Chapter Text
When Stolas opens his eyes, it takes him a few seconds for his mind to recognize where he is.
Blitzø’s apartment.
Blitzø’s couch.
He isn’t sure how long he has been asleep, probably too little, because it’s still night, and only the faint, reddish light from the street lamps filters into the room. But he feels better now; his strength is returning after having lost all his magic, which had drained from his body.
He feels clearer, less dazed.
The enormity of what happened is no longer a confusing fog in his mind. He no longer feels alien to his own body, and if possible, this makes everything even worse.
Octavia.
He lost Octavia.
In some way, he was ready to lose his life, but not her. It feels so absurd, so final.
Octavia is now out of his reach.
And the most atrocious, terrible thing is that, as much as he would like to, as much as he tries, he can’t regret the decision – impulsive, reckless, the crazy gesture that only appears in books and movies – that he made to save Blitzø’s life.
Only... if he had died as he had planned, it would have been so much simpler, less painful.
There he is, Blitzø, deeply asleep on what looks like a huge pillow in front of the balcony. He’s still dressed in his usual suit and jacket, still wearing his boots and gloves, an image so typical of him that it tightens Stolas’s heart. He’s curled up like a cat with his tail wrapped around him, his face relaxed.
The way Blitz had taken him home, the way he had cared for him, his kindness, were the only things that pierced through the veil of unreality that had come over Stolas.
He couldn’t get the image of Blitzø and his daughter hugging out of his mind.
He should have hugged Octavia, told her he loves her so much, that she was the most important thing in his life, that he would never leave her.
But it’s not true, he told himself. It’s not true. When you had to choose, you chose him. In that moment of action, you didn’t think about it for a second. You were ready to leave her forever.
But was it really a choice of his? Was there really a choice?
He sighs, and suddenly the too-short couch feels unbearable. He pulls away the blanket – Blitzø’s soft blanket, with little horseshoes on it, of course – and gets up.He wants to go out onto the balcony to breathe the sharp night air, but to do so, he’d have to wake Blitzø.
The kitchen is just behind the couch. The apartment is very small, but he can see bits of Blitzø in every drawing on the wall, in every horse-shaped decoration, in every forgotten object here and there. He realizes that he had never been to his place before, even though Blitzø had come to the palace countless times, and wonders if maybe Blitzø didn’t want him to see that intimate part of him. Because, really, it felt like he was seeing into Blitzø’s soul while looking at his things, noticing how this apartment was just like him – small, cozy, chaotic, and full of life.
And then there are the photos on the walls.
Blitzø had filled his home with pictures of the people he loves: there’s Loona, of course, and his two imp employees – Moxxie and Millie? Yes, those were their names – and other faces he doesn’t recognize, and even a photo of a young Blitzø with two hell-horses.
And there’s the black ink, which erases every trace of him from the photos, drawn in fury. He wishes he could snap his fingers and make it disappear, but he can’t, so he just runs his finger over the black stain on the picture of little Blitzø.
He feels like he understands that impulse, erasing yourself, finding your own face next to the people you care about intolerable. He had covered every portrait in his palace – which was no longer his, but had it ever really been? – and if he had seen his reflection at that moment, only Lucifer knows what he would have done to his own image. He hadn’t thought Blitzø felt that way; it didn’t match the wonderful and lively image he had of him.
But that image had been shattering little by little since that full moon night, hadn’t it?
He sighs and turns, bumping into the ceiling fan again, too low for him.
“Stolas?” It’s Blitzø’s sleepy voice. His eyes are wide open in the dark, shining with worry.
In an instant, Blitzø is standing and coming toward him.
“Are you okay? What’s going on?” he asks, and there’s a hint of panic in his voice, still a little hoarse from sleep.
“I’m fine, Blitzø, don’t worry,” Stolas answers, allowing himself to be guided back to the couch. “I couldn’t sleep anymore, I needed to get up.”
He sits down, and Blitzø seems to hesitate, suddenly shy, as if he wants to say or do something but doesn’t know how to start.
“Stolas, I...” he says, but his voice cracks.
“You don’t have to say anything, Blitzø,” Stolas interrupts. His heart is already heavy enough, and Blitz’s insecurity, his kindness, just makes him feel worse.
It’s everything he’s always wanted, but for a moment, he wishes he could have the mask back, the angry and rough Blitzø, the one who had yelled at him and insulted him. He can’t stand the way this new Blitzø makes him feel. He wants to convince himself that he made a mistake, wants to regret his choice.
He doesn’t want to say what he’s about to say, but his punishment for this spark of tenderness is to do the right thing.
“I’m sorry, Blitzø. I’m sorry for everything that happened, for dragging you into that deal, for using you, for making you feel like a toy and then making you feel discarded. I’m sorry for putting your life in danger, for crashing into your house, for being a burden that you feel you have to drag around. I’m sorry, Blitz.”
The words spill out in a continuous flow, he hardly takes a breath and doesn’t even look at Blitzø, who’s standing right in front of him. He can only see Blitzø’s hands, and the fists clenching in an automatic gesture of annoyance, one he’s seen countless times when the imp got furious. It lasts only a second, then Blitzø’s hands reach out to him, and with a tender yet firm motion, he lifts Stolas’s face, forcing him to look him in the eye.
He’s crying.
He had never seen Blitzø cry before the trial, and now it seems like he’s seen it too many times. Blitzø had cried and screamed and cried some more, and every tear feels like a stab.
“Do you know how scared I was today, Stols?” he asks, and his voice is almost faint. “I thought Loona and the M&Ms would die, I thought I wouldn’t be able to save them. And then I thought I’d die,” a bitter sound, like a strangled laugh, escapes his lips, “it scared me how little I cared in the end. And then...” he stops touching him and looks away, embarrassed, wiping his cheek with his palm. Finally, he looks back up and stares Stolas directly in the eyes with an intensity he’s never seen before. “I thought I lost you. I thought... that... fuck, this is hard...”
“Blitzø—”
“No, wait, Stolas, let me finish, ‘kay? I thought I lost you, and in my head, there was nothing, emptiness. And in the end, it was exactly what I knew would happen because it always happens like this, everyone I love dies or suffers. I mean, look at Fizz, for example, I literally blew him up! My sister hates me, and my mom...” He stops with a choked sob.
Stolas doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to respond. He feels like a horrible person because part of him is glad Blitzø is finally opening up to him.
There’s a little voice in his head that keeps telling him that, in the end, it was worth losing everything, yes, even Octavia, for this moment of intimacy.
“And now,” continues the imp, “you sacrificed everything, even the custody of your daughter, for me! And I’ll never be able to repay you, Stolas.”
“Blitzø,” Stolas interrupts that increasingly self-destructive speech, “you don’t owe me anything. Everything I said, everything I did, was my choice. For the first time in my life, I had the freedom to choose, and you taught me that, you woke me from the coma I’d been in all my life. And I…” he takes one of Blitzø’s hands in his own and brings it to his lips to kiss his palm, “I’ll be eternally grateful to you, Blitzø. What happened to me is my fault.”
“But Octavia—”
“I’m the one who lost her, not you. Please, Blitzø, please, I feel like shit, and the only thing that’s stopping me from losing myself completely is you, here, now.”
Blitzø presses his lips together and looks at him. Stolas can almost feel the guilt stirring in the imp, the same guilt rising in himself so strongly.
Octavia. He gave up Octavia for this, because a world without Blitzø, without his laughter, his voice, his vitality, seemed intolerable to him. He knows with absolute certainty that losing Blitzø would have killed him, turning him into an empty shell. And now, he wishes he could feel just as empty at the thought of not seeing his daughter again for who knows how long, but he can’t.
He can live in this world of suffering and guilt, as long as Blitzø is somewhere here.
He hadn’t realized he was crying, and these are the first tears he’s been able to shed. Tears for Octavia, for Blitzø, for himself.
Blitzø embraces him, and in some strange way, he seems taller than Stolas, and Stolas finds himself sobbing in his arms, then on his lap, like a child, as Blitzø strokes his head, whispering, "It’s all right, Stols, it will be okay, we’ll fix this together, you’ll see, don’t cry, Stolas."
And in the end, there are no more tears, just the sobs that barely shake him, and Blitzø’s hands making him feel safe, and his voice that again and again makes everything seem possible.