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Andrealphus pinched the bridge of his nose and wished, for the third time that hour, that he had cracked Stella’s egg before she had the chance to form. Yes, she was his sister. Yes, he loved her, in the way you had to love a sibling. But seven hells was the woman hard work.
“What is that fucker thinking, hiring Farriel for counsel? Does he think I’m trying to take everything he owns?”
“Well, yes, I imagine he does. Because that is what you are trying to do,” Andrealphus replied flatly as his sister stormed around the large kitchen like an overgrown toddler. Stella had come off of a phone call with one of her bird-brained friends in a more foul mood than usual, as word spread through the Goetian court that Stolas had obtained the best possible legal representation for the divorce proceedings. Andrealphus didn’t think he had needed to explain to Stella that Stolas would, of course, need legal advice in the same way that she had sought it, but apparently assuming that his sister was capable even of this minimal level of understanding was an oversight. He just hoped he could calm her down before she broke another plate.
“Stella, it will be fine. He was always going to need counsel. It doesn’t matter, he publically cheated, and you will win.”
Stella stopped in her pacing to face Andrealphus with a withering stare.
“I better. I’m taking that prick for everything he is worth. He thinks he can cheat on me! Me! As if he wasn’t so unsatisfactory in bed that I had to take multiple lovers just to stomach looking at his bland fucking face-“
“Yes, well,” Andrealphus drawled, interrupting the tirade he knew was coming, “let’s not make a habit of mentioning that. We’re trying to make you look sympathetic, darling.”
Stella snapped her beak shut and huffed a little, but she did, mercifully, stop talking. All they had to do was prove Stolas had cheated, which shouldn’t be hard, given the idiot wore his heart on his sleeve so demonstrably. This would be simple, provided Stella didn’t make it more difficult than she needed to. But as his sister smashed another piece of crockery, he prayed for the strength to make it through the trial without catching a charge himself.
——-
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m hearing you correctly.”
The lawyer who was sat at the opposite end of the long table shuffled his papers and sighed, adjusting the tiny circular spectacles that perched on the very end of his nose. To his left sat Stolas, pale and withdrawn. Andrealphus hadn’t expected him to attend. It wasn’t necessary, and for that reason Stella was still at the palace, but Stolas had chosen to sit in on this meeting instead of sending a proxy.
“I was saying, Marquis Andrealphus, that as the divorce proceedings are already under way, we would need proof of adultery in order to proceed on those grounds. As it stands, Stolas of the Ars Goetia has submitted an application for a no-contest divorce, entitling Stella to half of his assets, which I’m sure you understand is more than generous.”
“And what of the torment my sister has been subject to? Surely she deserves further compensation than the standard divorce, when this is as a direct result of her husband's extramarital affair?”
“For god’s sake Andrealphus, can’t you just for once do the decent thing,” Stolas snapped from where he was seated. His hands were shaking as he folded them together on top of the table, and his mouth was twitching in the way that indicated he was holding back a stressed chitter.
“Like you did the decent thing, by cheating with an imp?” Andrealphus replied, unimpressed by Stolas’s theatrics. “I would argue that the circumstances of this divorce are far from typical, and so my sister should be entitled to further compensation. I am happy to take this further, and if it must go to trial, so be it.”
Stolas rolled his eyes but didn’t speak again, his mouth set in a firm line. His lawyer spoke for him, sighing again before he did so.
“You do understand that if you don’t possess proof, you will be wasting a huge deal of time and money in order to even get this case to the court.”
“He’s admitted it. He told my sister to her face. And he’s still seeing the disgusting creature now. What more proof could you need?”
“Words do not carry the burden of proof, Marquis. If you wish to undertake this then it will be on you, as Stella’s appointed legal counsel, to meet the requirements.”
Andrealphus settled back in his seat, staring Stolas down as the moments ticked by. He took in the other man’s ashen face, his trembling lip, the slump in his shoulders. Andrealphus stood up, gathering his papers under one arm, and headed towards the door. As he passed Stolas he leaned down, one hand landing just next to his phone, and fixed him with a hard glare.
“I’m offering you a last chance, now, to allow renegotiation. I can’t imagine you have any desire to be further humiliated, so I urge you to be sensible.”
Stolas stared straight ahead, his eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance, actively avoiding Andrealphus’s gaze. Time seemed to stretch on, impossibly long, as Andrealphus stood back up and smoothed the feathers off of his face.
“So be it. I will arrange a follow-up meeting when I possess the necessary proof of adultery, and we shall move forward accordingly. Good day to you both.” Andrealphus swept from the room, feeling as buoyant as he imagined a person could after a divorce meeting.
He was quickly brought back down to earth after a moment on the phone with his sister. He had stopped at a chintzy little cafe on his way home, choosing a seat outdoors, and was now holding his phone a foot away from his ear in order to avoid the shrieking. Once Stella had shouted herself hoarse, he lifted it back to his ear.
“Are you quite finished.”
There was blessed silence on the other end.
“If you had allowed me to finish, I could have explained that while Stolas was staring so densely into space, I was able to perform a little sleight of hand. If your husband messages that little imp he’s so fond of, the message will now be diverted straight to my phone instead. I have also arranged it so that any incoming texts will appear to have been received, but Stolas will not be able to view them. I have no doubt that within the next few weeks he will incriminate himself, his little plaything will assume it is over and leave him for good, and then I can provide his messages as proof of his affair.”
There was still silence on the line.
“Stella, I need you to tell me verbally that you understand me. I cannot hear you nodding.”
“Yes, yes, I’m listening,” Stella replied waspishly. “Do we really have to wait much longer? I want him out of the palace now. I have plans to redo the master bedroom.”
Andrealphus ran one hand over his face, closing his eyes and taking a breath before responding. “We need to wait, darling. That way we can acquire the proof we need. If I can manipulate the spell in the way I hope to, we can even make it appear that his precious little concubine handed the evidence over himself in exchange for a lump sum.”
“Ooooh, you are bad,” Stella replied, giggling girlishly as she swirled a stirrer in whatever cocktail she was drinking. “Oh, got to go darling, there’s a call on the other line,” his sister said abruptly, before the call dropped. Sighing, he placed his phone back down on the table and took a sip of his iced tea. God, he was wasted on that woman.
Once he was home, Andrealphus prepared dinner and a bath, letting himself soak away all the irritation of the day. He always preferred his own company, a solitary creature by nature, and his recharging came in the form of self care. After his bath he preened with his expensive oils and settled back on his large sofa, sinking into the cushions. He almost jumped when his phone buzzed, not used to receiving a text message because Stella would always call if she wished to discuss something. He picked his phone up from where it lay, face down on the table, to check the notification.
From: Unknown
To: Andrealphus
7:13pm
First divorce meeting done. Stella is contesting the divorce on the grounds of an affair, in the hopes that she will get more money. I do wish we could have spoken before the meeting, although I understand you are busy. My lawyer says I have nothing to worry about, but Andrealphus is smarter than his sister and I do not fancy going toe-to-toe with him, legally speaking. Anyway, I hope your day went well.
Andrealphus scoffed. How pathetic. At least he was right about who the smarter sibling was. It wasn’t the smutty proof of a torrid affair he was expecting, but it was a start. He left the message sitting as a notification, the hours ticking by while it remained unopened as Andrealphus read and moisturised and watched mindless television. At 11:35pm, he opened the message. At 11:40pm, he sat the phone face down, on his bedside table, and fell into a blissful sleep.
——-
The next morning, Andrealphus rose before the sun was fully in the sky. He summoned his butler to alert the kitchen staff he would be taking breakfast early, before sending the imp back out of his sight. He avoided interacting with his staff face to face. He required them to do their job with as little interference as possible. After all, red clashed so horribly with his aesthetic.
By the time breakfast was eaten and he was bathed and dressed, the sun was high in the sky, and Andrealphus realised he hadn’t checked his phone all morning. He glanced at the screen to see there were no new notifications. How pathetically like Stolas, he thought, to be ignored all evening and not have the confidence to follow up.
But the rest of that evening passed in the same radio silence. Andrealphus half expected to be woken in the night by a text notification, but he slept through until the morning with no interruptions. He checked his phone before he was even fully awake in order to be sure, but the message box remained empty.
That day he had a mid-afternoon meeting, and for the first time, he set his phone to Do Not Disturb.
When he left the meeting, however, sliding the little moon symbol off of the console revealed nothing. Stolas’s text was sent on Wednesday evening, and Friday was slipping away with no further correspondence.
Andrealphus paced his kitchen as he pondered it. Was this typical? Perhaps this is just how people text? It seemed counterintuitive to the technology, in Andrealphus’s opinion. What was the point in an invention allowing you to correspond with someone immediately if you spent days between each message?
Andrealphus was lost in thought when his phone suddenly blared, ringing obnoxiously loudly in his grand home. Cursing to himself, he used magic to summon the device because he couldn’t for the life of him remember where he had dropped it, and prepared to accept the call before freezing on the spot. It wasn’t Stella. Stolas was calling him.
The ringtone seemed to echo around the empty kitchen in a never-ending loop, as the phone hung almost menacingly in mid-air. Andrealphus let it ring, praying every second that it would just end, before eventually the call dropped and he was plunged back into silence. For some reason, his heart was beating extremely fast.
He put it down to an excess of iced tea and retired to bed, but he tossed and turned for so much of the night that once the day rolled around, he found he didn’t want to face it.
The phone did ring again, before noon, and this time Andrealphus was much calmer as he answered his sister's call. At least this proved that the fear he felt the previous night was absolutely the result of over-caffeination.
“Andrealphus, I’m calling for an update darling. Has the prick been in contact yet?”
“He has,” Andrealphus replied primly, “though only one message so far, and a phone call I ignored. Patience, my dear sister. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Ohhh, but we’re not building Rome,” Stella whined, “we’re only catching an idiot, this shouldn’t be taking so looong.”
“I promise it will be worth it,” Andrealphus said, willing his voice to stay level. “We only need to wait a little longer. Once I have what we need I will let you know and we can move our next meeting forward accordingly, how does that sound?”
“Ugh, fine,” Stella replied, her huff evident even down the phone. “But do let me know quickly Andrealphus, I have paint swatches I wish to get down. Kisses.” A beep resounded as Stella hung up.
Andrealphus let out a groan. He hoped this would be over quicker than anticipated, purely for his own selfish reasons. He was, quite frankly, sick of the amount of brain power that he needed to invest in Stolas currently. The man wasn’t worth a second thought, and yet for the past few days Andrealphus found he was constantly waiting to hear from him. It was incredibly irritating to have so much of his time being eaten up by that moron.
Another text did chime in late on Saturday evening, taking Andrealphus by surprise again. After the missed phone call, he had expected a follow-up text sooner, and the amount of time that had passed between the call and this message had lulled him into a false sense of security.
From: Unknown
To: Andrealphus
11:51pm
I am going shopping tomorrow, to pick up some things for the next Full Moon. Do you have any requests, Blitzy? 🍆💦
Andrealphus frowned at the phone in his hand. He wasn’t quite sure what the aubergine emoji was for. Maybe they were planning to cook together?
It was sad, really, how Stolas’s communications seemed so unaffected by the lack of response. Did he often send these messages out into the ether just to be ignored? Had he really thrown his marriage away for someone who seemed only to pay him any attention for one night a month, as far as Andrealphus could gather?
It seemed the rest of the weekend would pass without any further contact, but Andrealphus’s phone chimed again just as he settled into his plush couch late on Sunday evening.
From: Unknown
To: Andrealphus
10:03pm
I bought this for our next meeting. I am afraid I am too excited about wearing it, and tomorrow I will have to put it on underneath all of my clothes and pretend I’m not thinking about you tearing it from my body.
And there was an image attached. Andrealphus hovered over the notification while his heart beat out of his chest, feeling the walls closing in around him. This was what he had wanted. Proof of an affair. So why was he finding it so hard to just… open it?
Oh, he tried to. He picked the phone up, and walked around his kitchen, and then put the phone back down and went for a bath and then picked the phone up again. It was after midnight before he took a deep breath and opened the text message thread.
The phone fumbled out of his hands and clattered to the floor before he could grasp it.
The image on the phone stayed face up, beaming out into his dark kitchen and blinding him. Stolas was wearing a black basque, tight around his midriff, with a matching set on the bottom. His gaze was trained on the camera, his gaze heavily-lidded, and a blush over his heart shaped face that was visible even from where Andrealphus stood, stock still, staring down at the device on his tiled floor.
With shaking hands he lifted the phone, the image on the screen swaying a little as he trembled. Stolas’s chest feathers spilled over the top of the basque, one long slender hand rested over them, in a pose like a pinup model.
Andrealphus wanted to scoff. He wanted to laugh, to crow about catching him out, but any smug feeling he should have had died in his chest. Instead he felt unsettled and dirty, and even after locking his phone and putting it down, the image followed him everywhere like it was branded into his mind.
He went for a long bath, but every time he relaxed enough to lean his head back and close his eyes, he was jolted back out of his comfort by the thought of Stolas’s thighs, the swell of his chest, the heat in his gaze. His feathers, that had always looked so drab, seemed to shine in tones of dark blue that he had never seen.
And even when he turned the phone off, placed it away in a drawer and lay down in bed, the image was so seared into his retinas that he couldn’t sleep. He was haunted by it until the morning light seeped into his room to burn it away.
——-
Andrealphus was just off for the whole next day. He turned his phone on as soon as he rose from his fitful sleep, and felt a peculiar swoop in his stomach as he realised there were no new notifications.
But he opened the message again, after breakfast, ignoring the queasy swell he felt as he looked at the picture. He opened it again, in the afternoon, as he tried to distract himself with a book and found his attention was wandering. He felt one talon hover over the image, as if he was about to save it to his gallery, and was so horrified by the instinct that he pushed his phone between the cushions of the couch as if it had burned him.
The thought of Stolas out there, wearing that underneath his clothes, had altered the fabric of everything since. A secret that only the two of them shared. A secret he had no right to be part of, that had burrowed its way into his mind despite being unutterable. It was like some switch had been flicked in his brain and suddenly he had access to a whole frantic world of thoughts that he wished he could pull the plug on.
He had two glasses of wine before bed, to ensure that he slept. But as soon as he woke, he checked his phone immediately, opening the text thread as if willing something new to appear.
Soon, waiting for the chime of an incoming text message was all Andrealphus could do. Nothing distracted him.
For the first time in a long time, Andrealphus ignored his sister's calls. He had no doubt she would show up at his door if he continued, but he couldn’t bear to put anything into words. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to.
Time seemed to pass in a blur, now, split only into days where there was contact and days without it.
The days without were long, impossibly so, and spent in an agitated state. Andrealphus’s fingers twitched even without the phone in his hand, his talons ghosting the steps of their well-practised dance even while his hands were empty.
But the days with were no better. The chime of his phone receiving a new message would send a jolt through him, his stomach flipping and his palms prickling with sweat. It typically took him a few attempts to even open the inbox, knowing that no matter what it contained, he would be sick and dizzy for hours after until the adrenaline wore off.
From: Stolas
To: Andrealphus
11:13am
I miss you. Is it okay to say that? I’m not asking us to meet outside of our allotted time, and I understand you are busy. But I would like to speak with you, if you have the time, before we do meet next.
This kind of message felt worse than reading any sexual text could. Andrealphus opened it almost instantly, re-reading it so many times the words had to be ingrained on his brain like Braille.
Stolas missed him.
No, he didn’t miss him. He needed to focus. He needed to separate himself from the man these sentiments were intended for, because the longer this dragged on the more the lines blurred and Andrealphus was losing sight of his mission. He had the evidence he had wanted. He could put a stop to all of this, now.
But he couldn’t do it.
He had the screenshots ready to be sent, an email drafted explaining the timeline and the situation and all of the proof he could need, but the minute that meeting was scheduled he would be giving up access to Stolas’s messages and god help him, he didn’t want to.
And then the messages stopped.
The rest of the week unfolded impossibly slowly as Andrealphus spent every waking moment with the device in his hand, refreshing the text thread over and over again to no avail. He read back over the messages he had received, analysing each line, trying to see if there was something he had missed that would indicate why days had now passed with nothing coming through at all.
One night, after he had drunk himself half blind, he even started to type his own reply, his talons skittering over the buttons as he wrote and deleted and rewrote for almost an hour. He didn’t send anything in the end. He hoped that Stolas would have seen the little dots appearing and would beat him to it, but no further messages came through, and when he stumbled to bed and passed out on top of the covers he awoke a few hours later after a feverish dream that left him sticky and sweating. In the end, Andrealphus stayed awake until the sun came up, hugging his knees to his chest and willing the phone to chime just one more time.
In the end, after almost a week of silence and a screaming phone call from Stella, Andrealphus requested a meeting with Stolas’s lawyer for the following morning and finally hit send on the email that had been waiting there for days.
He should have felt elated. He should have felt vindicated, proud, ecstatic to have this whole fiasco behind him.
Instead, when he received a response to say the meeting would now be taking place tomorrow, he just felt sick.
He tossed and turned all night, eventually giving up on sleep altogether before the day had fully begun and reading over his notes in the kitchen. He needed to focus. If he pulled this off correctly, today might be the last day he ever needed to give Stolas a second thought.
He desperately tried to drown out the small voice in his head that said that wouldn’t be a victory.
——-
Andrealphus was almost late to the meeting in the end. He arrived at the building on time, but found himself pacing outside until the very last possible moment. The elevator ride to the meeting room seemed to last forever, his skin prickling all over as the lift climbed the floors impossibly slowly. After taking a few calming breaths at the door he entered, pulling himself up to his full height and lifting his beak in the air to replicate his usual air of unaffected arrogance.
The moment he saw Stolas, however, his resolve crumbled and he could feel his shoulders tense. He had hoped that the last meeting had been an anomaly; that Stolas wouldn’t always be accompanying his lawyer to these meetings. But there he sat, his face a mask of complete serenity, with only a few sheets of paper in front of him. For some reason, that particular detail irked Andrealphus. While he had brought a whole briefcase, Stolas had shown up to his own divorce meeting with what was essentially a pamphlet. The irritation at least won out over the anxiety, for a moment, and Andrealphus took a seat at the table.
“Good morning, Marquis.”
”Good morning Farriel, Stolas,” Andrealphus replied primly, arranging his papers neatly on the table in front of him. “Farriel, I trust you received the evidence I submitted to you prior to this meeting?”
“I did,” Farriel replied, glancing to Stolas before pulling out some sheets from a manila folder. “I have them here.” Farriel let the print outs rest on the table in front of him, and Stolas scanned them, his beak falling open just a little before he looked up to focus his gaze on Andrealphus.
This should be his moment. He should be gloating. But Andrealphus turned his face away, pretending to read some notes of his own. He was worried that if Stolas studied his face too long, he would learn something that Andrealphus didn’t wish him to read.
“So,” Andrealphus spoke, clearing his throat lightly. “I’m sure you will agree those messages are proof that Stolas has been conducting an extra marital affair, and therefore my sister is entitled to financial compensation over and above the standard divorce terms?”
There was a beat of complete silence before Farriel responded.
“Well, yes, you have sent me images of Stolas messaging someone in a sexual and emotional context outside of his marriage, but correct me if I am wrong; you diverted those to your phone, Andrealphus. Unless you are claiming that Stolas conducted an affair with you, this really wouldn’t have any standing.”
Andrealphus could feel himself flushing but was powerless to stop it, his fists clenching and unclenching under the table, as though desperate to grasp onto anything to hold him steady but coming up empty every time.
“But-”
“Marquis, I am sorry, but for all we know, Stolas was aware of your technological interference since the beginning and has simply been trying to entrap you in an embarrassing situation.”
Andrealphus couldn’t believe this was happening. He wanted to fucking scream. There was no way, no way, he had subjected himself to this glimpse into Stolas’s life for no reason. That all of this… disturbance to his routine, this sick, intrusive feeling he had carried with him for two weeks, was for nothing.
“Farriel, would you mind leaving us for a moment?”
Oh no. No, no no.
“Of course, Prince Stolas.” The smaller goat demon bowed and gathered up his papers, leaving the room in a flurry.
The silence in the room felt thunderous. It seemed to swell, pressing in on Andrealphus’s eyes as if he was under water.
“That was a cruel trick, Andrealphus. I had rather hoped you had grown out of that, by now.”
Stolas’s tone was clipped, condescending and infuriating. Like a teacher speaking to a naughty child that they pitied.
“When did you realise?” Andrealphus asked, his mouth so dry that each word was a struggle.
“When did I realise my texts were not arriving, or when did I realise it was you who was intercepting them? I realised they were not being sent correctly three nights ago, when Blitzø swung himself over my balcony in some distress, believing I had been murdered or thrown myself on an angelic sword.”
Stolas’s voice was shaking in anger as he spoke, filling the room and burrowing under Andrealphus’s skin.
“I wasn’t receiving his texts, he wasn’t receiving mine. I put it down to a very unfortunate connection issue. More fool me. Until I walked in here today, and saw the look on your face, and heard your entire, ridiculous plan, I had no idea the part you played in this. I mean really, Andrealphus, what did you think would happen? You would show up to this meeting with screenshots of my text messages as proof I had an affair? Do you have any idea how these things work, or are you so used to using money and intimidation to avoid actually learning about the world around you?”
Andrealphus couldn’t reply. His tongue lay heavy behind his beak, his skin prickling with the power he could now feel Stolas was holding back.
“I think I understand the world in a more comprehensive way than you. Which is really saying something, because I’m a fucking Prince.” Stolas laughed, reedy and cruel, and there was an undercurrent of static to the words. “I think, for once in your lonely life, you enjoyed a little peek behind the curtain. A glimpse into a life you will never have. How did that feel, Andrealphus? To wait all day from a text from me, knowing it wasn’t ever intended for your eyes- did you pretend it was? Or after a time, were you really so deluded you started to believe it?”
Stolas stood up, his Eldritch form poking at the corners of his body, twitching and glitching until he seemed ten feet tall.
“Poor little Andre, all alone in his ice palace, playing house.”
Stolas was approaching him now, his walk almost a prowl, his entire presence taking all the air out of the room. Andrealphus felt impossibly small in his chair and Stolas bore down on him, stopping to perch on the edge of the table right in front of him.
“Did it feel like a victory? To see me being so vulnerable?”
Andrealphus didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. This Stolas wasn’t one he knew; the demon in front of him was a far cry from the insipid, forgettable man who had been married to his sister all those years. Stolas’s eyes were a brilliant cerise, wide and shining with a barely concealed anger. His feathers seemed to be vibrating, making him seem twice as large as he usually was. The air around him seemed to crackle with energy as he cocked his head to one side and looked down at Andrealphus, all barely concealed scorn in a fancy cloak.
“Nothing to say, hmm?”
Andrealphus opened his mouth, hoping that his brain would catch up, but nothing came forth and he closed it again, clenching his beak shut.
“Do speak up Andrealphus. It isn’t like you to hold your tongue.”
With those words, Stolas darted forward and grabbed Andrealphus’s face in one slender hand, his talons pressing into Andrealphus’s cheeks. He struggled against the grip but found that Stolas was strong, stronger than he looked, and Andrealphus was stuck staring into those furious eyes.
“Open.”
Andrealphus kept his beak clamped closed, trying to jerk his head back out of the hold he was trapped in, but to no avail.
“Open your fucking mouth,” Stolas said, his voice seeming to echo around the room. Andrealphus felt as if he was being hypnotised as he opened his mouth slowly. As soon as he did so Stolas stuck one talon in, pressing down flat on his tongue and making him squawk. He wriggled against the intrusion but Stolas held his face steady, one talon under his chin holding his face in place as he glared down.
“On second thought,” Stolas spoke again, his eyes full of fire, “I think I like you better with it closed.”
He pulled back suddenly, leaving Andrealphus’s mouth to shut with a clack as he jolted forward. His palms were sweating, and he wanted nothing more than to run, but he was afraid his legs wouldn’t carry him. He looked to the door, trying to judge how quickly he might be able to make it, but Stolas followed his glance.
“Do you have somewhere to be, Andrealphus?”
Andrealphus cleared his throat lightly and shifted in his seat, desperately trying to regain some composure. “I am not sure what else there is to discuss.”
Stolas laughed, an angry, flat giggle that came out of him a little strangely. “Is that so.”
Stolas rose up from the table again and stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest to look down at Andrealphus, who averted his gaze to the floor.
“Do you want to know what I think?”
Andrealphus swallowed heavily.
“I think you are out of your depth. I think you expected me to be a much simpler opponent. And I think you expected my relationship with Blitzø to be so shallow that he wouldn’t think to check up on me after almost two weeks without a response. You made a lot of assumptions here, Andrealphus, but only you are the ass in this situation.”
Andrealphus kept his eyes down, feeling too overwhelmed by the conflicting emotions churning inside of him to look up.
“I think, at the very least, you owe me an apology.”
”An apology?” He heard, rather than felt, himself ask. His voice sounded tinny and small, even to his own ears.
“Yes, Andrealphus, I’m sure the concept is unfamiliar to you. But an apology. A sorry. Some contrition from you.”
Andrealphus stayed where he was, trying desperately to cling to what little pride he had left. This day had unravelled from him so dramatically, like a dropped ball of yarn, and all he wanted was to scoop up his unspooled shame in his arms and run. But Stolas fixed him with that impossible stare, and even before looking up Andrealphus could feel the white hot heat of his fury boring into him.
The moment between them seemed to stretch for hours, Stolas pinning him in place with his gaze. He felt as though he was losing control of his body as his mouth opened, unbidden, his tongue feeling like it weighed a ton.
“I’m sorry.”
Stolas was silent at first, allowing the words to hang heavily in the air.
“Mmm. I don’t think I believe you.”
Andrealphus wanted to scoff, but he couldn’t find it in him to whisper anything other than, “What more do you want from me?”
“Stand up,” Stolas ordered. There was no other word for it; his tone was commanding, and his face devoid of all emotion except the ire that had been present since the moment Farriel had left the room. Andrealphus, against his better judgement, against everything in his brain screaming at him, did as he was told and stood on shaky legs. Stolas stepped back, looking him up and down in a curious way.
“I think,” Stolas spoke, “that I might believe you more if you knelt.”
“Stolas for god’s sake, you’ve made your point,” Andrealphus replied, shaking a little with an indignant anger. “I have said that I am sorry, let us just move on from this.”
”I don’t think you understand, Andrealphus,” Stolas said, his voice flat and calm in a way that was even more unnerving. “You no longer get to make demands of me. And you have caused me a great deal of stress and inconvenience these past few weeks. But I am sure that if I make a move to leave Stella with absolutely nothing, as she deserves, then the rest of your life will be filled with stress and inconvenience as a result. A proper apology would go a long way to ensuring I do not leave your sister penniless.”
Andrealphus opened and closed his beak as he processed this. Surely he wouldn’t refuse to pay Stella anything at all. But the hard expression on his face left Andrealphus unsure. The Stolas he had known throughout the marriage would never do something so calculated. But the Stolas in front of him now; the barely contained, furious power of him, was not a man Andrealphus knew, and not someone he felt he could take the risk with.
He sighed, trying to sound as though he was frustrated and put-upon, instead of letting out the steadying breath he needed to continue the conversation. This was humiliating, but he could trade one fleeting moment of embarrassment in order to win back half of the Goetia’s sizable assets for Stella.
Slowly, on knees that shamefully were still trembling, he knelt to the floor in front of Stolas.
Something in the room changed in that moment. The strange, prickling static that seemed to surround Stolas twisted into something heavier, darker, that pressed in at his skin obtrusively. Looking up at Stolas felt more difficult as his form seemed to flicker in and out of existence, switching between the tall owl demon he was used to seeing and something primal, Eldritch, and wholly unrecognisable. In that moment, Andrealphus realised how vulnerable he truly was. He was now in a room, alone, with an extremely powerful demon whom he had wronged. It was hard not to feel like prey.
Stolas seemed to have come to the same conclusion, smirking down at him like a hunter spotting a doe.
“You seem scared, Andre,” he spoke, smiling down at Andrealphus but without the grin reaching his eyes. His voice seemed to echo around the room, carrying a weight and a reverb it didn’t typically possess, and Andrealphus could feel it running through him. He shuddered, his whole body feeling tense and confused by the energy around him. “But you were scared the moment you walked into the room. What’s got you so frightened, hmm?”
And oh, Andrealphus hated that Stolas could sense that. Knowing that he was scared now was one thing. Knowing that he entered this room with his heart racing, before he had even seen this display of power, left him vulnerable in a way that was worse than being physically on his knees.
“Speak up, darling,” Stolas spoke again, his voice thudding in Andrealphus’s ears.
“I’m sorry,” Andrealphus replied, willing his voice to carry as steadily as possible. He lifted his head, staring as purposefully as he could at Stolas’s face, the outline of it blurred by his more abstract form but his piercing cerise eyes still visible. “I am sorry, Stolas.”
He held his breath as the black aura surrounding Stolas subsided, his edges still a little blurred, but the tendrils of interdimensional smoke retracted into him. Andrealphus, for whatever reason, found this version of Stolas more difficult to look directly at.
He bowed his head again, unsure where to place his hands and deciding to set them on the floor, on either side of his thighs, to steady himself. He felt, rather than saw it, as Stolas took a step towards him and he kept his eyes trained on a spot on the carpet until his focus was broken by Stolas extending one foot to tap on his knee with a talon. He looked up, confused, but kept his eyes averted slightly from Stolas’s direct gaze.
“Spread your legs.”
The voice was Stolas’s again, the shadows gone, but Andrealphus’s body responded as if he was hypnotised. He leaned back a little and slowly spread his knees apart, unable to look Stolas in the eye as the sound of his trousers brushing the carpet filled the room.
He gasped as Stolas laid one foot flat against his crotch.
He moved back instinctively but Stolas increased the pressure on him, effectively pinning him in place. Andrealphus’s chest rose and fell as he desperately tried to draw in a breath.
“What are you doing,” he managed to gasp out, hating how wrecked his voice sounded.
“Do you want me to stop?”
No. No, no, no, his body screamed. Mortifyingly he knew, deep in his soul, that he would take any contact that Stolas would bestow.
Stolas lifted his foot again, releasing the pressure, and Andrealphus whined at the loss of contact. He could feel the humiliation of the moment wash over him in a pink haze, his cheeks aflame with it, but Stolas put his foot back where it had been, smirking as he did so. His talons flexed around him, hooking lightly into the fabric of his pants to give Stolas more purchase.
“Interesting,” Stolas spoke, his eyes now alight with a different kind of fire than before. He moved his foot experimentally, watching with fascination as Andrealphus’s hips moved, unbidden, to follow the pressure. Andrealphus was horrified at the betrayal, but it was as though Stolas had overwritten the code of his brain to work only on his baser instincts. No matter how hard he tried to move away, how strongly he knew that he should run, his body was locked in place.
And he knew, pathetically he knew, this was all he would ever get from Stolas. These were the scraps, the smallest amount of contact he would ever be allowed, and if he looked at the moment head on it would disappear like Eurydice.
And so he knelt on the floor, like a dog waiting to be punished, and held back the keening whine that threatened to be ripped from his throat as Stolas pressed down on him.
The pressure ran through his body with a thrill, settling in a concentrated heat in his stomach. Every time he writhed against Stolas’s foot the sensation made his breath hitch. Stolas knew just how this was affecting him if the smirk on his face was anything to go by.
“Tell me again how sorry you are,” Stolas spoke, his own voice sounding a little strained.
“I- I’m sorry,” Andrealphus stuttered hoarsely. He must have done something right because Stolas increased the pressure over his crotch, the flat of his foot pressed right against Andrealphus’s cloaca through his dress slacks. Andrealphus hissed as the friction sent a jolt through his body, and his eyes shut involuntarily at the pleasure. As his hips bucked upwards he suddenly pushed against air as Stolas pulled his foot back, just an inch away from touching him.
“Again,” Stolas commanded, his voice steely and low.
“I’m sorry,” Andrealphus whispered, like a prayer. Stolas placed his foot back over him, pressing down again as Andrealphus thrust up to meet it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he began to repeat as a mantra, feeling the heat within him building and no longer knowing what he was sorry for. He wanted to reach out a hand to hold Stolas’s foot steady against him, but he knew instinctively this was a punishment and not a reward, and so he gripped his talons into the carpet at either side of his thigh as he rode against the flat of Stolas’s foot.
But most humiliatingly, as his body began to tense up, he could feel the familiar prickle of tears forming. Whether from shame or overstimulation he couldn’t be sure, but wiping the tears away would mean breaking the pace he had set and so he had no choice but to let them fall. The droplets caused his vision to blur and he blinked rapidly, trying to bring back the distorted image of Stolas above him into focus. Stolas was looking down at him with his mouth a little open, a look of complete hunger on his face and tiny pinprick pupils burning white hot on him.
That look was what tipped Andrealphus over the edge. And there he knelt, tear stained and gasping, as he thrust himself against Stolas’s foot one last time and came just as the other man's talons sunk into the flesh of his thighs.
The tears were falling more freely now and he took a shuddering breath, feeling his shoulders lurch with the effort of it. Stolas unhooked his talons from Andrealphus’s slacks and pulled his foot back, flexing the digits a little before he placed them back on the ground. Before he stood up he bent at the waist, leaning so far into Andrealphus’s space that the peacock could feel breath on his face. Lifting a hand, Stolas raised one long, black talon and wiped away the freshest tear that had fallen. Looking Andrealphus in the eyes, Stolas placed the talon on his tongue and licked the tear up in one small stripe, before standing back up imperiously and brushing imaginary dust from his pant legs.
Andrealphus couldn’t bear to fully lift his head. He wished that he would blink and wake up in his bed, realising this had all been another twisted dream, but the ache in his knees and the wetness between his legs were proof that the entire humiliating scenario had been real. Gingerly, he lifted one arm to wipe his eyes on his sleeve, hoping to at least leave the building with a shred of dignity intact. He didn’t feel ready to get to his feet just yet, his legs completely numb beneath him, and so he stayed kneeling on the floor as Stolas watched him from above.
“We are done here. I will meet with my lawyer again and have him finalise the papers we had initially drafted. I’m sure you’ll agree that after everything, that is more than generous.”
Stolas readjusted his cloak around him and collected the few papers he had brought to the meeting up into his arms.
“And if you do ever find yourself with the desire to share any of my private messages, I will ensure that the security camera footage of this little encounter finds its way into the inbox of every single Goetian council member. Do not test me again, Andrealphus. Especially not now I know how easily I can drag an apology out of you.”
With that, Stolas swept from the room, the only red eye left on Andrealphus the blinking light from the camera he had missed in the corner.
Andrealphus wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, on his knees on the dirty carpet, the tear tracks on his face drying uncomfortably and clumping his soft feathers together. Eventually, his body must have decided he had completed his penance, and he rose to unsteady feet and drifted out of the building in a fugue state.
When he arrived home, the emptiness in the building felt even more suffocating than usual. He turned on all of the lights, as if warding away a ghost, and ran himself a bath on autopilot. Andrealphus sat stock still in the water until it turned cold around him, and even a little longer.
He wondered what Stolas was doing, now. If he was celebrating. If he was alone.
Andrealphus was sure that he wouldn’t be.
He checked his emails to see a copy of the divorce proceedings, confirming Stolas’s agreement to split the rest of his assets with Stella; but he was now keeping the palace.
Andrealphus wouldn’t fight it. He decided he would let Stella know the outcome tomorrow. He was frayed, and tired, and he didn’t trust himself to speak on it further tonight.
Before he collapsed into bed, he fished his mobile phone out of his cloak pocket, where it had languished since that morning. He didn’t need to open the photograph. Andrealphus could never see that picture again and he could still, from memory, trace every curve of the image perfectly.
But he wanted to. One last time.
And there Andrealphus lay, the picture of Stolas beside him on the pillow, kept awake from the glow of a phone that would never ring again in any way that mattered to him.