Jeeves and the Mighty Tarpon by Triedunture (PG)

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Hello! Or possibly I should say what ho! I'm thirstyrobot and I'll be shuttling you about from fic to Jeeves and Wooster fic in a van that looks an awful lot like a '24 Austin. As fic goes, it's a slash-heavy fandom with a near-universal OTP (as seen below), but I'll try to show you a bit of everything along the way.

Fandom: JEEVES & WOOSTER 
Pairing: Jeeves/Bertie Wooster
Author on LJ: triedunture
Author Website: lj fic tag
Why this must be read:

Everything triedunture writes is pretty much an instant classic, and I honestly had a terrible time choosing between them. She has longer fics, more complicated fics, fics that show us the parts of this world that idyllic canon turns a blind eye to, fics that take a left-field premise and make us love it unconditionally.

But I come back to this one again and again, perhaps because of its simplicity. We're along for the ride with a cranky Bertie on one of those holidays he sometimes promises Jeeves for pulling him out of the soup, but that Wodehouse rarely shows us. There is (of course!) a girl that likes Bertie a bit too much, Bertie being endearingly inept in the unfamiliar territory of fishing in Florida, a silly cross-talk misunderstanding, all framed by atmospheric scenery and spot-on canon language.

What really makes it, though, and what triedunture is so unfailingly good at, is the way it gets Jeeves out of his morning coat (both literal and metaphorical) and shows us the man beneath. For me, it began a long love affair with getting to the bottom of Jeeves-the-man, and how Bertie processes what he sees of Jeeves-the-man, and the cautious tenderness that exists between them even when we fanwriters aren't slashing them up.



Jeeves lit himself another cigarette and took a deep breath of it. 'Yes, sir. I find the activity very relaxing. There is something about the salt air and the sun.'

I watched him sail, feeling a pleased grin steal across my map. I had seen Jeeves in many strange jams in our time together. One week might have him in a red moustache, pretending to be a Scotland Yard investigator, and the next might have him in a tweed skirt, impersonating a female novelist. But I had never seen Jeeves as out of uniform as this: tanned, hatless and hair tousled, sleeves rolled carelessly, braces unhidden by a waistcoat and jacket. He cut a rather dashing figure.

I lounged against the warm wood of the boat and let the rocking of the ocean, unfamiliar and yet calming, lull me into a sort of trance. My eyes slipped shut against the blinding sun and I slept.

Jeeves and the Mighty Tarpon