strangetrip | Log: Percy and Vax'ildan

Percy ponders paternity and posterity. Vax provides validation.

It had been almost two months since the science stick had delivered its surprising news and Percy, as he usually did, had been doing a lot of thinking. Long hours at night had been spent, his hand linked with Vex's over the subtle swell of her belly, discussing the future. But while they'd settled on a name for a son, nothing that either of them had suggested sounded right for their daughter. Percy thought he knew why, and why Vex hadn't said anything yet. He knocked off early from building the forge one evening and went to find his brother in law. He needed to discuss something important.

Vax'ildan didn't know from babies. And he couldn't figure out how one got from not knowing anything about them to having a pretty good idea about their care and feeding without actually having any experience. He even went so far as to try the library for a book on How to Baby, but wouldn't you know it, between four expecting parents and the healers well aware of what was coming and however many other interested parties, all of those sorts of books were long gone by the time he went looking. (The scary librarian tried handing him a printed page about how to put on a condom on properly, which was both insulting and yet would have been sort of helpful earlier in his stay at the Inn.) He was more or less resigning himself to going back to his room and asking Steph about it over dinner when he spotted Percival seemingly going in the same direction, and moved to meet up with him.

"Percy!" He did that thing that had become routine before he spoke, to remind himself to reign in all the jokes and jibes and giddy remarks he wanted to say about being a father while they were out where anybody could overhear. "What're you doing out of your workshop? Got lost on your way to the bathroom, did you?"

"Surprisingly, no. I was looking for you." Percy fell into step beside Vax. As time had worn on, all of Vox Machina had started to dress native, but Percy couldn't bring himself to put on tee shirts. So he ruined a fair number of button downs and undershirts every week while building the forge. Today's sacrifice had started out blue with thin black stripes. "Let's get a drink."

Vax quirked his eyebrows at Percy curiously. Not for nothing - they usually had a fine time on the occasion they found a bottle to pass between them - but he was surprised that Percy would tear himself away from his projects (that he was about to lose all time for) and Vex (for good reason) to fuck off with him. "Okay," he agreed, because there wasn't a good reason not to really. "Have you got a place in mind, or a drink in mind for that matter?"

Percy was not inclined to give away the content of his request just yet. "Whatever your poison, but someplace where we're not likely to be overheard or swooped upon by your lovely sister."

"Whispers", Vax murmured conspiratorily. Planning something pleasant for Vex and the baby, possibly. Which he, as brother/uncle, was full-on interested in aiding and abetting. "I think I know a place."

He almost took them to the Silver Bar, where they'd had some heart-to-heart drinking before. It'd served them well that way, but it was a bit... Too much, maybe? Likely to have people in it at this hour, too. And he thought about showing Percy up to the roof, to the spot he and Stephanie liked to go when they wanted to look out over the whole of the Inn and share company. But that was maybe too private. What he ended up doing was more or less splitting the difference, and taking them to the secluded pool bar - which, as luck would have it, was unoccupied when they arrived. The pool was sort of a running gag of a thread for them anyway, wasn't it? Though he really didn't think they were planning on drinking themselves ridiculous tonight.

"You want a whiskey?" Vax hopped over the counter to let himself at the limited selection of bottles, before looking back over his shoulder to waggle eyebrows at Percy. "Or is it a fruit and tiny umbrella mood you're in?"

"Something cold," was Percy's only request as he sat opposite Vax at the bar. He didn't have anything against the drinks with little umbrellas. Nor would he object to a beer, come to that. After a day at the forge, really, the only thing that mattered at this point was washing away the grit in his throat. And, of course, giving him a bit of grounding for this conversation. "You seem chipper."

Vax had watched Kitty go at it behind the bar to see how modern drinking could involve a whole host of different bottles and specialty tools and varying glasses, the blending machine and ice and cutting boards and exotic ingredients. But he didn't actually know how it was done himself, and he didn't have any interest in trying to learn just now. So he stuck with something familiar, reaching into the Box of Colding they called a 'fridge' here to draw out two bottles of beer for them. He used the tool for opening the funny tops, and with the very last of his bar prowess, stuck one of those umbrellas into a lime and balanced that on tapered opening of Percy's open bottle before he slid it over.

"I'm not, actually," Vax admitted quietly after a long moment, still looking at the silly umbrella. "I tell myself... That Scanlan and Pike went home together, because of what happened, and that's what they wanted. As if that would make anything okay. As if I fucked up any less even if they did get a happily ever after in Exandria out of it."

Percy took lime and umbrella off the beer and set them on the bartop. He hadn't been there, when Scanlan and Pike had gone. He'd been with Vex, sniping undead from afar. The loss troubled him. He'd been thinking of Pike as instrumental to this pregnancy, the one who would have been there for Vex, even though Kash was the dedicated healer of the two. Their cleric's steady wisdom had been the group's guiding star, even when she hadn't been with them. Losing her, even more than Scanlan, hurt. But Percy would have ripped his own tongue out before admitting it. What he said was "It's for the best. Someone has to keep an eye on Grog."

Percy was always like that. Even his feelings about his dearest friends had to be weighed and balanced and edited before they were talked about or acted on. But Vax knew Percy would miss them, too. Pike especially.

"Gods willing, Scanlan can finally get back to Kaylie." Vax only then realized he hadn't done anything with his own beer. He opened the cap, even though he didn't think he wanted the drink. He might've been dead or worse, but for Scanlan. And Scanlan might've been dead or worse, but for Pike. Now... He somehow felt more loss than when he'd come to this place alone, for having had the gnomes here and gone again. "But who's going to keep an eye on us?" And with a baby on the way, no less.

Percy rolled the beer between his palms, the cold glass slick with perspiration. "We take care of each other, I suppose." He looked up at Vax, a faintly wry smile on his face. "We're family, after all."

Vax smiled faintly back, though it didn't quite show in his eyes.

"Pike would say," he turned back to collect two shot glasses and the whiskey, "we ought to have a drink for her. A real drink," he poured for them both. "And Scanlan would say..." He took a moment to remember the words, then raised his glass at Percy. "He would say - 'It’s all shitty. So it just depends on how you look at it. You can dwell on the shit, or you can just leave it behind in people’s beds and keep going.'" And that was it, really. He was trying to keep going based on that advice. He was trying to focus on the good things still left to them and keep moving towards them, so he didn't get mired in all the shit.

"Gods, he really is the crassest motherfucker in the world, isn't he?" Percy took his shot from Vax, and lifted it as well. "To Pike and Scanlan."

This time, Vax's smile was more genuine. "More than one world."

He threw back the shot and sighed out the fumes. "But that's not what you wanted to hide away from Vex for," Vax went on with a searching look, tone already a touch brighter. He needed to focus on the good things, and that was as good as anything got. His twinnie was having a baby.

Percy tossed back the shot then set it firmly on the counter and picked up his beer to chase the whiskey. "We're not hiding," he corrected. "We are being discreet. We do not hide things from Vex. We do not make her cross. We keep everything nice and calm and do not set off her pregnancy hormones because her aim is still as good as ever." He had to smile. She was magnificent.

"Oh 'we' don't, do 'we?' I love how you think being purposefully discreet so as not to upset her is different from hiding." Which wasn't to say Vax didn't understand, or that he would want to unsettle Vex either. "Okay," he went on after a swallow of beer. "What's this about, Percival? Between putting that forge together and the bun in the oven, you didn't just decide you needed to tie one on with me of a sudden."

"I am a de Rolo. I split hairs professionally." But Vax had a point. And Percy should come to his. Eventually. "It's important, you know. The name. Names in general in my family. You may have guessed." It had become a running joke for Vox Machina, to chime in as he introduced himself. But names mattered. Names had resonance and history. Names carried forward with you the important people in your past.

The name. The baby's name? "Are you going to saddle this poor child with a dozen names strung together, so they can't figure out how to introduce themselves until they're half grown already? Every hello a tongue-twister, is that the tradition?" It was said more with fond amusement than complaint. The baby would be a de Rolo, after all - not a Vessar (and good for them). Though he did have to wonder if Vex would go along with Emmanuel Liberace Alessandro Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt the Twenty-Ninth.

"If we have a boy, we've agreed on Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the fourth, yes." And if it sounded like he was being even more snobbish than usual, well, obviously. "It's the case of a girl that we're having trouble coming to a decision. Names matter. In my mind, there's really only one option but before I suggest it to Vex, I needed to speak to you."

"Get ready for me to call him Freddy, because that's confusion we don't need." This through a smile though, and Vax (you know, Vex's twin, and that had never confused anything at all) hadn't really expected different for their firstborn boy. "For a girl..." He thought he saw where this was going, but he wasn't sure why it especially mattered if he approved or not. "Are you thinking of your mother's name? Or after one of your sisters, maybe?"

"Not my mother, Vax. Yours." He drummed his fingers quickly on the table. "I'd like to suggest to Vex that we call our first daughter Elaina. But you've as much right to that as anyone and I'm certain that Vex would never agree without having your approval."

Vax... Stopped, and stared at Percival. His quips bled out of him all at once, his expression clearly stunned. When had he last even heard her name spoken - not as 'Our Mother,' but her own name, Elaina? He couldn't actually remember.

He swallowed. "I mean... You never...met our mother," Vax groped slowly in the direction of the words he wanted. How did he begin to explain what it would mean, for Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the fucking third to name his only child and heir after her?

Percy's jaw clenched but he nodded. "That's true. And obviously, if you'd rather not have her name...appropriated, I would understand." He would accept it. Vax had little experience with the de Rolos as the noble and proud family. He knew only their least member, the most broken. He'd been nearly killed by Percy's own personal bogeymen and seen Whitestone struggle as a battered and beaten town. From Vax's point of view, Percy could imagine that having his mother's name tied to the de Rolos was only somewhat more pleasant than tying his own to his father. "I think it would mean a lot to Vex."

Vax's face scrunched at Percy with mild confusion. 'Appropriated?' It would mean everything to Vex. "Yeah. I'm just... Percival, what do you know about our mother?"

"I know she raised you and Vex herself until your father took you away. And that she was killed while you were gone. If anyone is responsible for shaping the people you both became, she deserves the credit." Percy wasn't sure what the question was meant to imply.

Vax looked at his beer, rather than drinking it, and was quiet for a good long minute before he answered. "She was kind, and strong, clever and beautiful... She was a young seamstress from a sleepy little village who might have done more for herself, when our father swept in like something out of a storybook to have some things mended on the road, him all handsome and cultured and rich as a prince to look at him. He swept out again twice as fast, when he left her with child. With children, I mean. Then when she discovered her state, she pursed her lips and swallowed her pride and dug in her heels because she didn't want to lose us. She started taking in the wash to make a bit more coin, scrubbing linens and all, whatever she could. Our father didn't even know we'd been born for ten years - that was how she'd wanted it, because fuck that guy. She'd wanted to do it herself, until she couldn't anymore. And she was the best mother, when she wasn't working herself ragged to get by with two extra mouths to feed and no family to prop her up."

And then a dragon burned her alive with the rest of the village, and destroyed any trace of their good, humble life. Their father hadn't even told them when it happened. Maybe he hadn't known, because he hadn't cared, but he'd never said one way or the other.

Vax paused long enough to wet his throat with a sip of his beer. When they'd been unwanted half-breed othlir, then when they'd been beggars and thieves, it had made him petulant, impulsive, cutthroat in the most literal sense of the word. It had made Vex haughty, wary, and avaricious. It had made them both into much leaner, harder versions of themselves than they were now, and it had taken years of having a family with Vox Machina to undo some of that damage. "Our mother's life was about as far as anyone could get from de Rolo nobility," he explained quietly.

Now Percy understood. "Your sister asked me once if she looked like she came from money. The night before we entered Syngorn, as a matter of fact." He picked up his beer, set it back down again without drinking it, fidgeting with the things in front of him more out of abstraction than intent. "Did she ever tell you about that?"

He didn't wait for an answer. "What I told her then... was no. She absolutely didn't. She was too happy. Too true to herself. Too much an individual and not nearly enough a slave to what other people think of her. I make a lot of comments about ...quality. About nobility. But the way most people do it, it's a toy, not an obligation. It's selfish and cruel and ugly. My family...the de Rolos ruled Whitestone for hundreds of years. It was an obligation. We were Whitestone. Our lives were hers. That's our legacy. That's our nobility.

"Your mother. You. Vex'ahlia. No, you won't be mistaken as coming from money. But you have every right to the same level of respect as a de Rolo. She earned it through her actions. Honestly, Vax, you've known me for years. Would I ever let something smear my family's name? Would I ask if I didn't think Elaina de Rolo was a name that honored everyone?" His mouth quirked into a wry, bitter smile. "Am I sentimental?"

"You are, though, even for being a pompous ass," Vax argued, but softly. He'd all but used up his words. "It's... The perfect name," he tried to articulate through what felt like a throat stuck up with peanutbutter. A beautiful name, and even moreso for what it meant to all of them. "Or I think so, for what it's worth."

Percy exhaled, feeling like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. "You do realize, you can't name any of your future daughters Elaina. It would be very confusing. We'll be claiming it for this generation."

"I don't think that's a worry," Vax said offhand before another swallow of beer. "If the impossible were to happen, I suppose 'Alana' has a nice ring to it."

That was none of Percy's business, though a part of him was darkly pleased to hear it. "So does Velora."

It brought a sudden stabbing sense of loss, to be reminded of their baby sister a world away, though Vax faked himself a smile. Would it pain Vex similarly? "Oh, no. If you're already thinking what to name daughter number two, that's on you, to have that conversation with Vex'ahlia."

He wondered idly what Velora would be calling her own children. If any of them would end up named after their long-lost, no-good aunt and uncle. ...How angry it would make their father, and how delicious that'd be.

"Perhaps. Though I think I'll suggest Cassandra for our second daughter." Velora could be a third girl. Percy had no intention of stopping at one.

"That's also a fine name," Vax agreed. "But how about we try to greet these children one at a time, instead of planning them all out in advance?"

Percy smiled and picked up his beer. "If you insist."