"'What's this book? Is it his lordship's diary?'

Drumknott took the book. 'It looks like it, certainly.'

'Have you been able to crack the code?'

'I didn't know it was in code, Commander.'"

-Feet of Clay


In a small, dark room in the Patrician's palace, Lord Vetinari was sitting at his desk. A single candle burnt at the side of him. It illuminated the journal he was writing in, and, incidentally, the blanket which he had wrapped around his shoulders as the only concession to his current illness. He really was feeling most peculiar. He went to push his reading glasses a little further up his nose, hoping to ease his headache, but was distracted by the pretty trail that his hand left behind in the air.

Curious, he thought. Obviously, there were poisons where this kind of thing could be expected, but none that he could think of which matched his other symptoms. And, ahaha, he should know about poisons after all. Perhaps it was something which that doctor had given him then. He recalled hearing something about… horses? Yes, that was it. Vimes, with all of his customary suspicion, had sent for the horse doctor. Probably for the best, Vetinari reflected, a little giddily. But it did pose certain questions about dosage adjustments. He would have to have a word with Drumknott about that. It wouldn't do to have his mental processes impeded; the city did not, after all, stop. And he did feel like he was lacking a little of his usual clarity of thought. Thinking of Drumknott, perhaps it would be worth asking him for a summary of the latest from the Merchants' Guild. There had been something about golems, he remembered vaguely. Something important. Yes, he would ask Drumknott to put together a report. After all, his research was really quite comprehensive. Invaluably so…

Lord Vetinari tapped his pen distractedly to his lips, and continued to write.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Rufus Drumknott was not having a good day. He had already been interrogated once, extremely loudly, about any possible involvement he may have had in poisoning the Patrician. In fact, contrary to expectations, the interrogation by Sergeant Detritus had been something of a high point of his day thus far. The look of growing incomprehension on the officer's face as Drumknott had maintained, despite a truly inventive amount of shouting, that it was not 'him wot done it' after all, had been undeniably entertaining. No, far more disquieting was the fact that his lordship, who had seemed to be making a recovery, had relapsed again, worse than before. So now he, as chief clerk, was left with calming the distraught staff and keeping a toehold on the growing mountain of paperwork to try to stop the city spiralling apart before Lord Vetinari's please-gods-soon return. Not to mention his own personal fears about his lordship's health, which he was trying his best not to think about. So, when Vimes entered the dining room to ask yet another round of questions, he was, safe to say, not in the best of moods.

Of course, he had been expecting another interview; memories of the late, unlamented Lupine Wonse were still relatively fresh after all. Frankly, if he hadn't been invited to assist the Watch with their enquiries again, he would have been concerned that Vimes wasn't doing his job properly. Being shown Lord Vetinari's private diary, however, had not been something he had expected. He was, truth be told, more than a little offended at Vimes' suggestion that he might have attempted to read it previously.

Being asked to read the diary was surprising enough, but that was nothing to the contents when he started to read. It had only been years of professionalism which enabled him to fight down his blush. Even his extremely well-practiced control over his facial expressions wasn't enough to stop his eyebrows raising. It really was that or blushing, and Vimes would definitely ask questions then. Questions which Rufus was very certain that he did not want to answer. Because this… really was not what he had expected at all. Apparently he had some thinking to do.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Time passed, as it so often does. The source of the poison was identified, the culprits were caught, and life in the palace began to return to whatever passed for normal in a city like Ankh-Morpork.

It was a week or two after the Patrician had returned to work, on an afternoon much like any other, when Rufus decided that it was time to act upon his plans. The day had been a busy one. There was still business to catch up on in the aftermath of the poisoning, and Vetinari's sources had reported worrying developments in the Guild of Alchemists which threatened to shake the city [1] if they weren't carefully dealt with. So it was later than usual in the day when Drumknott silently entered the Oblong Office carrying the Patrician's customary late afternoon pot of tea on a tray [2]. Without glancing up at the door, Vetinari came to the end of his sentence, marked a definitive full stop, and set his pen to one side.

"Thank you, Drumknott," he said, rising from his desk and moving to the more comfortable chairs set in the corner of the room. "A short break from work will do no harm for the moment, I think. Would you care to join me? I find I'm still rather easily tired, and I have come to a stopping point. After your work to keep the plates spinning whilst I was indisposed, I am sure you could also use a brief pause."

"Thank you, my lord. That would be very pleasant," said Rufus. He set down the tray, filled the two cups, and smiled at his employer as he placed one of them onto the table at Vetinari's side.

They sat for a moment, sipping their tea in comfortable silence. When Rufus eventually spoke, it was with an air of studied nonchalance.

"Sir, there is one thing which occurred while you were indisposed which we haven't yet discussed."

"I see. Do tell me."

"While Commander Vimes was trying to discover how the poison was being administered, he rather took it upon himself that your diary was a likely vehicle." Rufus noted with a certain amount of interest the subtle way Vetinari's face stilled. "I believe he thought it was written in some form of code. He showed it to me, to ask my opinion. Of course, I would never normally consider reading something private, not unless you had instructed me to. But Vimes seemed so certain that it would help with the investigation…" he trailed off. "Obviously, no one in the Watch is familiar with shorthand."

"Ah," said Vetinari.

"He asked me to read the most recent entries. I gave him a rather …abridged summary."

"Ah," Vetinari repeated.

"Yes." Rufus gave him his very steadiest look, the one he'd practiced in the mirror that morning.

"Do you recall which entry you happened to read?" asked Vetinari, cautiously. He looked like he was aiming for unruffled, but to someone who knew his body language as well as Rufus did, he was overshooting by quite a long way.

"Yes. May I?" Rufus gestured to the small book lying innocuously on the desk. Vetinari inclined his head in assent, and Rufus tried to ignore the strange, nervous sensation in his stomach.

The leather of the cover was cool and smooth, soothing in his hands. Slowly, he let a finger slide along the torn off letter which was acting as the most recent bookmark, and allowed the journal fall open. Then, he gently flicked backwards through the pages. It felt like there was no air in the room.

It was still there, as he had remembered it, in a slightly more untidy version of Vetinari's usually impeccably neat shorthand. Not, in fact, a dream brought on by stress, then.

His name, written over and over. Their names, written together, in a messy combination of first and surnames like the graffiti in a lovestruck schoolchild's exercise book. There weren't any accompanying doodles of love hearts, because even when drugged Vetinari had an Assassin's background in anatomy and found them silly. But there was an excerpt from a poem. It was in Latatian, the kind of thing that he had probably memorised at school and which had resurfaced whilst his mind was slightly out of focus. Vetinari had, after all, had a classical education [3].

Once more, Rufus scanned the familiar lines. He'd thought about them rather a lot over the past week or so.

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred.
Then, another thousand, and a second hundred.
Then, yet another thousand, and a hundred.
Then, when we have counted up many thousands,
Let us shake the abacus, so that no one may know the number,
And become jealous when they see
How many kisses we have shared.

With hands that were definitely not shaking, not even a little bit, Rufus placed the book back into the table in front of the Patrician, open to the offending page. And Vetinari, briefly, froze. From someone so prone to stillness anyway, Rufus thought a little giddily, it was really quite impressive.

The weight of Vetinari's gaze felt so heavy that it could probably have warped space-time. Rufus was aware that Vetinari was doing his 'silence to make the other person talk' trick, which he never usually tried on him. Obviously he wasn't the only one discomforted then. Perversely, he reflected, that actually made him feel slightly calmer. Which was a relief, because This was It. This was the moment where things would change, either for the very good, or for the very, and perhaps even terminally, bad. He didn't think terminally was likely, per se, but it was always wise to consider every eventuality.

Well, there was nothing else for it. Time to see how brightly his bridges would burn. "Of course, I appreciate that you were… unwell. If it was merely an unfortunate side effect, then of course I would understand." He didn't think that was likely, though, not any more, because surely Vetinari would have said something by now. He'd made no attempts to deny anything. So, in medicina veritas? It didn't have quite the same ring to it, but never mind. "But, if you did still feel the same way, now-" Now you're not high as a kite on horse tranquillisers was the unspoken addition- "then that wouldn't be unreciprocated."

And oh, now he felt a bit sick, not least for the double negative. He wished very much that his heart would calm down and stop beating so fast, because aside from anything else the prospect of declaring one's affections and then immediately passing out in front of the object of them was too deeply humiliating for words.

Except- except Vetinari was smiling. Not the sardonic smiles of the office, or the smiles designed to discomfort political opponents into submission. A proper, genuine smile, slowly lighting up his face. His very blue eyes looked like clear forest pools thawing in the spring, and if Rufus was thinking that he definitely needed to take a breath right now before he started to hyperventilate.

"Rufus. May I call you Rufus?"

He gave a slightly shaky nod, still trying to get his breathing back under control.

"Always so full of surprises," Vetinari murmured. "I must admit, I had not expected you to be so bold, although in retrospect I'm not quite sure why. You always have been a far braver man than any give you credit for. You understand, of course, why I could not take the first steps, not without clear indication from you that it would be welcomed." It was not, really, a question. It was also not quite as much of an answer as Rufus would have liked. Something must have shown in his face, because Vetinari continued, his voice low.

"Rufus. Dearest Rufus. For the avoidance of doubt, I did not write this-" he gestured elegantly towards the journal- "because of the medication, or the poison for that matter. They simply… relaxed my inhibitions. My duty is to the city, as you know better than anyone else. But as much as I can be a private individual, as much of my heart is free for me to give, you have held for rather longer than I care to admit. Ankh-Morpork is a jealous mistress, but if you are willing to share me with her, then I am yours."

"Oh," breathed Rufus.

Vetinari quirked his lips, as though an amusing thought had just occurred to him. "I would, however, be grateful if you refrained from mentioning this particular diary entry more widely. I'm not sure that my reputation would survive if it became known that I had memorised Latatian love poetry."

"The poetry is the part you would have problems with?"

"Yes. Tsk, Passerius, indeed. Acceptable from a teenager, no doubt, but for a man of my age?" he said, with what looked very much like a self-deprecating little smile.

"I recognised it too, so I can hardly judge," Rufus said, driven by the spirit of fairness.

"Yes... Was it the abacus that you found memorable, perhaps?"

"Err.." He felt his ears turning red.

Vetinari- Vetinari actually laughed, with no attempt to hide it whatsoever, and Rufus felt like he might burst.

"You are a delight," Vetinari said, his eyes warm and very, very soft. So Rufus did the only thing that made sense. He kissed him.

FIN


[1] Literally, if they exploded the guildhall again.

[2] Opening a door and silently entering a room while carrying a tray bearing a large pot of recently boiling water, two delicate china teacups and, on special occasions like this one, a plate of biscuits, is actually incredibly difficult. Drumknott was, in many and varied ways, an extremely talented man.

[3] The clerk's school had taught the rudiments of the classics too, of course, and plenty of Latatian, but it had tended more towards the vocational uses of the language. Rufus had found that particularly poem in his own private explorations in the library, which was probably why he had remembered it too.


A/N: I've had 'Havelock Drumknott. Mr Havelock Drumknott. Rufus and Havelock Drumknott. Rufus and Havelock 4eva' saved as a note on my phone for far too long because it just kept making me laugh. So that's why this happened. The poetry is an excerpt from Catullus 5 (not all the translations have the abacus in, but once I saw this one I couldn't resist) and the title is from Catullus 1. My knowledge of Latin poetry is actually almost non-existent, I've just listened to a lot of 'Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics' over the pandemic. No insult was intended to fans of Catullus.

This is, probably to the amazement of my friends, my first attempt to actually write something shippy, but I just love these two so much I couldn't resist. I found their voices incredibly hard to get right- the dialogue has been through so many edits and I'm still not sure it's quite there. As always, concrit is gratefully received.

Please let me know what you think!