1/1
Pre-slash
PG-13
31/10/01

Authors note: Thanks to a conversation with my muse this little piece was born. Feedback is welcome. No copyright infringment is intended.
Summary: A short piece from Napoleon’s perspective on his life and needs.

I understand, perhaps all too well, too completely what it is we have to do, who we are and why we do it, but do I understand why I do it? I guess it’s a little ambiguous even now, but let’s for the sake of argument pretend we all understand what I mean.  For years I’ve prided myself on the great Solo luck, that if anything can and will go wrong Illya and I will be left more or less unscathed and be able to retire in some distant future knowing that we made a difference.  This is all true, well my truth anyway, but its only part of it.

Can man ever be born into such love and compassion to deign to be so alone that his heart aches? Mine does, but I wont let you see it, to you I’m a playboy a shallow flippant character often with a two dimensional aspect to my being and yet perhaps that is all I want you to see.  Have you considered this? Have you really considered me? Or am I in passing a mild curiosity? Am I someone to be witnessed and never touched? Do you know why I am the way I am? And if you did know could you care?

We see so much.  Too much that for a man who’s heart is closer to the reality of his life, cocooned as it were in normality, I would weep with the pain and often injustice of it all. But that’s not what you want to see is it?

Is my expression bored? Or simply do I bore you? Am I too self centred is that why you orbit passed me? We have fun don’t we? We understand that its all froth and bubbles, for you an opportunity to touch the dark and dangerous side of life, for me a moment to loose myself in the softness of your body and mind, but it’s not enough.  I have always known it wouldn’t be, but then I couldn’t tell you.

I enjoy my work, my life, and who I am.  Do I rely on luck? No not really, everything I do is planned, and has its place in life.  I don’t play the odds, perhaps I take chances with you but I don’t take them unnecessarily. What I do take from you is refuge. Pure and simple, scratch the surface and you would find me cold and intimidating.  Don’t presume to own me or want more than I am prepared to give, that right, such as it is belongs to another.

Surprised? Hell I was, I never thought for even a second that the recalcitrant Russian would even consider me a partner in anything but the strictest sense of the word.  We’ve flirted outrageously over the years, every touch sending a wildfire through me till I knew I couldn’t live without it, or him.  He’s like an addiction, worse than the adrenalin that pulses through my veins when I kill.  Sweeter than any wine that I could consume and still he leaves me breathless, wanting and needing to be other than what I am.  With Illya, all I want to be is a man.  Pure, simple and oh so complicated.

I digress, but for the moment we’ll pretend yes? This life is so much pretence there are times I’m not certain I know what I am anymore.  What I am certain of, what I  know is what I fight, and why.  This ignoble cause that could cost us both everything and nothing personal is both thrilling and chilling in the same instance.  I cannot expect you to understand what it is like for us.

I see the face of death and madness daily and I walk away, back to my enclave in New York with its breathtaking view of the skyline. Or into the hallowed halls of UNCLE and feel for the most part normal. Perhaps, were it any other night I would loose myself in your sweet depths and confirm that I am in fact somewhere, human. But tonight as many others before I am totally disconnected, self absorbed and playing with life the same many of you would play with a child, or ah well, then there you have it, an addiction. Except for me, I know the cost of failure.

I like to think that with insanity of this ilk that we see things with a clarity often denied that of our normal counterparts. But then I would have to, in order to hold on to what is left of me.  And for that role I have faith and trust in only one other. Illya Nicovetch Kuryakin.

Sweet, deadly, Illya.  He plays with me, and in doing so at times makes me so hot.  I’ve seen his skill with the blade, the danse macabre that in his hands becomes as eloquent as any ballet and I find myself growing hard with desire as I watch the sleek muscles and long limbs with their fluid grace.  Or the coldness in his eyes, like the arctic tundra, frozen and impossible to breach until he looks at me and I see sapphire in the steel of that gaze, understanding and wisdom.  So much wisdom for one so young.  I feel the power in his hands as he holds the UNCLE special and fires without missing and he turns away, emotionless and whole.  There are many who cannot do it, and at times I doubt my own abilities to be as merciless as I know he can be, but then there are other times, times I know that this is the lie. A lie that he has been taught to live, because to be other than what the masters demand would result in death.

And for Illya it would be a long, slow, lingering death that would rob him of his humanity and in that it would be impossible. He has more heart than most people I know, and I’ve met many.  He is inconsolable when an innocent is hurt or people are lacking in their own judgement.  Perhaps that is why he is quick to become angry with me if I fail in my duty, to him or others.  But until today he was unaware of the loneliness that my lifestyle offers and in turn as I was of his.

His taciturn features looked up at me from over an enormous sandwich in Central Park and he smiled.  My God, he doesn’t know, all the while I thought perhaps he was vain and knew very well the way he affects others but today I saw the real man.  He is taciturn and totally oblivious because to him he is only a pawn in the game.  He was taught to have to rely on himself, and since coming to America he hasn’t had to rely on his features to feed him, or keep him free.

Illya withdraws from people when he thinks that they are playing with his emotions or treating him contemptuously.  I saw that today, he thinks I toy with him and so he gives it back to me in spades.  But he really doesn’t believe that he is beautiful.

Imagine my surprise as I watched him for perhaps the first time.  He was backlit by the sun with a soft canopy of trees painting him into an ethereal glade, far away from the madness that is our life. His hair glowed golden as his eyes shone with an intelligence that leaves me reeling in its wake, clad simply in black to be inconspicuous he was breathtaking.

He is a flawed, dangerous, lethal archangel who looked at me and smiled, the only one who would not treat me with the utter contempt I deserve because he understands me.  He knew, without words we both knew, that we completed each other and as we took the long walk back to the office, we made the decision that we had danced around the issue for too long.

Can you believe that for the first time in my adult life I am actually scared?  I’m expected at seven and I know the questions we will ask each other and the deal we will strike, and I am certain I am ready for it.  But can I acquiesce so readily to another who is more than my equal?

Do I dare?

Good Lord, how can I refuse?

Finis.