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He’s having that dream again. The one about the hungry bird.
It always goes like this: There’s a forest tinged with red. He smells something sweet, something with just a note of sour, and his stomach swells and surges with the sort of storm he can't name. He thinks he might be sick.
i.
Waking up hungover is the worst fucking thing, Blitzo would tell anybody—second only to waking up hungover next to a guy he thought he’d left at the bar the night before. The guy in question is snoring and drooling like a damn caveman, and Blitzo wants to curl over and shrivel up.
Too fuckin’ bad for him, he’s got work today.
“Hey beautiful, you want breakfast?”
Blitzo almost jumps out of his skin at the sound of the guy’s gravely voice. He knows this sinner is a smoker, but it sounds like he obliterated a pack in his sleep. Maybe he did. Blitzo doesn’t judge.
“Uhhh, nahh. I’m on a cleanse, sweetheart, thanks.”
Alright, that’s his cue: time to make like a banana and split. Blitzo unhinges his bottom jaw like he’s about to swallow an ostrich egg whole, then lets loose a yawn that just barely does his splitting headache justice. He cracks open an eye to gauge the guy’s reaction to his theatrics, hoping to make him feel just a little bad for taking advantage of Blitzo last night.
Guy doesn’t even notice. Not that Blitzo is surprised. They really make ‘em in hell these days, which isn’t news to him. He’d roll his eyes if his brain wasn’t pounding against the back of his eye sockets.
“Anyways, nice place.” One, two, three: stretch arms above head, pull on pants, face forward. It’s like a fuckin’ musical number, and he knows all the steps. “Let’s do this again sometime.”
Most importantly of all: always finish with a lie.
ii.
It’s an apple the size of his head. All at once, his pupils dilate—if he has them. He thinks if he does, they’re likely the color of a deep, endless chasm.
“Don’t come near me,” he hears. “Don’t come any closer.”
iii.
Blitzo’s phone rings. Fuck, didn’t he put that on silent? Now it’s vibrating against his thigh.
“You gonna get that?”
Wow, so this guy is gonna be that guy. Nobody tells Blitzo when to answer his phone. Not a dime-store-a-dozen sinner, not a shit-eating alleyway cherub, not even his mom.
“Yeah, no.” He throws a look over his shoulder, showing he means business. “It can go to voicemail.”
“Pretty thing like you must get a lot of calls.”
“High demand means driving the market down.”
The ringtone is still going. Now he knows it should have gone to voicemail by now. He grits his teeth, his head feeling like it’s going to burst. He’s beyond breathing techniques at this point, though he considers giving them a shot. Oxygen always helps his migraines, same way blowing on a campfire really stomps those excess embers out.
Blitzo rubs his temples, shutting his eyes. There’s only one guy who can override his call forwarding procedures. Process of elimination wins yet again, and his therapist is going to be seeing red next week.
iv.
“The fuck are you?” he asks, not a chirp leaving his mouth. He hops closer to the sound.
“I don’t have any money,” someone pleads.
“Why, on Satan’s green earth, would I want your money?”
v.
Blitzo’s eyes are still trained ahead, silently weighing his opportunities, the ringtone sounding distant in his ears. The fuckface is smirking now, he can feel it. “Must be your daddy, huh?”
Oh, that is enough. Blitzo turns on his heel. The sinner pulls a face, looking like he got caught pissing in the wrong urinal.
“Don’t mean no offense. You’re looking mighty nervous, is all.”
Blitzo’s eye twitches ever so slightly. Red pools behind his eyeballs, throwing a warm glow across the bed. Guy’s oblivious, as sinners are—he still looks amused, like he won this little game.
A smile breaks across Blitzo’s face, his pointy teeth white and pearly. “You'll excuse me while I take this.”
vi.
“This is all I have.” It’s the apple. Such a sweet and bitter smell… And there’s something underneath. Something aged and nutty. It makes him hungrier, deep in the pit of his gut.
“Your home is rotting,” he says plainly.
A worm emerges from the recesses of the apple.
“If you don’t find higher ground, you’ll be taken by the winter,” he tells the worm.
“I don’t take kindly to threats!”
Blitzo looks all around. The orchard has shed all but a few of its leaves. Mulch as far as the eye can see—he would feel it between his toes, if he had them. There’s truly no evidence to suggest that this was an apple orchard at all, aside from this single, decomposing apple that drew him from the skies.
If he had had the choice… If it had been him who had planted the trees, he has to admit he quite likes peaches.
vii.
“This is Blitz.”
“Blitzy, oh—it rang forever, you had me so worried—”
According to plan, Blitzo thinks. The Goetian is speaking just as loudly as usual. His lips curl with the force of a laugh he has to immediately choke back, but he’s nothing if not an A-list performer. His lofty smile doesn’t crack.
“Stoooolas. Funny timing. Was just thinking of you.”
There’s a pause. He’s certainly caught the inquisitive attention of the sinner on the bed, still nude and laid out like a turkey about to be plucked.
“O-Oh. Ah… Hm. Do you—Do you mean that?”
Blitzo plays with a strand of hair hanging askew off of his shoulders. Not one of his favorite wigs, and even less so now. “Listen, Stolls, I was thinking…” Blitzo takes a step, all casual, then about-faces, looking straight into the eyes of the sinner. “I met someone.”
“You meet lots of people, Blitzy.”
“This one’s special.”
“Special, you say?” As if on command, Stolas’ wheels are turning. It practically sounds like Blitzo’s got a wristwatch up against his ear. “Special enough to…”
“—To meet Dad,” Blitzo finishes for him. He wouldn’t want Stolas spoiling the surprise.
“Ohh, of course… To meet… Him. Hm.” He sounds just a bit nauseous now, but Blitzo will make it up to him later. “You’d like me to schedule a reservation, then?”
“Oh, you read my mind, Stolas.” Blitzo’s eyes glint devilishly. “That’s what I love about you.”
Stolas suppresses a moan on the other end of the line. Blitzo can feel him pushing his twiggy, feathered thighs together across the dimensions that separate them, and it’s just what his hangover needs.
viii.
Beneath his feathers, the churning in his gut worsens. The worm is too desperate, and it’s unappetizing.
“I’ll give you a choice. Give me the seeds of your home, and I won’t partake of it.”
It’s been a long journey since last he ate, but he has it in him for a few miles more. More than this worm can say for itself. The invertebrate will be dead within the week, for he knows the soil beneath the mulch is far too frozen to descend into.
(Something only a bird can know. If his eyes could roll, he would be seeing stars with the force of it.)
The worm considers its options. Blitzo doesn’t tell it that there really is only one.
ix.
Satin sheets, a dewey morning, the smell of rosemary and honey, and all those other spices he can’t fuckin’ name. Aromatherapy paradise, the Goetian estate. His home away from home.
Stolas is smoking, and thankfully it’s a clove cigar. The nicotine scent is still cloyingly thick in Blitzo’s nose; he’ll be washing it off of himself for weeks, at least.
“Wonderful as always, darling,” Stolas croons beside him, stretching out his long legs.
“Right back at you, show-off.”
Stolas pouts. “You don’t mean that.”
Blitzo grabs a tuft of Stolas’ chest, all fluff and no quill, and pulls him down for a kiss on his lips. Stolas sees stars, and Blitzo smirks.
“Don’t I, though?” Blitzo counters.
“Mmm, I’ll forgive you just this once. You do know I hate making that call to him.”
“Something tells me he’ll make it worth our while. The guy loves his delicacies.” Blitzo stifles a laugh again, and Stolas looks utterly disgusted. “Come on. You have to admit it’s a little funny.”
“Yes, the Radio Demon does enjoy making his audience laugh.”
“And eating people.”
“I get it, Blitzy.”
“Alright, alright… While he gets his jollies, what say you to—erm—eating of a different sort?” Oh, God, Stolas is blushing hot red. Blitzo really has to keep it together, now, or he’s going to start blushing, and it’ll all be over. “Y-You know… Thought it’d be cool if you sat on my face, and all.”
Stolas' face goes pale, and he quakes and trembles, his entire body surrendering itself to his imp. “O…Oh. Oh my—”
“Taking that as a yeeees!”
Blitzo grabs Stolas’ face, all but pulling his beak into his mouth, and wraps his tail around his middle no less than three times over.
x.
“All you want is the seeds?”
Why is this worm asking for more trouble?
“I won’t say no to a bite of your overripened house.”
“Okay.” Impossibly, somehow, it sounds… grateful? “You can have a bite.”
Growling deep within—a volcano swallowing everything in its over-trodden path. No, a beast, a madness contained only by the endless swirling motion of its own momentum. His bird eyes go wild. Luckily for the worm, it doesn’t have a sense of sight with which to observe this wretched phenomenon. Hunger.
Blitzo all but tears a window into the hastily constructed shelter. The belly of the apple opens to him, and he pecks and ravishes and swallows the seeds within. His display of savagery is the final offering he leaves the worm before spreading wide his wings and launching his hollow bones into the air.
As he follows the horizon, the flavor of caramel apple coats his throat.