Work Text:
Torment - tor·ment noun: torment; plural noun: torments
ˈtôrment/ 1. Severe physical or mental suffering. 2. Being in love with your partner
It’s hard, you know. You get the reputation of being a ladies man and no matter what you say or do, that’s all anyone sees.
For a long time, I used women as a handy excuse. It kept me from thinking, it kept me from committing and it kept me from hurting. Once was enough and I vowed from that moment on I would never permit anyone to get close to me again.
Then he wandered into my life. At first, it was reports from the London office, then I, like many others, was caught off guard. Mr. Waverly had convinced the Russian government to permit their agent to work from the New York Office. I often wondered why Waverly pursued that and if it was just for bragging rights. Illya was just as efficient in the London office, but the next thing I knew I was called into Mr. Waverly’s office and introduced to my new partner.
I expected it to be awkward at first, but it wasn’t. Outside of a few growing pains, we got used to each other’s techniques. Over time I learned to appreciate Illya’s single-minded approach to situations and problems. He was like a dog with a bone and once he had you in his grasp, there was very little you could do to escape it.
That’s my problem, you see. Quietly, and I’m sure without meaning to, Illya dug through my layers of defense and took hold of my heart. He broke through my defenses, snipping away the barbed wire as easily as breaking a spider web. He nursed it, petted it and without my intention or perhaps even his, he shaped it to his will and made it his. And he doesn’t even have a clue. As far as I can tell, Illya isn’t built that way. I’ve seen him with women, how they react to him, like a bee to honey and even though he says nothing, I know he’s had his share of dalliances. A man can just tell.
What am I going to do? I can’t keep living a lie. The women I date are starting to get wise and I don’t know what to do. God help me, I love him. I thought I knew what torment was, but I didn’t have a clue before.
*****
When I was a boy, we were trained for success. The best way to avoid a bad end was to plan out every possible outcome and have a strategy in hand for each. It might not be the success you wanted, but at least it would not be a failure. This is why I am so confused now.
My plan had always been to complete my education and return home to further the pursuits of my country. I would serve my government to the best abilities and die quietly in a nice little dacha. Marriage and children were not part of that future. Men like me, it is best if we remain alone, above the interest of others. At least, that was my plan. My mistake was not considering all angles, but how was I to know that no matter how careful I was, someone was watching me?
One day a stranger came to my door of my meager dwellings and told me he had an offer. There was an international organization and I had come to their attention. The more he talked, the more interested I became. The fact that he arrived with a KGB officer made me consider his words carefully. The slow measured nod of the agent’s head was my encouragement. Thus, I became an UNCLE agent. While I hoped to return to the USSR, London was not a bad place, the capitalist bourgeois excesses of the Section One there notwithstanding. I liked my work and felt as if I was making the world a bit safer for tomorrow’s children, if not my own.
It wasn’t until I was out after work one night that the real bombshell dropped. I was sitting in the corner, nursing some stout when a group of my co-workers came in. We kept polite company at work, but I was not about to associate with them on my own time. I kept to the shadows and they never saw me. Some UNCLE agents – rank amateurs to my way of thinking!
One of them worked close to Beldon, although why anyone would want to was beyond my capacity to understand. I kept my distance from the man. Contact with him always made me want to shower and burn my clothes.
He started talking about how Waverly from the New York office was petitioning for my, excuse me, The Russian’s reassignment. At first I thought it was a reprimand for something I’d done, but I’d performed my tasks to the best of my ability. Then, I wondered if Beldon wanted me gone, but that wasn’t the feeling I’d gotten whenever he trapped me in his office. Finally, I decided that it was a promotion and a welcomed escape from Beldon’s grasp. But it was only talk at least until I got a clipped message from Beldon telling me to pack and get to the airport.
I didn’t know what to expect in America. We’d been taught that they were the evil capitalist warmongers. If they’d had two heads, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but the respect and professionalism I was afforded was a shock. My co-workers in the London office tolerated me, but in New York, people seemed to be happy I was there. Certainly there were a few who were less than pleased, but for the most part it was easy to settle in.
Then Mr. Waverly dropped a bombshell. I was to be partnered with Napoleon Solo. Everyone in UNCLE knew Napoleon Solo. The only thing bigger than his accomplishments was his libido. I anticipated an arrogant swaggering pompous ass, much like Beldon. What I got was a funny, quick-witted and competent partner. I easily saw why women were putty in his hands. His eyes, his smile, his voice, they were all seduction personified and I was not immune.
However, I knew that homosexuality was as much against the law in New York as it was back home. It would have been a death sentence for me and possibly something worse for my new partner. So, I erected barbed wire around my heart and set out to be the best partner he’d ever had. I couldn’t be his lover, but I could be his friend. What I ended up with was a good and caring friend. But only a friend. What I wanted was so much more, but it could never be. That should be the definition of torment, not the stuff that THRUSH doled out. I don’t know what to do. I love him so much.
****
Do you ever wish you could literally reach into people’s skulls and shake their brains? After as many opportunities that had been wasted by those young men, I was fit to be tied. Why are some people so oblivious to the obvious?
I watched them sitting close, but not too close, sneak sly glances at the other. What they want was apparent to a blind man, why they chose not to act upon it was a mystery. It wasn’t from a lack of trying on my part.
Lest you think I am pandering to delinquency, perhaps an explanation is in order. Mr. Solo came to me, brass, wet behind the ears and still the best agent to have made it through Cutter’s tortuous Survival School. He was brilliant, but he lacked control. Mr. Solo’s head was too easily turned by a pretty smile and beckoning eyes. While he was always attentive to his job, I felt there was more to him, if I could only get him to settle down.
His sexual proclivities were no secret. My agents had to be willing to do whatever it took to achieve the required ends. Without his knowledge, I had a psychology work up done on him and it told me exactly what I needed to know. It told me Napoleon Solo’s ultimate choice in a life partner. Then I began the underhanded search for just such a person. She or he needed to be a certain height, with blond hair and blue eyes, smart, talented, capable of handling her or himself in any situation. I wanted an Amazon, what I got was the Russian.
From the moment I introduced them, the air was alive with sparks on all levels. I knew the attraction was there, but both men, conditioned from youth to resist such an impulse, refused to act upon it.
It was going to take an Act of God to get them together. Thankfully, within UNCLE, that would be me.
I positioned myself before them, determined to eliminate all barriers once and for all. It was underhanded, scheming and totally devoid of propriety. It had to work.
“Gentlemen, I have an assignment that will require you to both to go undercover.”
Mr. Kuryakin perked up for he loved such work as much as his partner disliked it.
“Must we, sir?”
“Yes, you two are going to set up house together. You will be a couple in every sense of the word.”
“Sir, are you saying what I think you are saying?”
God, I hope so, I thought as I watched Mr. Kuryakin’s eyes glisten with anticipation and Mr. Solo’s demeanor change from duty to delight. Now all I needed was a cover story that would hold up. However, if I was lucky, this would be an ongoing assignment for the foreseeable future.
No one deserves to live without love, not even my top agents.