Title: Bedtime Stories
Characters/Pairings: Vetinari/Margolotta not-really-fluff. Oneshot.
Rating: Probably K+, but rated T to be on the safe side.
A/N: For all those who, like me, should be doing better things. Also for those who like Margolotta/Vetinari fluff, but really, it's more for the previous people. I don't own anything.
Lady Margolotta watched the thin strip of pale moonlight lingering on the carpet, her chin resting on both her fists. The night was almost over now, and she hadn't found a single hour of sleep. Usually, it would be Nutt or the blacksmith who kept her awake at ungodly hours; but Nutt was now somewhere in Far Überwald with that cook of his, and the blacksmith's hammering would have been a relief greatly welcomed if only it could have made that horrid sound go away. She contemplated briefly exactly why it was so annoying; after all, it was slow, soft, barely audible and, most of all, perfectly rhythmical even in her finely attuned ears. Yet why did it keep her awake? It was not as if there had been no other sounds which might have been blamed for her insomnia. In fact, there were a great lot of them that would have rendered anyone unable to close an eye – screams, crashes, cats fighting on rooftops. And still, it was this very specific one…
She was just about to jam her elbow between a couple of ribs when the sound suddenly stopped and two icy blue eyes blinked up at her.
"Don't even think about it."
"How long have you been tracing my thoughts?"
"Long enough."
"And did it, even once, occur to you to stop breathing? Have you any idea how annoying that is?"
Vetinari chuckled and lifted his arm so she could bed her head on his chest. "I'm afraid, Madam, if you wanted me to stop breathing you would have to talk to Lord Downey. I'm sure he would be only too glad to arrange something."
Ladyship glared at him, but took up his unvoiced offer and lay down next to him, wrapping her legs around his while at the same time managing to retain a look of thorough disdain on her face that very clearly said, I'm just doing this for convention's sake. Don't, not for one second, think I like it. "Why this time? What have you done?"
"Nothing much. I might have cut back the Guild's budget again."
"Pouring oil into the feuding fires of the Guild wars again, I like it," the vampire mumbled, her voice muffled by the covers. It seemed as though, for a moment, she had forgotten how much she actually disliked the situation she was in. "So then the Fools' Guild is now getting more governmental support than the Assassins do?"
Vetinari smiled smugly in the darkness. "Actually, that was just a pleasant side effect. Lord Downey will find himself forced to raise the school fees in order to maintain standards, which means that instead of spending a vacation by the seaside or a fancy new coach, parents will have to put aside a bit more for their children's school."
"So at the end of the day, it will be like raising the taxes for what Lipwig's too chicken to do." Lady Margolotta smiled drowsily. "Ingenious."
"Yes, I do quite like it as well," Vetinari said, staring up at the ceiling. "Though it does have its drawbacks, of course. For instance, it will mean that the assassination rate will drop. And that it will then cost me a bit more to have you inhumed, but at the end of the day, I still consider it a profit…" His voice faded out as he looked down at the torrents of dark hair on his chest, expecting a sharp response or perhaps a kick that, oddly enough, did not come. After a while, he carefully reached down and pulled the cover over Ladyship's sleeping head and shoulders. In the end, he thought to himself as he allowed himself to be carried off into the deeper fields of sleep, cuddling and such was fine with him, but there was nothing quite like a good bedtime story.