[Raffles] Ficlet: But My Own
Lame title is lame.
1157 words of the post-'Last Laugh' hurt/comfort that mshepley called for.
Is PG-rated slashy.
Thanks to madlovescience for eyeballing it! Any fail is my own.
But My Own
The cabman who bore us swiftly home and would remain silent about what he had seen that day was a great mercy of fate, which smiled on us again when Dr. Theobald proved to be out, judged by the porter as unlikely to return before the following evening.
Raffles had swatted away my attempts at assistance and made his surreptitious entry alone while I went in through the front, but the moment he reached his bed, he fell onto it and the very life seemed to drain out of him. He now looked every inch the invalid he pretended to be.
"Bunny, if you would be so good," he murmured, blood-tinged lids drooping closed over his eyes, which alone were as sharp as ever.
"Anything you need," I rejoined quickly, ready to run for hot water and bandages and liniments, to raid the doctor's poisonous cupboards for anything that might bring relief.
"Put out the lights and leave me be," Raffles finished.
If only he knew--and it was solely his sad state of abused injury that allowed me believe he did not--how my heart broke to hear and see the defeat that had washed in to drown the triumph of his escape! How it ached to think that I had stood by, pacing and useless, while such brutal revenge was visited on him! How, if the blackguard Neapolitan had not died hoist on his own petard, I would have wrung his vile neck with my bare hands!
But I said none of these things. I knew my Raffles, and just at present he would not receive them with any sympathy, and why should he? All the sympathy should be his.
"No, Raffles, I won't," I declared, and went purposefully for what I thought I might need. All but the dressings were attainable from the large supply with which Dr. Theobald littered Raffles's room: antiseptics, a pungent grease for rubbing into sore muscles, a solution of morphine that Raffles believed to be rather weaker than its label claimed. The bandages I took from the doctor's consulting room, from a supply large enough that they would not be missed. Theobald would have to be kept away at all costs until the outward signs of Raffles's ordeal were gone. I would welcome his interference with open arms tomorrow, I thought, if it meant the damage was so quickly erased.
Raffles was lying as I'd left him, motionless on his back as though laid out on the mortuary slab that he'd come so damnably close--again!--to landing upon. My stomach twisted at the thought and I hurried to his side, eager to form a happier tableau, but Raffles snatched his hand away before I could lift it from where it lay limp at his side.
"Raffles, be reasonable," I said, and pried the hand off his stomach by its bloodstained shirt cuff. "Lord only knows what manner of filth was on those thongs. If you'd like them to scar, well, that's your business, but I won't have you dying of some infection." Still he tugged weakly away, but I held fast, wrenching the cuff upwards (he had discarded his jacket, at least) and applying my cloth to the wound that encircled his wrist. He gave a flinch and a little hiss, and pain me though it did to cause him any more hurt, I knew it was what had to be done. "I'm going to do it whether you fight me or not," I said, wrestling his fingers into my grasp the better to keep him still. "It'll be easier on you if you'll just lie back and let me."
My reluctant patient cracked open one piercing eye and caught my gaze. I held it for all I was worth, letting go the cloth to place my other hand atop the one I held. "Let me," I said again, with gentle entreaty.
His eye softened. "You are too good, Bunny," he said in a bare whisper, and at last gave up resisting.
I was as careful as I knew how to be, every flinch and twitch a knife to my heart, every groan a fuel on the fire of hatred for the monstrous Camorra, for the very ballasts of the Uhlan from which Raffles had jumped, but most of all for his damned and doomed Faustina. 'Her fault, her fault,' rang loudly through my head as I cleaned and dressed Raffles's wrists, as I coaxed the blood from his neck and cheeks-- her fault that the white hair I combed the grime from would never again gleam like a dark sapphire in moonlight-- her fault that any light in his eyes was now shadowed by grief and that their corners bore spidery lines-- her fault that the bruises I tried to soothe from his lips were not placed there by my ecstatic teeth-- her fault that when my fingers went to his shirt buttons, Raffles's eyes flew open in surprise at what was no more an habitual action.
Had he returned in full health with her on his arm, aglow with joy and love, I would have hated her still, but would only have been able to bless her for his happiness. As it stood now, I hated her doubly: for stealing his heart, and for having the audacity to take it to her grave. Every wound was her fault, as much as the fault of the man who'd inflicted them.
I peeled the ruined shirt away, Raffles limp as a rag-doll in my arms, and when it was off, I simply held him for a moment.
"Don't, Bunny," Raffles muttered.
"Don't comfort my friend?" I asked, though my sinking heart knew his precise meaning.
"I know what you want, Bunny," he said, pulling back from me and sitting upright under his own power. He fixed me with both eyes at last, full of regret that, for once, I was not certain was all for her. "And I can't give it to you. I don't think I ever did, did I, even back then?"
"Whatever you had was enough then, and whatever you've got is enough now," I said, enflamed, sorely missing my merry devil but loving this pale shell of him no less.
He made no answer, but neither did he protest my hands working the healing unguents into his ravaged skin. Nor was there the slightest question in the glance he gave me when, job done, I laid my tools aside and pulled the bedcovers over both of us, whispering him to sleep with remembrances of our old triumphs, his fingers twined in mine and my unabashed desire pressed against his back.
I thought to change for a safer bedside vigil when the dawn came, but hope dawned too when Raffles pulled me directly back down and wrapped his sore limbs firmly about me, the name on his swollen lips not hers.
1157 words of the post-'Last Laugh' hurt/comfort that mshepley called for.
Is PG-rated slashy.
Thanks to madlovescience for eyeballing it! Any fail is my own.
But My Own
The cabman who bore us swiftly home and would remain silent about what he had seen that day was a great mercy of fate, which smiled on us again when Dr. Theobald proved to be out, judged by the porter as unlikely to return before the following evening.
Raffles had swatted away my attempts at assistance and made his surreptitious entry alone while I went in through the front, but the moment he reached his bed, he fell onto it and the very life seemed to drain out of him. He now looked every inch the invalid he pretended to be.
"Bunny, if you would be so good," he murmured, blood-tinged lids drooping closed over his eyes, which alone were as sharp as ever.
"Anything you need," I rejoined quickly, ready to run for hot water and bandages and liniments, to raid the doctor's poisonous cupboards for anything that might bring relief.
"Put out the lights and leave me be," Raffles finished.
If only he knew--and it was solely his sad state of abused injury that allowed me believe he did not--how my heart broke to hear and see the defeat that had washed in to drown the triumph of his escape! How it ached to think that I had stood by, pacing and useless, while such brutal revenge was visited on him! How, if the blackguard Neapolitan had not died hoist on his own petard, I would have wrung his vile neck with my bare hands!
But I said none of these things. I knew my Raffles, and just at present he would not receive them with any sympathy, and why should he? All the sympathy should be his.
"No, Raffles, I won't," I declared, and went purposefully for what I thought I might need. All but the dressings were attainable from the large supply with which Dr. Theobald littered Raffles's room: antiseptics, a pungent grease for rubbing into sore muscles, a solution of morphine that Raffles believed to be rather weaker than its label claimed. The bandages I took from the doctor's consulting room, from a supply large enough that they would not be missed. Theobald would have to be kept away at all costs until the outward signs of Raffles's ordeal were gone. I would welcome his interference with open arms tomorrow, I thought, if it meant the damage was so quickly erased.
Raffles was lying as I'd left him, motionless on his back as though laid out on the mortuary slab that he'd come so damnably close--again!--to landing upon. My stomach twisted at the thought and I hurried to his side, eager to form a happier tableau, but Raffles snatched his hand away before I could lift it from where it lay limp at his side.
"Raffles, be reasonable," I said, and pried the hand off his stomach by its bloodstained shirt cuff. "Lord only knows what manner of filth was on those thongs. If you'd like them to scar, well, that's your business, but I won't have you dying of some infection." Still he tugged weakly away, but I held fast, wrenching the cuff upwards (he had discarded his jacket, at least) and applying my cloth to the wound that encircled his wrist. He gave a flinch and a little hiss, and pain me though it did to cause him any more hurt, I knew it was what had to be done. "I'm going to do it whether you fight me or not," I said, wrestling his fingers into my grasp the better to keep him still. "It'll be easier on you if you'll just lie back and let me."
My reluctant patient cracked open one piercing eye and caught my gaze. I held it for all I was worth, letting go the cloth to place my other hand atop the one I held. "Let me," I said again, with gentle entreaty.
His eye softened. "You are too good, Bunny," he said in a bare whisper, and at last gave up resisting.
I was as careful as I knew how to be, every flinch and twitch a knife to my heart, every groan a fuel on the fire of hatred for the monstrous Camorra, for the very ballasts of the Uhlan from which Raffles had jumped, but most of all for his damned and doomed Faustina. 'Her fault, her fault,' rang loudly through my head as I cleaned and dressed Raffles's wrists, as I coaxed the blood from his neck and cheeks-- her fault that the white hair I combed the grime from would never again gleam like a dark sapphire in moonlight-- her fault that any light in his eyes was now shadowed by grief and that their corners bore spidery lines-- her fault that the bruises I tried to soothe from his lips were not placed there by my ecstatic teeth-- her fault that when my fingers went to his shirt buttons, Raffles's eyes flew open in surprise at what was no more an habitual action.
Had he returned in full health with her on his arm, aglow with joy and love, I would have hated her still, but would only have been able to bless her for his happiness. As it stood now, I hated her doubly: for stealing his heart, and for having the audacity to take it to her grave. Every wound was her fault, as much as the fault of the man who'd inflicted them.
I peeled the ruined shirt away, Raffles limp as a rag-doll in my arms, and when it was off, I simply held him for a moment.
"Don't, Bunny," Raffles muttered.
"Don't comfort my friend?" I asked, though my sinking heart knew his precise meaning.
"I know what you want, Bunny," he said, pulling back from me and sitting upright under his own power. He fixed me with both eyes at last, full of regret that, for once, I was not certain was all for her. "And I can't give it to you. I don't think I ever did, did I, even back then?"
"Whatever you had was enough then, and whatever you've got is enough now," I said, enflamed, sorely missing my merry devil but loving this pale shell of him no less.
He made no answer, but neither did he protest my hands working the healing unguents into his ravaged skin. Nor was there the slightest question in the glance he gave me when, job done, I laid my tools aside and pulled the bedcovers over both of us, whispering him to sleep with remembrances of our old triumphs, his fingers twined in mine and my unabashed desire pressed against his back.
I thought to change for a safer bedside vigil when the dawn came, but hope dawned too when Raffles pulled me directly back down and wrapped his sore limbs firmly about me, the name on his swollen lips not hers.