When Stolas' woke, his head was pounding and he was flooded with the dire need to vomit. The resurfacing thought of a staff member slipping and falling the last time he'd thrown up on the floor was enough to pull him out of bed and toward the bathroom, groaning all the while. It was while retching that he noticed the tightness at his waist, having forgotten to remove his trousers. He did so, lying face up on the bathroom floor. He covered his eyes against the glare of the light, naked and feeling lower than low.

This was one of those days where he missed Mister Butler. He'd imagined him in that period before he truly woke, telling him he'd drunk too much again and giving him a lecture that Stolas secretly longed to hear. He groaned again and forced himself to stand, legs wobbly. He made it to his vanity and reached for his pills… Still empty. Mister Butler would have made some calls, pulled strings, but he was gone and Stolas kept forgetting to refill it. He grabbed some aspirin and hoped they stayed down. He looked in the mirror at his worn face, blinking slowly.

What happened last night?

He needed a bath.

Feeling more awake after dunking his head under the warm water, his memories tried to make their way through the fog. He'd gone to that party. Octavia was with Stella and, after how poorly the night of the full moon had gone, he hadn't wanted to be alone. He thought it might be nice to commiserate with others, but every moment made him feel worse. He couldn't hate Blitzø the way they did, he still yearned for him, and the more he thought about it the more sure he was that it wasn't all on Blitzø. He had many of his own shortcomings, which he wished to drown at the bar. He recalled, or had he dreamt?, that the imp himself had shown up. Had they talked? It was fuzzy. What would they have talked about, Stolas wondered.

What had they ever talked about?

He sunk under the water again, willing himself to recollect more, but upon resurfacing he had no insights. Sighing deeply, Stolas left the tub and toweled dry before he donned his robe, moving the curtain aside as he held the belt at his waist.

"Hey."

Blitzø was half-dressed in his bed. Stolas, still hungover and in shock, dropped his robe before it was knotted properly, leaned forward slightly, and vomited bile.

"Yeah," Blitzø rubbed the back of his neck, averting his eyes, "Rough night."

"Wh-wh-" Stolas struggled to cover himself, flustered.

Blitzø still wasn't looking. "Do you, uhh, need any help over there?"

"No, I, uh-" Stolas managed to hold the fabric before him and looked down at his vomit, dazed, before rushing back into his boudoir. He rinsed the awful taste out of his mouth with water, then a bit of mouthwash, a slap of the face. He was dreaming. Surely. But, in case he wasn't, he cinched his robe tightly and grabbed his used towel.

Upon exiting, Blitzø was still there. Stolas covered the spot on the floor and tried to gather his thoughts.

"What-?"

"What am I doing here?" Blitzø interrupted with a guess. He'd been asked multiple times the night before and hadn't answered the way he should have. "I figured we should talk. Actually talk. When you're not drunk and I'm not…" he hesitated, attempting to find the right word, "And I'm not being shitty."

Stolas blinked. "That's not quite…why are you in my bed?"

"Oh, uh…" Right, that might be a bit more pressing. Blitzø tried to hide his embarrassment. "I brought you home."

Stolas covered his face with a hand. How embarrassing! "And did we-?"

"Satan no." Blitzø was quick to cut him off, mildly offended. "I'm no saint, but you were black out drunk. And I didn't stay to fuck you," he said defensively, irritated that Stolas had thought so and also worried. Maybe he'd been right and Stolas didn't want him here. Maybe he was angry. "I stayed so you wouldn't drown in your own…" Blitzø gestured and raised his eyebrows at the towel on the floor and Stolas' embarrassment increased fivefold. He sat at the edge of his bed, head down, wishing the floor would swallow him up. Sadness and anger could be overwhelmed by shame, it seemed.

"I appreciate that," he said finally.

He wasn't telling him to leave, he hadn't poofed him outside… Blitzø took this as a good sign.

"Stolas," Blitzø had been up most of the night, thinking about what he would say, talking down the parts that were angry. He could be honest without being a dick, he'd decided, but where he started depended on a key point. "How much do you remember?"

"From last night? I recall going to the party. And you must have been there," Stolas looked up and Blitzø confirmed this with a nod. So it hadn't been a dream. Stolas looked down at his feet, trying to bring events to light. "I remember dancing!" he added suddenly, lifting his head, the feeling of spinning fresh in his mind. His red eyes went wide as he turned to Blitzø, "Were we…dancing?"

With effort, Blitzø quelled his jealousy and shook his head. "That was someone else."

"Oh." He'd danced with someone else? Stolas paused, pressing elbows to his thighs, leaning his forehead into his open palms with a shake of his head. He'd really gone overboard; he couldn't even recall a face.

Stolas didn't ask anymore questions and Blitzø sighed and took the opportunity to crawl over and sit next to him at the edge of the bed. If he didn't remember, he could do this properly, without upsetting him like he had the night before. "I apologized for being a dickbag."

"Ah." Stolas paused, looking forward with his chin in his hands. "Is that how you phrased it?"

"I- Uh, no," Blitzø admitted, "but I'd say it's pretty accurate."

Stolas turned his head to look at him, a small, sad smile on his face. "Which time?"

Blitzø bit his cheek angrily, to stop himself from saying something he'd regret. "You know, you're not making this easy."

"I can be rather petty when the mood strikes," Stolas looked away again with that same mild smile on his face.

"Well, if you really want to know, it was about this morning. Yesterday morning," he corrected. He'd been bad the night before, but the morning was when he'd been at his worst.

A small huff of laughter escaped Stolas, putting a hand over his eyes. Not the reaction Blitzø expected. "We were both pretty terrible, weren't we?" Stolas couldn't help laughing quietly. "In hindsight, your bit about love ballads was rather funny."

"No, it wasn't! You didn't deserve that." Blitzø insisted, face flushed and hands fisted in the sheets. "But I…I mean, you didn't say anything about me that wasn't true."

"And you? We don't do words, we do sex," Stolas recollected. "You were right; we don't talk much, do we? As much as I romanticized things, it was always about sex." Stolas shook his head. He couldn't blame Blitzø for thinking as much, for not expecting his confession. "It's rather silly, isn't it? We've talked more now that-"

The two of them sat quietly, Blitzø kicking his feet.

Stolas closed his eyes. "You were right the other night. I was being unfair to you with all of my, what did you call it? 'Feelings bullshit?'"

Blitzø flinched. "When you say it like that, I don't know why you'd-"

"Because you were right." Stolas interrupted. "I thought how I felt was obvious. I wished you felt the same. I built all these things up in my head and never once did I consider how unfair it was to you. How differently we saw it." Stolas shook his head again. "I wanted things a certain way and it didn't matter how you felt or what you said." Stolas leaned back on his hands, looking up at the ceiling. Blitzø saw tears glittering in his eyes and looked away. "I never listened to you, did I?"

"Not really." His voice was monotone. He didn't want to rub it in, but Stolas collapsed in on himself anyway, an exact copy of what he'd looked like on the couch at the party. Of how he'd looked on the night of the full moon. Two nights ago he'd been too late, last night he'd been too unsure.

This time, Blitzø knew what he wanted to do and didn't hesitate.

In one swift motion, his arms wrapped around his waist. Stolas froze, stunned at the touch, and more shocked when Blitzø said, "Don't cry," as he pressed his face against Stolas' back.

Stolas was at a loss. He'd thought Blitzø had made it very clear their relationship was over. He'd come back the other morning and shoved that in his face, telling him with more fervor that he didn't do romance, and Stolas had seen roomfuls of demons to prove it. Him being here showed concern, perhaps shouldering responsibility for how heavily he'd been drinking, but him coming to that party to apologize… Him staying overnight instead of leaving him in his bed…It stood to question, why had he come over that morning in the first place?

Even now, Blitzø could have left at any time, but he was talking to him. Holding him.

Stolas couldn't physically react, he couldn't move his arms while locked in Blitzø's grasp, but there was something he had to say.

"Maybe…" he sniffed, "Maybe now, if it's ok, I can try it. Listening."

Blitzø nodded, pulling away slightly, looking up at Stolas when he finally had the freedom to wipe his eyes. When the task was done and his hands were in his lap, Blitzø reached for the nearest one, putting his hand on top of Stolas', remembering a certain circumstance.

"You have listened to me before. That night after Ozzie's."

Stolas huffed a small, somehow sarcastic, laugh. "Once."

"Still, that you did..." It was a struggle for Blitzø to be honest, but he had to express this. "Before that I felt like some big joke to you."

"What?!" Stolas twined his fingers with Blitzø's in apology, "That wasn't my intention, I truly-"

"Hey," Blitzø interrupted, his voice serious with a hint of playfulness, "I thought you were going to listen?"

Stolas' mouth hung open and then closed quietly.

"You didn't treat me seriously. All your Loo Loo Land comments, calling me Blitzy in Wrath, it was pretty insulting." Stolas opened his mouth again and closed it with a squeeze of the hand and a look from Blitzø. "I had no choice but to keep up the deal anyway. Do you see where I'm coming from?"

Stolas wasn't sure if he was allowed to speak, so nodded his head solemnly. He hadn't realized all of his shortcomings, but he'd gathered enough about their power imbalance to get the crystal. To make things fair.

"So when you gave me my own room… That meant a lot. But it screwed things up too," Blitzø confessed. "When it was a transaction, I knew where I stood. When it wasn't…"

Blitzø grew quiet, wracking his brain about what to say next and Stolas looked on silently. While Stolas slept, he'd thought of so many things to discuss, big and small, that hadn't been true concerns until that night: confusion about the deal, the disparity in their ranks, did they have anything in common?, the way Stolas talked down to him without meaning to (briefly touched on), Stolas' marriage, how Stolas was so smart and he could barely spell, his own past traumas, his worries that he would fuck this up, the way he hid things without meaning to, the public backlash, had Stolas actually been serious about him? Was he still?

These were all things that had come up during the deal, sure, but they'd been easy enough to push back. Who cared when he could boil it down to casual fucking? No need to go soul searching when the answer was right there. But then it got complicated. And, out of all of them, the last two questions were all he could focus on, racing around each other like horses on a track.

"Look, Stols, you were at that party, you know relationships aren't something I'm good at. I always fuck things up when things get serious, I did it to them and…I did it to you." Blitzø took a deep breath. He liked to think he was tough, but being vulnerable was like going on a mission without M . Or guns. "But none of them made me feel like you do."

Blitzø looked up at Stolas, at the blush on his face, at his confused red eyes as he tried to decipher what he meant, waiting for him to continue. Stolas moved his hand slightly, re-twining his fingers with their hands palm to palm, rubbing his fingers against his comfortingly. This gave Blitzø the courage to say the rest.

"It's more than sex. You're smart and beautiful and…" Blitzø struggled to find more adjectives. He was a Goetia, a prince, rich, but what he felt wasn't about who Stolas was - they were still learning about one another - but how he made him feel. The way his heart raced when he called him that dumb nickname he used to hate, the way he ached when he couldn't go save him, when he'd seen him rushed into the hospital, the way he'd crawled over his fence that morning because he couldn't fathom going back to the life without Stolas in it. "I'm stupid and I'm a dick and, for some fucking reason, you cared about me anyway. And I- well, I care about you too. A lot, Stols." There was something else he wanted to say, something that sounded so cheesy he debated omitting it, but now he felt it. He'd felt it as soon as Stolas had said it to him the night before. He looked at Stolas' beautiful red eyes, trying not to tear up as he confessed, "You're the only one I want."

Blitzø was instantly in the air, for a split second face to face with watering eyes and a large smile. "H-hey!" he protested as Stolas' arms circled him firmly, misinterpreting the tears, squirming to settle when he swung him into his lap. "Y-you're arm!"

"My…?" Stolas was confused when Blitzø pulled away, opening his arms, leaving him free to move his robe and check his bandages.

"Good! Not bleeding," he assured him with a proud smile. This and the concerned look in Blitzø 's eyes touched Stolas deeply.

"You really do care, don't you Blitzy? Oh!" he pressed his opposite hand over his mouth, "I'm sorry, I-"

"Sorry?"

They looked into each other's watering eyes then ticked apart, embarrassed. "It's fine." Blitzø was quick to say, rubbing at his face. "It doesn't bother me anymore."

"It…doesn't?"

"As long as you don't go shouting it to the world," he amended, remembering how Striker had used the nickname when he captured him and Fizz. "You can call me what you want."

Stolas beamed, resting his head over Blitzø's shoulder, feathers tickling his neck, embracing him again. "No one's called me 'Stols' before," he said. "I like having a nickname too."

Blitzø's eyes began to water again. Being held tightly felt better than anything Blitzø could have imagined. Stolas had given him so many outs before the full moon, had been more than willing to push him out the door when they'd fought, had taken his no so easily that his feelings had seemed lukewarm. Now he held him firmly and Blitzø' didn't hesitate to return the embrace, pulling himself as close to Stolas as physically possible.

"Does this mean you'll stay with me?" Stolas asked softly.

Blitzø stiffened. If that was his answer…Did he feel the same? Could he believe that? As if an undercurrent to his thoughts, Blitzø heard Fizz's voice. If you don't even try, you deserve to lose him.

He wanted to try.

"If you want me to."

Stolas pulled back, his upper eyes narrowed in concern, hands holding his upper arms. "You know I want you, Blitzø. More than anything." Blitzø blushed at the earnestness in his eyes, the softness of his voice. "I'd like you to decide."

"I-" he gulped, suddenly nervous. No more deals, no more monthly rendezvous, no pushing him away before he said his piece. Could this be a real relationship? He looked at Stolas, whose hopeful face was tilted to the side.

This was someone he wished to be with. For as long as he could.

"I want to stay."

There was a smile in Stolas' eyes as they half-closed, leaning close to press their foreheads together, a hand on the back of his head. Blitzø was the one who rolled their faces down, pressing their brows, noses, and then lips together softly. A hand reached up to stroke the feathers on the back of Stolas' head as Blitzø turned, deepening the kiss, making Stolas moan into his mouth. Damn thirsty bird, he thought affectionately, grinning into the kiss and using tongue. Stolas leaned back and Blitzø pushed him all the way onto the bed, grinding their hips together in a way Stolas very much appreciated, apparent from the way he threw his head back.

"Blitzø, you don't-" Stolas panted as he looked up at him, cheeks flushed, "You're not obligated to-"

"Shut up," Blitzø growled, leaning down to bite Stolas' neck, eliciting another delicious noise. Stolas didn't mind the way he was speaking to him now, he noticed as he untied his robe, eager to touch the rest of his body. "I want to stay, remember? And this would never have started if I didn't want you," he confessed, running a hand down his stomach, stopping just before- "But I can stop if you want to keep talking."

"No!" Stolas was quick to shake his head, arching his back, "No, I'm-I'm listening."

"Damn right," Blitzø said, making him moan and cutting it off with a kiss.