Chapter Text
Silver had finished his patrol of the encampment and was heading back to his shared tent with Sebek. As he passed by General Vanrouge’s tent he heard the sound of clacking. Silver thought it sounded like a bowl falling so he stopped and observed the tent. As he was about to leave, he heard a thudding noise.
Silver worried for the safety of his father, whether a remembered him or not, rushed to the tent. As he opened the tent’s flaps, he heard his father mutter, damn crocodile .
‘Fa-Sir Vanrouge?!’ Silver said worriedly. He froze slightly when he saw his father bent over, clutching his stomach as he held onto a table with his free hand. ‘Sir Vanrouge!’ Silver rushes to him and places his hand on his shoulder. He gets coldly rebuffed when his father shrugs him off.
‘Don’t touch me, human!’ Lilia hissed at him. He was paler than usual and in clear pain. ‘Leave me alone. I don’t require your help.’ He said through gritted teeth. His father suddenly winced with pain, he was getting really pain and a bit green. Almost as if he was going to hurl.
‘Fa-Sir Vanrouge,’ Silver began with a stricter tone. He tried to imitate that one that his father would use when scolding him. ‘You are in obvious pain, are getting paler by the second and look like you’re going to hurl. You need help. If not mine, then tell me who to look for?’
His father was silent to a bit before acquiescing. ‘Fine. Just help me lay down.’ Silver nods and places a firm hand on his back to act as support. With that, Lilia stands up and grabs onto Silver’s side, using him as a crutch.
Thankfully, there’s a bed only a few paces away. Lilia immediately plummets onto the bed in pain, falling on his side reverting to a fetal position. Silver then turns to clean up the table.
The table is covered in herbs of different kinds and has a tipped over wooden bowl. Silver picks up the bowl and examines it, the contents of the bowl were watery so it wasn’t the soup that Yuu, Sebek and himself had made for today. That ruled out food poisoning, caused by them, as the possible culprit.
When Silver looked closer he saw bits and pieces of green. And now that he’d held the bowl for a little bit, he was starting to feel a bit of warmth. Silver put all the pieces together and believed that his father made himself some tea and had poisoned himself due to his terrible cooking. Silver sighed and shook his head. He was not surprised, just disappointed.
Silver set the bowl down and began reaching out for the herbs on the table and the more he picked up the more confused he became. He’d studied these herb before, in Professor Crewel’s class: faemile, wormwood, rue, salvia, licorice root, mint pennyroyal, and calendula. Silver thought long and hard about what type of tea these herbs would make and if they had any negative effects, but he couldn’t think of anything.
Until it hit him. These weren’t tea herbs, they were medicinal. Silver finally remembered where he’d read them before. Silver tentatively turned back to his father, he was still in a fetal position. Clutching onto his stomach for dear life and looking just as green and pale as before. ‘Sir Vanrouge?’
Lilia opened his eyes, ‘What?’ His voice was low and ruff. He sounded out of breath.
‘Sir, these herbs…’ he cautiously continued. His father was a live wire at the moment. ‘Are for the termination… of a-‘
Lilia cut him off, ‘Pregnancy? Yeah, I’m aware.’ His voice was strained as he talked. Silver had to ask, ‘Are you-?’
‘Not anymore.’
Silver is stunned. Never in his wildest dream could he have ever imagined that his father might’ve gotten pregnant and then terminated. It didn’t align with the father he’d grown up with. The father who’d said he’d always wanted a child of his own but never could until he found Silver. Turns out Lilia could have children, he’d just terminated his pregnancies.
‘Stop gapping like a fish out of water,’ Lilia’s low harsh voice pulled him out of his stupor. ‘It’s none of your business. Now leave, you’ve served me well enough.’
Silver shakes his head. ‘Who’s the sire?’ Silver just had to know who’d manage to catch his father’s attention and why he’d never heard of him before.
‘Didn’t I just tell you that it was none of your business?’ Lilia’s pained voice was a little louder than before but still rather hushed. ‘How stupid can you be, human?’
‘I just wanna-‘ Silver stopped. The words damn crocodile repeated in his head like a mantra. ‘“Damn crocodile”.’
Lilia froze, eyes wide with shock.
‘Crocodile,’ Silver repeated as he deliberated on what that could’ve meant. A light bulb goes off in his head. ‘Sir Baul. He’s the sire of the unborn.’ When Silver looks at his father all he see is a cocktail of emotions, anger, sadness, shock, shame. He can see the exact moment all these emotions pass through his eyes.
‘Why didn’t you tell him? Sir Baul seems like a kind, loyal and reliable man. I’m certain that he would’ve been happy to raised them with you.’ Lilia’s face hardened. Anger was the emotion he’d decided to stick with.
‘These are war times, I can’t let myself be distracted by insignificant things. I’ve got human scum to fight.’ Lilia spit out with as much vitriol as he could despite all his pain. It didn’t work on Silver. ‘Plus, I despise children and have no desire to have any of my own. They’re nothing but burdens.’
Now that stung. ‘I see. But, if you did like children, would you ever have one?’
Lilia’s pale face looked at him as if he was crazy. He scoffed and rolled his eyes. ‘As if. But even if I wanted to, I can’t.’
Silver raised a brow, ‘What do you mean? You clearly can, you just-‘
‘What are you? Stupid?!’ Lilia raised his shaky voice. He was yelling at a volume set for normal conversation, he clearly couldn’t actually yell. ‘No I can’t! My body is not my own! It’s theirs! It’s hers. It’s for her to do whatever she desires with! I don’t belong to myself!’
Lilia suddenly clutches at his stomach, the pain seems to have doubled, maybe due to stress. Silver runs and kneels next to him, his father is starting to sweat, or maybe he already was and Silver just didn’t notice.
Lilia whispers, almost defeated, ‘And even if I did, it’s forbidden. They would kill us.’
Silver’s heart breaks. He feels like he finally understands his father. His father was a kind and loving man with a gentle soul, but a cruel past. His father had managed to convince himself that he hated children and didn’t want a family to combat the fact that he never had a choice at all. His father could never really choose whether or not he wanted a family because he belonged to the Draconia’s.
Silver finally understood with his father had always been fiercely protective of him. Why his father had called him “his greatest wish and deepest desire”. Silver feels like he’s going to cry but he stops himself. ‘Let me help you get into a comfortable position.’ It wasn’t a request so Lilia didn’t argue. He was in too much pain anyway.
Silver slightly lifts Lilia and shifts him so he’s laying on his back in the center of the bed. Silver is about to pull a blanket on top of him when he sees a red stain on his father’s pants. ‘Y-you’re bleeding!’ He looks over at his father’s face and sees that he’s staring off into the distance.
‘Just go.’ Lilia whispered. ‘I need to be alone.’
Silver looks at him for a bit and nods. ‘I understand.’ He finishes pulling the blanket over him and leaves.
When he walked out of the tent he’s hit with cold air. It’s fresh and crisp and he finds it difficult to breathe with all that has been revealed. He begins to wonder just how many abortions his father has had to endure to be able to keep serving Briar Valley. Just how many opportunities to have a family did his father have to give up on since he didn’t belong to himself. Silver wonders if maybe when his father finally retired and decided to start a family he found he couldn’t because all that medicine ruined his body.
Silver finally realizes just how much his father had suffered. And he hated it. His father didn’t deserve this, he deserved better. Silver only hoped that when they finally took Malleus down, his father and him could sit down and talk.
He could express to his father just how much he loved him and how irreplaceable he was to him.