Chapter Text
Emberlynn tightened her hands in her skirt, her lips pressed so tightly together that she could could only press her brand new kitten fangs down on the sensitive skin behind them. She squirmed, a keen- no, a squee building in her throat as she listened to the demon prince- an actual demon prince!- lecture her. Her mind couldn’t latch onto any singular word he said, too focused on the movement of his lips- no his beak- as he spoke, refusing to release the hold on the spell that sealed her voice because she’d cut in too many times. She couldn’t be blamed for wanting to interrupt him. His accent was so… so… seductive.
“And I understand you’re smitten with him, Ms. Pinkle,” she caught him saying when her mind finally came back down from her latest fantasy of some supernatural dark academia setting- him the serious, but sensitive professor and she the eager, innocent student in need of discipline. She squirmed again, pressing her thighs tightly together and shifted her hands to grip the edge of the chair instead. “But he isn’t… fond of that sort of attention. I learned that the hard way.”
The implication in his words hit her like a freight train, startling her enough to tear the spell from her. She suddenly blurted out, “Y-you and Blitzy-kun were together?”
Stolas jerked back as stunned by her tearing apart his spell as she was by this game changer of a revelation. “Ah. Well. Together is a complicated way to phrase that, but I suppose in some way… yes. We were.”
Tragedy. It was written on his face as plain as anything. Emberlynn wrote too much whump in her days as a BNF in the Toxic Masculinity For Demon Hunters fandom before she discovered anime. The yaoi sparkles drifted off of her. If she could summon cherry blossoms, she would have.
“What happened to end your love affair, my sweet prince?” She flung herself across the distance between them, pressing her hands onto his knees to balance herself as she tried to stare into his eyes. He leaned back and away from her. “Do you need the soothing hand of a tender lover to heal your broken heart?” She gasped, her tail lashing behind her and pressed a hand to her mouth, her other flailing to try to touch his beak to quiet him, but he was leaning too far out of her minimal reach for it to be more than the whisper of an idea. Kyaaaa, the height difference!
“Oh no, I mustn’t. It would truly break Blitzy-kun’s heart for his most special concubine to be intimate with his dashing, regal ex. But it also might make him jealous! Yes, yes, insane with jealousy. He would realize what he was missing.”
“…I’m not sure I’m following, Ms. Pinkle.”
Emberlynn climbed up into his lap, her mind hopping from point to point with no clear connection to the outside world or anything based in reality. It was part of her process, you know? Seeking all the angles for the perfect narrative. It didn’t have to make sense to anyone but her. “Tell me everything, Stolas-sama. Tell me how Blitzy-kun broke your heart… Or was it circumstance that tore you apart?” Gasp! “That’s it, isn’t it? Ohhh!”
She fainted backwards, her little wings catching her before she hit the ground. “You’re a prince and he’s an assassin and your love can never be! Your family would never approve of you debasing yourself with common peasant dirt.”
Stolas opened his beak, closed it, and sighed. “Well… You’re not wrong, but that is an… oversimplified version of the matter.” He froze and suddenly puffed up his feathers indignantly. “Will you please listen to me? This isn’t about me at all! I only came here because Blitzø asked me to… to talk you down. You’re a Sinner. There’s an entire world of other Sinners in the Pentagram for you to… ah…”
“Fuck?” She said, succinctly, enunciating the word so that it somehow had more syllables.
Another awkward click of his beak. “…Yes. Yes, exactly.”
The conversation derailed- at least in Emberlynn’s mind- from there, her every fantasy and attempt to get more information countered by Stolas offering her a car into Pentagram City, locations she might wish to visit, and so forth. He sealed her lips again and this time she didn’t fight against the spell, lost in her own mind as she pondered how sexy Stolas and Blitzø would look with their tongues battling for dominance in a culmination of all that forbidden lust and sexual tension that was dying to be released. Where had she seen this narrative before? Oh yes! In her own hugely popular Toxic Masculinity for Demon Hunters fanfic epic!
She could see the longing in Stolas’s eyes was so much like the longing she had written countless meta and fanfic about in Babstiel, the angel single-mindedly devoted to Deacon Remington. And Blitzø, himself, had all the hallmarks of self-loathing and anger that made Deacon so much more enticing than his nerdy brother Dan, who tried to be a bad boy with his fairy blood storyline but absolutely couldn’t hold a candle to Deacon’s raw masculinity.
She had written a fanfic so popular that so many people had declared it their personal canon when the show ended with Babstiel being banished to the Shadow World after confessing his love for Deacon and Deacon never even responding (besides some translation discrepancies in the Icelandic dub). And sure, she had haters. DanLuver21 had called her an incest apologist because Dabstiel were basically brothers, but she’d won that Internet argument seven years ago and she would win it again and again.
She could create something so perfect that it would be revered in the eyes of the masses again. And this time it would be different, because it would be real and if the boys she was pressing together like dolls were so grateful to her for making them realize their true love, then perhaps she would be invited into their union. She could see it now- them, the star-crossed lovers and she, the pen of God, Herself (God was a Colleen Hoover expy in the show and maybe in real life too who knows), sandwiched between them, cradling them as they worshiped her body for being the sweet little demon who made certain that they would be together, no matter what society or homophobic network executives said.
She could do it. She could rewrite their story.
All she needed was a pen.
-
A hand shot out, snake-fast, catching the elevator door before it closed. Deacon’s green eyes widened as he watched Babstiel shove it open, his shoulders tensing beneath his trenchcoat. Without even a thought, Deacon’s tongue dragged along his bottom lip as a thought entered his head- those shoulders laid bare with no layers of armor to cover him as he stood over him, prepared to use those deceptively strong hands to pry open his legs-
“Babs,” he said, shaking off the thoughts. They were coming more and more frequently these days, but he couldn’t give into them. He was straight! He didn’t like men! He liked donuts and beer and his jet black Mustang and porn- porn involving nubile women and not strong, stoic angels… “What the fuck, man?”
Babstiel slid into the elevator. It closed behind him. A shift in the air occurred, either the sudden forward motion or something Deacon was afraid to name. “I needed to talk to you.”
“No shit. You could’ve met me on the top floor.”
“I needed to talk to you alone. Without Dan.”
Oh. Deacon snorted. “Listen if this is about the fairy blood-“
“He’s addicted and you know it.”
“Look, man, don’t come in here and tell me how to handle my own brother. I-“
The elevator lurched. Deacon fell forwards, barely avoiding falling flat on his face by Babstiel’s strong arms catching him. The two froze as the lights went out, plunging them into darkness. For a second, Deacon believed that he could kiss Babstiel right now and not even God would see it.
The deep green of the emergency lights kicked on, turning everything a sickly color. Deacon backed away quickly. “The hell was that?”
“The elevator stopped,” Babstiel said, taking the statement literally as he always did.
“No shit. Get us out of here.”
Babstiel reached out to clap a hand on Deacon’s shoulder, but that stomach-churning whoosh of flight never occurred. Deacon blinked. “Having trouble getting your wings up, dude?”
Babstiel frowned. “This isn’t funny, Deacon. This has never happened to me before.”
“Happens to all of us sometimes. They’ve got pills and-“ He glanced up so he didn’t have to get all gooey about how cute Babs looked when he was indignant and that was when he saw it- the inverted Seal of Solomon painted on the ceiling.
They were trapped.
-
“Takin’ the elevator up to work, gonna kill some bitches while I twerk~” Blitzø sang idly to himself, shaking his tail as he stepped onto the elevator. “Fuck yeah, I found something to rhyme with work- fuck now I have to do it again~”
Just as he was struggling to figure out how to bypass his fucked up rhyme and get his rhythm going again, the closing door suddenly stopped. Blitzø reached for the close door button. “You had your chance, asshole, this one’s occupied.”
The door fought for its life against the strength of the person trying to pry it open and Blitzø blinked, recognizing those feathered hands. “Wait. Stolas?” He pressed the hold button and in stumbled the Goetia Prince himself, disheveled and panting.
“Thank you,” he wheezed. The door closed behind him as he began the process of unruffling his feathers. “I, uh… I wanted to tell you that I spoke to Emberlynn the other day as you asked.”
Blitzø blinked again, more slow and frog-like this time. “And you couldn’t just shoot me a text?”
“I-“ Stolas frowned, his beak clicking. “Huh. I don’t know why I didn’t, actually. It felt awfully important to tell you in person.”
“Great.” He leaned against the elevator as it carried them upwards. “Well, what happened? Is she gonna get off my ass?”
“She seemed… amenable to the Pentagram, though I must admit it felt like she wasn’t really listening to me at the end.”
That got a scoff out of him. Shocker. The creepy stalker bitch with her own insane internal narrative made up her own narrative. In other news, Wrath was as dry as Stolas’s ex-wife’s feathery snatch. “No shit. Did she start writing creepy fanfic about your life together mid-conversation?”
“Well, actually… She seemed more preoccupied with…” Stolas paused to scratch the feathers beneath his beak. “… Us.”
“Us?!” Blitzø blurted seconds before the elevator jerked so hard, he hit the ceiling and when he came down it was right into Stolas’s arms. To his credit, he didn’t drop him, even when he squirmed and hissed like a feral animal at the interruption. “The fuck was that?!”
“The elevator stopped.” No shit, detective. Stolas, puzzled, leaned over to the panel where all the lights had ceased blinking. “Is that normal? I know this area of Pride is a bit lackluster-“
A hot coal of rage settled itself in Blitzø’s chest and rather than ignore it like part of him wanted to- because part of him knew Stolas didn’t say it to be a prick- the loudest, most visceral side of himself just had to fan it. “Oh yeah, lackluster. Tell me again how I’m from the shithole of Hell and it doesn’t fit your hoity-toity sensibilities.”
“That isn’t what I meant!” Stolas snapped, dropping him as if he was as scalding as he genuinely felt he was, in order to throw up his hands. “Why do you always assume the worst of everyone?”
“’Cause it’s cheaper than the therapy bills when you realize nobody’s got a best in Hell.” It was a lie, sharp and acidic on his tongue. He’d seen the best in Hell- maybe even contributed to some of it on good days, but it didn’t last. Eventually, it all fell to shit. The best anyone could do was put another veneer of glitter over it and ignore every second the wallpaper started peeling.
“I’m not going to stand here and listen to you grouse about how miserable you are when you know so much of it is self-inflicted. I can’t keep having this conversation with you!” Stolas puffed up his feathers, indignantly, and traced a circle in the air.
It did nothing.
The fire immediately went out of their argument, like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
“Um. That’s odd.” A soft hoot of surprise- and fuck that was cute- burst from Stolas’s throat as he tried to laugh it off as just a little quirk of him being flustered and agitated. He tried again and received little more for his efforts than a few errant sparks. “What is this elevator made of?”
“I dunno. Normal elevator shit?” Steel and things that probably weren’t restrictive to Goetia magic unless his princely sensibilities were offended by cheaply made bullshit by the lowest bidder and refused to cooperate. Not that it had never stopped him from getting into the building. Maybe it was just the elevator that hated him.
Blitzø rolled his eyes upwards as Stolas continued to fail and produce a portal, and found himself staring at a neon green sigil that he’d never noticed before. No, that definitely wasn’t always there. He’d climbed up on the roof of the elevator before for shits and giggles and would have definitely seen it if it had been. “Huh. Well that looks like some weird magic-y shit.”
Stolas followed his gaze and let out a tiny squawk of surprise. “Oh! I’m… not familiar with that, actually. It looks like a Seal of Solomon, but all of the sigils are inverted. Fascinating.” He circled it for a moment and then stood on his tiptoes in order to press a hand to it. It sparked violently and forced him to draw back with a pained yelp.
Despite every smoldering, angry coal in his belly, Blitzø rushed to Stolas’s side to check him over for injury. It was all on instinct and the second he realized he was doing it, he flinched back to the opposite corner, eyeing the Goetia as he shook out his singed hand. He was fine. Nothing to worry about and if there was something to worry about, it wouldn’t be on him.
“That’s unfortunate.” Another, far more nervous, laugh bubbled out of Stolas’s throat, chased by a few anxiety-riddled hoots. “I believe we might be trapped.”