Chapter Text
It was tradition that in arranged marriages amongst the nobility, the two parties would meet for the first time on the eve of the eldest's 18th birthday. First words were practiced, measured, and recited carefully.
“My name is Stolas, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he’d announced, the rehearsed line still sounding stilted on his lips, but the intonation didn’t matter, only the actual words.
“Stella,” she'd responded simply, no show of respect. She waited a few more seconds before yelling, “Can I go now?”
And so it was done, and then came the waiting. He could barely contain the apprehension. Once upon a time the whole thing had felt romantic, the idea of being assigned a person with whom love could be unconditional, chosen by fate itself to be together. But then he’d learned his duties, learned that it wasn’t a blessing, but a curse.
The next morning either he would wake to inform Stella (and her almost as unlikable brother) that he was fated to be with the witch who had been assigned to him, or more than likely, that he ‘didn’t have a soulmate’. It would make things easier because there wasn’t a chance in hell that Stella was anyone's soulmate, she was so intensely dislikable, but the idea that there was nobody out there destined for him... He'd almost prefer to be scrubbed of his mark the next morning knowing at least that there was some small speck of hope, even if it pained him to know that his soulmate might be out there without him. Likely not as much as it would pain him to have the mark removed though...
Although the practice was expressly denied and forbidden, removing soulmarks was an old tradition that nobody admitted to, but there were still rumours surrounding the... Unpleasantness of having one's soulmark erased. But it was for the greater good, he was told. Duty came above destiny.
Said duty dictated that he should have slept, that he should have been woken in the morning, given no opportunity to see the marking on his wrist before it was undoubtedly destroyed for not bearing her terse greeting, (and that’s exactly how it would go, come morning). But in the quiet stillness of the night, Stolas watched the clock tick over to midnight, and felt a gentle burn in his skin.
His heart was pounding, threatening to leap from his chest as it drummed a steady beat into his ribcage. He clamped his hand over the stinging until it quickly subsided, only the briefest flash of pain.
He had a soulmate.
Barely able to steady his breathing, he looked down at the hand that still maintained a vice grip over his wrist. He wasn’t supposed to look. They were going to take it away in the morning, they were going to force him to marry Stella, so maybe they were right, maybe he would truly be better off without the knowledge. He'd never know what he was missing. Perhaps it was comfort enough that destiny had decided there was somebody out there who was made for him, and who he was made for in return.
But he needed to know. His traitorous fingers were already falling away, and he looked down at the words now etched into his skin, stark white against the black of the short sparse feathers near his wrist.
The last thing he expected to see were words he'd heard before, words that he recognised despite the number of introductions he must have had at compulsory parties and the like. Not Stella's name, of course not. No.
Responsibility already weighing on his shoulders, an all-imp circus, and a clown boy's greeting to the crowd.
Blitzo.
Blitzo was his soulmate.
-
It was removed in the morning of course, roughly awoken from his sleep early to get the task underway before anybody else could see the words and make a fuss. Even without the rumours he’d expected some pain, he had no idea what kind of worldly magic created the soulmarkings, but removing such a thing couldn’t be easy. He was correct of course, his fingers tensing at the sharp burning sting that engulfed his wrist as they lifted the magic away without even leaving a scar as proof that it had been real.
What he hadn’t anticipated was the nausea. Sickness deep in his belly that made him turn and vomit as soon as the magic was lifted, leaving behind a distinct emptiness, like something had been pulled from inside of him, like he was no longer whole.
When the vomiting ended, he was picked up off the floor and stuffed into another set of formal attire, only making the sickness so much worse as he was poked and prodded and squeezed into the appearance of a royal, but he didn’t have time to contemplate it. As soon as he was ready, he was dragged through the palace to the throne room, and told to make sure they couldn’t tell. To put on a brave face and pretend.
And he did. Upon entering the room, the look of his father’s scowl was enough to set his back straight, to force him to take the steps forward, and bare his wrists to Stella, or more accurately her pompous brother, as he grabbed him with his sharp spindly fingers and turned his hands over and over again until he was satisfied.
“A shame it wasn’t fated,” he announced to the room. “But the engagement can go ahead.”
Stella had finally smiled, a wicked little thing that almost unseated the composure he’d managed to maintain. But he held it, as they said their formal goodbyes, and planned loose dates and arrangements. In a month he’d be married, soon after Stella’s 18th.
When finally he was left in the room alone, everyone else gone to celebrate. He turned to an ornate vase and the nausea he’d been pushing down came rushing up to greet him.
His fate was sealed. And he’d spend the rest of his life pushing down the knowledge that he was not only trapped here, but that there was something else out there for him.
-
Stella knew.
She made it clear the first day she moved into the palace. How she knew, he had no idea, but she was absolutely convinced that Stolas had a soulmate out there, one that wasn’t her, and he had to be punished for that fact.
It felt like he had already been punished enough. The nausea had died down after a week of trying desperately to keep a straight face at fittings and congratulatory parties, and formal traditions. By the time he was stood at the altar, the nausea he felt was for a very different reason. But the emptiness never went away. It felt like they’d physically removed something from him, but he didn’t know what functions his body lacked without it.
All he knew was that he was married now, to a woman who actively despised him, with whom he was supposed to bear an heir to his seat. An ordeal when they could barely make eye contact with one another. It was a farce, one he wished he didn’t have to be involved in, one that he hated with a burning passion.
But finally Octavia arrived, and it felt like all of the misery and suffering had been worth it. Her sweet little smiles and chirps filling some of the hole that lingered inside him. The only time he didn’t have her beside him was when he slept, and only because Stella refused to have her crib in their room, so she couldn’t scream and wake them.
But Stolas still listened out for her cries, and snuck out of bed to comfort her, even when he knew they paid staff to do so.
Often, she sat, bouncing in his lap, spewing toys and drool across his notes, but he was content to leave them be or rewrite them, depending on whether it was correspondence he’d need to send out. For his own private notes, the splotches on the page were wonderful little reminders of her when Stella decided she was capable of being a parent (or more likely, was forced to parade their daughter around to keep up appearances).
It was then, when Stolas knew that he had the palace to himself for an afternoon, that he indulged in one of his more private hobbies.
Despite his better judgement, he kept track of Blitzo. His information was scarce, through a small ring of connections amongst his staff, since he couldn’t visit himself. He wanted to, desperately, but he refused to put a target on his soulmates back and reasoned that if anybody knew an imp was soulmates with a royal, they would no doubt try to use him as leverage. And for his own safety, Stolas couldn’t exactly make the connection known either, lest it ruin his pitiful marriage, for Via’s sake.
So with what little he gleaned from the flyers and shreds of information handed to him, he monitored which rings the circus travelled through each year, catalogued the pattern, tried to keep track of what acts they were advertising, build a picture of Blitzo’s life. And then one day he was handed the jackpot.
An advertisement like many of the others, but this one included a twin act, and if he’d had any doubt at all about the imp’s identity, it was squashed immediately by the name beneath him. Blitzo. His soulmate.
The imp in the illustration was of course older than Stolas remembered him, taller, slightly broader, with hunched shoulders and an almost nervous smile, but he was undoubtedly the same imp that Stolas had spent the day with. His horns were almost identical, only slightly larger, and spines now adorned his head and back, but those big eyes were almost entirely unchanged.
Trailing his finger over the curve of a horn, Stolas wished desperately that he could go to see him. Even if only for a moment.
It was foolish, he knew it was. He could never actually meet with Blitzo, that would destroy everything, his sham of a marriage, his responsibility, but most of all, it wouldn’t be fair to Octavia, to have her life upended on some foolish fantasy. And yet he wished the imp’s wrists weren’t so obscured so he could see if something lingered there. His mind raced with hopes that maybe they were obscured for a reason, maybe they were shielding his words.
If collecting ticket stubs and flyers was foolish, the plan that hope pushed into his mind was downright moronic. If the information he’d gathered over the past two years proved correct, then there was a pattern. The month after next they would be moving on from Greed to the Pride ring, and they’d spend a couple of months there, before moving down to Envy before the extermination took place. It was a solid business strategy, one that Stolas hoped he could rely on.
Surely nobody would bat an eye if he took Via to the circus whilst it was in town, and they’d have no reason, given his bare wrists, to suspect that his soulmate was an imp, especially not one who grew up in the circus. After all, he didn’t even need to meet with Blitzo. He just… He just needed to see him, in person, to know that he was still real.
As the weeks wore on his resolve only grew. Fuelled by fantasies of their eyes meeting across the ring, and knowing they were made for one another, the empty hole in his chest filling when they were close, fate finding a way to bring them to one another’s side.
Fantasies that were all dashed when the butler delivered a paper clipping with a sombre, apologetic look.
It felt like a knife to the chest when he saw the front page. ‘All Imp Circus Caught in Blaze’. A photo of burned tents, in tatters, barely standing on the scorched earth. In a dazed panic, his eyes flicked over the list of casualties. It wasn't there. He wasn't on the list. But he didn't appear to be in any of the photos either, not even the ones taken before the fire.
Maybe he'd left the circus, avoided the disaster entirely. It was selfish, and pointless, and desperate, but Stolas hoped he survived.
Over the years that hope dwindled.
Keeping tabs on the circus had been easy, they broadcasted themselves loud and clear, and it was unlikely that any of Stolas’s informants would have been able to pin down exactly why or who he was trying to track with his strange obsession. If Blitzo was with the circus still, he wanted to help. He didn’t want his soulmate to struggle. But he couldn’t ask about Blitzo in particular. That would put him under suspicion.
So he stayed quiet and heard nothing in turn.
Acts from the circus started to appear elsewhere. Especially Fizzarolli, who had appeared on many of the posters, won Mammon’s clown contest, and Stolas watched every year in the hopes that maybe Blitzo would audition, given his dreams of fame. But every year he was disappointed.
It was possible he’d never find out, that he’d hesitated and lost his chance, that Blitzo existed as much as the mark on his wrist that tethered them together. A vague memory lost in the fire. Or perhaps he’d been lost later, and if Stolas wasn’t so scared, maybe he could find out.
But the fear was too great, that if hell hadn’t already lost his soulmate, that trying to bridge the gap might take him anyway.
-
It wasn’t fear that filled him when the palace guards dropped an imp at his feet, one with curling striped horns, spikes down his spine, and those big familiar eyes.
Stolas felt his breath catch, eyes wide with wonder and apprehension, as hope swelled, and he dared wonder if maybe fate had run its course, and finally, the universe was offering him a branch of peace. As if he needed confirmation, he felt the hole in his chest relent for the first time in almost two decades, filled in with something he couldn’t name, confirming his suspicion that despite the white marking now covering the imp’s skin, he was the same.
He was Stolas’s soulmate.
Eyes roving over the party desperately, the rest of the attendees had clearly decided that an impish intruder wasn’t worth their time, but Stolas still pulled on the façade, as he looked down and announced, “I will deal with him. Follow me, imp.”
As he began to stride from the ballroom, he could hear the gentle click of boots trailing after him through the halls. He didn’t dare look back, his heart pounding in his chest. His soulmate was following him. And he was even more handsome than Stolas remembered from the old flyers. A sort of dashing ruggedness, and from what Stolas had dared to glance, a lean physique with a broad chest. Lucifer help him.
His breath caught when Blitzo finally spoke, a nervous, “Look, I- I didn’t mean to interrupt your whatever… party?”
Hopes ignited in an instant. Surely Blitzo had to know, had to be here for him, why else would he be breaking into a royal palace?
But what was his intent? To confess the link between their souls, to pursue it? But would he be gentle, tender in his intent, or would he be demanding, desperate to form the connection after so many years apart. Had he also been keeping tabs on Stolas? Had he been watching his sanctioned appearances; had he longed to breach the gap and been concerned that a royal might not believe his pleas? But they were soulmates. Of course Stolas would believe him.
“Don’t bother with your excuses, I know why you're here,” Stolas announced, excitement getting the better of him as he reached his bedroom.
“You do?” the imp asked, eyes flicking away nervously. Not with nervous want, but with enough evident fear that it made Stolas pause.
Did he really think that Stolas would punish his own soulmate for breaking in? Surely the words on Blitzo’s wrist should have been evidence enough that he was safe. What kind of soulmate wouldn’t be delighted to have the person their soul was tethered to appear on their doorstep. Unless...
Unless he wasn't Blitzo’s soulmate, unless the imp had no idea.
Dread filled him with the realisation. He’d clung so desperately to the fantasy, that through it all there was someone out there for him. And the fact that Blitzo was here now, in Stolas’s bedroom, that had to be some form of divine luck, surely?
But why hadn’t he come sooner?
Perhaps he simply didn’t know. After all, Stolas could barely remember what his first words to Blitzo had been. Maybe they were so generic that Blitzo had no idea who they belonged to. Well, there was one easy solution, all Stolas had to do was check his wrists. But with those long gloves it wouldn't be easy. He needed to hatch a plan to get him comfortable enough to take those gloves off.
It surely reeked of desperation, the way he threw himself at the imp so willingly, practically begging him to stay. But it worked, something in the words kept him by Stolas’s side. Perhaps he could feel it too, the emptiness yielding, making his chest swell as Blitzo (sorry, Blitzø, the ‘O’ now silent) expertly filled other holes that-
Fuck, Stolas didn’t know he could feel this way. He’d explored his own body before, but never like this. Warmth tingled under his feathers as his breaths came harder, faster, tipping him towards unrelenting pleasure.
And the best part was that Blitzø stayed. A second round, third, fourth, fifth, believing that he’d reached the limits of his body every time. The next proving him wrong as the orgasm ripped out of him, harder, each one better than the last. Blitzø was skilled with his fingers, his tongue, his cock, teasing the feelings out of Stolas in a way that surely only a soulmate could.
Only a soulmate could know how to move his body through the pleasure in the most perfect way.
The absolutely phenomenal sex would work well as a cover for his true intentions. Because it was only as Blitzø tumbled over the balcony the next morning did Stolas realise; he hadn’t even checked the imp’s wrists.
But it had to be true. Why else would he have stayed?
Why else would he agree to Stolas’s absolutely ludicrous plan?
Because Blitzø agreed, to meeting once a month (Stolas didn’t dare push for more) for another night of passion, all in exchange for his grimoire. The grimoire he wasn’t using for most of the month anyway. It was an excuse to see Blitzø more often of course, a poorly disguised one. So surely the imp knew, surely, he realised. And even if he didn’t know that Stolas was his soulmate, he must have felt that there was something between them, something unique and brilliant.
Whatever the words on Blitzø’s wrists, Stolas was certain that the imp was his soulmate, he just needed solid proof that the feeling was mutual. Blitzø would forgive him for this farce of a deal, surely, he’d understand. Because they were soulmates.
They were soulmates.
-
Months passed and Stolas was starting to grow… Concerned wasn’t quite the right word, but certainly apprehensive. Not once had he managed to get a decent look at Blitzø’s wrists. The imp seemed absolutely intent on doing anything that would stop Stolas from seeing. Only peeling off the gloves after they were in the throes of passion, suggesting blindfolds, plunging his fingers inside Stolas, so his own feathers obscured the view.
Not that Stolas was particularly opposed to the last two.
As time went by without an answer though, both his worry and his fondness for the imp grew. Although he had immediately fallen for Blitzø, the words that had once been on his wrist doing most of the heavy lifting, he started to find himself smitten with the imp in his own rights. He was dashing, and charming, with a tantalisingly quick tongue both when it came to verbal sparring, and to eating Stolas out.
He was a businessman, an assassin, who was clearly proud of the life he’d carved out for himself, and hearing him speak of his friends, his daughter (because he had a daughter too!) made Stolas’s heart flutter. He was perfect, absolutely perfect. Just like Stolas had always dreamed a soulmate would be.
At least until morning came. And Stolas was reminded all over again, as the hole in his chest started to bloom, that it was only for a night.
It was getting close to a year of their arrangement and Stolas was getting desperate. With every full moon he wondered if he should just tell Blitzø, if his silence was the thing that stopped the imp from admitting the truth. If he’d seen Stolas’s blank wrist and been too scared to admit their attachment, then surely the truth would be enough to alleviate any fears the imp might have. But just when Stolas was on the edge of being unable to take it for a moment longer, the opportunity finally presented itself.
As was tradition, Blitzø was untying him from their latest session, wrists first, so that Stolas could ring out the aching and remove the blindfold. But he was frankly so spent that he didn’t know if he had the energy to lift his arms, never mind relieve himself of the remaining bondage gear.
He needn’t have worried, because he heard a quiet chuckle, like honey on his ears, as Blitzø asked, “Fucked you that good, huh big guy?”
Stolas laughed in return, breathy, his chest feeling too tight with the fullness settling alongside the air, but it was a pleasant feeling. “That was incredible. Do you think it would be even better if you edged me for longer?”
“You really think you could hold out for more than an hour? I wouldn’t say no to making you beg for me again though,” Blitzø purred suggestively, the sound going straight to Stolas’s still twitching cloaca. “But next time. Come here, let me help get you comfy.”
“Hmm, yes please,” Stolas hummed, still barely willing to move without assistance. But as soon as he felt Blitzø’s fingers gently tease away the blindfold, his body snapped into action, grabbing Blitzø’s hands before he could pull them away from Stolas’s face.
“Ah, sorry, you surprised me,” Stolas muttered, trying to cover up his sudden movements.
Blitzø just gave him a smile that seemed slightly uncertain as he mumbled back, “Just trying to free those pretty peepers of yours.”
The compliment made him flush, the same way Blitzø’s gentle praise always did, but he didn’t let the words distract him. He was so close.
His fingers were almost shaking, as he held Blitzø’s hands gently, and tried not to make it obvious as he turned them ever so slightly to look at the wrists. He couldn’t keep his heart from thrumming, almost sure that Blitzø would be able to hear it too. He couldn’t remember the words, but once he saw them, surely, he’d know. The swelling inside his ribcage couldn’t be a lie.
This was it. Finally he wouldn’t have to hide. He could tell Blitzø the truth, and they could both know. They could be together.
But of course, life had never been so kind to him, and Stolas looked down at Blitzø’s wrists with a cold sinking dread starting to settle into the empty space. Stolas’s words weren’t etched into his skin, no words at all.
Blitzø’s wrists were blank pale canvases.
Stolas could feel his breath catch, a sting in the corner of his eyes.
No, there had to be some sort of mistake. Perhaps soulmarkings worked differently for imps, could it appear elsewhere? Did the removal of Stolas’s marking sever the connection for Blitzø too?
“Yeah, it’s not pretty,” Blitzø muttered. Stolas’s gaze snapped up to him, trying to keep the tears from his eyes, but the assassin wasn’t looking at him, turned towards the balcony doors.
It took seconds for the words to sink in, before his gaze drifted back down to the skin under his palms, pale twisted up flesh that had surprised him initially, but that he’d grown more than used to. The scarring covered almost as much of Blitzø as it didn’t, but it had never deterred Stolas. Not when the scars belonged to-…
To his soulmate.
Stolas realised how long he had been quiet when Blitzø pulled his hands away, sinking them between his thighs self-consciously in a way that Stolas had never seen from him before. Always so brash and stubborn. The quietness stung almost as much as the tears in the corner of Stolas’s eyes.
“I don’t mind,” Stolas eventually muttered, voice thick from the unshed tears he tried to swallow back.
The imps tail flicked as he looked to the door again and announced, “I’ll help you with the usual comedown routine, but then I should go.”
“You don’t have to,” Stolas argued, but he could already see in the tense shoulders that he was about to be rebuffed.
Blitzø didn’t even bother to answer, and the tender aftercare that was usually filled with gentle banter and the occasional chuckle, was uncomfortably quiet. Gentle still, but even as his body relaxed, his mind wouldn’t relent.
Every touch was caring, in a way that Stolas had never known before Blitzø, but maybe… Maybe that was just because he’d never had a chance to. He’d put all of his hope and expectation into those touches. Misconstrued them for what he so desperately wished they were. What they couldn’t be, because Blitzø wasn’t-…
No. He couldn’t even think it, couldn’t believe that the thing he’d held onto for two decades, the only thing besides Via that had kept him going through Stella’s screaming, the expectations, the absolute bullshit of his miserable pathetic fucking life-… That thing might be a lie too?
After Blitzø asked him for the third time if he was going to be alright, and Stolas lied that yes, he would be, just as many times, the assassin finally pulled on his clothes, and left. Leaving behind the familiar hole, the one that only Blitzø had ever been able to fill completely. The one that had lingered ever since his soulmate had been taken from him. As he sat alone in the cold room the hole in his chest starting to gape, he could feel the fantasy crumbling through his fingers.
There had to be an explanation, something he’d overlooked. Because if he’d thrown everything away, what shreds of reputation he had, his crumbling relationship with his daughter… All for nothing.
He didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it.
-
Research didn’t help to alleviate the new dread settling into the cavity. Every source parroted the same information, that all hellborn were treated equally by the soulmarkings, except Goetia, who received them less frequently (a blatant lie in his own experiences). There was no differing information for imps, on how or when their marking might manifest. It was exactly the same as his own.
‘A tattoo-like script on the wrist that spells out the first words the recipient hears in their soulmate's voice, whether already said or still to come. The soulmarking traditionally appears on the recipients 18th birthday at midnight, though delayed appearances have been noted.’
Almost every article went on to say about how little was known of the magic, how it couldn’t be tracked or predicted, and how sometimes it had even been recorded as being incorrect. But Stolas shut most of those articles. It couldn’t be incorrect, not when Blitzø filled in the part of him that had been left barren for so long. There was a connection there, he could feel it. He just needed to know if there was a chance, even a small one, that Blitzø felt it too.
The weeks of research leading up to the next full moon made it clear that Stolas only had one way of learning the truth. If he wanted to know for certain that Blitzø was his soulmate, he would have to ask.
So he tried to slip it in casually, despite the weeks he’d spent mulling over the words. Tried to make it appear as a simple curiosity, as he posited, “Blitzø, please excuse me if this question is out of line, but imps have soulmates, correct?”
“I mean some of them do, yeah. Why?” he asked, but before Stolas could continue his practiced script, the imp grumbled, “Don't tell me you believe in that bullshit.”
Stolas was caught off guard by the statement, feeling a pinch of agitation as the thing he’d yearned for most of his life was reduced to ‘bullshit’. He probably sounded a little terse as he asked, “Why wouldn’t I? It’s a proven phenomenon.”
“Oh yeah sure, the markings exist,” Blitzø muttered resentfully, with a roll of his eyes.
“Don’t you think the prospect is rather thrilling? Being tied to the very soul of someone?” Stolas pressed.
But Blitzø let out a bitter little laugh, completely humour-less despite the strained smile on his face, as he said, “It sounds like a fucking nightmare. The universe deciding that you’re meant to be with someone? No thanks.”
The words stung worse than any blow. Hopes that he’d held onto his entire life crumbling under their weight. Shattering.
“You- you don’t have a soulmate?”
“We’ve fucked enough times now that surely you know the answer to that.”
“Your wrists are blank,” Stolas stated, because he couldn’t say the words, he couldn’t admit what he already knew, when there was the vaguest slither of hope still clinging on to the hole inside his chest, filled by Blitzø’s presence.
“Yep, no strings tying this guy down,” Blitzø stated, but despite his bravado, Stolas thought he saw something almost sad in the way the imp looked at his wrists.
So it was true. This was one-sided.
This whole deal, everything, was built on the assumption that Blitzø was here because he felt it too. That he would forgive Stolas lauding his power over him, when finally he understood that they were destined to be together. But it was a lie. It was all a fucking lie.
“So are yours,” Blitzø announced, and when Stolas looked to him, dumbstruck by the sudden announcement, Blitzø expanded, “Your wrists are blank too. You don’t have a soulmate either.”
Tracing his thumb over his wrist, Stolas looked down at the blank spot, wondering if maybe the words had just been a figment of his imagination. A wishful dream to get him through the years, to give him hope when the morning came, and whatever had once been there was stripped away from him entirely.
Beak tight, he muttered out, “No, I suppose I don't.
Perhaps it was better that way, to believe that it had all been a fantasy. Perhaps it was preferable to reality; the truth that his soulmate didn’t want him back. That he was-… That he was keeping Blitzø in this agreement for his benefit alone.
He couldn’t hold Blitzø here, couldn’t burden him with this, force him into something that he had never been chosen for.
“Are we going for another round tonight?” Blitzø asked hesitantly, an unfamiliar worry in his scrunched features.
“No, I- I don’t think I’m in the mood for another round,” Stolas admitted quietly, but he could already taste the hollow bitterness, didn’t want it to seep in just yet, even if that was selfish. “Will you stay?”
Blitzø appeared to debate the invitation for a moment before he announced, “I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”
Stolas let out a quiet breath that was shaky, but he’d perfected the art of hiding tears long ago.
As he settled in for the night, Blitzø settled down beside him, a larger gap between them than Stolas wanted, but he didn’t dare force the gap closer, knowing that he was the only one who longed for it. Instead he would have to be content with looking across the pillows, imagining a world where this could be there norm. They were allowed to be together, the comfort of years behind them, of the words tying them together, knowing that no matter what happened, they were chosen for each other.
No. Surely it didn’t have to be a dream.
Even if they weren’t soulmates, Blitzø had stayed. He’d come back every month, never tried to renegotiate the deal. Even if Blitzø wasn’t his soulmate, it didn’t have to end. Just because they weren’t chosen for each other. He could make it work, what little he was allowed.
Blitzø had stayed. He just needed to give him the opportunity to stay again.