Chapter Text
It starts on the Qlipoth. Or rather, at the bottom of it. Or maybe in that disgusting throne room half way up. Who is to say, really.
It starts because Dante can't do it. He can't. Not again.
The thing left of his brother, a cruel visage taunting him about weakness and the might of unending power, sneers down from up high, a nightmare made flesh. Dante looks up at him and. Can't do it. Can't fight him. Not with the intent to kill. Not even with the intent to win or harm. There is a hollow pit in his belly that lames his arms and locks the muscles of his legs, freezing every breath in his lungs. His brother has barely any humanity left in him, only the faintest glimmer of sanity flickering in the depts of that manic gaze. And still, Dante finds himself desperately searching, hoping for any tiny hint of what once was. But there is nothing to find, isn't there. Vergil achieved what he has always desired and finally shed himself of the last vestiges of humanity holding him back. Leaving only a monster to be vanquished behind.
And a little brother to do it.
How can he, though? How can he strike Vergil down, no matter what he has become, when doing so before already shattered him beyond recovery.
He can't.
He can't he can't he can't and it costs him far too much.
So weak. Always so weak. Foolish little brother never measuring up, always tossed aside for more important things.
He tries. Tries even more when the fucking kid shows up and Dante looses his breath to terror. He tries so hard, even though there is no space for him to succeed. For Nero he has to try, because if nothing else he has to spare his nephew. If Dante can't do anything else right, then let him succeed in this. Let him at least protect Nero from the cruel fate of having the blood of family on his hands.
So he gets back up. And gets a vine buried straight trough his chest for his troubles, downing his useless body that still can't do it. Gets up again. Another attack sends him sprawling. And again and again, as many times as Vergil, as Urizen knocks him down Dante gets back up. He fights, for Nero, for Lady and Trish, for Morrison and all the people depending on him to stop the newest monster before the streets overflow with blood. And in the middle of it all, between a guard too flimsy and a swing to wide, his heart misses a beat. The shock of it is painful, but ultimately negligible. Dante has other things to concentrate on. Like the fact that the kid is only barely out of the room, still in danger. Like the fact that his friends are getting swallowed by ugly vines and that there is screaming from outside and that it feels like the world is burning to the ground while Urizen laughs in cruel mockery and tosses him around like a toy.
He tries. He fails. And somewhere in there, maybe, there are a few other missed beats. He can't say, too distracted.
—
No wait, that's wrong, it starts much earlier. Far, far earlier, on a tower with only the two of them at the top. A sharp, icy glide right through his chest, pinning him to the ground like a bug. But that's only the first. It's not a one and done deal, after all. No, it's the repetition that does him in at the end. The thing that slowly but surely wears him down until barely anything is left.
—
It continues as he lies in the crater his body made after he got tossed out of that ugly room, a sea of destruction around him as yet another city is destroyed for power. Try as he might, he cannot muster the will to get up. Utterly insensate to anything but the burning knowledge that he failed and that there is no way for him to succeed, even if he tries again. The simple truth is that he can't do it. He can't kill his twin again and it will doom everyone else. The blood of hundreds, thousands stains his hands, Nero's and Lady's and Trish's and anyone falling to the bloodthirsty vines that feed his brother's obsession because Dante is not strong enough to stop it. The truth drowns him until he chokes on it all. It's so stark and brutally devastating that it makes his heart jitter in his chest, too fast and too loud.
He feels numb, his body like a lead weight weighing on his soul. Cold sweat itches at his neck, his breath stuttering under the overwhelming failure of his existence. Here he is, lying in a crator of his loss, alone and weak and wishing so desperately for everything to end.
He failed. Utterly and completely.
And doomed anyone counting on him to stop Vergil once again.
His heart skips a beat in its race. Then another and a third. Each miss is painful, his chest spasms in reaction.
He is so exhausted.
Just a moment, the insidious voice in his mind that has been his dearest companion for so long whispers while his heart stutters once again. Let's just rest for a moment.
Let's be weak for this one moment.
Welcome darkness catches up to him and he falls into it gladly, hoping against hope that he will manage some kind of plan once he wakes up. Hoping even more that he won't wake at all.
—
"If only you never existed—"
Wouldn't that be nice.
"—then I..."
Please.
The Sparda stabs into the ground right beside his cheek, so close Dante can feel the sharp edge of it burning across his skin in a whispered caress. Just a hair's breadth closer and it would have bitten into his skin, hungry for blood. For a moment he is crushingly disappointed that it didn't. Surely the Sparda would be enough to end his sorry existence for good.
But no dice. Feeling curiously blank he lays there, looking up into rage filled eyes and wonders why he even continues living. It really would be better if he just… stopped doing that. Everyone would be better off, surely.
The parrot screeches and the world reasserts itself.
He gets up. Grabs the Sparda. Gets a move on, because he has to. No rest for the wicked, and Dante is the most wicked of them all. And if his heart aches and trembles the whole way, well. It's been known to do that, so that's really nothing to write home about, isn't it.
Thankfully, a fast pace leaves V and his cursed pets behind, barely acknowledged. Dante doesn't think about the words. Or all the little hints and mannerisms and familiarities. Certainly doesn't follow the trail of breadcrumbs to the inevitable conclusions. Can't. Not if he is to do this. There is a foe waiting to be vanquished, and Dante has dawdled long enough, wallowing in his own self pity. Hah, what foolishness.
He tracks on, up to the house crumbling atop the hill, hands shaking enough to rattle the Sparda on his shoulders until he grits his teeth, and forces the tornado in his heart back into its little box to be locked away once again.
His left hand cramps at his side until he shakes it out.
—
Certainly, stabbing himself straight through the sternum does not help. Not after all the other times cold demonic steel has slid through his ribs and speared his vulnerable flesh. But he gains the power he needs. The power to protect the little sanity and goodness that's left of Eva's blood. That's gotta be worth it, surely.
—
Vergil sneers from the other side of the platform, blazing and cold at the same time, utterly untouched by anything. The Yamato glints menacingly in his grip, eager for blood.
Dante's heart thumps too fast, each beat a painful staccato flashing across his senses like a deafening gong. It's deeply uncomfortable and distracting. He grits his teeth against it, forces down the dizzy exhaustion dragging at his bones and the soul crushing grief that lames him even more. It's fine. There is not much left to do, he just needs to hold out a little bit longer and then he is done. There is no way that he will survive this confrontation with his brother anyway, even as he calls for the end. Of course he won't. He couldn't even fight Urizen properly, how is he supposed to actually do so against Vergil himself? But he also can't not. He has no illusions here. Nero is far too stubborn to give up after that revelation. The only reason the kid isn't up here yet is that with his new trigger, Dante is far faster than him. So Dante is kind of on a time limit here to get his ass into gear. Vergil needs to be stopped before Nero shows up. And Dante is the one to do it.
Easy peasy, right? Hahaha. Just kill his brother again and destroy himself even more in the process. Maybe he should just jump off the fucking Qlipoth. Maybe that is high enough to actually kill him. Really, the kid is the only thing keeping him standing right now. Fucking hilarious, considering how much Dante tried to keep Nero at arms lengths. But Vergil needs to be stopped before he does even worse, and if Dante doesn't do it then Nero will have to. So here he is. Fighting Vergil to the death once again because that seems to be the only thing they are ever capable of doing anymore. It's so fucking sad Dante can't stomach it. He just wants this all to stop. Please, the only reason Dante is even still fighting and not just walking straight into the Yamato's sharp edge, is the determination to spare Nero the fate of having to kill his father. And maybe to spare Vergil the fate of killing his son. It's more than enough that Dante has the blood of family on his hands. No need for more.
God, what a fucking mess.
He charges, at the exact same moment as Vergil does. Between one heartbeat and the next they cross the distance between them, blades ready to rend each other apart. Or at least Vergil's is. Dante himself still isn't really sure what he intends to do even now.
Just one more beat and they will clash. Just one more. One more?
It doesn't come. Even as the Yamato closes in, Dante's heart refuses to beat again. The absence echoes in his mind, rings far too loud as he watches the Katana cut trough the air lightning fast, a deadly elegant line straight for him. Intent to once again spear him through, just like always. It's so perversely familiar, but his heart has stopped beating.
By the next missed beat Nero is there, right in the middle of them, and before Dante can react to that he gets socked in the face and he falls back, his limbs going numb. His trigger shatters around him because he is too busy trying to breath to keep it up and his heart is still not beating. For a split second he blacks out, vision going white and ears filled with static.
Reality reasserts itself in the next moment and with a stuttering hitch his heart gives a weak beat. Once. Twice. Thrice.
Thumping along too fast and irregular but at least it's doing something again.
Dante finds himself sprawled over the floor while Nero is busy glowering at an unimpressed Vergil. The kid is shouting loudly, as is his wont, but Dante is too preoccupied to really pay attention.
What was that?
—
Well, whatever it was, by the time Nero and Vergil are done fighting it's gone, his heart returned to normal, even if the rythm of the beat is still a smidge too fast. He will take it. It's surely fine.
—
Dante jumps first. That one is important. He jumps first.
Nero isn't too happy about them going to hell without him, of course. Dante feels shame for that, for leaving the kid behind. He knows it sucks, but he can't let Vergil go alone. His fingers go numb with terror if he even thinks about it, blood rushing too fast and wild in his ears in painful staccato. There is no other way, not without Dante going a little bit more insane than he already is. They have to go together.
Where would his breath go, anyway? He feels too damned light headed and like he is liable to barf any second now.
No matter, the Qlipoth needs to be defeated. The roots destroyed down in hell. He turns his back to the look in Nero's eyes and jumps, because he knows he won't survive the sight of Vergil going first. He thinks a silent apology to the kid while he falls, though, triggering just before breaching the barrier between the worlds. It's not much, but at least it's something. Maybe.
His left arm is bothering him again, it's so annoying.
—
Once, when he was young and trying to swindle the good drugs out of a doctor's pocket, Dante read a pamphlet that he found in the waiting room of the doctor's office. His memory of it is surprisingly clear, considering how badly off he was back then. It had a list of bullet points made out of little hearts. The real ones, not the cutesy stylised things.
Possible signs of a heart attack, neatly ordered in stark black on white.
Painful, tight chest. Discomfort in other areas of the upper body. Shortness of breath. Loss of feelings in extremities, most notably the left arm. Excess sweating. Dizziness and disorientation. Irregular heartbeat.
Hah.
Check, check annnnnnnd check.
He doesn't think about it.
—
Surprisingly, only a few skips happen while they are down in hell. Probably because he and Vergil never actually talk about their issues while there. Or much at all. They just beat the snot out of each other a few times and kill even more demons and try their hand at some demonic gardening, which they are surprisingly good at. Or bad, considering the plant ends up very dead in the end. It's a kind of limbo, neither acknowledging the abyss that gapes between them. Instead simply letting the combat ebb and flow around them and through them until they are too exhausted to stand straight and finally decide they're done.
—
It comes back, when they get home. Figures.
After what feels like months they drag their sorry carcasses out of hell, by some miracle tumbling out near the shop. Hurrah for the Yamato's handy dandy portaling services. And working together to amass enough energy to actually cut a portal out of the underworld. That one was actually kind of really nice. Dante really likes working together with Vergil. It's so much better than constantly fighting.
He more or less collapses into the shower, barely able to hold himself up. Exhaustion lines every one of his limbs and he nearly nods off under the spray before Vergil bangs on the door and demands his own turn. Dante barely manages to sort out some place for his brother to sleep and then face plants into his bed, out like a light.
Hilariously enough it's Patty that finds them the next morning. Or maybe the morning after that. Or, hell, maybe a week later. Dante has no clue how long they have slept, just knows it's not enough and he doesn't appreciate the rude and slightly shrill wake up call. Despite resting he still feels like shit. His chest burns in a way he can't shake and it leaves him faintly nauseous. When he blearily lifts his head out of the pillow, he grimaces at the way the cotton sticks to his skin, his skin damp with sweat. Ugh, disgusting. He will need another shower, preferably soon.
"Dante!" Patty screams, throwing the door to his bedroom open with enough force to slam it into the wall beside it.
Annnnd that's another dent. Rude.
Dante barely has enough time to sit up before she is on him, arms wrapping around his neck like she is trying to strangle him.
"Hey," he says, and ignores the way his heart skips when she starts crying on him.
Oh shit, no. He is so bad with crying.
—
Patty is terrifyingly efficient in informing everyone of their return and soon everyone comes to welcome them back, more or less warmly. The exhaustion still dogging every step he makes gets worse with every new face that greets him. He ignores it as best he can, trying not to let it show. His demon will take care of it. Hopefully.
In his long absence—nearly eleven months, yikes— the ladies have taken over the business and run it just fine without him there. Morrison informs him that he has retired, determined not to go through "this shit again". Nero is rightfully angry with them both, spending their reunion mostly screaming profanities. He and Kyrie, and Nico, successfully manage the mobile branch and a bunch of foster kids on top. Patty excitedly tells him about her plans for studying.
All in all it's a very excitable reunion that leaves Dante utterly spent and achy all over. Which is.. weird. But whatever.
He and Vergil tiptoe around each other for a few days, never quite sure how to reconnect and always missing the right way when they try. His brother moves out soon after, and never bothers to inform Dante to where. But Vergil shows no interest in any other excursions of mass murder for power, so it's not like Dante can complain about it.
Vergil has been surprisingly docile even, seemingly content to map out a life in the human world and build a relationship with his son. Dante does his best not to get in the way of all that. It's the least he owes them both, for what he did.
It all leaves Dante feeling strangely stranded, though, and a little bit in the way of everyone. His chest burns at the thought and he reaches for another bottle, trying to wile away the lonely nights at the shop. Funny, how fast he got used to having Vergil constantly around him again. Fucking sucks to go back to the loneliness of before.
—
Life goes on, even if his heart sometimes dances to an uncomfortably wobbly rhythm now.
Aches and a pained chest and numb exhaustion is a steady companion to him now, as is the skittering heart. It's vaguely familiar for the way it feels like the heavy apathy that always steals his energy when his mood tanks, but this is completely physical. It's wrong, weird. He shouldn't have physical problems, his demon should take care of them. But here he is, suddenly feeling like a decrepit old man. Barely over forty and his body is a wreck, held together with duck tape, alcohol, and a grim sort of determination to see it through to the end.
It comes to a head at a nephew enforced family dinner. Fitting, in a way.
Dante isn't quite sure what this dinner is about or supposed to accomplish, considering their messed up group can barely be counted as a family with him there. But here he is, watching his brother and his nephew attempt small talk when they are both utter shite at it. The sight makes him ache for all the things they lost. He doesn't even notice when his heart stutters.
In the next second he is on his back, blinking up at the sky and feeling far too floaty for comfort. He can't feel his left arm. Somehow, that's the most distracting thing about this whole situation. His heart skips and skitters in his chest, like a bird trying to get out, and he can't quite breath anymore, pain radiating through his chest, up to his jaw to lock it shut, sweat trickling at his neck. But he can't stop concentrating on the arm.
Something is very wrong, but he can't get his mind together enough to figure out what. Vaguely he sees Kyrie hover over him, a concerned look in her eyes, but he can't seem to focus on her. His vision goes in and out, in rhytm with his heart that goes both too fast and too slow. He thinks he sees Vergil too, but by that time he is already too far gone to be sure.
—
They actually call a fucking doctor on him. Well, Kyrie does. Putting her foot down over all protests from anyone else, including Dante himself.
A weak heart, the doctor says. The doctor who is from Fortuna and so knows a little bit more about weird physiology than most and doesn't ask too many questions about it. Too much damage and abuse, he continues, even with a demon's magic fixing what it can along the way.
Hah. Now that's funny as hell. Too soft hearted indeed. Turns out his twin was right all along.
Vergil doesn't appreciate it when Dante points that out to him, just scowls fiercely and shoves him back down into the bed. Rude ass. Dante is quite sure he imagines the faint trembles of his brother's hands, but he still stays laying down. It's more comfortable anyway. And makes the world tilt a little less.
So. Turns out getting stabbed in the heart again and again is not good for the health, no matter that his demon always healed the wounds. Devil Arms doing far more harm than anything else ever could, especially ones of Sparda make. A lifetime of intense substance abuse and punishing use of a body only half made up of demonic resilience doesn't help either. Dante listens with some bemusement about how his heart has a lot of scarring on it from the various stabbings he shrugged off over the years. Add to that the damage boatloads of alcohol and other toxic stuff he has consumed—turns out alcohol can change the shape of the heart, who knew—and it does not look too good anymore.
The whole thing sounds too strange to be real, but here they are. His heart, always far too human, is giving out on him.
Dante would laugh himself silly about it, but when he does his chest goes tight and he ends up with an excruciating coughing fit that never seems to want to end and has everyone panicking like headless chickens around him.
Vergil stays with him through the whole examination, scowling and snappish, but always there when Dante reaches out for him. It's nice, even if being forcibly confined to a bed until he recovers enough to sit up without his heart tap dancing all over his ribs sucks ass.
—
Life reassesses itself once again after that, and changes even more.
Vergil silently moves in with him without much notice or fuss. Dante, being forcefully bedridden for far too long, doesn't even notice until weeks later when he realises his twin has taken over some of the rooms upstairs and has clearly no intention to leave, even after Dante is more or less back on his feet. He has no complains about that one. Well, mostly. His brother can be incredibly overbearing, after all.
Nero shows up regularly with Kyrie and Nico in tow, grumpy and scowling but always achingly considerate. That one is hard to stomach, because they are all so nice about it and Dante has a hard time dealing with that. At least Vergil's care expresses itself in snappish demands and threats of cuffing him to the bed when he maybe, possibly overdoes it a tiny little bit. Dante doesn't even have the energy to make the obvious dirty joke about the threat, so Vergil may have a point about all that.
Patty stops getting into shouting matches with the Devil Arms and is all around a lot less excitable when in his presence. Which means no more sudden accosting and jumping on him. Dante isn't sure he likes that one either.
When he recovers enough for Trish and Lady to drag him along to a bar crawl, he isn't allowed to drink any alcohol at all. To his dismay they even get the bartenders at all his usual haunts involved in this new rule, so no dice on getting any even when he goes alone. Only mocktails for him now. Pizza has also been summarily dismissed from his food choices for being too greasy, and a lot of distressingly un-pizza like snacks take its place. That's even worse than the alcohol ban. At least he still gets to have a sundae once a week.
Most jarring of all, he isn't allowed to go out alone on hunts anymore, by unanimous collective decision. Made without any input from him, of course. He was napping when they voted, and supposedly noone had the heart to wake him up for it. Assholes, the lot of them.
He would complain a lot more about all the babying, but more often than not it's Vergil that enforces it. The sudden near constant proximity, without the limbo of hell to distract them, actually forces them into talking properly. Helped along greatly by the fact that Vergil has not once stopped hovering obsessively and even Dante's patience runs thin under the constant hawkish attention. So he snaps, Vergil snaps back and suddenly they are shouting at each other in the middle of the shop. It's surprisingly cathartic, even if it lays him out for a whole day afterwards. But it's so worth the discomfort, and more of Vergil hovering, because it's like the first cut that finally starts to drain the wounds.
Talking is much easier after that, words more truthful than ever before. And with the ability to talk comes new understanding, and with understanding comes the connection they have both craved since they were eight and got ripped apart. It's not what they once had, but far better than what they have managed in decades. Finally, after so long, Dante has a brother again. One that's there, and complains about his laziness and sits with him when he feels too tired to get up without his heart beating erratically. One he can share his food with, and tease and get teased by, and spend long nights just soaking in each other's presence.
Vergil doesn't apologise for stabbing him so often. Dante doesn't expect him to. By now he understands all the small and big gestures just fine and sees what his twin will not say.
—
His heart is never going to be as it should, doesn't ever fully heal again. The damage done is too excessive to fix, even with the vast magic at their disposal. But Dante adjusts. He manages to pace himself and takes more care to dodge instead of allowing himself to be used as a pincushion. It takes a good amount of effort to change the bad habits he ingrained in himself over the many lonely years, but he does it. Because Vergil is there, and Nero and the ladies and all the others. Because, for once, Dante wants to be better to himself, if only because the people around him won't accept anything else anymore.
It's not perfect, but maybe it's actually fine.