Work Text:
Having only just received a not inconsiderable payment for a bit of scribbling I had done, I was not altogether pleased to return to my rooms to find Raffles there. By the looks of us, one would soon mistake him for the regular resident, and me for the unexpected guest.
Unexpected and, I should say, unwelcome. While I had often entertained fond hopes of one day being beyond the need to make a living through dishonorable means, today, it felt like such a thing might actually be within my reach.
Raffles, I had assured myself, would simply need to limit himself to one-man jobs once more, as he had done previously to our joining forces. He might resent the inconvenience, but this once, I had promised myself, I would stand firm. To steal in order to eat and pay rent was one thing - a necessary evil. Once the need would pass, so would my involvement in Raffles's activities.
"If you're here about a job, I think it's only fair I should tell you it'll be the last one."
Raffles put down my newspaper. Between my lips was one of my cigarettes. By the looks of it, he had been waiting for me perhaps five minutes.
"A fine greeting," he cried, showing not the least sign of my declaration having dampened his high spirits in any way. Indeed, it was as if I hadn't made it at all.
"This time, I'm serious. One last job, then I'm chucking the whole thing," I warned him.
"Brave, bold words," Raffles said, smiling as if I were a performer in a play put on solely for his entertainment. "Fighting words."
"And truer words were never spoken, I assure you." Disbelief and mockery, I had been prepared for. Part of me, perhaps, had hoped for some sort of appeal, for Raffles to state that, of course, it would be quite impossible for him to continue his heinous career without his Bunny to assist him. A foolish notion, considering I had only just been reflecting Raffles would not suffer in the least from my withdrawal, and yet I confess such acknowledgement from him often meant more to me than the greatest praise from anyone else for any of my scribblings. It was, I felt sure, more a matter of its source than of the matter it concerned itself with.
"Very well then, one last job, and then you may be free of me, if you wish."
I nodded, content with the words, if doubtful of Raffles's true acceptance of them. The future would show him my sincerity and determination soon enough. "Well, what is it?"
"A moment, I beg you." Raffles chuckled. "What, would you want your last time to be some run-of-the-mill, thirteen-in-a-dozen, perfectly ordinary piece of crime? A special occasion like this calls for something special, don't you think?"
"I suppose," I said, reluctantly. In truth, I should have been content with what Raffles would term a 'perfectly ordinary piece of crime' to put an end to my career. The cat was out of the bag now, though; having let it out, it was far too late to put it back in.
"What I had in mind when I came here - well, no matter," Raffles said, as if to himself. "Something special it is. Something never before seen. Something so extraordinary the memory of it will stay with you for the rest of your life. A tall order, I dare say, but not impossible. Not impossible at all."
My imagination staggered at the idea of what mad plan Raffles might be cooking up. True, he had yet to conceive of a plan flawed enough to land us into more trouble than we had been able to get out of, but at that moment, this failed to fill me with confidence.
"You have thought of something, then." Best to get it over with, I thought.
He looked at me with eyes that gleamed with consideration and something more besides. "Murder, dear Bunny. How would you like that? Murder shall be the name of the game, and we its players."
"Murder?" I echoed. "Whose?" Only once before had I heard Raffles contemplate murder, and it had ended with a close call, then. I had believed he had put the morbid desire from his mind, that here was a crime even Raffles would balk at, for lack of some sort of justification, however flimsy and unsound.
"Why, yours, of course." Raffles reached into one of the pockets of his coat and withdrew from it a pistol. I recognized it as my own. "Quite fitting, wouldn't you say?"
Nothing in his expression or tone gave the least indication that he was joking. "Hardly."
It seemed a long time ago that I had been so desperate as to put the very pistol Raffles was aiming at me now to my own head, entirely prepared to take my own life. It had been Raffles who had saved me then, offering me my life back at the cost of becoming his partner in crime, although I hadn't quite known it at the time.
Fitting, indeed: that he now seemed intent on taking back that which he had returned to me then.
He rose slowly and walked over to where I was standing, as immovably frozen as a rabbit caught by the gaze of a predator. The hand holding the pistol did not waver even once.
"Do you believe I shan't do it? That I can't?" he asked.
The barrel felt cold against my temple. My mouth had gone dry. "No," I answered truthfully.
His ice-blue eyes searched my face for something - some emotion, perhaps, some proof that I was not as convinced as I had stated myself to be. My heart seemed to beat unnaturally loudly.
"I told you, didn't I?" Raffles said. "The sensations I'm feeling right now! You wouldn't believe them, dear Bunny. And then you telling me you don't doubt for a moment that I shall kill you, cool as you please."
I had thought myself beyond emotion, yet I felt myself flush at his words.
"Not so cool now, then," Raffles said, as if he was merely watching an interesting play and one of the actors had pleasantly surprised him. "But only consider: what good is your life to me, if you only waste it on your scribblings? What are those to me?"
Against all reason, his words stung. "You hadn't minded, before." How often had not Raffles made me feel like an unwanted part of his life, one he put up with for old times' sake, and for the sakes of our joint criminal enterprises?
"I knew I only had to call and you would come, before."
I refused to confess that I believed this would always be the case. It would do no good. If I were to die, at least I should do it with what little pride remained to me.
"Shoot, then," I said, resigned.
He stood close enough that the blood would probably show on his clothes. He would have to burn them, after. His hand had still not wavered for even a moment, nor his gaze. I could sense the heat of his body. Not a single aspect of him showed the least hesitation or uncertainty.
A sensible man would have tried to overpower him, made a grab for that steady hand holding the pistol. What, after all, did I have to lose but the life I had already forfeited two times over now?
"I shall," Raffles said, and at last, I detected a note of some sort of feeling in his voice. "I shall."
His mouth did not quite close on the words. Looking at his still slightly parted lips, something I can only describe as a mad impulse came over me. A mad impulse, but then, I was a man on the verge of death.
As I moved my head to bring my mouth closer to his, the sensation of cold iron pressed against my temple remained unchanged.