Light Macademia

It is no different this time. He stays on his knees, biding his time while his angry captor rants at him, feeling the hot blood steadily drip down his skin. And then the right moment arises, and he lunges at the other man, taking him down silently and with practiced ease. The man is dead before his head even touches the ground. 

Illya stands up, the gun with his own blood darkening its metal in his hand. He wipes blood out of his eyes, takes a steadying breath to ward off the dizziness that usually accompanies a pistol-whipping, and sets off to find his partners. He hopes that they have had easier jobs of achieving their parts of the mission than he’s had. 

Fortunately, they have. Both of them are waiting for him at their agreed meeting spot a few streets away, none the worse for wear. 

“Everything is okay?” Illya asks, before either of the others can get a word in about the blood on his face. 

“I’ve got the disk,” says Gaby, holding up a green plastic container and shaking it. 

“I’ve got the codes,” says Solo, patting his jacket pocket. “And you’ve got blood all over your face.”

“I know. It’s fine. I have the key.”

“You know, a bloody face generally isn’t fine, in my experience.”

“In mine it is.”

By an unspoken mutual agreement, they begin walking, sticking to back alleys and unpopulated streets. “What happened?” Gaby asks, as they round a corner and step beneath an especially bright streetlight. Illya squints, the brightness making his head throb unpleasantly. 

“Nothing important.”

“Are you injured?” Solo asks. 

Gaby hits him on the arm. “What else does blood mean?”

“It’s fine.” Illya says, and hopes he doesn’t sound angry. He tries not to be angry when they ask after him like this. He’s getting better, he thinks, but their behavior is still foreign to him. He still doesn’t quite understand it or know what he is supposed to do with it. 

Both of his partners sigh in unison. Illya has learned that this is never a good sign in regards to being left alone. 

“You’re bleeding, Illya. We just want to make sure you’re okay.”

His head throbs again. He can feel his thoughts starting to go fuzzy and forces himself to concentrate. He’s had enough concussions to know the signs, but this is nothing he can’t handle. He’ll just have a headache for a few days. It isn’t important. 

“Really, I am fine.”

“At least tell us what happened?” Solo asks, as they come out into the service yard behind their hotel. 

Illya, hoping to get his insistent partners to stop their questioning, relents. “I got hit.” He shifts his jacket slightly to show them the gun that he has tucked into his waistband. “No big deal.”

“I’m sorry,” Solo says, putting an arm out to stop Illya when he reaches for the handle to the back door. “What I’m hearing is, you got pistol-whipped?”

Illya shrugs. “Yes.”

“And that’s fine to you?”

Illya gives him a sarcastic smile and then pushes past him, opening the door. “I have a hard head.”

It’s the middle of the night by now, and no one is inside the hotel when the three spies, one streaked with blood, step through the back door. 

“Good night,” Illya says, as they reach the empty staircase. His room is on the second floor, and both of them are down on the first. He is looking forward to a quiet, restful night, with nothing to bother him but his head. 

His partners, unfortunately, have other plans. “Sorry, no,” Gaby says, she and Solo both following Illya up the stairs towards his room. “You have a head injury.”

“It is barely a scratch,” Illya lies. He has been steadily getting dizzier for the past several minutes, and there’s an insistent nausea pressing at his chest. He wants very badly to simply lie down and fall asleep. 

“Then we’ll be quick,” Solo says. “Besides, we might as well enjoy our last night here. I happen to know the hotel provided you with a rather decent bottle of scotch.”

“How do you know that?” Illya asks, and then the door to his room is opening in front of him. 

He looks to Solo, who grins and holds up Illya’s room key. Illya snatches it back from him with a practiced scowl, and with nothing else to do, steps inside with his partners at his heels. 

Gaby takes charge, pushing him towards the couch and telling Solo to get the first-aid kit which all three of them are required to carry. 

As soon as Solo brings the kit, Gaby, without waiting to give Illya any time to protest, begins to clean his face with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. Her movements are sure and quick and Illya closes his eyes and forces himself not to react, both to the sting of the alcohol and to the feeling of someone else touching his face. 

This done, Gaby stares intently at him. Solo joins in. Illya refuses to look back at them.  

“That’s a pretty deep gash,” Solo says. “Are you feeling okay? Are you dizzy at all? Nauseous?”

“Concussed?” Gaby adds, in case Solo’s questions had not been obvious enough. 

Illya shakes his head, which is not a good idea. Everything spins. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

“Illya, are you okay?”

He opens his eyes and looks at the concerned faces of his partners. He feels angry. At himself, mostly, for showing weakness. At them, a bit, for being so insistent, even though he has been slowly learning that this is simply how they are. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re pale.”

“It’s the lights.”

“You look…off.”

“I said, I am fine!” Illya snaps, shooting to his feet. Immediately, black spots fill his vision and his ears start to ring and he only just manages to stop himself from throwing up right there on the hotel floor. 

He shuts his eyes and doesn’t move. Steady hands push him gently downwards until he’s sitting back down on the couch. He keeps his eyes closed and folds himself over so that his head is nearly resting on his knees and just tries to breathe and waits for this to pass. 

His partners’ hands are still touching him, even after several seconds. This prolonged contact is new. Despite his slight discomfort with the sensation, it is grounding. He knows where he is. Who he is with. All he has to do is sit and breathe and wait for his head to stop spinning, wait until he does not feel like he is going to pass out.

Eventually, he feels steadier. Very slowly, Illya sits up and opens his eyes. 

Solo is crouched next to him with a hand on his knee and another on his back. Gaby is on the couch on his other side, one hand on his back and one on his arm. 

“How are you feeling?” Solo asks, and his voice is as gentle and quiet as Illya has ever heard it. 

“Okay,” Illya says. “Not so dizzy.”

“I think you might be concussed.”

“Yes.” He supposes he cannot very well deny it now. 

“And you were planning on, what? Hiding it from us?”

“The mission is almost over.”

“You don’t stop being hurt just because we’re not actively working.”

“It is not so important.”

“Of course it’s important,” Gaby says. “You’re our partner. Whether we are on a mission or not.”

Here it is again, that alien, confusing concern. Illya finds that he is too worn out to fight it off, to think about what it means. He stays silent. 

“Why don’t you get some rest?” Solo asks, squeezing his knee. “We’ll stay, wake you up every couple of hours.”

Illya blinks at him. No one has ever offered to stay. He doesn’t need it. But…

“You aren’t allowed to say no,” Gaby says. “It’s protocol.”

He does remember their medical training. He had simply assumed he would be able to ignore it when necessary. Apparently today he has no such luck. 

“Okay,” he agrees, since there is nothing else for him to do.

Both of them smile at him, which is a bit strange. And then their hands are guiding him again, and he doesn’t have it in him to shrug them off. 

He ends up lying down on the couch, legs slightly bent so that he can fit. Solo drapes a blanket over him - Illya has no idea where he’d gotten it from - and Gaby turns off the light. 

“See you in a couple hours,” Solo says. “Sweet dreams.”

Gaby touches his cheek, quick as anything. “Good night, Illya.”

“Good night,” Illya mumbles, and at last falls asleep.