#teogli

Scanlan is mystified by this. Vex will not be separated from Trinket for any reason except in the cases where it would leave Percy without either of the twins. She’ll hear no arguments that Trinket isn’t stealthy or can’t easily get through terrain or isn’t appropriate to bring to a meal with the Sovereign, but as soon as Percy is going to be left with the rest of Vox Machina, suddenly it’s absolutely imperative that Trinket stays behind.

The worst happens with the Slayer’s Take.

Vanessa eyes up all of them, then neatly divides them into two teams.

“You two, and you two,” she says, gesturing at the twins and then over to where Tiberius and Keyleth are whispering to each other. “You are one team. The rest of you,” and she gestures grandly at Grog, Scanlan, Pike, and Percy, “are the other team.”

“No,” both twins say at the same time.

“Percy comes with us,” Vax says.

“They can have Tiberius instead,” Vex says.

To which Vanessa responds with, “No. You will work with the teams I gave you, or not at all. And if not at all, then I will be more than happy to have the lot of you escorted to the Amaranthine Oubliette to await trial.”

Percy visibly flinches at the mention of prison so that’s the end of that.

Now Scanlan is stuck trudging through the snow in search of an adult white dragon with the love of his life, a goliath, an overexcited wizard, a tiefling, a severely codependent human, and Vex’s stupid bear.

This is great. This is just great.

Percy’s too smart for his own good and one of the most sarcastic and witty people Scanlan’s ever met, but he tends to stick to the twins like glue and being separated from them makes him quiet and withdrawn. Pike and Zahra both make attempts at drawing him into conversation but they mostly get one word answers and Zahra only gets more out of him when she asks about his heavily modified crossbow.

When they make camp for the night, Scanlan and Zahra take first watch. Scanlan doesn’t like taking watch at all, but if he has to take watch, he’d rather be on the first shift so that he can sleep the rest of the night away. He spends most of the time chatting up Zahra but as it nears the end of their shift, he keeps finding his eyes drawn over to Percy.

“He’s shivering,” Zahra observes when she realizes what Scanlan is looking at.

“Of course he’s shivering, it’s freezing out here,” Scanlan says, but it sounds like a lame excuse even to him. 

There’s a bear wrapped around him protectively and Scanlan knows that Percy was originally from the north (where in the north, Scanlan doesn’t know, he’s never gotten a clear answer on that from the twins) so it’s unlikely that he’s cold. There’s also the furrow to his brow and the way his fingers clench in Trinket’s fur. 

Percy isn’t sleeping well.

Scanlan chews on his bottom lip in thought. Percy is on third watch for the night so Scanlan can’t even go kick him awake to relieve him of his bad dreams.

Well shit.

Scanlan hops off the log he’s been sitting on with Zahra and stretches with a yawn. “Go wake up Grog, would you? I think it’s time for us to hit the sack.”

“Certainly, but I thought your bedroll was next to Grog’s?”

“Eh, it’s cold out here. I could use a cuddle buddy,” Scanlan says with a shrug. Then he leers up at her, “Unless you’d like to volunteer?”

Zahra snorts at him but the smirk on her face says he hasn’t fooled her one bit.

Percy is not a heavy sleeper (neither is Trinket, for that matter) and Scanlan isn’t known for being quiet on the best of days, so Scanlan squirming into Percy’s bedroll on the other side of him from Trinket does not go unnoticed. Percy squints at him without his glasses and Trinket huffs a breath of hot air across both of them. 

Scanlan wrinkles his nose at the smell. “It’s cold, you run hot, shut up and go back to sleep.”

One of Trinket’s big paws comes up and wraps around both Percy and Scanlan, because of course what Scanlan really wanted to fall asleep to was the smell of damp bear fur. Percy closes his eyes again and is quiet for long enough that Scanlan assumes he’s fallen back asleep.

It’s only as Scanlan is nearly asleep himself that he hears a mumured, “Thank you,” so softly that Scanlan almost thinks he’s imagining it.

Percy does run very warm, and Trinket doesn’t smell so bad once you get used to it, and though Scanlan won’t admit it to anyone, he can see why the twins prefer to sleep with him tucked between them. It’s cozy.

Scanlan drifts off to sleep thinking that being Percy’s replacement nightmare ward for the next few days wouldn’t be all that bad.