Body Language
By Jane Fairfax


As spies they knew over a dozen languages between them.  But between them, they rarely bothered to converse in words.  Their spoken natal language was foreign to each other.  But in the unspoken dialogue of spies, they were naturally proficient, and they had been able to read each other fluently almost from their first meeting.  So they spoke most often in body language, in hieroglyphs, in the glances and rolls of eyes, in the closeness or distance of personal space chosen, in stiff shoulders or slumped ones, warding or welcoming arms.  Though in many ways not a language of profound subtleties, their shared physical language was usually sufficient for them, for as spies they often kept their own counsel.  Their deepest secrets were considered only in the privacy of their own thoughts, and sometimes not even then.  But for a while, for seven years, the usual mythic seven years, which was appropriate for them, since they performed somewhat mythic deeds, all that sufficed.  

Then came a season in their lives when body language didn’t completely serve, and they had to rely on words: clumsy, slippery, double-edged words, as dangerous as swords, as fickle as hearts so often were.  As their hearts sometimes seemed to be.

But not tonight.  Tonight, with a mission over and no demands on them until their return by airplane tomorrow, when they would once again be back under Alexander Waverly’s aging thumb, they were letting their bodies speak for them.  And as they both had beautiful bodies, that expressed themselves eloquently, their conversation was absorbing and encompassing.

It was autumn.  Mid-October, with the leaves beginning to flame into fire colors and dive from the spiny-fingered branches.  Even in Ecuador, where the air was still hot and steamy, the angle of the sun, the constellations in the sky, the return of migratory birds, all warned of cold winter coming, of the death of the seasons, with spring and rebirth and renewal months away.

 
But for now, the air was still as warm as the flame-colored leaves and they were celebrating life with a fiery passion of their own.  Illya Kuryakin’s  pale blue flannel pajamas lay crumpled on a chair.  Napoleon Solo’s pajamas, in a burgundy and black paisley-swirled silk, were draped next to them.   Illya lay on his stomach on one of the twin beds in the medium-scale hotel room that Waverly’s budget afforded them post-mission.  He’d drawn up his knees a little to give Napoleon easier access.  He’d clenched his hands on the bed’s low footboard for purchase, gripping it tightly as Napoleon rocked both him and the bed.  And he was bracing himself between knees and hands on the unsteady mattress, as Napoleon, kneeling just behind him, hands a firm band circling his waist, holding his hips in place, drove repeatedly into him from behind.

In other words, U.N.C.L.E.’s top enforcement team was engaged in the height of debauchery.

Illya was panting hard, looking down at his tightly gripping hands, feeling Napoleon’s hands squeezing his waist, capturing his hips.  His ears were filled with the sounds of their harsh breathing, the grunts and pants Napoleon made as he thrust, his own short cries as the cock tore through his flesh to bludgeon his sensitive prostate, the creaking of the bed, and the slapping sound of Solo’s loins against his thighs and buttocks.  Judging by the cherry-colored reflection of his rear in the bureau mirror, and the too tight feeling of the tender skin and the length of time they’d been doing this, he’d be as sore there tomorrow as if Napoleon had spent these post-mission hours spanking instead of fucking him.  The curse of having tender, sensitive skin and a tireless lover.  And one more reason to keep himself at this exquisite peak of sensation, rather than come and deal with  the consequences of aftermath.  

His ears rang with these sounds of their lovemaking, first one sound than the other holding precedence as he turned his attention to it, distracting himself from his aching cock, distended to painfulness and yet denied release, his solely abused passage, his flayed buttocks.  He didn’t want to come, he didn’t want Napoleon to come yet either, and this close to the edge as he was, he was dwelling on the minor discomforts he was experiencing, because if he wallowed too much in pleasure, he’d come and end it.

He’d long ago decided that coming was over-rated, compared to the deliciousness of the act itself. He’d come to feel every climax an ending.  A separation.  A little death.  So lately he’d been doing everything he could think of to extend their sessions.  Even if prolonged male sex did engender some discomfort.

So if their lovemaking had been sustained past his own comfort level, it was by his own decree. and his alone.  It was he who kept urging, pleading with Napoleon not to finish.  In their years-long association, he knew all the signs that told him Napoleon was coming down that final stretch. In the past, he’d welcomed that, since he hated the feeling of being on edge, and could always count on Napoleon for a rematch, for a second or even a third session before they’d put out the lights and settled down to sleep.  But each time tonight he’d begged to make this session last a little longer.  And Napoleon, who loved bedroom games even more than the rush of orgasm, had compliantly obliged, even if a little puzzled at Illya’s change of behavior.  At least so far.

He felt that change in Napoleon’s thrusting now, deeper, faster, driving into him like a powered dynamo that had to explode.  He struggled up to his elbows, raised his head off his hands and pleaded “Napoleon, please stop!”

 
And always, amazingly, as if his partner were something other than mere male and mortal flesh to be so controlled and disciplined in the final throes of passion, Napoleon did stop, pausing in mid-thrust, wrapping one arm around Illya’s waist to steady himself within him as he balanced his weight between his remaining arm and his knees, panting hard to catch his breath. His skin was gleaming with sweat, his hair damp. He looked beautiful to Illya’s twisted sideways glance, his hazel-brown eyes sparkling, lips sensual, deep chestnut hair showing not a hint of grey, in spite of being just a few months shy of his fortieth birthday.  As Illya met his eyes, Napoleon smiled and shook his head fondly, one hand reaching out to caress his cheek.  The gentle gesture made Illya’s heart turn over.   Just a few months.  And then what?

Love might be a gentle falling, this was a precipice-drop into destruction.

It was that precipice that had been haunting Illya Kuryakin lately.

 Solo drew in a few more lungfuls of air and then had breath to speak.   “What is it?  Illya?”

Kuryakin shook himself out of his reverie.  “I don’t want you to come.”

A soft chuckle, and Solo withdrew, causing him to cry out sharply as the sword-like cock left him empty and aching still, both for completion and from the repeated assault on his body.  His body closed around the spear-wound, stingingly sore.  He swore under his breath, not liking that feeling at all, or what it portended.  He’d be lucky if he could move tomorrow.  But he didn’t care, stubbornly wanting it all, no matter the cost.

Just a few months, he thought as Solo coaxed him out of his crouch, straightening his limbs, urging him to relax as if they’d already finished.  Maybe less, if Waverly decided to move Napoleon up faster.  And then?  Kuryakin had two more years in the field, but what of that?  There would be no more nights in hotel rooms with Napoleon, no reason for them to spend time together post-mission in each-other’s apartments, supposedly doing case-work or reports. No reason perhaps even to see each other socially, if Waverly dictated a clean break between field and board.  Section One gave orders to Section Two; the two didn’t fraternize.  He was staring at a clock that was ticking down, and at times, it seemed the clock was his heart, his soul, his life.  And when it was over, what then?

Solo turned him over, and lay down next to him, one strong arm pillowing his head, pressing their heated, sweat-drenched bodies closer and drawing the sheet up from the floor to keep them from chilling.  “What’s with you, lately?  You’re usually begging me for a quick finish.  I’ve never known you to want to play this long.”

He let himself be enfolded.  Napoleon wasn’t a comfortable pillow, his muscles hard as stone, but he knew no better rest than in his arms.  “Something wrong with me wanting to make love with you?”  Kuryakin asked truculently.

“But I’m hurting you,” Solo said simply.  “It’s too much, in spite of all the lube.  You’ll be sore for days.”  One eye impartially studied Kuryakin’s upthrust cock punctuating the sheet.  “I don’t know how you can stand it now.  We really should wrap this up.”

That word sounded a chill in Kuryakin’s heart, and turned his tone icy.  “I don’t care if I’m sore.  I don’t want to wrap it up.  Make it last.” Kuryakin ordered rudely.

Solo sighed and idly reached down under the covering sheet to fondle the inside of Illya’s thigh, his hand a warm promise.  Kuryakin gasped and slapped at his wrist, drawing his loins back.  “Don’t do that!”
 

“We don’t have to fuck.  I think it would be better if we finish this with a little mutual fondling.”

“No!”  Kuryakin said, appalled.  He hadn’t merely only fondled Napoleon to a climax in ages.  He’d never forgotten that to Napoleon, well, to them both actually, both basically heterosexual outside of this relationship, sex implied some degree of intercourse.  It never felt quite real without it.  Hands and lips were the stuff of dreams, but intercourse always felt real to him, a solid, strong, unmistakable reality.  He attributed the same prejudices to Napoleon.  If it came to simple adolescent fondling between them, the kind of simple abuse one could do to oneself, Napoleon might think he wasn’t worth getting into bed with at all.  Napoleon was always surprisingly considerate, given his reputation as a rampant Lothario, but Napoleon’s past history and reputation haunted him with feelings of inadequacy.  He couldn’t give Napoleon intercourse four times a night as Solo’s female bed mates could, not if he wanted to be able to function the next day.  But he usually managed it once, sometimes even twice.  When he couldn’t manage intercourse, he gave Napoleon fellatio.  He’d gotten better at it, but at the back of his mind was always the jeering chant that any cheap hooker could be giving his partner better sex than he.     “I want to come with you in me.  If you think we should stop, then make us come now.  But I want us to come together.”

Solo frowned, surprised by this vehemence.  

Kuryakin swallowed, and tried to lighten his tone, well aware that his partner didn’t like hassles in bed.  That had been obvious, watching him with women.   When the lady did protest, Napoleon smiled and moved on.  For that reason, he’d always tried to be easy in bed if no where else in their relationship.

Still, this was something he wanted.  Every encounter had become critical to him, when it could be their last.  He’d tried to make each one lately something memorable.  Out of the ordinary.  Unforgettable.  As if he would ever forget.  But he wanted Napoleon to look back on these too, and his stellar sexual partner had high standards.  “Please, Napoleon.  It’s important.”

Solo shook his head, puzzled at this, but still apparently willing to oblige.  “If you insist.  But I still don’t understand.  It’s not as if we can’t do this again in a few days, when you’d be more comfortable.  You must be sore.”

“Maybe I like being sore.”  

“Maybe you’re just too stubborn to admit when you’re hurting,” Solo said, a bit of an edge in his voice.  “As usual.”

Kuryakin went for the jugular, as a purely tactical distraction.  “I may like it on the bottom, but I’m still your partner.  Stop thinking that because you’re on top, you can treat me like a china doll!”

Solo drew back, stung at the aspersion.  “I’ve  never --.”

“Unless you don’t want to take me,” Kuryakin said, changing tactics,  twisting the knife further.  “Unless you’re not interested--”

 
“All right, all right,” Solo said, eyes widening.  “I recognize blatant manipulation when I hear it.  However ill you do it,” he added ironically.  He rose back on his knees, moving between Kuryakin’s thighs.  He reached for the lubricant and slathered it carefully on his painfully erect cock.  Then he pulled Kuryakin’s legs over this shoulders as he’d done a number of times that evening, and slid a hand between the pale cheeks.  Kuryakin gasped as the small of his back protested the position.  Above him, Solo shook his head, wincing in sympathy as his fingers encountered the much abused opening there, but coated it anew.  “If I were you, if it were me underneath tonight, I wouldn’t want to be fucked any more right now.”

Kuryakin’s eyes were scrunched shut as Solo oiled him, breathing carefully around pain, but he retorted, “You’re not me.”  Then his tone changed.  “I want you.  I want this.  Please, Napoleon.”

“All right.  But easy.  I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already --” Solo drew his cock up against the ravaged opening and pierced it as gently as he could.

Kuryakin cried out, arms going tightly around Solo to brace himself as the cock threaded its way down his abused passage.  “Oh, oh, ohhhhh-” he moaned as Solo’s balls finally settled against his buttocks.  He threw his head back, panting through the worst of it.

Napoleon frowned down at him, and wiped away a suspicious wetness on his field partner’s lashes.  “Illya, I don’t think--”

“Move,” Kuryakin said, furiously blinking his eyes clear.  “Now.  Hurry.  Please!”

Solo shrugged, and flexed his loins forward.  Underneath him, Kuryakin cried out again, as if he were in agony.  But his strong gymnast’s legs wrapped around Solo’s waist, and the ankles crossed behind him, locking him in, pulling him closer.  And Illya thrust up against him just as powerfully, his grey-blue eyes fixed determinedly  on Solo’s, his strong square hands gripping Solo’s biceps for leverage as they worked against him, ignoring his own discomfort.  Soon both their cries filled the air again, and they lost their individual selves in passion, and found each other there anew.  

“Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, AH!”  Kuryakin cried in time with Solo’s thrusts, then locked his legs even tighter around Solo as he came, the long denied orgasm bathing their sweat-drenched skin.  Solo kept thrusting until Illya finished spasming, and then he drove forward into his partner’s now lax body and came himself, pumping spurt after spurt of hot seed into the abraded passage.

 
Barely conscious, Kuryakin moaned softly and tried to shift away from the burning sensation as the salty fluid flayed his raw insides.  But at long last Solo proved he was human too, a mere mortal man, and would not be denied his own postponed satisfaction. He held Kuryakin’s body hard against him, pulling Kuryakin’s waist down onto his groin, his cock as deep as he could get it up into the lean checks, as possessively demanding now in the throes of his own orgasm as he’d been accommodating before, and pumped his balls dry with merciless thrusts.  Kuryakin’s came fully aware at the rough handling.  In spite of his own discomfort, he watched almost as greedily as if it were his own orgasm as Solo positioned Kuryakin’s limbs for his own pleasure, drove his heavy turgid cock painfully  into the pale body, arched his back to spine-cracking tension to afford the deepest penetration, bent back his own to bow-like painfulness, threw back his head, and came with the roar of a lion.

Sated and trembling, Solo bowed his own head, his hands now braced on the headboard.  A drop of sweat fell from his forehead to Kuryakin’s chest.  Kuryakin shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, his legs still holding him up on Solo’s body.  Now shivering himself, Solo slowly drew Kuryakin’s legs from his shoulders.  Kuryakin caught his breath and suppressed a moan as Solo worked his deflated cock free of the tight muscle ring.  Then Solo came down beside him, and fumbled again for the sheet to draw over their sweat-drenched bodies.

Then they just panted.  Kuryakin went limp in his possessor’s arms, a little light-headed from his orgasm.  He was breathing like a bellows, his muscles were aching, and he felt raw inside and out on the nether entrance to his body.  But he was surprisingly at peace.  At least for tonight, he was exhausted.  With a strenuous mission and a lengthy session of love-making under his belt, he would sleep without being haunted by the ghosts of possible futures.  He had done all he could, while he could.  The future would have to take care of itself.

“How do you feel?”  Napoleon asked.  They were once again separate and apart, but in spite of that, Solo had a hand carding through his hair.  Such a sweet feeling.  Napoleon had a real flare for even post-coital bedroom games.  

“Tired,” Kuryakin answered, basking in the slight caress.  “But satisfied.  Ready to sleep.”

“We should shower first,” Solo said.

“Can’t move.”  Kuryakin said, rolling on his side, burying his face in the downy pillow and dismissing his lover’s too ambitious plan.  “You shower for me.”

“Come on, lazybones.  Up.”  Solo dragged him to his feet.  “We’re both soaked with sweat and the bed’s damp too.  If you sleep here, you could get a chill.”

Kuryakin went with the insistent arms, easier than resisting them,  and groaned as he leaned against Napoleon.  “I really am quite sore,” he remarked calmly, as if this were something of a revelation.  Certainly it was something a field partner might want to know.  And Napoleon was behaving very much as a field partner now, worrying about chills.  As if he were a trainer and not a lover.   The consummate professional, even post-coital.  

Solo snorted.  “Told you so.  I confess that was a bit strenuous for me as well.  But we’ll be less sore tomorrow if we take a hot shower now.”

 
“Nothing will help,” Kuryakin disagreed, but he leaned against the sink where Solo had propped him and watched as Napoleon adjusted the shower temperature to a steamy warmth.  

“In we go.”  Solo urged him in, one arm around his shoulder, one banding his waist.  Comfortable.  Kuryakin hindered them by burying his face in Solo’s shoulder, away from the sharp spray, and wrapping his arms around Solo’s waist, effectively sleeping on his feet.

“You could help a little,” Solo complained, lathering them both up with soap.

“This is your idea,” Kuryakin muttered.   “Ouch!” he winced as Solo’s hands wandered down to his buttocks.

“Stay still.”

“Easy for you to say,” Kuryakin complained.  “I’m the one who’s being manhandled.”

“Who insisted on that marathon session?  Close your eyes while I wash your hair.”  Solo rubbed shampoo through the silken strands.  “Rinse.”

Kuryakin ducked his head.  “Can we please go to bed now?  It’s hard to sleep while I’m being drowned.”

“As soon as we’re dry.”  Napoleon enfolded them both in fluffy towels and blotted Illya’s hair.  

“I’m tired.”

“Next time, stop when I say so,” Solo said.  

“No.”

“Charming as always,” Solo commented.  “Come on, time for bed.”

“Finally.” Kuryakin said as he stumbled toward the bedroom, arm around Solo’s waist.

“In you go.”  Solo urged him into one side of the remaining double bed, and settled down beside him, wrapping an arm around the lean waist and settling the blond head against him.

“Have I told you I adore you?” Kuryakin asked, as matter-of-factly as if he were telling Solo to set the alarm.  Clearly out for the count, his eyes were closed, a breath and a blink away from sleep.

“I’m fond of you too,” Solo answered, more than a little distracted as he moved their guns under his pillow and checked for his communicator.  “Good-night, partner.”  

 
Kuryakin sighed and drowned in the waiting dark waves of night.

* * * * *

They slept late.  The sun had slanted its rays sharply across the room, basking them in a warm embrace while they drowsed unawares,  then pulled back as it rose higher in the sky.

The sing-song of their communicators woke them both simultaneously. Kuryakin sat up to reach for it, being closer to the bed table, but hissed in pain.  Solo reached over him and picked it up.

“Solo here,” he frowned at Kuryakin who was rising to a more cautious sitting position, then the Russian slid his legs under his buttocks and knelt instead of sitting.  He put one cautious hand behind on his seat, testing the tender skin, then winced and pulled it away.

“Mr. Solo, I’ve arranged transport for you on the 2:00 PM flight to New York,” Alexander Waverly’s aged voice crackled through the small device.  “Your tickets will be waiting for you at the front desk.”

“Thank you, sir.”  Solo eyed his partner, who’d giving up trying to sit or kneel and had flipped over on his stomach, and was tracing the skin on his buttocks with the tip of one finger, and widened eyes at the apparent tenderness he found there.   Solo mouthed   I told you so.  Kuryakin  grimaced in return.  “Any chance we’re flying first class?”

“Coach, Mr. Solo.  We’re not made of money.  As you will soon discover as part of Section One.  We’ll discuss that when you return.”

“Yes, sir.”  Solo raised an eloquent eyebrow at Kuryakin, who scowled.

“Report to me on arrival.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Waverly out.”

Solo sighed and reached over his partner again to deposit the communicator back on the bed table, then settled down beside Illya.  “How do you feel? Ready to sit through a trans-Atlantic airline flight?  I tried to get us first class seats.”  He ran a gentle hand around his partner and over Kuryakin’s buttocks.  They still had the flushed look of sunburn.

Kuryakin shrugged away from the hand, edging closer to Napoleon.  “A little sore.  But I knew that.”

 
“A lot sore.”  Solo slid a finger in between the crack, brushed the abused anus lightly, shook his head at what should have been a tightly clenched bud, and began to rub Kuryakin’s shoulders, pushing the blond head against his neck.  “What possessed you last night?”

“I wanted you.  Very much.”  Kuryakin wrapped his arms around his partner’s waist, sliding one knee between Solo’s legs.  Solo shifted to lean back up against the headboard and drew his partner down against him, one leg to either side, so Illya’s weight was on his knees rather than on his sore bottom.

“There are times when I want you, too but there’s a limit to everything.”  He began to trail his fingers down Kuryakin’s lean ribs.

“Is there a limit?”  Illya was rubbing Solo’s broad shoulders with his hands, then slid his hands down to the firm biceps, gripping them as he had in passion.

“Even for me.”  Solo took one of Kuryakin’s hands and folded it around his cock.

“You’re not me.”  Kuryakin stroked the heavy cock, winking one-eyed at him with its usual morning erection,  watching as Napoleon reached to fondle him.

“True,” Solo acknowledged.  “I still don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand?”  Kuryakin asked, his breathing beginning to be labored as his own cock responded.  He raised his head and looked down at Napoleon.  

“Maybe I’m not giving you enough of something,” Solo said.  “That you got so desperate.”

“I’m Russian.  That makes me melodramatic.”  He let go of the hard cock and wrapping arms around his partner, kissed Solo’s throat passionately.

“We’ve been making love a long time,” Solo said, refusing to be distracted.  “Lately it seems you want it rougher and rougher.”

“Passion isn’t masochism.”  Kuryakin said, raising his head.  He nuzzled at the corded neck again, then teased a tongue against his ear.

“Don’t try to distract me.”

“I’m not distracting you.  I’m arousing you.  If you want to give me something, pay attention to me, and not your convoluted theories.”

“Oh?”  Solo flipped him around over onto his back, and pinned his hands, raising his body so it was out of reach.  “What exactly do you plan to do, once you get me aroused?”

 
“There are lots of possibilities,” Kuryakin assured him airily, dropping his head back to display a bared and vulnerable throat, his legs sprawled invitingly.

“One of them won’t be intercourse.”  Solo replied, but he leaned down and kissed the tempting flesh, where the carotid artery pulsed just underneath the translucent skin.

“Hair of the dog,” Kuryakin suggested, and kissed Solo again, hungrily on the mouth,  pressing his body up against the senior agent, before drawing away teasingly.  “It might be just what I need to take away those aches.”

“Illya!”  Solo shook his head.

Kuryakin worked one wrist free, and stroked Solo’s long cock, now fully aroused.  Then he bent his head, shifted down the long body, and drew it into his mouth.

Solo gasped and threw his head back, leaning against the headboard again, looking down with slitted eyes as Illya fed on him: throat working, cheeks hollowing, suckling hungrily.  Then Kuryakin  pulled back, leaving a long trail of saliva gleaming on the hard organ.

 “Take me.”

Solo opened his eyes and stared at him.  “You’re crazy.”

“I want you.”  Kuryakin straddled him, fondling the hard cock, “I want you in me.  Up inside me. Hard.”  He arched his back and began to guide the organ.

“Illya,  not with just saliva for a lubricant!”  Solo grabbed him and held him still.

“Then do me properly,” Kuryakin snapped, reaching for the jar and handing it to Napoleon, taking a handful for himself and drawing it firmly over the eager organ.  “I want you.”

Solo slid two fingers worth of cream inside him, still doubtful, “Baby--”

“I’m not anyone’s baby.  I want it hard and fast!”

“No.”

“If you’re not willing, I suspect one tour of the lobby would find me any number who would oblige me.”

Suddenly perversely irritated, Napoleon rolled him over and pushing his shoulders down, split his gadfly partner’s cheeks and cocked him.  “You asked for it!”

 
Face down, Kuryakin hissed, his throat tight as he forced back a scream.  But he rose his hips up to the impalement, and he appeared, by all accounts, eager for such carnal attentions.

Solo seemed more unsure, but he took him at his word.  Hard and thorough, he was, but he was also fast, mindful of his partner’s existing soreness.  He drilled Illya Kuryakin with more than a little resentment.    After they’d both come, and he’d pulled free, he looked down at his partner.  Illya lay there, still face down, his breath coming fast and sharp. Solo was suddenly worried.

“Illya?”

“I’m all right,” Kuryakin said, in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

“I’m beginning to think that is less and less true.”

Kuryakin turned on his back, and looked up at him, his face dark.  “After years of watching you screw everything in a skirt and being told how normal it was, I’m supposed to accept a little passion on my part as abnormal?”

“Don’t make me feel guilty.”  Solo said.  “I’m all for passion.  But this--”

“Don’t make me feel crazy for happening to want the man who takes me.”

Solo frowned and traced the square lines of Illya’s jaw with a finger, his face troubled.  But he only said,

“We’d better get dressed.  We’ve got that flight to catch.”

* * * * *

Illya Kuryakin spent the trans-Atlantic flight sleeping, or making a good pretense of sleeping.  Napoleon Solo spent it with one eye on his partner, wondering what was running through his mind.  A number of possibilities came to him, all of which he shied from.  Unlike Illya, who preferred to hear bad news before good, Solo had never cared to borrow trouble.  Perhaps this was just one of his partner’s many moods, which might blow over.  And perhaps not.  But if not, it implied change, and Solo had more than enough change to worry about with his upcoming birthday and Waverly’s ominous reference to a change in his duties.  Whatever was bothering Illya, would have to wait.

Back at Headquarters, he went off to report to Waverly, and as requested, he went alone.  Illya acted as if this were perfectly normal, when of course it wasn’t.  Solo fixed him with a sharp look before they went their separate ways.

 
“You’re all right?”  Not a question this time.

“Of course.”  Kuryakin gave him a cool stare that could mean anything or nothing, and that nothing short of torture could reveal which. “I’ll work on our report.”

“I’ll see you after the old man finishes with me,” Solo promised.

“If you’re free,” Kuryakin said remotely.  “Go on, Napoleon, you know he gets testy being kept waiting.”

Solo nodded and soon was standing before the old man.
 
Waverly opened with his usual lack of preliminaries.  “As you know, Mr. Solo, in a matter of a few weeks, you will be ineligible for the field.”

Solo grimaced. “That’s would normally be true.”

“Normally?”  The old man skewered him with a fishy eye.

Solo shrugged.  “I’m in perfect health and in full possession of all my faculties.  I can’t see a reason why I should be retired from the field. I think, for a year or two--” It occurred to him with the suddenness that proved he must have thought of it subconsciously long ago, that the year or two of which he was thinking would then have him retiring just when Illya was ineligible for the field.  Of course.  How sensible of his subconscious. He smiled a little at the perfect sense of it.

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?”

Only long discipline and frequent practice of inscrutability under torture kept his face from revealing anything at that inquiry.  “Sir?”  Solo said.  

“I’m not unaware of the fact,” Waverly said slowly, while Solo suffered a thousand deaths, at what would follow.  But the words that came after were not at all what he expected as Waverly continued, “that Mr. Kuryakin would naturally succeed you as Chief Enforcement Agent.  In your future position, you’ll be assigning him dangerous missions, from which you will not have the opportunity to offer the “rescue” that you both currently experience.  Are you prepared for that?”

Solo’s first thought was that Waverly had to know that he and Illya were intimate.  Illya spent too many nights at his apartment, and their physical exams, duly reported to the old man, were undoubtedly revealing.  And god knows what they both said when the U.N.C.L.E. shrinks put them under.  What was the old man really asking?  

But chief above anything in his mind was his partner’s brilliant, deadly field skills.  Illya deserved the number one slot, he’d spent years earning it.  Not to mention  Illya’s scathing comment about treating him as a “china doll.”  And how furious he’d be if Solo intimated anything other than complete confidence in their ability to move to this new phase of their lives.  Not that he had any doubt of Illya’s abilities.  It was his own peace of mind he was dreading.  He steeled himself to two years of nail-biting and sleepless nights, and made the requisite answer.  “Of course.”

Waverly snorted, looking unconvinced, but seemed disinclined to argue.  “Very well.   Your first task will be to reevaluate Section Two, and assign Mr. Kuryakin a new partner.”

“What?”  Solo said, finally reeling enough from the first two blows to give into honest startlement.

“Obviously that is the next move, as you will not be returning to fieldwork,” Waverly said pointedly.  He shrugged on humped shoulder.  “I realize Mr. Kuryakin can be somewhat abrasive and a new pairing may not be easy.  Feel free to shift agent teams around as you see fit.  You know your people best, after all. I’ll expect your recommendations for reassignment  in forty-eight hours.”

 
“Yes, sir.”   Solo said, thinking of the chaos he’d just been given carte blanche to inflict on Section Two.  In contrast, his office was empty and quiet.  A little cluttered with mail and messages that had trickled in while he was in Ecuador.  Evidence of time passing.   He frowned at the desk calendar that seemed to be mocking him.  He’d been counting on adding more time to his field career, not less.  He’d thought his record good enough to justify that.  And he still felt it.  Obviously, whatever was pushing Waverly to advance his retirement from the field wasn’t Solo’s own performance or ability.  He felt a momentary sorrow for the old man, who might be closer to his own inevitable retirement than Solo had thought.  But that was secondary to what he was going to tell his field partner of long-standing.  How do you tell the person you’ve worked with, slept with and lived with for seven years that not only were you ending that relationship, but that you were arbitrarily going to dictate who he spent the next few years with?

Well, who said it had to be arbitrary?  He could get Illya’s opinion, after all.  There were some agents Illya was friendly with.  Slate for one.  He and the British agent had worked successfully together, and even shared some of the same interests and backgrounds, both out of Cambridge, ex-London agents, with an interest in music and the  arts.

Then he thought of someone else partnering Illya, not just in the field, but in other ways.  He thought of Illya sharing a blanket with Slate, skin to skin, even innocently.  His blood boiled and his jaw set.  

He shook his head.  He was a possessive SOB, and he’d always been possessive about Illya.  Even in the early days of their partnership, when everything was still very much black and white between them, before they’d ever slept together, he’d thought of Illya as belonging to him.  His agent.  His field partner.  His friend.  There was something about Illya that made even him, a consummate skirt-chaser and womanizer, want him with an almost primitive ache.  And something that made him, casual in his associations with women, distinctly uncasual and possessive about Illya.  He’d always attributed it to a survival instinct.  A partner was like a right hand – an appendage you could afford to injure or lose.  But he faced now that he wasn’t just professionally possessive.  The thought of Illya in bed with someone else perversely aroused him and made him want to nail the little Russian to the mattress.  

Fortunately in the past, he’d rarely had to face this, for Illya had never had a roving eye.  That didn’t stop others from hitting on him.  But his icy Russian partner’s automatic rebuffs to personal advances, from males as well as females meant Solo had rarely had to deal with his surprising flare of jealousy.  Even the most persistent of Illya’s pursuers usually got the message when they found not just Kuryakin’s indifference but Solo standing firmly between them and his Russian partner.  

He’d thought the infrequency of his jealous moments a good thing, for Illya was totally unimpressed by Napoleon’s possessiveness.  He did prefer to be on the receiving end, but he also did his share of calling the plays when they were in bed, even when it meant he landed underneath.  And though their relationship in the field largely carried over into bed, Illya did take the dominant role when he was in the mood to do so.  

No, Illya was pushover, no china doll in bed or out of it, in spite of his exquisite coloring, the pale rosemilk and gold skin, cornsilk hair, delft eyes.  Professionally, Illya worked hard at being deadly; he bristled at any challenge to his competence or independence.  When they weren’t working together, he took the leadership role with a vengeance, and everyone in Section Two felt the lash of his sharp sarcastic tongue.  But Solo’s luck was good, he was rarely injured himself, and had made sure they mostly worked together.  And credited that to his good fortune.

And now, at the end, he realized perhaps that hadn’t been such a good thing.  If he’d learned to deal with letting Illya go before, it wouldn’t be such an issue for him now. Because now, when he finally came to it, every emotion was rebelling at the idea.

Solo pulled the field roster toward him and considered it, tapping it with a pencil, striving for an intellectual assessment.  Perhaps he should partner Illya with someone totally opposite to him.  Someone with whom he would share not a single tenet of philosophy or interest.

 
Then Solo grimaced.  That might have been him, of course, at least on the surface, and look how that had ended up.

The fact was, he simply didn’t want to pair him with anyone.  Not anyone at all.  Not even Slate, whom Illya liked as much as anyone.  And not anyone whom he might relax with, be comfortable with, laugh with.

Why shouldn’t Illya be given a chance to like his field partner?

He thought of how easy camaraderie had turned for them into passion and had his answer.

The pencil snapped in half.  Solo studied the broken ends, the piece of lead rolling away across his desk.  It was hard to think rationally when another more primitive part of him was asking why, Why, WHY he couldn’t keep him for himself.  To break the habit of years of maintaining that status quo in spite of the often staggering odds against them.

Because in forty-eight hours he had to tell Waverly who he was going to pair him with.

After only four of those hours had passed, Illya came through his office door and laid a folder precisely in the center of his desk.

“What’s this?”  Solo asked sharply.

“What else?  Our mission report.”  Kuryakin frowned at the mess on Solo’s desk, usually as neat and orderly as his clothes and person.  “What’s with all the broken pencils?”

“Nothing,” Solo said dismissively.  “I was just practicing a trick.”

“If you’re trying to work up to two-by fours, that’s a slow method.  And the gym is better suited for it.”  Illya informed him, as blithe and breezy as if his world wasn’t about to be shattered.

“Thanks,” Solo said sarcastically, wishing he had such a clear and uncomplicated conscience.

Kuryakin paused, looking him over with a skeptical eye.  “Are you all right?”

“Of course.”  Solo said, leafing through the neatly typed pages.  

“If you say so,” Kuryakin said shortly, with one more doubtful glance at the desk.  He turned to leave.

“Illya?”

The Russian agent glanced back, one hand on the doorframe.

“Have dinner with me tonight?”

Kuryakin’s eyes widened, and he paused.
 

Solo watched him, well aware his partner knew what dinner was code for.  They were breaking a long-standing rule.  Usually Solo  squired a girl on their first night back after a mission.  Appearances had to be kept up.

“Are you in the mood for anything in particular?” Kuryakin asked carefully.

Solo drew a breath.  He knew what this was code for.  “How about Italian?”  Solo himself wasn’t interested in being on the menu tonight, but it was the only thing he could think to offer, given that after their previous evening’s activities Illya himself was probably too sore to be on the receiving end.

Kuryakin shook his head, refusing the dominant role.  “Too filling for me,” he retorted, meaning he wasn’t willing to be doing the “filling.”  

Solo grimaced. That was par for the course.  Illya generally only chose to be dominant when he was well rested and restless, when they’d been sidelined from the field for whatever reason and he had an excess of energy.  Perhaps he wanted to be at his best when carrying out that role, as if he felt his partner’s act was a hard one to follow.  Or it could be he was just a lazy Russian peasant, as he sometimes claimed and as Solo sometimes accused him.  But either way, it was typical for Illya to decline that role much of the time when Solo suggested it.   

 “Perhaps some lighter, comfort food,” Solo offered, thinking they could go the mutual masturbation route.  “Or just dessert?”  That was code for dinner, oral sex and going home afterward.

“Let’s decide when I get there,” Kuryakin said.

“Eight o’clock?”

“Seven.  We have an early day tomorrow.”  Implying the Soviet agent wanted to stay the night and have sex again in the morning.

“See you then.”  Solo waited for the door to close and dropped his head to his hands.  

* * * * *

Solo unlatched the door and stepped back to allow Illya in.  “How are you feeling tonight?”

Kuryakin divulged himself of his jacket, bringing with him the scent of leaves and rain and cold.  There were raindrops in his hair, his face and jacket were spattered with droplets.  The air in mid-October was surprisingly brisk after the warmth of Ecuador, even for transplanted Russians.  “Hmm?  Oh.  Much better, actually.  Barely a twinge.”

 
“Good.”  Solo finished securing the door, and turned to find himself stepping into Illya’s embrace. Illya smelled of autumn leaves and rain, underneath that of clean clothes and ivory soap. Napoleon nuzzled deeper till he could breathe in the scent of his skin, and his tongue went out automatically to taste, almost like a vampire seeking the site where the carotid artery pulsed and throbbed under the thin translucent skin. He felt strong arms banding his waist and Illya’s lips on the corner of his mouth, seeking a more intimate kiss.  Solo turned his head and captured the warm mouth.  Illya returned the kiss, pressing himself up against Napoleon.  They kissed until they ran out of breath, and then Illya stepped back.

“You didn’t really want dinner, did you?” Illya asked, looking up into Solo’s eyes, quiet and frank.

“No,” Napoleon said, and wrapping him up again in an embrace, urged him to the bedroom.

Behind the closed bedroom door, they stripped matter-of-factly, with few words.   When they had divested themselves of their clothes, they reached for each other, and tumbled into bed.

This bed was home to both of them, and had a very personal history.  Illya had been completely inexperienced in male sex when they’d first come together.  While their first encounter had happened in a hotel room in France, post mission, it had been not much more than mutual fondling and frottage.  Solo hadn’t been looking for more, but he’d forgotten about his thorough, studious minded partner.  Once he became Solo’s lover, Illya approached sex as he did everything, wanting to be the best he could at it.  Solo had been only too willing to teach him.  This bed had been their classroom, their lab, their proving ground. Everything Illya had learned, he’d taught himself here.  Here he had first tasted cock, here had been his first experience with feeling a hard organ splitting his loins, entering his body, spilling itself within him.

Napoleon had been no stranger to these forms of sex, though he never talked about his experiences, and was only rarely on the receiving end of such attentions.  But Illya had been a complete virgin to another male’s touch.  As he told it, he had never wanted it, before Napoleon. Solo supposed that was true; he’d never seen him want girls much either, as ascetic as a monk.

At least until Solo had taken him to bed, and then his mood changed, in private. Still, as eager as Illya had been to please him, Solo knew he hadn’t always found it easy to break through his own inhibitions, and his occasional inherent distaste and discomfort at these acts.  Napoleon had been a patient and undemanding tutor during this self-made trial by fire.  Here, in this room, in this bed, Illya had turned from virgin to aficionado and ardent lover. Here they’d practiced, here they’d learned, experimented, rested, overcame inhibitions and fears and came to learn how to love and be loved.  Illya had been touchingly naive at times.  Solo suspected his wary and suspicious partner had spent the better part of his past live warding off advances.  Now that was over and past.  But only here and only with him.  

 
Watching Illya bend his shaggy head over his loins now, Napoleon remembered the first time Illya had tried this.  They’d just showered, and Illya had been working his courage up for fellatio by nuzzling Solo’s thighs, tasting nothing but clean skin, water and a tinge of soap.  After a eon of foreplay, during which Solo practiced all his skills at patience, Illya had finally run a pink tongue up his cock.  The expression on his face when his sensitive taste buds encountered the precum bubbling at the tip was eloquent.  Solo had laughed at his expression of dismay.

“You don’t have to, Illya.”

“I want to,” Kuryakin said stubbornly, leaned down for another swiped lick, and grimaced again.

“It’s an acquired taste,” Solo said helpfully.

“It would have to be,” Kuryakin said, discouraged, staring cross-eyed at the hard organ rising before him.

“You don’t have to do it.”  Solo offered, tousling the golden wheat hair.  “It’s not that important.”

“You do it for me.  I want to make you come, too.” Kuryakin said stubbornly.  He looked at Solo, and swallowed hard, all his bravado failing him.  “What do I do?”

“Just cover your teeth, and don’t force it any deeper than you can handle,” Solo said.  “I don’t want to be bitten if you gag.”

“Here goes nothing,” Kuryakin said, and folding his lips over his teeth, took the head in his mouth.  Solo could still remember the pained look on his face as he lapped and gently suckled the hard organ, as the taste of the pre-ejaculate spread through his mouth.  Solo took pity on him and undulated only very gently, making himself come as fast as he could.  In spite of that, he held Illya’s head firmly as he came, forestalling his partner’s aborted withdrawal as the cock in his mouth spewed.  

“You might as well swallow it,” Solo said, panting, “it’s worse if you try to spit it out.”

Kuryakin had gulped the bitter semen down, his shoulders shuddering.  When he’d finished, Napoleon let him go, and Illya rolled away, sticking his tongue out.  “I may be sick.”

“That’s romance for you.”  Solo teased, sliding down next to him.

“Why did you make me do that?”  Kuryakin said, grimly mastering his rolling stomach.

“All or nothing, Illya.  You might as well learn it right the first time.”

 
“Don’t expect to be thanked.”  Kuryakin finally mastered his involuntary reaction and rolled on his back, hands on his stomach.  “I think I’ll survive.”  A sideways cut of the blue eyes at him.  “I suppose I ought to be grateful though.  I would never have swallowed if I’d had a choice.  And it’s just as well to have the worst over with.”

“So charming,” Solo said, amused.  “Tell me again how it repulses you to sleep with me.”

“I’m new at this,” Kuryakin said defensively.  “You know that.”

“You’ve let girls do it, surely.”

“A few.  And they acted as if they liked it.”  He shook his head slowly.  “That’s the unbelievable part.”

“I told you.  It’s an acquired taste.  After you’ve done it for awhile, you get used to it.”

Illya had looked at him solemnly.  “I hope I’m a quick study.”  He stuck his tongue out again.   “For my own sake.”  He sat up gingerly.  “Maybe I need a glass of water or something.”

“It’s not so bad,” Napoleon said.  “I’ll show you.”  He rolled Illya back down, himself on top of him, and pushing Illya’s shoulders back, bent his head to his partner’s groin, giving him the benefit of his true expertise.

“Ohhhhhhhh,” Kuryakin moaned, as Solo took his cock deeply down his throat with a firm hot suctioning grip.  “Oh, Napoleon!”

Napoleon raised his head to look at Illya’s dazed eyes.  “Still want a glass of water?  Or would you rather have this instead?”  He bent his head again.  Underneath him, Illya squirmed and moaned.  “Oh, please.  Please!”

Solo spread his partner’s legs wider and pushed him back further on the bed, mouth and tongue working deeply, while Illya moaned and squirmed and shifted and cried out under Napoleon’s attentions.

Illya had descended into incoherent murmurings and soft Russian cries, his skin damp with sweat and so strung out his lashes were wet with tears, while Napoleon worked him, manipulated his body, using lips and tongue  and breath, hands and fingers, and the rough stubble of his beard.  Finally, when Illya’s heart seemed to be pounding right out of his chest, and he was panting so hard Napoleon thought he might hyperventilate, he let him come.

“Ahhhhhh!”  Illya cried out high and sharp, as Solo sucked his seed down his throat, pumping the gleaming rosy cock with his mouth and tongue.  “Ohhhhhh!  Ohhh..... ohhhhh.”  He wound down and finally lay trembling under Solo’s covering body.
 
Solo leaned back.  “Still want that glass of water?

Kuryakin stared at him in awe, still panting.  Solo leaned down and kissed him.  

“Mppfff!”  Kuryakin started back, eyes wide at the taste.

“Uh-Uh,” Solo said in his throat, tongue deep in his partner’s mouth, trading the tongueful of semen he’d kept with his own saliva.  Kuryakin sputtered again, but Solo was insistent, and after a moment, Illya  relented and suckled on the tongue in his mouth.  When he’d taken it in and swallowed it, Solo released him.

“You did that deliberately,” Kuryakin accused, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Acquired taste,” Solo said.  “You can’t acquire it too often.  It’s good for you.  How did it feel to taste your own in my mouth?” He grinned evilly.

“You don’t want to know.”  Kuryakin said, glare dark, brows mantling.  “I may be sick.”

Solo laughed.  “If we keep doing this,” Solo said, “you’ll get used to it.”  

“In spite of how badly we both taste,” Kuryakin relented, “I do want to keep doing this.”

“So do I,” Solo said and drew his partner down beside him.

“You like it don’t you?”  Kuryakin said in wonder.  “Giving it, I mean.”  

“Yep.”  Napoleon blew the bangs away from Illya’s forehead, and kissed away the frown line between the blond brows.    Mad at me for the kiss?”

Kuryakin shook his head.  “As much as I like getting such attentions, I think I need a little...coaxing to properly reciprocate.”

“A little, maybe.  But you’ll come to it in your own time.”

Kuryakin shook his head again. “If practice will make me get over gagging at the taste, I’d rather  get used to it then be dreading the next time I have to do this.”

Solo sat up on an elbow.  “Are you dreading it?”

“Well I’m not looking forward to it,” Kuryakin made a face.  “It feels wonderful to be on the receiving end, but it’s nasty to do.”

“I suppose,” Solo said, thinking back to his own past.  “But that feeling doesn’t last long.”
 
“Really?”

“Really,” Solo affirmed.  “I rather like the taste, now,” he added.  “It’s linked to pleasant experiences.  And I love to give as well as receive.  But if you want practice---”  He ran a hand through Illya’s hair, bending his head down.

“Hang on, stomach,” Kuryakin said and followed the urging hand downward.



Years ago, it had been, and yet it seemed like yesterday.  Illya never had become enamored of the taste, but he’d learned to overlook it, and he had become as expert, if not more so, in fellatio than Napoleon himself.  Certainly he practiced it often enough.  He rarely missed an opportunity, even when such foreplay ended in intercourse.  Solo watched as the head bobbed over his loins, and sighed as the warm mouth engulfed him, the strong tongue teased him.  He wrapped his arms around Illya’s shoulders and fingered Illya’s hair while for long, delicious moments he savored his attentions.  Then he squeezed the strong shoulders and said, “Illya, wait.”

Kuryakin raised his head and slid up beside him, letting himself be enfolded.  “What?”

Solo kissed his forehead, then bent his head lower and kissed him full on the mouth.  He could taste himself there; it aroused him even more. Responding to the ardent kiss, Illya pressed closer, leaning over Solo, savoring the dominant position for a few moments.  Then he rolled them both over and pulled Solo on top of him, still kissing him passionately. The Russian agent pulled their groins together and raised his hips, bringing their organs in closer contact.

Solo growled and held him still, pulling away from the kiss.  “Wait.”

“What are we waiting for?”  Kuryakin complained, frustrated again.

Solo sighed.  “I’m a little tired.”

Illya considered that, sliding down next to Solo, punching up the pillow at his side.  They contemplated the ceiling together, then Kuryakin said quietly.  “It’s all right, Napoleon.”

“What is?”

“Whatever Waverly has asked you to do.”

Solo leaned up on one elbow.  “How do you--”

Kuryakin fixed him with eyes that were still sapphire blue, even in the gloom of the shadowed room.  “Even if I couldn’t tell from your manner...  It’s time.”
 

“I don’t want to give you up.”

A pause, while Kuryakin digested this.  Solo watched the pale throat convulse as his partner swallowed.  “That bad?  Does he not want us sleeping together anymore?”

“I don’t think he knows.”

Kuryakin made a rude noise of disbelief.  “What then?”

“He wants me to move up to Section One early.”

Kuryakin breathed out, a soft sigh.  Almost of relief.  “That’s all?”

“And to assign you a new partner.”

Kuryakin sighed again, this time with some feeling.  “It’s not unexpected.”

“I’m beginning to discover what a possessive bastard I am.”

A gleam of white teeth as Kuryakin grin flashed and faded.  “That’s not unexpected either.”

“That I’m a possessive bastard or the thing about the new partner?”

“I always knew you were a possessive bastard.  It can be claustrophobic, but at times, ” Kuryakin turned and buried his face in Solo’s shoulder.   “At times, it’s rather nice to be possessed.”

“Illya,” Solo said.  “I just can’t.”

Silence for a few moments.  Then, “You’ll just have to.”

Solo set his jaw.  “I can’t.”  With more finality.

Kuryakin shrugged, a light feeling against his skin.  “Then let me.”

“What?”

“I’ll find someone to work with.”

 
Solo rose up and tumbled Illya on his back, covering him, talking in body language again as agents so often did, a language more honest between them than any words. Making his claim clear. “Illya.  We’re not talking about you working with someone for a mission or two, while I’m sidelined with an injury or working with someone else.  A new partner is... permanent.”  The word panicked him, and he did the only thing he could think of to deny it.  He leaned against Illya with almost his full weight.  Possessive.  Claiming.  Saying as clearly as possible, I won’t let you go.

Illya didn’t react to the physical claim, uncharacteristically unmoved by it.  As if it were inconsequential.  As if he’d moved on already, only the shell of his body still there, before that faded too.  His Cheshire Cat of a partner.  Body fading, to only a head and a voice, to only a grin... “This is not unexpected,” Kuryakin repeated, looking up at him.  “We knew it was coming when you reached forty.  What’s a few more months?”

“You won’t belong to me anymore,” Solo snapped.  Spelling it out in words that even as he said them, he knew had to be denied.  Illya didn’t belong to him.  A case might be made that he belonged to his country, for they dictated his presence in U.N.C.L.E. and his role in a way that no citizen of a free country could quite understand.  Even a military officer in the US can resign.  But Illya’s situation was both more complicated and more simple than that.  His rights were a lot fewer, and his actions simpler.  He served where they told him, with resigning not really an option. U.N.C.L.E. had their claim on him too.  Waverly could reassign him, split them up as he was doing now, re-team him.  Solo’s claim was by far the more ambiguous and, but for Illya’s indulgence, didn’t exist at all.

Kuryakin had sighed at his outburst, looking away.  For once didn’t argue the point.  “Is it enough that I promise not to sleep with him?  Or her?”

Solo glared.  “Don’t be cute.”

“Never.”  Kuryakin retorted.  He said nothing for a moment, his thoughts his own.  Solo struggled to get his sudden flare of jealousy under control, but didn’t move.  They both waited out the frisson of anger that had sparked between them, back to the point where they could use words again.

“In spite of your fond suppositions, I don’t belong to you,” Kuryakin finally said.  He pushed up past Solo, now denying his implied claim.  

Solo reluctantly released him.  Relinquished him.  

“Waverly is right,” Kuryakin continued, leaning against the headboard.  “Falling into those bad habits only makes things like this worse.”  

“You call it a bad habit to fall in love?”  Solo sat across from him

“I didn’t know you were so ‘in love’ with me,” Kuryakin said ironically, stretching out his shoulders, eye to eye, equal again.  “Still, for an agent -- especially an agent who falls as often as you do -- yes, it’s a bad habit.”
 

“I don’t fall in love often or with just anyone, Illya.”

“Just every other day with every other girl--”

“Illya.”  Solo cut him off.  “You know it’s only you for me,” he said, more quietly.  “The rest are just...window dressing.  Cover.”

Kuryakin turned his face away, unwilling to have Solo see the bitter expression that accompanied his words.  “You have the best dressed windows in U.N.C.L.E..  And the best cover.”

“I have to have that.”  Solo said.  “You know that’s true.”

Kuryakin didn’t try to deny it.  After a moment, he said, “Then why have we never talked about it?”

“I’ve told you I love you a million times, in a million ways.”

A roll of the sapphire eyes, sparkling in the dimness.  “I’ve heard you say the same things to all your innocents and vixens, too.  I’m supposed to swallow whole the same siren songs from the most proficient of warblers?  What kind of fool do you take me for?”

“That’s why.  Every time I get serious, you start with complaints over the women I see.  They don’t mean anything, Illya.”

“Isn’t this just more of the same, only this time with me?  I’ve watched you play the game so often.  Tell a pretty tale of love to make the push out of bed less painful?  The ‘if only we could, I’d love you forever’.  And haven’t I heard you say that to one girl after another--”

“I’d punch your lights out for that, if I didn’t love you so much.”  Solo looked testy.  

“I understand, Napoleon,” Kuryakin assured him.  “This has been overdue in coming.  I’ve been expecting--”

“No, you damn well don’t understand!”  Solo snapped.  “That’s been your problem all along.  You’re so busy expecting to get pushed out of bed, to get screwed and dumped, that you won’t believe anything else, no matter what I do, or what evidence to the contrary is in front of you.  No matter what I say, you refuse to accept the truth.  I do love you, damn it.”

Kuryakin’s face was wooden.  “So you say.”

“So I’ve been saying,” Solo snapped.  “And the more I tell you this, the more you snipe and complain!”

 
“Yet, regrettably, in spite of all you’ve said, in spite of all the ‘evidence to the contrary’ that I’m suppose to not have recognized, it’s still time for us to move on.  So what would all my lost expectations have gained me?”

“The truth of what’s between us.”

“I see.   The ‘Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all’ truth, is that it?  Well, I don’t agree. It’s better to have your eyes wide open, as mine have been--”

“Yours have been shuttered for years!”

“--than to leave yourself vulnerable--”

“So you shutter up your heart, too!”

“What if I do?”  Kuryakin suddenly snapped.  “I’m the one being left behind.  I’m the one getting dumped.  I knew, if we both lived long enough, that this was to be expected.  How dare you blame me for protecting myself--”

“Because you cheated us both!”

“You’re the expert on cheating,” Illya said, as cold as ice.

“Not cheated on me, cheated me.  And yourself.  We could have loved each other, instead of playing bedroom games.”

“Bedroom games are all you know.”

“They’re only all you allowed.  I put up with it, with you, for all these years.  I never pushed you hard enough for more.  God knows why.”

Kuryakin suddenly looked miserable, dropping his gaze, staring down at his clenched hands, strong grip twisting the bedclothes.  “I’m not God, Napoleon.  Why?”

“I thought you were shy at first.”

Shocked blue eyes rose to meet his gaze.  “Me?  Shy?”

But Napoleon was  remembering those shocked blue eyes.  It had all started so innocently. They’d still been new to each other.  Solo still trying to place his partner. Read him.  Know him.   A mission in Paris, and when it was over, and they had reported into the local office, they’d heard they had a day free before their next assignment.  They’d left the office and stood out on the street, breathing in the fresh spring air, warm with the scent of rain and lilacs, and Solo had said.

“Show me where you went to school.”

 
Dumb incomprehension, followed by a slight frown. “You mean here?  I went to the Sorbonne.  You know that.”

Solo had sighed, remembering that with Illya, some things had to be spelled out.  “Show me where you lived, your classroom building on campus.  Your student hangouts.”

“Hangouts?”

“You know what I mean.”

A suspicious frown.  Dumb immobility.  “Why?”

“Why not?”

“There’s nothing to see.”  As if feeling he needed to spell it out, he said.  “I had no contacts here.  You won’t learn anything.”

“Idiot.  I’m not trying to delve into your Soviet counterspy network.  I want to picture you.”

“Why?”  Kuryakin asked again, still immovable as stone, his feet planted on the pavement.

“Why not?”  Solo said again carelessly.  “There’s not much else to do.”

Kuryakin snorted.  “There’s not much to picture.  I was young and green, skinny and scared.”

“Scared?  You?”

“It was a rather uncertain time in my life,” Kuryakin said obscurely.

Solo thought that was true of most times in his partner’s life.  “Show me anyway.”  He smiled away Kuryakin’s resistance by sheer force of personality. “It’s a nice day for a walk.”

Finally relenting, Kuryakin moved.

They walked.  Kuryakin eventually warmed to the idea and the notion of tour guide, pointing out the off campus cafes he’d sometimes dined at, the bookstores he’d browsed in,  the library he’d used for studying, the labs and lecture halls he’d frequented.  Listening to his voice, watching his facial expressions, the volubility of his gestures, Solo deduced that uncertain or not, Paris had been a relatively happy interval in his partner’s life.  His first real distant posting.  His first assignment in the West.  No doubt he had been nervous at first, as any foreign spy would be in a hostile nation, but he’d obviously gotten past that and come to enjoy at least some decadent pleasures.   Finally they stood before an old residential hotel.  There was wisteria growing up one side, plunging in flowered festoons off the wrought-iron balconies.
 
“Nice.”  Solo glanced at his somber partner, who was staring up at one particular window.  “Nicer than I’d thought.”

“Than you’d thought?”

“Somehow I’d expected you to be living in some cold-water hell-hole.”

“In Paris?”  Kuryakin smiled slightly.  “There are no hell-holes here.  At least not compared to what I’d consider such to be.  And I had a good cover.  I was supposed to be the son of a British upper-class family.”

“With a name like Kuryakin?”

“A Russian branch of aristocracy that had immigrated after the October Revolution, and intermarried with the English.”

“One of Nicky’s many cousins, huh?”

Kuryakin shrugged.  “It wasn’t my idea.  I didn’t live luxuriously, but I lived better than I’d ever had.”

“Then why such a melancholy look on your face,  eyeing your old digs?”

A sidelong glance.  “I wasn’t feeling particularly melancholy.”

“You’re a terrible liar, to me, anyway, Illya Nickovetch.  Come on, let’s see if your old room is available.”

“What?”

“Why not?  We have to stay somewhere tonight.”

The room just happened to be available, though Solo wouldn’t admit to any artifice or device to make sure that it was.  But they were soon ensconced in it, and Kuryakin was standing by the window, looking out at the same scene, or nearly the same scene he’d viewed so many years ago.

“Bring back memories?”  Solo said, coming up behind him.

Kuryakin gave him a suspicious look.  “If it did, I wouldn’t tell you.  You have something in mind, don’t you?”

“Me?  Never.”

 
A look of pure disbelief.  “I wouldn’t put it past you. But I do appreciate it, Napoleon.  I’ve thought of coming back here, looking at the place.”

Solo wandered the room, bounced experimentally on the double bed.  “We’ll have to check out your London digs, the next time we’re there.”

“Not possible.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a Soviet safe house.  All resident illegals, with very, very good covers.  Not even your smooth tongue could get you inside.”

“Ah, well, we’ll always have Paris.”

“We?”

“You.  Us.  On this sentimental journey.”

Kuryakin frowned at the last comment and came over to sit beside him.  “I just realized something.  There’s just one bed.  And our hotel allowance won’t cover two rooms.”

Napoleon made a face of mock outrage.  “Don’t I bathe enough to share a bed with you, partner mine?”

“As long as you don’t kick.”

“I promise I won’t kick you out of bed,” Solo had teased.

They’d gone out to dinner, at a little bistro where the owner actually remembered Illya.  They drank some of the excellent French wines, with Solo coaxing Illya to tell him which were best, which he’d remembered from his student days.  They’d stopped in a little club to listen to some jazz.  And then they wandered back to their room, along the long light-studded boulevards.  Around them the Paris nightlight sizzled, women in Diors and Chanels, with the City of Lights providing a dazzling backdrop.  But for once, Solo’s interest was absorbed in his partner..

With the door locked safely behind them, they showered.  Ready for bed, Illya had paused beside the French windows again, studying the view through new eyes.

“Are you sorry we did this?”  Solo asked.  “Trips down memory lane aren’t always pleasant.”

Kuryakin turned, startled.  “No.  I’ve enjoyed it very much, Napoleon.”  He grinned a little.  “You’ll have to show me some scenes of your own youth.”

 
“Unfortunately, mine wasn’t spent in at all the same sort of picturesque place.  And not somewhere we’d be likely to be sent.  No hotbed of undercover Soviet spies, certainly.”

Kuryakin sighed.  “Well, perhaps on vacation, sometime.  And now, this undercover spy just wants to get under cover.  In bed.  It’s been a long day.”

“You first,” Solo said.  “After all, it’s your bed.”

Kuryakin shook his head and climbed in, Solo following.  After some shifting around, they settled, Illya’s eyes were still fixed on the view from the French windows.  The moon was hanging in the sky like a talisman, and the stars were visible, in spite of all the many Parisian lights.

But there was still darkness in the room. And it’s concealing cover made confidences somehow easier. “Do you want to tell me why you’ve been so sad?”  Solo asked.

“I haven’t,” Kuryakin denied.  “I’ve told you I enjoyed this.”

“Not sad in the present.  Sad for the past.”  Solo shifted.  “Maybe that’s a bad word.  Melancholy.”  He tasted that word and shrugged.  “Brooding.”

“I often brood.”

“This time seems to have been more focused.”

Kuryakin turned to face Napoleon, curious at his curiosity, and wary.  “It’s really nothing.”

“I don’t think so.”  Solo paused, then suggested.  “Why don’t you try telling me?  I won’t reveal your dark secrets.”

The Soviet agent shrugged.  “There is no dark secret.  I’ve just been considering the difference between what I was then.  And now.”

“And that would be?”

“When I lived here, I was still Soviet.  Even playing a role.”

Solo was puzzled at this.  “You still are.”

Another shrug.  “Am I?”  The tone was bleak.  With a smoldering of resentment under it.  “It’s been years since I’ve been home.  Probably years before I’ll see it again, if I ever make it there.  And in the meantime, no one even to speak Russian with.  Forgotten.”  The last word came out almost as an explosion.

 
“In your position, being forgotten is almost a good thing.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”  Kuryakin’s resentment was real now. “I don’t have to like it though.”

“There are plenty of Russians in New York.  The Mission’s a hotbed of Soviet spydom.  If you feel your cousins have forgotten you, you could look them up.”

“All the Soviet agents in New York are off limits to me.  I’m under orders, Napoleon.”

“There’s a huge immigrant population.  Look at Brooklyn.  They have their own neighborhoods, stores...”

“It’s not exactly politic for me to have much to do with immigrants or defectors from the Russian quarter. Not safe for them or for me.”

“You’re lonely,”  Solo finally deduced.  He couldn’t quite keep the surprise from his voice.

Kuryakin grimaced.  “Don’t make me sound like a homesick schoolchild.”

“I’m not.”  Napoleon protested.

“You asked,” Kuryakin pointed out testily.  “It’s just -- being an exile isn’t exactly comfortable.”

“You’re not --”

“Politically and socially I don’t have much in common with the immigrant population.  It’s better for both of us that I have nothing to do with them,” Kuryakin said quietly and gave Solo a meaningful look.

Napoleon swallowed,  “You mean…”

“They’re residents.  They’ll stay.  I can’t get that comfortable.”

Solo blew out a frustrated breath as Illya continued.

 “As for our cousins in the Soviet Mission.  Even if they weren’t off limits --  I’ve been ‘traded’ to a competing team.  If I’m not quite an enemy, I’m as close as one can get.”

“You can at least speak Russian with me,” Solo offered quietly.

Illya made a face, just barely visible in the dim light.  “Your Russian accent is even worse than your French one.”

Napoleon responded to the hint of levity with relief.  “Well, you’ll have to tutor me, pussycat.”

“Pussycat?” Kuryakin made another face at the nonsense name.

“Oui.  You are le pussycat, and I am a hound.”  Solo said, in an outrageous fake French accent.

“More like a cur,” Kuryakin said, and gave him a playful shove.

 
“Oh, you try to push me out of ze bed, eh?  Well, I wrestle you for it, zen,  and we see who sleeps where!”  Napoleon pushed him back and they wrestled like children for a minute, then, predictably, he pinned his lighter partner, trapping his wrists above his head, covering his body with his own.

“Napoleon!”  Kuryakin tried to squirm out from under the tight hold, then suddenly froze.  “Napoleon?”

Solo let him go, grinning sheepishly.  “Sorry.  I didn’t mean it.”

“You didn’t?”  Suspicious again, and something else.  

“Sometimes, a wrestling match --”  A pause, while Solo reconsidered what his partner had said, and the way he’d said it.  Had there been a touch of disappointment in his voice?  He moved closer again, covering his lighter partner, hands over wrists again, as if he were about to wrestle.  Cover.  And then the risk.  “Unless you wouldn’t mind it,” said lightly.

“What wouldn’t I mind, Napoleon?”  Kuryakin’s breath was warm, his blue eyes shining in the darkness.  Bright as the light of day.  Too bright, too discerning.

Solo came out of cover, only long enough to lean down and kiss the beautiful eyes closed, warm lips lingering on the blond lashes.  “Would you mind this?” he asked, the transient blindness giving him a small edge of safety.

Another pause.  Underneath him Illya was quiet.  Body quiet.  His voice came though, like a light in the darkness.  “I’ve never done this.”  Kuryakin said slowly.  An admission.  And more. He didn’t scream rape.  He hadn’t pushed his partner away.

“But you’re not opposed to it?”  Solo moved his lips, sliding them from Illya’s lashes to the corner of his eyes, to his temple. Gentle.  Undemanding, unlike his body, which was still heavy over Kuryakin’s.

“It? What do you have in mind?” the quiet voice strove to be even, but Solo’s ears were keen enough to hear the note of uncertainty.  A distant cousin of panic.  Illya hadn’t objected to being covered, and he wasn’t particularly tense.  But he was wary.  He hadn’t really admitted to anything.  Even with Napoleon’s lips on his skin, hands on him, weight on his body.  It was if Napoleon hadn’t touched him at all.

“Nothing that you wouldn’t agree to, in advance,” Napoleon assured.

“That doesn’t tell me anything,” came back the quiet voice in the darkness.

“How about holding each other, close?”  

 
The head tilted.  Napoleon’s lips, which had been close to his ear, slid to his neck.  Illya shivered slightly.  “You mean frottage?” he asked, his voice a low murmur.

Startled, Napoleon pulled back, staring into the blue eyes.  “I thought you’d said --”

“I know the words, Napoleon.”  There was a line between the taut brows.  

Solo longed to kiss it away.  He thought how incongruous it was, that Illya wanted this said in words.  Most of the time, up to this, they’d gotten along fine without them.  What did Illya want to hear? Something in him balked at saying too much, too soon.  For once, even his silver tongue was at a loss for the right words in this situation. “Why not?  A little of that, a few kisses.”

Kuryakin’s face was quiet, pensive.  Napoleon longed to kiss the worry off the tense mouth, but he held back, and only asked, “Would you mind, Illya?”

Another pause, quiet and evaluative.  Then very softly, Illya replied, “If I said, ‘with you, I wouldn’t’, what would you make of me?”

Solo moved closer.  “I’d think you have exceptionally good taste.  And I’d say, ‘Lucky us.  Because I’m who you happen to be with.’”  And he bend his head down past the furrowed brow, the still worried and uncertain eyes, to the mouth that opened in an indrawn breath of shock,  for their first real kiss.

After the first few moments of quiet consideration, Illya kissed him back, with surprising passion.

He didn’t think he’d succeeded in ever quite kissing the worry away from that quiet countenance, but he done his best over the years to try.  And what Illya had said was true.  He wasn’t here to stay.  He hadn’t put down roots, ties.  Was still avoiding that.

Solo shook himself and drew his mind back to the present.  “You are shy, when you don’t have a gun or an encyclopedia in your hand.  You were too new to this.  I was pushing you in so much else, and felt guilty enough about that.  Asking you for more,” Solo shrugged, “well, I just couldn’t do it.”  But at the back of his mind was the guilt.  Illya had never had much of anyone.  His closest relationship was with his partner/sometime lover.  A relationship unacknowledged in words.  Until now.  Was it too late?

“I loved going to bed with you.  You never pushed me there.”

“Maybe too damn much,” Solo said, not deeming to take that argument further on either point.  They were incendiary in bed, that was true, and Illya loved it as much as he.  But their present expertise hadn’t made him forget their first times in bed.  He wondered now if Illya even recalled how scared he’d been.  Not unwilling.  Not unresponsive.  But most definitely worried.  Of what it would do to their partnership, to their joint careers, of being discovered,  perhaps even of the act itself.  But it didn’t seem the point to bring that up now.  “We’re so good in bed, we never talk about anything real.”

“In bed, nothing else is real.  Outside of bed, love is just a fantasy,” Illya said.

 
“That’s not true,” Napoleon denied.

“I’m your fantasy.  And you’re mine,” Illya insisted.

“I do love you, Illya,” Solo said intensely.  

Kuryakin just shrugged slightly. “Too late for that.”  His voice didn’t even sound regretful.  As if he’d accepted that reality long ago.

“I want to stay with you.”

“Too late for that too.  Waverly wants you.  And where you’re going, I can’t follow.  You know that.”

“Just because we’re not working together--”

“Napoleon.”  Kuryakin forestalled him.  “I’ve been dreading this day since the first time I slept with you.  But I knew it would come, one way or another.  Well, this is it.  Let’s not dwell on the inevitable.  Let it go.  Let me go.”

“That’s the other reason,” Napoleon said.  “What part of you isn’t shy is cynical.  Illya, I’ve know you love me. You damn well better know I love you.   Do you think our not saying it, pretending we both don’t believe how we feel about each other, makes any of this easier?”

“You said it yourself, Napoleon.  Cover, camouflage, is important.”

“That’s from the world.  Not from each other.”

Kuryakin drew back, truculent.  “Who could possibly hurt me more than you, Napoleon?  I have nothing to fear from the world.  I’ve lost count of all the times I’ve been beaten, tortured, shot and that’s become routine.  But your rejection--”

“I’d never reject you--”

“You have to leave me. What does it really matter, how or why? ”  The sharp eyes looked up at him.  “I had trouble learning to sleep with you, remember that?”

Napoleon drew back, surprised that Illya would mention this, after all this time.

“You don’t know.  You have absolutely no idea, do you, how uncomfortable that made me, letting someone that close to me, covering me, to be vulnerable.  At the same time that I loved it, even craved it and you, I dreaded it.  But I learned to sleep in your embrace.  And I’ll learn to sleep alone again.  As long as it’s a clean break. Don’t draw out the torture, Napoleon.  You didn’t do that to me when we first made love. Don’t do it at the last.”

 
“No,” Solo breathed.  “This is just a different torture.  And I’m tired of letting you torture yourself on my account.  You threw yourself into this relationship when we started, trying to turn from tyro into some sexual master overnight.  Pushing yourself, no matter how I tried to reassure you, forestall you, that I didn’t expect or want that. And now you want me to abandon you just as fast, again ‘for your own good.’  Well forget it, Illya.  It’s not happening.”

“Maybe it is what I want.”

“And maybe it isn’t,”  Napoleon countered.  “It certainly isn’t what I want.  I love you.  You love me.  We have an obligation to each other.”

“You never wanted made any real claim on me,” Kuryakin said coolly.  “You were too busy putting your claim stake in every female--”

“I just let you think that,” Solo replied.  “Because you hated the idea that we were in love.  You were so busy being terrified of me making any real claim on you that you never even considered the reverse.”

“What claim did I have, when you spent as much time chasing women as with me?”  

“You always do this, running from love, from me, by attacking me, hiding in cynicism, in sex, in bedroom games. When you said you loved me, it was always as a joke.  When we made love, it was always as a fantasy.   Every time I tried to get close to you, you pushed me away.  So I played the field, because you were comfortable with that.  It gave you security, to think you weren’t really in love.  Something you could indulge in your cynicism about, tease and snipe about.  But I’ve done it as much for you as me.  You were terrified to acknowledge any commitment between us other than a professional one.  But it’s all been a lie, a mind game, a cheat of what we really felt.  You’ve always been mine. I’ve only loved you. And because you love me I’ve always been yours.”

“I’ve been  playing along with you,” Kuryakin snapped.  “I’ve  humored you all these years.  Don’t you think I learned long ago how to please my superiors?  Regardless of what they wanted?  I never loved you.”

Solo drew back, drew in a sharp breath, looked down at him.  “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

Kuryakin turned away.  “Please just try, Napoleon.” he said.  “One last time.  One last game.  One last fantasy.  We’ve indulged in so many.  What’s one more?  If it makes the ending easier.”

“The others were true fantasies.  Loving ones, even couched in sex.  This isn’t.”

“It’s the best I can do, under the circumstances.”  Illya said truculently.

In spite of the seriousness of the situation, Napoleon had to smile just a bit at Illya’s sulking.  Even in the worst of times, Illya was still Illya.  “Can we please just stop playing games?”  Napoleon asked.  “Let’s deal with reality, for once.”

 
“No.”

“Illya.  Would you please just trust me?”

Kuryakin turned, his eyes slits of blue fury.  “How dare you ask that of me?”

Solo drew back, shocked.  

“I never asked you not to hurt me,” Kuryakin said furiously.   “From the first day we went to bed together, I excused you for leaving me, as I knew you eventually must and would.  Well that future is here.  This is reality, even if you want to still indulge in fantasies.  Yet even now, you ask me not only to let you hurt me, knowing that you must, but to trust you not to?  How can you dare ask it?  I never asked you to trust in lies!”

“You never trusted me to love you at all.  You tried to avoid the whole issue by being good in bed and expecting that to satisfy me.”

“I never heard you complain,”  Illya sneered.

“What in the world do you think love is?”  Solo said in bewilderment.  “Some kind of pretense, where you agree to stop just short of feeling anything so as to cut your losses?  Saying it doesn’t exist doesn’t make it so.”

“In my country, it does.”

“We’re not in your country.  We’re in mine.  Love implies risking some trust.”

“I’m no gambler,” Kuryakin snapped.  “Particularly when the stakes are personal, and the losses will all be mine.  I don’t trust you in that, and if you think it means that I don’t love you, then I don’t!”

Solo drew back at that.  Kuryakin was panting with the force of that declaration, and his eyes were wild and deep down, frightened.  Even more frightened than the first time Solo had held him, very gently, and taken him.  For a moment, they stared at each other, then Solo reached out.  Kuryakin drew back, but Solo merely, very gently, traced the curve of his jaw.  “You owe me one for that, partner,” he said quietly.  “If you were anyone else, I’d put a fist through this glass jaw of yours for that, and maybe while you were out sleeping, have knocked some sense into you.”  He shook his head.  “But I can’t.

“I know you love me,” Solo continued.  “You may not entirely trust me, but that’s my fault. I guess we should have had this conversation a long time ago.  I was trying to spare you, whether you believe it or not.  And truth to be told, myself.  I knew this discussion wouldn’t go over well with your thickheaded stubborn views.  And I was right.  And this is absolutely the worst time to convince you how much I love you, when in some respects I do have to leave you.”

Kuryakin rolled away.  “Just leave me alone.  I don’t want to hear any of this.”

“Well, you are,” Solo said, and rolled him back over, hands on his wrists.  “Illya, think of this conversation like extracting a bullet.  It hurts like hell while it’s happening, but we’ve been festering too long without it.  You’ll feel better when the bullet’s out.”

The Soviet agent was blinking at this analogy.  “That almost makes sense,” he muttered.

 
“Sometimes I do,” Solo said.  “You trust me enough to let me take out a bullet, don’t you?”

“Within limits,” Kuryakin said darkly.  “Not out of my heart.”

“Well, how about out of your thick head?”  Solo asked.   “Just listen to me, okay?”  He released his grip.  Kuryakin scowled but put his hands behind his head, deceptively casual, and asked, “Talk.”

“First get this fact straight.  I love you.  No one else.  Just you.”  He glanced at the skepticism plain on Kuryakin’s face.  “Only you.  Enough to leave U.N.C.L.E. to stay with you.  But we both know that wouldn’t work.  Because even though I can leave U.N.C.L.E., you’re obviously not a free citizen in that respect.”

“No need to rub it in,” Kuryakin said, scowling, “I’m proud to serve--”

“I’ve heard your loyalty oath before,” Napoleon said impatiently.  “Suffice to say you’re under orders, and our finding a rose-covered cottage together and teaching or writing or consulting somewhere in the private sector isn’t an option.”

“You?  In a rose-covered cottage? You go stir-crazy in three days.”

“Now, maybe,”  Solo admitted, tracing Kuryakin’s cheekbone.  “But in ten years?  I might just be ready.  And that’s probably how long it will take to get you free, so that we really have some choices.”

Illya stared at him, open-mouthed.

“So I have to stay in U.N.C.L.E., to stay with you,”  Solo finished.

“I’m not the reason you stay in U.N.C.L.E.,” Kuryakin denied, recovering quickly, ignoring the last dangerous comment.  “You were born to inherit Waverly’s position.  It’s been pretty clear that’s where you were destined since you became CEA.”

“I always go for the brass ring,”  Solo admitted, “and in U.N.C.L.E., Section One, Number One is that.  But do you think I have considered our situation too?”  He shook his head in frustration.  “When will you get it through your head that when I say I love you, that means staying together?  This isn’t Romeo and Juliet.    Just because your histrionic Russian soul demands that you sacrifice yourself doesn’t mean that I have to go along with that adolescent notion, any more than I go along with you sacrificing yourself for me in the field.  I got to be CEA by being practical and making things happen.  In my career and in my personal life.  I got us together, didn’t I?  Managed to keep us together through all these years.  Do you think that was just an accident?  Fate or Luck?  Not all of it. Have a little faith in me, partner.”    

The barest hint of a smile tugged one corner of Kuryakin’s mouth.  “Maybe.  When you put it that way.”

“No outrage at being called adolescent?”

“I’m saving  it for later.  Talk.”

“Waverly is going to retire sooner than I’d thought.”

Kuryakin shifted uncomfortably.  Napoleon hugged him gently, in comfort.  Illya played the cynical game well, and he often complained loudly and long about the old man’s treatment of agents.  But they both had affection for their crusty boss.  “Do you know more than that?”

“No.  He wouldn’t say.  But think about it.  He wouldn’t be having me move up sooner if he wasn’t. I want you to work with Slate and Dancer, individually and together.  They’ve been the second team and now they’re going to be the first.  Then work with Higgins and Cardeza.  They’re going to be Number Two.”

 
Kuryakin was pleating the bedclothes.  “And what of me?”

“If Waverly can make me assistant chief of policy while he’s still in charge, I can make you that when he’s gone.”

Kuryakin gave him a sharp look.  “That could be a while.”

“How long?  Six months?  A year?  He’s moving me up early, and there has to be a reason.  You’ll be ineligible for the field in two.  And until then, you’ll be a tutor.  An advisor.  An observer on missions.  Tactical support.”

“It’s not what Waverly wanted.”

“He’s told me Section Two belongs to me.  He’s going to leave Enforcement to me, and I gather Policy won’t be long after that.  I can pair anyone with anyone in Section Two, and re-pair them.  So I’ll put you where I think you’re needed, to get the second string teams ready to take over when your ineligibility comes up.  You won’t need to be repartnered for that.  I’ll talk to the field teams, and let them know what I’m doing.  It will be easier on everyone to know your working with them isn’t a permanent partnership.  That they’ll stay together.  We all work a little with each other.  You’ll just get passed around a bit more than usual.  Non-sexually that is.  I still expect your fidelity in bed.”

Kuryakin grimaced at that lame joke, and breathed out a sigh he hadn’t known he’d been holding.  “I’ve done tactical advisory work before.”  He said slowly.

“Of course you have.  You could be a bit more tactful at it -- ”  He offered the line but Illya didn’t rise to the bait.

Instead, Kuryakin was quiet, considering.  Then, “I don’t want to be a burden to you, Napoleon.  Sometimes it’s best when you, well, outgrow the things of childhood, to just let them go.”

“In spite of what your past experiences might have taught you, love is not one of the things of childhood you outgrow.”

Kuryakin gave him a sideways look, still partially unconvinced.  “What if you get bored with me?  What if having a male paramour is inconvenient for the head of U.N.C.L.E. North America?”

“Illya, we’ve been together for years.  Why would I suddenly chose now to get bored with you?”

Kuryakin shrugged.  “You’ve never -- we’ve never -- made any kind of promises in bed. We were thrown in each other’s company, in hotel room after hotel room.  Now your choices will be wider.  Why make promises if, having made them, you discover you don’t like feeling trapped?”

“Since when is being with the one you love being trapped?  You know I could be insulted.  I’m not asking these questions of you.”

 
“Of me?”  Kuryakin grimaced.  “Who, male or female, has been interested in--”

“Very few even try to get past that sharp tongue of yours.  But if word got out you were willing, you’d have twenty proposals, from men and women, in an hour.”

“Everyone wants to get the Ice Prince in bed,” Kuryakin dismissed.  “They’ve had a pool on it among the communications staff for years.  That’s not what I mean.”

Solo sighed.  “I’d try and flatter you with comments on your inestimable worth, but I’m not in the mood.  Just admit that you love me.”

Blue eyes studied him.

“Illya--”

“I’m thinking!”

Solo kissed him, one hand snaking under the alabaster flanks and the smooth curve of buttocks to press him from thigh to the small of his back into Solo’s embrace, while Napoleon’s tongue teased his mouth.

“Well?”

“Uhm.”  Kuryakin blinked up at him.  “Lust is not love.”

“After seven years in bed together?”

Kuryakin shrugged, hands tracing Solo’s shoulders.  “Maybe,”  came the reluctant  admission.

“Have I ever stayed with anyone else longer than a few weeks, much less years?”

“No,” Kuryakin said.  “But then, you weren’t partnered with them and spending night after night in cheap hotel rooms with any of them either.  I was there.  Convenient.  Willing.  And easy.”  He met Solo’s eyes with a challenge.  “I made myself easy.  To you, anyway.”

“Illya, my love, never in your life have you ever been easy.”

Kuryakin drew a sharp breath.

“Though I will admit,” Solo amended hastily, “that you’ve been occasionally cooperative.”

Kuryakin subsided into just a mere glare.
 

“But loving you,” Solo continued,  raising the square jaw enough for a light kiss, “has been work.”

“How much work?”  Kuryakin asked warily when Solo released his mouth.

“Fishing for compliments isn’t like you,” Solo teased.

“I’m not.  If you want me to trust you, Napoleon--”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I trust you with my life.”

“But not your heart.”

“I’ve never asked that of you.  Did it ever occur to you, Napoleon, that there was a reason why I didn’t?  And why you didn’t?  Your talk of self-sacrifice for me is charming, but I think that’s not the only reason.”

“Because there was always the risk you’d run if I did.  But now you’re going to run if I don’t.  You’ve never left me a lot of options, partner mine.  Like I said, dealing with a touchy Russian is a lot of work.”

“Too easy,” Kuryakin challenged.  “If I was wary, Napoleon, admit that I had good reason.”

Solo turned away, letting out a breath.  “You do go for the jugular.”

“You’re just as scared.  Even more than me.  There’s more than one reason why you played the field so consistently.  Why you never pushed me for more than just sex.  Why the idea of being owned by me is just as terrifying to you as your demand of trust is to me.  You were unhappy with only half a loaf, but not so unhappy that you wanted to risk everything for it, now, were you?  If I was scared to go to bed with you, it was because I knew, as deep down as you were going to drive into me, that you never really wanted to have any commitment to me.  You wanted to be free to walk, and you were afraid you cared too much for me to do that.  And I made damn sure you knew it was okay with me.”

As if it were real instead of a memory, Napoleon saw Illya before him again, naked, his golden skin flushed rose and gleaming with sweat, every rib and muscle in his chest rising and falling as he positioned himself over Napoleon’s taut organ.  Illya had looked into his eyes as he settled his thighs over Napoleon’s, and the mixture of fear warring with desire stirred all Napoleon’s protective instincts.

 
“You don’t have to if you’re not ready, Illya.” he’d said.

“How could I be more ready?”  Illya had asked, his voice a low murmur.

He’d prepared Illya very carefully for this first time, finger fucking him twice in the last week  in preparation, teaching him how it felt to have something split his cheeks, pierce him, nudge his prostate.  The regular driving rhythm of intercourse inside his body, a startling sensation for any male.  First with one finger, then with two, masturbating Illya with the other hand so that he orgasmed with Napoleon’s fingers still inside him, massaging his prostate.  Solo had wanted to do it with three, knowing that would be closer to his size, but Illya had put him off.

“Save something for the real thing, Napoleon,” he’d said quietly.

And so Illya had never had anything quite so big dip between his cheeks.  He drew in a sharp breath as Napoleon’s cock poked against the entrance to his body.  Solo shifted his partner’s position over him slightly, trying to get the cleanest angle.  Illya’s skin was so slick that it was hard to get a good grip on him.  He pulled him down a little, and felt his cock split the stretched opening.  And then he was in.

Illya gasped again, his eyes wide and shocked, as if he was just realizing where he was, what was going to happen.  Solo had never subscribed to the notion, held by perhaps most men, that once you’d done this, once you went to bed with a man, that you were forever changed, different, that your relationship with that person would never be the same.  He took things more casually, perhaps because he jousted all too frequently with the dangers of agent life.  But it was clear, looking into Illya’s half-frightened eyes, feeling him trembling from the force of his rapidly beating heart, his shallow, gasping breaths, that perhaps Illya did.  

“Easy,” Solo counseled, coaxing his partner down on his flaring cock.

Illya had knelt more carefully over Solo’s groin, and let himself be guided down, his voice choking on a sob as Solo slid further inside him.

“Too much?”  Solo asked, arms wrapped around Illya’s waist.

Illya was gripping his shoulders hard enough to hurt.  But the pain sobered Napoleon, making him go even more gently up that too tight passage.

“Only for you, Napoleon,” Illya had said, his voice rough with pain,  then he gave a sharp cry as Solo’s cock finally butted up against his prostate, his balls firm against Illya’s ass.  Illya fell forward against his chest, hiding his face in his neck, trembling like any virgin girl.  Only intercourse was normal and natural for a girl. What his partner was going to experience was something rather more devastating to the average man.  Though they both were far from average.

 
“It had better be only for me,” Solo answered, trying to lighten the mood.  “I’d hate to suspect you of wanting to sleep around on me, sweetheart,” he’d teased.  “And on our honeymoon night, too.”

Illya choked again, half in laughter, half in pain, his arms tight around Solo’s neck.  “And do I get the reverse?” he asked, rallying a little as Solo began to thrust.

“Absolutely,” Solo had said. “When you want to take a ride on me, just say the word and I’ll keep my calendar clear.”

The implication had been clear as well, and Solo had left it at that.  And Illya, his eyes scrinched shut with pain as Solo began the slow battering of his channel that would open him enough to experience orgasm, didn’t have breath or attention to call him on it.  And Solo had done with words himself, beginning to fuck in earnest.  

So their relationship had been defined, with limits as well as freedoms, and if it wasn’t entirely satisfactory to either of them, neither risked dangerous waters in exploring uncharted depths, preferring to leave well enough alone.  They were fabulous together in the field, and incendiary in bed.  What was left between them, odd hours and minutes between missions and encounters,  they filled with meals and workouts in the gym, sessions on the shooting range, and even an occasional double date with women.   It was a full life, a busy life, a useful life.  They had so many satisfactions neither dwelt on the little that did grate.  

Illya had orgasmed his first real time with Solo, a tribute to both of them.  He remembered as clearly as if it were today, how Illya had looked afterwards, raising his head, his bangs plastered to his forehead, his nostrils flaring, his torso and belly splattered with his own blow.  He’d looked down at Napoleon in wonder, shifting slightly off the softened cock that was sliding out of  him.

“How do you feel?”  Napoleon had asked, as he’d asked him after every absence, after every mission, after every single separation they’d ever experienced.  

The cock sliding out of him.  Leaving him.

“I’m fine,” Illya assured him, as he so often did.  There eyes had met, and Solo had suddenly found it not quite as easy to meet his partner’s as before.  “I’m fine,” Illya had repeated.  Solo drew the flaxen head down for a kiss, and used all his experience to make it a good one.  Illya came close to him again, and any words that might have been spoken of trust and love were abandoned as unprofitable, as inexpedient, and translated into sex.  And they’d used sex since then, as an escape, as an expression of what they couldn’t, wouldn’t, put into words, as a dodge, as another, separate, wordless, universal language.  And it had sufficed, if never completely satisfying, until now.

Until now.

Illya’s eyes were on him now, wide, beautiful, questioning.  Napoleon suddenly didn’t like the position they were in, him covering Illya, holding him down with his weight.  He shifted them, drawing them both up, leaning his back against the headboard.  Illya went with him, settling against him, cooperative as he always was in bed, his head against Solo’s shoulder, their legs intertwined, one hand sliding down to rest on his hipbone.  The warm of his body everywhere against him was like a drug, a lure, as siren like and addictive as his captivating eyes, his tempting lips.  It would be so easy to postpone this discussion and tumble him.  Had it been any other night, any other time he would have.  But they couldn’t avoid or postpone this discussion any longer.  This was the last night, and the time for words had come.

Napoleon thought of what he’d said.  Illya was right, he made himself easy in bed.  Never once, in all the years they’d been together, had Illya ever refused him, or anything he wanted to do, never said he was too tired, or sore.  His responses varied. Sometimes he was passive and just seemed to drift through their lovemaking, sometimes an eager participant, sometimes assertive, even occasionally aggressive.  But he had never once refused him, or pleaded off on some excuse.

Napoleon had never realized it, until Illya had put words to it, named his behavior.  Easy in bed.  He was easy.  Always had been.  Napoleon hadn’t realized until now that this might have been calculated from the start.  Illya was often such a quiet manipulator.    

“What do you want of me, Illya?” Napoleon asked.

“Only what you’ll give me.  As I always have.  What are you asking of me?”

“Everything,” Solo admitted, “As I always have.”

Kuryakin smiled slightly.  “You’re not quite that selfish.”

“Not quite,” Napoleon agreed.  “But close.”

“Don’t promise me forever, and then leave me, Napoleon,” Illya said quietly.  “That’s all I ask.”

“Can I promise, and stay with you?”  

Kuryakin swallowed.  “Are you really sure?”

“No,”  Napoleon admitted, and watched while Illya froze at that.  “and do you know why?”

The eyes were turned away now.  “There are a million possible reasons.”

“Just one.  And he’s in my arms.”

The eyes turned back.

“You don’t want me.”

The eyes widened in amazement.  “When have I ever refused you?”

“That’s not enough.  You’d let me walk away from you.  You wouldn’t fight me.  You wouldn’t fight for me.”

“You’ll leave me anyway.”  Illya dismissed.

Napoleon winced at that.  “You are such a fighter.  I know that.  Had to be, to get this far.  To survive to your present ripe old age.”  He gave him a light squeeze and waited for the brief ironic smile to touch Illya’s lips.  “Why won’t you fight for me?”

“I can’t fight  you.”

“Not even for me?”

“When someone leaves you, they leave you.”  Illya’s voice was soft.  “I would be glad for the time we had.  More than that is unrealistic.”

“That’s not enough.  How  could you consider walking away from me?  How could you let me walk away?   How can you not love me the way I do you?  It’s as if you don’t’ love me enough. And I know you do.”

“We just love differently, Napoleon.”

At that  admission of love, even qualified, he tumbled them  both down to the bed.  “I want you to love me, Illya. To say it.  To mean it.  To tell me it would tear you in two to leave me, to have me leave you.  I want you to want me like that.”

Illya rolled him over and kissed him fiercely.

Napoleon pulled away, holding Illya from him.  “Say it in words.”

Illya stared at him, panting, his lips swollen from the kiss.

Napoleon reached out and traced the full curve of that sensuous lower lip, the more severe upper one.  The two sides of his partner’s nature.  “Say …it …in…words.”

Illya drew in a breath and swallowed.  Then he shook his head.

Solo’s one hand tightened painfully in disappointment.  Then he made it two.

“We love differently, Napoleon,”  the strained voice came.  “I don’t think I love you any less for loving you as I do.  It’s what I am.  If you love me, that’s what I am.”

His gripped lessened. “Illya, I didn’t mean –“

“Yes, you did.”

Solo caught himself.  “Yes, I did.”

“I’m not you.  I understand how you are.”  He shrugged one shoulder, about all he could move under Solo’s heavy weight, tilted his head in acknowledgement of the possessive grip.  “I accept that in you.  I’ve learned to like your possessiveness, your assertiveness, at least sometimes.  But this isn’t one of those times.  Napoleon, let me up.”

Solo released him.
 
Illya absently rubbed his bad shoulder.  “Not that I’d take it from anyone else.  But with you, I always knew what it meant.”

Napoleon smiled, a little sadly.  “What did you think it meant?”

Illya looked up at him, then away, his face heating.

“Caught you, didn’t I?”

Illya nodded. “Let my guard down a minute…”

“Tell me.”

“I’m not sure,”  Kuryakin evaded.

“Tell me what you think it meant.”

Kuryakin shrugged again, elaborately casual.  “As easy as I am, Napoleon, you sometimes -- often -- pin me down when we have sex.”

“When we make love.”

“Whatever,”  Kuryakin said, dismissing the semantic difference, intent on his own ideas.  “I’ve seen you with women.  We even have shared one a few times over the years.  You’re the same in bed with them as you are outside of bed – suave, charming and almost unaffected.”  He hesitated then said bluntly. “You don’t pin them down. At first, I thought it was because I was male –  and your partner.  That having me was more of a conquest thing for you.”  Eyes fixed on him again.  “That you got off on the dominance thing.  Power.  No doubt that’s part of it, but