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youveneverbeenalone · 7 years

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Inktober for Writers/Fictober:

Day 6- Water (Darejones)

Another difficult day with another piece I didn’t get to finish editing and with which I’m not 100% in love. But I will clean it up when I get the chance. I might start trying to post the collection to AO3 this weekend anyway, so stay tuned if you’re interested in that (or if you just want to see the edited, final drafts). This one is directly related to Day 1, though can still be read in relation to the others in this world. Prompt list here, just in case. Thanks for the feedback so far! You’re all awesome.

Day 6- Water

It starts raining on their walk to her apartment, where they plan to discuss a case. Other than the achiness that flares up throughout his whole body, which has gotten much worse since his heroics at Midland Circle, he doesn’t mind it. He’s even a little pleased.

For most of his life he’s loved the rain. So much sensory input- the scent, the sound, the feeling. It’s a clean, refreshing filter through which he can observe the world. It makes everything seem slightly muted, with a pleasant white noise in the background. He finds it very calming.

And there are certain other… benefits he can think of related to the rain. One of which he is attempting not to focus on right now. Because the rain helps him to see things in ways nothing else can, and he is suddenly consumed with the desire to see Jessica Jones’s form in its entirety.

There are general things he can gather about someone’s physical appearance based on the sensory abilities at his disposal- height and a fairly good idea of body type and size- but it’s not enough in this case. Yet making out a specific silhouette or seeing the exact lines of someone’s body is not something that he can do without special circumstances. Circumstances such as the rain.

It has recently come to his attention that he is incredibly attracted to her, though he’s a bit embarrassed to admit it. But not because of her; he’s just pretty sure that she doesn’t return the sentiment. That doesn’t keep him from wishing, though, particularly at a time like this. A time in which he’s mesmerized by the breathtaking portrait the rain is painting of her.

He concentrates on her face, noticing the droplets which fall on her forehead, nose, lips, and cheeks, rolling down her skin and tracing the angle of her cheekbones, the pout of her lips, the shape of her jaw, and the slope of her neck. His pulse quickens as he imagines tracing the same path with his fingers-

But that thought has probably gone too far already, if he’s hoping to keep any kind of composure around her when they get her place. He forces a few deep breaths as they continue to walk, and tries to focus on anything else, anything other than her.

He sighs in relief as they turn one last corner and begin crossing the last block toward her apartment. Once inside, he’s hoping he can think of anything other than the desire he has to map out every square inch of her body.

He counts the seconds until they make it to the front door of her building, attempting to survey just how soaked he is. And he’s disappointed to learn that he’s sopping wet, all the way down to his socks. So much so, that as they ride the elevator and walk down the hall toward her apartment, he’s totally preoccupied with the unpleasant feeling of having wet socks inside of wet shoes. He so distracted that he doesn’t even realize that he’s successfully stopped thinking about Jessica. At least, until she closes the door and takes of her jacket.

Then his attention snaps back to her. Because she’s nearly drenched underneath her jacket, and he hadn’t realized at all.

She didn’t wear her scarf today. Whether that was an oversight or a deliberate choice due to spring beginning to set in, he’s unsure. But all that he knows is that while the leather of her jacket may have wicked moisture away from her arms and torso, the wide neck allowed plenty of water in the front. And as more water streams from her dripping hair, he is spellbound by the path a particular drop takes. Down her neck, under the collar of her shirt, down her chest, between her breasts, and down the plane of her stomach to melt into the fabric at the waist of her jeans.

And suddenly it’s all he can do to breathe against a barrage of images which make his heart race and his cheeks flush. He is so caught up in trying not to imagine trailing his tongue down her body, following the line traced by the raindrop, that he doesn’t hear her question.

“Uh… sorry, what?”

“I said, ‘do you want to borrow some clothes?’ Or would you rather stand there, soaked and freezing all night?”

He clears his throat, hoping to even his tone. “Yes, thank you. I would love a change of clothes. But forgive me for asking how you happen to have some for me.”

She toes off her boots and turns toward her room, speaking to him over her shoulder as she goes. “Don’t get too excited. They’re just old workout clothes. I went through an oversized athleisure wear phase in college and never got rid of them. Lucky for you.”

“Indeed.” He follows behind her, pausing as she stops at the bathroom, grabbing a towel for each of them. She tosses him his, then brings hers up and around her neck to wring out her hair. After a few intense squeezes, she drapes the towel over her shoulder and continues to her room.

He takes a moment to towel off his hair and face before following her to the doorway of her bedroom. He pauses at the threshold, acutely aware of boundaries he doesn’t want to accidentally cross, and hears her rooting around in a drawer. After a moment, she makes a sound of triumph and stands.

“Here. Catch. You can change in the bathroom. And just hang your clothes on the shower rod so they can dry.”

He nods and she turns away, bending to look through, what he’s assuming is, a laundry basket.

“Thanks, Jess.”

She just grunts at him, already reaching for the hem of her shirt. And it takes all of his considerable willpower to turn his back to her and head toward the bathroom. But, try as he might, he can’t completely drown her out of his awareness.

He hears the squish of wet fabric as she gathers the shirt in her hands. He notices the way the fabric clings to her frame, dragging against her skin as she attempts to remove the garment. And he definitely senses a few last drops of water that escape the shirt as she lifts it off of her, sliding down her arms and tracing the curve of her waist and hips on the way down.

And suddenly he’s glad to be alone in the bathroom because he needs to get his head on straight if he’s going to stay here for any length of time. After changing, he pauses for a moment and splashes some cold water on his face, hoping to shock himself. He takes a few deep breaths to mentally prepare himself to leave the bathroom, then he heads for the main room.

He find her working at her desk, feet crossed and up on the corner while she types away on her laptop and drinks some whiskey straight from the bottle- Maker’s Mark, he decides, after a moment. As he sits across from her, she slides a full tumbler across the desk to him.

And he smiles as he catches it and takes a drink. Because it reminds him of a night she recently came to his apartment. A night not unlike this one, when she was soaking wet and he offered her what he could to help her feel more comfortable. And now that he thinks about it, that may have been the night he truly started to see her as someone he’d like to know as more than just a friend.

As he sips from his glass, which she remembered to pour for him, he considers the fact that maybe his attraction to her is less one-sided than he thought. Maybe she remembers that night too, and maybe she came to the same conclusion he did. Only time will tell, but he’s suddenly a lot less anxious about being with her tonight. And it’s just another reason for him to love the rain.

Day 5 | Day 7

#inktober for writers #fictober #a prompt a day #matt murdock x jessica jones #matt x jessica #darejones #messica #mattjess

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rose-of-pollux · 7 years

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Inktober for Writers, Day 28

Prompt: Power

This is actually a ficlet, not a drabble--

Title: Duckling Rating: PG13 (for action/danger) Summary: As Illya looks after a fever-stricken Napoleon while on the run from THRUSH, Napoleon ponders over and converses with someone only he can see. Takes place during the second year of the partnership. Notes: This version of the fic (cross-posted to AO3) is light slash; if you prefer reading gen, there is a gen version on ff.net, but I can’t link to it with tumblr’s linking restrictions.

This was also largely inspired by the M*A*S*H* episode “Follies of the Living, Concerns of the Dead”

Napoleon had seen better days—he was suffering from a high fever after being kept as a captive of THRUSH for several days. Illya had managed to rescue him and led him on an escape through the woods, but it soon became clear that, considering both his fever and the residuals of whatever drug THRUSH had given him, Napoleon was too out of it to be traveling for much longer.

“The communicator signals are not getting through to headquarters; I cannot call for backup,” Illya muttered. “Napoleon, I am sorry, but we will have to rest at a safehouse until my call can go through. You need to sleep that fever and the drug off, and I’m sure there will be a first aid kit to treat you with.”

“No-no-no-no, ‘m fine, really,” Napoleon insisted, though his weary tone of voice suggested otherwise. “I can last until we make it back to a town.”

“Perhaps you could, but I am not going to take that chance with your health,” Illya insisted, looking around the woods to get his bearings and find the direction of the safehouse. “Just give me a minute to coordinate ourselves with the map.”

“You dunno where it is…” Napoleon said. “See, there’s no need to bother. The road is right here; we can just follow it…”

“I must insist.”

“Look, ‘m the CEA, and I say we go back to town and get ourselves a nice hotel and you can play doctor for me alllll night long…”

“When the CEA is unfit for duty for whatever reason, the power and privileges of the position temporarily transfer to the second in command, which would be myself,” Illya said, without skipping a beat. “Your feverish state temporarily disqualifies you as being of sound mind, so I get to make the decisions now.”

“Aw, shucks…”

“And anyway, when you’re pulling rank, I know you’re not being rational…” Illya added.

“Eh,” Napoleon shrugged. “Lemme just take a look at the road anyway—see if I can figure out which way the nearest town is…”

Illya continued to look at the map as Napoleon hobbled to the edge of the side road that cut through the forest. Napoleon glanced up and down the road, but both sides looked the same to him. He sighed and shrugged again to no one in particular, but then paused as he noticed an older woman wearing traditional Ukrainian clothes on the opposite side of the road.

“…Uh… Hey…” Napoleon said, but she didn’t seem to hear him. “Uh… Ma’am? Could you tell us where we are…?”

He stepped off into the road, not even noticing the car now approaching from down the road. Mercifully, Illya had glanced over at him as he talked and let out a yell of panic as he saw what was about to happen. He rushed forward and pulled Napoleon away from the path of the car.

“I promise you, I shall handcuff you to me next!” he scolded.

“I wouldn’t mind…”

“Shush! What possessed you to do that!?”

“I didn’t see the car—sorry…”

“What were you trying to do!?”

“Don’t you see the old lady?” Napoleon asked, gesturing where he had seen the woman. He paused, seeing nothing. “She’s gone… Is she okay!? Did she get sideswiped by that car!? Illya, we have to--”

“She was never here, Napoleon,” Illya said, gently. “Between the fever and the drug you were given, you are seeing things.”

“…But I saw her…”

“I am sure you did; I am not accusing you of lying. But it tells me that you desperately need rest more than anything. Now, come with me; I have found the way to the safehouse. It’s this way--”

He was cut off by a gunshot that narrowly missed them, striking the tree beside them. Napoleon stared at the bullethole for a moment as Illya grabbed him by the hand and ran, practically dragging his partner with him.

“How did they track us down so fast!?” he asked.

“I dunno…” Napoleon said. “But what about the lady? She could get hurt out there in all of this--”

“There’s the safehouse!” Illya said, indicating what looked like a pile of rocks. It was, in reality, an entrance to an underground cabin. He dragged Napoleon inside and quickly had him in bed with a glass of an electrolyte liquid to help rehydrate him.

“You lie here and rest; I’m going to stay at the guard position until I am sure that the THRUSHies have no idea where we are,” Illya said.

“Aren’t you going to join me?” Napoleon asked. “This is a double bed…”

Illya sighed, exasperated.

“Later,” he said. “Once I am sure it’s safe.”

“I hope that’s soon.”

Illya grunted and climbed up the ladder to the lookout post that was the above-ground area surrounded by the rock pile.

Napoleon drank the rest of his drink and tried to place the glass on the table beside the bed; he missed it, though, and the glass fell to the floor. He let out a “tsk” and reached for it, but paused as he saw the older woman from the road picking the glass up and placing it on the table herself.

“…How’d you get here?” Napoleon mumbled.

“I came in with you and Kachenya,” she said.

“Kachenya?” Napoleon repeated. His fevered mind attempted to piece together the Ukrainian he knew. Then, it clicked. “Oh, ‘duckling.’ Ha, I’ve always said he reminds me of a duck! His name is Illya.”

“I know,” she said. “And you are… Napoleon, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s right; you’ve been paying attention,” Napoleon said. “I don’t believe I caught your name…”

“Nika.”

“A pleasure, Ma’am. …Look, ah, I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up; I’m kind of under the weather, and ‘Ducky’ over there wants me to take it easy.”

“I understand,” she said, with a smile. “You listen and do as he says. He is a very smart boy.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” Napoleon mused, suppressing a chuckle. “He’s from your neck of the woods, actually—Kiev. Well, he was born in Moscow and then moved to Kiev…” He trailed off as Illya clambered down the ladder again. “Hey, Ducky! We were just talking about you!”

Illya blinked.

“‘We?’”

“Yeah, me and…” Napoleon trailed off; the woman was gone again. “…She was right there! The old lady I saw by the road!”

Illya gave him a gentle smile and kissed him on the forehead.

“Napoleon, you need to rest.”

“I am resting! What do you call this—exercising?” Napoleon indicated the bed he was lying in.

“It is a good start,” he said. “But I need you to sleep. The THRUSHies are still patrolling outside, and we cannot make a move until they go. I just came to get my communicator and see if I can get through to headquarters and have them send some backup. I think you are right about getting you back to civilization as soon as possible.” Illya grabbed his communicator. “I do not think we are in any danger; there is no reason for them to suspect there is a safehouse here. But, just to be sure, I will keep an eye on them.”

“Sounds good,” Napoleon mumbled. He sighed, resting his head deeper on the pillow as Illya climbed back up the ladder. “Be careful!”

“I will,” Illya promised.

Napoleon watched him go and then closed his eyes; he quickly reopened them as he felt a cold cloth being placed on his forehead. Nika was back.

“Hey, where did you disappear to?”

“Kachenya may be a smart boy, but when he is preoccupied, he misses obvious things,” she tutted. “This will help you.”

Napoleon chuckled.

“You remind me of my Ma,” he said. “She’s proud of me, but when I do something stupid, she makes sure I know it.”

“Then she did a good job,” Nika said, flatly. “Children, they need praise. But they also need to know not to be foolish.”

“…Yeah, you and Ma would have gotten along great,” Napoleon mused. “Hey, do me a favor—the next time Illya comes down here, can you stick around? I don’t think he thinks you’re real.”

“Kachenya, he doesn’t trust what he doesn’t see with his own eyes…” Nika sighed. “That is not easy to change.”

“True,” Napoleon murmured. “But, now that you mention it, I wouldn’t want to change Illya for the world.”

“No?”

“Nah,” Napoleon said. “I fell in love with him as he is; why would I want to change him?”

“You… love him?”

Napoleon blinked, realizing that the conversation had just taken a very awkward turn. He tried to backtrack.

“Ah, well… I think the world of him; let’s just say that,” he said. “And it wouldn’t be fair to change him. He is who he is, and I have to accept that—warts and all. But, between you and me, there aren’t any warts.”

“Yes, his face, he has no warts.”

“That’s true, but that’s not what I meant,” Napoleon chuckled. “It’s an expression. It means that even if he has flaws, I’m willing to accept them, because I love him for who he is, not what I want him to be.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. We’ve just started going together--”

Napoleon was about to say something else, but the sounds of gunshots grabbed his attention—and Nika’s, as well.

“Kachenya!” she exclaimed.

Napoleon forced himself to get out of the bed.

“No, you must rest…!” she protested, but Napoleon waved her off. “Napoleon! Stay in bed!”

“Illya needs me,” he insisted, and he grabbed his Special and climbed up the ladder.

“What are you doing!?” Illya hissed at him, as he fired through gaps in the rock cover. “Napoleon, you can’t--!”

“You need me, and I want to help,” Napoleon insisted. His aim was a little off, but he did manage to get one of the THRUSHies outside tranquilized. “How did they realize you were here?”

“They did not,” Illya said. “I got through to headquarters; it turns out they were already tracking us down. But as our agents approached the safehouse, they caught the attention of the THRUSHies outside, and the firefight started. I tried to back them up from here in any way I could.”

“So you’re okay?” Napoleon asked.

“Da, THRUSH does not know that I’m sniping them from here. So you should go back to bed.”

“Nah, the sooner I help you help our agents, the sooner they can get me back home with some antipyretics…” Napoleon paused to aim again, ignoring the sweat pouring down his face. He fired once more, getting another THRUSHie, but then he suddenly felt overcome by dizziness.

“Napoleon!” Illya exclaimed, keeping him from falling over. “Oh, you blockhead…! Why did you not stay in bed!?”

“You’re talking just like that lady down there,” Napoleon muttered. “Give me a break, Kachenya…”

Illya paused.

“…What?”

But Napoleon had passed out from exhaustion; thankfully, the other U.N.C.L.E. agents were soon able to get the upper hand and capture the THRUSHies, and then help Illya and Napoleon.

When Napoleon came to, he found himself in Medical, feeling much better, and with Illya by his side.

“Hey…” he said, with a smile.

“How are you feeling?” Illya asked.

“Much better. I’m guessing they gave me the medicine?”

“They did,” Illya said.

“What happened to the woman who was looking after me in the safehouse? Did she make it out alright?” Napoleon asked.

Illya paused.

“Napoleon… there was no one there. I looked myself—in all of the rooms. I could not find her.”

“You looked?” Napoleon asked. “Really? I thought you didn’t think she was real.”

“I thought that, at first,” Illya admitted. “But the word you used… Kachenya…”

“It means ‘duckling,’ right?” Napoleon asked.

“Da. You never said that before.”

“Yeah, I’d never heard it before, but that lady said it a few times. That’s what she was calling you.”

Illya gave a shaky nod.

“Only one person ever called me Kachenya—my mother,” Illya said, after a moment.

Something clicked in Napoleon’s mind, recalling when he had brought Illya to his home to meet his parents a few months ago, and how, in a rare moment of openness, Illya had talked about his parents, and their names—Vanya and Nika…

Nika… She practically told me who she was and I didn’t figure it out because I was so out of it! Napoleon silently chided himself

“She called me that all the time…” Illya continued. “In fact… it was the very last thing I heard her say when the Germans invaded Kiev…” He swallowed a lump in his throat as the memory of the day returned. “‘Vtekty, Kachenya!’”

“…‘Run, Duckling,’” Napoleon translated.

“I did as she said. And I never saw her again.”

“Illya… I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Illya said, sighing deeply. “Perhaps you were stricken with fever, but perhaps you did see her. Perhaps I can take comfort in the possibility that I might see her again someday.”

“Even if you don’t see her with your eyes, I think today proves that she is still looking after you,” Napoleon said, softly.

Illya managed a nod.

“Thank you, Dorogoy.”

They both fell silent after that, Napoleon still needing more rest, and Illya needing a bit of rest, too, after having so much on his mind. Illya gently held Napoleon’s hand in his as they dozed.

They were both still asleep when Nika reentered the room, unseen by the mortals shuffling around her.

“Napoleon,” she whispered. “Thank you for giving my Kachenya someone to love. I see that your feelings for him are true, and I need not worry while you are here.” She turned to her son now. “And you, my Kachenya, I am proud of all you have done, and all you have accomplished on your own. But know that you are not alone. Those hardships are behind you now, for you have found someone who does, indeed, love you. He has opened his home and family to you; treat his parents as you would your Papa and myself.”

She placed her transparent hand atop that of her son and his partner.

“Kachenya… Illya… And you, too, Napoleon…” she said. “I give you my blessings. Look after each other.”

She turned to leave, but she looked back—and watched as Illya stirred, his eyes opening slightly. For an instant, mother and son looked at each other for the first time in 20 years, and Illya blinked, as though he thought he was seeing things.

When he looked again, however, she had vanished from his field of vision.

“A dream…?” he murmured to himself. “The power of suggestion…?”

Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t. But he squeezed his partner’s hand and soon fell back asleep.

He would hold on to what he had.

#Napoleon Solo #Illya Kuryakin #mfu fic #the man from uncle #inktober for writers #napollya

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