Weekly Drabble Challenge

[lawnnun.livejournal.com]

Rules:
1) A drabble is, by definition, a 100-word story therefore all responses should be 100 words exactly, no exceptions.
2) You may also choose to respond to this challenge with a five-minute sketch.
3)PLEASE put the word DRABBLE at the top of your post. That way people can easily spot the drabbles in amongst any reader comments they receive.

RATING:I don't think this should be limited so reader beware that they could be any rating (you could put it in the subject line if you feel it needs it)

PLEASE try to remember to make each drabble a comment in response to the original post. That way, if the comments start to collapse, the drabbles themselves should remain visible.

Your mission: Dreary weather.  Write the boys staying in because it's too slushy/rainy/cold/miserable fucking hot to go outside.

Comments

[krisreinke.livejournal.com]

[And the words just keep on coming. BAD mussy!]


“Too long,” Jeeves gasped into Bertram’s collar.

“Too long,” Bertram agreed ferverently.

Not just the week past, spent less on ‘holiday’ then on domestic overtime as Jeeves had helped his sister rearrange the Jeeves ancestral cottage to accommodate Mabel Biffen and the of Biffen children – her husband being off to serve. [Bertie wasn’t quite sure what the Navy could make of Biffy – but so long as it wasn’t a navigator? Bertie trusted the Lord’s Admiral knew what they were about.] No, the last two months had been a sort of localized separation, since Cousin Angela had been driven to house-guesting via German high explosives. Bertie loved his relation – he truly did – but even excluding the illicit pash re yearning yet masculine hearts – well, the raw scrape of characters and habits re: Bertram and Travers kindred was a sort of high explosive on it’s own. Nitroglycerine, perhaps.

“We could…”

Bertie had no idea what the rest of those words should be. In better times the sentence would have finished with Jeeves packing while Bertie called for tickets. Rail tickets for a Scottish holiday – days split between salmon fishing and golf (their respective hobbies) and nights split not at all. Ferry tickets for a jaunt over the Channel, café society divided between jazz in cellar clubs and concerts in soaring boxes, and again no division between man and man. Cruise tickets for New York, back when the circle of the bright and beautiful glowed like a halo of pleasure from Manhattan society affairs to the bohemian artistry of the Village.

“If only…” Jeeves answered. All the response required.

[krisreinke.livejournal.com]

New York was a universe away, and even if he could manipulate the needed tickets from some friend of a friend of a Bureaucrat, the bright young men of his youth were now over here. Or rather ‘over there’. Corky had joined the Marines, and at last (highly censored) letter was somewhere far too close to Japan. Rocky had come though a few months back on the way to France with the Army Air Corp. Even Cyril had left the city, going out to California to make movies for the troops. He had sent one with Rocky – a clever little ditty about darning ones socks. (Bertie had tried. He had slept on the sofa that night.

Paris was tragedy, the memory more pain than pleasure, since every newsreel image was another pleasure lost.

The highlands? Might be possible. Although in this time of ‘is that trip necessary’ tickets would cost high – favors as well as cash – and finding a croft that wasn’t full of orphans would take some doing. Still?

Something – some escape - was feeling supremely necessary.

Some words must have made it past his exhaustion, because Jeeves was moving back.

Bertie lurched forward, but found himself held in place.

Brown eyes search his own, his man’s face not so much severe as… solid.

“The current… situation… is…”

“Worse on you, old chum. I can hold up if you can.” Or rather he could hold up as long as Jeeves *did*. He had no delusion that he would last a moment longer. Losing his Jeeves – to the war, to the lure of brighter prospects (for which he rebuked his unthankful heart), to the calculation that the risk of discovery was higher than Jeeves found him worth… to any and all of these. That – more than bombs or invasion or death – were his real wartime fears.

Jeeves nodded, slowly.

“Still, it might be… better for all concerned… were it possible to separate the two households.”

“No argument there.” No hope, either. Every night brought the bombs, and every morning the count of how many less flats and houses remained in London. Less people, too, but thank heaven usually there were survivors among those. Survivors, however, who needed house space in whatever corner they could find of whatever intact combination of roof and walls remained.

“I noted a small but rather pleasant building near my sisters cottage. Three stories. Local stone. Undesirably far from the train, in these days of petrol rations, and in need of some maintenance, but solid architecture. “ Jeeves' eyebrow twitched, the sign of cleverly uncovered gossip. “The current owner is elderly, and has suggested she would prefer to join her sister in Ireland if she could find a buyer.”

Hard to do these days. Not that there weren’t plenty of folks interested in country homes, but few of them had ready cash, and banks weren’t always eager to put a loan when their collateral could become rubble at the whim of one stray bomb.

Bertie, thanks entirely to one man’s wise management (said man being R. Jeeves, be it understood) had a full pouch of the oof. Much of it invested overseas, where said Jeeves had moved to separate the Wooster fortune from the fortunes of war, but quite enough left to satisfy one Irish biddy re retirement income – that clearly being his man's (implied) directive.


“I’m not sure Angela will agree to move out of the Metrop.”

It was the only objection. Jeeves could buy any house he pleased, or as many as he pleased, so long as the common purse could bear the load. That fact was a given, like gravity or the pitiful performance of the Cambridge blues, and like those facts accepted without discussion. Indeed, it was probable (and again – irrelevant to any discussion) that said Jeeves had already negotiated the sale, called the solicitors to draw up the deed, and put payment in escrow.

“My dear Wooster.” Jeeves leaned forward, resting his forehead on the tangle of blond curls. “If she won’t? I will.”

“Reg.” The name passed into air, proof of Bertie’s shock. “You love London.”

Bertie could feel, rather than see, the nod of agreement slide forehead to forehead. Jeeves' words, however, carried the other message. “London is not the only thing I love.”

[random-nexus.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's so much like one of those war-time romance films! Wordier than drabbles, sure, but a nice read and that ending... right in the heart! <3