Chapter Text
Stolas' downfall began with the caution tape.
"Ten feet, Mox!" Blitzø barked, dragging the lemon tree from his office and setting it near the corner of the reception desk. Various pieces of furniture had been moved to create a boundary around Stolas: an old Sinsmas tree to his left, the abandoned eel tank to his right. And around it all, Blitzø was untangling a ratty roll of caution tape, looping it around each new landmark to create a barrier.
The other employees of I.M.P. were watching from afar, their expressions ranging from Millie's amusement to Moxxie's exasperation to Loona's sneer.
"Sir." Moxxie clapped his hands together, holding them as if in prayer, and used them to emphasize his words. "If you're going to accuse us of making Stolas ill, you need to recognize that you are interacting with us and you will pass him our germs."
"They make hand sanitizer for a reason." Blitzø bit the edge of the caution tape, slicing through it with his fangs. "Wash your filthy fucking hands once in a while, Mox."
It was true that Stolas had caught every sniffle going around the office. Losing his magic had obviously meant losing his ability to open portals and shift into his eldritch form, but he had not realized how many minor things magic had done for him. It stitched up his injuries in moments, and he was unused to his new bruises from colliding into imp-sized doorways or stumbling over Blitzø's discarded boots. His magic had made him immune to so many things: hangovers that never lasted too long (though he had avoided testing that one), stomachaches he probably deserved when half of his diet had been cereal and alcohol, and the sniffles and coughs that plagued the average hellborn.
He had awoken that morning to a number of unfamiliar symptoms: a pounding in his head, a new soreness in his joints, a stuffy nose that made it difficult to answer the phone, a cough that made it feel as though his ribs were vibrating in his chest. All of these minor setbacks compounded into something that felt nearly as bad as being hospitalized after Striker's attack, but apparently, it was an annual thing for most imps and hellhounds. How did anyone survive like that?
As his complaints worsened throughout the day, he found Blitzø sticking closer and closer to his side. He had grown territorial, growling at a sinner who had entered the office an hour earlier and trying to abscond Stolas away into his office. The owl insisted that he could stay at the desk and do his work, and that had been when Blitzø had begun erecting his new barrier.
And through it all, Stolas had felt a flush begin to creep up on his face. He wanted to blame his fever, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of Blitzø marking his territory, collecting items here and there so that the pair of them could be isolated in their little alcove...
"B," Millie broke in, resting her hands on her husband's shoulders to quiet his sputtering. "How 'bout you take Stolas home? We've only got two more clients. Mox and I can close up shop today."
"That mean I can leave?" Loona glanced up from her phone, but based on the way she was already starting to back away, Stolas suspected that she had already made up her mind.
"We'll be fi-... and she's gone." Millie reached over the caution tape to grab the file for the next client. Blitzø's tail whipped through the air, a low growl starting in the back of his throat, and she raised her hands in a mocking surrender. "You're actin' like a hellhog in heat right now."
Maybe that was his issue. Something was causing a fiery warmth to surge through Stolas' veins at the sight of Blitzø protecting him, however futile the gesture was. He quickly picked up the folder, passing it to Millie over Blitzø's head.
"I appreciate it." Stolas offered a tight, polite smile. Though he had begun to contribute a bit with his organizational skills and his love of reading and writing, he still felt useless around the office. The rest of I.M.P. had developed a routine, and so far, he had disrupted it more than anything. "Before we go, I can -" The tickle in his throat worsened, and Stolas turned away in time to hide his coughing fit in the crook of his arm.
Immediately, Blitzø circled an arm around him. Warmth permeated through Stolas' feathers down to his skin, and his feathers bristled to let some cool air circulate around his neck. It was so much more intense than the simple fever that had woken him early that morning. An unconscious chirp escaped his throat when Blitzø's arm tightened around him and Stolas felt something hot and needy roil in his stomach.
"Me and Mox are pretty good at what we do," Millie teased, looping her own arm around Moxxie. He finally relaxed into the gesture, leaning his horns against hers. "'Sides, you got all our files already set up for the day. Go on home. Blitzø, we'll text you if we need anything."
"Hope you feel better, sir," Moxxie chimed in as Blitzø raised his wrist to conjure a portal, then removed his glove to toss to the pair. Stolas barely had a chance to wave a hand and offer a word of parting before Blitzø pushed him through the shimmering passageway and into the familiar apartment.
Blitzø's hands didn't leave him once, only shifting so that he could take Stolas' hands and lead him towards the couch. The gesture was so familiar, not unlike so many full moons spent together where Blitzø had taken charge, blindfolding Stolas and gently guiding him into position or pulling him out of bed to press him against a wall and nuzzle his mouth against the soft feathers of his cloaca, his mouth the perfect height for easy access -
Stolas' cheeks flushed. The thoughts were coming to his fevered mind far too easily, and he couldn't dispel them, especially when Blitzø tugged at the hem of Stolas' sweater and said, "Get undressed, birdie."
Was this happening?
They had not discussed what position his banishment left them in, and Stolas knew that it was his own fault that neither of them had yet broached the topic. However, if Blitzø was going to stand there and demand he get undressed, there was nothing Stolas could do but comply, led on by the gentle control in Blitzø's voice and his own aching need. His talons dug into the fabric, cautiously lifting it up over his head and discarding it on the floor at his feet. And - were Blitzø's eyes tracing along the lines of his body? Stolas held his breath, waiting to be appraised, craving the compliments that had always spilled so easily from Blitzø's mouth, calling him pretty or needy or mine.
But Blitzø only said, "Let me get your pajamas," and Stolas realized that it was all in his imagination.
"Thank you." He sank down onto the couch as Blitzø turned away, trying to calm the thudding of his heart. It was ridiculous to think that Blitzø would suddenly look at him with lustful eyes after months of pity. Nothing had yet changed; Octavia was still gone, Stolas was still sleeping through more days than not, and he was still a penniless former prince with nothing to his name but the small plants and books he had collected with each paycheck.
The desire in his belly curdled into familiar loneliness. As Blitzø rooted through the drawer that held their clothes, Stolas laid down on the couch, turning to face the back cushions and wrapping his arms around himself.
The nagging voice in his mind that told him to try harder wasn't enough to make him turn back over even when he heard the drawer shut and Blitzø return.
Fingers carded through the feathers along his back, and Stolas froze. It felt like a half-remembered gesture from a dream, and somewhere in his subconscious, he knew Blitzø had done it before. So many phantom touches like this lingered at the edge of his memory, uncertain whether they had been dreams or not. Sometimes when he awoke after the full moon, he'd find his feathers lying suspiciously flat despite their midnight activities, as though someone had gently straightened them in his sleep. Other times, he swore he could feel the warmth of a touch still on his cheek, but it was so easily dismissed as just being the pillow beneath his head. Since arriving at the apartment, though, Stolas had grown used to waking up and finding the blanket perfectly sprawled across his body as though he hadn't tossed and turned at all, and there was usually at least one horse plushie tucked into the crook of his arm or resting beside his face.
It was ridiculous to think that Blitzø had been reserving all of his tenderness for when Stolas fell asleep, but what else could have explained it?
He was conscious now, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Blitzø was touching his back. Stolas wanted to arch his spine into it, to press deeper against those warm fingers, but he resisted. The owl shut his eyes, trying to even his breathing to pretend he was asleep. If Blitzø was touching him so gingerly, it was surely only because he thought Stolas had passed out in the minute it had taken him to retrieve his clothes.
But judging by Blitzø's next words, spoken at normal volume, he knew Stolas was awake. "You doing okay, Stols?"
Stolas' breath caught in his throat. "Yes," he answered, the word coming out too high-pitched, the slight tremor revealing that he had been lost in his thoughts. "Yes, thank you."
Blitzø's hand pressed against his forehead, and Stolas leaned into the gesture before realizing that it was probably only to check his temperature.
"Got a few feathers back here that are ready to go. How 'bout I fix them up and then we get you a bath to cool down?"
A part of Stolas wanted to be embarrassed whenever Blitzø commented on his feathers or drew him a bath. It should have sounded too close to Stella's comments for comfort - her constant berating that he was too drab, too scrawny, too unkempt. He had always enjoyed his time in the bath and the slow, methodical process of applying his preening oils and setting his feathers flat against his flesh, even if it was difficult to reach places like his upper back without assistance. (And who was there to assist? He had outgrown having a butler do it years ago. That sort of thing was reserved for couples after a certain age, and he and Stella had never been a couple so much as two miserable people trapped in a business transaction.)
Embarrassingly, it had been difficult to muster up the desire to preen since the trial. The bathroom was too different from the one in the palace, his normal preening oils and soaps were gone and not cheap to replace, and even if there had been enough space for him to occupy the bathroom for hours, he shuddered at the idea of staring at his reflection any more than necessary. No amount of sleep could get rid of the bags under his eyes or the dullness of his feathers, and his eyes - they looked so much like Octavia's with their new pupils that he wanted to be ill whenever he met his own gaze on any reflective surface.
Yet Blitzø had been patient with him, ushering him to the bathroom, lighting some candles to make it feel more familiar, oftentimes grabbing a loofa and starting to clean Stolas himself until the owl became aware enough of his surroundings to finish on his own. It was never the touch of a butler forced to care for him - a comparison that Stolas' mind sometimes wanted to make, terrified that he was leaning too heavily on Blitzø's kindness and using him as he had before. Instead, they were the gentle touches of someone who seemed to care, who enjoyed touching him, who found some satisfaction in sitting in his company and idly prattling on about a show he had watched or a case he had finished.
Or maybe it was all in Stolas' imagination.
"Thank you," Stolas murmured as Blitzø scratched along his spine.
"Don't have to thank me for everything, you know."
Stolas turned his head, his body unmoving, to look at Blitzø. "What?"
"That's, like, the third time you've said it in two minutes." Blitzø tapped a hand against Stolas' hip. The gesture was so familiar that Stolas acted without thinking, lifting his hips into the air as though Blitzø was planning to get behind him and work him open. His cheeks flushed right as he recognized Blitzø's true intention: to get Stolas to move enough that he could crawl beneath him, sitting so that Stolas' stomach was on his lap and he could preen his feathers.
He had stretched out that way plenty of times to be spanked, Blitzø raising one of his large hands or a paddle or riding crop to smack across his ass...
Stolas buried his face in his hands, feeling the warmth coming off his cheeks as he shook through another coughing fit. Why was his treacherous mind wandering so much?
"I'm sorry." He didn't know if he was saying it because of Blitzø's reprimand or because his body was as taut as a violin string as he tried to contain the wetness growing between his thighs or simply because it was embarrassing being too sick and too depressed to manage his own feathers.
"It's okay." Blitzø's claws scratched across his scalp, then trailed down to his shoulders, where he started to rearrange each shaft to face the same direction. "It's cute when you're all polite and shit."
Fuck him, it was all too much: Blitzø calling him cute, the sensation of those deft fingers on his feathers, the attention Blitzø was laying upon his neglected body. Stolas shifted as subtly as he could, squeezing his thighs together.
His head turned just in time to see Blitzø's tongue flick out of his mouth, and the imp's pupils dilated. Motherfucker. A year ago, the reveal of his arousal would have resulted in Blitzø fucking him into the cushions, but now? Stolas buried his face in his arms so that he wouldn't need to see the inevitable pity in his eyes.
"You like when I play with your feathers, huh?"
Yes, Stolas wanted to insist. Please keep touching me. Keep snapping at anyone who gets close. Keep calling me cute. Instead, he carefully cleared his throat, grimacing at the renewed coughing fit that it elicited, then hoarsely answered, "Preening is... it's -"
Blitzø plucked one of the old, dull feathers from his back, and the feathers around his neck bristled in response. It was the act itself that was so full of care: the concept of grooming another demon, of trusting someone to see oneself at their rawest, most unkempt state and allowing them to heap soft affection onto their flaws. What Stolas had noticed the first time Blitzø had unconsciously pulled away a broken feather, however, was that preening came with a much more physical reaction. It was having someone touch the parts of him normally buried under layers of fabric where hands had never touched. It was every embrace he had lacked as a child, every gentle caress his marriage had never brought, every degree of warmth that Blitzø brought to touch-starved skin.
He had needed to hold back tears the first time Blitzø touched him so gently, his body responding before he was able to catch his reaction. And now, nearly a year removed from their full moons together, Stolas felt tears prickle in his eyes as he leaned into the touch.
"It's, uh, personal, right?" Blitzø supplied, idly picking another feather and laying it on the cushion beside him.
Stolas hummed, turning his face away to hide his tears. "I think the word most would use is 'intimate'," he murmured.
"It okay that I'm doing this, then?" Despite his question, Blitzø's hands did not slow down. He carefully corrected a stray feather that had been poking Stolas' back uncomfortably, eliciting a quiet sigh of relief.
Yes, Stolas' mind begged. Please. I need this. I need you. He had failed to say so many of the things that needed to be discussed, though, that he forced himself to take a deep breath and communicate for once.
"The last person to preen me was my father's butler when I was a child." Stolas shut his bottom set of eyes, letting the top set watch the steady light from the television set. "It is... meant to be something your parents do for you when you are young and your... your partner does for you when you are older. I do not wish to push the latter role onto you without your consent, and I certainly never wish to compare you to the former."
Blitzø's tail must have been waving through the air as Stolas could hear the light scratching against the couch cushion. He tried to listen for its speed, trying to determine if it was the rapid, anxious whipping of anger or the gentle, curling movements of contentment. It sounded like the latter, but he still held his breath until Blitzø responded.
"According to who?" Blitzø asked, and when Stolas turned his head to give an inquiring look, Blitzø clarified. "Like, if you and your friend are fifteen and start preening each other or something, does that mean you're dating?"
"Well, no." Stolas' face flushed as he tried to picture going up to one of the Goetia children he sometimes encountered through his tutors or parties and asking them to preen him. His usual company at that age had been Stella and Andrealphus, and when he pictured either of them laying their hands on him, all he could picture were plucked feathers and blood. "Not necessarily. You would likely be engaged by that point, so I suppose it would not be unusual to see someone sneaking away to preen their fiancé. However, it would be rather scandalous to do so where anyone might find out or to preen someone besides your betrothed."
"Wait -" Blitzø tugged at a feather that wasn't ready to come out yet, and Stolas winced. "Fuck, shit, sorry, Stols. The fuck do you mean you'd already be engaged at fifteen?"
The sudden change in tone had Stolas shrinking further into himself, which only worsened the tickling in his throat. He coughed into his fist, letting Blitzø rub his back until he could speak again. "That is - well, it is traditional. I was engaged on my tenth birthday."
"Ten? What the fuck?" Now Blitzø's hands stopped moving entirely, the whipping of his tail getting faster. Perhaps he shouldn't have said anything. Stolas started to push himself up and off of Blitzø's lap when the imp's hand returned to his back, keeping him in place. "You - you looked like a little kid when we met. Do we age differently or something? Were you actually, like, fifty in imp years and five in Goetia years?"
Having seen Blitzø's driver's license in his wallet and taking a curious peek once before, Stolas knew that imp years and Goetia years were the same units of time. He let out a hooting laugh. "First of all, darling" - the familiar name slipped out as easily as his laughter, causing his cheeks to flush - "I was ten, not five. I had already lost my down at that point, I'll have you know." Blitzø squinted at him, and Stolas tittered once more. "My baby feathers, so to speak. We met on my tenth birthday. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that makes me a few months younger than you, actually."
Based on the way Blitzø's face fell, Stolas knew he had said the wrong thing. The owl shrank back into himself, shoulders defensively curling to conceal his face. "My apologies. I did not mean to upset you."
"That's not -" Blitzø blew out a harsh breath, then returned his hands to Stolas' back. Despite the roughness of his tone, his touches remained feather-light and gentle. "Not upset at you, pretty bird. I'm fucking pissed off that anyone thought it was okay to fucking marry you off when you were still little enough to play pirates -"
"To be fair, that was my one and only time playing pirates." He had tried to introduce the game when he had met Stella and Andrealphus, telling himself that if they could play together, perhaps they could become friends the way he and Blitzø had. He'd barely gotten the words out of his mouth before Stella had given him a look of pure disgust and his father had walloped him over the head for being childish. "And I was only engaged, not married. They waited for Stella's eighteenth birthday."
"Tell me she's way too young for you and you were, like, thirty."
Stolas hooted, though the sound had him gripping Blitzø's thigh through another round of coughing. "A month younger. I'm an absolute cradle robber, clearly."
"Fuck, Stolas." Blitzø's hands reached his lower back, plucking out a few more feathers and smoothing down others in some sore spots. "Turn over."
The feathers on his chest and stomach were among the easiest for him to preen, but he felt like such putty under Blitzø's hands that Stolas couldn't protest. He turned, taking care not to knock any of his long limbs against Blitzø as he settled back against him. The new position let him watch Blitzø's face through exhausted, half-lidded eyes and see how his brows knit together, clearly digesting everything he had just been told. Any other time, Stolas would have known to watch his mouth so that he didn't concern Blitzø. But today? Today, with all of his walls down in the fog of illness, he liked the way Blitzø held him a little closer and so possessively smoothed down his feathers.
"So you didn't get to date around as a teenager? Make out sloppy style? Get a blowjob behind the dumpster after a shitty concert?"
Oh, it was all too easy to picture Blitzø in each of those situations. Stolas mentally inserted himself as well, picturing what it would be like to have encountered him again as a teenager. The pair of them in each other's laps, applying eyeliner to sneak out and watch a band. Exchanging hurried kisses when no one was watching. Him on his knees, beak open to take Blitzø into his mouth and feel the weight of his cock against his tongue -
"You were my first kiss," Stolas blurted out, just to try and push aside those mental images. He clenched his thighs tighter. "Excluding the kiss at my wedding, but that... well, I never really replayed that memory in my head."
For a long moment, neither of them said anything. Had it been too much to admit? It reminded him of a scene in one of the later seasons of Hell-a-novela when Gabriella's actress had been written off for a few episodes when she had gotten pregnant, so the story had revolved around her young niece (who had actually been stolen from the hospital and was truly the daughter of Gabriella's one-time abductor who later married her ex-boyfriend's twin sister). She and her boyfriend had exchanged breathless words in a dark bedroom, discussing the weight of taking one another's virginity.
And though Stolas had been a father and not a virgin when Blitzø had returned to his life, he couldn't deny that it had felt like that scene.
"You - you were many of my firsts," Stolas mused, and he only realized when Blitzø looked down at him that he had spoken aloud. His face burned with mingled embarrassment and fever, his eyelids and his tongue equally heavy as he rambled through a hoarse explanation. "Stella and I did... as little as we could to fulfill our duties. Once the egg took, we were practically strangers once more. You were my first kiss, my first partner I enjoyed, my first orgasm that felt real, my first love. Every day, I thought about what it would have been like to sneak back to the circus and see you again, to be held by you, to have you rescue me, to 'make out sloppy style'." He laughed, the sound dissolving into another coughing fit that he tried to cover with his hand, but his limbs felt too heavy to lift. "And ridiculous as it sounds, I'd thought about you being the first to preen me, to touch me like this, to be so comfortable with you. I suppose - I suppose Goetic mating rituals do not matter one bit when I no longer count among their ranks, but I want you to know that it still means a great deal to me."
Blitzø said nothing. The fact that his claws were still sorting through his feathers, adding to the growing pile of broken discards, was answer enough. The silence still weighed heavy on him, and Stolas watched Blitzø's face through his top set of eyes, the ones that took less energy to keep open, craving any kind of response.
Once Blitzø reached his hips, he lifted a hand to hold against Stolas' forehead. Stolas let his eyes shut, focusing on the familiar pressure of his hand until it pulled away.
"You're burning up, Stols," Blitzø whispered. "Let's get you in the bath before you say something you regret."
***
Stolas didn't know when he fell asleep. The previous day existed only as fragments of memories: Blitzø's hands on his back, the coolness of the bath water, a towel gently raking over his feathers to dry him off. His body buzzed with phantom touches the same way it had after every full moon, but if asked to describe the care Blitzø had doled out, Stolas would have failed to conjure a single word. The memory dissipated, erased by the glare of the mid-morning sun as it streamed in through the glass door.
He sat up, groaning as his muscles protested the movement. His head swam as though his brain were trailing several inches after his skull. While the stiffness in his limbs had become familiar from so many nights sleeping on the couch (how the fuck Blitzø managed on the beanbag chair, he didn't know), this was a new, harsher ache that had him wanting to collapse back into the cushions.
However, Blitzø had already spotted him, letting out a cheery, "Morning, pretty bird. Got some breakfast for you."
The distance to the kitchen had never felt so long. Stolas pushed himself up onto shaky legs, gripping the back of the couch and then the wall as he stumbled closer. It was clear Blitzø had been up for some time. Even though a stuffy nose and an admittedly dull sense of smell, Stolas could smell familiar scent of Blitzø's signature breakfast: a stack of pancakes beginning to lean precariously, a paper towel-lined plate of sausages, an open carton of blueberries that Stolas knew had been bought just for him.
Blitzø nodded at the stack of plates at the end of the counter. "Help yourself, or I can make your plate in a second. Just need to flip this pancake and grab some mugs."
"Thank -" Stolas' voice came out so scratchy as to be nearly inaudible, and he cleared his throat to try again. "Thank you. Truly."
Blitzø's tail wagged. Stolas grabbed one of the plates and opened the drawer of utensils, pulling out three forks and one knife. (He had learned early on that Blitzø and Loona seemed to cut almost everything with the side of their fork, and he seemed to be the sole occupant of the apartment who was used to having a full array of cutlery for meals.) Then he assembled his plate: a pancake carefully placed to one side of the plate and a few washed blueberries placed neatly so that they wouldn't roll onto his pancake and get it wet.
He sat at the table, and by the time he had finished folding the napkins and laying everyone's utensils on them, Blitzø padded over with a cup of juice, a mug of coffee, and his own plate balanced in the crook of his arm.
"Figured you could use some more sleep today, so I won't give you caffeine unless you really want it," Blitzø said, setting the juice in front of him. Then he glanced at Stolas' plate with a frown.
Stolas followed his gaze, realizing how ridiculous it looked to always separate his meal into distinct sections. The staff back at the palace had learned his quirks and found a way to accommodate them artfully, and now he wished he had paid enough attention to figure out how they had managed it without it looking like something he would have done to introduce a much younger Octavia to new foods. "The blueberries were wet," he explained. "I didn't want them touching -"
Except Blitzø didn't seem focused on that as he stepped away. He returned with the stack of pancakes in one hand, a plate of sausages and blueberries in the other. Then he added three more pancakes to Stolas' plate, followed by another handful of blueberries and several sausages, all carefully placed to prevent them touching.
Finally, he grabbed the syrup bottle, climbing up onto Stolas' thigh and straddling it. Oh Lucifer, straddling it as though he were riding it, and Stolas pictured himself wearing the thigh harness Blitzø had once brought over when Stolas had broached the topic of topping him. He could imagine Blitzø undressed, rocking himself with those desperate, needy noises, murmuring how you feel so good for Daddy.
Only Blitzø was not actually rocking against him. He was sitting perfectly still, his tongue sticking between his teeth in concentration. Stolas leaned forward, seeing that he was painstakingly drawing a pattern in syrup.
"A horse?"
"Fuck yeah. You get Tire Iron today. He's a graffiti artist and he's in a threesome with TV Remote and Goldfish Cracker." Blitzø capped the syrup and hopped off Stolas' lap, leaving him to press his knees together and ward off the blossoming warmth between his legs. "No toddler portions when you're sick, okay? You need the energy."
Stolas' toddler portions had been the subject of a few scolding comments since his banishment. His appetite had been reduced to nothing, and for the first two months, he had needed to actively attempt to take more than two or three bites each meal. As the antidepressants had leveled out his mood, he had tried to explain to Blitzø that his normal appetite wasn't much better than it was in a depressive episode. Most days, he managed on a few mugs of tea, more absinthe than he was willing to admit, and then forced himself to sit down at the dinner table for Octavia's sake. Blitzø had simply responded by letting his gaze rake down the length of Stolas' thin frame, and that had ended the argument.
He had tried for Blitzø's sake. When the imp pointed out his portion sizes, Stolas would go get seconds, adding to his plate until Blitzø looked content. Most of the time, Blitzø would plate the dishes himself before Stolas could get to the table, giving him a portion twice the size that he was used to. This was the first time he had been present to watch Blitzø do the plating - seeing the care he put into drawing one of his horses, watching how intentionally he placed every item to ensure they didn't touch and that Stolas would be fine eating it all.
When he pressed his legs together this time, he felt the tell-tale slipperiness of his dripping cloaca. Blitzø must have noticed the flush across his cheeks because his tongue darted out, tasting the air, and he grinned.
"Damn, Stols. If you'd told me sooner that you have a feeding kink, the last few months could have been so much easier."
"A feeding -" Stolas tried to process the phrase before dismissing it. There had been a dozen times he had raised an idea to Blitzø, detailing one of his fantasies, only to be told that it was an existing kink. Inexperienced as he might have been, he had still read enough erotica to be familiar with some of the most common ones, and it had never taken him by surprise to learn that other people wanted the things he wanted. This, however, was different. "No, no. I was simply... thinking."
"Yeah?" Blitzø climbed onto his seat, using his fork to cut a triangle through his stack of pancakes. "'Bout what?"
Had he rambled at Blitzø the previous day? Stolas touched his fingers to his throat, clearing away some of the lingering hoarseness. No, surely he had not let himself get into some fever-induced rant about preening or this confession was going to sound far worse than it already was. "About how I enjoy your cooking. When I was... engaged, it was all very formal. The Goetia enjoy their traditions -"
"You can say that twice," Blitzø snorted, spearing a sausage.
"- so we had to do the whole song and dance. Quite literally, as dancing has always been part of courting rituals. One aspect is - well, food." Stolas gestured at his plate, eyes fixed on his pancakes as though it would help stem the blushing of his cheeks. "I had to organize the menu for some dinners to try and woo her. Anything I chose was going to disappoint her simply because I had chosen it, so I had left it to the chef and took the blame afterwards. It always seemed... pleasurable, though, learning what someone enjoys most and indulging them."
Perhaps it was only the echoes of Stella's shouts haunting him, but it took Stolas several long seconds to look up. When he did, he saw that Blitzø was grinning at him, his tail lazily moving through the air.
"Pretty textbook definition of a feeding kink."
"Oh, fuck you," Stolas mumbled, but his cloaca throbbed and he was forced to squeeze his thighs tighter. "I simply liked the idea of - of caring for someone, of being cared for." His hands shook under the weight of the confession, and Stolas tried to stave off the feeling by meticulously cutting one of the sausages into equally sized pieces. "I never wanted my marriage to fail. Even if I was forced into it and even if I knew I couldn't be attracted to her, I thought we could still love one another. I wanted to have the chance to get to know someone and care for them, knowing it would be reciprocated and that we could be... happy."
It was too much to say when they still hadn't broached so many necessary conversations. Worse still was knowing that Stolas couldn't discuss it - not when his mind had been a looping record of Octavia insisting that he loved Blitzø and not her. To pursue him would be to prove her right, yet living alongside him without loving him felt disingenuous. To say that he didn't love Blitzø in some way was to say that Lust never rained or that the stars were hideous: all blatant lies.
He didn't know what response he expected. He certainly didn't know what response he wanted. Stolas silently pushed the pieces of sausage around his plate until he heard a loud scraping and looked up. Blitzø was pushing his chair closer so that he could sit beside Stolas rather than across from him. Then the imp speared one of the bits of sausage from Stolas' plate and lifted it to his beak. Stolas obligingly opened his mouth, tongue wrapping around the tines of the fork to accept it.
"Want me to teach you how to cook?"
Stolas swallowed. "What?"
Now he could see the tinge of pink across the pale size of Blitzø's face. "All that stuff you said. Wanting to take care of someone else. I get it. I like taking care of you." Blitzø cut a small triangle from Stolas' pancakes and lifted that to his beak next, watching as he ate. "I know that shit's... rough right now. And maybe this" - he gestured between them with the fork - "isn't... I don't know. I'm not forcing anything. But at the very least, we're friends, right?"
From the look in his eyes, Stolas knew that it wasn't a rhetorical question. He nodded, clearing his dry throat, then nodded more emphatically. "Yes. Yes. You're my best friend, Blitzø. I'm always going to" - love you - "care for you very deeply."
Blitzø's tail sped up. Stolas might have even described the movement as wagging. "Cool. Okay. Yeah. I care about you, too. So if you want to - I don't know - go through all that stuff? Do whatever you wanted to do with her? Get all those dumb teenage experiences you never had? I'm right here."
Between the fogginess of his aching head and the self-doubt that polluted every thought he'd ever had about relationships, it took Stolas a long moment to process what Blitzø was saying. It was a free pass to flirt. No, not just flirt. They had spent months doing that during the full moon, using pet names and touching one another, sometimes surprising the other with small gifts or hard-won compliments.
This was an invitation to court him.
His feathers fanned out, letting the cool air touch his fevered skin. It was a type of romance he had given up on expecting as soon as he had gotten to know Stella. He'd given up on it a second time when he had processed the arrangement he had trapped Blitzø in, then a third time when he had tried to give Blitzø the crystal.
"If this is just a roleplay," Stolas began, trying to keep his breathing even, "then -"
Blitzø cut him off with another bite of sausage. "Not this time, Stols. I'm -" But he broke off, stabbing another piece of sausage with more force than necessary. "Look. I fucked up a lot."
"As did I."
"But what if we just... wiped the slate? We've saved each other. We don't need any bargains or deals anymore. We live together. What if we just said fuck it?" Blitzø shrugged, his gaze darting to the side. "Fresh start. Do whatever we want. No Goetias hanging over our heads, no wives to sneak around, no royalty bullshit. And if it's too much, we hit the pause button, no hard feelings."
His banishment had been a fresh start. Though Stolas had already spent most of it crying himself to sleep on the couch or dissociating so badly that he didn't know what was happening around him, he could still understand that he was surrounded by opportunities. Living and working among imps and hellhounds meant challenging every terrible thing he used to say and believe. Being at Blitzø's side meant getting to know him in ways he hadn't during the full moon. Losing his title meant shedding all of the expectations that had held him down for so long. He had ruined his life, but perhaps like forests, sometimes things had to burn to clear the debris and make room for a new life.
Stolas clumsily cut a triangle of his pancakes using the side of his fork, grimacing at the messiness of it all. Then he speared the stack, bringing it to Blitzø's lips. The imp grinned, teeth briefly flashing before he lolled out his tongue and took the bite.
"I'd like that," Stolas admitted. "I wouldn't mind a second chance to... do it all. To live my life."
Blitzø swallowed. "Sweet. But you gotta tell me." As Stolas tilted his head curiously, Blitzø's grin widened. "Who the fuck lets a ten year old pick the menu for their fiancée? Because I know I would have fed them pizza, cotton candy, and a shitload of sugar."
It took Stolas a second to rewind through the conversation and understand. While his engagement had been decided at ten, the courtship itself had thankfully waited. They'd had miserable playdates, but no one had expected them to begin any sort of romantic gestures until they had been closer to seventeen. He nearly pointed this out when he realized the implication of what Blitzø was saying.
"Did I - so we really did have that conversation yesterday?"
"You spilled your guts, pretty bird," Blitzø teased, waving another enticing bite of pancake in front of Stolas' face. "You bet your ass it gave me some good ideas for once you're over this flu."