Count To Ten
Or: I Want A Girl With A Short Skirt and A Long Jacket
By: Twist
A Preliminary Public Service Announcement from your Author:
Hello gentle readers! Here is a fic that is a little bit of a labor of love (ahaha a pun) that I have been poking away at for the better part of the past few months. As a whole, it's long. If you're reading this and it's all been posted and you plan to go straight through, bring snacks; the journey may be arduous and require vittles for sustenance. You'll need your strength to review at the end of each chapter. (Subtlety: not my strong suit.)
Anyway, it's a lot of Grace/Vetinari. In fact, all of it is Grace/Vetinari. Each drabble represents one year in their weirdly adorable courtship/relationship, which was previously established in everything else I've written recently. As this whole fic is patterned off the song meme (see: It's Like A Musical Mosaic), each "year" has a song that goes along with it. They're mostly all at least a little dramatic, and I tried to follow a general logical progression, but there are a few that could really go anywhere, so I sort of threw them in where I needed them. A new chapter will be posted each day, from now until the day after February 14th 2011, at which point the last chapter will be posted.
The whole fic itself is subtitled after a song by the artist 'Cake,' which is both gorgeous and glorious and kind of perfectly suits this pair, imho. You don't have to agree with me, but if you don't tough shit, it's my fanfiction so nyer nyer nyer.
My thanks to Gogol, who didn't so much beta it as drool all over it at various points throughout the writing process. I tried to clean it off, guys, but I'd wear gloves if I were you. We have nitrile ones for those who are allergic to latex up here at the podium.
So without further ado, I give you: Count To Ten.
-()-
1) Saving Abel – The Sex is Good
Grace gasped when her naked back pressed against the cool wallpaper, turning her head to the side, baring her neck. Part of her brain – the part that stayed detached, pragmatic, no matter what – was asking whether or not this was really happening. The human part, the bit responsible for daily life, was gasping right along with her, back arching, arm wrapping around a skinny pair of shoulders to keep her on her feet. A third part, quiet and responsible solely for self-defense, whispered that this was the last step off a high ledge, and there would be no chance of return. At least, not alive and as Grace Speaker.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked, punctuated with kissing her, on the mouth, on the neck, one hand supporting her head, the other arm twined around her back, hand cupping her ass. Grace paused, not so much for her own benefit but to see if he would too.
For one second, Grace Speaker, sole proprietor, manager and employee of Pellicool Pets, made the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork wait achingly long for an answer.
She leaned in, still clinging to his shoulders like they were the last stable thing in a World Gone Madde – and the world would have had to have gone pretty damned mad for Havelock Vetinari to be a point of stability – and kissed him again, messy, not particularly caring. "As long as I'm not just another notch in the Patrician's bedpost."
He threw out an arm and caught himself against the wall when she slid a hand down the front of his trousers, still holding her so she didn't fall. What a gentleman. "I don't exactly get around," he chuckled.
She leaned in, cheek-to-cheek and kissed him softly. "So you're desperate, then?"
"You talk too damn much," he whispered, hoarse now, moaning a little afterward, still holding her despite everything. She leaned back and kissed him again, biting his lip just a little – softly – before pulling back, hand still down the front of the most powerful man in the world's pants.
"Hypocrite."