#sigh my life is so difficult. i have to see my beloved friends. everybody pour one out for me in this troublesome and wearying time

[mybreadsmybutters]

i have such an unfathomably large amount of things to do tomorrow its actually sick depraved and evil. and yet.

[thealogie]

thanks to the overwhelming silence and the fact that i can’t remember my old ao3 password and want to preserve my new ao3 for bookmarking rather than publishing anything I’m putting under the cut here some of the tentatively titled and probably-never-to-be-finished “Jeeves and the Unemployment Rate” which I wrote on the ios scrivener app a while ago (highly recommend if you want to write yourself fanfic on your commute and read it later) and then forgot.

It all started on a crisp sort of autumn morning when I returned to 3A Berkeley Mansions from a spot of lunch at my Aunt Dahlia’s with a bit of good news, a spring in my step, and sunshine on the old bean. It was the brightish sort of day, made all the brighter by the visit to a most Beloved Relation, who is the kind-hearted fly in the ointment of my theory that aunts are put on this earth for the sole purpose of crushing young nephews into submission, depression, and oppression under heels of steel. On this particular day, the old girl—in addition to being a generally good sort as usual— had also helped me solve a problem that had been vexing me for nearly a month.

I burst through the door with good cheer and a hankering for a whiskey fizz.

“Jeeves,” I bleeted. “Rally round.”

And rally around he did. Not that Jeeves does anything the seeing man would describe as “rallying.” But he floated gracefully out of the kitchen a moment before I called out for him, a whiskey fizz in hand.

“Ah, you are a marvel, as always, Jeeves. You’re sure you’re not a telepath? Positive of it, I mean? Very well, very well, I believe you,” I said, pouring the w. f. down the throat. “Right-o, now let us rally as men do. I bring splendid news from ol’ Dahlia.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Dashed splendid, I mean. The sort to grip you somewhere in the middle and lift you just a footish above the troubles of life so that you glide above them in the air without once dipping your toes into their murky depths—the troubles, I mean. Of life, that is,” I explained.

“Indeed, sir?”

I narrowed my eyes a bit. There was something a bit soupy about his tone that told me he lacked the enthusiasm Betram Wilberforce was striving for in this situation. Like I said, rallying of any sort is out of the question when it comes to Jeeves, but a chap hopes that when he stirs up the pot with so much vim, he might be rewarded with a sincerely uttered “Very good, sir,” or, perhaps more ambitiously, “Most pleasing to hear it, sir. Perhaps you could recount the tale after I pour you another w. f.?”

I forged on bravely.

“Oh rather. I mean to say, you’re going to be biffed as well, old thing. Oh yes. The news touches you, is the thing. And I dare say it’s pleasant news of the sort that will have even demi-gods like yourself prancing about the place with a hop and a whistle.”

“Indeed, sir?”

Many times have I spoken to my man about his little habit of wielding “indeeds” against me in such sharpish tones.

“What do you...I mean. Yes, dashed ‘indeed,’ Jeeves,” I replied with some steel in my voice, “blasted, indeed! You know what, Jeeves, I’m surprised at you. You might show a bit more sympathy for the y.m. It’s not a happy household when a man comes through the door all hot and is immediately handed the ice.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Jeeves!”

“My apologies, sir. I only meant to convey that it is just as you say. I should be glad to hear what Mrs. Travers relayed to you over luncheon.”

I crossed my arms and narrowed the Wooster baby blues even further until it was difficult to see a dashed thing.

“Alright Jeeves. Let’s have it.”

“Sir?”

“Out with it.”

“Sir?”

“Sir! I mean...to chopped liver with ‘sir,’ Jeeves. Something is rotten in the chez of Wooster. I see the displeased glint in your eyes. I should like to hear what’s hardened your heart against the young master’s general joie at the current state of vivre.”

“Well, sir. Is the pleasant information you wish to convey in any way related to the retirement Mrs. Travers’s head butler and her selection of a replacement?”

“By Jove,” I cried. “You do know all, what?! Jeeves, I know you don’t like this theory of mine, but it’s time we started to take the telepathy thingamummy seriously. Is it your deductive reasoning again? I mean, it’s too uncanny. Give me your Holmesian monologue on how you came to this one.”

“No deductions on this occasion, sir. Although I do not wish to jeopardize a friend, I must admit Seppings himself paid me a visit not an hour ago and divulged the news,” Jeeves said.

“Jeeves! Don’t tell me Seppings let the proverbial cat out of the proverbial bag?!”

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“Oh rotten luck that!” I sighed, a bit put out that Seppings—the very retiring butler who had minutes ago been the source of my great gratitude—had ruined my surprise.

“As you say, sir.”

“And I suppose you know the person she intends to name as his replacement is, in fact, you?”

“I do, sir,” he said coldly.

“Er,” I replied.

“Will that be all, sir?”

“I can see you’re not too pleased with the young master, Jeeves, but I only thought—dash it, I mean, I thought it would please you. The superior title, an entire staff at your command, a house with guests of the more refined sort.”

Jeeves was unmoved by this. I forged on, feeling a bit like that Napoleon chappie must have felt trying to make good speed when it got nippy in Russia.

“Oh, think, you’d never cook again Jeeves! Every menu will be orchestrated by you and prepared by Anatole. Oh, and you don’t need to valet at all, Aunt Dahlia says. I mean, Uncle Tom would be glad to have you valet for him if you don’t trust anyone else with his clothes but they have a large-ish staff. If you’d like, you’d just be doing books and ordering people about all day and generally mastering the household.”

I had wilted a bit at his initial cold reception but I was at full speed again with my ramble, imagining Jeeves sitting behind his own desk, so many people for him to guide and mold.

“It is an incredibly generous offer, sir,” Jeeves said. “Will that be all?”

I wilted again.

“It’s only an offer, Jeeves. You can toss it out to the cold night air if it displeases you. I mean to say, what?! No one is making you take it—not that there are good odds against any mortal setting about making you do anything you don’t want to do and coming out on top,” I tried to mollify him.

“Very kind, sir,” Jeeves said stiffly. “Will that be all?”

I saw that Jeeves was not in a good way. And suddenly my own disappointment was the furthest thing from my mind. I softened immediately.

“Old thing, I wish you would tell me what’s bothering you,” I said ever so gently, or so I hoped.

“While it is commendable, Mr. Wooster, that you would secure another position for me rather than dismissing me, I am sorry to learn I have overstayed my welcome,” he explained, looking above the Wooster onion and straight at the wall opposite.

I scratched the Wooster temple, feeling flummoxed and flat out on my rear.

“Jeeves, old fruit, I’m feeling a bit flummoxed and flat out,” I confessed, leaving off the bit about my rear to preserve some dignity.

“Mr. Seppings came to congratulate me on the happy news, which he thought I was already privy to. After seeing that the news surprised and confused me, he confessed that he inadvertently overheard pieces of your discussions with Mrs. Travers,” Jeeves explained.

Oh. Oh, dear. That’s something to get hot under the collar about. If Seppings had indeed heard my conversation with Dahlia...

“Oh bugger all,” I groaned.

“He had not meant to eavesdrop, sir, but came to understand that you were asking Mrs. Travers’ advice on how to end my employment while avoiding the unpleasantness that generally accompanies an outright dismissal. If I may say, sir, the elected course is prudent. The offer of employment from Mrs. Travers at increased salary and title would have spared embarrassment on all sides,” Jeeves said. Except it wasn’t Jeeves at all, dash it. He had the faraway look of an automaton who has no thoughts at all, nevertheless the dozen or so ripe ones that seem always to be floating around in Jeeves’s head. “Sir, will that be all?”

Oh, dash it. Let me stop there for a mo’.

At this point, you must be feeling as betrayed as Jeeves. “Wooster, you useless goose!” you’re undoubtedly crying. “You’ve somehow managed to ensnare a divine nymph to crease your trousers and mix your cocktails? You have in your household a first-rate mind who should be writing treatises on literature and holding saloons in Paris, yet you dare to hand him the mitten? Refund me the price of the rag I’ve purchased or prepare to duel.”

I beg you gentle reader, give this Wooster a chance to redeem himself. An oaf I am, but an oaf pure of heart. My sin, you see, is not being up to this literary wheeze, not caprice.

In the normal course of events, you know, stories begin when matters are about to get wheeling on, then they trot on until everybody’s generally got their ankles up in the air and such, and then they end when everything’s been tidied up and all persons’ ankles are firmly back on the ground. You’re familiar with said basic structure, no doubt? Well, I’m no good at it. This Wooster frequently starts his wheezes when things have already gone ankles up. Jeeves tells me the more scholarly writer sorts try to hide this flaw by pretending to do this same thing deliberately and calling it “starting in medias res.”

Allow me to fill you in on three basic facts that might persuade you to regard Bertram Wilberforce as the well-intentioned buffoon he is rather than the malicious villain he is painted out to be in the above passage:

A. I’m in love with Jeeves. I mean properly daffy him and all that. I mean to say, I hear music when he walks into the room. When he leaves, clouds of doom descend upon me. His every touch however brief and accidental is etched indelibly in my memory. It’s properly scorching stuff, you see. But he hasn’t a clue.

B. I can’t tell a fellow I’m daffy for him so long as I’m his employer. I mean, he takes his wages fishing me out of the soup, drying me off, and setting me on my way again. I mean, you don’t need me to spell out the how and why. It’s simply not preux at all.

C. Premise A and premise B, when combined, put me in quite a bind. I shared said bind with an old chum of mine just a few weeks prior to the cheery-cum-calamitous afternoon I’ve recounted to you above.

“So, you’d like to get a leg over Jeeves, eh?” Ginger said crassly after I’d unburdened my very soul to him.

I’ve known Ginger for ages. I mean, I used to know Ginger rather biblically. Now we’re just chums. And unlike some chaps who used to know each other, we’re rather un-jealous and supportive chums. Though, Ginger’s support was a bit more vulgar than a laddie hopes for when said laddie is in the throws of a love that is all divinity and light.

“Ginger! You crude fishmonger,” I cried, scandalized. “This is serious, for once. What am I to do? Am I to take this to my grave? Saddens a chap to think of going on like this forever.”

“Want to roger him good, eh ol’ boy?” Ginger continued, without hearing me at all.

“No, Ginger. It’s not like that. I mean it is. But it’s more. I also want us to sit by the fire, reading poetry. I want to make him smile every day I am alive. I want his hands enveloped in mine,” I declared. “Were I a glove, and all that!”

“I think the Romeo chappie wanted to be a glove to touch that bird’s cheek, Bertie.”

“Well, Jeeves is too sensible to sit around resting his cheek in his hands when he’s wearing work gloves. But I mean it! I would shape shift into one of his imminently reasonable and dull gloves if I could, so I could be wrapped all around his elegant hands,” I sighed dreamily, giving Madeleine Bassett a run for her money.

“Looks like he’s got you wrapped around his fingers, all right,” Ginger laughed, clapping me on the back in a chummy sort of fashion.

“Oh but Ginger, don’t tease. Not today. If you had the smartest and handsomest man in England residing in your home, you too would find him a worthy general and think twice before acting without orders,” I sighed, chin in hand.

“Please Bertie,” Ginger said, rolling his eyes. “I hope you aren’t about to start again with your campaign to make Jeeves Prime Minister, Bertie.”

At this comment, the Wooster corpus, previously slumped over the table, sat at attention with a bolt of inspiration. “Euree—something. Jeeves would know. Something a Greek chappie once said when his grey matter finally got going. I mean to say, that’s it, Ginger! Oh, you’ve got it.”

Ginger blinked at me in confusion. “You’re going to make Jeeves the Prime Minister? I suppose, that would do the country a bit of good. And, you have a point. If you tell the Prime Minister you want to bugger him, there’s no danger of him going along with it because he feels obliged.”

“Not quite, laddie. If Jeeves had another job, a better job, then I would be just another man, not his employer,” I said.

“With you so far,” he said, wrinkling his nose.

“Well, young masters who wish to stay a step above the devil don’t go foisting declarations on unsuspecting valets and then expect them to go on dressing and feeding and living with said y.m. as though nothing is amiss,” I explained patiently. “But if he doesn’t work for me, I could tell him I love him. We’d just be two men, standing before each other. And if he doesn’t feel the same, he’d just biff off to his new household, that’s that.”

“I get all that. Bertie, you really are a Christmas pudding of a man,” Ginger said. “What I’m saying is...Well, that’s no solution at all. I mean. Right now, at least you get to be close to him day in and out, don’t you? If you send him away…you do realize he’ll be, in fact, away, don’t you?” he said sagely, buttering a scone with a great air dignity. “Or maybe you don’t. There’s no end to things you don’t realize, darling.”

I puffed up the chest. My love had made me feel a touch noble, like those self-sacrificing beazels in the old Greek plays. “I’d rather watch him walk out the door after I’ve said my piece than have him say ‘Very good, sir’ and shimmer into the kitchen to put dinner together because it’s what’s expected of him,” I said with a touch haught. “Now Ginger, if you’re a friend, you’ll help me draw up a list of suitable households where Jeeves will be happy and well-paid. You know he’s not exactly the ��happy to put down anchor anywhere’ sort of fellow.’”

“That’s mild, Bertie. The man’s as particular as all hell,” Ginger exclaimed.

I sighed dreamily, planting the Wooster chin atop the Wooster palm. “Isn’t he just? It’s an infuriating quality of his.

“Oh dear lord, you’re done for.”