Chapter Text
I’d never gone about noticing Jeeves’s wings before. I mean to say, I’d seen them – he couldn’t possibly hope to hide them with them being as bally enormous as they are – but fellows don’t go about studying one another’s plumage as a rule, least of all when the wings so clearly show off a man’s station. Not that I look down on my man Jeeves, of course – I don’t mean that for a minute – but the biological fact of the matter is that my lot, with all the comforts of the good life, haven’t had wingspans more than two or three feet since the early part of the eighteenth-century.
Jeeves’s wings, which could spread to over six feet, easily, unlike my own short, cheerful yellow ones, were what a chum of mine once called ‘dull pigeon grey.’ I hadn’t considered their breadth or their strength, primarily because to do so would be a bit funny in the sense of peculiar, but also because Jeeves kept them tucked close to his body. I’d never seen him have so much as a flap when the wind ruffled him – whereas I tend to flutter when it suits me, and one couldn’t walk within two feet of some of the Drones when the seasons changed without being covered in down. I only came to notice J’s w.’s at all on account of a brute of a man who accused me of making eyes at his wife at a misery of a garden fete, which I had not as she was an awful little spider of a woman with all the humor of dead fish. Her porcine lout of a husband nevertheless took my inquiry as to the fillings of a particular tea sandwich to be proof of an immoral passion and threatened to beat me to a fine pulp if I didn’t immediately apologize for my alleged designs on Mrs. Porcine Lout, and leave the party without my sandwiches, which I had been informed were deviled ham.
Mr. P. L. pulled back his tree trunk of an arm and sent it on a collision course with the old Wooster dial – and my teeth stood a good chance of being knocked clear out of my gourd – when a huge, muscled appendage bowled the antagonist over with ease. Thwunk. The sound of feathers cutting effortlessly through the air and colliding hard with the man’s jaw in a clip rough enough to leave a mark, turned a few heads. Jeeves positioned himself between me and the fellow. Said fellow turned to my valet and glared, his own glossy black wings flapping in irritation. The moment passed quickly into more familiar territory, with Jeeves giving the man a thorough scolding and sending him on his merry way, but yours truly missed most of that exchange on account of being struck dumb with wonder at the raw power packed into a blow from Jeeves’s wing. He’d pulled the – could you call it a punch when there wasn’t a hand involved? He could’ve taken the adversary’s head clean off, if he’d meant to.
After that – well, it became something like that old quip about alligators or water buffalo or what-have-you. Namely, not thinking of said a.’s or w. b.’s when instructed, being impossible as, to avoid the subject in question, one must first consider it. To put it differently, my valet’s wings became something of a fixation in the proceeding weeks. I began to notice all sorts of funny little gestures he tried to disguise. I noted how he puffed up when I found myself in the soup and I required him to come to my defense. I noticed how he kept his balance, adjusting for his every movement with nigh imperceptible movements. I noticed that, for all the rot people liked to talk of the ugliness of pigeon’s wings, they were surprisingly sleek. In the right light, the warm grey hue was flecked with green and violet iridescence, and the sight was far from plain, if you took the time to really look.
The same dazzling display carried on into Jeeves’ tailfeathers, though I paid those little attention (although, admittedly, more than was strictly cricket.) They were straight and long and neatly tapered, folded elegantly over his rump in a modest ruff of silver. My own sprig of golden plumage was small in comparison – a vestigial puff of downy yellow, scarcely useful save for providing a destination for the hand of a questing paramour.
That’s where the fascination really began. My plumage was little more than an afterthought. Woosters couldn’t fly – I didn’t know anyone who could save for those who occupied the same, or lower, status than my gentleman’s gentleman. Now that I’d come to know it, I couldn’t find his feathers anything less than delightful.
For weeks, all I could do was stare at his wings. At first, I thought Jeeves didn’t notice, but then, nothing escapes his notice – not really. He was letting me think he didn’t notice, but he did – the folded appendages would twitch under my gaze, the movement so subtle I’d have never caught on had I not been leering at him. What this meant, I couldn’t say, and he refused to, so the two of us just ignored it like the proverbial elephant in the china shop.
Things changed when we had been cajoled into visiting one of my innumerable relations in their country estate. The residence was stately and fine, but close to the coast, and the weather was miserable. We found ourselves caught in something of a conundrum when a terrible wind swept Jeeves’s hat clear off his head, and damn near took me along with it. I stumbled, and immediately a sturdy wing shot out to steady me, shielding me from the weather and enveloping me like a huge… well, envelope, I suppose, cupped just so about my shoulders. As soon as I regained my footing, Jeeves recoiled, and I found myself wishing he hadn’t. The dexterity and speed with which he’d caught me was a marvel unexpected even of his impressive physique, and I felt a startling rush of jealousy that his wings could be of such use to him. Had our positions been reversed, my own increasingly inferior yellow pair would’ve been as good as useless. The realization made me feel a bit soupy, and I sulked all the way back to the estate. So green was my onion with envy that it was only after we were back in the well-furnished guest room, safe and sound, with Jeeves laying out my evening wear, that I noticed the state of his feathers. They were poking out at all sorts of funny angles, and looked dashed uncomfortable.
“I say, old thing, your flap-flaps are a bit mangled, what?”
Having never commented on Jeeves’s wings before, I didn’t know how he’d react. Most of my school chums used to talk of theirs’ with disinterest, but the way Jeeves reddened you’d have thought I’d asked him something downright filthy.
“It is no trouble, sir. The weather simply set a few of my feathers askew, but I assure you it is nothing to worry about.”
“Nonsense - why Jeeves, it looks positively painful! If that feels anything like it does with I start… m… mouldering?”
“Molting, sir.”
“Precisely – well, I can’t sit idly by and watch as you suffer.”
With that, I reached out and plucked out one of the badly broken feathers. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Jeeves uttered a distinctly un-Jeevesian yelp, and his wings gave a quick, hard flap that startled me quite badly, sent a small flurry of feathers into the air, and knocked over a table lamp.
“Steady on! There’s no need for a take off!” I laughed, but found Jeeves looking quite grim indeed.
“I’m sorry, sir… I was –”
“Say no more, old fruit. But here, let me take a gander at straightening the rest of these out, what?”
“Sir, there’s no need –!” Jeeves began, but his protests died when I returned to fussing with his feathers. The muscles of his broad back were tight as a bowstring, and his wings were actually quivering under my touch.
I came to realize something, in a slow, muzzy way. There was a certain thingness about having my palms sunk wrist-deep in silky feathers – those huge, powerful wings beneath my hands – that left me startlingly, outrageously affected. I raked my fingers through said h. p. w.’s , smoothing and stroking until they returned to their sleek, tidy state. I found I didn’t want to withdraw my hands, and some time passed with me simply admiring and appreciating the expanse of warm grey before I realized that my valet had gone mute, and was still thrumming with some sort of palpable anxiety. Worried his wings were hurt more than he claimed, I broached the subject.
“I say, Jeeves, you’re terribly tense. Is something the matter with your underdown?”
I reached under his wings to where the white, baby-soft down was hidden, and found them dripping wet to the touch. I jumped, surprised, and Jeeves jumped too, putting some distance between us immediately and smoothing down the front of his jacket with shaking hands.
“Gosh, you’re not bleeding are you?” I asked, but even as I said it I realized it couldn’t be so, as my hands were covered with a greasy substance. I stared at it, uncomprehending. It was clearish, and smelled musky and clean all at once. Slippery, with an amber sheen to it as I turned my hand in the light.
“What the devil is this, then?”
Jeeves seemed to deflate a bit, and his voice held a note of shame in it.
“Just… my oil, sir.”
The tips of his ears were very pink, I noticed.
I considered my own wings. They’ve always been quite dry, and so I use a product called Faraday’s Feather Slick to keep them glossy and smelling like roses. I’d never considered why Jeeves didn’t smell like a particular brand, Faraday’s or that dreadful American stuff that some of the Drones imported.
“You mean, you make your own?” I asked, astonished, and Jeeves nodded. I had no time to appreciate the marvel before he spoke.
“It’s not uncommon for a man of my… background, sir.”
Oh. Oh blast. It was one of those unmentionable things, like the wingspan all over again. I hadn’t considered that it could be due to ones standing in life.
“It smells rather good,” I said, to lighten the mood, and because it really did smell quite pleasant, in an earthy, rich sort of way. I stepped forward again, feeling around under Jeeves’s quivering wings until my fingers found the small, leaking nubbly bits. I pinched one gently and felt it squirt a hot spurt of oil out in response. Jeeves made a strangled sound.
“Sir, I must protest –!”
“Oh, come off it, Jeeves, it’s perfectly appropriate to get oiled up after you’ve got your feathers out of order. I should know – I remember there was this one time that I got a bit of taffy in my down and had to have it cut out, if you believe it, cut – and –”
Jeeves pulled away, trembling, his wings drawn ‘round him like a huge, feathered shield. He looked ill – a combination of pale white and blotchy red trying to occupy the same space on his face.
“I say, are you alright, old fruit?”
He managed a nod, muttered a quick something about needing a bit of rest, and absconded at extraordinarily high speed, leaving me, bewildered, in his wake. I brought my dripping hand to my face and sniffed it – it really did have a corking aroma, like a very fine cologne with an underlying natural maleness that stirred the blood. I sank, light-headed, onto my bed, suddenly warm and, distressingly, more than a little eager down below. I glanced at the door, and back at my oiled hand, and then I did something I’m rather ashamed of, which, needless to say, involved the locking of said d. and the creative application of said o. h. to certain parts of the Wooster corpus, the less that’s said of which, the better. I washed in the guest room’s rustic little basin afterwards, more than a bit confounded by the sudden turn of events. I’ll admit, I have occasionally entertained… unsuitable thoughts of my valet – the sort of thoughts I haven’t had in excess since my schooldays – but I have always refrained from following through, as it were, because it struck me as dishonorable to sully Jeeves in this way, and without him knowing. Not that I wanted him knowing, of course – that would be dashed awkward, what? – but I didn’t want to go about it without being altogether sure that he wouldn’t take offense. As there was no way to know without him needing to know as well, I refrained entirely, until this business with the heavenly-smelling oil.
I unlocked the door and waited for long enough to realize Jeeves wasn’t coming back to dress me, so, concerned for the health of my gentleman’s gentleman, and hoping I hadn’t aggravated an underlying wing injury in my ill-fated attempt to help him preen, I got my evening things on – swapping out the understated navy necktie for a new cherry red one I’d been saving for a day I needed a bit of cheering up. The whole affair with Jeeves and his wings had left me feeling soupy and guilty and maudlin all at once. As I was knotting the aforementioned necktie, I spotted an enormous grey feather, undoubtedly of Jeevesian origin, discarded on the ground. It was flecked with shiny bits of purple and specks of green, and was strong and straight and full. I picked it up and felt the weight of it, and then dithered a bit, as I hated the thought of leaving it where it could be trod on, but I couldn’t go about holding it ad infinitum. Desperately, I stuck it between the pages of my latest mystery novel, and promptly forgot about it entirely – until the day I didn’t, when the presence of said feather very nearly caused a permanent separation between the young master and his valet...