Comment fics: Raffles
Jul. 2nd, 2012 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shinonRanging 250-350 words.
1. "Run"
Raffles stared intently out through the shutters, the smoke of a final Sullivan curling around his head. When he spoke at last, the words fell almost lazily from his lips: "You had better run now, Bunny."
There was nothing more appalling he could have said to me, or more entirely unexpected. Yet insulted as I was that he could think me so irresolute, part of me was pleased he had spared a thought for my safety with the police drawing down on us so near. "I won't," I said. "I told you I was your man, and I intend to prove it."
He turned his head just enough to impart on me a small, cold smile, as though he had known I would say exactly that. In that moment I hated him. "My dear brave rabbit," he said, and I searched his voice for mockery.
Abruptly he straightened and moved away from the window. In a very different tone he said, "You may as well have this," and thrust upon me an enormous pistol, produced, as far as I could make out, from thin air.
I do not know how, after all the other events of that night, I continued to muster the energy to be shocked. "Raffles!"
He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. "Go wait by the back door, there's a good fellow." Producing a weapon of his own, he returned to the window and said, seemingly to the street, "I wouldn't count us out of this yet."
2. "Grave"
For weeks afterward, I cherished some faint hope. As we sailed back home and the horrific event receded into the past, my hope grew stronger. I came increasingly to believe that my eyes had deceived me, and by the time I stood once more on the familiar soil of England, I held it as a certainty. At some point I should receive a wire or a mysterious telephone call, or be accosted in the street by an elderly rag-picker, and all would be well again.
I knew my Raffles, though I did not yet know how he’d done it. I determined myself to find out, so that when inevitably he came round to laugh at my grief, I could tell him with perfect complacence that I had never been taken in. It had been a clever trick, but a cruel one, and perhaps once he learnt it hadn’t fooled me, he would abandon such ploys altogether.
It was only when I returned to Ham Common that this precious hope guttered out. I knew at once that explaining to our landlady why "Mr. Ralph" was not at my side would be more than I could bear. I stood some moments on the front steps, staring up at a house that had once been home to very different sensations; then I went away, to seek lodging elsewhere and perhaps eventually to write a letter indicating where our old belongings might be sent, though I could not imagine I should ever want them.
I had seen with my own eyes the bullet that had claimed his life, and the hole into which they lowered his ruined frame. As I stood at this grave, no stranger had confidentially taken me by the elbow and corrected my misapprehensions. I might stare – and I did stare – into the face of every man and woman I met for any sign of the lineaments I knew, but all in vain. Raffles would not come back; that was his cruelest trick of all.
3. "Wrath"
I could not consider it entirely my own fault that I had been captured. Had Raffles only told me what he was planning - but that was a futile thought. I had come to accept, far more graciously than he deserved, that he would never do any such thing. My subsequent escape, at any rate, I could credit entirely to myself, and it was in this escape that Raffles finally found me. I had dealt with the master of the house by a quick blow to the head; the lady I had barricaded into her room before she had the chance to interfere. I will admit I was still in some danger of discovery by the servants, but on the whole I believed I had done quite well for myself.
"Bunny," said Raffles, stepping over the prone form of my erstwhile captor, "what are you doing?"
"I'm escaping," I said, with as much reproach in my manner as I could possibly summon. "I should think that would be obvious."
"But I don't understand. It was a perfectly simple plan! Why would an escape be necessary in the first place?" He laughed a little, in seeming incredulity. "Why, even you should have been hard-pressed to bungle it this badly."
There being no mirror in that room, I cannot tell you with what expression I then regarded him. I can say only that I came within inches of laying him out beside our intended victim of the night, and that after mere moments returning my gaze, Raffles changed his manner appreciably.
"It's an impressive feat all the same," he said, in a tone nearly verging on the conciliatory. He looked down at the man lying at his feet. "Now, then - let's do something about this fellow, shall we?"
1. "Run"
Raffles stared intently out through the shutters, the smoke of a final Sullivan curling around his head. When he spoke at last, the words fell almost lazily from his lips: "You had better run now, Bunny."
There was nothing more appalling he could have said to me, or more entirely unexpected. Yet insulted as I was that he could think me so irresolute, part of me was pleased he had spared a thought for my safety with the police drawing down on us so near. "I won't," I said. "I told you I was your man, and I intend to prove it."
He turned his head just enough to impart on me a small, cold smile, as though he had known I would say exactly that. In that moment I hated him. "My dear brave rabbit," he said, and I searched his voice for mockery.
Abruptly he straightened and moved away from the window. In a very different tone he said, "You may as well have this," and thrust upon me an enormous pistol, produced, as far as I could make out, from thin air.
I do not know how, after all the other events of that night, I continued to muster the energy to be shocked. "Raffles!"
He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. "Go wait by the back door, there's a good fellow." Producing a weapon of his own, he returned to the window and said, seemingly to the street, "I wouldn't count us out of this yet."
2. "Grave"
For weeks afterward, I cherished some faint hope. As we sailed back home and the horrific event receded into the past, my hope grew stronger. I came increasingly to believe that my eyes had deceived me, and by the time I stood once more on the familiar soil of England, I held it as a certainty. At some point I should receive a wire or a mysterious telephone call, or be accosted in the street by an elderly rag-picker, and all would be well again.
I knew my Raffles, though I did not yet know how he’d done it. I determined myself to find out, so that when inevitably he came round to laugh at my grief, I could tell him with perfect complacence that I had never been taken in. It had been a clever trick, but a cruel one, and perhaps once he learnt it hadn’t fooled me, he would abandon such ploys altogether.
It was only when I returned to Ham Common that this precious hope guttered out. I knew at once that explaining to our landlady why "Mr. Ralph" was not at my side would be more than I could bear. I stood some moments on the front steps, staring up at a house that had once been home to very different sensations; then I went away, to seek lodging elsewhere and perhaps eventually to write a letter indicating where our old belongings might be sent, though I could not imagine I should ever want them.
I had seen with my own eyes the bullet that had claimed his life, and the hole into which they lowered his ruined frame. As I stood at this grave, no stranger had confidentially taken me by the elbow and corrected my misapprehensions. I might stare – and I did stare – into the face of every man and woman I met for any sign of the lineaments I knew, but all in vain. Raffles would not come back; that was his cruelest trick of all.
3. "Wrath"
I could not consider it entirely my own fault that I had been captured. Had Raffles only told me what he was planning - but that was a futile thought. I had come to accept, far more graciously than he deserved, that he would never do any such thing. My subsequent escape, at any rate, I could credit entirely to myself, and it was in this escape that Raffles finally found me. I had dealt with the master of the house by a quick blow to the head; the lady I had barricaded into her room before she had the chance to interfere. I will admit I was still in some danger of discovery by the servants, but on the whole I believed I had done quite well for myself.
"Bunny," said Raffles, stepping over the prone form of my erstwhile captor, "what are you doing?"
"I'm escaping," I said, with as much reproach in my manner as I could possibly summon. "I should think that would be obvious."
"But I don't understand. It was a perfectly simple plan! Why would an escape be necessary in the first place?" He laughed a little, in seeming incredulity. "Why, even you should have been hard-pressed to bungle it this badly."
There being no mirror in that room, I cannot tell you with what expression I then regarded him. I can say only that I came within inches of laying him out beside our intended victim of the night, and that after mere moments returning my gaze, Raffles changed his manner appreciably.
"It's an impressive feat all the same," he said, in a tone nearly verging on the conciliatory. He looked down at the man lying at his feet. "Now, then - let's do something about this fellow, shall we?"
