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Hell had its fair share of toilet babies and dumpster babies and floating down the river of sewage babies. Fuck, the good kind of abandoned baby—the rare kind—was a firestation baby or left at the hospital baby. Hell was shitty parents galore and bad choices out the ass.
So, Blitzø was not particularly surprised to hear a baby crying when he left the office for a smoke break. That’s what babies did. They cried.
He lit his pot and tobacco cig in the parking lot and waited for whatever bad parent had left their kid alone in the car. But no one showed up.
After thirty minutes, Blitzø had checked all the cars in the lot and busted a few windows for good measure, but there were no babies. And that little shit kept screaming with a tinny echo so he checked the nearby dumpster. Then, he scurried down into the runoff for the rainwater that led to the sewer, but the noise faded. When he climbed back up to the asphalt, reeking like hot garbage, the crying increased again.
He tried following the sound. It was loudest by the IMP van, but Blitzø had already been inside it twice, checking that some asshole hadn’t dumped their kid in there. He’d looked down by the pedals and under the seats. He’d checked in between the seat cushions too. Maybe a tiny newborn imp—one of those Wrathian ones—had gotten jammed down there.
Nothing.
The baby wailed. He popped the hood of the van and searched the engine, burning his fingers as he stuck his whole arm in. He crouched down at the back of the van and shined his phone’s light into the tailpipe.
Blitzø was five seconds from giving up. Fuck that ghost baby.
He’d long ago finished his cigarette. Pulling out a new one, he fumbled it because his fingers hurt like shit and it fell on the ground into an oil slick. It would still probably light up and not blow his face off so he bent over to grab it, and there he saw the baby, stuffed up in the wheel well.
A small, naked, slobbering newborn with nubby horns. It was laid tummy-down on the wheel of the driver’s tire. It wailed, revealing pink gums. Its fists were clenched tight and eyes screwed shut as it flailed.
What in the fuck?
Just because they were murder professionals who killed kids for free did not mean Blitzø was in the business of running a fucking baby over.
If he would’ve started the van, if the baby hadn’t cried, all he had to do was pull out of his parking spot and it would’ve been over.
Motherfucking fuckers.
He pulled off his jacket and grabbed the baby to wrap it up. The little shit, a boy he saw as he turned it over, was colder than a newborn imp should be. Those tiny things needed body heat. They were meant to be carried until they learned to be crawling menaces.
Blitzø pressed the cocooned baby to his body as he headed back up to the office. Moxxie was going to give him shit for how he smelled, but he could fuck right off. They had bigger problems. As he took the elevator up, the baby’s howls turned to whines until finally they were small sleeping sniffles.
When he walked into reception, Loona looked up with a wrinkled nose and he held his finger to his mouth, shushing her. From the couch, Millie immediately perked up, launching to her feet, following as Blitzø approached Loona, angling the baby so she could see.
She stared at it, inhaling the scent a few times as she did.
“In the IMP’s wheel,” he whispered to her, motioning with one hand.
Loona bared her teeth and glared down at the baby. “Fucking assholes,” she muttered and sat back down in her seat.
Millie bounced on her toes beside him. “Ooh, B,” she cooed. “How cute. What are ya going to do with it?”
Before he could answer, the door to the kitchenette opened and Moxxie held two cups of coffee. When he spotted Blitzø, he said, “Finally, sir! What were you—”
The baby began to wail again. Loona hurled a stapler at Moxxie.
After the initial round of fuck yous, Millie was able to calm the baby down by sticking her pinky finger into the baby’s mouth. The baby sucked on it ravenously as Blitzø and Moxxie went back and forth about what to do.
“Can’t you guys take it?” Blitzø asked, searching on his phone what the fuck a baby ate since it was clearly starving and about to eat Millie’s hand.
“We aren’t ready for kids,” Moxxie protested, who apparently wasn’t at all concerned about his wife’s limbs.
“No one is ever ready,” Blitzø exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Look how good Millie is with him.”
Moxxie did look and his expression softened. Fuck yeah, he got him.
But Millie opened her mouth. “We’re not taking him, B.”
She was supposed to be the easy one!
Blitzø looked back to his phone. The baby needed a special newborn formula or a titty milk. Blitzø rubbed his forehead as he looked at the prices. It might be easier to try to drug a mother and squeeze some out of her. Certainly cheaper.
“You could turn him over to an orphanage,” Moxxie suggested.
“Fuck no,” Loona cut in. Her head was still down as if focused on her phone but her ears were swiveled toward them.
Exasperated, Moxxie went over to the baby and began to examine it, peering at its feet like there were initials there or something. “At least try to find his parents,” he said.
“What parents?” Blitzø barked. “The ones who put him under a tire to get popped like a melon?”
Fuck, that was almost too specific even for him.
Moxxie dropped the baby’s foot and it whined alongside Moxxie who said, “You can’t keep him here! This is a murder business. You have a business to run!”
“I wasn’t going to leave him here.” Maybe strap him to his chest during missions or something.
“I could ask Mama,” Millie said, shifting the weight in her arms, bouncing him so get him to quiet down.
“Good. Fine,” Blitzø said, glad that was solved. He’d done his good deed. Now he just needed his jacket back, preferably washed so he didn’t have to break into their house and do it later.
Millie approached him and quickly deposited the baby in his arms. “But we aren’t taking him home tonight,” she said.
Bullshit he was getting stuck with this baby.
Two punches to the face and thwarted attempts to steal later, Blitzø spent $100 at the drugstore getting diapers and wipes and a onesie and a bottle and a bottle brush and formula and distilled water—because fuck Imp City water—to get the baby to be quiet. On the way home, he had to turn around and go back to the drugstore and buy a new onesie because the baby had shit through the first one.
Blitzø was tired and he had a fucking headache. When Millie called, he desperately needed some good news.
“Sorry, B. Mom said she couldn’t—”
He hung up on her. He didn’t usually hang up on Millie; she could cut his balls off. But the baby had been screaming his head off for the better part of three hours with very few breaks. Blitzø could barely hear her speak let alone stand for the bad news. His jacket had spit up on it and it reeked even for him.
Thank Satan for Loona, who ordered a pizza for the both of them after he forgot all about dinner. He could see now why this baby had been abandoned. He had a set of lungs. Blitzø kept thinking he had to be tired. He had to run out of steam, but no.
Loona shouted directions at him from her phone to burp him and bounce him and shush him. Blitzø tried the pinky thing Millie had done. They both tried swaddling him with one of their spare towels, arguing over the VoxTube video about it, and he punched right out of it.
Blitzø was this fucking close to sobbing when the baby finally fell asleep laying against his chest as he sat on the couch. Paralyzed in fear, he sat there and tried to get Loona’s attention so she could grab his phone or put some pizza in his mouth or something.
But she didn’t see him from her spot on the floor.
So slowly. Very, very slowly, he leaned over to the opposite end of the couch and tried to get his phone. And he picked it up and slowly righted himself.
And the baby started to whine.
Loona shot up. “I’m sleeping in the van. I can’t do this.”
Blitzø looked at her wide-eyed. “No. You shouldn’t have to—”
She was already putting on a jacket and grabbing the keys. “Blitzø, you can’t sleep in the van with the baby. It’s just one night. I’ll be fine.”
The whine turned into full-out bawling and Loona’s ears laid flat on her head.
“Remind me to use condoms,” she said as she opened the door.
“Use condoms!”
Loona flipped him off and walked out.
By the time Blitzø got to work the next day, he was dead on his feet. He’d pulled all-nighters before and they never felt like this. Maybe it was because he was in his 30s. Maybe it was because a baby screaming wasn’t anything like a rock concert. Even after two cups of four shots of espresso each, it felt like his brain was mush.
The small poop machine had finally fallen asleep at almost five in the morning, only for his alarm to go off and wake them both up. It was a fucking miracle he hadn’t crashed the van.
Blitzø laid on the beat up couch, staring at the ceiling. The baby squirmed on top of him, making huffing noises.
“He’s hungry,” Millie said. “I’ll make his bottle if you tell me where you left the formula.”
At home.
Blitzø pulled out his wallet and held it up. “Just buy new shit.”
Loona went with her. Moxxie tried to tell him facts about implings as if anything was gonna stick in his head.
When the baby was settled, Blitzø asked Loona to watch him for a half hour while he went to the surface with M&M for a hit. It would just be a half hour.
Probably.
Two hours and soaked in blood later, they returned. Loona looked more wild than he’d ever seen her. She’d used duct tape to keep the huge couch cushions over her ears.
The baby was silent in her arms and a low growl rumbled continuously out from her chest. His first thought, even if it was only for a second, was that she’d killed it. She’d gotten pissed at his nonstop crying, rightfully so, and made it stop.
Shit, Blitz had seen Loona kick a stroller halfway across Pride because she was hungover. Blitz had also left her for way longer than he’d meant. It was his fault.
But, Loona’s glare on him was exhausted, not irritated. And why would she still be holding him? And, also, if she hadn’t let him drop the baby at an orphanage, he knew she wasn’t going to just kill it.
Quietly, he moved forward and she growled a little louder, almost like a warning not to fuck shit up.
There in her arms, tucked into her fur and holding a handful of it, the baby slept soundly.
Loona mouthed the words “one whole hour” and him and pointed to the baby. That was amazing.
Then the little shit stirred, scrunched his face up, and blew out his diaper, getting shit down Loona’s stomach. Blitzø had to snatch the baby away as Loona vomited straight into the floor.
Welp. C’est la vie.
__
After four days, Blitzø was burning out. That baby only slept when Loona was holding him and growling, and Loona’s throat was getting sore and she couldn’t growl at night when she slept and Blitzø was starting to hear the baby cry even when it wasn’t because he was probably going crazy.
He’d begged Moxxie and Millie for a night off and they gave him one before returning the baby bright and early, and calling off work themselves.
Just dealing with the crying was too much. Blitzø hadn’t been able to make a plan for what to do with the baby. Even if they did, who would want an extra-demony baby that cried all day and night.
At the office that day, Loona currently had her head down on her desk with two large pillows taped over her ears. While Millie and Moxxie completed some easy backlog missions, Blitzø laid on the floor of his office with the baby on his stomach. He’d start to doze when the baby started another crying jag.
“I can’t do this,” he mumbled to himself, staring at the ceiling. “I can’t.”
Blitzø had tried all the things the mommy blogs suggested like skin-to-skin and a different formula and patting the back and rocking and swaddling, which he couldn’t do for the life of him.
He pulled out his phone and dialed the only other dad he knew.
“Blitzø?” Stolas asked hesitantly and, of course he would be hesitant. They hadn’t exactly spoken since Stolas had been in the hospital.
Shit, okay…Time to bite the bullet.
“Blitzø?” Stolas asked again, a bit louder.
Blitzø put a hand over his opposite ear to better hear Stolas over the crying. “Yeah, can you come over here? I need some advice?”
There was a pause. “Certainly…What is that—”
Blitzø hung up. With his head awkwardly propped up by his horns, he looked at the baby on his stomach and poked him between the eyes. “He’s getting his feathered ass over here so you better not suddenly become perfect.”
A portal opened in his office and Stolas stepped through, wincing at the ear-shattering screaming. Stolas glanced first at Blitzø’s chair and desk before taking another step and peering around both, finding him on the floor.
For several long silent seconds, Stolas stared at him and the baby, his eyes wide. Blitzø thought they looked like saucers of human blood with growing balls of white at their center.
Exhausted, Blitzø cradled the baby in one arm and rolled over to his knees. As he did, he heard Stolas suck in a breath and then felt hands lifting him to his feet.
Stolas bent low, eye level with him and peered at the baby, who was still crying. The little shit wiggled in Blitzø’s grasp like he was trying to fall, arching his back, so Blitzø had to shift quickly to catch him. His little tail flipping back and forth with no coordination.
Stolas opened his mouth.
Blitzø cut him off before he could say anything. “I’m too tired for 20 questions,” he said, half-shouting over the crying. “Just help me. How did you get Octavia to stop crying?”
A sort of weariness entered Stolas’s frame and he deflated. He drew away and straightened. “I’m afraid I do not know. Octavia was a rather easy baby,” he said.
Blitzø bit his lip, thinking fast, hating that he had to resort to it. “Do you…Can your guys-imps help? He’s been crying for fucking days and I can’t—They would know, right?”
“Days?” Stolas asked as if that was the important part of the information to process. “You’ve had him for days?”
“Stolas.” Blitzø’s tail snapped behind him. “Focus. Can they help?”
“About the crying?” Stolas asked, turning back to regard the portal as if it had more information and not the imp right in front of him.
Blitzø shifted the baby in his grasp. “Yeah.”
Stolas exhaled slowly. “I do believe Gwendolyn just had a baby.”
“Great,” he said with his teeth clenched as the little waving fists hit him in the chest. “Bring her here.”
A few minutes later, the servant, Gwendolyn, came through the portal following Stolas, stress all over her face. Apparently, Stolas had not told her why she was summoned to go through a portal. Or maybe he had and it was bad fucking news about the baby.
The screaming had died down to whimpers as the baby laid on its stomach across Blitzø’s forearm, which was almost asleep, but he would rather lose an arm than wake that baby up by trying to switch it over.
Gwendolyn’s apron was stained with cooking grease and her black hair was pulled up in a tight bun, but her face and hands were spotless. Wrapped in cloth on her back was a sleeping bundle of impling.
She hung back behind Stolas as he introduced her, not saying a word. Blitzø had to shush the prince because the baby on his arm began to stir.
Gwendolyn looked scandalized that he’d done such a thing, but she didn’t comment on it.
Finally, Blitzø said in a loud whisper, “He says you know babies?”
“Yes,” she answered with a nod.
Half-turning his body to show more of the baby, Blitzø said, “I can’t get him to stop crying. Don’t let him fool you. If I even think about moving him, he’s gonna tear me a new hole.”
Gwendolyn shifted, rocking her hips side to side slowly, almost like she didn’t even realize she was doing it. “He’s eaten?”
“Yeah. And shit and burped and every fucking thing I can think of. He won’t even take a pacifier.”
The servant was eyeing the baby from a distance. “May I?” she asked him, but glanced at Stolas, who had lingered in his office. The prince nodded but did not return through the portal, though he did let it close.
Blitzø stepped closer so that the servant could take the baby. The moment she moved him, slipping her hands around his torso to lift him away, the wailing began again.
Over the noise, Blitzø shouted, “He’s always like this! I don’t think he’s ever fucking slept.”
If Gwendolyn heard him, she didn’t say so. Blitzø watched as she checked the diaper and tried rocking him. “What do you feed him?” she asked.
Blitzø showed her the bottles and formula (and the other formulas he’d tried). Gwendolyn tried to give him a bottle, but the baby wouldn’t take it.
“Have you done the bicycle?” she asked, raising her voice over the end as the baby shrieked.
First of all, why would he ever take this little asshole on a bike? Second, absolutely not. What kind of weirdo did she think he was?
He watched as Gwendolyn laid the baby on the shitty carpet of his floor on his back. She knelt down beside him and grabbed his little legs. She pumped his legs up and down like the baby was pedaling on a bike. After several moments of this, she straightened his legs out, shook them, then scrunched his knees up to his stomach.
Gwendolyn did it once, twice. On the third time, the baby let out the loudest, longest fart Blitzø had ever heard a baby make—shit, it was bigger than he’d heard most imps make.
“What the fuck?” he laughed.
Gwendolyn glanced up at him with a smile before resuming her bicycling of his legs. “Your little one has gas,” she said.
The toots were quicker, back-to-back. Biting back the desire to roll on the floor and laugh his ass off, Blitzø knelt down beside her. “That’s it? He’s been an asshole because he couldn’t figure out how to let one rip?”
She shrugged, motioning for him to take over. As he did, she said, “Do you swaddle?”
Blitzø got to his feet to retrieve one of the blankets. The bottom drawer of his desk had been co-opted by baby stuff. He dug through the clean diapers and pacifiers and a bunch of bottles—some disgustingly not empty—and found a yellow blanket.
He tugged it out from under the clutter and looked up, only to see Stolas leaning over the desk, watching.
“What?” he asked.
The empty red of his eyes seemed duller somehow. But Blitzø also hadn’t gotten any sleep and everything either seemed too bright or colorless. Stolas straightened up and averted his eyes, turning back to the baby. “You certainly have many baby items,” he said.
Blitzø handed the blanket to Gwendolyn. “Yeah, well, babies need a lot of stuff.”
He crouched down beside Gwendolyn again and watched as she folded the baby into the blanket like a burrito, ignoring the way Stolas stared at him with a hundred fucking questions in those pupiless eyes.
Because that wasn’t his problem anymore. Stolas wasn’t his problem anymore. That had been made very clear by the crystal that was currently sitting on his desk.
Gwendolyn was talking as she finished the baby burrito. “…like this. You need to sleep when he sleeps. He’s going to wake up every two to four hours to eat until he’s a month old. Afterward, you may try to train him to sleep overnight.”
The little shit was glaring at him. His small fists and tail had been pinned to his sides in the wrapping. Gwendolyn picked him up, rocking him. “Implings prefer to be in contact with their caregiver. If you can’t hold him while he sleeps, put him next to a vacuum and turn it on. Some kind of white noise will help him stay asleep.”
That explained Loona’s growling.
Blitzø continued to rock him like Gwendolyn had. The baby continued to glare at him, but his little eyelids were dropping fast. Blitzø had to give it to him, the small asshole in his arms was strong-willed. It was definitely what kept him alive long enough for Blitzø not to run his ass over.
“Purring?” Stolas’s voice cut through his thoughts, startling him.
He jerked his head toward Stolas, jostling the kid, who attempted to hiss at him before falling completely asleep.
Stolas had his face twisted up in a grimace like he was enduring the worst kind of pain.
Well sorry his fucking purring was such an issue. Stolas had never said anything about it before but Blitzø had been dicking him down then. Maybe he didn’t want to tolerate hearing that shit if he wasn’t at least getting fucked out of his mind.
“Yeah,” Blitzø said, wanting more than anything for them to leave so he could lay on the floor with the baby. He rocked back and forth on his feet, mimicking Gwendolyn. “Could do that.”
Gwendolyn didn’t seem to notice. She wrapped her arms around her back, patting her own baby’s bottom as she examined him from boots to horns. “Would you like me to watch him for a bit so you can get some rest? I’m sure the rest of the staff wouldn’t mind having another little one around. Oh!”
She turned to Stolas, looking up and up and up at him. “My apologies. I should have asked first. Would that be alright, Your Highness? I will not let it affect my work.”
Stolas gazed down at her for a moment like he couldn’t comprehend her words, as if he were someplace else entirely because he’d been so bored by the conversation.
Apparently, Blitzø’s whole existence—now bored him.
“It’s whatever,” Blitzø told Gwendolyn. “I’ve got it fine from here.”
Very slowly, Stolas blinked and returned his gaze to Blitzø. “What she says isn’t unreasonable. I do not mind if she assists you. After all, I’m sure you’ve had a rough…you said it has been a few days?”
Honestly, the concept of time seemed like bullshit since he’d had this kid. A few days? A week? Who cared?
“I can handle it,” he said to Stolas instead. “Besides, I don’t have any bottles prepared or—”
“I can do that part,” Gwendolyn said, stepping more into his space, holding out her hands. “Satan knows Graco doesn’t need half the items I bring to work every day.”
Instead of handing the baby over, Blitzø held him closer. “What if you need me?” he asked.
“I will call you,” she said.
“What if someone takes him?” Which was a ridiculous thought since Blitzø literally wanted someone to adopt his ass.
Gwendolyn shook her head. “No one would take him, knowing he was invited here by His Highness.”
His tail flicked. Invited wasn’t the word he would’ve used. Guilted into being allowed to visit, maybe. Coerced. “What if something does happen and you can’t find Stolas to open a portal? It’s going to take forever for me to get there.”
This one actually seemed to stump her. Her tail lifted as if to scratch her own head in thought. “I…highly doubt anything would happen.”
“But if it does?”
Stolas opened a portal to an unfamiliar hallway with several closed doors. “What if you were to take your nap in a guest room? If Gwendolyn needs you, you’ll already be on the premises.”
Blitzø hesitated.
Using magic, Stolas opened one of the closed doors, revealing an invitingly large bed. Blitzø’s resolve began to crumble. The sight of the bed was so promising he began to drool. Crisp sheets that were probably cool to the touch, probably so similar to the ones he’d laid on with Stolas. His skin ached for it. His bones ached for it.
Wiping the drool from his mouth with the back of his hand, he finally agreed. “Okay, but don’t let him out of your sight and come get me if there’s anything—”
“There’s not going to be anything to worry about.” Gwendolyn moved forward again and Blitzø released the baby to her.
“Be careful with him. He likes to try to throw himself out of your hands when he’s mad,” he said, grabbing a plastic bag from the bodega to use as an impromptu diaper bag. He stuffed in two clean bottles and formula and a binkie. Also a few diapers and a change of clothes.
Shit, he should just empty out this whole drawer.
“Don’t worry so much,” Gwendolyn said before he could do it.
He still hesitated but eventually shut the drawer. “Where will you be?” Blitzø asked in case he couldn’t fall asleep or he woke up early or he remembered to tell her something.
“I work in the kitchens,” she said as they stepped through the portal together.
Oh great. Where there was fire and sharp knives.
Stolas followed them, closing the portal when they were all through. He continued to linger in the hallway listening to the conversation but not joining in. Like a real weirdo.
“Do not worry,” Gwendolyn said as if reading his mind. “I am not cooking today. I am on dish duty.”
So the baby could drown. Yeah.
Blitzø bit his tongue. It wasn’t any of his business at the end of the day. Yes, he’d spent a lot of time and money keeping the baby alive but it wasn’t more than that.
The door to the bedroom was still open. He needed to just rip the bandaid off and go in.
A hand settled on his shoulder suddenly and he jerked under the weight.
“Sorry,” Stolas said, pulling back. “I merely meant to assure you that he would be fine.”
Blitzø glanced up at Stolas, finding the expression on his face open and strange. Not pity or irritation, but what Stolas described to him once as melancholy. Something that was gloomy and thoughtful.
Which was fucking weird because Stolas had a boyfriend.
Was he worried that Blitzø being here was going to upset his boyfriend?
Stolas wasn’t even the one really doing the favor. Yeah it was his employee and he was loaning out a bedroom, but it wasn’t anywhere near Stolas’s own room and Stolas probably wouldn’t even see him again. Once his nap was over, Blitzø planned to get the baby and go.
Or maybe ask Gwendolyn if she wanted the baby since she seemed to know what to do with him.
“Yeah,” he said to Stolas. “Thanks.”
Then he went in the room and shut the door.
__
When Blitzø woke up, it was dark in the room, clearly nightfall and he shot up in the bed, disoriented and dizzy from oversleep, but knowing he’d probably also forfeited the fucking baby.
What kind of irresponsible asshole did that?
He shoved his hands under the covers, trying to find his phone, nearly falling head over tail off the edge of the bed after he got it and the time read it was after midnight.
Blitzø grabbed his pants up off the floor, shoving a leg through each hole. Going shirtless, he tucked his shirt and jacket under his arm and hurried to step into his boots.
He flung the door to the bedroom open and did up his pants as he headed down the hall where he thought the kitchens were.
The hallways were empty. The rooms he passed were empty. Everything was dark. When he got to the breakfast nook, no one was around. He kept going, finding his way into the servants’ quarters and the industrial kitchen, but there was nothing. No one.
Where the fuck was the baby?
Blitzø pulled out his phone and dialed Gwendolyn’s number.
“Hello?” a sleepy voice answered.
“Where’s my baby?!” he shouted into the phone. “I’m in the fucking kitchen and no one is here.”
“Um,” Gwendolyn started and cleared her throat. “It is almost…one in the morning. I left hours ago. I sent you a message.”
Blitzø pulled the phone away from his ear and noticed he had several text messages. Shit.
Moxxie, Gwendolyn, Moxxie, Gwendolyn, Millie, Loona, Stolas, and then Moxxie a final time.
Gwendolyn kept talking. “His Highness said he would watch your son until you awoke, but that was hours ago. I dunno—”
Blitzø hung up on her and rushed to put his shirt on, hurrying toward Stolas’s room. He hadn’t left enough bottles or formula, or anything. And fuck, now he was bothering Stolas with more nonsense.
Coming to the bedroom door, he flung it open without a second thought. It was only as he was stepping into the room that he remembered that he needed to knock now especially if Stolas had another Goetia in there that he could’ve been fucking…or getting fucked by.
Thank fuck, he only saw Stolas asleep in the bed on top of the bed, not having gotten under the covers.
Except, as Blitzø got closer, he realized Stolas wasn’t alone. Slightly covered by the hem of Stolas’s black robe, curled up against his stomach, was the sleeping baby. Still in its clothes from earlier and a shittily wrapped swaddle, the impling had two fistfuls of feathers in his grip. Blitzø slowed his walk, not wanting to wake the little screamer. At the edge of the bed, he lifted his tail and tapped Stolas on the shoulder. Two top eyes opened first to slits, then more fully, followed by his lower eyes. He frowned, clearly confused as he looked down at Blitzø.
Who wouldn’t be? Blitzø was not his fucking boyfriend, and he hadn’t been here in months.
Blitzø lifted a finger to his mouth and pointed with his tail down at the baby. Slowly, Stolas blinked and turned his head down to where the impling was stuck to him. For a long moment, he stared at the impling.
Fucking awkward.
“Hey,” Blitzø said.
Stolas blinked, turning his eyes back to him.
“If you open a portal, I’ll take him home,” Blitzø whispered.
Stolas opened his mouth as if he were about to say something. Blitzø steadied himself, tensing, ready to be told off for wasting Stolas’s time or sleeping too long. But the prince just closed his beak and nodded. He inched back on the bed, away from the impling and removed its claws from his feathers one-by-one.
When he was free, Stolas waved a hand to open a portal. The baby attempted to curl tighter and his little arms flailed.
“Allow me to fix his swaddle,” Stolas whispered.
Blitzø pressed his tail to the baby to keep him from rolling off the bed, and moved the rest of his own body out of the way.
With ease and grace, Stolas sat up and maneuvered out of bed without disturbing the impling. He stood at the bedside and rolled the baby onto his back. Blitzø withdrew his tail a bit but let it hover just in case. He watched as Stolas unwound the blanket and tucked the baby’s arms at his sides.
Without fully waking up, the baby kicked and his little tail thwapped, knocking the blanket off again, forcing Stolas to start over. The prince smirked as he tightly tucked the blanket down and in. “Squirmy thing like his father,” Stolas said quietly.
Blitzø grunted and held out his arms as Stolas lifted the baby from the bed and handed him off. Maybe Stolas had looked at the stars or some shit to tell him who the kid’s parents were. That would make things easy. “Who?” he asked.
Stolas’s smile faded a bit as he stared at Blitzø. “Pardon?”
“Who’s his dad?” Blitzø said a little louder so Stolas could hear him better.
A frown creased Stolas’s face as he looked at the sleeping baby and back to Blitzø. “I…Sorry,” Stolas apologized again. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. Is this—Are you perhaps joking?”
The baby stirred and Blitzø started to sway slightly like Gwendolyn had done. “No,” he said, flicking his tail back and forth. “You said he was squirmy like his dad. Kinda need to know who that is.”
The baby in his arms settled but did a little huff.
Stolas was still staring at him, eyes growing wider and wider. “He is not yours?”
Blitzø hadn’t even entertained the idea for a second. “I don’t…” He thought back to the last time he was with anyone with a vagina. There were a few at Queen Bee’s party, but no. He’d been getting things put in him all night. “No,” he settled on. “He’s not.”
And then he nearly jumped out of his boots as Stolas dropped to sit on the bed with a hand over his heart. “Oh,” he said airily. “And his mother?”
“Dunno,” Blitzø said with a shrug. “I found him the other day so I’m just taking care of him ‘til I can find some—”
“Oh,” Stolas said again, clearly not listening. Dazed, his eyes glazed over, unfocused as if Blitzø had broken a piano over the head.
“Yeah…” he drawled. Taking a step back, he turned a shoulder toward the waiting portal. “If you don’t know his dad, I’m just gonna…”
Stolas stood suddenly. “Yes. Yes, I’m sorry to have kept you. It was a…an honor to take care of this little one. If you should ever feel the need again, I would not mind being of assistance.”
Blitz scoffed. “Sure,” he said sarcastically. “Your boyfriend gonna be cool with your ex-fuck buddy hanging around playing house?”
Stolas blinked. “Ah, Vassago.”
Vassago.
Blitzø ground his teeth at the name and tried not to bristle like some tight asshole. “See ya,” he said and turned, stepping through the portal.