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It’s funny, the things one might miss while stuck in Hell with, arguably, the worst person to be stuck in Hell with, one’s own brother. Perhaps Dante hadn’t thought this decision through quite as thoroughly as he had led himself to believe. There’s no pizza here, or whiskey. There’s nowhere to shower either, so they’re both filthy. Vergil, for some reason Dante can’t even begin to understand, insists upon maintaining his hair, shaving his face, generally keeping up appearances to the best of his abilities- an activity that takes up most of their time and one that Dante is privately convinced is designed specifically to irritate him. That said, he does take care to maintain his coat, and he’s finally, finally caved and accepted Vergil’s offer to cut his hair- it’s just too long, it’s getting in the way. No amount of tying it out of his face makes it any more pleasant or easy to deal with. It’s this general discomfort that’s led him to where he is now, seated on the floor of their make-shift home, little more than a cave, while Vergil, sat on a rock just behind him, tugs at his hair. Hard.
“OW! Watch it!” Dante attempts to recoil, but Vergil doesn’t let up until he’s hacked off the clump of hair in his hand with the Yamato.
“Don’t be a baby.” Vergil grabs a hold of another piece of hair, yanking on it hard.
“FUCK! OW! Man, you’re gonna scalp me! Lay off!” Vergil continues the onslaught, yanking and slicing until Dante finally slaps the sword away, scrambling away from him, scowling.
Vergil starts to laugh- no, giggle, and it’s at this point that Dante connects the dots. Oh, so Vergil was trying to get a rise out of him, huh? Just for fun? All hostility cast aside, a grin stretches across Dante’s face, and with childlike glee, he pounces. The sword is set aside just in time for Vergil to react, knocked from his seat and onto the ground before he’s able to vault his brother off of him.
They continue like this for a while, pulling at each other’s hair and knocking each other around their little space, declarations of victory, childish giggles, and ‘ow, fuck off!’s filling the space between blows. Eventually, Dante finds himself pinned face down to the floor, arms wrenched behind his back.
“Submit! Submit!” Vergil demands, breathless, but sounding more like the kid from Dante’s early memories than… than any time in their adult life that he can recall. It leaves him feeling… something. Warmth, perhaps. Joy.
Face pressed into the dirt, grinning like an idiot, he gives in. “Alright, alright! Uncle! You got me!” Vergil flops to the side as Dante rolls over, looking for all the world like getting his ass kicked has been the best thing that's happened to him in months, and...
Vergil lets out a laugh, a sound that comes from somewhere deep. It's as full of love and joy as it is pain, and it's maybe even a little hysterical. Tears prick his eyes before he stops to speak, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.
“We- we haven’t- oh, we haven’t done anything like that since we were kids.”
“Kinda nice, huh?” Dante, still laying on the floor with his legs crossed now, puts his hands behind his head, gaze resting on his twin.
“...Yes, nice. Fun.”
“Thought your cold, dead heart couldn’t feel fun anymore,” Dante jokes, which earns him a punch in the side that knocks the wind out of him for a moment. He bursts into a giggle fit of his own, one that Vergil gladly joins him in.
Silence falls, for a moment. As the dust settles, it becomes clear that they’ve more or less wrecked their little safe haven, but that's a problem for later. It's not like they had much in the way of... anything, really. Vergil sits up, summoning the Yamato to him.
“I didn’t finish cutting your hair.”
Dante scrambles away from him, a gleeful look on his face that his twin matches. “Don’t you fucking dare!”