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"I don't know why we didn't do this sooner," Vex says, feeling as though she at last knows the true meaning of basking. Zahra's bare skin is beautifully warm against hers, the sheets rumpled under their bodies.
"Lack of beds, darling." Zahra's tail traces a line along Vex's thigh. "Especially in that awful tomb."
Vex tries and fails to repress a shudder. "Don't talk about it."
Zahra's arm across her belly, just a light weight, tightens now into a stronger embrace. "I'm sorry, Vex'ahlia. I shouldn't recall that time to you."
"I can think of worse things than coming back to life with you by my side." Vex nuzzles against Zahra's cheek; Zahra turns her head and they kiss, a slow, lingering kiss. They'd begun the evening with such kisses, but rapidly moved on to more heated acts—though neither of them particularly want to recall that time in the tomb, the reminder of their mortality has been a powerful drive all evening to make the most of what time they do have together.
"I'd sooner you just didn't die in the first place." Zahra's hand slides up to rest between Vex's breasts. "This sweet heart of yours needs to keep beating."
Vex laughs bemusedly. "You think my heart is sweet? I'm reasonably certain it's just greedy."
"Hearts don't have to be all one thing." Zahra's fingers spread apart and wander a little. "Even love doesn't have to be one kind of love, nor constrained to one person."
"Mmmm. Oh." Vex rolls to encourage Zahra's hand to continue its roaming. "Right now some more of the erotic kind of love would be—yes."
"Do you want me to do the thing with my tail again?"
"Yes, please."
But they've barely recommenced when Vax's call through the earring interrupts them.
"What?" Zahra asks when Vex reacts.
Vex's head lifts, lips wet, eyes wide. "It's my brother. We have to go now."
Zahra rolls off the bed and reaches for her staff, yanking on a robe for the sake of decency. Vex wriggles into her leggings and vest, gathers up her bow and arrows, throws open the door, and—
There are assassins in the hallway. It seems like the hallway is a shifting sea of black. Vex doesn't stop to think; she just starts shooting, yelling the names of Vox Machina as she does so.
"You're ruining my night," Zahra snaps from beside her, swinging her staff to catch one of the assassins under the chin. He gags and she shoves the staff forward, knocking him off his feet.
"What in the Nine Hells?" Kashaw comes out of his room, still pulling his pants on, and ducks as an assassin throws a dagger at his head. "Hey!"
Suddenly a battle-cry rings out and Pike, resplendently naked except for her shield and mace, comes charging down the hallway, swinging her weapon left and right, dealing a considerable amount of damage in the process. The roar that comes from her tiny lungs is worth of Grog.
Before too long the hallway is full of dead assassins, and Vex gets the chance to look around for her brother.
He's nowhere to be seen.
In her heart she knew he wouldn't be; she would have felt it if he were in the fight with her, even at the far end of the hallway. Her twin-sense would have told her. Right now it's telling her something worse is going on, something darker than just black assassins' clothes.
"He said something about the western tower, I think," Percy says at her side, and Vex is running before she knows it.
Vax is alive. Vex is internally thanking all the deities that seem relevant (including the Raven Queen, damn it) as she half-carries her brother down into the depths of the tunnels below Whitestone Castle. Externally, she's saving her breath for both heaving along and berating her brother.
And Percy, her beautiful, brilliant Percy, gets them to the antimagic zone. Ignores Scanlan's attempt to swat him with Bigby's Hand—is there no moment that gnome won't attempt to sully with his ill-timed levity?—and gets Vax free of the cloak. Kisses him, too, a quick but intense kiss. Vex isn't sure that Vax quite registers it; he's grasping at his own bare skin. Not to make sure it's covered up—to make sure it's all in one piece.
There are places where it isn't.
"Vax, cover yourself, for Sarenrae's sake. Grog, give him a fancy robe—do you have any more?"
Grog produces a fancy robe from the Bag of Holding Apparently Endless Fancy Robes. Vex is relieved when Vax is covered up. Not that she hasn't seen him naked before—so long alone together made them heedless of such things, and of course adventurers can't be picky about opportunities to shed all their armor and go for a real swim-slash-bath—but looking at the places where the dreadful robe tugged at his skin makes her cringe.
"We look almost exactly the same," Vax reminds her.
"I don't have dangly bits."
"You'd be surprised how different you actually are," Percy says, making both twins give him a startled look and Scanlan protest vehemently.
Her Percy: usually so quiet on the matter of relationships, and then coming out with something unexpected like that.
Before they can get to the nitty-gritty of who has what bits and their aesthetics, Keyleth bamfs into existence in front of them with Gilmore.
Vex never thought she'd have to watch her brother break anyone's heart.
Thankfully, the very next thing he does is to begin explaining—in a way—why everything will be all right. At least, she thinks that's what he's doing. For her own part, she sees the look of utter love-sick idiocy on his face and hustles herself and the others out of there.
She still has her own love-sick idiot to deal with upon return to the castle above: Percy. He pulls her into the sitting room, clutching her hand like she'll fly away if he lets go.
"Percy, Percy, ow," she says.
"Don't break her wrist; I'll break your neck." Zahra, already in the room and pacing, lashes her tail. Vex knows how strong and dexterous that tail can be and has no doubt that Zahra could use it in the threatened method.
Percy flops down on a couch—strange, because Percy never flops anywhere—and lets out a deep sigh. Vex sits beside him. Zahra sits beside her. Keyleth, after some consideration, perches on the arm of the chair where Kashaw is huddled with a glass of something potent in his hand.
"Oh, boy," Scanlan says, taking in the quintet of worried facial expressions and grimacing. "Come on Grog, we're going to the kitchens. I bet Laina's up and about."
"Is she here?" Grog asks.
"Lady Cassandra insisted that, as a valued member of Vox Machina's staff, she remain in the castle," Zahra says in her liquid silk voice. "I believe she's taken the place of the former head of the kitchens."
"What happened to the former head of the kitchens?" Vex asks.
"If I've got the story straight, Lord Briarwood ate her." Zahra's tail flicks with agitation; Percy lets out a hiss of disgust and Vex feels him tense beside her. "They weren't especially in need of... domestics."
Scanlan snorts. "I'd like to see anyone try to eat Laina. She's accurate with a skillet at thirty feet."
Kashaw raises an eyebrow. "Meaning?"
"She can chuck it at your head and knock it out. If she doesn't just break your skull," Grog explains. Kashaw looks suitably impressed.
"Anyway, we should still go and see her," Scanlan says, clearly still desperate to opt out of the potential amount of awkwardness, romance, and other simmering emotions in the room.
To be fair, he's not wrong. As soon as he and Grog leave the room, both Percy and Zahra reach an arm around Vex's shoulders. Their limbs collide, but settle—Zahra's arm over Percy's—and Vex immediately feels a lot better, especially since it's evident that the two harbor no jealousy toward each other.
"Are you all right?" they ask in unison.
"Did we do the right thing leaving him down there?" Vex swallows. "What if that wasn't the real Gilmore either?"
"Ask him," Keyleth says simply. "Use the earring."
Vex uses the earring.
She also never thought she'd have to listen to her brother apparently unbreaking anybody's heart, but that's what he's doing, judging from the tone of the gasp he lets out before the earring goes dead.
"Vex? You look like you stepped on a scorpion. What's wrong? Is Vax all right?" Keyleth looks sweetly concerned.
"He says he's fine," Vex says. She is not going to explain to either of her brother's lovers that he's more than likely trying to talk around a mouthful of Gilmore's tongue. Besides, she's not even sure that they, Keyleth in particular, have exactly hit the lovers stage. Certainly the kissing whenever possible stage, but of the twins Vex has ever been the one to be physically forward, while Vax is more accustomed to beginning with emotional bonds.
Not that Vex doesn't have her own emotional bonds to Percy and to Zahra. Even to Jarett, although she doesn't think anyone would believe her on that score. She may be miserly with money, but she's given the coin of her heart to more people than she thinks Vox Machina would believe.
It feels like that's never been more evident than in this room, at this moment. She's curled between two of her lovers, watching the woman who's the apple of her brother's eye leaning against the somewhat surly man who was the one to give said apple her first kiss.
Vex loves Kashaw too, in her own way. Oh, not in the erotic sense, no. But now that she's gleaned the full story of what happened in the sunken tomb, she knows what he risked for her, and loves him for it.
His arm, daring to wrap around Keyleth's waist, still bears all of Vesh's scars.
"We're so lucky," Percy says abruptly.
"We are," Keyleth agrees without question.
"How so?" Kashaw asks.
"There aren't many people who could gather like this and not be tense every moment expecting someone to burst in through the door demanding satisfaction in the matter of someone else spending, ah, intimate time with their partner."
Vex feels her face mirror Keyleth's bemusement. "Why?"
"Well, it's not the done thing, is it?"
"Why?" Keyleth echoes. "Can't humans share?"
"Are you saying half-elves generally do?" Kash's expression is a cross between confusion and dawning understanding.
"Not just half-elves, but full elves," Vex says. "Gnomes and halflings, too. Any of the longer-lived races." She doesn't say because it doesn't pay to give our whole hearts to one person. She doesn't say when you're old I'll be barely middle-aged, Percy, and it's kept me awake at night. She doesn't say so we love and lose and love again.
Percy still looks puzzled. "But then why did Vax feel the need to choose between Gilmore and Keyleth?"
Vex laughs, the question lightening the black cloud around her thoughts. "That's not an elven thing; that's just Vax, because he's an idiot."
"I could have told him from the beginning he needn't choose, if he'd just asked," Keyleth says and, for all she looks so young and modest, especially pressed against gruff Kashaw's side, Vex can see in her eyes that she means it.
"Was it easy?" she asks abruptly, the rest of the room falling away for a moment as her eyes lock with Keyleth's.
Keyleth considers the question. "It wasn't the lightest decision I've ever had to make, but trying to measure the amount of love one heart can hold is like trying to measure the amount of air one sky can hold."
Vex exhales and nestles closer to Percy, who kisses her temple. "Just don't hurt him."
"I won't," Keyleth and Percy respond in unison, which makes Vex laugh.
She feels as though they should be up and doing something—counting dead assassins, making a report to someone, berating the castle guards—but it's so nice in here, so safe for once, that she can't bring herself to move.
Let the word go on around them: for just this small bubble of time, let it be just this room of peculiar lovers, let them take this time between quests to just be.