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Family was always an odd concept to Moxxie.
It felt like he was left out of some great big club, a club full of people who knew what family really meant.
Moxxie’s not sure he does.
Crimson was the only family Moxxie ever really had, growing up after his mother died. He had been so young when she passed away, most days he can’t even recall what she looked like, and every time he feels the gaping hole in his chest grow just a bit larger.
When he was little, he used to tug on his father's sleeves, look up at him with those big, innocent eyes of a child, and ask him over and over again why they had to do this. Why did they have to cause so much pain? Why did Moxxie have so much blood on his hands before he hit double digits?
His father never answered his questions, not really, not even when Moxxie would try to come to him in the late hours of the night with tears on his chubby cheeks. Crimson would simply shove him aside with an angry scowl, muttering insults always just loud enough so Moxxie could hear.
By age eight, Moxxie stopped coming to him. When his mother died, he stopped speaking altogether. He knew that unless he were being spoken to, it would only get him in trouble. His father never wanted to hear his thoughts or opinions—Crimson didn’t care—all he wanted was blind compliance.
And Moxxie gave him that for the first 19 years of his life. Compliance. They had no relationship aside from pure fear on Moxxie’s part and the all-consuming desire to control on Crimson’s part.
Moxxie thought that was just the way it had to be, that Crimson wasn’t at fault for being such a shitty dad; it’s just part of the business.
But that kid’s dad today…he cared. Sure, he was still a total piece of shit, but he was a piece of shit that gave a shit about his kid. He loved his kid.
That’s more than Crimson ever did. Crimson only saw Moxxie as a tool, a toy he could control in his sandbox; there was no love.
His father never loved him.
He doesn’t know why the thought still hurts so much.
Meeting Blitz was the first good thing to ever happen to Moxxie. The older imp's arrival in his life felt like a gift from the universe for giving him such a shitty hand at life. Sure, Blitz was weird, loud, and kept rambling about horses and his daughter, but that right there told Moxxie everything he needed to know.
The moment Blitz was thrown in jail, one of the first things he mentioned was wanting to get home to his kid. Crimson would never say that about him. Crimson would never think like that. Crimson would never be desperate to get home to him.
For the better, Blitz changed Moxxie’s life that day. No matter how badly Moxxie wants to strangle him some days, no matter how much Blitz pisses him off like no one else in all of Hell, Moxxie wouldn’t trade him for anything.
Blitz saved his life. Blitz gave him a chance when Moxxie had nothing. That’s not something Moxxie can ever repay him for. And he knows Blitz doesn’t expect him to because that’s just who he is.
Blitz acts like he doesn’t care, but Moxxie has known him for too many years to buy into that bullshit anymore. No. Blitz has always cared; he’s always cared too much. He just doesn’t know how to express that, so he hides behind insults and the tallest, most carefully built brick walls Moxxie has ever seen.
But Moxxie has seen him stand fearlessly in front of a court full of upper-class demons and beg for his friends to be spared. Blitz, without hesitation, had been willing to throw his life away in peace, knowing they’d all be safe.
“I love you guys.”
Moxxie would be a liar if he said he didn’t have nightmares about the trial; even months later, they still plague him some nights. Every time, Stolas is either too late or doesn’t come at all, and when Moxxie lifts his head from his wife's chest to check if the axe fell, he’s met with a sight he can never forget.
The first time he had one of those nightmares, he had tried to hide it, fighting back pointless tears. Blitz was fine. Blitz was always fine, that’s who he is, he’s always been that way since Moxxie met him. Unshakable, unbreakable, a total mess, but he always got back up.
The next couple of times, he woke Millie up, and she confessed she’d had similar dreams. When the dreams kept coming—getting worse as time went on—he called Blitz.
Moxxie had never been afraid of losing him before that day.
He’ll never forget the first night he spent in Blitz’s apartment after they broke out of jail together.
He had begged the older imp to let him stay with him, if only for the night. He had expected laughter, or annoyance, or anything but agreement. But Blitz—the same imp who had spent the last five hours talking nonsense and making rather insensitive remarks about anything and everything—just looked him up and down with something in his eye and nodded with an exasperated sigh.
“Fine. But if you don’t eat my cookin’, I ain’t buying you shit.”
Moxxie didn’t recognize that look at the time; he does now.
He had never been to Pride before that day. It was different from what he expected. As he and Blitz walked down the sidewalk, Moxxie caught a glance of an imp that couldn’t be much older than himself, curled up in an alleyway with nothing but a thin sweatshirt to protect him from the horrors of hell.
That could’ve been him if it wasn’t for Blitz.
For a whole year, he lived in Blitz’s shitty apartment. They mostly ate pizza and crappy cereal. Loona would roll her eyes every time Moxxie dared to exist in her presence. Blitz came home late, exhausted, and frustrated every night from his job. Yet, Moxxie had never felt more at home. He didn’t have to pretend to be someone he wasn’t; he could be himself. Sure, it took a while to settle, but somewhere along the way, he realized Blitz wasn’t going to throw him out if he breathed too loudly.
And that changed everything.
The first time Moxxie voiced an opinion that was different from Blitz’s, he had immediately prepared himself for anger and a slap that would never come. When he opened his eyes to look up at the older imp, Blitz had just cocked an eyebrow at him with a crooked grin.
“Knew ya’ had it in you.”
It was such a small comment, one that Blitz probably doesn’t remember, but Moxxie will never forget it.
It was the first time in his life that he heard someone address him with nothing but pride.
It was around that time that they fell into their normal dynamic. Blitz would put on the shittiest movies way too loud and hide the remote when he went out just to piss Moxxie off, and in retaliation, Moxxie would blast musical theater songs while Blitz tried to shower in peace. Or at least until Loona would come out of her room and threaten to bash Moxxie’s head into the wall.
It was nice, Moxxie had never had anything like that before. He wouldn’t be punished for being himself. He didn’t have to comply—Blitz didn’t want him to.
It was three in the morning on a random Thursday when Blitz turned to him—Moxxie had been sleeping on a shitty blow-up mattress beside the couch—with an odd look on his face that Moxxie could barely make out in the darkness of the apartment.
“I’m starting my own assassin business. You in?”
Moxxie had never agreed to something faster, and he would never regret it.
Meeting Millie was the best thing that ever happened to him. The moment he saw her during that hit, he knew he loved her.
He will never forget that day until the day he dies. He had been so excited, practically bouncing off the walls when he got back to the apartment, flopping onto his air mattress like a lovesick teenager. He had never felt this way about anyone before, not even Chaz. The way that imp moved with such grace, eyes burning like a blazing fire while her hair blew in the wind, framing her gorgeous face…
Moxxie had never felt true romantic love before, but he was positive this was what it felt like.
When Blitz walked in and saw the dopey expression on his face, he didn’t yell at him for losing the hit to some random chick; he just sighed and rubbed his temples.
“What happened?”
No instant anger, no accusations, just a simple question.
Moxxie told him everything, how he had the shot perfectly lined up before the most beautiful imp in all of Hell swooped in and took the hit from right under his nose.
Blitz stared at him blankly for an entire minute, and Moxxie could practically see the gears turning in that empty head of his, before he silently got up and threw on a pair of gloves, buttoning up his shirt.
“I’m goin’ out for drinks. Don’t wait up. I’m sending you on another hit first thing tomorrow to make up for this one, don’t fuck it up again, Mox.”
At the time, Moxxie had no idea what Blitz was doing. He honestly hadn’t thought much of it, too busy daydreaming about that imp girl he saw.
But then the next morning, bright and early, when Moxxie finished off the hit, Blitz yanked him over to the roof to introduce him to his ‘new coworker.’
He doesn't think he's ever sweat as much in his life as he did in that moment, watching as she walked towards him, hair bouncing in the wind as she looked at him—at him—with a toothy grin, shaking his hand with the grip of a Wrathian.
It’s safe to say Moxxie fell headfirst immediately.
It only took two months of working together for them to start dating, and Moxxie was on absolute cloud nine. After a year together, they took the next step to get their own place. Moxxie would never admit how hard it was to leave Blitz’s apartment—it was a shithole, but it was the first real home he ever had—but he managed. Nothing was really changing, and everything that was changing was for the better.
Not too long after that, Moxxie proposed and married the girl of his dreams; he had never been happier in his entire life. Then Blitz got the office for I.M.P, and it was around that time that it hit Moxxie that this was his life now. He was safe. He did it. He escaped his father's clutches. Crimson couldn’t hurt him anymore.
It was the best feeling in the world.
Moxxie knows he’s been given every reason to leave I.M.P over the years, the constant insults, the belittling, the teasing, but that’s not all it is. It never has been.
Sure, they all get on each other's nerves occasionally, of course they do. But in the hard moments, they stand by each other.
Blitz always offhandedly declares that I.M.P. is family, and Moxxie is usually the first to deny it. To him, family is nothing but an attempt to gain control through the blood shared between people.
He gets it now, what family really is. Family is petty arguments and half assed apologies, family is late-night drinks after a bad night, family is unshakable faith, no matter how much someone disappoints you, family is the people who love you at your worst, even when you have nothing to offer them, family isn’t blood.
Crimson isn’t his family.
His family is a short-tempered hellhound, a reckless, bombastic yet impossibly caring imp, and the bravest, most badass and amazing woman in all of Hell.
And he would never change that.