um so. here it is 👉👈 I've never written a fanfic before let alone posted one so I'm shy please be nice to me 😭
Son of Sam
After little Sammy has a disciplinary incident at school, Vimes finds a more enriching environment for his son.
G rated, 2,011 words, just vimes bein a dad :)
A rather nervous-looking young messenger was waiting at the door when Vimes got home.
“Er… Can I help you?”
The messenger startled into a stiff salute. “Your grace!” he said smartly. “I bring a message from the Primary Academy of Ankh! It has been requested that… erm…” he fumbled open the roll of parchment he had been holding. “The parents-slash-guardians of the student, er, Samuel Ramkin Vimes II, come to the office of the headmistress at once. We have a coach ready outside for you already, your grace,” he added as he rolled the parchment back up.
Vimes scoffed. ‘The Second’… Please. A title like that nearly made you forget the boy’s only eight years old. “Alright, what’s happened this time?”
“I don’t know, your grace. I’m only here to deliver the message.”
“Fine. And you really want both of us?” said Vimes, already making his way around the side of the house. “Sybillllll?” he called, in that sing-song voice used by all husbands everywhere looking for their wives.
He heard the explosion before he had even turned the corner. The backyard filled with a sharp, acrid, chemical smell that nearly would have made him retch if he wasn’t so accustomed to it already. He sighed at the charred black rosette that now decorated the lawn. Beyond it, in a wider blast radius, were… other bits of things.
A bulky figure nearly six and a half feet tall emerged from the dragon pen, decked head to toe in leather armor. “Oh dear, and he had nearly recovered from his case of slab throat…” she mumbled from behind her welding mask. She ducked back into the dragon pen for the shovel, too distracted to notice her husband on the periphery of the yard.
Vimes strode directly toward the carriage out front. “She’s busy. I’ll go by myself,” he said decisively to the messenger as he brushed past. The messenger considered protesting, but thought the better of it.
—
Vimes was ushered into a room half the size but almost as austere as the Oblong Office. Little Sam pouted in an adult-sized chair, grumpily swinging his legs back and forth. Vimes knew that look: the boy was in trouble for something. Sulking in the other chair with a bandaged nose was a boy who appeared the same age, though bigger-boned. Both of his parents were doting over him like a pair of storks brooding a rather large, and rather spoiled, egg. Vimes had been forced to socialize with these people at many a banquet or some such event, or at least this type of people, if not this particular couple. They all blended together in his mind anyway. He had yet to have a conversation with one of them that ended satisfactorily for both parties.
The headmistress greeted him primly from behind her desk and motioned for him to sit in the chair beside his son. “Thank you for coming, your grace. Her ladyship…”
“Couldn’t make it,” Vimes responded curtly. He swore he heard the other boy’s mother exhale derisively through her nose.
“I have called you here,” the headmistress continued, “because your Samuel has gotten into an… altercation with his classmate.” She spoke as though she were handling her words like a very fragile, very expensive heirloom vase.
Vimes turned to little Sam. “You got into a fight?” he asked, more conversationally than disapprovingly.
“I should hardly call that a fair fight!” the other boy’s father interjected. “It took two teachers to pull your little devil off our Thomas! He nearly bit his nose off!” Thomas began to whimper, and his mother cradled him in her arms while staring daggers at Vimes.
Vimes raised his eyebrows as he sized up the victim. He was taller and stockier than his attacker, but apparently that hadn’t helped him much. He turned back to his son, still without any trace of anger. “Why’d you do that, Sammy?”
“It doesn’t matter why he—” Thomas’s father began, but the headmistress held up a hand. “Let him answer,” she commanded.
“He took my spelling sheets from my homework daddy, ‘n he said that my daddy’s nuthin’ but a dirty scoundrel, said I’m ruinin’ the school ‘cause I’m dirty ‘n dumb like him, ‘n then he ripped all my papers up,” little Sam explained sullenly. Thomas whimpered again.
Vimes looked up to meet the father’s eyes with hawklike focus. “He really said that, did he? I wonder where he could have possibly gotten that idea from.”
The father’s features bubbled with the kind of indignation reserved for those who have just been accused of something they actually did. “Slander!” he blurted. “Not only is your son an aggressor, but a liar as well!”
The duke of Ankh stood up. “You’re calling my son a liar, is that it?” he nearly snarled the words.
“You grace—” the headmistress began.
“No, go on,” Vimes continued. “You think Sammy made up that little story, just to make you look bad? Your precious little Thomas would never have done something like that, oh no, because you’ve raised him properly, haven’t you?” He was practically toe to toe with the boy’s father now. He squared his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height, which unfortunately was still shorter than his opponent. He cracked a few menacing knuckles.
“Daddy, mama said you’re not s’posed to fight the other grownups at school anymore,” Sammy whined from his seat.
“I won’t be threatened by the likes of you,” the man spat. He leveled a self-important finger at VImes’s nose. “I won’t tolerate it. You and your son both owe us an apology for the injuries you have caused.”
“Oh, I’ll give you some injuries to apologize for, all right.”
The bureaucratic voice of the headmistress pierced through his haze of bloodlust like a letter opener. “Your grace, that is enough. To prevent another incident like this, you need to set a good example for your son. Children learn by imitating their parents.”
“Yes, I’m sure they do,” Vimes said pointedly without breaking eye contact with the nobleman. He took his son’s hand and led him out the door. “Come on, Sammy. We’re going home.”
“This isn’t over, Sir Samuel!” he heard the father call after him. “Her ladyship will be hearing of this, and she will not be pleased!”
Don’t I know it, Vimes thought.
—
Lady Sybil was, as predicted, not very pleased. “First I have to lay poor Lord Sharptalon Brightspark Blazeworthy VI to rest this afternoon, and now I hear both of you have gotten into a scuffle,” she sighed, and idly stirred her tea.
“News travels fast,” Vimes grumbled, not looking up from his own teacup.
“The headmistress was right, you know. He takes after you. He sees his father throw a punch or kick a shin, and figures that violence will solve all his problems.”
“It usually does.”
“Sam.”
“Sorry.”
“I spoke to the boy’s mother. She swears up and down that she has no idea why young Thomas would say those things about you.”
“‘Course she did. It’s all about appearances with these people. They’ll say whatever they want behind their expensive closed doors, but none of ‘em have got the spine to say it to your face.”
“As much as I agree with you, Sam, ‘these people’ are our people, even if you hate to think of them that way.”
“Still, good to know Sammy can hold his own in a fight.”
“Dear, I don’t think you’re taking the right lesson from this.”
Vimes grunted noncommittally.
“He just needs a different outlet for his aggression,” Sybil continued. “Something more…productive. Like an organized sport. The academy offers some rather robust athletic programs he could get into.”
Yes, organized sports… Sammy could wipe the floor with all those spoiled little brats, that was for sure. He needed a sport, but perhaps one that was less, well, organized.
—
“Daddy, you still won’t say where we’re going,” young Sam lamented.
“We’re almost there. Just a few more streets.”
After a few moments, Vimes heard the little voice from about twenty or thirty feet behind him. “Daddy, wait up! You’re going too fast!”
Vimes stopped. Damn. Without thinking, he had fallen into his normal Proceeding step.
“I’m tired of walking,” Sammy panted as he caught up.
Vimes almost laughed. Tired of walking? Then he realized. “You know, I ought to teach you how to walk properly. You swing your foot forward, like this. Get it right and you can keep going all day.”
Together they Proceeded, hand in hand this time to prevent another separation, to their destination. There it was…
Cockbill Street.
Gods, when was the last time I was here? thought Vimes. An investigation had led him back here some nine or ten years ago, but before that it must have been decades. The same peeling paint, the same worn cobbles, even the hopscotch game was still there…
“Where are we?” little Sam asked impatiently. “Looks like justa buncha ol’ houses.”
…And this was the first time the boy had ever seen it.
“Son, your old dad grew up in one of these old houses.”
“You used to live here?” Sammy looked doubtful. “They’re not as nice as our house.”
His father sighed. “Right you are. You’re awful lucky that your mother’s got a big fancy house and money to send you to a big fancy school. But you and I both know a big fancy school ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?”
The boy’s face looked blank. A chorus of shouts and hollers turned his attention to a particularly rough-and-tumble football match taking place down the street, mostly boys a few years older than him.
Vimes nodded toward the game. “They don’t let you play like that at the Academy of Ankh,” he explained.
Sammy considered this as more shrieks and curses echoed off the decaying edifices. “But I dunno any of ‘em,” he pointed out.
“Doesn’t matter. Cockbill Street boys’ll toss a ball around with any little bugger who can force his way into a match. Just get in there and start running around, you’ll pick it up.”
He still looked unsure, but he ambled up to the pack as they were taking a time-out, as there looked to be some sort of hot dispute between the teams. He addressed a boy who was currently wrestling another into a headlock. “Lemme play,” he said simply. The boy in the headlock used the momentary distraction to wrench free and scamper off, sending a few other players to break off in pursuit.
“Who’re you?”
“My name’s Sammy, ‘n I wanna join. I can kick a ball real far.”
The older boy looked incredulous. He turned around to give a consulting glance to the others, who shrugged. “I s’pose we could use another player, since STUPID JOEY’S A THIEVIN’ BASTARD!” He addressed this last comment to the direction that Joey had run. “Jus’ try to keep up, since you look pretty small,” he added. And that was that.
Vimes leaned back against a crumbling wall and, more out of habit than anything else, lit a cigar. He watched the game intently. Indeed, young Sam had ingratiated himself seamlessly, dashing and darting and hollering to keep up with the fierce competition. Once he took a nasty spill, tumbling face first onto the cobblestones, and Vimes sucked his teeth sharply. But before he could move in to help his son, the boy jumped up with an alarming fierceness, completely unbothered by his bleeding nose and scraped knees, and made a mad dash to get back into the action.
Tonight he would be brought home covered in scrapes and bruises and a tear or two in his clothes, Vimes knew. Sybil wouldn’t exactly be overjoyed, but he figured he could convince her it’s no more dangerous than herding spontaneously explosive dragons as a hobby.
Vimes couldn’t help but smile. Whenever little Sammy got knocked down, a vengeful little gleam sparkled in his eyes, and just like a certain someone, he got right back up.
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