Chapter Text
chapter 1:
You had known and occasionally helped out Dante for years. Not physically (obviously), as that would have required you to have fighting skills, knowledge about weapons or any measurable upper body strength.
No no no, you had helped him with knowledge: Reading ancient books, hunter journals, and knowing Latin and ancient Greek had been very helpful on several occasions. Nevertheless, you did not quite fit in with the rest of the Devil May Cry team. Maybe it was just the fact that you could not relate to the kind of life-threatening danger they went through like every day.
And despite Dante’s semi-regular, clumsy (and you were pretty sure ironic) attempts at flirting, you had never given that particular subject a second thought. Surely, he was quite handsome in a hobo kind of way, but the age difference of ten and plus something years and his devil-may-care lifestyle did never appeal to you in that kind of way. You would have named your relationship as a solid friendship. Not too close (like Lady or Trish) but friendly, you had gone out for drinks with the group once or twice and had a nice laugh together. But that was that, the entire Devil May Cry thing was not a regular part of your life, you did not see or probably even think about the devil hunters every single day.
And when rumour had it that Dante’s supposedly dead twin brother was not so dead and that the two of them had disappeared for an indefinite amount of time into the underworld, you did not think much of it. Maybe you were a little sad, but so far Dante had never come across a situation he couldn’t handle and now there were two of them, so you were pretty confident that the white-haired sons of Sparda would return. When rumour about said return was around the street, you probably thought even less about it. Everything had worked out for the best, Dante was back home and life would revolve about the small things as always.
When Dante called and asked for your help on some miniscule job, you did still not think much of it. You definitely did not think about his brother. You were all the more surprised when you stepped into the shop and saw not one, but two desks inside the “lobby”. Dante’s desk had been pushed further to the right, closer to the bathroom door. Another desk stood in a right angle from Dante’s. Where Dante’s desk was loaded with pizza cartons, some empty beer cans, the landline and his mother’s picture, the other desk was loaded with paper work.
Dante was launching in his chair as usual: feed up, magazine in his lap and pizza slice in his hand. He grinned when he saw you and said your name. “Always a pleasure.”
You smiled back. “Aren’t you getting a little too old for the teenage racoon lifestyle, Dante?”
“That’s why the original devil may cry has a back up now, you know”, he nodded to the other desk.
“Does it? Did you hire a secretary?”
Dante threw his head back and barked a laugh. Meanwhile a shadow moved down the stairs, way to big to be so eerily quiet on its feet.
“Well, I told you about my brother before, didn’t I”, Dante said with a nonchalant voice, as if he wasn’t talking about someone coming back from the dead. “That’s Vergil.”
The shadow turned out to be a person, coming to a halt behind his new desk. Somewhere in the back of your mind you heard Dante say your name and mumbled an awkward “Hello” to the stranger.
Vergil was as tall as Dante, but seemed a lot cleaner and far more rigid. He was clean-shaven, his hair was pushed back and his clothes seemed almost royal. He had the same silver-white hair as his brother and the same icy blue eyes. But apart from their colour scheme, they also seemed to be as different as their similar appearance allowed in every kind of way .
He swept his eyes over you with a quick motion, but he seemed neither condescending nor flirting in this manner. When his gaze settled back on your face, he gave you a court nod.
“Vergil actually knows his fair share of Latin too, but I thought you should look over this as well.” Dante handed you an envelope. “You have more experience and know what kind of stuff is going around in Red Grave. You still help out other hunters around here, don’t you?”
“Beside my actual job, I do, yes”, you murmured, pulling out one of the pictures inside the envelope. It was the usual procedure, some picture of drabbles on walls and floors in blood in Latin. You would try to find out what kind of hell the author exactly tried to raise and give the information back to the hunter who had needed help. It was always good to know what you were dealing with, at least vaguely, in this business. “But the other hunters pay me, you know.”
Dante simply shrugged. “But I have the benefits of friendship, right?” He grinned smugly.
You simply raised an eyebrow. “I can take a look at it when I’m at work tomorrow.” You worked at the university, giving some introductory literature and grammar courses in Latin, sharing an office with another research assistant. As long as enough students passed your courses with enough knowledge and you crapped out a scientific article once in a while it was a steady job and a good cover for the supernatural work you did on the side, having access to the libraries and all.
“I got something else for you, wait a sec”, Dante got up in the over-dramatic manner of a guy in his fifties with severe back problems and jumped upstairs.
You shoved the picture back into the envelope and bobbed awkwardly up and down from your heels to your toes and back. Your gaze drifted to Vergil’s face. He was staring blankly at you. Your eyes shifted to the opposite wall and back to him, still staring intently. When you gave him a very uncomfortable smile he huffed and sat down behind his desk.
“You are an acquaintance of my brother, then?” he asked. His voice was very controlled and there was something about it that you couldn’t pinpoint.
“Yeah, I helped out a couple of times, but nothing big”, you waited for a few seconds, but when Vergil didn’t say anything you simply added, “I couldn’t do what you guys do, though.”
He merely raised an eyebrow. You pressed your lips together. “Like physically… I’m not an active-duty hunter” you struggled to clarify.
Vergil looked down to the paperwork on his desk and back up. “Well, there are always several jobs to be done for a business such as ours.”
You shortly marvelled over his choice of words and voice. Definitely the kind of voice that could read you the yellow pages and you would love it. You were also thankful that he did not degrade your nerd status within the business. You always felt somewhat inferior compared to what Lady could do, considering that she was also just a human, exactly like you.
Dante stomped back downstairs and threw a book at you. You did not catch it of course and scrambled to get it from the floor. “What is that?” you asked. It looked old and ominous.
“Some sort of spell book, but Vergil couldn’t read it and if he can’t, I don’t even have to try. Maybe it’s useful to you, I don’t know” he shrugged and gave you a lob-sided grin.
You smiled and shook your head. “Sure, why not. I’ll call if there’s something to tell about the pictures” you waved with the envelope in the air.
“Ciao for now”, Dante yelled over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom.
While turning to the door, your gaze landed on Vergil.
He was just staring at you again and the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end.
You nodded at him as a goodbye and turned to leave. “Vergil”, you said and tested the name on your tongue.
He said your name in return and you could feel his gaze burning into your back while you left.