Catching up on the Inktober for Writers prompts I missed; here’s the first half…  I’m posting them all here in one entry so as to not clutter up tags/dashes, but they are posted individually on AO3.

Summary 3 (prompt: “Jail Cell”): Illya waits for a rescue; Light slash; gen version is on dreamwidth.

Summary
4 (prompt: “Noose”): Based on that scene from “The Maze Affair” episode–Illya knew Napoleon was the bait to trap him, but that didn’t matter.

Summary 5 (prompt: “Explosion”): Part 1 of 3; The aftermath of a mission gone wrong

Summary 6 (prompt: “Broken Bone”): Part 2 of 3; Napoleon’s luck fails at last, and he and Illya are dismayed to hear he’ll be out of commission for two months

Summary 7 (prompt: “Guilt”): Part 3 of 3; as Napoleon continues to recover, Illya still blames himself for allowing it to happen. Light slash; gen version is on dreamwidth.

Summary 8 (prompt: “Scars”): In which Napoleon gets a bit self-conscious over some “mementos” of a previous mission.

3. Waiting

The small window in the cell is the only way for Illya to
measure the time of his captivity; his watch and anything else that could have
concealed a gadget or weapon had been seized from him.  THRUSH wasn’t even risking a chance that he
might find a way to escape or summon help.

He had to give them credit; this THRUSH outpost was in such
a hidden location that Illya had only stumbled upon it by accident.  He had been swarmed by THRUSHies before he
had been able to contact Napoleon.

There is little else to do other than lie on the cot and
watch the sky change from day to night and back again.  THRUSHies come by at all hours of the day and
night to question him, and try to beat the answers out of him.  They starve him, giving him only one small
meal a day—and how he suffers with his metabolism being as rapid as it was!

And yet, Illya still manages to hold on to one spark of
hope: the spark of hope that assures him that Napoleon has ways of finding him
without gadgets and devices—just as he has done in the past for Napoleon, as
well.

It is after the sun rises for the fifteenth time through
that tiny window that things begin to change—that panicked shouts fill the
THRUSH hideout, and people stampede past his cell for the underground exit.

Illya turns his head slightly, and his heart skips a beat
upon seeing Napoleon storming past, pursuing the THRUSHies with righteous
fury.  The movement of Illya’s head
doesn’t escape his partner; Napoleon glances in his direction—and then stops
dead as he registers what he’s seeing.

In a matter of seconds, he abandons his quarry; for him,
revenge is less important than liberating his beloved.

He blasts the lock open and is by his side in an instant,
clearly horrified by how gaunt and injured Illya has become.

“What did they do
to you?” he asks, gently gathering his partner in his arms.

“Nothing I cannot recover from,” Illya assures him, and he
means it.  In Napoleon’s arms, he feels
safe at last, knowing that Napoleon will look after him.  …It almost made the whole ordeal worth
it—almost.

He looks up at his partner as Napoleon carries him out of
the cell; Napoleon is softly talking to him, reassuring him and asking him to
hold on just a little bit longer.  He is more
worried than necessary, but that’s just the way he is—Illya is hungry and a bit
beaten up, but hardly in critical condition.

“Napoleon, I’ll be alright…”

He has to keep repeating those words as Napoleon takes him
to Medical, tucking him in the hospital bed and making sure he gets food down.  Here, when they are both safe, Napoleon lets
more emotions in and out, gently kissing Illya on the lips and forehead.

At last, Illya knows it’s over when Napoleon, satisfied
that Illya is on the mend, manages to lift the burden of worry from his
shoulders and fall asleep in the chair beside Illya’s hospital bed.

And he, too, falls into a peaceful sleep for the first time
in weeks.

4. No Regrets

It was a trap.  How
could it not be a trap!?  Everything about it scream “TRAP” so loudly,
that THRUSH might as well have put up a neon sign declaring that it was a trap
to draw Illya out into the open.

And yet, it was most effective—for how could Illya sit idly
by as THRUSH hung his partner on their makeshift gallows?

Napoleon refused to betray any fear as he was led to the
THRUSH gallows; he even managed a quip about how this seemed to be a far cry
from the advanced weapon that THRUSH had been bragging about.  But Illya could see the fear in his eyes—it
was visible only to someone who knew Napoleon as well as he did.

The fear in his eyes increased as the THRUSHie slipped the
noose over his neck; Napoleon’s entire body tensed—he was bracing himself for
what was he was certain was the end.

And Illya couldn’t stay inactive any longer.

He threw an explosive charge as a smokescreen, waited for
the THRUSHies to run over to check it out, and leaped from his vantage point
above the gallows to tackle the one guard that had been left standing watch
over Napoleon.

The fear that had been in Napoleon’s eyes was replaced by
pure relief as Illya leaped into his line of sight.  His outward expression hadn’t changed at all,
however—not even after Illya removed the noose from his neck.

He didn’t have an opportunity to thank his partner,
alas—the trapdoor opened beneath them, sending them tumbling into the
guardhouse below.

Footsteps were approaching them rapidly; there was no time
to talk, no time to say anything.

Napoleon gave him an apologetic glance.

I’m sorry, he silently transmitted.

Don’t be, Illya returned.  No matter what befalls me, I do not regret
being captured to save you.  I could
never.

Napoleon swallowed the growing lump in his throat.  Of course he wouldn’t—if the situation had
been reversed, Napoleon would have done exactly the same thing.

Thank you.  Illya, no matter what happens…

I know, Illya said, not even needing his partner to finish the
thought.  And I feel the same way.

If this was where it ended, they would lament how short
their time had been, but there would be very little to regret.

But maybe… just maybe… there would be some
miracle that would allow them to survive this together, just as they had done
so many times before.

5. Out of Time

Illya groaned as he awakened, blinking as he found himself
in a pile of rubble that had once been a THRUSH facility.  What had happened?  Ah, yes, that’s right—they had set the
hideout to self-destruct, and Illya had been desperately trying to disable the
computer-controlled charges so that he and Napoleon could collect the evidence…

Napoleon!

His eyes shot open.  Napoleon
had been with him, only feet away when time had run out and the charges had
detonated, bringing the building down on top of them.  And now…

Illya forced himself to sit up, his heart in his throat as
he looked around and saw nothing but piles and piles of rubble.

“No…” he choked out.
“Napoleon!  Napoleon!”

Everything was coming back him now; his terrified cry that
they had run out of time, the entire place shaking from the charges going off,
and Napoleon… Napoleon running to him
instead of trying to run away and save himself…

“NAPOLEON!”

Illya’s voice broke into a coughing fit from all of the
dust.  Taking a moment to think, he used
his communicator to call Napoleon’s.  He
could hear the communicator’s whistle, as he had hoped, taking it as a good sign
that it was still intact and working—but it chilled him to realize that it was
coming from beneath a large pile of rubble.

Illya struggled to move some of the pieces; to his dismay,
it became clear that part of the wall had fallen on his partner; for all of his
efforts, he was only able to reach his partner’s hand—and received no response
after grasping it.

“Napoleon!” he cried, placing his fingers on Napoleon’s
wrist.  For what seemed like an eternity,
he searched for a pulse before finally finding one.  “Napoleon, please wake up!”

He tried to dig further, but stopped in horror as the pile
of rubble shifted and threatned to collapse futher.  He couldn’t dare try anything further;
Napoleon had survived due to ending up in an air bubble—if that collapsed, he
was done for.

He hit the distress signal on his tracker and proceeded to
do the only thing he could do—gently rub Napoleon’s wrist and talk to him,
trying to get him to revive.

After what seemed like another eternity, he heard a groan.

“Napoleon!?” he asked, daring to hope.

“Ugh… what happened…?” Napoleon groaned.  “Where am I…?
Illya…?”

“I am here, Napoleon!
The THRUSH hideout collapsed when the charges went off—I wasn’t able to
stop them…”

“Are you alright!?”

Illya swallowed the lump in his throat.  Napoleon was the one trapped, and yet, he was
more concerned about him?

“I am fine, but you are trapped.  Can you try and see if you can slip out?”

Napoleon groaned again, and then cried out.

“Napoleon!?”

“I can’t…!  My
leg…!  I can’t move my leg…!”

Illya shut his eyes.

“…Are you pinned by the wall…?”

“I… I think so…”

Illya cursed himself multiple times over.  His partner was injured and trapped, and
there was nothing he could to do help him—his failures had been the cause of
this!

“I have already summoned help,” Illya said, quietly.  “You will be out soon.”

“…Don’t go,” Napoleon pleaded, quietly.

Illya gripped his hand tightly.

“I would never,” he promised.

He would stay—of course.  And after Napoleon was extracted, he would
find some way to make it up to him.

6. Out of Commission

Backup arrived at long last to help free Napoleon from the
rubble.  Their backup, having
commandeered construction equipment to get the job done, moved the large
segment of wall that had pinned Napoleon’s leg in place as the rest of the
rubble was cleared from around him, and he greedily gulped the fresh air,
wincing in pain as he tried to move his leg and failed, even after being freed.

Napoleon finally sat up, looking in dismay at his
previously-pinned leg.  Illya’s heart
sunk as he saw it, as well.

“Broken…” he realized, staring at the swollen shin.

“And badly,” Napoleon groaned, slumping against Illya.  “I’m going to be out of commission for two
months—at least!”

Illya looked disdainfully at his partner.

This is my fault, he silently chided himself.

So many things he could have done different—should have done different!  But he had not, and now his partner, the
person he loved most in all the world, was suffering for it.

Napoleon was soon carried off on a stretcher and taken to
Medical; they got to work on his leg, binding the shin and foot in a cast and
sending him home to rest.  Though Waverly
had granted Illya some time off to look after him, they all knew that Illya
would have to return to work before Napoleon would be fully healed.

Nevertheless, Illya was ready to do what he could now.

Once home, he led Napoleon to the bedroom, sitting him down
on the bed and gently taking the crutches from him.

“Now you rest,” he instructed.  “I will get you something to eat, and I am
sure Baba Yaga will want to use her purring abilities to expedite the healing
process.”

“Thanks,” Napoleon said.

There was a frustration evident in Napoleon’s
voice—clearly, he was upset at being bedridden, and Illya couldn’t blame
him.  Two months was no small amount of
time—two months being kept away from something that Napoleon considered his
purpose in life…  It was a cruel twist of
fate…

Illya’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud and a cry
of pain from Napoleon; he dropped everything and ran back to the bedroom, Baba
Yaga right behind him, to see Napoleon collapsed on the floor.

“What happened!?” Illya exclaimed, gently helping him up
and placing him back in the bed.

“I thought I could, at least, make it across the room,”
Napoleon muttered, bitterly.  “But I
can’t even do that.”

Illya gently squeezed Napoleon’s hand.

“You need to give yourself time,” he said, gently, though
his heart ached for his partner.  “If you
push yourself like this, you will take longer to heal—perhaps even cause more
damage.  I know it is a bleak outlook
that will last a while, but we need you to return back to 100%.”  He paused.
“I need you to return to 100%, as well.
I cannot accept being permanently assigned to another partner.”

“I wouldn’t want you do be reassigned, either,” Napoleon
said.

“Then please listen to what I have to say in regards to
your healing,” Illya said, gently brushing a few strands of hair from
Napoleon’s forehead.

Napoleon sighed, but nodded.

“I will,” he promised.

Illya smiled and left Baba Yaga beside Napoleon’s leg,
satisfied as she began to purr loudly.
Napoleon closed his eyes and rested as Illya went back to the kitchen.

Once there, he paused, sighing.

It would be a long road ahead for Napoleon, but
Illya would help him in any way he could.

7. Out of Hiding

Illya was working
on dismantling more THRUSH explosives; time was running out.  Napoleon was somewhere in the building; he
had to hurry…!

But nothing seemed
to be working—the wires, the bits and pieces…
They all seemed to be a jumbled mess, and any and all knowledge that
Illya had about demolitions seemed to be slipping away from him like the sands
in an hourglass.

“I have to help
Napoleon!” he gasped, seeing his partner running down the halls towards
him.  “I have to stop this–”

The timer hit
zero, and explosions went off all around the corridor, enveloping his
partner.  Illya’s heart stopped as
Napoleon vanished into the heart of the blast, screaming in agony until he
screamed no more…

“NO!” Illya cried, bolting awake.

There was a yelp from the cat as she was awakened by
Illya’s cry; Baba Yaga looked at him, her tail twitching for a moment before
she chirruped and sat back down beside Napoleon’s broken leg.

“Illya…?” Napoleon murmured, slowly coming awake.  “What happened?  What time is it?”

“It’s 3:30 in the morning, Napoleon,” Illya sighed.  “Nothing happened; go back to sleep.”

Napoleon wasn’t convinced, and he reached over, touching
Illya’s shoulder.

“You had a bad dream,” he said, knowingly.  “I know the signs—I have them enough times,
after all.”

Illya grumbled under his breath; he wasn’t about to admit
it.  And, anyway, it wasn’t the dream
itself that upset him—it was reality.  He
knew that it was the guilt he had over his failure at stopping the real
explosion in the THRUSH facility—the reason why Napoleon was out of commission
for two months with a broken leg after the explosion had caused part of the
wall to fall on him.  He was fortunate
not to have fared worse, but Illya could not forgive himself for allowing his
partner to be injured so badly.

“Illya,” Napoleon said, drawing an arm around him.  “What happened?”

“You died in the dream,” Illya said.  “That’s all there is to it.”

“I figured that much.
Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“…That’s alright,” Napoleon said.  He said nothing more, but still held Illya
close to him, which didn’t help with the guilt he was feeling—at all.

“How can you forgive me so easily when I am the reason for
your condition!?” Illya blurted out, after a moment.

“My condition–?
Illya, you didn’t break my leg!”

“I might as well have done so,” he replied, bitterly.  “I was not able to stop those explosions from
going off—the wall fell on you, and now your leg is broken.  How is it not
my fault!?”

“Neither of us knew that THRUSH had booby-trapped that
facility with those explosive charges!” Napoleon reminded him.  “By the time we had found out, there were
only five minutes left!”

“Then I should have insisted that you leave while I tried
to deactivate them,” Illya said.  “There
was no excuse for my not insisting upon it.”

“…You think I would have left, even if you had insisted?”
Napoleon asked, softly.

Illya blinked.

“You would not have,” he admitted.

“So we’d have been right back here, like this,” Napoleon
said.

Illya considered this and conceded.

“Yet, I cannot help but feel that I am partly to blame,” he
admitted.  “Two whole months, you have to
be here, bored and recovering.  There
must have been something I could have done to prevent this!”

“You saved my life by making sure I stayed conscious, even
when all I wanted to do was pass out again from the pain,” Napoleon admitted.  “Illya, I love you.  And just as you find it difficult to forgive
yourself, so would I have if I hadn’t stayed behind with you.  I made the choice to stay with you.  A broken leg is worth knowing that you were
alright—I’d never regret that.”

“I love you, too,” Illya said, now drawing his arms around
Napoleon in a hug.

Napoleon responded by hugging Illya with both arms, as
well, and Illya forced himself to try to let go of his guilt.

Napoleon was here, alive, and still loyal and by his
side.  And once he was fully healed, he’d
be running by his side once again.

Illya could live with that—and he knew they both could.

8. Vanity

Napoleon usually never dwells on old cases too much—in
their line of work, they really can’t afford to dwell in the past like that.  But Napoleon is only human—a human who was
trained in Survival School to use all of his charm and good looks as part of
his arsenal.  With that training came a
certain kind of vanity.

Napoleon is undoubtedly vain, but it isn’t a mean-spirited
vanity at all—more of an extreme self-consciousness brought about by his
training.  But, nevertheless, it is
engrained in his mind, and even though he tries to brush off the injuries that
he receives in the course of his duties, sometimes, he can’t help but focus on
the scars they leave behind.

Most of the marks are temporary, and most of the permanent scars
are otherwise unnoticeable.  But there
are large, ugly ones on his back—a memento of his encounter with Captain Shark
and his whip.

They are permanent—Illya had broken the news to him the
moment he had seen them, something that Medical confirmed upon their return.

At the time, Napoleon had tried to shrug it off, claiming
that it merely meant he could no longer walk without a shirt in the summertime.

But as he glances over his shoulder at the reflection of
his back on the mirror, he realizes just how true that statement is.  He has to suppress a cringe at the thought of
the pointing and staring he’d have to face if he did dare to wander without a
shirt on the beach ever again.

Illya walks in now; scars are no stranger to him, either,
though since he is far less concerned with how others see him, it is easy for
him not to dwell on them.

He can sympathize with Napoleon, however—he knows how much
Napoleon’s appearances mean to him.

“Napoleon…” he says.
“You know, they do perform surgeries to cover up scars.  There is that option—though, frankly, I do
not think you need it.”

“You really think–?”

“Yes, I do,” Illya says.
“These scars are not in a very noticeable place for the majority of the
year.”

“But in summer…?”

“I am confident that most people at the beach will have
better things to do than go looking around for scars on people,” Illya says.  “And those who do are busybodies we shouldn’t
pay any mind to, anyway.”

Napoleon does manage a chuckle, in spite of himself.

“But, as I said, it is your decision to make,” Illya
says.  “I can only offer my advice.”

“And I appreciate it,” Napoleon insists.  He glances at the mirror once more.  “Well… Not today, that’s for sure.”

He sighs as he put his shirt back on, but then smiles as he
glances back at Illya.

“How about we go get dinner somewhere?”

Illya smiles back.

“Sounds wonderful.”

And the two of them head out, eager for what
lies next.