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indeedsir_backupTitle: Jeeves and the Meddlesome Medium
Chapter: 10/12
Pairing: Jeeves/Wooster
Summary: See Chapter One
Warnings: Explicit [albeit brief] same-sex intimacy. Any objections?
Chapter Rating: R, I believe. Maybe a wee stonger?
This is a longish one, guys! Almost there!
I recall running around the woods in a panic. I recall the haze of the purpling sky filling me with dread, the realisation that in no time at all I would be out here, alone, in the dark, left to the devices of any number of strange nocturnal creatures. My body would be found in the morning, mangles and mauled, assuming whatever it was that was bound to attack didn’t swallow me whole. Dozens of images of dangerous creatures appeared before me, as though I was a child once more, flipping through on the of the picture books of my boyhood.
Lions, and tigers, and bears; in my panic I didn’t take into account that, unless in the unlikely event of an accident at the local zoo or circus, the former two of those three animals weren’t native to Europe, let alone Old Blighty. Anything seems possible when cold night sneaks up on you and the first stars begin to appear, winking at you maliciously as though eager to watch your demise.
I couldn’t tell you why, in my panic, I found lions and tigers a distinct possibility when it struck me that the sound of Jeeves’ sonorous voice calling out to me through the woods was completely impossible. Nevertheless, when I’d convinced myself I was not hallucinating, he was the more welcome sight by far.
“Sir? Mr Wooster, sir?!” His voice, normally so calm and even, echoed through the woods; and then, “Bertie? Bertie?!” Honoria’s hunting call mixed determination and strength with real concern, and for a moment, I admired her. I didn’t love her; I loved the first voice that called to me, but I did admire her more than I had for a deuce of a long time. I supposed in that mo’ that if worst came to worst, and I was forced under gunpoint to marry, I might have chosen her. Not that there would ever be need for that.
“I’m over here!” I called, shivering with oncoming cold. “Over here, yes, Jeeves?! Honoria?!”
“I heard something, this way!” This time it was Boko’s voice—he’d not abandoned me either.
“Yes, Boko!? I’m over here, everyone!”
“Bertie? Bertie, where are you?” Honoria called, louder than before. They were getting close.
“Sir, if you could tell us any marking by which we could locate you? What are you near, sir?”
“I’m by the tree!” I said, absently, looking around for something significant.
“Really, old bean? So am I!” Boko’s response was, unsurprisingly, not sarcastic at all.
“I think I see ‘im! This way, Mr Jeeves, Miss…” A fourth voice called. More voices, numerous ones, encircled me, calling to each other.
“Over ‘ere, Molly!”
“Y’see ‘im, Kurt?”
“Yer I think I got ‘im!”
“Do ye see Kurt, Mr Wooster? ‘E says ‘e sees you.”
“I—I don’t see anybody!” I called back awkwardly, not having a clue what the chap I was supposed to be looking for looked like.
“Ohp, nope, I’m sorry all, it warn’t Mr Wooster. War a bit a shrubbery what looked like a man.”
“Call out once more, Bertie, we’ll find you!”
“Ehm, what am I suppose to call out, exactly, Honoria?”
“That’s good, that’s perfect! Just so we can follow your voice.”
I thought for a moment. For the first time in my young life, I was being asked to babble, and it struck me as ironic that I could think of nothing to babble on. I was just thankful the sky seemed to slow down its darkening for a moment.
But I didn’t need to talk. I just needed to be heard. Perhaps it would lift my spirits if I…
“I say, Boko?!”
“Bertie, old fruit?” A strained, distant-sounding reply. They were going further away!
“Boko, how did that tune go? ‘Say I ain’t got no-no-nobody! Nobody cares for me!’” I began singing, and Boko provided with the next line, singing boisterously, “That’s why I’m sad and lonely! Won’t somebody come—”
“And take a chance with me!” I joined in, remembering the lyrics suddenly. We sang together, yards apart. His voice began to draw nearer as the song went on, and my spirits lifted considerably. I was not going to be eaten by bears.
They got me back to the trail in an embarrassingly short time. Apparently I’d been rather closer than I’d thought. Honoria, it turns out, along with Boko, had run home and, on Boko’s suggestion (I began to recall that Honoria was far from fond of Jeeves), fetched Jeeves straightaway. They also called for the footmen and one of the parlour maids, whose father, the groundskeeper, was on his day off. They f Honoria and the groundskeepers daughter, a Scots by the name of Molly with a sturdy figure to rival Honoria’s, led the men into the woods. According to the general assembled, they’d only been searching about five minutes when they found me, though Jeeves mentioned privately to me that it had in fact been seven minutes. Perhaps he thought this was some kind of consolation. On some plane it was: he’d been keeping perfect track.
Molly, the man called Kurt, and the second footman (who, I later learned, was stepping in for Jonas Coswick in the presence of his deathly illness) rode back to Ditteridge in Boko’s car, while Jeeves escorted me into my own Aston. On the drive back—which I was thoroughly glad I was having with Jeeves alone—my man enquired after the effectiveness of his plan.
“It would seem Miss Honoria and Mr Fittleworth have united forces, sir. Am I mistaken?” He finished with what I unmasked as a hopeful tone.
“Well, Boko’s gone and united forces alright—though not with Honoria! Oh, no, he’s got his name in the hat for Miss Misselane, and by the looks of it, he’s been quite successful.” Jeeves—who was driving us—pulled a face of one who was swearing fervently under his breath, but I was watching (with some interest) and his lips moved not. Instead, his mind began reeling in that unstoppable whirlpool; I felt like Odysseus trying to steer his ships away from Charybdis, but his thoughts pulled me in in spite of their seeming disorientation. The general consensus, which was all I could have gathered, seemed to point to Jeeves’ displeasure at this turn of events.
“Now, Jeeves, I don’t want you to worry—I’ve got it all figured out! Boko may be engaged to Missy by the end of the night, but!” I raised my finger for emphasis. “But! We still have another bachelor to turn the Glossop menace to, don’t we Jeeves, ah-hah!”
He looked faintly bemused, but kept his eyes on the dusty road. “Might sir be referring to Mr Worthing in this context?”
“Yes, sir might!” I replied, triumphantly.
He said in even, veiled-mocking tones, “But was sir aware of Miss Glossop’s displeasure with Mr Worthing at having run the other way and refusing to come to your aid when she asked?”
I stared agape at him; despite my reverence at being defended in such a way by Honoria twice in one afternoon, I confess I was crestfallen at this news. “No, sir was not…” I replied, and if I let a little emotion slip into my voice, what of it?
But one might mention that Jeeves slipped some emotion of his own into his next words—the emotion of genuine concern. “Sir, if I might ask, why exactly did you run into the woods? Miss Glossop was concerned for a time that you had gone mad.”
I may have blushed. “I—er, well, I thought perhaps, they’d come running after me. Honoria being Honoria, you know… and Worthing trying to play the hero, for Missy or Honoria or whoever. I thought about what you said, the proximity wheeze. I thought if they were bounding around together in the wood, preferably without Boko or Missy, who I’d expected nothing short of complete cowardice from, I thought…”
“Thought that Miss Glossop would invariably see Mr Worthing as a brave and courageous young man, while he would fall in love easily after the loss of Miss Misselane; and they would be left out in the wood together to become engaged, while Mr Fittleworth and Miss Misselane performed the same elsewhere. Sir?”
“You’re more succinct than I, Jeeves.”
“Thank you, sir, although I believe to the contrary; that you are the more comprehensible, and I the more… ah… sesquipedalian conversant.”
“Jeeves, I’ll have to take your word for it, old thing. I’m just glad you’re not cross with me.”
We were nearing Ditteridge, whose shadow rose out in the distance like a great menacing country estate against the evening-bruised sky. Boko’s car was out of sight ahead of us, when Jeeves slowed down the Aston, eventually stopping, right there on the trail. He turned to me.
“Sir, may I ask, why should I be cross with you?” He turned to me; his eyes instantly turned to my offensive necktie, but he raised them, reminding himself, “I’ll take care of that later. He promised.”
“I did promise, old thing…” I said, slipping it off and placing it gingerly in his grasp. Our hands brushed together, then cupped, wanting to hold on for as long as we could. He looked away, then met my eye through the blossoming darkness. “Sir, something has changed.”
“Changed, old fruit?” I started.
“You know something—you suspect something." "You never answered my question, sir. Why should I be cross with you?”
“Oh, for bunging the whole thing up as usual. Letting Boko swipe Missy then thinking I could unhinge Honoria just by throwing a stick and saying, ‘fetch!’”
“Sir, you do not have the power to make people fall in and out of love.” Something almost clicked in the Wooster bean, then decided it would not. “If you did, I suggest you be more careful the next time you hire a manservant.”
I smiled at his thought, but my brow furrowed still. Something almost fell together. Something was hanging in the air, something lifted its hand, making to wave, and then decided it was too shy to give a ‘what ho’. But I was the only one who knew it, it was something Jeeves couldn’t even help me with—and I never thought I’d encounter something quite like that. Not before this whole sad sorry sitch started, anyway. Jeeves’ hands began to pull away, and so distracted in my thought was I, that I let him do so without another word. We drove ever nearer Ditteridge, and I decided to change the topic—or, rather, broach one with my man. Preferably a light one.
“Jeeves, what was that the poet chappie said about the bloke whose punishment is seeing something before anyone else?”
Jeeves considered a moment, then, “I believe, sir, you may be alluding to, ‘A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world’… not so much poet as playwright Oscar Wilde.”
“Ah, yes, that’s the one… not quite doing for me, though. Must have mis-remembered. Any good ones out there about the chap who sees things others don’t and can’t see, but would like to see, but really ought not to see because it’s overwhelming?”
“None present themselves immediately, sir, but I’m sure there’s a suitable one in existence.”
“Well, well.” I concluded; we had reached the gates of Ditteridge. I almost knew what was waiting for me behind these gates, and I don’t mind telling you, I dreaded it.
As if the ether had tuned in with my fears, the entire dinner table turned to me with wide eyes the moment I walked in. Sir Roderick bolted up out of his seat at the end of the table, glaring at me from across the room.
“Mr Wooster! Kindly explain what you thought you were doing!” He bellowed accusingly.
“Eh? I,” But, as per usual, I was not supposed to speak when spoken to.
“DID you have some sort of fit!?” He interrupted, his face growing ever redder and the knuckles that gripped the table growing ever whiter.
“Roderick, he’s mad!” Delia Glossop, Lady of the house, leapt to her feet and clutched her husband’s right arm. Tuppy stood as well, “He was just playing a game, Uncle!”
“A game?!” Pop Glossop was turning a shade of plum I’d not seen since the night I met him. “A game?! Mr Wooster, you call running, screaming, into an unknown wood a game?!”
“Perhaps he heard something! Mr Wooster, was it the spirit of the woods? Were you drawn to it?!” The widow Brite remained in her seat, but looked from Sir Roderick to myself in wide-eyed excitement. In spite of her advancing years, she gave the appearance of a young child being told something she wanted to hear. Pop Glossop, meanwhile, looked at the widow as though she had uttered a disgusting swear.
“N-not... no, I thought I heard, erm... voices.” I said, tentatively. I knew this was hardly better than what Ms Brite had said, but perhaps I could have justified it better. Just so long as I didn’t end up in Colney Hatch, I didn’t care what Sir Roderick bally well thought of me. Just as he was about to pull an even more scandalised face than already he was wearing for the widow’s remark, I added, hastily, “Of, you know, people. I thought er... I thought someone needed help.”
“Mr Wooster,” he looked positively terrified now, as though the dawning realisation that I was a raving lunatic had just come over him, confirmed and condemned by my own words. “Are you telling me, that you are hearing voices?” This one short phrase set everyone thinking.
“He’s dangerous...”
“My daughter engaged to a madman...”
“What if he really was hearing voices?”
“Why on earth was he shouting randomly? Why not tell the others where he was going?”
“What if there’s someone still back there, lost...”
My head was beginning to pound from the ruckus, but I was becoming more and more aware of the sharp silence in my ears compared to what my brain was gathering. They were expecting me to speak, to explain myself, deny, confirm, justify, anything... “I—well, that is to say I...”
But once more, Honoria came to my rescue. She stood quickly, indignation in her keen eyes, and said, “I think Bertie was being brave!”
Now all eyes turned to Honoria. She continued, seemingly unaffected, looking each of them in the eyes at a random, as though pleading with them. “It’s in Bertie’s Code! He’s supposed to come to the aid of anyone who needs him! Aren’t you, Bertie, darling?” She grinned widely up at me, and I stuttered an affirmative. “You see? Bertie’s a brave, courageous, unafraid man of action! Unlike some men; some cowards.” Here her eyes turned sharply, cold as sin, on Worthing, who took a sudden interest in the contents of his dinner plate.
“Some men won’t even help someone they know, let alone run to the aid of a complete stranger, putting the needs of others before himself! That’s what Bertie did—risked himself for someone else. And if he misheard, if it turned out there wasn’t really someone there, what of it?” She looked defiantly, challengingly at her mother, then at her father. She gave the table, completely silent, a last sweeping glance, as of that of a school master asking “Any questions?” at the end of a lecture. And the occupants at the table, the Knight and Lady included, stayed silent as a class of boys who did have questions, but sure as crikey weren’t going to ask them until after class. I stayed in the doorway.
“Bertie, dear,” she said, her hands overlaying one another in front of her, suddenly giving the air of a perfect hostess and lady. “Please, sit and eat.”
I sat and ate with the rest of the table, all of whom were in utter silence. Even Boko and Tuppy seemed to be giving me a wide berth. I asked Tuppy quietly why he hadn’t come along on our little nature walk, and he responded stiffly and matter-of-factly that he was reading. Apparently Angela threatened to throw him out on his ear if he didn’t start improving his mind. As long as it wasn’t putting him on that lunatic Basset Brussels sprout diet, he added, he would go through with it.
I declined to keep company with the men after dinner, saying I was extremely worn-out.
“I can imagine you might be, the day you’ve had.” Sir Roderick commented snidely. “Very well. And we’ll expect you not to be so late out of bed tomorrow morning as you were today!” He added harshly, but I’d already turned to leave.
“Jeeves!” I ejaculated when I entered the bedroom. “Jeeves, it’s all gone to rye!”
“I think, sir, the phrase you wish to employ in this context is ‘awry’.”
“Be that as it may!” I said, exasperatedly dropping the Wooster corpus into the nearest chair. Jeeves was busying himself with menial and unnecessary tasks, but he paused in front of me upon seeing my concern.
“May I ask, sir,” he began in the familiar calming, dulcet tones, “what is troubling you?”
“Honoria’s more fond of me than ever, Jeeves, that’s what’s troubling me! She took my act of random desperation for an act of random kindness! She stood up for me! She’s hell-bent against letting me go, Jeeves. We’re finished!” I hid my face in the palm of my hand. “We’re finished and it’s all my fault...”
A presence materialised at my side, got to its knees, and laid a great, capable hand on my left hand, which gripped the chair in frustration. It patted the hand, relaxed its grip, then took it tentatively into its own. One hand held mine delicately in its palm, the other covered it with equal gentility. I chanced a squeeze, fearing I’d dozed off in the chair. But the gesture was returned in kind. I looked up from the shade of my hand blinking, to my left, where Jeeves knelt, ever at my side, through the worst despair, the diamond in the rough.
“It is not your fault, sir. And we are not finished. Circumstances have been worse before. You must not lose heart, sir...” “Not now, that we’ve come so close...” I looked into his eyes, and for once there was unmasked sympathy. “If you think this is the worst that will come for us...”
I breathed a heavy sigh. Jeeves’ inner self was right. “Jeeves, you’re right... let’s...” I mustered up the Wooster courage and assumed the posture. “Let’s get us to bed, my man.”
He looked heartened, “Very good, sir.” And he set about preparing me for my bed in the usual way. Every now and then I thought I saw him cast me a nervous glance, and every now and then I would make the attempt at a seductive smile. It would certainly boost my spirits if...
“Jeeves.” I said, as he began unbuttoning my shirt. “Sir?” He said, his voice shaking only a little.
“Jeeves, it is my belief that there is a better, more efficient way to undress me than the one you currently employ.” Well, I supposed, at least the Wooster courage was successfully mustered. The Jeeves courage, on the other hand, seemed to take a blow. “S-sir?” My man never stammers; well, perhaps when he is woken late in the night, but never when he is alert.
“Jeeves.” I forced him to look me in the eye, tried to transfer some courage to him, to will him to give in to his own desires, as well as mine. “We cannot do this again. It is inappropriate.” I tried a new approach. “Jeeves, did you enjoy last night?”
He looked for a moment as though he were about to scoff, then thought better and simply hissed out a long, low breath. “I would have to be either dead or heterosexual not to.” I suppressed a laugh, and waited for his real response. He, instead, looked intently at the floor, “If I say yes...”
“Say yes.” I thought. “Say yes if you mean yes. And if you say no, leave now and never come back.”
“Yes.” He said abruptly, daring to look me dead in the eyes once more.
“Yes, you did?”
“I did, sir.” He parroted, almost cheekily.
“And would you like an encore? I’m not so awfully tired, you know. Just wanted to get back to you quickly, old thing. We’ve still got a while before everyone else toddles up to bed...” I said, but Jeeves had already begun pulling my shirt open. “I should like an encore most fervently, sir.” He whispered to me in sultry tones.
For the first time that night it was I who shook as he undressed me, bending his head to kiss and lick at all the newly exposed flesh. I gasped as his hands trailed over me; moaned as he took the head of my cock into his heated silken mouth, then pulled back out again, tantalisingly. He began shedding his own vestments while I mussed the beautiful brilliantine curls. I could wait no longer, and when he was down to his shirtsleeves, pulled away from his kiss and led him by the collar to my bed. I brought him down on top of me as I had the night before, brought my knees up to cradle his hips and let us rock together, our members sliding against one another in a maddening rhythm. We continued to kiss long after we had both spent, our overly sensitive cocks twitching and our overwhelmed hearts thudding rapidly in our chests.
After a while, Jeeves got up, assured the door was not only locked, but barred with the desk chair, and shed the rest of his clothes.
“Jeeves?” I called to him, playfully, “Jeeves, if you don’t return to my bed when you’ve finished, you shall be seriously reprimanded.”
I saw a shudder moved down his backside, my eyes moving to his shapely rear. “As you wish, sir.” He obeyed.
“That was beautiful.” I heard after he’d settled himself beside me. His head lay upon my chest, one great hand at the arch of my ribs. Although I couldn’t respond, I returned the sentiment wholeheartedly.
“Sir, I confess you frightened me earlier.” I started. The statement had been so quiet, said almost in a voice one associated with a timid, tentative question. “With what, my dear man?”
“Your brief disappearance, sir. I found it quite... unnerving, until I discovered the truth, sir.” He said, and nuzzled his head where it lay for good measure. “I’d thought for a moment it had something to do with...”
“With the strain of madness in my family?”
I felt his lips twitch, but he did not smile. “No, sir. With me.”
“I assure you...”
“I understand now, sir. But I was... let us say I was prepared for something unpleasant to occur regarding you and me.”
I gave this consideration. His thoughts seemed to echo his words again, and I was glad to see him speak his mind, however literally.
“Jeeves, nothing unpleasant is going to occur if I can help it.”
“Nor I, sir.” He concurred, and I gave a heady yawn. To this he concurred again, and I felt him nodding on my chest. “Good night, Jeeves.” I whispered into his hair. A murmured, “Night, sir” was the last I heard of my man that night. It was enough.
I held him close to me, thoroughly enjoying the feel of his warmth, of his person near my own. I revelled in the feeling, and bathed in the hope that we would do this more and more often in future. That I might be able to find some outlet—other than my writing, which could not have come close—for my love for him. Some channel of solace to say to him without words. I wished for a moment it was he who could read minds, and then struck the notion down as a v. bad idea.
I lay in peace for a while before various thoughts began swarming my head. How to rid myself of Honoria, how to extricate myself from Ditteridge, how to get these other people’s thoughts out of my head! Another sleepless night was in store for me, I thought, as I heard the other residents shutting their doors throughout the corridor.
It was another night from hell. Worthing was cowering from a great snake that resembled Honoria. Missy dreamt of Boko, and Boko of Missy. I was still the first thing on Honoria’s mind, and Angela still the first thing on Tuppy’s mind, from what I could tell, though she did have an open book for a head. If only women were read so easily, I thought idly.
As their minds fell deeper into slumber they became more difficult to read clearly, blurring into the usual roaring whispers and angry hums that drilled into my head like a mad orthodontist. The Colonel was back in Africa, reliving horrors every night. The widow, poor woman, was talking to her dear husband, holding his hand and relaxing with him as though he had never left. I didn’t know which of the two was more miserable, and didn’t think I could take any of it anymore.
And then it clicked. The thing that had been popping annoyingly like a slightly out-of-joint bone, refusing to crack, finally released itself.
“You do not have the power to make people fall in and out of love.”
“She gave me a flask of tonic. A sort of… love potion.”
That woman! She could help me get Worthing and Honoria to fall in love—if only for a little while. Long enough for the third party, namely young Wooster, to extricate himself. And perhaps that mad gypsy would take my powers back as well! I’d stop hearing that horrible hum, that rush of sound and fury every time I entered a room. She was the answer to my prayers! And I had to find her—immediately. Not another sleepless night, not another nature walk, not another imponderable in the scheme—not another blunder by Bertram! I would leave tonight, now, instantly, for London.
I carefully peeled myself away from Jeeves, whispered an apology and an oath to be back by morning. I turned on one lamp away from Jeeves’ sleeping form, dressed, and prepared to leave. His soft body, blurred in the faint tawny light, caught my eye and held my attention boldly. He was dreaming of me; of my face, of my eyes, of our fingers trailing over each other, of my kiss, and of home. I breathed another promise to him that we’d be on our way home by tomorrow. I gathered my necessities and decided against clicking off the lamp. I moved the chair that barred the door, and cast a last look at my love’s dreaming contour.
I wondered if I would regret hearing his thoughts and dreams, but brushed the thought away and decided that from now on we would live in such a way that I no longer needed to read his mind to know those.
Chapter: 10/12
Pairing: Jeeves/Wooster
Summary: See Chapter One
Warnings: Explicit [albeit brief] same-sex intimacy. Any objections?
Chapter Rating: R, I believe. Maybe a wee stonger?
This is a longish one, guys! Almost there!
I recall running around the woods in a panic. I recall the haze of the purpling sky filling me with dread, the realisation that in no time at all I would be out here, alone, in the dark, left to the devices of any number of strange nocturnal creatures. My body would be found in the morning, mangles and mauled, assuming whatever it was that was bound to attack didn’t swallow me whole. Dozens of images of dangerous creatures appeared before me, as though I was a child once more, flipping through on the of the picture books of my boyhood.
Lions, and tigers, and bears; in my panic I didn’t take into account that, unless in the unlikely event of an accident at the local zoo or circus, the former two of those three animals weren’t native to Europe, let alone Old Blighty. Anything seems possible when cold night sneaks up on you and the first stars begin to appear, winking at you maliciously as though eager to watch your demise.
I couldn’t tell you why, in my panic, I found lions and tigers a distinct possibility when it struck me that the sound of Jeeves’ sonorous voice calling out to me through the woods was completely impossible. Nevertheless, when I’d convinced myself I was not hallucinating, he was the more welcome sight by far.
“Sir? Mr Wooster, sir?!” His voice, normally so calm and even, echoed through the woods; and then, “Bertie? Bertie?!” Honoria’s hunting call mixed determination and strength with real concern, and for a moment, I admired her. I didn’t love her; I loved the first voice that called to me, but I did admire her more than I had for a deuce of a long time. I supposed in that mo’ that if worst came to worst, and I was forced under gunpoint to marry, I might have chosen her. Not that there would ever be need for that.
“I’m over here!” I called, shivering with oncoming cold. “Over here, yes, Jeeves?! Honoria?!”
“I heard something, this way!” This time it was Boko’s voice—he’d not abandoned me either.
“Yes, Boko!? I’m over here, everyone!”
“Bertie? Bertie, where are you?” Honoria called, louder than before. They were getting close.
“Sir, if you could tell us any marking by which we could locate you? What are you near, sir?”
“I’m by the tree!” I said, absently, looking around for something significant.
“Really, old bean? So am I!” Boko’s response was, unsurprisingly, not sarcastic at all.
“I think I see ‘im! This way, Mr Jeeves, Miss…” A fourth voice called. More voices, numerous ones, encircled me, calling to each other.
“Over ‘ere, Molly!”
“Y’see ‘im, Kurt?”
“Yer I think I got ‘im!”
“Do ye see Kurt, Mr Wooster? ‘E says ‘e sees you.”
“I—I don’t see anybody!” I called back awkwardly, not having a clue what the chap I was supposed to be looking for looked like.
“Ohp, nope, I’m sorry all, it warn’t Mr Wooster. War a bit a shrubbery what looked like a man.”
“Call out once more, Bertie, we’ll find you!”
“Ehm, what am I suppose to call out, exactly, Honoria?”
“That’s good, that’s perfect! Just so we can follow your voice.”
I thought for a moment. For the first time in my young life, I was being asked to babble, and it struck me as ironic that I could think of nothing to babble on. I was just thankful the sky seemed to slow down its darkening for a moment.
But I didn’t need to talk. I just needed to be heard. Perhaps it would lift my spirits if I…
“I say, Boko?!”
“Bertie, old fruit?” A strained, distant-sounding reply. They were going further away!
“Boko, how did that tune go? ‘Say I ain’t got no-no-nobody! Nobody cares for me!’” I began singing, and Boko provided with the next line, singing boisterously, “That’s why I’m sad and lonely! Won’t somebody come—”
“And take a chance with me!” I joined in, remembering the lyrics suddenly. We sang together, yards apart. His voice began to draw nearer as the song went on, and my spirits lifted considerably. I was not going to be eaten by bears.
They got me back to the trail in an embarrassingly short time. Apparently I’d been rather closer than I’d thought. Honoria, it turns out, along with Boko, had run home and, on Boko’s suggestion (I began to recall that Honoria was far from fond of Jeeves), fetched Jeeves straightaway. They also called for the footmen and one of the parlour maids, whose father, the groundskeeper, was on his day off. They f Honoria and the groundskeepers daughter, a Scots by the name of Molly with a sturdy figure to rival Honoria’s, led the men into the woods. According to the general assembled, they’d only been searching about five minutes when they found me, though Jeeves mentioned privately to me that it had in fact been seven minutes. Perhaps he thought this was some kind of consolation. On some plane it was: he’d been keeping perfect track.
Molly, the man called Kurt, and the second footman (who, I later learned, was stepping in for Jonas Coswick in the presence of his deathly illness) rode back to Ditteridge in Boko’s car, while Jeeves escorted me into my own Aston. On the drive back—which I was thoroughly glad I was having with Jeeves alone—my man enquired after the effectiveness of his plan.
“It would seem Miss Honoria and Mr Fittleworth have united forces, sir. Am I mistaken?” He finished with what I unmasked as a hopeful tone.
“Well, Boko’s gone and united forces alright—though not with Honoria! Oh, no, he’s got his name in the hat for Miss Misselane, and by the looks of it, he’s been quite successful.” Jeeves—who was driving us—pulled a face of one who was swearing fervently under his breath, but I was watching (with some interest) and his lips moved not. Instead, his mind began reeling in that unstoppable whirlpool; I felt like Odysseus trying to steer his ships away from Charybdis, but his thoughts pulled me in in spite of their seeming disorientation. The general consensus, which was all I could have gathered, seemed to point to Jeeves’ displeasure at this turn of events.
“Now, Jeeves, I don’t want you to worry—I’ve got it all figured out! Boko may be engaged to Missy by the end of the night, but!” I raised my finger for emphasis. “But! We still have another bachelor to turn the Glossop menace to, don’t we Jeeves, ah-hah!”
He looked faintly bemused, but kept his eyes on the dusty road. “Might sir be referring to Mr Worthing in this context?”
“Yes, sir might!” I replied, triumphantly.
He said in even, veiled-mocking tones, “But was sir aware of Miss Glossop’s displeasure with Mr Worthing at having run the other way and refusing to come to your aid when she asked?”
I stared agape at him; despite my reverence at being defended in such a way by Honoria twice in one afternoon, I confess I was crestfallen at this news. “No, sir was not…” I replied, and if I let a little emotion slip into my voice, what of it?
But one might mention that Jeeves slipped some emotion of his own into his next words—the emotion of genuine concern. “Sir, if I might ask, why exactly did you run into the woods? Miss Glossop was concerned for a time that you had gone mad.”
I may have blushed. “I—er, well, I thought perhaps, they’d come running after me. Honoria being Honoria, you know… and Worthing trying to play the hero, for Missy or Honoria or whoever. I thought about what you said, the proximity wheeze. I thought if they were bounding around together in the wood, preferably without Boko or Missy, who I’d expected nothing short of complete cowardice from, I thought…”
“Thought that Miss Glossop would invariably see Mr Worthing as a brave and courageous young man, while he would fall in love easily after the loss of Miss Misselane; and they would be left out in the wood together to become engaged, while Mr Fittleworth and Miss Misselane performed the same elsewhere. Sir?”
“You’re more succinct than I, Jeeves.”
“Thank you, sir, although I believe to the contrary; that you are the more comprehensible, and I the more… ah… sesquipedalian conversant.”
“Jeeves, I’ll have to take your word for it, old thing. I’m just glad you’re not cross with me.”
We were nearing Ditteridge, whose shadow rose out in the distance like a great menacing country estate against the evening-bruised sky. Boko’s car was out of sight ahead of us, when Jeeves slowed down the Aston, eventually stopping, right there on the trail. He turned to me.
“Sir, may I ask, why should I be cross with you?” He turned to me; his eyes instantly turned to my offensive necktie, but he raised them, reminding himself, “I’ll take care of that later. He promised.”
“I did promise, old thing…” I said, slipping it off and placing it gingerly in his grasp. Our hands brushed together, then cupped, wanting to hold on for as long as we could. He looked away, then met my eye through the blossoming darkness. “Sir, something has changed.”
“Changed, old fruit?” I started.
“You know something—you suspect something." "You never answered my question, sir. Why should I be cross with you?”
“Oh, for bunging the whole thing up as usual. Letting Boko swipe Missy then thinking I could unhinge Honoria just by throwing a stick and saying, ‘fetch!’”
“Sir, you do not have the power to make people fall in and out of love.” Something almost clicked in the Wooster bean, then decided it would not. “If you did, I suggest you be more careful the next time you hire a manservant.”
I smiled at his thought, but my brow furrowed still. Something almost fell together. Something was hanging in the air, something lifted its hand, making to wave, and then decided it was too shy to give a ‘what ho’. But I was the only one who knew it, it was something Jeeves couldn’t even help me with—and I never thought I’d encounter something quite like that. Not before this whole sad sorry sitch started, anyway. Jeeves’ hands began to pull away, and so distracted in my thought was I, that I let him do so without another word. We drove ever nearer Ditteridge, and I decided to change the topic—or, rather, broach one with my man. Preferably a light one.
“Jeeves, what was that the poet chappie said about the bloke whose punishment is seeing something before anyone else?”
Jeeves considered a moment, then, “I believe, sir, you may be alluding to, ‘A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world’… not so much poet as playwright Oscar Wilde.”
“Ah, yes, that’s the one… not quite doing for me, though. Must have mis-remembered. Any good ones out there about the chap who sees things others don’t and can’t see, but would like to see, but really ought not to see because it’s overwhelming?”
“None present themselves immediately, sir, but I’m sure there’s a suitable one in existence.”
“Well, well.” I concluded; we had reached the gates of Ditteridge. I almost knew what was waiting for me behind these gates, and I don’t mind telling you, I dreaded it.
As if the ether had tuned in with my fears, the entire dinner table turned to me with wide eyes the moment I walked in. Sir Roderick bolted up out of his seat at the end of the table, glaring at me from across the room.
“Mr Wooster! Kindly explain what you thought you were doing!” He bellowed accusingly.
“Eh? I,” But, as per usual, I was not supposed to speak when spoken to.
“DID you have some sort of fit!?” He interrupted, his face growing ever redder and the knuckles that gripped the table growing ever whiter.
“Roderick, he’s mad!” Delia Glossop, Lady of the house, leapt to her feet and clutched her husband’s right arm. Tuppy stood as well, “He was just playing a game, Uncle!”
“A game?!” Pop Glossop was turning a shade of plum I’d not seen since the night I met him. “A game?! Mr Wooster, you call running, screaming, into an unknown wood a game?!”
“Perhaps he heard something! Mr Wooster, was it the spirit of the woods? Were you drawn to it?!” The widow Brite remained in her seat, but looked from Sir Roderick to myself in wide-eyed excitement. In spite of her advancing years, she gave the appearance of a young child being told something she wanted to hear. Pop Glossop, meanwhile, looked at the widow as though she had uttered a disgusting swear.
“N-not... no, I thought I heard, erm... voices.” I said, tentatively. I knew this was hardly better than what Ms Brite had said, but perhaps I could have justified it better. Just so long as I didn’t end up in Colney Hatch, I didn’t care what Sir Roderick bally well thought of me. Just as he was about to pull an even more scandalised face than already he was wearing for the widow’s remark, I added, hastily, “Of, you know, people. I thought er... I thought someone needed help.”
“Mr Wooster,” he looked positively terrified now, as though the dawning realisation that I was a raving lunatic had just come over him, confirmed and condemned by my own words. “Are you telling me, that you are hearing voices?” This one short phrase set everyone thinking.
“He’s dangerous...”
“My daughter engaged to a madman...”
“What if he really was hearing voices?”
“Why on earth was he shouting randomly? Why not tell the others where he was going?”
“What if there’s someone still back there, lost...”
My head was beginning to pound from the ruckus, but I was becoming more and more aware of the sharp silence in my ears compared to what my brain was gathering. They were expecting me to speak, to explain myself, deny, confirm, justify, anything... “I—well, that is to say I...”
But once more, Honoria came to my rescue. She stood quickly, indignation in her keen eyes, and said, “I think Bertie was being brave!”
Now all eyes turned to Honoria. She continued, seemingly unaffected, looking each of them in the eyes at a random, as though pleading with them. “It’s in Bertie’s Code! He’s supposed to come to the aid of anyone who needs him! Aren’t you, Bertie, darling?” She grinned widely up at me, and I stuttered an affirmative. “You see? Bertie’s a brave, courageous, unafraid man of action! Unlike some men; some cowards.” Here her eyes turned sharply, cold as sin, on Worthing, who took a sudden interest in the contents of his dinner plate.
“Some men won’t even help someone they know, let alone run to the aid of a complete stranger, putting the needs of others before himself! That’s what Bertie did—risked himself for someone else. And if he misheard, if it turned out there wasn’t really someone there, what of it?” She looked defiantly, challengingly at her mother, then at her father. She gave the table, completely silent, a last sweeping glance, as of that of a school master asking “Any questions?” at the end of a lecture. And the occupants at the table, the Knight and Lady included, stayed silent as a class of boys who did have questions, but sure as crikey weren’t going to ask them until after class. I stayed in the doorway.
“Bertie, dear,” she said, her hands overlaying one another in front of her, suddenly giving the air of a perfect hostess and lady. “Please, sit and eat.”
I sat and ate with the rest of the table, all of whom were in utter silence. Even Boko and Tuppy seemed to be giving me a wide berth. I asked Tuppy quietly why he hadn’t come along on our little nature walk, and he responded stiffly and matter-of-factly that he was reading. Apparently Angela threatened to throw him out on his ear if he didn’t start improving his mind. As long as it wasn’t putting him on that lunatic Basset Brussels sprout diet, he added, he would go through with it.
I declined to keep company with the men after dinner, saying I was extremely worn-out.
“I can imagine you might be, the day you’ve had.” Sir Roderick commented snidely. “Very well. And we’ll expect you not to be so late out of bed tomorrow morning as you were today!” He added harshly, but I’d already turned to leave.
“Jeeves!” I ejaculated when I entered the bedroom. “Jeeves, it’s all gone to rye!”
“I think, sir, the phrase you wish to employ in this context is ‘awry’.”
“Be that as it may!” I said, exasperatedly dropping the Wooster corpus into the nearest chair. Jeeves was busying himself with menial and unnecessary tasks, but he paused in front of me upon seeing my concern.
“May I ask, sir,” he began in the familiar calming, dulcet tones, “what is troubling you?”
“Honoria’s more fond of me than ever, Jeeves, that’s what’s troubling me! She took my act of random desperation for an act of random kindness! She stood up for me! She’s hell-bent against letting me go, Jeeves. We’re finished!” I hid my face in the palm of my hand. “We’re finished and it’s all my fault...”
A presence materialised at my side, got to its knees, and laid a great, capable hand on my left hand, which gripped the chair in frustration. It patted the hand, relaxed its grip, then took it tentatively into its own. One hand held mine delicately in its palm, the other covered it with equal gentility. I chanced a squeeze, fearing I’d dozed off in the chair. But the gesture was returned in kind. I looked up from the shade of my hand blinking, to my left, where Jeeves knelt, ever at my side, through the worst despair, the diamond in the rough.
“It is not your fault, sir. And we are not finished. Circumstances have been worse before. You must not lose heart, sir...” “Not now, that we’ve come so close...” I looked into his eyes, and for once there was unmasked sympathy. “If you think this is the worst that will come for us...”
I breathed a heavy sigh. Jeeves’ inner self was right. “Jeeves, you’re right... let’s...” I mustered up the Wooster courage and assumed the posture. “Let’s get us to bed, my man.”
He looked heartened, “Very good, sir.” And he set about preparing me for my bed in the usual way. Every now and then I thought I saw him cast me a nervous glance, and every now and then I would make the attempt at a seductive smile. It would certainly boost my spirits if...
“Jeeves.” I said, as he began unbuttoning my shirt. “Sir?” He said, his voice shaking only a little.
“Jeeves, it is my belief that there is a better, more efficient way to undress me than the one you currently employ.” Well, I supposed, at least the Wooster courage was successfully mustered. The Jeeves courage, on the other hand, seemed to take a blow. “S-sir?” My man never stammers; well, perhaps when he is woken late in the night, but never when he is alert.
“Jeeves.” I forced him to look me in the eye, tried to transfer some courage to him, to will him to give in to his own desires, as well as mine. “We cannot do this again. It is inappropriate.” I tried a new approach. “Jeeves, did you enjoy last night?”
He looked for a moment as though he were about to scoff, then thought better and simply hissed out a long, low breath. “I would have to be either dead or heterosexual not to.” I suppressed a laugh, and waited for his real response. He, instead, looked intently at the floor, “If I say yes...”
“Say yes.” I thought. “Say yes if you mean yes. And if you say no, leave now and never come back.”
“Yes.” He said abruptly, daring to look me dead in the eyes once more.
“Yes, you did?”
“I did, sir.” He parroted, almost cheekily.
“And would you like an encore? I’m not so awfully tired, you know. Just wanted to get back to you quickly, old thing. We’ve still got a while before everyone else toddles up to bed...” I said, but Jeeves had already begun pulling my shirt open. “I should like an encore most fervently, sir.” He whispered to me in sultry tones.
For the first time that night it was I who shook as he undressed me, bending his head to kiss and lick at all the newly exposed flesh. I gasped as his hands trailed over me; moaned as he took the head of my cock into his heated silken mouth, then pulled back out again, tantalisingly. He began shedding his own vestments while I mussed the beautiful brilliantine curls. I could wait no longer, and when he was down to his shirtsleeves, pulled away from his kiss and led him by the collar to my bed. I brought him down on top of me as I had the night before, brought my knees up to cradle his hips and let us rock together, our members sliding against one another in a maddening rhythm. We continued to kiss long after we had both spent, our overly sensitive cocks twitching and our overwhelmed hearts thudding rapidly in our chests.
After a while, Jeeves got up, assured the door was not only locked, but barred with the desk chair, and shed the rest of his clothes.
“Jeeves?” I called to him, playfully, “Jeeves, if you don’t return to my bed when you’ve finished, you shall be seriously reprimanded.”
I saw a shudder moved down his backside, my eyes moving to his shapely rear. “As you wish, sir.” He obeyed.
“That was beautiful.” I heard after he’d settled himself beside me. His head lay upon my chest, one great hand at the arch of my ribs. Although I couldn’t respond, I returned the sentiment wholeheartedly.
“Sir, I confess you frightened me earlier.” I started. The statement had been so quiet, said almost in a voice one associated with a timid, tentative question. “With what, my dear man?”
“Your brief disappearance, sir. I found it quite... unnerving, until I discovered the truth, sir.” He said, and nuzzled his head where it lay for good measure. “I’d thought for a moment it had something to do with...”
“With the strain of madness in my family?”
I felt his lips twitch, but he did not smile. “No, sir. With me.”
“I assure you...”
“I understand now, sir. But I was... let us say I was prepared for something unpleasant to occur regarding you and me.”
I gave this consideration. His thoughts seemed to echo his words again, and I was glad to see him speak his mind, however literally.
“Jeeves, nothing unpleasant is going to occur if I can help it.”
“Nor I, sir.” He concurred, and I gave a heady yawn. To this he concurred again, and I felt him nodding on my chest. “Good night, Jeeves.” I whispered into his hair. A murmured, “Night, sir” was the last I heard of my man that night. It was enough.
I held him close to me, thoroughly enjoying the feel of his warmth, of his person near my own. I revelled in the feeling, and bathed in the hope that we would do this more and more often in future. That I might be able to find some outlet—other than my writing, which could not have come close—for my love for him. Some channel of solace to say to him without words. I wished for a moment it was he who could read minds, and then struck the notion down as a v. bad idea.
I lay in peace for a while before various thoughts began swarming my head. How to rid myself of Honoria, how to extricate myself from Ditteridge, how to get these other people’s thoughts out of my head! Another sleepless night was in store for me, I thought, as I heard the other residents shutting their doors throughout the corridor.
It was another night from hell. Worthing was cowering from a great snake that resembled Honoria. Missy dreamt of Boko, and Boko of Missy. I was still the first thing on Honoria’s mind, and Angela still the first thing on Tuppy’s mind, from what I could tell, though she did have an open book for a head. If only women were read so easily, I thought idly.
As their minds fell deeper into slumber they became more difficult to read clearly, blurring into the usual roaring whispers and angry hums that drilled into my head like a mad orthodontist. The Colonel was back in Africa, reliving horrors every night. The widow, poor woman, was talking to her dear husband, holding his hand and relaxing with him as though he had never left. I didn’t know which of the two was more miserable, and didn’t think I could take any of it anymore.
And then it clicked. The thing that had been popping annoyingly like a slightly out-of-joint bone, refusing to crack, finally released itself.
“You do not have the power to make people fall in and out of love.”
“She gave me a flask of tonic. A sort of… love potion.”
That woman! She could help me get Worthing and Honoria to fall in love—if only for a little while. Long enough for the third party, namely young Wooster, to extricate himself. And perhaps that mad gypsy would take my powers back as well! I’d stop hearing that horrible hum, that rush of sound and fury every time I entered a room. She was the answer to my prayers! And I had to find her—immediately. Not another sleepless night, not another nature walk, not another imponderable in the scheme—not another blunder by Bertram! I would leave tonight, now, instantly, for London.
I carefully peeled myself away from Jeeves, whispered an apology and an oath to be back by morning. I turned on one lamp away from Jeeves’ sleeping form, dressed, and prepared to leave. His soft body, blurred in the faint tawny light, caught my eye and held my attention boldly. He was dreaming of me; of my face, of my eyes, of our fingers trailing over each other, of my kiss, and of home. I breathed another promise to him that we’d be on our way home by tomorrow. I gathered my necessities and decided against clicking off the lamp. I moved the chair that barred the door, and cast a last look at my love’s dreaming contour.
I wondered if I would regret hearing his thoughts and dreams, but brushed the thought away and decided that from now on we would live in such a way that I no longer needed to read his mind to know those.
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Date: 2010-07-25 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 06:38 am (UTC)And end in great make-up sex.
heh heh.
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Date: 2010-07-25 06:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 07:58 pm (UTC)He thinks he'll be back... We know better. ;)
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Date: 2010-07-25 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 08:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 01:02 pm (UTC)Bertie had better turn ninja and be back really quickly, or Jeeves-y will be sad D':
Looking very much forward to the next chapter <3
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Date: 2010-07-25 07:56 pm (UTC)(And maybe, just maybe, Jeeves-y go looking for Bertie =O)
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Date: 2010-07-25 04:22 pm (UTC)speaking of which i really liked that quote from oscar wilde...
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Date: 2010-07-25 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 05:37 pm (UTC)I am in love with it!
"For the first time that night it was I who shook as he undressed me"
that paragraph was just... ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
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Date: 2010-07-26 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 07:09 am (UTC)Thanks for the sentiments, however. Whether you go on with me or not, I'm glad to see you've enjoyed what I've offered thus far.
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Date: 2010-08-22 08:50 am (UTC)True, there are some threads left hanging, yet it seems that with an open-ish ending and a few mysteries remaining, the story reads rather like a magical slashy parable.
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Date: 2010-08-22 09:44 am (UTC)