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He had no idea how it had come to this… cornered in his own office by the teenage son of an ex-employee, who had been fired for fraud and embezzling… Now the angry kid was ranting and raving, furious and blaming him for his father’s sins! It wasn’t his fault that the kid’s father had been secretly leading two lives! That he’d had another woman, and two other children with that woman! It wasn’t his fault that the man had stolen millions from Whitestone Industries in order to keep that other family in comfort!!!
But here this kid was, strapped with explosives, blaming him for ruining their lives because Percival de Rolo had given the order to fire his father, and turn over all the evidence to the District Attorney to press charges… and somehow, after that, his father’s secret had been exposed to the public. Somehow, that was all his fault.
And to make matters worse, he hadn’t been alone in his office when this kid had stormed in! Vax’ildan had come to pester him to leave work early (on time), and go grab dinner, and, well… now he was stuck standing back against the window with his hands up while Percy desperately tried to talk this kid down.
The police had already been called, bomb squad was here, hostage negotiation was here, but the kid wouldn’t talk to them! The last thing Percy wanted to do was pull a gun on a teenage boy, but… he may not have a choice!
And then, the police called out that his father was here to talk to him… And Percy’s blood ran cold when he saw that look of satisfaction and finality on the boy’s face… Suddenly, he realized: he was only a means to an end. Yes, the boy still blamed him for everything, to an extent. But the boy did blame his father. And all of this was a big spectacle, just for him. The boy’s true goal, was to punish his father.
This was a suicide mission. Percy was moving even before he saw the boy raising his hand holding the button. He saw Vax’s startled face and he heard the click and the beep behind him… and then he had tackled Vax’ildan, straight through the third floor window. The glass shattered. Vax screamed his name…
And then came the explosion.
And Percy felt the heat of it, the concussive blast… and he held Vax close and twisted in the air as they fell, getting a quick glimpse at the police and emergency and press media gathered down below, watching in shock and horror, as they plummeted…
He thought he might have heard their sisters scream…
But he did what he sought to accomplish… He was facing the sky, and holding Vax’ildan tightly to his chest, desperate to protect him from the impact with his own body.
And he did.
He heard Vax scream his name once more… and then there was a sudden, agonizing flash of white–!
Before everything went dark…
...
Overhead, the fire raged. Down below, people ducked as glass and debris showered down…
And then the EMT’s were moving in, eyes on the two bodies sprawled out on the asphalt. One lay atop the other, and neither were moving. The first backboard was set down, and they carefully pressed it to the back of the half-elf, and then tipped him to the side and onto his back on the thing.
Immediately, two things happened. First, the half-elf grimaced and moaned in pain… and second, the human’s chest spasmed, and blood flew from his lips. It bubbled up from his mouth in a froth and spilled out, dribbling down his face as he rapidly began to choke on it…
The pain was incredible… but Vax’ildan forced his eyes open. He could hear chaos all around him. There were two people hovering over him, strapping him down, and more were rushing past, shouting.
“... P-Percy…?” He breathed, and slowly turned his head as best he could within the confines of the C-collar he was in.
“Don’t move, sir!” One of the EMT’s commanded him, sharply. But he had to see…
His eyes widened. “Percy?!”
A half dozen EMT’s had surrounded the man, his body splayed out across the asphalt, completely shattered. They were cutting open his shirt, exposing his partially crushed chest, and Vax’s heart crumbled… he had done that… Percy had held him to his chest and taken the brunt of the impact, letting his own body cushion the fall for Vax… his body had been crushed against the parking lot surface, when Vax hit… His head was surrounded by blood, both the initial impact spatter, and now a slow spreading pool of it. It was dripping from the corners of his mouth, and from his nose…
And gods… he wasn’t moving!
They were peeling open his eyes and shining a light into them, to see if there was a dilation response. He was hearing words like “intubate” and “collapsed lung” and “cranial trauma” and “pelvic fractures” and “internal bleeding” and “air lift”, and oh, gods, Percy was turning blue, and--
And then he was being lifted onto a gurney, and it was being raised up, and he was begging them to stop! The other EMT’s were trying to clear Percy’s airway to intubate and others were by the intact half of his ribcage, unpacking supplies and talking about getting a drain into his thoracic cavity and then cutting into him and…
And they didn’t stop. They were wheeling him away to a waiting ambulance, and Vax screamed.
“PERCYYYY!!!!”
He tried to struggle… he tried to fight… but he could barely move.
He was loaded into the ambulance, and his sister was climbing in, trying to calm him down through her own frightened tears, but he wouldn’t have it… he kept crying for Percy…
The back of the ambulance closed. The last thing he remembered, trying to see out the back windows, was catching a glimpse of the helicopter coming in over the treetops… the AirEvac Medical Transport…
… then, he lost consciousness…
When Vax woke, he was in a dimly lit hospital room. The curtains were partially open, and the sun was starting to rise. The morning news was playing on the TV, though it was muted. Vex was curled up under a blanket in the recliner, asleep. Vax felt thick, heavy bandages wrapping his shoulder, all the way down to his hand, and from mid thigh to foot. His other hand was also bandaged from elbow to fingertips, and his abdomen ached…
“... Vex…?”
She stirred immediately, sucking in a breath and lifting her head, blinking and mumbling “whuh?”
“Hi, Stubby…”
“Vax!” She gasped, flinging the blanket aside and flailing out of her seat.
“... you look like shit,” Vax slurred.
She gave him a look as she reached his bedside. “I look better than you do, believe me…” She told him, even as her eyes began to water. “But… Gods… You’re alive. That’s all I can ask for!”
Vax swallowed, and then glanced at the television. And then, his eyes widened. He watched as the footage rolled, the camera focused on the third floor window, where Percy’s office was… and then, suddenly, the window shattered outwards as two figures crashed through, and then–
The explosion.
The blurred images of Vax and Percy plummeted out of sight, faster than the camera could zoom out, and then… images of chaos, of people running around, of police shoving the media back, and EMT’s rushing in and…
“... Percy…” Vax gasped, his heart pounding. His wide eyes snapped over onto his sister. “Where is Percy?!”
Vex swallowed and then reached out, resting a hand on her brother’s chest, as his arms and hands were bandaged.
“He… he’s downtown,” she told him, in a small, shaking voice. “He was AirLifted to the best Trauma facility in the city. As far as I know, he’s… still in surgery.”
Vax swallowed, feeling his blood run cold. “... how long has it been?!”
“Um,” Vex looked away, and grimaced a bit. “Nearly fourteen hours by now, I think?”
Vax closed his eyes. “Oh gods… w-what–”
“I don’t know,” Vex cut him off. “I… I’m sorry… We just… don’t know… We won’t know anything until… he’s out…”
Percy was in surgery for twenty two hours…
The list of injuries was horrendous. No one needed to say it, but… it was a damned miracle that he was still alive, and it would take another miracle to see him pull through. There had been massive hemorrhaging from multiple sources. The right side of his ribcage had been crushed, the lung punctured, and yet valiantly fought to function as his chest cavity filled with blood. The ribs on the left side sustained multiple fractures and contusions, and as his chest filled with blood, his left lung, which had heavy bruising, began to collapse and fill with blood as his airway was flooded with it from the right lung, leading to the start of asphyxiation. There had been trauma to several internal organs that had needed to be repaired, as well as bleeding in the brain. There were multiple fractures to his skull, several of the bones in his pelvis, his arms and legs, both scapula, and multiple vertebrae.
Whether or not there had been damage to the central nervous system, it was still too early to tell. For the foreseeable future, Percival would be in the ICU, in a medically induced coma, to see if he would even survive for the next few days… If he did, there would be many more surgeries to come…
Percy slowly opened his eyes.
He found himself in a rather comfortable chair, sitting by a window with the early morning sunlight streaming through. He took a deep breath, and let out it out again, feeling a sense of peace, and serenity. It felt… warm here, in the morning sun. And yet, it felt like the world were holding its breath, waiting for something. He caught a whiff of a pleasant smell, and his eyes fell. A mug sat on a coffee table before him, steaming slightly.
He smiled, reached out and picked it up. It was hot, but not too hot. He inhaled the familiar scent of the Earl Gray with a splash of cream and just a bit of honey, savored that smell for a moment, before he took a sip.
It was perfect. He leaned back in his chair and rolled it around on his tongue, turning his face towards the sunlight once more, perfectly content.
A moment later, he heard a door open and close behind him, and then, someone was approaching.
“... hello, Percy.”
He went very, very still.
“May I sit down?”
Slowly, he turned and looked up at the figure standing there, and his eyes went wide. He felt his throat tighten around a lump that suddenly formed. He swallowed, and gave a nod. He was given a smile in response, and watched as his older sister, Vesper, moved to sit down in the chair that he had neglected to notice across from him.
There was a second mug on the coffee table, and some finger sandwiches and cakes, and Vesper gladly placed a little sandwich on a napkin and laid it on her knee before she sipped from her own mug. Just as Percy had done, she closed her eyes for a moment, savoring it (it would be a black tea with rose, that had always been her favorite), and then she looked at him and smiled.
“... I miss you,” Percy gasped, feeling the prickle at the corner of his eyes, and the tremble in his hands.
She exhaled softly, her smile turning soft and sad. “Oh, Percy… I miss you too.” She told him. “We all miss you. And Cassandra.”
Percy glanced towards the door. “Are the others here?” He asked her, hopefully. “Mother and father and Julius and…?”
Vesper looked down into her mug. “They are,” she nodded, looking at the door. “Beyond. But… only one of us could come here to see you.”
Percy furrowed his brow a bit. “But… I can go see them?”
Her smile faded a bit more, and there was more sadness in her face, now. “... yes,” she told him, a touch of hesitance in her answer. “If that is truly what you wish.”
“It is!” He told her, eagerly.
She smiled at him, with a touch of bitterness to it. “I know, Percy,” she acknowledged. “But… if you do, you cannot come back again. You must understand this.”
Percy blinked at her. “Come back…?”
“It is a choice that you have to make, little brother,” Vesper told him. “To stay… or move on.”
Percy stared at her for a moment, processing her words, and slowly coming to realize what she meant by that. “... I… have to choose,” he murmured, now staring down at the tea in his hands, “if I am to live… or if I am ready to… die.” He looked up at her, and she gave him a nod. He frowned, looking towards the window again. “I don’t understand. Why do I… get to choose?”
“Because you currently sit upon the edge of life and death. You have been existing in that space between, for some time now.” She told him. Percy blinked at that, and gave Vesper a confused look. She turned, and looked across the room. Percy followed her gaze, and his eyes widened.
There was a bed in the room. There were other people in the room!!! How had he not noticed them before?!
Cassandra was there! Vax was there! Vex and Keyleth and Pike and Scanlan and Grog were all there! And… they were all gathered around the bed… around the person in the bed…
… the person in the bed… was him…
He was thin. He was pale. His hair was thin and dull, but it had grown out… it was long enough that it had been braided off to the side… And… There were flowers and balloons all over the place. Bright and colorful ones, saying ‘Happy Birthday!’... Grog was tying two big purple balloons to the head of his bed… a ‘2’ and a ‘6’...
They were all having cupcakes. Vax… was painting his nails…
There was a knock on the door, and then a young lady in scrubs peeked in, calling “you’re really pushing our visitor limit today, Vax’ildan!” before she opened the door wider, and Gilmore was walking in, to a full chorus of “GILMOOOORE!” from everyone gathered around his bed. The man was grinning and laughing and giving hugs all around, exchanging a long one with Vax, before laying out a deep blue bundle wrapped in a big golden bow onto Percy’s lap, then leaning down and saying “Happy Birthday, my friend,” and kissing the thin, pale cheek.
Percy gasped and looked back to his sister, tears running down his face.
“... what? But… I–I wasn’t— how long?!”
“I don’t know,” Vesper admitted. “You’ll have to tell me.”
Percy lifted a hand to his mouth, as a sob fell out. “My birthday…? It–It’s my birthday?!”
“Are you painting his nails, Vax?” He heard Gilmore laugh. “Really? Again?!”
“I did them blue for his birthday!”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t woken up yet, just to throttle you,” Gilmore snorted, and the others laughed.
“Keyleth!” Vax snapped, suddenly. “Turn that off! You know Percy hates Country!”
“Maybe he’ll wake up just to throttle me,” Keyleth joked.
“Not on his damn birthday, Keyleth, gimme that,” Scanlan demanded, grabbing the Bluetooth speaker and putting on some Classic Rock.
“... eight months,” Percy whispered, staring at his friends–his family– surrounding his comatose body in the bed. “I’ve been like that for… eight months?!” He looked back to Vesper.
She just stared at him.
“... how bad am I?” He asked her.
“I can’t tell you that,” she admitted. “I can only assume that your injuries were… significant.”
Percy stared at his brittle body, lying in that bed. “Am I even capable of… functioning? Of moving? What kind of life would I be going back to?”
“You would not be in a vegetative state,” Vesper assured him. “That I know. But… I think you know that… you will never be the same as you were before.”
Percy swallowed and slowly looked down at the mug in his hands, the contents going cold.
“... do I… even deserve it?”
“What do you mean?” Vesper asked.
“I cheated death before… when all of you were taken. Somehow, I survived. Why should I get to live again now?”
“Something is holding you here, Percy,” Vesper told him.
“That’s not what I asked,” Percy told her, looking his sister in the eye. “Why me? I was given a second chance to live, after the Briarwoods. Why am I being given a third chance now? Why me?! I don’t deserve it! Not with the things I’ve done! The people I’ve hurt!”
“And what about the people you’ve saved?” Vesper asked him. “You don't think you've redeemed yourself? Become a better person worthy of life? Oh, Percy... And what about the people you love? The people who love you? What about them?”
Percy scowled, and looked away. “And what about the pain I’ll be going back to? Just how broken is my body? Are there any answers you can give me?! Any hope if I live?! Any-- Vepser... please. Tell me there's hope for me?”
“It is your choice, Percy,” Vesper told him, gently. She set her mug down on the table and rose from her chair, moving around the coffee table. Percy looked up at her, his eyes wide and desperate. When she touched his face, he shed more tears. “You know all too well, both the pain of a broken body, and that of a broken, grieving heart. You must weigh them against each other, and make your choice.” She smiled down at him, and stroked over his hair. “No matter what you choose, know that I love you. We all do.” And with that, she turned and walked away, disappearing through the door, leaving him behind, desolate and grieving all over again…
Percy bent over, put his face into his hands, and wept…
He didn’t know how long he sat there, crying for the family that he had lost…
When he finally looked up again, the room was quiet and empty. The only one there, was Vax’ildan. The late afternoon sun was filtering into the room, falling over the flowers and the balloons, and the last four cupcakes on the coffee table in front of him, and the lovely, deep blue custom made, monogrammed robe from Gilmore that was now draped over his comatose body like a blanket… other gifts were also on the coffee table, still wrapped…
The music was still playing, and Vax was singing along to it as he drew down the blankets, uncovering the pale body in the bed, lifting the left leg and pressing the knobby knee up towards the thin chest.
“--bein’ apart ain’t easy on this love affair. Two strangers learn to fall in love again.” He guided the leg out to the side, easing it through gentle stretching, and range of motion exercises. “I get the joy of rediscovering you, ohhhh, you stand by me. I’m forever yours, Faithfully…”
Percy slowly stood and walked across the room, standing beside the bed across from Vax, and watching him. He watched him singing softly to himself as he went through what had clearly become a familiar routine, caring for Percy’s comatose body. Percy cringed at the slight crinkling sound of the adult diaper that his body was wearing, and had to turn away when… when Vax… changed him!
Gods…
Gods!
What if he was stuck like this?! In diapers, for the rest of his life?!
He couldn’t do that to Vax! He didn’t know why Vax was doing it now!
…
Percy turned towards the door.
No. He couldn’t do this. And… his family was waiting for him.
Vax was still singing, behind him.
“I’m forever yours…”
He should go.
“... marry me.”
…
Percy stopped, and slowly turned and looked back. Vax had returned to the bedside, and was readjusting the blankets on his body... he was holding the unresponsive hand and stroking the limp hair. He kissed cold fingers, and stared into the sleeping face.
“We can elope,” Vax smiled, his eyes shining with tears. “Just you and me. We can go anywhere we want. Hells, no one says we have to come back, either!” He laughed a bit. “We can even say that we eloped, and then just go to the courthouse and lock ourselves into the apartment for the next year and just binge pizza… As long as it’s me and you… I don’t care!”
The tears spilled down his face. “I… I just want you back, Freddy… That’s all… I don’t care. Even if we have to start from scratch. I can make you fall in love with me all over again, if you don’t remember. I just…” He trailed off. He was silent for a bit, then sniffled and rose, wiping away his tears. “C’mon… left side tonight.” And he went to the closet and got down some body pillows, and then began to roll Percy onto his side, checking his backside for any sign of bedsores, and then used the pillows to get him situated in a comfortable position, tucking the robe from Gilmore around him, and brushing his hair back out of his face, before he leaned down, and pressed a soft kiss to the dry lips.
“... goodnight, my darling,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “Happy birthday… I love you, so, so much…”
Percy swallowed, and bowed his head, feeling his eyes burn as he struggled to fight back his own tears. Now he knew what Vesper had meant…
He was going to have to weigh the pain of a broken body against that of a broken heart.
He had to make a choice.
Would he choose to live, accepting a body that was broken and would undoubtedly bring him physical struggles?
Or would he choose to die, and in his passing, break the heart of the man he loved, and leave him behind to suffer the lifelong grief in his absence?
Percy looked at the door, knowing that his family was just beyond. Freedom from pain, was just beyond…
He looked back at Vax’ildan, caressing the face of the broken body in the bed, his eyes glistening with tears…
…
Percy’s shoulders sagged and his face fell into his hand as he wept at the impossibility of this choice…