Far From Me
Vax’ildan x Reader
Words: 2576
Part One
Summary: Vox Machina tries desperately to bring a fallen member back from the other side. Vax’s true feelings are shown in his desperation.
Notes: I’m embarrassed by how long it has taken me to write this. (I’ve been working on these two imagines since season one came out guys) But here it is. Now, I don’t know every step so I kind of made the ritual to fit the story itself. It’s my version of the ressurection ritual. Don’t come after me please haha.
-
“Pike!”
The wounded cry rang through the dark. Vox Machina all tensed at the sound.
Vex’s head whipped around, her eyes peering carefully into the dark.
“Pike. Someone! Help me!” It called again.
Vex’s stomach dropped. She turned to the others. “It’s Vax.”
She sprinted into the dark, holding her torch out ahead of her. Her eyes scanned every surface in a panic. So focused and frightened, she nearly ran straight into him. At first, her eyes only saw his face and she nearly cried out. Blood smeared across his cheek and his eyes were filled with a deep despair.
It took only a moment to realize that the blood was not his.
In Vax’s arms was Y/N’s limp form.
Vex’s gaze darted between the two.
Y/N’s pale face. Vax’s shirt, soaked with red.
“Where’s Pike?” He croaked. His voice was raw and broken from sobs.
“She’s…” She motioned to the hall behind her where the rest ran to join them. “Vax, what happened?”
“We have to save her. We have to… I can’t… she’s not gone,” he rambled. His eyes found the light-haired gnome and he rushed to her, falling to his knees and presenting her with the body in his embrace. “Do something. Please. This isn’t right. She wasn’t meant to…”
More, less coherent pleas fall from his trembling lips. The rest of the team stood over them with similar expressions of shock and distress.
Pike, speechless, tried to assess the extent of Y/N’s injuries.
“Vax, she’s-” She gasped tearfully.
“No!” He screamed. “No. We have to do something. I do not accept this. I won’t.”
The cleric saw the desperation in his eyes and knew the truth behind it. She nodded.
“Not here,” she said. “We have to get her somewhere else.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Scanlan chimed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
They took off again, Vax still cradling Y/N against him. He didn’t stop when a new set of guards began to chase them. He was too frantic to be furious with vengeance.
Percy and Vex, however, skidded to a halt.
“We’ll hold them off,” Percy said. He loaded his weapon with a menacing click. “We’re right behind you.”
“Besides,” Vex looked at the woman in her brother’s arms. She and Y/N may not have gotten along at first, but she’d grown to love the sorceress like a sister. Especially since she’d seen Vax’s feelings for Y/N from the beginning. Nobody was going to get away with taking that away. She aimed her arrow at the first guard. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
-
They’re only refuge was a deserted shop several blocks from the armory they’d fled. Vax didn’t remember getting here. He didn’t remember running or kicking down the door rather than picking the lock. He didn’t remember his sister and Percy finding them in the chaos. Every thought was consumed by the woman in his arms.
“That’s a lot of blood,” Grog said. His usual aggression was replaced with genuine worry for his friend as he recognized the grim expressions on the others' faces. “But you can fix it, right Pikey?”
Her blue eyes widened. “I-I-”
“Y/N is going to be fine,” Vax finished, clearing off a table and laying Y/N down. He didn’t look at the healer or anyone else. His eyes stayed glued to the pale, cold face before him. Vax found a cloth and wiped the blood from her cheek.
The group around him remained frozen.
“Somebody do something!” He screamed.
Pike let out a nervous breath.
Scanlan put a hand on her shoulder. “You can do this.”
The reassurance pulled her back into the moment. She stood up straighter, took a breath, and shoved Scanlan and Keyleth out of her way. The cleric pulled a diamond from her pouch and laid it on Y/N’s unmoving chest.
“We need to do this quickly and we need to do it now,” she barked.
As the rest of the group scrambled to set up the ritual by Pike’s instruction, Vex approached her brother, gently laying a hand on his arm. He instinctively pulled away, leaning over the body before him.
“We will get her back, brother,” Vex said softly.
A tear fell into Y/N’s Y/H/C hair. Vax brushed a strand out of her face.
“I didn’t tell her,” he whispered. “I-I didn’t tell her. I wanted to, but I was too late.” Finally, he looked up. Tear-filled eyes met his sister’s and he spoke through a broken sob. “I have to get her back so I can tell her.”
“And you will.” Her voice held the assuredness he wished he could muster.
With slow, guiding hands, she pulled him away from the table enough to give the cleric the space she needed.
“Pike,” Vex nodded. “Do your thing.”
The chaotic panic of the room fell into a deep, concentrated silence. The air tightened until Vax couldn’t breathe.
“We have to call her spirit back to her body,” Pike said, hands splayed out over the diamond, which had developed a soft, golden glow. The light was small like a candle wick first taking flame.
“And that will work?” Percy asked.
Pike took a breath. “If she wants to come back, we have a chance.”
“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Scanlan looked over her shoulder only to be shoved out of the way. He shuddered. Grog was right. That was a lot of blood.
Pike didn’t answer.
Scanlan asked again, almost shouting. “What do you mean, ‘if’ she wants to come back?”
“Her family,” Keyleth whispered. Her staff trembled in her hands. “She told me about her family. Her parents. They were killed in front of her as a child. Maybe she…” The kind-hearted druid couldn’t bring herself to finish.
“Maybe she wants to stay with them,” Pike concluded.
Vax’s mind went back to that night, the shooting star and Y/N’s drunken voice filled with a disheartened kind of sorrow. He thought of other nights, of other talks once she had opened up to the group. He knew how much she missed them. How she longed to see them once more.
“But we’re her family!” Scanlan exclaimed. His distress seeped into his voice, almost making it crack. “She can’t go. She has to come back.” He leaned over Y/N’s body, fists clenched on the table beside her. “Do you hear me? You have to come back.”
“I’m trying to reach her,” Pike said.
Scanlan took out his lute.
The gnome's fingers strummed the strings, not in his usual flamboyant fashion, but in a slow, swelling tune. He had no words, but he didn’t need them. The notes spoke for themselves. Sorrowful was not the right word for the moving melody, but there was a tone of despair floating beneath the waves. But upon every crest sang the main point of the piece. Hope.
In the final moments of the song, Scanlan crouched by Y/N’s ear and whispered something no one else could hear.
“You reminded me that I’m a good person,” he said. A single tear fell down his cheek. “I need you to keep reminding me or I won’t believe it. Please, come back.”
With a final flourish of notes, his playing ceased and the room was silent once again.
Vax was still frozen, his sister’s arm around his shoulders. He wanted to speak, to scream, to plead with the gods not to take you from him, but his voice was lost in a sea of panic swimming through his mind and drowning his chest.
Please, he thought. Please work.
“I-I can feel her,” Pike said, eyes screwed shut and brows furrowed. “But I can’t reach her. I need more help.”
To Vax’s surprise, it was his sister who stepped forward when he was still unable to find his words. He tried. He desperately, desperately tried but all he could do was stare at the cold, limp body before him. Using what strength he could, he followed Vex on his knees to grab Y/N’s hand. His forehead rested beside it as Vex spoke.
“You were never one of us,” she said. “You were the stray we picked up along the way. You were never meant to last for more than a week.”
Vax lifted his head. “Vex what are you-”
She stopped him with a glance. Tears pooled in her eyes and her lip trembled as she continued.
“That is what I believed when we first met. When I first understood your feelings for my brother, even before you did. I thought you were going to leave and I resented you for it. I resented you for the possibility that you would hurt him.” She stood at the foot of the table and took a breath. “But I know that I was wrong.”
Vex walked around so that she was across from her brother, taking Y/N’s cold, unmoving hand into her own.
“How many times have you saved my life with these hands? With your power?” She forced back a cry. “With your heart?”
She remembered every conversation over the fire, while everyone else was asleep. She remembered how Y/N had stood up to her and Vax’s father. She remembered Y/N’s encouraging words and kindness after months of Vex’s hostility.
“If you lock your heart away from the people you care about, you lock it away from yourself.” Y/N had said one night. Vex remembered wanting to hit her because she was right. “You deserve to let your heart be in the light, Vex’ahlia.”
Vex continued. “Scanlan was right. You are part of this family. And you know how much I hate agreeing with that gnome.” She laughed through her tears. “Your journey with us is not over. Please, bring your heart to the light again.”
The diamond’s rays flickered brightly, but only for a moment, and started to fade again.
“No, no please,” Vex cried.
Pike grimaced, reaching out her hand. “I’m losing her!”
The twin’s eyes met with panic and growing despair.
“It’s you,” Vex said. “It has to be you.”
“I… I can’t,” Vax clung to the side of the table, fear shaking through his arms. The fading glow felt like daggers in his chest. The lump in his throat made it difficult to talk. His mind was clouded.
“It has to be you,” his sister repeated.
The light flickered out.
For a moment, everything stopped. Time, feeling, thought. It all halted. It felt as though his heart, too, had stopped beating.
Vax jumped onto the table, pulling Y/N into his arms just as he’d held her in that room.
“No no no no no,” he didn’t have the energy to scream at first, his words coming out as breathy prayers. But, holding her closer to his chest, he finally found his voice. “Y/N! Don’t do this, please. You have to come back. You have to hear me say it.”
It was like he was back there again, watching the light fade from her eyes, trapped in the dark. Alone.
“I meant it.” Vax held her face in his hands, resting his forehead against hers. “I love you. I have loved you since that night when I took your hand. I have loved you in every step we’ve taken together, but now the path you walk is far from me. Please.” Vax pressed his lips to hers. If he could have given her the life from his lungs, he would have. “Return to me, love. Come back.” He kisses her again. “Come back.”
A growing, bright beam overtook his vision.
The diamond glowed once more.
Pike let out a battle-like cry. Her blue eyes disappear beneath screens of light. The rays engulfed her body.
Y/N lifted out of Vax’s arms. For a moment, he reached out, afraid to let go, but his sister’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.
Bright, gold beams blinded the room.
Percy lifted his arms to shield his eyes. Keyleth hid her face in Grog’s shoulder. Scanlan ducked beneath the table. The twins turned toward each other.
Darkness returned, Pike gasping for breath, leaning on Scanlan for support.
Y/N fell back into Vax’s arms, limp and cold.
“Did it work?” Keyleth asked.
Y/N remained still.
The room was silent again.
Pike closed her eyes, letting Scanlan pull her into his arms as he tried to hide his tears. Keyleth covered her mouth with her hand. Percy looked at the ground. Grog didn’t understand.
Why wasn’t she waking up?
“Brother…” Vex said softly.
A desperate, gut-wrench sob escaped Vax’s throat. He buried his face against her neck and held her as if she were his lifeline slipping away.
Outside, a faint glint of a shooting star streaked across the sky.
Slowly, you opened your eyes.
“Why… why is everyone crying?” You coughed.
Vax pulled back, a mix of disbelief and utter bliss overtaking his features. He held your face in his hands, feeling the warmth return to your cheeks.
“Thank you, Everlight,” Pike sighed, gripping Scanlan’s hand.
Vax brought you back to him, holding you tightly against his chest. Vex through her arms around both of you.
“See,” Grog said. “I knew she’d be alright.”
Everyone gathered around the table, encircling you with relieved expressions and tears turning joyful.
Scanlan sniffed and wiped at the moisture on his face. “Don’t ever fucking do that again.”
It came back to you gradually. The pain of the blade, laying in Vax’s arms, falling into the dark. You gently pushed back from Vax.
“Did I…”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’re okay now.” He pressed his lips to your forehead.
“I thought that I-” You took a breath. “I thought I saw my parents.” You looked around at the people you’d come to call family. “But then I heard music. I could hear voices, calling me back. And I felt…” You reached a trembling hand up to your lips. “I thought I felt…”
You gazed into the eyes of the man holding you.
His lips met yours with a soft, yet powerful, urgency.
It gave you all the strength you needed. You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer, your revitalized heart beating so hard you were sure everyone could hear it. By the time you pulled apart, you were both gasping for breath and beaming.
“Fucking finally,” Vex laughed.
“Uh, so do you guys, like, want the room?” Scanlan nudged your side, wiggling his eyebrows at you mischievously.
“Like you wouldn’t find a way to watch,” you joked. You moved to stand but fell back against Vax.
“Easy,” he said. “Don’t exhaust yourself just yet.”
“Yeah, save that energy for other things,” Scanlan smirked.
Vax gave him a silencing glare.
“We should get out of here,” Percy said. He peeked out of the window and watched the guards they hadn’t killed rush by. “Else we’ll have to do that all over again.”
“I’m with Percy,” Pike agreed. “She’s too weak for another fight. If we stay hidden, we can get to the next village by sunrise.” She looked at you and you nodded.
“I’ll be fine,” you said. Again, you tried to walk, your legs aching and trembling beneath you.
Vax scooped you up in his arms and kissed you once more.
“I’ve got you.”
And he was never letting go.
