Chapter Text
None of them really know when it started — when the dynamic between the three of them started to shift, taking on a new shape, the lines between them blurring.
But each of them know when they realized something was different.
For Vex, it might be as early as the fundraiser in Emon.
She comes home from a Grey Hunt patrol to find Taryon with their mail spread out on the dining room table, opening an envelope addressed to Vox Machina.
“Whatcha got there, Blondie?” she asks, stopping by the door to take off her boots and hunting leathers like she’s supposed to — Tary and Percy both get on her for tracking dirt through the house.
“Looks like an invitation.” He pulls a piece of intricately gilded cardstock out of the envelope and clears his throat, putting on a chipper voice to emulate an announcer but with his own comical flair. “You are cordially invited to the Tal’dorei Council’s upcoming Auction and Charity Ball, for the support of reconstructing Emon and the relief of its citizens in the wake of the Chroma Conclave’s defeat.”
His voice trails off, brightness fading — Vex looks up from untying her left boot to see Tary’s face had fallen into a pensive frown.
“Tary? Something wrong?”
Tary startles, catching her eyes, quickly schooling his face into an attempt at blasé. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just seems they forgot to include my name on this invitation.”
Vex frowns. “Wait, really?” She kicks her boot off the rest of the way to talk over, taking the invitation — and sure enough, there’s only seven names. “That’s weird, I’m sure Allura would have — oh, fuck, you haven’t met Allura yet, have you?”
Tary looks at her blankly. “Allura?”
“Allura Vysoren, Arcanist of the Council. She’s essentially been our sponsor: giving us jobs, keeping us out of jail and all that. Also one of our closest friends. I can’t believe we haven’t introduced her to you yet.” She puts her hand up to her mouth, thinking through the list of people left in the Cloudtop. “Even then, surely somebody must have—”
It hits her, suddenly, that by the time Vox Machina had retired, they’d only known Tary for… two weeks, if that? With everything that happened after he joined them, it feels like much longer — but then, everything from Vorugal onward had taken place over less than one month, from the 1st to the 26th of Misuthar, and that felt like a year in and of itself.
Which means that there are only a few of their people who even know Taryon, let alone that he’s now a member of Vox Machina.
Her heart sinks towards her stomach. She does her best not to show it.
“Well, someone needs to be updated,” she says, using her best Chamber meeting voice, the one for when someone’s done something especially incompetent. Tary’s forced smile cracks, revealing just a bit of one that’s genuine; Vex tries her best to unearth the entire thing. “I’ll make sure to take care of that when we go.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. Do you think we’re all going to leave you here alone? You, the only one of us who’s ever been to an auction before?”
Tary hums, considering. “That is true. You’ll all be hopeless without me.” He shakes his head a bit — Vex can almost hear him calling himself silly, even though he doesn’t say it. “But it would be rude to try and barge my way in uninvited — that’s incredibly tacky.”
“That won’t be a problem. It says we get a plus-one, right? You can be mine.”
Tary’s brow furrows. “Don’t you want to attend with Percival?”
Vex waves a hand. “He’s got his own invitation. I’m sure Cass would like the opportunity to come as well, with the amount of networking she could do.”
There’s still doubt on Tary’s face, more to chip away at. Vex puts her hand on that face, gently, and smooths out a frown line. “Even without all of that, I’d be honored to have you as my plus-one, Tary.”
Tary’s eyes shine with what he will vehemently deny are tears, she’s sure of it. Just like she’ll deny the budding ache in her throat. “Well, if you insist,” he says, falling just short of non-chalant.
Vex pats his cheek one more time. “That’s settled then. Clear your schedule tomorrow morning.”
She feels his frown pull from underneath her palm before she pulls her hand away. “I thought I was working a Slayer’s Cake shift tomorrow?”
“We’ll open late tomorrow, it’s fine,” she says, waving it off. “We have something far more important to attend to.”
That something is finding appropriate ensembles for them to wear. Nothing in Vex’s wardrobe feels right — she still doesn’t own many fancy gowns — and most of Tary’s wardrobe was left behind when he struck out for adventure. They decide to send in an order to the seamstress she and Keyleth commissioned for the latter's coronation, which is how they end up attending the charity ball in matching ensembles of blues with gold detailing.
Vex had been the one to suggest they match, actually — despite being a twin, after she and Vax left Byroden and their mother’s clothes behind, Vax only really matched with her when they both were committed to wearing all-black as teens. She never really had any friends to match clothes with then, either, and realized she sort of missed the opportunity to look like part of a set.
It helps that they’re in Whitestone colors, too, helping Vex’s image by representing the city. A win-win if you ask her.
They’re matching with the de Rolo siblings, too, coincidentally — Percy’s wearing his event-overcoat (which he insists is much nicer than his usual, though many would fail to see the difference) which is already navy and gold, and Cassandra is in a practical yet elegant sky-blue gown. Vex swears she’s seen it before — maybe when they were going through the old bedrooms in the castle? It’s hard to tell.
Keyleth takes all of Vox Machina from Whitestone, where they’d gathered to catch up (and pre-game just a little), to Emon via Transport Via Plants. When they arrive at the top of the steps, Vex hooks her hand around Tary’s elbow and bumps her hip into his.
Tary glances down; she shoots him a wink. They’re then ushered forward by one of the attendants.
Despite all of her work reassuring Tary, Vex holds her breath as they step through the entryway to be announced; she’d sent a note with a correction along with her RSVP, but she doesn’t know if it actually got through—
“Lady Vex’ahlia, Baroness of the Third House of Whitestone, Grand Mistress of the Grey Hunt, and Taryon Darrington, of Vox Machina.”
—and lets it go in a relieved sigh. She feels Tary perk up on her arm, and bites the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning too widely.
Vox Machina stick roughly together for the first few minutes or so — Allura and Kima find them quickly and are given an… enthusiastic introduction from Taryon, with hand-kisses and all. Vex, behind Tary’s back, mouths, Sorry, to Allura, and I’ll buy you drinks later to Kima, so everything smooths over. Grog takes the opportunity to split, headed straight for the food and drink, with Pike quick to follow; Cassandra drags Percy away to “suffer with her through this political nightmare,” to quote the young Lady of Whitestone; and when Keyleth and Vax wander off to observe the items being auctioned, it leaves her and Tary to start their own social circuit.
The socializing flies by, like always. Vex feels almost passed around by the crowd, from unfamiliar face to unfamiliar face, reactions ranging from reverent gratitude to clueless formality. Both are stifling, somehow — she feels awkward as she’s lauded as a hero by people she’s never met, stumbling through canned replies, and even more so when she gets all the way through an introduction to be met with blank stares.
Vex does enjoy noble life, she does! Of course she does. Obviously, she enjoys the wealth. She’s been enjoying that since Vox Machina started getting big, when the scale of balancing ledgers finally started tipping towards her side; by the time they started building their keep, Vex finally felt like she could breathe. She could buy things that weren’t necessary but still helpful, and occasionally even something that was just nice to have. Now, with all of the fine clothes and countless jewels, the parties and dancing and food, her own room in the castle while her manor (her manor! hers!) is being built — she indulges in it, revels in it, so much she can see why they all call her greedy.
It’s not just the money, though. Something she’s learned, more than ever, is how much she can learn from just a couple conversations with a higher-up she’s never met before — the power in that, in the stretch of using her perceptiveness and observation for politics, a hunt all of its own. She still stumbles over customs and old-money knowledge she just doesn’t have, yet, but it’s been… almost fun, in a competitive sort of way.
She’s still getting adjusted to it all, though, and finds herself on the back foot more than she likes — she’s never really been too much of a socialite, either. Along with all that, it’s just… it’s odd, to be back in Emon without something to fight, something to investigate; odder still to breathe without the oppressive heat of Thordak’s lair closing in around them. She feels distinctly out of place, like a child bumbling into an ambassador's office when she was just trying to find her room.
Taryon, to her surprise, ends up doing a phenomenal job at keeping her grounded. He picks up on the nonsense small-talk like they’re all reading from the same script and cues her up well enough that she’s able to step in almost seamlessly. He asks the right questions to get people talking, presents just the right amount of cluelessness to encourage more, and laughs right on time. He hypes her up a bit too much to the people who haven’t really heard of Vox Machina before — which, she’s a bit surprised at, honestly, and only a little bit of that is her ego talking — but as embarrassing as it is, it’s touching, honestly. Especially now that he knows her well enough to actually mean the things he says.
Somehow they wind up chatting with a visiting couple, two women from Wildemount who donated something to be sold in the auction. It’s honestly one of the better conversations they’ve had all night — they’re considerably more down to earth than the rest of the attendees, and Vex feels like she can finally relax a little.
“So,” one of the women — Elise, she’d introduced herself as — asks, taking a glass of champagne from a passing plate, “how long have the two of you been together?”
“Oh, Taryon joined the party a few months ago,” Vex replies automatically, before her brain can fully process the question’s phrasing.
Tary, for once, is quicker on the draw than she is, and cuts in while she’s still caught off guard. “Oh, we’re not — sorry, we’re not together, just friends.” Tary looks around the ballroom a couple times before gesturing towards where she now sees Percy and Cass, caught up in their own conversation. “Vex’ahlia here is with the white-haired man in the dashing blue coat, Percival.”
Elise blinks a couple times. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just assumed — you know, with the matching and all.” She gestures up and down at their outfits, which, yeah, now that Vex thinks about it, that is a couple-y thing to do. Which is especially weird when one of them is actually in a relationship, but with someone else entirely. Shit.
Vex tries to think of something to say — a defense? an explanation? a rebuttal? — but ends up drawing a blank. She doesn’t want to seem like she’s covering something, or in any way signal she’s not happy with Percival, but she doesn’t want to imply she’s embarrassed to be here with Tary, either. All of her usual humor and casual, unbothered replies get stuck in her throat, souring.
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with matching with your friends, is there?” Tary jumps in again. “And, I mean no offense, but Percival’s style isn’t as… well, he’s far less inclined to experiment outside of his usual wardrobe, right?”
The tee-up gives Vex an easy answer, an easy transition back into the charm she’s been trying her damndest to keep a hold of all night. “He really is a creature of habit. Good looking habit,” she raises one eyebrow coyly, “but habit nonetheless. When I had the idea for matching ensembles, Tary was far more receptive to the idea of a new suit.”
“I see, I see.” Elise looks approvingly at Tary. “Well, good for you.
Tary preens at the compliment, and Vex tries to settle down as the conversation moves on — but the misstep’s already tripped her up, and she’s lost her rhythm in the dance she’d been following all night, lagging further and further behind as they go.
She doesn’t even know what they’re talking about anymore, just smiling and nodding along as Tary rambles on and on. What else do people see in her? What are they assuming? What are they filing away for later, telling other people, filing away for later?
Who do they see when they look at her?
At some point, Tary starts walking, and she starts following — it takes a moment for her to realize her hand has found its way back to the crook of Tary’s elbow, his hand now resting over hers. They move through a crowd that’s become more noise and color than distinct people, blurring together into one cacophony of senses, until suddenly they’re at a far wall, and Tary is pressing something into her hand.
Vex blinks. It’s a mimosa, the glass sharply cold against her palm. The bright, bubbly scent of orange and champagne reminds her where she is.
“Vex’ahlia?”
She looks up, eyes finally refocusing, to see Tary standing in front of her. His face is twisted in worry, almost comically so — gods, had she really gotten that bad? Fuck.
“Are you alright?” Vex isn’t able to find her voice in time for a rebuttal, and within the moment of hesitation he recants, “Wait, stupid question. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Sorry, sorry.” Vex holds the glass in both hands. Her eyes fall back down, tracing the star-shaped embroidery on Tary’s lapel, realizing it’s the four-pointed star included on Whitestone’s crest. How fitting. “It’s just… back there, with the couple from Wildemount…” She trails off, trying to mould the amorphous feeling that sticks in her chest into something she can translate into words.
Tary’s brow furrows. “When they thought we were together?”
“Well, yes.” She immediately realizes what that implies, rushes to correct, “Not like that! It’s not that I’m—” She sighs, frustrated — she can’t stand tripping over her words like this — and puts a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not them thinking we’re together I’m upset about. I would never be embarrassed by that. You’re not something I’d be ashamed of.”
Tary scoffs good-naturedly. “Of course not! That never even crossed my mind.” But she can see the way a bit of tension releases from his posture.
She smiles at him, but it falters after just a moment. “What… bothered me was the realization that people were assuming so much just from the fact that we were next to each other and dressed the same. How much they might be getting wildly wrong, who they might be spreading misinformation to, which rumors might start to circulate — and I feel like I have to think five steps ahead with every single thing I say, or I’ll insult someone’s entire family, or give someone enough reason to question whether or not I should even be here—”
Tary squeezes the hand she has on his shoulder; she realizes how much her throat is beginning to choke up, how her breath is getting shallow again. She inhales deep through her nose, holds it for a moment, and starts again with a steadier voice. “And while I’m not embarrassed by you, I am with Percival, and —”
“ — and you were worried someone would start a rumor that you were having a torrid affair,” Tary finishes for her, as if he’s heard this all before.
Vex almost crumples in relief — relief that he understands, and that she doesn’t have to spell it all out herself. She feels less crazy, with Tary coming to the same conclusion as her without her having to lead him to it. “Not only would it hurt Percy’s reputation, but I’m newly titled, and, well. Nobility tends to turn a… suspicious eye to newcomers.”
“Oh, I know.” Tary grimaces, and they sigh at the same time — Vex laughs weakly, and Tary looks pleased. That motherfucker.
“Look, Little Elf Girl,” he starts. Vex snorts at the nickname. “With a reputation like Vox Machina’s, you really shouldn’t have to worry about this too much — most people likely owe you something, so they won’t have much reason to start a smear campaign. But… how do I put this — unfortunately, most of these people are just… incredibly bored.” Vex chokes out another laugh. “And bored people will find anything they can to provide themselves with just a bit of enjoyment. Which means that even if you do everything right, they might just make something up entirely if they think it’s funny enough.”
Vex feels a bit more dread churn in her stomach — Tary’s brow furrows. “I… well, I can see how that wouldn’t sound great. Shit. What I’m trying to say is that it’s not your fault what these people think of you. Nobody really believes most of these rumors anyway; it’s just something to try and fill conversation.
“Besides,” Tary moves to cup the side of her face, taking Vex’s damn near trademarked move and turning it around to use against her. “Once anyone actually talks to you, they’ll see how wonderful and charismatic you are, and won’t have any reason to question you at all.”
…fuck. Vex doesn’t know what to say to that.
It’s similar to things Vax has told her in the past, but he’s always put her on such a high pedestal that it’s hard to believe him, sometimes, as he sings her praises. No, this feels like that night in Syngorn, when Percy saw her frantically cleaning her armor and told her no one he’d ever met had been worth as much as her. All of the tightness in her chest dissipates, burned through by a warmth that slowly spreads, diffuses, filling her up with something light and wonderful.
To be seen in a way that doesn’t feel like a dissection is both terrifying and exhilarating. Vex doesn’t think she’ll ever get enough of it.
Tary’s face twists — she’s taken too long to respond. She leans into his hand before he can pull it away, smiling as best she can. “Thank you, Goldie.” Her voice is still thick and watery; she sniffs, trying to sound less miserable. “That means more than you know.”
That night, Vex lays awake long after Percy’s fallen asleep, exhausted by the social circling. She keeps looping the night’s events in her mind: how easily Tary had picked up on her discomfort, how gracefully he got them away from the crowd, how he was able to bring her back to herself so quickly. How he said exactly the right thing to keep her from spiraling. How dependable he was in a moment where she was so disoriented she could barely think.
Maybe she’s just never had a best friend before. Maybe this is what it’s supposed to feel like — like a romantic partner without the romance. Like what she has with Vox Machina, a bond tempered and strong that doesn’t quite fit into the mould of family or friendship, but is just as important.
That has to be it. She doesn’t know what else it could be.
For Percy, it’s a random day in the workshop.
It’s “random” in that in most ways it is like any other — after Tary gets out of his Vex-assigned shift at the bakery, and Percy finally crawls out of his horde of meetings, the two of them delve into his workshop in the castle. During the seven months since they retired, the two of them have started several projects together, combining Percy’s mechanical practice and plethora of ideas with Taryon’s use of the arcane and willingness to go down paths of curiosity Percy hadn’t even considered.
Usually they would work in the shop in Vex’s manor, since it’s just altogether more convenient, but due to the nature of their current task, they’ve descended into the bowels of his old workshop in the castle. It wouldn’t do them much good if Vex stumbled in on them in the midst of making her a gift, would it?
It’s certainly not the first time Percy has made Vex arrows as a gift, and it won’t be the last. Percy would worry he was getting too redundant and uninspired if it weren’t for her reaction every time, the unbound joy he basks in whenever she catches sight of a familiar ribbon-tied bundle of arrows in place of flowers. And he does give her things other than arrows, obviously, so he needn’t worry too much about his performance as a partner.
As a husband, he mentally corrects, smiling at the very thought of it.
Besides, this batch of arrows is important for an entirely separate reason — he and Tary have decided to collaborate and produce a mixed set of arrows, half mechanical and half arcane. With Winter’s Crest around the corner, Percy wanted to do something above his usual, and when Tary had come to him asking for help on a very similar idea, they merged their efforts.
The two of them work surprisingly well together.
Back when they first met, Percy would have doubted whether or not Tary was skilled enough to keep up with him; once Tary had let down (some of) his bravado, however, and Percy could actually stand to be around him, he’d learned how brilliant Tary actually was and had to eat those words. Tary is… well, it’s obviously much more of a book smarts situation than a street smarts one, a phrase Keyleth had used once to describe Percival himself, but the book smarts are exceptional.
It takes a lot for Percy to admit that about anyone; he wouldn’t take it back, even now.
For once, instead of feeling threatened by someone else’s intellect, Percy feels challenged by it — the kind of challenge that drives you to improve and change, that makes you appreciate your opponent all the better for it. Percy’s not used to this, to the hunger it sparks within him to do more, create more, less out of a desire to prove he’s better, but more so to prove that he can live up to the opportunity that is presented to him. He might go as far as to call it healthy.
No, it’s not skill that made him skeptical; It’s the disparity between their skills that initially caused Percy to doubt their cohesion — the surprise comes from how well these differences blend together instead of clashing.
While Percy is capable of much more intricate mechanics, Tary’s knowledge of the arcane and his ability to make magic work within mechanics augments his abilities. Percy doesn’t know how much of his lack of aptitude is due to his aversion to magic altogether — he likes to think that’s the sole reason — but he believes he could at the very least figure it out, if he tried. Tary, though, comes up with ways to not just use the magic, but create with magic, going outside of simple cause-and-effect logic into ideas that, loathe as Percy is to admit it, he doesn’t know if he could come up with on his own.
They complement each other incredibly well like this: mastery of the mechanical meeting the artistry of the arcane. Two halves that create a greater whole. Doty v.2 is a testament to this — Percy’s greatest contribution overall is the gun mechanism within Doty’s arm, but he also lent his assistance with some of the mechanics to Doty’s movement and flexibility and helped with the creation of the artificial voicebox. Overall, the automaton is very much Tary’s creation, but Percy was able to make tweaks that helped Tary’s enchantments work even smoother.
The arrows are almost the inverse of that — largely Percy’s project, something he’s very practiced in, but enhanced and becoming something new with Tary’s ideas.
There’s a good handful of Percy’s classics already prepared: exploding, acid-splashing, etc. Some of them have small enchantments to augment or alter their effect, such as an acid arrow that Tary infused with a low-level Shatter to send the corrosive spray spewing over a larger area. Others are entirely Tary’s creation: a few arrows that turn invisible upon firing, a couple that duplicate themselves, and a rather nasty one that has a charge of Inflict Wounds on it, courtesy of a favor from Pike.
There’s only a few arrows left for a full two-dozen, but Tary and Percy are both stumped on what to do with them. It’s not a lack of ideas that are the problem, but rather an abundance of them.
That, and, well. Not all of the ideas are very sound, is all.
“What about an arrow that casts Revivify? I’ve done it with a coin, so an arrowhead should be a piece of cake. She could be a surprise long-range healer!”
Percy sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, sorry… you want her to shoot someone to revive them? Causing even more harm to them while they’re unconscious?”
Tary freezes, ponders for a moment, and then deflates, sliding down further in his seat. “I suppose you’ve got a point,” he mumbles. He points an accusatory finger at him. “But you see what I was going for, right?! Diversifying her skillset! Making us a better, more well-rounded team!”
Percy chuckles, his annoyance already starting to fade. He’s found that happens quite often with Tary, which is a sharp contrast to when they first met him. Back then, Percy hadn’t felt anything but annoyance with him, a never-ending headache simmering underneath his temples.
It’s funny, how the traits that used to tick him off the most are now the ones that endear Tary to him. His confidence in his intellect, his flair for dramatics, even his propensity to break into unsolicited stories of his childhood or narration of whatever situation they’ve found themselves in —while there is still a limit to the amount of which Percy can handle in a day, that limit continues to relax as the months pass by.
(If he’d considered it before Scanlan’s outburst, which feels like it was years ago now, it would remind him of how he’d warmed to the bard over the years they spent together. If.
As of now, it mostly reminds him of himself, how he looks at himself in the mirror with less derision now than before. Something about how Vex’ahlia had taken all the parts of himself he detested and reframed them, observed with love instead of knee-jerk disdain. All while he’s tried to do the same for her.)
Silence falls around them as they both stew on it. Percy starts to attach fletching to one of the otherwise-finished arrows, flipping down one of his magnifying lenses to get a closer look, trying to make the alignment as optimal as it can be. He may or may not have gotten tips from a few fletchers the last time they were in Emon.
Percy reaches out to try and find the glue while he’s holding the feather in place with one hand, fumbling around empty air; without a word, Tary presses it into his hand, hardly looking up either.
They’ve developed something like a muscle memory between each other, with all of this time spent in the workshop — knowing instinctively what the other needs, adapting to each other’s work spaces, working together on manual assembly without needing to say much at all.
“I’ve got it!”
Percy startles out of his thoughts at the sound of Tary’s voice, accompanied by one fist pounding against the workbench. He bites back a scolding as the various tools and loose parts jump a bit into the air.
The reprimand dies on his tongue, anyway, as he turns to look at Tary. It’s an expression Percy’s very familiar with by now — sparkling eyes and a cunning grin, excitement and pride blended into one, the sign of a fantastic idea coming into form. It’s an expression he’s mostly acquainted with feeling, and for a long time he’d forgotten the joy within it, consumed by invention driven by madness and demonic influence.
When he sees it, now, on Tary’s face, so bright and infused with the pure love of innovation, it almost feels like the expression was made for him. Like creation itself had finally found a fitting vessel.
…oh, fuck.
“Hold Person!”
Percy’s chest is tight; his head feels loose, disconnected from his body. “Sorry?”
Tary tilts his head, still wearing that stupid, charming grin — so different from the one he wears when he’s trying to be charming. The one that actually draws someone in closer. The one Percy should stop thinking about. “For the final arrow! A charge of Hold Person, to paralyze your target from afar!”
“Oh, right.” Percy clears his throat, trying to chase away the hoarse quality to it. “Yes, that’s… brilliant, actually.”
Tary preens a little bit, puffed up at the praise; he quickly schools his expression into a teasing one, though, waggling his eyebrows over-dramatically at Percy. “Already day-dreaming about giving these to Little Elf Girl, are you? I could tell by the look on your face! Gods, you two are insufferable sometimes.”
Oh, how he wishes that were the case. Percy laughs, doing everything he can to shove every swirling realization down into the depths of his chest, tries to bury it along with what he can’t remember from the five years after he escaped the Briarwoods, with the agonizing scars of however long Orthax held his soul when he died that first time.
He can’t quite do it. It keeps bubbling up, bright and warm and queasy in his stomach.
In his hands is an arrow he’s making for his wife — his wife who he loves with every piece of his horrid soul. Nothing about that has changed; it hasn’t withered or faded, no quieter than the day he first realized that love had somehow wormed its way into his heart. He couldn’t doubt that if he tried.
So he will take this… this feeling — this crush or infatuation, or whatever it is — and he will ignore it. He will turn a blind eye to it until it fades, or until it learns to keep quiet.
For Tary, it is when he leaves.
Well, it’s more accurate to say that Vox Machina leaves, with their original seventh member returned to them as they march off towards the Shadow-whatever, and he stays behind in Whitestone. He’s on his way out, to be fair — he and Chod or Lionel or whatever he’s called are fixing up Doty as best as they can so they can all travel to Deastock, and then Taryon can really start building his brigade and the life he always wanted. Vox Machina was always meant to be a stepping stone, something to move him forward on his own path. Never something permanent.
Now, as he stands in his — Percy’s — their workshop, if he allows himself to call it that, he’s having a horrible time convincing himself.
He lays out Doty on the workbench, which he remembers Percy had extended in order to build Doty v.2 in the first place. A permanent alteration made to a home he didn’t own, but was invited to live in, and did live in for over a year — one he’s now leaving behind.
He feels his lip start to tremble, the start of a sob building up in his throat.
He doesn’t want to leave. He really, really doesn’t want to leave. But with the lost member of Vox Machina returned, and the responsibilities of his family he has to attend to, he doesn’t really have a choice; Vox Machina won’t need him for this, their final quest. And he doesn’t want to be in the way.
He doesn’t know how many hours pass before the necklace Percival made him pulses, a single heartbeat against his sternum.
Tary is emotional, and sleep deprived, and surrounded by arcane mechanics and memories, and at first he barely even notices the necklace. Even when he does, for a moment he just stares at it — this blank pendant, alone amongst a set with matching blooms of dragon scales, something he’s meant to fill with accomplishments he has no idea how he’ll achieve — as he tries to remember which of Percival’s brilliant ideas this thing was infused with —
— and when the memory hits him, it feels like someone’s punched him in the throat.
“They're just something so that, in the worst-case scenario, anyone will always know who we are, and we will know each other.”
A set of pendants, all interlinked, that would alert them all when one of their members fell.
Tary doesn’t know he’s collapsing until the floor of the workshop collides with his knees.
One of Vox Machina has fallen. One of his friends, his only friends, has fallen — and Percy hadn’t ever specified what fell meant, but the only time they’ve gone off was when Keyleth, and the cliff, and all the blood, and the Revivify coin clutched in Vex’s hand, and there was so much blood, and one of his friends is, is, is, is—
Then the necklace pulses again, rippling through the color wheel of chromatic dragon scales. It would be beautiful in any other circumstance, but the fear and shock and grief scoops out his stomach, hollows him out as he vomits onto the floor. He almost chokes on it as he sobs, two conflicting reflexes.
Two. Two of his friends might be dead.
Taryon coughs up bile as hot, horrid tears bleed out from his eyes, gasps against the strangling of his throat. Oh, gods. He never should have left them, he thinks, as he trembles on the floor of a house that’s felt more like home than any he’s known, completely powerless. If he went with them, he thinks at the same time, clashing thoughts in his mind, he would surely be dead, just as powerless there as he is here. There’s nothing he could have done, and there’s nothing he can do.
Who? Who was it? Who will he never see again? The necklace has no indicator, no sophisticated systems beyond a single, universal alert for all pendants in the set; there’s no way to tell who has fallen unless you’re there with them. Taryon’s mind hurls itself in circles as it cruelly tries to guess, throwing a revolving carousel of morbid possibilities, gruesome and vile.
But none of it is as vile as that which he finds buried underneath all of it.
Taryon wants to believe that, if he were ever in a situation where he was told he had to choose someone to save and the others to sacrifice, that he would be too smart for it. He would use his cunning and intellect for a plan to get everyone out alive.
But he knows, now, with a feeling more sickening than nausea opening in a pit of his stomach: Tary knows that if he were made to choose, he would have an answer. Two answers, two people out of his only friends, two heroes he has deemed worthy of saving above all others.
How selfish. How utterly repulsive.
How much he thinks he must truly understand love, now, as he realizes how much he could be asked to give in order to ensure that Vex’ahlia and Percival stayed alive.
(Taryon does not go back to Deastock that night.
He does not go back at all, actually, and he won't until after Vox Machina's return.
He finds any excuse he can to stay longer, any issue with Dory that may or may not explode if they don’t fix it right now, any task he can be inexplicably tied up in with no control of his own.
Anything to keep him here. Anything to keep him in Whitestone, in his best friends’ home, the place where he learned what home was supposed to mean, as he waits in horrid dread to see which of his friends are dead.)
Regardless of when it started, for a while now, there’s been an ache in Vex’s chest, one that pangs in moments of peace and quiet. There’s an itch in Percy’s thoughts that never quite lets his mind settle down, something nameless nagging to be considered. There’s a gap for them, an empty space, a misalignment; a space between the floorboards, a missed stitch in a tapestry, a page ripped from a book.
Something isn’t there that should be. There’s an absence that they’re trying to shape themselves around.
Initially, it’s chalked up to the end of Vox Machina, or the loss of Vax’ildan. And it is those things, very much so. It’s the worst grief Vex has ever felt in her life; it’s a familiar wound re-opened for Percival in a horrible new way. And now that they’ve found themselves having to live after Vox Machina, finding a path after hitting the dead end of one they hadn’t ever bothered to consider looking beyond, they trip and stumble along without much soul-searching for about… well, a couple months, really. Because Vex realizes she’s pregnant in Dualahei, and the entire world falls out from underneath her for the second time in a month.
They’re pretty busy, after that. Preoccupied. Raising a child with only the haziest idea how, with more things learned not to do from their own parents, and what could sometimes be called “help” from what remains of Vox Machina. Raising a city, rebuilding what was destroyed, restoring what was lost, and finally putting ideas into motion that they’d been drawing up for a long, long time.
A year goes by faster than they realize; there’s a (second) wedding, a reunion, a piece of their life before that reminds them of everything they’d been without. They see Tary for the first time since Vesper was born, the three of them too busy and too far apart for anything more.
Sylas comes back. Vex’ahlia dies, just for a moment. There is a fight, a Wish, and a once-secret wedding re-done on a cliffside with the wedding party splattered in vampire blood. It feels right.
Two years pass. Percival starts building his clocktower, a love letter to Vox Machina and Whitestone alike. Vesper celebrates her first birthday in a room with all of her ragtag family, born and chosen alike. Tary makes her a wind-up toy that looks like a miniature Doty, and Vex laughs her head off.
Three years, as Scanlan and Pike get married (for the first time); then four as they have their daughter, Juniper, and when they’re all gathered together to meet her, it feels like the tension between them all finally, finally settles.
Before anyone can blink, it’s been five years since Vecna. Five years of an ache that never seems to go away.
Vex is half-lying on the couch with her legs sprawled to the side, leaning against the armrest, which is starting to really dig into the sensitive part of her ribs. (She thinks that’s where she hit the ground after Raishan struck her from her broom, deep in Thordak’s lair. She wasn’t conscious to remember it, though.) She’s stuck there, unfortunately; she’d been reading with Vesper before the girl had fallen asleep, collapsed into the curve of Vex’s side.
Percy is reading in his preferred armchair; not even the late-Sydenstar heat can tempt him away from pants and long sleeves, but at the very least, he’s only in one layer, having shed his waistcoat when he got back to the house. It’s quiet, only interrupted every so often by the turning of a page, Vesper mumbling in her sleep, or Trinket snoring lowly in his.
“I miss Tary.”
It’s Vex who breaks the air with a quiet murmur. She’s not really looking at Percy when she says it, but when he looks up, startled, her eyes move to meet his. Her brow is furrowed, pensive, with a slight bit of surprise.
Percy is confused, mostly, not yet shutting his book, but there’s something there. Apprehension. Fear, maybe? “I mean. I do too, but… he was just in for the Artisan’s Fair last month.”
Vex thinks back to that day — the third annual Artisan’s Fair since Percy got the tradition started, the one where they finally found a rhythm and did enough promotion to draw a crowd from out of town. There were booths lined down the main thoroughfare with wares for sale and models for demonstration; the Slayer’s Cake worked tirelessly the morning before to cater, and even then they were sold out within a few hours. Percy, usually never one for events like these, spent the entire day walking around, visiting every single booth, wearing one of the proudest smiles she’d ever seen.
And Tary was there, having been unable to make it the year prior. And he and Percy talked to everyone, asking about their inventions, sharing ideas and tips, and they were glowing. Vex spent the entire day just trailing behind them, their happiness infectious, her cheeks aching from her smile. Vesper, attracted by all the shiny lights and moving parts, had nearly tumbled out of Vex’s arms (which were getting sore, the girl almost too large for her to carry already) to catch up to Percy and Tary, grabbing their hands to walk between them without hesitation. Tary, who usually did his best to keep a polite distance from children (citing their sticky hands and general lack of awareness), had only stumbled for a moment before swinging her hand gently in his, asking her about her favorite inventions.
It made her chest hurt, something warm and unknowable that welled up to clog her throat. She almost cried, and she couldn’t tell why.
Well, she could. She’d just been lying to herself for a long, long time.
“You know what I mean,” she says quietly. Percy furrows his eyebrows, confused — but again, there’s that worry she can feel coming off of him. Afraid of her pointing out something he already knew but wasn’t going to identify. “I miss having him here. In our home, all the time. With us.” She hesitates. She makes herself meet his eyes. “With us.”
Percy shuts his book. He’s quiet for a moment. “I…”
The conversation is broken when Vesper starts to wake up — Vex looks at the clock, notices that it’s getting close to dinner time. She swears the girl runs on some sort of internal clock marked by meal times.
She looks back to Percy, and mouths, We’ll talk later, trying for a light, cheeky grin with the intentional callback.
When Percy smiles back, almost relieved, the weight on her chest feels a little lighter.
“Later” ends up taking quite a while to arrive. Dinner ends up a tiring affair — Vesper has decided she’s picky, now, and it takes an abyssal effort to get her to eat enough food. She’s far more amenable to the idea of dessert, which they barter with to get her to eat her vegetables. After that there’s a grey hunter at the door with a report Vex forgot she’d asked for, and then Cass summons both of them to the Castle; it takes four bedtime stories for Vesper to fall asleep, and by then, the sun has already set, and a summer sunset this far north sets late.
So with Trinket guarding his baby sister’s room, the two of them take a walk into the woods behind Vex’s manor. And they talk.
It’s tense, both of them carefully charting their word along an uneasy course laden with trepidation. The air is heavy with anxiety and fear and five years holding back something unspoken, neither wanting to break the surface tension and risk the whole thing collapsing.
Vex is the first one to snap; figuratively, under the weight of it all, and literally, blurting out the question that’s been lurking in her mind like a pack of wolves. The fear of not being trusted enough to the point of secrecy — the even greater fear of not being enough, a tiny, yet persistent thing even after all these years — all of comes out accusatory, wondering why he hid this from her, why he couldn’t tell her. Percy snaps back instinctively, years of shame and guilt alchemizing into fear, making him defensive, bringing up her negative reaction to any sort of interest in him, including any time Tary’s banter turned flirtatious.
It stings, for both of them; but with the frustration expelled, it’s easier to talk. Percy clarifies: he didn’t fear her lashing out at him, but instead that she would think he was going to leave her, which is the last thing he wants to do. Vex admits he’s right, on all fronts — she’s known to be a bit possessive, and she probably would have been afraid of that, back when they’d first gotten married.
It reminds them a bit of their first fight, where they’d broken up for all of two weeks; neither of them opening up to the other for the fear of ruining what they’d built.
Even though it takes them a while, some lingering hesitation from both sides, they’re able to lay everything out: the feelings on both sides, and where they want to go from there. There’s a few times where it sounds so similar to a Chamber meeting that Vex can’t help but laugh, and any leftover tension dissipates in the wind as Percy laughs with her.
By the time they have a plan laid out, the night’s half over, but sleep finds them easily — it’s amazing what lifting a five-year-old secret will do to the heart.
They’ll visit Tary at the end of the month, just in time for the Highsummer holiday; where they go from there is up to him.