The Bored Room - Short Affair

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

-Prompts - Delicate, Obligation, Grey

Word count - OVER!! 1180

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The grey walls of Headquarters were giving Napoleon Solo a headache.  Something about the sameness of it was playing havoc with his desire to do something, anything, that would take him outside of these walls.

Illya Kuryakin was watching his partner as the American fidgeted with a keychain that had appeared on his desk, much to the Russian’s annoyance.  Flipping it up into the air and catching it, clicking it against the desktop… it seemed that anything that might be considered irritating was in Napoleon’s repertoire of activities today.

Finally, after having endured as much of his partner’s boredom induced antics, Illya spoke up.

“Napoleon, why don’t you simply take a walk, go outside, anything other than sitting here with that confounded keychain.” His voice was even, not in the least betraying just how annoyed he truly was.  Napoleon was behaving as though he alone was enduring the current situation.

A look of something akin to sheepishness came on his face, a sudden realization that he wasn’t alone in the room.

“Oh, gee… I’m really sorry Illya.  I just got, ummm… well, I just go so bored that I forgot you were here.’ He saw Illya’s eyebrows raise up in protest; a silent but stringent disagreement perhaps.

“Honestly, I was just daydreaming.  Sorry about the, umm… ‘’ He held up the keychain and grinned.

“You’re not the least bit sorry, I think you were doing it just to get a rise out of me, make things a little more interesting.”  Now it was Illya smiling, the jig was, as it were, up.

The imposed isolation at the moment was due to a threat delivered to the New York office detailing what awful things were going to be done to the team of Solo and Kuryakin.  It seemed that someone had taken umbrage regarding … well, something.  The letter hadn’t explained exactly what was at the core of the complaint against them.  Napoleon had an idea, and Illya was convinced it was a woman, and that he’d been caught up in this mystery quite by mistake.  Or association.

“Section III is handling it, and they’ll probably have someone in tow very soon.  I wonder that you haven’t had this sort of thing happen before, my friend.  Your womanizing really does need to be less, shall we say, obvious..”  Illya was justifiably smug, after all he wasn’t the sort of man who flaunted his, even though he did have a few.  Thinking of Evangeline made him smile.  That is, until he realized that she had been a little upset with him when he broke off their budding romance.  After all, he couldn’t afford to invest that much attention or emotion… Oh dear…

Napoleon saw the expression on his friend’s face shift from that slightly superior affect that Illya did so well, to a sudden assault on his usually unattainably high perch.  Illya was dealing with a jilted woman. 

“Tsk, tsk tsk… Gee whiz Illya, what did you do now?”  Napoleon had an obligation to make as much of this as possible, especially considering the number of concerned looks and lectures on the evils of dating too many women.  Yep, Illya deserved to bear the brunt of this one.

Illya had no recourse but to admit the possibility of Evangeline’s involvement.

“I, ummm, I will admit that perhaps the situation is slightly more delicate than I had at first considered it to be.” It was said with a straight face, his recovery from the momentary lapse in composure was now past.

“What, exactly, does that mean? How delicate are we talking about here?  I mean, she’s not… ?”  Illya cocked his head, the angle suggesting complete ignorance until…

“What? What!! No, good god, no.’ Flustered once more, the blond shook his head until the longish hair swung wildly.  Mister Waverly had already suggested he visit a barber, if it were discovered that this ‘threat’ was because of him… bohze moi…

The jangling of the telephone broke the moment, and Napoleon caught it on the third ring.  

“Yes sir, that’s good news. Thank you sir, and please thank Agent Conner for taking care of this so quickly. Yes sir, tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.  Yes, I will let Mister Kuryakin now as well.”

Illya was waiting for an explanation, his face slightly flushed from his recent encounter with consequences, or at least the thought of them.

“Well, what did he say?  Am I to be shipped back to Mother Russian?”  He would insist later that he was joking about being expelled from UNCLE, but in truth the thought had crossed his mind; in truth, it crossed his mind more often than he cared to admit.

Napoleon wanted to drag this out as long as possible, but he decided to be generous with his friend.  Illya wasn’t accustomed to being on the wrong side of improper conduct, and the fun that could have been had… Oh well, he wouldn’t do that to his partner.

“The Old Man just heard from Jack Conner, and the culprit in all of this is a fellow whose wife used to work for us here at Headquarters.  She recently left him, and he was convinced that the two of us had counselled her to do so, and to join a commune.” Illya’s jaw dropped, it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.  Well, not the most ridiculous, but it was ridiculous.

“Do we have a name? Who is the woman?”  If he had counseled a woman to do anything remotely like what was being suggested, it wouldn’t involve a commune.  Maybe applying to the Command and Survival School, but most definitely not a commune.

“Diane Feister, remember her? Pretty blonde girl, very perky personality.  I guess she got married young and after a few years, and meeting people here that were more interesting to her, she decided her husband just wasn’t who she’d hoped he would be.”

The two men sat in silence for a few minutes.  It was a sad situation, the failed commitment, and the sad realization that a marriage was more than excitable libidos and fairy tale notions of happily ever after.   Illya gave it an appropriate amount of thought before finally speaking.

“Well, I for one am glad to have ended it with Evangeline, even if I did think, for only a brief moment, that my actions had somehow triggered a very unpleasant reaction.  Actually, she didn’t deserve to be saddled with the meager amount of commitment I could give her.”

Napoleon nodded, he understood the problem only too well.

“There’s no commitment, no way to give yourself completely to a woman.  Let’s face it Illya, we’re not likely to ever find happy ever after, not as long as we’re in the field.  I guess that’s why Mister Waverly has his rules about marriage.”

More silence ensued until Napoleon decided they’d been holed up inside for long enough.

“You hungry?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

A good meal at Luigi’s, a bottle of wine… They had commitment, to each other and the job.

Comments

[laurose8.livejournal.com]

Very good writing of them both, with a fine ending. And an excellent resolution, which is just the sort which would happen in (the better) canon.

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

I wonder what could have prompted this tale of enforced confinement :-D
You have their voices perfectly, and I had to laugh at Illya's realisation that he could have been the one to blame this time.

I think we can forgive the extra words. It's an excellent story, and these are unusual times :-)