:3

- I think Dante fools around with Trish a couple times after 1. Trish doesn't have conventional human genitalia; she's made of dreamstuff, smooth as a Barbie doll down there. But she is a shapeshifter.

- He doesn't fuck anyone again til after Trish moves out. I think he hooks up with 2007 anime Vincent and Modeus. Vincent wants him so he lets that happen. It never goes very far anyway; hand stuff, mouth stuff, a quickie on the desk. They hook up every couple of weeks for about 6 months, whenever Vincent's in town and wants some, but then Dante stops taking his calls, stops answering the door. Vincent stays mad about this. All he'd done was ask if Dante wanted to take this show upstairs.

- Modeus is Dante's first encounter with true demon genitalia. It's cloacal.

- After 4, I have a continuity split. In canonverse, nothing happens. In pornverse, Nero pursues and seduces Dante into a several years long sexual relationship. Nero stays fired up as hell about it and Dante lets that passion just kind of waft over him. It's easy to just let it happen when someone wants you that bad, and Nero wants him bad. The sex itself is fine; Nero's eager but inexpert, plays too rough and enjoys pushing Dante around, slamming him into surfaces, bending him into weird contortions, being rough about the prep, the entry.

- Dante feels. Some such way. About it. Nero's close to the real thing in a way that nobody else was, but it's the differences that stick out: his hair not quite the right texture, his hands the wrong size, his skin too warm. He makes the fantasy difficult in a way that Dante explicitly resents, and he would end it, except

- It's the afterwards he keeps coming back to. It's being held throughout the night. He'll put up with a lot worse than a couple hours of dissociative sex to wake up in the middle of the night to see a head of silver hair sleeping on the pillow across from his, rolling that body into him, tucking it beneath his chin.

- When he follows Vergil into hell after 5, it's hard, for a while. Vergil's shut up tight. He's forgotten how to talk to anyone, even Dante. He flinches and snaps. He doesn't know how to be kind. And in any case, they have demon uprisings to quash, an empire to secure, a throne to claim. It's busy.

- It hurts a little, because he's waited so long, but it's fine. It's one more thing that's fine.

- Nothing could have happened. Dante was never going to push. He could live the second half of his life like he did the first: wanting, waiting, not having. It's enough to be near him, to reach out and brush against the hem of his sleeve. But Vergil turns to him one day and wants him, touches him, pulls him over him. It's relieving, it's miraculous, it's terrifying. It's every dream he's ever had collapsing in on itself. He snaps back into his body like a bolt out of the blue. It's the real thing.

- Vergil chokes and weeps, after, clawing at him and pushing his brow into the very center of Dante's chest like he'll open the seam of him and crawl inside. Dante holds him, shaking, still inside of him. In a few minutes, they'll go again, Vergil with his face still wet, gasping, clutching, urging, his legs wrapped around him, his hands in his hair, his mouth sweet, and open.

- He doesn't know how he lived without this. He doesn't know how he lived at all. All those muted, muffled years, like touching the world through a glove. This is the real thing. This is real.

Like she was a young wife, then a young mother, then disregarded her entire life. Her husband isn't interested in her, spends all his time with his "Bible" study men's group. Her three sons are all grown and left the house, and they haven't looked her in the eye since they were teens.

This kid drops into her walled garden in the middle of the night and she wakes up because the chickens are going crazy. He's confused, he's scared, he's covered in blood. She coaxes him into her kitchen -- there is so much blood. But she gets his crusty coat and shirt off of him and he's perfect, not a scratch on him. Overhead, she hears her husband getting out of bed, so she does something not totally rational, she grabs her kitchen knife and scratches him across his taut stomach, just enough to make him bleed. When her husband comes in, she's got her bandages out, wrapping him up tight. He's hurt, she tells her husband. We need to tell the hunters. The demons might still be out there.

Her husband helps her move him to her youngest's old room, the one in the attic. Helps her bind down his wrists and ankles. So he doesn't hurt himself, she tells him.

The next several days she tends to the boy. When his wound closes, she opens it again, tho he protests vociferously. You need to, she tells him matter of factly. I can't take care of you if you're not sick.

He's not much for conversation: weird and quiet, and when he does speak, he's mean. He doesn't need this, he tells her. He's not human. He needs to go.

No, she tells him. What he needs is someone to look after him.

She brings him food and clean water, checks and changes his perfectly clean bandages, tells him about how poorly he's taking care of himself, how slowly he's healing, how if he's good boy, if he eats all his soup and sleeps all through the night, she'll bring him some cake --it's fresh, you know. Lemon with a sugar crust. Her children all used to love it.

He looks stricken, but he does it. Eats all his soup while she watches, smiling serenely. Lets her tuck him in. Gives her his hand when she asks for it and pares down his ragged nails til their trim and smooth.

You're crazy, he tells her

I think I have clothes that will fit you perfectly, she tells him

She keeps him for two weeks, and he learns what pleases her. Letting her wash him, comb his hair, change his bandages which cover up nothing but smooth skin. Lets her watch him eat, watch him sleep, read to him out of the novels she gets from her women's groups, the ones they sell at drug stores on the mainland.

Lets her kiss the bread crumbs from the corners of his mouth after lunch, wipe his chin. Good boy, she calls him, rubbing circles into his back when she pulls him into her arms. Such a pretty, pretty boy

He doesn't leave. He doesn't know why he doesn't leave.

Isn't it nice to be looked after, sweetie? she asks him. He doesn't reply.

Nobody's touched him like this since Eva. Nobody's touched him without violence.

When she lingers one night washing between his legs. He tries to hide it, but Oh sweetie, she says, let me take care of that for you

Her body is soft. He doesn't take long.

The next morning she kicks him out. You don't need me anymore, she tells him. She doesn't look at him

She's in denial about the pregnancy, even when she gets thick around her middle, and she has to let out her bodices, but she is that age. Her cycles have been erratic.

When she finally acknowledges it, it's too late to pull any of the old women's tricks. She has to find someone to take care of it. She can't let her husband know, the neighbours, her sons. She can't.

She dies on the abortionist's table. The baby doesn't.

Vergil thinks back on this whole thing as a harmless but embarrassing incident in his checkered past. He doesn't want to tell Dante bc he doesn't want Dante to tease him about it.

He doesn't expect Dante's incandescent rage. I'm sorry, he says, clutching at Vergil's hand. I'm sorry, Jesus, I'm sorry.