Chapter Text
The first winter after Vecna is… difficult.
That’s the nicest way to say it.
The manor in Whitestone is dark and drafty, indeed, and neither Vex’ahlia nor Cassandra can seem to brighten it, no matter how many candles they light or Winter’s Crest decorations they commission to be festooned across entrances and balustrades and windows.
It doesn’t help. Nothing helps.
Percy’s not sure what his housemates do on the Matron’s Ascension Day, because he spends all thirteen of Whitestone’s midwinter daylight hours locked in his workshop avoiding them both. The Matron’s flock is practically rioting this year, and every cheery smile or flash of black and gold ornaments down by the temples makes him want to kill someone. It’s altruistic of him to stay down here, really, because at this point, he doesn’t trust himself not to shoot the carolers on reflex. Even from here, he can almost hear them making their way up to the gates, crunching through the layer of ice upon the snow and giggling among themselves, all clad in dark velvet and silky golden ribbons, naive youths come from afar just to mock the sacrifice that kept the world safe, and while Percy’s not even thirty himself, he’s far from innocent, and no matter what Vax’ildan might have believed about celebrating the transitions between life and death, he’s not here.
Despite the heat of the forge, Percy’s heart is as cold and unyielding inside his breast as it would be in a snowbank. He feels his lip curl in contempt for these imagined revelers, who must even now be gathering to drink dark, bloody wine and party long past midnight, giving thanks to a goddess who only knows how to take. “Fuck you,” he hisses vitriolically, as though the Matron might be listening. “Fuck you.”
Somewhere, a church bell begins to toll, ringing out the opening melody of an old, traditional hymnal. Her love’s a thousand miles away…
It is folly to believe that she cares enough to mock him, but his hands ball into fists on the surface of the work table regardless. All of this– all this task and trial, only to lose at the bitter end? To be so callously disregarded? With his throat growing tight, he crumples a wad of paper in his hand and turns to hurl it at the stone wall–
But his errant hiss of breath curls like fog in the air, and it is only this that stops him before he turns. He watches as frost drags a long, gnarled finger along the wall, creeping across the stonework, and the workshop turns suddenly icy despite the forge’s fire. Even now, he ought to hear it sighing and crackling, filling the workshop’s sudden muffling silence with the warmth of habitation, but there is only the silence of snow, as though a perfect, supernatural winter has suddenly coalesced around him, sequestering him away from the rest of the manor.
His breath shudders as gooseflesh rises on his skin, his forearms still exposed from rolling up his sleeves what must have been some hours ago. To think of it, how long has he been down here? Time, usually so insoluble in his mind, seems frozen solid by the supernatural chill. He wraps his arms around his torso in an attempt to protect himself from the cold while he thinks, his mind racing with long-learned suspicion. Have his friends pissed off any white dragons lately?
Behind him, as though in response to his rising, panicked wrong-footedness, someone laughs.
Percy freezes.
His shoulders go back on instinct, the way a beast might raise its hackles, both motions every inch a threat display. “I did not see you enter,” he says as coolly as he can. “Are you friend, or foe?”
Again, there comes that same laughter, warm and amused. Its familiarity sends recognition like a trickle of icemelt down his spine, and he almost turns to look, but no sooner has he formed the intention in his mind than a cool, calloused hand appears at the nape of his neck, stopping him from completing the motion. He can feel every molecule of its weight against his skin as it moves to leash him by the collar. “Stay there,” his visitor murmurs playfully. “I need plausible deniability, alright? No witnesses.”
Oh, gods. His lips part in a silent gasp as he recognizes Vax’ildan’s voice, as clear as it was on the day he left them, some half a year ago. “How–”
“Don’t ask questions,” Vax says playfully, his voice halfway between a murmur and the growl of a predator that’s just started to toy with its food. The hunger evident within it makes Percy’s stomach do a slow, sultry somersault. “I can’t stay long.”
Percy squeezes his eyes shut and gropes at the air behind him, rewarded when this specter of Vax’ildan laces their fingers. It cannot be true, and yet– “Are you real?”
Vax rests what must be the arc of his nose against the back of Percy’s head, as though drinking him in by scent and possession alone. His skin is like ice, vaguely perfumed by something that smells crisp as frost and homey as almonds. “Does it matter?” he whispers, a note of desperation in his voice that Percy can’t explain. The weight of a body presses against his back, and both hands move to wrap around his torso from behind, and without thinking, without any of his customary paranoia or better judgement, he leans into the embrace. “Fuck, I missed you.”
It sounds like the truth, but even if it hadn’t, Percy knows all about wanting what you cannot have. These days, he might as well be a fucking scholar in the topic. “You’re freezing,” he whispers, resting his own hands on Vax’s in some attempt to bleed a trace of warmth into them. He doesn’t dare look down, but his fingers find a plain, soft band on Vax’s right ring finger, where a promise ring might traditionally reside. It might be wood, if the carved texture is any indication, and he thinks momentarily of Keyleth before her face is blasted away by the looming features of a cold, porcelain mask. His stomach flips again, but it’s not pleasant this time. “Are you safe?” he asks, even though Vax told him not to. “Are you well, wherever you are?”
Vax huffs a frigid sigh. “Freddy, please–”
“Did you think I wouldn’t ask?”
“Hoped,” Vax snuffles petulantly into the back of his neck. “Look, I’m fine, okay?”
“But–”
His arms tighten, and despite himself, Percy shudders, and allows himself to be silenced. “Please,” Vax breathes behind him. “I don’t want to talk about the real world. I don’t– I don’t have the time to–”
Percy leans against him, and for a moment, Vax’ildan’s body is all that holds him standing upright. “Why must you always leave me?”
Except for a gentle toying movement of his fingers against the buttons of Percy’s undershirt, Vax doesn’t respond. Neither of them say anything.
They both know why.
“We don’t have to do anything,” Vax finally concedes, though he doesn’t sound at all happy about it. His voice aches. “This doesn’t have to be anything. It… it doesn’t have to be real.”
And that’s what they’ve always thought, isn’t it? That they both have obligations, and worlds to save, and enough hands on their hearts as things are. That this can’t be real. Not now. They just can’t afford it.
Except.
Except that Vax is gone, now, and he’s taken all those unobserved, moonlit hallway-encounter possibilities with him. It’s different now. Later is never going to arrive.
At the icy brush of Vax’s fingertips against the soft skin of his belly, having slipped at last between the little space between one button and the next, Percy’s eyes begin to roll behind his eyelids. “Tell me, then,” Vax’ildan whispers in his ear. “Just tell me, and I’ll go.”
Percy tips his head back onto Vax’s shoulder. “Don’t,” he whispers back before he can stop himself, meaning, somehow, just let me dream of you for a little longer. “Don’t you dare.”
As if in answer, gentle lips press against his temple, and he feels himself sigh in rapturous relief. “As long as you’ll have me,” Vax murmurs. “I’ll stay.”