One of these days I'm going to figure out how to take better pictures...
But it's Vox Machina! (and Trinket as a dog...)
cc: @miikocc @bluecravingcc @astya96cc @greenllamas (don't know MYOBI/Sm Sims @), and others but, once again, they've fallen prey to the dark hole that is my mods folder... but I'm trying!
Sewing & Enchanting fashionable clothes--for style and practicality!
People-watching. He does think most denizens of the Horde are dreadfully bland in taste, but he keeps up on their trends and fancifies them to get his ideas to appeal to the public.
Free makeovers. Yes, free! ....mostly because he’s horrified by how rough and dirty a lot of people are in Orgrimmar. Just because you’re constantly at war and living in an arid, dry land doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exfoliate.
The Boss:
Sport hunting. He loves animals, but also loves hunting. It’s complicated. He’s got strict rules to try to get the cleanest, fastest kill possible, not to overhunt any specific critter, and to not go for young ones or moms. Not always good about “using every part” though.
Fishing. Wait, is that the same as hunting? Whatever. He actually will usually eat the fish he catches though, or let them back. That’s less sport than just chillaxing.
Exploring, honestly... he’s just sort of an adventuring kind of dude. Never really did get into the whole Big Mafia Boss In His Big Scary Office deal, after all. He’d rather be chopping his way through the underbrush in a foreign jungle far away to discover a hidden spring and... y’know, whatever.
Pros: You’re one of the only people he’s not judging to fuck and back, he squish and warm for cuddles, if u wanna he can be one kinky SOB, always smells p nice, very calm and collected but will still punch someone out for fuckin w u
Cons: Similar to Grem, he’s gonna hate your friends (because he pmuch hates everybody.) He can be gossipy and talks shit abt people behind their backs, acts holier than thou all the damn time, p stuck up... honestly theres a shitload of cons he’s really just legitimately not a nice person
VAXIL:
Pros: Fashionable and will always look good as arm candy, will help u w ur wardrobe/makeup/hair etc, actually very kind to the people he’s with (and friends), is actually p hardcore at the arcane mage stuff which he keeps kinda on the downlow, big cuddler cuz he gets cold being a walking green twig, v artsy
Cons: Your friends won’t like HIM. Kinda snooty and condescending to unfashionable people, only dates u if ur rich and willing to spoil him, will leave u the moment ur outta cash, doesn’t wanna do anything that exerts more than minimal amount of effort, refuses to do anything that gets him dirty or sweaty or messes up his hair or nails
01. Full name: Vaxil Zapsprocket02. Best friend: Khendi03. Sexuality: Pansexual04. Favorite color: Anything eye-searingly bright. Esp hot pink.05. Relationship status: Single06. Ideal mate: Rich, wealthy, finds Vaxil extremely gorgeous, and isn’t a complete asshole.07. Turn-ons: Money. Gold… fine jewels….. High income……..08. Favorite food: Lightly salted & buttered popcorn09. Crushes: He doesn’t really have any at the time, though he has a weird chemistry with Bazlee. Wouldn’t date him, though–and besides, he’s taken.10. Favorite music: Azerothian equivalents to Jeffree Star & Breathe Carolina.11. Biggest fear: Becoming ugly12. Biggest fantasy: Finding someone both rich AND attractive in looks & personality who wants to pamper and spoil him forever more (so he can focus on important stuff like his in-progress fashion line)13. Bad habits: Well, not everyone rich is a good person; he kinda falls in with shitty crowds sometimes.14. Biggest regret: He doesn’t really have any. Never look back!15. Best kept secrets: Not many people are actually aware he’s a mage or knows enchanting, though he doesn’t keep that secret on purpose. 16. Last thought: I’m too pretty for this!17. Worst romantic experience: All of them, because they ended and he didn’t get his wealthily-ever-after18. Biggest insecurity: Despite his cocky attitude, he’s actually pretty self-conscious about his looks. Someday he has to get old…19. Weapon of choice: Magic. Weapons are for the crude.20. Role Model: Haris Pilton–dem bags!
“Please! You're the only guy here—go deal with it!”
Vaxil balked. “I hardly see what that has ta do with--”
“Pleeeease!” The dark-haired receptionist continued to plead, giving the tall, toothpick-thin goblin a terribly pathetic look. “We're scared.”
“Please!” another girl pitched in, from behind the safety of the barber's chair at her station. “He's creepy! He might mug us!”
“You probably have a better chance at fightin' off a mugger than I do,” argued Vaxil, raising a thin arm and flexing pointedly. Nothing happened. What are muscles?
The other two salon girls added to the chorus of begging and whining. “Pleeeeeease!”
Agitated, the stylist had to give in. With an exaggerated sigh and groan, he headed to the door.
There's a hobo going through the trash!
Those were the words screeched by the receptionist as she returned, bag of trash she had been taking out still in-hand. The other girls had wandered out in a crowd to confirm before hiding away back in the salon and beginning their whiny pleas. What a pain they all were.
And really, what was Vaxil of all people going to do to save the day if this guy did end up being some scavenging mugger? Sure, he may be significantly taller than the average goblin was, but he towered in much the same way a flagpole might: tall, yes, but not at all intimidating. Unimpressive. Thin and frail, he was built for fashion, not defense. “The only guy” hardly meant anything when by all means any one of the women in the salon could wrestle him to the ground without breaking a sweat if they'd chosen to. Hell, if they teamed up, they probably could tackle down this supposed hobo rummaging through their trash.
Come to think of it, though, a salon's trash hardly seemed an ideal rummage-spot for a homeless person. After all, it was mostly filled with hair clippings. As the beanpole of a guy peeked around the corner to peer over at the trash bins behind the building, though, he realized that the man in question was not, in fact, rummaging at all. Rather, he was searching, it seemed; behind the cans, and in them, and all around. With a quiet sigh the hobo guy turned, freezing in place as Vaxil's eyes met his own.
“...Mr. Rivensoul?”
“Oh.”
The recognition was immediate, despite the unusual look the warlock bore—bedraggled and tired, nearly the polar opposite of the clean-cut, sophisticated-looking man the underlings knew him as.
“Why're you goin' through our trash?” Vaxil came fully around the corner, hands on hips and staring questioningly at Gremix. “You scared my coworkers half ta death. They thought you were a hobo. I mean, you kinda do look like one right now.”
“Uhh...” started Gremix, glancing around. Shit. He had hoped not to run into anyone from The Family. Then again, if it had to be anyone, this guy was probably the least potential threat if they'd been put on alert to hunt Gremix down. He was hardly part of the mafia as it was, his main role being giving the members free haircuts and other salon services. He wasn't talking like he had any awareness of orders to take out Gremix, in any case, much to the renegade mafioso's relief.
“I'm lookin' for someone. Sorry. I'll be goin' now.”
“...like that?”
“What?” Gremix had tried to slip by through the thin alley separating the building from the one beside it, but Vaxil's curiously disapproving stare stopped him in his tracks. “Whaddya mean “like that”?”
“Well, look at you!” Vaxil said, gesturing to Gremix's...everything. “Where you goin' lookin' like that? You seriously do look like a hobo!”
Gremix huffed. “I'm not a hob—oh.” His brows knit. Wait… he was actually a hobo now, wasn't he? The house was legally Drixzy's, and he'd been just sort of aimlessly wandering around, only buying an inn stay when he could feel passing out from sheer exhaustion approaching. And on that note, he figured it was coming to that time again very soon.
“Let me at least trim your beard. You look awful, boss.”
Gremix frowned. “I don't have time for that—an' don't call me boss.”
“Mr. Rivensoul?”
“Gremix is fine.”
Vaxil looked suspicious. Lavender eyes seemed to probe the scruffy face for answers to the curious behavior, finding nothing but eyebags and misery.
“This isn't like you. You always cared about your appearance so much. It was one thing that really made me respect you, y'know,” the tall goblin said quietly. “Is something the matter?”
“No. It's fine. I'm fine.”
“Alright. But... Let me trim it, please?”
Gremix's weary eyes rolled and he stared in thought at the dyed cyan hair that fell beside the stylist's face. Well, he could probably use some grooming, and it's not like that'd take very long, right? And he could use the break—exhaustion was making his joints ache so much. Sitting for a while sounded pretty appealing.
“Fine.”
At the jingle of the door, the receptionist looked up from her book hopefully—only for her ears and expression to wilt into vague horror as Vaxil returned, leading the hobo into the salon. She glanced at Vaxil inquiringly.
Vaxil smiled, wrapping an arm around Gremix's shoulders and patting him.
“This ain't no hobo,” he told her. “This is Gremix, a Friend Of Mine.”
The receptionist pursed her lips, nodding and looking back down at her book without another word.
Vaxil led Gremix back into the main zone of the salon, the other three stylists watching curiously as the two settled in at Vaxil's station.
With an elegant, practiced motion, a cape was draped over Gremix, who slumped into the seat as though its plasticky cushion were the most comfortable thing he'd ever sat on. It seemed the moment he sat, his lack of sleep started to catch up on him like a tidal wave of fatigue. He blinked slowly, fighting off the drowsiness—no time. There was no time for that.
The buzz of the little gnomish shaving device felt almost soothing against his cheeks as the practiced stylist shaped Gremix's wayward facial hair. The snip of trimming shears sounded like a lullaby. And when the effeminate goblin's voice came, asking if he could also tame the blonde nest that had become of Gremix's once-neat hair, Gremix was so close to dropping into dreamland that he automatically grunted an agreement without a moment's thought. Thinking was hard—he was so tired.
He realized with some inner complaint what he had just done, however, when he was escorted from the station and brought to a little sink, where he was then re-seated. Oh well. This wouldn't take too long either, right?
Warm water and the gentle scratching of artificially long nails against his scalp was possibly the most welcome contact Gremix had felt in the last two months. He didn't fancy being touched by most, but there was something about having your hair washed in a salon…
“So who were you lookin' for back there, anyway?”
Gremix seemed to be in a daze. He was so, so tired. Soooo tired. He squinted up at the ceiling.
“Nobody.”
Vaxil scoffed. “I'm sure they're not nobody if you're lookin' for 'em.”
Gremix hadn't the energy to argue. “Yeah, guess so. He's not nobody.”
“An' what's with this uh… new look?”
Dry magenta eyes drifted over to the inquisitive, flawless face of the guy who had paused to shake some shampoo from a little glass bottle into his palm.
“I really am a hobo,” Gremix admitted with an air of embarrassment.
“I thought you had that place in the harbor!” Vaxil said, looking rather surprised.
“I left. I left it—I left work. I left...” Brows furrowed. “All of it.”
Vaxil blinked, nodding slowly and beginning to lather the shampoo into Gremix's hair, a soothing scent of lavender and mint drifting from the suds.
“Oh. An' you left ta, uh… ta find nobody?”
“I left t' find Rusco.”
“Who's that?”
Gremix's eyes squinted again, giving the ceiling a conflicted stare.
“He… Left me, because I'm fuckin' dumb. I need t' find him.”
Vaxil's brows rose, but he continued massaging the blonde scalp. “Oh, I see.”
Gremix no longer had the capacity to respond. The mercilessly comforting feeling of fingers in hair was altogether too relaxing. And he was so, so tired…
---
It was strangely warm. Not hot-warm, like Orgrimmar was outside in the mid-afternoon. No, it was a cozy kind of warm, the warm of a mattress and blankets and a soft pillow all reflecting his own body heat back at him. A bleary, barely-awake mind tried to piece together the feeling and what it could mean. A bed. Right. Gremix was in a bed. But… how? Every time he'd dozed off in past couple months it had been only a few minutes before he'd snap back awake—certainly there was none of this comfy bed-rest stuff, and he definitely didn't plan for it.
Opening his eyes was a chore. The lids stuck to each other like they had been glued, pleading with him to sleep longer. But he managed, blinking as his eyes adjusted to make sense of it all. Where on Azeroth was he? The light of a small electric lamp cast shadows from somewhere past the foot of the bed, dimly lighting the nightstand his gaze had fallen upon from the start. It was nothing outstanding—empty save for a plain-looking lamp. He glanced around the side of the room, but a wooden dresser was all he found, giving him no information. So he rolled onto his back... with some difficulty. Man, was he ever stiff. There was a ceiling. He turned his head to see the other side of the bed. Luckily, the rest of the bed was empty—no surprises there. Another boring nightstand, and some odd painting hung on the wall. His brows furrowed and he yawned, finally (and with significant effort) sitting up to seek the light source in hopes of some answers.
Immediately, however, he was met with further questions as the blanket over his torso fell, allowing a cold rush of air to embrace him in a way he wholly was not expecting—in a much quicker move than he might have thought possible in this level of just-woken grogginess, he snatched the blanket back and held it up against his bare chest. Bare?! He lifted the blanket, peering under it with mild concern. No pants, either, though his underwear remained—well, that at least was a slight relief. Pressing the warm blanket against his chest again, he squinted across the room.
The lamp that lit the room sat on a desk just a few feet away from the foot of the bed, accompanied by several bundles of cloth and an odd little machine Gremix wasn't familiar with the purpose of. Still no answers—his ears twitched. Footsteps approached.
A door against the wall beside the desk opened, and into the room stepped Vaxil, tea cup in-hand. He paused, smiling at Gremix before shutting the door again behind himself and sitting at the desk.
“Good evenin', Gremix,” he said, sipping at his tea.
“Evenin'?” asked Gremix. How long had he been out?! It was barely 9 am when he had visited the salon!
“Yeah. You passed out at the sink. At first I was worried I might'a used somethin' you were allergic to, but you'd just fallen asleep. The girls said you did seem pretty tired, so we jus' brought you here ta let you get some sleep. Out like a light all day, ya poor thing.”
“Oh.” Gremix looked around again, rubbing at his face with the hand not currently clenching a blanket. “Where's “here”?”
“This is my place,” Vaxil said, sipping the tea again and nodding towards the door. “It's a little three-story shack I share with one of the salon girls an' variable other lady roommates. Nothin' fancy, but I have my own room.”
“Oh,” Gremix said again. His hand had become preoccupied feeling his beard—it was so even now, unlike the mess of scruff it had grown in as. His inner looks-focused mafia consigliere approved. But then a shiver ran down his spine and he narrowed his eyes at the elegant goblin.
“Where's my clothes?”
Vaxil laughed, a long-nailed hand rising to his mouth. “Oh, I'm washin' them. Sorry, hope you weren't too startled. They were all sorts of wrinkled an' dirty and smelled like sweat an' alcohol. I couldn't help it.” His ears perked, the single hoops in each near the tip glittering in the light of the desk lamp. “Oh! Actually, hold on jus' a minute, I'm almost done with this--” Vaxil placed the teacup on the desk gently, turning his attention to the little machine. He pushed some cloth into it, his foot rhythmically pumping at some pedal on the floor, which seemed to activate it; a whirr, and a little arm in its center moved up and down… Gremix squinted. A needle?
He sat quietly as Vaxil worked, not bothering to ask what the young man was on about. And sure enough, after a few minutes, the goblin's foot ceased its work, the machine deactivating at the same time. A snip of scissors, and Vaxil held the cloth up beside himself. He gave an approving nod, opening a drawer of the desk and scooping from within some sort of pinkish glittering dust, which he tossed gracefully onto whatever his creation was. It sparkled and glimmered as it hit the fabric, but disappeared soon after striking it. Gremix blinked—enchantment? He hadn't been aware Vaxil was proficient in that.
Vaxil gave the garment a shake, folding it neatly and adding it to a small pile on the desk, then taking the whole bunch and bringing them to Gremix, placing the stack on the confused blonde's lap.
“I hope you don't mind,” Vaxil said with a sheepish tone to his voice. “I took your measurements while you slept, an' made you some clothes. Mostly light, thin, layerable stuff, that way you can carry it easy an' add an' remove layers as necessary for whatever sort of weather...”
“What?” Gremix interrupted, furrowing his brows at Vaxil. “Why?”
“Why what? Layers are really useful.” He frowned in thought before perking back up. “Oh! I mean, you'd said you needed to find this guy—your ex, or whatever, right? An' I mean, if he's not in Orgrimmar you might need ta go somewhere else, yeah? So no matter what environment you run across, you can be covered, an' look good while you're at it. Better than tryin' ta run around in business casual that ain't made with that sort of activity level in mind. Plus, I tossed some enchantments onto it all: jus' a little bit of uh, magic-enhancing properties in the tops, an' stamina-boostin' in the pants, jus' in case you run inta trouble.”
Gremix stared, awe-struck. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I meant, why would ya do this for me?”
Vaxil crossed thin arms across his chest, shrugging. “You were one of the most well-dressed guys in The Family. I can appreciate that. Besides, I like makin' clothes, an' what better excuse?”
Gremix nodded, glancing down at the stack of clothes in curiosity. Finally releasing the blanket, he took the top garment, unfolding it and holding it up for inspection. It was some kind of shirt, it seemed, in a soft, thin fabric that felt very comfortable, but…
“D...d'you really think I'd look good in somethin' like this?”
Vaxil laughed again, grinning down at Gremix. “Yeah! I have an eye for style, Gremix. You might'a been a suit-an'-tie dude for a long time now, but I can sense the fashion-forward casual side that you never felt you should express. Try some on! I bet you'll like it bunches more than starchy button-ups an' dress pants.”
Gremix gave Vaxil a doubtful look, but complied anyways, pulling the garment on—it really was comfortable, but he had some uncertainties. For one thing, it clung around his figure, and besides that it felt very… different. He clambered off the bed, Vaxil standing aside and looking away politely as Gremix searched through the stack. He located the bottoms, glancing through them curiously—oddly enough, all the garments seemed as though they would easily match one another no matter what combination he chose. He pulled out some dark pants, getting into them with a similar ambivalence. Clingy, yet baggy… but, unusually enough, he found he did quite like it. Maybe it'd take some getting used to, but…
He looked over at Vaxil with an approving nod. “It's interestin'.”
Vaxil turned, giving Gremix a thorough look-over before smiling. “Even better than I'd hoped! I did have a few more in mind, an’ some shoes, but I wasn't sure how much carryin'-space you had. Did you even take anythin' with you?”
“Yeah, it's at th' inn,” Gremix said, shuffling through the rest of the articles and trying to make sense of them. “You don't have to, though. You've done more than enough for me as it is.”
“It's my pleasure, really,” Vaxil said, turning to the dresser and taking a brush out from the top drawer before doting on the mess that sleeping had turned Gremix's head into. Gremix stood silently, accepting the odd attention without complaint. Once the tall goblin was satisfied at the state of Gremix's hairdo, he returned the brush to the drawer and sat back at his little desk to sip tea once more.
“Do you have space for more? I have so many ideas, and you'll look jus' fabulous in them, I promise.”
Gremix glanced at the little pile and shrugged. “Yeah.” He thought back to the pack sitting in his neglected inn-room. It wasn't very full, and besides he could probably discard some of his current attire—Vaxil did have a point about his usual outfitting not being made with heavy travel in mind. Plus, he didn't have to dress like that anymore, did he? He was free now. No more work. No more constantly trying to look a certain way. He gazed down at himself. It was a welcome change, now that he thought about it. One more piece of his prior life thrown away. He vaguely wondered what Rusco would think of it… but he'd need to find Rusco before he could really concern himself with that.
Vaxil made a pleased noise, carefully pawing through some spools of fabric that were leaned against the wall next to the desk. “You're welcome ta stay here longer an' get more sleep while I work on it. I don't mind, an’ the girls won’t be bothered by it long as I’m here too. You should go get your stuff, though, if you feel rested enough.”
Gremix gave a tiny sigh, nodding. “Yeah. Thanks.”
---
The next afternoon, a newly clean, groomed, and stylish Gremix left Vaxil's home, pack containing an entirely new wardrobe slung over his shoulder; setting off to continue the hopeful search for his precious one.
