> CYBERGOTH GRANDPA.

his tears are black, and ink floods his throat. surely he’s drowning, he thinks as he chokes. the world is in ruins around him, and he hears familiar voices yelling his name.

before awareness goes, everything comes flooding in all at once — the why most of all.

( his hands are grabbing crowley’s shirt collar in a white - knuckled grip and shaking violently. he’s screaming that this has gone far enough, tears streaming down his cheeks / it’s time to stop / it’s time to call this quits / it’s enough!!

and he’s called soft for all his caring, and that dismissal makes his hands drop and makes him stagger a step back.

things were never supposed to go this way, not initially, and the fact that this is being accepted as the way things will be —

lilia feels bile rising in his throat, vision blanking as he blinks back his tears and sets off with a determined stride.

he tries to put an end to things before the pendulum could start swinging, but it isn’t enough. now the steady passage of time is too fast to fight and the truth has slipped out and everything has slipped through his fingertips and spiraled out of control on its way to shattering on the floor.

even people with the best of intentions can be villains of someone’s story, and the looks in his son’s eyes / in his ward’s eyes / in his protégé’s eyes / in the prefect’s eyes all told the same story: lilia was, unequivocally, the villain in their stories. but being a villain only means you do evil deeds important to a plot; it doesn’t mean that he can’t change course and help.

but help isn’t enough, he finds out as everything begins to unravel.

perhaps the course has been set already, and it’s impossible to change it so late. )

the prefect is unconscious in his arms and losing blood fast, and lilia knows what this means for malleus — the boy who has always been so gentle, so warm, so naive. lilia knows what’s coming, and this is where he’ll make a stand on shaking legs. he lowers their still body to the ground, his own ruby eyes glassy and dazed as he holds the magic pen out towards his side. the pale skin of his face is covered with in-black tears.

this ends here, he thinks, and he doesn’t realize he’s speaking the words aloud. his voice echoes with something that isn’t him, and it’s in the seconds after that the pain sears through him.

it’s scorching and tearing and drowning as whatever will that is lilia vanrouge is overcome with something singular and powerful. it takes his magic into its own hands and it smiles with that same mischievous fire he always smiles with.

green fire covers the ground around him, and he yells again — something he won’t remember with a voice that is far from just his own. ink stains his skin in the marks of a drowned soul and the filigree the marks those who have fallen to this curse crowley — and himself — have foolishly set upon this school and the students therein.

like all the ones who have fallen to this before, there’s a target of his anger and frustration and pain.

but he won’t remember the single - minded fury, or the way he’d attacked his own children for standing in his way, or the way he caused so much destruction as a being with so much power acting with no control. he won’t remember the bitter truth spilling out without restraint, and he won’t remember when it’s silver who takes him out of it before his magic runs out and his entire being is consumed.

he won’t remember for a while, at least — and when he does remember it will be in well - deserved drowning nightmares with ink grasping at his legs and pulling him ever under into its depths. he’ll stare at a mirror of himself, and that mirror will smile and will hurt those he loves in that mirror world.

no one will remember except for two, it turns out.

when he opens his eyes, the ceiling isn’t a terribly familiar one, and he inhales a slow breath as his gaze flicks sideways to crowley. he wishes he could say his stomach drops, but that would involve being surprised.

“ you didn’t. ” it’s not a question.

“ you know very well that i did. that we did, actually. we’re stuck in this now, or did you forget?? ”

lilia’s silent as he pushes himself up and off the bed. there’s no pain in his muscles like there should be, but of course there isn’t — nothing really happened, after all. he crosses towards the door, only stopping beside crowley once he starts speaking again.

“ that’s the second time you’ve tried something like that. i won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt my feelings when you yell at me like that. such cruel words… ”

lilia finally regains whatever composure was shaken from him, and he smiles sweetly and lifts a hand to pat crowley’s cheek. “ save the crocodile tears for someone who will at least pretend to buy them, brother. ” his heels echo on the stone floor as he continues his walk to the door.