#hellgrasp

All he had to do was follow the stench of the cheapest perfume to find Dante, already deep in shallow conversation with a girl of questionably ill repute. Nothing about her was subtle: not the plunge of her neckline, not the part of her inflated lips, or the way she ran her tongue along the ridge of her teeth. 

Just Dante’s style.

Nyx made it a point to shove Dante’s shoulder with his own as he passed, a physical rebuke of his displeasure before his hand snatching at his belt to prevail him away. As expected, it took little suggestion at all for him to follow, and less to sling him into the wall of exposed brick, where Nyx fell upon him with a mouth like embers and a tongue like flame, demanding reparations.

@hellgrasp

“Lift your chin,” he instructed, the way one might talk to a prodigal child. Which wasn’t too erroneous an attribution, given the expression Dante wore: sullen and sour, and maybe a little petulant. But did he also sense a touch of smugness in his comport, the proud arrangement of his shoulders, the tilt of his chin set in a defiant angle, his wide lips parted just so, with secret, sibylline smile curling prudently at the corners? It was possible. More than that, likely. 

Vergil inserted the smooth bone stays within Dante’s collar, leaving the points raised as he tied the slender neck wear around his brother’s neck with a militaristic precision. Satisfied with the execution of the knot, he tucked the tail of the tie within the slender waistcoat Dante had chosen to match his suit. 

It was a surprisingly stylish choice for him: a sleek, single-button Italian cut, double vented to accentuate the tapered waist, in a crimson sharkskin that complimented  his dark features in deleterious accord. Elegant, dapper even, and a refreshing change from his usual derelict sartorial milieu. And so marked that Vergil was sure that Dante had caught him staring more than once at the peek of pink tongue within his parted mouth, and swallowing hard with the silent affliction of a guilty man. 

  "Excuse me, but who are you again?"

pls be my dad!!!!

@hellgrasp

@hellgrasp cuz u love me

Lightning flashed, a flicker of silver-white in the corner of his eye, that had hardly registered with him until the inevitable clap of thunder shook the floorboards with stentorian force. It dislodged him from his absorption of the book in his hands (an old, dog-eared edition of The Screwtape Letters whose broken spine required a delicate, diligent care while he read), and Nyx had turned his attention to the window just in time to witness another strike of light splintering the inky sky, webbing fantastically before thunder struck again, this time anticipated with an expectant smile on the priests’ lips.

A quick glance at his bedside clock informed him hat he was nearly an hour late locking up the church doors, a task that should have been left to the administrative assistant, if she’d bothered to come in today. As such, it was his duty and his fault alone that he’d lapsed in it, and Nyx drew himself to his feet with a groan. Arms stretched overhead, he drummed idly upon the lintel as he passed into the hall, shuffling down it to the church’s inner sanctum. 

The rain sounded even worse as Nyx checked the doors down the length of the nave, though he suspected that it was due in part to the fact that the sound had multiplied by the reverberation in the hall. But it still sounded awful. He pushed open the front door in his curiosity, to find that the rain was even worse than he’d thought. Like some equatorial torrent. Like a storm out of the Old Testament. 

It shouldn’t have surprised him, then, to see a young man huddled against the wall, seeking what paltry shelter the eaves might have afforded him. Nyx had been ready to offer him directions to the nearest shelter, but realized that in the inclement weather, they’d be harder pressed to be able to help those in need. Charitas surged in his chest and he swung the doors open wider, his head flicking to direct the young man within. “It’s too cold,” Nyx informed him. “You’re better off inside. You coming in? I’m not about to get pneumonia waiting on you, kid.”

The pounding on the door went ignore for as long as he dared. He’d even ignored it when the upstairs neighbors started banging the butt of their broomstick on the floor to add to the casual cacophony, dislodging a fine dusting of disrupted stucco that dredged the television and near everything surrounding it. It was only when he’d gotten calls from three separate neighbors to his cell phone, threatening to tattle to the landlord, did Nyx bother getting up from his threadbare couch and answering the door.

Opening it, but not unlatching it.

There was only one person who had the audacity and outright gall to show up on his door step at that time of night, and his certainties were confirmed the second he cracked open the door as far as the chain would let him. “It’s late, Dante,” Nyx said blandly, glaring a little at his thus-far absent friend. “Go home.” 

Dante hadn’t bothered to show his face in near a month, which was far too long a time for it not to be purposeful. Barely a word since he’d taken him home from the hospital. Nyx had wondered i he’d said something, done something to annoy him. Attempts to ask over texts had been curt and curtailed, so he’d given up. It wasn’t until he’d gone out to the Citadel to pick up some paperwork Drautos had for him, had he seen Dante with a new girl. Some cheeky blonde he’d eyed once upon a time. And now he’d gotten her. So she was worth all his time.  And now, as far as he was concerned, she could have it.