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It’s amusing, watching Dante.
The man — his little brother — has returned to his desk, legs extended and feet propped up on the half-torn and grease-stained magazines, looking as if he’s not a care in the world after being told his once-deceased twin is returning to the surface with nefarious plans for power. Dante even goes as far as to pick up a pin-up magazine and pretend to skim through the pages.
A valiant attempt to lie, V thinks.
Twenty-something years lost between them — lost between Dante and Vergil, rather — but V can spot the facade like neon traffic signs. The tension in his shoulders, the way his jittery fingers can't find a good grip on the magazine, his set jaw wired tight. He sits, in apparent idleness, but the anxious power under his skin rolls off in such waves that even V, stripped of so much of his demonic power as he is, can practically taste it. Dante never was good at subtlety, always a flashing red strobe light that demanded attention and craved it just as much. It's… oddly comforting, knowing at least that has not changed since their childhood days of bliss. Dante, the ever loud and obnoxious little brother who could never get enough of big brother's attention, like a loose puppy bounding with infinite energy and biting Vergil's ankles; Vergil, who preferred to keep his nose in a book and study his mother's lifeskills, sometimes indulging his little brother with a bit of rough housing to hopefully run some of that steam out.
They're older now, Dante looking considerably aged with the crow's feet and dark bags under his eyes, the tired lines of exhaustion weighing on his skin — his scraggly beard and unkempt hair do no favors either. His eyes, once so silver bright with fire and innocence, now a dull gunmetal gray worn down to dying embers from the cruelties of the world. There's regret in them. V sees flashes of anger and confusion and flickers of hope and recognition, catches them from the corner of his eye when Dante flicks his eyes above the magazine to take sparse glances at V when he thinks the mystery man is not looking.
For all that Vergil liked to call Dante his foolish little brother, Dante is no true fool; he even has those demonic instincts and the feeble, delicate threads that once connected the twins together. Dante, somewhere in the pit of his soul and in the recesses of his mind, knows — the only thing stopping him is this attempt at protecting himself from disappointment.
V tampers down the urge to smile in vindication, the threat of a curling lip so desperately wanting to make itself known. Still, he isn't sure whether to feel relief or surprise or apathy. He had been banking on a reaction in the first place, realizing his feeble human body and a few nightmares would do fuck-all before Urizen, and a reaction he had gotten. There had been fury, a cold rage that scalded with its frigid intensity, that set off V's instincts to run for his life, and V had known his decision was right. But afterwards, there had been anxiety, a conundrum of hope and disbelief and perhaps even fear.
And that is what boils a pool of uncertainty in V's stomach. He is pleased, undeniably, to know that Dante hasn’t quite lost his edge; dulled, perhaps yes, by years of facing lesser foes that simply fall with a swing of his blade. But that can be remedied easily enough, as with the Qliphoth rising so would stronger demons looking to claim the fruit. He’s pleased, too, that his — Vergil’s, he reminds himself again — name is enough to incite such a mouth-watering response. V almost feels humbled. Despite the passage of time, his absence has left such a deep rift within his little brother, nestled in his flesh and bones like a disease to rot from the inside out.
Yet. V is disappointed at the gnarled knot that twists his heartstrings, this incarnation too human and too feeling to ignore the solemn realization of what exactly Vergil’s fall and death had done to Dante. He feels like a shitty brother and an even shittier son, who broke his promise to Eva about keeping his little twin safe and sound as was his responsibility as the older one. The fatigue that sags at Dante and the shadows that darken his eyes are not from the passage of time; they’re from the guilt and misery of killing his own brother, having already believed Vergil to be lost to him during the fall of Temen-Ni-Gru only to lose him again for good. And realizing what he had one after dealing the killing blow, his heart cracking and crumbling like Vergil’s body while it gave away, must have shattered him in a way he never truly recovered from.
V’s not Vergil, not where it counted, so he shouldn’t feel the guilt as heavily as he does, but his irrational human heart refuses to do otherwise. It’s painfully ironic. V’s supposed to be the human half of Vergil, what his original deemed as useless and only fit to be discarded, yet he doesn’t even know how to be human. Doesn’t even know how to pick the emotions from each other, swirling up a bloody conundrum that is his heart. It’s no real wonder why Vergil chose to cut him out. V doesn’t blame him for that, but for the rest he does, mostly because he has to go and drag his brittle body to fix the dumpster fire that Vergil’s lit.
V’s not Vergil, not where it counted, but Dante fidgets like he could be. Like he wants to believe but is afraid of the very idea of hope, that the light of it could burn his hands if he even dares to touch it. Dante wants to though, really wants to, with the way he keeps stealing glances at V, works his mouth into the beginning of a sentence or a question before giving up and trying again and again. It’s agonizingly pitiful. For all the cocky body language and apparent disregard Dante packs around, he’s desperately trying to cling to that facade.
V’s not Vergil, not where it counted, but he could pretend to be. He wants to be.
He looks around, sweeps a lazy gaze around the room to see if there's anything to work with. There's not much leeway but it's doable, plenty of wiggle room if Dante is as sentimental as V thinks he is. He finds the cleanest spot on the couch and rests his poetry book facedown, taking his cane with him as he goes to the wet bar — why Dante even has a bar inside his shop is so very Dante — and doesn't even bother to ask for permission, swiping a finger along the dust as he makes his way behind. It’s… surprisingly not as messy as the rest of the shop; besides some old tumblers in the sink and a handful of empty bottles, the bar is in decent shape. Why it’s so well-stocked with tequila and whiskey isn’t such a hard guess either. Dante’s been basically living off of liquor and pizza from the looks of things, though that begs the question of how he’s been able to run a business in such a sorry state.
(But that’s the thing. He hasn’t. V was made aware that Devil May Cry’s swimming in debt, to the point even basic utilities had been cut off until his charitable offer to pay cash up front.)
He’ll need a bit of liquid courage for this, he knows. V isn’t sure of how Dante will react; whether with fury or remorse or jubilation, whatever response he’ll get will surely jar him. He finds where the ice is and picks out the cleanest lowball glass, choosing to go simple for the sake of it, and reaches for the closest bottle of whiskey that just so happens to already be half-empty.
This time, Dante actually looks at him directly but only after finding a proper excuse to do so. “You usually go lootin’ people’s drinks like that?” Dante asks, more curiosity than heat in his tone. It’s a valid question, coming from a man who has every right to defend and protect his precious liquor, but V knows it’s more than just that.
Still, he indulges Dante and quirks one corner of his lips into a lop-sided smile. “You may put it on my tab,” he responds, not even bothering to look up from the large cubes of ice he drops into his glass. He pours himself three fingers of whiskey, holds the bottle as he deliberates, then adds another for good measure. He still has cash to spare and could always go sick Griffon on some hoodlums for more if need be; fortunately, the hellbird is a ravenous vulture for dirty fun, has no real qualms about roasting a few humans here and there.
“Fine by me.” Dante shrugs his shoulders. “But sure you can even handle what you pack? No offense, but you look like you’d fall ass backwards from just one shot.”
V offers a mock toast to him, ice clinking against the glass as it slowly melts and dilutes the whiskey. “Looks, dear Dante, can be deceiving.” He swirls his glass and takes a hearty sip. Not surprisingly, it’s strong; probably has to be for the effect Dante wants, something strong enough that even his demon would be slow to purge. But it's not strong enough to overpower V either. It’s dry, lacking any specific sweetness or notes — not that he’s much of a whiskey connoisseur to begin with — but he drinks it down, smooth and burning down his throat and into his belly, where the heat coils the most. The burn lingers in his mouth, leaves a peculiar flavor on his tongue, and he can’t say he particularly enjoys the finish. It’s unpleasant, honestly. He sips again anyway, smaller this time.
On his fourth sip, he’s away from the bar and crossing the room for the jukebox shoved against a wall, one hand nursing his whiskey and the other steady on his cane. He gives it a few tentative pokes, having a vague idea of how it works, and gives a frown for his efforts; it looks and feels positively broken. Just as he wonders why he expected anything else from Dante and his sloven den, he hears a muttered “She likes to play on rainy days.” Which V translates as it being a half-beaten piece of decorative junk.
There's clouds outside, certainly, hiding away the dying stars and the waning moon, but the forecast had called for a pleasant night. V couldn't summon up a storm like a veritable witch; he has no real magic, his staff simply a cane with bits of a demon in it and his tome no more than an anthology of poetry. His familiars aren't fae or tricky neighbors, just remnants of nightmares discarded just like he was, forced together in a symbiotic relationship of survival.
But tonight, he thinks he can actually work some magic — whether it turns into a curse or a boon, however, he'll have to risk to find out. The whiskey has started settling into his blood now, spreading its numbing influence with each beat of his heart. He feels it in his temples, a low pulsating rhythm that spreads into his cheeks with warmth, and his fingers bear the most weight of it all, his joints feeling just a bit uncooperative. But he's not so far gone, is confident he could finish his drink without falling much further under its influence, and he's still perfectly capable of rational thought.
Which is almost unfortunate because logic is telling him to stop while he still has the chance, demands him to flee from Dante's increasingly suspicious gaze that V can practically feel on his back. But if V has kept anything from Vergil, barring the emotional constipation and encroaching dread that breathes down his neck, it's bull-headed stubbornness.
He nudges Griffon in the corner of his mind, and the demon obliges, quite willing to zap anything and everything when it's not feeling lazy. The ink on his skin shifts as Griffon pulls itself away from his flesh, dark wisps crawling as sparks crackle down his forearms to his fingertips. Griffon doesn't fully materialize, just a vague form of feathers and black dust, but it's enough for an arc of sharp ultraviolet to flick off his fingers and through the plane of busted glass, before spreading itself thin back into its home on V’s skin. Whether or not Dante catches that doesn’t matter — V has his back to him, but he may as well be thin as paper all things considered — only that the jukebox spits and sputters and rattles scratchy bits of music as it wakes from its dusty coma.
There’s a record in there he recognizes, from days long gone and irretrievable. V isn’t even sure how he manages, but a few button presses gets it set on the turntable and the mechanical arm slowly swings over to press the needle into the black grooves. For a passing second there’s only silence and V almost falls into unexplainable disappointment until a scratched note turns into a melody into bittersweet memories.
V hates this song. But he had once held a certain fondness for it until Dante played it one too many times on repeat, wrestling with Vergil on the couch for music privileges until their mother steered them outside to duke it out with sticks. By the time they returned home, they’d be too dirty and tired to fight over the record player anymore, just hungry for mother’s lovingly-cooked food and a nice warm bath to splash water into each others’ faces.
Sometimes when Vergil was too engrossed in his novels, perched in his favored corner of the couch where the sun wasn’t too glaring across his pages, he’d pick out his own music to read to; then, eventually and invariably, Dante would sneak about and swap out the record for his favorite then scamper off and wait for Vergil to realize the prank. Of course, Dante would also just play it for the hell of it, to fill the quiet space of their home with noise because Dante could never appreciate stillness; other times, he’d play it simply to annoy Vergil, to garner any kind of reaction because Dante always craved attention.
Funny. V’s playing his most hated song to grab Dante’s attention instead.
“I hate this song,” V says, tone neutral despite the opinion. “It’s terrible to read to, with its loud crescendos and excessive fanfare.” It’s the same words he’s used once, when Dante pestered him with annoying questions of just why Vergil hated it. He hopes Dante’s memories haven’t deteriorated like his shop, but his expectations are met when he can literally feel the tension flare at his words. Behind him, Dante is a tightly coiled mass of heat and barely held together restraint.
He doesn’t have to turn to see Dante’s expression; neither will he deny himself the palpable sight that is his brother’s misery and breakdown of his realization. He tosses a look over his shoulder, just enough to find his tragic brother staring right back at him, not even bothering to keep up his mask of a stranger filled with hot air. His facade’s shattered, leaving behind something absolutely broken , and the years of grief and fatigue rise to meet with the bait of hope that V’s hanging just above him. Something in V’s chest clenches at the heartache that Dante must taste on his lips, his brother’s name just a bare whisper of a prayer on his tongue.
V is giving him an option here, and Dante knows. He can take what he’s being offered, to accept the possibility — no, the fact — that V is in, some way, connected to Vergil that Dante can’t fathom just yet. Or he can pretend and just take V’s words at face value, that the words and the music are mere coincidence because they certainly could be, when V is just another frail human that shares no resemblance in voice or stature or face to his long-dead twin brother.
Dante can continue to deny and live in the reality he’s finally accepted, to drift upon the gray waves that take him wherever they please. Or he can reach out to the silk thread dangling in his face, to take it in his hands at the risk of it breaking within his fingers the moment he latches on.
V won’t egg him, won’t make the decision for him. He isn’t so merciful like that, but he’ll nudge Dante in the direction he wants him to take. So he lets the music fade into the background, turns away from the jukebox to let it play or to break down again later, and keeps his attention to nursing his whiskey instead of on Dante as he takes languid, steady steps toward the desk, his cane under his right hand keeping him grounded. He stops only at the corner, where Dante keeps the framed picture of their mother smiling ever serenely and as perfect as she is in his memory.
Beside it, a dirty glove caked with dried blood. For a heartbeat’s moment, his gaze lingers on it, wonders of its place there. Dante’s shop is a mess, filled with barely passable junk and dangerous devil arms decorating the back wall, but all of it has some sort of purpose or weird organization to it. Even Dante’s desk, save for that one glove, is arranged for utility, as haphazard as it is. Order in madness, and all that. Without thinking, V trades his whiskey for the glove and plucks it off the desk, pinching it between his forefinger and thumb. He lifts it to the ceiling lights and stares it down with a critical eye; the leather is old and worn, faded and cracked and stained, but he sees nothing and feels nothing special about it. There’s a neat gash where the blood is concentrated and where the palm would be, straight and precise most likely done in by an impeccably sharp blade —
‘Oh,’ V remembers with sudden clarity, almost taken back with how he underestimated Dante’s sentimentality. His eyes widen just a notch, lips parting into a muted ‘o’ when he lets the discovery sink in. ‘When Vergil fell.’
When Vergil fell into hell, sweeping Yamato in front of him to keep Dante from catching him. No, from following. The human world suited Dante far better than Vergil, treated his little brother with more warmth and acceptance than it ever did for the older one; Vergil was used to the cold and stark reality that came with the world’s cruelties, had no problems with leaving the humans to their fragility and foolishness. If Dante loved the humans that much, enough to pick them over his own blood brother, then fine. Let him stay with them. Vergil still loved him enough to protect him, in a way. Despite the bickering and the near-death fighting, Vergil had never intended to kill his brother. Incapacitate him, hurt him, bleed him out a little here and there out of tough Sparda love, yes. But never to kill.
V wonders what would have happened if Vergil took that hand. Would Dante have fallen together with him into hell, slayed Mundus proper and reign over the Underworld as kings side-by-side? Or would he have hauled Vergil’s ass up from that edge, introduced him to a different side the human realm had to offer to eventually accept his long-neglected humanity?
“Foolish.” V mutters that as much to himself as he does to Dante. Foolish, because there's no point fantasizing about what-if's and past mistakes that can't be undone. Foolish, because Dante kept a ruined glove as a memento of something that should only bring pain to him. It would have been better for him to discard the nightmare just as Vergil did, casting off his traumas and his heart that did nothing but bring him weakness.
Foolish, because here he is, hoping for what? For redemption? For love and reconciliation? He doesn't know why he's still here. Dante will meet his brother again one way or another, as Urizen or as Vergil returned whole if V's plan works the way he intends it to. He has no place here. Just as this dirty, useless glove that Dante keeps has no place in his life, that should have been tossed away or burned —
V doesn’t realize the white-knuckled grip he has on it, squeezing the leather in between his bony fingers, until Dante’s hand is on his wrist. He’s startled, nearly jumping out of his skin, like the touch sears his skin and threatens to consume him from the inside out. The grip is maddening, just a touch away from snapping his bones but achingly comforting . V imagines it’s the same grip that would have held Vergil’s hand, if only he had allowed Dante to help, yet some part of him despairs that this hand is not for him. Not truly.
“Vergil.”
And there it is: the prize to the game they’ve been playing at. But who is the winner, and who is the loser? It’s the whole point of this facade V’s been playing at, teasing and dangling hope and cruelty in the breath of a single name. He’s the one who started it, who wanted to play in the first place, who forced Dante into it as the other player. Yet he doesn’t feel victorious at all, no satisfaction to find at the finish line now that they’ve made it. It was never a difficult game to begin with anyhow, but V cannot help the bitterness in his throat that only rises in a sour, wet laugh.
Because the way Dante whispers that damned name like a precious treasure makes V want to sob in hysterics. It fills him with jealousy and rage and ecstasy, to know and to hear the majesty and terror his little brother regards that one word with. Because it is all for Vergil, who V is less in the ways that matter and more in the ways that do not. The hand that loosens its grip on V’s wrist and trembles, that delicately travels to his waist and pulls him against his chest, the heart that’s enraptured in anxiety and thunders and roars — they are all for Vergil.
V’s not Vergil, not where it counted, but oh how he desperately wants to be. If he had hated his own existence before, this pale and feeble thing that could fall to ash in any moment, then he absolutely curses it now.
Dante doesn’t ask, doesn’t say anything. They stand there, the torn glove on the floor and forgotten now, V held tight and caged within Dante’s arms. It burns, this embrace, but V craves it all the more. He wants to rip open Dante’s chest, to crawl inside and perch himself right beside that bloody beating heart, to lay his weary head beside it and listen to its pulses. Maybe then, he could learn how to sort out his own heart, to dissect the pain from the bliss and understand why tears threaten to fall, why he feels such torment from such tenderness.
‘I curse my stars in bitter grief and woe,’ he recites to himself, burying his face into Dante’s dirty henley, ‘that made my love so high and me so low.’ He wonders what the poet had felt then, when he penned the words onto paper, ink bleeding through the parchment like a gash. Surely, Blake could not have felt so wretched as V does now, torn in between these two absolutes as he is. This love for Dante, and the hate towards Dante’s love, aimed at someone who V is not.
“Stay.”
It’s a request bordering on a demand, and not even the question V expected from Dante. Of all the things his little brother could have said, it’s a single word that fills him with yearning. V wants to. He wants to stay, wants to wrap his arms around Dante and live on that warmth for the rest of his life, to forget the world around him and the imminent apocalypse and the thousands of deaths that would fall on his shoulders should he choose to give in to that single, simple request.
“Stay.” Dante says it again, more desperate, more frantic. He pulls a heavy hand off V’s back — and the brief moment of loss V feels from that is disgustingly pitiful — to gently cup the side of V’s face, thumb lightly brushing over a sunken cheek. “ Please. ”
He sounds so utterly broken that V’s heart can’t help but reflect it. V feels himself crack as Dante’s lips are despicable and soft against his own, a crying plea to just please stay don’t leave me again. And the unspoken words may as well be ear-rending screams because he wants to cover his ears and fall on his knees and cry. He doesn’t deserve Dante’s love, not when he tried to play a cruel trick on him — even if it did backfire in a way he never expected — and especially when he’s not the one it’s meant for.
‘I’m sorry,’ V wants to say, ‘but I’ll fix it.’
“I will,” V lies, voice thick with emotions he no longer wants to feel or think about. He’ll stay but only for as long as this body will allow, and he knows Dante means for so much longer than that. It’ll hurt, less for him and more for his brother, but Dante will ultimately thank him in the end, when Urizen is defeated and reunited. When Vergil is made whole again and Dante can offer his love to the one deserving of it. Not V.
Dante deserves more than just an empty heart dressed up in some bad memories and tattered emotions that don’t even function properly.
And V? V doesn’t really deserve anything. After all, V’s not Vergil, not where it counted.
But oh, how he wants to be.