Chapter Text
The next thing Blitzø was aware of, he was coming to on the hard concrete, covered in blood, staring up at a starry sky, and his head pounding like he'd managed to drink an entire warehouse of beelzejuice the night before. All in all, not an unusual way for him to wake up. He laid there for a minute, trying to get his bearings. Dark blue sky, which meant he was in the human world. Quiet, which meant he probably wasn't in danger, at least for now. Though that could change as soon as he sat up and people realized he wasn't dead.
What was the last thing he remembered, anyway? How had he gotten here? He flicked back through his memories, trying to pull up whatever was the last thing he could remember. For some reason, the last image he could pull up was a memory of Stolas standing out in his garden in a robe, a different robe than the one Blitzø was used to, white and covered in leaves or some other Stolas-y shit. Somehow the mental image of that robe had gotten burned into Blitzø's brain because he had only been able to stare at the damn robe rather than Stolas' face as the bird screeched at him. Stolas had always tried to rub his ratty old red robe all over him whenever it was a full moon, saying he liked having it smell like Blitzø during the time between their... meetings. Some kind of kink thing or something. But all Blitzø could remember thinking as he stared at that damn new robe was... "Damn, he hates me so much, he doesn't even think I smell good anymore."
Oh.
Right. Suddenly the memory clicked into place. He and Stolas had that whole stupid argument after Stolas had given him that motherfucking crystal, and then Blitzø had actually tried to suck up and make it better, even though he never did that sort of shit. And Stolas had just yelled in his fucking face instead. That motherfucking royal pri-
Wait. The crystal. He didn't have to wait for Loona to portal him, all he had to do was use the crystal. He darted his eyes from side to side, trying to see if there was anyone nearby who would shoot at him the instant he moved. But it seemed like a mostly abandoned alleyway. Blitzø would just have to risk it. At least if things went sideways, he would have a quick escape.
After a breath to brace himself, in one quick movement, Blitzø rolled into a sitting position, and pushed back the sleeve of his jacket on his left arm to reveal... A bare arm.
A bare, human arm.
No crystal, just a tanned human arm covered in imp blood. All Blitzø could do for a minute was gape at it in silence. And then, his hands were flying up to his face in horror.
"WHAT THE FUUUUUUCK?!"
His face was... squishy, even in the grip of his stupid squishy human hands. Blitzø found himself sneering in repulsion as he dragged his hands over his face, trying to search his features for any sort of familiarity. He needed a fucking mirror. How the hell had he managed to end up in some sort of human's body, anywa-
He paused, his thoughts flicking back to when he'd met Barbie in her human disguise, and glanced down at his own arm again. When he thought about it, she'd had a pretty similar skin tone. Maybe... Maybe he'd actually finally figured out a way to actually get through all the paperwork for a human disguise. He had an Asmodean crystal now, after all. But... Fuck, why couldn't he remember even getting a human disguise? His memories were coming back in weird bursts, like his brain was still struggling to figure out the proper order everything went in.
It was like the motherfucking hangover to end all hangovers. Just what had Blitzø taken, anyway? Apparently, it was strong enough to make him even forget how to undo his own human disguise, though he supposed that wasn't a terrible thing when he was already in the human world. Then again, maybe he wasn't even actually in a human disguise. Maybe he was just so fucking high off his ass that he was hallucinating. But fuck, if he was waking up remembering this little and covered in this much blood... It must have been something mind-melting, whatever it was. Blitzø was going to have to see if he could figure out what exactly he'd taken, just so he could try it again.
But in the meantime, he had no crystal, no ride, and no idea where he was.
He pushed himself to his feet with a groan and tried to get his bearings. He was in some sort of alleyway that looked mostly abandoned, save for the absolutely mangled imp in the middle of it. He winced at the sight. Some motherfucker had really torn the guy apart like an animal. Blitzø preferred having cleaner kills than that.
He moved on to patting down his pockets until he found the familiar rectangular shape of a phone. Relieved, he pulled it out, only to find it was some beat-up junker of a phone with some random human-world dog set as the lockscreen. Blitzø frowned at it. What the fuck? Maybe he had some sort of... humansona phone, for whenever he was in incognito mode, or something. He tried his same lock, drawing his finger over the dots in an "S" shape and leaving a smear of blood behind as he did. The strange phone unlocked though, so it had to be his. Even though it opened to a slew of... human apps.
Blitzø scowled at the phone. Fucking useless shit. Whatever, all he needed was the phone part of the phone anyway. He could figure out the rest later, when his brain wasn't pounding. Maybe he'd bonked his head a little too hard. Maybe he had some kind of amnesia. That was a new one.
He got as far as typing "mox" into into the search bar of his contacts when the phone suddenly popped up a message:
No results found.
Blitzø frowned and shook his head as he backspaced. Had he put them in as some sort of code name or something? Fuck, he needed to figure out how to Blitzø-proof his life for when he had crazy nights like this. He next tried typing in "mil," which returned one result, some bitch named Emily. Adding a second "L" got the same message as before, though.
No results found.
Blitzø scoffed and backspaced again. There had to be someone saved in here for him to call. He tried typing in "loo," and the same infuriating message as before popped up.
No results found.
"Fuck's sake," Blitzø growled as he backspaced again, settling for instead trying to scroll through the contacts and see if anyone stood out to him. Maybe he had put someone in under some sort of codename that would be obvious to him.
But everyone in the phone seemed to be saved under extremely ordinary human names. Not even joke names, like "some bitch from work idk." Like it hadn't even been him who'd set the damn phone up in the first place, because he sure as hell wouldn't just program in a contact as "Jennifer" without adding some sort of joke or flair.
Even when Blitzø went as far back as looking at his own text messages to see who he was texting regularly, all he got was some chats with dudes named Tyler and Charlie, and then a whole slew of the kinds of obnoxious automatic messages from companies who didn't know when to shut up. Your service is ending soon, thanks for joining our reward program, this is a courtesy reminder... It was beginning to look like he'd have to somehow remember people's phone numbers if he was going to call for help. Unless he wanted to take his chances with Tyler or Charlie.
But whose phone number could he remember like that, anyway? The whole point of cell phones was supposed to be saving everyone from stupid shit like memorizing every phone number of every person they cared about!
"The office," he muttered to himself, his fingers shaking as he typed the number in. He had put that phone number on enough flyers and billboards and commercials to remember it. It rang once, then twice, and Blitzø found himself pacing and biting at his lip as he pressed the phone into his stupid squishy human face.
"Come on, Loonie," he muttered as the phone rang a third time. "Pick up, pick up, pick up... Fucking dammit, Loonie, pick up!"
And then, finally, her annoyed shout came through the speaker as if she'd known on some level he was yelling at her.
"WHAT?"
Blitzø tried not to sag in relief, clutching at the phone with both hands. "Fuck, Loonie, that sure took you long enough. Whatever, I still love you, sweet, precious baby girl. Anyway. I need you to come get me, I don't have my crystal-"
Millie's voice cut in, "Look, we're kinda in the middle of something right now, d'you think you could call ba-"
"Millie!" Blitzø said, trying to get her attention before she hung up on him. He wasn't sure how long it would take before they would answer the phone again if they were "in the middle of something," but whatever they were in the middle of, he was pretty sure the boss would be more important. "Millie, I was telling Loona, you need to pick me up-"
"It's him!" Millie screeched. "How does he know all our fucking names?!"
Before Blitzø could ask what the fuck that was supposed to mean, the phone clicked, and when he looked at the phone, it very simply said:
Call ended.
"Oh, don't you fucking dare hang up on me," Blitzø growled as he typed the number in again, tapping his foot as the phone rang again.
By the third time he called, his number had been blocked.
"OH, COME ON!" Blitzø shouted into the dark alleyway, as though his rage alone might be enough to reach them. He was tempted to throw the useless phone against the brick wall of the alley, but he decided against it at the last minute. He had no fucking idea where he was, and his phone was maybe the one shot he had of getting any kind of help. He just had to think of if he had any other numbers memorized that he could call. Or maybe he'd just have to take a chance with one of the human contacts in the phone.
And then, a nearly forgotten scrap of a memory. A phone number Stolas had set up as a one off joke for one of their roleplays, because he had more money than he knew what to do with. Blitzø remembered how he had joked that maybe he would use it if he ever needed a late-night booty call. How Stolas had clearly gotten turned on by the suggestion and said that no one else knew the number, so it could always be their "little secret."
1-800-STO-LITZ
Blitzø let out a slow breath, his fingers shaking as he typed the numbers into the phone, shaking his head at himself as he did. Who knew if Stolas would even fucking pick up the phone? It wasn't like things were exactly good between them, and calling the booty call phone number when Stolas kept yelling at him about sex was.... probably not the best move. But it was worth a shot. It was better than calling some rando human.
"Please," he murmured into the phone as it rang once, twice. "Please, Stols, it's me."
And then, the phone stopped in the middle of the third ring. There was no other sound for a minute, and Blitzø was just about to check to see if maybe the call had been rejected when Stolas' trembling voice finally came through.
"Hello?"
"Stols," Blitzø breathed, sagging against the wall for support. "Thank Satan you picked up. Look, I know that we didn't end on the best terms, and... I mean, this isn't about that and if you want to yell at me afterwards to fuck off then that's totally fine-"
Fuck, he was babbling, and Stolas was just silent on the other end. Get to the fucking point before he drops you, Blitzø told himself with a scowl.
"-I just. I'm stranded, and I don't have my crystal, and... I'd ask M&M and Loona, but the assholes aren't answering my calls, and... I don't even fucking know where I am, Stolas, and I mean, you tracked me that one time, so... y'know. I was thinking. Maybe you could do some sort of little tracky spell and then do a portal and... come... pick... me up?"
Blitzø trailed off with a sheepish smile as he finished, expecting Stolas to say something, anything. Yelling was less unnerving from Stolas than silence like this, especially when he couldn't even see the bird's face. But even as he sat and waited for Stolas to go off on him, the line still stayed silent, every second settling on Blitzø's shoulders like another ten pounds.
"Stolas," he whispered into the phone. "Please. Say something, okay?"
"You have some fucking nerve calling here," Stolas said in a low tone.
"I know, I know, I'm-"
"You're all parasites," Stolas continued, now clearly triggered into his rant mode, his voice raising with every word. The word parasite rattled around on repeat in Blitzø's head. "Is there no level you reporters won't stoop to to get your little soundbites? As I've told you all a thousand times, no, I will not do interviews, and I do not want to talk about the trial! Blitzø Buckzo has been dead for over a year now! Will you never let me have peace?"
Blitzø froze, blinking at the phone. "What."
And then the line went dead.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Blitzø muttered, shoving the stupid phone back into his pocket, trying to figure out what he was going to do next. His hands went up instinctively to grab his horns, and he instead ended up with a fistful of hair. Blitzø let out a half crazed laugh at the strange feeling, sinking down to his knees, still slumped against the wall.
He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. He was feeling too damn much to be dead.
And then, from somewhere on the fire escape above him, there was the sound of a window scraping open. Shit. Shit shit shit, he was right out in the open and covered in blood.
"Yeah, yeah, it's right here," a low male voice said. Blitzø could barely see through the holes in the metal of the emergency stairs that someone was leaning out of a window that lit them up from behind. He pressed himself as tightly against the wall as he could, hoping they wouldn't notice him in the evening light. "I think it's a... possum? Or, like, maybe a komodo dragon?"
The guy paused for a minute, sweeping his eyes over the alleyway like he was looking for something. And then, into the darkness, he called out, "Blake?"
Another pause, and then the guy was turning back towards his phone, turning back inside. "Nah, my friend. I think he went 'round the corner to smoke or something."
Blitzø breathed a sigh of relief at the guy's retreat. He needed to get out of there. Fast. He could figure out the whole dead-not-dead thing later.
And then, as he was slinking out of the alleyway, the imp's body and the blood painting the concrete all suddenly lit with a golden glow, making Blitzø jump back with a hiss. Angelic light. It enveloped the imp for a second, and then it was all suddenly gone, the entire alley looking like there had never been a fight there in the first place.
Shit.
Blitzø had no idea why the motherfucking angels were involved, but he suddenly really needed to get out of there. Immediately. Gone in the past tense kind of way.
He darted out of the alleyway, trying to stick to the shadows, darting his eyes around for any sign of people nearby. He was in some sort of side street, like where he'd started was some sort of alleyway of an alleyway. Around another corner was a street with intersections and the glowing windows of some kinds of shops. Blitzø glanced down at himself. The angelic light had cleaned the alley, but he was still covered from head to toe in blood. Even if it was imp blood, he was pretty sure the humans wouldn't exactly be reassured by that. He needed to go somewhere less crowded.
And then, just as he was darting across the side street to another alley, none other than Princess Charlotte turned the corner. Blitzø hissed and cursed under his breath before ducking behind a dumpster. What the fuck was the princess doing here? Did that mean Lucifer was nearby? No, no, it couldn't be, no one had seen him in years. Blitzø actually had money running that the guy was dead and some reporter was going to find his body any day now.
As she walked, magic rippled over Charlotte, and her form changed—subtly, but enough that she suddenly looked much more human than she had the moment before.
"Blake?" she said, turning into the alleyway Blitzø had just run out of. Noticing that it was empty, she growled and stomped her foot, cracks spreading out from underneath the sole of her shoe. "Shit. Shit! He was just here!"
Blitzø swallowed a lump in his throat. He had always taken the princess for a pushover spoiled babygirl, but there was something underneath her anger that was... Well, maybe she actually wouldn't be as useless in a fight as he'd thought. He definitely did not want to be this Blake guy, whoever he was.
Princess Charlotte seemed to be occupied with calling someone on her phone, so keeping a careful eye on her, Blitzø slowly backed away, ducking so the dumpster would mostly cover him. As soon as he had gotten to the corner of the building he was next to, he turned and started running as fast as his stupid squishy human legs would take him. He was no longer worried about if someone saw him, all he was worried about was putting as much space as possible between himself and the angry demon princess.
Just as he thought that maybe he'd gotten away, he ran into someone and flew backwards, landing on the pavement with a curse. He picked his hands up with a wince, noticing that his palms had been scraped bloody just from falling on the pavement. Human bodies were so fucking fragile. He couldn't wait to undo this stupid spell. He did his best to shake the gravel off his hands, turning to yell at the person who had decided to stand in the middle of-
Blitzø froze at the familiar feathered face that was blinking at him. Owlishly blinking, as stupid as that was, though it wasn't as if an owl could really blink any way other than owlishly, he supposed.
"Stolas," he breathed, surprised at how relieved the word sounded coming out of him, nearly turning into a sob.
"Blitzø...?" Stolas whispered, taking one slow, hesitant step forward, bending down to get a closer look.
Blitzø glanced down at himself, letting out a bitter laugh. The only light came from one dim, flickering streetlight that hardly did its job, making Stolas recognizable mostly by shape than anything else. It was still enough for Blitzø to know that his own shape was very different from its usual form, squishy human fingers replacing claws, floppy human hair replacing horns, flat human face replacing his long snout and razor sharp teeth.
"Yeah, sorry Feathers, I uh, guess I don't really look like myself, huh?"
Blitzø pushed himself to his feet, trying in vain to brush off some of the blood that covered his clothes. The black leather jacket might at least be salvageable, but the jeans and red t-shirt were probably toast. When he looked up again, Stolas had his head titled to one side, carefully considering.
"Actually," he said slowly, "You'd be surprised how much you do look like yourself."
Blitzø snorted, the laughter bubbling out of him before he could fight it. His breathless giggles sparked something in the still darkness, and after a couple seconds of looking at him in surprise, a small hoot of a giggle came out of Stolas. Both their laughs grew stronger with the support of the other, both seeming surprised that they could find something worth laughing over in the middle of so much chaos. And for a flicker of a moment, it was like falling back into a memory, everything else sliding away until it was just them. Blitzø’s bucktoothed grin wide enough to hurt, Stolas’s eyes crinkling in disbelief at the sound coming out of his mouth.
"Christ on a stick, you came," Blitzø said, dragging a hand over his face as he tried to catch his breath. "You actually fucking came. How'd you even know where I was?"
"I did a tracking spell," Stolas said with a small shrug. "You reminded me of how I used to do them, and, well. Curiosity got the better of me. I didn't think the spell would actually... point to anyone." He paused, his eyes flicking over Blitzø carefully.
"Blitzø... How... How is this possible?"
"Fucked if I know," Blitzø said with a shrug. "You're the one who reads spell books, Stols, I just... make shit up as I go. I probably faked my death or something, and I guess then I got so high I forgot how to switch out of my human disguise."
Stolas stared at him, those red eyes wide and searching and a little terrified. "You don't remember?"
"Well..." Blitzø coughed and looked at the ground and kicked at a pebble on the pavement as he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Not... really. But it sounds like something I would do, doesn't it?"
Stolas let out a muted noise, something between a choke and sigh, but the expression on his face was one that Blitzø didn't fully recognize. He had expected anger or frustration, not eyes wide and brimming with pity and understanding and maybe even...
"We buried you," Stolas said, his voice cracking on the words. "I was there, Blitzø. Your head was... You were executed on live television, darling!"
Blitzø raised an eyebrow. "And you saw that?"
Stolas scoffed. "Everyone saw it, what kind of question-"
"Did. You. See it?"
"Well..." Stolas frowned. "No, not personally. But I saw the recordings!"
This time, it was Blitzø's turn to scoff. "Aw, come on, Stols, you know everything on TV is fake!"
"Well..."
"Stolas," Blitzø said seriously, taking a step towards him. "If you didn't see if for yourself, how can you be so sure? And besides, you said so yourself. Your tracking spell led you to me. Why would it do that if I wasn't... me? Who cares how it happened, we'll figure that shit out later. Can't we just be happy that it happened at all?"
They stood there in the darkness for a long, quiet moment as they considered one another. Blitzø was terrified with every flicker of the streetlamp that if he took his eyes off Stolas for one second, it would break the spell and his bird would be gone again, leaving him in the dark and searching for answers all over again.
Then, too quick for Blitzø to fully register, Stolas was on him, his mouth crushing against Blitzø’s, his body folding around the smaller man as they stumbled backwards, Blitzø's back colliding with the brick wall of the alleyway behind him. Stolas' hands moved wildly—knotted into Blitzø's hair, hooking under the strap of his jacket, clutching at his cheeks—like he couldn't decide which part of Blitzø he needed to feel most urgently. The kiss was messy and eager and feverish with a desperation that Blitzø didn't remember being so intense before.
Blitzø had definitely forgotten. He'd forgotten the way kissing Stolas made his mind feel like it was shutting down, everything except the tickle of feathers on his face, the press of the other demon's tongue wrapped around his own. He'd forgotten the kind of drug Stolas always was, how he kept Blitzø only ever wanting more and more. Forgotten how fucking much he needed this, that underneath irritation and confusion was a hunger that pulled at them both like an open wound. Forgotten how touching Stolas made his skin feel like it was on fire.
Stolas groaned against Blitzø's mouth, and the sound vibrated through every cell of him. He felt alive. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead. He was feeling too damn much to be dead.
And then-
Pain.
Blinding white pain bloomed in his lip, and Blitzø pulled away from the kiss with a hiss, reaching a hand up and realizing that his lip was covered in fresh blood. Red blood. Human blood, not the black imp blood he was already covered in. He winced and looked up at Stolas, who had a horrified expression and a smear of red on the tip of his beak.
"Blitzø," Stolas whispered, his voice trembling. "You're hurt."
"Guess I'm not as built for this as I used to be," Blitzø said with a scoff, trying to wipe the blood away with the back of his hand. Catching Stolas' expression, he tried to give the owl a reassuring grin. "Relax, Stols, that barely hurt. Millie's beat me up worse than that as a birthday present."
“I’m so sorry,” Stolas said, his voice as desperate as the kiss had been seconds before. He reached out towards Blitzø, then seemed to catch sight of his own talons, winced, and pulled back. "I didn't realize, I didn't know-"
"Feathers, it's not a big deal," Blitzø, taking a step towards the taller demon. Stolas sucked in a breath and took a step back. Blitzø scoffed and rolled his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Seriously. It won't even matter once I figure out how to switch back. You're not about to freak out over one tiny drop of human blood, are you?"
But Stolas was still watching him with wary eyes, like he would explode into dust if someone so much as breathed on him wrong. When neither of them said anything for what felt like forever, the owl demon lifted a hand to his neck and startled at something there, like he'd forgotten he had it around his neck until that moment
"Oh!" he said, reaching up to fiddle with something at the back of his neck, readjusting his collar and pulling out something before gently holding it out to Blitzø.
And there, in Stolas' hands, was the same red skull brooch that Blitzø had worn every single day for so many years. The same red brooch that his mom had worn every day for as long as he remembered. It wasn't on the same choker that Blitzø had put it on, instead converted to an actual pendant and hanging from a delicate silver chain that screamed expensive, plus there were a few more chips and dents than he remembered it having the last time he'd worn it. But. It was like he hadn't even realized how bare his neck felt until he suddenly saw it there in Stolas' hands.
“I was holding on to it all this time,” Stolas murmured, his voice trembling. “In the hopes that… well. Rather silly, vain hope, I suppose. But… part of me never really believed…”
He trailed off, reaching out to press the pendant into Blitzø's hands. He could only stare down at it like it was alive, his breath catching in the back of his throat.
"This is... This was my mom's."
"I know," Stolas said quietly, and Blitzø snapped his head up to look at him.
"Your sister told me as much at the, erm, funeral," Stolas continued with an awkward shrug. "She... Wasn't particularly keen on the idea of letting me keep it, but... she eventually gave in, for some reason. I suppose she probably pitied me. I just couldn't... I couldn't..."
"Thanks, Stols." Blitzø's hands shook as he brought it up to his own neck, hesitating for just a moment as he fumbled with the unfamiliar clasp. And then-
"Blake?"
He froze and turned, the necklace halfway up to his neck. Princess Charlotte was standing at the mouth of the alleyway, her eyes wide and panicked, and her hands splayed out as if she were approaching a wild animal. Blitzø stared at her for a long, tense moment, took in the way she subtly flicked her eyes over to Stolas, who straightened like a schoolboy who'd been scolded. Blitzø narrowed his eyes and clasped the necklace around his neck, taking comfort in the familiar weight.
"Princess," he spat.
She just stood there, seemingly frozen in place, her wide eyes flicking to Stolas, and then back to Blitzø. "You... You remembered?"
"Remembered?" Blitzø said with another snort of a laugh that was bordering on hysteria. "Remembered what? I feel like I don't fucking remember anything!"
"You don't know who I am?" the princess said in a soft voice, her raised hands lowering an inch. She almost looked... wounded at that, like a stupid little imp knowing who she was actually meant something to the third most important person in Hell.
"Of course I fucking know who you are, your face is plastered all over everything in Pride," Blitzø said with a scoff and roll of his eyes. "Why the fuck do you care, anyway?"
And then his mind flicked back to when he'd been scrolling through his old text messages, looking for anyone he knew, remembered noting that he had some person named Charlie he'd been texting- As he remembered it, he could just barely remember a scrap of some other memories, walking beside her on the sidewalk and laughing, standing behind a counter with her, rolling his eyes and playfully bumping her with his hip, sitting in a dark room with her as they passed a container of ice cream between them, their eyes glued on the glow of a tv screen.
"Christ on a stick," Blitzø said, gulping in a breath of horrified air, pressing his hands to his forehead. "Have you been fucking following me? Why are you in my head? Why do I remember you?"
"Okay," Charlie said, taking a small step closer and still holding her hands up as if she were trying to approach some kind of wounded animal. "Okay. I understand there's been a lot that's happened tonight, Blake, but-"
Blitzø frowned. That other guy had said that same name when he'd looked out the window. He snapped his head up to glare at the princess.
"And why the FUCK do you keep calling me that??"
A long moment of silence settled over the three of them, like some sort of bubble that cut them off from the rest of the world. Blitzø glared at the blonde standing in front of him, swearing that he could feel his tail lashing behind him like a whip. But there was no tail. Stupid squishy human body. If it weren't for that holding him back, if it weren't for Stolas already having demonstrated just how weak this body actually was, then Blitzø would have already jumped on the damn princess. Even if he was outmatched. He was so mad, all he could think of was biting her arm as hard as he possibly could. And she was just standing there, her head tilted to one side, as if she were considering a painting in a fucking museum.
And then, finally, she took another hesitant step forward, looking at him like she was trying to see something hidden in his eyes. He huffed at her.
"...Blitzo?" she said softly, frowning.
"THE 'O' IS SILENT, BITCH!!"
