Huzzah, I finally get something finished. And I finally get a handle on how to write Vergil comfortably. I would like to thank CB and CS for their invaluable editing help, and YA for graciously helping write this and her patience.
A Brother's Keeper
Vergil rarely recalled his dreams. He never paid attention to them when he lay half-awake in the middle of the night or when they tried to linger once he'd risen. They were never pleasant enough for him to want to recall and simply interrupted the bliss of oblivion that sleep provided. He had learned to dismiss the vague recollections that were associated with dreams.
He would be justified to dismiss this vague sensation of being suspended, or of being a passenger in his own body as yet another dream that had come to torment him during the night.
But then his brain kindly informed him that this was not quite the case; because one is not accustomed to being carried awkwardly in their sleep. When he didn't get the message, it proceeded to more firmly remind him of the fact that pain is not a thing one dreams about this vividly and the stabbing pain below his ribcage was in fact very real. He was abruptly and roughly hoisted up further in haste.
"-your legs!"
What.
Noise like the peal of a bell trying to break through the din of a storm.
"Come on, dammit, move..."
Vergil was very certain that he made a colossal effort to never, ever dream that his foolish brother all but barked in his ear.
Semi-consciousness had arrived at long last, late and out of breath, to start shaking him out of his daze. He was being sort of carried – he could feel his feet drag against the ground, trying to gain purchase and the mechanical way his leg muscles were attempting to interpret the confused signals sent to them by his brain. Which, at present, was very puzzled, trying to sort out what on earth had happened. But his wrist was in the grip of a firm hand and his arm braced against broad shoulders. Someone was holding him vaguely upright.
"You're heavier than you look." Dante's irritating propensity for ill-timed and unwelcome comedy inadvertently brought him more clarity.
"...Dante?" he heard his mouth form weakly and wanted to palm his face. That wasn't what he wanted to say!
Dante sounded startled to hear him talk. "Hey, you're awake. Cool. I'm getting you out of here."
Where was here, again?
Vergil grappled with his jumbled senses. He smelled dust and a nasty, chemical sort of fug. He smelled spilled viscera; settling concrete dust and dry, crumbling stone. He fumbled, a neuron finally waking up and his lolling neck straining and straightening as he slowly raised his head. His eyes only saw abstraction, a wandering world, running and contorting like thinned paint over canvas. He heard nothing but a sick throb that came from within, cloaking everything in a din so overwhelming that it became some slowed and muffled cacophony. Vergil's lips curled back – over shark-sharp teeth and a hiss escaped him.
No. The demonic form? I did not choose to-
His head dipped again, he could just see the way his feet staggered on, motion and color more than crisp form. His ochre boots jerked forward in an attempt to stride but the foot had no power and he felt his body sink lower with every step just to get propped up by his brother's shoulder, vaguely there in the periphery of his senses. He saw his other arm, hanging dead limp and swaying by idle motion but gripping Yamato tightly. He could just see the contours of his human form, the azure coat and the pale skin peeking between the glove and the sleeve.
He grappled further with his senses. His eyes stung. He blinked repeatedly until finally an invisible hand seemed to swipe his vision clearer, enough to finally pick apart the wide flagstones of the street underfoot, a dirty, sooty gray dotted with pale lichens. His hearing sharpened abruptly and he was suddenly aware of the quick and heavy staccato of Dante's boots on the stones. Vergil's head felt leaden, weighed down and his side was on fire.
They were staggering down a narrow old street. It was evening; the sun was just going down. The smells of viscera and of demonic battle were fading. And Vergil still had no idea why his body was refusing to cooperate in the simple activity of walking and why his side was burning with a hot, acidic pain that his brain was reluctant to acknowledge.
They passed in front of a closed storefront and the fading light came over the building opposite just enough to turn the glass reflective.
Vergil managed to turn his head just enough to see himself, hauled along by Dante whose face was fixed in a strange frown, his eyes wide. The entire top half of Vergil's aching side was demonic. His arm, slung over Dante's shoulder was wrapped in the azure scales of his alternate form. His head was the familiar demonic contours – well, most of it was. One eye and the same top half of his head flashed human, the shift washing over him like a wave. The demonic form was shifting, boiling across half him, trying to advance further, to burst from the seams. The other half refused stubbornly to yield.
No.
He finally identified that odd din that blurred his senses. His demon half was whimpering. Where composure and self-assurance had reigned, now confusion frolicked. Consciousness, decidedly not eager to acknowledge that something was going horribly, horribly wrong, fled from him again just as he began to comprehend why his brother was hauling him away without uttering a word.
While in the fog of unconsciousness, between wakefulness and oblivion, Vergil tried to reconstruct how he had come to be in these unfortunate circumstances. He had to fight against the mounting din of his inner demon's unnatural silent howling from the pain he still dammed behind a wall of mental blocks.
He was aware of something... slithering around in him.
No, not slithering.
Scuttling.
Scuttling. Insects. Buzzing.
That sensory memory started to knock around some images in his head: The flutter of a gossamer wing, the twitch of a greasy appendage, the glint of a gemlike faceted eye.
A... library? No, more like a private collection, forgotten in an old manor, abandoned by its scholarly owners as the years wore through a family with no more branches. A small town up in the mountains; isolated. Quiet.
He remembered a book; it always seemed to be books, didn't it? Books hid secrets and once in a while those secrets held some interest for him. He desperately tried to focus. What had he been looking for?
Father.
Yes. A document that spoke, directly, of the Dark Knight Sparda; of secrets of the Underworld and that forgotten war. So much of the alleged evidence was false but once in a while, usually in the most unexpected places, Vergil came across something of value. It was always nuggets, little trifles really, but they were enough to go on. They got filed away in his potent mind, brought together with other pieces of information to form a grand cobweb composed of rumor, theories and whispered words.
What had gone wrong?
Buzzing.
What about the buzzing?
The house had been quiet. The floorboards creaked underfoot. The air was still. Nobody came here save for vagrants who sought refuge from the weather. He didn't bother to search the house – anyone not supposed to be here would avoid him. Neither did he investigate the soft noise of feet on the aging wood.
Had he gotten careless? No, the thing under the house was content to sleep before he showed up. To sleep and wait and to sometimes eat the vagrants who thought to use the house as a safe haven. He woke it up, the creak of the aging floorboards, the stir of the dust. The flow of demonic blood in his veins.
The buzzing.
Vergil rarely bothered with the state of the places he found himself in when he was looking for scraps of truth. The dust and the mold and the fug of stagnant air he was familiar with. But still... the lack of cobwebs should have been his warning. Spiders always get to abandoned spaces and build their gossamer masterpieces wherever they can.
Unless demonic taint drives them away. They feel it in their webs. They always know. Wholesome nature, even spiders, cannot abide the taint of a powerful demon.
The scuttling frightened them away.
More struggling with the cobwebs of memory. The pain was starting to burst the dam he'd put between him and its grasping hands. It tugged at the edge of his consciousness, along with the scuttling in his side. His demon half recoiled from the thought in horror. His mind fled back to memory, to trace back to now.
He had found the abandoned little library in the heart of that creaky old manor. Dusty old books perched on withering shelves, packed together as though it would save them from the ravages of time. Old, drying leather bound tomes side by side with crumbling paperbacks and cracked hardcovers, an eclectic but jumbled medley of a few generations of discerning armchair occultists.
In retrospect, he also should have paid attention to the frightened young breathing from that little nook in the far back.
He fancied that he could tell at a glance what was worthless and what might hold answers but sometimes he leafed through anything that caught his interest. One needs to examine everything for answers, after all.
Then the buzzing began.
It was far, faint, barely breaking the surface of the eerie stillness of the building. He didn't notice it at first. Just insects. The nugget he was here for was less than he hoped for but more than he expected: An eyewitness account. The straight truth, he hoped. Yes, he could work with this. He closed the book and secured it into one of the large inner pockets of his coat. He could study this in his leisure later and allowed himself time to peruse what else this rotting treasure trove had to offer.
If only he had paid more attention to that scuttling sooner. When he did, he was not alarmed. He just gripped Yamato firmer in his hand and waited. The taint now crept into the air. The buzzing grew louder. Less like an insect, more like the low thrum of a jet.
How it got there was not really on his mind at the time. Now he supposed that one of the house's armchair occultists had thought to try what he studied. Perhaps something had gone wrong. A mistake in a chant. Or an inadequate component. Or a weak will.
The foul things crawled out of the walls, between torn drywall and cracked wood. Big as hounds, they clung to the walls and buzzed, the gossamer wings fluttering uncertainly. The dark faceted eyes with unending gazes. The mandibles that never stopped moving.
Wasps. The angry buzz was silenced with swipes of the blade, chitin bodies parted neatly as they swarmed, stingers dripping hot venom that hissed when it touched the floor. Vergil never ceased to be quietly amazed at the seemingly infinite variety in demon forms. He had never encountered demonic wasps before. He had no name for them but as he considered things now, calling them Vespidae would not be wrong.
Something for his own books, so to speak.
If he survived.
The pain distracted him. His eyes were shut but he could almost see red threads of the pain weave cross his vision and his teeth were gritting together so hard he could hear them. Not human teeth, he still felt the shark teeth of his demonic form in his mouth. Why could he not control his own power?!
The scuttling in his side started again.
Scuttling...
He woke to the sound of a wooden thud. He peeled his eyes open just to see a crackle of power zip across his field of vision. He lay on his back and his entire body was wracked by an awful trembling and the feeling of something boring itself into his side.
Though he didn't feel too weak, he felt ill; a sensation foreign to a vigorous half-demon. He raised his arms and blearily saw that one arm was human, the other flickering through the demonic form's bestial paw rapidly. The room, foggy in his eyes as it was, was not familiar – not entirely, anyway. The scent was different but nostalgic. The air was quiet.
The thud had come from further.
"Where the hell have you been!? I've been calling for ten minutes!"
Dante was yelling at someone from a room beyond this. Vergil registered that he lay on a bed and against his better judgement, cringed. Dante's room, no doubt. He recognized the scent: old boots, dirty clothes and dusty floors; unkempt bedsheets, a hard mattress, a creaking light overhead. All of it blurry. Ire tugged at him, distracting him from the fire burning through his side. His lips curled back over shark teeth. He had sworn not to meet with Dante again for a good deal of time. How on earth had Dante found him?
It occurred to him he might have been in the vicinity for the wasp demons. If so, that would be an extraordinary coincidence.
The universe is a fickle bitch, it would seem.
Who was his sibling talking to?
Agitated but also apologetic. "Look... I need you to come to the office. No, it's not a job. No, it's – look, it's urgent! Just—just come. Please."
Nervous, impatient drumming of fingers on wood.
"Bring that knife you have. The scary one. Yes, the one you stabbed me with. I know it's been ages."
A pregnant pause.
"I don't care, Tess! Just make it quick!"
Vergil groaned quietly. The witch. The witch he'd exploited for a year as his unwilling accomplice and thrall. Until six months ago, he'd terrorized and commanded her in his time of desperate weakness. Just one of the reasons Dante had grown uncharacteristically angry the last time they clashed. What was his foolish sibling thinking?! Had he seriously just summoned her for assistance? What reason would she have to agree? The last he'd seen of her she was free of his control, fury personified and dealing demons nothing but blazing death that put the literal fires of hell to shame.
Surely this was a fool's errand. She'd never agree to this.
His head throbbed. He passed out again with the sound of the solid thunk of a phone being slammed into a receiver.
How had it all gone so wrong?
The Vespidae were fast. They darted here and there on paper-thin wings, articulated legs dangling below their angrily vibrating abdomens. They clung to walls and ceiling and floors, scuttling closer, the incessant droning starting to overwhelm his senses. But they fell all the same. His cuts took apart some walls – he saw the desiccated bodies wrapped carefully in wood pulp, burst where the newly born workers had crawled out of them.
These things had been at it for years.
Now he had shown up and something had stirred.
It burst out of the floorboards with an angry, loud buzz, bigger and angrier than everything he'd cut down so far. The Queen buzzed angrily, its enlarged abdomen swollen with potential spawn as it regarded him, its head twitching rapidly from side to side, up and down, as if taking him all in. Without knowing much about these demons, Vergil's mind and instinct nevertheless had made an awful connection. If the bodies were used to raise workers, what could be needed to raise another Queen?
The Queen feigned an assault, buzzing towards him with a loud drone and a baleful gale in the wake of her powerful wings. She was repelled by a flurry of summoned swords, their cold blue light cutting through the gloom of the room. The Queen retreated away from their dangerous edges, flying backwards on gossamer wings, its mandibles chittering curiously, seemingly hesitant at this display of power.
Even with its apparent nimbleness, it should not have been a problem. He had felled far greater foes.
But then something happened that upset all of his planning.
The Queen's antennae suddenly twitched and its attention in Vergil waned as she droned to the side, fixated on the curious nook. Vergil stayed his hand for a brief second, to observe this unknown demon. It hovered before the nook, seemingly confused.
Realization hit Vergil just before the two boys burst out from the nook, running as fast as their feet could carry them.
"Run, Peter, RUN!"
One was tall – as tall as a young boy can be, anyway – and lanky, fair-haired and olive-skinned. The other was shorter, dark-haired and wearing a thick jacket with a brilliant blue hem. A flashlight dangling from the elder's wrist and a well-loved rucksack worn tight on the younger's back indicated an innocent evening exploration. The older boy glanced back and his frightened gaze, an unexpectedly brilliant blue, met Vergil's eyes.
Fear. So much fear.
But then the boy whipped back around, urging his brother to run faster, bodily placing himself between the infernal threat and his sibling. The boys dove at a door, only to find themselves trapped as it rattled impotently without opening. The elder boy immediately and without hesitation sought to shield his sibling with his very body as the Queen buzzed forward, its antennae twitching with interest and abdomen pulsating eagerly, a horrid stinger protruding forth. The boy, hardly older than a dozen winters, faced down the oncoming death with teeth grit and eyes wide.
The moment was ideal. All Vergil had to do in order to rid himself of the Queen was to let it fall upon the children and kill it while it was distracted. That's what a demon would do; simple, pragmatic and easy.
But an unbidden memory had flashed through his mind.
Wanting to protect a sibling. Hard breathing from fear.
A feeling he'd long thought he'd buried was wrenched from deep in him. A sense of loss and sorrow, the whimper of a frightened boy who had lost too much.
Too much.
To hell with demonic efficiency and cold logic.
Vergil intercepted the Queen with a hard slice, skidding between the boys and it, swinging Yamato. The slice was too fast for mortal eyes to catch and the Queen reeled back, buzzing in fury as its antennae were both severed into oozing stumps, its own speed rescuing its head. In a single fluid motion, Vergil whipped around and brushed the boys aside from the door with one hand before he demolished it with a single kick. It opened to a corridor with broken windows and a rickety back yard door. Escape.
"GO!" he commanded the boys sharply and after a brief second of surprise, the children bolted through the opened escape route.
The Queen buzzed horrifically. This fatal distraction was enough for it to ram into him, its mandibles snapping just inches from his head as he raised Yamato before him to block. The force of its flight tore them both through the side of the old house.
There was enough light for him to see the iridescent carapace in violent emerald gleam. The twitching stubs of antennae reached for his face while the massive faceted eyes stared directly at him. The momentum of the assault cannoned Vergil through at least two walls and out into the cold air, just to crash him against an old ash tree that lay bare and barren. The impact cracked the tree trunk with a loud snap. Vergil endured, and the flare of the summoned swords illuminated the Queen's reflective carapace and the graying grass underfoot before the blades crashed into the monster. The Queen buzzed backwards dazedly, trying to shake the blades out of itself.
As it tore away, Vergil inhaled sharply between clenched teeth. A sound like a blade retreating from flesh had come from his side and although he reached down immediately, all Vergil could feel was the flesh knitting together over his ribcage. He glared at the Queen, seeing blood and a foul gray fluid drip off its massive stinger. The Queen buzzed as it circled around and assaulted him again, stinger at the fore.
Vergil clenched his teeth and snarled quietly. All this for the sake of two boys. He would have berated himself if that searing pain hadn't begun to distract him further. He met the horrible wasp demon with Yamato head on, a powerful and fast cut across its body as he darted forward, dancing out of the way of its sting. The Queen's buzz came to an abrupt stop inside a barely visible, iridescent field of suspended power before a flurry of invisible blades exploded around it, rending it to pieces. The carapace chunks hit the grass with ugly splats, the abdomen deflating abruptly with an acrid chemical hiss as its polluting viscera spilled forth with what looked like dying twitches.
Vergil had not paid attention nor did he seek out the fleeing boys. His mind was elsewhere, already fighting through the mire that began to plague him. Something crawled under his skin. His head swam as an awful bitter taste lingered in his mouth. Why was his body not recovering as it had hundreds of times before? He felt unnaturally cold.
His head was in such a state of daze, the fog of confusion rolling in hard and fast enough that he did not feel himself succumb to his knees. The last thing his memory dredged up for him now, was to remind him that as his face met the dying grass underfoot, he recalled a flash of red.
And that, as they say, was that.
"Dante, this is an awful idea..."
"I didn't ask for your opinion! Just give me the knife!"
"He's your brother! You can't just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks! How can you be sure-"
"That's not why I asked you here!"
"Well too bad! I'm not a delivery girl! You wanted help, I'm trying to help you, you bonehead!"
Vergil grunted, forcing his eyes half open again. His lips curled back in disdain. His idiotic brother was standing over him, having a full blown argument, in hard, sharp whispers, with a smaller figure whose head was crowned in wine-dark red. The witch. He remembered the sensation of her presence but now it was far, far more subdued than it had been when they were... connected in that unnatural way.
Frankly, Vergil was amazed that Dante put up with being abused like that to his face. Vergil didn't think his brother would take such a direct challenge from anyone, much less a tiny, very human, witch. But then again, he did know a bit about the red head's willfulness and his brother's hidden softness.
Dante grunted bitterly, and through his bleary vision Vergil saw him rub his face. "...I'm sorry," he muttered. "I know I'm asking for a lot since he-"
"Don't be stupid," Tess muttered, with a softer tone. "I may not forgive him... but I understand. What happened was out of our hands. Right now he's your brother and he's… like this. It isn't the time to worry about how I feel."
There was a long pause and Vergil blinked as they just stared at each other.
"Okay," Dante breathed out at last, and he linked his fingers over the back of his neck. "I just... I hate dragging you into personal bullshit."
Vergil wrinkled his nose—well, as much as he could with most of his face warped by the demon form, in hearty agreement. It was none of her business.
She clicked her tongue but sounded gentle. "I know. Look, let's just... have another loo—oh. He's awake, I think."
Dante suddenly straightened up and then bent over Vergil. "Vergil?" he asked tentatively.
Vergil glowered at him and tried to speak but all that came out of his mouth was a cough-like snarl.
"That ain't good," Dante observed flatly. "But at least he's angry at me, that's normal."
Idiot! Vergil thought at him.
"This is crazy. It's almost like he can't shift properly," Tess said, bringing her hand to her mouth, troubled.
"Any other stunning observations, Captain Obvious?" Dante pressed her.
"Zip it," she hissed back.
There was a long silence and Vergil squirmed, half from the pain and half from the irritation of being under observation. The witch had a developed ability of seeing 'beyond the veil', as the saying was, and the unseen world. She saw at a glance the aura of anything living and the aura rarely lies. There was a time that he had loathed her for it because she saw just how fractured he was under his facade at the time and he detested having his secrets plainly visible.
The witch hesitated. "Whatever it is, it's… in his side, like you said. Here."
Vergil grunted in relief. The burrowing pain there wasn't just in his mind after all. Something was there and he didn't even dare speculate what that might be. He worried that the realization might send him into a frenzy of screaming.
Dante reached down and unceremoniously wormed his hands under Vergil's back. "Yeah, I was afraid of that. Sorry, bro," he muttered and rolled Vergil on his side.
Upon doing so, Vergil heard the sharp inhale hiss between his brother's teeth and the startled gasp from the witch. What almost broke him though was an awful, slimy noise of squirming flesh that came from his side.
"See that-"
"Oh shit, it's literally inside him," Tess said, revulsion threading her every word. "Dante, his aura is… shit, it looks broken right about there. I think it's leeching off him-"
"Well, whatever it is, it's doing a number on him. I've never seen anything like this."
"Neither have I. Looked like a worm or something." Tess made a disgusted noise. "That's why you said you wanted the dagger? You want to cut it out?"
"Hey, it's the only thing I can think of that left an open wound on me long enough and isn't a massive-ass sword."
"This is crazy. But I suppose it's all we can do."
Dante huffed. "Yeah, so give it over. If anyone's gonna cut my stupid brother open and screw this up, it might as well be me."
Vergil grunted irritably. This was an utterly hare-brained plan! But all the same it was the only plan he could conceive at the moment too. And indeed, Dante was, ironically, the only person he would trust to do this. He knew his brother and for all his faults, it would never cross Dante's mind to harm Vergil while he lay helpless like this. His only worry was that Tess might conceivably want revenge for what he'd done to her previously...
"Hold on, if we're gonna do this, we do it right. Let me bless the dagger and put down a warding circle so whatever that thing is doesn't just go wild when you yank it out," she said.
...Or not? He couldn't tell. He never did figure out how to read the witch. He hated having to put any amount of trust in her. Vergil snarled and flailed weakly on the bed. Dante grabbed him by the shoulder and squeezed gently.
"Hey, c'mon! Keep still, Vergil," he said.
Vergil grunted in defeat and just blearily glared up at him. Dante sounded a lot more soothing than he would've expected.
"Just trust her," Dante muttered.
Another squirm, another scuttle as Vergil allowed a long, low whine of pain while the thing in his side tried to burrow in deeper. His body tensed in pain right into a frightening rigidity.
Easy for you to say! he wanted to scream.
Tess had moved out of his sight. He felt the bed move and Dante grunt – he must have pulled it away from the wall. He heard the soft scratch of chalk on wood and only saw the red of Tess' hair pass through his field of vision once – she must have circled the bed to create the ward. He then heard the splash of water and the flicker of flames along with some hushed muttering. Vergil fancied himself practiced enough to tell when mystical powers were employed in his vicinity but either he was too dazed, or Tess was employing arts so subtle they barely registered.
"Alright. Stay within the circle the whole time and don't hesitate with the cut," he heard her say. "I'll keep back in case that... thing... fights back, I guess. Just... don't let it latch onto you or something."
"I'll be fine," Dante grunted impatiently and Vergil felt him loom over him again. He heard the witch step away.
He didn't need to look up to know Dante was hefting the blade in his hand. He could imagine it easily: deceptively demure, barely big enough to count as a weapon and yet seeded with power. The blade would be thin but deceptively sharp. It would burn cutting through him but he didn't think it would be worse than this awful, burrowing pain in his side.
"Deep breaths," Dante muttered and Vergil wasn't sure to whom he was really talking to.
Vergil grunted and clenched his teeth, preparing himself. He managed a sharp nod. He had a gut feeling that the stamina of his demonic blood would not save him from a good deal of suffering.
The blade came down decisively just below his armpit, cutting through demonic empowered hide, flesh and ribcage, Dante's strength driving the blade through him. Vergil snarled loudly in agony, but there was something intensely relieving in the way the wiccan blade cut through him, as though it was releasing some foul miasma trapped under his skin. He tried to keep still even through the unnatural, to him, sensation of his wound not mending itself immediately but it was almost too much.
He didn't even realize that he began to thrash as whatever was stuck inside him wriggled frantically causing him incredible pain. Worse yet, he felt Dante pry his ribs apart and reach inside with a grunt. He struggled and Vergil felt like screaming. Instead he ground his teeth so hard that he heard them creak.
"I think I've got it," Dante said through clenched teeth. "Sonuva—this thing is stubborn. It's trying to burrow into his liver or something!"
"I didn't need to know that!" Tess protested.
Neither did I, you moron! Vergil agreed.
Vergil could hear and feel blood squirting and flowing copiously and Dante's barely audible grunts as he just about rummaged around in his sibling's body. Finally he let a triumphant bark and started to tug. Vergil tensed and sounded an awful, pained howl as he felt something being very decidedly ripped from inside him. There was a sudden discharge of power – out of nowhere both he and Dante had flared their powers into the open uncontained. The demonic forms blurred into shape fully. Vergil felt it take at last with unusual force and suddenly his head was so clear he felt almost sick.
He opened his eyes and saw Tess backed right up against the wall, watching on apprehensively with an expression of mixed disgust and concern. The sight of the demon forms didn't seem to bother her one bit. Somehow, Vergil didn't think he wanted to know exactly what she was seeing.
With a sense of finality, Dante grunted in strain and with a hair-raising ripping, fleshy noise he tore something out of Vergil's viscera. Vergil howled louder than ever, his voice then extinguishing itself into a long grunt of infinite relief. He finally appreciated the true severity of his situation, now that it was done with. The demonic power waned, freely coursing through him at last, and he felt his body easing back into a fully human form, as did Dante's. He still had his eyes shut, just breathing raspy. The open wound begun to heal – slow but steady.
Dante whistled over him. "Damn thing is bigger than I expected," he said. "He was pretty packed in there. It's like a bug larva."
Vergil really felt the urge to punch him. Not stab him, just punch his stupid mouth shut. Stop being so damnably casual! That's a demon spawn!
Again, he paradoxically found a vocal agreement in Tess. "Ugh! Don't just hold it over him like that, you dumbass! G-get rid of it!"
"Yeah yea—ohshit."
Vergil strained his neck to look up at the sound of slippery fumbling.
A high-pitched chittering and then a slimy splat heralded the thing he least wanted to see: A huge larva the size of his arm and twice as fat, with a black head and vicious mandibles. It was sickly white, veined with pale blue and scuttled and slithered along the floor on tiny legs and a trail of foul-smelling and blood-filled slime. It was bloated on demonic power but writhed in pain as it wriggled over the ward which was reacting with a white-hot, sizzling intensity until it finally rolled off. It hesitated for just a second and then made a beeline for the witch, its mandibles wide and clicking the entire way.
She blurted a shriek and swept her arm forward and the larva burst into flames that quickly went from normal orange-red to a fell purple flame. The larva shrieked and squirmed sickeningly, its white wrinkly hide shriveling and tightening against it. Fortunately for both Vergil and Tess' composures, Dante rushed in and with a loud thunk pinned it to the floor with Rebellion, muttering curses under his breath.
The larva tensed, curled and uncurled frantically, still burning, until it finally curled tightly against itself and started to wither as the fire consumed it into a pile of greasy remains that released a lot of miasma before they melted into the rapidly rotting patch of floorboard as Dante withdrew the sword.
"Well... I was gonna ask Roy to replace the floorboards anyway. They squeak a lot," Dante said casually.
Tess responded with a brief tirade of such foul words that Vergil didn't feel he needed to contribute anything. Dante just chuckled nervously.
The next thing Vergil knew both of them bent over him. "Vergil? Hey, Verg?" Dante asked and even prodded him roughly.
"...moron..." Vergil muttered, still dazed.
He rolled on his back, feeling his side mending, the flesh coming together to seal slowly but surely. He felt very weak suddenly. Dante smiled wryly down at him.
"I think the parasite drained him pretty badly. He's going to need to pull himself together," Tess said reluctantly. "But his aura seems clean. I think it worked."
"Perfect. Guess he'll be his usual grumpy-pants self in no time," Dante said and to Vergil's amazement, he sounded genuinely and unabashedly pleased.
"You know, I'm starting to see why he's always angry at you..." Tess sighed.
"Hey, he starts it!"
"What are you, ten?"
Vergil felt too tired to comment on this little farcical nonsense he was suffering through. He could worry about why his brother let this absurd little witch bully him around later. But then he saw Tess reach over and touch Dante's filthy hand. "...You're okay?"
Dante wasn't looking at her; he was staring at Vergil with a puzzled, uncertain look. But Vergil noticed his hand close around hers. Her fingers curled against his and his thumb traced the back of her hand with easy familiarity. "Yeah. I think I've got it from here."
He finally looked back at her and they just awkwardly stared at each other, uncertain, before they let go. Vergil suddenly had a dawning realization that, oddly, made him want to burst out laughing. Of course it would be that. Only Dante. Only his moronic brother.
"Okay. I'll get out of your hair then. Drop a call if something happens," she said and Vergil heard her pick up the knife and walk towards the door. "Just take care."
She was gone before Dante could answer. Instead he bent over Vergil, scrutinized him closely as Vergil, breathing hard but steady, just stared back. Dante was disheveled, nothing like the last time he'd seen him where he was carefully casual. There were stains of blood over him, all the way up to his face and his hair was tousled and slick with perspiration.
"Hey... Vergil?"
Vergil didn't want to answer. He just wanted to sleep. And sleep, and sleep and sleep... But he grunted out an affirmative.
"The kids you saved are fine. Good job. Don't try to sneak off, you ass. Just rest and pull yourself together."
Vergil decided that he really was going to do just that and to hell with their individual prides and their feud.
Vergil wasn't sure how long he was lulled into sleep. His sleep was fitful, almost dreamless and he knew that he tossed and turned a lot on the creaky bed of his brother, who was only vaguely there in the periphery of Vergil's senses.
When he finally opened his eyes again he felt groggy and disoriented but it was a healthy sort of drowsiness, nothing like the delirious half-awareness he had experienced previously. Lying flat on the bed he stared for long at the dusty ceiling of Dante's room. A shadow cast by the window shutters let him know it was light outside, but beyond that his sense of time was foggy.
Turning his head towards the shuttered window he narrowed his gaze; his coat was heaped over the back of a chair, his boots were tossed under it and Yamato lay across the seat of it. Somewhat comforted by the presence of his belongings, he turned his head to the other side and wrinkled his nose a bit. Dante was sprawled in a chair, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms folded over his broad chest, head tilted back against the wall. He was asleep, Vergil could tell by the even rise and fall of his chest. There was a half-full bottle of whiskey and an empty glass beside him, on the floor.
So, he held a vigil beside me.
Vergil wasn't certain how he felt about that. He was still waking up, his limbs shaking off the idleness of sleep. He shifted slowly and gradually worked himself up to his elbows. He was embarrassed and frustrated about how slow he was moving. That damned larva had unexpectedly sapped a good deal of power from him. For an unknown demon, the Vespidae were nasty, if their larva could weaken demons with the same ease they could devour humans. He would have to study them closer in order to avoid such unpleasant circumstances in the future – assuming he could find any.
Fool that I was...
All this idiocy for two boys. None of this would've happened if he hadn't-
They live, though. They were lucky. As lucky as... us?
He almost fell on his back again. Yes, he had saved those boys. Unlike him and Dante, someone had been there to rescue them. He immediately discarded his personal feelings about his own experiences. He had sworn that he would stop dwelling over that matter.
And yet...thinking that the boys escaped death because he stepped in had a peculiar effect in him. Something in him felt lighter. He had never quite cared about the fortunes of humans. Humans were weak, fragile, unable to stave off their slow and inevitable death. They had all but forgotten to whom they owed their survival. It wasn't his or Dante's job to protect beings so weak and with so short a memory. So why was this just so... gratifying?
Is this what Dante chases after, with his obstinate refusal of our heritage? This fleeting, small feeling?
The ire from this thought pushed him to sit up further. He finally leaned forward, sitting up properly and rubbed his face. He brushed his hair off his face and swept it back a few times until it stayed there, barely. He glanced about. The bed was clean. He expected to see blood stains from the... operation but all he found were surprisingly crisp sheets. A light blanket covered his legs. He blinked. Dante being tidy and cleaning up was a thing he just could not envision.
To his side, Dante grunted finally and suddenly sat up straight and yawned viciously. Vergil just stared at him flatly until Dante blinked and stared back. For the first time in his life, Vergil wanted his brother to speak first.
"Hey."
I don't know what else I was expecting.
"You're awake. Good," Dante added. He smiled stiffly.
Vergil didn't mimic him. "Yes. But it seems that the larva took more out of me than I expected," he muttered.
"Hey, it's fine. Sometimes I don't get up for days after a big nasty-ass fight that makes me use up too much power. Don't happen often though," Dante said with a shrug.
Vergil narrowed his eyes at him. "At least you have the dignity to admit you're a lazy worm."
He somehow expected that barb to stir Dante out of this frustratingly casual small-talk. Perhaps even incite the prelude to a confrontation. Confrontation was more comfortable. They knew where they stood.
Instead, Dante shrugged and smirked. "Heh. Nothing wrong with kicking back after a hard day's work."
Vergil looked away. "Regardless. I will leave once I feel able."
Dante directed a smarmy smirk at him. "What's your rush? Got somewhere you need to be?"
Vergil just glowered at him again. "I don't see how that's any of your business."
"Well, it's just that last time we met, you growled about how our next meeting would be 'your call' or whatever. And yet here we are, me having to scoop you off the floor after some bug demon tried to do the Alien with you."
Vergil just blinked at him with the distinct impression that something had sailed over his head. "...the what?"
Dante sat back and snickered. "Nevermind, s'not important. What were you doing out there? I took a job about an infestation of weird demons there. What's your excuse?"
Vergil studied Dante cautiously. Was this... an attempt at interrogation? Reluctantly, he tested the waters.
"I was pursuing a possible source of information, a book. A rare volume that allegedly contains eyewitness testimony regarding... father," he said and tried not to stare straight at Dante.
Dante just blinked. "Nothing to do with raising infernal edifices that smack a lot of compensating for things? None of that 'Oh I'll just open another gate to Hell, how hard can it be' stuff?"
Vergil favored him with a grimace of sublime irritation that came so spontaneously he failed to rein it in. Dante just responded with a toothy, irreverent grin.
"No," Vergil said between grit teeth.
"Good, I was afraid you might start getting predictable," Dante chuckled. "So... you find it?"
"Yes," Vergil muttered and against all odds, found himself continuing. "I did not have the chance to study it fully but it seemed genuine enough. The information appears consistent with other accounts."
"Other accounts?" Dante echoed and quirked an eyebrow. "You go chasing after tidbits about the old man?"
Vergil scowled at Dante's blasé way of referring to their father. He knew that Dante retained some resent about their father, but still... he could at least endeavor not to sound like an absolute teenager about it. "Unlike you, I understand the importance of preserving his legacy," he said pointedly.
Dante gave him a stone-faced look and Vergil fully expected him to snark back and possibly even turn to a taunting mood that would set off their fighting. Instead, Dante shrugged.
"How I decide to do that is my business, Vergil," he said flatly and then launched into a counter-offensive that Vergil was simply unprepared for. "So where do you even keep all this information? I know we can do some crazy things but if you found a way to turn one of your pockets into an infinite space to store books in-"
"Don't be absurd," Vergil snapped.
"Then where do you even live?" Dante pressed. "You gotta have some place to keep it all."
Vergil just stared blankly at Dante. He didn't know what to make of this questioning. His gaze wandered over Dante's shoulder, up the wall, glanced across the ceiling and then made it to the blanket covering his legs just for him to get a little lost in counting the stiches on the hem—was… was Dante…?
"Is this your idea of torture?" he blurted.
Dante was taken aback. "Sorry?"
Against every fiber of his being screaming at him to not do it, Vergil sallied forth regardless. "I admitted that I'm still too worn to get up and leave and you decide to torture me with small talk?"
Dante blinked and then chuckled suddenly before disciplining himself, save for a cheeky smile. "Is it making you that uncomfortable?"
Vergil didn't answer; he just stared at Dante, displeased, from under hooded eyelids and furrowed eyebrows. He fidgeted.
Dante chuckled again. "It is! Jeez, Vergil. You go through fights like they're just a small annoyance and a simple conversation is just such a colossal indisposition?"
"As if your treatment of combat as a game is any better," Vergil countered.
"Hey, that's different, I'm bluffing them," Dante said, leaning back and raising his hands. "But… y'know, we haven't actually talked in… what? Twenty years? Naw, more, even."
Vergil stared at the wall across him. It was true. They didn't talk. They fought, they battled, they tore at each other in anger and resentment. Thinking about it now, something about it all just made it feel so… wearisome. Even his demon half had to grudgingly own up to the cyclical nature of their relationship so far. How were they suddenly… talking now?
"You do enough talking on your own," he muttered. "I'm amazed you haven't drawn your gun to go with your inane gibbering."
Dante scoffed. "And do what? Do we need to fight?"
Vergil was still, but inside, he was reeling from that palpable hit.
"Thought so," Dante concluded smugly. Then his tone changed. "Look, if it bugs you that much, I'll shut up and leave you alone."
Vergil's gaze flicked right at his twin. Did it bother him? Normally he would answer 'yes' immediately and resolutely. But somehow he didn't really want to. Dante tapped his fingers on his knee impatiently and just stared at him with a carefully neutral face. Eager to ask more, evidently. This eagerness made Vergil feel strange. Not uncomfortable. Just… awkward.
"It doesn't," he heard himself say.
Dante's small grin returned. "So where do you live?"
"I have… arrangements. There's nothing to say about them."
"That's it?" Dante huffed, arching an eyebrow.
"Yes."
Dante frowned as his mouth twitched as though he wanted to say something but he pursed his lips instead. He regarded Vergil with a sort of expression that one reserves for a novel curiosity that turns out to be disappointing. Vergil felt uncomfortable under that gaze. Was the answer so unsatisfying? What did Dante expect, a lengthy waxing about the private rooms he had secured at the edge of a city, away from the noise and prying eyes of humans? There really was nothing special about them.
"You can't expect me to intimately describe the inner workings of my private life to you," Vergil mumbled. "I might be stuck in your house but until you get stuck in mine—"
He stopped before he said anything that he would regret. Dante, get stuck at his haven! The very idea!
But Dante was smirking. "Man, still so fussy about your room. I'm not asking for a complete biography, just… throw me a bone here, Vergil."
Vergil stared at his sibling, trying to understand what really it was that Dante was asking of him. It occurred to him that they had not been in each other's company for such a length of time without fighting in decades. The word and the passage of time it conveyed weighed down on him. Decades. Talking like this was…nostalgic. It reminded him of vague boyhood memories he kept crushed under intense discipline and training, of warm summer afternoons rambling about nothings that at the time were of the utmost importance.
He… couldn't even remember what they used to talk about. They talked a lot, having so few other friends.
Games, perhaps. Their tussling – it all seemed so serious then, not the contest of children but proper, honorable combat. Battle was in their souls. Or perhaps innocent discoveries in their wanderings near their home. All those little secret places they discovered. Maybe…they talked about their father? Yes, Vergil could remember that. They pieced together what little they knew. Vergil could trace his reverence to their father's legacy of power to those conversations.
All he could really recall was a strange satisfaction about those conversations. Could Dante be harkening back to those memories too? Was that why he was pestering him?
"I have rooms in a quiet part of a city," Vergil managed stiffly. "I rest there when I'm tired. I keep my findings there. That's all."
Dante made a face at Vergil's reticence. "So what, you spend all day with your head buried in books or running around looking for more books?"
Vergil's eyebrows lowered. "I don't have the desire to frolic all day long, like you."
Dante snickered. "I don't 'frolic', okay? Seriously, don't you do anything else? I mean, even you can't just sit around all day studying ancient books and sulking. Listen to any music? I bet you're into that heavy-handed classical stuff, like Mozart. Or opera. Do you go out to eat? I'm pretty hungry now that I think about it. Do you like pizza or are you gonna want something like…fried demon squid or whatever?"
Vergil felt his eyes widening at the absurdities Dante was spouting. "What?" he just managed. "I… I eat regular food," he added, not completely sure what else he could respond to that with.
"Perfect. Because I'm going to get some. On me. So kick back a little more because you still look like worse than roadkill," Dante said and stood up, stretching, before he strode out the door, leaving Vergil confused. "Don't wander off on me!" he called back.
He stared after his twin, sitting back until his shoulders touched the metal headboard. He grimaced while reaching down, pulling a pillow up to cushion his back, unwilling to brace against the harsh, naked bars. This entire confrontation troubled him.
Dante was trying to actually draw him into conversation. He had expected more bitterness and hostility. Why was he interested in Vergil's life after all that happened between them? And why was he, as Vergil realized with mounting discomposure, not shutting it down completely? He could just cut Dante off entirely, deny even speaking to him and just leaving as soon as he recovered. But here he was, just grunting out answers and half-heartedly trying to weasel out of them. He considered the questions Dante had so casually flung at him. Where he lived? Music? Eating?
I have no answers.
The realization made him uneasy. How could he not have answers? He always had answers regarding himself, didn't he? He knew exactly the extent of his capabilities… He cast his thoughts back. Even before their first fateful encounter on the top of that accursed tower, he had simply… not paid attention. Music was just something in the background as he moved through the days. Food was mostly just fuel that he turned to when the power of his demonic heritage just wasn't enough to sustain him. Those were human worries and concerns and as a consequence, beneath him, he thought. That's what Dante wastes his time with, he thought.
But now this lack of answers made him feel like something had slipped through his fingers. A part of his life he had no control over – and he didn't like the feeling. It seemed like such a small thing compared to the knowledge he did have readily available. He could enumerate all the principal demons vying for supremacy in the Underworld right now, he knew every single weakness of the demon foot-soldiers he might encounter freely in the human world, he even knew many of the secrets of witches and their ilk, the restless dead and other entities that were beyond the ken of man.
And yet he couldn't answer a simple question about music.
It shouldn't matter. And yet it did. He wondered, was his human half just aching to be acknowledged? If so, it was a damned underhanded way to get back at him for neglecting it.
He sank back into the pillow, staring at the door Dante had left through and allowed himself a troubling thought:
Why do I feel as though I ought to have answers? Why does a part of me want to have answers?
He grappled with those concerns for a while and was still lost in thought when Dante sailed in, humming something under his breath. Vergil looked up and was greeted by a slightly smug grin in his twin's face and a playful twinkle in his eyes as he strode in. No, not smug. Dante looked… relieved that Vergil was still there. He carried no less than four boxes of pizza and a carton case of what Vergil surmised to be bottles of alcohol. Vergil just blinked as Dante threw himself into the chair, put down the case and then drew the chair close to the bed before he deposited the boxes right onto the bed, practically on Vergil's knees.
"What is this?" he blurted.
"Food," Dante said flatly, grinning. "I'm betting my pants you're so tuckered out because you think you don't need to eat. I'm pretty sure we don't really need to eat like humans but where's the fun in that?"
He flicked open the top box. "So I got us something nice and simple. I usually go for all the meat I can get but I bet you like mushrooms and peppers and tomato slices, so there you go. You're probably worse than Lady and Tess."
Saying so, he unceremoniously plucked a triangular slice and without any hesitation took almost half it off in one bite, the half-molten cheese stretching briefly before parting in defeat.
"And this is your idea of a nourishing meal?" Vergil observed flatly and studied the offering.
He wasn't unfamiliar with the dish or his brother's over-eager fondness for it. He recalled, vaguely, having the treat too in their short-lived boyhood. Even then, Dante had quickly taken to the greasy, cheese-topped flatbread. Vergil was never as enthusiastic and since then he couldn't recall he'd eaten any since – he couldn't remember paying much attention to anything he'd really eaten, actually. But as he sat there, the smell of the mixed toppings tugged at his nostrils and against his better judgement, he caught his mouth watering.
"Hey, pizza is life," Dante said almost around a second bite. "It'll sort you out in no time, I promise."
"That's not very reassuring," Vergil said flatly but he actually reached out and tentatively picked a piece.
The slice came away from the whole with an alarming stretch of cheese that he watched with a sort of strange fascination. How far would it go before giving up? He bristled briefly at Dante's suppressed snicker as the cheese stretched and stretched before finally giving up and relinquished the slice. The parted strand of cheese fell limply onto the box like an outstretched tentacle he had felled in battle.
Vergil quirked an eyebrow at the slice, studying the toppings. "You don't take olives," he observed, a memory striking him.
Dante, who had reached out for another slice, grimaced fiercely. "Hell no."
"Pity," Vergil muttered and bit into the slice.
It was warm, chewy and thickly covered in just barely greasy cheese that yielded easily to his bite. He tasted something salty and meaty that agreed with him. There was a herbal base to the bread and a pleasant tartness from the pepper.
An appreciative mumble escaped him.
Dante paused, the slice halfway to his mouth, staring in fascination and surprise. Vergil thought that he was about to utter some high-handed snark about how he could never imagine his twin taking to pizza so easily, or how he didn't think Vergil would 'lower himself to peasant food' or some such other trite.
But his twin surprised him again.
"You like olives?!" he blurted.
"I don't mind them," Vergil said, disarmed.
Dante gave him a stony stare that Vergil quirked a brow at. "You're dead to me."
Vergil's eyes bugged out – he didn't bother to hold that back, honestly – and the hand holding the half-eaten slice almost dropped into the box. He glowered. Dante stared back, obstinate, and then an infuriatingly teasing grin spread on his face as the inappropriate joke really sunk in for him as well.
"You know what I mean!" he protested.
Vergil just glared at him but he felt his lip twitching to something dangerously like a… smile?
No. No, I will not give him the satisfaction-
He hurriedly bit into the pizza slice again to prevent Dante from seeing that damned tweak of his lips. They ate in brief silence and the entire time Dante seemed to be in brief awe at his sibling going through one slice then taking another… and yet another. One box was discarded, another opened. Dante reached for the carton case on the floor, retrieving a dark bottle that he popped open easily with a satisfying chuff of carbonation.
"You drink anything?" he asked, pausing midway.
"Not whatever that is," Vergil said flatly.
"Yeah, didn't make you for a beer fan," Dante shrugged and bringing the bottle to his lips, took a deep draw from it. "You probably go for wine."
"I try not to go for anything if I can help it," Vergil muttered. Alcohol just dulls the senses and fogs the mind, after all.
"I noticed!" Dante countered. "Seriously, do you do anything besides brood like a monk and chase after the old man's shadow?"
Vergil was determined to avoid his gaze and just chomped through another slice of pizza. He wasn't even paying attention when he licked some grease off his fingers. He couldn't be certain but he suspected that behind Dante's smirk, his twin was decidedly amused at the consternation that he was causing Vergil.
"I bet that you just go around glaring at everyone in your way – and your face just gets stuck like that," Dante carried on. "You ever get laid?"
Vergil wasn't certain what precisely did him in: The question itself or the bare-faced casual tone that Dante asked it with. He had just bitten into some more pizza when the bomb dropped and against all odds, Vergil was so affected that the bite… went down wrong. He was forced to put down the half-eaten slice, almost into his lap, and give himself over to a short fit of coughing as his body rebelled both against the clumsy displacement of the morsel and the sheer absurdity of the question. He thumped his chest with his fist a few times until the offending morsel dislodged from his windpipe and finally went down the right way. Then he favored Dante with a seething glare.
"I don't see how that's any of your business!" he managed before coughing again. "Are you going to torment me with inane questions forever!?"
"Hey, it's for your own good!" Dante protested, smiling awkwardly and handing Vergil a glass of water that Vergil hadn't noticed on the nightstand earlier. "You need to get… outta your head a little bit, you know? Live a little."
Vergil just gave him a look that expressed all the disdain and disbelief he felt at the moment, simultaneously. "I don't need that advice from you." He snatched the water glass and drank it down without stopping.
Dante completely ignored the edge of his statement. "I mean… there must be some woman that's caught your eye, right? You can't be that blind."
Vergil bristled further as he thumped the glass back on the night-table. "Do not make assumptions about my life."
It wasn't just the absurdity of the topic that got him snappy, either. Because just then his thoughts reflexively turned to a pair of intelligent, fine dark eyes that had followed him for some time in his mind, along with the memory of a self-confident, willful tilt of an elegant chin and the puzzling smile of a particular female…
No… Now is not the time to be distracted!
To his horror, Dante seemed to catch a particular twitch on his face. "So there is someone!" he said triumphantly and his grin grew bigger than ever. "Come on Verg, just say yes or no. I swear that if you're a virgin I'm going to disown you."
Vergil thought for a moment that all this must be some bizarre nightmare. He wondered whether he had enough strength to manifest a couple dozen summoned swords and just fling them all at Dante… but that earnest look on his brother's face suddenly made him feel…
Well, he wasn't sure what. His face felt unnaturally warm, particularly his face, while his hands felt cold and a little clammy, opening and closing his fists awkwardly. His gaze kept trying to flit away from glaring at his brother to some corner of the room that seemed preternaturally fascinating.
Naturally, Dante just had to go and make it worse. "Wait. Is it a woman? Because if you're into guys I'm sorry that I presumed—"
Vergil wanted to honestly leap out of the bed and strangle his sibling. But that would've meant giving him too much attention. Instead, he just lost his composure and started to yell.
"WHAT?! NO!" he barked. "Dante, will you stop with your presumptions about my… my love life?! This is exactly why we don't talk! Fine! I yield! Yes, I've been attracted to women but no I am not inclined to tell you anything else about it! Are you satisfied?!"
Dante had reeled back against his chair with a nervous grin on his face, staring at Vergil with something that approached wonder. Then he chuckled quietly. "Okay. Sorry."
He leaned forward and rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the floor. "Verg, I literally don't know anything about your life. You never let me in. You just walked away. You're still trying to do it."
Vergil froze.
"I'm not asking you to just become brother of the year," Dante hurried to add. "Just… you're alive, alright? You're here. I'm tired of just… chasing after you every time you show up, like we're kids and you're teasing me. Is it that weird that I want to know that you're alright? That you're not… getting into something that might make you vanish again."
Vergil was familiar with the expression 'all the blood drained to his feet' but he never expected to feel it so intensely himself. It really did feel like that. He outright expected some angel to descend from the ceiling and announce that this was indeed a miracle of some self-important deity. Dante, being forthright and honest? How on earth had this happened?
Tired, he said.
Aren't I tired too?
Vergil blinked. He felt so full of conflicted feelings that he wasn't sure what to do. He hadn't felt like this in years. But after grappling with his habitual coldness and indifference he found that neither could serve him right now.
"Dante, I don't… I don't enjoy being quizzed about my private life," he muttered.
Dante made a face. "I know. But it's not like you were gonna ever tell me anything on your own."
"You make light of everything!" Vergil countered. "Is it any wonder I don't!?"
"Hey I'm not making fun of you! If you're into someone, great! Or… maybe she's into you?"
"That's not what I mean!" Vergil bellowed, seeing the cheeky grin return to Dante's face. "As if you're one to talk with your pet witch—"
"She's not my pet!" Dante blurted suddenly and Vergil detected an edge of panic in his brother's tone. He even looked away from Vergil momentarily "Dude, what do you think I'm doing with Tess—you've been hanging out with too many creepy demons—"
Vergil blinked. He couldn't believe his eyes. Was Dante… fumbling? Dante, who never in his life was without a witty retort to any challenge? Against all odds, Vergil felt something decidedly devilish rear its head in him. It would seem that he had struck a decisive blow to Dante's defenses. He felt the unusual desire to prod it further. In fact, a borderline wicked smile crept up his face.
"You must think I really am blind," he said carefully. "You were quarreling over my head, you fool. You don't quarrel. It's almost as if you like crossing words with her."
"She's the most impertinent little hardass there is!" Dante exclaimed as though that was an adequate defense. "She's not afraid of anything! She drives me crazy."
Vergil's smirk persisted. Yes, he remembered Tess' willfulness. At the time he had seen it as nothing but an inconvenience he had to put up with but now he could appreciate how that trait of hers and her sharp tongue could intrigue and frustrate his brother simultaneously. And Dante noticed his smirk as his ire seemed to rise. He was scowling at last – an indignant, 'I-can't-believe-you-got-me' kind of scowl. It was… delicious, actually.
"I would think you enjoy that. You very clearly let her walk all over you," Vergil said calmly.
"I do not—she doesn't walk all over me," Dante insisted, clearly allowing his mouth to run off with thoughts his brain never had time to filter.
"She makes you angry," Vergil pressed. "And yet you insist on debating with her."
"She'd piss you off too if you knew her like I do!" Dante blurted and then grimaced. He was finally catching on to the fact that his brother was teasing him.
Vergil just stared at him, amused, with a somewhat savage little smirk.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Dante grumbled, glaring at him.
"More than I thought I would," Vergil admitted. "It's satisfying to watch you squirm."
"I don't squirm," Dante snapped irritably.
"If you say so," Vergil shrugged.
You're a coward, Dante, if your feelings about the witch make you want to hide them.
There was a short pause as Dante calmed down, rubbing the back of his neck. Against his better judgement, Vergil felt himself inclined to speak more. But now he wanted to pose a question of his own to Dante.
"Dante…?" he hesitated.
His twin looked up, running his hand over his face once and scratching his stubble. "Yeah?"
He wanted to ask him, why do you avoid our father's legacy so much? Why do you insist on trying to live as a human? Why do you attach yourself to something so weak and short-lived? Why do you allow yourself to be shunned, exploited, abused this way by mere humans? Why do you care about them so much? What have they ever done for you – for us? Why do you turn away from our true heritage?
But none of those questions came to his throat because secretly he knew the answers to all of them. There was no need to hear them confirmed.
"You ask about my life. But are you well?"
In the end, that was all he needed to ask.
Dante stared at him while Vergil watched a gamut of emotions cross his twin's face. From stunned surprise to doubt to disbelief to confusion and finally resting into awkward hesitation. He waited. Dante opened his mouth but then closed it, blinking and looking doubtful. He tried again. This time he sounded something small and strange from the back of his throat. On the third try he finally found his voice.
"Yeah. I think so, anyway," he muttered. "I've got… I just take it all one day at a time. Some are good and some are bad."
"I see."
"…More good ones, though. Even if it's a little dull."
Yes. He could see Dante was doing well. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but it pleased him, deep down. He knew Dante wasn't going to spread his own life out for Vergil just yet but that was perfectly alright. They didn't need to do that. Despite his persistent questioning, Dante was as intensely private as Vergil was. Did he envy Dante having reconciled himself with their dual existence better? Maybe. Did he envy his brother for having found companions who stood by him, even this unorthodox guild of oddities? Frankly Vergil didn't want to have much to do with most of them himself but if Dante was pleased with it, so be it. But something still troubled him.
"But, you can't hide among humans forever," he said quietly.
"I know," Dante mumbled. "But I'm not interested in running around with demons. I'm not… I'm not like you."
Vergil nodded. "And I cannot be like you."
They regarded each other awkwardly.
"What are you really chasing after, Vergil?" Dante asked slowly. "Demons have no love for us either."
"I don't care for approval," Vergil said and grimaced. "I've had 'power' and we both know where it got me."
The memories hung between them, leaden cobwebs that tried to drag them back into the past, a painful past that neither could really ignore.
"Yeah," Dante finally acknowledged.
"But I need to know," Vergil said. "You aren't even aware what the situation in the Underworld is right now."
Dante looked up, his eyebrows arching up. "And you do?"
"More than you, apparently," he nodded. "A lot of it is speculation but… there is a definitive power vacuum. The warring has grown fierce and it reverberates in the human world. Sometimes it even creeps out into it."
He watched as Dante's teeth pinched at his lip thoughtfully. "Yeah. I guess that would happen," he admitted. "I just don't care to get involved so long as they keep out of the human world."
"It won't be enough," Vergil insisted. "They won't be leaderless forever."
"And you're saying… we both need to make sure there ain't gonna be a new one."
Vergil just nodded.
Dante bit his lips again and studied his twin. Vergil couldn't be sure what was running through Dante's head and he asked himself what exactly he was expecting. He hadn't intended to really say these things but something in him – not his demonic half, that was for sure – had stepped in and gotten them out whether he liked it or not and he was feeling curiously relieved to have done so.
"I'll make you a deal," Dante said suddenly and Vergil's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
A deal?
"I'll start keeping tabs on the Underworld and what's going on… if you start living a little. Doing the people thing."
"I don't understand," Vergil said and he meant it.
"Fair trade," Dante said and held up his hands. "You bother a little more with the human world and I bother a little more with the Underworld's politics and all that. Maybe chat up a few demons before they try to eat me."
Vergil scowled a bit as his mouth opened to answer, only for Dante to intercept him.
"I'm not saying you should go out and be a party animal!" he said with a wry smile. "Just… how about this, next time I ask you, at least tell me what music you like. Or what you like eating."
Vergil felt like maybe this was too easy. That Dante would flake out and ignore it all, that it was a pointless endeavor. But then Dante thrust his hand out at him.
"C'mon! Deal! Yes or no?" he said.
Vergil blinked and then stared at Dante's expectant hand. With a sense of gravity that was probably unsuited for the situation, he grabbed his brother's hand in a firm shake. It felt… weird to just touch outside of the context of a battle. How long had it been they'd done this?
"Fine... I'll see what I can do," he muttered. "But I won't waste my time."
"Yeah, yeah, likewise," Dante said and Vergil noticed he was grinning.
Then Vergil drew back, realizing that he had been feeling quite recovered for some time now. He could've walked out any time he wanted. Instead he sat through this entire awkward conversation, a dinner of pizza and more contact with his sibling than he had had in well over twenty years. It was strange but not disturbing. He gently pushed the half empty pizza boxes off his legs and Dante actually stood up and cleared them away, almost as if he sensed that Vergil was ready to stand.
"You good?" he even asked.
"I'll manage," Vergil said curtly but not sharply.
He swung his legs off the side of the bed and pressed bare feet on the dusty floorboards. They felt cold but when he stood up there wasn't a hint of weakness or dizziness. Somehow Vergil felt that in his shoes, a lot of full-blooded demons wouldn't have recovered so quickly. He unceremoniously stepped into his boots and after straightening out the rest of his clothes put on his coat and felt the inside pocket for the book. Still there. Good. He gripped Yamato and turned. Dante was waiting for him at the door, looking him with what Vergil identified as a careful 'poker face'.
He guessed that Dante was grappling with the desire to ask him not to leave. But he wouldn't be doing his sibling that favor, not yet. This meeting was… not really what he'd ever expected it to be but was far from unwelcome.
Vergil made for the door decisively and Dante didn't give any resistance, he just turned around and with an easy step just descended the stairs to the ground floor of his office. Vergil surveyed the interior of his brother's haven with curiosity. Trophies of skulls belonging to various demons were nailed to the walls by weapons that were too silent to be Devil Arms. The office was untidy and dingy. It was so mundane and almost entirely unprotected. He could sense only a faint ward and he suspected that to be the work of the witch. No, it was just like Dante to leave himself unprotected and in the open, to practically invite demons to come find him this easily.
He shook his head briefly but said nothing. There'd be no gain in criticizing his brother's way of living after their agreement. For now he just wanted to get out of here and sort through his thoughts. Dante had moved ahead and quickly scribbled something on a scrap of paper that he forced into Vergil's hand.
"I'd tell you to drop by sometimes but knowing you, that's not gonna happen," he said stiffly. "At least call once in a while, let me know you're still breathing. You know how to use a phone right?"
Vergil pursed his lips at him for the slight but glanced at the number scribbled on the paper and just put it in his pocket. "Fine."
The door opened into an unassuming alley just like Vergil remembered his older bolt-hole. Outside the light was fading slowly. He paused awkwardly at the threshold. There was so much he wanted to say.
In the end all he said was "Take care."
Dante seemed pleasantly surprised. "Back at you."
Vergil strode out and he knew without looking back that Dante was standing at the door, watching him leave.
Vergil hadn't taken two steps into the alley when a parked car purred to life and a sleek black BMW pulled up just a few paces ahead of him. The driver-side door opened with a smart click and out stepped a tall blonde with short soft curls, dressed in smart pinstripe business trousers, a pale blue blouse and a gray cardigan. Her sharp brown eyes twinkled at him from behind her glasses and she had a slightly exasperated and expectant smile on her face.
"You seem to need a lift," she said, the timbre of her voice and her sophisticated accent making Vergil's lips twitch to resist a small smile at her impertinence.
"Are you stalking me, woman?" he demanded.
She smiled wider. "No. This place has been on my radar for a while. But you stole my notes on the possibility of sources for the memoirs of Johannes Weyer. I ought to have suspected it when you paid me a visit at my office, when you had made it abundantly clear that you are all but a hermit!"
Vergil fiercely schooled his face to remain carefully passive, otherwise he might've grimaced at her gall to address him thusly… or smiled at her impertinence.
"Imagine my irritation when I finally arrived at the location in pursuit of you and I'm told someone matching your description was being spirited away by a mercenary on my watch list. I can only assume that you now have said memoirs in your possession." Then her gaze narrowed majestically in accusation. "You, sir, are interfering with my research!"
Vergil wanted to look back just to see the flabbergasted look on Dante's face that he knew was now fixed on his twin's features. But he decided he'd rather deal with the challenging scholar in front of him. She had 'hounded' him for a while as their paths kept crossing over secret hoards of written knowledge.
"Interfering," Vergil chortled. "You test my patience, woman."
"Good. You've been gradually killing mine, you know," she countered fearlessly, her eyebrow arched challengingly. "Now are you going get in the car or not? You will at least allow me to examine the volume for my research."
It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order!
He hesitated. Ironically it was Dante's utterly scandalized tone that made his decision for him.
"Vergil! What the hell, man! Who is that babe and do you seriously know her!?"
He smirked. "I would be obliged. You may peruse the volume once I'm satisfied with its contents."
She smiled triumphantly. "Get in," she said and gently nodded towards the car.
"Vergil! Vergil! You are not walking out on me like that now, you bastard!"
Oh yes he was. He heard Dante's boots on the concrete steps of his office but by then he had already seated himself in the passenger seat of her car. The woman hesitated, studying Dante for a moment before she shrugged and smoothly slid into the driver's seat and closed the door. She'd started the engine and driven off before Dante even got close enough.
"I see that you are at least persistently rude to everyone you associate with," she observed mirthfully.
Vergil's lips twitched again in a smile but he insisted on keeping his eyes on the road and not her. "It serves me well enough."
Then to his surprise he felt himself sit up, all to listen to the expressive trill of a violin that came from her car's audio system gently. It rose and fell somberly like the swelling caress of a cool breeze on a hot day. It was nigh impossible to ignore.
"Elizabeth. What music is this?" he asked spontaneously.
"Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons', the Summer movement," she said absently. "Not to your taste? I don't mind turning it off."
Vergil smirked a bit. "No. On the contrary. I think I'm seeing the appeal."