A/N. Sighs. Content Warning - implied self harm, alcoholism, mental health issues (i.e. depression, dissociation). No smut yet. And as always, we are here for the drama not accuracy.
Today is a bad day.
Dante sprawls back on her shitty couch and hooks a leg over the backrest, letting the other drop on the floor and proceeds to sway her knee back and forth in a steady motion. Her arm rests behind her head in place of a lacking cushion, while the other hangs from the couch, fingers loosely wrapped around the neck of a bottle.
There's a million things she could, should, be doing. Like, there is always the paperwork that has been slowly but steadily accumulating on her desk, or she could be sorting the various objects of interest she has acquired from her myriad of jobs (instead of throwing them in the basement and forgetting about them) or even cleaning the place up.
Yet she simply can't be asked.
It's one of those days.
Days, when even getting out of the bed seems like too big a task to complete, for all that she had managed to make herself do it, going through the motions dazedly and feeling more like a fucking zombie than a person, dragging her weight around through sheer stubborness. Even then she felt more like an observer of her own body than an inhibitor of it - a strange case of seemingly perceiving someone else doing the tasks and moving the parts of her body - like a machine.
It's a rather unsettling sensation, yet she still can't bring herself to care.
What's the point of any of it anyway?
She tilts her head back and listlessly gazes at the ceiling, eyes absentmindedly mapping out the various cracks in the plaster coving, as she has done a hundred times before, without truly registering any of them.
Dante takes a swing from the bottle, frowning when some of the liquid spills past her lips and down her chin and neck, irritably freeing her other arm to swipe at it.
She doesn't like the sensation it leaves on her skin: wet, tacky, gross and generally unpleasant. The taste of the alcohol as she swallows, does little to placate her steadily darkening mood.
She likes drinking.
The way it blankets both her emotions and senses could become rather addicting. Especially when half the time she isn't sure she wants to be feeling things in the first place.
She discards the thought.
The air feels faintly electrified and distantly she can smell the approach of a storm. The sweetly pungent smell of ozone makes her wrinkle her nose, but she ignores the prickling sensation with practiced ease. Heightened senses tend to be an annoyance when it comes to the mundane, even despite her tolerance for them.
So it's a bad day. So what. Dante has a lot of those. Some worse than others, some marginally better.
It kind of depends on the perspective, one might think.
At least she thinks she recalls reading something like that on a brochure she once found on a table in a largely abandoned diner while lounging around after some pest extermination she had been called in to deal with.
If you go into a situation expecting the worst, the worst may very well appear. But if you go in expecting the best, or having hope, or some shit like that, it's, like, supposed to be better or something, right? Silver linings or some other crap.
The stupid piece of paper had gone into excruciating detail about keeping a positive outlook, but the sickeningly cheerful tone had simply served to piss her off rather than inspire any particularly positive feelings.
Having hope is dangerous. Dante repeats in her mind as she has done before time and time again. Expect the worst and you'll never be taken by surprise.
Wow. How sad is her existence.
She snorts and brings the bottle to her lips again. Only a few drops dribble out from the neck of it this time and she tries her best to valiantly catch them with her tongue.
Shaking the bottle doesn't magically make more liquor appear and with a sigh she lowers her arm and lets it slip from her slack grasp, where it falls onto the floor with a dull thud and rolls off to disappear somewhere under the desk.
Maybe if she closes her eyes, she could get a few hours of rest, although the very thought is painted in doubt. Whenever she wants to rest there is always something-
(The sound of glass clinking quietly draws her attention back to the bottle. If she would crane her head back and over the armrest she could probably see where it ended up.
Even so, she can picture just how it glints, reflecting the miniscule light coming from the outside, light that has sneakily made its way through the clumsily blocked windows.
Her fingers twitch restlessly and she gets up, walking slowly until she comes to a stop, staring at the empty bottle by her feet.
There is absolutely nothing special about it.
The liquor is cheap, the label something bland and forgettable and the bottle that was holding the liquid is light amber in colour.
However, it doesn't need to be special.
If she smashes the glass against the nearest surface, or even if she squeezes the bottle in her hand with enough force, it would shatter into an uncountable amount of tiny pieces.
Like phantom touch, she can almost feel the shards digging into her hand, the crunch of them as the pieces mash and rub against each other, can almost taste the scent of her blood filling the air around her as it slowly yet steadily drips on the floorboards before the cuts inevitably heal around and over the shards of glass and so she squeezes her hand to open the wounds again and again, until more and more blood cascades down her arm like a waterfall, yet the marks never stay, never scar-)
"Shut up." Dante hisses and swings upright, cradling her head on her hands, elbows propped on her knees. "Shut up, shut up!"
The thoughts are annoying. But even worse, they are persistent. They are yet another weakness, another crack in her armor that she doesn't show to anyone. There is no one she trusts enough to show.
There is no one.
Maybe-
No. Dante firmly shuts that thread of thought down.
If you can't trust your own family, then who else is there for you in the world? Comes the distorted, amused echo of a voice.
Her brother's voice.
Dante grimaces.
Her inner thoughts gradually developed to sound more and more like the Vergil she remembered from her childhood over the course of many years after the.. well, after.
It had also been wrong and twisted, sounding nothing like the boy he used to be.. yet it kept trailing after her like a shade.
Over time she had become accustomed to it, and hearing it - him? - had been in equal parts as painful as it had been reassuring.
Miniscule as it was, it was her only remaining thing of Vergil, only thing remaining of her past and those days that used to be filled with happiness.
For a long time, she even sought it out deliberately, this small piece of comfort for when things got really rough.
Dante has been hearing it way less since her actual - living! - twin had found her, but sometimes this echo still pops up, as if to remind her that she will never be rid of it.
(There's the talk about manifestations that appear to help you cope. What is it they say about survivor's guilt? Not enough to tell Dante what one is meant to do when you find that another person has gone through the same things you have.
Or similar.
She can't say how much of their experiences vary, or overlap, past that first fateful night that changed everything.
She imagines that the trials they went through can't be compared by any normal scale.
Still..
Does Vergil struggle with similar thoughts? Dante can only wonder. He does seem to be better adjusted than her, at least outwardly, but that's a cold comfort. She, of all people, knows just how much one person can hide behind a well-crafted mask.
And Vergil's mask is very good indeed.)
"Don't trust anyone but yourself." Dante mutters in her hands, opting to ignore the voice as much as she is ignoring the pounding in her head. It's more of a mantra at this point than an actual guideline to follow.
"Hah. Too bad they don't tell you what to do when you can't trust yourself." She spits through gritted teeth.
Admitting this weakness, even to herself, feels humiliating.
She can't imagine telling anyone else.
Even as she keeps finding things to give a shit about. Things and people.
And it sucks. It sucks so fucking much that just by being in their lives she is viable to fuck them up somehow, one way or another, sooner or later, something will go wrong.
She would never ever make the mistake of confining in anyone, of course, but just being near her seems to put people in the line of fire.
Like hey, yeah, how you doin'? I think my mind is actively working against me, got any pointers for that? And how's the family?
Yeah, no.
"Ugh." Dante mutters and presses her fingers against her eyes, hard enough that she starts seeing stars and bright patches of light, before she finally releases the pressure and blinks the spots out of her vision.
Right now, she itches to do something. The previous bone-deep weariness has been wiped away by a thrumming need. She just doesn't exactly know what she wants to do.
Which is.. helpful.
Dante groans despairingly.
These pockets of manic energy come at short bursts and tend to leave just as fast, except for the times when they don't, and she either finds an outlet for the excess energy or spends the rest of the time pacing around until it abates by itself.
Maybe she should go and find a fight, or if there aren't any to be found, go and start a fight. A few moments are spent seriously contemplating the merits of that idea before she sighs and dismisses it.
No way would Vergil let her live that down. Because, somehow, he always hears about her altercations, and then-
(Dante tries not to pay attention to the fact that people that survive a squabble with her aren't likely to stay that way for too long after the fact.
Maybe she wouldn't have noticed - most of the people involved in these fights barely ping on her radar, she doesn't know them, doesn't have any investment in their wellbeing - if not for how Vergil's gaze turns all too darkly smug and satisfied when they hear about yet another inexplicable death that has happened nearby..
Dante is not stupid. She's guessed that Vergil is behind at least some, if not most, of the deaths, directly or by proxy.
So she weighs the dead on a tipping scale.
The sheer amount of bodies that she's now indirectly, but by association, responsible for, versus her burning desire to keep him by her side.
She looks over at the people. Who they were. What they did.
The scales tip.
She can't find it in herself to feel sorry for them.
And, maybe, that's a problem too.)
-well, it's simply too troublesome to bother with.
Right.
So starting a fight is out of the question. This also kind of sucks.
The itch grows stronger.
She bites her lip in annoyance and hisses out a frustrated breath. The tiny pinprick of pain as she breaks the skin largely escapes her notice. The smell of blood doesn't and she laves her tongue over the cut, letting the metallic taste coat the back of her throat as she swallows it down.
Dante doesn't go out of her way to hurt herself. She doesn't look to harm herself on purpose. She doesn't even like pain.
But, maybe, just maybe, she feels like she deserves it. Maybe, she doesn't always try to avoid all the hits and cuts, and scrapes from the attacks, even if any injuries sustained in a fight heal almost instantly.
There's a momentarily gratification to be found in the flesh being cut. A release of tension, a rush of relief, a feeling that has the potential to become dangerously addicting.
Welp, time to avoid that train of thought with inadvertent stubbornness. Or is it actually with advertent stubbornness?
"Maybe I should steal a dictionary or something." Dante mutters to herself.
There's a knock on her door and she startles, head snapping up and zeroing in on the sound.
Not many people around these parts are actually polite enough to knock. Usually they will just break the door down, or at least attempt to.
That leaves only one explanation.
"Come in." Dante tells Vergil.
The door opens and there is her brother, in all his glory. He passes a cursory glance over the apartment and briefly focuses on her with some intent, before his gaze shifts to the side and he reaches up to brush a speck of dust from his shoulder.
"I really don't know why you bother to knock." Dante informs him, squinting at the light that spills past his frame and into the shabby apartment.
"It's polite." Vergil says with no infliction and she rolls her eyes, hiding a wince at the spike of pain that accompanies it.
Still worth it. "Sure. Whatever."
Vergil steps forward, then turns to close the door and strides in, because gods forbid anything about his immaculate presence could ever be described by using a word as banal as 'walking'.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Dante asks then, leaning back against the couch and propping her ankle over her knee. Hopefully her inner turmoil isn't visible on the surface.
"Can't I visit you if I feel so inclined, Dante?" She fights down the urge to squirm. There is no one else who says her name quite like he does. The intonation, the way he modulates the pitch, it's all so very him.
"Sure." She responds easily, not letting any of her inner thoughts show on her face. "But if you wanted to check up on me you could have just given me a call."
Do you trust me? Do you not? Am I worth thinking about? What goes on in that head of yours? I wish you'd tell me more. I want to know it all.
Vergil steps over a discarded magazine without a comment, although the way his eyes flicker down to it and skim over the rest of the room, means he's probably judging her choices. Nice of him not to mention anything out loud though. Dante can deal with the glint in his eyes, but if he were to open his mouth and remark upon it, she would be obliged to hit him, purely because.
He then gives the phone on her desk a sour look. She's tempted to ask what the technology ever did to him, but manages to refrain.
"I was in the.. area." He finally replies after a minute of silence. Seems he has also won the staring contest between himself and the phone since he dismisses it with a subtle shake of his head. Good for him.
"So you decided to pay me a visit? That's.. nice of you." She comments. The words taste sour on her tongue. She's unsure of what to make of this visit.
So Dante tries for a teasing tone. "Or are you just making sure I'm staying out of trouble?"
"Obviously." He drawls in a matter of fact sorta voice and she snorts lightly.
She doesn't ask where he's been this past week. She doesn't ask why he keeps seeking her out either.
This Vergil is a different creature from what she recalls and Dante is very aware that he has ulterior motives of some sort, but whether they involve her or if she's just a means to an end for him is hard to say.
It's even possible that he really does keep coming around just because he wants to see her, but the side of her that is disgusted by her own continued existence, the one that abhors itself and hates passing by mirrors or other reflective surfaces, vehemently rejects the possibility, whispering poisonous things in her ear.
Dante's still teetering the edge of.. something. His visit is a distraction, but it is a welcome one nonetheless. The timing couldn't have been better, even despite the fact that she needs to hide her fraying composure.
He glances at her and his eyes sharpen.
Dante very carefully doesn't tense, not outwardly, keeps her expression placid and posture relaxed.
All the same she knows what he will see and there's nothing that she can do to fix it. The deepened circles under her eyes, the pinched look on her face that she can't quite smooth due to the pounding headache in her brain, the obvious presence of alcohol and probably a myriad of other things he can pick out.
Does he care? Does she?
"What." She says and it comes out sounding more defensive than she had intended.
He doesn't reply. Slowly he crosses the room to stand in front of her and reaches down to grasp her jaw, tilting her head up.
Dante tenses now, but quells the urge to attack the perceived threat, despite the thrum in her blood wanting, urging her to do just that.
This is a type of a power play and she will not be goaded in a fight. Suspects that that is not Vergil's intention either, even if her senses try to tell her otherwise.
Rather, she allows him to tilt her head this way and that and feels her eyebrow twitch when the movement causes the pain to flare brighter.
He notices, because of course he does, and moves his hand higher to press his fingers against the crease between her brows, applying the lightest of pressure to smooth it out. He doesn't say anything, so Dante doesn't offer anything either.
Vergil's body temperature runs lower than her own. The contrast is pleasing against the thrumming pain in her skull and she bites down a sigh of relief as well as the urge to lean into the touch.
"What, you gonna squish my cheeks too?" She mutters, tracking the miniscule changes in his expression.
"You're still so childish, Dante." He says and his fingers slide across her brow, down the side of her face before ghosting her neck, while she bares her teeth at him.
"And you're still as insufferable as ever." Dante tells him in return, but it lacks any real bite. She blames the exhaustion.
He simply smirks in response, the barest amount of his lips tilting up in the corners, and Dante feels her heart skip a beat. Any display of emotions from this Vergil is a rare occurrence, and for that reason it's all the more special.
Vergil's fingers keep lightly tracing her neck before they dip down to her collarbone.
The blunt nails catch on her skin while the coldness of his fingertips seem to burn. Like when you have been outside playing in the snow for so long that your fingers start to feel that sensation of prickling pain, as if you went and stuck them in an open flame.
His fingers brush against the chain of her half of the Perfect Amulet.
Dante's arm darts up quick and snakelike, she wraps her hand around his wrist and gives a squeeze, not tight enough to bruise but enough to warn. She tilts her head up and finds his eyes. "Careful now."
She doesn't know what game he's playing here. The part of her that craves his touch tells her to leave it be, while the part of her that is constantly questioning his motives is much more wary and cautions her to keep her guard up.
He does not remove his hand, but he does shift it to the side, so now he is only touching the skin. Even the smallest movement, the slightest point of contact sends a jolt of electricity through her. She doesn't blink and their silent staring contest reaches an impasse.
"Despite everything, the fire in your eyes still burns so brightly." Vergil says. "Yet you proceed towards the path of self-destruction so willingly. Why?"
Dante's eyes narrow. So this is the angle he has decided to take. "Why do you care?"
It's probably not entirely fair of her to ask him that. If their roles were to be reversed, as improbable as that may be, she knows she would seek the same sort of answer.
She is still unsure of what to make of his intentions.
Does he care?
Words only mean so much. Most of the time they are an empty thing. She disdains these kinds of platitudes. However, it's been so long since anyone has shown any sort of concern for her, she wants to believe his interest to be sincere.
Vergil looks displeased. It's barely there in his expression, but it is there. That's the most emotion she has been able to pull from him thus far.
Everything about him is so mild these days. Mild amusement. Mild irritation. Mild satisfaction. Mild affront.
It's infuriating.
Just once she wants to do something and make his composure snap, shatter in front of her eyes, wants to see what is truly happening behind that mild-mannered mask of his.
Like when they were kids and she could coax a whole spectrum of emotions from him, all of them entirely genuine.
"I care because it's you, Dante." He places a careful emphasis on the word and it's presented in a way that is so matter of fact, like it should be obvious.
It's.. really not.
Dante doesn't want to harbor the feeble hope that she may still be important to Vergil. Whether her reasoning is rational or not is not really important.
Dante presses her lips in a thin line. "Do you?" Do you really?
She almost cringes at the tinge wistfulness in her own voice. How embarrassing to bare even a sliver of her soul to someone, after guarding it so fiercely for all these years.
He's your brother. A tinny voice points out.
And yet I know nothing of what's befallen him.
Ask him.
He won't speak. You know that. We tried.
Make him.
"Of course I do." He enunciates each word carefully. There had been a scarce pause after she asked the question where he had seemed genuinely taken aback.
Prove it. She wants to say. Make me believe your words. If you care, then why do you keep leaving me?
She doesn't say any of that.
The itch under her skin grows stronger.
"Fight me." She ends up saying instead. He blinks and Dante realizes that the statement does sound like it's coming out of nowhere. She clears her throat and averts her gaze for a second before she looks back. "You know why."
She doesn't take her words back. The calmness that settles in her bones afterwards placates her further.
His brow furrows and he sweeps his gaze over her face. Dante, of course, doesn't flinch under the piercing stare.
"If that's what you want." He says slowly.
"It is."
"Alright."
To her relief, there's a glimmer of understanding in his eyes.
Even as kids, when they were softer around the edges and talking to each other was a lot easier, they still sometimes found themselves frustrated by one another, unable to communicate with words alone.
Getting into fights usually took care of that problem pretty quickly. They could say with their blades, their bodies, what words simply couldn't.
There has never been a time where that rings more true to both of them than now.
Dante gets pulled out of her reverie when Vergil's eyes drop lower and he sighs. "Before we do anything, would you please go and change into an actual shirt?"
What?
Oh.
Hm.
"Why? My outfit is perfectly serviceable!" The protest spills from her lips unbidden.
The leather strap is awesome for keeping her breasts squished to her chest and out of the way.
Plus, it serves as a great distraction in a fight.
You could swear that half the guys around here had never ever seen a woman flaunt her looks before, what with the reactions she keeps getting.
She also knows for a fact that that can't be true, considering the sheer proximity and abundance of brothels around the area.
But maybe the reason is simply the fact that they have never seen a woman with her sense of style who was also willing and able to kick their asses.
Whatever the reason, it's not like she really cares. Plus, she likes the look. Fucking sue her.
Somehow though, she gets the feeling that Vergil won't be willing to hear her out on this particular subject.
"It's a disgrace."
Fucking knew it.
Dante gasps in offense. "You take that back."
Vergil levels her with yet another look. Dante manages to keep her glare up for a solid minute, before she finally scoffs and rolls her eyes.
Her headache has dwindled to a twinge, like an annoying buzz of static at her peripheral that can't be swatted away.
Dante can't say for sure whether she thinks that is an improvement or not.
"Fine." Dante finally says and with a long suffering sigh yanks her hand from his wrist, dropping it on her knee.
"Hm." In a much more graceful maneuver, Vergil pulls his hand away from her collarbone, where it had remained this entire time, and rests it by his side.
Dante pushes down the acute sense of loss.
"Great." She reserves the need to keep the last word for petty reasons, but still takes the hand he offers to help her stand up, even if she grips it harder than strictly necessary.
A/N. Fucking knew it would be too good to be true to keep this at like 2 chapters. I am a clown and we haven't even gotten to any M rated content yet. I was gonna include the fight in this chapter but this got a bit long? And I didn't want to leave this without an update for tooo long.
Anyway. I dunno if this makes any sense. Turns out learning to drive a forklift is very tiring and tends to scramble your brain a bunchies. On the other hand, I am now licensed to drive a forklift. Yay.
Also, most of the mental illness stuffs aren't researched. The scenes are based on my own personal experiences lmao. Write what you know and all that (but also don't).
I promise to get to the smut eventually.
Meanwhile, I hope it's decent or whatever. And there aren't tooo many mistakes.
