ax_main | Pike and Vex | Backdated to May 12th

Pike and Vex catch up and make plans to party.

Vex and Keyleth's room was much easier to find than Percy's, Pike was thankful to discover. Though it did mean that her hair was only half pulled into a plait by the time she reached their door. With a ponytail holder held between her teeth and her fingers occupied holding her braid in place, Pike leaned in and knocked on the door with her elbow. "Vehx? Keylth?"

Vex jumped up from the bed at Pike’s muffled voice and pulled the door open. She smiled as soon as she saw her friend. “Hello, darling. Need a hand with that?”

"Nah," Pike said out the side of her mouth. With a final few twists she finished the messy braid and brought the end to her mouth to grab the hair band and tie it off. "But you're on call the next time I try to do something fancy." She smiled back, now that her mouth was free. "Hi!"

“Hello,” Vex said fondly. “Keyleth stepped out but I’m sure she’ll be back soon. Come in, get cozy.”

Trinket was on the bed, nestled into a pile of covers. He rumbled a greeting.

"Oh gosh!" Pike rushed in, amazed to see the baby bear in person. "He's so cute!" She directed that at Vex before turning back to Trinket. "You're so cute! Yes you are!" Her voice went low in the universal tone used when talking to animals and babies. "I just want to hug you to pieces!”

“Feel free, he endures a great deal of manhandling.” Vex grinned.

Trinket snorted and did the bear equivalent of rolling his eyes at Vex. He shrugged out of the blanket nest to move closer to Pike.

“Trinket, this is your other auntie Pike.”

Pike immediately hopped up on the bed and wrapped her arms around Trinket, burying her face in his fur. "Oh. Wow." The muffled words were practically moaned. "He's so warm and fluffy! Wish we had him at the old place."

“Right?” Vex agreed. “He was a blessing all winter.”

After another second Pike somewhat reluctantly turned over and stared at Vex. "So, how are you doing?"

“Not bad,” Vex said. “There are many perks to being here.” She went to the bed and climbed in next to Pike, curling against her. “Better now that you’re with us. I’m so happy you’re here, even if it feels like a creepy coincidence that we’re all mutants.”

Pike tucked in against Vex, smiling softly and lightly clasping her necklace charms. "I don't believe in coincidences. We were all meant to be together."

Vex kissed the top of her head. “Missed you.”

"I hated being away, so much, knowing all of you were out here without me," Pike sighed, content at where she was now. "Now that we're back together, we're not allowed to separate again, okay? Not for that long, at least."

“Agreed,” Vex said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you... any of you. Having spent time with my father I can say with my whole heart you are our family.”

"Gosh, I feel like I've missed out on so much of your life, all of your lives." Pike pursed her lips. "Have I missed anything big?"

A laugh bubbled before Vex could suppress it. “Other than the powers, which Percy get cranky when I refer to them as magic powers? And moving over here to the school full of mutants?”

Pike snorted. Percy would get in a huff about calling powers magic. "Yeah, other than that. No budding romance? New best friends?"

Vex buried her face in her palm. "My love life is a travesty. I've made some nice friends, and I promise to introduce you. A few of them are emotionally compromised, which I suspect is a weakness for me. Illyana left the school for the Brotherhood, and I'll give you all the details about that as well."

"Those are usually the people who need friendship the most," Pike said warmly. Vex made a great friend, too. "And you should meet my roommate, Steph. She has a baby. He looks absolutely adorable."

“Oh, yes. I haven’t had the chance to get to know her, but I’ve seen her with him when he visited. I’m a bit intimidated, I’ll admit. Babies are fragile.” She fluffed Trinket’s fur.

Pike frowned. She hadn't really considered that, too focused on how cute Ben looked, but Vex was right. "I hope I don't break him," Pike said, a little nervous, "especially not when I get all buff from training with Grog."

“You’re the gentlest, Pike. When you’re not bashing heads.” Vex leaned back. “Training with Grog, huh? So do you know how big he gets?”

"I want to get tough, yeah," Pike half reached up towards her scar, then deliberately lowered it again as nonchalantly as she could. No need to bring the conversation down. "I saw him back when it first started. Does he get bigger now?"

Vex watched her movement. “Not sure. It’s pretty impressive. Make sure he doesn’t squish you.”

"He'd never!" Pike would have been indignant with anyone else, but since it was Vex she just snorted in amusement. "Unless it was an accident. And even then I'd just heal myself and keep going," she gave Vex a cheeky grin.

“So Yana has this risky trick with hangovers. With the healing... how well do you think it would apply to curing a hangover?” Vex grinned.

"Ooo, I dunno!" Pike perked up. "I could try! What even causes hangovers? I mean, if it's just a headache and upset tummy, I don't see why not?"

"We are so testing this," Vex said with a huge smile.

"Where's the booze?" Pike sat up and looked around, excited to test it immediately.

Vex leaned back and eyed her closet. "I have nothing but dregs from Keyleth's birthday here, but we can get our hands on some. Have a welcome home night." Vex squeezed her again. "We need a girls night. We're still outnumbered, but there's plenty of people to introduce you to."

"And I can't wait to meet them," Pike snuggled back down. "Though none of 'em will match up to Vox Machina."

"No, you have squatters rights for my heart," Vex agreed.

"You guys are sticking around for the summer, yeah?" Pike was a little worried they might be headed back to the UK, splitting apart right after reuniting.

"I'd like to stay long enough to finish school," Vex said, "But it all depends on how safe this place stays."

"Are you thinking of any danger in particular?" Pike felt a little bit of tension growing.

Vex sighed. "Well, you've missed our friends from the Brotherhood. Did you see any of that on the news? They call them a mutant terrorist group, and it's a hot mess of mixed motivations."

"How d'you mean?" Pike scrunched up her face.

"It's hard to say." Vex brushed her fingers through Trinket's fur. "So, here we've got a team of students training to do heroic rescues, and god knows what else. And the Brotherhood... Maybe their motivations are similar, fight against mutant hate groups, but they kind of take it to an extreme, or at least they are vocal and keep getting mixed up with the media when they do things. And their old leader, Magneto, proclaimed to the media that mutants are a superior race, which is utter shite. After the most recent incident, Illyana went over to them. She was one the one who can teleport, and she used to bring Vax to visit me. I really like her... but I'm afraid that people are going to get hurt with what they do. Also, I don't know how all them feel, but the idea that humans are obsolete just... fuck that. All the people that think they are inherently better than someone else... generally assholes. And generally wrong. Maybe it's naive, but I'd rather fight to bring people together, than fight to be superior over someone else."

Pike scowled. "That's really messed up. I understand defending themselves, maybe even proactively, but. No one is better or worse than anyone else."

“Yeah.” Vex sighed. “I’m worried where they’ll take things.”

"You said a friend joined them?" Pike asked, solemn. "Have you talked to her about it?"

"A little bit. She at least cleared up that they didn't intentionally blow up the building they were recently blamed for, but they are certainly putting themselves into dangerous situations." Vex shrugged. "Though the team here is also."

"Well that's something, I suppose." Pike pursed her lips. "None of us are on the hero squad, yeah?" She'd hate to have some of them running into danger without the rest of Vox Machina as backup.

“No, we haven’t signed up for anything.” Vex reached to take Pike’s hand, twining their fingers together. “I don’t really like the idea of working for either group. With, maybe? If it came to it. I’m not looking for leadership and missions.”

"I'd be happy just to have a good time, living with my friends again," Pike squeezed Vex's hand. "Though I wouldn't mind lending my gifts to heal anyone who needs it."

“Yeah. I’m kind of loving taking classes again and just doing normal shit.” Vex smiled. “Magic powers and all.”

"If it's all as awesome as Trinket, I can't wait to see a demonstration," Pike patted Trinket's fur.

"I exhausted myself decorating for the Valentine's party. I had Percy carve some arrows that I was able to transform into creeping flowers, and decorate the whole gym. It's easier sometimes to focus when I'm shooting or throwing something, I don't know why. Probably a mental hangup. I'm certainly not throwing Trinket's charm down like a pokeball."

Pike squawked with laughter at that image. "Oh, but that's be awesome!"

Trinket grumbled an unimpressed sound and Vex laughed. "I promise, no throwing darling."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Trinket, I just think you'd look so ferocious." Pike ruffled her fingers through his fur. She glanced at Vex. "Does having him out make you tired?"

He huffed and then snuggled against Pike.

Vex shook her head. "No, I guess once he's out he's self-sustaining. It's just the action of changing him that uses my power."

That was good. Pike was pretty sure she couldn't spike people's energy like Steph could, and she really liked having Trinket around. "Well, I hope you took pictures of the decorations. I can't wait to see the cool stuff you all can do now!"

“We could do show and tell,” Vex said with a grin. “And a party. We really need a welcome home party.“

"Yeah!" Pike enthused, "Booze, stories, and powers. Sounds like a proper rager."

“And if we’re lucky, you can cure our hangovers in the morning,” Vex said with a wink.

"I've traveled half the world to be reunited with my best friends," Pike grinned. "I'm the luckiest person in the world."