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Percy hated being in this situation. Left at the mercy of the woman he wanted dead more than anyone.
(If he were a better man perhaps, he’d count the dragons as up there, but he was not, and dragons had never been so personal in their cruelty, in their evil.)
Still, it did nothing to better the situation he was in now, tied to a chair, his pepperbox taken from him and his heart pounding behind his ribs as Ripley paced and talked.
She had plans, evidently, ones she was quite proud of based on her incessant crowing. Plans he wasn’t sure she’d come up with on her own based on the smoke coiling around her heels and shoulders.
He tapped a finger against the arm of the chair he’d been strapped too. He knew Vox Machina would come for him, they had to, he was taken from under their noses at their recent campsite. He knew they’d notice once the morning came.
They had to come.
“Percival,” Ripley’s voice snapped Percy back to himself. “Are you even listening?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Percy replied, unable to keep the malice from his voice.
She frowned at him, smoke hissing near her ears. “You seem awfully assured of yourself.”
“I’m simply paying attention.” He flexed his bad hand, he hadn’t been wearing Diplomacy that night, and he sorely missed it. He looked around the small cabin they found themselves in. “If you wanted me dead you would have done something about it already.”
Ripley’s brow raised, her lip twitching upwards. “I’m surprised at you, Percival, you used to beg me to kill you.”
Percy held back the flinch at the memories clawing at the back of his mind, memories he’d long since buried. The ones that haunted him in his darker moments, the ones that made him wake up screaming. “I’m not a child anymore, Anna.”
“Oh no,” Ripley agreed. “You’ve grown since we first met.” She strode forward, crouching in front of him. She smelled like black-powder, pine and smoke. “I think I liked you better back then.”
Disgust curled in his stomach at her proximity. He had once thought she was of a similar mind (and she was, wasn’t she?) and he’d been excited to talk to her, to get to know the front she’d put up. Before it all happened, he had been struck by her intelligence, by her wit. He had thought . . .
It didn’t matter what he thought. He was wrong.
He remained quiet, not wanting to let the doctor get any satisfaction from his discomfort. She stood once more, patted his leg with her mechanical hand, and stepped back. The place where she’d touched him burned.
“Yes, why don’t we stroll down memory lane?” She hummed as she moved to her bag, a simple leather satchel. “It could be good for both of us.”
I doubt it. Percy wanted to say, but the words dried up on his tongue when she pulled out a familiar wrapped kit.
He controlled his breathing, his eyes flashing to the cracked window showing the dawning sky outside. It would be light soon; they would come for him.
He would be fine.
Ripley sighed as she placed her kit down on a table in the corner of the room. Percy struggled against his restraints, trying to get at any weak spots.
“I can hear you,” Ripley said as she trailed a finger along her tools.
Percy bit back a growl of frustration, he wasn’t going to take this lying down, sitting down, he wasn’t a child, he wasn’t helpless anymore.
He still had the scars. The marks of his torture etched onto his skin permanently under his many layers. He wore them for more than vanity, more than habit. It was his armor, his protection from the prying eyes of those around him.
Ripley approached him, a wicked looking knife in hand, Percy swallowed thickly.
Suddenly he didn’t feel like he was an adult; he felt like a seventeen-year-old boy, trapped in his own basement, pain and his grieving sister his only companions.
He set his face, glaring at her. “You don’t have to do this; it won’t change anything.”
“Oh, I don’t have to do this, you’re correct,” Ripley grinned at him before stabbing the knife into his shoulder.
Percy let out a strangled shout as agony erupted through his shoulder. His fingers curled around the arms of the chair, his body spasming as he instinctively tried to get away from the source of the pain.
Ripley let go of the knife, leaving it in the joint as she gently touched his cheek, tilting his face to hers. He stared at her, fire in his nerves, nothing in her eyes. “I just like you better broken.”