strangetrip | [GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

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Check outs. It took a moment for Vex to realize what he meant, and the sudden gaping pit in her gut only passed because Kash would've told her if it was Vax or Percy. But for Kash, surrounded by people suffering, when he felt like he couldn't help... no wonder he was out of sorts more than usual.

"Nothing easy you can do." She was just thinking out loud. Not making a point. why would she make a point? "Nothing to stab. Nothing to soak up that delicious magic healing. No, I get it. I'd want to get a drink somewhere far away too."

Kash shot her a look along his shoulder but didn't quarrel with her choice of words. It was a lot like quarreling with Z when she got something in her head. He shrugged slightly. "What else is there?" Except burning magic to Send to Z, writing in his siege plan journal, or hunting. And Trinket had warm, solid, and silent all locked up.

What else is there? That was the question, wasn't it? Vex thought about what she'd need if Vax or Percy had been on the list.

"Not everybody deals with loss by gathering together to be miserable." Vex wouldn't. She'd grab a bottle and retreat to her room with Trinket. Or better yet, some lonely place up the mountain. "My brother, just as an example, prefers to get publicly shit-faced and throw unsuspecting people into the pool. Or so I've been told."

Vex studied him closely, thinking about all she knew of Kash. "For all your grumbling, you've a good heart and you want to help." Come to think of it, that combo was probably why he came across as grumpy and unsociable – unlike the asshole in the stables, whose only redeeming qualities as far as Vex could tell were good with horses and lets Snow alone. "It's not the ones back there who could use somebody steady and practical when the world feels like it turned sideways."

"More purposefully ignorant than unsuspecting," Kash grumbled under his breath. After all, he'd definitely suspected Vax and Percy had designs on him that had nothing to do with tacos and hot dogs. It was just Vax and Vex's birthday, and he didn't have anything else to give him.

He sighed at her pronouncement about him and narrowly avoided the irritable No shit, Vex that rose in defense. It wasn't her fault he fucking hated it when there was nothing he could do. He leveled his born gold and turned-blue gaze on her, and despite the gruffness in his voice or maybe because of it, he expected her to know this for a plea. "You have a suggestion?"

Vex took a moment before answering, grasping for coherence. Her own good heart-need to help needing to be more overt than she sometimes let it.

"What would you be doing if Percy was among the check-outs? O-or Vax." She meant the question; she wasn't sure what he would do to try to help, only that he would, same as he'd let Vax and Percy shove him in the pool, same as he'd known what it meant to heal Trinket when they first arrived. He was family.

"I don't know, Kash. You're the cleric. You're the one always saying you don't just heal the body. We're not in the middle of a fight. So you've got the time to find the hurts that don't bleed and take a whole lot longer to fix."

"Fuck, I don't know," was Kash's immediate response to the question she'd posed. Three months ago, he'd probably have said something crass about considering himself one lucky son of a bitch and taking her to bed to console her. But he wouldn't have meant it then and he wouldn't even say it now. "I guess make sure you weren't alone if you didn't want to be, were alone if you did want to be but still keep an eye on you, and put up with being cried on because there's not fuck-all else I could do."

Kash sighed and rubbed a hand over the stubble on his jaw that had been growing in. "This place... it brings back a lot of memories. Waking up the morning after my charming wedding ceremony to find everyone I knew in the world gone... That's not something you get over. And it doesn't heal. You just choose, in the end, to give in to the darkness or move on toward the light."

For about the millionth time, Vex wished Zahra were here... except she wouldn't wish that on any of their friends. But for Kash's sake, well, they should be together. Z got him, and got to him, better than Vex could hope to. But she wasn't going to say she wished Zahra was here, when Kash was already in a constant state of wishing it.

"It's so much easier when there's a monster to beat the crap out of." Vex remembered the cold loneliness of their time in Syngorn, and the gut-punch loss when they returned to Byroden to find their home destroyed and mother killed. "You have chosen. You do choose, every day, to move on. You don't have to share your memories with others to help them find the way to move on. You just have to be there. I don't know, you might even find out it helps you remember why you do it."

"You're not Z," he said after a minute, but then he offered her a little almost-grin. "But I can almost hear her saying that."

As soon as he said it, though, Kash felt the world closing in on him. He hadn't spoken of her aloud to any of them, even Pike, in weeks. And saying that like he did, it felt like an admission that she was never going to be here.

His teeth locked and he looked straight ahead of them. "Fuck. I miss her, Vex."

The little jolt of success – she got it right – was short-lived as Vex felt and watched Kash close up. She wondered if he'd said it out loud since he got here. I miss Z. Because he did, and they all, Vox Machina all, knew he did, and they'd all lost people, missed them, but with Kash and Zahra it was... different. More.

Like the bottomless pit in her chest when Vex had seen the last air bubbles leave Vax's body after he was eaten by the kraken. Like Vax for the months she wasn't here, when still missing Keyleth now wasn't the same. Well, she knew what she'd do if this were Vax, but this was Kash, and she filled the space as she tried to figure out what was best with a sincere, if obvious, "Of course you do."

Right. Take the tiefling by the horns. Vex pivoted, slipping nimbly right in front of him and pulled Kash into a Trinket-worthy hug before he could grumble about it. Holding him tight, she asked, "So am I making sure you aren't alone, keeping an eye on you while you get the alone time you want, or being cried on?"

When Vex's arms closed around him, Kash stiffened briefly at the unexpected, uninvited touch. No amount of time with Zahra would ever erase the memories that made him so averse, but he had been with her long enough to recognize the feel of true, safe affection with no threat in it. More to the point, he'd been with her long enough to miss it, desperately.

His arms found their way around Vex in return and for just that moment, he lowered his face to the curve of her shoulder. The scent of her hair was wrong, and they fit against each other differently, but knowing that Z would trust Vex with him was enough to make it right anyway.

After a long moment, he answered her, "I'm good. You've done enough for today," then hugged her more tightly and released her to step away.

Vex held the hug as long as he did, and when he started to pull back, she eyed him carefully again – being slightly familiar with Percy, who was the worst at knowing how okay he was, and herself, who would flat out lie about being all right – but he seemed at least better now than he had been. Her hand squeezed his shoulder once more as she let him step away.

"If I have to track you down later, you know I can do it." She didn't really need to add the and I will, did she?

"Yeah, I do."

Instead of scowling, Kash's mouth quirked in something that on someone else's face might have been a smile. "Go find Vax and Percy and Pike. You know you need to see them."

And there were people around here who might need to see him or someone like him.

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[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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