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It started with an electric kettle.
Or, at least, that's what Moxxie said the fucking thing was. To Blitzø, the little contraption looked like a fancy-ass pitcher that definitely didn't need to have been ordered to his goddamn office without his permission. Either way, it had been ordered to his goddamn office, and now the fucking thing sat on his desk, mocking him.
"You know, sir, we could set this up by the coffee machine," Moxxie spoke up, poking at the packing paper with one finger before Blitzø smacked his hand away.
"The fuck we could," Blitzø retorted, folding the cardboard flaps back over the top of the box so that he could get a better look at the shipping label. "No, this shit is going right the fuck back to wherever you got it from, and then I'm taking your name off the fucking company card."
"I didn't order this, sir," Moxxie insisted, holding his hands up in surrender as Blitzø shot him a glare. "I didn't! You can check the statements, you'll see that I've only used the card to pay the bills!"
"You've been paying the bills?" Blitzø demanded, his irritation increasing. "I thought I gave you strict instructions to ignore those bitches!"
"But sir–"
"We have rules for a reason, Moxxie. Between the bills and this fuckin' thing, I don't know if I can trust you with the finances anymore."
"But I didn't–"
"Nope! Soon as she's back from coffee detail, Millie is in charge of that shit. Now, tell me where this thing came from, I can't fucking find the return address," Blitzø huffed, shoving the box at Moxxie, who fumbled to catch it as it nearly toppled over the edge of the desk.
"For the last time, sir, I did not order this!" Blitzø was no longer listening, because Moxxie could be a stubborn bitch when he wanted to be, and who the fuck else would have ordered the fucking thing? Coffee was better than tea anyway, and their coffee maker worked just fine (even if he still splurged on iced coffee runs every now and then, because making it himself took too much forward planning and he's the damn boss, that's why). Besides, if anyone was that dead-set on having shitty leaf juice, they could boil their fucking water in the fucking microwave like everyone else.
Well, they could if the fucking thing decided to work that day, which it usually did not. But still. There was no need for an electric kettle, and especially not one as fancy as the shit Moxxie – or whoever – had bought. Boiling water was boiling water, so why should he have to fuck with a dial to set the fucking temperature just right?
It was a waste of money, a waste of table space, a–
"Blitzø, when you're done bitching about that thing, do you think I could use it to make ramen?"
Blitzø stopped in his tracks at the doorway to his office, because it wasn't often that his daughter paid attention to, well, anything happening in the office, much less to ask about it. He poked his head out into the main office, where Loona sat with her feet up on her desk and an expectant look on her face.
"We could make ramen with that shit?" Blitzø asked, raising one eyebrow.
"Uh, yeah?" Loona scoffed, rolling her eyes as she returned her gaze to her phone. "Fucking microwave's broken again, and we need something to boil the fucking water. I'm not having ramen-brick again, and that's all we can fucking make until you fix the damn fridge."
Blitzø considered this. Sure, ramen-brick was… a food-adjacent experience, but he supposed it would be nice to have a backup to the microwave if only so that his daughter could have something blessedly cheap to eat for lunch while they were getting caught up on some of their more time-consuming contracts.
"Sir, I can't find–"
"Shut the fuck up, Moxx, and go hook the fucker up," Blitzø interrupted, pulling the smaller imp out of his office by the tail. "You got lucky this time, sticky-fingers, but I catch you with your claws in my money jar again and you're fucking grounded, got that?"
"Grounded?" Moxxie echoed incredulously, flicking his tail to dislodge Blitzø's grip as he scurried over to the little kitchenette. "You're not my father, sir."
"And thank fuck for that," Blitzø snorted, following him only to make sure that he didn't break anything and not at all to learn how to set it up in case he decided to take the thing home for Loona. "That's a level of batshittery even I don't aspire to."
Once the device was set up, Blitzø assigned Moxxie the very important task of making everyone lunch to make up for wasting their money on the stupid thing – even if the little shit still wouldn't admit to purchasing it.
He could have sworn he heard a camera shutter noise as he obnoxiously slurped his noodles just to disgust Moxxie, but it must have just been the sound of Millie coming in the door with the iced coffee he desperately needed to keep dealing with this bullshit.
When the microwave showed up at the office a week later, all shiny and decidedly not-broken-as-fuck, Blitzø insisted on looking at the fucking credit card statements, because Moxxie just looked so damn honest when he insisted that, again, this wasn't his doing. Sure enough, there was no trace of either the microwave or the kettle on any of the statements.
When the crooked contracting company that had been threatening to re-break the wall they had fixed if they weren't paid stopped plastering threats on the office door, Blitzø got suspicious. His suspicions were soon confirmed when he – very bravely, he might add, considering the previous threats – called the foreman, who told him that the repair had been paid in full, and to never call them again.
Something particularly fucky was going on.
When Blitzø turned on the shower in his apartment one evening and stepped into a stream of water that had both pressure and heat, he began to worry. It was one thing for things at the I.M.P. office to be paid for – that could easily be explained away as someone getting ready to bribe them into taking a job they otherwise would pass on – but it was another entirely for his personal woes to be addressed. He didn't even let Millie and Moxxie into his small apartment. For all anyone but Loona knew, he lived in a nice place in a nice neighborhood with nice things –
Wait.
Loona.
Fuck, it had to be Loona.
Shit, where the fuck was she getting this kind of money? And why the fuck wasn't she spending it on herself like a reasonable early-20-something hellhound is suppposed to?
It was time to do some good ol' fashioned dad sleuthing.
… After enjoying the absolute fuck out of the first decent shower he'd had in weeks.
Blitzø turned the water to cold but left it running, not wanting to waste the new hot water just in the pursuit of being sneaky. He wrapped his ratty towel around his waist and slunk out of the bathroom, the rushing water of the shower covering the quiet clicks of his hooves against the floor as he made his way to Loona's door.
"Yeah, the fucking pipes are fixed," Loona was saying, her voice low and slightly annoyed. Blitzø strained to hear a response, but she must have been talking on the phone, because her voice was the only one he could hear after a long pause. "No, he didn't seem to notice the pillows. I don't fucking know, he just didn't. I know he's sleeping better with 'em, though, which is great because I was getting sick of the goddamn snoring."
The pillows? Blitzø glanced over at the couch where he slept. The pillows didn't look much different… wait, no. The pillowcases didn't look any different, but he must have been fucking exhausted before not to have noticed that the pancake-esque pillows inside the cases had been replaced with overstuffed new ones.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll get you a picture, but it'll fucking cost you extra," Loona grumbled to who-the-fuck-knows on the phone. "I'm telling you, this plan is fucking stupid. He's not gonna figure out who's sending him all this shit. He's only got one brain cell, and it's still busy worrying that you're about to take the fucking book back at any moment."
Blitzø froze. Take the book back…
"I know you don't care how long it fucking takes," Loona huffed while Blitzø tried to keep calm in case she could hear his breathing or something. "But the more shit you send him before he figures it out, the more fucking pissed he's gonna… oh. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah."
What? What's a good point?! Blitzø wanted to yell, but he had just barely enough self-control to keep quiet.
"He's a whore for shitty t-shirts… You don't already know? Yeah, hang on, I'll check his size."
Blitzø recognized the sound of Loona climbing off her bed and bolted back to the bathroom, closing the door behind him just in time. As he waited for her to finish rifling through his clothes, he sat on the closed toilet to think.
She had to have been talking to Stolas. Blitzø only gave a shit about one book, and that book only belonged to one demon, and that was Stolas. There was also only one demon that would give enough of a shit about him to spend any kind of money to get his attention, and that also happened to be Stolas.
Fuck.
It wasn't that Blitzø was avoiding the big dumb bird, because that would mean that the big dumb bird had tried to contact him, which he hadn't. Not really, anyway. They hadn't had any kind of decent conversation since that disaster of a fake-ass date, with the exception of their time in L.A. chasing Stolas's kid, and they had had more important shit to talk about than whatever bullshit feelings were between them.
Which were none. No feelings. None.
That's what feeling empty inside was. No feelings. None whatsoever. Definitely not anything that needed to be resolved.
And it didn't hurt when his phone would scream with a new text message, only for it to be a cancellation of their full-moon bullshit thing. Twice. Because that would mean he was looking forward to the fucking thing.
Which he wasn't.
And now that fucking owl was scheming with his fucking daughter? Who the fuck did he think he was?
What the fuck did he want, anyway? If the horny prince was looking for a good dicking down, all he had to do was snap his fucking fingers and open a fucking portal or something. Or, hell, even just keep their regular appointment, instead of brushing it off with a 'perhaps another time?' would fucking work. It wasn't so hard. He didn't need to do… whatever the fuck this was.
What the fuck was this? More transactional bullshit? Keeping Blitzø chained to his royal ass with debt, so even if he did take the book back, Blitzø wouldn't be able to pay him back?
Or, a tiny, suspiciously-Moxxie-like voice chimed in from the very back of Blitzø's mind, he could just be doing something nice for you.
Bullshit. Stolas wanted something from him. No one did shit for nothing. If that fucking bird wanted him to climb his goddamn tower and grovel at his fucking talons, he'd have to try a helluva lot harder.
Blitzø was too fucking stubborn and too fucking proud to allow that fucking owl to buy his attention. You know, again.
As it turned out, it was his pride that caused Blitzø to decide that enough was fucking enough, and it was time to stop dicking around and talk to Stolas.
Buying things for the office was fine. Buying things for his apartment was tolerable. Buying him the occasional horse figurine was pushing it. Buying things for his family? Things that Blitzø would never be able to provide them? That was crossing the fucking line.
So when he got back to the office after his midday iced coffee run to find M&M fawning over new, high-end, fancy-pants weapons? Loona looking actually impressed at a top-of-the-line laptop complete with a designer bag to keep it in?
Blitzø was fucking done with this game.
He turned on his heel, slammed the rest of his drink (and choked when there was slightly more left in the cup than he had expected), and headed back down the stairs to his van. He didn't give even a single shit about Moxxie's texted protests that the work day wasn't over, and he certainly didn't give a fuck about the fucking stop sign he ran into on his way out of the parking lot.
The drive to Stolas's palace was one Blitzø had seldom made in the daylight, but he had no fucking interest in watching the landscape change from high-density housing to a fucking forest to the well-maintained palace grounds. He was an imp on a mission, and nothing was going to distract him.
In fact, it wasn't until he swung himself over the damn railing of the damn balcony that Blitzø actually gave a single thought to what he was doing beyond 'giving that stupid bird a piece of his mind.' All at once, the realization of what he was doing hit him like a ton of bricks.
Right.
Talking to Stolas would entail… talking… to Stolas.
Fuck.
"Blitzø?"
Nononono fuck he wasn't ready for this fuck–
"Blitzø? Are you quite alright?" Suddenly Stolas was in front of him, his long fucking legs bent into a crouch to put his stupid fucking gorgeous heart-shaped face almost level with Blitzø's own. And of course the slutty prince was only wearing that fucking robe, the one that wouldn't stay on his skinny fucking shoulders and offered the most inviting view of those sinfully soft chest feathers, and –
Focus. Angry. Insulted. Pretty. No, asshole.
"What the fuck do you think you're playing at?" Blitzø demanded, hands flailing as he couldn't decide whether to put them on his hips or point menacingly. He vaguely hoped that whatever he was doing looked pissed off. "I can fucking take care of my own employees! I don't need your fucking charity bullshit!"
"Oh, that." Stolas clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he straightened up, looking almost disappointed. Almost, because his upper eyes were still annoyingly bright and mirthful. Fucking asshole bird.
"Yes, 'that!' I don't know how you got my fucking daughter involved in this little humiliation plot of yours, but–"
"Humiliation plot?" Stolas gasped, and this time all four of his eyes showed his obvious distress at the accusation. "Truly you must not think that was my intent!"
"No? Because that's sure as shit what it seemed like to me!" Blitzø settled on hugging himself, his hands gripping his upper arms tightly. It wasn't the most power-demanding stance, but it felt better than flailing. "What the fuck do you think it looks like when you're able to just replace the shit that I worked my ass off to afford? I should be the one giving them shit! That's my fucking job, Stolas, not yours!"
"But I'm not just giving them things, dar- Blitzø," Stolas insisted, and the almost-endearment made Blitzø want to throw up.
"Oh, what? They fucking you, too?" he snapped, and goddammit if the immediate hurt on Stolas's face didn't make Blitzø want to just hurl himself off the balcony. "Fuck, uh… Stolas…"
"You really think so little of me?" Stolas's voice was soft, and Blitzø swallowed hard around the guilt that had settled in his throat. "No, Blitzø. No one is fucking me. I was… I was simply playing a game, trying to see if I could rile you up into coming to see me, since you'd shown no interest in my more direct invitations. Now I see, it was foolish to–"
"What invitations?" Blitzø interrupted, tail thumping against the tile of the balcony floor. "The only fucking messages I got from you were telling me not to bother fucking you."
"Oh, dear," Stolas sighed, leaning against the railing as his shoulders slumped. "I suppose I should have been more clear in my messaging, shouldn't I? Only, I didn't want you to think I was demanding anything, so I wanted to frame it as something you could easily decline should you wish to, but then I missed you ever so terribly, and now–"
"If you missed me so goddamn terribly, why cancel our shit in the first place?" Blitzø challenged, hoping that Stolas would give him the dignity of ignoring the wavering in his voice. Because he didn't care. He wasn't upset.
"I'm not interested in continuing this transaction, Blitzø. Not in this way." Stolas plucked a flower from one of the large pots at the edge of the balcony and twirled the stem between his fingers as if he wasn't ripping Blitzø's heart out.
"You can't just take the book, Stolas, we need–"
"I'm not taking anything, Blitzø," Stolas assured, glancing back at him. "Not anymore. You may use the Grimoire as you wish with no strings attached, or I can arrange Asmodean crystals be made for you and your employees, should you no longer desire to remain in contact with me."
"What do you want?" The sincerity of Blitzø's question startled even himself, and he watched as Stolas's shoulders stiffened for only a moment before falling again.
"What I want, I can not have," Stolas replied simply.
"Bullshit," Blitzø scoffed, climbing up to sit on the railing, which he straddled like a horse with his legs dangling off either side. "Why did you go through all that fucking bullshit with the gifts and shit to get me here if you aren't gonna tell me what the fuck you want?"
"Truthfully? I just wanted to see you again. I… didn't think I'd get this far," Stolas confessed, turning his face away.
"So, you want me to go, or…?"
"No," Stolas whispered. "No, I'd rather like you to stay."
"I'll fucking stay if you fucking tell me what you want," Blitzø retorted, but there was no bite in it.
"You," Stolas answered, but the desire in his voice was entirely different from the usual sex-thirsty bullshit Blitzø was used to from him. This was different. This was… sad. This was lonely.
This was familiar.
"I want a real relationship with you," Stolas continued, as if the words weren't exactly what Blitzø would never admit to wanting to hear. "I want you to want to spend time with me because you want to, not because you're trapped in some silly deal."
"You want my dick, you mean." Because that had to be it. Because that's all Blitzø was good for. That's all he'd ever been good for – well, that and murder, but he had seen what Stolas was capable of on that front, so it had to just be the dick thing.
"I'd be content if I never had the pleasure of your dick again, if that were to mean that I had the pleasure of having your company instead," Stolas stressed, pulling the leaves off the flower in his hand and letting them flutter down to the garden below. "I mean it, Blitzø."
"No," Blitzø shook his head. "No, you can't just say that shit, Stols, not if you don't mean it. That's not fucking fair."
"But I do mean it!" Stolas insisted, turning to face him. "Blitzø, I have fallen for you in the worst way, and I'm afraid I can do absolutely nothing to change that fact. I can not force you to feel the same, nor will I try to keep you with me if your desire is to go, but I refuse to have my feelings invalidated."
"Look, you might think you like me, or even lo… even more than that," Blitzø protested, unwilling to even say the other 'l' word, because that would put it out into the air and he couldn't deal with that shit. "But I'm no good for you. I'm a piece of shit, a fucking dickhead asshole, and I'd only end up hurting you. You're a fucking prince, for fuck's sake. You don't even want to be seen with me – you made that fucking clear at that rooster's fucking club."
"I did not want to be seen, full stop! Oh, darling, I swear it to you, I did not hide to avoid being seen with you, I simply got overwhelmed," Stolas exclaimed, dropping the flower as he gesticulated. Blitzø caught it with his tail and, without thinking, slipped the stem into the belt of Stolas's robe.
"Yeah, and I'm sure the fact that you were caught with an imp had nothing to do with it," Blitzø snapped, crossing his arms. "A fucked up, selfish, shithead, fucking frea–"
Suddenly, Blitzø found himself lifted by the collar and his lips pressed firmly to a beak in a surprisingly tender kiss, and somehow his own words slipped from his mind as his body took over. He coiled his tail tightly around Stolas's tiny waist, using it as leverage to pull himself closer to the owl so he could hook his legs around him instead of dangling helplessly.
"I failed to defend you from those cruel words at that horrible club, and for that I do apologize," Stolas murmured, adjusting his hold on Blitzø so that it was an actual embrace, rather than the impulsive collar-grab that definitely wasn't sexy as fuck and definitely wasn't something Blitzø would like to try again in the future (should there be a future in which to try). "I will, however, defend you from them now, even if they come from your own mouth."
"But–" Once again, Stolas prevented Blitzø from speaking with another kiss.
"No buts, darling," Stolas scolded lightly, tapping him lightly on the forehead. "I could not help but notice, you know, that in all your protests, your reasons for why we shouldn't be together were all why I should not pursue you, and not a word was said on whether you wanted me. Was that an oversight, darling? And please, no more unkind words about yourself, or I will simply have to kiss you again and we'll be here for hours."
Blitzø scowled, his tail's grip tightening around the owl. Of course he didn't want Stolas. Why would he want some big dumb bird with long gorgeous legs and big pretty eyes and a mouth that could go from kindness to snark in the blink of an eye and the softest fucking feathers and–
Oh.
Oh no.
Blitzø did want him. Fuck, he wanted him bad. He buried his face into those soft chest feathers, breathing in the scent of Stolas that he hadn't realized he'd been missing so fucking badly. Being held by Stolas felt like taking that first deep breath after nearly drowning – it felt better, felt right, but it made the memory of each moment when he couldn't do that ache even more.
"This is what I want," Stolas reiterated softly, brushing his hands over Blitzø's spines. "Could we try? Just this, I mean… for a while?"
"Fine," Blitzø mumbled into Stolas's chest. "We can… we can try."
Blitzø couldn't help but laugh at the excited chitter that escaped the taller demon as he hugged him tighter.
"I've still got a couple questions, though," Blitzø informed him, lifting his chin so that he could talk without getting a mouthful of feathers.
"Anything, darling."
"How the everloving fuck was I supposed to figure out that 'perhaps another time' was a fucking open invitation?"
"I would have not presented the option for another time if I did not wish to see you at all, darling," Stolas pointed out, running a talon down the curve of one of Blitzø's horns.
"Oh… I thought it was just a polite prince bullshit way to tell me to fuck off," Blitzø admitted, suppressing a shiver as Stolas scratched at the base of his horns.
"I am sorry for that. I was truly just trying to present a different option, Blitzy– Blitzø," Stolas corrected himself, but Blitzø shook his head.
"Don't… Just, fuckin'... Call me whatever the fuck you want, okay?" Blitzø grumbled, his cheeks heating up.
Stolas hooted, his stupid pretty face lighting up at the idea. "Oh, Blitzy, you have no idea how much I've missed you."
"Yeah, yeah," Blitzø huffed, as though he hadn't just been thinking the same thing.
"You said that you had multiple questions, darling?" Stolas prompted, opening the doors to his bedroom with a wave of his hand and carrying Blitzø over to the bed.
"Yeah, what the fuck were you thinking, sending all that shit?" Blitzø demanded yet again, but the anger was substantially diminished. "You know I don't do charity bullshit."
"Oh, darling, that's the best part!" Stolas tittered, sitting down on the plush mattress and making absolutely no move to undo his robe. He made no move to remove his hands from around Blitzø, either, which was good because Blitzø had no plans to remove his face from those feathers. "It wasn't charity. Your daughter has been accompanying mine to things, shopping and concerts and the like, as a sort of bodyguard, and I've been compensating her for it. Everything I've purchased for you or your office has been her idea and part of her compensation, and I even have contracts to prove it."
Blitzø's face split into a wide grin. "You sneaky bitches…"
"I told you it was just a game, Blitzy."
"Yeah, well, I won the fucking game, 'cause now you're stuck with me."
"If this is my consolation prize for losing," Stolas cooed, pressing a kiss between Blitzø's horns. "Then I'm ever so glad I did."
"I'm keeping all that free shit."
"I wouldn't have it any other way, darling."