Fic: Stoked

[splinteredstar]

This is not any of the things I /should/ be writing right now, but I haven’t been having any luck on any of those, so, here you go.

Because I finished Raising Steam today and thought, “…did Vimes know? He /had/ to have known.”

 

Commander Vimes, in one of the brief breaks before war meetings and clacks and people trying to kill them, settled against the wall of the engine room to watch the stokers at the footplate do their strange, ritualistic work. Everyone on this particular train ride had been cleared ahead of time, but there was nothing like seeing to it personally.

His experienced gaze skipped over the stokers, noting body shapes and mannerisms, and ended up, again, on the shoulders of the more-morose-than-most Stoker Blake. Strong, easy going with his fellows and silent to everyone else, and a devil with a shovel in a fight. Vimes watched the man at work for a long moment, having watched him in a spar the previous day, and then one side of his mouth went up in something that was almost a smirk.

Very naturally, between one shovel of coal and the next, Stoker Blake looked at Vimes and met his gaze for one moment. One moment, it turned out, was long enough. The look was not, it must be stated, anything faintly resembling an acknowledgement.

The almost-smirk grew into a grin, and Vimes leaned forward enough to light his cigar on a lick of flame from engine. Then he leaned back and lifted the cigar in what was not, and could not have been interpreted as, a salute.