Hi everyone! My name’s Phoenix. I’ve decided to break my tumblr hiatus with a brand new fandom sideblog (my first actually) bc I love compartmentalizing. Because I’m in graduate school, I am not active on here at all whatsoever these days lol. If you want to chat, I really recommend reaching out on Discord!
I write fanfic, make collages, and enjoy doodling, but I’m also in grad school, so I don’t have a ton of time for it these days. What else do you put here? Um, Illya Kuryakin is my pookie bear, DMs are always open to talk about him.
So, I am thinking either 11 or 29 for Napoleon/Illya. I guess I would prefer 11 but feel free to choose whichever you like more.
Thank you and I hope you'll have a wonderful day!
(Hello friend! Thanks for sending this in, I need more excuses to write these two, and 11 was pretty much the perfect prompt for them. hug ficlet prompts; read all the hug ficlets)
11: The awkward hug, where you both aren’t sure if this is okay or not.
The first time any of them spends actual time in a hospital because of a mission, it’s Illya. Which, honestly, Napoleon would not have predicted when they started working together. Not that Illya doesn’t take risks that sometimes border on reckless, because he absolutely does, but somehow he almost always seems to come out of it with no more than a few scratches. It also helps that he tends to brush off even more severe wounds, giving himself stitches before Napoleon or Gaby even know he’s been injured or running around on sprained ankles like it’s nothing.
So of course he goes and jumps in front of Napoleon and takes a bullet to the chest, the idiot. Hard to walk that one off.
Napoleon doesn’t know how to feel about the situation. He’d been terrified, then furious, then slipped back into terror when he realized what all the previous emotions added up to. When he’d agreed to this assignment—ok, he didn’t have a ton of choice, but still—he thought it would be a bit of a lark. Maybe even nice, having someone watching your back who actually seemed to care if you died. Getting attached was never part of the bargain. Now that Illya’s officially out of the woods and on the mend, Napoleon’s settled into a kind of uncomfortable uncertainty, both about his feelings and about Illya’s.
He’d visited Illya in the hospital, but mostly before he woke up. Then Waverly had sent him and Gaby off on a mission, which had infuriated Gaby. Napoleon, on the other hand, had been thankful for the distraction and the excuse not to linger around, even though leaving Illya like that made part of his chest ache that he’d rather not think about. Now they’re back, though, and Illya’s out of the hospital, and he is torn between a desperate need to see his partner and the urge to run away without looking back.
Seeing Illya wins out. He can always run later.
He elects to visit Illya’s apartment alone, not wanting any witnesses for this, even though Gaby saw him in the aftermath of Illya’s injury and probably knows too much already. He’s never been here, and it is, unsurprisingly, extremely spartan. Illya answers the door looking fairly normal at first glance, though you didn’t have to look long to notice the way his face was still drawn and thinner than it should be or the way he held himself, slightly hunched over his sling-bound right arm.
He lets Napoleon in wordlessly, like he doesn’t know what to say, though Napoleon’s visit wasn’t a surprise—he’d called ahead, and so already spoke briefly with Illya on the phone. Seeing him, though, is an entirely different matter. Napoleon isn’t a particularly casually tactile person, at least not like his partner is, but he’s overcome with an intense, overwhelming need to embrace Illya. To feel his body, warm and solid in his arms, to experience the rhythm of his breathing and the thump of his heart firsthand.
Jesus Christ, he’s a mess.
Illya might touch him a fair amount—a brush of a hand against a shoulder, or on his lower back, almost like he doesn’t know he’s doing it—but they’ve never hugged. Of course they haven’t, they’re two grown men and spies besides, on opposite sides of the Cold War, even though they’re partners now and Napoleon might be a little in love with him—
“Can I hug you?” Napoleon asks before he can stop the words from coming out of his mouth.
Illya blinks at him, clearly surprised in that understated way of his. Napoleon immediately wants to take the question back, but then Illya nods, and he forgets all the reasons he shouldn’t want this. He takes a step toward Illya, then another when Illya doesn’t immediately change his mind, until he’s standing no more than a few inches front of his partner. Obviously it’s going to be a slightly awkward hug for many reasons, not in the least because Illya’s right arm is in a sling and trapped between them, but Napoleon takes a deep breath and carefully wraps his arms around Illya’s waist as Illya’s other arm tightens around his back.
He is warm, and solid, and his heartbeat knocks steadily against Napoleon’s too fast one, and the relief that courses through Napoleon is so fucking intense that he feels momentarily lightheaded. Fortunately a large Russian is currently supporting him, so he doesn’t swoon embarrassingly. He thinks—hopes—that maybe Illya won’t notice how hard he’s clinging, but that was folly.
“Is ok, Cowboy,” Illya murmurs, half into the side of Napoleon’s head.
Yeah, Napoleon is a lot more fucked than he thought.
