#marksofweakness

@marksof-weakness​ asked: ❛  i  don’t  know  how  to  fall  asleep  anymore .  ❜ || SOFT THORNS

            A familiar voice is perhaps more a comfort than he’s ready to admit; something tangible to break up the city-night quiet that he’s sitting in the middle of on the office porch--the thrumming in his head, thoughts that he’d rather not think (and ends up thinking anyway.) Vergil looks as tired as Raiden feels when his gaze tilts up to meet the elder’s face--washed pale in the generous moonlight, the shape of him lingering halfway out the door as though unsure if he will go or if he will stay. Speaking, at least, and conversation feels like a small, precious mercy perhaps to both of them tonight.

             At least right now. At least in this situation.

              “Looks like that makes two of us...” His voice is rough, edged with laughter that is not entirely mirthful. “Guess we can’t all be so lucky as those two upstairs.”

@marksof-weakness​ asked: Pets his wee head

“Mm--?” The sound is a mite surprised--perhaps indeed because Raiden is surprised. The gesture is not a common one coming from Vergil; the kinds he’s only ever seen reserved for the likes of a bright-eyed son or wide-smiling brother. Or sometimes a feline prowling low and large on the floors of Devil May Cry.

But today it is Raiden beneath that ruffling hand, what precious little human sensation it brings. Enough that it twitches his lip to a smirk, at least, when his working eye moves to meet the elder’s curiously fond expression.

@marksof-weakness​ asked: ❝ evil is evil. lesser, greater, middling, it’s all the same. ❞ || THE LAST WISH

“So where’s that leave you, huh?” The retort is so bitingly swift, Nero is a little surprised with himself. Not that that softens the edge any, not that it makes him unwilling to venture into that question further as Red Queen is hoisted aloft the hunter’s shoulders. His face is hard, sombre, a little tired. Vergil has, after all, proven to be tiring in every sense of the word. “Evil’s evil. Good’s good. You’re one or the other. Your chances don’t look that great for getting into one of those clubs, let me tell ya, pal. Or does that sentiment just not apply when we’re talking about you?”

@marksof-weakness​ asked: ❝ the world is changing. something’s coming to an end. ❞ || THE LAST WISH

“This world, or just your own? The world itself, or your perception of it? The world is always changing, Vergil. It has changed countless times since it were born. I think it is merely the way you look upon it that has become different. You have been left much without a choice in the matter, after all...” Ophir as much as anybody has made well sure of that much, just lately--proudly or otherwise. But that Vergil has come here to lament sooner than to hiss and seethe behind others that pulled him here is novel enough to make Ophir curious. Perhaps a little softer at his edges than otherwise he could be as he urges for more. “Something is coming to an end? For you, it already has. Your days on the path of a would be king or a shadow of your father are through. It is time to look for something new, as much as you may disagree with the idea...”

@marksof-weakness​ asked: ❛  don’t  look  at  me  like  that .    ❜ || SUGAR WATER

The nerve of this guy.

The demand in and of itself only serves to worsen the pinched frown on Nero’s face to a lip-curling snarl, all tooth and fang and flaring eyes, ankles crossing with defiant irreverence on the antique wood of the office desk. There’s a scoff uttered both to Vergil’s words and to the sterile, stubborn coldness of his face that Nero finds as irritating today as he had remembered it being when they first met. His chin tips, glare cutting the distance between them as he polishes down Blue Rose’s silver face.

@marksof-weakness​ asked: ❛  is  this  what  you  wanted ?  ❜ HUFF HUFF || DEATH OF AN OPTIMIST

“For as long as you are everything that you are, it will never be what I want, or could ever have wanted. You leave indeed only things to be desired...” Though it is as ever a wonder whether words as this would matter to Vergil at all (though suspiciously, most everything Ophir says seems somehow to matter--why else would Vergil ask?) There is no smile today, which is perhaps more off-putting than if Ophir were to mock at him with his laughing eyes and laughing mouth alike. There is something quiet in its stead, severe and cold in the colours of his face, the air between them smoke-thick with the sort of severity that only ever comes from him in moments as these. A long finger taps the shining face of his glass, whiskey sitting within honey-dark and only half tasted.

“But colour me every shade of surprised that you would ever ask or concern yourself with what I want and I need and I desire; let alone enough to come here for that by itself. I wonder when if ever the desires of something outside yourself have ever been of any concern to you. I wonder if they only concern you now as you look for something to settle the wounds in your own ego.” His feline eyes crease, though not with the quirk of his lips so much as the quiet contempt that Ophir has only ever shown him once before in its truest colour.

@marks-of-weakness​ asked: ❛  i  never  thought  it  would  come  to  this .  ❜ || DEATH OF AN OPTIMIST

Father is a funny word for him. No matter how wrapped up in the bitterest of truths that it is. That it comes right to the tip of his tongue is a shame as it is a regret when Nero hears the distinct, deliberate pattern of Vergil’s footsteps on the floorboards--louder than the rain against the window, louder than his thoughts--and when cold crawls down his spine (phantom pain beating in his arm like it does in his chest.) Yes. A funny word. Strange, unthinkable, even. But one Nero doesn’t speak again. Nero doesn’t even turn at first, watching the grey, rain-addled world outside where there is nothing happening within to watch at all. He waits. He knows somehow that Vergil will speak first without Nero uttering so much as a breath.

And predictably, he does. Perhaps made uneasy with the drab, lazy quiet, or with the thoughts turning by in his own head. Nero can admit that he feels altogether quite the same, today. Slightly, Nero’s head tilts to glance him over one broad shoulder as the other man’s words ring in his ears. “Oh yeah?” He queries, voice rough from disuse, gaze passing briskly over the figure that stands at his back, cold blue all the way down to his eyes. Nero huffs, fingers drumming the windowsill with idle contemplation. “Then how did you see things turning out?”

Barely a question that needs an answer, anyway. But Nero wonders in what ways he might give one. A memory rears its head at thinking as much, the image of a smaller, paler, gentler self that liked to explain and talk as much as he liked to remain a mystery. A few words that he said that seem impossible to be coming from the same heart and soul as this man’s now. A few words that make Nero turn in his seat entirely with the weight of his curiosity.

“...You told me some things, y’know. Things you wanted. Things I bet you don’t wanna say out loud now it’s all over. Makes me wonder what you really wanted this whole time, if you’re even honest enough with yourself to know...” Protection and love are even funnier words than “father” to imagine right here, right now. But he remembers them, as he remembers V’s ailing face and empty smile so full of honesty that Nero didn’t even begin to understand. Staring at Vergil looming in his place, he’s not sure if he is glad to understand now or if he is not.