Holy crap, guys! I'm used to tiny fandoms, so I'm thrilled that people like this.
As promised, here is part three. Enjoy it!

Dante sat on the bed he'd slept in—he shouldn't think of it as his, because this wasn't his house and he didn't know how long he'd stay—and twirled Rebellion absently in his hand. He was waiting for someone to tell him the kid—Dorian—was up so he could go and at least try to talk.

He supposed that he should get used to the idea of giving Rebellion up. Kind of like a family heirloom... he liked the idea of that. His dad had given it to him, and now he could do the same. Too bad it was his favorite sword.

It wasn't like he had a shortage of swords, though—in the rough bag he'd been carrying with him, he had both his father's Force Edge... and Vergil's Yamato. And that had taken him a long time to track down, but he'd finally gotten it... and now he was glad for that, because he could give it back to its real owner.

He wondered what Vergil would think about that.

"Dante."

His eyes snapped up, meeting Vergil's as he stood in the open doorway.

"Dorian's asking to see you."

"How's he doing?" Dante asked. He wasn't sure he was ready for this—wasn't sure he'd ever be ready, really—but at least he should know what to expect when he went in there.

"He's still sore, but he's healing. He's awake and able to talk—and he's still fairly angry," Vergil warned. "I've told him not to push it until he heals a little more, but as his father, it's your responsibility to see that-"

"-he doesn't hurt himself?" Dante finished dryly. "I don't know what you expect me to do. The kid hates me."

"He can't hate you. He doesn't know you yet." Vergil's lips twitched.

Dante realized what he was trying to say and sighed. "You really hate me that much, Vergil?"

"Go see your son, Dante. You and I will talk later." He sounded as tired of making that promise as Dante was of hearing it. Every time they got close to talking about what they really needed to discuss, it didn't happen. It was looking like it wasn't going to.

For now, Dante left the sword on the bed and headed across the hall, barely aware of Vergil pulling the door closed behind him. "Are you gonna come?" Dante asked, pausing outside of Dorian's closed bedroom door.

Vergil hesitated—it was obvious that he didn't intend on doing it, but in the end he sighed. "I suppose I could. I did promise you an introduction, after all." He stepped forward, knocking on Dorian's door and then pushing it open.

Dante felt grateful and disgusted with himself at the same time. He hadn't needed his big brother as a buffer for a long time, and he hadn't wanted it then. He didn't want it now, to be honest, but he couldn't deny the fact that Vergil knew a lot more about this boy than he did. It couldn't hurt to defer to Vergil's judgment in this situation—and it might score him some brownie points, too.

It hit him hard, all of the sudden, that he was about to be introduced to his son, and he didn't have the first damn clue what made the kid tick. He'd been in the room a couple of times but he hadn't exactly been thinking about looking at decorations or anything that might clue him in.

"Dante, this is my nephew, Dorian. Dorian, my brother Dante." If he found it odd to be introducing a son to his father for the first time after sixteen years, he masked it well. Dante could have believed that this was his sister's kid, except for the fact that he didn't have a sister.

"Remember what I said about overexerting yourself, Dorian. Dante, be careful that you don't make him too angry. He's still healing."

Dante nodded, barely noticing as his twin left the room. He smiled at the kid. Dorian raised an eyebrow and sighed, clearly not impressed so far, so Dante perched on the edge of his bed. "So..." he began, though he didn't know how to finish the sentence and trailed off.

"You're not much like Uncle Vergil," Dorian said bluntly.

"Did you expect me to be like him?"

Dorian shrugged. "I knew you guys were twins. But I'm kind of glad you're not."

Dante grinned at that, the kid's honest admission making him feel a lot better about this whole situation. "Vergil's always been the mature one. I was always the one that needed a slap on the back of the head every so often. Kind of like when I need to be told how to talk to my kid."

"I'm not a kid," Dorian snapped. "I've already told you that."

"C'mon, surely you have a favorite toy or something?"

"I'm sixteen years old, you dumb fuck; I don't play with toys." Dorian's temper rose, like Dante had expected it to, because he thought you could learn a lot about a person by how they reacted when they were pissed off.

Like now—Dorian wasn't going to back down from a challenge, even in a new, awkward situation. Dante liked that. He liked the honesty, too, even if it was a little rude.

"Rude," whispered Vergil in shock, who'd been reading his book standing up, swaying a little as he turned the pages. "Mom would wash your mouth with soap if she heard you say that."

Yeah, he'd said stuff like that at sixteen, too. "Relax, kid, or you're gonna have your uncle on my ass. There are toys for grown-ups too. I'll show you a couple of mine when you're feeling up to it." He meant Ebony and Ivory, of course, his two favorite ladies. "Did Verg ever teach you how to shoot a gun?"

"Uncle Vergil-" slight emphasis on Vergil's full name, which meant he'd have to get the kid used to the nickname- "doesn't like guns much, so he doesn't keep them around. I'm good with a sword, though. Usually."

Dante didn't smile at that. His gaze fell to the bandage still wrapped around the kid's chest. "Hey, I'm sorry... I didn't mean to stab you like that..."

Dorian huffed. "I know you didn't. I should have anticipated that you'd be clumsy and that we were fighting indoors... and that I was pissed and reacted accordingly. I knew you didn't know me, and that I wasn't ready to fight you, but I wanted to."

"Understandable," Dante replied. He was struck by how much Vergil had rubbed off on this boy. After the stream of curses, he hadn't expected a complete one-eighty. "I probably would've done the same thing."

There was awkward silence for a while, and it was Dante's turn to figure out what the conversation should turn to but he didn't have any idea what to say. He and this kid... they didn't really have much in common. "So, sixteen, huh?" he asked at last.

Dorian nodded curtly. "I guess that means you don't know who my mother is, do you?" he asked.

Dante wondered if the kid had secretly been holding onto some romantic ideal that his parents were together and happy somewhere, even if it was without him. He remembered how shitty it was to be sixteen—and he also remembered that his parents had been nothing but faithful to each other from the start. Even after his father's death, his mother hadn't even looked at another man. He wasn't setting such a great example.

"No, I don't."

"Didn't figure you did." Dorian sighed, shifting uncomfortably. "But I guess it doesn't hurt to ask."

Dante tried to remember who he'd been with sixteen years ago. Unfortunately for him, it had to be a list at least as long as his arm, if not longer. It had taken him a long time to get over the loss of his brother again, and he hadn't been very mature about how he handled it.

He remembered a lot of alcohol being involved—especially since he had a natural high tolerance to liquor; his body burned it faster than he could drink it, usually—and a lot of one-night-stands that always seemed to end the same way. Waking up on a bed in some sleazy motel or whorehouse, his pants thrown somewhere across the room and evidence of what he'd been doing the night before dried on his thighs, because he never bothered to clean up. Sometimes, he'd have a hangover, but it was always gone by noon.

If he hadn't gotten thrown out on his ass for something stupid, like triggering as he came. He remembered that happening a few times, and he always thought it was funny but the girls never really did.

It'd be pretty hard to find Dorian's mother in that list of possibles.

"I don't really want to see her anyway," Dorian said softly, cutting into his memories. "She left me in an orphanage and didn't even try to find any family for me. At least you have an excuse. Kind of."

"Hey, I'm gonna stick around for a while and try to fix that." I've got a lot to fix, he added silently, thinking of Vergil, too. "I've gotta fix that thing about you not knowing how to shoot. And hey, maybe we can actually fight outside this time. Once you get patched up, anyway. Is that okay with you?"

Slowly, Dorian nodded. Dante noticed that his eyelids were beginning to droop a little—from the painkillers, maybe—and he jumped on that. "You should get some rest. Work on letting your body heal that wound," he added, nodding at Dorian's chest. "Maybe when you wake up again we'll trick your uncle into playing Monopoly or Scrabble or something. How does that sound?"

"Board games?" Dorian asked, sounding skeptical.

"You've never played? What do you guys do around here anyway, watch paint dry?" Dante replied, for once genuinely surprised to hear that. He and Vergil had been Monopoly tycoons as kids; they'd owned six or seven different versions of the board: the I Love Lucy one, Monopoly Junior, Fantastic Four... he could probably keep going. But the original had always been their favorite. They'd played Scrabble too, with their mom, so Dante was surprised that Vergil hadn't kept that tradition going.

"Well, no. We play chess sometimes."

Dante snorted. He remembered, vaguely, his father teaching both of them how to play. He'd never had the head for it, but Vergil loved that game, too, and practiced constantly. "Well, you leave your uncle to me, and you get some sleep, okay kid?"

Dorian nodded, his eyes already drifting closed, and Dante shut the door to his bedroom with a small, self-satisfied smile. It could have been a lot worse.

Vergil tried very hard to relax, and visibly stopped himself from looking at the clock again. He didn't hear any noises coming from upstairs, which he assumed was a good thing. At least Dante wasn't upsetting Dorian too much.

And then he heard a door open and close and his eyes snapped down to the book that was spread open on his lap. He was frustrated with himself for caring so much. Dante was back now, and if he injured his own child then that was his problem, not Vergil's.

He knew that he and Dante were going to have to talk eventually; they'd left a lot of things unsettled between them. He knew without having to be told that Dante resented his leaving so many years ago, and that his brother didn't understand. At the time, Vergil thought that it was important that Dante didn't understand.

He'd told himself he was leaving to make himself stronger, and to make Dante stronger too—his brother had never really learned to handle things well, and Vergil knew he couldn't count on himself always being there to get Dante out of scrapes. If he was being honest with himself, though, he left for the sole purpose of becoming powerful enough to protect his brother. He'd promised his father that he'd protect the family, and he'd already allowed his mother to be killed...

Eventually, he'd have to explain himself to his brother, but he hoped he wouldn't have to do it today.

He glanced up as Dante came bouncing down the stairs, cheerful as ever, giving him a big grin that let Vergil know how it had gone upstairs. To be honest, it probably wasn't that great, but it never took much to make Dante happy. At least Dorian had talked to him at all.

"Hey Verg, do you have any board games around here?"

Vergil knew without asking which games Dante meant. "I think there might be, in the attic. Are you going to play with Dorian?"

Dante nodded. "And you too, if I can convince you. It's been a long time since we've played together."

"I haven't played for a long time," Vergil replied coolly. He meant to meet his twin's eyes, but didn't quite make it past his neck. Was that...?

"Neither have I, and Dorian's never played. It's not like you'll be handicapped from the beginning."

"Nobody plays with you because your luck means you'll inevitably lose." Vergil's eyes never moved, so in frustration, he closed them. "Nevertheless, I think I'll sit this one out. Feel free to find the boards, though." Agreeing to play would mean one more thing bringing him closer to his brother. One step closer to the impending discussion.

He opened his eyes again, looking straight at Dante and nothing else. And Dante, perhaps more intuitive than Vergil gave him credit for, reached inside his shirt and pulled out the amulet he'd been looking at. Dante smirked in satisfaction, obviously glad to have figured it out, and started to work the chain from around his neck. "You want this back?" he asked. Vergil did not reply.

Dante tossed, the chain and jewel flying through the air before landing directly in the open book. Vergil stared down at it. "Why are you giving it back to me?" he asked at last. He didn't want to pick it up, because he shouldn't have it at all.

His brother shrugged. "It's yours. Mom wanted you to have it. And I have my own," he added, digging the second half out of his shirt and holding it up. "Gonna go find those games now. Have fun with your books, Vergil."

Vergil reluctantly picked up the amulet, glad to feel its familiar weight in his hand again. He twirled it thoughtfully, then dropped the chain over his head and stood up. "Dante," he called at his brother's retreating back. "I've changed my mind. I'd enjoy beating you at Monopoly."

Dante's grin lit up his face like a beacon, and Vergil smiled back, tightly. His brother had made the first step in repairing their tattered relationship, and if Dante could try, so could he.