Thank you to all reviewers!

He wasn't dreaming.

There had been a time when this was all he wanted. To grow up with a family, get back his mother, get back Dante. And now he'd punched his wish in the face and mutilated it for life.

Let it die, he thought, fiercely enough that his hate crushed his regret. He was no longer a desolate child.

And then Eva came into his room and his joints locked in place.

She glanced at his notebook and at once he wondered if her Vergil always finished his homework; if her Vergil did great in school. Then he told himself to stop caring.

She must've agreed, because she looked back at him with no change in expression. "Do you know where the corkscrew is?" Her face was pretty, but thinned and worn. Her lips were dry.

She was not using beer to cook.

She was not his mother.

Fine. This he could handle; assurance that this world was fake, from her darting eyes to her flimsy dress. Fake and will soon be gone just like everything else, except this time, he wouldn't cry for it.

"No," he said.

Rip off her face, how dare this whore—no, he didn't care, it didn't matter. The real Eva had long gone, and with her, both sons. He forced his mind to calm. She didn't matter.

He let his fingers slowly relax until he no longer had to keep them from clenching into fists. Ten. Nine. Eig—

This Eva had gone, too, and with her, not even another word.

Vergil picked up the pen and immersed himself in work.

-0-

He shouldn't have been surprised to see Dante again a few hours later, given that the imbecile seemed to have the ability to shut off thinking. Not perfectly because his legs still operated well enough to walk themselves to his brother's room—Vergil knew he could fix that with the knife he'd found in his book bag. It was a fine way to fix a lot of things.

But he didn't, nor did he even think about it when Dante strode inside with a small, suspicious grin, a booklet held swinging between his fingertips. He was curious.

Dante slipped right next to him, grabbing a chair along the way then plopped open his homework beside Vergil's half-completed ones. "Can you help?" he asked, still smiling as if help was some secret code. Vergil could guess it meant something along the lines of do my homework.

"No," he replied shortly.

It was honesty in the tone of menace; he wasn't stupid, but he'd never needed calculations with these meaningless symbols when he had been training. There were so many letters in one segment he was beginning to think it was the key to going back. Dante was whining, then, pressing himself to his side like the nuisance he was in any dimension. And here Vergil thought he'd knocked a tooth out…

"Come on, bro." Dante pushed, against both him and his tolerance. "I need this. Bad. You know?" Yes, when mere hours ago he'd had his ribs broken in and three guns between his eyes, but he still hadn't needed help like he did now.

If Vergil had his normal strength, his pen would have snapped in half.

This Dante lived in a perfect world, he'd forgotten that. He'd never experienced loss, never watched his family die. Seventeen years of his mother's love. Of Vergil's. Just another ignorant little human, no pain, no demons haunting him to sleep. He had the perfect life but Vergil had—how dare he beg for something so pathetic when there was so much more suffering he should save it for—

Seventeen years was too much time to be happy.

Vergil drove his fist into Dante's head, and watched him hit the floor with his chair.

"You worthless idiot," he hissed. Dante didn't do anything for a moment, and Vergil hoped he wasn't already dead because he needed him to feel the kick he threw at his stomach.

Which was blocked. His foot met Dante's arm instead, and though it was with the same satisfying crunch, it wasn't enough; seventeen years. How was it fair?

"W-wait," the moron started, "I—I have a date tonight, don't break anything, I need to drive."

Vergil was going to break everything.

Then Eva was suddenly at the doorway, though it wasn't until a moment later that Vergil wondered if there was something wrong with the picture of his foot near his brother's skull. But Dante had already gotten up, and was not clutching his arm.

"What happened?" she frowned. She looked as well as Dante did. She must've found the corkscrew.

Dante's smile was easy. "Vergil needs new chairs," he joked, "they're wobbly."

Vergil suspected Dante needed a new arm, though he might want to get a new brain first. They both seemed to be wobbly.

"Oh," Eva said. Then, "Is your jaw okay?"

Because that was wobbly too, and Vergil found it too easy to envision this Dante crumbling. "Come, let me look at it," Eva continued, and led Dante out by the bad arm when he was next to her. Vergil could picture the flowering bruise under his blood red sleeves as they disappeared out the door.

A cold pang settled in his chest and suddenly he wasn't thinking about the bruise at all.

He was panting; each breath shaking and repressed, a bitter, childish sense of resentment thundering at the back of his throat. He was jealous. He was jealous and it had nothing to do with why he'd thrown the first punch—he was jealous for what he was realizing to be an incredibly petty reason, but the hate burned inside him all the same.

—Didn't look at me once, his mind snarled, but it wasn't his thought. Always Dante, always that worthless little shit…

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm.

…Nothing I do…

He would've laughed at himself. Was this it? A child begging for his mother's attention? But some part of him found himself agreeing, believing that there was value to the juvenile loathing—wanted Dante to be here and bleeding in front of him. Wanted to see him crying, knowing what it was like to hurt. Then things would be marginally fair. Pain for pain.

His immaturity was going overboard.

Picking up the pen again, he tried to ignore the useless thoughts. He didn't have time for distractions. He would be solving this spell and getting back to his world before the day was over; no more mundane nonsense.

No home and no family, but he could deal. He was used to it.

About alcohol: I'm not saying "omg you drink ur a bad mom", but according to Vergil's memory of when he was eight, Eva had told him that drinking/smoking/taking drugs was bad-yet here she was doing it.

Also someone tell me why I can no longer make single-hyphen breaks.