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Vergil jerked awake silently; even as a child he had never tended towards crying aloud no matter how dreams might frighten - or hurt.
He breathed, measured and slow . . . and wavering. He grimaced.
‟Vergil?”
He startled despite himself, and Dante was there, squashed against his side, warm and steady. He breathed a little deeper, relaxing almost before he was aware of it; the scent familiar from his childhood, changed now but growing familiar again. Still a comfort.
‟You okay?” Dante asked, nosing Vergil’s shoulder firmly, a gesture he remembered from . . . far more foolish and fleeting nightmares, long ago.
‟A memory.” Vergil’s voice rasped a little. He cleared his throat.
‟Bad one.” Dante assessed accurately, and Vergil snorted. ‟How bad?”
Vergil licked his lips. He didn’t want. . .
‟When I was taken.” Vergil said, and Dante made a thin sound, lifting his head. ‟Not then,” Vergil clarified; his brother had been left with as many haunting horrors as he from that night, he had realised, ‟but . . . after. Chained in,” he grimaced, ‟Mundus’ dungeon.”
Burn him. When he heals, burn him again.
‟It was not the pain.” Vergil said, voice low, fingers flexing absently on Dante’s hip. ‟I can handle pain.”
‟Unpleasant, though.” Dante said wryly, and Vergil snorted. Ridiculous.
And well aware of it, Vergil knew, looking his brother in the face. Trying to gentle the moment for Vergil the only way he could, take the tension, the weight out of it. An idiot, but not so very much of one.
Vergil sighed, bowing his head a little, closing his eyes and allowing himself to rest against Dante.
He had never even considered speaking of this before, not even in the days after Mundus had . . . rescued him from the small, personal corner of hell built for Vergil.
Yet it was . . . almost possible, here in the quiet dark with his brother’s eyes on him and none other near; the incessant thrumming noise of the human realm - a human city - beyond the walls of the impossibly fragile building.
He had never grown to allow himself to rest or shelter against anyone else, either; to rely on another. It ached like a healing bone to try it now, a throb mostly good but still uneasy; not quite certain enough to trust. Dante wrapped an arm around him, bold and comfortable, squeezing hard, and it was a little easier.
‟I can handle pain,” Vergil said again, and Dante hummed, ‟but I could do nothing else.”
He growled at himself for shying from it this way. It was difficult enough to get those words out, but-
‟Chained.” Dante repeated, and Vergil opened his eyes. ‟You couldn’t fight. That makes everything worse.” he said quietly as Vergil nodded.
Being caught, being chained, being . . . made small and nothing and helpless-
‟You never will be again.” Dante growled as though in answer to his thoughts, which was foolish and brash and impossible besides, but the assurance fluttered warm in Vergil’s chest all the same. Dante nudged their noses together. ‟Gotta take us both down if they’re gonna,” he said, ‟and who can do that?”
Cocky and foolish and Dante knew it was an impossible promise as well as he did, but. . .
‟Who indeed.” Vergil said wryly, nudging gently in return, lips curling. Whatever else, he would . . . never again be fighting alone. It was . . . enough. More than.