Jooster multi-chapter series: The Long Road, Chapter 3

[triedunture]

Title: The Long Road (Chapter 3)
[Previous parts: Chapter One, Chapter Two]
Rating: PG13? I feel very silly giving this a rating. Just make up your own minds!
Beta: the ever-so British hwshipper
Length: 3600
Warnings: Angst, violence, general dark themes.
Summary: A very bad thing happens. And then we must go on.

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After checking that all the locks were secure on the front door, Bertie stole into his bedroom to find Jeeves tucked into the bed. His pale face was dotted with sweat; Bertie hoped that wasn't a sign of fever. He placed two fingers on the side of Jeeves' neck, as he had often read about detectives doing in books, but he could feel nothing amiss. Jeeves' skin was clammy, but not too warm. Then again, Bertie wasn't sure what the correct temperature was for a valet's neck.

He retracted his hand.

Jeeves lay very still on the sheets, matching them for paleness. Dark brows were no longer drawn together in thought or consternation, but relaxed and unmoving. Black lashes fanned against slack cheeks; bloodless lips were parted just a touch. His jet-black hair, normally so smoothed and polished, was mussed into disarrayed strands. Bertie brushed one such strand from Jeeves' forehead and tucked it behind his ear.

Bertie saw a spot of blood below Jeeves' earlobe. The apprentice must have missed it in his careful clean-up, he thought. He retrieved his handkerchief from his pocket and wet it in the washbasin, then returned to Jeeves' side to wipe the blood away.

It was so strange, the flat being so silent. Why, Bertie couldn't recall the last time his rooms held no noise at all. Even when he lived alone, before Jeeves had arrived on his doorstep, chatter and piano-playing had still filled the air of Berkeley. But now the only sound was Jeeves' breathing, the sigh of his lungs rising and falling. Home was a very quiet place now.

Bertie chewed at his bottom lip and wondered about the contents of his billfold: he always kept a few name cards in there, complete with full name and address. The thought that the man who had done this knew where they lived...it made Bertie shiver to consider it.

He pulled a straight-backed chair up to the bedside and sat, waiting for Jeeves to awaken.

Several hours must have passed, for Bertie was shaken out of uneasy dreams by the ringing doorbell. He shook his head to clear the nasty images: shadows leaping out of alleys and dragging Jeeves down into sewers while Bertie shouted for them to come back. The doorbell rang again, and Bertie looked over at the man in the bed. Jeeves was still asleep, still breathing. Some colour had now returned to his cheeks, possibly a good sign, possibly feverish. The bell rang a third time, and whoever it was seemed to be holding it down.

Bertie rose to his feet with a wobble and went to answer it with trepidation.

The door opened to reveal a battle-axe of a woman: small, wrinkled, scowling, and smelling faintly of iodine.

'Mr Wooster,' she barked. 'Show me to him.'

'You must be Mrs Fennaweave,' Bertie said with a relieved and watery smile.

'The patient, if you please.' She bustled by him and surveyed the flat quickly. Then, as if sniffing out suffering like a bloodhound, she continued on down the hall in the direction of the master bedroom.

'His name is Jeeves,' Bertie supplied, trailing behind. 'He was—'

'I know, you silly ass. I can read Dr Hollis' notes as well as the next code-cracker. These doctors today; their penmanship is appalling.' Mrs Fennaweave pushed on through to the bedroom and stood at the foot of the bed, eyeing Jeeves as if he were a field of war and she, a general. 'He hasn't roused?'

'No.' Bertie fidgeted behind her. 'Is that bad?'

'Pish. It's normal. Man's lost a lot of blood.' She placed a large carpetbag on the floor and began shuffling through its contents. 'He'll need his dressings changed soon, I'd think. You'll need to lend a hand; he looks too big for me to handle alone.'

'What shall I do?' Bertie asked, stationing himself beside the bed.

The little woman looked him up and down with a disconcertingly sharp eye. 'You shall change into clothes that aren't slathered in muck, is what you'll do! Have you no concept of what an infection would do to this man?'

Bertie looked down at himself as well: the knees of his trousers were dirtied from where he'd knelt on the cobblestones, his tie was askew, and his empty watch-chain was swinging from his waistcoat like a lonely party streamer. 'Yes, quite,' he murmured, and went to the wardrobe to pull together a serviceable ensemble.

Mrs Fennaweave, meanwhile, set about disrupting Jeeves' cosy rest. She tore the bedclothes from atop his form, revealing that the nicer apprentice had, indeed, creased the pyjama lapels in the proper way. Bertie excused himself to change in the salle de bain, and when he returned wearing his fresh clothes, he found Mrs Fennaweave divesting Jeeves of his own. The pyjama shirt had been removed, and the white bandages curled round Jeeves' torso became evident once more. Mrs Fennaweave was muttering under her breath about all the clothes getting in her way, and she discarded the pyjama shirt on the floor.

'Get behind him, please,' Mrs Fennaweave directed, sorting through her carpetbag.

'Sorry?'

Rolls of white bandages were retrieved from the bag. Mrs Fennaweave inspected them as if looking for defects, much like she'd looked at Bertie earlier. 'Please place yourself on the bed behind the patient so that you may lift him upright while I change his dressings.'

Bertie removed his just-put-on shoes and did as he was told. He slid between Jeeves and the headboard, hooking his arms under Jeeves' to hoist him into a sitting position. He did this slowly, with the utmost attention paid to the man's injured side. Jeeves turned out to be very heavy, a solid, warm mass. Bertie found this comforting, though it was difficult to keep his grip.

Mrs Fennaweave nodded her approval as Bertie settled back against the headboard with the unconscious Jeeves resting against his chest. 'Well done,' she said in a manner that suggested she had had serious doubts. 'Now hold him steady, please.' And her wrinkled hands went to work at a surprising speed, unwinding the bandages from Jeeves' ribs.

Bertie peeked over his valet's shoulder, trying to pay attention to the woman's ministrations. After all, he might need to do this particular manoeuvre solo at some point, and he needed to learn how to bandage Jeeves correctly. Bertie regarded the man in his arms: eyes still closed tight, breath coming slow and ragged, his warm bare back pressing against Bertie's shirtfront with every inhalation. Bertie swallowed. He had always held Jeeves up to the standards of a god, a magician, a paragon of upstanding feudal spirit. Seeing him laid flat was going to take some getting used to. Mrs Fennaweave's quick hands passed between them briefly, over and over, winding the bandage as she went.

'You will need to hire another girl to assist me,' Mrs Fennaweave grumbled, tucking the end of the new bandage into itself. 'Or else you'll be helping me do this every day. I'm supposed to be helping invalids spoon up their soup; I'm too old to be hauling a man like this about on my lonesome.'

'I don't mind lending a hand,' Bertie said quietly.

This earned him a beady-eyed glare from the nurse. 'Surely a gentleman like yourself has better things to do with his time?'

'If you knew Jeeves,' he returned, his gaze still on the valet's brow, furrowed in sleep, 'you wouldn't think so.' He swallowed. 'I don't want a boatload of strangers coming in and out. Not now.'

Mrs Fennaweave gave a hmph of disbelief and then began pulling the bedclothes over Jeeves once more. Bertie was about to slide off the bed when the man stirred in his grasp. His dark eyelashes fluttered, and Bertie caught a glimpse of his dark blue eyes in between the blinking.

'Jeeves?' he asked. Without meaning to, his grip on the man tightened.

The nurse bent to stare the valet in the face. 'Do you know where you are?' she asked like a drill sergeant, holding his chin between her thumb and forefinger.

'Mr Wooster,' he said in a voice so thready and weak, Bertie couldn't believe it came from the man who brought him tea every morning. 'Where is...?'

Mrs Fennaweave frowned, her countenance darkening. 'Tell me where you are,' she demanded.

Bertie felt the man take in a deep breath, his lungs inflating beneath bone and skin. 'I am home,' Jeeves said. 'Mr Wooster? Is he hurt? Where is he?'

'I'm right here, old thing,' Bertie said, patting Jeeves' shoulder as best he could while still keeping him upright. 'I'm here.'

'Sir.' Jeeves twisted his neck to look up at Bertie, his head falling on the slim Wooster shoulder. He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. 'Oh, sir. Why am I in your quarters?'

The older woman didn't seem keen on this line of questioning from the patient, because she forced his gaze back to her with a hand on each side of his face. 'How is the pain?' she asked.

Jeeves' clouded eyes tracked back to Bertie's. Bertie could see the sweat springing fresh at his temples, could feel his struggling breaths, could sense the pangs of tension coiling in every fibre of the man. Jeeves softly said, 'There is no pain, madam.'

'Jeeves, that's the biggest load of rot I've ever heard spoken. If you're hurt, you must tell Mrs Fennaweave here,' Bertie reprimanded. 'She's a nurse.'

'I am fine, sir.' Jeeves gave a sort of push as if attempting to free himself from Bertie's grip; it was a testament to how weak he must have been that Bertie's hands didn't even budge. 'I do not require a convalescence in your rooms.'

'Dr Hollis just extracted a slug of lead from your stomach.' Mrs Fennaweave marched over to her carpetbag and withdrew a dangerously large needle and a small bottle of fluid. 'Either you're in shock and you can't feel anything below your neck,' here she pinched at the covers, causing Jeeves' foot to flinch out of the way, 'which doesn't appear to be the case, or you're so stubborn, you won't admit how badly it hurts.' She filled the syringe, holding the device to the lamplight to view it closely. 'This should help.'

'I do not require morphine,' Jeeves said. His eyes shut as if speech was too much for him. 'Please, madam. It's not necessary.'

'What, is he afraid of needles?' the woman scoffed to Bertie.

'Absolutely not!' Bertie cried. To imply that a man like Jeeves feared something so mundane was beyond the pale. He looked back down at the man, who has now clutching at his encircling arms in a silent plea. 'It will make you feel better, Jeeves. Just let her give you the bally medicine.'

'No, sir. The morphine will dull my mind and leave me unable to be of any use.' The strain of speaking in his usual dulcet tones left Jeeves' lip quivering; Bertie even noticed a twitch in the eye area. 'I do not relish such effects.'

'What sort of use do you think you need to be right now?' Bertie took hold of Jeeves' left arm, the one nearest to Mrs Fennaweave and her hypodermic needle, and held it down on the mattress. 'I just want you better.'

Mrs Fennaweave stepped forward and slid the needle into a vein with only a faint gasp of protest from Jeeves. 'You'll be back to sleep soon enough,' she mumbled.

Jeeves was fighting to keep his eyes open as he looked back up at Bertie. 'I'm so sorry, sir,' he whispered, nearly gone back into Morpheus' world. 'I failed you.'

Bertie's mouth worked open and shut for several moments before he said, in a carefully worded response in deference to the feminine presence in the room, 'What do you mean, Jeeves? You've never failed me. If anything, it is Bertram who was the coward today.'

'...to protect you, sir, I'm supposed to...It's my duty.' Jeeves' fingers dug into the fabric of Bertie's sleeves with sudden shocking strength. 'But I was useless. I, I thought he would kill you too.'

'He hasn't killed anybody, Jeeves. You're home now,' Bertie said, gripping him just as tightly in return.

'Oh, yes.' Jeeves' head dipped, and his face came to rest against Bertie's chest. 'I had forgotten.' And he finally slept the sleep of the drugged: heavy and fevered.

Bertie felt the light puffs of air escaping Jeeves' lips and worming through his shirt to his chest. How many times had this paragon of a valet hoisted a drunken or exhausted Bertram into bed with naught but his bare hands and a barely raised eyebrow? And now here was Jeeves leaning on the Wooster for a change. Bertie shook; how was he supposed to be strong enough for this?

'You may get up,' Mrs Fennaweave said, cutting through the reverie in Bertie's brain, his study of his valet's slack face. 'He'll sleep through the night now.'

Bertie looked up at the woman with wide, damp eyes. It was difficult to keep the accustomed composure, but Bertie didn't see an alternative while this stranger was hanging round. 'Right-o,' he croaked, and extricated himself from the grasp of the tangled bedding.

'I will place myself at his bedside. If he awakens, or if any complications arises, I will take care of it,' Mrs Fennaweave stated in a tone that brokered no argument. She claimed the chair Bertie had left at the side of the bed.

'Do you need anything?' he asked, suddenly realising he was playing a terrible host. 'Something to drink or...? Well, I can't offer much, I'm afraid. I'm worthless in the kitchen. Jeeves is the one who knows where everything is.'

'I will help myself to the larder if need be, young man. I'm quite capable of fending for myself,' the nurse said with a sniff.

'Yes, of course.' Bertie nodded distractedly, watching the steady rise and fall of the bedsheets. 'Good night, then.'

He wandered out of his bedroom and went to the front door to double-check that the locks were engaged. Bertie then continued down the hall, thinking of bedding down in the guest room. But upon entering said room, Bertie bit his lip and spun on his heel. Such accommodations would not suffice. It was but the work of a moment to fly across the flat in stockinged feet, through the kitchen, and into Jeeves' quarters. The thin mattress, resting in its austere iron bed frame, called to Bertie.

Without bothering to undress, he crawled under the neatly made sheets and buried his face in a pillow that smelled of spicy brilliantine. What Bertram did that night could not rightly be called sleep; it was more exhausting than running a marathon. He dreamt of things crawling out of London's sewers, grotesque hands reaching for the tails of Jeeves' immaculate coat, and Bertie not being able to move. The images played in a continuous loop, and Bertie shivered in and out of horrified wakefulness.


Continue to Chapter 4.