Withdrawal

by Aconitum-Napellus

What happened during and after The Master's Touch Affair, as Illya fights the drugs in his system. This is mostly about friendship, relatively mild, some nudity, perhaps one or two swear words.

Betrayed... I was... Mandor. Betrayed. I was... was... Mandor...

So cold under his cheek. Cold. Hard. Cold. Damp. Smell. Stale piss. Shit. That bucket…

Mandor. Betrayed.

Aching through his legs. Ribs. Spine. Legs. Boots kicking him. Rough hands. Bruises.

Betrayed. Mandor.

His head aches, aches, aches. Spine aches. Tired.

...

He pushes himself to his knees and the chain drags and scrapes on hard floor, scraping grating into his head so he wants to lift his hand and itch his brains out; but when he moves his hand the chain noise is closer and louder so he drops it instead and hobbles on his knees over to the bucket. He fumbles at his fly with fingers that can't properly feel what they're touching. He's half numb, half all in pain. He tries to piss into the bucket but he's lolling and wavering and it gets on his hands and soaks into his trousers and not much goes in the bucket at all. He wants to care but he can't make himself care.

Mandor. Mandor. Mandor.

The metal of the bucket rattles on the stone floor and he wants to itch out his brain again. He leans sideways against the wall and condensation seeps through his shirt sleeve and the wall is cool against his head.

Mandor. Betrayed. I was... I. I...

I. What is I? Doesn't it stand for more than – What? What is I?

He's kneeling, leaning on the wall and he tries to tuck everything back into his trousers and close the zip. He moves backwards, and the chain scrapes so awfully on the concrete floor and his teeth itch with the sound. He paws at his face, pulls his lips like rubber, whimpers at the sound.

Mandor...

His head aches and there's a swelling in his throat, a sensation of sickness wanting to get out. He folds himself back to the floor and it's cold under his thigh and flank and arm and head. He moves his hand up to his ear and the chain slumps inert and cold against his cheek, chest, arm. The words go round and round in his head.

Mandor. I was betrayed by – Mandor. Mandor. Mandor.

He wants to scream and shake them out of his head. He dreams the word Mandor. When he's awake those words are laundry in the drum of his head, slopping around and around and around. Everything else is pushed aside. There is nothing else but sensation. Cold. Damp. Aches. Mandor, Mandor…

His stomach rumbles low and painfully, clenching hard. He hasn't eaten anything for a long time. He's hollow, empty. He's drunk water from a bucket left on the floor, but no food. No food at all. He thinks about food and picks at the seam of his shirt, where it's open at the neck. He rubs his finger over the smoothness of a button, and that's a good thing to feel. It's a good, clean thing.

Mandor. I was…

He runs his fingers over the rough, cold loops of the chain, one after another, all identical. Loop. Loop. He should be able to count them. Numbers are somehow important to him but he can't think of them. He can't count. Just one loop after another, over and over, his fingers slipping from one to the next, from the iron band around his wrist to the other end. They've dragged him by that chain and whipped the free end against him with brutal anger and idle laughter. Chain hurts when it hits and leaves dark, spreading bruises. They've jerked him about with it, and it's awful, he hates it, but touching it gives his fingers something to follow, something to do.

He sleeps and wakes. Men come in and out of the cell, and they push him around and hit him and shout at him and inject things into his arm, sharp and stinging, and they keep saying to him, 'I was betrayed by Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor,' until his head hurts so much that it is a screaming inside him and all he can hear is those words, I was betrayed by Mandor, over and over and over like a clamouring in his skull.

They take that chain off his wrist. That's good. He couldn't stand the sound of the chain on the stone floor and every time it scraped and rattled he held his hands over his ears and tried to hide away. They shouted at him for putting his hands over his ears, they shouted at him for crying at the noise. In the end they unlocked it and took it away, and it's so much better that he can lie there and when he moves it doesn't scrape and make him want to scream. But they keep coming, they keep shouting at him, over and over again, 'I was betrayed by Mandor.' They try to get him to say the words, and his mouth feels like rubber and his head aches so much and he can hardly see through the aching. They hit him around the head, hit him in the ribs and the stomach. They kick him and slap him and say, 'I was betrayed by Mandor. Repeat it. I was betrayed by Mandor,' and he fights to say it, to please them, because that might make them stop, but he can never say it right, and they hit him again.

Time is a weird, long, formless thing. He doesn't know about day or night. They keep on at him at all hours, dragging him up, rolling up a sleeve, tapping at his arm, muttering and then sticking those needles in. The stuff goes into his body and his head swims and everything comes and goes. There's one time when he sees the door standing open, a great rectangular patch of light, and he makes for that light like a moth, but they catch him and something hits him and stings and he falls into dark.

And then – there's someone else in the cell, not someone in those blue clothes, not that terrible man in the red shirt, but someone familiar. He knows him. He knows him. The smell is right, his face is right, his presence means it's going to be all right. He's dizzy and hungry and bruised and everything hurts, but it's going to be all right. He would follow this man like a dog.

But there are bells ringing and ringing and ringing and it hurts his head and that man is pushing him around, talking in short, sharp words. He isn't saying I was betrayed by Mandor, he's saying other things. He watches him and tries to do as he's asked because not doing means being hit, but this man isn't going to hit him. He's safe. He isn't going to hit him. He lets him press that awful, rubber stinking mask onto his face because he trusts him. He lets himself loll against his hands instead of flinching away. He knows him. He can't think of a name but he knows him, knows he's safe with him. But his mind goes, I was betrayed by – I – I – and then something flashes into his thoughts and he asks, 'Is my name Illya?'

'Who cares,' the man says.

Napoleon, he thinks. That's the name. Friend. His friend, Napoleon. But there isn't time to think because he's being pushed and shoved, and he grapples upwards, and all the bruises hurt and his muscles ache, but he scrambles and climbs until he's crawling out of the high, high window onto dirt and grass and into clear air, and the light dazzles him through the strange underwater glass of the gas mask eyes. Then he's running and Napoleon is tugging at his hand, tugging him on, because it's so hard to run straight and to keep running, because he forgets, he forgets where he's going, doesn't know where he's going, forgets about the urgency that's obvious in every movement Napoleon makes. His heart is thudding hard and his limbs ache. He just wants to stop and be still.

'Come on,' Napoleon says to him over and over as they scramble down the dry hill. Little rocks fall and roll and clatter. Earth slips under his feet. Everything smells of heat and dryness and dust, and Napoleon keeps taking his hand and saying, 'Come on, Illya. You okay? Come on, we have to get out of here.'

There are shots cracking over their heads, so sudden and loud that each one makes him jump. He slips over at one of them and falls down hard on his behind. The air is pushed out of him and his bones hurt, and Napoleon is hurriedly checking him because he must be afraid he's been shot, and he tries to speak, to say something sensible, but all he can say is, 'No, no. Bump,' because words seem so hard to form.

So Napoleon ruffles his hair and snatches at his hand again and hauls him up, until they're at a car, some car, some bright red thing, and he falls into the seat and just sits there as Napoleon starts up the engine and drives away.

'All right, IK,' he says, and he's breathless as he speaks. 'All right. We're okay now. Are you all right? Huh? What did they do to you in there?'

He lolls his head sideways to watch Napoleon driving so deftly, so fast. I can drive, he thinks. He thinks he can do that. He wants to say something intelligible. He tries to think of words but it's too hard, because every word is replaced by I was betrayed by Mandor. He pats a hand on his arm where they stuck the needles in and it's tender under his palm. He says, 'Sharp. Sharp. Mandor...'

'Mandor?' Napoleon asks, looking at him very quickly, then back at the road.

It's like some kind of terrible switch in his brain, some imperative. 'Betrayed,' he says. He has to say those words. He has to. 'Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor.'

The car swerves a little on the road, because Napoleon is looking at him again, looking at him with narrowed eyes. The road is dusty and heat rises from its surface, and it's winding enough that Napoleon really needs to look ahead while he drives. It's nice to have the heat rising around him after the chill of that underground cell.

'They drugged you, huh? Is that what they did? A cheery spot of brainwashing?'

He closes his eyes and opens them again. It's so hard. Everything in his head is so slow.

'Mandor,' he says. 'I – I – ' He is fighting so hard. 'Illya,' he says. 'Illya. Napoleon.'

Those two words are important. More important than Mandor. What is Mandor? Who is Mandor?

'That's right,' Napoleon says. 'You're Illya. I'm Napoleon. That much you've got right. Well done. But what about Mandor?'

'Mandor,' Illya says reflexively. He's tired, so tired he could fall apart. 'Mandor. Betrayed by – '

He doesn't want to say those words. He moans long and low. Napoleon looks as though he wants to stop the car. He looks so worried. Illya wants to reach through the fog and say something but he doesn't know what to say or how to say it. He knows that this is all wrong. He knows it's terribly wrong. But he doesn't know exactly how it's wrong or what to do. He closes his eyes because the world flashing by is too much to cope with and his head hurts and he feels sick, but he feels Napoleon's hand on his thigh so he opens his eyes again and breathes in deeply and tries so hard to make some of the spongy mess in his mind into something coherent.

'Sorry,' he manages to say. 'I'm sorry.'

'No,' Napoleon replies. 'I'm worried about you, Illya. I'm worried about what they gave you. Do you think it's – '

But Napoleon doesn't complete that sentence. He sighs and shakes his head, and Illya feels bemused. Napoleon just carries on driving and Illya closes his eyes again and struggles to bring some clarity back into his mind. And then they're getting out and getting into another car, a car with Mr Waverly in it, and a blonde girl who sits between him and Napoleon. Things get slowly clearer and clearer.

'Flowers,' she says, and he repeats, 'Flowers!' as if this is a new thing, as if a new concept has entered his mind. He feels like a child just learning the language. The word runs over and over in his mind. Flowers, flowers, flowers. He can't make it stop. It's so tiring. The only way to make it stop is to think, I was betrayed by Mandor, and he hates those words. They make him want to shake and scream, and the motion of the car makes him nauseous, and he tries so hard to follow what's being said, what's going on.

When the car stops he gets out through instinct and follows Napoleon, because that's what he does, isn't it? Where Napoleon goes he follows. Napoleon is grabbing him by the hand again because he's wavering, and on the way in he pauses and says, 'Listen, Illya, be careful, okay? They'll have guns. You should stay here. You should go back to the car.'

The choices are too much and he can't make sense of them. He just follows Napoleon, and the running at least makes his blood pound through his body and makes his mind just a bit clearer, so much so that when they're inside and that terrible red man is lying shot on the floor and then Mandor drops, he can speak a little clearly. He can cogitate what is going on. It's such a net, such a tangled web, but he can see what's happening at the core.

It's like a party broken up by violence. There's a sense of let-down, a pervading disappointment, as Mandor dies in front of him. He can't remember exactly what all of this was about. It's about names, important names, but Mandor wasn't supposed to die. He wishes he could slump down like those dead bodies. He's so tired. Napoleon heaves him up from where he crouches in the doorway and says, 'Okay. It's over now, Illya. Let's go home.'

They're a long way from home, aren't they? Isn't this a long way from home?

He stumbles a little and his spine slumps, and he's leaning against Napoleon, Napoleon's arm around him helping him stand, Napoleon speaking to him, asking him if he's all right.

'Tired,' he says, because he is. He's so, so tired, and that word is heavy in his mouth. He's staggering with Napoleon's help, and his stomach is empty and his head aches and he wishes he could sleep. Then they're back in the car and Waverly is speaking, but he finds he can't listen. He can't process what's going on. His whole body feels like molten lead, conforming to the shape of the car seat.

((O))

'I was betrayed by Mandor...'

Illya is like a rag doll again. He's sprawled across the back seat of the car, unable to hold himself up, shirt half-unbuttoned, hair a golden flop across his forehead. His eyes are flickering from open to closed and back again, and he's murmuring, 'I was betrayed by Mandor, I was betrayed by Mandor, I was – '

His head is on Napoleon's lap, his arms loose, hands half-curled, eyes showing only glimpses of blue and white.

'I was betrayed – ' he says, and his voice is slurred, and Napoleon strokes a hand over his forehead and calls through to the front of the car, 'I'm worried about Illya, sir. I don't know what they gave him – '

Waverly has the reputation of being cold, and sometimes it's well earned.

'We can't take him to any of the public hospitals, Mr Solo. It's quite impossible,' he says. 'This mission was covert. What would you tell them when they ask what drugs he's been taking?'

'An U.N.C.L.E. doctor?' Napoleon asks, and Waverly flicks a look over his shoulder and says, 'There's no one near, and we've just lost our only local helicopter. I'll have you taken to a hotel where he can sleep it off.'

Napoleon looks down at Illya and bites the inside of his lip, and says, 'All right, sir.'

He wants to take him straight to a hospital, to have blood taken, to find out what the hell it is that they pumped into him and how to put it right. Illya has been getting more lucid the longer he's out of that cell, so he has hopes that this isn't permanent, but still, he wishes they could find out what it is. Who knows what other side effects the drug might have? They wouldn't care whether it was going to slowly poison him or cause a huge heart attack. They just wanted him to survive long enough to pass on his message, and no doubt it would be better for them if Illya died soon after. But perhaps a regular doctor would be out of his depth with this. This is the kind of thing best suited to U.N.C.L.E. doctors who understand the lengths that Thrush will go to to achieve their aims.

((O))

In the hotel Napoleon makes sure he knows the number of the local doctor and the location of the nearest hospital as soon as they've checked in. He has to hold Illya up against the reception counter and the staff look askance at this slurring, stumbling man in stinking clothes, but Napoleon is paying enough for the room that they don't say a word out loud.

In the room he helps Illya to a bed and sits him down. He holds him up with a hand on his shoulder and looks carefully into his eyes. Illya was drifting in and out of sleep in the car and always repeating that phrase, I was betrayed by Mandor, and his eyes are red with tiredness.

'Hey, Illya,' he says, patting his cheek. 'Are you all right? Are you okay?'

His clothes smell terrible, and he's filthy dirty, and he's lolling on the bed.

'A bath, I think,' Napoleon says, 'and then bed. I'll send your clothes out for cleaning while you're out of them.'

'Bath,' Illya murmurs, and Napoleon wonders if he'll be able to manage Illya's almost dead weight in the bath. It's been a long day for him too.

'Shower,' he says, changing his mind. 'I'll get you in the shower.'

'Shower. Yes,' Illya says. 'Water. Wet. Clean.'

His eyes are connecting with Napoleon's as if he wants to say so much more, as if he's frustrated at his inability to talk. His eyes look so blue.

'Water, wet, clean,' Napoleon repeats with a smile.

He undresses Illya where he sits on the bed, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor. It's like undressing a rag doll. Illya tries to help but he seems so heavy and limp. He lifts up a little for Napoleon to ease down his trousers but almost falls as he does. Napoleon tries not to show disgust at the state of his underwear. Illya was in that cell for too long, unable to look after himself and probably given very little help. He drops the underpants a distance from the bed. He can't get the staff to wash those. He'll have to buy new. Then he decides to buy new everything. Illya's clothes are foetid and awful. He'll call down to the desk and arrange for someone to get Illya a whole new suit of clothes. It's the only decent thing to do.

'All right, partner,' he says.

Illya is resting forward against him, warm and heavy like a sleepy toddler, his head against Napoleon's shoulder.

'All right,' he says again. 'That's it. On your feet. You – '

How the hell is he going to manage this?

'Illya, you need to help me a little,' he says. 'I can't do this all on my own.'

Illya is still lolling, so Napoleon shakes him a little, getting rough, and Illya seems to jerk into life, starting up blearily, saying, 'Betrayed. I was – '

'Hey,' Napoleon says sharply. Those words are starting to make him feel sick. 'Come on. No more of that. Come on. Into the shower. There you go.'

There's no option but to strip down and get in with him, because Illya can't or won't hold himself up. He slides to his knees on the shower tray and Napoleon turns on the water and kneels down in front of him and starts to scrub him with a soft cloth. There are bruises everywhere on him, light and deep, newly purple-red and older green. There's a little rash of needle marks on both arms, where he has been injected frequently and without care. His stomach turns over at the thought of how Illya has been treated. It's not as if it's unusual, but somehow it seems worse that Illya has been hit and knocked around when he was so obviously incapable of fighting back. It's like hitting a child.

'All right, IK?' he asks.

His head is bowed under the water. It washes over his crown, slicking his hair to his head.

'Illya? You okay?'

Illya blinks and lifts his head with effort, and a kind of smile moves his lips. His eyes look bluer than ever.

'Okay,' he says. 'So tired. Sorry, Napoleon. I'm sorry.'

Napoleon pats his cheek, and the water streams over his hand.

'It's okay, buddy. It's all right. Listen, do you want to do any of this yourself?'

Illya just stares at him, his eyes blue and vacant, so blue, like an innocent child. So Napoleon carries on holding him, his skin warm and slippery with soap. He strokes the dirt from his body and hair, taking care around the bruises, massaging shampoo deeply into his scalp. Finally he's clean and he turns off the shower and kneels again with Illya on the bathroom floor, trying to rub all the water from his skin because there's no way Illya's going to do it himself. He gets him out of the bathroom and tucks him into bed like a child, and then dries himself and dresses and sits on the edge of Illya's bed and asks, 'Would you like me to tell you a story?'

The humour washes straight past. Illya just says, 'Hungry. I'm really hungry.'

It's amazing to hear him uttering complete sentences. Perhaps the water helped to wake him up. So Napoleon asks, 'What do you want? Whatever you like.'

'Anything,' Illya says. 'Just – Anything.'

There's not such a dizzying array of foods on the room service menu, so Napoleon orders him a paella and a glass of orange juice, because he doesn't know what alcohol might do to him in this state. Illya eats clumsily and spills food on the bed covers, but it's obvious that the food is doing him good.

'A bit better, yes?' Napoleon asks him. He forgot to order himself anything to eat, but he can do that later.

'A bit better,' Illya repeats. 'Yes. Thank you.'

His voice is starting to regain a tone of control and precision. It's good to hear. He looks exhausted, but he also looks more like himself.

'You should sleep a bit, maybe,' Napoleon says. 'I guess they didn't let you sleep much?'

'Yes,' Illya says.

He scrapes his spoon idly across the bottom of the bowl and licks the last few remnants of the paella from it, and then drops it with a clatter. He drinks the glass of orange juice empty and wearily puts it down.

'Yes,' he says again. 'Sleep.'

((O))

He is drifting in and out. He has no idea what time it is. His body aches. He blinks and sees Napoleon on the other side of the room, back to him, talking on the communicator. And then seamlessly he is sitting on the edge of the bed again, looking down at Illya and smiling.

'Feeling a little better?' Napoleon asks.

He tries to work out how to answer. Yes, he feels better in his mind. It all feels clearer. But the headache is raging and his body is heavy and he's still so tired and sore with bruises. He feels weird, so odd, as if something is building, and he doesn't know how to express that feeling.

'A bit better,' he says, and his mind whispers Mandor, betrayed, Mandor… He lifts his hand to scratch at the side of his head, a simple little movement, but he wants to be able to push his nails right into his skull and scratch out those words.

'Do you remember anything about it?' Napoleon asks seriously. 'Illya, do you have any idea what they gave you?'

For a moment his mind goes blank. He stares at the wall on the other side of the room. But then he shakes his head.

'Remember. I remember – Took me from the road,' he says. He closes his eyes briefly. He's fighting to put sentences together. Mandor, his mind says. I was betrayed by Mandor. He clenches his hands and tries to focus. 'A jeep,' he says. 'They drove me – to Valandros. A cell...'

He rubs his fists hard against his eyes. I was betrayed by Mandor. It's like the urge to vomit. It's building, building inside him. He can't keep it in. He can't –

'I was betrayed by Mandor,' he says reflexively. It spills out of him, uncontrollable. 'I was betrayed by Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor. I was – '

He slams his clenched fist against his forehead and Napoleon grabs his wrist and holds it hard and says, 'Illya. Illya.'

He heaves in breath, pants, tries to focus. The rolling words have stopped, but there's nothing left behind. He doesn't know how to speak. He remembers it, anyway. Sitting in that jeep under guard, knowing that nothing good was going to happen. Being pushed into that cell and the smell of damp and the dim light and the cold all gathering around him, and knowing that nothing good was going to happen. They put that shackle on his wrist and chained him to the wall, and they rolled up his sleeve and pushed in the first injection, and he felt it coming over him straight away; that vagueness, that dizziness, that awful feeling of losing himself.

'Drugs,' he says. 'They – injected me.' Mandor wants to take over his mind. He screws his eyes shut. 'Brainwashing. One phrase. They wanted me to – '

'Do you know what it was, Illya?' Napoleon asks when he trails off. 'Do you know what the drug was?'

He shakes his head. There was no way to tell. A clear liquid in a syringe. No smell. No words to tell him anything about it. Just them shoving him about and hitting him and telling him, 'Now you're going to be our puppet. You're going to learn these words. By the time we're finished it's all you'll be able to say.'

He had felt so small. He had felt so small and weak and confused and afraid.

I was betrayed by Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor. I was betrayed by Mandor.

It's so insistent he wants to scream. He goes to hit himself again but Napoleon stops him.

'It's all right,' Napoleon says gently. 'It's all right. I get the gist.'

He rubs his palms hard over his face, pulling the skin up and down, trying to rub some kind of sense back into his mind. It's so awful, this feeling of having lost everything. He knows there are things there, the knowledge of how to calculate the speed of light, how to read a musical score, how to clean and oil a gun. Languages and formulae and scientific principles and how to drive a car. But everything is effaced and replaced with I was betrayed by Mandor. It's like grasping in a fog, and everywhere he turns all he can hear is those words, drifting, calling to him.

'Try to sleep a bit more,' Napoleon says. 'That might help. Why don't you try to sleep?'

He wants to wake up. He feels as if he's been sleeping for days, living in a dream, or a nightmare, perhaps. Even though they kept waking him up to drum those words into him, and he never really got any restful sleep, he just wants to be awake.

'I – don't want to – ' he says. 'I want to – '

What? What does he want to do? He can't grasp it. He doesn't know what he wants to do. He gets up out of the bed and looks down at his nakedness, and wonders about his clothes. It's warm in the room, though, and it doesn't matter. His eyes wander and Napoleon says, 'Bathroom's over there, if that's what you need,' indicating a door in plain sight.

Is that what he needs? Is that why he stood up? He thinks it is, so he goes and uses the toilet and then stands in the room for a moment, lost, until Napoleon says, 'Wash your hands,' and reaches around him to turn on the tap.

The water is soft and warm on his hands, and he washes them, somehow knowing how one washes one's hands without thinking about it, and then he comes back into the bedroom and sits down on the bed.

'I – er – I phoned out to order you some clothes while you were sleeping,' Napoleon says. 'They'll be here tomorrow. Until then – '

'What happened to my clothes?' Illya asks, forehead creasing, and Napoleon smiles.

'They were none too fragrant, my lovely evening rose. I bundled them up and took them down to the furnace. They were beyond saving. I'll tell you something. The explosive buttons made for a fun few minutes while I was down there, hoping not to get caught.'

He looks at Napoleon's dusty, khaki-brown fatigues, and asks, 'And yours?'

'It's a different kind of dirt,' Napoleon says delicately. 'I've got a suit on order too.'

He sits there looking at Napoleon still. 'You should shower,' he says.

'I did,' Napoleon reminds him. 'At least, I was in the shower with you, remember? It's just my clothes that are dirty.'

'Oh,' Illya says.

He's not sure he remembers. Is that why he's naked? That's why he feels so smooth and clean. He had grown so dirty in that cell. It had smelt so bad in there, and the smell had left with him.

'Get more sleep,' Napoleon tells him. 'Sleep off that drug. Okay?'

That seems a reasonable idea. He looks at the bed and brushes a hand over the covers, and then nods and gets beneath. It's easier to obey Napoleon than to try to argue, to try to formulate a reason to stay awake. He pulls the covers up and turns onto his side, and closes his eyes.

((O))

Later he wakes, and he's aching in every limb. It's a terrible, long, penetrating ache, a kind of cracking in his bones, the way he imagines Arctic ice might feel just before it splits apart. His head is drumming and splitting and his mouth is dry. He's shaking and shaking and he feels so cold. He's wet with sweat, and he clutches at the covers and moans.

There's a hand on his shoulder and a warm glow in the room. The sound of the bedside light clicking on is like a gunshot to his raw and aching head.

'Illya?' Napoleon asks, shaking him a little. 'Illya?'

He grasps for words, and thank god those words they drummed into him aren't there, but it's hard to know what to say in their place, so he moans again.

'Illya, what is it?' Napoleon asks him, turning him onto his back. His limbs hurt with the moving, and his head throbs.

'W-withdrawal,' he says, because that's what this is. That's unmistakably what this is. How long did they have him taking that drug? How long has he been off it?

'Jesus,' Napoleon says, and he swipes sweat from Illya's forehead with his hand and picks up a glass of water and presses it to his lips. He sips and it feels so cold in his mouth and throat.

'Time is it?' he asks.

'Er, about two a.m.,' Napoleon tells him. 'Illya, I can get you to hospital if you need me to – '

He seems to remember Waverly saying something about that, and he shakes his head and says, 'No, no, I'm all right.'

'You're all right?' Napoleon asks dryly. 'Really?'

The shivers are so violent his teeth are clashing together, and it makes his head hurt so much. His stomach is cramping. He is dying. Surely he is dying? But what could a hospital do?

'I'm all right,' he says again.

He is up and down, pacing about the room, his temperature soaring and then dropping to freezing again, his thighs and back and arms aching so much it's like his bones are trying to split out of his body. He's standing at the window one moment and back in bed the next, clutching the covers about himself, shaking while Napoleon strokes a hand on his back in firm, steady circles.

'It's all right,' Napoleon keeps saying. 'It's all right.'

He makes sure Illya drinks plenty, and walks him to the bathroom when he needs to go. And then Illya is tangled in the bedclothes again and waking up, startled, and he can see figures in the room, the figures of men looking down at him, and he cries out in fear.

'It's all right,' Napoleon is saying, and he blinks and stares around, and there's no one there, no one but Napoleon.

'I thought – I thought – ' he says, staring wildly, and Napoleon says, 'Hush. I'm on guard. Go back to sleep.'

He tries to go back to sleep but sleep is far away and elusive. He stares into the dim room with dry eyes and shakes. He sits up and draws his knees up to his chest, and all his bones are aching. His whole body aches with need, and it is only his horror of what the drug did to him that quells the itching need to seek it out. He never wants to go back to that.

He's out of bed again, stalking around the room. He's desperate for movement. He remembers the first hours in that cell when he was still tethered to the wall, and how he had jerked and pulled at the chain until his wrist was bruised. He feels trapped here, unbearably trapped, the ceiling too low, the air too thick. His hand is on the door knob when Napoleon says, 'Illya, where do you think you're going?'

'I need to go outside,' he says, his voice low with need, his hand clenched around the door knob.

'And frighten the children?' Napoleon asks gently, closing his hand over Illya's and gently moving it from the knob. 'You're not dressed for promenading, dear.'

His arms and legs are full of ants. He feels like he can't breathe.

'Napoleon, I really need to go outside,' he says.

It's a terrible, crushing feeling. It's pressing down all over his body. It's like being miles underwater, being crushed to nothing.

'I have to,' he says, he pleads. 'I can't breathe.'

Napoleon takes the key out of the lock and closes it into his fist. For a moment Illya considers trying to wrestle it from him, but he's far gone enough to be certain of failure, and not far gone enough to not realise it.

'I'm not having you spend the rest of the night in a jail cell,' Napoleon says. 'Come here. No, come here,' he says gently, leading Illya away from the door. He wraps a towel around Illya's waist and then opens the tall glass doors to the room's little balcony, which is barely more than a shelf with metal railings. The air billows in to the room, warm and thick but moving and alive at least. A mosquito shrills, and Napoleon slaps at it.

'Now, catch your breath,' he says gently. 'Deep breaths. Fill your lungs. Is that better?'

Illya stands with his hands on the railings, staring out into the soft, dark night. Some windows are lit with yellow glows but most of the buildings are just dark humps against the dark sky. The sky is a deep blue, almost black, and pierced with stars.

His hands are shaking and the air is so warm, but he breathes it in and out, and there's a little breeze somewhere that brushes his sweaty hair and touches his chest and legs.

'Better?' Napoleon asks, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'A little better?'

He's too busy breathing to speak, but some of that awful dread is lifting and the awful desire to burst outside and run is gentling inside him.

'A bit better,' he says. 'A bit better.'

On an impulse he turns and goes into the bathroom. He turns the shower on and steps under that cool rain, and it is a blessing all over his body. The fingers of water stroke every inch of him, and he lifts up his arms and lets it wreath through his fingers and downwards to curl and slip over his chest, between his legs, down over his feet to drain away in the tray. The kiss of water on his face is like a consummation. He leans against the tiled wall and a kind of post-coital exhaustion runs down through his bones, and he sinks to the floor, dropping his face into his hands.

...

'Illya. Illya.'

The shower water has stopped. The warm air in the room is gently easing the moisture from his skin. He lifts his head, and it feels impossibly heavy, almost impossible to move. He sees Napoleon standing above him, smiling down.

'Better?' Napoleon asks.

He does feel better. That terrible bone deep ache is gone. He feels as if he can breathe deeply again and the oxygen is reaching all parts of his body.

'Yes,' he says.

Napoleon is putting a hand under his arm, helping him up, patting him with a towel. He walks Illya to the other bed, the one that isn't dank with sweat, and he sinks onto the dry, cool sheets, and he sleeps, sleeps, sleeps.

((O))

The light of morning is a pale, pure thing. There's nothing moving in the street outside but a cat that steps languidly from one patch of sun to another. Somewhere else life is going on; there are car sounds at a distance, and is that a voice? But in the little street behind the hotel only the cat stirs, geraniums sit waiting for warmth in window boxes, the windows opposite are all shuttered and still.

It's so good to breathe in clear air. It's so good that the pain has gone and the dizzy, fluffy feeling in his mind has gone. Behind him Napoleon is fast asleep in the bed that was Illya's for half the night, sleeping like an innocent child. It was good of him to let Illya take his fresh, clean bed.

His mind feels clear. It's such a beautiful thing. He is tired. He feels as though he has recovered from a long illness. But his mind is clear.

Illya turns back into the room and sits down at the little desk and pulls the little pad of headed notepaper and a pen in front of him. He taps the tip of the biro on the paper and closes his eyes, and then writes down the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for a single nonrelativistic particle. It is beautiful to see it forming from his pen. It is beautiful to be able to look at those figures on the paper and to understand the meaning behind them. He traces his finger across the little blue marks as if he is reading the dents in the paper. He starts to put values in, and it all just flows to a resolution.

His eye catches the room service menu on the corner of the desk. It takes a moment before he realises he's understanding the language with no problem. He picks up the telephone and orders breakfast without a flaw in his Spanish. Perhaps his accent leaves something to be desired; he's never been happy with his Spanish accent. But the words themselves are no problem.

He remembers that he doesn't have any clothes in this place, not a stitch, and that Napoleon has ordered something to come for him. He opens the door to room service with a towel wrapped around his waist. It will be nice, he thinks, to have clothes again. He just didn't care last night. Last night his body was a creature body, just sensations and movement and heat and desire. Nudity meant nothing. Now he's aware of himself again, like Adam after taking his bite of the apple. Knowledge does, indeed, bring shame. But it is a glorious thing to have knowledge. He wouldn't exchange it for anything in the world.

'Back to yourself, I see.'

Illya turns from the desk where he's put the food to see that Napoleon is lying with one eye open, squinting at him through a sunbeam that is falling directly over his face.

'Did you order anything for me?' Napoleon asks.

'Opportunist. I thought you'd want to sleep,' Illya says. 'I kept you up last night.'

'Ah. Ahem.' Napoleon pushes himself up on one elbow, grinning. His hair is in a messy flop down over his forehead, a sight reserved only for family, lovers, and Illya. 'I have to say I've had more rewarding nights being kept up by a naked companion and ending up sleeping in their bed. But this one has left me equally hungry.'

Illya pokes his fork at a plate of omelette. He has ordered enough for Napoleon but if he hadn't woken up he would have been quite happy to eat it all.

'You can share mine, of course,' he says graciously.

'Very magnanimous of you,' Napoleon grins. 'If you keep being this nice I might give you clothes and a plane ticket home.'

Illya throws a napkin at his partner, and says, 'If you want to eat, I'd advise you to dig in. I'm not holding back on your account.'

So Napoleon folds himself out of bed, loose and warm and as naked as Illya. It doesn't matter. He comes and shares omelette from the same plate, digging his fork into the other side from where Illya is mounting his attack.

'Uh, Illya, are you sure you've got your language back complete?' Napoleon asks, poking at the notepad where Illya scrawled his equations. 'Or were you practising your hieroglyphics?'

'It's – ' Illya begins, then looks at Napoleon and grins. 'Never mind. My language is fine, Napoleon, and so is my mathematics.'

'If you say so, my dear,' Napoleon says. He steals Illya's tea cup and drains it, and smiles.

Illya is sure that Napoleon can't be as ignorant of maths and science as he pretends to be. He's an extremely intelligent man. He just delights in pretending that Illya is some kind of cerebral mystery.

'I suppose Mr Waverly will be pleased I survived the night,' Illya comments as he pours out another cup of tea.

Napoleon wrinkles his nose, a forkful of omelette halfway to his mouth.

'He won't. He has to pay for two full new suits of clothes. If you hadn't have survived, that would only be one.'

Illya snorts. 'Not true,' he points out. 'Decency would demand I be buried in something more than a towel, not to mention the price of a funeral these days, even on the U.N.C.L.E. care plan.'

But he has survived the night. Mandor and Valandros are both dead, but he burned through the night and has risen like a new creature. He feels like he could happily go back to bed and sleep for another two hours after eating, just to sleep away that tired feeling that is hanging through his bones. In all likelihood he will receive his new clothes and get in a hired car and then get on a plane, and his first chance for sleep will be in the air, somewhere over the Atlantic. But his mind is bright and awake. He is himself again. He has been on a strange, terrible journey, but he is himself again.