“Blitzo, how much further?” Stolas demanded of his boyfriend with good humor as he tread cautiously and patted the air in front of him with his clawed hands. His eyes, both pairs, were currently covered by a sleep-mask that had DADDY written over it, the purpose of to help with the surprise his darling imp had sprung on the owl.
“Just keep following my voice, Tweety Pie~” Blitzo called out affectionately. The imp had made this game quite a challenge.
Stolas had been in his garden, engrossed in an almanac concerning Wrath-based flora, which was known for being stabby, when Blitzo had put that cattish stealth of his to excellent effect and slid the sleep mask over the ex-prince’s ruby peepers without detection. Blitzo had been marching the temporarily unseeing avian tree-man along the winding path of the green-scape, before going quiet, and then calling out again in intervals from a big distance. Thankfully, the ground before Stolas had no inconveniently situated objects that could trip him.
Stolas could now detect Blitzo’s voice much more clearly. It meant, as far as the book-loving bird could decipher, that the once-royal owl was getting closer to wherever Blitzo was leading him.
He made it to a hill, before Blitzo then called out, “Stop! Okay, mask off!”
Stolas removed the sleep mask, blinked a few times to allow all four of his eyes to adjust back to the light of the early evening sky, and gasped at what he saw.
First, he saw his Blitzy, dressed in black pants with suspenders and a pink-ish, purple-ish turtleneck, causing the owl to tweet a little at how handsome his imp looked. The next were the firefly lamps that provided just the right amount of illumination to the scene. Last, and the clench, was what Blitzo was standing under and what the lamps were strung upon.
A tree. The tree. The one that Stolas and Blitzo had sat under at the end of their playdate as children all those years ago. And the spot where he and him shared their first real kiss as lovers.
Blitzo held out his hand and beckoned for Stolas to meet him where he was, and the owl, his heart in his throat, followed the silent request and took the imps outstretched hand.
“Stolas,” Blitzo began. “Do you remember any of what we talked about under this tree? When you and I were young? And as dumb as most kids are?”
“Clearly,” Stolas answered honestly, after having a little chuckle at what Blitzo had said. No matter what, where, when, or how, Blitzo had a gift for making Stolas’s spirit light. A joke there, a gesture here, a wham and a bam wherever and whenever, even just being in the same room created joy and calm for the owl.
“Think you could remind me?” Blitzo asked, taking a step closer to Stolas, never relinquishing the grip he had on the owl’s big and long hand.
“How I needed to study the stars. Learn prophecies. Become a part of the Goetia family.” Stolas had said the last part with a hint of regretful acid in his beak. Stolas was glad to be rid of his old title and his severed connection with those vultures who called themselves magnificent. And he wanted to embrace his younger self for the way they’d tried to break him with their bullsh*t. A squeeze upon his hand brought Stolas back and there was Blitzo, softly smiling with lights in his big yellow eyes and giving a healing kiss on the owl’s knuckles. Again, Blitzo never failed to lift his soul.
“What do you think now? About this family you have now?” Blitzo put forth, knowing that talking about his chosen family would melt away the chill of the cold past.
“I think they’re wonderful.” Stolas answered with all the love he had. The owl felt like he’d rediscovered purposeful happiness when he found his people. He’d found his purpose as a father with his Octavia, his Starfire, but now he’d found himself as a person, a real one, when he’d met Moxxie, Millie, Loona, Asmodeus, and Fizzarolli.
Moxxie and Millie, that killer dynamic duo, had been a couple of his first true friends those first weeks he’d been excommunicated from the Ars Goetia. Moxxie and him shared a similar love of artistic display, and Millie and he were kindred spirits in pushing aside their insecurities for the sake of others.
Loona, his Moonlight, was now practically his second daughter. The two were alike in feeling as if none really understood them, and the tendency to feel alone in a crowd, and to most everyone’s shock they had a similar taste for reading. She wasn’t the voracious word-gobbler Stolas was, but they had series they both adored immensely. She and Octavia got along brilliantly, and Blitzo’s relationship with Via helped the girl blossom into the chaotic spirit that under all that angst and noble suppression.
And Ozzie and Fizz, although the beginning had been rough, were perhaps Stolas and Blitzo’s biggest teachers in making a relationship like theirs work. As Blitzo had put it once, the gap between he and Stolas was wider than the ass-crack of a four-hundred-pound buttslu*t. The Sin of Lust and the jester had been invaluable in educating the imp and the owl in how to bridge the divide, and most of all, helping the two out when they felt as if they were falling backwards and remind them about the strides they had taken and were taking forward.
With Stolas’s heart thoroughly flapping joyously now, Blitzo decided to take that moment to speak his peace. “I remember what I talked about. And one part I remember was saying I’d hire you if you ever came looking for work.” Blitzo reminisced. It still amazed him how the circ*mstances had come to be, where that little joke wound up happening as if it had been foreshadowed. Stolas, bereft of his properties and titles and, frightfully at the time, his daughter, had been given the position of secretary and record keeper at Immediate Murder Professionals. The three imps and their hellhound had to finally admit that none of them had a talent for paperwork, and Moxxie was sick of having to do the workload of four people, and so Stolas was granted his first wage-job at the assassination firm.
It had been a good distraction for the owl while they formulated a plan to reunite he and Octavia, no matter how much red-tape those screech-peckers slapped down. Or how much black blood they needed to spill to bring father and daughter back together.
“Do you remember what I said to you, when I asked you to be my boyfriend?” Blitzo questioned, reaching for Stolas’s other hand, and the owl provided it.
“That you weren’t sure about the future. That you were still scared about what it could hold and what could happen. And that…” Stolas paused, the words right on his tongue. It made his insides flip flop, as they assured him that Blitzo was truly his soulmate. “That I felt the same. And that we could both be less scared if we took on the future together.” Stolas completed, smiling that smile that made Blitzo want to get climbing gear to scale up to Stolas’s face. To do that and squish the owl’s cheeks, and then kiss him a million times, just so that that smile would stay there.
“So…” Blitzo began, looking nervous for the first time. The imp gulped as he tried to mentally read the script he’d prepared in his head. “Stolas… how would you feel if I asked you that… if we could do that. Face the future, no matter what it tries to bring or take from us, with…” Blitzo choked a little, feeling his thoughts bump and crash into each other as he tried to muster his bravery and already ask the man in front of him what he wanted of him. Blitzo shakily breathed in and spoke. “With a little something between us. A little wearable something that shows we are…… that we’re strong together.”
Stolas’s breathing got heavy as hope plucked his heartstrings, watching as Blitzo reached behind him to extract a tiny black box from his back pocket.
“Stolas,” Blitzo held up the case, opened it, and there it was. A simple, silver band, with a little metal ball perched atop it. One that had what appeared to be an artistic engraving of Stolas’s eyes and his smile. “Will… will you marry me?”
Stolas felt a thousand things at once, all of them looping and leaping around and over each other; love, joy, fear, celebration, apprehension, disbelief, affirmation, on and on and on and on, they rattled against his ribs and jumped on his soul. Tears pricked his eyes and eventually a response surfaced.
“OH MY SATAN OH MY SATAN OHMYSATANOHMYSATAN!!!”
Blitzo was taken aback as he watched Stolas happily flap his hands and tip-tap dance on his talons, his heart-shaped face pinched and stretched in loud jubilation. Stolas calmed enough to start laughing and manage his movements, opening a pocket dimension beside him as he pulled out something from it. Blitzo appraised the item, wondering what the f*ck it was, before he noticed it looked way like the little box he’d presented to Stolas.
Stolas opened it and, surprise, it was a golden ring with a similar ball on the top, engraved to look like a silhouette of Blitzo’s eyes and smile. It even had his horns represented on the top.
Now they were both laughing, crying, hugging and kissing each other as they both put on what would be the symbols of their dedication to one another. Blitzo pulled out his hellphone and snapped a picture of he and Stolas showing off their engagement rings, their faces still contorted with maniac adoration and wet with their happy tears, saving the memory for that day.
A day under the place where a new chapter of their lives began, and where another began again.
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