Fic: Safety [Percy, Vox Machina | 6,400 words | T]
In the early days of their adventures, the members of Vox Machina get to know their gunslinger.
Safety
Vex is flat on her back on the packed-dirt ground, the better to warm her feet by the campfire without overheating the rest of her, when the soft sound of rustling cloth alerts her to someone moving nearby. Squinting one eye open, she glances over to see that her fellow night-watcher, the human newcomer to their little team, has left his post at the edge of the campsite to sit down on a fallen log nearer to her. In the dim, flickering glow of firelight, she can just make out a furrowed brow behind the glint of his glasses.
“Don’t worry, darling,” she says softly. “Trinket will spot anything we miss, and Tiberius said something about setting an alarm spell before he dropped off.”
Percy rubs his arms and glances over his shoulder at the sleeping forms of the rest of the party, although he really can’t be seeing much with his human vision. “It was cold,” he says, so quietly she has to push herself up on her elbows to hear better. “Thought I’d warm up by the fire for a while. I can go back to patrolling in a moment.”
“You don’t need to justify yourself to me,” Vex says. “To any of us, really. Believe it or not, we’ve figured out that this isn’t really something you’ve done before. We’re not going to give you a hard time.”
Percy shoots her a look that makes her stifle a laugh.
“Okay,” she says, lowering herself back to rest her head on the ground, “we’ll totally give you a hard time. But we won’t mean it, not really. You wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”
“I don’t wish to sound ungrateful.” He pulls out his strange little weapon and adjusts bits and pieces of the machinery in a way that’s as mysterious to her as Tiberius’ spells. “But that was more luck than anything else. If you all hadn’t happened upon my cell…”
“All right,” Vex says, “then you’re lucky. The way things have been going, we could use a little luck around here.”
He makes a strangled sound that she eventually diagnoses as a particularly weak laugh. “I wouldn’t say I’m lucky.”
Vex shrugs, digging her shoulder blades into the dirt. “You’re alive. I don’t know about you, but for me, some days, that’s lucky enough.”