The 'Shadow of Your Smile' Affair
The blue eyes were clear, but unfocused. He really wasn't there in the room. Oh physically, of course. But his mind?
Kuryakin...
She was breathtakingly beautiful to him. A goddess. The first woman he had ever seen unclothed. So much taller than he was, but then, he was still little more than a boy. But she had been lonely and men? Well, men who were not the enemy were hard to come by. She had taken him under her wing and into her bed. He did not love her nor she him. You did not love a goddess. You worshipped her and she demanded sacrifice. Even in the back of his inexperienced mind, he knew that she was using him, but at least for that one week, he didn't care. His breath caught in his throat as she dug her nails deeply into the skin of his back, parting the flesh, drawing blood.
Kuryakin...
His mind moved on. The gypsy camp. The music. The dances. The horses - ah, the horses. Pervaya lijubov. He had discovered things about himself on the back of a half-broken three-year old filly that he'd never known before. He had spent an entire day on horseback, then been reminded of it all night by the ache in his back. But the pain was worth it and he had gone back for it again and again and again. Galloping under the clear skies had been the greatest feeling of freedom he had ever known and gave him longings for things - for ideals - that he had had no words for.
Kuryakin...
Another brief fast forward in his memories. Military life. Not a thing he would have chosen for himself, but it was not as if a choice was given. The smallish man's pride had driven him to not just be decent at the martial skills - he strove to be the best. The others that tried to bully him soon found out that they had to tackle him in packs instead of individually. He had definitely taken some beatings, but he gave quite a few back as well.
Kuryakin...
Years later – a memory of the gym at the U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters in New York. A rising tension between he and Napoleon during their early days together had started a sparring match that had become a bit of a local legend. Like all legends, it had grown over the years to near unrecognizable, but the basics were still the same. The spar that went on and on with neither man willing to yield to the other. Even Illya couldn't remember why any longer, but that day, for whatever reason, it seemed equally important to them both that the other had to be the one to call off the match.
After around five hours, the gym supervisor had finally called in Mister Waverly – who allowed the match to continue for another hour under his watchful eye before calling a halt to it. They were both bruised and battered, but oddly happy at the end of it. Far from dressing them down as Illya had halfway expected, Waverly seemed content to act as if the bout never even happened. Those who had heard of or witnessed it assumed that it meant the end of he and Napoleon working together as a team. Far from it. It had forged yet another link of their chain together. They knew each others strengths and weaknesses now in an intimate sort of way. At times since then, that depth of knowledge had meant the difference between living to fight another day or being the unwilling subject of a memorial service.
Kuryakin!
The yelling directly in his face finally got his eyes to focus on the furious T.H.R.U.S.H. interrogator in front of him.
"Oh? Were you speaking to me? So terribly sorry, I must not have been paying attention."
Illya had discovered long ago that few things made an opponent angrier than being flawlessly polite to them. This time was no exception and he was backhanded across the mouth.
Bah - dump him back into his cell. Tomorrow we will see if he is more cooperative.
He continued to glare as he watched his juniors unshackle the Russian man's beaten form and carry him from the room. He had heard, of course, of the team of Solo and Kuryakin, but had decided that the two men's abilities had been exaggerated by others seeking to gloss over their own incompetence. Now? Now he wasn't so sure. What was it about these U.N.C.L.E. agents? At some points during the torture, he had seen a look on Kuryakin's face that would have driven him to kill if that act hadn't been guaranteed to have gotten him killed in turn by his superiors. That look was still eating at him - it was an insult to his talents as a torturer.
That infuriating little Russian bastard had smiled.