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He tries to hold it together while he tries to hold her together. But it’s hard, you see. Terrifyingly so, in fact… to use one’s feeble hands, palms, fingers to patch a person’s life force as it threatens to spill out and onto the dirt. Akin to scooping algae-covered stones from a river, slippery and wet and frustrating.
She shouldn’t have been put in this position in the first place, really. She had the altitude, the safe altitude, thanks to Death from Above. Safe and high and though the two rarely go together symbiotically, it was the best course of action this time. Their reconnaissance led them to believe the beasts were clumsy, land-based creatures. Ferocious, but ground-dwelling. Certainly not ones who could leap like fleas to pluck their prey out of the skies.
The first three met their end fairly quickly, thanks to Grog. The goliath’s penchant for hand-to-hand combat made him an incredibly deadly weapon to anything he could get his hands on, or his axe through. Add a couple well-aimed blasts from Bad News and a round of restraining bramble shots from the flying ranger and the lumbering creatures didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hells.
But they weren’t as unintelligent as they looked. No, no they really weren’t.
The alpha broke free of the thorny vines, easily thrashing through them with his talons and jumped straight up. Straight at her. Unnervingly fast, the creature’s arms spread wide as it got closer to its target and at the last second, swiped viciously at the half-elf.
He watched her try to dodge, putting one hand on the broom’s handle and shifting her weight to the left, but the beast was too fast, too high and made contact. Razor-sharp contact. Contact that shreds. Contact that eviscerates. Contact that changes the trajectory of her movement from controlled fleeing to uncontrolled falling.
She was supposed to be safe.
She should have been safe.
But she wasn’t.
And through some twist of fate, she managed to land at Percy’s feet, crumpled, broken and nearly dead.
There’s nowhere to put pressure, at least not for someone with two hands, so he puts pressure everywhere at different, rotating intervals. The bleeding wanes, then surges again, bubbling up in different spots along her body like a fucked up game of keepaway.
“Pike!” Percy bellows, choked and cracking. Not waiting for a response, he quickly brings one Maroon-covered hand up to his earring: “Pike! Keyleth! Someone please respond!”
He doesn’t have magic, at least not the kind that would help her. He doesn’t have a potion of healing, either. He only has his hands. His tremor-ridden, helpless hands. Hands that don’t hold blood back very well. Hands that press on various wounds and gashes and cuts and lacerations in vain.
Vex groans underneath him, weak, gurgly and wet. She groans and she’s still alive… barely.
“Dear, stay with me,” he commands as he claws at his cravat. It wads up effortlessly (it should, it’s expensive) and he shoves it in the largest of the wounds beneath her ribs, pressing hard. When she weakly recoils from the pain, he takes it as a good sign. “Be angry with me tomorrow, Vex. I must stop the bleeding.”
Her hand, balled up tightly in a fist from the pain, relaxes and tries to move over her stomach. Shaky, frail fingertips brush over where he’s firmly pressing his silk garment into the tear on her abdomen. Percy releases his hold briefly, grabs her hand and pushes them in between his own and the cravat. “Pressure here, if you can muster the strength,” he says hurriedly. “Press hard, dear, hard. Don’t let up.”
Vex hasn’t opened her eyes since the fall, and he’s beyond grateful. She doesn’t see her wounds, how her flesh lays splayed open messily, how she’s covered in slashes and gashes and nearly sundered from the creature’s flails.
But she presses - he feels her hand tense under his and it may not be much, but it lets him move one hand to another puncture that screams for his attention. “That’s my girl, very good. Pressure. Hold tight.”
He says it for her.
He says it for himself.
“...rcy, wh… .re yo.?” Keyleth’s broken, panicked voice whispers faintly in his earring. They’re so far away, how did they get so far away?
Percy withdraws one hand from a gash and fumbles for his ear to respond, “Keyleth?! We’re…” he looks around, eyes darting from tree to similar tree to similar tree. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he finishes smally. Nothing looks familiar, though he’s certain he hasn’t moved far from where he posted up before battle. “I don’t see any landmarks–”
“–We’ll fi.. .ou hang ..!” she interrupts. He’s not quite sure if she heard much of what he relayed.
He fears the group will move out of range before he can respond again, so he quickly rattles off the most important details, “Vex is with me. She needs healing. Things are dire. Please hurry!” Fingers drop from his ear and he returns to putting pressure on a particularly stubborn gash near her hip.
“Help is on the way, dear,” Percy soothes and watches how her face twists in pain as he applies more pressure.
She coughs abruptly, then unleashes a pained moan from behind her tightly pressed lips. Vex’s fingers flex over the scrunched up cravat and she begins to mumble words Percy has heard before but doesn’t understand. It takes her a few tries, the incantation is interrupted by wet, raspy gasps, but before his very eyes, he watches as her fingers begin glowing a faint green.
Relaxing momentarily, she drops her head back onto the soil by his knee and lets the Cure Wounds spell take effect. Percy quickly removes the cravat from the injury before the flesh stitches back together around the fabric and instead presses it into the gash at her hip.
“Excellent, dear, very good!” He places his hand over hers and guides them both to the gash. “This one next, if you’re able.”
Percy hates magic. It’s complicated, messy, unpredictable. But he’d give almost anything to be able to heal right now. Almost.
“T-” -cough- “Tapped.”
Fuck.
“That’s okay, that’s okay,” he tries to convince her (to convince them both). “Keyleth and Pike are looking for us. They’ll be here shortly.” He squeezes the hand he still holds. “They’ll get you patched up.”
Another round of coughs serve as her acknowledgement and she turns her head to press closer to his leg. “It fucking… hurts, Percy,” she mumbles weakly.
“I know, Vex’ahlia,” he soothes. Strong, fearless Vex’ahlia shouldn’t sound this pitiful and small. “Keep the pressure on, help is on the way.”
Speaking of which, one of his hands darts up to his earring. “If anyone is able to hear this, we could really use some assistance!” He’s shorter than he wants to be when barking the statement into the ether. He hopes his clipped tones and urgency in his voice somehow expedite help’s arrival. With a sigh, he drops his hand and scours over Vex for another critical injury.
The gash on her neck seeps Maroon-colored blood from between his fingers as he presses. It must be close to an artery, he figures, pressing harder. “Still with me, Vex’ahlia?” Panicked, his eyes shoot to hers, finding them scrunched closed. “Dear, stay awake. I need you to stay awake.”
“...no…” he hears faintly.
“Defiance. Good!” Percy swallows thickly. “That’s good. Be defiant. Be awake and defiant.”
“...fuck off…” she rasps, but it’s laced with the levity and sarcasm he’s used to hearing from her.
He nervously laughs in return. “I assure you, I’ll fuck right off when you’re healed and healthy again. But until then,” he pays her another analyzing once-over to identify another gash, “I’ll be doing my best to keep as much of you inside you as I can. And you, my dear, will be staying as awake as you can. Feel free to hurl insults my way if it helps!” He finishes his peptalk, punctuating it with a hard press of his cravat into her thigh.
The screech from dozens of feet above them has the audacity to actually startle Percival, causing him to jump slightly at the sound. Looking up, he spots a red-feathered eagle circling above them. And thank the Gods the red is familiar. Excited, he takes the chance to remove pressure from her thigh and grabs her hand instead. “Help is here, Vex!” Rushed and enthused, he squeezes, probably harder than he should.
She does not squeeze back.
Panicked, Percy shouts, “Keyleth! Down here!”
The large bird banks sharply upon hearing the gunslinger’s insistent holler, diving down directly at the pair on the ground before transforming in a poof of feathers and dust into his favorite druid. “Percy!” She beams excitedly, then frowns deeply. “Holy shit, is that all Vex or are you hurt, too?”
“Just her,” he looks down at Vex’s still form. “I tried keeping her awake, but…” he trails off as Keyleth rushes to kneel on the other side of the fallen ranger.
The druid’s eyes are already glazed white as she stares off into the distance, her hands move in swirling, even patterns over Vex’s body. Green trails follow her fingertips and Percy watches in awe as the most grievous of her wounds stitch back together slowly, followed by shallower, less intense injuries.
It’s a beautiful sight, albeit disturbing and gory.
Percy gives Vex’s hand another squeeze, but her fingers are loose in his grasp. “Keyleth? Why isn’t she awake?”
White eyes clarify and snap to Percy’s in an instant. “The heal took,” she says exasperated, and she takes a second to assess the half-elf on the ground. “It took - I felt it!”
“Yet she remains still,” he snaps, immediately apologetic. “Sorry! Sorry. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“I’ll try again, a little stronger this time,” she says, nodding and begins to repeat the motions from before. The same green trails float over Vex’s form, falling gently onto her skin and armor like leaves fluttering from a tree and landing in small puddles of verdant glow.
“Come on, dear,” Percy coaxes and squeezes her hand again. “Wake up for us.”
Keyleth stops moving her arms and sits back on her heels. “Give it a few seconds, Percy.” She looks down, taking in the state of Vex and the amount of Maroon that has pooled beneath her and on the gunslinger. “She lost a lot of blood. It might take some time to regenerate.”
So they wait.
And wait.
And Percy continues to hold tightly to her hand.
And Keyleth worries the skin of her lip between her teeth.
And they wait.
And barely, just barely, Vex’ahlia squeezes the hand holding her and groans quietly.
“Oh, thank the Gods!” Keyleth whoops, then exhales heavily. “I was out of ideas… and magic!”
Percy collapses down over Vex, careful to keep the majority of his weight off her body, and lets loose an anxious huff. “Welcome back, dear!” He breathes into her shoulder before lifting himself up to kneeling once more. He purposefully ignores the smirk Keyleth tosses his way.
“Holy balls,” she starts, licking her lips and wincing, “everything hurts.” She briefly opens her eyes, squinting at the sunlight. “Where’s my broom?”
The bark of Percy’s laughter startles the birds in a nearby tree, causing them to scatter, wings beating harshly in their exit. “I’m sure it’s around here somewhere. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my top priority after you fell.”
Vex smiles slightly and closes her eyes. “Please tell me that fucker has been blown to bits.”
“Scanlan got him!” Keyleth chirps enthusiastically.
“It’s not kind to joke with the recently unconscious, Keyleth,” the gunslinger scolds, at the same time mouthing sorry to Vex, even though her eyes are firmly closed.
Mouth agape, Keyleth looks shocked and almost hurt. “I’m not joking! It was pretty amazing, actually. Scanlan’s Hand is a lot stronger than it looks - he toppled a tree and used it to impale the one that swiped at you, Vex.” She warmly pats the ranger’s shoulder.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Percy concedes with a smile.
“He’s pretty excited - he doesn’t get to finish things off very much!” She moves to get up and dusts herself off as she stands. “We should…” her head briefly tilts backwards. “Vex, do you think you can get up and walk?”
With a groan, Vex extracts her hand from Percy’s and leans up onto her elbows. “If I can have my broom, I won’t need to.” She turns to the man at her side, smiling sweetly. “Would you mind…?”
Blame it on the exhaustion, or the seriousness of the past few minutes, but his defenses are undoubtedly down. Like a siren’s call, he’s drawn to her smile against his will. “Of course, anything for you,” he agrees, returning her smile with a warm one of his own. The Maroon that stains his arms, chest and cheeks covers his blush.
Keyleth, suddenly feeling like the third wheel, quickly shifts her eyes between the two of them, then clears her throat awkwardly. “I… I uh, actually saw it when I was flying,” she says hurriedly, “I’ll go grab it. Give me a minute!” Before they can respond in acknowledgement, she bolts away into the trees, leaving the two alone once more.
“You scared me, Vex,” Percy confesses after a moment. He swallows slowly and mulls over his words. “There were so many wounds… I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
“You did your best, Percy.” She softens her smile and rests her hand on his knee. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Indeed you are.” His hand covers hers and he grips tightly. The adrenaline is long gone now, and he releases a shaky breath. “Let’s work on you staying out of striking distance, shall we?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Vex laughs, but squeezes his hand in agreement and sits up straighter. Leaning up, she presses a kiss to Percy’s cheek, lingering for much longer than necessary, then draws away just enough to brush her lips on his stubble. “Thank you, Percival,” she murmurs to his jaw, allowing her nose to bump him purposefully.
He doesn’t think his Maroon-stained skin can cover the flush that blooms up his neck, cheeks and ears now. “Anytime, dear,” he whispers back. “I’d hate to lose y–”
“Got the broom!” Keyleth shouts from across the clearing, holding the equipment high above her head triumphantly, but stops short of walking in their direction upon seeing how close her friends are to each other. “Oh… sorry!”
Vex closes her eyes in disappointment and leans back from Percy. Immediately, he loathes her withdrawal from his personal space, but is partly thankful for the interruption – he’d hate to do something out of character. He senses the same respite in Vex as she calls over her shoulder, “Thank you, Keyleth!”
Percy stands up stiffly, but doesn’t let go of her hand, instead using their connection as an opportunity to help her up and off the ground. “Off we go, then.”
Keyleth bounds over and delivers the broom back into Vex’s waiting hand, then tuts gently. “You two are a mess. Scanlan mentioned having the mansion tonight. Warm baths for everyone!”
“A steamy, relaxing soak sounds wonderful, thank you,” Vex sighs wistfully, extracting her hand from Percy’s and whispers the activation word into the broom’s handle. It shudders slightly, giving the go-ahead for her to prop herself onto the seat. When Percy eyes her warily, “Don’t worry, I have no plans on zipping away. I’ll just float along with you two, if you don’t mind?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, dear,” he responds warmly. Gesturing to the druid with an open hand, “Lead the way, Keyleth.”