Disclaimer: I don't own Discworld or any of its character. Not copyright infringement intended, no money made with this.

Candlelight

The thin body beneath him stirred only so slightly. Vimes groaned weakly into the other man's neck, before rolling off him, and, in one swift movement, pulling himself up into a sitting position on the bed. Every bone in his body protested against this rough treatment, screaming for him to lie back down and rest, but one didn't survive years on the streets of Ankh-Morpork by not learning to ignore such signals.

The Patrician shifted his legs slightly, and lay still once again, utterly relaxed, eyes closed, and breathing evenly, chest raising and falling. Vimes glanced down at him: his black robes, pushed all up to his neck were tousled (1), there was a faint trail of sperm on his stomach, and the overall picture looked illogically neat. Vimes sighed and shook his head, and then reached to the side of the bed, dragged up his trousers from the floor, produced a match from a pocket and, having lit it on the head of the bed, leaned over his partner to light a candle. He waved the match out, and sniffed the air suspiciously.

"There's no need for that, Commander," Vetinari said, opening his eyes at last, and pushing himself up by his elbows.

"Right." Vimes snorted.

"Arsenic doesn't have a scent."

"Right," Vimes repeated, through grit teeth, and considered if dropping the match over the Patrician's naked torso would be a good move. He decided against it. He knew that somewhere under these robes there was a dagger. Or a very small poisoned needle, maybe.

"Well." Vetinari yawned, and looked around the room as if he was seeing it for the first time, and found it rather nice and uninteresting. "Don't let me detain you."

It was a good thing, Vimes thought, that he had already put the match away by now. He had expected that one, of course. But the least the bastard could do was allowing himself to be glared at: instead, the Patrician had laid back down and closed his eyes. With a lot of good will, you could even see a contend smile on the corner of his lips.

There was a moment of silence. Vimes stood up and put on his trousers, his shirt, and his sword, and was reaching for his socks when he thought of something.

"I sent all the guards on this floor away."

"Yes." He hadn't seen Vetinari move, but somehow, the Patrician had pulled his robes back down to his knees, and was resting on his elbows once again. "I believe you did. Was that measure for security or for discretion?"

"Both." Vimes glared at the Patrician. He didn't look disapproving, but... "I'm married, you know."

Vetinari raised an eyebrow.

"I am well aware of that. But I was under the impression that your wife knew –"

"She knows," Vimes snapped, in a tone of finality that suggested that, supreme ruler or not, the other one did not want to continue this conversation. "I don't want anyone else to."

The sad reality of life in society means that, when a person is double crossed or betrayed, the guilty party will be met with slight disapproval, awe, and secret jealousy, while the victim will be openly pitied and scorned, and he could hardly put Sybil in that position. The fact they were currently only married on paper would only make it worse.

Not just one this floor, either.

"I'm not leaving then," Vimes declared, while leaning against the wall right next to the door. He saw Vetinari's eyebrow slowly rise at that, and angrily pushed himself off again. "I'll be next door," he hissed.

"By all means, stay," Vetinari said quickly, sitting up. "I wouldn't want you do become any more nervous." The Patrician put a pillow against the headboard and leant against it, locking more comfortable than he could logically be. "But I can assure you that your concern is exaggerated."

"I'm sorry for trying to stop you from getting killed," Vimes snapped.

"It's quite all right, Vimes." Vetinari smiled. "I do appreciate the sentiment."

Vimes mouth opened and closed without producing a sound. The Patrician's measures for his own protection could be a serious source of annoyance, not to mention work, to the man in charge of said protection. You had to convince him to accept protection measures like you were asking for a personal favour (2). Vimes didn't entirely trust the Patrician's assurance that the safest way to stay alive was to make sure everybody would be a little worse off if he died. In his experience, people didn't need a good reason. They were just total idiots like that.

"Someone almost managed to kill you a few months ago," he couldn't help mentioning, coldly.

Vetinari, who didn't seem to deem this worth an answer, leant down to pick up a book from beside the bed, opened it seemingly at random, and began to read.

"And the murderer is free again," Vimes added, rather bitterly, and just a little bit accusing.

Vetinari raised an eyebrow.

"If you are referring to Mr. Dragon, I believe there is no reason to be worried. I hear he has fallen into depression, and is currently obsessively collecting pins."

Vimes had heard about the depression, and didn't quite trust it, because he'd been there and got out again (mostly), and that the vampire hadn't managed to get accepted in the Guild of Historians, which he suspected was Vetinari's doing (3), but not about the...

"...pins?"

"Oh, yes. Vampires who renounce to blood need to hold unto something else, as I am sure you are aware. Mr. Dragon's previous outlet being gone..." He made a vague gesture. "Pins are fascinating objects to some people, I understand."

Vimes said nothing. He'd heard about pin-collectors once. They were weird, but that didn't say much in Ankh-Morpork, and he hadn't cared, since they weren't doing anything illegal. Right now, he was resenting that last fact just a bit.

"Besides," Vetinari added. "I highly doubt that, already being suspected of poisoning by the watch, Mr. Dragon would give them any reason to apprehend him."

Suspected!

"He's not the only one."

Vetinari looked up at him in polite puzzlement.

"Why would anyone want to kill me?" he asked.

Once again, Vimes opened his mouth and closed it again, because it was a pretty effective trick question, designed not to be answered, but to make the interlocutor unable to do so. (4)

"We've found a plot to overthrow you," he finally said: he hadn't planned to share this piece of information until absolutely necessary. Vetinari never did so, and if he was to inform him of every minor plot against the ruler, he'd do nothing but reporting all day (5).

This one hadn't seemed worth paying much attention at first (aside from the fact that, when certain kinds of people were involved, Vimes rather liked paying attention). It seemed to have taken them forever to decide what exactly their goal was, aside from getting rid of the current leader. They weren't completely free of the meeting-in-mysterious-crypts-in-dark-robes and the sending-badly-coded-messages syndromes, which was how they'd picked up their trail in the first place, but they knew a bit too much, persevered even though they hated each other, and they hadn't found a thread that joined them all, and... "We think they have intelligences inside the palace."

"Mm." Vetinari didn't look up. "Very good."

Vimes stood very still and stared, while the facts rearranged themselves in his mind almost on their own: there was something in the tone...

"You are behind this?"

"Well, yes," the Patrician admitted.

Vimes continued to stare. Vetinari turned a page.

"It took us almost two weeks to uncover it!"

"Commendable. It took me over three months to set up."

Vimes paused. Actually, this was just a little bit uplifting.

"I could arrest you for conspiring to overthrow the Patrician, you know," he eventually said.

"That would make for a very interesting case, indeed," Vetinari agreed.

Vimes leant against the door and closed his eyes. Then he opened them again, since there was no sense in staying to guard here if he fell asleep standing.

"I hate you," he murmured.

"I'm sorry to hear that." A page turned.

"I want you to increase the number of watchmen," Vimes declared decidedly, pushing himself off again; Vetinari raised an eyebrow. "If you make up plots to overthrow yourself, you have to give us some men for the actual work. And no minorities quota."

"Make up?" Vetinari repeated, looking up. "I can assure you, Commander, that to most of the involved parties, it was a most serious, genuine enterprise. Under certain circumstances, certain people, certain families even, turn to conspiracy. It is practically hereditary. I merely... facilitated things a little."

And you couldn't have facilitated things for the Watch and, you know, told us, Vimes thought angrily. He didn't say it, though. It wouldn't help. Moral outrage slid off Vetinari like water off a duck. (6)

"Controlled conspiracy," he sarcastically said instead. "Why don't they form a guild too?"

Vetinari seemed to consider this; he stood the book up on his lap, and resting his chin on his steeped finger on it, peered at him over its rim. It looked like a slightly ridiculous parody of the version that involved an actual desk, and managed to have the same unsettling effect. Vimes mentally braced himself: any second now, he was going to say that that was an interesting idea.

"One the other hand," the Patrician said thoughtfully, "I suppose you do deserve a reward for uncovering the head of a conspiracy." He tipped his fingers against his lips. "A new dart-board again, I expect." He smiled; Vimes was dreading the next words: "And, of course, a promotion..."

"You can't promote me any further!" Vimes snapped.

"I'm sure I'll be able to think of something, Sir Samuel. And if I don't, I trust captain Carrot will be able to assist me."

Vimes groaned inwardly. (Note to self: talk to Carrot first thing in the morning. Tell him not to give Lord Vetinari any ideas. He has more then enough of them already). Vetinari leaned back and resumed reading. A whole minute of silence passed, before he said, without glancing up:

"You can sit down, you know."

"Thanks," said Vimes, in a tone of voice that quite impressively conveyed lack of gratitude in a single word, and fingered around in his pocket for a cigarette. He rather liked standing where he was: he could rest, and this way, the Patrician was the one in the light.

He fished out a cigarette and a match, lit it on the wall behind him – it left a faint trace – and took a deep drag. When he looked back to the bed, he found the Patrician looking at him intensely.

"Are you sure?" Vetinari asked; Vimes hesitated. It hadn't actually sounded suggestive, but Vetinari had recently, quite dispassionately, informed him that he looked attractive while smoking, so... He bit down a grin.

"All right."

Vetinari's eyes were fixed on the book as Vimes climbed back onto the bed, and comfortably installed himself next to him, but he was sure he was paying attention to him. He was also sure he was actually reading as well: you didn't stay Patrician of Ankh-Morpork if you weren't capable of multitasking a bit. Vimes brought his sword around to his right side, on the edge of the bed, lay down, and closed his eyes.

"You do know," said Vetinari after a moment, as Vimes trailed a hand up the back of his leg, and circled a spot beneath the knee where, he recently had had to find out, assassins occasionally attached a weapon, "that I am not armed?"

"Yes."

"Ah. Good."

Lord Vetinari turned a page. Vimes blew a smoke ring.

(1) It was telling of the kind of thinking the Patrician incited in people, or possibly of Vimes' particular, paranoid mind, that even though he had just throughout touched every part of the assassin's body, the commander of the watch still suspected him of having a dagger hidden somewhere there.

(2) Of course, there was always the option of simply not asking for, or ignoring the Patrician's opinion. Vetinari never said anything when he did. Ever. At all. He practically radiated not-saying-anything.
Overall, clearing things up with him first was a lot less stressful.

(3) The Historians were the most tightly controlled guild of Ankh-Morpork. After all, the other guilds only influenced the city's present, and, possibly, its near future. People tended to have at least some rather solid and focused views on the present, and the amount of money, comfort, and stability it involved for them. But you could tell them anything about the past, and the Patrician intended to be the one to do so.

(4)Not because it was rhetoric. Because if one had a serious try at it, one might very well be at it for years. If the Patrician let one live that long.

(5) A truly nightmarish prospect.

(6) Until it was Ankh water, which would stick to ducks like glue, if there were any ducks in the Ankh.