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After returning from hell, Dante asked Vergil with much trepidation if he wanted to live with him at Devil May Cry. Dante had fully expected a rejection—hell, he hadn’t even expected Vergil to be willing to come back to the human world at all. But surprisingly, Vergil had said yes, and after emptying out the junk in the spare room on the first floor, now Vergil was living with him.
So far, so good. Dante figured he should be thrilled to get this far. And he was thrilled. His brother was alive, and living with him.
The problem was that his brother was alive, and living with him.
This is fine, Dante had initially told himself. I’m just gonna be cool and casual about this. Cool, and casual.
Back in hell, the two of them had forged a precarious partnership. When their lifestyle had just been roaming and killing demons, the two of them had been able to get on the same page, and get along. Hell, they hadn’t even stayed in human form most of the time, and Vergil had even seemed happier that way—they’d really torn a bloody streak through hell, and Dante would admit to himself that it had been a damn good time.
Maaaaybe the two of them had gone a little too far with each other as demons, into areas that Dante didn’t really want to think about, but what happened in hell stayed in hell, as far as he was considered. Now that they were topside, he was going to conveniently forget about all of that and act like normal brothers. Normal, demon-hunting brothers. Just what he’d always wanted, right?
Back to human, mundane life. This was the part that Dante had always been rather bad at.
It was just before noon. Dante had been drinking less these days—not drinking at all, actually—so he was actually fairly awake and not fighting any hangovers. But he was leaning back in the chair at the front desk of Devil May Cry with his feet on the desk and titty mag over his face, pretending like he was napping, Dante’s keen ears were in fact trained on Vergil’s room. He didn’t hear any sounds, but that meant nothing. Vergil could be reading.
He looked at the clock, then at Vergil’s door again. It was about the hundredth time he’d checked that day. He was starting to wonder if Vergil was even there. Had he left? He could have just disappeared in the night—it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that, though so far, he’d come back every time.
Finally, Dante cracked, whipped the titty mag off his face and dropped it on the desk, and walked over to Vergil’s door.
He was just going to check. No big deal. Nothing weird and paranoid about this.
He didn’t knock. Carefully turning the knob, Dante pushed open the door and peered inside.
The lights were off and blackout curtains drawn over the windows, but Dante could see in the dark. And he saw the pair of eyes staring back at him from across the room, flashing in the dark like an animal’s.
Okay. Okay. This wasn’t so bad. At least he didn’t have tears streaking down his face, like that other time Dante had woken him up.
“What, Dante?” Vergil was sitting in the fancy chaise he’d bought, sword in hand, in the dark. His tone was crisp and clear and not at all muddy with sleep.
“Oh, sorry, did I wake you up?”
“No.”
Dante wasn’t sure if Vergil was lying or not. “Were you up all night?”
“No.”
“Do you—”
“Go away, Dante.”
Dante backed out and closed the door. “Okay, that went well,” he muttered to himself, then meandered back to his desk and plopped back into his previous position.
x x x
Vergil didn’t sleep.
It had made sense back in hell, when they had both been under constant threat of attack, and they’d taken turns on watch. Dante hadn’t slept much himself, back then.
But since coming topside, things hadn’t changed. Vergil still slept like he was on the battlefield—if he slept at all. Since he spent most of his time cooped up in his room—which he did not seem to like Dante entering—Dante didn’t even know if or when he slept. His schedule seemed irregular. He would come out of his room at three AM or three PM alternately. When he went out, he didn’t say where he was going, but would come back with pieces of furniture to add to his room, or odd curio—skulls, an antique clock, an eerie dagger, and other things—that he wouldn’t let Dante touch.
Vergil showed no interest in taking on jobs that came to Dante, but when Dante hesitantly brought up the subject of money, Vergil had showed up with a wad of cash and dumped it on the front desk in front of Dante.
“Verge, this cash is covered in blood,” Dante said in mild horror as he looked down in front of him.
“It’s not human blood,” Vergil said with an extremely exasperated sigh. “Use your nose.”
Then he went out again.
Dante started to feel like maybe this was a mistake—living with his brother, rather. He constantly felt like he was bothering him. And yet, the idea of Vergil going elsewhere was terrifying to him, on multiple levels.
Can’t live with him, can’t live without him, Dante thought from his seat at the front desk again, familiar titty mag on his face.
They hadn’t really talked, back in hell—it had been easier to let their bodies do the talking, as demons. As humans? Dante had no idea how to relate to Vergil outside of a fight. Maybe it had just been too long.
Then one day, Vergil came back carrying a medium-sized instrument case. It had been a long time since Dante had seen one of those, but he recognized the instrument.
But more importantly, however.
“Dude,” the titty mag dropped off Dante’s face as he sat up at his desk, staring over at the entrance where Vergil stood with the battered old instrument case in hand. Dante could feel it from all the way across the room: that thing was absolutely curdling with demonic energy. “That thing is obviously cursed.”
“I know,” Vergil replied.
Then he went to his room, and five minutes later, Dante was greeted with the sound of Vergil practicing violin.
It sure had been a long time since Dante had heard that.
Dante didn’t have many memories of his father, but he did remember that he had been a very musically talented man, playing multiple instruments with a proficiency that Dante hadn’t understood at the time was absolutely professional. Apparently, you picked up a few skills over the course of two thousand years.
He’d also been the kind of hardass who had wanted to drill these skills into his children—he had tried to teach both of them violin from the age of three or so, but Dante had hated every bit of it and refused to practice—he’d only started to fiddle around on their father’s acoustic guitar after his disappearance.
Vergil, however, had been different. Dante wasn’t sure if he was naturally talented, or just the stubborn and competitive type, but he’d practiced as much as their father had wanted, and more. Just one more reason he had been their father’s favorite.
Dante remembered Vergil getting pretty good, or at least, what had seemed good to a child of that age.
But listening to Vergil play now?
Uh.
“Guess it’s been a while, huh, Verge,” Dante muttered, putting his hands over his ears.
Not like he was about to go knock on Vergil’s door and tell him that. Hell no.
x x x
Vergil kept practicing.
Dante couldn’t take it anymore. He was so out of tune. The pieces he was trying to play were all in fragments and half-remembered. It was kind of hilariously nostalgic, but also torture to the ears. Dante even remembered some of them, too—was that supposed to be Paganini? It sounded like Pagano-no.
There was only one thing to do. Dante went for the guitar in the corner of Devil May Cry, flipped on his amp and started doing some noodling of his own—as loud as possible.
Dante had actually practiced a lot as a kid—mostly a function of having no friends and no access to any other kind of entertainment—so he knew how to shred, even if he was a little rusty. He started off with a few scales, turning up the distortion all the way—just the way he liked it, then started noodling through familiar riffs and songs until he started to get into it. When he really got into it, he’d start singing.
“Deliverance, red demon! Breaking the trance, red demon! Exposing the evil, red demon! To that bastards lethal, red demon! Tonight!!”
So what if he tweaked the lyrics a little? He could be vain. Yeah, that song is definitely about me♡.
About twenty minutes into his jam session, he heard the sound of a door slamming. Dante looked up from his guitar to see Vergil striding over, Yamato in hand and an inch out of her sheath.
“Whoa whoa whoa whoa!” Dante waved his hands, letting the guitar hang off the shoulder strap. “Calm down, bro! It’s just a little guitar! Chill!”
“I don’t mind you playing guitar,” Vergil said, his nose wrinkled in the utmost distaste that made what he was saying not very convincing, “What I have a problem with is that.” He pointed at the amp that Dante was leaning one leg up on.
“Huh?” Dante looked down at the amp under his right foot. “But that’s the best part.”
Vergil unsheathed his blade and raised it above his head—not aimed at Dante, but the amp.
“Hold up hold up!” Dante held up a hand. “Okay okay, I’ll turn off the amp.” He leaned over and flipped the switch off, and Vergil lowered his blade.
Sheesh, what a drama queen.
x x x
After that, Dante started practicing his guitar with headphones.
Hearing Vergil play all the time was giving him the itch to touch his drum kit, but he wouldn’t do that unless Vergil was out of the house. He certainly didn’t want to bother Vergil when he was possibly sleeping.
He wasn’t going to rock the boat with Vergil—if he wanted to play out of tune on his stupid cursed violin, Dante would just have to get some earplugs or something.
Speaking of said cursed violin, Dante got a look at that thing, once. It really did look evil. It was completely black, with a black bridge and a black bow—and instead of a normal scroll at the end, it had this hostile-looking carving of a devil’s head with the tongue stuck out. It really was screaming “I am cursed.”
Dante wasn’t sure how safe it was to keep around, but even after weeks of listening to Vergil practice on it, it seemed like nothing happened, so eventually he just shrugged and let it go.
Vergil did start getting better. He was practicing for hours every day, playing open strings, then scales and arpeggios, then some familiar-sounding etudes from their childhood. Eventually, Dante found himself listening to it and thinking, huh, this isn’t so bad.
It happened one night, when, Vergil was playing that piece again—it was an old one that Dante remembered their father playing in their childhood, but he didn’t think Vergil had ever been able to play the whole thing. It seemed like Vergil was trying, but well, it was over his head. He could get the main melody, at least.
Leaning back in his chair at the front desk, Dante found himself actually listening to Vergil’s playing for once instead of cringing and trying to block it out. In a way, it was kind of soothing... Dante yawned, and nodded off.
x x x
Vergil absolutely couldn’t stand Dante’s music.
He didn’t know what the name the bands were, and he didn’t care. It was all repetitive, and loud, and basic. The number of times Vergil had considered going into the Devil May Cry lobby and running his sword through Dante’s jukebox—
No. He had decided he was going to play nice with Dante, even if Dante’s music had ruined his sleep more than a few times. And it seemed that after the incident when Vergil had just about bisected Dante’s amplifier, Dante had gotten the picture, and he’d started turning down his music and let Vergil practice in peace.
It was something to do.
Most demon-hunting jobs were simply not worth his time—petty demons, minor jobs, a long trip for barely any fight at the end. Dante asked that Vergil pay a part of the bills, and Vergil figured that so long as he covered that, he was fine. He didn’t particularly care about making a lot of money.
But that meant that he had a lot of time on his hands. He didn’t like having time on his hands. It left him with too much time to think. And thus, the violin.
It was simply a way to pass the time. A bit nostalgic. He wasn’t worried about the curse—it hadn’t affected him so far, so it probably wouldn’t do anything to demons. Besides, it was a fine instrument with a good tone, and those didn’t exactly come cheap. He’d been lucky to stumble into this on a job, so he was going to use it.
He knew he was playing poorly, but it had been a long time since he’d picked up an instrument—not since he was a small child. Mundus hadn’t exactly been an appreciator of the arts. Not that sort of art, anyway.
Mundus liked grand architecture and statues—anything that was in service of self-glorification. He never listened to music for pleasure—his pleasures had strayed far more into the sadistic. Basic torture, of course, but he got bored of that very quickly. Torture wasn’t what had made Mundus the emperor of the underworld.
At night, when Vergil sat down in his chair with the Yamato in his grasp to try to sleep for a few minutes, maybe an hour—he’d wake up on the hour, usually—he would be brutally reminded of just what had made Mundus the emperor of the underworld.
x x x
For the first week Mundus had taken Vergil, he had tortured him physically in every way possible. Vergil didn’t remember that time very well. Mundus had quickly grown tired of that, anyway, and he had moved on to the next thing.
Dressed in the armor that Mundus had made just for him, Vergil had been forced to bow at the feet of Mundus’ throne and swear and oath of fealty. It was something that every demon who served Mundus did. After a week of torture, Vergil had been ready to say anything just to get a few minutes of reprieve—to him at the time, it had just been meaningless words.
So when he said I vow to love you eternally, my liege, he had never imagined what those words would do.
It had struck him like a heart attack. His whole chest had clenched and he’d almost fallen to the stone floor. Tears had streamed from his cheeks. He couldn’t breathe. How could he have forgotten, all this time? His love for his liege—for Mundus. He had always been loyal to him, and to no one else. Everything else had been a lie. The man he’d thought had been his father was a liar. There was no one but Mundus.
“I’m so sorry,” Vergil—Nelo Angelo had sobbed at Mundus’ feet. “I’ve betrayed you, all this time.” His head was so jumbled, he didn’t even understand quite how he’d betrayed Mundus, but he knew he had. He knew he had been wrong, and he had to make things right.
x x x
Dante was acting very strangely.
He had been acting strangely ever since they had gotten back from hell. No—he had decisively been acting a lot more strangely since one specific night when he’d barged into Vergil’s room and woken him up.
Vergil had told him to get the fuck out, obviously.
Dante hadn’t asked any questions about that, to Vergil’s relief. It wasn’t even a big deal—simply a very embarrassing dream that he didn’t want to talk about.
It had been a nothing, petty little dream about the creature he had kept as a pet for many years—a lesser imp.
It was one of those little red batlike things that flapped around chasing the scent of blood every single time someone's head got cut off. He couldn't call those little bastards affectionate—they would whip you in the face with their sharp little tails and then chitter with laughter about it, and they would bite you quite a lot—but if you fed one your blood regularly, it would stay with you and get attached.
Vergil had wondered why Mundus had let him hold onto that little imp for so long—it had taken him years to realize that any time Mundus allowed him any pleasure, it was entirely for the purpose of making him suffer later. Any other demon, Mundus simply treated as a tool to an end, but Vergil—Vergil was the son of his loathed enemy. Vergil's purpose not to be useful as a warrior or pawn, but to be a target for Mundus to vent two thousand years of resentment on the demon who had humiliated and betrayed him. Whatever method Mundus could possibly come up with to make him suffer, he'd carried out.
It had been minor, and petty, and hadn't hurt nearly as much as about a hundred other things Mundus had done, but when Vergil woke up from that dream of the imp crushed in Mundus’ stone fist, there were tears streaming down his face and his mouth was opened in a ready apology for his God.
x x x
The dreams were one thing—the sleep paralysis was another.
They truly made Vergil feel like he was losing his mind. When Vergil had cut his nightmares out of himself, he had only ever managed to remove the demonic ones that Mundus had laid there deliberately—there was apparently nothing to be done about normal human dreams, and normal human hallucinations. That was just part of being human.
On the verge of wake and sleep—usually after he had woken up a few times, in the wee hours of the morning, Vergil heard Mundus’ voice in his ear, whispering things—orders, praise, rage.
The night where he heard Mundus’ voice saying I can make all this go away if you come back to me, Vergil had bolted out of his seat and left for the job where he had acquired the demonic violin.
x x x
Ever since he had begun playing violin again, he felt like his sleep had been better.
He still kept waking up over and over, but he generally fell asleep right away instead of being kept awake by dreams and hallucinations. Maybe it was true that music healed all ills. At the very least, Vergil’s playing was getting a lot better.
But Dante was acting strange.
Dante just kept hovering. He never left Vergil alone. More than once, Vergil sensed his presence just lurking outside his door, only to leave. Vergil avoided coming out of his room, as he’d always feel Dante’s eyes on him—and Dante would paste on a smile—the sort that Vergil was learning was all bullshit, and ask him how he was doing, and then he would go back to napping at his desk. Or drinking from the not-so-cleverly-hidden bottles under his desk.
Seeing Dante drink alone made Vergil click his tongue, but nothing more. It was Dante’s business what he did with himself, and if he wanted to drink, he could drink. But he didn’t want to be there and watch.
Still.
Still.
Once Vergil’s violin was put away for the night and he heard nothing but the ticking of the clock and the screamingly loud thoughts in his own head, Vergil’s ears would incline out the door to listen for Dante. He listened for the sound of the bottom drawer opening, the top screwing off a bottle.
He felt like he was losing his mind.
x x x
One evening, after a long practicing session working on Paganini’s Caprice 24, Vergil was jolted awake in the middle of the night by something different from usual.
He hadn’t dreamt. No, his sleep had been rather good. But he sensed something off. So he got up from his seat and left his room to go into the Devil May Cry lobby, where Dante had been sleeping at the front desk.
It was dark out the windows, but Dante was still sitting at the front desk, leaning forward against the desk. Vergil approached to find Dante’s hair was stuck to his sweaty forehead and his eyes were fixed down on the desk.
“Dante?” Vergil stepped out of the darkness, and Dante just about jumped out of his seat.
“Aha-ha-ha,” Dante pushed his hair back out of his face. “I’ve really got to stop napping down here. I’m...going to my room to sleep. See ya, bro.” And then with that, he escaped up the stairs to his room.
After that, Dante seemed a little...crankier.
Vergil didn’t think anything of it at first. If Dante was avoiding him, that was frankly just what he wanted. He didn’t want to be bothered all the time.
But then the bottles started popping up—in semi-discreet places like underneath Dante’s desk or out back by the dumpster, as if Vergil was too stupid to notice.
When Trish came by once, Vergil eyed the bottles, and Trish caught his gaze and rolled her eyes. “What can you do, right?” she said as if she’d long-since given up. Vergil frowned. Then he went back to practicing violin.
He hadn’t originally loved violin—not in the way his father had, he didn’t think. He’d simply wanted to be good at something, really good at something—to succeed where his father had pushed him. Why was he playing it now? Less pleasure, and more obsession.
He knew Caprice 24 was too difficult for him, but he couldn’t get that one memory out of his head. His father had probably been playing a devil arms—there was no other way he could have gotten that kind of sound. You truly had to have made a deal with the devil to play like that. He had filled the whole house with his sound, made colors that were in turns awing and terrifying.
He still couldn’t play like his father.
x x x
Sometimes, when practicing, the mind wandered. It was an inevitability. Play the same thing over and over again a hundred times and you would zone out, your fingers still moving while your mind was elsewhere. And lately, Vergil hadn’t been very focused.
As it often did, playing violin reminded him of his father.
Vergil wasn’t sure if he loved his father. It had been too long ago now, and he had been too young. Across that much time, how could any feelings last so long? Perhaps Dante could cling that long—Dante was so sentimental—but not Vergil. He respected his father. That’s what drove him through this, if anything. He had always had immense respect for his father.
When it came to love—Vergil’s bow ground out a harsh sound across the strings. No, Vergil didn’t like love. If there was one thing he had learned in the underworld, it was that love didn’t mean anything.
Dante’s bottles had started spilling out from discreet places into indiscreet places, and he had stopped playing his guitar.
But that wasn’t any of Vergil’s business. It was his life.
x x x
One afternoon, Vergil finally found Dante dead drunk, collapsed across his desk at Devil May Cry.
Lip curling, Vergil approached the desk. “Get up,” he grabbed Dante by the arm, yanking him up into a sitting position.
“Hey Verge,” Dante slurred, flopping back into his chair with a sloppy smile on his face. “Nice’ve you to come out here. I was starting to think you never wanted to see my face.”
Vergil sighed. “I just like my privacy.” He was silent for a moment, eyeing Dante. He knew if he asked this question, he’d be prying open a whole can of worms that he didn’t necessarily want to touch. He didn’t really know or understand why Dante was the way he was, and a large part of him... He just didn’t want to know. There was no reason. He just wanted to stay away. The way Dante was staring at him, his mouth smiling but his eyes wet, caught something deeply uncomfortable in Vergil that made him want to run away.
Vergil folded his arms, then folded them the other way. “You haven’t been practicing guitar lately,” he said after a long moment.
“...Don’t feel like it,” Dante leaned back in his chair as he picked up a bottle of some hard liquor and took a swig.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Vergil snapped.
“This?” Dante looked at the bottle. “Aw, me and Jack are old friends. He’s been here with me for decades. Helps me sleep. I looove Jack.” He nuzzled the bottle jokingly, then laughed when Vergil scowled at him.
“But enough about me,” Dante said, sliding the bottle back onto the table. “How about you, huh? If you’re gonna interrogate me for my dirty secrets, how about yours?”
Vergil’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?’
Dante gave him a penetrating look, then finally seemed to give up, and he grabbed the bottle of Jack off the table to take another swing. “Fuck it. It’s nothing. It’s fine. You’re sleeping pretty good lately, right? As long as you’re sleeping good, I’m good.”
Now Vergil gave him a confused look. “I...have been sleeping well, actually. Have you been spying on me?”
“What are brothers for, eh?” Dante barked a laugh. “But it’s fine. I won’t peep anymore. If you’re good, I’m good. I’m good.”
Vergil didn’t know what else to say, so he left Dante alone.
x x x
Then one night, at around two in the morning, Dante came knocking at his door.
Vergil had had a particularly long and satisfying practice session that day, after which he’d gone to bed early, so now he was jolted awake by Dante barging in without waiting for a response.
“What is it, Dante?” Vergil asked, annoyed, as he got up from his chair.
Dante was, unsurprisingly, drunk. “Hey Verge,” he slurred as he stumbled forward in the dark to Vergil’s chair—his knee hit the chair, and he swayed on his feet a moment before dropping to his knees. “Remember when I said I was good?” He didn’t wait for a response. “I’m not good.” Then he buried his face in Vergil’s knees. There was a long silence, and then Vergil heard muffled sobs.
“I’m sorry,” Dante sobbed into his knees. “I should have—” and then he cut off into more drunken sobbing.
Vergil, however, was just confused. Seeing Dante openly crying in front of him was disconcerting and uncomfortable. He wanted to tell him to get out, but he felt like he couldn’t. He didn’t know what to do. “What is this about, Dante?”
“I—” Dante brought his face away from Vergil’s knees to scrub at his face. “Fuck, I’m a mess. I can’t even—I’m not gonna tell you to stop. If you can sleep, I’ll put up with it forever. But maybe I can’t—”
“Dante,” Vergil put his hands on Dante’s shoulders. The sliver of light from the opened door was lighting up a crack of light that just barely lit the stain of tears on Dante’s face. “Slow down. What on earth are you talking about?”
Dante chuckled at himself. “I think it’s that cursed violin of yours. I think I’ve been getting...your dreams.”
Vergil stared down at him a moment, uncomprehending. But then Dante continued.
“I’m not gonna—I won’t talk about them if you don’t want. I just...” He pulled a strange face in the darkness, then laughed outright. “Aha-ha-ha-ha. I’m jealous. I’m so fucking jealous. That’s what I’m here for.”
Then he came up off the floor, took Vergil’s head with both his hands, and kissed him full on the lips.
It was drunk, sloppy, and desperate. Vergil shoved him off.
“Yeah, huh,” Dante laughed as if he’d expected that, running a hand through his hair. “Of course.”
“Dante,” Vergil said, voice icy. Realization was just starting to dawn on him. “Just how much did you see?”
“Your dreams?” Dante rocked back on his heels, then forward again. He seemed antsy now. “Oh, yeah. A lot. I dreamed of being tortured. Bowing down to Mundus. Killing for Mundus, and loving it. Killing Mundus’ lovers out of jealousy. Again and again. Serving Mundus with glee and bliss. All of that.”
Vergil went cold, then hot.
Not all demons had sex, but those that did it were generally ravenously violent about it, and Mundus had been no exception. He’d had a whole harem of lesser demons to serve his needs—if he murdered one occasionally, nobody really noticed. They were all madly in love with him, anyway.
Vergil had not been one of those who served him in that capacity.
Not until later had Vergil had the brain capacity to realize that Mundus had been toying with him deliberately—provoking jealous rage in him just so he could watch as Vergil murdered Mundus’ lovers slowly. Mundus had smiled every time, as if the whole thing were a particularly entertaining stageplay, and at the end, Vergil had knelt down before him and apologized for his wrongdoing, begging to be punished.
“I’m so fucked,” Dante said with a wet laugh. “I should feel bad for you, but I’m just mad at you for loving the monster who imprisoned you for decades more than you love me.”
“Dante,” Vergil said icily, “I don’t need you to feel bad for me. And I don’t—”
“Liaaaar,” Dante wagged a finger at him. “Who would’ve thought our little Vergie was such a deeply romantic guy? If I go out and fuck random demons, will you kill them for me?”
Vergil couldn’t believe what he was hearing coming out of Dante’s mouth. “Dante, you’re drunk. I was brainwashed.”
“Then I’m brainwashed,” Dante stumbled backward until his back hit the door. “I’ve been brainwashed all my life.”
Then he turned, slammed the door after him, and a minute later, Vergil heard his electric guitar wailing.
Without headphones. With the volume turned all the way up. At two AM.
“Dante!” Vergil grit out between clenched teeth.
He didn’t know what to think about this sudden declaration. Dante simply sounded drunk and insane. And Vergil hadn’t even begun to process everything Dante had just said.
There was just one thing that was clear right now: there was no fucking way he was going to listen to Dante drunk jamming at two AM.
Vergil strode out of his room, Yamato in hand, to face Dante with his guitar.
As soon as Dante saw Vergil, he played some soulful power chords and started wailing. “Stabbed through the gut, and you’re to blame, baby—”
“Enough, Dante!”
But Dante wasn’t done. He just started petulantly shredding, as if he could expunge all of his feelings into the guitar, before launching into some retro power ballad. “I finally found the love of a lifetime, forever in my heart!”
This time, instead of drawing his sword, Vergil leaned over and turned off his amp. “Dante. Listen to me.”
Despite his little tantrum, Dante was surprisingly obedient. His hands dropped from his guitar to hang at his sides. His head hung, but then his eyes rose again to look at Vergil.
“I...” Vergil trailed off, into silence.
There was too much. He didn’t know what to say.
“You never dreamed about me,” Dante said in an almost inaudible whisper. “But I dreamed about you. Every night.”
Vergil could feel the weight of Dante’s feelings. Not just feel it—he was almost choking on them.
Maybe he’d always felt it. It was always easier not to notice.
“You were the one who said you just wanted to be brothers,” Vergil said softly.
“I lied,” Dante said with another weak laugh. “To myself, mostly. You know what—” he finally lowered the guitar off his shoulder and set it on its stand. “I think I’m sobering up. I’m sorry. Forget about all this.”
Then he went back up the stairs to his bedroom, and Vergil didn’t know how to stop him.