Chapter Text
The crazy thing about having a baby and being a family is…being a f*cking family. Something that Blitzø hadn’t done in over a decade.
“Ugh! Daaaaad!” Loona whined from their doorway with that pitchy echo of hound in it, simultaneously addressing them both. “Why won’t she stop crying?” she complained loudly at the ass crack of dawn.
Octavia screeched a truly unholy sound, higher and higher, piercing their eardrums, and Blitzø was 1000% he would’ve had tinnitus from sleeping next to the little beast if, well, he didn’t already have it. Even the neighbors had complained earlier that week and they were living in a single family house now—not a f*cking apartment complex. Blitzø would’ve ended up making heads roll there.
In her extra-large t-shirt and matching pajama shorts, Loona growled and snarled and bared her teeth at the downy chick while Stol unsuccessfully tried to get Octavia to settle down. His feathers were all in disarray and Blitzø just knew that he had fallen asleep in the middle of a divination again last night, which was probably not safe for anyone involved.
“f*ck,” Blitzø mumbled, falling out of bed as he tried to get up. Once on his feet, he grabbed for Loona’s hand, catching her by the forearm. Immediately, she pulled back but at least she followed him out of the room. In silence, they walked down the hall. With half-open eyes, Blitzø caught his hip on the banister for the 100th time as he turned to go down the steps, but at least he didn’t fall this time.
Behind them, magic shut the door and everything became wonderfully silent thanks to the sound barrier. Stol must’ve left the door slightly open when he’d woken up in his study and trudged into their room, after Blitzø had texted him ‘pls tak kidd b4 i die’ because he had already been up half the night with their literal demon spawn.
Apparently having her real feathers come in was itchy and painful and made her want to torture everyone else for it.
Blitzø wandered over to stand by the kitchen counter half-awake. He didn’t even register that Loona had taken the old pot of coffee off its base and chugged it lukewarm. It wasn’t until she was setting it back that Blitzø started to even catch up to that fact.
“Hey—” he started to say as she walked off.
“No,” the preteen responded and stomped back upstairs. A moment later, he heard her door slam shut.
Drawing in a breath, he steeled himself before delivering a sharp smack to the face in an attempt to wake himself. Pain bloomed on the side of his face and his eyes crossed from the force. Problem was the sensation faded quickly, only lasting long enough for him to get the coffee pot set up and turned on.
He realized he was dozing again when his chin dropped forward enough to touch the glass of the scalding coffee pot. “f*ck!” he reeled back, rubbing his chin with one hand.
It wouldn’t scar. He could tell that much at least from how fast the pain receded.
Sighing, Blitzø poured himself a cup and chugged it, black and gross, ignoring how it basically burned away the taste buds on his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Then, he poured a second cup and started to get ready for the day.
Other than Octavia’s late-night screaming matches—she had her mother’s lungs for sure—things had been going good. Kinda. Stol was burning the midnight oil at both ends. Caring for Octavia during the day while doing his princely duties because apparently he didn’t trust anyone.
Not that Blitzø could blame him.
They’d interviewed at least three dozen babysitters and nannies the week after Octavia had hatched and Blitzø killed two of them halfway through the interviews. Then Stol had sent the first one they’d actually hired to the void after she had taken their chick on a drive so she could get Hellbucks with her friend. In their defense, they had explicitly informed her not to leave the house and backyard. Blitzø had gotten an alert on his phone that the front door had opened and checked the cameras. By the time he’d gotten ahold of Stol in his f*cking meeting, he’d already broken into the nanny’s home and was holding her mother at gunpoint.
It took Stol just seconds to locate their chick and, from what he heard in the tabloids, it was not pretty. The prince had arrived at the Hellbucks through a portal, decked out in hellfire black and sinner-blood red. He was a towering display of power, an eldritch being that Blitzø had only gotten glimpses of when Stol got sexy on him in bed.
The videos of the incident at Hellbucks were hot as f*ck. Stol, screeching so loud that he shattered the front windows. He had opened the void and tossed the nanny into it using his beak—after, of course, he’d grabbed Octavia up in his wings.
Octavia had cooed adorably.
So yeah. The rest of the suitable nannies wouldn’t return their calls and Stol had explicitly banned Blitzø from taking Octavia on hits until she was 18.
In the midst of all of this, summer let out at school and Loona wasn’t old enough to stay home alone all day but she also told them she didn’t want to go to summer school. They’d argued with Loona about it for days until Stol realized that he’d missed the deadline for summer camp registration anyway; something Stol had said he would take care of because Blitzø was bad with that sort of thing.
That had been their worst fight yet because Blitzø wanted Stol to use his power as a prince to get her in somewhere—what was being a prince good for if not this stuff?—but Stol tried to say some bullsh*t about having her go to the local hound camp that always had rolling registrations, which was obviously just a front to break hounds into being complacent and cheap labor. It had angered Blitzø to no end because they’d sat through so many f*cking interviews for Octavia and no one was good enough, but, sure, chuck Loona in the first open place they found.
Stol had told him that wasn’t at all what it was about and it turned into a blow up.
“I do not understand, Blitzø! You want her somewhere but not where they are taking applications?! And, when I suggest an alternative—”
“You really think she would be welcome at your f*cking royal assholes program?! You might as well handpick her bullies yourself!” The argument had taken place in the kitchen as Blitzø cooked breakfast and Stol attempted to drink his tea without Octavia tipping it over.
“What would you have me do? Hmm? You want me to pull rank, but not where I actually have power. You seem to have all the answers,” Stol had snapped back, bouncing Octavia who had successfully dipped her talons into the tea.
Blitzø had pointed the spatula at Stol then. “Don’t give me that attitude. You’re the one that hasn’t kicked your wife out. Loona could spend the day at the Palace if your c*nt of a bride had actually moved out. Have you even asked for a divorce? Or is that something else you’re too busy for?”
Stol had stared at him slack-jawed.
Loona had come out of her room and, in shame, they’d both shut their mouths abruptly. Stol had gone up to their room, carrying Octavia and Blitzø had switched off the stove and gone out to the van to give them both some space, where he’d clawed up the seats and shouted out lyrics that he barely knew to a song he didn’t remember.
Because Stol just didn’t get it. He…Five years hadn’t been enough to make him really get what it was like to be at the bottom, and now he was right back at the top: A prince in a tower.
And Blitzø was just a poorly kept secret like Asmodeus f*cking Fizz. People had been talking about them for almost five years. At first, Blitzø brushed it off because anyone with half a brain could understand that it was just business and, maybe, a little pleasure when it came to the whole Robot Fizzie’s scheme. Granted, a weird business that Blitzø couldn’t believe Fizz had bought into after all that sh*t with his fans.
Guess that’s what came with selling out though.
But Stol wasn’t…
f*ck.
The fight between them, the energy of it, had lingered even though neither of them had said another word about it, including to apologize. Not that Blitzø had anything to apologize for. He wasn’t wrong, he’d just been rude.
Plus they had bigger sh*t to deal with. Octavia had needed to sleep—which she did not figure out—and Loona had needed summer camp—which was figured out—and Stol had meeting after meeting.
And it was a lot. And it was balanced and Blitzø didn’t want to f*ck it up. And things were fine. They’d even f*cked in the weeks afterward.
Maybe f*cked was the wrong word.
Sleepily got off on each other.
And, if Stol never got divorced, Blitzø was still gonna be there. He loved Stol. Not to mention that Loona loved him and Octavia needed Blitzø because there was no way Stol could do it alone.
And things weren’t always easy in families. People argued. He and Barbie used to argue. He and Fizz used to…well, that was different.
“Sir,” Moxie cut through his thoughts. “Please pay attention. We have to move in—”
Behind the pallets of construction materials, Blitzø adjusted the hold on his pistol, lifting it back up. “I’m paying atten—” He pulled the trigger.
Welp. Their cover was blown.
They scrambled through the muddy construction site, tracking their three targets and split as the three targets split. Wind whipped through the place, slipping through the open tarps. Blitzø turned a corner, barely missing a steel beam. A loud clatter, like steel pipes falling, echoed across the property and Millie’s conquering whoop followed.
One down.
Blitzø had eyes on his guy, a spray of black hair that bobbed toward an exit, but Blitzø was gaining on him. He fired a shot, missing the guy. The dude stumbled over a bucket of nails, overturning it, and knocked down a ladder, which just missed braining the idiot. The ass reached the door and Blitzø leapt over the ladder, firing again.
Missing again because he stumbled over that same f*cking bucket.
Meaning he had to follow the jerk out into the mud and the rain. Which, fine, that was his job. A few other shots went off inside the building, the tight sound of Moxxie’s pistols with their silencers.
Hopefully two down. One to go.
The guy ran for a white pickup, skidding to a stop, smacking into the door but opening it. He was inside before Blitzø got off his next shot, which missed its original mark but blew out a tire. The guy hit the gas. The wheels spun, throwing up mud—covering Blitzø from head to hoof—but the truck went nowhere and Blitzø emptied the rest of his clip into the asshole just for that.
By the time M&M caught up, Blitzø already had the portal opened and successfully ignored whatever sh*t Moxxie was about to give him. Tracking mud into the office, they went straight to the kitchenette to give themselves sink showers.
“Hey, honey,” Millie cooed to Moxxie, running her hands over his shoulders. The two of them had been getting too sugary sweet with each other lately and it was on his last nerve some days. “Can you get us some more paper towels from the storage closet? This’s the last one.”
“Sure, honey,” Moxxie responded amiably as if he hadn’t been about to give Blitzø sh*t for not refilling them when he’d mentioned it yesterday. He’d seen the way Moxxie’s tail flicked irritably.
As soon as the door swung shut, Millie turned on him. “You look tired, B.”
He scoffed, stuffing his head under the running water as far as he could go with his horns. He’d been covered the worst of the three of them by far. When he brought his head back out, dripping wet down his face, he lifted the t-shirt that he’d worn under his turtleneck to wipe it. Millie was still there, waiting.
“What?”
“You sleeping?” she asked.
He flicked water at her from his claws and a bit of mud from his tail.
She frowned at him.
Finally, he responded with a large smile and a shrug. “You know me, Mills. Been tired as long as me and you known each other.”
“Not like this.” Her voice was quiet.
Blitzø shifted his weight, the smile flickering as something sharp ran up through his hoof, a stinging pain. Stepping out of his boots, he turned it over to try to get whatever it was out and answered, “Via’s not sleeping.”
Only more mud fell from his boot to the floor.
“Want us to take her?” Millie asked. “For a night? Them both even?”
Stol would never agree. Millie lived in Imp City and Octavia was a Goetian princess. Stol had chosen a fancy home in a fancy neighborhood for a reason. Moxxie walked back in with a stack of paper towels up to his horns. Blitzø stuck his tail out and took two of the stacks, kicking the paper towel dispenser open with his hoof. The zing was sharper.
“I’ll ask him,” he finally answered Millie as he shoved the paper towels in.
Moxxie tore open a package, doling out a few to Millie. “Ask who what?”
“Nothing,” Blitzø answered before Millie could. “Let’s get back to work.”
***
“Yes,” Stol answered before Blitzø had finished asking the question. “When?”
The evening was warm and the windows to the backyard were open. Loona had been put to bed hours ago and Blitzø had crashed immediately. Until he’d woke up alone and wandered down the stairs to find Stol on the couch with Octavia and Stol just looked so tired, half-awake, cradling the chick in his arms, staring out the open windows.
The TV wasn’t even on.
So he’d asked about what Millie had said even though he hadn’t planned to because he’d been so sure of the answer.
Blinking, taken aback by Stol’s answer, Blitzø dropped onto the couch next to them. “Are you out of your mind?”
In his arms, Stol rocked Octavia slightly. The chick breathed deeply in and out. Blitzø leaned his head on Stol’s thin shoulder to gaze down at her. He reached out with one claw and brushed over one of her newer feathers. She squirmed, turned her head, and bit down on his claw but stayed asleep.
“She’s only been sleeping when I hold her,” Stol murmured and whether that was just an observation or an explanation as to why Stol was suddenly okay with their baby staying overnight and slumming it up—
“Do not,” Stol interjected. His feathers were in disarray and Blitzø couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to help Stol preen. “Blitzø, I am so exhausted and I cannot…”
Octavia released his claw with a huff and returned her face back into the long feathers of Stol’s chest. Stol sighed, his eyes blinking out of sync. He turned and pressed his face into the top of Blitzø’s head. “We’ve entrusted Loona to her before.”
“Yeah.”
“Then, it’s settled?”
“Kay.”
