#Look Percy was 100% flirting with her in the tomb!! he WAS!! and I think they deserve a little more flirting. as a treat. for me.

[blorbologist]

Wanted

[TLOVM season 2 spoilers up to episode 3!]

[Perc’ahlia / G / 1.4k / Cross-posted to AO3]

“So.” Percy leans as he walks, to better spy her reaction when he asks, “a rebellious phase?”

Vex, fiddling still with her retrieved feathers, quirks a brow. Undecided, apparently, as to if she wants to smirk or frown. “Something like that. Though I’m not sure poaching a monster qualifies.”

“Call it cunning, instead? But no, I was not referring to that.”

She really does wield those eyebrows like weapons. Aimed so precisely, arched with deadly intent. This one, nocked, wonders what he’s getting at. 

(A part of him laments that, caught in her sights, he could never deny her an answer. The rest of him wonders where the hells that came from. Put it back. It’s wiggling in his chest uncomfortably.)

“The wanted poster,” Percy explains. “The whole -” He waggles a finger over his right eye, ears, mimes twirling a chain around his wrist. It takes a gulp to draw a line around his neck. Hidden well, he hopes. (Probably in vain, knowing her, but she could always blame it on the cold.)

Her eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, that! You forgot one part, darling.” 

When he hums an inquiry, Vex flips him off with a smirk. Percy snorts a laugh, drowned by the crunch of snow beneath their boots. Unclear, if he’s thankful for that or not - the sound was unbecoming his station. Gods, Cass would have a field day. But Vex catches it, and it draws that smirk into a more genuine smile, and. Well. He can live with the indignity. 

(What, and this is thought with heated emphasis, the fuck.)

“How could I forget?” he teases. 

Vex’s face pinches in thought as she picks around a log, stepping in Grog’s tracks. Percy is left to gangle over it lest he miss her reaction. 

“Forget, hm? Why did you bother to remember?” She waits for him. “Looking for a bounty of your own? You know, Whitestone’s coffers could probably cover our debt.”

He frankly hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe - probably not the best use of our funds, what with the rebuilding, the refugees, and the…” 

Dragons, yes. The dragons. 

The airy snowfall is heavy with the reminder. 

Vex sobers immediately. “That wasn’t - I’m sorry, that was in poor taste.”

“You were only joking, Vex,” he assures her. “I know.”

They fall silent. Vex might be listening in to the conversation up ahead - Grog describing with great reluctance the old man who apparently made a fool of him, Pike and Vax pressing him for details. Percy might want to, but he can’t, not quite. 

There’s still a voice, in the back of his mind, where the smoke used to be. It’s his voice, his own, a nagging little conscience that had been even smaller still when engulfed by the demon’s might. Chilling, still, to remember that. 

No: he’s listening to recent memory. 

(“Why would I listen to the cursed heir, who wallows in self-pity, begging to be trusted again?”)

He wants to fix things, badly. Somehow. Can’t: not Emon, not Vasselheim’s indifference, he can’t even pay off a bounty. 

A stray flake lands on his glasses. For a moment, Vox Machina ahead are framed and fractured by icy architecture smaller than he can fathom. Then it melts, and they’re a blur. 

Percy scowls to himself, huffing as he pulls his glasses off, fusses around for his kerchief in his coatpocket. There’s a tell-tale crackle of rucked paper, and oh, he can salvage this!

“Besides,” he tries. It comes out weaker than he’d like, so he gives it another shot: “Besides: I was not exactly memorizing the bulletin board.”

Vex gives him a little oh, curiosity clearly piqued. So he unfurls his prize with a grin. Her next oh is much more dramatic. He takes it as praise and warms appropriately - Vex is not one to dole that out lightly. 

He holds out the wanted poster with no small amount of pride. It’s torn at the top, from where it had been nailed in, still bearing a clean cut through its heart courtesy of Kashaw’s magic. 

“Percy, dear!” Vex gasps. She almost sounds impressed - or maybe indulgent. The thought should rankle him, but he takes it gladly. “Since when are you a thief?”

“Figured you could use a souvenir,” he says. As he’s talking, he realizes that’s a flimsy excuse for the uncharacteristic behavior, and adds: “Maybe they will lose track of the exact bounty without the reminder handy? Though I doubt they’ll forget your face.”

“So I’m unforgettable, hm?” She’s fishing for compliments: he sees the hook in her smile. (He’s very tempted to bite.) 

“Maybe.”

(Are they flirting? Is this what’s happening? What is happening?!) 

Vex gestures lazily with her hand. “Give that here.” 

Percy obliges, peering over her shoulder as she scrutinizes her likeness. It’s a touch difficult, with the angle, to compare her to the sketch. The mugshot has no trace of baby fat - how old were the twins when they went through this phase? He casts a furtive glance at her ears - the divots where piercings could go exist still. He’s also close enough to see that. Shit. 

“They didn’t get my nose right,” Vex complains, thwacking the parchment with the back of her hand. 

“I’m sure we can go back and leave a scathing review of their portraitist.” She giggles. “Is the rest accurate?”

Percy, loathe to admit it, wants to know. Very badly. 

Vex, oblivious to how he’s schooling his features, nods. “Oh, mostly. I don’t think I had any tops showing that little cleavage, though.”

Percy sputters. “What-”

She elbows him in the side. “Kidding.” A wink. “Mostly.” 

While Percy wrestles with his vivid imagination (he was perfectly willing to believe he’d imagined the smoke demon offering very detailed inspiration - this mind is a wretchedly creative thing), she continues: “It’s pretty much as I remember it. Very punk - it was fun, but not helpful for finding work. Catch more flies with honey than vinegar and all. Though Vax never really grew out of it.”

Percy squints at the dark shape ahead, arguing now with Scanlan about which way to go. “You don’t say.”

There’s a smile in her voice: satisfied, and perhaps smarting still. “We weren’t exactly the sort mommy dearest would approve of. Still aren’t, really.”

“I’d beg to differ.” Except he can’t, because his - Percy swallows so hard he feels it in his teeth. “Heroes of Emon, and Whitestone. Soon Tal’Dorei itself.”

Vex goes quiet. Not the easy lull of breaths and walking - striving for silence, to hide. Percy pauses, confused, and gives her time to unfreeze. 

“It’s strange,” she says, more to herself than him. It almost feels like a private moment, despite their ongoing conversation; Percy scrutinizes his boots. “Not used to being wanted, you know? You saw how it was, back there. Vax and I have rarely been popular, especially not as little punks.”

When he next looks back to her, Vex is whittling at him with her eyes. “Why the interest, darling? Want to give the look a try?”

He thinks of smoke and a hot gunbarrel and black powder. Shivers. “Not really, no.“

The truth of the matter is: he swiped the poster on a whim. No carefully considered advantage was to be gained, justification found only in hindsight. Because there was something about Vex with the piercings and the teardrop tattoo and the choker (the choker) that made him incredibly stupid in the moment. 

He’s Percival de Rolo. He’s never stupid. He can’t be stupid. Why is this whole thing making him stupid?

(Like he said - not stupid. He knows damn well why and hopes it will pass him by and quickly, before he does anything idiotic.)

(He just… wanted it.)

(Wanted her?)

(Oh, dear.)

“The tattoo.” He almost blurts it out - barely, barely it comes out casual. “Does Vax still have the gods-awful thing?”

“I think so,” Vex says. She grimaces. “That really was a look, huh? Too much eyeliner, made him look perpetually sad.”

“So sad,” Percy agrees as Vax hollers, “What about my look?!”

Falling snow slowly speckles the parchment with weak moisture as they heckle Vax, until a brief game of keep-away ends with it skidding over the snow by behest of the wind, lapping melt as it goes. By the time Percy catches it, half the twins’ faces are bleeding smears of black ink. 

(He’ll think of that image, later.)

(Later.)

(For now, they laugh and brush off the snow and continue on. Percy, warm despite the snow up his shirt. And trying very, very hard not to think about that choker.)