A/N:

I've decided to revamp this and take out the cuss words. You're right, Kowaiki, I don't think it needs cuss words so I shall take it out. Hope it's a much better read then.

Midnight Haunting

Dark embers of flame erupting between brothers

for one love, lit by the moon's earthly glow,

and in our fight, she shall choose the one she hates more against

her will...

Dante looked towards the walls of his not so sterile barren home. The lack of furniture, the meager surroundings, and the chipped walls looked pretty damn good to him right now; all he needed was some furniture. It was a good thing he had this left over from his inheritance, or what was left of the Sparda wealth.

He laughed silently to himself, thinking of how he could just blow the day off and take in a few beers, or indulge in some fire whiskey and read a few girly magazines. He felt a self-satisfied smug coming on as he looked towards the jukebox in the corner— damned thing was well worth it. He'd buy more with the little amount he was always surprising himself to earn. It wasn't as if his customers were cheap, (indeed) truth was, and there weren't any customers yet.

He didn't mind, though. It was all alright, because he could only think of her—she who invaded his thoughts, when no woman should. He felt like listening to some music, something that would remind him of her…

That damned brother of his… always getting the girls he wanted. Maybe it was the fault of being too forward to blame, too certain and cocksure of himself, but despite being overtly arrogant, he still managed to receive many offers of unspoken promises from the more studious females. To the bolder ones girls, those who couldn't contain their mutual respect for his guns, he showed the devil inside of him; it was what he's made of, after all.

That's right, he thought, smirking to himself; his big bad guns were the prize they ooh'd and aahh'd at. Kind of delighting in a way, the fact that they were after more than just his guns. They were after the devil inside him.

Lifting them in his deft fingers, they felt light in his hand; he evaluated, balanced them as if they were precious nuggets to be weighed. These were, if nothing else, quite the interesting piece of conversation for diverting the attentions of the opposite sex. Well, that and his bike… or his red leather… whichever worked, really. He wasn't about to balk about the leather if the girls liked it on him. And what's with women and their love of leather, anyway? Was it the smell? The feel of it? He liked to watch them glide their fingers on his pants, coming dangerously close to the part they always screamed in the dark about.

If only he could just get his mind off of that particular woman. Why she refused his advances and embraced those of his brother (it) was laughable! His fucking brother for Christ's sake, the one who joyously took in the evil that we Spardas were brought up to fight against. The evil our father had taught us to fight, by going against it, so that he could have the life he wanted with his wife and his sons. The evil our mother protected us from. The same she, this little girl herself, was supposedly fighting against.

He sat there numb, after having watched her holding Vergil in her arms. He couldn't forget the look on his brother's face, as those glacial eyes of his looked at him from over her shoulders; he held on to her as if could possess her. As if she were his trophy. Dante grimaced, thinking of how readily angry he felt towards his brother, ready to plummet his fists into the face that looked like his.

Did she even fucking care? Hell, it hadn't even been a long courtship by any means. Just a few short chats, maybe something more than just one-liners between us, a joke shared here and there. I hoped I could catch her interest with my wit. So much for that, he thought bitterly and continued to drink what was left of his whiskey.

Crap--that stuff burned and singed down good, like hot honey with a sharp tang. He made a satisfied noise of smacking his lips together and opened his mouth wide with an almost yawn, which brought a noisey ahhh from him, echoing in the room. Allowing his arms to stretch out, he shook his head, the silver locks allowing them to tangle around his head; they fell back into place as if they rightly wanted to belong in the front of his pretty sharp baby blues. He blew them away from his face and looked over at the jukebox again.

Thinking about her wasn't any good, but his thoughts still strayed like an attention deficit. She's with Vergil, probably holding him, he thought, and his hand tightened around the whiskey bottle. Vergil more than likely was roving his hands around her body, touching her face…

He felt his skin rip as blood smeared on the shattered glass that was once his empty bottle. Dante sighed and decided to do what he's been dying to do: kick his brother's ass. It would always be number one in his list, but at the moment, it just wasn't possible- not with her there with him. He wouldn't bear watch that famous Vergil grin, the one adorning his brother's face, looking just like a savage goat. Yeah, that's the word. A wicked goatling, looking exactly like the face of an impious, smirking satire goat, leering from ear to ear. Hah. Damn him. Vergil would allow himself the delicious heady scent of her hair, and he certainly wouldn't hesitate to show him exactly what he himself got and what he didn't. No… no need to witness those similar glinting blue eyes taunting back at him, silently saying, nyah nyah.

Later on, after his hunger satiated from the pizza, he thought about the other thing that was burning in his mind: he had to exorcise her from his mind.

He walked towards his jukebox, as if it were a prize to be coveted, casually, languidly, leisurely, too cocksure of himself, his form- fitting jeans snugly moving over his ass as he walked, thus deeming his usual signature. Ironically, that was the very reason she had chosen his goddamn brother.

Why on earth would she choose Vergil over him, he couldn't for the life of him understand. What did she see in his brother, anyway? He was a certifiable prig, truth be told. Vergil found everything around him a bore-life was a bore, being good was a bore. He'd probably find her a bore in the end, too, and then he would throw her away like she was yesterday's news.

So why would she, the question burned in his mind, be insane enough to allow him into her arms like that while I stood there dumbly, staring at them with must have been hatred in my eyes.

He felt the sting of rejection, hard as a smack of cement slammed into his head, when he was fighting with Vergil; unresolved hatred and jealousy, brimming with over the top angst, what was always there between them. He could handle getting beat, and most definitely revel in the glory of whooping his ass, but of all the times of their sibling rivalry, he was stunned more than anything to see the woman he denied himself to love, denied himself to want, get taken away from him like that.

Right into the arms of his twin brother.

He cursed silently and closed his eyes, rubbed them with his fingers, wishing there was another bottle sitting around. His hand already healed from the cut glass. The jukebox was daring him to press the number that reminded him of her-of their relationship, of what their situation was at the moment, and those fingers hovered over a couple of sappy love songs he contemplated in removing; he didn't know what the fuck was wrong with him and why they were there. He wasn't about to press any of them, either. He was in no way the sentimental type to go moaning over losses, over a woman who had never really belonged to him. Plus, the fact that there were too many words with love in them and seriously, was that what he felt about her? Leaning over the jukebox, he saw the lights reflected his mood; the neon blue shimmered and flashed against the hard planes of his face, his eyes scanning quickly over the array of songs. He found the one he was looking for, the one he never used, or better say, never needed to use before. The finger pressed on the button, and the red lights came on, along with a beat from the fancy box.

He usually danced a different kind of beat when he took down a marionette or two, maybe a stupid demon in his wake would be appropriate right now, take them on backwards and show off a bit. But now he thought he could instead make a fucking fool of himself and do a little dance, without demons, without marionettes, without sin scissors, shadow kitties…yeah, I've got your vittles right here, pussies, he laughed to himself. Let's not forget nobodys. Nobodys would be a whole lotta fun, especially in the mood he was at the moment.

Moving his head up and down, he tapped his boot on the floorboards; they correlated with the beat and then his body began the steady beat of following the rest of the rhythm. He wasn't a dancer really, and if Vergil would tell anyone, he'd give him another black eye, just to match the other one he'd also give him in the future.

She really hates me….

Dante felt a little better as he moved to the number, climbing crescendo, and singing to the tune.

The vibration of the music started to thump loudly in the room; even his barren walls, with the few trophies hung there, moved to the beat, banging against the wood planes of the partition.

He felt he could do one of those backward moonwalks, and allowed himself to slide backwards, his boots scraping against the floorboards, creating a noisy shuffle that didn't quite match the tune, but he didn't give a shit if he looked cool or down right stupid. He shook his head up and down while he grabbed his guitar from the corner of the room, deciding against the drums for now. Picking up on the string, his deft fingers held on to the same tempo.

His silver locks, now wet, flew up and down from the gravity, as he shook his head to the tempo of the beat, strumming to his guitar. The song was ending and he yelled out, she hates me! His expression wrinkled in a fashion of a super rock star, finding the strings to push and the fingers to move to the sound. He had a good ear for music, much better than Vergil. Another thing that made him much more eligible. Well to hell with her, then.

Plenty of fish in the sea, right?

How long the knock on the door went on, he did not know. Maybe he had disturbed the neighbors, he thought, his brows coming together at the prospect of having to deal with do-gooder neighbors. Didn't they know he was here to save their asses?

Didn't matter. Still, he thought about how he moved into this part of the neighborhood so that he wouldn't have to bother with shit like that, and now, he'd have to make his polite excuses. Stopping short from pushing his slightly wet hair back, so as to avoid looking like his brother, he opened the door too fast, expecting to stand before his angry neighbors, or worse, have cops at his door because of the noise. Disturbance of the peace, they'd say. Yeah, right… he had glanced at the clock on the wall before and saw that it was near midnight. Did everyone go to bed at ten, then?

He grabbed a towel from the back of a chair; he hardly broke a sweat, really, even after several missions of fights, not one drop. Maybe it was because it was a very hot summer evening, or the lack of ventilation in his home. Or maybe, it was because of the feeling of his inner emotions spilling out…whatever… it didn't make it any more surprising to see her there, standing at the doorway, not lounging or anything, nor folding her arms as expected. She just stared at him, with an open nakedness that irritated him to the depths of his soul.

His thoughts went completely devoid, as if they fled like the rest of his wits.

He didn't ask what had happened between her and Vergil. They looked at each other from across the small distance that separated them. The pupils of her eyes dilated, contracting from the harsh light coming from the inside. Behind her, the darkness engulfed, making the backdrop of her hair blend in. She stared at him with those strange and cat-like, different colored eyes, daring him, challenging him to say something, anything. But his usual cocky attitude and mouth had apparently flown away after his song and dance.

After what had seemed an eternity, he slowly stepped aside, not moving his eyes away from hers, allowing her to step over the threshold, catching a whiff of her sweet scent as she passed precariously close to him. He closed his eyes momentarily and pushed the door closed with a loud creak.

He wouldn't dare ask.

Not now.

She turned around, looking at him with intensity, then did what he expected her to do-she folded her arms across her white blouse, permitting him a view of the stretch of the loveliness of her breasts, now pushed, defying against their usual fullness, accentuated by the tightness of the cotton material. His eyes lingered there for a moment until they flew back to her steady eyes.

No way would he dare say a word; he waited for her to say something. The sounds of their heavy breathing in the near empty room became notably louder. There was an excuse for his heavy breathing, but what of hers?

Then she came at him like a tumultuous whirlwind.

"You jerk!" she yelled, a furious vision of an avenging dark earthly angel, beating her small fists into his chest. She plummeted her strength and threw her accusative words at him, her white, even teeth bared, "Why didn't you fight for me? Would you rather have your brother have all the glory? You're such a fool! Wimp! Why do you always let your brother beat you like that? Don't you ever care for anything?"

Dante stared dumbfounded at first, then a slow, easy, wide grin immediately replaced his surprise. For the life of him, he'd never understand women. But instead of trying to understand, he allowed himself to feel, so he let her vent her frustrations. When his chest felt like a drum beating, his strong arms enclosed around her smaller frame, enveloping her as she sobbed into the curve of his shoulder. It was his turn to smell her, bury himself in the cloud of dark hair while she gave a small whimper.

"Damn you all to hell, Dante Sparda."

Oh yeah, he thought with a satisfied grin, his spirits lifted. She hates me alright