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Vax knows he’s different.
But here’s the thing – all of Vox Machina are different. They do things they’re not supposed to be able to do. They talk to gods. They take down monsters. They singlehandedly rescue cities… sometimes without people even knowing a crisis has been averted. Some of his closest friends – his family members, for crying out loud – can become animals. Or sing a song designed specifically to get into someone’s pants. Or fire extremely powerful projectiles from a weapon that seems to be made of metal and anger and flame.
Then he discovers a secret about Vex, and it blows his entire thought scheme to hell.
He realizes, for the first time, that he’s different in an entirely different way.
They’re being celebrated at some fancy dinner in a backwoods town, complete with large mugs of ale – Grog’s favorite – and an entire company of scantily-clad female musicians – Scanlan’s favorite. There aren’t nearly enough chairs for all of the townspeople in their meeting hall, so some people are sitting on various boxes and crates and a variety of strange furniture, but everyone seems to be having a great time. Vax just tries to enjoy himself, getting lost in the noise and hustle and bustle, occasionally reaching over to grab Pike by the back of her armor when she threatens to pitch headfirst off the wobbly stool she’s sitting on. He’s not sure why he keeps doing it, since if she did end up falling she’d wind up clinging to Grog’s massive bicep, a situation neither would be upset with, but it’s something to focus on. And if he’s being truly honest, he likes the way all of the parts of Pike’s armor chime together when he grabs her, and the way she laughs and thanks him.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees Percy approaching and turns. “What is it?”
“Your sister,” Percy replies.
Vax is on his feet in an instant, looking around the room. “Where is she?”
Percy motions to a table on the other side of the room, and Vax’s heart sinks when he sees tears running down Vex’s face. “I don’t know what’s happening,” Percy says. “She just…”
“I think I know,” Vax says.
As he moves through the room of twirling townspeople and drunken dancers and merry musicians, he thinks back to all of the things he’s observed in his twin’s demeanor recently. Frustration. Panic. Unexplained exhaustion. Avoiding some of her favorite people and her favorite places. He thinks he’s got it nearly figured out.
Before he can reach her table and suggest they step outside, a loud clang echoes up from behind him, followed by both Pike and Grog laughing like mad. Vax half-turns to see the goliath hauling his gnome best friend up from the floor, and a smile crosses his face.
By the time he gets his attention back to the other side of the room, Vex is gone.
Vax instinctively moves for the door and finds his twin half-hidden by a small copse of bushes a few hundred yards from the town meeting hall; she’s curled into a ball with Trinket nearly wrapped around her. He crouches down. “Can we talk?”
“Aren’t you going to walk away?” she demands, arm flung over her eyes.
In response Vax merely sits down next to her and rubs her shoulder. He’s expecting it, but it still hurts when she flinches away from him.
“Y’know, Stubby, I’ve been thinking…”
“This should be good.”
“… and I’ve decided I’m all right with this.”
“With what?”
“I mean, I’d rather you’d picked someone else, but I guess de Rolo’s okay.”
“What?”
“And if he makes you happy, then who am I to judge? I just hope you’ve figured out who you’re going to let borrow the broom when you get too big. Except maybe don’t let it be Grog.”
Vex slowly lowers her arm from her eyes. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Vax hesitates. “You mean, you’re not… um… you’re not…”
“Spit it out, brother.”
“You’re not pregnant?”
Vex snorts. “Not very likely. As far as I know, in most parts of the world two people are still required for that kind of thing, and while I like everyone fair enough, I haven’t taken any of them into my bed.”
“Oh.” Vax can’t help but feel ridiculous. “But things have been different with you.”
“Yeah, but not pregnant different,” Vex says. She sighs. “There’s something wrong with me.”
“As long as it’s not a baby, I’m all right with it.”
Vex sighs. “Certain noises… they make me feel wrong.”
“What?”
She hesitates, trying to figure out how to phrase the condition she’s just recently become more aware of herself. “I asked Scanlan… he said sometimes people’s brains aren’t wired to hear certain sounds. And that for some people, hearing those sounds can do things to them.”
“How’s he know all this?”
“They taught it to him at bard college. Just listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s a group of soldiers in the Valkari Isles who go into a bloodthirsty berserk state just from hearing a certain string of notes. One of Scanlan’s friends swears there’s a tone that makes women fall in love. Scanlan says he’s seen just the right sounds cause people to cry or get in bar fights or have sex. Sometimes all three, according to him.”
“I shouldn’t have even gotten started,” Vax mutters.
“For me, they make me…” Vex shakes her head and looks away from him. “I get panicked. Sometimes even downright terrified. Or really, really aggressive. Like when I lost my shit in the Temple of the Unnamed God.”
“Stubby, everyone lost their shit in the Temple of the Unnamed God.”
“Right, but for different reasons. For me, it was because of the noises in there.”
Vax puts his arm around his sister. “And today?”
“The way the finger cymbals are crashing together. It’s like they’re little tiny pins, stabbing my head right above my ears, trying to get into my brain.” Vex frowns as though still thinking about it. When she speaks again her voice is very quiet. “I don’t like thinking there’s something wrong with me, that I’m not safe because I never know what a certain noise is going to do to me.”
Vax yanks her closer. She puts her head on his chest.
“So tell me what helps.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know,” Vex mumbles. “We’re all fucked up, Vax, right? ‘Cept for maybe Scanlan. And you.”
She falls asleep against his chest, Trinket behind them like a big fluffy pillow.
And you.
For the life of him, Vax can’t figure out what she means.
Until he watches a noblewoman interrogate Keyleth in the City of Gears. He can just tell by Keyleth’s body language that things are going wrong and she doesn’t know what to do.
“I just… uh… we’re…” Keyleth’s arms jerk towards her body and she flicks her fingers. She shifts on her feet and looks wildly around at the others.
“I think what she’s trying to say is that we haven’t seen the man you’re looking for,” Scanlan cuts in smoothly.
Vax slips his hand into Keyleth’s. Her eyes roll towards him and her breathing is raspy and quick. “I just… I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” he says softly.
“Is it?” the noblewoman asks, all snake-like confidence. “In my city no one who is innocent speaks as she does. Unless they’re simple, and then, well…”
“She’s just different, all right?” Vex snaps from behind them. “Didn’t get out much as a child.”
Keyleth’s body tenses as the noblewoman gives her a critical once-over. “Sorry. I’m… I mean… we’re not…”
“Gods, she’s tedious,” the noblewoman drawls to her companions.
Keyleth’s free hand moves towards her face, fingers flicking. The hand in Vax’s tenses. She starts to hum under her breath.
“Move along. We don’t know anything,” Percy informs the noblewoman and her gang of lackeys.
They go, but not fast enough for Keyleth. By the time Vox Machina can circle around her she’s completely gone, clinging to Vax and rambling wildly about how she’s not a good Ashari and she’s never going to finish her AraMente and why are people such assholes and how come she never has the right words to say and she’s letting them all down…
Until he sees Percy slip Pike something the morning before they go into a battle. He forgets about it entirely until much, much later, until the battle’s over, when he sees Pike take off across the field like some sort of golden-haired bullet, clinking and clanging in her armor, bolting to Grog’s side. She scrambles up onto his shoulder like her life depends on it; not fully free from his rage, he takes a swing at her.
Vax finds he’s holding his breath, ready to throw a dagger at Grog or grab Pike from the goliath’s reach.
Pike tips something into Grog’s hand and whispers something into his ear. The effects are almost immediate. Grog drops to the ground placidly, Pike in his lap. His fingers begin moving over whatever it is she’s handed him. Pike stays right where she is, her mouth moving, her expression never wavering.
Vax gets close enough to see that the something in Grog’s hands is a puzzle box, the wooden kind Percy makes when he’s bored. It’s much simpler, though, as if it was made specifically for Grog. And he gets even closer, until he can hear what Pike’s saying.
“You didn’t hurt any of the good guys. You only hurt the bad guys. You were very brave.”
Grog’s fingers move over the puzzle box, sliding some sides and clicking others into place. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You made sure we were all safe.”
“An’ yer safe?”
“I’m fine,” Pike answers gently, though Vax sees there’s a jagged slash on her forehead, leaving a section of her light hair sticky and matted with blood.
“’M sorry,” Grog says, and he reaches up and brushes one massive thumb against her bloody head.
“You don’t have to be sorry. You did a great job.”
Grog pushes in the ends of the puzzle box and the entire thing clicks in on itself, exposing two pieces of candy. “Oh!” he says, surprised.
Pike leans in and plucks one out of the box, sticking it in her mouth before he can object, grinning at her best friend.
It’s such an odd, private moment that Vax can’t figure out what he feels about it. He just knows he feels wrong observing it; he definitely wasn’t invited.
Until he catches Percival, literally catches the man as he stumbles down the hallway, holding him up. “What is it?”
“My chest,” Percy gasps. “I can’t…”
Vax looks for wounds, for weaponry sticking out of his torso, for literally anything to be causing Percy’s symptoms. He finds nothing. “A spell? A curse? Do you need Pike? Or Allura?”
Percy grabs Vax around the neck. “No. No. Just give me…”
In the darkened hallway Vax listens to his friend struggle for breath. “You know, Percival, it would look awfully suspicious if you were to die in this hallway with me the only witness.”
“I’m not… dying. Just… suffering.”
“It sounds awfully the same to me.”
“I’m only thinking… about how… it would extremely… inconvenient of me…” Percy wheezes. “… to die… without producing… an heir. Or… a legacy.”
“You start talking like that and you just might die in this hallway. I’ve seen the way you and my sister look at each other when you think no one’s looking.”
“Can you… conceive… of a world… where everything you did… meant nothing? Nothing of you… survived?”
Vax has no fucking clue how to answer that. He settles for just patting Percy’s back and muttering things that sound vaguely comforting until at last Percy’s breathing evens out and he straightens up. “Um, thank you.”
“Don’t know what I did.”
“Sometimes that’s all that helps,” Percy answers. He looks away from Vax, clearly embarrassed.
“It’s all right, Percival,” Vax says. “We’re all…”
Before he can get anything else out, Percy gives him a curt nod. “I think it’s best if this remains between us. Thank you for your assistance.”
And with that, the conversation is over. Percy’s back in control.
So Vax walks away.
Until Pike jolts out of a nightmare screaming, inches from Vax’s bedroll. He’s the first one to her, sees her eyes wide open in unseeing terror. Moving on autopilot he wraps his arms around her, hugging her body tightly to him, pressing her arms against her own torso, whispering in her ear. “You’re alive. You’re alive. You’re safe, and you’re alive. It’s okay to wake up.”
She screams and writhes. Vax just keeps his voice level, the same way she does for Grog after a major battle. “You’re alive. You’re safe. It’s okay to wake up.”
He knows she understands him when she gasps and everything in her body tenses. He still doesn’t let go, though; she’s asked him not to. The pressure… it helps. It centers me. It puts me back into my own body.
“You’re safe,” Vax whispers. “Let me know if you’re awake.”
“Yeah,” Pike gets out, her response oh-so-Pike-like. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Let me know when you want me to let go.”
She nods against his chest. “Just… keep talking.”
Vax looks around the camp. Scanlan and Vex are both awake, watching the two of them with concerned eyes. Grog’s out on watch. Keyleth’s Minxy form raises her head and nudges Trinket. Percy sleeps on. “Well, as usual, de Rolo’s sleeping through the whole damn thing. I think he only wakes up for his own nightmares.”
Pike doesn’t say anything else, but her breathing hasn’t slowed.
“And Grog’s off tromping through the fields around here, probably looking for a new salt lick rock. You know, even though you gave him back the old one. I think he told me it just doesn’t taste right anymore.”
A whimper escapes from Pike’s mouth and Vax immediately squeezes her tighter. “Shh, you’re awake. You’re awake, and you’re alive, and if you want all of us to stay up the rest of the damn night with you, we will.”
“I was…” Pike gets out. Her body tenses again, unaccompanied by the exhale that would signal she’s truly relaxing.
“Hey, hey, none of that,” he says firmly.
“Vax…” she whimpers. “I’m…”
Vax realizes that despite all of the seemingly-normal conversation they’ve had since he woke up, Pike’s still somewhere between awake and nightmare. He shifts his position until he can see Scanlan. “Hey, Shorthalt.”
“Oi.”
“Get over here.”
Scanlan boosts himself out of his bedroll and trots over. “Yeah?”
“She needs a song.”
Again Pike whimpers against Vax’s chest, and this time it’s followed by the hiccupping noise that generally means she’s going to start screaming again. Hurriedly Scanlan breaks into a melody. “Some people live… in a house on a hill… and wish they were someplace else…”
Pike tenses and Vax just keeps whispering truth in her ear. “You’re alive. You’re safe. You’re amazing. You’re so much bigger than everything that comes to get you. We adore you. We’re always going to keep you safe.”
“… and sail over oceans five fathoms deep… but can’t find… what they want the most…”
He isn’t sure how long he holds her, how long Scanlan sings, how long the dark worried eyes of Minxy and Vex and Trinket stay on them, but eventually he feels Pike go limp. Vax leans her back and has just enough time to see her eyes, blue and gentle, look up at him in gratitude before they slide closed and she drops back into sleep.
Across the campsite Minxy settles again. Vex follows suit. Trinket lets out a snuff and comes closer to lick Pike’s face before flopping down next to her bedroll.
Vax cradles Pike gently as he wraps her back up in her blankets. Trinket gives him a short, bearish nod as though to say I’ll protect her now.
When Vax straightens up Scanlan’s looking at him. “You ever think everybody else ‘round here’s just a little weird?”
Vax has to laugh.
“What?”
“I think we’re the ones who’re weird.”
“Nah, that can’t be it.” Scanlan takes a toothpick from his pocket and ponders this thought as he cleans between his two front teeth. Eventually he shrugs and makes his way back to his own bedroll.
Vax lets his eyes readjust to the dark and curls up again, thinking that for all his foibles and self-hate and absolute desperation, he’d never refer to himself as “weird.” And he’d never consciously refer to any other member of Vox Machina as “weird,” either, though Scanlan seemed to think it fit.
No, they’re not weird. They’re different.
The sound of finger cymbals makes Vex an emotional mess, but Vax knows his sister can hit a target’s center from a hundred and fifty yards away with her eyes closed. He knows she’d give her life for him. And so he tends to forget.
Keyleth hates talking to strangers and dealing with pressure, but Vax has seen her, radiant, fire hands arcing towards the sky, a fire grin on her face for those precious few seconds as she burns, completely in her element. He knows she’s made of passion and adores beauty and is just so… so good. And so he tends to forget.
Grog’s rages seem to be leaving him more and more confused, and Vax would never, ever want to be in the path of the raging goliath and his weapon of choice. But Vax also knows Grog loves candy, and throwing Pike through the air, and playing pranks. And also, ale. And so he tends to forget.
Percy is, well, Percy. He’s a contradiction in a handful of moments, frantic and desperate and noble and cool all at once. He’s probably got more issues than the rest of them combined; it’s all in how he deals with them. Which is to say, sometimes, badly. But he’s suave and charming and artistic, and he’s often putting himself on the line to save the rest of them, whether it’s through the use of words or something a little stronger. And so Vax forgets.
And he truly forgets to consider that sometimes even healers can’t heal themselves. Pike’s a golden ray of sunshine (or, if Grog’s chucking her through the air, a gleaming bullet) with a perpetual smile on her face, and so it’s easy to let the memories of her death and the terrifying ways she reacts slip from his conscious mind.
Sometimes he forgets they’re all a little twisty and broken and… different.
And maybe the fact that he forgets, that he chooses to see them for who he knows they truly are, is what makes him different.