Fic - "Smoke and Mirrors"
Title: Smoke and Mirrors
Author: colonel_bastard
Characters/Fandom: Basil, Ratigan. The Great Mouse Detective.
Word Count: 4,450
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ratigan reconsiders an old opinion and forms a new habit, one that will be quite difficult to break.
Warnings: SO MUCH SMOKING, sexual situations, general desecration of beloved Disney characters.
Notes: Eighth in the Basil/Ratigan series. This one is a bit different from the others, stylistically, with more jumping in time--- I hope it can be followed! We had a lot of ground to cover, and when you add in my own fetish for smoking, the pages just kept coming, haha. Prompter at disney_kink wanted Ratigan smoking, and, well, you're gonna see plenty of that. Anyone interested in my inspiration-links should check out La cloche a sonne, the song of the cigarette girls from Bizet's Carmen, an ode to the seductive power of smoking. That's the classy link. The more accurate and awesome link is for Hawksley Workman's incredibly appropriate song, Jealous of Your Cigarette, which, if you give it a listen, couldn't be more perfect for this fic. Remember, kids, smoking is bad for you--- but it's really, really sexy.
The smell is unmistakable, sunk deep into the tattered material of the detective’s jacket, breaking sharp and bitter over Ratigan’s senses as the two opponents meet for a split-second in a boxer’s clench. It’s tobacco smoke, and the scent is so intense that Ratigan can only assume it’s the result of a long-standing love affair with cigarettes. Snorting in revulsion, he throws the would-be vigilante off of him and into the nearest wall, where his skull connects with a satisfying crack.
And to think, only moments ago the little whelp had dropped into the center of Ratigan’s escape route, having outwitted and gotten ahead of him in the midst of a heist. As he had straightened and given the villain a demented grin of triumph, Ratigan found himself admiring him for that one flawless moment of victory, for the mere fact that he had been clever enough to beat the rat at his own game, if only just once.
“Hello, Ratigan,” the detective panted, breathing hard from his desperate race to get there first. “My name is Basil.”
“Good evening, Basil,” the rat returned, having already decided that he would be a gentleman in all regards, in the fields of both work and pleasure.
“Remember that name,” was the endearingly earnest warning. “It will be your downfall.”
“Consider it memorized,” Ratigan promised.
He had rather hoped that would be the end of it, but Basil proved faster than anticipated and managed to duck under the three wild shots that Ratigan fired before the detective slammed into him, shoulder first. It wasn’t enough to knock the huge rat to the ground but it was enough to knock the gun from his hand. For an instant they were locked together, and in one quick inhale through the nose, the rat tasted the chief vice of his enemy.
The acrid smell of tobacco lingers in Ratigan’s nostrils like an aftershock. He glares down at the crumpled heap of detective --- Basil--- and, since no one is near to witness his poor sportsmanship, he spits on his enemy’s fallen form and struts away cackling.
- - -
But the smell stays with him, as does the detective, and this leads to a significant reevaluation. He has long considered smoking to be an ugly habit, a thing for the lower classes, and in his determination to be anything else he avoided it all costs. He had come to consider it almost a handicap, seeing little difference between a cigarette and a crutch. However, as he quickly learns, Basil is no cripple. He’s a sprinter, a brawler, and he might even be a genius--- although that remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure: he has an irritating knack for showing up when Ratigan is in the midst of villainy. In the early days of his criminal career, the rat has grown quite accustomed to being two steps ahead of everyone else, and it’s an uncomfortable feeling to suddenly have someone breathing down his neck at every turn.
And to think that Basil does it all while reeking of tobacco--- it’s enough to make one seriously reexamine any previous opinions of the habit. Ratigan can no longer consider it the crutch of fools if it’s enjoyed by one as fierce and cunning as this detective is proving himself to be. He finds his mind increasingly occupied by thoughts of Basil, devising new ways to outwit him, planning new escape routes that he won’t be able to find, and, strangely, wondering what drew him to cigarettes in the first place. He spends so much time thinking about it that the habit and the detective become eventually, irrevocably linked in his sense memory.
Ratigan knows he’s in trouble when he catches a whiff of smoke and turns too fast, eyebrows and ears raised in anticipation, only to see one of his criminal cohorts with the stump of a cigar glowing in his ugly mouth. Ruffled and vaguely disappointed, the rat decides to take a long stroll, one that leads him (as his strolls have begun to lead him lately) to Baker Street, where he prowls the long corner, biding his time.
The landlady at 221 seems to share Ratigan’s former opinion of the act--- Basil is forced to indulge himself in the front courtyard. He emerges into the crisp night, a cigarette already hanging from his lip while he fishes in his trouser pockets for his matchbox. At a safe distance and consumed by shadow, Ratigan observes.
Basil has a certain way with a cigarette. His long, agile fingers cause it and the match to dance towards each other, meeting in a flare of light as the flame connects with the target and Basil pulls hard, coaxing the cherry into red, resplendent life. The match sails away with an effortless flick, smoke streaking the air in a thread-thin trail until it hits the wet pavement. Basil props himself back against the heavy doorframe, one hand shoved into his pocket, his eyes closed as if in deep thought. He takes sporadic drags, and every release is different. First he forces the smoke from his mouth in fierce jets. Then he allows it to escape in lazy, curling clouds. Finally, entrancingly, he attempts to form smoke rings, his lips pursed seductively, his cheeks filling and sinking, his whole body tense and alert with concentration. Although he has yet to successfully form a smoke ring, Ratigan doesn’t give a damn. It’s the effort, the determination, the shape of his mouth and the sweet, sensual tilt of his head--- it’s bewitching, and the fact that this is unintentional only adds to its power, leaving Ratigan breathless and retreating as fast as he can.
He has realized that Basil’s mouth must taste like tobacco.
- - -
Ratigan’s first drag on a cigarette is uneventful, but the second lungful leaves him coughing and thankful he’s alone. He acclimates to the smoke in time, treasuring the inimitable flavor, the sensation of heat filling his mouth and throat, the way his hands look elegant and a little bit dangerous with a lit cigarette caught between two fingertips. He imitates Basil, his posture, his jets and clouds. He is determined, of course, to master the smoke ring before his enemy. He wants to spring it on him, to show him up once again, just because he can. He spends his budding stolen fortune on the best cigarettes money can buy, but with a vague sense of uneasiness, he senses the absence of his own satisfaction.
He returns to Baker Street, to the shadows, to the sight of Basil now sitting on the red brick that frames the courtyard, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal handsome, slender forearms. There--- it’s the shape of his mouth, the artistic grace of hands, the anxiousness of his raised shoulders slumping into relief, shedding a little more stress every time he taps away the ash. Some turn to drink and others to something stronger, but Basil seems to find release here, and his eyes go soft and heavy-lidded like a pilgrim in an opium den.
Ratigan seeks serenity in his own den, in the taste of lush Turkish tobacco, his cigarettes nestled in holders of ebony and gold. The smoke hangs overhead, ghostlike, as he waits for luxury to fill the void in his aching chest.
- - -
Weeks turn into months and they both grow in prominence, the one in fame and the other in infamy. One name becomes a source of comfort and reassurance while the other comes to be splashed across alarming headlines and murmured in fearful tones. Ratigan can’t help but notice that Basil dresses a little nicer these days, his tattered jacket traded for a handsome hunter’s coat, his shoes no longer scraped down to the sole. Ratigan himself has traded up in all regards, in his finery and his flat, exchanging the one for velvet and the other for something that could be affectionately referred to as a lair. They chase each other up the ladder to glory, Basil grabbing for Ratigan’s ankles and Ratigan grabbing for the stars.
With public respectability comes leniency from the landlady, and to Ratigan’s immense frustration, Basil is granted permission to smoke indoors. His own cigarettes take on a foul aftertaste and Ratigan, as he has his whole life, goes looking for something better. He is of the firm belief that everything can be improved upon somehow. Smoking should be no different.
He finds joy in the exotic luxury of a hookah, the purple glass belly brimming with icy water, the long lavender hose snaking from a cradle of sticky sweet tobacco, the ivory mouthpiece that fits perfectly to his lips. He admires the fine little coals and stunning variety of tastes. The vapors are infused with the flavor of anything he desires, hints of strawberry and mango, whispers of a distant tropical paradise that grows sharper in his mind’s eye as his bedroom fills with scented smoke. He thinks of Carroll’s Caterpillar and takes to reclining on fine silk cushions, the hookah perched on its own mahogany table nearby, accompanied by items of increasing value as his fortune grows--- a golden image of a hawk stretching its wing, a silver goblet studded with emeralds, a dish of gemstones displayed as carelessly as a dish of hard candies.
- - -
Their next meeting is through bars, as Basil is a moment too late to prevent the slamming of the gate behind the thieves as they make their escape. Breathless with rage, Basil tears at the iron bars like a mad thing while Ratigan lingers just out of reach, smiling like the Caterpillar’s feline friend.
“So lovely to see you again, Basil,” he says truthfully.
“You may have won this time, Ratigan,” the detective snarls, resigning himself to his loss. “But you can’t run forever.”
“Perhaps not,” the rat concedes. “But you will admit that it’s a merry chase, is it not?”
Basil smacks the heel of his hand, hard, against the gate that separates them. He doesn’t bother trying to pick the lock, so Ratigan assumes he must have seen him snapping the key inside it once they were through. Although one day Basil will have enough sway to bring the police on his heels on many cases, he’s still considered a vigilante, and he came to this battle alone. There will be no reinforcements. Safe behind the gate, Ratigan has time to spare. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a gold cigarette case.
“I used to think that smoking was an ugly habit,” he remarks idly.
He notices the way Basil’s eyes start open in recognition and resentment, but he doesn’t yet realize why the words affect him so keenly. Instead, he busies himself with lighting his cigarette, the bright flame of the match casting them both in a flash of stark shadows, their eyes gleaming with its mirrored image.
“The practice itself is not to blame,” Basil growls. “It’s merely a reflection of the practitioner.”
Ratigan becomes quite still, his teeth coming down hard on the cigarette like an epileptic clamping down on a seizure stick. They glare at each other, Basil still trembling with anger and Ratigan now fighting against a rising wave of alarm. It’s the first time he has realized that it was never the cigarettes that mesmerized him. It’s not the smoke, the flame, the taste of tobacco--- these will never satisfy his hunger. They were only a reflection of his desire. It’s Basil, confound it, it’s always been Basil, and until this moment Ratigan had been foolish enough to believe that it was anything else. It’s the shape of his mouth, the curve of his neck, the attention and affection he lavishes on every cigarette as if each were a lover for just one night.
Furious with himself, Ratigan nonetheless manages to maintain his composure long enough to take a deep drag of smoke, purse his lips, and blow a perfect ring right at Basil. It floats towards him, framing his outraged face, before it hits the bars of the gate and breaks into a hundred pieces.
- - -
It must not go beyond this. It must not grow beyond his dreams, beyond the desperate, heated fantasies that now plague his nights. He is consumed by visions of Basil’s mouth, his lips wrapped around the cigarette, his cheeks hollowing as he sucks, as his tongue flicks lazily at the tip of it, his eyes half-lidded in pleasure. The hookah is thrown to the floor and shattered in a rage. His claws spring free from hiding as he tears into the feather pillows and silken sheets of his bedroom. In private, he succumbs to the beast he holds back in every public hour, and for a few blinding moments, he knows nothing but blood and fire. When the fever breaks and he comes to his senses, he dresses, grooms himself, and emerges replenished under a vow of silence.
He stops going to Baker Street. He wants to stop smoking, but the nicotine has already wrapped his nerves in its familiar cocoon, and he quickly grows irritable and snappish without it. Unable to escape it he must embrace it, and he makes the cigarette in its golden holder a part of his daily finery. He crosses paths with the detective, of course, but he keeps every meeting as brief and businesslike as possible.
However, as time passes and his initial frenzy fades, he finds that the feeling that remains is an enjoyable if undefinable one, and he allows Basil to come a little bit closer every time.
- - -
Months turn into years and they know each other too well, the uneasy line between love and hate straining with the effort to contain such passion. It becomes a game, undeniably, and although once or twice the opportunity presents itself, Ratigan is enjoying himself too much to put a stop to it. He trusts himself to keep things under control, to harness his brutality as he always has, to mask his lust with polite smiles and pithy remarks. Basil, oblivious, teases and torments him, calling him rat and fiend, unaware of the truly savage urges buttoned under that silk jacket and white gloves.
Even a willpower as great as Ratigan’s cannot hold out forever. It’s a dark and stormy night when he finally succumbs, when Basil pushes too hard and breathes too fast, his eyes burning with a ferocity that overwhelms all other sense and reason and draws out Ratigan’s claws against his will. He strikes for the heart and when Basil’s crimson blood appears--- when his face contorts in fear and understanding--- then Ratigan turns him to the wall and lets go of the chain, allowing his own monstrous desire to rise to the surface.
For both of them, now, there can be no return.
- - -
Time passes. Wounds deepen. Reciprocity flickers like a lighthouse on the horizon and Ratigan sails towards it gladly, heedless of the rocks that may await. After the success of the masquerade, he’s feeling particularly romantic and decides to send Basil a gift. He left the party so abruptly, left his poor little detective alone and forlorn on the dance floor--- it was not the proper thing to do, and as penance he must send a token of apology, a present that will also serve as a token of affection. It must be an item of great significance, for Basil deserves nothing less.
The answer, once discovered, becomes inevitable. It will be a cigarette case. Ratigan finds one made of silver, as bright as the moon that once kept watch over Basil’s late-night vigils in the courtyard.
The jeweler asks, “Would you like it engraved?”
And Ratigan answers, “Absolutely.”
But what to say? A short and succinct message would be best, something brief that will not clutter up the smooth surface with a hundred words. Perhaps a simple dedication? The first thing that comes to mind is the whimsical phrase, To My Little Constable. It’s a nickname that Ratigan thinks of fondly, but when seen in writing it comes off as petty and condescending. From Red Death, To The Raven has greater relevance but no real staying power. It must be profound. It must stun Basil from the moment he reads it. It must remind him that they have both come too far to turn back now.
In the end, Ratigan borrows a phrase from Beethoven, and has delivered to 221 Baker Street a flawless silver cigarette case engraved with the words: For My Immortal Beloved.
- - -
It’s an unusually hot summer evening when Basil brings the police down on their heads, interrupting an attempt to plunder a vacant manor house while its noble occupants are away on holiday. Ratigan and his crew are winding up through the surrounding woods like so many serpents when police whistles shriek through the air. A whole squad of officers is charging across the great lawn towards them. As usual, panic breaks out among the ranks, but as they turn to make their retreat, they realize they’ve been trapped. Waiting behind them is a smaller but no less intimidating pack of constables, this one led by none other than Basil of Baker Street.
There’s no other way out. Cornered and hating it, the thugs draw guns and knives and plunge into the fray, determined to fight their way to freedom. Ratigan moves swiftly. He races in the direction of the great lawn, away from his soldiers, and once he’s clear of them he doubles back through the trees, aiming for the property line, planning to hug the massive iron fence until he reaches the back gate that let them in. He freely abandons his followers to slaughter and incarceration--- he’ll pick up a dozen more at the tavern tomorrow.
Away from danger, pressed low and hidden in the underbrush, he looks back. He wants to see who’s winning, but both sides seem to be getting in their fair share of blows, the night crackling with gunfire and the cries of the wounded. There’s Basil, looking fine and fit as always, turning around and around, his eyes boggled wide with a madness that can only mean he’s searching for Ratigan. Safely concealed, the rat smiles, flattered that the detective still hunts for him with such fury after all these years.
Basil is so absorbed in his distant surroundings, scouring the trees for a sign of his enemy’s escape route, that he fails to observe what is closest to him. One of the would-be burglars is just behind him, raising a switchblade that catches the moonlight, cutting the air in a bright arc as it swings down over Basil’s shoulder and right into his chest, the assailant’s fist slammed down over the region of his victim’s heart. Detective and attacker fall together as Basil, wide-eyed with shock, nonetheless retains the sense to seize his opponent’s arm and drag him down to the ground with him. It all happens in the blink of an eye and in a corner removed from the worst of the fighting, so two more bodies falling goes, for the moment, unnoticed by anyone else.
Anyone, that is, save Ratigan, who rises from his hiding place like a dragon awoken from heavy slumber. His huge form explodes from the brush that concealed him, the overhead branches snapping against the sudden upward thrust of his back as he lunges to his full height and charges, any thoughts of escape forgotten. He starts forward so quickly that he overbalances and must catch himself on his hands, and he closes the distance between him and the other two on all fours. His vision swims red with rage, his blood boiling at the idea of someone else, anyone else, doing harm to Basil. Some nameless criminal--- the scum of the earth--- he has dared to raise a hand against the detective--- if he’s hurt him--- if he’s so much as bent one of his whiskers--- murder sings hot and hungry in Ratigan’s veins as he rears to a halt above the fallen combatants.
There--- the rat smells the blood a split-second before he sees it, dark and glistening on the edge of the knife as the thug scrambles to his feet and leaves the detective sprawled on the ground, quite still.
“Here now, Professor,” the henchman says nervously, backing away from his boss. “Don’t look at me like that!”
Adrenaline lends even more strength to the rat’s already-formidable power, and while the bastard squeals in protest, Ratigan seizes him by the scruff of his neck and the base of his tail, lifting him straight up into the air and then bringing him down, back first, over his knee. His spine snaps and the switchblade falls from a hand gone suddenly limp and forever useless. Ratigan discards him without a second glance, pulls Basil into his arms, and dashes away into the darkness.
In a thicket a safe distance from the police, Ratigan lays Basil on the ground and quickly pulls open jacket, waistcoat, and shirt to assess the damage. To his amazement, he sees that the blade went awry--- rather than bury itself in the detective’s heart, it skirted across the length of his chest, leaving a gash that, while ugly, is by no means fatal. Basil’s stillness, which Ratigan had initially attributed to a mortal blow, is in fact the result of the blow his head sustained when he hit the ground--- he’s only unconscious. Ratigan is so relieved that he kisses the wound, his lips smeared with blood, his nose buried deep in Basil’s short, sandy fur. He kisses Basil as well, half-hoping he’ll wake in the midst of it, but the detective is quite soundly under.
This was no lucky miss. The knife was diverted by something, and though he already has an ambitious guess, there is no denying Ratigan’s sheer giddiness when he reaches in the breast pocket of Basil’s coat and finds a badly-dented silver cigarette case.
Kneeling in the deep grass, serenaded by nearby crickets and distant combat, Ratigan opens the case. It has four cigarettes clipped inside, leaving room for two more, and this tells Ratigan that it has seen active use. Meanwhile, he discovers that part of his inscription has been scratched out--- but only part of it. He can just see Basil now, using the tip of a nail, perhaps, to strike out the words that displease him. The first to go was, undoubtedly, For--- Basil would be loathe to admit the case was from anyone. The other ruined word is Immortal, for the detective is all too aware of his own mortality and is of far too scientific a mind to embrace even a poetic use of the word. The remaining inscription, then, reads: For My Immortal Beloved.
It’s more telling than Basil will ever admit. He cherishes the words too deeply to destroy them, no matter how much he despises the one who wrote them. They’re too rare, and that can only mean two things. First, that Basil has never belonged to anyone, hence his hesitation to erase the possessive. Secondly and more significantly--- he has never been beloved.
“Ah, my dear, my dear,” Ratigan murmurs, grazing his knuckles over the drying blood of the newest wound, fighting the urge to pull it further open and sink his claws into Basil’s still-beating heart.
Basil wakes alone and limps back to the great lawn, and it isn’t until he’s back at Baker Street that he realizes his cigarette case is missing.
- - -
It’s true, Ratigan is too greedy to let such a treasure slip away from him. He considers it tangible proof that Basil could choose to be his, to be beloved, and he is unable to surrender such a trophy. He keeps it by his bedside, tucked safely in the drawer of his end table, cushioned in a nest of purple velvet.
Although he is selfish, he is still a gentleman, and Ratigan sees to it that the token is replaced. It will not be another cigarette case, not this time. No, it’s a plain gold ring, engraved inside with the words: My Beloved. There will be no checking of pockets. There will be no proof that this ring ever gets beyond the box it is delivered in. Ratigan will simply trust that it finds its way onto Basil’s person, or at the very least, into the drawer at his bedside.
In the sanctuary of his chambers, Ratigan reclines on his fine silk cushions, his fingers cradling the ivory mouthpiece of a new hookah. Its great glass belly is emerald green, and the sweet sticky tobacco packed in the bowl has been infused with the essence of citrus, tart and intoxicating. Ratigan pulls deeper and deeper lungfuls of smoke until he is quite light-headed, until the room swims with the smell, until he can close his eyes and pretend that madness does not live always in the corner of his mind. His own savage compulsion to kill what he cannot control, the creeping knowledge that Basil will never fully submit--- the smoke brings small comfort, and in its warm and welcome haze, he slips into an uneasy sleep.
In Ratigan’s darkest dreams, they collide with the force of a hurricane. Even in his fantasies Basil fights him, and they each wrestle to undress the other, seams pulled to the breaking point and buttons torn off, forever lost. Ratigan wants to surrender to the conflagration of Basil’s burning mouth, to the rage in his eyes and the desperate, demanding violation of his trembling hands. They will rip into each other, biting, tearing, finding in each other the deepest well of desire and losing themselves entirely. When he wakes from these dreams, Ratigan curses the night, and prays for strength.
_________end.
Author: colonel_bastard
Characters/Fandom: Basil, Ratigan. The Great Mouse Detective.
Word Count: 4,450
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ratigan reconsiders an old opinion and forms a new habit, one that will be quite difficult to break.
Warnings: SO MUCH SMOKING, sexual situations, general desecration of beloved Disney characters.
Notes: Eighth in the Basil/Ratigan series. This one is a bit different from the others, stylistically, with more jumping in time--- I hope it can be followed! We had a lot of ground to cover, and when you add in my own fetish for smoking, the pages just kept coming, haha. Prompter at disney_kink wanted Ratigan smoking, and, well, you're gonna see plenty of that. Anyone interested in my inspiration-links should check out La cloche a sonne, the song of the cigarette girls from Bizet's Carmen, an ode to the seductive power of smoking. That's the classy link. The more accurate and awesome link is for Hawksley Workman's incredibly appropriate song, Jealous of Your Cigarette, which, if you give it a listen, couldn't be more perfect for this fic. Remember, kids, smoking is bad for you--- but it's really, really sexy.
The smell is unmistakable, sunk deep into the tattered material of the detective’s jacket, breaking sharp and bitter over Ratigan’s senses as the two opponents meet for a split-second in a boxer’s clench. It’s tobacco smoke, and the scent is so intense that Ratigan can only assume it’s the result of a long-standing love affair with cigarettes. Snorting in revulsion, he throws the would-be vigilante off of him and into the nearest wall, where his skull connects with a satisfying crack.
And to think, only moments ago the little whelp had dropped into the center of Ratigan’s escape route, having outwitted and gotten ahead of him in the midst of a heist. As he had straightened and given the villain a demented grin of triumph, Ratigan found himself admiring him for that one flawless moment of victory, for the mere fact that he had been clever enough to beat the rat at his own game, if only just once.
“Hello, Ratigan,” the detective panted, breathing hard from his desperate race to get there first. “My name is Basil.”
“Good evening, Basil,” the rat returned, having already decided that he would be a gentleman in all regards, in the fields of both work and pleasure.
“Remember that name,” was the endearingly earnest warning. “It will be your downfall.”
“Consider it memorized,” Ratigan promised.
He had rather hoped that would be the end of it, but Basil proved faster than anticipated and managed to duck under the three wild shots that Ratigan fired before the detective slammed into him, shoulder first. It wasn’t enough to knock the huge rat to the ground but it was enough to knock the gun from his hand. For an instant they were locked together, and in one quick inhale through the nose, the rat tasted the chief vice of his enemy.
The acrid smell of tobacco lingers in Ratigan’s nostrils like an aftershock. He glares down at the crumpled heap of detective --- Basil--- and, since no one is near to witness his poor sportsmanship, he spits on his enemy’s fallen form and struts away cackling.
- - -
But the smell stays with him, as does the detective, and this leads to a significant reevaluation. He has long considered smoking to be an ugly habit, a thing for the lower classes, and in his determination to be anything else he avoided it all costs. He had come to consider it almost a handicap, seeing little difference between a cigarette and a crutch. However, as he quickly learns, Basil is no cripple. He’s a sprinter, a brawler, and he might even be a genius--- although that remains to be seen. One thing’s for sure: he has an irritating knack for showing up when Ratigan is in the midst of villainy. In the early days of his criminal career, the rat has grown quite accustomed to being two steps ahead of everyone else, and it’s an uncomfortable feeling to suddenly have someone breathing down his neck at every turn.
And to think that Basil does it all while reeking of tobacco--- it’s enough to make one seriously reexamine any previous opinions of the habit. Ratigan can no longer consider it the crutch of fools if it’s enjoyed by one as fierce and cunning as this detective is proving himself to be. He finds his mind increasingly occupied by thoughts of Basil, devising new ways to outwit him, planning new escape routes that he won’t be able to find, and, strangely, wondering what drew him to cigarettes in the first place. He spends so much time thinking about it that the habit and the detective become eventually, irrevocably linked in his sense memory.
Ratigan knows he’s in trouble when he catches a whiff of smoke and turns too fast, eyebrows and ears raised in anticipation, only to see one of his criminal cohorts with the stump of a cigar glowing in his ugly mouth. Ruffled and vaguely disappointed, the rat decides to take a long stroll, one that leads him (as his strolls have begun to lead him lately) to Baker Street, where he prowls the long corner, biding his time.
The landlady at 221 seems to share Ratigan’s former opinion of the act--- Basil is forced to indulge himself in the front courtyard. He emerges into the crisp night, a cigarette already hanging from his lip while he fishes in his trouser pockets for his matchbox. At a safe distance and consumed by shadow, Ratigan observes.
Basil has a certain way with a cigarette. His long, agile fingers cause it and the match to dance towards each other, meeting in a flare of light as the flame connects with the target and Basil pulls hard, coaxing the cherry into red, resplendent life. The match sails away with an effortless flick, smoke streaking the air in a thread-thin trail until it hits the wet pavement. Basil props himself back against the heavy doorframe, one hand shoved into his pocket, his eyes closed as if in deep thought. He takes sporadic drags, and every release is different. First he forces the smoke from his mouth in fierce jets. Then he allows it to escape in lazy, curling clouds. Finally, entrancingly, he attempts to form smoke rings, his lips pursed seductively, his cheeks filling and sinking, his whole body tense and alert with concentration. Although he has yet to successfully form a smoke ring, Ratigan doesn’t give a damn. It’s the effort, the determination, the shape of his mouth and the sweet, sensual tilt of his head--- it’s bewitching, and the fact that this is unintentional only adds to its power, leaving Ratigan breathless and retreating as fast as he can.
He has realized that Basil’s mouth must taste like tobacco.
- - -
Ratigan’s first drag on a cigarette is uneventful, but the second lungful leaves him coughing and thankful he’s alone. He acclimates to the smoke in time, treasuring the inimitable flavor, the sensation of heat filling his mouth and throat, the way his hands look elegant and a little bit dangerous with a lit cigarette caught between two fingertips. He imitates Basil, his posture, his jets and clouds. He is determined, of course, to master the smoke ring before his enemy. He wants to spring it on him, to show him up once again, just because he can. He spends his budding stolen fortune on the best cigarettes money can buy, but with a vague sense of uneasiness, he senses the absence of his own satisfaction.
He returns to Baker Street, to the shadows, to the sight of Basil now sitting on the red brick that frames the courtyard, his shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal handsome, slender forearms. There--- it’s the shape of his mouth, the artistic grace of hands, the anxiousness of his raised shoulders slumping into relief, shedding a little more stress every time he taps away the ash. Some turn to drink and others to something stronger, but Basil seems to find release here, and his eyes go soft and heavy-lidded like a pilgrim in an opium den.
Ratigan seeks serenity in his own den, in the taste of lush Turkish tobacco, his cigarettes nestled in holders of ebony and gold. The smoke hangs overhead, ghostlike, as he waits for luxury to fill the void in his aching chest.
- - -
Weeks turn into months and they both grow in prominence, the one in fame and the other in infamy. One name becomes a source of comfort and reassurance while the other comes to be splashed across alarming headlines and murmured in fearful tones. Ratigan can’t help but notice that Basil dresses a little nicer these days, his tattered jacket traded for a handsome hunter’s coat, his shoes no longer scraped down to the sole. Ratigan himself has traded up in all regards, in his finery and his flat, exchanging the one for velvet and the other for something that could be affectionately referred to as a lair. They chase each other up the ladder to glory, Basil grabbing for Ratigan’s ankles and Ratigan grabbing for the stars.
With public respectability comes leniency from the landlady, and to Ratigan’s immense frustration, Basil is granted permission to smoke indoors. His own cigarettes take on a foul aftertaste and Ratigan, as he has his whole life, goes looking for something better. He is of the firm belief that everything can be improved upon somehow. Smoking should be no different.
He finds joy in the exotic luxury of a hookah, the purple glass belly brimming with icy water, the long lavender hose snaking from a cradle of sticky sweet tobacco, the ivory mouthpiece that fits perfectly to his lips. He admires the fine little coals and stunning variety of tastes. The vapors are infused with the flavor of anything he desires, hints of strawberry and mango, whispers of a distant tropical paradise that grows sharper in his mind’s eye as his bedroom fills with scented smoke. He thinks of Carroll’s Caterpillar and takes to reclining on fine silk cushions, the hookah perched on its own mahogany table nearby, accompanied by items of increasing value as his fortune grows--- a golden image of a hawk stretching its wing, a silver goblet studded with emeralds, a dish of gemstones displayed as carelessly as a dish of hard candies.
- - -
Their next meeting is through bars, as Basil is a moment too late to prevent the slamming of the gate behind the thieves as they make their escape. Breathless with rage, Basil tears at the iron bars like a mad thing while Ratigan lingers just out of reach, smiling like the Caterpillar’s feline friend.
“So lovely to see you again, Basil,” he says truthfully.
“You may have won this time, Ratigan,” the detective snarls, resigning himself to his loss. “But you can’t run forever.”
“Perhaps not,” the rat concedes. “But you will admit that it’s a merry chase, is it not?”
Basil smacks the heel of his hand, hard, against the gate that separates them. He doesn’t bother trying to pick the lock, so Ratigan assumes he must have seen him snapping the key inside it once they were through. Although one day Basil will have enough sway to bring the police on his heels on many cases, he’s still considered a vigilante, and he came to this battle alone. There will be no reinforcements. Safe behind the gate, Ratigan has time to spare. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a gold cigarette case.
“I used to think that smoking was an ugly habit,” he remarks idly.
He notices the way Basil’s eyes start open in recognition and resentment, but he doesn’t yet realize why the words affect him so keenly. Instead, he busies himself with lighting his cigarette, the bright flame of the match casting them both in a flash of stark shadows, their eyes gleaming with its mirrored image.
“The practice itself is not to blame,” Basil growls. “It’s merely a reflection of the practitioner.”
Ratigan becomes quite still, his teeth coming down hard on the cigarette like an epileptic clamping down on a seizure stick. They glare at each other, Basil still trembling with anger and Ratigan now fighting against a rising wave of alarm. It’s the first time he has realized that it was never the cigarettes that mesmerized him. It’s not the smoke, the flame, the taste of tobacco--- these will never satisfy his hunger. They were only a reflection of his desire. It’s Basil, confound it, it’s always been Basil, and until this moment Ratigan had been foolish enough to believe that it was anything else. It’s the shape of his mouth, the curve of his neck, the attention and affection he lavishes on every cigarette as if each were a lover for just one night.
Furious with himself, Ratigan nonetheless manages to maintain his composure long enough to take a deep drag of smoke, purse his lips, and blow a perfect ring right at Basil. It floats towards him, framing his outraged face, before it hits the bars of the gate and breaks into a hundred pieces.
- - -
It must not go beyond this. It must not grow beyond his dreams, beyond the desperate, heated fantasies that now plague his nights. He is consumed by visions of Basil’s mouth, his lips wrapped around the cigarette, his cheeks hollowing as he sucks, as his tongue flicks lazily at the tip of it, his eyes half-lidded in pleasure. The hookah is thrown to the floor and shattered in a rage. His claws spring free from hiding as he tears into the feather pillows and silken sheets of his bedroom. In private, he succumbs to the beast he holds back in every public hour, and for a few blinding moments, he knows nothing but blood and fire. When the fever breaks and he comes to his senses, he dresses, grooms himself, and emerges replenished under a vow of silence.
He stops going to Baker Street. He wants to stop smoking, but the nicotine has already wrapped his nerves in its familiar cocoon, and he quickly grows irritable and snappish without it. Unable to escape it he must embrace it, and he makes the cigarette in its golden holder a part of his daily finery. He crosses paths with the detective, of course, but he keeps every meeting as brief and businesslike as possible.
However, as time passes and his initial frenzy fades, he finds that the feeling that remains is an enjoyable if undefinable one, and he allows Basil to come a little bit closer every time.
- - -
Months turn into years and they know each other too well, the uneasy line between love and hate straining with the effort to contain such passion. It becomes a game, undeniably, and although once or twice the opportunity presents itself, Ratigan is enjoying himself too much to put a stop to it. He trusts himself to keep things under control, to harness his brutality as he always has, to mask his lust with polite smiles and pithy remarks. Basil, oblivious, teases and torments him, calling him rat and fiend, unaware of the truly savage urges buttoned under that silk jacket and white gloves.
Even a willpower as great as Ratigan’s cannot hold out forever. It’s a dark and stormy night when he finally succumbs, when Basil pushes too hard and breathes too fast, his eyes burning with a ferocity that overwhelms all other sense and reason and draws out Ratigan’s claws against his will. He strikes for the heart and when Basil’s crimson blood appears--- when his face contorts in fear and understanding--- then Ratigan turns him to the wall and lets go of the chain, allowing his own monstrous desire to rise to the surface.
For both of them, now, there can be no return.
- - -
Time passes. Wounds deepen. Reciprocity flickers like a lighthouse on the horizon and Ratigan sails towards it gladly, heedless of the rocks that may await. After the success of the masquerade, he’s feeling particularly romantic and decides to send Basil a gift. He left the party so abruptly, left his poor little detective alone and forlorn on the dance floor--- it was not the proper thing to do, and as penance he must send a token of apology, a present that will also serve as a token of affection. It must be an item of great significance, for Basil deserves nothing less.
The answer, once discovered, becomes inevitable. It will be a cigarette case. Ratigan finds one made of silver, as bright as the moon that once kept watch over Basil’s late-night vigils in the courtyard.
The jeweler asks, “Would you like it engraved?”
And Ratigan answers, “Absolutely.”
But what to say? A short and succinct message would be best, something brief that will not clutter up the smooth surface with a hundred words. Perhaps a simple dedication? The first thing that comes to mind is the whimsical phrase, To My Little Constable. It’s a nickname that Ratigan thinks of fondly, but when seen in writing it comes off as petty and condescending. From Red Death, To The Raven has greater relevance but no real staying power. It must be profound. It must stun Basil from the moment he reads it. It must remind him that they have both come too far to turn back now.
In the end, Ratigan borrows a phrase from Beethoven, and has delivered to 221 Baker Street a flawless silver cigarette case engraved with the words: For My Immortal Beloved.
- - -
It’s an unusually hot summer evening when Basil brings the police down on their heads, interrupting an attempt to plunder a vacant manor house while its noble occupants are away on holiday. Ratigan and his crew are winding up through the surrounding woods like so many serpents when police whistles shriek through the air. A whole squad of officers is charging across the great lawn towards them. As usual, panic breaks out among the ranks, but as they turn to make their retreat, they realize they’ve been trapped. Waiting behind them is a smaller but no less intimidating pack of constables, this one led by none other than Basil of Baker Street.
There’s no other way out. Cornered and hating it, the thugs draw guns and knives and plunge into the fray, determined to fight their way to freedom. Ratigan moves swiftly. He races in the direction of the great lawn, away from his soldiers, and once he’s clear of them he doubles back through the trees, aiming for the property line, planning to hug the massive iron fence until he reaches the back gate that let them in. He freely abandons his followers to slaughter and incarceration--- he’ll pick up a dozen more at the tavern tomorrow.
Away from danger, pressed low and hidden in the underbrush, he looks back. He wants to see who’s winning, but both sides seem to be getting in their fair share of blows, the night crackling with gunfire and the cries of the wounded. There’s Basil, looking fine and fit as always, turning around and around, his eyes boggled wide with a madness that can only mean he’s searching for Ratigan. Safely concealed, the rat smiles, flattered that the detective still hunts for him with such fury after all these years.
Basil is so absorbed in his distant surroundings, scouring the trees for a sign of his enemy’s escape route, that he fails to observe what is closest to him. One of the would-be burglars is just behind him, raising a switchblade that catches the moonlight, cutting the air in a bright arc as it swings down over Basil’s shoulder and right into his chest, the assailant’s fist slammed down over the region of his victim’s heart. Detective and attacker fall together as Basil, wide-eyed with shock, nonetheless retains the sense to seize his opponent’s arm and drag him down to the ground with him. It all happens in the blink of an eye and in a corner removed from the worst of the fighting, so two more bodies falling goes, for the moment, unnoticed by anyone else.
Anyone, that is, save Ratigan, who rises from his hiding place like a dragon awoken from heavy slumber. His huge form explodes from the brush that concealed him, the overhead branches snapping against the sudden upward thrust of his back as he lunges to his full height and charges, any thoughts of escape forgotten. He starts forward so quickly that he overbalances and must catch himself on his hands, and he closes the distance between him and the other two on all fours. His vision swims red with rage, his blood boiling at the idea of someone else, anyone else, doing harm to Basil. Some nameless criminal--- the scum of the earth--- he has dared to raise a hand against the detective--- if he’s hurt him--- if he’s so much as bent one of his whiskers--- murder sings hot and hungry in Ratigan’s veins as he rears to a halt above the fallen combatants.
There--- the rat smells the blood a split-second before he sees it, dark and glistening on the edge of the knife as the thug scrambles to his feet and leaves the detective sprawled on the ground, quite still.
“Here now, Professor,” the henchman says nervously, backing away from his boss. “Don’t look at me like that!”
Adrenaline lends even more strength to the rat’s already-formidable power, and while the bastard squeals in protest, Ratigan seizes him by the scruff of his neck and the base of his tail, lifting him straight up into the air and then bringing him down, back first, over his knee. His spine snaps and the switchblade falls from a hand gone suddenly limp and forever useless. Ratigan discards him without a second glance, pulls Basil into his arms, and dashes away into the darkness.
In a thicket a safe distance from the police, Ratigan lays Basil on the ground and quickly pulls open jacket, waistcoat, and shirt to assess the damage. To his amazement, he sees that the blade went awry--- rather than bury itself in the detective’s heart, it skirted across the length of his chest, leaving a gash that, while ugly, is by no means fatal. Basil’s stillness, which Ratigan had initially attributed to a mortal blow, is in fact the result of the blow his head sustained when he hit the ground--- he’s only unconscious. Ratigan is so relieved that he kisses the wound, his lips smeared with blood, his nose buried deep in Basil’s short, sandy fur. He kisses Basil as well, half-hoping he’ll wake in the midst of it, but the detective is quite soundly under.
This was no lucky miss. The knife was diverted by something, and though he already has an ambitious guess, there is no denying Ratigan’s sheer giddiness when he reaches in the breast pocket of Basil’s coat and finds a badly-dented silver cigarette case.
Kneeling in the deep grass, serenaded by nearby crickets and distant combat, Ratigan opens the case. It has four cigarettes clipped inside, leaving room for two more, and this tells Ratigan that it has seen active use. Meanwhile, he discovers that part of his inscription has been scratched out--- but only part of it. He can just see Basil now, using the tip of a nail, perhaps, to strike out the words that displease him. The first to go was, undoubtedly, For--- Basil would be loathe to admit the case was from anyone. The other ruined word is Immortal, for the detective is all too aware of his own mortality and is of far too scientific a mind to embrace even a poetic use of the word. The remaining inscription, then, reads: For My Immortal Beloved.
It’s more telling than Basil will ever admit. He cherishes the words too deeply to destroy them, no matter how much he despises the one who wrote them. They’re too rare, and that can only mean two things. First, that Basil has never belonged to anyone, hence his hesitation to erase the possessive. Secondly and more significantly--- he has never been beloved.
“Ah, my dear, my dear,” Ratigan murmurs, grazing his knuckles over the drying blood of the newest wound, fighting the urge to pull it further open and sink his claws into Basil’s still-beating heart.
Basil wakes alone and limps back to the great lawn, and it isn’t until he’s back at Baker Street that he realizes his cigarette case is missing.
- - -
It’s true, Ratigan is too greedy to let such a treasure slip away from him. He considers it tangible proof that Basil could choose to be his, to be beloved, and he is unable to surrender such a trophy. He keeps it by his bedside, tucked safely in the drawer of his end table, cushioned in a nest of purple velvet.
Although he is selfish, he is still a gentleman, and Ratigan sees to it that the token is replaced. It will not be another cigarette case, not this time. No, it’s a plain gold ring, engraved inside with the words: My Beloved. There will be no checking of pockets. There will be no proof that this ring ever gets beyond the box it is delivered in. Ratigan will simply trust that it finds its way onto Basil’s person, or at the very least, into the drawer at his bedside.
In the sanctuary of his chambers, Ratigan reclines on his fine silk cushions, his fingers cradling the ivory mouthpiece of a new hookah. Its great glass belly is emerald green, and the sweet sticky tobacco packed in the bowl has been infused with the essence of citrus, tart and intoxicating. Ratigan pulls deeper and deeper lungfuls of smoke until he is quite light-headed, until the room swims with the smell, until he can close his eyes and pretend that madness does not live always in the corner of his mind. His own savage compulsion to kill what he cannot control, the creeping knowledge that Basil will never fully submit--- the smoke brings small comfort, and in its warm and welcome haze, he slips into an uneasy sleep.
In Ratigan’s darkest dreams, they collide with the force of a hurricane. Even in his fantasies Basil fights him, and they each wrestle to undress the other, seams pulled to the breaking point and buttons torn off, forever lost. Ratigan wants to surrender to the conflagration of Basil’s burning mouth, to the rage in his eyes and the desperate, demanding violation of his trembling hands. They will rip into each other, biting, tearing, finding in each other the deepest well of desire and losing themselves entirely. When he wakes from these dreams, Ratigan curses the night, and prays for strength.
_________end.