Author's Note: Five drabbles telling the story of five times Vergil didn't fall. And the one time he did. Done a while back for 5_nevers on livejournal.
One:
It had never occurred to Vergil that Dante would, after being slashed across one palm, reach out with the other.
It never occurred to Vergil that Dante would be so determined to not let him go, that he would reach out with his unscathed hand and latch on to the front of Vergil s jacket, before hauling him over the ledge, his eyes snapping cold fire; the kind of fire he d always guessed lurked beneath the surface, but had only seen once before.
And as he landed, pain clenching at his ribs, he felt something akin to glass shatter, deep inside.
Two:
The tower had crumbled, only to dwell in the memories of those that had lived its legacy. The morning of its fall, Vergil had found himself falling back from his brother and the daughter of Arkham - Mary, she would be forever in his private thoughts - aware, with more clarity than he had any sort of right to, of just where he stood, in the scheme of things.
He d given up everything for that one chance at legendary power; power that, by all rights, belong to him.
He d watched them move away, and cursed his soft brother for his silent hubris.
Three:
Months after his unwilling rescue, he found himself slipping once more into familiar thought patterns; going through the motions on the outside, making it seem as though he were trying to pull together the shards of his existence into some semblance of order. It kept his brother docile and happy.
Through the shadows his actions told a very different story, and for Vergil it had always been nature over nurture since birth. It was his nature to seek and to grow, and contentment just wasn t possible when he lacked the very thing he needed as a reason to keep breathing.
Four:
Life had been simple, for a time. Even though Vergil had been slinking through the shadows, building both his confidence and his knowledge without Dante's blessing (as though he'd ever ask for such a thing) or knowledge, he'd kept it well-hidden, allowing Dante - if only for a short time - to believe that all would be well. That there was such a thing as solidarity in family.
And Dante did. He believed, it had seemed with his whole, foolish heart. He always had; in many ways, that proved he was still little more than a child. Not truly shocking, that revelation.
Five:
Dante had caught on, a year after the tower s fall. Vergil had expected him to, eventually, for as stupid as Dante could behave, and as clueless as he showed himself to be a good bit of the time, lacking in true intelligence the boy did not.
It had ended in a bloody confrontation, like they hadn t had since that night, only that time it had been Vergil who d been left to lick his wounds alone. That was fine; he preferred the solitude.
Later, when Dante went to patch things up, the room had been empty, missing all signs of Vergil.
Six:
Eight years later, Dante found himself face to face with Vergil once more, in a confrontation that, to the younger twin, eerily echoed the last before it. If Vergil had thought the same, he d given no sign. And it wasn t as though he would have to begin with, and Dante knew that, but a show of some familiarity would have been nice. Or not, as he d realized how twisted and broken Vergil had become.
The sign of familiarity came in the form of the self-same trinket that had started their dance, and it eased the burden, while increasing it tenfold.