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Dante was quite sure that whatever anatomy they had was very different from everyone else around them — they’d seen the inside of a person before, guts and blood and all, and knew that there was no way for them to logically work the same based on their head and other abnormal traits. Still, it was surprising to see that they barely had any internal organs at all. Faust had cut them open, through not one layer of skin but nine, and nothing had come out but some clear residue. Rather than typical organs and viscera, they were simply composed of more and more layers of flesh. Suspended in the middle of their chest, though, almost floating through unknown means, was a golden heart, nestled between the two hemispheres of their brain trapped within their ribcage.
It was beautiful. They’d never seen anything like it.
Shirt unbuttoned, their skin carves out a deep V from their shoulders down to the last button still tucked neatly in their pants, raw, pink flesh pulled out and pinned to the sides, revealing their pulsating heart. Their ribcage, off-white and still lightly coated in sticky residue that Faust has long cleaned off, frames it rather marvelously, their sternum ending just above the main mass of muscle, reflecting its brilliant golden glow. Their hand rises instinctively to touch it, a moth to the flame held within, yet they hesitate to breach the warm air inside of the cavity in their chest in fear of being burned.
Their heart beats faster.
They feel it — watch it — happen, the tightening and expanding of something they’re not in active control of, pulsing, beating, hypnotising; only when their fingers skim the bone of their ribcage that they realise they’ve already reached into the cavity in their chest.
A click emanates through the room as the latch on the door gives — expecting Faust to stand in the doorway, Dante whips their head from the floor length mirror, one hand gripped tight onto its plain silver frame as their arm drops down to their side while figuring out something to say in excuse of the evidently flagrant position they’ve contorted themselves to be in.
Faust is not here. Vergilius stands in the doorway.
“Admiring yourself?” He asks. They have nothing to say in response, and to their very minor relief, Vergilius doesn’t pursue the line of questioning any further. He strides forward to stand by the examination table, before tilting his head towards it, a nonchalant flick of his bangs into his eyes. “Well, let’s get this over with. Sit here, Dante.”
They comply wordlessly, hand awkwardly clutched over their open chest cavity, lest anything fall out (they’re not exactly sure how it all stays inside of them, puppeted by invisible strings as ready to snap as they are). Vergilius forces his hand into a pair of black surgical gloves as he gives them a rundown of the circumstance he’s found himself in. “Ms Faust had to tend to an issue with Mephistopheles, so I’m afraid I’ll be doing your checkup. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
<What… checkup?>
“Arrhythmia. She asked me to assess and… fix you if possible. Well, considering I had a go at your head, this surely will not be too much of a hassle.”
Vergilius crouches down in front of them, pushing their legs to the side to gain better access to the hole in their chest.
“Hm… it looks fine to me. Let’s see…”
Panic suddenly seizes them as he raises his hand to their chest. <Wait, what are you-?!> Their hands fly to push Vergilius’ head back, providing some space between him and them. He only looks up at them with a questioning glare, silver hair clenched tightly between their gloved fingers.
“Sit still, now, Dante.” His eyes glow red. “You can’t expect me to work with you squirming all over the place.”
They feel exceedingly funny when he looks at them like so; his fingertips rest against the lower part of their ribcage, a slight pressure of the back of his hand pushed up against their open flesh the only indication that it’s there at all. <Please, don’t touch me there.> Despite them gripping his hair tighter, he traces from the outside of their ribcage to the centre — and then brings his hand closer to their core, the warmth from his hand somehow feeling hotter than their internal body temperature — “No, don’t- you can’t touch it! Vergilius!”
Heeding none of their warnings, Vergilius gingerly skims his fingers across their pulsating heart.
<Gah!> Weird. Weird, weird, weird — that’s the only sensation they can register as latex meets muscle. They didn’t exactly realise their heart could feel sensations, nor just how many it could pick up. A stuttered gasp escapes them as Vergilius’ fingers skim over a vein, applying the slightest pressure to the organ that increases tenfold when it expands into his hand, electricity shooting down their elbows, up their neck, down the back of their knees — how such a feather-light touch could cause such a reaction remains a mystery to them, as the next beat of their heart forces themself into his hand, muscle meeting latex meeting mind and soul.
“I see the problem here,” Vergilius utters, barely audible under their desperate gasps for air. “My, your heart is beating so hard I’m surprised you haven’t keeled over and died yet. What an uncomfortable sensation that you must have to deal with.”
He pushes his index harder against them, finding a portion where two pieces are seemingly stitched together; Dante trembles from fear of the unknown, from stillness, from the foreign and disturbing heat searing their body from the very depths of their insides. <Stop… stop!>
Vergilius slides into the crevice of their heart — their entire body jolts into his hand, their grip on his hair tightening as their mind overloads with this foreign sensation. Nothing registers except for how much they’re feeling, whatever it is overwhelming their senses entirely as latex coated hands gently push apart the loosely joined flabs of muscle and caress the seam between chambers. He runs his knuckles along the opening, gently working it further open.
<Please- please, stop, I can’t… I can’t take it… I can’t take anymore!>
Satisfied, Vergilius runs his fingers along the engorged opening, before slipping all four fingers into the muscle. Dante cries out, gripping his hair so hard they’re sure some will come off into their hands once they pull away. Their entire body feels positively full to the brim, so deeply touched and violated all the same that their mind is failing to tell the difference between sensations. Something akin to danger is screaming at them to run; something else they’re not familiar with is begging them to stay. <H-haah, ugh, please, I don’t… I can’t… ngh!> He traces in between their two ventricles, up to their atriums — the chambers come apart easily and allow him to slide deeper. <Ah- ahh—>
Curiously feeling out the shape of it all, his thumb runs along the tubing at the top of their heart, four fingers coming to a stop in the tissue. Then, he starts to gently work himself in, before pulling out his fingers, gathering them between his palm and the pads of his fingers, before pushing in again.
A loud, buzzing CLACK comes from their head, backing away from him as he prods slightly deeper in, until their back is against the wall. Petrified by the foreign sensation, their mind registers panic, a sharp pain in their chest — they move to grab at his wrist instead, and feel the prominent veins in his wrist shift as his fingers curl inside of them. Another dry rattle and click; Vergilius is now looming over them, one knee up on the examination table, the other between their legs, free hand pinned against the wall by their head to balance himself. Out, then in again — Dante cries out as he pulls his hand out entirely, feeling nothing but hollow emptiness before he rotates his wrist and starts feeling up their left ventricles instead. Head lolling back, fingers tightening in his hair, they’ve long given up on telling Vergilius to stop, and are now trying to comprehend exactly what they felt when he took his fingers out of them. The erratic pounding of their heart seems to almost be forcing him out further, squeezing around the intrusion to the point where they might be able to feel each wrinkle and scar and vein on his hand (unless that's just their imagination, because they feel as though they might be going mad), until Vergilius attempting to force himself deeper into them makes them wildly jerk away from him, yanking dramatically on his hair and locking their knees around his waist as a loud chime escapes them.
The sudden motion almost pushes him entirely out of them, and Vergilius retracts his hand moments after their violent outburst. Dante is filled with both a relief and an emptiness in its absence. They manage to find the effort within them to gasp for air into absent lungs. The relief is temporary, though, as he grabs their heart and squeezes, and they feel like they’re exploding into his hands — his thumb slides easily into the crevice of their left and right atria, rolling the pulsating chamber against his palm slowly and gently. Their clock stutters with surprise as his fist only closes harder around their heart, muscle giving way for his thumb to slip between. Then, his thumb catches on something inside of them.
A tube, of some kind, for something they’re not sure of. It’s terrifying. Vergilius has the smallest hint of a knowing smile on his lips, though — maybe he knows something that they don’t.
He pushes in.
<G-ghk…> The vein gives way to the intrusion; they can’t exactly hyperventilate, but their chest is still heaving into his hand, as if sucking him in with every erratic pound of their heartbeat. <Ah- hahh-> he pushes deeper still, the knuckle of his thumb just making it in before Dante’s mind shuts down and they start to claw at him again. <V-Vergili us… !>
A low rumble of a sigh escapes from his throat, his eyes fluttering half shut. “So soft…” he utters to himself, barely audible; he sinks further into them, wrapping his fingers around their heart, stretching the limits of their vein around his thumb. They feel it give around his knuckle, just the one, thick finger he insists on pushing further in until they really can’t take it anymore, until the blunt of his nail is caressing them far deeper inside of them than they could ever have imagined or fantasised, legs kicking as their body reacts as erratically as their heartbeat. <Vergilius, I-I… ahh-h! >
At the sound of their stuttered pleading, he almost seems to involuntarily squeeze harder, twisting his hand until the knuckle of his thumb slides out of the vein and their heart attempts to force him out, but the motion of him exiting them is somehow worse than it is staying buried inside of them. Their vision is blurring, and he’s no longer looking up at their face, but watching their heart so intensely they feel as if they might combust under his gaze. His fist curls again, under the main body of their heart, gently forcing itself back in, further, deeper, and Dante’s ticking increases tenfold. <V-Vergilius, some- things wrong, please, s-something’s really wrong,> they stutter, <I- I can’t, ah - I’m gonna…!>
He jams his fingers into the crevice from the back of their heart, entering them from the untouched depths of their body.
Their vision blanks entirely.
Golden fluid splutters from the arteries, coating black latex in a sickly, heavenly sheen. Their muscles refuse to cooperate, seizing up as an unfamiliar sensation claims all thoughts and they tremble despite their stillness, squirming as their core, their chest, burns with a deeply painful and terrifying satisfaction. Vergilius’ hair is trapped tight between their fingers and they’re holding onto him like a lifeline, stillness accompanying their tremors and awkward position making them unwittingly lean further towards him — despite trying to cry out as his fingers dig further into their heart, right into the core of their being, no noise escapes them.
He caresses their heart, stroking its outside with his thumb, and then, slowly, gently, begins to squeeze with his fist. Too overwhelmed to move, Dante lets it happen, their only response being the occasional twitch of their fingers in his hair. Their head is buried in his shoulder — he squeezes softly again, to the pace of his own breathing, and with each exhale he releases their throbbing heart. Inhale; squeeze. Exhale; release.
“There you go,” he says quietly as their heart calms down to the pace he sets. He grumbles to himself softly as he lets his hand slip out of their chest. They don’t move, unresponsive. “Don’t tell me I’ve broken you, now.”
Dante finally gives and leans their full weight on Vergilius, thoroughly spent. <…I need… a moment…> they pant, voice coming out stuttered and uneven. A slight golden sheen covers Vergilius’ gloved hand, standing out from the black latex. He brings his hands closer up, and they can see the fluid a little better from their position still on his shoulder — it’s viscous enough to cling onto his hand, but watery enough for the majority of it to slip off. He brings his hand further up, indiscreetly smelling it. Dante leans off of him slightly as he brings it to his… face?
<Vergilius, don’t->
He places his index and middle finger into his mouth, dragging their length across his lips until the golden substance is replaced with his saliva on his gloves instead — when he opens his mouth to take more of his fingers in, they can see it just barely coating his tongue before he swallows. He hums to himself, watching it dribble slightly down his arm before licking it up with his tongue, up the prominent veins running down his wrist until it’s almost all gone. They bury their head further into his shoulder, unable to bear the sight; the only indication that Vergilius is done cleaning up his hand is the quiet, slick sound of saliva parting between his fingers and lips.
“Not bad,” he muses. His voice is tinged with a near unrecognisable satisfaction. “Tell anyone about that… and I’ll kill you.”
Too exhausted for their breath to even hitch, Dante can only tick out a weak <okay> in response. Despite the panic, the vulnerability, the surrender, and their heart still bore open to Vergilius, their soul seems to pulsate with a heavenly glow — their heart beats to someone else’s steady rhythm, and they feel full to their very core.