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The most fucking embarrassing part of all this bullshit is how fucking stupid he was.
Because look, the number one rule of being in the assassination business is that you're reeeeal fucking unlikely to live until you're old and shriveled. Setting aside the fact that imps are basically Hell's cannon fodder, the competition is fucking fierce, and ever since the trial, I.M.P.'s got a handful of copycat-wannabes trying to muscle in on their territory. Plus, you never know when a client is gonna get pissy about a job not being done 100000% to their specifications and try to schedule a hit on YOU instead. So really, the truth is that Blitzø has never expected to live to the creaky old geriatric phase.
(Well, okay, he kiiiiinda sorta has, a little bit, in recent months. Not really hard, and not really deep, but just a little. And if you think that it coincides with a bullshit trial and an unexpected new feathery roommate? Then fuuuuck you.)
But even though he's never really thought about living to old age, he'd at least expected things to be more... y'know, fucking badass. Like, maybe he gets to heroically throw Loona to safety right before a building explodes, or maybe he and Satan have a duel to the death and he gets to give that giant blazing asshole all the grief he's ever given out. Maybe he'd get into a dramatic shootout with a... with like a fucking Exorcist or something, and with his death he'd finally kick those shitty winged bastards out of Hell forever. Shit like that.
Not this, though. Not because of some fucking stupid bar fight, because some shitty little punk thought he was hot shit and wanted to show off to his equally shitty friends.
The smart thing to do would've been to wait for backup, because Millie was supposed to be meeting him soon, but then one of them had to go and make a shitty comment about Loona, and it was ON.
To give himself some credit, he did in fact kick that punk's ass so hard he'd also never be getting up again, but fuck. Fuuuuck. How fucking embarrassing to have missed the asshole's knife until it was actually going into his guts. Turns out, all the jokes that he and Barb and Fizz used to have as kids, about him having an iron stomach that could take everything? Pure bullshit.
Blitzø's not HAPPY to be fucking dead, but also like--fuck, he'd never have lived that shit down.
Though that's assuming anyone even finds out. See again the whole bullshit about imps being Hell's cannon fodder--even with his new fame, it's equally likely that his body's gonna get dropkicked into the street for the cleaners to sweep up. It could be fucking months before anyone even noticed--
No, says a voice in the back of his head, which sounds a whole fucking lot like his own. You moron, you've got a whole fucking family that's gonna be losing their minds about this, do NOT let them find you dead with a fucking knife in your fucking guts.
And like, he's spent his whole entire fucking life disappointing people and letting them down, but he's working on that. He likes to think he's done a pretty fucking good job, even, though he's only been a turnaround king for a little bit. Moxxie's only threatened to quit like once! Stolas laughs at his jokes again, without that haunted hesitation that's been dogging him for months.
--Fuck, he's FINALLY got Loona calling him "Dad" full-time, can he really punk out after only a few months?
It's that thought, more than anything, that makes Blitzø grit his teeth and drag himself out of the way of the bar brawl still going on all around him, and to grope in his pocket for his phone. Everything is growing fuzzy and dark, and he knows with grim certainty that it's a fucking bad sign.
But if nothing else, he wants to send an apology--to Loona and to Stolas. It's not going to be enough to make up for the shit he's about to pull, but he wants them to know he isn't doing this on purpose. He doesn't actually want to fucking run away, it's just his janky-ass body that is pulling this shit. (Fucking rude, if you ask him.)
His hand shakes as he taps on his messages. He isn't even sure who he's texting, or if it even makes any fucking sense, but he does his best:
I'm sorry. I love you. I didn't mean to.
The phone slips from his numb fingers, and he snarls briefly at himself. Fuck. He hopes he made it through to someone.
But it'd just be his fucking luck to mess this up too, wouldn't it?
He's not sure what happens next.
What it feels like is that one second, he's sitting slumped against the wall of the shitty dive bar waiting for the end, and then he's--here.
Wherever the fuck "here" is.
It kind of reminds him of the family tent from the circus, years ago--the one that had been for Blitzø and Barb and Fizz and technically his parents, though his momma had kept a separate space for when she had her health flareups, and his old man...
Anyway, the walls are fabric, slanting in overhead, and there's a big stitched patch on one. There's a rug under his feet, worn in more places than its not, with a familiar pattern of staining. He digs the toe of one boot against the largest. Even dedicated scrubbing hadn't gotten the ketchup stains out, and he'd been banned from squeezy bottles after that.
Huh. If he didn't know any better, this place really was--
"Looooook who's here," a voice says behind him, all long and drawn-out, and Blitzø feels his blood turn to fucking ice. His heart kicks into sudden fucking overdrive, which feels pretty fucking rude to do to a dead man.
Fuck--in all honesty, all of this is fucking rude to do to a dead man, even one as shitty as him.
Because he knows that voice. He's known it his whole fucking life, even if it's been fifteen years since he last heard it for real. He hears it often enough in his worst nightmares, and if he had lived to being a wrinkled bag of bones, he doesn't think he'd ever forget it.
"Well?" The tone goes sharper, higher, and Blitzø flinches before he can stop himself. "You got any fucking thing to say for yourself, boy?"
Blitzø grits his teeth and turns around to look his old man in the face for the first time in years.
To his vague surprise, the old shitbag doesn't look exactly as Blitzø remembers him. The little wisp of his goatee is longer but scragglier: just a few dozen shorthairs, barely clinging on. One of his horns now has a giant crack running through it, and the tip (just the tip! he thinks with something like hysteria, which is fucking wrong because that's a Stolas thing, a Moxxie thing, not a Blitzø thing) broken off. There are entire fucking luggage sets under his eyes, and his skin hangs loose, yellow at the edges.
He looks--
"You look like fucking shit, old man."
"Hah!" Cash spits, a wet gross lump of something that hits the ground in front of Blitzø's feet. He squints bloodshot watery eyes and then grins. It looks more like a snarl than anything, and it's the kind of shit that still periodically haunts Blitzø's nightmares. "Think you're lookin' so hot yourself, you piece of shit? Think that because you're playing big businessman, you're any better than me?"
"I am," he snaps, because he just can't fucking help it. Give him an inch, and his stupid shitty mouth runs the fuck away from him. "At least no one who works for me worries about starving, or--"
He blinks, and suddenly Cash is right in his face. The old man's breath stinks of alcohol and rot. It's fucking weird. There's a part of Blitzø that always assumed Cash would be able to live forever, just because he'd fucking pickle himself with all the booze.
But here they are: both dead, both in whatever Hell comes after Hell.
"Yeah?" Cash says. His tone is deliberately mean, high and sharp and ready to go for the throat. Up close, it's impossible to miss how bloodshot his eyes are. "You fucking think that's real? What about all that bullshit you pulled after you decided you were too good to put your dick in that blueblood?"
Blitzø flinches, because it's been fifteen years since he last saw his old man face to face, but he still hasn't learned not to. Cash pokes a thin sharp finger into Blitzø's chest, and Blitzø's face aches from a slap that hasn't happened yet.
"No one starved," he says, but his voice is weaker now. It's a fatal mistake, because Cash grins, all his teeth bared. Blitzø might as well have put a fucking target on his own throat.
"They did," Cash says, sneering, nasal, and Blitzø wonders how the fuck he could have ever thought that Stolas sounded snooty, not when he had his old man's example. "They just didn't fucking tell you, because they knew it wouldn't change anything. Me? At least I was working every fucking angle I could, for your momma and sister and your ungrateful ass." He jabs his finger into Blitzø's chest again, right over the heart. "Don't matter that I didn't always succeed. I was trying. What did you fucking do?"
Blitzø swallows. For a moment there's the ghost flavor of ice cream in the back of his throat, but all sour and acid, like it's about to come right out again, even though it's been fucking months since his crashout. "I--"
"You just watched pornography and stuffed your worthless face," Cash says. "Didn't do any jobs, didn't take any money. You just spent it. Worse than a fucking leech. Don't know where the fuck you got it from--Satan rest your poor momma's soul, she always worked so hard for you."
"I wasn't--"
"And me, too!" Cash opens his eyes wide, fake-cutesy, like he's some fucking innocent thing. "I was always trying shit to make sure there was food on the table. Tried to fucking teach you, boy, that the most important fucking thing is taking care of your family. And what'd you do?"
"I didn't," Blitzø says, and hates that he's stammering, hates that he says I didn't because it sounds like he's agreeing with the shitbag when he's trying to say he didn't do that, he'd tried, he'd fucking--
"That's right," Cash says. "You didn't. You just sat around and felt sorry for yourself. I should've known you'd turn out that way. You were worthless from the day you were born. Barbie? At least she knew how to keep her fucking balance and how to fucking play an audience. All YOU did was drag the rest of us down. Disappointed me, embarrassed everyone else..." And he leans in close, so close that his breath is like a fucking visible cloud in Blitzø's face, "let down your momma."
He whines. He can't help it. He feels fucking paralyzed, his throat locked up and his heart pounding in his chest. His whole body feels cold, vibrating like a single touch will make him shatter into a bajillion pieces.
"So no wonder you choked, when it mattered," Cash says. He tilts his head, and he smirks. "Wouldn't surprise me if that mutt of yours ends up on the euthanasia list sooner'n later. She'll never amount to much, will she? You were a shitty son. There's no way you're any better as a father."
Blitzø breathes.
And then, before he really even thinks about what the fuck he's doing, he lunges for his old man. It's not a calculated attack, or even a real one; it's just like some kind of--fucking rage, or shit. All he knows is that his vision goes deep red, and suddenly the cold and terror that had frozen him in place melts into a fury that could fucking burn whole worlds down. This one, the next one, the one he left behind--for a dark shining moment, Blitzø is fucking furious enough to destroy them all.
His hands close around Cash's neck. It's surprisingly scrawny under his fingers. They go flying and tumbling, snarling and spitting, and even though Cash thrashes and claws and slaps at Blitzø, he's surprisingly weak.
In a way, it's funny. His old man had been the fucking scariest thing of Blitzø's entire life--even more than fucking Satan at the trial, when Blitzø had been bargaining hard and fast for the lives of his family--and someone who'd seemed just... larger than life. He'd seemed invincible, untouchable, something and someone that Blitzø could never hope to beat.
Now, though, he's just a weak and sick old man, struggling and unable to free himself from Blitzø's hold on him. There's froth on his lips as he struggles, and the sight of it makes Blitzø feel good.
It's his turn to grin now, all teeth, leaning all of his weight into his hands on Cash's throat.
"Don't you say a fucking thing about my Loona," he says. "She's gonna be fucking better than you or me could even fucking DREAM of being. And she's gonna do that even with me as her dad, because she's that fucking good. Not that you'd know anything about believing in your kids, huh? You fucking--piece--of--shit--"
With each of those words, he squeezes harder and harder. His own fingers ache, but it's worth it to see the way Cash's face goes darker and darker, the way his eyes start going hazy and his struggles weaker, and holy shit, they might already be dead, but Blitzø is going to get to kill his own fucking dad--
Someone grabs his horns and yanks back. It's objectively not strong enough to pull him off if he's focused, but all of Blitzø's concentration was on the task at hand (ha ha, rimshot), so he's taken by surprise.
And then the surprise becomes shock, and a little horror, because when he looks up from his new position, head wrenched back and all, Barbie is staring down at him. All at once, it feels like all the strength just leaves him, so he's just a fucking cooked noodle as she slams him down.
"Barb?" he asks, his voice small. "Fuck, why are you here?"
"What do you think, Blitzo?" she snarls. Before Blitzø can do or say anything, she slams a foot down into the center of his chest, hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs. He chokes, because he can't do anything else, and she stares at him with the same fury he'd felt seconds before. "Don't you think you've already taken fucking enough from me?"
He can't say anything, both because he still can't breathe, and also because she's not even wrong. He's taken more from her than he has most people.
"First it was Momma." She grinds down with her heel as she says it. "And my home. I lost Auntie Dagger and old Snaggletooth too, when you fucking burned the circus down. Then my fucking agency, Blitzo. I'm allowed to make my own fucking choices."
"You were gonna kill yourself," he wheezes. "That H-8 stuff was gonna... it's bad shit, Barb."
"My fucking choices," she snarls in his face. "I chose to do that. Who the fuck are you to make that decision for me?"
"Your brother," he says. He lifts a hand, though it feels so fucking heavy, to grab her ankle. He doesn't try to pry her off, because she's earned the right to grind him under her heel, but fuck. It's been so fucking long since he's seen her--even after all this time, even a day without seeing Barbie feels like too long. He just hates the fact that he's seeing her here, and now. Even if she'd lost that smuggling job, he'd hoped--he'd wanted to believe, so fucking badly, that she'd gotten clean for real. He wanted to think she'd found something else, something better, but the fact that she's here at all is proof it didn't happen.
He's fucking dead, after all. Why else would his sister be here? And fuck, even in the best-case scenario (as fucking "best case" as anything can be about Barbie being dead too), where she's not lying rotting in some shitty back alley or something--if she has friends, none of them would know to try and contact him. If the new people in her life know about Blitzø at all, it's only as the shitty brother who ruined her life.
But even so, he clings harder to her ankle. He tries to put as much sincerity as he can into his voice, as he tells her, "I wanted to help you."
"Help me? Help me?" She laughs, wild and shaky. It's the kind of laugh that sounds like crying, or like screaming. Maybe it's both. "I've had ENOUGH of your fucking help, Blitzo. You can just fuck right off with that."
"I couldn't," he protests. "I'm your brother. I wanted--"
"What you WANTED," she sneers, "was to fucking leave me behind."
The accusation sends a shock through him. Blitzø freezes, because his brain can't put those words together. They just make no fucking sense, no matter how much he tries to replay them. "What?"
"You can fuck right off with all your talk about wanting to help me, or see me, or whatever," she says. "You wanted to run off to Greed, didn't you? Because you heard that Fizz had won Mammon's pageant and was talking to his agents. You knew Fizz was going, so you wanted to go too. Never mind that Momma wouldn't go anywhere, and I was stuck--you were just gonna fucking leave us all behind."
His eyes widen. "No, Barb, I--"
"And when Fizz turned you down, you fucking just burned the ENTIRE FUCKING CIRCUS down for it!" She bares her fangs at him, but worse than that, he sees tears in her eyes. "You really think he would've taken you with him if you did that? He loved us too! He was going to send money back so Momma and the aunties could work on upgrading shit for the circus! But nooooo, you had to be a selfish! Fucking! Piece! Of shit! Just because he didn't want you!"
"I knew," he says weakly. "I knew he wouldn't, but that's not what happened. I--"
"You were going to LEAVE me," she snarls, angry as a scalded hellcat. There's an animalistic edge to her words. "You didn't give a SINGLE fuck about me before the fire, and you sure as fuck didn't after! You were willing to fucking kill Fizz, so how the fuck do you think I'm supposed to--"
From nowhere, a hand appears and settles delicately on Barbie's shoulder. She flinches and spins to snarl, but that anger drains out of her when she sees who it is.
"Why are you here?" she asks. "You know what he fucking did."
"I do, yeah," Fizz says, and this is rapidly becoming Blitzø's worst day ever. Fizz, too? What the fuck happened? He's either with his sugardaddy or he's fucking got his own private bodyguard contingent--how the fuck did he end up here? "That's why I'm telling you to give it a break, Barb. C'mon."
He tugs at her, and she snarls and grumbles, but it's all halfhearted now. When Fizz pulls at her shoulder, she still steps back. Blitzø clutches harder at her ankle, desperate--he misses his sister so much it's like a fucking ache he's never been able to swallow down--but she still pulls away.
He's still too winded to lift his head to see what happens, but a moment later, Fizz leans back into his line of vision and offers him a hand. Blitzø seriously considers slapping it away, because he doesn't deserve any sort of help--but also, it's Fizz. Blitzø has never really ever been able to say no to him.
So he takes that hand, and lets himself be hauled back to a sitting position, and then to his feet. He still feels fucking wobbly, but when he looks around, there's no sign of either Barbie or Cash.
"Please tell me you're not dead too," he says. "Fuck, Fizz, I'm gonna figure out how to be the first real ghost if I have to, and I will fuuuucking haunt that giant sugar cockbag of yours for the rest of fucking eternity if I have to."
Fizz raises an eyebrow, but his tone is gentle when he says, "I'm not dead, Blitzø."
"Oh, thank fuck." He doesn't actually want to let go of Fizz's hand yet, but he does to scrub at his face with both hands. "Fuck. This is the--it's the fucking weirdest day of my life, even if it's not the worst."
"Glad to hear it." There's a mechanical whirring noise before Fizz's arm drapes lightly over his shoulders. "You're a fucking moron, by the way."
"Excuse you, I'm brilliant," he says into his hands.
"So brilliant, you got yourself shanked in a fucking bar fight."
He cringes, because of course someone had to go and remind him of that shitty mistake. Literally the only good thing about being dead so far is that he won't have to worry about this rubbed into his face once the whole--whatever the fuck this is ends. "So I miscalculated a little. No biggie."
"No biggie? No biggie?!" Fizz's arm extends further, so he can wrap around Blitzø's throat. "You fucking moron, how is your life 'no biggie'?!"
Blitzø opens his mouth to answer that, considers the tone of Fizz's voice--sharp, juuuust a little bit hysterical--then shrugs awkwardly. Despite the chokehold grip, Fizz isn't actually holding him so tightly that he can't breathe. "...Sorry."
"You'd better be." Fizz squeezes for a second, then loosens his grip. "There's still so much fucking shit I wanted to say to you, Blitzø."
"Yeah?" Blitzø risks tilting his head a little, just enough, to rest against Fizz's in turn. Barbie's wrong in some ways--there was no way Blitzø would have ever left her or their momma, not even for Fizz--but in some ways...
Once upon a time, and not even that fucking long ago, if there was anyone that Blitzø would have fucking blown up his entire life for, it would've been Fizzarolli. That's not the kind of big gay feeling that ever goes away, not really. It's changed, especially in the past year, but a lot of that lingers.
"Sorry," he says at last, and it surprises him a little how easy it is to say. He's never been good at apologies, even as a kid, and especially not when they really matter.
"About what?"
"About... fuck. Why don't we just say everything?" Blitzø closes his eyes. It's easier, somehow, to say this shit when he can only see the darkness behind his eyelids. "Let's just fucking start from the beginning. The fire really was an accident, Fizz."
"I believe you," Fizz says softly. "Satan knows why."
The last bit he says more gently, a cautious sort of play jab, and Blitzø elbows him equally gently in the ribs.
"I just," he says, and then he has to take a couple of breaths because of course, even when he's dead, he's gonna find a way to fucking hyperventilate. Unfun. He doesn't know why Moxxie seems to like doing this as a hobby. "I was gonna--I had a card for you, and shit. And. Like. Stuff."
"Stuff."
"Stuff." He rubs at his face again, not opening his eyes. "I wrote some... fuck. There was some real embarrassing shit in that card. It was all fucking stupid. I just wanted--I was--"
Okay. Fuck. Never mind. Even with his eyes closed and even being fucking dead, it's still so fucking hard to actually bring up those big, big feelings. Blitzø presses his fingers into his eyes for a few seconds, until he sees spots, and lets out a deep breath.
"I was gonna fucking... confess, and shit," he says, and fuck if it doesn't feel like pulling out fucking teeth with that. "I wrote this whole stupid, shitty, super gay just... and Momma helped me, you know? She figured it out before anyone else. So she helped me write the whole thing, and I was like, haha, wouldn't it be great if I gave it to Fizz on his fucking birthday, like--surprise! Your birthday present is me!"
He laughs, and it's all jagged and awful and frankly embarrassing. It's the kind of shit that he wouldn't blame anyone else laughing at him for, but Fizz doesn't. Instead, he puts his other arm around Blitzø, and outright hugs him. Fucking gay as shit, really, but Blitzø leans into it, so who's he to judge?
And ultimately, it does give him the courage to nut up and keep going. "But I just couldn't. You were just--so fucking happy, and everyone was happy for you, and even my old man was in a good mood for you, and I couldn't. I couldn't, Fizz. Fuck."
"You could've," Fizz says, very quietly. "I think that would've been a pretty fucking sweet birthday present."
And that's--that's fucking huge. That's so fucking enormous that it even outsizes Blitzø's dick. It's so big that they both just have to sit on that for a while, a thousand different what-if scenarios coming to life and dying in the silence.
In the end, all Blitzø can say is, "Too fucking late now."
"Yeah."
They sit in another long silence, and then Blitzø finally opens his eyes. He stares at the largest patch on the wall, right across from them, because he can't make himself look at Fizz. "And it fucking sucked--after. I fucking avoided Greed for years because your face was just fucking everywhere. Then when that shitbag started franchising your face, it was like I couldn't get away from you. Just, everywhere I went, it was like hey! Look at your biggest fuckup! Shit like that. And don't get me started on the Fizzbots."
"You're telling me," Fizz says, and they both shudder. "That fucking asshole didn't even consult me first, you know? Just started slapping my face on shit, and stole my specs from Ozzie so he could start making those creepy things."
Blitzø squints. "Kinda weird that your sugardaddy has specs on you."
"You'll understand when you're older."
"Fuck you, that's not happening."
It's not funny, but they both laugh. And then Fizz says, almost like he's embarrassed or something, "It was kinda the same for me."
For this, Blitzø can pull back enough to turn his head and look at Fizz. "What?"
"You and your whole..." Fizz extends an arm further--always a fucking show-off--so he can flap a hand without letting go of the weird hug thing they're doing. "Mam didn't really like going to Pride a lot, even with the big guy on hiatus or whatever right now, so he'd send me to do any, like, promotional shit or whatever. And you had, like, fucking billboards and stuff."
"Oh yeah." Blitzø grins a little. "Fucking had to pay out the fucking nose for that shit, but it helped. Sinners love that kind of advertising."
"You've been living in Pride for too long, if you think anyone likes that shit," Fizz says, and they have to pause for a minute to elbow each other like stupid kids. "Anyway. I fucking hated going to Pride, because I'd see your fucking face everywhere. I broke like three TVs because they played that stupid commercial of yours."
"Hey! I worked hard on that jingle, and it fucking slaps."
"If you mean 'slap me unconscious so I fucking don't have to hear it anymore,' sure."
Then they have to tussle again, because dead or not, Blitzø can't let that stand. It's not much, and not even that hard, because Fizz still has all the combat skills of a wet noodle, but eventually they're sitting, sides pressed together, the same way they used to as kids. They were never this quiet, though--quiet was a thing that Blitzø did with Barbie, soaking up his sister's presence. Fizz had been for adventure and for new ideas, anything to keep him close for even a second longer.
It's kind of nice, though, sitting quietly like this. It's the kind of calm Blitzø was starting to learn to appreciate, before he bit it. Maybe if he'd learned it sooner, he wouldn't be here.
"Blitzø?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry, too." Fizz's hand creeps into his, latching on with a grip that's nearly painful. "I should've fucking thought it was weird, all those years ago, when they said you never came by. I shouldn't have just listened to what your dad was saying."
Blitzø makes a noise in his throat. It's kind of an agreement--because it's true that the fact that Fizz hadn't even tried to get his side earlier had been shitty--and it's kind of an argument--because he doesn't think he would have listened even if Fizz had found him. "Yeah, well--shit sucked. It could've been worse. Probably."
"...Yeah." Fizz squeezes his hand. "But I'm not going anywhere anymore."
"No, wait," Blitzø says, because it occurs to him suddenly that if Fizz is telling him the truth about not being dead, then this is an opportunity. "Fuck, no, wait a sec, I need you to keep an eye on Loona and Stolas--I know Stols is technically too old for like, a parent or anything, but the guy's still trying to figure out how to live like us poors and he picks up shit quick, so--"
Before he can finish his instructions for Fizz, though, the asshole gets up and walks away. Blitzø nearly falls over, because he'd been leaning on the jerk, and somehow he ends up flat on his fucking face.
"Fizz!" he scrambles to his feet, rubbing his snout. "You fucking jackass, what the fuck? Don't just say shit like that and literally walk away!"
Fizz doesn't answer. He doesn't even look back. He just lifts the flap of the door and walks away, and what the fuck is Blitzø supposed to do about that? NOT chase after him?
Ha! As if!
He runs after Fizz, because he has to make sure that Fizz promises to take care of Loona and Stolas. Maybe they can take care of themselves, but Blitzø refuses to leave that to chance. If he can't be there for his baby and his babe, he needs someone to tell him they'll do it for him. He can't let himself go to wherever the fuck Hellborn go after they die until he gets that promise.
Outside, he finds--something he hadn't expected.
It looks almost like the landscape of that one fucked-up trip he'd had, with the truth shit from those weird humans, except it doesn't. The ground still has big patches of wet black sludge, and his boots sink in when he tries to run through it--but there's also places where there's plants and fucking flowers growing up out of the muck. The sky overhead is still hazy, but the fog's thinner than the last time.
Standing on one of the patches of plantlife, with her back to him, is Verosika.
Unlike the hallucination-Versoika, she's already there, already solidly established. She's dressed casually--tight in all the right places to show off her figure, strategically ripped to show off stretches of smooth skin. The hazy lighting catches off her hair and makes it glow. Even with her back turned, he knows she's fucking beautiful--she always has been, even at her ugliest. Now that he's dead, he can admit that, even if it's still only just in his head.
"You're a fucking asshole, you know," she says, as he approaches. There's a clicking noise, and then the smell of cigarette smoke. It's the fancy stuff, the kind of shit she liked even before she really hit it big. She'd always had expensive tastes even before fame, which makes it even weirder that she'd gone for him so hard. "Just the fucking worst."
"Fucking tell that to someone who doesn't know," Blitzø says. He steps up next to her and holds out his hand; without hesitation, she hands him the cigarette. He takes a deep drag, and yeah, it's definitely the menthols she always liked when she was stressed.
"I tried," she says. "Why do you think I run that party every year?"
He deliberately takes a deeper drag of the cigarette, to help it burn down to the filter faster, and exhales the biggest cloud he can manage. "Listen, if you miss my dick that badly, I can talk to Fizz about getting a mold of it made up, so we can sell it."
"Oh, please." She takes the cigarette back, tapping the ashes at their feet. Where they hit the plant growth underneath, tiny little white flowers spring up. That's gotta be one of those metaphor things that Stolas likes so much. "I'm not paying you a cent more than you've already taken from me."
Blitzø rolls his eyes. "Like you haven't fucking profited on my name already, bitch."
"Motherfucker," she says, which isn't really an agreement, but it's not NOT an agreement, so he leaves it at that. Eventually she hands the cigarette back to him, and he takes a slightly more conservative puff before he returns it. Her lipstick has left a faint red-black ring around the filter--it's a color he remembers helping her pick out, years and years ago. Most 'cubi liked pure black, or sometimes deep purple, and Verosika had dragged him into some fancy makeup store where all the perfumes in the air made his eyes water and the prices on the teeny little samples made his stomach drop. She'd scribbled tester after tester on her arm, holding it out to him to help narrow things down.
In the end, they'd done a coinflip between a red so deep it looked black when heavily layered, and a similar purple. The red had won.
He wonders if she really has kept using the same lipstick over the years, or if it's just his dead (or maybe dying, he's a little confused at this point) brain making shit up. It's not like he and Verosika don't have a lot to say to each other, but it's--all fucky and weird, now. They were never as close as him and Fizz, and they'd managed to avoid each other--unlike him and Stolas--and now it's just... what it is.
Blitzø looks at her sidelong, her profile as she looks up at the hazy sky. He tries to remember if he ever did feel anything close to what she confessed.
Because that's what all of this is about, isn't it? This whole fucking parade, with his old man and his sister and Fizz, and now Verosika? His body's busy shutting off all the lights, and his brain is trying to distract him with this weird review shit.
So, okay, fine. He'll play along.
He doesn't regret trying to strangle Cash, even if it was just an illusion of the old man (and boy does he fucking hope that Cash went ahead of him, because there's just something deeply fucking unfair that Cash Buckzo could keep surviving). He wishes he could have been calmer talking to Barbie, but that's a bruise that's never going to heal. It doesn't matter how dead he is, he still can't help but press his claws into the marks. He and Fizz were starting to work shit out, so that was easy enough, and Verosika...
("I love you," she'd breathed into a kiss, sweet as sugar and twice as sticky. The hotel lights had been dim and warm and soft, everything primed to be as sexy as possible. Her hands been soft and clingy, and the fucking scariest thing about that was that he'd wanted to stay. He'd wanted to say it back--not because he felt the same (he thinks, he's pretty sure), but because it'd been so long since anyone had loved him, and he just wanted, and wanted, and wanted--)
Maybe he could have, he thinks, but his own fucking subconscious had smothered the possibility, so by the time Verosika had gotten in too deep, all their chances were lost. A different Blitzø, maybe, could have been closer to what she'd needed and wanted--a Blitzø that wasn't so fucking damaged, who maybe still had a momma to talk to on hard days.
Her damage hadn't been the right kind to fit alongside his. They'd just been too similar at first glance, and too different on closer inspection.
He turns to her and takes a breath. "Hey, Ver?"
She glances at him sidelong, tapping the last bits of ash from the used-up cigarette.
Blitzø opens his mouth, and the most simple phrase gets stuck in his throat, so he has to swallow, then tries again: "You deserved better."
Her mouth purses and twists. For a moment, her lips pull back and he sees her snarl, but she also just takes a breath instead of saying the shittiest thing first. Shit, maybe they're both better people these days--not that he's ever going to say that much to her. He's sorry, not stupid.
"I did," she says at last. "I really fucking did. You can call me a bitch all you want, but I really did fucking care about you, asshole."
Care about. That's somehow just as scary as love. Blitzø shrugs his shoulders and keeps them hunched to his ears. A moment later, another cigarette gets thrust into his line of vision, and while he feels shitty, he's not an idiot. He takes it, and he lets her light it, and then she steps back.
They look at each other. They're close enough that either of them could reach out and grab the other and make this into some kind of shitty throwdown. And Blitzø has every confidence he could kick this bitch's ass, but he knows she could do damage if she wanted.
That's just their story, isn't it?
"Don't you fucking dare die," she tells him. "I'll kill you myself if you do, fuckface."
Then she turns on her heels--which put actual stiletto knives to shame, just let him fucking say, and fuck he wishes he knew where she got her shoes--and stalks off. Blitzø watches her go, and he's so confused by the whole interaction that she vanishes before his brain catches up to the situation.
"I'm already dead, bitch!" he shouts, but she's already gone. His voice echoes and comes back to him, and he braces himself for the words to come back--this is like his last hurrah, after all. He's dying alone, just like he always fucking worried he would.
And isn't that just a fucking kick to the gut? He'd been okay with putting his head on the block before, because his family had been there, plus he'd been given the chance to do ONE good thing with his shitty life. Then it wasn't anything like that, but now--
But all he hears is indistinct shouting, without any real words in them. Kinda fucking weird, actually, but since he apparently has time and a lit cigarette, there's no point wasting either.
He takes a deep inhale, deep enough that it makes his lungs ache a little, right up near his throat, and he holds that smoke in for as long as he can. It's smooth and just a little bit sweet with that weird fresh tingle menthols always have for him. Compared to the stuff he buys for himself, it's a whole fucking world apart.
Compared to the stuff Stolas kept, that he'd share with Blitzø sometimes? It might actually be better, which is a fucking weird realization. He used to think that money alone would solve everything: the more you threw at a problem (whether it was "where the fuck am I going to live" or "what are we eating tonight" or even just plain old "cigarette quality"), the better your fix was.
Blitzø exhales smoke, then tries not to tense up at the sound of footsteps behind him. He doesn't need to turn around to know who it is, because no one moves quite like her, but it still takes him a few seconds to get his guts up. Even if she's not really here--even if it's just his subconscious hallucinating its last fucking hurrahs so he'll go down easier--he doesn't know how ready he is to see Loona in this surreal landscape his dying brain conjured up.
But also, he can't actually ignore his girl. Not for long. So he takes another inhale and he turns around to see her.
And fuck, if it doesn't break his heart a little, the way Loona always, always has. From the very first time he saw her, snarling and huddled protectively in that shitty little kennel cell, it was like she'd stuck a hand in his chest and just broken off a whole huge chunk of his withered black heart and took it for her own. Nothing, but fucking nothing, makes him prouder than seeing the way she's bloomed over the years since he adopted her: still unwilling to take shit from anyone, but ready, now, to let herself be loved the way she deserves. The tension that was in her for years had faded, and now she walks with real confidence, her head high and her tail relaxed, and Blitzø would fucking raze all the rings for her.
Right now, though, it's almost like looking into the past--Loona's shoulders are hunched, her ears pinned, her tail tucked between her legs. She has her arms wrapped around herself in a self-hug, and of course Blitzø wants to give her a proper one. He frequently wishes he could have adopted her earlier in her life--not to change her, because she's fucking perfect the way she is--but so that she could have been loved for longer. She deserves that, and Blitzø would give fucking anything to have been able to give her that.
"Looney," he says, and then he doesn't know what the fuck else to say. I'm sorry or I love you all feel fucking inadequate. He could say those phrases over and over till he finally fades out, and they'd just be fucking WORDS. They wouldn't be enough.
Her ears twitch at her name, and Blitzø watches her struggle through whatever the fuck her own brain is trying to tell her. He hates that, hates that there's something that hurts her that he can't fucking touch. The enemy is coming from inside her, and all Blitzø's ever been able to do is stand as a rock for her, a reminder that she does have a place to come back to.
Now he won't be able to do that anymore. Some fucking great dad he turned out to be.
Then she snarls, all her teeth bared and shiny, and she lunges for him. On instinct, Blitzø braces himself for the impact, but he forces himself to not do anything else. If Loona wants to be the one who does it--if he's going to be killed while he's dying, then yeah, he's okay with his final lights-out being at her teeth.
She slams into him, and despite Blitzø planting his feet, his girl's still over five feet of rangy lean muscle. They go down.
Somehow, though, the impact doesn't hurt, or drive the breath from his lungs. They fall back onto that weird little patch of grass and flowers, and it feels kind of like falling onto a bed or something--something that's as cushy and welcoming as Stolas's old huge bed, with its bajillion-count sheets and fucking featherdown pillows. The ground seems to cradle Blitzø, and when he recovers from that surprise, he realizes that Loona's got both her arms wrapped around him, so tight that his ribs hurt, and she's shaking.
He wants to reach out to her. He wants to hug her back, but his arms are trapped against his sides--so instead, he uses his tail to pet awkwardly at his back.
"Looney," he says again, "I'm so--"
"You promised," she says. Her voice is all low and growly, a snarl and tears both. It makes Blitzø's stomach ache. "You fucking PROMISED me."
"I promise a lot of shit, Looney, you're gonna have to remind me which one you're talking about."
"You said--" and she chokes, her shoulders shaking, and he can feel her tears starting to soak his shirt, which is worse than any blood or pain he's taken-- "you fucking said you'd always come back. No matter what. Even if I was a, a fucking--a fucking bitch, you said you'd always..."
Ah, shit. Blitzø closes his eyes and takes as deep of a breath as he can, with her clinging so fucking hard. "Loona--"
"I'm not gonna forgive you if you leave," she says into his throat. It's the worst fucking thing she could say to him, but he can't blame her. He couldn't imagine saying that to his momma, but his momma had always been the gentle one--the sort of kind and loving parent that he'd never deserved, and that he still desperately missed, fucking DECADES later. He's never been that kind of parent to Loona, even though he wishes he could, because he just doesn't have it in him to be that sort of soft.
Stolas does, he thinks, but unfortunately, Blitzø's going to fuck that up, like he's fucked up so much in his life. Stolas could be that sort of soft and gently-loving parent, but he and Loona are still awkward around each other, trying to figure out how they fit together with Blitzø holding them together. He doesn't think Stolas would abandon her, but he does know that Loona is going to fight him tooth and nail for everything.
"I'm sorry, Loona," he says. It feels helpless--it IS fucking helpless, because there's just no-fucking-thing he can do. He's dying, if he's not actually dead already. Even though he promised, and he meant that promise with every fucking shred of his being, he's gonna break it. "I'm not doing it on purpose, sweetie. I swear to fucking Sa--whoever, I'm not doing it because I want to. I'm just--"
Loona lifts her head, and his voice dries up in his throat. She looks furious and she looks devastated, and neither of those are looks he ever wants to see on her face alone, never mind together. She gets right up in his face and snarls, and his body goes rigid in instinctive response. Danger, danger, fucking danger, that stupid little lizard hindbrain part of him roars, but also, it's Loona. He couldn't fight her--he wouldn't.
"If you die," she says, each word slow and deliberately pronounced, and Blitzø makes a noise in his throat like sweetheart, I'm already fucking dying, there's nothing you or I can do about it, "I will never, ever, ever fucking forgive you."
Then she shoves back, slamming his shoulders into the grass. Everything smells nice where he is, which is a weird revelation to have now, but look, he's got a whole fucking lot to deal with at once, okay? The fact that the flowers around him smell nice and comforting and somehow weirdly familiar isn't as important as his daughter's tearstained face.
"Looney, c'mon," he says. "You know I don't wanna do this, I'm--"
She just snarls at him again, gets to her feet, and stomps off.
Blitzø pushes himself up first onto his elbows, and then sitting, but there's no sign of her. He stares in the direction he thinks she's gone, and then he snarls in sheer strangled frustration.
Fuck all of this. Fuck shitty assholes in shitty dive bars who thought they could try and copy HIS brilliant business idea. Fuck his shitty brain for giving him this whole weird fucking parade of people who act like they actually don't want him to die--and fuck him again for actually wanting to come back to them. Whatever Millie might've said, about him making her life better--she doesn't need him anymore. None of them do, except maybe Stolas, and that's less needing him, Blitzø, in specific, and more that Stolas just needs people in general to be on his fucking side and--
He digs his claws into the ground. It tears real easily under his fingers, and under all that soft cushioning grass and flowers, there's that familiar blood-colored muck. He tries to bury his hands as deep as he can, so he can just fucking rip all this shit up--fuck him for trying to wallpaper over his shitty existence, fuck him for tricking all these people into thinking they'd miss him, and fuck him especially for ever believing he could do better, when in the end, all he does is ruin--
A hand covers his, smaller and almost delicate in comparison. They've got long thin fingers, always so fucking steady even when their owner is freaking the fuck out.
"Sir," Moxxie says.
"Kinda fucking busy here, Moxx," he says through gritted teeth. If he pushes just a little harder, he thinks he could rip up all of these flowers by their roots. And he barely knows shit about plants, but he knows roots are important. Maybe if he gets rid of them before he finally lets go, he can somehow make it better. Maybe they won't hurt so much when he's gone. Maybe--
"Sir," Moxxie says again, firmer this time. He'll never be as good at authoritative as Millie, or even Blitzø, but he's gotten better at it over the years. He tugs at Blitzø's wrists, his thumb pressing at some weird pressure point that makes Blitzø's fingers uncurl even though he wants to keep his grip. He bares his fangs, but Moxxie doesn't stop, just keeps pulling at his hands until he's holding both of Blitzø's in his own.
And then because he can't fucking help it, he's never not going to be that asshole no matter how many revelations he gets hit with, he says, "This is real fucking gay, Moxx. If you're dumping Millie, I'm gonna kick your fucking ass."
Moxxie just stares at him, flat-eyed and unimpressed. Fuck, Blitzø's been losing his edge. He can't actually remember the last time Moxxie looked at him like he's the hot stuff he knows he is. He makes his snarl a grin, still with his fangs bared. It's a fucking dare, and one that he knows Moxxie will fall for more often than not: here I am, fuckface, and I know I've just done something that really pisses you off, so whatcha gonna do about it?
But then seconds tick past, into like what feels like a whole fucking hour. Even though Blitzø refuses to be the one who blinks first, he starts to fidget--first with his tail, because that shitty thing has never ever really listened to the rest of his brain--and then with his knees, then with his fingers, and he can feel his face twitching too, but to his surprise, Moxxie beats him to the shot.
(But maybe he shouldn't be surprised. The thing is, Millie's muscle and heart, Loona's fucking perfect, and Blitzø is an all-rounder and brains, but Moxxie's the best shot out of them by far. Even when he's being a whiny pussy baby, when he's got a target in his sights, no one gets there first.)
"You know, you're a fucking asshole most of the time."
"Yeah? Tell me shit I don't already know."
"You're crass, you're fucking rude, and you're just mean sometimes." Moxxie's voice is calm, matter-of-fact. It's not his I'm smarter than you (bitch) voice, like when he's lecturing--it's his sincere voice, the one where you know he means all the things he's saying. Blitzø's vaguely allergic to it, but he also always wants to hear more. It doesn't have the same impact on his heart (and his dick) as Stolas's take, but it still matters.
Blitzø shrugs, because he doesn't know if he should be cocky or casual. In some ways, this feels worse than his old man reading him for filth. "Not my fault if you can't take the heat, bitch."
"You're utterly infuriating," Moxxie says, and there's some of that lift into snooty better-than-you tone. "Even when I can tell you know better, you just deliberately choose to do or say the worst possible thing."
"Hey, if you can't see my genius, that's not my fault." He grins, but it feels all lopsided and kind of sickly, like if he tilts his head it's just going to literally fall off his face. That comment's getting a little too real, and he doesn't need anyone giving him shit right now, even if it's his own brain wearing Moxxie's face. (Which, weird? Fucking weird. But whatever.) "I always get us through the fucking shit, don't I? Fuck, you should be thanking me--"
"Thank you, Blitzø," Moxxie says, and that just shuts him right the fuck up. Just because he'd said it hadn't meant he'd expected it, because he says a whole fucking lot of shit, and most of the time it doesn't actually matter. When he tells Moxxie to jump, the asshole doesn't ask how high, he asks why should I?
As Blitzø is trying to get his brain back online from that shock, Moxxie takes it as invitation to keep talking. Fucking hell. "I'm grateful to you, you know. You're the biggest asshole I know, but you're still..." and here he hesitates, his mouth working like he's bitten into something sour, "...you're my hero, Blitzø."
Blitzø blinks out of sync at him. After a second, he lifts his other hand to pinch his own arm, which does hurt. Huh.
On the other hand, he's fucking dying, so maybe his brain is trying to give him a break after all the shit he's already been through on this shitty, shitty day. Like fuck Moxxie would ever say something like that to him.
Not that it stops some little tiny shitty part of his brain from perking up--like that one weirdo's dog, it just can't help but sit up and roll over to show its belly. He's so fucking lucky that Stolas never really abused the praise kink when they were fucking before, because as it turns out, one nice word from someone and he's completely activated.
And not just anyone, too, but someone who matters. Blitzø can count on his hands the number of people he's truly given a personal fuck about in his life, and he's already seen most of them in this weird parade. And as much as he'd loudly say otherwise, Moxxie's solidly one of them.
As he stares, Moxxie smiles at him. It's that gentle little aching smile he gets sometimes, usually aimed at Millie--but not always. Blitzø hates it because it always gets him right in the chest where his heart should be, but he likes it because it's so fucking rare. It's kinda like the way his momma smiled at him, and it's kind of like the way Stolas smiles at him, and that's a mix that's too weird for his brain to follow right now. Maybe, if he gets the chance, he'll chew on it later--but right now, he just continues blinking at Moxxie.
"Sometimes I just want to strangle you," he says, which is some real fucking mixed messages there, but he keeps going. "But even when I do... Blitzø, you gave me my whole life."
That just sounds too weird, too out there, and Blitzø doesn't know if he wants to sit and listen to the rest of this, or if he wants to chop off his arm and run for it. He doesn't have a knife handy, but he's good at thinking on his feet. He could figure shit out. "Huh?"
"I was ready to just rot in that cell, where we met," Moxxie says. "I thought I'd do my time, and then I'd go crawling back to my father's and keep working for him. And maybe the next time, I wouldn't be so lucky. I was ready for that." His gaze drops for a moment, to their hand-holding--which really is SO fucking gay, even Stolas would probably be embarrassed--and then he looks at Blitzø again. "But--even if I hadn't met Millie because of our work together, I learned a lot from you."
"Yeah?" Blitzø says, because he can't help it, and internally he winces. After a second, he corrects himself and repeats, with more confidence and swagger, "Fuck yeah, you did."
Moxxie rolls his eyes. "You don't even know what I'm going to say."
"I know it sounds like you're thirsting over my dick, Moxx, which is really hella flattering, but I already told Millie--"
"It's things like that," Moxxie says, and Blitzø's jaw clicks shut. He doesn't know what he looks like, but Moxxie looks more amused than anything at the expression on his face. "I can argue with you, sir. I can tell you that you're a moron, or an asshole, or I can point things out, and that's okay."
Blitzø squints. "Calling people assholes isn't very nice, Moxxie," he says, in his best imitation of Moxxie's snootiest voice. "They teach that kinda shit in kindergarten."
"Fuck you and let me finish," Moxxie says--and then he laughs. It sounds surprised, which isn't really what Blitzø expected to hear. "I never could've said that kind of thing to my dad. He would've--he wouldn't have liked it, that's for sure."
He looks down again, and his tail curls close around his legs. Blitzø can fill in the blanks of that silence, and he doesn't like any of the options. He can only guess that's part of why Moxxie kept his mouth shut about his old man for so long--Millie would've been on the fucking warpath, and Blitzø would have followed, even if he would have complained the whole fucking way.
"Yeah, well, fuck him," Blitzø says at last, because he doesn't want the silence to go on so long it becomes uncomfortable.
"Fuck him," Moxxie says, though it's wobbly, and he smiles again. "I never would've been able to say that before. You didn't--no one was ever allowed to backtalk my dad. You did as he said, or else." He takes a deep breath. "He treated me like I was going to take over the family business, but also like I was completely worthless. I couldn't ever do anything right in his eyes."
Blitzø almost says that's because you CAN'T do anything fucking right, but that's too much even for him. That smacks too much of the shit his own old man used to say, and Blitzø doesn't mind going fucking low--but not here. Not about this.
And luckily, Moxxie is not psychic or anything, because he just takes a deep breath and he says, "I can make my own choices. I get to make my own decisions. And I can do that because of you, Blitzø."
You took away my fucking agency, Barbie's angry voice shrieks in his head, and Blitzø swallows. Somehow, hearing Moxxie say that doesn't take away the sound of his sister raging.
"Fuck if I know how that happened," he says at last. "I didn't teach you shit, Moxx. You figured that out on your own."
Because that's the truth, deep down, the thing that Blitzø tries to avoid thinking about too closely, even when he knows it with everything in him:
The people he loves best don't need him. They would have figured out their shit even without him. He might have helped--he knows that he helped, in fact, especially for Moxxie and Loona--but he didn't make these changes happen. He knows Moxxie would have broken out of his shit dad's hold eventually, even if it took him longer. He knows that Loona would have risen above all the shit that the world tried to throw at her, and even if he helped--he wasn't needed for any of that.
Which really fucking sucks to think about too hard, but the truth is the truth. Blitzø is a performer, which means he's a fucking liar through and through, but he knows this.
And surely Moxxie knows, too. This is just Moxxie-in-his-head, after all. This is just some piece of him that's wearing a Moxxie suit (which is a fucking weird thought, and he wishes he could unthink it), telling him nice things so he doesn't fight the end.
But instead, Moxxie shakes his head. "You taught me that, Blitzø. Who was going to teach me that in my dad's family? No one. I would've died there."
Blitzø stares at him. It figures that even his own brain would ignore his expectations, but this one is... a little kinder than he would have expected from himself. He doesn't think he believes it, even when it's being said directly to his face like this, but it's a nice thought. It's a nice feeling.
But because he's Blitzø, and like Moxxie said, he sometimes just has to say the worst possible thing to keep the moment from being too real, he says, "I'd say you could call me Daddy instead, but I think Millie wouldn't like that."
(And Stolas, a little voice in the back of his mind adds. Stolas probably wouldn't like anyone else calling him Daddy. His bird doesn't get jealous, not really--he gets sad, which is just five thousand times fucking worse. If Blitzø never has to see those big eyes go dark and look away ever again, he's still seen it too often.) (Fuck, he's going to be the reason it happens again, though. He and Stolas still have only kind of figured out what the fuck they're doing, but they've figured out enough that it's going to be bad, when they find his body.) (Fuck.)
While he's going through that mini-spiral, Moxxie just snorts and rolls his eyes. And okay, Blitzø can admit that he's got more attitude to him than he did when they first met. That Moxxie had been even more of a crumpled piece of wet tissue. This one occasionally has flashes of a spine, even if Blitzø sometimes think it might just be Millie's strap left plugged in.
"You're doing it again, sir," he says, and then he squeezes Blitzø hand hard before he lets go. "...You'd better wake up soon. Millie and I have a surprise for you, when you do."
Blitzø raises an eyebrow. "That's real sweet of you, Moxx, but I already told Mils, I'm not interested in being your third--"
"It's not a threesome," Moxxie snaps. "Don't be gross, sir."
"Hey! My dick is a fucking prize, you know, you should be fucking flattered that it was a possibility, and it's your fucking loss."
"Just don't take too long, sir," Moxxie says. He gets to his feet and walks away. Blitzø starts to stagger up to follow him--he might be doing the jackass thing, but he doesn't really want to be alone. He doesn't want to think about how even now, even as a figment of his own fucking imagination, Moxxie thinks he'll wake up. And it fucking sucks, because he hates disappointing even Moxxie, and if he has to, at least he wants to spend a few more seconds with him before it goes dark--
But between one blink and the next, he's alone. He stumbles to a stop, staring in the direction he thinks Moxxie went.
Then he blinks again, and in that split-second, he can sense something moving towards him at fucking speed. And unfortunately for him, he's still too fucking confused about everything, so he opens his eyes just in time to see a fist coming right at his face.
It connects with his snout with a pretty loud crunch! and sends him flying backwards. He manages a single shout that cuts off in a choked grunt as he hits the ground. Before he can roll up and onto his feet again, something small and compact and heavy lands right on his gut, driving the breath right out of him again.
After a few seconds to try and catch his breath, he wheezes, "I got fucking stabbed, Mils."
"I know," she says. "That's why I punched you in the face and not the stomach."
The words are muffled into his shoulder. She's hugging him like a little kid with a stuffed toy, and he has the horrible feeling she might be crying. Which is just fucking wrong, on so many levels--he's seen Moxxie cry a bajillion times (annoying as shit), and he's seen Loona cry a few times (deeply horrible), and Stolas is also a crier (which can be sexy, but recently has been almost as shitty as seeing Loona cry), but Millie? Millie's a fucking rock. If she cries, then it might as well be the fucking end times.
So Blitzø considers his options, and then very carefully puts a hand on her back. She's shaking a little, and he decides that he doesn't want to see her face, just in case.
"Fucking jumping on me kind of makes that pointless," he says at last.
"Fuck you, Blitzø."
But she hugs him harder when she says that. It's not like those forgettable assholes at the party--people whose grief just felt like a little bit of extra pressure on the edges of an already-gaping wound, a tiny bit of spice when he was already bleeding from Verosika and Stolas--this is fucking Millie.
With that, he puts his arms around her, holding onto her loosely as she shakes, and he doesn't say a single fucking thing, good or bad, as he waits for her.
When she's finally still, he says, "You'll be okay without me, Millie."
He thinks that's the right thing. He wants it to be the right thing, especially when he knows it's the truth. That was why he'd put his head down on the block for all of them--because they'd have each other, Moxxie and Millie and Loona, and they'd be okay. They'd do better than if the situation was reversed, because Blitzø doesn't know what he'd do if he lost any one of them, never mind all of them, but he knows it wouldn't be fucking pretty.
But Millie growls at him--fucking growls! Millie! She's never done that to him, not fucking ever. He's not sure he's heard her make a sound like that since that stupid fake wedding that Moxxie's old man was trying to stage, and she'd been ripping through those hired goons as if they were nothing. Having her growl at him is--
Well, it's kind of hot, because Blitzø still has fucking eyes and a working sex drive. You don't have to actively want to fuck someone (anymore) to know fucking hot when you witness it.
That's not the point, though. He takes another breath, and Millie says, with a deadly sort of calm, "If you say shit like that again, Blitzø, I'm gonna beat your fuckin' ass till it fuckin' falls off."
"Not sure that's physically possible, Mils."
"Fuckin' try me."
He considers this, then pets her hair gingerly. It feels awkward and stilted--he still doesn't really know how to soothe someone like this. Way back in the day, he'd used to use sex to pull Verosika out of her shittier moods. Loona's too much like him, prickly and awkward and preferring to be comforted by a drink and silently sitting side-by-side. Moxxie he's always left to Millie, and Stolas...
Back in the Before Times, Blitzø had always just ignored whenever Stolas hinted at wanting comfort--which yes, he DOES feel shitty about in the here and now, thanks for asking--and these days... these days, he's just blindly winging it and hoping against fucking hope that he's doing more good than harm.
None of that helps him now, when Millie is the one who's upset in his arms. In some ways, it's worse than with Loona--because with Loona, he's the adult, right? He's her dad. She's his responsibility there, full stop.
Millie, though? Millie's his fucking rock, and he doesn't want to think too hard on what kind of shit she'll have to go through because of this.
She's gonna be okay, he knows that much. She'll miss him, sure, and probably things are gonna be shitty with I.M.P. for a while, and he doesn't fucking know what will happen with Stolas in particular, but he knows Millie would take care of him if Fizz punks out for whatever reason, and that's enough. For Blitzø, that's enough.
But Millie pulls away, and Blitzø is forced to see what her crying face looks like. She scrubs her arm over her eyes, like a kid trying to pretend they're fine, and she scowls at him as she jabs a finger into his chest.
"Don't you fucking talk shit about my best friend, Blitzø," she says. "Don't you even THINK shit about him. You hear?"
He grabs her hand before she can poke him again. It's like a reverse of how he was with Moxxie, holding that hand in both of his now. She's just a little tiny bit smaller than Moxxie, her fingers a little shorter and less graceful, but he's pretty sure she could break his whole fucking hand without trying.
She doesn't, though, thank fuck.
"I'm not trying to talk shit, Millie," he says gently. "Not this time. I just want you to know that--you'll be okay. I know it's gonna be a whole fucking shitshow, but you will."
She scowls at him, her lips pulling back to show her fangs for a second.
"Say that's true," she says at last. "Say that I let you just slip off into that dark night, or what-the-fuck-ever, and I'm okay. That don't mean I'll ever recover. Not completely."
Blitzø frowns. Millie's different from him and Moxxie--fuck, she's different from all of the rest of I.M.P., given what he knows about Loona and Stolas. Her family all seems like the loving sort: Millie's got dozens of dumb stories about her brothers, and adores her sister enough to take a whole week off when she visits. Millie's grown up surrounded by love and support, and even when she's exasperated or annoyed by them, it's clear she's actually happy to go and see them... but also, they're fucking imps in fucking Hell. There's no way she hasn't lost anyone up to this point in her life.
A healthy imp can actually live a real fucking long time, but they're so damn fragile that it doesn't really matter.
"Millie, c'mon," he says, "listen to me--"
"No, YOU listen to ME," she says. She's doing that whole deadly calm thing again, that kind of stillness that feels alien to her, but also like something he should be running away from before it breaks. It's the kind of pause that he associates with a fight to the death or a three-hour fuck, and it's real awkward how hot this still is. He opens his mouth to point that out, and maybe derail her, but she turns her hand in his to grip back, and yep, that is definitely the kind of strength that could break his whole fucking hand. That's his Millie-Billie.
"Yeah, maybe I could do it. Maybe I could just fuckin' pick up the pieces and keep going. You're not fucking getting it, Blitzø."
And with that, she yanks him in close, so that their foreheads clock together. It actually hurts a little, but even though Blitzø winces, Millie doesn't. She just stares straight into his eyes, unblinking, and says through gritted teeth:
"I could do it. But I. Don't. Want. To."
"Millie," he says, but she's still going, louder now, for once refusing to let him get his words in.
"Sure, I could handle shit. I've always handled shit. Maybe I would be okay eventually, but you listen to me, asshole--" and here she leans even harder into him, her eyes burning, "I ain't gonna be happy about it, and I ain't gonna be okay with that. I can handle shit without my best friend, but I don't want to. Y'hear me?"
There's some little screaming lizard part of his hindbrain that wants to insist there's a mistake. She's fucked up because of, shit, grief hormones or whatever. Does grief cause hormones, like horny does? Fuck if he knows, because if they do, he's been dosed on that shit since fucking forever.
She stares at him for a few more seconds, and then she sighs. Her shoulders droop, and ah, shit, that's worse. Anger he can deal with (most of the time) (depending on who's pissed at him), but not sadness. He can't fucking deal with someone being sad at him, and know that it's his fault.
"Blitzø," she says. She pulls her hand free so she can lift both of them, taking his face in a gentle grip. It's unexpectedly, achingly familiar, even though Millie's never touched him like this. If he closes his eyes and holds his breath, he could pretend that this is someone else, someone else with gentle work-rough hands, who'd held him like he was a precious boy even though that's a fucking lie--
"Blitzø," she says again. "Just 'cause I can be strong without you doesn't mean I wanna be. You ain't ever given up on anything in your whole fucking life. Don't make this be the first."
That's wrong. That's wrong, and he wants to tell her that--he's given up on so much shit in his life. He gave up on having Fizz and lost everything; he gave up on romantic love period and almost lost Stolas. And he isn't even the only one who's lost things because of his pussying out, because look at the fucking financial roller coaster everyone's been on because he couldn't keep his own shit together.
Fucking look at Stolas, with that daughter-shaped empty space by his side.
"You ain't a quitter, Blitzø," Millie says. He hates how gentle she is right now--he wants her to be angry again. He wants her to be furious like Loona was, or Barbie. He wants her to lash out and rip him apart, because she shouldn't be wasting her gentleness on a fuckup like him. "And I told you before, didn't I? You didn't ruin my life. You gave me so much."
There's a shift, and then her forehead touches his again, softer this time. "Don't fucking dip out before I can pay you back."
His eyes snap open at that, because he doesn't want that. He's already lived through how fucking shitty it can be, when you're in any kind of relationship where there's fucking obligation (fucking nasty word) involved. Millie's never owed him a single damn thing, and he doesn't want--
But she's smiling at him now, and there are tears in her eyes again, but she's fucking smiling. And some little part of him thinks: that wasn't a joke, but it's not bad, either. This is maybe part of all that compromise and understanding bullshit that Moxxie talks about sometimes, where a """real""" relationship is all balanced give and take, not give-give-give until your fucking heart gives out.
(Get it? Eh? Eh? ...well, fuck you too.)
"You'n me, we're supposed to stick together," she says. "You'd better fucking wake up, Blitzø. I got my eye on you."
"I can't," he says, choked. "Fuck, Mils, I don't wanna, but I don't--I can't--"
"Those're quittin' words, Blitzø," she tells him, and lets go. Blitzø makes a clumsy desperate grab for her, the same way he did for Moxxie. There are words clogging up in his throat, begging for her to not go, to stay, please, because maybe he's not dying alone in the way he always thought, but if he's alone in his head, then--
"We'll be waitin' for you, Blitzø," she says, and Moxxie materializes from out of fucking nowhere to take her hand. They both look at him in a way that makes his tail curl and his heart stutter, because once upon a time he would have grabbed the moment with all his dirty claws and tried to force it into something sexy. Anything, really, to stay in their circle just for a few seconds longer.
But as he scrambles to his feet, they turn and they walk away. Even though he launches himself forward, running and scrambling through flowers and muck both, between one blink and the next, they're gone.
He's alone.
Blitzø still runs for a few more seconds, then stumbles to a stop. He looks up at the sky overhead--it looks brighter now, maybe, clearer than before, and there's probably some hidden meaning in there that his stupid fucking brain doesn't get.
Fuck it, that's the story of all of this shit, isn't it? Ever since he woke up in whatever fucking place this is, after getting fucking stabbed in a shitty bar fight (his guts still hurt from that, thanks bunches, Millie)--it's just been one after the other, all the people in his life who've mattered to him.
--Though don't tell Verosika that, because that bitch is never gonna let that go if she ever finds out. Blitzø will be bones and ash in his grave and she'll still be showing up to rub it in that he did care.
(That maybe he does still care, even if it's not in the way she wanted or needed.) (But only a little.) (Fuck you, Verosika, but not like that.)
But that can't be right, because if it is, then--
"Where the fuck are you, Stolas?" he asks the sky. It doesn't answer, which is fucking rude, but between them, Stolas was the one who knew anything about like, ""communing with nature"" or whatever that shit was.
Whatever it is, though, it doesn't change the fact that if these meetings are happening in order, then Stolas should have come by long ago. Before Verosika, even. He should have been there to get one last "fuck you, motherfucker" in before flouncing off to wherever...
No. No, that's not right. Blitzø wants to be angry, to be his worst self and think the shittiest things he can about Stolas, but the truth is, he's too tired for that right now. He feels scraped raw, pulled thin, because in spite of everything, most of the people he's fucked over in his life seem like they want him to wake up somehow.
And if he knows Stolas--which he does, even if there's still so much shit left to learn--he knows that Stolas would also want that. The thing between them is so, so fucking delicate right now, and sometimes Blitzø has felt that if he even so much as breathed fucking wrong, he'd shatter it into a billion tiny pieces. It's better than it was, immediately after Sinsmas, but he's been so fucking afraid of ruining it, and now he's gone and pulled this shit.
But somehow, even when he's this wrung out and his brain keeps wanting to replay Barbie's anger and Cash's disdain over M&M's insistence of waiting for him, or Loona's furious love--he knows Stolas wouldn't want this. He'd be one of the people rooting for Blitzø to somehow claw his way back from death, and it's fucking weird that he hasn't shown up yet.
If that featherbrained diva was willing to put his own fucking head on Satan's executioner block for the sake of a mess that was never a relationship and only ever a situationship, then... yeah. He should've been here already.
Him, and--
Long arms wrap around him from behind, pulling him back into a tall soft body.
And maybe it's been years and years--sixteen fucking years, fuck, it's been almost half of his life--but he breathes in the smell of cheap citrusy perfume, and his vision goes blurry with the sudden onset of tears.
He'd forgotten. Fuck. How had he forgotten what her favorite perfume smelled like? In his memory, it had been softer and sweeter, because she'd been soft and sweet, but in reality it's kind of sharp, just short of bitter, the alcohol almost as strong as the cheap orange notes. He'd taken that memory and made it something else, and that's fucking terrifying, because he's never, ever wanted to fucking forget anything about her.
"My baby," his momma says, and that's fucking it, Blitzø is fucking bawling like he IS still a baby, like he's small enough to crawl into her lap and have her carry him in her arms, safe and sheltered from the world.
He clutches at her arms, so tightly that his own fingers ache, and it must be too much, he really is the fucking worst son, so fucking clingy and hurting her again in the process.
But even as his brain tells him that, he can't make himself let go. Some other, deeper instinct says that if he lets go, if he stops focusing for even half a second, she'll vanish again. He might be a fucking grown-ass man who's been on his own for fifteen fucking years, but he still misses his momma so fucking much.
So he cries and cries and just fucking cries, and she croons to him and rocks their bodies together. He can barely hear her over the ringing in his ears and his own ugly sounds, but he recognizes that she's humming the same lullaby she'd use whenever he or Barbie (or both) had particularly bad dreams. He knows he's saying her name, Momma, Momma, Momma, and every time he chokes it out, she makes little hushing sounds, small and gentle.
When the first wave finally passes, he just hangs limply in her arms like some overcooked noodle. His head hurts, his vision's blurry, and he can barely breathe because he's all snotty. His throat hurts, too, but when he makes a tiny weak creaking noise, Tilla gathers him up closer, her chin pressing to the top of his head.
"My brave, strong, smart little baby," she murmurs, and fuuuuuck, he's gonna cry again if she keeps that up--but also, he fucking craves that kind of thing from her. He doesn't deserve it, and maybe never has, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want it with every fucking fiber of his being. "I'm so sorry I had to leave you like that. I didn't want to. But I am so, so proud of you."
Blitzø swallows several times. "Momma, I don't..."
"You were in such a bad place, Blitzø," she murmurs. They're rocking again, slow and gentle, and he doesn't remember if she ever did this when he was a baby--since he'd been an actual fucking baby at the time--but it feels familiar. "But you picked yourself up and got out of that hole. You kept moving forward. That's amazing."
He shakes his head, but carefully. He doesn't want to dislodge her, the soft weight of her, and the over-strong smell of her perfume. She's warm and she's solid and she feels fucking real, in a way none of the others have so far--it had been so easy to write everyone else off as pieces of his brain trying to compensate for him dying, but this? This feels like she's really here with him.
"I killed you," he chokes. It surprises him a little he can get the words out--he's not sure he's actually said those words in the years since the fire. Other people have thrown it in his face, and he's thought it plenty of times, with all the grim certainty of a real fact.
But he's never said it. Who could he have told? Verosika? Fuck no. Loona? That's not her burden to carry. M&M? Ditto.
Stolas?
...Maybe Stolas, someday. If things had kept going. He'll never know for sure, now.
"It was an accident," Tilla murmurs. She pulls away just a little from the hug, but when Blitzø whines and clutches at her, all she does is gently turn him around, so they're facing each other. Her worn hand cups his cheek, the gentlest thing he's ever felt, and even with all the fucking tears in his eyes, he can still see her smile so clearly. "They shouldn't have been keeping the fireworks stored there. You didn't know."
"But I still--"
"You didn't," she says, this time more firmly, just a bit of weight in all her softness. "Blitzø, if you'd known that there were fireworks and lit candles nearby, would you have been so careless?"
He wants to say no, of course not--but he knows himself. He's a fucking moron sometimes, and his temper gets the better of him real fucking easy. Faced with the despair of knowing Fizz wouldn't ever want him like that, and the reminder of how much his shitty old man didn't want him, would he have been more careful? Probably not. He would've had the same stupid baby tantrum, and that would have still burned the whole fucking circus down, and his momma--
"Blitzø, baby," she says, and her voice cuts through his thoughts so fucking easily. He blinks at her again, fresh tears squeezing out of his eyes. "Trust your mother."
He sniffles loudly. It's fucking obnoxious. "I do," he chokes. "I do, it's me that I don't, I can't, Momma, I--"
"I love you," she says, and that feels like--like a fucking sword in the guts, red-hot, never mind that stupid little shiv from the bar fight. This is the one person he's wronged above anyone and everyone else--she shouldn't be telling him this. She shouldn't love him. Not after everything.
But she swipes the tears from his eyes with gentle thumbs, and she says again, "I love you. You've worked so hard, and I've seen that. You never let me pull you down forever, and I'm so glad. I never wanted you to give up because of me, Blitzø."
He covers her hands with his, shaking. His mouth moves, but he can't make any words come out.
"Thank you for holding onto your light, and for sharing it with others," she says. "Thank you for keeping an eye on your sister. I know it's been hard... thank you for not giving up on her."
"I won't," he mumbles. "I can't. Even if she never forgives me, Momma, I can't."
"I know." She leans down and kisses his forehead, right over the insignia they share, and even with his nose blocked to Hell and back, he's fucking surrounded by the smell of her cheap shitty perfume. "My stubborn baby."
He's fucking sobbing again, unable to do anything else. It'd be fucking embarrassing if it were in front of anyone else--shit, it still is embarrassing, but also, it's his mother. He can trust her, even if she's dead like him.
"But you can't stay," she says, and that feels like she's just drop-kicked him from the roof of the I.M.P. building. He yanks back, though he's still clutching her hands.
"What? Why not? Please, Momma, I know I--I'm sorry, I've been shitty, but I want--please, I wanna--Momma--"
She hushes him, gentle, tangling their hands together so that she can pull away while still holding his hand.
"It's not time yet, baby," she says. "When it is, Momma will be waiting... but that's not yet. Someone else is waiting for you."
She starts to walk, and he trips and stumbles after her. "Momma? What the fu-- what does that mean? Who's waiting? I wanna stay with you."
"I think you know." She sounds amused, leading him through the field. There seem to be more flowers than before. Fuck, when he glances down for just a second--just a second, because he doesn't want to look away from his momma for too long--they're literally springing up around her feet.
"Momma," he says, his voice still rough and shot to shit, "I wish you could've met Stolas."
She squeezes his hand, then turns to smile at him over his shoulder. "I'll meet him someday, Blitzø. I'm looking forward to it--but not for a long, long time."
"You'd like him," he says, because his brain feels like it's stuffed in cotton and shit. His tongue is heavy in his mouth. The place where he'd been stabbed is starting to hurt again, nearly as bad as when he'd been stabbed. "He's a giant fucking--sorry--he's a giant nerd. Just. The worst. But he's so f--nice, Momma, I don't get it. He's a prince and he's all snobby and stuff, but if you tell him to knock it off, he does. He's a prince listening to imps... isn't that weird?"
"The world is bigger than just the ranks we're given, Blitzø," she says, but she still sounds like she's smiling, so that's okay. "I think you'll learn that before most people."
He nearly trips over his own feet. He's suddenly so tired, physically so, like there's weights tied to his arms and legs. Everything's getting dark around them, but the flowers under their feet glow with a gentle light--and up ahead, there's a spark that's growing brighter and brighter.
At the sight, Blitzø starts to dig his heels in again. He doesn't know exactly what it is, but he knows it's gonna take him away from her. "Momma--"
"It'll be okay, Blitzø," she says. She stops and she draws him close, and this time he throws his arms around her, clinging as tightly as he can. Now that he's an adult, he can tell how fucking skinny she is under the soft folds of her dress. "You'll be okay."
"I won't," he says wetly. "I'm not. Momma, I'm not."
"You are," she says, gently firm, and kisses his forehead again. "You are, and you will be. Trust your momma."
He opens his mouth to say something else, some other kind of protest, but she lets go of him completely, putting both of her thin hands on his chest and giving him a gentle push.
And there's like no strength to it at all, fucking none, but somehow he still stumbles back, arms flailing, trying to grab for her one more time before his back foot comes down on abso-fucking-lutely nothing and he's falling, staring up at her smiling face as it grows smaller and smaller and--
--everything goes black.
He thinks he's in a strange and shifting void, something that's darker than even the worst of his drunken blackouts. There's a weird throbbing in his lower body, but it's more in his guts than between his legs, and it's unpleasant if he focuses for too long.
So he doesn't. He tries to push the thoughts away, and everything else away, because he doesn't know how to deal with it otherwise. He's so fucking tired and he just wants to sleep.
Except...
Except when he tries to sink into the darkness, he thinks he hears something. It's small and soft and distant, but it feels like something he needs to pay attention to. It's important. He doesn't know what it is, but some instinctive part of him knows he needs to pay attention.
It calls to him, again and again, no matter how he tries to turn away from it. He puts his hands over his ears (does he have hands? Or ears?), but it won't go away.
So finally, he doesn't know what else to do but to follow the sound to its source.
Blitzø wakes up and immediately regrets it.
For one thing, his whole fucking body just fucking HURTS. He's like one solid ache from the top curve of his horns to the end of his tail, but it's especially bad in his gut. He squints at the unfamiliar ceiling overhead and considers the options. Shit, what fucking hellephant trampled him? Did he gamble on Wackford's hot dogs again? You'd think he'd learn, eventually.
As he considers this, he realizes he can hear a really fucking annoying mechanical beeping sound somewhere nearby. It nags at him, familiar in a way that he can't place, but he really doesn't like. Maybe it's his alarm? Though he usually goes for something a lot louder and more blatantly obnoxious than that... but if it is his alarm, he can at least turn it off.
Blitzø tries to swat at the source of the sound, but his arm feels like it weighs a fucking ton. He shifts a little and grunts at the sudden stabbing pain in his middle, which--
Oh. Oh yeah. That's right. He got fucking stabbed for real. And it really fucking hurts, which means that somehow, despite all the odds, he has somehow yet again avoided kicking the bucket.
Yay, but also, fuuuuuuck, it hurts.
While he's trying to decide just how badly he's been damaged, he hears another sound, under all the fucking beeping noises: tiny little breathy hoots, which he recognizes like his own breathing. And boy he feels some kind of way about that--that when he turns his head and cracks his eyes open just a bit, there's a long lanky body poured into a shitty chair by his shitty hospital bed.
Which, now that Blitzø's thinking about it, he's got noooo fucking idea how they're gonna pay for this shit. He still has two working kidneys, right? Since he's already been cut open, maybe he can convince the doctors to go in and take one so he can sell that shit to make SOME cash back.
As he's considering his options, the door opens and a nurse shuffles in. Like most nurses, she's some kind of baphomet mix, though she's got an imp's striped horns. He opens his mouth to say some kind of dirty joke, just to prove he's still got it, when she stops and squints at him, then gasps, putting a hand to her chest like she's some fucking Sinner.
"Holy shit," she says. "You're actually not fucking dead!"
He squints at her. "Your bedside manner's real fucking shitty," he tells her.
"Fuck you too, asshole, I've been keeping an eye on your almost-dead ass for like three weeks now," she shoots back. "Good job not dying, by the way, because it was real fucking close there."
"Aren't nurses supposed to be nice and shit?" he complains, as she finally enters the room, checking the beeping machines and making notes. For all he knows, she's just drawing dicks all over the paper, which is probably as ringing of an endorsement as he can hope for. "Doctors are the assholes, nurses are the nice ones."
"Whoever fucking told you that was a shitty liar," she says. She steps around Stolas and jabs a finger at Blitzø's ribs, which isn't quite where he was fucking stabbed, thanks, but close enough that it feels like all the breath is squeezed right out of him. "Seriously, though, one inch higher, or a little bit to the left? You would've fucking bled out before anyone could help you. You're a real fucking lucky guy."
He snorts before he can help it. "Yeah fucking right."
"I'm serious," she says. "Whatever your hoity-toity blueblood boyfriend did for you, it fucking saved your life. Like he's got magic or something."
Blitzø nearly says something. He gets so fucking close, because he's not a guy who thinks about shit before he says it, but also--call it a side effect of him being still woozy on whatever drugs they've got him on, on top of the pain, but he can't actually tell if she knows who the fuck Stolas is. It's usually pretty obvious when another Hellborn recognizes Stolas as That One Shitty Goetia Asshole That Actually Got His Consequences For Shitting On Imps. Folks aren't real big on subtlety when it comes to hating Stolas's guts.
If she does know who he is, he doesn't really want to antagonize her about him. If she doesn't know, then Blitzø definitely doesn't want to start a fight, especially when his janky ass is stuck in bed, unable to do anything.
So he just shrugs, though that also fucking hurts (turns out: getting stabbed in the guts makes your entire fucking body one giant pain), and says, "As far as I know, he's never had a day of first aid training in his whole fucking life. Also the one time I got a fucking papercut I thought he was gonna pass out."
(Well, okay, the context was a little more than that--it hadn't been a papercut, but him getting cut by a piece of glass when some irate wannabe-client had thrown a paperweight at him and it had shattered on the wall. M&M had tossed that sorry bitch out on their ass, and Loona had patched him up, while Stolas sat at his desk and shook like he was going to break just like that paperweight. Blitzø's an idiot sometimes, but he knows what that implies, but that's not the business of a shitty nurse at a shitty hospital.)
"Well, that fucking idiot saved your sorry ass, so tell him thank you or something when he wakes up," she says. "Your other friends bodily carried him out of the hospital a couple of times, but he always came back after like an hour. Him and that hellhound."
Blitzø sucks in a breath, which was a fucking mistake (see again: ow, fuck, and fucking ow), but that means he can pretend that the way his eyes well up is just them watering from the pain. He wants to see Loona too, but if she reacts to him anything like she did in his weird--dream or near-death experience or whatever the fuck it was, she might actually kill him on accident. Fucking sucks.
"Huh," he says at last, all scratchy and pained.
"You're a real fucking lucky guy," she says to him. "Good luck. Don't move around too much, because miracles don't fucking happen in Hell, and they definitely don't happen twice."
Then she leaves the room, and Blitzø flips off her back before he drops his hand onto his chest. Which sets off all kinds of pain signals in his body, so he groans, rubs his face, and then he says, "I know you're awake, Stolas."
"I'm not sure if now is exactly the time, Blitzø," Stolas says. His voice is actually pretty calm and even, which is... different. And probably a bad sign. Blitzø knows most of the ways Stolas talks and how they map to his moods: over the top babbling when he's horny or excited, low dull monotones when he's having a low, and a low-grade jittery anxiety that never quite goes away except for the previously-mentioned low times. This sort of calm is new, but it doesn't feel good.
Blitzø squints at him. "The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"I mean," Stolas says, "that I have considered so many things that I could say to you over the past three weeks, and the thing is, I am both immeasurably happy that you're alive... and I am so very, very fucking pissed off at you."
"Whoa," Blitzø says. "I didn't know that 'pissed off' was even in your big fancy vocabulary."
Stolas finally lifts his head to look at him. His expression is also pretty calm, but his long hands are visibly shaking, where they're folding in his lap.
"I've been studying," he says. "They do say that immersion is the best way to learn a new language."
He barks a single laugh, then winces. "Fuck, don't make me laugh."
"I assure you, I am the furthest from wanting to laugh right now," Stolas says, but the corners of his beak do twitch just the tiniest bit. "But I've also had it stressed to me by the doctors that I shouldn't be engaging you in any sort of fisticuffs, even verbally."
"Hey." Blitzø uses his tail to point at Stolas, because it turns out he is too tired and sore to lift his arm again. That's probably a bad sign, but whatever. He'll live, apparently. "If anyone's using ANY kind of cuffs, it's gonna be me, on you."
Stolas's expression doesn't change, but he does get a little pink under those white feathers. Score. He sighs like he's about to go into full High Bitch Mode, but his tone is still mostly calm. "That's not what that means, Blitzø... the doctor said I wasn't to start a fight with you immediately after you woke up, and preferably not until the stitches dissolve."
Blitzø blinks. Stolas blinks back.
"You're doing a whole fucking lot better with that than I thought you would."
"...I've had three weeks with your daughter looming at me," Stolas admits. "She's a terribly perceptive young lady. It's as if she could read my mind, and knew whenever I started to fret."
Blitzø manages another short laugh before he's cringing from the pain again. "Fuck, I know, right? It's probably that fucking nose of hers. My Looney's got the best sniffer in any fucking Ring."
"If that's the case, maybe I should apologize to her," Stolas says. "I imagine it hasn't been pleasant, adjusting to another person in her space."
He almost waves that off, casually careless, but fuck--maybe it's the almost dying thing, maybe it's just thinking about her crying in his arms. I'm not gonna forgive you if you leave.
Did Stolas's baby bird think that, too? She seemed fine throwing all her anger at her dad, and yeah, he probably deserves most of the blame there, but... Blitzø's not innocent, either. He doesn't cry himself to sleep thinking about his old man being gone from his life, but that doesn't mean there isn't a parent he misses with every fucking piece of him.
So what he does is stretch his hand out. It fucking sucks to feel so stiff and achy in all the unfun ways, so he can't actually reach Stolas. But he tries.
And Stolas stares at his hand for a second, then reaches out to take it.
They sit quietly for a bit, and then Blitzø finally says, "The nurse said you did some kind of first aid shit. I didn't know you knew that kinda thing."
He never needed to, before. Once upon a time, and not even that long ago, any kind of injury Blitzø could lay on that long thin body healed in seconds--maybe minutes if Stolas really made an effort to keep them. He'd been immortal, untouchable, as fucking distant from Blitzø's dirty muddy hands as the moon he liked so fucking much. Their aftercare had mostly been about cleaning up, check-ins, and cuddling, never any kind of wound care.
"I don't," Stolas says. He stares at their hands. His upper eyes are slanted together, the inner corners turned downwards, which means he's thinking hard. "In fact, the whole thing was very strange. According to Loona, I simply threw myself out of a moving bus and started running, and by the time she caught up to me, I'd found you in that alley."
Again: Blitzø blinks, and Stolas blinks back.
"One, if you're gonna make a habit of jumping out of moving vehicles, we're gonna need to train you so you can do that shit safely," Blitzø says. "Two... the fuck? Loona can run circles around me, she can definitely outrun your soft ass."
Stolas chirps once, loud and annoyed, then shrugs. "You can ask her, if you don't believe me. I know that I was reading on the bus next to her, and then it felt like..." He pauses, then shakes his head. "It felt like there was something wrong, and I had to find out what. I had to fix it."
Did you? Blitzø almost asks, but he puts his other hand lightly on his stomach, where he can feel the heat of that injury even through the thin shitty hospital blankets, and he knows.
"It's honestly quite peculiar," Stolas is saying, when he tunes back in. "My role and powers were quite well-defined in their scope, and while I had personal regenerative abilities, they weren't anything that I could share with anyone else, though I certainly never tried--but that sort of thing is truly an impossibility now, I don't even--I suppose there might have been something when Satan did his... well, to be honest, I think the last instance of a goetia being charged in the Hellish Court was eons ago--certainly longer than I think even my own father's been alive, though I don't think I could actually look it up. The goetia love to keep their secrets, even from each other. I do wonder if--"
Blitzø watches him babble on, and though he's gesturing with his free hand and occasionally rocking in his chair with the force of his thoughts, the hand that holds Blitzø's stays steady and still. There's this big warm pressure growing in his chest, and it's almost enough to drown out the pain in his guts.
So he does the only reasonable thing, which is that he tugs Stolas's hand up, and he plants a little kiss on those sharp black knuckles.
Like fucking magic (the magic Stolas doesn't have right now, the magic he shouldn't be able to touch at all, the magic he very likely used somehow to save Blitzø's fucking shitty life), all of those rambling words cut off in a small squawk.
They stare at each other again. Blitzø knows he's got some kind of dopey shit-eating grin on his face, and he can see the way Stolas fucking tries to not smile back. He watches that beak twitch, then stop, then twitch again.
Finally, Stolas covers Blitzø's hand with the other.
"I'm still extremely fucking pissed off at you," he says.
"Yeah, fair," Blitzø says.
"If you do anything like that again, I WILL fight you when you wake up, no matter what Loona tells me."
"As long as I get to wake up and you're there, fine with me."
That gets a blush, but Stolas squeezes his hand harder like he's scolding. "You had better always wake up. If you think I am angry now, I will be incandescent if you do not."
Blitzø has no idea what that fucking word means, but he just grins. "Unfortunately, the fucking universe has decided to let me live, and I'm gonna make it everyone else's fucking problem," he says. "And especially yours."
Stolas's feathers fluff up, and then he draws himself up, into full high-and-mighty prince mode. He even tilts his chin up so he's looking down his beak at Blitzø.
"See to it that you do," he says, in the most obnoxiously snooty voice he's ever used. Even when they were fighting the day after that last full moon, and Stolas had been at like 75% cuntiness--even when he's really bringing it on to whatever shitty client is trying to weasel out of paying, he's never sounded this completely fucking insufferable. Blitzø's definitely far gone, because that's actually kind of fucking great. "I fully expect you to be that problem for me for the rest of our fucking lives."
"Bitch, just fucking try and stop me."
They stare at each other for a few more seconds, and then Stolas finally smiles--a slow curling thing, something so fucking smug that Blitzø is simultaneously turned on and afraid.
"Good," he says, and lets go of Blitzø's hand before getting to his feet. "Now! The others are in the waiting room. I'm afraid I insisted on being able to sit with you, but they'll want to know you're awake. One moment."
Then he fucking--sashays out of the room, with that cutesy little hip wiggle that Blitzø doesn't wanna admit is kind of hot, but let's fucking face it: it's hot. He's left feeling a little clotheslined, because what the fuck was that about?
He lies there, replaying the last little bit of their conversation in his head, once, twice, and then--
For the rest of their fucking lives. Oh, fuck. Oh, fucking fuck FUCK him, that fucking smug little cocky bitch, pulling that kind of shit, like they're not both fucked up from the shit that could potentially go wrong, and Blitzø is--
Blitzø is--...
He's...
Blitzø tips his head back and stares at the ceiling. His heart's beating like a fucking stampede of horses, but it feels less like black clutching terror and more like... excitement. Or something. He can hear Stolas's voice on the other side of the door, and the chatter of the rest of his family--that's definitely Loona's low huff and Fizz's scratchy rasp and of course M&M. Of course Barbie and Verosika aren't there, but he's almost glad of that.
He lies there and thinks about freaking out. He could throw a fit, maybe--throw some shit, rip all his stitches and gut himself fully in his rampage. He could dig into all those dirty, ugly places that are still in his soul, all the spots where flowers haven't grown, where it's still muck and mud and worse, and he could say some real nasty shit. He knows exactly how to tear Stolas apart with words, and if he does, M&M will be be disappointed and leave to comfort him, and once he does that, he could just continue being the shittiest guy ever, until he does die alone, on a shitty hospital floor.
He could do it. He could ruin everything. Just one nice little panic attack, and that's all the momentum he'd need.
He takes a deep breath. On it, he smells the strong, sharp smell of cheap citrus. It's possible he's hallucinating--he IS on some kind of drugs, and he's got the fucking IV to prove it--but that calms the churning desire to lash out inside of him.
Yeah, he could be a piece of shit, and that'd be easy. Or, he could just relax and accept that this is his fucking life now. At this point, he's not sure any of those people arguing who gets to come in and see him first are gonna be going anywhere, no matter how shitty he acts--so he might as well get his fucking act together and make it worth their while.
"Okay, Momma," he whispers, so soft that it's just breath and no sound, "you win. I'll fucking accept the whole 'mortifying ordeal of being loved,' or whatever. I love you."
For a moment, he thinks he feels a cool hand stroke over his forehead. He wishes he could hear her voice again, but there's nothing--just that light touch, the smell of fading citrus... but maybe that's enough.
The door bangs open, and Loona stomps in, all righteous loving fury. She's definitely as pissed off as she was in his near-death hallucination, but also her tail is wagging.
Blitzø watches her approach, and he smiles.