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[pathography]

to be beautified later.

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[pathography]

He kisses her head when she lays it against his shoulder, the weight of it familiar and entirely welcome. Resting is tolerable when it's the two of them like this - but he can hardly expect her to entertain him every hour of the day.

For now, though, it goes a long way toward soothing his petty irritation. How can he feel anything but fortunate when the most beautiful woman in the world is leaning against him? She settles in close and he gives one of her hands a squeeze, before setting it over his heartbeat.

"I'm not determined to be a grump," he replies, and the words are amused, not defensive. "But when I step back and look at myself...I'm not always sure I like what I see."

It's not a confession he expects will be surprising; they, and all their friends, have done things they aren't proud of, in the twisting paths that have brought them to the present moment. Admitting it isn't easy, though. His sense of pride is at times defensive, a set of armor he puts on against the world.

"When you look at me," he says quietly, playing idly with the end of her braid, "what do you see? Or - no, I can guess that, and it's entirely too complimentary." He's teasing, mostly. "What do you think I should see, Vex?"

[sinaeths]

Vex smiles against his shoulder, his hand guiding hers right where she would have put it anyway. Her smile dims as he continues to speak. No, his confession isn't a surprise, but she knows how hard it is to talk about such things... even with someone you trust your whole heart to.

"Well," she sighs, watching her fingers play with the fabric of his shirt, "I would ask you what, exactly, do you not like? You're a survivor, Percy. The terrible things that happened to you and your family... all we've fought as Vox Machina... and at the end of the day, your heart desires good. You want to restore your home. Make it a better place. And you're brilliant enough and determined enough to do it."

[pathography]

"I might be," he owns, his gaze shifting from her hand to the rain pouring down the windows outside. From this vantage point, he can appreciate that it's lovely to watch, the sort of day that begs to be enjoyed from a place as cozy as their bed. It's a pity he couldn't have come to that conclusion before driving Vex halfway round the bend, but he has the slightly discomfited sensation that these are words that need to be spoken aloud at some point. "I'm also...drawn to the darkness of the world, I think. Practical in ways that could hurt people, idealistic in ways that could hurt people, too. I'm overly rigid, I'm melancholy at times, and I can be a real asshole, even if I'm not a complete asshole."

None of which has put her off, at least, but there's no denying Vex is a biased party. Lying here with him, feeling his heart thump under her fingertips, wearing the title Lady Vex'ahlia de Rolo - she'll never look at him and see a monster. It's a fact he's grateful for, but he's not convinced he's earned it.

"And I'm..." His eyes close, and he rests his cheek against her hair. There's no safer person to confess just how little he thinks of himself, but it's still an ordeal to say the words aloud. "It's not enough to say I'm drawn to darkness. Cruelty comes to me so much more easily than mercy, Vex. After everything we've been through, if you walked me back to the beginning and gave me the chance to do it differently, I'd only want to kill people that much faster and more painfully. I can be better than that - I try to be better than that - but I'm not sure I really am."

[sinaeths]

She came so close to losing him forever in the worst possible way: without telling him she loved him. Even if he saw through her bullshit, her fears, it would have haunted her for the rest of her days. He's allowed to drive her a little crazy for what nearly happened.

(One day this quiet patience may give way, but Vex would like to think she has it in decent supply.)

"You're painfully self-aware," she says after a moment. The worst men in the world have no idea they're the worst. She falls silent for another few moments, choosing her words carefully. "Dear... a lot of our problems have been solved by killing people. And I think some of them did get off lightly--you aren't alone in wishing we could have done worse. You know who you are, and you know your nature and your impulses. The difference between you and something despicable is that you restrain yourself. And I can guarantee you won't feel or think the same way forever."

She's already a different person since meeting him. He's changed in that time, too.

"For the longest time, you only had darkness and cruelty. Not anymore. You have your home, your sister. A chance to be whoever you wish to be."

Perhaps that's more intimidating than he realizes. It's not altogether different from what she faces, but at least she has him to worry about to distract her from thinking about it overmuch.

[pathography]

"I have you." It doesn't escape his notice that her list is incomplete - and it's hard to imagine you have your wife of two days has slipped her mind. He wonders that that means, if it means anything. "And you make me a better person. I know that much."

Not solely her, of course, but when he thinks of how Vox Machina has changed him, he thinks of Vex's steadiness first. She's kind without falling victim to naïveté, self-assured without being (too) bullheaded. She's seen the uncertainty in him and shown gentleness; when he's needed help, she's never hesitated. There was love between them long before she invited him to her room, but its depth and breadth have both grown.

"I do want to believe you," he adds, letting his eyes close again for a moment or two. "And perhaps one of these days, I will. Once I've become whoever it is I want to be - once I can see what that looks like."

[sinaeths]

"Of course you have me. That's a given."

And she thinks they make one another better. He's softened her heart and chipped away at walls so carefully constructed she couldn't see past them. He can match her moods, balance her, and turn her into mush. All things she can do to him in return.

"Whoever you wish to be, you'll have me. I believe that was part of what the good Keeper said, if I'm not mistaken? I may not have been paying attention at some parts," she teases. Truthfully, their wedding is a blur in her mind. Mostly, she remembers his hands in hers and the happiness in his eyes. "You need to allow yourself time to figure it out. But I promise you, the man you are now... he's a good one. One I hope to have a family with, some day."

She might as well toss that in there in case there was any doubt.

And maybe to make him sweat.

[pathography]

Here, if nowhere else, he disappoints, as some heretofore-unnoticed tension in his body eases. The thought of children probably should make him slightly nervous, but right now, it doesn't. If anything, it's clarifying: there, in her voice, is what he wants. A legacy for Whitestone, a lively home, room for each of them to give a child the things they were denied. As always, Vex finds the heart of an issue and hands it over to him, when he would have searched for ages.

"We'll have to consummate this marriage at some point," he murmurs, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice, "if you want a family."

Maybe today, even. Dreary weather is, frankly, the perfect backdrop for intimacy. But that's a matter to settle later; he wants to keep her talking, hear the dreams she has for them. "How many, do you think?"

[sinaeths]

Oh. He takes it in stride, and Vex is both surprised and charmed--enough to huff out a laugh against his shoulder, even if the conversation had been heavy a moment ago. She's found a new way to save him from the melancholy. It warms her to the marrow of her bones.

"How many rooms do we have to fill?" Vex jokes. A family is a lovely thought, and though motherhood hadn't been on her bucket list because she couldn't imagine something like settling down, she can so easily see herself as the mother of Percy's children. "Don't forget, twins run on my side of the family."

She slips her arms around him to give him an affectionate squeeze. Consummating their marriage would lift his spirits further, but she's still feeling out whether he's capable of doing so without landing himself in another casket.

"Perhaps one short of an alarming number. Five?"

[pathography]

"They'd outnumber us two to one," he says with a laugh, tilting his head so he can press a kiss to the tip of her nose. "It'd be sheer anarchy."

And he loves the idea. It's not without sacrifice - with children underfoot, they lose the freedom of constant traveling and, frankly, killing dangerous shit for money - but what they gain would surely make up for it. Vex must feel the same, he thinks, or she'd be more hesitant about the entire idea. Five children isn't the suggestion of a woman with half-hearted interest in reproducing.

Perhaps she feels as he does, that little shock of hopeful anticipation at the idea of someone else in the world built up of the person she loves most. The thought is a humbling one. (So much easier to imagine when it's her - some sly little girl or boy with its mother's looks, clever with sums and willing to try anything once. Who wouldn't want that?)

"We can consider it the upper limit. I'm not sure how my parents managed seven." A pause, rueful. "Well, I do know how - they loved us, of course, but tutors and governesses raised us as much as they did. If we do this - when we do this - I want to be there for everything that matters. I never want them to wonder if they're the most important part of our lives."

[sinaeths]

"Anarchy? What are you implying about children with both our traits, darling?" She can't manage a straight face as the words come out, laughing before she even gets to her endearment. Their children would be hellions. Far too smart for their own good, climbing into and onto things they shouldn't, and testing their limits at any given opportunity. It sounds wonderful. She feels her love for Percy grow all the more.

They've both spent so long without a place to put down roots that the prospect of doing so in Whitestone excites her. She can give up the travel and the fighting and the thrills if it means having a family with the man she loves.

She shifts so that she can look at him properly.

"You will. We both will. Our children will have lives far better than we did, and we'll make sure they know how much they're loved and wanted. Considering how you've given me that gift..."

Her smile widens. He's given her everything.

"I have no worries about the kind of man you are or the type of father you'll be, Percy. You're not perfect, but I'll admit that you're damn close. I'm the luckiest woman in the world."

[pathography]

"I'm implying," he says, trying his best not to join her in laughter and failing, "that any child of ours is going to be impossibly stubborn and exhaustingly curious."

And he wouldn't have it any other way. He can imagine teaching them the chemistry of black powder, Vex showing them how to hold a bow. And poor Trinket will never have a moment's peace again - he had better luxuriate in his fireside naps while their lives remain quiet.

Percy's expression softens as she goes on, from amusement into a sort of self-conscious pleasure. Right now, at least, he can believe in the kindness of her words, even if he'll find himself doubting them again in the future. (That part might be necessary - the doubt. So long as it's in question whether he's as good a man as he ought to be, he'll continue to work for it.) His face going pink, he reaches up to brush the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

"Exactly as lucky as I." He's quiet for a moment, hesitating at the threshold of a conversation he's not sure they should enter. "Speaking of our childhoods...do you want to inform your father that you've married? Not before Vax, of course. But when we make this known, do you want word sent to him officially?"

[sinaeths]

The warmth in Vex's eyes abruptly disappears. Nothing directed at Percy, of course, and even when Vex settles back against the pillows she keeps her hand on his chest. Her father is never a topic that encourages happiness. She would consider their relationship marginally improved, but the wounds run deep. She doesn't want to fall back into old habits, her own darkness.

"... I don't know." But maybe that's an answer in itself, given it's not a resounding yes. "He would find some way to get under my skin. Make some sort of remark or simply not respond. I worry all it would do is set me off."

The honest truth. She sighs and closes her eyes.

"I always feel like a little girl again when faced with the thought of my father. And yet a part of me still feels like I could prove myself, gain what I always longed for as a child... he may regard me better now, but I don't think he's earned the right to know what I do with my life."

Vax would be happy to hear that, she thinks. There's the answer. She does know, doesn't she? With another sigh, she opens her eyes to look to Percy.

"... no. We don't need to tell him. And when we have children, they'll have plenty of aunts and uncles. There's no need for that man in their lives."

She might understand him better now, but that doesn't mean everything is forgotten.

[pathography]

He knows as he's asking that this is a question that will hurt. It's something they'll have to discuss eventually, though - and while perhaps it didn't have to be now, at least it's over and done with.

But that doesn't make it any easier to see the old pain in her frown.

"He can find out the way everyone else in the realm does," Percy promises, feeling a measure of mean satisfaction at the idea, because really, fuck Vex's father. "I would never ask you to speak to him directly, my love - at most, I'd suggest we send a messenger. And to be honest, I don't want to. I don't want him to have a single chance to ruin your happiness."

But that's not his decision to make, ultimately. He can support Vex in everything, and where he can protect her from unhappiness, he will - but he can't take away her choices in the process. (In the back of his mind, he wonders if there's a way to leave open the possibility of a relationship with Velora, who can hardly be blamed for her father's cruelty...but if so, Vex will have to decide upon it.) He presses a gentle kiss to Vex's mouth, sympathy and apology in equal measure.

[sinaeths]

His support means everything. Once, it only felt like she had Vax. Now, she has Percy, too. It softens the pain of lacking the support of her father when she wished to have it most.

The kiss is a balm for her discomfort, and she returns it, palm pressing to Percy's cheek.

"Have I told you that I love you yet today?" She asks. She does try to say it daily since that terrible span of time where she didn't have a chance to say it to him at all. "Because I do. Every day I love you a little more, in fact."

[pathography]

"If it means I get to hear it again," he murmurs, "then I've never heard it before in my life."

More importantly, chasing the joke with another little kiss, he adds, "I love you, Vex'ahlia. Sometimes I think I always have."

Even when she's been a pain in the ass. Even when she was a stranger at the bars of his cell, willing to trust him without more than his word to go on. And now - especially now, talking over the future and the past with him, her every touch gentle. The world has shrunk down to the two of them, and the life they're building together.

[sinaeths]

She smiles against his lips, amused.

"Now I know you're full of it, my darling Percival." She was so stubborn, so unwilling to let others in. She had tried particularly hard to keep him out, most of all. Because she was always drawn to him, always the first to reach for him or make sure he was okay. It wasn't something she thought to do--it was instinctual.

Fondness came quicker than she'd admit, but love? She has no idea when that happened. She's only glad it did.

"You can go easy on the flattery. I already agreed to marry you."

[pathography]

"Perhaps I like flattering you." Percy doesn't draw back, one hand moving down her side as he speaks. Maybe, he thinks. Maybe if he nudged her back against the mattress and kissed her again, deeper this time... "Perhaps you're simply beautiful and fascinating, and you always have been."

All right, now he's laying it on thick - but it's as much for her amusement as for the truth of it all. This time, when he kisses her, it's both hungry and tentative, the latter only because he's expecting to hear not until you're better.

[sinaeths]

Vex can read him like the book she left on the nightstand. It goes both ways: he's correct to assume the need in their kiss would remind Vex of his health. It does. But that's not entirely why she breaks the kiss, reaching up to stoke his jaw with the backs of her fingers.

He does so much better when he can be himself. Do what he enjoys. When he can forget he was recently deceased. She gets it.

"Tomorrow... let's spend an hour or so in your workshop."

Vex slides a finger down his jawline, index finger at the underside of his chin. There are other things that make him feel like himself.

"As for tonight? You'll have to remain on your back."

Flattery really does get you everywhere.

[pathography]

"My workshop?" Percy asks, naked hope in his voice. Embarrassing though it may be, having the offer extended is nearly as arousing as that kiss. He's been laboring under the assumption that he'll be waiting until he's walking without a cane, if ever.

If not for the fact of her hand at his jaw, he'd be tempted to get up and hobble over to the stack of sketches he's left on a side table. With only an hour to spare, he won't get far, but he can make plans - and when they go down there, he won't waste time deciding just where to start. But he's not about to give up Vex's touch for the sake of daydreaming, particularly not when she's giving him that look.

When she delivers her final pronouncement, he grins. A merciful wife, Vex'ahlia, even as she drives a hard bargain. "You'd want me there anyway."

[sinaeths]

"Seeing as the weather will keep us from walking around outside, we might as well walk to your workshop, take a break, and walk back." A break that will consist of him tinkering away at one thing or another, with Vex making sure he doesn't push himself too far. An hour should be manageable. "Practical and convenient on all fronts."

It has occurred to her he might rely on that cane longer than they believe. The last thing she wants is for him to be denied the things he enjoys because of it, so she'll do what she must to see that he can still create in his workshop. He can still be intimate with his wife.

... hopefully. She'll feel terrible if either of those go wrong.

"Though I don't know if we shouldn't call it an early night so you're well rested for tomorrow..."

The cock of her brow and the quirk of her lips are a dead giveaway she's teasing, trying not to laugh.

[pathography]

It sounds like a dream. The dream, really. It's been long enough that his fingers are itching to get back to work, even if the rest of him hasn't caught up yet. Some restrictions will be inevitable - even at his most optimistic, he knows he's not yet steady enough on his feet to light up his forge and hammer steel - but there must be things he can manage. Readying supplies for making bullets. Determining what he'll need if he wants to create the sort of jewelry Vex deserves to wear. Laying out plans for a new device he's been daydreaming about, for close combat situations.

And, perhaps most selfishly, showing her around the space in a way he hasn't before. They have all the time in the world these days, not to mention the security of the vows they've made; he wants her to understand this part of his life better. Perhaps he could teach her the basics of his work, simply for the joy of seeing her pick it up. And eventually, she could do him the same honor: archery lessons, practice in tracking, explaining to him all the things she can read in the shape of the wilderness. Anything to know her better, and to be better known in turn.

That, however, is a conversation for tomorrow, when they've walked down to the workshop. (It's likely drafty in there, the weather being what it is, but they'll build a fire that isn't quite as hot as usual.) Right now, he catches the shift in her - the way she's trying her damnedest to look serious and failing utterly - and gives her bone-dry commentary in return.

"We've already retired to bed, Vex'ahlia," he points out, as though they're discussing the weather. He's fingering the hem of her blouse, not quite threatening to take it off her, his knuckles brushing against her bare skin by chance. "And I believe I'm allotted some light activity every day - which I haven't actually gotten, thanks to the rain. Making love to you might be a necessity when the weather's dreary, if I'm to keep up with my exercise."

[sinaeths]

Keeping his spirits up is just as important as his body healing. In moderation, she's sure he's capable of handling most things.

But she knows moderation is a lot to ask of the man when it comes to his passions. Yet even just the prospect of going to the space has him so happy--she can't help but be happy, too. This is the Percy she loves most. Busy, thinking, planning. It's that clever mind of his at work.

Yet these days she knows she's a passion of his, too.

"Suddenly you're very concerned about your routine," she grins. "That wasn't the case fifteen minutes ago. Strange."

She hums as she gently moves onto him, pressing him back into the pillows, breasts pressing to his chest. It's a noticeably slower approach than she'd typically take. A tame touch against his neck rather than hungry, though not for lack of desire. She doesn't know how much is too much for him, but there's only one way to find out.

[pathography]

Frankly, Percival de Rolo wouldn't know moderation if it bit him in the ass. It clearly exists - other people are capable of it, after all - but he can't seem to do anything halfway. He leaps off the metaphorical cliff every time, given the chance to find what he wants at the bottom.

But Vex has proven more than adept at slowing him down lately. With rare exception, he's willing to listen to her even when he'd rather not listen to anyone.

"My routine suddenly got a lot more interesting," he points out, running a hand up her spine. While polite turns around the garden are survivable - and the company is second to none - they might have just found a more enjoyable way to get his heart rate up. Add in walks within the castle, specifically down to his tools, and a man could hardly ask for more. "Are there any, ah, ground rules, besides letting you do the hard work?"

So to speak.

[sinaeths]

As his hand roams up her spine, her fingers trail into his hair. Through their children, she might see the exact shade of Percy's hair.

"I don't know if I can ask you to promise to tell me to stop if something feels amiss."

It's been a while and she knows she's good. That doesn't really encourage Percy to pull the emergency brake unless it's dire.

And even then...

Vex looks like she might lean down to kiss him, but stops just short of his lips.

"We may just have to have the one rule. You'll have to allow me to attend to my wifely duties without interference."

[pathography]

"Your wifely duties," Percy repeats, unable to keep from smirking. She's near enough that he's a little cross-eyed, not to mention tempted to close the distance and kiss her himself. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

In fairness, the phrase encompasses rather more than let me fuck you the way I want to; if he needs to stop, and he's not willing, calling a halt to proceedings qualifies.

He's dearly hoping this won't be too much for him, though. The weight of Vex's body is as familiar as it is welcome, and her touch has lost none of its power in the time since they last found themselves in this situation. A few weeks ago, it would have been well beyond him, but now, he's determined to make it happen.