#just a lil ficlet to get over some writer's block

[blorbologist]

Just wanted to be brave like you

Gen | 1.7k | Perc’ahlia and little Vesper | Modern AU | Just fuckin sad

Cross-posted to AO3

--

She’d warned him.

Vex had taken her husband aside when it became clear this film was on the agenda for the day. “Percy, darling,” she’d said, all filed edges and feather soft, “you don’t have to-”

“I do,” he’d insisted just as gently. “I’m not missing out on time with the women of my life because of a movie. Not an obligation, but a pleasure.” Then, wry: “Besides, we’ve both seen worse. Been through worse. The reviews are great, Keyleth has recommended it for as long as I can remember. Now is as good a time as any.”

“Are you sure?” And she’d pulled back to scrutinize him. Vex’ahlia is and always has been very good at that. There are no lies in him for her to find, though he suspected that’s not what she was looking for. “Percy, it made Vax sob the first time we watched it after our mother-”

She fell short of words, so he went the extra mile to find some for her: “I know, I know, dear. But it’s Vax. He’s like that. It’s a silly movie, and I have you both to protect me. It’ll be fine. Please?”

“Alright, darling. If you’re sure.”

She’d warned him, and he hadn’t listened.

Percy buries his face in Vex’s shoulder, waits for the music to pick up a little louder, and uses all this to cover a pathetic, wet sniffle.

Peeking through his lashes, it does not seem like Vesper noticed, too enraptured by the television screen. 

She clutches her stuffie to her chest with a gasp. The dusty scene glides slowly over the still golden form of a magnificent beast.

“Dad?”

Vesper mouths no - he thinks, because his eyes are burning and he really can’t look a second longer. Percival de Rolo has another embarrassing, probably snotty sniffle in his wife’s (his, but she’s stolen it) sweater. 

Why the fuck is he, a grown man, getting weepy over animated lions?!

Bless his wife - no I told you so, just a calloused hand running through his hair, over and over.

“Dad, c’mon,” begs Simba - he thinks it’s named Simba, “you gotta get up. We’ve got to go home.” 

And fool that he is he looks up just in time to see the cub tug at his father’s ear - oh gods, just like at the beginning of the movie when he woke him up for the patrol - and the horror, the realization -

Percival does not say fuck because he is the father of a five-year-old. He comes close, though, because even a vehement “Fudge,” is wholly incapable of conveying how truly wretched he feels. 

He knew the stupid lion was going to die. The film is just about as old as he is, and Vex had warned him repeatedly. For all that he never watched these movies growing up, Percy was not found under a rock either - everyone knows Mufasa dies.

It’s just something else, to be presented with the desperate loneliness again. This can’t be happening. He can’t be gone, they can’t be gone. Help - somebody, anybody, help. (And no one did.)

“Percy?” Vex murmurs, and he can hardly hear her beyond the raspy breathing. His raspy breathing. Oh dear. 

“‘m coping,” he gets out.

They both freeze when Vesper starts whimpering. Percy just has time to see her cheeks become tantrum-red before she bubbles into hiccups.

“Vesper, sweetheart - what’s wrong?” 

The words are a trigger - springloaded, she spins around to bury her face in Percy’s chest with a sob that breaks his darned heart. “I don’t want you to go-” she sobs, and that heart crumbles to dust in tiny hands when she takes fistfulls of his shirt. 

“Dear,” and he’s so watery, he doesn’t want his baby to see him like this, surely it’ll make it worse, “I’m not going anywhere-”

“He promised! Papa, he promised!” He gets a shaking hand to the nape of her neck, rubbing soothing circles that do little to make him feel better. They don’t seem to help Vesper, either, who clings tighter. She also makes a very obvious smear of snot, which, really, is enough to get a choked laugh from him. 

Vex might have paused the television - Percy can’t be sure, when she shuffles around to hug them both. “Vesper - little Whisper,” Vex whispers, barely beyond tears herself, “what do you want, sweetheart?”

“I want Daddy,” she sobs, “and - and you, and me, and - and-”

Vex’s free hand takes up running through as much of Vesper’s hair as she can. It usually works on her just as well as it does Percy - instead their little girl jerks back, almost offended her mother thinks she can soothe this new pain. 

“He’s alone! His - his Papa’s dead and he’s alone and he promised-”

“It’s just a movie,” Percy warbles. Takes a moment to sound less devastated than his child. She needs him. “Vesper, darling, it’s okay. There are no stampedes here, no evil lions. We’re not going anywhere - I promise, I give you my word.”

He can’t promise that. 

He knows better than anyone, anyone at all. There’s worse than wildebeest, worse than evil uncles. Long live the king, death to the de Rolos, there’s little difference. 

But he’s a father, now, he’s Vesper’s father, and if this is her reaction to the understanding that he could die - that he could be gone - he will build every bulwark, every defense against her ever experiencing this heartbreak as he has. Fuck tragedy, age, accidents - he won’t leave his family. He won’t. Death will have to face him, and he’s got good odds that death will lose.

Death had won back then, though, which makes him clutch Vesper tighter.

One day. But he will fight for each one he has with them. And knows well Vex will do the same.

It goes around like that - the DVD player faintly whirring in protest, here and there, as Vesper keeps repeating the tragedy in her mind, as Vex and Percy keep trying to soothe her of it. 

Vex shoulders most of it. Percy is still in much of a state himself, to his shame. Bouts of comfort before he needs to take some for himself: Vesper’s hazel eyes made dark grey by the film of tears, or his grief-rough voice sounding like his father’s to his ears. 

It’s not fair to Vex, to be juggling the both of them. He hates this, badly, but struggling to keep his breathing even just makes it buck his control and throw him into more crying.

He has a family, now. Vex and Vesper and Cass and Vax and Keyleth and Velora and those bound to him by no law but forces greater than them. No one here is alone, and never will be again.

“Daddy, you’re sad.”

Well, so much for hiding it. Percy cannot exactly wipe away the tears regardless - hands full and all, and unlike his progeny he is not going to wipe snot on his shirt. “I guess I am,” he admits. 

“You -” Vesper has to pause to work through the words - stuck somewhere in her throat, he thinks, maybe wiggling in her mouth like a frog, he knows the feeling. “You don’t-”

He leans into Vex’s touch. An anchor for the wave he knows is coming. He takes the time he can to measure his breathing before Vesper says, “I - Daddy, you don’t have a daddy.”

“No - no, sweetheart, I don’t.”

(He doesn’t include the list, the tombstone-script of names. He’s lost so much more than his father, but he supposes that’s a good place to start. Let alone Vex’s mother. One at a time, or he’ll break again and break worse and Vesper doesn’t need that.)

Vesper looks up at him with streaming eyes. “I’m sorry, Papa.” She squeezes him with all her might - which is considerable, to him. So much love to give and with no remorse. Those perfect little brows - more Vex’s than his - furrow something fierce, and she struggles just free enough of his hold to offer her stuffy. Who is also covered in snot. “’m sorry. Will - will Bauble make it better?”

And oh, fuck, he isn’t ready for that. 

“Thank you, dear,” he says solemnly. “Yes - yes, Bauble makes it better.”

He lets Vesper press the owlbear (it was supposed to be a bear, but - Velora, dear, that’s a beak) to his chest, where his heart struggles to pet it. 

“I love you, Papa.”

She says it often. More than daily, more times than he can count - and he has tried, diligently, to count and treasure each one.

This one makes his face melt into something awful, and Vesper looks so worried, so scared, and it’s because of the stupid animated lions - 

He must have made a gods-awful sound, this time, because there’s a racket of tags and claws on the hardwood as a brown blur bounds over from the kitchen and launches himself at the couch. 

Which he’s not supposed to be on, strictly speaking, but who could keep Vax from encouraging the habit? And who would dare fault him now when all the de Rolos shriek. 

“Trinket,” Vex scolds, hardly scolding at all. “Down, buddy!” 

He just wuffles and noses Vesper’s ear until she wails with giggles, shoving her open palms at their dog. Those get licked too.

It’s very hard to cry when a huge fluffy dog is whining at you for every whimper and licking at your mouth until they turn into laughs.

Percy will be sure to sneak him a little ham, later. 

“Tell you what,” says Vex, in his ear. Vesper wiggles to look up at her, too. What must their daughter see? Vex is too close and his eyes too damp to make out much of her beyond redder than normal and shaky. What a portrait, what a distressing sight. “You remember what the daddy lion -”

Sniffle. “Mufasa, Mama.”

She smiles. “- what Mufasa said earlier? About the great kings of the past?” Trinket’s collar rustles when Vex ruffles his soft ears. “Later tonight, after supper, we can go look at the stars, and… talk to them. Would you like that, darling?”

Percy is fairly sure she means Vesper. But when their daughter pinches her eyes shut - overwhelmed? To think? - she’s looking at him with eyes he’d surrender his fears to. 

Would he like that?

“Yes, Mummy,” Vesper burbles, with a final rub of her fist to her nose. She then pats Percy’s arm, snot and all. “Can - can we keep watching the movie, Papa?”

“It gets scary,” Vex warns gently. A glance at the screen confirms that Scar looms, some shadows in the dust behind him. “If it’s too much, just tell us and we can stop, alright darling?”

“Trinket will protect you,” Percy adds quietly. The thump of a stubby tail seconds that.

Vesper nods so bravely. “Alright.”

Dutifully, Vex - the only one with a free arm to reach the remote, and with the least gross hands - presses play, and soon enough the thrilling music and fast-paced chase have Vesper distracted again. Even Trinket watches, with his old eyes, laying his head on her little lap.

Percy brands a kiss to Vex’s brow. As hard as he dares.

She hugs him a touch too tight. It’s a promise.

[blackholeofprocrastination]

Hello friends,

I’ve really been struggling with writer’s block in a big way. I can’t seem to focus on one idea long enough to finish it or if I do finish it I can never get it to a place where I feel comfortable sharing it or posting it. I’ve decided to give myself a little push to try to get over some of my hangups about my writing and to maybe get some of my writing mojo back.

For the next few weeks, I am going to clear EVERY. SINGLE. PROMPT. out of my inbox. Currently there are 22 prompts in total gathering dust, some dating back as far as 2016/2017 🙈(don’t judge me too harshly good people of the internet). 

It is my mission to fill all 22 by the end of the month!

Some may be drabbles or ficlets... others slightly longer. I’m just going to lean in, let the muses take over, and try not to judge myself too harshly with the end results. 

To the more prolific set of writers out there, 22 may not sound like much, but to lil ol me who has posted ONE fic to ao3 in the last TWO YEARS (a fic, might i add, that i wrote in 2016 and only did a minor rewrite to in 2021) this is going to be a STRUGGLE.

Wish me luck.