Work Text:
There is a slew of dismembered training dummies spread across the floor of the training room. Some of them had been strung up again, even with the pieces missing, and they are now slit open and barely held together by threads. Hay is scattered everywhere in nonsensical patterns, almost like someone has gone back and played with the innards of the deceased dummies.
Looking over to the left, Lilia can see the culprit near the corner of the room, crouched near a discarded sword and picking at the hay on the floor. He’s only ten, but there’s no denying that the damage done was all his—his youth will make for a powerful distractor once he gets strong enough to truly spar. Not that he can’t spar yet, but most of his only opponents are too old and not human enough.
Most.
Cassius is only a bit older than Lilia’s son is, and logically, they should’ve already been introduced to each other, but—no, that’s not happening anytime soon. Cassius is too coarse, too harsh, too unkind to anything weaker than him, even if he doesn’t mean to be. Lilia hates to think of Silver as weak, but considering his condition and the fact that he’s a human in the midst of an entire kingdom of fae, it’s impossible to ignore the setbacks. He’d been considering Cassius as a potential playmate, but after seeing the way that the boy had butchered the lifeless dummies, Lilia had decided that he’d be no good for his son. He needs someone as nurturing as he is fierce, but Cassius is only one of those things, and on top of that he doesn’t understand just how fragile a human child can be.
He has watches Cassius get into his fair share of fights with anyone willing to take the time to throw him around the training room. The boy is a demon when he’s focused, but he has the disadvantage of age and size. He almost never wins, but what’s impressive is the amount of time it takes to subdue him. One would think that a child of his size would be easier to get into a hold, but Cassius is a quick learner and each time he’s defeated, he picks up a new way to slip out of someone’s grip.
One day, Cassius will be a fine fighter. He will serve Malleus well and keep the Draconia family safe from any outside threats and become a force to fear when he’s older, but right now he’s still getting used to the strength he doesn’t know he possesses and that makes him a danger to a human child.
No, meeting Silver will have to wait. Silver needs to be stronger—better—enough to hold his own against someone so gifted as Cassius. Despite being only half-fae, the boy is well on his way to becoming a one-man army passionate enough to perhaps even reach Lilia’s level, though he may not know it yet. He will lose the brightness in his eyes and the softness around his cheeks and the curiosity that defines the way he fights, and the same will happen to Silver once he becomes competent enough to train on his own.
Lilia takes a closer look at Cassius. His hair is getting longer—it’s grown past the short crop he had shown up with and now feathered around his face like an inky halo. His mother had taken to braiding the sides back to keep his view clear, but soon the rest would be too long to manage, and it would become a liability.
He looks closer at the boy. Cassius isn’t playing with the hay—he’s poking at a line of ants, disrupting their single-file formation and watching them regroup around his finger. He does this a few more times before Lilia clears his throat, and then he stands to attention, wobbling to his feet and folding his arms behind his back while he looks up at the older fae.
“You’re done here for today,” Lilia tells him. “Go clean up.”
Cassuis stares up at him with those unnerving two-toned eyes and stays put just long enough for Lilia’s patience to start to ebb before he gives him a short nod, picks up the forgotten sword, and trudges off.
Silver wasn’t supposed to have met Cassius so early. That was a complete mistake. If he could, Lilia would grab time’s dial and turn it back far enough to pull Silver away before Cassius could sniff him out.
At eleven and a half, Cassius had evolved into a rowdy boy brimming with energy few others could match. He was a trouble-maker at heart, which was as endearing to others as it was irritating to Lilia. Nothing the boy ever did outside of the training room was truly dangerous, but still—everything he did, in Lilia’s eyes, only brought Silver closer to perils he had no reason to be near. Had it not been for Cassius’ never-ending eager nosiness, perhaps Silver wouldn’t have been exposed to him until they were both ready.
Lilia had entrusted Malleus with his son, as he had done so many other times, because Malleus had already matured enough to know how to care for the boy's unique needs. He hadn’t explicitly told Malleus not to let Cassius around Silver, but he hadn’t not told him that the two of them shouldn’t be in a room together, so he doesn’t know whether or not to blame himself when he comes back one day to find Silver sitting cross-legged in front of Cassius and besides Malleus, listening to the half-fae prattle on about a sort of stone with a pocket full of crystals inside while he points to a faded picture on the book’s yellowed page.
For a moment, Lilia freezes. He’s only been a parent for barely over a decade, and that amount of time hasn’t prepared him for everything a child can get himself into, especially one as mild-mannered as Silver. Malleus is the only one who looks up, smiling when he sees his mentor. Lilia forces a smile back; if Malleus is at ease, then Silver, who looks up to him, will also be placated.
“You’re back,” Malleus announces, standing with an ease that seems to have come naturally to him. Cassius, who has yet to hit any substantial growth spurt, clambers to his feet with all of the grace of an elephant.
“You didn’t tell me you have a son!” he exclaims, pointing to Silver. Silver blinks languidly, slowly looking up from the picture Cassius had been showing him. “How long have you had him?” asks Cassius; Malleus looks mildly surprised and gives Lilia a calm yet puzzled glance.
“Since he was a baby.” That’s all Lilia says before he strides forward, arms outstretched to sweep Silver up and away from this dangerous, unkempt boy, but Cassius is faster. He’s reaching down to take Silver’s hands and carefully, gently, he helps the boy raise himself up.
“Careful, Silver. Are you dizzy? We can sit back down if you want to,” Cassius tells the boy, only to be met with a soft scoff and a shake of Silver’s head.
“I’m not a baby, D. I’m not gonna drop easy,” grumbles the boy, but he doesn’t make any move to let go of Cassius’ hands. Cassius nods, dropping one of Silver’s hands and clasping the other a bit more tightly. “Are we gonna go into the forest now? You said you’d show me your magic.” Lilia’s stomach drops at those words.
“Silver, dear, I’m afraid there won’t be much time for that. Come now,” he interjects, holding his hand out. Silver looks like he wants to argue, eyes narrowing for just a second, and Lilia wonders whether this will be the first time that he’ll truly have to be firm with his son, but instead the boy pouts and begrudgingly lets go of Cassius.
“Okay, D, I’ll see you later,” he mumbles. Cassius gives Silver a smile and a wave, watching as Lilia tells the boy to go on ahead without him, then turns as Malleus places a large hand on his shoulder and murmurs something to him. A second later, Cassius is nodding and he’s leaving the room, heading in the opposite direction that Silver went. Malleus fixes Lilia with another one of those perplexed looks, crossing his arms behind his back.
“Cassius has only known Silver for the hour they shared here,” he says. It’s not a question, but Lilia hears the intent behind it. He sighs. There’s no use trying to eke his way out of this one, not when Malleus is questioning him about it directly.
“You know what the Corvus boy is like. He’s a magnet for all things full of risk—Silver shouldn’t be exposed to a loose canon like that at this age. He’s too rough to be playing with someone like Silver, especially when he doesn’t know the limits of his own strength.” Lilia’s tone is firm and final, but Malleus clearly doesn’t think the conversation has ended.
“He’s a child, Lilia. He’s not malicious by any means,” maintains Malleus, a bit incredulously.
“Did he not earn his moniker by being malicious?” questions Lilia, raising a brow.
Malleus blinks. “Diablo? It is not something I believed to be borne out of barbarous behavior. He is a spirited child, and he will be my second in command when he grows old enough. Why wouldn’t your son be safe around him, if he has been training for a job far more dangerous than either of them expect it to be?”
“He is wild,” declares Lilia. “I don’t want someone like that influencing my son.”
“He is gentle,” counters Malleus. “You saw how he treated Silver. He’d never harm that boy.”
Lilia’s mouth curves downward in displeasure. “We do not know that. You said it yourself—he’s being trained for a lifelong job of danger. I have seen what living in constant danger has done to men and believe me, Malleus—that boy will not stay gentle forever.”
Malleus stays quiet for a second, obviously dissatisfied, but he just nods after the bout of silence. “We will see. It won’t be too long until he truly starts to flourish.”
Lilia won’t need to wait. He’s confident that he already knows how things will play out.
Cassius is thirteen the next time that Silver sees him.
It had been a long set of months to go through. Immediately after that chance encounter, Silver had asked his father nonstop if he could go see Cassius again and when Cassius would be able to visit him. Lilia had to keep coming up with excuses as to why the older boy wasn’t able to play with his son, but after enough time the novelty fell away and Silver began to focus on other things instead. It was just as well that Cassius had been sent away on his first real mission; the more distance between him and Silver, the more relaxed Lilia could be.
Cassius came back, though, as was expected of him, and Silver had somehow slipped past his father to welcome him back into the kingdom.
No one but Malleus and Lilia called him Cassius anymore. It was only “Diablo this” and “Diablo that”, which fascinated Silver, especially when the half-fae himself arrived, head held high while he perched on the ebony stallion. His unique magic was still in play; black feathers covered every inch of his body, ruffling each time the horse stepped forward like a sea of obsidian shards. His hands, which gripped the reins loosely, had turned into long black claws, easily larger than a normal man’s would be. The wings that had sprouted from his back were folded against it, but even tucked away so anyone could tell that the sheer size of them wasn't anything to underestimate.
At the gates, Diablo jumps down from the saddle, shivering slightly as the wings and feathers melt away to reveal his dirty, weary self underneath. His hair had been significantly shortened, the braids his mother had added cut off long ago, and was nothing more than a matted fluff that was in as desperate need of a wash as the rest of him, and his face, albeit youthful, had the sort of hardness in it that only came after days of nothing but combat, and even though he was doing his damn best to stay upright Lilia could see that his legs were shaking from underneath the leather armor he wore.
Still, his eyes were bright, sparkling with recognition as they landed on the pearly-haired boy waiting for him at the entrance. Diablo grins, handing the reins to one of the stable staff and quickening his pace towards Silver while the other boy does the same. They don’t hug, but the way they clasp each other’s shoulders with a hand is close enough for Lilia to bristle. He watches from afar, standing next to Malleus as the two boys pick up the chatter like they’d been friends for ages.
“It’s been a while,” says Diablo, still smiling like he’s meeting an old friend and not a boy he spent just a single day with years ago. “How was life here while I was gone?”
“It’s fine. I haven’t seen you in so long—but I heard about you a lot! Malleus would tell me about your progress whenever I’d ask. I’m surprised that I didn’t get to see you after we met,” Silver continues. “Father kept telling me that you were too busy for me. Were you really that busy? Is training going to be hard?”
“Well, it was difficult, but it wasn’t that bad,” says Diablo, a bit perplexed. “I had lots of free time when I’d do especially well. I thought you were the one that was busy all of the time,” he tells the other boy. Before Silver can answer, he’s already buckling, his weight dropping onto Diablo as he crumples. Lilia has already started to step forward to rush down the stone path to his son and pick him back up, but Diablo is sweeping his arms underneath Silver’s back and knees and lifting him as easy as anything, looking only mildly concerned. He continues the walk all the way up the path in silence, stopping a few feet away from Malleus and Lilia.
From here, Lilia can see the bruises and cuts on his soft, pale face. There are lines of sweat cutting through the grime on his cheeks. Lilia tears his eyes away from the image of Diablo’s strangely, inhumanly adolescent face to look at his son instead.
“He’s still falling asleep, then?” are the first words out of Diablo’s mouth. Not I’ve returned, Malleus, or The battle was won, or Don’t you want to know how many men I killed? He asks for Lilia’s son, like he’s the only thing that holds any importance right now.
“Draw yourself a shower.”
Lilia says nothing else before he reaches forward and takes his son away from the blood-stained hands of the Corvus child.
It’s impossible to separate Diablo and Silver after that. The two boys are attached to the hip, never one without the other, and soon enough Lilia can count the days on a single hand where they’ve been away from each other for a full twenty-four hours. Malleus finds this more amusing than Lilia thinks he ought to.
“They’re friends,” he tells Lilia one day. “Why would we want to separate that?”
“One of them doesn’t have a hold on himself. He’s unpredictable and his only skill is that he’s gotten good enough at socializing to convince people to get into trouble with him.” Malleus snorts, much to Lilia’s chagrin.
“I wasn’t exactly a saint when I was that young either, Lilia. Yet, somehow, you don’t have a problem with me being around Silver. Why is that?” Lilia stays quiet for a second, frowning at the floor while his hands clasp themselves together.
“Cassius may have strength, but that’s filled in the spot where maturity would go. Silver’s needs aren’t as simple as they seem—and Cassius isn’t well-equipped enough to be able to handle them the way you can.”
Malleus snorts again. “Just because Cassius possesses more strength than others doesn’t mean that he traded out his tenderness. You didn’t raise your son to accept being walked all over; if Cassius was hurting him, don’t you think Silver would’ve done something about it by now?”
Lilia didn’t want to admit that Malleus had him there. Still, no amount of reassurance would make him trust Cassius so easily.
“How old is your dad?” Diablo asks one day, while he and Silver are sitting in the woods and poking at worms with sticks. Silver shrugs and makes a non-committal noise, eyes trained on a particularly active worm that’s wrapped itself around his twig.
“I dunno. He’s never told me. But I know he’s older than Malleus,” Silver tells him after a moment of shaking the worm back onto the dirt to seek out a different one.
“Really? That’s old,” says Diablo, suddenly distracted by a beetle. They explore the soil beneath their hands in silence, occasionally pointing out the stray ant or centipede that wandered into sight. Eventually, Diablo decides to ask another question.
“Where’s your mom? I always see you with your dad, but never your mom.”
Silver pauses, eyebrows pinching slightly. He sits back on his heels, looking at nothing as he tries to remember ever having a mother. “I don’t think I have one. Most people do, right? I don’t. It’s just been my dad and I for a long time. I don’t really talk to the old man about it, and I’ve never really thought about it, either.” He looks over to where Diablo is sitting, eyes wide at the grimace the other boy is wearing.
“Sorry,” Diablo blurts out before Silver can say anything. “It was rude to ask. I shouldn’t have.”
“No, it’s—it’s fine, I don’t care,” Silver says in return, then once more when it looks like Diablo is going to try to apologize again. “Really, it’s fine. It doesn’t bother me.”
Diablo looks away, worrying at his lip for a moment before looking back and asking, “...Are you sure?” His voice has gotten smaller, Silver notes, like he’s worried something will go wrong if he’s too loud. Silver sighs, then grins a little.
“Yeah, D, I’m sure.”
They scavenge the ground in silence after that. Neither boy is tense, but it’s obvious to Silver that his friend still feels bad about pressing into his personal life. Silver doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say now. Before he can think of anything, everything goes black, and the next thing he’s seeing is Diablo’s worried face above his. He’s passed out again.
“How long?” are the first words out of Silver’s mouth as he blinks, squinting when the light filtering through the trees hits his eyes a bit too harshly. It’s then that he notices that Diablo’s got his arms wrapped around him, keeping him from fully planting into the earth below.
“Just a few minutes. Do you wanna meet my mom?” Silver blinks again at the sudden question.
“Huh?”
“My mom. D’ya wanna meet her? She’s really nice. You can meet my dad, too.”
Silver doesn’t know if this is supposed to be something else to make up for asking about his lack of maternal figure, but he decides that there’s no harm in agreeing. He nods, watching Diablo’s face break out into a wide grin.
“Great! We can go now! She won’t mind me bringing back a guest—actually, she really likes it when I find other people, because there aren’t a lot of thirteen-year-olds in this place,” Diablo chatters as he pulls Silver to his feet.
“I’m twelve,” Silver offers, frowning as he feels Diablo try to wrap his arms back around him and pick him up. “And I can walk on my own, I’m not a baby.”
“Yeah, but what if you fall asleep again? It’s a long walk back to the gates. Besides, you’re really not that heavy.” Diablo proves his point by hefting Silver up and over his shoulder, ignoring the other boy’s squawk of surprise. Other than that, Silver offers no resistance and decides to go along with it. True to Diablo’s word, he ends up falling asleep once more on the walk back and only wakes up once they’re nearing the gates.
Lilia knows just how easily Silver can go from awake to unconscious on the ground, and it concerns him that he’s been spending so much time running around with his tricky friend because the sudden body-drops don’t have a specific set schedule and, to anyone's knowledge, can happen wherever and whenever they please. Seeing Diablo carry his son around in his arms should’ve brought him some modicum of comfort, but all it does is disconcert him even more.
These days, it seems like the only thing that Diablo does with any joy is picking up Silver and carting him around. He’s sixteen and clearly the stronger of the two despite Silver’s constant conditioning, and so he has no trouble at all picking up the boy and slinging him over a shoulder or into both arms like some sort of gangly princess. Silver has long since stopped protesting and even anticipates it; whenever he hears his friend approaching, he’ll just lift a hand and soon enough he’s being hoisted into the air. They’ve even learned how to get Diablo to sprout his wings and soar down towards the ground to glide right over Silver and spirit him back up towards the sky. Each time it happens, Lilia can feel his heartbeat taking years off of his lifespan.
Then, the letters from Night Raven College arrive, and Lilia finds himself explaining to his son that he won’t be able to see his closest friend for most of the year.
Silver takes it about as well as Lilia expected him to. He locks himself in his room for the rest of the day, curled up on his bed and smothering his face into the pillows until they’re drenched with warm tears. He refuses any sort of comfort, even from Diablo, who leaves the room looking just as heartsick as Silver feels. It’s the only time Lilia finds himself pitying the dark-haired boy.
Malleus ends up being the one who’s able to pull Silver into something resembling a conversation while he explains what’s happening. He’s still distraught, but has calmed down enough to listen to the older fae without interrupting. He’s clearly not happy about any of it, though.
“But you’re leaving,” he whines after Malleus has finished explaining.
“It’s just for a little bit. You’ll be there with us before you know it,” Malleus replies, pulling Silver into another hug as the boy’s face starts to crumple again. “They’ve got phones over there that we can use to call you. We’ll talk every day, just like we do now.”
“But it’s not the same,” whimpers Silver, his face pressed into Malleus’ chest. He sniffles as the fae hushes him, carding his fingers through the boy’s fine hair. Eventually, Silver relents and leans into the touch, wrapping his thin arms around Malleus and staying there until his chest has stopped heaving up and down with hummingbird-quick breaths. After a minute, Malleus pulls back and lets out a huff of laughter; Silver’s fallen asleep on him.
Diablo comes the closest to crying Lilia has ever seen him when it’s finally time to leave. He lets Silver cling to him for far longer than Lilia finds acceptable, but even when Silver buries his face into his friend’s shoulder to hide his tears Diablo puts on a brave face, comforting his friend and smiling all the way through until Silver finally, begrudgingly, leaves.
“Are you nervous?” Malleus asks him when Diablo hasn’t made any attempts at starting a conversation.
“Are you?” Diablo shoots back, then, when Malleus quirks his eyebrow, “...Maybe. I dunno. I don’t like the idea of leaving Silver on his own, but I can’t exactly leave you alone either, can I?” Malleus chuckles, nudging the younger boy.
“That’s correct. Don’t worry about your friend—it’ll just be a year, and then the two of you will be back together like nothing ever happened.”
The eagerness that spreads across Diablo’s face makes Lilia wonder whether keeping them apart those years ago was the right thing to do.
Diablo can’t keep himself away from his phone, not when it’s Silver texting him. He’s still relatively new to the whole “technology” thing, but he makes the best of it to communicate with his friend. Lilia would find his eagerness sickening if he didn’t know that Silver was just as enthusiastic to be able to contact the rambunctious boy. Diablo’s energy hasn’t gone down the slightest bit since coming to NRC; if anything, the lively atmosphere that surrounds him seems to only bolster it, and he’s off being a menace when he’s not badgering Malleus or calling Silver.
Lilia isn’t unaware that there are very few children Silver’s age in the Valley of Briars. Diablo was probably the only child close enough to Silver’s age that he could relate to, so the bond they shared made sense—they didn’t have anyone else but themselves. Therefore, Lilia had expected a few bumps in the road with Diablo socializing with an entire fleet of other sixteen-year-olds, and was prepared to see Diablo’s fair share of trial and error while making acquaintances.
He hadn’t expected Diablo to be downright hostile.
It wasn’t until some poor idiot had decided to try to badmouth Malleus out of earshot that everyone was tipped off to how damn far Diablo’s hearing spanned and how fast he could throw his fist into another’s face that Lilia began to understand what was lying under the boy’s soft surface.
There wasn’t anything that held Diablo back from turning the kid’s face into the perfect resemblance of a busted fruit. His hands, which had never held Silver with anything more than a soft, cautious grip, became unyielding stones that didn’t help someone up so much as pounded them into the asphalt. It’s the first time that Lilia watches Diablo fight in-person. It’s vicious.
He thinks back each time he’d watched Diablo help Silver up or carried him over his shoulder or kept a hand in his in case he started feeling drowsy or pulled him up with such calculated tenderness, and he almost can’t believe that those are the same hands that are now scraped bloody and bruised. It’s then that it dawns on him just how cruel he could’ve been to his son throughout all those years, and yet—and yet.
Diablo hadn’t so much as tried to lift a finger against Lilia’s son. He had every opportunity to, but he didn’t even consider it. Lilia can feel the hypocrisy of judging someone for their bi-colored personality; when it comes to it, he can see a bit of himself in Diablo each time he switches demeanors around the people he’s with. It dawns on him that Diablo was trying to protect his son just as much as he was, but perhaps neither of them really saw it that way through their separate perspectives.
When Silver is accepted into NRC and reunites with his friend after a long year of waiting, Lilia steps back and watches the two of them embrace without a single qualm floating through his head. As the boys start chattering excitedly, nearly talking over each other with so much enthusiasm it’s practically bursting from every seam, Lilia turns around and lets them have the room to themselves.
There’s no reason for him to oversee their reunion. Diablo will keep his son safe. He can trust him with that.
It’s not until Diablo’s third year that he finally brings up the topic that’s been hovering over his head like a persistent cloud through all of his nineteen years of life.
He’s taken solace on the roofs of Diasomnia, his knees tucked underneath his chin and his arms curled around his shins. Lilia finds him soaking up what remains of the evening sun with his eyes half-closed; even though Lilia’s arrival is completely silent, he doesn’t move a muscle. Diablo has had his entire life to get used to Lilia’s muted advances. The only sign that he acknowledges Lilia's approach are his eyes quickly darting over to him before going back to staring at the warm tiles he’s sitting on.
“I thought I’d find you here,” says Lilia with a grin, as chipper as ever. He sits down while Diablo gives him a hum.
“It’s the only place I can get away from all of those first-years—at least, the ones who are too chicken to climb up this far,” he mutters, blinking when Lilia chuckles.
“Ah, they’re only children. They’ll learn to scale soon enough,” says the fae, looking over as Diablo scoffs.
“If that happens I’ll just push them right over. Maybe a broken arm or leg from this height will teach them to leave me alone,” he grumbles, looking over the edge of the roof to the ground far below. Lilia chuckles again, even though he’s aware that Diablo would do it if he got the chance to.
They’re both quiet for a few minutes. Diablo has never been much for talking with Lilia, and Lilia doesn’t have anything to say. He can tell that something is bothering the younger student by the way his hands occasionally twitch and he shifts in place, like he’s trying to make himself smaller. But he doesn’t push. He waits, and then waits for a bit longer, and eventually Diablo starts speaking again.
“I…I have a question for you.” It’s just above the threshold of a whisper, caught by Lilia’s keen ears. Lilia nods, watching as Diablo tries to form another sentence.
“Go on,” implores Lilia when it starts to look like Diablo is going to freeze up.
“...When did you start to trust me with Silver?”
Well. Lilia had an inkling that the question might arise, but he hadn’t expected it to come so soon. Or maybe he’s just bad at measuring time the way someone of Diablo’s blood would, and it’s been longer than he thought it was.
“I’ll be honest, I hadn’t expected you to catch onto that so soon,” admits Lilia with an awkward smile.
“I still remember how it was. How you acted around me. Like I was…” Diablo trails off, wetting his lips. Like I was a danger to your son, he doesn’t say, because they both know Lilia is already thinking it. There’s something behind his eyes that’s just barely hiding guilt for something that isn’t his fault.
“I…suppose that I was a bit overprotective,” Lilia says with a forced chuckle. “Silver is my only son. I wanted what was best for him, but I was also learning that sometimes, what he needed wasn’t what I expected him to need. And…I was nervous around your strength. I hate to concede, but Silver wasn’t exactly the strongest when he was little—that, along with his tendency to drop like a sack of wet laundry amplified my concern for him. You were growing too fast for the likes of my little human to catch up with, and the fear that you’d be able to rein yourself back in clouded my judgment.
“I’d misjudged you. You had the capabilities to be dangerous, yes—but I was blind to the part of you that knew how to be gentle. I had wrongfully assumed that the two parts couldn’t coexist. I’d seen how careful you were with my son, and how much you cared for him. It was almost too late by the time I’d put my screws back in place, threw out my preconceptions, and realized that I’d been going about things completely incorrectly.”
Diablo gives him a noncommittal hum. He keeps his chin tucked to his knees while he mulls over Lilia’s confession; Lilia wonders if he should say something when Diablo’s eyes start to grow glassy, but the boy beats him to it.
“I thought you hated me. When I was younger—I thought I’d done something wrong, and you hated me for it. I spent years trying to figure out what I’d done,” he utters, blinking fast. Something in Lilia’s stomach drops hard and fast.
“Cassius, I—no, you hadn’t done anything wrong,” Lilia retorts, but the doubt is clearly written all over Diablo’s pale, shadowed face.
“I didn’t know that. At the time, I didn’t know that.” He sounds so small. “And when I found out you’d been the one keeping Silver away from me—” His voice breaks off, biting his lip hard enough to bruise and keeping his eyes pointedly away from Lilia. “Sorry. I shouldn’t—you shouldn’t have had to hear about my problems.”
“No, Cassius, I—I don’t know what to say,” Lilia blurts out, feeling something a little too close to panic start to bubble in his chest. “None of it was your fault. I’m the one who made mistakes, and—Seven, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize how much it had affected you.”
Diablo’s face pinches tight. He visibly bristles, giving Lilia a sharp look that would’ve sent anyone else running far away, hands clenched tight in front of him. “I was a bit more than ‘affected’. I just wanted my friend back and you—” He cuts himself off with a sharp sigh breathed through his nose, closing his eyes for a few seconds as he calms himself down. “...I don’t want to be mad about it. You fucked up, and I wasn’t exactly a model child, but that’s the past and there’s no use crying about it now.”
“Cassius—”
“No, Lilia, I don’t want to—”
“Cassius.” The all-too-familiar tone that overlies an unspoken command has Diablo turning immediately and silently, although he doesn’t look the slightest bit happy about it. Lilia sighs; this isn’t how he thought this conversation would go, but the boy has every right to be pissed at him.
“...There’s nothing wrong with still being upset at me. I’d fucked it up, and I’d be an idiot to think that you’re just fine with me having presented you a question that took years of your life to answer. I wish I could do something to fix this, but I don’t know what. If there’s anything I can do—”
“It’s whatever.” Diablo stands in one fluid motion, brushing the grit off of his pants. Lilia’s mouth snaps shut; there’s still so much more he wants to say, but when Diablo decides he doesn't want to talk anymore there’s nothing that can make him start up again. “You’ve gotten nice, though. Ish. Nice-ish. At least you can form more than single sentences around me.”
That draws a quiet chuckle out of Lilia. “My vocabulary has grown since then.”
“Clearly.” Diablo stands at the edge of the roof, looking like he’s waffling between using his magic to jump down or simply scale back into the window he came out of. Lilia takes the moment to note all of the subtle differences; Diablo’s lost all of the softness, replaced by hard edges and sharp bones. His piercings have grown in number, and there’s a tattoo winding around his arm like a delicate vine, wrapping from his shoulder down to the lower edge of his bicep. His hair has since grown out once more—the braids his mother used to carefully twine through the dark locks have made their comeback. Diablo opens his mouth, pausing to look back at Lilia.
“You were trying to be a good father. I can’t blame you for trying. I’m glad you learned how to have a proper conversation with someone, though. It was getting tiring listening to just two or three words and having to build off of that.”
Diablo is gone in a flurry of dark feathers and black talons. Lilia laughs.