Archive of Our Own ^beta

The spoon clinked around in the bowl. It was nothing special, just the regular cereal with milk. Nothing special. Just like Stolas.

Nothing special, just a prince. (that word means nothing)

Nothing special, just a husband. (not anymore)

Nothing special, just a father. (perhaps the only thing that matters anymore)

Just another being with feathers and power.

He was vaguely aware that there are no more stars left in the pill bottle. There haven’t been for a while.

Plenty of stars left in the sky, though!

He’s heard that people on earth say “plenty of fish in the sea”. It’s really not a good analogy. The humans have no clue what lurks in their oceans. They’ve not been into the deep. If you step a foot into hell’s oceans, you’d better bring a spear with you to protect yourself from fish that want to consume you whole. Imp, royalty, it doesn’t matter. They are hideous beasts, only intent on consuming and tearing apart.

Very much unlike stars.

There are so many beautiful stars out there. Stars are the essence of creation. Their atoms fuse instead of breaking apart, create light instead of darkness, give off warmth instead of cold. All of the stars are different and unique. All beautiful, all shining. Main sequence stars, in the prime of their life. Red dwarfs, essentially indestructible. Neutron stars, pulling those around them in. Big stars, small stars. Bright stars, dim stars. Stars so close you could reach out and touch them and stars so far away it would take you millions of years to even see them.

There are plenty of stars out there. Plenty of stars for Blitz to love.

There’s no way that Blitz would pick him.

Blitz shouldn't pick him. 

As far as stars go, he’s more like a white dwarf. A star that has served it’s purpose, and is now only a husk of it’s former self. A star so heavy that no one can pick even a piece of it up. A star that weighs everyone down.

Blitz is definitely a pulsar. A rapidly rotating, always transient star that is steadfastly the same all at once. Such a beautiful star. Scientists find pulsars a bit of an enigma. They can only see them in the x-ray or radio spectrum, and they’re so different from the rest. A pulsar should be with a main sequence star, or a red dwarf. Main sequences would provide that steady balance, and red dwarfs could never be hurt by the gravity of the pulsar, no matter how hard it tried to push them away.  

Pulsars are heavy too, did you know that? Yes, just like white dwarfs.

You couldn’t ask a pulsar to carry the weight of a white dwarf. It has too much weight from just itself already. There’s no way it could carry that.

There’s no way you could ask it to. It shouldn't have to carry that. It doesn't deserve the extra burden. 

There’s no way you could WILLINGLY CREATE A RELATIONSHIP WHERE A PULSAR HAS TO PICK PART OF A WHITE DWARF UP.

Stolas blinked. The ceramic bowl was now in pieces on the floor, milk dripping from the table’s edge. The cereal was on the tile. And the wood table. And his hands. He wasn’t quite sure when all of that happened. What was he doing? What happened? What was he thinking about? Was he thinking about something somebody?

Hmm. He couldn’t remember.

He got a towel to clean the mess, went down on his knees to wipe it up. The movements are fluid, repetitive. He’s done this before. This has happened before.

He looked at the table around him. It was only him there. The table was huge. There was space for more.

Specifically, space for one more.

But a pulsar shouldn’t love a white dwarf.