Work Text:
It’s only the noise that allows them to realize something has gone terribly wrong .
Vax, spoon halfway to his mouth, barely gets out a half shouted “What the fuck-” before another loud noise splits the air in twain. The heavy mahogany table shudders two inches from its position, a cast iron pot claters against the stone flooring.
Vex’ahlia moves first, a simple blur of movement that makes her almost invisible to the naked eye as she bolts from the kitchen of Greyskull Keep, bounding down the hallways. Vax’ildan and Keyleth are close on her tail, ducking beneath her erratic movements as she clatters down the wooden staircase that leads to the workshop that Percy had gutted and rebuilt with his own two hands, reluctant as he was to let anyone help despite the offers given with complete sincerity. The loudness of them all is evidence enough of their worry, at the foundation shaking explosion that had rattled Greyskull Keep, and it had only been their reflexes that had stopped Vax from choking on his spoon and Keyleth from almost chopping her fingers off.
It’s just the four of them in the keep; Grog, Pike and Scanlan out in the market to collect things as it was their turn to venture out into the world so at least they know the only person possibly hurt is Percy. That only has Vex snarling akin to Keyleths’ great tiger form, throwing herself over the second to last banister of the flight of stairs, over the other’s two heads.
She bends her knees, rolling easily out of her crouch, using the momentum to vault herself at the half hanging open door of Percu’s workshop, collapsed on its hinges and the other double door smashed to splinters against the wall opposite it. As Vex kicks in the rest of the destroyed door, Vax appears beside her, stepping smoothly out of the shadows, daggers in hand, and she only has to dodge her kick around him as Keyleth comes landing upon her twin’s shoulder in her hawkish form.
Scorching heat has Vex reeling back, cursing to the heavens as she slips low, blinded by the smoke that’s rising heavily. She’s been in Percy’s workshop several times before, enough to know the general layout and where the forge and anvil is. Where his worktable is when he’s dealing with precious and delicate work, tucked opposite his camp bunk for when he’s doing more time sensitive work or is exhausted enough to just collapse into it, which has happened more times than Vex has counted. He must have been working on another project, Bad News still hanging inert upon on her stand, delicate working innards strewn across a page of schematics riddled with Percy’s looping scrawl and dried oily fingerprints.
“Percy!” She shouts loudly, and she can hear Keyleth and Vax doing the same thing, carefully skirting around the forge that has somehow grown two sizes to what it should be, flickering merrily in its metal cage, shadows dancing eerily on the heavy stone walls. The anvil, heavy and usually a stalwart guardian in front of the forge, is on its side, shattered stone flooring spider webbing out from its impact, a hammer and still blazing tongs scattered at its feet. “Answer me, darling!”
A cough, followed by a harsh groan, and Vex will never tell anyone about the way she wavers on her feet in relief, ducking beneath a shattered piece of timber that’s fallen from the roof, hissing between her teeth as it creaks at her light touch. The drizzle of water means that Keyleth has decided to help the still in progress fire alarm buckets that should have triggered as soon as smoke had filtered into them, but has so obviously failed. When Percy realizes, she thinks, heart still half in her throat, he’s going to be irritated.
“Freddy?” She can hear how her brother yells through the wide room, picking up on a deliberately made sound as he rounds the anvil, slipping into sight as he materializes by her side. His daggers have returned to their holster; instead he’s holding the first aid kit Pike had insisted on stocking up full for the workshop.
“I do believe I - ah, fuck - made a mistake.” Percy’s muffled, cracking voice has something bursting with relief inside of her belly, her chest having been clenched tightly since she first realized where the explosion had come from. She’s going to hit him, she decides, and tells him as such, as penance for worrying her so thoroughly. “If you insist, dear Vex’ahlia; perhaps you could do it now as it may be hidden by the rest of the pain.”
“You’re a fool of a man, Percival de Rolo,” she tells as her and Vax, Keyleth having taken flight in her hawkish body to continue releasing the water, balancing carefully in her human form to slowly decrease the size of the slowly growing fire. “I’m going to heal you up just so I can hit you and you can fully feel it.”
She has to bite her lip when Percy’s muffled chuckle is broken up with a barely there whine, no doubt through clenched teeth.
“Please don’t flirt when I’m in ear range, this is sickening, dear Pelor.” Vax grumbles from her side. She throws a middle finger at him before ducking low beneath another half felled piece of timber from the wall, arrows scattered at its base. She admires the well crafted edges, the beauty of the patterns inlaid with her signature V just before the shaft, before moving on, closely followed by Vax as they reach the corner where Percy’s crafting table is usually placed.
Usually, of course, being the key word. Instead, they find where the place of the explosions no doubt took place, everything scattered a foot or so back from where it should actually be. To Vex’s well trained eyes, it seems as if the initial explosion wasn’t too awful, more noisy than anything but it had triggered another, secondary explosion.
One slender leather clad leg, bloodied around the hem with oil and soot liberally sprawled across the tanned material, lies askew across the flagstones, the rest of their human disappearing beneath a pile of stone and wood. Vex has to swallow around the lump in her throat at the pale flesh just exposed from where it tucked up, barely haired and surprisingly delicate. She crouches down, and knocks gently at Percy’s heavy boot.
“Percy, darling?” For a moment there’s not a sound, before his foot knocks gently back at Vex’s hand, before Percy’s voice comes through again, and her brows furrow further with the pain she can hear just leaking through.
“I do believe I’m pinned down,” he says, and there’s a breathlessness to the edge of it that has her sharpened ears pinning back a little. “And, not to worry you, but… it’s getting- rather hard to breathe.”
Immediately, she feels urgency shoot up her spine, cold worry making her voice sharp, ears half pinning back.
“Can you see what you’re pinned down by?” She asks, and she can see Keyleth now, in a small bird shape fluttering over the mountain of stone and timber. The druid lands lightly on it, making cooing noises from her animal throat. She manages to roll several stones from the pile, making a trilling sound when a pale hand, streaked with soot and blood too, appears.
“A piece of wood,” he tells her breathlessly. “Hello Keyleth…I can just see you.” Keyleth coos down at him, nuzzling at his exposed hand, before she takes wing, landing by Vex and Vax.
“I can just see him,” she says, and for a moment, Vex can see the Keyleth of old, nervous and anxious before she’d grown into her place with Vox Machina in her. “It’s mostly his chest and stomach, it’s just a few stones blocking our view but-“
Vax leans forward; and grabs a hold of Keyleth’s hands that have started worrying themselves, nails catching on the delicate skin of her fingers.
“He’s looking bad, Vax,” she whispers, leaning into the touch. “I can probably use my vines to help stabilize and lift the stones but Percy might need more than just the first aid kit.”
Vex curses, and she hunches over, pressing her forehead to her knees before she straightens.
“Okay,” she says, and then says it again just because. “Okay, do what you can with the vines, Kiki, we trust you. Vax, you’re the fastest one out of us - and I know you’re going to make my life awful after admitting that, stop smirking - so you’re going to try and find Pike and the others and I-“
Keyleth looks at her; her fiery hair giving the illusion she was on fire as smoke wreaths around them. Her eyes are wide, and something in them makes Vex’s voice break; perhaps it’s because the worry and concern would be reflected in her own. Still, she doesn’t manage to finish her thoughts because no doubt Keyleth has them herself.
“Be safe.” Is all Vax says before he presses his fingertips to his sister’s cheekbones, through the smoke that’s darkened her skin before he disappears, lost in the shadow pockmarked with smoke.
Keyleth has already made her move, and something about seeing the powerful druid on her knees, smoked with fire and wreathed with smoke, her staff glowing an incandescent green that hurts to look at, has Vex’s breath catching in her throat.
“You’ve got this, Kiki,” Vex murmurs to her, and despite the strain evident in the woman’s brow, her eyes are thankful as vines slowly grow from the flagstone floor. “Be careful.”
With Keyleth left to her task and with no way to help, Vex slips her way carefully through the slowly lifting vines, feeling her ears pin back and her throat dry even more as she finally catches a sight of Percy.
“Oh darling ,” She whispers, barely able to see the way his magnificently snowy head rests upon the dusty floor, the blood strewn across his face, all the more noticeable against the white of his button up, pockmarked with dust and blood and black powder. He’s awash with blood and Vex has never been more useless in her life. “What have you done? ”
She creeps a hand through, feeling the scrape of wood against the back of her hand. Her knuckles brush softly against the blood damp curve of Percy’s face, and his eyelashes flutter, tented in the gore of his own blood.
Less of a question, and more something she can’t imagine, because despite whatever Percy had been attempting to do, he’s obviously failed in it, and has hurt himself in the process, and at least they can help him. All she can think of is what if it had happened when they were all out, and Percy had been left here, pinned, alone in his workshop, slowly bleeding out and with no way to get in contact with them? She can see the communication diamond earring from here, cracked in half, magic siphoned from it and all the more useless for it.
Percy grunts, biting his lip as the wood slowly lifts, and she can see the spill of magic that attempts to keep him safe as Keyleth throws herself into lifting the wood.
She gives absentminded thanks when the vines reach high enough that she can slip through, hearing how the timber groans as it settles, hovering inches above Percy. She creeps closer to him, and she can hear rattling, something that has her teeth on edge. The timber lifts enough that Percy’s belly is exposed, and something changes in his face, a snarling grimace
“Vex -” He whispers, and his eyes turn to her, ever greener for the stark red blood strewn against them. “ Something- something is wrong… ”
For a moment, Vex can only feel something on the very edge of her instincts, before Keyleth finally is able to raise the timber high enough that it clears Vex’s head, tottering in its cradle of vines that anchor themselves to the stone walls.
Vex isn’t watching any of that, however.
Open mouthed, wide eyed, for a single moment, Vex can only watch the way Percy’s stomach struggles, gashed wide open. She sees white, sees something glistening, before blood washes over it, and she’s staring at something that is impaled upon their inventor.
“Kiki…” Vex whispers, before she says it louder, more urgently. She slides on her knees to Percy’s side, hands fluttering around the five inch long pole impaling him through the belly, tucked just beneath the ribs. Percy coughs, and he chokes, head thudding down upon the flagstone floor; red spills over his skin and Vex snarls, something rising in her chest as Percy chokes further, both on his own blood and his pain as Vex presses hands to his stomach, wrapping around the pole for stabilization.
“Where the fuck is Pike?” She hisses, and Keyleth, pallid faced and wringing her hands as she tries to spill into the pouch of dirt always by her side, doesn’t answer. Her face is enough though, her hands shaking.
“This will tide him over but -” Keyleth looks at her, and something deeper, darker than Vex can think slides across Keyleth’s eyes before she looks at Percy again. “He needs Pike, she has more indepth healing-”
“I-” Percy chokes, coughing on his grin that’s a little trembling around the edges. “I can hear you.”
“Then do us a favor and stop talking, Freddy, you’re scaring Vex.” Vax’ildan’s voice is sharp at the edges, belaying his own fear even as he steps from the shadows, watching how Keyleth spits upon the dirt, murmuring familiar words as she pats the dirt around the pole, trying to ignore how Percy grunts his pain out, face screwed up and all the grimmer for it, hissing as Vex presses her hands against the wound once more.
“Where are they? Vex snarls, and she’ll have to apologize later, but there’s a lingering acceptance around her brother's eyes as he falls to his knees opposite her. Despite the way Vex can only stare at the way blood bubbles beneath her fingers, seeping through the cracks and staining her skin with the lifeblood of her friend, she sees how Vax’s hand creeps up, how his fingers brush against Percy’s trembling jawline. Percy leans into them, and the look on his face is of heartbreaking relief as Vax smiles tremulously at him.
“They’re just outside,” Vax says quietly, both for Vex and Percy’s sake, she thinks, looking at how Percy’s face breaks open with the force of his relief. “I came ahead to see how bad the damage was though-”
Vex can see how her twin peers through her bloodied hands, and as she renews the pressure, hissing at how Percy’s stomach jumps beneath her hands at the pain, wincing as he rubs his thumb against the jut of Percy’s jawline.
“That’s going to leave a scar, I think,” Vax tells him.
“No shit.” Percy groans, huffing out his laugh, before he whines his pain into his hand, bloodied fingers biting into his cheeks. When Vax grasps his wrist, pulling it away and holding those fingers, Vex can see how he’s left a smeared imprint of his own hand against his face, like an ocean of blood against the cliffs of Whitestone.
Her eyes sting with tears as she watches, helpless, how Vax softly brushes the back of knuckles across the other’s cheek, silvered tears brushed away with infinite care.
“You’re gonna be just fine, Freddy,” Vax says, and Vex clenches her eyes firmly, before she resolutely opens them against the burn. “And then you’re going to have to have us all hovering you like motherhens for the next few days.”
“Make that a couple of weeks, please!” Pike’s voice, pitched heavily over the settling of timber and flagstone, has Vex’s hands, slippery and damp with darkening blood, tightening even as relief slackens her shoulders.
Finally, she thinks, as Pike comes into view, tottering upon Grog’s large shoulders for height. Vex can see how her face pales, the way her hands flex. The gnome only squares her shoulder, and with a hand from the Goliath, Pike finds her way down safely from the vine wrapped piece of timber, landing softly with a hand stopping her from staggering forward.
“I’m not gonna lie, Percy,” Pike says as she peers around the dirt and blood and hands packed around the pole. Her eyes catch Vexs.“You’re really not gonna like this part.”
Percy’s eyes go wide, sclera showing around the edges. He cranes his neck at Pike frantically.
“What par- ah! ”
Percy is only saved from smashing the back of his head against the flagstone flooring by sheer dumb luck, and Vax winces as he’d cushioned Percy’s head with his own hand,barely in time to stop it as Percy convulses, legs kicking out furiously from where Vex had, in one graceful motion with a sick squelching sound that has Keyleth retching helplessly into her palms, pulled the pole from Percy’s stomach.
Blood had only been allowed to well up and then out freely for only a second, before Pike had her hands, small and all the mightier for it, flush against the wound, blindingly gold as her eyes turn the same colour.
As the colour slowly flushes to Percy’s face, barely able to be seen beneath the blood smeared, Pike grows paler and paler, flushed full with the gold of the Everlight, damp with the sweat of flexing her abilities.
It’s only when Percy, having quietened beneath her hands, is breathing softly and without hindrance, flushed pink like he’s been dipped into a warm bath, does Pike stop, panting heavily and with blood strewn hands.
“Don’t do it again,” Pike orders Percy, who gives a grin, fondness tucked into the corners of his mouth as she pats him heavily on the head.
“I’d never think of it.”
Pike calls him a liar, and Vex is helpless against the way laughter clutches her, a little hysterical as she collapses onto her heels, burying her face into her hands only to give a noise of disgust when she remembers the blood, damp and faintly smoky, upon them.