raised goosebumps in its wake.
"No, it wasn't until then that I was absolutely certain he wasn't you. Up to that point, I wasn't sure."
"I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted."
I shifted slightly to kiss him, letting my tongue play with his lips and they opened easily for me. Illya's mouth was passionate, responsive and demanding. He knew what he wanted and expected nothing less from me. It was nothing like the imposter's, who had kissed like a maiden aunt, reticent and cautious and whose mouth had to be coaxed open.
My hands started roaming his body, mapping it, delighting in the familiar feeling of smooth skin over firm muscles. The imposter's had felt like paper, dusty and old, nothing like Illya's. Even after a week of confinement, it felt alive and supple as muscles and sinews worked beneath it.
One of my hands slid up to tangle into his blond hair, impossibly and incredibly soft. The imposter's had looked right and been the right color, but had felt wrong when I had woven my fingers into it – stiff and brittle.
Then I felt his body moving against mine, his erection rubbing against my hip, heard that guttural little sound that he made that made him sound so needy, so wanting of me. And then feeling him in me, it was so achingly familiar and wonderful that I nearly sobbed from the sensation as we moved together.
Yes, THRUSH had made a mistake and not one that they would be likely to repeat in the future. They would never know the complete truth, but never again would they underestimate the connection that exists between my partner and me. They can watch how he moves, they can try to second guess how he thinks, but they had never suspected the truth.