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After everything, this story still starts… with a garden.
“It’s improbable!” Crowley hissed, pacing back and forth in the small kitchen. Aziraphale, cooking enthusiastically and badly, dodged around him with the ease of long practice. “It’s not even in season!”
“What’s wrong?” Aziraphale asked, getting a pan of carbonized pies out of the oven and frowning mildly at them. They rectified their mistake, turning deliciously browned and offering little puffs of aromatic steam. He smiled at them.
“There’s something in his soil ,” Crowley continued darkly. “Maybe he’s been burying people out there. God- I mean, Someone knows the plants could use the nitrogen around here.”
“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, lining the little pies up on the windowsill. “Why don’t you just ask him? I’ve invited the two of them over for dinner tonight.“
“I can’t ask him!” Crowley replied on autopilot, before the rest of his brain processed the sentence. “You invited them over?”
“They’re our neighbours! I’m being neighbourly,” Aziraphale said reproachfully. “I expect you to be on your good manners, dear, by which I mean not a snake.”
“Newt hardly minded it that one time,” Crowley complained. “And Anathema practically enjoyed it.” What she had enjoyed was laughing at Newt’s misfortune as the snake had draped over his shoulders, but Aziraphale didn’t bother to point it out. Crowley already knew, anyway.
“They seem like lovely folks,” he said instead. “Did you know that Mr. Vimes used to be a policeman?”
“I think he was something more than that,” Crowley said, returning to the window to glare out at the suspiciously early-season pumpkin blossom in the flourishing garden next door. “He’s got a security clearance you wouldn’t believe.”
“You’ve looked into them?” Aziraphale asked, amused. Crowley blushed.
“Only to see if they had gardening experience,” he grumbled.
~ ~ ~
“What do you mean, we have dinner plans tonight?” Vimes said, throwing a dart at the board across the room and trying not to actively squint with suspicion.
“Our neighbours kindly invited us over for dinner,” Vetinari said mildly.
“What, the pensioners?” Vimes asked, throwing a dart that missed the board entirely. “Damn.”
“No, the other neighbours,” Vetinari replied.
“The ones with the massive snake?” Vimes said, breaking his attention from the game with incredulity.
“Indeed,” Vetinari said. “Although one wonders where they would keep a terrarium. If we assume their cottage’s layout mirrors ours, they wouldn’t have much extra space.” Vimes did squint, this time.
“You’re plotting something,” he accused. Vetinari blinked impassively at him.
“Who, me?” he said, in a tone so innocent it was practically unrecognisable. He glanced down at the neat piles of letters, seeds, and mysterious paperwork. He seemed to generate the paperwork independent of his former office, which Vimes had always suspected but never been able to prove.
“Do I have to wear the ruffles?” Vimes asked. Vetinari smiled, a small true smile, and shook his head.
“If anything,” he said. “They might prefer the armor.”
~ ~ ~
“Come in!” Aziraphale beamed, throwing open the door. The light inside lanced out into the gathering dusk of early fall, suspiciously golden. Anyone watching (who had an unusually good grasp on the metaphysical) might have ventured a guess that an above-average number of miracles had taken place in the small kitchen recently. “I’m Aziraphale, so lovely to meet you two.”
“Vimes. We brought you some vegetables,” Vimes said, proffering a brown paper bag. “Er, carrots and tomatoes mostly. If you want something else we probably have it.”
“How kind!” Aziraphale beamed. “You know, we have a garden as well - it’s out back, so it’s a little hard to see from your place, I imagine.”
“Er, yes,” Vimes said, who knew full well that Vetinari had used a map of that garden to deduce the most viable planting times for this region. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about gardening myself, that’s all Havelock.” Vetinari, standing just inside the door and still enough to have gone unnoticed, inclined his head in acknowledgment.
“Lovely, lovely!” Aziraphale said, bustling toward the kitchen. Vimes had never seen someone so visibly bustle before. He was almost impressed.
“Do take a seat at the table!” Aziraphale called back. They took their time, Vetinari scanning each room with a cool gaze that Vimes knew meant he was memorising as many details as possible. He sighed. Some habits were hard to unlearn. The kitchen table was a beautiful solid wood construction, perfectly level and laden with heaping piles of food. Vimes smiled. There were no vegetables in sight, but piles of pies and crunchy bacon and even - he nearly wiped a tear from his eye - a plate of fried eggs with extra crispy bits.
“What an interesting assortment of foods,” Vetinari said, a subtle warning in his tone. Vimes froze, hand outstretched for the nearest pie. “It’s almost as if you know us.” A thin man in black sunglasses and an equally black outfit appeared behind Aziraphale, and Vimes could have laughed at the resemblance. Is this what life was, in the South Downs? A place for suspicious skinny men with monochrome outfits to settle down with their husbands?
“Yes, angel,” the man said pointedly. “How did you know?” Aziraphale blushed.
“Well,” he said, twisting a dish towel in his hands. “I was afraid I wouldn’t know what food to offer huma- er, people from out of town,” he said. “So I stopped by the diner in town and asked what kind of foods you had ordered there. Mrs. Davies was more than happy to help me put together some recipes.” Vimes noticed that Vetinari and the new man were giving Aziraphale twin expressions of suspicion - though with Crowley it was hard to tell, behind the sunglasses.
“Anyway, make yourself useful, Crowley,” Aziraphale said lightly, lifting a pan off the burner and, for some reason, handing it to him. Crowley didn’t flinch as he took the hot pan, though he did shrug at Aziraphale’s back.
“Here, allow me,” Vetinari said, standing and retrieving a knitted potholder. He watched carefully as Crowley set the pan down.
“It’s… ceramic,” Crowley said, under his attention. “Doesn’t stay hot very long.”
“Indeed?” Vetinari replied. They held each other’s gazes for a long moment.
“Alright!” Aziraphale said, returning to the table and clapping his hands together. “Let’s eat!” Spell broken, Crowley and Vetinari took their seats.
Vimes was faintly aware that he and Aziraphale were the only ones to touch most of the food on the table. At one point, Crowley shot Vetinari an unreadable look and then fetched a few slices of bread from the kitchen. The two of them each slowly worked their way through their respective slice as they watched Vimes and Aziraphale demolish most of a table of grease and crunchy bits.
“Ah,” Aziraphale said, when the food was all gone. “Lovely. I will have to thank Mrs. Davies again.”
“Excellent crunchy bits,” said Vimes, who was blissfully full and had gone past suspicious and solitary to downright friendly. He noted that there hadn’t been any alcohol offered, and shook his head. It didn’t mean anything, he thought. Perhaps neither of them drank either?
“Would you mind if I stepped out for a quick smoke?” he asked Aziraphale, who waved a permissive hand. Crowley and Vetinari both reached for the dishes to start cleaning up, and Vimes made a quick escape before there were any sudden movements.
To satisfy Vetinari’s (and his own) relentless curiosity, he went out the back door. On the way, he passed an open door and glanced through. A perfectly normal bedroom - plus a very large terrarium with branches and rocks and things. It was, unsettlingly, empty.
The back porch had a set of solid and beautifully made rocking chairs, and Vimes dropped into one and lit a cigar. He watched the garden, lit by the light spilling from the cottage window, and felt himself relax. There was something about this cottage that made it hard to stay on edge.
“Mind if I join you?” asked a low voice. Crowley was standing at the back door. Vimes grunted and took his cigar in one hand.
“Of course not,” he said. “It’s your house.” Crowley slipped out the door and took the other seat, sitting in a whisper of fabric.
“I’m curious,” Crowley said eventually. “Most people would have said the Patrician would never retire.” Vimes gave a start and glanced over, but the other man was apparently relaxed in the rocking chair, eyes closed.
“Yes,” Vimes said slowly. “Too bad he died in office, before anyone could see if that was true.”
“Hmm,” Crowley said. “Indeed. That was a shame.” There was a pause, and Vimes offered him a cigar. He shook his head.
“There are a lot of people looking for the Patrician,” Crowley said at last. “We had one stop by just the other day, in fact.”
“Oh?” Vimes asked, wondering if it had been a mistake to come to dinner unarmed. Assassin or no, he’d seen the fluid grace Crowley moved with and didn’t relish the thought of a fight.
“Aziraphale really went after him,” Crowley continued, still quiet and calm. “Told him not to go bothering the dead, and that he should reconsider his life choices. I believe the man is joining some kind of non-profit.”
“He must be quite persuasive, your husband,” was all Vimes could think of to say.
“I imagine, given your husband’s background, you already knew about this,” Crowley replied. “But in case he, like Aziraphale, has a certain stubbornness around his own safety, I thought I’d let you know.”
“Well,” Vimes said, and put out his cigar. “That was a decent thing to do. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” Crowley said, standing. “If you want to return the favour..?”
“Perhaps?” Vimes said.
“Can you figure out how on Earth Vetinari got a pumpkin to bloom four weeks early?”
~ ~ ~
Inside, Vetinari traded gossip with Aziraphale over a pot of tea and leaned back with a smile. There were such interesting new variables in his little game.