A/N You might have noticed by now that chapter names are song lyrics or titles. Well, this one gets a special shout out because it's "Hidden Truth" from the video game Destiny 2 and is genuinely good melodic and spacey orchestral song:

https/youtu.be/qd_hbeiEKgU

Highly recommend following the link and listening on repeat while you read. The game also influenced the beginning a bit *winks badly*

Anyway, that's all. Enjoy this sweet and emotional chapter!

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Chapter 9: Hidden Truth

The entity smiled, weaving the imp between the glowing blue strands of light between their fingertips. It shifted against the sun, making way for the primordial drips of foul liquid which followed. Blitz continued to struggle against the forces and failed miserably. A dense fog soon followed.

"Tell me how much time you think you have left." The entity snarled at his prey, fingers twirling as more light poured over as a false omen of hope. "I might allow you to leave if you do."

"What're you?" Blitz said rather aggressively. "A fuckin edgelord who does nothing but smoke weed and think he's hot shit?"

"A drastically bad answer, I must say." The entity laughed quietly, inching closer to Blitz with his glowing staff, and for the first time in the imp's life, it was not a metaphor.

"What fuckin answer do you want? I ain't done anything." Blitz retaliated.

"No?" The entity raised their voice; the light around them twitched. "I know everything you know, my friend. Past, Present, and Death. The idea that you could deny my accusations on such baseless subjugation is... well, as an edgelord would say, uncool."

"Take off your fuckin hood and face my dick like a real god." The imp smiled, thrusting his hips into the air as the strings of light retracted themselves, sending him into the ground with a grunt and a few scrapes.

The entity showed visible disgust. "It's victims like you who give my powers a bad name. Your very nature is perverted and torn into a cloth used to wipe the floors of reality."

"I'll wipe your mom." Blitz said. His face was immediately shoved into the ground with magic.

"Ugh." The entity expressed. "Must you learn shame through suffering? It's my least favorite way to play. Nothing of value left for me."

A stream of light returned to holding Blitz, tightened and curled around his neck, slowly curling more and more. He let out a small gasp of pleasure and was finally released from the grasp of the entity. The world filled with silence, and the light had fallen.

"I may not retrieve your mind through asking nicely." The entity 's disembodied voice echoed across the trees. "I can, however, do it forcefully. Enjoy your waking days."

A blur of darkness ran towards Blitz, and he suddenly jolted upwards in the bed with a cold sweat. He looked down at himself, this was not his tank top and he had dried streaks across his face.

"Oh, right." Blitz mumbled groggily before returning to his pillow. "The sex thing. Forgot."

His eyes darted. The darkened curtains hid most of the lights of sunset, with a shadowed streak spinning across the room through a slowly spinning ceiling fan.

"Gotta stop smoking the hard shit before going to down on nonbinary ass." Blitz whispered, and turned to see Styx resting soundly, with angel white hair brushed hazily across their face. The light hit just perfectly to barely illuminate the duo with the glowing sclera of Blitz's eyes parting the darkness. The world felt gray and timeless with no end. No beginning. Just the endless rage of the imp and his late evening morning wood.

Careful not to wake his roommate, the imp stood and made their way to the bathroom across the hall, staring at his reflection in the dark, and seeing someone completely detached from himself. This was not Blitz, but it was. This was not an imp, but it was. Nothing mattered and everything mattered, and each night of dreams and living out fantasies only drew the strings of the heart closer to the knives ready to cut them. Running gave preservation, but staying allowed for vulnerability - The chance to stop running. Blitz's body screamed within him, shouting at the hellborn to run, just like yesterday. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, what day was it? The imp scoffed for misplacing his phone and returned to the bedroom to search before quickly recovering it from the window sill. It was nine o'clock at night, an entire day had passed.

The imp slowly recollected himself. The two returned home, eager to do and practice certain acts, and the pieces of the puzzle did not need to be split far apart to piece the picture together. Blitz sighed, admiring his endless devotion to the feelings of uncertainty, and quietly laid next to the sinner with a friendly hand resting on their abdomen.

"Blitz?" Styx slightly tilted their head, careful not to break the position of either.

"Yeah?" The imp answered softly.

"Where were you?" Styx asked just as quietly.

"Ah, just, y'know, trying to get my bearings a bit. We slept for a while, Big Styx. Whole fuckin day."

"Shit." Styx swore, turning to completely face the imp and burrow into their chest with a contempt sigh. The imp responded by running claws through the sinner's hair, with the sinner returning the favor through a kiss on the neck. "Guess it's too late to be useful."

"Yeah… guess so."

"You sound like something's wrong." Styx said.

Blitz sighed. "Just not used to this kinda shit anymore."

"What, having someone?"

"Mmhm."

Styx hugged the imp closer, their own eyes now lighting the dim room together. "I get that. Sometimes I think I'm the worst person in the world and doing everything wrong. Everyone hates me even if I don't know them and… yeah. It's not fun."

Blitz quietly listened, but the dread of his recurring BDSM dreams featuring the entity suddenly returned to his focus.

"When I was alive," Styx began, "I was a coward. A huge coward. You probably don't want to hear about it, though."

"I do." Blitz smiled, even though the grin could not be seen by the sinner.

"The band I was in." Styx said. "We did the usual underground stuff, y'know: Sketchy gigs, fighting to get paid, all the things you have to do to survive in those days. It's been years and I still remember that one fucking song. The one I never wanted to play."

"Bad song?" Blitz asked.

"Not really." Styx said. "It was a fine song, but it was the song playing on my radio when my first love told me I was worthless."

Blitz's grip tightened. He felt unexplainable rage, and could see himself there trying to stop it. Irrational thoughts for irrational feelings, was his assumption.

"Blitz?" Styx asked in a tone of discomfort at the imp's grip.

"Shit, sorry." Blitz said, receiving another kiss from the sinner as the imp formed a devious smile. "Just remembered that I don't like assholes."

"They can be the worst, can't they?"

"Fuckin tell me about it. Sorry, you were saying?"

Styx nodded as they closed their eyes. "It was by this unknown band and I bought one of their mixtapes at a venue to help out one of my old high school friends. It was pretty average and I don't even remember the band, but this one song stood out to me: 'Pink Mist.' Nothing seriously special, it just stood out because the whole album was loud and about sex, but then you had this gentle acoustic come in and bam, you're fuckin locked in."

"What's it about?" Blitz asked. Styx was secretly enjoying his lax use of swearing despite being just as bad.

"Pink Mist." Styx cooed, slowly leaning into a melody which they sung quietly in the imp's arms.

"Pink Mist. I don't know you anymore.

Pink Mist. Nothing to adore.

Pink Mist. Just get the gist that I don't love you anymore.

Where were you going? Why did you leave?

You had a future that could've been.

I'm not upset, I will not yell.

But where'd you go? Please tell."

Blitz blinked, stunned, but not out of surprise. Styx was not a great singer, however they could definitely hold a tune and tell a story with the pitches.

"That's the gist." Styx said, exhaling amusingly. "Pun not intended. It's a great song, and everyone in the band liked it too. We probably weren't allowed to play it anyway, but that didn't stop them, and they only wanted to play it more when they found out what happened to me."

"Fuckin assholes." Blitz swore. "Sounds like my ex formed a band with herself."

"Right?" Styx giggled. "Sounds like mine, too. He got the last laugh, though. Like I said, I was a coward and didn't want to admit defeat, so I just played it and used the anger to power me through it. Real shit, Blitz, there is a fuckin demo tape out there of me playing lead guitar on our version of Pink Mist."

"Guess I better start looking, eh?" Blitz asked, self assured of his own amusement.

"Fuck me, Blitz, if you can find anything from my band down here, I'll tie myself to the bed."

"I'll hold you to that. Literally." Blitz said in a jovial tone of self confidence. "I know how you feel, though. Real shit." Blitz ironically and silently cursed his use of swears, though he also admired his copying of another person's language. Maybe he was finally rubbing off on Styx, or vice versa.

"My sister always liked to decorate our horns as kids." The imp said. "Loved the bitch to death until we started getting older, then she had the fuckin nuts to complain when I got tired of dressing up and taking off her fairy tale bukkake bullshit."

Styx laughed, receiving a halfhearted one from Blitz.

"Family is... it can be whoever the fuck you want." Blitz continued. "Just sucks that most of them treat you like shit."

"Honestly?" Styx said. "I think I'd rather just have a few good people."

"Yeah." Blitz sighed. "Good people…"

The duo both retained their smiles as the imp joined Styx in resting his eyes once again. They were, at least for a moment, content where their lives had brought them for now. The world outside could wait for them.

"Oh, yeah." Blitz quietly chimed up. "Your band. What's the name?"

Styx climbed directly on top of Blitz and wrapped both arms around his midsection before returning to rest.

"Snake Stealers." Styx said.

"Snake Stealers." Blitz repeated. "Fucking love it."

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