The Great Mouse Detective: Home Is Where
Title: Home Is Where
Characters/Pairing: Basil/Dawson, past Basil/Ratigan
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2180
Disclaimer: GMD belongs to Big D (as in Disney, not Darkness from Legend) and some other folks. I make no profit off this.
Summary: Dawson comes home to (yet again) find Basil in deep contemplation of Ratigan's portrait. He's not sure why this bothers him so much, but he is very sure why he's shocked when Basil explains about his and Ratigan's secret past...
Author's Notes: Written for a prompt on the shkinkmeme . My first Great Mouse Detective fic, but unlikely to be my last. I love that movie.
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Home, Dr. David Q. Dawson thought as he opened the tiny door at Baker Street. It was still an unaccustomed thought for him - new and wonderful. He paused on the threshold, twitching his nose to catch all the scents he’d learned to love: smoke and science underlain by the savory aroma of Mrs. Judson’s cheese crumpets.
“Ba-” he started to call his friend and housemate, but decided against it. For one thing, the other mouse would not thank Dawson if he interrupted some delicate experiment or pensive reflection. For another, the doctor enjoyed the surprise of discovering what the unpredictable detective was up to. Would Basil be at his workbench, smiling maniacally in eager expectation of the results of some scientific test? Would he be sitting back in his armchair, gaze locked on some distant problem, mouth puffing around his pipe as he pondered some mystery? Perhaps he would be at the settee, violin cradled in his paws while he chose a piece worthy of his mood… Smile curving the corners of his mouth up under his moustache, Dawson entered their home.
“Basil?” he called softly, puzzled when his questing gaze did not find the other mouse in any of the places Dawson had considered. There was no answer, but the doctor finally located his friend standing by the mantel, so deep in contemplation of something there that he’d not heard Dawson’s entrance or voice.
Again? The upward turn of the doctor’s mouth reversed and his furry brow lowered in a frown. He sighed softly and closed the door behind him. He’s not looking at…
But he was. As Dawson crept closer, it was clear that Basil was looking at the small portrait of Ratigan, eyes fixed in intense regard, tail twitching periodically at some thought or emotion. Why? Something dark and heavy twisted in Dawson’s gut. He didn’t like finding Basil in this attitude - it unsettled him somehow. It wasn’t unusual to find the vain mouse in satisfied contemplation of a newspaper clipping or some other memento of a case solved. This was different. There was never a smug look of pleasure, but rather subtle signs of emotions that Basil rarely displayed. Sometimes he would stare at the picture with a look of deep sadness drooping his ears and misting his eyes. Other times he’d stand before it with a tiny smile Dawson could only, reluctantly, describe as fond.
Today, however, the detective was wearing the look Dawson had been seeing more and more frequently of late: mouth half turned up and eyes vague with wistful recollections. It cast dark clouds of irrational irritation and undefined melancholy over the doctor’s usually sunny disposition.
“Basil,” he interrupted, unintentionally sharp. The detective, unstartled, refocused his gaze and turned it to meet Dawson’s. He knew I was here the whole time.
“Welcome home, doctor,” he greeted his friend with a reasonable approximation of his usual bluff joviality. Shadowed remnants of his reverie, however, lingered in his eyes and in the just detectable roughness of his voice. His empty smile faltered at Dawson’s reticence. “I say my dear Dawson, whatever is the matter? You haven’t even removed your hat,” he added with deliberate lightness. “Mm-hm?” he hummed, eyebrow raised at the lack of response. With a small shrug, he briskly reached for the doctor’s hat.
He’ll pull it off, toss it with his usual accuracy to land squarely on a dart, and the moment will pass. The deduction was “elementary” as Basil would say. Not this time. Dawson reached up to grip the the extended wrist, freezing both its motion and Basil’s expression. “Why” he asked, painfully direct.
“Why?” Basil echoed, falsely bright. “Just think of what Mrs. Judson would say if she saw you wearing a hat in the sitting room,” he teased airily, empty smile once more firmly in place.
“No.” Dawson had asked the detective about the portrait many times before, though never this directly. He’d always been deflected or distracted into temporarily forgetting it. But he could not stand for this reserve to continue any longer. “Basil,” he said seriously, “answer me. Why do you keep a picture of that madmouse on the mantel?” Why do you look at it like… Dawson actually had no idea how to describe it.
Now, Basil was looking at Dawson - really looking though his expression most closely resembled the calculating, contemplative regard he might turn on a piece of paper or an unusual paw print. As if I were a mystery he needed to solve…
“Is it so strange?” Basil asked finally. The doctor opened his mouth to retort but was stopped by the changing look in his friend’s eyes. They narrowed now and shone with his signature confident determination - the look Dawson admired most. This close, it swept away his annoyed words, loosened his grip on Basil’s wrist, and set inexplicable butterflies fluttering in his stomach. “Is it so strange for a mouse to keep a portrait of his deceased former lover?”
Dawson began replying automatically, “Not at a- former lover!?” The last two words finally registered. Deceased. Former. Lover. All the gravity in Baker Street seemed to increase tenfold with those words. The doctor’s paw dropped to his side leadenly and it felt as if the force was pulling down painfully on his stomach and on his head. Deceased former lover. Deceasedformerlover. The room positively spun with the words.
“I say, old chap!” Basil gripped Dawson’s shoulder firmly, guiding him. “I think you’d better sit down.” The doctor found himself sitting on the sofa, his friend’s weight settling beside him, tail brushing his own. “Do you need some brandy?”
Yes… brandy’s just the thing for shock… Shock. His dazed mind seized on the word. He was indeed shocked - appalled even - at Basil’s words. That he should tease me so tastelessly merely to divert my attention! His mind latched onto that explanation - on anger - to center itself once more. “Really, Basil,” he said, voice lacking most of the strength of irritation he wished to put into it, “that’s rather crossing the line, don’t you think?”
“It’s not a joke, Dawson.” The doctor hadn’t heard that soft sincerity in Basil’s voice since they’d said goodbye to Olivia. But still…
“The Great Mouse Detective and the Napoleon of Crime?” The derisive question at last achieved some of the heat Dawson wanted. “It’s… it’s… it’s…”
“It was a long time ago.” The uncharacteristically quiet words stopped Dawson, turned him on the sofa to face his companion. Basil’s mouth was gently twisted in a wry smile and his eyes were again filled with regret.
“But…” He couldn’t doubt that rare emotion in the other mouse’s eyes, yet still he refused to accept. “But he’s a… a slimy, contemptible sewer rat!”
Basil chuckled softly at the repetition of his own words: short, bittersweet laughter hummed through his nose. “He wasn’t always insane, you know. ..” The detective trailed off, voice and gaze going distant. “Once,” he continued at length, after a sigh, “he was a passionate, intelligent young professor.” Dawson tried to picture a younger, academic Ratigan, but his last sight of the rat, with his teeth bared and eyes bloodshot with rage and madness, got in the way. “He taught with such eloquence and delight.” The gentleness in Basil’s voice managed to soften the image of the late professor, but at the same time made the doctor’s brow furrow in vague dissatisfaction. “And the way he played the harp was just so…” There was another wistful sigh after a moment of silence, but the detective didn’t continue.
“And you?” Dawson asked hesitantly. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. He didn’t want the image of a younger, adoring Basil added to the one of Ratigan, thin frame enveloped in the larger rodent’s embrace.
“I?” the detective responded, voice louder. “Why, I was the genius student who dazzled him with my brilliant deductions.” His tone was filled with the half-hearted, thoroughly unconvincing arrogance he used when he was trying to bluff his way out of an emotional scene. It was so very much the usual Basil that Dawson found his expression smoothing in spite of himself. He shook his head, both at his friend’s transparent pretense and to dispel the last unwanted visions from his mind.
Still… The action couldn’t remove all the shock and disbelief. “It just can’t be the same rodent,” he exclaimed softly. “Whatever could have happened to change him so?”
“Society,” Basil whispered, ears drooping and face turning back toward the mantel. “Ambition. Boredom. Frustration…” He added something more, so softly that Dawson couldn’t hear properly, but he thought it might have been “betrayal.” The detective’s long snout twitched a few times after that, fine whiskers dancing subtly in the firelight. “In short,” he sighed yet again and turned back to the doctor, eyes oddly bright, “a dozen little things that drove him first to crime and ultimately to madness.” His shoulders lifted in an infinitesimal shrug and his tail twitched against Dawson’s. “A story for another time.”
“Another time?” Again he tries to brush me off! “Basil, Ratigan tried to kill you!” More than once!
“Yes, he did.” The words were oddly clipped and their tone husky. The look Dawson sometimes saw the detective give Ratigan’s portrait overtook his features. The sorrow in his eyes cut into Dawson, but, for some reason, made him more angry than sad.
It’s not fair, was his inexplicable, irrational thought. The thought of Basil keeping all this from him. The notion that the detective should mourn for the greatest villain Mousedom had ever known. The idea of Basil and Ratigan together. “Confound it, Basil” Dawson finally exploded, “I won’t stand for it!” The other mouse’s eyes widened at the outburst. And widened further still, while his mouth gaped, when Dawson gripped his shoulders, drawing him down nose to nose with the angry doctor. “It’s not right!”
“I know I-”
“That you should grieve for him!” Molten emotion pushed words out of his mouth before thought could process them. “That you should have felt - do feel such emotion for him.” Faster and faster they came. “Blast it all! It’s not right that it should be him and not me!”
“Who says it’s not you?” Basil queried softly. The calm, cool tone stemmed the flow of Dawson’s tirade, damping its heat.
“What?” The doctor’s paws unclenched and he withdrew slightly.
“I certainly didn’t say that,” the detective informed him in something close to his usual manner, though his gaze momentarily evaded his companion’s as best it could in such close proximity.
“You mean… What do you mean?” For the second time that evening, Dawson’s head spun.
“Dawson, have you not wondered why I’ve spent so many evenings of late contemplating the likeness of my deceased former lover?” The doctor could only nod. “Do you not wonder why I’ve chosen to tell you about him now?” His mouth could only shape the word “yes” as the other mouse’s eyes met his once more. Basil’s expression - the nervously blinking eyes and hesitant, fluctuating smile - had all that incongruous shyness of that time Dawson had tried to say goodbye. “Did it not occur to you that I might wish for a living, current lover?”
“You…” A different kind of heat flushed the doctor’s cheeks. “You don’t mean…” Suddenly, he was painfully aware of Basil’s closeness, the warmth of the other mouse’s tail pressed against his own. “I… I…”
“Yes, Dawson. You.” With those words, Basil’s shy smile widened and his paws went to Dawson’s cheeks. “Just you,” he whispered, tilting the doctor’s face upwards and lightly bringing their mouths together.
Fireworks exploded in Dawson’s head and behind his lids when he closed his eyes. His paws moved from Basil’s shoulders, one sliding down to a forearm, the other up and around to the back of the detective’s head. All through it, the pressure of that delightful contact increased, until finally, breathless, they both pulled away.
“Well, doctor?” Basil asked expectantly when Dawson opened his eyes again.
“I say, Basil!” The butterflies in his stomach had returned, in force, and invited friends to his head as well. “I say…”
“What do you say?” There was that gleeful tone Basil got when he was hot on the trail of some mystery.
“I… don’t know…”
“Not to worry, my dear Dawson.” The detective’s paws slipped around to cradle his new lover’s head. “I always know,” he said with endearing cockiness before bringing their mouths together again.
Ah, Dawson knew what to say then. Home, sweet home.
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Yes, I've slashed rodents. What of it?