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Stolas awoke to the familiar sound of quiet urgency: fabric rustling, zippers snagging, Blitzø cursing under his breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, debating whether he had a few more minutes in which to lounge around and slowly grow accustomed to consciousness. Blitzø was normally so gentle with him early weekday mornings, tiptoeing around the apartment so Stolas could sleep in a little longer. He had been getting better at going to sleep earlier, too, hoping that it would help combat his natural tendencies towards being a night owl (pun very much intended when it was accurate). Only he had not gone to sleep early the night before because...
"Blitzø," Stolas rasped. "Isn't it Saturday?"
The imp startled, peering over his shoulder to meet his eye.
"Yeah, birdie. Relax. Just getting ready for Pride."
Stolas hummed in affirmation, wiggling around to try and find whatever passed for a comfortable spot on the couch so that he could drift back to sleep. Only Blitzø's words seemed to process a minute later, and he opened his eyes once more.
"What's that?"
And that was how Stolas began the first Pride Festival of his life.
Life in the apartment — and at I.M.P. — was already so loud and busy that he should not have been surprised when fists hammered on the door, and a heavily pregnant and overly enthusiastic Millie and (slightly quieter) Moxxie entered the apartment. Loona, too, wandered out into the living room as she ran a towel over her wet hair, which Stolas could now see had streaks of pink and blue running through it. All the while, Blitzø continued his frantic packing as he described what to expect at the festival.
"— and there's a big fuckin' parade," he said, swiping peanut butter across some bread to make some hasty sandwiches to toss them into plastic baggies, "which is the best part 'cause sometimes some fucker brings a horse or two, as they should 'cause the only thing better than being gay as fuck is having a horse —"
"Have you not been to Pride before?" Moxxie interrupted, eyes wide. Normally, Stolas liked how that look on his face meant that Moxxie was about to tell him about something new and interesting, but he was still all too aware of the fact that it wasn't even eight o'clock in the morning yet. "You know, the history of the festival in the Pride Ring is fascinating, all starting back when —"
"If we're bringing Stolas," Loona suddenly cut in, tossing her towel over the arm of the couch, "he's gonna need something to wear."
Stolas folded in on himself, hands tightening into fists on his lap. It had been half a year since Sinsmas, and bit by bit, his wardrobe had grown into an eclectic mix of items that still did not seem to cover every occasion. He had neat sweaters and button-up shirts for the office, too-small t-shirts, mostly stolen from Blitzø's laundry, for pajamas, a few oversized items for lounging around the apartment on the weekends, and, of course, his old regalia that sat at the very bottom of the pile. He had been dressed by servants all his life. How was he meant to know what he needed for these little holidays he had never celebrated before? Why did poor people need so many holidays?
"She means you're talking too much, Moxxie," Blitzø snapped. Stolas bit down hard on his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing. Perhaps this was not about the clothing, then. "Great idea, Looney! You wanna find him something pretty? But not too pretty — I don't want any succubitches thinking they can climb on him —"
Loona rolled her eyes, but Stolas heard the quiet swish of her tail wagging behind her.
"C'mon," she insisted, grabbing her discarded towel and gesturing for him to follow.
For all that Blitzø insisted that Loona liked him, Stolas was not entirely sure whether the evidence was to be trusted. He knew that his presence wore on everyone's already limited personal space. Not only did he take up so much of the living room, but he had also taken over her desk at the office. (And as much as Blitzø insisted that Loona preferred being on the field, Stolas knew they both had reasons to be upset: Blitzø's daughter was now at risk because of him, and the reception desk made for the only quiet space in the office, where Stolas could duck behind the computer or even curl up beneath the desk when he needed to hide away for a moment.
He had certainly borrowed enough of Loona's clothes to surely upset her, but the hellhound made a beeline for her small closet, rifling through the hangers.
"Blue and green for you?" she asked.
Stolas, who had been studying the posters on the wall, started. "Pardon?"
"I mean, you can do rainbow," Loona muttered. "Just look like some fucking kid at their first Pride... If you need pan colors, Blitzø has more stuff, but it's all tiny as shit, so you might have to go bi for the day..."
"Loona," he interrupted as politely as he could, "I am afraid that I truly do not know what you are asking me."
She paused, looking over her shoulder to survey him.
"Pride flags. Everyone usually dresses in their colors." Loona must have seen his blank expression because she sighed, turning around and tugging at the bottom hem of her shirt. "So, like, I've got pink and blue and purple, right? 'Cause those are the bisexual flag colors. And the breeders — Fatty's got the same ones, and Grandma's wearing some ugly shit 'cause I guess apparently she's straight? And Blitzø looks like some neon factory blew up on him 'cause he's got the pan colors on."
"Oh." Stolas studied Loona's outfit for a moment, taking in the leather jacket she wore over the tri-color shirt. Now that he knew what colors to look for, he saw traces of them everywhere: not just in her dyed fur, but also in the safety pins attached to her shorts, her belt, and even the laces of her leggings. "So what I'm hearing is that the bisexual colors are the best ones?"
Loona shrugged. "Honestly, the lesbian colors probably go hardest. All the flags are a little ugly unless you can style them, but that's why you've got me. So — gay? Bi? Pan? Trans?"
He had spent nearly twenty years wishing to escape a marriage, knowing he could never love a woman romantically or sexually. There had been countless articles in the tabloids since the trial — a trial he had interrupted not only out of obligation and justice, but for love — speculating about the sexual nature of his and Blitzø's relationship. He had been on a public date with the man in Lust, one that had exploded for all to hear as soon as Asmodeus had focused his jokes on him. Some part of him knew that everything in his life had blown up for the simple fact that he was gay and had never learned how to fix himself, but his hands still trembled as he worked himself up to saying it.
"Yes. The — the first one."
Close enough.
Loona's eyes flickered, looking him up and down before she focused back on her closet. Stolas tried to pretend it was merely her mentally fitting him for clothes, as she had done dozens of times before, trying to accommodate the fact that he was both taller and slimmer, with feathers that surely would not look any more attractive when paired with the blues or greens she had mentioned earlier.
The hellhound picked things out, tossing them towards Stolas alongside some running commentary. That looks kinda boring, but it works, she said about a blue sweater, and dunno how you'd feel about that, about a mesh shirt that left Stolas blushing. At some point, she dropped to her knees, digging through the bags at the bottom of her closet and tossing eyeshadow palettes and nail polish at him. Stolas caught them each in turn, lining them up on the edge of her bed.
Then —
"Loona," Stolas said quietly, and he cleared his throat. "Why... why does everyone wear their flag colors?"
"'Cause it's Pride."
"Yes, but —" He did not know how else to convey his question. Stolas twisted his fingers around each other, his knee bouncing anxiously. "Why? Do... are people so interested in having others look at them and know immediately what they are?"
Something he appreciated about Loona was that she was not quite as impulsive or hasty as Blitzø. It was true that the imp had a way of putting him at ease immediately, so easily dismissing the things that were not worth worrying about. This time, however, he was not sure that he wanted an immediate, comedic answer. It's so we know who we can fuck, Blitzø would tease.
She leaned back, slowly picking through the last bag.
"I dunno," Loona answered with a shrug, and Stolas felt his shoulders slump — at least, until she spoke again. "It's just something you do at Pride. You could wear your work clothes. Shit, you could wear your pajamas. But it's kinda nice seeing someone wearing the same colors as you and being like... hey." She raised her hands, giving them a little shake. Stolas suspected that she had never once spotted a person and gone 'hey.' "I mean, it's not like we need it."
She stressed the word in a way that made Stolas feel as though he was included in it. He cocked his head.
"Why do you say that?"
"'Cause we're already a family of queerdos," she said with a shrug. "Blitzø's word. Queer weirdos."
Stolas' beak twitched into a smile. "That does sound like a word he would invent..."
"Biggest fuckin' weirdo of them all," Loona snorted. "The whole thing with Pride is, like — most people end up the only queer person in their family, right? So, it probably feels really special going out and seeing a bunch of other queer people. But with us? We're already a bunch of queer people who found each other."
It was simultaneously amazing and so damn depressing realizing that some aspects of his upbringing had not been unique to him. Stolas had spent long enough researching to know the statistics — that something like ten to thirty percent of all Sinners were queer, that homosexuality existed across all species of demon and even into animal breeds both in Hell and on Earth. Logically, he could not have been the only gay Goetia. (Certainly, Andrealphus was so repressed that he must have been bursting at the seams, but how could Stolas judge him for that when he had been the same until Blitzø's return?)
He had felt so alone for so long, and to think that he was lucky now to have fallen into a group of demons who understood him...
"I thought you said that Millie was straight."
Loona barked out a laugh as she pushed herself to her feet to survey everything she had gathered.
"Fuck off. Seriously, watch how many lesbians try to get into her pants today and tell me that's a straight woman —"
It took nearly an hour before Loona was content enough with Stolas' appearance to release him back into the living room. She had talked him into the purple mesh crop top, finally convincing him when she had shown him how to pair it with a bralette for a touch of modesty. There was nothing for the bralette to hold up, but it did nicely cup his plumage and left him fluffing up with delight. Loona had also found a pair of shorts that she had modified, safety-pinning some ribbons of blue and green down the sides.
She had completed the relatively simple look with a few accessories, including a dangling earring — something Stolas had always privately desired after his short-lived flirtation with a beak piercing. She had offered to grab some alcohol and needles to pierce his ears right there, but a description of owl ears (plus a Voogle search to confirm and several disgusted noises on Loona's end) had momentarily delayed that dream, and she had found a way to attach it to one of his feathers. Finally, she had taken a heavy hand to his eyeshadow and eyeliner, which included making him stick his head out of the window when she blasted him with glitter, insisting I'm not having that shit stick around my room until next Pride.
Thankfully, it seemed that they had not kept anyone waiting. Moxxie had a new addition of face paint he had not worn upon arrival, and he sat on the couch beside Millie, blowing on her rainbow-colored nails that he must have just painted. Blitzø's bag was finally packed and sitting beside the front door. And Blitzø —
Stolas froze.
Blitzø had donned a long, blonde wig with bangs that fell over his colorful lids and carefully groomed eyebrows. He wore a pink dress made of some sort of bouncy fabric, with blue lacing and a yellow, feathery boa draped over his arms. Each swish of the imp's tail made the dress flow and bob, revealing pink heels with yellow stars at the ankles.
Dresses, admittedly, had never appealed much to Stolas. He could appreciate a beautiful outfit, but his eyes were often drawn to well-fitted suits or — when the costume designer in a show or film seemed to really pander to him — an unbuttoned shirt and starched denim jeans. It was the fact that Blitzø wore the dress and wig that had Stolas' heart hammering in his chest, fascinated.
Only then did he notice the speck of drool at the corner of Blitzø's mouth as the imp stared back at him.
Stolas blinked. Blitzø wiped his mouth and seemed to jolt back to life. The moment passed.
"Alright, queerdos!" Blitzø shouted, hurriedly turning away to scoop up the bag. "Get your gay asses out the door! It's Pride time!"
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
If attending the market on Sunday mornings was crowded, it was nothing compared to this. Stolas kept his head bowed low, trying to make himself smaller. For once, it was not necessary; there were not only imps in attendance, but also hellhounds, succubi, sharks, sinners, and every other type of demon Stolas knew. (Except Goetias, came that quiet voice.)
His forays into public had gone better over the last month or two. The staff at his most frequented establishments finally seemed to decide that ignoring him was easier than picking a fight, and he found fewer things thrown his way now that they were all used to the glint of Blitzø's gun anytime someone so much as looked at Stolas the wrong way. Still, it had been nearly a year since Stolas had walked through a crowd without some anxiety — that fear had persisted even before his banishment, thanks to Striker — and he found himself still feeling hypervigilant amid the noise.
He didn't want to be consumed by anxiety. The festival was colorful and cheerful. His eyes lingered each time he saw a pair of men standing hand-in-hand, and he knew his mouth was opening every time he saw men kissing. Blitzø had noticed, too, and had immediately laughed about him being a voyeur. Then he stopped teasing and started slowing down when Stolas did, and Stolas did not know what he had done wrong.
"Blitzø," Stolas whispered for the fifth time in as many minutes. He gave the imp's hand a slight squeeze, sending a thrill through his body. Blitzø had held his hand plenty of times as of late, but that had only ever been to steer him around and ensure he did not get lost. This was —
— well, it was probably still about steering him around, but now there were couples around them! Couples doing the same thing! Couples who looked at them and probably thought they were a couple, too!
"Blitzø," he repeated, "what are those colors for? I rather like that flag."
Blitzø peered sideways in the direction Stolas vaguely gestured.
"Which one? C'mon, birdie, you're allowed to point, it's not rude — the purple one? That's asexual — I'll find you a website to read about all of them later, Stols — no, you don't need that shirt, it's kinda false advertising for you — yeah, Stols, that's another drag queen, you can probably just say 'her' when she's got her tits out — yeah, if you wanna tip her, just hand it to her or see what everyone else is doing —"
It went like that for a while, question after question, with Stolas quietly asking about everything he saw. He knew, based on one of Moxxie's winces, that he was asking the wrong things. It felt like those early days of running errands with Blitzø, when he did not understand how queuing at self-checkout machines worked or why it was fine for Blitzø and Loona to refer to certain items as garbage yet offensive when Stolas did so.
With each forced smile or gentle redirection, he found himself growing quieter and the crowd becoming that much louder. No one was throwing things at him — but that did not preclude him from the acerbic looks flashed his way once in a while that reminded him that he was not meant to be welcome among a celebration of hellborn.
"Why don't we go to the vendors?" Millie said. Stolas wondered what he had said wrong this time when she added, "I wanna buy some shit! And they got the Greed booths here — they're always sellin' the best stuff."
"It's overpriced garbage," Loona interrupted, though she followed as the group steered away from the crowd and towards some stalls set near the edge of the park. Stolas fell into pace beside Blitzø, thankful that there were fewer people in the direction they were headed.
"You'll like this," Blitzø was saying to him. "They've got loads of shit for sale — rainbow stuff, dicks, you name it. And sometimes they give away free stuff. Condoms, mostly. Can practically stock up for the whole year at Pride."
Admittedly, Stolas had never been a part of the purchasing process for condoms. He and Blitzø had used them only a few times together, and Blitzø always seemed to have them readily available. He'd had precious few boundaries with his servants back at the palace, but sending them to find condoms large enough to fit a rather well-endowed Blitzø might have been one of the lines he drew.
"Oh," he hummed, sneaking a glance at Blitzø. "Do you have a stockpile of condoms, then?"
He was almost certain that there was a reddish glow to Blitzø's cheeks, but Stolas did not dare look too closely.
"I've got enough to survive the apocalypse," Blitzø snorted. "If the world ends, I'm gonna be the safest slut in Hell."
So the thought had not crossed Blitzø's mind to utilize any of that stockpile with him. Stolas hummed again.
"Ah."
Millie was already sifting through the first booth, plucking up beaded necklaces, clacker fans, scarves, hats, tank tops, and a dozen other items, all emblazoned with rainbows. Stolas picked up one of the hats simply to distract himself with something. It looked like an ordinary baseball cap with a small rainbow embroidered on the front, barely half an inch wide. When he turned it over and saw the price tag, he was fairly certain the number was at least triple the price he had seen on hats at other stores.
"If you want any souvenirs," came Moxxie's voice from beside him, "don't get them from the Greed booths. They just slap a rainbow on anything and pretend that makes it supportive."
Stolas set the hat down and picked up a necklace. The beads felt like plastic, and it had a hanging pendant. When he lifted it to examine it more closely, he found that the rainbow was nothing more than a peeling sticker. He gently scratched it away, revealing another sticker beneath it, this one for Big Buck's Hellfire Barbecue Pit.
"Why would they do that?" Stolas murmured. "Do people not realize how low-quality these items are?"
"Yeah." Moxxie chuckled, unfolding a rainbow handkerchief. The dye clung to his skin, turning his palms purple and yellow, and he hurriedly tried to fold it back up. "Buying from a business that supports queer demons is a bit like us being an imp-owned business, you know? Demons want to support someone they relate to. You'll start noticing it. Every time Pride comes around, all of these businesses around Greed will suddenly have rainbow flags on display, and they take them down the minute it's over."
That did make sense. There had been multiple comments from clients and neighbors over the last few months that his appearance as I.M.P.'s secretary was misleading, given that it was meant to be an imp-owned business. Blitzø had always been quick to shoot back (literally, but also metaphorically) that Loona wasn't an imp, either, and that didn't change the fact that it was imp-owned.
"Are demons in Greed not supportive, then?"
Moxxie gave an odd, noncommittal shrug. All at once, it properly dawned on Stolas that Moxxie — arguably the one in the business with whom he shared the most in common — might also have been raised around demons who would not have accepted his bisexuality. Stolas briefly wondered if Moxxie had ever dated a man. Blitzø certainly referenced it enough, almost treating it like a taunt, but it felt impossible to picture him with anyone but Millie.
"My dad is... supportive about it, I guess?" Moxxie said in a tone that made it very clear that he did not feel supported in any way. "He's ignorant. He's also not a great dad in general. I don't think he understands bisexuality since he assumed Millie was my beard and tried marrying me off to my ex-boyfriend for money —"
"Pardon?!"
"Mox is gay for pay," Blitzø interrupted, reappearing beside Stolas and thrusting something into his hands. It was a water bottle, and Stolas lifted it to examine the rainbow sticker that someone had haphazardly shoved over the existing label. "So, me and Mills had an idea. They've got booths from all the rings, so what if we did a little tour of Hell? Stols, you can see what Pride really looks like."
The Greed booths did not seem to be a promising start, yet Stolas felt his feathers fluff up around his neck. He was curious — the sort of curiosity that came from spending an entire lifetime watching the world through a window. So much of his knowledge of Hell's rings was confined to the palaces of other Goetias and Sins, and that was nothing like the explosion of colors around him now. He bobbed his head eagerly, pleased when Blitzø's smile widened.
"C'mon, birdie," he said, holding his hand out to Stolas once more. "I'll take you to the Lust booths."
"Ugh." Loona dropped the purple sunglasses she had been inspecting and flipped them off. Stolas ducked his head. "Find me if you get to the food stalls."
They parted ways, with Blitzø tugging Stolas further into the vendor area, Moxxie and Millie trailing after them. At some point, the overstuffed, gaudy booths gave way to smaller ones, many of them surrounded by tents to offer a bit more privacy than the Greed area had. There was more overhead coverage in the area, too, which helped to keep the beating sun off their faces. Somewhere, someone was playing music. It was calm and pleasant, and Stolas absentmindedly batted away the flap of one of the tents to examine its contents.
"Oh!"
A thick cock sat at eye level, rock hard and veiny. It was made up of the same colors as Loona and Moxxie's outfits, and Stolas stared at the flared spikes on the underside of the shaft for a long, long moment before processing the wick sticking out of the urethra. A candle.
"You find something you like?"
Looking at Blitzø was a mistake. Oh, lords, it was a mistake when the image of the cock candle was seared into Stolas' retinas and all he could see was the girthy, lovely thing superimposed over Blitzø and the cock he missed so badly but had not seen in so many months. (He'd had thoughts. Plans. He had debated if he could pretend not to notice that Blitzø was in the bathroom, just to make an excuse to walk in on him. He sometimes took his time changing into his pajamas in the living room to give Blitzø the chance to walk in on him, but the one time he had, Blitzø had covered his eyes and hidden in the bathroom like a goddamn gentleman.)
"I — it's —"
He looked at the opposite wall of the tent, hopeful, but its shelves were lined with dildos and harnesses, handcuffs and blindfolds. Moxxie and Millie were examining a riding crop, so it wasn't as though he could slip away and join their conversation. All Stolas could do was stand there, an idiot, gaping and positively drenched in slick.
"They've... uh... they've got some outfits over there," Blitzø said, nodding at a nearby rack. He, too, seemed determined not to peer around at any of the shelves, and he made a beeline for the clothing. Stolas followed.
He was used to the limited clothing sizes found at most stores, where he knew that he would never find anything both long enough and narrow enough to fit him. It was part of the way he had managed to bond with Loona: Few clothing options were made with hellhounds in mind, so she had learned how to alter her clothing to suit her. The pair of them had enough overlapping taste to help one another, and it had ensured that Stolas stayed clothed in his exile.
These clothes, however, were not like anything Stolas had worn before. There were miniskirts, crop tops, harness-like tops that hardly covered anything, short dresses, garters, stockings, and so much more eclectic clothing all thrown together into a mess of neon and ribbon. Blitzø picked through it, extracting one hanger from the mess to hold a mini skirt up against his waist.
Stolas cleared his throat. His face still burned, but at least he was regaining his voice.
"May I... may I ask you something?"
"Been asking me shit all day, birdie," Blitzø teased. "Hit me."
"It's about..." Stolas gestured vaguely, then realized that if he was not going to be able to summon the words to clarify any further, he needed to at least utilize his hands better. He localized the gesture, honing in on Blitzø. "All of this."
Blitzø looked down at himself before grinning.
"Yeah? You wanna ask about the fit?"
"The fit," Stolas murmured.
"It's drag."
"I — I understand that much."
"Good," the imp snorted as he returned to pawing through the rack. This time, he pulled out a shirt to match the skirt he had found, and he held them both up against Stolas as though imagining him in them. Stolas bit back a nervous squawk. "Saves me a history lesson."
Blitzø was still examining him, clothes in hand. Stolas had worn plenty of dresses before, but they had been Halloween costumes and set pieces for little fantasies he wanted to act out. None of them were things he planned to wear out on an ordinary day, not with the same degree of comfort — no, apathy — that Blitzø seemed to have now.
"So," he continued nervously, "one dresses this way because...?"
"'Cause it's fun. Duh."
"And that's all?"
"Yeah, pretty much." Blitzø put the shirt back on the rack and grabbed another. He held it up for only a moment before tucking them both beneath his arm and moving further down the rack.
"I would have assumed that there was... some deeper meaning to it," Stolas tried, unsure which combination of words would magically unlock the answer he was looking for. Truth be told, he did not know what response he expected.
"Can be." Once more, Blitzø shrugged. "Loads of demons wear drag to perform. Some do comedy. Some are figurin' their shit out. And some" — he grunted as he wrestled a particularly stuck hanger out from a mess of fabric — "just like looking hot."
"And you...?"
"Just like looking hot," Blitzø answered with a cheeky grin.
It answered nothing and everything all at once, and Stolas hid his snort of laughter behind a hand. Blitzø smirked up at him.
"There he is."
Stolas flushed at Blitzø's words, spoken so gently like he had been waiting around for Stolas to laugh. His eyes trailed back to the ruffles around Blitzø's dress as he quickly asked, "So, this does not mean you wish to be... you know... female?"
He wondered if it would have made a difference. Stolas had seen the number of times Blitzø pulled out dresses and wigs for missions, opting for feminine disguises. He had watched the imp put on makeup and paint his nails and wear feminine clothes while lounging around the apartment. None of it was new, so would it have changed things? He knew, deep down, that he could not have loved a woman — but where did the wrappings end and Blitzø begin? What right did he have to an opinion when they were not a couple? When it was Blitzø's body?
"Nah," Blitzø answered after a moment, stopping Stolas' panicked musings in their tracks.
"No?"
"Nah, male is fine."
"That sounds rather... tentative."
Blitzø shrugged. "It's convenient. I don't really give a shit about boxes."
Stolas peered around. He did not see anything in boxes. It seemed that all of the merchandise was on worrying display. Once more, he made direct eye contact with a rather large penis and had to glance away.
"I'm afraid I don't follow."
"It's like..." The imp glanced upwards, seemingly searching for words. It did not escape Stolas' notice how patient he was being with all of his questions. Surely, no one else had needed to ask a thousand things to appreciate Pride. "If calling yourself a guy or a girl or both or neither makes stuff click into place for you, cool. But me? I don't lose sleep over it."
"So... you are sometimes a man."
Blitzø smiled.
"Sure, Stols. If that helps."
"And you enjoy dressing this way."
"Yup."
"And for you, those do not feel like contradictory statements."
"Nah. Only if somebody else thinks they are, and then they can kiss my ass."
Lucifer, he wished that he could have spoken with such simply confidence, insisting that the world could take him or leave him as he was. His back ached from all the ways he had bent over, trying to appease a father who did not care for him, a wife who never loved him, a society that could not handle him. He wanted to pull one of the skirts from the rack, to tug it over his thighs and wear it like a shield that told all of Hell that their words could no longer control him. But Stolas knew that none of them would fit him like armor the same way Blitzø's clothing did.
He opened his mouth to say more when a sharp snap cut through the air.
Stolas turned in time to see a woman — a drag queen, if her pronounced makeup and coiffed hair were any indication — flourish a lace fan with practiced theatricality. The ink-green fabric unfurled between golden ribs, flowers of metallic embroidery catching the light. The queen laughed at someone her companion said, punctuating her laughter with another effortless snap.
"You okay, birdie?"
His gaze drifted past the entrance to the tent, out to where people were milling about. The drag queen was not the only one with such a fan; he could see a pair of men fanning themselves with equally as ornate fans, a young woman fanning herself with what appeared to be a paper version, other performers punctuating their laughter with those loud, satisfying clacks.
"Are those common?" he asked.
Blitzø followed his gaze. "The fans? Yeah."
"They're rather — they're rather feminine, aren't they?"
There had been many times in recent months when Stolas had practically been able to hear the aftermath of a conversation before even saying anything. Bit by bit, Blitzø and Loona and Moxxie and Millie were beginning to inhabit his brain, his unconscious monologue at times taking on their voices. He knew that, given all Blitzø had just said, he would remark that it did not matter, yet Stolas found himself needing to hear it aloud, to know that there was a real voice agreeing with what his imagined one had said.
Sure enough, Blitzø snorted. "So?"
"So —" Stolas hesitated. "So, why does everyone have one?"
"'Cause it's hot as balls out here, birdie —"
"But —"
"Okay, okay. Yeah, kinda a big thing in drag culture. They're super cunty and shit." Blitzø snapped his wrist in the air, miming the same gesture the drag queen had done to make her fan snap. "But mostly? They just make air. So — you want one?"
He nearly fell over from spinning around so quickly to face Blitzø, standing there so innocently with a midnight blue fan in hand. Blitzø flicked his wrist, making it clack open. Stolas' breath caught in his throat.
"I couldn't —"
"It'll keep you cool."
"No," Stolas murmured, turning away so that he did not fixate on the pretty, silvery constellations embroidered on the fan. They were surely all inaccurate anyway, and what would he have done with that? "No, it doesn't suit me."
"Holy shit, Stols." Blitzø held the fan up beside his face, and Stolas could feel the cooling breeze ruffle his feathers. "It's all star-themed and shit, it's pretty, you're probably boiling hot under all those feathers —"
"Oooh, are you gonna get that, Stolas?" Millie broke in. Moxxie carried a bag that suggested they had just purchased something, which should have made him feel better about the idea, but the pit in Stolas' stomach did not budge.
"No, no," he insisted. "I don't have any use for it."
"It's so hot —"
"That's what I was telling him!"
"Hey, losers." Loona had poked her head into the tent, but with one brief glance at the candles and sex toys, she grimaced and shielded her eyes. "You done flirting? I found some free samples."
"You guys go with Looney." Blitzø lifted the hangers he had been collecting. "I gotta pay."
"That might be the first time I have heard you say that," Stolas muttered, but as Blitzø elbowed his thigh, he quickly added, "I shall stay with you, then."
"Nah, save me some snacks before it turns into a bloodbath."
He found himself being pulled away by more than one set of hands, leaving behind the relative quiet and darkness of the tent for the oppressive heat and noise outside. Even without being steered, Stolas was certain that he could have found his way to the food vendors from Gluttony: the scent of fried dough and roasting meat hung heavy in the air, and Loona kept her nose high in the air as she sniffed her way through the crowd. When they got close enough to see the stalls, she vanished.
"I give her five minutes before she's spent all her money," Moxxie muttered.
Millie laughed. "I give it three. C'mon, Stolas, help us find some seats."
Finding seats appeared to be some sort of humiliation ritual set inside a maze. The crowd was so dense around this area that Stolas could barely tiptoe his way between the crowded seats and picnic tables. The area provided a good view of the stage, where a drag queen was dancing to a song he did not recognize, and each time he passed a group watching the performance, they would shout for him to get out of the way. The only available seats seemed to be alone or in pairs, which did not work when there were five of them in attendance. He had somehow managed to lose Moxxie and Millie, too, which only made him grow more anxious —
"Found you."
Loona's arms were full of food containers, but she still managed to find a way to loop her arm into Stolas' and tug him away from the crowd. Some distance away, Moxxie and Millie were smoothing a blanket on the grass, sitting at the corners so the wind would not pick up the fabric and pull it away.
Stolas carefully settled onto the third corner, and Loona dropped onto the fifth, a pile of treats tumbling from her arms onto the blanket. "Fuck yes," she groaned before snatching up one of the plastic containers and holding it out to Stolas. Inside was a little layered cake with bands of icing ranging from pale green to white to blue and purple.
"Here."
He took it carefully. Then, he smiled.
"The gay men's flag."
Loona did not beam, but there was a curve to her mouth that seemed more pleased than usual.
"Yeah? You remembering the flags?"
"You did spend a rather long time dressing me this morning."
"You asked a shit-ton of questions. And now you get homework." The hellhound picked up a tray of macarons arranged in neat rows of pink, purple, and blue. "Remember these ones?"
"The bisexual flag."
"Nice." Loona tossed the macarons to Moxxie, who caught them. "And this one?"
It was a gooey cinnamon roll, the icing smeared in rows of pink, yellow, and blue. Stolas lit up, having spent most of the day thus far staring at Blitzø.
"The pansexual flag! Though I will admit, I am unsure what the difference is between that one and bisexuality..."
"Means Blitzø thinks he's better than us. No, don't tell him I said that, let him explain it... You know this one?"
The slice of cake had more stripes than the previous two flags, with pastel pinks and blues framing a white stripe. Though it was not one of the flags that Loona had talked about that morning, he had seen it all over the festival and only needed to rack his brain for a moment to recall it.
"That is the transgender flag, is it not?"
"Not bad for a baby gay." Loona tossed the container to Millie, then started divvying up forks.
Not for the first time, he felt stupid. Surely, his ignorance would have been more logical had he just been figuring out his own identity, but he had known that he liked men since the time he had been a mere teenager, if not earlier. The issue had always been exposure to other gay people — to literature and television shows about them, to friends who were gay, to potential partners. A whole, wide world of information existed out there, but he had known that the moment Stella put the pieces together and realized what he was, she would be angry at him. Angrier than usual. So he had buried it all deep, deep down, repressing any curiosity he had, pretending that there were no gay people in the world.
Then Blitzø had fallen into his life, and it was not as though they had spent evenings talking. They had certainly not used that time to discuss gay identity or sexuality or gender. If they spoke, it was about quiet, mundane things: work cases, their children, Blitzø's horse OCs, movies they had seen. The little moments that would have felt normal on a date or in a relationship, one that should have come long after he had come to understand himself and his own identity.
Now, he was left to sit there, feeling stupid as he played back every interaction he'd ever had with Millie, seeking some evidence that she had been transgender all along. Did it make sense for her to be pregnant now?
"Forgive me if this is... terribly personal," he began quietly.
Millie glanced up from her dessert. "Hmm?"
"I simply wondered..." Stolas' gaze dropped back to the cake slice. There were some advantages to having pupils visible to the rest of the world, and he was slowly learning how to use them to communicate discreetly. "Are you transgender?"
Millie blinked. Then she burst into warm laughter. Somehow — thankfully — it did not feel directed at him.
"Oh, no, sugar. My sister is."
"Oh!" Stolas' feathers puffed with embarrassment. "I — I do apologize. I ought not to have assumed —"
"Nah." She waved her spoon, then scooped up another bite. "Ain't offensive. Just ain't me. You mighta seen Sallie at the Harvest Moon Festival. We used to compete at the Pain Games together, but a coupla years were before she transitioned."
Terribly, Stolas could not remember any specific imps from Wrath with the exception of Striker, and even then, it had taken him a while to piece together that his kidnapper had been the same imp who had competed at the festival. He toyed with the plastic lid of his dessert container, trying to keep his thoughts from wandering there.
"May I ask what that is like? For her to come out in Wrath?"
"Honestly?" Millie shrugged and leaned towards Moxxie, who scooted closer. "Wrath's kinda funny. We don't spend a lotta time fussin' over what folks call themselves. Long as you can wrangle a hellhog without losin' an arm, most people don't care much."
"They definitely care if you lose an arm, though," Moxxie broke in.
"Well, yeah," she laughed. "Makes chores harder."
"Everyone accepted her immediately, though?" Stolas prompted. It fascinated him to imagine a place where one's utility mattered more than identity, where the fact that he was a good prophet might have outweighed every personal failing.
However, Millie's expression turned thoughtful for too long, and he knew he was not going to get the answer he wanted.
"Not everybody. Dad took some gettin' used to it. He wasn't... he wasn't mean about it. He just didn't get it. Took him a while to stop callin' her by the wrong name. But he tried." Her smile turned wistful as she absentmindedly rubbed a hand over her baby bump. "I think it was just kinda different for him, bein' his kid and all. He was so used to havin' a son that it took him a while to realize he still had her — just as a daughter now."
It reminded him of how easy it had always been to revert to thinking of Octavia as a mere owlet, no matter how old she became. In his mind, she was frozen in time, still that sweet hatchling who had enjoyed riding on his shoulders and who wanted his comfort after her nightmares.
He pictured how it would have felt knowing that his own father's disapproval came from a place of love. To have been something he coveted so deeply that he simply did not want to see Stolas change. The concept was so foreign that he could not picture it for long.
"Anyway," Millie continued, "now he'll threaten anybody who gives Sallie trouble. 'Course, he ain't perfect." She bumped her shoulder against Moxxie's. "Still teases this one somethin' awful. Daddy grew up with a lotta ideas about what men oughta be, but then Moxxie kept provin' he can shoot better than anyone on the ranch. Think he finally figured maybe bein' stubborn was less important than havin' his kids around." She looked up, meeting Stolas' eyes. "People surprise you."
Would Octavia have found comfort one day in a celebration like this? She had never mentioned liking boys, and the few times Stolas had tried to probe deeper, it had seemed that she was not interested in anyone at all. Blitzø had pointed out a purple-and-grey flag earlier for people who did not feel sexual attraction. Was there one for people who did not have crushes? Who did not think they would ever want to marry?
(Would Stella expect Octavia to do so anyway? Would she have anyone on her side, willing to tell her that she could say no? That her life was in her control? That she could have her own journey?)
Tears burned at his eyes. Something nudged at Stolas' elbow, and he quickly brushed them away.
It was Blitzø, who held a small bag towards him.
"Here."
Stolas frowned. "What is this?"
"Open it."
He took the bag and gently unrolled the top, peering inside. There, nestled amid a business card and a collection of stickers and candy, was a fan almost identical to the midnight blue one he had admired earlier, complete with its shiny silver constellations and a golden handle. He wanted to reach in, to touch it and hear it clack against his ear, but Stolas did not dare. He simply pushed the bag back towards Blitzø.
"Blitzø... You didn't have to."
"You kept looking at it." Blitzø pushed the bag back. "I know you, Stols. You were gonna keep thinking about it all day and be sad."
"But — I told you, I have no practical use for it —"
"Do you know how many horses Blitzø has at home?" Loona interrupted.
"Do you know how few practical purchases Blitzø has made for the company?" Moxxie added, a bit less pleasantly.
Stolas studied the fan until Millie's voice broke through his reverie: "I'm too pregnant to sit back up, so you gotta show me what he got you!"
Carefully, he withdrew the fan from the bag.
And clacked it.
All of them erupted into impressed howls of laughter, with Blitzø insisting that Stolas try opening it again to get the effect down perfectly. Stolas tried once, twice, thrice, before nailing the whip-quick opening that he had seen the drag queen manage. Then Blitzø wrapped an arm around Stolas' shoulders, pulling him into a one-armed hug, and if he used the fan to hide his blush for the rest of their quick meal, then it was no one's business.
They stayed on the blanket for a while, working their way through a variety of snacks and watching the performances. It was right around the time that Stolas started getting antsy to see more of the festival that Millie insisted her hips couldn't take sitting around any longer. They packed up and debated where to head next, finally opting to return to the row of vendors to see Wrath's offerings next.
The handful of Wrathian booths were far more understated than those from Greed or Lust. Their decorations were austere and rugged. Even their occasional pride flags were less showy than the typical rainbows, and Stolas found himself fondly admiring a banner of deep blue and black, with a red heart in one corner.
"Oh, I know this guy!" Millie said, wandering towards the booth.
The elderly demon behind the table tipped his hat and launched into conversation. Elsewhere, Moxxie went to explore some wallets while Loona went to check out the leather jackets. Blitzø stood a few steps from Stolas, peering around the tent, and Stolas slowly moved towards a rack that caught his eye.
It was a display of leather collars in various colors. Most had some kind of hardware on them; a few were even attached to leashes to demonstrate how to use them. Stolas studied them, not daring to touch any as a thrill pulsed deep in his stomach.
"Find something you like?"
It was Blitzø. Stolas jumped, his hand going to the plumage spilling from over the top of his shirt to nervously twirl the longer feathers.
"I was — I was merely admiring the craftsmanship."
Blitzø did not hesitate. He picked up one of the collars and studied it, giving the silver ring a tug. Stolas gulped.
"Yeah," the imp murmured, grinning. "I remember you liking these."
Until their first night together, everything had been a mere fantasy. Sometimes, Stolas wondered if it had been easier that way, to never know what could be real and what was merely fiction. He had coped with living in the pages of romance novels and erotica, but then Blitzø had appeared — Blitzø and his insatiable appetite, with his dominating personality, with the praise he heaped so readily onto Stolas.
The morning after their tryst had not been easy. He had been used to Stella's slaps and insults by that point, but it had been the first time he had genuinely feared her. It had taken the better part of several hours for her to wear herself out so that Stolas could hide away — and despite all the shame and guilt, he had immediately pulled out his phone and searched up everything he could remember Blitzø doing and saying to him, wanting to watch videos of the acts, wanting to know what everything was called, wanting more.
He had learned what BDSM was by clicking link after link, and eventually, he had found his way to an online store in Lust.
"I... I made a fool of myself, didn't I?" Stolas groaned, burying his face in his hands.
"Uh... when?"
"That day in your office." His words came out quiet, muffled, as though he might have been able to smother himself before he had to say them. "Showing up unannounced in a — a robe and a fucking collar like an idiot —"
Blitzø tugged at his elbow. Stolas did not allow him to pull his hands away.
"I mean, yeah, it was a lot, but... so what? I like how eager you are."
"That wasn't eagerness, Blitzø. That was — that was desperation —"
"It was someone who just got plowed and wanted to get fucked again," Blitzø argued. Stolas shot him a look from between his fingers, and Blitzø hesitated. "Alright, yeah, it was a little desperate —"
"Ugh!"
"— but it was fun! It's fun fucking someone who's excited! And you know what? It was hot, having you show up, cloaca out, with a pretty little collar I could tug on —"
It wasn't true. They had not been boyfriends, brought together by fate and destined for a happy ending. He had been a chore to take care of, nothing more than the landlord of a book he had needed for his business. It had not been fair to show up that day, just as it had not been fair to purchase a collar for himself and lean into the fantasy of being owned, of being controlled, of being cared for by someone he loved.
"Hey," Blitzø said, voice softer as he tried once more to pull Stolas' hands away from his face. This time, he allowed him. "It looked really good on you."
Arrogant as it sounded, Stolas knew that was true. He had spent hours browsing the options and ordered half a dozen he liked, then spent the evening trying them all on and admiring himself in the mirror. It had been the first time he had felt sexy.
"I... I miss it, sometimes."
"Yeah?" Blitzø smiled up at him. "Wanna get a new one?"
He could not. The collar had belonged to a version of himself that had believed Blitzø did want him romantically. He had been a fool, projecting all of his ridiculous fantasies onto a man who probably had not thought about him in twenty-five years, but Blitzø had been everything: the white knight on his noble steed, come to rescue him from his tower and begin their happily ever after. The appeal had never been in the collar as a fashion accessory; it was in the collar as a marker that he belonged to Blitzø and Blitzø alone.
"I don't know," he murmured.
"C'mon. Why not?"
Stolas trailed a finger over one of the display collars. The leather felt cool beneath his touch.
"I suppose it was... never about the collar." His gaze flicked to Blitzø, who waited patiently, tail swishing behind him. "When I bought it, I — I believed something that wasn't true."
The imp's brow furrowed. "Yeah? What'd you think?"
He had believed that he could be rescued. That there was a way out of his prison. That it was possible to have all of the things he wanted without consequence, and he could obtain it all if he simply rode the wave of chaos that Blitzø brought into his life and trusted that all of the pieces would fall into place. He had believed that love was simple, that it took nothing more than experiencing it, that it was like riding a wave rather than desperately treading water.
"I believed that... perhaps..." Stolas cleared his throat. "That perhaps you had wanted me to return. I know now that it was a ridiculous fantasy." His words came out in a panicked blur, jumbling over one another to distance himself from his confession. "I really should not have assumed so quickly — it was foolish to presume, especially when it had been so long since we had —"
"Stolas."
He clicked his beak shut and glanced away, avoiding Blitzø's gaze.
"Stols. Let me pick one for you."
His heart pounded in his chest. When he had bought his original collar, Stolas had imagined Blitzø poring over the options, and he had imagined Blitzø being the one to ultimately fasten the collar around his throat. The websites had made it seem like such an intimate act, and now —
Stolas' hands twitched around his fan.
"You do not need to, Blitzø."
"Can't hear you!" Blitzø answered, turning towards the row of collars. The tent was small enough that there was not enough space to convincingly pretend that he could not hear Stolas, but Blitzø used his tail to gently push the owl away. "Go find M and M for me, 'kay? I gotta focus."
Moxxie and Millie were already behind him, herding Stolas out of the tent. He saw the looks that the couple exchanged, and his face heated up.
"What?"
"Oh, hon," Millie giggled. "You just gave that man the hardest job of his life."
"I did not mean to —"
"Fuck him good, sir," Moxxie added dryly. "It might fix him."
Millie had barely stopped laughing when a new voice cut in behind Stolas.
"Hey, man."
Stolas turned to see the speaker. It was a tall incubus standing a few feet away. His horns had been painted in rainbow stripes, and he held a frozen cocktail in one hand. He also did not wear a shirt, and Stolas' eyes dropped to the chiseled outline of his pecs and abs before he forced himself to look up once more.
"Just wanted to say..." The incubus smiled warmly. One of his fangs caught on his lip. "Your makeup is gorgeous."
"Oh!" Stolas ran a self-conscious hand through his crest. "Thank you. My —" He peered around, but Loona still seemed to be inside the tent, looking at jackets. "I had some help with it. I shall pass along the compliment."
"And that fan?" the incubus continued, nodding down at where Stolas loosely held it in his hand. "Great choice."
Stolas followed his gaze. From the corner of his eye, he saw Moxxie and Millie exchange a look.
"Thank you."
"Really suits you."
"That is very kind of you."
The incubus' smile did not fade, nor did he stop trailing his gaze up and down Stolas' body. A part of him wondered if the next compliment was going to be something about his outfit, but it seemed terribly rude to let the man say three kind things in a row with nothing in return. Clearing his throat, Stolas made a vague gesture at the demon's horns.
"That is a very creative paint job."
Off to his side, Moxxie groaned. Stolas was unsure why.
"Thanks." The incubus took half a step closer. The crowd was so loud that Stolas could not blame him; he knew that his hearing was unnaturally sharp, but that seemed to be a trait unique to avians and hellhounds. He mirrored the man's posture, also stepping in.
"So, I was thinking," the man said, leaning just a bit closer, "you wanna grab a drink later?"
Stolas raised the lemonade that had been mostly obscured by his fan. Loona had insisted that he get it, pointing out that the flavoring — blue, she had called it, and she refused to back down when he said blue was not a flavor — matched his outfit.
"I appreciate it, but I have one already."
"No," the incubus laughed. "I mean a drink with me." And when Stolas fell silent, trying to understand, he added, "'Cause you're cute. And I... probably should have just started off with trying to get your number, huh?"
Then the incubus stepped forward once more, closing the remaining gap between them to settle his hand on the small of Stolas' back — a light touch, barely there, with even less pressure than Blitzø's own gentle, guiding touches when they walked places.
Stolas' body went rigid, his feathers puffing out.
He knew, objectively, that he had been flirted with. It was difficult to count Blitzø when their relationship had been so backwards and sideways, but he had enough dim memories of Verosika's party to know he had danced with and kissed a man before his wits had caught up with him. He had panicked then, too — not at the initial flirtation, but towards the end of the night when the incubus had invited him home and Stolas had been unsure what to think or how to feel or how he wrap his beak around the word no. It had been Verosika who had finally stepped in to help him, and he had gone home with the popstar to sleep it off.
"Hey."
The word was not quite barked, but it came out loud and firm. The incubus turned to see the source of the sound, but Stolas did not need to move to know Blitzø's voice when he heard it.
Something pressed against Stolas' hip. Blitzø wedged himself beside the owl, a protective arm encircling him.
"He's with me."
Immediately, the incubus stepped back, both hands raised in surrender.
"Sorry, man. We were just talking."
"Cool. Conversation's over." Blitzø's hand went to his hip, where Stolas was certain he had his gun. That was enough to break him from his trance, and he rested a hand on the imp's horns. Blitzø fell still.
"No worries," the man said, starting to walk away. "Happy Pride!"
It took until the incubus was out of sight before Stolas could form words, and he immediately blurted out, "I apologize —" right at the same time Blitzø said, "So, uh, problem solved."
The imp was holding the collar up for Stolas to see. It was made of black leather with red stitching — Lucifer, he loved every little glimpse of red that reminded him of Blitzø — and at the center, the two sides were connected by a heart-shaped ring. Little, dulled spikes sat spaced around the circumference of it, reminding Stolas of Blitzø's own spikes.
His face burned. "Pardon?"
"You know... uh..." Blitzø started to lower the collar as if thinking better of it, and his voice grew quieter. "So everyone knows you're — you're spoken for and shit. I mean... if... y'know..."
"I am," Stolas blurted out. Unsure how well his response worked semantically, he added, "I mean, I do. I — I am spoken for, I believe."
Blitzø looked as frozen as Stolas had felt moments prior, his eyes wide and terrified.
"You are?"
"Yes," Stolas murmured as he carefully knelt down, ready to have the collar placed around his throat. "By... by you, if you will have me."
He swore that Blitzø's eyes shone as the imp carefully fastened the collar around his neck. Behind him, Millie let out a squeal and Moxxie muttered, "Finally." And behind Blitzø, Loona appeared, busily fastening a chain through her belt loops. She caught sight of the pair, her nose wrinkling.
"Fucking hell, Blitzø," she muttered. "Get a room already."
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
There was an entire section for families.
Stolas was not ignorant; he had seen the families milling around and knew that there must have been some sort of child-friendly activities at Pride to explain it. Their group did not intentionally walk in that direction; they simply began to mill about once they finished their little tour of the vendor booths and had tired themselves out on performances. Blitzø had done so much to push away any sudden reminders of Octavia that Stolas knew it could not have been intentional.
But he saw it.
The sound was quickly becoming too overwhelming, the crowds exhausting him. Blitzø steered him towards a quieter part of the park, where there were some smaller booths mostly dedicated to crafts. And there, at one of the tables, sat a dour-faced teenage girl between a pair of men who must have been her fathers.
She had dark hair that fell over her eyes. One of the men — an imp-incubus hybrid — was carefully painting a star on her cheek, swapping out colors every few seconds to get the pattern of purple, white, grey, and black. The other man, an imp, snapped a picture of them and laughed.
"Stols? Wanna grab a seat?"
Octavia — no, it wasn't Octavia — picked up her phone and looked at her reflection in the camera. She let out a groan, but she was smiling. "That's so corny, Dad."
"Mm?" Stolas knew Blitzø had spoken, but the words were merely sounds.
"It looks good!" the other dad laughed. "Don't touch it! Let it dry! You want a drink?"
"I said, you wanna grab a seat?"
"Yeah, if you see anywhere with that lemonade?"
"Coming right up!"
They were all just noises. Stolas fidgeted with his fan, rustling the fabric as if the quiet clacking would help to balance out the rest of the buzzing in his ears. Blitzø touched his hip, and he jumped.
"Stols?"
"I believe I may require a moment of — of recalibration."
"The fuck does that mean?"
"Dad," came a familiar voice, but Stolas did not think it was Octavia's. He peered at Octavia, but she was sitting alone at the table, scrolling on her phone. Her feathers looked all wrong, too much like hair, and her beanie sat strangely on her head, looking too much like horns. "Dad, he should probably sit down."
If Octavia looked up from her phone and saw him... He was meant to be miserable. He was miserable. He should not have been out in the sunlight, enjoying Pride. Pride was for people who were proud of what they were, not fathers who destroyed their families for lust —
"C'mon, Stols, nice comfy seat for you here."
He felt hands pushing him to sit, but Stolas sprang back up to his feet. He could not be here. He could not sit so close to Octavia and let her think that he had forgotten about her.
"I need — I need a moment —"
He inhaled deeply and coughed at the mingled scent of industrial cleaner and shit. Somehow, he was inside a strange little bathroom, surrounded by plastic walls that left him with only a few square feet of space. Stolas did not remember walking in there, but he must have.
He rested his hands on the edge of the tiny sink and stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror. Somehow, he looked fine.
Someone gently knocked at the door. "Stols?" Blitzø. "It's totally fine if you're shitting your brains out, but I need a timeline. You okay?"
His eyeshadow was a bit smudged and most of the glitter had worked its way beneath his feathers, but otherwise, he looked fine. Well, as fine as he could look with pupils. They gave him a permanent appearance of being stressed or overwhelmed. At last, his exterior matched his interior.
"Okay, I'm not loving the silence anymore," Blitzø called out.
He looked ridiculous with makeup on. He had been struggling for so long, trying to handle so much, and what did he do with his time? Decorate his bland, boring face? Put on ridiculous clothes? Prance around like he could be gay, like he could be loved? And the collar — the idea that anyone would keep him —
"Stolas," Blitzø tried again, quietly knocking at the door. "C'mon. Talk to me."
His hands shook. Stolas peered back in the mirror and saw that he had smudged all his eye makeup and gotten it onto his collar. He looked ridiculous, and now it truly was his fault. His mind was broken, and he needed —
He needed —
Stolas took three tries to unlock the door. When it swung open, he kept his gaze firmly on the ground.
"I apologize. This is — I am being absurd — I —"
"Nope," Blitzø interrupted, taking one of his hands. "Outside. Now."
The imp pulled him out of the restroom, walking quickly. Despite Blitzø being so much shorter than him, Stolas found that he had to adjust his gait to keep up — not quite walking, not quite jogging, but an awkward middle ground that had him concentrating on his feet to avoid stumbling.
No sooner had he found the right rhythm to keep in step than Blitzø suddenly twirled him.
He held onto both of Stolas' hands, his grasp firm, as he spun him in a circle so quickly that Stolas nearly fell over. He had to run to keep up, and just when he thought Blitzø was going to let him go, the imp spun him again. Again and again, he spun, Stolas panting and trying to keep his footing —
"What — what are you —"
"Got a lot of adrenaline, right?" Blitzø shouted. He grinned. "Gotta burn it off! C'mon, one more spin!"
This one was faster than the last, and Stolas finally lost his footing and collapsed into the soft grass. His vision reeled, but at last, he could see where they were: at the very edges of the park, past where the festival ended, surrounded by some bushes and trees that provided a bit of shade and privacy.
Blitzø dropped onto the ground beside him, holding something out to him. His fan. With still-shaking hands, Stolas unfurled it and fanned himself, the cool air rustling his feathers. Next came the silent offer of his forgotten lemonade, which Stolas silently sipped. Only when his breathing slowed back to its usual rhythm did either of them speak.
"Better?" Blitzø asked.
"A bit, yes."
"Cool." Blitzø shuffled closer, tail loosely wrapping around Stolas' leg. "Wanna tell me what happened?"
Where did he begin explaining something that he did not fully understand himself? He had no reason for panicking, no excuse for ruining an otherwise nice day. He simply had a swarm of thoughts in his mind with nowhere to put them.
"I wasted... so much time," was all he said for a moment, but that seemed to be enough for his thoughts to gain momentum. "All of these people... They grew up like this. Knowing. Having words. I was — I was thirty-five before I knew I could have... any of this. And now I do."
That was not what hurt. It was the background to his pain, but it was a familiar suffering that he had managed to bear in silence for so long. What hurt was something he could scarcely say without his voice cracking.
"I have it now, and Via doesn't."
Perhaps she had chosen to cut him from her life, but she had not chosen the inevitable isolation that would follow. Stolas knew his daughter too well; she had taken after him in more than appearance, and a day would come when Stella found things to criticize about her. She would wake up one day and look around and realize how little she had in common with the people around her, and she, too, would be so trapped.
"She thinks," he cried, struggling through the words, "she thinks I threw away everything — that I threw her away — for this — that I chose all of this —"
"You didn't."
His feathers puffed up at the suddenness, the firmness, of Blitzø's response. How did he not see?
"I did. I — I chose to divorce her mother. I chose to see you. I chose to go to that trial, to destroy her life, to... to..." The hoarseness of his own voice had Stolas pausing to take a sip of his drink, and he felt so childish, a grown man throwing a fit and drinking his lemonade from a rainbow cup with a twirly straw.
Somehow, Blitzø did not laugh at him.
The imp watched him carefully, sitting in silence until Stolas could put the cup down between his legs once more. Then —
"Did you choose to be gay?"
"No," Stolas answered immediately. He had tried. He had tried so damn hard to make himself like women, to fall in love with Stella, to at least love her the way he imagined loving a friend, but it had been impossible.
"Did you wake up one morning and be like —" Blitzø put on his ridiculous impression of Stolas' voice, the one that always made him want to laugh. "Oh, cheerio. You know what sounds like a spot of fun? Destroying my marriage!"
Stolas snorted at the ridiculousness of it all, but he had to shake his head once more. "No."
"Did you choose to fall for this hot piece of ass?"
"Lucifer, Blitzø —"
"Did you?"
His fingers found the collar around his throat, and Stolas shook his head. He did not need to answer that one.
"So," Blitzø said, taking Stolas' free hand and squeezing it, "let's get some shit straight. You didn't choose who you are. You chose what to do about it."
"Exactly —"
"No, not exactly. You're still making it sound like you chose all this shit to hurt her. You chose not to pretend. Not to lie to her. Not to lie to yourself. Could you have picked to stick around twenty more years?"
Though he knew it was a rhetorical question, Stolas nodded. Yes, he could have. He should have. The only complicating factor was knowing that if he had stayed, Blitzø would no longer be around, and the choice had never been an impossible one, but it would never be a painless one.
"Would you have been happy?"
He shook his head. He had never been happy in that palace. Octavia had been the only thing that made it possible to get through each day.
"Could you have been happy some of the time?"
Stolas hesitated. There had been glimpses of happiness when it was only him and Octavia around, but every memory seemed to end with the sound of a plate shattering or Stella screaming his name. Once more, he shook his head.
"Would you have ever been happy?"
His cheek stung. It was strange how the last six months had brought back phantom twinges, as though his nerves had gotten used to some sensations and could not believe that it had been so long since he had last felt them. Even working in a business full of assassins, where they dealt with angry clients each week, no one had laid a finger on him since Andrealphus had on Sinsmas.
Once more, he shook his head.
Blitzø studied his face as though he could see every phantom bruise rising above his feathers. Then his gaze turned back to the festival.
They could not see much from where they sat, but Stolas could still hear the quiet hum of music and laughter. A family walked past — two women swinging a toddler between their arms, laughing at his excited shriek. Everyone looked so bright and shiny with their rainbows and trans pride flags and a hundred other colors.
"Everyone thinks Pride's about runnin' around half-naked, all decked out in rainbows."
Stolas self-consciously glanced down at himself. Though he had preened his feathers just last night with Blitzø's assistance, he felt disheveled where the mesh top had caught on them, pushing them askew. More than that, he felt ridiculous, crying in his skimpy outfit while everyone was having fun.
"I am half-naked."
"And you look hot as fuck," Blitzø said without hesitation. "But what I mean is — nobody's out here celebrating that they're gay, you know?"
He did not know. From everything Loona had explained and all of the stories Moxxie and Millie had told him, he had assumed that was the point of the festival: to celebrate one's sexuality or gender, to be around others of similar identities, to feel pride, as the name implied.
"They're not?"
"Nah." Blitzø shook his head. "Being gay is like being an imp or being a bird. It's just shit you were born with. No one's out there celebrating that they got bigger horns or darker hair, you know?"
Blitzø tucked himself close to Stolas' side so that they could both watch the edge of the festival. He squeezed Stolas' hand hard, grounding him as he gestured at the park.
"We're celebrating that we finally stopped apologizing for it."
Another bout of laughter rose above the din, and Stolas wondered about everyone else at the festival. It had been easy to feel jealous of them all for being out and proud of themselves — but had they all struggled to get there? Amid the crowds of young, confident people, he had seen older demons. Were there some who had figured things out later in life than he had? Were they looking at him with jealousy, wishing they had figured it out when he had?
Perhaps everyone there had mourned different years.
All he wanted to do was apologize to Octavia. He had drafted letter after letter, trying to find the words, and so many of them came back to the same conclusion: I am sorry that I could not be who everyone wanted me to be.
"I hurt her."
"Yeah," Blitzø whispered, and the immediate agreement stung, but Stolas knew it was necessary. "You did, and that sucks. But hurting someone ain't the same as betraying them."
Before he could argue about the difference, Blitzø squeezed his hand, distracting him.
"You want Via happy?"
"More than anything."
"You want her to marry someone she doesn't love?"
Stolas' heart clenched. He'd had nightmares about it. The only thing he and Stella had ever agreed on was that they would not force her into the same situation they had once been in, but with him gone, he did not know how long that promise would stand.
"No."
"You want her waking up every morning next to someone who hates her?"
"Of course not —"
"You want her getting slapped around and insulted until her self-esteem's in the shitter? Until she feels bad for even existing?"
"Blitzø, stop —"
"Then why the fuck do you deserve any of that, Stolas?"
He had no response. When Blitzø put it so bluntly, there was no room to argue against any of it. Somehow, it became so much simpler than it was in Stolas' mind, where that pain was wrapped up in duty and obligation and fatherhood, where he had been bred to follow the rules and never step out of line.
Stolas glanced down at the fan in his lap. The collar pressed against his throat, and the cool breeze ruffled his borrowed clothing. He was a mosaic of things his family had given him that day, all things to celebrate the very thing he had been told to quash down and ignore. And as comfortable as it all felt, he still caught himself wondering if he looked like someone pretending.
"I thought Pride was supposed to be about being proud."
Blitzø smiled. Hopeful. "It is."
"Yet... I'm not."
"Not yet." Blitzø lifted Stolas' knuckles to his lips and kissed them. "And that's okay. You're here. That's how it starts."
He had been starting a great many things as of late. Life outside of the palace was filled with routines — waking up, taking his medication, preening, struggling through breakfast and going to work. They had been exhausting at the beginning as he acclimated to moving through his sluggish haze. Now, though, there was a reliability to the routine that helped him feel a bit more alive each day. He was no longer a prince, but he was someone who could help around the apartment and complete his work. He was no longer a husband, but he could spend time with his friends and feel fulfilled. He was no longer a father, in some ways, but he could bond with Loona and learn how to treat a grown child.
If learning to feel proud was another routine to master, then he could do it.
Stolas sipped his lemonade until it was down to the ice. Then he carefully pulled his way out of Blitzø's grasp to stand, fingertips trailing over his collar to ensure it was still in place.
Clack!
He opened the fan with a flourish, eyes set towards the festival. Beside him, Blitzø climbed to his feet.
"May we go back?"
Blitzø studied him. "You sure?"
Stolas smiled. The expression did not take over his face, but it felt genuine. He gave the fan a little wave and gently tapped at his eyelids, hoping he could salvage some of the eyeshadow.
"Yes," he said, voice firm. For the first time in his life, the word pride did not feel like it belonged to other people. "I believe... I would like to celebrate."