Dress to Impress
#1 of Disney Stuff
From a kinkmeme prompt: 'As is clearly shown, Ratigan is one GQMF. Request Ratigan strutting his stuff. Maybe his fanboys/underlings swoon. Maybe Fidget secretly watches Ratigan dance about glorying in his own fabulousness. Maybe Basil secretly subscribes to Disney's Playgirl. WHO KNOWS?
'The only thing we can be sure of is that Ratigan's kind of a sexy bastard. And he's quite aware of that himself, thank you.'
To intimidate, one had to first dress the part. No one viewed the lower classes as those to respect. So Vincent Ratigan's father had told him, in his soft, lilting tones; and so his son had taken the words to heart. After all, Lucien Ratigan had been from the humblest of origins (a laboratory) and had risen through London's underworld to own every brothel in Piccadilly and every house of ill-repute in Whitechapel. Now he was accepted even in the highest of mouse society as a procurer of delicate sweets: jird and dormice eunuchs from Persia, hamster geishas from the far East, and (if the client in question was very perverse) a selection of bats--all of them highly trained in the art of the bedroom. And all of them, like their master, dressed in the finest and most fashionable attire.
To seduce, one had to whisper with luxury with every movement, every seemingly-careless gesture. A fine suit of clothes would do nothing if the grace to go with them was not to be found. Ratigan practised as a child how to hold himself, how to pose his hands until it came naturally, how to smooth his voice and control it as delicately as any instrument. He had the finest elocutionist in London (a bat who lived in the attic of Professor H. Higgins), he was mercilessly drilled by his father in poise and posture, he was given a proper education at St Francis' University (beneath Oxford). By the time he was one and twenty, Lucien's son carried himself like a prince.
To retain the respect a prince deserved, however, Vincent found he had to learn how to inspire fearful respect. This was the hardest part, and he spent many years under his father's red eyes, sharply critiqued and praised in short, quiet comments that were thrown as Vincent left the room, or just before a dismissal. He kept the praise in a box, carefully writing down every word, dating it, reading the collection later when it all seemed so impossible. For who could be like Father--who could earn such a reputation, that even the Prince Regent called Lucien Ratigan 'a gentlemouse of style'?
The day Vincent realised he had earned such a reputation for himself nearly passed without his notice. Lucien had advised his son to go into a different line of work than he himself--one more suited to Vincent's strengths. While the nearly-blind Lucien was best when socialising and negotiating, manipulating with gilded tongue and quicksilver wit, his son had a keen eye for surveying, and could have the measure of a room in seconds, his keen mind calculating trajectory, momentum and force with equal speed. Locks meant nothing to Vincent, they never had, and (rat he was) the thrill of climb, jump, and creep was magnified by the more cerebral rapture of scheme, plot and plan.
When he found the boy-mouse in the vault where the jewels were kept, wearing the sparkling diamonds and nothing else, he sensed something was probably awry. The willowy creature was golden-furred, with blue eyes like forget-me-nots. It went well with the diamonds, some part of Vincent's brain opined thoughtfully. He and the mouse studied each other for a few moments, both seemingly shocked at each other's presence, and just as Vincent was about to bolt, the mouse gave a dreamy little sigh, and swooned.
'Oh!' he exclaimed, in a voice that was fluttery and eager all at once. 'I didn't expect you to be so handsome!'_He giggled, his nose going pink in a flush that went all the way to his delicate little ears. 'Of course, Montgomery told me you might be, but I didn't _believe him and--' he'd been coming closer, and pressed himself against Ratigan all at once, highlighting the fact that he was very, very naked. 'Are you going to tie me up and gag me, to keep me from sounding the alarm?' he whispered, his voice trembling with arousal.
Vincent was always taught to adapt to the situation, and decided that if a romantic villain was what the mouseling wanted him to be, then it would probably keep him quiet.
And who could honestly object to a wanton little lord's son crawling all over them, covered in jewels, anyway?
When they found the boy, tied up and gagged, the jewels gone and the boy wrapped in a satin-lined black cape, Vincent suddenly found himself with exactly the reputation he'd thought so impossible. The cape meant he was a rodent of means, the boy meant he was a perverse hedonist, the lack of jewels meant he was a thief...
Still, the boy's orgiastic squeaks (muffled by the sound-proof walls of the vault) were only a small sign of things to come. Even Lucien could not have predicted, or prepared his son, for the immense amounts of ego that came with your victims throwing themselves at you, begging for your cock, whispering your virtues behind fans and gloved hands and through blushes and giggles. Not just a thief, but a handsome one, and just dangerous enough to make you shiver under your covers, glaze over with the thought of him when you were in the marital bed with your boring spouse.
Yes, the name Ratigan had earned quite a different kind of reputation, by the time Lucien left the world of the living in 1856.