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Blitzø has never been a morning person, but this morning in particular is turning out to be spectacularly terrible even in the grand scheme of mornings. Someone (definitely not him, not in the wee hours of last night when he’d felt a wave of self-loathing that only a bowl of Sinnamon Toast Crunch could stave off) had drank the last of the milk in the refrigerator, leaving him with the breakfast options of a single stale and dusty protein bar from the back of the cabinet or fuck-all; he’d tripped and banged his knee on the edge of the couch trying to get his boots on, and the good coffee shop by the apartment was closed due to, according to the cleaning crew hustling potential customers away, a very messy corpse left in the cafe overnight. Like most people would let a little dripping viscera or decomposition stench get between them and their daily shot of caffeine. Pfft.
So, yeah, he’s in a miserable mood by the time he skids his van into its usual parking spot, a little too carelessly - his front bumper hitting the graffitied side of the office building just hard enough to put the tiniest of wrinkles in the metal and a crack in one headlight. Sure, the I.M.P company van ain’t in great condition to begin with, but come on . Add the dread of a potential repair bill to the scant few sips of ice coffee (from the only semi-acceptable place five minutes out of the fucking way) and crumbly, unsatisfying granola sitting in his stomach. God, all he wants is to just get to his office, slam the door, kick his feet up on the desk and mentally restart this shit-ass day before he has to deal with any other annoyances.
Grumbling a string of barely coherent curse words below his breath, he pushes in through the front doors of the building, groaning to himself when he sees that the singular currently functioning elevator is sliding closed faster than he’d be able to reach it without magically developing some sort of on-the-spot superspeed skill. Of all the things to still work at a semi-decent speed, it can’t be the elevators themselves, of course not - he’d timed, okay, had Moxxie time them a few weeks back, and the average that he’d come to was that it took about two minutes between floors. Each. Singular. Floor. Not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but for an elevator? Seriously? No, it’s the doors, which have always had an annoying habit of slamming shut on your tail or your ankle way harder than you’d expect. Those function great. Of course.
He’s so grateful when a hand shoots out to catch the doors before they close entirely, so hopeful for one bright spot in the absolute trash heap that his day has been thus far, that he doesn’t even notice how familiar the hand looks. Not Millie-or-Moxx familiar. Not any-of-his-employees-familiar, in fact. The fact that the hand is fucking pink doesn’t even tip him off, which is probably why that little spot of light narrows to sour darkness so quickly once he darts inside and sees just who’s helping hand he’s been lent.
“Ugh, I thought it smelled like bitch in here,” he snaps, before the would-be savior of his morning can get a word in.
“ Oh Satan’s fucking ass-crack, ” Verosika groans, “not you .”
Again: of course. Of all the hellholes in all the world, his famous ex-girlfriend, fresh off rattling off a laundry list of his worst qualities to a club chock-full of gossipy Lust ring bitches - and his former best friend who already has every reason to hate him, and the guy he’s fucking - had to strut into his.
“Yeah, well.” Blitzø reaches past her to jab at the seventh-floor button. “Seeing you isn’t exactly a breath of fresh air either. More like a breath of fishy-”
“What about ‘not you’ makes you think I want to talk to you right now, jackass?” Verosika shrugs the strap of her purse back over her shoulder with a vengeance. “I’ve got a great idea, why don’t you pull your dick out of your mouth and keep it shut for five minutes? Your voice is giving me a fucking headache.”
He’d love to have the strength of character to refuse to acknowledge her at all, to keep his mouth shut not because of any demands but because he’s the bigger, badder person here, to keep his eyes firmly on the doors until he’s able to make his esca- walk away like a badass , like a real cool guy who doesn’t look at explosions or overrated, washed-up succubi, but, well. You know. Succubus magnetism and all that. Also, she’s still Verosika Mayday , and even if he wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole anymore, she’s still ungodly (ha, ha) hot.
She’s less full-bore pop-star Verosika today than usual, though. There’s not an ounce of glitter on her anywhere except the rims of her oversized shades, and though her shorts are still shrink-wrapped onto her body and leave very little to the imagination, she’s got on an oversized hoodie that possibly isn’t even designer and a pair of fuzzy boots that definitely aren’t high-heeled. Ughs, or something. Some old human trend that’s cycled back around down here, but definitely not the usual Verosika footwear. The uncharitable, louder part of him hopes that she’s underdressed because she’s sick with, he doesn’t know, Royal Bitch Disease, or something like that. Although in her case, that might be chronic.
The quieter part of him that he immediately does his best to shut down entirely reminds him that the last time he saw her in something this casual was when she’d chased his ass - and her car - down to end things between them for good.
Seeing that she’s caught him looking, he gives her a quick, pointed one-over, scrunching his face up in faux concern. “Aw, what’s the matter, Vewwoskia ? Hangover? Withdwawal ?”
“Fuck you,” she bites back, flopping against the elevator wall and giving it a half-hearted pound with her fist. “Like I want to talk to you about- can’t this thing go any faster ?”
“Shoulda thought about that before you came to slum it here with the likes of us,” Blitzø tells her with a smug smile punctuated by an ever smugger slurp of his iced coffee. “Anyway, like you weren’t talking about me enough at-”
And that’s when the floor shakes so violently it steals the words right from his mouth. Makes him lose his balance and slam against the wall, for good measure, clacking his teeth together hard enough to hurt and nearly causing him to drop his drink. “What the actual shit ,” he barks the moment there’s enough air back in his lungs to speak, “was that .”
At least Verosika has the decency to look a little bit shaken, as well. Her sunglasses sit askew halfway down her nose, and she glares at him as she readjusts them. Not fast enough that he doesn’t notice her eyeliner wings are uneven, another very un-Verosika look. She’d used to have him measure them for her before she went onstage. He’d always roll his eyes, tell her this wasn’t exactly regular bodyguard duties, was it, and she’d always respond either that she was no regular bitch, was she, or that what they got up to in her dressing room after the show wasn’t exactly regular duties, either, both of which were pretty hard to argue with.
“What’s the weight limit on this thing?” She prods at the floor with her boot. “Maybe something broke ‘cause you dragged your overinflated ego on here.”
“You sure it wasn’t your oversized liver?”
She flips him the bird and pokes at the “open door” button, harder than strictly necessary. “Fucking open already.”
It doesn’t.
The numbered buttons for each floor produce the same result, and the emergency call button doesn’t even bother lighting up. Which makes sense. The last time Blitzø’s seen a repair crew actually come out to fix anything in the building was… wait, actually, he’s not sure he’s ever seen a repair crew in the building, period. He’s had to hire outside contractors (and pay out the ass, by the way) every time something’s come crashing through his office walls. Expensive and annoying.
Kind of like Verosika. Ha.
Verosika, who’s currently kicking the wall in frustration, like that’s going to somehow jar the doors back to life. Truth be told, despite his own desire to get out of any confined space he has to share with her, and the absolutely rancid vibes she’s emanating, seeing the pop idol lose her composure is pretty funny. He should take a video of this, really. Star Succubitch Assaults Lousy Lift. At the very least, it might get a few likes on his socials, anything that gets his name and I.M.P’s out there, but when he checks his phone there isn’t a single bar of connection available. Instead, he flops down to the floor, watching her efforts with a cocked eyebrow until her mini-tantrum finally burns itself out and, with one last close-mouthed scream, she slides to a seat at the corner opposite him.
“Fuck my entire life,” she mutters, pouting and holding her arms emphatically.
“Well, that’s about the only thing you haven’t fucked yet,” Blitzø offers, playing at the helpful friend. “Might as well give it a try.”
She doesn’t dignify that with a response, tapping at her phone half-heartedly. She must not be getting any service, either, because she lets it fall to the floor beside her with an aggrieved sigh after a moment. “Just what I need. I’m late, I’m hungover to fuck, and I’m stuck in here with you ‘cause management won’t spring for a temp office that isn’t literally falling apart.”
“HA! Called it, you fuckin’ lush.”
“Like you aren’t still getting blackout every time someone hurts your pwecious feewings .” Ugh, the mocking baby voice isn’t half as funny when she turns it back against him. “How many bottles did you down after things went south with your fancy boytoy at Ozzie’s again?”
“Oh, like that’s any of your business.” A full keg, plus every drink he’d been handed that night, and a few he’d snagged half-drunk , but who’s counting? It’s not like she has any right to know that he’d gone home afterwards, and cried, and then thrown up, and then cried some more for good measure. “And like you helped with any of that clusterfuck, jumping in and telling half of Hell that I don’t eat pussy, which isn’t even true , by the way, if you remember-”
Her laugh is sharp enough to slice the air between them. “Oh, yeah, I remember.” Her frown has twisted into a bitterly amused smile. “I remember how you stopped doing that the moment you decided that you were checked out of our relationship. I remember finding you in bed with two of my backup dancers at the same time , and I still kept giving you chances. And you bet your stupid scrawny ass I remember you totaling my car and ruining my credit because you couldn’t just nut up and say you were done. No, it had to be my fault, because you couldn’t be a goddamn adult and take responsibility for your shit and you needed someone to blame!”
Fucking hell .
That’s possibly the most words he’s ever heard out of Verosika at once. Definitely the most that weren’t her talking shit about an insufficiently reverent assistant or another celebrity who’d taken even a fraction of her spotlight, and way more than she’d spared him when she’d torn into Wrath in a rented sportscar to tell him she never wanted to see his face again unless it was printed alongside his obituary.
“My ass is not scrawny,” he says, because it’s the only way he can think of to respond to… all of that.
“Bitch, please.” Verosika draws her knees up to her chest, resting her folded arms atop them. She almost seems a little bit exhausted from her outburst, Blitzø thinks, or she would if she was the type of person with feelings, which of course she isn’t. She’s a stone-cold, skin-deep pop-star jerkwad . “No amount of pilates is putting any amount of meat on that thing.”
Okay, if she’s just going to leave the opportunity hanging out there, of course he has to take it. “I’ve had plenty of meat on this thing, I’ll have you know.”
“The chicken nugget crumbs on your bed while you cry and jack off to cowboy porn don’t count.”
“I don’t - there aren’t chicken nugget crumbs on my bed .” Technically, he doesn’t have a bed. It’s a couch, thank you very much. And he goes into the bathroom to jack off like a responsible person since he’d adopted Loona, because he’s not trying to traumatize his teenage daughter any more than she already has been, thank you very much .
“Right. I forgot you moved onto bigger and better things.” Even through the shades he can see that she’s rolling her eyes sky-high. “Royal-er things.”
Blitzø shoots her what he hopes is the kind of look that Shuts Lines Of Conversation Down Entirely. Not that he really believes it will. Verosika’s like a hellhound on a bone sometimes when it comes to this shit. (Or, well, a succubus on a boner, ha-ha-ha.) “I cannot even begin to count the ways that isn’t any of your business.”
“Uh, I don’t know if you’ve been online since that night, but it’s pretty much everybody’s business since you showed up with an actual fucking prince as your date.”
“He wasn’t my-” He scrubs a hand over his face, like he can scrub the memories that brings to the surface from his mind. Goodnight, Blitzø. Not even the stupid, cutesy diminutive version Stolas always uses otherwise, which he totally hasn’t grown grudgingly fond of or anything. The way Stolas had watched him pull away with a kicked-puppy look on his face that would have made him feel horribly guilty if he’d truly believed, for even a fraction of a second, that the man wanted him around to… talk, like he’d claimed. Cuddle. Whatever. It’s fine, he’s fine. They’re fine. When the next full moon rolls around, they’ll do what they always do, and Stolas will get his cheap little thrill out of it, and the grimoire will change hands and rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat until the novelty of taking it from the lower class for once instead of vice-versa eventually wears off. “It wasn’t a date.”
Verosika barks out a little laugh. “You think he knew that?”
“Course he did. He was just - you know - pretending it’s a thing to make me feel better. Probably thought I was too stupid to realize that.”
“Well, you are pretty fucking stupid.”
Blitzø very seriously considers whipping his now-empty iced coffee cup at her head.
“And for once I don’t mean that as an insult, dick-for-brains.” She stops, cocks her head a smidge. “Not entirely, anyway. Did you even bother to look at him?”
Yeah, Verosika, I pretty fucking clearly saw him try to hide the moment anyone important realized that we were together. There together. Not together-together. ‘Cause no way in Hell… anyway.
“You don’t think all those Goetia bastards fuck around? Like, all the time? You think he would have freaked out that bad if you were just another meaningless piece of ass to him?”
“There’s a piece of ass and then there’s slumming it. I don’t blame him for being ashamed to be seen with me.”
Verosika groans. “Youuuuu… are so fucking dumb. And I can’t believe I’m sitting here trying to e xplain your own romantic life to you like I’m some sort of ridiculously beautiful and talented therapist.”
“Don’t quit your day job.” Now it’s his turn for the big eye-roll. “Not everyone has people falling all over their dick with their powers, remember? That’s just you people. It’s not your business, and it’s not even a big deal. It’s… an arrangement. It’s a business transaction .”
“Yeah, sure.” At some point, she’s twisted her body around so she’s laying on the floor, kicked her legs up against the elevator wall, and she tilts her head to look at him. “Just don’t blow his shit up ‘cause you’re too scared to admit you care about him or anything.”
“Oh, what the fuck would you know about it?” Damn, he wishes his gun wasn’t up in his office. He’d fully shoot out the ceiling to get free of this conversation.
“ Because you did it to me, you absolute moron. ”
Memory knifes ice-hot into his gut hard enough to make him ball his hands into fists. “I didn’t…” He coughs, clears his throat. “That’s cute, you think I cared. Self-important, much?”
“Hey, Blitzø?” She narrows her eyes at him over her shades. “For someone who does it literally all the time , you’ve always been awful at lying.”
There’s nothing he can really say to that without sounding incredibly whiny - am nooot! - so he doesn’t, opting to focus very intently on swirling the slowly melting ice cubes in his cup from side to side.
“You know when you started acting like a total- well, more of a total douche than you normally are?”
No, why don’t you fuckin’ enlighten me.
“Halfway through the tattoo.”
Almost subconsciously, her hand goes to her shoulder, resting just at the spot where, beneath her hoodie, beneath an X tattooed hard enough to raise a scar on her skin, his name lies curled in the confines of a heart. It hadn’t been planned, really. They’d been drunk on adrenaline and, yeah, a few nips of some hot pink abomination from the hotel minibar, tearing through the streets on a motorcycle he’d end up crashing into a dumpster a few weeks later, and nearly shredded the wheels skidding to a stop in front of the neon lights of a tattoo parlor. They’d thought it would be hilarious to get each other’s names inked, and it had been. At first. At least for him. Somewhere around the T of his name looping its way onto her arm, he’d started to feel itchy. Like he couldn’t breathe in all the way. No amount of fidgeting or rounds of Soulitaire on his phone helped burn away the sensation. He’d gone outside, smoked a cigarette - cause, sure, that was gonna help him breathe better - and by the time he’d forced himself back inside, Blitz was permanently inked into her arm and the artist was changing out their needles to start in on him. One singular sloping line of a V into his hip and he’d hopped up, nearly knocking Verosika over, and made up a serious stomach emergency that had allowed him to wriggle out the tiny bathroom window and gone back to finish clearing out the minibar instead.
Verosika had only laughed when she’d made it back, called him a pussy for not even being able to take a little tiny tattoo, and that had been it. But, in retrospect. Yeah. That was when things had started to go downhill. That was when he’d started purposefully picking fights, barely bothering to hide his scrolling through hook-up apps, and generally being more of a piece of shit boyfriend than usual, all culminating in the aforementioned stolen car/ruined credit/screaming breakup incident.
“I was right then.” She laughs, humorless. “You are a pussy. Just not because of any stupid tattoo. The fucking second you thought things were getting serious, that you thought I meant enough to hurt you someday, you were out.”
“Thanks, Verosika. Any other scathing hot takes on what a garbage boyfriend I was to you?”
“Shut up, I’m trying to help you here. Not that you deserve it.” She rolls herself back upright into a sitting position, her hair falling back into place like a whole-ass shampoo commercial of pink. “You’re not exactly subtle. That look on your face. You think you’re so great at hiding it, but you’re really not.”
“Oh, yeah? What look ?” The look Blitzø is giving her now is, he hopes, withering. Derisive enough that she hopefully doesn’t notice how close he is to scaling the goddamn elevator walls to keep her from making any other Observations.
“The ‘I’m gonna burn this all down before you try to leave’ look. The stupid, self-sabotaging bastard look you have right fucking now, actually.” (He scrubs at his face with the back of one gloved hand a second time, wondering what the difference between this particular ‘look’ and the dozens of other variations on a frown his features are most used to giving.) “Yeah, that one. Too bad, Blitz, no window for you to climb out this time.”
He kicks half-heartedly at the doors, wishing more than anything he had some way to make one. Or maybe throw himself down the elevator shaft. Maybe he could beat himself unconscious slamming his head into the wall? No, Verosika would probably stop him just so she could continue tearing into him, because she’s a miserable cu- okay, because she has every reason to hate him, and he, personally, hates that she’s bringing that though to the surface when he’s been trying to hard to shove it down to where he doesn’t have to think about it at all. Also, his head is pretty hard, so that might not work anyway.
“I’m not even trying to be a bitch.” She shrugs. “No more than usual . I mean, still fuck you and everything, but my life isn’t over just because some guy couldn’t handle me and decided to ghost, y’know? I’m hot and famous and everybody wants a piece of me, so… it’s whatever.”
Holy shit, Blitzø thinks, that trip to rehab really has changed her. Maybe. Or maybe the… what’s the opposite of rose-colored? The spite-lensed glasses he’s been looking at her through since the break-up have slipped just enough that she’s starting to look less like the personification of all that is shallow and evil and more like Verosika , without any of that self-imposed baggage he’s been toting around over her.
“I just don’t know about that Stolas guy. He looks like a-” She holds up finger quotes. “ Sensitive soul. Or… whatever. So maybe just cut him loose and tell him up front if you’re going to cut and run eventually anyway.”
Thank fucking Satan, that’s when the elevator jerks back to life with a grinding groan of metal on metal that makes them both grit their teeth. The relief is so great that it takes real effort for Blitzø to stand up, dusting grime from the floor off his coat, instead of literally jumping up and down with glee. Sweet fucking freedom, finally; air that, while it might not be fresh, considering the air rarely is in this part of town, doesn’t smell like Verosika Mayday’s perfume and taste like an apology trying to creep up the back of his throat.
“Or,” she adds, since apparently she can’t just shut up and be grateful for like five whole seconds , “You can grow a pair and stick it out with someone who - Satan knows why - like your dumb ass.”
“Sure he does,” Blitzø says, already sliding between the opening doors as she’s still getting to her feet. “Gee, it’s been real lovely, by which I mean literal fucking torment, but I’ve got to go now. Maybe slather myself in hand sanitizer. Or bleach! Have a nice life!”
She shoulders her purse again, spins away on her heel with a toss of her hair that he knows for a fact she practices in the mirror every morning. Used to, anyway. “Screw you too. Next time take the goddamn stairs.”
He’s got the door to the I.M.P lobby halfway open - he’s never been so relieved to make it to work, ever - when she volleys her parting shot down the hallway.
“Hey, Blitzø!”
His grip on the doorknob tightens hard enough that he swears he feels the cheap metal give a little beneath his hand.
“If he doesn’t like you, then what the fuck are you so scared of?”
Moxxie and Millie both jump when he slams the door behind him, rattling the hinges. (Loona’s too cool to join in, apparently, though her ears perk up momentarily before she realizes it’s just him.)
“You’re late,” Moxxie tells him, as if he doesn’t already know, and as if he isn’t on Blitzø’s payroll so what does it matter to him anyway!
At the same time: “Who were you yelling at out there?” Millie asks. “Did you slip on that dang broken tile again?”
“No offense, but does it look like I want to talk about it?” He tosses his coat on Loona’s desk, which she promptly flicks away so that it slides onto the floor. Well, at least it wasn’t her trash can this time. That’s an improvement. “Loony, hold my calls ‘til I say so, okay? Unless someone’s dying. Someone who I give half a shit if they die, I mean. I need a fucking break.”
“But you just got here,” Millie says, furrowing her eyebrows.
The only response she gets is the slam of his office door behind him. Behind it, he can hear Loona presumably shrug and go back to whatever game she’s playing on her phone, can hear Moxxie muttering something that sounds like typical and Millie making some sort of vaguely comforting noises. He all but throws himself into his chair, letting it spin him around to its heart’s content while he leans his head back, staring at the ceiling.
Eventually, he sighs and pulls out his phone, navigating to his most recent text thread with Stolas.
STOLAS [10:52 PM] I’m sorry if anything I said or did may have offended you tonight.
His fingers hover over his keyboard.
im srory i wuz a dick too , he types. Deletes.
wasent excepting any of tht i get it . Delete.
i jst want 2 no what yu want frum m - Absolutely not. Delete.
He drops the phone on his lap, pressing his fingers into his eyes so hard he sees little stars pop up against the blackness of his vision, which of course just makes him think about Stolas more. Fucking stupid. Like space itself belongs to… well, it sort of does, he remembers. Great. No matter what ring of Hell he runs to, whenever he looks up, he’ll be reminded of how that idiot’s face lights up when he sees him, like he’s actually excited; how he laughs at Blitzø’s jokes out of pity and tries to make them back like he’s heard of the concept of this “humor” and doesn’t always quite get it. How he pretends to listen when Blitzø bitches on and on about work and horse-related pipe dreams and how he’s slowly getting Stockholm-syndromed into humming along to the musical soundtracks Moxxie keeps playing whenever he cleans the office.
He twitches like he’s trying to shake the thoughts off his skin.
BLITZØ [9:24 AM] Its wutevs
The “read” notification below Stolas’s message fades away. See, Verosika? If I was a total asshole, I’d just keep him on read. But I didn’t, so - fucking there. Who’s scared now, huh?
He tosses the phone into his desk drawer before Stolas has even a fraction of a chance to respond.