Chapter Text
Blitzø
Blitzø couldn’t remember getting to the hospital.
Everything was a blur, coated in inky black and the revolting relief that came with every scream and cry of pain from Stolas because those heartbreaking sounds meant that he was alive. Asmodeus, big purple cockhead that he was, had been the fuckin’ hero of the hour because Blitzø couldn’t do dick other than keep his own damn self from breaking down.
He couldn’t bring himself to be grateful, not even for the King Cock’s intervention when those snobby pricks in Sloth tried to keep the filthy imp from Stolas’ bedside because it shouldn’t have fucking happened. He shouldn’t have let himself get jumped by those mafia dickholes. Stolas shouldn’t have come after him. He shouldn’t have gotten so distracted by Fizz. Crimson’s bitch ass shouldn’t have had blessed bullets.
Fuck.
Selfish, stupid bastard that he was, Blitzø had been enjoying himself.
It was a fun goddamn fight and Fizz was smiling and their baggage was out there for the first time and his beautiful birdie was so fucking strong when he swooped in to save him, so in control of that thing inside him. Of himself. Even Barbie had been... well, if not nice then at least talking to him! He finally felt like maybe —maybe— things were moving in the right direction.
In Blitzø’s world that was a good fuckin’ day.
Right up to the point when it became the second worst day of his wretched fucking life.
At his best, his stupid brain was still a minefield of dark memories and even darker fears. At his worst...
And if Stolas... if he...
Fuuuuuuuuck!
Stolas couldn’t. Like literally, right? He’s a fuckin’ Prince, a Goetia, an immortal Eldritch horror that Blitzø could barely wrap his little horned head around. No goddamn way that some shitstain like Moxxie’s bitch ass dad could take out someone like that. He had little faith in the idea of ‘fairness’ or whatever, but still. It was impossible.
Unthinkable.
There was no world without Stolas in it. It just couldn’t be.
Scarred skin taut over his knuckles, Blitzø clung to the part of Stolas’ taloned hand that wasn’t all wires and tubes and did the unthinkable. He prayed. He prayed to anyone who would listen.
Satan. Lucifer. Mama. Please, please, please.
Not him.
“Sir?”
Something in Moxxie’s voice, a slight tremor somewhere between exasperated and concerned, said that this was not the first time he’d tried to get Blitzø’s attention. He lifted his head and the stiffness in his shoulders and surprising weight of his horns implied that he’d been in the same position for a long goddamn while. Fuck, what time even was it?
Blitzø’s brain slowly rebooted and responsibility slapped him square in the face right along with the pressing need of his bladder.
“The girls,” he said, his voice weak and airy. Distant to his own ears, like it was coming from the next room over. “Shit, I gotta—” He patted his pockets. No keys. And when had he put a shirt on? Whose hoodie was this?
One glance down at the glittery pink text on his chest reading ‘bussy magnet’ answered that question. Fizz, obviously.
“B, you should stay.” Millie squeezed his sore shoulder and Blitzø’s knees buckled. One hand against the hospital bed to steady himself, he looked from Millie’s face down to the shitty cup of coffee she was shoving at him. “He needs you right now.”
“She’s right. Let us go, Sir.”
“I—” The words died on his tongue, silenced by sheer terror. What was he supposed to say to Via? How was he supposed to apologize for causing this?
Last time no one was willing to listen. This time he didn’t know what to say even if they did.
“Please, Blitzø.” Moxxie’s voice was so surprisingly firm that Blitzø was hauled from his own dark thoughts to look quizzically at the smaller imp. It was like looking in a mirror. “Let me do something. This is all my—”
Oh, Hell fuckin’ no. That can’t stand.
“Moxx, if you never listen to me again I need you to listen right the fuck now.” He grabbed a handful of Moxxie’s waistcoat and pulled him close enough that Blitzø could press his forehead right against Moxxie’s. “That dickhole blowing a load in your mom a couple of decades ago doesn’t mean shit. It sure as fuck doesn’t mean you’re responsible for his dipshit actions. You’re a victim, too. One of a fuckton, I’m guessing. Stolas was just-just his last.” Blitzø’s voice cracked at the end but there was a hollow satisfaction in the realization that yes, Crimson was dead.
“That’s... gross. But,” Moxxie hesitated a moment before throwing his arms around Blitzø and hugging him tightly, “thank you.”
Blitzø brought his arms up on autopilot, squeezing Moxxie until he squeaked out the rest of the air in his lungs and then squeezing a little tighter just because. When he released the little imp, Moxxie was gasping and there were tears in his eyes. They both jumped back, leaving an awkward foot of silence between them as Millie tapped her foot impatiently.
“Fine. Go get my kids.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Via
“You good, baby bird?” Russ handed her a plastic cup full of something shimmering gold and noxiously sweet smelling. The aroma hit Via along with a surge of memory-induced nausea. She had learned her lesson about Beezlejuice last time, thankyouverymuch, and had no intention of overindulging.
“Me?” Via looked up from her cup and tilted her head, large eyes blinking rapidly. “Oh, I’m fine.”
Russ grunted, leaning back against the wall next to her and sipping his own drink. “Not your vibe I’m guessing.” Via just shrugged as the afterparty raged around them. The parade had been overstimulating to an uncomfortable degree; this wasn't that. This was overwhelming in an entirely different way. Beelzebub’s hive-like mansion was undeniably impressive, even for someone who had grown up anesthetized to wealth and grandeur. She barely remembered the last time she was here but the warm, buzzing feeling that filled the place was just the same. If only that was a comfort.
Without the haze of alcohol, Via had never felt more out of place as she did here.
“Not gonna dance?” Russ teased, pointing at a group of hounds thrashing to upbeat, poppy music courtesy of their host. A recording, of course, seeing as how the host in question’s mouth was occupied, full as it was of Loona’s tongue currently.
Via shook her head vehemently. “I’m good.” The silence settled and it quickly became clear that Russ wasn’t leaving. Via huffed softly, peering over at him through her feathers. “It’s like... I want to be invited but not included. I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”
“Nah. It makes a lot more sense than you’d think.” Russ took another drink and gestured to the torrent of bodies that seemed almost choreographed, flowing and crashing together before pulling apart with gleeful laughter. “This kinda thing stresses me the fuck out, man. Like everyone knows exactly how to behave, even when they’re acting like idiots.”
“You are an idiot.” Via rolled her eyes, not unkindly.
“Sure, but a chill idiot,” he quipped.
“Then why do you come?”
“I’m a hound.” Russ shrugged this time, smiling dopily at her before puffing on the slim vape stick in his free hand. “We do better in a pack. It’s a stupid stereotype that happens to be totally true. These are my people.”
Via’s eyes drifted over to the comically large s-shaped sofa where Loona, Sallie May, and Beelzebub had taken up residence. Vortex was nearby, embroiled in conversation and seemingly completely fine with letting the girls have their fun. Millie’s sister straddled Loona’s hips where she sat, nuzzling into the hound’s neck as Loona was pulled into another heated kiss by the Sin next to them. Via bit the proverbial bullet and downed a gulp of Beezlejuice.
“Well, Loona certainly seems to have found hers,” she said, more sourly than intended. It wasn’t that she was jealous (ew) or even really upset. She was glad for Loona, glad to see her cut loose and feel accepted like this. To see her open herself up to happiness. To see her guard lowered, if only a little bit.
But perhaps that was the crux of her unease. Via wanted the same acceptance, on her terms.
She heard her mother’s voice then, shrill and scornful, reminding her of her selfish obstinance and how terribly inconvenient it was. How terribly inconvenient she was. Before she could slide down her usual spiral of resentment she imagined another voice.
This one told the first voice to ‘shut her fucking cakehole’. Via blurted out a surprised laugh, stunned by her own thoughts and the shape they took— Blitzø’s.
“You’re her pack, too, y’know.” Russ bumped her with one thick arm, knocking the slim owl off balance and then righting her with his hand immediately. “Legit, I’ve never seen her smile as much as she does with you. I think ‘big sister’ is her calling.”
“We’re not...” But weren’t they? She had often thought of Loona in such terms, even if her knee-jerk reaction was to correct the assumption. And Blitzø... he wasn’t her dad, but he was something. A friend. A protector. A shockingly kindred spirit. The source of her dad’s joy. Her step-asshole. “I mean, not officially.”
“This isn’t Satan’s fancy-pants court, baby bird. We don’t have titles and shit to worry about.” Russ pushed back his curls for just a moment, exposing warm red eyes. “If you love each other the way you guys do, you’re family. Which makes you part of our family, too. We love Loona, so we love you. It’s not that complicated.”
“You barely know me,” she scoffed to hide the way her tone warbled.
Russ blew a raspberry, his thick, slobbery canine tongue flapping hilariously between his fangs. “Come on. I know that you like beetles on your pizza —fucking gnarly, by the way— and that you drink hot coffee, even in the summer. You have kick ass taste in music and terrible taste in TV and you don’t know the rules to like any board game except chess, which I still say totally does not count as a board game, and that you play guitar but never in front of people.”
Via chirped in surprise. She felt oddly exposed and her first instinct was to wrap her arms around herself and slink away but something about Russ’ gentle teasing inflection made her resist that compulsion. “How in all of the Hells do you know all of that? Some of it, sure, but I’ve never told you about my guitar or drank coffee with you or-”
“Loona talks about you a lot.” Russ puffed on his vape again, exhaling away from Via’s face. “So yeah, I know you well enough. Learning the rest just gives me something to look forward to.”
There it was.
Acceptance, without question or condition. Uncomplicated, earnest, and utterly disarming. She’d made a new friend today, on her terms... or perhaps already had one and just didn’t realize it. Via felt unmoored, completely at a loss for what to do with all of that and settled for the safety of sarcastic sass. “Chess is empirically a board game.”
“Bruh, chess is so not a board game.”
Via pushed her feathers back over her shoulder. “Chess is a game. Played on a board.”
“Chess is something smart people play to prove they’re smart to other smart people.”
“And so what is the point of Mammopoly, then?”
“To fuck over your friends and take their shit, obviously,” Russ grinned. “Plus, how do you turn chess into a drinking game?”
“I’m actually quite certain I’ve never seen my uncle play without drinking...” Then again, she hadn’t seen Uncle Andre do much without a martini in his hand.
“Octavia...?” Her head swiveled a hundred or so degrees to see Loona standing with her hands clasped and her tail low to the ground. Beelzebub was in a similar state behind her, a soft whine slipping from her nostrils as she squeezed Loona’s shoulder. But neither of them had been the source of her name. She followed the voice down to a familiar set of striped horns and stark white hair.
“Moxxie? What are you doing here?” The imp stood in front of Loona, almost too small to see in the thick crowd, though once she was looking Via quickly found Millie with her sister nearby as well. Had they stayed out past curfew? She wasn’t sure what time it was but it couldn’t be that late. Then again, they had been here a while... had her dad really sicced his bestie on them?! “Look, you can tell dad and Blitzø that I’m fine this time! I don’t need a babysitter. I haven’t even—”
“No, I’m not-” Moxxie’s high voice wavered and he reached up, sandwiching one of Via’s hands between both of his. “It’s your dad.”
Blitzø
“This is all your fault!” Via screeched, a ripple of untapped power shooting across the room and rattling the equipment hooked into Stolas on either side of his bed. The machines kept beeping steadily, a comforting boop-boop-boop that meant Stolas was still alive. Blitzø had learned to love that sound over the past few hours.
“I know, kiddo. I know.” It was always his fault. “I know. I am so fuckin’ sorry, sweetie. So sorry.” She beat her fists on his chest and goddamn that shit hurt but Blitzø just held her tight until her words turned to hiccuping breaths and eventually dissolved into sobs. Her taloned hands grasped the front of his borrowed glittery hoodie and she crumpled into him, holding on like he was the only thing keeping her upright when the reality was just the opposite.
Blitzø could keep his shit together. Barely. He could be strong. For them, his girls. That was the only thing keeping him together.
He drew a shaky breath. “He’s gonna be okay, Via. He is.” He squeezed her tighter and she responded in kind, letting out little trilling sobs against his tear-soaked shoulder. Loona’s muzzle pressed against his cheek and he leaned into it as her arms enveloped them both and he swallowed another sob. “He is. Because he has to be.”
There was a kind of mundane ritual to hospital life. The ebb and flow of shift changes and meal times and visitor’s hours and vitals checks punctuated by the weird theatricality of rounds defined Blitzø’s days now. Every day, demons he didn’t know picked up Stolas’ chart from the foot of his bed like its contents wouldn't determine the whole of the rest of Blitzø’s life. Every day demons in white coats and oblong masks theorized and discussed, always talking over or around the imp at the Prince’s bedside.
So Blitzø listened.
He wasn’t the smartest imp, but he liked puzzles and he loved cutting through bullshit. After a few days he sussed out the truth of it: they didn’t have a fucking clue.
Stolas was in a coma and they were all clueless about why the fuck he wouldn’t wake up. There was the gunshot, sure, but even a blessed bullet once removed shouldn’t have caused this. Some of them, the ones who deigned to talk to him at all, tried to reassure him that he’d done the right thing by pulling the bullet from Stolas’ shoulder. In causing him pain. He’d done the right thing. Even if Stolas didn’t wake up, they said, he’d done everything he could.
Fuck that.
If the doctors didn’t have any answers, he’d find someone who did. He started with the only demon who knew the whole story, about Stolas’ shadow, his spell, all of it. Because no, he wasn’t the smartest imp, but this was all way too much of a fuckin’ coincidence. Vassago warned Stolas to lay off the magic and he’d done it anyway, to save Blitzø. Was this the price? Was it even more his fault than he knew?
Blitzø shook away those thoughts with a splash of cold water on his face. He hadn’t left Stolas’ bedside in a week but the least he could do for Vassago was brush his fangs and put on some deodorant if the guy was here to help, right? He emerged from the ensuite bathroom adjacent to Stolas’ hospital room, dressed in fresh clothes Loona brought him, only to find a mountain of silvery-white roses between him and Stolas’ bed.
“They weren’t lying, were they? You truly are completely checked out.” A smooth, detached, entirely too posh accent met Blitzø’s ears and his spines flitted upwards in immediate defensiveness. He knew that voice.
“Hey, Elsa! Who the fuck let you in here?” Blitzø snarled.
“Relájate, Blitzø.” Vassago stepped from behind the bouquet he’d been carrying for his boyfriend, “Andrealphus only wished to pay his respects.”
“One could make a substantive argument that I have more of a right to be here than you do, being actual family and all,” Andrealphus said with a dismissive wave of a long-fingered, satin gloved hand.
Vassago clicked his tongue against the roof of his beak. “Andre, sé amable...”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Andrealphus’ hand moved to his chest, an insincere pout pulling down the corners of his mouth on either side of his pointed beak. “King Asmodeus said that you and the clown escaped your little kidnapping unscathed. I am pleased for you. If only the same could be said for our dear Prince.”
Blitzø growled, his spines rustling, and Vassago groaned at the Marquis. He stepped between the two of them, chin lowered and gaze pointedly fixed on Andrealphus. “That is decidedly not what I meant, mi querido.”
“He’s not your ‘dear’ anything, you frigid dickhead,” Blitzø continued, undeterred. He needed somewhere to put all this fucking rage and right now the idea of breaking that smug peacock’s face was real, real appealing. “Don’t act like you give a shit about Stolas.”
“Perhaps we have not always gotten along, but he is family,” Andrealphus drawled.
“Last I checked, divorce means you two ain’t brothers anymore. Not like you ever were.”
“Blitzø, please...” Vassago pleaded, sounding as exhausted as Blitzø felt. “Both of you, this isn’t helping.”
“He is a Goetia. That has meaning that I don’t expect someone like you to understand.” Andrealphus sniffed, beak in the air. “An attack on one of us is an attack on us all.”
“That’s a fuckin’ riot!” Blitzø had never felt less like laughing, though. “You stand here with your flowers and your fuckin’ smug ass smile like your bitch sister isn’t the one responsible!”
“I’m sorry, do you know something that I don’t?” Andrealphus masked his surprise well, but it was there in the slight widening of his cyan eyes. “I was under the impression that an imp shot him. An imp related to one of your employees, I believe. Don’t worry, King Asmodeus has somehow kept that fact out of the press.”
“Fuck off.” Blitzø balled his hands into fists until they ached, desperate to plant themselves right in his little bitch ass face. “That crusty feathered gash you call a sister did this shit!”
Andrealphus smoothed down the front of his gown. Blitzø clocked the gesture as an anxious one; the peacock didn’t know what to do with his hands. He’d held enough guns on enough people to know exactly what someone staring down the barrel looks like. “Stella assures me that she wasn’t involved.”
So he asked, huh? Interesting. “Like she wasn’t involved on the hit in Wrath?”
“The— I’m sorry, what now?”
Blitzø stomped his foot in frustration. Even Vassago looked incredulous, gazing at Andrealphus skeptically as he made his way to Stolas’ side. “Christ on a fuckin’ stick, don’t act like you don’t know! Even your cereal mascot boy toy knows the truth! You’re the brains in that fucked up family. I’ll bet hiring Striker was your idea.”
Andrealphus beak parted before a short, disbelieving laugh slipped free. “Stella actually hired someone to kill Stolas? I didn’t think she had the willpower to follow through, truthfully.”
“No, she hired someone to kill me.” Blitzø took a step closer, assessing how quickly he could get a few swings in before Vassago inevitably squashed the fight with his annoying little sparkle magic.
“Oh.” Andrealphus seemed to relax a fraction. “Well, that's hardly surprising.”
“Fuck off!” Blitzø repeated, with a lot more feeling this time.
“You did sleep with her husband, you know...”
“Hired whom?” Vassago interjected, his fingers gently stroking the feathers on Stolas’ arm around the intravenous tubes.
“Huh?”
“You said that Stella hired this ‘Striker’, ¿verdad? Could he have been responsible for this as well? In league with that mafioso, perhaps? You were the kidnapping target, after all,” the parrot said calmly.
“Well, first of all Fizz was the target.” Blitzø wanted to bite off Vassago’s hand and spit it back at him for touching Stolas. “But no, it wasn’t Striker. Stolas ate him.”
“Convenient,” Andrealphus scoffed.
“Like fuck it was!” Blitzø shoved past the Marquis and moved to Stolas’ side, standing between the bed and Andrealphus. “Where the fuck did Crimson get those blessed bullets?!”
Andrealphus rolled his eyes. “They’re a dime a dozen in Pentagram City.”
“If by ‘dime’ you mean ten grand...”
“Well, you don’t skimp when you're killing a Prince of Hell.” Andrealphus looked like he was inspecting his talons, though he was still wearing gloves. “Aren’t you an assassin?”
“Nah, you didn’t skimp didja?” Blitzø’s voice went cold and hard and Andrealphus’ flared in response, high and full of anger.
“I didn’t kill him!”
“No one killed him!” Vassago snapped. “Unless you’ve both forgotten, Stolas is still very much alive. Y está escuchando.”
Blitzø felt like he’d been punched in the gut. One of them, at least, seemed to remember why they were there. Still, Blitzø had to have the last word. He pointed up at Andrealphus, his hand shaking with all of the effort of his restraint. “If I find out you had anything to do with this...”
“Go on, you wretched little thing.” Andrealphus’ plumage rustled, tail fanning out as the temperature in the room took an alarming nosedive. “Finish that sentence.”
“Andrealphus.” Vassago’s voice was surprisingly firm. Apparently he did have the balls to put his foot down every once in a while. “You’ve paid your respects. Leave me to it, cariño. I won’t be long.”
“Fine.” Andrealphus smoothed back his crest and straightened his tiara. “Enjoy the flowers.”
Stolas
The darkness had a flavor.
That was the first conscious thought that Stolas could remember. The thick, cloying nothing that surrounded him tasted acrid, like burnt toast and overboiled eggs. Ash and sulfur.
Stolas had spent his entire life in Hell but never until this moment had he felt damned.
Alone in the dark with nothing but his thoughts was empirically the worst possible place that he could be. The last time he’d felt this kind of despair, he’d reached for his grimoire out of desperation to change his fate. And Lucifer it had worked! He’d gotten everything he ever wanted, the family and home he’d yearned for, a purpose in his daily work. Happiness. Contentment. Love.
It couldn’t last forever, he supposed. Not when he was so undeserving.
Stolas didn’t know exactly how long he remained frozen in the dark, weighed down by his own unfettered thoughts. Time was meaningless. His body —he still had one, he checked— didn’t seem to have needs anymore. He tried holding his breath and his lungs didn’t even ache. There were no pangs of hunger, no need to sleep (if he was even awake to begin with). Perhaps this was just the longest, dullest dream ever? A nightmare where the true horror was the unchanging consistency of it all, so much like his old life. Day after day of the same.
An even deeper Hell for those truly deserving. A place for irredeemably useless, selfish demons like himself.
Oh lords.
Was he... dead?
The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning and Stolas sat up for the first time since he’d awoken in the dark.
Via. Loona. Blitzø.
No. He was alive, and he needed to stay that way. His body moved fluidly with none of the stiffness one would expect from laying curled up around his own despair for days on end. He blinked to ensure that his eyes were open, holding up a hand in front of his face. Not even the crimson glow of his eyes could penetrate the darkness. Stolas felt around, assessing just what he had been laying on. It was smooth and cool, like marble. He felt no seams or edges as he began to crawl, just the same slick surface in every direction. No landmarks, no way to navigate. He looked up, or at least he thought it was up, and saw more blackness. No stars. He was inside... but inside what exactly?
He crawled for days or minutes or years, one hand in front of the other, knees gliding across the floor rhythmically with no actual destination in mind, no thought other than that he needed to get out. He needed to see his girls, to see Blitzø. He needed to live.
Music. Stolas could hear music. Thin and reedy, the sustained note drifted on the nonexistent breeze from Stolas’ left. Familiar flute music and an equally familiar Voice, somehow both his own and utterly completely not.
Shadows... Darkness...
“Yes, very helpful,” Stolas snarked, the first actual sound he had made since he woke up, and slowly turned towards the music.
Madness.
“Given that I am talking to myself inside a terrifying black void? Yes, I think we’re well on our way.” He crawled with purpose now, called to action by that flute.
Chaos. Serenity. Nothing.
Death.
“No, I don’t think so.” Stolas crawled just a little faster. “Not yet, thank you.”
Submit.
“No.”
Submit!
“Fuck. Off.” He was scrambling now, talons making an ear-splitting screech as they scrabbled over the smooth floor. It was reassuring. Real. He was here and he was moving and he was going to get out. He was going to make it out.
No, you aren’t. You’re never going to see her again... You’ll never see any of them again.
“Fuck off!”
The shadowy Voice became a screeching peal of laughter, one all too familiar.
You aren’t fit to be a father.
“Stella.”
Worthless. Useless. Pathetic.
“You’re one to talk,” he said bravely, ignoring the way his guts twisted.
You left me.
Stolas froze, head whipping around in the dark. “Via?”
You left me alone. You’re gone and I’m all alone.
“No, sweetheart I would never! I-” Stolas shook his head. “What the seven bloody hells am I doing? You aren’t here. I am not mad!”
Yes, but I think we’re well on our way.
It was his voice again. His own, or rather his Shadow’s. The mocking lilt throwing his words back at him was almost a comfort, even if it was profoundly confusing.
“You know darling, I thought we’d come to an understanding.” He kept moving, shuffling as quickly as his limbs could manage on the slick floor. The flute was growing louder. “We both love Blitzø. We protected him, together.”
Ours.
Mine.
Mine.
The floor beneath him turned to smoke and the sudden drop was enough to make him grateful he didn’t have anything on his stomach. Stolas fell for ages, long enough that his voice went hoarse and his surprised screeching stopped. Long enough that he no longer tried to access his magic or even flail his arms to arrest his fall. Long enough that he had given up.
And there was ground beneath his knees again, soft and plush and somehow familiar. A rug. His rug. And there was light! Red light streaming through stained glass windows. Candlelight, warm and flickering. His eyes burned as he adjusted to actually using them; even so it took him but a moment to recognize just where he was. The palace. His bedroom. All of the trappings of the life he’d left behind surrounded him, down to the ermine-lined cape over his shoulders and the crowned hat atop his head.
“Ah, you made it.” The Shadow. The Voice. It was... him. Just him. “Welcome. It certainly did take you long enough,” the Other Stolas sassed, sipping from an overly full glass of rich red wine and lounging on the mattress in his favorite robe.
Stolas picked himself up, brushing off the front of his royal finery and plucking the hat from the top of his head. “Yes, well. I’ll try to fall faster in the future.” He sat the hat to the side, eyes flicking around the room looking for anything out of the ordinary. Something deep in his gut told him that nothing had changed. The pervasive taste of ash and sulfur were still there. This was just another kind of darkness. “Who are you, then? Some... manifestation of my subconscious? My magic?”
“My word, do I overthink things this much?” Other Stolas sat up, draining his glass and then letting it float off to the end table with a wiggle of his fingers. Of course this Stolas had his magic while Real Stolas was shit out of fucking luck. Bloody wonderful. “No, my gorgeous little fool. I am no more or less than what I appear to be. I am you.” He stood up and gestured to himself, striking a pose.
Okay, I am not this dramatic. “See, I have a hard time with that concept because, well, I am me. You understand the confusion.”
“You’re one of you, certainly.” Other Stolas walked differently. Confidently, head high and shoulders back. He moved with grace, like all of those lessons in dance and poise had actually born fruit. “There are countless realities, Stolas. You should know that... you certainly have taken advantage of the fact. You naughty thing, you.”
The spell. “I don’t understand,” Real Stolas stammered.
“I think you do.” Other Stolas clicked his tongue, stepping closer and letting his fingers drag over Real Stolas’ shoulders as he walked a slow circle around him. “I think you knew the moment you cast that spell. I think you knew precisely what you were doing. You needed to know if things could have been different. If you and Blitzø were doomed from the start, to free yourself of your self-loathing. Well, here’s your answer.” With a snap of his fingers they were surrounded by mirrors, or rather pieces of them. Shards of glass floating in the air, each one bearing a reflection of something that wasn’t there. Of him. Of Blitzø.
Over and over and over again, images of them together. Laughing, crying, holding one another, kissing, making love. Them playing as children, Stolas drying Blitzø’s eyes as Loona tried on her wedding dress, them both cheering as Via accepted her diploma, Stolas strapped to the bed as Blitzø crawled over him with a grin, them eating ice cream as old men, performing in the circus together, Stolas laying flowers on Blitzø’s grave. A hundred lifetimes, well lived.
“In every reality, in every timeline, there you two are. Sometimes friends, sometimes lovers, sometimes partners, but always and invariably: soulmates.” Other Stolas dragged his talons over the surface of one of the mirrors, tracing the outline of Blitzø’s lips just before they crashed into Stolas’ beak in a heated kiss. “It’s quite touching, really. And maddening.”
Stolas was at a loss for words as everything began to slot into place. He hadn’t time traveled, had he? He’d co-opted someone else’s reality.
“Mmmhmm, I see those gears turning and you’re quite right. You cheater, you hopped right over to another timeline to answer your own question.” Other Stolas moved to another piece of glass, one that framed a different Stolas and Blitzø as they danced together on the balcony of Blitzø’s apartment. Stolas watched that version of himself laugh at something Blitzø said, dipped low over the balcony railing before being pulled up chest to chest. The couple shared a tense, loaded moment before Blitzø pulled that Stolas into a warm hug.
“This is your Blitzø and the Stolas you... relocated. As you can see, patience would have answered your question just fine. In every timeline you and Blitzø have one another.” The room, or whatever this was that he found himself in, went dark once more. Stolas felt familiar despair sink back in. A single shard remained and in it he could see Blitzø seated at his office desk with his phone in his hand, a sight he’d witnessed countless times before.
Only this Blitzø seemed... distraught. Angry, perhaps. No, not angry. Disgusted.
Afraid.
“—like a FUCKING baby!” He heard his own voice, or rather this Stolas’ voice just before the Blitzø behind the glass hung up his phone, a haunted look in his eyes. He smashed his phone to bits with an anguished whine before tossing it into a blender and putting his face in his hands.
“Every time, but one... Mine.”