Work Text:
Vetinari walked into his office comparatively sedately, in noticeable contrast to Vimes, who was barrelling along after him as though he had been launched from Detritus’ piecemaker.
The door closed behind them as Vetinari strode to his desk and removed a bottle and some gauze from a drawer. Vimes pulled up in his usual spot opposite the desk, and caught a whiff of astringent liquid as Vetinari upended the bottle onto the cloth and pressed it against the long graze on the side of his neck.
“Very well, Commander,” he said, dabbing at the lightly oozing wound. “You had something you wished to say?”
“Oh, we can talk about it now, can we?” Vimes snapped. “You basically told me to shut up in front of your nobby mates back there.” The embarrassment still stung, even now they were alone.
“I was not about to have this conversation where we may be overheard, Vimes.”
“Somebody just tried to kill you!”
Vetinari raised an eyebrow. “I am well aware. At least, I assumed that was your reason for tackling me to the ground and straddling me in front of the Duke of Sto Helit.”
“I didn’t bloody straddle you!” Vimes’ cheeks reddened. “But I wasn’t about to let them get another shot at your damned head. Anyway, since you’re apparently aware of that, maybe you can explain to me why the hell don’t you seem bothered by it?”
The patrician sighed, and peered at the gauze before discarding it in his wastepaper bin. “People try to kill me with alarming regularity, Vimes. If I allowed myself to become bothered by it, I would never be unbothered.” He looked at back Vimes. “You tend to take these things far more personally than I do.”
Vimes shook his head angrily. “Because I’m your guard –”
“No, you are not. You are a city guard, not my bodyguard.”
“You are the city, godsdamnit!”
The words rushed out of him without any thought, and for a long moment they hung silently in the air.
Finally, Vetinari murmured, “Vimes…”
Vimes closed his eyes and pressed them with his thumb and forefinger. The adrenaline was wearing off, now, and he could feel a headache starting at the base of his skull. “What.”
Vetinari hesitated, then said, slowly, “I have always appreciated your dedication to…the city. However, perhaps you are allowing this to affect you more than is strictly necessary.”
“Well, when someone tries to kill you, I do take that pretty damned personally. Do I need to apologise for preferring you alive, now?!”
“No. However…”
“However, what?”
Vetinari wasn’t meeting his eye, Vimes noted.
“However,” the other man continued, “your concern is…misplaced.”
Vimes narrowed his eyes, and stepped in closer. “No. It's not. It’s exactly where I want it to be.”
Vetinari had been staring at the window, but now he turned and fixed Vimes with a look that made his pulse thrum beneath his skin.
“Indeed? Because I seem to recall you have not always felt so well-disposed towards me.”
Vimes shrugged. “Things change. You changed. I changed.”
Vetinari smiled slightly. “You have not changed, Vimes. Not in any significant way.” He saw Vimes’ expression, and added, “I intended that as a compliment.”
“Didn’t sound like one.”
“Forgive me. I am poorly versed in giving them.”
Vimes licked his lips, because his mouth was suddenly dry. “Look,” he started. “You and me…”
Vetinari blinked, and Vimes saw the brief flash of fear in his eyes. “Vimes –”
“Oh, I know, alright? You don’t want to talk about it.” His head was starting to pound, but he’d been skirting around the issue for years now, it seemed; years of ignoring the twisty feeling he got in his chest whenever he was around the man, and the way his thoughts always seemed to drift back to him if he went too long without seeing him.
It was mortifying, and he had done his best to deny it. But every now and again he’d see a particular look in Vetinari’s eye that made him think…
…maybe.
Maybe he wasn’t being completely ridiculous. Maybe he wasn’t entirely alone in his misery.
And now? Today? After saving the ungrateful bastard's life yet again? Vimes was realising he was too old and too tired to keep avoiding the elephant in the room.
“I know you’d rather pull out your own teeth than talk about stuff,” he said. “And honestly, so would I. But gods, I’m sick of it. So you don’t have to talk, but I need to tell you this and I want you to bloody listen.”
“No.”
Vimes felt his jaw drop open. “What?”
“I said no, Vimes.” And with that Vetinari turned on his heel, and walked towards the door. Vimes felt his blood boil at the sight of the man's back and darted forwards, slipping past him to block his path and bracing his hands against the doorframe to form himself into a human barricade.
"Don't you dare walk away from me. Not after everything. Not when I'm finally telling you the damned truth."
Vetinari had stopped a couple of feet from him. “Vimes –”
“No! Don’t bloody Vimes me either! I’m pouring my sodding heart out, here.”
“That is what concerns me.”
“Well, maybe your concern is mis-bloody-placed!”
“My concern is based on the fact that you are undoubtedly about to say something you will deeply regret.”
“Why will I regret it?”
“Because you are currently in a heightened emotional state after foiling an attempted murder. Which is entirely understandable, but it is not the time to be making any revelatory declarations to your employer.” He paused, allowing this to sink in, and then said, “I am trying to save you from yourself here, Vimes.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”
Vetinari closed his eyes. “I can infer it.”
“Oh, you can, can you? Based on what?”
There was a beat, and then Vetinari opened his eyes and pinned Vimes with a stare. “Based on the way I have observed you watching me when you believe I am distracted. Based on the way you seem to take every available opportunity to prolong the time you spend time in my company. Based on the way your hand lingers whenever you have cause to touch me, and on the fact that you find cause to touch me at all.”
Vimes felt his cheeks begin to burn.
Vetinari took a half-step forwards, and lowered his voice as he continued. “Based on a hundred other minute behaviours that I have observed over the years, Vimes, including the way you throw yourself into the line of fire whenever there is a threat to me.” He raised an eyebrow. “Today is the latest in a long list of examples I could provide. So; I have enough evidence, I believe, to draw a reasonable conclusion about what it is you were planning to say. There is no need for you to do anything that might make you uncomfortable.”
“Ah,” Vimes said, uncomfortably, and he dropped his arms back to his sides. They stood in silence for a long minute, and then he cleared his throat. “Uh. Alright.” He grimaced. “Gods. I didn’t realise I was so bloody obvious. I’m, er. I’m sorry.”
Vetinari inclined his head. “You have nothing to apologise for, Vimes.”
“Well apparently I’ve been flirting with my damned boss for years without realising.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked anywhere but directly at Vetinari. “Shit.”
The patrician watched him struggle for a moment, and then sighed heavily. “I…did not say it was unwelcome.”
Vimes felt his belly flip, and looked up sharply. “What? It's not?”
“No.”
“Then why the hell did you just try to stop me saying anything?!”
“Because, Vimes, it not being unwelcome is a very different matter to receiving a fraught emotional confession that requires me to make an immediate decision about how to respond.”
Vimes frowned. “I haven’t asked you to decide anything.”
“Because I have not let you speak.”
Vimes was forced to concede the point.
“Fine. But just so’s I’m clear – if it's not unwelcome, does that at least mean I haven’t imagined it all…? Because I might have spent hours in here, but you bloody let me. And I still have all my damned fingers so you can’t have objected too much to the touching. And not that I’m admitting I straddled you –”
Vetinari snorted quietly.
“But if that's what you thought I was doing,” Vimes finished, “you certainly seemed happy enough to lie there and let me.”
Vetinari smiled faintly. “You, of course, are free to infer what you will from that.”
“Alright. I’ll tell you what I’m inferring; you’re interested. You want this too. But you’re scared. Maybe about what people will say if word gets out, but I doubt it – you’ve never been bothered about that.”
“No,” Vetinari agreed, softly.
“So it's something else. You knew I was interested, apparently even before I did, and you knew I’d say yes –”
“Did I?”
Vimes pulled up short. “Didn’t you?”
“Vimes…I don’t know how to say this without sounding rude, but you are not particularly known for your open-mindedness or emotional availability. In addition, you spent several years married to a very delightful woman. I could hardly be blamed for not recognising that you might be open to the idea of having an intimate relationship with another man.”
Vimes felt the blush start again. “Oh. Right. Er. Was that it, then?”
Vetinari hesitated. “Partly.”
“Partly? What else?”
The patrician grimaced. “I am not exactly a prize, Vimes. I spend my every waking hour working, I am entirely emotionally guarded, and I have no idea how any kind of relationship would work, from my perspective. I am reluctant to inflict myself on anyone in such a way.”
Vimes looked at him flatly. “Well, that makes two of us, then.”
The other man considered this. “A valid point.”
“Alright, then.” Vimes felt slightly like he was living through an odd dream, from which he might wake up at any moment and discover he had not, in fact, held Havelock Vetinari hostage in his office until the man talked about his feelings.
He waited a while, but if it was a dream his body didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave it, and so he grunted. “What do we do now, then?”
“That sounds rather like you are asking me to make a decision, Vimes, which is entirely what I was attempting to avoid.”
“Fine,” Vimes said, and then he stepped forwards and kissed him.
Vetinari made a startled noise that simply spurred Vimes on; he slipped a hand up and around the back of the other man’s neck, thumb skirting over the graze from the crossbow bolt that had started all this, and held Vetinari lightly in place as he stepped in closer. After a moment he felt Vetinari relax into it, and then long fingers were wrapping themselves around Vimes’ hips and gently tugging him in further until he was pulled tightly against Vetinari’s hard frame.
The kiss itself was awkward and soft and clearly happening between two people who were both out of practice, as well as out of their depth. But it was nice, and Vimes decided he would adjust to the goatee.
Besides, Vetinari had just sighed into his mouth and it had done some interesting things to Vimes’ more distant parts. He groaned, feeling the other man smile in response, and then he dragged himself away and cleared his throat.
“Should we finish this later, maybe? Unless you want Drumknott to get an eyeful when he sneaks in with the file for your next appointment.”
Vetinari slipped a thumb into the small gap where Vimes' armour met his waistband, and ghosted it across the skin there. “A capital idea. Perhaps you can demonstrate what you believe a straddle is.”
Vimes shivered – at both the image and the digit stroking his lower belly – and then reluctantly stepped back.
Well, he thought, we're definitely not ignoring the bloody elephant now.
“Right," he muttered. "Yep. Good. Er. Tonight, then?”
"Tonight, yes." The other man smiled sharply. “Goodbye, Vimes.”
Vimes muttered a distracted goodbye of his own, and then headed off back to the Yard to stare at the paperwork and wonder exactly what he had just let himself in for.