fig&fox

Chapter iii

Pairing: Vergil/Reader. Content/Warnings: M+ for mentions of blood, human sacrifice and swearing. Word Count: 9,931. Summary: Highschool sweethearts…But it wasn’t always so damn sweet. Previous Chapters: i , ii , ii.v

A/N: Reader is not Nero's birth mother in this. I'll be updating this fic on AO3 under the name figandfox in the next coming days. Ps this is lore HEAVY but I'm still not revealing the whole plot just yet...For reasons. But enjoy!

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

There was nothing in this world more loyal than dust. For something so small, so defenseless it was often banished and cast from the home like some wicked, ghostly fiend. Many would go as far as to press the end of their finger into the thin collection of it, and dragged until a streak cut through its heart, leaving it halved and hurt and no longer whole. Yet it would always crawl back, always remain. A presence fine and white, a blanket soft and spread. It covered everything, kept it warm, timeless; dust became a historian, recording every touched surface, preserving the fingerprints of the lost and forgotten. 

This house of yours was no exception, dust coated all. And you were just one girl. 

“You’re not listening.”

“I am.”

Despite the spice of peppermint on your tongue, you could still taste the lie. It was late into the humid evening, and the June beetles had come to sing their midnight hymns. 

Your eyes settled onto your mug dully. Life would only return to them long enough to catch whispers of minty steam, and you would blink a slow blink until you slipped back into that doll-like stillness. You allowed one hand to nurse your tea (it hurt to clutch the burning ceramic so tight, your palm rippled, skin red and angry; you couldn’t feel it, and yet it was the only thing you wanted to endure) but the other had drifted its way to the stretch of your throat. You thumbed the soft skin, tracing the line of a never-there mark. 

You would often avoid touching this part of yourself, scared that maybe one day, your fingers would brush against raised, scarred flesh. And the mirror’s reflection would show you not as you were or whom you could have been, but in the image of him; the heart of a beast. You prayed to never don the necklace of a false martyr again...You wouldn’t survive the mere sight of yourself. You would rather turn serpentine, be a thing of endless hunger and deception; devouring all the rotted corpses of the foolish, little girls that had come before you, if only it meant your body would split apart and you would shed the fate of a sacrificial lamb.

“You and your lies.” Vergil scoffed through clenched teeth as he used the back of his palm to swat his own empty mug across your dining table. Because you now had a functional table, one that stretched far enough to seat twelve whole people, sleek and carved from the best wood. It stood humbly in the center of your dining room, separate from the kitchen. You had that too - a dining room. A space just meant for hosting lavish dinners or quiet mornings; to sit and eat and rest and enjoy whatever sunlight spilt in from the curtains. 

“When the hell have I lied to you?” You said, your voice no longer a dreamy thing lost in the labyrinth of your mind. You spoke true of heart, daring the half-demon before you to challenge your integrity. 

And that he did.

“The new apartment is really nice, really big. Nero loves his new room; mine’s not so bad either.” Your cheeks burnt with fever, mouth pinching sour as you recalled the words Vergil had reiterated for you. It was from the letter you sent to him just under two months ago, dated sometime in the same week you moved into your last apartment. 

“God, you’re still going on about that?”

“Don’t deflect.” 

You pressed the soles of your hands against the cool dining table as you pushed yourself out of your chair. For once, you were the one looming over Vergil, your gaze cast down your nose to glare at his sharp, unimpressed expression.

“Maybe if you responded to my letters,” you spat. “I would have been a little more forthcoming with the details.”

“You have my sincerest apologies”, Vergil mocked, teeth bared and glossing in the room’s warm light. “For prioritising your safety and the freedom of Makai over a few measly handwritten notes.”

“If you were so damn busy prioritising my safety, why the fuck does the Cult of Mundus know where I am!” 

It was a cruel, cruel thing to blame Vergil for. The moment your thoughtless tongue conjured such vileness, you wished you could reach out into the open and snatch them back into your maw, grind them flat between your molars and shallow the dust. 

The room fell into the arms of a chilling hush, suffocating and rib crushing. 

For an exhausted breath, all you could do was gape at him. Your lips peeled open, then shut tightly into a thin line, over and over again. You were lost for words, mouth and mind empty of sense. You crumbled into yourself, shoulders weighed down by shame, led-heavy with remorse. But as you shrunk into this small, repenting creature, Vergil unfolded from the chair and grew to his baleful height. 

Your face broke out into a bruising frown, and your eyes, the sodden, wistful things that they were, peered from under dark lashes at him. O, how looks could kill. Vergil may be crowned by the moon with those soft locks of silver hair, and adored by the deep ocean, all seven of its seas kissing seafoam into the corners of his eyes until the pair bloomed a darling blue; but he was hellbound, through blood and through bone, through birthright too. From the sharpness of his cheeks, his teeth, to the pits of sulfur howling in his gaze, Vergil was made of storm and brimstone. A beast in handsome, human flesh. Just like you.

“Because I was foolish enough to think that you were safer away from Makai; away from me”, Vergil’s words were nothing more than a predatory rumble; it came from the deep hollows of his chest, a hurricane trapped between the ribcage. He towered you, leaning over the table with his monstrous stature to cast you in his shadow. His hands stretched and spread on its dark wooden surface, just shy of where your own were. He was close, so close. And so, so upset with you.

“Instead I stupidly left you under the watch of my little brother’s pet. And now I must reap what she has sown due to her own incompetence and lack of duty.” The Son of Sparda lifted one of great hands from the table and you felt a firm grip at the curve of your chin. 

Vergil was warm to the touch, skin smooth despite the years he dedicated to the art of war. He tilted your head high so that you were eye to eye with him, his hold on you unyielding yet not brutal. Sparda’s first son was a refined man, someone who led with control, poise. Even as his gaze brimmed with poison, Vergil handled you with something tender; almost gentle. You didn’t deserve it.

“What am I to do with you?” He sighed.

“I know this isn’t your fault.” You broke, words rushed. You didn’t dare tear yourself from Vergil’s touch. Not this time. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” 

Vergil turned his eyes from you, stealing his hand back as he returned to his seat . The half-demon made himself comfortable, arms draped across the chair’s manchette, knees completely apart in their usual fashion. Vergil had a bad habit of manspreading. Not that you paid attention to it. 

You followed in his wake, slipping back into your own perch, arms crossing over your chest as the adrenaline bled from your pores. God, you were tired. Today was far too much. 

“What do we do?” 

Vergil rubbed the sharp line of his jaw, eyes flickering to your spent form. He raised a brow in question, “we?”

“You confirmed with Lady that my files were stolen by members of the Cult who went undercover as Urouborus operatives. So they’re back or maybe they never left to begin with…Whatever it may be, we have to deal with it. They could be making more brides - or worse.” You reminded him, a somewhat poor retelling of what Vergil had been debriefing you over the past two hours. You really should have been paying attention.

“You mistake me.” Vergil said as slight amusement coloured his tone. “There is no we - not this time. Instead, you will attend your classes, live your life as normal, and raise my son.” 

A dry, wit-less laugh bubbled from your throat, “you’re joking.” 

“And you will stay away from my brother.” 

You rolled your eyes at Vergil’s burning insistence to keep away from Dante. You didn’t know why, but whatever the reason may be, it was strong enough for Vergil to impale his brother over. You were wise enough to know to pick your battles with him. And the subject of Dante was always tense, something untouched and unquestioned. 

“Okay, bossy pants, what will you do then?” You scoffed, jaw shifting as your tongue rolled against your teeth. You wanted Vergil to know how unimpressed you were at his senseless demands.

“I’ll do what I do best.” Vergil said, his lips curling into a wolfish grin. “I’ll hunt.” 

────୨ৎ────

It took you an evening to unpack and move in; three days to clear the dust and cobwebs, then almost a week to settle yourself and Nero into the house. Yet another week passed before you finally rebuilt your carefully crafted routine from scratch. The manner was a thing of dreams for you; that and so much more. A three storage house with a garden, a grand kitchen, an ensuite with a lavish tub just a few short steps from your queen sized bed; you had a study, a den, did you forget to mention the dining room? O, how you loved the dining room. It would have won your heart if it wasn’t for the kitchen and its industrial stovetop and oven.

Though, even the most charming of fairytales have their fiends. The manner was a bubble of peace, a safe haven from the hustle and bustle and stress of the city, but it was also completely secluded. There was nothing for miles other than forestlands, dirt paths and a twisting creek that pooled into the belly of your backyard. And that meant much earlier mornings than what you or Nero were used to in order to make it to preschool and class in time. And sadly for you, the only Grandson of Sparda was very much opposed to waking at the crack of dawn. 

Another adjustment were the random gifts left at your doorstep. The first was a new phone, preprogrammed with a number of relevant contacts, it seemed to never run low on data, thank god. The second being a car, and you had to admit, you did squeal when you walked out of the manner, one criminally early morning, and spotted the sleek black Mercedes in your driveway. Thankfully, you had no neighbours. Though, Nero did give you a rather scathing look, prematurely grumpy from the early hours. Your third little present was a credit card. Only, it wasn’t quite right…

You wouldn’t make a fuss. Lady did warn that your alias would undergo a slight tweak to keep your identity and location safe now that the Cult of Mundus was active again.  

The heavy, dark card reflected the downturn of your lip. You tilted it, watching as a glint of sunlight caught between the textured print of your new surname indented across its metal surface; a limelight that only acted to further emphasize Lady’s little tweak. You spoke out loud your first name, then paused to ready the fork of your tongue as the surname Sparda hissed out between clenched teeth. Then you did it again, and again, and again until that break of breath dwindled amid your name and your darling new last name and the two dripped from your lips as smooth and rich as honey. 

Maybe it made sense, from a financial and legal standpoint…You did live in the house he paid for, using his hard earned money to cover your bills and expenses. And most importantly, you were raising his son afterall. Perhaps, Lady was finally making your life easier. It didn’t have to mean anything. It was silly to even pay attention to such a thing. Who cared if Lady had legally titled you the new Mrs Sprada? 

You groaned into the cup of your hands and slid the credit card to the far side of the kitchen island. It was too early for this. 

“Nero! Are you done yet?” You called out, needing to distract yourself with anything and everything. Even if that something was a fussing five year old. 

“No!”

“Why not? Does it not fit?” You were sure you ordered the correct size. 

“It looks stupid. I’m not coming out!” Nero screamed back from the halfway bathroom, voice high and whiney. 

“Oh, honey…” You felt yourself melt. It wasn’t rare for your starry boy to be embarrassed over the smallest of things. Nero was a sensitive child, easily upset and often targeted by his peers for his striking appearance; unlike the Sparda bloodline, platinum hair was not common. “Don’t be like that. Come on, let me see you. I’m sure you look fine.”

At first, you were met with silence. Blinding and edging, you felt your breath still in apprehension of what was to come. Then the groan of old, worn hinges as the door creaked open. Nero dragged his feet along the wooden floors as he walked the length of the corridor. He only stopped once he stood at the mouth of the kitchen, its french doors spread wide to welcome the fresh morning air. Another treasure this manner had to offer, refuge from the sun and all its summer glory. Its stone bones were excellent at cooling, often coaxing the early August heat down by a few degrees. At night, you no longer slept between sheets drenched in your own sweat. Truly, it was a religious experience. 

Your cheeks drew round, high as a grin so wide pulled across your face. 

Nero stood before you with balled fists at his side, his features pinched and sulking. The youngest Sparda was draped in a dusty blue and grey uniform, his tie knotted in a mess and loose around the collar of his button down shirt, the laces of his black dress shoes were treated in the same poor fashion. Nero was missing his school blazer, abandoned somewhere in the hallway bathroom. 

“I think you look…”

“Dumb.”

“Handsome.” You corrected, making your way around the kitchen island to reach Nero’s dreary person. “You look handsome, Nero. We just need to practice getting ready for school.”

Nero allowed you to fuss over him with nimble fingers, picking and pulling the misstructured fabric of his new school uniform. You demonstrated to him how to properly tuck his shirt into the waistband of his shorts, the correct way to create the loops of his laces and tie them into pretty bows. But when your hands drifted to the tie, hanging limp and uneven around Nero’s neck, your lips pressed into a thin line. You too, were unaware of how to properly knot a tie. Dumbfounded, you drew your phone from your pocket and for the next hour, you and Nero studied how best to tie the clothing piece. It didn’t help, no matter how many Youtube videos you forced the two of you to watch; you would either knot your finger into the loop, or the damn thing would come undone the moment you pulled your hands away. You were hopeless. A failure of a guardian. 

Nero stared at you, bright eyes bored and restless as you hyperfixated on perfecting this silly task. You had a habit of doing that, studying something and practicing it, the constant reputation almost obsessive until you were satisfied with the outcome. Until it was immaculate. It was why you were in culinary school. You loved the precision, the control, the flawless outcomes of your hard work. 

“It’s not working.”

You let your phone and the tie drop into your lap as you rubbed your face tiredly. You and Nero had moved to the floor of the den, criss-crossed as you sat opposite of each other on the large rug. 

“I know.” You groaned, “maybe I should call your dad…”

You thought of Vergil. How he was always dressed flawlessly; well styled and well kept. Even as you two stalked the barren wastelands of the underworld together, his appearance never faulted, never sullied. Sparda’s first son was a proud man and that conceitedness was found in every trace of his life, from his swordwork to his battle prowess, and especially in his well grabbed exterior. Not a strand of silver hair was ever out of place, not even in the heart of war. Surely, Vergil knew how to knot a tie.

“Why do you need to call him?” Nero snapped, chin suddenly pointed high as bitterness smeared across his chubby face. “He won't even care.”

“He does care.”

“No he doesn’t. He came once and - and he didn’t even talk to us!” Nero sputtered out, his bottom lip wobbling as he climbed to his feet in protest. There were tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, yet Nero refused to let them fall. Your poor, stubborn boy. “I don’t want him to fix it. I want you; I want you to fix it - like how you always fix it. We don’t need him.”

You were startled at Nero’s protest, not expecting such an outburst. You tried to blink back your confusion, your budding guilt. For once, you didn’t know what to say to the forgotten child in front of you. He was right to feel this way. Vergil had been distant, indifferent. Especially towards his son. But he had come over more than once in the three weeks you and Nero had lived in the manner. 

The first time Vergil had visited, he had done so in the morning. It was on Sunday, like today; bright, hot, and early. He sat with you in the kitchen, at the island, a cup of jasmine tea in hand. You were complaining to the half-demon about your upcoming exams, the dust that took you three days to clear from the house, rattling off the number of things you had to purchase before Nero’s first day of Kindygarden. You voiced what you would usually write, and Vergil listened to every uttered ramble with his usual quiet aloofness. He would interject here and there, asking if you required extra help around the house during the exam period, insisting that he would get his brother’s pet to organise a maid. You would counter him, tutting that he needed to start addressing Lady by her name, she was his boss afterall. Vergil scoffed at you, unimpressed with your childish teasing. But you caught that flicker of a smile he tried to conceal with the rim of his mug. 

Nero had dragged himself into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes, still dressed in his pajamas, and the easy flow of conversation between you and Vergil had come to a halt. He stared at Vergil, and Vergil stared back. Yet neither worked up the courage to make the first move. Nero had turned to you instead, asking what was for breakfast. After that, Vergil was quick to finish his tea. He vanished from his seat at the island while your back was turned, his steps as hushed as the words he whispered to you from just a moment ago. He didn’t stay for the banana pancakes you made. And he didn’t stay to talk to his son. 

Now, the Son of Sparda only came when the moon loomed and the house stirred with shadows. When the hours of the night were far too late for Nero to be awake for, but the stillness perfect for you to study in. You would be in the den, textbooks spread open and wide across the coffee table, the lamp shining low and soft as you practiced a mock exam for menu planning. He would spend the first handful of moments just taking you in, swallowing you whole with his ocean deep eyes; your unkept hair, the black ink smudged along the side of your palm, the small shorts that clung tightly around the meat of your thighs, the curves of your hips. You would ignore Vergil and his mindful eyes until a body of text was completed, scripted onto the page of your notebook. You were always the first to speak, moreso at him than to him. 

I need coffee if I’m going to deal with you at this hour.

I thought the same. Vergil would say before tailing you into the kitchen. 

How’s your hunting? You would pry as the milk frothed. 

Still none of your concern…How are your studies? How’s the child?

They’re fine, school is just busy. But a good busy. I passed my emulsion principles exam with flying colours…You know, it's a shame; if it wasn’t so late, you could ask Nero that yourself. You would hand Vergil the steaming mug, your eyes simmering with disappointment. The air would be tense and warm with summer and coffee, your judgement harsh, Vergil’s neutrality a sterile thing. Then he would finally cast his eyes from you, murmuring how Lady (he called her Lady now; well, when she didn't stir his temper) would be reaching out to organise another little gift to make day to day life easier for you. 

Vergil met you like this twice now, when the night was thick and he had you all to himself; no Nero in sight. It was almost a weekly occurrence. 

Nero made a startled noise as you swept him up in your arms, pulling him close to your chest to where the stone of your heart was. You hugged him, tight and adoring, and so, so sad. He wiggled slightly, trying to get comfortable in your hold, but he didn’t pull away. Instead he clung to you just as tightly, his face nuzzling the curve of your throat. You breathed in his milky scent; still just a babe, he was, with the perfume of vanilla and cake batter on his skin.

“I’ll fix this”, you said, words muffled into Nero’s starlight hair. “I will fix this. I promise.”

You weren’t talking about the tie. But for now, Nero didn’t need to know that. 

Sunday came and went, a haze of a lazy day. You mostly spent your morning baking, something rich and fluffy to sweeten Nero’s mood. Chocolate mousse was always a favourite, even if he did pout and stalk by the fridge until the dessert chilled long enough to be ready. By nightfall, you and Nero had curled up on the couch to watch a movie. Nero had recently learnt about dinosaurs at preschool as a way to gently introduce the children to a classroom setting and routine. He told you all about it when you picked him up at the beginning of the week, and each day brought a new fact, a new word, a near carnivorous creature to ramble on about in the car ride home. Now, every form of media he consumed had to be dinosaur adjacent. So, on your slow Sunday night, you witnessed your starry boy fall into the magic of The Land Before Time. 

But the weekends were never meant to last. Suddenly, you were stirring, waking. You were far too warm with something far too boney digging into your side. A new day was barely breaking through the thicket surrounding the manner, but what sunlight did slip through the fullness of the trees, and the curtains of your arched windows, stole the sleep right from your eyes. 

You were still on the couch, the TV repeating the end credits of the movie you had drifted off to. As always, Nero was with you, small and warm and curled beneath your ribs. He was but a heart. Your heart, your one and only. And you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

You woke him up regrettable and the two of you fell into the push and pull of your morning routine. 

The day dragged without Nero by your side. But he needed to finish his last week at preschool, and you needed to attend your exam prep-classes. By 3pm, once classes were done and you still had two hours to kill before needing to collect Nero, you would find yourself seated by the window of a cafe. There was further studying to be done, and your textbooks were strung across the table, yet you often found yourself sipping on something hot and milky and caffeinated as you people watched; eyes and thought drifting as strangers pasted by your window, lost in their own worlds and worries. 

You hadn’t had this in years. This little, momentous thing called time. Time to wonder, to idle, to seek pleasure and peace in the nothingness of it all; to waste your hours at some haphazard coffee shop, studies ignored, your latte with honey half-had, well enjoyed, now no more than a frothed smear across your top lip. It was delicious, how mundane life suddenly was, how the peak of your day was nothing more than a sweetened drink. You were just like them, those faceless individuals who strolled past you. The ones who you observed and failed to mimic for the longest of time. Finally, your obsession with regaining your forsaken commonness had paid off. You were just as they were. Unimportant and untouched by that dreary thing called onus. 

You had to give thanks to Vergil, to Lady. Despite your throat cut past, it was them who salvaged your future. The sleek black card in your hand was a heavy reminder of the path you walked. You fiddled with the credit card again, unwilling to pay and leave this darling humdrum of an establishment. You thumbed at your new name, the one indented in block letters on a metal surface. 

Sparda.

The surname - it still bothered you, that you couldn’t deny. It felt disrespectful to Vergil’s mother, the woman he spoke so highly of, yet in equal measure, so little about. 

You still had over an hour until Nero needed to be picked up from preschool…

And Lady was only a short drive away. What harm could a little conversation do? 

────୨ৎ────

Lady’s office, as always, was stale and boring. You sat across from her, watching, waiting. Lady’s desk was a mess of files and headshots, documents and forms and everything alike and important. The commander’s eyes were two toned and twice as sharp, yet instead of utilising the gleaming screen of a highly advanced computer and monitor system, the one just to her right, untouched and cold from lack of use, she took to physical forms; pages upon pages of hand written recounts and notes, carefully collated, detailed and revised down to the very bone of the paper, and the only copy to ever exist. As you studied Lady, her strew of documents, the pen she flickered temperately between her fingers, you silently questioned her methods. Perhaps, it was hubris warming your blood; perhaps, it was resentment. Whatever it might have been, you ran hot with it. 

Lady had an unfathomable net worth at her finger tips due to the Company’s late founder, Arius. And yet…This was how classified - no, surreptitious files were arranged and kept and treated?

Were your files handled with such loose hands, too? Left out in the open, a simple heap of paper and information on someone’s desk, almost longing to be swept up by nefarious arms of Mundus’ loyalists. 

“Do you have to wear a suit in the kitchen to graduate as a chef?” 

“No.”

“Than why the fuck are you asking me to teach you how to knot a tie?” 

You thought for a moment, reflecting upon her temper, your own simmer irritability too. Your relationship with Lady was delicate nowadays. Gratitude would always linger like a ghost; a phantom weight on the slope of your shoulders. It would spur on the likeness of friendship, where casual conversation and the tiredness that often accompanied any tie to the Sparda bloodline would dare shape a connection between the two of you. Though at your core, there was rage. A brewing mess of madness that fed from the carcass of grief and guzzled altruism from an endless cup until it drank and ate itself sick.

You worked, you begged, you thinned yourself down to skin and bones while raising a five year old with a troubled past, attending classes, passing exams, making rent. And you did it all alone.

 There were often nights where you thought to yourself, not paying intuition would mean more food, better clothes for Nero, an apartment in a safer area; while on the other hand, the knowing hand, the somewhat selfish hand, not paying intuition meant not graduating, always working passionless, part-time jobs, and never, ever succeeding in the only thing you could salvage from your old life; your dreams. You would leave claw marks, the shape of your teeth, the blood of another, before you ever dared let it out of your grasp. 

“Forget it.” You said, kissing your teeth as you waved off her snipped retort. You felt like a dog licking tension from its jaws, it was never a good thing to bite that hand that fed you. Even if it did starve you at first. “I’ll look it up or something.”

“You do that”, Lady muttered, her mind elsewhere as she studied the spread of reports in her gloved hands. “Anything else you want to waste my time with?” 

“No.” You lied, knotting your fingers together in your lap before you quickly corrected your answer. “Yes - yes, there is. The card.”

“Your credit card? Is it not working?”

“It’s working fine. It’s just…I don’t know; weird.” You dragged on, unsure with how to announce your contempt. “Isn’t it stupid to reissue another fake surname to hide my identity, only for the name to be the most known in all the two worlds? Won’t the Cult find me easier with Sparda as my last name?”  

Lady slapped the yellow binder down onto her desk, its contents spilling and sailing across the sea of white and gray that already swallowed the wood’s polished surface. She rubbed at her face viciously, tirelessly as a deep belly sign left her lips. 

“I know.” Again, a short snap of teeth. But the commander’s next turn of words were flat, their edges smoothed and pressed by fatigue’s soft, sanded palms. “I know. I drew attention to the same concerns. But it’s what he wanted. And I didn’t have time to fight with him.”

Your mouth pressed into a thin line, “Vergil.”

It wasn’t a question. It should have been considering the nature of your conversation. But what else was supposed to form upon your tongue other than his name? Only the Sparda Twins were known to wane Lady’s resolve to such a thin, feeble creature. And you were certain Dante did not have the political influence at The Uroboros Corporation to make decisions on your behalf. While you weren’t too sure as to how Vergil has such sway, it was brutally evident that what Sparda’s Eldest Son wanted, he got. Even if it was something as distasteful as claiming you as a Sparda in all but blood. 

“Vergil.” Lady confirmed as she swept slim fingers through her dark tufts of hair, her mouth cut into a frown as she continued to mumble, though, more to herself than you. “I should have never agreed to come back to run this shit hole. I feel like I have no idea what the hell I’m even doing most days...”

“Did he tell you why, at least?”

“A Son of Sparda? Explaining himself?” Lady chuffed, tone dry and sour like aged plums. “When have either of the twins ever done that?”

You rolled your tongue across the back of your teeth as you sunk into the spine of your chair. A shrug tilted your shoulders in agreement, finding a bittersweet sort of comfort in Lady’s words. It was reassuring that Vergil was simply doing as he pleased instead of conspiring with Lady. It fueled those short bursts of comradery with the commander. 

“Sorry to have wasted your time afterall. I’ll bring this up with Vergil.” You began to gather yourself from the chair, tucking loose strands of hair behind your ear as you tried to tidy your appearance. As you grew to your full height, your eyes swept across the desk one last time in subtle disapproval. 

“You know, if you kept your classified documents digitally stored and processed, it would be harder for Cult members to sell…” At the beginning, your words were somewhat playful, somewhat sharp and witty as they left the flat of your tongue. But as your gaze turned driftwood among the tides of ink wet pages, your mouth dried. Gone was the girl with a grin full of gleaming, impish delight. All that remained was the burn of smoked sea salt and the arid sands of a dead ocean. Your throat was now desertland. The sun was known to eventually bleach all that it touched. And it left you a ghostly glimpse of white. 

It had been years since you had last seen those shy, fox-brown eyes. Now they leered up at you, unblinking and paled from the grey wash of the headshot. Unlike you, he had aged. But in your image, as you remembered him, he had that boyish shag of red hair, a fixed turned lip, always smirking, always beaming with that look of knowing. His cheeks were full, lightly freckled, glowing with a dust of pink, either from the unforgiving sun or the kiss you pressed into the stubborn baby-fat softening the line of his jaw. 

It was a part of the ritual to crop the crown of the newly anointed Disciple of Mundus; that, despite everything, you remembered. You were hogged-tied on a slab of ancient stone, a stinging coolness against your flesh, another set of rough hands to hurt you. It reeked, too. The stench of babe’s blood; of the piss and tears of other brides, too.  What a horrible cut of rock. And what a horrible haircut they gave him…

He loomed over you, titled your head back by the chin until the skin of your soft gullet stretched thin for him, your neck bent nearly over the edge of stone, painful and crooked. How could you forget? He was the one whom pressed a blade to your bare throat. How could you forget? That all you could conjure in thought in that last, withered moment with a knife slicing across your neck was: they cut his sweet, ginger hair.

Marcus kept his hair short since that night nearly three years ago. It was far more tamed now, no longer fresh and wild, hidden well under the formal guard cap that all Uroboros Corporation operatives wore. The whispers of smile lines also showed the passage of time; they creased his features, his once full cheeks, now sharp and sporting a shadow of stubble, and his exposed forehead. All marked by the years, the sun, the good times. 

You had none of that. You were stuck with eternal youth. Evermore that twenty-year old fool. You would wear the face that he looked down upon with a smile as he took your life from you forever. Your life; your future; your humanity. 

Someone was calling your name. But it was not the same one he once called you. Because that too, he stole. Your fucking name. He was the last to utter your true name. The one thing that should be yours, only yours, from crib to grave. But you were ripe, young, a thing full of breath. You were not under the soft earth to rest, to rot. How could he take your name?

Hands, warm and leather bound, were holding you, shaking you. Again, that name you wore like a hat. Like something to leave hooked on a stand by the corner of your bedroom and only adorned when you were called to business outside the comfort of the home. It was an accessory, a prop. Something that would be a bother to lose, only as it was a greater bother to venture out and purchase another, similar and brimmed with plainness. 

It was the slap across your face that woke you from your estranged daze. A sting of red, the contact between palm and cheek, a strike firm enough to turn your head, cast your eyes away from the headshot of Marcus in an Uroboros Corporation uniform and to the bare corner of Lady’s office. It truly was such a sad, beige room. Surely something as simple as a plant would help. A splash of green, the warm glow of its canopy in the late hours of the day. It would be darling…Wouldn’t it? 

“If you don’t respond”, Lady said, the scar that darkened the bridge of her nose stretched thin as her features spread to accommodate the tides of panic that rose within the commander. “I’ll have to call Vergil. So I need you to start talking, Stone Heart.”

You cupped your hot cheek. Your touch told you of its swelling flesh, its mad fever of red and wetness. When did you begin to cry? You only allowed yourself to do such things in the dark. When the world was light with sleep and your shoulders could rest for a moment. 

“I’m okay.”

“No. No you’re not.” Lady corrected, eyes bright with disturb. 

You needed to smile. You needed to blink away the tears and smile. People liked you better if you fucking smiled. 

So, you grinned. But it had too much gloss, your teeth too fronted and sharp. Your gums were showing; a spit-shined ripple of exposed flesh. You had the maw of a viper, not the mouth of a girl. This was not a good smile.

“Jesus Christ. Just - just sit down. You’re freaking me out.” 

You sat, a bag of flesh and bones arranged unsettlingly in the belly of the chair. You didn’t feel quite human right now. And it was showing. 

“What the fuck just happened?” Lady snapped her question, a clip of anxious teeth. “You were fine - you were joking just a moment ago. Then? Then you start sobbing, howling. And now you’re smiling.”

Oh.  

“Start talking; what the fuck is wrong with you?” 

 You understood why Vergil first declined the psychologist’s offer to assess you, gathering intel from your perspective all while soothing your mental and emotional wounds with the gentleness of therapy. It was too much, too fresh. The rough of your nailbeds still ran black with limestone, your hair sticky with fiend’s blood, your eyes narrowed, untrusting. But it has been over ten months now; the anniversary of your return edged nearer with each passing day. Gone was the shaking girl draped in demon hide and hell ash that Vergil tore from the bowels of Makai. You had to rebuild yourself in these short months, fill your cracks with gold, reforge your resolve with iron and fire until it refused to bend. Afterall, you didn’t have Vergil to rely on in the realm of sapiens. Instead, you had his son. You were now the protector; the she-wolf; the one who had to mend the cracks of others.

You would not let Marcus bring you to ruins again. You had clawed your way through too many infernoes to have him buckle your knees. 

Your hand crawled its way to your neck once more, and you thumbed at your bare throat, your rhythm lost to anxiety and needy, self-soothing tendencies. Unlike your memories, the skin there was forgiving and scarless. No blood, no blade, no necklace of raised seams and martyrism. You were you. Well, what was left of you. 

You took a slow, unsteady breath. Small steps now. Taste the metal, welcome the flame. You, no matter how incomplete, still had your resolve, your purpose. Your files included Nero. He was now something for Marcus to smile knowingly about. He was fox-kin, afterall. A trickster, a predator. You needed to keep at least one lamb away from his jaws. 

“Are those my files?”

Lady crinkled in weariness, unsure of where to step now that your moods embodied a swaying pendulum. “Yes.”

 “You said that a member of the Cult of Mundus stole mine? How are they here?” You pressed your questions, seeking what you felt deep within your core you already knew.

“They’re not.” Lady corrected, “I’m rebuilding your case from scratch to help Vergil get a lead on where the Cult might be operating.” 

That gave you pause, “He didn’t tell me that.” You said, tongue slipping loose to wet the cracks in your lips. 

“I’m sure he didn’t. He doesn’t want you involved.”

“’I’m already involved. I’ve been involved from the start - this started with me.”

“I know…But I see why he thought it was best.”

“Excuse me?”

There was a shift in Lady, a turn of tides. The emotions that once draped her plush face had all but vanished. It left her as stiff as the dead, with an authoritative air thick enough to rival that of great kings. The two-hues of her eyes settled over you with careful consideration. 

“It’s clear that you’re not stable enough to handle your own past.” Lady said, “if you have an episode every time you need to face something traumatic, how do you think that will affect the operation?”

Your rage tried to become you, overtake you in a swell of fire and fury, as if it was something born from Hade’s pit. Your temper flared, flickered, like heat catching on dry grass. A blaze was coming, the smoke was heavy on the wind. Your balled fist rose high, a strike for a strike, some would say. But this burn of indignation in you was not yours, not human. You directed your rage onto the table, a clash of otherworldly endurance and simple wood. It was a pitiful war, one won in a blast of splinters and handwritten reports. 

Lady swore up a storm as you drove your fist through her Hawaiian Koan desk. It was a shame, really. The table was the only thing this barren office had going for it. 

“You fucking bitch!”

“No - you fucking bitch!” You snarled back, tearing your hand from the gaping stomach of the table. You pointed a thin, accusing finger in Lady’s face, your burning gaze meeting her own. “When you’re ritually sacrificed to the Prince of Darkness then you can lecture me about how I should handle my past!”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” Lady sneered back. You had to give it to her, the commander was one of the most dauntless individuals you’d ever met. She was known to never show fear, and right now, her reputation preceded her. Lady dared to inch forward, to close the gap between the two of you. Her voice sank into something chilling, like the deep waters of the Arctic, uncharted and unforgiving. 

“If you see Marcus Briggs in the flesh, will you crack?” Lady uttered, “will you lose yourself in your confusion and grief; beg to know why he betrayed you? Or can you be better, be stronger, and do what needs to be done to finally put an end to The Cult of Mundus?”

The desertlands returned to take ownership of your throat, you choked on the dryness, “you know his - ”

“Your little friend was cocky enough - or maybe stupid enough - to not use an alias when he and his cult-freaks went undercover in my organisation.” The retort was meant to sting. Lady was grinding salt into a too-fresh wound, enjoying the way you winced and struggled. “Once they got what they wanted, they were quick to flee like rats into the sewers. Vergil kindly identified them from the company database of dead or MIA operatives."

Confusion crawled under your skin. It made itself at home between your joints, your tendons, festering like a disease, devouring you from the inside out. 

“Vergil doesn’t…” You tried to gather your thoughts, yet they slipped through the gasps of your fingers. Your mind felt like a string of pearls, broken and spilling onto the floor in a mess of pretty insanity. “I didn’t tell him about Marcus; about what Marcus let the Cult do to me; what he did to me - I wouldn’t.” 

“The two of you were fleeing Mundus for two years, surely it came up at some point while dredging through Makai.”

“It didn’t…I would have remembered.” 

“Truama is fickled.” Lady signed, and she reached a strong hand to cup your sloped shoulder. It was awkward at best, uncomfortable at worst. The two of you only tended to share touch through strikes of pain, a bruised throat, a red cheek. “It fucks with your head, your memories. Relax, Vergil didn’t disclose anything personal. Just what was needed.”

You knotted your hands together, brows drawn close, tight as you fled from a half-comforting presence, pacing between your empty chair and the corpse of Lady’s expensive desk. You were unsettled; riddled with anxiety and that lingering, haunting feeling of unknowing. Maybe. Maybe, she was right. You wanted to believe she was right. It was the only thing that made sense. 

Time did seem to trickle in a strange way when you were in Makai; the hourglass mishaped, the sand too thick. The days were long, bleeding, though the months, crisp and short. Two years felt like the passing of two seasons. Its nature was eternal; however, stillborn in the same measure, its burst of life fleeting yet monumental. A slight of hand, you argued. A way to keep the wandering stranger lost and complacent. 

“It’s getting late, and I’m sure you have to pick up the kid. You should get going.” Lady said, voice thin as she herded your quick, mindless steps from the belly of the room to the door of her office. “If you need to talk to someone about everything…I have people for that. Vergil doesn’t have to know. It can stay between us.”

“Why would he care if I talk to someone?” You mumbled, eyes as low hung as your head as you reached for the cool handle. It was clear you had overstayed your welcome. Made a mess of things. 

“Vergil…He just wants the best for you. I guess in his thick head that means keeping you as far from Uroboros as possible.”

You bite the fat of your tongue, refusing to dispute Lady’s comment. But you lacked faith in her words. Surely, if Vergil wanted the best for you, he wouldn’t treat you like a burden, and Nero, like a scarred knee, unwanted yet unavoidable when you were reckless in your youth.

He doesn’t care.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. 

You had much to mend. 

────୨ৎ────

You were kneeling in the kitchen. The floor was unforgiving to the bones of your knees, cold and bruising. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, honey. You don’t have to apologise again.”

“I just wanted a drink.”

“I know, Nero. It’s fine.”

The chub on his cheeks twitched, much like that of a timid church mouse, as Nero cast a lost glance at the shattered ceramic by his feet, your knees. You had instructed him to be still, be calm, to not tread on the broken pieces scattered around him. It was late into the witching hours of the night, you had just begun to drift off into the land of dreams when your ears caught the shrill, panicked pleads of Nero. You didn’t hear the crash of the mug, didn’t know that all your starry boy wanted was a glass of milk to quench his sleepy thirst. You flew into a panic yourself, tearing the thin sheets from your body, a toss of limbs and claws as you laboured to get to Nero. To save Nero.

He was here, you thought with a half-slumber struck mind. 

But who was he? Mundus? Marcus? You did not know, you did not care. You just needed to get to Nero. Nero. Nero. O, God, not Nero. You galloped down the twist of stairs, missing a step here, skipping two steps there; you tripped, your breath stalled, hands shooting like arrows in the dark for anything to grab. Lady Luck graced you in that moment, you caught yourself on the railing, fingers skidding over the lacquered wood, your palms rubbed raw. Still, you continued, rejecting the stumble as an omen to slow down. 

“It was wet. It slipped.”

You found Nero barefoot in the kitchen, tears stinging the corners of his eyes, his bottom lip pronounced, wobbling. He whipped his head over to you once you pushed open the French doors, your chest collapsing at the mere sight of him. He was alone yet terrified. Your eyes, wild and beading, fanned around the kitchen. It was bare, sleepy like the night itself. You stepped forward, questions mounting in the tight walls of your throat until they lodged, damning you into a choked silence. But as your glaze drew to your starry boy once more, sweeping over him and him alone, you found the landmine beneath him, one of ceramic shards and milk spill.

You approached him with quiet steps, a gentle face. Nero was never good with loud, sudden noises. He was quick to startle at times. You read the casefile Lady gave you on how she had come to find the lost Grandson of Sparda. You remember each turn of the page revealing one tragedy, then another, and another. His original date of birth was unknown, as he left on the steps of an orphanage only at a few days old, fair skin wrapped in a dark blanket. He was fostered out twice at ages two and four, but they couldn’t handle his emotional outbursts and stubborn ways; these families wanted an easy child, a grateful, quiet child. They weren’t prepared to take in a little boy who had been socially stunted by the constant rejection he faced from his peers due to his moon-kissed appearance, nor did they take a liking to his devilish temper and quick tongue. In his short lifetime, Nero had been abandoned at the orphanage’s cobble steps thrice; twice by strangers, once by his own mother. 

That type of forsaking left cracks in any child’s heart. 

It was the last two pages, however, that truly showed what scars Nero carried. The Orphanage was located out of state, off the mainland on a small island crowned Fortuna. It was a rather progressive town in recent times, accommodating refugee Makaians, respecting demon-kind. The island was known as one of worship, and the Dark Knight Sparda was the devil they chose to glorify as their saviuor, their Patron Saint. There had been rumours that Sparda himself had resigned on the island for sometime, creating a safe, demon-free space for the first inhabitants. As legend goes, when the island was still in its burning youth, he governed as Fortuna’s Feudal Lord. With Sparda, the town grew in wealth and beauty and prospered beyond what was common for islands of that small size. He was their guardian, their fountain of fortune and wisdom.

But The Dark Knight was long gone, and there was now no one to protect the town or its people. 

The reports told of a shapeshifting demon who fed from the corpses of children.  The Uroboros Corporation had been tracking it down since it slaughtered a preschool on the south coast of Florida. However, this demon was clever, it knew to never ravage the same place twice. It fled into the night like a thief. Hiding on a supply shipment to escape the hunt. It slinked its way onto the island and into Fortuna, where it found the most delicious of places to dine, an orphanage brimming with young blood. It shifted its appearance into a babe, and left itself naked and abandoned at the doors as so many before it. Like a snake in grass, it waited, it preyed. The nuns took mercy, as any old, wrinkled zealots would, bringing the supposed newborn in, bathing it and wrapped it in cloth. However, when it came time to feed, instead of pressing the nipple of the warmed bottle between gummy flesh, the nuns found big, pearly teeth. 

The demon devoured more than half the orphanage before Lady and her men tracked the fiend down. They slayed it and brought the survivors back to the organisation for questioning and support. 

It was hard not to miss that shock of silver hair, even if it was smeared with the blood of infants. 

Nero had seen it all. The demon, half shifted between babe and devil, crawling along the walls, leaving a bloody trail as it snatched little boys and girls from their beds, tearing heads from necks and limbs from torsos. It poured gore and carnage on the remaining orphans, the ones too terrified to hide, the ones who pissed themselves and were too frightened to cry. 

When Lady saw Nero, with his eyes so hollow, so blue. She just knew. That child was Sparda-kin in one way or another. 

Did the Lord Sparda live? Had he once again returned to Fortuna to govern. Maybe he took a new bride, seeded a new heir. Only to disappear for a final time. 

Or perhaps, Dante had sought comfort on one of his freelance hunting trips. He would sometimes disappear for weeks on end if he wasn't under the employment of Uroboros Corporation. He went wherever the money pooled thickest. Even if the journey was long, lonely.

Could you imagine Lady’s face? A ghostly ripple of horror as she tested Nero’s DNA to find that Dante was a paternal match, only the triangulation group wasn’t high enough for him to be considered the biological father. What it did show, however, was enough common segments to claim Dante as a close relative, an uncle.

Thank god Vergil tore a rip between space and time and threw you onto Lady’s lap within the month. What else was the commander supposed to do with the kid if Vergil wouldn’t claim the boy? She couldn’t let the only Grandson of Sparda loose into the world, not with his history and dormant devil powers. 

“Accidents happen, honey. It’s okay, I’m not mad. I’m just relieved that you’re not hurt.” Your words were soft, like a drop of cream. Light and kind and sweet on the tongue. With your free hand, the one unused and untouched by broken ceramic shards, you reached up to cup the fat of his cheek and thumb circles on the plump skin. You rubbed around the salted tears, hushed back the dust of pink and warmth. 

“It’s okay to drop things, you’re still very little, Nero.” You reassure your starry boy, “but I’m very, very glad that you called out to me. Always call me when you need me, okay? I’ll come. I’ll always come.” 

You collected the fragments, one at a time, methodical and careful not to cut yourself. You continued to speak as you did so, allowing the kitchen to swell with the soft hymn of your voice. It lulled Nero, soothed his panic, his guilt. The slope of his small shoulders deepened, his eyes hooded, heavy, had gone slack with solace. He yawned as you recounted a story from your own youth, a rare treat.

You spoke of a time you had also created a mess, caused an accident, how the adults in your life were just as forgiving, and how you deserved their care and kindness, as Nero deserved your unconditional care and kindness, your eternal forgiveness; it was not a sin to be small, you reminded him. Childhood error was not sacrilegious in nature. 

It was human to make mistakes…You tried, you truly did, to keep Nero’s history in mind when you interacted with him. To possess patience and an open mind, tender hands, a thoughtful, loving smile. You were anything but perfect, however. There were times where your temper flared, and your mouth cut into sharp shapes, you would say things you didn’t mean, in an unkind snarl, as any beaten dog would. You would make him cry, or scream back, slam the door in your face or throw himself on the ground in conniption. The two of you were a pair of shellshocked pawns, expendable and sacrificial, fodder for devil hunger and entertainment. You were reckless, dazed, when you promised Vergil you could step up to fill the role of guardian for Nero.

Lady was right, trauma was a fickle thing. 

It tore through you, leaving holes in the fabric of your being. You craved to collide with another, to mend your fate with their fortune. Someone with similarly caught, torn threads, so that you may become whole by weaving your loose yarn with their scraps of string. You and this somewhat-stranger would become a patchwork of self-mended traumas. You would fix each other, knit back what was important, what made you complete. The stitches would be crooked, fingertips would be needle-bitten and bloody, the twine too thin. But after some time, you wouldn’t feel the breeze. The holes would be sown shut. Your hands would stop shaking.  

It was the only human thing about you still, these small missteps, the relapse, the slow recovery. Nero made you feel whole. You were complete with him, and he, complete with you. The two of you were cut from the same cloth, two shards from the same shattered cup.

  There was a prick, a sting.

A hunger settled through you, bleeding and beating. It woke, it stirred, it stretched, a flex of sharp claws, a wide, yawning maw, a dozen gleaming teeth shining through. It stalked from your finger prints to the gaps between your ribs, like a surgical blade. It knew where to strike, where to drive into soft skin and divide flesh from bone best. 

You lapped at your mouth, trying to satiate your rousing appetite. The devil in you grew loud, restless. Someone was calling out and it (you, it’s you. Don’t forget what he made you) demanded to answer.

“All done. Time for bed, Nero. I’ll be up to tuck you in soon.”

The boy rubbed at his eyes, nodding weakly as he stepped away from you, a slight sway to him as he did so; sleep was like an anchor, his body was left to rock on the waves of lapping conscience. You listened to the creak of floorboards, the light thud of footsteps on stairs, the low whine of a bedroom door as it opened but left ajar. 

You rose from your knees slowly, your hand fisting the collection of broken ceramic between fingers and palm. 

There was blood in the air, the smell of sulphur too. 

“We need to talk.” You rumbled, a storm within your chest brewing, breaking. 

You cast your gaze over the curve of your shoulder to where the corners of the kitchen’s wall collided, and the shadows grew thickest. There, in the dark, your eyes found blue.

And they too, brew something monstrous.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

Chapter ii.v | Journal One

Pairing: Vergil/Reader. Content/Warnings: M for mentions of blood. Word Count: 427. Summary: You and that damn dress… Next Chapter: iii Previous Chapters: i , ii

A/N: I'll be updating this fic on AO3 under the name figandfox in the next coming days. The songs chosen per chapter kinda tie into the plot of the fic :) thank you for all of the love. Ps Next chapter will be much, much longer than this and will be posted in a few days. This is just a Vergil POV.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

She had lost weight since the day I first left her. The sweet, fullness of her hips had melted, skin now clinging to juts of bone. Her knees, too, were knobbed and bruised far too easily. It was not a simple feat for our kind to starve. How severely had she suffered in my absence? I thought Makai was a blight to her…It was foolish of me to think the human realm would guide her with gentle hands. This world was weak. It did not possess the might needed to protect the lamb from the slaughter. 

July was at its edge now. And the sun was beginning to turn kind, tempered, and persimmon season was at its cusp. She had once told me that when this time of year began, she would go to the markets and buy a bundle of persimmons, sunset-bright, ripe and round, almost swollen with a honey-spiced sort of fever. At summer’s end, persimmons were best paired with prosciutto. She swore that it eased the sweating turn of months, bringing a coolness to the days of August. 

What a ridiculous thing to say. Of course August eased the heat, it marked summer’s grave, a headstone of windy weathers to come. That fool, darling as she may be. She alone holds the key to my kingdom of wealth, she best buy her fruits and her salted meats now. I think of the state of her often; that desolent apartment of which I condemned, she will not be returning to it, nor would the child, my dear brother’s pet had arranged for something better, a place in which she would not have to sleep on a damn couch; her need to eat, to return the softness to her body, the curve to her hips; her studies too, concerned me... Until then, I will look at her only with teeth clenched. As I did when I first found her in the deepest pits of Makai, hidden from all things living and undead. However, I do fear that my contempt nowadays wouldn't dare hold a flame to the apoplectic flare I let consume me when I saw her, instead of it, at my feet, in chains; her, draped in that pretty white bridal gown, lost in its lace and layers; a bloody mess staining the dress’ sweetheart bodice. 

When will I stop torturing myself with these memories? When will the ache in my hands, my jaws, cease in their yearning for her to be between them once more? Just once, that’s all the devil in me begs.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

Chapter ii

Pairing: Vergil/Reader. Content/Warnings: M+ for Swearing & guns. Word Count: 8,959. Summary: The day was hot, what little luck you had, had spoiled. Who else where you supposed to turn to? It wasn't like Vergil was around to help. Next Chapter: ii.v Previous Chapter: i

A/N: Reader is not Nero's birth mother in this. I'll be updating this fic on AO3 under the name figandfox in the next coming days. P.S the songs chosen per chapter kinda tie into the plot of the fic :) thank you for all of the love.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

There was a time where you thought yourself immortal. You were seventeen, a dream, the girl who had everything at your fingertips. Then you met him, a boy shy with wise, fox-brown eyes. He took your hand in his and promised you everything that you didn’t know your fingers couldn’t reach. You loved him wholly, innocently. First love was such a delightful little deception, it held you tender and tight, like the jaws of a lamb. Holy and violent, it brought you to your knees. But it had been years since you were in between the teeth of that shy, fox-like boy. You thought that would be the last time a man had any right to buckle your knees. 

“You called.” He said, and finally his eyes met yours. Something within then flickered like a flame, emotions you could not name waning and waxing within the depths of his gaze. 

You stepped forward, unsteady in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time.

“You appear…fine enough,” Vergil continued as he dragged his burning blue eyes down your body, a slow, leisured journey. “Why send such a letter?” 

The letter Vergil spoke of, bare of its envelope, was wedged tight in the ball of his fist. His other hand kept the Yamato at bay, the world splitting katana was sheathed yet restless. It hummed in a frequency too low for the human mind to comprehend, but you could hear it, like sweet nothings in your ear as its steel sung for carnage. Vergil had come seeking blood and battle. All due to the three little words you wrote: I need you. 

What fled from your mouth was a condescending, dry chuckle. “Someone sounds eager to leave.” 

Bitter. You were bitter. Broken by how Vergil seemingly longed to slip out of your hold and back into the shadows of Makai.  

“I’m a busy man.” 

“But not busy enough for Lady, right?” 

It was the wrong thing to say, the wrong way to go about a conversation like this. 

Vergil narrowed his eyes thin, dangerous, that frown cutting across his face deeper. He corrected his stance, turning fully towards you as you stole his attention with just a handful of acrid words. 

“I thought I told you to stay away from that particular sapien.” Vergil inched closer to you, all power, all poise. You wanted to retreat, to tread back as he gained more territory. But you couldn’t…You feared your steps would falter, your knees give way and betray you once again. 

“You told me to stay away from your brother.” You deflected, but you held your ground, puffed your chest. Your moment of rebellion was all but fleeting as Virgil met you where you stood. The thump of your pulse, traitorous like your knees, drummed wild against the curve of your throat. You dared a glance at him with silent eyes, refusing to bear your heart on your sleeves in all its raw glory. You wished to be limestone, tenacious and grey, absent of the tenderness that flesh and emotion had to offer. Vergil did not deserve to know your sleepless, weepful nights. How in the witching hours you spent yourself into exhaustion begging for his consult, his comfort, only to curse him and his desertion of you in the same breath. 

A shadow cast over your small stature, the kitchen light’s yellow hue could not spare you from Vergil’s plight. He was the Son of Sparda, momentous yet dressed in the flesh of man and harbouring the blood of monsters; Vergil was Goliath in nature, Hades in temper, unbound and unchained from the earth and her covenant as he walked between the two worlds. An eclipse of both human and demon, pious yet godless. And he loomed over you like how the moon hung over her nightly domain, her evening creatures, possessive and alluring. And so, so magnetic. You couldn’t look away.

“And she’s my little brother’s pet. You had no business meeting with her.” Vergil whispered, low and light like whipped cream. He was so close to you and all you could do was swallow thickly, wetly.

“Dante acts more like her pet. You should see them together…it's entertaining until it's not.” You breathed out, and the sour had slipped from your tongue. Naturally, you mimicked Vergil’s murmurs, and you too spoke with a shy drawl. 

The dipped corner of his scowl sunk deeper, meaner, “you spoke to my brother.”

There was no question there. Vergil knew and there was no way to hide your broken promise now.

“It wasn’t my fault,” you said, your brows drawn in an unease set heavy in your stomach. “He found me.”

“Why?” Vergil sneered his query, his ire simmering with each word pried from you. But his temper was misplaced. 

“Lady’s orders…it’s really, really bad, Vergil. He knows.”

“Dante may be a fool, but his sapien pet isn’t. She wouldn’t -”

“Not Dante.” You uttered, and there was a crack in your voice, like porcelain in the hands of something careless, something cruel. “Mundus - he knows that -.” 

“The pumpkin’s burning.”

You blinked once, then twice at the small voice that interrupted your spew of fear and confessions. Your head tilted like a confused mutt; you knew that tone, that cadence, and you knew it well. Yet it was too boyish to come from Vergil’s lips, too youthful. In spite of your apprehension, you dared to cast a look over your shoulder, training your eyes on the source of that dour voice.

Nero lingered by the doorway of his room, his silver crowned head hung low as he focused his gaze on anything but the man behind you. 

“Shit.” Your pretty face twisted into something troubled as you left Vergil’s side for a moment to check on the forgotten vegetables. Curses flooded your mouth, hissing from your teeth like steam as the peek-a-boo glass door of the oven showed itself to be completely blackened and smudged with soot. You pawed at the dials and snatched up a nearby teatowel to fan the thick smoke that seeped from the seal of the chamber. 

Your hands shook. But it had nothing to do with the smog-heavy air filling your apartment, charred and tart. You withdrew your efforts after a long minute and braced yourself against the counter. It wasn’t like this rundown apartment had a functional smoke alarm, and you had far more to concern yourself with than a ruined meal. 

“Nero - Nero, honey.” You tripped over your words, and rubbed at your burning eyes with balled fists to keep the anxieties at bay as you called the small boy over to you. “Come here, I want to introduce you to someone.”

He picked at the seams of his three-quarter shorts, mouth pouting, twisting in that way that meant he was chewing on a defiant response. It took him a moment, but Nero eventually shrugged out of the straps of his backpack; it hit the wooden floorboards with a weighted thud, heavy with all the things meant to keep him occupied as you made your way from room to room, cleaning and dusting and whatever else the motel required of you. 

Your heart broke for the child. Nero was such a good boy, he knew to pack his own bag, to be ready and waiting for when dinner and dishes were done and your night shift called, and he too had to answer. A babysitter was out of the question; you couldn’t afford it, nor could you bring yourself to trust anyone with Nero’s care and safety. Never once did he complain or cry. He took your nightly routine with stride. For a majority of the night he would take hold of you by the end of your apron, and follow you at the heel as you made your rounds. When the night waned into deeper hours, he would yawn and quietly ask for a hot chocolate and to be shown to the staff room, where he would sip on his sweet beverage and play with his toys until sleep took him. 

Nero hurried towards you with his head still low, eyes avoidant. It didn’t take him long before he secured himself to your side, wedging his small body between the gape of the counter and your leg. Your long fingers drifted down to sooth the wildness of his hair as Nero hid the apples of his cheeks into your hip bone.

“We spoke about this, remember?” You hushed, soft and sweet. “About meeting your dad…It’s okay to be a little shy but say hello, he’s very excited to see you.”

Your gaze strayed from the boy at your side to where Vergil stood. Disbelief struck you hard as you found Vergil seemingly stagnant, his head veering off to the side, his own ocean deep eyes evasive, aloof. A huff of air left your lungs, a somewhat chuckle, as you perceived Sparda’s eldest son. 

“Like father, like son, I see.” You said, your eyebrow arched high as your tone carried notes of discontent, yet the slightest tune of delight as well. 

You expected better of Vergil, the man whom you knew to be so proud and disciplined. But this almost…childish stubbornness reminded you so much of the boy that clung to you now. They were so painfully alike, your Nero and Vergil. 

“Be polite, Nero. Say hi.” You tussled the child’s starry locks and he groused his annoyance. At either your scolding words or the rather coarse treatment of his hair. 

“Hi.” The word was clipped, forced, and nearly lost as it was muffled into the fabric of your shorts. 

“Hello, Nero.” Vergil said, his own greeting rather strained. 

Something clawed its way from the forgotten depths of your memory to your mind’s eye. The first and last time you heard Vergil utter his son’s name was when you both were fresh from the jaws of Makai. He had taken you to Lady, and sought your refuge with the Ouroboros Corporation under her council and power. You had spent that week learning who you were. This current you. This lie of a girl. Too young, too hollow. A sin in fitted flesh. Nothing about your original identity was allowed to live beyond the belly of the Uroboros. 

During that week, you barely caught sight of Vergil. He kept his distance, a coldness hung on his shoulder similar to his blue trench coat; heavy and forever with him. Not until he came to you on that fateful seventh day and explained that Makai called for him, and he had no choice but to answer. You remember the tears, the pleading. You couldn’t do this without him. The past two years all you knew was death and devils and him. It was Lady who held you close in her arms as you fell to pieces, knees weak and eyes flooded. She spoke harshly to Vergil, cruel, with a blade tongue. She was the one who voiced her disapproval of Vergil’s decision to abandon you and the child - his child. 

Nero has lived all his life without a father. He doesn’t need me. Makai needs me. It needs me to fix the mess Mundus has created for the sake of power, for the sake of her. 

The night before Vergil split the two worlds apart and left you to fend for yourself in this new, lonely life, you asked him for permission; for a chance to make things even between you two.

I’ll take him. He’ll be safe with me, I promise. You can leave for Makai and know Nero will be cared for. Consider it payment for how you looked after me all these years. 

The memory’s point of focus was how Vergil turned to you, eyes possessed by consideration and something else, something tinted with hunger. He took his time to answer, using those lost moments to devour the sight of you. Maybe he too, thought this would be the last he saw of you for a long, long while. 

You’ll raise my son?

Yes.

Consider it done. Griffon will let the sapiens know Nero is now yours. 

Griffon?

The reminiscences of that night pin pricked behind your eyes, and you fought back the swell of emotions that lodged itself in your throat. You really did keep your promise. Nero was a bright and healthy boy. Despite the sacrifices, the financial ache, the sleepless nights too, seeing him grow and be a part of his life over these past months was a joy unlike any other you had experienced. Perhaps you felt maternal towards your little starry boy. It was hard not to, especially now as he hid himself behind you, his protector, his rock. A she-wolf and her pup.

“How about we get takeout on the way to work?” You said, peering down at Nero as your fingers found their way from his crown to his rounded cheek. You squished the baby fat between your pointer and thumb; it lacked a firm touch, you were always so gentle with him. “You can pick.”

Nero titled his head, eyes searching for yours. His gaze would flicker from you to Vergil, the action nervous and fleeting, as if he was unsure if his father would also be attending dinner, also shadowing you at the motel. 

“Pizza?” Nero asked, “from downtown?”

You nodded slowly, mirth cresting your lips. “Sure. Now go get your things and put your shoes on, I need to talk to your dad before we go.”

You focused on the pitter-patter of Nero’s footsteps as he dashed back to his room before training your attention on Vergil. He didn’t look pleased.

“You work.” Again, there was no question in his words. 

You drew an eyebrow up at him, weary of his tone. Vergil may have spent most of his life in the thralls of Makai, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew humans worked to live and lived to work. Why would you be exempted from that soul-crunching ritual?

“How else am I supposed to put a roof over mine and Nero’s head?” You signed, kneading the soft of your temple. You were somewhat bitter at the backhanded reminder that rent was due at the end of this week. 

“Lady asked me to send the letter.” Your confession was delivered in a voice hushed as you made your way around the small open kitchen to collect your own belongings for work. You knew Nero would be eavesdropping, curious to what you would have to say to the man whom you just introduced to be his father. “There’s been someone at Uroboros Corporation selling classified information to Makains - to Mundus, maybe. I don’t know…My file was included in the last batch. But you need to talk to Lady, she has all the details.”

Vergil was quiet. Too quiet. You let your eyes cast a quick glance at him, and found him studying the room in which he stood. His head, dipped to inspect the couch at first, rolled to scrape across what little space the apartment had to offer. You knew that what he saw wasn’t much. Your kitchen and living room were melded into one body, tight and narrow, encased by cool, rugged brick. There was no decor, and barely any furniture that wasn’t already abandoned by previous tenants, mismatched and in poor condition. But you had a couch that dueled as your bed during the nights, toppled by a mess of sheets and pillows, a TV that needed a good beating to work most of the time to function without the hiss of static, and a wooden coffee table, low to the ground and uneven, tipsy. You wouldn’t dare leave a hot mug on the damn thing, you didn’t trust that it wouldn't tilt to one side and send your drink on a short trip. The rug beneath it was ugly and thin, but you didn’t have the money to dry clean any stains acquired due to carelessness and unsteady tables. 

Your eyes met again, Vergil’s deep sapphiric blue to your own. That unsettled flutter aroused in the low of your belly again. Vergil was tense, vexed. But The Son of Sparda did not wear his heart or his emotions on his sleeves, he appeared unbothered, cool as he gave you a departing nod, his hands fluid like silk, like water as they unsheathed the demon sword by his side. Nonetheless, you couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something wicked, something enraged simmering under Vergil’s fair skin.

“Trust me, I will be.” Vergil said as he slashed through the barriers of time and space in your living room.

You forced yourself to turn, to carry your legs one step at a time down the hallway and towards the front door where Nero fidgeted, waiting for you. You didn’t have the strength to watch as Vergil left you behind again. To calm the ache, to harden the heart, you reminded yourself of one thing; he wasn’t here for you, for Nero, Vergil was here for Lady. You were just the necessary tool needed to make that happen. 

────୨ৎ────

The quarters were sticking with the moisture trapped in the carvings of your palm. The phone-booth was death with four tin walls, an incinerator with a telephone to call the devil as flesh melted from bone. You thought yourself mid-cremation as you punched in your landlord’s number for the third time, metal buttons smudged with the sweaty prints of your thumb. When the sharp ringing bit at your ear, you pulled back just for a moment to check on Nero again. 

The five year old was across the road from you, seeking refuge under the only tree full and leafy enough to cast shade. It was late in the day, you had just picked up Nero from preschool, and yet the sun still baked the earth dry and barren. You spoke a prayer under your hot breath as the ringing started to draw out. You only had a handful of coins left, enough for two more calls, and your own phone was useless; you couldn’t afford rent, spontaneous takeaway dinners, and a phone bill all in the same week; something had to go, and that something was a functional phone. If the sleazy crook who owned your building, Mister John Thomas, didn’t pick up, you were fucked. 

For whatever reason, your building swipe tag wasn’t working. You couldn’t enter the lobby of your apartment, meaning you and Nero were locked outside on one of the hottest days of the year. But it should be working, you had only moved into the apartment two months ago. The swipe was new, or so you were told. It shouldn’t be denying you access. 

“Hello?” A voice answered after the fifth ring, thick with a Boston drag. 

“John? John, it’s me.” You puffed out in relief, using the back of your hand to smear the beads of sweat forming at your temple. “from apartment b12. Listen, I really need you to come down to the building. The swipe tag you gave me isn’t working, I’m locked out and it’s hot as hell today.” 

“Oh, yeah, I remember you. The single mom. Your kid’s quiet, got strange hair.”

“I’m not his mo-”

“Yeah, yeah. I meant to call you, actually.” John cut your correction off with a yawn before spilling a slew of instructions at you. “You can leave your apartment keys and tag in the mail box. If the movers left anything in the apartment, you’ll have to fork out a $90 fine for re-entering the unit after breaking your lease. ” 

Your eyebrows drew in as your face scrunched up with confusion. There had to be a mistake. 

“I didn’t - rent is due tomorrow. I have the money, I said I wouldn’t be late again.” The words came out rushed, frantic as your bottom lip wobbled. “Please don’t break the lease. I didn’t…John, please, I have the money.” 

“Sweetheart, what are you on about?” The phone line cracked with John’s own bafflement. “You broke the lease this morning. Said you’d be out by the end of the day. You even paid the fine for breaking the damn contract. I got your letter and money delivered to my doorstep nine hours ago.” 

“What? What letter?” You questioned, panic rising high in your voice, your throat. Your fingers carded through your hair, feral with dire, ruining the neat braid you laced your strands into before class this morning. “John, you - you have to be getting me confused with a different tenant. I wouldn’t break my lease; I can’t afford anyplace else!” 

There was a pestered sigh breathed out heavily on the other end of the line. You began to pace around the photobooth like a caged animal, restless and fevered as you tried to make sense of the situation. You heard muttering and the ruffling of paper, before John returned to the phone, punctuating his presence with a wet cough.

He started to recite something, a formal, well worded letter of some sort. It noted your legal name (the fake one, the one Lady had conjured for you), your apartment number, the amount owed for breaking the lease and a declaration that the money was accounted for and that unit would be vacant by 5pm this afternoon. And apparently it was all written and signed on your behalf. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. But because you paid upfront, I had to process the paperwork before 5pm today or risk legal repercussions from the city.” His tone was sincere, daring to even border on apathetic. “If you pay the $90 upfront, I’ll let you in the place tomorrow to get what you need but I can’t let you stay. I don’t rent out to tenants that have lease breakages on their record.” 

You were silent, like the foot falls of a cat, like the early mornings at a grave yard. You dragged the phone away from your ear and held it to your heaving chest as your dead gaze trained onto the ceiling of the booth. Your jaw was shaking, eyes pinpricked and heavy with unshed tears. You were trying to stifle down your sobs, unwilling to let John hear you hyperventilating over the line. 

You could faintly make out the sound of him calling out your name, questioning if you were still there. You couldn’t speak without the dread shifting into something violent, something fiendish. It threatened to rip the words from the tender of your throat with glossy fangs, a dripping maw. You slammed the phone back into its holder and pressed your face into your sweat-slick palms. You tried to breathe. But your lungs felt like a set of dying stars, your insides were cannibalizing themselves until the rot took over and the blackhole formed. You were left a mess of empty flesh and decay before the core pulled you in, nothingness swallowing you whole. 

Your eyes, blurry and wet, peeled open and stared between the gaps of your fingers. You spied out of the phone booth's window, the image outside disfigured by a web of fractured glass, and beyond the quiet road. Nero was hunched low to the ground, chin resting on his knees as he bathed in the tree’s shadow. Even from this distance, you could see how his clothes clung to the film of sweat forming on him, his cheeks flushed with heat.

You had to fix this. For him. For the little boy who had never known stability and peace. 

You scrubbed at your face, mean and frantic, kneading away your tears and fixing your stress-knotted hair. You knew the mere three-thousand dollars you saved to pay this month’s rent wasn’t enough to cover the expenses of your next apartment, even if you did have the time to find one.

The only person you knew would take you in without payment or paperwork was Lady. But that thought alone stirred something distasteful in your chest. The director of the Uroboros Corporation hadn’t reached out to you since your last point of contact earlier this week. Neither had Dante…And you didn’t even know if Vergil was still in this realm of existence. You worried your bottom lip, and considered the debt you may put yourself in by reaching out to Lady for a favour. It wouldn’t be anything pricy, just a place for you and Nero to crash at for a week or so while you sort out your living situation. 

Fuck it. 

────୨ৎ────

With the last quarters you possessed, you slipped the coins into the slot and punched in the number of the only cab company you knew.

The wait for Lady was excessive, in your opinion. But you chewed and choked on any complaint you thought to voice. Lady’s office had AC, a comfortable leather couch, and a personal assistant that was far too gracious in supplying fresh, iced water for both you and Nero. You should have thrown your code name around more if it gave you these sorts of privileges. 

“So…We can’t go home?” Nero questioned before taking another sip of his drink. His skin was no longer feverish and sweaty, and you fixed his damp hair out of his face before answering him with careful words.

“Not tonight, honey.” You consoled, leaning back into the couch, eyes resting for a moment. “It’s hard to explain but we’ll be okay. I promise.” 

Nero peered over the rim of his crystal glass, eyes dipped low, thoughtful.

“Is this because of him?” 

“Because of who? Mr Thomas?” 

“No,” Nero shook his head, mouth screwed in a tight frown. “Him…my - you know.” 

“Vergil?” You answered with a thoughtless tongue.

“I don’t know. Is that his name?” The boy shrugged as he placed the drained glass on the table, cautious to not clip the marble surface with the bottom of the cup. 

“Yes, yes. That’s your dad’s name.” You waved off your words and pressed your fingers into the soft of your temple to knead out a forming headache. “No, this isn’t your dad’s fault. Why would you think that?” 

Nero chewed on his retort, taking his time. You could see the wheels of thought turning behind his eyes, conjuring concepts and connections to how Vergil was somehow the rhyme and reason for all their bad luck recently. 

“I don’t know.” Nero concluded with a pout. “He comes back and everything sucks. He should just stay away." 

“Where’s this coming from?”

“Vergil’s mean, he makes you upset. I don’t like him.”

“Dad. You call him dad. He’s your dad, Nero.” You correct sharply, your glare falling onto the boy’s sapphire eyes. “And he doesn’t make me upset. He’s helped me through a lot…I know it’s hard to understand, but your dad really is a great guy.” 

Nero turned from you, sulking over how you were so quick to defend Vergil. A humph left his lips as he crossed his arms over his chest, frustrated and stubborn. Always so stubborn. 

“I’m not calling him dad.” Nero muttered, and there was a sourness colouring his tone. A tired smile curled your lips, and you sighed deeply. One battle at a time, you thought. 

A rather startling knock rattled the large door at the very front of the room. You stood abruptly from the couch, your body strung tight as the double doors split apart with a stretched, creaky moan. Lady slipped between the gap like silk, her two-hued eyes sizzling with curiosity, her face cut from cool stone. She addressed the room in her usual battalion-grade uniform, poised like a soldier as she cast a glare your way.

“Here to bitch at me, too?” She quipped, her round features crinkled into something worn and weary, like a beaten dog still made to hunt for its master.  

Your lips twisted down, unimpressed at Lady’s foul and thoughtless mouth in front of Nero. 

“No.” You said, “I’m here because I’m having certain...Issues at my place.”

“Impossible.” Lady scoffed, shaking her head sternly. The dark tufts of hair her commander cap couldn’t keep tucked away swept through the air, short and spry. “The place was handpicked by the pompous dick himself, I highly doubt he’ll let you and the kid live somewhere that didn’t exceed his standards.” 

You flinched at her words and tried to blink away the confusion that fogged your mind. A sickening sense of deja vu drifted through you like a phantom ready to take possession. Again, someone had tied a rope of half-explained conditions around your neck and was nudging the chair beneath you, teasing conversations you were never a part of and deals you never shook on.

“Lady…I have no damn clue as to what the hell you are talking about.” You spoke slow, each word carefully pronounced, spaced out. You were leaving claw marks into your sanity as it tried to slip away from you. You couldn’t have this conversation - again. “But I need your help, and you owe me for calling Vergil. I got kicked out of my apartment over some mixed up paperwork, and Nero and I need a place to crash for a week to sort things out. Can you make this happen?”

It was rather strange how the marks we donned were so easily fractured, disrupted by the simplest of emotions, of equations. You always thought Lady made of stone, cold and hard, everything you wished to be. But as you watched that carefully pinched and pulled and perfected facade shatter as a surge of trepidation took hold of Lady’s feature, reshaping her roundness into jagged, panicked ends, you re-evaluated your position, your throat. There was no rope there. For once, you weren’t the one standing on the chair; you were the one who kicked it. 

“Lady?” You stepped forward, hands reaching out to soothe the commander. She ignored your attempt to calm the situation, instead snatching the radio comm from her vest and storming out of her own office in a frenzy. You were quick to follow, licking at the back of her heels in concern, your own panic gurgling in the low of your belly like molten rock. You briefly recall instructing Nero to stay put, to not leave the room as you talk to one of daddy’s friends. 

Lady was spewing question after question into the mic of her radio, breath hot and sentences clipped, demanding. She was conversing with someone. Someone scared, horrified, begging for aid and guidance. Your hand shot out to dig into the patted material of her uniform, you pulled Lady to you, halting her wild pace and forcing her to face you, to confront you with whatever madness had erupted around her that you were seemingly blind to.

“Lady!” You snarled, shaking the women in your hold. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Dante”, she breathed out, eyes melted into pools of dread. “He was supposed to pick you and Nero up and explain the situation. But he’s - he’s fighting his brother. They’re tearing each other apart and my men don’t know what to do.”

Vergil was still here?

“What situation?” 

“I don’t have time to spoon feed you the details.” Lady said, drawing away from your slacking grip. “I need to get to Dante.” 

Your eyes narrowed, “Vergil wouldn’t kill his little brother.” 

“And what makes you so sure?” Lady hissed, distrust thick on her tongue. 

You kissed the back of your teeth, the sound sharp, humourless. There wasn’t much you could say to defend Vergil, his actions weren’t always sound of mind to the average person. Despite that, you did know the man. And you knew he wouldn’t fight with an unhonourable inceptive. 

“You’re on your way to Dante, right?”

“Obviously.” 

“Good”, you said, punctuating yourself with a clipped nod. “I’m coming too. And Nero. We’re kind of a deal package.”

“You want the kid on a battlefield?” Lady called into question, her voice stretched thin with doubt. 

“He’ll stay in the car.” A nervous smile graced your expression. Where else was Nero supposed to go? He wouldn’t stay at the company’s compound, not alone and surrounded by strangers. Not without you. “He’ll be good; promise.”

You were silently thankful that Lady was a far better driver than Dante, especially with Nero in the backseat. The ride was silent, long. You wanted to demand the details Lady had previously withheld from you, however, you couldn’t risk doing such a thing in front of Nero. He was young, and young minds often wondered and worried and blamed themselves for the wrongs happening around them. Your starry boy was already so shy, so secluded. He didn’t need to carry anymore guilt.

You squinted, hand rising to block the golden rays of sun that filtered through the windscreen of the car. It was late. The sun was beginning to creep below the horizon, bleeding hues of pinks and oranges into the heavens. You remembered a time where your sky was something eternally storm brewed and bloodied. Everything was red and dark and so terribly bleak. 

After another twenty minutes passed, and you all were far beyond the reach of the city’s edge, Lady stirred the car off the main road. The vehicle jerked, wheels spinning hard and fast to create friction against the soft earth. 

She followed a dirt path through the thick of the forest; the car no longer zipped down the streets, but instead, crawled to their destination, a cautious thing. The forest was hauntingly calm, deathly still. There should be birds lost in song at this hour, the hum of June beetles, the scurries of hares along the wild growth of vegetation. Yet, there was nothing.

The car rolled into a stop, but Lady kept her fingers laced firmly around the wheel. 

“Here’s far enough.” She said, eyes forward as she tried to come to terms to what she might discover just past the thicket. “We’ll do the rest on foot.”

You didn’t respond, instead unclipping your seatbelt and promising Nero you’ll be back in a moment. Lady graciously kept the car running, the aircon blasting, and Nero was shown how to fiddle with the stereo for short spurts of entertainment. 

The shrubbery was thick under your kitchen boots, soft and burnt at the tips by the summer sun. Lady paced ahead of you, gun in hand, footsteps chary yet strong. 

“Why was Dante supposed to pick me and Nero up?” You were a smart girl, you knew your question was inappropriately timed. Purposely jarring as you stalked deeper in the forest with Lady, the light dying fast death, its insides spilling golden as the day waned. 

“Are we really doing this before we walk into a bloodbath?” 

“Yeah, yeah we are.” You said as you closed the distance between you and the commander. 

“That issue you had with your place? That wasn’t because of some mixed up paperwork. I had my legal team handle your lease breakage.” Lady sighed before eyeing your position to her. It was a disapproving glare, you could tell by the way her cheek twitched as you refused to stay behind her, scouting her flank as directed. 

“And why the fuck would you do that?” You hissed, the marrow of your bones liquefying as a seething heat erupted from your core. “Who the fuck gave you the right to make me basically homeless. To make Nero, a child, homeless?” 

“Don’t be an idiot. You’re not homeless, we organised...” Lady’s sentence died at the very end of her tongue. Your shoulder clipped into the hard armour of hers as the commander’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt. Lady stood rigid, like a corpse in the deep hours of rigor mortis, her firearm slacking in her grip, her arm lowering as dread shattered across her pretty face. You swallowed thickly before daring to follow her gaze. It wasn’t a pretty sight. 

“Jesus, Vergil.” You breathed out, and the palm of your hand cupped your mouth, smothering your queasy gasp. 

The Sons of Sparda were a tangle of limbs, a smear of cerulean, a mess of crimson, hidden in the shadows of a thick, full oak tree. The trunk was weeping with a deep, wet red as a sword impaled through its ancient belly. Vergil loomed over his brother’s collapsing body; a creature triumphant, predatory; a wolf fresh from the hunt, maw still dripping. Dante’s head lolled on Vergil’s shoulder, one large hand weakly pawing at the hilt of the demonic sword; the eldest son of Sparda had seemingly skewered Dante with his own blade, pinning him to the trunk of the tree. You watched as Vergil whispered something in his little brother’s ear, a snarl of some sort. You couldn’t see much, the half-demon had his back to you and Lady, royal blue trench coat cast in tree-shade. 

Lady raised her gun again, training it to the back of Vergil’s head. There was the slight click as she teased the trigger, teeth bared and ready to shoot. This little family meeting truly was taking shape into a slaughter. But the last thing you wanted was blood on your hands. 

“Lady, stand down! You’ll make things worse.” You growled, knocking into her to disrupt the trajectory of her shot. Your eyes flickered around you, spying the dark silhouettes of armed soldiers. They hid behind the skeleton of the surrounding forest, flanking the corners of the iron gates of the nearby residence. A sniper tucked low, grounded to the spiraled roof of a Victorian inspired manner just to the right of you, shrouded by trees as large and grand as the one Dante was speared to. The house bordered along this makeshift warfront, a perfect view point for the sniper and the keen gaze of his rifle. You tried not to think about it.

Lady tore yourself from your side, her animosity fixing on you as you intercepted her aim. She went to say something, tongue curled mean and pretty features rippling with hostility. You stood your ground however, unafraid of the commander’s foul mouth. Maybe she would strike you down for your disobedience, lodge a bullet into the fat of your thigh for interfering with her operation. But you guessed it would be fair. Your hands did know how soft the flesh of her throat was, how the meat and muscle gave under the press of your fingers, how the bone fought against the snap.

Torrid air surged around you, the scent of blood heavy on its winds; the force strong enough to tussle your hair a mess. Instinctively you shut your eyes, blinded by the haze of dust and heat and your own locks. You only dared to return your gaze when your ears pricked at the soft, startled gasp that slipped from Lady’s lips. 

You blinked slow, low as the wind settled, your cheeks stinging from the whipping heat. You felt a large, strong hand at your hip, resting just above the rut of bone, tender as it skimmed your side with the lightest of touches. When your eyes refocused, they fell on Lady, her eerie composure, her defiant glare. It wasn't for you, but instead the man who towered over your small form, protective and menacing, the end of his demonic katana digging into the pulse of the commander’s throat. 

“Watch where you point that toy of yours, sapien.” Vergil warned, his voice but a dire rumble. 

There was the crack of a gun, the death whistle of a soaring bullet, and suddenly you were being pressed against Vergil as he flicked his wrist, swung his arm, the Yamato fleeing from Lady to intercept the slug in mid-air. The kiss between steel, the divide of the bullet from a single entity to halved souls was a shrilled snap to the ears. You flinched, and so did Lady. 

“Don’t, Vergil. Leave her out of this!” Dante gurgled from the tree, his voice wet and tacky as red spilled from his open mouth. He had one hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword as he sluggishly dragged himself and the blade from the tree’s middle, the other hand was white-knuckled around his pistol. Its muzzle hissing with smoke, smeared with powder.

You twisted in Vergil’s hold like a serpent, coiling against the muscled arm around your waist for liberation. His attention flickered from his brother, who spat blood and deadly promises as he tore the sword free from his gut, to you. The first Son of Sparda peered down at you, the deep blue of his eyes simmering with irritation.

“What?” You snapped, clawing at his arm, nails scrapping against the fabric of his coat. 

“You keep disobeying me.” Vergil spoke with a voice so low as to not invite the others to your private conversation. “I thought I made it clear you were not to involve yourself with my little brother or his pet. And yet, here you are.” 

“Is this why you’re throwing a tantrum?”

Vergil withdrew his hold on you, sword lowering by to his side. He glared at you, sharp features twisting until the corner of his lips cut into a sneer. You had offended him with your comment. Because how silly of you to think that an Heir of Sparda could have a tantrum; they were a poised, honourable bloodline after all. Little did Vergil know, his son was well skilled in the arts of the hissy fit. Maybe that too was genetic.

“You know nothing.” 

“You’re right, I don’t.” You said, arms crossing against your chest. You were annoyed that everything seemed to enjoy keeping you in the dark about events that directly affected your life. It wasn’t fair. You had a right to dictate your own life, to lead and live with the knowledge of that around you and with confidence that you could navigate your way through it. How dare Vergil and Lady, and fuck, maybe even Dante, strip you of your autonomy after you had to survive the damned pits of Makai just to gain it back. 

You peered around Vergil, seeking where Lady might be now that she wasn’t threatened by the end of a demonic katana. You saw her by Dante’s side, keeping the youngest Son of Sparda steady and upright as he clenched at the gaping mess of his stomach. 

“Don’t look at him, look at me.” Vergil snapped, “you’re to leave - now. I’ll sort out the sapiens and my little brother in due course. Then and only then, will you be allowed to return with the boy.” 

Something ugly stirred in the hollow of your stomach, something frigid and plightful. Your feet carried you away from Vergil as you ignored his demands in a delicious act of rebellion. You didn’t get far as the half-demon pulled you back into him, your name a hiss upon his tongue. You pried Vergil off you again, snarling like a feral dog until he gave you the freedom you so longed for. 

“Call them off,” you shouted to Lady, making sure your voice was not swallowed by the distance between you two. You flicked your chin in the direction of her armed forces that surrounded the perimeter, taunting your very life with their guns. “We need to talk and I don’t want them making things unnecessarily tense.”

“How do I know he’ll behave?” Lady countered, her tone distrusting. 

You scoffed, tired of this back and forth. “Don’t be stupid.” You littered the air with Lady’s previous words, “do you actually think they have a chance against Vergil? Come on, Lady…Just look at Dante.”

Lady glared daggers at you, but her own retort was interrupted by the half-demon beside her.

“Jeez, ain’t you a real sweetheart.” Dante said as he rose to his full height. His torn rest showed nothing by bare, clean skin and the ripple of perfect abs. His stomach had stitched itself back together so proficiently that not even a scar dared to taint the flesh of Sparda’s second son. 

Dante’s attention returned to Lady as they spoke under hushed breaths. You couldn’t read their lips but you trusted that they would come to their senses. The only time you had spoken with Dante, it had been about Vergil and his general whereabouts. You spied the ache in Dante’s eyes, the way he too wore his heart on his sleeves, and how that heart bled to be with his brother again. Despite his recent impalement, you had a feeling that Dante would defend your decision and convince Lady to disengage her men. 

Vergil had stalked his way to your side once more, hand resting on the hilt of his sheathed katana, eyes trained on you.

“You’re angry with me.”

You rolled your tongue against the back of your teeth and entertained the idea of not responding to Vergil. You had known him to be a master of the cold shoulder, often shrugging off your questions and neediness with that disdainful cool attitude. Ironically, Vergil didn’t handle your own coldness well, usually refusing to accept that you would be so bold, so impudent as to ignore him. 

“You’re acting like a dick.” 

Vergil frowned at you, “do not swear, it's unbecoming.”

“Well, you are.” You justified rather childishly as you thumbed at your temple. The heat was getting to you, even as the sun hung low and the night crept in, it was still blisteringly hot. And you were uncomfortable, in need of a refreshment and deeply annoyed at the man to your right. You were also homeless with a five year old. You had a lot going on. 

“It’s done.” Lady shouted back, arms crossed over her chest. Her stance and attitude mimicked your own, brimming with vexation, strung by fatigue. Dante, on the other hand, gave you two thumbs up and a bright, jubilant grin. 

You waited patiently as the shadows shifted around you, slipping from your view just as Lady promised. You knew they were all out of the vicinity once Vergil strayed his hand away from his sword. Still, Sparda’s eldest son kept himself close to your side. He wasn’t touching you, not exactly, but you could feel the heat of him, a solid, warm body just shy of brushing up against you. You licked your lips (to wet them, to wet them, to wet them, to only wet them) and forced yourself to meet Lady and Dante where they stood. 

“You talk,” you snapped, finger outstretched and trained on the commander. “Why did you get your legal team to break my lease and why was Dante meant to pick me and Nero up?”

“Because her and her fellow sapiens are considerably incapable of handling even the smallest of tasks.” Vergil sneered. 

“I wasn’t talking to you.” You sneered back, uninterested in stirring up whatever grudge Vergil had with Lady - or the human race. Which ever of the two it was this time. “I was talking to Lady.”

“No, he’s kinda got a point with this one.” Dante groaned out, scratching at the back head, thick fingers carding through long tufts of silver. 

“New rule; if your last name is Sparda, shut the hell up.”

Your temper was getting the best of you. Half-moon cut into the soft of your palms as you balled your fists, and our jaw ached from the building tension between clenched teeth. You wanted to scream, to howl and to cry, to curl up someplace dark and cool and fucking sleep. 

“I fucked up.” Lady suddenly broke, her hands slapping to the side as she began to pace. “I dropped the ball with you, okay? Vergil said to keep you as far away from the company’s reach as I could and I didn’t know how I was supposed to do that and support you. I messed up, and you and Nero had to pay for it.”

Your brow arched high in question, “support me?”

“Like I said, Vergil works for me.” Lady reiterated, “that means he’s on the company’s payroll…”

“What my brother’s pet is failing to get at”, Vergil interrupted (he never was one to follow the rules).  “Was that you were living in poverty due to her neglect. I have no need for human currency. But you do. And my wage was meant to cover your living expenses and whatever else you and Nero required.”

“You said to make sure there were no connections between Ouroboros, the kid and her. How the hell am I supposed to funnel money into an offshore account without an audit shoved so far up my ass it would come out of her mouth? It couldn’t be done, Vergil.” Lady hissed in her defence, finger pointed and accusing as she made her way over to the other Sparda brother. 

“It had to be done. We had a deal.” Vergil snarled.

“Easy brother.” Dante warned, eyes sparking with something demonically red as he reached out to snatch Lady by the curve of her elbow. He pulled her back, kept her close and far from Vergil’s bared teeth. 

“Okay, okay.” You breathed out, fingers running over at your face, through your frizzy hair. It was like you were trying to knead this new spew of information into your skull to make better sense of all of it. “First of all, I wasn’t living in poverty, I worked minimum wage and my landlord just sucked. Second of all, what the hell does this have to do with Ouroboros’ legal team breaking my lease? If Vergil’s paycheck was meant to cover my living expenses, why not just pay my rent?”

Vergil scoffed beside you, humourless, bitter, seemingly affronted by your innocent queries. 

“Do you think me so cruel?” Sparda’s first son growled. He bent slightly at the neck to perceive you, berate you, eyes ablaze with flames so blue. Vergil had the mouth of a dragon, breath scorching and melting into your own until all could inhaled was him, and he was all you could taste upon the tongue, fire and steal and something unhuman, honeyed and familiar; a type of tea someone could only find in the deepest pits of Makai. “That place you seem to hold so precious was a cesspool. Small, damaged, and filthy; I’ve seen the rats here live more lavishly. You are not returning to such a lifestyle. You or Nero.”

You pinched your lips together, head nodding in a sheepish way. This was not something you would argue with Vergil about. He had the right to decide where and how his son would live, after all. 

“Then where do we live?” You dared to question. 

Vergil considered you, devoured you again with those eyes of his before his gaze drifted. You followed his line of sight until you stumbled upon the Victorian styled manner again. It was truly a thing of arcane beauty. Laced with ornate detailing, cream and blue and so, so darling to the eye. It stretched tall, spiraled and pointed, lined with arched windows and rounded rooms, a steep, slated rooftop and a tall chimney made of painted brick. It was a dream hidden in the belly of the thicket, a diamond in the rough of bark and branches. 

“I was meant to bring you and Nero here. You know, meet the kid properly this time.” Dante spoke up, creeping forward as you awed at the house. He didn’t get too close, seemingly respecting whatever boundaries Vergil wanted to enforce between the two of you. “But my dear brother here wasn’t happy to see so many people lurking around. I had to step in before it got messy. Sorry about that, sweetheart.”

“Don’t sweat it…” You breathed, blinking at the image before you and you tried to decipher reality from desire. But this was real. This place, this fucking house was real. And it was all yours. 

“You’re no longer needed, Dante. Make haste, and take your sapien with you.” Vergil said, finger tips teasing to the hilt of his demonic sword.

“There’s still things we need to discuss.” Lady argued, and she turned to you, two-hued eyes hard with the wisdom only those destined for tragedy know to hold. 

“And such things will be discussed.” Sparda’s first son contested, “but not with you; you’ve done enough.”

You saw shame blotch across Lady’s cheeks, and she cast her gaze away, her jaw shifting as she chewed on her spiteful words. Dante came to her side, and once again you saw how they all but melted around each other. Away from the fangs of the Ouroboros, they weren’t the cruel commander and her blindly loyal guard dog. Instead there was a spark of knowing, of intimacy, of trust. Dante lured Lady by her arm, his touch gentle. He spoke soft somethings in her ear, a private moment between the two. You lowered your eyes, somewhat coy at the sweet scene before you. 

“Vergil”, Dante said, tone heavy with oath. “I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Whatever you say, Dante.” Vergil said before turning his back on his younger brother, the length of his trench coast swept up by a passing summer breeze. 

You watched as Lady and Dante edged away from the perimeter of the house, a pair of intertwined souls. 

“What do we have to talk about?” You muttered, eyes still stuck on the fading view of them before you. 

Vergil considered his next words with great care, his brows drew in, tight and concerned, and even the deep cut of his frown was weighed down with something other than pester. Though, there was a sudden, almost abrupt flicker in his deep eyes, and his careful expression all but shifted into something oddly confused. 

“Where’s Nero?”

Fuck.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

Chapter i

Pairing: Vergil/Reader. Content/Warnings: Swearing. Word Count: 10, 181. Summary: You hated him; you missed him. You were raising his kid, a little boy that looked just like him. It haunted you, you loved it. Next Chapter: ii

A/N: Reader is not Nero's birth mother in this. I'll be updating this fic on AO3 under the name figandfox in the next coming days.

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ

You were supposed to be turning twenty-four. Your birthday was in the winter, a babe born on a Wednesday, forever a child full of woe… Your new identity said otherwise. Your ID (fake, like that of your birth certificate and driver license and name, birthplace, old high-school, parents - all false, a fairy tail, a lie.) said you were turning twenty-one, an age to match the agelessness of your pretty face. Your new birthday was just ten days away, an odd date in the middle of summer. If you backdated this packaged rebirth, you were now Saturday’s child, a child that works hard for a living. And that you do. It was the only truth to this conjured identity of yours. 

“Nero, come on! We have to go or else we’ll be late! Again, might I add!” Your voice was weary, throat-tacky in that strained way. You had spent most of the night studying. Between work, culinary school, and your dear Nero, that wasn’t much time for sleep. The hallway of your tiny apartment whined under the weight of the five year old as he marched out of his room (the only bedroom the apartment retained within its shoebox walls). 

“I’m not going.” The tone, even the cadence, was all too familiar. 

You were waiting in the open kitchen, securing the two pearly white rows of buttons that kept your chef’s coat snug and proper against your chest. It was a gift, and also the most expensive clothing item you owned. When you finally peered away from your uniform to glare at the little (nearly) four-foot tall devil. Nero had that rebellious scowl on his chubby face again, the one that twisted his mouth in a way that made the fat of his cheeks bulge just slightly more. 

“Nero”, you warned with a firm tone. “I can’t be late to class again because you don’t want to go to preschool. Be a big boy and put your shoes on before we miss the train - please.” 

The five year old huffed through his nose, his chest expanding as far as it could go as he carried on this act of childish defiance. You had started a new semester at culinary school again, and Nero never coped well with the adjustment of having to return to preschool and leave your side. The change of routine and your presence was too much for the boy to handle for the first few weeks. You knew he would settle eventually, welcoming the chance to socialise and play with children his own age instead of being dragged around the city to run errands or do chores or accompany you at boring, stinky work. 

But still, these first few weeks were so draining. 

“No!” Little, balled fists struck his side as Nero stomped his socked feet. You noted how one of them, his left foot to be exact, possessed a sizeable hole, large enough to allow the tip of the boy’s big-toe to show through the sow of cheap, white fabric. 

Your jaw shifted, strained, and you tried not to allow the anxiety to rise like bile in your throat. Nero needed new socks. Nero needed a new school bag for his first day of Kindergarten in mid August. Stationary, shoes, books…Clothes, too. The cuffs of his shirts were starting to end just above his wrists. Nero needed basic necessities and you needed the money to buy such necessities. 

Money, money, money. 

How was your part-time job as a motel cleaner supposed to cover rent, school fees, food, utilities, and a whole new wardrobe for Nero? Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

You shook your head, your nerves frayed by the looming reminder of how pathetic you were at keeping your head above water. You could taste it, the heaviness that was salt and ocean, how it teased the idea of swallowing you whole from the inside. How it longed to settle in the emptiness of your lungs, to fill and fill and fill until you were too full of seafoam to keep your chin from dipping under the waves. 

But then your eyes caught sight of Nero in all his small, dependent stature. The moon-kissed silver of his hair, the echo of someone else in the lines of his face, his bright eyes. The boy knew little of his origins and questioned it heavily, but when you peered down at him, all you saw was his roots. It haunted you both. Nero, because he knew nothing for his mother and father. And you, because you knew everything about his mother, about his father. Sometimes, when sleep runs from you like a thief in the night, you hold back tears and curse Vergil until your body shakes from self-pity. Like a pendulum, your mind swings wildly and without sense. One moment, Vergil is the stoic hero who saved you from a dark, dark place. The next, he was the devil you didn’t know, the one you didn’t know was worse. He stole you from one hell only to spit you out in another, only this one was far more tormenting. Where fiends like electricity bills and preschool tantrums and exams dug into you like hot pokers. 

“Get. Your. Shoes. On. Now.” Your voice was low, cold, like the hiss of winter’s winds. “Or god help me, Nero.”

It started with a lip wobble. Then came the heavy blinking. Next, the dreaded sniffles. 

“You just want to get rid of me!” His tears were so, so full as they rolled down Nero’s warm cheeks. Round with the same salt that threatened to drown you. 

You winced, your sternness and chilling frustration all but cracking under the weight of Nero’s sobs. You knew why he struggled with returning to preschool, with leaving you for long periods. He had spent the first four years passed around foster families like a bad cold. Quick to come and quick to get rid of. Stability and a place to call home, to feel safe and cared for was still a rather recent concept to Nero. And the boy was fast to sink his teeth into the new found security, unsure when or if it would end. But he wouldn’t dare let go without a fight or a tear or two shed. You crossed what little distance was between you and him to sweep the sobbing boy up in your arms. He was so warm, so soft, you couldn’t help but rest your cheek against his silver crowned head. Nero wept opening into your white coat, clinging onto you fiercely as he buried his snotty face into the curve of your neck. You didn’t mind, holding him tight, humming and hushing to soothe the child. 

“O, my sweet boy. You know that’s not true”, you whisper, there’s a slight crack in your voice. You’re trying not to fall apart too. “I’m sorry I was stern. I’m sorry I have to go to class and leave you at preschool. But school is really important, Nero. It will be for you too soon. Remember? You’re going to big boy school in August." 

“I don’t wanna.” His voice was wet and small, somewhat muffled by your skin. But there was that famous Sparda Stubbornness again. A sign that this spat was coming to an end.

 “I know you’re feeling a lot of big emotions right now, but I promise you, Nero; I’m not leaving you. I’m never leaving you.” The promise was far more of an oath, something meant to last a lifetime and to be truly unbreakable. 

“I’ll pick you up at 5:30pm today, like I do every day. And I won’t be a second late. Pinkie promise.” You nudge him gently with your shoulder until his little head pops up. You see how his eyes narrow at your extended pinkie. Nero wipes the snot from his upper lip with his sleeve before reaching for you with his own pinkie.

 “Promise?”

 “Promise.” 

You locked around his pinkie with an honest, tender determination. Soft but firm. Kind yet fierce. You meant to keep that promise. You really, really did.

────୨ৎ────

You were known for your knife skills across your cohort. You had unmatched precision, your fundamentals were stellar, and your control of the blade, of each cut, was almost siren-like, hypnotic. Your song of steel captured even the most renowned chef to watch if envy did not cast over the eyes of your observers first. Everything else about you was pretty much just above-average when it came to the culinary arts. You were no Massimo Bottura, but you certainly weren’t lacklustre. A solid B-grades student with a few A-graded specialities here and there. Your punctuality, on the other hand, was C-graded on a good day. If it wasn’t Nero and his tears making you late, it was a late train, or the pouring rain, or a missed bus. Always something. 

“You never get drinks with us.” Selena whined as she untangled her curls from the standardised hairnets they were made to wear as part of their uniform. 

“Not twenty-one yet, remember?” You were. You were older, actually. 

Selena groaned, rolling her doe eyes. “Neither is Willem until September. The bar downtown isn’t known for checking IDs. I would know, my boyfriend is the bouncer. I’ll get you in, no sweat.” 

You returned her a sweet smile, kind but not inviting, “thank you, I really do appreciate the illegal act of consideration. But I have a shift and I need the money. Work calls.” 

“Your loss!” Selene scoffed over her shoulder as you rushed by your peers. You waved something quick yet polite as you hurried to make the last bus. 

“I know!” You did. But you were used to losing either something or everything. It came with this new, counterfeit life of yours. 

Your mad dash to the bus stop was interrupted by the heavens rupturing. The summer storm was heavy and hot. You felt the humidity stick to your skin, fuzz your hair. You needed to bite your lip in order to not scream something ungodly. The bus stop near your campus was unused and neglected as it went the opposite way from the city where most students lived. It was the only bus that traveled to Nero’s preschool. But when the rains came, tired bus drivers often skipped over the stop altogether. You couldn’t risk being late to pick Nero up. Especially not today. You pinky promised, afterall. 

The rain was warm as it dripped from your hair, down the curve of your neck. You hovered your bag over your head, a way to spear yourself from the worst of it as you paced anxiously. The bus stop didn’t provide any form of shelter, and didn't even provide a bus most of the time. As time dragged on, and the rain thickened from a spritz to a down pour, something stirred in your chest. 

You knew this feeling well and your breath caught in disbelief. But something was off with the pressure in between your ribcage. The press of it was less sharp, precise. It was jagged now, rough as it wedged itself close to your beating heart. The air tasted different too, there was death upon it. But the blood was new, fresh - earthy. Not that stale mix of sulphur and stone, cold and bitter. You’re quick to kick off the soaked pavement, creating distance between yourself and the almost-stranger lurking in your shadow. Your bag drops between the two of you, a sad thud into a dirty puddle, the sound nearly swallowed by the summer storm. You need your hands, your guard. 

“Huh, and here I thought I was being quiet.” 

God, that voice…that fucking voice. Your eyes readjusted beyond the rain, catching the red of his trench coat, loud against the bleak sky. Your jaw clenched as your eyes dared to drift from his coat to his chest to his face. You almost dropped your guard, fists held tight to your jaw, shaking at the man before you. It was like his image, his voice that chose to haunt you in this more rugged, unkept version. 

“You must be Dante.” 

The sharpness of his jaw cut further as a bitter grin spread across his face. 

His face…the face that had left you ten months before. Oh, god.

 “And you must be the one Lady calls Project Stone Heart. Gotta say, it’s a badass name.” 

Your frown deepens, nearly twisting into something mean. You had only met Lady twice, but each time she addressed you by your mission title you had somewhat kindly requested for the name to be changed to something less on the nose. Mostly, you thought it was tasteless. And taste mattered to you.

 “You don’t have clearance to even know that name. Or me for that fact.” You licked your dry lips, trying to keep your breath steady despite the rise of anxiety in your throat. 

That dropped his smile, and he glared at you through the long, wet locks that stuck to his face. His hair was that moon-kissed silver. Just like Vergil’s. Just like Nero’s. The Sparda genes were something fierce. 

“So everybody’s been telling me...” The demon hunter murmured, his voice catching in the rain. It turned his tone low, moody. You couldn’t imagine a version of Dante that wasn’t the cocky, stubborn fool Vergil had ingrained in your mind’s eye through recounts and brief moments of brotherly rants. 

“What do you want, Dante? Why are you here?” Your voice rose, a snarl that rippled through the storm.

 “I’m here on Lady’s orders!” Dante snapped back, his teal eyes narrowing. “She wants your ass back at HQ. But I have my own bone to pick with you, Stone Heart.” 

You scrunched up your nose at him, but despite your training, you gradually lowered your guard. Your hands falling limp by your side. 

“What happened?” There was a tremble to your words, a wobble to your lips. You dropped that fierce facade and the fear in your chest gave way like floodgates. Not Nero, the voice inside your head begged, anything can happen, but just not to Nero. 

“Long story. You coming or what?”

────୨ৎ────

 You asked for the heater to not be turned on during the car ride. You could already feel the affections of the summer rain, humid and sticky and terrible, terrible, terrible for your hair. You knew that with the extra heat your tresses would be thrice the size. Dante was nice enough to comply, even as the two of you sat soaked in his van, dripping puddles onto his worn fabric seats. The devil hunter twitched as he weaved through the traffic, unsettled and restless, like a caged dog. One finger tapped rapidly against the steering wheel, and you could tell it had nothing to do with being uncomfortable in damp leather. 

He had a bone to pick with you.

Something was obviously plaguing the youngest Son of Sparda’s mind. Dante was wound tight with questions. But you felt bow taut, too. Too many worries swept your mind up in a hurricane, and at the very centre was Nero; his whereabouts, his safety, if he had eaten, if he was scared…

Your tongue felt heavy behind your teeth, yet you were the one who let the questions pile up until it weighed it down. What else could you do? You didn’t know if Dante knew about Nero. About anything for that matter or if Lady was still keeping him in the dark. 

Your mouth cracked open to confirm your suspicions but once you caught sight of that sharp jaw and moonlight hair, you sealed your lips tight. You turned from him, quick to steal your attention elsewhere, anywhere. The scuffed up dashboard in front of you, the tint-peeled window beside you. You already broke one promise today, there was no need to break another on half-baked ideas. And unlike Dante, there was a high chance that all your pressing questions would be answered eventually by Lady once the devil hunter delivered you to the main headquarters of Uroboros Corporation. 

You were never good at being patient…

The corner of your lip was just shy of a smile. It wasn’t often you heard reminisce of Vergil’s taunts echo through old memories, not unless you were around Nero, of course. But it seemed his uncle had the same effect on you. 

Once you and Dante reached the very outskirts of the city, the towering structure that was Uroboros Corporation was more than just in view. Dante didn’t slow down as the foundation of the building gave way, a platform lowered from false earth and the Son of Sparda took that as a challenge. 

“Slow down.” You snapped, and your hand shot up in search of a grab handle to brace yourself once you realised that your words only spurred Dante to press harder on the acceleration. 

Your fingers brushed up against the jagged ends of a snapped handlebar. You were so fucked. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” Dante grinned, his teeth were sharp, glossy with spit. His hand clutched the joystick as the van raced down the runway. 

Before the mouth of the platform swallowed you both whole, Dante slammed on the breaks and jerked the wheel violently. It sent the van spinning. What came from your throat was pure terror as you clawed at your seatbelt for dear life. Your screams merged with Dante’s howls of vigour as the vehicle skidded on worn, wet tyres. It came to a screeching halt, tipping slightly on one side before rocking back on all fours. There was hissing and smoke, and the van whined something old and abused as Dante swaggered out of the driver’s seat, all too pleased with himself. You were less smooth as your trembling hands found the doorhandle and you all but fell out the van and onto unsteady legs.

Your heart was like a war drum, beating almost painfully against your ribs.

“Vergil was right, you are a massive pain in the ass.” You hiss, words bitter as you regain your footing. 

That cool charisma all but bled out of Dante’s body, and his strut came to an end. The silence was deafening, but the air sizzled with the return of summer’s heat and the tension between you and Sparda’s youngest son. The bowls of the Uroboros were not well ventilated, you could taste the humidity, the enmity. How it hung limp in the air, like a thief at the gallows. Your body grew taut, old instincts roaring alive before your eyes could conceptualise the muzzle of a gun pointed far too steady between your brows. 

“And how the hell do you know my brother?” Dante’s voice was arctic, chilling you to the marrow. “You tell me that, and we’ll consider my bone with you picked.”

You didn’t dare move, like Dante’s gun, his question was loaded. You didn’t know where to begin, or even how to explain. You didn’t even know if you could. 

“Putting a gun to my asset’s head was not your orders, Dante.” 

You couldn’t see her due to Dante’s towering stature, but you knew that authoritative voice well. Lady stood stall by the closing elevator doors, a small team of armed bodies around her. 

You knew very little about Uroboros Corporation before America began their propaganda campaign to wage war against Makai. But after Lady’s take over due to Board of Director changes, you knew even less. But so did the rest of America. Uroboros Corporation was now a new age mythos, reminiscing of what they accomplished was either here or there to the greater public, and all the officials and leading governments knew was that Lady’s newly refined company was their last stand against the demon race. 

No one asked questions and no one dug around. Just as Lady liked it.

Dante didn’t lower his gun, “no. Your orders were to bring Project Stone Heart to HQ. And look who’s at HQ - Stone Heart. Why? Because good ol’ Dante completed his orders. Now you cash in your end of the deal, and start spilling how she knows Vergil. Or am I going to have to pull this trigger to get you to start talking, Lady?”

Your eyes stray from Dante’s frustrated sneer over to Lady’s relaxed face. She was calm, with a knowing sense of air around her. 

“There’s a lot about your brother you don’t know, Dante.” Lady’s voice was as steady as her gaze, “I’m willing to share the details due to our circumstances. But you’ll need to lower the fucking gun first.” 

A growl rippled from Dante’s throat as he tossed his head back to glare at Lady. For a second, you thought he’d disobey out of sheer spite. 

Thankfully, the second son of Sparda had greater sense than that. 

“You better start talking…” Dante spat as he pulled the cool mouth of his semi-automatic pistol away from between your eyes. The gun was concealed smoothly before he turned his back to you, his eyes and attention set on Lady. 

You felt the air return back to your lungs as you forced yourself to follow in Dante’s steps. You didn’t want to be here, but you knew better. Lady wouldn’t risk your cover if it wasn’t drastically important. And she knew better than to keep you long. Nero’s preschool closed at 7pm and you had to make that deadline or else she would have to handle a bigger mess with Child Services. 

Lady dismissed her team with a simple nod as she led you and Dante into the elevator. You shuffled awkwardly between the two as the lift made its long descent into the deep bowls of the compound. Between the drop of your stomach as the elevator lowered and the scene that acted around you, it was an…unpleasant experience. Dante whistled in your ear, something upbeat and high-pitched until Lady snapped at him like he was a misbehaving do. You shrunk into your skin, slightly off put by how settled everything felt compared to just a few moments ago. Whatever dynamic Lady and Dante had, it seemed to naturally sway between unnerving and playful. Dangerous and teasing. It was hard to wrap your head around it. 

Finally, you felt the gradual halt of the elevator in your core. The doors split apart with a groan and you squinted into the dimly lit space. The contrast between the sterile blare of the elevator and the room it had spat all of you out of was near blinding. You almost turned to Lady to question the relevance of this chamber when your eyes finally adjusted to the dark. There was a soft glow admitting from the centre of the room. Warm and yellow, welcoming and safe. 

Lady took action before either you or Dante could make sense of what you were seeing. She strode from your side to where the illumination was blooming, her presence sparking the room’s sensory systems. Quickly, with each stern, authoritative step of Lady’s, the chamber awoke. Bright beams suddenly filtered within the room and you blinked away the dark spots that clouded your vision at the change of lightening for the second time. 

You rubbed at your eyes as you took your own steps towards what you could now see as a glass dome. 

“I need you to keep a level head when you see this.” Lady said, and you at first dismissed her words. Surely, they were for Dante. He has been taut with unease and famished for answers since the start. 

But as you crept closer, curiosity biting at your heels as you peered down into the pit in which the thick glass dome crowned, you felt yourself motionless. Your lungs ceased to filter air, your blood ran cold. You could only blink - once, twice, thrice. You felt like a corpse, frozen in time at the very moment your heart stopped beating. 

What you thought was a pit was in fact a small observation room. Fairy lights blushed the space with a golden hue, turning the soft blues of the wallpaper into warmer green. There were toys and books of all ages scattered around the milky carpet. Some were abandoned on the oddly shaped furniture, there was a fuzzy chair shaped like a wonky ‘H’ that acted as the foundation for a leaning stack of books.

It was a child’s room; or at least a room decorated to contain a child’s temperament and attention. 

At the very end of the room, curled up in a chair like some frightened animal, was a little boy with bright, starry hair. His eyes and cheeks were red, his nose runny. Nero looked as though he had been crying for hours. There was a woman next to him in a polished lab coat, trying to encourage him to draw with her. She sat at the small table with him, hunched over and seemingly spent by Nero’s weepy yet cold attitude towards her. Nero had always been a shy boy. Sensitive and easy to bring to tears. 

Your body moved before you could process the abandoned look on Nero’s face, and your hands found the softness of Lady’s neck. 

“Calm down!” Lady choked out as she wrapped her fingers painfully around your wrists. She tried to pry the palms of your hands off her windpipe but you wouldn’t budge. Strength that was not yours kept your hold on Lady’s throat deliciously tight.  

“Why the fuck do you have him?!” You bellowed as you both wrestled against the dome. “What the fuck do you want?!” 

A bruising grip met your hips and someone tore you out of reach of Lady. You thrashed against Dante’s massive build until he threw you against the surface of the dome. Your head cracked against the glass, a thick, wet sound. You didn’t have time to sort out your swirling view before the devil hunter kept you pinned in place, his pistol once again returning to your throbbing skull. The muzzle was just as cool as you remembered it, and this time it nudged meanly at your temple, a kiss of gunpowder and steel.  

You groaned, sagging against the glass as Lady spat and coughed up half-words besides where Dante kept you caged. She was trying to say something, even as her hands pawed at the red fingerprints tattooing the tender of her neck. 

“You’re a fast one.” Dante breathed out, humourless. Even with your head spinning, you could tell it wasn’t a compliment. “Now let’s see what has your panties in a twist.” 

Another whine fled from between your clenched teeth as Dante set his full weight on top of you. He was crushing you against the glass, taking the opportunity to not only peer over your shoulder and down into the room, but to keep you at bay. 

You felt the sharp intake of breath before you heard the hiss leave Dante’s lips. 

“Lady…whose the kid?” 

With what strength you had left, you pressed the palm of your hands against Dante’s chest and threw him off your aching body. You were lucky the shock left the Son of Sparda limp. The give between you and Dante’s brutish body was enough to squeeze between and earn your freedom. You caught yourself before you fell to your knees, one hand on the cool glass to wait out the shake in your bones. 

“I’m so sick of temperamental half-breeds.” Lady growled as she reached for you with both hands. She pulled you up by the thick collar of your chef’s coat until you were on your feet, glaring at her and those two-tone eyes. 

A bruising thud, then the fracture of glass stole your attention from Lady. You both turned to where Dante stood hunched by the dome. His fist was heavy against the cracked glass, dull nails biting into a callous palm. 

“Lady!” Dante had found his voice again, booming and brutal. His eyes - a blue so similar to Vergil’s, to Nero’s, you almost couldn’t turn your gaze away - were trained onto the boy in the pit. “Whose -”

“Vergil’s.” You intercepted, a new wave of confusion threatened to pull you in. “He’s your brother’s son. How much do you not know?” 

“He knows nothing.” Lady said, her eyes cast down, as if ashamed at her own words.

“Why?” The question fled your lips as well as Dante’s. The Son of Sparda had chosen to rest his forehead against the cool glass, unable to tear his gaze away from the snotty boy below. 

“It’s what your brother wanted, Dante. And it’s what I needed. I couldn’t have you trying to break into Makai again. I needed you here.” Lady admitted. She looked pained, as if the truth was lodged in her throat, choking her as you once did. 

“And how do you know what Vergil wants?” You spoke up this time, your brows knitted in contempt. 

There was a sense of possession too, maybe a hint of jealousy. It had been ten months since you had spoken to Vergil. And despite the weekly letters you send him, not once had he broken the gates of hell for you to send a letter in return, to see his son…But Lady and her company of shadows was enough to get his attention? 

Lady fixed her face into something bitter, it cut through the softness of her round cheekbones and left hard, exasperated creases to don her pretty features, “he’s…my informant in Makai. He rarely comes by, but when he does it’s usually to report intel gathered about refugees seeking asylum in our world -  and among other things.” 

“He visits you?” You drawled, your tone shrilled with appal. “And you couldn’t point him my way? Couldn’t remind him that Nero doesn’t even know what he looks like? That I’m alone. That I’m doing everything on my own? Or were you two too busy sharing Makai’s latest hot gossip to remember about me and Nero?!”

You shouldn’t aim your razor tongue at Lady, it wasn’t her fault, but you couldn’t help but sneer at her confession. 

After all this time…For god’s sake, you were raising his son. Moving from one shitty apartment to the next, barely paying bills, putting yourself and Nero through school, working two jobs - hell, most nights you had a cup of tea before bed to starve off the hunger pains of skipping dinner again so that Nero could have lunch for the next day…And the bastard couldn’t walk between the two worlds to drop in and say hi. 

“And you?” Dante croaked from behind you. “What’s my brother to you?” 

You turned to face the demon hunter, only your sights found something broken, someone haunted. That look in Dante’s eyes, a flicker of guilt, a wildfire of pain. He crumbled into himself, and suddenly, his towering stature looked…small. Deflated. Dante leaned against the glass dome, gaze finally meeting yours. 

“Don’t tell me Vergil isn’t the type to pay child support.” It was a weak attempt to flaunt that trademark gusto. But like that twist at the corner of Dante’s lips, it fell flat, boneless. 

Your cheeks grew warm despite the dryness in his tone.

“Vergil and I…” You paused to lick your lips, trying once more to articulate the complexities of your relationship with Vergil. “I’m not Nero’s birth mother.”

“And yet you’re raising my brother’s kid…Why? 

“I owe Vergil. He once saved me when I was in a really bad place. I wanted to return the favour somehow.” It was a rather watered down version of events, but it was all you were willing to give until you knew why Lady had uprooted your whole life.

Dante quipped an eyebrow up at you, seemingly in disbelief by your words.

“My big brother isn’t a people person - or well, a human person. Unlike me, he isn’t your usual dashingly handsome hero.” 

“You still haven’t put two and two together?” Lady spat, her voice was still dry, ached. 

The demon hunter’s eyes narrowed. Whatever bone he had with you, he now wanted to pick with Lady. “Put what together?”

“Dante, she’s not human.” 

You clenched your jaw, the truth was more like grit between your teeth, painfully smoothing out your words.

“Why the hell are we suddenly so chatty, Lady?” You sneered as she ventured closer to where you and Dante stood. You stationed yourself in front of Lady, cutting Dante’s choked flurry of questions at the root. “You promised Vergil you wouldn’t -”

“That was before we had a rat.”

“Rat?”

Lady let out a tight sigh, “someone in our organisation has been selling our classified information to something in Makai. Your file - Nero’s file - were a part of the last documents traded…They’re gone. They’re all gone. And only Virgil would have an inkling as to what the fuck is happening.” 

“What?” You bit out, low and horrified. 

Lady turned away, but you caught the way shame heavily creased the corners of her eyes. 

“Why else would you be here?”

The room descended into a haunting silence. Realisation struck you like a fist. You bent over, winded, throat constricting around slop and bile, the acid carved like a knife as it lodged between your tender walls. Your hand crept up and sealed your mouth. There was a sour taste tang on your gums, between your molars, and you didn’t know if you were to scream, to sob, or to spew if you let it out. 

He knew. 

He knew and he was going to find you.

“What - what the fuck am I supposed to do?” You croaked, the bitter still thick on your tongue, your voice nearly lost to the dimness of the room as it buoyed across the stretch of dark between you and Lady. 

“Call him.”

“Call him?” You echoed after Lady. 

The demon hunter growled under her breath, “for fuck sakes, however you communicate with Vergil, just get it done. We need him here, we can’t fuck around about this longer.”

Your brows narrowed as your mind fogged. Lady had confessed to working with Vergil; that when he did visit the human world, he would do so by playing Lady’s little informant. Why the fuck did she need you to talk to him? 

“My brother talks to you?” Dante’s words rung blue. And you couldn’t help but flinch at the depth of heartache that swelled his tone. 

You allow your gaze to cast over Sparda’s youngest. Despite your best efforts to keep him, and his taunting similarity to Virgil at a distance, you couldn’t tear your eyes away once you saw Dante. Once you truly saw him.

He looked like a lost little boy, scared and needing. 

He looked like Nero during those first early few weeks he was in your care. When he still believed that you too were something cold and fleeting. 

“I write to him.” You confessed with dry lips yet wet eyes. You didn’t want to cry. You will not cry. You let your gaze flicker to Lady once more as conviction hardened the bones of your words. “But he never replies. I don’t even know if he gets my letters.” 

“God, how stupid are you?” Lady chuffed something humourless out of her throat. God, how your fingers shook to wrap around that pretty neck again and squeeze. “How the fuck do you think I knew where you or the kid would be? A part of my deal with Sparda’s first pain in the ass was that my corporation wouldn’t know anything about you unless it came from him. So trust me, he gets your letters. And now I need you to write to him and tell him to get his demonic ass over here now.” 

“If you two are close enough to gossip about me at work, then you call him and leave me and Nero the fuck alone!” You growled, baring your teeth like a muzzled dog. Again, your anger was misplaced, childish. But the confirmation that Virgil had indeed received your letters and wilfully refused to return them in favour was like a dagger between the ribs. It hurt to breathe, to let your heart beat, for your chest to expand. 

“You think I have him on speed dial?” Lady scoffed as she glared meanly at you. You could see the judgement rich in her two-toned eyes. “That I hold all the power? Vergil comes and goes on his own time. I’m lucky to get a few minutes with him every second month. And half of the time he’s talking about you. So knock off this bratty attitude and summon him.” 

You scrunched your nose and readied another vile, disobedient taunt at the back of your throat. Your body felt ablaze, your blood rushed and warm, down your toes, to the tips of your fingers, your heart a beat faster, the thump on your ribs heavier. You needed to fight. You needed this bitter, unholy rage out from under your skin. You didn’t want to feel alive this way. You didn’t want to thrive in the chaos of borrowed bloodlust; of his bloodlust.  

“Are you really willing to put Nero at risk? To deny him the chance to meet his father?” 

Your knocks bled white, your palms were left bitten with deep crescents as you balled your fists by your side. You knew what she was doing. The manipulation was thick on her tongue. 

“Lady,” Dante warned, his own voice crackled with drowned desires. 

“Don’t you want to see your brother, too, Dante?” 

“Don’t.” 

“She can make that happen.” 

“You’re going too far now, Lady.”

“She holds the power!”

“This isn’t her fight!” 

“If only you knew.”

The air sparked around Dante, bursts of vibrant ruby bolts flickered off his skin like an exposed wire, crackling and violent.  

“I know nothing because you treat me like a fucking idiot! You ignore me, dismiss me - you don’t give a shit about what I have to say.” Dante roared, his teeth pointed and temper flared. You felt your own anger cower and simmer low, low in your belly as you faced the rage of the Son of Sparda. This wasn’t Vergil; you didn’t know what Dante’s anger could lead to.  “You think I don’t want my brother back? That I don’t want to knock him upside the head for hiding his kid from me? I’m Virgil’s twin, and he doesn’t even have the balls to explain what the hell is going on to me.” 

You sunk into yourself, guilt that was not meant to be yours hung heavy on your shoulders. You had robbed Dante. Stolen his last connection to family from him. You selfish little girl.  

Do not go looking for my little brother. He is trouble you do not need…do not squander my only act of generosity. 

You understood what Vergil meant. That what Dante bought with him was the world in which Vergil had spilt blood to save you from. Still, it pained you to see how the distance and lies that kept you and Nero safe had all but shattered Dante’s glass heart. 

“I’ll do it.” You said, eyes sweeping over Dante one last time before you turned to face Lady. She stood tall, untouched, unbothered. But behind that stoic facaide, something cracked, something broke, something bled. Her eyes weren’t cool shades of blue and green, calculating and authoritative, but instead, dull - dull and ashamed. 

 “I can’t promise that it will work. But I’ll write to Vergil, get him to come back.” 

“Good.” Lady clipped, and she turned away from you, from Dante. “Nero will be -”

“Coming home.” You interrupted, “I need to go home in order to send the letter. And I’m not leaving without Nero. He comes with me or I’m not leaving, and nothing gets done.”

“...You’re a stubborn fucker.”

You roll your eyes at Lady’s melodramatics as you make your way back to the elevator. Nero was just one floor down, you didn’t need an escort. “And you’re a cold-hearted bitch.”

“At least I still have a heart.”

Your steps faltered for a beat, your jaw clenched. You wanted to return the low remark with something just as painful, as hauntingly personal, but you held your chin high and continued your pace. Right now, you had a task at hand that was far more important than licking clean your wounded ego. 

“Dante,” you called to the demon hunter once you stepped inside of the lift. “If you ever want to meet him…Well, Lady knows where I live. Drop by, we can talk.”

You saw Dante’s eyes lighten, widen. He inched forward, mouth opened as his tongue wrestled with what to say, how to say it. The doors closed before you got an answer but you knew you and Nero would see him around. It was clear that Dante Sparda was a man who craved only one thing in this world - his family. 

You just hoped that Vergil was the same. 

────୨ৎ────

The TV hummed low as its glow washed over the living room. You and Nero were painted in the soft colours of Ponyo as the movie played out like a dream, foggy and in fleeting moments, not the deep, intentional scenes it should be digested as. You both were exhausted but seemingly too tired to sleep. The couch, old and stained, was also your bed. It was dressed with thin pink sheets and worn pillows. You rented a one bedroom apartment, where else were you meant to sleep? Nero was a child, he needed his own space and comfort in this rickety, slanted building. The second hand couch was fine, really. When Nero would hang his head and mumble why you seemed to like sleeping on the couch so much instead of in a room, with a bed, like what you provided him, you would smile, wide and wild; you would tease the weepy boy (you always wondered if he too, was born on a Wednesday), saying that it was like having a sleepover every night. It was just so much fun. 

It would never tell him how you had developed a burning tightness between your shoulders or how the kitchen window was slightly broken due to wear and tear and you hoped by winter-come the landlord would have it fixed before the frost got to you first. You didn’t want to think about it. Not right now, at least. 

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do I have to meet him?”

“Nero, honey, he’s your dad…Why wouldn’t you want to meet him?”

“I don’t know.” Nero whispered into the soft of your tummy. His eyes were half-closed as you ran your fingers through his wild hair, thick like fox-hide but cotton to the touch. He had curled up against you like a kitten seeking warmth after you collapsed onto the couch, bone-tired. His eyes were still red-rimmed from sobbing and every so often Nero would sniffle from the snot, despite you offering a tissue each and every time. 

“I don’t like his friends. They’re mean.”

You scoff lightly, yet the puff of your chest was still strong enough to shift Nero’s weight on top of you. You had tried your best to explain the events of today as child friendly as you could. But the trauma had set, resurfaced and it had rattled Nero to his core. He thought you were sending him back to the orphanage as his other guardians and foster families had. Nero thought you didn’t want him anymore. That once again, he wasn’t enough for someone, or perhaps he was simply too much. Whatever it may have been, he was discarded for the sixth time in his very short life. 

You knew it would take days, if not weeks to settle Nero into a new sense of belonging and security. It would just take time. And you had time. Maybe.

“They were just excited to meet you. Your daddy will be too.”

How else were you supposed to explain Nero’s kidnapping other than all of dad’s friends just couldn't wait to meet you and be your friend. God, it was stupid but it seemed to calm Nero down enough to stop the tears once he realised he wasn’t permanently staying with the strangers that stole him from preschool. 

“But will I have to live with him?” Nero said, his voice as quiet as a church mouse. “Will he take me away from you?”

Your hand paused between Nero’s starlight strands and you signed deeply. You weren’t too sure what the future held. From what Lady had disclosed, it didn’t seem fruitful or forgiving. But you were sure Vergil would allow Nero to stay with you. Afterall, he was the one that requested Nero be put in your care. You didn’t fight that decision of his, but if the First Son of Sparda wanted to rehome his son into the care of someone else, you would fight that decision. 

Maybe it was selfish and unjust. Maybe there was someone out there that Vergil trusted, someone that could provide better for Nero than what you would be able to. Maybe Vergil would track down his old flame, Nero’s birth mother, and demand why she had left Nero on the steps of a church when he was just a babe. Maybe this faceless woman would be forgiven of her sins and come to reclaim her baby boy. Then, Vergil and Nero and this nameless mother could live happily ever after. And you would be a forgotten chapter in Nero’s life. He was still so young, it was easy to misremember periods of life at this age. 

“No.” You breathed, either to answer your own anxieties or Nero’s. Either way the word was spoken, the claim was made. “You’re not going anywhere, Nero. I promised you, didn’t I? That I would never leave you. Just because your daddy is coming back doesn’t mean I’m leaving you. You’ll just have us both, me and your dad.”

“So does that mean he’ll live with us?”

There was a small change to the boy’s voice, a curious spark. It sounded almost…idealistic.

“Would you like that?” You treaded lightly, not wanting to discourage this sudden pull towards change. Nero wasn’t a child who handled adjustment well, this was new territory for you to navigate. You let your fingers drift back into his hair to further soothe the boy. 

You felt Nero shrug against you, his rounded shoulder digging under your ribcage. “I don’t know. Micky likes living with his mummy and daddy. He says it's cool. They watch his baseball games and they take him out to get - to get hotdogs and ice cream after the game. Even when he loses. And his daddy says ‘you’ll get them next time, kiddo’.”

It was rare that Nero spoke of his preschool friends. He only had a few, and only very recently had he opened up enough to make friends. But it was a good start. Yet, despite your pride for Nero’s social growth, you couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably. You understood why Nero had asked you that question, on whether or not Vergil would move into the shitty one bedroom apartment you rented (the answer was fuck no, obviously. There was nowhere for that 6’5ft half-demon to go, Nero and you were already living on top of each other). Like his uncle, Nero too, longed for a family. Maybe you could play house with Vergil or at least co-parent. Your relationship with Sparda’s eldest son was always...complicated, however. 

One moment, Vergil was so, so pleasant, so sweet. He would look at you like the sun rose with your smile and set with your frown, and god, how he hated when that star would lower itself... But then, it was like a switch, a snap of fingers, a crack in reality. The honey-eyed Vergil who would stand too close - close enough that you could smell his scent and hold it to memory, feel the heat of him, alive and burning - close enough to catch the smile in his eyes as he teased you over misremember a fact, would all but wither away. What was left was the sharpness and the bareness of bones. He was short with you, rude. He would walk ahead, let his long legs carry him at a pace you couldn’t keep with. If he wasn’t snapping at you to quicken your speed or hush your words, he was ignoring you, shunning you. You remember days where the only thing he would say was come and be quick about it, girl. 

The last interaction you two had was bittersweet. It was the most tender he had ever been with you. He spoke to you with this soft voice, cupped the swell of your cheek with his hand and thumbed at the wetness that gathered just below your eye. He held you like you were precious - something ripe and golden and not yet ready for the world to devour. 

You are strong. You will continue to be strong. These tears are not a reflection of you. Remember: devils do not cry. 

You’ve been holding it together ever since. 

“Maybe if we get a bigger place…” You mumbled, your lips pinched together in a pout. You didn’t want to fill Nero full of false hope. But at the same time you didn’t want to ruin his dreams of a family; of a mother and father that care for him and support him even when he isn’t at his best. 

Your answer settled Nero enough for the questions and curiosity to die off, and soon you both melted into the couch. 

Sleep was nearing, even as the night remained tepid and you felt sticky. The movie was coming to an end in flashes of blue and green hues and that Ponyo pop of peach. You nearly let yourself drift, your eyelids heavy, heavy things, trying to weigh you down, let the night take hold and pull you under. 

Nero was adrift, his breath even and low as he nuzzled up to you. The midnight heat was almost choking, but Nero never seemed too affected by the warmer weather. So, he clung to you, greedy and sweltering. You wouldn’t have it any other way. 

A tap, sharp and pointed. 

A tap, clipped and impatient. 

A tap, familiar and knowing. 

You blinked the sleep away and rubbed at your face. With gentle hands, you peeled Nero off of you and tucked the boy against your pillows. He stirred briefly, but you hushed him, your fingers sweeping into his bright hair to soothe him back into dreams. 

Your letter, plain and simple and not even a handful of words, rested on the counter, clothed in a cheap, tea stained envelope. It had no address, no destination. You did not know where Vergil would be or could be. You weren’t the one who delivered the letter after all. 

“I’m coming”, you hissed out as softly as you could as the tapping only grew more violent. You feared he might chip one of your thin glass panels. 

You snatched up the envelope and rushed to open the window that led to the fire escape. You pried the whiny latch open but weren’t given another minute to push the windows panel up before an impetuous beak hooked itself between the barely split window. 

“Jesus, Griffon, give me a second.” You growled as you pawed at the window until the gap was large enough for the demon to perch on the ledge at his full height. 

“A second!” Griffon squawked as he settled into his perch, round and blue. “It’s hotter than hell out here, I was practically turning into fried chicken waiting for you to wake up from your beauty nap!” 

You tried to grab at his beak, desperate to snap it shut. The damn bird was always so loud. You didn’t want him to wake up Nero, or any of your rather meanly neighbours. 

“Shhh, just -” 

“You call me here and now you want me to shut up?” Griffon mocked, and he puffed up his midnight-blue plumage in false offence. “This generation…no manners, no hospitality, no nothin!” 

“Okay, okay,” you breathed out, trying to keep your temper at bay. “I’m sorry. The next time I call you, I’ll leave a bowl of crackers and apples out. Now, will you just quiet down a bit? Nero is sleeping.” 

The demonic hawk shifted from one taloned foot to the other, feathers settling back into place. He preened himself for a moment, wings hung lazily in the air.

“You better get the good cracker. Don’t cheap out on me, brokie.” Griffon chirped, though his pitch was lower. 

You narrowed your eyes but kept your tongue in check. For all the things in this world to call you broke and it was the damn overgrown chicken that begged you for scraps. 

“Noted.” You said, voice tight. 

You thrust your hand out, the letter crinkled by your balled fist. 

“Take this to Vergil and make it quick. It’s important. Really important.” 

Griffon lowered his head to observe the envelope in your outstretched hand.

“I don’t know…looks like every other sad little letter you’ve sent him. This one probably has snot stains from all your girly crying. Ewwww.”

“Griffon!” You snapped, your tone so guttural it startled both you and the avian demon. “Please - it’s bad, okay? What’s going on in this world is bad. I need Vergil to get this letter, and he needs to get it now. Can you please do this for me?” 

Griffon didn’t speak but a new air surrounded them, one of unease and solemnity. The demon’s teasing nature all but melted away in the late night’s heat, what was left was a voice low and concerned. 

“Is this why you have been in contact with the youngest Sparda son?” Griffon spoke earnestly, his head bowed but those gold burning eyes peered up at you, fearful and serious. 

“You’ve been watching me?”

“The master told you to not seek him out.” Griffon reminded you. You couldn’t help but notice how he all but neglected your question.

“I didn’t. He sought me out on Lady’s orders.”

The demon hummed, deep and hollow, “so it is that bad.” 

“Will you deliver the letter or not?” You said, your tone a thing sharp, more direct. Your frustration was building, bubbling. You needed Griffon to do his job. If not, you feared for the bird, your temper wasn’t as well leashed as it had been in the past. 

“As you wish.” The bird said after considering you once more. 

You stepped forward, allowing the distance between you and the demon to close as you waited for him to collect the envelope from the flat of your palm. He did so delicately, curling his beak around the stomach of the letter until it was secure. 

“Thank you,” you breathed out, “be safe, be quick. I’ll call for you soon.” 

Griffon bowed before he turned to hop off the ledge of your window seal. With two mighty flaps of his wings, he launched himself into the air, allowing the dark sky to swallow him whole as he soared. You didn’t know how the demon could travel between the two worlds without a sword as skilled as the Yamato splitting them in half, but you had to put your faith in him. He hadn’t once led you astray, and now with Lady’s confirmation, you knew all your previous letters had made their way safely into Vergil’s possession. And all thanks to witty little Griffon.

You blink hard, kneading the bridge of your nose as sleep called to you like a siren. You had classes again tomorrow, work too. It was a big day for both you and Nero. You needed to rest, to sleep, to not worry about the future for once.

────୨ৎ────

Your night was sleepless, and you had come to regret it heavily the next day. Class was mentally and physically exhausting. Not only were you preparing for your written exams but the whole kitchen and prep station was in need of a deep clean. If you weren’t bent over a desk creating notes and flash cards for your culinary math unit, you were on your knees scrubbing the grease and fats from every groove and grout joint on the floor until the ceramic tiles showed the beads of sweat dripping down your temple. 

By the time you made your way to the preschool to collect Nero, you were ready to collapse. Only, you couldn’t. Dinner needed to be made and you still had a five hour shift at the motel down the road from your apartment. You cleaned rooms, washed towels, and sometimes stepped in as their kitchen hand when they needed it. Whatever paid the bills. 

“What would you like for dinner, Nero?” Your jaw cracked as a yawn forced its way out of your sore body. Your thigh muscles quivered  and screamed like a pair of wailing newbornes as you forced yourself up the nine floors of your apartment building. Nero was tucked to your side, his little hand wrapped inside of your own as you tugged him along. The elevator was out of order again, something to do with repairs…You didn’t know, and you didn’t care, you only cursed the climb ahead of you. 

“Pumpkin soup. With garlic bread.” Nero answered, and he nodded his head to punctuate his decision as he hopped from one narrow step to the next. 

You groaned, dreading the idea of having to work near a hot, gas stove in this heat. “Are you sure? I can make cold soba again, you love that.” 

“Nope. Pumpkin soup. With garlic bread...not burnt.” 

“Oh, that was one time and our last apartment had a busted oven. It wasn’t even my fault.” 

You caught Nero rolling his berry blue eyes at your excuse. You grumbled under your breath and reminded yourself that bickering with a five year old was not something a mature adult would do. You wedged your key into the front door of your apartment with a grateful sign once you reached the ninth floor. Once the door was ajar, Nero shot through the small gap to get to his toys and books and whatever else entertained his young mind. 

Once everything was put away, your study material, Nero’s lunchbox and bag, you were quick to escape out of your chef’s jacket, hanging it on the back of the front door by its hook; you worked on dinner. The red brick of your apartment swallowed the dull clank of your knife as it sliced through pumpkin and sweet potatoes, and crushed cloves of garlic. Once cut and seasoned and left in the oven to bake until golden and sweet, you shouted across the apartment, declaring the bathroom yours for the next fifteen minutes as you showered and readied yourself for work. 

You rushed to wash your hair, scrub the sweat and kitchen-smells from off your flesh, and put yourself back together to be presentable for the next five hours. The shower’s steam fogged your little bathroom with the scent of vanilla and almond, and you swiped your palm over the clouded mirror to get a better look at yourself as you dressed and fixed your hair. You tied your soaked locks into a sleek bun so that it wouldn’t drip down your neck, nor frizz in the humid weather. What you wore was simple, respectable, jean shorts and a dark top. The motel wasn’t strict on uniforms as long as you wore the company apron, so you decided on something light and breathable for tonight. 

You could smell the roasted vegetables before you even pried open the bathroom door. A sign left your lips sweetly, your tummy grumbled. Cereal was both breakfast and lunch for you, so a hearty meal was well needed even if it was hot soup on a summer night. 

But as you walked through the threshold from bathroom to hallway, something deep and primal and not human stirred in your core. It flickered and woke like a slumbering beast; stretching, yawning, maw wet with hunger as it shook off its dustcoat of peace. There was pressure blooming between the flare of your ribs, sharp and precise. You knew this feeling, and you knew it well. 

“Vergil.” His name brought fire with it, a blistering heat. Your tongue rolled over the two strong syllables to smooth the flames, to wet your lips. 

God, how he towered everything in your apartment. He looked larger than life as he stood before your small couch, contemplating it with those sapphire bright eyes. Vergil seemed timeless, untouched and unchanged. From that royal blue trench coat that draped him as marble draped Rome, to that wonted yet stoic frown. Even his hair was as you remembered it, flawless and well tamed, moon-kissed and so, so much like his son’s. 

“You came.”