The 1920's Prometheus
Title: The 1920's Prometheus
Author: lollyphants
Summary: If Mary Shelley had lived long enough to write a 700 word Jeeves & Wooster fic and somehow got Edgar Alan Poe to beta, that fic would probably be a lot better than this one, but you get the general idea. Also, if a teenager with a ‘B’ in Fine Art wanted to illustrate it, well no one else is likely to, it’d probably be as bad as the illustrations therein. Jeeves is Frankenstein.
Rating: PG-13? There are a lot of dead bodies in this.
Disclaimer: Right now PG Wodehouse, Mary Shelley and Edgar Alan Poe are all spinning in their respective graves. Wodehouse owns the characters Jeeves and Bertram, Shelley owns the ideas put forth in ‘Frankenstein - The Modern Prometheus’ and Poe owns the ideas put forth in ‘The Tell Tale Heart.’
Jeeves is not mad.
Jeeves is not mad at all; he has simply found a task worthy of his genius. It would be beautiful, he would be beautiful and he would be Jeeves’. It was not difficult to figure out how to do it, how to perform this miracle; Jeeves truly is a genius. A genius that is forced into graveyards in the dead of night to complete his masterpiece. Oh, and he would be a masterpiece; he would be Jeeves’ Magnum Opus. No one would fancy Jeeves mad when they saw him.
The heart and lungs are from the same body, the first body Jeeves’ profane fingers tear open, they are healthy and they are strong. The rest of the internal organs Jeeves just picks up along the way. He knows the cadaver who provides the eyes, such bright, bright blue eyes and it’s her perfectly preserved baby blues that make Jeeves grant her the privilege of living on in his creature, his beautiful creature. She was called Melody and it’s her name that makes Jeeves think his masterpiece should be musical. This is why he digs up so many graves until he gets the right pair of long thin fingers, who belong to a body who also has a wonderfully healthy liver.
To go with the beautiful hands he digs up long, long legs and graceful shoulders which slope into elegant arms and oh, he was going to be beautiful. Jeeves decides the body he got the legs from could also offer him a face -long, thin and processing a paleness not born from death. He chooses delicate ankle bones from a body so decomposed Jeeves is unsure of its gender. He uses flesh from another, fresher body to sculpt around the dainty, dainty bones. He needed everything to be perfect; he was going to be perfect.
First, Jeeves chooses black hair but with the pale skin and blue eyes the dark hair made his beautiful creature seem too wintry, Angels are not wintry. Angels are beautiful and golden and this is why Jeeves chooses gingery blond and as he scalps a body for it, he smiles - he is so close, so very close and he is going to be so very beautiful.
He has his parts and he carefully, so very carefully, puts them together. He has all his parts bar one - a brain. This is the most important part; he needs a beautiful man for this beautiful body, what he wants is a musician. How is he to know the brain he uses is musical unless he…
He doesn’t truly kill anyone, not permanently, just long enough to transfer the brain from one body to another. No one who could create life so brilliantly could be a murderer, he was a creator, he was a god and he would be his Adam. There would be no downfall, no Eve, no devil to tempt him.
He lay on the bloodstained table complete, totally complete, as perfect as Jeeves’ genius and dedication would allow and as beautiful as Jeeves knew he would be, so beautiful. No one could fancy Jeeves mad now, not with this to show. No one could fancy Jeeves as anything but genius once they saw him alive.
He cracks open one eye first. One bright, bright blue eye, the right followed by the fluttering left. Jeeves is glad he remembered to give him eyelashes. The body stretches with an almighty crack of joints. He lets out an intelligible mumble and slowly sits himself up eyes wide- so blue, so expectant.
Jeeves calls him, he who is so beautiful, Bertram which means ‘bright raven’. ‘Bright’ because his creature, his angel is so beautiful and his eyes are so lively and he is oh, so beautiful. ‘Raven’ because that was the bird that taught the Muslims to bury their dead. Whilst it seems extremely apt, Jeeves can’t help but wonder who needs burials now?
It is his job to teach Bertram, his brilliant Bertram, of the world. This wonderful world that will herald Jeeves as a genius and will call his Bertram a miracle. He thinks of all the books, all the music all the wonderful things he has to teach. He is raring to make Bertram beautiful in more ways than one. First, however, he has mutilated cadavers to dispose of; they should not be there to sully the moment, to sully the wonder of this new life.