spiderweb, by Cord Smithee [NC-17]

[green-key.livejournal.com]

Now that everyone has opened gifts and had a nip o'eggnog, it's time to settle in with some good old-fashioned holiday slash.

Fandom: MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.
Pairing: Illya/Napoleon
Author on LJ: cordwainer_s
Author Website: n/a
Why this must be read:
spiderweb is a lovely weaving of character study and Christmas, written first-person from Napoleon's point of view. As Napoleon can be an odd, unpredictable sort, this story is wonderful for its convincing peak into the mind of a vulnerable Napoleon, a viewpoint not often found in MFU fan fiction.

The story spans six years, beginning shortly after Napoleon and Illya are first paired as an UNCLE team. Napoleon finds himself attracted to his new partner, but with that attraction comes a rousing clash with demons he'd rather remained buried. The thing with demons is that we don't get to choose which remain buried and which do not, and try as he might to hide behind his usual masks and shields, Napoleon is forced to acknowledge a dysfunctional and painful past. Lucky for him, Illya is nearby to lend an ear, strength, and an old German Christmas folktale.

While I recognize and appreciate the finer technical points of Cord's writing -and there are many- what I like best about Cord's stories is that both characters remain very male and singularly characterized. In no case could Napoleon or Illya be replaced with other characters, and never is there a doubt that these are two male characters we're reading about, from the way they deal to daily situations, to four-alarm sex scenes, to the way they handle their unique friendship.


"Your desire... no, desire in not a strong enough word. Your compulsion to fuck everything marginally presentable in a skirt that wanders across your path, regardless of marital status or moral character, is a classic example of overcompensation." He shut his door very lightly and slid the key into the ignition. "For some time, I suspected it might be, ah, a Napoleonic complex--"

Oddly enough, the little pregnant pause as the engine roared to life and the sideways flicker of his gaze reassured me. He was flirting again, teasing, in that manner that looks like a full-frontal assault until you get to know him. I mugged for it, the class-clown face that's my equivalent of his conversational barbed wire, only less apparent for what it is. "Illya, if you are suggesting inadequacies in my, ah--"

"--but a brief canvas of the secretarial pool set that supposition to rest."

"You didn't." He doesn't look; he's threading us into traffic now. "You didn't."

"In any case, the next logical assumption was a little more sinister."

Oh, shit. "I don't think I want to have this conversation, Illya."

"As you wish." The teasing had dropped out of his voice. He didn't look at me. "But if you ever wish to discuss with me whomever it was who hurt you so badly, Napoleon, I hope you know that I will listen, and I will not judge, and I will carry anything you tell me to my grave."

For a moment I couldn't speak. That is not something that I'm used to. "Ah," I said, when I started breathing again. "Ah. Thank you, Illya. I will remember that."

"If you need to," he said.

"I will." I folded my hands in my lap. "I will."

spiderweb

Comments

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was good! Not sentimental in any way, and psychologically sound and with good characterization.

Thanks for the rec.