Chapter Text
It was not long after they'd fought Andrealphus, and not long after Octavia had kicked Stolas out of her life, possibly for good, when Verosika Mayday had come knocking on their– no, Blitzø's– door.
Stolas had barely started working as a receptionist at IMP, but he was already taking off more days than he was working, by far. Loona would tell him it was fine, she'd answer the phones– she said she kinda owed him, though for what he wasn't entirely sure and he didn't want to ask– but remembering how excited she'd been on his first day to assist on more missions sent him into guilt spirals whenever he thought about what he was keeping her from.
And Blitzø… Blitzø, who had been nothing but sweet and caring and gallant since Stolas had given up everything to save him, kept just smiling so gently at him he could hardly believe this was the same imp as before, then he'd squeeze Stolas's hand and tell him not to worry about it, because I.M.P. had an unlimited PTO policy. And it was all Stolas could do not to tell him it didn't matter to him either way if he was paid or not because, really, he couldn't even wrap his mind around the miniscule amount Blitzø had told him he made each day as a receptionist. And because he could work at I.M.P. for the full 100 years of his banishment and he'd never even make the amount his household had spent in a week.
And he was fed and clothed and housed, which presumably came out of Blitzo's pocket as well. So what more did Stolas need? What more did he think he deserved?
So he'd been listlessly draped over Blitzø's couch, not even thinking about any of that, but instead, of course, feeling sorry for himself about the consequences of his long string of consistently awful decisions, and how his Via wasn’t speaking to him anymore and probably never would again.
And then there was a knock on the door.
Blitzø had told him to NEVER answer knocks at the door unless they were expecting someone. And even then, Stolas just let Blitzø get it. Since no one was exactly ever here for Stolas.
There was another knock at the door.
Stolas pulled Blitzø’s horse blanket up over his face and tried to pretend he didn’t exist. He’d never even personally answered the main entrance door in his own living space, back when he’d had one, much less while he was a guest intruding on someone else’s. He’d have no idea what to do, even if answering it were a possibility he was considering.
There was a rapid, insistent banging at the door.
Stolas was starting to get concerned. Were they going to try to break it down next? Should he call the office number with Blitzø’s phone to try to warn him someone was getting handsy with his front door? Should he barricade himself in the bathroom (and possibly never ever come out, regardless of if this person went away or not)?
There was a light, measured, almost apologetic tapping at the door.
Well, now Stolas was actually a bit curious.
He rolled off the couch and approached the door in a dull haze– which was more or less the normal state of his operations at this point. Perhaps the odd behavior was meant to lull him into a false sense of security, but if it turned out to be someone here to kidnap him… Well. At least then he’d be out of Blitzø’s hair. So to speak.
He swung the door open and almost got a bright pink, manicured fist straight to the solar plexus, but the owner of the fist stopped it just in time.
“Stolas?” Came the baffled feminine voice of Stolas’s ex-situationship’s ex-girlfriend.
Stolas could only blink at Verosika Mayday, standing in the hall of Blitzø’s apartment building, looking as put-together and effortlessly beautiful (in a way he was quite sure took a positively herculean effort to maintain) as she always did. She was bundled in a pretty pink wintery outfit and had a gently steaming coffee to-go cup in the hand she hadn’t nearly just flattened Stolas with. She was accompanied by her bodyguard–the one who’d helped sing backup vocals for his ill-considered musical demonstration of his wretchedness at the anti-Blitzø party last… whenever that had been.
Lords, that felt like a lifetime ago.
“What are you doing here, sweetie?” She asked, as though Stolas couldn’t ask her the same thing if he were capable of putting a sentence together. “Oh, nevermind, who cares!” she cried, and, mystifyingly, threw her arms around him in a bone-crushing hug.
“Oh–” he managed to strangle out. He must’ve looked terribly tragic to her. He supposed he probably always had, but especially now. It was something of a wonder she was willing to go anywhere near him, much less come into his personal, ungroomed space for such an embrace.
“I know that bastar– that, that– Oh, Stolas, honey, I know he didn’t deserve it. I know he didn’t make anything up to you before you did what you did. He never would, it’s just not his fucking style, is it? But I saw what you did for him, anyway. And I just– I know why you did it– I mean, he really digs his shitty little claws in without even trying to, doesn’t he? And I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry that this is where caring about him led you.”
Stolas felt frozen, unable to really understand the words she was speaking.
“But I just gotta say this once and then we can never talk about it again, honey, I promise. But, just– oh, fuck it– Thank you. Thank you for what you did for him. He’s such a fucking idiot and he didn’t deserve it, but thank you.”
Stolas thought he was probably still misunderstanding. “Ms Mayday,” he started.
“Call me Verosika, sweetie,” she said, her toned, stylish arms still wrapped around his skinny, unkempt chest.
“Verosika,” he amended. “I'm pleased to see you as well, and I mean no disrespect, but well, weren’t you… actively stabbing a layer cake effigy of the man in question, last I saw you? At a party you organized, solely dedicated to despising him utterly? Followed by enthusiastic participation in a song naming him nothing more than a ‘motherfucker’?”
She pulled back, then, and stared at him with a hip and an eyebrow cocked. “Yeah. And?”
He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Well. Hadn’t he been at that party as well? Hadn’t he been the one leading the song? “And nothing, I suppose,” he said. He looked behind him at Blitzø’s small, cozy apartment and pulled the horse blanket tighter around his shoulders. He looked back to Verosika. “Would you like to come in?” he asked.
“Sweetie, I’d love to,” she said, breezing past him into the apartment.
Couldn’t she just have been a kidnapper/murderer instead?
—
Blitzø was home from work and anxious to see how Stolas was feeling after another day left alone. He hated leaving Stolas, but Blitzø really needed to work as much as possible if he was going to keep putting rats on the table (Metaphorically. He got the rats from the alley behind their building, after all).
As he wearily approached his door, he heard voices coming out from inside and his guard went up immediately. Stolas always watched TV disturbingly quietly, and this didn't sound like Hell-a-Novela anyway. He didn't wait to figure out what it actually sounded like before pulling out his gun and kicking the door straight in. “Get away from the fucking bird!” he shouted, pulling the flintlock up in front of his eye and scanning the room for intruders.
His eye caught first on Stolas, sitting wide-eyed in the kitchen, mug held in a loose hand, their horsie blanket over his shoulders, looking startled but unharmed.
And across the table from him was… An explosion of thirty different shades of pink in a fur-lined jacket. Fucking Verosika was in his apartment, similarly wide-eyed, hands held up in surrender, her own mug of whatever lying spilled on the floor in front of her.
Blitzø heard a growl and glanced up to see her giant bodyguard… Texas Pete, he wanted to say? Moving towards him so fast he was practically a big, burly blur.
Blitzø holstered his gun and held up his hands just in time to get pile-drived and slammed straight into the wall on the opposite side of the door.
“Ow,” he said, smashed entirely flat between his wall and seven feet of muscle. And like, under different circumstances, in a different life? Sure. But here and now? He didn't have the time.
“Not planning on pulling that gun back out?” Texas asked casually.
“It's not exactly the first thing on my mind, no,” Blitzø managed to mumble out through his newly misaligned jaw.
Texas stepped back and Blitzø took a deep breath to reinflate his flattened lungs. “I'm watching you,” Texas said, eyeing him closely.
“Yeah, I see that,” Blitzø said as Texas took up position next to his client. Speaking of, he turned to Verosika. “What the fuck are you doing here?” He demanded.
She seemed to have gotten past her shock and was smiling smugly at him, her arms crossed over her chest and one leg crossed prissily over the other. “What, I'm not allowed to visit an old friend?” she asked in her fucking pouty voice.
“What made you think you'd be welcome here?” Blitzø could keep this question train going.
She threw a glance at Stolas, who was still looking stunned by the whole thing, and she smiled like a cat. “Stolas here welcomed me in just fine, didn't you?” she prompted.
“Oh, I, well– I don't actually live here, exactly, so I'm not sure I can–”
Blitzø took a deep breath. If she was Stolas's guest, he could deal. That big birdie needed friends, even if they were huge whores. And everything ELSE about Verosika aside, Blitzø knew she was capable of being a good friend. You just had to be immune to her charms, which, well, he figured Stolas probably was.
And, looking between the two of them, Blitzø realized something: so was he.
She used to draw his eye from a thousand yards–anywhere he was, he felt like he couldn't look away. And of course she was still just as beautiful as she had been then. Pretty and polished and, though he knew the cracks were there and they reached down deep, not a single one showed on her flawless face and perfect posture.
But looking at Stolas, with his feathers all in disarray, wearing the same shorts and tee Blitzø had seen him in for the last 4 days, tugging Blitzø's own ratty horsie blanket around his shoulders, looking concerned and lost and still a little foggy around the edges… There was no comparison. Stolas was still– more than ever– fucking everything to Blitzø, to a degree he'd once despised but was only recently realizing he was lucky for.
Stolas was Blitzø's person.
And unlike how it'd once been with Verosika, looking away from him wasn't impossible– Blitzø’d had plenty of practice at it, dumbass that he was. He didn't have to look at Stolas. But he wanted to. All the time, if he could. Especially now that he didn't have to hide the look in his eyes when he did.
“Blitzø?” Verosika asked, sounding unsure for the first time since Blitzø had unstuck himself from the wall and not re-drawn his gun.
He looked back and forth between the two of them one last time. His past and his… Well. His heart, if not his future. “Alright,” he said. “If you're here for Stolas, you can stay.”
They both blinked at him.
“What?” He asked, annoyed.
“She isn't here for–” Stolas started.
“Nearly getting your head chopped off really changes a guy, huh?” Verosika interrupted.
Blitzø laughed. ‘Cause it hadn't even been the axe that'd done it. But he just said, “You saw that, huh?”
She gave him a flat look. “All of Hell did, Blitzø.”
Oh, he was deserving of a silent “o” now, huh? Anyway, he shrugged and said, “I figured you only watch the news if you're in it.”
He expected an angry growl, and to have to make himself scarce if she was going to stay and keep talking with Stolas. But instead she just laughed lightly. Not the way she'd used to laugh at his jokes– half-annoyed usually, or fake and giggly if she wanted his dick– but just… a normal, short laugh. Like it wasn't that funny, but it didn't piss her off, either. “I make an exception for exes,” she informed him.
“Huh. Alright.” He looked at her mug on the floor and the puddle of whatever she'd been drinking– hot chocolate?– still there. “You want a new drink?”
“Oh, Blitzø, I made tea by myself!” Stolas piped up, almost cheerfully. He turned back to Verosika. “Shall I make you another?”
“Aw, sweetie, no. It was terrible,” she told him gently, reaching out over the table and patting Stolas's hand.
“It is, isn't it?” He agreed, setting his own mug down on the tabletop. Blitzø noticed then that there were three teabag strings trailing out over the side. He’d only ever used one per cup for Stolas’s tea up until now, but he resolved to use more in the future, and he mentally patted himself on the back for noticing.
“Anyway, I need to be going,” Verosika said airly, standing up and stepping lightly over the spilled tea.
“Oh, uh, sure,” Blitzø said “I mean. I can fuck off if you wanna stay a while.”
She smirked at him. “Not everything is about you, Blitzø, you know. I'm a very busy woman.” She leaned down at the waist and gave Stolas a hug that put her tits straight in his face. He looked hilariously terrified for a moment, but she said something to him very quietly, and he looked up at her face and smiled softly.
“Of course, Verosika,” he said.
Wow, they were buddies now! That was cool! You sing one song together about your shitty ex-whatever-the-fuck and you're on a first name basis! Blitzø was really happy for them!!
Verosika stood back up and turned to Blitzø.
“Where's my hug?” He asked– goddammit he just couldn't resist goading her.
“Up your ass and around the corner,” she answered without heat. Then she smiled at him, and it was small but genuine. “It was good to see you, Blitzø. Come on, Vortex,” she said to her bodyguard, and they were out the door.
Blitzø picked up the pieces of his brain that had fallen out on the floor and managed to reassemble them. “It was good to see me?” He asked vacantly.
Stolas was smiling at him.
Blitzø smacked himself in the forehead “Oh shit, Loona’s gonna be so pissed she missed her!”
“A shame she couldn’t stay longer.”
“Eh, wouldn’ta mattered, Loonie’s gonna be out all night. Dropped her off with her friends. Anyway, what did that whoreface want? Just to, what? Catch up with you?” Blitzø asked, taking her spot at the table across from that pretty, disheveled birdie.
“I don't believe so, no. She seemed surprised I was here at all,” he said, sounding a little mischievous. Blitzø's heart cracked a little (in a good way) to hear another tone from him that'd been missing since… Well, Blitzø hadn't heard that teasing tone in a long time. “I think she was here for you, in fact,” Stolas said.
“For me?”
“It is your apartment.”
“Yeah, but… why?”
“Well, she erm… she thanked me. For what I did… You know, at your trial.”
Blitzø blinked a few times in shock. “You mean, she thanked you for saving my life? Or– or was it something else you did?”
“No,” Stolas said, looking embarrassed to acknowledge what he'd done for Blitzø. “You had it right.”
“Huh. Would've thought she'd be more likely to punch you in the cloaca for that.”
Stolas's eyebrows raised. Shit. Blitzø wasn't supposed to be thinking about Stolas's cloaca. “I have to say, I certainly prefer this outcome,” was all he said, though. “I don't think I'd stand a chance without my magic.”
Blitzø laughed “Stols, she'd wipe the floor with you even if you still had magic.”
Stolas treated him to a little hooting laugh.
—
After that day, Verosika started coming around Blitzø's apartment quite often. More often than Stolas would've expected from a “very busy woman”, actually. But she'd text Stolas to see if he was home– or rather, at Blitzø's home– and she would come by with expensive takeout tea lattes for both of them and they'd chat.
And despite Blitzø being their biggest factor in common, they actually rarely talked about him.
They talked about Verosika’s music. Stolas hadn't ever paid much attention to her career– he hadn't known her or even that she'd used to date Blitzø until that visit to Ozzie's (which Stolas had so disastrously misinterpreted and utterly bungled, as he had with so many of his interactions with Blitzø). But in any case, now that he was paying attention, he heard her music and saw her face everywhere, whenever he managed to leave the apartment. And though he couldn't entirely identify with the bitterness in so many of her songs (the ones which were clearly about Blitzø), the sense of loss and regret for mistakes made spoke to his heart for so many reasons. And so while he was neither “over it,” nor over Blitzø, he found himself becoming a rather ardent fan.
And if he privately suspected Verosika may not be quite as over Blitzø as she claimed in her songs, well, perhaps that's why they didn't speak of him much. And perhaps another reason they were becoming friends.
Another reason, strangely, was that Verosika had apparently grown up quite poor. Poorer than Blitzø (and by strange extension, Stolas) was currently. Perhaps poorer even than Blitzø had grown up.
But she was rich now. Not as rich as Stolas had been his whole life until now, but richer than most hellborn could ever possibly hope to achieve.
And the combination meant that she was neither shy to discuss what it meant to be poor, nor what it meant to be rich. And she neither resented him nor felt excessively sorry for him. She just spoke honestly with him about the realities of both, and was able to give him a few tips, based on things she'd noticed in reverse. Things she no longer had to worry about, but with which he should start concerning himself quite quickly. And he didn't need to bother Blitzø with every little question he had about daily life anymore.
It was nice.
And Blitzø would sometimes come home and find them there, and, just as she had the first time, Verosika would leave. Until one day, he told her to stay for a while longer, and she did.
And it was then that Stolas got his first glimpse of why they’d been a good couple in the first place, before it’d apparently gone so very far downhill.
They were both sharp, and funny, and knew things about the world that Stolas didn’t understand at all. They were quick and had a rhythm Stolas couldn’t quite keep up with. They’d talk about someone they both used to know and Stolas would get lost, and eventually one of them would look over at him, and they’d give him some backstory he didn’t understand, either, but he’d smile and try to join in, and they’d both look at him with some kind of affection. Like a naive younger sibling perhaps.
(Usually it was Blitzø giving this supplementary information. He was so thoughtful these days. Or had he always been this thoughtful? And perhaps he only now felt Stolas was deserving of it? Stolas certainly wasn’t, not any more than he had been before).
And all the while, Stolas would get a queasy, ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach where the joy of finally having friends should be.
—
It was weirdly cool having Ver around again.
Especially when it was extremely clear neither of them was interested in getting back in a relationship with the other. And, honestly, Blitzø wondered if he could have stayed friends with her this whole time if they’d just never even tried that stupid shit. They were too similar. And he fucking hated himself! What had made him think being in a relationship with himself was a good idea?
But maybe they’d both had to mature a little before they could really get along. Anyway, it didn’t matter. Because whether he and Ver were friends again was beside the point. The point was that she was great for Stolas. She was someone he could talk to who wasn’t Blitzø’s friend first (sort of), and someone completely outside the guilt he was carrying around for his daughter.
And speaking of daughters, Loona still thought Verosika was cool as shit, so he was winning dad points there, too!
And then, Blitzø’s clever, amazing daughter had had a clever, amazing idea.
—
“I hope Loona is feeling a bit better,” Stolas said to Blitzø as they arrived back at Blitzø’s apartment after work. He’d been living here for a little over a month and Stolas was finally, finally managing to join Blitzø at work a bit more frequently recently. But today it had been Loona who had been sadly under the weather, and they’d left the poor dear at home.
“Huh?” Blitzø asked, which was strange given how doting a father he normally was. But he’d looked distracted all day. Stolas had figured it’d been worry for his daughter, but evidently not. “Oh, right! Yeah. Poor kiddo. She was really… really sick this morning, wasn’t she?” He laughed and Stolas began to become slightly suspicious. “But I’m sure she’s feeling better!”
Stolas stopped at the door and peered at Blitzø. “Is there something you’re not telling me?” he asked.
Blitzø sighed. “Sort of. Just go on in. It’ll be pretty clear.”
Stolas opened the door to the apartment. Standing inside, facing the door, just past the kitchen into the living room, were Loona (looking well), Verosika (looking uncharacteristically nervous), and…
“Octavia…” Stolas breathed, his heart stopping in his chest. He took several steps forward and stopped short, uncertain if she would allow an embrace.
“Hey, Dad,” she said, pulling anxiously down on her beanie. “How are you?”
“I– I–” he couldn’t get any words out. Then, of all things, he managed, “Octavia, what are you doing here?”
She scoffed lightly and hugged her arms over her chest, turning slightly away from him. “I can go, if you want,” she said bitterly.
“No!” he shouted, too loud, and she looked back up at him in surprise. “I mean. Oh, Starfire, you may leave any time you wish. But I would very much like you to stay. I would like to talk to you, to explain–”
She sighed sharply. “I don’t need you to explain. I need you to fucking listen for once.”
He drew back, and looked around him for Blitzø– instinctively looking for someone to tell him what to do, how to fix this. Blitzø wasn’t there. He looked back to the doorway and saw a flick of the end of a lithe red tail. He looked back to Octavia, flanked on either side by the encouraging faces of his friend and his other friend’s daughter. “Alright,” he said, taking a few more steps inside. “I’ll listen.”
And so Loona and Verosika stepped outside, and he and Octavia sat on the couch where he’d been sleeping for the last indeterminate blur of weeks. And he listened.
A lot was said, and despite her words earlier, Octavia did give him a chance to speak once she’d thoroughly said her own piece. And she asked questions and he did his best to answer them, and not everything was perfect, certainly, but she unblocked Blitzø’s number in front of him and even allowed Stolas to give her his own new number.
And eventually she was tired and wanted to go home, but she invited him to her birthday party (her real one, not the one being planned for her by Stella and Andrealphus) and said she’d reach out to him sometime before then and they could get coffee, or tea, or whatever.
She collected Loona from the hall and opened a beautiful portal to somewhere Stolas didn’t recognize, and the two of them stepped through. They were both smiling (faintly, in Octavia's case, but it still counted!) as it closed.
Blitzø and Verosika both stepped gingerly into the apartment.
“So,” Blitzø asked tentatively, “How’d it go?”
Stolas leapt off the couch and ran to them and swept them both up in a huge, teary hug. “Thank you,” he wailed into the squished-together space between them. “I don't know how you convinced her to speak to me, but thank you, thank you!”
They both began stammering overtop of each other in a charmingly similar way.
“Well I didn't really–”
“Oh, honey, it's not like–”
“–and really it was all Loona’s–”
“–but she really wanted to talk! All we did was–”
“–so I didn't really actually do shit, you know?”
“–and I said I'd do her party whether she talked to you or not, so it was really just a nudge, sweetie!”
Stolas just wept into their shoulders, unable to say anything at all, overwhelmed with love for them both.
—
Blitzø was grateful to Verosika. Unbelievably grateful. He'd been little more than a distraction during the plan to get Octavia talking with Stolas again. He'd kept the bird busy and out of the apartment while his amazing daughter and his ex-girlfriend-now-friend had gently made their case to Octavia (and maybe slightly bribed her with a performance of an exclusive new Verosika song at her birthday party, but it hadn't been conditional on her talking to her dad again or anything.)
And ever since then, Stolas had been so much more himself.
Not… not as carefree as before, if he'd ever even really been as carefree as he'd acted around Blitzø. Still unsettled and prone to bouts of sadness… But so much better than he'd been. It seemed like Stolas was able to breathe again, now that he knew he'd be seeing his daughter again soon. And, though Blitzø had been keeping it together for everyone pretty well, he thought, it was only now that he felt like he was able to breathe again, too.
Because all of it had been because of Blitzø, since the beginning. All the shit Stolas had been through had been because Blitzø had snuck in to steal his damn book. And in the end, Stolas had still given up everything for an asshole little nobody like him, and Blitzø was still the one benefiting from it all, having Stolas back in his life whether Stolas really wanted to be there or not.
But. At least now that Octavia was speaking to her dad again, it was almost like Blitzø hadn't ripped away the one single thing Stolas gave a real shit about in all of Hell!
He'd only made it extremely difficult and rare for him to see her.
Anyway, that was better than it had been before, and Stolas seemed happier than he had been before, too.
So Blitzø was grateful to Verosika. And despite what he would've said only a few short months ago, he was glad she was back in his life.
Except.
It kinda felt like she was always around, now.
And that was cool!
But… he'd try to take Stolas out shopping, and it was all, “Oh, let's invite Verosika! She has delightful taste in clothing, don't you think?” Or he'd try to invite Stolas out to dinner– nothing weird, just two friends going out to dinner one-on-one– and “Oh, Blitzø, we should see if Verosika is free to join us!” Or Blitzø'd sidle up to Stolas's desk between missions when no calls were coming in– just to chat, definitely not to flirt because he had a nagging feeling that might be unethical or something?– and Verosika would choose that moment to stop by just to say “Hiya, sluts!”
And Stolas was so enamored with her, Blitzø could never bring himself to say “How about it's just us this time, Stols,” or “I actually have comped reservations for two at that place you wanted to try but we can't afford, after I offed the owner's brother-in-law for him,” or “Verosika, turn your ho ass right back around and find a dick to suck somewhere else because we are busy.”
And Stolas was happier, so how could Blitzø complain?
So it went on like that for a while, while Blitzø tried to figure out some non-assholey way to make it go different. Until one day, when they were out shopping with Ver, and it was like overnight all the stores had put Sinsmas decorations in their windows, and suddenly there was Sinsmas music being piped into every commercial corner of Hell. And Blitzø hadn't realized Stolas wasn't exactly on the same page about what all that meant, until they happened across a giant banner hung up outside a massive department store. The banner cheerfully demanded that everyone should “Have a Happy Sinsmas! Or Else!”
And Stolas turned to Verosika, pleased as a suckerpunch, and said, “Oh, just like the title of your album: Sinsmas Crimes!” And then, as if on cue, I'm Gonna Murder You started playing over the speakers. “Oh! What a coincidence!” Stolas said delightedly.
Blitzo was extremely busy being instantly annoyed at hearing a Verosika song, and then telling himself he didn't have to be annoyed anymore, then remembering it was Sinsmas music– It was basically meant to be annoying. To cause extra wrath, he was pretty sure.
But Verosika picked up the nuance he'd missed. “Stolas sweetie, you … do know what Sinsmas is, right?” She asked. She was always so gentle with him, it was weird.
“What!” Blitzø objected, “Of course he does!" He looked over at Stolas, who was staring at him blankly. “Don't you?”
“Never heard of it,” he said. “Outside of Verosika's album, anyway. I admit I did wonder what exactly it was… And actually, I still wonder that. What is Sinsmas?”
Blitzø and Verosika fell over themselves trying to explain, and by the end Stolas looked just as confused as when they started.
“Well, I'm…” Stolas started.
“Oh, nevermind, baby!” Verosika cried. She snagged Blitzø around the back of the neck with one arm, heavy with shopping bags from high-priced stores Blitzø would've been immediately escorted out from if he'd tried to go alone. She tugged him toward her so they were looking at Stolas together, and she said, “How about Blitzø and I just give you the best first Sinsmas ever!”
“Huh?” Blitzø asked, ‘cause what the hell did she even mean by that? She yanked him toward herself somewhat more violently and he didn't even need her to stomp on his foot before he got the idea to just go with it. “Oh, yeah Stols, just leave everything to us,” he said. She stomped on his foot anyway. “Ow, Ver!”
“Sorry,” she said quickly, then turned her attention back to the big birdie in front of them. “Whaddya say, Stolas?”
Stolas giggled behind one hand. “Well, how can I say no to such a lovely offer?”
—
Blitzø was in his office at IMP the next day, doodling a small horned horse smooching a tall fluffy horse. He was considering drawing these two completely random OCs boning on top of a completely random desk, too, when Verosika came bursting into his office.
He sat up in his chair and flipped over the sheet of paper he'd been drawing on, his face flushing hot. There were just more doodles of him and Stolas– of his horse OCs– on the other side. He opened a drawer and shoved the paper in on top of a stack of similarly decorated sheets. Wow, he sure had been drawing these two a lot lately.
Verosika took a seat in the client chair across from him and kicked her feet up on the desk, one crossed over the other. She pulled a nail file out of fucking nowhere and started idly filing her claws.
“Bitch, put your feet down,” he complained, “I've seen enough of that bubblegum-flavored succupuss for one lifetime.”
She rolled her eyes, knowing he couldn't see shit. “Charming,” she drawled. “Now shut up, idiot. I have a question for you.”
Blitzø leaned in with his chin in his hand, acting like he was sarcastically faking curiosity. It was a double-bluff, ‘cause he actually was super interested, but she didn't have to know that. “Oh, go on!” he said, pretending not to mean it. (The perfect crime!)
She glanced at him, unimpressed, before going back to her nails. But she went ahead and asked, with no apparent irony, “So, are you really serious about Stolas?”
Blitzø's chin slipped out of his hand and he nearly bashed his face into the desk. “Wha- what?” He asked, all cool and chill, “I- I mean, I am taking the situation seriously, if that's what you mean! He saved my life and shit! He's got nowhere else to go, of course I take that seriously.”
She eyed him. “That's not what I mean.”
He sat back and slid a tired hand down his face. “Okay. How about you tell me what you do mean, then?”
She pulled her feet off his desk and sat up in her chair. She looked him in the eye and said, “I mean, if I help you two get together for real, and someday he tells you he loves you, like he so obviously does, you're not gonna fucking freak out so bad you completely blow up both your lives again?”
Blitzø's emotions went so fucking crazy he very, very nearly flipped his lid and started shouting at her, that he didn't need her fucking help, that she was fucking insane for thinking Stolas felt that way about him, that he'd sooner shoot himself in the fucking face before rejecting any kind of chance for something real with Stolas. He’d hopped up on his chair and slammed his hands on his desk and he'd gotten as far as “Who the FUCK do you think you're talking to, you–” before he cut himself off with gritted teeth and tried to reign himself in.
She was staring at him, still unimpressed, an eyebrow raised and twitching irritably. "I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all, “Have I said a single thing that's not absolutely, 100 percent valid? Or do I have you mixed up with some other shit-for-brains who likes to fuck it up bad with hot bitches a million miles out of his league?”
He sighed and flopped back down into his chair. “Nope,” he said. “That's me. I'm the shit-for-brains.”
She grinned sharply. “Glad you can admit it. That's the first step, you know?”
“Yeah, whatever, you can tell me about all 12 of ‘em later,” he snarked, and she rolled her eyes. “But even if I wanted your help, which I don't, and even if it would work, which it wouldn't, why’re you even offering?”
She looked slightly guilty, then, which was interesting. “I maybe , kinda… gave you some shitty advice, Blitzø,” she admitted.
He frowned. “What, when you said you'd be an awesome girlfriend, and I should definitely fuck you in your dressing room?”
She rolled her eyes again. “Two pieces of shitty advice, then. The one I mean was at my fucking… party. A couple of months back.”
“Oh, the anti-Blitz-o party? Is that the one you mean?” He tried to muster up a smug grin, but, shit, that night had been… rough.
“Yeah,” she said. “That one.” Holy shit, she almost looked apologetic. “Right before you left. When we were upstairs, watching Stolas and Brad dancing–”
“His name was– his name is fucking Brad? Come on!” Blitzø shouted.
“Shut up, dipshit,” she said, gesturing at the door. It was closed, but Stolas was technically in the room on the other side of it. Blitzø could faintly hear him yammering into the phone out at his desk. “Yeah, and Brad's a good guy, so lay off.”
Blitzø scoffed. Fuck Brad.
“Anyway, at the time, I honestly thought…” she hesitated for a moment, then continued. “I thought you didn't actually give a shit, okay? I thought you– you couldn't. And I thought you were just being a possessive fuckwad who couldn't get over the fact that his latest piece of ass had his eye on some new dick so soon after you’d thrown him away. And I'm sorry.”
“Huh.” Blitzø smiled, sharp enough to hurt. “Guess I can't blame you for thinking that.”
“Yeah, well. If I’d realized you actually liked him, I might have told you to stick around instead.”
Blitzø looked off to the side. “Who says I like him?”
She gave him her least impressed look yet.
“Well, whatever, because you were fucking right, actually! I do hope he got laid that night.” Blitzø deflated again. “He needed some fun after all my bullshit.”
Verosika let out a short laugh. “Brad was pretty wasted himself, but even he knew that feathered cutie pie he was dancing with was way too out of it to consent. Stolas ended up talking my ear off for three hours straight before passing out on my bathroom floor. Tex carried him to a guest bedroom for me.”
“Oh,” Blitzø said. “What did he, uh, what did he talk about… for three hours?”
“Gardening,” she said with a straight face.
Blitzø frowned at her. But then again, “That's actually plausible,” he mused.
She smiled. “It is, isn't it? Anyway, you dumb-dumbs keep inviting me on your dates and it's getting sad. So I thought you could use some help. And I thought Stolas could use a nice surprise. So we're going to plan an amazing first Sinsmas, and at the end of the night you're gonna tell him how you feel. And then you're gonna keep inviting me on, like, half your dates, ‘cause I'm not trying to lose my friends by helping them get together. Deal?”
Blitzø could only say, “Deal, I guess.”
—
Verosika had been in Blitzø's office for a long time.
Alone. With Blitzø.
Which was fine with Stolas!
He had phone calls to take, and paperwork to do, and walk-ins to welcome in or turn away depending on how charitable he was feeling and how likely they looked to hate-crime him. He had lots to do! He was very busy, in fact, and didn't have time to be chatting with his two friends who used to date and were currently taking quite a long time to speak with one another behind a closed door where (Stolas knew from experience), anything at all might happen!
And so it made sense that they hadn't invited him to talk with them. That didn't mean anything untoward was happening! It just meant they had things to discuss. That didn't involve him!
He laughed out loud to himself. He was being silly!
“Y’okay there?” Loona asked from the couch, where she was lying down and scrolling on her phone. She eyed him and gestured towards the desk. “That, uh, wasn't anything important, was it?”
Stolas looked down at his hands and found a mostly-shredded invoice for a shipment of HEAT rounds for Blitzø's “dick” (his nickname for his bazooka! Blitzø was so very amusing. And if memory served (it did), the metaphor was apt.) “Oh dear,” he said, attempting to piece together the jigsaw puzzle he'd made of it. “Well. Perhaps I'll call and ask them to fax over another copy…”
At that moment, Blitzø's office door opened and Verosika came gliding out, looking extremely pleased with herself.
“Oh!” Stolas said, “Youuuu’re finished! With whatever it is you were discussing!”
“For now,” she said, grinning at him. She leaned over his desk and gave him a kiss on the cheek with an exaggerated “MWAH!” noise, then she kept making her way to the door. “I’d stay and chat, baby, but I have a fitting to go to. I'll see you this weekend for brunch though,” she tossed out over her shoulder.
“Oh, um, out of curiosity, what were you discussing with Blitzø in there?” He blurted out, without any more time to be subtle about it.
She turned towards him at the door with a wide, mischievous grin. “Wouldn't you like to know?” she teased, and winked at him.
He opened his mouth because, well, yes, he would like to know! That's why he'd asked!
“Bye Verosika,” Loona said giddily from the couch.
“Bye, whore!” Verosika said affectionately with a flip of her hair and a wave, and she was out the door.
Loona giggled in an extremely uncool way that only seemed to come out around a select few people. “I love it when she calls me shit like that,” she commented absently.
Stolas smiled at her, forgetting his worries for a moment in the face of her starstruck delight.
He heard a slight rustling from the direction of Blitzø's office, and he looked over to see Blitzø leaning on his doorframe with the widest, happiest, most affectionate grin he'd ever seen on the man’s face.
He almost looked like a different person altogether.
When Blitzø saw Stolas looking at him, though, he schooled his expression into something much more neutral, and he cleared his throat and shuffled back into his office, closing the door again behind him.
Stolas took comfort in the fact that Blitzø's default expressions these days were a long way from the sort of scoffing and rolled eyes he'd once commonly worn around him. Stolas had once thought of those looks as playful, then later recalled them with horror, finally recognizing them as genuine disdain and frustration.
But that soft, adoring look just now… Blitzø had never once looked at Stolas like that. Then Verosika had spent an hour and a half alone with him, and that was the expression he wore at the end of it.
Stolas had never had a chance, had he?