the-perfect-violation

[the-perfect-violation]

Jeeves x OFC

///

Summary: As the days slipped toward the wedding, the household moved with the frenzied rhythm of final preparations. Even for someone as unflappable as Vera Kovalenko, it was rapidly wearing thin.

TW: Eventual Smut

Rating: 18+ Mature

Word Count: 3,100

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

The mirror is a worthless invention. The only way to truly see yourself is in the reflection of someone else’s eyes. - Voltaire

///

As the days slipped toward the wedding, the household moved with the frenzied rhythm of final preparations. There were flowers to be arranged, last-minute alterations to be made, and guests stopping by almost constantly. Even for someone as unflappable as Vera Kovalenko, it was rapidly wearing thin.

And Margo. Lovely, eccentric, exasperating Margo, grew more useless with every passing hour. One moment, she was dithering over the color of the ribbons for the church pews, the next, convinced that marrying Bertie Wooster was a catastrophic mistake that required immediate intervention. And who, naturally, was left to manage these hourly crises?

Vera Kovalenko, of course.

"Kova, do you think the invitations should have been embossed?" Margo had asked just yesterday, wide-eyed in the middle of her bath. "Not that it matters now, but really - are we dreadfully common?"

And then there were the errands. Endless, trivial errands that Margo declared "vitally important" while she flung herself melodramatically across the chaise. If Margo wanted her bed linens replaced with the softer set from the guest room? Vera did it herself. If the silver needed to be re-polished because the first gleam wasn't quite enough? Vera saw to it. And when, on a whim, Margo decided the vicar's wife should receive an apology basket for some imagined slight - naturally, it was Vera who found herself drafting the letter and sourcing the preserves.

Each day blurred into the next, and as the hours stretched thin, so did her patience. She hadn’t eaten a proper breakfast in three days. Her right hand ached from scribbling notes at all hours. The headache that had begun behind her right temple sometime on Monday had bloomed into something nearly operatic by Thursday morning. And through it all, Margo flitted and fretted and forgot, breezing from one crisis to the next like a spark in dry brush - chaotic, dazzling, and always on the verge of setting something ablaze.

Worse still, Vera had begun to slip. Not in her work - no, she was doing her best to keep her work immaculate - but in her demeanor. She had snapped at Lefebvre not once, but twice. Once for letting the milk delivery sit too long in the foyer (which, in fairness, had not been her fault), and once for humming too loudly while preparing Margo’s tea. She had raised her voice at the part-time maid for failing to fold the napkins to the correct angle, then apologized an hour later with a level of guilt that surprised even her.

She wasn’t cruel. She didn’t mean to be short. But she was stretched past the point of endurance, and there was no one left to absorb the pressure.

Jeeves had been around constantly. She had begun to feel his presence like a stone in her shoe - persistent, inexplicably there. He watched her regularly, in that quiet way of his, and she found herself growing self-conscious under the weight of it. As if he were… waiting. For what, she couldn’t begin to guess.

At first, it made her feel, absurdly, as if she were missing something - some private joke or invisible cue that only he could see. She found herself resenting it, irrationally. She hated the implication that he saw something in her she didn’t - or worse, couldn’t - see at all. But lately, that resentment had begun to shift into something quieter. Sharper. She had the creeping sense that he wasn’t just watching her out of habit or calculation. That he was... noticing things. Not her mistakes, exactly - those were mercifully still rare - but the strain it took to avoid them.

He had surely heard the way her tone had lost its edge, surely saw the tiredness in her hands. And if he saw that - if he saw her, unraveling thread by thread - then he knew something she had worked very hard to conceal: that Vera Kovalenko, the woman who never faltered, was coming undone. It was that realization that made his gaze feel not just irritating, but threatening.

She just wanted to get through the wedding. That was all. Just one more day. Then Margo and Bertie would be gone to Italy, and Vera could sleep. She could listen to the rain. She could think again.

But for now, there were too many lists, too many voices, too many things pressing against the edges of her composure. Her thoughts came in fragments, her patience in rations. Every knock at the door felt like a threat.

It was in this precise mood - drained, irritable, and entirely out of patience - that Jeeves found her in the library that morning.

He entered quietly, as he always did, but Vera clocked his presence immediately. She was at one of the side tables, sorting through Margo's latest flurry of requests.

"Miss Kovalenko," Jeeves greeted, his voice smooth and precise. "I wonder if I might trouble you for a moment."

She didn't bother looking up. "Why stop the tradition now?"

The words came out sharper than she intended. She knew it even as she said them. There was no real venom behind it, just the brittle edge of exhaustion. Still, she winced inwardly. He didn’t deserve that. Not really.

He, thankfully, ignored the barb. "I have begun to move some of Mr. Wooster's belongings from his flat. But it would be helpful to confirm any special requests now, before the logistics are set in motion. I know you are quite familiar with Miss Rostova's preferences."

Vera smiled tightly, still not meeting his gaze. "Indeed. Though perhaps if you spoke to her yourself, you could spare us both the trouble."

Why was she like this with him? She couldn’t tell if it was habit or something harder to name.

And she hated the thought that it might sound like she was growing tired of Margo or resenting the work itself. Because that wasn’t fair and it certainly wasn’t true. Margo was maddening, yes - capricious, extravagant, utterly hopeless with practical matters - but Vera had long since come to accept those flaws as part of the bargain. She didn’t want anyone else to manage this chaos, didn’t want anyone else by Margo’s side during the one moment in her life that was meant to be joyously hers. 

His voice, soft and controlled, brought her back to the present. "Miss Rostova," he said, "seems to prefer communicating through you as of late."

"If it's instructions you want, here -" She plucked a sheet from her notes and handed it to him. "This is the list of specifications Miss Rostova has mentioned in passing. I hope that helps you make up your mind."

His fingers brushed hers as he took the paper - an accident, surely. Still, it left a trace of awareness in its wake. She said nothing and refused to look up. It was easier that way.

He stood there and watched her as though waiting for something.

"Anything else, Mr. Jeeves, or is your curiosity sated?"

She regretted that one too. It wasn’t clever, just needlessly clipped. She didn’t know what she expected from him. Maybe that was the problem.

His pause was brief - so brief it should not have registered, but she caught it all the same. "For the moment," he said, folding the paper with practiced efficiency. "Thank you for your assistance, Miss Kovalenko."

He turned to leave, his retreat as composed as his arrival, but paused at the door and turned to look at her again. For the briefest moment, she feared he might say something more - but he only inclined his head, ever the gentleman, and slipped from the room without another word.

The silence left in his wake was heavy.

///

By the time he found himself returning to the library door that evening, Jeeves knew he was long past the point of self-restraint.

After that night in the kitchen he had tried to manage his feelings with the same quiet discipline that had governed the rest of his life. A letter, he reasoned at first, would be enough. A carefully composed note - measured, precise - could carry the truth without disrupting her world or humiliating him. He imagined her reading it alone, in some quiet moment. Perhaps she would smile. Perhaps she would not. But he would have said it. That was all he wanted, then: to say it, and to do so with dignity.

The days were consumed by wedding preparations and the looming move - frantic, endless, and loud. Jeeves moved through the storm with composure, but his mind was elsewhere. Always, elsewhere.

Only at night - when the flat had finally gone quiet, when his jacket was hung and his shoes placed neatly beside the bed - did he return to the page.

He began dozens of letters, most of which he never finished.

As the days passed, the words grew more stubborn. Every letter felt like an echo of something truer he could not reach. The failure left him restless. He began to hate the paper, the ink, the ritual of it. His careful language no longer comforted him. It only reminded him how far he was from saying what he truly meant.

Instead, he began to increasingly rely on proximity.

He stopped pretending he was at the townhouse on official business. There was no illusion left, not to himself. Every invented errand, every fabricated reason to linger in the drawing room or pass through the library or carry messages that did not strictly need a messenger - he knew precisely what he was doing.

He wanted to see her. And he was waiting for her. For some perfect alignment of silence and courage and chance. For a corridor too empty. A moment too still. An hour when she might look at him and finally know that he burned for her, without needing it said.

But that moment never came.

On the eve of the wedding, surrounded by flowers and ribbons and the fluttering breathlessness of things nearly complete, Jeeves understood that he could no longer stand idly by.

And so now here he stood, in the dark hallway outside the library once again. A light still glowed beneath the door. He knew it would be her.

She was seated at the writing desk again, sorting through a haphazard stack of correspondence, her movements quick and impatient. She had discarded her usual crisp precision - there was a faint wildness to her now. There was a crease between her brows as she read and she had abandoned her jacket somewhere, leaving only a thin silk dress that clung softly to her frame. 

For a moment, the sight of her struck him silent. Not just beautiful - unbearably so. As if his chest could not contain the shape of her.

She didn’t look up.

"Mr. Jeeves, again. Surely there are better ways to occupy your time," she said coolly, breaking the silence.

He faltered. He had rehearsed nothing. There was no prepared line, no polished entry. Only heat and panic and a heart beating far too fast.

"I came to ask about the piano," he said. It was the first idea that formed, so he said it. "Whether you had decided where it ought to be relocated. I’ll need to telegraph the movers." He knew it was a bogus excuse - pitiful, even - and he cursed himself for the cowardice.

Her fingers stilled over an open letter, and for a moment, he thought she might soften. Instead, she laughed coldly. "Is that all? How dutiful of you. One might believe you entirely immune to distraction."

He swallowed the heat that rose in his throat. That wasn’t fair. Or perhaps it was. He couldn’t tell anymore.

"If you would simply tell me -"

She cut him off, her fingers tightening around one of the letters. "I’ll ask Miss Rostova in the morning. Or is there some desperate urgency I’m unaware of?"

Something in him screamed that now was not the moment - that her nerves were frayed, her tone defensive, the room charged in all the wrong ways. He should have bowed out, come back after the wedding when they were both rested and thinking straight. But the weight of everything unspoken pressed against his ribs and her tone - so perfectly dismissive, almost willfully blind - pressed on something already split to the nerve. And before he could stop himself, the words escaped, sharper than intended.

"You make things far more difficult than they need to be," he said, stepping closer.

She laughed softly, without humor. "Yes, well, someone has to." She flicked her gaze up to meet his, her eyes icy. "We can’t all be paragons of patience, can we?"

"Is that what you think this is?" His voice was quiet and, to his horror, shaking slightly. "Patience?"

Vera set the letter down with a deliberate slowness. "You," she said, standing and rounding the desk, "Act as though I’m the one playing games. But you are the one who keeps appearing. You’re the one who keeps hovering. Why ever is that, Mr. Jeeves?" 

He stared at her.

The moment stretched between them, electric and fragile. She stood with her arms crossed, but her breathing was quick, shallow, as though she were waiting for something - daring him to cross the line again.

And God help him, he did.

He closed the distance between them in a heartbeat. His hand found her waist - warm beneath his palm - and he drew her close. She didn't pull away. Not this time. Her lips parted on a breath as he bent his head to hers.

The first brush of his mouth against hers was soft - softer than he had intended. She tasted like Scotch and something he couldn't name. His hand slid up, fingertips grazing the delicate line of her spine, drawing her closer, and when she didn't resist, he deepened the kiss.

She was warm and sweet beneath him, and for one impossible moment, she kissed him back. Her fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket, and when he angled his head, she sighed - a soft, broken sound that made his heart clench painfully in his chest.

He should have stopped. He knew it even as his lips moved from her mouth to the line of her jaw, lingering there before trailing lower. Her skin was soft against his lips, her pulse quick beneath the fragile skin of her throat.

She shivered.

The sound she made when his mouth found the place just below the curve of her throat - low and breathless - nearly undid him. He wanted her. God, he wanted her.

And then, as suddenly as a flame being snuffed out, it was over. She seemed to come to a sudden realization, pushing hard against his chest to wrench herself free from his grasp.

"You think you're clever, don't you?" her voice shook with anger. "Playing the same trick twice. What, did you think I wouldn't notice?"

He was lost. "What? I don't -"

"Don't lie to me," she snapped, accent solidifying in a second. Her face was flushed, her eyes blazing. "I know exactly what this is. You think you can push and pull me however you like. That I'll just -" She cut herself off, chest rising and falling. “That I’ll fall for it again.”

He stared at her, confused, the words locked behind his teeth.

"This," she said, gesturing sharply between them, "this is exactly what you did at the ball, isn’t it? You didn’t mean any of that either. You were just - what? Testing me? Controlling me?"

His throat closed. There it was: the moment he wished he could bury away. He had no answer for her. No defense.

"Speak, Mr. Jeeves. Tell me I’m wrong," she demanded, stepping closer. "Tell me it wasn’t a performance."

He looked away. Just for a second. And that was enough.

She saw it.

Her expression shattered. “You actually admit it,” she said, quiet and breathless. 

“I didn’t mean for it to -” His voice cracked as shame burnt hot in his throat.

“You what?” she hissed. “Didn’t mean for me to notice? Didn’t mean for me to care?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said hoarsely. “At the time, I… I felt the household was spiraling. And you had so completely assumed command of it - of everything - that I saw no way forward but to reassert some… some form of control.” He knew he was blathering. “You wouldn’t listen. You were so - unyielding. I thought if I could throw you off, you might - might give me an opening.”

"To what?" her expression didn't shift. Not even a blink. "To handle me? To manage me? You danced with me and flirted with me and tried to kiss me to manage me?"

"At first, yes, but I realized -" he opened his mouth but nothing more came. She waited for him to continue, but the words eluded him. He found he wasn’t quite sure how he had gotten here. “I regret it,” he said at last, barely audible.

But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. And still, his heart pounded with the impossible hope that maybe - maybe if he could just get through to her, just once more...

He knew it was madness. He knew it would only make things worse. But still - he reached for her. Bent toward her, desperate and blind, searching for what words could not seem to give him.

That was when she struck him.

The slap cracked through the quiet room, abrupt and final. His face burned where her palm had landed, but it was nothing compared to the look on her face.

"You bastard," she whispered, her voice trembling with fury and - God help him - something that sounded like pain.

"Vera -"

"Don't." She pointed at him with a shaky hand. "Don't you dare say my name like that. Like you have any right to it."

He had never seen her like this - her face pale except for the vivid flush staining her cheeks, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. It twisted something like glass in his chest.

"I never meant to -"

"Stay away from me," she hissed, turning on her heel and leaving him alone in the silent, empty room.

Jeeves stood there long after the door had shut behind her. His face still burned where she had struck him and an ache was settling low in his stomach - the ache of wanting her, and of knowing with horrifying certainty that he had just said everything exactly wrong.

What had he done?

[the-perfect-violation]

Jeeves x OFC

///

Summary: The restraint had grated. Vera was not meek by nature, and tamping down her natural edge for the sake of order had left her raw, impatient, and increasingly irritable. She told herself it would only be until the wedding. After that, she would reassess. Recalibrate. Perhaps, even, reclaim the part of herself that didn’t have to watch every word she said in case a man read it the wrong way.

TW: Eventual Smut

Rating: 18+ Mature

Word Count: 5,300

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

Любопытно, чего люди больше всего боятся? Нового шага, нового собственного слова они всего больше боятся...

- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

///

Vera Kovalenko had not spent the weeks since returning from Brinkley Court thinking about Jeeves.

Or rather, she had made a point of trying not to think about him. There was a difference. A critical one. After that night, she had told herself she would retreat and regain her footing later. It had been the right choice. The professional choice. If she had remained sharp and sparring, he might have interpreted it as an invitation. And that - whatever that night at the ball had been - could not be repeated.

And so she had bitten her tongue. Censored herself. She had stayed neutral and cool and perfectly uninteresting. He couldn’t possibly mistake silence for flirtation, and that had been the goal.

Still, the restraint had grated. She was not meek by nature, and tamping down her natural edge for the sake of order had left her raw, impatient, and increasingly irritable. She told herself it would only be until the wedding. After that, she would reassess. Recalibrate. Perhaps, even, reclaim the part of herself that didn’t have to watch every word she said in case a man read it the wrong way.

When Margo sent Jeeves with her for that long day of errands, she had been wary - wary enough to bring a book for the cab, wary enough to plan how she might cut the day short if he started in with whatever quiet performance he thought passed for charm.

What she hadn’t expected was to enjoy it. She had anticipated awkwardness, silences, the kind of brittle civility that made even the shortest conversation unbearable. But instead, they had moved together with practiced ease. For the first time since the ball, he didn’t feel like a threat to her equilibrium. He felt familiar. And - God help her - interesting.

She had forgotten how good he was in conversation. How cleanly he thought. How he could follow the thread of an argument and return it, tighter and sharper, without ever seeming cruel. She liked talking to him. She liked that he didn’t try to flatter her. That he listened. That he had a quiet, dry kind of humor that only surfaced if you knew where to look for it.

She hadn’t meant to let her guard down. But there was something about the rhythm of their day - something about the way he gave her space without making it feel like distance - that made it easier to breathe. Maybe, she had thought, it was his way of making amends. If she were in his shoes, she would be a little embarrassed too. She had shut him down rather definitively that night. Perhaps he had simply realized he had misunderstood. Perhaps he wanted to pretend it never happened. And perhaps - if she was being honest - she wouldn’t mind that either.

So she hadn’t snapped. She hadn’t steeled herself. And when he had said something genuinely clever over tea - something dry and unrepeatable and perfectly timed - she had smirked. It had been involuntary and she regretted it the moment it happened. Because the look on his face - just the flicker of it - had been something dangerously close to hopeful.

After that, he began showing up more frequently.

Always with a reason, naturally. There was no fanfare, no overstepping. Just the occasional knock on the townhouse door - quiet, punctual, entirely justifiable. A question about Bertie’s wardrobe. A discussion about the timeline for the packing and transfer of belongings. A quick confirmation of the floor plan for the second floor, as he intended to set up Mr. Wooster’s dressing room with optimal efficiency while his employer honeymooned through Italy.

And it wasn’t as though Vera had time to dwell on it. The pace of the household had accelerated into a near-manic rhythm as the wedding approached. She spent most days on her feet, a notebook always within reach, her sleep measured in broken increments. She hadn’t read a novel in weeks. She hadn’t written anything of her own in longer.

So when Jeeves happened to arrive on a rainy Tuesday with a parcel under one arm and a quiet offer to take her list of evening errands off her hands - “If you would permit me, Miss Kovalenko, I shall be passing the grocer’s anyway” - she accepted with a nod and a mumbled thanks. He left without pressing her further, and when she returned that night to find everything handled, down to the precise type of honey Margo liked stirred into her tea, she had the passing thought that he might be tolerable after all.

The cook, Mrs. Lefebvre, had begun to watch the rhythm of these visits with open amusement. “That valet of Mr. Wooster’s has taken quite a liking to our front steps,” she remarked one afternoon while rolling out dough for tartlets. “If he loiters any longer, you’ll have to start charging him rent.” Vera hadn’t responded. She wasn’t sure what she would have said.

She had convinced herself she had control of the situation. She had promised herself that if she just kept her head down, kept moving, kept herself busy, there would be no danger of another... moment. If she could just get through the wedding. Then she would have time to think and plan and analyze.

So when she came back from overseeing the linen delivery and found Jeeves waiting for her in the front hall, she didn’t blink. She only paused to remove her gloves with quiet precision before looking up at him.

“Miss Kovalenko,” he said, inclining his head. “I’ve spoken with Miss Rostova and Mr. Wooster. Given the frequency of Mr. Wooster and my visits, and the volume of preparations still required, they have agreed it would be prudent for me to relocate a few of my work materials here in advance of the wedding. I thought it best to inform you directly.”

His tone, as always, was mild and controlled. There was nothing in it that could be misinterpreted. No pressure. No suggestion of personal motive. But she felt the flicker of something anyway.

“Efficient,” she said, brushing a bit of lint from her sleeve. “I’ll show you your room.”

She led him down the stairs to the basement, the narrow steps echoing softly with their tread. The hallway below was cooler, the walls thick with the scent of stone and polish. It was a quiet floor - apart from the kitchen’s bustle and Lefebvre’s singing, most of the house left it undisturbed. Vera liked it that way.

She stopped in front of the door across from her own.

“This was supposedly a valet’s room once,” she said, unlocking it with the key from the ring she carried in her skirt pocket. “We’ve used it for storage. It’s furnished, more or less. A bit dusty.”

She pushed the door open. The room was small but tidy, with a narrow bed, a chest of drawers, a built-in wardrobe, and a single window that looked out into the railed area below the street. A few boxes lined the wall - extra blankets, outdated lamp covers, a few miscellaneous items that had yet to be claimed or discarded.

“It’s more than adequate,” he said, surveying the space with that same practiced thoroughness she had come to expect.

Together, they began clearing it. Neither of them spoke much. She gestured toward what could be kept, and he carried the rest out with swift, economical movements. The proximity between them felt oddly normal.

Once the room was cleared and the window cracked open to air out the space, she stepped back and dusted her palms off on her skirts.

“Well,” she said, glancing around, “I suppose I might as well give you the full tour.”

“I would be grateful,” he replied.

So she led him back down the hall, showing him the servants’ hall, the kitchen, the dry pantry where Mrs. Lefebvre kept everything arranged with near-military precision. He asked intelligent, specific questions, the sort that made her nod despite herself.

On the ground floor, she pointed out the dining room and the library and the back garden, where someone had strung up lights for the reception.

Upstairs, she showed him the drawing room, the linen cupboards, the settee that Margo kept threatening to replace and never did.

“You’ll want to avoid the third stair here,” she said as they ascended. “It creaks. Loudly.”

“Thank you for the warning.”

The second floor was quiet, the air thinner. Vera stopped outside the guest bath and gestured faintly toward the master bedroom at the end of the hall. “And that,” she said, “is where Miss Rostova will be living in a constant state of hysteria for the next couple weeks.”

“Noted.”

By the time they made their way back down to the basement, the light outside had shifted - cool and late, the edges of the sky beginning to soften.

She opened the door to his new room, leaned against the frame, and crossed her arms.

“Well, it’s yours now,” she said. “If you find anything missing, speak to Mrs. Lefebvre or me.”

Jeeves stepped inside. The lamplight caught on the edge of his jaw as he turned. “Thank you, Miss Kovalenko.”

Her gaze flicked to his, and for the briefest moment, something uncertain passed between them. As though he might say something else - something not entirely required. But before it could happen, she nodded once, sharp and decisive, and turned down the hall.

///

Every time he crossed the threshold into Margo Rostova’s townhouse, something in him… shifted. It was not visible, not measurable, not the sort of thing one could write down in an appointment book or assign a time slot. It was simply that his posture became more exact. His cuffs were checked once more than usual. His tie was tied just a little tighter. He would pause, just briefly, at the top of the steps before descending to the servants’ entrance, as if to steady himself before crossing into the unpredictable territory below.

The unpredictable territory, of course, being Miss Vera Kovalenko.

He told himself he was only happy that they had returned to something resembling normalcy. That was all. She no longer averted her gaze when he entered a room. She did not flinch when he addressed her. There were even - on rare, cautious occasions - comments. Little remarks tossed in his direction with the barest edge of her usual dry wit. 

He began scheduling his errands more carefully. He was, of course, still preparing for the upcoming move from Bertie’s flat. His things needed to be packed, inventoried, and staged for delivery - an undertaking which gave him no small amount of leeway. No one questioned his presence when he arrived at Margo’s townhouse with a list in hand. There was always something to do. Something to check. Something to follow up on.

But it was never just about the lists.

He found himself hoping she would be in the corridor when he arrived. Hoping she might pass through the kitchen while he made tea. Hoping her voice might drift in from the servants’ hall while he finalized arrangements in his new room.

It was alarming. And yet he returned again and again.

Before each visit, he found himself rehearsing things he might say - rehearsing, in fact, the version of himself he wanted her to see. He checked his waistcoat buttons twice. He caught himself wearing cologne more often. His hands grew unsteady only once: the morning he was due to begin moving some of his work effects into the townhouse. Jeeves had taken two hours to pack the trunk. He had packed and unpacked it three times.

It was ridiculous.

He told himself it was not about her. That it was simply the unfamiliarity with this new version of their relationship. That he had grown too used to distance. That was all.

But the lie strained every time she asked him if he needed a second pair of hands to move something. Every time she stood just close enough for her vetiver perfume to drift against his collar. Every time he could sense her opening up just a little bit more. It haunted him - the ghost of her attention clinging like warmth in a room just vacated.

That evening, he had only intended a parting word.

That was all. A brief, courteous farewell before heading back through the damp streets to Berkeley. Mr. Wooster was staying to dine with Miss Rostova - a quiet, romantic affair allegedly meant to calm the bride’s nerves before the wedding chaos reached full crescendo. Jeeves had lingered behind to tidy away a few final parcels and verify the delivery times for the moving crates scheduled to arrive at the flat later in the week. All very proper. All very efficient.

And yet, he found himself now lingering just outside the kitchen.

From within came the soft clatter of plates being stacked and glasses being set down. A low, breathy laugh drifted out - Vera’s. Followed by something muttered in French, deeper and less clipped than her usual tone. He didn’t catch the words. He caught the sound.

It struck him with force - how different her voice became in a different language. Her English was crisp, quick, designed to carry through rooms and silence men twice her size. But in French, it softened, deepened, and rolled. There was something smoky about it, something unguarded. The sound curled around his spine before he could stop it.

He shut that line of thinking down quickly. He ran a hand over the back of his neck and straightened his shoulders.

Then he stepped into the doorway.

The kitchen was warm. The kind of warm that came from long hours of steam and salt and butter clinging to the air. A lamp glowed near the hearth, its light catching against the tiled walls, and somewhere behind the closed door to the scullery, a kettle hummed. Mrs. Lefebvre stood at the stove, swirling a spoon through a copper pot with the kind of idle confidence that only came from decades of repetition. Vera leaned against the countertop beside her, one foot crossed over the other, a half-full glass of wine in her hand and a faint flush in her cheeks. They looked oddly alike, he thought, though Mrs. Lefebvre was several decades older and wore her hair in a tidy knot streaked with grey. But they both carried themselves the same way. Relaxed in a way that resisted intrusion.

He cleared his throat.

Both heads turned. Lefebvre smiled broadly. Vera, for once, did not seem surprised to see him.

“Mr. Jeeves,” Mrs. Lefebvre said, her French accent wrapping elegantly around the syllables. “You’re not running off just yet, are you?”

He inclined his head. “I had intended to take my leave, yes. I merely thought I would offer my thanks - and my goodnight.”

“Oh là là,” the cook tutted. “Such a formal one. Relax. Have a glass before you go. Or, better yet, stay for dinner. There’s more than enough.” She gestured toward the bottle of wine with a wave of her spoon.

He hesitated. His gaze flicked to Vera, who hadn’t spoken. She was watching him with a hint of amusement in her eyes.

“I wouldn’t wish to intrude -”

“Nonsense,” said Lefebvre. “We’ve just sent dinner upstairs. This is our time.” She stood and fetched a third glass from the cabinet without waiting for his answer. “Besides, Miss Kova will sulk if she has to listen to only me for another hour.”

“I would,” Vera said with mock solemnity, pushing herself away from the countertop to take the bottle and pour for him herself. “God forbid I be allowed to suffer in silence.”

He couldn’t stop himself from watching her hands - careful, practiced - as she poured. She didn’t ask how much he wanted. Just gave him the same as herself and pushed the glass toward him without fanfare.

He took it.

The kitchen, now quiet in the wake of the dinner service, felt oddly insulated from the rest of the house. The light overhead was low and golden, catching on the rim of Vera’s glass when she lifted it. He was standing across from her now. Her hair had fallen slightly from its pinning and curled gently at the nape of her neck.

He tried not to look at it.

Mrs. Lefebvre began telling a story about a disastrous wedding feast she had once catered in Marseille. It involved a rogue terrine, a broken bottle of Chartreuse, and a guest who mistook horseradish for crème fraîche. Vera laughed - once, fully - and Jeeves found himself gripping his wineglass a little too tightly.

It was strange, this setting. Not just the wine, not just the informality, but the ease of it. The three of them standing here like they belonged to the same household. Like he and Vera were colleagues. Friends, even. Something closer than they had ever been before. She didn’t seem wary tonight. She didn’t seem calculating. She smiled more freely. And though she didn’t direct many comments to him, she didn’t avoid his gaze either.

Once or twice, their eyes met, and she didn’t immediately look away.

He wondered if she was relaxing because of the wine or because she had finally decided to let her guard down again. If she believed his intentions had changed. If she thought, perhaps, that the awkwardness of the ball was finally behind them.

He wondered what she would do if he reached out and tucked that strand of hair back behind her ear.

He did not do it.

Instead, he took another sip of wine and listened to her argue with Mrs. Lefebvre over whether lemon zest had any place in a coq au vin. She argued with enthusiasm, gesturing once with her glass, her English thickened slightly by the French phrases she kept dipping into. He thought it might be the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

And when she laughed again, low and surprised at something the cook muttered, Jeeves felt something slip loose in his chest - something precarious and warm and not entirely under his control.

He would stay for dinner. Even if it was unwise. Even if it was impractical. Even if he should have walked out the door the moment he had the chance.

The small table had been set with unfussy elegance - just three plates, a linen napkin folded with the kind of casual grace only someone like Mrs. Lefebvre could manage, and the remains of the bottle of wine, now joined by a second. Vera lit a single taper candle without fanfare and placed it at the center of the table.

It was absurd, Jeeves thought, how intimate it all looked.

He took his seat across from Vera with practiced neutrality. She wore her fatigue well - rolled sleeves, slightly wine-pink cheeks, her hair a little undone in a way that should have made her look disheveled, but didn’t. She looked, if anything, more herself. The light caught the curve of her mouth when she smiled at Mrs. Lefebvre’s jokes and Jeeves, with all his discipline, still nearly forgot what he was supposed to be doing.

He sat straighter - not that it helped.

Lefebvre brought over the roasted chicken and placed it between them with the pride of a woman who knew exactly how impressive it was.

“There,” she said, setting down a small dish of green beans beside it. “Nothing fancy, just good food.”

“I’ve never met a fancy meal that satisfied the way yours do,” Vera said, helping herself to the salad.

“Such flattery,” Lefebvre sighed, lifting her glass. “Now if only you would say the same in front of that brute of a wine merchant who keeps trying to sell me Italian reds.”

“I think he’s in love with you.”

“Maybe - but that doesn’t excuse bad taste.”

Jeeves watched them volley effortlessly, every comment landing with gentle amusement. Vera was not usually so unguarded in company - certainly not his. It struck him that this was a version of her not often seen outside these walls: warmer, less defensive. Perhaps that was what this old townhouse and Mrs. Lefebvre offered her - safety. Familiarity.

What did he offer?

He hadn’t answered the question before Vera turned her attention to him, tilting her head just slightly.

“White or dark meat, Mr. Jeeves?”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“For the chicken.” She held the serving fork aloft, one brow raised, as though amused that he hadn’t been listening.

“Ah. Dark, if you please.”

She carved with brisk efficiency, deposited the portion on his plate with only a hint of smugness, and returned to her own dinner without commentary.

He was oddly grateful for that.

Dinner progressed easily - conversation drifting from the dismal state of city roads (“They’ve been repairing the same stretch outside the butcher’s for six months,” Lefebvre complained, “and it’s somehow worse than when they started.”), to a spirited debate about whether the library needed reorganizing.

“You’re trying to kill me,” Vera said flatly when Lefebvre suggested moving the poetry to the drawing room.

“I’m trying to ensure your guests stop wandering through the hallways looking for something to read.”

“If they can’t find the library, they don’t deserve poetry,” Vera muttered, sipping her wine. “And anyways, how would you know guests are wandering the halls if you hadn’t been snooping upstairs?”

Lefebvre cackled, then turned the full force of her smile on Jeeves. “And what do you think, Mr. Jeeves? Should Byron live among the brandy decanters?”

“I’m not certain Lord Byron would object,” he replied evenly, cutting a piece of chicken. “But I imagine his publisher might.”

That earned a pleased chuckle from Vera, low and genuine. It was the most wonderful thing he had seen all week.

He was becoming dangerous to himself.

The realization struck him then without warning - sharp, almost violent in its suddenness.

It wasn’t the candlelight or the wine. It wasn’t the softness in Vera’s voice when she laughed at one of Lefebvre’s jokes or the way she twisted her fork idly as she listened. It was all of it. Everything. Every detail of her had built toward this moment like a slow, unsparing crescendo. The way she moved, deliberate and composed. The way she spoke with that measured dryness that veiled sharp intelligence. The way she looked at him now and again, unbothered, utterly unbothered, as if he didn’t burn to be noticed.

God .

He wanted her.

The weight of it should have startled him, but instead it settled like something inevitable. Of course he did. How could he not? Her wit had always been formidable, but it was the discipline beneath it that undid him. The composure. The clarity. The way she saw through affectation and demanded authenticity in return. He wanted her beside him, near him, in all those small, unremarkable ways that added up to intimacy.

The thought was hideous in its finality.

Worse - very much worse - he knew it wasn’t new. He had been falling for her all along, one argument at a time. 

He tried to summon reason, but it wouldn’t hold. Not when he let himself imagine what she might say if he told her. It would be something devastating. “Good,” maybe. Or worse: “It’s about time.”

And he would laugh. Or try to. And then - because he couldn’t hold himself back any longer - he would kiss her. He would kiss her like a man who meant it. Gently, at first. Properly. She would kiss him back and he would touch her face and it would be real.

The longing that bloomed at the thought was almost unbearable.

He blinked, throat tight, and when he glanced up, he realized - too late - that Lefebvre was watching him from the head of the table, her expression caught somewhere between amusement and pity.

His face flushed hot. He schooled his features into neutrality. Or tried to.

“So, Mr. Jeeves,” she began, dabbing at her lips with a napkin and turning toward him with sharp interest, “you’ve worked for Mr. Wooster how long now?”

“Since the end of 1920,” Jeeves replied. “Just over eight years now.”

“A long time to stay in one place,” she said, approving. “That means you are either very loyal, or very stubborn.”

“Perhaps a bit of both,” he allowed, glancing briefly toward Vera, who was busy nudging her plate into a neater position. “And you? I gather you’ve been here for some time.”

Lefebvre tilted her head. “Just under two years.”

“She arrived in the middle of Margo’s great phase of culinary experimentation and saved us all from a very undignified end,” Vera supplied. 

Lefebvre gave a modest shrug, but the grin that followed was unmistakably pleased. “And with her,” she indicated Vera with a jerk of her chin, “it was… How do you say?... Written in the stars.”

Jeeves arched a brow. “Indeed?”

Vera lifted her wine glass, swirling the last inch of red slowly along the bowl. “Our names,” she said, “are basically the same. Lefebvre and Kovalenko - both mean something like ‘Smith.’ Hers comes from the Latin, mine from the Slavic.”

“ C'était manifestement le destin ,” Lefebvre said, reaching for a napkin. 

Jeeves glanced at Vera, whose expression was unreadable in the soft kitchen light. Her fingers traced the rim of her glass absently, her gaze distant for a moment - then the bell rang from upstairs, sharp and clean.

Lefebvre stood at once. “That will be the dining room. I’ll go see what they’ve destroyed.”

She adjusted her apron and headed briskly toward the stairs, leaving the warm light and the two of them alone in the quiet kitchen.

For a few seconds, neither moved.

Then Vera gathered the plates and stood, moving toward the sink without ceremony. Jeeves followed, collecting the glasses and cutlery with practiced grace. There was an ease to it - habitual, wordless, almost domestic. And it struck him again, that same dangerous pang: the sense that he would like to do this again. To do this often.

He stood beside her as she turned on the tap. The soft clink of porcelain under water, the faint steam rising in the air - it felt like a vignette from some other life. A quieter one. A life he had never imagined himself in and yet now found all too easy to slip into. Her dark blonde hair curled slightly in the steam, a few loose strands clinging to the pale line of her neck. She stood in profile, sleeves rolled back, freckles stark against her fair skin, her hands steady and capable as they moved through the sink - utterly absorbed, and utterly unaware of what she was doing to him.

“Where did you learn French?” he asked at last.

“School,” she said. “We started young in Russia. But I really cemented the knowledge when I worked in Paris for a year.” She handed him a cleaned plate and he began to dry it.

“As a lady’s maid?”

She shook her head. “Translator’s assistant, actually. It was a terrible job. The man was always late, and his handwriting was impossible to decipher. But the city was beautiful and the position opened up opportunities here in London.” She turned to glance at him. “You speak some, don’t you? French? Enough to follow along when Mrs. Lefebvre speaks?”

“Enough to understand for the most part, yes. I am better with reading. But I lack fluency in conversation.”

Before she could respond, the door opened and Lefebvre returned with a tray of dishes from upstairs.

They finished cleaning up quickly, the routine efficient, nearly wordless. Vera washed, passed things off to him. He dried, stacked, tucked everything away in its place. Lefebvre wiped counters and swept. He folded the towel neatly when they were done and set it beside the sink. For a moment, the three stood there in the quiet kitchen, hands idle for the first time all evening.

“ Merci, monsieur . I look forward to you joining the household permanently,” Lefebvre said, giving him a quick, satisfied nod before moving off toward the pantry.

Jeeves inclined his head to Lefebvre, murmured a quiet word of thanks, and turned to collect his coat from the peg near the door. He slipped it on with practiced ease, fingers lingering on the lapel as if adjusting it could somehow steady his racing thoughts. A foolish hope. He was not steady. He hadn’t been steady all evening.

He meant to say goodnight. To offer something smooth and neutral to Vera - something functional, professional, familiar. But when he looked at her, still standing by the sink, her sleeves damp, something about the sight of her rooted him to the floor.

“Miss Kovalenko,” he said at last.

She looked over, brow raised in mild inquiry.

“I should be going.”

She nodded, casual, but not indifferent. “Of course. Thank you for your help.”

Her tone was clean. Friendly, even. But it made his throat tighten all the same. He was suddenly afraid he had imagined it - that ease between them, that spark. That dinner had been nothing more than kindness from her and foolishness from him.

“Goodnight,” she added, stepping closer to hand him his umbrella, which he had propped against the door earlier.

“Goodnight,” he echoed.

Then, before he could stop himself, his eyes lifted to her face - and there it was. The quiet, attentive look she always gave him when she was trying to decide whether he was worth answering. Not affectionate. Not cold. Just present . Seeing him.

He nodded again - sharper this time, an attempt to ground himself - and turned toward the door before he did something irrevocable.

The rain had returned in earnest. It fell in steady lines through the yellow pool of lamplight outside the servants’ entrance, dappling the slick stone steps as he climbed back up toward the street. He opened the umbrella with a mechanical gesture, the fabric snapping wide above him.

As he walked, the rain softened to a hush against the umbrella’s canopy. The streets of Mayfair gleamed in the streetlights, cobbles slick, puddles rimmed in orange. Shopfronts were shuttered, the occasional car passed at a distance, and the world felt unusually quiet - like it had agreed to let him with his thoughts for the night.

And oh, were they loud.

He didn’t try to bat them away. Not tonight. Not after that. His heart felt lighter than it had in months - perhaps lighter than it ever had - and he let it, just for the length of the walk, fill up the space between footsteps. He let it echo in his chest and curl warm in his throat. He let himself smile. Not broadly, not foolishly, but with that quiet sort of giddiness that made his breath catch when he remembered the curve of her mouth over the wineglass.

It wasn’t relief, exactly, that he felt - though something about finally admitting it to himself had the texture of air after a long submersion. But it was more than that. It was clarity. He wanted her. And now he knew it.

He tried, in vain, to remind himself that in reality nothing had changed. That she had not invited this feeling. That she most likely did not return it. That he could manage it and that he should.

The rain clung to his coat. The bottoms of his trousers were damp. His shoulders ached faintly from holding the umbrella against the wind. But none of it mattered.

His heart felt alive in a way that made him almost foolish. As though the world might crack open into something new if she so much as smiled at him like that again. He could almost laugh. And he did - quietly, to himself, a breath of disbelief in the dark.

He adjusted his gloves. The gesture helped compose him. He did not need to think about what came next. Not yet. He would return to Berkeley. He would dry off. And tomorrow, he would go back to the townhouse. There would be a move to manage. A bedroom to set up. Perhaps some quiet joke over tea.

For now, he simply walked, and let the ache of wanting her bloom unimpeded in his chest.

[the-perfect-violation]

Jeeves x OFC

///

Summary: Margo studied Kova now through the mirror, considering her next move. The woman before her was too careful, too guarded, but Margo had never been one to let caution get in the way of something good.

TW: Eventual Smut

Rating: 18+ Mature

Word Count: 3,800

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

I shot an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight

Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,

That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak

I found the arrow, still unbroke;

And the song, from beginning to end,

I found again in the heart of a friend.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Arrow and the Song

///

Margarita Rostova's London townhouse was no dignified ancestral hall, but it was grand enough for her tastes. Tucked into a quiet square in Mayfair, the building was all red brick and wrought-iron balconies, filled with high ceilings, gold-accented fixtures, and the occasional relic smuggled out of pre-revolutionary Russia. For the better part of three years, it had been home to her and the small staff she kept. She had purchased it with a generous portion of the funds left in trust by her late father - who had wisely transferred the family's wealth to offshore banks before the revolution swept through their homeland. Back then, she had only just emigrated to Britain, newly accepted into Girton and realizing with uncharacteristic certainty that her future lay in Albion.

A few years later, she hired the woman who turned out to be her right hand. Vera Kovalenko arrived on her doorstep with sharp eyes, sharper opinions, and a talent for ensuring that even the most chaotic affairs ran with shocking precision. There was something else, too - something Margo never said aloud. Kova was Russian. Not just in name or accent (although even that she had learned to suppress), but in the bone-deep way she carried silence and loyalty like a second skin. And in her presence, Margo was reminded - not painfully, but with a kind of wistful ache - of a country she no longer belonged to, of a home that existed now only in memory.

What began as a simple employer-servant arrangement swiftly evolved into something more akin to friendship, an unspoken partnership. Where Margo's ideas tended toward the extravagant and impractical, Kova had the skill to mold them into reality. They worked in a rhythm that was effortless and instinctive, each balancing the other's faults. Margo dreamed, and Kova executed.

It was during one of her more extravagant impulses - an ill-fated attempt to join one of Honoria Glossop's hunts - that Margarita met Bertram Wooster. Her horse, a spirited grey she had no business riding, had thrown her. Bertie, who was riding close behind, dismounted at once to assist her. Marg was more amused than embarrassed and had laughed as he helped her up, and by the time the two of them were back at Ditteredge Hall, she had decided he was the most charming creature she had ever encountered. Bertie, flustered but enchanted, couldn't stay away from her. The rest unfolded as easily as one of Kova’s perfectly pressed gowns - an odd match, perhaps, but one that worked with surprising ease.

And now, with only a few weeks until the wedding, the townhouse buzzed with preparations - silver polished to a gleam, floors waxed to a high shine, trunks and parcels stacked neatly by the stairwell, and the air heavy with the scent of smoke and cold.

Kova had hardly paused for breath. Between helping to manage the staff, overseeing last-minute deliveries, and smoothing out the inevitable crises that accompanied any large event, she had taken it upon herself to ensure that Margo's wedding unfolded with seamless perfection. Most of Margo's honeymoon luggage was already packed - an elegant, practical selection befitting a long tour of the Italian countryside - and the wedding dress itself had become a near-constant fixture in Kova’s hands. The gown had arrived weeks prior from a Parisian atelier, but Kova could not resist the urge to make her own minute adjustments.

Margo, now seated before her dressing table, tilted her head slightly to the side while Kova slid a pin into her hair. She worked with the precision of someone determined not to leave room for error, her brows drawn in concentration, her fingers deft. For a woman usually so quick with a wry comment, she had been unusually quiet since their return from Brinkley Court.

And Margo had noticed.

She had noticed the way Kova had thrown herself into the wedding preparations with almost military discipline, as if keeping herself occupied would keep something else at bay. She had noticed the way her humor, while still smart, had taken on a harder edge, especially when Bertie had arrived for dinner a few nights back with Jeeves in tow, purportedly to assist with the wine pairings. Jeeves had hovered like a ghost and Kova had barely spoken a word beyond what duty demanded. And she had certainly noticed the night of the servants' ball - how when Kova had slipped back inside from the terrace, her eyes were dark, mouth set firmly in a line. She had gone straight upstairs without so much as a glance at the remaining revelers.

Margo, no stranger to intrigue, had filed the moment away with a keen sense that something had happened. And whatever it was, she would unearth it.

She had suspected something between them for a while now. Oh, Kova could roll her eyes all she liked, could dismiss Jeeves with those little barbs of hers, but Margo knew her. Knew the way she hoarded her affections, the way she locked them away where no one could reach them. And yet - she had seen the way Kova looked at Jeeves when she thought no one was watching, had seen the way her sharpness turned measured in his presence, how their subtle arguments always carried just a little too much weight, as if neither of them could ever quite let go.

And Jeeves - well, if Margo hadn’t known better, she would have thought the man was actively torturing himself. She had caught him watching Kova when she moved about a room, his gaze flickering toward her like a moth drawn despite itself to the flame. She had seen him ask Kova to dance and she had seen him follow her out onto the terrace that night. 

No, she was convinced they were absolutely perfect for each other. And the only thing standing in their way was their own damned pride.

Margo studied Kova now through the mirror, considering her next move. The woman before her was too careful, too guarded, but Margo had never been one to let caution get in the way of something good.

"Kova," Margo spoke at last, stretching her arms out with a languid sigh. "You've been awfully serious lately. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were the one getting married."

She didn't look up. "If I were the one getting married, everything would already be finished," she said dryly, tugging another strand of hair into place.

"Yes, well, I suppose we cannot all be terrifyingly competent." Margo smiled, but her eyes stayed fixed on Vera's face in the mirror. "Still - I can't help but feel that you've changed since our time at Brinkley. You're quieter… Brooding, almost." She tilted her head again, voice growing softer. "Is something on your mind?"

The briefest pause. Just a flicker, a slight hesitation in the movement of her fingers, but Margo caught it.

"Not at all," Kova said smoothly. "I have no time for brooding, not with your wedding looming over us all like a royal coronation."

Margo laughed, though she was not so easily deterred. "That isn't quite an answer, darling."

"I'm fine, really," Vera said.

"And yet, you aren't quite the same." Margo let the silence stretch a beat longer before adding, with deliberate carelessness, "I do wonder if perhaps you've been preoccupied with… other matters."

That earned her a glance - brief but assessing. "If you're implying that I've neglected my duties, you could simply say so."

Margo laughed softly, waving a hand. "You know I'd never accuse you of such a thing. Only - if there were something on your mind, I hope you know you could tell me." She pitched her voice just right - casual, affectionate - nothing that would invite retreat.

Kova didn't answer immediately. When she did, her tone was as smooth and precise as ever. "You're imagining things, Miss Rostova."

"Perhaps." Margo let it go with a shrug, though the spark of curiosity only burned brighter. Whatever was bothering her, she wasn't ready to say - and pushing would only make her more guarded.

Instead, Margo shifted her attention to a more underhanded approach. "In any case," she said, stretching her arms above her head, "I've decided to send you out on a few errands around town today. Do you think you'd have time for that?"

Kova looked up, brows lifting. “Today?”

"Yes, there are a few things I simply must have before the wedding, and I need someone capable to make sure they're exactly right." She smiled sweetly. 

"Consider it done," Kova said swiftly, presumably relieved to have an excuse to escape the house for a day.

Game, set, match.

"Wonderful." Margo leaned back in her chair, watching her with quiet satisfaction. "I’ve arranged for Jeeves to accompany you - he’s been helping coordinate a few things on Bertie’s behalf, and I thought an extra pair of eyes might be useful. I hope you don’t mind."

///

The cab rolled steadily through the London mist, the soft clatter of its wheels mingling with the dull hiss of rain against the rooftop. The windows were fogged around the edges, streaked by rivulets of water that fractured the light of passing lights. Inside, the air was warm and close, and Jeeves sat with his posture impeccably straight, his gloves folded neatly on his knee and his eyes fixed somewhere far beyond the glass.

Beside him - just inches away, yet somehow still out of reach - sat Vera.

Her coat collar was turned up against the cold, her gloves still damp where they rested against the smooth cover of her book. A copy of Cicero’s Tusculanae Disputationes, translated and worn with use. She hadn’t looked up since they had shared a few short pleasantries as they left Margo’s townhouse. Her expression remained neutral, her eyes tracking lines of text with mechanical steadiness. She hadn’t turned a page in some time.

Jeeves watched the rain for a while. Not truly seeing it. The city passed in soft, indistinct blurs. It had been nearly a month since Brinkley Court - since the servants’ ball, the terrace, the look in her eyes when she said “Don't you dare.” A month since she had begun avoiding him with the same precision she once used to challenge him.

He had accomplished what he set out to do. That was the part he kept repeating to himself, quietly and often. The matter had required a corrective. She had overstepped. She had interfered. And in a household destined to merge under a single Wooster-Rostova banner, order had to be restored before such interference became routine. His methods had been unorthodox, perhaps, but effective.

He had, by all measures, won their little game.

She had not questioned his decisions once since that night. Not challenged him, not obstructed, not spoken to him unless strictly necessary. The future Wooster household, when it finally unified, would run with clockwork efficiency.

It was everything he had wanted.

And yet - he had found himself, more often than he liked to admit, haunted by silence and the absence of what used to fill that space. Her voice, laced with mockery. The lift of her brow when she smelled an ulterior motive. The slyness in the way she questioned him - not because she doubted his answer, but because she wanted to see how he would frame it.

He hadn’t realized he would miss it. Not until it vanished.

He had only seen her a handful of times since Brinkley. The Wooster and Rostova residences remained separate and their professional overlap had been limited. There were still the occasional dinners, the shared errands, the formalities of engaged employers. But in every interaction, she remained resolutely removed. She was always professional, always polite, but never more. And he - well, he had allowed it.

At first.

But with each week that passed, he found himself reassessing. It could not go on like this. He had thought - hoped - that it would fade naturally. But it hadn’t. The silence between them had calcified into something unsustainable. He told himself he had to put an end to it for practical reasons - the need for future cooperation in a unified household, the importance of mutual understanding. He told himself it had nothing to do with how he felt when she looked through him as though he were not there.

He refused to name the feeling.

She had every reason, of course. From her perspective, he had spent the entire evening in pursuit, culminating in cornering her on a terrace and attempting to kiss her. She believed it had been real - believed, absurdly, that he desired her, and that everything between them leading up to that night had been proof of it. And that belief had cost them something.

He had wanted to make her uncomfortable. He had wanted to remind himself that she was not above his manipulation. But he had not anticipated how much he would miss the original arrangement - hostile, sharp, bracing as it was. Her current compliance felt like defeat. And he found he could not stomach it.

Still, now that she had retreated, now that the dynamic had tilted so completely, he wasn’t sure how to reverse it. He couldn’t apologize. That would require admitting to an error. And he could not explain himself, because the explanation would sound like sentiment.

But he could open a door.

If she walked through it - fine. If not, then at least he would know where he stood.

He cast another glance at her.

The book. Of course she had brought a book.

It annoyed him more than it should have. It was a shield, transparent and obvious. She was ignoring him intentionally, and something about the pointed neutrality of her posture, the careful angle of her shoulder just away from his, made him feel strangely irrelevant to her.

He turned back to the window. Then spoke, low and conversational:

“Cicero, Miss Kovalenko?”

She didn’t turn her head. “Mm.”

“I must admit,” he continued, voice carefully light, “you never struck me as the idealistic type.”

That earned him a flick of her eyes. Not a true glance. Just enough to register irritation. She turned a page. “Is that what you think of him? An idealist?”

“I do,” he said, as if musing aloud. “A man who believed rhetoric alone could halt the decline of a crumbling republic. Admirable, certainly. But naïve.”

He paused, considering how far to press.

“I would have expected someone with your temperament to prefer pragmatists.”

There was a moment of silence. Then, quietly:

“I’ve always thought of pragmatism as a means, not an end.”

He let out a faint breath - less relief than recognition. It was the first real thing she had said to him in weeks.

“You admire him, then,” he said, not quite looking at her.

“I admire him for trying,” she said. “Even when he knew it wouldn’t work.”

Her voice had shifted. Not soft, but real. The stiffness had gone out of it.

“You surprise me,” he said, still watching the blurred city beyond the window. “I wouldn’t have thought you inclined toward lost causes.”

She didn’t smile, but something in her expression shifted - just slightly. “Just because a thing is doomed doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.”

The words stayed with him longer than they should have. Even after the cab turned onto the next street. Even after she finally - finally - closed the book.

He felt something in him ease, like a wire loosening from its tension.

Against all odds, their conversation stretched onward, quiet and measured. Philosophical, but with sharp edges. He found her again in that space - in argument, in implication. Not quite back to form, but moving. She spoke without flinching now. And as she did, something in him settled that had been unquiet for weeks.

///

The rain did not let up as they moved through it. It pelted the city in clean, relentless sheets, blurring the edges of buildings and turning the streets to liquid grey. Jeeves held her umbrella steady as Vera stood just beneath it, flipping through the folded parchment of Margo’s task list, the ink beginning to smudge near the corners. Her gloves were damp. He watched a single drop trace a path down her temple before she brushed it away with a flick of her wrist.

“We’ll have to skip the second stationer,” she murmured, scanning the page. “But if we finish the florist quickly, we should still make the appointment with the modiste.”

Jeeves adjusted the umbrella slightly to cover more of her shoulder. “Agreed. And the delivery for Mr. Wooster’s cufflinks is expected just after four. We’ll want to be back near Berkeley by then.”

She gave a short nod and reached to take her umbrella from him before stepping into motion.

They moved through the city with practiced precision, no hesitation, no wasted words. At Fortnum’s, she handled the invoice for Margo’s hair combs while he discussed cut length and pearl setting for Bertie’s evening studs. At the florist, they split off with barely a look exchanged - she to correct a mistaken arrangement, he to confirm the address and payment details for two separate deliveries. At every stop, she anticipated the next step just as he did, handed him the right note before he asked for it. It was seamless, nearly mechanical in its efficiency.

There was, however, nothing mechanical in how it made him feel.

Jeeves had long admired competence, but Vera’s was something else. It was elegant. Instinctive. They moved like matched gears in a well-wound mechanism, and he realized - somewhere between the fifth errand and the sixth - that he was beginning to enjoy himself. Not in the mild, intellectual way he appreciated successful planning, but in the more dangerous, more human way of finding satisfaction in her nearness.

It made him wish the list were longer.

At half past two, with their last task momentarily delayed - a parcel at the calligrapher’s still waiting to be wrapped - they stood again under the overhang of a narrow shopfront, the rain hissing against the awning. Across the street, the windows of a small café glowed gold and inviting. Inside, people leaned over steam-blurred china, coats hung on the backs of chairs, the clink of silver against porcelain muffled by the glass.

He glanced at her without meaning to.

She was looking at the café too, arms crossed lightly over her chest, lips pressed together in something that wasn’t quite a frown. She caught him watching her and seemed to consider, just briefly, what it would look like - what it might imply.

Then, carefully, as though testing the balance of the idea aloud: “We have half an hour.”

He raised a brow. “Indeed.”

After a beat, she added, flat, cautious: “We should get out of the rain.”

He waited.

Then: “Tea, Mr. Jeeves?”

He inclined his head. “Of course, Miss Kovalenko.”

They crossed the street in silence and took the corner table at the back - shielded from the windows, from view. He ordered black tea. She asked for Earl Grey. The silence that followed was not strained. It was... curious. They sat just slightly off balance, as if each was waiting for the other to pull too far, to risk the ice cracking.

But once the tea arrived and the first careful sips had passed between them, something began to shift.

It wasn’t deliberate. It happened gradually, like a tightening thread unwinding.

They began talking.

Nothing of consequence at first. Errands. Deadlines. The poor state of the calligrapher’s penmanship. But the conversation shifted, almost imperceptibly, into more familiar terrain - books, writers, half-formed opinions exchanged over thin china cups. She brought up something he had once mentioned in passing about Doestoyevsky, months ago, in a conversation she had no reason to remember. But she had. And when she asked - carefully, casually - if he still preferred Chekhov to Tolstoy, he raised a brow and replied, “Of course - only because Chekhov knew when to stop.”

To his surprise, that earned him a glance - and then, unmistakably, the curve of a smirk. Just the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth. The kind of thing he might have missed if he hadn’t spent so long wishing it would return.

It struck him with the force of a tide.

He wanted her to do it again. He wanted to sit here and do this with her again.

The thought unnerved him. Not because it was sudden - but because it wasn’t. Because it had been there, unspoken, gathering weight and dust for longer than he cared to admit. He watched her sip her tea, eyes lowered to the rim of the cup, and felt the barest pull in his chest - a curious, unfamiliar sensation that he made a swift mental note to address later, at a safer remove.

For now, he folded it like paper, labeled it unexplored and dangerous, and tucked it away.

The calligrapher’s parcel was ready precisely when expected. They retrieved it in silence, and she thanked the clerk with a smile that made something in his jaw tighten.

By the time they reached Margo’s townhouse, the sky had sunk into a deeper grey, the rain thinning to a steady mist that softened the edges of the streetlamps and cobbled stones. The light in the front windows was warm, catching on the brass fittings of the door. Jeeves held the umbrella as Vera unlocked the gate and led the way down the narrow stairs to the servants’ entrance, her heels careful on the slick stone. He followed with the parcels, the weight of the day - or something else entirely - settling low in his chest.

She pushed the door open and stepped inside first, flicking on the low lamp in the hallway just beyond. The quiet warmth of the house curled around them. He set the boxes neatly inside, just beneath the coat pegs. When he straightened, she was there beside him.

“Thank you,” she said, brushing a damp curl from her cheek. “For bringing everything in.”

He inclined his head, pulse stubbornly audible in his ears. “Of course, Miss Kovalenko.”

For a moment, she looked like she might say something else. Her eyes searched his face, cautious but not cold. He waited.

But instead, she drew in a breath and nodded once. “Goodnight, Mr. Jeeves.”

“Goodnight,” he replied, stepping back as the door clicked shut behind him.

He stood there a moment longer beneath the dripping awning, rain murmuring against his coat. The cab still waited just up the road - but instead of getting into it, he settled with the driver, then turned down the street on foot.

It was a twenty minute walk to Berkeley.

But the night was cold and he needed the air.

[the-perfect-violation]

Jeeves x OFC

///

Summary: Jeeves was unsettled. Miss Kovalenko should not unsettle him.

TW: Eventual Smut

Rating: 18+ Mature

Word Count: 5,300

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

Si vis pacem, para bellum.

///

Jeeves was unsettled.

Miss Kovalenko should not unsettle him. And yet, throughout the day, his thoughts circled back - relentlessly, involuntarily - to the sight of her in the servants’ hall the night before. She had been a vision carved in defiance. He had approached her expecting contrition, or at the very least professional acknowledgment of wrongdoing. What he received instead was a dressing down, executed with such infuriating composure that he could still feel the sting of it behind his temples.

He had not lost control at least. But he had certainly not put her in her place.

She had made that perfectly clear.

He had passed by the servants’ hall three times that afternoon. Once, ostensibly to retrieve a correspondence. A second time, to confirm the grocery delivery had included a new bar of soap for Mr. Wooster. He forgot what the third was for. Each time, she was there - seated at the long worktable, a dark slip of green silk spread across the table in front of her like something alive. Her head bowed, her hands moving with quiet precision. She was still. Focused. Entirely unaware - or perhaps entirely aware - of the effect she had on the room simply by remaining in it.

By the fourth time, he told himself he had no reason to look in on her again.

And yet, when the house finally settled into its evening quiet, he found himself drifting toward the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea. That, at least, was his justification.

And there she was. Still.

Vera sat with her back to the door, needle working steadily through silk that caught the low lamplight and made it gleam. Her posture was relaxed, almost languid, but her hands betrayed the truth - exacting, firm. She handled fabric like it owed her obedience.

He stepped inside, moving to the counter without a word, but her voice sliced cleanly through the quiet before he could speak.

“Do you need something, Mr. Jeeves?” she asked, not bothering to glance up. “Or have you come to try to intimidate me again?”

The casualness of it - the precision - grated against the taut edge of his restraint.

“I assure you, Miss Kovalenko,” he said, each syllable measured, “intimidation is quite unnecessary. I am merely preparing myself a cup of tea.”

“Ah, of course,” she said lightly.

He set the kettle on the stove, more sharply than intended. When he turned, she was still working, unmoved. Her mouth curled faintly at the corner.

His lips thinned.

He stepped closer - not to confront, but to observe. That’s what he told himself. The dress in her lap shimmered under the light, finer than he expected, the sort of silk that refused to forgive error. Her stitching was flawless. She had worked at this with focus, with purpose, with care.

“You have spent quite some time on that,” he remarked, tone clipped.

She looked up and a smirk crept its way across her features. “Oh you know - with the right hands, a few careful hours can make all the difference.”

He smoothed the edge of the tea tin with his thumb, a slow, unconscious motion, before pressing the lid closed with more force than necessary.

“And what, may I ask, is the occasion?”

She tilted her head slightly. “Miss Rostova suggested I attend the servants’ ball with her tomorrow night. This was one of her old gowns - she insisted I take it. Said it deserved another night on the floor.”

“I was not aware you intended to participate in such affairs,” he said.

Her gaze dipped back to the silk in her lap. “Is that disapproval I hear, Mr. Jeeves?”

He did not answer right away. It took effort - more than it should - to find the neutral edge of his voice. “Merely an observation.”

“Mm.” She gave him a look like polished steel - patient, cutting. “And what about you? Will you be going?”

“I find my time is better spent attending to more pressing matters.”

Her soft laugh stirred something beneath the still surface of him - sharp, intimate, unwelcome.

“Of course,” she said, and bent back over her work. “I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

He lingered longer than was appropriate. Long enough to watch her knot off a stitch, smooth the fabric with her palm, and tilt her head just slightly to inspect her work as if there were still some flaw worth hunting.

Then, without another word, he turned and left, his tea forgotten.

And as he walked, his thoughts looped - not around the dress, nor even the image of her dancing - but around the quiet, humiliating truth of it: he could not get the better of her. Not when they were alone. Not when her eyes were on him like that.

She had begun to see it, too. That was the worst of it. She had started, he thought, to enjoy it - to test how far she could push before he pushed back.

He would have to remind her that he could. He would have to remind her that she could not take him apart so easily.

At least, not without consequences.

///

The night of the servants' ball arrived with a hum of anticipation that echoed through the lower halls of Brinkley. The hall had been transformed by candlelight and garlands of winter greenery, the scent of pine mingling with warm cider and spiced cakes. For once, the duties and hierarchies of the house were set aside - there were no masters to answer to tonight.

Vera welcomed the reprieve. She had spent her first week here with the distinct sense of being watched, every step shadowed by an unseen but unmistakable presence. Or perhaps not so unseen. Jeeves had taken to appearing with uncanny frequency, his gaze cool and appraising whenever their paths crossed. She found his constant scrutiny irritating. More than irritating, really. Then came his little show in the servants' hall. It was annoying, no doubt, that he had the nerve. But she had reveled in the knowing that a string had finally come loose, a crack had finally shown.

Tonight, however, there was no Jeeves. No disapproving glances, no measured words designed to cut her. Tonight was hers.

The dress she had spent so long repairing fit like a second skin. A deep shade of emerald, it caught the light with every movement, the fabric sleek against her skin. It was not grand by any means, but it suited her perfectly.

Mr. Sutton, the first footman, asked her to dance within minutes of her arrival. With his easy smile and eager manner, he was a pleasant enough partner, and Vera let herself enjoy the music as he spun her across the floor. He spoke of light things - the fresh snow in the morning, the state of the Brinkley staff, the latest gossip from the village. Nothing that required the far reaches of her mind, and for that, she was grateful. She laughed more easily than she had in weeks. It was a relief to feel herself unwinding - to move without strategy, to speak without calculation. Just for an evening, she was not watching anyone, and no one was watching her. The release was intoxicating.

After a couple dances, Vera slipped away from the dance floor, her pulse still light. She made her way toward the refreshment table, where a familiar figure was hovering near the punch bowl. Maisie Parker - the quick-witted scullery maid with a freckled nose and an irrepressible curiosity - looked up and beamed when she spotted Vera approaching.

“You’re certainly making the rounds tonight,” Maisie said, grinning as she passed Vera a glass of champagne. “At this rate, old Anatole will be cutting in next.”

Vera laughed, accepting the glass. “If he does, I’m fleeing to the kitchen. My feet would never recover.”

Maisie leaned in slightly, voice dropping with mischief. “So… the other night. After I made myself scarce. Did he lay into you, then?” The glint in her eyes left no doubt as to whom she meant.

Vera took a sip of champagne, savoring the dry sharpness. “He attempted to,” she said, and let a slow smile bloom. “But I don’t think it went as planned.”

Maisie chuckled, delighted. “Didn’t think it would. You had that look - the don’t-push-your-luck look. Never seen him rattled before, not like that.”

She paused, tilting her head. “Must be exhausting, though. Always at odds.”

Vera’s smile cooled. “Exhausting is the word for it,” she murmured. “But tonight has been a welcome exception.”

Maisie clinked her glass lightly against Vera’s. “To exceptions, then. And to men who think they’re unflappable, until they aren’t.”

Vera allowed herself a smirk, lifting her glass in agreement. “You make it sound deliberate.”

Maisie arched a brow. “Isn’t it?”

Before Vera could answer, another member of the staff wandered over - a cheerful footman with a full glass and a better story. The subject shifted easily, and Vera was grateful for the interruption. The conversation turned light, ridiculous, pleasant. She laughed freely, her shoulders loose for the first time in days. For a brief, perfect moment, she let herself forget the tension she had been wrapped in since arriving at Brinkley.

She was halfway through a story, gesturing animatedly with her glass, when Maisie's gaze flicked over her shoulder, toward the far end of the ballroom, and her expression shifted from playful to wide-eyed horror. "Well, speak of the devil," she murmured, nudging Vera's elbow. "Look who's just walked in."

Vera followed her line of sight - and almost dropped her drink.

As if he had been summoned, Jeeves stood at the edge of the ballroom, perfectly composed as always, his dark suit and crisp waistcoat cutting a striking figure against the warm glow of the candlelit hall. He might have blended into the background, as he so often did, but there was something about the way he held himself - quiet authority wrapped in meticulous elegance - that drew the eye.

Her eye, most annoyingly.

"I didn’t think he’d be the type for this kind of thing," Maisie whispered.

"Neither did I," Vera murmured back, her brow knitting slightly as she watched him. If Jeeves had made time for the ball after all, he had a reason. Not for the first time, Vera wondered what exactly that reason was.

He was speaking to the housekeeper, Mrs. Clampton, nodding once, but his eyes were scanning the crowd. Searching. Assessing. They landed on her and stopped. He didn’t smile. Didn’t frown. He simply excused himself and began to move towards her.

Vera’s pulse spiked instantly, traitorous and sharp, but before she could react, a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Miss Kovalenko?" Mr. Sutton stood before her, offering a warm smile and an open hand. "Would you do me the honor of another dance?"

Vera barely hesitated. "I'd be delighted, Mr. Sutton."

And with a quick goodbye to Maisie, she let Sutton lead her onto the floor, her smile easy, her steps light. Inside, she locked down the part of herself that had jolted at the sight of Jeeves - that instinctive, infuriating pull (which she swore to herself to dig into at a later date). She would not give him the satisfaction of derailing her evening. Whatever game he thought he was playing, she refused to play along. Not tonight. 

///

Jeeves had not come to socialize. He had come to recalibrate.

Miss Kovalenko had disrupted the professional balance between them too thoroughly, too quickly. She had begun to alter the course of things in the household - subtly, yes, but with increasing frequency. And what was worse: she had started to enjoy it. Their encounters, once strained and formal, had taken on a new tenor: something sharper, something performed. She was no longer simply resisting him. She was playing with him. And he had found himself helpless to do anything in response.

That could not continue.

He had considered several options - distant corrections, formal reprimands - but dismissed them. She would parry those too easily. What Vera Kovalenko respected was power. Subtle power. Influence that bent rather than struck. And so, he would make her believe that her provocations had been mistaken for attention. That her intensity had sparked something personal between them. It would not take much. A glance too long. A compliment with the wrong edge. He estimated that the mere suggestion of interest from him would be enough to make her retreat.

It was, he knew, beneath him. This kind of ploy - theatrical, manipulative - belonged more to the realm of drawing room dramatics than to a man of his precision. But Kovalenko was not a conventional adversary, and the stakes had grown too large to ignore. Her presence in a household disrupted more than routines; it disrupted order. Structure. His structure. And if maintaining control required unorthodox means, so be it. He would sacrifice a measure of dignity for the sake of stability. He could stomach the distaste.

He watched her now with Sutton. She moved well. He had anticipated competence in nearly everything she touched, and dancing was no exception. She matched Sutton’s steps with cool precision, her shoulders loose, her dress trailing like water. She smiled easily - real smiles, not the curling, mocking kind she usually wielded at him like a blade - and her laughter, when it came, was quick and light. It was, he noted dispassionately, a flattering sound.

She was beautiful. That was the truth. Not in the soft, romantic sense - there was nothing indistinct about Vera Kovalenko. Her features were carved with intention, her bearing exact, and the gown she wore was tailored to suggest elegance without effort. She understood visual language. He thought she wore the room like armor.

A single, brief pang surfaced as Sutton leaned in to speak to her. It passed before it could form into anything concrete.

When the song ended, Jeeves stepped forward.

“Miss Kovalenko.”

She turned, and for the briefest instant - no more than a blink - her expression faltered. Then it was back: polite interest, the faint curl of her mouth, a smooth, practiced tilt of the head.

“Mr. Jeeves,” she said. “What an unexpected delight. I was under the impression your time was better spent elsewhere.”

“Circumstances change,” he replied, extending his hand. “If you are not otherwise engaged.”

Her pause was calculated. He could almost see her recalibrating - weighing his tone, the implication behind the invitation. This was not how their evenings usually progressed. She was accustomed to coolness, boundaries, disdain. This - whatever this was - had every potential to confuse the pattern. And confusion in an opponent, in his experience, was often the first step to control.

“By all means,” she said, placing her hand in his.

He led her to the floor, his movements composed, economical. The music shifted into a slow waltz, the kind that left little distance between dancers. His hand settled at her waist. Her posture remained immaculate, her hand on his shoulder light, but firm.

The silence lingered, not companionable but strained - stretched taut between implication and interpretation. He could feel her mind working, as precise and relentless as his own. She was not off-balance - not yet - but she was trying to solve something without enough information. He allowed it to continue.

Eventually, her voice cut through the quiet. “Why are you here? Did you come to reprimand someone?”

“That was low, Miss Kovalenko,” he glanced down at her. “No, I was curious, really.”

Her gaze sharpened, searching his expression. “About what?”

He held her gaze for a long moment, then allowed the faintest curve of a smile.

“It wasn’t what that interested me.” A pause. “It was whom.”

That landed. Her brow knit ever so slightly. He knew then that she had not considered that he might see her in any context other than opposition. He had introduced a variable she could not account for. Her silence returned, and this time it was real.

When the music ended, he guided her to the edge of the floor, his grip gentle, his expression as unreadable as ever. She walked beside him, composed but thoughtful, her eyes flicking to his once, then away. They reached the edge of the floor just as a passing tray came by, glasses of champagne glinting in the candlelight. Jeeves, without pause, took two. He offered one to her with quiet precision.

Vera accepted it, though her eyes narrowed slightly as she did. The gesture was unexpected - casual, almost gallant.

“Thank you,” she said slowly.

He inclined his head, watching her over the rim of his glass as he took a measured sip. “The dress,” he said after a moment, tone smooth, “was a wise choice. Miss Rostova may have passed it down, but it suits you far better than it could ever have suited her.”

“I didn’t expect compliments from you,” she said, aiming for dry. “Though I suppose I should’ve known better. It’s said you never miss a seam.”

“Fashion is strategy,” he replied evenly. “And strategy is all in the details. That dress fits you. The line, the color - it’s striking. But it’s not the dress that makes it work.”

She gave a short, disbelieving laugh, more breath than voice. “Have you had too much champagne, Mr. Jeeves?”

He turned slightly toward her, just enough to close the angle between them. “Not enough to distort my judgment.”

Her smile faltered. Not from shyness, but from recalibration. He knew she was getting close to understanding now and he watched closely for the discomfort to set in.

Vera glanced away, casually at first, then again with a little more purpose - scanning the room as if someone might beckon her and interrupt this. She was looking for an out.

He smiled.

No one’s coming for you, Miss Kovalenko.

He waited, giving her space to return his gaze. When she did, he didn’t look away.

He thought he saw wariness creeping in behind her eyes. “You’re acting strange tonight.”

“Have I made you uncomfortable?” he asked, voice a shade lower.

Her gaze snapped back to his - sharp and guarded, and most importantly: uncertain.

“No,” she said. “Not exactly.”

She was lying through her teeth. He let her stand in that moment, glass in hand, shoulders tilted, trying to work out if she had missed something all along or if he had suddenly changed the rules. She was still standing in that uncertain silence, turning her glass absently between her fingers, when he offered his hand again.

“Another dance?” he asked, voice low, almost offhanded - as though it cost him nothing, meant nothing. As though it wasn’t a move at all.

Her eyes flicked to his hand, then back to his face. She hesitated, and he saw it again - that moment where she weighed the room against her instincts, unsure which she trusted less. But her pride moved first. It always did.

She set her glass on a nearby table with precision and placed her hand in his.

This time, as he led her back to the dance floor, he stood a little closer than decorum strictly allowed. Just enough to register. Just enough to make the contact feel deliberate rather than automatic. When his hand found her waist, his fingers splayed slightly, the pad of his thumb resting against the silk with quiet confidence. He did not grope. He did not linger. But he held her - and she felt it.

She was warm. Not from exertion. From something else. He liked that.

Her posture was still upright, still proud, but her expression was beginning to shift. Color had bloomed faintly across her cheekbones, high and sharp. He saw it and said nothing. Only adjusted his hand a fraction, enough to tighten the frame between them, to remind her that he could - and that she was allowing him to.

Her breath was even, but her gaze had turned inward - as though watching herself from a short distance, trying to assess what exactly was happening. He didn't speak. He didn’t need to. But he watched her closely.

By the third rotation, the blush had deepened. She was biting the inside of her lip, barely, and her eyes were no longer scanning the room. She was looking at him. Cautious. Alert. Trying to read him again - and failing.

He reveled in it.

Not cruelly. Not quite. But with a quiet satisfaction he made no attempt to conceal. For once, he had her guessing. For once, she was the one who didn’t know where the line was.

As the final notes of the waltz lingered in the air, he released her hand with deliberate care. “Thank you for the dance, Miss Kovalenko,” he said, bowing slightly.

She dipped her head, but her eyes remained on his. “A pleasure, as always.”

Without another word, she turned and slipped through the crowd, toward the doors leading to the terrace.

Jeeves hesitated only a moment before following her.

///

The night air was bitter against his skin when he stepped outside. Snow lay thick along the balustrade, untouched. She stood with her back to him, the glow of a cigarette flaring briefly in the dark.

"I'm beginning to think you're following me," she said, her voice cool and clear.

"I assure you, my motives are entirely practical," he replied, moving toward her.

She exhaled a slow curl of smoke. "Yes, you do like to be practical."

He took another step closer and stopped - close enough to catch the faintest trace of her perfume, threaded now with tobacco and cold. The sight of her, framed against the dark, made something stir low in his chest. The way her dress clung to her form in the moonlight. The way her shoulders lifted slightly as she took another drag, trying to mask her unease with elegance. She was beautiful - not in a way that startled him, but in a way he had catalogued long ago and had spent every day since avoiding.

He really ought to be careful.

His plan was clear: press her, corner her, make her question what she thought she understood. But there was a line he could not cross without risking something far more dangerous. There was a part of him - the part he refused to look at too closely - that didn’t want her to retreat because she was unnerved.

It wanted her to stay.

He buried it.

"I did not realize you had such a fondness for cold air."

"You forget where I am from," she said. Then, after a beat: "Besides, I doubt I’d find much peace inside with you circling me like a hawk."

"A hawk?" His mouth curved faintly. "Surely not."

"You're not as subtle as you think," she said, turning slightly to face him. Her gaze swept over him - assessing - before landing on his face with a tight, unreadable frown. "And I don’t know what’s gotten into you tonight, but if this is another one of your long games, I would prefer to know the rules."

He stepped closer, not bothering to hide the deliberate nature of it. Her weight shifted, just slightly, back toward the balustrade.

"Mr. Jeeves, I’ll ask you again: why are you here?" Her voice was quieter now, almost begging for clarity.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he moved - slow, deliberate - until her back was against the cold stone railing and the space between them was gone. His hand settled at her hip, thumb grazing the edge of her waist.

She went still - not physically, but in thought, like a chess player staring at a board one move too late.

“I would have thought it would be rather obvious by now,” he said, voice low and rough.

She didn’t move, but he could see the flicker in her expression - not panic, not surprise, but calculation interrupted. As though she’d just realized she was reading from the wrong script. Her gaze fixed on him, and he knew she was trying to decipher not just his intention, but his purpose. 

He leaned in - slow, measured - until he was only an inch from her lips. Close enough to feel the warmth of her breath in the cold air. And in that suspended moment, he realized - horribly - that he wanted her to let him.

And she cut him down like a blade.

“Don’t you dare.”

His hand dropped as though burned. Fury - hot and immediate - flashed through him, though the rational side of him said this was exactly the response he had wanted from her.

Without another word, he stepped back, letting the cold settle between them. She held his gaze a moment longer, eyes hard, unreadable, and then she turned sharply - dragging herself past him and disappearing back into the glow of the ballroom.

///

Vera shut the door to her room with a quiet click and leaned back against it, heart still pacing at an uneven rhythm. The warmth of the ballroom hadn’t reached her skin as she fled the terrace, and even now, the cold seemed to linger beneath her dress, as if it had seeped into her through his hands. She stared into the mirror above the dressing table. Her cheeks were still flushed, but her expression had settled - composed, mostly, if paler than usual. She took a breath. Then another. It didn’t help.

He had tried to kiss her.

Jeeves - infallible, restrained, insufferable Jeeves - had cornered her on a moonlit terrace and put his hands on her waist and leaned in like it was the most natural thing in the world. The words he had chosen, the way he stood too close, the way he had watched her without blinking - it had been deliberate, calculated. He wasn’t drunk and he wasn’t confused.

What left her reeling wasn’t uncertainty; it was the sudden change. The fact that this shift hadn’t come gradually, hadn’t crept in through days or soft glances. Or - no, perhaps it had. That was the trouble. That was the truly unbearable part. Because now that it had happened, she couldn’t stop replaying old conversations, old stares, old silences - and seeing them differently. She had thought they were fighting. She had thought they were circling each other professionally, testing boundaries, defending territories.

But what if he thought they had been flirting? 

Her stomach twisted. She sat on the edge of the bed and buried her face in her hands. Every pointed remark she had made about his smugness, every sharp-eyed compliment to his efficiency - all those jabs meant to undercut his control… Had she sounded interested? She thought of the way he had sometimes looked at her after they argued. Not angry. Just… still. Measured. Like a man watching the outcome of a plan unfold in real time. She had thought he was furious. She now wondered if he had been enjoying her. And if anyone else had seen it - if Margo, or Bertie, or any of the staff had watched her parry him again and again thinking they were witnessing the early scenes of some long-awaited entanglement.

The humiliation scraped like gravel behind her ribs.

It could have been a game. That was the explanation that made the most sense - neat, strategic, beneath his veneer of professionalism but not out of character. He was a man of control, after all, and perhaps this had been about asserting it. About rattling her, reclaiming the upper hand after weeks of conflict. It could have been punishment - subtle, elegant - for stepping too far into his domain.

She almost believed that, almost clung to it. But then she remembered the hope in his eyes when he had leaned in, the way his breath had hitched - sharp and involuntary - just before she stopped him. Even he couldn’t fake that. No matter how precise he was, no matter how refined the performance, that moment had been real. And that meant the rest of it was too. He was interested. And that was something she could not afford to entertain. Whatever curiosity lingered at the edges of her own thoughts, she would not fan the flames of his. Not even by accident.

She stood, changed methodically into her nightclothes, and pulled down the blankets. But when she lay down, the pillow felt too warm. The room felt too close. And the air - no matter how still - still carried the faintest trace of his cologne: cool, clean, expensive, sharp.

It haunted her.

///

Jeeves had won.

In the days that followed the servants’ ball, the balance of the Wooster household settled neatly under his hand. Miss Vera Kovalenko, once a constant thorn in his side, now moved like a shadow along the edges of the routine - polite, silent, efficient. She deferred to him in all matters concerning their employers. Margo’s whims were fulfilled without friction. Bertie’s schedule ran like a polished watch. There were no disagreements. No challenges. No second-guessing of his suggestions. If he said a thing ought to be done, it was done. It was exactly the control he had wanted to restore.

And yet it felt like a kind of loss.

He watched her, as much as he allowed himself to. She did not speak to him unless she had to. The silence, once an opening for maneuver, was now a wall. And every time she held her tongue, every time she nodded and passed without remark, he felt something in himself recoil. The part of him that had relished their exchanges, sharp and unwieldy as they were, now stood hungry. It turned out that her defiance had not irritated him as much as he thought. It had animated him. 

Worse, he felt a quiet guilt growing in the wake of that night. He had seen how excited she had been for the ball - how tirelessly she had worked on that dress, how easily she had laughed with the others, how rare it had been for her to let herself enjoy something. He had seen it - and he had ruined it. He had taken something from her that evening. Not her dignity - he doubted he could ever do that - but her ease. Her belonging. He had disrupted a space where she had allowed herself to soften, just briefly, and turned it into a stage for his own manipulation. He had done what needed to be done. He knew that. He comforted himself with that. And yet, each time he thought of her face in the moonlight - not angry, not frightened, just desperately confused - he wondered if it had been worth it.

He told himself this was for the good of the household. That her withdrawal was necessary, her silence a sign that she now understood the boundaries. But when he passed her in the corridor and she lowered her eyes instead of meeting his, something about it burned. He missed her voice. He missed the way she would bait him with questions that had no right answer. He missed the way she smiled when she knew she had won.

But he did not - would not - acknowledge what that meant.

He told himself it was about principle. About the way things ran more cleanly now, how Margo and Bertie had fewer complaints, fewer interruptions. He reminded himself that the Kovalenko problem had been solved.

Everything was under his rule now.

Exactly as it should be.

[the-perfect-violation]

Jeeves x OFC

///

Summary: The first time Vera met Jeeves, she decided he was the most insufferable man in all of Britain. The second time, she realized with no small amount of irritation that he was also the most competent. And by the third, she had settled on a singular, unwavering truth: she well and truly despised him.

TW: Eventual Smut

Rating: 18+ Mature

Word Count: 2,600

///

AN: My first attempt at a multi-chapter fic! I'm having a lot of fun with this one, so please do enjoy (and let me know if you see anything worth fixing)!

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

Odio ed amo: quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.

Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

- Catullus, Carmina 85

///

Vera Kovalenko considered herself a woman whose head was screwed on straight, and women whose heads were screwed on straight, she had learned, did not fare well working alongside well-dressed men with inscrutable expressions and condescending gazes. Men, for example, like Reginald Jeeves.

She had known of him long before they first spoke.

Whispers of his competence traveled quickly in their small, rarified world - the quiet hierarchy of personal staff where reputations were built in silk-lined corridors and behind closed dressing room doors. For nearly two years, she had heard of Jeeves from footmen, from housekeepers, from other lady’s maids. “A genius in a waistcoat,” they said. “Unshakable. Precise. Knows a man’s mood before he speaks it.”

Even her employer, Margarita Rostova - now fiancée to the ever-affable Bertie Wooster - had waxed poetic about him. "Jeeves knows everything, Kova," she had said dramatically, draped across a chaise as though she were Violetta in La Traviata's final act. "And he has answers for anything you could think to ask him."

Those words had set her teeth on edge. How could they not? She had spent the last few years loyally at Margo's side, carving out her place with tireless effort and no margin for error, shaping herself into the kind of woman no one could dismiss or diminish. And now, here he was, strolling into her carefully ordered life as if he could supplant her with a word. He had answers for everything? Well, she would see about that.

"I think the two of you will get on wonderfully," Margo had finished. Vera swore to herself that they would not.

When their paths finally crossed - at a house party in Oxfordshire - she had been prepared to dislike him, but what she found instead was… potential.

There had been something then, something almost promising in the way he met her gaze: level, curious, entirely unruffled by the confident tilt of her chin. His politeness had not been empty. He listened, and - she realized later, with some surprise - he had respected her.

But respect, she learned, was a fragile thing. It withered easily when bruised.

The friction began slowly: small disagreements, subtle corrections. A quiet war of preferences and priorities that spiraled beneath the surface of their interactions. The engagement of their employers caused their paths to overlap more often - house parties, weekends, short stays as Margo and Bertie increasingly traveled in the same circles.

What had once been promising soured. Every encounter turned colder, sharper. She had caught him redirecting Margo’s wardrobe choices with an offhand remark to Bertie - subtle, infuriating meddling. He had accused her (so politely, so gently) of disarray when a mutual arrangement fell through at a weekend house party. By the end of their first year in proximity, she had settled on a singular, unwavering truth: she well and truly despised him. Beneath that impeccable exterior lurked a mind sharp enough to slice through steel and an arrogance that made surrender a foregone conclusion.

///

Reginald Jeeves was not accustomed to disliking people. He found it unproductive. Emotion had a tendency to cloud judgment, and personal irritation - however justified - rarely served any professional end. Miss Kovalenko, however, tested that principle. 

He disliked how she moved through a room as though it bent to her design. He disliked her refusal to reconsider a course of action once she had decided it was correct - even in the face of better evidence. And he particularly disliked the way she assumed command of things that were not, strictly speaking, hers to command.

The difficulty was that they occupied the same invisible seat of power. Both were relied upon not merely as attendants, but as advisors - voices of reason, arbiters of taste, quiet architects of their employers' daily lives. When Bertie wavered, he looked to Jeeves. When Margo dithered, she turned to Kova. And so every choice - the guest list, the luncheon menu, the phrasing of a letter - became contested territory. Two minds used to being trusted implicitly, each unwilling to yield to a voice not their own.

She was proud, but there was something brittle in it - something unbending, infuriatingly absolute. It was the way she watched him when they crossed paths, her eyes glinting with that frustrating mix of amusement and competition. It felt like she knew what he was doing before he even made a move, and she knew exactly how to undermine him with a well-timed word or a seemingly innocent suggestion. The subtlety was maddening. She was playing a game with him, and he wasn't sure if he was simply losing or if he was being thoroughly outclassed.

But when he bested her - when his solution came out on top, when his plan played out exactly as he'd intended - he felt a rush of triumph so intense it was almost intoxicating. It wasn't just satisfaction. It was joy. He loved the way she bit the inside of her lip when she realized she was beaten, the way her posture stiffened. Her defiance was a thing of beauty, and seeing it crumble in the face of his success was nothing less than a pleasure.

But these moments were brief, fleeting. For Jeeves knew that this - this small, insidious rivalry between them - was not something that either could keep up indefinitely. As Mr. Wooster and Miss Rostova's wedding drew nearer, he was keenly aware of the fact that when the ceremony was over, when the vows were exchanged, he and Vera would be forced to work side by side - daily.

The realization had struck him one evening with unsettling clarity: this was a contest in which there would be no compromise, no neutral ground. Only one of them could emerge in control of the household, could continue to thrive. The other would have to fall, quietly, without ceremony - no dramatic exit, just a notice of resignation and the soft click of a door closing behind them. One of them would have to break first.

He would be damned if it was him.

///

The air around Brinkley Court carried the crisp scent of winter, mingling with the faint fragrance of pine and hearth smoke that seeped in from the great hall. Christmas was in the air - not the serene, holy-night kind, but the heightened, expectant sort that prickled at the edges. The Travers household hummed with the usual holiday preparations: the clink of silver, the rustle of garlands, the faint panic of another one of Anatole’s dinner menus being restructured for the third time. 

Margo and Vera had arrived a few days after Bertie. The invitation from Mrs. Travers had been extended in that casually imperious way of hers - the kind that was both generous and non-negotiable. A holiday in the country. A chance to breathe before the wedding. An opportunity to surround oneself with well-heeled chaos and brandy.

For Jeeves and Kovalenko, the battle lines were drawn early on. Vera took pleasure in thwarting his more subtle manipulations of the household - small things, like subtly altering Bertie's routine or steering Margo away from the plans Jeeves had set in motion with such precision.

Jeeves, for his part, would find ways to get under Vera's skin with his usual precision. He would slip in little comments about the "foreign choices" she made for Margo's wardrobe - a too-bold print, a hemline that whispered of Paris. He offered unsolicited grammar corrections with surgical timing, never cruel, but always cutting. One evening in the servants’ hall, Vera was seated beside young Maisie Parker, recounting a rather dramatic tale about one of Margo’s old suitors when Jeeves, from across the table, interjected smoothly.

“I believe the word you are looking for is disinterested, Miss Kovalenko,” he said. “Not uninterested.”

The table quieted by a breath.

Vera turned her head slightly, not enough to face him, just enough to let the pause stretch. “Thank you, Mr. Jeeves,” she said coolly. “Your ear for nuance is, as always, unmatched.”

He inclined his head with a ghost of a smile - the kind that was not a smile at all. The look in Vera’s eyes could have cracked marble.

Then, after a few days, the sort of opportunity Vera lived for (though she knew it reduced her) landed squarely in her lap. 

Margo lay in her bath that morning, idly flipping through a fashion magazine, while Vera worked nearby, setting out her outfit for the day. Steam curled lazily through the air, softening the lamplight and making the moment feel removed from time. A fragile peace.

“Kova,” Margo said in drawling Russian, tapping a manicured finger against a page, “could you do me a small favor? I’ve been thinking about dear Bertie’s ties.”

Vera glanced up. “Yes?”

“They’re not bad, of course. But they don’t always match my outfits. Some new ones - maybe a few more complementary shades -  wouldn’t hurt. As a gift from me.”

“You want me to buy him ties that go with your outfits.”

“Well. Yes.” Margo stretched her arms across the rim of the tub and tilted her head. “You know what looks good on him, and you know what looks good on me. I trust your judgment. And he won’t fuss.”

Vera’s lips twitched. Bertie might not fuss, but she knew who most certainly would. This was exactly the sort of detail he would demand he handle - the sort of domestic refinement he clung to like gospel.

“Of course,” she said smoothly. “Leave it to me.”

By that evening, a parcel had arrived from the tailor in town - forest green, deep burgundy, a navy so dark it shimmered like ink. Each selected with quiet precision to pair with Margo’s most favored ensembles. Vera left them in Margo’s dressing room with a discreet note, and thought nothing more of it.

The next morning, as Vera pinned a brooch to the collar of Margo’s coat, Margo hummed contentedly to herself and said, “He loved them, by the way. You should’ve seen his face - like a schoolboy handed a gold star. I told him they were from me, of course, but you’ll get full credit in heaven.”

Vera only nodded, a small, pleased hum in her throat. In her mind’s eye, she could already see the look on Jeeves’ face when he opened Bertie’s wardrobe that morning and saw the row of unfamiliar silks. The tightening of his jaw, the careful blink, the microscopic pause before he offered some devastatingly measured compliment. Not a word of protest, naturally. That would be beneath him.

But he would hate it.

And that was enough. 

///

Jeeves was livid.

He concealed it well - of course he did - but beneath the polished veneer of calm, his anger simmered. It wasn't the ties themselves. Objectively, the quality was adequate, the colors tasteful. No, it was the intrusion. The sheer audacity of it. It was his role was to manage Mr. Wooster's affairs, to guide his employer's appearance with the subtlety and care it required. That duty was his alone, and Miss Kovalenko had brazenly inserted herself where she did not belong.

He found her in the servants' hall after the household had settled for the evening. The room was dim, lit only by the low flicker of the hearth, but she was there - seated at the long worktable, bent over a silk dress. Beside her Maisie Parker, one of the younger maids, hovered curiously, biting her lip as Vera guided her through the delicate work of taking in the bodice.

Jeeves did not speak immediately. Instead, he stepped into the room with deliberate slowness, letting the sound of his polished shoes echo across the floor.

"Miss Kovalenko," he said at last, his voice cold and smooth as glass.

Maisie jumped, eyes darting toward him in alarm. Vera, however, did not flinch. She only glanced up, a single brow arching in faint amusement. "Mr. Jeeves," she returned evenly, her tone light - but not so light that he missed the edge beneath it.

He let the silence stretch. "A word," he said, inclining his head toward the door.

Maisie - poor thing - hesitated, her gaze flitting between them. Vera sighed. "That will do for tonight," she told her.

The maid did not need to be told twice. She scurried out of the room, the door clicking shut behind her.

Vera resumed her mending, not bothering to rise. "If you've come to admire my needlework, you needn't hover," she said, her attention fixed on the fabric beneath her fingers. "I promise, the stitching will hold."

His jaw tightened. "You had no business altering Mr. Wooster's wardrobe."

The needle in her hand paused - just briefly - before she continued her stitch. "I did as I was asked," she said, voice calm. "Miss Rostova wanted the ties. I procured them. I fail to see the crime in that."

Jeeves drew in a slow, controlled breath. "Mr. Wooster's attire is my responsibility. If Miss Rostova had concerns, she ought to have brought them to me."

"And yet, she brought them to me," Vera said, lifting her gaze to his at last. Her eyes, pale grey in the low light, gleamed with challenge. "Perhaps she knew I'd get it done without the fuss."

His hands curled into fists behind his back. "You overstepped, Miss Kovalenko."

She smiled - a slow, knowing thing that made his blood heat beneath his skin. "I wasn't aware I required your permission to follow my employer's wishes," she said softly.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. Without thought, he stepped closer - close enough that he could see the loose strand of hair curling against her temple, the faint rise and fall of her breath. He knew how to command space, to unsettle without ever raising his voice. Most people bent beneath that quiet weight.

But not her. 

She stood to meet him, tilting her chin up, meeting his gaze without a flicker of unease. If anything, she looked amused. "Is this where you loom and lecture me about duty?" she asked. "Shall I grab my notebook? I imagine you have quite the speech prepared."

He should have walked away. He knew it - felt it like a taut wire in his chest. But instead, he leaned down just enough to lower his voice to a silken murmur. "You seem to have mistaken your position, Miss Kovalenko."

Her smile gleamed through the dim light. "Careful, Mr. Jeeves," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "You almost sound threatened."

He remained where he was, motionless - and far too aware of the nearness of her. She stood close, close enough that he could make out the fine sheen of silk at her collarbone, the faint scent of something warm and spiced clinging to her skin. She had to tilt her head to meet his eye, and that single act - unyielding despite the difference in height - struck him with more force than he cared to admit.

She made the first move, turning to pick up her sewing materials from the table. "If that's all, I really should be going."

He remained still.

She smiled - slow and certain, the picture of triumph - and brushed past him, her shoulder grazing the edge of his sleeve. The faintest trace of something warm lingered in the air - vetiver, he thought, with a whisper of bourbon - and he despised the way it softened the edges of his anger, however briefly.

At the door, she paused.

"Goodnight, Mr. Jeeves," she said, voice light, lilting, like she had already won.

And then she was gone, leaving him alone in the dim, empty hall - his fury burning hotter than ever.

[the-perfect-violation]

Étude

Jeeves x OFC

///

Summary: Jeeves doesn't allow himself to acknowledge it at first. It is a slow, creeping thing, something like a fever he refuses to admit he's caught. He merely notes to himself that he finds her voice pleasing. That her unguarded laughter, rare though it may be, lingers in his mind longer than it should. That when she enters a room, he straightens his cuffs without meaning to, as if to make himself more presentable. Though to what end, he cannot say.

TW: Angst

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 1,200

///

A/N: Just a short little thing that kept lingering in the back of my mind. It's tax season so I need that space for more productive pursuits.

I like italics and most definitely overuse them. Sue me.

Enjoy nevertheless!

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

Gif is my own.

Reginald Jeeves is a man who prides himself on efficiency, discretion, and, above all, control. He simply does not allow himself to become emotionally entangled.

And then she arrives.

She is the lady’s maid to Miss Rossakoff - Bertie Wooster’s soon-to-be wife. Jeeves notices her immediately. Not because she is radiantly beautiful (though she is), nor because she is clever (though he suspects she must be), but because she looks at him with a knowing sort of amusement, as if she already sees through the carefully maintained façade of absolute composure he has spent years perfecting.

He ignores it. He ignores her.

Because whatever this is - this quiet pull towards her - it would be against who he is, it would be unprofessional.

///

It is one thing to entertain a fleeting attraction. It is another to indulge it.

Their respective employers are engaged - the wedding bells scheduled to ring out in a few short months. If he were to engage in a romantic entanglement that later soured,  it could lead to endless professional complications. It would be messy. And Jeeves did not do messy.

And yet - somehow - he is always near her. Not by intention (he tells himself), but by circumstance.

Passing in the hallway. Finding themselves the last two in the servants’ hall after supper. Chancing upon one another in the library when both seek an evening moment of quiet.

He tries to maintain propriety. But then she looks at him like she knows every reason he is keeping his distance, and it makes his carefully ordered world tilt ever so slightly.

///

One evening, she corners him - or, rather, finds him alone in the kitchen carefully measuring out Wooster’s evening tea.

“You are avoiding me, Mr. Jeeves,” she says, leaning against the counter, arms crossed.

He does not look up. “I assure you, I am merely occupied with my duties.”

She lets out a soft hum. “And yet, you always seem to leave the room the moment I enter it.”

Jeeves remains silent.

She steps closer. “Tell me, Mr. Jeeves - do you fear what might happen if you were to actually speak with me?”

His fingers tighten ever so slightly around the tin of tea. “I fear nothing, Miss.”

“Then prove it.”

There is something dangerous in this moment. Not in any physical sense, but in the way she sees him too clearly. In the way he wants to be seen. The way he craves to be seen.

So he exhales, sets down the tin, and finally - finally - meets her gaze.

“I find,” he says, voice quiet but steady, “that I have developed an attachment to you. One which I did not anticipate. And one which I am… struggling to dismiss.”

A flicker of something warm passes through her eyes. She reached out, fingers grazing the edge of his cuff. “Then don’t dismiss it.”

Jeeves does not allow himself to want things like this. But for once, he does not pull away.

///

They do not rush. It is not in either of their natures. But the moments alone together grow longer, more frequent.

Some evenings, when the house is quiet, she comes to his room. Not for anything scandalous - but just to be with him. To sit on the worn armchair across from him and read, the two of them enveloped in comfortable silence.

And then, when silence is no longer enough, when the space between them feels too wide, she moves to sit beside him on the small settee.

It is there that the rules truly begin to break.

The first time, she kisses him, it is tentative, uncertain. A testing of waters.

The second time, he is the one to reach for her, pulling her gently into his arms, feeling the warmth of her breath against his cheek before pressing his lips to hers.

The third time, it is inevitable.

She curls against him as he kisses her slowly, methodically, as if committing every inch of her to memory. Her hands slip into his hair, and for the first time in years, Jeeves lets himself go.

They do not take things further. It is not that they do not want to. But there is something sacred in the restraint - in the knowledge that this is not some fleeting affair but something real.

///

One night, as she rests with her back against him in the candlelit hush of his room, she sighs and says - so simply, so certainly - 

“I love you.”

Jeeves stills.

She does not take it back.

“I know you are afraid of what that means,” she continues, turning towards him. “But I am not. Not even a little.”

Jeeves exhales slowly. He presses his forehead to hers, eyes closing. “You,” he murmurs, voice uncharacteristically raw, “are a very dangerous woman.”

She smiles. “And yet, you cannot seem to stay away.”

“No,” he admits. “I cannot.”

And so, at long last, he stops trying.

///

Jeeves has always been a man of control. But now, there is something different in him - something softer.

She is the only one who sees it.

The way his fingers graze hers just a fraction longer than necessary when passing a cup of tea. The way his lips twitch, barely but undeniably, when she suggests her employer do something particularly clever.

The way he looks at her when he thinks no one else is watching.

She sees it all. And she knows: he is irrevocably, categorically, hers.

///

“You do realize,” she murmurs one evening as they walk through the garden, “that when Miss Rossakoff and Mr. Wooster marry, we will have to work together indefinitely.”

He hums, considering. “I had given it some thought.”

“And?”

“And I find,” he says, “that I rather like the idea.”

She gives him a knowing look. “You don’t object? Not even a little?”

Jeeves exhales slowly, glancing toward the distant glow of the house. “There was a time when I did. When I believed such an attachment would prove… impractical. Unprofessional.” He turns back to her, his voice gentler now, “But I have come to understand that certain things are worth the risk.”

A slow smile spreads across her face. “Oh are they?”

He does not answer with words. Instead, he reaches for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers with quiet certainty.

She lets out a breath, her grip tightening around his. And as they continue walking, hand in hand beneath lantern-lit trees, Jeeves knows - without hesitation, without doubt - that there is no turning back. Not that he could ever want to.

///

Jeeves does not do things improperly. And so, when the night finally arrives, he has everything arranged. A quiet evening at the riverside. A carefully packed picnic. A bottle of wine he has chosen specifically because she once offhandedly mentioned enjoying it.

And, in his pocket, a ring.

But when the moment comes - when she turns to him, eyes bright and expectant - he finds himself at a shocking loss for words.

Jeeves, nervous.

She sees it immediately and smiles. “Jeeves,” she murmurs, reaching for his hand, “just say it.”

And so he does.

“Marry me,” he says, voice quiet. “If you will have me, I should very much like to spend my life at your side.”

Her response comes without hesitation.

“Yes.”

And when she kisses him, Jeeves finally allows himself to feel.

[the-perfect-violation]

20's /// F

Sapiophile, perfectionist, accountant.

A blog to scratch my creative itch.

Will flow with my latest fixations.

18+ only, please.

[the-perfect-violation]

Adagio

Ash x Reader

///

Summary: Ash dreams of you and you wrestle with priorities.

TW: Smut, Angst

Rating: 18+ Mature

Word Count: 3,100

///

A/N: This is my first fic and it was written sans beta, so please let me know if you see anything worth fixing.

Ash has always been a favorite of mine. My despair at finding so few pieces on him finally drove me to write my own. That's my way of saying that this is unapologetically self-serving haha.

Enjoy nevertheless!

///

Link to AO3 if you'd prefer read there.

Gif is my own.

Someone is gathering every crumb you drop.  These mindless decisions and Moments you long forgot. Keep them all. Let our formulas find your soul. We’ll divine an artesian source in your mind, Marshal feed and force. Our machines will Design you a perfect love Or better still A perfect lust.  O how glorious, glorious: A brand new need is born. Now we possess you. You’ll learn that. Now we possess you. You’ll learn that in time. Now we will build you an endlessly upward world.  Embrace you for all you’re worth. Is that wrong? Isn’t this what you want? - The Hymn of Acxiom

///

The storm had begun to pick up again as your automated car wound its way through the city streets towards your office. The sun barely rose at all this time of year, and the sharpness of the ensuing cold was made all the worse by the dark and damp that hung eternally over the city. It was supposed to snow again today. Who would have thought you’d end up on Thedus of all places? At least the job paid well. And you only had a few weeks remaining before you went back to Earth.

Weyland-Yutani practically owned the planet and almost every of the meager two million residents were employed by them. You included. A trained psychiatrist, you had been asked to spend six months on the mining planet to help prepare a handful of synthetics for different jobs they would be completing for the Corporation. What those jobs were exactly was high above your paygrade. You were sure the synthetics you worked with had no idea yet, either.

According to Weyland-Yutani, instilling their machines with a well-balanced emotional spectrum was essential to their success. That’s where you came in. You worked with your synthetics regularly, showing and talking to them about what they were feeling and how to respond accordingly. Most of your patients had been blinding successes and had been shipped off on their missions already.

Only one remained - a Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 named Ash. Today was your last day together. Then, he would be deployed and you would finish writing up your reports alone over the remaining weeks. Saying goodbye to the others had been relatively easy. Your relationship had developed only so far as to be considered professional acquaintances. 

But Ash - something about the way he watched you, hung on your every word, smiled slightly when he first saw you each day… You thought he might have developed some sort of crush. That was a stark contrast to how he had been when first activated. Programmed to be aloof, cold, a strict rule-follower, he had been all of those over the first few months of your relationship.

You found you actively looked forward to your time with him now. He was collected, intelligent, and had a dry sense of humor that never failed to make you laugh. While the others had been a professional responsibility, Ash had become closer to what you would call a friend, although that was as far as your moral compass would ever let things go.

The two of you could talk for hours about history, philosophy, or the latest scientific journals. He would ask about your life, too, just as much as you would enquire about his. Maybe living on a sparsely-habited planet in the outer rim had had more of an effect on you than you had thought, but it felt nice to have someone like him to work with and talk to. That made the knowledge that you likely wouldn’t see him again after today all the more painful.

The car pulled up out front of the monolithic Weyland headquarters, interrupting your musing. You pulled your coat tight around you, adjusted your scarf, and grabbed your briefcase. Your heels echoed steadily as you made your way through the tall, angular hallways towards your office. It appeared that most of the staff had decided to work from home for the day - which was no surprise for a stormy Friday - but it made the already brutalist building seem almost hyperborean.

The room they had given you was nothing special - although it did have a wide bank of windows looking over the city for which you were grateful. You had a few built-in shelves filled with archaic books you had collected over the years and had negotiated to have come with you to Thedus. Behind your desk, the wall held only a print of Böcklin’s Die Toteninsel that you had been gifted before you departed Earth. You liked to keep everything dim, and chose to only light the room with a few lamps placed around the room.

You set your briefcase down and lit a small stick of incense to chase away the smell of the mining plants that had eeked its way in with you. After taking off your coat, you checked your watch. Ash should be here at 15:00, giving you time to get a report or two off your desk. You settled down and dove into the work laid out before you.

///

Two sharp knocks pulled you out of your work-induced trance.

“Come in!” You called out, standing and slipping your glasses into your blazer pocket as your patient entered. Like always, he was wearing his officer uniform and smelled faintly of cologne.

“Good afternoon, Ash,” you smiled at him and motioned toward one of the two facing chairs by the window.

“Hello,” he responded with a slight smile.

He moved to take his regular seat and you sat down in the chair opposite.

“How are you?” You asked.

“I’m well,” he responded quickly, glancing out the window and rubbing his hands on the arms of his chair in what seemed to be nervousness. “You?”

“Fantastic - I like it when the building is empty like this,” you said. “And I can never hate a good snowstorm. How was your evening yesterday?”

“It was good.”

"You ship out tomorrow, right?"

"At 08:00."

"Do you have any idea what you'll be doing yet?"

"None. I know my ship is called the USCSS Nostromo."

You stared at him, hoping he would continue.

“Ash, is everything alright? You seem distant. I know this is our last session together, and I was hoping we could end on a positive note.”

“I know - I... I’m sorry. I just didn’t sleep well is all.”

You knew he was deflecting. Synthetics didn’t need sleep like humans did. Most did try to sleep each night in order to maintain a more human schedule, but if he weren’t able to get rest it shouldn’t have any effect on how they acted the next day.

“It’s alright - I'm sure you're under a lot of pressure right now. It happens to all of us," you said, deciding to avoid the confrontation. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“A little, yes.”

“Did you dream?” You had been going over dreams with him lately, walking through what moods they might represent and how to handle them.

You caught a flicker of something - uncertainty? - in his eyes before he answered. “Yes.”

“About what?” He only stared at the wall behind your shoulder.

“Or whom?” You added and watched as that flicker of uncertainty passed over his face again. Now you were getting somewhere. He was trying to conceal something from you, you knew. That hadn’t been a problem before. The pause lengthened and you prodded him again.

“Ash, I -” 

“I dreamt about you.” He said a little too quickly, as if it were an admission he was glad to have off his chest. His green eyes finally met your grey ones.

You realized he had been embarrassed before, something you had misinterpreted as nervousness. Good, you thought approvingly. You had heard that the idea of embarrassment had been a bastard to program so it was a relief to see that you had finally brought it out. But you showed none of this satisfaction, and instead stared at him across the room, crossing your legs. He went back to avoiding eye contact, preferring to study the wall just over your shoulder.

“What did you dream about me?”

You watched as a blush crept up his neck and into his face and he held his tongue. His eyes moved to your face and he looked at you as though begging for mercy. Realization hit you like a crashing wave.

Oh .

It was your turn to freeze. Guilt rose up in place of surprise and you turned your head to look out the window instead of at him. You knew it was your job to give him some sort of motivation, a sense of home. You knew that drive alone could make a person - synthetic or not -  do almost anything. But the last thing you wanted to do was to play with anyone’s romantic feelings. You hadn’t realized that a synthetic’s feelings could even develop that far.

You reminded yourself that playing with synthetic’s feelings was the majority of your job description and you were being paid very well to do it. That only made the guilt worse.

I mean, who’s to say these are romantic feelings at all? You argued with yourself in desperation. This could be a physical impulse alone. He was programmed to have those needs. He was a science officer after all. He knew sex was a necessity in any living being’s life. That his creators had given those needs to some synthetics to help them fit in well with the humans around them. There was no reason he would be embarrassed about the act alone. There was clearly more going on here, you realized and your heart sank.

You heard your pulse in your ears as you turned back to him. He had been watching you closely.

“What do you dream about me, Ash?”

There was a long pause before he began. “I’m - we’re here. It’s late. We’re doing an extra session. To help prepare, you know, before I leave. When we finish, you walk me back to my room.”

Most Weyland-Yutani androids on Thedus were housed here, in this concrete pillar the company used as a planetary headquarters. Each was given a small room, more akin to a storage closet, that had a bed and a kitchenette. Although synthetics didn’t have a need to eat or sleep, the Corporation thought it would be good for them to get used to living in human environments. As if what little they were given could be called that. The thought made you feel a twinge of sadness. 

“I kiss you.” You are brought back to the present with a jolt as he continues. “I think it surprises you because you don’t respond right away. But then your hand comes up to the back of my head and I push you against the wall.

I feel like I can’t breathe when you open your mouth and moan into mine. I can’t keep myself off of you. My hands are trying to touch all of you at once. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you, I need you so badly.

I pick you up and you wrap your legs around me as I carry you to the bed. As I lay you down, I position myself on top of you and begin to kiss your neck, just below the ear. You moan my name and I know I’ll do anything you ask me to. You begin to run your hands over my chest and I take my shirt off. I pull myself off of you slightly as you help me remove your suit. It looked very much like the one you’re wearing today,” his eyes scanned your figure briefly before he spoke again.

“I know I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as you lying underneath me, blushing and staring up at me,” he stops there and swallows thickly. “Even now I see it and I know.”

Thick snowflakes begin to fall outside. You sat, unmoving, as he continued. 

“I pull your undergarments off slowly before kissing each porcelain breast individually and revel in the feeling of your nipples growing erect against my tongue. One of my hands trails down to the heat between your legs. My fingers gently trace the sensitive skin there, causing you to gasp. My touch is hesitant and you moan, your body urging me to continue. I take the cue, my fingers exploring further as my lips return to yours. You moan for me again.” 

You were blushing hard and it felt almost impossible to breathe. Ash watched you intently. You were sure he could see the effect his words had on you as you struggled to maintain composure. This can’t be happening.

But it was, and he kept speaking in a low voice.

“Your hips buck into my hand, urging me to continue. I pull my head back slightly to watch, entranced, as a blush creeps up your neck and you say my name under your breath. My eyes never leave yours as I begin to move my fingers in a steady rhythm. My other hand comes up to cradle your face, my thumb gently caressing your cheek. Your breath quickens as the pleasure builds, and you wrap your arms around me tighter, pulling me closer. The world outside the room fades away, leaving only the sound of your breathing and the gentle movements of my fingers.

You climax, your body shuddering with pleasure, squeezing my fingers within you. I hold you close, my fingers slowing as you come down from the high. After you catch your breath, your hands move to remove my pants. I say a silent prayer that you will find me pleasing. My heart races as you guide me closer to you, my tip gently brushing against your entrance. I look into your eyes, seeking permission and you nod, inviting me in. Relieved, I push myself into you, filling you completely. I have never felt ecstasy like this. You let out a shuddering groan as I begin to move slowly, carefully, my hips rocking back and forth as I try to find a steady rhythm. 

My arms snake behind your shoulders, holding you tight to me and giving me access to your throat. As I rut into you, I can feel myself nearing the edge. I breathe your name into your neck, my heart racing as I bring myself closer to the brink. I push myself up to look into your eyes in the final throes.

When I climax, I cry your name. I collapse onto you, my breathing heavy and ragged. You hold me close and the room is filled with the scent of sweat and desire.

As your breathing begins to slow, I slide myself out of you and tuck us under the covers. Curling around your back, my arms wrapped around you, I know I will never let you go. Not for anything.”

///

He stood and looked down out the windows. “There. Tell me what you think that means. I think I have a good guess.”

You rose and walked towards your desk, facing him again as you leaned back against it. The added distance between you helped clear your head.

He turned towards you slowly, the dim lights illuminating his face only partially. “I’m in love with you. I want you. I need you more than anything I know.” 

“You know that is impossible, Ash," You could feel something like panic beginning to set in. It wasn't supposed to go like this. Still, you held your ground and attempted to talk him down. "Don’t-”

“I’ve wanted you since we first met,” he interrupted. “That first day here in your office. You sparked something in me that won’t go away.” He was spiraling and you were helpless to stop it.

“We could be happy . I could make you happy,” he said as he began to stride towards you resolutely.

“Ash, you have to understand that this is what happens between a doctor and patient when-”

He kissed you then, and ignited a war inside you, a million thoughts crowding their way into your head as he pressed his lips to yours.

You wanted him, too, you realized. You wanted what you shared now to go on forever. You wanted a friend to laugh with, a companion to grow old with, and a lover to keep your bed warm at night. He could be all of that. He wanted to be all of that. All it would take was a word. For a second, your thoughts trailed off, lost in a future you knew would never come.

But pragmatism had always been your strong suit and it wouldn’t fail you now, however much it hurt. Feelings like this were normal between a psychiatrist and their patient. It was proof that your job had been well done. You were going back to Earth soon and he, well, he was the property of The Corporation to do with as they pleased. You knew you couldn't change that, however much you might want to.

So as his kiss continued, unlike in his dream, you didn’t respond. 

“Please don’t,” was all you said as he pulled away. Those few words took everything you had left to give.

He stood there, fixed to the spot. You could see him trying to process what to do next. He hadn’t thought it would go like this. “I’m sorry,” was all he said.

You knew what had to be done next, although you didn’t want to do it. You reminded yourself that you were a Weyland-Yutani employee, hired to complete a task. That sense of duty was your motivation. You would be Ash’s.

“Don’t be,” you said. Your voice had become strained and you cleared your throat. “I’m your doctor, Ash. A relationship like this would be inappropriate - however much we both might want it.” His eyes filled with hope at the implication and you felt your heart sink. It was almost too cruel.

You continued, knowing that you were forever damned anyway. “I go back to Earth in three weeks. Find me there, outside of all this mess. We can start again. But first we both have jobs to do. Once they’re done, we can try this again. I'd... like to try again.” 

He gave you a slight smile and nodded, moving towards the doorway. He paused before he walked out.

“I’ll see you on the other side, then," he said, glancing back for the last time.

“I’m looking forward to it already.”

“As am I.”

With that, he turned and disappeared into the dark hallway.

You never saw him again, never knew what happened on his Nostromo. But you were haunted with the guilt of those empty words until the end.