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If you’dve asked Vergil to describe his long lost brother to you, this would not have been it. He supposes this is nature versus nurture in true effect, and it’s like looking into a warped mirror in a carnival attraction. Dante is him, but dark and twisted, broken by the world over his back. They’re polar opposites, stark contrast, red and blue, black and white, brains and brawn.
They’ll make a perfect team.
He has to resist the urge to ruffle his hair, an action long ago burned out of his synapses, replaced with a grey emptiness. He can picture them now, playing and laughing, creeping through the house and pretending to sword fight in the garden. There’s an aching gap filled with some nameless feeling he doubts he’ll ever understand. The man that stands before him has grown, splintered, and he is desperately clutching the tatters of what once was, and what might have been.
“I’m better looking.” It’s a stab, wry and niggling, and Vergil half supposes this is what it must be like to have siblings, to bond, fight and forget, lance each other with hollow digs. To love, even. He’s not sure why he responds, some primal instinct threatened by Dante’s words, riled and defensive, and more than a little intrigued.
His brother is handsome, in a raw, fragmented way. There’s pain, carefully covered in thick scars of cynicism and anger. He wants to peel it back and sink his teeth in, lash out at those who did this, damaged and corrupted. It’s a dangerous trail of thought.
“And I have a bigger dick.” Dante snorts, amused, and there’s an interesting spark of something in his eyes. Curiosity perhaps, that his brother is not all the fastidious prude he had him pictured as. He recognises it from when they were children, defiance and stubbornness splashed over small features that would fight over anything. It’s a spark that someone could become easily addicted to, the thrill of danger, the chase and capture. He can see why people gravitate around him now, like helpless satellites.
It’s a shame, in a way, that Dante is so vital to his plans, too carefully constructed to allow for error, because he’s a distraction, crude and untameable and irresistible all the same. In another life, perhaps.
He strides away, knowing Dante will be there, matching him step by step, as they march forward to face Mundas. If they die, they die together, as it was meant to be.
As brothers.