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I can see [George] working through the possibilities, the logical conclusions, the likelihood that Father is telling the truth. What he's willing to lose if he dares disobey. / The answer, it seems, is not in my favor.
— The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, Andrew Joseph White.
The first time George discovered Silas reading his medical notes was during his first year of Medical school in Edinburgh.
On his very first day of taking said notes, his professor, a gangling man called Dr. Abney, brought his class to an abattoir, a place where the air smelled clinically of innards and rot and blood and not much of anything else.
After finding his little brother curled over his notes, chewing on his hair absentmindedly and staring at the pages with wide, adoring eyes, George knew it wasn't something that could last. When George did the same for Silas as Dr. Abney did for his class, he did it with the intention of scaring him off, but unfortunately for everyone involved, it didn't work.
No, it certainly didn't. Instead of pushing Silas away from his hopeless dreams of becoming a surgeon, George created a sick sort of fascination in his sister. He means, his brother. He created a sickness in him, tending to its continued survival rather than finding a cure to eradicate it, just like he had when he told him about that damned woman doctor who had pretended to be a male surgeon. Sometimes, because of it, George can't help but wonder, guiltily, if he was the one who caused Silas to get Veil Sickness in the first place.
But his guilt changes nothing. After finding his brother with his journals, George still told Silas, staring at pigs, that his professor had all of his students kill one on their very first day of class, and it was a miracle, wasn't it, that he hadn't even needed to lie. Not then, anyways. George told Silas, watching the anxious twist of his face, that it becomes easier to open someone up to save them if you've first killed someone. That's what Dr. Abney said, anyway.
That first day, many students, George remembers clearly, blanked against the request. Two, George recalls, quit on the very first day, but he didn't. No, he certainly didn't.
George operated on the assumption, in showing Silas, that his brother would be like those two students who didn't have the guts to see their dreams through, but he, for his part in the mess, waited until after class to vomit, aiming for a shrub behind the school, better able to remember the feeling of sinew cracking beneath his soon-to-be Doctor's hands better than he could remember much else of Dr. Abney's following lesson. George figured Silas wouldn't be able to do it, but in being wrong, he created a monster.
At first, Silas cried and begged George to take him home, wrinkling his nose at the smell and what he was being asked to witness, and George figured, feeling a distant sort of pleasure within himself, that would be that. He felt satisfaction at having succeeded with a relatively small amount of upset.
Except, he was wrong to rest on his laurels so soon after haphazard victory. Except, exactly one singular week later, Silas came back to him with a brand new shine in his violet eyes, telling him that he was ready to learn more. Confessing, to him, that he had secretly watched the slaughterer cut throats for hours on his own, staring until his eyes blurred and then sneaking back the very next day to do it again, until the fear lessened within himself. And he looked proud of himself, unaware of the horror George was struggling to not let show on his face.
Because George's first mistake was bringing Silas to the abattoir, even knowing that their parents would want his head for corrupting their daughter's mind, if they'd known.
But his second? Well.
George, like a fool, did not take much convincing before he gave into Silas' request, and in doing so, he helped cement the Veil Sickness within his baby sister. Brother, he means.
Maybe the sickness— that is, Veil Sickness— was there in Silas from the beginning, presenting itself through all the symptoms their parents oh so clearly resented and despised him for, but maybe those symptoms only meant that he'd be more susceptible if he were to come in contact with the virus unprotected. Maybe, a mad, laughing voice that sounds too much like the student who'd cursed at Dr. Abney before storming out argues, he caught the sickness from the fucking pigs.
Either way, George was the one who prompted the lesion to grow, becoming incurable. George can feel the distant judgment of the second student, who'd left mutely, shaking his head at every single one of them who did not move to follow him. Is it his fault that Silas is sick, now? If it is, is he ever going to be able to forgive himself for that?
It is an honor to be known by the Viscount Lord Luckenbill by name, as odd and unworthy as George feels to be known. Silas would loathe the thought of them knowing each other well at all, but what Silas doesn't know can't hurt him, can it? Besides, he and his brother don't even talk to each other that much anymore. George has been busy with school, and Silas. Well, Silas is Silas. There are plenty of things about the world that Silas doesn't know or understand. George doubts it would hurt his feelings too much or for too long, if he were to one day discover of his and Lord Luckenbill's knowing of one another. That's what he likes to tell himself, anyway.
George messed up. Again. George didn't turn Silas away from the doors at Lord Luckenbill's annual Speaker gala, like he knew he should have. He'd known Silas wasn't well enough equipped to even fake his way into a medium's seal, so he should have turned him away. He'd known that Silas didn't have any of the chapters memorized, hadn't studied at all, and was certainly ill prepared to execute the traitorous woman Lord Luckenbill had selected for David Roswell, choosing her among the options at that experimental school of his with more traitors alike, to prove his loyalty with. He'd known. Still, he'd let his brother inside.
He'd let Silas inside, placing enough of his trust atop in him that he'd convinced himself that Silas would be able to put aside his insistence of not ever getting things right the first time around, and he was wrong for it. Letting Silas inside didn't lead to Silas' running away to medical school, like George had known was the intention. It has led to a room full of Speakers calling not only for George's very own Speaker status to be carved out of the back of his hand but for his doctor's license to be revoked too.
Gross negligence, they are saying. One, George thinks, calls for the gallows, but then Silas, his poor and hopeless little brother, is speaking. Silas, who always so clearly longed to fill his shoes and who George always stupidly relented to in giving him his old pairs, calls out for the yelling Speakers to wait. He says, even as George mentally wills his to be quiet, a confession that will certainly lead to his death, one way or another. He knows it's his fault more than it is not, but still. George does not move a single muscle to prevent Silas from revealing himself as faulty, letting his long hair spill out from beneath his concealing hat. He doesn't move a muscle, and in the months that follow, he can almost convince himself that it was the right, blameless choice to make, even in knowing, in the aftermath, that a choice to do nothing is still a choice.
Father used to shake Silas to stop his crying fits.
In the other room, George would clamp his hands firmly over his ears, pressing hard and helplessly, yet he would always remain silent, crying in his room. George doesn't know how Mother reacted then, avoided looking for her, but he guesses it wasn't dissimilar to any of the other times she bit her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth, and turned away.
Father used to shake Silas, in childhood, to stop his crying fits, but by the time George had left the Bell manor, going off to medical school in Edinburgh, it had become a far less frequent theme of their household, something he likes to credit himself for.
Gloria' strangeness, George proposed to their parents after one such outburst, even as Silas' chin threatened to wobble again, is not a heredity defect but instead a failure to thrive due to his own weakness of will, meaning that he could be fixed if the right pressure was applied. Meaning that they shouldn't give up on him just yet, sending him far, far away where George would never have a hope of seeing him again.
In the aftermath of that conversation, a tutor, and then a variety of tutors, were assigned to poor, young Silas, and for a moment, it almost seemed like it was sort of working. Almost, because Silas still fell quiet often and slipped the food that he did not want to eat onto George's plate when their parents weren't looking. Almost, because Silas still threw fits, even if they were often limited to being held at the foot of George's bed where he would sneak away in an attempt to avoid punishment.
But truthfully, George failed to prevent anything all, because Silas refused to fix himself, not even attempting to hide his faults. In Braxton's Sanitorium and Finishing School, the next time George will see his brother following his halfhearted betrayal at the ball, he will be helpless to do anything other than think of that moment. And that— the tutors, that is— was even before the pigs, so what right does he have to blame Silas, for falling ill? George caused this, didn't he? He must have, in his stubbornness. Should he have let his parents send his brother away sooner? It would have saved him a lot of heartbreak, wouldn't it have?
In the aftermath of Silas's reveal at the ball, Mother is pacing back and forth relentlessly, wringing her hands, and Father's face has been twisted with rage. Silas stands far apart from them, rocking back on his heels and staring blankly off at something only he can see.
George, for his part, stands in the space between them, creating a separation like he always has. In the past, maybe the gesture would have been considered more protective, but everyone is refusing to look at him now. His parents, angered, and Silas, because he's inept when it comes to looking people directly on. In privacy, without the jostling Speakers yelling on what felt like all sides of him, George sort of wants to shift towards someone, but he doesn't know which direction would be more unwise.
If he were to move towards Silas, with his mused hair and old men's clothes that were given to him by him, perhaps the gesture would be appreciated momentarily, before their mother's breath hitched dramatically and their father began yelling again. Yet it would be among the worst sorts of betrayals, wouldn't it be, to turn away from the united front he and Silas have always strived to present and to the directions of their parents, wouldn't it? It's a decision he would have to make rapidly, before the police arrive, so it feels as through there is not enough time to mule over the possibilities, calculating them correctly.
George tries, scrambling, anyway.
Following Mother's insistence to Father that they did everything right yet their daughter is still going to be killed— and Father's following silent, pinched response that clearly stated, wordlessly, that he doesn't care— George clears his throat, saying, "When the police arrive, I'm sure we can explain. She's still practically a child." The reasons, excusing as they are, begin rolling off his tongue more easily, as if that can make up for remaining still and silent earlier. "She meant no harm. She has a history of mental fragility. She even helped—"
Father cuts him off, whirling towards him and raising and accusing finger at him, "Shut the fuck up, boy."
George can't help himself; he flinches. The meaning of the gesture, with its hidden implication beneath, is clear— haven't you done enough?— even with George knowing that he could never do enough to make today up to Silas.
"In fact," Father continues, lips shaking with rage, "It'd be best if you turned and left right now." His mouth curls cruelly and with clear disdain, and George sees it in his eyes the moment the idea for the threat comes to him. "Now. Because if you keep talking, maybe I'll stop paying for the house. Even your fancy surgeon's salary can't support a wife there alone, not now. You're too busy paying the loan you took out for that bride price. Isn't that right?"
The mortification that thrums through George feels deadly, though it is not and could never be. George swallows thickly, looking to Silas. To Silas, whose face has twisted, a sudden stubbornness set in his gaze, not unlike George remembers there being in it when he came to him in privacy, confessing that he'd watched the butchery of pigs for hours upon hours. Not unlike when he claimed the repeatedly stabbed and rapidly bleeding out guard as his patient, holding on to him with as much possession as a dragon would its valuable gold.
George looks back to his father, and he sees the way his face is practically shaking in his willingness to go through with his threatening promise. Mother, beside him, is looking at nothing and no one, privately shaking her head to herself in distaste and wrapping her arms around herself.
And of course, Silas must realize George's decision the same moment that he does, because he tries, reaching out for him with a whisper, "George, please don't leave. Please, George."
At another time, the begging might have willed George to slow. Silas' violet eyes are widened, a lake of sadness that George's pitying heart could fall into if he focused on them for too long, so he doesn't allow himself to linger.
He starts, "I—"
But at his father's raised brow, he falters, cutting himself off. He backs away slowly, and he tries to pretend, to himself, that he can't see the way Silas winces, hurt as obvious as ever. If the expression is at the sound of his shoes clicking against the tile floor of his choice in this matter is unclear, or at least, George pretends that it is. In the following months, George knows he will try to convince himself that it wasn't clearly one of the two options.
But for now, he hopes, desperately, that Silas will one day be given the chance to understand his choice, praying that he will survive long enough to not be executed and have a family of his very own. If he does, certainly he will be capable of understanding that he had to pick himself over him, removing his neck from the line for the sake of his wife and not-yet-existent child.
He had a wife waiting for him at home, Silas might understand later, and she needed to be cared for more than Silas needed to be protected. George loves her beyond flesh and blood. He loves her, and he loves his child who will never be born. Can Silas even fairly blame him, for that? People can blame each other for a lot of things, George knows, but he doesn't wait to find out, turning away and refusing to imagine his brother's face at each tap of his departing shoes against the tile floor.
It is not an insult, not really, when the Viscount Lord Luckenbill and the Headmaster of Braxton's Sanitorium and Finishing School bring George into projects that involve dissecting more than just pigs. No, it is certainly not. In Edinburgh, in medical school, George always knew that pigs would turn into people. Of course, that it why he became a surgeon in the first place, wanting to make the world a better place and cure sick people of their terrible ills.
When Lord Luckenbill and the Headmaster are terrible, they are only making clear the terribleness which has always plagued this world, beginning in pastors and continuing all the way to abattoirs, where pigs and other worthless things of the like are slaughtered.
Neither Lord Luckenbill nor the Headmaster are unique enough of men to invent anything uniquely terrible, and George is only following his lead, isn't he? Is it now suddenly bad, to listen and do what one is told? Silas should understand, if he were to ever find out. Silas would have no right to feel betrayed, if he were to find out, because what Lord Luckenbill suggests they do to the students of the school is not a butchery but rather a post mortem operation. Right? They were already as good as dead, these girls. They were already practically lining themselves up at the gallows, eager as can be. Can the executioner really be blamed, for merely listening and allowing the ax to drop? Perhaps, to some degree, but isn't it better, to commit these executions in the sanctity of privacy, instead of abiding by the grotesqueness of public executions?
Silas would understand, if he were told. That's what George likes to tell himself, anyway, but the next time George sees Silas, after the ball and in the school, he finds the lie slipping precariously inside of his head. And then, truthfully, George can't claim any longer— honestly, that is— that he is surprised by his sister's hurt reaction. His brother's hurt reaction, he supposes. Still, in his own regard, he can't help but feel hurt himself.
George is only trying to help people like his brother, after a lifetime of helping him. That's all he has ever wanted to do, in becoming a doctor. So what right does Silas have, the next and the next and the next times they see each other, to judge him so harshly for simply not putting his neck on the line? He was simply doing as he was told. He was simply trying to help, putting his surgical skills to dismemberable use, trying to cure the terrible illness that Veil Sickness has always been. How is that his fault? How could that ever be his fault?