Body Language by Jane Fairfax (NC-17)

[periwinkle27.livejournal.com]

Fandom: THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Napoleon/Illya
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: her stories can be found on File40
Why this must be read:
I can't believe this hasn't been previously recommended. It's a wonderful character study involving Illya's feelings about his longterm affair with Napoleon.

Solo is going to be replacing Mr. Waverly sooner than expected and he won't have Illya as a partner anymore. But he finds that he can't leave Illya emotionally. All these years he and Kuryakin have avoided discussing their feelings. Now suddenly, Napoleon finds he needs to let Illya know he loves him, but his partner is insisting that what they had in bed was always fated to end some day.

But Waverly was shaking his head. “No, Mr. Solo. I have my reasons.”

There was a pause between them, during which Solo looked all his questions and Waverly refused to answer them.

“I see,” Solo said awkwardly. So there it was. All she wrote. He watched his field career crumble into ashes. He realized at the same time that if he was no longer a field agent, what would happen to his field partner? Illya, he thought. The idea of leaving him behind to handle fieldwork alone, for two years, while he sat back and watched from the safe pinnacle of Section One was suddenly nightmarish.

“Chief of these being that it is time for you to begin to learn your new duties.” Waverly said, bringing him out of his reverie.

Solo considered the aged man before him, the gnarled hands that sometimes trembled on the pipe he no longer lit, his crabbed face, and stooping posture,and banished every personal query. “Yes, sir.”

Waverly looked at Solo. “And what of your relationship with Mr. Kuryakin?”



Body Language