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indeedsir_backup2010-12-29 12:03 am
A Little Perspective
Props to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
darketernal09 for more-or-less inspiring this. I know you were working on your own ducky POV story, dark, and I'd still love to see it. This is my run at that particular plot bunny, though.
Title: A Little Perspective
Total Word Count: ~3,500
Pairing: Bertie/Jeeves
Rating: PG
Summary: Bertie’s most loyal servant is very concerned about him.
Disclaimer: Jeeves, Bertie, and all characters associated with that idyllic world belong to P.G. Wodehouse.
I’m worried about my master. For the past few weeks he hasn’t been his usual self. I hear him laughing, certainly, playing his piano, and talking pleasantly with his friends. But when he crosses the threshold into the privacy of the bathroom, his face droops, his shoulders slump, and my little squeaker goes out to him, wishing I could do something, anything.
I can remember only one other time my master has been this way: when we first met.
--- --- ---
It was the happiest day of my life. A man had me placed onto a shelf with dozens of my brothers after spending weeks in boxes, pressed tightly together, occasionally squeaking encouragement to one another when our cardboard carrier was jostled. We each dreamed of the day our master or mistress would find us and take us home, and it filled my little squeaker with delight as the man set me in the front row, looking out at all the other toys and the brilliant shop front windows that glinted even brighter than the light of the overhead lamps off the bathwater.
All was color and laughter and the sticky feel of chocolate and damp wafting through the air as the confectioner in the back of the shop spun sugar and cocoa into treats that children licked and chewed as they wandered past. I was so busy drinking in this new and exciting place beyond the factory from whence I had come and the boxes in which I had sat that it took the voice of the girl to draw my attention to a spot directly in front of me.
“Well, what about this one, Bertie?” the girl asked, holding up a toy train engine to the younger boy beside her. They were thin things, like mops, with heads just a shade lighter than my own bright yellow feathers. Bertie, a boy who stood as if giant buckets of water hung in his hands, shook his head after a long pause. “Oh, come on, Bertie,” the girl wheedled, running the black engine on imaginary tracks between them. “Chugga-chugga choo-choo! It’s like the one we rode on with Aunt Dahlia last summer. Don’t you want it? I’m sure I have enough–”
“I want Daddy,” Bertie said, pale blue eyes gathering tiny beads of water around the corners.
The girl’s smile faltered, but she pressed on, crouching so that their faces drew level. “Daddy’s gone to Heaven with Mummy,” she explained, grimacing. “I know... I know it’s hard, Bertie, but please try. For me? Please?”
My little squeaker went out to both of the children, though I did not know what Heaven was or why Mummy and Daddy should be there. They wrapped their arms around each other, then broke apart.
“I’ll try, Sylly,” Bertie agreed, sniffing bravely and rubbing at his reddened eyes with a fist. “I-I like that one.”
He pointed to me, and I tried to stand taller, shine brighter, smile wider. As Sylly took me from the shelf and handed me to the boy, pressing down on my tummy, I loosed my loudest and most jubilant squeak. Bertie’s eyebrows shot up, his jaw unclenched, and the corners of his lips turned up. A sharp, “Hah!” washed over me as he held me up to his face, the tears stemmed by laughter.
“What are you going to call him, Bertie?” Sylly asked, dabbing gingerly at her own eyes with a lacy white cloth.
“Benjamin,” my new master said without hesitation. “His name is Benjamin.”
“Bertie.” The girl’s voice cracked, and I saw her swallowing down her emotion before continuing. “I... Daddy would be... I don’t think you should call him–”
“I’m trying, Sylly,” Bertie cut her off. “Please, I’m trying. Just...” He hugged me, then – suddenly, fiercely, as if I might transform into a cruel bar of soap and shoot from his hands. I squeaked again, doing my best to reassure him. “I’m trying.”
And he did try.
My master brought me home that day, and as he carried me around in the little bag the man in the toy shop had placed me in, I heard him chatting with Sylly, then other people – Aunt Dahlia, Uncle Tom, Angela, Bonzo, and Nanny. My master’s voice had sounded light, carefree as any little boy during these exchanges. Then, he had taken his bath.
I had been brought out of my bag and placed in the tub after Nanny finished filling it. She helped my master into the bath, and he dazzled both of us with a smile that put my own quirked bill to shame before waving her off. Nanny grinned back and said she would be in the room knitting if he needed something.
As she disappeared into the next room, the good humor rushed from my master’s face in a great flood, leaving behind a much older boy. He grabbed me from where I was bobbing on the small waves and held me close to whisper, “I miss you, Daddy.” I didn’t know what to say and could only squeak helplessly as he squeezed my middle. In that instant, I realized why Sylly did not want me to be named ‘Benjamin’, but this was my master, and he had named me.
As the weeks passed, my master talked to me about places I had never been and people I did not know. I traveled with him everywhere, tending to him each evening and morning as he bathed and went about his toilet. I tried my best to stay strong for him, willing my squeaks to brace him in the hours that we were apart, and after some time, I began to notice a change. Instead of beginning all of our conversations ‘Do you remember when...?’, my master began talking about things that had happened more recently. He spoke of friends I heard him playing with in his room and about Sylly’s latest ‘culinary endeavors’ that were driving the kitchen staff to contemplate ‘alternative uses’ for their carving knives.
My master started boarding school almost a year after our first meetings. There, he regaled me with the tales of his friends, and how he often had to fish them out of the ‘soup’, earning a ‘right good caning’ for the effort. There were no baths at boarding school, but I kept watch over his belongings from the bedside table as he showered and listened as he related his fears and triumphs to me in the stillness of the dark hours, his hair hanging in wet tangles about his head.
A year drifted by in a haze of steamy white, then another, and while he sometimes sounded forlorn, my master was never so sad as that day when we had met, the tears streaking his rosy cheeks. In fact, I came to realize that he had a deep and insatiable hunger for just living, and he tried to share this with each and every person he met. He laughed easily, his mirth flowing like water from the taps, chuckles pouring out of him at the most unexpected moments and swelling to such delight before gently fading as the world around filled to the brim with his joy.
--- --- ---
Which brings me to the present where, once more, that little boy with his tear-filled eyes sat in the bath, pushing me about with the vague detachment of a stranger. I wanted to ask what the problem was; if there was something I could do to fix it. My master had grown big now, though, and while he sometimes talked to me, they were rare occasions.
“Sir?” My master started at the voice and grabbed me quickly. I squeaked in surprise.
“Yes, Jeeves?”
We both looked up and there stood Jeeves, my master’s other servant.
Jeeves is a nice man, I think. He often helps me attend my master in the bath, preparing the shaving kit and filling the tub while I keep an eye on his work and see to my master’s general happiness and emotional well-being. He was even kind enough to take me in for repair after a dreadful fire in my master’s country cottage a few years ago. He does not talk to me, but we have an understanding in our looks, each knowing where we stand and who is responsible for what when we’re working together.
“I discovered this... object in your wardrobe while laying out your suit for the day, sir,” he said, holding out what looked like a fragment of rainbow. Jeeves wore what my master would call his ‘stuffed frog face’.
“Oh. The braces,” my master replied, tensing further, then directing his gaze away from Jeeves and toward me. He squeezed me, and I squeaked my reassurance, for he was looking rather distressed now. “Yes. Well. Throw them out, then, Jeeves.”
“Sir, are you feeling ill?” Jeeves sounded alarmed, and I have to admit that I was quite confused, as well. My master never gave up on arguments of a ‘sartorial nature’ without a fight. Even when I’d squeaked reprimand after reprimand about his mustache, it had taken Jeeves' and my combined efforts to get him to shave the thing off.
“I’m absolutely fine. Never better! Topping, one might say!”
Jeeves stood still for a moment, and I could see that he was debating whether or not to press the issue given the blatant lies spilling from my master’s lips. I cast him a significant glance, and he seemed to understand, turning back into the bedroom.
I returned my attention to my master, intent on getting to the bottom of this mysterious occurrence and found myself free and floating away from him. He had let go of me to press his palms to his eyes.
“Good Lord, Benjamin,” he muttered, and I strained to listen to his soft words over the lap of the water, “it’s getting worse.” I wanted to ask what ‘it’ was, but I held my silence, willing him to go on. “What would you do, eh? Risk it? Jolly unfair to ask, I know. Still...” He trailed off, hands coming down as he reached for me, and now I did squeak the burning question held within as he picked me up.
“Jeeves, Benjamin,” my master hissed, holding me level with his face. I stared at him, baffled as a water bug treading soap bubbles. Was something wrong with Jeeves? “A gentleman isn’t supposed to, you know?” he continued. “It’s not that he’s a servant, of course – that’s all the rage these days – but a gentleman’s personal gentleman? Not to mention that he’s probably not... But there’s the rub, polish, and stroke all in one! And what would the old pater have said? Mum? Sylly? She’ll have a bally fit. Aunt Dahlia might have one, too, come to think on it. Think she’d shoot me? Would put rather a damper on future familial gatherings. And Aunt Agatha...” Here, he shuddered. “Well, Aunt Agatha.” He left it at that, and we shared a knowing look. What I knew, I wasn’t certain of, but it was obviously a very dangerous secret, and one that involved Jeeves.
“Sir?” I was suddenly under the water, but I bobbed up in time to hear, “...the colors, I may be able to procure an object for display purposes in the flat.” Jeeves wore a pinched expression, and I knew that whatever it was he’d just offered my master, it pained him deeply.
“You don’t have to do that, Jeeves,” my master replied.
“Sir, if I may take a liberty?” Jeeves asked.
“Go on,” my master allowed.
“Thank you, sir. I have noted a marked decline in your cheerful disposition in the past months. If this has something to do with my services, I should like to rectify the situation immediately. Have I done something that displeases you?”
“Displeases me?” My master snorted. “Very far from it, my good man. You’re seeing things, Jeeves. I’m really quite all right.”
“Sir...” There was a tone in Jeeves’ voice that let both my master and me know that he was becoming exasperated. “You have not finished a meal in the past two weeks, you have refrained from interfering with what plans I set in motion to assist your friends, you have been engaged to Lady Florence Craye for three days now and have done nothing to escape, and you have just allowed me to remove an egregious itemry of clothing from your wardrobe without comment. I trust you can see the reasoning behind my suspicions.”
“W-well,” my master stuttered, the dusting of pink on his cheeks deepening, “I could just be in love, you know, Jeeves?”
“You are enamored with Lady Craye, sir?” Jeeves’ eyebrow rose by an eighth of my bill length.
“Could be,” my master said in a very small voice that set my little squeaker throbbing. He was looking down at me again.
“Is there someone else, perhaps, with whom you are enamored, sir?” Jeeves inquired, clever fellow that he is. I watched my master’s face closely and saw him blanch.
“W-who else would there be, Jeeves?”
“I do not know, sir.” I chanced a look at Jeeves and saw that his eyebrow had crept higher even as he had slid further into the room, treading in his silent way as if his feet were coated with soap. “Perhaps you could enlighten me.”
My master winced, and like that moment when I had known why the little boy had named me ‘Benjamin’, I realized who my master loved. I could only sit there in wordless astonishment, and then a feeling I had never known bubbled up in me, something foul like the brown water from a blocked toilet.
Jeeves was responsible for making my master feel this way, for transforming him into the sad little boy again. I turned my eyes upon the other servant and glared as my master mumbled something about Jeeves being the most enlightened person he knew. I wished my master would throw me, then, throw me at this man I had thought of as a friend. I wanted to squeak my rage as I bounced off his crooked nose and teach him what happened to those who hurt my master. Mummy and Daddy had done so a long time ago by going to Heaven. Now, Jeeves was here and hurting him. I could make it better. I could–
“Sir, please tell me what is wrong,” Jeeves interrupted my thoughts as he knelt down beside the tub. I wanted to hate him still, to blame him for everything, but the confusion and hurt in his face and voice stole the fiery bubbles from my little squeaker. “Please, sir. I would be only too happy to assist you in whatever troubles you face.”
Could it be that he hadn’t realized? No. Jeeves knew everything! Surely he couldn’t have missed this. But my master had been hiding it from me, his oldest friend. And if it would make his family angry, then maybe he would hide it from Jeeves, too. Could he?
“Dash it, Jeeves! It’s not something you can help,” my master snapped, letting go of me to cover himself as the thin veil of bubbles floated from his more intimate regions.
Jeeves fell silent for several seconds as I revolved slowly in the water, willing him to understand, to see past the sheen of anger my master wore. I wished I could say something, but it was not my secret to tell.
“Sir, the individual with whom you are enamored... is it someone you believe will not return your regard?”
Yes. Yes! There was a tiny glimmer of understanding sparkling in Jeeves' eyes.
“I-I wouldn’t know,” my master managed, still not looking at him. “Rummy sitch all around.”
“Indeed, sir?”
That caught my master’s attention. He flashed his gaze to the other man briefly, and I saw bumps appearing on his arms, though the water was not cold.
“If this individual did return your regard, would your present consternation remain, sir?”
“Does it matter, Jeeves?” My master feigned nonchalance, reaching for his forgotten loofah somewhere near the middle of the tub. “I’m trying to take a bath, you know?”
“It matters to me, sir.” He sounded so serious that my master could not help turning his full attention to Jeeves.
He knew. Jeeves knew, and I wanted to squeak triumphantly, but there was still that wall, that metal tub between them. Jeeves had just extended a hand, but it was up to my master to grasp hold and pull him into the water.
My master gulped. “It would, Jeeves. Yes.”
“I see, sir. Why is that?”
“It’s not the done thing.”
“Love, sir?”
“After a manner of speaking.” My master licked his lips, and I could see his own resolve crumbling.
“Sir.” Jeeves placed his hand on the edge of the tub and my master reached up a soapy hand to touch him.
Silence.
I held my breath, waiting for one of them to say something. To make it all right. Then, my master shifted, bumping me with his knee, and I squeaked without meaning to. They both started and looked over at me. I tried to make myself smaller, will my feathers to take on the color of the water around me. But instead of a reprimand, my master’s face split into a grin, and he turned back to Jeeves who quirked one side of his mouth in return.
“I think Benjamin wants us to get on with this whatsit neither of us is saying, old thing.”
“Indeed, sir? A most practical water fowl.”
“More practical than Bertram, certainly. But... well, you have to know why I was worried about telling you. Two years hard labor would have been terrible, of course, but losing you, Jeeves. I’d have gone absolutely barmy.”
“I understand, sir. I have been facing a similar dilemma for several years now.”
I stared at him. Years? That seemed impossible.
“What? I mean to say, what? Good Lord, Jeeves! You’ve been feeling like this for years? How did I not... you must think I’m a right bounder never noticing. Terribly sorry, old thing.”
Jeeves raised an eyebrow. “Sir, it would have been and unacceptable breach of decorum to allow you to witness any distress on my part regarding the situation. Standards must be maintained.”
My master snorted and Jeeves frowned. “Sorry, sorry. You’re just...” He shook his head. “You’re a marvel, Jeeves.”
“I endeavor to give satisfaction, sir,” Jeeves replied with a smug nod.
“I suppose since that bit’s sorted, then,” my master began, stroking Jeeves’ hand with his own, “we just have everything else to worry about now. Florence and all that. I meant it when I said the conster-whatsit wouldn’t be over so easily, what?”
“No, sir. I believe, however, that I will be able to dispense with Lady Craye in short order.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“I have mailed your rainbow braces to her father with a missive from you intimating that a man of his character might find such apparel appealing. I also took the liberty of adding a postscript indicating that you were in a state of inebriation whilst purchasing the item in Piccadilly.”
“You what?” my master shouted, eyes bugging out. “Sh-she’ll flay me alive, Jeeves! You know what Florence thinks of drinking!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And her father? She’ll think I’m having a laugh at him!”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Or worse! She’ll think I’ve gone mad.”
“A not-unappealing alternative, sir.”
“Jeeves, do you think this is funny?” my master demanded, frowning and puffing out his chest.
“I could not say, sir.”
“You realize the engagement is likely off forever with Lady Craye after this?”
“That was my intention, si–”
Jeeves never had a chance to finish. As I watched, my master proceeded to grab his tie and jerk him forward, bringing their mouths together as Jeeves’ hand lost its purchase on the side of the tub and went plunging into the bathwater.
They broke apart after a moment, Jeeves soaked up to his elbow and flushed pink in the warm overhead lights. My master looked just as startled by his own actions, red lips still parted.
“Jeeves, you’re wet.”
“I had noticed, sir.”
“Is that... all right?”
“No, sir.”
My master’s eyes widened, and I felt my little squeaker tighten.
“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry, old thing, I didn’t mean–”
This time, Jeeves cut my master off with a kiss. “I only meant, sir, that I should like to remove my clothing before continuing if you wish to remain in the bath.”
“Oh.” My master blinked, then started. “Oh! Yes. Yes, please do, Jeeves.”
As Jeeves began to undress, my master watched him closely, but there was a moment, the space of a soap bubble’s life, that he looked to me. I quirked my bill at him and in turn, my master graced me with that grin I had come to love and cherish so much. I did not know how these new circumstances would affect the friendship between myself and Jeeves, but for now, with that brilliant young man’s smile warming my little squeaker, I knew everything would be all right.
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Leetle squeak toy. You personified Benjamin very, very well. It was adorable! ^w^
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I love the idea that even the rubber ducky knew that mustache was horrible! For stories like this, I must find a wibble icon, though I think I might like Death By Fluff! This was angsty but sweat and funny and a great third person Point of View! Loved it!
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Good show, old fruit.
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just what I needed in my essay-writing break :p
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You had fooled me good and proper at first when I tried to make sense of a mental picture of Jeeves sitting on a shelf next to his family members. XD
Very adorable!
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Adorable. I needed some fluff today.
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Damn, I sound like such a sap! But it's such a lovely fic.
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...a feeling I had never known bubbled up in me, something foul like the brown water from a blocked toilet...
and then
...I wanted to hate him still, to blame him for everything, but the confusion and hurt in his face and voice stole the fiery bubbles from my little squeaker.
*chortles and <3s you tremendously!*
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The Lady 529
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“I had noticed, sir.”
Love this!