Chapter Text
If Vex wasn’t so busy planning a wedding, she would have made an excellent serial killer. Her scrapbook is meticulous; ribbons and swatches of lace, clippings from bridal catalogues, invites and place cards she has collected from nuptials past. It’s beautiful, really. Elegant, yet with a hint of rustic charm. Like her.
Pike marvels at it, slowly flipping through the thick, cream-coloured pages. They are sat at the table in her and Percy’s garden under the shade of a parasol, Trinket, Vex’s huge, dark-furred Newfoundland, panting loudly at their feet. It’s a hot day, but Pike was invited over to discuss the wedding over afternoon tea and, because Percy is Percy, they are damn well drinking it.
On the next page of the scrapbook is a large, blank space. Pike frowns. “What’s this?” She says, pointing to it.
She regrets it almost immediately – when she looks up at them, Vex and Percy are sharing a glance, something akin to a grimace on their faces.
“It’s for a musician,” Vex says, carefully. “At the reception.”
“Oh,” Pike responds, her tone equally careful, though she is not certain as to why. She glances at their faces for some kind of clue. “Can you not find one?”
“That’s… not so much the problem,” Percy responds. There’s something in his voice – a slight barb, perhaps. While Vex’s lips are tugging downward slightly at their corners, Percy is suddenly tense, his fingers tapping an agitated rhythm.
At last, Vex says, “It should be Scanlan.”
Scanlan. Oh. Pike hasn’t met him, but she has heard about him. A lot. Wild, ridiculous tales of merry misadventures, usually resulting in nudity. Not so much anymore, though. It hadn’t occurred to her that there might have been for a reason for that other than the onward drift of time gently tugging them apart. Especially without Vax here to bind them all together.
It had all unravelled so quickly, after – well. After.
“He shouldn’t have left,” Percy says, darkly. He can be terrifying, at times – it’s part of the appeal, Pike knows – but it’s somewhat undercut by the little teacup and saucer in his hands.
Vex gives his shoulder a squeeze. “Don’t be angry at him, darling. He was going through a hard time. We all were.”
Percy sets down the cup and saucer and lays his hand over hers at his shoulder.
Something spikes in Pike’s chest. She tells herself it’s because she's happy for them. She is happy for them. It’s impossible to see the gentle way she touches him – how he looks at her when she does, his whole face changing into something soft – and not see how much they love each other. This is the real thing. Proof, made flesh, that true love exists.
And Pike is happy for them. So incredibly happy that it makes her heart ache at night.
Vex pulls the scrapbook over to her side of the table. She frowns down at the blank space, lips pursed, running her hand down the page. She shakes her head. “It would be wrong for it to be anyone else. I couldn’t do it.”
Percy takes her hand in his, tenderly, and looks into her eyes. “Is it what you want?”
Vex nods, her face slightly crumpled.
Percy smiles at her. “Then Scanlan it is.”
…
It happens like this: Vex says it's not right to make Scanlan stay at a hotel. Percy agrees; it isn’t right that he should sleep in a hotel. Not when they have a perfectly good kennel going unused. He smiles, pleasantly, at Vex, who shoots him a look that would have melted the skin off the bones of a lesser man.
So Pike says, “He can stay with me.”
Vex stares at her. “Are you sure, darling? I wouldn’t want to put you out.”
Pike, because she is Pike, just shrugs. “It’s no trouble. I’m happy to help.”
And then they are picking him up at the airport.
They go as far into the terminal as is allowed for non-passengers and wait amongst the chauffeurs and hanky-wielding family members, holding up a small sign that reads ‘Burt Reynolds, Esq.’ for reasons Pike doesn’t understand, but assumes is an in-joke. It hits her then, as they are waiting, how little she knows of him, this person she has invited to share her apartment. As a throng of disembarked passengers begin to walk towards them, she wonders if she would recognise him if he walked right past her. If he had already walked right past her.
Pike has seen pictures. If memory serves her right, he’s pretty short. Stood next to Grog, he looked positively tiny – but then, who doesn’t? It doesn’t help that in every picture of him and Vax, he had been in his arms or on his shoulders or, in one, tucked under his armpit like a rugby ball.
Then she catches a glimpse of dark curls, boyish features, an impish grin, and any anxiety she had been feeling melts away.
“Scanlan!” Vex calls. She runs throws her arms around him, bending down slightly. “It’s so good to see you.”
She pulls away to look at him, holding him at arm’s length as though to confirm he’s really here, as though he might disappear before her eyes.
Scanlan takes her hands and smiles at her. “Vex, you look radiant. As always.” He turns to Percy, smooth composure slightly stifled, and nods a greeting. “Percy.”
Percy nods back at him. “Scanlan.”
Vex is either too caught up in emotion to care about the suddenly frosty atmosphere between them, or she is all too aware of it and desperate to change the subject – either way, she exclaims, “What’s this? This is new. What happened?” She is pointing to a small scar that runs horizontally below his eye.
Scanlan waves a hand. “Oh, you know me. Always getting into scrapes. Enough about that – who is this vision of beauty I see before me?”
He is looking at Pike. Heat flares in her cheeks. She means to respond, but all the words she knows seem to have evaporated from her mind, so she just stands there, looking at him, like an idiot.
She feels Vex’s hand on her shoulder. “Scanlan, this is Pike.”
Pike’s brain stutters to life, remembering her manners. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure,” Scanlan says, bowing slightly, just theatrical enough to be charming, “Is all mine.”
Pike is not used to this kind of attention. Not focused on her. Many of the stories she had heard had featured his silver tongue, both getting him in and out of trouble, but she hadn’t expected it to be quite so effective. She hadn’t expected him to turn it onto her. It’s this that cures her of her tied tongue, though, the knowledge that she isn’t special.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” She says, recovered.
Scanlan grins, but his eyes flicker to Vex over her shoulder. “That… does not bode well for me.”
Vex grins, shaking her head. “Only good things, Scanlan.”
Even so, he turns to Pike with a grin that looks very much like a grimace and says, “Prepare to be disappointed.”
...
Percy drives, thumbs tapping quietly away at the steering wheel. Vex turns almost all the way around in her seat, speaking rapidly to make up for the absence of a certain eloquence. She tells Scanlan about the wedding, about the rest of the group, about Taryon, when they will all arrive, how they have all been getting on (carefully skirting around anything heavier than the gripes of the daily grind – with expert dexterity when it comes to Keyleth) and who is carrying the ring down the aisle (Trinket, of course) to which Scanlan exclaims “He’s still alive?” prompting Vex to swat him, despite his insistence that it was a joke.
In the rear-view mirror, Pike catches Percy smiling. She can’t be sure if it’s because Scanlan just got hit, or some semblance of nostalgia at the reunion of their little family. Pike suspects it is a little of both, though possibly one more so than the other.