Chapter Three
"Can't you just wiggle your fingers?" Dante waved his hands around in a flamboyant fashion. Nero snorted, immediately regretting the action as coke burned through his nose.
"Wiggle his fingers?" he said when he'd recovered. Vergil muttered something unintelligible from his facedown position on the table.
"Yeah, technical term." Dante took a bite out of his burger, sauce dripping down his chin, which he wiped off with the back of his hand. "Wiggly finger magic."
"I'm sure there's a lewd joke in there somewhere." Nero muttered, picking up his own burger and trying to ignore the exhausted ache from the muscles in his back.
"Your wife will love your wiggly finger magic." Dante grinned, bits of burger in his teeth. Nero threw the empty box the burgers had come in at him, then started throwing the empty beer bottles.
"Quiet you." He lobbed another bottle. "That's my wife you're talking about." The next thrown bottle was snatched from the air by Griffon, who swooped away with it, dropping it in the vague direction of the bin.
"Stop making this crap hole more of a crap hole." The bird landed on the table next to his face down master and began gently preening Vergil's hair.
"It was a compliment," Dante insisted. "Your wife's happy with your…performance."
"Change the subject!" Nero yelled.
"Alright," Dante smirked and turned to his brother. "Magic house now, please."
"Just let me die." Vergil lifted his head a little so his words were at least a little more understandable.
"No, not till you raise my house." Dante stood up and walked to the desk. He started absently prodding his brother. "Come on, come on, come on." Vergil slapped him away.
"What is wrong with your ears?" he snarled. "I told you I can't do that. We. Need. Contractors."
"But contractors will take ages."
"That's your issue with it?" Nero almost choked on the last of his dinner. "Not the fact that he," he pointed at Vergil. "Wanted to end them after they'd finished working."
"Think of how secure the house would be," Vergil said.
Killing the team after they finish the job is morally wrong and it would make the project insecure when the authorities notice a mass disappearance.
"I do not care if the mortal authorities notice." Vergil stood up and moved away from his brother, who was still prodding him. Nero took a deep breath. "It would be very easy for me to do. I could remove the contractors with no evidence."
"Oh?" Dante raised an eyebrow.
"I'd just portal them into the demon world." Vergil shrugged. "Quick, clean, no fuss. I wouldn't even have to kill them; the denizens of our world would do it for us."
"It's not about your ability." Nero pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's morally abhorrent."
"You're morally abhorrent," Vergil muttered.
"I am the only one here with any morals." Nero practically screeched.
"Is this a bad time?" Lady asked. No one had heard her come in.
"Nah," Dante went back to the sofa and collapsed upon it. "Just a healthy debate."
"There's nothing healthy about it." Nero said. "Is that pizza?"
Lady entered the crowded space and placed the pizzas on the desk. There were six.
"You're an angel." Nero helped himself to a box.
"You just ate three burgers." Dante also took a box.
"I'm a growing boy," Nero started shovelling pizza into his face. "Plus, you two drive me to comfort eat. Plus, I'm so tired I'm amazed I haven't tried to eat you just to get some energy back."
"Don't." Vergil said when Dante looked like he was going to point out the innuendo in Nero's phrasing.
"What's the debate?" Lady sat cross-legged on the arm of the sofa, pizza box in hand.
"Dad wants to hire and then murder contractors. Dante wants dad to raise the house himself." Nero nudged a pizza box towards Shadow, who was gently pawing at it with oversized claws.
"Okay." Lady said. "This is a debate. Why?"
"Because if I raise a structure, it will be demonic. It won't be a home, it will be a stronghold, a foothold in this world for our kind. You were at Temi nu gru were you not?" Vergil started picking at a pizza.
"I thought you just awakened something that existed already. You're saying anything you build or raise will be like that."
"You saw the clyphod?"
"That was a plant you grew, not a house." Dante sprayed cheese when he spoke.
"Same difference, any demonic structure will be demonic. If we want this to be a home safe for Lady, for Kyrie and the children, it needs to be built by human hands, and reinforced by ours to survive you." Vergil flicked a mushroom at his brother.
"I'm a gentle little butterfly, you gigantic asshole. You're the one advocating mass murder."
"Why do the contractors need to die?" Lady said.
"Because they'll take ages and over charge us," Dante muttered.
"Because they will know the house as well as we do."
"You're afraid of them?" Lady raised an eyebrow.
"Not at all, but only a fool leaves his one place of safety with any obvious weaknesses."
"You're building a house, not the death star."
"You're right, and look what happened to that damned thing. It exploded."
"Not because Vader didn't kill his contractors!"
"Who do you think gave the plans away, you fool?"
"This is insane." Lady held up her hands.
"Just raise me a house. I don't care if it's weird." Dante groaned. "I'm tired of waiting."
"You want a house!" Vergil slammed his hand down on the table and, in a wave of power, changed to his high demon form. "Fine, I'll give you a bloody house!" The ground outside shook.
"Not here, moron!" Dante said.
"To late!" Vergil grinned. The street outside exploded upward. The windows of the shop exploded inwards.
"Wow, you're a massive jackass." Lady said.
"I built a fucking house!" Vergil all but cackled and walked forward, his form changing back to his more humane one. Nero and Lady followed behind him as he grabbed his brother and dragged him outside. The house in the middle of the street was pretty small as houses go, more a single room with an external door and two windows.
"It's shit." Dante said. "Is that why you didn't want to do it, because you're shit at it?"
"No, I was trying to preserve the local infrastructure."
"You could have just not made the street have a house-baby." Nero said.
"Shut up." Vergil kicked the door open and threw Dante inside. "There, that'll teach him. Butthead."
"Butthead." Lady snorted. "Is not a word you should say, Mr. Refinement."
Dante had closed his eyes when his brother had thrown him inside the single room house. Once the door closed, he opened them again and swore loudly. The door behind him was gone and before him stretched a mansion.
End Chapter
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