Work Text:
Otto had come into the office of The Ankh Morpork Times that morning with a stuffy nose and a cough, something which, when a non-vampire presented, was known as a cold. He had insisted that he was still fit to work and sat at his desk beside the darkroom to color some of the photographs for the paper.
After the fifth round of burying himself in a handkerchief for sneezing and nose blowing, however, William noticed Sacharissa giving confused glances and the dwarves at their printing press whispering about it. With the same question on his mind, he couldn’t help but breach the subject.
“So, uh… how does a vampire end up catching cold in the first place?”
Otto sniffed. “Ze same vay as ze rest of you. How else?” He smiled. “People zay ve don’t get zick so ve zeem scary. Really, zink about it, Villiam. Ve have almost no body heat, zo ven ze cold weather comes, I get ze sniffles.”
“Oh… I see.” Well now William felt stupid for asking. He did, in fact, ‘really think about it,’ and found that there were quite a few ways Otto could have gotten sick. He ran around the city all day no matter the weather, for gods’ sake. He even went out there off duty because something looked like it would make for a nice photo.
It was a mostly uneventful day otherwise; a couple of dwarf bread bar fights, someone getting punched during a meeting in The Rat’s Chamber, the constant stream of humorously shaped vegetables, the usual. Otto’s cough got worse throughout the day, and Sacharissa made him tea. That evening, after his coworkers had left, Otto went to his Temperance meeting.
Upon stepping in, it was apparent that something was going around, for a good quarter of the usual attendants were absent. Many of The Black Ribboners were taking hot water bottles from their coats. It wasn’t an unusual sight in places one would find vampires. In winter, hot water bottles and bed warmers were necessities for their kind.
He was greeted by one of the group leaders, a fatherly man with a certain aptitude for remembering who everyone is and noticing everything about them. “Good evening, Otto,” said he. “Are you feeling alright, the chill has been dreadful.”
“Vell, vhatever our friends, have, I zink - ahem - I zink I have too.” He coughed, the tickle in his throat insuppressible.
The Black Ribboners were a supportive group; anyone who knew what the temperance movement did could decipher that, but anyone who was part of the meetings could expand by explaining how complete and often suffocating that support was. Otto was quickly sat down and spent the period before the meeting properly started being fussed over.
“Here, have some cocoa, your voice is going,” one would say.
“Oh, you poor dear. Let me know if you need a tissue, I have plenty,” another would tell him, and they all insisted he keep his coat on, as he needed the heat to get well again.
After the typical discussions, while attendees were getting ready to leave, a younger vampire took him aside. “I live with an Igor,” said he, “You may have met him. He shows up here occasionally, and he often doctors the other members. Well, I direct them a good chunk of the time, but the point stands. I know it’s hard to tell when you need bed rest when you can’t run a temperature, and I watched you cough and clear your throat and what not all through the discussion. I don't want to be rude, but just sounds nasty and painful. He’s always willing to practice at my house, so-”
“I know him. Okay. Ve’ll see him.”
The next morning at the paper, it was immediately apparent to William that Otto was absent. He was so distinct and excitable that it was easy to notice. Sacharissa was doing paperwork and didn’t look up as she announced why.
“Hello William. We haven’t gotten any fieldwork yet, but we have a bit of a backlog for edits. Oh, by the way, Otto is in his bed in the cellar. Igor’s order apparently. Frankly, I’m not surprised. He seemed miserable when I went to check on him.”
As soon as he got the chance, William went down to the cellar. There was a small pile of tissues on the table beside the bed, alongside a glass of water and the typical books and Brownie Camera, and Otto was busy blowing and wiping and blowing some more to prepare another for the collection. The poor little man’s handkerchief must have been soiled through.
“Hello, Villain,” said he, his voice lacking its usual energy.
William suppressed a wince. Between congestion and hoarseness, he sounded more like a frog than a vampire. William sat down beside the bed. “Uh, hello. Sacharissa told me you were stuck in bed for a while. Are you warm enough? It can get pretty cold down here.”
“Yes. She asked me ze same question. Really, I used to-” his voice gave out, and coughing and clearing his throat failed to remedy it. He whispered the rest. “I used to like ze snow. In Uberwald it was everyvere all ze time, zo I wanted to ze it here up close, ven it came down. Oh!” He broke out into a long, painful coughing fit trying to raise his voice.
William gave his back a gentle hit. “Do you need-”
“No, but Villiam, ze light shines on it all over, and vith ze right angle ze light hits ze lens and-” he snatched a tissue and sneezed into it. “Ugh. It looks nice, is all.” He drank some water on the nightstand and laid down. “Vell, it becomes more of a bugger ven you go out and spent ze veek in bed.”
“Well, that’s enough talking, I think. I should get back to work.”
“Is zere anything interesting?”
“I wish. Things have been slow.”
He grinned. “Ve’re journalists. Ve don’t zay that.”
Sacharissa, William, and several of the dwarves took turns sitting with him to give updates and just talk, and William wound up sleeping in the cellar with Otto that night. Well, cold weather may not be healthy for him, but at least people understood when curiosity got the best of him.