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theladyrose.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crack_van2008-08-23 08:41 pm
theladyrose.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2008-08-23 08:41 pm
Entry tags:
The Company You Keep by St. Crispins (G)
Title: The Company You Keep
Fandom: The Man From UNCLE
Pairing: gen, some April/OMC (her husband)
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
st_crispins
Author Website:
St. Crispin's Day Society Stories
Why this must be read:
In any fandom, there are certain authors by whose work you judge, however unconsciously, all other stories. As a newbie fan, that writer's work becomes imprinted on you as How Stories Should Be Written.st_crispins has been setting the benchmark in MFU for years, and with good reason - her multi-story arc encompasses the epic beginnings of UNCLE as well as the complex sequence of events set in motion after the end of the official series. I have come to internalize her universe as as my personal canon, but considering her considerable expertise on the show and the incredible detail about the organization I think it's reasonable to understand why :)
I've always been curious as to the nature of the relationship between Illya and April, seeing as we never see them working together on screen. Fast forward several years after the run of the series to a post-UNCLE world, and that relationship has become decidedly more ambiguous. No one retires from the spy world - it remains with you for life until it retires you. The struggle between duty and choice and the sanctity of trust remain as relevant as ever when Illya warns April of an upcoming assassination plot on her husband's life. What's the value of loyalty in a world where anything is possible?
More than you expected, in ways you never imagined.
And then Jon, usually a pleasant, charming man, would level his gaze at her and ask bluntly, "And what makes you think he's not the assassin?"
That was the crux of the matter wasn't it? April began to tremble uncontrollably every time she arrived at this point in her imagined dialogue. She knew what she would answer: "Because, as I told you: we're old friends." It sounded lame every time she said it — quietly, in her head, or more forcefully aloud, to the empty suite.
Because we're friends, goddamn it. Isn't that enough?
But was it?
It should have been. It would have been in the old days. In the old days, if Illya or Napoleon or Mark had told her to take a step off the edge of a cliff to apparently certain death, she would have done it. She would have trusted them completely, trusted that they had a very good reason to tell her such a thing, that they were trying to save her life. And they would have trusted her in the same way.
But that was then and this was now.
The Company You Keep
Fandom: The Man From UNCLE
Pairing: gen, some April/OMC (her husband)
Author on LJ:
st_crispinsAuthor Website:
St. Crispin's Day Society Stories
Why this must be read:
In any fandom, there are certain authors by whose work you judge, however unconsciously, all other stories. As a newbie fan, that writer's work becomes imprinted on you as How Stories Should Be Written.
st_crispins has been setting the benchmark in MFU for years, and with good reason - her multi-story arc encompasses the epic beginnings of UNCLE as well as the complex sequence of events set in motion after the end of the official series. I have come to internalize her universe as as my personal canon, but considering her considerable expertise on the show and the incredible detail about the organization I think it's reasonable to understand why :) I've always been curious as to the nature of the relationship between Illya and April, seeing as we never see them working together on screen. Fast forward several years after the run of the series to a post-UNCLE world, and that relationship has become decidedly more ambiguous. No one retires from the spy world - it remains with you for life until it retires you. The struggle between duty and choice and the sanctity of trust remain as relevant as ever when Illya warns April of an upcoming assassination plot on her husband's life. What's the value of loyalty in a world where anything is possible?
More than you expected, in ways you never imagined.
And then Jon, usually a pleasant, charming man, would level his gaze at her and ask bluntly, "And what makes you think he's not the assassin?"
That was the crux of the matter wasn't it? April began to tremble uncontrollably every time she arrived at this point in her imagined dialogue. She knew what she would answer: "Because, as I told you: we're old friends." It sounded lame every time she said it — quietly, in her head, or more forcefully aloud, to the empty suite.
Because we're friends, goddamn it. Isn't that enough?
But was it?
It should have been. It would have been in the old days. In the old days, if Illya or Napoleon or Mark had told her to take a step off the edge of a cliff to apparently certain death, she would have done it. She would have trusted them completely, trusted that they had a very good reason to tell her such a thing, that they were trying to save her life. And they would have trusted her in the same way.
But that was then and this was now.
The Company You Keep