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Helluva Boss

Stolitz

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Watching Over You

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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Blitz didn't know what he was doing. The owl had fobbed him off for their full moon agreement, their contract, he'd, rather appropriately, gotten blitzed at the bar with Millie and Moxxie... And there he was. Back at the Goetia mansion as if he had never left.

The imp's tail swung back and forth, peering in through the window, though he narrowed his eyes a little so that the yellow glow of them did not show too clearly. He swayed lightly, inebriated, though there was only so much that he felt he could do to hide his presence.

He'd gone there...

Now what?

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He would have knocked, if not for the shape of the owl in the bed already, a feathered lump that made his heart pull and ache. Damn it. What in the seven rings was that owl demon bastard doing to him? Why was he even there? He could have gotten away with everything, gotten the book for another month... And, instead of celebrating, he was back there with the red glow of the moon with its Pentagram reflecting off those accursed balcony windows.

The imp's tail lashed the air uncomfortably, yet the demon owl did not stir. Slowly, so slowly, he opened the door, inching his hand down over the handle, bit by bit. It did not creak and it did not squeak, too well maintained by the Goetia's many servants for that, though Blitz winced in anticipation of it.

The bedroom was too familiar to him, though the softness of Stolas' plants touching the air with a sweet scent something like lavender and violets could not defuse the stench of wine. It clung to the air like the lingering of hard liquor, vice-like and furtive. With as sensitive a nose as Blitz had, he wrinkled his face and would have cursed if he was not afraid of waking the owl up. Yet if he was not going to wake up the owl, he didn't know what the fuck he was doing there anyway.

"This was stupid..." He whispered to himself, dragging his clawed fingertips down his face, grimacing, twisting. "Fuck... Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck!"

His hiss should have been enough to draw at least a stirring from the owl in the bed and, when it did not, the imp grew bolder. Closing the distance between them like an assassin stalking his kill (he had done that often enough in the past to know how to place his footfalls just so), Blitz peered over the edge of the bed. It was too tall for an imp even like him, though he was surprised that the owl had not even stirred. Even the bedsheets were smooth around his form, as if he had not even moved in his sleep.

That was weird. Very weird.

He trembled, slipping up onto the bed. Part of him wanted to shake the owl awake, though he slept soundly, if not peacefully, his beak pressed into the pillow. One arm laid around the pillow as if he was cuddling it to him, imagining it to be a body, though that was not a line of thought that, honestly, Blitz wanted to go any further down.

"Stolas..." He breathed, almost wishing the owl would wake. "Stolas... Just how much have you had to drink?"

He reached out, bolder by the moment, stroking the owl's feathers. He did not even stir, though the slow, even rise of his chest gave Blitz confidence that nothing was seriously wrong there. But something was different, that much was certain, as he stroked and soothed, caressing more gently than he ever had when the owl had been awake with him.

Sometimes, only when Stolas had been passed out after sex, he had stroked his head and back like that, before. Before Ozzie's, before their distance, before things had changed... Blitz sighed. Maybe not so different. Maybe all that had done had brought things to light that had been there all along.

He hesitated, wanting to stay there, his jacket hanging around him. Only a moment, just for a moment, stroking Stolas' head softly, soothingly, though he was sure there were tear tracks, dried, on his cheeks.

Blitz hoped that they weren't because of him. He didn't hold out much hope.

Fuck.

Stolas' feathers were so soft, though not as well looked after as they had been before. Stella hadn't been preening him and that was something that Blitz had done for him, picking through for loose feathers, combing them out, oiling them up. It was necessary for avian demons to maintain good health, though more of a social activity.

His heart pulled. Drawing the covers back a little, increasingly sure that the owl was more than simply asleep, Blitz flinched at how thin the owl had grown. All that from a few weeks of not seeing Blitz? Or was something more going on?

He couldn't see more. Drawing the covers back softly over Stolas, all so he would stay warm, he slipped off the bed, landing silently. The mansion rested quietly around him, like a separate entity, and he cautiously pawed at the bottle of wine and glass that sat on the little round table in the bedroom. Sometimes that table had held a bottle of whisky and a couple of glasses, especially for Blitz. The imp pushed down the pang of longing in his gut for that.

"Hm."

He poked at the wine, wrinkling his nose at the scent. It was too strong for him, too strong for an imp - and that was saying something. No, that was infused with Goetia magic, magic that had been used to infuse the wine and ensure that it would knock the owl out cold. At least, that was what Blitz could infer from the fact that Stolas was snoring like a demon trucker. He barely even made the softest of hoots and murmurs, usually, when he slept. At least the bottle only carried the aroma of Stolas' magic and not anything of Stella.

Stolas would be okay. But he might have a wicked hangover when he came around.

Blitz sighed.

"Stolas... What have you done?"

But there was nothing he could do about that other than to climb back up onto the bed, stroking and holding the demon, murmuring to him. The demon did not move, though Blitz chanced that his features softened, the lines of tension and creases around his eyes easing, just a little bit. Maybe it was wishful thinking, his breathing slowing, easing. He didn't have any lullabies, but the imp buried his face against the top of the owl's head, striving, once again, to ignore the tightness in his chest.

Stolas would be okay... That was all that mattered. But he still didn't know whether he was glad that the demon had been asleep when he'd gotten there or not. There were no blessings in Hell, only curses, yet even those came with different intonations at hand. So, all he needed to do for that moment, that night, was to hold Stolas, to pretend that times were different, that he was someone else, that the owl slumbering against his chest had not drunk himself blind with magic-infused wine. All because he could not face being awake for a single moment more, shutting off the outside world.

Blitz wished he didn't have to do that. So very much so. Yet there was nothing he could do to fix it - nothing he knew how, anyway. Feelings weren't his forte.

But he'd come to the mansion that night anyway, the full moon hanging in the sky, the silent witness to him watching over Stolas.

"I'll always watch over you, Stolas, featherbrain..." He whispered, the tip of his tail twitching anxiously. "Fuck... Stolas... Please, don't do this to yourself again. You're better than this. You're better than me."

And wasn't that Satan's fucking truth?

He held Stolas like he'd never held him before, long into the night, the first touches of dawn gracing the sky by the time Blitz knew, sobered up and dead on his feet, that it was time to go. Nothing would be left of the imp's presence in the bedroom by the time morning came, other than the imprint of his body on the sheets, easily disturbed and smoothed away without even realising.

Only time would tell whether what was said under the cover of darkness and the softness of slumber would be uttered in the waking light of Hell too.