indeedsir_backup | NCOW-Inspired Fic: Wooster Pride

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TITLE: Wooster Pride
AUTHOR:

mechanicaljewel
FANDOM: Jeeves and Wooster.
PAIRING: Jeeves/Bertie.
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Wodehouse’s and whatnot
NOTES: The double shot of

truly_bohemian’s “Another Time, Another World” and

weaselwoman13’s “Coming Out of the Wardrobe” finally convinced me to write down this plot bunny that’s been hopping around the bean, and has stayed locked in there due to my fears that this would be too ‘historical’ (as opposed to ‘period’) and not a humor piece. Written in about an hour, and unbetaed. Yay for National Coming Out Day/Week!

(Though, as my gay friend Richard says, “Does anyone really look at their calendar and say, ‘Oh yeah, I have to come out on Tuesday’?”)

My compromise between canon and history: I’m putting Bertie’s birthday on November 30, 1900, and Jeeves’s on May 25, 1895. The years were convenient, and the dates are homages to Oscar Wilde (his death and conviction respectively). Thus, they are both very long-lived, for this fic takes place in 1967.

~~~

I must start this tale of Wooster exploits with a slight caveat--if that’s the word I want--to my regular readers. As most of yours truly’s memoirs were written during and/or about the carefree times between wars, you will find that much of the slang of said times have slipped from Bertram’s vocabulary. You will be glad to know, however, that I have not adopted the argot of today’s young people, mainly because I do not know what “groovy” means, let alone how to use it properly.

In fact, my vocabulary grew more traditional as my relationship with my wonderful master-of-words former valet grew less so.

‘Former valet?’ you cry. ‘But Bertram, what could have ever parted you and that marvelous paragon?’ But that is, of course, precisely the point. It has been quite a long time since we agreed that only death would do us part. And as aunts and old school chums passed on or friendships simply faded as time will often do to them, Reginald and I (oh, I still get chills at using his Christian name) slowly let the old master-and-valet mask fall off, and let those who remained wonder what they would.

Of course, we would have shouted it from the rooftops, every hour, on the hour, such that they would have set Big Ben by us, but alas popular opinion, and more importantly public law, would have frowned upon the display, and would have sent us away for a two-year stretch (although I have often wondered if Reginald could have gotten us out of it had the fuzz ever come knocking on our bridal chamber).

The happiest day of our lives--after the day we confessed our love for one another, and the night we spent proving it--came the summer before my 67th hit, which would thus have made Reginald 72. (Cor, how time passes!)

Despite the years since his “retirement”--when we opened a joint bank account and learned why marriage is so dashed difficult--Reginald still has the awfully bad habit of rising before 10 AM, and so I was all set to become an irritable Wooster that July morn when he shook me awake and shoved a newspaper under my nose.

“Bertie! Bertie! Wake up! Wake up! It’s wonderful! Absolutely wonderful! Please, wake up!”

He was the most excited I had ever seen him, and considering I may be the only one in the world who had ever seen him in the throes of pure ecstasy, you have to understand what I mean by how excited he was. I mean, he almost never calls me Bertie-- always Bertram with him.

“Grrrmnnnuhhhh,” said I and rolled over.

“Bertram Wilberforce Wooster! Wake up this instant or I will not make you your morning tea!”

He had me there. I still had not learned the mystical art of tea-making, so if Reginald would not make it, I had to do to without. And I could not do without, you see, so there was quite the situation in the Jeeves-Wooster bed that morning. Following an enormous effort, I rolled over and cast a bleary gaze at the newsprint nest under my head. I could only make out two words, but they were the most important.

They were ‘homosexuality’ and ‘decriminalised’.

I shot right out of bed, moving such as I had not thought myself capable for the past score of years. We dove into each other’s arms, and began kissing feverishly. The acrobatics of moments prior were proved in vain as we fell right back down to the bed again. And we only broke apart to exchange several ‘I love yous’ before committing the recently legalised acts that for decades had reduced us to exchanging only the most primal of grunts.

~~~

Meep. I also have a bit of a sequel idea I could write if there's interest. And if you would like to see what Bertie and Jeeves do when they are 71 and 77, respectively.