ext_2694 ([identity profile] azdak.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] crack_van2007-07-09 09:07 am

Pussycat by Cord Smithee (NC17)

Fandom: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Napoleon/Illya
Author on LJ: not as far as I know
Author Website: http://www.chromeandgunmetal.com

I'm very aware that, from my recs so far, one might glean the impression that the glorious tradition of UNCLE fanfic is exclusively gen in nature. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth – there is plenty of sex in MfU, it's just that I tend to skip sex scenes, which makes me a poor judge of good porn. But every so often a writer comes along whose work is so amazing that it transcends the limits of mere personal taste. One such author is Cord Smithee, who writes utterly fabulous explicit slash. His use of language is intoxicating, and his characters have a gritty three-dimensionality that is merely hinted at in the original show. Sexual desire in Cord's world is an elemental power, forcing his characters along a tightrope between ecstasy and despair, and the negotiation of power and need, submission and dominance is brilliantly rendered. What I particularly love about his style – apart from, well, everything about it – is the way he doesn't so much describe the characters' emotions as let us see what triggers those emotions. Oh, and the way he lets us see it – the language! Did I mention the language?! Here's a tiny taste:

...startlingly unready for how the sight of Illya's wide eyes and bitten lip would flicker up his nerves like bridging electricity, fat blue sparks powerful enough that the contact should have locked his fingers around Illya's wrist. Almost did; it hurt to uncurl his fingers and let go.

Cord calls “Pussycat” a PWP, but it's also a gorgeous and very funny riff on the episode “See Paris and Die”. Napoleon, playing a French flic, has hustled Illya, in the role of a hired thug, out of van Schreeten's apartment with the words Allons! Maybe we go sweat you a little bit, eh, pussycat? Subsequent events take him completely by surprise...

Oh, and just to show I'm more well-read than Thrush, Inspector Javert is from Hugo's Les Misérables.

Pussycat

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