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nevertheless-moving · 2 months

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unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.

Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.

and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.

(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)

Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self.

Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.

The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?

Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!

Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and—

Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—

You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...

What—when did you lose—

I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...

So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.

And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.

When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.

Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.

It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.

Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.

Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??

the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.

Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.

FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?

“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.

Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)

And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.

Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic, being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.

Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life.

Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.

Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.

Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.

It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal.

Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.

What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.

I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.

So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.

Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.

Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—

well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—

and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?

i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”

Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).

But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.

Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.

And then the partners change again, the moment ended.

Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.

Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.

Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.

Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.

needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.

Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.

Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )

Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?

And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?

Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell)

#discworld #sam vimes #discworld au #nightwatch au #i literally drafted this post in December 2021 #and i know it was living in my head for years already at that point #i have more somewhere aging like cheese in the back of my mind #discworld fanfic #night watch #Let this be free from my mind #Perhaps someone else will write it #BE FREE ANCIENT AU OF MY SOUL #For all my obsession with discworld I have but this one (1) AU though it tears at me like the seam of a pair of pants #The songs I have permanently associated with this au are slightly bonkers by the way #My au #Seriously there's like two full novels worth of content up here. Sybyll running away from home and living as a commoner #To mirror Sam joining upper class in original timeline you see?#Some early discworld murder Wizard nonsense when they try to poke at the temporal anomaly and the universe goes brrrr #Eventually catching up with color of Magic city burning bs and vimes is mad as fuck #Weird year that never was protecting people during sourcery #And when we start catching up with where he left #Oh ho ho you can't to forward to something that doesn't exist but maybe you can go sideways to a place that's got a tear in it #A sam vimes shaped tear #And his pregnant wife from 30 years ago in the other trouser leg #AND that's not even mentioning how carcers trial got taken to a...higher court

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arsenicflame · 2 months

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Ed gets amnesia (Izzy-centric, pre s1 banishment, past edizzy to some degree)

It starts something like this: a rope left out after a raid, a captain showing off to the crew, a workload stretched too thin to have noticed the accident waiting to happen...

When Ed wakes, it's almost immediately clear something is wrong. He's lost a few years of memories- not much in the grand scheme of things, but it's enough that the man who lays in front of them is almost unrecognisable to the man they knew. He's from just at the point where he was starting to get frustrated with the 'ease' of being Blackbeard, tiring of his old life, but still so full of life and love in ways the present Ed forgot how to be.

He's a lot more on guard, for a start, waking up surrounded by strangers, even if they are treating him very nicely. He doesn't trust them, he doesn't even fake trusting them, just shuts them out completely.

Stede and Roach figure out what's going on pretty quickly and try to explain it to Ed after that, about what's happened and all the things he missed, but he doesn't believe them for a second- how could he? If he got hurt, Izzy would be there waiting for him to wake up. He always has been, always is, his predictable and reliable Izzy. He says as much to Roach and Stede, the only thing he will say, and they just... side-eye each other. They can't believe it- Izzy?

Anyway, Ed completely shuts down after that, so someone runs to get Izzy. Izzy, who had decided, after everything- especially the past few weeks on the revenge- that there's no way Ed would want him there. He's still lurking on deck because he can't stand not knowing how Ed is, but he knows that's not his place any more. So to say he's surprised when Stede comes and begrudgingly grabs him is an understatement- Stede doesn't tell him anything, obviously, just that Ed’s asking for him.

The way Ed’s face lights up as he walks into the room is a punch to the gut. There's a cheerful greeting, the kind he hasn't received in years, and Ed’s yapping on about what he's been told and what happened and "this ship, Iz!" and he's just... floored. He can't say anything in response, not even to confirm their story because this is Ed, this is his Ed, who's face is turning worried, joking about how it looks like Izzy’s the one with a head injury, and Izzy can't cope. He just... storms out of the room.

Izzy’s up on deck, and he's not even yelling, or working, or really doing anything, just aimlessly coiling ropes in a daze when Ed appears on deck after him. He's thrown his leather jacket over whatever of Stede’s clothes he was wearing, a return to his Blackbeard armour to be seen by crew, and he jogs up to Izzy and starts getting handsy with him, physically turning him to looking him in the eyes and check he's ok, just generally being casual in a way that nobodies ever seen them- a way that nobody expected Izzy to tolerate (but of course he does, its Ed).

Izzy'll stutter out a response and Ed will wrap his arm over his shoulder, casually, like that's a thing they do. He'll ask for a tour, for him to explain everything, like what's the deal with this Stede guy. He's still enamoured with The Revenge and all its bells and whistles, only now he wants it with Izzy. It's all 'Iz' and 'mate' and affectionate and a side of their relationship even the Queen Anne crew haven't seen in years, a complete shock to absolutely everyone except this Ed.

Ed shows Izzy the model of The Revenge again and Izzy is both heartbroken and so indulgent because that's the Ed he had once, and he's going to take every second while he can. Ed can show him every single trinket on the entire ship if he wants. Izzy's always been willing to indulge Ed to some degree (it's Izzy, after all) but there's usually external factors, like they're in the middle of a raid, storming a hostile ship, or being chased down by the Spanish without any plan and over the years Izzy’s taken to just trying to redirect Ed quickly rather than letting him get distracted with the next shiny thing. It's been a sticking point between them, Ed's distractions and Izzy's rigidity and inability to have fun even when the occasions fitting.

But, for all Izzy's gripes with The Revenge, he does know it's safe for them- or at least that he could take on any member of this useless crew who tried to take advantage of his captain's momentary incapacity. So he does, for once, feels safe to indulge Ed. And God, he wants to. He has wanted to. He wants to watch him forever, like he did when they were little more than kids. He wants to forget all the mistakes he made just to see Ed smile and light up at him one more fucking time. He's not going to throw away this opportunity, no matter how badly it hurts him in the end.

Ed's memories don't come back in a day or so, so the crew keeps getting these shows of their relationship in a way they've never seen before- all these casual touches, and the way he'll turn to Izzy before anyone else, even Izzy laughing a couple of times. The crew gets to see a completely different Izzy- one more like the man he'd have been on The Queen Anne, a man they can see means something to Ed. He's not just his rotten first mate, a necessary evil of Blackbeard, at some point it becomes very clear that Ed did like Izzy, that he chose to have him around. It's like being back when Ed and Izzy were on the same page, at the height of Blackbeard, their partnership, when things were GOOD.

And of course, Izzy’s going along with all this. He's not telling him anything about the way they're different now, about how they finished breaking their matelotage 6 months back, about how they've been living at arms length for years, about how this simply isn't who they are to each other any more. He couldn't possibly do that, not when he gets to live the best days of his life all over again, just for a few short days. Maybe he'll get a week or two, if he's really lucky.

It's hurting him, obviously, it feels like his heart is being ripped out every time Ed touches him, every time he corners him in the depths of the ship (still so untrusting of this unknown crew- not helped by how they treat Izzy. He sees the side eyes and cruel comments and notices in a way the present version of him never did, too wrapped up in Stede and the madness of this ship) but hey. Izzy’s a masochist. He'll take anything Ed gives him, and he'll especially take this opportunity to have one last taste of what he's lost.

At the time it faded so slowly he didn't realise he was losing it until it was all gone, but he won't make that mistake this time. He knows their time together is limited, and he's going to take every fucking second he can and hold it close forever. If Ed makes him leave after he remembers? After he realises the way Izzy took advantage of him? It's worth it, to have this again, one last time.

#this is probably somewhere between too fleshed out and not fleshed out enough. yet somehow still not the right amount of substance #but i didnt want to waste another month making the additional thoughts ive had on this idea flow w the rest so this is what you get #perhaps ill come back and add my (mostly eds perspective on all of this) thoughts in at some point. who knows #if you want a vibe as to where that goes ; huge inspirations in this concept draw upon the lyrics #'But I hate when I feel like this / And I never hated you' :'''''')#(lyrics from poke by frightened rabbit which is your edizzy song recc of the week)#nyxtalks #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #israel hands #edward teach #blackbeard #blackhands #edizzy #post dedicated to my dearest sage for bouncing this concept with me !!! i love u SO much

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