"You always forget about Baltic and Mediterranean," Vergil said as he collected Dante's outrageous rent for the fifth or sixth time. "Just because they're cheap in the beginning doesn't mean that you can't win with them, Brother."

Dante grumbled in response. He hated losing, but he couldn't blame anybody but himself. He just had shit luck, that was all. It was never going to change.

At least this time, Vergil wasn't that well off either. Surprisingly, Dorian owned one entire side of the board—everything from St. Charles Place to New York Avenue, including the railroad which he'd tricked Dante into trading him.

Dorian rolled a ten—double fives—moved his Scotty dog to Indiana Avenue and paid Dante 36. Lucky for Dante, since Indiana was the only red property he owned that wasn't mortgaged. He rolled doubles twice more and moved to jail.

Vergil's roll gave him a chance card. "Advance to GO," he read out loud, moving the top hat to the space.

Dante threw double sixes and figured that would probably be the start of his own trip to jail. He moved his cannon to Pennsylvania Railroad (more rent to Dorian) and rolled a three and a two. "Score," he breathed, safe for now on "free parking" and earning the 1800 that had accumulated in the center of the board.

"You know, kid, Verg and I had a game going for four solid days once," Dante said casually. He watched as Dorian stiffened slightly from the 'kid' remark, but he didn't say anything.

Dorian rolled and moved, and then glanced back up. "Four days? You don't seem patient enough."

Vergil smirked. "He isn't patient enough. That's why we got into trouble for playing in the middle of the night."

"Verg. Hey, Verg."

"We're supposed to be sleeping, Dante," Vergil whispered back, but he rolled over to look across the room at his younger twin.

"C'mon, please? Mom and Dad are sleeping, and I know you wanna."

"One roll," Vergil agreed, sliding out of his bed and onto the floor.

"Five rolls," Dante wheedled.

Vergil considered. "Three," he said. "That's all, though."

"Deal."

But the three turned into six, and the six turned into twelve, and before they knew it, it was three am and their door was creeping open. It was their father, a robe thrown over his flannel pajama pants, and he didn't need to turn the light on to see what they were doing.

"Boys," Sparda growled, a warning in his voice. "I'm going to close my eyes and count to five, and if you're not in your beds by then..."

There was a scramble for their beds, each twin taking a nosedive into his blankets. Their father wasn't a mean man by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn't want to push it. As soon as their heads hit the pillows, Sparda came forward, carefully stepping over the Monopoly board to pull the blankets up and smooth them out. "If I catch you up at this hour again, I won't be this nice. Understood?"

"And I think we were both glad to see that game end," Vergil finished with a hint of a smile.

Dante grinned and nodded towards Dorian, who'd nodded off in the middle of their story. He slid smoothly off of the bed, where he'd been sitting cross-legged to play the game, and reached to help Vergil slide the board off of the bed without moving any of the pieces. They sat it all on Dorian's dresser, then slipped out, flipping the light off before closing the door behind them.

It was later than Dante thought it would be. Outside, it was dark, but he wasn't quite ready to go to bed yet. He glanced over at Vergil, wondering what his plans were.

Vergil caught his gaze and sighed. "Come on, we can go downstairs and discuss why you're looking for a job."

Dante had forgotten that was why he was here. He'd found a kid instead of a job and it slipped his mind. But it was at least a discussion, and if Dante talked, maybe Vergil would follow his example.

"Did you actually post that job opening?" Dante asked as Vergil led him into the study. He hesitated before going in there—he'd stabbed his son there, after all, and there was bound to be a lot of blood on the rug.

He was pleased to see, though, that the rug was missing. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised, since Vergil had always been picky about cleanliness. There was another rug in its place.

"That one came from Iran," Vergil said as he noticed where his brother was looking.

"You went to Iran?"

"My work takes me all over the world. That's how I found Dorian—I wasn't looking for him; it just happened."

"What do you do?" Dante asked. Knowing his twin, it'd be something completely boring like competitive worldwide stock-marketing or-

"Devil hunting, like you did." Vergil smirked at the shocked look on Dante's face.

"Aww, Verg, getting soft in your old age?" Dante asked, once he'd recovered from the surprise. He'd never expected that his brother would be doing something like that. Especially since he was more likely to side with the demons than the humans. "Doesn't seem much like something you'd do."

"There were several reasons," Vergil replied carelessly. "I started because I have formed a rather personal vendetta against Hell."

Dante could see why. Vergil had been in Hell for seven years before Dante saw him again as Nelo Angelo. He didn't know how long it had taken his brother to get back out again.

"Partially, I was bored. There is no point in having extensive knowledge in swordplay if you are just going to let it rot in your head. Humans don't make good partners—there isn't enough of a challenge. After I found Dorian, I expanded my trade to include exorcisms—which is mostly what I do now."

"Exorcisms?" Dante repeated incredulously. "Why? There isn't any fight involved, and the Church is around for that kind of stuff."

"You know how difficult it is to be granted an exorcism in most religions," Vergil countered. "Most are written off as insanity or mental illness. I'm paid well to keep my mouth shut and let the institutions take credit for my work. Besides that, I enjoy using intellectual power to battle devils as well as physical strength."

"I posted the job offer for several reasons. First, I knew you'd come here if you heard it. Secondly, Dorian wants to join me in hunting and he's too new to be trusted on his own."

"You were looking for me?" Dante asked skeptically. "Vergil, I've been in the same place for twenty years. If that's what you were doing, you did a shit job of it."

"And how do you think you would have felt if I'd just walked into your shop with your son on my hip? You thought you'd killed me."

"I would have been overjoyed to see you again, you pompous asshole," Dante snarled, his hands balling into fists. "Do you even know how much time I spent beating myself up over your 'death'? And then I show up here and find you alive and well and raising my goddamn kid, who hates me because he thinks I abandoned him or some shit."

"Dante-"

"Shut up, Vergil, I'm not finished yet! You don't have any fucking right to lecture me anymore. You lost that right when you took off after Mom died." Dante watched Vergil's face darken and took some perverse satisfaction in that. He stood up, jamming his finger in his brother's face. "You just take off and the next time I hear from you it's 'power' this and 'fuck all humans' that! You want to be so much like Daddy it's pathetic. You think he would have tried to kill off his own family for power? You think he'd be proud of you for trying to fucking unleash Hell on the world he wanted to protect?"

Vergil didn't say anything, and he didn't try to stop Dante's tirade or remove the finger from his face. Dante laughed cruelly, a short, clipped bark that almost startled him. "Despite all the trouble he's caused, he'd probably think that you spending all that time in Hell was a good punishment for that fucking tower in the middle of the city stunt!"

"I don't think you entirely understand my reasons for leaving," Vergil said softly. Beneath the calm exterior, he looked a little wounded by Dante's accusations.

"Then by all means, big brother, explain them to me. You never have thought I was smart enough to actually understand anything you said to me, anyway." He sat down, hard, hoping that Vergil would actually listen to him for once and that he hadn't just ranted for nothing.

Though he felt better. Maybe he should get pissed off more often.

"I've never thought you were stupid, Dante. You have the subtlety of a freight train, you're careless and impatient, but you're far from stupid." Vergil sighed, looking around the room before finally turning back to Dante. "I wanted to become powerful-"

Dante snorted, cutting his brother off. "Same old Verg," he snapped angrily. "It's like a broken record with you. Always about power and damn the consequences."

"I wanted to become powerful," Vergil repeated calmly, "because I made a promise to our father that I didn't feel I could keep without more help."

That shut Dante up. He sighed, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his forehead. "What was it?" he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

"Maybe I'll tell you another time."

They were silent for a while. Dante didn't know what to say. He'd never considered that Vergil had other motives for taking off—and now he just wanted to know what they were. But he didn't want to push it, because he didn't know how Vergil would react to having bad memories forced on him and he didn't think he had it in him to kill his brother again.

"If you don't mind my asking, why are you here looking for a job?" Vergil asked, relaxing a little when he realized that Dante was done yelling.

Dante smiled tightly. "Willing to ask questions but not answer any? I'll tell you if you tell me how you got back here."

Vergil nodded.

"Okay. Well, Lady and Trish got kinda tired of putting up with my bullshit, I guess. I was in debt up to my ass and they said they were fed up because all I did was eat pizza and drink and fuck—well, they said sleep around, but it's the same thing—and they said they weren't sticking around to help me kill myself. I said, that's all I've ever done and they said it wasn't supposed to be a form of therapy and did I want to talk about it." Dante sneered as he remembered the conversation. "We got into it. I guess I won, because they left, and when I finally got myself straightened out I realized I didn't know much about running a business."

"So that's it? You're a poor manager."

"Well, when you put it that way..." Dante sighed, but realized that his twin was teasing and didn't argue for once. "Your turn."

"I fear it's less thrilling than you think it is. You defeated... Nelo Angelo... and left Mundus weak and near death, so it was easy to just walk out."

Dante noticed Vergil's reluctance to refer to himself as the knight he'd defeated. Apparently, he still had some bad memories, or was just ashamed to be brainwashed. Either way, he made a mental note to remember it. "That's all you're going to tell me?"

"I suppose I should thank you," Vergil replied, shifting. "I know it wasn't easy. Losing to Mundus in the first place was what put me into that situation. I was weak, and I know you used our father's power to finish the job. I know you had that woman who looked like Mother to help you out."

"Trish," Dante corrected. "Is that what happened to you after that tower thing?"

"There's a reason that pride is a sin, Brother. Anyway, the hard part was after I got back. There were... a lot of things, really; Hell isn't an easy place to just leave behind. Having someone control you utterly for very long isn't an easy thing to just leave behind."

"I guess it wouldn't be."

Dante fell silent again, then smiled, attempting to lighten the mood a little. "So... are you gonna teach me how to exorcise demons too?" he asked teasingly.

Vergil recognized his way out of the conversation about his past and jumped on it. "Like I said earlier, you have the subtlety of a freight train. It's not a situation where you jump in with your guns out, ready to fire."

Dante chuckled. "Eb and Ive are always ready to fire."

"I suppose I could make an attempt," Vergil said, sounding like he didn't care one way or another. "I've already agreed to train Dorian. Where he got the idea to be a devil-hunter, I'll never know; he had no idea what I did while I was away on trips. He just said it one day, and since it's becoming something like a family business, I figured I couldn't tell him no."

"That's my boy," Dante said, with an ear-to-ear grin. "That's three ways he takes after his dad."

"You'll find more. He's really very much like you, especially considering that he's never met you." Vergil glanced at the clock and stood up, and Dante followed. "He will probably be well enough to get out of bed tomorrow. Maybe you two should do something together."

"Do you think he'll be healed up enough by then?" Dante asked skeptically.

"Aren't you forgetting he's part demon? And not just some lesser minion of Hell, either. You're healed almost immediately after you've been impaled with a sword. To be honest, I'm surprised it's taken him this long to heal."

"Well, I did promise I'd teach him how to shoot a gun, since you apparently skipped out on that part of his training."

Vergil made a face which clearly said insignificant human weapons, and Dante laughed. "Maybe he'll like it. Hell, maybe it'll give us something to bond over."

Okay, this was rather shorter than I wanted it to be, so I'm sorry about that.

Finally, somebody gets yelled at! Don't worry, Vergil will open up a little more as the story progresses. It seems too out of character for him to just burst out with everything that's been going on. So Dante gets enough to satisfy his curiosity for now and nothing more.

A couple of notes:

(1)Vergil, Dante, and Dorian are using an American-version Monopoly board because I happen to have that one here and that is easier than looking up what I need on the internet.
(2)The official Monopoly rules don't say anything about Free ParkingFree Money, but a lot of people play it that way. That's the only way I've ever played it (and I play way too much Monopoly for a college student who's actually old enough to party if I want) and it seemed too weird not to include it.
(3)Capcom is made of fail when it comes to coherent canon timelines, so I used the guideline as a guideline and came up with my own. Seven years between DMC 3 & DMC; Dante was twenty-six when he fathered Dorian, which makes him about 42 now.
(4)I know Sparda was supposed to die way on in the twins' childhood, and their mother shortly after, but I like their characters too much not to AU this and give the boys actual memories of their parents. Angst fodder!

Finally, a big, enormous thank you to everyone who has reviewed, faved this story or added it to their alerts. You are all made of win in my book!