Pairing: Sam Vimes / Cheery Littlebottom
Rating: K
The door to Vimes's office opened after the perfunctory knock. Vimes did not look up. Out of the periphery of his vision he saw Sergeant Littlebottom's heeled boots tap smartly up the the edge of his desk before stopping.
Vimes's hand paused in its writing, the pen gripped slightly too tightly.
The texture of the air in the office changed.
Everything felt slightly too loud, too on edge. The scritching of his pen on the paper sounded like a saw in his ears, the birds outside seemed to be chirping down megaphones and his breathing sounded like a thunderous roar to himself.
He swallowed the strange feeling down.
He glanced to the top of his page.
"Sergeant Littlebottom. What can I do for you?" He interrogated the pen still clutched in his right hand.
"Report from the Miller Warehouse job, Sir."
With his left hand he indicated a smaller pile of paper on the edge of his desk. His gaze slid across the paraphernalia in his line of sight, resting on a bunch of keys. As he did so, Sergeant Littlebottom's hand came into view, holding a piece of paper. Her feminine, small hand with pearlescent nail varnish.
Vimes concentrated on signing the document he was working on, willing himself to ignore the waft of perfume that accompanied the movement of her hand.
"Is that everything?" Vimes asked the inkstand, tracing a scratch on the surface of his desk with his eyes.
"Yessir."
Vimes nodded at the fresh sheet of paper he had pulled towards him, initialling the first paragraph.
After a few moments heeled footsteps tapped across the room, a flash of boots and the edge of a leather skirt teasingly on the edge of his vision as the door opened and closed.
Only then did he look up.
Comments?