The Infinite Universes of Jeeves and Wooster, Story 1
Jeeves went over his mental checklist, shifting the various parcels in his hands in order to check for their physical presence. Two bags of Darjeeling, one can of Earl Grey, a Chateaubriand steak to be served for dinner and, Jeeves smiled, a fresh bag of strawberries. His lover had been pining for them for weeks now. He had told them they were not in season, but did not tell him they were to be soon. He thought the surprise would enhance Bertram’s pleasure at having them. Jeeves allowed his smile to stretch another three centimeters as he thought of the way Bertram’s face would light up when he revealed them after dinner…in the bedroom with only his shirt tastefully buttoned only halfway up his chest.
Jeeves nearly shivered at the thought. Bertram had been feeling poor the last couple of days and although he was happy merely to share a bed with his aristocratic lover and simply sleep beside the man, he was eager to resume their nocturnal activities once more. Of course they had done some things together. It was difficult for either of them to forgo all of their usual intimacies, but, mostly due to Jeeves’ insistence, they had refrained from some of their more...invasive lovemaking. Hence why today, while he was at the market, Bertram had called in his private physician for a house call and hopefully something close to a cure.
Jeeves tipped his hat to Jarvis when he passed him and entered the strangely quiet flat. Jeeves frowned at this. Bertram was not the most patient of gentleman and if he had to wait for any amount of time he usually spent it at his piano tinkering away. He had promised to wait for Jeeves to return, so it was unlikely he was at the Drones. Jeeves suddenly felt a thrill of fear. Was the illness worst than what they had previously thought? Jeeves dropped the packages hurriedly in the kitchen before racing to the bedroom, forgoing his usual poise and dignity. It had no place in the privacy of their home and he knew Bertie would love him all the more for it and if he really was ill, perhaps knowing his lover was obviously concerned would lift his spirits.
When he entered the room, Jeeves predictions seemed to have proven true. Bertie was sitting at the edge of the bed, waistcoat aside with his collar undone and one of his braces twisted like he had put on his clothes with little notice. His hands were clasped between his knees and he was staring at the ground with an almost lost expression.
Jeeves knelt in front of the young man and cradled his face in his hands, where Bertie’s intensely blue eyes reluctantly flicked to meet his gaze.
“Sir, tell me.”
Bertie scanned his face silently as if searching for something before he dropped his gaze once more. “I’m pregnant, Jeeves.”
Jeeves actually rocked back in shock, dropping his hands from his lover’s face. He had anticipated for the worst yes, but this?! How can any man prepare himself for the impossible?
“Why would you not tell me, sir?”
Bertie launched himself from the bed to kneel before him, clutching imploring at the lapels of his jacket. “Jeeves, please believe me, I had no bally clue that I was still able to bear children. I got culled just like the rest of the boys and thought, ‘Right-o, there goes that’ and all that and the thing never entered the old noodle again.”
“Then how-?” Jeeves croaked, throat seizing around the fateful words.
Bertie looked pained. “That’s the rum stitch of it. Sometimes, you know, the culling doesn’t work and while it doesn’t make a fig of difference in Eton, someone,” he faltered a little, “someone like me really isn’t supposed to be doing these types of things anyways.”
Jeeves bitterly comprehended Bertie’s stunted narrative. Although less reliable, in the past ten years or so it had become custom for culling to take place before a boy attended Eton instead of when a boy fully reached puberty and became sexually mature. Because of that, sometimes the hormone suppressant given to boys at that age to halt the development of their birth canals didn’t do much more than simply delay it. Young boys at Eton and even Oxford had little cause to fear inadvertent pregnancies as both the damage of their sealed birth canals and the state of their underdeveloped bodies could not support conception. The frequency of a failed culling had never been accurately recorded because boys from Noble families were expected to marry and bed females, thereby having no danger of becoming pregnant from their botched culling. Male pregnancies and homosexual relationships were only allowed, although viewed as filthy and distasteful, to the lower classes.
However, Bertie had undergone a homosexual relationship with him, Jeeves, and Jeeves…Jeeves had caused Bertie to conceive.
Jeeves swallowed and placed a tremulous hand on Bertie’s abdomen. “How far along are you?”
“Two, maybe three months,” Bertie whispered, shrugging, “Dr. Lightman told me I need to find a specialist. He promised to keep it secret for my sake. Oh Jeeves,” Bertie moaned, pressing his face against Jeeves’ broad chest, “what are we going to do?”
Jeeves held onto his slender lover as Bertie dissolved into heartfelt sobbing. What were they going to do? Nobles barely tolerated the proclivities of the lower classes as it was and practically shunned any of their members who chose a same sex partner. It would have been bad enough if Bertram had been discovered as an invert, especially in so prominent a family as his. He might have been treated with disdain or publicly disgraced, but now that he was with child and impregnated by a lower class servant, no less, he could be barred from his clubs, disowned, lose his title, place of privilege, even his right to his fortune. Worst yet, their child would bear a greater stigma. If, Jeeves thought with horrifying clarity, the child could survive the birth or if Bertie could survive the entire length of the pregnancy.
Jeeves gently pressed a kiss into his lover’s hair, allowing a few tears of his own to fall, although he took care not to let Bertie see them. He was responsible for this and if Bertram had to literally carry this burden, then Jeeves would be his pillar of strength and support.
With deliberate slowness, he gently separated his master, friend, lover, and vessel that carried their child, from him and wiped away his tears.
“Sir, I am going to contact my uncle, who knows a doctor who specializes in male pregnancy, as he has, on occasion, had to arrange for this sort of thing occurring in his household. When we consult with the doctor we will decide on our next cause of action. Until then, I am going to make lunch. Surely you are hungry?”
Bertie hiccupped and let out a wheezy laugh. “Eating for two, I suppose, what?”
“Indeed, sir.”
~*~
Over the next few days they hardly spoke of it and fell into a well-rehearsed production of their normal lives, though they had ceased their usual activities in the bedroom. Bertram seemed to be genuinely happy, though Jeeves, despite his vow, couldn’t help but feel apprehensive and worried. The only time it was mentioned was when Jeeves finally presented the long sought after strawberries, though he had decided to place them on a tart rather than present them as he originally planned.
Bertie was delighted anyhow.
“That’s bally marvelous Jeeves! Is there a way to grow strawberries out of season? Did you talk to them? I heard that works, you know. Gussie talks to his newts and they certainly grow by the tank load.”
Jeeves smiled softly. “I do not know if that particular gardening method is a reliable one, but in this case, patience was my primary technique. Strawberry season started earlier this week, sir.”
“Is it?” Bertie asked from around a mouthful of tart. “I really don’t think I could have done it Jeeves. A few weeks ago all I could think of was bally strawberries! It was dashedly rummy wanting a thing so bad as I wanted these strawberries. It all has to do with this pregnancy thingummy, I expect. I suppose if I had known what it had meant then, we wouldn’t have been so shocked the other day.”
“One can only speculate,” Jeeves said agreeably, though in his mind, he echoed the sentiment tenfold. If only he had known earlier, a few weeks, a few months, a whole year earlier and things would have been very different.
He dissolved the thought soon after thinking it. That time was far behind them and it was useless to dwell over it. He watched, with not a little affection, as Bertie wolfed down a third tart and mused that there were plenty of other things to worry about at present.
~*~
The next day, Jeeves’ Uncle Charlie arrived with a Dr. Lawrence Stevens and a Dr. Amelia Stevens, a married couple who had assisted in over twenty-three male pregnancies. While they went to examine Bertie in the bedroom, his Uncle Charlie held him back to talk with him in the privacy of the kitchen, far from where their conversation could be heard.
“Reginald, what were you thinking?” his uncle reprimanded him sharply.
Jeeves bristled. “I love Bertram. I was not going to sacrifice something so precious to convention alone. I-”
“I don’t mean that,” Charles cut across him. “How could you have been so careless?”
Jeeves blinked. “You are alluding as to how Bertram became pregnant.”
“It’s no small matter, Reggie.”
“I,” Jeeves stumbled over his explanation, “I had assumed Bertram no longer possessed the faculties necessary to bear children. Even then, fertility in men is very rare and I had never thought-”
“Have you given this any thought at all, Reginald?” his uncle interrupted vehemently.
Jeeves was too taken aback to respond. His uncle had never addressed him in that tone before.
Charles sighed at his nephew’s clearly surprised expression and bit by bit he released his misplaced emotions.
“I’m sorry that I snapped at you like that Reggie, but you must realize that in all likelihood, Mr. Wooster will have to terminate the pregnancy.”
Jeeves frowned, but said nothing.
“Then you have considered it.”
“Of course, but I doubt Bertram will agree to it. He has a very strict sense of morals.”
“It isn’t a matter if he agrees to it or not. He is far too young and doesn’t have the correct body type to even carry the child out to full term. It is very likely that he will die as a result of the birth. The child itself has even less chances of survival than Mr. Wooster does. I have seen it before,” his uncle said, the pain evident in his face, “a year ago with the young man who had been stationed as my underbutler. He had been careless with his lover and nine months later he bled to death and the child had been a still born.”
Jeeves felt as though all the wind had been knocked from his body. He had always admired Bertie’s thin hips and narrow waist, but he had never realized just how dangerous that could be for him. His uncle’s previous words came back to haunt him and tears momentarily blurred his vision, but he willed them away and looked directly into his uncle’s expectant gaze.
“I will speak to him about it.”
When the doctors returned they informed Jeeves of more or less the same as what his uncle had told him and suggested the same course of action. Jeeves nodded and requested to talk with Bertram before making their decision. He entered the room once more and quietly aided his lover in replacing his clothes.
“What a soupy mess we’ve landed in, Jeeves. What has your fishy brain come up with to save this one, B. Wooster, this time?” Bertie asked as Jeeves secured his cuff links.
Jeeves didn’t meet his eyes. “We should terminate the pregnancy, sir.”
“What!” Bertie jumped back as if he were burned. “Jeeves, how could you say that? That isn’t what I bally well meant at all.”
“Nevertheless, sir. It’s the best course of action.”
“It’s our child, Jeeves!”
For once, Jeeves grew angry at Bertie’s childlike naivety. “There is no child yet, sir, and that is how it should remain. It is too dangerous and not only that, but how, if by some miracle both you and the child survive, could we possibly live without someone noticing we have somehow attained a child? You will be cast out from the Noble community and your cousins will inherit your money. If word gets out, I will no longer be able to continue work as a valet. Even if both of us were do manual labor for low wages, what kind of quality of life would we be giving our child? What if there’s a complication in the birth and our son or daughter will have needs that we are unable to care for?”
“I don’t have the slightest notion what we will do,” Bertie exclaimed, “but I’m not going to just-just get rid of it! There’s danger in that too, you know. Children are a blessing, Jeeves. That’s what my parents told me. Didn’t yours?”
Jeeves said nothing.
“How does it go, Jeeves? About stealing and worrying and whatnot?”
“I believe you refer to the old adage that one should not borrow trouble.”
“That’s the ticket. Well anyway, we have no way of knowing if any of that will happen. Just look at what happened to us now. Last year should we not have gotten together if we knew I was going to pop out a squirming babe in a matter of months?”
Jeeves couldn’t help but smile. No matter what he or anyone else said, sometimes Bertram was vastly intelligent.
“Are we still together Jeeves?” Bertie asked in a small voice.
“Of course, Bertram. I love you and I will continue to do so no matter what you decide.”
“You know what I’ve decided. Are you still with me?”
“Through richer or poorer, sir,” Jeeves replied from around the lump in his throat.
“Through sickness and in health,” Bertie murmured, causing Jeeves to shudder inwardly.
“I’m here sir. I always will be.”
Bertie kissed him. “I love you, Reginald.”
“Let us go confer with the doctors then.”
That day, Doctors Steven and Steven unsealed Bertie’s birth canal and told him to stay in bed for the whole of tomorrow. They warned Jeeves that Bertie would become weaker and weaker as the months went by and that he would require a lot of sleep and a diet of high protein. And so started their new lives as prospective parents.
~*~
It was difficult.
Week after week and month after month, Jeeves began discreetly withdrawing money from Bertram’s bank accounts and either setting them aside or placing them in a separate account. He carefully laundered the money in Mr. Wooster’s chequebook and made it appear that their spending balance was equal to their withdrawals. He researched doctors in France as well as cottages on the outskirts of well populated towns. He followed the news and the slow progression of class reform. He brought Bertram’s measurements to the tailor himself and nodded gravely on his commentary about indulgent gentleman.
Bertie, for his part, learned a fair bit of acting. His prevarications were as hopeless as ever, but he became fairly adept at making it look like he was drinking his cocktails. He learned to disguise his fatigue and at what angles he could hide his protruding abdomen. Men didn’t really tend to show, but as skinny as Bertie was, any amount of change was highly noticeable.
It was miserable most of the times. Bertie found the lies almost more taxing than the muscle spasms, weakness, and morning sickness and Jeeves, although tried his best, could not plan for every contingency like he would have hoped.
But once, late at night, they talked about names and speculated whether it was a boy or girl and although it was still difficult, it was maybe a little better.
~*~
It was six months into the pregnancy when Bertie fainted while in the middle of watching a cricket match. He of course, remembered very little of thing, partly because dropping unconscious in the middle of August is not exactly conducive towards a topping memory, but mainly because when he woke, Jeeves was crying, unabashed and unreservedly by his bedside, which understandably took most of his attention.
“What’s wrong, old thing?” Bertie asked, petting softly at the coiffed ebony locks.
“It’s my fault, sir.”
“Oh, has something happened then? I’m not being suspected of stealing again, am I? That just isn’t cricket, blaming the unconscious chap like that.”
Jeeves clutched at Bertie’s hand with surprising force. “This happened, sir, and it was all my doing.”
It was possible that the abrupt fainting may have damaged the Wooster noggin and therefore could not process this profound piece of logic, thereby understandably causing Bertie to let out a dazed, “Hrrmmmwha-?”
“Your pregnancy,” Jeeves clarified, “and all that has come of it thus far. This is only the beginning, sir, and it will only get worse and it is entirely my fault. Anything that happens to either of you will be my fault because I did not take the correct precautions, because I did not plan ahead or anticipate the possible dangers.”
Bertie eyeballed his valet for a second. “Um Jeeves, love, did the sun get to you too? I’m in no place to judge, having thought catching my forty winks standing out on the cricket field would be spiffing, but you sound a bit fruity at the mo.”
Jeeves bowed his head as if refusing to be given comfort.
“Jeeves,” Bertie said quietly, “none of this is your fault.”
“It is my fault!” Jeeves screamed with all the force and pent up guilt of the last three and a half months.
“And I say it isn’t!” Bertie yelled back. “You couldn’t have known the culling didn’t take or how hot it would be today. This isn’t your fault!”
“And whose fault will it be, sir, when you die because I forced you to bear my child,” Jeeves said, chillingly.
With surprising strength and agility that a waif thin, pregnant male should not possess, Bertie hauled Jeeves onto the bed beside him and quickly threw a leg over to straddle his thighs.
“I have never,” Bertie ground himself against Jeeves’ muscular legs for emphasis, “ever,” he repeated the maneuver, “been forced to do anything,” and again, “with you. I bally well enjoyed it and I,” again, harder, “am going to remind you of that.”
He levered himself down, careful not to fold about the tum, and kissed Jeeves, tongue lashing out with uncontrolled fervor as he undid his lover’s trousers. The two of them moaned in tandem when Jeeves’ already rock hard manhood was released into Bertie’s waiting hand. Bertie sat up, panting raggedly. “It’s been too long, Reginald.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeeves gasped out, “I just couldn’t bring myself to-oh, Bertram, my god, I love you.”
“Louder Jeeves, so our son or daughter ah, our bloody child can hear it,” Bertie growled as he rutted furiously against his dark haired lover.
“I love you!” Jeeves keened wildly as he arched up against the bed, work roughened hands anchoring Bertie securely on his hips. It was an embarrassingly short amount of time before he spent himself raggedly with Bertie following not long after.
“Dunno whether it’s the pregnancy or the absti-whatsits, but that was absolutely corking, Jeeves,” Bertie said as he collapsed down beside his decidedly rumpled looking valet. “And you said the whole pregnancy business was all tosh.”
“I seem to have been proven wrong, sir.” Jeeves rolled and kissed his Bertie’s still panting mouth and shared his breath for several seconds. “You’re beautiful,” he said when they had finished. “I hope our child looks just like you.”
“Maybe not just like me.” Bertie grinned. “I am very partial to dark hair.”
“Your smile then.”
“And your brains and maybe not both our noses as mine is a little on beaky side and yours is a little crooked.”
They talked in this vein for some time, but it wasn’t until one had drifted off to sleep leaving the other awake did they each realize at different periods in that cold and lonely night that if the boy or girl looked too much like Bertie, he could never be seen with him or her, lest someone see the connection. Even if the child favored Jeeves, all it took was cerulean blue eyes for someone to put the pieces together.
In the morning they talked about separation and boarding schools, but never adoption. At least there was that.
~*~
Seven months into the pregnancy and Bertram went off to vacation in France, bringing his indispensable valet with him.
~*~
Eight months into the pregnancy and Bertram went into labor.
Ten hours into labor and Bertram was beginning to lose too much blood.
Eleven hours into the labor and Jeeves was told to expect the worst.
In twelve hours it was done.
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Jeeves nearly shivered at the thought. Bertram had been feeling poor the last couple of days and although he was happy merely to share a bed with his aristocratic lover and simply sleep beside the man, he was eager to resume their nocturnal activities once more. Of course they had done some things together. It was difficult for either of them to forgo all of their usual intimacies, but, mostly due to Jeeves’ insistence, they had refrained from some of their more...invasive lovemaking. Hence why today, while he was at the market, Bertram had called in his private physician for a house call and hopefully something close to a cure.
Jeeves tipped his hat to Jarvis when he passed him and entered the strangely quiet flat. Jeeves frowned at this. Bertram was not the most patient of gentleman and if he had to wait for any amount of time he usually spent it at his piano tinkering away. He had promised to wait for Jeeves to return, so it was unlikely he was at the Drones. Jeeves suddenly felt a thrill of fear. Was the illness worst than what they had previously thought? Jeeves dropped the packages hurriedly in the kitchen before racing to the bedroom, forgoing his usual poise and dignity. It had no place in the privacy of their home and he knew Bertie would love him all the more for it and if he really was ill, perhaps knowing his lover was obviously concerned would lift his spirits.
When he entered the room, Jeeves predictions seemed to have proven true. Bertie was sitting at the edge of the bed, waistcoat aside with his collar undone and one of his braces twisted like he had put on his clothes with little notice. His hands were clasped between his knees and he was staring at the ground with an almost lost expression.
Jeeves knelt in front of the young man and cradled his face in his hands, where Bertie’s intensely blue eyes reluctantly flicked to meet his gaze.
“Sir, tell me.”
Bertie scanned his face silently as if searching for something before he dropped his gaze once more. “I’m pregnant, Jeeves.”
Jeeves actually rocked back in shock, dropping his hands from his lover’s face. He had anticipated for the worst yes, but this?! How can any man prepare himself for the impossible?
“Why would you not tell me, sir?”
Bertie launched himself from the bed to kneel before him, clutching imploring at the lapels of his jacket. “Jeeves, please believe me, I had no bally clue that I was still able to bear children. I got culled just like the rest of the boys and thought, ‘Right-o, there goes that’ and all that and the thing never entered the old noodle again.”
“Then how-?” Jeeves croaked, throat seizing around the fateful words.
Bertie looked pained. “That’s the rum stitch of it. Sometimes, you know, the culling doesn’t work and while it doesn’t make a fig of difference in Eton, someone,” he faltered a little, “someone like me really isn’t supposed to be doing these types of things anyways.”
Jeeves bitterly comprehended Bertie’s stunted narrative. Although less reliable, in the past ten years or so it had become custom for culling to take place before a boy attended Eton instead of when a boy fully reached puberty and became sexually mature. Because of that, sometimes the hormone suppressant given to boys at that age to halt the development of their birth canals didn’t do much more than simply delay it. Young boys at Eton and even Oxford had little cause to fear inadvertent pregnancies as both the damage of their sealed birth canals and the state of their underdeveloped bodies could not support conception. The frequency of a failed culling had never been accurately recorded because boys from Noble families were expected to marry and bed females, thereby having no danger of becoming pregnant from their botched culling. Male pregnancies and homosexual relationships were only allowed, although viewed as filthy and distasteful, to the lower classes.
However, Bertie had undergone a homosexual relationship with him, Jeeves, and Jeeves…Jeeves had caused Bertie to conceive.
Jeeves swallowed and placed a tremulous hand on Bertie’s abdomen. “How far along are you?”
“Two, maybe three months,” Bertie whispered, shrugging, “Dr. Lightman told me I need to find a specialist. He promised to keep it secret for my sake. Oh Jeeves,” Bertie moaned, pressing his face against Jeeves’ broad chest, “what are we going to do?”
Jeeves held onto his slender lover as Bertie dissolved into heartfelt sobbing. What were they going to do? Nobles barely tolerated the proclivities of the lower classes as it was and practically shunned any of their members who chose a same sex partner. It would have been bad enough if Bertram had been discovered as an invert, especially in so prominent a family as his. He might have been treated with disdain or publicly disgraced, but now that he was with child and impregnated by a lower class servant, no less, he could be barred from his clubs, disowned, lose his title, place of privilege, even his right to his fortune. Worst yet, their child would bear a greater stigma. If, Jeeves thought with horrifying clarity, the child could survive the birth or if Bertie could survive the entire length of the pregnancy.
Jeeves gently pressed a kiss into his lover’s hair, allowing a few tears of his own to fall, although he took care not to let Bertie see them. He was responsible for this and if Bertram had to literally carry this burden, then Jeeves would be his pillar of strength and support.
With deliberate slowness, he gently separated his master, friend, lover, and vessel that carried their child, from him and wiped away his tears.
“Sir, I am going to contact my uncle, who knows a doctor who specializes in male pregnancy, as he has, on occasion, had to arrange for this sort of thing occurring in his household. When we consult with the doctor we will decide on our next cause of action. Until then, I am going to make lunch. Surely you are hungry?”
Bertie hiccupped and let out a wheezy laugh. “Eating for two, I suppose, what?”
“Indeed, sir.”
~*~
Over the next few days they hardly spoke of it and fell into a well-rehearsed production of their normal lives, though they had ceased their usual activities in the bedroom. Bertram seemed to be genuinely happy, though Jeeves, despite his vow, couldn’t help but feel apprehensive and worried. The only time it was mentioned was when Jeeves finally presented the long sought after strawberries, though he had decided to place them on a tart rather than present them as he originally planned.
Bertie was delighted anyhow.
“That’s bally marvelous Jeeves! Is there a way to grow strawberries out of season? Did you talk to them? I heard that works, you know. Gussie talks to his newts and they certainly grow by the tank load.”
Jeeves smiled softly. “I do not know if that particular gardening method is a reliable one, but in this case, patience was my primary technique. Strawberry season started earlier this week, sir.”
“Is it?” Bertie asked from around a mouthful of tart. “I really don’t think I could have done it Jeeves. A few weeks ago all I could think of was bally strawberries! It was dashedly rummy wanting a thing so bad as I wanted these strawberries. It all has to do with this pregnancy thingummy, I expect. I suppose if I had known what it had meant then, we wouldn’t have been so shocked the other day.”
“One can only speculate,” Jeeves said agreeably, though in his mind, he echoed the sentiment tenfold. If only he had known earlier, a few weeks, a few months, a whole year earlier and things would have been very different.
He dissolved the thought soon after thinking it. That time was far behind them and it was useless to dwell over it. He watched, with not a little affection, as Bertie wolfed down a third tart and mused that there were plenty of other things to worry about at present.
~*~
The next day, Jeeves’ Uncle Charlie arrived with a Dr. Lawrence Stevens and a Dr. Amelia Stevens, a married couple who had assisted in over twenty-three male pregnancies. While they went to examine Bertie in the bedroom, his Uncle Charlie held him back to talk with him in the privacy of the kitchen, far from where their conversation could be heard.
“Reginald, what were you thinking?” his uncle reprimanded him sharply.
Jeeves bristled. “I love Bertram. I was not going to sacrifice something so precious to convention alone. I-”
“I don’t mean that,” Charles cut across him. “How could you have been so careless?”
Jeeves blinked. “You are alluding as to how Bertram became pregnant.”
“It’s no small matter, Reggie.”
“I,” Jeeves stumbled over his explanation, “I had assumed Bertram no longer possessed the faculties necessary to bear children. Even then, fertility in men is very rare and I had never thought-”
“Have you given this any thought at all, Reginald?” his uncle interrupted vehemently.
Jeeves was too taken aback to respond. His uncle had never addressed him in that tone before.
Charles sighed at his nephew’s clearly surprised expression and bit by bit he released his misplaced emotions.
“I’m sorry that I snapped at you like that Reggie, but you must realize that in all likelihood, Mr. Wooster will have to terminate the pregnancy.”
Jeeves frowned, but said nothing.
“Then you have considered it.”
“Of course, but I doubt Bertram will agree to it. He has a very strict sense of morals.”
“It isn’t a matter if he agrees to it or not. He is far too young and doesn’t have the correct body type to even carry the child out to full term. It is very likely that he will die as a result of the birth. The child itself has even less chances of survival than Mr. Wooster does. I have seen it before,” his uncle said, the pain evident in his face, “a year ago with the young man who had been stationed as my underbutler. He had been careless with his lover and nine months later he bled to death and the child had been a still born.”
Jeeves felt as though all the wind had been knocked from his body. He had always admired Bertie’s thin hips and narrow waist, but he had never realized just how dangerous that could be for him. His uncle’s previous words came back to haunt him and tears momentarily blurred his vision, but he willed them away and looked directly into his uncle’s expectant gaze.
“I will speak to him about it.”
When the doctors returned they informed Jeeves of more or less the same as what his uncle had told him and suggested the same course of action. Jeeves nodded and requested to talk with Bertram before making their decision. He entered the room once more and quietly aided his lover in replacing his clothes.
“What a soupy mess we’ve landed in, Jeeves. What has your fishy brain come up with to save this one, B. Wooster, this time?” Bertie asked as Jeeves secured his cuff links.
Jeeves didn’t meet his eyes. “We should terminate the pregnancy, sir.”
“What!” Bertie jumped back as if he were burned. “Jeeves, how could you say that? That isn’t what I bally well meant at all.”
“Nevertheless, sir. It’s the best course of action.”
“It’s our child, Jeeves!”
For once, Jeeves grew angry at Bertie’s childlike naivety. “There is no child yet, sir, and that is how it should remain. It is too dangerous and not only that, but how, if by some miracle both you and the child survive, could we possibly live without someone noticing we have somehow attained a child? You will be cast out from the Noble community and your cousins will inherit your money. If word gets out, I will no longer be able to continue work as a valet. Even if both of us were do manual labor for low wages, what kind of quality of life would we be giving our child? What if there’s a complication in the birth and our son or daughter will have needs that we are unable to care for?”
“I don’t have the slightest notion what we will do,” Bertie exclaimed, “but I’m not going to just-just get rid of it! There’s danger in that too, you know. Children are a blessing, Jeeves. That’s what my parents told me. Didn’t yours?”
Jeeves said nothing.
“How does it go, Jeeves? About stealing and worrying and whatnot?”
“I believe you refer to the old adage that one should not borrow trouble.”
“That’s the ticket. Well anyway, we have no way of knowing if any of that will happen. Just look at what happened to us now. Last year should we not have gotten together if we knew I was going to pop out a squirming babe in a matter of months?”
Jeeves couldn’t help but smile. No matter what he or anyone else said, sometimes Bertram was vastly intelligent.
“Are we still together Jeeves?” Bertie asked in a small voice.
“Of course, Bertram. I love you and I will continue to do so no matter what you decide.”
“You know what I’ve decided. Are you still with me?”
“Through richer or poorer, sir,” Jeeves replied from around the lump in his throat.
“Through sickness and in health,” Bertie murmured, causing Jeeves to shudder inwardly.
“I’m here sir. I always will be.”
Bertie kissed him. “I love you, Reginald.”
“Let us go confer with the doctors then.”
That day, Doctors Steven and Steven unsealed Bertie’s birth canal and told him to stay in bed for the whole of tomorrow. They warned Jeeves that Bertie would become weaker and weaker as the months went by and that he would require a lot of sleep and a diet of high protein. And so started their new lives as prospective parents.
~*~
It was difficult.
Week after week and month after month, Jeeves began discreetly withdrawing money from Bertram’s bank accounts and either setting them aside or placing them in a separate account. He carefully laundered the money in Mr. Wooster’s chequebook and made it appear that their spending balance was equal to their withdrawals. He researched doctors in France as well as cottages on the outskirts of well populated towns. He followed the news and the slow progression of class reform. He brought Bertram’s measurements to the tailor himself and nodded gravely on his commentary about indulgent gentleman.
Bertie, for his part, learned a fair bit of acting. His prevarications were as hopeless as ever, but he became fairly adept at making it look like he was drinking his cocktails. He learned to disguise his fatigue and at what angles he could hide his protruding abdomen. Men didn’t really tend to show, but as skinny as Bertie was, any amount of change was highly noticeable.
It was miserable most of the times. Bertie found the lies almost more taxing than the muscle spasms, weakness, and morning sickness and Jeeves, although tried his best, could not plan for every contingency like he would have hoped.
But once, late at night, they talked about names and speculated whether it was a boy or girl and although it was still difficult, it was maybe a little better.
~*~
It was six months into the pregnancy when Bertie fainted while in the middle of watching a cricket match. He of course, remembered very little of thing, partly because dropping unconscious in the middle of August is not exactly conducive towards a topping memory, but mainly because when he woke, Jeeves was crying, unabashed and unreservedly by his bedside, which understandably took most of his attention.
“What’s wrong, old thing?” Bertie asked, petting softly at the coiffed ebony locks.
“It’s my fault, sir.”
“Oh, has something happened then? I’m not being suspected of stealing again, am I? That just isn’t cricket, blaming the unconscious chap like that.”
Jeeves clutched at Bertie’s hand with surprising force. “This happened, sir, and it was all my doing.”
It was possible that the abrupt fainting may have damaged the Wooster noggin and therefore could not process this profound piece of logic, thereby understandably causing Bertie to let out a dazed, “Hrrmmmwha-?”
“Your pregnancy,” Jeeves clarified, “and all that has come of it thus far. This is only the beginning, sir, and it will only get worse and it is entirely my fault. Anything that happens to either of you will be my fault because I did not take the correct precautions, because I did not plan ahead or anticipate the possible dangers.”
Bertie eyeballed his valet for a second. “Um Jeeves, love, did the sun get to you too? I’m in no place to judge, having thought catching my forty winks standing out on the cricket field would be spiffing, but you sound a bit fruity at the mo.”
Jeeves bowed his head as if refusing to be given comfort.
“Jeeves,” Bertie said quietly, “none of this is your fault.”
“It is my fault!” Jeeves screamed with all the force and pent up guilt of the last three and a half months.
“And I say it isn’t!” Bertie yelled back. “You couldn’t have known the culling didn’t take or how hot it would be today. This isn’t your fault!”
“And whose fault will it be, sir, when you die because I forced you to bear my child,” Jeeves said, chillingly.
With surprising strength and agility that a waif thin, pregnant male should not possess, Bertie hauled Jeeves onto the bed beside him and quickly threw a leg over to straddle his thighs.
“I have never,” Bertie ground himself against Jeeves’ muscular legs for emphasis, “ever,” he repeated the maneuver, “been forced to do anything,” and again, “with you. I bally well enjoyed it and I,” again, harder, “am going to remind you of that.”
He levered himself down, careful not to fold about the tum, and kissed Jeeves, tongue lashing out with uncontrolled fervor as he undid his lover’s trousers. The two of them moaned in tandem when Jeeves’ already rock hard manhood was released into Bertie’s waiting hand. Bertie sat up, panting raggedly. “It’s been too long, Reginald.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeeves gasped out, “I just couldn’t bring myself to-oh, Bertram, my god, I love you.”
“Louder Jeeves, so our son or daughter ah, our bloody child can hear it,” Bertie growled as he rutted furiously against his dark haired lover.
“I love you!” Jeeves keened wildly as he arched up against the bed, work roughened hands anchoring Bertie securely on his hips. It was an embarrassingly short amount of time before he spent himself raggedly with Bertie following not long after.
“Dunno whether it’s the pregnancy or the absti-whatsits, but that was absolutely corking, Jeeves,” Bertie said as he collapsed down beside his decidedly rumpled looking valet. “And you said the whole pregnancy business was all tosh.”
“I seem to have been proven wrong, sir.” Jeeves rolled and kissed his Bertie’s still panting mouth and shared his breath for several seconds. “You’re beautiful,” he said when they had finished. “I hope our child looks just like you.”
“Maybe not just like me.” Bertie grinned. “I am very partial to dark hair.”
“Your smile then.”
“And your brains and maybe not both our noses as mine is a little on beaky side and yours is a little crooked.”
They talked in this vein for some time, but it wasn’t until one had drifted off to sleep leaving the other awake did they each realize at different periods in that cold and lonely night that if the boy or girl looked too much like Bertie, he could never be seen with him or her, lest someone see the connection. Even if the child favored Jeeves, all it took was cerulean blue eyes for someone to put the pieces together.
In the morning they talked about separation and boarding schools, but never adoption. At least there was that.
~*~
Seven months into the pregnancy and Bertram went off to vacation in France, bringing his indispensable valet with him.
~*~
Eight months into the pregnancy and Bertram went into labor.
Ten hours into labor and Bertram was beginning to lose too much blood.
Eleven hours into the labor and Jeeves was told to expect the worst.
In twelve hours it was done.
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