graculus

For

au_bingo - just the first scene of this one so far!

Title: The Reconciliation Affair
Fandom: Man from UNCLE
Prompt: Fantasy & Supernatural: The Afterlife
Words: 550
Warnings: None
Summary: A slip of the pen and everything changed forever...

Seeing his reflection was the first clue that something odd had happened. He had changed so much, not to mention that he hadn't expected to see himself wearing that uniform ever again, that it took a moment for Illya Kuryakin to recognise himself.

"That's better."

The words had come from someone by his shoulder, someone who wasn't reflected in the mirror. Illya turned sharply, putting his back to the image of himself as a younger man, in his Russian navy uniform.

"Who are you?" Illya asked. "And where is this place?"

He was unarmed, the familiar weight of his shoulder holster and UNCLE Special missing; no need for futile gestures, even Illya he felt the loss as keenly as if he'd been delivered here - wherever here was - completely naked.

"Your guide," the newcomer said, clicking his heels together as he made a small bow. "You are most welcome here, Lieutenant Kuryakin."

Illya resisted the urge to correct the man - his guide, whatever that meant - and studied both man and surroundings. Everything was a little hazy still, the edges of surfaces not quite as sharp as they should be, things in the distance shrouded with a fine haze that made gauging the size of wherever he was a difficult task. Likewise his guide seemed to blur a little, particularly whenever Illya wasn't looking at him directly, his clothes an odd shifting melange of colour and texture that bordered on psychedelic.

"You didn't answer me," Illya said, turning his attention back to the other man. "Where am I?"

He had his suspicions, of course. But with so little data to go on, it was worth seeing what information he could gather, even if that information was likely to be of questionable accuracy. The last thing he remembered was following on Napoleon's heels, the two of them heading into the latest of a long series of Thrush satraps, and then he was here. Some kind of psychotropic substance, perhaps? Mind control of a kind more subtle than they had previously encountered where Thrush was concerned?

"You are, my dear lieutenant, in the accounting department. This is the place where things are put right, accounts settled and so on." The man gestured with one hand; a small table with a large leatherbound book laid open upon it appeared below where his hand came to rest. "Here you are, September 25th 1958. Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, the sea off Severnya Zemlya."

Despite himself, Illya looked where the other man pointed, seeing his name and the information that had been read out to him clearly inscribed on the page. He recognised the name before his too, a shipmate on the submarine he had served upon, in what seemed another lifetime. He'd been killed in a small explosion on board, Illya remembered that now, his body later weighted and shot from a torpedo tube into the dark waters of the Arctic Ocean as they ran silently below the polar ice.

"I see by your expression you still do not understand," his guide continued. "A mistake was made, back in 1958. Your comrade in arms was killed and that was when you too should have died."