b A Matter of Words /b
i Summary: Originally written for a "Quarrel" challenge.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Man from UNCLE, and no infringement is meant.
Feedback: Yes, please… /i
"For the hundredth time: no."
It wasn't nearly so much the answer in itself as the half-bored, half-dismissive tone, and the fact that Illya Kuryakin did not even bother to raise his head from the dossier he was perusing: Napoleon Solo almost ground his teeth.
"For the hundredth time, then: why not?" he growled, fingertips drumming impatiently on the top of his own untouched stack of dossiers.
Illya just turned a page and tipped his reading glasses back on his nose. He didn't even snort, but he somehow managed to convey the impression that he might start yawning if this went on much longer.
Napoleon forced himself to simmer in silence for one, two, three, four, five, six seconds… Then the Russian absentmindedly reached for his mug of tea and Napoleon triumphantly snatched the thing away.
"Ha" he exclaimed and, as he had expected, the move earned him a scowl.
"Ill-ya. Why. Not!" he insisted, before his partner could go back to his paperwork.
Illya sighed, leant back in his chair, rolled his eyes and made the general show of long suffering he was so good at.
"Because it's childish," he explained with the patience he could have bestowed on a mentally impaired five-years-old "Because I'm not making a fool of myself, thank you, because you nearly spilled my tea over the reports from Jakarta, and because it wouldn't work anyway…"
"Who says it wouldn't?" Napoleon cut in, restoring the mug to its place with a thump.
"I do." The Russian hastily moved the papers away from possible damage and glared at his immediate superior. "And I'm ready to bet anything that you've never seen it work, either."
And with this he buried his nose back in the Jakarta file.
Napoleon thought briefly about wringing the man's neck, but compromised on springing up from his chair, taking three deliberately heavy steps and plopping on the edge of Illya's desk, rolling his eyes when the Russian pointedly moved the mug out of the way.
""How do we know it doesn't work if we don't even try?" He all but shouted.
Illya winced elaborately, but never lifted his eyes from the report.
"Yell that again, just a bit louder, will you? I'm afraid someone down in Medical can't have caught it right." he suggested with icy sweetness.
"I'm not yelling!" Napoleon bit back "And you are not even trying to help."
If Illya had any trouble in keeping a straight face at his partner's petulantly outraged tone, he hid it well.
"Well, I did try to keep you from paying that Bergstrom girl a hundred dollars per syllable," he deadpanned "but you never listened, so…"
He shrugged.
Napoleon nearly choked on this.
"Oh!" he snarled "And do you suppose i it /i has nothing to do with all those cars you keep wrecking?"
Illya threw him a quick disdainful glance over the rim of the folder.
"Will you give it up if I tell you once and for good that I'm most definitely not taking the bait?" he asked.
Napoleon let out a despairing groan.
"I wouldn't be baiting you at all, if only you were willing to…"he growled from between clenched teeth.
"No." Illya tersely cut in.
"Illya…" Napoleon was raking his mind in search of something, anything that would make his partner half as mad as he felt, and an idea hurriedly crossed his mind. Perhaps it was in such hurry because it was a bad idea and it knew, but Napoleon had already acted on it without thinking.
"What if I make it an order?" he whispered, with the fuming smugness of a pissed off choir-boy.
"Do." Illya smirked "I'll love it when I complain to Mr.Waverly and you have to explain…"
"What will Mr.Solo have to explain, Mr.Kuryakin?"
The voice from the door made both men jump to their feet and straighten to attention. They couldn't even swear aloud at someone coming quite unnoticed on two higly trained agents as themselves, because the someone standing in the doorframe was the chief of UNCLE North America.
Napoleon thought it went greatly to his credit that he only blinked twice before blurting out some sort of answer.
"Nothing, Sir… Well, not much" he offered rather lamely "We were just… uh… discussing the…"
"Yes, Mr Solo." Mr.Waverly's stern gaze had a way of being quite unnerving "I am aware you were… i discussing. /i "
"Uh… the Jakarta dossier, Sir." Napoleon elaborated, and immediately regretted what could only have been either a statement of the obvious or a clumsy attempt at covering guilt.
Mr Waverly was clearly not impressed.
"Mr.Kuryakin?" he demanded, his almost-glare travelling to the junior agent.
Napoleon's eyes went the same way and something in his partner's suddenly angelical expression made him freeze. From his experience, an angelical Kuryakin could only mean trouble.
"Yes, Sir." Illya began smoothly "Mr.Solo was insistently requesting that we put up a fake quarrel for your benefit, Sir."
Napoleon stared in dumfounded disbelief as something hardly discernible flickered in Mr.Waverly's eyes.
"Was he, indeed?" the elderly gentleman prodded.
"Yes, Sir." Somehow Illya managed to look even more candid and innocent as he went on "He seemed to be labouring under the illusion that, if you heard us quarrel, you might reconsider your decision of confining us to desk-work for the next five weeks. Naturally, I refused to take any part in the scheme, Sir."
"Naturally." Mr.Waverly nodded, and then paused thoughtfully rubbing his chin.
Napoleon fractionally shook his head. He had often wondered whether a streak of insanity ran in the Kuryakin family… Now he was positive it did.
His chief's voice startled him from his gloomy thoughts.
"Er… yes." un uninitiated observed could almost have thought that Mr.Waverly was musing aloud to himself "I know you have far better sense than that, Mr.Kuryakin. As for this confinement, I'm beginning to doubt it was a good idea in the first place… It seems to have some bizarre effects, doesn't it? Now, there is this most unpleasant situation in Southern Rhodesia, definitely escalating out of control. I was planning on sending Mr.Slate and Miss Dancer, but on second thoughts… I rather think I will see you both in my office in ten minutes, gentlemen…"
And with that he was gone, very much like an over-aged Cheshire Cat, leaving a frown lingering in the air instead of a grin.
A grin was there, though: Napoleon was quite beaming. Rhodesia it was!
"See? It did work!" he gloated "I was right: the fact that we were quarrelling made him reconsider."
Illya's brows rose in amused scepticism.
"Actually, I think it was the fact that you were willing to resort to such a harebrained ruse…" he said, as he stacked the now unimportant Jakarta papers in a neat pile.
"…As you were so helpful in letting him know." Napoleon snorted, less sourly than he might have, (which was quite handsome of him, if he thought so himself) "But the fact remains that he found us quarrelling and…"
"May I point out the fact that I was not quarrelling at all?" Illya insisted "In fact, I was firmly refusing to be dragged in a quarrel."
Napoleon automatically reached out a hand to straighten his partner's hopeless tie.
"Which is as to say that we were quarrelling on whether to quarrel or not." he laughed happily.
"Still, I insist that, technically, I was not…" Illya was getting grumpy on the subject. Just a trifle too late, but it didn't matter anymore…
Before the Russian could embark in some labyrinthine disquisition on semantycs, Napoleon grabbed him by the arm and steered him to the door.
"Shut up and think of Rhodesia, Tovarich!" he playfully admonished "It wouldn't do to keep Mr.Waverly waiting while we i quarrel i/ about this, would it?"
Please, let me know…