#I’m insanely bored most of the time so why not join another niche social media site | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ruthdemoofins · 7 years

Text

Cor Tutor Chapter 2/? - Perc’ahlia fanfic

When Vex heads home after a long chat with Pike, Saundor enters the scene. Percival and Vex meet for the first time and it's entirely unconventional.

Read the first chapter on AO3: (X)

“I don’t know, Pike, Percival de Frankenstein Von Muscle Claws-out-seat de Rolo the Third? He obviously must be a completely loaded dickhead if he’s got such a long fucking name. Vax and I probably ransacked his place a few years ago, probably stole his prized pocket watch or ugh-” Vex cut off in a frustrated growl, aggressively tugging at her braid as she sank down into her seat a bit.

Pike, glancing up from her textbook, offered a sympathetic smile, shrugging her shoulders, “Oh, I don’t know, Vex,” she sighed softly, brushing some stray strands of her blonde hair behind her ear, “It might not be a bad thing, you might just make a friend out of it.”

“Or I might just make a rich little fuck bleed,” Vex spits out, crossing her arms tightly over her chest, the very image of a petulant child. He’ll probably be just like all the other rich little fucks from “home,” who mocked her and her brother at every turn for their attempts to fit in and then for their attempts to stay as far away as they could from their little niche cliques.

Pike covered her mouth to hide her smile at Vex’s current, pouting state, though her dimples gave her away anyway. “Well, I wouldn’t judge him too harshly,” she offers, taking a bite of the bagel she’d bought before trudging to the library. “I’ve never met him personally, but he seems to carry a lot of weight with him. He and his sister lost their entire family in a fire, you know.”

Vex rolled her eyes as though that information didn’t matter. She and her brother lost their mother to a fucked up murderer, but you don’t see them asking for pity.

“He’s not asking for pity, though,” Pike says, reading her mind because, of course, Pike knows her and all of their friends better than anyone (or even themselves), “I just know that from what I’ve heard.”

Vex’ahlia flips through her textbook, pretending to give a shit before finally, she’s giving a loud groan of defeat, “Fine, I won’t chicken out, but I will find you to complain when he’s fucking gushing about money or he turns out to be a complete creep.”

Pike makes a soft, popping noise with her lips as her eyes flare, surely searching for the right words to scold Vex’ahlia for jumping to conclusions, but when she sees the twinkling mirth in Vex’s eyes, she falters. “You can’t joke with me like that right now,” she weakly informs, soft, platinum waves bouncing as she shakes her head, “My brain is just…completely fried and it isn’t even midterms.”

Vex offers a sympathetic smile as she reaches over, rubbing Pike’s shoulder supportively, “You’ll charge through this semester like you always do. Nursing is just one giant battle to get through, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah,” Pike sighs, her scrawny shoulders seeming to deflate as she slumped forward. Vex knows that being the mother hen of their little rag-tag group of friends doesn’t help her studies either, whether it’s from Grog coming to her to question her about itchy balls for “his friend” or Scanlan drooling all over her.

Thankfully, Pike is always level-headed, even when she’s bogged down.

“I’m going to head home and find out whether my brother’s still at Gilmore’s or out with ‘his Kiki,’” she retches a bit, clumsily snatching her bag and dragging it from the table as she stands.

“Well, whoever he’s with, it’ll do him some good,” Pike pointedly arches a brow as she glances up over her book to Vex.

“He might be sleeping with them both,” Vex dramatically groans, whipping her bag over her shoulder. “I can’t fucking understand him, sometimes, Pike. Love is shit,” she kicks the leg of the chair she’d previously been lounging in to push it back into the table, resulting in a squeak that has a few, annoyed glares from other library-goers directed towards her. “Fuck off,” Vex mutters, scowling.

Pike only looked at her with those easy-to-read eyes, clearly throwing out an “I’m worried about you” gaze that has Vex twisting her lips in frustration. “I don’t know,” she exasperatedly bit out, “I’m happy that he’s getting out and being with people, but I’m also his detached Siamese twin and I miss him sometimes,” Pike’s full attention is on her now, though she’s lightly nibbling at her bagel. Her eyes soften and fill Vex with reassurance that what she’s saying isn’t insane. Pike is one of the only people she can actually talk to, anyway. Grog wants to talk about drinking, football or bashing faces in, Scanlan wants to flirt with his foul limericks, Keyleth wants to talk about her manic-pixie thoughts about nature and Trinket, well, Trinket can only listen and wuff.

“I’m afraid he’ll stop telling me things, I’m afraid he has stopped telling me things.”

Pike waited a few beats after this to be sure Vex had fully ranted before, in the way Vex and their other friends often mimicked when Pike wasn’t there, said: “Well…” she took a few seconds as she searched for words before giving Vex a smile. “I think you’d certainly do well to tell him that, but maybe not so…”

“Pissily?” Vex offers with a weak grin, and Pike nods.

“I’m sure he’s not keeping you out of the loop, anyway, but it might be awkward to talk about his love life, you know?” she offers.

“Yeah, you’re right,” there’s less of a weight on her chest and she’s grateful for that. Vex pushed her bag’s strap further up her shoulder and gave a nod. “You usually are, anyway. I’ll be off, then. Text you later and try not to drown in books, yeah?”

Pike looks visibly relieved to have helped in some way and bobs her head, smile brightening. “Yeah. I’ll try.”

Vex exits the library, scowling faintly at the cloudy sky before setting off-campus for her and Vax’s flat.

She was nearly finished with untangling her headphones when she heard a sudden, echoing pang of footsteps behind her. Unbidden paranoia had her glancing over her shoulder, and it wasn’t useless unbidden paranoia either.

His pale skin and his oaky brown eyes had a way of making her stomach twist and the way his greasy, slick black hair clung to his face made her skin crawl.

She’d never come across a person who made her so uncomfortable. Sure, Syldor brought forth tsunamis, but never a discomfort as this.

Saundor.

Vex quickly surveyed the area; thankful that she’d forgone any alley shortcuts and stuck to the open sidewalk.

She was also thankful that there was no chance Vax would happen upon this.

It’d all started a year ago, when she’d gone on a class trip between her Advanced Earth Sciences course and Keyleth’s Writing With Nature elective (to go to the forest once a week just to write seemed entirely boring to her). As Vex had eyed the group, as she always eyed any groups or persons around her, she noted Saundor, slinking far and away from the rest of the students.

Vex, tired of Keyleth’s not-so-inconspicuous questions about Vax, had approached him. She was always fond of outcasts, having been one herself, and knew it’d be her good deed of the day to chat up the pale, pale boy.

Vax always insisted they should be guarded, always said that most people wanted the wrong things from them. Meeting their group of friends (or rather, the S.H.I.T.s as they’d called themselves for that one karaoke contest) had been a completely chance occurrence, and a good one, at that.

Vex, of course, did love doing the opposite of what he said.

And so she spoke with him, briefly, about his course. It was for her own benefit, really, as she was curious as to what they even wrote about.

Immediately, she realized Vax was right and she’d been horribly stupid.

“I feel as though I’ve known you for a very long time,” Saundor had told her, ignoring her question entirely, and the intensity of his gaze still made her cringe to that very day.

She’d immediately stuttered out a horrible excuse, something along the lines of: “I think my friend needs help getting a leaf out of her hair,” and hurriedly left.

Needless to say, she was happy to endure Keyleth’s dreamy, dedicated soliloquies about the trees that day, though Saundor watched her the entire time from afar.

It hadn’t ended there, of course. After snooping about, Saundor found her name, her social media, messaged her on every possible platform for weeks. He told her of his intense feelings of her, described how she appeared to him the first time he saw her on that trip, tried to convince her that they were ‘destined’ for one another.

Vex had simply blocked him, but he found her cell-phone number next, called her when she wasn’t around and Vax, being the asshole he was, had answered the phone and immediately confronted her after Saundor demanded to know who he was and why he thought he had any worth to Vex, who belonged with him.

She’d told him everything, and while Vax was entirely pissed off for a day (she knew it reminded him of the reason why he’d joined that shit little Clasp gang when they were young), he’d bought her a switchblade and made her promise to keep it close, even though he knew she already had the pepper spray he’d bought her when she’d been far younger.

Things had been quiet for a few days, but eventually, they’d found a stick on their doorstep with a rudimentary carving of a very Vex-like woman and Saundor-like male. After that, Vax had insisted upon walking her to class for a week, and eventually, thankfully, Saundor had gone away.

But now, he was here again, following her with those disgustingly sad eyes.

“What the fuck do you want?” Vex hissed as she turned on her heel, mentally reminding herself that her switchblade was in the front pocket of her messenger bag if he got to close, and her pepper spray on her keychain if he pissed her off from afar.

“I only wanted to see you; I missed you,” Saundor said in his soft, melancholic rumble of a voice.

“You don’t know me,” Vex immediately retorted with ire, not at all phased by the way he forlornly tilted his head at her, as if he didn’t quite get what she was saying.

He moved closer, until he was at least two feet away from her and offered a chilling smile, his hand extended towards her, “You do, though,” he said, “We have a deal to make, one that will help us both. I understand your pain, your mother-“

Vex’s horribly-contained-cool completely shattered, melting into a molten, livid rage, “You don’t fucking know her, you don’t have the right to speak of her!” she spat out, nostrils flaring and eyes blazing. Her fists were clenched so hard that her nails left half-moons upon her palms, body trembling with the urge to charge, to bash his fucking face in. The fucker had probably found the fucking newspaper articles of her murder online, probably poured over every little thing he could find from fucking Google.

“I know enough to know that we are meant-“

Vex phased out, forcing her mind to ignore his aside to glance around at their surroundings, at…

A head of stark, white hair approaching caught her eye and immediately, Vex was moving past Saundor towards the man, no, student with white hair (she’d ponder over why the fuck he had white hair later) and a long navy colored coat.

“Darling,” she cooed, to the stranger’s obvious befuddlement. Ignoring his confusion, she reached for his hand that wasn’t clutching a bag and gripped it tightly in hopes that he’d understand something wasn’t right. “I’m glad you caught up with me.”

“I’m…” the stranger’s blindingly blue eyes studied her for a moment, his brow furrowed lightly before he looked past her to Saundor. “I-I’m glad too?” he asked unconvincingly.

“Of course you are, dear,” she crooned, turning to look to Saundor, who, thankfully, looked entirely confused. She hardly knew him and she knew this could be bad, that he could act upon his possible rage, but she had no problem beating the ever-loving shit out of him herself. “I was just giving this stranger directions to the university, but I didn’t expect you to surprise me like this!” her tone is so honeyed and drenched with sweetness that Vex wants to either vomit or scrape the sugar from her tongue with a hot knife. Still, it’s the kiss she places on the stranger’s scruffy, peppered cheek that has her reeling from her obscenity. The poor man takes it though, his face flushing into a lovely shade of pink. “I-I,” he stutters, his hand trembling lightly in her grip, “I wanted to-ah…surprise you,” he repeats, lifting his other hand with a bag that she recognizes as take out. Judging by the distinct, spicy smell, she can only conclude that it’s from Jarret’s place.

“You brought me takeout? Oh, darling.”

The stranger looks to the bag and then her, suddenly wearing an expression that’s honestly hilarious in that moment, a look that clearly states “Don’t you even think about it.”

But she does.

Vex turns to peer over her shoulder and fucking thankfully, Saundor has vanished. She immediately drops the stranger’s hand and knowing fully well that she’s an asshole, she takes his bag of takeout.

He stutters adorably as she walks down the sidewalk with purpose, her free hand finding her can of pepper spray, just in case Saundor’s waiting for her around a corner.

“W-Wait!” he calls as he finally figures out how to form words, and she rolls her eyes before glancing over her shoulder, giving him one of her trademark winks before calling: “Thanks!”

She needs to take a long, hot shower to get Saundor’s grimy words off of her, completely devour her unexpected spoils and not mention a single fucking thing to Vax.

Just after she’s fallen asleep past midnight, after a long, struggling session of trying to understand some of her stats homework so she wouldn’t seem like a total idiot for her tutoring session, her phone vibrates.

With a single, squinting eye, Vex noted a message from Percival, plugged into her contacts as “The Tutor” with an eye-rolling emoji resting beside it.

When she opened her phone to view the message, she wasn’t sure she was even fucking awake.

Miss Vessar

I’ll be happy to work with you tomorrow, as requested, at two in the afternoon. Please find me on the second floor of the library in the corner behind the large stack collection. Have a good evening.

-Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III

For a long time, Vex stared at her phone screen, lips parted and eyes wide open in confusion.

With numb fingers, she replied with a simple “Ok. Thanks,” before she promptly rolled onto her side and broke out in guffawing laughing.

She laughed until she was “hoo”ing for breath, her stomach pinching and her eyes watering.

Who in the world wrote texts like they’d been sent by raven? Honestly, it was adorable.

“What the fuck, Vex’ahlia?” Vax groaned from his nearby mattress, the thought of why she was laughing making her snicker to herself.

“Oh, nothing. Go back to sleep, brother,” she sidled further down under her covers, holding her phone to her stomach for a moment before returning it to the floor beside her mattress.

She had to admit, she felt a bit better about walking into the library to meet Percival the next day after that text, or rather, intrigued.

The next day, before class, she’d spent a bit of time on her bulking laptop to search his name up, pleased to find a social media account. Before school, during the days her and Vax struggled for a foothold to let her study, she’d done a similar form of work for Gilmore. He’d send her client names and she’d find everything she could online, all with the purpose of gathering Gilmore all the information on them as she could so he could successfully barter or appeal to them.

The only profile on Percy contained no pictures of the man in question, though, instead, his profile picture was a sketch of a mask with goggles and a long, dark beak. It was odd, but it had her keen on meeting him. Vex liked odd people (not the Saundor kind of odd), her entire group of friends had their oddities about them. She’d rather be as far from the aristocratic, snobby children who mocked those who were different and be with the different.

Vax, of course, hated her easygoing feelings on strangers, always insisted that she needed to be more wary of people and insisted upon this even more after the Saundor-incident. .

As Vex walked towards the aisle of over-sized books, she felt a mild trepidation, wondered if she was about to meet Saundor the Second, or perhaps someone even worse.

Shaking off her worries and touching a finger to the small blue feather hanging from a chain upon her neck as she always did when anxious, Vex stepped behind the rack.

When she spotted a head of white hair in disarray, her eyes blew wide open.

Fuck.

#perc'ahlia #percy de rolo #vex'ahlia #critical role #critical role fanfic

23 notes · View notes