Rain, a devil may cry fanfic

Title: Rain

Rating: PG-13

Realm: Devil may cry

Pairing: None

Genre: Angst, sentimentality, drama, brotherly love/hate

Warnings: Character deaths, violence

Word-count: 1728

Summary: Dante would never be like his brother. Never.

Notes: This came to me in the middle of the night when waking up from a nightmare, hearing the rain pouring down. Quickly beta-read by Cherazor. This is version two of the fanfic.

"It's raining again."

Dante spoke the words to no one in particular, staring up into the grey sky, his eyes shielded by the hair that his mother always had nagged on him to cut. 'Why couldn't he just follow the example of his brother?' seemed to be the unvoiced question she wanted to ask but never dared voice. Still Dante didn't need to hear it to know it, and he would only scowl and do precisely the opposite to whatever Vergil would have done.

He always did the exact opposite to what his twin did. If Vergil read Dante would throw away the books; if Vergil practised with swords Dante used guns to train.

At first it had been because he hated looking precisely as the immaculate firstborn son of the Dark Knight Sparda, but later on he did it just because he realized that no matter what he did, he would never be as perfect as his brother.

Not that he ever had cared much for being as stiff and unyielding like his silver-haired twin, because seriously sometimes Vergil really needed to cut loose.

Dante saw his brother, saw the way that Vergil always stayed locked up in the large library with some semi-forgotten tome in his hands, curled up in a corner by the window as rain poured down outdoors. Vergil had, when Dante had once asked him to come out and play in the rain, told him in that half-condescending tone of voice, that getting wet and cold was completely idiotic.

Dante, however, knew that his brother loved the feeling of the sky opening up, the feeling of thousands upon thousands of drops of pure water soaking him through and through and freeing him from all the expectations that he had placed on his shoulders.

Why he didn't go out in the rain, Dante didn't know, though he suspected it was because he couldn't allow himself to be as carefree as his younger twin.

That was why, whenever it rained, Dante would rush out and jump in every single puss of water, laughing and screaming and simply going berserk. He wouldn't go back in until there wasn't a fibre on his body that wasn't drenched with water. Shivering with cold and panting from the exertion he would sneak past their mother where she'd try to catch him to scold him for getting himself sick, slipping into the large library to where Vergil would sit, his face concentrated on whatever he was reading.

Launching himself at his twin Dante would always fight to turn his prissy twin brother into the same kind of wet cat that he himself was, making sure that as much of the wet clothes pressed against his brother's immaculately pressed trousers and shirt.

Vergil almost always fought back against Dante, though sometimes he knocked him over the head and dismissed him like the stupid oaf that he was. But sometimes, Dante thought that he caught his twin giving a sort of half-smile in that moment when Dante trotted off to get his clothes changed.

Those few times made it worth the inevitable scolding lady Eva would give him, not to mention the never-failing cold that would keep Dante in a coughing and sneezing daze for a week or two.

After one such occurrence, in the late autumn the same year that Vergil and Dante had turned fourteen, Dante grew considerably sick, kept in bed with a fever that made him slip in and out of consciousness. He never knew what was reality and what was a fevered nightmares, all he knew was that he wanted to get better.

At one point he thought that he had stumbled out of bed, somehow gotten himself down into the kitchen. He could almost feel how he leaned his warm forehead against the blissfully cool surface of the refrigerator, thought that he heard his mother's concerned but scolding tone for him being out of bed. Then it was as if the world turned red, his mother pushing him away, yelling at him to get away. Dante thought that he stumbled backwards and hit his head against one of the kitchen counters, and in one moment of clarity he saw the beautiful lady Eva being murdered, a sword sticking out of her chest. He heard voices screaming for their father, someone calling that they were all abominations of nature that deserved to die, and a high keening wail, as if someone's soul had been torn out. So very broken, so much in pain. Then the world faded into a merciful darkness.

Vergil was fighting; swinging the katana that their father had given him the day he turned ten. Dante saw his brother fighting through a mist of tears, but never once stopping in his fight to cut everyone down, one after the other. Vergil never once acted like the inexperienced fighter that he was; he fought as if he'd done nothing else since he had left the cradle.

Still, there were many of them, and Dante saw his beloved/hated mirror image being stabbed in the stomach, watched him falter before fighting with renewed frenzy.

Dante's world once again turned dark, and then he thought that he saw his brother's face, saw the lips moving though not a sound could be heard. All there was was that white static noise that drowned out everything. Still, somehow he managed to understand the urgency in Vergil's face. But why would there be any rush? It had all been a dream, hadn't it?

A wave of nausea wracked his body as Vergil threw an arm over his shoulder and started leading him out of the house, his free hand still clutched around the bloodied handle of the katana. But why were they running? It had to be a dream. A very bad one, but still a dream. Any minute now he would wake up, and his mother would stand by his side and wash some of the sweat from his forehead, making him drink some water and tell him to go back to sleep.

Vergil stumbled, and Dante fell to the ground, hitting his knees hard on the ground. The shock of the pain made him open his eyes, and somehow he knew, knew that this wasn't a dream. He saw his brother's eyes, his always immaculate and concentrated brother, saw his eyes misted over with pain, clutching at the fabrics of his clothes, and between his fingers hot blood trickled, covering more and more of the usually pristine clothing with the truest red. Vergil pushed at him, urging him to move forwards, but his hand lacked the strength Dante personally knew that his sibling possessed.

The rain kept pouring down.

It was so cold, but still they kept on moving, this time on Dante helped dragging his injured sibling, though they both stumbled and had to fight for each step. Dante felt light-headed, the back of his head hurting each time a drop of water fell down onto him. Little white spots kept dancing in front of his eyes, but stubbornness kept him from falling into the merciful darkness.

There were shouts and calling, and Vergil stiffened. Dante had half-turned to ask what was the matter when his brother shoved him forward with renewed strength, then vanishing back towards where the voices were. Without his sibling there Dante lost balance and crashed down against the unyielding earth.

The sounds of metal clashing against metal sounded loud despite the rain that by all means should have muted them, but Dante couldn't see anything through the curtain of rain. Weakly he tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn't bear him. He had to get to Vergil. He had to help him. With single-minded stubbornness he started crawling towards the sounds of battle, towards the other half of him.

"No!"

Dante knew nothing of who had screamed that word; all he knew was that the next moment he was covered in blood, the heavy sound of bodies hitting the ground not two feet from his eyes. Fresh pain blossomed in his head, sending him to the brink of unconsciousness. It hurt, so very much. Still, he fought to stay conscious, fought to crawl towards the familiar shape despite waves of nausea that had him vomiting the remains of what little he had eaten for the past few days.

Reaching that figure, the shape so similar to his own, Dante clutched at his twin, willing him to move. But Vergil wouldn't move, the face remained twisted in pain.

"Verge," he weakly called out. "Vergil, you selfish son of a bitch, wake up!" With force he didn't know where it came from he shook his brother's frame, eliciting a sharp cry of pain. Eyes the same shade of his opened up to stare at him, clouded by pain and some emotion Dante couldn't recognize.

"You stupid bastard," he heard his brother cough, squeezing his eyes shut as he swallowed convulsively. "Always goofing off in the rain. When will you ever learn?"

Dante didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but something, he didn't know what, made his body relax, and before he knew it he fell unconscious again.

This time he woke up alone. The rain had stopped, but he was cold and shivering. Something inside of him told him that if he didn't move he would die. In fact he was surprised that he hadn't already.

But where was Vergil? All that remained of the eldest son of Sparda was a bloodstained puss of water. Whoever had attacked them was gone as well. All that was left was Dante. His mother. Gone. His brother. Gone. His father… well, he had never really been there.

Fever still wracked his body, and through the dragging himself towards somewhere, anywhere, he remembered very little. All he knew was that he was alone.

The sky had gone from bright and sunny to a hellish downpour in a matter of hours. Dante stared up at the sky, closing his eyes as he let the rain beat down on his face. It had been eight years since that day, and he still hated the rain just as much as he had done when he had been a child. Still, some habits were hard to break, and this one he had never once let go of – nor would he ever.