Chapter Text
Miserable asshole, Stolas thinks to himself as he hangs up the phone, just after the words “Next week sounds great, have a lovely day Sir,” leave his mouth.
Customer service is so much more difficult than anyone had warned him about.
He sighs as he glances over his shoulder to check the clock.
37 minutes. They should have been back 37 minutes ago, exactly.
To be fair, Blitzø is almost never on time for anything. Missions often run longer than he estimates, and Stolas is truly considering asking him to stop announcing their return timeframe because every time they’re late it makes his gut twist up in a horrible knot of anxiety.
They’re fine, Stolas tells himself firmly. They’re always fine and they’ll be back any minute.
He stares at the space where the portal usually opens and waits.
After twenty more minutes that pass by like dry tar, finally that white spark of energy appears, but it takes less than a second for Stolas to realize his worst fear has actually come true.
Blitzø practically collapses through the portal, with Moxxie and Millie on either side clearly trying and failing to support him. Blitzø’s face is twisted up in obvious pain, and there are black streaks of blood running down along the right side of his face.
Stolas lets out an undignified squawk as he stands and makes his way over to them, tripping on his chair as he tries to step over it. “What happened?!”
Before Moxxie and Millie can even look up at him, Blitzø lets out a raw, broken sound somewhere between a sob and a scream. Stolas drops to his knees in front of a hunched over Blitzø, instinctively reaching out to comfort him but also not wanting to touch lest he make the pain worse.
“He got shot,” Millie answers solemnly with a hint of terror in her voice. “He got shot and we- it was so close, Stolas. We thought he was dead.”
The three of them move Blitzø so that he’s resting against the nearest wall. His eyes are wide and wild as he claws at the air, then at his own head, hands hovering near his injured horn but never actually touching it.
Stolas gently takes Blitzø’s hands in his own and traces the tracks of blood with his eyes until he finds the source. He grows nauseous when he finally understands the full picture of what they’re dealing with.
There’s a wide spiderweb of cracks leading halfway up Blitzø’s horn, all stemming from a small hole at the base. Upon closer inspection, Stolas can see the tiny glint of silver.
The bullet is still in Blitzø’s horn. It’s lodged deep in the middle of what is essentially a bundle of nerves and is much closer to his skull than Stolas is comfortable with.
Lucifier, poor Blitzø. No wonder he’s reacting like this. Imp horns are extremely sensitive; they’re filled with thousands of nerve endings. Stolas knows this intimately. Usually he can get a decent reaction out of Blitzø simply by running a talon along the surface of one of them. But a fucking bullet?
Another cry of agony rips through Blitzø and Stolas gathers his boyfriend in his arms. Blitzø clings to him, bunching feathers in fistfulls in a way that would be painful if Stolas weren’t so focused on other things at the moment.
“Stolas!” Blitzø wails against his chest. “Help, please. It hurts sofuckingbad!”
“I know,” Stolas’s voice cracks like the heart in his chest and it’s all he can do to keep from crying right alongside Blitzø. The sight of him in this much agony is unbearable. “We’re helping you, my love. Just breathe.”
Blitzø sobs again and his breath hitches like he isn’t taking in enough oxygen. “Make it stop,” he begs, voice notably thinner. “Make it stop!”
Stolas can’t take another second of it. “Hospital. We need to get him to a hospital right now.”
Moxxie and Millie exchange a look.
“Stolas…” Moxxie wrings his hands. “Hospitals aren’t exactly kind to imps. Especially not ones without insurance.”
“They triage us last,” Millie adds, worried eyes trained on Blitzø. “If they even triage us at all. Doctors figure we’ve got thick skin. They let us bleed out in the waiting room for hours or even days. Sometimes we just… don’t get seen at all.”
Stolas stares at them in horror. “But - he’s in agony! Look at him!”
“We know,” Moxxie answers. “And we’d take him there if we thought-”
He’s cut off by another screech from Blitzø.
The three of them look at each other and Stolas knows without even having to ask what they’re thinking.
No hospitals. No waiting. No dealing with arrogant doctors deciding that an imp’s pain isn’t real enough.
They’re going to have to take the bullet out themselves.
Right here. Right now.