Chapter Text
Vax had been on edge from the moment they entered the Feywild.
Before they’d entered it, really.
The memory of the tomb still lingered, the sight of Vex’s unmoving body, the touch of her cold dead skin. It had been a nightmare made reality, a nightmare that wiggled its way out into the daylight, something that would haunt him until the day he died.
Maybe even beyond.
This realm felt a step behind, a moment just to the left, a pendulum that could swing on a whim and bury them all. Like the tomb it was a place suited to luck running out. No one else seemed to recognise the danger. Even Vex seemed intrigued by this place, curious at the strangeness of the surroundings, a hint of wonder shared by Keyleth’s hesitant smile. Percy’s expression had been one of immediate excitement, eyes lighting up, an almost childish delight softening the demeanour of the usually reserved human. Vax had wanted to reach out and shake him—this place is dangerous Freddy, why don’t you understand—to rage, to hit him again, to knock him to the floor and maybe this time Percy would hit him back.
Vax wanted Percy to hit him back.
He wanted the sharpness, the part inside Percy that would bite, the harshness had become a finely tuned serrated edge. Vax wanted him to fight back, wanted to be met blow for blow so he could feel satisfied. When he’d punched Percy he’d expected to be hit just as hard, had wanted him to get up and fight him, to give just as good as he got, but instead of the expected catharsis he’d been foiled. Robbed. Vax needed to let the anger out, the sharp and ugly part of him, and he’d sought something that he’d been sure could reflect it back.
But Percy had remained so—so soft.
It was the same way he’d been since they’d left Whitestone. Almost nauseatingly eager to please. Vax had seen it for what it was, the way he was trying so very hard, and before the tomb he’d been starting to worry.
Then Vex died.
And suddenly it didn’t matter what Percy thought he had to make up for. Now Vax found himself getting angrier the more Percy demurred, the more he fell back and gave way. This wasn’t who he was.
Vax wanted the edges of him back.
Now they were separated from the group, had been neatly shuffled away in the midst of a battle, lost in a series of tunnels Vax didn’t have the first idea about navigating. The light here was dim enough to challenge Percy’s human eyesight, faltering as it filtering through cracks in the rock above their heads. It didn’t make any sense. They couldn’t be far from the others, couldn’t have moved more than thirty feet, but the stone around them was quiet and still.
The earring in his ear was silent.
Vax didn’t know if this was a trap, if that strange creature Garmelie had planned this on purpose, or if this was just another example of how fucked up and dangerous this realm was. Whatever the answer was, it wasn’t important right now, a puzzle better left for once they’d re-joined Vex and Keyleth. The longer they were separated the more anxious he felt, a worry that was starting to make Vax feel sick, because the longer Vex was out of his sight the more this was beginning to feel like he was back in that tomb. They needed a clue, some hint as to which of the many tunnels they should take.
“We should look around.”
Percy nodded.
They searched in silence.
“Hmm.”
Vax turned at the sound, saw Percy stood by a wall, brushing dust from an inscription etched across it. He began to make his way over, trying to make the writing out as he closed the distance, quickly realising the script meant absolutely nothing to him at all.
“It’s Celestial.” Percy said, frowning as he approached, squinting in the low light, lips parting as he mouthed the words. “I think—“
“What does it say?” Vax asked impatiently.
“One moment,” Percy was still frowning. Then he nodded. “Yes. It—“
The string of sound that followed was lyrical.
Maybe he should have been clearer that he’d meant the translation, Vax thought sardonically, even as he observed how well the language lent itself to song.
He couldn’t help but think it sounded beautiful in Percy’s voice.
So much so that Vax froze as he listened, lost to a moment where he just stood there and took it in, but he was soon spurned to action when Percy began to glow. He darted forwards just as Percy’s voice abruptly cut off, silenced just as the light flared a brilliant, dazzling white. Of course it was a curse, a trick, another piece of magic that wasn’t safe. There wasn’t even enough time to reach for him; light blazed so bright Vax had to cover his eyes, shield them from it, and when Vax was finally able to take his hand away he couldn’t help the feeling of horror. Of panic. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be finding his friend dead.
And yet what greeted him wasn’t a body—wasn’t another of them still and cold on the ground, lost forever because they hadn’t been careful—but the Percy he was greeted with definitely wasn’t the one he’d been expecting.
A de-aging spell.
Of course.
It didn’t take a genius to guess what age the magic had picked.
Even if the tattered clothes hadn’t given it away—the dirty shredded cloth that had once been fine— all it would have taken was one look at Percy’s face. There was a bruise across one cheekbone, purpling to black, vivid against skin that had always been pale but was now unnaturally so. His hair had already turned white, noticeable even though it was streaked with dirt, the strands dishevelled. There were dark circles bruising the skin under Percy’s eyes, the skin there delicate, paper thin, his lips bloodless and chapped. One of the lenses in his glasses was cracked. The clothes he wore seemed a touch too big, as if borrowed from an older brother, but Vax knew it was the evidence of weight that had been lost far too quickly.
He found himself staring at his fingers, at the nails missing from each slim hand, before he snapped himself out of it and looked back up at Percy’s face.
There was no fear in his eyes.
Or, at least, not the traditional interpretation of it.
Percy was looking at him with suspicion, sizing him up with the expectation of pain, confused only by the method by which it would come. Too thin arms wrapped around his torso, unashamedly protective as Percy seemed to fold into himself, because this was pride set aside in favour of necessity. A need to stay upright. A need to stay alert.
A need to stay alive.
Vax had wanted the sharpness back.
But not like this.
The anger at Freddy, his Freddy, had been shoved aside the moment the light had faded, banked because this wasn’t him, and until he got his Percy back it wouldn’t so much as leak out. This Percy was new, someone he’d never met, years too young to be blamed for future mistakes. Years too young to even know what they were. This Percy was a ghost from a past Vax had only just begun to learn the shape of, a sudden resurrection, something that he’d only known as a memory—
This Percy was a child.
“You’re a new one.” Percy said softly, eyes unblinking behind cracked glasses, the pallor of his skin a mere shade darker than ashen. There was derision in his tone. “Never thought Ripley would work with an elf.”
“Half elf.” Vax corrected automatically, almost too stunned by the whole thing to say much else, wondering how he could even begin to explain what was going on. “And I’m not working with Ripley.”
The tilt of Percy’s head wasn’t curious, a calculated motion. Disbelief. “If you say so.”
“Percy—”
“Don’t call me that.” There was anger now, blooming bright, a flash of seething hate in Percy’s eyes, and Vax had to hurry up and explain before things got worse.
“Freddy then.”
Percy seemed shocked enough by that, by the teasing tone, to gape at him a little before he recovered with a scowl. For a moment he seemed to lean back towards anger—pitching towards it as if inclined to fall—narrowed eyes icy enough to match their light blue hue. Then his expression cleared, went blank, all evidence of how Vax had managed to surprise him shuttered, and Percy promptly turned away and said nothing at all.
Right.
This wasn’t going well.
“You’ve been hit with a curse.” Vax continued, trying to explain, gesturing to the stone around them, the inscription etched on the wall. “I’m not working with Ripley, or the Briarwoods, and you must have noticed how we aren’t even in Whitestone. This is—”
“Just get on with it already.” Percy interrupted coldly, not so much as glancing his way, seeming determined to ignored their surroundings as well. “The more you talk, the longer I have to wait before I can go back to my cell.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Vax tried very hard not to sound too exasperated.
“Then it’s to be boredom then?” Percy finally turned to face him, laughed, a terrible sound lacking mirth, mocking and cold and the slightest bit broken. Those bloodless lips tilted into a smirk as he spoke, tone cutting, defiance etched into his tense frame just as behind him a curse remained etched into the wall. “Ripley must be running out of ideas.”
Time to change tact.
“Does that seem likely to you?”
“Not really.” Percy replied blithely.
“Then we both know that I’m either lying to get you to let down your guard, or I’m telling the truth because I don’t actually need to trick you.” Vax took a deep breath, pushed softness aside because right now Percy was forming his arguments with steel, and the only effective response was to match it. “I’m better armed than you are, stronger, faster, and we both know that effective torture doesn’t really require creativity. Only patience. Can you think of a reason why I’d come up with such a story to trick you when I hold every advantage?”
Percy smiled.
“Perhaps you think getting me to trust you will get you more reliable answers.”
The tone was glib, laced with doubt—but he was listening.
Those suspicious blue eyes were curious.
“So what’s the scenario here?” Vax challenged, pushing that mind to think because this didn’t make sense. “They put you somewhere you’ve never seen before, with no memory of how you got there, with a person you’ve never met who tells you the most ridiculous story you’ve ever heard? Don’t you think Ripley is smart enough to come up with a better backstory?”
Percy shrugged. “She might be. But you’re obviously not.”
Ouch.
Now Vax was the one who laughed, unable to help it, relieved because it seemed Percy was still Percy no matter what age he was. “If I was trying to trick you I’d have staged this as an escape. Snuck in and rescued you from your cell. Questioned you on the way out. It would have been pretty easy.”
Percy didn’t say anything.
Vax walked closer, silent, a saunter that slipped straight into dangerous, a demonstration he didn’t want to give but knew the value of. It was a last resort, really, a last ditch attempt to convince Percy that he was telling the truth.
He really hoped that it worked.
Vax slid a dagger from its sheath, a little bit of theatre to it that wasn’t strictly necessary, watched blue eyes widen a little, got right up close as Percy shrank back. His back met the wall, there was nowhere to go, and Vax darted forwards, blade against his throat before Percy had time to blink, pressed gently against the skin, precise in how it wouldn’t leave a mark. This close Vax could see just how sharp those cheekbones were, the hollow of Percy’s sunken cheeks, the way skin was beginning to stretch too thinly over bone. Vax had his forearm across his chest, a firm bar of restraint, holding him flat against the wall in case Percy decided to try and move.
It wasn’t fair in the slightest.
This wasn’t even the beginning’s of a balanced fight, wasn’t even close, because Percy was a tiny slip of a thing. He was all bones and bruises, years away from the threat he'd be with his pepper box, and Vax—
Well.
Vax was wearing the Deathwalker's Ward.
Even if he wasn’t, even if it had just been him and his daggers, Vax still had the benefit of strength and experience both. He was a fully armed adult against a defenceless kid. Percy seemed to know it too; first he had frozen, now his breathing sped up, seemed to stutter, but despite his obvious fear he didn’t try and fight back. There was a wild thing in his eyes, something dangerous that Vax had never seen, even when Percy was an adult, a feral glimmer that even Orthax hadn’t teased out. It was the hint of something that would gnaw off its own arm to escape a trap.
And yet despite it Percy stayed still. His hands remained loose by his sides, the instinct to raise them obviously long since trained out of him.
Percy knew it wouldn’t help.
He knew it wouldn’t stop the hurt.
Even if Vax knew he had nothing to fear from him—knew this wasn’t a lesson intended to end in pain— something within him couldn’t help but be enraged by that. Something within him couldn’t help but wish them dead again, the Briarwoods and the rest, couldn’t help but dream into being a target painted on Ripley’s back like a beacon.
A part of him couldn’t help but wish for vengeance.
“If I wanted to hurt you,” Vax said gently, a promise in his voice that he didn’t want to give, a reiteration of just how outmatched Percy was that felt too much like being cruel. “I would. And there wouldn’t be anything you could do about it. I wouldn’t need to resort to tricks, ok?”
A nod.
“Good. Now luckily I don’t want to hurt you so—”
Percy kicked him in the balls.
Fucking. Hells.
The kid was lucky Vax’s reflexes were so good, the knife almost jerked downwards to sink into his shoulder, a twitch of the hand he caught before it proved disastrous. The pain was blisteringly bright, distracting, but Vax, unfortunately, already had a fair amount of experience with being hit in the balls. And a certain goliath could hit far harder than a skinny, malnourished teenage boy.
It still fucking hurt though.
Vax didn’t let it steal his focus, cursed, kept hold of him, made easy by how Percy wasn’t actually trying to wiggle away. He moved his hand, kept it flat on Percy’s chest as Vax waited to see if he’d try and kick him again.
Percy didn’t, stood still and watched him warily. Considering.
Calculating.
“Gods damn it Freddy,” Vax cursed again as he very deliberately sheathed the knife. “I could have stabbed you.”
“You could have.” Percy nodded, eyes still intent and so very blue, examining him closely as if dissecting him piece by piece in his mind. “You should have. Unless you have remarkable commitment to the lie the instinct should have been to retaliate. You deliberately pulled the knife away.”
“I did.” Vax said, hand still firm on his chest. “So do you trust me now?”
For a moment Percy looked so very young, worrying at his lip, daring to hope, before finally he shook his head. “Not even a little bit. But I don’t think you’re here to harm me, and I don’t believe you’re working with Ripley.”
Finally.
“Am I safe to let you go then?”
“Yes.” Percy said. Then—“I’m sorry I kicked you.”
“No you’re not.”
“No I’m not.” Percy repeated with a smirk.
There was still an edge of suspicion, of coldness, but Percy had started to relax beneath his hand, no longer so tense. Vax’s gamble had paid off—the proof of just how complete a defeat would be should there be a fight—because Percy had needed the confirmation. It was more than a little fucked up, more than a little disturbing, but Vax found the rationale was actually relatively easy to understand. Percy had needed the threat of danger so he could see it pass, needed a blade at his throat so he could trust it being taken away, needed to know that retaliation wouldn’t be punished. It had done what words hadn’t, couldn’t, because even if Vax hadn’t yet been able to gain his trust—
Being threatened had finally made Percy feel safe.
And so maybe this wasn’t exactly the smoothest of starts to a friendship, but given the fact that Vax had met the adult version of his friend in a prison cell it was definitely a lot better than nothing.
Vax would take what he could get.
He let Percy go, took a few steps back to give him space, wincing because fuck that kick still hurt. “Will you let me finish explaining then?”
“You said something about a curse?”