[Log] Vax & Steph - On Wednesdays (All Days) We Wear Pink - Dated 1/31

[st_abby]

Vax and Steph have a 'Netflix and chill' date night. The movie choice matters less than what they learn about one another, where they came from, and what really matters. Like chili cheese fries and making out.

Date night, when there was nowhere to go, was a little bit tricky. Thankfully, though concerts, amusement parks and trips to the boardwalk were out, Netflix and chill was still a real option. As long as you weren't picky about the Netflix part. Getting her hands on a copy of this movie had been way harder than just logging into Netflix. Thankfully, Stephanie was like a Boy Scout, and Bonesville had had a Red Box. Okay, yeah, she's picked up this and a couple other movies because they were good for Girl's Nights, not Date Nights but when your boyfriend didn't know anything about pop culture, he'd never know he was being subjected to a chick flick.

Steph finished setting up the DVD player she'd gotten from Darryl and checked the clock. Vax should be here soon. She'd put him in charge of bringing food up to her room. She left the balcony door open in case he rejected the perfectly good stairs. Again.

Vax had been tempted to use the perfectly good balcony (again), but he did have food to bring with him, and it was better not to make a mess of it. He'd even done it up properly, getting one of those rolling carts but with the domed lid like he'd done for that cake so he could plate it all. And he hoped, as he squeaked slightly down the hall to her door... He hoped he'd guessed right with the dinner, was all. That he was doing 'movies night' right.

He raised a hand, knocked. "Housekeeping," Vax called, imitating something he'd seen about another inn on the teevees.

Right on time.

Steph hurried over to the door and tugged it open, immediately stepping back out of the way. "Did you bring fresh towels too?" she teased, since that was the one thing, other than fried chicken and blank looks, that you could always count on getting from the staff. She reached down to help him roll the cart in. "Movie's set up. I thought we could just eat on the couch."

"Sure, the couch is good." He'd not worn his black armor, or tried to dress up especially, either. A date where you stayed in together seemed to want coziness, so that was more or less his theme. Vax had found sweats, loose hooded shirt over a sleeveless 'tank top,' and sandals from the gift shop - blessedly gray and black with white inn crests emblazoned on instead of more pink - then loosely tied back his hair into a wadded tail at the nape of his neck rather than leave it spilling out all over. He'd made just a bit of effort with freshly beaded braids pulled back into the rest.

Dinner rolled safely inside, the door falling into place behind him, he stopped Steph with a hand fitted over hers where she'd put it on the cart. Vax stilled to have a look at her, quiet for a moment to get Steph's attention, then leaned in to give her a soft kiss hello. The movie was well and good, and he was looking forward to sharing something from Steph's culture, but the movie itself wasn't what had brought him here.

It took the pause to get her to focus, but she was smiling when he kissed her. She let go of the cart and turned her hand to clasp his, giving it a squeeze. As she drew back again, she took a moment to properly appreciate the sight of Vax in something other than his armor. It always felt like a treat, seeing him in modern clothes. Not that he tended to wear them very long. Like Vax, she'd opted for casual over fancy, with soft terrycloth shorts and a slouchy oversized sweatshirt that was almost longer than the shorts. It was, of course, purple, because she had a brand to think about. "Hi."

"Hello," he answered, low and warm, reflecting her smile. Her soft clothes weren't fancy, but they were cute on her and looked very pettable. Maybe he was biased, but he was supposed to be. It was...nice.

Vax reached over to the tray, catching the top of the lid and pulling it away to reveal what he'd figured out for dinner. "I noticed you seem to like potatoes, and I found a glossy leaflet lying around that had a recipe in it... Have you had 'chili cheese fries' before?" The french fries were piled high with beef chili, bacon, onions, tomatoes, slices of jalapenos, green onions, and sour cream on top, all of them gooey with melted cheese. A few dipping sauces that he didn't know quite what they were went in cups beside the platter, with plates, forks, and napkins besides. Two cans of Diet Coke and a selection of treats from the vending machines had come along with.

He wasn't sure if it was too much a mess or not, if she'd like all the toppings that had went in, or if she might be disappointed it was a mountain of greasy comfort food instead of something healthier or at least more fussy and more traditionally romantic. But he'd stolen a few to taste, and they were fucking delicious by him. Every bite was like sinning. "I don't know if it's too much or not enough for movies," he admitted.

Steph tried to eat right. The Batgirl uniform was not forgiving and extra pounds showed. But the lid lifted off the plate and the smell of the chili and potatoes and bacon hit her like a mallet. Her mouth watered instantly and her eyes went wide. She reached over, dipped a pinkie into one of the sauces and tested it - ranch dressing, aka the perfect condiment. She looked back up at Vax, laughing. "Holy shit, marry me."

His lower jaw actually dropped so that his mouth opened a bit around an unknown word he was trying to make. Starting with a vowel, it seemed.

...She was laughing. Because it was a joke, and jokes were funny, and not serious, you know what a joke is, Vax'ildan.

He recovered in the next beat, returning with a rough chuckle and setting aside the lid from the tray. "You've already got the chili cheese fries, no need to hurry and buy the cow," was what he managed.

There was a moment when she was watching his face and there was something...else happening. She found herself holding her breath, the way you did after you'd shot the grapple out but before it hit (what was it about this relationship that kept going back to gravity related shenanigans?) But it passed and she wasn't sure what it had been. With another laugh, she wrapped her arm around his waist and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Okay okay, I'll wait. But just know, the way to this girl's heart is potato based carbs, so watch yourself."

She reached out and grabbed the plate of fries. "Come sit down. The food will get cold."

"I have no idea what a 'carb' is, but I've got the message that potatoes make you happy," her laugh and kiss made Vax smile in turn.

He moved towards where she'd readied the teevee and movies machine, taking a moment to wonder who 'David' was (a tinkerer who'd built the thing, probably) before making to sit on the couch. "What's the movie you've chosen?"

"Carbs are...I'm not sure what they are nutritionally. Delicious. It's called Mean Girls and it's a very important look at the social dynamics of modern society, especially among teenagers. Also it's a comedy." Steph set the fries on the table she'd dragged in front of the sofa and sat down with her legs pulled up next to her. "I'm fully prepared to pause and explain as we go." She picked up the remote and waggled it. "This gives me control."

"Your magic wand is very sexy," he told her, reaching over to steal a topping-heavy fry. "Okay, then. Let's learn what makes teenaged girls mean. Other than the fact they're teenaged girls."

Steph snickered and hit play to let the pre-credits nonsense roll, then helped herself to a fry of her own. She drenched it in ranch before dropping it in her mouth. "It's an exaggeration but it's not really wrong. The movie, I mean. This is pretty close to what it's like."

There was lots of text that wasn't a part of the movie at all yet, so Vax turned back to Steph after upgrading to a fork for more determined fry-skewering and chili-wrangling. "Did you have big aspirations for what you were going to do with yourself when you grew up?"

Steph stuck to using her fingers for now, because she was a savage. "Before Spoiler? I thought maybe I'd get to college on a gymnastics scholarship. Get a degree. I thought...it might be cool to be a coach. After getting a few Gold medals, you know?" She'd never been that good, but she had dreamed of it anyway. "Other than that...I just wanted to work someplace that wasn't Walmart."

"You'd wear your wealth around your neck? Or would that be on your chest?" That seemed dangerous to him, to flaunt your gold so openly.

But he definitely understood why she wouldn't want to sell walls for a living. That sounded unspeakably boring.

Steph was briefly puzzled. "Huh? Oh, medals. No, they're prizes for getting first place in major competitions, especially the Olympics which are this massive tournament where every nation sends representative to compete in different sports. If you win a gold medal at the Olympics, you're basically the best in the world. They're pretty heavy, so I don't think most people wear them any longer than the ceremony. It's just a symbol. The actual money is in getting sponsorship deals."

Vax stabbed a couple more fries his way, cupping a hand for the trailing cheese. "That sounds... Really cool," he admitted, chewing his fries and paying the screen some attention as the movie started.

It was at once totally foreign to him. It would've given him a shock if he hadn't seen a few of the movies already. Steph had said she'd stop for his questions, but he didn't ask them as quickly as he had them while they saw the pretty, perky redhead basking in the fanfare of leaving her family home for her first day of school. They could've spent all night and not got halfway through. Xylocarp? Remington? Africa?

"So... Do most teenagers go learn their numbers and letters outside the home?"

Steph licked chili off her fingers. "Sure. Not just teenagers, all kids. You start about four or five. At least in America, it's five days a week for most of the day, plus homework at night. Lasts until you're 17 or 18 or so. Then you have to decide if you're going to college, which is usually at least four more years if you go that route. It's meant to be sure that everyone has access to basic education. The fact that Cady didn't go to school is because her family had her out of the country."

"Your average folk don't do nearly so much learning in Tal'Dorei. Wealthy ones, sure, or if you're apprenticed, you learn that. But you tend to pick things up as you go, or not at all." Most children did learn to read and write Common, but the rest wasn't available to everybody as a matter of course. There were schools, but they usually took money or sponsorship. Vax and Vex had got special training only due to their father's station and elves being elves. "That's quite a lot of school unless you're a noble or a scholar of some sort. You say every child studies that much? But then when are they working, getting chores done?"

Steph knew what every school child had learned, that summer break had been created so that rural kids could get home to help with the farm work. But that wasn't really what Vax was asking. "Kids don't work, not usually. Most kids have chores, sure, but they're pretty small jobs, like taking out the trash and cleaning your room. It's sort of understood that the job of a kid is to be a kid and go to school. They couldn't work even if they wanted to. There are laws against hiring children."

Vax turned and gave her a confused look, to see if she wasn't pulling one over on him. "But then... How does anything ever get done? How can families even feed themselves? If you're not doing something to earn your keep by the time you're ten in most places, you're either spoiled or a burden."

There were times when Steph forgot that Vax came from a very different world, but not often. That didn't mean it was any easier to explain the differences. "Okay, so...you know how easy it is to do stuff around here? Like all the machines and stuff that do basic jobs like washing clothes and how irrigation systems can water the crops? That's true of basically everything. It's just easier to get stuff done than it used to be. Picking crops in a field might have taken a hundred people back in the day, but today, it just takes one guy in a tractor. So you don't need to get your kids out of school." Steph sighed and shifted to face Vax a little more. "At least, that's the theory. In reality, there are always kids who drop out and get jobs where they're paid cash so it can't be tracked. Mostly when they're teenagers, after they've learned to read and write and do basic math."

He absorbed that for a moment, looking back at the clean, healthy teenagers bustling about in the very large school building. The inn did offer anything they needed without much effort, but he hadn't thought about that luxury applied everywhere. "Don't get me wrong, it sounds fantastic to have for children. It's just... Not something I would've guessed." What would his life, Vex's life have become, if they'd had all that offered to them without accepting that they'd be treated like shit every day?

"Without public education, you're basically whoever your parents were. A ruler or a baker or a criminal. With it, you can be...anything you want. Or that's the theory anyway. Money and class still matters, in the end." Steph gestured at the screen. "Cady's white, pretty, healthy without any disabilities. Her parents are super educated and you can tell from her house that they have money, even if it's not as much as some of the other characters. That's kind of what this movie is about, all the ways that people are still made different."

At first glance, they didn't look so different to Vax. (They were entirely human, after all.) But he couldn't argue that people tended to do what their parents did in Tal'Dorei.

But then 'Cady' was explaining all the different tribes of teenagers, and... Well, they were all still human, but he supposed they dressed slightly different.

Steph let the movie roll on, wondering what Vax thought of band geeks and jocks and the rest. Her school had slightly different cliques, but it still felt familiar. Maybe she should have started him with Newsies instead. At least the strikes would have explained the whole worker's rights thing.

The more they watched, the less he felt he understood, listening to the harpy patter of the resident teenaged girls sizing up the new one. "We've got this turn of phrase, where I'm from - 'rich bitch'. That's these three, yeah?"

"Yeah, that's them. They're the most popular girls in school, which is not the same thing as being the best liked." Steph cracked a Diet Coke open. "You can think of them like...teenage royalty."

Vax put his fork aside so he could safely curl in closer to Steph, tipping his head to rest on her shoulder. "Is there a reason why they wear pink on Wednesdays? Is that a thing?"

Steph snuggled against Vax and rested her hand on his knee. "Not really. It's just kind of a rule that Regina made up to control her minions. It's part of being a Plastic because she says it is."

"...That's some evil mastermind fuckery," he observed. But then a few minutes later, "...Wait, she's going to spend time with these girls because the other kids hate them? As like a spy, or something? Why do they even care what the rich bitches are saying?"

"What, you've never infiltrated an enemy stronghold to sabotage them from within? Janice hates Regina, she wants to take her down for personal reasons. But Regina is also just basically awful, so there's a justice element to it too. Using Cady is convenient because Cady doesn't know any better and just wants to fit in." Steph thought about it for a second. "They're not wrong but they're not right either."

"Physically," Vax muttered, thinking of Umbrasyl. "I do understand the urge to make someone who's ruining lives eat shit."

The closest he'd ever come to trying to impress a clique as a boy was coming up through the ranks in the Clasp. But that wasn't - this wasn't...

Okay. Maybe he saw just a slight bit of a resemblance there.

"I do too. I usually just punch people to get it done. But...that's the other thing about schools. Violence is zero tolerance. You spend your whole life being taught never to fight. So it all turns into this vicious backstabbing that happens behind the backs of your teachers. And no one can tell the teachers about Regina because all it will do is make them even bigger targets for her and her friends." In a lot of ways, dealing with gangs was easier.

Vax was silent for a few minutes, half listening to the 'rules' of being one of the 'Plastics,' but mostly trying to imagine having gone his whole life without fighting, trying instead to go about it the way she was describing it. "I don't think I would've done well at one of your schools," he admitted.

"I don't think you'd have been the same person if you went to my schools. And I like who you are." She didn't want him to learn how to be like her by watching this. She just wanted him to understand where she was coming from. He was good at rolling with it, but she still knew she was incomprehensible to him at times. "I've never really thought about how much school shapes how we act. At least, not like this."

"I dunno. I'm pretty bloody obnoxious about doing what I feel like doing instead of what I probably should do. Ask Vex. Or Percy. Or Pike. Anybody who's had to deal with me for a long while." He'd been a natural scrapper anyway, less in control then than he was now. His time in Syngorn had taught him technique, but the readiness to fight - that was his.

Like Jason? No, that didn't feel right. Vax wasn't angry like Jason. He just needed to act. More like Dick in some ways, but Dick's energy had been channeled early too. "What do you think I'd have been like? If I was raised in your world?" She wasn't really changing the subject.

Vax lifted his chin to sit over Steph's shoulder, rather than against it. "...Would your parents still have been your parents, in my world?" He didn't mean it to be flip. He thought that mattered to how a person turned out as much if not more than school.

"Let's say yes, a nurse and a failed game show host turned criminal. Trash, barely scraping by." She thought it mattered too. That's why she'd asked. Given the same starting point, what difference did it make?

He didn't know for sure what a 'game show' was, but he'd got the idea of how she saw her parents. "Poor, no family occupation, not many connections... That's practically the adventurer standard," he confirmed. "It'd be crime, adventuring, or military service, would be my guess. And I have a hard time seeing you at the first or the last. It's a lot of the same skills you'd been using anyway - though you're better at dealing unarmed blows than I am for sure."

"In my world, there is no adventuring, not realistically. I lived in a city of 5 million people. You can count the number of people who do what I do on two hands." She didn't argue that she was better at unarmed combat. That was what she'd trained for. He'd trained for something else. "Without school, there isn't a way out."

He'd heard her say 'five million,' but the number seemed impossibly large. He couldn't get his head around it really, so he soon gave it up. "Well, and adventuring's an option for those that have the grit and the skills - but there's a reason that kind of work always has room for more." Because adventurers tended to either die a lot, or decide it was all too much and quit while they were ahead. "It's not exactly steady work."

"What's the life of your average adventurer like?" She gestured at the screen. "If you made a movie of your life, what would it be?"

"Honestly, it's long periods of dicking around trying to figure out what you're doing, investigating things, lots of traveling from place to place. Then plenty of action, and fighting." He sat up a bit, considering the girls on the screen. "And it would have to have comedy in there, if the movie was about Vox Machina at all," he gave a bittersweet little smile to say so. They had more family here than the others, but that didn't mean he couldn't still miss people. Kiki, always. But also Grog, like a big, stupid brother he was always messing with. Scanlan - Scanlan. No one in his whole life had ever made him laugh so hard. "We're the best kind of dumbshits."

Steph smiled and snuggled against his side. "How do you decide what adventure you're going on? I had patrols through the city, keeping an eye out for someone who needed their face rearranged. Did you hang out a sign? Broody raven dude for hire?"

"When you start out, you're usually just looking for a way to make some quick coin. You ask around, keeping your ears open until you find some odd jobs to tide you over. It's clearing out pests or collecting things or finding a lost whatever. Enough of them, you start to get a reputation, you meet people, and then one thing ends up leading to the next." He wrapped an arm around her to enjoy having Steph so close, nuzzling his face in her hair a bit. "We were out hunting dragons before I came here. Mostly we just followed the crumble of cities and the smell of burned bodies."

He knew from his sister that they'd had to fight Raishan after all once Thordak was slain, and then she'd escaped. They surely would've chased her, if not for having come to the Inn.

It wasn't like being a vigilante, even if GCPD did have a searchlight specifically to summon Batman. It was a lot more like...being an actor or something. Where more fame got you more jobs, got you more fame. Except, you know, with violence and dragons. "If you hadn't gone after the dragons...would someone else? Are there a lot of adventurers who could have handled it?" She tilted her head up to look at him.

"Others would've tried, I'm sure," he watched her rather than the teevee, expression sober. It was too much death and destruction on the line, and he knew there must be others in the world like their allies - Kima and Allura, Shaun, J'mon Sa Ord and so on - that would have resisted the dragons however they could. "But part of our success has been in being at the right place and in the right time, and having collected useful things along the way, like my armor or Vex's bow. Who knows how long it would've taken another group to put the pieces of what was happening together? What they'd have had in hand to fight with? There might not been so much of Tal'Dorei left to save by the time that happened, or else the Chroma Conclave could've had too much control over it."

She nodded. That made perfect sense to her. Why did she put on her uniform when there were plenty of other better trained vigilantes? Actual heroes? Because she was there and she could stop it. Batman had years more experience, but she'd known what her father was planning and he didn't. "You weren't the only choice, just the one with the best chance at success. Is it scary? I mean, it's not exactly safe."

"Sure it's scary. All the time." They'd come close to dying often enough, all of them. Some of them had died, well and truly. And so many things seemed to hang by the thinnest threads of fate. So much was beyond their control. "But what do you do? We couldn't walk away. Some days you've just got to scrub the urine out of your armor and keep at it."

"Some people do. Walk away, I mean. Risking your life, knowing you're just going to have to do it again tomorrow...lots of people walk instead." Steph realized the movie was still playing and paused it. This was more important than explaining why Glenn Coco was funny. "Would you have stopped, after the dragons were gone? Retired, or something?"

"I would've wanted a vacation," Vax admitted. "We'd been fighting for so hard, so long, I was dreaming of some time to do absolutely nothing. And I got it, as it happened, but not at all how I would've guessed," he spread his hands to gesture around them.

"As for retiring, though..." He turned it over in his mind for a moment, pressing his lips. He hadn't honestly expected to outlive the Chroma Conclave. But even if he had, he was bound to bigger things already. "I don't think that's an option anymore. Not really. Dragons or no, I've got it on good authority that death is still a thing."

"Your Raven goddess? I guess you don't get to just stop that kind of oath." Steph didn't know much about being religious. She sort of assumed that it was a lifelong commitment. "I tried to give up the whole vigilante thing for about a year. But you can take the girl out of uniform..." She shrugged.

No, he didn't get to just stop with the Raven Queen. For Vex, but increasingly for himself too. He'd gone most of his life without purpose, and he'd mostly made a mess of it. Belief gave him something of that, though he was still sorting it all out.

"Once you've got a taste for it, it's hard to go back to something simpler," Vax agreed. Not that adventurers and vigilantes were the same exactly, but he thought she'd take it as he meant it.

Steph nodded, understanding completely. "Even if you try, at some point, you'll see someone who needs help or a situation that you can fix and you can't just...stand around and let it happen. Not when you've been able to help before." That's how she'd ended up back, over and over again. Because no matter what had come before - broken limbs, babies, firing, death - it was only the end if you wanted it to be.

She wasn't a thrill-seeker, an adrenaline junkie - though maybe that was a perk. Steph believed in being the person that would step in, take action, and make a difference when it really mattered. And she'd keep right on trying, despite the pain of it, because her conscience was that strong.

"I love the goodness in you, Stephanie," he told her after a moment, voice low and soft despite their being alone in the quiet of the room, basking in the glow of the paused movie on the teevee.

She smiled but shook her head at the same time. "What'd I say?" she asked, running it back in her head. Okay, yeah, he'd been talking about how adventurers were hired for their jobs, but... picking fights with dragons wasn't just like a habit you couldn't quit. Dragons did not contain nicotine. "Are you telling me that at least some part of it isn't because it had to be you? Someone else might have got it wrong?"

"My motives weren't always so altruistic as yours, is what I'm saying." You would've been re-arranging my face once upon a time, if you'd had the chance. "I did it for coin, for family, or to keep from dying. Once we'd got to dragons, the trouble was too big to be ignored. It would have changed life as we knew it if no one had stood up to them, and that's a sight different than muggings and robberies. But you made yourself responsible for the everyday well-being of people who didn't even know you, without expectation of a reward. And you kept going back to do it again even when... When most people would've given it up."

Steph snorted. "I got into it because my dad was a fucking plague on my life and I wanted him gone or dead." She slipped her hand into his, laced their fingers. "Don't make me some kind of saint. I just happened to end up with the kind of people who had a Mission to protect Gotham and a desire not to be useless or helpless. I couldn't have stopped a dragon if I wanted to. But I can stop a mugging and that's...life changing for someone. But there's nothing special about me. I'm just trying to do the right thing."

That was something he understood, too, the desire to be rid of one's father. He'd more or less grown out of that. ...As long as he wasn't actually face to face with the old man.

That seemed to stray from the point though. No, she wasn't a saint. But she didn't need to be so far as Vax was concerned. She cared, and she tried, and that was more than most people would do in their whole lives.

"That's exactly what makes you special," he countered gently, using the twine of their hands to draw her in close enough to kiss. He didn't mind if she didn't agree, or if they saw it differently. She was precious to him, all the same.

Kissing Vax was way better than debating her dubious merits and as long as she was special to him...who really cared what the truth was? She relaxed into the kiss, her mouth soft but eager beneath his. With her free hand, she reached up and slid her hand into his hair, loosening the already loose tie so she could thread it around her fingers.

He closed his eyes and exhaled softly, a brush of breath across her cheek, savoring the soft caress of her lips. She unloosed the tie at his hair, his beaded braids rustling after her hand and spilling around his neck. She had a way of unknotting him just as deftly.

"I've interrupted your movies," Vax pointed out, almost but not quite apologetic.

She smiled against his mouth. "Making out instead of watching the movie is totally traditional." Easing back at bit, she looked up into his face. It was incredible how beautiful he was. If it wouldn't have been creepy, she could have just sat and looked at him like he was art. "Besides, be honest, have you understood a single thing that's happened in it so far?"

"Not much of it," Vax agreed. "But the types of people in your movies, there are those sorts of people no matter where you go." She was looking at him a little funny, staring a bit. If she'd been a complete stranger, sure, that would've been creepy. But it was Steph, and he looked back at her as she looked at him. It made him both feel vulnerable and cared for and utterly gone on her, all at the same time.

"...I don't ever mind, just so you know," he went on, reaching to touch her cheek. Vax wanted very much to touch more of her now, but he didn't want to stop her looking at him that way until she was well ready. "Missing jokes or not knowing how a gadget goes, that's not so important. Your whole world is very different to mine, and I don't expect you to shake them all out to be the same somehow. I like that we can see things as different and share that with each other."

It was impossible not to turn her head to his touch, press a kiss to his palm. "I want to know what made you. And I want you to know what made me. Even when those things are just weird or unimportant. Movies are just pieces of where I'm from that I can share." And it meant she got to learn more about him in the process. She was greedy for that, for a better picture of who he was.

"Tell me a story about little Vax," she said impulsively.

It was so unexpected a request, he actually choked on a sudden laugh. "Little Vax? Oh no. He was a runny-nosed little shit," he assured her. "We were just peasants in some nowhere town. Not much to tell in that."

Not a refusal, exactly. He'd tell her one if she really wanted. (How could he refuse her?) But the early years hadn't been nearly as colorful as the later ones.

Which was exactly why she wanted to know. To get a better picture of the whole person that she loved. "Come on," she teased, tugging lightly on his hair. "Those are formative years! What was your first word? First kiss? Favorite hiding spot during hide and seek?"

"I bet you can guess my first word already if you think about it," he not-quite-answered coyly, smiling for her enthusiasm.

She could? Steph's brow furrowed as she considered it. A moment later, she laughed. Of course, she could. "Vex." It wasn't a guess. No one meant more to Vax than his twin, no one was closer and nothing was more important. Which was fucking adorable.

"It sounded more like Veh for a while, but yeah." There had been a while where they even thought they had the same name. And people were mixing them up to this day. Even Vox Machina slipped now and again.

He glanced at where she still had his hair in hand, giving him a thought. "You wanted a story... Well there was a time, we must've been only seven maybe. Vex was desperate to have ribbons in her hair like she saw a traveling merchant's daughter wearing, in robin's egg blue. But satin ribbons were beyond our mother's means. So Little Vax'ildan thinks he's terribly clever, nicking her a pair, that they'll hardly be missed after the merchant wagon has moved on. But then when he presents them to Little Vex'ahlia, she says he's done a stupid thing, because how's she going to wear them without Mom being very cross at her?"

Steph lifted her eyebrows, smiling for the sweet boy who wanted to give his sister a present. "And what did Little Vax'ildan do?" She dragged her nails along his scalp and down his neck, enjoying the slide of his hair around and over her fingers.

He closed his eyes and sighed as she scratched and stroked her hand at his hair, relaxing into her touches. "We thought to hide them, keep them our own secret treasure. But children aren't so good at that sort of thing yet. Didn't last more than a few days before we were caught out by mother, and so much for keeping the ribbons. She made a point of telling us how very wrong stealing was..." For all the good that had done her. Their mischief and misdeeds had never been her fault. "And that we'd do better showing our love for each other by keeping one another out of trouble." ...Really, the woman had tried. And they'd loved her dearly for it.

"Your mom sounds like a smart lady." Steph wondered what her parents would have said in the same circumstance, then snorted. Not wanting to interrupt his tale, but wanting to share, Steph offered, "If it had been my parents...well, if it was before Dad lost his hosting job, he'd have wanted to know why I hadn't asked for ribbons and been mad that I was implying he couldn't afford it. After, he'd have been happy about it. Daddy's little girl following in his footsteps. I always kept my shoplifting under wraps."

"She was, in her way." She'd never had book smarts, but she'd had practical sense. You could buy tutors with gold - but you couldn't buy that.

Vax opened his eyes to look at Steph again, a sparkle of interest in them. "What sort of things did you pocket?"

"Oh god, stupid stuff. Lipgloss, mostly. Not very often but once in a while. I was obsessed with the sparkly strawberry scent ones. I gave it up around the time I made Spoiler. I mean, I couldn't get pissed at Dad for holding up banks if I was stealing too." Steph shook her head at her younger selfs sense of justice. She'd never been caught but surely it would have been a matter of time. And that would have killed Spoiler for good. "You'd think it'd have been something useful. Food or something since I was basically always hungry, but nope. Sparkles are important to gymnasts."

"No stupider than hair ribbons," Vax suggested, understanding the justification. "It was something that made you feel special, when you maybe didn't get to feel that way at home. Or in front of the-" He recalled the word and nodded back at the stilled teevee. "The Plastics of the world."

He had a point. Keeping up with the popular kids had felt life or death...at least before actual life and death had felt that way. "What did you take for you? You got hair ribbons for Vex. What made you feel special?"

Vex, he thought, but kept that to himself. It didn't need saying.

"I always liked beads," Vax pointed out with a tug at one of his braids. "Cloaks and accessories, rare and curious things more than expensive ones. I liked blades, like a lot of boys." Except most of them would go on to be farmers or merchants or scholars rather than take real weapons training.

Steph ran her fingers over the beads, cool and smooth. "Cloaks?" she asked with an amused smile, "One for every outfit? How many cloaks can you wear at once? You are the opposite of a clotheshorse most of the time." Take for example that this was only one of a very few times that she'd seen him out of his fancy death armor.

"Now most of my fashion choices have been made for me," he admitted. "And sure, you can only wear one cloak at a time if you want to avoid tangling yourself up into a mess. But when you're out adventuring, your clothes take regular thrashings. Besides, you come across all sorts of odds and ends-" When you were looting. "So if you go through cloaks like toilet squares, you start keeping more of them on hand, just in case. Especially if they've got some special trick to them, like my wings."

"That makes sense. I'm not usually in my uniform for days at a time, so there's not a lot of wear and tear that can't be fixed before the next patrol." Having backups would have been nice after the quake or during the war. "Of course, I only wear my uniform when I'm actually working."

"I'm still wearing mostly my armor, when the most fiendish foe I've met here has been a vending machine," he confessed the inherent silliness in it. "It's for the Raven Queen, but also... Because it feels like the only proof that my life before this place even happened, I suppose. As if it would disappear or I'd somehow forget if I took it off for too many days."

"And here I thought you were just really committed to the brooding emo thing." Steph grinned and abruptly swung herself into Vax's lap. "I like when you're not wearing the armor. Feels a little bit less like you're going to vanish back to Exandria on me."

She had a knack for that, surprising him. Vax had quick reflexes though, so his hands were there to catch and settle her where she'd claimed her place, dark eyes made bright. "...I'm not going to vanish anywhere right now," he swore, words somehow both soft and husky. It didn't matter to him that he had absolutely zero control over that. Some things, you just learned to take on faith. "I like being here with you too much for that."

Maybe it was cheesy, but it was how he felt, all the same.

Steph leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "Thank you."