Blitzø was dragged out of sleep entirely against his will by a startled, chirpy gasp from his — whatever they were, now.
"Oh! I was so distracted, I forgot!" Stolas tossed the sheets aside so dramatically they landed on Blitzø, snagging on his horns as he flailed in his attempts to sit up, still groggy from sleep.
"Mmmggh — forgot wha?" Blitzø mumbled, but Stolas had already grabbed his robe from where it had been draped over the post at the corner of the bed and dashed out the door.
Feeling unease prickle at the back of his mind, Blitzø found his clothes with a little more urgency than he might've otherwise, and went looking for where Stolas ran off to in such a hurry. He passed the tiny second floor kitchenette, which was empty, and checked several other rooms along the hall with no luck. But it wasn't long before he heard faint humming drifting up the stairs.
Well, at least nothing was really wrong, then. Blitzø dragged a hand down his face and willed his pulse to return to a normal rate as he crept silently down the stairs.
It still felt weird, having essentially free run of the house — Stella was long moved out, and Octavia knew about — whatever. That he was here a lot. It wasn't, like, a secret. So technically, he could go wherever. But he still tended to keep out of most of the non-Stolas's-bedroom areas of the palace, feeling a disquieting sense of not belonging in them.
He was an imp. All the imps in the palace were servants. Blitzø was not a servant, and therefore... out of place.
He followed the sounds of humming to the large, sunlit atrium where Stolas kept a large — and ever-growing — collection of plants, from both Hell as well as the human world, of all shapes and sizes. Blitzø peeked around the corner to see Stolas taking a scoop out of a bag and adding something to the soil of one plant, before darting over to the watering can resting in the corner and proceeding to water the plant, and then moving on to the next one.
"I'm so sorry, my darlings," Stolas was murmuring to each plant as he looked it over, checked the little notepad he kept nearby with some of the more complicated care instructions, and did whatever he needed to. The plants all looked fine to Blitzø, but then Stolas had only just begun teaching him little things about caring for them, so he was far from an authority on the matter.
"I thought you were in here a couple days ago," Blitzø muttered, moving into the room to hover near where Stolas was trimming one of the plants.
"Yes, I try to come in every day. A few of them can begin to get sick or wilt very quickly, so I like to make sure I stay ahead of it." Stolas was a little distracted as he carefully turned the plant in his hands, looking at it from all angles, searching for spots or discoloration that he might've missed.
"Huh," Blitzø said, looking around at the sea of green, with a few areas of reds and purples and yellows. "I didn't realize they could be so... I dunno, fragile."
"Oh, I wouldn't call them fragile," Stolas says, frowning at a small plant that had so many leaves they were starting to droop down the sides of the pot, overflowing. "Hmm, this one really needs a repotting, I meant to do that yesterday."
"I can do it while you finish with the rest," Blitzø offered, going into the large cabinets in the corner of the room that contained the extra soil. "Same as you showed me a couple weeks ago, right? Nothing weird with this one?"
Stolas clapped his hands in excitement, bouncing on his toes. "Oh, that would be so helpful! Yes, please. Just like I showed you."
"Cool." Blitzø added a layer of soil to an empty pot, bigger than the one the plant was currently in. He laid a small drop cloth down to catch the loose dirt that escaped, took the plant Stolas held out to him, and set the pots next to each other on the cloth. He started digging out some of the loose soil from the overflowing plant before picking it up, turning it upside down, and gently working his fingers into the dirt to try and loosen it, careful not to break too many roots.
It didn't take long for the plant to slide out of the pot, and then Blitzø began massaging the roots gently, dislodging more of the dirt and separating out the tangled roots, making sure they would have plenty of space to spread out in their new, larger pot. When he was satisfied that the roots were sufficiently detangled — with minimal broken roots, thank you very much — he put it into the new pot, adding more fresh dirt around the base, and packing it in lightly until he was sure the plant was secure and unlikely to wobble or fall out. He picked it up, tilting it side to side to make sure it was stable.
"Wonderfully done," Stolas said from right behind him, and Blitzø startled, very nearly dropping the freshly repotted plant and ruining his efforts.
"Stolas! Warn a guy, geez," he grumbled, putting the plant down. "You done with the rest?"
"Oh!" Stolas straightened up, his face flushing, and glanced over at the watering can, sitting in the corner across the room, and it hadn't moved from where it was the last time Blitzø had looked at it.
"Did you water any of them?" Blitzø said, his quite a bit higher-pitched than he intended.
"Well, not as such. I admit I was a little distracted," Stolas said with an embarrassed giggle.
Blitzø scowled, crossing his arms. "If you didn't trust me to do it, you could've just done it yourself," he said, turning around to clean up the mess he'd made repotting the plant.
"What? Of course I trusted you to do it," Stolas said, sounding appalled. "Why ever wouldn't I?"
Blitzø returned the drop cloth and extra soil to the cabinet, and then brushed his hands down his thighs to brush off the little bits of dirt on his hands. "Why were you watching me instead of doing your watering, then?"
Stolas tilted his head and tapped a long, sharp finger against his beak. "Well, I suppose... I was thinking about how nice it is, to have someone help me. Octavia will sometimes, but only when I ask, it's not really something she finds terribly interesting. And other than her, the last time I tried to teach someone how to care for my plants, I got one thrown at me for my trouble." Stolas gave a dry, humorless chuckle, and Blitzø had the sudden, burning urge to set the whole building on fire.
Or maybe to grab some gasoline and matches on the way to his office and make a quick pit stop at a very different Goetian palace, instead.
But... that wouldn't help Stolas, or Octavia, or change anything. Not about things that had already happened, anyway.
What he could do was help, here and now. He could be different. And maybe he was a fuckup a lot of the time and didn't always know how to help or be what Sto— what other people, in general, needed, but this was something he could do.
"Yeah, well. It's not like it's hard," Blitzø said, rubbing at the back of his neck, willing the heat in his cheeks to go away. "Finish watering your weirdo plant harem," he said, squeezing what he could reach of Stolas's arm as he walked by. "I'm gonna go raid your fridge, I'm starving."
"Ooh yes, breakfast would be splendid! I'll only be another minute or two. Thank you so much for your help, Blitzy!" Stolas returned to humming quietly as he finished his circuit of the room with the watering can, and if Blitzø held back in the doorway to watch him and smile softly as he continued apologizing and praising and tending to his garden before he left to make breakfast, well.
Shut up. No he didn't.