Chapter Text
Vex’ahlia woke when she heard a cry from the room next to hers. Percy. Having slept beside him for months—either on a bedroll near the campfire or having their bedrooms placed side-by-side—she could tell the difference between a post-nightmare shout and something else, but she’d never heard anything like this before. She shot out of bed, slinging her quiver on her back and grabbing her bow as she rushed into the hallway before bursting into Percy’s room. Bow raised and arrow notched, she frantically scanned the room for any intruders, before casting her attention to Percy, who stared up at her with wide glassy eyes. He took a shuddering breath in and squinched his eyes shut, as if Vex was going to shoot him instead of whatever else it was causing his distress. The arrow clattered to the ground in her haste to show him that she wasn’t any threat by placing her bow at her feet before gently kicking it away and displaying her unarmed hands.
“Don’t hurt me,” Percy’s whisper was so breathy that she almost didn’t hear it,
“Please don’t–don’t-don’t hurt me, please”
The desperation in his voice made Vex’s heart break. She knelt down beside him, and was alarmed when her friend flinched away and began scooting back from her as much as he could with his legs twisted in his wet bed sheets. Wait—why were they wet? Had he had an accident? Her concern mounted as she saw, by the glimmer of the moonlight, tears making their way down his cheeks. Percy wasn’t one to cry, even after something as horrible as his night terrors, and he definitely wouldn’t let Vex into his room with the knowledge he had pissed the bed. No, her Percy would’ve furiously blinked back his tears before they could fall, would’ve muttered a “shit” at the sight of his sheets and handled it quietly and efficiently by himself, and would’ve been absolutely mortified at the sight of any Vox Machina member witnessing him in his current state, even one as close to him as she was. She took another look at him, knees drawn up to his chest and tears continuing to streak down his face. She knew Percy was by far the youngest in their group, but seeing him in such a state made him look so very, very small.
That’s when it hit her. Vex had to stop herself from slamming her palm to her forehead in exasperation. Of course Percy was a little!
He was the youngest of Vox Machina, so it made sense the rest of them would be taller than he was, but she had always assumed he was just short whenever he was around other men who looked his age. She could’ve slapped herself again when she realized that his boots provided at least two inches of extra height to him, meaning he was much smaller than she originally thought. The group usually ate bland food on the road—there were no five-star restaurants in the middle of the woods—so she wouldn’t have noticed Percy’s aversions to any strongly-flavored meals. Except for at the feast, she thought, before remembering that he only ate the potatoes on his plate. She knew he was struggling with the Briarwoods, so thought his minimal eating was a result of his focus being elsewhere, not that he couldn’t bear to eat it. She realized the potatoes were mashed, too, so they were soft and easy to swallow, and he had left his vegetables where they were. She was sure that if he were an older little he would have pushed the asparagus to the edges of his plate in disgust, but he hadn’t. This means Percival de rolo was not only a little, but a young one at that.
“Percy,” she said tentatively, “how old are you right now, darling?”
Her eyes widened as he held up one shaking finger. Damn. He really was small.
“Can you talk at all right now?” she asked. He shook his head ‘no’ in return. She heard him talk earlier, but in his panic must have dropped further. Shit: this was gonna make things much more difficult. She took a breath in to steady herself. Let it out. Her nose wrinkled as the smell of urine hit her.
Right—first things first.
She asked Percy if she could touch him, to which she received a nod. She scooped the boy up into her arms, and rested him on her hip. She was surprised at just how light and boney he was, and knew she’d need to have a talk about his eating habits once he was big again. She walked out of his room and shut the door behind her, making sure to lock it so no one else could get in. They moved down the hall to the bathroom, where Vex’ahlia set him on the toilet and began to run a bath. She chewed her lip as she debated going back to Percy’s room to remove his dirtied sheets and clean them so that the smell of his pee wouldn’t linger on it, but decided she couldn’t leave such a young little unattended. Especially in the same room as a bathtub spewing water from its faucet.
“Alright dear,” she prompted, “can you lift up your arms for me?”
Percy compiled, and she wriggled his nightshirt off of him. She had to hold back a gasp at the sight: Percy’s entire torso was littered with scars. Old scars, obviously, for which she was relieved, but it didn’t change the fact that they were everywhere. Anna Ripley had done this to him, her brain supplied. Vex must have spent too long looking at a large, jagged curve on his chest, because Percy’s arms moved to cover it. She glanced up at his face to see more tears clouding his eyes and his cheeks dusted pink with shame.
“I’m so sorry, darling” she whispered, “so very sorry that this happened to you. I know that it wasn’t your fault, you should never think that it was, but it just startled me, is all. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.
Could you stand up and get your bottoms off, or do you need help with that?” she asked him, before realizing that he couldn’t speak.
“One finger for ‘I-can-do-it-alone’, and two fingers for ‘I-need-help’” she clarified. He held up one finger. Alright. She shimmied his pajama bottoms down from his hips and told him to step his feet out of them. Now comes the hard part. As much as she wanted to preserve Percy’s dignity by leaving him in his underwear for the bath, she knew that his privates needed to be properly cleaned, and that she’d see them anyways when she had to change him. Change him with what she didn’t know, because she knew for sure that the years-old building wouldn’t have any diapers in it. She’d worry about that later. After fully undressing him she ran her fingers under the bath water to make sure it was an acceptable temperature before picking Percy up and setting him in the tub.
She grabbed a bar of soap from the counter and swished it through the water before she began to scrub it up and down Percy’s back. Next, she washed his arms, then his chest, then his legs, and finally, after asking for his permission, she hastily cleaned his privates as fast as she could while doing a thorough job. She went to the counter to pluck a bottle of shampoo from it before returning beside the bath. She squeezed a dollop of it into her hand before she spread it around while massaging Percy’s scalp. He leaned back into the touch while sighing contentedly.
Vex could only assume how touch-starved the young DeRolo was: he shied away from touch and refused to let anyone outside of Vox Machina and Cassandra even attempt to hug him. She knew this was a result of his trauma that he couldn’t control, but seeing him melt in her hands sparked happiness in her chest. She could tell Percy really needed this. Not only a comforting touch, but a childhood which he could live to the fullest; one without the heart-shattering ending of his original one. His biology really knew what it was doing when it made him a little, she mused.
While continuing to wash Percy’s hair, another thought hit her: how had he hid his classification for so long? Unless he was using suppressants? But surely while on the run he couldn’t have obtained such an expensive medication unless he stole. She shook her head to rid herself of the thought that he possibly could have such a thing. No, he wouldn’t. She had the urge to go search Percy’s room for them, but realized that he should sleep in her room tonight since his bed was still dirty. Tomorrow I’ll go looking in his room, she reasoned with herself, if only to keep herself from tearing up his bedroom in a desperate haste to make sure that her beloved Percival wasn’t hurting himself by over-using suppressants.
Satisfied that Percy was sufficiently cleaned, she hoisted him up out of the bath and wrapped him in a towel. He let out a little babble of disagreement at being removed from the warm water, but quieted once he was snuggly cocooned in the towel. Vex once again held Percy on her hip as she slipped out of the bathroom and plodded back to her own bedroom. She decided that the towel would be enough to catch any other accidents that might happen in the few hours before they woke up again, so she wrapped it around him to serve as a makeshift diaper before clothing him in the biggest shirt she owned. Percy only had button downs, so even though her shirt was small on him, she didn’t have any other options. Vex laid Percy back-down on her bed before she crawled in the sheets beside him.
“It’s okay now, darling, you can rest” she reassured him. He crawled into her arms, lying his head on her breast and popping his thumb into his mouth. She’d have to get some pacifiers when she goes to buy diapers. In fact, she’d have to get everything needed to care for a little. The thought of doing so much began to overwhelm her, so she shoved the shopping list to the back of her mind and focused instead on the weight of Percy on her and the light sound of his suckling.
Everything would be okay. She could figure it out tomorrow. Until then, Percy was safe in her arms and she could finally drift to sleep.