@corvid-42! Some little time ago you suggested someone expand upon the idea of Vimes finding Vetinari in the Oblong Office, nailed to his chair.
Obedient as ever to the whims of my mutuals, I have done so!
It's literally just a sketch of that scene. It is uncertain if I will do anything more with it (and it will certainly not be for a while if I do), so if you know what happens next, by all means steal this and continue it.
I've tagged this for torture but I'll put the scene below a cut to be safe.
The palace had never seemed particularly welcoming to Samuel Vimes, but the experience of padding through the deserted corridors in the small hours of the morning was downright eerie.
All his instincts were screaming that something was wrong.
Vimes hadnāt survived as long has he had by ignoring his instincts. He paused in a convenient shadow to consider.
Right, messenger from Vetinari, unusual at this hour but not unheard of, the damned man apparently never slept and assumed none of his subordinates did either, hence Samuel Vimes padding through the deserted corridors of the palace at four in the morning ā
The deserted corridors.
At four in the morning.
There.
This was Vimesā world, the world heād grown up in and spent most of his life in, the world he still considered real life. Not the palace, that was a new addition, but the time. The dead of night and even more dead of the morning, when the only people awake were the ones who couldnāt afford to be asleep.
People like Vimes, until recently.
People like coppers and thieves, Assassins and those who merely murdered for money, bakers and cleaners and maids ā a surprisingly significant subset of the cityās population.
Damn near the entirety of the palaceās population, in fact.
So, with all those people who should be up and about, lighting fires and baking bread and creeping in from questionable little errands theyād never officially been sent on ā why were the corridors deserted? This should have been the busiest time of the day.
Paradoxically, Vimes relaxed. Heād figured out what was wrong. Now he just needed to know the why.
There was one bastard who probably knew the answer.
Silently, Vimes proceeded to the Oblong Office, and paused again at the door.
It was just a door. A nice door, as all the doors in this part of the palace were, but just a door. There was no reason for it to be looming forebodingly. And yet.
Vimes decided not to knock.
Vetinari had ā well, had not specifically shown Vimes how to open the door to the Oblong Office without triggering its usual wake-the-dead screech. But heād done so in front of Vimes once. It hadnāt been a demonstration. It had very pointedly not been a demonstration, and there was no way it had been an accident. It was just one of those little preparations Vetinari scattered about the place like landmines, against the day some poor unsuspecting conspirator to set them off
Vimes hoped like hell today wasnāt that day, that he was reading too much into this and all heād get for sneaking into Vetinariās office in perfect silence in the dead of night would be a pointed comment and an even more pointed eyebrow.
And gods, what did it say about the atmosphere of the palace that Vetinariās sarcasm seemed comforting by comparison?
Silently, Vimes opened the door.
Vetinari was sitting at his desk. Nothing unusual there.
He didnāt look up at Vimesās entry, but there was no way the omniscient bastard wasnāt aware of him, silence of the hinges be damned. Nothing unusual there either. Except...
Whatās wrong with this picture?
The patrician, seated at his desk so late it was turning into early, working by the light of the single candle...
There.
Vetinari wasnāt working. Silence reigned in the Oblong Office, unbroken by the scratch of the quill that was as omnipresent as a heartbeat, and, in here, far more regular. Vetinari wasnāt writing, was resting his arms on the arms of his chair. Vimes racked his brains, trying to recall if heād ever once seen Vetinari at this desk without at least one project in his hands.
Now that Vimes had let the inner copper out, he could see the tyrant wasnāt even looking at the surface of the desk ā his head was bowed as though he hadnāt the strength to hold it up. As he padded across the room, Vimes wouldnāt have sworn Vetinariās eyes were even open.
And ā the half-light, again, but there was something odd about Vetinariās complexion. If Vimes had been inclined to use a word like āashenā, he would have used it here.
āSir?ā he said, less certainly than he had intended. āEverything all right?ā
Vetinari started at the sound of his voice. āVimes?ā he said faintly, looking up at last, eyes glassy and unfocused. āWhat are youāā
Vimesā hand reached out without permission and rested on Vetinariās shoulder. āSir, you look likeāā He broke off. Not because heād thought better of telling Vetinari exactly what he looked like, but because his hand had touched something unexpected.
As it did, Vetinariā
He didnāt whimper. Surely not. This was Vetinari, and there was no universe in which the imperturbable tyrant would make that noise.
But it had sure as hell sounded likeā
Vimesā hand, he vaguely realised, was covered in blood.
With a reluctance born of dread, Vimes looked down.
Protruding from Vetinariās shoulder, almost concealed by his robes, was a nail.
āWhat the fuck?ā said Vimes.
It... wasnāt alone.
There was another nail through his other shoulder. Vetinariās arms, which had looked so odd resting on the arms of his chair, were held in place with nails though his wrists and elbows. The angle was wrong for Vimes to see his legs, but the unnatural angle of Vetinariās boots suggested more nails going through his legs and into those of the chair.
āWhat the fuck?ā said Vimes.
Vetinari startled and seemed to focus. āVimes,ā he said urgently. āVimes, you shouldnāt be here, you have to leave nāā
Something hit Vimes in the back of the head so hard he saw sparks and then, for a while, he didnāt see anything at all.
One wolf wants to analyze the symbolism the other wants to laugh and go woof. I just finished my reread of Jingo and my god Vimes gets called a dog so many times.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 9/9
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Relationships: Havelock Vetinari/Samuel Vimes
Characters: Havelock Vetinari, Samuel Vimes, Mustrum Ridcully, Original Male Character(s), Angua von Uberwald, other watch members, Rufus Drumknott
Additional Tags: Major character death but he is brought back (!!!), Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Magic, magical resurection, Whump, some mystery, Suicidal Thoughts, Angst, Fluff, Psychological Trauma, Talk about death, Blood and Injury
Summary:
After a cataclysmic storm wiped out the shores of Klatch and now heads for Ankh-Morpork, the Patrician must find a way to protect his city. A strange wizard, brought in by Ridcully, is interested to help, but he soon reveals himself to be the sort of person neither Vetinari, nor Vimes want around.
