When in Fortuna

by idslog

Summary:

When Vergil starts university in Fortuna, he moves in with the enigma that is his older brother Dante. (3V/5D)

Chapter 1

One might have thought that Vergil was an only child, as he possessed all the selfish and lone-wolf characteristics of one, but he was the younger brother to his brother Dante who was more than twenty years his senior. For some reason, their mother thought it grand to endow their family with a new child and brother before she hit menopause, and Vergil was brought unexpectedly into this world. He was born on the exact same day Dante had his birthday, as if his existence was made into a personalized gift for his older brother. Although the thought of being Dante’s offshoot or a product of his desire both intrigued and irked him years into the future, Dante never behaved as though Vergil was born out of his wanting. In fact, their relationship past Vergil’s childhood had been generally non-existent, pleasant but surface-level, which was not unexpected due to the generational chasm between them. There was only so much their relationship could amount to between a toddler and a man approaching thirty. But in those first years that Vergil was not meant to remember, he could recall the way that Dante had doted on him almost like a second mother, dressing him and feeding him and taking him to school and around town. Dante lived at home until he was thirty, but before his grand moving out, he still lived with Vergil and their parents (it was only later than Vergil realized that his brother’s “free time” was due to his unemployment freelancing career.)

Dante’s presence was a stark look into the future of what Vergil might turn out to be, and not just in terms of physical appearance. Vergil begrudges that Dante was so doting, because when he had grown up to pursue academia and excel at his classes, the call to freedom and living a devil may care lifestyle beckoned him like a siren. Still, since their mother and father already had one unpredictable fiery child, Vergil was inclined to fill in the gaps that Dante had left. He didn’t have to stay home, since Mother was well-acquainted with how much Father had to travel and she already had one chick leave the nest.

When Vergil was coming out of high school, Dante had been long gone. He had seen his older brother in sparse bursts of holiday dinners and birthdays over the past decade, but in recent years, his appearances had petered out due to him moving to Fortuna temporarily for job prospects. He had a caravan for his mobile business, but began renting in the area when he found out how much more potent the opportunities were in Fortuna when a burst of demons had been leaking into the island from an inexplicable portal.

Vergil’s admission to the University of Fortuna was something he had kept to himself like a secret under his pillow. There were no real benefits of attending university there, as he had been accepted to his “first-choice” schools in Red Grave, which had a higher international ranking than Fortuna. The English program there was not better by any means. There was a rather conservative culture that permeated the school, as expected from the devout population of Fortuna. Nothing about the university itself interested him. It was all about the long shadow that his older brother cast, for even as renowned and venerable as their father was, it was Dante whose image eluded Vergil the most. He kept that fact to himself, when his mother asked why he had chosen to go there in the end.

Mother, as protective as she was, was the one to suggest that he live with Dante, seeing as he conveniently lived so close to campus. They were not stripped for money, not by any means, but it would comfort her to know that Vergil was taken care of. Under his watchful eye, she would feel more at ease. Vergil had no complaint with that.

They hadn’t been together in over a decade, but surely it wouldn’t be too difficult living with Dante again. Maybe they could even catch up on lost time.

 

 

 

Vergil arrives at Dante’s doorstep of the townhouse-slash-office he’s currently staying in. The architecture in Fortuna is beautiful, dated to a bygone era and maintained ever since, but Vergil sees that Dante’s apartment is significantly more damaged than its neighbors. There’s blood on the pavement that hasn’t been washed out yet. Such is the nature of his job, Vergil assumes.

He rings the doorbell. Vergil is far from shy, even though he’s introverted, but somehow he feels quite nervous. He hasn’t seen his brother in over three years now. He still remembers the last time Dante had been back, just before he had finalized his move to Fortuna. He made his announcement on their shared birthday. Vergil was gloomy for the rest of the day.

It takes so long for Dante to answer his door, Vergil might have assumed he was out if not for the banging and scuffling indoors, sounding more like a home invader than a tenant. Eventually, Dante answers the door. Vergil balks at the sight. Dante is scruffier than he remembers. His beard is growing out, half a centimeter in length compared to the clean-shaven look that regulated a youthful appearance. However, his head of hair is as messy as it used to be, only now it is parted somewhat down the middle that draws attention to the gentle wrinkles that span the horizon of his forehead. He’s only in his indoor clothes, a henley that’s still creased and wrung up at the hems, and Vergil can tell he just threw the shirt on.

“Hey, baby,” Dante coos. The way he pronounces “baby” is completely dissimilar to how Vergil remembers it, like a mother and their child. No, Dante says it like he’s trying to rein in an unsuspecting victim. “C’mere.”

He pulls Vergil in for a tight hug. Vergil wriggles in his brother’s grasp, uncomfortable, but he doesn’t retaliate. Only Dante and Mother get the benefit of touching him, earning their intimacy with him like a cat’s loyalty. Dante is the same height as him, so Vergil’s cheek rubs up against the tips of Dante’s hair and his stubbly chin, hiding a grimace when he feels it scrub against his own unblemished skin. His embrace is tight, like a good firm handshake, and it presses Vergil up against Dante’s broad chest, bloated not just from the muscularity that Dante has cultivated over the years from his physical job, but cushiony from age and the consequences of the sweets and junk food he devours on a day-to-day basis, finally catching up to him in his comparatively old age.

“Good afternoon,” Vergil says stiffly, when Dante lets him go. Every part of him feels stiff. Some more than others. “Did Mother inform you of my stay?”

When Mother had gotten on the phone with Dante, she had tried to thrust the phone into Vergil’s hand. Vergil shook his head so violently and told her to say he wasn’t home.

“Of course! Stay as long as you want. As long as you don’t mind the odd demon popping up once in a while,” Dante says.

“I don’t mind,” Vergil says. He wonders if Dante will let him stay around for that long. They’re brothers, sure, but they’re so far apart in age it's a wonder they share the same mother. If Dante kicks him out, he’ll understand why.

He slips his shoes off at the foyer along with a few other discarded, beat up boots and slippers. He notices that Dante doesn’t take his own off, and he grimaces. But it’s not his own house, so he bears the burden of his own judgement.

Vergil remembers Dante as messy and a loafer, excitable when he needed to be, but mostly subdued when it came to living a proper adult life. When Dante gives him a tour of the two-storied apartment, it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t in the territorial clutches of squatters who had set up base. There’s no eye for interior design, just trinkets and toys and barebones furniture that were placed in their non-native spots, an office in the living room, a couch and television close to a kitchen peninsula that looked more like a bar than a home. Well, most of the first floor served as an office space, and it did look at least identifiable as an office with the mahogany desk that Dante had lugged all the way from Red Grave to Fortuna, so dear to his heart that he could not even bear to keep it in storage for what seemed to be a temporary stay.

Dante has prepared a guest room for Vergil, which looked considerably nicer than the rest of the house. Vergil, despite his pinched nose and disturbed expression, was grateful that his brother had remembered his preferences. His motivation did not extend to the rest of the house, but in Vergil’s designated corner, at least he tried.

“Hope it’s not too shabby! I know how much you like your order and cleanliness,” Dante says, rubbing the bristle under his nose. Vergil’s ears burn.

“It’s sufficient. Thank you for hosting me, Dante.”

“Hey, it’s no problem at all. Gotta make up for lost time with my family, you know,” Dante says. “We got to have our mom and dad, but we didn’t really get to have each other.”

Vergil lets Dante’s words brew. As much as Vergil had missed Dante, or the image of Dante, he never thought that his brother who was so much older and cooler and effortless cared about him to that extent. Perhaps for Dante there was also an allure to the idea of Vergil, too young to have an identity, a plaything for an older brother to practice raising a child of his own later on. But Dante defies his assumptions.

“May this be a fruitful opportunity, then,” Vergil agrees. But before he can unpack his belongings, the landline downstairs rings.

“Sorry, Verg, let me grab that real quick. It could be important, or a scam call, I don’t know—“ Dante’s voice trails off as he scurries downstairs. Instead of unpacking, Vergil leaves his suitcases by the wall and follows Dante to the top of the stairwell, where he can see the back of Dante’s head as he leans over the desk on his elbows, looking as if he’s gossiping with a friend rather than answering a work call. But the squeaking from the landline indicates an urgency unbefitting of a casual conversation. Dante answers short “hm”s and “I see”s and “I’ll be right there”s to the recipient before he hangs up and grabs Rebellion off of its wall mount.

Dante doesn’t even seem to remember Vergil’s at his house until Vergil makes himself known by the footsteps on the stairs that creak under his weight.

“Shoot, I’m sorry, I gotta head out for this gig, Verg,” Dante says, as he tries to force the heel of his foot into his boot. Vergil opens his mouth to ask when Dante will be back, but in his hesitance, Dante fills up the silence. “I’ll be back soon. You have my number. Just make yourself at home!”

And just like that, Vergil’s alone.

 

 

Despite Dante’s encouragement, Vergil feels more like a stranger than ever in his brother’s home. He hasn’t been acquainted with the apartment yet, abandoned by the mutual friend between them to break the ice. The one place Vergil feels most comfortable in is his new bedroom, which was tailor-made for his comfort, so he simply unpacks and gets used to his room. It’s a decent space. Vergil did not bring a lot but his essentials and a few luxuries that he could not bear to part with (similar to Dante and his polished desk) and the things that Mother begged Vergil to take with him. Some part of him wanted Dante to live more frugally. Perhaps then, they could have shared a closer living experience. He wonders if Dante would share a bedroom with him if the square footage was halved. Then he wonders if Dante would offer up his apartment for him at all.

Vergil doesn’t have a lot to do before he heads out. He intended to scope out the campus tomorrow when he had settled in first, so he cozies up with a book to bide his time with. When evening arrives and his stomach gurgles, he goes downstairs. It’s only until he’s at the foyer with his shoes on that he remembers that Dante hadn’t given him a key yet. Sitting on his choices, he finally decides to venture into the kitchen and opens up the fridge. He discovers a half-eaten pizza and a few miscellaneous and mismatched vegetables and fruits that Vergil finds hard to pair together. If not just from the odd variety of groceries, the intact packaging and expiry dates indicated that they were likely bought for Vergil’s arrival. Whether or not Dante intended to cook for Vergil or these were for Vergil’s own use is unknown, but the thought was what counts.

That night, Vergil cooks what he deems to be his first “struggle meal”. A proper introduction to the culture of college living. It seemed like Dante for all his wrinkles and grey hair, had yet to grow out of his adolescent mentality.

Now more comfortable in his new habitat, Vergil takes a cursory sweep of Dante’s apartment. He checks for life, mostly, indications of a well-lived place. Dante’s initial promise was that he’d eventually return to Red Grave, but the furniture looked quite settled into, though it was possible most of these items had come second-hand and had lived several lives already. Vergil scans for other life, hair that isn’t white or light grey, sheddings of other people’s accessories and jewelry. He finds nothing of the sort. All of his decorations, his wall-mounted Devil Arms to his life-sized pin-up posters, were all the tellings of a single bachelor. For all that Dante had, it seemed like he mostly lived in isolation.

Vergil peeks at Dante’s calendar (well, to be fair, it wasn’t peeking if it wasn’t shut or locked away, Vergil thinks,) pinned up to the corkboard. It was September, so the model in the gaudy pin-up calendar is a red-headed girl with her hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail dressed in a schoolgirl costume that accentuates her very unchildlike curves. Vergil twists his nose up at it and moves on, scanning the dates to see if anything was written up. But it seemed to serve mostly as decor, probably bought just for the models or the surprisingly excellent font and formatting of the calendar. There was only one note on it, on the date of his arrival, his name written in big block letters with a heart drawn around it. Despite himself, Vergil smiles.

 

 

In Dante’s absence, the first semester of university began, so at least Vergil was occupied on the third day of Dante’s disappearance, his thoughts pulled away from his laissez-faire brother. Vergil had Dante’s phone number in his mobile from their mother, and as much as he wanted to ask, he neglected the option to ask him about his whereabouts, as stunted as the child Dante remembers him as. He isn’t worried about Dante, but he does feel a little jilted from their brief meeting. The rational part of Vergil forgives him. His older brother has business to attend to, and Vergil would hardly seek to draw focus to himself as Dante’s guest.

When he returns to Dante’s apartment from his last class of his first day, Dante had just come back before him only half an hour earlier, about to step into the shower with teal blood and demon guts still dripping from his coat and trousers.

Dante vows to make up for his absence. He takes them out on a dinner date. The place he brings them to is a gaudy diner more akin to Red Grave’s culture than Fortuna’s. Dante had regularly brought him to diners as a child, whenever he made time to bring his kid brother out after school. He let Vergil partake in sweets so indulgent he could come down with sugar-sickness, and Dante always lied to their parents when he was asked to explain away Vergil’s mysterious tummyaches. Sometimes Vergil had tagged along with Dante and his girlfriends, though Dante never let him fall behind. And if Vergil did, he would just hoist him up onto his shoulders, raising him higher than anyone else in the world.

Dante orders a strawberry sundae. Extra strawberries, extra cream, extra syrup. Just like he always has. It pleases Vergil to know that his brother is a man of habit. The fact that the faint memories of his brother still hold true to this day makes it seem like no time has passed at all between them. But for Vergil, he finds it too shameful to order the same dessert he was so fond of as a toddler. When he orders a black coffee, Dante pinches his cheek and tells him how much he’s grown up.

The first excursion had been an unwelcome interruption to Vergil’s expectations, but he later found out that Dante’s life was a lot less fast-paced and excitable than the first day had made it seem. Dante was as present in the house as a housewife, but he did none of the associated tasks. It’s Vergil that takes up the mantle to care for the house’s health and well-being. The first course of action is cleaning it spik and span, but after all the dust is cleared, Vergil gets around to rearranging the furniture. A lot of Dante’s furniture comes in the form of knick-knacks from a bygone era, arcade machines that don’t work and a jukebox that does and a pool table and a stripper pole. To his older brother’s credit, Dante plays around with all of these except the last one, though Vergil would very much like to see him distribute his time amongst the few equally.

Vergil’s room becomes a playground for Dante too, one that becomes desecrated with dirty shoes and a roughhouser attitude, to Vergil’s dismay. He spends most of his time indoors either at home or at school, but he did not expect the nature of Dante’s job to be so volatile that Dante basically spent more time in his own home than his guest. Vergil is friendless himself, and Dante’s constant presence sparks a faint memory of his clingy behavior when Vergil was still a child, but only faint enough to be blurred behind a veil of nostalgic glamor. Dante likes to talk about anything and everything, which Vergil obviously tuned out as a child, but as a young adult, he no longer has the benefit of being illiterate. Schoolwork is hard to complete when Dante lies down on Vergil’s bed playing a mobile game that has to be turned up to at least medium volume without earphones while he prattles on about something completely inconsequential to Vergil’s life let alone his own.

The few instances in which Dante goes out outside of work is when he meets up with his arms dealer Nicoletta. His friends, who Vergil vaguely remembers as prettied-up, gorgeous young women that Vergil was always inexplicably jealous of, did not have the luxury of escaping Red Grave to see him, though Vergil catches his brother on the phone with them quite frequently. Vergil doesn’t know in which Nicoletta’s existence bleeds from dealer to friend, but since she’s the only one who’s come over in the past month, Vergil can bet on her being deeper in Dante’s circle.

Her first appearance was a shock to his senses.

“Hey, nice to meet you, Verg! I’m Dante’s associate, Nicoletta Goldstein, but Nico does just fine for a friend,” she says, winking. “I’ve heard all about you from your brother. It feels like I know you already!”

Vergil feels his hackles rise. Like a territorial cat, he doesn’t appreciate another visitor in his brother’s territory, and by extension, his own. Even his nickname was uncharted territory for anyone other than Dante. Neither of his parents were the type to condescend Vergil, not intentionally, at the very least.

“Nicoletta,” he says, nodding curtly at her before returning to his book. It’s a novel this time, one from his own selection and not for the purposes of academic pursuits.

She pouts, clearly not expecting him to answer that way.

“Hey, Verg,” Dante says, as he comes, stomping the welcome mat with his boots before deigning to come in.

“Good afternoon, brother.”

Nicoletta pouts. What might have been a trait of her Southern roots come off as childish to Vergil. Dante notices her expression and grins.

“Was my baby brother mean to you?”

Vergil glares at Dante, trying hard to stop his own face from going red. He can’t possibly protest being called a baby without acting like one.

“Don’t take it personally. He’s like that with everyone. Except me,” Dante chuckles. “Did you want me to get anything for dinner later?”

Vergil puts a hand up. “No need. I’ll cook for us tonight. I bought some duck legs for confit.”

Nicoletta gasps. “Can I join?”

Vergil really would rather not, but Dante answers for him first.

“Maybe next time,” he says. “Nico, garage?”

“Aye, aye, cap’n,” she salutes, as Dante trudges over to the garage door, not bothering to wait up for her. When the door closes behind him, she turns back to Vergil.

“You’re not as cute as Dante made you out to be,” Nicoletta says, sticking her tongue out at him.

I don’t need to be cute for you, Vergil thinks. But he refuses to deign her with a response.

 

 

“Say, have you ever thought about demon-hunting as a career?”

Vergil blinks.

“Not particularly, no. Why do you ask?”

Seeing his in, Dante gleams. “What would you think about taking on a few clients for me? Nothing too big or high-level.”

Vergil frowns. “I can take on big demons,” he says. He’s well-trained in fencing and martial arts, and Father made time for both his sons to teach them their own secret language of power and strength. But he realizes he sounds like a child, so he waits on Dante to expand.

Dante laughs. “I would be giving you the smaller clients because I still want you to show up to your classes, silly. If you took on the big ones, I might not get you back for weeks.” Right.

“It’s fine. I live frugally, and I already have an allowance,” Vergil says.

“Well…” Dante trails off. “Wouldn’t it be nice just to have your own money? Something you worked for with your own blood and sweat and tears?”

“Did you need help with rent?” Vergil asks bluntly.

“Nooo. No no,” Dante says, shaking his hands in front of his face, looking a little guilty. “Let your big brother handle all that. But it seems like it would be a nice way to occupy your time, you know? Between classes. And I love having you around, but I’m not used to buying for two.”

Vergil never thought of needing to earn money for himself during a period of education – those two choices had always seemed mutually exclusive. It’s a reminder of the privilege that eclipses his perspective. Whether or not Dante intended to tread on his pride is unknown, but he successfully burrows under Vergil’s skin. He might not be privy to paying rent, but Vergil has an image to uphold for his older brother. Dante might be a slacker, but he still lived in an apartment he was capable of renting without getting an eviction notice, and he lived and ate to his own standards of luxury. Vergil had been coddled with wealth as much as Dante had been for the first eighteen years of his life, but the allowance he exercised was with his father’s, and the epiphany of his complacence made him feel like wilting with shame.

If not for nothing, Vergil had one thing he was itching to buy that even Father’s monthly allowance didn’t begin to cover. Not something for himself, but still a completely self-serving and personal craving. That single-minded pursuit sets his gears in motion.

 

 

Vergil turns down access to Dante’s clientele. While he appreciates the effort to include him in the family business, his ego bars him from taking on Dante’s offer, especially not the “weak” demons. It’s fairly easy to find business in Fortuna, Vergil finds, once he sets up an online profile on a website called killademon4me.com. It’s populated by quite a few users, a global forum where Vergil can even find clients and hunters from across the world, but he filters out the non-local clientele and starts looking for jobs near him.

In the first month of his job search, he finds two clients in Fortuna. The demons he takes down do turn out to be small and weak, and Vergil carves through them in less than an afternoon each, though when Dante asks him how his first few gigs went, Vergil is intentionally vague with his answers. He is impressed that Vergil managed to find so many clients so quickly. Vergil suggests Dante find jobs online like him, which completely falls apart when Dante’s brain refuses to comprehend the Internet as a concept. Still, Dante earns more since he’s an established name, but he is also a more unpredictable hunter. He doesn’t work until he’s whittled down to his last two cents, and only then he feels inclined to take on a few new jobs. It’s been better since Vergil started living with him, but from what he gleaned from the details, Dante had lazed around a lot more before his arrival. There’s only so much bad luck Dante can claim to have.

From his first two paychecks, Vergil buys a yukata online for Dante. He has one of his own, in a muted navy blue, Eastern sea waves soaring from the hem of the dress and the sleeves. He pores over the catalogue from the website he purchased his own, trying his best to imagine Dante in each yukata, as if they were all hanging from a rack and he was trying them on one-by-one. Undressing each time, to reveal a fundoshi that cupped his crotch, the thin patch of cloth at the front doing nothing to hide the spackle of pubic hair behind it, the thong wrung through his asscheeks and leaving it completely exposed. Vergil almost forgets to redress Dante in his mind.

When the package arrives, Vergil leaves the box on Dante’s desk, handing off the responsibility of gift-giving to the mahogany table that absolves him of that embarrassment. He’s purposefully on the couch when Dante comes home from getting take-out, studying with a book on his lap and another by his side, cross-referencing the two documents, and pretends that all his senses aren’t honed in onto Dante’s creeping towards the present.

Dante comes upon it gently, as if it’s a bomb that might explode upon touch. When he sees the letter attached to the wrapping paper, denoting Vergil as the donor, Dante almost rips it in half trying to get it open.

“Vergil,” Dante says with awe in his throat. “You got me this?”

Vergil swallows. “It’s a gift for letting me stay here,” he says lamely. To be truthful, Vergil no longer feels a sense of debt to Dante for letting him stay at his apartment. He simply wanted to see Dante adorned in his favorite clothes.

Dante pulls the collar up to his neck. The sizing is perfect. Dante might be thicker, rougher, burlier than Vergil, but they’re the same height. Since Vergi’s birth, their parents had always remarked how Vergil was the spitting image of Dante as a child. As a young adult, he can verify their similarity when he looks at pictures of Dante in his college years. He wonders if he’ll look like how Dante looks now in 20 more years.

“What’s this?” Dante asks, peering at the flowers that sprout from the hem of the robe.

“Peonies,” Vergil says. His exposition on the symbolism of the flowers is left on his tongue until Dante asks for it. In the meantime, Vergil will keep it secret.

“This is so awesome,” Dante says. Like Vergil’s most sacred dreams, Dante pulls his henley over his head, showing Vergil a sight that he has seen far too many times and is still somehow not enough. Unfortunately, Dante leaves his pants on. Vergil’s gaze begs the happy trail under Dante’s navel to reveal more of itself to him.

Dante slides his arms into the sleeves. The collar of the yukata hangs over his prominent chest, flowing over his furry skin like the smooth trajectory of a waterfall. He tries to fold one side over the other, the right side over the left side, which Vergil’s hand itches at the need to correct and place it left-over-right. But Dante lets the collar fall back vertical against his body. He picks up the ribbon in his hand, and after contemplating its width, he tries to wrap it around his waist like a bathrobe. The ends of the sash look awkward hanging by his knees.

“Let me,” Vergil says. He pulls the wrinkled knot loose from Dante’s belly, a churning in his own gut when the ribbon comes loose and Dante’s chest comes back into display again. He places the middle of the sash around Dante’s waist, and Dante extends his arms for Vergil to wrap the ribbon at the back and circle back around with the ends in different hands. He ties a knot around Dante’s midsection.

He steps back. Dante’s all dolled up, his broad shoulders leading down a narrow path to his waist. Despite his age and his own lack of grooming, Dante’s body is at its peak physical form. The yukata is not form-fitting by nature, but somehow Dante makes it so, commanding the same masculine silhouette that Vergil has found in no one but their father.

“Right,” Vergil croaks. “There you go.”

“Geez, Verg,” Dante says, looking down at the robe. He twists side-to-side, watching the dress dance with his movements. “How much did it cost?”

Vergil scowls. Why he expected Dante to exercise some social decorum, he doesn’t know. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining. Thank you, baby.” Baby again. Instead of the word condescending him like a burn, Vergil wants to hear Dante say it more. Over and over again.

Vergil had bought the garment for his brother fully aware that there was a possibility of Dante wearing it once and never again. It’s not something he would find in his closet, and it was more Vergil’s style anyway, aligned with the Mandarin collars and frog buttons on his garments. Vergil had a yukata hanger in his room that Dante could have used for his gift, hanging it off like a showpiece, and from its price, it certainly could have been valued as a display rather than something for personal use.

But Dante wears it when he can. At home, mostly, since there’s never an occasion that demands him to wear a yukata outside, far too impractical for when Dante needs to fight demons. It could be part of Vergil’s everyday wear, since he was so conservative with his movements, but Dante enjoyed tussling and playing around with his targets that he usually came home shredded and bloody.

Of course, Dante had to put his own flair to the garment, styling it to his own tastes. Dante’s fashion over the years had taken a few twists and turns; when he first started his business, he was in corset-vests which had ornamentation far too impractical for actual use. Now, maybe from aging and sloth, he put far less effort into his dress, still donning one of his many iconic red coats, but underneath he was dressed for comfort.

Instead, Dante’s flair is reminiscent of a style that Vergil only knows of through photographs, when Dante was still a teenager. Back then, he wore almost nothing at all under his coat.

Vergil thought he had missed out on that era. The renaissance of Dante’s exposed body was not an unwelcome return. Dante wore the yukata like a bathrobe, the collar always hanging loose around his neck, slinging open a view of his hairy chest. Despite the first time when he had not foregone his pants, he left out everything now. The yukata was never drawn across his body too tightly, and the dress always revealed a slit that ran up the side of his leg similar to a Western-style dress. Dante looked more sultry than any promiscuous woman Vergil could find wandering the streets of Red Grave deep into the night, and he was far more confident than one. The end of the slit often ended at the ribbon that kept everything all together, high up on his waist, so Vergil could watch closely and catch the crease between Dante’s pubic mound and his thigh. That sight commanded his attention. It ensnared his sanity. And for as much as Vergil tried to bury his head in the sand, he could not even escape the smell of Dante’s cunt, as he passed by him on his desk or any place he could sit down, the flowing skirt of the yukata wafting the musk of his brother’s groin into his face, assaulting his nostrils with its acrid smell.

Vergil can only imagine what lies enshrouded under those thin layers of fabric. He knows that Dante doesn’t shower daily like he does. His legs are usually kept in the bondage of his leather pants, unable to wick all the moisture between his thighs. He’s seen Dante’s boxers on laundry day, flimsy and gummy at the crotch. He knows Dante’s depraved cunt only by degrees of separation, and he longs to know it like a lover.

Vergil had never been one for masturbation, since it had always been beneath him to succumb to the temptations of the flesh. Dante breaks his streak of celibacy; the only solution for his problems is in the foolproof traditions of teenage boyhood.

 

 

Vergil was not the only sexual creature in this house. Part of this was willful ignorance, the same way Vergil would never consider their parents sexual creatures even though they must have had a vibrant enough sex life to bring Vergil into this world decades after their firstborn son. Dante was always provocative, but he was so juvenile that it circled back around to a flavor of innocence.

This was far from the truth.

Dante had kept up a facade of decency at first, but soon Vergil could see all the cracks that emerged from the cheap disguise that Dante used to keep his habits hidden. Vergil already knew he was gluttonous and unmotivated, but from his childhood, he never realized how sexually ravenous Dante was. It was unknown if Dante had been so carnal when he still lived with them, something that grew around him like vines around an aging tree, or if he had only kept it hidden at home in the presence of his parents and child brother.

The stripper pole should have been the first indication of his promiscuous lifestyle, even though Vergil never saw Dante perform on it. It seemed to be one of the many objects in his apartment that were made to be decorative and to set the mood, if his full-body-length pin-ups and seductive neon sign were anything to go by (there was absolutely no need for the sign to be inside of the apartment as well as outside, as the people who entered hopefully already knew that they were inside Devil May Cry.) Dante had the aesthetic principles of an unsubtle brick to the face and the tastes of a pimp. Vergil was thankful that it was only a surface level artifice of Dante’s appreciation for these gaudy vices, that he never brought anyone home, especially not women that looked anything similar to the centerfolds that Dante stuck on his walls.

Vergil would not call himself naive. He was not naive at all, despite his more sheltered upbringing. He knew what Dante was doing the third time he heard that low buzzing downstairs, churning on like the washing machine or a hum of heavy machinery. It was when he had taken off his headphones to use the bathroom that heard Dante’s sounds, gasps and airy moans that tried their best not to become tangible through his vocal cords that Vergil realized what the last few occasions had been, why Dante had been so mysteriously quiet and absent from his usual clinginess. Suddenly a world had opened up to Vergil. He saw Dante’s home differently. It was his house, and his right, of course, but how many surfaces had been defiled from Dante’s libido? How many toys did he use? How many corners had he rutted against like an unspayed dog until he wet himself and let the fruits of his labor dry? Vergil had not realized until then how much Dante’s essence surrounded him like a fog, and from the time he reckoned with this fact, he had already been stewing in his poison for months. He was infected by Dante’s depravity, his stench, his cunt. Vergil was tempted to put his tongue on the stripper pole and find out if he could taste Dante on it.

Perhaps Dante really was that stupid to think that he was being subtle, or he simply didn’t care. Some part of Vergil wants to believe that he’s doing it on purpose. His brother with a secretly conniving side, placing morsels and crumbs for Vergil to sniff and chase. First, it would be his rampant masturbation, just barely within the vicinity of Vergil’s presence. Then Dante would somehow orchestrate a scenario where Vergil would walk in on him, clothes askew, or even completely naked, in the throes of pleasure. Then Vergil would pin him down, taking him where he laid–

He looks down at his trousers. The crotch had tented again.

Vergil groans. He stands up to stretch, ignoring how his own erection pulls his pants taut and comical. He tries to will it down first, and when it doesn’t, he paces around his room. Dante isn’t home, which Vergil could not be more grateful for, and he steps out for a longer stroll around the privacy of Dante’s home seeing as he can’t take a brief walk outside in this state without being branded the local pervert. Vergil walks up and down the flight of stairs a few times, getting some more of his daily exercise in, before he walks around the living area-slash-office space. Dante’s estimation for this gig was around a week, and Vergil was already sober of his brother for five days. He didn’t know how long he would last, especially if Dante’s expedition somehow took longer, which it often did.

The calendar betrays no additional information to Dante’s schedule. Vergil sighs. He sits in Dante’s chair. The leather is cold, but Vergil can feel the indent of Dante’s body from sitting on it for too long, recognizing his brother’s shape. Dante’s bulkier, meatier, and the width of the chair reflects that sturdy size. The groove that Dante’s weight has gouged out eclipses him. Vergil thinks to bring his books down here, upgrade from his cheap table to Dante’s beautiful desk. Perhaps the change in scenery would settle his hackles slightly. Dante never let him sit there whilst he was home, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him.

Vergil runs his fingers down the engraved ornamentation. Dante returns to his mind again, like always, like a boomerang Vergil tries to throw away only to come back and give him a concussion. He remembers Dante in his yukata, amplified by decades of Vergil’s imagination of his older brother in his absence. In his vision, he looks demure and nonchalant, leaning back on his desk, one of his thick, muscular legs slipping through the gap of the yukata that he keeps failing to tie up properly.

Vergil remembers the buzzing.

His fingers enclose around the gold handle of Dante’s top drawer and pull it out until the back catches. Dante did not even try to hide it. His sex toy sits on top of documents, but Vergil’s sight has blurred out completely like a vignette. He only takes what he needs.

When he brings it up to his face, his nose wrinkles. It’s not anything he’s ever seen before, even though his knowledge of sex toys is intentionally limited. It’s not phallic, not really, nor does it represent a vulva. It resembles a mouth, with its tongue sticking out welcoming entry of anything that comes its way begging for a lewd kiss. The tongue is ridged itself, so much detail in that tiny thing, dissimilar enough from human anatomy that Vergil just knows it’s one of those gimmicks that advertise an alternative experience for humans who are so bored with their own humanity they want to venture into danger without having to actually risk their lives – only their genitals. When Vergil flicks on the button at the base of the toy, it bursts into action at the lowest setting, and he quickly tries to turn it off. Instead it vibrates at a more intense frequency until it’s about to fall out of his hand, then it finally completely stops.

It’s garish. Like all the other demon paraphernalia in his house, Vergil doesn’t know why this would be beneath Dante. What is it about demons that gets Dante off? Suddenly, Vergil feels quite cold at the thought of Dante out fighting demons now.

If that’s what Dante wanted, Vergil was right there. Father trained him to exercise his Devil Trigger with ease. He could be that for Dante instead.

Vergil takes a deep breath. He smells Dante from it. All other things of his brother begin to lose their smell after a few days. Without even needing to put it under his nose, Vergil can taste how potent the toy is, as if Dante has just strolled by in his yukata. And obviously he can see it hasn’t been cleaned. A translucent gunk webs through the deeper folds of the toy, parts where Dante found it too tedious to clean out, if at all. It could have been there from the moment Dante first broke in the toy.

Vergil kisses its lips.

The silicone tongue parts his lips, forcing Vergil deeper into his pit of degeneracy. He swirls his own tongue over it, trying to clean where Dante had so carelessly left it messy. His eyes roll back into his head when he tastes what has to be Dante. The smell of it translates to its flavor.

Outside of Mother and Dante, this must have been his first kiss. Kisses didn’t count between family, a classmate had said, when she asked Vergil if he had had his first kiss. But Vergil wanted to kiss Dante and Dante only, so for a few years he was woefully unsure if he would ever have his first kiss, or be forever celibate. Toys didn’t count either. It was too shameful for Vergil to imagine how he looked right now, devouring this inanimate object like it was his first lover. He was never sexually outgoing nor had ever sought out sex, but even he was subjected to the taboos of resorting to a mimicry of a person or a sexual organ rather than a living being.

Dante surely didn’t possess that type of shame. Vergil knew he didn’t just have the one toy. He could identify the distinctions between at least three different mechanical sounds paired with Dante’s whimpering. Vergil had only found one. The next ones could be even more deviant than the previous one, like a sick Easter egg hunt that Dante had set up for his little brother to find.

It doesn’t take Vergil long to cum. He feels his balls clench, and he has at least enough sanity to contain his ejaculation in quarantine, letting himself shoot out onto his palm as he sucks on that tongue. The only regret he feels is not placing Mother’s photograph face down as he took his fair share of pleasure from Dante’s toy.

 

 

Vergil keeps the toy in his room. He has only the standard necessities of a bed, a bedframe, a mattress, a blanket, a pillow. He remembers Dante’s bed littered with plush animals that he and his friends got from the arcade, though he doesn’t know if Dante still indulges in those tiny joys. Now, Vergil has something of his own to comfort him in bed. Dante’s toy sleeps with him in the next few nights. Dante texts him that the job will go on longer for a few more days, and in his absence, Vergil keeps the toy with him longer. He’ll only part with it when Dante comes back, an unequal exchange.

He doesn’t part with it. Not even when Dante comes back. He treats him to dinner again, and Vergil’s mind wanders back to the toy under his pillow. It’s just one night, Vergil thinks, and Dante’s forgetful. But one night can be enough indulgence to destroy his willpower.

“I knew I didn’t misplace that,” Dante says.

“Dante!” Vergil starts, clapping a hand over his crotch. Thank fuck he only had the toy in his hand then, though it was about to be brought up to his mouth, even though Dante’s residue must have been completely wiped clean by his mouth from that point.

“Hey, hey buddy,” Dante says, surrendering as if he’s trying to placate a wild animal.

“Get out of my room,” Vergil hisses.

“Hey, you’re the one with my clit sucker! Give it back, then I’ll go.”

Vergil shudders. He almost throws it at Dante, but then he remembers the state he acquired it, and the state he’s left it in, shiny and sparkling clean, like everything else he takes care of in Dante’s home.

“I… can’t.”

Dante blinks incredulously. “What? Why the hell not?” He breezes up to Vergil and plops down at the foot of the bed. Vergil is too alarmed to move.

“I’ll buy you another one, I just–I can’t give this back.”

Dante laughs, and the humiliation is even less effective at quelling his erection than a cold shower or imagining a relative naked, which Vergil had been doing up until the real thing showed up.

“Honestly, I’m just kind of relieved. I thought you were completely asexual, but it’s good to know that you’re still a red-blooded man like your brother,” Dante says, too chuffed with Vergil’s assumed prowess. “Not sure if my toy fits you though…” he hums. “I think it’s a bit too small for what you're packing.”

Vergil chokes on his own spit.

“I wasn’t…”

Which was the better option? Dante under the assumption that Vergil was using his toy on his penis or Dante finding out that Vergil was kissing it like he wanted to kiss him?

“It’s normal to experiment, baby. You’re still a growing boy,” Dante says, and Vergil wants to throw his brother into the pits of hell and then jump in with him. “Looks like one part of you has grown enough.”

“Dante,” Vergil hisses, but Dante only looks slightly apologetic and that’s for getting caught saying it out loud.

“Look, don’t be mad. Here, I’ll help you out, alright?” Dante asks. “I got something just the right size for you.”

Before Vergil can ask him how, Dante raises his hands to his face. He holds his fingers into two circles, one in front of the other. Vergil can see the makeshift hole all the way to the other side to Dante’s cheeky grin.

“You are not serious,” Vergil says. But his dick twitches, and Dante catches the movement.

“Your dick seems serious about it.”

Vergil doesn’t even look down to see the betrayal of his cock on his shirt, wet where the tip lies. If only he had no object permanence like when he was a child, then he could pretend he wasn’t consumed by the simple yet volatile wants of the flesh, just from this one spot on his weak body full of lust for his older brother who could have been as old as his father.

“I just wanna help out. You’re a teenager. I get it. Pent up hormones and all that. Let your big brother help you, okay?”

Vergil can see Dante’s mouth through that hole, and he wonders what it would feel like for the tip of his dick to lay down on those soft lips.

Vergil swallows. “Fine. Do as you wish.”

Dante shoots him an encouraging smile as he edges closer to him on the bed. Vergil is frozen, too paralyzed to even back away from his brother’s predatory stare. Unintentionally or intentionally, Dante brushes his hair out of his face in a motion that’s flirty and cute in Vergil’s aroused state of mind. Dante looks down at his cock, and it twitches under his heaty gaze.

“Wow, he’s full of energy, isn’t he? Usually that sucker makes quick work of me, but I guess a teenager’s stamina is unparalleled.”

“Stop,” Vergil rasps.

Dante shuts up. It’s never for too long. Vergil counts down the seconds until Dante will speak again. He wants to see if he’ll break a world record. Maybe his dick will fall asleep as it’s being counted to.

Dante makes it extremely difficult to turn flaccid. He leans forward a bit closer, and Vergil feels hopeful that maybe Dante will swallow his cock down in one fluid motion, so ravenously seduced by the shape of his dick that he could simply not help himself. Dante stops just enough for Vergil to feel the ghost of breath on his tip.

Vergil cannot bear it.

“Dante…”

“Right,” Dante says. “Do you have any lube?”

Vergil wants him to spit on his own hands. Make Dante do all the hard work from scratch, really work for his entertainment. Instead, he nods at a bottle of lotion on his nightstand. Dante squirts a few globs on his hands before he lathers them up together. It’s far too wet for Vergil’s tastes, but perhaps not enough for Dante’s own.

“Ready?” Dante asks, a glint in his eye. He positions his hands above Vergil’s groin, formed into a cylinder. Vergil scowls and averts his gaze.

“I’m not a child,” Vergil seethes.

“I know you’re not,” Dante assures. He looks at Vergil’s dick. Vergil doesn’t miss the way his older brother swallows. “I can tell.”

He slides the cylinder over Vergil’s cock in one smooth motion. Vergil’s throat becomes parched in an instant, and he chokes on the granular feeling in his throat. Just like he expected, it’s far too wet. The glide over is easy. Dante’s grip is not too firm, but Vergil feels it clamp up like a cuff after he’s fully inserted and out the other side of the hole, his angry tip probing through Dante’s fingers. Dante’s hands are thick and hairy on the knuckles, more vascular than even Vergil’s penis, but it makes Vergil throb with pride that he comes out the other side, besting the length of Dante’s hands.

Vergil basks in it like a sunbath. Dante’s hands are so warm despite the cold lotion, which turns warm from his body heat. He twitches in his grasp and watches Dante. Dante hasn’t even given him the dignity of his attention, all of it focused on the cockhead that sticks out of his hands.

Only in the unforgivable silence does Dante finally come to. He looks at Vergil and raises an eyebrow.

“Well? Don’t you wanna get moving, buddy?”

Although Vergil instinctually is opposed to any demand that Dante shoots his way, this may be one of the only situations where he does heed his command. Vergil’s hips buck from the bed, a noisy creak punctuating his embarrassing movements, imparting the gravity of their situation with sounds that echo through his dazed mind. He doesn’t know if his thrusts read as virginal, and if that matters to Dante. Would it impress Dante if he knew how to fuck his hands like he had done it a dozen times before, or a hundred? Would it convince Dante to let Vergil take a chance on his cunt?

“You’re really going at it,” Dante laughs, but it’s far from mocking. He sounds out of breath for someone who’s just holding his position still. “Don’t slip out.”

“I–won’t,” Vergil grits.

“Good,” Dante encourages. “You’re doing so good, baby.” Pride blooms in Vergil’s heart. He wants to make Dante proud.

Chasing that approval, Dante’s praise still sings in his head, floating in him like a melody he can’t forget. The humiliation of Dante treating him like a bedbound patient loses under the sheer weight of Dante’s awe. Vergil wants to be good.

Dante keeps as still as he can when Vergil rocks the bed, surfing the wave with a casual easygoing expression. Vergil can’t stop looking at where Dante holds his cock, as if it’ll all fade in a mirage if he looks away. Dante too watches there, but instead, he looks like he’s taking an assessment of Vergil’s performance. Vergil grits his teeth and fucks through the burning of his abs and the heat of his face.

When he ejaculates, Vergil knows he didn’t take long. It didn’t feel long, not long enough for Dante’s hands to stay on him even though his touch burned on his skin. Dante’s hands only really move at that point, when he can feel Vergil on the brink of cumming, stroking up to close around the tip like a dome. Vergil shoots into Dante’s hand, and he can only feel the sensation of cum ejaculating out of his cock. He looks up at Dante briefly to try and get a read on his expression, but Dante looks lasered in on his hands, even as they hide a secret that can only be felt through touch.

Dante uncovers his hands like he had just cupped them delicately around a butterfly. Two splotches of semen web between his hands and fingers, and when they part into their respective droplets, Dante makes sure to keep his hands knitted and flat so as to not spill any onto the bed, a surprising act of tenderness on his end.

“Woah,” Dante says breathlessly. He looks up at Vergil, something like awe working his way onto his face. “That’s crazy potent. If this was in me,” he shakes his head, smiling away the next part of his sentence.

Through the rise and fall of his chest, Vergil is too stunned to speak.

“If it was…?” Vergil asks, refusing to let it out of his grasp.

Dante just shakes his head again. He stands up from the bed, plucking a few sheets of tissue from the tissue box on Vergil’s nightstand and crumpling between his hands to wick away most of the semen. He overhand throws it into Vergil’s trash-bin, which luckily strikes goal.

“Let me just get that,” he snatches the clit sucker from where it’s tucked under Vergil’s arm, “and I’ll be out of your way.”

He winks at Vergil as he skirts out of his room, and Vergil feels like he’s just made a deal with the worst devil he could possibly know.

 

 

Vergil waits on Dante’s behavior to decide whether or not their relationship permanently changes. When Dante demonstrates nothing out of the ordinary, Vergil takes this as a sign to copy his actions, though now most of his muscles have a thrumming tension that refuses to relax. All of his senses are in a permanently heightened state, always conscious of Dante around and about, his pacing footsteps in his office, his singing in the shower. When Dante lounges in his room, all Vergil can do is wait for Dante to clap his shoulder and turn him around and lean down for his cock.

Despairingly, none of Vergil’s fantasies come to fruition.

“Got anyone in your sights? A nice girl in your class?” Dante asks one day, too bored of the silence that Vergil lets him lay in as he works on a written assignment, but Dante’s presence now is so overwhelming that Vergil’s been reading the first sentence he wrote on his laptop thirty minutes ago over and over again. Dante leans forward and it exacerbates his stench on Vergil’s nostrils. He’s well-within kissing distance. Like he’s read Vergil’s mind, he licks his lips. “I’m sure if you’re anything like me, you’re a heartbreaker.”

Vergil scowls and hides his cheeks with the back of his hand. ‘No. I’m not acquainted with my peers,” he says. He tries to write a second sentence, and backspaces halfway through.

Dante bolts up. “Why not?”

“I need to focus on school,” Vergil says.

“Nooo. Why? You spend all your time head deep in your homework. You can afford to live a little.”

Vergil pauses. “Maybe.” Then he goes for attempt number 27 at sentence two. “But I enjoy studying. It’s not just out of benefit to my academic success.”

Dante groans and falls dramatically against his shoulder. “Don’t work so hard, Verg,” he whines. He pulls on his arm like a clingy girlfriend, and Vergil is not opposed to the idea. “No one goes to college to study. Especially not in Fortuna.”

Vergil raises his eyebrow, finally deigning to give Dante full-frontal attention. “Fortuna is one of the most devout nations in the world.”

“Right? So all of the people that come here are already repressed into adulthood. Out of the watchful eye of their families, they can finally get their freak on. Trust me. I’ve been to a few parties here.” Dante nods sagely to his own wisdom, despite Vergil highly doubting the verification of his ideas. “You should take note from them.”

“That’s unnecessary,” Vergil says.

“Come on! Your older brother just wants what’s best for you. And right now, I think all this,” he gestures at Vergil’s spread out journals and textbooks, slotting into each other like an intricate puzzle, “is totally unnecessary. It makes me so sad seeing you waste your prime years like this, holed up like a princess in a tower.”

Vergil’s cheeks go hot. “And I should be out raking the streets for paramours to pick up?”

Dante laughs and slaps Vergil on the shoulder. “You said it, not me!” But when Dante’s laughter dies down, he rubs the spot where he had slapped. “I just want you to have fun. I’d give anything to be in my prime years again. I miss being young and handsome like you,” Dante moans, nuzzling his head against Vergil’s collarbone. He fakes a sniffle. Vergil can’t help but let his thoughts wander to Dante when he was Vergil’s age. He was in Red Grave for the couple years he tried college, but Vergil doesn’t remember Dante being especially rebellious or rowdy. He had never come home drunk, or brought anyone back home. To think that Dante had been leading a secret life behind Vergil’s back makes Vergil’s blood boil.

“I don’t need that kind of outlet,” Vergil says. “I’m content with my current lifestyle. The new job helps too.”

“Okay,” Dante says, and Vergil is far too smart to know that Dante has conceded with his argument. “But you’re not as uptight as you seem, no?” He smiles. “A girlfriend would definitely help with all that unbridled demon energy I saw from you.”

Vergil goes cold. This was the first time Dante had ever properly addressed the elephant in the room that seemed to suffocate and crush Vergil with its weight since.

“I don’t need an outlet,” Vergil repeats. “But if you… I’d appreciate your help again.”

Silence overtakes Vergil’s bedroom, and he’s left alone in his thoughts to punish him with.

Dante rears back, leaving Vergil lost in himself. He takes a good, concerning look at Vergil. He laughs nervously. “Really?”

Vergil swallows but he nods bravely. He looks at Dante’s hands, lamenting their absence on his body.

“Can’t believe you liked it so much you want an encore,” Dante teases. Vergil doesn’t regret asking, not even when humiliation walks on top of his pride. For once, he will let himself be abased just to feel Dante on his skin again.

“I do,” Vergil says, pointedly staring at his empty assignment.

“Are you sure?” Dante asks softly, like he’s coddling a child.

“I’m sure,” Vergil says.

Dante salutes. “I’ll take good care of you. You’ll be safe in my hands,” he says, snickering to himself.

Vergil smolders.

 

 

Vergil, who wouldn’t even beg for water if he was dying of thirst, finds himself asking for Dante every day. There are no more pretenses to the agreement that they made, and it was made out of his benefit anyway, so Vergil asks for him whenever he finds it socially appropriate to. After a day away from Dante stolen from a desperate client, he asks for Dante. During the stalemate of a difficult assignment, he asks. In the evening before bed, he asks. Dante is never the one to initiate, but when Vergil starts asking every night, he doesn’t even need to ask anymore, as natural as when Dante tucked him into bed at night and read him a bedtime story and kissed his forehead when he was a child. This was only a natural extension of their preexisting relationship mutated to fit Vergil’s different needs as a teenager.

Vergil wonders if he’s exploiting his brother’s offer too much. But he can’t refuse it anymore, can’t even bear to wean from it as a daily occurrence. It’s an addiction that he can’t willpower his way through, reason enough with it for his rational mind to stop. As long as Dante doesn’t say anything, Vergil doesn’t see the need to.

When Vergil spots Dante coming up for bed, he propositions him in the hallway.

“Dante,” he says curtly, and that’s all he needed to do.

Dante smiles. “Need my hands again?”

Vergil shamefully nods.

Dante pats him on the back. “Let’s go to your room.”

Vergil pulls down his waistband under his balls. His dick is already throbbing, wagging in the air like a happy dog’s tail. “I need you desperately, brother.”

Dante sighs, either in relief or resignation.

“Alright, then,” he says, but a smile makes its way on his lips, like he’s finally found the punchline of a joke that’s been stewing in his mind. “C’mere.” He beckons for Vergil.

Dante leans up against the dark hallway, in the shadows beyond where the light shines from the first floor. He holds his hands level with Vergil’s crotch, and as they’re the same height, at Dante’s crotch too. Upon closer inspection, his hands are just a few inches away from the crotch of his pants.

All of Vergil’s initial reservations are gone, and he feeds his cock in the mouth of Dante’s hands once he shuffles forward and aims it right. It slides up until his root hits Dante’s fingers, and then Dante tightens the grip around him like a cuff.

It’s the first time they’ve done this parallel, flush against each other. Usually Dante helps him on his bed, attending to him like a bedbound patient. Sometimes Dante works him from behind while he’s still studying, brows in a permanent knit from stress, intending to relieve his pressure momentarily.

Their bodies parallel to one another, Vergil feels like he’s transgressed another hurdle in their burgeoning relationship. Like this, he forces Dante to see him as a man. He’s still young, but he carries a heavy weight that ages him. He wants Dante to recognize that.

“Dante,” Vergil gasps.

“Yeah?” Dante whispers, staring up at him between his long, white eyelashes. The sight of him is so beguiling. “Feels good, baby?”

Vergil nods furiously.

Dante bites his lip and his eyes dart back down to where Vergil’s cock thrusts in and out of his makeshift fleshlight. His hands have mostly kept still, but when Vergil thrusts deep into the canal of his cupped hands, Dante squeezes just a tad.

“Gh–” Vergil groans, trying not to keel over and headbutt Dante in the jaw.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dante says, but none of his apologies ever seem sincere.

Vergil focuses on getting his penis in and out of Dante’s hands. The sight of his cockhead aiming for Dante’s crotch makes his head throb. It’s still a couple inches too far away, and Vergil wants to see if he can just make it there, through Dante’s impossibly strong hands, thrust his way past the barrier and between Dante’s soft thighs, against the seam of his cunt where it would run down his shaft like a hot knife, begging to be fucked.

He tries to fuck it hard and deep, each thrust drawing out until he’s just barely sheathed before he launches his hips back in to the root. Each attempt is worthlessly aggressive, for Dante is unfortunately much, much stronger. But for Vergil’s efforts, he is still rewarded through Dante’s slick tongue that darts out to wet his lips.

“Ah, shit,” Dante whispers, “you’re definitely gonna make some girl really happy one day.”

Vergil’s cock jumps in Dante’s hands.

“Are you happy?” Vergil asks.

Dante smiles half-heartedly, a grin that only starts and ends on one side of his face. “I’m proud of you.”

Vergil grits his teeth. He grabs Dante’s wrists, and fucks himself to the root again.

“Hey!”

Dante pulls at his cuffs, but without the intent to escape from it, more like he’s testing out his restraints. Vergil holds down Dante with all of his power brimming with supplementary adrenaline, but even that isn’t enough to completely subdue Dante’s restlessness. It’s out of indulging that Dante lets Vergil fuck his hands at his own pace, adapting to the specifications of his cock’s want.

Vergil veers forward, uneasy, unstable, easily explained away by the drunkenness of his libido, and he noses at Dante’s cheek. Dante giggles and turns away, not enough to be totally against it, but Vergil won’t kiss him unless he wants. He leaves the ghost of his lips on Dante’s stubble pathetically.

“I’m going to cum,” Vergil whisper-warns, speaking into Dante’s ear. He feels Dante go stone-still, then he starts to flail.

“Verg!” Dante tries to wrestle his hands out of the cuffs of his brother’s hands. “Let my hands go! Let me—!”

Dante has no time to finish his sentence. Vergil feels it churn in his stomach, right before it bursts. He can even feel it pulse through Dante’s hands. He ejaculates all over Dante’s lower belly and crotch, which stains the cotton fabric immediately. Vergil thinks of how it must be wet on Dante’s skin under there, if he lets the ejaculate settle.

“My boxers…” Dante mourns. He dips a finger in Vergil’s cum before it can all assimilate into the fibers of his underwear, drawing out a gooey string until it breaks. Vergil pants, content to watch Dante play so childishly with his cum.

“Shit… you’re too healthy,” Dante laughs breathlessly. “Bet you could cum as much in another three minutes.”

“I’ll take you up on that bet,” Vergil manages to say.

Dante goes bright red.

“You’re too much for me, Verg,” he laughs. Vergil raises an eyebrow, prodding his suggestion, but Dante just pinches him on the cheek with a hand that smells freshly of cum.

“Not tonight, okay? You gotta get your beauty sleep.”

Dante trots back to his own bedroom. Vergil wonders if he’ll hear the buzzing of his toys, but Dante hasn’t seemed to have used them recently. Vergil laments the fact that his cum on Dante’s boxers is more intimately acquainted with his older brother than he is.

 

The end to the first semester comes as quickly and as unceremoniously as it first began, and when winter break had come to their doorstep, Vergil was completely ready to spend it all with Dante. Dante had no particularly deviated plans for the winter save for his job, and the times that Vergil had coaxed out a loose schedule from his brother was how he also scheduled his own jobs, aligning them so that they would spend as little time apart as possible. Mother had asked if Vergil would return for the holidays, but he told her that he had begun demon hunting as a side-gig himself and had no time to visit Red Grave between jobs (it was not coincidence that he had arranged his schedule so that his jobs would give him reason to stay in Fortuna.)

The doorbell rings, as Vergil’s lounging on the couch with a book. A week into the winter break, and he’s let himself wither into his books and Dante’s hands, feeling decadent for the first time in forever.

“Could you get the door?” Dante yells from the kitchen. Vergil rolls his eyes but begrudgingly gets up from his nest on the couch to answer.

“Surprise!” Mother squeals, when Vergil opens the door to see his parents on Dante’s doorstep. His shock is only conveyed by a mild, silent expression that Mother takes advantage of to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Surprise, Verg!” Dante says, finally catching up to them. “I said they could come visit and see you, since you told them you weren’t going back for winter break. It was so hard keeping it a secret,” he says impishly.

“Dante!” Mother crows, and Dante leans over Vergil to give their mom a tight hug.

“Hey, Mom,” he says. “Dad.” He beckons Father forward and they exchange masculine embraces, patting each other firmly on the back.

“Come on in, make yourselves at home,” Dante says. Vergil watches Mother and Father experience the confusing interior design of Dante’s apartment for the first time, mirrors of his own expression months ago. Vergil bleeds out from the conversation, having nothing to contribute of his own as their parents catch up with Dante from the years of his absence, and though he knows this all already from living with his brother, he feels like a child tagging along as the adults talk. There were only damp sparks of this feeling before, never enough to set aflame during the holidays Dante had returned just to devour a stuffed turkey or a pot roast, but in his late adolescence, Vergil has become more acutely aware that even as he became a legal adult, he really was far from one compared to his middle-aged brother to his gracefully aging-but-still-aging mother and virtually immortal father.

Vergil was not prepared for their parents’ arrival and Dante was incapable of cooking anything to an edible standard, so he took everyone out for dinner that evening. Thankfully he was in his right mind to take their parents somewhere classier, even if the cuisine was geared towards his own preferences. Dante had a reservation at a dimly-lit restaurant, and as he shuffled into the end of the booth, he patted the cushioning next to him for Vergil to join him there. Of course Vergil obliged.

As the server hands out their menus, Dante taps his knee. Vergil turns nothing but his gaze to his brother, his body and face practiced blank. What Dante does warrants a visceral response that only reads in his eyes that widen, as Dante curls his fingers into a circle and gently jerks it back and forth. A lazy smirk grows on his face.

Vergil’s gaze darts back at their parents. They’re still examining the menu, Father squinting at the laminated sheet even when it’s right up to his face and he’s wearing his reading glasses. Mother leans over in a familiar intimacy, cheek resting on his shoulder as he makes a great deal deciding on a ribeye or a sirloin.

Dante doesn’t give him a choice either way. His fingers tip-toe up Vergil’s slacks, reaching mid-thigh until he clenches his muscle there as a warning. It only deters Dante out of brief shock. And then he persists to stroke the inside of his thigh.

“Are you ready to order?” The server asks.

His parents nod, and Dante tilts his head at Vergil. Are you ready? his smile asks. Vergil had been too distracted by Dante’s touches to have decided on anything. He was still on appetizers and salads.

He glares at Dante.

When dinner had arrived, Dante had unsurprisingly dropped Vergil for better ventures in the form of his “gourmet” pizza. Vergil’s disbelief must have been obvious enough for Dante to lovingly peel a slice out from his plate and aim the tip of the dripping cheese at Vergil’s mouth. He mouthed ‘airplane’ as the slice veered slowly towards Vergil, and Vergil wanted to let Dante’s attempt fail at the corner of his closed mouth. But watching Dante’s mouth part like an instruction made Vergil intuitively mirror him, wholly prepared for Dante to slot his mouth into his.

Vergil eventually conceded that the pizza was better than the previous attempts Dante had shoved into his mouth to convert him to his esoteric religion.

“How’s school, kiddo?” Father asks. Vergil’s nose pinches at the nickname. Dante starts massaging Vergil’s thigh like a fake apology, even though Vergil knows better.

“Decent,” Vergil says. Although Father knows him quite well to know that he’s not always the most verbose, Vergil attempts to put forward an effort to talk to his family. “I’m doing well in my classes.”

“Well, you didn’t need to tell us that,” Father says, but his smile betrays his pride. Vergil feels it simmer on his skin. “Make any new friends?”

Vergil had no friends in the entirety of his childhood and adolescence, and he fears that his next answer may not be a surprise either. “No,” he answers honestly. He wonders what excuse would suffice this time.

“He’s been hanging out with me, Dad,” Dante says. He turns to Vergil, grinning wildly, madly. “We’ve been making up for lost time.” He nudges his shoulder against Vergil’s, and takes that opportunity to slide his hand down the insides of his thigh.

“Oh?” Mother perks up.

Vergil nods. “We spend a lot of time in each other’s company,” he says both vaguely and generously. Absolving their parents of the details was generous.

“Ah, you started working too, haven’t you?” Father asks. “How’s the demon hunting business here? Is Dante teaching you the ropes?”

Vergil’s nose twitches. “He simply floated the idea in my direction. I’ve been finding my own clientele online.”

“He’s so much smarter than me!” Dante gushes, slapping Vergil’s chest with a greasy hand. “He found two gigs in his first month. I couldn’t even find my first client my first year having a go at it. You remember, don’t you?”

Their parents frown like they’ve just come across a stale smell. “We remember,” Mother says. Their eyes turn to Vergil, the subject in his ballpark now until he throws it back onto Dante’s court.

“It’s just to learn some self-reliance. And it makes for good exercise,” Vergil clarifies. Dante pinches him through his pants, and Vergil remains perfectly stone-faced throughout.

“I’m glad you’re becoming more independent, Vergil,” Mother says. She beams. “Seems like Dante can be a good influence after all.”

“Hey! I resent that,” Dante says, pouting. His pinky finger comes out to roam free from its herd, and in one of its blind wriggles, the tip grazes a good inch of Vergil’s cock. Vergil shuts his eyes for just a second. “I’m great for Vergil. Aren’t I, baby?”

“Yes,” he grits out.

Father and Mother look properly enchanted with their little display of brotherly affection. It would have been more than a decade since Dante had doted on him this way, and it must have dredged up nostalgic memories for all of them–save Vergil. Vergil never remembered Dante pawing at his cock, trying to test him at every turn with the expanse of his chest or the slit up his thigh or his vulgar taunts.

As if Dante read his mind, his fingers deftly undo the button that keeps Vergil’s waistband tight, pulling down his zipper too. Even though Vergil had shifted forward to adapt to Dante’s awkward position, Dante doesn’t lace his fingers around his cock. The tips of his fingers stroke at Vergil like how one might pleasure a woman, coaxing the length with faint strokes that bring him further and further strung-out.

“I was nervous about you boys getting along with your age gap, but I’m so glad it worked out. Especially since you seemed content with being an only child,” Mother adds.

“Woah, not in front of Verg,” Dante says, glancing urgently at his brother. His face is suddenly red, and he hasn’t drank a single drop of wine. “I didn’t say I didn’t want siblings!”

“No?” Mother giggles, already a bit tipsy. She turns to Vergil and places her soft hand on his, grazing his knuckles. “When you were still in my womb, Dante was so grumpy. He probably thought you were going to take away his spotlight.”

Vergil raises an eyebrow at his brother. “Is that so.”

“Hey, no, that’s–that’s a different interpretation of events, okay,” Dante says. All eyes are focused on him when he speaks, and in that reprieve Vergil feels only slightly relaxed from the touches that draw his patience along. “I was already–what? Twenty five? Twenty six when you had Verg?”

“And you were still pouting like a child?” Vergil asks. Dante pinches his dick just a little bit and Vergil scowls, even as his cock throbs in the aftermath of Dante’s cruelty.

“You little–it’s not like that.”

“What was it like?” Father asks.

“I don’t know. Mom was already so old–hey!” Dante yelps when Mother slaps his arm, “anyway, part of me was worried because of complications and whatnot.”

“How touching,” Mother says slyly.

“Only partly, I said.

Like Verg was cute and all when he came around, but he was still just a child, right? Can’t really hold a conversation when he’s just going goo-goo-ga-ga. Maybe it would’ve been better if I had a twin, or if he was a couple years younger… But it’s been so long. Mom might be right,” he concedes, smiling to himself, “I didn’t know if I wanted a brother.” Vergil finds himself on the edge of his seat, keen to hear Dante’s next words that’ll dig him out of his rambling hole. He runs his finger through his teeth, glancing on the protrusion of the knuckle there.

Dante looks at Vergil, now subject to his blinding stare, his wonderful, relaxed smile that Vergil could lay upon and fall asleep to. “But I’m glad Vergil’s here with me now.”

Vergil can’t tell which gives in first, Dante’s palm against the head of his dick, or his own weak libido, coaxed to orgasm just by sentimentality. But it happens nonetheless, and Vergil braces for impact against the table, bowing his head and cupping his mouth as he ejaculates. Dante catches the semen deftly in the palm of his hand. He just lets Vergil rock it out.

“Aw, Vergil,” Mother coos. She reaches over and tries to pat Vergil on the back, which he revolts against. It feels distinctly wrong to have her touch him while Dante’s still on his dick, wringing him dry before them. Vergil tries to crush his quivers and it subsides quickly out of fright and flight racing through his blood.

Dante brings his hand up to his face too, as if he’s just as affected as Vergil. To their parents it looks like he’s demonstrating a rare feat of sentimentality, covering his face when his words embarrass him too much. But Vergil knows him better than anyone now, more than their own parents. He watches as Dante’s tongue darts out and laps up a thick glob of his semen, going back into his mouth as quickly as it had come out, and Dante swallows it dramatically, making a big show of licking his chops like he can’t get enough.

Dante winks at him, and Vergil’s crotch twitches for what’s to come later.

 

 

Dante and Vergil wave goodbye to their parents at their hotel. On the walk back home, Dante never lets his slung arm slide away from Vergil’s shoulder. Dante holds him like a drunkard, but neither one of them are anywhere close to intoxicated, since alcohol isn’t Dante’s drink of choice and Vergil only had an inch of wine. Vergil leans on Dante, bearing more of his weight for him to carry. Both of them seem content to indulge in the illusion of Dante’s kindness.

When they enter Dante’s apartment, welcomed to nothing but the buzzing neon light, Vergil comes back to life, wrapping his arm around Dante in a skin-tight embrace.

“Verg?”

Vergil buries his nose in the crook of Dante’s neck. He’s wearing his cheap cologne, but the day has been long enough for it to be washing off to reveal what Vergil wants to suffocate on.

“You smell good,” Vergil mumbles. He knows his face must be red.

Dante chuckles, patting the forearm wrapped around his midsection.

“Let’s get you back to bed, alright?”

Vergil shakes his head like a petulant child. In the privacy of Dante’s home, he no longer cares about keeping up pretenses.

“Let me have you, Dante,” Vergil says. His hips rock against Dante’s ass, plumper than the rest of his toned body. Its cushioning is so perfectly soft that Vergil’s cock feels rejuvenated to go again.

Dante grips his arms. He doesn’t pull him away nor himself away. More like a drunkard holding on for dear life. His head dips, and his hair parts along his nape to reveal his tempting flesh. Vergil bends to meet him there too.

Dante keens.

“Please…” he whispers.

It’s enough for Vergil to feel like a raging fire has been lit in his gut, boiling everything else in him in an instant. “Of course,” he hisses against Dante’s nape, kissing him there urgently. One of his hands travels down Dante’s belly over his crotch, and then—

“Wait… wait, Verg, we can’t—“

Vergil lets Dante keep his empty protests. If he keeps repeating them, they can still play-pretend that everything is normal. This is their new normal now.

He palms at Dante’s cunt. It responds in kind. Wanting, eager. Dante is a braggart, but Vergil has no doubt he was right when he said he had an insatiable appetite.

“Stop!”

Dante pushes Vergil off entirely.

“That’s enough,” he says. He leans against the wall, suddenly looking like his tender old age if he were a human. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, refusing to look at Vergil.

What’s wrong? Vergil wants to ask. But the bite of rejection stings harder at his sensitive, bruised pride. He steps forward and aims a kiss on Dante’s lips. He misses by a hair when Dante jerks out of the way, landing on his cheek. Dante pushes against Vergil’s shoulder, and this time, he can’t fight back.

“Handies are one thing, but this is another. We don’t want to cross this line. Trust me.”

Vergil blinks. “What?”

“Look, kid, this is my bad. I really shouldn’t have let it go this far,” Dante mutters. “Thought it would be nice for you to let loose a bit considering—you know.”

“I don’t know,” Vergil hisses. “Considering what? I have no social life? No romantic prospects?”

Dante hangs his head.

“No…” he says, but he says it with as much guilt as a child who just broke an expensive vase.

Vergil is enraged. At himself, for even thinking that Dante, with his head bowed in shame and his hair hiding most of his face, still looks lovely.

“I don’t care,” he snarls. “Finish what you started.”

He pushes a knee between Dante’s weak legs, and keenly realizes a chink in Dante’s armor. For as infallible as his older brother seemed to him, his weakness was found in one of the most mundane of places. Somewhere profoundly human.

“You profane whore. What can your toys give you that I can’t?” Vergil sneers. “Do you need a demon to fuck you? Is that it? Will any grunt do?” His skin bristles, ready to give away its soft delicateness to the armored shell of his Devil Trigger.

“Verg,” Dante whimpers. “Don’t.”

“No? Then what? Tell me. Tell me, Dante. Let me know how I should take you,” he groans, littering kisses along Dante’s cheek, biting him when bubbles of anger pop under his skin. He hopes Dante takes the bait and kisses him. He wants Dante to be the one to do it first.

Dante doesn’t say a thing. His eyes are squeezed shut. When Vergil grabs his waist, he whimpers, but his body is malleable. Vergil twists it to his whims, runs his hands down his brother’s asscheeks and wrings them. Dante’s cunt is so hot under his knee, and Vergil kicks it higher to feel it cry.

“You’ve serviced me so much, brother, despite your intentions. It’s only correct that I return the favor, no? Quid pro quo. I’ll give you more than just my hands. You have my entire body for your whims.”

He gropes around for Dante’s cunt again. Dante’s thighs squeeze around his wrist, but Vergil is sure that it’s to keep him there rather than deter him through pain.

“Remember that first time? ‘If this was in me’... what would have happened? If I had burrowed in you and not come out?”

Dante doesn’t answer.

“We can test it out now. See what happens. See how fast I could give you child.”

“Vergil,” Dante cries. Vergil finally heeds his call, just to see what his brother looks like when Vergil finally devours him. In the entirety of Vergil’s life that he has known his strong, fearless brother, he has never looked this defeated. The light just barely shines on his tear-soaked face, washing out his wrinkles, his stubble, the rough parts of his face. His mouth is open. So ready for Vergil to claim as his own. Finally ready for his first kiss.

Instead, Vergil flees.