Jooster Steampunk Drabble

[triedunture]

Title: Where We're Going, Jeeves, We Don't Need a Difference Engine
Rating: G
Length: 600 words

For willdew, who I owed a drabble and requested "Steampunk! Jeeves x Wooster as per euclase's awesome drawing of awesomeness." (Miss Licia, I hope that's okay!)



'Sir?'

Bertie Wooster did not look up from his handiwork: the small cog, clenched in his delicately wrought pincher tool, was almost fitted into its proper place.

'Sir, if I may?' the soft voice floated trough his workroom once more.

'Just a moment, Jeeves.' Bertie poked the tip of his tongue from the corner of his lips, a study in concentration. Nearly there...

The voice was suddenly much closer, and boomed over his shoulder. 'Sir, it will only take a moment of your--'

Bertie jumped, startled. The tiny cog clattered to the floor, where it was lost in a sea of shining bronze bits of machinery and steel instruments. Bertie cursed and threw down his pincher device, glaring up at Jeeves through the many lenses of his magnification goggles.

'Dash it, Jeeves! This Difference Engine isn't going to calculate itself into being, you know.'

'I do apologise, sir.' The trusted manservant coughed into his fist. 'However, Mrs Gregson is in the parlour. She insisted on awaiting your arrival and will not be moved.'

Bertie frowned down at his leather apron, smeared with grease and grime and held about his frame with many buckled straps that afforded him opportunities to store tools. 'I can't let her see me like this, what? She so dislikes my little tinkerings. Probably will insist I marry some horrible girl she's met and settle down into a life of Not Building Things.' He tore the magnification goggles from his eyes and tossed them onto the chaotic floor.

Jeeves pressed a single finger to his lips in thought, then reached over to the coat rack, with had been fashioned out of brass pistons left over from another of Mr Wooster's projects, and retrieved two hats: Bertie's cloth travelling cap, and his own stove-pipe.

'Perhaps, sir, this would be an opportune moment to test the viability of the Time Machine.' He held the cap out to his young master.

Bertie considered for a moment, then jammed the cap on his head and fished two pairs of flight goggles from his work bench. 'You fire up the ignition system. I'll clear a path. If my calculations are correct, we'll need about twenty yards--'

'Bertram!' a voice at the top of the stairs bellowed. 'What are you doing down there?'

'Sorry, Aunt Agatha, I must fly!' Bertie called back. He tossed the second pair of goggles at Jeeves, and both men rushed to the looming shape in the corner, which was covered with a white sheet. Bertie began shoving various half-built contraptions out of the way, and Jeeves ripped the sheet from the machine.

It gleamed like an onyx onion standing on shining brass rails and dotted with steam vents, pressure gauges, exhaust pipes, and orderly golden rivets. Jeeves placed his hand on an ivory handle and pulled, opening the circular door to the inner red-velvet cabin.

Bertie snapped his goggles over his eyes and grabbed his canvas bag from the piston coat rack. This bag held all the necessary implements of adventure: compass, pocketknife, matches, miniaturized automatic abacus for any field calculations, and skins of water. He ran to the Time Machine, which was rumbling and whirring through its start-up sequence; Jeeves was busy flipping switches and pressing buttons.

'Bertram, I am coming down there if you do not show yourself at once!' Aunt Agatha roared.

'Terribly sorry! I just haven't got a spare moment,' Bertie hollered as he shut and sealed the door.

The machine hummed with gaining energy, then with a bang propelled itself exactly nineteen and three-quarter yards before disappearing in a puff of smoke, leaving only a charred line on the workroom floor.

fin.

Comments

[sunquistadora.livejournal.com]

God yes!
A) love the title
B) love the drawing it's inspired by, so fic just makes it that much better
C) Bertie would have half finished projects all over the place, wouldn't he? I bet it's Jeeves' doing that any leftover scraps and whatnot actually get turned into finished new products like coat racks.
D) I want one of those time machines!
<3

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

A. Thank you, it came to me in a flash of inspiration.
B. Yes, euclase's drawings are always so wonderful, and this was no exception.
C. Tee hee! I know, right?
D. ME TOO :D

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Hee- vintage stuff!

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

It's pretty and shiny. :D

[aliciaforferris.livejournal.com]

OMG IT'S AMAZING.

(That's all I can think of to summarize the awesomeness. :D :D :D)

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks so much.

[tasha-elizabeth.livejournal.com]

Love it! Love it! Love it! Just perfect!

[phinnia.livejournal.com]

eeeeeeeeeeeee. this is awesome in all kinds of ways. <3 <3 <3 *LOVE*

[cerublu02.livejournal.com]

LOVE! YOU DO NOT KNOW THE LOVE I HAVE FOR THIS STEAMPUNK!J&W UNIVERSE!

[starlingthefool.livejournal.com]

OMG!
*hugs* How wonderful.

:D :D :D !!!

[willdew.livejournal.com]

*hugs fic to herself greedily* OMG this is pure unmitigated awesomeness and WIN. You made Bertie a geek but somehow preserved his Bertie-ness. Also, it reminded me a bit of Blackadder Back and Forth. Only Jeeves does not equal Baldrick in any way, shape or f. (Perish the thought.)

Thank you *so* much. Tee hee.

Re: :D :D :D !!!

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

I'm SO glad you like it. I have a pash for geek!Bertie now.

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

Man, you should seriously consider not being so awesome. You're killing me. ;p
LOVE IT <3

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Your suggestion has been duly noted. BUT MAH BUSINESS IS AWESOMENESS. :D

[mxdp.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

BTW I SAW IRON MAN LAST NIGHT AND MAN IT WAS SO AWESOME I THOUGHT I'D DIE. 'K, maybe not, but I still loved it.
*grins*

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

I like to think that P.G. would have loved this - as much as I do!

Now I want a difference engine more than anything! In fact, more than Aunt Agatha wants an explanation. (Well all right, not that much).

Would it be too much to ask for this delicious flight of fancy to be the start of a series, with Aunt Agatha's reaction and Bertie and Jeeves' adventures in wherever they have gone to? Pretty please?

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Oh golly, I don't know...I was nervous just doing a short little steampunk thingy because I don't know much about it. Plus I'm already working on a time travelling!jooster story. I guess we shall see?

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

Perhaps your time-travelling story will do just as well. After all, what is a difference engine but a time-travelling machine of any kind? Just as long as you remember to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow you should be all right. LOL. (I'm fairly sure Star Trek stole that line from Doctor Who - the Fifth Doctor managed to say it with a perfectly straight face - good acting).

Anyway - it would be even more fun if Aunt Agatha arrived in time to get caught up with our boys and joined them in their time and space travelling adventures. Boy, would she be told a thing or two by the natives! Just imagine Aunt Agatha on Metebelis 3 or in the 80s or on Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5 or your original equivalent. Ha! I'm filled with glee at the thought.

Hm - got carried away there. Looking forward to the next exciting adventure in cloud cuckoo land. ;-)

BTW: I looked up 'steampunk' to find out what this peculiar expression means and glanced at the headlines that came up without clicking on them. Was H.G. Wells the first steampunk? Or was it Jules Verne?

[willdew.livejournal.com]

Anyway - it would be even more fun if Aunt Agatha arrived in time to get caught up with our boys and joined them in their time and space travelling adventures. Boy, would she be told a thing or two by the natives! Just imagine Aunt Agatha on Metebelis 3 or in the 80s or on Deep Space 9 or Babylon 5 or your original equivalent.

I don't know. Somehow I think Aunt A. would gravitate naturally to the ruling echelons and make a place for herself among the noblesse wherever she went. So say they ended up on a planet full of, I don't know, bee people or whatever, she'd be arranging marriages and passing judgement on the artwork within a matter of days. <_<; "Bertie, I want you to meet Princess X'tchgakagoralax. The Princess is next in line to inherit a great portion of the Medusa Cascade, and her mother is a great friend of mine." (Ten minutes later, "JEEVES! I can't possibly marry a woman who excretes poison from her salivary glands!" "No, Sir." )

[umpteenth-gail.livejournal.com]

LOL! You're probably right, Aunt A is the sort of person who always lands on her feet, to the disadvantage of someone else. But I would still love to see her time-travelling with the boys. She might be able to get them out of hot water with the sheer force of her mistral-like personality.

[prologi.livejournal.com]

ASDKJhgla I love you. The Back To the Future references are the awesome icing on the awesome cake. :D

[georgeodowd.livejournal.com]

OH GOOD LORD. You threaten to break me into little pieces on the floor. I honestly couldn't think of anything filled with more sheer delight than J&W + steampunk, and you nailed it dead on. Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

[chibi-wolvie.livejournal.com]

Genius!! ^^

Steampunk with Bertie and Jeeves. ^^ And Bertie constructs a Time Machine, he must be a genius in this timeline... or Jeeves has helping him.

Hmm... I ask myself, where are they? Which time? Past? Future? Would they come back? Oh I'm full of questions ^^ and pictures.

The muddled technician room, the goggled glases... awww, thats all so awesome.

Thank you for this, and... would come more? *puppy eyes*

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

I guess they didn't quite care what era they were going to; anything to get away from the dreaded Aunt A.!

[lady529.livejournal.com]

Adorable. Just adorable. What love <3

The Lady 529

[random-nexus.livejournal.com]

OMFG!!!!! SQUEEEEE!!!!!
You are breaking the sound barrier with the force of your awesomeness! Only instead of BOOM, you leave SQUEEEEEE!!!!s behind!

The absent-minded geek!Bertie is beyond fabu, and I agree with others that it's likely Jeeves who tweaks things or keeps the Wooster on track so things get completed occasionally. Oh, you may not feel comfy in the Steampunk vehicle, but you drive it well! This was amazing!

Scoping out the other comments, I see talk of time travelling J & W??? OOOOOOHHH!!!!! I am giddy with anticipation!! Want! WANT!!

[euclase.livejournal.com]

Definitely MORE than okay, dear. This was awesome! :D

[triedunture.livejournal.com]

Oh good! I figure, there can't be enough steampunking going around, right?