And here we are, the final chapter! I'm sorry it's taken a while longer than the previous chapters for me to get this out. I've been terribly busy with work recently and the patient load hasn't gotten any lower at the clinic as the weeks progressed, so on most days I was getting too close to burnout to write. Thanks for your patience, all.
Music for this chapter: Hello To My Old Heart, The Oh Hellos
Vergil wakes to cold air between his sleeves, and old demon blood ground into the empty sheets beside him where Dante had curled the night before.
Panic pierces Vergil to his core.
He twists himself upwards as the ceiling looms in a dread-filled weight down towards him, and freezes as his foot thuds against a solid mass at the edge of the mattress.
Dante sits quite still on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, head bowed over his hands loose in his lap. The sweep of his ichor-stained hair hides his face from Vergil's view.
Vergil simply stares at his brother for a long moment, relief warring with the remnants of terror in his gut.
Dante does not move to acknowledge his brother's presence.
Eventually, Vergil moistens his lips with a dry tongue, and says quietly, "Dante."
The sweep of grimy silver-white hair shifts a little, revealing a glimmer of blue irises that meet Vergil's gaze sharply, as though in challenge.
"Dante, please," Vergil whispers, in a ghost of the previous evening's conversation, that had started with raw words, continued with the crack of Vergil's spine violently smashing against the wall, and ended with Dante quietly weeping into his pillow, turned away as Vergil held him steady.
Some part of Vergil knows this is his brother's way of coping – unhealthy methods to lessen future pain, as the therapist had previously described it – and it is only when he realises the sheer effort it requires to care for one who is hell-bent on a path to self-destruction that Vergil understands the cost his own struggle for self-worth had wrought on Dante.
Dante, who had brought Vergil back from the brink of despair again and again when he had thought himself unworthy of being Nero's father, of being Dante's brother, or his life worth nothing except to die for his son.
Dante, who seems to have given up on the façade of easy humour he had always worn before, and now stays silent in his brother's company as though preparing himself for the inevitable sundering of their relationship.
Now, looking into his brother's veiled, thin-lipped expression, the prospect of persuading his brother that he will not leave him causes terror to curdle in Vergil's stomach. He is a few steady sessions into therapy with Nero now, and he would be the first to admit he is anything but confident in expressing sentiment.
But perhaps…
Perhaps he needs to listen, instead of speaking.
It is what their therapist had told him.
The mattress creaks underneath him as Vergil straightens his spine and holds his brother's gaze level.
"Dante," he says, "Why do you think Nero and I will leave you?"
The ghost of a wry, bitter smile across Dante's unshaven face. "What sort of question is that?" he says hollowly.
Vergil feels his hands clench automatically in the bunched sheets in his lap, instinctive ire rising to the fore in response to Dante's evasive answer.
Dante's eyes flicker to Vergil's white-knuckled fingers and up to his face again, and something like resigned understanding settles on Dante's features. He shifts his weight as though to stand.
Vergil darts out a hand convulsively and wraps iron fingers about his brother's wrist. To his relief, Dante does not immediately fling away his grasp.
"Please," Vergil says, hearing the plea in his own voice warring with the dam of pride in his throat. "I have– I have never been good with words, Dante. For all my love of Blake, I– I have never–"
A sigh gusts from Dante's lips, and he raises his head fully for the first time. The half-light of the morning sun filtering through the curtains casts the dried demon blood on his cheekbone a deep, rust red.
"It's okay, Vergil," Dante says, deathly calm. "It's not like I think you or Nero want to leave me. I just think you'll end up doing it anyway, whether you intend to or not. And you should. You should leave me."
Vergil stares.
"What," he says, hand tightening on Dante's wrist hard enough to bruise, fury bubbling up within him.
"Nero's more important," Dante is saying now. "You and Nero and Kyrie – you're a family now. You should go to be with them."
Dante's expression has not changed throughout his speaking, but Vergil feels the hammer of Dante's pulse against the skin under Vergil's fingers, a testament to the pain Dante will not allow into his eyes or his voice.
Vergil takes a breath that shudders through his core, forcibly cooling the fury within.
He is not angry with Dante, he reminds himself. He is not angry with himself, or Nero, because their therapist had spent most of a session going over misplaced anger and fault.
This rage he feels is directed at one person and one person only: Mundus.
Mundus, who had torn their mother and father from them at such a young age – had put Vergil on a path to seek power above all else, and Dante on a lonely road to false smiles and loneliness, both to avoid feeling loss ever again.
Cobalt demon energy seeps from Vergil's skin, turning the fingers he has clasped around his brother's wrist blue-scaled for the briefest instant before reverting to sword-calloused skin, and Dante's answering flinch is a knife to Vergil's very soul.
"I'm sorry," Vergil says, and the phrase, which had been bound so deeply within him since the earliest days of his childhood, behind wall upon wall of pride and loss and fear – it slips out of him now as easily as breathing.
He has apologised to Nero too many times to count in the past few weeks, but Dante – Dante deserves to hear the same.
Dante closes his eyes once as though in inexpressible pain before opening them again. "You don't have to apologise for leaving–"
Vergil hisses with frustration, throws dignity into the wind, and pulls Dante into an embrace.
Dante's hiccup of surprise is somewhat muffled by the fact his face is now mashed into Vergil's shoulder.
"Sometimes your idiocy transcends any believable realm of understanding, little brother," Vergil says into Dante's filthy hair. "You and I have spent roughly twenty years either apart or trying to kill one another. I am not the most reliable of narrators, to be sure. Nero has taught me enough on that account. But if you believe for one moment that I would abandon you again, I swear on Sparda's name I will make your life a living hell."
The tension in Dante's shoulders gives way to minute tremors. His arms come up around Vergil's waist slowly, jerkily, to curl almost desperately into the edge of Vergil's blood-stained dress shirt.
"Shit," Dante croaks into Vergil's collar. "You shouldn't– I can't–"
"Can't what, Dante?" Vergil growls almost testily to hide the lump in his own throat. "Don't believe what I'm saying? Fine. I'm taking you to Fortuna. If you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe Nero. Or Kyrie, because for the life of her that girl cannot lie–"
Dante snorts a wet laugh into Vergil's shoulder, and his arms tighten further around Vergil's back, pressing into the very bones that had cracked against stone when Dante had thrown him into the wall in their argument the previous night.
"I'm trying," Dante says, and he sounds like he did at six again, the night after the quarrel that had led to Dante's accident with the rosebushes – when they had huddled together under one blanket, Dante seeking comfort from the phantom thorns in his brother's hold, and Vergil still wrestling with the faint guilt of pushing his brother into said rosebushes.
"Trying what?" Vergil says with no real heat in his voice, one thumb brushing at the soft strands where hair meets skin at the back of Dante's neck as he used to when they were children.
"I'm trying to believe you," Dante says, his shoulders shivering in Vergil's grasp. "But I'm not– I can't, Verge."
Vergil breathes a sigh. "Because I don't have a good history with promises," he whispers, faint bitterness creeping into his voice.
"No, I'm–" Dante's exhale gusts against Vergil's collar.
Vergil turns his cheek further against his brother's temple, and waits.
"Everyone leaves me," Dante says, and it is as though the admission tears up out of him to skewer Vergil through and through. "Everyone always has. From the moment mother left me to find you."
The bitter tang of of smoke, flames in the air, the cold, foul dirt of the graveyard, the Yamato in Vergil's shaking, too-short fingers–
The ruin of his home in the distance, a hollowed, burning spectre against the first rays of dawn, and Vergil had spun on a heel and turned away, back straight and unyielding and strong – and he had not wept then, because it was his choice to abandon the memory of his childhood like his family had abandoned him.
Vergil sometimes wonders how their lives would have changed if he had not turned away then – if he had taken that first shaking step forward, and screamed for his brother and his mother as he so wished to do – if Dante's answering shout would have reached him, and if they would have weathered all the slings and arrows of their lives afterwards together.
"I swear on the memory of our mother," Vergil whispers as he tightens his hold on his brother's shaking form, "I swear that I will never abandon my family again. Not you, or Nero, or Kyrie. Nero told me I would be his father and grandfather to his future children, so you are going to be Nero's uncle and grand-uncle to his children. Think otherwise on pain of death, Dante."
Dante gasps a laugh that might have originally been a sob.
"Okay, Verge," he says. "I'm still– still a little skeptical, okay? But I want to believe it, if you'll help me."
Relief, heady and warm. It rushes through Vergil all at once, releases the thorns in his chest he did not know were there. He nods into Dante's temple, and feels Dante's desperate hold relax into something easier.
They rest awhile like so, breathing.
"Why d'you have to supplement every promise with a death threat, Verge?" Dante says, his tired grin a faint curve against Vergil's neck.
"Because you're too dense to understand otherwise, Dante," Vergil sniffs with a superior air even as he cards a hand through Dante's blood-stiff locks. "I may be poor with words, but you're practically illiterate."
"Mm," Dante mumbles as Vergil's sword-callouses rub against his scalp. "Thass'nice."
"Hm?" Vergil says, fingers stilling.
A pause, where something like embarrassment exudes from the line of Dante's shoulders.
Then: "Keep goin'," Dante says, warmth spreading where his face is pressed into Vergi's collar.
Vergil stamps down on his own embarrassment and resumes running his hand through his brother's ichor-stained hair.
"You big ol' softie," Dante mumbles, relaxing.
"Juvenile idiot," Vergil says, as the scritch-scritch of sword callouses against scalp fills the quiet morning air.
"Dumb nerd."
"Filthy animal."
"Emotionally-constipated, ugly asshole," Dante counters sleepily.
"We have the same face, Dante," Vergil reminds him, as a gust of cool winter wind breaks through the curtains at last and drenches them both with golden morning light.
"Mine's prettier," Dante insists as he lifts his face off Vergil's shoulder at last to blink against the glare of the sun.
Vergil opens his mouth to argue, but Dante's stomach chooses that moment to rumble loudly and insistently.
They stare at each other, bloodstained and emotionally worn and, for the first time in days, a fragile peace between them.
"Breakfast," Vergil says eventually, with a sigh.
Dante's face splits into a slow grin as he bounds to his feet and makes for the door.
"But not before you take a damned shower," Vergil calls after him. "I didn't spend the last twelve hours bathing in the smell of demon filth to eat breakfast with you smelling like a pig–"
Dante barks a laugh, free and unfettered, as Vergil all but shoves him into the bathroom and closes the door in his face.
(:~:)
Vergil makes breakfast after they both have had their turn cleaning up – tooth-rottingly sweet strawberry pancakes, Dante's favourite, and though Dante still does not seem fully himself, he breaks into a genuine smile when Vergil sets a heaping plate before him.
The morning passes quietly.
Vergil busies himself with necessary tasks at first – washing up, changing Dante's demon-blood soaked sheets, and cleaning the gash in Dante's leg, which, although half-healed, is still faintly hot to the touch – belying the remnant of poison within that slows his healing.
It is here that Dante shows the most promising change compared to the previous few days – a day ago he would have shifted away from Vergil's touch in false indifference, but now he leans into Vergil's personal space at every opportunity, as though trying to convince himself Vergil will stay.
Actions, the therapist had said. Actions.
Vergil makes a decision.
He finishes up, packs away the medical supplies, and returns with his favourite poetry volume – the same he had argued Dante over the day their mother had died.
Dante has stretched out on the couch in a sprawl of long limbs in his sloppy T-shirt and drawstring pyjamas, and Vergil makes a show of shoving his brother's feet off the couch to make room, while carefully avoiding Dante's healing leg.
Dante grumbles a bit and buries his face in a cushion, legs flopping all over Vergil like a bizarre octopus.
Vergil avoids the kick to his face with ease and thumbs open the book of poetry. For a moment a ridiculous sense of foolishness comes over him, and he almost abandons the whole fledgling idea altogether.
Then he spots Dante's careful stillness, as though waiting to see what he will do, and Vergil takes a careful breath.
"Songs of Innocence and Experience," he begins quietly. "By William Blake."
The sound of rustling cloth as Dante's shoulders shift with surprise in the corner of Vergil's vision.
"Piping songs of valleys wild," Vergil continues, "Piping songs of pleasant glee–"
A contented sigh. Dante settles back into the cushions and closes his eyes to listen.
Vergil reads on, Blake's words slipping with familiar weight between his lips, as Dante's breaths even out to sleep, and the warm winter sunlight blankets them both.
(:~:)
Time slips on towards Christmas, days in which Vergil spends almost every instant at his brother's side, sleeping with his face tucked into the back of Dante's neck, holding his brother close.
Dante comes out of his shell slowly, veiled caution slowly growing into genuine, easy smiles, and Vergil feels each layer of worry in his chest loosen and fall away with each laugh and teasing word.
It is enough that Vergil deems it safe enough to invite Nero over two days before Christmas. He makes sure to have a quiet word with Nero beforehand to apprise him of recent events, but there is still a part of Vergil quietly anxious as he sheathes the Yamato and Nero steps through the tear in reality onto the creaking floorboards of the Devil May Cry shop.
"My favourite nephew!" Dante drawls, opening his arms teasingly in invitation even as his boots shift to dodge whatever strike Nero might throw his way.
Then Dante nearly stumbles over himself as Nero looks at his uncle with flat-lipped expression, takes one step forwards, and hugs him.
Vergil stares at his brother and his son, and loosens his white-knuckled grip on the Yamato's sheath in shock.
Dante barely has enough time to catch himself and bring his arms up to rest around Nero's back before Nero very nearly shoves Dante backwards in his haste to turn away.
"Shut up," Nero growls, staring at the floor as he stomps away, ears cherry red and fits clenched at his side.
"Nero," Vergil croaks, emotion clogging in his throat as Dante stands there, blinking dazedly–
"Both of you shut up," Nero hisses as he stalks towards the door. "We are Christmas shopping, like we planned, and I'm getting Kyrie something incredibly special and expensive, and if either of you do anything to spoil this afternoon I'm going to thrash both your asses so severely you won't be fighting for a month. Now shut up and start walking."
Dante catches Vergil's eye, shrugs, and follows, grinning.
The winter air is chill but the afternoon sunshine pleasantly bright as the three of them step out into the street together. Vergil reaches out and straightens Nero's scarf as he draws even with his son, and is rewarded with a new flush in Nero's cheeks and a mumble of thanks.
Dante whistles merrily as he ambles on the other side of Vergil, hands stuffed in his pockets so only the long red sleeves of his red sweater are visible, and for once, the sound warms Vergil instead of annoying him.
(:~:)
For all his grumbling and his red-eared embarrassment, Nero gives both of them a hug before snatching up his heap of paper-wrapped parcels and practically fleeing through the portal the Yamato opens in the wall.
Vergil watches the portal close with amusement, and turns towards his own carefully arranged pile of parcels. The three of them had split off at times throughout the afternoon to buy each others' gifts, and Vergil had found himself smiling when Nero had landed a punch in his uncle's gut when Dante had attempted to sneak a peek at Nero's purchases.
And speaking of sneaking peeks–
Vergil's hand darts out and snatches the back of Dante's sweater as Dante bends to look in one of Vergil's paper bags. "We're not six years old, Dante," he says.
Dante pouts at him, heaves his own singular purchased (and very heavy, by the looks of it) box up onto one shoulder, and says, "I've a feeling this one's gonna be a doozy to put together. Stay out of the storage room 'til Christmas, 'kay?"
Vergil catches the mischievous glint in Dante's gaze, and decides he doesn't want to know.
Watching his brother dart into the back room without even the slightest hitch in his wounded leg, Vergil dares to hope that Dante might be coming close to believing him after all.
(:~;)
Christmas Day dawns bright and clear, the previous evening's snowfall settling in great mounds of pure, gleaming white amongst Kyrie's winter flowerbeds.
"Dammit!" Nero's indignant yell ricochets around the den and topples the silver boot that is his token.
Dante barks a victorious laugh and waggles a hand in Nero's reddened face. "Tough luck, kid. Pay up."
"I can't, I'm bankrupt," Nero grouses. "You two are a menace," he growls. "How many hotels do you own now?"
"Many," Vergil says from where he sits languidly elegant by Dante's side, sharp blue eyes darting over the myriad of red plastic blocks that line the square board on the low table before them.
Dante cannot see Vergil's face from this angle, but the warm press of his brother's shoulder digs into Dante's own, and Nero is shouting profanities across at them with Kyrie hiding a smile beside him, all while the glow of hot chocolate in Dante's stomach warms him from within – and for the first time in a long while, Dante finds himself almost…content.
Here, surrounded by his family, he can almost believe that this is not some impossible, temporary dream – that Vergil's promises will hold, and that his brother and nephew are here to stay.
"Dante."
Dante shakes himself out of his reverie to find his brother looking at him with a faint crease between his brows, and Nero and Kyrie watching him expectantly.
"Hm? Oh, right," he says, allowing a beaming smile to stretch across his cheeks. He jumps back into the game with aplomb, but he can feel Vergil's gaze resting upon the back of his head like a hunting falcon's, and Nero's lips have thinned in the corner of his vision.
Shit.
The game wraps up soon after, and the group moves towards the presents under the tree in the corner of the den as the afternoon draws on towards evening.
Dante pushes Nero forward first, partly in an effort to reassure his nephew that Dante is fine, he really is, and also partly to delay having to open presents with both his brother and nephew staring holes into the back of his neck.
Subtlety is not a strong Sparda trait.
Dante settles back onto the sofa with Vergil at his side and resolutely avoids meeting his brother's gaze.
Kyrie approaches Nero first with a small white box in her hands, smiling shyly up at him as she presses it into his fingers.
Nero opens her gift with almost reverent care, and plucks a silver wristband from its velvet cushioning. From this angle, Dante can see the seraph engraved into the metal, a twin of the pendant that always hangs from the chain at Kyrie's neck.
Nero turns the gift over, and Dante catches a glimpse of words etched into the underside of the wristband, too small to be seen from this distance.
"So you can carry my blessing with you always," Kyrie says softly, and Dante sees the moment Nero's gaze gives way to raw vulnerability as he gathers Kyrie into an embrace.
It is almost disgustingly sweet, the pair of them. Dante sneaks a glance at his brother, and finds Vergil watching his son and future daughter-in-law with something close to nostalgia.
Nero and Kyrie break apart after a moment, Kyrie blushing prettily and Nero's ears red as the baubles on the Christmas tree behind him, and Dante breaks the awkward pause with a wolf-whistle that has Vergil smacking him upside the head.
"Ow," Dante says pointedly, but is relieved to see that the worried set of Vergil's mouth has loosened slightly.
Good.
Vergil and Nero do not need Dante ruining their Christmas with his useless musings.
Vergil is next to present his gift to Nero, a soft package wrapped in fancy, high-grade paper. The paper falls away to reveal a heavy sweep of dark blue cloth, and Vergil's shoulders are tense until Nero's eyes visibly light up.
"A new armored coat," Vergil says, visibly straining to contain the emotion in his voice. "As I recall, your previously favoured one was rather irreparably ruined."
Nero's hands do not even pause at the mention of the dome; they are running over the rich, supple fabric, the strong, nearly-invisible stiches; the way the shoulders of the coat echo the strong lines of Dante's battle gear; the fall of exquisitely weighted cloth down to the waist and flared hem that brings to mind a shorter version of Vergil's own fighting coat.
"Dad," Nero is whispering, "This must have…this must have cost–"
"Shh," Vergil says, and blinks, eyes gleaming with moisture, as Nero takes a single step forward and gathers his father into his arms, coat and all.
Looking at his brother and nephew embrace, Dante feels his heart fill.
It is enough, he reminds himself. This is enough.
"Promise me you'll wear it," Vergil is saying now into Nero's hair. "I spoke to Nico. The coat has armorweave woven into double layers– nothing but the strongest demon claws will pierce the lining–"
"Dad," Nero laughs into Vergil's shoulder. "I'll wear it."
Vergil smiles, then, the special smile he has reserved only for his son.
And Dante finds himself smiling as well, with genuine gladness. It has taken too long for his brother and nephew to grow into where they are now.
Both Nero and Vergil's eyes are suspiciously wet as they separate, and Dante takes the opportunity to nudge Vergil aside to give him time to collect himself as Dante saunters forward to present his own messily-wrapped package.
Nero raises an eyebrow in a scarily similar imitation of his father at the mess of newspaper and tape, and peels back the layers to reveal–
"What," Nero says, staring blankly at the object in his hand, "Is this?"
"A mug," Dante says happily, stamping down on the sudden hammering of his heart that is whispering you messed up you messed up again. "I made it myself," he adds.
Nero turns over the misshapen lump of fired clay in his hands, stares down at the words #1 Bestest Nephew spelled in sparkly gemstones across the thumb-printed surface of the mug itself. The rest of the clay is embedded with a variety of eye-wateringly bright stars and hearts.
Dante glances to his left, and finds Vergil's lips twitching in his otherwise still face. Kyrie has a hand over her smile.
Nero is still staring down at the mug in silence.
Dante looks at him.
Okay.
So Dante's messed this up as well, then.
Like he always does.
Dante takes a breath, smile still frozen on his face, and opens his mouth to apologise–
Nero's face collapses as a laugh explodes out of him, shuddering through his shoulders and curling him forwards over the mug.
Dante watches, heart hammering.
"This is–" Nero chortles, wiping away a few stray tears with a shaking hand, "This is the most Dante thing I've ever received. I don't even– where did you find the rhinestones?"
Dante's smile is one of pure relief as he reaches out with an easy hand and ruffles Nero's hair. A warm glow rises within him when Nero does not duck away–
–and then Dante catches Vergil's small smile in the corner of his vision, and the warm glow turns into an ache.
He wishes–
He wishes that he could believe this would last; hot chocolate on a snowy morning, laughter and family.
Dante has spent thirty-five cold, solitary winters alone, and part of him does not – cannot – believe that he is not destined for loneliness.
Dante closes his eyes for the briefest instant as he slides his hand out of Nero's hair, breathing in the scent of cinnamon and cocoa beans curling through the blessedly warm air, sealing the memory along the familiar scent of nutmeg in the mansion corridors – racing Vergil towards the kitchen and the sound of their mother's laughter there–
"Dante? Hey, Dante."
A hand collides with the hollow between his shoulder blades, and Dante snaps open his eyes to find Nero steering him towards the centre of the room with an impish grin.
"It's your turn," Nero says, grinning widely, and Dante barely has time to suck in an uneven breath before Vergil is suddenly standing before him with a smooth rectangular box in his hands.
Grasping at the cracking edges of his ever-present, cheerful mask, Dante meets Vergil's gaze, and musters a smile.
He knows by the look in his brother's eyes that he has not succeeded.
Damn.
(:~:)
Vergil grasps Dante's gift in his hands so tightly his bones ache in protest where the edges of the box meet his fingers.
He has miscalculated.
He has miscalculated Dante's emotional wellbeing, badly so, and Vergil knows the moment he meets his brother's gaze and glimpses the uncertainty still hidden there; that slow, ever-present sense of insecurity that sours the most golden of memories with dread.
Dante is savoring every moment of this Christmas Day with their family as if it might be his last, and Vergil – Vergil has been blind to his brother's suffering.
Dante's state of mind is one that Vergil understands all too well. It was what he himself had felt in Nero's presence from the moment he decided he wished to truly become a father, until therapy had taken the shaking foundations of their relationship and steadied them into a bond.
His brother's gift weighs heavy in Vergil's fingers, heavier than the Yamato had been the first moment Sparda had bequeathed it to him. He had felt the weight of the Sparda legacy in his hands, then too small to even fully wrap around the grip of the Yamato, and part of Vergil had trembled with the enormity of it.
He had thought then that Sparda's legacy was wrought in the blood of demons and the singing of blades.
But here, with his brother and his son at his side, Vergil knows that his father's legacy is in his son's laughter, and Dante's hidden, unassuming kindness, and the memory of their mother, whom fate has reflected in Kyrie's steadfast gentleness.
"Dante," Vergil says.
Dante meets his gaze challengingly, hands stuffed in his pockets, as though he has not a care in the world. "Yeah?"
Vergil opens his mouth, and stops.
Words, words, words, Hamlet had said.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour. Blake.
Dante, his brother. Part of his family, the anchor to which Vergil now clings to like a desperate man who has drifted far too long in a lightless ocean.
How does Vergil–
How could he possibly express how much he–
Vergil becomes aware Nero has taken a half-step towards him, brows creased in concern.
"Dad?" Nero's voice seems very far away.
Vergil takes a breath that sears him to his core and fumbles the gift into Dante's hands.
"Open it," he says, and knows he sounds– sounds terrifiedshakenangry, but he has no words and Dante does not know poetry as Vergil does and he simply wants Dante to know–
Dante looks up at him briefly, gaze unreadable, and down at the gift again. He slides the cover off the box, and stops.
Both brothers stare down at the glossy black touchscreen phone.
"…Is this some sort of plot between you and Nero to laugh at my old-fashioned ways?" Dante says eventually, with a note of confusion.
"No," Vergil says, and the word comes out too sharp, like a misaimed blade. He closes his eyes against the flinch that flickers across Dante's shoulders.
"No," Vergil repeats, breath coming quickly now, like it does in therapy when he has to say something he finds difficult and it catches in the dam at his throat. "I'm– this is–"
"Vergil," Dante is saying now, in that teasing, self-depreciating way of comforting others that so infuriates Vergil at times. "C'mon. It's a practical gift. No need to get all weepy about it."
"No," Vergil says, more forcefully this time, and Nero has stepped closer now, a steady hand on Vergil's shoulder, and Vergil shakes off his son's hand because he needs the words and he just–
He reaches back with a shaking hand and palms the object in his back pocket, bringing it out before him like an offering.
Dante looks down at the phone in Vergil's hand, seemingly a twin of the one in Dante's.
"What, you got one too?" Dante says easily. "Didn't take you for one to–"
"No, you don't understand," Vergil says, snatching up his brother's phone in his free hand and tapping the display to life. "This," he taps on an icon, like Nero had taught him not one day before – "This is a list of contacts. My number is first, then Nero's, then Kyrie's orphanage, then Trish, and Lady's, and Nico's."
Vergil risks a glance up to Dante's face, and sees that his brother still does not understand.
Vergil's heart hammers in his throat.
He taps on the contact with his name, V-E-R-G-I-L, spelt there in unassuming white letters.
The phone in his other hand blares to life with an earsplitting clash of drums and bass guitar and screamed lyrics, and Dante blinks in surprise down at it as Nero grins beside them.
Vergil silences the ringtone Nero had chosen for him and presses his brother's new phone into Dante's palm. Dante's fingers close around it reflexively, curling around the back of Vergil's hand.
"Dante," Vergil says, and there is no hope of his voice remaining even. "It matters not the day, or the hour. It matters not the severity of the occasion." He tightens his fingers around his brother's, the phone between their palms. "Call me, and I will answer."
Dante's sharp inhale is relief to Vergil's ears.
"Tell me you understand," Vergil says, the plea in his voice translating into the trembling in his hand, and he knows when Dante's fingers begin to shake as well that Dante has finally, completely understood the extent of Vergil's promises.
Vergil registers dimly that Nero has crossed over to Kyrie and pulled her away into the kitchen with a whispered word, but then Dante's head is on his shoulder and Vergil's arms are around Dante's back and they are holding onto each other like drowning men, each with a phone clasped in white-knuckled fingers digging into the other's back.
"Dammit, Vergil," Dante whispers between shuddering gasps. "You're really fricking good at this brother thing."
"I have my moments," Vergil says, trying in vain to blink away the tears gathering at the corners of his vision. Then Dante hugs him even tighter, burying his nose into the join between Vergil's collar and shoulder like he used to when they were children, and Vergil chokes in a breath, turns his head into Dante's temple and feels the rough, uncut stubble of Dante's beard scratching at his ear.
"You're staying with me," Dante says with a note of wonder, and Vergil feels the words as much as he hears them.
"Yes," Vergil says into Dante's hair, and the word is almost a hiss. "I'm staying, and you can't do anything about it, so stop trying, you utter–"
Dante chokes a wheezing laugh into Vergil's corded sweater, and part of Vergil should be worried about the tears ruining the cashmere but his brother is here and nobody is leaving and it is Christmas, so his sweater can go to hell.
Vergil had thought they had resolved most of the unspoken trauma of their youth before their mother's grave at their childhood home, but Dante's fingers dig into Vergil's back as though he never wishes to let go, and Vergil's free hand is buried in the messy locks at the back of his brother's neck and his face is pressed into Dante's temple–
And Vergil knows that this is an echo of a hold that should have happened when they were eight – Dante stumbling out of the smoke-seared, shuttered cabinet into Vergil's soot-stained arms, and they would have held each other much as they do now and been comforted that neither of them would have to walk their lives alone.
Dante makes a quiet, contented noise by Vergil's ear, and Vergil is plucked cleanly out of the burning echo of of smoke and flames into the quiet warmth of his son's living room, with his brother whole and hale in his arms and the scent of hot chocolate wafting in from the kitchen.
"Hn," Vergil murmurs, and feels Dante smile.
That makes the corners of Vergil's lips curl, ever so slightly.
Just a little.
(:~:)
The hallway clock strikes eleven in the evening.
Nero inhales deeply as he ladles eggnog into four portions. Kyrie has come up with a recipe that does not call for bourbon, and the heady scent warms Nero from within.
He grins down at the three sparkly clay cups on the tray and the one incongruous black porcelain mug among them as he brings the tray out to the den.
In one corner, Dante is enthusiastically turning the handle of the ice-cream machine Nero and Kyrie had gifted to him, filling the room with the crunch of salt and ice. Dante reaches out with a lightning-fast hand and ruffles Nero's hair as he sets down the plain black mug, and Nero stifles a yelp as the tray teeters dangerously in his grasp.
"You're paying for the damn carpet if you make me drop this," Nero growls without any real heat.
"I'm bankrupt," Dante says breezily, in an echo of Nero in that morning's monopoly game.
Nero momentarily breaks out his demon arms to sucker-punch his uncle in the stomach, and is rewarded with an oof as he heads over to his father and Kyrie, who are both engrossed in the sheet music that had been Vergil's gift to her.
Nero leans over to press a kiss into Kyrie's hair as he sets two mugs before them; sparkly rhinestones spelling out #1 Bestest Niece and #1 Bestest Bro on them respectively.
Kyrie smiles brilliantly up at him and kisses his cheek, and Nero wrestles down the thumping of his heart – Kyrie's been his girlfriend for years, for goodness' sake – and settles on the other side of his father.
"Thanks," Nero says as Vergil takes the tray and hands him his own lopsided mug, the sleeve of Vergil's new dark blue knitted Christmas sweater brushing against Nero's wrist. Kyrie had declared the sweater "Just the thing Mr Vergil would like" a week ago while shopping, and Nero had been surprised just how much his father had ended up liking it – dark blue with silvery ferns.
Kyrie gathers the music and moves away to the music stand across the room, humming to herself between sips of eggnog as her clear brown eyes scan the carefully penned sheets. Her new silver earrings, Nero's own design, dance in the firelight as she passes the fireplace.
In the little bubble of quiet that remains behind, lounging comfortably on the sofa beside his father, Nero takes a sip of eggnog and watches the flames dance in the fireplace, eyelids growing heavy.
"Nero."
"Hmm?" Nero blinks away some of the warm fog; he realises with faint consternation that he is leaning against his father's shoulder, the mug slipping in his hands, but he is far too comfortable to bring himself to move.
His father's voice sounds very close.
"I wanted to thank you for your gift, Nero," Vergil is saying, and Nero cracks open an eye to look at the book in his father's lap – the antique volume of Keats Vergil had shown him in the bookshop just over a week ago.
"You already did, old man," Nero mumbles, already half asleep. "Don't have to thank me twice."
A long moment, where Nero hears nothing except for his father's steady breathing beside his head.
"You are my greatest blessing," Vergil whispers, so quietly that Nero nearly misses it – but he does not miss the shifting of his father's chin and the fleeting, warm pressure against his hair.
If Nero had been fully awake, he might have been embarrassed.
But a warm arm drapes over his shoulders, and sleep claims him before he is even aware of it.
(:~:)
"So," the therapist says, raising an eyebrow. "I take it you three worked some things out."
"Yup," Dante says, elbowing Vergil in his enthusiasm to answer.
Nero watches as the therapist looks over the three of them: Dante, grinning easily, Vergil, rolling his eyes, and Nero himself.
"Happy new year," he says, with a somewhat sarcastic smile. "You'll have your hands full from now on, I'm afraid."
The therapist looks very much like she is suppressing a sigh, but she quirks a smile at them as they stare challengingly back, and that is that.
END
"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
The Clod and the Pebble - William Blake
Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope it serves as a little of a balm to your soul as it was for me to write.
Keep an eye out or subscribe to the series for more later on - I already have the next fic in this series planned (In which Nero desperately needs help with how to propose to Kyrie, and finds his father and his uncle the worst sources of advice he could possibly seek on that front).
And thank you for all the comments! Thank you always, and I love you all.
For writing updates, find me on tumblr at eirianerisdar! I'm also on AO3 under EirianErisdar.
For my usual Star Wars readers, I'm hoping to have the next chapter of The Silent Song out by the end of the Easter holidays!