Author's note: For some reason the second season of The Legend of Vox Machina hit me so hard in January/February 2023 that it got me to watch the Critical Role Vox Machina stream, draw a LOT of things (including an actual comics on my AO3 page!?), and even write? So I guess I'm a Critter now ^^ Recently I wrote down three fic ideas for the critter-genfic-events bingo card on Tumblr, one funny, one bittersweet, and one bittersweet with a heavy helping of sad, and for some reason my brain went "SAD. SAD FIRST", so here I am.

Warning: this is set post-campaign, so while I'm posting it in the TLOVM category, if you haven't seen how the Vox Machina campaign ends, there are SPOILERS.

(P.S.: I made the cover with a raven vector, some colours, and the score to Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here", if you were wondering what the notes were about.)

Soft As It Began

The night was soft, warm, and silent. Pike barely heard the bedroom door open and a quiet footfall pad closer, floating as she was in that particular state between half-asleep and half-awake. She liked to try to up on the nights Scanlan played a Westruun tavern, but she was so comfortable despite the empty spot in the bed that she'd given up fighting off sleep long ago.

The mattress dipped a little on Scanlan's side, tipping the balance towards consciousness. Then, surprisingly, nothing happened for a few long seconds.

Outside, an owl hooted.

"How'd it go?" she murmured eventually. Through the mattress she felt her boyfriend give a start.

"Sorry," he said in a low voice. "Didn't mean to wake you up."

"Eh. I wasn't sleeping anyway."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yup, absolutely," she mumbled around a smile, very aware that she was slurring her words so much only someone who'd known her for as long as Scanlan had could make sense of them. Burying her face into the pillow probably didn't help, either.

Scanlan didn't make a witty remark or huff out a laugh. From what she could feel, he didn't even move from his spot.

The silence and stillness jarred Pike awake completely.

"Scanlan?" she asked, rubbing her eyes to get them to focus faster. "Is everything okay?"

He was sitting on the edge of the bed with one leg tucked under him, bare-chested but wearing the short loose trousers he liked to sleep with.

(Scanlan liked to keep pants on at night in case of emergencies – or in case Grog barged in, which did happen occasionally. Pike had slept naked for four decades, most of them under the same roof as or a stone's throw from her adopted brother, and saw no reason for things to change.)

When she spoke, he half turned to her and schooled his face into a smile instead of the half-lost look she could have sworn had been there a second ago.

"Sure. I should play the Golden Buck more often. You should see the fortune I made in tips!"

But the thing was, if Scanlan had known her long enough to decipher her words even when she was drunk, exhausted, or loopy from blood loss, Pike had learned a thing or two about him in that time, too. Kaylie remained the only person in existence who could tell in a heartbeat when he was lying, but Pike was getting pretty good at that as well.

She sat up and scooted closer. He'd placed a small candleholder on his bedside table, most likely to avoid tripping in the dark; the tiny flickering flame outlined the slope of his shoulders, the ridges of his worst scars, the vulnerable spot where his neck met his shoulder that she loved to kiss.

No point in calling him out for lying, even by omission. That would only be stating the obvious. Thus Pike jumped directly to the next logical step.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly.

Scanlan's shoulders slumped a little.

"Nothing. Just…" Emotion rippled across his face, like a breeze on water, and something about him crumbled. "Somebody requested 'The Raven's Wings' again."

Oh.

Scanlan had written many songs since the rise and fall of Vecna, mostly about Vox Machina. (Many were about Pike in some way or another. Her favourite of those was probably 'The Lady's Favour', a cheerful ballad with the kind of lyrics that had to be sung after making sure the kids had all gone to bed.) A few of them were about Vax, of course, some cheeky, some solemn. 'The Raven's Wings' was melancholic and haunting and unabashedly heartfelt; Scanlan had written most of it in one night while getting absolutely shitfaced with Pike and Grog. It had taken all of Pike's powers of persuasion to convince him to actually make a real song out of it instead of burning the stained paper he'd scribbled the lyrics on.

She loved that song. Sometimes the melody snuck into her mind unexpectedly, and it felt both like poking a bruise and soothing an old hurt.

But she suspected it was somewhat different for Scanlan. Like everyone else, really.

Scanlan shivered a little when she gingerly wrapped herself around him from behind, skin to skin, scars to scars.

"It is a beautiful song, you know," she said softly. "He'd love it."

"It's sappy, though."

"What's wrong with that?" The fact that Scanlan didn't have a rejoinder was a good sign. Or a bad one, depending. "It's a lovely tribute."

This drew a sharp sigh from beneath her hands. She held him just a little tighter and waited.

"Yeah, but that's… That's it, it's just a tribute. It doesn't even say anything important about him. There's nothing about what he was like, or… You know, like he was both really simple and really complex at the same time? I mean, he was such a shit, and he could brood worse than Percy, but also he was this ray of sunshine when he was happy… And he laughed, and he cried, and he wore his heart on his fucking sleeve and he let the whole world see it like it didn't matter, and I never…"

He let out something that might have been a chuckle if not for the catch in his throat.

"I meant to ask him how he did that. Missed my shot in the end."

"He made it look real easy," murmured Pike, putting her chin on his collarbone, "but it's really hard. But… I guess sometimes we do need reminders that it's okay to, you know, feel things and show it. Even the bad stuff." She paused. "Like the world's not gonna stop because I say out loud that my friend is dead, and I miss my friend, and I'm sad."

The worst thing about losing someone dear, Pike had found, were the regrets. The I should haves. The might have beens. She knew Scanlan still carried the weight of the wish he didn't get to make; Scanlan knew about the quiet poisoned voice in her heart that sometimes whispered that her words to Vax – if the Raven Queen fucks with you, or hurts you, or doesn't change you for the better, then she's going to have to deal with me, and we're going to have a problem – turned out to be meaningless and empty promises. She hadn't been able to save him any more than Scanlan had, or any of them.

But at least she'd learned to stop pretending she was fine so everybody else could be okay. And start remembering they had each other to be not okay with.

Scanlan shifted a little in her arms to press a kiss into her temple and rested his forehead there for a moment.

And he prided himself on his words, that man of hers, but he didn't give himself enough credit for his silences.

After a while, she asked him in a low voice, "Did you play the song?"

A two-tone hum answered her, then a wry chuckle. "I mean, I had asked for requests. And I know it's not, you know, terrible music. Just… I could write all the songs I want and it still wouldn't do him justice." A beat. "What would you say? In a song about Vax, I mean. What would you like remembered?"

A soft smile with sharp edges. Warmth shining through sadness. Long hands with clever fingers, always gentle, even covered in blood. A trickster's love for pranks. Mostly a heart so wide it could have contained enough love for a whole world and more.

"Fun buns," she said softly.

"Hm?"

"We had this… thing, this little habit of doing each other's hair up into fun buns. And… You know how he'd have a nickname for everyone? Nobody else ever called me 'Pickle'. Just him. That's a good thing to remember, I guess."

Scanlan gently ran a hand up her forearm, rubbing the little hairs there the wrong way.

"I could work that into a song, if you'd like. Might even have a melody ready."

Pike immediately shook her head.

"Oh no, it's… That's…"

Those memories were precious, and private, and hers. Sharing them with Scanlan, Grog, Vex, Keyleth, Percy, Tary – each of whom had their own set of precious private memories of Vax – was fine. But perfect strangers, who only knew of the Champion of the Matron of Ravens through what was essentially becoming folklore? That felt almost sacrilegious, in a way.

"…Don't," she finished lamely. "I know it's stupid, but I kinda… want to keep some part of him for myself, I guess."

"It's not stupid," murmured Scanlan into her hair. She could have sworn she could feel him grin just before he added, at the same low volume but in a very different tone, "Guess I'll have to make it about the musician and the brave, strong sailor with the perfect breasts again. Sea shanties are always a win, right?"

"Idiot," said Pike with a laugh that warmed her chest on the way up.

She knew she'd made her point, though – nicknames and fun buns would remain in the family. That still left Scanlan with plenty of material to write about Vax, anyway.

The conversation faded naturally after that. Pike blew the candle after she realised she was falling asleep right there against Scanlan, whose shoulders were still slumped, but for entirely different reasons than when he'd come in.

The night was still soft, warm, and silent. The bed felt much more comfortable with Scanlan clinging to her, one leg sprawled across her thighs and his head resting in the crook between her shoulder and her left breast. Everything was just as it should be – or the two of them were, at least. That was something.

She was teetering on the brink and starting to think him asleep too when she felt a touch of moisture on her chest, under his head, just where the corner of his eye would be. Then another.

"…Scanlan?" she mumbled.

He didn't move; he only said thickly, in a voice so low she barely made out the words, "My friend is dead. I miss him. And I'm sad."

Magic couldn't fix everything, no matter how powerful. Words couldn't really bring someone back, no matter how enticing. Sometimes the only thing left to do was to hold each other and let themselves grieve together.

Scanlan's breathing came heavy and halting against her skin. She closed her arms tighter around him and murmured, "I know. Me too."

They did fall asleep eventually, before their tears had dried.

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began,—
I loved my friend.

(Langston Hughes)

(I almost went with Bastille's "Poet" but Hughes' poem rewired my brain long before I knew about either Bastille or Critical Role, so. I'm not ruling out the song one day, though.)

I love the gnomes (and their Grog). I love their growth and development as characters and I love how their relationship grows with them.

Here's hoping the next one is more cheerful! In the meantime, hope you liked!