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Babbling
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Betad - Not
'Dialogue' "Thoughts"
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Chap 25
The Morning After
In the pleasant laziness of the slumber, Vergil was pretty satisfied with life. Yet his intuition was never wrong and he somehow sensed misfortune. Never being the one to sleep late, he easily overcame the sleepiness, took his head off Dante's shoulder, leaned back on the pillow, and opened his eyes.
In the semi-darkness of the early morning, mere centimeters away from his face, two white shining orbs were coldly looking at him. The glowing white eyes on the half-transparent red being with the wings like that of a bat and a shrimp tail. For a moment Vergil could see how its whole body was pulsing right before him, thin red veins going all through the semitransparent flesh, then it shuddered and as if being slowly ripped apart and started to divide.
Vergil held his breath and before he knew he moved, the warm sticky liquid slowly dripped off his bloodied hand onto the while linen. Not loosing the strange eye-contact, the older son of Sparda pulled his hand out of the pulsing jelly flesh, the dark heart-core firmly clutched in his fingers. The blood-goyle opened its beak helplessly, waved its fading wings once and fell down onto the bed in a heap of fleshy jam.
Vergil blinked and stared at the azure silk of the wall in his room. The lilies were in their usual royal perfect shape. He was ready for surprises, but they never came to his bedroom before. He was educated enough to sleep in secure places, to where the lesser dirt of the demons didn't have any access, so it came quite an unpleasant surprise. If he were serious, he would have to admit he was caught off-guard, yet he was awake and the bloody shrimp was a dead mess, and the facts were in favour of him still being capable and not foolish enough.
If sleeping with the trouble-magnet by the name of Dante in an old unprotected half-destroyed house while being hunted by the next heir to the Demon world was anything but fucking foolishness.
The mirror in the old black frame was to the left and the shelves with the books were to the right. Yet the harmonious lines of the fleur-de-lis shimmered ever so slightly. Vergil knew that his morning was going to be brisk the moment he opened his eyes. The feeling of the lingering danger was invigorating and nostalgic.
A big black splash of shadow bloomed on the wall like a wondrous flower – the older Sparda turned to his left, embracing his younger twin, and in a tangle of the blanket and pillows rolled over off the bed with Dante in his arms.
'Ouch you asshole!' lying on top of Vergil, the devil hunter grumbled with the vigor he hardly ever showed in the morning, but the pain in places of future bruises on his shoulder hip and knee were a good incentive to wake up.
Vergil himself had hit his both shoulder-blades hard on the dark parquet, but he just gritted his teeth as he watched the big black paws spread right out of the wall and rip the bed to shreds with the thick claws.
'You just had to spoil my morning you fucker,' Dante went on grunting, sitting up naked on the floor near his older brother and sleepily rubbing his head which he hit over the ebony nightstand. 'Couldn't you do something nice for once to wake m-… whoops!' He spotted the shapeless creature on the bed, the red splash left after the blood-goyle, the feathers flying out of the shredded mattress and the broken iron springs sticking out, that were of no problem for the black claws of the shadow that ripped through the metal as well.
The next thing the Sparda twins knew, the shadow got sucked back into the wall and all was silent.
'Good morning!' Dante concluded cheerfully, grabbed his twin's arm and jerked Vergil up, intending to run for it.
'What?' hissed the older Sparda, standing up and shaking Dante's hand off.
'We need to get out of here!' Dante threw up his hands. 'They'll be here any minute, come on, dumbass!' He looked around hastily and spotted the yesterday thong on the floor.
'We can't just leave-… what in the name of our father are you doing?' Vergil wondered as his younger brother slipped into the women's thong and carefully fit it to his body, a thin line of fabric around his hips, disappearing between his buttocks and a small cloth holding his cock at the front, still covering it fine despite the size of the garment. "Which is definitely possible only because he is not erect," Vergil noted to himself. It was a bad idea to imagine what it would be like if his younger twin was in the condition stated above.
'I have no choice, I've had enough of walking butt-naked yesterday, thank you so friggin' much,' Dante spit back, shivering at the memory. Nevan came to his mind and the devil hunter rushed to the bathroom, but as he opened the door a shriek came out and another blood-goyle bit hard on his forearm. 'Fuck!' He grabbed a chair with his free right hand and smashed the perfect old piece of furniture over the goyle's semitransparent head, fluid lines of the legs and arms of ebony cracking to pieces and squashing two white orbs of the demon's eyes and dropping the crumpled form of the blood-goyle onto the floor. ''Be right back,' Dante stepped over the red broken wing with white luminescent dots.
'Hurry,' Vergil just said and looked around searching for a weapon. He only had the White Gloom though, which he left on the table in the hall the day before as he was captivated by Dante and his lust for him… her. 'We need to get downstairs, I'd like to get my sword back since it seems like the only weapon we have here.'
'Won't be much help,' Dante came out, a black leather stiletto shoe in his hand, awkwardly stepping over the stunned blood-goyle. By the uneven steps and the clumsy way he was holding onto the doorpost Vergil knew it was none other than his brother, so he smirked to himself.
'Never the graceful one, aren't you, Dant-…' the older Sparda didn't finish as the ink-black blot splashed out of the wall and a shadow monster jumped at Dante, who shied at it lightning-fast with a shriek and stumbled over to his twin.
'Fuck!' the devil hunter hung over his brother, Vergil holding him under the arms. Both of them froze for a second, but the Shadow turned its head towards them and bristled with the black smoke of the demonic energy. On its pitch-black muzzle the shining red eyes opened and narrowed dangerously. Dante whispered: 'It sees us!'
'For all the bloody bitches of Hell!' Vergil pattered under his breath and dashed for the door right in time, as the demon jumped.
The gigantic black cat crossed the room momentarily, reaching out to the sons of Sparda, smashing a chair in its way, the sharp claws blowing ebony to bits. From the corner of his eye Vergil saw the back claws on the parquet and how they sank into old hardened wood like it was warm butter, and he changed direction abruptly, shoving Dante to the side and into the corridor.
The jump of the demon was too powerful, so the cat ran into the wall, smashed into it, the Shadow's body turning shapeless for a second and splashing out a heap of needles, piercing Vergil's shoulder. Then it turned back into a gigantic cat and chased after the Sparda twins.
Pushed out of the room, Dante staggered, the stiletto shoe still firm in his hand. His older brother hissed angrily behind him and the devil hunter smelled blood. Part of him wanted to turn around and execute revenge, yet he knew he was weak against the Shadows so he just groped for his twin's hand and ran.
Dante was dawdling while the cat already prepared for a dash through the old dark corridor, filled with obstacles that were the candle holders with tens of candles, so Vergil took the hand his brother held out and dragged Dante on.
'Too slow,' Vergil said, his free hand on his wounded shoulder, trying to close up the blood-oozing holes.
'Too fast, asshole!' Dante snapped back, hardly able to match the speed of his twin.
'Argh!' Vergil groaned, hooked his left arm around the younger Sparda's waist and pulled him.
Old portraits and the candles with spider web beads flew past as the instinct – and his older brother – drew Dante to the staircase, the Shadow chasing them like a crazy clingfish. Another black silhouette appeared at the stairs and Vergil stopped abruptly.
"One behind, three ahead, two black spots on the wall to the right," the thought rushed in the older Sparda's head. 'Fuck!'
'I'll take the-…' Dante wanted to say he would take the one behind them, but Vergil pushed him down, covering the devil hunter's body with his own. Vergil's arms closed in an embrace, and the older Sparda's body pressed against Dante's back, warm and hard.
"If I die, seriously… that is not such a serious loss to the world and who the fuck cares, but they will get to Dante…to this human Dante who can't even protect himself."
Three black needles smoking with demonic energy pierced Dante's left arm and shoulder. He winced, but pain was easy to handle, he was used to it.
Vergil coughed and snickered. The grip of his strong thin fingers tightened and trembled. Every place, where Vergil's body was connected to Dante's back became wet and hot.
'Verge?' the devil hunter turned. Three Shadows were over Vergil, tearing him with their claws into red and cream-coloured skin ribbons. The other two were smashed at the wall as the black hedgehogs, their long black needles sticking in all directions, cutting through Vergil, three of the needles in his own body.
'Verge?' Dante muttered hoarsely. 'You won't, I don't believe it. You won't. Right, Verge?' "Not like this! After all the shit we've been through you are not going to die on me here because of some stupid lesser demons, don't you dare!"
"Pain is a good reason to wake up. Can't leave you now even if it blow my body to pieces, can I?"
Vergil threw his head back and roared in pain, like a beast, his low howl shaking the house, rending the air and space. In a moment the older Sparda's skin paled and the dark blue veins cut through it, his hair stood on end. A lace of blue and black runes covered him, then dissipated immediately.
The old dusted candles on the holders sprang to life, the fire bursting from soiled wicks in uneven dancing flames of aquamarine. The flames grew instantly, burning into shining flames, white cores with the blue edges.
Vergil's howl broke. The blaze of the candles brightened and turned to blinding, it rose and shined until there was no shadow in the corridor and the demons were writhing on the floor, trying to crawl into a corner, their sorrowful moans quiet. Finally they shuddered and their black mystic bodies dissolved in the light, leaving only the dark spheres of the cores.
The lights calmed down into being normal candle lights, though still blue, and the six cores of the demons cracked and fell to the floor in splinters.
Vergil lowered his head and panted. His skin darkened and starting from the wounded back it hardened into black scales that gleamed with sapphire and indigo. They covered his body like a reptile's – leaving the face, the chest and the insides of his arms, where the hardened flesh turned lavender and white; the dark veins glimmered and erupted into shining white and silver energy vessels. His eyes burned cyan with power and lips were a pale angry line.
Mesmerized, Dante reached out his hand and touched Vergil's cheek, bone scales hard and grooved under his fingers.
'Day,' Vergil called, his voice low and coarse from the transformation. Pale lavender lips moved in a familiar motion of his name, showing sharp fangs. Demon non-blinking eyes with no irises shone their bright cyan. 'We need to go.'
'Yes, brother,' Dante agreed and jerked himself up.
For the first time in his life, Dante sincerely wanted to be a demon. To be on par with his brother, to kill the demons, to be strong. Dante wanted the power that he had lost back.
"Vergil was born to be demon. I was born to be human. Maybe now we have finally gained the balance?" He tried to lie to himself, but he still wanted it.
Vergil took his hand, long black nails scratched Dante's human skin to blood, but the devil hunter didn't complain.
As much as he wanted to devil trigger himself, nothing came out. It was not easy, but Dante had to accept that he couldn't do anything anymore, so he blindly followed his older twin, whom he admired now more than he had since Vergil came back to the Human world.
Vergil pulled Dante to the staircase and down to the lobby when the devil hunter noticed the second stiletto shoe that he had lost the previous evening.
They ran down the stairs, Dante stumbling but continuing on as Vergil pulled him further, never letting go of his hand. There were more Shadows in the hall and a dozen of blood-goyles circling at the ceiling. Three goyles fell down to attack them and Vergil easily waved two of them away, his scales protecting him from this mockery of the attack. Their bloody jelly bodies splashed at the wall, staining the old portrait in a silver frame. The older Sparda tore the core out of the third demon with his bare hand and threw it to the floor in disgust.
Oh, and by the way, Dante, Nevan's smiling face was clear in his memory, you can tear up the dress and make a total mess out of yourself. But you do anything to my Cristian Louboutin shoes and I will eat your cock – or cunt, whatever, for breakfast, tear out your heart and feed it to you for lunch, and throw all your intestacies out to the bats for dinner. She beamed at Dante, white teeth and red lipstick, narrowed foxy eyes. Is that understood, my dear devil boy?
'I'll be right back,' Dante muttered very fast when they almost reached the last stair and turned around to get the stiletto. His fingers loosened in Vergil's and slid away.
'Don't you!' the older Sparda bit out shortly and angrily and with a twist of his hand, Vergil was clutching Dante's wrist firmly. 'I told you to not let go of my hand, did I not?'
'Well, you never had any problem letting go of mine, so bugger off,' Dante shrugged with a dark snicker and jerked his hand free.
Vergil let him. He wanted to protest and shout, to yell how Dante was an idiot and how he was human now and needed protection, but he couldn't make himself say it aloud. He had nothing to prove his younger twin wrong.
Dante reached out to get the shoe, but his body didn't oblige: from the three holes in his left shoulder the blood was still pouring, and his whole arm was numb. "Why didn't it cure?" Dante thought, dumbfounded, and snatched the elegant shoe from the floor with his right hand. He hurried back to where Vergil was throwing away a Shadow with his bare scaled hands.
Strangely, the leather was warm and nice, and the devil hunter could partly understand why the Witch wanted the shoes back. Despite the uneasiness of the high heels, they were a perfect sex weapon. He smirked as he remembered the dark shine of his brother's eyes and the way the jeans were not such a perfect fit for Vergil as the stiletto touched his bare chest.
"Maybe he still likes girls," Dante noted, but it didn't bring him any happiness he thought it would.
'Let's move on,' Vergil had his firm grab on the devil hunter again, and jerked him to the side. A Shadow sprang from the wall and in a mass of dark demon energy it splashed onto the stairs, shredding them to chips.
"Too slow for me now, it seems," Vergil just glanced at the Shadow and it exploded from inside out, torn apart by the cyan flames, dirtying the walls and the parquet in sticky black oil.
'Why are they so friggin' fast?' Dante panted, trying to follow his brother.
'Hn', the older Sparda didn't answer, keeping his thoughts to himself. "It's not them, its, you, moron. You are not a match for them anymore."
Over another tree jelly dead bodies of the blood-goyles they managed to get to the twin navy blue leather armchairs and the low black oak table between them, where lay the White Gloom in its white confinement, just as Vergil left it the previous evening. The older Sparda reached out.
'Don't!' Dante shouted, but it was too late, his twin took the sword out of the sheath, the black blade swished in the air to cut through the Shadow attacking Vergil. The tip of the blade came easily through the ethereal body of the demon and was slicing through the core, when it got stuck.
'Crap, Verge, run!' Dante tugged at the older Sparda's hand. "That bloody idiot blacksmith! I asked him to make a blade that would keep me in human form in the Demon world, I didn't fucking ask for a soul-sucker! The friggin' sword didn't work before, but now it just had to, didn't it?"
Vergil frowned, a nasty nauseous feeling in his stomach, just like when he shot Luce and Ombra for the first time, the feeling of his demon energy being sucked out.
The Shadow spasmed around the blade and in the last attempt to attack bristled with black needles, piercing Vergil. Dante saw clearly as they went into his brother's body, came out through the breaking blue scales of Vergil's back and spread out, almost touching the devil hunter, but dissipated suddenly.
Vergil groaned and the cyan flame flared up and finished the Shadow up. The hit too much of him, and tolder Sparda gasped for air and fell to his knees, exhausted, White Gloom stuck into the wooden floor for support.
"Even if the sword sucks out every bit of the demon essence there is in me, I am not letting the demons get Dante," Vergil told himself, trying hard not to lose consciousness because of the wounds, headache and dizziness. White Gloom was smoking with his power, the pitch black blade apparently condensing all the demonic energy within itself.
'Verge, you arright?'
"Dante's here, right," Vergil shut his eyes and tried to calm down. "I'm not alone."
'Leggo of the damn thing, it's killing you! Verge!' through the dizziness warm tender hands were prying his fingers off the white-leather-covered hilt of the katana. Dante's hands had a strange feel: his own scaled, hardened fingers seemed rock-rough to Vergil, while Dante's fingers had the gentle human skin, light silky touch.
'Verge, they are coming,' his younger twin was whispering to his ear hastily. Shaking him by the shoulders – the marvelous silky caress of human flesh.
"Can't let go the sword, it wouldn't let me…" All Vergil could feel and perceive was White Gloom tying him to the blade. But if he was honest, he himself didn't really want to take his hand off the katana. Even if it weakening him immensely, it felt more like a battle of will – which he was losing so far – rather that a life-endangering experience, so he just gripped the hilt tighter.
"Like hell I am letting a mere sword stop me from fulfilling my promise. And I did promise to protect my brother.
Not after the shitty day that we had. Not after we came to an agreement. Not the stupid blade, nothing is going to stop me. Ever, from today on, nothing will ever stop me.
I promised for those hands on my shoulders."
'No way,' Vergil frowned. He had felt worse; he had been to the bottom of the Demon world. He had suffered and had known true pain. So he could handle a little pressure.
'Hn,' he smirked as his vision cleared slightly. The demons were mere steps away, and Dante was trying to shoo them off with a chair, successfully destroying yet another piece of ancient art.
"Need to finish it fast," the older Sparda tried to work up a plan. "Yes, I should calm down. Too much time of confusion, too much time with Dante, that riled me up. After all, we talked everything through, why should I act rash?"
'There,' he said almost coldly and with a quick step and a smooth slice of the sword Vergil was on his way to help his younger brother.
Dante started when the older Sparda moved – dashed out in a blink, the dark lace of the runes falling like a broken shell behind him. The blade was swishing in the air faster than Dante could notice, only the bluish-black swishes could be seen – the demon energy pressed inside the airless thin gape that followed the White Gloom was marking every curve and slash that the katana in Vergil's hands had cut out, evidence of the art of his swordsmanship.
"Don't even need my demonic power to dispose of this garbage. And Dante needs to see a doctor."
Vergil took the devil hunter's hand again and pulled Dante towards the door, slaying the Shadows despite his demonic energy being sucked out. By the time they managed to get to the half-open old door, the room was a mess, furniture and parquet in shreds, the small butterfly pieces of wall silk fluttering around.
The hard scales on Vergil's body had lightened, the glowing veins hid back into his body, showing the older Sparda's pale skin with faint-looking but strong muscles underneath it. The last curves of the black smoke snaked into the solid blade of the White Gloom.
'Does everything you give me work this twisted way?' Vergil mock-grumbled at Dante, but his frown in fact was brought out by the look of the younger twin's wrecked shoulder. The blood had seized but it was still an open wound that hadn't closed.
'Ohhh, come on, I didn't know it worked!' Dante pouted back, offended by the unjust accuse. 'You used it, remember? Before this time there was no problem, right? Write a letter of complaint to Tony or something, it's not my fault, jerk. And I warned you not to touch it!'
'What did you need a blade that sucked the demon essence for?' Vergil pushed the door with his shoulder and his bare feet touched the marble staircase of the main entrance of the mansion. The light-lemon sunrise was glowing at the horizon, no more demons seemed to be lurking around, everything was calm and quiet. "Nostalgic. Like morning training."
'Careful!' Dante jerked up as a blood-goyle behind Vergil opened it's beak to cut into the older Sparda's back. Vergil twitched and turned around to watch the fading dying demon splash onto the old marble, a black leather shoe piercing it's head with the stiletto.
Dante blinked, perplexed, and the realization of what he had killed the goyle with struck him.
Oh, and by the way, Dante, Memory-Nevan beamed at the devil hunter, white teeth and red lipstick, narrowed foxy eyes. You can tear up the dress and make a total mess out of yourself. But you do anything to my Cristian Louboutin shoes and I will eat your cock – or cunt, whatever, for breakfast, tear out your heart and feed it to you for lunch, and throw all your intestacies out to the bats for dinner. Is that understood, my dear devil boy?
'Oh, well,' Dante threw his hands in the air, 'my luck's bloody killing me, it's just fun-fucking-tastic.'
Vergil eyed him, unsure of the subject of the younger twin's speech. The almost naked devil hunter strode to the door, carrying his slightly tanned lithe body lightly. Easy sure steps. He kneeled, the wounded shoulder brushing past Vergil's chest, to pick up the wrecked shoe from the dead goyle on the cold white marble.
The blood trace was warm on Vergil's skin. For a moment the previous day seemed absolutely unreal – his mistake of misjudging and leaving Dante, his fault for coming onto that barman, the fight he and his younger twin had afterwards, the icy feel of sharp words and Dante closing the door right before him. Waiting for hours in a dead house, anxiety and impatience. And then the strangest thing that ever happened to him – Dante's feminine face under him, frowning and biting his lip. Dante's face and a firm grip of his fingers in Vergil's locks. Vergil still didn't have the word to name the sex they had had.
Dante was down, cleaning the stiletto from the jelly flesh and murmuring angrily. The younger twin's shoulders were broader now again, more worked out; Dante's shoulders that had carried the Sparda's curse. Vergil almost leaned to touch him, to palm the muscles that were back in clear lines, to feel the warmth of life. How did they live through for so long? How did they live through for so long without each other?
'Whatever,' Dante shrugged and straightened up, a foxy smirk on his lips. He had two shoes in his right hand, but the heel of one of them was irreparably broken. 'Who cares now that we are done?'
'Truly,' Vergil shook his head to shoo away the dou
bts and combed the disheveled snow-white hair back with his hand.
The younger Sparda came down from the marble stairs, and walked towards the gate, bare feet on the emerald grass. Before going out of the old garden, he turned around, glanced at the ancient pine trees, dusted with dew, morning light and age; at the arches and columns, at the stone demons on the house and finally at his brother.
'Damn.' He sighed, his expression turning dark. Every little piece of his skin, every angle and curve of his body fired up under Vergil's intense gaze and the memory of sex with Vergil was burning in his mind.
A pair of the sharp crystals of the azure eyes never left Dante's figure as the older Sparda walked up to him. A pale-skinned warrior with a sword resting in his hand comfortably. Vergil's hair like hoar-frost, chest coloured with a splash of dark crimson that smeared onto the plainness of his stomach; the black jeans carelessly resting low, outlining the hips. Bare feet on the grass then on the old plates of stone, leaving the wet prints as the dew drenched the jeans. The jeans' legs covered Vergil's ankles so that only half of his feet could be seen, pale toes left a row of small round dots, behind which the elegant curve of the wet sole.
'What's wrong?' "You are injured, do you need help?" Vergil put his hands on both sides of his younger twin's neck and pushed Dante's face up with his thumbs. The tender touch to the skin. The silky sensation of caress. Just like…
'Don't-…!' the devil hunter jerked and broke free from the touch, throwing Vergil's arms away, taking an abrupt step back. 'Don't fucking touch me!' He whispered angrily, pointing at his brother for emphasis. "I don't want to remember it, don't want to feel it again…don't want to think about it, to know what I feel…"
'Dante,' the older Sparda called gently, reaching out to his younger twin.
'Just be like before it, can't you?..' the devil hunter said finally, looking right at Vergil, his voice coarse and thick with worry.
The older twin's hand stopped, finger-pads a tremble away from Dante's cheek, so close yet unable to connect.
"I'm sorry," for the first time since Vergil was violated and tortured, since he decided men suited him better and hid behind this pretext to avoid the pain and humiliation he had gone through, for the first time he realized Dante wanted to stay the Dante he was. Dante didn't want to be like him, didn't want to be his lover, or any other man's lover.
It hurt Vergil and made him afraid to the point of the darkest dread of being left behind.
'I'll drive,' the older Sparda dropped monotonously and strode to the azure jaguar that was parked in the street.
Vergil's warmth that Dante could almost feel swayed away, replaced by the chilly early morning air with a bright scent of dew.
Ashamed of himself, the devil hunter watched his brother go away. His back, that was what Dante always saw. Never turning back to look at him, Vergil was always waking straight, no matter what, even if it was the wrong way he always followed it until the end. Going quietly behind the older Sparda, Dante almost leaned to touch him, to palm the clear lines of muscles on his back, to feel the warmth of Vergil's life. How did they live through for so long? How did they live through for so long without each other?
Despite everything Dante said and despite everything he had convinced himself he was feeling, his sincerest wish was for Vergil to turn around and embrace him regardless of all the bullshit and the shame.
…
They silently went to the Jaguar, not looking at each other, the older Sparda plopped onto the driver's seat, his twin beside him, the engine grumbled at them, displeased, and the azure car took them to Devil Never Cry.
...endo chap 25...
Thank you everyone for your support! It's only your kind words that make me find some extra time to write this shit. *falls asleep due to lack of it from studying and nervousness*
I luv you guys, ya keep me going! Sorry 4 this chap being this short( was unintentional. =_= dunno I think that was boring *ran for the hills to look for proper inspiration*
Whatever, if I dint answer somebody's review feel free to flood my pm.
Kisses n hugs and all the best to yall
Ethan.