Vergil… When was the last time he had seen his brother's scowling face? Oh, that was right, that morning when he looked in the damn mirror. Why did his identical twin have to be a power hungry asshole? And more importantly, why did he have the worst timing ever? It just wasn't fair. He decided this was his punishment for not being entirely honest with Evie before he got carried away with her. Not that she wasn't to blame a little, she had been teasing him just as much and didn't really seem to mind his advances. Still, if she knew the truth she would-
"Evelyn, this is where you have been hiding?" Vergil sighed softly, sounding bored out of his mind.
His brothers voice snapped him out of the internal war he was having with himself. To tell Evie, not to tell Evie? He would just have to work the details out later. Vergil never did care for Dante's style of living. It just wasn't up to the asshole's fancy standards. The little details that Evie had given him about the place she had seen Vergil in her second dream sounded right on point with his older twin. Ancient castle in the middle of some frostbitten mountain, fireplaces, books. A day bed. It was actually a little worrisome that she would have such accurate visions of his brother. Right down to the stabbing people with that precious sword of his. Speaking of swords, Rebellion was still propped up against the wall behind his desk. Halfway across the damn office.
"Hey there, long time no see, Verge!" Dante sighed, stepping around the end of the pool table to put himself directly between his brother and Evie, who was frozen like a deer in headlights. "What brings you to this side of town?"
Even though he knew that Vergil had noticed him the entire time, his older twin's eyes settled on him for the time first time since he had barged in as if he had just realized he was there. The irritation on his identical features was more than obvious, his right hand reaching up to comb through his spiked back hair absently as if he were making sure that it hadn't fallen out of place. He'd always been a stickler for their father's hairstyle. Dante just found it too much of a hassle to worry about what his hair looked like. He looked damn good as it was, no need to fancy things up.
"Hello, brother," Vergil muttered, his left hand flexing around his beloved blade cautiously. "I came to visit Evelyn, obviously."
"I see how it is. You never write, you never call, and now you can't even stop in to see your little brother? I'm wounded Verge…"
Laying his hand over his heart, Dante pouted at the scowling figure in the doorway. As usual, Vergil didn't seem at all amused by his theatrics, or by anything really. He just stood there, staring past Dante right at what the younger twin assumed had to be Evie's petrified face. He could tell by the way that she had looked at Vergil when he first stepped into the office that he was everything she had seen in her dreams. Refusing to look away from his twin, Dante mentally calculated how many steps it would take to reach his blade. There was no doubt in his mind that he could make it with minimal injuries, but that would just leave Vergil a clean shot to Evie.
"Wounded?" Vergil asked, his voice as deadpan and emotionless as always. "I will have to remember to call ahead of time in the future."
Vergil took a small step farther into the room and Dante found himself moving to match his older brother's step flawlessly. If he could just get Evie to go upstairs like he had told her to, things would be less chaotic when the fight broke out. He could practically feel the sparks of rivalry flying through the air between them, there hadn't been a time when they had met since the incident that they hadn't fought. This time would be no different. No, that wasn't quite right. This time was different. Instead of Vergil's anger and hatred directed at Dante, it seemed to seep right past him toward Evie. He just wasn't sure what he wanted with their childhood friend and wasn't about to let him close enough to find out.
"Well, if you're here for Evie, you're timing is horrible as usual. She was just about to turn in early…" Dante muttered, knowing damn well Evie wasn't going to bed any time soon. He was just trying to get the point across for her to get the hell out of the room while she could.
"This won't take long…"
As always, Vergil's movements were fluid and direct. The older twin wasted no opportunity, left no room for error in every calculated attack he made. Long quick strides that carried him across the old wooden floor at a speed that would easily be missed if you blinked. He was sure Evie wouldn't even know what was happening until after it was already over, but he didn't have time to worry about what she was thinking. Vergil was moving left, up and over the end of the pool table, his feet missing the colorful balls crowding the corner expertly as he launched himself at her. There was no time for weapons, not if he wanted Evie to keep her head on her shoulders.
Rocking back on his heels, Dante turned with Vergil, sidestepping in front of Evie again to block whatever attack his brother had planned with his own body. Sure, it was going to hurt like hell, but he would live. Evie, not so much. Vergil's right hand curled around the handle of his beloved blade, drawing it without a shred of hesitation. Dante wasn't exactly sure what his brother was aiming for, but he had to know that no matter how sharp his blade was, it would never reach Evie through him. Reaching back with his left arm Dante shoved Evie back toward the couch, hearing her shriek as he brought his right hand up to catch his brothers blade in midair.
The room was still, Vergil standing on the floor right in front of him with his blade wedged into Dante's palm nearly halfway before he had managed to twist his fingers far enough to grip the blade and stop it's progression. A rare smile formed on his brother's lips, causing Dante to smirk back at him in his own goofy way. He knew for a fact that if Vergil had wanted to harm Evie that badly, he wouldn't have stopped at just stabbing him in the hand. His goal had been to wound him in front of her all along. Reaching up with his left hand he grabbed the blade just in front of his palm and pulled his wounded hand back off of the metal with a grunt.
"I see what you're gettin' at. Not like you to go through all the trouble when you could have just said it," Dante chuckled, shoving his brother back with his own blade.
"You'll have to forgive me, I find drawing your blood a much more effective way to get the point across…" Vergil stated calmly. "Or at the very least, far more entertaining."
He could hear Evie's panicked gasps tearing through the air behind him, shadowed by the shallow sound of his blood dripping off the tips of his fingers onto the floor. He knew that she just wouldn't understand, that while it had hurt like hell, the wound was already stitching itself back together as if it had never happened. He could practically feel the tissue knitting closed. Evie's hands reached out to grip the back of his shirt, fingers trembling as she tried to understand what had just happened. Vergil let out a disappointed sigh, taking a step back to flick the blood from his blade before he sheathed it and turned back toward the doors.
"It seems you will have your hands full trying to explain that," he muttered, striding away from them as if he had never been there in the first place. "We'll continue this another time. I will see you later, Evelyn…"
Dante was used to the piercing cold his brother usually left in his wake. As identical as they looked on the outside, he knew that they were nothing alike on the inside. The two of them were polar opposites, fire and ice, light and dark. And whatever other lame clichés he could think of for the occasion. And yet, as irritating as his brother was, Dante couldn't help but feel the need to chase after him. It was like an unshakable tug on his heart that seemed to lessen whenever Vergil was actually close. If he grabbed Rebellion he could go after him and demand a better fight. He could-
"Dante?" Evie croaked, snapping him out of his trance.
Evie… Turning around to glance at her, Dante instinctively tucked his bloody hand behind his back. He was never really good at explaining things and he could tell by the look on her face that she was completely lost. Her eyes were wide and glossy, her entire body shaking in fear. This was nothing like the demons in the alleyway, or even the bar. This was the first time she had seen him bleed…
"Eve's, don't look at me like that," he griped, stepping back away from her closer to the pool table.
"What the hell just happened? Vergil-your hand-"
She took a step forward, reaching out to grab him but he leaned out of her reach, refusing to let her see his already healed hand. He could see the hurt flash across her features, but he just wasn't ready to say it out loud.
"Vergil and I have never really seen eye to eye. You know that better than anyone else. Call it sibling rivalry…" he said with a shrug.
"He stabbed you in the hand! That's not rivalry, Dante… You need to go to a hospital!"
He couldn't stop himself from chuckling at the statement. Hospitals had always been a laugh. In this situation, however, laughing about it was obviously the wrong thing to do. Evie frowned at him, tears welling up in her eyes. He couldn't help but groan internally, he hated when she cried. When anyone cried for that matter, it was just…troublesome. Flexing his newly healed hand he pulled it out from behind his back still trying to shake off some of the excess blood still running down his fingers before it dried up completely.
"S'all good. Wasn't even that serious, I'm starting to think Verge has lost his edge. But then again, he was really aiming for you. Not me," he muttered, frowning at his palm.
"Not that serious-the sword was sticking out of your hand!"
He saw her body tense as she reached out to grab him by the wrist, but didn't even move to avoid her. She jerked his palm up closer to her face, squinting at his palm in confusion. He was a little amazed to see her reach up with her free hand and brush her fingers along his palm to see if she was somehow imagining the wound was gone. When once wasn't enough to convince her, she repeated the action again, smearing blood all over her fingers in an attempt to find the cut.
"How?" she gasped, peeking up at him.
"I would have figured it was a little obvious by now. Really Eve's, you never noticed? I'm not exactly what you call…human."
"That's ridiculous Dante, seriously. What else would you be?"
"Part demon."
The words hung there in the air between them, Dante staring down at her with a serious expression to make her see that he was telling the truth. She let out a nervous chuckle, smirking up at him in a way that looked almost painful. When she realized that he wasn't joking she let go of his wrist, taking a small step away from him. This was the kind of reaction he had been dreading. While he usually acted like people's reaction to him being different didn't bother him, he really couldn't stand the alienation. And for whatever stupid reason, her expression made him feel ashamed of himself somehow.
"Stop playing around, Dante. That's not funny," she demanded, glancing between his face and his bloody hand.
"Do I look like I was trying to be funny?" he asked seriously. "My father was a demon. Mom was human. Makes me and Vergil half-breeds."
He watched her intently as she shook her head no in disbelief, like it was somehow going to change the events that had just unfolded. She probably thought it was all just another nightmare that she would wake up from. There was just no way to tell her that because Vergil had taken an interest in her, she probably never would…
It was hard to believe what she was hearing. Hard to understand what it was that she had just seen, or at least, what little bits she could actually make out. When Vergil had first stepped into the office she couldn't seem to make her limbs cooperate. The banter between the two didn't really seem that out of place. It wasn't until Vergil literally vanished from her range of vision that things had taken a horrifying turn. The only thing she could think of the describe what had happened was that he had somehow magically teleported across the room and stabbed Dante in the hand with that shiny Katana of his. The very same Katana he had stabbed her with in her dream. And now Dante was perfectly fine? Dante wasn't human?
When she couldn't find the right words to respond to his comment about his father being a demon, Dante just shook his head lightly and marched across the office to sit at his desk. At first she couldn't pry her eyes away from where he had just been standing until she heard a thud that caused her head to whip around. He was leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk top, rubbing his bloody palm. He didn't seem at all phased by anything that had happened. Anything. And while she had thought that he was a little bit different, she never suspected he was half demon!
"Why…didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked quietly, frowning over at him.
"Didn't think it was important…" he admitted, shrugging again. She was really beginning to hate how he just shrugged everything off so easily.
"You didn't think it was important? I kissed you! Were you going to tell me after that? Or ever?"
He looked up from his hand to blink at her like she was speaking in tongues. She felt like she could have been talking to a wall with more success. And then it occurred to her to feel inadequate. He hadn't told her what he really was for a reason and she couldn't help but think it was because he didn't plan on having her around for long. Why go through all the trouble of explaining it to her when he could just leave.
"You were the one who said you didn't want to hear anything else about demons, right? You said you hated them. Figured I was included…" he mumbled. "I was just trying to give you what you wanted. Does it really matter? I'm still me."
She immediately opened her mouth to say that it did matter, that it was something he should have told her upfront, but she couldn't get the words out. His words kept bubbling up in her mind, every time she had bitched at him for not coming back sooner. That's a pretty complicated question. I couldn't just pick up a phone or else, I would have. Things just aren't that simple Evie… He had been trying to tell her all along. She had just been to blind to see what was staring her right in the face. Dante and Vergil had survived the attack because they were part demon. They were stronger and faster than she could even hope to keep up with. But did any other that really matter?
At a loss for words, the only thing that Evie could do was retreat. She turned around slowly, purposefully avoiding the small pool of Dante's blood on the floor as she made her way for the stairs. She needed time to think, to make sense of what exactly she felt and with Dante watching her with that blank stare of his there was no way she think clearly. It was honestly a little surprising when he didn't try to stop her as she vanished upstairs and locked herself in his bedroom. For a long time she just stood with her back pressed against the door, listening for any signs that Dante was coming up after her. But the office was silent as far as she could tell.
Sleeping was out of the question, the fear of seeing Vergil again in anyway made her a little nervous about being alone period. She crawled up on the end of Dante's bed, sitting with her legs crossed, staring at the handle intently. Did it really matter? Dante had always been different, he had always been more daring that any of the other children their age. At the time she hadn't thought anything of it, passing it off as just an adolescent boy showing off. But now she realized that it was just Dante's demon blood. Like the time he had fallen off of her roof and only sustained a minor break in his wrist. She wondered now if he had ever even actually broken his wrist or if it had healed before they even reached the hospital. The cut on his palm had healed within seconds, she couldn't imagine a broken bone taking much longer.
A sudden knock on the door jerked her out of her thoughts, her hazel eyes focusing on the middle of door as she waited to hear Dante's voice. The knock repeated, this time a little louder, almost impatient sounding. She knew that she really had no right to just lock herself up in his bedroom, but she couldn't force herself to move from the end of the bed to open it either. She had been sitting there, running through all of her memories of Dante for so long that she hadn't even realized the sun was already setting. Dark shadows cast across the room making weird shapes that she kept imagining had eyes and limbs.
"Open the door, or I'll open it by force," a woman snapped and Evie flinched at the irritated sound. Trish?
She nearly leapt up off the bed, reaching out to unlock the door so that the stern blond woman could step inside. She had a black bag in her arms that Evie recognized from her closet back home. It looked stuffed to the brim with clothes.
"Dante called and 'asked' me to pick you up some clothes from your house," she clarified, noticing Evie's confused expression as she sat back down on the bed.
"When?" she gulped, still fearful of the woman who freaked her out to no end.
"An hour ago? Sorry to say, someone trashed your house."
"What? My house?"
"The floorboards in your bedroom, to be specific. Did you have something valuable hidden in there?" Trish asked, dropping the bag into Evie's arms and flicked her long locks over her shoulder.
Evie shook her head no, digging into the bag to see exactly what she had packed. A few pairs of jeans, shirts, socks, underwear. The necessities. There was no denying she was a little thankful to blond for her practicality. Maybe she wasn't all that bad after all. For a demon.
"Well, Dante told me that his brother paid the two of you a visit?" she sighed, dropping onto the bed next Evie causing her to cringe away from her slightly. "He was the one who was in your house."
"How do you know it was him? Why would Vergil want anything from under the floorboards in my house?"
Trish smirked lightly, tapping the side of her nose lightly as if it should have been obvious, but Evie just sat there staring at her in confusion. Not only did she have no clue what that was suppose to mean, she was a little shocked that it was actually fairly easy to talk to the woman.
"His scent. Kinda hard to miss it really. Was all over your bedroom and downstairs. You've got blood on your shirt, by the way," Trish chuckled, nodding at her.
Evie's eyes jumped down to the front of her t-shirt to see that there was a good deal of blood splattered across her chest. Her heart lurched up into her throat, the memory of the blade passing through Dante's palm so real that she could hear the skin tearing. Her hands released their hold on the bag in her arms, letting it fall the floor as she gripped her shirt. Dante had said that Vergil was aiming for her, if she had been hit like that she had no doubt she would no longer be alive. If it hadn't been for Dante stepping in she could have died. If it hadn't been for Dante, she would have died in that alleyway.
"Here, take it off," Trish sighed, reaching down to scoop up the bag.
It took her a moment to remember how to work her fingers, gripping the shirt gently and pulled it up over her head. Trish dug out a plain black tank top, tossing it onto her lap before she grabbed the blood splattered shirt from Evie's hands and stood back up off the bed.
"Thank you," Evie muttered, pulling the tank top on slowly.
"Don't thank me, thank Dante," she said with a small smile, stopping in the door frame. "I know that to you, all of this must seem crazy, but you shouldn't shut him out just because he's a little different. Even though he's half demon, it doesn't mean he doesn't have a heart, you know?"
Evie could only nod in response, watching Trish stroll out of the room with her bloody shirt. She thought for a moment to ask her what she was going to do with it, but that really wasn't important. It was just a stupid shirt. Standing up off the end of the bed she stepped over to Dante's dresser, peering at her reflection in the cracked surface. At first she told herself that she was checking to make sure there was no blood on her face, but the longer she stood there the more she realized she was trying to psyche herself into just going back downstairs to face him. He was still Dante. And that was all that mattered to her.
The desktop was covered in old pictures that she was sure hadn't been there before. Photo's of Dante, Vergil and Eva when they were still little. As far as she could tell there was no particular order to them, but each one was significant in it's own way. Dante was still in his chair, feet propped up on the only empty corner of the desk, his eyes closed as he slept. She found herself glancing between the pictures and the gentle heave of his chest. As she took a step closer to the desk one set of pictures in particular caught her eye, one laying next to a picture frame that was laying flat on the desk. The one in the frame was of his mother Eva, the other the picture of a man with slicked back silver hair. While he reminded her of a mix between Vergil and Dante, she was certain that she had never seen the man before. It had to be their father.
Smiling softly, she crept closer still, reaching out to tap the toe of Dante's boot to wake him up. When he didn't move she couldn't hold back the small laugh that bubbled up in her chest, Dante was without a doubt the most human demon she was sure she would ever see. Trailing her fingertips lightly up his leg she moved around the corner of the desk to stand next to him, stopping when her fingers reached his knee. At first it didn't look like he was going to acknowledge her at all, his chest still rising and falling gently, but she had a good feeling that he knew she was there. So she waited, rubbing small circles on his knee, smirking when he started to fidget ever so slightly from the light touch. He cracked one eye open, staring up at her for a moment before he opened his other eye, blinking at her innocently.
"You weren't really asleep, were you?" she asked softly, removing her hand from his knee.
"Maybe?"
"Is that your dad?"
She tilted her head toward the pictures on the desk and he nodded slowly.
"That's funny, he doesn't look a thing like you…" she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
"I know, right? Makes me wonder how the hell demon's keep mistaking me for him."
It was a little relieving to see him smirk up at her, sliding his feet down off the desk so that he could sit up and grab the photo of his father and the picture frame with his mother's photo in it. She watched him quietly as he pulled the backing off the frame and laid his father's photo behind his mother's and closed it up again before sitting it upright on the edge of the desk. He started to collect all the other photo's slowly, stacking them up in the top drawer of his desk before he turned in his chair to stare at her.
"What brings you back down here?" he asked quietly, leaning forward on his knees.
"I'm tired…"
"So? Go to bed."
She shook her head lightly, reaching out toward him with a frown.
"I don't want to go to bed alone."
