Work Text:
The boy was weak.
That's what the problem was, really, Cruella mused.
Oh, he looked like a de Vil, right enough. At least he had that. He had the black-and-white hair of all the de Vils, save her brother's freakish eldest. He looked like her, specifically, not one of her uncles like her other brother's daughter resembled her - in their family, resemblances sometimes jumped across generations, or more than one - and that pleased her. He looked strikingly like her - the sharp cheekbones, the Roman nose, the shape of the eyes.
But in character, he was nothing like her. Nor like either of her brothers, not even Cecil.
As a baby, he'd cried all the time, until the sound nearly drove Cruella mad. He'd always frightened easily. No de Vil had ever frightened easily, not even Cecil.
He sought companionship in others outside the family, sometimes. He cried when his feelings were hurt. He never thought of revenge on anyone. He always meekly did whatever she told him. He never argued, not once.
What kind of de Vil was he? He was her only child, and thus the heir to the de Vil line and fortune and legacy - or what was left of it, at any rate.
Oh, she could see some of the de Vil spark in him. He had a knack for design, the same as them all. He had his gadgets and inventions; he tinkered with bits of wire and gears to fix radios and flashlights and even phones, and they all worked.
Of course they all worked. He was, despite everything, still a de Vil.
But he never took risks in his inventions, he never showed creativity in his inventions. And he never, not once, showed them to her.
Was it the Isle? Banished from their ancestral lands, trapped behind a magical barrier with the dregs of society - even though they had no magic to stifle, the de Vils were a far cry from what they once were.
Maybe it was her, somehow. Maybe she'd lost faith, idealism, hope when she'd been convicted and banished, when her plans had failed, when her very family had been used as an epithet against her. Devil woman indeed! Maybe she'd weakened, and raised her son to be that way. Meeker. Intimidated. More...in line with the world, the very opposite of what being a de Vil was all about.
No, that couldn't be it. Even if it was, that wouldn't be it. She would raise him to be a true de Vil - strong, fearless, uncanny, brave - if it killed him.
Cecil had never thought being a father would be like this.
He'd imagined raising his children with a woman he loved, for one thing. And his sister and his brother were both in the best of health. And they were in De Vil Manor, with access to all opportunities and a bright future. And...
Well, none of that had materialized.
His wife was gone, dead of cholera like they were living in a slum straight out of the nineteenth century. Ella was nearly unrecognizable from the girl, the woman, even, that she had once been; Cassius was more like their mother, like their grandmother, than Cecil had ever feared. And the children were growing up on the Isle, condemned for their parents' crimes. On an Isle full of banished, broken, bitter people? The children had no chance. They would not bring glory to the de Vil name; quite the opposite, even worse than Ella. They would be something even Ella and Mother had never been: truly evil.
He loved the children, but they had no chance, no chance at all.
Ironically, despite being the youngest of his siblings, Cassius was the first of them to have a child.
His little girl was a de Vil through and through, down to her perfectly divided black-and-white hair and the gleam in her dark eyes. She looked exactly like Ella, and he loved her for it.
She was the oldest of her cousins, and thus their leader, just like Ella had always been directing him and Cecil. Plus, she was a girl. The girls were always in charge.
Ivy was strong, and fearless, and brave, and smart. Everything a de Vil should be.