I need some sleep/It can't go on like this

[stonyfaced]

Characters: Vimes (stonyfaced) and Genius (man-genius
Date/Time: BACKDATED to April 26th, early morning
Location: The Bazaar
Rating: PG-13 for presumed mention of both Genius' and Vimes' grisly dreams
Summary: Vimes gives up on sleep after having two nightmares and decides to walk around, whereas Genius goes out for some comforting starches. Cue an early morning

Comments

[man_genius]

"Ya ever wonder why someone didn't just start an orphanage or something? Instead I guess everyone just kinda leave them to their own devices. It's not right."

A year ago he wouldn't have cared or thought about it. Now though his thoughts lingered on Promise and Lotus, living somewhere without their fathers. It seemed like such a worse fate than being the parents left behind, except that Genius saw what it was doing to Rick. Slowly eating away at him. Didn't Vimes have a kid too?

Genius snorted at Vime's comment about kings. "I don't know. Then you're left with democracy and that never works. Government by the people for the people turns into whoever has the most money to rig an election and push their agendas above everyone else. You can make a king, how is that any better than a bloodline?" Maybe ES had the best government of all, which was to say none.

Oh. He hadn't thought about that. "It would only freak out Rick too." He remembered how Rick stayed up waiting for him to rehatch. He didn't want to put him through it again.

"Maybe I could blame it on bad pizza." He sipped at his coffee. "I dunno what's more worrying, the fact that everyone's had my dream or the fact that I can't bring myself to care much." He should be freaking out right? Maybe he was out of freakouts to give.

[stonyfaced]

"Probably 'cause most of them have a primary caretaker, even if they're not the best caretaker in the world," Vimes reasoned. "That, and it'd be a bloody difficult job, watching those kids disappear all the time and worrying about disappearing yourself."

He puffed thoughtfully on his cigar. It wasn't that Genius could give him any ideas - gods knew he had his hands full enough with the Watch and he wasn't charitable enough to make a godsdamned orphanage - but he had to admit that as ideas went, it wasn't a bad one.

"Haven't got a democracy," Vimes said, as cheerfully as he could at this hour. "That's best left to the Ephebians. We've got-- that is to say, I'm used to having a Patrician. You can arrest a Patrician, but you can't arrest a King without hauling him off to get his head chopped off."

There was a lot more to say. In fact, he always had more to say on the subject of politics, even if he detested them. In the real world, in a world with government, it was a whole lot more complicated. It came down to making a city run, he figured. A King just waved his hand and got whatever the hell he wanted regardless of how he acted. A Patrician... yeah, all right, it was more or less the same thing at times, but the principle was sound. It was easier to kick a single elected man out of office than it was to kick out a bloodline of weak-chinned, heavy-bottomed nuisances who ate off the plates of the people and acted surprised when there were riots in the street.

Not something Genius was interested in, he figured. Though from the sounds of it, Genius wasn't interested in much at the moment. "Suppose there are worse things, and you've seen enough of them," he reasoned. "Compared to a lot of things here, maybe this dream wasn't so bad. But I figure it's something you ought to care about eventually, 'cos I'd warrant some of your friends will be interested. And gods know you've got enough of 'em."

[man_genius]

"Do they?" He didn't know. He had no clue how most of the sphere lived outside of his circle of friends and he was a bit ashamed of that. "I guess we're all lucky worst things don't happen." It was amazing to think that no one exploited those children. Now that he really thought about it.

He really didn't want to think about it. So he pushed it firmly out of his mind and focused on easier topics like politics (har).

"The who? A Patrician? Is that like an aristocracy or something?" He only had a vague notion of the word. "You can't really arrest a President either. You can impeach him, but they just quietly slip away and later get pardoned by the opposite party to hide the mess under the rug." He shrugged. "No government is perfect I guess."

His friends. Genius shook his head and slid further into his chair.

"Just kill me now. I can claim memory loss when I rehatch. I mean I love them, dearly. I'd do anything for them but they are so. I don't know. So." Spammy? Overprotective? Nosy? "Everywhere. I can't--I'm not supposed to have friends."

Why was he admitting this?

"I don't remember having them, I mean. Having people who care if I don't come home in the morning, people to come home to, has never felt normal, not really. So I don't want them to have to deal with...me. Never mind. I don't know what I'm saying." His face twisted up into a miserable look of frustration and existential angst.