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In the Tawny Eyes of a Hunter by Night

Summary:

The backstory of Stolas from The Magic Rat's Supernatural/Good Omens universe.

Notes:

Title is taken from Were-Owl by S.J. Tucker.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Stolas was at the tail end of the middling angels, not quite in the ‘God’s afterthoughts’ group. He was in charge of herbs and what they did, astronomy and how to use it, and for some reason how to make certain rocks shiny. He was also a bit of a misfit in his forms. Where other angels had awe or terror inspiring natural forms, the only awe Stolas ever heard was ‘Aww, look at the cute widdle owl thing!’ Where his siblings tended to manifest in tall, broad human forms with carefully tended manes of blonde, white or red hair and sumptuous clothes, Stolas with his unkempt black hair and beard stubble, practical and worn clothes, perpetually exhausted and fed up expression and more slender frame was more often mistaken for a beggar. More than once the Heavenly Host had witnessed Stolas power flapping away from Jophiel who was wielding a hairbrush in one hand and clean robes in the other.

Stolas had ended up in the category of ‘sauntered vaguely downward’ fallen by dint of petty spite and alcohol. He’d ended up with the medics during the Heavenly War, ignoring the jibes about him being ‘too weak’ or ‘too scruffy’ to fight. Patching up angel after angel who either didn’t appreciate his work or was terrified and confused as to why they were even fighting in the first place. While he didn’t agree with Lucifer, he was of the opinion that humans were, if possible, even dumber than his fellow angels. The amount of times he’d heard ‘I ate this and now my ‘thing’ won’t go down!’, ‘in my defense I thought I could skip that prep step.’ or simply retching beggared belief. From the same idiots he was patching up. He was tired, he was petty, and someone had smuggled in asphodel wine from Hades.

So Stolas had raided Jophiel’s tent, made himself ‘presentable’ and stalked out of the camp with his herb satchel over his shoulder. Causing several collapsed tents, flown into poles, and accidentally foiling a demonic ambush when Abbadon had wolf whistled. Several kairos hours or human years later he was drug back in chains, but it was a bit too late. Humans had herb lore, astronomy and how to make pretty rocks shinier (along with a lot of drunken Stolas bullshit on how they redirected certain energies). Humans were managing to make unbelievable messes with the knowledge. Stolas’ drunken defense of himself?

“Hoo hoo motherfuckers.”

So he was exiled from Heaven, which made him nominally attached to Hell. Nominally because Lucifer didn’t want the chaos Stolas had caused either. Humans rapidly forgot about him for more than the occasional astronomy lesson so Stolas was left to himself. He explored bits of the multiverse for new herbs, polished rocks that had interesting shapes, watched the stars and was vaguely content with his existence as the equivalent of the angelic and demonic back alley herb healer and dealer.

Then a himbo Dominion crash landed in his hellebore.

Camael was… exhausting. Large, blonde, loud, thick as an oak. But he was also kind, compassionate and surprisingly sassy. His sense of humor matched Stolas’, he was fast and clever for all that he often did truly stupid things, and he never fucked up Stolas’ instructions with herbs. He didn’t try to change Stolas, he was happy to be Stolas’ friend as Stolas was. So obviously to Stolas he’d found the perfect angel to share his nest with. After some stuttering, blushing and ‘why would you want me’s Camael agreed. So Stolas had a nice warm Dominion to keep him warm and bring him more things and of course eventually they’d get around to nestlings. Stolas was happy.

So of course the more things changed the more they stayed the same. Stolas woke to his cow and his husband missing and his phone making text noises. He blearily looked at it, cursing Crowley and Aziraphale for hooking him up with it.

Castiel crawled out of The Empty, looking like shit. Sorry I borrowed your cow. -Sebastian. Stolas sighed, pulling on his sweatpants and the nearest shirt he had before grabbing his emergency healing herbs packets. It seemed his work was never done.

Notes:

Hoo hoo lol. Hope you enjoy it Alyx!