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Blitzø came home in a raging bad mood. He kicked the door open and slammed it shut behind him, picture frames rattling on the walls.
“Blitzy? Is that you?” came a lilting voice from the bathroom.
Oh ho, no. No, no, no. Blitzø was not in the mood for cutesy nicknames right now. He stomped across the apartment and threw open the bathroom door, a puff of hot steam and flowery smells hitting him in the face like a nuclear blast.
Stolas was having a bath, which meant turning Blitzø’s bachelor pad shitbox into some kind of shrine to an exotic god, all incense and candles and oils, thick steam, and fucking— fucking bubbles floating around all over the place.
“What did you do to my van?” Blitzø crossed his arms, glaring down at the source of every fucking frustration in his life right now.
Stolas, humming away as he scrubbed himself with a long-handled loofah, absently said, “Your van? Oh! Yes, well, I— Be a dear and hand me the lotion there, just there to your right.”
Blitzø stared at him, unmoving and unmoved.
“Just there on the side, Blitzy,” Stolas said, finally ceasing his scrubbing to look at him. “Are you alright, darling?”
“What. The fuck. Did you do. To my van?”
“I just tidied it up a little. It was getting rather, um, full.”
“Who asked you to do that?” Blitzø’s hands squeezed into fists. “Nobody asked you to do that.”
“Oh, it was no trouble.” Stolas lifted a long leg out of the water and resumed the motion of the loofah. “Think nothing of it.”
“I’m not thanking you, you dumb bird!” Christ on a fucking stick, this must be what an aneurysm felt like.
Finally really looking at him, Stolas tilted his head in confusion and said, “I don’t understand. I just threw out the trash.”
“My trash,” Blitzø growled, poking himself in the chest with a claw. “And it wasn’t just trash—I had important things in there!”
Where were his ponies? His only half-finished bag of cheese & hot sauce chips? Those tax documents Moxxie had made him promise to mail off a week ago? Where were his motherfucking ponies?
“Well, I—” Stolas tried to speak.
But Blitzø had swung from wanting answers to wanting him to shut the fuck up already and actually maybe never speak again maybe perchance if you very well fucking please. And, fuck, he was even slipping into that hoity-toity Goetia accent in his head when he got mad now—fucking Stolas.
Eye catching on an errant piece of fluff taking flight and fluttering down into the water, Blitzø pointed angrily at the tub. “And I’m sick of having to plunge your fucking feathers out of the drain. Why’ve you gotta have a bath every other day? Have one once a year for your birthday like a normal fucking person.”
“Is that normal?” Stolas looked at him dubiously, refusing to engage with the meat of the complaint and, ohhh, this fucking bird…
“Just— stop!” Blitzø demanded.
With a pompous sniff, Stolas extended his neck and offered hotly, “Very well. I’ll clean the drain after my baths from now on. It could use a good scrub any—”
“Stop! This is exactly what I’m talking— just— stop!” Blitzø threw his arms out. “Stop trying to fix my apartment, stop trying to fix my van, stop trying to— to fix everything about me!”
Stolas frowned. “I don’t—”
“Stop offering to buy me a new couch! I can buy my own fucking furniture and I don’t need a new couch! I like my couch!”
“But it has springs sticking out of it,” Stolas argued, riding along for the argument but at no point able to predict its direction. “I just thought it might be nice to be able to sit without having to avoid them.”
“Oh, please.” Blitzø waved him off scornfully. “You’ve had worse than that up your bird puss.”
“Charming.” Stolas gave him a flat look.
While he was on a roll, Blitzø decided to keep the party going with a, “And what in Satan’s ass was that shit the other night? That ridiculous outfit, the fucking cape again! Gives me fucking PTSD.”
“Forgive me for dressing up for date night,” Stolas said with his beak in the air. “I suppose I should’ve followed your lead and worn a sauce-stained tank-top and a pair of pants that haven’t been washed in months.”
That was— okay, that was an exaggeration. Blitzø didn’t have nice clothes, sure, but his t-shirt had been clean, thank you very fucking much.
“Wow, cool shit, Stolas. Glad to know what you really think of me, you snooty bitch. Sorry if your low-class piece of ass embarrassed you at the fucking local burger joint!”
“I didn’t mean—” Stolas bit off whatever he was about to say with a shake of his head. “You know, there’s plenty that I could complain about, darling.”
“Oh, go for it, snookums.” Blitzø gestured angrily. “Let’s fucking hear this.”
“Well, I didn’t grumble last week when you forgot our anniversary,” Stolas pointed out, all long-suffering and martyred.
But Blitzø was ready for this one and was fast out the gate with, “Okay, one—being all passive-aggressive and huffy about it all day isn’t ‘not grumbling’. And two—we have so many anniversaries! First time we met, first time we had sex, first date, first cuddle, first fucking whatever—it’s too much to remember!”
“Well, once again I must apologize for taking our relationship too seriously.” Stolas glared. “Silly me, I suppose. Old habits die hard.”
“Oh, fuck off.” Blitzø waved him off and left the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
He stalked back across the apartment, crossing the kitchen and suddenly noticing the little pile of stuff on the counter. There he found his half-full bag of chips, the mouth rolled up tight to keep them fresh. And his horse figurines, even one that he hadn’t seen in over a year and had pretty much given up as lost forever. The tax shit wasn’t there, but Blitzø knew in his heart that that was because Stolas would’ve mailed it off as soon as he found it.
Regret started to creep in, and fuck that shit—anger was nicer. Besides, he still had plenty to be mad about. With a huff, he walked on by.
Later—nearly an hour later—Stolas still hadn’t come out of the bathroom. Blitzø sat trying to zone out to Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Two could sulk at this game. He shifted to lie down and got pricked by a protruding spring.
There, he thought spitefully. Didn’t kill me. It’s still a comfy-ass couch.
If Stolas wasn’t so stubborn they could both be cuddled up on it right now. You couldn’t waterboard this shit out of Blitzø but he could admit at least to himself that it felt good to be all wrapped up in those warm feathers, slotted so perfect it was like they were always meant to fit together like this on this exact couch in this exact configuration, Stolas’ stupidly long bird legs all twisted up like—
Come to think of it, he did kind of have to contort himself into that shape, huh? Blitzø hadn’t really thought about it before—it wasn’t like Stolas ever complained. Besides, that horny old owl always loved any excuse to squeeze in close. But… huh. Yeah, now he really thought about it, wouldn’t that actually be really fucking uncomfortable? The couches Stolas had shown him in his mail-order brochures had all been longer.
With a sigh, Blitzø got up and trudged over to the bathroom. Being the bigger man sucked. He knocked on the door and heard a startled splash from inside.
“Come in,” came Stolas’ voice, soft and hesitant.
“Listen, birdy—” Blitzø went in with his attitude half-cocked, willing to apologize but ready to throw down if Stolas wasn’t going to be gracious about it.
Stolas was still in the tub. His fingers were curled around the rim and he watched Blitzø enter with apprehension. Some of the candles had burned down to the wick, others extinguished—probably from when he’d slammed the door—and not relit. In the tub, the bubbles had long gone flat, Stolas now simply sitting in murky water. There was no more steam.
Alarmed, Blitzø plunged his hand into the water. Then, even more alarmed, he grabbed Stolas by the arm and yanked him up out of the tub.
“What are you doing, dumbass?” he cried as he snatched a towel from the side and threw it up over Stolas’ shoulders. “Why’re you just sitting in cold water?”
He directed—more like shoved—Stolas down to sit on the closed toilet lid where it was easier for Blitzø to fuss around him, wrapping the towel tighter and rubbing him through it to speed up the drying process and make sure blood was circulating at the same time.
Stolas sat quiet and pliant for a while before saying, “Sorry for the trouble. I just— I didn’t know— I wanted to give you space.”
Blitzø flinched. Yeah, not a lot of space in this apartment. Satan’s taint, who else but Blitzø would invite his royal boyf— lov— part— Stolas into a home where there literally wasn’t even a bedroom for him to go to; not even a bed? And who else but Stolas would’ve never even commented on that bizarre, insulting fact? Who else but Stolas would’ve frozen his little feathered ass off in frigid bath water for an hour just to show some courtesy?
Stolas let Blitzø finish drying him, and then he let Blitzø dress him. He gave a half-hearted, “There’s no need, Blitz. I can—” but Blitzø just shushed him with a sharp tss! and a glare and he gave up.
Then Blitzø led him out into the living room, over to the couch. Blitzø sat first, the biggest spring settling threateningly snug to his little red balls, but he ignored that and pulled Stolas down onto his lap.
“Stretch out, Stols,” he said.
Stolas, brightening at the use of the nickname, did so, his long legs extending out past the end of the couch even like this. Eventually, timidly, he asked, “Are you still angry with me, Blitz?”
“No.” Blitzø sighed. “You?”
Stolas shook his head, his big, red eyes blinking softly. “I do apologize, though. For overstepping. I promise I didn’t throw out anything important—it’s all there on the counter. I would’ve put it all back but I wasn’t sure where all the little figurines were supposed to go so I left everything out for you to take this morning.”
“I must’ve walked straight past,” Blitzø admitted, chewing on his bottom lip. “You know me in the mornings when I haven’t had my coffee.”
“And I’ll stop harping on about the couch,” Stolas continued. “You’re quite right—this one is perfectly fine. And I won’t take any more baths—”
“What, are you gonna apologize for breathing next?” Blitzø snapped, then reined it in. “Shit. Sorry. I’m not— I’m not mad at you, okay? You made some good points. Just— don’t be so quick to back down all the time. Makes me feel like a real fucking bad guy.”
“You’re not,” Stolas said softly, chancing a fleeting touch of his fingers to Blitzø’s cheek, then placing his palm there when the gesture wasn’t spurned.
“Eh, I kind of am,” Blitzø shrugged. “Sorry, Stols.”
They sat like that, Blitzø placing his own hand over Stolas’, keeping its warmth pressed to his face, while on the TV Spirit—that badass fucking horse—destroyed an entire steam train and galloped away to freedom.
“The anniversaries are a little excessive,” Stolas conceded after a while.
“A little,” Blitzø agreed.
“And I didn’t mean what I said about your clothes. You looked good, that night. You always look good.”
“Damn straight.”
“I’m not trying to ‘fix’ you,” Stolas said, quieter, resting his head atop Blitzø’s, fitting it between his horns. “You’re perfect.”
And you’re the rare triple threat of blind, delusional, and crazy, Blitzø didn’t say.
“For our next date, let’s go couch shopping,” he did say. “I need to plant my ass on a bitch to know if we’re gonna get on or not.”
Stolas’ head shot up, his feathers fluffing in excitement—both at the prospect of a new couch and the word ‘date’.
“Do not wear the fucking cape.” Blitzø held up a claw in warning.
Stolas chuckled, a little embarrassed, and said, “Of course, Blitzy.”
Oh, thank Satan—they were back to Blitzy. That’s how you knew a crisis was over.
“Yeah,” Blitzø said, not quite able to meet Stolas’ eyes. “Save all your frills and bows for a real date—somewhere fancy. I’ll get some new drip while we’re shopping so I won’t look so out of place next to you.”
Stolas smiled such a small, happy smile that it made Blitzø’s cheeks heat to even catch it from the side. Then he turned his attention to the TV, settling in dutifully and without complaint to watch Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron for the hundredth time. Blitzø fished up the remote and switched over to Hell-a-Novela instead, steadfastly ignoring Stolas’ big eyes and their heart-shaped pupils boring into him as loud, melodramatic music blared out of his shitty TV’s shitty speakers.
“Watch your show, asshole,” he said, face burning, linking his arms around Stolas’ slender waist.
With a delighted chirp, Stolas nuzzled against Blitzø’s cheek with the curve of his beak, then gave him a little love nip before nestling into his arms to enjoy his favorite show. Blitzø could never get into this schmaltzy shit, no matter how hard he tried (or pretended to try) so he just sat and enjoyed Stolas’ little titters and tuts and scandalized gasps instead. After a while his bored hands got to wandering, up from Stolas’ waist to the feathered fluff of his chest, down to the dip of his hips, further down to—
When Loona got home she groaned and threw one of her boots at them, rudely interrupting their make-out session and threatening to do worse with the remaining boot.
“For fuck’s sake, get a room,” she growled with a roll of her eyes. “No, never mind. I will.”
As she slammed her bedroom door behind her, Stolas wiped his beak and gave Blitzø a shy little look, breathing heavily.
“Should we… uh…?” He went to move away.
Blitzø clamped his claws hard around Stolas’ thigh to keep him in place.
“Sounded like permission to me,” he purred, going back in for more.
And he got no argument.