#e. stolas

Stolas has straightened the same plant on the table about 15 times. Adjusting it over and over in an effort to make the apartment look perfect. Everything has to be perfect, small and shabby tho it might be. The wallpaper was peeling and there were tears in the couch that he'd tried to sew shut. There were potted plants all over the place now-- gifts and efforts from Blitz to make him feel at home. There was even an adolescent Carnivora Antirrhinum on the balcony. How he had found it, Stolas couldn't imagine, but he'd almost cried when Blitz brought it home, snapping and all.

He isn't satisfied with the fern on the table, but he pulls his hands away reluctantly, sinking into one of the kitchen chairs. His phone, a new one he'd recently been furnished with, sat before him on the table. He couldn't help but stare at the screen, wondering if Via would text him when she arrived. Would she get lost? The building wasn't remote, but the apartment could be hard to find in the building.

Maybe she wouldn't come at all. He wouldn't blame her. It wouldn't be the first time he'd thought to invite her, but the first time she'd actually agreed. After he'd promised Blitz and Loona would be away and begged them to find them something to do out of the house on a Saturday.

His anxiety got the better of him. He decided to text her first. It isn't quite noon, and she isn't necessarily late, but he still worried.

With a mug of some mild-scented tea on the table before him, Stolas sat in the early morning with his head in his hands. Up most of the night with violent nausea, he had both hands folded around his beak, breathing through his fingers as quietly as possible. Eyes shut against a headache, pounding on the inside if his skull. And, beyond himself, he can hear the even tempo of Blitz's breath as he slept in the bean bag, oblivious.

To some extent, it's a relief to be alone with it. He didn't have to explain the prickle in his belly where it threatened to overturn for the umpteenth time that night. He didn't have to push a smile or side-step a worried glance with simpering promises that it wasn't Blitz's cooking again. Whether it was or not, he couldn't say, so why play the blame game and hurt feelings on top of his own misery.

But it's not long before there's reddish daylight peeking through the balcony windows. Casting long stripes of light, through the curtains, across the floor. And even more than Blitz stirring, the sound of Loona's radio clock from the next room wafts past the wall. She slinks from a crack in her bedroom door to pad toward the bathroom. Stolas doesn't move, but her eyes catch the light, turning white in reflection of the dim shadows.

If she sees him, she says nothing. No 'good morning' or 'sup', and he doesn't call back either. His hands press fingers, knuckles, against the tip of his beak as Stolas opens his eyes in time for the bathroom door to open once more. She pads back in the wake of the toilet flushing and still they don't acknowledge each other as she closes her bedroom door again.

A chill makes the feathers up his back ruffle up and he runs one hand over the opposing forearm. Winter down is coming in. Talons click on kitchen tile as he crosses his legs beneath the table and is never more thankful for long sleeves. Because he's scratching at his elbow ditch and if the sweater weren't there, he would certainly be plucking the feathers. Anxiety is funny that way.

Stolas' hands were trembling. Frozen in mid-air, reaching out toward Blitz in a mix of shock and fear that was not quelled by the insistence that the blood covering him wasn't his own. It brought to light a very real fear that what Blitz did for work was actually dangerous. Of course he'd always known there was risk to it, but he'd never really seen it, been touched by it. Not in any visceral way. Not like this.

"I-I'll get a t-towel." His voice is far from confident. He's shaken and stuttering and he wishes he wasn't. He wishes he could be steel-nerved. Brush these things off the way Blitz seems to. Maybe it's because he's gotten use to it. Or maybe he's had a much harder life than he's ever shared with him. Stolas doesn't know.

He pauses at the linen cabinet in the bathroom. That's right. He didn't know. He didn't know much at all. Nothing about the background of the man he had professed to love. He knew him as he was and of course what he liked in bed and liked to spend time with him, but his day-to-day, his daughter, his family, his history-- he was only just beginning to grasp the beginnings of real understanding of Blitz's life. And in this moment, with that blood, with his own anxiety, he wasn't sure he fit into it.

Grabbing a washcloth, he dampened it in the sink before stepping back out into the open floorspace. He's holding the cloth in both hands, they haven't stopped trembling, and as he nears blitz he holds the cloth back and says gently--

They were out together that night, mingling in a Lust club in the name of establishing a friendship that neither had ever laid claim to. But where Blitz seemed in his element among the noise and the lights, Stolas lingered anxiously by the bar. The sequins of his crop top glittering like stars in the strobing lights as he perched on a bar stool and clutched a drink. And he told himself that he'd be okay in one more drink. One more sip and he'd brave the dance floor.

It never happened. Every sip was followed by another until the glass had been drained of everything but ice and he was left ordering another. He was just turning back after Blitz had gone to bribe the D.J. when a familiar face was suddenly in his view. A handsome succubus with his arm around another's waist, remembered him from Verosika's anti-Blitzo party. And Stolas was just drunk enough to let a smile bubble across his beak.

They sank into broken conversation, every other word drowned out by the loudness of the music. It wasn't really that deep, but the warm buzz in Stolas' brain from the alcohol hangs on his words like they mean something. He's trying to piece together what's been shouted over the bass beats, but a hand on his hip turns his attention to Blitz beside him.

The succubi take the hint and both offer a simpering 'goodbye' before disappearing into the crowd. Stolas deflated with a frown.

Stolas ached to hear her say she missed him, but the sadness in her voice hurt more than any joy. He would have hoped she never had to know what that loneliness was like. What living in that world could be when he wasn’t there to guide her way. He had done so much to shelter her from the atrocities of Goetian society, he quite dreaded to think what she had been subject to in his absence.

Stolas blanched at the question, the way she asked it. Like something was breaking– had broken. Everything was broken between them now. And the worst part was that he couldn’t even pretend that it wasn’t his fault. The entire time he had been the one to put what he wanted above her. His own stupid desire. Foolish dreams of saccharine love and affection that seemed pointless now. They were fantasies. Nothing more.

But the need for the fantasy was the kernel she was chewing on. Not just his unhappiness with Stella, but the fundamentality of it. The perceived cruelty of his actions through the lens of someone who finally saw the battered, gay man he really was. There had been sacrifices, all made for her, and none of it had been right.

That was a fantasy in its own right and it had come crashing down on her head because he’d given up holding the weight at last.

His mouth was dry. It’s all he could do to stare at her from across the desk in the middle of I.M.P. headquarters where she’d known to find him, and ache because all he’d wanted for months was to see her. But she was in want of an answer and he wasn’t sure he had one that would satiate her anger– Or perhaps her curiosity.

"Have you been keeping this from me the whole time?"

For a moment he raised his hands like he was going to defend himself. Like he felt he could defend himself. But he was defeated before he could open his beak. Decades of violence and browbeating pulled him down and his hands landed in his lap. He glanced away.

Stolas trilled in surprise at the request. Not because it was outlandish, because thinking about the circumstances it seemed surprisingly reasonable, but because there was a level of trust Blitz was displaying in asking him this that they hadn’t talked about. They haven’t talked about much of anything since Sinsmas. Blitz made sure Stolas’ meds were sitting in the pill box on the kitchen counter every morning and Stolas made sure to have his breakdowns where the imp wouldn’t see them. They didn’t discuss it, them, or anything beyond it. And, sure, it was a proverbial elephant that was always present, taking up all the space and air in the room, but there was no way around it– no good way of opening the conversation. It could only… Be.

Blitz sat down in his desk chair as promptly as Stolas had instructed him to and the former prince paused for a moment. Frozen, more like. He never was much good in a crisis. But the first aid kit dawned in his mind a moment later and he stepped around the front of the desk to head through to the break room for some disinfectant and a needle and thread.

He came back with the whole first-aid kit. Preferring to search for his quarry in the bright light of the front office than the burnt-out fluorescence of the bathroom. And though he said nothing, Stolas was hyper-aware of Blitz watching him rummage through the box’s contents. Pulling out prize after prize, including a sewing kit Millie had put in for just this occasion.

When he had some clean cloth and disinfectant, he reached carefully for Blitz’s arm. Hesitating for half a second, glancing between his face and his wound.

Major Players:

@defiedfate - Stolas

@birdcagxd - Blitzo

@tangledfate - Fizzarolli

@fatemastered - Asmodeus

Minor Players:

@defiedfate - Franceska "Frankie" A'shidonai

@fatemastered - Octavia

@tangledfate - Loona

Synopsis:

An exploration of expanding relationships between Stolas, Blitz, Fizz, and Ozzie leads to something surprising and extraordinary... And her name is Frankie.

Themes:

Drama, Romance, Relationships, Found Family, Pregnancy, Egg Laying, Birth, New Beginnings, Mixed Families, How Relationships Change.

Plotted/Discussed Threads:

Rough Start - (Blitzo, Stolas)

Side Threads:

--

Related Asks:

--

Drabbles:

--

Chronological Order: