Chapter Text
Part I
(How it began and how it ended)
The Beginning
February 15th, 09.37am
You woke with a start.
And immediately wished you hadn't.
From the first moment you opened your eyes, you knew that last night had been a tremendous mistake. You weren't sure what was worse.
The way the sunlight seemed to drill through your eyes right into your brain or maybe the weird furry feeling on your tongue.
The stale taste in your mouth? The throbbing on the edges of your skull, not only stemming from sleeping less than four hours, but probably also from the obscene amounts of alcohol you had been coerced into drinking?
(As soon as you figured out how to get up and out of this bed ever again, you would give Lady a stern call.)
Or maybe, just maybe, it was the mortification you felt when you realised that you were only in your bra and skirt from the night before.
With a groan, you buried your head in your pillow, flashes of the night being projected onto your closed eyelids.
"I'm just saying, I haven't had the best experiences with Tequila", you defended yourself weakly while scrunching up your nose at the feeling of Lady licking the back of your hand and putting salt onto the wet spot. "Ew, Lady, gross!"
"Oh, calm down, you big sissy", mismatched red and bluish-green eyes twinkled at you mischievously.
"Yeah, I love me some girl-on-girl action", Dante hollered, causing several heads at the other end of the bar to turn to your little group.
Face beaming brightly red, you accepted your fate with defeat, raised your shot glass towards the others and downed your drink.
Yeah, Dante probably deserved a stern phone call too. Granted, considering the amounts of alcohol he had consumed last night, you weren't even so sure that he wouldn't himself feel like dying from his hangover. Despite his super-human healing abilities.
"You should really be ashamed of yourself, mighty son of Sparda", you giggled as you led him home through another dark alley which you knew was a short-cut towards the shop. "You guys are all almost twice my age, honestly." Not that you meant any of it. You had had more fun tonight than you could remember in years.
"'Honestly', what?", Dante asked, voice slightly slurred.
You were pretty sure that any normal human would be halfway to the emergency room to get their stomach bumped right now, if they had drunk the same amounts of alcohol as the red devil.
"Just, put one foot in front of the other and shut up", you kept laughing, not really much better off than him.
You had lost Trish and Lady somewhere in your third bar. You thought you had seen one of them disappearing into the bathroom hot on the heels of some beefy biker guy, but you weren't too sure about that.
Faces and places had started to swim together after the sixth rounds of shots, not even counting long drinks.
Dante started singing some sailor's song you weren't even sure was in English when you could finally see the blinking red lights of the Devil May Cry on the end of the street.
A long yawn left you.
"You wanna crash at my place, sweetheart?", Dante asked cheekily as he threw a heavy arm around your shoulders. You staggered, almost toppling over under the additional weight.
"Nah", you made and yawned again.
Not that you minded crashing at the shop, but in your eyes, there was little worse than being hungover in any other place but the comfort of your own home.
"You sure?", Dante's eyebrows wriggled wildly at you. "I promise to tug you in."
"And the 'nah' just turned into a 'hell no'", you shot back, rolling your eyes at the way he put a hand over his heart, as if you had deathly wounded him.
The warmth of affection that shot through you at the memory eased the throbbing in your head slightly. No matter how bad you felt today, last night had definitely been worth it.
"I swear, babe, it doesn't fit", Dante insisted as he tried to jam his keys into the door of the shop for the second time and missed the keyhole. "Lemme just kick 'em down, they're used to it."
Rolling your eyes again, you took the keys from his hand with an annoyed grumble and unlocked the door.
"Huh, I guess third time’s the charm", Dante mumbled behind you as he marched through the shop and straight to his desk, pulling a bottle of whiskey from one of the drawers.
"You've got to be kidding me", you said as you stemmed your hands into your hips, staring at the half-devil. "Seriously, Dante, any human would just be dead by now."
"Well, what can I say", Dante winked at you as he spread his arms and leaned back in his desk chair. "I more than human, baby." And with that, he leaned back too far and toppled over with the entire chair.
You laughed so hard that you had to sit down on the floor.
"Stop it!", you wheezed as his head came back up over the table's surface, eyes confused and hair sticking up wildly.
"Oh, shit", you cursed breathlessly as you wiped tears from the corners of your eyes. "I think I just peed a little."
Dante staggered to his feet uncertainly, looking very much like Bambi taking his first steps, the whiskey bottle that had rolled beneath the desk obviously forgotten.
"Need me to change you, baby?", Dante asked, words even more slurred than before.
And then the top of the stairs creaked and your body froze in its cross-legged position on the floor.
Vergil.
The throbbing in your head returned with full force when you re-called to admitting that you had almost peed your pants in front of Vergil.
"Well, oh well", Vergil said in that aloof manner that was purely his when he came down the stairs. Both sets of greyish-blue eyes met, one of them sharp and perceptive, the other bloodshot and already half asleep. "Your night was a 'doozy'", Vergil quoted his younger brother, "I presume?"
"Hell yeah", Dante called, made three huge steps towards the old, weathered leather couch and faceplanted down into the cushions.
And started snoring about three seconds later.
"Uh...", you made sheepishly as those icy eyes landed on you. "I", you vaguely gestured towards the door behind you, "I guess I'm gonna hit it." Clumsily, you climbed to your feet, swaying slightly as the room started spinning.
Vergil sighed deeply as he shook his head. You made a couple of steps towards the door and noted that his boots followed in the same direction.
"Uh...?", you made again dumbly, shooting him a look over your shoulder.
Vergil simply raised a challenging brow, daring you to ask him what his intentions were.
You just shrugged helplessly, but had to admit, somewhere in the depths of your silly, girlish heart, that his looming presence hot on your heels made you feel better as you made your way home through the dark and shady streets and back alleys of Red Grave City.
You still weren't exactly sure that next morning, why Vergil had felt the need to bring you home. You weren't friends, exactly. When you thought about it, you didn't think that Vergil had any friends, really.
But you had to admit that you got along quite well. Or, at least you didn't get on each other's nerves as much as the rest of the Devil May Cry members. Considering how much time you both spend at the shop – you, because of your secretary slash research nerd job for his brother and Vergil because of the unspoken house arrest Dante had deemed best for him to adapt to modern technology, living, and all in all mere human culture – it was for the best that you weren't at each other's throats constantly.
You had formed a well-working routine after the initial awkwardness (born of the fact that Vergil had once felt a deep distaste for all things human and weak; adding to that your utter inability to defend yourself in any giving situation, especially physical ones) had worn off. Vergil knew that you drank your coffee black, you knew that he drank his tea with much more sugar than any person would expect from someone like him.
He knew that you could not reach the cupboard were Dante stashed his cookies, so he took them down when he heard you start the coffee machine. You knew that he hated it when Dante threw his stuff around, be it a book he had left on the couch or his coat on the back of the desk chair, so you put them neatly where they belonged before Dante got home.
All in all, your routine at the Devil May Cry had been much more peaceful than you had imagined when Dante had brought his older twin with him from the Underworld.
Vergil was much more considerate than you had expected.
Maybe that was the answer to your question. Consideration.
"You, uh", you scratched your nose awkwardly as you turned around, craning your head back to look at the looming figure behind you as you fidgeted around with your apartment keys. "You wanna come upstairs for a cup of tea or somethin'?" He had brought you home, after all.
Never mind that it was sometime around 4 a.m. and he had probably better stuff to do than make sure that your drunk-as-a-skunk ass would get up the stairs okay.
"Why not", Vergil replied in that nonchalant way that was so him. Neither his voice nor his face betrayed any emotion and not for the first time did you feel the frustration at being unable to read him.
"Cool, cool", you breathed, more to yourself than anything else. "Hope I've got enough sugar", you added in a whisper.
Right before you turned back to the front door of your apartment building, you saw that twitch right above his left eyebrow, the one that indicated a humorous reaction.
Vergil wasn't exactly a smiley person, but you had noticed that twitch whenever Dante made a fool of himself around the shop. And sometimes when you noticed it, you could help but smile in his direction, and when your eyes met the twitch would get stronger.
Not a smile back, but better than nothing.
You finally unlocked the door, wondering in the back of your mind whether you had been too hard on Dante earlier as it took you several tries to manage to turn the key in its lock.
Just in the moment when you put the water heater on in the kitchen, seeing how Vergil took in your small, cramped up living space with a somewhat curious expression, did you realise that he had never been at your place before. Why would he have been?
From the corner of your eyes, you squinted at the dirty dishes you hadn't bothered to do yesterday afternoon.
"So, uh", you started as you heard kettle starting to do its thing behind you, but still knowing that it would take way too much of this awkward silence before it would be done, "You wanna… see my books?"
It was as good an attempt as any. The both of you didn't share many interests, but at least you shared that.
"Why not", he repeated in that nonchalant Vergil way and your hands flexed at your sides in annoyance as you led him to your living room, where books were stagged into shelves, on commodes and just about every horizontal surface that was still free from other stuff.
"Hm", Vergil hummed in a non-descript manner as he pulled the first book from the pile next to the TV, turning your rendition of 'Five Revenge Tragedies' from the Early Modern Period over in his hands. "I must say, I rather envisioned you reading Austen and Bronte or even Hardy than Shakespeare and Kid."
Something bristled inside you at the comment, as if you were just some lovey-dovey girly girl with her head in the clouds.
"I can appreciate a good drama", you defended yourself.
"Ah, despite the stabbings, poisonings and loss of tongues?", he challenged.
You rolled your eyes at him. "Yes, I managed to get through 'Titus Andronicus' without fainting too, thank you very much for the concern", you spat. "Despite the rape, mutilation, cannibalism and 'loss of tongues'."
The twitch above his left eyebrow was back.
Now, some five hours later in your own bed, you couldn't remember exactly how it had happened. Why you had sat down on the couch, cross-legged and opposite him and gotten into a passionate argument about literature in the early Sunday-morning hours, kettle long forgotten.
Or when the argument had turned to banter or when the banter hard turned to something somewhat familiar to flirting. Or maybe that had just been an imagination of your inebriated, lovey-dovey girly girlish brain.
Your face burned red from whatever insinuation he had just made about whatever it had exactly been Bel-Imperia and Horatio had intended to do in that garden in secret before he was murdered.
You raised your eyes and stared at him from beneath your lashes, at the way his eyes seemed like molten silver in the dim light of your living room as they examined the grotesquely dressed skeleton on the book cover. Eventually, he took notice of your silence and his eyes met yours.
What on earth had possessed you to move?
Before he could react in any particular way whatsoever, probably before he had even processed what exactly was going on (stunted on human behaviour as he was) you were already halfway in his lab your lips pressed to his.
You groaned as your face burned just as hot now as it had burned then, and buried your head underneath your pillow.
Drunk and tired as you were, you were starting to lose moments.
Or maybe it was just that the time it took your brain to process things was so slow in that moment that you were bound to get lost.
All you knew was that at one moment you had clumsily pressed your first kiss to Vergil's lips, one of your knees digging awkwardly into his thigh, and in the next you were fully seated in his lap, with his hands on your waist and yours on his shoulders and his tongue was in your mouth.
It was Sunday, 4 a.m., you were hammered and making out with Vergil.
You were making out with Vergil.
Aloof, I-am-better-than-you and weakness-is-foolishness Vergil.
And it was fucking intoxicating.
His lips were softer than you had imagined and yet more insistent as well. The way they pressed and plied and took caused shiver after shiver to crawl down your spine.
His hands seemed too big on your waist, too rough. You felt tiny and fragile and strangely reminded of who he was.
You had never seen him fight. Never even seen much more than a practice twirl of the Yamato in his hand. All you knew about his abilities was from Dante's stories, but the picture of him you had made for yourself – of a man who drank his tea so sweet his teeth were bound to rod, who took cookies down for you because you couldn't reach, who was so well-versed in literature – had somehow diminished the picture of Vergil as a warrior in your head.
But his hands were rough, even through your shirt, due to calluses from years and years of wielding a sword. The strength with which he squeezed your waist was so intimidating, so ever present, that you were – for the first time – slightly scared of him.
There was not a doubt in your mind that he could crush your midriff between his mere hands if he chose to do so.
And that made it even more thrilling.
You shifted, your knees on either side of his hips squeezing slightly as you moulded yourself against him.
A sound left him that almost caused you to cum right then and there, halfway between a choked gasp of genuine surprise and a pleasured moan when you pressed down onto the hardness inside his trousers, shivering as you felt the rough drag of his leather pants on the naked insides of your thighs. Your skirt had almost completely ridden up around your waist.
His hands weren't on your waist anymore, but beneath your shirt, rolling the hem up and pulling it over your head. His lips landed on your throat in a hungry wet drag, leaving goosebumps behind in their wake.
You shuddered, unable to stop your thighs from flexing, rubbing against him again and again and again...
An involuntary gasp left you at the memory, squeezing your thighs together beneath the entangled and sweaty blanket, unable to ignore the swell of arousal low in your stomach at the memory.
You lost time again, memory turning blotchy.
Because in the next moment, your back hit your bed and then Vergil's hips were between your thighs again and his mouth was on your neck, your jaw, your lips.
You moaned as he dry-fucked you into the mattress, legs shaking on either side of him with the impending orgasm you could already feel swelling in your stomach.
His lips moved down again as your bodies shifted, one of your bra straps being pulled down. His lips were on the swell of your breast already and the thought of Vergil putting his mouth on you, on your breast or even further south, caused you to shudder again, your eyes rolling into the back of your head.
And...
And that was the end of your memories. Your eyes flew open as you stopped clenching your legs.
You were still in your bra, skirt and panties. Had you blacked out? Fallen asleep?
Or even worse, had you had sex with Vergil and couldn't even remember it?
Squeezing your eyes shut, you tried to grasp for something, anything, that might resemble another memory, but all you got were glimpses.
Your hands were in his hair.
One of his too-big hands was grasping your naked, shaking thigh tightly.
Words were exchanged.
What had you said? What had he -
There was movement in your kitchen. The sounds of cupboards being opened and closed.
Your body suddenly remembered how to move as you shot up, spine ramrod straight.
Was.... was he still here?
Climbing out of bed clumsily, you had just about enough presence of mind to pull your wrinkled skirt back down, not even giving a damn about your shirtlessness.
You staggered into the kitchen, almost tripping over your own feet and knocking into a wall in the process. Just from the eleven steps it took from your bed to the doorstep to your small kitchen you were out of breath already. Gaping into the kitchen, you could already feel shame rising, colouring your face hotly.
Vergil turned and, without saying anything or even really looking at you, set a cup of coffee down on the counter nearest to you.
Black and, from the looks of it, he had filled it with just a sip of cold water, enough to make the hot liquid cool down enough so that you wouldn't burn your tongue.
Just how you liked it.
Face bright red, you finally managed to tear your gaze away from the cup and up to his face.
Your eyes met as he lifted a cup of tea to his lips.
Which meant that he had rummaged through your kitchen in search for said tea.
Just, what had he been doing for the past hours while you were passed out in bed?
"Should -", you cleared your throat awkwardly, trying to force your voice past that dry bit of fur that seemed to be stuck just behind your palate, "Should I apologize for something?"
His left eyebrow twitched.
"If I did something I should regret...", you tried again, reaching for the coffee with trembling fingers.
"That highly depends on what you would categorize as regrettable", Vergil shot back, face and voice giving you nothing.
You scoffed. "What have you been doing here all this time?", you asked instead.
Reaching behind him, he held up the Revenge Tragedies. "Reading."
"Ah", you made, not really knowing what to do with that information.
"Your notes on the 'Spanish Tragedy' were very enlightening", he informed you detachedly.
And once again, you had no idea what he meant by that. Was that supposed to be a compliment? "I wrote a paper on it in college", you admitted.
"Obviously."
A strange sort of silence ensued.
"Well", he said then and put his still halfway filled cup down. "I will be off then."
"Okay", you mumbled, teeth gnawing at your lower lip.
Your brows furrowed as he pushed past you directly towards the front door. "You didn't bring the Yamato?", you asked with slight surprise.
"Do you recall me bringing the Yamato?", he inquired back.
Well, you obviously didn't recall nearly enough about last night.
That spot above his left brow twitched again at your sheepish expression. "No, I did not bring her. I was quite confident in my ability to handle any sort of threat – or attack – that might come my way with my bare hands."
Oh.
Oh.
He… he wasn’t saying that you kissing him had felt like an attack, right?
"Well, I'm sorry if I did something I should apologize for", you relented.
And then – then – adding to the twitch above the brow, there was the slightest hint of a pull on the left corner of his mouth. As if he had been tempted to smile and just managed to stop himself in the last second.
"I regret nothing", he stated and left your apartment with an easy stride, as if he hadn't just set your world on fire.
The Agreement
February 21st, 08.20pm
"Okay, okay, I can't do it anymore!", you confessed, throwing your hands into the air.
Vergil lifted a nonchalant – if amused – left eyebrow at you.
Six days – six days – you had endured that awkward tension within the shop. That strange mixture of thrill from keeping this secret from Dante (namely that, while he had been snoring away on his couch, you had stuck your tongue down his brother's throat), the embarrassment from not knowing exactly how far you had gone with Vergil and the arousal from the memories of… well, of everything you could remember.
Not to forget the utter confusion and excitement his final words had left behind.
I regret nothing.
Today, everything had come to a breaking point.
The shop was quiet today. There were no open jobs and no serious calls had come in. The twins were basically, for lack of a better description, sitting around and twirling their thumbs.
Which was just great for your mental state, really. Both Sparda twins around, both sets of eyes following you around the shop.
All. Day.
It had already been dark for an hour or two when you went into the kitchen, deciding on just one final cup of coffee before going home (sleep be damned). Once the machine had done its thing and you reached for your favourite mug, you could sense him enter the kitchen behind you, moving with that feline sort of grace that allowed him to walk almost completely silently, despite his heavy boots.
Trying to ignore him as best as you could, you poured the hot liquid into the mug. His arm reached above your head into the highest cupboard, taking the cookies down.
For you.
You turned slightly, staring at him from the corner of your eye, noting the way he was standing so closely behind you – too closely for non-intimate contact, really – your breath stolen away by his intense stare. Turning even more, your shoulder brushed the fabric of his vest as you returned his gaze just a tad bit sullenly.
If he wanted to say something to you, he could come out and just say it.
You stared at each other for minutes.
Minutes.
"Hey, are those my cookies you are handing out?", Dante asked from the kitchen entrance and you flinched away violently in surprise.
Accidentally, you pushed your mug over, causing the hot coffee to spill over your hand. Colourful curses left your mouth as you squeezed past Vergil and towards the kitchen sink, running cold water over the burned skin immediately.
"Thanks a lot, man", you grumbled in the red devil's direction.
"Hey, that's what you get for stealing my food", Dante raised his hands in a defensive motion before throwing his brother an 'I am watching you' sort of gesture.
"Well, since my coffee his gone...", you stared pointedly at the spot on the counter Vergil was wiping down already, "I think I'll just head home."
"Fine by me", Dante yawned demonstratively. "Nothing much left to do today anyways."
Before you left out of the double doors of the shop, you threw one last look at Vergil and jerked your head towards the door in a 'follow me' motion.
You didn't see or hear him leave after you, you had no idea what he told his brother – or if he told him anything at all – but he was already at your front door when you arrived home.
Which was how you happened to be alone with him – once again – within the cramped area of your kitchen that made him seem way too big.
Too powerful.
"Just", you rubbed your hands over your face with a tired groan, "just tell me how much information I am missing, please? I have no memories a couple of minutes after we entered my bedroom."
His lips twitched. "I am not surprised, seeing that you started snoring not too long after."
Mortification washed over you, paired with red hot shame. "Oh...", you made as if you were in pain. "So, nothing... more happened?"
"Well, I did tug you in", he went on.
You shot him a sour look. "You're enjoying my embarrassment, aren't you?"
He shrugged in that nonchalant manner of his, saying nothing.
Giving nothing away.
"Well, how are we supposed to go on now?", you demanded after the strange silence.
"Go on?", Vergil repeated, as if he wasn't sure what you were getting at.
"Yes", now it was you who shrugged. "We have to agree on something, don't we? Was it just a mistake? Or if not that, then still a one-time-thing? Do we agree to just staying fr-", you almost said ‘friends’, "uh, colleagues or do you, uh, hem, I mean... do we-", 'want to do it again', you had wanted to ask, but didn't dare to.
"Well, I should like to keep my clothes on", he stated flatly.
"Oh, yeah, okay", you nodded to yourself, face as red as a tomato. This obviously meant no sexy times.
And then he took two large steps, backing you into your kitchen counter before bending down and pressing his lips firmly to yours.
Or… maybe it didn't?
You gasped in surprise (and something more) as his looming figure forced your back to bend backwards. He took the chance to push his tongue into your mouth, not in the same hungry, white-hot passionate manner you had kissed six days ago, but patiently and almost sensually. He moved as if he wanted to map you out, learn every inch of you, with his tongue carefully sliding against yours, brushing the roof of your mouth and the edges of your teeth. With his hands dragging over your sides, up your back, taking notice of how small your shoulders seemed compared to his wide frame, of the way your shoulder blades flexed almost involuntarily beneath his palms.
There was something so Vergil about it. It reminded you of the way he worked, wrote or talked.
Meticulous. With great care.
Vergil seemed to choose his actions, his movements, as carefully as his words.
“Hm…”, you moaned into his mouth, head going fuzzy while your knees grew weak. “Uh…”, you finally tore your mouth away from his, needing the air to breathe (and to be able to think straight again), “so, is this…are we gonna…?”
Your brain seemed unable to form sensical syntax anymore.
“Yes”, Vergil interrupted you and lifted your off your feet with his hands enveloping the backs of your thighs.
An unflattering squeak left you as you wound your arms and legs around him, irrationally afraid that he might let your fall.
His lips were on yours again, slightly less patient than before.
Then he suddenly dropped you onto your bed.
And with a pang you realised that maybe – just maybe – it hadn’t only been the alcohol that had caused your brain and memory to be off that night.
Maybe it had been this intoxicating thing about Vergil (the way his eyes seemed to look right into you? The way his mouth tasted? The softness of his lips? That body?) that had caused at least some of the memory damage.
He shrugged out of his coat and bent down to unclasp his boots before toeing them off.
Your brows furrowed as you remembered his earlier words.
‘Well, I should like to keep my clothes on.’
What had he meant by that?
“Strip”, he commanded with quiet authority as he shed his gloves.
Your face flushed, but you didn’t argue with him. Why would you, when this was precisely what you had wanted for the past six days?
You jerked your shirt over your head and kicked off your shoes far more clumsily than he had done. Flopping onto your back gracelessly, you wriggled out of your jeans with an annoyed huff when one pantleg got stuck on your ankle.
Vergil moved forward impatiently, tearing the material off of your foot as if it had offended him. He grabbed your calf, his hand almost engulfing the entire width of your lower leg and pulled, causing you to be dragged flat onto your back and your still socks wearing feet to hang slightly over the edge of the mattress.
Willingly – almost pliantly – you let your legs fall open as he bent over you, settling one of his knees on the bed between your opened thighs. His naked hand brushed over the inside of your thigh and your body shuddered at the contact.
His skin felt inhumanly hot.
His eyes met yours while your spine was still being rocked by slight tremors. “Should you change your mind –“
You shook your head vehemently. ‘Hell, no’, you would have said, but you didn’t trust your voice that moment.
His hand brushed further upwards, fingertips just barely touching the edges of your underwear. You bit your lip tightly as his thumb brushed over the wet spot that had formed at the seam of your panties. Your thigh muscles clenched almost uncomfortably tightly when he pulled the gusset to the side to brush his fingertips first over your wet lips, then he pressed deeper, letting them glide through your slit.
Your hips gave an almost violent jerk while a strange noise – almost sounding like a wounded animal – got stuck in your throat.
His lips twitched again, but without the sign of humour right above his left eyebrow. Without that mocking quality, the hint of that almost-smile seemed nearly affectionate.
After about half a minute you realised that he was just teasing you, and you couldn’t take it.
Not right now.
Not after six days.
“I, hem…”, you cleared your throat awkwardly, voice barely above a whisper, “could we, hm”, you moaned as his fingers pressed against your clit too lightly to really give you what you wanted, “could we go slow another time? I… I really need…”
‘You’, you almost blurted out.
Now his left brow twitched at you again. “Impatient?”
Your brows furrowed as you got up onto your elbows, throwing your hair over one shoulder. “You are being cr-cruel…”, you stuttered, legs twitching uncontrollable under his fleeting touches.
Two thick fingers pushed inside you then and your vision turned black for just a second as you gasped for air. “Am I?”
“Please, Vergil…”, you moaned, “can’t we savour later –“
But he had already let himself drop forward, his lips capturing yours insistently after hearing you moaning his name. His upper body was perched up on his elbow next to your head and you shivered at the feeling of the leather of his pants and the rough material of his vest against your almost naked body.
You let him kiss you senseless for a few moments while his fingers pumped in and out of you steadily (but still too slowly) before you wedged your shaking hands between your bodies, your fingertips brushing his belt buckle.
“Is this…”, you swallowed when he freed your lips to press his mouth against your jaw, “is this okay?”
His words about leaving his clothes on were still loud and clear in your head.
Hesitantly, he nodded, which you couldn’t see but rather felt on the side of your face.
It took your three tries to open the stupidly intricate belt, embarrassment sitting high in your cheeks. Finally, finally, you managed to open his pants just wide enough so you should be able to ease him out of his underwear.
Uncertainly, you brushed your fingers over the fabric that covered his hard, incredibly hot length.
“Can I…”, you licked your lips nervously, the movements of his fingers inside of you not aiding your mental abilities in any sort of way, “uh, can I …touch you?”
He interrupted the trail of kisses he was pressing down your throat to let a huff escape him against the side of your neck.
Your body froze.
Had… had that just been a chuckle?
“Yes”, he whispered amusedly as he lifted his head slightly, mouthing against your cheek bone. “You may touch me.”
Your eyes narrowed at the correction.
Smug bastard.
You pushed one of your hands into the waist of his underwear, opting for the other to settle over the leather covering his hip.
His body tensed as your slender fingers brushed against his hard cock and you had barely enough room inside his underwear to wrap your hand around him.
Oh. Oh my, he was big.
You swallowed nervously and were barely able to pump him four times before his hand left your underwear to curl around your wrist, stopping your movements. “No savouring”, he repeated your words.
You nodded and pulled your hand out of the underwear, letting it mirror the position of the other one on his hips.
Vergil shifted his body closer to yours and you could see his arm move, pushing the waist of his underwear down to free himself. You didn’t dare to look directly, raising your eyes instead to look at his.
Your mouth opened in a silent moan just at the look of him. Some strands of his hair were falling into his slightly flushed face. It was barely noticeable, just the slightest hint of pink high on his cheek bones, but to you, it was just extraordinary.
Adding to that the way his lips were red and wet from your kisses and the slightly supernatural, bright blue glint in his usually so cold eyes and you were just about ready to spontaneously combust.
Moving your underwear to the side once more, he pressed forward and you could feel the big and blunt tip of him pressing against your entrance. For a moment he hesitated.
“I’m on the pill”, you blurted out, having no idea whether that had been the reason for his inaction. But – just for a second really – your mind had wandered to Nero.
His lips twitched. Leaning forward he pressed his lips to yours in a feathery soft kiss.
And pushed forward.
You tensed, feeling a stretch from just the head of his cock that was almost too much. Almost uncomfortable.
Almost.
Instead, you moaned at the feeling, at the slight stinging inside of you and the pride you felt at taking him inside of you nonetheless.
He was a son of Sparda, a Black Knight, and yet he was here with you, shaking above you while your walls stretched around him.
You wound your legs around him, letting your heels dig into the backs of his clothed thighs and he relented, allowing you to push him inside further.
Inch by excruciating inch he pressed forward, all the while being almost impossibly quiet while you panted and gasped as if you were just swimming the Pacific. At the moment he finally bottomed out, settling deeper inside of you than you had honestly thought possible, a deep sort of grunt left him and he buried his head against your neck.
And then he started to move.
And boy, had you been unprepared.
Unprepared for the way his skin felt, wetly gliding across yours, sliding inside of you, again and again. How hard he felt, pushing and breaching and prodding places inside of yourself you hadn’t even known existed. The way his teeth felt against your pulse point, dragging across the skin, causing you to shudder with the hint of danger.
You tried to meet his movements, but his hips were so heavy against yours, his thrusts so strong and harsh that your movements just seemed clumsy in comparison.
Instead, you let your hands wander, one of them curling around the biceps of the arm next to your head. His skin felt hot and slightly damp with a sheen of sweat, probably caused by the mixture of arousal, the exhaustion from his movements and the heavy clothing still clinging to his body.
The other hand you pushed down your own stomach, shoving it between your bodies and rubbing your clit experimentally. You keened and clenched at the feeling, causing Vergil to groan into your neck.
You couldn’t hold back anymore, having been too frustrated for the past days, your body wound too tightly to put this off any further. Starting to rub your clit with a vengeance, you could feel the way his thrusts started to turn slightly erratic and messy.
“I… I’m gonna –“, you started as you felt that something inside of you tighten.
Vergil interrupted you by pressing his mouth to yours, his teeth bumping against yours as he swallowed your moans greedily.
You seized up, clenching and gushing around him as you came, behind your closed eyelids nothing but ecstasy and starlight for a few moments.
His hips jerked – two, three more times – and he groaned against your lips, the rumble of his voice carrying from his chest into yours, despite the layers of clothing between you. And then he stilled.
You had to tear your lips from his, gasping for air as your chest rose and fell with every heaving breath, fighting against the weight of him on top of your ribcage (despite the fact that he was still mostly perched onto his elbows).
Vergil took a sharp inhale through his nose, followed by an equally sharp exhale that trailed over your cheekbone, before he slowly pulled out of you.
You flinched at the feeling, both at the lost of the warm contact as well as the soreness you could already feel between your legs.
It might take you some practice to get used to his size.
Practice.
You flushed a deep red and clenched your legs shut as soon as he moved away from his spot between them. Vergil sat on the edge of the mattress next to you, shoving himself back inside his pants.
Your hands shook as you pushed some stray hairs away from your sweaty forehead. Moving carefully, you sat up next to him, feeling your sore muscles protest and the joint in one of your knees popped.
The weight of the silence between the both of you felt crushing. His breathing had already calmed down and with one push of his hand his hair was back in place. The only indication that anything untoward had even happened here minutes before were the still present slight flush on his cheeks and his kiss-swollen lips.
Vergil took another deep breath before pushing to his feet, bending down to put his boots and gloves back on. You shifted nervously on your spot on the bed, feeling wetness seep through your underwear onto the covers.
“Soooooo…”, you dragged the sound out, no longer able to bear the awkward silence.
His eyes swept over your face, back to their cold, icy grey, as he froze after lifting his coat off of the floor.
“When I… uh, you…”, you averted your gaze, plucking at the edge of your blanket nervously as you tried to gather your wits. Starting again, you mumbled: “I asked whether we could go slow another time and you didn’t argue, so…?”
“So”, Vergil repeated, clearly unwilling to release you from your awkward misery.
You swallowed. “So, do we agree that this was a one and done thing? Or would you want”, ‘me again’, “…uh, want there to be another time?”
His eyes remained on yours, giving nothing away. He was back to being the unreadable Vergil, a little cold, a little smug, always aloof, always above everything human. “Would you?”
Throwing pride to the wind, you nodded eagerly. “Yeah. Definitely.”
“Then there can be another time”, he stated matter-of-factly.
Your heart sank slightly at how unaffected he sounded. “So, that’s what we agree on? That this is something we do now?”
“Why not”, he replied and you felt almost tempted to punch the nonchalant expression right off his face.
“Cool, cool”, you mumbled dejectedly, pushing to your feet and winding your arms around your torso, feeling too naked all of a sudden.
Vergil nodded at you and pushed his arms into the sleeves of his coat, already turned towards your bedroom door.
You pressed your lips together tightly, trying to swallow the disappointment that seemed to lodge itself inside your throat.
It was not as if you hadn’t known who Vergil was. How he acted. This was in no shape or form out of character for him.
Still, you wished he would give you something. Just a hint that what had just happened did mean something to him. Even if it was just about pleasure.
He reached for the door and you let your head hang low.
But then he turned back towards you, hesitating.
Your heart beat inside your throat.
Reaching out slowly, he curled his fingers around one of your wrists, prying it away from your arms’ tight hold on your ribcage. Lifting the hand towards his face, he inspected the red and burned skin from the coffee incident. His fingers squeezed yours and just a second later, he lifted the hand towards his lips, pressing a kiss to the irritated skin.
You practically melted, a small and dopey smile appearing on your face.
His eyes met yours again and there was something there, buried beneath the coldness and the ‘whatever’ attitude, a certain tenderness that lifted your spirits and warmed your chest.
“Until then”, he breathed against your fingers and left.
The End
July 20th, 09.46pm
“I can’t do this anymore…”, you admitted quietly, feeling something lodge inside your throat at the memory of what that very sentence had started five months ago.
Something in Vergil’s face twitched, but it wasn’t that fond pull around his lips or that mocking twitch in his brow. It was a clenching on the side of his jaw you had only seen a couple of times before, mostly when he was truly angry with his brother or came home after a very hard fight. “I figured.”
You didn’t want him to be angry. Not in general, and not with you especially.
“I’m sorry”, you whispered, blinking furiously in order to hold back the tears that were glazing over your eyes. “It’s just –“
“It has run its course”, Vergil interrupted you coldly. “I understand.”
No, it hasn’t, you thought bitterly.
Something like this, like this thing between the both of you didn’t just ‘run its course’. Sure, at times it did burn hotter or lower than at others, it had hurt at times and been beautiful at others. If it were up to you, you might be doing this forever.
But, no – that wasn’t exactly true. Because it was up to you and as you had said, you couldn’t do it anymore.
You had thought about it long and hard and if you allowed yourself to waver even the slightest bit in your decision now, you would fall apart.
There were a million things you wanted to say to him.
No, you don’t understand. You understand nothing.
He didn’t understand the way your belly would burst into butterflies when he entered a room, the way your heart beat faster when your eyes met. He didn’t understand that his voice alone felt like home to you, that after the longest and hardest and coldest days you yearned for nothing more but his strong, warm embrace.
That no man had ever touched you the way he had, so thoroughly and insistently and passionately that you felt like you were ruined for all eternity.
Didn’t understand that no one else’s opinion mattered as much as his.
Vergil didn’t understand that you had fallen so deeply and hopelessly and stupidly in love with him that it hurt to just breathe the same air without feeling his lips on some part of your skin.
And still, still, despite the fact that you knew he didn’t feel the same, knew that he didn’t need or want you as desperately as you needed and wanted him, you would have probably done this forever. Trying to be satisfied with the little talks you shared between work and sex, about life and poetry and just about anything in the universe. Trying to be satisfied with being his colleague, his fuck-buddy, his friend.
But at some point, the weight of his indifference had gotten too much. The pain from his unaffectedness. With every nonchalant shrug, with every “why not” he broke your heart and didn’t even know it.
And you knew that there was more to him. Knew it from the things he had told you, knew it from the way he had shuddered under the touch of your hands on his naked skin. Knew it from the sounds he made when your lips brushed his face. Knew it from the way his face had crumbled when you had touched his scars.
Knew it from the way he had held you as you had cried in his arms.
Knew it from that tender and longing look in his eyes right before he moved away from you after sex.
It was just not enough. You wanted him, but you needed more.
And you were afraid that one day, if things went on like this, you might just break down and yell things at him that he didn’t deserve.
You should never hit a man where he was weak, especially not after all the things he had shared with you in confidence. Things even his brother didn’t know.
“I don’t want you to be angry”, you whispered, shuffling from one foot to another.
He had come to your apartment after a long job to have sex, most likely. Maybe even talk about it. And here you were basically breaking up with him.
If you could call it that. You had never really talked about your relationship status, after all.
He shrugged nonchalantly, as if to prove your pain and fears valid. “I am not angry.”
“Okay”, you nodded slowly. There was no way for you to determine whether that was a lie or an even sadder truth, not from the way his face was closed off, giving you nothing.
“I hope…”, you licked your lips nervously, hoping you could get it out without your voice breaking, “…I hope we can stay friends.”
His eyes remained on your face, as cold and detached as the first day you had met him. “Why not.”
You closed your eyes in pain. “I’m glad you’re okay with it”, you lied, wishing for the very opposite.
Vergil nodded slowly, rolling his shoulders back in a slightly fidgety motion as his eyes evaded yours. It was the first gesture of discomfort he had shown since you started this conversation.
“It’s okay”, you told him. “You can leave if you want to.”
He nodded again, turning towards the door immediately. “Goodnight.”
“Bye”, you whispered and waited until the front door had firmly fallen shut to let your tears fall.
The Discovery
August 12th, 11.10am
“Well, where is he?”, you asked in annoyance. “Wouldn’t it be much easier to ask him?”
Dante rolled his eyes at you. “Yes, obviously”, he kept rummaging around the shop impatiently. “But Verge is still in Fortuna and I need his research on this stupid demon now.”
“I thought you said it was under control”, you huffed at him as you started to help his search.
“Well, I thought I did, but all this shit with mind trickery and pollen infestation isn’t your every-day demon hunting stuff.” The landline rang for about the fiftieth time that morning.
“Okay, OKAY!”, Dante yelled as he threw his hands into the air. “I’ll just have to improvise, before Lady and Trish drive down here and kick my ass all the way back to hell.”
Checking his guns, he threw you another imploring look. “Keep looking for Verge’s diary-thingy, please? All we need should be in there.”
You nodded, biting your lip to keep from snapping at Dante that Vergil hated it when he referred to that notebook as a diary. It wasn’t your job to take care of the older twin anymore.
Dante left and you sat out to search Vergil’s bedroom, which – under any other circumstances – you would have never dared to do without his permission, but there were people’s lives at stake. This was for a greater good, after all.
The situation with Vergil and yourself had been… tense in the past two months, at best. He still made you coffee and still handed you the cookies, but he didn’t talk to you anymore. At least not the way he had used to.
Not that you could blame him. It was absolutely impossible for you to act around him the way you had used to. Be it during your five months of a casual relationship or before that.
You weren’t sure how much Dante exactly knew, even though you were pretty sure that it was more than he led on. You had to hand it to him, despite his noisy nature, he left you alone about it, only giving you a compassionate squeeze to the shoulder once after your ‘break up’.
After about an hour, you found Vergil’s notebook underneath a couple of other books stacked beneath his bed. His insistence on hiding books probably still stemmed from the time when he had had to write his name down on everything as a child, in order to stake a claim over his brother’s grabby hands.
You shook your head with a slight smile at how hard it was for either of the twins to let go of habits they had developed in the short time they had grown up together.
While the thought of hiding books from Dante seemed slightly silly to you, you could understand why he would hide the notebook. Aside from the occasional notes on research he did for certain cases, Vergil had first gotten the notebook as a sort of journal, to take notes on the modern-day human world.
You had seen him write down lists of music and movies during the first weeks he lived in the Devil May Cry.
A drawing of a cell phone with instructions, slang and other things as such.
After that, you had seen him write inside it again, almost every single day, but you had never thrown a look at the pages. It was none of your business, really. Vergil had spent over twenty years as Nelo Angelo, it was certainly understandable that there was a lot for him to learn and that he couldn’t memorize it all at once.
Opening the notebook from the back, you realised that there were only a few blank pages left before it would be filled.
The pages with his research on it were the very last ones and you quickly took pictures of them with your cell and texted them to Dante. The devil hunter replied with a quick ‘thumbs up’ and you felt instant relief at having been able to help with the job.
With an exhausted yawn you dropped the notebook onto the bed before crouching down to put the stack of books neatly back beneath the bed, ready to put the notebook right on top. As you reached for it, you noted that it had fallen open and caught a glimpse of dates on the pages in the middle of the book.
Huh.
Seemed as if Dante hadn’t been this far off with his characterisation of a ‘diary’ after all. Apparently, Vergil had been journaling in a more traditional sense as well.
Your heart skipped a beat as your eyes fell on the date on the top of the page. The beginning of February, right before…
Swallowing your guilt, you leafed through the pages until you reached the fifteenth.
Vergil didn’t exactly write down his day. It rather seemed as if he still noted things he had learned and random…quotes?
February 15th
“How was I to know that this tiny spark would spread like wildfires” – N.R. Hart
You swallowed hard. That had been the day you had first kissed Vergil. You browsed forward a couple of pages.
February 21st
“How do I look away now that I have seen you?” – Rachel Mennies
The first time you had had sex.
This is wrong, an insistent voice inside your head kept whispering. It’s too personal. These thoughts belong to him and only to him.
I can’t stop, another selfish and broken voice mumbled back.
This, this, was what you had wanted for so long. To know what he was thinking, what he felt. And if the only way of knowing was through cryptic bouts of poetry that had come to his mind on those days, that was better than nothing.
You skipped a huge part in the middle of the journal until you found what you were looking for.
July 20th
“When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?” – Ocean Vuong
Your throat closed up. That day, he had seemed so indifferent, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another whether the both of you were together. As if there would be no difference for him in the before and after of those six months you had shared.
Eyes falling on the date 8 days later, you tried to remember what had happened that day.
After your ‘break up’ you had been busy for a couple of days, asking Dante if it was fine if you didn’t come to the shop.
Which he said it was.
Sadly, after a while, you couldn’t put the inevitable off any longer. This was your job and while Dante wasn’t paying you that much, he was paying you. Besides, you felt a strange obligation towards all those people who were threatened by demons everyday to do at least a little part to make this city safer.
At first, it hadn’t been so bad. Vergil was out on a job and Dante was busy with leafing through dirty magazines on the couch, letting you work in peace at his desk.
Then the phone rang and he left for a job.
A few hours later, however, the double doors opened not to reveal Dante returning from his job, but Vergil.
You knew that he must have smelled you before he saw you, but he still froze in the moment his eyes landed on yours. You stared back at him like a deer caught in headlights.
After a couple of tense minutes, he finally let the door fall shut and took large steps towards the kitchen, offering you nothing more but a nod in greeting. You swallowed painfully.
When he didn’t return from the kitchen after a few minutes you couldn’t bear it anymore and followed him.
A gasp left you as you rounded the corner to stand on the doorstep, seeing that Vergil had shrugged out of his coat to wipe blood away from his arm with a wet towel, an annoyed expression on his face. Something in his face twitched as he heard your reaction, but he didn’t move to acknowledge your presence.
Your eyes fell onto his coat, draped over a kitchen chair, its torn and bloody sleeve hanging almost on the floor.
“Do…”, you cleared your throat awkwardly, “do you want me to fix that for you?”, you asked and nodded towards the coat.
His eyes met yours and he looked surprised.
You had done that dozens of times for him in the past five months, patching up his coat, sewing gashes in his vest shut. It had become a strange comfort to both of you after missions, granting you a traitorous sense of domesticity.
“Why not”, he replied as soon as he had regained control over his face.
You nodded, biting down on your lip to not voice the pain you still felt at that fucking phrase. Anything, anything would be better than saying that.
“Okay”, you muttered as you stepped into the kitchen to gather his coat in your arms. Before you could reach the fabric though, you noted that there was also blood on the back of his shoulder, where he couldn’t so easily reach.
“Let me”, you said without thinking and plucked the wet towel from his hands.
Gently dabbing at the skin as if you might hurt him, ignoring that all his wounds had already closed, you felt him tense underneath your soft touch as you put a gentle hand on his arm to position him in such a way that it was easier for you to clean him.
You kept wiping at his pale skin, feeling the strong muscles in his shoulders shift, for far longer than would have been necessary. Finally, you lowered the towel and touched his arm again with your other hand to let him know you were done.
He turned to you, pulling the cold towel from your hands and dropping it into the sink in a discarding manner.
“Are you okay?”, you asked, looking up at him from beneath your lashes.
You could feel his gaze burning hotly on your face but he didn’t say anything.
Right before you were about to turn away, his hands suddenly lunged forward, cupping your face possessively and pulling you towards him.
You gasped, heart beating in your throat as he bent down, his lips hovering centimetres from yours.
‘Yes!, you thought desperately, ‘kiss me, hold me, never let me go! Just… give me something!’
His breath fanned over your face and you closed your eyes with a tiny sigh.
And then he let you go, causing you to stumble backwards slightly.
Your eyes met again, but before you could read what kind of emotions were swimming in his, he turned away and left the room, going upstairs and shutting the door to his bedroom violently.
You flinched at the sound and felt tears gather in your eyes and burst forward with a vengeance, even worse than they had done that day you had broken up with him. Pressing your hands to your mouth, you tried to stifle your sobs.
Your eyes were red and puffy when Dante returned from his job and he shot you a compassionate look and squeezed your shoulder gently, saying nothing.
Vergil didn’t say anything about it either, even though you knew he must have heard your sobs with his superhuman senses. But he only offered you a quiet ‘thank you’ once he found his coat neatly folded on the couch, the sleeve messily sewn shut, but nonetheless fixed.
After that day, you had still been civil with each other, but you knew that he went out of his way to not be alone with you in the shop. And – on the rare days that it did happen – he took great care not to touch you.
July 28th
“I burned so long and quiet you must have wondered if I loved you back.
I did, I did, I do.” – Annelyse Geiman
Tears fell onto the page as you read and suddenly, nothing made sense anymore.