Hello dears! I'm so happy you're all enjoying my story! You guys are the best! Okay, so this chapter has a few graphic descriptions so if you get queasy easily please proceed with caution! Otherwise, please enjoy! :D
The bedroom is clean but obviously looks lived in. There are a few suitcases shoved up against the far wall and the dressers and closet are filled with their clothes. There's only one bed, a large, sprawling king size that takes up most of the room. The single bed is not a problem; they prefer it that way actually. It was easier and more secure for them to hole up in a house that had one bedroom as opposed to several and they all end up sleeping in the same bed anyway so it doesn't matter.
Napoleon rummages through the closet for a moment or two before settling on a loose sweater and a pair of dark slacks. They weren't scheduled to go anywhere until much later that night so he opts for comfort over formality for the time being. He strips off Illya's jacket and arranges it on a hanger before sliding it back into the closet.
He slips the pants on, wincing just a bit at the lingering stiffness in his joints. It should be gone within the next few hours but it's still uncomfortably noticeable right now. He pulls the sweater over his head, catching sight of his reflection just briefly in the mirror across the room. As always, his eyes are drawn to the the thick, jagged scars that streak across his ribs on the left side of his body. The scar tissue is dark and ropey, a physical reminder of a deep and devastating injury. There are four scars all together, the longest one curling around to his back just beneath his shoulder blade. They stretch over almost the entire expanse of his ribs, shifting and rippling as he moves. If someone didn't know any better, they might mistake them for claw marks.
Napoleon doesn't remember much of the attack itself, just that it happened and he was the only member of his company to survive. It had happened early in his deployment, probably only a few months after he landed in Europe. It had been a routine patrol, a simple scouting mission that should have played out exactly like the hundreds of others they had done before. It was close to midnight when it happened, the moon so full and bright that it almost looked like the forest was being lit from above by a giant spotlight. In spite of that, they never saw it coming.
One minute they were walking quietly through the trees and then the silence was filled with the sounds of screams, gunshots, and ripping flesh. It came from behind them, whatever it was, and it tore through the back of their company like the men were little more than cardboard cutouts. Someone screamed Nazis while someone else screamed monster; there was really no way to tell. It all happened within a matter of seconds, a few terrifying, blood-soaked seconds.
Napoleon had been toward the front of the group when it happened and by the time he turned around and leveled his gun, the thing was on him. It slammed him into a tree, the impact hard enough to splinter wood, and then long, sharp claws were slicing through fabric and flesh alike.
The pain was enough to take his breath away and he knew with absolute certainty that he was going to die. But then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. For whatever reason, the beast dropped him and disappeared back into the darkness, leaving Napoleon critically wounded and bleeding out on the frozen forest floor.
His next memory was waking up in a medical tent with an IV hooked into his arm and couple hundred stitches patching his body back together. His ribs were shattered on that side, his left lung had collapsed, and the attack was severe enough that it caused extensive internal bleeding; to be honest the medics didn't think he would survive the night. At least that's what they told him.
Much to everyone's surprise, his ribs healed within the next twenty-four hours and whatever internal damage had been done apparently healed along with them. Napoleon went from being on death's door to up and walking after only two days in the clinic. The medics said it was a miracle and Napoleon didn't have any other explanation for it so he agreed with them. The scars on his ribs remained though, the wounds healing beneath the sutures into thick cords of scar tissue.
His commanding officers asked if he remembered anything from the attack but he honestly couldn't provide that much information. It was dark, it was late, he wasn't sure what he saw. His commander chalked the incident up to a very unfortunate wild animal attack and told the rest of his battalion to be on the lookout for dangerous animals in the days and weeks to come.
Napoleon tried to continue on as he had before but something was different now. Survivor's guilt and near death experience aside, something in him had changed that night in the forest. His reflexes were faster, his senses heightened, and he felt stronger than he ever had before. As much as he wanted to blame the change on his "miraculous recovery" he knew there was more to it than that. He just wasn't sure what. That is until about a month later when the moon was full.
He'd been on edge for three full days leading up to it, antsy and tense like he was waiting for a surprise attack. His clothes felt too tight, his skin too hot, he felt like he was coming apart at the seams. He wasn't sure what was happening but it left him feeling irritable and snappy all afternoon.
The fever hit around 8:30, hot and searing and burning through his skin like a living flame. He was dizzy and shaky and all he wanted to do was lay down and wait for it all to stop. His memories got a little fuzzy then because the next thing he knew he was in the forest, still burning alive from the inside and stumbling over clods of dirt and tree roots. He wasn't sure where he was, when he left, how long he'd been out there. All he knew was that the moon was so full it was blinding.
A pain like nothing he'd ever felt before struck him hard and deep to his core, tearing and pulling like it was determined to rip his body apart from the inside out. He fell to his knees, breathing hard and gasping, his fingers digging deep into the dirt. He was trembling all over, sweating and shaking and retching bile onto the ground. There was an odd sound, somewhere between a crack and a crunch, and he felt his spine snap in half. The joints in his elbows and knees followed soon after, breaking and twisting and rearranging themselves into impossible angles.
Both jaws broke with a resounding crunch and his teeth sharpened and elongated to something that bore a striking resemblance to fangs. He thinks he cried out in pain but the noise that came out of him was not human. It sounded like a roar, guttural and deep like an enraged animal. He was just coherent enough to realize that he had changed into something else entirely before his consciousness checked out and the world went dark.
He woke up the next morning sore, naked, and sprawled over the carcass of a dead deer. He could taste blood in his mouth and there were bits of meat stuck between his teeth; it made him sick to his stomach. He spent the next twenty minutes vomiting partially digested deer meat into a thick, viscous puddle behind a tree.
When he straightened again, he realized he had no idea where he was or what had happened; all he knew was that his clothes were gone and it was just before dawn. He stumbled around for about a mile before he found a small farmhouse with a clothesline outside. Vowing to return the clothes as soon as he could, he stole a shirt and an ill-fitting pair of pants and staggered his way another mile back to base. He wasn't sure how he knew he was going the right way but he had some deep, almost inhuman sense of direction that pushed him the right way.
He was severely reprimanded for his disappearance by his commanding officer but when one of the medics suggested it might have been a stress-induced response by what had happened the previous month, the punishment was reduced a bit.
Napoleon never told anyone what happened that night; partially because he didn't have a rational explanation and also because he doubted anyone would ever believe him. Any hopes he might have had about the change being a one-time thing were quickly destroyed when it happened again the next month. And again the month after that.
He tried finding a cure or a treatment or anything that could fix...whatever this was. All leads led to nothing but dead ends and frustration. Once he came to the conclusion that he was stuck with this (at least for the time being), he simply learned to adapt. It got easier after a while; granted it still hurt like a bitch everytime he changed but he got better at hiding it and discreetly slipping away the day of the full moon so he wasn't as likely to accidentally snap at someone.
His introduction to Illya a few years later had come as something of a shock. Not because Illya was KGB and Napoleon was CIA (although that did add a bit of tension to their initial partnership) but because Illya was like him. Well, not like him exactly but removed enough from humanity to be not quite classified as such. Neither of them were human, not completely, and honestly that was a relief. For a long time Napoleon thought he was alone in all of this; other than the thing that attacked him he didn't know of any other supernatural creatures wandering around out in the open.
They worked together for close to year before their relationship transformed into anything more than strictly professional. In that time Illya had witnessed Napoleon transform at least half a dozen times and Napoleon had become more than enough aware of Illya's unusual eating habits. Illya stuck to a liquid diet in the most literal sense and saved his fangs only for those who preyed on the innocent. It worked out in his favor because most of the people they dealt with in their line of work fell into that category.
Napoleon didn't know much about Illya's change; it was a painfully private matter that Illya hardly ever brought up. The lack of knowledge was not for lack of trying, either; Napoleon worked diligently for weeks digging into every scrap of information he could get his hands on through CIA connections to find even the slightest hint of what had happened to him. No such luck; aside from his KGB file and what little information he collected from the CIA archives, Illya Kuryakin remained one giant Russian mystery.
Illya eventually took pity on him and dropped a few very small hints about his change. The story was rife with holes and gaps, cryptic and vague much like Illya himself, but Napoleon took what he could get.
It had happened about three years earlier just outside of Moscow. Illya didn't go too far into detail (KGB secrets and all) but he told him there had been some kind of altercation between himself and a group of men outside of a warehouse. It had been a violent and brutal fight and somewhere in the middle one of the men went for his throat.
Unlike the thick scars that rip across Napoleon's side, Illya's are small and almost completely unnoticeable unless he points them out. There are two very tiny puncture wounds at the base of Illya's throat, tucked just between his collarbone and the corded column of his neck. They're leveled just over the artery and the depth and angle makes it clear that it had been pierced by something sharp.
Illya told him that the man who attacked him latched onto his throat and clamped down like a vice. There was an odd sensation that followed, cold and rapid and leaving him weak and limp. The teeth in his throat were nothing compared to the feeling of the blood being rapidly siphoned out of his body. His heart pounded in pain and fear before slowing to a crawl and finally stopping altogether. Unlike Napoleon, Illya remembered the exact moment he died and the exact moment he became something else.
He woke up the next morning in an alley covered in trash. The men had tried to hide his body and they had pretty much succeeded; they just didn't think about the fact that said body would come back to life and stumble out into the street. Illya found out rather quickly the kinds of negative effects the sun now had on his body. Third degree burns, bleeding blisters, sloughing skin; the list went on for days and none of the side effects were pleasant.
He also found that he had lost his taste for normal food and craved something a bit more iron-rich instead. Real food now tasted like ashes and caused him to vomit almost immediately after consumption. Blood, as disgusting as it was in the beginning, was the only thing he could keep down and the only thing that quenched the undeniable thirst that plagued him ever since the night he turned.
He made a vow to only take from the takers, those who preyed on the innocent and vulnerable. Muggers, rapists, abusers; he had no qualms about taking them down. He kept a secure contact with someone who worked at the local hospitals and blood banks in case of emergencies but typically it didn't come to that.
Napoleon never had to worry about Illya's hunger getting the better of him while they were working together, either. Aside from the occasional love bite, Illya made it very clear that he would never drink from Napoleon. Most of this was out of respect and affection but some of it was also because of Napoleon's blood.
Illya tried to tell him, as politely as he could manage, that Napoleon's blood tasted like wet dog. Napoleon wasn't exactly sure how to feel about that but he appreciated the restraint.
It had been a gamble from the very beginning, throwing together a KGB vampire with a CIA werewolf. It had the potential to end in bloody, violent disaster. They worked well together, though. Not that they didn't get on each other's nerves every once in awhile but hey, who didn't?
We'll get some info on Gaby's story in the next chapter!
Thanks for reading guys! :D