Archive of Our Own

"Why do you do this?" Vimes is growling, his fists bunched around the Patrician's collar. His face is flushed, his helmet has since stopped spinning some distance away on the floor. His hair is mussed, and Vetinari's perfect little beard is askew. Just so, just enough to be a  clue . One little piece of the tiny case of How Close Were Their Mouths Just Now, Really.

"Why do you always do  this?" Teeth are bared. A room of men has become a cage of animals. Hunger whitens knuckles, pushes boundaries. Someone smiles thinly, something metallic is knocked off the Patrician's desk and clink-clanks onto the floor. Wood scrapes against wood, wrists hit a surface, someone says "don't tear it, now, honestly," then gasps.

Captain Ironfoundersson knocks worriedly on the door to the oblong office.

"Sir?"

Vetinari hisses a quiet laugh through his teeth. Vimes turns the color of Mrs. Palm's favorite dress. The Patrician's cheek meets roughly with his paperwork.

"S'all right, Captain," the Commander grunts, fingers stuffed in a mouth (which, really, was probably a bad idea in hindsight; suddenly he's all twitches the way he is when Sybil neglects those few buttons on her nightgown, and now there really is no stopping). "Head out -- I'll, er -- I'll just be having a few words with his Lordship."

Vetinari bites. Vimes squeezes. Papers spill.

"But--"

"That's an order, Captain."

Everyone looks politely away from the shadow down the alley as it sorts out its own humanity. Nobby goes the extra mile and places his hand stalwartly over his eyes. Colon fidgets nervously.

When Angua finally appears, wrestling briefly with a buckle on her armor, Fred lets out a sigh of relief. They are (almost) all of them setting off down the street before Angua stops and half-turns. "It's all right, Nobby," she calls, "you can open your eyes now."

He peeks between his grubby fingers to confirm this before galloping lopsidedly toward the group.

"It's no good," she's explaining by the time the Corporal catches them up, "it's been too long, and there's been a fight down that way only just today."

"Blood?" Carrot asks instinctively.  He's getting a copper voice , Angua notes, and stifles a smile,  just like Vimes . 

"A little." The answer has only a tinge of guilt in it, but Carrot puts an arm on her shoulder just the same. Right now, it is not the way he touches her when they are alone. This hand could be on Fred's or Cheri's or Nobby's -- well, maybe not Nobby's -- shoulder right now. This is a copper's hand.

"We'll find them. Mister Vimes will have his leads."

"Where is he?" Angua presses, her lips going thin the way they always do when she's a little upset or worried or upset and worried. "Didn't he say he was going to come back down with you? Something about Not Spying." Where Vimes was concerned, the capital letters were necessary. Coppers could be sneaky, coppers could be smart, but coppers Were Not Spies.

"To tell you the truth, I think he's having an argument with the Patrician."

"And you left him there?" Angua almost stops in her tracks. "With Vetinari? Alone?"

"Oh, Mister Vimes wouldn't do anything ba--" Colon begins, but then corrects himself, "--anything illegal."

"He's libel to get himself promoted again if he doesn't watch it. Carrot, how could you just leave him there?"

"He ordered me to." Carrot's loyalty is fierce. He looks Angua directly in the eye. And suddenly she can see it, like the glimmer of a hint: Something Carrot knows, but doesn't know.

"He did?" She cocks a brow. "And you listened?"

"Best not to get between Mister Vimes and the Patrician," Nobby says, uncharacteristic subtle wisdom in his advice. "They'll work it out. Better if they have at it where nobody can see 'em."

They all look at the little Corporal, but it is Angua's shrewd eyes he avoids. "Mister Vimes is very big on  pub-lick a-peer-ances nowadays," he over-enunciates, as this will somehow convey the fact that this is some kind of dressed-up coded way of saying  stayin' outta trouble . "What with those funny people from The Times writin' everything down."

"I suppose," Angua obliges, but only just.

"So it's best they have their rows in private," agrees Fred, who has only ever had real rows with his wife via angry notes pinned to the doors of their house, where of course he doesn't understand he is actually having a row until all the pie has mysteriously gone missing.

"Yeah, and anyway," Nobby pipes up again, this time with completely characteristic Nobby-like wisdom, "do you really wanna be there when Vimes goes spare?"

"You don't think it's too much?" Corporal Cheri Littlebottom is looking bashful somewhere under all that beard.

"Oh -- no, no, it's, er...very curly." It's the best Angua can do at the moment. The thing about Cheri is that you can try, and you can make a little progress, but only a really heartless bastard could crush the dwarf's hopes.

Cheri blushes and fluffs up one of the exactly four spirals she's sculpted her long hair into. "I thought...maybe a change..."

"It's definitely a change." Eager not to say anything else, Angua makes a production of finishing off her coffee.

"You're the first person who's noticed," Cheri goes on, oblivious.

"I can't believe that."

"No, even Commander Vimes didn't say anything when he called me up to talk about the traces in the alley."

"Vimes? He's back then?"

"He got in maybe an hour before you came back."

"Did he?" Angua answers lightly, setting her empty cup aside and standing.

"Angua," Cheri pipes up shyly, momentarily biting her lip.

"Yes?"

"You've got a little steak on your chin."

Before she can stop herself, Angua's hand flies up to wipe the meaty juice away. Everyone in the watch knows not to mess about with the bowel of meat Carrot occasionally leaves out. Everyone has the decency -- and the instinct for self-preservation -- not to mention it. But Angua's smile toward the dwarf is kind.

"It -- it was only a little."

"Thank you."

"I thought you'd probably like to know."

"Yes. Thank you, Cheri."

When she arrives at his office, his door is just ajar. He bids her entry with a wave of his hand, and she notices he is looking slightly more put-upon than usual. Instinctively, she expects bad news. Carrot shouldn't  have let him alone at the Patrician, she's sure of that now. 

"Sir?"

"What can I do for you, Sergeant?" Asks Vimes, very clearly not wanting to do anything for anyone.

"I thought maybe you'd still like to discuss--"

A jolt runs electric across Angua's brain. Leftover keenness from recent morphic shifts cause her nose to twitch. Normally this is when she would make up some excuse and bolt out of the room. Normally this is when she would run to the little doggy bed at the foot of Carrot's and gnaw a bone a little nervously until the very, very unwelcome images ebbed away.

She knows the Commander and his wife are in love. She knows they are...actively in love. She knows it better than anyone in the Watch, knows it by her nose, has far too many times smelled that sickly sweet stickiness in the air around Vimes while he clears his throat and goes more stony-faced than usual. Sure, she's happy for him -- glad that he probably won't be biting anyone's head off on these days, anyway. But there are just some things you don't need to be imagining. Ever.

Except, something about this isn't normal. Something is inky. Stiff like parchment. Clinical and clean and sharp and...

"Yes?" Vimes is almost looking concerned now.

"You..."

Angua's eyes widen for a moment. Clinical and clean and sharp and pressed and prim and all over the hand that Vimes using to wield the helmet he's fanning his face with, wafting the solid scent of tongue-teeth-bruises directly toward her.

"You all right, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir." Angua is suddenly stiff. This is the downside, she knows. This is exactly it. Secrets aren't the same for humans as they are for animals. And right now, Angua is animal, wrestling to hold onto confusing and ignore the sudden, instinctively plummeting respect trickling like lead down to her feet. "Just -- heard you had words with the Patrician today, and..."

The Commander's lips purse. He shakes his head. "Politics," he says, like this should explain it all.

"Right, then," says Angua, already inching toward the door.

"Oh," says Sam, pausing in the middle of sitting down again behind his desk, "the Mrs. wants me to remind you, you and Carrot are still invited for dinner tomorrow night. You're not obligated to come," he adds, furrowing his brows at her unreadable expression, "I've got no doubt the two of you have better things to do with your day off, but Sybill insists--"

"No, I -- Carrot wouldn't miss it," Angua answers coldly.

"Sergeant?"

"Goodnight, Sir."

On the little trek from the gate to the door of the Vimes estate, Carrot has his arm around her. Here, he is not a copper. This is not a copper's touch. He could never bring himself to be anything but the utmost image of professionalism on the job. Even something so casual as this was out of the question for him. He could never touch her like this, so simply like this, on the job. So like Vimes.

Angua stiffens momentarily. No. Not really like Vimes at all. She looks up at Carrot with his casual smile and his easy air. Eventually, he looks back.

"What is it?"

She kisses him, soft and long, and he blushes.

She can't sit at the table. She fidgets. She looks at Carrot. She glares at Vimes' hands, cutting his meat, hears him compliment his wife's terrible cooking with earnestness that makes her want to fold back ears she doesn't have right now. She avoids looking at Sybil entirely.

Until the woman stands up and addressed her directly.

"Angua, dear, could you help me with something in the kitchen?"

Angua's stomach is stone, but she obeys. Sybil is a noticer of things, she knows. She's sharp and understanding and kind -- so, so kind. And there isn't a piece of Angua at all prepared to break this woman's heart.

When they reach the kitchen, Sybil does not actually ask for any assistance. She cleans up this, puts that away, stores some of this. She asks Angua how she's been. They pass small talk for the whole of two minutes.

"Mrs. -- Lady Vimes..."

"Please, dear, call me Sybil."

Don't be kind,  Angua pleads silently, focusing her attention on a suddenly very interesting cutting board,  please don't be kind, don't make this harder . 

"Sybil," she continues, taking in a breath before the plunge, "if -- if someone knew something, something that could potentially hurt you, something unfair, something you deserve to know...even if it wasn't their place, would you want them to tell you?"

"I'm sorry?" Lady Vimes looks genuinely nonplussed, but she has put the utensils in her hands back on the counter and has locked her eyes on the Sergeant. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand."

Angua groans inwardly. But she tries again: "If someone...saw something -- or, not quite saw, but..."

"Ah."

When Angua looks up, Sybil is smiling, and it is not the kindly, understanding smile she awards to every honorable member of the Watch. It is more knowing, more worldly -- it scares Angua a little, perhaps because there is no hurt in it that she can detect.

Carefully, the Duchess of Ankh folds her hands in front of her. She looks at Angua for a long, quiet time.

"I have always said you are terribly clever," Sybil says at last, still smiling, "I've told Sam you've been in for a promotion for a long time."

"I -- ma'am?" Angua has to stop herself from saying "sir?" the way every watchman does in a pinch of incomprehension.

"Sam," Lady Vimes begins again, more carefully and slowly, "is a very good man. So is Havelock, however he likes to fool people. They...complement each other. We all do." She says this last bit pointedly, and patiently waits as understanding sluggishly creeps over Angua.

"I -- don't really -- oh. Oh. Oh !" The look on her face must certainly be something, because Sybil politely covers up a giggle with her hand.

"I trust you, Angua. I think you'll appreciate how delicately the boys might react if things...got out."

The boys , Angua echoes in her head.  They're  the boys to her. Her boys.  

"You look shocked," Sybil notes gently, returning casually to her tidying-up, "I suppose I might have been too, when I was younger. You learn a lot when you get to be my age."

And because there is nothing left to do at the sight of a terrible crash-cart but to look on in morbid awe, Angua asks the only question she can think to.

"Like what?"

At the end of their shift, Carrot offers to walk her home.

"No," she says carefully, looping her arm through his, "let's go back to yours."

He is politely curious when she opens the little box in the dim of his bedroom, but he waits for her to explain as she wishes.

"I was thinking maybe we could try something."

"Try what?"

She removes a fine strip of leather from the little box, and its single buckle jingles.

"You only got a new collar just last week," Carrot notes in amiable bemusement.

"It's...not for me," says Angua.

She's halfway through the slow unbuckling of her uniform before he starts to understand.

"Oh," says Carrot.