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At first it’s easy: easy to watch Percy, his head bent over the clutter of his desk or the fire light of the forge; easy to send smiles, more like smirks, Percy’s way and see the red spread across Percy’s cheeks. It’s easy to fall into this: the head-over-foot tumble of someone you can’t get enough of.
Vax first realizes what’s actually going on when they’ve all gone out for drinks one evening. It’s the most inopportune time, of course it is, but the day’s been exhausting and Vax’s ability to keep focus is always the first thing to desert him. Grog is being loud and Scanlan’s laughing and Vex is passing around drinks and Percy – Percy’s glasses are just a little askew, his hair a mess, his eyes barely open, and his face held aloft by a long-fingered hand. It shouldn’t catch Vax by surprise, the warmth that spreads through him, but it does. Percy’s smiling, just a little, and it’s soft – so different from his typical, hard-eyed intensity that Vax just wants a chance to bask in it. This Percy is like the warmth of the sun after a long winter; Vax loves winter, don’t get him wrong, but it’s nice, is what it is, to see Percy relaxed for once.
It’s not until Vex jostles his shoulder and he sees her holding his cup of ale, stolen from right under his own nose, that Vax even notices how little he’s been paying attention to the rest of them. Half the team’s gone already and the tavern’s gotten a little louder, a little more full. When he finally meets her eyes, Vex arches an eyebrow at him. Vax just shrugs: he’s a little out of it, maybe, but that’s nothing new. She raises the other eyebrow too, her expression utterly disbelieving; looks, first, pointedly at Percy and then back at him. The smirk she gives matches his very best ones and Vax can’t help but roll his eyes, get up, grab another drink since she’s already helped herself to his.
Pushing his way to the bar takes longer than it should and he has to make a show of pulling a gold coin out of his pocket to get his drink before heading back to their table. He’s grumbling a little to himself by the time he gets there, head down and totally distracted; so, it’s pure luck that he looks up when he does. Percy’s taking a long sip from his mead and it leaves a trail of foam across his top lip. Keyleth leans in, must tell him about it, because he grins, sheepish and mostly to himself, and runs his tongue over it. The light catches the movement – the spit-slick red of his mouth and the disappearing white foam – and Vax can’t help it, stares. His eyes follow the path of Percy’s tongue and feels a jolt run through his gut, nearly sloshes his ale onto the floor. "Oh," he thinks and, then, "Damn it, Vex".
So, he has a crush on Percy, which is far from the worst thing in the world. Percy’s already like family after a year on the team, and he already likes Vax, rude hand gestures and impulsive decision making and all. It makes the whole thing a lot easier and, frankly, most of the time Vax barely even notices that he’s looking at Percy differently than he’s looking at the others. They’re good, the two of them, still have each others’ backs in fights and Vax still pops into Percy’s workshop from time to time to bother him. What does it matter that now Vax imagines distracting Percy by sitting in Percy’s lap, between Percy and his desk, and kissing him; that sometimes Vax can’t help but think that they’d be good together, that it would make everything slot into place, like the perfectly fitted gears of Percy’s gun?
One morning, a week from the night at the pub, Vex pulls him off to the side after breakfast. "How stupid are you?" she hisses.
"Fuck are you talking about?" says Vax, squinting at her.
"Don’t give me that, brother," she says, "You were obvious before, but now everyone – well, everyone but Grog – can see the way you look at him."
Vax sighs. "What’s it matter?" he says, "It’s just a crush."
"I love you, Vax, but you’re terrible at relationships, and we both know it. You can’t screw this up. You know that, right?"
"It’s not a relationship! It isn’t anything."
She settles a little, looks at him assessingly, says, "Yeah, okay. Just, if it ever… becomes–"
"Go away, Vex," he says, feels the uncomfortable and uncontrollable flush through his cheeks, "We aren’t talking about this any more."
She smiles up at him and darts in to hug him, quick and warm and ducking out of the way before he can even get his arms fully around her; goes.
He, despite Vex’s advice, spends the next several weeks, well, pining – there’s really no other word for it. He can’t get Percy out of his head; spends half of his waking moments with Percy’s face or words or hands imprinted into his thoughts. The other half, Vax spends trying to remember what it’s like to not have Percy on his mind, which is, of course, is entirely counterproductive. God, the last time he was like this, Vax was sixteen.
Vox Machina takes a job in Westruun, another in Kymal, two in Emon. Vax gets used to the pulse of the thoughts running around his head, gets used to spending too much time thinking of Percy, keeping an eye on Percy no matter what the circumstances. He mentally collects it all – the smiles and the smirks and the unhappiness and everything in between. Vax knows it’s not the definition of healthy, this way that his focus has shifted into something not unlike an obsession, but it doesn’t really matter; Vax’s life was already made up of a series of terrible decisions and this is just another, tacked onto the top of the list.
Sometimes, Vax could swear that he catches Percy sneaking looks at him too, but he’s almost certainly imagining it. They’re with each other and the rest of Vox Machina all of the time, so what does it matter if Percy happens to be looking at him? He looks at everyone else too, but Vax is the only one who can’t help himself from reading too far into it. He sits in his room, at night, wondering if he’s hallucinating, wondering if the smile that Percy gives him, small and soft and easy, is different from his other smiles. Too many nights, he catches himself imagining their relationship as a cross between ridiculous, domestic bliss and some whirlwind, spectacular adventure. "Stupid, like Vex said," he thinks to himself.
His worst quality, according to Vex, is the tendency to dive into situations without thinking. This time, though, it isn’t that he hasn’t thought about the decision – he’s thought about it a metric shitton, if he’s honest – but that he actually decides in the span of a split-second. Sometime in the middle of the seventh week of too-much-attachment-to-Percy, Vax has just finished lunch and is heading back to his room when he thinks "Fuck it" and immediately changes direction towards Percy’s workshop. Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen, anyway, no use in putting it off any longer.
Vax can hear his own footfalls on the stone floors, can hear the thrumming beat of his own heart. When he reaches the workshop, he can hear the clang of metal through the door. He raises his hand, knocks; knocks harder when Percy doesn’t respond. Percy’s probably caught up in something, maybe even something important, but Vax can’t back down, he won’t – he has to do this now. His heart is in his mouth and he shuffles in place, wonders if he should just barge in.
Percy opens the door before Vax can do anything, though. He’s covered in soot and his glasses are off, his goggles pushed up to his forehead. Vax breathes in, begins to count to three, but he only gets to two before the impulse to just do something takes over. "Hi, Percival," Vax says, steps up to him; leans in, kisses him.
Percy’s lips are chapped from the heat of the forge and his already stiff posture gets even straighter, probably in shock. Vax tilts his head, careful, just presses his mouth to Percy’s. His hand comes up to cup Percy’s jaw, smoothing over the skin. A moment, then two; Vax thinks about staying right here, like this, never stopping. He makes himself, though, step back – too quickly. Under his palm, Percy’s skin is warm and Vax just looks, taking in the long sweep of his eyelashes, the slope of his nose.
"Uh," Percy says. His eyes are glassy and his expression is filled with shock, poured like a waterfall over the planes of his face. He stares back at Vax, unspeaking.
"I didn’t know if you knew," Vax says, flushing under the weight of Percy’s attention. He shrugs, smiles, depreciating. “Now you do,” he says.
Percy doesn’t react for a long moment and Vax begins to extricate himself from Percy; "I’ll just–" he says and points towards the stairs with his free hand. Vax doesn’t know if he’s supposed to stand his ground, supposed to push harder, but the truth is that, for all of Vax’s bravery, right now he feels like a coward. Right now, Vax can feel the press of his desire against the inside of his throat and the clench of fear in his stomach. He begins to turn.
He’s not even three steps away when he feels Percy’s hand grip his shoulder. Vax breathes in, breathes out, twists back to face Percy. The intensity in Percy’s eyes is a thing to behold. It’s a switch, one that Vax has seen flipped dozens of times, but never like this – never directed right at him. Vax shudders, the breaths pass between them; Percy’s eyes are diamonds.
"Vax," he says, quiet and certain. Vax has no idea what that voice means.
Percy’s hands reach for Vax’s scarf, shaking in contrast the surety of his words. He leans in, eyes closed, breath warm.
Percy kisses sweetly, like the first, unexpected snowflakes of a long winter. His fringe brushes against Vax’s forehead and his goggles bump a little into Vax; he pushes in, closer, closer, until they’re pressed together. Heat seeps through Vax’s chest, his thighs, and Vax can’t help but breathe hard, the wind all but knocked out of him. It’s okay, though. It’s great. Percy’s breath is warm and, when Vax coaxes his lips open, he tastes like ash and chocolate.
Vax laughs a little, as they break apart, wraps his arms around Percy’s shoulders and neck, ends up kissing Percy, again, with the smile still on his face. Percy’s smiling too and the kiss is less of a kiss and more half-clanking teeth and lips, breathing the same air. Then, Percy bites at his bottom lip, opens Vax’s mouth with his tongue and it’s slick and hot and Vax gasps, can’t help himself.
Vax arches an eyebrow, once they’ve pulled away, tries to regain a little of his composure that’s been so utterly destroyed. "So that’s a yes, then," he says, with as much smirk in his voice as he can manage,
Percy laughs and it sounds giddy. "Fuck, Vax," he says, "How could that ever be interpreted as a ‘no’?"
"Just checking," says Vax and kisses him again.
That night, when they’re gathered around the table for dinner, Vax can’t get a smile off of his face. Percy keeps having to tug his collar up to hide a love bite and glaring at Vax as he does it, then smiling to himself, biting his lip. Vex leans over as soon as Vax has taken a giant bite of roast chicken, undoubtedly choosing her moment for effect.
"Don’t fuck it up," she says. Vax nearly chokes, ends up coughing, and has to take a minute before turning back to face her.
"How do you even–" Vax says, shakes his head, "I don’t want to know."
"Don’t worry," he says, his left hand catching Percy’s under the table, "Percy’s better at fixing things than I am at breaking them."