Title: Hypnagogia
Author: medjai_trowa
Written for: togsos
Fandom(s): Man from UNCLE
Characters/Pairings: Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin
Rating: FRT
Warnings, of any: Gore. Death of main characters. Sort of.
Author's Notes: This is my first go at writing the boys, so please excuse any ooc moments as I've only recently started watching the series again.
Notes 2: Hypnagogia is the term coined by Alfred Maury for the state between sleep and wakefulness
*****
Napoleon leaned carefully around the corner, making sure not to show a silhouette for too long. Seeing an empty street, he eased himself around it and continued his cautious trek to the headquarters of UNCLE. He didn't know what was going on, but with the amount of death and mayhem in the streets of New York, he could only assume that one of THRUSH's schemes had finally come to fruition.
Illya.
Illya would know how to solve this. And if he didn't, he would know somone who did.
With a sigh of relief, he turned the next corner. Relief, however, was short lived as he recognised that the door to Del Floria's was propped open by the gory remains of the tailor himself. Drawing his UNCLE Special, he stepped carefully over the body, noting dispassionately that most of the top of the man's head was missing, the man's brain-pan gleaming wetly and emptily in the moonlight.
With a brief tightening of his lips, he acknowledged the man's service to the agency and made his way into the shop's dim interior.
Quiet. At least for now.
Hurrying before that state of affairs changed, Napoleon darted into the changing room, only to pause in apprehension as he realised that the secret door was hanging open.
He edged into the reception area, shaking his head regretfully as he gently closed the eyes of the receptionist who had apparently been on duty when the rotting fiends had made their apparently unstoppable way in.
Hurrying down the corridor, he realised that the alarms must have been sounded because the accompanying lights were still flashing but the sirens had been silenced. It made the corridors eerily dark and overly bright in phases.
He disregarded the lighting - at least it hid some of the worst of the mess on the walls and floor intermittantly - he made his way down to research where he knew Illya had ensconsed himself the previous evening. The man was likely still there, so wrapped up in his work that he hadn't noticed the goings-on outside the lab.
Napoleon contemplated the elevator for a moment before deciding that at least he stood more of a chance with the stairwell rather than being trapped in a small metal box with these creatures in the doorway.
It was with a sigh of relief that he reached the door to the lab, punching in his code and hurrying inside, yanking the door shut behind himself and leaning on it.
Yep, there was Illya, engrossed in his work as usual.
He took a step towards his partner only to stop as something crunched under his shoe.
Looking down, he froze in horror as he caught sight of the warning labels plastered to the remains of the vial which - if he recalled correctly - had been retrieved from a THRUSH base they had taken out a month ago.
He looked back up, realisation dawning.
The contagion had come from within, not without. Yes, it had been a THRUSH plot, but it had been UNCLE who had accidentally put it into motion. He met Illya's eyes, his gorge rising as he realised that the Russian's normally pale blue eyes were milky in death and that the object that Illya had apparently been studying was actually the remains of what Napoleon could only assume was the clumsy lab assistant who had caused this in the first place.
Even under the effects of whatever this was that THRUSH had cooked up, it seemed that Illya would still tear a strip off anyone who violated the sanctity of his laboratory it seemed.
The hunk of flesh was abandoned with a wet thump as Illya lunged in pursuit of fresher prey and fell against Napoleon, dragging him to the floor.
*****
The drop to the floor from the sofa jerked Napoleon back to wakefulness with a start as he fought to free himself from the grasping tentacles of what turned out to be the afghan from the back of Illya's couch. Looking round at Illya's living room and realising how late it was he jerked a reprimanding glare towards the Russian, who despite the passage of time had managed to retain his original hair colour - a sharp contrast with Napoleon's own salt-and-pepper locks.
Illya shot him a slight smile over the book he was reading, and that was the final straw.
"You drugged me!" he exclaimed, sitting up and hauling himself back onto the couch.
Illya set his book aside. "Of course I drugged you, Napoleon," he said as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. "I was not about to permit a repeat of last year. The poor woman was terrified, no matter how much the children laughed. And I fear mother may never forgive you for what happened to her favourite corgi.
"Besides," he added, peering over his glasses, "Agent Gibbs threatened to set his minions on you if it happened again."
Napoleon stared at him blankly for a moment, then blinked. "The sniper," he recalled with a groan, a wealth of feeling packed into those two words.
Illya smirked. "Precisely."
Maybe, Napoleon decided to himself, he was better off back in the dreams with the zombies than with his on-again off-again lover of more than thirty years, whose sometimes stern countenance was more and more often off-set by his sadistically mischevious streak.
He dropped back onto the couch and pulled the afghan over his head, determined to block out the amused smile on Illya's face, worse even than Danny's when he was on a winning streak.