Title: Filling the emptiness
Fandom: Diablotin
Rating: G
Length: ~800
Summary: Sirris chose to be a father, but sometimes it's hard to cope.


Silvia didn't have to remind him that he had chosen this. Sirris remembered perfectly clearly the night when he'd told her he wanted them to have a child. He hadn't had to beg, or even work too hard to convince her - it was something she wanted too. But it had been his suggestion, and now it was his responsibility, even if all he wanted right now was to crawl into a hole in the ground and hide for another thousand years or so.

She didn't try to touch him - she knew better than to try and cajole him or caress him when he was in this state - but she did stand there with the sleeping baby in her arms, looking weary and frustrated. He knew this argument was his fault, that he ought to try and fix it, but he couldn't do anything other than tell her he was sorry.

"Sorry's not enough," Silvia sighed. "Do you see why I'm upset? Why this is important to me?"

Sirris nodded. She was leading a group of aspiring Channels on a training excursion that would take three days, and it would be the first time she was away from their daughter, Iris, for any substantial length of time. They'd arranged it weeks ago. Then Sirris had had a resurgence of what he thought of as the emptiness. The bleak, vacant void that stared back at him when clinging to friends or loved ones or faith wasn't enough, when everything was too loud and overwhelming and terrifying to contemplate.

When he thought about how it could all be torn away from him again.

It happened less than it used to, but when it did, it overrode all his other desires except to be alone, preferably in a dark room where no one would notice if he screamed or curled up into a ball. It was one of the reasons he and Silvia still kept separate households, though their houses were very close to one another. One of the reasons... He forcibly stopped himself from beginning to enumerate his other failings as a partner, knowing it would only make things worse.

"Do you want me to leave her with Guillame and Portia instead?" Silvia's voice cut through his dismal train of thought. "It could probably be arranged, if you're not in a state to..."

Sirris shook his head miserably. "No." He forced himself to stand and look her in the eye, to resist the urge to crawl to her like a beast instead. "I can do it." He hadn't been sure the words were going to come out of his mouth until they did.

Silvia's face was a mix of relief and not-quite-convinced. "All right," she said. "I'm trusting that if it turns out you can't, you'll take her straight to Guy's house, though."

"I know," said Sirris, still making a huge effort to form the words that would allow him to communicate with the woman he loved. "I will." The language of this Empire sometimes escaped him entirely in his darkest moments, so at least he wasn't that far gone. He stretched his arms out to take his daughter.

Once Silvia had given her other instructions - most of which washed over him rather than being fully absorbed - and had departed, Sirris sat down, still holding Iris. She stirred sleepily, waving one chubby arm, but wasn't quite awake yet.

"It will be all right," he told her in the tongue of the angels. "I will take care of you - and you will do the same for me."

When Silvia returned after three days, she found Sirris in the garden with Iris, the two of them sitting together on a blanket under the ash tree. Iris was absorbed in examining a fallen leaf, while her father kept an eye on her to make sure she didn't roll into the dirt or eat many insects. He was still quiet, but seemed more contemplative than before. Silvia settled down beside them, not breaking the silence. Sirris reached out to take her hand, and she gave his a squeeze in return.

"Thank you," Sirris said after a few moments.

"For what?"

"For trusting me with this... with her. For believing that I could handle things."

"I knew that you could - or that you'd know if you couldn't," she replied. "It looks like everything went well, though."

He nodded. "It wasn't easy, but we got through it together. Iris was a great help."

Silvia smiled. "I hoped she might be. She's very good at reminding people about what's important in this world."

As her parents shared a kiss, Iris laughed at another leaf drifting down from the tree overhead, the wind ruffling her brown curls.