Affliction

A/N: You will need to have read Poison / Antidote in order to follow Vergil's train of thought in this fic.

~ Part II ~

He sagged limply against his bounds; his ravaged flesh was healing itself, a dull burning sensation creeping over his body. They loved that; they always watched, fire dancing in their blazing eyes as they greedily drank in the sight of his wounds melting into smooth, unmarred skin. He knew their cursed souls relished the way his body regenerated; it fueled their thirst for pain and anguish… their delight in an endless cycle of torture inflicted on a subject that felt agony, but did not die.

The Accursed were approaching now; Vergil’s head snapped up, eyes slitted dangerously. The demons only leered back, scabbed jaws jutting, as they tugged and heaved at the spiked chains binding their victim.

The slow ebb of returning strength allowed Vergil to remain shakily standing as the grisly restraints were dragged through his healing flesh and removed. He swayed on his feet, trying to will his still-hazy mind into equilibrium. Beside him, he felt the Accursed melt away into ethereal mist, and the familiar cold, draining hunger washed over him, breaking his fragile grasp on balance. Although his physical strength had returned, he fell to his knees.

Unseeing, he struggled desperately to cling to his senses as the Accursed attempted to tear them from him. He distantly felt his feet leave the floor as his hearing fled him in a vacuum and the air was sucked from his lungs.

o-o-o

His vision returned in a white rush as he felt his hands and knees strike cold stone blanketed in thin dusty carpet. He rose to his feet quickly, attempting to coax his trembling muscles into stillness; the cold against his bare skin didn’t facilitate this.

A voice rent the stale air above him; Vergil looked up reluctantly as three blazing eyes cast themselves over him.

“Son of Sparda,” thundered Mundus. “I still see defiance in you; and I shall quell it without fail.”

The demonic prince had produced Yamato; his enormous chiseled fingers stroked the sheath then passed the weapon mindlessly into the care of the Accursed, hovering tenuously at his elbow. Vergil watched, jaw clenched, and his hands balled themselves into fists, nails digging painfully into his palms.

A slow smile was cracking across Mundus’ stony face.

“Break him.”

The creeping cold of the Accursed stole back up Vergil’s spine, and he fought it with every fiber of his soul. “You will fall, Mundus,” he grated, though he knew —they both knew— that the words were frivolous, devoid of any tangible menace.

Mundus’ icy laughter chilled him to the bone, but the dark prince did not grace the empty threat with a reply. The three crimson eyes only stared down at Vergil as his consciousness was battered by the Accursed.

He fell back to his hands and knees, breathing in the dust and mildew scent of the wine-red carpet. He briefly felt the Accursed materialize into its solid presence beside him before his legs were kicked roughly apart, gracelessly spread-eagling him. He grunted as twin blades were driven mercilessly through the backs of his thighs, their curved points implanted into the floor.

He could no longer meet Mundus’ gleaming eyes; as he pressed his forehead against the once-luxurious carpet, he was fleetingly reminded of Dante, and the similar humiliation he himself had forced upon his younger twin. He felt a writhing in his chest at this thought, although he wasn’t sure what poisonous emotion it represented. It may have been resentment… but could just as easily have been remorse.

His own warm blood was staining the faded carpet a deeper crimson. Vergil could feel his heart hammering against his ribs in a tangle of dread, hatred, and bitter contrition. In his mind’s eye, he could clearly see Force Edge, hanging unceremoniously on the plain wooden wall of Devil May Cry; he could see his brother’s amulet with its broken chain, glittering on the desk.

And Dante…

Vergil pushed himself up on his elbows only to find his chin being driven back into the carpeted stone by a heavy blow. He felt his jaw crack and his mouth filled with blood as his teeth pierced his tongue.

Dante, his swaggering attitude humbled by poison, by defeat.

The Accursed was crouching before him now, drawing Yamato almost lazily from its sheath, holding it before his eyes. Taunting him… invoking any and all manner of hatred and apprehension, feeding off his anguish and churning emotions.

His pale face upturned in the rain, lips starved of blood, but eyes glittering and strangely clear.

The Accursed had seized his hair, was forcing him to face upwards and stare into Mundus’ mask-like face, far above him.

Dante’s taut muscles, rippling and twitching in the downpour as dark blood streamed across his body…

Vergil could feel himself growing hard against the stone floor.

The Accursed was drawing Yamato’s blade across his throat, barely brushing against his skin, the sword’s edge teasing out a thin line of blood; it snaked down his neck in rivulets and dripped on the carpet.

The way his body had tensed and arched against him, toward him; how his voice, laden with pain and pleasure had cried out in his ear…

The Accursed relinquished its grasp on his hair and his head fell heavily back to the floor. Relieved of Mundus’ damnable gaze, he tried to take a few calm breaths to quiet his racing heart. Somewhere at the edge of consciousness, he was aware that the Accursed was shifting around his body, positioning itself above and behind him.

Their simultaneous climax, the spectacular finale to a blood-and-rain-soaked night.

His pants and the flesh beneath them were shredded by several rapid swipes of the katana blade. He tried to raise his body again, but the best he could do was curve his spine ineffectually; the blades pinning his legs to the floor rendered struggling useless.

The peaceful emptiness that Dante’s face had displayed as he had faded from consciousness at the conclusion of their intimate encounter…

And Vergil gasped and moaned, his abstraction ripped from him as the demon slid Yamato’s gilded hilt between his thighs and thrust it viciously inside him.