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Well, shit.
Maybe Moxxie had been right to say not to take on the client. He was always a baby about these things, but it was the worry in Millie's eyes that had Blitzø momentarily second-guessing everything. If a tough-as-nails bitch like Millie was worried, maybe it was too big for them.
They knew how to handle most cases. Sinners wanted revenge on shitty landlords, on ex-lovers, on some bag of dicks who cheated them out of money. The humans they killed were ordinary people, most of whom had just done one shitty thing to the wrong person. They were humans — weak bags of blood and meat held together by skin that split under the slightest pressure.
They weren't meant to be like this.
Moxxie and Millie had vanished hours ago. He'd heard Millie scream — when? Ten minutes ago? Thirty? It had been silent ever since. He could smell the metallic edge of Moxxie's blood. It stained the walls. Not enough to guarantee he was dead. Enough to make Blitzø fear it. There were enough rooms in the house that he knew it'd be a bitch to search. If he could get up. If he could still move.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He was certain it was Loona. Blitzø had estimated half an hour for the job. The sky through the windows was dark, long past the time they normally would have portaled back to the office and driven home. Loona had the keys to the van. That should not have been the detail that Blitzø focused on, but it was the one thing giving him hope: Loona had the keys, and she could get home. She knew how to access his bank account, even if what was left would probably only keep her afloat for a few weeks. She knew the landlord. Fuck, maybe she'd be able to play up the double-orphan card and get a few free months at the apartment before she had to worry.
Fuck that. Fuck that. He promised his Looney every fucking day that he'd never abandon her, and he wasn't going to let a group of stupid fucking humans destroy that promise —
Blitzø gasped as the knife slipped under his skin. It was strange, to barely feel such a violent thing. It was as though his nerves had called it quits for the day somewhere between breaking one of his horns and losing most of the skin from his abdomen. They were not allowing him the grace of a clean death. It made him think of some shitty movie he'd caught from one of the Earth channels, where some people had found an alien at Area 51 and studied it, pretty much torturing the thing to death to figure out what it was.
Seriously, how fucking hard was it? Creepy grey thing with bug eyes? Alien. Little red guy with a huge dick and some sexy-ass horns? Imp from Hell. It wasn't rocket science.
The sky tore open.
Being hellborn and contemplating death was, like, a lot. There wasn't exactly a double hell to go to. Heaven was definitely off the table. But when the sky split, flooded with silver, Blitzø wondered if he'd been wrong and maybe they did just swap after death. Fuck him — ending a shitty-ass day going to Heaven, where they probably only served mocktails and jerking it was illegal.
But he did not float into the light. The light seemed to come down to him, blinding him, until the silvery starlight gave way to endless black broken only by flashes of hellfire. The room boiled. Feathers rustled around his ears, drowning the sounds of the humans' shouts, cloaking Blitzø in warmth.
Stolas.
If he'd had more energy, Blitzø would have grimaced. Stolas had already rescued him once, not long ago — feathery ass spilling into the government building, looking so monstrous compared to the skinny twink he'd been railing for months. It was fucking embarrassing having his bottom show him up, and it was twice as embarrassing that it had given him a world-ending boner that hadn't gone away until he'd worked up the courage to ask Stolas if he could fuck him in that form.
(He could, it turned out.)
Stolas did not transform back into his usual form. He also did not turn to face the humans. His massive body stretched over Blitzø, hiding him from view, massive maw reaching towards him as though preparing to clamp around him and lift him.
"Stols," Blitzø rasped. He did not know if he could be heard over the echoing laughs or cries or screams or whatever the fuck noise Stolas was making. "Millie — Mox — they're —"
Stolas did not pick him up. His beak went straight for the longest of Blitzø's wounds, a spot where a long stretch of flesh had been ripped away, leaving muscle and bone exposed.
Blitzø jerked away, not from pain, but from the sensation. Something cold slipped into the wound — not a tongue, not quite, but something sinewy and wrong. He had no fucking idea what to call any of Stolas' biology when he was in this form, especially not when he felt like he had a teaspoon of blood left in his whole body.
He lifted his head to look, and the best word that sprang to mind was pincers. Like looking too closely at a bug and all the freaky shit coming off their heads, extra appendages and antennae, the tooth-like pincers around Stolas' mouth burrowed into his flesh, slipping between exposed muscles, threading around shattered ribs.
Things shifted inside him. Bones ground against one another like sandpaper on wood. Tendons pulled taut, knitting shit back into place that he hadn't realized had moved at all. He wanted to vomit, to roll away and escape whatever Stolas was doing to him, but the demon gave him no space.
Above him, Stolas crooned. The wound closed slowly — flesh crawling over his glistening muscle like slime molds searching for food, blood bubbling and slipping beneath new scar tissue, shiny white skin darkening to red as even the new scars repaired themselves.
The relief was instantaneous. He lifted his face to look at Stolas, then froze.
The massive demon's feathers peeled from his body — not the gentle flutter of loose feathers falling or even wisps of smoke emanating from his skin, but the wet slide of loose skin peeling from bone. Every part of him was midnight black, making it impossible to tell feather from flesh, but Blitzø could smell blood in the air, could hear the wet plop of skin hitting ground, still attached to the base of each feather.
"Christ on a stick," he whispered.
An enormous eye swung towards him.
That was when he realized that Stolas was no longer confined to just the four massive eyes on his face. Red eyes opened along his body, dozens of them, so many filled with pinprick, white pupils that zeroed in on him. He had seen Stolas nervous, had seen him excited, had seen the way his pupils sometimes appeared when he was overwhelmed. It was clear he was overwhelmed now — scared, exhausted, bloodthirsty, something.
A gun went off.
Blitzø instinctively pressed himself against the floor, but he knew that he was too blanketed in darkness for the bullet to come anywhere near him. Stolas let out a sound — a caw, a gasp, a scream, he had no fucking idea how to quantify anything when he was in this form — and pressed down heavier against Blitzø's body.
"Stay still," the demon demanded.
Another shot went off, then another, and Blitzø could see bursts of red where the projectiles must have hit Stolas before the wounds rapidly closed themselves. Each hit left him leaning more heavily atop Blitzø, more pupils appearing, more feathers falling to the ground. Blood trickled from that massive beak, thick and black.
"Stolas —"
He felt the shift in the air before he processed what was happening. From beneath Stolas' wing, Blitzø saw one of the humans stand, something in his hand — a blade, one with glowing squiggles on it like runes or sigils or whatever the fuck because of fucking course he'd been sent to assassinate the kind of people who were ready for demons. The human lifted his arm high, blade arcing towards Stolas' back —
Blitzø felt Stolas' scream vibrate through his bones. Fuck, fuck, fuck — it was one thing getting himself into trouble, another to put Moxxie and Millie at risk, but to do this to Stolas — how the fuck had Stolas even known where he was? Satan fucking dammit, Stolas was just meant to be the rich twink he fucked for a book, not someone who got involved in this shit. So what if he had some fucking terrifying eldritch form he could whip out and use to scare off humans? It had just been a bit of theatre last time, smoke and mirrors, not something that could have hurt him —
The pressure in the room changed.
Blitzø's spikes lifted, scraping against the cold floor beneath him. It felt like being watched, as though he had been in a room alone and his body perceived the presence of another person before his mind caught on to the fact. Something else had entered the room.
The gash that the knife left in Stolas' side widened. It was as though someone was unzipping him from the inside, pushing outwards. Blitzø stared at the spot, blind to the way that every one of Stolas' eyes refocused onto him.
Then Stolas spoke, voice softer than a creature of his size should have been able to manage.
"Go."
Blitzø blinked, trying to focus on the unfamiliar face. "What?"
"Go, Blitzø."
The portal appeared close enough that Blitzø could have clawed his way to it, but he felt rooted to the spot. Moxxie and Millie were still somewhere in the house, Stolas was still there and injured —
"Please," Stolas whispered, the word desperate and terrified.
He saw claws emerge from the cut in Stolas' side. The pressure was too intense, as though the air itself had grown heavier. Blitzø tried to scramble backwards, but the heat and pressure were too much. His eyes rolled back, and the world went dark.
Blitzø awoke slowly, grimacing against the pounding in his head.
He knew where he was before he opened his eyes. The blankets at the palace were impossibly soft compared to anything else Blitzø had ever felt. He knew that he was not in the bed; it was impossible to recreate the cloud-like softness of Stolas' mattress. More than that, he had never been in Stolas' bed without the owl crowding over him, cradling him or resting his cheek upon Blitzø's chest as he napped away.
The imp slowly opened his eyes, taking in the slight change of scenery. He was — strangely enough — on the couch in Stolas' room, the one they had sat upon that first night when he had come to steal the grimoire. Someone had rested him against a nest of pillows that cushioned his horns. (Horn. He reached up to confirm that one of them was still broken beyond repair, the edges sharp and jagged where it had snapped.) They had wrapped him in one of the blankets from Stolas' bed. A quick scan of his body found that besides some lingering aches and bruises, he was whole and fine.
Only one person could have gotten him to the palace. Only one person would have thought to take him there and attempt to nurse him back to health himself. Blitzø fought his way through the tangle of the blanket, trying to peer towards the bed.
"Stolas," he muttered. His throat stung. "Where're Mox and —"
Stolas sat beside the bed, expression blank as he pored over something. Wisps of darkness clung to his feathers, as though he had only just returned to this form and was struggling to shake off the last of its magic. Blitzø scanned the owl's body for a sign of injury, praying that whatever the fuck the humans used had not been close enough to angelic steel to harm him. There didn't appear to be any injury, any sign that he'd been hurt at all.
Blitzø inhaled sharply between his fangs, pressing himself against the wall.
Somehow, Stolas also laid on the bed, tucked in as neatly as a doll. His thin arms lay atop the sheet, and his eyes were shut, expression peaceful. He looked exhausted, haggard, with deep circles under his eyes and shadows deepening the hollows of his cheeks and collarbones. This Stolas was clearly injured, patches of feathers missing from his arms, the hint of bandages wrapped around his ribs. When he breathed, his body seemed to hitch with the effort before drawing air into his lungs.
The Stolas in the chair looked up, and Blitzø knew which was wrong.
This Stolas looked so damn much like him, only wrong — beak a bit too wide, feathers growing dark and formless around the edges. His hand stroked atop the blankets, rubbing the unconscious Stolas' chest, but they moved wrong, like they existed here and there at the same time, seeking to catch up to the present. It made Blitzø's head fucking hurt, but he could not look away, not when something was leering on top of Stolas, stealing his fucking face and pretending to be him.
"What the fuck," Blitzø breathed. "What the fuck." His hands reached for a gun that was not there. Had the fucking doppelganger stripped him? He wasn't even wearing his usual coat and boots, but an oversized Loo Loo Land shirt that must have come from Stolas' closet.
The creature tilted its head, the movement painfully familiar. It was the same thing Stolas did whenever he was confused. Seeing the doppelganger mirror Stolas' movements so fucking perfectly made Blitzø's stomach roll with nausea.
He raised a finger, waiting for the feeling to pass, unsure what to say.
"Don't," Blitzø managed after a moment. "Fucking don't."
And maybe it was stupid to think he could somehow scold a creature from mimicking Stolas' behavior, but it froze and watched him through wide, cerise eyes so damn similar to the way Stolas watched him. The thing did not move, but its strange, smudged hands curled protectively over Stolas' chest.
Something vibrated against Blitzø's hip, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
He dug his phone out of his pocket without tearing his gaze away from the creature. It continued to watch him mutely, curiously, so goddamn familiarly that Blitzø wanted to vomit. It didn't move, though, so he risked a quick glance down at the screen. A slew of notifications appeared as soon as his phone recognized his face, most of them texts, most of them from Loona. He only had a second to study them before a new notification overtook the screen, this one a call from Millie.
Blitzø clicked to answer, putting the phone to his ear. His gaze remained on the silent creature. It had begun to preen Stolas' feathers, nuzzling them back into place through a combination of incorporeal talons and his beak, so similar to the way Stolas sometimes pecked around his horns.
"Blitzø!" Millie cried out. "Thank Satan -- is Stolas takin' care of you?"
How the fuck was he meant to respond? Blitzø mutely nodded, then found his voice again.
"Yeah."
"Good. He whisked you again so quick. Me and Mox weren't sure if you..." Millie trailed off, and Blitzø's stomach clenched again. Had he been that badly banged up? What had she and Moxxie been left to think? What had Loona thought? And had it been Stolas that had gotten him out of there, or had...?
"Anyway," Millie continued, and he could hear that false cheerfulness she plastered on when she was worried. He toyed with the edge of the blanket, unconsciously ripping the stitching from the edge. "Tell Your Highness thanks for the portal. And for the healin'. Mox is already lookin' loads better."
Blitzø nodded into the phone, swallowing. So this thing had healed them. Had laid hands on them. Had portaled Moxxie and Millie somewhere and taken off with Blitzø and Stolas. What the fuck.
"Hey," Blitzø said suddenly. "Check in on Looney for me, will you?"
"Don't worry! He portaled us back to your place. We got her here."
"Better fucking be alive when you get back here!" he heard Loona shout from somewhere on Millie's end of the line.
Blitzø was not sure if he went through the formality of saying goodbye to Millie. He was so focused on the creature that he could not think. It knew where he lived. Knew where his daughter lived. It could make portals right to where Loona was, and how the fuck did it know —
"They're okay," Blitzø muttered, trying to reassure himself. Whatever its angle, it had not harmed any of them.
The creature tilted its head again, smiling so fucking much like Stolas except for the way that the corners of its beak seemed to stretch across its entire face.
"I know," it answered.
It even sounded like Stolas, if only three or four Stolases were speaking at once, voices layered over one another. It somehow sounded too young, and too old, and too loud, and too quiet, all at once. Together, they averaged out into something that was correct, like the thing had studied every iteration of Stolas' voice and averaged them out. Blitzø shivered.
"How the fuck do you know that?"
The creature didn't even look at him. It leaned over Stolas once more, continuing to fuss with his feathers. They were all straight and shiny now, clearly having been picked through over and over again. It rested one arm over Stolas' pillow, cradling his head and leaning over him so closely that he almost looked like a reflection of the owl. So close together, Blitzø could barely tell where one ended and the other began.
"He worried," the creature answered. Its free hand slipped down to Stolas' wrist, holding it loosely. Protectively. "He asked."
"Asked — asked who?"
The creature did not lift its face, but its eyes rose to meet Blitzø's. In his peripheral vision, Blitzø swore he could see dozens of eyes opening along the creature's body, also studying him before closing once more and vanishing beneath blue-grey feathers.
"The world."
That… was not an answer. The weird fucking clone was just confusing him more and making his skin crawl, and the worst part was that he couldn't even grab a gun and start blasting. He didn't know where his fucking gun was, didn't know what could hurt the thing, didn't know if he'd hurt Stolas in the process —
"Right," Blitzø muttered. "Yeah. Cool. Sure. I hate that."
The creature wore the same expression Stolas did when he thought, then nodded.
"As do I."
The answer sounded almost… sympathetic. What the fuck.
His gaze returned to the real Stolas, studying his exhausted face. The creature's gaze seemed to follow his, the lines of its body sharpening. It was a guard dog raising its hackles, Blitzø thought. It pulled Stolas closer to its chest, cradling his head against thick plumage like a mother shielding her child.
"Is… is he okay?" Blitzø asked before he could stop himself.
The creature went still.
"No."
Its answer was so immediate, so honest, that for the first time, Blitzø's chest twisted in fear for Stolas. It would have been easier if the damn thing just lied. He could handle some freaky demon lying. But seeing this weird, nightmarish thing cradling Stolas so protectively, telling the truth? What the fuck did he do with that?
"He will recover," the creature continued. "Eventually."
Blitzø swallowed. Eventually sounded different from soon. He wanted to ask how the thing even knew, but he was silenced by the way it brushed away those longer, curling feathers at Stolas' cheek. It was the same gesture Blitzø had done a hundred times before — never when Stolas was awake, never where the owl would know and think anything of the gesture. Always when Stolas was in deep sleep, when Blitzø could stare at him unabashed and study his face without anyone thinking anything of it.
"He spent too much," it said. The words tiptoed somewhere between a reprimand and a compliment. "He always does."
"He… he saved my life."
And why the fuck would he do that? Stolas wasn't an assassin. He was a prince. His job was sitting on his scrawny ass and enjoying shitty telenovelas and smut while everyone else did real work. He wasn't supposed to give a shit about anything, certainly not some imp just trying to scrape by. When Blitzø eventually died on the job, hopefully going out in some kickass blaze of glory, Stolas was meant to go grab his grimoire and forget about him.
But some days, when Stolas commented on all of his new Sinstagram posts and even his stories, when Stolas called him at the end of the day just to feign interest in what Blitzø was up to, when Stolas quietly invited him over even when the moon was a sliver of white in the sky, Blitzø struggled to picture it. Maybe Stolas would shed a tear. Mourn him for a week or two. Do some freaky shit like saving a picture of Blitzø on his phone to look at once in a while.
He realized that the creature was watching him, brow creased. That wasn't a Stolas expression. It was anger — something Blitzø hadn't yet witnessed in the owl's expression.
"He would spend every piece of himself to save you," the creature said quietly. "He would spend bone." Its talons lightly traced along Stolas' thin arm. "Feathers." It grazed over his shoulder. "Blood." Then it leaned in closer, resting its forehead against Stolas', eyes wide and studying Stolas' closed ones from mere centimeters away. "And still wonder if he had done enough."
The room felt as it had topside, the air too heavy and stifling around Blitzø. His lungs burned with the effort of drawing in air.
For the first time since waking, Blitzø found himself less afraid of the creature than of what it was revealing. What the fuck did it mean, Stolas would have given anything to save him? He was an imp, a fuck buddy, maybe friends with benefits if they were generous with the word 'friend'. He was nothing to Stolas, with his palace and his wife and a billion royals who might have been able to give him something back in return.
Yet there the creature was, watching Stolas the same way Blitzø sometimes watched him — studying his face when he was asleep, soaking up the opportunity to get close to an untouchable thing. Its dark hand rubbed circles over the blanket, as though feeling for the rise and fall of Stolas' chest. (How many times had Blitzø done that? Rested his hand on Stolas' chest, feeling each breath and studying such a mundane action from an immortal who probably didn't even need oxygen?)
He rubbed a hand over his face.
"What the fuck are you?"
The creature did not look up.
"I am his."
"Okay, yeah," Blitzø snorted, once more unconsciously touching his hip to feel for a gun that wasn't there. "That fucking clears everything up, buddy."
"And he is mine," it continued, ignoring his sarcasm. It toyed with the feathers on top of Stolas' head, twirling the longest ones around its fingers and smoothing down each barb like it was something delicate and loved.
"You're just spouting off gay-ass shit," he grumbled. "What the fuck does any of that mean? You some freaky-ass clone he made? He'd probably cast some fucking spell to have his clone eat his pussy, fucking freak —"
"He is mine," the creature repeated, still not looking up at Blitzø, "and he is his own. He belongs to himself. Then to Octavia." Its voice lowered reverently when it said her name, and even though Blitzø had only briefly met the kid, he stomach curdled at hearing her name in a stranger's mouth. "Then to you."
The words settled in his mind, and Blitzø burst out laughing. Every puff of laughter felt forced from his own throat, but he pushed the sound out, needing someone to acknowledge the crazy shit coming out of the thing's mouth.
"That's not how this works, birdie," he scoffed, the nickname falling from his lips before he could stop it.
It didn't help that the creature did finally look up, once more tilting its head just like Stolas.
"Is it not?"
"No."
"No?"
"Fucking — no! You don't own people — I definitely don't own him, I mean, look at him! He's — you're — he's a fucking prince!"
The creature almost seemed to lose interest. Its gaze returned to Stolas, examining his arms. Then it gently turned one over, exposing bare skin on the inner side of Stolas' elbow as though the feathers had been plucked from the spot. It trailed its too-long fingers over the area.
"He gives pieces of himself away until there is little left," it murmured, so similar to Stolas' quiet comments. Blitzø had never been able to tell if Stolas did it as some weird, passive aggressive game in the hope that Blitzø would hear or if he truly did not realize that he spoke to himself. This time, Blitzø suspected he was not meant to know.
That didn't stop him.
"What the fuck does that even mean?"
The creature fixated on the patch of bare skin, tracing its outline.
"He plucks them. When he cannot sleep. He does not notice."
It pulled down the edge of the blanket, exposing another bare patch on the side of Stolas' chest. The bare skin revealed the sloping lines of visible ribs beneath thin skin, rising and falling with each breath. It was not the first time Blitzø had seen a bare patch or two, but Stolas had once dismissed them as molting, and he had accepted it. Birds molted. Lizards shed. If Stolas wasn't going to comment on a patch of his own dry skin preparing to shed, then he wouldn't say shit about a handful of missing feathers.
"He forgets meals," the creature continued.
The comment felt like another taunt, another little thing that Blitzø had so easily dismissed for so long. Sure, Stolas was thin, and sure, sometimes his stomach grumbled during full moons and he laughed off forgetting to eat, but it wasn't like it could kill him.
"'Kay," Blitzø muttered. "Everybody forgets to eat sometimes."
"He does this often," it said, ignoring Blitzø in favor of resting its cheek on Stolas' chest. Blitzø could imagine the steady thrum of Stolas' rapid heartbeat in its ears. The creature gently scratched against the outline of Stolas' ribs, caressing each curve. "He tells himself he will eat after the call. After the message. After the visit."
He opened his mouth to ask whose visit, but he already knew the answer.
"He checks the charm every morning," it said.
The room felt so damn hot. Blitzø tried to ignore the quiet rip of a seam as his claws pulled too hard on the blanket.
"What charm?"
"Yours." It answered as if the answer were so clear, as if the question surprised it. "The one on your gun."
This time, he reached for the phantom gun not expecting to find it. He reached to conjure some muscle memory, something in his mind that would tell him he had always known his gun was charmed. Nothing came.
"The — fucking what?"
"He placed it there months ago." The creature squinted at him, just the way Stolas squinted at him when he was truly confused, and Blitzø could not look away from its familiar expression. "As protection. To watch over you."
Blitzø could see it: Stolas looking him over, cupping his cheeks, inquiring about his health amid a room of human bodies lying in their own blood. Asking the owl how he knew to rescue him and the team. I have my ways, darling. Was this what he had meant all along? Not some weird inherent ability to sense danger as a prince of Hell, but a charm he had placed long ago? Months — their arrangement had only started months ago. How long had Stolas been watching?
"He… he tracks me?"
The creature blinked. "Of course."
"Why?"
"Because you are fragile."
Fuck that owl. Fuck him for thinking that just because Blitzø was mortal, just because he was an imp, just because he was fucking poor and struggling and trying to find his footing, that he was fragile. He wasn't the little bitch who asked to be torn apart every month, who tried into his pillow like a little brat while Blitzø fucked him. He wasn't the asshole unconscious in bed with some freaky doppelganger practically fiddling his cloaca with how much he was touching him.
He shivered with annoyance, ready to go off, but the creature spoke again, voice soft.
"He worries." It wiped a bead of blood from Stolas' beak, its own beak nuzzling against his. Not quite a kiss. Still enough to make Blitzø's breath catch. "He always worries. He checks the charm when he wakes. Before he sleeps. When you are late."
All at once, every moment of guilt hit Blitzø like a truck. Every missed call. Every excuse. Every time he'd run late and left Stolas waiting. He had felt guilty in the beginning — never to Stolas, but to Millie and Moxxie and Loona, the people who depended on him to keep the grimoire in their possession. Every time he fucked up, it put their business at risk. But then Stolas had shown that he was patient, that Blitzø's presence was enough, that he'd never get upset at anything Blitzø did, and he had begun pushing the limits. Rescheduling to when he was in the mood. Taking longer to get ready. Stopping for errands before he arrived. Stoals never complained, so what was the harm?
He thought of Stolas sitting in his room, alone, refreshing his phone. It didn't match every mental picture he'd had before of Stolas only taking brief breaks from his hedonism to entertain himself with Blitz for an hour or two.
He thought of their first night after they'd made the arrangement, when Stolas had gotten bold and asked to kiss him. Of the closed beak awkwardly clicking against his teeth like Stolas had no fucking idea how to kiss.
"He re-reads your messages," the creature said, pulling Blitzø from his thoughts.
"What?"
"Often." It still had its cheek against Stolas' chest, its red eyes half-lidded. "He has favorites. Photographs he stores. Messages he has traced into books to preserve."
Stolas with his eyes scrunched up, apologizing, asking if he had done good. Blitzø lying through his teeth, pretending it had been a good kiss, pitying the bird's wife for a moment for what a shitty lay Stolas must have been with her.
"He loves you."
He was going to vomit. The creature's words came without warning, devoid of hesitation or embarrassment. It spoke like it was simple fact, something Blitzø should have pieced together long ago.
"He believes he hides it well," it said, beak curving just slightly into an amused smile. "He is very poor at hiding things."
Sure, Stolas was shit at lying, but there was nothing to hide in this case. This wasn't some fucking love story they were keeping repressed up the ass; it was a business arrangement, an exchange of favors, maybe a bit of friendliness if he squinted and ignored how much Stolas had the potential to pull out from under his feet. He didn't have the luxury of giving a shit about emotions. Stolas was an immortal prince with something he needed. Blitzø would have bent over backwards to keep him happy and to keep the business running. Love didn't factor into it.
Except —
Except there was something hungry, yawning in the pit of his stomach like an endless black hole. And in that emptiness, he remembered being small. He remembered a time before IMP, before the fire, before everything. He remembered his mama scooping him into her arms when he was still little enough to be carried around, nuzzling her beak-like mouth between his horns and whispering that there was nothing in Hell more precious than him. That she loved him. Without condition. Without bargains. Without expectation.
He was trapped in a room with some kind of monster he'd seen rip through Stolas' skin and save them from a house full of humans with the capacity to kill them both, and that still wasn't the thing he feared most. No, what he feared was that gaping need inside him — the desire to be worried over, to have someone notice when he was late, to have someone check on him, to have someone fear so much for his well-being that they would cast some ridiculous spell on him just to guarantee he was okay.
Blitzø gazed at the creature, who watched him in return from its comfortable position resting against Stolas' chest. Its expression did not shift. This was not a revelation to it. After all, it had always been watching.
Bit by bit, Blitzø tried to relax back into the couch. It was becoming clear that the creature was far more interested in mooning over Stolas than hurting him, and he'd be lying if he said his body didn't ache like a bitch. He felt lopsided with the damage to his horn, and he wasn't keen to undress later and see what damage lingered. He especially wasn't eager to see what damage Stolas had spent the last of his energy erasing.
Across the room, a faint sound escaped Stolas' beak. Quiet, pained, a hitched breath — minute sounds of distress that should have been lost in the ambient sounds of the room and the city outside, but the creature reacted as though Stolas had screamed.
It studied him, hand trailing over the owl's frail body as though searching for something. Then it paused and began working.
Blitzø expected it to be grotesque, like the way Stolas had healed him. The owl had spoken about Goetia magic before, even if half of it went in and out of Blitzø's ears: They were made in the image of angels, a creation by Lucifer himself, albeit corrupted. Every bit of goodness the seraphim possessed had been turned on its head. They were healers, Stolas had once mentioned while talking Blitzø through his hundreds of boring plants and what they could do, but it was the sort of healing that destroyed — curses plucked from bone, shredding away damaged tissue, hacking at the things that could not be saved.
The creature worked reverently. It made him think of Tilla sitting at the table so many nights, quietly mending clothes they had torn or grown out of. Her quiet humming, the steady movement of her needle through thread, the way she paused to admire each scrap of fabric like it held a memory. The creature traced its fingers over Stolas so tenderly, so lovingly, that Blitzø really did wonder if it was the result of some wanna-fuck-your-clone sex spell gone wrong.
As it circled the bare patches of skin, feathers grew back to protect the flesh beneath. Bruises faded. Cuts stitched together. The tension drained from Stolas' face until he seemed to be sleeping peacefully once more.
Blitzø frowned. "You can heal him?"
"Of course," it muttered, never looking away from Stolas. Christ, it even mirrored his bitchiness.
"Then why the fuck didn't you do that before?!"
"He would not allow it."
"The fuck does that mean?"
"He does not like taking." It smoothed down the new feathers, preening them as gently as it had the other feathers on Stolas' body until they all laid facing the same direction, shiny and pristine. "He only likes giving."
Fuck, that hit hard. Because — yeah, it was Stolas. He might have been a pillow princess, but when Blitzø thought of everything that happened before and after they fucked, that was precisely what Stolas did. He fussed over Blitzø, trying to make him comfortable. Frowned and fretted when Blitzø described a particularly difficult case. Apologized half the time. Lit up like a fucking Sinsmas tree whenever Blitzø showed any interest in him.
"He thinks," the creature said, intermittently pausing to use its beak to help preen the new feathers, "affection must be earned. As though his existing is not enough. Love is a thing that is borrowed. He never believes it belongs to him."
The words were laced with exhaustion. Resignation. It spoke like it had watched Stolas all his life, had seen every mistake he'd made, had watched whatever shit had gone down to make him willing to divorce his wife, and it was tired.
Fuck, Blitzø didn't want to think what a creepy demon version of himself would have thought after nearly four decades of watching him fuck up.
"Why the fuck bother with me, then?" Blitzø snapped. Stolas wasn't getting any affection from him. Whatever the fuck the prince needed, he wasn't enough to —
"He was dying long before you."
Blitzø froze, but the creature paid him no mind.
"He endured for Octavia. But living?" Its beak twitched, that too-wide smile returning, drier this time. "He began that when he met you."
No. No, the creature couldn't have been watching Stolas all his life. It didn't know that they had met long before Octavia. It didn't know shit, and it certainly didn't know what it was talking about now.
"Look at him." Blitzø threw his hands towards Stolas, then desperately gestured at himself. Why was he arguing with this thing? Why did he feel the need to be right? "Look at me."
"He does," it answered simply, and Blitzø pushed out a bitter laugh.
"So he sees it. That's the problem."
"No," it said, and it pressed its beak to Stolas' cheek, inhaling slowly as though it could not get close enough to the owl to be content. "That is the miracle."
Stolas' breathing hitched once more, catching on rattling lungs. The creature did not move away. The silence hung heavy in the air, palpable and rotten, until Stolas exhaled without effort. His breathing steadied, expression relaxing, and the creature seemed to melt into him, clearly relieved.
A moment later, Stolas groaned and began to awaken.
The creature did not pull away from Stolas. It seemed to fold closer to him, whatever freaky, borderline erotic shit it had been doing before taken to a new extreme. The bridge of its nose pressed perfectly against the curve of Stolas' cheek, its slender hands caressing Stolas' neck and chest — and then it was gone somehow, like it had never been there at all, the only sign of its existence now condensed into the dark shadow that lay beneath Stolas' still form.
The owl opened his eyes. They were too red for a moment, too dark to seem right, but he blinked and they returned to their usual bright glow. He blinked again, then again, and immediately sat bolt upright.
"Blitzø —"
His voice was panicked, the voice of a man still trying to navigate the precipice between sleep and wakefulness. His gaze swept around the room as if searching for the humans, for blood, for a threat, for anything. Only then did his eyes land on Blitzø, and he finally seemed to process that he was there.
"Oh, thank Lucifer," he murmured, slumping back into the pillows. "Thank Lucifer."
A soft, pleased sound rose from his chest. The shadows beneath him seemed to expand. Blitzø stared not at Stolas, but at the pooling darkness that he knew to be the creature.
When he did look up, Stolas' faceplate was a pale pink.
"Oh — oh, dear," Stolas whispered, burying his face in his hands. "Oh — I hoped you would not see that."
The words made it sound like Blitzø had walked in on him shitting out his guts in the bathroom. Embarrassing, sure, but life-altering? No, nah, definitely not on the same level as seeing his fuck buddy rip in half like a fucking molting insect and give birth to some freaky-ass clone of himself, definitely not —
"You — he —" Blitzø started, trying to find the right words to describe whatever the thing had been. "You turned into some kind of freaky fuckin' creature —"
"Unfortunately."
"Unfortunately?!"
Stolas widened the gap between his fingers just enough to peer at Blitzø. Despite the pallor of his face, a faint smattering of grey colored his cheeks. It made him look better than he had before, even if it just came from… embarrassment? Like hiding some creature under his skin was embarrassing?
"This was… not my preferred outcome," Stolas murmured.
Beneath him, the shadows spilled across the blanket seemed to darken. Blitzø swore he saw an eye open in the darkness, observing him, watching over Stolas. From the way Stolas' shoulders tensed, the owl must have felt it, too.
"Stop that," the owl breathed, batting at the sheets, and the eye shut.
Blitzø laughed. At least, he tried to laugh, but he was pretty sure his throat would only allow him to wheeze.
"Christ on a stick… you can see it?"
Stolas sighed. "Of course I can see it. Behave."
The eyes had opened once more, far more of them than before, but at Stolas' command, they shut. The owl looked exhausted. It was not just the dark circles that lingered under his eyes; it was the way he held himself, knees drawn to his chest and head bowed, like he had practice at hiding away yet it had not become any easier. He rubbed his face, mussing up the feathers the creature had so patiently smoothed down.
"It is… complicated."
Blitzø leaned forward, studying him from across the room.
"Try me."
Silence stretched between them. Stolas, too, had found the edge of his blanket, picking at the seams and unconsciously ripping the threads. Blitzø vaguely wondered which of them had started the habit, if it had become contagious between them at some point, if they were mirroring one another or if they had both landed on the same channel to funnel their anxiety. He dropped his own blanket, crossing his arms tightly over his chest.
"Goetias have… healing magic," Stols began slowly, stilted. "We are healers."
Blitzø snorted. "Yeah," he muttered, imagining those weird appendages from the bird's mouth that had pulled away torn flesh, slipping under his wounds to stitch him back together. "Seen your version of healing."
Something uncomfortable flickered in Stolas' expression before he lowered his head. Shame.
"Yes. We… we were made from angels." His voice grew quieter as he folded his hands together neatly over his lap. "Or rather… Lucifer's memory of them, I suppose. The seraphim heal by restoring things. Rebuilding."
A humorless smile flitted over the owl's face, and he looked so damn tired. Blitzø's hands balled into fists beneath his arms.
"We heal by… by removing what cannot be saved. Curses. Disease… Grief."
None of it seemed to be answering his question about what the shadow was — at least, not until Stolas' last word, which felt full of meaning, like he was trying to channel an entire story into a solitary syllable.
"You can't —" Blitzø began, then thought better of it. What the fuck could Stolas do with all his magic? He changed tactics. "Sounds impossible."
"It is," Stolas answered lightly. "Which is why most Goetia do — do not use their abilities as healers. When a Goetia pushes themselves too far…"
The shadows moved, all wrong when the light in the room had not changed. Stolas broke off, sighing. His hand rested once more against the mattress, but this time, he did not swat the shadows away. It almost seemed like he was reaching for them. Blitzø imagined how the creature had held his hand.
He very pointedly did not imagine how few others had probably held Stolas' hand.
"As children, we are taught there is a place inside us…" Stolas hesitated. The shadows seemed to fall across his hand, caressing him. "A place where — where everything must go."
Blitzø frowned. "Huh?"
"The things we cut away," he said, like that clarified how any of it was possible. "So much suffering must be stored somewhere. And eventually, it becomes hungry."
The shadows were truly shifting now, dozens of impossible eyes opening from the corners of the room, from the dark shapes cast by Stolas' blankets, from beneath the bed. A benevolent monster living under the bed of a lonely owl boy who had never thought himself capable of being loved. Tendrils of darkness fell over Stolas' chest, and he shut his eyes like it was some welcome pressure calming him.
Blitzø's hands shook.
"Most Goetias never meet theirs," the owl murmured. The eyes nearest to him blinked. "Few use their magic as I… as I have done."
Blitzø gazed around the room, trying to figure out where the shadow ended. It didn't seem to end at all. He wondered if every shadow in the massive palace was just another tendril of the same creature, spread as far as it needed to grow, if the Stolas he had seen before was not just a portion of it given temporary form.
What the fuck.
"What… so that's what that thing was?"
Stolas stared straight ahead, ignoring Blitzø for a long moment. He tried to follow the owl's gaze, but the only thing opposite him was one of the framed portraits of himself, only slightly younger, sitting upon a throne in full regalia. When Blitzø peered back at his face, only resignation remained.
"It is… what remains," Stolas murmured. "Every grief I — I try not to carry. Ever fear. Every… every stupid, selfish thought. Every terrible thing I have wished for while knowing I cannot — I cannot have it — Stop it."
He was speaking to the shadow once more, which smiled from the darkness, clearly proud of itself. It felt like it was waiting for Stolas to admit it, to say aloud that there were things he wanted and denied himself. Blitzø pictured the prince sitting by the phone, re-reading old messages, skipping dinner, watching him and saying nothing about it while the shadows watched.
"It said…" Blitzø began, mouth dry. He swallowed hard, then again. "It said you… that you loved me."
Stolas froze.
The shadows seemed to freeze as well, watching. Waiting. Eyes blinked open in the darkness, observing them.
"Oh," was all Stolas said.
He stared at the blankets, toying with his talons and picking at the skin around his nails. He seemed determined to look at anything except Blitzø, which was fine by the imp because if he had all of those eyes watching him when Stolas admitted the shadow was a liar and that he'd never felt anything —
If he had all those eyes on him when Stolas admitted it was right —
"Yes, well," the owl continued. His voice cracked, the next words coming out too high, too airy. "It has always been rather dramatic."
The words felt rehearsed, like Stolas had heard them said before and was parroting what others had said. The seam he had ripped in the blanket was growing wider, practically reaching the insignia emblazoned on the middle of it, but Stolas did not stop.
"It — it says many things."
"Stolas."
Stolas froze, and for a moment, Blitzø saw it. The shadows lay so heavily across Stolas' features that he looked younger. He could see the boy who had probably come up with every bodice-ripping fantasy Stolas shared, who had been told that love made him weak, who believed himself such an unwanted thing that he would peel his grief and his hopes away from himself and bottle them up in something monstrous. Something monstrous but so tender, something that would heal him and hold him, that loved him so strongly that it would save him.
Stolas breathed out a soft laugh.
"You make me want things, Blitzø."
The confession was so quiet, like that could somehow steal away the gravity of his words. Blitzø's heart pounded in his chest.
"I think," Stolas said, then stopped for a long moment, seemingly pondering. Listening. "I think I was merely surviving for a very long time."
The shadow had said something to the same effect. Stolas had endured for Octavia. He knew the owl loved his kid, knew that he'd take any opportunity to wax poetic about how strong and impressive she was. None of the stories ever seemed to be told in the present tense. It didn't matter how off schedule Blitzø was when he appeared for a quick fuck; Octavia was somehow never at the palace.
Did she even know that her father had held on for her, and her alone?
Stolas shifted on the bed. He seemed to be sitting in the dark for how much the shadows wrapped around him, holding him as he pushed his last words out.
"And then you arrived."
All at once, the shadows receded. Satisfied. Like they had been urging Stolas to say something. They crept back, the monster beneath the bed of a young prince who believed himself cursed. Blitzø watched them go, but they were not truly gone. The shadows were stretching towards him, enveloping him, nudging him, and carefully, he pushed himself off the couch. The shadow's warmth seemed to pulse beneath his every step as he crossed the room and climbed onto the bed.
Stolas did not unravel his arms from around himself. He held perfectly still until Blitzø headbutted his arm, trying to create an opening for himself. Only then did Stolas open his embrace, allowing Blitzø to rest against his chest as they both leaned into the pillows.
The thing in the dark did not stop watching, but now, Blitzø found that he didn't mind it.