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"I'm afraid that I need to quit."
Stolas stood to his full height, dwarfing the small office. Gone were the slumped shoulders and hand wringing that had defined most of his time around I.M.P.'s headquarters. His titles and power may have been stripped away from him, but Satan had not banished his sense of professionalism. He could handle a simple workplace meeting with some dignity.
Especially when that meeting came in the form of Stolas barging into Blitzø's office only to find the imp playing with office supplies. No, not office supplies. All four of Stolas' eyes squinted. They appeared to be the office staff made from binder clips and toothpicks, including a discarded candy wrapper for Moxxie's tie. One of them was larger than the others, and he was fairly sure that it had one of his discarded feathers glued to it.
"Is that me ?"
Blitzø's eyes widened, his gaze dropping to the office supplies. Then in one deft movement, he swiped his arm across the desk, sending them all clattering to the floor. "Dammit, Stolas. We're having a meeting. Stop getting distracted."
He let out a surprised chirp. "I'm not -"
"Why are you quitting, big bird?" Blitzø leaned forward, tidying the picture frame on his desk. The gesture was so casual that had it been anyone else, Stolas wouldn't have thought twice about it. However, this was Blitzø. In the month since Sinsmas, Stolas was fairly certain that the largest stretch of time they had spent apart had been a particularly long bath - and Blitzø had still come in three times to check on him.
Blitzø had an almost pathological need to inquire about his health and well-being every hour of the day (and sometimes into the night). And after Stolas had nearly bitten his head off for it, Blitzø had learned to be subtle - meaning that he usually pretended to be doing something else while sneaking covert glances in Stolas' direction. Six months ago, he would have been swooning over Blitzø's concern. Now, it was a reminder that not only was he broken, but it was so obvious to the people around him that they handled him like he was already made of glass shards.
Stolas squared his shoulders, lifting his chin. The gesture felt weaker when he had traded his high-collared cape and regal hat for a simple blue shirt and feathers that needed some more preening, but this also wasn't a palace filled with members of the Ars Goetia. "I'm not able to complete my duties at this moment, and I feel it would be better for all involved if I were to resign."
"Uh-huh." The imp studied him for a long moment while Stolas met his gaze, unblinking. "You feeling okay?"
"Yes, Blitzø."
"Take your meds?"
"Yes."
"You drink some water?"
"Blitzø -" Stolas pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, eyes pressed shut. "I'm fine. I simply... can't do this any longer."
He mentally prepared a laundry list of acceptable excuses that Blitzø might have accepted, things for which the imp couldn't find simple solutions to convince him to stay. To his surprise, however, Blitzø simply answered, "Okay. I get it, Stols."
Yeah, six months ago, he would have been fucking lusting over Blitzø being so patient and understanding. Now, Stolas simply felt the cracks widen further, like he was one loose thread from falling apart at the seams.
"Do you... mind sticking around the office until the day's up?" Blitzø asked, voice hesitant. "You don't have to do anything. Can take a nap in here if you want. We can pick up takeout on the way home."
He couldn't say no. Stolas wasn't even sure if he wanted to say no. Even with the pills taking the worst of the edge off, he felt the darkness lingering around the edges. He wasn't going to leave Blitzø an anxious mess and run the risk of doing something while sitting alone in the apartment.
"Of course, Blitzø."
That was how, an hour later, Stolas found himself curled in the doorway of their weapons room - which was little more than a glorified closet with multiple locks - as Millie cleaned off a bloody axe. Had Blitzø been there, he would have certainly protested against Stolas being so close to numerous blades and a stack of guns. Millie had quickly dismissed that concern, saying that she was probably the safest person to be around when weapons were involved.
"- and this one's got some good balance to it," she explained, gripping the handle with both hands to give the axe a twirl. It moved like a baton in her hands, almost beautiful in its gracefulness. Her running commentary to fill the silence had slowly broken Stolas out of his shell, and he met her demonstration with a delighted hoot.
"Watching you with that makes me understand when authors describe a weapon being an extension of one's arms." Easy as it was to insert Blitzø into every romance trope that Stolas had satiated himself with, he was beginning to learn that his coworkers were equally as fantastical. He hadn't figured out how to yet apologize for the ease with which he used to dismiss them, but Stolas was trying to atone with every conversation. "You're a natural."
"Thanks, Stolas." Millie beamed. Her gap-toothed smile was quickly becoming one of Stolas' favorite things around the office. She had been the first to stop calling him your Highness, and she had also been the first to stop staring with abject pity. "Seems like you're a natural too, y'know."
"Me?" He had never joined them on the field. Hells, Blitzø probably panicked seeing Stolas sit too close to the phone cord because he could have wrung his own neck with it. All Stolas could think of was the weapons room that Millie had clearly raided during the fight against Andrealphus. "I hardly touched any of the weapons at the palace. My father collected most of those, and I doubt he used them, either."
"Don't seem like you need 'em. I'm talkin' about the" - Millie rested the axe in her lap and raised her arms wide like wings - "whole monster thing you had going on when you saved us from those government humans."
"Oh." At the time, the incident had struck a chord in Stolas, leaving him aware of the risks that Blitzø took every time he accessed the mortal realm. So much had happened since then that Stolas had nearly forgotten about it. He flushed, trying to picture how it must have looked to someone who had never seen him like that. "I wouldn't call it a monster. I'd say that it's my true form."
He hadn't meant to say it like that. Only when Millie tilted her head in curiosity did Stolas realize the implication of his words. "Do you pick lookin' like this?" she asked, then smiled. "Don't get me wrong. It's a good face. Just that if I could reanimate a dozen dead people and summon myself lookin' like some hell beast, I'd probably do that." He must have made a face because she quickly clarified, "It was badass."
Stolas' words caught in his throat. He was about to explain that the answer was so much more complex than that, how he was born with the face he wore now (excusing the pitiful period of being a hatchling, which he knew was appealing to no one besides the parents of avian demons) but that his other form felt as natural as breathing. No words came. Instead, he pulled his knees closer to his chin, curling up further.
He only realized that he had fallen silent for so long when Millie's smile faded. "You doin' okay? Blitzø said you were havin' a bad day."
Of course he did. It explained why Millie had been left as his babysitter while the others went on a case. He had heard multiple arguments throughout the office as of late, with Moxxie and Blitzø insisting that she sit out more difficult cases and Millie finding more and more colorful ways of showing that an early pregnancy didn't make her any less deadly. Telling her to stay with the vaguely suicidal bird tackled both issues worrying the other two imps.
Her question seemed to open the floodgates he had been holding shut all week. "I was born to complete my duties," Stolas muttered into his lap. At the end of the day, that would forever be the thing that defined him: duty. " Created to complete them. The stars spoke to me before I could decipher their words. I have walked the edges of galaxies, witnessed the death of stars and the destruction of planets, been so intimately familiar with celestial bodies that I considered them my dearest friends. I have mourned their losses and celebrated their transformations. I've clung to the certainty of prophecies no one else understood. Existed as a creation of shadows that was so much... more than this." He gestured at himself, his body, so small and solid compared to its other form. Stolas' head dropped onto his knees. "And now, I... wake up when the sun has drowned out the sky - not that I could see the stars from here regardless - and I sit at a desk where I can feel that knowledge wither away every passing moment. I can't even summon a pen or use a spell to find a file, but it's so ingrained in me that I try anyway." Stolas lifted his head just enough to stare at his hands, his fingers flexing. "It hurts every time. It's as though my veins have been bled of something irreplaceable and I cannot cauterize the wound. I can feel this body decaying, slowly but surely."
His hands dropped onto the floor with quiet, twin thumps. Stolas hardly registered the silence until Millie sharply inhaled.
"That's fuckin' awful."
"And I can't say any of that to Blitzø!" Stolas continued. "He believes so firmly that he can fix everything. Yet for the next one hundred years, this is my plight. I can't live without Octavia. But sometimes, it feels as though I'll die because of this body."
Stolas shut his eyes, pressing his fists against the lower set. If he applied enough pressure, he could see faint dots of white and swirling colors that reminded him of home. For a long moment, the owl sat like that, watching his artificial stars to ground himself and bite back the impending tears.
After what must have been several minutes, he felt something warm settle beside him. Then Millie pulled one of his hands away from his face, clutching it tightly between her hands. The imp's head didn't quite reach his shoulder when she leaned against him.
"I can't imagine how all of that feels, Stolas." She squeezed his hand. "But I get feelin' like you're not living up to your potential, and I get feelin' like your body ain't yours anymore."
"Oh, Lucifer. I haven't even asked you about -" Friendships were still difficult. Blitzø helped more than Stolas deserved, always dropping advice for Stolas to ask for other people's coffee orders in addition to Blitzø's, or letting him know little facts about Millie, Moxxie, and Loona that Stolas could store away for future reference. He kept them all stockpiled in his head as conversation starters, but it was still difficult to understand when to use them. He echoed Millie's gesture, giving her hand a squeeze because it had comforted him. "I apologize. My ex-wife handled most of our social affairs, and birth announcements were usually..." Obligations. Things known a decade before they came to fruition. Stolas let the sentence fade away unfinished. "How have you been feeling?"
"Scared shitless," Millie said. When Stolas looked at her face, she was grinning. "First thing I did was cry to my sister and beg her to tell me what to do."
"Did she give you good advice?"
Millie's grin faded. An apology settled in Stolas' throat in case the question had raised an unpleasant memory, but then he realized that Millie was not frowning. She seemed to be genuinely considering the question. "She did. Always does. But I don't think I was really lookin' for advice. I just needed someone to listen and tell me I'd be okay no matter what."
Stolas hummed. "That does sound nice."
The imp squeezed his hand. "I'm listenin'. You're gonna be okay, Stolas. No matter what." She pulled herself to her feet, reaching for her discarded axe. "So tell B what's goin' on and that you're stickin' around. Moxxie just finished havin' nightmares about our taxes."
***
Stolas did not end up needing to tell Blitzø anything. Based on the imp's behavior, Stolas suspected some text messages had been exchanged between him and Millie. It made things simpler, allowing him to quietly curl up in the front seat of the van, head resting against the window and eyes turned skyward, as they dropped off Millie and Moxxie and went to pick up pizza.
They slipped into their usual, quiet routine, which was to say that the apartment was not quiet at all.
"Drain's clogged again!" Loona called from the bathroom. Blitzø let out a loud groan as he passed the stack of plates to Stolas.
"Think you can unclog it tonight, Looney?"
"Not my job, fuckwad!"
It had taken some getting used to for Stolas to figure out the difference between insults and affection. The first few times Loona had called Blitzø names, he had winced and shrunken away from the conversation. Now, he was beginning to detect the notes of affection in her voice. Dad was reserved for caring moments or times when Blitzø showed some parental authority. Blitzø was mostly reserved for work. And fuckwad, he had learned, was usually for moments when the pair acted more like disgruntled roommates than a father and daughter. The fact that Loona emerged from the bathroom a moment later with a strange, long device cemented that this was an adult-roommates-handling-maintenance-issues situation.
"Rock Paper Scissors," she offered, holding a fist out.
Blitzø darted around Stolas, fist already shaking through a loud countdown. He won two matches in a row before letting out a delighted whoop. "Rough night for you, Looney Tuney!"
"Fuck off -"
"Only fair that I" - Blitzø ran a claw across his smooth scalp - "don't have to clean up after a hellhound and a bird."
Stolas flushed, pausing where he had begun to set out the plates on the table. "Should I perhaps -"
"Nah. Next time I lose Rock Paper Scissors, I'll teach you how to use the sink snake."
Loona let out a loud, exaggerated groan as she grabbed a pair of gloves from a drawer and slammed it shut with her hip. "You never fucking lose!"
"Ha! Damn right I don't! I'm as sharp as a - fucking sharp rock! Dammit," Blitzø muttered, craning his neck to see Loona vanish back into the bathroom. "Hopefully she didn't hear that."
"Definitely did!"
"Well, you handle the sink, and we'll finish setting the table! Stols and I have dishes tonight, too!" Blitzø returned to the cabinet, reaching for a trio of glasses. "By the way, you and I are doing dishes after dinner."
Stolas' beak quirked into a smile. "I heard."
"You pour drinks. I gotta grab something."
Blitzø vanished almost immediately, leaving Stolas to turn towards the fridge and dig through their options. After enough meals together, he had begun to pick up on everyone's preferences, storing those away in his mind like every other little fact to prove that he was listening and trying. The owl gathered up all three cartons and turned towards the table, nearly colliding into Blitzø.
"Got you something, birdie." Blitzø held a cardboard box in his arms. Stolas stared at it until the imp pushed it towards him, taking the drinks out of his hands. "Open it."
Inside it sat a top hat, a plastic wand, a deck of playing cards, and an assortment of little items that Stolas did not immediately recognize. He studied them each in turn, finally pulling the cards out to examine more closely.
"What is it?"
He fully expected Blitzø to laugh and point out that he was holding a simple pack of cards. Instead, when he glanced up, he saw Blitzø studying the ground, rubbing the back of his head.
"Mills told me about what you said," he admitted. "And... shit, Stols, you gave up - so much to save my life. More than I'll ever understand. And I don't know how to fix it. Not yet. But I wanted you to know that... I'm here. I want to help. I want to listen. I found this shop when we were topside, and I thought maybe I can... bring some magic back into your life?"
Stolas, formerly of the Ars Goetia and once an eldritch creature of nightmares, cried into a ribbon of twenty handkerchiefs sewn together.
***
As it turned out, Stolas was not particularly good at mundane magic tricks.
It didn't help that the box had been produced on Earth, so the videos that accompanied the tools were all being performed by human magicians with five, stubby fingers. It also didn't help that Stolas' first instinct was always to reach for true magic that could have produced convincing illusions and not the cheap, clumsy garbage that he was barely managing on his own.
Still, he saw the way that Blitzø's face brightened every time he practiced, and Stolas couldn't help himself. He wanted to make the imp happy.
That was how he found himself sitting on the floor of the living room one afternoon, spewing profanity at the fake flower he was attempting to shove inside a plastic wand. The petals kept getting stuck, causing the buds to fall off each time he tried to pull the stem through the other end of the wand to 'conjure' a bouquet. Blitzø had run to do some errands, promising that he would be back as soon as possible and that he was excited to see what Stolas could do when he returned. Unfortunately, this meant he now had to learn to do something.
"Stupid motherfucking piece of fucking bastard shit," Stolas grumbled as he tried to roll the synthetic leaves around the petals to protect them. The swearing actually helped his mood more than the damn box of magic tricks. "Son of a motherfucking bitch..."
"Knew I was gonna get a show, but I didn't expect such riveting commentary."
The feathers on Stolas' neck fanned out, his beak chittering before he could stop himself. The apartment suddenly smelled of magic - not the familiar scent of his own, but something earthy and musky. His head turned sharply, eyes widening in preparation to petrify the intruder only to remember he couldn't.
A portal shimmered out of existence, leaving a gravelly-voiced imp with a striped hat and a box tucked beneath one robotic arm. Though Stolas had only met the clown briefly in person, it was impossible not to recognize him from his robotic twin at Loo Loo Land or the seemingly thousands of products that had borne his face for years. Celebrities, admittedly, had never intimidated Stolas much; most of the famous faces around Hell were succubi or sinners, people who ranked far beneath the Ars Goetia and who were usually more intimidated to meet him.
Fizzarolli, on the other hand? Terrifying. Stolas had once spotted the handful of pictures Blitzø kept on his phone that showed the pair as young boys and then as teenagers. The years that the pair had spent apart didn't seem to matter; this was the imp who had known Blitzø the longest and probably knew him best of all.
"Fizzarolli! My apologies. I wasn't expecting company. Blitzø just left a few minutes ago -"
"Yeah, he texted." The imp waved a striped phone case before slipping it into his pocket. "He said I could slip in to drop some stuff off." Catching Stolas' curious glance at the box, Fizz grinned. "Got a few new toys for you lovebirds to test. Hope you like nipple clamps."
Stolas' nervous squawk only sent Fizz into a peal of laughter as he set the box on the kitchen table and used an extendable arm to vault the back of the couch. "Just messing with you - unless you want me to bring some over. It's just Blitzø's horse shit he left at our place. It's always horse shit." He held up a finger in something that could not have passed as an intimidating gesture at the best of times. "And it's Fizz. No one uses my government name."
"My apologies, Fizz."
Fizz said nothing, leaning forward to paw at the box on the table. "Blitzø said he got you some magic tricks. I didn't have any faith in whatever he picked out. Looks like I had a reason to be worried." He pulled out a length of string tangled around the handkerchiefs, grimacing. "Didn't think it was possible, but being away from the circus made him an even shittier performer."
Stolas bristled. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that this was not his fight; Fizz and Blitzø had a shared history, and he knew Blitzø well enough to understand that the imp thrived on barbs and taunts tossed casually between friends. However, Blitzø had also been right to tease that Stolas' temper had gotten shorter and shorter since his banishment. He had once joked that he hired Stolas as their secretary so he had a never-ending stream of sinners to act bitchy towards. Unfortunately for Fizzarolli, it was the weekend and Stolas - having crawled back to his desk after attempting to quit - had not been able to fight anyone all day.
"Blitzø is an excellent performer, and he doesn't need the circus to prove it."
"I've heard too much about your sex life from him already. Keep it in your pants, princey." Before Stolas could even let out a squawk of indignation, Fizz picked up the deck of cards and tossed them at Stolas' face. Stolas fumbled, only catching them when they fell into his lap. "Show me a trick."
"I'm not some performing monkey -"
"Not with that attitude, you're not!" Fizz took the rope and moved so quickly that Stolas struggled to keep up. The imp first looped it around his waist, then pulled both ends as if he were about to squeeze himself in half. Instead, the rope seemed to move through him, coming free into his hands. Then Fizz tied the ends as though making a bow, doubling up the knot to make it thicker and more unwieldy - but with a puff of air directed at the center of the knot, it vanished, leaving the rope untangled. Finally, he pinched the middle of the rope, somehow managing to separate it into two separate entities, then breathed on them again to reconnect them into one solid strand. Despite having watched the videos a dozen times to understand the secrets behind the illusions, it genuinely looked like magic in Fizz's deft hands.
Stolas let out a quiet huff. "Show-off."
That only seemed to delight Fizz, who tossed the rope back into the box. "What, daddy didn't buy you Fizzarolli's Amazing Box of Magic?"
Knowing Mammon, such a thing probably had been packaged and sold. Octavia's taste in toys, however, had gone from stuffed animals to taxidermy ones. He couldn't remember the last time he had set foot in a toy store. "I believe we're about the same age."
"I wasn't talking about your father." Fizz waggled his eyebrows, then sank into the couch cushions. "C'mon. Blitzø hyped you up, said you were the best performer he's seen, present company excluded. Show me a trick."
The fact that Blitzø had spoken about the newly acquired magic box confirmed one thing: Fizz might have come to drop off Blitzø's things, but he was definitely staying as a makeshift babysitter. Stolas heaved a sigh as he stood up.
"Please pick a card."
Fizz was far more dramatic about his gesture than Stolas himself. He wriggled his fingers in the air before plucking a card from the middle of the fanned stack. The imp made a show of studying it, his tongue poking between his lips. It gave Stolas a second to do his part of the trick: He slid a finger underneath the topmost card in his hand, creating a small space.
"I'll take that," he continued, extending his other hand for Fizz's card. The imp placed it there, face down. "I'm going to shuffle it back into the middle of the deck, and when I lay out the cards, yours will be upside down -"
"Your finger is there." Fizz extended a robotic arm and tapped Stolas' hand with one finger. "Boop."
Blitzø and Fizz had hated each other for years, hadn't they? Maybe he wouldn't mind if he returned and Stolas had murdered his childhood friend...
Stolas stubbornly shoved the card beneath the topmost one, right where his finger had been holding the open space. Fizz stretched out again, prodding the deck. "You have to make me think you're putting it in the middle of the deck."
"I did put it in the middle of the deck."
"No, you put it under the top card so you could flip it. If you poke it into the middle enough to make the cards move, then put it under the top card, it looks more realistic."
"I'm doing the trick correctly."
"Yeah, it's correct, but it's not good. You have to sell the illusion to make it good. Just poke the middle of the deck."
" I'm holding the fucking cards, so I'll do it my way."
Stolas, however, was not holding the fucking cards. His talons had pinched the deck too hard, sending them all shooting into the air and raining down around them. Of the hundred ways that he had failed the trick so far, this was the most embarrassing. The owl crumpled in on himself, dropping to the floor and burying his face in his knees, his long arms wrapping around himself to hide his face from view.
Had Blitzø been there, the imp would have given Stolas his ten seconds to sulk before sitting close to him, speaking quietly to coax out the problem. Even Loona would have been a welcome source of comfort with the way she would awkwardly ask from across the room if Stolas was okay, then creep into her room once she knew he wasn't going to die on them. Fizzarolli was neither of them. Stolas only heard the whirring of mechanical limbs before the imp's voice came again, this time much closer than it had been before.
"You're the one who laughed at Blitzø's balloon horse."
The memory was so ingrained in Stolas' mind. For years, he had rolled it over in his memory, replaying it until he fell asleep, praying that it would manifest in his dreams and that he could conjure up some false memories of a second outing with Blitzø. He had clung onto it like a security blanket, withdrawing into the memory of buttered popcorn and Blitzø's laugh when he had faced his worst days: meeting Stella, rare visits from his father, his wedding night. In his imagination, Blitzø always appeared - his skin pure red, always wearing the same suspenders from that day - to rescue him and steal him away from the palace. To anyone else, it had been an ordinary day. To Stolas, it had been his lifeline.
Which was why he was so surprised to hear Fizz mention it. The demon lifted his head to see Fizz perched on the coffee table beside him. "You remember that?"
"'Course I do." Fizz patted the top of Stolas' head like someone might have done to a lost puppy. "You're literally the only person who's ever found him funny. I would have baked him a cake to celebrate it if you hadn't stolen him away that day."
"Oh, fuck you." There was no bite to Stolas' words. He rested his chin on his arm, unfolding himself just slightly. "He makes me laugh."
"Yeah, I guessed that. No one would have fallen in love with his ugly mug if he didn't." Fizz grinned, and despite his best efforts, Stolas breathed out a laugh. Yes, he was beginning to understand Blitzø's life: The more someone insulted him (and he insulted them in return), the happier they seemed.
Stolas stretched out a hand, willing some magic into his fingertips to collect the cards. The purple glow never came. His fingers felt cold, throbbing in time with his pulse as the familiar ache began to settle into his bones. He drew his hand back into himself, cradling it against his chest. "What was Blitzø like, then? At the circus?"
He didn't know if it was a safe topic. Most of Blitzø's life remained a mystery to him: how he left the circus, what happened between him and Fizz, what prompted him to start I.M.P., what event had driven away the twin sister he had only recently learned existed, why Verosika hated him enough to start her parties. Curiosity won over sense, however, and Stolas carefully watched Fizz's face to see whether he needed to retract his question.
To his delight, the imp smiled, looking animated. "He told the worst jokes. His old man let us introduce the acts sometimes when we were really young - it was a good way to get us used to performing while the clowns finished their makeup - and Blitzø would try his comedy routines. Every punchline was about someone splitting their head open or leaking their guts on the floor. No one takes their kid to the circus to hear about people getting their arms ripped off by an octopus." When Stolas started giggling into his hand, Fizz gestured at him. "Except you! You're the one sick freak he could entertain!"
"He says it so confidently!" Stolas argued through another laugh. "It's humorous !"
"It's disgusting!" Fizz feigned a shudder, but he was laughing, too. "Nah, Blitzø's talent was acrobatics. He and Barbie could command a crowd when they were on the trapeze. Guess it makes sense that he went to do all of his action hero bullshit."
Stolas neatly slotted each detail into his understanding of Blitzø. He had seen the poster in the office, showing a much younger Blitzø posting beside a female imp with curved horns and white markings along her arms. He had even noticed the name Barbie Wire beside his, but it had only clicked recently that the Amazing Imp Twins were actually twins.
"But then Barb mostly started doing her own act," Fizz continued.
Stolas cocked his head. "Why?"
"Uh-uh." Fizz crossed his arms in an X, shaking his head. "Not touching that with a ten-foot pole. You can ask your boyfriend about her."
Each time Fizz referred to them as partners, Stolas wanted to open his mouth and protest. He let it go again. After all the instability of the last few months, he couldn't handle one more unknown in his life - so if that meant playing along that he and Blitzø had broached that discussion, he would take it, just as he would accept the gaps that remained in his understanding of his friend. "I understand."
"But Blitzø had other talents his dad liked him using more."
"Oh?"
Fizz dug through the box, extracting the top hat. He clumsily placed it on Stolas' head, which had the owl reaching up to straighten it so that it didn't fall. When he peered back at the imp, he saw that Fizz had a phone in one hand - his phone, complete with the star-patterned phone case that Blitzø had picked up for him after getting it.
"He was great at sleight of hand." Fizz tapped the phone, illuminating the lockscreen. It was a generic background, a stock photo of some plants that Stolas had liked. Fizz turned it around to show Stolas, his eyes narrowing in a sullen stare. "Seriously? A default background?"
"I - don't have any pictures saved yet," Stolas mumbled. For the better part of seventeen years, his phone wallpaper had been pictures of Octavia. There were still pictures on Sinstagram that he could have resaved, but the idea of logging in and facing the possibility that Octavia had blocked him very well might have been the inciting incident to lend credence to all of Blitzø's worries.
"Chin up, princey." Before Stolas could process what was happening, Fizz leaned into him, tossing one arm over his shoulder and using his other to snap a selfie of them together. Then he tossed the phone back at Stolas. "Make that your background first. I wanna see how much it pisses Blitzø off."
Stolas chittered, tracing his thumb across the pentagram to unlock his phone. The picture was objectively terrible - he still hated seeing the bags under his eyes and the hollow expression he always wore in the mirror - but maybe it would motivate him to take a picture of something real. When he finished setting the wallpaper, he turned his phone to Fizz for his approval.
"Look at those handsome bastards." Fizz held out a hand, and Stolas instinctively took it. The imp dragged him to his feet, his legs extending so that they were eye to eye. "Now let me show you a magic trick Blitzø can appreciate."
***
Upon being invited to Ozzie and Fizz's penthouse, Blitzø had been given one warning: He was not allowed to bring over any more horse shit to conveniently leave around the place.
The warning had been stated in roughly the same tone as someone begging a dog not to piss in the corner to claim their territory. Blitzø had briefly considered whether he could get away with dropping his boxers somewhere for a quick joke before deciding that if he was going to go pantless in a sin's house, it would be for better reasons. (Namely: the stockpile of good fucking toys - pun fully intended - from the factory.)
To his credit, he promised to be on his best behavior. Fizz had insisted that he and Stolas had hit it off that afternoon when he had very subtly asked Fizz to check in for him. For the first time since the trial, Stolas had left the apartment on his own, going to spend a few hours practicing with Fizz. Neither of them would tell Blitzø what, exactly, they were practicing, but he saw the clues. Stolas would always take his box of magic supplies with him, and at some point, his phone background had gone from a truly terrible selfie of the pair to a picture of them both dolled up in Fizz's off-the-shoulder sweaters, posing in a way that would have given Blitzø an aneurysm at age sixteen.
Honestly, it was still close to giving him an aneurysm at age thirty-six.
It didn't matter to him at all what the pair were doing (even if he craved knowing, just as anyone would have wanted to join a hangout with their best friend and Fuckbuddy Minus the Fucking). All that mattered to him was seeing Stolas' mood lift bit by bit as he found something to look forward to each day.
Stolas had shyly presented each employee of I.M.P. with a black and red ticket announcing the date and time of his debut magical performance. Blitzø couldn't tell whether it had been Stolas or Fizz who had indulged their dramatic flair enough to make tickets. He had RSVPed on the spot (even if Loona had immediately declined, though she had told Stolas to break a leg and had even meant it in the figurative sense). An hour before the performance was set to start, he had gone out to find a bouquet of those freaky flowers Stolas liked so much, then portaled to Millie and Moxxie's to pick them up.
"Don't," he said as soon as he saw Moxxie's eyes drop to the bouquet.
They arrived at the penthouse through another portal, where Ozzie was setting up a group of chairs. Within ten minutes, they were all settled, Blitzø sitting between Millie and Ozzie, flowers tucked away on the floor by his feet.
The lights dimmed. Of fucking course Fizz and Ozzie would have fuck-me lights in the middle of their living room.
"Ladies and gentlemen," came Fizz's gravelly voice from behind the makeshift curtain hung across the front of the room. "You're in for a real treat tonight. Let me introduce you to Lust's hottest, newest, sexiest magician -"
Blitzø cupped his hands around his mouth. "Stop getting horny for my owl!"
"- who probably should have learned how to vanish audience members so we could get rid of the hecklers," Fizz continued as he finally stepped through the curtain. The jester had traded his normal pastels and rainbows for a darker, sleeker look. His clothes were a dark red and black that matched the tickets and the curtain strung up behind him. He held a jewel-encrusted microphone, though given the small space, it was turned off. "Please put your hands together for... Stolas!"
Despite only being five people, they made enough noise to fill the room. Millie let out an excited whoop that nearly drowned out Ozzie's shout of "c'mon, birdy babe!" But Blitzø cheered loudest of all.
The curtains parted, revealing Stolas.
Or rather, a Stolas-shaped demon because he looked nothing like the owl Blitzø had seen break down dozens of times in the last few months. His white faceplate stood in stark contrast to his dark makeup. The sharp lines beneath his eyes had been extended and enhanced with several more, like long lashes. His wide mouth was flanked by twin circles of black similar to Fizz's makeup. He wore a hat that must have been lent by Fizz, giving him the illusion of having maroon and gold imp horns. The corset he wore was all straps and intricate buckles, the garment draped in golden beads and chains.
At first glance, it seemed that Fizz had dressed him as a clown, but the longer Blitzø stared, the more he realized that Stolas bore no resemblance to the familiar faces of his youth. There was something uncanny about Stolas and his glowing eyes and his spindly limbs. He was beautiful the way a cliff's edge was beautiful: all jagged rocks and bottomless abysses that begged for someone to step forward to meet their end.
The eldritch creature began his show.
It was objectively... mundane. To Blitzø, it was everything to see Stolas smiling and telling truly terrible jokes that had him close to pissing his pants while everyone else managed small chuckles. The tricks Stolas performed were fairly juvenile, his sleight of hand decent but still flawed enough that a few tricks were obvious to figure out.
Where Stolas shined was in his audience engagement. Awkward as he could be, Blitzø knew that Stolas was a performer at his core. No one else could have managed to sing a confession to Satan or hold their own on stage with Verosika - and Stolas seemed to reach into that side of himself as he bounced from trick to trick.
He paid close attention to each of them, getting close to ask them to draw a card or inspect some prop. At one point, Stolas had leaned so close to Blitzø that he thought they were going to kiss, but the owl had simply asked him to shuffle a deck of cards. When Blitzø did, Stolas had murmured, "Good boy," so tenderly that Blitzø slipped out of his chair, swearing when he hit the floor.
Stolas finished his final trick - a little sleight of hand where he made a coin vanish and reappear from behind one of Ozzie's faces - and stepped back to the center of the makeshift stage. He swept into a deep bow, his eyes shutting.
Once more, they clapped and hollered for him. Blitzø's hands stung from how hard he was smacking them together, his gloves providing no relief.
His gloves.
His gloves were gone.
He looked around, scanning the floor to figure out if they had somehow fallen off him. Then he peered at the other's laps before his gaze landed on Stolas. The owl was staring directly at him. A long talon twitched, and the light caught the gold on Stolas' wrist.
Somehow, Stolas was wearing Blitzø's gloves. That was not the only change to his appearance: The beads at his throat were now adorned with a red bowtie missing from Moxxie's outfit. Sometime during the performance, Stolas had also lost his jester hat. Instead, a jaunty top hat sat in its place, and when Blitzø looked to his left, he saw that Ozzie was somehow wearing Stolas' original hat. Stolas opened his hand, talons curling away one by one, to reveal a small bracelet hooked around his thumb. Next to Blitzø, Millie touched her now-empty wrist.
The room exploded with chatter as they all began interrogating Stolas about his tricks. He smiled shyly, his shoulders hunching up around his jaw as soon as the performance was over, and he made quick work of returning everyone's stolen items with soft apologies. Fizz was loudest of all, proudly complimenting Stolas on his sleight of hand and telling Ozzie about their rehearsals.
Stolas quietly knelt in front of Blitzø, picking up the imp's left hand to start slipping his glove back on.
"Holy shit, Stols," Blitzø breathed. "You were incredible."
"I have you to thank," the owl murmured, giving Blitzø's hand a squeeze once his glove was back in place. He started replacing the second. "Your magic tricks worked. I feel - much better now, I think."
It was everything Blitzø had wanted to hear. He reached up, preparing to cup Stolas' cheek, then stopped. Though he looked far more familiar with his awkward, hunched posture, there was still something unsettling about Stolas. Besides the makeup, nothing was different about his appearance, and yet...
"You've changed," Blitzø blurted out.
Stolas cocked his head. The gesture was somehow animalistic, uncanny, strange, yet so Stolas that Blitzø couldn't understand what had caught his attention.
The owl's mouth widened into a crooked smile. "I daresay you've all changed me for the better," he said. Then he reached a talon to his own throat, tapping the bowtie there. "Let me return this to Moxxie."
Stolas stood and moved towards the other imp. As he did, Millie leaned into Blitzø, tapping his knee.
"He looks happy," she said. "That's what changed."
Blitzø's eyes tracked back to the owl, whose beak was open wide with a grin. He had seen Stolas wear that smile before, but it had never looked like that. No, the handful of times he had seen him smile like that, it had been with his eyes bleary from alcohol or his beak crinkled in self-doubt. Blitzø's gaze lingered on Stolas even after Moxxie turned away to say something to Millie. For the first time Blitzø could remember, Stolas' smile didn't fade the moment he thought all eyes were off him. He simply grinned wider and turned to speak to Fizz next, reaching out a hand to return the imp's offered fistbump.
He hadn't been able to bring Stolas' powers back, Blitz thought, but he had certainly found some kind of magic that the owl had needed.