Return to Redgrave
Disclaimer: Devil May Cry belongs to people who are not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic; it is written purely because I had some Dante angst.
Rating: PG-13
Part: One of One
Set: Post DMC5 - Several months after Meet the Sparda's.
Authoress note: Nero's birthday is coming up. For someone who doesn't have a fantastic grasp on human traditions Vergil struggles with this.
For all my reviewers, who without I would have surely given up a long time ago.
Chapter Two
Dante felt sick.
The house, or rather the ruins of the house, crumbled around him. All these years later, the place was still falling down. It was an absolute wreck. The building had been a ruin long before Vergil had ruined the city with the damn plant. The house had burned almost to cinders on that terrible day decades ago, when he'd been small. All that had been left after the fire was a crumbling shell.
Why had they thought coming back here was a good idea?
"You ok big guy?" Nero shoulder bumped him.
"Yeah." Dante nodded, hesitated, and then shook his head. There was no point in lying. "No."
"Memories?" Nero sighed and put his hands in his pockets.
"You could say that."
The two of them were walking several feet behind Vergil, who was striding forwards. His gait was one Dante knew well. Vergil was stiff, uncomfortable and trying like hell to not show it. But his effort to hide his tension only made the lift to his shoulders and the white knuckle grip he had on the Yamato more obvious. Shadow paced frantically around him, tail lashing, clearly picking up on his tension.
"This place is a wreck." Griffon swooped down, landing on Vergil's rigid arm as he offered it. "There's hardly anything left, just a few bits of wall."
"Well, that was to be expected." Vergil's voice was strained. He coughed loudly, as if trying to clear his throat. Dante quickened his pace and went to stand beside his brother, casually making sure their shoulders touched. Quietly reminding Vergil that they were here together. He hoped Vergil saw it as an attempt to offer comfort rather than the need to take comfort. Vergil glanced at him, an eyebrow raised, and Dante knew he'd failed to hide his own discomfort.
"This was where the drawing room was, right?" Dante said. Vergil nodded once. "Hey remember when I spilled hot chocolate on mum's sofa?"
"It wasn't a sofa, it was a chez lounge." Vergil looked away, politely taking Dante's offered distraction. "And you didn't spill it. I kicked it out of your hand. And it wasn't yours, it was mine."
"I don't remember any of that." Dante shrugged.
"I do."
"I remember very little, really." Dante let the weight of this place settle on his shoulders. "I have tiny bits, flashes I guess or like photos, but in my head."
"Most people don't remember their early childhood in vivid detail." Nero spoke up from behind them. "Come on, let's go further in, see how much we've got to work with. We might save some of it, maybe."
"I don't think I want to." Vergil didn't move when Dante and Nero walked forward. They turned to look at him. "Save it, I mean." He followed them, keeping pace, but his limbs were stiff and shaking.
"What do you mean?" Nero frowned.
"Just that." Vergil visibly swallowed. "I think we should tear it down, all of it, start anew."
"I'm with you." Dante nodded. "This place is dead. It's a corpse left to rot. It stinks."
"Dramatic," Nero said as they clambered over a fallen wall.
"I wasn't being literal." Dante frowned at his nephew. "You don't get it."
"I do. This place was where you grew up, its got a lot of memories."
"No, it doesn't," Vergil said. "It doesn't have a lot of memories, it has one big memory and that's the problem."
"Yup." Dante kicked at the rubble. "Just one big stupid memory." He glanced at his brother. "I can still smell the smoke."
"I wasn't here when it happened," Vergil said quietly. "I was down the hill, in the park. But I could smell the fire. I remember turning to look and seeing the smoke."
"You'd forgotten your book. Mother was going to have me take it down to you. I think she wanted me to apologise for something, she usually did. But I never got out."
"Did you see where they came from?" Vergil looked at his brother.
"No. One minute I was heading to your room, then suddenly everything was on fire. Mother was shouting. She grabbed me and put me in her room. In the closet."
Vergil said nothing.
"She said something to me, something about being brave, being a man, and then she ran."
"She left you?!" Vergil snapped, the tension in his body suddenly tight enough that Nero expected him to let out a sound like a tunning fork. "Alone in the house? Why?"
"She went to get you, you dumbass." Dante forced a chuckle. "Did you really believe she wouldn't? You honestly thought she'd grab me and run, leaving you alone?"
There was a long, uncomfortable silence.
"She always favoured you," Vergil said eventually. "You were more like her. I… I saw the house burn and tried to come home. Father had told me, before he left, that it was my job to keep you safe. So I tried to come back."
"Keep us safe?! Fuck that. We were kids."
"I was… I am, the older brother, your older brother." Vergil said firmly. "I tried to come back, but I didn't make it." He took a deep breath. "When I came to, the fire was mostly out. I went back to the house, but you and mother were both gone. I thought you'd left."
"Your so fucking dumb," Dante said, but his voice trembled. "The dumbest smart person ever." Nero took a step back from the two, feeling deeply like an intruder.
"What else was I to think?" Vergil shrugged.
"I thought you were dead. I didn't think you'd just fucked off." Dante said.
"There were no bodies, Dante." Vergil's voice was soft. "There was nothing to tell me you'd perished."
"So you thought we'd said, fuck Vergil, let's go somewhere nice, just the two of us."
"I was a child Dante."
"So was I."
"Yes, well…" Vergil trailed off. Dante stepped forward and put a hand on his brother's shoulder.
"I'm mad you'd think I'd just fucking leave you, you utter dipshit. But…"
"Yes." Vergil nodded, his hand reaching up to rest over Dante's.
"I hate this place."
"Yes."
"Even if we knock it down and build something new, I'd still hate this place."
"The ground is blood soaked." Vergil nodded. "Burnt and blood soaked." He looked up at his brother and his son. "Come." He forced a smile. "We will find somewhere else to build. Somewhere new."
End Fic
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