I Myself am Heaven and Hell, a man from u.n.c.l.e. fanfic

Please note that this story deals with both latent and active addiction, as well as the process of withdrawal and the consequences of an overdose. If you have struggled with addiction – your own or that of someone close to you – or are currently struggling with addiction, please read the more detailed warnings in the end notes. If you would like more warnings to be added, please don't hesitate to let me know.

It's just as he remembers it.

Different room, different chair, but same low light and heady thrum of anticipation. He doesn't do this often – he shouldn't do it at all, but sometimes the itch grows too strong to ignore, and he'd much rather indulge when he knows he can afford to, in the hopes that it will hold off the need through the times that he can't – but when he does, it's like the time in between never existed.

Old habits die hard, they say. Well, so does he.

Shoes kicked off and tucked out of the way. Jacket off and laid aside. Top two buttons of shirt undone, freeing his throat. Cuffs unbuttoned and sleeves rolled up. Right, almost to the elbow; left, two tucks more. The stout elastic band pulled cruelly, thrillingly tight over the fabric around his bicep and knotted one-handed with years of practice adding to the skill.

He pauses here, and revels in the feeling.

Head tipped back against the padding of the chair, high-backed and sturdy; eyes half-lidded in the dim glow of the room; hair mussed from the day's carefully styled form; blood thundering in the veins of his left arm. He flexes his fingers a few times, and looks down to watch. The veins in the crook of his elbow are full and throbbing, the pressure of the tourniquet balanced delicately on the line between pleasure and pain.

He shouldn't love this, but oh, he does.

He does, and he'll deny it any time but now, with the door to his room locked, bolted, and chained, sprawled comfortably in this magnificent armchair (which, truly, must have been made for this purpose), shoes off, gun locked safely away, mission debrief finished, and nothing but three days of relaxation between him and his next assignment.

The needle's already prepared, solution drawn up and measured meticulously ten minutes ago, so that there's nothing to interrupt this hedonistic lull, no thinking, no calculations, just…

The needle slides in, the plunger depresses, the needle slides out, the elastic releases with a snap, and—

And—

One breath, two breaths, and—

And—

He's gone.

-o-

The rush fades, leaving glorious calm in its place, and he spends the next hours drowsing, floating on the surface of a peaceful sea, all cares and responsibilities and worries a world away. It's delicious, that's what it is. He knows that there are people who use for the rush, for the instant swoop of euphoria, the flood of bliss, orgasmic in its intensity but so, so much better. He understands those people, but if he wants a rush, he much prefers adrenaline, or sex. For him, it's the calm he chases. The heaviness, the indolence, the freedom from action.

Sleep doesn't come easy; it hasn't for years. Afterglow is nice – lovely, really, when he can get it – but it doesn't last. Drinking, too, can calm him, but too often it turns his thoughts inwards. This, however, frees him from thought entirely. It detaches his mind from his body, and all he knows during those hours is rest.

And when his heart begins to beat more normally and he starts to feel uncomfortable from hours in one position, he shuffles off to bed and sleeps it off, waking later than usual in the morning but more or less recovered. He showers, shaves, and dresses, packs up his kit, disposes of it somewhere far away, and spends the rest of the day seeking distraction from the urge for one more time, just one more time and then be done forever.

He knows better, by now, than to believe that he'll ever really be done forever.

-o-

It's not really the first time he's used with U.N.C.L.E., but it's the first time he's used in his normal way.

In Istanbul there was opium, and his heart was still skipping and stuttering from Rudi's chair, and so after their mission was complete he spent an afternoon in the den, reclined on cushions and bolsters, feeling the tremors and agitation fall away like gauze. He would probably have spent the night had Illya not appeared to pull him up, set him on his feet, and take him back to the hotel. Illya never spoke of it afterwards, and Solo suspects he understood the motivation but not the history.

He'd been vigilant after that, careful to recognize his cravings and redirect them via fulfillment of a different kind.

He always has, really, ever since those early years. He hasn't been an addict in well over a decade, since the war was first over and drugs came part and parcel with black market dealings and he had no one to answer to but himself. But then came the police, and then came Interpol, and he'd tracked down a friend from the service and begged him for help. He spent a week in that friend's house in Brussels, sweating and shaking and twitching, tossing and turning and vomiting, grinding his teeth against their chattering and against the stabbing aches in his bones, begging for just one more dose, just one more, a small one, a tiny one, something, and when begging hadn't helped, he'd groaned and yelled and cursed until he had to stumble to the bathroom to be sick again.

He'd ruined the friendship but saved himself, and emerged from the week feeling like he'd gone three rounds with the Spanish flu but was finally clear of mind and free of constant need.

The cravings never stopped, and they returned with a vengeance once the CIA collared him, but he was never an addict. Never again. He found other ways to deal with the itching under his skin, the memories of the euphoria and blissful peace that he'll never be able to attain another way. And so he drinks, he fucks, and sometimes he fights, and when those aren't enough, he fills his tub with ice-cold water and sits in it, thinking of death and prison and overdose and addiction and withdrawal and shame, until he can't feel his hands or feet and the urge has slunk away.

This worked with the CIA, who treated off-mission time like solitary confinement and Solo like a leper escaped from his colony, but with U.N.C.L.E., it's harder. Gaby and Illya care if he drinks too much, they care if he fucks too often, they care if he comes back in the night with bruises and cuts they didn't see him earn. Even if they're off mission, they care. They don't try to stop him – except the drinking, and that was only once – but they care, and it makes it harder to forget. He imagines Illya's stony glare when he fucks, and Gaby's tight lips when he drinks, and their joint disapproval when he's stripped to the waist and cracking his knuckles on a stranger's ribs, surrounded by voices and bodies in some seedy dive, and he remembers what he's running from.

-o-

He still takes icy baths, but even having his own room doesn't guarantee he'll be left alone.

It's winter, and it's cold, but the craving's been crawling under his skin for days and he's savage with it. He's irritable and sharp, snapping at Illya and Gaby and everyone who crosses his path, and he doesn't want to drink, he doesn't want to fuck, he doesn't even want to fight: he wants it, but their mission won't be done for days and he knows he can't, but he's inches away from tearing out his hair and breaking his fingers, so he draws himself a bath of the coldest water that will run from the spigot and climbs in with his clothes still on and holds his head under for as long as he can stand. And then again, and again, and again, until all he wants is air. And then he stays in the water until he's too cold to shiver and all he wants is warmth.

Gaby breaks into his room the next morning because he won't answer the door, or so she tells him later. She finds him in bed, still shivering, this time with fever, and he spends the rest of the mission resolutely ignoring his cold. The craving is tamped down under irritation and congestion and a lingering cough, and such small indulgences as hot tea and warm blankets are somehow enough to satisfy it.

-o-

It gets easier, for a while, and then it gets worse.

The three of them have gotten very close as teammates, and possibly even closer as friends, but then Illya and Gaby go and get closer still.

They've been courting each other since Rome, but it's a very touch and go affair. One takes a step too far forward, the other takes a step back to match, and they start again, circling around one another and sizing them up for another go. He doesn't mind, he really doesn't, since he's no good for either of them and he can fuck whoever and whenever he wants and he's fairly sure he's forgotten how to love but that doesn't really matter, so he's not jealous, he's not angry, he's not even annoyed, he's just alone.

Quite suddenly alone, far more often than he has been recently, and he craves. He craves in between missions and he craves during missions, and he knows he won't be able to put it off much longer and so he does what he did in the CIA: he waits for a break, a satisfactory conclusion to an important mission that earns them a few days of leave, and when the mission is over he make his purchases and locks himself in his room and slips the needle into his arm.

That's the second time, counting Istanbul.

-o-

The third comes two months later, and he miscalculates, and Illya finds him.

It's thirty-five milligrams this time, rather than his usual thirty, since his last hit was more recent than it usually is when he lapses, and at one point during his stupor (his wonderful, wonderful stupor), he opens his eyes to find Illya watching him from the couch. Between the dose and the timing, his mind is far enough away that he doesn't care, but in some corner of his brain that isn't tied up metabolizing opiates he recognizes that this is not a desirable turn of events.

He wakes up in bed with no memory of having gotten there. There's a basin on the floor and a glass of water on the nightstand, which leads him to conclude that Illya 1) had put him to bed, and 2) has no idea what he's dealing with. Still, Napoleon appreciates the gesture, and he drains the glass before pulling the covers over himself again and going back to sleep.

He wakes up again sometime in the afternoon, and this time Illya is waiting for him.

"I told Gaby you were sick," he says. "She's worried, but I think it is better than knowing the truth." There's nothing in his voice to give away his opinion – no concern, no judgement, just simple words and a stony expression.

"I'm not an addict," Napoleon feels the need to point out, though he knows he hardly presents a convincing case right now. Feet bare, hair a mess, standing in his pajamas at two in the afternoon, the very witness to his indulgence making excuses for him and sitting in the same chair as before.

"I know," Illya says simply. "Even you could not hide a heroin addiction, Cowboy. But you do…" he trails off, looking for the English word.

"Use," Napoleon supplies. "But only sometimes." He tugs his dressing gown tighter around himself and makes his way to the other chair. He perches on the edge of it, unwilling to dredge up such recent memories. He always feels ashamed the next morning; if he's lucky, the shame is strong enough to cancel out the craving. If he's not, he just hates himself.

"Are you all right?" Illya asks then, and it's not a question he'd been expecting.

"Fine," he answers anyway. "I know how much I can tolerate, and once isn't enough to send me into withdrawal."

"Да, but it's not just once, is it?"

"Once every several months counts as once," Napoleon snaps. "I don't double-dip, Peril, I'm not an idiot." He takes the case, still lying on the table between them, and pulls it open. One hypodermic needle, one small vial of citric acid, and a tiny plastic bag with the remains of a scant half gram of powder. He snaps it shut again and thrusts it at Illya. "If you don't believe me, get rid of this. I would do it myself, but somehow I doubt that would be enough for you."

Illya takes it wordlessly and tucks it into his jacket pocket. "I will do this," he says coldly, "but you will never let me catch you doing this again."

"So you're all right with it as long as I don't let you see?" Napoleon asks flippantly, crossing his arms. He's cold, and shaky, and he can't tell if it's the room or the come-down or sheer, simple nerves.

"No," Illya hisses, "but I can't stop you, and I won't be responsible for you. Don't let it hinder mission, don't let it hurt our team. The rest is your business."

He leaves, taking the evidence with him, and Napoleon metaphorically throws up his hands and goes back to bed.

By the time he gets up the next morning, he's determined to do his utmost to stop, once and for all. He only made it two months this time, and the cravings have been getting worse. If he keeps giving in, he'll end up back where he was after the war, and this time he's not so sure he can find a friend to let him hole up and get clean.

-o-

In Malaysia, Gaby gets shot, and Illya nearly kills him.

It's not his fault – he's kept his promise to himself, hasn't used since Illya found him, but that was barely a month ago so it doesn't really matter – but Illya needs someone to blame and there's Napoleon Solo, ready and waiting with a secret drug habit and a missed shot. He'd been on sniper duty, Gaby was making contact, Illya was ground support, and Napoleon's bullet had found its mark a mere fraction of a second after his target's had found Gaby but that didn't stop the blood from blooming over her chest, stop her from falling first to her knees and then to the ground. He'd picked off the opposition, giving Illya a chance to get to her and get away. There hadn't been time to wait for him to get down from the roof, so he finishes dealing with the corrupt politician's criminal enforcers and runs to the nearest hospital, trusting that that's where Illya would have gone.

It is, and he has this confirmed when Illya comes around a corner and slams him into the wall, one hand around his throat and the other pressing the barrel of his gun into Napoleon's ribs hard enough to bruise. "You've killed her," he growls, and Napoleon's world pitches to a halt. His vision greys out faster than Illya's hand around his windpipe can account for, and his ears don't seem to be connected properly anymore. "You and your filthy habit," he hears, as if from a great distance, "so get out before I change my mind and shoot you in return."

Illya drops him, and Solo vaguely registers the feel of his feet hitting the ground, and then he's crumpling to the tile floor and watching Illya stalk away, gun still in hand and murder in every line of his body.

He doesn't remember much after that.

-o-

He makes it out of the hospital and wanders towards the darkness he has learned to recognize. Finds grimy shops that sell him what he needs and steals a bottle of highly illicit whiskey, just for the hell of it. Wends his way deeper into the underground, until night falls in earnest and he's surrounded by people like him, people looking to run, to hide, to give in.

He drops down by a stack of crates in the side street of a night market, opens the brown paper bag he's been carrying for two hours, and loses himself in the contents.

-o-

After that, he allows himself nothing but impressions.

Rain on concrete, rough stone under his knees and against his back.

The oil-slick smear of colors in the dark, the dizzying press of crowds in narrow spaces.

Sweating.

Shaking.

Rain again, the smell of rain on wood, the smell of rotting fruit on wood in rain running along the streets along the buildings through the crowds and into him, into him, always into him.

When his thoughts become too coherent and his senses too sharp in the daylight, he dulls them with liquor. In the night, he smothers them with a needle in his arm.

-o-

Pulsing noises, pulsing lights, stumbling forward, a bottle dangling from his fingers, riding the tide until it parts and drops him onto unforgiving stone.

Feet kick at him as they pass, voices curse him, sending him scrambling away from the crowd, seeking safety in the shelter of the wall.

Stone, concrete, brick, mud, wet against his back, against his seat, rain and sweat in his hair, shaking in his hands.

Everything is too bright, too loud, to vivid, and his hands are shaking so he uses his teeth, ties the knot and pulls it tight, tight against his bicep, over the thin, stained fabric of his rolled-up sleeve.

-o-

He's too tired to stay upright, even slumped against the wall, so he lists sideways, stone along his side, pressed against his back, and he's hot and it's cold and there's grief clawing at the corner of his mind and aching in his chest, but he's too tired, so tired, and so he runs away from it again.

Just one more time, just once. Just one more, that's all. Just one.

-o-

Just one more.

-o-

Just one.

-o-

Just—

-o-

It hits him, and he knows something's wrong, knows it's too much. Knows, scrambles away from himself with panic and dread, but his mind is trapped in his body and there's nothing he can do. He vomits – liquor burns like hell the second time – and he's shaking, violent tremors he can't control and the world is spinning and the rush is drowned out by panic and the fire under his skin. He wants to move, to call for help, but already he can't feel his arms and his tongue is heavy, already he's gone, slipping away, and panic swells in his mind in one last desperate surge, and—

And he's—

he…

-o-

The darkness, once he's aware enough to notice it, is streaked with viscous lines of color and hazy halos around indistinct lights. His heart beats once, loud in his ears, and time abruptly telescopes outward. The seconds reach out to touch infinity, and the stars flare up and die in the space behind his eyelids before his heart contracts again and his lungs expand. The air is clammy and close, and it sticks to his throat and rasps against the walls of his chest.

He's on the ground, he thinks. Whatever it is, it's cold and hard and wet where it presses against his hip and shoulder and cheek.

His eyes are half-open but unfocused, and his heartbeat plods slowly, ponderously in his ears. Not enough. It's too slow, too distant, lagging ever farther behind.

He takes another breath.

Not enough.

He drifts.

-o-

A voice rolls over him, lapping at the edges of awareness far too gently to rouse him. He's gone, carried away, dragged slowly down through dark water to where no light can reach. He can't remember his last breath.

The voice comes again, wilder, louder, thundering against rock and rushing around him, pulling him up by the shoulders and shaking him, but he's too far gone and the water is heavy.

Vaguely, he remembers panic. He remembers fear. He remembers a mistake, a terrible mistake, and all the desperation that came with it, but it's nothing but a shadow, a silhouette against the fading light growing dim above him.

The voice is coming more slowly now, from farther away. The hands on his arms are no more than a dream, the face that swims into view merely a fragment of a broken mind.

He exhales, and the world dissolves.

-o-

Pain slams through his chest, and he jerks awake in time to drag in one gasping, gulping breath and register bright lights and harsh noises and too many hands before collapsing back against the ground, but it's softer now, and dry, but it's still cold because he's cold and he'll never be warm again.

There's a babble of voices he can't understand, and the lights overhead are spinning in some frenetic dance he doesn't know the name of so he closes his eyes and tries to find that dark place, that calm place, but then something stabs into his thigh and it's like the dark and calm is pulled out of him with one cruel yank.

His eyes snap open and go flash-blind from the sheer amount of light, and then he gags and those hands jerk him onto his side and hold him there as he vomits spit and bile and nothing else, nausea sweeping through him in relentless waves, and his heart is pounding in his aching head and he's sweating and shaking and hyper-aware of everything that is wrong, and he'd hoped never to do this again but it's worse than the first time, so much worse, and the voices still don't make any sense but there's one he recognizes, one he trusts, and as more needles slide into him and a shallow dish is tucked between the pillow and his cheek and he's whisked away in more ways than one, he clings to it.

"It's okay, Cowboy. It's going to be okay."

-o-

He doesn't wake up, but he's conscious.

He's conscious of needles in his hands and arms, of his wrists being cuffed and immobilized.

He's conscious of muscle spasms, of stabbing pains that seem to emanate from his very marrow, of aches and heaviness that don't stop him from twitching, from jerking around the tubes he can feel against his face and in his throat, from pulling against the restraints that hold down his ankles and wrists.

He's conscious of keens, high-pitched moans that he knows are coming from him but can't seem to stop, pulled from a raw throat by the itching and crawling and burning of his skin.

He's conscious of chills and sweats, the stickiness of fever, of a sharp ache in his chest, of the irregular rabbiting of his heart, the sounds of machines and the timbre of worried voices.

He's conscious of hands on his, of soft words, of gentle touches against his face, brushing away the tears the well in the corners of his eyes.

He's conscious, but he can't wake up.

-o-

Eventually it lessens, as all things do – the pain, the sickness, the fear – and he sleeps.

He doesn't remember sleeping, but apparently he does because he opens his eyes one day to see Illya Kuryakin not two feet away from him, staring off into the distance and looking unbearably close to tears. In a rush, he remembers: Gaby. His own heart breaks anew, and he wants to drown himself again, to finish what he started, but he has to know.

"You still gonna shoot me, Peril?" he asks, and his voice is a harsh rasp he barely recognizes but Illya jerks like he's been shot (don't remember don't remember don't remember) and looks down at him with wild eyes. Napoleon's heart clenches at the sight of him – he hasn't been shaving, and it doesn't look like he's been sleeping, either.

"Solo?" he whispers, like he can't quite believe it. "You are awake?"

"It would seem so," Napoleon rasps, because even in grief he's an ass, and then Illya's surging out of his chair before he can say anything else and stumbling backwards, staggering to the door – hospital room, then, and that took quite a while to piece together – and leaning out into the hall to call, "Gaby! Gaby, he's awake!" and Napoleon thinks his heart might stop.

And then it really does stop, because there's Gaby, pale and drawn and as red-eyed as Illya, wearing a too-large sweater over a hospital gown. She freezes and covers her mouth with both hands before letting out a small, broken noise and flying to his side.

"You were dead," he says blankly, "you were dead," but she's shaking her head and taking his face in her hands and kissing him on the forehead, the nose, the cheeks, and she's crying and kissing him and Illya isn't stopping her, isn't pulling her back, isn't shooting Napoleon—

"I thought you were dead," he says again. "You were shot, and Illya said—"

"I shouldn't have," Illya breaks in, appearing over Gaby's shoulder. "I should never have said that, Cowboy. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He looks wrecked, and if he starts crying then Napoleon's really going to have that heart attack, but he doesn't cry. He just looks at Napoleon with his bloodshot eyes and says, "You overdosed."

Gaby pulls back at that, tears still wet on her face and more shining in her eyes, but the set of her jaw is determined. "And if you ever do that again," she adds, "I will kill you myself."

The sight of her is still too much for him, so he closes his eyes. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "It was an accident."

"I know, that's what the doctors said. That if you wanted to be dead, you would be." A pause, then, in a small voice, "Why? Why, Napoleon?"

He can only shake his head against the pillow.

"It is like long illness," Illya says. "Sometimes better, sometimes worse, and not always under your control." Napoleon's not sure who he's talking to anymore, but his words are so far from his spitting rage after the shooting that he's not entirely convinced he's not hallucinating. He opens his eyes to check the motion of Illya's lips against the sounds reaching his ears, and is utterly unprepared for the rawness in his expression.

"You have been very sick," Illya goes on. "Not just withdrawal, but infections in your arm—" He reaches over, and Napoleon watches his fingers tug down the blankets to land lightly on a bandage wrapped around his left elbow "—and in your chest." The fingers ghost across his ribs. "You cannot do this again, Cowboy," he finishes softly. "You cannot."

"I'm sorry," Napoleon says again, because for all his sins, for all his faults, that's all he has to offer. He doesn't feel cold anymore, he realizes, but he's still so tired, and his eyes drift shut again without his permission.

Gaby slips down off the bed and straightens his blankets, tugging them back up to his shoulders.

"Don't be," she says. She presses one more kiss to his forehead, and then there's the barest touch of fingers against his cheek, too large and rough to be Gaby's. "Sleep, Napoleon. We'll be here when you wake up."

-o-

Gaby is as good as her word.

Whenever Napoleon drifts into wakefulness, either she or Illya is sitting at his side, but most often it's both of them. They help him take small sips of water to ease his throat, and start giving him bits of rice and fruit once his stomach can handle it. One afternoon Gaby pulls out a little jar of salve and rubs some onto his lips. It feels heavenly, but he can't find the words to say so, and she doesn't do it again.

They fill him in bit by bit, and slowly he pieces the last few weeks together.

"You were barely breathing when I found you," says Illya, "and then your heart stopped right before we got to hospital."

"It took Illya two weeks to find you," Gaby tells him. "He carried you in here, and I thought you were already dead."

"Well, technically I was, by that point," Napoleon points out mildly, and Gaby stands and storms out in a cold fury.

"It took a week to start looking," Illya admits softly once Gaby is gone, and Napoleon raises a hand to Illya's cheek. Illya catches it, holds it there, leans into it.

"Steady on, Peril," Napoleon murmurs. "You know I deserved it."

-o-

"I've been using for sixteen years," he tells Illya as he goes for a slow, careful walk around the room, his hand on Illya's shoulder for balance. The worst of the withdrawal is past, but he still feels restless and twitchy sometimes, and walking soothes the cramps in his legs. "I was only addicted for a month, right at the beginning, and then I stopped. Until the CIA got me, anyway, but even then I was…" Careful doesn't seem like the right word, not given the context. "Wary," he decides. "Wary of addiction."

"Peril caught me using a few weeks before you were shot," he says to Gaby. Her bare feet are up on the bed, and he's massaging them with that salve she brought. She's still recovering too, after all. "Of course he blamed me – how could he not?"

"But it wasn't your fault," Gaby argues. It doesn't have a lot of force behind it; he's excellent at foot massages, even if his fingers are still a little tremulous.

"It could have been. Another time, another place, it could have been. For all he knew, I'd shot up that afternoon."

"You didn't though, did you?"

"Of course not. I'd never put you two in danger like that." He hopes she can hear his sincerity.

-o-

"You were in withdrawal for more than a week," Illya starts. Even after everything, Napoleon's craving again, and he hates himself for it but that doesn't mean he can stop it, so he asks Illya to explain in agonizing detail what a relapse would mean. Illya's sitting on the bed next to him, one warm, strong arm around Napoleon's shoulders to help ward off the shakes. "You were so sick, every day I thought you would die."

"It's not fatal," Napoleon murmurs. For some reason, he feels he needs to make this clear. "You wish it were, when it's happening, but it's not."

"After overdose, though," Illya says, and Napoleon goes still. That word still haunts him, still feels like a curse. "You were very weak, your heart and lungs not good, and much weight lost." Napoleon can gauge how upset Illya is by the thickness of his accent, and at this point he wants to tell him to give up on English entirely and switch to Russian. He wants to, but he doesn't know how well that will go for him. His head is still a little thick, and he doesn't know if he's up to multilingualism.

"I carry you in, and all I can think is that you are not breathing, you have lost pulse. And then the doctors restart heart and you open eyes and I think, 'good, слава богу, he is alive,' and then they give you medicine to stop drug from working and suddenly you are sick and in pain, and they take you away, and I worry that I maybe you are not so alive after all."

"You don't know much about heroin, do you?"

"нет, and I am glad for it. But I worry, still, when you have high fever, and I worry when you are in such pain that you cannot keep still, and they have to tie you to bed so you don't hurt yourself. And I worry because you are too thin, and because I do not know what other poisons you have put into your body."

Napoleon tips his head back so that it rests against Illya's shoulder. Then he gives a full-body shudder, and Illya pulls him closer, tucking his messy curls under his chin and holding him with both arms.

"I do hope Gaby won't mind," he mutters, but he enjoys it anyway.

There's a vinyl cannula nestled under his nose to give him oxygen until the mild pneumonia clears up, and an IV in his hand to keep him hydrated, but only his team can really make him feel like himself again.

-o-

"Does Waverly know?" he asks eventually. He's been waiting for a summons, a court martial, a brusque dismissal, anything, but nothing has come. It's been a week since he woke up, and nothing. It feels like the gathering of a storm.

"Of course," Gaby answers without looking up from her magazine. "He's tied up at the moment – or he was the last time I talked to him – but he'll be here as soon as he can."

Napoleon lets out a long breath. "We had a good thing, Gabs," he says at last. "You and me and Peril. We were a good team. I don't think we will be anymore, but I wouldn't have traded it for anything."

That gets her attention off the magazine.

"Why would you say that?" she asks sharply. "You're recovering, I'm recovering, Illya hasn't killed anyone in a fit of rage, and the mission wasn't critical to global stability, so I don't see where all this drama is coming from."

"'Drama?' Gaby, my illicit drug habit has just come to light in the wake of an overdose following a botched mission that nearly cost you your life. You can't possibly expect Waverly to just let that go – you're the only one he likes."

Gaby snorts, then winces, hand going to her chest.

"Speaking of which," Napoleon adds pointedly. "Shouldn't you be resting?"

She feigns offense. "I am resting! I'm in a chair, I have a magazine, and look: I'm even wearing slippers!" She lifts one foot, which is indeed sheathed in some fluffy orange monstrosity.

"Where'd you get those?" he asks, impressed in spite of himself.

"Illya got them for me. Aren't they awful? I think he bought them to annoy me, but now I won't stop wearing them and the tables have turned."

"Bravo, Miss Teller." He holds up an imaginary champagne glass, and she raises her own with a smile. "To pettiness."

"To pettiness. Clink."

-o-

Waverly arrives the day after that conversation. There's no announcement; he just shows up in the room with an umbrella and a briefcase while Illya and Gaby are off getting lunch.

Nonsensically, the first thought that enters Napoleon's mind is that he's glad he'd taken the time to shave this morning. He's not restricted to bed anymore, not tethered by cannula or IV lines (although both are easy enough to deal with), but the insomnia is starting to get to him and he's tired all the time. He has the energy to shave, though, and try to tame his hair into something halfway respectable. It's not much, but it's something.

For long moments after the door has shut, Waverly just stands there, holding his umbrella and his briefcase and looking unaccountably sad. "Oh, Solo," he says at last. "I am so very sorry."

"Sir?"

"I hear you've been terribly sick," he continues, settling into one of the chairs and dropping his effects beside it. "Not that I'm surprised, of course. Nasty stuff, that. This region is infamous for its… how shall we say, rather raw heroin. The sort you can get in America, and in most Western European countries, has been considerably refined during its passage through France. The French Connection, they call it. Here, you're lucky if it isn't cut with arsenic."

"Sir," Napoleon starts again, shifting, but Waverly holds up a hand to stop him.

"I'm not here to reprimand you, Solo," he says. "You should know that right off the bat. I'm here to check on you – and on Teller, which I have just done – and to talk. You gave the others quite the scare," he adds, frowning just slightly. "I must admit you had me rather worried, as well."

Napoleon looks at him blankly. "You should fire me." Of all the information that's just been unloaded onto him, that's what stands out the most. "I'm sure Gaby gave you the full report—"

"She did," Waverly confirms.

"So you know that I jeopardized the safety of the team and the security of our missions, allowed Gaby to be shot, and then disappeared and spent the next two weeks shooting up in the dirtiest alleys Kuala Lumpur has to offer until I overdosed. On heroin. How exactly are you planning not to reprimand me?"

Waverly just looks at him, implacable, but still with that odd sadness.

"That does roughly line up with the report Agents Teller and Kuryakin gave me earlier," he says eventually, "but if I recall correctly, you didn't 'allow' Miss Teller to be shot, and following a misunderstanding about her survival, you were overcome by guilt and grief and fell victim to a demon of your past – one which you've been battling, alone and with no little difficulty, for nearly twenty years. Does that sound about right?"

"You can spin it however you like, sir, but the fact is that I'd be dead in a gutter right now if Peril hadn't stumbled across me when he did, and I can assure you that the CIA would have shot me in the head by now if this had happened on their watch, so there's no need to worry about professional offense."

"Yes, well, I'm not the CIA, am I?" Waverly asks. "And good thing, too, if they'd be so quick to retire such a valuable agent over such a minor incident."

"Minor incident? Sir—"

"If you're looking for punishment, Solo," Waverly snaps, "I daresay you've had more than enough already." He sighs, and rubs a hand over his face. "Haven't you had enough self-castigation for a lifetime? Don't you want to put it behind you?"

Napoleon fixes his gaze pointedly elsewhere before answering. "At a certain point, self-castigation stops being a luxury and starts being a necessity."

"To curb the impulse, I know." Napoleon looks back at him sharply, and Waverly gives a little smile. "You didn't really think you were the only one, did you? It was opium for me," he goes on breezily, "sort of a precursor to yours, I suppose, but no less unpleasant. I found myself in your current position more times than I care to admit, but I kept going back to it. I'm sure you know the feeling."

He does, but he also feels young and foolish. His own struggles suddenly seem feeble, a hypochondriac's attempt at feigning illness for some pathetic validation when all the while someone has truly been suffering.

How Waverly manages to divine what he's thinking, he'll never know, but he does. "It's not a contest, Solo," he says gently. "We each have our battles, and we each deserve respect for fighting them. And your efforts have been particularly valiant, I must say. Sixteen years, I believe Mr Kuryakin said?"

"I wasn't… Not the whole time," Napoleon says quickly. "A month, at the beginning, and then...this. That's all."

"'That's all?' Solo, addictions don't just expire if you don't renew them, and heroin is a very volatile addiction to have. Frankly, I'm surprised you're still alive."

"Well, I'm not entirely lacking in self-preservation and common sense."

"No, I suppose you're not, but still." Waverly sobers abruptly. "I'm sorry you've had to go through this" he says, sincerity deep in his voice. "I'm sorry it's been on your shoulders for so long, with no way of removing it. And I'm sorry it came so close to taking your life. I truly am – you're a brilliant agent, and a good man, and the world would have been a lesser place without you."

Napoleon snorts and looks away. "If you had seen me then, sir, I don't think you would say that."

"Everyone falls down, Solo," Waverly says, voice so gentle that it doesn't seem real. "There's no shame in despairing when you can't see a future for yourself. I may not have seen you, but I've been there, and I know how deeply that despair can run.

"If you no longer wish to be a part of U.N.C.L.E., I'll handle the CIA and help you get set up wherever you want to live. If you want to stay, you'll have four months' leave, rehabilitative therapy, and addiction counseling, non-negotiable. I've spoken to the others about this, and they both want to continue working with you if you stay, but you'll have the option to pick a new team or pursue solo missions when you return to work."

It's too much. Too much understanding, too much forgiveness. He'd almost wanted anger and threats – he had wanted anger and threats, just so he'd have something to work against, something to prove. He doesn't know what to do with this much kindness. It's different with Gaby and Illya, because they're friends, but Waverly's not supposed to care. He's not supposed to be kind. Reasonable, yes, and fair, but kindness is a charity Napoleon's never really known how to handle. "I don't deserve this," he manages around the lump in his throat. "I don't deserve a second chance."

"Perhaps not," Waverly agrees, and his voice is still impossibly gentle. "But I rather think you deserve a first. You never got one, after all." He pushes himself out of the chair with a sigh, and Napoleon's never thought of him as old, but sometimes he moves with the weight of the world on his shoulders. "There's no need to rush into a decision, but I wanted you to know that you still have a place with us, should you want one." He bends down to pick up his things, and Napoleon takes the opportunity to swipe a hand across his eyes.

Normally he prides himself on his impenetrable two-way facade, but between Gaby being shot, two weeks of drug- and despair-fueled depravity, dying, coming back, an excruciating week of withdrawal, and a further week trying to wrap his head around the fact that Gaby and Illya apparently still want him around (while simultaneously recovering from with the previous three weeks), he's had a bit of a rough month.

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate it."

Waverly straightens up, and Napoleon harbors no delusions about the true purpose of the action. There's far too much knowing in Waverly's eyes. "Recovery is a life-long endeavor, Mr Solo," he says. "Time alone isn't enough, but I've found that people can make all the difference. Whatever you decide, do keep that in mind."

"I will."

Waverly nods, and then leaves. Through the open door, Napoleon catches a glimpse of the empty hallway. Gaby and Illya are probably still at lunch, but he isn't worried. They're his team: they'll be there when he wakes up.

And they are.

-o-

WARNINGS:

This story contains detailed descriptions of a character using heroin, including his physical and emotional reactions, issues of addiction, an unintentional overdose, and the process of withdrawal. The character reflects both positively and negatively on the experiences of drug use, but the descriptions of overdose and withdrawal are overwhelmingly negative, and it is mentioned that the character died temporarily as a result of the overdose.

There is also mention of another character's past opium addiction, although there are no details.

I have never struggled with an addiction, and I don't personally know anyone who has, so I may not have captured the most important details for warning. If I missed something that you think should be included in the warnings, please let me know.

MEDICAL NOTES:

The "medicine to stop drug from working" that Illya references is naloxone (aka narcan), an opioid agonist that's been used to treat overdoses since the early '60s. It essentially pulls the opioids out of their receptors in the brain, so the patient will stop suffering the neurological effects of the overdose but can also be sent abruptly into withdrawal if they've developed physical dependence.

Heroin overdoses are overwhelmingly accidental (rather than deliberate), and are often the result of an experienced user taking their regular dose in conjunction with another drug, such as alcohol.

Lung injuries and infections are common occurrences in opioid abusers, due to the fact that opioids prevent you from breathing well enough to maintain healthy tissue. Infections around injection sites are also very common, particularly if you're not very fastidious about your needless or the cleanliness of your skin.

It's unclear whether the Kuala Lumpur Hospital would have had electric shock defibrillators at this time, but if they didn't the scene still works bc mechanical defibrillation (i.e. hitting someone in the chest hard enough to restart their heart) is also a thing.

I did my best to be medically accurate without getting bogged down with details (outside of the notes lol), but please let me know if there's anything I need to correct or explain a little more.

OTHER NOTES:

I added the "-o-"s to try to keep the text from being so damn tight. If it annoys you, distracts you, or otherwise throws off your groove, I would really welcome alternative suggestions.

Title comes from a (translated) stanza in Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat.

Thank you for reading! As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.