New Fic
Title: The Summit Two Affair
Author: aneuhaus
Rating: R
Warnings: Brief mention of noncon - nothing graphic
“Very well put, Mr. Kuryakin, very well put. Meeting is adjourned, Gentlemen.” said the unflappable head of U.N.C.L.E., New York.
No one would ever have known that, less than twenty-four hours ago, he had nearly been executed, along with three of the other U.N.C.L.E. chiefs, by Harry Beldon. The shock, alone, of Beldon’s treachery, would have been enough to quell the spirit of a lesser man; but they broke the mold when they made Alexander Waverly.
Having been dismissed from the nearly interminable, but very important, debriefing; the two agents walked, side by side, back to their shared office in silence. Each had something on their mind. The office door had no sooner slid shut behind them than they both began to speak at once.
“Go ahead, Illya,” Napoleon deferred to his partner and friend. “Mine can wait.”
“I was just wondering,” Illya began, “if you had any idea who would take Harry Beldon’s place?”
“Oh, I don’t know; maybe Coulter or Swenson. I have a feeling that the whole office will have to go through a top to bottom shake down, to make sure there are no more Beldon collaborators, before any decision can be made. We can’t be too careful.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Illya answered despondently.
“Why?” Napoleon was surprised and curious.
Illya began to pace the floor agitatedly. “Because it is entirely likely that Waverly will send one of us, to not only lead the investigation, but to fill in as Northeast Chief until a replacement is chosen. It could be months.”
“Well, there’s no sense in worrying about it now. If it happens, it happens. Who knows? Maybe we’ll both go, hmmm?” he answered with a smile.
Illya stopped in his tracks and looked directly into his partner’s eyes. “What makes you think we may go together? I can’t see Waverly sending both of us when one would suffice.”
“Well, think about it,” Napoleon answered in his most persuasive manner, “with my administrative experience and your expertise in security matters, we could sew things up in half the time.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Illya’s shoulders relaxed and the relief on his face was unmistakable. ”Now, what did you have to say that was so earth shattering?” he asked sarcastically.
“I was going to pay you a compliment,” Napoleon answered petulantly, “but, now, you can just forget it!” He crossed his arms and plopped down into his chair, for all the world like a five year old whose favorite toy has been taken away.
“All right, I’m sorry.” “What were you going to say, then?” Illya soothed, and mentally counted, One… two… three… four… five… six…, and hid a smile behind his hand when, right on cue, Napoleon uncrossed his arms and grinned.
“I was going to tell you how impressed I was with the way you took out after Beldon yesterday. You were half way up that damned hill before I even knew where he was.”
“I was just doing my job,” Illya argued.
“No, really,” Napoleon continued, watching his partner carefully, “if not for you, he probably would have gotten away and cost U.N.C.L.E. who-knows-how-many man hours to find him again. Not to mention all the trouble he could have caused.”
“It wasn’t exactly intentional,” Illya rejoined, but something in his eyes told a different story.
“Oh, stop it with the self deprecation routine,” Napoleon reproved good-naturedly. “If you hadn’t left that hand grenade where it fell, all four of the other U.N.C.L.E. chiefs would still be in danger.”
“Napoleon…” Illya’s mouth snapped shut and formed a hard line. The tension in the room was suddenly so thick, it hurt to breathe. Illya turned and stared out the window for several moments; while Napoleon stood, waiting. After what seemed an eternity, Illya spun on his heel to face his partner, and something seemed to break inside him.
He looked down at his shoes and said, as if to himself, “I worked for Harry Beldon for two years, before I came to New York. He was always known as a man who…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “…took what he wanted.”
Napoleon was gob smacked. Could Illya possibly mean…? Only once before, in his life, had Napoleon Solo ever been speechless. That was when he was nine, and Susie Jeffries showed him what was inside her underpants. The feeling was exactly the same. By the time he could speak again, his brain had caught up with the situation enough to understand that, if he expected his partner to open up to him about this, he needed to tread very softly.
“He was also known,” he said gently, “as a man who appreciated beautiful things.” Illya’s head jerked up, and Napoleon was aghast at the preternatural sparkle of his eyes. “Let’s call it a day,” he said, reaching for his coat and handing Illya his.
Illya spent the twenty minute cab ride to Napoleon’s apartment staring at his hands, which were decorously folded in his lap. His agitation was betrayed, however, by the rocking back and forth of his right foot.
Meanwhile, Napoleon’s brain was whirring. His instincts, on which he had come to rely heavily, indicated that the next few hours would be important to both of them. He strongly sensed that Illya desperately needed to talk, and the three years he had spent learning to read his reticent partner told him that it would only take one slip to make him shut down completely.
Finally, they were sitting, face to face, across the kitchen table; each with a steaming cup of coffee in front of them. Illya still seemed to find his hands infinitely interesting, so Napoleon decided to take the lead.
“Illya,” he said, as if speaking to a frightened animal, “you can tell me.”
The blond head lifted and, as if he had only been waiting for permission, he began to speak.
“When I was assigned to Harry Beldon, straight out of survival school, I was thrilled. Of course, New York was everyone’s first choice; but the Northeast office, as well as Beldon, was highly revered and respected.”
“I had heard many stories of Beldon, and how unorthodox he was, so I wasn’t terribly shocked when I met him. After a few months, he took me under his wing, so to speak. I figured it was just because of my high marks at survival school and my obvious eagerness to make good. I started to wonder, though, when he began showing his approval by kissing me on the cheek and hugging me around the shoulders when he was pleased with my performance.”
“One day, we were alone in his office, going over some charts. He was standing beside, and a little behind me; and I suddenly felt his arm creep around my waist and his body press against mine.”
“’Illya,’ he said in my ear, ‘how have you liked working for U.N.C.L.E?’”
“I wasn’t sure how he meant the question, so I didn’t answer.”
“’You know,’ he continued, ‘if I ever had reason to give you an unfavorable report, you would be sent back to the U.S.S.R. in shame. What do you think the outcome of that would be?’”
“I was stunned. Just the day before, he had congratulated me effusively on how I had helped him to streamline office procedures, as well as the implementation of quick response security methods. I opened my mouth to ask for clarification, and he kissed me, sliding his tongue into my mouth. Then he pulled back and looked straight into my eyes.”
“I know I should have done something - said something - but his words whirling in my mind, along with the surrealism of the situation, had me completely tongue tied. He, apparently, took my silence as agreement, because his hand roamed lower and he began to fondle me intimately.”
“My entire life, since I was seven years old, has been spent learning to obey without question; first with the KGB, then the GRU, and then U.N.C.L.E., so I obeyed. He was never cruel, he never caused me pain, and he gave me lovely gifts: bottles of expensive wine, colognes from Paris, silk pajamas…”
Illya grew silent for a moment and took, what seemed to Napoleon, his first breath since the narrative began.
“Couldn’t you tell anyone?” Napoleon asked, astounded that his voice was so steady.
“Who could I have told? Section One wouldn’t have believed me and, for all I knew, disciplined me for bringing such accusations against one of their own. I had no friends; quite to the contrary, being the only agent from behind the Iron Curtain. My only option was to return to Moscow, if it would have been allowed, to face the gulag or a firing squad. So, you see, I was well and truly trapped. I have, many times, been forced into distasteful situations in the name of survival; but Harry Beldon, for the first time in my life, made me ashamed of who I was.”
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall. Then Illya continued.
“After discovering that Beldon was blocking my numerous transfer requests, I had finally sunk so deeply into despair that I was considering taking my own life; I simply couldn’t stand the thought of his hands on me once more. Then, just in the knick of time, my salvation appeared in the form of Alexander Waverly. I have often wondered if Mr. Waverly had some idea as to what was going on; because, within seventy-two hours, I was on a plane to New York.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Napoleon chuckled, in spite of himself. “I sometimes think Waverly has the entire world bugged. Besides, he must have had some leverage to be able to coax Beldon into giving up his plaything.”
Illya’s brow furrowed and his eyes dropped again. Then he said, sotto voce, “When a man you hate and despise tries to murder a man you love and respect, he deserves to die.”
“You have no reason to feel guilty, my friend,” Napoleon soothed. “You did what you had to do.”
Illya looked up once more, and Napoleon saw tears swimming in the blue depths, kept there only by sheer force of will. “I do not feel guilty about what I did. It is the motive that haunts me. It seems as though I have merely been waiting for a reason to kill Harry Beldon.”
Napoleon rose from his chair and walked around the table to put a reassuring hand on his partner’s shoulder. “The very fact that you waited until you had a reason, and a damned good one at that, proves just what kind of a man you are.”
A single fat tear escaped and slid down Illya’s cheek, and Napoleon’s heart cracked nearly in two to see his stoic, courageous partner brought to this. He knelt down and slid his arms around Illya, who laid his head on his friend’s shoulder and sobbed heavily. As Napoleon held him, the reason for so many things became clear: Illya’s solicitude to Beldon when they were in Berlin; his reticence with people he didn’t know well; his near aversion to sexual encounters, except with some silly airhead that he couldn’t possibly have any kind of a relationship with, like that dumb coed he tutored for a while or that blonde girl that nearly got him turned into a dog chew toy. Beldon had stolen not only Illya’s self respect, but also his ability to trust enough to allow anyone to get close to him - except Napoleon.
These revelations, along with Illya’s admission, had Napoleon’s brain working a mile a minute. He remembered, when he had been suspected of Newman’s murder, how Illya’s belief in him had been steadfast, regardless of the evidence. Then he thought back to their conversation, earlier that same day, about one of them, perhaps, standing in as interim Northeast Chief. The very thought of it had Illya in a turmoil, yet his concern couldn’t have been about the assignment. He had done that kind of thing before.
Was he afraid that, because he still knew several of the agents in the Berlin office, he couldn’t be impartial if he was sent to conduct the investigation? Was he afraid that someone there might know - that Beldon may have told? Did he simply not want to have to face day after day, alone, in the very office where Beldon had molested him?
Illya’s sobs were quieting, and he hung limp in Napoleon’s arms, clearly exhausted. Napoleon stood, lifting Illya to his feet, and maneuvered them to the sofa, never letting go of his partner. Illya was so unusually docile that Napoleon decided to throw caution to the wind.
“Illya?” he began cautiously.
“Hmmm?” in Napoleon’s shoulder was the only answer he received.
“I was just wondering,” he continued, still feeling his way, “why you were so worried about the possibility of one of us having to take over the Northeast office for a time?”
“I just don’t like it when you…” Illya began, and then stopped, as though he had suddenly realized that he was about to give away classified information.
Grasping at straws now, Napoleon took a moment to mull over the rest of that morning’s conversation, and recalled that Illya had seemed comforted when he had mentioned the possibility of them being sent together. Aha! That’s the key word - together, Napoleon thought to himself, and waded in with both feet.
“Illya,” he said in the softest, most affectionate voice he possessed, “remember, earlier, when I said that Harry Beldon was known to appreciate beautiful things? I, uh, meant you, you know.”
Illya’s head lifted from his partner’s shoulder, and Napoleon was sorry for the loss, until he looked into those eyes that all but matched the star sapphire ring on his pinky. Red and puffy as they were, there was something shining there that Napoleon had only seen, in rare glimpses, when he caught Illya unawares.
“You think me beautiful, Napoleon?” Illya asked, in an awed whisper.
I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Napoleon, finally, said out loud.
Illya’s eyes dropped. “How can you possibly say, or even think, that? Even if I ever was alluring, my body is now covered with scars that will never go away. You are used to the softness and smoothness of lovely, pampered women.”
“But,” Napoleon responded, “your eyes are as clear and blue as the South Seas; your hair is like the noonday sun shining on golden silk; your mouth is lush and kissable; and you have a strong, graceful body that bulges in all the right places.”
Illya’s face was in full scowl, but Napoleon pressed on.
“Besides,” he continued, “beauty is much more than skin deep, Partner Mine. I know you have learned to hold people at arm’s length because your Soviet masters were experts at using anything, or anyone, you cared about against you; and people like Harry Beldon reinforced that behavior. For some reason, though, you have gifted me with moments of insight into the real you. I know that there lurks, inside you, a playful, tender, passionate man. If you would only allow me, I would like to bring him out into the open… and love him.”
“And, as for those scars you are so concerned about, I know that the acquisition of a great many of them is responsible for my being alive today.”
“But, that is my job, Napoleon,” Illya exclaimed.
“No, Illya,” Napoleon replied softly. “It is not your job to step in front of a bullet, or to give me your coat when I’m shivering in some dank THRUSH cell, or to shield me from an explosion with your own body. Admit it, Illya.”
“Yes,” Illya replied.
As the amazingly expressive blue eyes held his gaze, Napoleon recognized that his partner was acquiescing to much more than his challenge. Without volition, he reached for Illya with only one thought in his mind - to possess this complex dichotomy of a man. With one arm snugged tightly around Illya’s waist, and the other buried in ermine-soft strands of gold, he pulled him close and pressed their lips together.
Illya’s arms came up to clasp around Napoleon’s neck, and his mouth opened in invitation. Fire licked at Napoleon’s belly as he savored his first taste of his partner. He was more surprised than he should have been when Illya’s tongue pushed its way into his mouth and claimed its first bit of Solo territory.
Clothing, typically an altar at which Napoleon worshipped, was carelessly discarded in a rush to reveal, touch, and kiss smooth, golden skin. Before either man knew it, both were completely naked, desperately pressing hardness against hardness. Napoleon reached up and grabbed one of Illya’s hands in his, causing him to open lust-hazed eyes that suddenly filled with dismay. Kiss swollen lips smiled a moment later, though, when Napoleon wrapped Illya’s hand, still clasped in his own, around both of their cocks. Together they stroked and squeezed, watching each other’s faces as one, and then the other, reached orgasm; and their fingers were coated with their intermingled ejaculate. Napoleon could only watch in amazement as Illya lifted his hand to his mouth licked it clean, eyes sliding closed and lips turning up in satisfaction.
“So that’s what we taste like together,” he murmured, a sense of wonder coloring his voice.
Napoleon lapped at his own semen-covered fingers. “I could get used to this,” he smirked, lowering himself to the carpeted floor and pulling his partner down with him, unwilling to break the newly-formed physical connection he had craved for so long.
“Good,” Illya purred, “because once you are used to this, there are many other things I would like to do with you.”
“Well,” Napoleon announced, looking down at his, already, reawakening penis, “the way things look from here, you won’t have to wait very long.”
Author: aneuhaus
Rating: R
Warnings: Brief mention of noncon - nothing graphic
“Very well put, Mr. Kuryakin, very well put. Meeting is adjourned, Gentlemen.” said the unflappable head of U.N.C.L.E., New York.
No one would ever have known that, less than twenty-four hours ago, he had nearly been executed, along with three of the other U.N.C.L.E. chiefs, by Harry Beldon. The shock, alone, of Beldon’s treachery, would have been enough to quell the spirit of a lesser man; but they broke the mold when they made Alexander Waverly.
Having been dismissed from the nearly interminable, but very important, debriefing; the two agents walked, side by side, back to their shared office in silence. Each had something on their mind. The office door had no sooner slid shut behind them than they both began to speak at once.
“Go ahead, Illya,” Napoleon deferred to his partner and friend. “Mine can wait.”
“I was just wondering,” Illya began, “if you had any idea who would take Harry Beldon’s place?”
“Oh, I don’t know; maybe Coulter or Swenson. I have a feeling that the whole office will have to go through a top to bottom shake down, to make sure there are no more Beldon collaborators, before any decision can be made. We can’t be too careful.”
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Illya answered despondently.
“Why?” Napoleon was surprised and curious.
Illya began to pace the floor agitatedly. “Because it is entirely likely that Waverly will send one of us, to not only lead the investigation, but to fill in as Northeast Chief until a replacement is chosen. It could be months.”
“Well, there’s no sense in worrying about it now. If it happens, it happens. Who knows? Maybe we’ll both go, hmmm?” he answered with a smile.
Illya stopped in his tracks and looked directly into his partner’s eyes. “What makes you think we may go together? I can’t see Waverly sending both of us when one would suffice.”
“Well, think about it,” Napoleon answered in his most persuasive manner, “with my administrative experience and your expertise in security matters, we could sew things up in half the time.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way.” Illya’s shoulders relaxed and the relief on his face was unmistakable. ”Now, what did you have to say that was so earth shattering?” he asked sarcastically.
“I was going to pay you a compliment,” Napoleon answered petulantly, “but, now, you can just forget it!” He crossed his arms and plopped down into his chair, for all the world like a five year old whose favorite toy has been taken away.
“All right, I’m sorry.” “What were you going to say, then?” Illya soothed, and mentally counted, One… two… three… four… five… six…, and hid a smile behind his hand when, right on cue, Napoleon uncrossed his arms and grinned.
“I was going to tell you how impressed I was with the way you took out after Beldon yesterday. You were half way up that damned hill before I even knew where he was.”
“I was just doing my job,” Illya argued.
“No, really,” Napoleon continued, watching his partner carefully, “if not for you, he probably would have gotten away and cost U.N.C.L.E. who-knows-how-many man hours to find him again. Not to mention all the trouble he could have caused.”
“It wasn’t exactly intentional,” Illya rejoined, but something in his eyes told a different story.
“Oh, stop it with the self deprecation routine,” Napoleon reproved good-naturedly. “If you hadn’t left that hand grenade where it fell, all four of the other U.N.C.L.E. chiefs would still be in danger.”
“Napoleon…” Illya’s mouth snapped shut and formed a hard line. The tension in the room was suddenly so thick, it hurt to breathe. Illya turned and stared out the window for several moments; while Napoleon stood, waiting. After what seemed an eternity, Illya spun on his heel to face his partner, and something seemed to break inside him.
He looked down at his shoes and said, as if to himself, “I worked for Harry Beldon for two years, before I came to New York. He was always known as a man who…” his voice dropped to a whisper, “…took what he wanted.”
Napoleon was gob smacked. Could Illya possibly mean…? Only once before, in his life, had Napoleon Solo ever been speechless. That was when he was nine, and Susie Jeffries showed him what was inside her underpants. The feeling was exactly the same. By the time he could speak again, his brain had caught up with the situation enough to understand that, if he expected his partner to open up to him about this, he needed to tread very softly.
“He was also known,” he said gently, “as a man who appreciated beautiful things.” Illya’s head jerked up, and Napoleon was aghast at the preternatural sparkle of his eyes. “Let’s call it a day,” he said, reaching for his coat and handing Illya his.
Illya spent the twenty minute cab ride to Napoleon’s apartment staring at his hands, which were decorously folded in his lap. His agitation was betrayed, however, by the rocking back and forth of his right foot.
Meanwhile, Napoleon’s brain was whirring. His instincts, on which he had come to rely heavily, indicated that the next few hours would be important to both of them. He strongly sensed that Illya desperately needed to talk, and the three years he had spent learning to read his reticent partner told him that it would only take one slip to make him shut down completely.
Finally, they were sitting, face to face, across the kitchen table; each with a steaming cup of coffee in front of them. Illya still seemed to find his hands infinitely interesting, so Napoleon decided to take the lead.
“Illya,” he said, as if speaking to a frightened animal, “you can tell me.”
The blond head lifted and, as if he had only been waiting for permission, he began to speak.
“When I was assigned to Harry Beldon, straight out of survival school, I was thrilled. Of course, New York was everyone’s first choice; but the Northeast office, as well as Beldon, was highly revered and respected.”
“I had heard many stories of Beldon, and how unorthodox he was, so I wasn’t terribly shocked when I met him. After a few months, he took me under his wing, so to speak. I figured it was just because of my high marks at survival school and my obvious eagerness to make good. I started to wonder, though, when he began showing his approval by kissing me on the cheek and hugging me around the shoulders when he was pleased with my performance.”
“One day, we were alone in his office, going over some charts. He was standing beside, and a little behind me; and I suddenly felt his arm creep around my waist and his body press against mine.”
“’Illya,’ he said in my ear, ‘how have you liked working for U.N.C.L.E?’”
“I wasn’t sure how he meant the question, so I didn’t answer.”
“’You know,’ he continued, ‘if I ever had reason to give you an unfavorable report, you would be sent back to the U.S.S.R. in shame. What do you think the outcome of that would be?’”
“I was stunned. Just the day before, he had congratulated me effusively on how I had helped him to streamline office procedures, as well as the implementation of quick response security methods. I opened my mouth to ask for clarification, and he kissed me, sliding his tongue into my mouth. Then he pulled back and looked straight into my eyes.”
“I know I should have done something - said something - but his words whirling in my mind, along with the surrealism of the situation, had me completely tongue tied. He, apparently, took my silence as agreement, because his hand roamed lower and he began to fondle me intimately.”
“My entire life, since I was seven years old, has been spent learning to obey without question; first with the KGB, then the GRU, and then U.N.C.L.E., so I obeyed. He was never cruel, he never caused me pain, and he gave me lovely gifts: bottles of expensive wine, colognes from Paris, silk pajamas…”
Illya grew silent for a moment and took, what seemed to Napoleon, his first breath since the narrative began.
“Couldn’t you tell anyone?” Napoleon asked, astounded that his voice was so steady.
“Who could I have told? Section One wouldn’t have believed me and, for all I knew, disciplined me for bringing such accusations against one of their own. I had no friends; quite to the contrary, being the only agent from behind the Iron Curtain. My only option was to return to Moscow, if it would have been allowed, to face the gulag or a firing squad. So, you see, I was well and truly trapped. I have, many times, been forced into distasteful situations in the name of survival; but Harry Beldon, for the first time in my life, made me ashamed of who I was.”
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the kitchen wall. Then Illya continued.
“After discovering that Beldon was blocking my numerous transfer requests, I had finally sunk so deeply into despair that I was considering taking my own life; I simply couldn’t stand the thought of his hands on me once more. Then, just in the knick of time, my salvation appeared in the form of Alexander Waverly. I have often wondered if Mr. Waverly had some idea as to what was going on; because, within seventy-two hours, I was on a plane to New York.”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Napoleon chuckled, in spite of himself. “I sometimes think Waverly has the entire world bugged. Besides, he must have had some leverage to be able to coax Beldon into giving up his plaything.”
Illya’s brow furrowed and his eyes dropped again. Then he said, sotto voce, “When a man you hate and despise tries to murder a man you love and respect, he deserves to die.”
“You have no reason to feel guilty, my friend,” Napoleon soothed. “You did what you had to do.”
Illya looked up once more, and Napoleon saw tears swimming in the blue depths, kept there only by sheer force of will. “I do not feel guilty about what I did. It is the motive that haunts me. It seems as though I have merely been waiting for a reason to kill Harry Beldon.”
Napoleon rose from his chair and walked around the table to put a reassuring hand on his partner’s shoulder. “The very fact that you waited until you had a reason, and a damned good one at that, proves just what kind of a man you are.”
A single fat tear escaped and slid down Illya’s cheek, and Napoleon’s heart cracked nearly in two to see his stoic, courageous partner brought to this. He knelt down and slid his arms around Illya, who laid his head on his friend’s shoulder and sobbed heavily. As Napoleon held him, the reason for so many things became clear: Illya’s solicitude to Beldon when they were in Berlin; his reticence with people he didn’t know well; his near aversion to sexual encounters, except with some silly airhead that he couldn’t possibly have any kind of a relationship with, like that dumb coed he tutored for a while or that blonde girl that nearly got him turned into a dog chew toy. Beldon had stolen not only Illya’s self respect, but also his ability to trust enough to allow anyone to get close to him - except Napoleon.
These revelations, along with Illya’s admission, had Napoleon’s brain working a mile a minute. He remembered, when he had been suspected of Newman’s murder, how Illya’s belief in him had been steadfast, regardless of the evidence. Then he thought back to their conversation, earlier that same day, about one of them, perhaps, standing in as interim Northeast Chief. The very thought of it had Illya in a turmoil, yet his concern couldn’t have been about the assignment. He had done that kind of thing before.
Was he afraid that, because he still knew several of the agents in the Berlin office, he couldn’t be impartial if he was sent to conduct the investigation? Was he afraid that someone there might know - that Beldon may have told? Did he simply not want to have to face day after day, alone, in the very office where Beldon had molested him?
Illya’s sobs were quieting, and he hung limp in Napoleon’s arms, clearly exhausted. Napoleon stood, lifting Illya to his feet, and maneuvered them to the sofa, never letting go of his partner. Illya was so unusually docile that Napoleon decided to throw caution to the wind.
“Illya?” he began cautiously.
“Hmmm?” in Napoleon’s shoulder was the only answer he received.
“I was just wondering,” he continued, still feeling his way, “why you were so worried about the possibility of one of us having to take over the Northeast office for a time?”
“I just don’t like it when you…” Illya began, and then stopped, as though he had suddenly realized that he was about to give away classified information.
Grasping at straws now, Napoleon took a moment to mull over the rest of that morning’s conversation, and recalled that Illya had seemed comforted when he had mentioned the possibility of them being sent together. Aha! That’s the key word - together, Napoleon thought to himself, and waded in with both feet.
“Illya,” he said in the softest, most affectionate voice he possessed, “remember, earlier, when I said that Harry Beldon was known to appreciate beautiful things? I, uh, meant you, you know.”
Illya’s head lifted from his partner’s shoulder, and Napoleon was sorry for the loss, until he looked into those eyes that all but matched the star sapphire ring on his pinky. Red and puffy as they were, there was something shining there that Napoleon had only seen, in rare glimpses, when he caught Illya unawares.
“You think me beautiful, Napoleon?” Illya asked, in an awed whisper.
I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Napoleon, finally, said out loud.
Illya’s eyes dropped. “How can you possibly say, or even think, that? Even if I ever was alluring, my body is now covered with scars that will never go away. You are used to the softness and smoothness of lovely, pampered women.”
“But,” Napoleon responded, “your eyes are as clear and blue as the South Seas; your hair is like the noonday sun shining on golden silk; your mouth is lush and kissable; and you have a strong, graceful body that bulges in all the right places.”
Illya’s face was in full scowl, but Napoleon pressed on.
“Besides,” he continued, “beauty is much more than skin deep, Partner Mine. I know you have learned to hold people at arm’s length because your Soviet masters were experts at using anything, or anyone, you cared about against you; and people like Harry Beldon reinforced that behavior. For some reason, though, you have gifted me with moments of insight into the real you. I know that there lurks, inside you, a playful, tender, passionate man. If you would only allow me, I would like to bring him out into the open… and love him.”
“And, as for those scars you are so concerned about, I know that the acquisition of a great many of them is responsible for my being alive today.”
“But, that is my job, Napoleon,” Illya exclaimed.
“No, Illya,” Napoleon replied softly. “It is not your job to step in front of a bullet, or to give me your coat when I’m shivering in some dank THRUSH cell, or to shield me from an explosion with your own body. Admit it, Illya.”
“Yes,” Illya replied.
As the amazingly expressive blue eyes held his gaze, Napoleon recognized that his partner was acquiescing to much more than his challenge. Without volition, he reached for Illya with only one thought in his mind - to possess this complex dichotomy of a man. With one arm snugged tightly around Illya’s waist, and the other buried in ermine-soft strands of gold, he pulled him close and pressed their lips together.
Illya’s arms came up to clasp around Napoleon’s neck, and his mouth opened in invitation. Fire licked at Napoleon’s belly as he savored his first taste of his partner. He was more surprised than he should have been when Illya’s tongue pushed its way into his mouth and claimed its first bit of Solo territory.
Clothing, typically an altar at which Napoleon worshipped, was carelessly discarded in a rush to reveal, touch, and kiss smooth, golden skin. Before either man knew it, both were completely naked, desperately pressing hardness against hardness. Napoleon reached up and grabbed one of Illya’s hands in his, causing him to open lust-hazed eyes that suddenly filled with dismay. Kiss swollen lips smiled a moment later, though, when Napoleon wrapped Illya’s hand, still clasped in his own, around both of their cocks. Together they stroked and squeezed, watching each other’s faces as one, and then the other, reached orgasm; and their fingers were coated with their intermingled ejaculate. Napoleon could only watch in amazement as Illya lifted his hand to his mouth licked it clean, eyes sliding closed and lips turning up in satisfaction.
“So that’s what we taste like together,” he murmured, a sense of wonder coloring his voice.
Napoleon lapped at his own semen-covered fingers. “I could get used to this,” he smirked, lowering himself to the carpeted floor and pulling his partner down with him, unwilling to break the newly-formed physical connection he had craved for so long.
“Good,” Illya purred, “because once you are used to this, there are many other things I would like to do with you.”
“Well,” Napoleon announced, looking down at his, already, reawakening penis, “the way things look from here, you won’t have to wait very long.”