"Stories" for The Short Affair Challenge

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Challenge: The Short Affair

-Prompt 1-Faith
-Prompt Colour- Black
Author- mrua7
Title: 'Stories'
Word Count: Approx. 1000

Illya’d been hit, a wound to the stomach, though his attacker had been taken out by Napoleon as soon as it happened.

He was a split second too late to prevent his partner from being shot, and now knelt beside Illya.

Kuryakin was shaking as he looked wide eyed at Solo. He was wearing his usual black turtleneck and that masked the bleeding until he pulled it up, revealing the wound.

“You-have-to-take-it-out,” he gasped as he reached for his belly. “Small caliber, you can do it… have faith.”

Napoleon knew he was right, they were too far away from anyone who could help.

How Kuryakin knew it was a .22 caliber slug was beyond him, small or not, the bullet needed to come out otherwise Illya could die.

Napoleon looked around, spotting a first aid kit hanging on the wall behind him. They’d taken refuge from their pursuers in a small park Ranger’s shack somewhere in the middle of the New Jersey Pinelands.

Unfortunately the goons caught up with the UNCLE agents, and after a brief firefight, all but one of them was dead. He was the one who eventually shot Illya.

Napoleon opened the first aid kit, digging through it and finding what he needed; he quickly sterilized a pair of large tweezers with his cigarette lighter.

“This is going to hurt,” he dug into the wound and cringed as Illya let out a blood curdling scream, before he passed out.

He located the slug, took hold of it with the tip of the tweezers and squeezed hard to get a grip on it. He slowly pulled it out with a satisfied grunt.

There was no antibiotic cream in the kit, nothing he could use to keep the wound sterile. Looking for something...anything usable, he found a small jar of vaseline just sitting there on top of a nearby desk.  For a second he felt as if the Hand of God had placed it there.

“Thank you,” he whispered. While keeping pressure on the wound with a piece of gauze, he struggled to open the jar. He gave it a sniff to make sure that’s what it was and after verifying it, he slathered it into the open wound.

It would also help with the bleeding, and quickly he applied all the gauze left in the kit; using a roll of medical tape, he secured the bandages in place.

Napoleon dared not lift him as that could open the wound even more. Instead he grabbed Illya underneath the armpits and dragged him across the floor, out the door and shimmied him little by little into the back seat of the silver Impala.

“Hang in there buddy, I’ll get you some real help.” Illya was out cold so he didn’t hear a word of it.

Kuryakin woke with a moan, finding himself lying in a hospital bed.

He was feeling pleasantly numb, no doubt he’d been given something. After craning his neck, he saw the glass dispenser attached to the intravenous cannula inserted into his arm. He couldn’t read the label, and guessed it was a morphine drip.

There was an empty container, the color of its interior looked to be a slight shade of red; it must have been blood.

He didn’t recognize the room, so he couldn’t be in the Medical Suite at headquarters.  It was standing operating procedure to bring a wounded agent to the nearest available hospital, that made him wonder if he were still in New Jersey.

He remembered being shot and telling Napoleon to remove the...Napoleon?

Illya realized his partner wasn’t here. There was no chair at his bedside and he suddenly feared Solo was dead.

“Hi there,” Napoleon grinned as he walked in the door with a mug of coffee in his hand.

He could see a look of concern in Illya’s eyes. “Hey you’re going to be okay.”

“You were not here; I thought you…”

“Moi? Dead? Not a chance tovarisch. How do you feel?”

“Like I was shot in the stomach.” His tone was a bit snarky.

“Yeah, you’re fine,”Napoleon snickered. ”The doctor said you were lucky it was a small caliber bullet and that I was there to take it out and patch you up. I was told that using vaseline on the wound was a stroke of genius and helped save your life. Amazing how a jar seemed to appear just when I needed it, as if it were a special delivery."

“That is a lot of luck, which is rare for me but not for you. Are you suggesting divine intervention, if so, I do not…”

“Illya, give it a rest, though come to think of it, you were the one who told me to have faith.”

“I did? I do not remember.”

“How convenient.”

Illya let slip a smile. “Though the existence of this ethereal luck is questionable. You seem to possess it, your Solo luck.”

“You were lucky today, but whether it was the Solo luck or yours, does it really matter?”

“Your luck is far better than mine Napoleon, since I was the one shot."

“I won’t argue that point with you. Now rest, relax and recuperate. That’s an order my Russian friend.”

Napoleon suddenly realized Illya was asleep. Kuryakin had the amazing ability to nod off anytime or anywhere, pretty much under any conditions.

Illya’s eyes popped open again, surprising his partner.

“What’s wrong?” Napoleon asked.

“Nothing in particular. Just glad to be alive, thank you for saving me. Talk to me, tell me a story, anything.”

“Really? You’re kidding, right?”

“I am serious,” he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to feel alive and was grateful to his partner and the doctors...and the nurses for having saved him.

“So what kind of story pal?” Napoleon laughed.

“Something science fiction, UNCLE in space perhaps, just make it up as you go along.”

Napoleon shrugged, but suddenly snapped his fingers,”Wait a second, I’ll be right back.”

He returned moments later with a comic book in his hands that he borrowed from one of the orderlies, and settling into a chair, he opened it to the first page.

“It was on the planet Voltron Seven that our brave heroes landed their space cruiser. Parking the silver ship in an out of the way place, they stepped out the Vultronian surface with their laser pistols drawn and ready.”

“Their mission was to eliminate an outpost established there by the mysterious organization known as the Sialia, who were hell bent on conquering the universe; their emblem was a blue bird in flight…."

Napoleon stopped, suddenly realizing how it sounded very much like UNCLE verses THRUSH.

“Interesting,”Illya said,” Bluebirds are of the genus Sialia and part of the thrush family known as Turdidae. They are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas."

“Excuse me, I’m telling you a story here...”

Comments

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a fine turn of events. And unknowingly I have provided another story for Illya :D. You'll see when you read it.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Oh oh! :D

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, you shot IK too, LOL.
I get the feeling that it's going to take Napoleon a long time to get through that comic book:-D

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

LOL! Great minds think alike cuz! Poor Illya.

Who knows, IK might nod off after all in the middle of being read the story...so you're probably right about NS taking a long time to get through that comic book. "D

[duckys-lady.livejournal.com]

Terrific story, and I love the comic book!

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Really glad you liked it. Ironically Glenna wrote a story that was a bit science fiction in content, so she said it was another story for IK...since he'd requested something 'science fiction.' Jantojones also had IK shot in her Short Affair story, so all I can say is great minds think alike when it comes to MFU. LOL!

Some Twilight Zone moments, perhaps? "D