section7mfu | "Amanita" (Short Affair Challenge 10/03)

Short Affair 9/19
Prompt: Lurch
Color: Green

Title: Amanita
Author: Rose of Pollux
Word Count: ~1000

This version is slightly abridged; I went slightly over the word limit in the original draft, which you can read on my personal journal or tumblr/AO3.

“Keep him moving, Solo!”

It was a bit of misfortune that had resulted in the two partners being captured by a trigger-happy THRUSH upstart after their successful destruction of a satrap. Napoleon and Illya had made their escape through a forest when they had run into the THRUSHie—the twenty-something son of one of the members of THRUSH Central, determined to show his father what he could do. His first order of business after divesting the two U.N.C.L.E. agents of their weapons and devices was to shoot Illya in the leg as a warning.

“Father will be most pleased when he sees that I’ve brought Solo and Kuryakin to their knees,” he had boasted, as Illya collapsed, teeth gritted against the pain as Napoleon knelt beside him to tend to the wound. “I am sure to become the youngest member of Central in all of THRUSH history! Now, get up and walk!”

“You just shot him!” Napoleon had quipped back.

“Walk! Or I’ll shoot his other leg!”

Napoleon had helped Illya to his feet after that, supporting him.

“So… Mother Fear was right about you, Solo,” the young man had mused. “Your concern for Kuryakin really is your weakness.”

And so the young THRUSHie had used that to his advantage—forcing Napoleon to force Illya to walk. As the days marched on, the three of them had grown very hungry; the THRUSHie had taken their rations for his own days ago, along with any wild berries and edible plants that Napoleon had found along the way.

It had happened again only hours ago, when Napoleon, seeing that Illya’s condition had been getting progressively worse, had finally put his foot down when he found another, small berry patch.

“Illya and I haven’t eaten in days,” he had said; though his voice had remained calm, there had been a piercing glare in his eyes. “And that wound you gave him has been getting infected. He can’t walk. He needs to eat to regain his strength.”

The THRUSHie had aimed his gun at Illya’s chest.

“Then maybe I should finish him off, since he’s nothing but dead weight anyway.”

Napoleon had scowled and backed off once again, trying to comfort Illya as they watched the THRUSHie pick the berry patch clean and then bark at them to keep walking.

But Illya’s leg and overall weakness would not allow him to continue walking, leading to the THRUSHie to continue threatening him.

“Solo, I said for you to keep him moving!”

Napoleon responded by picking up Illya in his arms and continued on, pausing as he noticed something in a clearing behind some trees.

“Mushrooms!” he breathed, carrying Illya over to the small group of three green-tinged mushrooms.

“Get away from those, Solo.”

“Oh, for crying out loud--! Let him have one, at least!”

“They’re all mine,” the THRUSHie ordered. And he pointed the gun at Illya again. “Or else…”

And, once again, Napoleon backed away as the young man stuffed himself.

It wasn’t until the next day that the THRUSHie’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, and he soon found himself getting sicker and sicker until he was in worse shape than Illya.

He sunk to his knees, not even resisting as Napoleon took the gun from him.

“What… did you do…?”

“If I pretended to be desperate to give mushrooms to my ill and hungry partner, I knew you would demand them for yourself. Those mushrooms were, in fact, Death Caps of the genus Amanita. …Say, Illya, about how long does it take for hepatic and renal failure to set in?”

“Two days,” Illya murmured. “Of course, our captor here ate three…”

Illya’s words were lost in a fog as the THRUSHie’s world went dark.

*********************************

When the THRUSHie next awoke, he found himself chained to a medical ward bed—and with all sorts of tubes and drips attached to him. Illya, now looking well-fed and at the absolute peak of health, was observing him.

“Hmm, so you are finally awake--nearly five weeks later! Of course, you are fortunate; your chances of survival had been quite low indeed. Now that you are awake, I am sure Napoleon has much to ask you about THRUSH Central, given your father’s position. Isn’t that right, Napoleon?”

The THRUSHie followed Illya’s gaze, freezing up as he observed Napoleon glaring at him from the doorway of the room.

“I suspect Napoleon will wish to interrogate you once you’ve regained the ability to speak,” Illya said, casually. “Well, I really cannot stay; here, time stops for no one.”

The THRUSHie let out a pleading moan for Illya not to leave him alone with Napoleon, but the Russian ignored him.

Napoleon lingered in the room for a little while, silently, before following Illya.

“The Medical staff will be talking for weeks now about this upstart begging to be interrogated by me instead of you for once,” Illya commented. “He’s quite terrified of you. And for good reason, I suppose, considering that you tricked him into poisoning himself. That is something I would have come up with…”

“Well, I learned from the best…” Napoleon said. “How’s your leg?”

It was the way he had said it that made Illya realize that the cold mask Napoleon had worn while in the THRUSHie’s presence wasn’t just a mask after all.

“I am fine, Napoleon,” the Russian said. “Are you?”

“…Yeah,” he said, after thinking about it. Napoleon normally prided himself on his sense of mercy, but he was only human, of course, and he had done what he’d done to save himself and his partner—but not without a dash of vengeance.

“You have the look that I usually have when I am in need of a hot meal to put a mission behind me,” Illya observed. “How about dinner on the town—my treat?”

The American agent finally managed a smile. Even if another THRUSH agent pushed him too far, he could always count on his partner to pull him back.

“You’re on, Tovarisch.”