Archive of Our Own

Blitzø woke with a sense of dread already welling up in the back of his throat. Somehow, he knew that today was going to be fucking dogshit.

It took him a solid sixty seconds of shifting to consciousness on the beanbag chair that always gave him a crick in the neck, which he did not resent because he wouldn't dare resent giving Stolas the couch, before he remembered why. It was the looming tension of his own god-damn thirty-sixth birthday, and under no fucking circumstances could anybody ever find that out.

No one knew, was the thing. He was careful about it. He never marked it down anywhere, not on the calendars, not on his phone. Technically, maybe, Moxxie had seen it because he made Moxxie file all their taxes? But he probably didn't give a shit. Why would he? Blitzø's birthday didn't matter in the goddamn slightest.

Blinking at the horrible popcorn ceiling of his cheap apartment, Blitzø slowly worked the crick out of his neck, listening to Stolas' peeping, chirping snores. It wasn't really his birthday that was the problem. It was Barb's. Being a twin sucked ass like that. You never got your own shit; even his and Barbie's costumes had been the same, up until the year she sprouted tits and he grew four inches. Toys, cakes, clothes, books, presents, everything was split clumsily in half. One for him, one for his sister. Who wasn't speaking to him anymore.

And it turned out the whole cake tasted like fucking dirt if he wasn't sharing it with her.

He levered himself up off the beanbag chair, half an eye on Stolas who was splayed out on the couch like he'd been poured there. His big bird sure slept a lot. It was a little worrying, how he could lay down and snore for almost twelve hours at a stretch, like he was just trying to force time to pass so his hundred-year exile would be up quicker. Not that Blitzø didn't like himself a sleepy bird. When they were still banging, he used to wait until Stolas fell asleep so he could do whatever he wanted- with all the dirty shit out of the way, he could straighten feathers, wipe down whatever mess they'd made together, kiss his stupid bird face without getting caught.

But now, they weren't banging anymore, and he had no fucking idea how Stolas felt about any of that, so he made himself trot right on past and go start making breakfast. No eggs these days, since apparently they were a big memory trigger about Octavia. Bacon and pancakes only. Nevermind that Stolas barely ate anything on his bad days, just looked bewildered and sort of sad when Blitzø put the full plate in front of him. It was important. It was just something he had to do, even if it was stupid and useless. He'd been the same way about Loonie when he first got her home, making food that she constantly dumped in the trash.

He noticed the lack of twittering snores once the bacon started to sizzle, so he wasn't suprised when a big tall bird head loomed at him from over the counter. Stolas blinked down at him with that heavy air he always had these days, and then- thankfully- took his place at the table.

"You take your meds yet, pretty bird?" Blitzø asked, because it was easier to say if he wasn't making eye contact.

Without even making a noise of acknowledgment, Stolas rose again and headed for the bathroom, which meant the answer was no. So that was cool. Two months of being a fucking zombie and now he didn't even like taking them. Not that Blitzø was judging the guy he was mostly-probably in love with. That would be uncool, right? Stolas needed his meds, and now he was on them, and that was good. And Blitzø being a shit about it was his own problem. It was just that Stolas had started taking them again and got super weird, anxious and snappish, and then as time went on he started avoiding them, and now he took them most days but sulked about it. He'd even started cutting them in half, like he thought Blitzø wouldn't notice the weird piles of powder on the cutting board. Joke was on him, though. Blitzø had done his time with the club-kid scene, and could have told anybody what was in the mystery pills the second he tasted the powder on his fingertip. (Pretty boring stuff, actually. Kind of a boner-killer. Would not make a good party drug.)

Whatever. Blitzø buried himself in pancake batter and ignored the shit-ass start to his day.

Stolas emerged from the bathroom only slightly less huffy, and sat back down. This would have been more of a relief if he wasn't so tall he could still evenly make eye contact with Blitzø over the counter, which he kept trying to do for some reason. Sensing danger, Blitzø kept a little too busy for a little too long with the breakfast foods, letting the bacon get too crispy (but hey, Stolas always picked the fat off) and browning the pancakes to their limits.

He stood arranging the plates, making sure none of Stolas' food touched each other because he hated that, when the bird finally piped up. "Blitzø?"

"What's up, Big Bird?" Blitzø forced a laugh. "Got breakfast ready to go and then we can just-"

"No- I mean, yes, thank you; but would you come here, please?"

The tone in his voice made Blitzø's tail lash with anxiety. He forced it still and picked up the plates.

Stolas was fiddling with his hands, looking down at the table like a kid at the principal's office. Blitzø stuck the plate right where he was looking and scurried back to the other side of the table, cramming a pancake into his mouth so he didn't have to talk.

Bad move. Stolas took a deep breath in, visibly controlling himself, and Blitzø couldn't even interrupt to save himself from whatever life-ruining little speech his bird had cooked up this time.

"I- I just- I only wanted- you've taken such care of me for months now, and- well-"

Blitzø tried frantically to swallow the half-chewed pancake, dry as dust in his mouth, to divert this stupid conversation before Stolas could say anything that needed to stay unsaid.

"I only wanted to ask- well, to offer- if- if there's anything I could do, for you- I- I can't- for myself, I can't really…. but for you, I…"

Half-choking, Blitzø barked a laugh and a cough at the same time, the pancake turning into a horribly solid lump in his throat. Fuck. God dammit, fuck. This was exactly what he didn't want, Stolas thinking he had to pay rent in ass. Were they not done with this, the transactional thing, had that 'I would die for you' shit not been enough?

"Not- not that- obviously it couldn't, shouldn't, be like before. But- I do- I miss-"

Halfway across the room, Blitzø's phone alarm went off.

"Thank Satan's sweaty ballsack," he choked, suffocating on his own idiotically-burned pancake crumbs and leaping out of his seat. Raising his rasping voice, he half-shouted, "Loonie-we're-going-to-work-get-ready-okay-bye!", and dashed into the bathroom with his clothes, emphatically locking the door behind him.

Blitzø managed exactly one breath of relief on getting into the office, free from the long walk in screaming traffic with Stolas tiptoeing along behind him with obvious shame after offering him a blowjob for his birthday like they were missionary-with-the-lights-off newlyweds. Like they hadn't done things together that would give those kinds of people an aneurism.

Then, of course, he opened the door and all hell broke loose.

"I'm fine!" Millie was screeching at the top of her lungs, teeth bared and spines arched in a spectacular display of not-fine-ness.

"This keeps happening!" Moxxie wailed, struggling after her as she sped around the room, knocking over papers and filing cabinets and loose grenades that, okay, Blitzø should have put away yesterday. "I am not, I am not going to be negligent about my wife's health when she keeps getting sick-"

"It's nothin'!" Just to prove how nothing it was, Millie scrabbled on top of a cupboard and hissed. Then she looked woozy, and then she leaned over with a hand over her mouth.

"You see!? You see!?"

"Shut the fuck up and calm the fuck down!" Blitzø barked, just trying to hear himself think.

Pointing up at Millie, Moxxie stomped his foot like a kindergarten tattle-tale. "Sir, would you tell her that she is in no condition to be-"

"Mills, I don't give a shit what you ate last night but I don't wanna see it again, you're benched."

"Traitor!" Millie jumped down from the cabinets with her fist cocked, and Blitzø caught it in an open palm, almost swinging right back at her crazy ass- he was certainly in the mood for it- when Moxxie crashed into both of them, leaving them all on the floor in a shouting, cursing tangle.

Stolas edged around them through the doorway, scuttling to the secretary's desk with his eyes carefully averted.

"Would you two get to work already?" Blitzø groused, wrenching himself out of the pile of limbs, hooves, and horns. Speaking of horns- his left was tangled in Millie's jacket, and he had to twist to get it free, making her yelp in the process. "What the fuck am I paying you for?"

"Well, sir, we couldn't get to work until you got here," Moxxie said nastily, "because someone crashed the van and, thus, our only method of getting to our jobs is on your person-"

"Fuck the hell off, Mox," Blitzø grumbled, his face heating up as he shoved Millie off him and got up.

"I'm just saying," Moxxie bitched. "We now cannot do our job without you here so it would be providential for us all for you to be on time-"

"What's up, assholes," Loona drawled, phone in both hands as she kicked the door open, interrupting Blitzø's definitely super-cool retort. "Who are we hacking up today."

"If I recall correctly," Stolas said, looking down at the desk and shuffling papers, "You've three different assignments lined up for today, but one has to be done before mid-day, so-"

"Fucking great," Blitzø rolled his eyes, shoving Moxxie along in front of him. "Well? Let's fucking go, move your fat fucking ass, Mox-"

"Well- just a moment, please-" Stolas had knelt down to start getting the guns out of the safe for cleaning and loading, his other new job. He checked the papers again. "-yes, one has to be done quite soon afterwards, so perhaps it would be best to split up?"

"How are we supposed to split up when we only have one crystal?" Moxxie dug his heels in, sending Blitzø crashing into his back. "Now if someone hadn't crashed the van…"

Snarling, Blitzø set his hands in the center of Moxxie's back and shoved him so hard he went flying with a yelp. Moxxie needling him about the van was the last goddamn thing he needed right now. He had a whole stack of scrap paper in his office with badly-done math on their money situation, but while the company had been doing okay they also had another whole person to support, so they definitely did not have new-car money. Especially not with the hole in their finances Blitzø had left with his breakup temper tantrum, any reminder of which still made him want to hurl in shame.

"Could really use that book right now, too," Loona said with a meaningful side-eye that Stolas studiously avoided.

"Sure! Fine!" Blitzø yelled, panicked anger crawling up his throat. "Everything's my fault!"

"No one said that, Blitzø," Stolas said, his voice gentle but tinged with nerves.

"Yeah, well, like you're not all fucking thinking it," Blitzø snapped. Stolas of all people trying to be nice was gonna be the death of him. "Put a sock in it, Big Bird, because you were definitely-"

"You don't get to tell me what I was thinking," Stolas said, rising to his feet and drawing up that princely dignity that Blitzø fucking hated so much.

Rounding on him, Blitzø both relished and dreaded the chance to pick a real fight. The van, the book, the fire, Stolas standing straight and tall in the ashes of his stupid royal life; it was all his fault and none of his friends had the balls to stand up and tell him, they were all gonna get shy and mealy-mouthed and avoid his gaze until he stopped telling the fucking truth and went back to their comfortable lies.

"It's written all over your fucking pointy fucking face, Stolas!" He laughed, mean and sharp and manic, and bile rose up in his throat as Stolas flinched. "'Cause if it wasn't for me you'd still be tucked up in your palace with your wife and kid, M&M might have real fucking jobs, and-"

"That's enough," Stolas intoned, his voice low and throaty.

"Fuck you," Blitzø said, shaking. Every birthday he'd scraped through without his twin was blaring through his stupid, fucked up brain. And my family wouldn't be fucking broken. "Fuck off. Fuck this."

He turned away, drawing the now-reflexive circle on the Asmodean crystal. Everyone would be better off if I'd never been born. If Barb had come into the world by her damn self.

Something twanged, horribly, deep in the crystal's structure. Blitzø felt it like nails on a chalkboard, like something scraping the enamel on his teeth.

"Wait- Blitzø-"

The portal in front of him blossomed a wobbly, nauseous green, not the glowing magenta it usually spawned. The other side was dark, but it had to be better than here.

"Blitzø, don't-"

Scoffing, Blitzø hopped through the portal and felt it close behind him.

He tripped on his way through. Of course he did.

Sitting up, spitting and angry and ready to punch something, Blitzø took a little too long to realize that this wasn't Earth. The lighting was all wrong- Earth had all stark shadows and bright lights, neon colors like a sitcom set. This was the same red, sad light as where he was five minutes ago.

He was in an abandoned office building in Pride- musty, dusty, cobwebs on the walls. It looked like the I.M.P. office did when he first rented it, all peeling wallpaper and piss-spots on the carpet.

"Oh, come the fuck on," he bitched, hauling the crystal up to his face. "How did I-"

It made a stupid sad little whine, flickering with vomit-green light and then immediately dying. It stayed dead, too, no matter how much he poked and prodded it.

"Fuck you, too," he told it, still annoyed. He pulled out his phone, determined to get this figured out without retreating to the idiots he'd just yelled at, and opened the map. It took about ten fucking years to load, during which he wandered the place- same basic layout as the I.M.P. office, probably a little bigger. The windows looked out onto a similar ad-infested skyline, but his billboard wasn't there and neither was the big ad for Verosika's booze line that she'd taken out right in front of it just to be a dick.

The map loaded up a vague zoomed-out view of the pentagram, and then defaulted to an error message- Cannot connect to internet. Did you pay the bill?

Giving up, he opened the fucking call app. Punching the icon for Moxxie's number right in the face, it took him three tries to realize he had no phone service either.

"The fuck," he said to his unresponsive phone. It stared blankly back at him, CALL FAILED blaring across the icon of Moxxie's sidelong face where Blitzø had snuck the picture.

Blitzø stopped in the middle of the empty floor, hands on his hips.

"This is a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation," he said out loud, mostly to hear something that wasn't creepy silence.

Well. First thing, establish where exactly he ended up.

With a weird sense of deja-vu, he wandered out into the halls of the building. It was too quiet. The elevator was out of order, so he had to take the stairs down, sliding on the banisters to make it go faster. The whole building was too silent, like nobody else worked here at all.

When he emerged onto the bustling street, he had to check the signs three times.

He hadn't moved. Somehow, he was on exactly the same city block.

Looking up, Blitzø squinted at the building. Had he, some-fucking-how, just jumped to a different office in the same building? Another floor? He counted three times, all the way up to their floor and losing track twice. But even when he was sure he had it, all that was in the window was the exact same FOR RENT sign as most of the other floors. Their sign wasn't painted on the window, he couldn't see the conference table, the lemon tree that Stolas spent a week faithfully reviving wasn't pushing its idiot leaves against the glass.

Squinting, he wandered down the street. Was he just fucking dumb? He kept his eyes on the skyline, looking for the billboard he could see from his office. Pacing up and down the block, he started searching for Verosika's ad, too; the hot pink and bright blue should have been easier to spot against the red sky, but it wasn't there either. None of them were, despite the fact that her stupid unfuckable face was plastered every-goddamn-where, something that felt like needles under his skin on a bad day.

But not today. She was nowhere to be found.

Craning his neck upward in a way that gave him a throbbing headache, Blitzø didn't see the other imp until they collided chest-to-chest.

"Oof!"

"Fucking watch it!" He snapped, but that was-

"Yes, Sir, I have the package-" and a flash of white hair and the skinny little horns, that was-

"Moxxie!" Blitzø grabbed for him.

Yelping, Moxxie flailed, the phone he'd had clutched to the side of his head almost going flying.

"Who da fuck-" Blitzø could hear that fucking bitch-ass gangster accent of Moxxie's dad and his cronies through the phone, and it made his face twist.

"What the fuck are you doing?" He demanded, trying to catch Moxxie's wrist. "We have a job to-"

"Sorry, Sir," Moxxie said, except it wasn't to him, it was into the phone as he gave Blitzø a look of- not even the familiar snooty disregard that always pissed him off. Just nothing. Like he was nobody at all. "Some… homeless person is accosting me."

"Well, shoot'im and get da hell back here-"

A flash of repressed hatred crossed Moxxie's face, and his mouth turned down as he looked at Blitzø for the first time, like he was a person, like he was really there; but it was just the look on his face when he didn't want to kill a target, one that usually meant Blitzø was gonna have to yell at him until he pulled the trigger, and to have that look turned on him was just fucking insulting. That was bullshit, right there.

Stupidly, ridiculously, Blitzø reached out and grabbed the phone from Moxxie's hand. "Ha-ha!" He crowed, holding the phone to his face. "Hey, dickhead! You know your son calls me sir too, right?!"

"Moxxie, you fuckin' fairy bitch, get back on the job or I'll-"

He hung up on Crimson, or at least the mob-accented voice spluttering on the other line, and bolted away through the crowd with the phone clutched in his sweaty claws. Moxxie shouted, offended, and Blitzø heard him draw his gun; but the crowd was too thick, Mox would never fire under those circumstances knowing he could hit a baby or a little old lady or some bitch getting walked on a leash.

Sprinting and vaulting a few blocks away, Blitzø stopped in an alleyway, not quite panting for air yet but getting close. Rats skittered around under the dumpster- this was one of his hunting-grounds for grabbing snacks for Stolas- but he couldn't think about that right now. He had a working phone, one that was probably going to get tracked in five minutes.

Blitzø hit the home button before the lock screen could kick on, and opened up the call app. Moxxie didn't have a contact list; this was probably a burner, then. Great. Maybe Crimson's goons wouldn't hunt him down and shove it down his throat.

Fumbling for his own phone, he opened it and painstakingly typed the number for the I.M.P. office into the number pad.

Invalid Number, the screen said, without even ringing.

"Fuck," he hissed, not panicking, not panicking. He typed the number in again, checking each digit even though they were swimming even more than normal. If he could just- if he could just get Stolas to pick up. Or Loonie. Millie- she was benched, right? He could try her cell.

He punched in her number.

"Mildred, speakin'," and it was Millie, it was Millie's voice, deeper and darker than he'd heard it in years.

"Mills!"

"Cain't come to the phone right now, but if you got work, I can kill 'em. Leave a message."

"Fuck!"

Almost tossing both phones into a puddle, Blitzø rested his horns against the wall.

"This mailbox is full," the voicemail continued. "Unread for: sixty-eight days. Account will be deactivated soon."

Not blinking, Blitzø stared into the distance. There was no way this was happening. None of this could be happening.

Mechanical, not wanting to believe it, he sorted through the contacts list on his own phone and then punched in the digits for Millie's old emergency next-of-kin, the one she put down before she married. Tell me this is all a fucking dream. Tell me you're out at the farm, Mills. Tell me you're safe and sound.

"Hyello!" The disproportionately chipper voice had to belong to Millie's sister- what was her name, Cindy Lou, Tillie Sue. Whatever.

"Hey," he said, not letting his voice shake, feeling all of five years old. Can my best friend come out and play so I stop feeling like I'm losing my fucking mind? "Is Millie there?"

"Millie!?" The girl's graceless voice was suddenly panicked. "Have you heard from her!? Do you know her? Please, we're all worried sick, she hasn't called in months-"

Absolutely unable to deal with a farm girl's clumsy terror, Blitzø hung up on her. He felt a little like an asshole doing it.

Then he leaned down, braced his head between his knees, and tried not to throw up.

What the fuck. There is no way this is real. I.M.P. is real. I fucking made it. Moxxie and Millie are married, I was fucking there, I held their fucking rings for them while they spewed gay shit at each other. Loonie-

Loonie. Oh, fuck, no.

The horror of where Loona would be if I.M.P. didn't exist washed over him like a wave, and for a few minutes all he could do was ride it out and try to breathe. She could be anywhere. If Moxxie was stuck with his bitch-ass dad, if Millie disappeared on an assassin job, if he….

If he didn't exist…

Shit.

With nothing better to do, Blitzø just started walking.

He threw Moxxie's burner phone in the dumpster and for a minute just focused on getting far enough away from that alley that nobody could tail him, or at least that it'd be more effort than it was worth. Wandering aimlessly, he hopped on the first subway train he found and headed towards the Pentagram's center, hoping to get lost in the crowds.

It was weird. He hadn't thought he was letting his rather dubious claim to fame get to his head; on the day-to-day it was more about keeping Stolas from getting mugged, maced, or guillotined. But with every minute that he walked past crowds that responded to his flicks of eye contact with nothing but sneers, he started to miss the people that used to notice when he walked by. It had taken less than a month for him to get used to being a folk hero. Kind of galling, really.

When he finally got somewhere that he felt like he could breathe, the Princess of Hell was skipping down the road doing another of her spontaneous little musical numbers, and Blitzø crossed the street. Last thing he needed was more of Hell's royalty looking at him.

Deliberately not thinking about the Morningstar girl, Blitzø looked up for the first time in hours. It was the Pentagram's bog-standard mix of strip clubs, bars, pawn shops, porn shops, and liquor stores; but there were posters and billboards up, too. No Verosika this time either; mostly Sinners in this part of town, bands and magic acts he'd sort of heard of, that Angel Dust twink he used to jack off to twice a week like a prescription.

And one, worn and torn and faded, said The Great Fizzarolli!!! Every Evening At Stardust Plaza!! Three-Time Winner Of Mammon's Clowning Contest!!!

Blitzø staggered towards it, his vision swimming again. Fizz. Fuck. Fizz.

He was different, in the photo. If you'd asked Blitzø this morning what an adult Fizzarolli would look like, without the scars, without the prosthetics, he wouldn't have picked this out of a fucking line-up. Fizz's horns were intact, and his makeup was precise and perfect; he wore gloves, but he was in short sleeves for the first time Blitzø had seen since he was, what, fifteen?

The address on the poster was within walking distance.

Like a sleepwalker, Blitzø set off, not letting himself think about what he'd find.

So, Stardust Plaza was a shithole.

Blitzø actually walked past it three times, looking for the big place where Fizz had to be performing; without the fire, without years of recovery, physical therapy, prosthetic testing, painkillers and painkiller withdrawal- things Fizz had awkwardly talked around, ever since they reconnected- without that half-decade detour in his life, surely Fizz would be performing in fucking concert halls, right? He should have been playing stadiums. Bigger than Jesus.

Nope. It was a shitty, run-down little theater. Smaller, even, than Ozzie's club. There wasn't even a line!

Privately swearing at the citizens of Hell for not appreciating his un-mutilated best friend, Blitzø snuck around the back. He'd always kind of missed show business, for this: the glitter, the glamour, the lights… and the immediate contrast of the grimy back alley, the dusty backstage, the trailer with everyone fighting to smoke out of one broken window while they ate their lunch. The mechanisms of what made it all work were just so visible the second you, say, took a left instead of a right and stayed out of the doorman's eye-line.

Wandering down the back alley, Blitzø found the door to go backstage, and jimmied the handle. Locked.

Swearing gently, he ducked out of the feathery yellow light that shone on the door itself. If he had a lockpick… which he didn't, did he. He didn't really carry those that often anymore, and he hadn't even suited up with proper weaponry before storming out of the office.

He was debating using one of the knives tucked in his boot to pick it- ruining the blade in the process- when two figures came wandering down the alley.

One was Fizz. He knew that bouncy little gait, hands in his pockets- Fizz never rested his prosthetics in his pockets- and shoulders down with relaxation. He was in costume but not makeup, and holy fuck, seeing Fizz's clean, healthy skin for the first time in over a decade felt like a drug rush.

When he managed to tear his eyes off of Fizz, though, all his spines stood on end.

Fucking Chazwick Thurman, of all goddamn people, had his shitty fucking arm around Fizz's healthy shoulders.

He still had that too-big smile and those darting eyes. Blitzø could have snarled.

"-know if that's a good idea," Fizz was saying when Blitzø managed to tune back in. Even his voice was an intense rush of memory; a clear, high tenor, musical and undamaged by smoke. "I'm still not really in practice."

"Aw, practice, shmactice," Chaz said, and jostled him so hard Fizz had to catch himself. "You're great, babydoll! You can get right back in there and win that thang, no problem."

"Mammon has standards, babe." Fizz laughed, but in that way where he really just wanted somebody to stop talking.

"Sure, but you already did it! You can get in there and win big, no problem! We could move, get a better house, a better life, if you just-"

"You don't have to do it just 'cause he tells you," Blitzø said, jaw clenched tight so he didn't dive for the shark fuck with his teeth.

Fizz jumped, finding his shadowy outline just beyond the spotlight on the door. "Do I know you?" He said, suspicious- but also way too approachable. Even here, Fizz was still a fucking sucker.

Taking a couple steps into the light so he didn't look like such a fucking serial killer, Blitzø rested his shoulder next to the door. "I- yeah," he said, and he wasn't sure what the fuck his face was doing but he had to get it under control. "Yeah. We- worked together. In the circus."

Stepping out from under Chaz's arm, Fizz tilted his head. Fuck, his horns. He stood so differently with them intact.

"I was crew," Blitzø said, the words turning to ash in his mouth; we were best friends before we could fucking walk, Fizz, you looking at me like you don't know me is gonna rip my busted fucking heart out. He palmed the back of his neck, trying not to look like a stalking nutcase. "I don't think you'd remember me."

"I think I'd remember a guy who looks like he got caught in a combine harvester," Fizz said, walking up next to him with a friendly grin. "No offense."

Blitzø plastered on a smile. "None taken."

"See you after the show, babe," Fizz said pointedly over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. Chaz glared at Blitzø, who flipped him off behind Fizz's back. "Was it one of those fireworks accidents? Mrs. Buckzo was always on Cash's ass to keep the living quarters away from the combustibles, I must've heard them arguing about it a million times."

For half a second, Blitzø's throat swelled up, and he had no idea how he kept the smile nailed on. "Something like that."

"They were always… Well. I mean. You heard what happened, right?"

"Nope," Blitzø said, trying to keep his voice from cracking as they walked together down the dark hallway. "I, uh- kind of lost track of everybody from the old days. Th-" He had to clear his throat. "They had a kid, right?"

"Yeah- Barb," Fizz said, waving a hand. "She was my age, but man, she was a lot. I should've figured something was gonna happen."

The silence dragged out, awkward and tense, but it was all Blitzø could do to keep walking.

"They had a fight," Fizz said, and forced a laugh. "I mean. They always fought, but- y'know. Tilla was always 'walking into doors' and stuff, right?"

Blitzø's hand went to his throat, her brooch.

"Well, somebody left the trick-shooting rifles out… Man, in hindsight, Cash was really fucking careless. And- I mean, nobody was really shocked. Barb was a firecracker. But, still. She just shot him, you know? She was barely legal, so they tried her as an adult."

Unbearable silence filled the hallway, Blitzø staggering on. There was a light at the end of the hall. That was the only thing he could keep his eyes on.

"So- yeah. Circus went under. I think he meant to leave it to her? He said that once, I think they fought about it, but with her in jail… everybody just kind of took what they could and split. I think Tilla bought up a couple apartments, runs a boarding-house down in Greed? I heard she got real mean, after everything happened. I get it, though; I had a rough couple years until I won that contest."

The light got closer. It felt like dying; wasn't that what people said, going into the light?

Shit. Fizz was gonna see his face again.

Blitzø scrubbed at his eyes for a second, trying to look normal, trying to tamp down on the screaming going on in his head. He cleared his throat. "You- you ever go down to Lust?" he asked, super casually changing the subject.

"What?" Fizz turned, walking backwards through the door of his dressing-room. It wasn't as intricate as the one Blitzø had seen at Mammon's contest; the lights were shittier, the costumes less intricate. But it was less intimidating, too. He had pictures up, doodles and autographs of other famous clown acts. Soda bottles, ice cream containers in the trash. Still walking backwards, Fizz flopped into his make-up chair and smiled. "Why? Is that a pick-up line? I have a boyfriend."

His loose-limbed posture told Blitzø that he was persuadable, but even that kind of hurt. Where the fuck was that big chicken of his, with his grandiose love confessions and adorable duets? Why didn't this Fizz have that?

"He seems like a shitbag, though," Blitzø said, and shrugged. "You could do better."

Fizz's smile broadened, getting less flattered and more fake. "Eh, these days…" He wiggled a hand and spread his legs wide on the chair. "I take what I can get."

A year ago, Blitzø would have killed and died for the chance to fuck a miraculously-uninjured Fizz. Right now, the prospect put him on the verge of throwing up.

"You do deserve better," Blitzø said again, weirdly intense. He swallowed, hard. "That guy's too much of a dick for his short fuckin' cock to make up for."

The fake smile dropped off Fizz's face for a second, and then he actually laughed. "Where did you come from?" He asked, and Blitzø scrambled for an answer.

"Your mom's sweaty sock drawer," he said, the words sounding very fifteen years old. It made Fizz smile again, and it gave him time to figure out what excuse he had for bursting in on Fizz like this. "For real, though, that guy's trouble. He fucked over a friend of mine, so I- I'm just trying to warn you off."

"Well, thanks for the tip," Fizz said, now smiling with real warmth. "Circus brats gotta stick together, right?"

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Blitzø nodded.

"I gotta do my makeup for the show," Fizz said, picking up a little jar and a makeup sponge to brandish them comedically. "But- thanks. It's good to see people from the old days. Helps me not forget where I came from. Staying for the show?"

The thought of sitting through a clown routine made Blitzø want to kill himself. "I don't think so."

Fizz reached into a drawer at the side of the makeup table. "You need bus fare or something?"

"Kinda, yeah," Blitzø admitted. If his phone didn't work here, his bank card definitely didn't. "Not to be a leech."

"It's fine," Fizz said, waving a hand. "I'm doing better than a lot of people. Not that Chaz thinks so."

"You want me to kill him?" Blitzø offered. He'd never killed somebody he'd fucked before, but anyone who made themselves a nuisance for Fizz was fair game.

Fizz laughed, like he was joking.

"Not kidding. I'm an assassin now."

Shooting him a sideways look, Fizz shook his head with something like suspicion. "You're weird. I swear, I should remember you." He paused, hand in the drawer like he was rethinking this.

Blitzø stared at him, hungrily. "You busted your ankle when you were twelve," he said. "My- Cash wouldn't replace the safety net and you fell through the patches. You had to stay off the tightrope for six weeks and you learned card tricks the whole time." He could still hear Fizz in their trailer, dramatically drawing out of the deck to say Iiiis this your card!?, getting it wrong every single time.

Fizz blinked at him, and then shrugged. "I guess you were there," he said, and handed over a couple folded bills. "I wish I did remember you. We could've been friends."

"Yeah," Blitzø said weakly, not looking at him. "Could've."

"Break a leg," Fizz said as he turned to go, audibly smiling.

Blitzø sat with his head between his knees on a bus stop bench. He wasn't thinking, not really. The whole conversation with Fizz replayed in his head, disjointed, as he digested bits and pieces. Dad dead. Barb in jail. Mom alive but alone. Fizz stuck here. Moxxie with his dad, fuck that guy. Millie dead in a ditch. Loonie- not thinking about Loonie.

Stolas.

He blinked. It had been sunset when he sat down. Now, it was pitch-black outside the circle of grimy light cast over the bus stop.

Stolas. He had to be…

Still married. Still with Octavia. Living it up in his fancy palace. But…

He could send me home.

Stomach rebelling, Blitzø weighed his options. He poked the crystal on his glove, which gave a futile spark and a sad beep, then dimmed again. Clearly, she wasn't up for it.

If he showed up at the Palace, could he get Stolas to help him?

A Stolas who never met him. They never would've played together as kids, which was the only reason he'd managed to even get as far as talking to him that first time. And he'd still be playing Happy Families with the ex-wife, however well that was going without Blitzø to bust in and destroy the charade.

He forced himself to remember how fucking shitty Stolas had been those first few months, opening up the eye-twitching memories just to make it crystal clear what he was getting himself into. Itty-bitty imps, my small friend, all his imp servants looking at Blitzø like they wanted to drown him in a lake. And this would be even harder, even worse.

But Stolas was definitely still gay. And- far, far down, under all the bullshit- he was kind.

You are gonna have to put on the best performance of your life, he told himself, shuddering. You are gonna have to whore it up like you haven't since you were a street-corner hooker, and he's going to be awful, he's not gonna be the guy you fell in love with, he's gonna be so close to it but not. And you can't let him suspect, not even for a second.

Can you do this? How much can you put yourself through to get home?

Thinking of Stolas, his Stolas, sweet and sad and defenseless, he got up as the bus rolled up to the stop. He'd had no problems gunning up to take on a fucking ice dragon for that bird. He could do this.

But still. His hands were shaking.

Blitzø lurked at the edges of the palace property, squinting at the security situation. He'd gotten caught pretty much immediately that first time, but thanks to two years coming and going, he had a way better idea of when the patrols went past. They were timed, but the Hellhounds got sloppy occasionally. He'd just have to be patient. Something he was definitely super good at.

He slipped up and over the garden wall, landing in a patch of Stolas' big carnivorous plants. There were over a dozen of them- but unlike the last time he'd been here, none of them snapped at his heels, none of them grabbed at him with their vines.

Their big heads drooped, and dead leaves were scattered underfoot, which was a bitch when he was trying not to make noise. He cussed under his breath, doing an elaborate tiptoe routine to get out of the plants without crunching any of the leaves too loud.

Over here was the big tree they'd played on together as kids. He hadn't paid it any attention over last few years of wandering in to fuck Stolas and then leave, but now he stopped and looked. It was big, barren, branches reaching up to the dark sky. There was a scrubbed-bare place at its base, a gap in the roots; and with a perfect, aching clarity he remembered tiny fluffy Stolas sitting right there in that hollow.

A patrol walked past, and he darted close to the trunk, staying in shadow until they passed.

The light from the ballroom helped. It was incredibly bright through the windows, ruining his night vision so that he squinted and blinked. The shapes started to come clearer as his eyes adjusted- crowds of people talking and laughing, another big party. The ex-wife lording it up, laughing loud. Her dress was black instead of white, but otherwise it looked like the same party he'd crashed two years ago.

In the gap between patrols, he scampered up the stairs and crouched under the windowsills where the shadow was thickest. All his senses on alert, he could hear Stolas' ex-wife's braying voice-

"Lucifer's left tit, it took him fucking long enough, my best years were nearly wasted-"

Blitzø scurried away, around the corner. Finding his handholds, checking over his shoulder for the patrol, he started the climb up to the master bedroom. This was familiar. He'd tried for a few months to come in the damn front door, resistant to playing into Stolas' weird princess-in-the-tower delusion, but it really was easier not to deal with the butler's snooty disdain or the intimidating vaulted ceilings of the hallways. And, yeah, okay, he wasn't not into the despoiling-the-helpless-captive thing.

At least he was getting a little warmed up, now. His dick was remembering that, oh yeah, he hadn't gotten off with the help of anything but his trusty right hand in months, that the sexiest bird in Hell was crashing on his couch within touching distance but totally untouchable, and it made it easier to ignore the screaming in his idiot brain. This was what he used to come here for, after all. To forget all the insane bullshit of his life and play the fairytale version of himself, the one Stolas was always happy to see.

Rolling onto Stolas' balcony, still out of sight, Blitzø debated his approach. Should he start in with the 'I am here to ravish you' routine and then ask for a favor after orgasm number, like, three? Stolas had been pretty receptive about halfway through their long first night, sitting there smoking and giggling while Blitzø mumbled through ten words of self-justification and then kissed him again.

The bedroom was dark. Blitzø tilted his head. He'd expected to find Stolas up here, hiding from the party.

Opening the balcony door, he slipped inside. His eyes adjusted to the darkness again, and he could see that it was messy- stuff all over every surface, discarded clothes, jars and bottles. But under the haphazard pile, the bed was still made.

He stopped in the center of the room, unsure. This was weird. The servants should have cleaned this up if Stolas made this mess getting ready for the party; but if he was up here, the lights would be on.

Blitzø weighed his options. If Stolas was actually at the party, he was a little fucked. But he also knew Stolas, and knew that he always talked about his wife's parties like they were physically painful (unlike actual physical pain, which made him open up like a flower). He wouldn't be there unless he absolutely had to.

So where was he instead?

Teeth bared in a nervous grimace, Blitzø headed out the door. Once or twice, he'd stuck around long enough to hang out and see what Stolas actually did with the book on those Full Moon nights, and he always took it down the hall to some crazy-fancy office-slash-library. Maybe he was in there, reading or researching, doing… prince stuff?

He stuck his nose into three different rooms trying to find it, all dark and barren. Guest rooms, they looked like. He wondered if Octavia's room was on this side of the house, or somewhere else. What would she be like, here? Not as much of a sullen, shitty teenager, probably. Maybe even happy.

Blitzø pulled open the big double doors in front of him, and- holy shit. Yeah, this was it.

The whole room was gilt-edged and gorgeous, sparkling with the light of a few low-burning oil lamps. There was a chandelier that looked like it was actually levitating. Stars painted on the ceiling. Books lining the walls. At the center, an enormous desk.

And at the desk, a figure. Dwarfed by it, looking small and frazzled and lost.

"Octavia?" Blitzø said, her name falling out of his mouth.

She looked up, loose hair falling into her bleary-eyed face. He'd never seen her without her cute little beanie before; its absence made her look older. The tiny crown she always wore had been traded in for a bigger model that was braided into her thick hair, in a style that looked like it used to be coiffed and fancy until she slept on it like three times.

"Hullo?" Octavia rasped, blinking. She cleared her throat, shook her head. "Hello?"

Standing up, she tilted her head to the side. "Who are you?" She asked, and raised a hand to her head. Her sleeves were huge and bell-like, draping down so far that they made her skinny wrists look pitiful. "One of the servants from the lesser houses?"

"Uh," Blitzø stalled, "sure. Look, kid, where's your dad? I need to talk to him."

Octavia squinted at him. Trailing a hand along the desk, she rounded it until she could lean her back against it and stare at him. Her outfit was huge. She was dressed in black, because some things didn't change, but it was a bulky wizard-robe getup that made her look- well, older at a first glance, magic and ageless; but when he really looked, she was drowning in it. She looked like a kid playing dress-up.

"No, you're not," she said. Her voice was low and soft.

Blitzø scoffed. Time to bluff. "Oh, c'mon. How do you kno..."

He trailed off as she just continued staring at him, dead-eyed. A cold feeling crawled down his spine.

"My dad killed himself," she said, steadily. Like she practiced until she could say it without trembling. "Two months ago."

There was a momentary ripple of noise from the party, taking place in the ballroom below.

Coming back to himself, Blitzø realized he was sitting down on the floor, flat on his ass like a stupid toddler. His knees had decided to go on vacation for a second, somewhere they didn't have to process what Octavia said.

"The fuck he did." Blitzø said, words spewing out of him on accident and autopilot. He gasped for air, voice cracking. He didn't get up; he didn't think his legs were up to the attempt.

With a birdlike tilt of her head, Octavia blinked in bewilderment. She stared down at him, shock and a strange hunger in her eyes. Like she was glad, seeing someone obliterated by this news.

Lost, strangled, mind racing, Blitzø grappled for something to say into the empty air. "That son of a bitch," he swore, his own filthy chatter serving as an anchor in the storm of whatever the fuck was going on under his ribcage. "I can't believe- that fucker."

Octavia made a strangled noise, like she almost agreed. Her hands tightened where she was holding onto the desk behind her. "He emancipated me, first," she said, a little too loud, a little too clumsy. Her eyes were wide and wild, locked on him like he was the only person she'd said any of this to. "He- filed the paperwork to give me the crown. And then he went into the garden and-" She made a choked-off noise, laughter or maybe a scream. The sound was horrible, and worse, it echoed all the way up to the ceiling.

Blitzø struggled to his feet, tail lashing, casting about the room. All the pictures- there used to be portraits of Stolas and Octavia all over the place in this fucking house, but they were all gone. Blank spaces on the walls. All the places where Stolas wasn't. "No. No, he- that's… no…"

"Who are you," Octavia said, "really?"

"I'm-" Blitzø tried to get his breathing under control. "A friend. Of your dad's."

Her brows drew down. "He didn't have any friends," she said.

"He had me," Blitzø almost snarled, his spines on end. He scrubbed at his face. Nothing felt real. None of this had felt real since hopping through that fucked-up portal and this was the least real thing of all. "He had..." Except he didn't, not here. Because Blitzø wasn't there. And Stolas-

Stolas didn't have anybody else.

There was another spill of noise from below, a shout and cheer, the bursting of a champagne bottle. Octavia winced with her whole body, her shoulders curling in.

"Mum keeps throwing parties," she said, low in her throat like a threat. "She said it was a funeral but it wasn't. They were laughing. They're all celebrating. It's ghoulish." Her nails dug into the wood of the desk.

"Oh, fuck her."

Octavia looked at him with crazy eyes, latching on to his sympathy like he was a life preserver. "She burned all the pictures of him," she burst out, manic and pleading. "She trashed his bedroom and threw out his books. They took the body away and there's no grave, no marker, nothing- it's like he never even existed-"

She folded to her knees and started to cry, in great big twittering sobs.

"Aw, fuck," Blitzø said, his voice breaking. "C'mere, sweetie. C'mere."

He flung himself forward and wrapped himself around her as best he could. She was about eighty percent fabric by volume, and way too skinny under the big shoulder-pads and draping sleeves. He immediately wanted to feed her.

"I got you," he told her, petting her hair, her shoulders. "I got you. It's gonna-"

"Don't say it's going to be okay," Octavia wailed, snotty and despairing. She went to slap ineffectually at his arms, and just ended up clinging on for dear life. "Don't…"

Heart breaking, Blitzø just hugged her harder.

They sat like that for a long time. Octavia rocked back and forth in his embrace, crying softly, and he petted her hair and hushed her, not even thinking about getting home anymore.

Eventually, she sat back, wiping at her face with her enormous sleeves. She sniffed, cleared her throat. Wrapped her arms around her knees like a kid. "You were friends? With my dad?"

"Uh…" Blitzø also sat down, fiddling with his glove. "Yeah. Sort of. We… met when we were kids."

Octavia's eyes narrowed, and it wasn't less intimidating now that they were all puffy from crying. "I've never met you. He never said anything about you."

"It was… a long time ago," Blitzø fidgeted with the crystal on his wrist. "But I, uh… well, I came by a while ago and… we've been… spending time together…" This mealy-mouthed shit was not for him. All he could think about was the 'spending time together' he and Stolas had mostly been doing and the most graphic possible words to describe it.

Curling up tighter, Octavia fixed him with a petulant glare. "'Spending time together?'" He could hear the quotation marks, and grimaced, almost blushing.

Blitzø forced his eyes shut, rubbing his forehead. "I- Via-" He used Stolas' pet name for her mostly on accident. He'd been trying to construct this conversation in his head for months. "I- I really… like your dad. He's- smart, and he's sweet, and- and way nicer than any pompous rich fuck has any right to be…"

"Is?"

He looked up, startled. "What?"

"Is," Octavia said, staring. "What do you mean, he is?"

"Uh," Blitzø stalled. He fiddled with the crystal again, which sparked and made an off-tune whine.

Octavia's eyes fixed on it. Then rose to him. Then went back down to the crystal.

Fuck. Stolas did say she was smart.

"Can I tell you something totally fucking insane," Blitzø said, his voice cracking like he was twelve years old. "'Cause I have had the worst goddamn day."

Via looked up at him and nodded, her face set in stony lines. Fuck, she looked like her dad, and his heart pulsed.

"Something in this- fucked up," Blitzø said, brandishing the crystal. "I rubbed its fucking clit backwards and it- nevermind. I ended up in… in this world where apparently everything went fucking wrong 'cause my twin ate me in the womb, okay, and now nobody knows who I am."

Staring hungrily, Octavia didn't move. She didn't seem to be breathing.

"And- and- where I'm from," Blitzø kept going even though he knew he was fucking this up, "Where I'm from your dad- Via, he's alive and he's- okay, he's not doing the greatest ever but he didn't fucking slit his wrists in the garden, okay? He just- had an affair. With me."

Octavia blinked for the first time in two minutes. "With you!?"

"Hey, fuck you, I'm hot as shit," Blitzø protested. "I make that bird- well- nevermind. Yeah. With- with me. We're… together."

The last word tugged at his throat. Fuck. He was so whipped for that fucking bird.

A ghost of a smile haunted Octavia's face. "Does that make you, like, my stepdad?"

Blitzø froze for a second, trying not to cry. "Yeah," he struggled out, sounding like a massive bitch. He swallowed. "I- I really wanna be."

Eyes filling with tears again, Octavia choked on a sob. "It's really nice to meet you."

"Fuck," Blitzø hissed, and rocketed forward to wrap her up in his arms again. He was also crying. This sucked.

When they got that stupid cry-fest out of the way, though, Octavia rested her back against the desk and sighed, scrubbing at her face with her poofy sleeves.

"To be clear," Blitzø tested, "you don't think I'm a fucking nutcase?"

"What? No," Octavia sniffled again, shaking her head. "No, it's- I've been studying alternate timelines and dimensional magic. It's not impossible at all. Especially with a crystal like that-" she gestured, and the crystal gave a well-timed splurt of green sparks, "they're really porous, they absorb the magic around them like anything, and then misfire along a dimensional rift. It's why we don't keep them in the house."

"Right. Of course a crystal from Lust would be a fucking whore," Blitzø said, flicking it with a talon. Usually that started her right up, but it just made an off-key whine and dimmed again.

"There's so many ways things could have gone differently," Octavia said vaguely, staring at the crystal still. "And it just- picks one. Somewhere everything went…"

"Wrong," Blitzø finished for her.

She put her head down.

Staring at her, Blitzø said without thinking, "Come home with me."

Head whipping up, Octavia blinked at him. She looked so much like Stolas that it hurt; that look of bafflement and vague offense, but attentive in a way that made Blitzø feel magic and special, like he was holding them on a thin string of trust.

"Come home with me," Blitzø repeated, reaching out to hover a hand over her skinny wrist, tightly wrapped in her draping sleeve. "I- your dad's there, not your dad, but- my Stolas, he'd love you so much, I don't have a fuck-ass palace but I'd take care of you, Via, I swear-"

Her eyes crinkled up like she was about to cry again. "I-"

"And you'd have a really cool sister and I'd go rat-hunting every fucking day-"

"I can't," she said, miserably.

"You fucking can, fuck this place-"

"No," she emphasized, reaching out and catching his wrist. She pushed it back at him. "I mean I- I can't. It doesn't work that way. You can't live in another universe."

Spreading his arms out wide, Blitzø gestured to himself hugely and cocked his horns.

Her beak twitched, making her look even more miserable for the aborted laugh. "Yeah. D'you- your head hurts? Tremors? Stomach problems?"

As if on cue, Blitzø's midsection made an unpleasant sound, like it was struggling with a bad burrito; except he hadn't eaten almost all day.

"You get sick," Octavia said softly. "You- I'm going to have to send you back. You'll die, here."

Wide-eyed, Blitzø looked down at his hands. They were trembling a little. Fuck.

"How long?" It was stupid; Blitzø didn't think of himself as being afraid of death- a little too not-afraid sometimes, enough that that scared him- but the knowledge that he was actively dying, when he had so much shit to do, doused him in cold water.

Octavia shrugged. "Couple weeks? Months, maybe. The books I read didn't give a timeline. Just that the air, the microbacterial makeup of the biome-"

She kept going as Blitzø wrestled down the cold fear in his belly and stuffed it in a mental lockbox. He was good at that, at taking his feelings and stomping on them until they could be shut up and packed away. Somewhere in his brain was a whole closet full of clamoring emotions that he'd long planned to let fester until they unionized and gave him a heart attack at fifty-two, forty-nine if he was lucky.

Until, of course, Stolas came along and set one gentle hand on the doorknob and all the fuckers came spilling out.

"-and the immune system can't keep up with-"

"You sound like your dad," Blitzø said fondly, not meaning to interrupt. Well, kind of meaning to interrupt. He had no idea what half her words meant.

Octavia looked obliterated.

"Shit," Blitzø swore, stepping forward in case she started crying again.

"I would," she said, thick and miserable. "I'd go with you. If I could. I'd do anything to see him again."

Considering reaching out to her, Blitzø settled on keeping his hands to himself, fiddling with his faulty slut crystal. "If it helps," he said, as gently as he could, "my Stolas is fuckin' miserable without you."

Octavia looked away, at the empty wall where Stolas' portrait had been."I just- I don't know," she vented. "I- why would he- I didn't know! I didn't know anything! Did you know he was on- on those pills?! I found them in the piles of his stuff, after. I never knew he was… I mean, he never told me anything!"

She was doing that thing, the one Stolas did at the start. She wasn't really talking to him. She was just sort of talking to the empty air, out of relief that someone- anyone at all, even some random imp- was listening. It was more sad than annoying, this time around, now that he knew how fucking desperately these birds needed somebody to cling to.

But he was going to have to be careful. If he'd learned anything from his first go-around with Stolas, it was that lonely birds could grab onto their life preserver hard enough to strangle. He'd have to find something he could do to help her, without letting her latch on so hard they both drowned.

He sat down next to her. "I found out about 'em pretty recently," he admitted. "But it- made a lot of sense."

"No, it didn't!" Octavia insisted. "He was- he was fine! He was the same as he'd been- my whole life! Was he just lying to me the whole time!?"

"Hey- look," Blitzø told her sternly, waving his hands down to try to motion her to dial it back. "Look. I have a kid too, okay? And part of having a kid means, you don't just tell them scary shit that you can't fix. If I got that sick, I sure as fuck wouldn't go running to my daughter and tell her all about it."

"Oh, so you'd just die with no warning and leave her to deal with it then!?" Octavia snipped, clicking her beak in anger.

Grimacing, Blitzø stared out at the heavy double doors. Yikes.

"I fucking hope not. But- you know your dad. He doesn't really have…. middle gears," Blitzø said, slowly realizing some stuff as he said it. "Neither do I. Maybe that's why we…"

"So, what, overnight he goes from totally fine to-" Octavia choked on a noise. "And I'm- I'm supposed to just be okay? Is that why he always told me that? That everything ends and someday I'd have to go on without him?"

Fucking yikes, Stolas. That bird needed therapy and he did not have therapy money.

Blitzø swallowed hard. "Via- it sucks, this fucking sucks, I know you're mad. But sometimes when you're fucked up you just feel like… " He got that feeling again, listening to the words coming out of his own mouth, that he was supposed to be learning something from this horseshit. "Like everybody would be better off without you."

"I'm not," she said, stubborn- but her voice wobbled. She hid her face in her arms. "I'm not," and she unwrapped one arm from around her knees to slap the floor, through which the noise of the party still warbled, "but they- I didn't know how much they hated him. I just want it to stop, I want them to go away. They didn't know him at all."

Blitzø covered her hand with his, thinking fast, his resolve hardening. Her hand was like Stolas'- slim and thin, fragile-looking. His scarred, circus-callused hand blanketed it completely. "Well," he said, "Luckily, your new stepdad is pretty great at wrecking shit."

Creeping through the hallway, Blitzø mildly regretted his decision to help Octavia ruin these idiots' day.

Not that he objected, generally, to the day-ruining of filthy rich dickheads gloating over Stolas' corpse. That was cool. But the prickles of unease he felt, tiptoeing down a hallway now devoid of portraits- they'd all been covered the last time he was here, hadn't they? Stolas had covered them; his bitch ex-wife had them destroyed. And it was dark, the lights dim and ominous. He didn't even see any of the servants. Clearly, they had the sense to stay out. And he didn't.

He was pretty sure these fancy ass double doors led to the ballroom. Probably there was an imp-sized servant entrance, tiny and tucked away. Well, fuck that. Blitzø reached up (way too far up) to flip the handle.

Light and noise spilled out, and he slipped inside. He was probably conspicuous as fuck in his big black coat, too tall to be an unobtrusive servant but still unmistakeably an imp. What was the point of disguising it? He'd just have to be fast.

Tucked along the wall, Blitzø ducked under a table full of food and filled in his mental map of the ballroom. Two walls full of windows, the ones he'd snuck past outside. Then the wall with the big fancy door. And one that was helpfully hung with big cloth tapestries, all of them made with beautiful glossy fabric that he immediately wanted to set on fire.

Next best thing would have to do. He gripped the lodestone that Octavia gave him- apparently there was something in the walls and floors of the palace that kept portals from opening inside, or at least sending anything through that would, hypothetically, ruin a rich bitch's day. So he had to get his little red ass in here, and high enough up so that Octavia could do her thing.

Blinking up, past the crowds of guffawing party-goers that made him wish desperately for his gun, Blitzø caught sight of the big, floaty chandelier. It had dazzled him the first time he saw it as a little kid; as a grown-ass man it pissed him off, that these dicks were hoarding shit like that and literally holding it over everybody else's heads.

Now? All he saw was an opportunity.

Catching sight of the cunt ex-wife, Blitzø narrowed his eyes, a hiss starting at the back of his throat as his tail lashed. Multiple people had- knowing full well that he was Stolas' side piece, natch- waxed poetic about how fucking gorgeous his wife was, but she was awful, overdone as a drag queen and without any of their style. Her lashes were falling off and oh bitch what was she doing with her hair? He wouldn't be caught dead in a wig that bad.

He snapped out from under the table, building speed on all fours before all-out sprinting to the center of the room. Flipping up skirts and pulling tails as he went, he flung himself straight into the ex-wife's midsection, making her screech.

Her enormous skirt weighed her down as she toppled like a statue in a cloud of tulle, and Blitzø cackled as he scampered out of the mess before anyone even really started to diagnose the cause of the chaos. Pivoting, he sprang to the back wall and fastened his claws into the fabric hangings, hauling his way up until he was out of even Goetia reach.

"SECURITY!" The ex-wife screeched.

"Good fucking luck, dickheads!" Blitzø crowed. Slipping his knife out of his boot, he flipped himself upside-down with ease, holding onto the slick fabric with his tail and cutting a jagged tear until the fabric began to pull free from the wall. It was fastened to the ceiling about halfway to the chandelier, and he shifted his weight to build up momentum.

Just as the door burst in and a couple of suited Hellhounds came sprinting in, he made the leap of faith to the chandelier. His palms thwacked into it and- as always- hit straight into the sense-memory of where his trapeze calluses used to be, and he stuck like glue. It crashed and tinkled, and thankfully held, as he held up the lodestone and-

And it cut into the air, with the exact feeling of his knife slipping into the silk.

The portal opened just over the ex-wife's screeching head.

Blitzø caught the barest glimpse of Octavia's black getup, but she was half-hidden behind another portal; one she had opened to conjure up what she needed.

"Hullo, Mum!" Octavia announced, her sweet, shy voice filling the ballroom with new strength. "I fucking hate your fucking parties!"

"Octavia!"

"You watch your language, young lady."

"This is not behavior befitting a princess!"

"Didn't your bitch father ever teach you any manners!?"

The clamor of angry Goetia converged in a huddle underneath the open portal, all of them conveniently looking up as they all tried to scold his stepdaughter at once.

With a vicious cackle that did her dramatic mastermind father proud, Octavia opened her own portal- and let fly.

Coal tar, a product of Octavia's fire magic applied to Stolas' space rocks, oozed and glopped out in an inevitable, unavoidable mass. It was a hot, thick, horrible texture and Blitzø watched in delight as all the Goetia eyes followed it at once. The first terrible drop landed right on top of the ex-wife's gaping face, and she only had a moment to burble in disgust as Blitzø laughed hysterically, swinging the chandelier back and forth with glee among the hail of water-balloon sized masses of melted rock.

They all squawked, but the glops of thick black pitch were everywhere and there was nowhere to run. Feathers flew as bird-brained bastards tried to struggle the sticky substance off themselves, filling the air like a sexy pillowfight. They tripped, stuck, and skidded on the floor, collided with each other, screeched and howled.

Standing apart from the chaos, the Hellhound security eyed the tarred mess of Goetia and took several careful steps back.

"How's that for mourning colors, you insensitive bastards!?" Octavia shouted, triumphant tears in her eyes. Leaning out of the portal, all her sticky missiles dropped, she reached out her hand.

Blitzø swung the chandelier and grabbed onto her, hauling himself up, mindful of her skinny bird bones. He got one leg into the portal before he remembered, and leaned back out.

"Sorry I fucked your husband!"

"Eurgh!" Octavia said, still giggling, as they both landed on the floor of the study. She dismissed the portal with a wave of her hand, splayed backwards in her fancy dress with her tangled hair. She was flushed with laughter, looking healthier by the minute. "That's gross."

Launching himself forward, Blitzø hugged her. She sighed, settling into his grip.

They stayed like that for a long time, hanging onto each other in the dimly-lit study, the shrieking from downstairs settling into angry shouting and then slammed doors. Blitzø guessed that the parties were probably a thing of the past. So he'd managed to do something for this Octavia after all. In under an hour, he- made her life… better.

Fuck.

Sniffling and trying not to let on that he was crying a little (again), Blitzø pulled back and held Octavia at arms' length, hands on her shoulders like he tried to do to Loonie sometimes for Serious Talks (when she let him).

"You need people," he told her firmly. "Don't just fucking rot here in your incel wizard tower. Okay? Go find people who don't suck. It's a tall fucking order in Hell, but they exist, and when you find them you never let 'em go. That big chicken down in Lust isn't as much of a dickbag as he wants everybody to think he is, start there."

Shoulders shaking with a slight laugh, she stood. Moving slowly, she migrated around the desk picking up books from a pile.

"And you should eat more!" Blitzø added, shaking his finger at her as she sorted through her books and opened one. "You're too skinny. More rats. ASAP, young lady."

Looking at him, her bright red eyes glowing with grief in the low light, Octavia drew her hand down the page.

A portal opened on his right, a slow split in the air. It wasn't effortless, like Stolas'; it grew and moved like it was struggling to budge its way into the room, blossoming like a flower. His crystal made a microwave's ding! sound, starting to glow in unison.

"There," Octavia said. "That will take you home."

"Are you…" He started to ask. Then he remembered her reaction from before, and shut his mouth worriedly.

Via smiled. "I think," she said, stretching to her full height, "I'm going to be okay."

Blitzø took a mental picture of her standing there in the low light, head held high, regal and sad and proud. His stepdaughter.

Then he stepped through the portal and immediately tripped.

"Fucking ow!"

"Oh, shit," an unfamiliar voice said. Someone was skirting around him; there was a sudden smell of hot garbage, the way there always was when he left Stolas' picturesque palace for the realities of Hell. "Oh hey- Marcie, it's that guy, the one from the trial!"

"No way!"

"The-" Blitzø sat up, two imp girls standing in front of him arm-in-arm. "The trial?"

"Fucking duh," one of them said, snapping his picture not-subtly with her phone. "It was a live broadcast. You were such an icon until that rich douche fucked it up for you."

Right. Yes. This. Somehow, the trial had entered the public consciousness as 'Blitzo the brilliant iconoclast and the dickhead prince that fucked him over', nevermind that he was now dragging Stolas all around town with him so that was clearly wrong, to anyone watching with their eyes and not their ass. The crazy distance between what actually happened and what showed up on everybody's TV sets made him never wanna watch the news again.

Wait. She remembered. She-

"You fucking know who I am!" Blitzø shot upright, grabbing her by the shoulders, the brain behind his mania reminding him that manhandling random teenage girls was a great way to get arrested or shot or put on a really unpleasant list. Letting her go and jumping back, he did a little dance. "I'm here- I'm home- I'm fucking back, assholes!"

"We are sooo fucking back," one of them laughed, charmed instead of freaked out.

"I'm home! I'm okay, I'm alive-" Ten things crashed into him at once. "Loonie! Fucking shit, Loonie and Stolas and M&M- I gotta- where are we?"

"Fifth and Sanguine," one teenaged girl said, nose at her phone screen where she'd clearly just opened her maps app instead of the other girl, who was actually looking up at the street signs.

"I gotta get downtown," Blitzø cast about, trying to orient himself. He knew how to drive there, but walking- what would be quickest? Taking the long way around the city center or bolting through the shittier streets and hoping he was faster than anybody trying to mug him? "Fuck me."

"I'd-" One of the girls started to say, her face considering, until the friend elbowed her in the gut.

He stared at her for a second, then turned and started fording through foot traffic in front of the bus station. But it kept happening. An old guy squinted at him, and then pointed, and no matter how much Blitzø tried to duck his head and hurry on, other imps crowded around, shouting.

"Hey! Hey, it's that guy, it's that Blitzo guy-"

"He doesn't say it like that, dickweed-"

"Woah, how tall are the Sins in person, dude? Like, super tall?"

"Fight the power, man!"

Blitzø shoved, elbowed, and cussed his way halfway down the block, imps sticking to his side like parasites. "Guys, fuck off, I get it, I gotta get home, can somebody help me get fucking home- Stolas fuckin' needs me and I need you to get off my cock here-"

"Haha, yeah, fuck that fag prince," some jackoff guffawed, absolutely failing to read the room.

Rounding on him, Blitzø bared his teeth in a manic grin and grabbed the two-toothed hick by the front of his shirt. "What the fuck did you just call my bird, you ass-licking little-"

"ONE AND ALL, EVERYBODY, HOP THE FUCK OFF MY BEST FRIEND'S DICK!"

The ringmaster zeal in the new voice prompted instant attention from the crowd, all of them looking up at once and clearing a path for a multicolored blob to catapult into the crowd, knock Blitzø breathless to the ground, and wrap every limb around him three times, soft little jester's cap tucked under his chin like it was made to fit there.

"Fizz!"

"Blitzø!" Fizz hollered back, straight into his chest where he was doing his level best to burrow into the lining of the leather trenchcoat. "You fucking stupid fucking dickhead! Where the shit have you been!? Your kid called me and I had to call the motherfucking cavalry-"

Not listening, Blitzø hugged him so hard it hurt, throat clogged up. He was home. Was this better? Was this worse? Fizz laughed hysterically, that godawful hyena laugh in his broken voice, and Blitzø nearly started bawling.

"Froggie, get him in the fucking car before you both get mobbed!" Ozzie's head leaned out of the window of the shiny limosine, eyeing the gaggle of imps staring at it full of revolutionary zeal, like they were ready to swarm over it and steal the tires.

Moving like one person with four legs, Blitzø and Fizz each tried to shove the other into the open car door first, mashing their heads together and cursing and complaining. Ozzie grabbed Fizz by the back of his shirt and dragged them both in.

Sprawling out, half on the seat and half on the floor, Blitzø caught his breath and tried to turn his near-brush with tears into something clever to say, coming up with nothing. He just watched as Fizz settled on Ozzie's lap like a pleased cat, leaning absently against his chest for support and comfort.

"Where the fuck have you been all day!? We've been out looking for hours." Fizz extended one prosthetic arm to shake a disapproving finger right in his face.

"Aw, shit, that's right," Ozzie mumbled, and pulled out his phone.

"I mean, you even had that Hellhound of yours worried, and she's been stone-cold every time I come over to your place- no thanks to you since you only wanna talk on the phone, I gotta break in like I'm some kind of criminal- she was actually crazy upset, it made me glad I stuck my number to your fridge-"

"We found him, babygirl. Y'all are good to come on back from Earth," Ozzie was saying into the phone. "Yeah, he was just out on the street like a bum."

Fizz's nervous chatter let up just long enough for Blitzø to catch the voice on the other end of the line.

"Well, tell him to go fuck himself," Verosika of all people replied, audibly relieved.

"Yeah, yeah. Thanks for suitin' up, honey," Ozzie said, hanging up the phone. "My girls wanna tell you to go fuck yourself."

"That sounds about right," Blitzø said, voice cracking. That was right. Verosika. The reason nobody had heard of her in that other place- she got big right as they broke up, that album she released that he never listened to, lyrics she kept scribbling in that notebook she never let him look at. Huh. "Can I go home now?"

"Almost there," Ozzie said. "Gettin' you idiots away from that pack of vultures was first priority."

"I could do with fewer crazy fan kidnappings," Fizz put in, kicking his prosthetic feet happily. "Less hot in real life than it is in sexy roleplay, turns out. Who knew?"

"Ugh, duh, Fizz," Blitzø bitched, putting that on a mental list of fantasies to take for a spin next time Stolas did something achingly sexy and he had to hide in the bathroom. "Obviously. What do you mean almost there, we were halfway across town?"

"I got my ways," Ozzie said, smug. "And a good car. Royalty means no traffic tickets."

Blitzø fixed him with an unimpressed stare, overcome with some eating-the-rich feelings his damn self. Ozzie was fine, but he was also a little too punchable for a twelve-foot-tall chicken.

"I think we're-" He continued, looking out the window, and Blitzø un-pretzeled himself enough to look.

They were almost at the street corner. He could see his building- his building, the whole thing- vaulting up into the skyline, IMP's window fully visible. And out front, before the door, a small crowd. Moxxie standing on a box, coordinating something, actually taking charge for once, and Blitzø was so proud he could kiss him.

Rolling, Blitzø caught a glimpse of Millie's face through the window. She was on the corner- they were passing her-

He grabbed blindly for the car door and tumbled out, slapping the ground to roll off momentum and springing upright just in time to flip off the car that did its level best to end his day permanently. Ignoring Fizz and Ozzie's panicked shouting, he vaulted to the curb and tackled his not-dead-in-a-ditch best friend.

Millie shouted, punching him reflexively, which he took with a bark of a laugh as he tucked her head into his shoulder. Then she shrieked with joy, wrapping her arms around him.

"B! Where the fuck you been, you had us all worried sick, I oughta beat your sorry ass I cain't believe you scared us all to death like that-"

Absolutely unable to stand still for even a second, he kissed her loudly and wetly on the forehead and mussed her hair, tweaking her horns just like he used to do to Barb. Then he flung himself down the road and bolted to do the same thing to Moxxie.

The crowd around the entrance to their building dispersed like a cloud of pigeons when he sprinted in, letting their MISSING PERSON flyers flutter to the ground as he hugged and harassed Moxxie, who bitched the whole time but hugged him back fiercely and failed to hide the fact that he was crying.

"Go see to your boyfriend, Sir," Moxxie complained, knocking his hands away as Blitzø continued to try and grapple with him, in a fun and friendly and definitely not homoerotic way. "He's been frantic all day."

"Oh," Blitzø froze for a second, his brain reaching for the image of Palace Prince Stolas and almost instinctively rejecting the word 'boyfriend'. And then he realized- his Stolas, here Stolas, Stolas who put himself between Blitzø and an executioners' swing, Stolas who was alive and on his meds and not dead in a horrible echoing house-

"That's what I thought, Sir!" Moxxie's shout echoed through the closed doors as he lit into the building like his ass was on fire.

The elevator felt like it took ten years, and Blitzø just about crawled out of his skin. Stolas was here and alive and okay; Loona, probably, possibly? She'd called Fizz for help, which was fucking crazy because he kind of tried to keep his shit with Fizz on the down-low in case it fell apart again. That sounded like Loonie, though. She knew the shit he kept closest to his chest was the shit that mattered most, because she did the same thing.

Ding!

Blitzø sprinted down the hall blindly, finding their door on muscle memory and nothing else. He flung it open, not even sure what he'd find, and froze.

The whole office was torn apart. All the furniture seemed to have been pushed aside or out; the secretary's desk was in the kitchenette, the table shoved haphazardly into his office. Papers were scattered and windblown. And laid out on the empty floor was an insane circular diagram full of mystical bullshit, all segmented off with mathematical clarity.

On the far edge of the room, Stolas was crouched down, with his sleeves rolled up and his tail spread artfully over the diagram; and his tail only fanned and ruffled like that when he was nervous as fuck. He was sticking one last piece of- masking tape!? Was this thing made out of fucking masking tape, the twelve discarded rolls on the floor said 'yes'- down onto the circle, and then he stood, dusting his hands off and raking his hair back out of his eyes, looking competent and regal and scholarly in a way that made all Blitzø's blood rush below his belt.

"Alright, Loona dear," he was saying, "Light it up and we'll see if it-"

With her back to him, Loona stepped out from the doorway of the kitchenette and settled one foot over the big ass circle.

It hummed. It throbbed with a deep purple glow.

And then an enormous, sun-bright spotlight focused right on Blitzø's face, making him fall over covering his eyes from the miserable glare.

"Fuck! Ow!"

Both of them yelped, whipping around to stare at him.

"Welp!" Loona said, too loud and blazingly unguilty, "It found him!"

Staggering to his feet, Blitzø blinked all the stars out of his eyes, his head spinning. He lighted on Loona first, who took a step back with her fur puffed up, the whites of her eyes showing. No hug right now! Blitzø was getting better at that.

Stolas sagged out of his tall posture, leaning against the back wall with a hand across his chest like he was trying not to have a heart attack from sheer relief. He was so different now from all the princely portraits, fluffy and ordinary and soft and safe, and Blitzø swallowed hard. He took one stumbling step forward, and then two, and then he was sprinting as fast as he could and Stolas was fumbling to his knees and-

They hadn't kissed since the fuck-ass dragon thing. Blitzø used to think there could literally be nothing more disgustingly romantic than a midair kiss while holding the cool-ass sword he used to rescue the stupid fucking love of his life; but this, the mad-dash-from-the-train-station rush, this made that look like fucking in an alleyway. There was no time limit, no urgency. Stolas wrapped long arms around him and carefully folded his spindly fingers around the back of Blitzø's neck, making all his spines quiver. He rubbed his thumbs along the edges of Stolas' jawbone, the soft feathers there, feeling him chirrup softly and knowing that it meant home.

Fuck. He was ruined for anybody else. Which he knew, he'd known for almost a year; but the relief of admitting it finally outweighed the terror.

"Um," Loona said. "Dad?"

That was better than a hug. Blitzø un-twined their tongues and dizzily turned around.

One of those chubby little cherub bastards was half-hanging out of a golden portal, the fluffy blue one. "Hi," he said, waving disinterestedly. "Um. I heard somebody needed a guardian angel?"

On reflex, Blitzø raised his gun and shot. He missed, half-accidentally, the bullet winging over the little angel's shoulder and into the portal; some unseen people screamed and the portal slammed shut.

Blitzø blinked. He hadn't even had his gun a second ago. Hadn't gotten it out of the safe today. Yet- the second he needed it, Stolas pressed the flintlock into his grip. Without looking, without asking, and she was freshly cleaned and loaded.

Oh, Blitzø was gonna fuck him so good. He whipped back around and kissed him again, Stolas laughing a delighted little hoo! into his mouth.

"Oh, darling," Stolas sighed, out of breath, but his body was relaxed for the first time in months. "What was that for?"

Blitzø rested their foreheads together, clinging to him for dear life. "I'm just- happy to be home." I'm so, so fucking glad to be alive.

Happy fucking birthday to me.