![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
[untitled Raffles kink meme fill]
Fandom: Raffles
Characters: Raffles, Bunny, she whose name must not be sullied
Word count: ~2000
Warnings: Major character death, gratuitous sad bullshit
Notes: Wrote this early last month for a request at the Raffles kink meme - reverse death AU in which Raffles is the one who survives the war, and then looks up that lady Bunny almost married.
"I'll make him pay for that," said Bunny, with a ferocity anyone else could hardly have credited. Even Raffles himself had very seldom seen it. "I'll make him answer for it if it's the last thing I do." He reached down to squeeze Raffles's hand reassuringly, and at the same time to press a thin paper cylinder into it.
"Do my senses deceive me, Bunny, or have you somehow managed to scrounge up a Sullivan?"
"I was saving it for a special occasion."
"Ah!" Raffles chuckled. "And what could be more special than being shot through the leg for England?"
Bunny did not share in his mirth. When he did speak, he sounded as though he took the fact of Raffles's injury as a personal reproach. "I'll get him back."
"I don't fancy his chances while you've got that look in your eye. Have at him, my dear rabbit," said Raffles. He leaned back against the rock that hid them and closed his eyes, feeling altogether more cheerful about the day's events than he had expected to. For a time he heard nothing but the exchange of shots between Bunny and their adversary, the man who had so expertly perforated Raffles's thigh.
"Damn," said Bunny, and Raffles heard him drop back under cover and begin to reload. Then he heard him stop. "Raffles," Bunny whispered, with a dreadful fear, "are you -"
Raffles exhaled a stream of smoke. When this did not seem to give Bunny adequate reassurance, he opened one eye and said, "I'm quite all right, old chap; do carry on. I believe you were wreaking bloody vengeance in my name."
Bunny sighed in relief. Raffles could see him shaking. "I think the other fellow's done something with his hat, but I'll have him in a moment, I'm sure." He finished reloading and scrambled back up the rock to line up his next shot. "I really think they'll let you go, Raffles. You turned in Connal despite the risk to yourself, and now here you are, wounded in service - your honor and courage deserve leniency, and I have every confidence you will return to England a free man. A decorated man!"
"That sounds very nice, Bunny."
"And when we return to London, we shall do exactly as we like."
"I shall do as I like, certainly. Will you follow me?"
"Unto death itself. You must know that."
For a time, Raffles could think of nothing to say. "I was hardly going to suggest death. Would simply returning to a life of crime be a dramatic enough gesture to suit you?"
"I can think of nothing I should like better - oh, but I've missed my mark again."
"Here," said Raffles, pulling himself upright, "give me a crack at him."
"No, stay down. You never can trust me with anything, can you? Not even while you lie there bleeding on the veldt -"
A shot rang out. Raffles was still lying bleeding on the veldt, but now he was doing it alone.
It all happened exactly as Bunny had predicted. They let him go. "At any rate," he was told, "you'll hardly be scrambling up any drainpipes in that condition."
"Without an accomplice?" Raffles said coldly.
"Your leg."
He had quite forgotten.
The cane took adjusting to. He had used them before, to facilitate this disguise or that, but in one way that only made it the more difficult. He was constantly reminding himself that he could not simply straighten up and cast it aside, that his limp was not merely affectation this time. Nor was the steady ache in his torn muscles, jarring him with every step. He - Raffles the great cracksman, the once-great cricketer - was no longer master of his own body.
As much as possible he busied himself with resenting this fact. If he ever stopped, he would learn he could not master his wits, either. He could think of nothing else but Bunny: Bunny reproaching him with his last breath, Bunny swearing to follow him, Bunny standing in the Albany all those years ago with a pistol to his head. Loyal, brave Bunny, who was dead.
It was a thoroughly alien London Raffles now found himself in, one drained of all possibility of pleasure. He walked slowly, and not only because of his leg - he had no pressing reason to be anywhere. He made an apathetic tour of the scenes of their various crimes and felt no triumph. He could not remember what he had taken from whom, only that Bunny had been there. Bunny had been angry with him that night, or Bunny had acquitted himself particularly well, or Bunny's face had slowly lit up as the realization hit him that the job had not been a failure at all.
He tried to imagine what Bunny might say if he were there, but could not. He had never allowed Bunny to see him so low. Perhaps, a detached part of him noted, because he never had been. He could have had no reason to be. Not even Faustina.
Bunny, he remembered, had had an Eve of his own. She would have seen his name in the long lists of the dead. Raffles had seldom, before the war, been motivated by any idea of "duty," but it seemed to him now that she must know everything - and therefore he must tell her.
Finding her was no difficulty. He still had the investigative abilities of a first-rate criminal, even if his quarry now was neither diamonds nor pearls. He did not know what he would say, or how he would gain entry if she refused or could not recognize him. The old Raffles would have known all these things to the smallest detail, but after Africa, he had stopped making plans.
So he simply walked up to her flat.
The shock of recognition passed over her features - her eyes were as wide as Bunny's had ever been. "Is it...?" she began in a near whisper, but even in a whisper could not seem to find the will to finish the question.
Raffles bowed his head. "May I come in?"
"Harry is dead," she said. "I can see by your eyes that you know it." She had not remarked on the strange circumstance of Raffles being alive and at her door.
"I was with him."
"I thought you must have been." Her calm, resigned acceptance did her credit. He wished she would do otherwise.
"It was for me that he went."
She watched him in silence. Perhaps this was not calm acceptance at all, and she was merely in shock. Perhaps he ought to be gentler with her.
He did not at present have it in him to be gentle, either for her sake or for his own. "Do you understand? Bunny would be alive if not for me."
"If not for you, he would have killed himself that night." Her voice was almost steady - almost.
Raffles could not argue this point. He would have begun pacing, but his leg stopped him. Instead he stared out the window and said, "If I hadn't been hit in the leg - or if I had taken his gun - it could have been your Harry Manders speaking to you now."
After a long silence, she said quietly, "How long have you been back from the dead?"
"Oh! long enough," he said bitterly. "We had been living together, he and I. We were at the height of our skill and daring." The recollection brought him little pride.
"The Raffles Relics?" she said, one hand near her mouth as though in preparation for a horrified gasp - though he did not really think she would do something so unrefined.
"Of course," he said, making a mocking little bow. "Who else could it have been?" He stopped, thoughtful. "Bunny was marvelous that day. He never used to be able to keep his cool so well -" And he stopped again, wondering whether he had ever said these things to Bunny. Not adequately, he was sure. Nowhere near adequately, considering what he'd put the man through. Oh, it had always shaken out in the end, whatever surprises he'd concocted, however genuinely Bunny had wept at the graveside of Mr. Maturin -
but he oughtn't have laughed at that grief. He understood that now, more acutely than he could have imagined. Without any invitation, he sank, defeated, into the nearest chair.
A soft rustle of fabric testified moments later that she had sat down opposite him, though he did not look up. "I'm not glad to hear it, Mr. Raffles, but I won't remonstrate with you. I urged you long ago to give that business up, so my piece has already been said. And in the end, that was not what claimed the life so dear to both of us."
He lifted his head and stared at her bleakly. There were tears in her eyes.
"He should have chosen you," said Raffles, in a voice he could not recognize as his own.
For many moments they sat in silence. Raffles stared at the carpet without seeing it.
"He could not have," she said softly. "My message never reached him, and I think he loved you too well to follow any other path."
"Your message?" Raffles echoed, though he could not muster any real interest in her words. What need did he have for one more reason Bunny could have lived? He was already drowning in things that could have gone differently, and was perversely disinclined to add any to his stock that did not set the responsibility at his feet. He felt a dull resentment at the thought of sharing a burden he had thought was his alone, and began to think he should not have come.
He wanted to be alone - and in a sense, he could never again be anything else.
"It was returned to me unread," she said, and he assumed she must have said something else before. She was looking at her hands, which were laced together in her lap.
Raffles could say nothing to this. "He loved me, you say."
"I know that he did."
"It would explain a great deal," he said, attempting something of his usual sardonic air. He did not quite achieve it.
"And you him, if I may say so - in some fashion of your own."
Raffles closed his eyes. "No man can ever have a better friend than he was to me. I doubt - I very much doubt that in my position, he could say the same of me."
"Mr. Raffles," she said after another long silence, "will you tell me how he died?" Her hands were twisted together and her face was very set. He recalled that he had come here to do that very thing. He could not remember, now, how he had gotten so far off the track. Perhaps it was the look in her eyes.
He told her all of it, as plainly as he could. Had anyone been listening to his tone and not caught the words, they would have thought it a very boring story. He could not trust himself to tell it any other way.
"At least he had you with him at the end," she said. She had begun with the waxen expression of one with a firm determination not to weep, but it had failed her. "That will have brought him some peace."
"Why should he want peace?" Raffles said bitterly. "We should be on a new adventure, he and I, courting danger - I should be planning new tricks to work around" - he indicated his leg with some distaste - "my handicap - but not peace. Never peace."
"Do you mean to say you aren't making such plans?"
He shook his head. "What would be the use? I can't remember how I ever managed without him." He stood up and retrieved his hat. "Thank you for your hospitality."
She stood as well. "What will you do?" There was genuine concern in her every aspect. The woman was a marvel. He had abused her enough.
"I don't know."
He stepped out into a world Bunny would never see again.
Characters: Raffles, Bunny, she whose name must not be sullied
Word count: ~2000
Warnings: Major character death, gratuitous sad bullshit
Notes: Wrote this early last month for a request at the Raffles kink meme - reverse death AU in which Raffles is the one who survives the war, and then looks up that lady Bunny almost married.
"I'll make him pay for that," said Bunny, with a ferocity anyone else could hardly have credited. Even Raffles himself had very seldom seen it. "I'll make him answer for it if it's the last thing I do." He reached down to squeeze Raffles's hand reassuringly, and at the same time to press a thin paper cylinder into it.
"Do my senses deceive me, Bunny, or have you somehow managed to scrounge up a Sullivan?"
"I was saving it for a special occasion."
"Ah!" Raffles chuckled. "And what could be more special than being shot through the leg for England?"
Bunny did not share in his mirth. When he did speak, he sounded as though he took the fact of Raffles's injury as a personal reproach. "I'll get him back."
"I don't fancy his chances while you've got that look in your eye. Have at him, my dear rabbit," said Raffles. He leaned back against the rock that hid them and closed his eyes, feeling altogether more cheerful about the day's events than he had expected to. For a time he heard nothing but the exchange of shots between Bunny and their adversary, the man who had so expertly perforated Raffles's thigh.
"Damn," said Bunny, and Raffles heard him drop back under cover and begin to reload. Then he heard him stop. "Raffles," Bunny whispered, with a dreadful fear, "are you -"
Raffles exhaled a stream of smoke. When this did not seem to give Bunny adequate reassurance, he opened one eye and said, "I'm quite all right, old chap; do carry on. I believe you were wreaking bloody vengeance in my name."
Bunny sighed in relief. Raffles could see him shaking. "I think the other fellow's done something with his hat, but I'll have him in a moment, I'm sure." He finished reloading and scrambled back up the rock to line up his next shot. "I really think they'll let you go, Raffles. You turned in Connal despite the risk to yourself, and now here you are, wounded in service - your honor and courage deserve leniency, and I have every confidence you will return to England a free man. A decorated man!"
"That sounds very nice, Bunny."
"And when we return to London, we shall do exactly as we like."
"I shall do as I like, certainly. Will you follow me?"
"Unto death itself. You must know that."
For a time, Raffles could think of nothing to say. "I was hardly going to suggest death. Would simply returning to a life of crime be a dramatic enough gesture to suit you?"
"I can think of nothing I should like better - oh, but I've missed my mark again."
"Here," said Raffles, pulling himself upright, "give me a crack at him."
"No, stay down. You never can trust me with anything, can you? Not even while you lie there bleeding on the veldt -"
A shot rang out. Raffles was still lying bleeding on the veldt, but now he was doing it alone.
It all happened exactly as Bunny had predicted. They let him go. "At any rate," he was told, "you'll hardly be scrambling up any drainpipes in that condition."
"Without an accomplice?" Raffles said coldly.
"Your leg."
He had quite forgotten.
The cane took adjusting to. He had used them before, to facilitate this disguise or that, but in one way that only made it the more difficult. He was constantly reminding himself that he could not simply straighten up and cast it aside, that his limp was not merely affectation this time. Nor was the steady ache in his torn muscles, jarring him with every step. He - Raffles the great cracksman, the once-great cricketer - was no longer master of his own body.
As much as possible he busied himself with resenting this fact. If he ever stopped, he would learn he could not master his wits, either. He could think of nothing else but Bunny: Bunny reproaching him with his last breath, Bunny swearing to follow him, Bunny standing in the Albany all those years ago with a pistol to his head. Loyal, brave Bunny, who was dead.
It was a thoroughly alien London Raffles now found himself in, one drained of all possibility of pleasure. He walked slowly, and not only because of his leg - he had no pressing reason to be anywhere. He made an apathetic tour of the scenes of their various crimes and felt no triumph. He could not remember what he had taken from whom, only that Bunny had been there. Bunny had been angry with him that night, or Bunny had acquitted himself particularly well, or Bunny's face had slowly lit up as the realization hit him that the job had not been a failure at all.
He tried to imagine what Bunny might say if he were there, but could not. He had never allowed Bunny to see him so low. Perhaps, a detached part of him noted, because he never had been. He could have had no reason to be. Not even Faustina.
Bunny, he remembered, had had an Eve of his own. She would have seen his name in the long lists of the dead. Raffles had seldom, before the war, been motivated by any idea of "duty," but it seemed to him now that she must know everything - and therefore he must tell her.
Finding her was no difficulty. He still had the investigative abilities of a first-rate criminal, even if his quarry now was neither diamonds nor pearls. He did not know what he would say, or how he would gain entry if she refused or could not recognize him. The old Raffles would have known all these things to the smallest detail, but after Africa, he had stopped making plans.
So he simply walked up to her flat.
The shock of recognition passed over her features - her eyes were as wide as Bunny's had ever been. "Is it...?" she began in a near whisper, but even in a whisper could not seem to find the will to finish the question.
Raffles bowed his head. "May I come in?"
"Harry is dead," she said. "I can see by your eyes that you know it." She had not remarked on the strange circumstance of Raffles being alive and at her door.
"I was with him."
"I thought you must have been." Her calm, resigned acceptance did her credit. He wished she would do otherwise.
"It was for me that he went."
She watched him in silence. Perhaps this was not calm acceptance at all, and she was merely in shock. Perhaps he ought to be gentler with her.
He did not at present have it in him to be gentle, either for her sake or for his own. "Do you understand? Bunny would be alive if not for me."
"If not for you, he would have killed himself that night." Her voice was almost steady - almost.
Raffles could not argue this point. He would have begun pacing, but his leg stopped him. Instead he stared out the window and said, "If I hadn't been hit in the leg - or if I had taken his gun - it could have been your Harry Manders speaking to you now."
After a long silence, she said quietly, "How long have you been back from the dead?"
"Oh! long enough," he said bitterly. "We had been living together, he and I. We were at the height of our skill and daring." The recollection brought him little pride.
"The Raffles Relics?" she said, one hand near her mouth as though in preparation for a horrified gasp - though he did not really think she would do something so unrefined.
"Of course," he said, making a mocking little bow. "Who else could it have been?" He stopped, thoughtful. "Bunny was marvelous that day. He never used to be able to keep his cool so well -" And he stopped again, wondering whether he had ever said these things to Bunny. Not adequately, he was sure. Nowhere near adequately, considering what he'd put the man through. Oh, it had always shaken out in the end, whatever surprises he'd concocted, however genuinely Bunny had wept at the graveside of Mr. Maturin -
but he oughtn't have laughed at that grief. He understood that now, more acutely than he could have imagined. Without any invitation, he sank, defeated, into the nearest chair.
A soft rustle of fabric testified moments later that she had sat down opposite him, though he did not look up. "I'm not glad to hear it, Mr. Raffles, but I won't remonstrate with you. I urged you long ago to give that business up, so my piece has already been said. And in the end, that was not what claimed the life so dear to both of us."
He lifted his head and stared at her bleakly. There were tears in her eyes.
"He should have chosen you," said Raffles, in a voice he could not recognize as his own.
For many moments they sat in silence. Raffles stared at the carpet without seeing it.
"He could not have," she said softly. "My message never reached him, and I think he loved you too well to follow any other path."
"Your message?" Raffles echoed, though he could not muster any real interest in her words. What need did he have for one more reason Bunny could have lived? He was already drowning in things that could have gone differently, and was perversely disinclined to add any to his stock that did not set the responsibility at his feet. He felt a dull resentment at the thought of sharing a burden he had thought was his alone, and began to think he should not have come.
He wanted to be alone - and in a sense, he could never again be anything else.
"It was returned to me unread," she said, and he assumed she must have said something else before. She was looking at her hands, which were laced together in her lap.
Raffles could say nothing to this. "He loved me, you say."
"I know that he did."
"It would explain a great deal," he said, attempting something of his usual sardonic air. He did not quite achieve it.
"And you him, if I may say so - in some fashion of your own."
Raffles closed his eyes. "No man can ever have a better friend than he was to me. I doubt - I very much doubt that in my position, he could say the same of me."
"Mr. Raffles," she said after another long silence, "will you tell me how he died?" Her hands were twisted together and her face was very set. He recalled that he had come here to do that very thing. He could not remember, now, how he had gotten so far off the track. Perhaps it was the look in her eyes.
He told her all of it, as plainly as he could. Had anyone been listening to his tone and not caught the words, they would have thought it a very boring story. He could not trust himself to tell it any other way.
"At least he had you with him at the end," she said. She had begun with the waxen expression of one with a firm determination not to weep, but it had failed her. "That will have brought him some peace."
"Why should he want peace?" Raffles said bitterly. "We should be on a new adventure, he and I, courting danger - I should be planning new tricks to work around" - he indicated his leg with some distaste - "my handicap - but not peace. Never peace."
"Do you mean to say you aren't making such plans?"
He shook his head. "What would be the use? I can't remember how I ever managed without him." He stood up and retrieved his hat. "Thank you for your hospitality."
She stood as well. "What will you do?" There was genuine concern in her every aspect. The woman was a marvel. He had abused her enough.
"I don't know."
He stepped out into a world Bunny would never see again.