I own nothing.

OK, this was kind of an experiment- I wasn't exactly after the "ultimate fanfic", but I made some notes about recurring themes in fanfiction that interested me, especially in what some (not I) would consider to be bad fanfiction; if you can guess what these themes are you get a virtual cookie (yayz), though you don't have to guess, that ain't the point. The idea was to see what I could do with them. It's kind of an art project tbh, and i would appreciate it greatly if you read & reviewed, even if you don't have much to say; any kind of feedback can be used by me in the coming chapters and just to see what I can get out of this, art project-wise. So don't be shy. This is the first 3 chapters, I shall see how this whole thing goes, and upload more appropriately.

Dog Bothering

by Barrymorefm

The children, for they were still children, were laughing on Amerie's bed. The laughter lasted for a long time because a lot of it had built up over the years, with few moments of release. Eventually Sideney allowed himself to relax slightly and the only sound was the two of them breathing heavily. The only sound, indeed; Sideney had good hearing, and knew how to listen. The house itself had a new silence, less life. Definitely less life. The blood on his hands was drying now. He rubbed the stickiness on his fingers and looked around the room. There was not much there. His sister tended to be immaculate in everything, and was not at all sentimental. There were no toys, and no pictures on the wall. Even Sideney had pictures on his wall; a couple of watercolours of ships or scenery or something, an old map of Quirm- he didn't look at them, but they were there. His was a room, inhabited by a person; there was decoration. And hidden in the room, well hidden, because this house was a dangerous place, there were other pictures, ones he actually looked at. Some compromising etchings of young ladies he had procured in the way that 16 year old boys are able, and a small portrait, kept apart from the others for decency's sake. It was well-worn, like the etchings, but in a different way. By less hands, probably, and with more reverence. He must remember to take the portrait when they left for good, as they surely must, soon. He would try to find a way to retrieve it so that Amerie would not know. Showing Amerie weakness was like turning your back on a tiger. In this room, there was nothing. Sideney suspected there was nothing secreted away, either. Amerie had everything she needed in her own head. Sideney was considered... well, he knew how he was considered, and everyone knew how he was considered, and he was fine with that because it meant people left him alone or did as he told them, and besides, it was true. All of it. And more. But Amerie was worse. She was better at hiding it. She was fifteen, and pretty, and petite and curvy like her mother, in a tall thin family. She concealed well the way she controlled people, and if you didn't know her well, only her charisma was visible. If you did know her well, she was terrifying. If you did know her well, you were Sideney.

He turned to her on the bed. She had been staring at him in the moonlight through the window all the time. He was not disconcerted; with Amerie there was no time to waste on the lesser negative emotions such as disconcertion; better to cut to the chase with just a constant fear; at least then adrenaline would give you an extra edge. They smiled at each other for a moment too long to be acceptable between brother and sister. Sideney would have hated himself for these moments if he had not been so arrogant. Ah, well. It was the least of their concerns now.

"How do you feel?" He asked her, unable to stop grinning. She answered only with a grin of her own. He wasn't sure she was capable of feeling anything anyway.

"It's just us now." He said.

"Not yet," Amerie sat up, "we need to decide what to do with the kids."

Sideney felt a sudden knot in his stomach. There seemed no point in analysing its meaning- this was a night of emotion, and he was only used to blocking emotion.

Amerie looked at him carefully.

"They are witnesses now, on top of everything else."

"I think they will do as they are told."

"They are dangerous."

"We'll be a long way from here anyway. Worst comes to the worst, we buy off the Watch. There should be enough money. As it is, they might not even investigate at all, no one will ask the Assassins if it was them this far from Ankh-Morpork. We can forge a note if you like."

"I mean in the long run. They will grow up and want things from us. From you, in fact. Then me."

"The title? I have no interest in being a Lord. Neither have you." Sideney wasn't sure about this. He had decided long ago, however, that if Amerie wanted to kill him he wouldn't e able to do much about it. That he had no inkling of her desiring his death either meant that she had none, or that she had planned it out already and it was practically fate. Either way, he had decided to continue as he was.

"No one will see it that way... my lord," Amerie laughed again, she must have enjoyed it the first time, "and the kids could grow up title-hungry. Or wanting revenge. Or anything. They could also be annoying or stupid, and I might have to talk to them. Family is trouble. The less of it the better."

Sideney found himself extremely unhappy with the way this was going. He knew that he was not a good person; even at his young age he had done enough to wave any chance of that description goodbye. But killing children was a big idea, even now, covered in his own father's blood. And a little of his mother's. But that was not his fault. That had not been part of the plan. That was why there had been no plan, until tonight.

"We can just kill the boy if you're squeamish, he's the real danger. The girl's too young to know what happened really." She studied her brother again. "I know you've gotten attached to him."

Sideney sighed. "A little." There was contempt in Amerie's face. "He's special, Amerie, he's... he's very clever. Too clever probably. I suppose that makes him more dangerous."

"Well then."

"But, I mean... He's some kind of genius, Amerie. He's incredible. He's cleverer than me, I think. And you, probably. Probably everyone." He couldn't tell what Amerie was thinking. "He could be useful. He could be dangerous. I don't want to kill him. And we shouldn't kill people we don't need to. It's a habit hardly likely to lead to good things."

Amerie nodded, giving Sideney a feeling of relief stronger than he was at all comfortable. It occurred to him he probably loved his little brother, and his little sisters, and his mother. Perhaps even his father, although thinking about that too hard was not going to be fun. This was no good. There was no room in his ways of thinking for loving people just because they happened to be related to him. But there it was. And there the small portrait was too, and its sitter. Love was an inconvenience to Sideney, and he had hoped that it would just go away, but it appeared that it was just a part of life. Like ear infections or something, he thought bitterly. Getting in the way of things. He sat up, suddenly.

"Somebody's at the gate," he told Amerie in a low voice. They edged to the window, which looked over the long path over the front lawn. There were four men. Amerie and Sideney watched them force the lock on the gate. At instructions from their leader, two of them ran quietly around the house, and the others walked along the path towards the front door.

"I think they're watchmen," said Amerie, "I think there will be more of them finding another way in. One of the neighbours must have heard mo... screaming."

"This is OK," said Sideney, and he did not feel worried, "This was always going to happen, it has just happened... soon. Change our clothes. Wash the blood off us. Say it was intruders. Amerie nodded, and pulled her bloodsoaked dress off in front of him. Looking away would have been to concede defeat so he took the garment from her and headed for his own room and wardrobe saying "I'll hide the clothes in a secret passage," as Amerie started to wash her hands and face her washstand.

There was no need for an obvious bribe, although in time an amount of money found itself in the possession of certain senior members of the Quirm Watch of the time, which happened to be of a similar amount no longer belonging to the recently acquired estate of Lord Sideney Vetinari. The Vetinaris were an old and respected powerful family, and sometimes the members of thse families died and unless they specifically asked the Watch to do something about it, the Watch didn't as rich people moved in mysterious ways, and ours not to reason why. People, and the Watch was comprised of people, were extra scared of the Vetinaris too, especially Sideney. They said he killed people. They said he tore them apart. But they didn't say it loudly, because he had good hearing. Perhaps what happened to the late Lord Vetinari was what happened to the people Sideney killed. The Captain of the Watch thought this far into the matter, then no further, because he had a wife and children and mortality. He wondered (very very quietly in his own head, because that's damn kid's hearing was so damn good) whether this was what a Watch was meant to be. He decided that it didn't matter, because things weren't going to change.

He looked over the report of the Vetinari murders again, but not too hard in case a fact or any evidence made itself clear. For some parts, he had to blur his vision. Lady Vetinari had been strangled. Lord Vetinari had been savagely... well, all sorts of things. It was very messy indeed. One of his men had been sick, and one had cried, though everybody was very carefully not mentioning it. Poor Amerie Vetinari had wept uncontrollably during her brief and kind questioning, her brother comforting her, holding back his own emotion in keeping with his new responsibilities as head of the Vetinari estate. A bleak estate it was, too. The house was old, and large, with carved bits on the roof and certain topiary and pretty shrubs and things surrounding it, as was the Quirm fashion, but the captain was used to nobby houses having more of the same on the inside. The Vetinari house had just what was needed to live in a place. No statues or fruit bowls or delicate clocks or opulence of any sort here. The sparseness did not appear to be the result of thrift, either; it was as if the occupants simply didn't care about possessions. The captain wondered, quietly, what they did care about. It possibly wasn't each other. Good thing, too. Of eight Vetinaris that had lived in that house as he had known it, four now remained. He hoped the youngest would fare better than the two oldest siblings, they'd never got to the bottom of that one, either. He felt he was watching an entire family slowly die, and not doing anything about it. The odd thing was that he'd have done more possibly if they had been a poorer family. Not too poor, obviously, there's a limit to human compassion, but murder of the upper-working-to-middle-classes wouldn't have been allowed. It wouldn't have been civilised. These people were nobby. They were the ones that decided what civilisation was. The captain sighed. A treacherous and, again, quiet part of his mind considered that the fewer remaining of this cursed family, the better, but he had been hugely relieved when the two young children, instead of being found in a messy pile like their parents, had been found in a messy huddle in a cupboard. They were both streaked with what seemed to be their father's blood, and must have witnessed the whole thing. Neither of them said a word, and the captain wouldn't have blamed them if they never did again. He had wondered if they would get the chance now they were the wards of Sideney to do with as he liked. Mainly he seemed to want to get them off his hands, which was fair enough. A 16 year old boy had no business raising children. He had sent the boy, who as about ten, to the Assassins' school in Ankh-Morpork, which was the done thing, and showed some caring, as it would give him a good education and, perhaps, life, and as the only thing the child seemed to respond to was books. The girl was about six, and too young and a little too female for school. There was some aunt in Genua with whom fostering arrangements were being negotiated, but she didn't seem keen, and for now the girl had been sent to some institution for the children of officers unable to look after them due to war and things. This wasn't a cruel arrangement and the institution seemed quite decent, and should be, for the money it cost, but the young boy and girl refused to be separated, the resultant tantrums the only display of emotion the captain had witnessed in trying to sort out this mess. Ah well. Children don't get to decide what happens to them, of course, or all that happened would be sweets and kites and things.

He filed the reports in their place, the cases carefully marked as "closed". Various violent criminals had been arrested recently for various reasons. Between crimes, it was quite possible that some of them, although claiming to have never met, decided to team up, break into the Vetinari household leaving no trace of a break-in, interrupt an argument that had been heard by the neighbours, strangle Lady Vetinari, change tack completely and violently rip Lord Vetinari apart (all the while not waking Sideney and Amerie, who had gone to bed before their much younger siblings), steal nothing then escape as tracelessly as they had arrived, past several approaching Watchmen and the gaze of several watching neighbours. That sort of thing happened all the time.

Well it was over now, and the Captain could go home and work very hard at not thinking about the world, and hope that he never had to deal with young Lord Sideney Vetinari again, who creeped him the hell out.

Many years later, Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork city Watch was sitting in the antechamber of the Oval Office. He was troubled, and more troubled, because the thing was was troubled about was not a troubling thing, and the way in which he was troubled was not a way of being troubled he knew where he was with. Troubles such as someone who should be under arrest running away from you or someone who should be under arrest trying to kill you or somebody who should be under arrest being an anonymous figure at the end of a trail of clues and luck hard work- these were troubles that Vimes was more at home with. The issue here was that he was waiting for his regular meeting with the Patrician, obviously, the worst part of his day. Obviously. There was police work to do, and non-twisty bastards to talk to and Ankh-Morpork to sort out. He did not need this oblong oasis of calm and sanity and intelligence getting in the way of all that. So he could talk to the Patrician. He didn't need someone to talk to. He had Sybil for talking. Obviously, there was lots he couldn't tell her because he didn't want to worry her, and no one could quite help him think something through like the Patrician could, but that was just because he was an awful tyrant who tried to control your thoughts. Vimes hated him. Definitely. Always had. There was no option. He just had to remind himself of that occasionally. And if he didn't well, he hated one less person, which would seem to be a positive thing, so Vimes couldn't work out why the whole idea was upsetting him so. Give him high-speed chases and murderous intent to deal with any day, this was feelings, and Vimes couldn't be doing with it. It was like paperwork.

Drumknott popped his head round the door to say he could go in.

"Hello sir! How was your meeting with the Patrician?" Captain Carrot had been giving out advice or a pep talk or just general inspirational rays to a group of Watchmen when Vimes arrived back at Watch headquarters.

"Well, Carrot, it looks as though your new budget proposals will be approved even with the increased wages for forensic (it was a new word they were using, and Vimes quite liked it) staff, although the stricter traffic control techniques are only going to be on a trial basis for now. People get antsy and speed limits, he reckons. He said he'd be coming to Young Sam's ball on Saturday, so I suppose it's a big event now, Sybil'll be pleased. You got your invitation?"

"Yes sir. Looking forward to it." Carrot smiled.

"Then he started telling me about all the letters he'd been getting from houses on Lance-Constable Brick's beat."

"Oh dear, sir." Brick was learning to read, and was proud, and had been reading the regulations about shouting "all's well" when on patrol. All probably was well until a troll started shouting and ringing a bell along your street at three in the morning. Soon the idea would be dislodged from the young troll's head, although changes in that area happened slowly, possibly to be replaced with something more destructive. The Watch could only wait and see.

"Then he said something has to be done about the rise in unlicensed thieving from boats on the Ankh (it was too easy to rob one- they couldn't sail away fast enough through the ooze) and he questioned our need for a new dartboard. Then he looked up from the new budget into my eyes for quite a long time and I noticed they were blue, which I must have known before, but for some reason it suddenly seemed important and we looked at each other not saying anything for a really long time until I got this weird feeling in my stomach and remembered to look at the wall behind him like I usually do. But I wanted to know if he was still looking. I really did. I don't understand what's happening."

"Ah, that'll be Brick again," said Carrot, because Vimes had actually stopped speaking after 'dartboard', "he doesn't get that it's just darts, not rocks."

Vimes looked at his friend's helpful face. He wondered what would happen if he confided in Carrot that he suspected he might be getting a crush on the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork. Who he hated. Definitely. Probably Carrot would go red, and stammer his questions. Vimes chuckled at the thought of it and climbed the stairs to his office, past a confused Carrot, who was alright, because he never got Vimes's jokes anyway. Vimes's suspicion only came because he remembered the crushes of his youth, that he would get with an irritating regularity, as if his brain needed to fill up a "crush" space. Luckily, they were put on hold when all of Vimes's brain spaces were filled up with alcohol for many years, and after that, the only occupant was dear Sybil, and perhaps with occasional slightly unhealthy dalliances with the city of Ankh-Morpork herself. Confusing as that was, there was a poetry to it that Vimes felt he understood- romances of men and cities were established patterns of relationships, like men and dogs, or horses, or the sea. Nothing wrong with that. Vimes was vaguely aware that some men took the frustrated eye-rolling phrase of "sighwomen" altogether too far and eschewed the fairer sex in favour of the one they were more familiar with. He wondered whether he avoided thinking about that sort of thing because it disgusted him, or because it didn't. He didn't mind what other people got up to, as long as they weren't breaking the law, but this wasn't other people. This was him. And aside from that, this was Vetinari. He was glad he had the privacy of his own thoughts to go over this in, but he never felt too confident of that privacy in the company of Vetinari. He never felt too confident in anything around Vetinari, and he was a confident man. Vetinari made him feel different. Not necessarily good or bad different, just different.Vetinari had been staring back at him. Probably wondering why Vimes was staring at him first... There couldn't be anything there, surely. Certainly, the man was unmarried, but didn't have some... some rumour of a woman in Uberwald? Vimes had met Margolotta Von Uberwald, and he could, as they say, "see it". He wondered if human-vampire relationships ever happened, or worked. He wondered if he was jealous of Lady Margolotta. He wondered how long Sargeant Angua had been standing in his office watching him stare into space with an amused look on her face. He would not allow himself to look surprised. He paused for a few seconds and said.

"...Sargeant?"

"Sir, there's an incident unfolding in the cells."

"Yes?"

"A troll we brought in, sir. He was robbing the museum, or something."

"Yes?"

"He says he demands diplomatic immunity."

"Really? All those syllables?"

"Yes sir, he didn't even pause between them. He says he's a personal friend of the Patrician".

"Hmm, it's normally only the rich humans who say that."

"Sir. He demands to see you, or 'the manager of this den of iniquity' in fact, sir."

"Sounds like me, sargeant," said Vimes, swinging his legs off the desk.