A/N: Merry Christmas, everyone!
A Christmas gift of 50-proof concentrated hurt/comfort for all of you.
Music for this chapter: Come Back to Us, Thomas Newman (1917 soundtrack)
"Nero?"
Nero jars awake to the blue-hued light of early morning.
The icy marble of the kitchen countertop presses like a frozen blade against his cheekbone. The cold has seeped into his bones, turned his limbs numb, nerveless.
Where is he?
He had been–
He had been staring at the liquor cabinet, grief sinking claws into his exhausted heart, and then the world had turned grey–
A warm hand on his shoulder, another on his cheek, the heat so startling on the ice-fed knife of his cheekbone that it is almost painful.
Nero raises bloodshot, empty eyes up to Kyrie's face, and cannot find the energy to speak. His heart throbs ever-so-slowly in his aching chest.
She is looking down at him with something akin to terror on her face, eyes tracing his shivering form as he lays slumped across the kitchen counter like a dead thing – but the next moment Kyrie's gaze narrows with determination, and her arms tighten around him and heave him out of the chair.
Nero bites back a yell of pain as his cold-stiff joints buckle under the sudden weight, and for a dangerous moment the two of them sway over the creaking floorboards of the kitchen, Kyrie's slight form struggling to support Nero's larger frame.
Then Nero gets his feet under him and they manage to stumble the five steps to the den, where Kyrie deposits him on the sofa. Nero sits there, shivering uncontrollably, as Kyrie snatches up a patterned throw and wraps it around them both, the long sleeves of her knitted cardigan brushing his chin as she tucks the blanket tighter around his shoulders before curling up into his arms, tucking her head against his neck.
Her warmth melts through Nero's thin cotton shirt, seeps into his skin. Pain flares in his fingers, his feet, as blood returns to them – almost as though his heart begins to truly beat again. A violent shiver wracks him from his core, and his breath hitches in his chest as he buries his face in Kyrie's hair.
"I'm here," Kyrie says, breath soft against his ear, one blessedly warm hand at his cheek.
"Kyrie," Nero says, and the name is almost a sob.
They hold each other in the dark blue light of the early hours before dawn, simply breathing, until Nero feels Kyrie shift in his arms.
"You haven't been sleeping," she says softly against his shoulder.
Nero looks away. "I didn't want to worry you," he whispers, the guilt bubbling up inside him. "I'm sorry. I should have told you."
"Yes," Kyrie says, grasping his fingers tight in hers when he flinches away. "But I should have asked if you were doing better, rather than assuming. I'm sorry, too."
Her quiet, determined kindness washes over Nero, gives him strength enough to speak again.
He tells her about retching in the alley, his heart thunder in his ears and panic pressing in on all sides; the tells her the words he had screamed at his father in the ice-lined clearing, the sheer pain on Vergil's face replaced by the emotionless mask that Nero knows must have meant fury, and the twisting guilt and grief that threatens to eat Nero whole, even now.
"Oh, Nero," Kyrie murmurs. "I'm so sorry."
"And it's not just– it's not just that," Nero says, breath coming shorter now, terror rising in his veins at what he is about to admit. He looks away, squeezes his eyes shut in anticipatory pain. "I've been thinking. About– about drinking. Thinking about it a lot more often than I should be."
For a long, horrible moment, Nero waits for Kyrie to pull away from him, from his half-truths and hidden secrets.
She holds him tighter, instead, and the sheer relief almost brings tears to Nero's eyes.
"Because it might help you sleep?" Kyrie says.
"Yeah," Nero admits, and breathes a shaky laugh, the shock of the admission trembling through him. "I just– there are nightmares, and I can't sleep, then I come down here to the kitchen, and I stare at the liquor cabinet, and it stares back at me, and I just keep staring–"
"Oh, Nero," Kyrie murmurs, pressing her lips against his cheek, and Nero leans into the touch, the tightness in his chest releasing just a little. "I love you. I'm so sorry you felt you had to go through this alone."
Nero nods into her hair, not trusting himself to speak.
"How can I help?" Kyrie says. "I'm here for you."
It is like the question takes Nero by the shoulders and shakes him; takes the lopsided mess that is the world and rights it again.
"The liquor cabinet," he says, hoarsely.
"Of course," Kyrie says. "Would you like me to empty it, or do you want us to do so together?"
A sudden thought occurs to Nero. "But those bottles are gifts from your friends–"
"Shh," she hushes him. "Those bottles are just things. You're you."
Nero thinks of the taste of the whisky sliding down his throat, turning the numbness of his fingers into a warm lethargy–
He cannot conquer this alone.
But he is not alone; he has Kyrie.
"Together," he whispers, and Kyrie nods, takes his hands, pulls him to his feet.
It takes a surprisingly short time to gather all the bottles into a single bag and carry it outside together. Nero winces once or twice when he catches a glimpse of expensive labels with handwritten notes on them from Kyrie's friends; but Kyrie does not seem to care. She holds open the trash can lid as Nero throws in the bag itself, and the smashing of glass as it hits the bottom washes Nero with a heady relief. He wheezes a disbelieving laugh that mists into the cool air, raising a raw gaze up to the sky, where the first hint of pink sunrise glows on the horizon.
Kyrie pulls him back into the house, and seems to sense that Nero cannot bring himself to consider returning to bed and the nightmares there, so settles him on the sofa, wraps him in the throw again, and somehow cajoles him into drinking a full cup of hot tea.
Nero curls up on the sofa with her in his arms, stomach pleasantly warm and filled, and finally falls into a dreamless sleep as the brightening sunlight filters through the window and pools over them both.
(:~:)
Vergil regards the morning sun with aching, gritty eyes as the pale winter light lances through the windows to wash over his curled form where he lays on the sofa, one arm thrown over his face.
He has no recollection of falling asleep – only Dante's arms around him and the terrible, tearing sorrow in his chest, drowning out all else until he was blind and deaf and could only gasp wheezing breaths between clenched teeth.
But there is a questionably clean cushion under his head, and someone has arranged a gaudily patterned throw over him, its multicoloured weave tickling his chin.
Dante.
Vergil watches the dust swirl in the morning light.
The first morning of the rest of his life; a life without his son.
He turns his face away from the rising sun, away from the weak winter sunlight that tries to warm him, and attempts to return to the nothingness of sleep – an empty darkness he can drown himself in.
The creaking of a door. Footsteps pad nearer, bare feet on wooden floorboards. The clink of ceramic against the low table by his head, and the scent of fresh coffee.
The rustle of cloth as someone crouches next to him.
"C'mon, Verge. Rise and shine." Dante's voice holds its usual cheer, but has a hoarse edge to it that belies a difficult night, as well.
Vergil curls further into the cushion and its faint scent of old alcohol, and pulls the throw higher up to cover his head. It is dark and formless in here, with only his slow, unending heartbeat for company, and he can almost pretend he does not exist.
A sword-calloused hand finds his shoulder. Vergil cannot muster the energy to shrug off his brother's touch, and so floats there, formless, until Dante's hand leaves him with a rustle of cloth and his brother's footsteps fade away into the next room.
Laying there, eyes closed, with only his misery as company, Vergil eventually goes back to sleep.
He dreams.
Not of Nero, or the three crimson lights glaring above him as he screams in Mundus's dungeons, but of the scent of his mother's roses in the garden, heady in the summer air as he curls languidly in the grass by the flowerbeds, poetry in his hands. His small fingers barely fit around the thickness of the book, but he manages best he can.
Dante's yells break the peaceful birdsong, and Vergil lowers his book to glare at his brother's gangly form as Dante chases an errant bee around the flowerbeds, bare feet stamping, shorts and shirt helplessly muddied, swinging the wooden sword in his hand in cheap mimicry of their father's graceful forms.
"You're never going to hit that thing," Vergil says with a tone of superiority.
Dante skids to a stop next to him, dripping mud onto the grass. "Oh yeah?" he retorts. "I'd like to see you try."
Vergil rolls his eyes. "I'm not going to stomp around in the mud like you, pig."
"I'm a pig?" Dante's face reddens. "Well, then you're a spoilt brat!"
The poetry book falls to the grass. "Don't quote father at me!"
"You can't tell me what to do!"
And suddenly they are brawling in the flower beds, mud coating both their white-haired heads, small fists pummeling each others' faces, yanking each others' hair, rose petals flying, their childish rage sending birds fleeing into to the air from the trees around the garden–
Dante shout turns to a surprised shriek of pain.
Vergil scrambles back onto his rear, eyes widening in shock as he and Dante both stare at the long, twisted rose stem embedded in Dante's leg, wickedly long thorns piercing skin and already drawing thin lines of blood that trickle down to stain the emerald grass.
Chest heaving, Vergil opens his mouth the same time Dante does.
"Mama!" they scream as one, Vergil in fear, Dante in pain.
"Vergil! Dante!"
Vergil stares, frozen in place, as the sweep of their mother's golden hair enters his vision and she gathers Dante into her arms, the sleeves of her dark crimson housecoat brushing the grass. She rushes Dante back into the house without even a glance in Vergil's direction, and somehow this turns the fear in Vergil's chest into sheer terror.
He waits, utterly alone, hugging his knees in the garden, as dusk comes and draws long shadows across the ruined flowerbeds.
It must be almost suppertime by the time the creak of the door sounds over the garden again, and Vergil finds those same crimson sleeves that had ignored him as they swept his brother away now gently wrapping around his shivering form, holding him close.
Vergil throws his short arms around his mother's neck and buries his face in her shoulder, tears of relief staining the silk of her housecoat.
"Shh, my darling," she murmurs into his hair. "I'm here."
"Don't leave me," Vergil sobs. "Promise you won't ever leave me."
"Never," his mother whispers as she carries him in to the light and the warmth, where Dante is waiting, leg already healed, faint worry on his face as he looks at his brother.
"I will never leave you," their mother says, pressing a kiss to Vergil's forehead and slipping a hand out from under his weight to brush through Dante's hair. "Both of you, for as long as I live."
Relaxing into the safety of his mother's embrace, Vergil smiles through his drying tears–
He wakes.
Vergil stares up at the flaking ceiling of the Devil May Cry shop, feeling the bright noon sunlight that floods over him from the window like his mother's warm embrace, and he aches so much for her in that moment that he can barely breathe.
"Hey."
Vergil looks to his left, finds Dante crouched next to him, that same look of faint worry on his features that he had at six years old when he watched their mother carry Vergil in half-frozen from the garden.
"I dreamed of Mother," Vergil says hoarsely, and sees longing and old pain flicker in Dante's eyes.
"She fought for us," Dante says. "Until the bitter end. For you, especially."
"I know," Vergil says, staring up at the ceiling. Dante had told him of their mother's final choice that day in the burning house, and the knowledge still haunts him – that she met her end trying in vain to save him.
"It wasn't your fault, Vergil," Dante says, and Vergil clenches his jaw and looks away into the cracked leather of the sofa beside his head, because Dante has read him perfectly, as brothers always do, and Vergil still holds the grief and guilt of their mother's death too near.
At first, as an eight-year-old, shivering, lost, and helpless, with only the Yamato and hordes of demons on his scent, Vergil had thought he would die from how much he missed her, even as he resented her for choosing to save Dante over him. Then he had thought he would miss her less, the longer he wandered alone.
But he had been wrong; even before Vergil learned their mother's final choice from Dante's tale, Vergil had missed her no less for his anger; and now more than three decades after her death, her absence is still a hollow in his heart he can never quite fill.
"I miss her too," Dante says beside him, uncharacteristically quietly. "Every day."
Vergil nods, then, because to admit out loud that he misses her as well would be a weakness, and that would take the fragile, fractured state he is in now and shatter him truly.
Nero's absence now joins that of his mother's, opening the old wound afresh, sending fresh blood oozing from his very soul.
Vergil closes his eyes, curling around his bleeding core, wanting to fall into the blessed oblivion of sleep again – but Dante nudges a warm mug against his fingers where they rest by his head, and Vergil smells the sharp scent of coffee.
"C'mon, Verge," Dante pleads, the sofa dipping by Vergil's hip as Dante sits beside him. "You gotta at least drink something. Trust me, I know. All you want to do is sleep, and forget. But it gets worse if you don't eat or drink."
With tremendous effort, Vergil opens his eyes the merest sliver, glimpses the fear on his brother's face that had not made it into Dante's voice.
The world is still grey, and his limbs lead, but for his brother…perhaps, for his brother, Vergil can find the will to move.
He sits up with difficulty, eyes bloodshot and utterly dry, clothing rumpled and stiff, but it is worth it when Dante's face melts into a picture of relief. Dante hands Vergil the mug of coffee and climbs onto the sofa itself, settling close behind him so that Vergil has warmth in his hands and at his back.
Vergil makes sure to subtly dig an elbow into Dante's gut all the same, just so that his brother will not have the pleasure of knowing just how much Vergil appreciates Dante's presence.
"Oof," Dante says in response, and leans his forehead onto Vergil's shoulder from behind with a little huff.
Vergil takes a sip of coffee, and almost gags.
"What the hell did you put in this," he hisses.
"I used your fancy coffee maker," Dante says, voice muffled where his face is squished into the back of Vergil's shoulder. "There were many buttons. I didn't bother to read all of them."
"Plebian," Vergil says, taking another sip.
Vergil feels Dante smile into his shoulder, and that somehow lets colour seep into the world again, turns the white-grey winter light to warm gold.
They sit like that for a long while in the noon sunlight, Vergil tasting the coffee in small, careful sips, Dante leaning sloppily into Vergil's back – two brothers, just existing.
Then Dante breathes out against Vergil's shoulder, and says – with the easy clarity that Vergil so envies him for at times – "I think we should go home."
Vergil's hands tighten around the mug.
"Did you...?" he whispers hoarsely. "A grave?"
A moment, where Dante leans more heavily against Vergil, as though seeking comfort.
"No," Dante says, quietly. "I couldn't do it alone. After Mallet Island, it just reminded me that I'd killed you, and I would always be alone."
Vergil closes his eyes against the memory, dim and blurred as it was sealed in Nelo Angelo's armour, nothing but a remnant of himself.
"But we're here now," Dante says, and some of his usual easy tone seeps into his voice once more. "I think Mom would like it if we visited her together."
And then, because most of Vergil still remains numb with grief from the events of the previous day, and because he wishes, just for a moment, to be back in the garden among the roses at Dante's side, he nods.
(:~:)
Kyrie had offered to go with Nero to that afternoon's therapy session, and Nero had thanked her, but declined - he feels slightly stronger now after a morning's good sleep, and less inclined to shatter at the slightest touch.
He knows he still looks like he went four rounds against a Goliath and lost, and though the therapist does not comment when he enters her office, Nero knows the subject will come up sooner than later.
He still spends a moment sitting there with his hands warming around his cup of tea, trying to delay the inevitable.
The therapist looks at him – at the circles under his eyes and his too-pale skin - and says plainly, "How have you been?"
Nero looks at the silvery steam rising from the surface of his tea, and tries to find a word that encompasses the enormity of what he experienced in the last few days.
"Pretty shit," he says, and finds his lips twitching wryly in return to the therapist's slight smile.
"Could you speculate as to a cause? Was it just a general feeling? Or was it triggered by a specific incident?"
"...Both?" Nero says, after a moment's introspection.
The therapist nods. "Which do you want to talk about first?"
In a way, Nero is grateful for the cup of tea; it hides the tremor of his hands at the thought of laying out his weaknesses for inspection and reliving his worst memory yet of his father.
When the silence hangs a little too long, the therapist tilts her head and speaks. "It isn't weakness to admit our troubles, Nero. It's quite the opposite. It takes strength to speak of one's worst vulnerabilities."
"I don't think I'm strong enough to do that," Nero says, looking away.
"And you've just proved that statement wrong," the therapist says. "That was a vulnerability you just admitted - and that takes strength, too. You are stronger than you know."
Nero feels bitterness rise up in his throat. "I don't think someone strong would have nightmares as bad as mine. I don't think they'd stay up every night staring at their liquor cabinet, either. They would manage to eat instead of half starving all the time because they can't stomach the food, and they wouldn't keep accidentally gouging lines into their elbow, and they-" he cuts himself off, breathing hard, blinking away the traitorous tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. "They wouldn't hide all these things from those they care about the most."
Nero expects the therapist to jump in right away, pull apart his words as though dissecting him inside out – but she does not. She waits instead, a patient expression on her face, until his breathing returns to normal, and he is both absurdly grateful and utterly embarrassed about it.
"I didn't… I didn't even tell Kyrie until last night," he says eventually, the admission sending guilt burning white-hot within him. "She was so…so accepting of it."
The therapist smiles. "She sounds like a wonderful person. You should be proud of yourself for telling her. Knowing when to seek help is one of the most important steps towards getting better."
"But I still did all those things," Nero says, and the self-hatred is curling in his stomach again. "I'm still so…weak."
"There's a lot to examine here," the therapist says. "But I think we should start with the first, most important question. Why do you think surviving those things doesn't reflect your strength?"
Nero blinks. The answer is so ingrained in him he cannot understand the reason for the question. "Because I reacted like that. I couldn't deal with it. I ended up like that."
"Ah," the therapist says. "As compared to…?"
Nero stares.
"My father," he says, as though it is the most obvious thing in the world. "As compared to my father. He was close to death when he first returned from Hell. Then he nearly died beside me in the dome. We survived together, and yet he… he's barely affected by it, while I ended up watching him die every night when I close my eyes."
"Okay," the therapist says, leaning forward slightly with a thoughtful expression on her face. "How do you know he isn't affected by it?"
"What?" Nero laughs, then; a breathy, bitter laugh. "Because he isn't. He's untouchable. I don't know the details, but my father went through some pretty horrifying things in Hell. But even after the dome, Dante told me my father only had a couple bad nights' sleep. I don't see how any of it affected him permanently."
"Hmm," the therapist murmurs. "Did Kyrie see the extent of your struggles before you told her?"
Nero shakes his head. "Of course not. I didn't want her to worry, so I made a point–" he cuts himself off, because something has just occurred to him and the shock is bleeding through his core. "So I made a point of hiding them," he whispers. The cup of tea nearly slips from his suddenly loose fingers, and he catches it with a curse.
The therapist is looking steadily at him now, wordlessly, letting him work it out for himself, and Nero wants to grab hold of his own brain and shake it, because he cannot fault the logic of his thoughts and yet–
"Wait," he says, staring disbelievingly at her. "You're saying my father's hiding his vulnerabilities from me? That he can be vulnerable?"
The therapist shrugs. "I only know as much about him as you've told me," she says. "I can't speak on your father's behalf. But I know from experience that everyone has their own anxieties, their own struggles. I highly doubt your father would be any different."
"But I don't– Nero's brain is short-circuiting. "I don't understand what he wants. Sometimes it's like he actually wants to know me better; I called him two days ago, and he seemed almost eager to hear my voice. Then yesterday he came for training and he just–" he falls silent, jaw working. "We were supposed to be training together, and by then I was…basically a wreck, and he told me we had to stop because I was unwell and continuing would be meaningless and I just– I just wanted to be able to do something instead of staring at the liquor cabinet, and hating myself–"
"So what happened?" the therapist says calmly.
Nero's hands close into fists at his knees, trembling despite his best efforts to hold them steady. "I told him I didn't need his help, or his pity," he says, the bitter echo of it welling up over his lips. "That I knew I was always going to be weaker than him, and that he knew it, and that he was stronger than me in every way that mattered, and that I would never be good enough for him."
The therapist looks at him. Nods once. "Okay. And what did he do then?"
"He just–" Nero stops. Runs a shaking hand over his face as he stands and begins to pace. "I think he tried to reach out, but he stopped halfway and his face did the thing–"
"The thing?" the therapist says, as he wears a line into the carpet before her.
"The thing," Nero hisses, snapping around mid-pace, frustration boiling up inside of him. "The thing where his face goes all blank, like he's trying to shut everyone out, and prove that he's the most unaffected person to ever exist, as if I didn't know it already. And then he said it was obvious he wasn't wanted there and just left."
A pause, where Nero stands there, chest heaving, fists curled so tight at his sides they ache. "He just…left me," he chokes, and the admission takes the claws of grief that have clung to his heart since yesterday and clenches them deeper, drawing fresh blood.
Silence in the small space for a long, long moment, with the late afternoon light lancing across the space and turning the dust motes to gold.
"And you didn't want him to leave?" the therapist says, quietly.
Nero shakes his head, swallows the sob that threatens to rip from his throat.
"Why?"
"BECAUSE I WANTED HIM TO LOVE ME!" Nero screams, and the admission tears up out of him, leaving his insides scratched and raw and bleeding.
A moment, where the chamber is silent, save for Nero's hitching breaths. He stands there, tears running down his face, fists curled at his side, and hates himself for admitting this last weakness, even if his father does not care.
"I wanted him to– to love me," Nero gasps between shuddering sobs, chin curled to his chest. "Even if– even if I was weak. Even if I would never– never be as strong as he was. I thought that was what fathers were supposed to do."
The therapist looks at him steadily for a long moment, as though she is weighing something in her mind.
"Okay," she says. "It looks to me like you can't reconcile the father who was eager to know you better and who nearly died for you in the dome with what happened yesterday."
Nero nods, scrubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.
"Nero, why do you think your father stopped the training?"
"Because I wasn't performing up to his standards," Nero chokes a wet laugh, collapsing back into the chair.
"Hmm, that's not how I heard you describe it," the therapist says. "Run though his words again. What did he say to you?"
"He said I was unwell," Nero says, scrubbing his raw face with a sleeve. "That it would be meaningless to continue in my condition then."
"So he stated a fact, that you were unwell," the therapist repeats. "Which you knew yourself to be true. And that it would be meaningless to continue in your condition, which was also true."
"Yes, but I was wasting his time," Nero retorts. "I was useless."
"Did he say that?" the therapist says, tilting her head at him. "Did he ever say any of those things you were saying about yourself? That you were weaker than him, or that you would never be good enough for him?"
"I–" Nero stops, stunned, because his father hadn't said that. Hadn't said any of it, not on the Qliphoth, not in the dome, and yesterday, when Nero had flung it in his face, Vergil had frozen there with a half-second of something like agony on his features before turning emotionless once more.
"And when he left," the therapist presses on, "What did he say?"
"That he could see that he was unwanted," Nero whispers, with a slow horror growing under his skin.
"Yes," the therapist says simply.
Nero looks down at his hands, tear-streaked and aching at the knuckles where he had clenched them so tightly around his anger, seething against a father who had treated him like nothing.
Or so he thought.
"Shit," he whispers. "I pushed him away."
The slow horror turns into a tide, hammering like nausea against his lips. He curls over himself, puts his head in his hands. The carpet pattern swims against his vision.
"Nero," the therapist is saying, from somewhere far away, beyond the howling guilt that threatens to overwhelm Nero like an obsidian wave and drown him in its depths.
"Help me fix this," Nero gasps, almost begging. "Please help me fix this."
"I wish I could, but I can't do this for you, Nero," the therapist says. "You need to talk to him."
"I can't," Nero says, his fingers curling desperately into his hair. "I don't know how I could ever make it up to him. I wouldn't know what to say."
"I think you do," the therapist says. "You've spoken to me for so long, and all I've heard you say can be summarised in one sentence: You want your father to love you."
"But what if he doesn't want to talk to me?" Nero says, breath coming in short pants. "What if I've pushed him away forever?"
"You won't know until you try," the therapist says with a small smile. "And he left because he thought he wasn't wanted. I think you should tell him he is."
Nero nods, a heady mixture of hope and guilt and terror churning in his stomach. The feeling stays with him as the therapist brings the session to a close, and rises to settle somewhere behind his sternum as he stumbles out into the early rays of sunset.
He needs to–
He needs to tell Kyrie.
Nero crosses the street, shutters himself in the same phone box where, a week ago, he had called Nico during the remnants of a panic attack.
Kyrie picks up on the second ring.
"Nero?"
The softness of her voice pierces him – that, and the fact that Nero now recognises that the soft concern in her tone sounds so much like his father's in the forest the day before, when Nero was too angry to hear it.
He tells her, with a throat completely dry from tears and long speech, everything that he had come to realise in the therapy session.
"You should call your father," Kyrie says.
"I know," Nero whispers, leaning a hand against the phone box wall and pressing his face into his elbow. "There's just…so much distance over the phone. I can't tell what he's thinking when he's looking me in the face, let alone when he's talking to me on the phone."
Kyrie hums. "Then go see him."
Nero stills, stunned. "Wait, what?"
"Go see your father," Kyrie says. "There's an evening flight you could catch if you're quick about it."
"But the money–"
"The money doesn't matter," Kyrie says softly, earnestly. "You and your father do. Go. I'll be fine."
Nero smiles, then, cradling the phone by his ear. It is at times like these he is reminded why he loves her so, so much.
"Love you," he says. "Gotta go. I'll call you."
"I love you too. I believe in you."
The phone clatters back onto the receiver, and Nero dashes out of the phone booth and into the red-gold sunset, hope threading through his steps for the first time in a long, long while.
(:~:)
"Gotta say, this dump doesn't look any better than the last time I saw it."
Vergil lets Dante's words wash over him as they stand before the wrought-iron gates to their childhood home, the metal rusted and flaking, both gates forever fixed open as they were when Mundus's forces invaded their home.
The last time Vergil had laid eyes on the mansion was on the night he chose to split himself into his human and demon halves. Then, the full moon had hung brilliant and glaring over the lonely eaves, illuminating his last, bitter steps home with silver light. He had staggered into the courtyard, the Yamato grasped tight in his shaking hand, and barely looked at the shadow of his childhood home; only thinking of survival, and revenge, and power, the loneliness eating away at him like the flaking of his flesh from his bones.
But today, the winter sun shines bright and surprisingly warm over the courtyard, stained cobblestones glistening in the sunlight, overgrown grass swaying gently in the wind. The sunlight filters down the gaping wound in the front of the house, where Urizen had forced his way out of the entrance hall and blasted chunks of stone across the courtyard.
Urizen's memories are a hazy jumble of rage and cold fire in Vergil's mind, but V's stand out far clearer; he remembers curling, naked and cold and alone, cowering in a corner as his demon half smashed the front of their childhood home to smithereens, uncaring for the precious memories stored there.
Vergil closes his eyes against the recollection.
When he opens them again, Dante has edged closer and is looking at him with concern, and Vergil shakes his head once.
"I am well," he says, and tightens his hold on the small bouquet of dark crimson roses. In contrast, Dante has a colourful, mismatched bunch of wildflowers clasped in his hand, picked from the very same pathways in the forest between the mansion and Redgrave City that they had wandered as children.
They step through the gates together, pick their way across the rubble until they reach the house itself. They stand for a moment on what remains of the threshold, watching the sunlight on the shattered stone, the vines winding their way over what remains of the front façade of the house itself, and the mildew that has seeped into the red-painted walls and once-elegant stone arches.
"Mom died right here," Dante says suddenly, and Vergil feels his heart seize within him.
"She hid me in there," Dante says, voice quite even, as he crosses to a half-collapsed cabinet a half-dozen paces into the house, white-slatted wood dripping with mildew, cracked from years of neglect. "She hid me here, and told me to be brave, and wait, because she needed to find you."
"Dante," Vergil says, voice strangled within his throat.
"Then she ran here," Dante says, long, loping stride taking him out to the courtyard stone again. He drops to one knee at the very edge of the courtyard, right where the wooden floor of the entryway starts proper, pressing his free hand to the stone. "I remember the edge of her housecoat – the one made of red silk. I remember thinking it looked like blood trailing behind her as she ran, and then I couldn't see her anymore. She must have made it a step, two steps out into the courtyard before the flames and the falling stone caught her." Dante takes a breath then, one that hitches audibly. "I heard her scream, and the sound of crashing stone, then – nothing."
The guilt is a familiar, heavy weight in Vergil's stomach by now, and he feels it grow steadily heavier as he watches Dante bow his head, long white hair hiding his face.
Vergil's right hand tingles, moves without him willing it to towards Dante's shoulder. He knows this is what Dante would do for him, and yet Vergil still hesitates before placing his hand feather-light on his brother's shoulder.
There is a terrible heartbeat where Vergil is sure Dante will fling away the hand on his shoulder and scream at Vergil for his part in their mother's death, but the next moment Dante's shoulders relax, and he reaches up with his opposite hand to rest his palm on top of Vergil's.
Vergil squeezes Dante's shoulder hesitantly, and feels a wave of relief when Dante tightens his hold on Vergil's hand in return.
Dante sniffs once, then pats the back of Vergil's hand, picks up his bunch of wildflowers, and stands.
They move into the entranceway together, carefully skirting to either side of the dried blood that stains the bloated floorboards at the centre of the chamber. Vergil knows half the blood is Dante's, and the other half his own, and he glimpses his brother look away from the blood the same time he does, neither of them wishing to speak of it.
They reunite before the charred fireplace, with the portrait hung askew above it, the mildew and the smoke stains having eaten away at all three white-haired heads on it, leaving only their mother's face untouched.
It is fitting, Vergil muses, that this echo of their mother is the only thing preserved here, in this empty husk of their childhood home.
"I'm glad this painting survived," Dante says, and Vergil knows his brother feels the same as he does.
They take the wooden steps up to the second floor together, the smell of mildew and ashes heavy in the air.
It is immediately apparent that the fire had blazed more harshly here. Charred wood groans precariously under their feet as they pass into the second floor gallery. Dante makes a small noise of disappointment when Vergil pronounces the route to the family bedrooms barred with burnt wood and shattered stone. The paintings here are unrecognisable, the canvas blackened and peeling off half-melted frames.
Then Vergil takes another step, and draws a surprised breath despite himself.
The thick oaken door to their father's study is charred and eaten through with mold, hanging off its edges, but the carpet beyond is still recognisable in its understated dark green pattern, with comparatively less damage than the gallery floor.
Vergil's feet quicken as he approaches the study, and he hears Dante's steps hasten behind him as well.
They step into their father's study together, and it is like they have slipped back in time.
The carpet is dull and moldy where it had once shone dark green, and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves are bloated with mildew and smoke, the leather-bound volumes on the shelves long rendered unrecognisable by smoke and decades of cold and damp.
And yet, the wing-backed chair and the oak desk before it is untouched, their father's favourite fountain pen still resting in its silver holder, and beside it, a stack of faded yellow parchment.
Placing his bouquet on the table, Vergil wraps his hand around the handle of the centre drawer and pulls once. At first he finds the wood too bloated to move; but a flicker of blue-lit demon power, and the drawer scrapes open.
Vergil feels Dante lean over his shoulder as he bends to examine the contents.
The purple velvet of the drawer lining is moth-bitten and damp with age, but there, amongst papers that flake to nothing when Vergil runs his hand across them, is a single silver locket, its once-bright surface long tarnished with neglect.
Vergil plucks the locket from its nest of forgotten parchment, and examines it carefully. The silver under his fingers is rough with a dull patina, shaped in a simple oval about the length of his thumb.
"Open it," Dante whispers at Vergil's shoulder, and Vergil complies.
The hinges move surprisingly smoothly, and as the locket opens, three locks of hair – one gold, two white – fall out to float onto the papers below.
Behind him, Vergil hears Dante's breath hitch.
Their mother smiles up at them through the black-and-white photograph, radiant joy on her features where she leans against the pillow behind her head. There is a pale-haired baby in each of her arms, swaddled in cloth, sleeping soundly.
On the other side of the open locket, opposite to the photograph, is a single engraved line: Sweet joy, but two days old.
Vergil feels tears choke in his throat.
"Blake," he whispers, the same time Dante whispers, "Dad."
Vergil reaches for the locks of hair that had fallen from the locket, runs a finger over the smooth golden silk of the longest. Dante does the same, and they fall silent for a moment, each lost in memory.
The two bundles of shorter white hair are downy soft – the velvet, impossibly smooth hair of newborn children, and Vergil opens his hand, allows Dante to place the three locks of hair almost reverently on his palm.
The locks of hair go back in the locket, and the two brothers stand there for a moment, the locket in Vergil's hands, too overcome to speak.
"You should take this," Vergil eventually says, hoarse voice incredibly loud in the furled silence. "It is too precious to be entrusted to me."
Dante looks at him with an exasperated smile, and barks a laugh as he reaches out and folds Vergil's fingers over the locket, clasping Vergil's hands tightly with his own.
"Don't be an idiot, Verge," Dante says. "You hold on to it for both of us."
Vergil nods once, not trusting himself to speak, and passes the chain over his head, tucking the locket beneath his shirt to rest by his half of his mother's amulet.
They search through the rest of the study in a contemplative silence. Vergil tries to decipher some of the papers, but the ink is so long faded now that he can only read scattered words.
"Hey, look here," Dante says, and Vergil turns to see Dante straightening, two dusty bottles in his hands. "Dad always told us to stay out of this cabinet. Turns out it was his secret booze compartment."
"If I lived with two hellions like we were when we were children, I'd have a secret alcohol compartment," Vergil says wryly. He takes one of the bottles and examines it. Sparda's crest stares back at him, stamped in raised glass on the bottle itself.
Dante snorts, and the air grows lighter between them, heady with memory and childish mischief. "Think this is drinkable?"
"I should think yes," Vergil says, examining the wax seal on the cork of the bottle in his hand.
"C'mon," Dante says, and they gather up the two bottles and their flowers and step out of the study together.
They move back downstairs and through the rear hallway, ducking under sagging beams, catching a glimpse of the partially collapsed dining room as they pass.
And then there is only the garden door before them, with its stained glass inserts twisted and shattered, and beyond that–
Vergil inhales sharply and comes to a halt, Dante almost stumbling into him as he, too, stares in shock.
Vergil doesn't know what he expected – a burnt clearing of thorns, perhaps, or overgrown weeds, or cold mulch – but what lies before them is none of these.
Their mother's garden has flourished.
Winter flowers tumble over each other at their feet, brilliant blossoms pushing out of a thin layer of pure white snow. Cup-shaped violet crocuses, with throats of yellow nectar; pale, delicate pink camellias, unfurling dozens of petals to shower upon the snow; miniature blue scillas, in clusters of star-shaped blooms; five-petaled English primroses and pure white snowdrops scattered like patches of fresh snow; Deep purple violas, with throats such a dark velvet they seem almost black, on and on in a patchwork quilt of flowers.
Here and there are hints of others that might only bloom in spring or summer; rose thorns, sunflower stems, old tulip buds.
This patchwork of colour extends from the very doorstep of the house out over the collapsed outer wall and towards the fields beyond.
"Vergil," Dante says hoarsely as he bends to cup a camellia in his hand, the brilliant pink of the blossom bright against the verdant green of the stem.
"I know," Vergil says, fighting to keep his voice even.
They find a suitable stone from the outer wall together, and set it in the centre of the garden, careful not to crush any blooms underfoot.
Dante scoops up a handful of snow and scrubs the stone free of moss and dirt, and Vergil draws the Yamato from his hip, etching careful letters into the stone.
Their mother's name, and below: Dearest mother.
Vergil and Dante stand before the stone, shoulder-to-shoulder, surrounded by the wild, beautiful garden that has grown out of their mother's touch, a living echo of her memory.
"Hey, Mom," Dante speaks first, voice thick. "We've come to visit. Sorry it took so long." He places his small handful of wildflowers, so similar to those of the garden, at the base of the stone.
A long silence, where Dante looks at Vergil, but does not pressure him.
Vergil is clutching the bouquet of roses so hard his knuckles ache. There are words he has wanted to say for three and a half decades now, clawing their way up his throat and threatening to choke him. He chokes in a shuddering breath, fights over his failing control.
"It's okay," Dante is saying, voice thick with tears now. "It's okay to let go, Vergil."
"I– I hated you for a long time," Vergil says, staring at his mother's name as the first tear spills over, drawing a warm trail down his cheek in the cold winter wind. "I hated you because I thought you chose Dante over me. I thought you left me behind."
Tears drip down his chin, scattering like raindrops on the roses in his hands.
"You died trying to find me," Vergil whispers, and the first proper sob shudders up out of him, clenching in his chest. He closes his eyes against the pain of the old wound opened afresh. "I'm sorry, Mother. I'll never be sorry enough."
"S'not your fault, dumbass," Dante says thickly.
Vergil crouches, places the roses beside Dante's bunch of wildflowers. The two bouquets look a little incongruous next to each other – the expensive paper and deep red roses next to the mismatched bundle of multicoloured blooms – but Vergil knows their mother would have appreciated both equally.
He brushes soft fingers over his mother's name. "Thank you for saving Dante," he says, and hears Dante inhale in surprise behind him. "Thank you for saving him, so that he is here with me now."
"Vergil," Dante mumbles, sniffling, and Vergil lets Dante pull him up and gather him into an embrace.
Vergil holds his brother just as tightly as Dante holds him, their faces buried in each other's shoulders.
"I'm so happy you're not dead," Dante mumbles into Vergil's shoulder, and Vergil chokes a laugh despite himself.
"I'd say the sentiment was mutual, but that would be a lie," Vergil says, and knows from Dante's wet chuckle that his brother has seen through him completely.
They break apart to face their mother's gravestone together again, both with drying tears on their faces, but utter peace between them.
Dante crouches, picks up one of the bottles of wine, and uncorks it with his teeth.
"Let's have a toast," he says around the cork, and spits it out to the side amongst the flowers.
Vergil nods assent.
"To Mom," Dante says, raising the bottle with its Sparda house crest towards the sky, which is slowly turning pink-orange with the oncoming sunset.
"To Mother," Vergil echoes.
Dante takes a long swallow, and, blinking rapidly, hands the bottle to Vergil. "Damn, that's strong," Dante splutters.
Vergil takes a measured sip, and raises his eyebrows.
"Hmm," he murmurs, already feeling the effects of the brew as a pure, starlit fire rushing into his veins. "Curious."
"That sure isn't like any human alcohol I've ever tasted," Dante says, taking back the bottle. "And trust me, I've tasted a lot."
"Our father was a full demon," Vergil says. "I rather think he would need something stronger to classify as alcohol to his tastes."
Dante shrugs once. And then he looks at the bottle by his feet, and the one in his hand, and says, "Do you think we should toast to Dad?"
Vergil pauses.
Sparda had by no means been a bad father, but he had also disappeared when they were eight years old, leaving them at the mercy of Mundus's forces. Vergil had always presumed Sparda dead, and that he had not deserted his family of his own will, and yet…
It curdles his stomach to think of Sparda possibly abandoning them like Vergil abandoned Nero, all these years.
"Hey," Dante says. "Our dad probably died trying to protect us. He wasn't a bad father. You're not, either."
"I'm not sure I agree with the latter statement," Vergil says tiredly. The liquor is already floating in his head, turning his exhausted mind pleasantly numb.
Dante sighs, and raises the bottle to the sunset again.
"Here's to you, Dad," he says, taking another swig. "Wherever your deadbeat ass is, anyway."
Despite himself, Vergil stifles a chuckle at that, and takes a long pull from the bottle when Dante hands it to him, feeling the burn of the liquor down his throat like a comforting heat from within.
"C'mon," Dante says, stooping to scoop up the other bottle of demon liquor and slapping a hand on Vergil's shoulder. "Let's get back."
The Yamato opens a portal in the twilit air, leaving the garden still and quiet, the solitary stone at its centre, surrounded by a sea of winter flowers and two mismatched bouquets.
(:~:)
Nero's stomach is a mess of nerves by the time he turns the last corner and sees the neon letters of Devil May Cry reflected across the half-melted snow on the pavement, the flickering in sympathy with the weak yellow streetlight before it.
The arched windows on either side of the door are dark and shadowed. There is no sign of life within, and Nero briefly wonders if his father and uncle are out hunting as he searches his pockets with half-frozen hands for the key Dante had given him a few years ago.
Then, he had wondered if all associates of Devil May Cry had such a privilege – but it turned out neither Trish nor Lady had keys, and it had been one other thing to add to his list of suspicions as to Dante being his father until the Qliphoth and Vergil had happened. But, of course, it had been Dante trying to be present as an uncle without ever admitting they were family.
The memory makes Nero grin ruefully, despite the anxiety that still curls under his chest. In a way, the Sparda twins really are similar to each other.
The doors swing open to his touch, unoiled hinges groaning in protest.
Nero steps into the pool of limpid light that filters into the dark confines of the shop and squints into the shadows. Nothing seems amiss, so he closes the doors behind him and feels for the light switch beside the door.
He flicks on the lights–
–and stares, gaping.
Dante groans where he is sat on the floor with his back to the couch, twisting his head away from the sudden light and burying his face in Vergil's knee, using the dark-coloured bottle in his hand to shield his eyes.
"Noooooo," Dante moans piteously. "Turn it offfffff."
Nero's father is sat on the couch, bowed over his knees, a second bottle in his bare hands, his usually pristine hair hanging over his face. He seems to be either completely unaware of his brother's bristly face snuggling into his knee or too unbothered to stop it from happening.
Nero stands there for a full ten seconds silently evaluating his life choices before cautiously crossing to his father and uncle.
Dante peeks out from under his bottle when Nero approaches, and his bleary face breaks into an affable grin.
"Wait. Are you wasted?" Nero says, staring.
"Nerooo," Dante slurs affectionately, trying but failing to get up. "Oof," he mumbles as he thuds back down on his rear, leaning against Vergil's booted legs for support. "My favouritest bestest nephew," Dante declares, toasting Nero with the bottle in his hand and taking another long swing. "Didja come to see your dad? S' a good thing. He missed you."
Vergil does not react. He still sits there as if frozen, face is hidden behind his hair, his coat carelessly rumpled.
A pause, where Nero looks around and finds no other bottles except for the two in his father and uncle's hands.
"Want some?" Dante says, drunken face beaming. "S' our dad's old wine. Your grampy's. It's strong."
"I can see that," Nero says, and feels the traitorous murmur of longing curl up within his chest. He stamps down on it viciously. "But I don't drink anymore."
Dante blinks up at him for a moment before pride suffuses his features and he reaches out to the only part of Nero he can reach. "You're a smart one," he says, patting Nero's right boot affectionately. "Don't end up like your old uncle Dante. Now, talk to your old man. Imma take a nap."
Nero watches with morbid curiosity as Dante heaves himself onto the couch – it takes him three tries – slopping alcohol out of the bottle as he climbs up and slumps face down along the length of the couch, legs sprawled messily over Vergil's lap, long crimson coat askew.
Dante falls still, face smushed into the armrest, and a few moments later, begins to snore.
Vergil still has not moved.
Nero takes another hesitant step closer. "Hey," he says.
Nothing. Nero's father could be a statue curled over the bottle in his hand, were it not for the subtle rise and fall of Vergil's chest – a little too fast to be strictly normal.
Nero carefully crouches on one knee beside his father, bringing his eye level just below that of Vergil's.
Vergil's eyes are glassy under his messy curtain of white hair, staring at a singular point somewhere over Nero's shoulder, his face a blank mask. His eyes are red-rimmed, bloodshot.
Something a little like fear rises behind Nero's ribs.
"Hey," he tries again, and when there is no response, gathers his courage, and whispers, "Dad."
Vergil's breathing hitches, and his eyelids flicker over his glassy gaze. Then his eyes slide to meet Nero's, and slowly focus.
"Hey," Nero says, his heart in his mouth. "You with us, old man?"
"Nero," Vergil breathes, disbelief on his features. His gaze slips down to the bottle in his hand, then up to Nero's face again, and Vergil raises the bottle to his lips and downs the rest of the bottle in one long draw.
"Don't–" Nero darts out a hand, fingers clasping about his father's wrist, but Vergil has already gasped in a wheezing breath, bottle emptied.
"There," Vergil says bleakly, letting the bottle clatter to the floor and pushing Dante's legs out of the way with his free hand so he can shift closer to Nero. "Now I'll be able to see you for longer."
"Dad," Nero says, horrified, fingers tightening around his father's wrist, Vergil's hand reversing in his grasp to clasp sword-calloused fingers around Nero's palm.
There is something not-quite present in Vergil's red-rimmed blue eyes as he reaches out with his other hand and tucks it around the side of Nero's jaw, long fencer's fingers wrapping around the back of his neck and thumb brushing Nero's cheekbone.
Nero feels the warmth of his father's hand seep into his snow-frozen cheek.
"So this is the only way I can see you," Vergil whispers, and to Nero's mounting horror, a single tear wells up at the corner of his father's right eye to trace a glistening track down Vergil's pale face.
"No, I'm actually here," Nero says, a pleading note rising in his voice despite his best efforts to keep it steady. He tightens his grasp on Vergil's other hand. "I'm here, and I'm sorry–"
"No," Vergil says, and the word comes with effort, as though Vergil is making an assertion of truth. His thumb runs over Nero's cheekbone, achingly slowly. "The fault is all mine," Vergil says, with broken certainty. "Mine alone. And now I can never see you again, except like this."
"Dad," Nero almost begs, something breaking within him. He has not called his father by that word in so long since the first initial days after the dome, but now it spills out of him again and again in a litany of concern. He makes to tug his hand out of Vergil's in order to take him by the shoulders and try to shake him awake, but Vergil makes a desperate motion with his fingers and closes his hand around Nero's wrist.
Nero notes with a slow surprise that it is his right wrist in his father's hand, but he feels no fear, only his father's warmth and desperation thrumming through his skin.
"Don't go," Vergil whispers, grief sweeping over his features like a terrible wave. "Don't leave me." His hand curls further around the back of Nero's neck, buries fingers in his hair.
The echo of Nero's own words to his father in the clearing takes Nero's heart and shatters it to jagged pieces.
"I won't," Nero says, and his father's fingers tremble in his as he grasps Vergil's hand again. "I promise."
Vergil makes a terrible noise, somewhere between a choked gasp and a hitching gulp, and turns his face away, another tear escaping under his eyelids to score a crystalline line down his cheek.
"No," Vergil murmurs brokenly, even as his thumb traces slow circles on the back of Nero's hand. "Everything I touch, I hurt against my will. My mother. Dante. You," His eyes slide back to meet Nero's gaze, and there is such inexpressible pain there that Nero cannot breathe. "I don't deserve to be a father," he whispers, shoulders hitching as he lowers his head, hair shuddering before his eyes. "I don't know how to do anything that doesn't hurt you."
"Dad," Nero pleads, free hand moving up to close around his father's other wrist, up by Nero's shoulder. "That's not true." His father's pulse thrums against his fingers, terrifyingly shallow.
"I don't know how to make you love me," Vergil says. "I thought, in the dome– would dying for you be enough?"
Nero takes a sharp breath, tightens his hold on his father.
Vergil has closed his eyes now, misery on his face. "I don't think dying would be enough," he murmurs. "My mother died for me and I nearly dragged the world down to Hell before I realised she chose me. That she loved me."
"Please," Nero begs, shuddering too, now. "Please, stop."
At this, Vergil opens his eyes to meet Nero's gaze, and smiles a bitter smile, full of furled pride and sorrow. "Then I will," he says, with finality, words slurring between his lips. "I'll stop."
Nero's breath hitches as his father leans closer, pressing his lips to Nero's brow, hands gentle around Nero's fingers and cheek.
"Goodbye, Nero," Vergil whispers into Nero's hair, and then his head drops onto Nero's shoulder, hands slackening as he goes limp.
Nero chokes in a breath and snaps up both arms to wrap around his father's back, blind terror crashing down on him for an instant until he feels the whisper of his father's breath slowly inhaling and exhaling against his ear.
There is silence in the air for a long while, filled only with the sound of Dante mumbling in his sleep, Vergil's quiet breaths, and the shifting of cloth as Nero's shoulders shake, his arms wrapped tightly around his father's unconscious form.
Nero presses his face into his father's collar, inhales the scent of old wine, woodsmoke, fresh parchment.
He remains like so for a long while, until his father's warmth washes away the last of the cold winter air.
The grandfather clock in the corner strikes eleven.
"Okay," Nero says to himself. "Okay."
He carefully arranges his father to lean against the back of the sofa, tilting his head to the side to allow him to breathe easier.
Then Nero rises on stiff joints, takes two steps to the side, and heaves Dante's dead weight – ha,Nero's exhausted mind supplies– off the sofa and onto his shoulder.
"Pu' me down," Dante mumbles in his sleep somewhere by Nero's hip.
"Lose some of that middle-aged flab," Nero retorts as he struggles up the stairs, Dante limp as a ragdoll over his shoulder. The first door he opens leads to a mess of unwashed clothes and strewn magazines and electric guitars and scattered weaponry all over the floor between the door and the bed, and Nero makes a face.
Then he spies actual ninja stars glinting like spiky landmines from among the debris, and Nero decides to hell with it all.
He crosses the hallway to another door, huffing under his uncle's weight, and nudges the door open with his hip, flicking on the light with some difficulty.
The room he enters is simply furnished, bed neatly made, floorboards clean though cracked with age. But everywhere, in piles and stacks, over every available surface apart from the floor, are books.
Precise stacks of papers rest on the desk, with books weighing them down; two floor-to-ceiling bookcases are jammed in the room's minimal remaining space, stuffed to overflowing with yet more volumes. There is a familiar hardcover book with a dark yellow V on the beside table, placed at an angle as though someone had put it there before reaching up shut off the bedside light – the book of Blake poetry Nero had returned to his father.
Looking at this room, which so reflects his father, Nero feels a lump in his throat.
"Mmph," Dante mumbles.
Nero heaves his uncle over to the bed and dumps him unceremoniously on top of the covers.
Dante rolls onto his side, drooling a little, and goes immediately back to sleep.
"Who's the kid here, exactly?" Nero says exasperatedly, and pushes Dante to the side of the bed closest to the wall, working off his uncle's boots. He looks speculatively at his uncle's reeking socks and crimson coat before he decides that Dante has slept in worse.
The stairs creak under his boots as he goes back downstairs.
His father has slid sideways on the sofa since Nero left him, curling in on himself slightly in his sleep, as though to protect his vulnerable core.
Nero looks down at his father for a moment, at the Yamato abandoned at the foot of the sofa, and feels anxiety seep its way into his stomach again.
After a moment, he carefully reaches down and works Vergil's arms out of his blue-black coat. Vergil's limbs are pliant, nerveless.
Nero is just about to heave his father over his shoulder like he did with Dante before he pauses.
It seems almost disrespectful.
So, carefully, Nero slips an arm around his father's shoulders and another under his knees, and lifts him.
Vergil's head lolls against Nero's shoulder as Nero makes his way up the stairs, arms straining under his father's weight, heart in his throat, terrified that at any moment his father might wake.
But Vergil remains sound asleep, the tear tracks drying on his face, as Nero settles him on top of the covers next to Dante.
Nero pushes his father onto his side, relieves him of his boots, arranges a pillow strategically under Vergil's head so that Vergil can breathe even if he should throw up from the alcohol, and then lowers himself to the floor beside the bed, exhausted.
The moon has truly risen by now, sending bright light over the brothers' slumbering forms, turning their hair almost silver.
Nero watches his father sleep for a long while, his emotions jumbled within him. In a way, he had suspected after therapy that his father had not intended to hurt him during their training session, but to see the full extent of his father's grief and pain laid out before him at once has left Nero raw, exhausted.
Vergil's brow furrows in his sleep, and his hand shifts over the covers, as though searching for something.
Nero reaches across the covers, intending to clasp his father's shoulder in reassurance, but Vergil's hand finds his on the way there and captures his fingers in a tight grasp.
Nero inhales sharply, but Vergil's face has already smoothed over, calm in slumber once more.
The moonlight filters over them both, and their clasped hands.
Nero eventually falls asleep by his father's bedside, head pillowed on the covers, holding his father's hand.
He does not dream.
Next up: Breakfast, an awkward heart-to-heart, and Nero and Vergil finally go to therapy together.
I've extended the fic to four chapters, because this chapter was much longer than I thought it'd be, and I had to cut it somewhere. It was mostly Nero's therapy session and the Sparda mansion that look longer than I thought - even though I often talk to patients as a doctor, I had to take some time to work out the therapist's best approach to Nero's miscommunications and work out how she'd figure out the problem based on Nero's admittedly very sparse clues.
Thanks to everyone who's commented! This is also on AO3 for those who like to read over there.
A very merry Christmas to you and your loved ones, and I'll have more for you soon!