(Untitled)

[sir_samuel]

It was damned good whiskey.

It was the single thought that could pass through Vimes alcohol soaked mind at the moment. More accurately, it was the single thought Vimes would allow to pass through his mind. Back home, before, back when he had done this sort of thing, it had never been whiskey this good. I wasn't an alcoholic, he had told someone

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[kingshit_lloyd]

The new year found Lloyd pleasantly drunk, walking with a slightly uneven gait in no particular direction. Snow was gathering nicely and the air was sharp and fresh, so he figured he'd try to walk and clear his head a little before heading home. Lloyd stopped and squinted for a second, noticing a shadowed form -- man and bottle, a timeless classic. He raised his eyebrows as he recognized the guy.

"Chief, you're plastered," Lloyd remarked, not very diplomatically and with a mild slur, which may have been slightly hypocritical of him, but there was drunk and there was drunk. And there was drunk and on the way to catching pneumonia, which Mister Sam Not-De-Niro Vimes here seemed to be going for.

Not to mention, wasn't the head of police supposed to set an example or some shit? Lloyd didn't give much of a damn, but somebody might.

[sir_samuel]

Vimes laughed. There was no joy in it, that much was patently clear. There was nothing very funny about the Lloyd's exclamation, but sometimes you had to laugh 'cause that was all there was left to do. In that drunken moment, the ex-con sounded to Vimes like no one more than Fred Colon, stating the unhelpfully obvious, as always.

"That so?" he said, and took another drink from the bottle. "And here I hadn't noticed.

[kingshit_lloyd]

Well, not plastered beyond sarcasm, at least. Good to know.

Getting drunk could be a hell of a good time, but there was nothing fun about what Vimes was doing. Seemed to be right the opposite. Lloyd wasn't normally the type to look for oblivion at the bottom of a bottle like so many guys did, but sometimes shit got too heavy, and you did what you had to do. There had been that one time - just the once - back in Vegas, when everything had begun to fall apart piece by piece, and Lloyd had suddenly become bleakly aware that he was on a rapidly sinking ship, and that there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. He'd gotten drunk good and proper back then.

Hadn't helped much.

"Yeah, how 'bout we get you inside before you don't notice turnin' into a copper-shaped ice sculpture?" Lloyd offered, feeling himself getting more sober by the minute, just from looking at the guy.

[sir_samuel]

It took a helluva lot of drinking for Vimes to lose his sarcasm. He'd done it before, too, sometimes when he'd had even more to drink than he had tonight. As rotten as his night was, there had been ones worse, when even that humor of despair had left him.

He stood up, markedly unsteady on his feet, but made no other move to go instead. Vimes scowled at Lloyd. "Wouldn' a copper-shaped ice thingy do you more good?"

[kingshit_lloyd]

Lloyd snorted softly, finding that question kind of prejudiced against the ex-con population. Or something like that. He couldn't say he particularly gave a fuck at the moment.

"Sure, I got a whole ice copper collection at home, you'd make a real nice addition," he said in a bland sort of tone, with an expression to match. "Come on, man, I'm just tryin' to help out here."

[sir_samuel]

"What made you think I was lookin' for your help, Henreid? If I went lookin' for help, it sure as hells wouldn't be from the likes've you." But the cold was getting to him. He was shivering a little.

At this rate, a copper ice sculpture wasn't so far in the future after all.

[kingshit_lloyd]

Well, here we go, Lloyd thought sourly, his patience wearing real thin. Likes of this, likes of that. The fuck would Sammy Vimes here even know who the likes of Lloyd Henreid were.

Lloyd wasn't even sure he knew anymore.

Oh sure, he knew that the likes of him would have sooner planted a fist in the guy's face, shot something nasty back, or maybe just rolled their eyes and walked away, letting somebody else handle this little cop-shaped trainwreck.

Tell the truth, he was pretty goddamn tempted by all those options. But he just folded his arms and stood there, trying not to shiver himself.

"So I guess you'd rather wait 'till somebody you like and respect comes along?" he asked, rhetorically-like, sounding calmer than he'd expected, even with the frustration lurking at the edge of his voice. "'till somebody that looks up to you finds you like this? 'cause I'll tell you, Vimes, I'm as close to non-judge-fuckin'-mental as you're gonna get, and even I can tell you you're being a right dumbass." He exhaled, slowly; making speeches

[sir_samuel]

Vimes rolled his eyes. He wasn't fond of self-righeous indignation in the best of times, and this wasn't the best of times. Sure, maybe that was a little hypocritical coming from a guy that employed it plenty himself, but that had never bothered him before. The Lloyd guy was right, he was being a bloody stubborn idiot, but what else was new? He was too drunk to care if he hurt his damned feelings.But Lloyd was still right. It was damned cold, and much longer out here and he was going to turn into a copper ice sculpture.

He scowled and held up a hand. "So you gonna help me up or what?"

[kingshit_lloyd]

"Sure," Lloyd said dryly, after a beat. He'd just about run out of clever things to say, and didn't have the energy to waste on finding some more. He leaned forward, grabbing the guy's hand and pulling him up. "Where d'you live, man?" he asked, keeping close enough so Vimes could lean on him if he needed to, or so Lloyd could catch him in case he decided to dive face-first into the snow.

[sir_samuel]

Vimes stuffed his hands in his pockets, even as he stumbled a little as they walked towards the Compound door."We're goin' to the IPD office." It didn't really answer Lloyd's question. But Vimes might have been drunk, but he wasn't so drunk that he was stupid enough to go home.

[kingshit_lloyd]

Lloyd gave Vimes a confused look, wondering why the hell the guy would want to wake up with the mother of all hangovers in a crammed office of all places, but after a couple of moments, it dawned on him. "Oh," he said, figuring out what the deal was. "All right."

Lloyd didn't have actual family here - or anywhere, for that matter - but for a change, he did have people he didn't want to let down. People, and a rabbit.

"Watch the steps," he remembered to warn, after nearly tripping over them himself.

[sir_samuel]

Vimes shot Lloyd a dark look, even as he nearly missed the steps. " 'mfine." The warmth of the alcohol was leaving him behind, now he just felt cold, miserable, more than a little ill. He tried not to think about what the morning would bring, not so much because of the hangover he would surely suffer, but because of the conversations he would not be able to avoid.

He pushed open the door and trudged down the hall in silence.

[kingshit_lloyd]

"And I'm dandy," Lloyd slurred back, ignoring the look and following Vimes inside, just to make sure the guy wouldn't pass out right there in the hallway or something. He stopped by the door to the IPD Office - not his favorite place on the island by any means - hoping Vimes could take it from here.

"Well, good luck," he said, figuring Vimes could use it with the morning he had coming. "We all gotta fuck up sometimes."

[sir_samuel]

Vimes shouldered open the door to the IPD office and stopped there. His head was bowed, his hands in his pockets. Something was missing from his stance, something that had been there the day before, and that would probably return in a week or two. His despair could be seen in more than the curve in his back.

"Some of us fuck up more than others," he said. He let the door swing shut behind him without another word.