Better Via Worse

critical role au where all of vox machina live in the same apartment building and are just the worst fucking neighbors in the world.

vex is in school studying wildlife rehabilitation and 24/7 you just hear animals from her apartment. no ones sure if it’s just some weird ambience to keep her focused while working or there’s actual animals in there. vax won’t tell them.

vax also won’t tell them if that big fluffy monster truck of a pet is a dog or a bear. they ask him what trinket is and he replies, “my nephew.”

everyone’s kind of super uncomfortable with how vax can break into their apartments with ease. percy got locked out of his apartment and vax was just, “oh let me help” “no, it’s fine, i called a-” *door swings open* “…what the fuck”

when pike and grog moved into the apartment building pike went around to all her neighbors greeting them with home made cookies.

the cookies had peppers in them. everyone knows that you can trust pike with your life but not with your food.

grog never wears a shirt. no one knows what his job is. he’s always carrying around an old worn out copy of the little engine that could, for some reason. sometimes he asks vex about the animals she works with.

scanlan sometimes lives alone, but sometimes his daughter hangs around. no ones sure how old either of them are, but they know that kaylie sort of lives in her own but stays with scanlan whenever she feels like it. scanlan has a really weird youtube channel. and he always carries around a blow whistle. and he fell in love with pike when she made him the pepper cookies and complimented his shitty old band tshirt.

percy’s. no one knows what the fuck is up with percy. he looks like he never sleeps, but at the same time his clothes are always fresh if not kind of covered in dust, like he pulled them out of an attic or something. his hair is shock white but he can’t be any older than mid twenties. the lights in his apartment are always on and you always hear the sounds of metal and whirring and it’s like. what on earth are you doing in there buddy. why do you wear an ascot in this day and age.

keyleth is a hippie vegan who makes her own clothes and she sells salsa and jam from the garden she somehow managed to grow in her apartment. no one has the heart to tell her that it’s probably against building regulations because she always offers them a ride on her old ass bike that Honestly won’t fit two people but sometimes they agree anyway for the hell of it. she owns a van that basically looks like the mystery machine but only uses it to just like…sleep in sometimes because she makes her own clothes in there and sometimes jewelry out of bottle caps and pretty rocks.

everyone’s kind of friends but also kind of want to throw each other out a window. ride or die or kill friendship.

hallianna replied to your post “Guys, in honor of the SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriages, I kinda…”

roses are red, violets are expensive (f!hawke/Isabela)

“Okay, well what about roses.  They’re supposed to mean love or some shit, right?”

“Too common.”

“Orchids?”

“Too expensive.”

“Carnations.”

“Too cheap.”

“I don’t know, hibiscus?”

“Where in the shit am I supposed to get a ton of fucking hibiscus in September?  Also they wilt too fast.”

Isabela looked over the coffee table at her fiancé and slowly raised a brow.  Hawke was ass deep in wedding magazines, their glossy pages desperately dog eared and fanned out across the carpet.  “Baby.”

“I know, I know.”  The chagrin was immediate, the wedding mania fading into the background in an instant.  Hawke raked her hands through her hair, short dark locks sticking up every which way, before dropping them helplessly into her lap with a shrug and a sigh of defeat.  “I just want it to be perfect.  We’ve been waiting so long…”

She looked perilously close to tears and Hawke never cried, only deigning to shed tears over well-orchestrated action sequences in movies.  And fat puppies.

Carefully she pulled her boots off the coffee table and slid off the couch, hands and knees scuffing the carpet as she crawled around it and the Martha Stewart archive strewn all over the floor to sink down cross-legged at Hawke’s side.

She had never been much of one for weddings – for marriage either.  There was always the one that went sour hovering in the back of her mind, and for the longest time the fact that technically they couldn’t just meant she never really had to think about it. Never had to decide if it was something she really wanted.  If she could avoid making the sorts of decisions with the inconvenient byproduct of being semi-permanent, all the better, but –

Well.  Hawke wanted this so badly.  And she wanted Hawke more than anything.

There were worse fates than being married to someone she was head over heels in love with.

“For what it’s worth,” she said eventually, leaning her shoulder up against Hawke’s side.  “I would marry you on the side of the road.”

“Hmph.”

“Right there on the sidewalk.”

“No you wouldn’t.”

“I would so.  I would marry you on a street corner in the pouring rain in the middle of downtown rush hour traffic.”

Hawke laughed a strangled little laugh but finally came up for air, hands falling away from her face. “That’s awful.”

“And adventurous.” Isabela’s eyebrows waggled, the tip of her tongue poking out between parted lips.  It merited a laugh – a real laugh this time.  “But totally worth it.”

“Bela…”

“I’m serious. Cross my heart and hope to die.  We don’t have to have flowers, or music, or candles, or any of the – whatever the hell this is.  The only thing I need for it to be a perfect day is you.”

Hawke stared at her for a long moment, as though she wasn’t sure if she was serious, as if she wasn’t sure whether she ought to laugh or cry, and settled instead for kisses.  Clever fingers wound their way into Isabela’s hair and held her close, lips fervent – but soft.  Tender.  A little shaky, like too much coffee and not enough breakfast.  Just like Hawke.  And she –

Well what could she say, really.  She was a woman in love.

“Fuck it,” Hawke said, lips against her cheek.  “Let’s just elope.”