Author: Moiranna
Title: Broken Connection
Rating: PG
Realm: Devil May Cry
Pairing: No intended pairing
Characters: Dante, Lady, Vergil
Genre: tragedy, angst
Warnings: Character death
Word-count: 770
Summary: Though people said bonds between twins did not exist, this was not true for half-breeds. When Death came for Vergil Dante knew it. Post DMC3
Notes: It's ten years to the day since my lover died from depression. The gaping hole still hasn't closed completely. I just needed to write out some of the angst about it.

"Vergil is dead."

Lady looked up from where she was bent over the pool-table in the shop, just about to pocket number fifteen in the right corner. Concentration disturbed she missed her shot, sending the white flying, crashing onto the floor with a loud bang. For a moment it looked like she would yell at him, but instead took a long hard look at the white-haired man sprawling in his office-chair, long legs stretched over the table. There was something off about him. Still she couldn't help but scoff.

"Hell sent a memo about it? C'mon, you told me yourself last week when the tower fell that he had survived the fall – that it hadn't been fatal."

"It wasn't." The hunter almost absent-mindedly rubbed at his chest over his heart, a forlorn look on his face. "I just know he's dead."

The mercenary straightened, leaning on the pool-cue as she studied him for several long moments. "This another bad dream?"

The look he shot her was nothing short of offended. "I can tell the difference between dream and reality." He took a sip of his stone-cold coffee, wincing at the acrid taste. "Most of the time."

"Then why?"

The red cambion fidgeted for a few seconds, something she never had seen him do before. "I can't feel him anymore. He's gone."

The incredulity in her eyes spoke its own language. "You can't feel him anymore?"

A loud huff, almost like a sigh. "I can't describe it, it's a twin thing. I... I've just always known that he was alive, even after the attack, but that connection is gone. It disappeared a few nights ago."

Dante didn't say that he actually had woken up from a nightmare when it had happened and that it physically felt as if something had pierced his heart, tearing it out of his chest, the pain so agonizing that for a while he had been writhing in pain, tearing the sheets wondering who the hell had managed to get into the shop unseen, back bowing his spine upwards so hard that it was borderline physically impossible before it occurred to him that he was perfectly okay and after several long moments he managed to un-tense and fall back.

And then those fifteen endlessly long heartbeats where he felt Vergil blinking in and out, just like when the lights flickered on and off before a power outage and it just went completely quiet.

Eyes closing he had swallowed convulsively, instincts alerting him to just what had happened. He just knew, despite that logic demanded that Vergil had either died when the gate had closed or he was alive, made his home in hell just like he had said he would. And though Dante had already said his farewells it was like a physical blow to feel that snap of a connection lost.

Panting for breath in the darkness, just listening to the rapid stringendo of his heartbeat, searching desperately for any trace of that bond but finding nothing. Sleep had been impossible to regain, and the young hunter had gone sleepless for days before crashing, drifting in and out of fitful sleep, a panicked feeling every time he woke up with that gaping hole inside of him. Still he had managed to put on his game-face of absolute lack of care. But he was tired of pretending, despite the scorn it would probably cause.

The heterochromic young woman cocked her head to the side, seeming to come to some conclusion.

"You sure?"

Dante nodded.

"All right then. What do you want to do about it?"

An almost unnatural stillness crossed Dante's features as he processed these words. She didn't offer any condolences, no kind words, just 'what do you want to do?' In a way it made Dante smile, because he didn't /want/ condolences, he had gone past that point. They had already been given.

Still... What did he want? He had gone through so much to try to stop his brother, to the point of that he had been prepared to kill him because he was wrong, but the knowledge of him being truly gone was... harder than he expected. No more fights, no more hatred, no more snarky commentary, and nobody who understood what had happened to them. Nobody who knew him almost as good as he did himself.

Eventually Dante looked up from where he had been looking at his hands, a look of grim satisfaction crossing his face. "Let's kick some ass and kill some demons."

Lady most happily complied.