"Please, speak to me! Say something!" Vex pleaded, tears streaming down her face. Her arms reached out for him, fingers grasping at the air, but somehow couldn't quite touch him. "I said we got her! Ripley is dead. The shipment was destroyed. There will be no more weapons, darling, just like you wanted." Her heart ached like an open wound, her voice a whisper. "For you, Percy. I did it for you."
Percy stood silent, pale as death, blood soaking his shirt around the hole in his chest. His gaunt face betrayed no emotion, his eyes no life, as he stared straight through her.
"Darling, please!" Vex cried, trying desperately to grab his shoulder, his face, anything that would prove to her he was real. "I'm sorry! I'm a coward, I should have told you when I had the chance. Percy!" She fell to her knees, sobbing. "I love you, with all my heart. Please, Percy, please hear me!"
"I'm in love with you," Percy said, and Vex's heart leapt into her throat. She staggered to her feet and lurched forward only to find herself on the cliff at Glintshore, hearing his confession as though for the first time. Confused, she drew back, just as she had before, and felt the pain of seeing disappointment cloud Percy's eyes. No! I'm in love with you! My heart is yours, Percival! she tried to yell, but her voice wouldn't cooperate. He looked away- she had hurt him, rejected the love he had offered, made him feel like a fool and a failure.
"Call it a tryst. Call it a mistake!" Her own voice rang in her ears. "Teammates with benefits." They were so much more than that, and they both knew it. Didn't they? Didn't he know that her heart called out for him, that his heart answered that call? No. She had to tell him. She had to say it out loud, even though it terrified her.
"Percy, I'm-" she began, but the landscape seemed to shift around her, everything going dark. She lost sight of him in the haze. "No! NO!"
A sharp scream in the distance- he needed her. She ran blindly toward it, stumbling and tripping through the thick jungle. She heard her friends crying out in distress, terrified by visions, but she didn't stop. Even Vax's pitiful cries for their mother didn't sway her- she knew she could save Percy if she could only get there in time.
Shots, screams, explosions; Vex sprinted through the haze of smoke, searching. She could still reach him, she just had to hurry. Rounding a corner, she spotted him in the distance. Her blood ran cold.
"No," she breathed. He lay prone, just as he had before. But maybe he was alive, maybe she could save him! Vex rushed to him, dropping to her knees as she reached his side. Once again, she was too late. The light had left his pale eyes, fixed on some unseen point in the distance; blood stained the corner of his slack mouth; his body lay limp and heavy in her arms, head lolling to one side.
Not again. She couldn't do this again. Grief crushed Vex like a vice, squeezing the air from her lungs as she cradled Percy's corpse. Dead. Dead. Dead. She wailed, rocking back and forth, but no one came to her. She was alone now, truly alone. No better than I deserve, she thought bitterly, her body wracked with sobs. She had let Percy meet his fate alone, abandoned her friends, cursed even her own beloved brother. They should have left me dead, she thought, as the darkness enveloped her.
Something large nudged her shoulder, but she couldn't be bothered to care. Another nudge, stronger this time, followed by a snuffling growl. Trinket?
Opening her eyes, Vex was disoriented and confused. Where was she? Trinket was there, but she was in a bed… Zephrah, she recalled as she sat up and looked around the large room. Trinket nuzzled her face as tears blurred her vision. She wrapped her arms around the bear's massive shoulders, burying her face in his fur.
Not the first time she'd dreamed about Percy, about Glintshore. Part of her wanted to believe he was haunting her, his spirit unable to stand their separation, but in her heart, she knew the only thing following her was her own guilt. Why hadn't she said it? Why hadn't she told him she loved him? He had been so open with her, so beautifully vulnerable… He trusted her with everything he was, and she couldn't bring herself to do the same, and now it was too late.
Vex wept until her tears had run dry, Trinket sitting by patiently. With an aching head and swollen eyes, Vex slowly crawled out of bed. Vax. She would go to her brother and get his reassurance. Vax always knew what she needed to hear; he was the one who had convinced her Percy had known her feelings even though she hadn't had the courage to speak them aloud. If Vax said things could be mended, that Percy could return to her, she would believe him.
"Let's go, Trinket," she sniffled. The bear followed her placidly to the door, sticking close to her back as if to comfort her. But as Vex emerged into the wide corridor, she realized she had no idea where Vax was staying. He'd offered to sleep in her room, but she'd turned him down and not done anything to find out where he'd be.
"Pike might know," she mused, reaching back to stroke Trinket's muzzle. She led him to the other end of the corridor and looked up and down the connecting passage. Which way had they come from? Both directions looked equally plausible, and in her exhaustion, she hadn't paid any attention to their route. Keyleth would be the person to ask but she didn't even know where she-
Keyleth. Of course. A pang of envy shot through Vex, followed quickly by shame. Of course the two of them were spending the night together. Why shouldn't they? They'd confessed their love openly, honestly, without any fear or embarrassment. Keyleth had kissed him in front of the rest of Vox Machina, Ashari guards watching from a distance, and then led them all to see her father, her fingers entwined with his. And Vax, of course, had hung on her every word with a gaze so tender and full of love that he may as well have screamed his feelings from the rooftop.
Vex had always worried about him. Despite his dangerous appearance and tough attitude, he had always been too sensitive and gentle-hearted for his own good. She'd never known anyone who cried as much as he did, both in front of others and when he thought no one could hear him. Their first night back in Stillben hunting for Ripley, he'd waited for Vex to collapse from exhaustion before giving vent to his own feelings. She'd been awoken by his quiet weeping, heard the whispered, "Kiki," as he mourned the end of a relationship he'd been yearning for for ages. Overwhelmed as she was by her own grief, Vex hadn't had the strength to comfort him, but that was often how it was. Whenever the two of them were both upset, he put her feelings ahead of his own, took the time to advise and reassure her, then wallowed in his own suffering privately when he thought she wouldn't hear him.
Vex led Trinket back to their room, then out the double doors to the outer staircase and down into the garden. As much as she needed her brother to comfort her, she knew he deserved this. He deserved to be loved, to be adored, to be cherished, and when it came down to it, she trusted Keyleth to treat him well. She'd thought Vax foolish, wearing his heart on his sleeve and letting it get battered by Hurricane Keyleth, never doing anything to protect himself. But in the end, she realized that was an act of courage she hadn't been capable of herself.
Trinket shoved his head under Vex's arm as they walked through the garden, acting as her support as she navigated the darkened paths. Vex imagined Vax and Keyleth wrapped in each other's arms, whispering promises and planning their future together. She wished she'd done the same with Percy, wished she hadn't let her fear get the better of her. Their kisses had always been full of heat and passion, but she'd shied away from any display of more tender affection. After indulging in one another physically, she always rebuffed any attempt Percy made to cuddle, only going so far as to allow them to bask in the afterglow side by side, any further touch being incidental until the next round. She'd longed to fall asleep with his arms around her, to gaze into his eyes until she felt their souls touch, to plant sweet little kisses all over his body, leaving pieces of her heart behind with each one. Vex had purposely kept their post-coital conversations light, expertly outmaneuvering Percy's hints at emotional attachment and sidestepping any push for serious commitment.
Experience had made her believe that refusing to acknowledge her feelings was the same thing as not really feeling them at all. She thought herself wise to build stone walls around her heart and lock the gates tight, not realizing until it was too late that the heart she was trying to protect had escaped those walls and lived instead inside Percy's chest.
"Let's sit for a while, love," Vex sighed. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, she was exhausted. Trinket stretched out on the soft grass beneath a birch tree, leaving ample space for Vex beside him. She settled with her head against his soft belly and he curled around her, keeping her warm and safe. Vex sighed again, feeling a little more like herself surrounded by the whisper of the wind in the leaves and the chirps of night insects, the babble of a stream just audible nearby. Lying like this, eyes closed, she could almost imagine herself back in the past before any of this happened- Vox Machina all sleeping in the wilderness as they adventured to the next town, her brother prowling the perimeter of their camp brooding about whether Keyleth had smiled at him romantically or platonically…
Vex chuckled sleepily. Knowing Vax, there was a good chance he'd show up to breakfast engaged.
