Summary: I have no feelings for Stolas – that would be bad for business. We fuck because I have to to keep I.M.P. up and running. That's all. It doesn't make sense to cry over someone who only wants me to fuck him. These tears will stop soon. Why aren't they fucking stopping?

Don't do love, don't do friends

I hated the smell of that place – Ozzie's reeked of lube and sweat and hormones and whatever other nasty shit the demons in the Lust Ring got themselves up to. I can still smell their fancy perfumes and expensive colognes even as I lay on my couch at home with my face buried in a pillow – their eyes trained on me as Asmodeus confirmed what Stolas truly thought of me.

I'd known it all this time, so why am I acting so weak? It's a known fact between us that he has the book and I just have to go along with his perverted desires. That was the deal we struck and I got myself into, yet here I am crying like a puny baby, as if I hadn't known it all along. I'm just his side fling, his sex toy, an annoyance to Moxxie and Millie, a cringy parent to Loona.

I couldn't help it. I saw a picture of my family and got reminded of being in my mother's arms, of my sister's identical smiling, toothy face – fuck, when are these tears going to stop? My body won't stop shaking. My lungs a pair of deflated balloons.

I knew fucking some rich boy prince of Hell wouldn't end well no matter how you sliced it – but I'd expected to evade the social pressure of bedding royalty for a little while – at least until I could find another way to get to the mortal world. I.M.P. is still so young as a company I'd been more focused on establishing clients and connections in Imp City than worrying about our method of travel. That horny owl was so desperate for a good fuck I knew he wouldn't squawk about our little affair. But shit. I got myself into this mess. Didn't I?

I was the one who asked him to go to Ozzie's. I should have known Fizz would be there too. I don't pay that much attention to that slutty jester's career after we split – but fuck me, where else would he have been if not Ozzie's? I knew that. And Verosika – that was just bad luck – what the fuck was I thinking?

What the fuck was I thinking?! Putting myself in a situation like that, where everyone in my life could be put on display for the world to see. Fuck.

My limbs ache from being curled in a ball for so long. Slowly… I become aware of the living room again. The cold air hits my face like it's covered in a thin layer of ice, numb.

This sucks.

Why am I crying, anyway? Do I actually feel sorry for myself?

It should have been easy to reject Stolas after what happened in the club – except that he holds my – our – I.M.P.'s ticket to the human world. Our livelihood. If I don't uphold my end of the deal, I wouldn't just be fucking over my own life but my employees' too, wouldn't I?

They probably hate me now. Moxxie and Millie. As they should – as everyone should.

My teeth clench and start to hurt.

Shit!

I'm still too emotionally shaken from Ozzie's to calm down.

Stolas asked if I wanted to go inside the extravagant hellscape he calls a house. Panic and irritation shot through me when he leaned through the van window, and I inhale sharply thinking about it now. The ringing in my head won't stop. My breaths are shallow and increasing. As if I didn't already know what he wanted. I couldn't be the sex demon he wanted tonight – I knew it and I told him so. If he held that against me and took back the book for it, then Fuck It. Maybe I.M.P. would have to crash and burn so I could retain a sliver of my fucking sanity, even if it was just another selfish thing to add to my long list of sins.

The look on Stolas' face when I told him that caught me off-guard – I'll admit it. So did his eagerness to go to Ozzie's. But I know what he really wanted from me. What he really wanted me to do, after it was all over. His rejection of me at the club, in front of everyone, was proof enough. He couldn't even look at me.

Goddammit…

I'm still a horny bitch, aren't I?

I can't help but remember his flushed face as I pulled his head back. Ramming into him over and over as he begged for more, his talons tearing at the blankets beneath us, his hips meeting my thrusts, voice shrill and desperate. He loves it when I make him beg, when I tie his slender little body into all sorts of freaky positions as I fuck him without mercy. He hardly uses safe words. He loves it when I show him I don't care about his status as a prince of Hell – doesn't mind how much I bullied him in or outside the bedroom. Because I don't acknowledge him as Stolas of the Ars Goetia, but as a sex-hungry whore, my submissive Goetia who loves to be controlled and fucked senseless by someone so much smaller and weaker than him. When I ordered him to suck me off until I came all over his pretty face. He couldn't get enough of that. And I…

I've played that role to a tee.

Aroused by the memories, I flip over on my back, hating myself. Sleeping with Stolas was a chore – a bargain I made to keep I.M.P. in business. It wasn't something to enjoy. Why can't I understand that? I had to do it, or else Satan knows what kind of misery he'd rain down on me, seeing as we'd gotten this far. He'd take back the book for sure – if not tattle to his entire posse of Hell royalty about I.M.P.'s misadventures in the mortal realm.

They'd believe him over me. He's a highborn prince, after all, and what am I? Just a filthy little imp to discard when he no longer sees fit to use me – his plaything. He could wipe out my existence in an instant. If his mood turned sour.

His presence is overwhelming – in the van, when I told him I couldn't have sex with him… I couldn't look him in the face. I was ashamed and afraid.

Because I can't get the truth serum dream out of my mind. Stolas, who smiled sinisterly down at me from a golden throne as I crawled toward him through muck and golden feathers. Hypnotized, though my heart pounded loudly in my chest the closer I got, begging me to turn away. I stopped only a few stairs away. Already imprisoned by cuffs around my wrists, he'd pulled me in closer with a golden chain, and I, too weak to stop him… couldn't help but remain transfixed on his face.

Feeling violated and self-loathing, my boner throbs painfully at my waistband. I couldn't move, unable to turn away from him. He had me, and he knew it. Right where he wanted me, his claws at my throat.

Why didn't I try to escape my bound fate?

Why didn't I turn away?

But infernal red eyes glowed up at me in hazy moonlight. I panted as I untied his arms, him having just come all over the bed, me inside him. Once I pulled out and he was free, he immediately wrapped me in his arms. I'd been too tired to resist. His chest was soft and warm, so I'd closed my eyes. The feeling of our mixed sweat and other fluids – our shared exhaustion…

I watch the ceiling as tears well in my eyes. Again. What the fuck is wrong with me? I quickly wipe them away.

Why didn't I turn away?!

My breaths come out shaky and panicked as I cover my eyes.

Stolas' power terrifies me. He could do whatever he wants to me, if he wanted to. Yet he doesn't. But that's the bare minimum, isn't it? What does that matter when I'm nothing but a joke to him?

He doesn't see me as his equal – and why should he? All the flirty remarks in every situation, that stupid pet name Blitzy he uses, the physical intimidation whenever I'm in his presence…

The intimidation…

I need to stop thinking about it. His very presence is too much for me. Too much for me.

I'm just an obnoxious, loud-mouthed imp sleazebag trying to scrape by. He could bend me so easily to his will. Anything he wants, I have to play along with it, or else I'll lose everything. Even on a night like tonight.

My throat closes so I don't lose myself in my fear.

I'm not worth sticking up for.

I'm not worth protecting.

Why should he give someone like me the time of day?

The room is spinning around me. Suddenly, I'm back in stuffy air. Red light and darkness. My friends – employees – family are on either side of me. Ready to sacrifice whatever it takes to keep them safe. I didn't know such a day would come so soon. If I had power like he had… Heaven above and Hell below, I wouldn't waste it on someone like me.

But he did.

The amount of power he used to save us – no – it was to get the book back safely. It was nothing more than that.

I hated Stolas' warm embrace as he scooped me in his arms – his soft hands as he grasped my face in the mortal world, towering over me, a look of concern on his face as he stared. It's the closest I've felt to feeling safe and cared for since I left home – but it was all a lie.

All a lie.

A fucking lie.

It was a lie.

Why can't I stop crying?

I was just that desperate to hope, wasn't I?

All a lie.

So desperate to believe someone might care about me.

But it was all a lie.

Fuck.

Nothing but a fucking lie.

Shit.

Are you scared to love people, Blitzy?

Fuck fuck fuck. Shit.

God fucking dammit.

Fuck!

My eye sockets start to ache, palms pressed into them, trying to stop the onflow of tears.

Fuck!

Fuck!

Fuck!

Finally, I gasp for air. Body trembling.

Wow, my voice echoes loudly in this room.

…

The emotional clarity you experience after crying a lot sure is interesting.

Oh well, life sucks and then you die, right?

When can I go back to being brain dead and scrolling my phone? I ask, bored of my problems, of remembering the past.

Even if I'm a horrible person, perhaps I can get away with falling asleep for now.

Please?

I'm so exhausted.

Please…?

I can't help but imagine Stolas' arms, his comfortable bed, feeling heated and content after sex – how disgusting it makes me feel to long for him right now – when all I really want is my mother to hug and kiss me goodnight.

Episode 7 hit me really hard, as I know it did many others. 💔 I really hope part 2 of the finale gives us some resolution between Blitz and Stolas. As it stands, their relationship is pretty toxic. I noticed few other writers really dig into the fucked-up aspects of their relationship, especially as it surrounds the Grimoire, so here I am.

I shirked my responsibilities as an adult to write this over three days. Man, I haven't written something in first-person in a whiiiiile (a while being three years). Finding a descriptive and realistic voice for Blitz was super difficult – in fact, researching and pondering how to write from Blitz's perspective took up the bulk of my time writing this. I dedicated an entire day to it and didn't write a single sentence until 6PM, haha.

I really hope you'll let me know how the fic turned out! Being written in first-person from a character who has a very different personality and vocabulary from my own, I'd love to hear your opinion. Hang in there until episode 8!