Chapter 20: Don't Be Suspicious

"Starfire?" Stolas's voice came through the door, with a tone lilting up at the end. Via knew from years of experience, that it meant he either wanted something or she was in trouble. She immediately closed her laptop and called back, "Yyyeah? Come in." He slowly opened the door. Aw, so she wasn't in trouble . . . at least yet.

"Hi, darling. I was just wondering . . . Have you been writing any letters recently?" He asked, in quite a leading way.

Despite knowing she hadn't written a letter since the invites to her maybe 13th birthday party, she felt nervous at the suspiciousness in his tone, "Noooo? Why?"

"This was slipped through the mail slot. It would be quite of feat of speed to run from there and back here, but you have been improving your portals." His voice lilted upwards again and he held up a plain white envelope with his name on it.

She restrained her eyes, lest they roll in front of her distressed father, "Can I see it?"

He walked over and handed it to her, and as she read it, she quietly whispered, ". . . oh f**k . . ."

"Language, sweetheart! And why would you say that if you had nothing to do with this, hmmm?" He said, raising a quizzical brow.

"Oh, uh . . ." She was actually worried about the text she and Loona had drafted up and sent to him this morning that contradicted some of what this letter said, but she couldn't tell him that so she had to come up with something on the fly, "I-It just is, um, so cool that he wants to meet up with you after the fight you had. I'm just . . . surprised!"

"Mmhmm. So was I. I was also surprised that he used the word 'invincible' and 'capacity' even if they were misspelled. Not to mention spelling the word 'exchange' correctly and 'hospital' with two L's and not an 'el' at the end." He said as a interrigator with a suspect.

"Oh . . . Do you know all his spelling errors?" she asked.

"Yes, well . . . I was quite enarmoured with him . . ." He trailed off, and surprised himself as he realized he had used the past tense, "At any rate, I don't think Blitz really sent this, and you are not exactly guiltless in meddling in my love life."

She felt a little twinge of shame, "I really didn't do this

But yeah, I'm really sorry, Dad." She took a deep breath and made a boy's scout salute, "I solemnly swear to not mess with your love life . . . unless you really, really need it."

"Octavia." Stolas warned.

"Fine! I solemnly swear to not go behind your back if I do decide to mess with your love life, and will tell you first. How's that?" She put her hand down.

" . . . Better, I suppose." He glared at her with a hint of a smile.

"Aaaanyway, anything else you wanted to talk about . . . ?" This time her voice lilted up, expectantly.

"Oh! Well . . . Blitz did message me. The real one. Ha!" He sat down on the bed with her and laughed to himself, "At least supposedly. It's was his account on Faceless Love. So really, it could be anyone."

Via tried her best to not look visibly nervous, "Oh, and uh. . . What did he say?"

He slumped a little, "He said he didn't want to talk anymore . . ." He sighed, "he wants to spend time reflecting."

Via felt a sense of relief, as it didn't seem like he caught on to her anxious guilt, "Well, that's good isn't it?"

Stolas looked at her like she was insane, "Pardon?"

"Well, yeah. You told him some really heavy shi- . . . stuff last time you talked. So if he's self-reflecting, that means he really heard you, right?" She asked.

" . . . I hadn't thought about it that way. I suppose not wrong. Thank you, dear." He smiled at her, placing a hand on her shoulder, then frowned again, "Although, it was kind of my last branch to him. Now that it has been cut off . . . I-" He felt hot tears well in his eyes, and his hand flew to their aid to prevent the drops from falling, then shook the thought from his mind.

Via tried to grab his elbow to comfort him, but he stood up quickly and started talking again, "At any rate, I've got some more investigating to do. I will take out my trusty looking glass and figure out who sent me this."

"Don't you mean magnifying glass? A looking glass is a mirror. You're the one who taught me that." Via chuckled.

"Yes, well, it makes much more sense for it to be about a magnifying glass, doesn't it? Something you use to look through?" He laughed back, "Alright, I'll leave you to whatever it was you were doing . . . online . . . It's not p*rn is it?"

"DAD! NO!" She shouted in disbelief.

"Alright, alright! I'm sorry for asking. But just so you know I strongly recommend-" He started.

"UGH! Dad. No. Get out." She said the magical boundary words that he would always respect.

"Yes, of course. Love you, sweetie!" He called back as he left the room.

Via loudly mumbled back a 'love you too' as the door closed and sighed to herself. Her thoughts spun around everywhere as she flopped back on the bed. She thought that everything would be fine now that she and Loona had stopped their plans to interfere with her Dad's relationship problems. She hadn't even considered this possibility. Had Loona gone behind her back to keep butting into her dad and Blitz's relationship? Or did someone else write the letter? Just how many people had stuck their hands in this pot?

Not knowing what to do, she pulled out her phone to text Loona.

Hey, uh, you didn't send my Dad a letter, did you?

After a moment she went back to watching her speed paint video with ghost story commentary. She tried to focus on the plot and the art, but she kept checking her phone, anxiously waiting for a reply. About forty minutes later, she got a message. She paused the video to take a look.

no. y?

He got one that looked like it was from Blitz, but he said that the spelling

was wrong. Like, wrong in how it was wrong, I guess.

oh sh*t, yeah that wasn't me. i've got pretty much

all of blitz's spelling errors memorized.

The letter also contradicted some of what we said in the text message.

double sh*t. do you think it was from

asmodeus and his clown?

It's possible, but I don't know.

Dad said that he would continue to investigate.

do you know if he got the text we sent him as blitz?

Oh, right, yeah. He and I talked about it and I

think it worked. He's not going to try to convince Blitz

to keep talking on the app, and he doesn't suspect anything.

Meanwhile, Stolas was walking down a long corridor, thinking to himself about how suspicious that conversation was. He trusted that she wasn't the one who sent the letter, that much was obvious, but she was clearly still hiding something. Maybe she knew who sent it, but didn't want to give them away? The only person who would fit the bill was Loona, but he had a funny feeling that she would've done a much better job at forging the letter, as many kids learn how to copy their parents signatures. No, she started acting strange when he brought up the message from the app. Had she told Loona about his disguised account? Is that why they had matched in the first place? Did Loona influence Blitz to write that message this morning? What ever for?

He stopped in his tracks realizing how tense he was and took a deep breath. All of this was speculation, and not the matter at hand. Right now, he just wanted to know who was setting him up, and for what reason. Maybe the letter hadn't blown his face off, but this meet could be a would be a rather obvious one, but he couldn't rule it again, maybe Blitz had simply been drunk when he wrote it. Was that too much to hope for? Yes, yes it was. It didn't matter. The important thing was that he needed to figure this out, preferably without asking Blitz about it. For one he didn't want to trouble him and for another if he hadn't written it; how awkward would it be to confront him about an imposter. Stolas didn't want to have to listen to all the reasons Blitz wouldn't date him again. Still, if he couldn't figure it out by the time the day rolled around, he would confront whoever it was in person. And in the impossible scenario that it was truly from Blitz, and this was him reaching out, like his therapist said he might . . . he'd hear him out. He realized for the first time that if given the chance, he wouldn't immediately say yes if Blitz asked to be his partner. Those words really had cut deep, hadn't they? Stolas knew that the next time he got into a relationship with someone, it would have to be with someone he could trust; someone who valued his feelings. Stella had been neither, and Blitz hadn't treated him much better. Via was right, if Blitz was self-reflecting, then that was a very good thing. He would have to find someone who would listen to his woes, and would let him reciprocate. Someone like Bluez, perhaps?

The phone rang from within Stolas's pocket and he pulled it out to find the name of the contact to be that of his lawyer, who was now helping him with his divorce.

"Hello? Do you have any news on-" He was interrupted by his lawyer speaking.

"Oh, what could she have possibly done that would be that-" He started again, and the lawyer broke the news.

"SHE WHAT?!"

Author's Note:

Hi friends! It's Vik. WE MADE IT TO 200 KUDOS! AHH! Thank you all who have and are continuing to support my work. If you want to receive updates for when I post, I suggest bookmarking and subscribing, as well. If you know anyone who might like this, or just other people who like Helluva Boss, please consider sending this to them! It's my Christmas/Holiday/Winter wish, so pretty please? If you're reading this later, the wish doesn't expire, it is ineffable and everlasting.

ANNOUNCEMENTS! I now have a Ko-fi (which is like but better) that you can hire me for commissions from. I'm doing a winter discount from now until the end of January, so if you want to and can, check it out! I plan to be putting more stuff there soon, but for now it's just commissions. Or tips, but like, who leaves tips for rando writers? /viktheviking

/viktheviking

There will be a Holiday/Winter Special! It'll be it's own story, so not a chapter here, though you can consider it canonical to this story if you like. I'm working with a talented artist for the cover, which is nice because drawing is not my strong suit. Right now I'm working with nosamiam345 on Tumblr, so check them out! The goal is to have it published on December 21st 2023, on the same day as the Winter Solstice, but if things come up, it may be a little later. So please keep a lookout for it! I hope you like it, because my editor is having a heyday with the amount of fanservice I'm putting in it.

Okay, enough self promotion. So, I kinda struggled with this chapter as I had multiple moments where I had to stop, rethink, get advice from friends, write, and stop again. At first I thought the only problem was Loona's reaction, so I just needed to fix it, but then I realized that I have been hinting at paparazzi and tabloids causing issues and that being a problem they need to solve, but I hadn't thought it through. I'm usually careful not to add things in without planning it out, especially after such a thing causing me issues in a Dungeons and Dragons game I ran, but I let myself add it in without thinking about how they'd fix it. A friend, oh I haven't made a fake name for them yet. A friend and fellow helluva enthusiast (yeah, we'll go with that), helped me figure out a few possible explanations.

I did another poll on Tumblr to decide which ending I should go with, because while I could give you guys a happy ending faster, I could also add in more things to make it even more complex. And while people were pretty split on whether it should be a happy or sad ending, or letting me decide, literally no one who voted wanted the shorter ending. It kind of makes me happy that there are people who just want the story to go on and on :)

Thanks for reading, see you next week!