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The best view of Whitestone is from the balcony connected to Percy’s room, in Vex’ahlia’s opinion.
She’s biased, of course - a view is made so much lovelier with the right company, and the nights she spends in the castle are with the best of company - but it truly is a spectacular vantage point. It’s off to the side of the castle, so not directly within view of the city, but she can still see most of it sprawling out to the left.
The immediate view is of a section of outskirts housing that fades into the Parchwood, a melding of civilization and the wilds; a gradient that feels like when she walks into the woods, gradually stripping herself of all her decorum and responsibilities, leaving only her natural self, finally able to breathe.
Vex spends most of her castle mornings alone on the balcony - old habits die hard, and she’s been rising with the sun since she was a teenager; not even soft sheets and a scarred arm slung around her waist will allow her to sleep in. Slipping out from Percy’s hold is always easy, since the man sleeps like the dead; she’s considered waking him up a few times to catch the sunrise with him, but one look at his face - so much more peaceful than it could ever be while he’s awake - and she decides against it, every time. Besides, he’s way too grumpy when woken up, anyways.
(And - she won’t ever bring this up, but part of her needs the time to herself. It’s nothing that Percy’s done, or anything about him, really; it’s all her. Out of her and Vax, she was always the more introverted twin. She escaped into the woods whenever she was overwhelmed, or needed to re-center herself, or, sometimes, just because she felt like it. Vax understood, without her having to even say anything; he always knew her better than she knew herself.
The first time it happened with the group, Vax had been the one to have to explain that no, she wasn’t running away and no, she didn’t suddenly hate them all and yes, this does happen sometimes, get used to it. Percy, out of all of them, had understood the most - and looking back on all those hours he spent in his workshop, it’s obvious why.)
Today is no different from this strange little routine Vex has built; she’s leaning against the railing on folded arms, wearing one of Percy’s long-sleeved shirts and some of her warmer leggings against the late-summer chill. (She’s still not quite used to how cold Whitestone is, even though Byroden’s warm climate is decades behind her.)
She’s been awake for a little over an hour when her ears twitch at the rustling of sheets behind her, followed by a string of low, unintelligible grumbles. Her lips tick up at the corners, unbidden; right on schedule.
It takes another five or ten minutes for Percy to wake up completely, as per usual. There’s a quiet, muffled swear that accompanies a small clatter against the floor, and Vex suppresses a snicker. (There’s a ten-percent chance each morning that Percy will drop his glasses. It’s a rare occurrence that Vex privately cherishes.) Bare feet pad against the floor in a familiar, half-step half-drag rhythm, and then two arms are sliding around her waist.
Percy’s sleep-heavy embraces lead to two things, usually - cuddles or sex. She’s able to tell which it’ll be by how he holds her. A looser grip, with his forearms resting on her waist, means the latter, with hands that wander as much as is decent in their partial-visibility before pulling her back inside; a tighter one, his hands criss-crossing to reach the opposite hip, means the former.
Today - with Percy’s arms bracketing her torso, and his chin settling heavy onto her shoulder - seems to have been designated a cuddle day. Vex can’t help but agree; the morning feels much too quiet for anything else, almost sacred in its stillness.
“Good morning, darling,” she murmurs, straightening up in his hold and layering her arms over his, loosely holding his wrists. She leans back into him; not with all of her weight - he’d drop them both this early in the morning - but just enough to feel his own pushing back, solid and present, and real.
(A conversation, in his workshop, about forces. Most of it had gone over her head - she could run the numbers of the equations he’d sketch out, but the concepts behind the science were beyond her - but she remembered something about balance. About forces, and equal but opposite reactions. There’s probably some poetic way to apply that, here, but she doesn’t care to expend the energy to find it.)
Percy mumbles something that might be the word ‘morning’, but it’s honestly hard to tell. The only one fluent in tired-Percy speech is Cassandra; Vex is getting there, but it’s worse than Abyssal sometimes.
(She’s exaggerating, of course. But only a little.)
They stand in silence for a while - Vex looking out over the Parchwood while Percy dozes off for a spell - before one of Percy’s fingers starts tracing up and down her hip. Not in a way that leads to anything; just to feel.
“Is this mine?” he asks, gathering a bit of her shirt’s fabric between two fingers; his voice is grumbly and raspy, breaking a little as it wears off its disuse, but at least he’s speaking in syllables, now.
Vex hums in affirmation, a quiet mm-hm. “Your clothes are warmer than mine. I hope you don’t mind, dear.”
“Of course not,” he murmurs, as he starts to draw an idle, continuous circle on her hip. It sends a pleasant rush down her spine, the same she gets when someone braids her hair. “But I wonder… was it actually for warmth, or do you just like stealing my clothes?”
Vex grins, even though he can’t see it, knowing he’ll hear it in her voice like she hears it in his. “Can’t it be a bit of both?”
Percy’s quiet laugh echoes through her own chest - a bit of an odd buzz, but one that’s familiar to her now; a match struck between her lungs, warming her from the inside out. “I suppose it can.”
“Good.”
Percy lifts his head to kiss her on the cheek; he doesn’t turn his head much, so he’s really just pressing their faces together, but he lingers there nonetheless. She pushes into the contact, absolutely certain that they look ridiculous with their faces squished up like this. But there’s no one here to see it, no one to point out that yes, she does have a soft side, so she lets it happen.
It’s odd, how easy it is to let things go when she’s with Percy. Something about him allows her to let her guard down, to follow the impulses she’s been stamping down for years; to feel things and let them grow to be so big and vibrant that they overwhelm her, drowning her in the best possible way.
She never thought she’d feel that kind of security with anyone except her brother, even after they’d somehow crafted a family out of a few chance meetings. Vox Machina have definitely been witness to awkward-and-excitable-Vex more times than she can count - or would care to, really - but she won’t deny that she still holds back around them. Still wraps herself in a cool confidence, a sense of self-surety that will never ring true; a mask that she’d started to think was bolted to her skin.
But somehow, in less than a year, Percy has managed to peel back every layer without terrifying her; to take off her mask (and oh, doesn’t that take her back - and maybe they’re just coming full circle, here; maybe this was always meant to happen, maybe this is their purpose to each other) without hurting her.
Somehow, he’s stripped her of all of her defenses, and she feels… safe. It goes against everything she’s ever known; baring her heart, her lungs, her soul, so easy to carve out and tear and maim, but feeling safer in that openness than she has behind any armor. The vulnerability doesn’t feel like a dagger to her throat, like it always has. Instead, it feels like finally being able to breathe.
It confuses the hell out of her. He confuses the hell out of her.
But she isn’t sure love was ever meant to be understood in the first place.
(She thinks that he knows, even if she hasn’t said it. She thinks that he loves her, too, even if he hasn’t said it. And she thinks that, maybe, nothing needs to be said at all.)
“You know.” Vex tilts her head back, eyes closed. “I think I’d be content to spend the rest of the day here.”
Percy kisses her softly on her temple. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”