What I Did After Graduation

A Brief Portion of the Patrician's Life

By: Twist

A/n: Silly? Yes. Pointless? Yes. Did you all ask for it? No, but I gave it to you. I would like to thank everyone who gave me help (you know who you are) and also gave me a first name for Lord Downey.

***

And so the story begins. Thirty years ago in lovely* Ankh-Morpork, three careless youths** were sitting at the Broken Drum. They had just passed finals at the Assassin's Guild and were celebrating in the old- fashioned Ankh-Morporkian way. They were getting hopelessly drunk.

One of the aforementioned youths was a very intelligent and extremely drunk Ronald Rust. However, he did not have mush going for him in the common sense department. This was the reason (combined with his drunkenness) he was trying to put the moves on a particularly gorgeous young lady called Sybil Ramkin.

Another of the youths was one Faustus Downey. He was quiet, thoughtful, and considerably more intelligent than the Rust. He was also so drunk he was at the point of reciting all of his life's laments to the general public. Sybil Ramkin was paying more attention to him than Ronald.

'And who was the third member of this party?' you may ask. Well, he was unconscious outside, with several young women moaning over this fact. Yes, the future Patrician and incredibly attractive member of the male species Havelock Vetinari had had a few too many and was in the happy land of dancing blue birdies that sang. Sybil was worried.

"Please, Ronnie, I'm sure it was very interesting," cutting Rust off in the middle of a conversation with one participant and a subject that only that participant was aware of. "If you'll excuse me for a moment," she patted him charitably on the shoulder and glided over to Downey.

Let me give you a picture of Lady Ramkin at this age. She was tall, and thin, with brown hair. The mother of all Mary-Sues. However, most Mary- Sues are not wearing wigs and certainly do not have a fondness of small, fire-breathing animals. They also most definitely do not breed them for recreation. They are too busy getting everyone in Ankh-Morpork or Hogwarts to fall deeply in love with them***.

"Downey?" she asked quietly. All of the aristocrats' children had grown up together and developed definite relationships with one another by this age. The one between Sybil and Downey was not affectionate in any way, shape or form.

"And when I was nine – Whazzat?" Downey turned and looked at Sybil in a very confused manner. "Sybil? What?"

"Where's Havelock?"

Downey gestured vaguely in the direction of the door. Sybil nodded curtly and left. There had not been five words exchanged between them†. Outside, she saw somewhere around three young women clustered around an unconscious friend of hers.

"Alright, clear off, the lot of you," she snapped, waving her arms and advancing. Though at this stage in her life Sybil was thin, she still gave you the impression of advancing. The girls retreated. "Havelock?" Sybil nudged the black-clad young man with a pointy toed-shoe.

"Ow . . ." There came a drunken protest and Vetinari rolled over to face one of her. "What?"

"You're drunk again."

"Uh . . . Hehehe." Vetinari started to laugh at something she could not see or hear. "You're pointy . . ."

"Thank, you Captain Obvious. Shall I make sure you're at least passed out at your own home?" That sentence did for the young Assassin what a whole cup of Klatchian Coffee would have done to anyone else.

"Please, please don't take me home," he begged, trying to leap to his feet, and managing to spoil the affect magnificently by losing his brief hold on the street and falling back over. "Ow . . ."

"At least your head's working properly again," Sybil sighed and grabbing his elbow. "Come on then." She helped Vetinari to his feet and prevented him from swaying back over again.

"I'm gonna be sick," he moaned. "And I want to be asleep."

"I warned you around your sixth," she said, helping him stagger in a vaguely straight line past a young, brown-haired night watchman, "but you didn't listen."

"I know." She'd seen him worse, before. At least there were no blue flying mice this time. Now, he just looked depressed. "My mum's got another dog." Most people on the Disc or even in the Multiverse, dare I say, would be able to understand why this was a depressing thing. Normally, a new pet was a welcome and exciting addition.

These people did not know Havelock Vetinari's mother. She was the equivalent of an older Sybil Ramkin, but with dogs. Though without the social skills. Lady Vetinari did not see any difference between a dog and a human, and therefore all humans were treated as dogs. If she was distracted long enough from the yipping of her many small, annoying canines she might remember her spouse's or an of her children's birthdays‡. The gifts were usually forgotten as well, as they were always something along the lines of leashes. Lady Vetinari had owned twenty-eight small, yippy dogs at most, and three at the least, right before she died when there was a tragic accident at a dog show and a large Klatchian dog had attacked and killed her. However, we must go back to the past.

"She says he has a terrific bloodline," Havelock said even more mournfully, if it was possible. "Some terrier breed. There'll be puppies galore in no time. Little bastards."

"Now now, it can't be that bad."

"Have you not met my mother?!"

"Of course I have, she seemed very nice –"

"Until you said something about the dogs and than it's 'Fluffy this' and 'Rover that' and then she'll talk all about kinky dog sex." He snorted. "I'm going to be a corrupted adult."

"You most definitely will be if you keep banging into walls like that."

"Shut up."

"At least you passed the finals."

"Rejoice."

"I will when you can walk straight."

"Shut up."

"I would have if you hadn't been sarcastic." Sybil had long since learned how to deal with Havelock. You mimicked him. It absolutely drove him crazy. So, when he was sarcastic with her, she was sarcastic with him. "So where are you going to sleep tonight?" She asked.

"In my shed." In the spacious backyard of the Vetinari mansion, there was a small, battered shed. This had been claimed by Havelock once he'd been old enough to light a fuse and, using the marvelous art of pyrotechnics, he'd managed to keep his older siblings away from it.

"Doesn't you father use that these days?"

"Not often."

"I'm not sure I feel comfortable leaving you drunk and alone in a wooden shed full of explosives."

"How do you know what I keep in there?" Vetinari pushed off of a wall and staggered into Sybil. "I don't let anybody in there."

"I see the fireworks."

"Oh."

"You could be a little more subtle about it, you know. I mean, who didn't notice the blue sparks? And those big red ones that lit the whole sky up . . ."

"They were experimental!"

"And you have little rolling ones that you aim at the dogs."

He stopped and glared. "How do you know about those? They go on the ground." He swayed and Sybil caught him.

"I was delivering something for your father about that dragon he bought to try and kill the dogs and I heard this whistling from the backyard. I asked him about it and he said 'Oh, it's just Havelock doing gods know what . . .' so I wandered around back to see what the gods knew."

"I hate you."

"So should I just leave you here then?"

"I love you, Sybil."

"Let's not get too touchy-feely."

The two staggered along (well, mainly Havelock was staggering but Sybil had to kind of stay with him) towards Scoone Avenue in silence. Once they'd arrived, she helped him around to the back gate.

"Are you alright on your own, then?" She asked, watching with amusement as he attempted to undo the gate latch.

"Fine."

"Will the dogs barking tip your parents off?"

"Possibly tick them off. My father, at least. He'll be out with his crossbow any night now."

"Alright." She watched as Vetinari finally managed the latch and eased the gate open. "I thought Assassins never used doors."

"I'm not installing a lot of trust in my coordination right now."

She grinned. "Goodnight then." And that was when the flirtatious Sybil Ramkin tried to lay the first move on the drunken Havelock Vetinari. She kissed him lightly and grinned. He stood there and looked confused.

"What was that about?"

Sybil sighed in frustration. "You are so hopeless!" she exclaimed, and stormed off. Vetinari watched her, shrugged, and staggered towards his shed.



***

*Sort of.

**Almost.

*** Thankfully, Discworld has not had any terrible Mary-Sues. But we all know and fear that it is only matter of time.

†If you don't count conjunctions as two.

‡Her human children, not the dogs.

A/n2: Meh. Writing at eleven thirty at night is not good for you. And spellchecker will hate you because your fingers do not work properly. And you write scary romances between Vetinari and Ramkin. *sigh* 'Teva. Again, I must ask for reviews because it is pathetic and I like pretending to be pathetic even though it doesn't work. But I will not threaten you because I like writing to much. And I love all of you very, very much. *wink*

P.S. I think I forgot to mention this in Vetinari and Dubya, but Dubya himself wrote me a letter praising me for being on honor roll for the last two years. Scary. And I got a medal. Yay.