Fic - A Collection of Comment Fics
Hey guys, sorry I've been MIA for so long. I had to move from Manhattan to Queens, and I had to do it by myself, so it took a considerable amount of time and effort. Quite frankly, I've felt a bit like a scrambled egg for the past month, but at last! The month is over, and I am moved. Hopefully writing can return to its usual schedule as soon as possible.
In the meantime, since I can never go cold turkey on fanfiction, I've been getting my fix at the charming comment_fic community. Every day has a different theme (except for Friday, which is always a Free-For-All), and then anyone can post prompts for any fandom! I love to experiment with different characters, so this is a real treat for me. It's like a prompt buffet! And I'm starving. I encourage everyone to drop by and participate, it's really a cool place, and there are some really amazing prompts that need love.
I will unashamedly admit that I found the comm while searching for slash fic for the god-awful movie Priest, which was so bad that I of course fell in love with it immediately and will defend it to the death. Unnngh, I just have a dreadful weakness for religious men. Instead of fics I found prompts, which really, I enjoyed even more.
Then I was able to satisfy my urge to write fic for the amazing X-Men: First Class (CONTAINS SPOILERS), and I even managed to spin an open prompt into something for The Great Mouse Detective--- in which Ratigan is totally and fabulously gay. Of course.
I really just wanted to let you guys know that my life has been totally crazy, but will soon be less crazy, and I should be writing again before you know it. It just didn't feel right to post without any fic, so here's a bunch of mini-fic in compensation! It's been a long and stressful June, but July is just around the corner. I made it. I MADE IT!
Fandom: Priest
Number of fics: 3
Ratings: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, sacrilege.
Characters/Pairings: Priest/Black Hat
Theme: Friday Free-For-All
Prompt: Priest, Priest/Black Hat, The night before the fateful mission in the Mira Sola Hive.
Title: Behold, Thou Art Fair, My Love
Bonus: This fic has been translated into Hungarian by zsemle! Read it here!
There's always a communion service the night before a raid, and his lips still taste like sweet altar wine when you take him in your arms. It's wise, before a dangerous mission, to remind oneself of one's loyalties. In the cathedral, you consecrated your pact with the Lord. In these humble quarters, on a bed meant only for one, you consecrate your pact with your brother.
His body rises to you like a tide pulled to the shore, steadfast and unfailing, his pale blue eyes like lanterns in the dark. His lips find the pulse racing under your skin, and he kisses you at the wrists and throat, his mouth lavishing a blessing on every heartbeat.
Then he whispers in your ear, and your body sings with a guilty thrill as you recognize the words--- The Song of Solomon, chapter two, verse sixteen. He praises you with Holy Scripture.
"My beloved is mine," his voice is hoarse and trembling. "And I am his."
Without hesitation, you answer him with the verse that follows.
"Until the day breaks," you murmur. "And the shadows flee away."
He takes hold of your hand, his grip like iron, his eyes like fire.
"That's a promise."
And he presses his mouth against your fingers, which are interlocked with his so fiercely that you believe, you honestly believe for a moment, that he will never let you go.
Theme: Friday Free-For-All
Prompt: Priest, Priest/Black Hat, This newest batch of trainees were nothing special, Priest thought, until the young man with piercing eyes stepped off the transport train.
Title: The Lily Among the Thorns
He catches your attention like a beam of light, like something bright and brilliant colliding with the corner of your eye, and you twist to catch the end of his sacred gesture, one graceful hand brushing the left shoulder and then the right: et Spiritus Sancti. You've seen an endless procession of novices today as the far-flung parishes send their senior students to the Cathedral to receive their final trials--- but you've not yet seen one like this. His neck is arched like a stallion, like a creature far too proud and fierce to wear such humble robes. His eyes flash with a fire that you recognize from your own reflection.
In a man of your unfortunate circumstances, such restlessness is understandable, if not acceptable. You were grown nearly to manhood by the time they came for you, and your blood had already become hot past the point of cooling, leaving your newly-chaste body with a distant, perpetual ache. But these are novices who have been under the Church's wing since they were small boys. That this new one could still show such spirit after so many years--- you're drawn to him, to the challenging angle of his chin as you approach, to the piercing stare that meets your intensely curious gaze.
"Welcome, brother." You make a gesture of blessing.
He nods his leonine head. "Thank you, father."
The tattoo on his brow is still fresh, the cross hovering over an unnatural dark red shadow, the inflamed skin still speckled in places with blood. His flesh must be hot to the touch. Desperate to know, you bring the pad of your thumb to your lips, and before he can turn away you press it right between his eyes in a gesture of consecration.
"May God's strength be upon you during your trials."
You expect him to flinch at your contact, but he thrusts himself forward, pressing into the benediction until your hand is nearly consumed by the heat of his skin.
He smiles.
"Amen."
Theme: Pranks
Prompt: Priest, Priest/Black Hat, Telling the other acolytes that the real tatoo that Priests and Priestesses get is a penis.
Title: When He Speaketh Fair, Believe Him Not
"It's called the Phallo Sancti; the Sacred Phallus."
You catch his blue eyes across the room, and only you can see the mischievous glimmer behind them. The young novices are staring at him, wide-eyed with horror and disbelief, and you realize that he was right--- although you created the lie, it is much, much funnier when he tells it.
"What you see here," he gestures at the cross tattooed on his brow. "Is merely the first part of the symbol. The rest will be added when we complete our advanced training."
They trust him implicitly. That's why he has to do it. He has cultivated such a marvelously solemn reputation that few would ever think to doubt his word. He has a way of standing, of lowering his gaze and his voice, that fills everything he says with gravity and truth. You marvel at him, bred to be honest but born to lie.
"Wha... what will it look like?" a young girl asks nervously. "I mean, when it's finished?"
"I'll show you." He answers gravely. Then he beckons abruptly for you to join him. "Come here, brother."
You nod your head and do your best to look very serious indeed as you walk to his side. Taking you by the shoulders, he turns you to face his breathless audience. He gives you a quick, conspiratorial--- affectionate--- squeeze before he lets you go. He then places the tips of his index fingers at the apex of the cross on your face, exactly as you did to him the night before, when you first demonstrated the punchline.
“The second part of the symbol begins here,” he says grimly.
He then draws his fingers out in contrasting arcs that encircle the arms of the cross and nearly meet again between your eyebrows. That’s the bollocks, you’d explained breathlessly as he giggled, scandalized, beneath your trembling hands.
“It then continues,” he intones. “Down into the shaft.”
His fingertips skate down the bridge of your nose, dipping out to add a generous head to the tip of the giant cock he has just traced onto your face.
“The Phallo Sancti,” he breathes in a voice of such flawless, reverent ecstasy that you almost explode with laughter and ruin the whole act. Instead, in a sudden burst of inspiration, you close your eyes and cross yourself hastily, as if overcome with religious magnitude. You peek out through one narrowed eyelid and see him struggling not to grin.
“But why?” another novice wonders in a tone close to panic. “What’s the meaning of such a symbol?”
“The Scripture says that the Church is the bride of Christ,” he answers smoothly, and this bit was his own doing--- you had failed to think of a convincing reason for the tattoo. “By marking ourselves with the symbol of the cross within the symbol of the phallus, we prove our devotion by feminine submission to the sacred masculine power of the Lord.”
The novices squirm uncomfortably. The lie is not a brilliant one, but coming from his desperately serious face, it gains a certain weight. His body leans towards yours, compelled, magnetic. The thrill of victory sings like electricity between you.
“Prepare yourselves, brothers and sisters,” he dismisses them with a gesture of benediction. “Thus endeth the lesson.”
They’ll never break him. It’s true that he’ll grow more solemn as the years go by and the war drags on, but you’ll never forget these golden days, when nothing seemed to be sacred. No matter how stern and unsmiling he may become, you know that he will never lose his thrilling capacity for breaking the rules.
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Number of fics: 2
Ratings: PG/R
Warnings: Slash.
Characters/Pairings: Charles/Erik
Theme: Tears
Prompt: X-Men First Class, Charles, on the beach, with the loss of his best friend and physical freedom, the tears wouldn't stop.
Title: Deluge
He repeats himself a dozen times--- I can’t feel my legs--- before the grief finally closes around his throat like a fist and he loses the ability to form words. Wounded past the point of silence, wounded body and soul, he resorts to base, primitive howls. They beg him to be still, but the tears won’t stop.
Every thud of his pulse brings two strikes against him--- another heartbeat’s worth of blood lost, another heartbeat’s worth of hope gone. His chest aches, his heart straining in every sense to endure, to defy the desire to break. He chokes and sobs and stares at the sky, past the worried faces and fluttering hands, and he wishes he could stop, but it’s simply impossible. He is undone.
It’s not just his physical sense of balance that has been wrecked. As he fell, he reached for him, for Erik. It was instinct, as his body crumpled uselessly, to reach out with his mind for something to hold on to. He reached for comfort, for courage.
But Erik was not there.
Like a man in the dark who misses the last stair, the sensation of falling was doubled by the shock of it. He realized too late that he’d set his foot down on thin air, that he’d trusted his weight to an intangible phantom--- I thought you were there--- I thought you would catch me.
They cling to him, they command him again and again to be calm. They promise that help is on the way, that he’s going to be all right. He weeps like he hasn’t since he was a child, a brat who screamed himself into a tantrum whenever the world seemed too unfair. Now his world is shrinking, shattering, as an ancient fear is made truth: my body has become my prison. A mind that could conquer the world, and he already knows that he’ll never walk again.
His equilibrium will never be the same. He reaches out helplessly, his mind grasping at the void where Erik should be. The strong, steady presence has become so familiar, so dear, that he can hardly comprehend its absence. He retreats towards serenity, terrified of the rage that he allowed to draw so near, the inferno that has swallowed his dearest friend. The world shifts and grinds painfully as it fights to stabilize itself. How can he ever feel whole again, with so many pieces missing?
At least his sobs have finally abated. He breathes, shallow but steady. He’s very quiet now, as quiet as a stone and just as still--- except for the tears that continue to stream from his eyes, utterly beyond his control.
This one's just a freebie I dashed off for kicks.
Title: Facets
Erik is a hair-puller. His long hands plow through dense, dark tresses and grab fistfuls, tearing, twisting, until Charles gasps and arches to relieve the pressure. He cranes his neck towards his lover’s clenched hand, exposing his throat to Erik’s ravenous mouth, to the nipping teeth and the strong, searching tongue. Fumbling like a blind man, Charles threads his shaking fingers through the other man’s hair and tightens his grip, but he doesn’t have the nerve to pull. He doesn’t want to hurt him.
Erik is a biter. Charles discovers this with a throbbing shoulder and an incredulous yelp of ouch!? It’s half exclamation, half query. He’s never been handled so roughly before. Erik bares his teeth unapologetically, his grin feral and his pupils blown wide with lust. Charles sways, feeling rather like the bird who looked into the eyes of the snake, the sting of the bite tingling under his palm. He whispers, “Do that again.”
Erik is a tease. He runs his mouth from toe to tip, his tongue drawing a hot wet line from the soft sole of Charles’s foot to the sweat-damp crown of his head, all while Xavier twitches and whimpers and begs. No other lover has made him so aware of his own body. He has a slight, graceful frame, but Erik is built like a lion, broad-shouldered and proud-necked. Their bodies fit together in elegant symmetry, the concave of Erik’s long torso the perfect match for the convex of Charles’s slender back.
Erik is all of these things, but most of all, right here, right now, in the bleary pink light of the sunrise with his hair all tangled and his body all sprawled in the deepest of post-coital slumbers, Charles can rest his head on his sturdy chest, listen to his heartbeat, and say: Erik is mine.
Fandom: The Great Mouse Detective
Number of fics: 1
Ratings: G
Warnings: Total gayness.
Characters/Pairings: Basil/Ratigan
Theme: Love-Hate Relationships
Prompt: any, any, "You look so lovely tonight, I almost don't want to shoot/stab/ect you."
Title The Picture of Perfection
"You look so lovely tonight, I almost don't want to shoot you."
Scarcely five paces away from the mouth of Ratigan's loaded pistol and Basil still has the nerve to scoff fearlessly at his words.
"That's always been your greatest weakness, old boy."
The rat hardly hears him, he's so mesmerized by his enemy's appearance. Basil's tailor deserves a king's ransom in return for the fine work he does to emphasize the detective's slender figure--- Ratigan's eyes cling to the long, lean line of his torso, the craftsmanship so flawless that there's barely a sign where the waistcoat ends and the trousers begin.
"Hmm?" he wonders absently.
His gaze is instantly drawn to the feral grin that suddenly splits Basil's face.
"You're too easily distracted."
He springs. In his reverie Ratigan had allowed his aim to wander just far enough from the heart for Basil to chance it, and as he ducks past the weapon and brings a fist up hard under the villain's jaw, Ratigan dazedly notices the flash of an emerald cufflink at his wrist--- the same color as his eyes.
My God, he thinks, reeling from the blow. Since when did Basil become so bloody fashionable?
The only logical conclusion, of course, is that he must have absorbed the ability through so many hours in the company of the Professor himself, whose sense of style is spoken of highly even in circles that despise him. It's one more title for Basil in his heart: protege.
Now if he can just get him to renounce that ghastly deerstalker cap...
_______end.
In the meantime, since I can never go cold turkey on fanfiction, I've been getting my fix at the charming comment_fic community. Every day has a different theme (except for Friday, which is always a Free-For-All), and then anyone can post prompts for any fandom! I love to experiment with different characters, so this is a real treat for me. It's like a prompt buffet! And I'm starving. I encourage everyone to drop by and participate, it's really a cool place, and there are some really amazing prompts that need love.
I will unashamedly admit that I found the comm while searching for slash fic for the god-awful movie Priest, which was so bad that I of course fell in love with it immediately and will defend it to the death. Unnngh, I just have a dreadful weakness for religious men. Instead of fics I found prompts, which really, I enjoyed even more.
Then I was able to satisfy my urge to write fic for the amazing X-Men: First Class (CONTAINS SPOILERS), and I even managed to spin an open prompt into something for The Great Mouse Detective--- in which Ratigan is totally and fabulously gay. Of course.
I really just wanted to let you guys know that my life has been totally crazy, but will soon be less crazy, and I should be writing again before you know it. It just didn't feel right to post without any fic, so here's a bunch of mini-fic in compensation! It's been a long and stressful June, but July is just around the corner. I made it. I MADE IT!
Fandom: Priest
Number of fics: 3
Ratings: PG-13
Warnings: Slash, sacrilege.
Characters/Pairings: Priest/Black Hat
Theme: Friday Free-For-All
Prompt: Priest, Priest/Black Hat, The night before the fateful mission in the Mira Sola Hive.
Title: Behold, Thou Art Fair, My Love
Bonus: This fic has been translated into Hungarian by zsemle! Read it here!
There's always a communion service the night before a raid, and his lips still taste like sweet altar wine when you take him in your arms. It's wise, before a dangerous mission, to remind oneself of one's loyalties. In the cathedral, you consecrated your pact with the Lord. In these humble quarters, on a bed meant only for one, you consecrate your pact with your brother.
His body rises to you like a tide pulled to the shore, steadfast and unfailing, his pale blue eyes like lanterns in the dark. His lips find the pulse racing under your skin, and he kisses you at the wrists and throat, his mouth lavishing a blessing on every heartbeat.
Then he whispers in your ear, and your body sings with a guilty thrill as you recognize the words--- The Song of Solomon, chapter two, verse sixteen. He praises you with Holy Scripture.
"My beloved is mine," his voice is hoarse and trembling. "And I am his."
Without hesitation, you answer him with the verse that follows.
"Until the day breaks," you murmur. "And the shadows flee away."
He takes hold of your hand, his grip like iron, his eyes like fire.
"That's a promise."
And he presses his mouth against your fingers, which are interlocked with his so fiercely that you believe, you honestly believe for a moment, that he will never let you go.
Theme: Friday Free-For-All
Prompt: Priest, Priest/Black Hat, This newest batch of trainees were nothing special, Priest thought, until the young man with piercing eyes stepped off the transport train.
Title: The Lily Among the Thorns
He catches your attention like a beam of light, like something bright and brilliant colliding with the corner of your eye, and you twist to catch the end of his sacred gesture, one graceful hand brushing the left shoulder and then the right: et Spiritus Sancti. You've seen an endless procession of novices today as the far-flung parishes send their senior students to the Cathedral to receive their final trials--- but you've not yet seen one like this. His neck is arched like a stallion, like a creature far too proud and fierce to wear such humble robes. His eyes flash with a fire that you recognize from your own reflection.
In a man of your unfortunate circumstances, such restlessness is understandable, if not acceptable. You were grown nearly to manhood by the time they came for you, and your blood had already become hot past the point of cooling, leaving your newly-chaste body with a distant, perpetual ache. But these are novices who have been under the Church's wing since they were small boys. That this new one could still show such spirit after so many years--- you're drawn to him, to the challenging angle of his chin as you approach, to the piercing stare that meets your intensely curious gaze.
"Welcome, brother." You make a gesture of blessing.
He nods his leonine head. "Thank you, father."
The tattoo on his brow is still fresh, the cross hovering over an unnatural dark red shadow, the inflamed skin still speckled in places with blood. His flesh must be hot to the touch. Desperate to know, you bring the pad of your thumb to your lips, and before he can turn away you press it right between his eyes in a gesture of consecration.
"May God's strength be upon you during your trials."
You expect him to flinch at your contact, but he thrusts himself forward, pressing into the benediction until your hand is nearly consumed by the heat of his skin.
He smiles.
"Amen."
Theme: Pranks
Prompt: Priest, Priest/Black Hat, Telling the other acolytes that the real tatoo that Priests and Priestesses get is a penis.
Title: When He Speaketh Fair, Believe Him Not
"It's called the Phallo Sancti; the Sacred Phallus."
You catch his blue eyes across the room, and only you can see the mischievous glimmer behind them. The young novices are staring at him, wide-eyed with horror and disbelief, and you realize that he was right--- although you created the lie, it is much, much funnier when he tells it.
"What you see here," he gestures at the cross tattooed on his brow. "Is merely the first part of the symbol. The rest will be added when we complete our advanced training."
They trust him implicitly. That's why he has to do it. He has cultivated such a marvelously solemn reputation that few would ever think to doubt his word. He has a way of standing, of lowering his gaze and his voice, that fills everything he says with gravity and truth. You marvel at him, bred to be honest but born to lie.
"Wha... what will it look like?" a young girl asks nervously. "I mean, when it's finished?"
"I'll show you." He answers gravely. Then he beckons abruptly for you to join him. "Come here, brother."
You nod your head and do your best to look very serious indeed as you walk to his side. Taking you by the shoulders, he turns you to face his breathless audience. He gives you a quick, conspiratorial--- affectionate--- squeeze before he lets you go. He then places the tips of his index fingers at the apex of the cross on your face, exactly as you did to him the night before, when you first demonstrated the punchline.
“The second part of the symbol begins here,” he says grimly.
He then draws his fingers out in contrasting arcs that encircle the arms of the cross and nearly meet again between your eyebrows. That’s the bollocks, you’d explained breathlessly as he giggled, scandalized, beneath your trembling hands.
“It then continues,” he intones. “Down into the shaft.”
His fingertips skate down the bridge of your nose, dipping out to add a generous head to the tip of the giant cock he has just traced onto your face.
“The Phallo Sancti,” he breathes in a voice of such flawless, reverent ecstasy that you almost explode with laughter and ruin the whole act. Instead, in a sudden burst of inspiration, you close your eyes and cross yourself hastily, as if overcome with religious magnitude. You peek out through one narrowed eyelid and see him struggling not to grin.
“But why?” another novice wonders in a tone close to panic. “What’s the meaning of such a symbol?”
“The Scripture says that the Church is the bride of Christ,” he answers smoothly, and this bit was his own doing--- you had failed to think of a convincing reason for the tattoo. “By marking ourselves with the symbol of the cross within the symbol of the phallus, we prove our devotion by feminine submission to the sacred masculine power of the Lord.”
The novices squirm uncomfortably. The lie is not a brilliant one, but coming from his desperately serious face, it gains a certain weight. His body leans towards yours, compelled, magnetic. The thrill of victory sings like electricity between you.
“Prepare yourselves, brothers and sisters,” he dismisses them with a gesture of benediction. “Thus endeth the lesson.”
They’ll never break him. It’s true that he’ll grow more solemn as the years go by and the war drags on, but you’ll never forget these golden days, when nothing seemed to be sacred. No matter how stern and unsmiling he may become, you know that he will never lose his thrilling capacity for breaking the rules.
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Number of fics: 2
Ratings: PG/R
Warnings: Slash.
Characters/Pairings: Charles/Erik
Theme: Tears
Prompt: X-Men First Class, Charles, on the beach, with the loss of his best friend and physical freedom, the tears wouldn't stop.
Title: Deluge
He repeats himself a dozen times--- I can’t feel my legs--- before the grief finally closes around his throat like a fist and he loses the ability to form words. Wounded past the point of silence, wounded body and soul, he resorts to base, primitive howls. They beg him to be still, but the tears won’t stop.
Every thud of his pulse brings two strikes against him--- another heartbeat’s worth of blood lost, another heartbeat’s worth of hope gone. His chest aches, his heart straining in every sense to endure, to defy the desire to break. He chokes and sobs and stares at the sky, past the worried faces and fluttering hands, and he wishes he could stop, but it’s simply impossible. He is undone.
It’s not just his physical sense of balance that has been wrecked. As he fell, he reached for him, for Erik. It was instinct, as his body crumpled uselessly, to reach out with his mind for something to hold on to. He reached for comfort, for courage.
But Erik was not there.
Like a man in the dark who misses the last stair, the sensation of falling was doubled by the shock of it. He realized too late that he’d set his foot down on thin air, that he’d trusted his weight to an intangible phantom--- I thought you were there--- I thought you would catch me.
They cling to him, they command him again and again to be calm. They promise that help is on the way, that he’s going to be all right. He weeps like he hasn’t since he was a child, a brat who screamed himself into a tantrum whenever the world seemed too unfair. Now his world is shrinking, shattering, as an ancient fear is made truth: my body has become my prison. A mind that could conquer the world, and he already knows that he’ll never walk again.
His equilibrium will never be the same. He reaches out helplessly, his mind grasping at the void where Erik should be. The strong, steady presence has become so familiar, so dear, that he can hardly comprehend its absence. He retreats towards serenity, terrified of the rage that he allowed to draw so near, the inferno that has swallowed his dearest friend. The world shifts and grinds painfully as it fights to stabilize itself. How can he ever feel whole again, with so many pieces missing?
At least his sobs have finally abated. He breathes, shallow but steady. He’s very quiet now, as quiet as a stone and just as still--- except for the tears that continue to stream from his eyes, utterly beyond his control.
This one's just a freebie I dashed off for kicks.
Title: Facets
Erik is a hair-puller. His long hands plow through dense, dark tresses and grab fistfuls, tearing, twisting, until Charles gasps and arches to relieve the pressure. He cranes his neck towards his lover’s clenched hand, exposing his throat to Erik’s ravenous mouth, to the nipping teeth and the strong, searching tongue. Fumbling like a blind man, Charles threads his shaking fingers through the other man’s hair and tightens his grip, but he doesn’t have the nerve to pull. He doesn’t want to hurt him.
Erik is a biter. Charles discovers this with a throbbing shoulder and an incredulous yelp of ouch!? It’s half exclamation, half query. He’s never been handled so roughly before. Erik bares his teeth unapologetically, his grin feral and his pupils blown wide with lust. Charles sways, feeling rather like the bird who looked into the eyes of the snake, the sting of the bite tingling under his palm. He whispers, “Do that again.”
Erik is a tease. He runs his mouth from toe to tip, his tongue drawing a hot wet line from the soft sole of Charles’s foot to the sweat-damp crown of his head, all while Xavier twitches and whimpers and begs. No other lover has made him so aware of his own body. He has a slight, graceful frame, but Erik is built like a lion, broad-shouldered and proud-necked. Their bodies fit together in elegant symmetry, the concave of Erik’s long torso the perfect match for the convex of Charles’s slender back.
Erik is all of these things, but most of all, right here, right now, in the bleary pink light of the sunrise with his hair all tangled and his body all sprawled in the deepest of post-coital slumbers, Charles can rest his head on his sturdy chest, listen to his heartbeat, and say: Erik is mine.
Fandom: The Great Mouse Detective
Number of fics: 1
Ratings: G
Warnings: Total gayness.
Characters/Pairings: Basil/Ratigan
Theme: Love-Hate Relationships
Prompt: any, any, "You look so lovely tonight, I almost don't want to shoot/stab/ect you."
Title The Picture of Perfection
"You look so lovely tonight, I almost don't want to shoot you."
Scarcely five paces away from the mouth of Ratigan's loaded pistol and Basil still has the nerve to scoff fearlessly at his words.
"That's always been your greatest weakness, old boy."
The rat hardly hears him, he's so mesmerized by his enemy's appearance. Basil's tailor deserves a king's ransom in return for the fine work he does to emphasize the detective's slender figure--- Ratigan's eyes cling to the long, lean line of his torso, the craftsmanship so flawless that there's barely a sign where the waistcoat ends and the trousers begin.
"Hmm?" he wonders absently.
His gaze is instantly drawn to the feral grin that suddenly splits Basil's face.
"You're too easily distracted."
He springs. In his reverie Ratigan had allowed his aim to wander just far enough from the heart for Basil to chance it, and as he ducks past the weapon and brings a fist up hard under the villain's jaw, Ratigan dazedly notices the flash of an emerald cufflink at his wrist--- the same color as his eyes.
My God, he thinks, reeling from the blow. Since when did Basil become so bloody fashionable?
The only logical conclusion, of course, is that he must have absorbed the ability through so many hours in the company of the Professor himself, whose sense of style is spoken of highly even in circles that despise him. It's one more title for Basil in his heart: protege.
Now if he can just get him to renounce that ghastly deerstalker cap...
_______end.