Fandom: MAN FROM UNCLE
Pairing: none
Length: 1348 words
Author on LJ:
azdakAuthor Website: azdak's LJ fic archiveWhy this must be read:Another stop at an episode-related story. And one that fills in a crack in the unsettling "The Gurnius Affair". Illya, impersonating the sadistic Colonel Nexor, is forced to torture his partner to death* ; the fate of the world depends on it--literally. Talk about (
cough, cough) fan service!
(*OK, pretty damn close to it)
Most writers focus on the aftermath, but
azdak has another question: what allows Illya to step into Nexor's shoes? We know IK is good at disguises, but this is more than a disguise, he inhabits Nexor. Marshall Gurnius' HQ is a hothouse of evil, it's atmosphere so pernicious that the guards look over their shoulders and even the Thrush representative's bluster can't hide his fear. Illya walks in without a misstep and thrives. Gurnius not only accepts him, he adores him.
How does he do that? What does it take?
An Actor Prepares has a fascinating, chilling, and perhaps even heartbreaking answer to that question.
Close up, he doesn't look that much like Illya. Oh, he's fair and blue-eyed all right, and he's got that overly large forehead and rather beaky nose, but the resemblance ends there. It was the uniform, Illya thinks, that made him look so freakishly similar. The cap, especially. Uniforms bleach out differences, they make everyone the same. That's the whole point. And when it comes down to it, a Nazi cap and a Soviet cap are almost identical, give or take a few badges. At one period of his life he saw a face like that, under a cap like that, every time he looked in the mirror.
An Actor Prepares