Primal

She'd never forgiven him for killing Aaron. She never would.

Vergil's throat tightened with distaste as he read her features, with a magic only he seemed to possess, knowing instantly the memory that flashed through her mind.

"Aaron," He breathed it with a tedious sigh. "That….. MIGHT have been a bit unnecessary on my part." He mused with a slight devilish grin.

"You're such an unbelievable bastard," she seethed, shaking her head. "You barely knew him."

"YOU barely knew him," he spat in detest, brows furrowed, pointing his finger at the ground. "YOU barely knew him!"

She plastered a look of superiority all over her face, tossing her head to the side, her hair peevishly following.

"I could have gotten to know him quite well though," she taunted. "couldn't I?"

Vergil visibly cooled himself, loving that, after so much time, she could still make that steely old heart of his beat just a bit quicker.

Clever, clever girl.

"My sweet girl," he crooned, blinking ever so lazily, "I simply don't think that was in the cards."

She swung quickly, impressing him; impressing him enough to even let the blow land, the feel of the soft flesh over her knuckles bending as they pressed over the granite of his skin. He knew, with a slight chuckle, it would only serve to hurt her, the sensation like the bat of a fly's wing on his cheek.

Despite herself, she continued with the barrage, groaning deep within before each blow. He loved that she was by no means dainty, teeth clenched and a warrior's devotion burning in her eyes. He loved even more that she knew she couldn't win yet still tried.

'Little warrior woman,' he mused to himself, 'little warrior doll.'

"I won't stop you, you know," he sighed as she continued, visibly beginning to wear out. "You can touch me all you want."

Even sicker still, he bent forward to receive the attack at her level, breathing "I know you like it" into her face.

That, predictably, only sent her into a mindless rage, her fists flying with abandonment and barely any aim. Oh but hadn't he always said that to her?

"I know you like it"…

"You'll learn to love it."…

Finally he'd had enough, watching as she furiously pulled a gun from her holster, his hand roughly snatching hers before the weapon was unleashed on his face.

"Ah, ah, ah now," He swooned at her, covering her hands to disable the attack. He pulled her into his chest, wrapping one hand painfully into the back of her hair, yanking her throat towards him.

He covered her exposed neck with the sweetest of kisses, shushing her attempts to escape.

"Little angel doll," he breathed, letting his bottom lip slide upwards towards her lips.

"Why do you fight me so? I'll never understand it. Are you fighting me," he connected eyes with her, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers, "or are you fighting yourself?"

"What the fuck do you want?" She hissed through her teeth, eyes burning with rage. "Why are you here?"

"To torment you?" He smiled almost sweetly, letting her go.

"Very funny," She righted herself, glaring absolute knives and pitchforks at him.

"Really?" He cocked his head sideways. "and people say I have no sense of humor."

Her answer was merely a scoff that, as per usual, he'd already predicted. He turned away from her, trudging a few paces with his hands wrapped aristocratically behind his back. His head was held high, as always, as if he were counting the cracks of the ceiling above him. He took a few thoughtful strides before turning once more to face her, the oddest look covering his face.

If Lady had ever boasted herself as being able to read his features, she cursed that assumption now, unable to understand his behavior suddenly. He looked at her with seriousness yet detachment, seeming to be sorting his thoughts. Was the insurmountable Vergil at a loss for words? Was the God of all things debauched and monstrous trying to process what to say suddenly?

"It's Teminigru," he finally said seriously, hands still wrapped securely behind him. "it's going to rise again."

She tilted her head to the side, shrugging.

"I think we all eventually figured that would happen, though I didn't bank on you being the one to do it….." She smiled hatefully. "AGAIN that is."

"Well…. isn't that sweet?" he mused. "It's different now though. It's different this time."

"How so?"

"Because THIS time," He smiled with no humor, lacing his fingers softly through her hair. "we have a little more information, now don't we little Ms. Virginal Mary?"

She yanked away from his touch, feeling the twinge of embarrassment flutter in her stomach. That WAS quite a technicality her father had overlooked. No denying that.

"It WILL work this time doll face," He told her with a look that denied any protests. "and neither you or Dante will be able to stop it. "

"Then why tell me about it?" She asked, searching his eyes, one to the other. "Very 'comic book villain' of you, isn't it?"

His smile lightened slightly, his eyes appreciating her once more. Ah, but she was never very stupid for a naïve girl. That he would admit, if only to himself.

"I suppose it is," he agreed. "but the difference is that I want you by my side when it happens."

He approached her once more, backing her into a corner she couldn't escape. He curled his fingers around hers, pressing them into his chest almost adoringly. His eyelashes batted lazily as he simply breathed her in for a moment, almost a tender moment- if one could consider it such- letting the flesh of her fingers slide daintily over his lips.

She looked up at him, daring herself to believe this moment even existed, daring to even acknowledge the words he'd just spoken; even daring herself to remember how long she'd wanted to hear them.

"I want you by my side."

"I want you."

She would have moved if she could. She would have distanced herself in every form of the word if at all possible. She hated to have him this close, body plastered like paint against hers; feeling even the coldness of his body, so hard like concrete yet so pliable when he deemed it so.

A million fantasies, a million thoughts and all over a precession of merely seconds; blissful seconds though, tossed into a lifetime.

"Why?" she breathed so softly. "Just tell me why?"

Again his brow furrowed as though processing his thoughts before he spoke them, his eyes darting anywhere but hers.

He cleared his throat, finally matching her gaze with a crude, detached grin.

"What is the old saying," He spoke almost lazily. "It is better to be on the right hand of the devil than in his path."

@

…

@

….

@

….

@

@

@

An odd mood had come over Vergil as he left the subway station, a small smile gracing the crook of his mouth as his ears still rang with Lady’s answer of “Go fuck yourself”. What a silly little thing she was, a human body with a devil’s heart beating furiously underneath.

He was surprised though, at the strange pulling he felt within his breastbone, an irritating sinking in his chest with the thought that, perhaps, she truly meant to stand by her decision. Perhaps, she truly would never join him. And I guess, if one could say that Vergil admitted any ‘feelings’ on the matter, he would have felt quite annoyed with the decision.

‘Feelings’, he scoffed within himself. ‘feelings.’

What a preposterous thing! In all the ways that humans demanded to castrate themselves, succumbing to their tiny ‘feelings’ was perhaps the most ridiculous.

“Yes Tiny Tim,” He mulled aloud peevishly. “why don’t you go ahead and break your one good leg while you’re at it.”

A simple race that simply confused him. Odd though, that he’d tried so hard for so long to understand them. Like a pretty puppet he’d even tried to mimic their actions, words and deeds, wanting so fiercely for his mother to approve of him.

Eva. Ah. Now there was a lovely thought, Vergil rolling his eyes as his footsteps became harsher on the cement beneath them.

He walked with a soldier’s intensity through the ghettos and projects of the downtown area, his exit of Lady much less dramatic as his entrance. Red brick buildings looked dank and rundown around him, stretching up tirelessly towards a sky that bled with acidic rain; as if even the sky disliked the demolished, pathetic attempts of humans to touch it.

He kicked a bottle, or more, disintegrated it, eyebrows furrowed as his mother’s beautiful face fluttered in his memory.

It was as though she’d looked at both of her children at one time, eyes darting from one infant to the other, before she’d inevitably picked Dante, wrapping him gently in her arms and deciding he was, without a doubt, the better child.

And that was that. No room for objections, no room for improvement.

Perhaps it was all parents’ curse to have a favorite and be unable to hide that fact. Perhaps he had even learned to read her subconscious thoughts, read her movements and even the small crinkle of pride at the corner of her eyes when she’d look at his brother. She truly may not have ever have known how obviously she loved Dante and how obviously she avoided Vergil.

Even the way she’d touch the older twin was as though she were reaching for a hot coal, fingers cautious and timid. Maybe human skin wouldn’t have noticed, but Devil skin did.

His eyebrows crinkled even harsher as he recalled the night Nero had unleashed holy hell into their seemingly perfect little world, Eva’s eyes never straying from Dante, her last movements deliberate and executed with perfection. Yes, her very last movement spent on reaching for her beloved son, her soft fingertips sliding down his cheek.

One. Two. Three.

He scoffed out loud, the brick buildings echoing with his sharp intake of air.

He’d hated childhood. He’d tried so hard. He’d tried so fucking hard. In every way he’d craved his mother’s attention, his only total and complete failure in life being that he simply couldn’t make her love him.

It seemed odd enough now, that he’d ever cared so heartily about something so human. It seemed though, at the time that nothing else truly mattered. She was the ‘everything’ in his world. She WAS his world and she just couldn’t seem to love him.

Perhaps even in his first memories, he’d known something was amiss. He’d decided quite early on that Eva held his brother much more often, much more fiercely than she held him.

Her imploring eyes would scan his face when it seemed she was ‘forced’ to hold her older son, searching for something, though he didn’t know what. For the longest time, he even equated her intimacy with Dante with the fact that the younger devil simply cried more often.

Dante had always garnered Eva’s attention better and for that reason, Vergil very quickly learned to hate his brother. Others might have been oblivious to the fact but Vergil’s hold on the reality of the world slowly began to deteriorate with the absence of his mother’s affection.

He couldn’t really even remember the first time he’d heard the scratching of Nero’s voice in his ear. At first it was like the slight hissing of a snake, Vergil’s head turning abruptly to find the source and seeing nothing. His eyes would dart furiously around the room yet he could spy nothing.

This continued for weeks, the hissing sometimes almost sounding like a hushed snicker, the noise coming almost always when Eva’s favoritism would rear its ugly head.

Slowly but surely, words came from the voice, speaking harshly of Eva and her love for Dante.

“I would never treat you like that,” the voice had whispered once, Vergil’s eyes brimming with rage as he hid in a corner, watching his mother coddle the damned younger child.

“I would never forsake you like that,” the voice spoke again on the day that Eva had scolded Vergil viciously for taking a toy from Dante, sending him to sit in the ‘corner of shame’.

He could still recall that sinking feeling of embarrassment and dejection when Eva had given Dante an expensive gift for no reason what so ever, her eyes looking surprised when Vergil had asked for his. It was as if the idea of giving Vergil a present had not even dawned on her, her eyes darting to look at her empty hands.

“I’ll get you one next time,” she’d promised. Vergil had only to look at his more or less empty toy box to know that wouldn’t happen.

It was little things, little things she probably never noticed that cut deeply into Vergil. It was things she probably never knew that felt like salt in his wounds. The way he’d watch her at night, thrashing wildly in her empty bed, plagued with feverish dreams of monsters, calling out Dante’s name and never his own.

To Vergil, Eva was a horrible mother, though no doubt, Eva never knew it.

Nero became his escape, the one person on his side. Nero and Vergil against the world.

Nero saw what Eva never saw. Nero even began to goad Vergil on, insisting that it was high time the older twin got what he deserved, laughing gleefully in the background when Vergil would push Dante to the floor with all his might.

Pushing soon became absolute punching and Vergil slowly surprised even himself at the hatefulness he bestowed on Dante.

Often he’d catch himself only towards the end of the beating, blinking with surprise when Dante wouldn’t wake up. Vergil would shake his head, trying to recall why he’d even begun the assault, trying to fathom what had triggered the absolute meanness and hate that burned inside him.

And then slowly, he began not to care. Slowly he didn’t catch himself, slowly, he didn’t want to stop.

The evolution of Vergil came as if overnight, numbness seeping into him. It seemed as though the more he implored of Nero, the more he invited the harshness in, the more dull he became to the horrors he enacted on his brother.

And it was an evolution or perhaps an ‘evilution,’ if you could call it that. As soon as the numbness replaced the shame, joy replaced the numbness. Vergil began to love the pain he inflicted, began to look for new and exciting ways to prolong his attacks on Dante. He even found ways to hide the bruises and cuts from Eva, no longer needing her acceptance of him, only avoiding her discovery so as not to be placed in the corner again.

He’d whisper evil promises to his brother at night, truly intent on fulfilling them if Dante breathed a word to Eva.

Yet in all of it, Vergil slowly came to a harsh understanding that left him entirely confused. For all the awful things he did and said to Dante, the younger twin still completely loved him.

It sent a sick sourness into his belly when he’d realized it, looking at the blood seeping from the little devil’s eyes, diluted with tears as Dante cried for Vergil to stop. It even came as an even bigger revolution that though he certainly could, Dante never truly seemed to hit Vergil back.

He’d laid on the ground suddenly, looking straight down into his brother’s eyes, searching for a hatred that had to be there. Blood had leaked into Dante’s eyes, his tiny fingers curled into the carpet of their bedroom floor as he cringed, expecting another blow. Vergil hadn’t landed it though, instead still searching for the loathing that had to be burning like venom within the younger boy.

But it just wasn’t there.

Dante didn’t hate his brother. Dante simply couldn’t.

It was this small encounter that changed the world as we know it, Vergil’s resolve now more concrete than ever.

He had to kill them both.

For in that moment, as they stared hard at each other, Vergil saw exactly why Eva always had and always would love Dante more.

Dante was simply a good person, a good soul and Vergil simply was not.

He had felt more than heard Nero’s smile and laughter behind him, as he’d run out of the house, wiping away some of the first and certainly the last tears he’d ever cried. He’d run for what seemed like hours, blinded by the hot salt in his eyes, running aimlessly to escape the look he’d seen in Dante’s eyes of pure adoration that quite frankly made him sick.

It was as though he couldn’t wipe away the memory, those terrified, blood streaked eyes looking up at him, speaking volumes of hurt and of love. He hated it. He hated that he finally understood. He hated that he finally couldn’t deny.

He’d planted himself in an empty yard, dead, yellow grass crunching beneath him as he dropped with what felt like the weight of the world. He’d pulled his knees to his chest as he’d rested his back against a prickly old wooden fence, sobbing for the first and the last time.

“Little one,” He’d heard the familiar voice. “Little one please don’t cry. Little Prince.”

It was the first time Nero took on any kind of form, a black rising cloud that formed what look almost like hands on his shoulders. Black fog wiped away his tears, lifting his chin to stare into the dark nothingness that was Nero.

“We have to end this,” Nero spoke softly. “This can’t go on.”

Vergil’s head nodded slightly in agreement.

“Do you remember where your mother keeps those silly little jars in her bedroom?”

Vergil again nodded, knowing exactly what Nero planned before the apparition even needed to speak it. Eva had always kept the magical jars in her bedroom, her only means of keeping the underworld out as they cast the strongest known spells in order to veer away demons.

Neither boy was ever EVER to touch the jars and Vergil had only ever seen them but a few times late at night when he’d spied Eva clutching them to her chest, the evil no doubt lurking dangerously close outside.

“You need to crush the jars Vergil,” Nero’s presence goaded him. “You need to break them into tiny little pieces and your mother can never know. Do you understand?”

Once more, Vergil had nodded.

“When will you come?” He remembered asking, heart feeling so heavy.

“Tonight little Prince,” Nero lifted his ‘hand’ to the boy’s head. “You’ll see me tonight.”

Vergil once more turned a corner, recalling the last memory with little excitement.

He’d walked solemnly back home, feeling the last of his tears dry and crack on his cheeks, eyes burning with an intensity one never sees in someone so young.

He even heard Dante’s voice screaming as he’d lifted the jars, one by one, over his head before smashing them to dust in the back yard.

“They protect mama!” Dante had been screaming, trying with all his might to pry the last jar from Vergil’s hands. “They protect mama!”

They hadn’t done a very good job.

The demons had poured into their house that night, the sun barely set when the stench of bloated carcasses filled the air. The sound had been unearthly, the stretching of dead skin and the screeching of things alive yet not alive, haunting the very memory.

He even smiled a little at the thought, recalling the look on Eva’s face when she’d torn open the closet to find it absent of her precious little jars. Her fingers shook as she desperately searched, already knowing that she was doomed.

He’d wanted her to look at him, wanted to see her final look of shock and horror at the results of her crappy parental efforts.

‘That’s right,’ He’d thought. ‘you created this. This is your fault.’

But she never did. She never even looked at him before she died.

One. Two. Three.

The love of her life was the last of her thoughts, staring across at her most precious child as she died. It was a death truly worthy of her, as she’d reached her hand to touch him even as her soul reached towards the quiet of oblivion.

One. Two. Three.

He saw and felt her soul go, the flames dancing almost quietly at the end of it all. The dullness sank in her eyes where brilliance used to be, stare still set upon Dante.

The other twin was quickly joining her, terror and panic slowly giving way to indifference as he accepted his fate.

Vergil had turned towards the door, the metal of the knob hot as the flames reached towards it. For a moment he saw his face in the glass of the door, his reflection showing the nihilistic monster that he’d become.

He was no longer numb. He was pure fucking evil and for one tiny second, he didn’t like that.

It was in that tiny second that whatever bit of conscience left in Vergil once more reared it’s head, the devil turning around and gripping his brother’s arm. He could hear Nero screeching in the back of his head, the black smoke suddenly forming the great apparition that hurled threatening words at him.

He’d ignored it, gripping his brother tightly as he forced them out of the house, running faster and farther than he could ever recall doing. He ran until his legs burned, until his stomach turned with nausea and then even farther.

He ran until his arms became so heavy with Dante he figured at any moment they may have very well fallen off. He ran until he simply collapsed, pulling Dante onto his chest and remarking that all efforts might have been in vain, as the younger twin looked to be almost severed in half.

And then he remarked to himself that the time for caring was quite simply over and he’d lifted the other boy off him, letting Dante crumple onto the cold, hard pavement beneath.

Vergil had left him there, on the pinnacle of life and death, torn between both worlds as the small devil twisted with fever and blood loss. And Vergil had promised himself that he didn’t care, that the look of love and hurt he’d seen on the boy’s face didn’t still haunt his thoughts. He’d promised himself that the night had been a success and that the routine of favoritism was over.

And he promised himself that he didn’t still see her fingertips in his mind, sliding ever so softly down the tear streaked face.

One. Two. Three.