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The cold metal of the fire escape clings to Stolas's skin and he shivers, fluffing his feathers slightly. Of course Blitzø feels that, his arms are wrapped around Stolas's shoulders so how could he not? And of course he chooses the moment that Stolas let's his mask truly slip to pull back. And of course he notices that too, because how could he not?
"Stolas," he says it in a tone of voice that makes Stolas shrink internally, "you're shaking. C'mon. We could go inside?"
Internal Stolas thinks this is a terrible idea. External Stolas apparently has decided that words are past his ability. The silence stretches. Internally, Stolas screams. Externally, he stands stock still.
"Stols?"
And Blitzø's voice sounds like a warm wind, like the birdsong in the trees of the human world, like the soft whisper of a lover. And Internally, Stolas's heart shatters.
He shakes his head, beak opening and closing, unable to form the words he knows he should say.
"We could watch a movie? We could play a game with M&M? Although I'm not sure they'll let you win just cause you're-" Blitzø swallows his last words but they echo unsaid in the silence.
And Stolas knows it. The pills sit unopened on the side table next to the couch he's been comandering for the past day? Two days? Three days? Has it been a week already? He doesn't know. And maybe that's okay. He should take them, he knows he should but everytime he opens that bottle he hears Octavia's voice and that breaks the fragile parts of him he is still holding on to.
"Hey bird brain," Blitzø touches his cheek lightly, "stop thinking so much. It's not good for you."
And that's enough to make Internal Stolas laugh. External Stolas allows the corners of his beak to turn up, barely a twitch, but it's there. And Blitzø latches onto it like a life line.
"Are words just too hard right now? It's okay if they are. I understand, you can just um, blink? I guess?" Blitzø says in the same tone one would use on a wild animal.
Maybe that's what he is now. Something wild. Untamed. That's how he feels. Perpetually in free fall, hurtling towards something that he can't see.
"One blink for yes, two for no. Okay?" Blitzø says as he brushes curled feathers from Stolas's forehead.
His fingers feel so familiar but also so strange. Like he's touching someone else's body, something else that he, Stolas, doesn't actually inhabit.
It's too tender. It's too much, and Stolas doesn't understand why it makes his whole body ache. He blinks once, savoring the brief darkness before opening his eyes again.
"Okay. That's good, that's a start." Blitzø smiles. "Do you want to go inside?"
One blink.
"Do you want to watch a movie?"
Two blinks.
"Play a game? With Mils and Mox and Loona? I can maybe convince them to let you win if-"
Two blinks.
"Okay," Blitzø takes his hands, tracing patterns onto the soft leathery skin of his palms, "do you-" he clears his throat, meeting Stolas's eyes slowly, "do you want to take a bath?"
One blink.
"With me?"
One blink, hesitant for the briefest moment.
"Are you sure?" Blitzø speaks softly to that wild animal again.
One blink, sure this time.
Then, Blitzø smiles and hops down from the railing, leading Stolas to the door. He takes a breath, "Watch your head," he says.
Stolas ducks just in time to avoid another knock to the head, craning his neck to stoop through the doorway and into the warm living room. It's crowded, and noisy, and Stolas flinches at the sudden onslaught of sounds.
"Ohh you asked for it baby!" Millie springs at Moxie, tackling him to the ground and tussling until she comes out on top, pinning the smaller imp to the floor by his shoulders.
She presses loud smacking kisses to his face in a flurry and Moxxie laughs, wiggling underneath her.
"I wasn't cheating!" He protests between bursts of laughter.
"Were too!" Millie pokes him in the chest, "Loona said right hand red dummy! Not right foot red! And you just left it there!"
Stolas squeezes his hand around empty air where Blitzø's fingers used to be and looks around in surprise.
"He's in the bathroom," Loona calls gently, pointing to the door across from the couch.
Stolas nods once, grateful for her direction and sidesteps the two brawling imps. The door is chipped and cracked and the paint is peeling and there's a horse portrait on the door and it's so blatantly Blitzø that it hurts.
The door creaks as it opens and Stolas ducks the threshold again. The bathroom is warm and smells like lavender and Stolas feels his heart thud in his chest as he turns. Blitzø stands before him, towel wrapped around his hips, back to him, reaching over to adjust the flow of water from the bathtubs ancient tap. It sputters and steams but spits out hot water obediently.
Stolas leans silently over the bathtub, looming above Blitzø. Oil dots the surface of the churning water and bubbles gather around the edges of the tub.
"Lavender?"
When his voice comes it's a croak, something harsh and alien and he coughs.
"Fucking SHIT!" Blitzø jumps, tail thrashing, hand over his heart. He turns, pointing a finger at the owl, breathing heavily. "Fucking startled me!"
Stolas breathes out. Then he breathes in. And then he speaks again and it takes an enormous amount of effort, like shouldering one's way out from under a boulder, and Stolas thinks that maybe he'll never speak again.
"I am....sorry Blitzy."
The imp stares at him, dumbfounded.
"What the FUCK are you apologizing for?"
"For everything." Stolas says, hooting softly as he bends to sit on the edge of the tub, pulling his sweater tighter around his shoulders.
Blitzø sits beside him, cloven hooves dangling a few inches above the ground. Their hands are close enough to touch, pinky next to pinky but neither makes a move.
"I...have been....unkind. To you." Stolas begins again, clacking his beak in frustration as the words he wants to say seem to slip through his brain like smoke. "The ways I have treated you....the things I have asked you to do.... no...coerced you into doing with me were wrong Blitzø. So, so wrong....I...." Stolas trails off, shaking his head.
He has been spoiled his whole life, touted by high society as a golden boy and expected to think and act accordingly. And though he had told Blitzø time and time again he did not look down on him perhaps that was unavoidable for someone in his situation, a bias that could not just be imagined away. Look how he had behaved at the office. Sure, he had been deep in the throes of depression, and likely would for a long while but he cringed as he thought of his outburst. He was.....
"I am ashamed..." He says aloud. "Of my class, of my privilege, and of my title. I thought for so long that I was pushing back against any bias I had or any privilege I held just by distancing myself from the other Goetia and their....less than savory views. But I know now that was not enough, it was never enough." Stolas's eyes widen, "Blitzø, I was wrong. I may have thought I never looked down on you because in my heart of hearts I don't care who you are or what status you have I lo-" he claps a hand over his mouth but it's too late the words are there.
Blitzø was silent for a moment. When he spoke he sounded cautious.
"Stolas I...." He laces his pinky with the owl's, "I don't need you to be ashamed. You're...going through alot right now. And you probably feel like shit. Beating yourself up about it won't help. So I....just...the past is the past. We've both said and done things we regret. I know I have...and if we spend all our time apologizing for those things we're never going to do anything else with our lives. So I just..." Blitzø turns his head to look at Stolas, tipping his head back. "I don't need you do be ashamed. I need you to do better in the future."
Blitzø looks surprised, as if he didn't know he was going to say that much. Stolas thinks, not for the first time, that he may not actually know the first thing about him.
Stolas clicks his beak, at a loss for words.
"Are you 'kay?"
One blink.
Then after a moment, another.
"Yeah," Blitzø sighs, "me neither."
Then he leans backwards, dipping his hand into the water.
"It's still hot, we should...y'know. Get in. If you still want to?"
One blink.
"Is it okay if I touch you?"
Stolas starts, no one had ever asked him that before. And in most of their monthly sessions Blitzø was anything but tender, the feeling was new to him. The memory of their hug on the fire escape floats through his mind. He lets his eyes fall close and then opens them again to see the assassin approaching him, hand outstretched.
Blitzø helps him out of his sweater, a pretty burgundy thing with a cutout in the front, it's just enough to leave some of his chest fluff sticking out. When they purchased -stole- it, Blitzø said it made him look sexy. Blitzø is careful, peeling the fabric off of the owl's shoulders as he stoops, nearly bending in half to help him.
"You know I can-"
Blitzø hushes him with a finger to his beak and Stolas flushes. Stolas's pants follow the turtleneck, and he notices Blitzø very pointedly ignoring the fact that he's wearing nothing underneath.
He chirps, puffing his neck feathers and blushing.
Blitzø sighs again, dropping the towel from his waist before slipping into the warm water. After a moments hesitation Stolas follows behind him. They settle after a minute, Stolas leaning back against the tub with Blitzø nestled between his legs, back against his groin. It feels nice, and not in a sexual way, just...safe.
He must have said the last word aloud because Blitzø tilts his head back, curved horns pressing into Stolas's stomach, ruffling the feathers there.
"Safe?" He murmurs, looking up at the Goetia with a soft expression, "yeah birdie, we're safe. You're safe. With me."
Blitzø pauses, then takes a breath and continues.
"You know you're not a bad guy Stolas....you've just...made mistakes."
Blitzø says it like it's fixable. Blitzø says it like it's not tantamount to the worst feeling in the world. Blitzø says it like maybe he loves him. And doesn't that just tip his world over the edge.
Fuck.
For some reason that does it. Stolas breaks then, sobs loud and ugly and if Blitzø wipes the tears from his cheeks no one else is there to see. If he kisses Stolas gently when it seems like the crying will never end, willing him to breathe deeper, more even, as if trying to fill his lungs for him, no one will know. And if it takes a while for the once prince to settle, harsh racking sobs turning to quiet sniffles, no one is there to time it.
"I promise I will...keep you safe Blitzy," Stolas murmurs, once the last of his tears have dried. "You deserve so much more and I....I will give anything for you that can."
"You've already given everything for me."
Blitzø says, and it's true. Because what more can he give for Blitz is not the question, it's what he can give to him. And he knows the answer to this question, has known it for some time, he thinks. But there will be time enough to tell once the hurt has faded, time enough to make amends, to tell countless sorry's and place countless stitches in the ways they have wounded eachother.
"I would do it all again," Stolas murmurs against Blitzø's cheek, "and I do not know what kind of man, what kind of father that makes me but..." He sucks in a breath. "I would. And I will live with that because I....I need to learn how."
Blitzø presses back against him, shifting to a more comfortable position. He takes the Goetia's hand in his, running fingers along the his knuckles. He kisses each one, then turns the hand over and presses a long kiss to the palm. His hand drifts to Stolas's thigh and he carefully pinches a pin feather between his fingers, teasing it out of its sheath. His chest rumbles and the water vibrates as he purrs. If they stay like that for over an hour, who's to say. And if they fall asleep that night, still in the bath, and wake hours later to fall onto the couch, shivering but relishing eachother's warmth...that's between the two of them.
Because there will be time. There has to be.