So much crack.
Title: Well Played, Jeeves
Summary: Bertie gets rather more than he bargained for.
Fandom: Wodehouse's Jeeves stories, with just a dash of Lovecraft.
Word Count: 1612
Rating/Warnings: PG
Pairing: N/A. Bertie and Jeeves are hetero life mates.
A/N: For wtf27 Prompt 9. This is set sometime after Much Obliged, Jeeves, but, really, continuity's hardly important anyway, and I've tried to set it up like the originals, with no outside knowledge necessary. Trying to write like Wodehouse is absolutely exhausting. It's just so very many words, and I'm terribly unused to the first person. I'm envisioning a sequel for this, but I don't know if I'm up to it.
Truth be told, this was not the first time Bertram had landed himself in the soup, but this particular instance was the worst in recent memory.
I pondered this over a rather large whisky, and-
That's not right. I ought to start this properly, instead of in medias what's-it-called.
This all started as I was escorting my cousin Angela to a late lunch at the Bartlett Hotel. Angela was mere weeks from marrying my dear friend Tuppy Glossop, who had utterly repudiated his earlier habits of causing his dear friends to ruin their evening wear in swimming baths.
She leaned over the soup at me, looking terribly excited. "I've got something to give you, Bertie, only you can't tell my fiancé," she said, whispering and worried, "and you can't ever open it." Seeing my reaction, she carried on. "I know you. If you so much as touch it, everything will go mad."
I fixed her with an expression of utmost shock. "My darling Angela. When was the last time I caused anything to go mad?"
"Two weeks ago. I trust it would have been more recent if I'd seen you in the last two weeks."
Sometimes I worry that my cousin has inherited more than a little of my aunt's unfortunate cynicism. I expressed this sentiment to Angela, who made an unkind comment questioning my parentage.
Nevertheless, she passed me a squarish package wrapped in brown paper. I duly took it, hiding it underneath the table and trying not to use it as an opportune ottoman.
My familial duties discharged, I packed Angela off in a cab and returned with the package to my lodgings. My first thought was to call for my man Jeeves.
"I want you to open this package, Jeeves," I told him firmly as he shimmered in.
"May I ask why, sir?" Jeeves asked, being rightly suspicious of small packages not addressed to him.
"Because Angela has charged me not to open it," I explained, "but if she had any qualms about you doing it, she conveniently forgot to mention them."
"Well, sir…"
I had forgotten momentarily that Jeeves was in high dudgeon. We had had a difference of opinion over a pink ascot, in which I must say I looked dashing. Jeeves, departing from the path of reason, tended to disagree. It was not, as I believed, because it would make perfectly respectable ladies swoon in the street, but because it purportedly made me look as though I had a case of distemper.
"None of your 'well, sir.' I feel a nolle prosequi coming on."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot disobey the young lady's wishes."
I gathered up my d., certain I could get it more h. than his. "That is all, Jeeves. You may go."
I considered my options carefully. Angela had been the object of my love- cousinly only, though Tuppy had once had his doubts on that score- and devotion since she was tiny. Certainly a preux chevalier would respect the wishes of his baby cousin, however silly they might be. However, the prospect of opening a sealed and secret package, guaranteed to cause marital strife for the future Glossops, was tantalizing.
In the end, it came down to a letter vs. spirit situation, as the edge of the table ultimately opened the package when I less-than-adroitly dropped it. Imagine the shock as it turned out to be nothing more than a rather moldy old book! Reasoning that the harm had already been done, I opened it, expecting to read saucy tales or personal confessions. But if there were any tales of cousins in heat to be read, they were not to be read by Bertie- the dashed thing wasn't in any language known to Woosters.
It would normally be at this juncture that I would call for the assistance of Jeeves, being assured that he knew Moldy Old Book like the back of his hand, having learned it on his mother's knee. However, remembering his earlier coldness, I reassured myself that I was equal to the task of prising Angela's secrets from the book.
If there's anything to be said in Jeeves' favor, it is that he probably would have stopped me from what I did next. No doubt it would have occurred to him that attempting to pronounce the words in the book was a horrible, horrible idea. So, for want of a Jeeves, there was a seven foot monster standing on what remained of my table.
Trapping it in my bedroom was a process I do not care to detail or think about even in passing. Any readers will simply have to use their imaginations regarding the manner in which I beat it with my coat, shrieking wildly. It was at this point I poured the large whisky from the prologue and sat down to think.
No doubt young Bertram was in the s. good and proper. Any attempt to continue reading at it would have no doubt proved disastrous, as I might well compel it to grow larger or eat my wardrobe. I unfortunately had no firearms in the house, having only occasional use for them in London. The police, if summoned, would no doubt be less than amenable to people calling in complaints about giant, presumably magical monsters in gentlemen's bedrooms. The only option seemed to try and reason with it, which I attempted briefly. This clearly was not the correct solution, and the only saving grace is that I attempted it from the other side of a locked door.
In the end, the only solution was to call out Jeeves, who flitted in as if nothing were wrong.
"Sir?"
"Jeeves."
"Yes, sir?"
"I need all of your considerable mental faculties, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"There is a large monster in my bedroom, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"If you have any doubt of my sanity, which I admit you may well have, you are perfectly welcome to examine it through the small hole in my once pristine door."
I can't say that I fault Jeeves for taking my up on my offer, and upon returning to my side his tone was completely changed.
"Do you know this monster, sir?"
"No, I bally well don't." I briefly outlined for him the events that had transpired with the book. If there's one thing to be said it's that Jeeves keeps a cool head even in the worst of circumstances. He listened carefully to my recount, only a highly raised eyebrow betraying his shock.
"May I see the book, sir?"
Unsurprised, I handed over the very same. Jeeves spent some time poring over it carefully, stopping at times and seeming to do calculations in the air above his head.
"Would you be so kind as to indicate the passage you had the misfortune of reading, sir?" he asked after a long while of this consideration.
I cursed myself for not having the foresight to have marked the page, but luck was with me, and I found the page again. I pointed out the lines to Jeeves, who carefully considered them for some moments. He did a few calculations on a bit of scrap paper from the wreckage of the table, drawing some sort of odd symbol in the corner of the page.
He finally passed the chit over to me, indicating a certain underlined passage. "If you would, sir, please speak those words loudly and clearly through the hole in the door." I gave him a firm look, which he had the dignity not to notice, but I quickly gave in. I had rarely known Jeeves to steer me wrong before.
It was with no little trepidation that I approached my bedroom, reading the words over carefully. I had no idea what the allowance for error was in this situation, and I had no need to provoke the creature. I must admit that I did not faithfully discharge my duty on the first try, suffering a terrifying moment where the dashed thing grew almost a foot in size. I fairly shouted out the words that Jeeves had inscribed, finally getting it right on the second go.
At this point, the monster vanquished, Jeeves unlocked my bedroom door to survey the damage, and I sank into my chair, utterly relieved.
"I must ask," I called to him from behind a second glass of whisky, "and you've no obligation to respond, obviously, but how did you know how to deal with that blighted thing?"
"As much as it pains me to confess, I had a grandfather had a fascination with things arcane," Jeeves said, returning. "He passed on to me a few bits of knowledge for which I have found little use."
"I never heard you mention it before," I said, for lack of anything better, "though I can't say that the topic has ever arisen."
"He caused a family scandal by leaving his family to work at a university in New England," he replied, looking frankly uncomfortable with the topic.
I fairly balked at this comment. "I can't believe that the old halls of Harvard or Yale would take kindly to that type of behavior."
"I believe it was a Miskatonic University, sir." He drew himself up and gave his head the slightest of shakes. "Will there be anything else, sir?"
"Hide that damned book," I told him flatly. I could tell that he was starting to slip into the same coldness that had afflicted our usually jovial relationship before the unwanted arrival of the monster. "You may give the ascot to the poor."
He was graceful as ever in victory. "Thank you, sir, but I'm afraid that it has been consumed."
I shook my head, throwing down the last of my whisky. "Well played, Jeeves."
Summary: Bertie gets rather more than he bargained for.
Fandom: Wodehouse's Jeeves stories, with just a dash of Lovecraft.
Word Count: 1612
Rating/Warnings: PG
Pairing: N/A. Bertie and Jeeves are hetero life mates.
A/N: For wtf27 Prompt 9. This is set sometime after Much Obliged, Jeeves, but, really, continuity's hardly important anyway, and I've tried to set it up like the originals, with no outside knowledge necessary. Trying to write like Wodehouse is absolutely exhausting. It's just so very many words, and I'm terribly unused to the first person. I'm envisioning a sequel for this, but I don't know if I'm up to it.
Truth be told, this was not the first time Bertram had landed himself in the soup, but this particular instance was the worst in recent memory.
I pondered this over a rather large whisky, and-
That's not right. I ought to start this properly, instead of in medias what's-it-called.
This all started as I was escorting my cousin Angela to a late lunch at the Bartlett Hotel. Angela was mere weeks from marrying my dear friend Tuppy Glossop, who had utterly repudiated his earlier habits of causing his dear friends to ruin their evening wear in swimming baths.
She leaned over the soup at me, looking terribly excited. "I've got something to give you, Bertie, only you can't tell my fiancé," she said, whispering and worried, "and you can't ever open it." Seeing my reaction, she carried on. "I know you. If you so much as touch it, everything will go mad."
I fixed her with an expression of utmost shock. "My darling Angela. When was the last time I caused anything to go mad?"
"Two weeks ago. I trust it would have been more recent if I'd seen you in the last two weeks."
Sometimes I worry that my cousin has inherited more than a little of my aunt's unfortunate cynicism. I expressed this sentiment to Angela, who made an unkind comment questioning my parentage.
Nevertheless, she passed me a squarish package wrapped in brown paper. I duly took it, hiding it underneath the table and trying not to use it as an opportune ottoman.
My familial duties discharged, I packed Angela off in a cab and returned with the package to my lodgings. My first thought was to call for my man Jeeves.
"I want you to open this package, Jeeves," I told him firmly as he shimmered in.
"May I ask why, sir?" Jeeves asked, being rightly suspicious of small packages not addressed to him.
"Because Angela has charged me not to open it," I explained, "but if she had any qualms about you doing it, she conveniently forgot to mention them."
"Well, sir…"
I had forgotten momentarily that Jeeves was in high dudgeon. We had had a difference of opinion over a pink ascot, in which I must say I looked dashing. Jeeves, departing from the path of reason, tended to disagree. It was not, as I believed, because it would make perfectly respectable ladies swoon in the street, but because it purportedly made me look as though I had a case of distemper.
"None of your 'well, sir.' I feel a nolle prosequi coming on."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I cannot disobey the young lady's wishes."
I gathered up my d., certain I could get it more h. than his. "That is all, Jeeves. You may go."
I considered my options carefully. Angela had been the object of my love- cousinly only, though Tuppy had once had his doubts on that score- and devotion since she was tiny. Certainly a preux chevalier would respect the wishes of his baby cousin, however silly they might be. However, the prospect of opening a sealed and secret package, guaranteed to cause marital strife for the future Glossops, was tantalizing.
In the end, it came down to a letter vs. spirit situation, as the edge of the table ultimately opened the package when I less-than-adroitly dropped it. Imagine the shock as it turned out to be nothing more than a rather moldy old book! Reasoning that the harm had already been done, I opened it, expecting to read saucy tales or personal confessions. But if there were any tales of cousins in heat to be read, they were not to be read by Bertie- the dashed thing wasn't in any language known to Woosters.
It would normally be at this juncture that I would call for the assistance of Jeeves, being assured that he knew Moldy Old Book like the back of his hand, having learned it on his mother's knee. However, remembering his earlier coldness, I reassured myself that I was equal to the task of prising Angela's secrets from the book.
If there's anything to be said in Jeeves' favor, it is that he probably would have stopped me from what I did next. No doubt it would have occurred to him that attempting to pronounce the words in the book was a horrible, horrible idea. So, for want of a Jeeves, there was a seven foot monster standing on what remained of my table.
Trapping it in my bedroom was a process I do not care to detail or think about even in passing. Any readers will simply have to use their imaginations regarding the manner in which I beat it with my coat, shrieking wildly. It was at this point I poured the large whisky from the prologue and sat down to think.
No doubt young Bertram was in the s. good and proper. Any attempt to continue reading at it would have no doubt proved disastrous, as I might well compel it to grow larger or eat my wardrobe. I unfortunately had no firearms in the house, having only occasional use for them in London. The police, if summoned, would no doubt be less than amenable to people calling in complaints about giant, presumably magical monsters in gentlemen's bedrooms. The only option seemed to try and reason with it, which I attempted briefly. This clearly was not the correct solution, and the only saving grace is that I attempted it from the other side of a locked door.
In the end, the only solution was to call out Jeeves, who flitted in as if nothing were wrong.
"Sir?"
"Jeeves."
"Yes, sir?"
"I need all of your considerable mental faculties, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"There is a large monster in my bedroom, Jeeves."
"Indeed, sir?"
"If you have any doubt of my sanity, which I admit you may well have, you are perfectly welcome to examine it through the small hole in my once pristine door."
I can't say that I fault Jeeves for taking my up on my offer, and upon returning to my side his tone was completely changed.
"Do you know this monster, sir?"
"No, I bally well don't." I briefly outlined for him the events that had transpired with the book. If there's one thing to be said it's that Jeeves keeps a cool head even in the worst of circumstances. He listened carefully to my recount, only a highly raised eyebrow betraying his shock.
"May I see the book, sir?"
Unsurprised, I handed over the very same. Jeeves spent some time poring over it carefully, stopping at times and seeming to do calculations in the air above his head.
"Would you be so kind as to indicate the passage you had the misfortune of reading, sir?" he asked after a long while of this consideration.
I cursed myself for not having the foresight to have marked the page, but luck was with me, and I found the page again. I pointed out the lines to Jeeves, who carefully considered them for some moments. He did a few calculations on a bit of scrap paper from the wreckage of the table, drawing some sort of odd symbol in the corner of the page.
He finally passed the chit over to me, indicating a certain underlined passage. "If you would, sir, please speak those words loudly and clearly through the hole in the door." I gave him a firm look, which he had the dignity not to notice, but I quickly gave in. I had rarely known Jeeves to steer me wrong before.
It was with no little trepidation that I approached my bedroom, reading the words over carefully. I had no idea what the allowance for error was in this situation, and I had no need to provoke the creature. I must admit that I did not faithfully discharge my duty on the first try, suffering a terrifying moment where the dashed thing grew almost a foot in size. I fairly shouted out the words that Jeeves had inscribed, finally getting it right on the second go.
At this point, the monster vanquished, Jeeves unlocked my bedroom door to survey the damage, and I sank into my chair, utterly relieved.
"I must ask," I called to him from behind a second glass of whisky, "and you've no obligation to respond, obviously, but how did you know how to deal with that blighted thing?"
"As much as it pains me to confess, I had a grandfather had a fascination with things arcane," Jeeves said, returning. "He passed on to me a few bits of knowledge for which I have found little use."
"I never heard you mention it before," I said, for lack of anything better, "though I can't say that the topic has ever arisen."
"He caused a family scandal by leaving his family to work at a university in New England," he replied, looking frankly uncomfortable with the topic.
I fairly balked at this comment. "I can't believe that the old halls of Harvard or Yale would take kindly to that type of behavior."
"I believe it was a Miskatonic University, sir." He drew himself up and gave his head the slightest of shakes. "Will there be anything else, sir?"
"Hide that damned book," I told him flatly. I could tell that he was starting to slip into the same coldness that had afflicted our usually jovial relationship before the unwanted arrival of the monster. "You may give the ascot to the poor."
He was graceful as ever in victory. "Thank you, sir, but I'm afraid that it has been consumed."
I shook my head, throwing down the last of my whisky. "Well played, Jeeves."