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Mending the Broken

Chapter Four

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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"Whoa - Stormblaze!"

Blitz lurched, the Hell horse rearing under him, making him feel as if the ground suddenly had a mind of its own, rising and bucking, forcing him to lock back down into his old acrobat training. His knees could not grip and pinch, but his core could tense, balancing him, going with the motion as the dark horse's fiery mane flickered a little higher, the blue flames threatening to burn. Not for the first time, the imp could feel the heat from them, tonguing at his chest, threatening to burn through his shirt.

The horse dropped back to all fours, but Stormblaze had a mind of his own and the stallion was not about to be stopped just because Blitz wanted him to slow, to turn his head back to the shooting route. The targets swung behind him, dangling and swaying, some of them blown to smithereens, but Blitz' attention was not back there. The horse snorted and pawed at the ground - and then he was off, hooves thundering against the hard-packed ground, his bones solid, muscle and sinew pushing and pulling.

He rose, moving with the fluid motion of the stallion, luxuriating in it, though Blitz didn't have it in him to worry about where Stormblaze was going. What could happen at the ranch, after all, that he could not ride out? He'd been with Stormblaze for so long that he had become complacent in his ability.

In part, that was fair. He stayed in the saddle as the stallion broke into a choppy canter, taking him back towards the barns, the arenas that had been so familiar in the imp's early days of riding Stormblaze. But what was different about it was the deep purple-blue limousine pulling out from the parking area, the wheels a little dirty and dusty, not at all the sort of vehicle that

Stormblaze didn't stop. Maybe it was something of his motion that dragged Blitz' brain to a near halt, working as if through sludge to comprehend what he was seeing. Not a state of mind, to be fair, that was at all appropriate for an assassin.

His breath raked through his lungs, loud in his ears, though not loud enough to drown out the pounding of his heart, the drumming beat of it that was so out of sync with Stormblaze's hooves that he didn't want to think about it. That wasn't flying, that wasn't riding. That was...

...something that the imp didn't want to put a name to, knowing what was there, not wanting to acknowledge it, even as he drew closer and closer, dust kicked up around the horse's hooves.

"Whoa, come on, now, ease off now, you can do it, Stormblaze, come back to me..."

He grunted softly, crooning to the horse, though he knew that the Hell horse picked up on every pulse of his heart beating, how he tightened his grip a little too much, guts twisting themselves up into knots. It should not have been that difficult to work out what was going on before him, though Blitz could hardly believe that even the cursed fates of Hell were that much against him.

He drew the stallion to a tentative, pawing, stop, Stormblaze chomping at the bit as the imp narrowed his eyes. That limousine... That was the sort of thing that only the bigwigs in Hell had to hand. And he would recognise the stars splashed across the back, almost gaudy but perfectly so, anywhere.

His heart dropped into his boots where it had been drumming away in fear and exhilaration only a few moments before. Fuck. He was always telling Stolas that he needed a less identifiable means of transport. That was one way that an assassin could get him, too easily tracking his whereabouts in traffic.

Blood roared in his ears, but the decision to leap into a gallop was no longer his but Stormblaze's, the horse letting out a hellish screech that only Hell horses managed to rip from their lungs, lunging into pursuit.

"What? No, Stormblaze - fuck! No!"

He pulled on the reins, drawing them back rather than acting on the corners of the Hell horse's lips, as he should have, which Blitz should have known would not have had the effect he wanted. Of course, the Hell horse was more than just a horse and could never be bullied into anything with rough treatment, snorting, yanking his head down, yanking the reins through Blitz' fingers. The imp cursed, ducking his head to avoid a low-hanging branch, the horse nimbly whipping around a rocky outcrop, the rugged landscape proving more challenging as he launched himself in hot pursuit.

Blitz' face burned, even down to his horns, eyes watering from the sheer speed of it. He could not tell whether his heart was pounding as hard as it was from the adrenaline of galloping or from the fact that it was fucking Stolas in that Satan thrice-damned limousine. He gasped, sucking in what breath he could, eyes fixed on the limousine, the reins loose in his grip. He could have wrenched at them, but just where was that going to get him?

No... He came up on the limousine, stride by stride, chasing the rear end, the silhouette in the back window clearly owl-shaped, though it didn't look like Stolas was wearing his top hat. Blitz cursed fluidly, tail lashing the air, though told himself that it was because he was an assassin that he noticed a little detail like that, not because he wanted to tell the stupid bird to reinforce his damn windows already. Maybe he had? Still, it didn't fucking look like it!

Anger roiled in his gut, the barn to his back, chasing the limousine down the road, though Stormblaze had enough sense to keep to the burned grass at the side, brown and withered to a point that people wondered how it took root at all. But it was Hell and it was because it was Hell that Stolas had crossed Blitz' path yet again, the Hell horse dragging him along, as if the beast himself was trying to force Blitz to confront his feelings.

But a horse couldn't do that, right? Really... Right?

Blitz sweated, riding with the motion, in a light, forward seat so that he didn't sit in the saddle but balanced over the horse's withers, bridging the reins without taking up the tension of them. A part of his mind, even then, thought it was time to face the music and, frankly, if he was going to do it at all doing it from Stormblaze's back was a pretty good way to start. He could even be like a cowboy or something, though one fuck of a hotter one than that bitch Striker had ever been.

In the limousine, Stolas leaned back, his head tipping up, beak pointed to the ceiling. Finally, his eyes closed, though the purr of the limousine was so all-encompassing that it was, at least, soothing, lulling him through any exterior sounds that may have filtered through the panels.

He didn't see Blitz. But all Blitz saw was the owl lifting his hand, making a move as if to the driver, the limousine speeding up and up and up. As much as Stormblaze's hooves pounded the ground, the horse snorting and grunting, sucking in a lungful of air with every stride of gallop, though he faded. He was not a long-distance horse and even that sprint had taken a lot out of him. It wasn't Stormblaze's forte and the imp threw his hands in the air as, slowly but surely, the gap between him and the limousine increased.

Stolas had not seen him. All the owl had been trying to do had been to shakily wipe something from his face, though he had lost the energy to do so halfway. But there was no way for Blitz to know that.

Despondently, Blitz sat back in the saddle, wondering why he was so sad that the distance was there, the gap between them increasing more and more with every turn of the tyres and every snort of his Hell horse.

"Easy, Stormblaze, you can't keep this up forever."

As much as a part of him longed for the Hell horse to keep going and going, to bring that limo to a stop, it was not to be. The stallion grunted and groaned, coming to a shaky halt, not as fit as he might have liked to be, his flanks shuddering for breath while sweat painted his hide. Drops of it fizzled and sputtered in the burning flash of his mane and tail, though it was a prickling, popping sensation that the Hell horse was well used to.

Fuck...

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Blitz cursed, slumping over the Hell horse's neck, grateful but only dimly that the stallion did not burn him with his mane. His heart pounded, but it was the tears burning and prickling at the corners of his eyes that told him the truth of the moment.

He had...wanted to catch up with Stolas. But had the owl even realised he was there? Had he noticed Blitz and told his driver to step on it? Blitz knew that there was a time that he most certainly would have done that, put his foot on the pedal and floored it even in his rusty, bumpy old van, all to get away from Stolas. He knew what the fuck it meant that he was the one chasing the feather duster down after all that, even if he didn't want to admit to it.

Perhaps he had never had to admit to it for it all to be true.

The limo disappeared into the distance, dust trailing behind, settling slowly, as if the vehicle had never passed by to begin with. All he could do for the moment was to untack Stormblaze, clean him off and turn him back out in the paddock. With a sigh, Blitz did just that, gently clicking to the horse and turning him for home.

"I know you tried, boy."

The Hell horse rolled his eye, ears twitching back at his rider, and snorted.

The denizens of Hell could be so stupid.

*

It took a lot to get Blitz back home, but the sweat and grime of the stables had to be cleaned off somehow and it was better for him to do that before Loona woke up, probably seriously hungover. He'd even made a quick stop off for some medicine for her on his way home, not that it probably would do all that much to make her feel better before she'd dumped a gallon or two of water down her throat. Dehydration was the main factor in a hangover, though she never listened to him on that front. Not like he was that much better half the time. But he could at least make sure that Loonie Toonie had enough water to hand, or soda, if that was all she would put down her throat, anything to help ease her hangover.

The Hellhound, understandably, was still in bed when he crept inside, closing the door with his tail, a plastic shopping bag in each hand. He still had a lot on his mind, but having his daughter to focus on helped a bit, gave him a task to follow, putting one foot in front of the other, as he always had. It had been a long time since he had actually fallen down a hole that he had had to scrape and claw his way back up from, back after his relationship with Verosika had imploded, but he knew enough about it and the tears of that to know that it was very much not a place that he didn't want to go back to.

That was why he had to try, even if he thought that he couldn't. His mind was busy, too busy, but he shoved the chatter of frenzied thoughts into the back of his mind, ignoring them the best he could. It was like having a radio on in the background, for him, white noise. They still affected him though and that was something that the imp was going to have to address sooner or later. For the moment, however, he sort of had it under control. That was better than it had been in the past.

But Stolas... He bit his lip, for it was a better pain than thinking of the yawning ache in his stomach. Would he even pick up the phone if he called? Had he seen him? If he'd seen him, did that mean that he'd deliberately fucked off from Blitz at the stables? What the hell had he even been doing there?

Hm... No, no... That wasn't Stolas' style. Sure, the date had been a fucking disaster, but it had cleared Blitz' head some on what he'd wanted from it. It had been told in the pull of his heart when he hadn't really wanted Stormblaze to stop. One thing about horses, whether they were Hell horses or the softer kind of horse up in the living world, was that they saw straight through you. It didn't matter how much bravado someone had or how much they lied to themselves: the horse knew. You couldn't lie to them. It should have been something that made Blitz, fairly, hate horses, but he couldn't help but admire that savvy tenacity to them. There was a lot to admire about horses, but it too often forced their companions, riders, friends and more to look at themselves rather than their mount.

Stormblaze had wanted to follow the limousine and the Hell horse had not had any reason to want to chase it down as he had, hooves pounding the dirt. But his rider had.

If he couldn't trust himself, he sure as fuck could trust Stormblaze. That was good enough for him.

Blitz allowed himself a moment, swallowing hard, a strange kind of hot chill sinking into his stomach, twisting, churning, as if his skin was prickling with heat, yet there wasn't anything touching him. Was he really going to let that be? After everything that had happened, he'd gone and fallen for the fucking feather brain? The feather duster who constantly seemed to be moulting? Or perhaps that was just because Blitz was so apt on fucking the feathers off him. Blitz didn't know, but what the imp did know was that the thought of Stolas, whether he was alone or not, made his lips want to tug up out of his trademark scowl, brightening his face in a cheesy smile.

"Fuck..."

He dragged his hand down his face, pulling at his skin, trying to wipe the emotion from it. Yet it was there, twisting and bubbling, impossible to ignore, warmth rising to his cheeks. Just as well that only half of his face was white and the scars there didn't show things like that all that well either.

He fucking loved Stolas, prince of Hell or not, imp or not, it was what it was. He'd fallen so many times and yet the truth could not be denied, as sure as Stormblaze's breath on his arm, the gleam in the horse's eye telling all. Maybe if he'd had a few more rides on the Hell horse before heading down to Lust and Ozzie's (fuck Ozzie's), things would have been different.

Blitz groaned, rubbing the back of his neck. Fuck, he'd really gone and done it, but there was no telling what Stolas thought. Sometimes, Blitz saw something softer in his eyes, like when he was drawing the imp in close to his chest after "a night of passionate fornication" (he couldn't even think that without hearing it in Stolas' voice), but it was fleeting. Surely it all had to be sex, just sex? The owl, to be fair to his horny soul, was majorly sexually repressed and Blitz had put him asking and asking and asking for more time together down to him needing, well, a good fuck. And Blitz had been happier and happier to oblige, as much as he'd grumbled, though he didn't want to admit to that either.

The imp sighed, running a hand back over his horns, shifting his weight, tail sweeping back and forth in an anxious twist. Did it even matter anymore what he wanted to admit to? It was already fucking true. Still, that didn't mean that he knew what Stolas was feeling either.

He glanced at his phone. No calls. No messages. What did that mean? His phone was rarely bare of a single fucking message from the bird and he missed it more than he realised.

Fuck...

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He swore under his breath, eyeing up the coffee maker and changing his mind. An iced coffee, yeah, that might clear his head a bit. But he had to try first, had to do something, plunging headlong into a flare, guns blaring, sending a rain of bullets before him, as he had since finding his calling in life.

"Go big or go home, right?"

Do it.

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Things had come crashing down around him far too many times over for Blitz to be afraid of it anymore - and he didn't even know yet if there was anything to crash down. So, it was fucking worth it, to Hell with it, which was just as well, as that's where he was. He did it before his fingers could slow, though it took a good slug of whisky down his throat first to jar him into short, choppy motion. He was a bad speller at the best of times, but typing the message out on his phone was harder than ever with his hands shaking as they were. But if hands like his could steady a fucking gun against those DHORK bastards, a phone sure as fuck wasn't going to do him in.

Blitz: Ozziez wuz shiet yeah

Blitz: Wana meet 4 movei? You piikc

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He took a breath. One more.

Blitz: Im sorwy bout wat hapend, lets tahlk

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Yeah, that would be enough, would have to do, his hands shaking so badly that he dropped his phone, kicking it under the sofa and dropping onto the furniture himself. Breath coming in short, sharp gasps, he dragged a cushion to his chest and curled forward into it, burying his face in it.

Yeah, that would have to do. He might have known what he wanted to do, what he had to do, but that didn't make it any easier on Blitz. It didn't slow the frantic, anxious pounding of his heart, how his palms sweated, how his stomach lurched sickeningly. His breath came in short, sharp, fast, little pants that left him feeling as if he was never quite able to catch his breath.

Fuck, fuck, fuck...

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But it was okay, really, even if it was not. He'd had those moments before, when he felt like everything was spinning and racing out of control, slipping through his fingers, and it was infinitely better to feel that because he'd actually fucking tried, rather than running away. Not that he wasn't good at running, twisting, flipping, the lot that came with being an acrobat in his younger years, but he didn't want to run anymore. If there was a confrontation of any kind, good or bad, to be had, it was about fucking time he turned and faced it.

Blitz calmed himself, sinking into himself. Slowly, he came back to himself, sitting up, though his heart still pounded and bile still rose in the back of his throat as if he was going to lose his stomach. But it was okay, all okay, he had to tell himself that it was going to be okay. That was all he could do, letting his body go through the motions of making a cup of (bad) iced coffee, heating up some instant burger thing in the microwave that took far longer than it should have. He should really replace the microwave at some point.

When he could focus on more than a blur, his heart slowing a little, he counted the tiles in the kitchen. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...and on from there. The lines soothed him, the little cracks and chips in the grout something more that he needed to fix, but comforting all the same. They grounded him, allowed him to slip back to reality, even if he was still left with a yawning ache in his gut, reaching up into his ribcage as if to pluck out his heart.

Time had passed, a couple of hours, damn it. Not like he had anything else to do that day though, so it wasn't all that bad. He'd sent the message, messages, and surely...

He checked his phone, yet the glow of the screen was the same.

What?

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He turned it off, tapped it a few times (harder than necessary) against the kitchen counter and tried again. Still, nothing. Was it broken? Was the signal tower down or something again? They were having problems with that, like, all the time near Imp City. Probably because they thought imps weren't worth the trouble of maintaining connections like that.

The truth of the matter, however, was that no answer had come, none at all, a text from Loona highlighted at the top of his screen, but no more than that. Not even anything on Voxtagram, not on that IM app thing that Stolas had had him install either. Blitz hadn't honestly expected anything immediately, but, damn it, it was the first time he had actually texted Stolas first - that had to count for something, didn't it? He checked his phone obsessively, coming out of his frozen worry into a fretful kind instead, tail lashing back and forth, unable to contain himself. Just what the Hell was Stolas playing at?

His stomach lurched, churning, winding itself up into knots, again and again. What did that mean? Did that mean it was all fucked? He didn't have to do anything - because everything was all too far gone? Fuck! And he'd gone out on a limb and everything, for the first time since Verosika! He'd tried, one little try, but he had tried, and the clawing of worry snatched at his lungs again, ramping up his breathing without leaving him with enough oxygen in his body.

Fuck, come on now, just breathe.

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Like it was that simple. But he did all he could to keep hold of himself, for he'd spent too much time curled into a ball of despair in the past - that was the whole reason that he had bitten the bullet, eventually, and gone to therapy. There was not a soul in Hell, besides his therapist, who knew about that, not even Loona, and it sent a sick twist through his gut even then. But it had helped, he couldn't deny that, even if he too thought that he shouldn't be "allowed" to feel good, or even "less bad" than he had been before.

It had given him some things to do, however, to pull himself back from the brink, to chase a few of the darkest of thoughts from his head. He didn't think he'd be able to stomach another appointment for a while, however, considering everything that had happened. It was too much on a tired mind, even then.

But Stolas had not answered and he still had not answered even when Blitz headed to bed, Loona's music filtering through the walls. It didn't make sense and possible scenarios ran around and around his head, even as he slipped into a restless, fitful sleep, tossing and turning all night long. Sleep, however, was a cruel mistress, dragging him down, claiming him, despite the nightmares that chased the tip of his tail through worry after worry, his disquiet continuing even in unconsciousness.

Stolas hadn't answered.

Why hadn't Stolas answered?

No, don't answer that.

He woke the next morning more tired than he had been when he had gone to sleep. Yet his claws curled into the pillow with a low groan, eyes narrowed, squinting at the light.

He had to make a plan. It was the only way he could go forward, his phone still showing no new messages. It might have been too quick to jump the gun and go for it, but, well, Blitz had never been all that good at waiting. But having an idea in mind before "winging it" might serve him better, at least that time.

One text that the birdbrain had not even opened wasn't going to stop Blitz from trying once he'd set his mind to something.

Not even that time.