#i am cradling vox machina in my hands i feel SO MUCH for them

[everythingisconfetti]

Like yes, it's hilarious that Pike, a level 20 cleric of Sarenrae, describes herself as a baker. but also- the fact that she can do that. that life has become such that if all she wants to do is make cookies and decorate her house with knick knacks and paintings of her friends- she can. Because god, have they earned it. It's in Pike's baking. In Percy's clocktower. In Vex, teaching her children to hunt for the sport of it, not because they need it to survive. It's in Whitestone, flourishing, alive.

So really- can Percy be blamed, for demanding Delilah isn't given the chance to return, with his young daughter right there? And Vex, Pike- their willingness to help, to even give a maybe, in the face of all that maybe could mean? To hold the weight of the past and of everything they have built since and still say yes, we'll try?

There's guilt there, yes, and a feeling of responsibility, but it's also looking at these people who just love their friend so much. And it's knowing what it's like to lose someone you love like that, the lengths you'll go- the lengths they have gone- to fix that. So they look at Imogen, at all the Hells, and they look at Laudna, in all she represents, in all she might be, and they say okay. We'll try. What an incredibly selfless choice.

[ameliathermopolis]

6 for pikeval??

6. a hand kiss

Three months pass before Pike is satisfied that she has interviewed everyone in Whitestone with a morsel of romantic knowledge to give. Even in the atmosphere of work and progress that usually fills the castle in the the weeks between visits from the other members of Vox Machina and the world at large, she finds time to stress about the personal. Zahra is her most consistent confidante. 

“But what does it mean?” Pike sighs in exasperation. She sits cross legged on a table in the library, a bundle of letters spread out across its surface. Five missives from her family sit in their piles, Keyleth’s looping hand on the far left, all the way to Scanlan’s tight scrawl interspersed with illustrations by Grog on the right. Her tiefling companion’s tail flicks every few seconds as she stares at one letter in particular. 

“That comma intrigues me.” The letter lands on the table with a decisive thunk, one of Zahra’s nails pressed to the address at the top. “There.”

“The one after ‘dearest’?” Pike asks. 

“Just the one. That comma is as good as a confession.” 

“But if he…” The word love does a pirouette on Pike’s tongue, “…felt anything for me, don’t you think he would just say so?” 

“A girl as pretty and kind and clever as you? Oh, my dear, any man, human or otherwise, would be a fool to merely assume themselves worthy of your affection!” Zahra laughs. “No, your Percival is no fool-”

“He’s not my-” Pike mumbles, face heating.

“-he’ll be looking to assert his love in more subtle ways, a test of the waters, if you will. A bit old-fashioned for my tastes, to be sure, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to go about romance in any other way.” Zahra looks at her out of the corner of her eye and smirks. “The thrill is in the chase, Pike,” she says. “Less so in the capture. Still…Lady Pike Trickfoot has a lovely ring, don’t you think?” Zahra’s laugh fills the room when Pike hurls a cushion from one of the chairs at her face. 

They put Percy’s letter aside and move on to dissecting Vex’ahlia’s letter to Zahra, dissolving fast into fits of giggles as they progress.  

Percy’s workshop feels more private than a bedchamber sometimes. It is a week after Vox Machina’s most recent return, and Percy sits at his workbench, tongue held between his teeth as he works on a contraption. Pike sits across from him, her hands held as still as she can keep them on the tiny gears and levers. They work in silence. Every few minutes, Percy sets down his pliers and reaches to move her fingers where he wants them. 

“Thank you for helping me with Cassandra’s birthday present, by the way,” he says as he looks down between them for the sixth time. 

“I’m still not entirely sure why you needed my help,” Pike mutters when she remembers that she should be ignoring how her skin tingles every time he touches her. She knows it’s just because he’s been gone, that they’ve all been gone for weeks while she remains at the castle. Even with a childhood full of all the tactile nature of having Grog as a sibling, Pike is not used to such closeness, such softness of touch. His hands are rough from burns and callous and cruelty, but they are delicate too, when it suits him. “Shaun or Eskel could probably fix you up better.” 

“Probably,” Percy says, “but you know I don’t put much stock in the arcane when engineering will do.” 

“You say that like they’re mutually exclusive,” she laughs. “A thing doesn’t stop being magic just because you know how it works. And that doesn’t answer my question, you know.” Percy smiles and glances up at her over his glasses. 

“You have the best hands for it,” he concedes. “This music box belonged to our mother. I found it badly broken when we were cleaning out the castle a few months back and…well, I’m happy for the work,” he sighs. “It feels good to fix something. Haven’t been doing a lot of that lately.” Pike feels disagreement rise on her tongue and she does her best to swallow it. He knows her opinion on the subject of broken things and the words of a certain Queen. “And besides,” he says brightly, “am I not allowed to want your company for its own sake?” 

“That’s not the point.” Pike feels heat course up from her neck to her hair as Percy finishes twisting one of the gears into place. 

“You can move now,” he says, giving her hand a pat. She cradles her hands in her lap, trying to ignore how cold they feel when separated from his. Percy closes the lid of the box and gives the crank of the an experimental turn. Pike smiles when a handful of notes start to lift out of it, and he sighs in relief. “That’s done. And you didn’t answer my question, either.” 

“I don’t think I could give you an answer that would satisfy you. You hate that.” Percy laughs as he starts to put out the lights in the workshop and Pike walks to the door to wait for him. 

“That, I do. Have you considered you cannot give such an answer, because there is none for you to give?” he counters with a raised eyebrow. “We miss you, Pike. I…I miss you. Terribly.” He puts out the last of the lanterns and meets her in the doorway, gaze centered on anything that isn’t her face. “The letters were a good idea. They help enormously, if only to assure me boredom is your worst enemy and that you haven’t fallen prey to dragon fire, but…” He stops half way through closing the door, eyes still fixed on the floor. “But they do leave something to be desired.” 

Pike freezes when he reaches down to touch her hand, lifting one and then the other so he can hold them. It is hard not to feel small around Percy. He’s nearly twice her height, though she holds herself up to her full three feet, two inches whenever he’s around. His hands dwarf hers as he presses them, but the small feeling doesn’t come with the usual frustration. Pike knows he could curl his whole body around her and the thought makes her feel so warm and safe, it makes her heart hurt for pounding. 

“You do have the best hands,” he whispers. Pike remembers the last time they were this close. It feels like longer ago than it is. They were huddled together, her hands on his face, his forehead against hers. Even with the concentration the restoration spell required, even with the separation from feeling her astral form rendered necessary, she can still remember. She remembers the roughness of stubble on his jaw, the harsh and hollow breaths of ill health and cold that rattled his chest, the darkness she could feel clinging to his mind. He smelled like pine and sandalwood and gunpowder. All my bad dreams were about you. They still are. 

Percy folds her right hand over her left. His thumbs brush over her knuckles before the pads of them press to where her pulse beats in her wrist. Pike’s eyes widen as he kneels down, still taller than her even on his knees, and bends his head. When Percy’s lips kiss the back of her hand, she is reminded of the love poetry her and Kima make fun of on particularly indulgent evenings drinking wine and eating anything they can spear on a toasting fork. All that talk of touches that crash down like thunder and sear like lightning, of love being madness and pain as much as beauty…oh, why does every word have to be true? 

As his lips linger, head bent, she can see where the dark roots of his hair fade to silver and white. Her fingers twitch and start to shake. 

Does it feel like a scar, she longs to ask. Like mine? Perhaps such things are best left for later discussion, on ink and paper rather than between stammering tongues. Percy’s gaze lifts slowly, his eyes darker in the torchlight. His eyes find hers as he presses one, two, three more kisses down her knuckles, softer and lighter than the first. For a moment, Pike wonders if this is what it feels like to be caught in a hunter’s cross hairs, moments before he pulls the trigger. 

All at once, the intensity of his eyes is too much, and Pike finds herself gazing downward. A glint of metal in the firelight catches her eye. The long metal chain of a pendant just peeks out of the unbuttoned collar of Percy’s shirt, leading down to a familiar gem resting over his sternum. 

“You still wear it?” Pike asks, not looking up. Percy still hasn’t released her hands. 

“I never take it off.” 

As good as a confession, for both of us. “Good. Don’t.” 

They part ways at the long hallway of bedrooms. Pike managers to get out a “good night” before she is inside her room and pressed to the back of the door, the full weight of trying not to breathe too hard or color too red, dropping as she sinks to the floor. 

No, she thinks, remembering Zahra’s laughter at their letters. Percy does not date like many men she’s met. 

Percy courts. Percy pursues.

She curls both her hands into fists and presses them to her mouth, as if to transfer the touch of his lips from one to the other. Pike finds that she does not mind the chase so much when the capture promises to be just as sweet.