Chapter Text
„I am speaking with the Devil May Cry?“
„No. You speaking with Vergil.“
„Oh, sorry! Wrong number. Bye!“
Vergil nodded, even though the caller couldn't see it, and hung up. Satisfied, he fell back on his butt and let his legs swing over the edge of the antique desk chair, which was too big for him. An open book lay in front of him on the old desk. It was William Blake's collection of poems, which the older Dante had given him on the first day of his arrival. Vergil was surprised where his brother had gotten the book. He thought he had lost it in the fire that's why he was very happy to got back the familiar book with the golden V on the cover.
He followed the letters on the page with his index finger, then looked up and saw the photo frame with the picture of his mother. It looked old and worn, although the memory of the day it was taken was still very fresh for Vergil. In his time, this happened shortly before his father disappeared. This was when he was around seven years old. Sparda came back from one of his journeys with an old camera. After he had explained to his sons how the device worked, they couldn't stop themselves and photographed everything that came into their lens. The demon lord let his sons have their fun and took lots of photos himself, mostly of his family. One of them was the picture on the desk.
Vergil leaned forward, laid his head on his upper arm, while he gently tapped the old picture with his free hand and thought about the evening the picture was taken. It had been shortly before his and Dante's bedtime. He had played with the hairbrush and combed his hair back like his father, which earned him a gentle smile from his mother. Vergil happily offered to comb his mother's hair. He and his brother often did this and Vergil was proud that he had combed his mother's hair that evening without making any knots. This was not an easy task, with her long and full hair, but his mother's praise made him forget all the hardships. While she sat on the chair and gave her eldest son a gentle smile, Sparda had taken the chance and used the camera to capture this moment - the image of his wife and her honest and loving smile – forever. Vergil could not remember a moment in his life when she was anything other than loving and warm, even though she could be very strict.
Tidiness was very important for her. Something his twin brother was pretty bad at. The condition of his home proved that this had not changed in adulthood. Vergil's gaze wandered thoughtfully through the office, which had looked a lot messier when he arrived two weeks ago. He wanted to clean it up himself, because he didn't like it when it was too messy, but surprisingly, Dante had actually started doing most of the cleaning. For someone who had always refused to tidy up his side of their shared bedroom in their childhood, this was actually quite an achievement. He had only marginally noticed how much garbage had actually accumulated because slowly he gotten tired while cleaning and in the end he had fallen asleep on the sofa. The demon attack in that church, the stress and the long use of his demonic power made him tired and exhausted. He had wondered what drink his brother liked so much that he had to throw away bags full of bottles of it. He wanted to try it too. But he was so tired that he didn't ask and then later forgot about it completely.
In addition to the sudden cleaning fury, Dante had been unusually serious when he saw Vergil on the next day with the picture of their mother in his hand. Again and again he tried to explain to him what had happened that night and that their mother had gone looking for Vergil after pushing Dante into the closet. At first Vergil had tried to brush it off, but Dante had grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him deep in the eyes with a mixture of seriousness and something that Vergil could not name. "She didn't leave you behind. She would never do that! She loved us both equally!" were his words and at some point Vergil wasn't able to keep his walls up around his feelings. He remembered his thoughts he had in this night and the walls collapsed after hearing Dante's words. Like the first night, he lay in Dante's arms and snuggled up against his broad chest. Only this time he cried himself to sleep. When he asked if the older man was crying too, as Vergil heard sobbing noises, he got no answer, but was pulled even closer into the embrace.
A few days and conversations later, his brother had introduced him to two women. The dark-haired woman seemed very strict and cold at first, but when Vergil politely greeted her with 'Miss Lady', she thawed out and even showed him her dagger collection. There weren't many, as she preferred firearms, but Vergil liked what she showed him. When he met Trish, he was shocked, as she looked exactly like his mother, even though she would never wear such clothes. Only her smell and the feeling that she, like himself, Dante and their father, was not human, prevented him from jumping into her arms crying and calling her 'mommy'. His twin had explained to him that Trish was a demon who look like Eva because of reasons and was his business partner. Vergil knew immediately that there was a lot more to it, as something about the story seemed strange to him, but when he asked about it, he got no answer. Dante even did something that Vergil considered 'annoying adult behavior': He flicked him on the tip of the nose and told him that 'little Vergil didn't need to know much more'. He would have loved to stab his brother with one of Lady's daggers and wipe the annoying grin off his face, but Trish's disapproving look, even if it was aimed at Dante and not at him, made him take a deep breath and sit still, behaving like a good boy.
He circled a word in a line with a pen and wanted to write something on the side, only to find that there was already a note there. He had noticed that there were markings and marginal notes throughout the book. At first he had suspected Dante and wanted to scold him, but he recognized some of these notes as his own because the handwriting was identical. He couldn't bring himself to delete the "foreign" notes, so he simply started writing his own thoughts underneath. For some of the poems he didn't need to write anything new else because the existing marginal notes matched to the ones he wanted to write. Only a few words had to be renewed because they probably belonged to the older notes as the words were slowly fading.
He nibbled on his pen thoughtfully, asking what the poet might have meant with the passage he had just read, when suddenly the door was slammed open, hitting the wall. Startled, Vergil sat up, grabbed a revolver that he had found in one of the drawers earlier, and aimed it at the intruder, who was carrying a large, unfamiliar device that was blocking his view of his face. He narrowly escaped being shot, because Vergil recognized the voice when the intruder called for his brother. "Old man? Where are you? I brought the heater. It's repaired, it just needs to be installed!" Nero called, carefully lowering the device, which was almost half his size, to the floor. He looked around the room and his gaze met Vergil's, who was still holding the revolver in his hand and pointing it at him. "I thought we were over this," he murmured, turning completely towards the child and showing him his empty hands to prove that he was harmless guest.
This seemed to be the right decision. Vergil slowly put the weapon down and even put it back in one of the desk drawers. Nero thought if it was too late to give Dante a crash course in creating a child-proof home. On the other hand, he had to admit that he must have frightened the child with his loud arrival. He didn't know if Dante had told his little brother that he would come to visit him today.
He hadn't seen either of them since the attack on Fortuna, which was now a little over two weeks ago. Dante had taken his brother home and assured Nero that he would get in touch soon. To be honest, he had been angry with the demon hunter because he had kept quiet about their relationship all these years. However, through the stories V had told him and Nico, who had told him that Dante had apparently killed his brother, he understood why the older man had acted like that. For this reason, he had let the twins go without argument and given them time to settle in. After a few days, he had begun sporadically spoken to Dante on the phone. In the end, they agreed to meet up, especially since Nero still had his heater, which the older man had somehow managed to destroy. Nero had offered to repair it since he knew how to do it.
Feeling a little uncomfortable under the examining gaze of his deaged father, Nero let his eyes wander. The office seemed tidier than ever. It was still dusty here and there, but all the garbage had disappeared, as had the empty alcohol bottles. Some days it smelled here like something has died but now the air was clean. Kyrie kept a strict regime in her house, which is why Nero had never seen such a mess as Dante's. He had to admit, that the place was downright spotless by the old's man standards. Some of the vulgar posters were still hanging on the wall, as were the severed heads of some demons. But that didn't seem to bother young Vergil, who had been reading a book that must have been V's, as Nero could tell from the pictures and the ornate handwriting. It was surprising that Dante wasn't there, as this was usually his regular spot. Even the ladies didn't sit on the big chair when he was there, which is why he was surprised to see Vergil sitting there.
The quarter demon smiled hesitantly at the child, who slowly sat back up and tried to make the first step in meeting his dad. "Hi, Vergil. Do you still know me? My name is Nero." "Hello," came the quiet reply, and before Nero could get the conversation going, Nico burst into the shop, wanting to know what was he taking so long. Vergil eyed the newcomer with great suspicion and Nero was glad that he did not immediately reach for the weapon. A small step forward, he thought to himself, even though he noticed that the child's body was tense. Unlike Nero, he had not yet met Nico in his current state. As V they got along well, but as Vergil she was a stranger to him. Nico seemed less bothered by this, turned to the child and waved to him. "Sub' kiddo. Dante awake?" Nico's casual attitude seemed to overwhelm even Vergil's tense attitude, which is why he blinked to her with wide eyes. "Is he still asleep?" Nero asked, wondering if it was really okay to sleep so long while Vergil was alone in the office when the shop was open. Who knew what other people came in here? Vergil was not a typical, defenseless child and they probably had to worry about the customers not getting a bullet in the head on they arrival. But for Nero who had 3 children himself at home it still felt wrong.
"I thought I heard something!" a voice from upstairs, and Dante came through the door, wearing only trousers and a towel around his neck. His hair was still slightly wet. Nico whistled appreciatively, while Vergil rolled his eyes because in his opinion, Dante preened himself like a peacock under the admiring glances and swagged down the stairs. "Have you been sleeping until now?" Nero wanted to know, which Dante waved off with a laugh. "A man has to sleep and wash! The mission took half the night." "Mission? You left Va-, Vergil alone all night?!" "What? No! Of course not. I'm not that irresponsible! Of course he was there too!" Nero stared at him with his mouth open. "What the hell?! You took a child on a demon hunt? That's irresponsible!" "Don't worry," Dante said, fetching a cold drink from the kitchen and plopped down on the sofa. "No demon has even come near him. After all, he can't summon the Yamato at the moment," Dante began to explain and was interrupted by an insulted snort from his little brother. The red demon just laughed and continued: "He was waiting for me outside. Sitting obediently with his butt on Cavaliere, which was supposed to take him far away in case of real danger."
"That's unnecessary, you are foolish Dante. I am powerful enough to fight with you!" Vergil insisted, nibbling on his pen and pouting, while Nero's eyes grew wider and wider. Nico laughed while she thought about a devil breaker series for children. "What the fuck. Dante are you fucking serious? Vergil is a little kid. You can't do that!" Nero shouted which made Vergil snort indignantly. "I'm not-" "Relax. We were trained by our old man since we started learning to walk and no demon came anywhere close to our mini-Vergil." Nero quickly ran his hand through his hair while Nico slapped him on the back. "If you wanna talk about child-friendly environment you should not swear so much. Ya know that Kyrie don't like that around kids." Dante grinned while Nero scratched his head apologetically. Vergil cleared his throat and got everyone's attention. "Don't worry, Miss. I know that the f-word is forbidden." "Uh 'Miss'! Ya all hear that! He is so fucking cute! You should take an example from him and respect me and my genius more!" Nico said happily and hit Nero in the side with his elbow. "Ah, sorry, that's Nico, she's a bit loud," Nero said to Vergil and pushed Nico away. His father had watched the whole exchange with wide eyes. He had never met such strange adults before, but in his young life he had generally not spoken to many others outside his family.
"It's a good thing he's not like Carlo. Kyrie was angry the other day when Nero dropped the F-bomb within earshot. The boy kept repeating it," informed Nico and Nero snapped his head to her. Before he could justify himself, his father's quiet voice interrupted him. Vergil looked at his mother's photo, then at the adults. "Mommy has told us about the forbidden adult words and would be really mad if we use it. Last month she scolded Dante and washed his mouth out with soap because he said a bad word," he explained with wide eyes and childlike awe. Nico grinned and Nero also looked amused at the legendary demon hunter. He just grinned crookedly and scratched his beard, laughing, trying to remember the moment. What was a month for Vergil was almost 40 years ago for him. "Yeah, yeah, mom was pretty strict about that." Nero looked at the twins and nodded. "Kyrie is the same. She threatened Carlo with it too." "So~? Dante was a bad boy?" asked Nico, leaning on the desk next to Vergil and trying to fish for embarrassing childhood stories.
Luckily for him, the ringing of the phone interrupted the conversation before Vergil could share any further embarrassing stories. He got down on his knees to reach the phone and picked up with both hands. "Vergil Sparda, here!" he called with as much enthusiasm as a child his age could have, which briefly confused the caller. "Am I not speaking with the Devil May Cry?" "No, you are speaking to Vergil!" "Oh, I see. Wrong number. Sorry, kid. Bye!" "Bye, bye!" When Vergil hung up and fell back on his butt, he shook his head. "So many weird people," he mumbled. Nico started to laugh when she realized what had happened. Nero looked from his father to Dante, who just grinned and sipped his drink, not bothered by it. "Dante?! Is that why I've been getting more requests than usual recently?!" Nero demanded to know. He had noticed that he had been getting more and more offers for a little over a week. He knew that Dante probably wanted to take a little break from the demon hunting business to take care of his brother, but some of the customers had said that they had not been able to reach the devil may cry main branch for days.
"You have to admit, it's smart! Thanks to Vergil, I don't even have to deny them. They hang up on their own!" "That's so stupid! Just do your damn job!" "So mean! Little Vergil is a good secretary!" Nero wanted to say more, but when his gaze went to Vergil, he calmed down. "You don't have to do that." "Of course not, but my brother is stupid. He needs help," Vergil replied, which made Dante protest half-heartedly in the background. "He showed me how to use the phone! But so many strange people always call." Nero raised an eyebrow. Did the child not know how to use a phone? On the other hand: did Sparda even know what a phone was? He didn't want to judge too quickly. Perhaps there was no such thing in the Sparda household back then. "You didn't know how to use a phone?" he asked politely, but Vergil narrowed his eyes disapprovingly and seemed defensive. Nero backed away a little. Apparently, Sparda's former eldest son didn't like being made aware of his lack of knowledge. This made him as normal as any other human child, except that his look was much more hostile. "That's not a problem. Back then, not everyone had a telephone," Nero tried to smooth things over, but Vergil shook his head. "There was a telephone in father's study chambers, but mommy and daddy forbade us from using it." The younger one put his index finger to his lower lip thoughtfully and probably tried hard to remember something, but then shook his head and looked at Nero with an excited look. "Brother said I could use the telephone and that I would be a huge help if I answered the phone! It's not that difficult. He said I just have to say my name and then hang up. It's sooo easy!"
Nero looked at Dante, who was trying to hold back his laughter behind his hand.
„Was the...“
„Language!“
„Fuck you, Dante!“
Vergil gasped.