Chapter Text
Blitzø doesn’t fall asleep, and he definitely doesn’t dream.
He prefers passing out from exhaustion, which he thinks is a good way to live (wrong) and which everyone else thinks is actual torture (correct). It’s common workplace gossip at this point, thanks to Moxxie’s gay ass concern for his wellbeing.
“He’s probably giving himself brain damage,” Moxxie whispers to Millie one day.
“Say that to my fucking face, Mox,” Blitzø yells, kicking open the door. Moxxie, as ever, stays put.
“I was not even insulting you.”
“You said I had brain damage!” Blitzø mocks, slamming his mug on their big ass table.
Moxxie stands up at that, and Blitzø can practically see the smoke billowing out of his ears. “That’s literally not what I said!”
It’s all good fun. For Blitzø, at least. Most things are. Until Stolas shows up, needing a place to crash and two bad days away from driving the van to Pentagram City and personally asking Carmilla Carmine to put him down like a sick dog.
Basically, Stolas doesn’t like sleeping alone.
Blitzø doesn’t either, but Stolas is plenty gay enough for both of them, so he’ll keep that to himself. He sleeps on the couch with Stolas for Stolas’ sake, thank you very much, as he’s pretty sure any more added friction (the unsexy kind, unfortunately) will make Stolas the first proven victim of spontaneous demonic combustion. Especially with the whole ‘getting him on pills so he doesn’t exit stage right’ thing. Pills are weird. Life is weird. There’s a bird on his couch and antidepressants in his bathroom cabinet and three chairs at his shitty little table instead of two. Or four.
So now Blitzø stares at the ceiling, arms wrapped around the saddest bird in the seven rings, and just kind of… waits.
He hasn’t done this in a while. He’s still passing out from exhaustion, technically, he’s just, you know, committing to it.
Oh, shit. That’s terrifying.
Admittedly, he peeks his head over the back of the couch to check the oven clock at least five times. Mostly to check the time, but also to make sure he didn’t leave it on by accident, and that he missed it the four other times he checked. Real relaxation happening here.
After an hour, he considers throwing in the towel and not sleeping at all. He stares at the ceiling pointedly, fully awake. And then he blinks, and he’s conked. Sleep likes playing hard to get, apparently. Hot.
He’s in a black void. Like, metaphorically. But then he’s in a black void, like, literally. Talk about mixed signals. The walls of the blackness are slick and inky and there’s barely enough air in the room to make noise.
By Blitzø standards, this isn’t a really bad dream. It’s kind of chill, actually. The quiet will eventually start to make him tweak, but he’ll cross that horse when he fucks bridge. For now, he’s chill. This is what vacation would be like, he imagines, if he were significantly higher above the poverty line.
He sticks a hand in the goop, because his survival instincts absolutely plummet when he’s by himself, and it feels like nothing. Like air. Huh. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend there’s nothing there at all. What’s that thing Moxxie was droning on about the other day? Sensory desperation?
Damn, Blitzø thinks. This is the only time in my entire life that anything Moxxie has said has ever been even a little relevant. I’m fucking furious.
He turns on his heel, about to venture wrist deep in the sludge again, but instead finds a gangly teenager opposite him. And not one he’s fond of.
“Ew,” Blitzø grimaces, pulling his hands back towards his chest so he can create a barrier between himself and the hormonal freak in front of him.
“Thanks,” Blitzo deadpans. Fucking dick. Shoulders hunched and shit, like he’s embarrassed to be alive. Everyone is, kid. Get with the program!
“What are you doing here?” Blitzø spits out, trying to back up but hitting the black nothingness instead. Oh, now it decides to have mass. Great.
Blitzo cringes at him, like he’s not him but a teenager, which is objectively worse than anything else. “Shouldn’t you know?”
“This is not a time travel thing, dude,” Blitzø sighs, dragging a hand down his face. “Talk about jumping the shark.” The sludge slides off his claws like he’s not even there.
Blitzo rolls his eyes. “I meant, like, in your heart or whatever.”
Blitzø snorts. “Gay.”
And then its silence. Ear-ringing, tinnitus-exposing, psychological torture silence. And that just won’t do for ol’ Blitzø.
“I hate you,” Blitzø barks. It’s loud, even to him, but there’s not a single part of him that is capable of feeling bad about it.
“I don’t like you either,” Blitzo hisses, arms crossed in front of him. He’s shaking like a leaf, refusing to make eye contact, and chewing on his bottom lip like he’s high on uppers. Not a burn on him yet. Blitzø clenches his fist.
“I never thought we’d make it this far,” Blitzo adds nervously. “How come you lived this long?”
What a stupid question. “‘Cause I fuckin’ hate you,” Blitzø snaps, openly angry in a way he hasn’t been since an extremely sensitive bird arrived at his doorstep. When he’s not shouting at the kid, his heartbeat allows him to still be the loudest noise in the space at any given second, rabbiting under his skin.
He wishes yelling worked on this stupid kid. But, he quickly realizes that he just likes yelling. Actually getting through to this kid is harder than that. Cash yells at this stupid kid every second of the day and it obviously did fucking nothing, after all. So, he tries a different approach. Blitzø’s good at that.
He wraps his arms around the kid’s shoulder, holds him tight, just like his mom used to. He ignores the way the kid flinches. Then he holds the kid’s face in his hands, and says calmly, carefully, quietly, just like how his mom used to sing to him:
“I fucking hate you.”
Blitzo’s face drops. Bingo. Blitzø knew yelling wouldn’t do shit to this freak, but looking straight in the eyes and smiling earnestly? That’s how you break an insecure teenager. He would cheer if he wasn’t busy emotionally abusing his former self. He does laugh a little, because he’s a sick fuck. There’s the second thing he’s good at: hurting people.
“You have nothing else to say to me?”
“What do you want to hear?”
“What happened to your face?”
Blitzø smacks the kid across the face as hard as he can. In the oil slick reflections on the walls, he swears he sees his dad’s face instead of his. There’s the third thing he’s good at rearing its ugly head again: asking stupid fucking questions.
Blitzo’s eyes are big and bug and wet, and he’s biting his bottom lip to stop it from trembling, and Blitzø tries his hardest to find some part of him that feels bad for the kid. Overturn some stone, find some misplaced empathy for his younger self, find some potential in him like he can with anybody else. But there’s nothing. Just a gnawing feeling, and silence.
And Blitzø’s eyes open, and he can’t breathe.
“Breathe,” Stolas hums from behind him, taking over as the big spoon. Nothing can stop you from falling like a bird.
“Mhm, yep, mhm,” Blitzø hums stupidly, shakily removing Stolas’ arm that had wrapped across his chest and staggering his way to the bathroom.
He throws up, and he doesn’t feel better like he usually does, getting all that nasty shit out of him. And even when there’s nothing left in him, he’s still retching.
Stolas runs cold hands up and down his spine as Blitzø leans against the cold tile floor, and Blitzø can tell he’s trying his absolute best not to pry. Blitzø’s already woke him up with some bullshit, so he might as well throw him a bone, otherwise he’ll be up all night ruminating. Birds of a feather, he thinks, and then forgets, because it's stupid.
“I’m all good,” he groans from the floor. He gets up on his hooves and steps to the sink, bracing himself on the counter like he’s about to pass out. You know, like someone who’s all good.
“Mhm,” Stolas hums from the doorway like he’s not all good. “Right.”
“You’re saying it like that ‘cause you think I’m lying, but I’m really all good,” Blitzø says once he’s scrubbed his tongue four times over and swallowed more mouthwash than a desperate jailbird. Once he’s sufficiently brushed and not jittering like a VHS tape, he turns to face Stolas with his arms outstretched. See?
Stolas does not see, and instead places a palm against his forehead.
“You’re not sick,” he mutters.
“I’ve never been sick in my life,” Blitzø grins. “I’m too cool.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” Stolas nods, that look of worry still not leaving his face. After a second of stark white pupils scanning Blitzø for any sign of discomfort, Stolas sandwiches Blitzø’s face with his hands and gets on his knees so they’re face to face. And not in a sexy way.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Stolas says quietly, and Blitzø swallows back bile for the second time that night.
“Is everything good?” His beautiful daughter hisses from the kitchen, causing Stolas and Blitzø to snap their heads towards her like compass needles facing due north.
“Everything is so good, Loony,” he says automatically, and he does mean it, mostly. “Promise.”
Loona looks to Stolas for his answer, like Blitzø can’t be trusted to be honest about his feelings or something. Stolas smiles at her and nods, and only then does she visibly relax. Blitzø is a little proud. Insanely betrayed, but still proud. He might cry about it later. What are you, a cop?
“Then please be quiet,” Loona sighs, taking the four steps back to her room like she’s crossing the Styx. “We have to wake up in three hours. Fuckin’ drama queens.”
She slams her door. Stolas’ smile falls and he turns back to Blitzø, who is stretching his back and definitely yawning for real.
“Oh, man, I’m, like, so tired.”
“Blitz,” Stolas warns, hands resting on his shoulders. Fretting.
“I’m fine. Promise. Let’s go sleep, birdy.”
Blitzø, like a person that is totally fine, doesn’t sleep a single second for the next three hours. He stares at the black TV, hoping it swallows him. Hopefully it takes him to another black void, one without an awkward kid brute forcing words past his lips with the feral neuroticism of a wild boar. One with his mom, maybe, if the void only lets him see people that are long gone. Maybe there’s nothing at all. He stays awake, regardless.
Until it’s noon, and he’s in fucking Colorado, and he’s dead on his feet.
“Blitz!” Moxxie hisses, snapping his fingers in front of his face.
“Yep, yep, that’s me, I am here,” Blitzø mumbles, decidedly not here. “And I’m gonna kill this guy so hard,” he adds, fumbling his pistol and decidedly not killing this guy.
Millie takes him out, as she is wont to do, and they all make it back before lunch because they are professionals, goddamnit, but nobody is as happy about it as he is.
“Fuckin’ showed him, Mills,” Blitzø says, ruffling her hair. Millie smiles at that, albeit a bit awkwardly.
“You okay, B?” Millie asks, wincing like she’s preparing for an outburst. Damn. Maybe he shouldn’t have blown off those court mandated anger management classes ten years ago.
“Is anyone?” He musters weakly, hand on his hip.
“Oh, shit, he’s getting existential,” Loona warns.
Moxxie jumps to his feet. “Code red, take the guns!”
“Let’s get you to bed,” Millie says kindly, a hand firmly guiding him out of the office.
“No,” Blitzø protests. “Yeah. No. Yeah. Why do you hate me?”
“We love you,” Millie whispers, before blowing him a kiss. Hillbilly ass show of affection. Blitzø catches the kiss clumsily. He’s not above hillbilly ass shows of affection.
The last thing he sees before Millie shuts the door in his face is Stolas’ worried eyes and fidgeting hands looming over everyone.
Normal day, right?
He kisses the center of his crystal and flops from the hallway right onto his beat up couch. Still smells like Stolas. He would make this sexy if he had a single train of thought still chugging on the tracks, but his brain has been replaced with a nice, empty void—
And then he’s in the void. And guess who’s there.
“Oh. It’s you again.”
“It’s me,” Blitzo says with a nervous laugh. He’s cross legged on the floor like a kid, eyes glued to the floor. The sludge. The sloor. “Sorry.”
“Don’t grovel, man,” Blitzø snaps, way too fucking tired to deal with himself. “You’re already sad enough, believe me.”
He reminisces on before, where he would collapse or drink until he passed out, and he would wake up six hours later like he timetravelled. Microdosing death instead of macrodosing psychological torment. Good times.
“I didn’t even fall asleep this time. I passed out like normal,” Blitzø squeaks, scratching the back of his neck as he reluctantly joins Blitzo on the sloor. “So, why are you here?”
“It’s almost like what you think about is what you dream about.”
“Oh, yeah, I knew that,” Blitzø hums. “Why’d you have to tell me when I already knew that?”
“I’m literally you. I’m here to tell you things you already know ‘cause that’s all I know. ‘This isn’t a time travel thing, dude,’” Blitzo mimics stupidly, and Blitzø totally gets why Stolas flicks his forehead every time he starts doing accents.
“You suck, man,” Blitzø says. “Did you know that, too?”
“You swallow.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not as proud of it as you are.”
Blitzo falls silent, thankfully, until he discovers a new thing to bitch about. “What the fuck are you wearing?” He asks, like he’s not in pinstriped pants.
Blitzø cackles, loud and guttural. “Says the clown. It’s vintage, man.”
“It’s gaudy,” Blitzo groans, sticking his tongue out as he thumbs at the lapels.
“You fuckin’ homo. What else is it, mauve? I don’t work at the circus no more,” Blitzø sighs. “Sue me.”
“Why?”
“I grew up,” Blitzø says, and there’s that nausea coming back for round two. “Hey, wait, I thought you knew everything I knew?”
Blitzo rolls his eyes, scowling. “I’m not real, dipshit. I’m not supposed to make sense. I’m supposed to tell you things you don’t wanna hear.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay gay boy,” Blitzø hums, fighting the urge to shove the kid as hard as he can into the writhing sloor beneath them. “Gonna fuckin’ Sesame Street me.”
Blitzo smiles at that. Sick freak. Then, he starts speaking, decidedly more timid than before. “Blitzo.”
“Blitz,” Blitzø corrects. “Silent ‘o’, dipshit.”
Blitzo worries his bottom lip. Smacks his palms together absently. Eventually, he asks, “What’d you do?”
When he was seventeen, he got shitfaced and laid in the middle of an intersection. It felt like the entire weight of the universe was pushing down on him, keeping him there. That’s what he feels now as he wraps his hands around Blitzo’s throat. He imagines Blitzo feels the same thing.