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The television in the main room of the shop was way too loud, blasting the aggressive, repetitive soundtrack of some fighting game Dante and Nero had been stressing over for the last hour.
Nero was practically hovering off the cushion, leaning so far forward his forehead was inches from the screen, his thumb hammering the controller buttons like he was trying to break them. "No way. Move! Get out of the corner, you old bastard, that’s cheap!"
"It's called strategy, kid," Dante mocked, slumped back with his legs kicked out over the coffee table, lazily clicking his own controller with one hand. "Maybe if you stopped button-mashing, you’d actually land a hit."
Vergil was squeezed onto the far end of the same couch, looking like a man trapped in a low-rent purgatory. He had his legs crossed, and an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust fixed on the screen. He hadn't moved a muscle in forty minutes, determined to ignore the flashing lights and yelling through sheer force of will.
You were leaning against the counter by the kitchenette, slowly drinking a cup of coffee and just waiting for one of them to inevitably throw a controller through the drywall.
Danny (your sister) walked into the room from the back hallway, holding a half-empty can of soda. She didn't even blink at the noise. She strolled right up behind the couch, her eyes scanning the three white-haired heads lined up in a row. For some reason, Vergil’s rigid, radiating aura of absolute misery caught her attention.
Without a single drop of self-preservation, Danny reached out, grabbed a massive handful of Vergil’s neatly slicked-back hair, and aggressively ruffled it back and forth.
"Jesus, Verge, relax your shoulders," Danny said, flicking the tab of her soda. "You look like you're about to pop a vein. Take a chill pill."
Vergil went utterly, violently still. Slowly, the thick, gelled strands of his hair fell completely forward, dropping into his eyes and framing his face in loose, messy layers.
"Do not," Vergil breathed, his voice dropping dangerously low, "touch me."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Danny waved him off, completely unfazed as she walked past the couch toward the kitchen.
Before Vergil could even attempt to fix it, a tiny pair of sneakers squeaked against the floor.
Little Eva marched out of the hallway, dragging her favorite plushie (a two-foot-long, charcoal-gray Xenomorph with an oversized felt head and a stuffed tail) by its arm. Dante had bought it for her at a comic shop three weeks ago because he thought the inner jaw looked "cool," and despite your protests, she hadn't let go of the damn monster since.
Eva stopped dead in her tracks near the edge of the kitchen rug.
Her little eyebrows knitted together as she stared at the couch. She looked at Nero, who was still muttering curses at the TV. That was fine. That was Nero.
Then her big blue-gray eyes shifted to the center of the couch, and then to the left.
With Vergil's hair completely down, the visual math in her three-year-old brain entirely collapsed. Sitting right next to each other were two identical men with the exact same messy white hair, the exact same jawline, and the exact same face.
Eva froze. She looked at Dante. Then she looked at Vergil. Then back to Dante. Her little chest gave a sharp, sudden hitch. She dropped the Xenomorph plushie onto the floor.
"Daddy?" she piped up, her voice small and incredibly confused.
Dante didn't look away from the game. "Yeah, kiddo? Hang on, I’m about to own your cousin."
Eva took a step forward, her lower lip starting to tremble violently as she looked between the two of them. The sheer terror of not knowing which one was her father hit her all at once. Her eyes welled up with huge, dramatic tears, and she let out a loud, panicked wail.
The game stopped instantly. Dante dropped his controller onto his lap, his head snapping around. "Whoa, hey, what's wrong? Did you drop something on your foot?"
Vergil looked over, his face still twisted in irritation from Danny, which only made him look exactly like Dante when he was pissed off. He mumbled something.
Seeing them both move and speak at the same time completely broke her. Eva covered her face with her tiny hands and started sobbing in earnest, backing up toward your legs by the counter.
Nero looked at Eva, looked at Dante, and then looked at his father’s messy hair. It took him exactly two seconds to realize what had happened. He dropped his controller onto the floor and burst into a mocking laugh, slamming his hand against his knee. "Oh my god. She thinks there's two of you! She can't tell you apart!"
"Hey! That is not funny!" Dante snapped, immediately scrambling out of the couch and dropping to his knees on the floor, trying to crawl closer to her without making her cry louder. "Eva, look at me. Look at the shirt, kiddo! I'm the one in the gray! He's the boring one in the blue coat! Come on, baby, look at me!"
Vergil uncrossed his legs, standing up with a look of profound offense. He immediately used his fingers to aggressively shove his hair back up over his forehead, trying to clear his face. "This is absurd. I look nothing like him. The child clearly lacks proper observational skills."
"She's three, you idiot, you have the exact same face!" Nero yelled, wiping a tear from his eye as he kept laughing.
Eva kept crying, burying her face straight into your jeans, completely done with the living room logic for the day.
By eight o’clock, the living room had finally calmed down. The fighting game was off, replaced by some mindless action movie playing at a normal volume on the TV. Nero and your sister had cleared out an hour ago, leaving just Dante and Vergil on the couch. The elder twin had managed to slick his hair back into its proper place, finally looking like himself again, while Dante was stretched out on the opposite end, scrolling through his phone.
In the bathroom, the war was over. You had finally managed to get the soap out of Eva's white hair, dragged her out of the tub, and shoved her into a pair of bright red Strawberry Shortcake pajamas. They were three sizes too big because Dante had bought them on a whim at a grocery store checkout lane, meaning the pants were rolled up at her ankles so she wouldn't trip.
You handed her a thin, battered picture book about a tractor. "Go tell Daddy to read this to you," you whispered, wiping a stray drop of bathwater from her cheek. "Then I'll come in and tuck you in."
Eva nodded solemnly, sucking hard on her blue plastic pacifier. She grabbed the book under one arm, picked up the tail of her Xenomorph with her other hand, and marched out of the bathroom.
She toddled into the living room, her oversized pajama pants swishing against her shins. She stopped near the edge of the coffee table, her eyes scanning the couch.
Dante looked up from his phone, his face lighting up. "Hey, there's my little strawberry. Come on over, kiddo."
Eva didn't look at him. She had spent the last three hours analyzing the twin crisis, and she was entirely confident in her conclusion. She ignored Dante completely, marching straight toward the far end of the couch where Vergil was sitting.
Vergil didn't even look up from his book that he was reading. He just shifted his leg slightly, expecting the child to pass by.
Instead, Eva stopped right in front of his knees. With a toddler's complete lack of coordination and absolute malice, she lifted the heavy picture book and chucked it full-force at Vergil's face.
Smack!
The cardboard corner hit him right in the bridge of his nose before bouncing onto his lap.
Vergil froze. His eyes went incredibly wide, his jaw tightening as he slowly lowered his book. He looked down at the child, pure shock written across his features.
Eva didn't care. She scrambled up the side of the sofa, her tiny feet digging into the leather cushions, dragging the alien plushie behind her. She clumsily navigated over Vergil's crossed leg, turned around, and plopped her small, strawberry-printed rear end straight down onto his thigh. She adjusted her grip on her toy, took the pacifier out of her mouth, and pointed a tiny finger at the book.
"Read," she commanded, before shoving the pacifier back in.
Dante sat up so fast. He stared at his brother’s lap, his jaw literally hanging open in total betrayal. "Are you kidding me? Eva! Look at me! I'm right here!"
Vergil sat entirely paralyzed. His arms were raised slightly, his hands hovering in the air as if he were holding a live grenade. He looked across the couch at Dante, then down at the little girl currently using his leg as a footrest. The Vergil Sparda was completely defenseless against a three-year-old in cartoon pajamas.
"Dante," Vergil said, his voice flat, tense, and completely horrified. "Remove this creature from my person immediately."
"I can't!" Dante yelled back, throwing his hands up, genuinely offended. "She chose you! She thinks your boring ass is me! Eva, come on! He doesn't even know how to do the voices for the tractor!"
Eva just ignored the shouting, leaning back against Vergil’s chest and waiting for the story to start.
Vergil looked down at the cardboard book like it was a cursed artifact, his brow furrowing so deeply his eyes were almost completely lost in shadow. He cleared his throat, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly low tone.
"The... green tractor," Vergil read, his pronunciation of the word tractor sounding like he was reciting an ancient decree. "It travels across the field to... cultivate the soil."
Eva froze. The blue plastic pacifier literally dropped out of her mouth, bouncing off Vergil’s knee and landing on the ground. She stared up at his face, her little chest giving a massive, panicked hitch.
This was not the guy who gave her bites of pizza under the table when you weren't paying attention. This was a stranger.
She let out a horrified screech, scrambled off Vergil’s thigh like his pants were on fire, and booked it across the leather cushions. She threw herself straight into Dante’s chest, burying her little head under his armpit.
Dante’s entire face lit up. His bruised ego vanished instantly, replaced by a massive, shit-eating grin. He scooped her up into his lap, wrapping his arms around her and giving Vergil the smuggest look humanly possible. "Ha! See? I told you! You scared the kid! Your voice sounds like a funeral director!"
Vergil didn't even look at him. He just picked up his own book, wiped his thigh where her feet had been, and went back to his page as if the last two minutes had never happened. "Your child has rudimentary instincts at best."
You stepped out from behind the kitchen counter, wiping your hands on a dishtowel and trying your absolute hardest not to lose it. "Alright, alright, give her here before someone ends up through a window."
You walked over to the couch. Eva immediately reached her little arms out for you, still clutching her alien's tail. You took her from Dante, resting her weight against your hip. She shoved her thumb into her mouth, completely exhausted from the psychological warfare of the living room.
"Say goodnight to your dad," you told her, nudging Dante's shoulder with her foot. "The real one."
"Night, kiddo," Dante said, reaching up to gently flick her white bangs.
You carried her back down the hallway, the ambient noise of the TV fading as you shut her bedroom door. It took another ten minutes to find her spare pacifier, read two pages of the tractor book (doing the proper engine noises that Dante had apparently standardized), and tucked that god-awful alien under the blanket next to her.
By the time you walked back out into the main room, Vergil had completely vanished, likely retreating to his own room upstairs to recover his dignity.
Dante was still slumped on the couch, his long legs kicked out over the coffee table. He had picked his phone back up, but he wasn't scrolling. The second the hallway door clicked, his eyes tracked you across the room. He looked completely drained, the stubble on his jaw catching the blue glare of the television screen.
You tossed a discarded dishtowel onto the counter and walked over, tossing his legs off the table so you could sit down next to him.
"Rough day, big guy?" you teased, leaning your back against the armrest.
Dante let out a low grunt, dropping his phone onto the cushion. He shifted his weight, sliding down the leather until his head was resting heavily in your lap. He stared up at you, his blue eyes dark with that stubborn, lingering annoyance. "I'm just saying. I'm the one who bought the pajamas. I'm the one who bought the ugly alien. And she throws a book at his face?"
"You have the exact same face, Dante," you said, your fingers instinctively sliding into his messy hair, scratching gently against his scalp. "She's three. Cut her some slack."
"My face has way more character," he mumbled, though his eyes drifted shut the second your nails dug slightly into his hair. He reached up, his hand wrapping around your wrist, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against your pulse. He didn't pull away, just held you there, his grip firm and warm. "Next time I'm wearing a nametag."
"You do that. Toddlers are known for their ability to read," you murmured, looking down at his stupidly handsome, exhausted face. The annoyance from earlier in the afternoon was completely gone, replaced by the familiar, heavy warmth of just being next to him in the quiet shop.
He lay there in silence for a few seconds, just breathing, before he opened one eye. A faint, lazy smirk touched the corner of his mouth.
"Hey," he murmured, his voice dropping into a rough scrape. "Wanna fool around?"
You let out a quiet snort, looking down at him. The residual irritation from the chaotic afternoon instantly flip-flopped into something with just as much heat, your eyes tracing the lines of his face. "You're a lunatic. You look like you're about to pass out right here."
"Never too tired for you, babe," Dante promised. His hand slid from your wrist down to your thigh, his fingers squeezing firmly through the denim. "Come on. Kid's asleep. House is quiet."
"You better back up that talk," you muttered, but you were already leaning down, your mouth catching his before he could shoot off another sarcastic remark.
Dante’s smirk bled right into the kiss, his grip tightening on your thigh as he shifted, finally hauling his frame up off the cushions to get flush against you. "Always do," he breathed against your lips.