Chapter Text
For one brief, wild moment, Blitzo considers running. Just grabbing everyone and disappearing into the wilds of Wrath. It’s tempting, so tempting, so tempting his hands are already raised to portal away when he remembers the demon who’s chained him and how far he would go to keep hold of his pet Weaver. Blitzo can hide everyone, can make them vanish so thoroughly one could walk past them mid performance and not even blink, but he cannot do anything to change himself.
He lowers his hands.
(Are they his hands? They look so foreign. Soft. Flawless. No scars or calluses of broken nail beds. A Healer had come in earlier, partly to check that he had maintained his contractually obligated virginity, but mostly to rid him of his imperfections, anything that had marred his now clear, unbroken skin. The scar from when he’d broken his leg when he was twelve, gone. The bruise from when he’d fallen from the tightrope two days ago, gone. The burn mark from when Cash had forced him to learn flaming batons without letting him practice unlit, gone.)
(Blitzo wonders if Cash meant for him to die that day. One less mouth to feed, one less useless act to put up with. Blitzo was never taken to a doctor while Cash was around. Doctors were for the euthanizing the dying and healing FizzaRolli. Blitzo still looks at hospitals with fear, certain anyone who went in would never come out. Sometimes, he wishes he’d been a little more careless with his fire.)
He’s been dressed for a while, even without attendants, but no one’s come to take him away. His suit is perfectly tailored, pitch black and smooth like oil. Everything runs into each other, the shirt, the jacket, the tie. There is nothing to break up the monotony except Blitzo’s own red face and the gold cuffs hanging from his horns.
They feel like shackles.
(Mom had tried to give him her necklace, a gaudy red skull he had always admired, but he’d refused. Lucifer only knew what Paimon would do to see him with something so tacky in front of all the Ars Goetia. Blitzo wishes he had it now, if only to hold for a moment, now that he knows his family has been banned. Imps are not allowed at Ars Goetia functions, and Blitzo is not an imp anymore.)
He wipes at the smudge on his cheek where he’d drawn his regular circus eyeliner before cleaning it off. He’s about to put on a show, the greatest show Hell has ever seen. He wants to look the part.
(He wants to rebel. He wants to scream at the waiting guests that he doesn’t want him to join their f*cking ranks anymore than they did. He wants to climb up a trapeze and jump and fly and trust that there will be someone who loves him waiting on the other end to help him land safe. He wants to hug his mom and have her fully hug him back.)
(No one gets everything they want. Not even Ars Goetia.)
He draws his eyeliner again, making sure each point sits perfect on his cheeks, on his forehead. He just needs the white face and the red nose and he’ll be ready to jump through those hoops Paimon is so fond of. He just needs the flaming batons and he’ll finally be ready to die like Cash had always wanted.
“They’re ready for you, Lord Ipos.”
Blitzo turns to the door where a butler, Iggy, is waiting. Iggy doesn’t look at him directly, his head bowed like a good servant as he holds the door open for Blitzo to walk ahead. Blitzo has tried for years to get the staff to treat him like a person, or show any familiarity, or at least not be so goddamn formal, but it’s never changed. No one will acknowledge that he was born just as live as they were.
“Any advice?” Blitzo asks anyway. He’s almost out the door when the answer comes:
“Don’t forget to smile.”
Blitzo’s lips twitch, something small and pathetic that steadily grows as he walks through the halls. By the time he gets to the door, anyone who didn’t know him could almost call him happy.
Blitzo takes a deep breath, and the doors open to reveal an aisle: blood red and rose petals, glittering with magically induced stars, flanked by plants Stolas had meticulously picked out himself and guests Blitzo would stab if given half the opportunity. Blitzo looks towards the altar where Stolas cheerfully waits. He practically glows with excitement, his pupils bright with joy, his hands clasped demurely in front of him to keep from touching any of the ceremonial items laid out. When Blitzo really focuses, he can see Stolas’s eyeliner drawn into careful points on his cheeks and forehead.
The lights are adjusted for his entrance. The videographer points his lens. Blitzo feels his smile stretch, his eyes go wide and excited. His fingers twitch around a bouquet he doesn’t remember grabbing.
Action.
—
The ceremony is a blur. They say their vows, bind their curses, slay their sacrificial lamb. Blitzo remembers being careful to burn the sealed scroll with his curse and not the one he’d switched out Stolas’s for, but he doesn’t remember much after that. There are some speeches, probably. Maybe a cake. Definitely some bitchy two-faced comments from bitchy two-faced people. Blitzo drowns himself in champagne and does not resurface.
Everything is much more tolerable through the haze of alcohol. Blitzo had never been much of a performer, not like Fizz and Barb, but he is the best liar to ever come out of that circus and alcohol has only ever increased his skill. Stolas is overjoyed, from what Blitzo can piece together later. His smiles are bright and honest, his laughter sweet and bubbly like Blitzo’s sixth glass of champagne. Stolas laughs through everything, through the sh*tty comments and the sh*tty music and every time Blitzo steps on his feet, and they always feel sincere.
Blitzo’s memories get clearer near the end of the reception, when most everyone is gone and they’re no longer socially obligated to stay. They’re dancing, more swaying than anything, bodies pressed tight to each other like they’re actually in love. Stolas looks at him and smiles, softer than all his other smiles before, the whites of his pupils sharper than they had been moments ago. He dips his head, takes a deep breath, and whispers:
“Let’s go home.”
—
Stolas has it so easy, Blitzo thinks as they make their way across the bedroom floor. Their mouths mash together, more violent than he had been expecting, teeth and beak and force, and Stolas moans at the feel of it.
He has it so f*cking easy.
(Imps have a rigid biology. Black horned imps can carry children. Stripped horned imps cannot. There is no getting around it, no matter what Paimon manages to do to Blitzo’s legal papers.)
Blitzo tears through their suits. He doesn’t care to watch his claws. Stolas doesn’t seem to care either, judging by the sounds he makes as they cut open his thighs. Blitzo wants this over, he wants this done, and all those stupid f*cking buttons will only slow things down. Stolas can have the suits fixed later if he wants to.
(Ars Goetia are much more flexible. They can choose to form an egg, can choose to carry and lay it, even if the more feminine Goetia are usually the only ones to pick that option. Stolas doesn’t have to do any work yet, he just has to lay back and get f*cked.)
Blitzo doesn’t want to. He hates the suit. He hates today. He wants to burn it and all reminders of it. He wants to claw every memory from his skull. He wants to break Stolas’s leg and see if he gets so lost in his pleasure of pain that he snaps Blitzo’s neck and frees him from clusterf*ck that is his life without risking everything Blitzo’s ever loved.
(Blitzo hates it. He hates Paimon, he hates Stolas, he hates himself. He hates the feel of feathers against his skin, he hates the sharp beak on his lips, he hates the stiff tail that can’t wind its way around his and remind him that he’s here, he’s a person, and he may not know what the f*ck he’s doing but he can figure it out. They can figure it out.)
Stolas lies back and thinks of Envy. Blitzo sits up and thinks of Angel Dust. Tiffany Titf*cker. Fizz. Anything that can keep his dick hard long enough to actually get it into Stolas, anything that can make him come where he needs to.
(Blitzo bites. He bites and bites and bites and he hates that, too. The taste, the smell, the way it heals up immediately like nothing Blitzo can do will ever make a difference, the way Stolas moans and clenches and comes. But he is violent and nauseous and he hates, and all of that hate has to go somewhere, and Stolas is so eager to receive it.)
They f*ck for four days before the tests show an egg. Stolas carries it for about two weeks before it’s laid. King Paimon hovers constantly, eager to find out what type of magic has been bred into the family, eager to know if his pet Weaver has gifted him another toy to break.
He’ll be disappointed.
(Fate Weavers can’t weave their own fates. Like Prophets, those strings are untouchable, unknowable in any way that matters. It takes something ancient to get around, something as old as Hell itself, something like a wedding curse.)
You will not feel anything for me that I cannot reciprocate.
Blitzo looks down at his perfect hands, cradling the perfect shell of his firstborn son.
(You will be the last of your kind.)
