Chapter Text
The worst part about falling is always leaving your stomach behind. Well actually the worst part about falling is when it happens and you don't even realise until your eyes finally open and you’re 2 feet from the ground and all you can do is brace yourself for impact - at which point your stomach flies from your body as if it’s attached to a magical bungee cord that hasn’t saved the rest of you.
Because here’s the thing about Love. And we’re not speaking about love with a lowercase L. No. This is about Love ™ , capital L, trademarked, stamped, signed, sealed and delivered. The thing about it, is that sometimes, it really creeps up on you. And by the time you notice, it is far, far too late.
As opposed to his usual mindless stream of thoughts, absolutely nothing ran through Vex’s head as he stared, blindsided and awestruck at Ho-Tan during one of their regularly scheduled morning gatherings. Deb-eh had left on her mission for the day so the elders were joshing around; absolutely nothing out the ordinary had happened. There was no reason for him so be so captivated by the simple movement of her flicking her hair out her eyes. She did it all the time. But he suddenly found he could not look away.
‘Oh.’ Vex’s stomach lurched inside his robes. He was in freefall, holding his breath, waiting for the other shoes to drop. ‘O h.’
It was a strange feeling, falling. He was an old man, and he’d been very comfortable living with the rest of the Elders and Youngers happily without any further thought into it. But looking at Ho-Tan as she scribbled away in her book, Vex suddenly was very aware of how things could very suddenly change with this realisation. There was a reason, after all, falling in love could feel oh-so-similar to the anxiety of being in trouble or getting caught. And caught he certainly was. Like a fish on a hook. Also like a man suddenly making direct eye contact with the woman he was intently staring at. He was quite possibly in trouble too.
“Are you quite alright, Elder Vex?” Ho-Tan’s gentle voice cutting through the babble of Choop debating with Pressley of the importance of shift breaks amongst the River-People. Vex jumped up out of his wide-eyed gaze, words coming out of his mouth before he realised they were.
“Yes yes, quite alright. Just thinking about… Things And Such.”
“What do they have to do with the River-People? Things and Such live in the desert area. They'd drown if they got involved.” Choop questioned, leaning immediately into Vex’s eyeline, cutting across his view of Ho-Tan. This was almost a relief as it allowed his brain to kick slightly further back into gear.
Ho-Tan smiled in only slightly confused understanding before getting distracted by Flowers attempting to hide his robe behind her seat.
Vex, against his better judgement and all his stern internal dialogue, goes straight back to staring at her like the lovesick fool he has just realised he is. Luckily for him she is far too occupied with scolding the now completely shirtless Flowers to notice. Impressive given he is leaning almost off his seat in order to look around the Still-Talking Choop.
“I say old boy are you even listening?” Choop demands, almost falling off the bench to put his face back directly in front of Vex’s.
“Pep pep pep Choop, of course I am. River-People. Send them to the desert yes. “
“No! Although that is a good idea…” Choop grumbled to himself.
“Yes well. I am the Wise-Elder after all. Bound to have Some Good Ideas”
The meetings continue in this manner the rest of the day; Vex stares at Ho-Tan processing the sudden brain disease that has stopped all other thoughts, and yet still coming up with ideas the other Elders decide to use despite Vex having no clue what is going on. It helps that very few of them ever have a finger on any brain cells.
When they finally finished, an interminable long period of time later, Vex hurried from the room as fast as he could without tripping on his sleeves. Flower’s often remarked that Vex’s sleeves were the most cumbersome of all the robes, and at this particular point of time, Vex found he had to agree. He barely made it to his bed chambers before the tapping of Ho-Tan's feet came down the corridor, his door slamming shut and his ear pressed to the wood to hear her feet pass by; hesitating by the door as if she was going to check on him before continuing on down the corridor. Vex sighed a huge breath of relief and crumpled against the door, slumping until he began to slide down to the floor where he intended to stay for the rest of his life.
“Oh dear. How to go about this then old boy.” He muttered to himself, his hat sliding down in front of his eyes as he let his head fall on the floor. It's not that Vex is Unhappy about this revelation, quite the opposite. Of all the people to realise he was in love with he was glad it was Ho-Tan. She was wonderful after all. She was kind, and thoughtful, and fidgety, and funny, and bright, and… beautiful . Although that is something someone would say when they're in love with a person.
Vex was starting to get a stress headache from all the thinking. Should he tell her? No. Absolutely No Way. He should definitely not do that. It would be just extra stress to her already busy schedule. And she did worry a lot, often thinking about even hypotheticals, let alone the Actual important scribe duties she had to attend to. No no, it wouldn't do at all. Not the thing to do when in love with someone, worry them by telling them you love them. Vex pondered more to himself on how to deal with this brand new Very Big emotion. It would have been so much easier if he just Never Realised. Why did he have to be the wise one?
Suddenly there was a knock on his door. Absolutely Not. He hadn’t figured any of this out yet. He was going to need at least a week. He made one of the indecipherable noises he was so well known for, barely bothering to lift his head or body from where they rested.
“Vex?”
Oh good. It was Pressley. Wonderful.
“I’m Busy.”
The door then proceeded to open, Vex of course not remembering to lock it before lying down, and it stopping a quarter open, blocked the rest of the way by Vex’s head.
“OW!” Vex sat up to glare at Pressley, more nonsensical noises of pain leaving his mouth as he rubbed the growing welt on his head.
“Sorry ‘bout that, but really you shouldn't have been on the floor.”
“It’s my floor. I can do what I like.” He said, rather petulantly, as he continued to not get up off it. Pressley prodded him with his cane. “Once again, OW!”
“Get up”
Vex just stared at him and folded his arms. He knew he was being silly and stubborn but he was entitled to it after the day he’d had and honestly he didn’t feel like being the least bit reasonable. After all, his emotions clearly weren’t being so, so why should he.
“Come on, man! What's got you in such a mood? Debbie sent a message ahead, she’s making us do some ‘work’ to help with the Desert-People issue.”
“I thought it was the River-People?”
“Yes, turns out we got them mixed up. In my defence the River-People are going through a drought, and the Desert People are having Monsoon season.” Pressley nudged Vex again with his cane. “Anyway, she needs us to gather more Intel. So Choop, Flowers and I are meeting with Guillermo, the River people correspondent, and you and Ho-Tan are going to the archive to dig up the documentation from the last time this happened.”
“Whut? No! No I- I can’t- I. I think it would make much more sense if Flowers was to help Ho-Tan and I could-
“You Know Flowers lost his ability to read longer than 10 sentences after the Mushroom incident.”
“Well- then- then maybe Choop-”
“We need Choop to charm the River-People-
“Desert people”
“Right yes. To charm the Desert People. Why are you so opposed to this? One would almost think you don’t want to spend time with Ho-Tan” Pressley chuckled long and deep. “But we all know That can’t be true!! You two usually have to be pried apart with a crow-bar! And since the crows have implemented a no-drinking ban that’s been much harder than usual.”
“I'm not opposed! Not at all! I'm just… worried about my ability to match up with Ho-Tan’s reading speed. Slow things down!”
“Oh old man there's no need to be worried about that! Ho-Tan adores you, she'd never think of you as slow! How's this, I'll go have a word with Ho-Tan and ask her to help you out, you'll be done quick as anything” Pressley was out the door and down the corridor before Vex could call after him, the attempted grab at Pressley’s leg being more than slightly futile as Pressley just speared his hand with his cane and bustled out the room.
“Bum.”