Merry Yulemas, Small!
This, THIS, is the Drabble That Ate Prague. In that it's not a drabble at all because it very seriously got away from me. And is a not-so-holiday-themed bundle of holiday joy (I hope) for our very own apple fritter of awesome, who_is_small, who will hopefully forgive that this is probably not the interpretation of the prompt she might have expected, and also the dental bills caused by the tooth-rotting fluffitude that ensues. Maybe the smutty part will make up for it. ;)
ETA: Oh, and there's an accidental bit of an Upstairs Downstairs crossover. Pay it no mind, it doesn't know any better and has no real bearing on this fic at all.
A Decent Proposal
A kiss from Bertram Wooster is not unknown to cause a certain feeling of chagrin in its recipient, and it would not be necessarily surprising that said chagrin might be engendered in his faithful valet, if not for the fact that it was not the first, and the first had caused anything but chagrin. It was something in the line of the thirtieth, in fact, if you counted by instances of kissing and not individual kisses. Even Jeeves could not have produced that number, which was certainly well in the high hundreds, if not well over a thousand.
Solely the night of Jeeves's recent birthday had at least doubled the count; Jeeves had returned from a small celebration at his sister's home only to be directed to his eveningwear and whisked away to a private dining room at Claridge's. Afterwards at home, they had kissed for hours. Though the understanding between them was still very new at that time, Jeeves had attempted to coax the evening towards its logical conclusion. Bertie had been happy enough to be pulled into Jeeves's lap, but somewhere between the loosening of the young master's tie and Jeeves moving to kiss his neck, Bertie had scrambled away and managed to pronounce it time for bed in a way that left no doubt he meant separately.
That incident alone had not discouraged Jeeves, since the new developments between them had been so new, and he had very convincing evidence that Bertie did indeed desire him. He understood that patience was required, Bertie as far as he knew being entirely inexperienced, or at least fairly, given what Jeeves knew of the Public Schools, but it was going on six months now with no sign of progressing any further.
"Well, good morning to you, too, Jeeves," Bertie said with a sly smile as Jeeves pulled himself out of his thoughts and unbent from the bedside. His pyjama shirt had come partly unbuttoned during the night, exposing the fine curve of his collarbone that Jeeves swallowed hard against the urge to taste.
"Good morning, sir," Jeeves said, and concluded there was no reason he shouldn't sit down on the bed and indeed apply his lips to the warm skin on display.
Bertie let out a soft gasp, which Jeeves took as an auspicious sign, but then he stiffened, neither pushing Jeeves away nor participating. He simply sat motionless as though waiting for it to pass.
Jeeves stopped and sat up to look at Bertie in hopes of some clue as to what the problem was, but Bertie would not meet his eyes.
"Could I have my tea now, Jeeves?" he asked, sounding somewhat weary.
"Of course, sir," Jeeves said, and retrieved the tray from the dresser.
"No breakfast, Jeeves," Bertie said. "I'm sorry I forgot to tell you before, but my solicitor's lunching here with me at a rather early hour."
Jeeves hid his surprise with a practiced mask, but felt a twist in the pit of his stomach as he wondered why he had heard nothing of the meeting with Sir Roger Compton. Besides which, he had never known Bertie to refuse breakfast unless he was ill. "Are you feeling quite well, sir?"
"Oh, quite," Bertie said. "Just run my bath, will you? I shall pop into it directly, and then I expect you'll want to see to luncheon. Sir Roger's coming at noon." He sounded more like himself now, but Jeeves would not have called him carefree.
Rather than attend Bertie's bath as he had planned, perhaps with an offer to scrub his back, Jeeves was obliged to improvise the luncheon meal that Bertie had said the night before he would be taking at his club. Another strange development in an already disquieting day was that he was to lay out the dining room buffet and let the gentlemen wait on themselves, not to return unless called for.
"It's not my idea, Jeeves!" Bertie exclaimed defensively at the raised eyebrow. "Sir Roger's terribly stuffy about his legal privacy whatsits. You know I'll tell you everything the moment he's gone." And Bertie clasped both his hands and kissed each softly, meeting his eyes with pleading apology and what Jeeves took to be a great deal of fondness. But that was all before he turned and held out his arms for his jacket.
There were endless possibilities as to why relations between them stood as they did, Jeeves thought as he went through the motions of showing Sir Roger in and informing the gentlemen of the selections laid out for them. He had already considered that Bertie might be reluctant due to inexperience. He could largely dismiss the idea that there was anything wrong physically; he had noticed Bertie becoming aroused on numerous occasions, which made it all the more puzzling that he would choose that very moment to halt the proceedings and spend considerable time in a discomfort that Jeeves knew all too well, instead of having it relieved by someone who had certainly proved obviously willing and whom Bertie professed to love.
It was possible that Bertie was conflicted about, or even repelled by the idea of sexual congress with another man, but in Jeeves's experience, those who were at odds with themselves or their morals about such activities found passionate kissing to be the line they would not cross rather than more carnal pursuits. An acquaintance of Jeeves's, an automobile mechanic who had once been in service, had told him of a former employer's distaste for the act of sex despite loving his wife, sex in that gentleman's mind in fact being something he felt would debase the lady. It had ruined the marriage and caused quite the scandal in its day.
Bertie had doubtless been brought up to view sex as necessary for procreation but deviant otherwise, especially lacking a father or even a sensible uncle (Lord Yaxley, unfortunately, was not to be counted sensible) to lend guidance. At fourteen, Jeeves's own father had sat him down and told him the facts of life as they really were, not that he could have missed the truth living below stairs in a large household. For all that Dahlia Travers spoke plainly and meant well, Jeeves doubted that she would have gone so far as to speak to Bertie of it, likely assuming that he would be educated by a more appropriate party. A misplaced wish not to subject Jeeves to something 'dirty' would take a great deal of undoing, but perhaps it was the best outcome possible.
Jeeves made up his mind to have a frank discussion with Bertie, and to have it as soon as possible.
Had he not concluded his musings, Jeeves would still have been roused from them by a loud exclamation of, "But this is highly irregular!" from Sir Roger through the kitchen door.
"Is it?" Bertie said with a sharp edge to his voice that only rarely made an appearance, but served to remind Jeeves that for all his bumbling with his friends' and family's problems, he was a gentleman who had handled his own affairs from a younger age than most. "I know for a fact your father set up the same sort of thing for my grandmother. It's what gave me the idea."
"But your grandmother was over seventy and a widow already! And given the circumstances, surely Dahlia would be a wiser choice," said Sir Roger as Jeeves moved guiltily closer to the door and opened it a crack.
"And she's the second choice, if you'd bother to look at my notes, and my cousin Angela third, should they both be unavailable."
"But why now? I must ask, Bertie-- you aren't ill, are you?"
"No, and I'd dashed well like it if everybody would stop asking me that. Things...happen, Roger. My parents did this at my age, if you remember, and it's a good job they did, you know. You can't think another ship will never go down."
"I'll draw it up as you like, of course," said Sir Roger after a moment of silence. "But you must know that in the event of...the unthinkable, such a status would cause Jeeves--and myself, if you don't mind my saying it--no end of problems from your family. It would almost certainly be contested."
Bertie was putting his will in order, Jeeves realised, and naming him in it in some capacity. Legacies to servants were not uncommon, but it sounded like a good deal more if he came before Mrs Travers.
"Aunt Dahlia will understand and tell the rest of them to belt up."
"Well, you'd better have her witness it, then, so there won't be any misunderstanding."
"Oh, all right," Bertie said with clear annoyance. "How soon can you have it done? I've got a fairly pressing need to be in France next week."
Bertie must have been trying to hurry Sir Roger along. He'd mentioned nothing about France at all to Jeeves.
"I can manage it by Friday, I suppose, if you think the ferry might--oh, I'm sorry."
"Never mind. Thank you, Roger. You're a good egg. I'll drag Aunt D. down here Friday for the formalities. Only-- do you think Jeeves can witness it as well?"
"Why on earth should you need him to?"
"Oh, you know. I don't want it all getting dropped on him someday as a surprise. Make sure he doesn't mind and all that." Jeeves knew a lie from Bertie a mile away, and this was one. But why?
"If you think he might mind, you've got no business naming him in the first place."
"I don't. But I think the better everybody understands about it in advance, well, the better."
"And suppose you go to all this trouble, end up sacking him for pinching the silver, and then get hit by an omnibus before you've got a chance to amend it?"
"Oh, blast you, Roger. That won't happen. The pinching and sacking bit, I mean. I suppose the omnibus bit could."
"I'd be easier if you'd let it be conditional on employment in good standing."
"There's really no need," Bertie said firmly.
"It's usual where even small bequests to servants are concerned."
"He's not just-- oh, dash it. If you must, Roger."
"I hope you know what you're doing, Bertie."
"Entirely. Shall I have Jeeves show you out?"
"No, thank you, I know where the door is."
Jeeves busied himself at the sink and listened for the front door to close. Moments later, Bertie burst through the door that adjoined the sitting room and pulled Jeeves away by his elbow. "That can wait, Jeeves. Come and sit down; I'd like to talk to you."
Jeeves followed him to the sitting room, where the champagne bucket and two best glasses he'd been asked to supply for luncheon had now appeared untouched on the bar.
"Sit down, sit down," Bertie said with a wave at the chesterfield, though he himself continued to pace. "I gather you heard most of that?" he questioned finally.
"I must admit--"
"Never mind, I sort of meant you to, Jeeves. Save myself a bit of explaining so I can cut to the heart of the matter. These papers we're going to sign on Friday, well-- they're going to say that it's to be you who looks after me if I ever get knocked on the head and can't tell the doctor what to do, and that other than a couple of trusts for my nieces when they come of age and some token gifts to various friends and relations, everything I have is to pass into your hands."
Jeeves did not allow himself the unseemly act of gaping, but unbidden felt his eyes widen considerably. Before he could recover, Bertie dropped to one knee before him and took his hands. "That's the usual thing between married couples, isn't it? I know we can't precisely walk down the aisle together, but if you'll sign off on it, that's good enough for me."
Jeeves did gape now, if only momentarily, as everything suddenly gained the sense it had been missing. Bertie would no more take him to bed without some formality than he would his never-to-exist wife. It was an angle he had never considered, and was both ridiculous and charming, as well as entirely typical of Bertie's quixotic 'preux chevalier' convictions. His bemusement transformed into a smile as he said, "Yes, Bertie."
Scarcely had the words left his lips before he found himself with a lapful of enthusiastic Wooster, kissing him deeply in between bouts of joyous laughter, which soon gave way to laboured breathing as they held tighter and tighter to each other, Bertie straddled wantonly across Jeeves's lap and hands making a disaster of his hair.
As always, the moment at which it would have gone beyond kissing, Bertie pulled away, though this time it was a clear wrench. "Lord, I should have done this months ago," he groaned. "The next three days may well kill me."
Now that Jeeves understood the root of Bertie's reluctance, his frustration felt more like anticipation. Still, he tried, "A great many affianced couples, I understand--"
"That's all right for them," Bertie said sharply. "But as there's to be no wedding, really, I don't think a wedding night's too much to ask." He looked up at Jeeves in concern. "Er, is it?"
"I believe I can restrain myself until Friday," Jeeves said, and gathered Bertie back into his arms.
"I'm going to drive up to Brinkley Thursday evening and bring Aunt Dahlia back in the morning. Neither of us is really the bride, but better safe than sorry, what? We'll meet you at Sir Roger's office. And this time Friday we'll be on our way to Paris, and direct from there to Christmas in Monte Carlo."
The ache that Jeeves took to bed with him that night was worlds different than all the nights previous. Someday he might tell Bertie how troubled he had been, but not now.
For once, a plan of Bertie's went off exactly as intended. A confused Mrs Travers witnessed the will with only a few choice words for Bertie about why on earth she had to be there at all. It was nothing like a wedding, of course, but Bertie squeezed Jeeves's hand under the table and they shared a meaningful glance. It was only the cramped and not entirely private quarters aboard the train and boat that kept the two of them a decent distance apart throughout a torturous journey across the Channel.
Jeeves was surprised to find that their destination was a small house in a fashionable district and not a hotel, but grateful for it nonetheless. It was an uncharacteristic bit of foresight on Bertie's part, as Jeeves could not help but very nearly carry Bertie directly upstairs the moment the landlord had gone.
They fell into a heap on the bed, and for a minute or two could do nothing but look at each other, faces close and breath heaving. Then Bertie grinned ear to ear and pulled Jeeves down to him, kissing him as he'd never done before, grasping at his shoulders and pressing their bodies together with no hesitation.
"I think I must have wanted this since the moment I first saw you," Bertie whispered roughly when they parted for a moment. "You must think me daft to make us wait--"
"I understand," Jeeves managed despite being choked with desire and joy, and crushed their lips together again. And even if he had not understood entirely, this was worth every moment of the frustrated confusion. It would later occur to him to be perplexed that Bertie had not simply explained his feelings, and under a seaside sunset Bertie would confess his initial fears, and then the wish to surprise him with a fait accompli, and they would kiss against a palm tree and Jeeves's bare toes would curl in the sand.
But now, now, his only thought was of peeling the clothes frantically from Bertie's lithe form, of kissing his neck and his chest and all the places he had been forbidden, of Bertie gasping against his mouth and clawing at his back and his arse and shamelessly, beautifully writhing against him, and crying out, "Oh, God, I'm--" and of racing to slide down between Bertie's spread legs and catching the sweet, shuddering release on his tongue just barely in time. And of Bertie sighing at him from beneath a sultry shiver of eyelashes and shyly, inexpertly--at last, at last--touching him, and his sole regret was that he could not tear his eyes open to witness the awed fascination with which Bertie watched his control shatter, but there would be time enough for that, because Bertie would never lose his sense of wonder.