Fic - "Discombobulate"
Title: Discombobulate
Author: colonel_bastard
Characters/Fandom: Basil, Ratigan. The Great Mouse Detective.
Word Count: 2,975
Rating: NC-17
Summary: When a trap snaps shut, Ratigan gets flustered.
Warnings: Violence, sexual assault, general desecration of beloved Disney characters.
Notes: Fourth in the Basil/Ratigan series, and if you haven't read the others then you might be a bit confused! This prompter at disney_kink had a very interesting checklist. 1) Basil attempts to gain the upper hand, 2) a trap snaps shut, 3) "your disguise sucks" (or some paraphrased equivalent), and 4) I quote, "please let Basil come in all is humiliated and embarrassed glory this time." Anon, your wish is my command. I had a lot of fun breaking the rules for this one. :D
The only thing that gives Basil away is the unmistakable way he carries himself. His disguise is flawless, a perfect recreation of the shabby ensembles employed by so many of Ratigan’s nameless, faceless henchmen. They file back into the hideout one by one, each thug no different from the last, until one towards the end of the line. Ratigan’s eyes are drawn immediately to this newcomer--- he has to be new, there’s no way Ratigan wouldn’t have noticed his posture before, his ramrod-straight back and his proudly-squared shoulders that contradict his dreary attire and miserable occupation. Ratigan is instantly bewitched, and that, of course, is his first clue that something is very wrong.
He comes down from his throne gingerly, descending the dais one step at a time. The henchmen mill about, pouring drinks, laughing about the various minor crimes they’ve just returned from committing. They part automatically as their master approaches, like the Red Sea withdrawing from Moses. That’s Ratigan’s second clue. All eyes in the room are trained on him, awaiting a signal for how to respond, all faces turned towards him--- all faces except for one. At the sound of his approach, this particular henchman stands a little bit straighter, turns his head just slightly over his shoulder--- and Ratigan catches a glimpse of bottle-green eyes.
Immediately, the villain looks over to the door. He nods at the henchmen standing nearest to it and they swing it shut. Once the bolt slides into place, Ratigan finally closes the distance between himself and the trespasser, and as he lays a hand on his shoulder, he thrills at the distinctly Basil-esque way that shoulder shrinks away from his touch.
“If I’d known you wanted to join the party,” Ratigan chuckles. “I’d have sent you an invitation, precious.”
Basil jerks free from his grasp and turns to face him. Ratigan bursts into outright laughter at the sight of him, and before the detective can react, the villain reaches out and yanks off his ridiculous false beard. He shakes it at him the way a master would shake a mauled slipper at an errant dog.
“Shame on you, Basil!” he scolds. “Coming into my home in such ludicrous attire!”
“It did the trick, didn’t it?” Basil smirks. “Here I am.”
“Here you are and here you’ll stay, I’m afraid,” Ratigan tosses the beard over his shoulder so he has both hands free to rub together sinisterly. “Poor little lamb. It looks like you’ve gone and wandered into the lion’s den.”
The henchmen have now gathered around them, and at their boss’s ominous remark, they answer with an appropriately menacing rumble of agreement. Slowly, gracefully, Ratigan begins to advance on Basil, and as he predicted, Basil mirrors his advance by creeping backwards, maintaining the distance between them.
“The police have been looking for your hideout for months,” the detective persists. “And now I’ve found it.”
“True, and if you make it out of here, I suppose we’ll have to move again,” the villain agrees, then clarifies, “Of course, I did say if...”
Ratigan alters the angle of his approach several degrees to the left, and naturally Basil alters the angle of his retreat several degrees to the right. It’s really remarkable how perfectly the detective is able to maintain the balance of the distance, as if they’re two sportsmen in a fencing match. He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s being guided, that Ratigan is steering him back towards a particular corner, and the villain carefully keeps his eyes set level and not looking over his shoulder in anticipation. If Basil looks directly behind him then he’ll see exactly what he’s being pushed towards, so Ratigan holds his eyes like a snake charmer.
“Your disguise really is atrocious,” he sneers. “I don’t know who you thought you were going to fool.”
“I fooled your sentries,” Basil gloats.
“They’re idiots, Basil, they don’t count.”
This particular lair is lit by one massive chandelier overhead, and the flickering candles leave the outer perimeter of the chamber cloaked in shadow. Pushed back into one especially dark corner is the thing that guards the lair when no one is at home. When everyone is out on heists and hold-ups, they leave a little something in front of the door, a warning to any would-be trespassers. Upon returning, they shove it into the corner, and everyone knows to give it a wide berth. Everyone, that is, except Basil, who is moments away from blundering right into it. Ratigan can hear an anticipatory hum from the crowd around them, and he can only pray that it doesn’t give the game away.
“What now, my dear?” he wonders, still holding the detective’s eyes with his own. “What was your ingenious plan for escape?”
“Actually, now that you mention it,” Basil admits with an almost sheepish shrug. “I didn’t really have one.”
The confession is so careless, so shockingly cavalier, that Ratigan almost backhands Basil across the face for his impudence. Just at that moment, the detective’s heel catches against the base, and he sprawls backwards into the mousetrap. As he reaches back to cushion his fall, his hand lands square on the trip, and with a terrible creak the bar snaps loose and rolls over like an arc of lightning. It’s a sound that is known to freeze those who hear it in sheer panic, but Basil keeps his wits and his reflexes about him, and just as quickly as he fell he is bolting back to his feet. The whole thing barely takes a second, and then the bar slams home.
In a compulsive terror that cannot be explained by anything but instinct, almost everyone in the room looks away at the moment of impact. Some of them have only heard stories, but many of them have seen friends and family get their necks snapped in these death traps. The crack of the bar hitting the base rings in the still air like a gunshot. Finally, they turn uneasy eyes around to see what has become of Basil of Baker Street.
Murmurs of wonder ripple through the crowd--- he’s standing just in front of the trap, intact and alive. The murmurs fall to silence when they realize that he wasn’t quite fast enough--- his tail is pinned under the bar, snapped inside like a wishbone. Basil’s face drains of color and his knees shake, his breath juddering out of him in sharp, stilted gasps. He chances a look over his shoulder, winces, and turns his eyes straight ahead, as if he can resist the oncoming flood of pain through sheer willpower.
Ratigan stares at the damage he has done. When the trap slammed shut it broke the skin along with the bones beneath, and blood is already starting to seep up around the bar, hot red against the cold steel. Basil’s blood--- and Ratigan can already feel his heart rate accelerating. He studies Basil’s face, which is trembling with the effort to appear calm, his throat constricted against the urge to scream. Overall, he just looks so surprised--- and this is what fills his nemesis with loathing. There was a time when Basil was impossible to catch off guard. Now he’s blundered into the most amateur of traps, and all he can do is stand there gaping.
Ratigan is outraged. He’s insulted. Basil needs to be punished, immediately. He needs to be humiliated and then put to death, to spare Ratigan the painful reminder that he used to think he had finally found a worthy opponent.
Fueled by his anger along with his disappointment, Ratigan looms over his quarry and snarls, “As I was saying, your disguise is ridiculous.”
And he sets to work stripping it from him, piece by piece. He starts with the ragged scarf and greasy cap. Then, roughly, he tears open his jacket, not even wasting any time undoing the buttons, yanking it down his arms and tossing it aside in disgust. Basil makes a few weak efforts to bat him away, but any vigorous movement puts a strain on his trapped appendage, and the surges of pain swallow up any attempts to defend himself.
“You’ve embarrassed me, Basil,” the villain growls in his captive’s ear, low enough that only the detective can hear him. “And now I’m going to embarrass you.”
“I don’t--- I don’t care---” Basil pants, his voice shaking. “Just get me out of this, please---”
“No!” Ratigan steps back and announces, now for all to hear. “No, I don’t think I will let you out, not yet. First you need to be taught a lesson about invading someone’s privacy. This is my home, Basil, and you have entered without an invitation.”
Ratigan removes his gloves and tucks them neatly into the breast pocket of his coat. He unsheathes his claws and immediately has to take a moment to regain his nerves--- the sudden, savage urge to tear Basil’s throat out is almost too strong to resist. Instead, he settles for two quick swipes down the detective’s front, one for the waistcoat and the other for the shirt, both falling open as buttons go flying. Ratigan retracts his claws before he succumbs to the desire to do any more damage than that.
Wait, wait, he counsels the beast within. Remember, there are some things far crueler than bloodshed.
As he delicately undoes the fly of Basil’s trousers, he can hear uncomfortable mumbling coming from the ranks of his subordinates. Their eager smiles are fading into looks of uncertainty as they gradually realize they’re not going to get the feast of violence they anticipated. Not only that, but things are getting decidedly intimate, and while their tolerance for mayhem is the highest in the city, their tolerance for other intrusions is not quite so strong.
Let them complain, Ratigan shrugs to himself, as he yanks Basil’s trousers down to his knees. The move brings him close enough for Basil to reach his shoulder, and the detective grabs a fistful of his jacket and pulls hard.
“You bloody maniac!” he hisses. “I can’t believe that you could even---”
“You were the first to break boundaries tonight, Basil,” Ratigan reminds him coldly. “And the fact that you did so without any further plans is, quite frankly, insulting. You’ve wounded me, Basil, quite deeply, and I’m going to repay you in kind. Now,” he holds an open hand before the detective’s mouth. “Spit.”
Basil recoils, horrified. “I will not!”
“I said spit, Basil,” Ratigan says in a threatening tone.
“You’re out of your mind!”
One warning was more than enough, and without further ado, Ratigan slams his foot down on the bar of the trap. Bones grind together and Basil finally, magnificently, screams, his hands striking wildly in Ratigan’s direction. Ratigan doesn’t keep the pressure on for too long, and when he steps back, the screams dwindle into sobs, which fade into pathetic silence as Basil takes hold of Ratigan’s wrist and spits into the palm of his hand.
“Again,” Ratigan commands, just because he can, and he feels no joy when Basil resignedly obeys.
As he reaches between the detective’s legs and begins to stroke him, he’s aware of most of his henchmen turning away in disgust. It doesn’t take very long to get Basil hard, and then Ratigan can start working him in earnest, pumping his erection with rough, swift strokes. The spit doesn’t last long but soon there’s enough pre-cum to use for lubrication. Out of the corner of his eye, Ratigan can see Fidget watching with huge eyes.
At least someone is enjoying this. Ratigan certainly isn’t. He feels something close to heartbreak, as his beloved nemesis shakes and shivers in his grasp, a broken echo of the formidable enemy he used to be. Basil grabs onto Ratigan’s forearm, as if to stop him--- but even then he’s so weak that Ratigan is easily able to keep pumping despite his resistance.
He does take a certain amount of satisfaction from the way Basil’s face twists, his expression changing from pain to pleasure and back again. It really couldn’t be a more perfect scenario for torture--- it’s as if the detective has been split vertically, one side forced into hedonism, the other wrenched repeatedly by agony. If only Ratigan could have a look inside his poor little brain, the synapses exploding and misfiring, popping like Chinese firecrackers on an Imperial holiday. Perhaps that sight would bring him some cheer.
Basil’s grip on his arm unexpectedly tightens. It feels for a moment as if he’s almost urging him to go faster, but at the same moment he winces and whimpers, “please, stop,” and Ratigan realizes he must simply be speeding up out of his own frustration. He is frustrated, can’t remember the last time he was so frustrated, and he really just wants to give Basil a good shaking and a slap and see if that brings him back to his old self again.
“Ratigan,” Basil gasps, his nails digging into the rat’s fur.
Ratigan can simultaneously see and feel the tension building in his captive’s body. They’re getting close to the end, and then it will all be over for good. Ratigan is already scanning his catalogue of weapons, trying to choose a fitting death for his one-time nemesis, toying with beheading but leaning towards hanging. Hanging is so much more undignified. It’s all this traitor deserves. Rage starts to seep into the corners of his vision, staining it red, his heart aching with loss.
And to think, he had almost considered him worthy of his attention.
He grabs Basil’s chin with his free hand, forcing him to look up and meet his gaze.
“Look me in the eyes, Basil,” he rasps. “I want to see it in your eyes.”
And so they stare into each other, Ratigan’s teeth bared in anger, Basil’s mouth opening and closing in soundless, breathless cries. There, the grip on his arm pushes unmistakably faster, and as if answering a challenge, Ratigan draws the last few strokes in quick, violent succession. Basil’s eyes flutter and roll, his whole body jerks upwards, and with a strangled moan he comes in his captor’s hand. Ratigan doesn’t even think to step back and he can feel it on his thigh, the fine material of his trousers sinking with a sudden warmth and wetness.
Silence, except for their heavy breathing, alike in both depth and intensity. Then Ratigan drops Basil in all regards, stepping back in disgust. Basil sways forward but the increased pressure on his tail causes him to lean sharply backwards with a yelp. They stand and regard each other.
“Pull up your trousers,” Ratigan sneers, and turns away from him.
He stalks back to his throne and sits, feeling strangely dizzy. Basil gets his trousers up and fastened properly, then gives Ratigan a pathetic, pleading look.
“And someone get him out of that confounded trap,” the villain makes a dismissive gesture.
It takes four strong henchmen to pry up the bar, and it peels away from the indentation it carved into Basil’s tail with a horrible wet sound that is covered up by the sound of the detective’s muffled groan of pain. Two other thugs take him by the arms and drag him over before Ratigan’s throne, and when they release him he drops to his knees, silent.
“You know, Basil, I’m disappointed in you,” Ratigan sighs, massaging his temples. “I had hoped you would provide me with entertainment for years to come.”
“That’s funny,” Basil wheezes. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”
Suddenly, he lifts his head, and the change in his eyes is so great that Ratigan’s mouth literally falls open in shock. Basil has a positively triumphant smile on his face, his bright green eyes flashing like a tiger’s, as he reaches into his boot with lightning speed and produces a knife. He jumps up to his feet, and before anyone has the time to react, he sends the blade slicing through the air with a flick of his wrist.
His aim is flawless, and the knife effortlessly bites through the rope holding up the massive chandelier. As the wheel of fire comes plunging down from on high, Ratigan manages to catch the eye of his enemy.
Basil winks.
- - -
In the ensuing chaos and darkness, it would be hardly any trouble at all to slip the bolt on the front door and make an escape. By the time an alternative source of light is found, their captive is long gone, and the henchmen drift about the lair in various states of disbelief.
“I just don’t understand it!” one of them exclaims as he fumbles to light a match. “He had the knife in his boot the whole bloody time! Why didn’t he use it?”
The wandering lanterns cast shadows that flicker and dance along the walls, as light lands here and then there, alternately throwing corners into sharp relief and then leaving them unknown. They eventually converge like fireflies, meeting at the base of the dais, everyone looking expectantly up at their fearless leader for further instructions.
Ratigan sits with a decidedly uncharacteristic slump, tilted all to one side, his chin in his hand. His eyes have a strange distance to them, unfocused and glassy, as if he’s dazed, or stranger still, dazzled.
He’s got the biggest smile on his face, and not a single one of them can understand why.
__________end.
Author: colonel_bastard
Characters/Fandom: Basil, Ratigan. The Great Mouse Detective.
Word Count: 2,975
Rating: NC-17
Summary: When a trap snaps shut, Ratigan gets flustered.
Warnings: Violence, sexual assault, general desecration of beloved Disney characters.
Notes: Fourth in the Basil/Ratigan series, and if you haven't read the others then you might be a bit confused! This prompter at disney_kink had a very interesting checklist. 1) Basil attempts to gain the upper hand, 2) a trap snaps shut, 3) "your disguise sucks" (or some paraphrased equivalent), and 4) I quote, "please let Basil come in all is humiliated and embarrassed glory this time." Anon, your wish is my command. I had a lot of fun breaking the rules for this one. :D
The only thing that gives Basil away is the unmistakable way he carries himself. His disguise is flawless, a perfect recreation of the shabby ensembles employed by so many of Ratigan’s nameless, faceless henchmen. They file back into the hideout one by one, each thug no different from the last, until one towards the end of the line. Ratigan’s eyes are drawn immediately to this newcomer--- he has to be new, there’s no way Ratigan wouldn’t have noticed his posture before, his ramrod-straight back and his proudly-squared shoulders that contradict his dreary attire and miserable occupation. Ratigan is instantly bewitched, and that, of course, is his first clue that something is very wrong.
He comes down from his throne gingerly, descending the dais one step at a time. The henchmen mill about, pouring drinks, laughing about the various minor crimes they’ve just returned from committing. They part automatically as their master approaches, like the Red Sea withdrawing from Moses. That’s Ratigan’s second clue. All eyes in the room are trained on him, awaiting a signal for how to respond, all faces turned towards him--- all faces except for one. At the sound of his approach, this particular henchman stands a little bit straighter, turns his head just slightly over his shoulder--- and Ratigan catches a glimpse of bottle-green eyes.
Immediately, the villain looks over to the door. He nods at the henchmen standing nearest to it and they swing it shut. Once the bolt slides into place, Ratigan finally closes the distance between himself and the trespasser, and as he lays a hand on his shoulder, he thrills at the distinctly Basil-esque way that shoulder shrinks away from his touch.
“If I’d known you wanted to join the party,” Ratigan chuckles. “I’d have sent you an invitation, precious.”
Basil jerks free from his grasp and turns to face him. Ratigan bursts into outright laughter at the sight of him, and before the detective can react, the villain reaches out and yanks off his ridiculous false beard. He shakes it at him the way a master would shake a mauled slipper at an errant dog.
“Shame on you, Basil!” he scolds. “Coming into my home in such ludicrous attire!”
“It did the trick, didn’t it?” Basil smirks. “Here I am.”
“Here you are and here you’ll stay, I’m afraid,” Ratigan tosses the beard over his shoulder so he has both hands free to rub together sinisterly. “Poor little lamb. It looks like you’ve gone and wandered into the lion’s den.”
The henchmen have now gathered around them, and at their boss’s ominous remark, they answer with an appropriately menacing rumble of agreement. Slowly, gracefully, Ratigan begins to advance on Basil, and as he predicted, Basil mirrors his advance by creeping backwards, maintaining the distance between them.
“The police have been looking for your hideout for months,” the detective persists. “And now I’ve found it.”
“True, and if you make it out of here, I suppose we’ll have to move again,” the villain agrees, then clarifies, “Of course, I did say if...”
Ratigan alters the angle of his approach several degrees to the left, and naturally Basil alters the angle of his retreat several degrees to the right. It’s really remarkable how perfectly the detective is able to maintain the balance of the distance, as if they’re two sportsmen in a fencing match. He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s being guided, that Ratigan is steering him back towards a particular corner, and the villain carefully keeps his eyes set level and not looking over his shoulder in anticipation. If Basil looks directly behind him then he’ll see exactly what he’s being pushed towards, so Ratigan holds his eyes like a snake charmer.
“Your disguise really is atrocious,” he sneers. “I don’t know who you thought you were going to fool.”
“I fooled your sentries,” Basil gloats.
“They’re idiots, Basil, they don’t count.”
This particular lair is lit by one massive chandelier overhead, and the flickering candles leave the outer perimeter of the chamber cloaked in shadow. Pushed back into one especially dark corner is the thing that guards the lair when no one is at home. When everyone is out on heists and hold-ups, they leave a little something in front of the door, a warning to any would-be trespassers. Upon returning, they shove it into the corner, and everyone knows to give it a wide berth. Everyone, that is, except Basil, who is moments away from blundering right into it. Ratigan can hear an anticipatory hum from the crowd around them, and he can only pray that it doesn’t give the game away.
“What now, my dear?” he wonders, still holding the detective’s eyes with his own. “What was your ingenious plan for escape?”
“Actually, now that you mention it,” Basil admits with an almost sheepish shrug. “I didn’t really have one.”
The confession is so careless, so shockingly cavalier, that Ratigan almost backhands Basil across the face for his impudence. Just at that moment, the detective’s heel catches against the base, and he sprawls backwards into the mousetrap. As he reaches back to cushion his fall, his hand lands square on the trip, and with a terrible creak the bar snaps loose and rolls over like an arc of lightning. It’s a sound that is known to freeze those who hear it in sheer panic, but Basil keeps his wits and his reflexes about him, and just as quickly as he fell he is bolting back to his feet. The whole thing barely takes a second, and then the bar slams home.
In a compulsive terror that cannot be explained by anything but instinct, almost everyone in the room looks away at the moment of impact. Some of them have only heard stories, but many of them have seen friends and family get their necks snapped in these death traps. The crack of the bar hitting the base rings in the still air like a gunshot. Finally, they turn uneasy eyes around to see what has become of Basil of Baker Street.
Murmurs of wonder ripple through the crowd--- he’s standing just in front of the trap, intact and alive. The murmurs fall to silence when they realize that he wasn’t quite fast enough--- his tail is pinned under the bar, snapped inside like a wishbone. Basil’s face drains of color and his knees shake, his breath juddering out of him in sharp, stilted gasps. He chances a look over his shoulder, winces, and turns his eyes straight ahead, as if he can resist the oncoming flood of pain through sheer willpower.
Ratigan stares at the damage he has done. When the trap slammed shut it broke the skin along with the bones beneath, and blood is already starting to seep up around the bar, hot red against the cold steel. Basil’s blood--- and Ratigan can already feel his heart rate accelerating. He studies Basil’s face, which is trembling with the effort to appear calm, his throat constricted against the urge to scream. Overall, he just looks so surprised--- and this is what fills his nemesis with loathing. There was a time when Basil was impossible to catch off guard. Now he’s blundered into the most amateur of traps, and all he can do is stand there gaping.
Ratigan is outraged. He’s insulted. Basil needs to be punished, immediately. He needs to be humiliated and then put to death, to spare Ratigan the painful reminder that he used to think he had finally found a worthy opponent.
Fueled by his anger along with his disappointment, Ratigan looms over his quarry and snarls, “As I was saying, your disguise is ridiculous.”
And he sets to work stripping it from him, piece by piece. He starts with the ragged scarf and greasy cap. Then, roughly, he tears open his jacket, not even wasting any time undoing the buttons, yanking it down his arms and tossing it aside in disgust. Basil makes a few weak efforts to bat him away, but any vigorous movement puts a strain on his trapped appendage, and the surges of pain swallow up any attempts to defend himself.
“You’ve embarrassed me, Basil,” the villain growls in his captive’s ear, low enough that only the detective can hear him. “And now I’m going to embarrass you.”
“I don’t--- I don’t care---” Basil pants, his voice shaking. “Just get me out of this, please---”
“No!” Ratigan steps back and announces, now for all to hear. “No, I don’t think I will let you out, not yet. First you need to be taught a lesson about invading someone’s privacy. This is my home, Basil, and you have entered without an invitation.”
Ratigan removes his gloves and tucks them neatly into the breast pocket of his coat. He unsheathes his claws and immediately has to take a moment to regain his nerves--- the sudden, savage urge to tear Basil’s throat out is almost too strong to resist. Instead, he settles for two quick swipes down the detective’s front, one for the waistcoat and the other for the shirt, both falling open as buttons go flying. Ratigan retracts his claws before he succumbs to the desire to do any more damage than that.
Wait, wait, he counsels the beast within. Remember, there are some things far crueler than bloodshed.
As he delicately undoes the fly of Basil’s trousers, he can hear uncomfortable mumbling coming from the ranks of his subordinates. Their eager smiles are fading into looks of uncertainty as they gradually realize they’re not going to get the feast of violence they anticipated. Not only that, but things are getting decidedly intimate, and while their tolerance for mayhem is the highest in the city, their tolerance for other intrusions is not quite so strong.
Let them complain, Ratigan shrugs to himself, as he yanks Basil’s trousers down to his knees. The move brings him close enough for Basil to reach his shoulder, and the detective grabs a fistful of his jacket and pulls hard.
“You bloody maniac!” he hisses. “I can’t believe that you could even---”
“You were the first to break boundaries tonight, Basil,” Ratigan reminds him coldly. “And the fact that you did so without any further plans is, quite frankly, insulting. You’ve wounded me, Basil, quite deeply, and I’m going to repay you in kind. Now,” he holds an open hand before the detective’s mouth. “Spit.”
Basil recoils, horrified. “I will not!”
“I said spit, Basil,” Ratigan says in a threatening tone.
“You’re out of your mind!”
One warning was more than enough, and without further ado, Ratigan slams his foot down on the bar of the trap. Bones grind together and Basil finally, magnificently, screams, his hands striking wildly in Ratigan’s direction. Ratigan doesn’t keep the pressure on for too long, and when he steps back, the screams dwindle into sobs, which fade into pathetic silence as Basil takes hold of Ratigan’s wrist and spits into the palm of his hand.
“Again,” Ratigan commands, just because he can, and he feels no joy when Basil resignedly obeys.
As he reaches between the detective’s legs and begins to stroke him, he’s aware of most of his henchmen turning away in disgust. It doesn’t take very long to get Basil hard, and then Ratigan can start working him in earnest, pumping his erection with rough, swift strokes. The spit doesn’t last long but soon there’s enough pre-cum to use for lubrication. Out of the corner of his eye, Ratigan can see Fidget watching with huge eyes.
At least someone is enjoying this. Ratigan certainly isn’t. He feels something close to heartbreak, as his beloved nemesis shakes and shivers in his grasp, a broken echo of the formidable enemy he used to be. Basil grabs onto Ratigan’s forearm, as if to stop him--- but even then he’s so weak that Ratigan is easily able to keep pumping despite his resistance.
He does take a certain amount of satisfaction from the way Basil’s face twists, his expression changing from pain to pleasure and back again. It really couldn’t be a more perfect scenario for torture--- it’s as if the detective has been split vertically, one side forced into hedonism, the other wrenched repeatedly by agony. If only Ratigan could have a look inside his poor little brain, the synapses exploding and misfiring, popping like Chinese firecrackers on an Imperial holiday. Perhaps that sight would bring him some cheer.
Basil’s grip on his arm unexpectedly tightens. It feels for a moment as if he’s almost urging him to go faster, but at the same moment he winces and whimpers, “please, stop,” and Ratigan realizes he must simply be speeding up out of his own frustration. He is frustrated, can’t remember the last time he was so frustrated, and he really just wants to give Basil a good shaking and a slap and see if that brings him back to his old self again.
“Ratigan,” Basil gasps, his nails digging into the rat’s fur.
Ratigan can simultaneously see and feel the tension building in his captive’s body. They’re getting close to the end, and then it will all be over for good. Ratigan is already scanning his catalogue of weapons, trying to choose a fitting death for his one-time nemesis, toying with beheading but leaning towards hanging. Hanging is so much more undignified. It’s all this traitor deserves. Rage starts to seep into the corners of his vision, staining it red, his heart aching with loss.
And to think, he had almost considered him worthy of his attention.
He grabs Basil’s chin with his free hand, forcing him to look up and meet his gaze.
“Look me in the eyes, Basil,” he rasps. “I want to see it in your eyes.”
And so they stare into each other, Ratigan’s teeth bared in anger, Basil’s mouth opening and closing in soundless, breathless cries. There, the grip on his arm pushes unmistakably faster, and as if answering a challenge, Ratigan draws the last few strokes in quick, violent succession. Basil’s eyes flutter and roll, his whole body jerks upwards, and with a strangled moan he comes in his captor’s hand. Ratigan doesn’t even think to step back and he can feel it on his thigh, the fine material of his trousers sinking with a sudden warmth and wetness.
Silence, except for their heavy breathing, alike in both depth and intensity. Then Ratigan drops Basil in all regards, stepping back in disgust. Basil sways forward but the increased pressure on his tail causes him to lean sharply backwards with a yelp. They stand and regard each other.
“Pull up your trousers,” Ratigan sneers, and turns away from him.
He stalks back to his throne and sits, feeling strangely dizzy. Basil gets his trousers up and fastened properly, then gives Ratigan a pathetic, pleading look.
“And someone get him out of that confounded trap,” the villain makes a dismissive gesture.
It takes four strong henchmen to pry up the bar, and it peels away from the indentation it carved into Basil’s tail with a horrible wet sound that is covered up by the sound of the detective’s muffled groan of pain. Two other thugs take him by the arms and drag him over before Ratigan’s throne, and when they release him he drops to his knees, silent.
“You know, Basil, I’m disappointed in you,” Ratigan sighs, massaging his temples. “I had hoped you would provide me with entertainment for years to come.”
“That’s funny,” Basil wheezes. “I was going to say the same thing about you.”
Suddenly, he lifts his head, and the change in his eyes is so great that Ratigan’s mouth literally falls open in shock. Basil has a positively triumphant smile on his face, his bright green eyes flashing like a tiger’s, as he reaches into his boot with lightning speed and produces a knife. He jumps up to his feet, and before anyone has the time to react, he sends the blade slicing through the air with a flick of his wrist.
His aim is flawless, and the knife effortlessly bites through the rope holding up the massive chandelier. As the wheel of fire comes plunging down from on high, Ratigan manages to catch the eye of his enemy.
Basil winks.
- - -
In the ensuing chaos and darkness, it would be hardly any trouble at all to slip the bolt on the front door and make an escape. By the time an alternative source of light is found, their captive is long gone, and the henchmen drift about the lair in various states of disbelief.
“I just don’t understand it!” one of them exclaims as he fumbles to light a match. “He had the knife in his boot the whole bloody time! Why didn’t he use it?”
The wandering lanterns cast shadows that flicker and dance along the walls, as light lands here and then there, alternately throwing corners into sharp relief and then leaving them unknown. They eventually converge like fireflies, meeting at the base of the dais, everyone looking expectantly up at their fearless leader for further instructions.
Ratigan sits with a decidedly uncharacteristic slump, tilted all to one side, his chin in his hand. His eyes have a strange distance to them, unfocused and glassy, as if he’s dazed, or stranger still, dazzled.
He’s got the biggest smile on his face, and not a single one of them can understand why.
__________end.