it's just the rain that wasn't brave enough to fall (closed + open)

[antimetabole]

WHO: Vergil + others
WHEN: Between missions 12 & 13
WHERE: Various locations
WHAT: Some emotional talks. Some yeeting of children. It's a little bit of everything.
NOTES\WARNINGS: No open prompts this go around I LIED one open prompt as of yet, but if you are wanting something particular, feel free to slap down a starter or request one. I will match prose vs. brackets because it doesn't matter to me. There will be discussions pertaining to complex family dynamics (particularly between siblings) that may also further include topics such as loss/death of parents and/or siblings, assumed fratricide (of the accidental variety), and grief pertaining to aforementioned losses. Warnings will be in headers, but will update this as able to/needed!

↪ kyoko
↪ mizu
↪ dante
↪ open

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[antimetabole]

He can almost feel his mother's hand on his arm in a ghost of memory, trying to quell any burgeoning temper from arising once more as she corrects Dante. But it's not needed here. The more petulant half of what Dante says puts a furrow in Vergil's brow, but to his credit, he doesn't begin throwing in the towel or respond with any sort of anger, violent or otherwise, in spite of the kick in the teeth that it feels to be. And Dante soon follows up with more of what he means than how he says it. To say his correction is a far cry better feels an understatement, but Vergil still lightly folds his arms. The apology and overture are not poorly received, but there are still questions that come with their own lingering hurt. Vergil isn't careful about his tone when he asks, "Why couldn't you say that before?"

Vergil avoids, as best he can, coming across as condescending or self-righteous. The question is a sincere one rooted in his confusion as to why he found himself on the receiving end of his brother's rarely seen ire so intensely in that moment. But he wants to understand why. Where he, Vergil, went wrong this time.

[nowfeaturing]

"You started chewing me out out of nowhere!" he replies, frustration seeping into his voice. "I told you I wasn't disrespecting you and you just- You could've just said 'Hey Dante, that's outta line. Knock it off.' Instead you insult my intelligence and talk down to me like I'm an idiot. It pisses me off."

He's twitchy now, would be so much more comfortable if this was going to turn into a physical fight rather than laying feelings out on the line. At least he knows what he's getting with a sword.

"Just be up front with me when it matters instead of talking big and making yourself sound like you're better than me. That makes you an asshole and that makes me rise to the challenge and be an asshole right back. Anything you can do I can do better, remember?"

But he reflects the moment he says it, because it's brash and he's the only one getting wound up. That's not like him. He's supposed to be the more chilled one.

"I screwed up and I lashed out."

[antimetabole]

Vergil's gaze darts away from Dante, his expression twisting itself into a deeper frown. There feels a lot he could say right now. Vergil felt that is what he did. At the very least, it's what he tried to do. He didn't start to get angry and lash out in his own way until he felt Dante ignored him for the sake of his own comfortability in making jokes at Vergil's expense. And even if that were the case, even if Vergil was...an asshole from the beginning, he cannot help feeling it was unfair. In so much it was unfair for Dante to take it so far. But it seems like everything Vergil triess saying right now is flaring up that anger all over again, cresting and falling like waves again and again. He doesn't know if it's productive to say any of it, or if Dante will simply take it to mean Vergil is, once again, behaving as though he were superior. But if he says nothing, does that signal he refuses culpability for his own role or that he simply does not care?

Whatever energy, whatever rest Vergil felt like he had when he woke up hours earlier feels gone from him now. He's exhausted. Tired of things feeling on the edge of a knife, that every move has to be as carefully calculated as possible to avoid a fight. He just wants, at this point, for it to be settled. He doesn't want to be angry. He doesn't want to be confused and uncertain of how to talk to his brother without this constant lashing out. And he doesn't want to be hurt. Vergil's jaw clenches and his lips purse. There is a way forward, he tries to tell himself. But he cannot see it. Not one that doesn't have all that he's trying to avoid.

"Okay."

He steps away back into the kitchen, letting that be his acceptance of the apology and the overture, and letting that be the settling of the conflict.

[nowfeaturing]

Dante sees Vergil draw back and his body moves instinctively as he stalks after him to the kitchen.

"Hey! We're not done yet."

Too many suns have set on this argument for Dante to let this be the end. Nothing's been hashed out. Both of them are stubbornly refusing to give an inch, even after Date's willingly put himself out there and admitted he's been an asshole, he's admitted his fault, that he overreacted and lashed out. What more does Vergil want from him?

"You started this brother so let's finish it. You want me to admit that I'm the bigger asshole here? Fine. Done. You want me to promise I'll never screw up again? I can't promise that but I'm trying. You wanna sock me in the face? If that's gonna make you feel better than break my damn nose as many times as you want but don't pull away when we're starting to get somewhere."

And in a move that he fully suspects will see that aforementioned nose break happening, he puts a hand on his brother's shoulder and tries to wheel him round to look at him.

"What's it gonna take to be good enough for you?" He tries not to sound desperate as he says it, tries not to let the plea show itself as plainly on his face as he feels it must, but it's there in his eyes as he adds: "I want my brother back."

[antimetabole]

Despite his best attempts to let the conversation die and keep whatever turmoil is within him to himself, Vergil scoffs as Dante not only demands they continue speaking, but begins more or less implying Vergil remains the unreasonable one in this equation. It is hard not to have the bitter thought it would probably make Dante feel better if he did take a swing or twenty. How much easier would it be then to paint Vergil as the asshole if he let his temper loose. Vergil does not take a swing, but he is not particularly gentle in the way he shoved Dante's hand off his shoulder. He glares hard at Dante even in light of the plea. Arguably, he does not hear it.

"I could ask the same if you, brother," he snarls. "I told you that I didn't like the joke in a public space as best I could! But instead of any benefit of the doubt being given to me, any thought given to how maybe, just maybe I truly have changed at all, you did what?!"

Vergil still does not take the swing, but he shoves at Dante's shoulders to put more space between them before he does.

"You want me back and you say you don't know me anymore, but you are still so desperate to paint me the asshole as you put it. The one not trying and walking away when what the hell do you think I am doing!? You know damned well, I would have beaten you bloody by now in the past if you came near me this soon."

He holds his hands out at his sides briefly, visibly exasperated and silently asking what it is exactly Dante wants him to do.

"Instead, I'm here. I'm here, Dante! And you don't even see it. You don't see—..."

Like jumping into freezing waters, Vergil draws a sharp breath in lieu of the strangled sound that was about to leave his throat. His anger is still there, his temper still hot and flared. But he wrestles control away from it as there is that sudden hitch, that sudden failing of words. He shakes his head, holding up a hand as he retreats a little further into the kitchen from Dante. Vergil folds his arms, saying nothing with hot angry tears still in his eyes.

"I'm sorry I'm not the brother you want me to be," he says after a moment. "If I could be, I would. After everything I have done, you deserve that much. But I've never been, I'm not now, and I likely never will be if this is any indication."

He looks over at Dante, uncertain and hurt and angry. Anything but cold and detached as he has been for years.

"But that doesn't mean I don't want to be your brother still. Or that it doesn't..." He hesitates. The words feel heavy and a challenge to say. But he draws a deep breath. In. Out. "Or that it doesn't still hurt when it seems like you're finally giving up on me."

[nowfeaturing]

Dante takes a step back, flinching as though struck at the sight of his brother’s carefully constructed walls crumpling.

He’s made his brother cry, and something about that fact is absolutely devastating.

Vergil never breaks. Never fractures. He’s always been the one he’d meant to be like; the better mannered, the braver one, the one with the discipline Dante had never managed to grasp, the one the most like Father who was going to save the world like him one day.

The one who got lost who Dante never really forgot, not even when he did his best to lose himself. The one he failed. The one he destroyed. The one he’d been so prepared to put down if it had turned out there really wasn’t a shred of him left after everything he’d gone through.

But it’s that last part that snaps him out of his stunned silence.

Give up? Give up?

“Woah, wait, where the hell did you hear me say I’m giving up on you?” He stares at his brother in absolute disbelief. “You think this is what it takes to get me to give up on you?”

And with that, whether Vergil likes it or not, whether he fights like hell and knocks his younger brother on his ass, Dante willingly flings himself at the consequences as he takes a leaf out of Nero’s book and throws his arms around his twin.

“I want the brother I have. I love you, Vergil.”

[antimetabole]

Vergil tenses the moment there's movement from Dante towards him. He's not fearful of a strike—for one, he doesn't anticipate the motion Dante is making to be one of aggression and for another, it's not like Vergil cannot weather it just fine even if it were to come to that—but he feels the need to brace himself all the same for reasons he knows somewhere deep within himself, but would have no idea how to begin articulating to another person even with the greatest amount of effort he could possibly summon. He tenses further once Dante's arms come to wrap tight around him. It's Vergil's turn to find himself in stunned silence, staring over Dante's shoulder. Slowly, the longer the hug persists, Vergil relaxes until he inches back just enough to unfold his arms, wrapping them around Dante in return. Tightly and fiercely. The way he should have all those years ago when it really mattered, and even when it really didn't in the grand scheme of things.

Whatever arguments he had about how else could he have possibly interpreted that last, heated text message dies in the silence. Mizu's words come back to him and he flushes a little at how right she was: he was being an idiot about the whole thing. But it's so hard to know any better when they've spent so much of their lives apart and yet still so deeply connected regardless. Vergil wants so badly to be Dante's brother, and if he is honest, he is terrified that he will not be enough, that he will fall short. It leaves him looking for the signs of rejection, of that failure, in the heat of the moment that he cannot see with as much clarity until now.

"I love you, too," he says perhaps too long after Dante said it first. But he can only hope that Dante understands the preceding silence to be a matter of Vergil collecting himself and his thoughts, and not something else. "I'm... I'm trying, Dante. I'm really trying."

[nowfeaturing]

In the darker times immediately after Temen-ni-Gru, after Mallet Island, when Dante had often spent hours alone staring at the bottom of a glass or at the crumbling paintwork above his bed, he'd catch himself second guessing every opportunity he'd let slip past him, everything he'd left unsaid, thinking he'd had all the time in the world the way that the young and invincible often do. The list grew longer, more intricate, each simple thing over analysed.

Torture is what most people might have called it.

Dante likes to think of it as introspection.

He'd identified all the times he could have done what his mother had asked more readily, times he could have been nicer to his brother, times he should have stopped and looked and thought before charging in like a bull in a china shop. Vergil had always had that covered, still did, but he'd always been the one with the hotter temper and Dante had loved nothing more than to poke and prod at it to get the results. He'd always thought they'd both been having fun. It was only after Vergil had fallen, that he'd thought him lost for good, that he'd started to realize that perhaps it hadn't been the case.

Having Vergil back now, this changed, more content person that he knows as his brother but doesn't fully recognize... it's strange. The time that his twin had spent away from him, experiencing life unburdened by the yoke of their heritage and growing closer to his son, has had an undeniable effect Vergil and Dante had thought he'd never come out and say that it makes him feel like a bystander, that he's missing something else that he can't quite put his finger on.

"Idiot," he says fondly, unable to break the habit of a lifetime and call his brother something that isn't mildly insulting. "You think I don't know that? I'm the moron who needs to try harder."

He hugs his brother tighter, the way he's imagined he should have done so many times in the past, and places a hand on the back of his neck.

"I need to try harder to be your friend and not just expect you to like me because you got stuck with me in the womb."

[antimetabole]

Dante holds onto him tighter, and Vergil does not fuss over it. But he does frown a little as Dante says that he needs to be the one trying harder, and further still when he implies that Vergil does not like him.

There is some truth to the fact that Vergil's limited patience for antics is extended further than it would otherwise be if they were not connected by blood, but Vergil does not see his bonds of family and blood inescapable duties that he must perform regardless of his personal feelings on the matter. It is as much as choice for Vergil as anything else he now chooses for himself, and how he lives his life now. So, it does not matter how annoying Dante ends up being at times. Vergil does not feel chained to his brother. He may want a temporary reprieve from it, of course, but that desire for the occasional bit of silence and calm does not mean he has any desire for the utter absence of Dante's noise and boisterous nonsense.

Even when they were children this was the case. Vergil did not always want to play, but he never found himself wishing Dante away altogether. Just that he would be held to a similar standard and for once, there would be mention that Dante should know better just the same as Vergil should. That Dante would take things a little more seriously sometimes. That he would understand just because Vergil did not wish to play right then did not mean he never wished to play ever again.

And then their lives were torn apart, and they were separated. For years and years, Vergil blamed himself. Whatever anger he held towards Eva, in feeling abandoned by her, his anger was tenfold for himself in not being strong enough. During those countless nights he spent hunted and alone, he would lay awake, thinking of the family he failed to protect. He would try to find sleep while imagining the gentle melody of their mother's lullaby as she brushed her fingers through his hair until he could no longer fight sleep. He would comfort himself thinking of how he could have been the big brother Dante deserved then if he were there with him. The ground would be too hard, the air too cold. Or he would have a nightmare, and be too afraid to sleep on his own. Either way, Dante would start to complain or cry, and Vergil would do what he could to make it better until Dante finally fell asleep.

He shakes his head as much as he can in this position.

"Don't be foolish," he says, firm in admonishing Dante for the the implication albeit without the usual harsh superiority that slips into Vergil's voice when verbalizing his disapproval for something. "Dante, no matter how angry I've ever been with you, I never..."

...Hated you.

...Wanted to be without you.

The words are sufficient to some extent, he thinks. They're words that Dante deserves to hear, too. But they feel less than they should be, dropping the meaning and weight of that meaning too much for Vergil to feel like they're the right words in the first place. Vergil purses his lips and his fingers curl a little tighter into Dante's coat.

He spent most of his life feeling as though he'd failed his brother. And that compounded onto itself that day on the Temen-ni-gru when Vergil failed to claim their father's power over Dante. All that time he spent trying to gather power and he was proven to be little more than a fraud in the end by that failure. He was a son of Sparda, but he felt the claim of his blood to be far too distant in his defeat. He failed to claim his father's power. He failed to best his twin, who he was meant to be equal with. And this came all after failing to protect him and their mother all those years ago.

The most he could do at that point to avoid becoming so very little more than nothing was not yield on his knees. But that still was not enough. He was still defeated, and he still yielded to Dante all the same. So, it was easier to be angry with Dante, to resent him enough to leave than to sit in the shame and disgrace of it all. He would reclaim something of himself, of who he was supposed to be by putting down Mundus once and for all. Or die trying. Little did he know how much further he would fall then, of just how further into nothingness he could be rendered into being.

"I abandoned you when I should have stayed," he says instead. He does not know what words could possibly begin to articulate any of that to Dante, particularly in a way that did not feel like he was making excuses. Adjusting his hold on Dante slightly, he embraces his little brother all the tighter. "I was too stubborn and too proud before, and I hurt you most of all when I should have been the one protecting you."

Vergil huffs a little, releasing the breath he did not realize he had begun holding.

"I'm sorry, Dante."

For all the times he made Dante feel like he wasn't enough, or as though Vergil didn't like him or want him around. For all those years they lost. For all the pain and grief Vergil put Dante through. He never did anything to deserve any of that.

[nowfeaturing]

"Are we gonna pretend I didn't give you shit all the time when we were kids? I was a brat. If we hadn't fought we mighta been together when-" There's a lump that catches in his throat but he pushes through, "- the house got attacked. Maybe together we mighta stood a chance against them."

Vergil wouldn't have been alone when Mundus' demons attacked. Their mother wouldn't have needed to go looking for him. They could have been together. They could have escaped, grown up together looking after each other, growing strong enough to take down Mundus side by side. Maybe Nero would have grown up with both his parents, grown up knowing his family, his father, uncle and grandmother.

Or maybe they would all have died together.

Dante's pretty sure he wouldn't have liked him much either if the boot had been on the other foot.

But then he hears Vergil claiming he'd abandoned him and it prods at something within him, something he doesn't let rise to the surface too often. Vergil's so like their father sometimes, has always idolized him and wanted to follow in his footsteps. They'd both wanted to be like him, strong, brave, heroic, a champion of those weaker than them. But where had their hero been that day when the house had burned, when his house was burned and the woman he loved butchered?

It had been Sparda's job to protect them all, and he'd failed.

Dante tries not to let his fists ball at the thought, doesn't let that thought simmer to the surface when he and Vergil are finally talking.

"What are you talkin' about? You didn't abandon me. It was never your job to protect us Vergil, we were eight. We were little kids. It's crazy we even made it out alive."

He's never, ever blamed Vergil for any of that. Not even for a second.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry the only time I actually left you alone was the one time I shouldn't have."

[antimetabole]

Vergil does not know what to say, and so he opts to say nothing at all even as his gaze narrows over his brother's shoulder. For all the weight Vergil has felt in light of his own decisions and their consequences, he has never once heard Dante give voice to his own. What Dante says feels wrong from start to finish. Vergil ran away in a childish tantrum, but Dante was the one who pushed him over the edge. They were just children, but Dante should have known better. Vergil acquired only enough strength to protect himself and did not make more of an effort to find his brother, but Dante ran and hid himself away. They barely had a chance to survive, but what Dante did wasn't enough. Vergil chose to fall into Hell and forbade Dante to follow him, but Dante chose to listen and let Vergil go. Dante should have known what would become of Vergil and pushed harder.

It feels almost like absolution for Vergil, but an absolution that is misshapen by not being driven not by forgiveness, but rather by guilt Dante bears for his own decisions. Thus, Vergil does not know what to do with it. All he knows is that he does not like it, and it feels like any expression of that is likely to put this whole affair into a tailspin once more. Vergil purses his lips as he tries to find something to say, but he's empty-handed no matter how much he turns it over and over and over again in his head. Whatever he might say about the consequences of his choices being simply that—his consequences for his choices—wouldn't be something Dante could receive any better than Vergil could were their positions reversed. (He does not imagine Dante would become argumentative in an angry way, but under what circumstances would Dante agree with him?) But Vergil also refuses to forgive something that does not feel it is up to Dante to bear responsibility for it, and cannot help but feel a degree of cruelty in not offering forgiveness. And all this while the matter of what became of Vergil after they parted—the thoughts and memories of that still far too close to the surface right now already as it is—making it all the more challenging to find the right words.

Releasing Dante, Vergil separates from him. His silence is visibly not a cold shoulder as he takes that step back. The furrow in Vergil's brow, the avoidance of Dante's eyes, is Vergil withdrawing into his own mind, wrestling with what Dante has said rather than his temper getting the better of him.

[nowfeaturing]

Vergil draws back and Dante lets him, feeling the change in his brother's posture and realising it's not ire or irritation that's necessitating the distance. His twin's never been big on physical displays of affection; Dante himself feels awkward when they go on for too long so the fact they've lasted as long as this is a miracle.

But he doesn't want to lose the connection, even if he feels what he does next is pushing his luck.

He puts his hand on his brother's shoulder and squeezes once, a last affectionate gesture to soften the hard feelings that have existed between them since they quarreled (he hopes), and takes a step away to give Vergil his space.

"I'm gonna go take a shower," he offers, suspecting Vergil might appreciate a little alone time. "Then I'm gonna help you in the kitchen 'cuz whatever you're doing over there smells damn good and I want in on the action. If that's okay with you."

[antimetabole]

Once in a blue moon, it would seem that Dante's luck isn't entirely terrible. The hand to Vergil's shoulder doesn't get brushed aside, nor does Vergil tense and throw a sudden glare even if it draws Vergil's eyes back to Dante. It's...a welcomed form of contact. Reassuring in its own way even if that wasn't the intention behind the gesture. Vergil does not go looking for more when it ends, but he is appreciative of it all the same.

"Yes," Vergil says, his voice thinner and quieter than he intends for it to be. Swiping at an eye to push aside the last of the emotions that spilled out just moments ago, he clears his throat before lightly folding his arms. His voice is stronger when he speaks again, but the sheepishness in which he speaks makes what he says sound more like a confession than anything else. "It is for you, anyways. I... I know you don't remember it, but I learned to make pizza from scratch in that other world. I spent weeks trying to get to the sauce and crust to your preferences."

Vergil is, indeed, a little pink and finding somewhere else to look far more interesting than sparing a glance at Dante to gauge his reaction. It was one thing to just do the task of perfecting a pizza recipe for his brother, and it's entirely another thing to acknowledge doing it. Especially when a good portion of that process involved reading endless books on the matter of how to perfect the sauce and crust by way of measurements, ingredients, and techniques, and some involved private testing that Vergil did not subject anyone but himself to eating until he felt he had something presentable.

[nowfeaturing]

It's a very, very rare occasion that finds Dante lost for words. This just so happens to be one of them.

Dante's not a cook. Never found the time, never had the set up to cook something genuinely good and nutritious; for all the front that he'd put up in his days as Tony, the evenings when he'd wrangled an invite to Grue's for dinner and been fed Jessica's doria had been something he'd genuinely enjoyed. It wasn't so much the food, it was being part of a family again, watching the interplay between the sisters and their father, eating rice gratin dish with them and knowing that care and effort had been put into the meal beyond looking at a take out menu and deciding on a what to get. He still remembers cooking with their mother, eying up opportunities to sneak a taste or lick the bowl when she was baking, often battling Vergil for the rights to the wooden spoon. He's not a cook but he knows the effort involved. He's taken to getting out of his seat after dinner on instinct now to take care of the dishes when Nero's cooked for them. It's his way of showing his appreciation.

Vergil has learned to cook. For him. His brother's been looking out for him, and has felt like that's been his job his whole life going by their conversation today.

Maybe it's time Dante started repaying that favor.

It's what he'd felt he'd been doing with Nero from the moment he'd left Yamato with him in Fortuna. Sure he'd kept his distance, felt it was necessary to in order to keep his nephew's existence on the down-low from any other forces that wanted a piece of his father's legacy. It was better to shoulder that burden on his own than to offload it onto a teenager who'd never asked for it, who had no idea he even had a place in that mythology Dante had grown up in the shadow of. It was protecting the last piece of his brother the only way he knew how. Nero had made it pretty obvious to him that it hadn't been the best way to support him, knowing what he knows now about the kid's yearning for family, but he'd done it with the best of intentions.

And now he's standing here, patching things up with his brother who's making him pizza.

It's a strange feeling when his eyes begin to water.

"That-" damn it, the lump in his throat's back. "That sounds great. Thank you."

Feeling exposed and uncertain, he takes a second to compose himself, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand to disguise the fact that he's wiping the corner of his eye.

"You're gonna have to show me how to do that."

[antimetabole]

Back in Folkmore, Vergil made the sauce and dough in batches, and freezing them so that it was minimal effort on Dante's part to make the pizza for himself anytime. All he had to do was roll out the dough, add the sauce, and then put whatever toppings he liked it wanted. Vergil kept the supply of sauce and dough going, and Dante kept making the occasional pie. Vergil could tell Dante was appreciative because he occasionally tried his hand at making meals he thought Vergil might like, or brought around snacks for him to try, but they never really talked about it. Vergil never openly acknowledged it to be something he did for Dante, and Dante never said a direct word of gratitude. It just became a rhythm of their lives. Comforting regardless of it being left unspoken.

But they're speaking of it now, and Dante is tearing up from the swell of emotion. He's asking to be further part of it even if it doesn't come out like a question. Vergil nods a little.

"If that is something you would like," he says, trying to not look too pleased with the prospect. Vergil never minded how things were between them in Folkmore. But this is the first time in a very long time that Vergil can think of where it felt like they were in step with one another.

It's not really Vergil's preference, but Nero has certainly worn him down plenty that it doesn't feel so unnatural to step closer to his brother that it prevents Vergil from doing so. The embrace Vergil pulls Dante and his barely contained tears into is a little hesitant at first. He's clearly testing the waters without Dante to be the one bulldozing ahead and rolling the dice. But it's alright in the end, and Vergil relaxes a little. He's quiet for a moment longer before he speaks.

"I promised you this once before, but I will promise it to you again. I'm where I should have always been. I'm with you." Vergil holds onto Dante a little bit tighter. He knows it doesn't make up for all the years they lost. Nothing can reclaim that time. But they have now. They have the future. And Vergil intends to do everything in his power to protect it. "I won't leave you again, little brother. I promise."