His Body (G)
By Periwinkle

He woke up to the realization that his body didn’t feel quite right. So what else is new? Illya thought to himself. After five years of working as an Enforcement Agent for U.N.C.L.E., he woke up many mornings in agony or pain. For variety, sometimes he woke up with his brain befuddled from one too many hits or with a concussion, and other times he woke up not knowing who he was.

Ah, the exciting life of a super spy. If only people knew the toll it took on a person’s body. The punches, the falls, the various abuses their bodies were subjected too, all to save the world. And don’t forget, Mr. Kuryakin, Waverly’s voice said in his head, we need you to do it again tomorrow.

He knew he should get up, grab his cup of tea, a warm shower and a handful of aspirin – U.N.C.L.E. agents ate more of them than they did M&Ms – but first he decided to allow himself the luxury of lying in bed another five minutes and taking stock of his body. What he was feeling this morning confused him. It wasn’t a sensation he remembered having felt before.

Starting at his extremities, he worked his way around his body. It was already glaringly obvious that he didn’t have a headache and that he hadn’t been punched in the jaw. He clenched and unclenched his hands. No rope burns, no broken fingers, no stomped-on hands. So what was he feeling? He didn’t recognize this agony.

His feet were okay, so he moved on to cautiously flexing his arms and legs. Nothing seemed broken and he had already realized upon waking that he wasn’t wrapped in gauze or covered with stitches. He was getting out of bed to look at his stomach – maybe he had been punched in the kidney? – when it hit him.

He didn’t hurt.

Anywhere.

What he was feeling was the absence of pain. He actually felt okay. For a moment, he was so overwhelmed that he had to sit on the side of the bed. In his euphoria he even considered calling Napoleon, but he could just imagine that conversation.

“Guess what?”

“What, Illya?”

“I feel really good this morning.”

That would get him a trip to the psychiatrists as fast as Napoleon could manage it.

So he decided to just sit there on the side of the bed, enjoying for a moment not being in agony. He wasn’t sure when he’d get another chance to feel okay.

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