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Vex stares out the open window. The raven stares back.
It’s the last of a handful, the replacement of a replacement of a replacement of a replacement, all pooled at the foot of the tower opposite like oil. She wants it gone, for the first time in a while, she wants it gone and it won’t go away.
A half-dozen little saplings rise from the feathers. Fenthras is a strange thing - petting her hand like a lover, tendrils snaking behind her ear when it was snug against her back. Vex is unclear if it’s the bow or Saundor or herself responsible for it, but she hates it and hates how she craves it.
The fire’s banked low, neglected, forgotten - hard to remember to keep it fed when it hardly warmed her, when she saw just fine without its light. She’s sweat in her nightgown, from the notch-draw-release notch-draw-release, but the Deathwalker’s Ward overtop has seen far worse.
Why had she put it on? Not sure. There might have been an impulse: to bamf out her wings and fly away. Sleep in the woods, or Byroden’s ruins. Not that she could reach it, in an hour’s flight. Maybe that was the point - fly and flee and fly, away from tomorrow, away from what awaited them. Or fly until she dropped, as she almost did with Vorugal, and rest at last, a bird broken on the ground.
It’s tempting. That’s the worst part, that it’s so tempting. Surely she could outpace the raven, the Matron, Vox Machina, the weight of the world, the words -
No. Not the words - hard to escape what was already burrowed deep within her.
(crushed by expectation)
Still. Might be worth a shot.
The bird honks, fluttering back in anticipation, as she steps onto the windowsill-
A knock.
With a forlorn look, she drops back down. “Who is it?”
“It's me,” says Percival, in just about the most saccharine tone she’s ever heard from him. His face must be something, on the other side of the door. “I have something to show you.”
“Door’s unlocked - let yourself in,” she replies, sitting herself down. Back to the raven, to the open, inky sky.
Percy isn’t in his waistcoat.
It usually sticks to him until just before bed, or when his tinkering runs the risk of flaying it. A second skin, a shield, a hope, a home - she’s watched him fuss over frayed cuffs and stained lapels and missing buttons too many times to count.
He looks so… normal, without it. Not Percival laundry-list de Rolo, not Tal’Dorei’s terrible tinkerer, not Percy of Vox Machina. Just a young man, far too young a man, she calls Percy, candleholder lighting his way to her. In the low light she can even pretend his hair might be blond, not the shock white of trauma.
She doesn’t want to pretend, though. She likes the hair. She likes him.
She loves him.
Percy’s eyes search the room - bed, writing desk, fireside - to finally find her by the window. “Ah - there you are. Have company?”
Vex winces. “I can’t stand them tonight.”
He abandons his satchel - oh, he had been holding a bag, hadn’t he? - by the door, the flame wavering with him. She leans aside to allow him access to the window. It’s spring - why does the smell of winter and snow follow him? How does it cling, even with the gunpowder and smoke and fire of him? A contradiction, this man.
“An ill-omen if I’ve ever seen one,” Percy agrees, and decisively closes the window, pulls shut the curtains.
Vex peers up at him. He’s close, painfully so, more tempting than flight had been not a minute before. The feathers of the Deathwalker’s Ward flutter at the corner of her vision with the faintest draft from the window’s seam. If she closes her eyes, she could almost pretend they’re aloft, together.
“What brings you to my room so late in the night?” she says. Smiles, because she can’t do anything else: “It’d be the talk of the castle, you know. A Lord and a Lady? Scandalous.”
Percy clears his throat. Without his frock he has no pockets in which to stuff his hands, so they wiggle a little uselessly at his side before he brings up his gently closed fist.
“It occurs to me,” he says, “I haven’t made you something in a good while. And - well. If tomorrow goes badly, I would like to think the last thing I brought into the world was beautiful.”
Vex’s breath catches. Percy’s does, too - on his teeth, something frustrated. Not at her, but at his hand, jittering and jumping with nerves.
She cradles that beautiful, beautiful hand, runs a thumb over his knuckles. It doesn't calm under her touch, if anything it bucks all the more, but it’s only a promise that he’s nervous, as she is. About them, about tomorrow, about if she might like what he holds.
Vex is not a patient woman, so she untangles his fingers - gently, with breathless care - because he cannot.
Two more magpie feathers.
But then made catches up to her, and the candlelight catches them, and no - no. These have weight, delicate and indestructible at once. Fine steel holds a broad plume of pale rock, with a spur of some dark stone at its tip and base. Whitestone, Vex realizes, polished and lovely whitestone. When Percy tilts his palm, the black reveals itself to be a night sky dancing with auroras, blue and green.
“So you don’t have to worry about ruining them,” Percival murmurs.
“Percy,” she chokes. “Percy - what if I break them? That’s worse.”
He presses his forehead to hers. “Then I’ll make you more. And more, and more - so long as you do not dig your heel into them, dear, I’ll never mind.”
“I’d rather you’d just fix these two.” She has no words, beyond a weak: “Darling.”
She’s holding his trembling fingers in her own, and his other is holding the candle. They’re at an impasse.
So Vex presses a shaky kiss to his shaky fingers, and they match, and it’s his breath that stumbles out broken.
“I can do that,” he promises. “I can do that.”
His eyes are a twilight too tangible to be a time, so dark a blue she wonders when they crossed the threshold to indigo. She wonders what he must see in her’s.
“So,” she breathes, “Percy.”
“Hm?”
“About our later talk.”
He pulls his hand free of her hold, blindly slipping the hairpin behind her ear, secure. “If it’s all the same to you, dear,” he confesses, “I would rather not talk much at all.”
And he kisses her - carefully, as you might taste forbidden fruit. So very softly, offering her sweet syrup and rich food and fantasy and a thousand things they might never enjoy again. None of it healthy, none of it healing, but in such little quantities is it really so terrible to sin?
Is it really so terrible that she kisses him back, hungry and wholehearted in her agreement? She’s terrible and he once was, surely he can survive one night of corruption. No talking, no thinking, no laters, a wonderful work of magic turning her self-loathing and fear and self-doubt and loneliness into -
(i understand you)
- need, selfish and generous and terrifying and comforting and simple, simple. Him and her and here and now.
“Percival,” she presses into his lips, “is this a distraction?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
(i could give you so much )
(shut the fuck up)
She could give him so much. He could give her so much. Relief, blessed fucking relief.
One step at a time, darling.
Step one - crawl out of her own skin and into his.
The windowsill, cold stone beneath her, is wonderful leverage to deepen their kiss - their kiss, theirs - as Percy’s hand traces the gift he has given her, moves to the base of the skull, just as reverent a touch. Like she’s holy.
Vex chases down the sound he makes, predatory, and he complies, opening his mouth to her, ceding her this, ceding her everything. Or maybe he’s taking, too, shaking fingers tangling in the base of her braid, the other hand occupied with the candle.
Everything is quiet.
No, it’s not: the wet sounds they make together, the lingering taste of heroes feast shared, the jarring of his teeth against hers when the angle is wrong, the rumor of their tongues when it’s right. Anything but quiet.
But it’s quiet in her head and that’s what matters.
Her lungs scream in protest but her need screams louder. She’s lightheaded, can only attribute it to the thundering heat - heat, finally, heat, this is what she’s been missing - coursing through her as Percy devours her, as she devours him, as they become monstrous together.
“Percy,” she gasps, at last, when cruel instinct forces her from his lips. He follows her, a searing, desperate kiss - but air is still in short supply so she can only moan into it.
“Percy.” Smart man - he lets her catch her breath, taking the opportunity to lavish a trail down her neck. She tilts her head back - if not for the whisper of curtains behind her she’s sure she would knock her head into the glass.
“Percy.” No, she wouldn’t. His hand is there, still, he would not let her come to harm. “Percy.”
“Vex,” he says to the pulsepoint at her throat, before he latches and sucks, and now that just isn’t fair. Vex gasps, and wrestles her brain into order to reach, on that same hunch in the Feywild - yes, he melts, when she grabs a fistful of his hair and tangles and pulls.
“Vex,” he tells her. She kisses him, a question, tears the answer from him when they pull away panting: “Yes. Whatever you want - anything.”
“Bed,” she decides.
“Wall,” she changes her mind, as the bite she presses to his lower lip draws something delicious from him. She eats that, too.
“Fuck it - here,” and Percival is so good as to nod along and kiss and kiss.
The candle falls. He snuffs it out with his heel, the hiss echoed by Vex as Percy can finally, finally bring both his torturous, tinkering hands to her.
“Armor?” Percy wonders, pressing his forehead to her’s, a respite as he gathers his thoughts. His hands dance over the feathers of the Deathwalker’s Ward - they must have tickled him as he traced his way down her neck.
“As much as the idea of fucking you into the mattress with wings” - a groan - “is appealing, darling, I think I’ll” - a groan from her , as he slides his hands under the armor, the weight of it pressing them tight to her nightgown, so close - “pass on defiling a Vestige. No armor.”
“Later. Table that for later.”
“Another later talk?”
“Hush,” he scolds, “and let me work.”
He’s terrible at it. Not efficient at all, has no idea beyond intuiting where the buckles and clasps might be.
Or maybe it’s deliberate, and he’s just enjoying running his hands over her but not on her, not touching her truly, dragging the nightgown with his ministrations. The torturous in-between given more weight by the ancient relic hiding the sin of his hands.
Then again, Vex is in no hurry to help him, so her clever man will have to figure it out for himself.
She is in a hurry over-all, though, just not to end his exploration - over her shoulders, her flanks, ghosting under her breasts with deliberate haste, rude - so she makes busy while he lazily undresses her.
Percival so dearly loves his clothes, all of them, every fine piece a symbol of something lost and reclaimed, so she’s appropriately careful with the buttons of his undershirt. Studious, even. Percy laughs breathlessly into her neck, humid and here, when her arms get in the way of his own work.
It isn’t a race but she wins anyways, mostly because he refuses to interfere with her unwrapping of him and she has no qualms about brushing his pointy elbows aside if they interrupt her. He’s rewarded for the courtesy by Vex’s hands brushing the white cotton away and pressing a kiss to his chest. He’s late to the finish line, studded leather making such a distinct sound as it falls free to the floor. Second place isn’t so bad, she figures.
“You are” - his knee slides between her open legs, and oh, bless the friction offered, her heart is running again - “exquisite” - she finds a scar, a delightful change, a terrible reminder, and she kisses it viciously to brand the shiny skin with her and not harm - “and astounding” - more, more, there’s always more, a good thing she can keep her mouth busy mapping them - “altogether remarkable, really.”
His hands are roving, too, with daring she knows of him most on the battlefield, no reserved kisses or timid glances here, taking no prisoners and earning his scars - “Put simply, you are” - but those hands are still on top of her nightgown, so thoughtful, too thoughtful, and she licks a strip up his neck to nip his earlobe and feel him sigh - “my apotheosis, dear.”
“Darling,” she murmurs. Another bite, another bruise, another brand of the best kind. “Darling, you’re talking too much. Thinking, not doing.”
“And whose fault is that?” He noses her throat, up and up to brush against her ear in retaliation; his hands - finally - shudder down, down to the hem of her nightgown, waltzing patterns there. “I can’t help but think of you, and once I start I can’t ever stop. May I?”
“Clarify which you’re asking, dear.”
“Both, neither, anything you will allow.”
Vex whines - she’d never admit to the sound - and grabs a hand to lift it up and under, the sound trailing into a moan as those incredible callouses drift up her waist. “Just about anything - so long as you’re polite. And don’t bite the ears. Sensitive.”
“Why,” he says, nipping the hollow of her throat, rumbling with a laugh, “I would never.”
He is achingly gentle with her ears, though, trailing them with a cradling touch before kissing one, kissing her lips, kissing the other. It makes Vex’s gut swoop, embarrassingly giddy, and she wants it to stop. Now is not the time.
So she pulls back, panting, a hand pressed to his bare chest, removed only long enough to rid herself of the whole damn nightgown.
It certainly does something, to her, to see the slack-jawed desire in him. All of him: his eyes, of course, blown wide; the blotchy blush crawling up his pale complexion; the jerky tremor of his hands; the tent apparent in his pants is certainly chief among the compliments she’s receiving.
The thought, the sight, stokes the fire, gunpowder thrown into the open flame, violent and scarring and alive.
(Per-cy, Per-cy, Per-cy, the damn thing is still here and louder than ever and he surely can hear it, too.)
She drags him from his stupor, close as she can get him, and moans in relief as he cups her breasts, the angle pressing his thigh deliciously between her legs. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, a bruising kiss on her cheek. His hair tickles and scrapes her both as he ducks his head to watch. She’d watch, too, except he’s in the way and his kneading feels so damn good. He thumbs her peaks, once, twice, before dipping to kiss one.
“You’re a vision, Vex’ahlia,” he murmurs. Kiss, suck, she feels him grin at her cry. “The closest I’ll ever be to heaven.”
He ravages the other breast, his hands now groping, dragging himself closer. She bucks against his thigh, he nips at the top of her breast in response. She bucks again - quick study, another bite. “Actually, I think I’d rather this be my afterlife.”
“No dying. No dragons and no dying,” she orders in a rasp, pressing a kiss to whatever’s in reach - his hair, white and soft and spun snow.
She wants to kiss him, kiss him, root around his mouth on the off chance the bullet that took him from her once is still there and crush it between her molars. Or swallow it, anything to take it from him.
“Yes ma’am.” He presses a kiss to her sternum, she can see his furrowed brows from here. “Ah, apologies. Yes, my Lady.”
Vex gasps - a sharp twist of each nipple, one soothed by his tongue, the other left to riot. She likes a bit of a ruthless streak. “Not using the whole thing?”
“Simply using your proper form of address. Unless you would rather I be thorough.”
“Be thorough, then, Lord Percival.” Her fingers in his hair grasp and draw him downwards.
Percy gets the message. Maybe a little too well - he drops to his knees with such speed she sees him wince. The pain, however brief, kills her - she reaches to hold his cheeks in her hands, searching him for any discomfort. He grins, unabashed, holding her gaze as his hands brush up and down, up and down, up and down, down her thighs.
“These have got to go,” Vex declares, plucking his glasses from his nose. If not for having his hands full of her, she swears he might have reached up to steal them back.
“But I want to see you,” he whines.
Vex laughs, stretching out of his reach to place them on a writing desk. “And I don’t want you skulking back to your room for another pair before I’m done. I would rather not break them. Besides,” she adds, “it’s dark. I know for a fact you can’t see much at all.”
Percy’s eyes refocus on her face, as if trying their damndest to prove her wrong. He grins, pressing a long kiss to the inside of her knee that makes her leg kick out involuntarily. “Might you share that trick of yours, dear? I’ve wondered too long to not know what you like, absolutely debauched, to be denied the sight.”
That swoop is back - a little bird, trapped in a cage but it’s her guts, pulling her insides taut in queer ways as it stretches its wings - as she leans down. He meets her halfway, the kiss surprisingly chaste and sweet, the magic a traded shadow to further darken his gaze. The flutters grow more frantic. “There you are, Percy.”
“There you are,” Percy breathes, his already wide eyes made indescribable.
He downright drinks her in, even his hands stilling as his throat bobs. Like he can’t decide what to kiss or taste first, now that he knows how she looks naked for him.
How terrible is she, to take such pleasure in a godless man kneeling in worship before her? A false idol, and yet he looks at her like all of creation was made in her name.
Percy finally swallows, and it’s a heavy thing. “You’re blushing,” he comments, uselessly, obviously, and yet it startles her. Yes, she supposes she must be. And his grin comes back, stupid and goofy and so out of place on his face Vex wants to match it and kiss him to ensure they mirror eachother. “Oh, you’re lovely when you’re blushing.
“I’m repeating myself,” he says, that grin biting lightly into her thigh, “but holy water and heaven’s blood, you are beautiful, Vex’ahlia.” A kiss, to soothe. Even it out on the other side - he sighs and presses his cheek to the flesh when she throws a leg over his shoulder.
She’s just about shy of mad. Too far gone to keep her shreds of a mask together, the pieces that keep her from pressing i love you i love you i love you into every inch of him and fucking the words into him for good measure. Almost, almost, if he doesn’t fucking -
“Get on with it, Percival.”
“What? No lordly address this time, my Lady?”
He kisses her curls when she lightly kicks his back with her heel. “You’re being a tease, darling.”
“I’m simply giving you the proper care you deserve." There’s a hitch to his voice, a vulnerability, a fear, as though he’s not the one exposed right now.
Percy’s looking up at her with half-lidded eyes, and he must know she can feel him say that, he must know what he’s doing to her, he must know, he must know everything -
And she can’t process that heavy fondness, settling nicely in her, because he finally, finally presses his lips to her cunt and that fondness takes a fucking vacation in favor of unbridled lust.
He could probably drool heartily and mouth aimlessly and she’d still want him there. (That’s a lie, she would be so incredibly disappointed, and so very eager to teach him how she wanted him. Oh, teaching him, that’s a devilish thought all its own, and might almost be worth a gods-awful start.)
But no, he’s getting his bearings of her, curious and keen, and Vex is convinced he’ll figure her out, as he always has. Already doing a good job of it - her hips rock up to meet his earnest mouth.
“Fuck,” and fuck she isn’t sure what to describe the sound of her saying the word, but it makes Percy’s eyes flutter, so tempted to close and drink it in. Instead he drinks her in, exploratory laps of his tongue searching for all the -
Actually - no - wait - is he -
“Percival,” she groans, both because she has to and because she wants to see -
The path of his tongue falters, stumbles. Resumes, with a hearty squeeze of her ass.
Oh, the fuck.
She would bet - bet - bet so much gold, some number she’d be daunted by, that he is spelling her title as he tastes her.
Lady Vex’ahlia, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone, Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt.
Thorough indeed.
She isn’t sure when he gets through the whole thing, between the sighs and the yelps and the strangled versions of his name.
Or, no, she is absolutely sure of it, because Percival makes it clear that was absolutely an experiment, a test run, because he comes up for air, hiding the panting in a heavy kiss to the divot cradled by her hipbone, smiling at how she rattles a sigh.
And then, eyes something incredible and unusual without his glasses, he dips back down and sucks and Vex just - just - maybe words are overrated, maybe life and death are overrated, maybe everything but Percival is overrated. She lets him know. Loudly. Very loudly.
Percival, her Percival, clearly cataloged everything of note in his little spelling game, because he sticks to licking only the patterns that got her to jerk and dig her heels into either side of his spine, that got her drawing fingers through his hair, that got her saying his name in ways that made his whole master plan fall apart in shuddering sighs.
He’d be fine at this, better than many she’s had, if she stuck to this, but no - he’s kept his tricks locked and loaded. Worrying her clit with his lips - lavishing sucks - pushing the flat of his tongue to her until she arches, arches, and pulling away with breathless smugness.
Vex’s head falls back, among the curtains.
It’s a welcome relief, from the indulgence that is the sight of Percy eating her out, isolating her from the wretched wet sounds, until the smug bastard takes advantage of line of sight being broken and -
“Yes,” she breathes, boneless and taut at once as he slides two fingers in and curls. She’s wet, so wet from his work, from everything, she welcomes them gladly. He groans something she’d swear is just as pleased in response.
“Enjoying yourself?” Percy hums against her clit as he slowly fucks her with his fingers. She knows he can’t see her nod, like this, so she tugs at his hair as a substitute for hells yes. “Do let me know if you have any requests. Or complaints. I aim to please.”
“One - complaint.” - he stills, completely - “Service could be provided more promptly.” She says it just to feel him laugh against her, and fuck it feels good. “And sideways is - yes. Like that, like that.”
Percy redoubles his efforts. He takes her so, so seriously.
It takes her no time at all, it takes her forever, drawn up and up. Beyond the point where she should combust, be made into flame. Surely closer to forever, because she feels Percy rest his head against her thigh, panting for breath, his breath humid and heaven against her core as his fingers work.
He also brings up his other hand to fill the space left vacant by his mouth, and oh, oh, he’s making the tremor work for him, work for her. She doesn’t nearly mind that he has to catch his breath because this is almost better, the pressure and unpredictable spasms a wild ride.
Even reaching desperately for air, he manages: “Vex’ahlia. Vex’ahlia, Vex’ahlia - dear. You taste amazing. You’re doing so very” - those damn fingers and he pauses, he pauses because he knows she’ll cry out - “very well, darling.
“You’re gorgeous, like this. I’m almost sad you can’t watch, too, but I do enjoy the potential for surprises.”
She’s expecting one, then, so of course he just pads at the rough patch and she can feel the smile branded into the apex of her thigh as she arches into him.
“Percy,” she says, she thinks she says, “mouth-”
“Of course, of course.”
And fuck, fuck, how is it just as good if not better when he dives back in? Tongue soft, moving her clit, only to make it a forceful thing a moment later, in time to the thrusts of his damnable fingers.
Vex only realizes her thighs are clenched around his head when his stubble bites at the flesh there, when one arm forces her legs apart so he can work her, and perhaps maybe breathe as a distant second.
His words catch up to her, late, late, delayed, and she knows she wants to see this.
It takes strength Vex isn’t sure she has to pry herself up, onto her elbows, past those curtains, to finally watch him tinker with her. That’s the only word that comes to mind - his brows furrowed in devoted focus, notching up or down to take note of her reactions. It could almost be a science, if not for how he stumbles headfirst into her. She’s no learned woman, but surely research should not be so reckless in how it chases each new observation, should not worship its subject as divine.
His hand is a writhing thing, writhing with her as he pins her bucking hips with a frustrated, flattered sound. Percy looks overwhelmed and perfectly happy to not grasp everything going on, and oh she can relate.
He catches the shift in her posture, belatedly, and his eyes find her, the promising blue of water deep enough to kick your skull in from its pressure, and oh she is ruined and so is he and it’s just as terrible a fate as dragonfire and she wants it.
“I’ve got you,” Percy pulls away long enough to gasp, “I’ve got you, darling - let go.”
Usually she might hold on, longer, on principle, but he’s -
and she’s -
- she’s very glad the windows are set in an alcove or she’d throw her head into the glass hard enough to crack it.
It’s like he’s firing a gun. Only it’s her, and she’s just as deadly in his hands, and she’s fairly certain the plateau she’s thrown from is far more pleasurable than a gunshot wound.
She can’t say she sounds better, though, because she can’t hear anything but the ringing of her heartbeat (his name) in her head, feel the cry rolling out her throat.
White hot and uncoiling, a snake striking its way up her spine to bite, hard, in the base of her brain. And a thousand of its kin dancing down, into the most innocuous parts of her. Pulsing in the meat of her thumbs, in her heel, in the points of her ears.
(Per-cy, Per-cy, Per-cy, it doesn’t stop. She thinks he lives there, now. She’d be happy if he did.)
The glass is cool against the crown of her head. Which. Hasn’t it been long, since anything’s been cool? There’s a faint tink, and for a horrifying moment she’s scared the little earpiece - the magpie feathers - were damaged. It’s a shaking struggle to bring her hand up to check - they’re fine, they’re fine, she’s fine.
Vex feels sweat crawl down from the space behind her knees. She’s also sticky with more, and grimaces just a little as she tries to lean back up, out of her shadowy cocoon.
Oh. Oh. He’s gorgeous. Percival, so meticulously crafted, composed in every feature, a mess - just a mess, his shirt still on but hanging off him, opened and framing a bold line of hardly-darker skin, his eyes terribly glazed, lips something mused of. And of course his face is just absolutely covered in her slick, all of the limited light clinging and highlighting the shine.
He’s shaking out his hand with a mild wince of his own, working his jaw until he spies her and works it a different way:
“I have no words-”
“No words? What was that,” she chuckles, breathless, “about not talking?”
“Forgive me,” he murmurs, between kisses on the inside of her thigh, her stomach, searching for the places that make her jump, still coming down, still sensitive, “if I overlooked how inspiring you would be - while trying for suave. You can shut me up - if you so wish. It wouldn’t be - too hard.”
“You’re goading me,” Vex hums. “It’s working.”
She grabs the open collar of that open shirt to drag him up into an open-mouthed, filthy kiss. The taste of herself, how clearly he enjoys it, how damn peachy pleased he is, is enough to rekindle those embers.
“How about the bed now?” She captures his lip and worries it between her teeth.
“Unless you plan for a detour by the wall,” Percy gasps, “I would be delighted.”
“I am so glad we are in agreement,” she says, and he sweeps her up.
Vex would think she was too spent to shriek in delight but no, no, Percy making a giddy fool of himself draws it out of her. He shushes her, a hiss of a smile pressed to the corner of her mouth. Like it’d matter, when she’d been so loud minutes before. She just laughs louder.
It’s nice, being carried to her bed, like a bride, like a fallen angel. Placed down with just as much reverence - Percy takes a moment to smooth the hair away from her face before crawling after her.
The press of their bodies is the meeting of two armies: a war, a slogging stalemate of give and take and death and survival. Vex gets the first victory: she can finally shuck the damn shirt off him and fling it far enough she’ll never have to think of it again.
“Beautiful,” she says, and she means it.
He’s a book, written in invisible ink. It’s never truly invisible, you know - a shade paler or darker than the paper, if you know how to look. She does. Sees the writing on him: scars. Some so very human in their origins, flaws and mishaps contributing silly stories to this diary. Many less so. Most. Most less so.
He’s still so, so beautiful. Every shade of winter - sun on snow, shadowed ice, shed antlers, curling frost - in him. All the horrors and beauty of the deadliest season.
“Beautiful,” Vex repeats, because he hesitated and that’s unforgivable. “Beautiful,” she repeats, a temptation just shy of his mouth, drawing him in.
“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,” and she starts working at his pants, how thoughtful of him to hover above her, to leave her such access, “you’re gorgeous, Percival.”
“Now who won’t shut up, dear?” The playful tone drops into a growl somewhere in the nine hells and he is in no rush to pick it back up - because that’s when she finally presses her hand on the length of him.
Percy rocks into her touch with a helpless groan, straining against his pants.
“Good communication is important. For example: off with -”
“Off,” Percy agrees, doing that wonderfully awkward wiggle to get out of his trousers and underthings. Except it’s hard for it to feel awkward when he’s gasping, so very distracted by Vex perusing him at her leisure. Neck, jaw, shoulders, the sharp blades of his clavicle, never quite his lips because she’s found he gravitates to her when she’s so near and she’s drunk on the forces at play.
He must feel it too, because as soon as he’s kicked the last of the clothing off and away he’s bracketing her head with his forearms and kissing her, and it’s only fair that she bracket him in turn with her legs.
“Ah, darling” - Percy actually has to completely sit up to articulate the thought, one part irritating in Vex’s state and one part charming - “do you - anything for protection?”
“We’re fighting one, if not two dragons tomorrow, Percy.”
“Call me optimistic, then.”
“Overconfident, maybe.”
She smiles, because of course it’s like him to be thoughtful of potential consequences. Percy just leans back on his knees, watching as she completes the spell. Nothing complicated, a little mismash of Cure Wounds and Protection from Poison.
But he’s too far away, now, so she reaches for him. Cradles his jaw. Her thumb finds the meat of his lip, drags it, more gently than she thinks she knew how.
And Percy, eyes locked on her as she had been watching his mouth, presses his tongue to the pad. Draws her thumb in and sucks, holding her gaze, and he has no right being this hot, and the cheeky shit knows it from how he smiles at her gasp.
He drops his head to her shoulder, catching both his breath and the sweat there, only to pause with a thoughtful hum. Vex shifts to peer at him, worrying those rounded ears of his as he groans. He’s looking at a red mark, blooming burgundy on her skin where he’d sucked and kissed - she can see it, only barely, when she cranes her neck to tension.
Oh. She likes that.
She’d like a few more to go, please.
Vex rocks her hips - not so much into him as to try and flip them over - but Vex is slight and Percy, though lithe, is still sturdier than she. So she just ends up brushing against him, which - which yeah, no, fuck her plan, this is - yes.
“Yes,” Percy gasps into her pulse, thrusting involuntarily, the slide something delicious against her folds. Even with her darkvision she can’t see his dick well, shadowed so heavily by him and her and them. He feels good, though, enough that Vex hitches herself up just enough to get a better angle.
It’s sweet fucking torture, their lazy rutting. So many times her hazy brain would think him about to slide in before reality would reinstate itself and he’d glide right through, the drag against her clit doing away with disappointment.
There’s only so much she can take, especially after having come once before, so on their next pass Vex clings, pressing herself to him.
“Percy,” she sighs. “Percy - roll us over, dear? I can’t-”
“I’m at your disposal - one moment.”
Percy is careful to draw his hand over her back, bracing her against him as he rolls them over. It takes a moment to settle, writhing around to find a more comfortable place for her knees and his head, but -
but Vex can’t let go.
She should.
She should, she really should. Lean up, lean back, lean onto him and fuck him until they both see stars and get chased to sleep by the falling skyfull of them.
But it’s Percy.
It’s Percy and she can’t let go.
She knows why. Of course.
This isn’t just some casual fuck, at least not for her. Maybe not for him. Maybe. But she can’t deal in hypotheticals right now when they are to be dealing in death in the morn.
If she has him, if she has him she’ll have another thing to lose, tomorrow. If he has her he’ll have another distraction, another liability, so - so hopefully tonight goes well, and tomorrow even better, and Vex can claim Percy as her parcel of the loot.
Mine? she wants to know.
Mine, she wants to say.
Mine, she wants to hear him groan.
That’s a thought.
Vex has never wanted to belong to anyone, before.
Oh fuck.
“Vex?” Percy murmurs into her ear, brushing his nose to it. She shivers.
“I’m - it’s alright, Percy.”
He runs his hands up and down her arms, as far as he can get them, as feather-light as he can. “We can stop,” he offers, Adam’s apple bobbing. “If you-”
“No, no - no. Thinking.”
“We can make that later talk now, if you would like.”
(There won’t be a later.)
(She belongs to the Raven Queen.)
(companionship… i have been without for so long. and those who kept me company hurt me so… very… deeply )
(saundor, i understand you)
“No,” she rasps. “No talking, remember?”
“Vex.” Those hands come up to her face, cradling, tilting her up. His shaking fingers draw the hair from her eyes to carefully tuck the strands behind one ear, and again with what of the curtain he missed. “Talk to me - please? I worry.”
A heavy swallow as she tries to tuck her head into his chest. Gently he refuses, keeping her in his grasp. Searching her gaze - she can see herself in his, just the faintest ghost of Vex’ahlia in his blown-out pupils.
There’s so much of her in his eyes.
It means - it means something. Some things, so many emotions digging through her guts and rearranging her bones and making her some chimera of the woman she was before and the woman she could be with the knowledge someone looks at her like that. It’s an ecosystem, predators and prey and parasites and plants and she is their home and the host of feelings call her mother.
She puts a name to all the feelings and that name is Percival.
“Darling?” Vex hadn’t planned on this, planned to bury this wretched truth deep with a hundred other skeletons, dead to her name. Just another dream she had to let die, had to strangle with her own hands. But he has her and she can’t be anything but honest when she whispers, “Be good to me?”
“As if I could be anything but,” Percy vows, smiling. “You are free to be absolutely terrible to me. I trust you’ll make it enjoyable.”
He laughs when she thwaps his chest lightly with the back of her hand.
“I was being vulnerable, you dick.”
“So was I!”
Vex joins him in a giggle - she can’t believe she’s making such silly sounds, can’t believe he dispelled her demons with no magic to his name, he just brings out something too soft and too earnest and too true to her - sitting back.
Speaking of dicks -
She takes him in hand - finally - hot and already shiny with her wet, watches that good humor boil off into heady lust as Percy’s head drops back with a groan. His hips rise into her hand as she gives him a few pumps, relishing the silk-soft give of the skin to the hard length of him. Runs a thumb over the tip, twists with her wrist and oh, yes, now that’s a sound she would love to hear more of.
Gods, the way he’s looking at her - watching her with blazing blue eyes, the halo of hot around the sun on a picturesque day. Can’t fathom why the Raven Queen would have aspired to godhood when she could have just become someone’s god in bed.
Hm. Bad thought.
Distraction. Yes, tonight is about distraction.
No dragons, no Matron, no later, nothing but them.
So it’s without any more preamble that Vex lifts herself up and starts to sink down on him. The blizzard of his eyelashes washes away that blue as Percy’s hands scrabble - one twining with her’s on his chest, the other dipping into the muscle of her thigh.
“Vex." Percival groans her name like it means everything and explains the finer workings of the universe and he knows it better than that genealogy of a name he bears.
Fun fact: this is her favorite part.
Don’t get her wrong - most everything in sex is something she’d seek out. But this, oh, this? She savors it, an indulgence, a luxury. The stretch, the fullness, the anticipation coalescing into a drowning tide of endorphins. She steals this moment. Tucks away how they feel, together, how they smell, how they look into the space between her teeth where she can taste the memory every breath onwards.
Then their hips are flush and that stretch becomes a perfect fullness. Her head is full of Percy, too, every sense aflame with him and what might tangentially be his, too.
(Her heart is not even worth mentioning. Of course it’s full with him, of course it’s been for so long it might have been forever.)
Yes, oh yes is this her favorite part.
Orgasms come in a close second, though, so Vex gets to working on that.
The first roll of her hips is a cresting wave, crawling up the beach of his pale skin to come back down with a shuddering sigh. If this is how the sea feels it’s little wonder it presses its lip up the sand endlessly, tirelessly.
The hand on her hip is free of his tremor, only by virtue of how tightly he holds her. It hurts. Good.
“Percy,” Vex says, besmirching that good name into something dirty and awful and hers if only for tonight. And a few times more for good measure as she fucks him well and good, the pleasure they fucking deserve if they’re to maim themselves saving the world.
She finds a rhythm - Percy finds her’s, too, finds it in the space between them and the hitch in her breath when he cants up on her downstroke. His head keeps falling back only to snap back up, eyes pried open to watch her until something he finds renders him slack with pleasure.
“Percy - oh, darling-”
“Vex-”
They trade names - Vestiges, or rare coins. “Percy.” She wonders, as his mouth drops open once more, how he’d look on Cabal’s Ruin. “Vex.” How she’d look on it. “Percival.” How the Ward might scatter feathers over his pale, pale skin. “Vex’ahlia - my Lady Vex’ahlia.” The leather dragging over her breasts. “I’m not - saying - the whole thing -” and Percy laughs and grits his teeth to meet her with a thrust that sends her musings into a tailspin.
It’s so good. He’s so good. She’s so good. They’re so good -
So good -
Fuck, she won’t -
Vex can hardly communicate more than a whine, can hardly bring herself to slow, so instead she drags their joined hands to her. It takes him a minute - is he as lost as she is? - but Percy gets the idea and follows, sits up - the angle is new and not unpleasant in the least as Vex rocks on his dick, pressing her lips to his skin.
Like this she has to go slow. Like this she also has better access to Percy - and he to her, judging by how his hands wander up and down her thighs, curl over her waist, take greedy palmfulls of her ass to drag her up and down.
“We’ll bruise,” he gasps, a perfectly idle remark - looking at her neck, again, or his fingerprints on her thigh?
“Perfect.” Vex grins. “At least - at least they’re ours.”
“Ours,” Percy kisses into her shoulder, grunting when she gets to giving him a few more marks. “I do like the - sound of that. Would make for an - embarrassing post-mortem.”
Her heart stutters - she slams herself down on his cock to jar it back to its beat, crying out. “Better not die, then.” His heart flutters beneath her lips before she slides upward to taste the juncture between his neck and shoulders, feels the muscle jump under her tongue when he tilts his head.
It’s a sacred alchemy, how, pressed together, their skin becomes the ivory-white of mountains biting into the rich darkness of dusk. Only, hah, she’s the one sinking her teeth into him. He tastes like wealth and safe and blue and everything she’s ever wanted. She absconds with him and she takes him in her and she takes and takes and takes.
Or maybe it’s coppers to the treasury she steals, because she could live off of this like a queen.
Ah, no. She can do one better. Tonight, now, Lady Vex’ahlia commands more power than any monarch in any kingdom.
The bounty is Percival, Percival, Percival as she makes out like a highway bandit. Makes out with him, too, while she’s got him here - under her, in her arms, in her.
Entire empires pale in comparison to this. Maybe she should be likened a dragon, not a magpie, for her greed, because she will take it all, all, if it comes from him.
The backs of her thighs burn, her fingers chew red moons into his shoulders, one foot is going numb, but oh, oh, fuck if she can get just one more bruise of theirs out of this it’ll be worth every healing spell she’ll have to cast so they can sleep soundly.
“Dear,” Percy breathes. “Darling - darling -”
“Yes - please.”
He huffs, struggles visibly for the words. Vex would laugh if she had the breath for it - comes out as more of a shuddering wheeze. “Let me -”
And he shifts them in his lap, stuttering their rhythm, avenging the loss with the pad of his thumb rubbing merciless circles on her clit.
She can’t think straight, she can’t think of anything but Percival Percival Percival and how good this feels. Deep enough to drive a cry from her with any air she claims.
It’s fast and frothing with the sounds of their skin slapping together, and each movement is a natural extension of the last and a struggle to climb those very last stairs -
- and Percy growls “Vex’ahlia,” and pulls her to him hard and resolves all his passions into a shudder and she’s thrown off the tower into freefall.
Spinning
spinning
spun.
It's the cold of the hairpin she feels first. How had it stayed?
Oh, no, it hadn't - Percy's hand falls, limp, from her temple. Felt, not seen. He'd put it back. Good. It belongs there. He belongs here.
Everything that matters is a white-hot burn, the worthless world sketched in on this blank canvas of her senses.
Percy’s hair is white. His skin is porcelain. Just so you know. In case you didn’t.
The hammering in her jaw and flesh might be her heartbeat (Per-cy, Per-cy, Per-cy).
Maybe it’s his. She is pressed to his chest after all, his heart so close she could drag her teeth over his sternum and feel it pick up.
Could she be echoed in him? Could she climb into his trembling self and find herself, too?
(Vex-'ahlia, Vex-'ahlia, Vex-'ahlia)
He’s leaning against her and he’s heavy, and she’s leaning into him and she’s boneless, and she can’t quite piece together where one ends and the other begins. Vex tries to lift an arm but nope, that’s his, so she leans down to kiss it instead. Moans and stays there. Not sure she can get up. Salience.
“How’s that for a distraction?” Vex mumbles, nosing the damp skin, drinking in the bliss. “Hm, Percy?”
“Hgn,” he gracefully replies, flopping them both back onto the pillows.
Vex props herself up on an elbow - gives up and crashes back down. Mattress is so nice she bounces - sheets are sticky, though, oh dear. “What was that?”
“Gngh.”
“Darling, can you” - she snorts - “can you use your words?”
“Hrrg,” Percival offers, voice found lacking.
Can’t believe it.
Percival de Rolo is at a loss for words.
Vex wheezes out a laugh, positively, deliriously giddy at this fact.
He holds up a finger. Gulps in one, two, three breaths before immediately forfeiting them to her in a kiss.
“Good gods, Vex’ahlia,” he prays.
“You” - he presses a lolling kiss to her, the exhausted enthusiasm of it sliding clear off her lips onto her cheek - “stay right there. I’ll get you something to get cleaned up.” He fights for another breath. “And the Courage.”
Vex blinks up at him. He is a pleasant blur - is this how he sees her, without his glasses? A halo of a person? “Oh - so that’s what the satchel was for. I had completely forgotten.”
“So had I,” he admits.
Vex throws out an arm to catch him. Misses completely, which is probably for the best - she is a mess. He does have a good idea.
"Percy," she whines, still, unbidden. "Stay with me?"
"As long as you'll have me," Percy says, which is a problem because that might be forever and oh no that's a problem for tomorrow's Vex’ahlia. No, day after tomorrow's Vex’ahlia, because tomorrow is dragons. Which she'd rather not consider. Courage sounds good.
"I'll be back, darling. Just - a second."
It’s a truly monumental feat, turning her head to stare at his ass as he finds his feet, wobbles a little and makes for her room’s wash closet, but by gods does Vex fight that battle and win. Another little victory, regardless of what tomorrow holds.
While he’s up, Vex rolls out of the damp spot in the bed to grin stupidly into the pillow, mildly suffocated by the plush. Cradled by the cloud of sweat and sex and - oh, sleep. Solace.
She’s out cold before Percy’s back with the bottle.
--
They leave everything unsaid.