Title: Essence
Synopsis: One vial of backup blood is a limited emergency plan...
Pairing: A slight hint of Otto/William
Rating: K, for a super-gory... papercut
A/N: This is... not quite right. But it's got potential. What the hell's up with lack of Otto/William-ness? Okay, Otto and Maledict(a) kind of make a cute couple, but for the gods' sakes... Leave her to soldier femslash and him to inter-office slash! And there's oh-so-obvious subtext in The Truth! They're meant to be! cries
Otto exploded into ash for the second time that day when his salamanders spooked. His vial of emergency blood was already gone from an early-morning flash shot.
William cringed and glanced from the charred pile to the parade being led by a sullen Commander Vimes, which experience dictated was a ticking time-bomb of newsworthiness.
Well, needs must...
William wasn't in the habit of carrying sharp things. Just a pencil and...
Hmm...
He dragged a finger across the edge of his notebook a few times, and finally got a papercut from which he squeezed a drop of blood.
Otto billowed up from the street in a dusty cloud. He looked troubled.
"Are you all right?" William asked.
"Human... your..." the vampire stammered.
"Oh... Sorry. It was all I had."
"It's okay," Otto dismissed with false casualness.
William dropped the matter and turned back to reporter mode, scanning the crowd. Otto started to fuss with his tripod.
He wished he had something to bite. It felt like he'd been dipped in essence of William and the fact the man was right there... He really wanted something to bite.
The iconograph was starting to calm him down, but he couldn't block out the hammering of William's heart, not even when the crowd roared into chaos after Vimes bolted after the nearest criminal again.