Title: What Sweet Music They Make: The Children of the Night Affair

Author: Kei

dhanpir@aol.com

Fandom: The Man From UNCLE (an Alternate Universe adventure)

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Napoleon Solo / Illya Kuryakin

Warning: Slash / Horror

Archive: sure, why not?

Disclaimer: the Man From UNCLE belongs to MGM (dammit) and I am only borrowing them. No money is being made so please don't sue me.

Notes: ** indicates individual thought & <<>> indicates shared thought



"What Sweet Music They Make"
("The Children of the Night Affair")
by Kei



Perhaps it was kismet.

Fate.

No. That was just an excuse.

A feeble one at that.

No...he had gotten himself into this situation -that's what Illya would say. If he knew.

Napoleon Solo checked his watch for what had to be the hundredth time in less than half an hour. 5:45 p.m. -good. He had time to spare: just hand Illya the report that Waverly wanted him to study before their next mission, get out...and then just shut himself away until his secret little problem went away for a while. There was no need for anyone to know about it -as far as he was concerned, he was handling the problem fairly well.

Of course, he wouldn't actually *have* a problem if he hadn't...

What *had* her name been? Jocelyn? Josephine? Jacqueline? Didn't really remember -maybe he had never actually known it. Not that it mattered anymore. A beautiful girl -a woman really- with white-blonde hair and eggshell-blue eyes. A rented room in a non-descript hotel. A night of physical passion; of kissing, of biting, scratching, and pleasuring to deaden the loneliness.

A night which had left him with a gift, a *problem* that he couldn't get rid of.

But he *was* handling it, had handled it for the past five months, and he would handle it again...tonight...just as soon as he had seen Illya....though the Russian UNCLE agent couldn't have interupted his vacation to pick up the report at reception, he did not know.

Solo sighed aloud as he turned the Corvette into the parking lot of Illya's apartment building, hearing the slight whine of protest from the engine (needed tuning up -again) and then parked it. Illya would have stubbornly taken the stairs at this point, usually answering any complaints with some muttered comment about how all Americans were too soft for their own good and *he* would have mounted the stairs with equal determination just to prove the dour little Russian wrong, but tonight, there wasn't time -the elevator, it was then.

Napoleon's familiar three knocks were answered by the metallic clicking of multiple locks being released and the slight figure of his partner appeared at the door. "Napoleon..." A slight smile twitched at the corners of Kuryakin's mouth. "Come in. Dinner is all but ready."

A sheen of sweat appeared on Napoleon's brow as he unconsciously took a single step backwards. "Ah...perhaps another night, Tovarisch. I...uh...just came to give you this report."

The small Russian silently studied the senior agent as he accepted the encoded CD-RW, his ice-blue eyes seeming to bore right into his partner's brain. **My God,** Napoleon thought anxiously. **I'd almost

swear he knows.** "Are you certain, Napoleon?" Illya queried, his expression not wavering in the least. "If not dinner, then perhaps a drink?"

A drink. Yes, he could use a drink, and as the aroma of spaghetti carbonara assailed his nostrils, Napoleon realized that he *was* hungry and Illya's culinary skills *had* improved considerably since his creation of that horrible souffle some years ago. Napoleon glanced again at his watch -he would be cutting it close, but perhaps there was time after all-besides, right now, he really needed the company. "All right," he said with a forced smile. "Perhaps just a drink."

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

"So...are you going to tell me what has been bothering you these last few months?"

Solo stared at the dregs of the Italian wine in his glass and then at his barely touched plate, struggling to maintain a facade of ignorance. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't you?" Illya leaned slightly towards his partner who refused to meet his eyes. "You have been different these past few months -alternating between the partner *and* friend that I have come to know, and some kind of Mr. Hyde...and for two or three days in each recent month, you have simply disappeared with no explanation. Waverly allows us all some leeway, but he is losing patience with you -he has indicated that he wants you investigated or reprimanded or both. For now, I have convinced him to let *me* deal with the matter."

"You're too kind..." Napoleon muttered, not quite exorcising the bitterness in his voice.

"It has little to do with kindness or mere pity as you seem to think -you are my *partner* who is obviously suffering under what I do not know and I, too, understand what it is to have a secret burden that at times seemed unbearable!" Illa exhaled heavily, suddenly seemingly exhausted from his emotional outburst. "...and I am in love with you -and as such, I want to help you if you will allow it."

A sharp gasp of not unwelcome surpise escaped Napoleon Solo's mouth as he looked up sharply at his partner before a cloud of dismay darkened his brow. Illya loved him? Did his slight Russian partner have any idea of how intensely that feeling was returned...*would* have been returned if only...no. He couldn't allow... "You *can't* love me, Tovarisch. I can't explain why -but you just can't. It's too-" A surge of horror flooded Solo's veins as he suddenly caught sight of his watch -7:53p.m.! It was already almost dark -how had he allowed himself to have become so distracted! The senior agent stood up abruptly, sending his chair to the floor with a loud clatter. "Look -Illya- don't ask me any questions right now, but I have to leave! I know that you don't understand, but I promise I'll explain it all to you some day."

"You cannot leave." The quiet, curiously flat voice was somehow enough to stop the anxious elder agent in his tracks and he found himself again meeting those cold blue eyes. "In case you hadn't noticed, Napoleon, I've made some changes to my dwelling during my vacation," Illya stated calmly, a gun that seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere in his hand. "The walls have been reinforced and soundproofed to the anyone outside, the windows are now super-stressed plexi-glass, and the door has an electronic lock that I have set not to open before 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning -I know that *you* do not understand, but it *is* for your own good. You are not leaving."

"Illya! For God's sake, this isn't a joke!" Sweat had begun to stream down the flushed skin of Napoleon's face. "I have to go NOW!"

Kuryakin shook his head slightly. "I am sorry."

"Illy-" Napoleon's voice was cut off mid-word as a tearing pain travelled down the length of his body, throwing him to the floor. No...he'd run out of time. It was happening...now! He could already feel his muscles beginning to twist and stretch, forcing him to his hands and knees. Illya...get...out!" Those strangled words were the last that the tortured UNCLE agent was able to speak before his voice became a guttural growl. From some vague distance, he could hear the fabric of his clothes stretch and then rip to fall away as his problem, as his *curse* took control once more and thick black fur rapidly covered the shuddering now lupine form, a new hunger burning from within him.

All this time, Illya Kuryakin had stood and watched, his face a blank mask hiding the horror and dismay. He had hoped against hope that he had been wrong about his friend...but he wasn't...and as the lycanthropic beast he had known as his friend lumbered to its feet, slowly moving towards him with a mindless rage in its luminous eyes, he raised the gun-and fired.

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

"Napoleon..."

The voice, vague, seemed to come from a great distance as Napoleon Solo struggled against the invisible weights pressing on his eyelids. Alive still apparently, his fog-bound brain realized as hazy vision began to focus -though how, for certain, he could not say. The last thing he remembered was- "Illya!" Solo sat up sharply and was just as suddenly felled by a wave of vertigo. "Humph..." a familiar, accented voice muttered. "Let that be a lesson to you. Take it slowly." The senior UNCLE agent felt strong arms gently raise him to a half-slumped position as he finally realized where he was.

It was Illya's bed. He was quite human again and though covered by a thick blanket, definitely nude -ah yes, the clothes always fell victim to his recurring problem. Solo reached out to the pale face that he could now see clearly. "You're...you're alive? You're not -I didn't hurt you?"

Kuryakin uttered a small laugh. "Obviously."

Napoleon's eyes lowered. "And...you know."

Illya shrugged slightly. "I was not certain at first, but I have for some time."

Now, things were beginning to make sense...Illya had invited him to-more like *insisted* now that he thought about it- drop the report at his apartment. His conniving partner had obviously intended to *catch* him all along, but... "*How* did you know?"

"Suspicions...deductions...does it matter?" Illya responded evasively. "Just trust me when I say that I knew. *Who* was it?"

*That* question needed no explanation. "A girl I met about five months ago at a bar -she gave me the gift that keeps on giving." Napoleon sighed heavily and looked away. "You always told me, my friend, that my sex life would one day get me into trouble that I couldn't get out of -who could have thought that that would include being infected by a werewolf?" He met his partner's eyes. "But I kept the problem to myself -when I knew the change was coming, I'd make sure that I could not hurt anyone."

"Powerful knockout drugs? A hidden, secure room with a lock on timer?"

"Something like that." A near smile lit the elder agent's lips -of course, if anyone would suspect and prove such an impossible possibilty as his own, it would have to be Illya Kuryakin. Who else could? "I...seem to remember...you shot me, didn't you? What-"

"Darts filled with argentum nitricum -silver nitrate," Kuryakin confessed, lowering his head with shame over having to do what he had had to do...to a friend. "It is a mild homeopathic nerve relaxant for most -I gambled that its effects would be stronger though not lethal for you. I did not dare chance the silver bullet."

"Perhaps you should have, my friend." Napoleon's tentaive smile disappeared. "Tonight, because it was *you*, because you're so damned smart, Tovarisch -I didn't hurt anyone...but...I can't deny anymore that with each change, I have less and less control, and one day, I might not get to my hiding place in time. I... If I could be sure that suicide would end this... I-"

It was then that the emotional dam finally broke and Napoleon felt himself held as hot tears of pent-up anguish rolled down his cheeks. "Shhh...Napoleon," Illya's softly accented voice whispered in his ear. "There does not need to be such an end. Now I understand, I can help you."

"Help...me?" Solo swallowed deeply and pushed himself away."How... can you possibly help me?"

"A solution...a lesser of evils, if you will, though not a cure in the strictest sense...an exchange of your uncontrollable condition for one that you can learn to control..." Illya paused, suddenly uncomfortable with what he was about to reveal. "...as *I* learned. You need not kill."

"What do you-" Napoleon shook his head, his mind still reeling over the simple fact that he was being offered *any* kind of hope. What *was* his partner trying to say? "I just don't understand."

A faint smile ghosted the Russian's mouth. "Do you trust me?

Napoleon searched the pale countenance. "You know I do."

"Do you-" Illya shook his head. "No -I won't ask that question."

"Yes, Illya," Solo answered anyway, somehow amazed by the fact that he meant what he was about to say. "I love you."

"Good..." The blonde head lowered, soft lips capturing Solo's in a kiss before tracing the smooth line of his jaw and then down his neck where Illya paused just for a moment, meeting his partner's questioning gaze. "Do not be afraid," he purred, the slight smile awakening ever more questions in Napoleon's racing mind though he couldn't seem to find a voice with which to ask them.

It was at that moment that their eyes locked again and Solo saw a change, but not like the awful changes of the last five horrific months...not in himself. Even as he watched in open-mouthed silence, irises of of ice-blue became discs of blood-red and the canines in Illya's mouth grew and extended to vulpine-like fangs. Trust me. Napoleon heard the words in his mind as the blonde head dipped again -and razor-sharp

teeth pierced the flesh of his throat.

Trust me, Solo heard again as liquid warmth began to spill onto his neck until it was caught by the stroke of a warm tongue and the sucking of a soft mouth. He should have tried to fight, but he didn't want to. He shoulding have been screaming in terror and disbelief -instead, he found himself clutching the smaller body to his own as momentary pain gave way to indescribable pleasure

What *are* you, Illya Kuryakin?

You know. Deep down you always knew.

Will I be like you?

Alike and individual, as are we all.

Sunlight..?

We are weaker in the day, stronger in the night.

Does it hurt to die?

Trust me.

The senior UNCLE agent felt the usually steady rhythm of his heart begin to falter as the organ struggled to pump what was becoming in scarce supply...and yet again, he was not afraid as he felt the dark presence that had been a part of him since that fateful night drain away with the blood, purged...destroyed...as another darkness closed in on him. Just then, there was pain, sharp and cold, as the fangs were abruptly extracted. Drink, came Illya's insistent mental voice, piercing the fog that had descended upon Napoleon's brain as warm liquid drops of copper and iron wet his tongue. Drink, the voice insisted again, offering a second chance to live.

He drank.

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

"Mental exhaustion?"

Illya Kuryakin watched dispassionately as Alexander Waverly allowed the medical report before him to fall shut, something in the old man's eyes telling the Russian UNCLE agent that he didn't really believe a single word he had just spoken. "The members of UNCLE's psychiatric department agree that Napoleon has merely been suffering from ...exhaustion."

The head of UNCLE North America studied both agents, American and Russian -he had to admit that his chief enforcement officer *did* look a trifle pale, though nowhere as ghostly as his partner tended to be. "And how are you feeling now, Mr. Solo?"

"Much more centered...and in control, sir. I *have* been given a clean bill of health," Napoleon replied lightly."I wish that I could explain away my earlier behavior, but I can only apologize."

"Yes, I see...just so long as it does not happen again, Mr. Solo. UNCLE is no place for hysterics."

"Of course, sir."

"Very well, gentlemen -UNCLE London is expecting you for your next assignment. I suggest that you get some rest before your flight this evening. Dismissed."

So, Solo sent as he and Kuryakin made their exit. Do you think he believed us?

Illya cocked an eyebrow. Probably not, but the psychiatric department gave their diagnosis and *they're* the ones you had to convince.

We have some time yet -want to get something to eat? I'm assuming we can still *eat*.

Of *course* we can, Illya responded with an exasperated roll of his eyes. Pizza?

A mischievous smile animated Napoleon lips, almost revealing the hidden fangs. With extra garlic?

Don't be disgusting.



*The End*