WHO Diego Hargreeves and Vax Gilmore (+ NPC'd Graciela Hargreeves, Via Gilmore, and Jai Gilmore) WHEN March 27, 2033 WHERE Training area at the Outpost WHAT Diego and Vax catch up about feelings (I know) while their kids make plans to get up to no good. WARNINGS Some mention of losing Lila and Vex and circumstances surrounding that, but otherwise just some knife tossing bros.
The hollow thunk of a knife sticking to a target echoed in the training area, and Diego surveyed the scene with an appraising nod.
“Nice, good job. Watch your handle, okay? See where it went? It hit, but your handle is pointing down, so that means–”
“I know, Dad,” Graciela drawled, accompanied by the most suffering of eye rolls. She shook out her shoulders and reset herself, a look of determination written clear on her face that was so familiar, Diego had to look away for a moment. Fortunately, Vax and his kids were entering the area, which afforded Diego a distraction.
“Look who it is,” he said, greeting both Via and Jai with an arm slung around each of their shoulders. “Damn, you guys keep getting bigger, what the fuck’s that about?” He ruffled each of their heads, Via giggled and turned it into a hug, Jai balked and immediately tried to straighten his hair back into shape. “You guys are giving your dad a lot of shit, right? He missed that.” And Diego had a first hand look at how much Vax had missed his family, just as Vax had had a first hand look at how Diego had thrown himself into saving Lila, only for–
But he wasn’t thinking about that now. Even as the house of cards of strength Diego had built up for his daughter, for his friends, for the rebellion, was trembling at the foundations.
"They're currently protesting that they didn't get to go with Shaun to see cool and powerful magic," Vax said, confirming the giving your dad shit that Diego mentioned. Though his tone was deadpan, the fond look on his face as he let his eyes linger on both of his children spoke volumes for just how much Diego was right; he had missed it.
The stretches of time between seeing the kids and Shaun weighed heavily on Vax, but it was something that he tried his hardest to squash and hide when around most. He needed to be strong around his remaining family, he needed to put his all into the missions he was handed, he needed to remain vigilant when he was on patrol. In the end, it was really only Diego that he felt comfortable being any shade of vulnerable around--funny, that.
And with the time ticking down to the wizards returning to their present with the visitors from the past and knowing just what that meant, Vax was feeling like maybe both of them needed to be vulnerable, in their own unique ways.
Moving to ruffle Jai's hair again as soon as he had it back to sorts, Vax smiled and suggested, "You two go watch Graciela. She can teach you a thing or two."
“Just remember this, the time you didn’t want to foster my educational development!” That was Jai’s contribution, and although he actually did want to study the magic and intensely quiz Caleb and Essek about spellwork, he was also clearly enjoying teasing his dad. Via didn’t look put out but mostly because she was studying the knife in the target with narrowed eyes, as if weighing how her own throw might have gone.
Graciela, however, looked nothing less than incredibly smug. “That makes me the leader, so, thanks Uncle Vax, you have never been cooler!”
“He’s not cool!” Diego scoffed, because old habits died hard. Before Graciela ran off, he took her by her shoulders. “Hey, you can go hang out, but you remember that you’re a team and you’re family, you watch out and protect each other.” Unsurprisingly he received another long suffering eyeroll, but Graciela did nod and gestured for Jai and Via to follow her. Approximately five seconds later, the three were engaged in a fierce debate over who, exactly, should be the leader and the merits of each child’s leadership trait. Diego watched the three for a minute, smirking, before he went to pull the knives off of the target.
“Told you they’d make it okay,” he told Vax, handing him three daggers. Not that that had made a difference, and rightfully so, Diego knew that there was nothing he could ever say to appease Vax’s fears for his family, but he had to try. And concentrating on someone else meant that Diego didn’t have to confront his own thoughts and feelings, because he didn’t have a clue how to start to unpack it all. “They look good. Tall, Jesus Christ. Trip here go okay?”
Vax took the daggers with a smile, somewhere between smug at being called cool by Graciela and simply relieved because Diego was, in fact, right. There was no one more capable when it came to caring for and protecting their children than his husband, but he wouldn't be Vax if he didn't dip into the musings of worst case scenarios more or less always.
"Fucking tell me about it," Vax said, glancing once toward the kids as though they had never heard him swear before--ha--before looking at the target that Diego had retrieved the daggers from. "Jai is going to end up almost as tall as Shaun, if he doesn't cut it out. Lucky I'm used to being towered over. Via, though, I swear her horns are a good inch or two longer from the last time I visited." They were thoughts that tempted Vax in the direction of melancholy, which he didn't want, not when he could see them in his periphery. Not when this would hopefully all be over soon.
"How the trip went depends on who you ask." He threw one dagger, which landed in the center of the target with a thunk. "The kids swear it was eventful." Thunk. "Shaun, though, was very--" Vax held the other dagger aloft in an imitation of a hand gesture from his beloved, his voice going a bit deeper and Gilmore-like, "'It was fine, darling, I had it all under control!'" His lifted arm fell gracefully, the dagger flying with a final thunk. "So something happened, but he managed and doesn't want me to worry, which is only working because they actually did get here, in one piece and scratch-free."
“What an amazing impersonation. They say that couples start to resemble each other over time, but fuck me, it’s like basically the same.” Diego said, his tone as dry as the desert. Even in the apocalypse, he had to give Vax shit. It was all but a rule at this point in time. Case in point, the way he scrutinized Vax’s handiwork with a scoff. “God, you’re slacking. I hate to embarass you in front of your kids, but, oh well.”
The kids that were not paying attention to either of them and had instead gone suspiciously quiet. That wasn’t concerning or anything. Fortunately, with the increase of people at the Outpost it would make shenanigans harder–but Diego knew his daughter and she could never resist a challenge. Also fortunately, none of them seemed to be pretending like they weren’t eavesdropping.
A knife slipped through Diego’s fingers and cut through the air, lodging itself in the slender space between two of Vax’s knives. “Did you tell them?” He muttered. “I mean, they know about what’s happening, obviously, but. The rest?”
Ignoring Diego's attempts at showing off with his own dagger throws, Vax looked instead in the direction that the kids had went off in. He trusted them enough not to get into too much trouble--well, he trusted Via, at least, to act as mediator to any "who is the real leader" arguments before they got too wildly disruptive.
"Yeah," Vax nodded, looking back to Diego and voice just as quiet. "For the most part, at least. I don't know if they totally get it or if just being back at the Outpost and seeing everyone they had missed is just overshadowing it for now."
It was relatable, actually, and Vax might have been speaking more about himself than the kids at that point. He hadn't really let himself think too hard on what would come once the wizards returned from the past and just who would be with them. It had been too long since Vex had been whisked away from them and he'd felt the loss of his twin as accutely as he had the separation from Gilmore and the kids. They were not meant to be apart, which did, of course, absolutely figure given what happened in Exandria.
"What about you?" Vax continued, absolutely obfuscating and taking the attention off of himself and instead onto his friend. "How are you guys dealing?"
Diego’s jaw set into a firm line and with how hard he was clenching his teeth he could have cracked diamonds. “I had to tell her. What the fuck else was I supposed to do, let them just run into each other?” That wouldn’t have been fair to either Graciela or Lila, considering the last time Graciela saw her mother had ended with Diego bleeding out and Graciela pushing a thralled Lila off a cliff. No, not telling his daughter was never an option for Diego, because as much as his instincts were to protect her from everything, she deserved to know. And what Lila would know when she arrived, well, he’d cross that bridge when it came up, but he had never been good at keeping anything from Lila anyway, and would never have tried to keep her from Graciela.
Especially not since, fuck him sideways, Graciela would have just been born. That seemed especially cruel.
“Gracie asked if she had to see her, then said she didn’t know if she wanted to, then said that she did. I’m not going to make her do anything, but I’m also not sure what the fuck else my alternatives are.” Diego whipped a knife into a target as if making it stick would reveal the answer.. “It’s not fair to her either, to walk into a situation and be blindsided by what happened.” That her was Lila, it was still hard for Diego to bring her up by name. “And,” he pointed a dagger at Vax, but in the way Diego had where he gestured, the knife was basically like an extra finger. “You’re trying to change the subject on me, you dick.”
"Don't know what you're talking about," Vax replied as nonchalantly as he could while also giving Diego a bit of a side smirk. As quick as the smirk formed, though, it slipped right off of his face. As much as he was in a far better mood now than he had been in weeks (months, years), the situation still called for some thoughtfulness. Having friends and family return from the beyond, thrall, or back to wherever they all came from was its own varying shades of difficult--that much was clear in just listening to Diego describe it.
"It's not fair all around," Vax agreed in the end, before pausing to go and retrieve the knives that the two of them had thrown. There were many annoying things about the decrease in magic and his belt just being a regular belt was low on the list, yet still was annoying nonetheless.
That additional method of prolonging the inevitable taken care of, Vax twisted one of the daggers between his fingers. "The kids know she's coming," he continued, his she being Vex, of course, "but it's weird. They know she's their aunt and important, but I just know that in another world she'd be a huge part of their life. I know I've got it easier than some, but--it sucks. Moral of the fucking story, this shit sucks."
Vax tossed a dagger, not looking as it hit the center of the target. "But whatever you do will be the right thing. You know your kid. You'll make it work."
“In another world a lot would be different,” Diego growled, and it wasn’t much of a leap to guess he was thinking about the rest of their family, gone. Picked over, one at a time. He missed Jacob and Serefin every day and wondered what they all would have been doing in that other world. If they would have had their son by now, if Gracie would have grown up with her cousins close as actual siblings. Looking at her with Jai and Via now was a bittersweet funhouse version of things. Here they were, but not how it was meant to be.
“I hate that she has to come and there’s inevitably going to be some fucking battle–like, hey, Lila, come to the future where shit sucks and risk your life!” he sighed and half-heartedly chucked another knife. It would stick, of course, it always did, still always tended to find the right mark even without the extra whatever it was the Hargreeves had. “What are you going to do? Set it up? Be intentional about introducing them?”
Vax had pondered the very same thing as Diego. He remembered all too well when he had woken up, only to find that both Vex'ahlia and Vesper were gone. The panic and then literal anguish--a word that he didn't use lightly--that he'd felt at being separated from his sister after a lifetime at one another's side was like nothing he could describe even now, years after it had happened and he'd had time to acclimate to being one half of a set. It was nothing compared to those who had watched their loved ones be turned against them or outright be taken from them on the field of battle, Vax knew; but it was still a loss and one that he felt at all times.
But now his twin would be back, at least for a short amount of time. That alone was a comfort. Less of a comfort, though, was knowing that something terrible could happen to this younger version of his sister, that nothing terrible could happen and the world would be saved and yet he would have to say goodbye again.
Vax was very, very tired of goodbyes.
Rather than saying all of that, because Vax was too good at keeping things close to the chest nowadays, he sighed and focused on Diego's question. "I think intentional is the only way to go with the kids. It's different with Velora, I guess? She's grown and knew Vex, but Jai and Via were so young. I don't want to overwhelm them or her, but--" Vax waved a hand dismissively. "What about this isn't fucking overwhelming?"
“She should meet them,” Diego said, decisively, as if it was so easy. But the reason for that became clear when the side of his mouth quirked up in a crooked grin and he kicked at the back of Vax’s knee. “Your kids are so much cooler than you. Look at them, look at you, like, this isn’t even a fucking contest.”
He was trying not to be too obvious about watching the kids, Jai was frantically illustrating something by drawing on the floor while Graciela vehemently disagreed with seemingly everything, and Via stepped in between just to cause chaos. Still, Graciela caught him staring and nudged Jai, who immediately put on a grin oozing with charm and innocence, and damned if it wasn’t half believable. Diego turned back to Vax, clearing his throat under the guise of always needing to clear his throat thanks to the thick and jagged scar that crossed his neck and not because of a well of emotion. “They’re great kids. And you’re a damn good dad. Doesn’t matter that you aren’t able to be with them every day, your kids know you love them and want them and support them. That’s what counts.”
Vax just barely managed to roll his eyes at Diego at the notion that his kids were cooler than him--he knew that they were far cooler than him, no reminders necessary. How could they not be, when they spent so much time with Gilmore?
Which was a thought that, of course, led into the rest of what Diego had to say. Vax knew that Shaun felt strongly that Vax left his mark on their kids. Even Vax himself had to admit that he could see bits and pieces of the kids that reminded him so very much of himself; for one, the grin that Jai had just given them was very reminiscent of the one he would give his mother when she caught the twins getting up to no good. Still, he had his darker moments when the distance felt like too much where Vax would burrow into his bad feelings, comparing himself to Syldor Vessar and wondering if this was a mistake, if he was just as bad as his father, if he was a poor partner, if, if, if.
More often than not, it was Diego nowadays that caught him in that spiral and it was Diego that kicked him out of it. His blunt friend had long since before this end-of-the-world scenario they found themselves in cemented his place as family and Vax was appreciative of him.
Eyes on the kids as they turned back to their mischief, Vax smiled, small and a bit brittle, but genuine. "I hope so. And, you know, the means a lot, coming from another damn good dad." It was a bit more sincere and less snarky than Vax usually leaned into with conversations like this with Diego, but this could be the end of the world. Might as well dip into sincerity.
“Shut up,” Diego responded immediately, punching Vax hard in the shoulder, mostly because Vax expected it by now. All Diego had wanted to be from the moment Lila had said she was pregnant was a good dad. He would have charged through the very gates of Hell itself for his family, all of them, That included Vax and his family, even if Diego would never tell him that in a hundred, million years.
“Come on. How about we show these kids I’ve still got it and you still suck.”