Chapter Text
His skin itched like something long dormant beneath the surface was trying to scratch its way out through his chest. The wounds Vergil lovingly left in his chest had long since healed over, aided by his demonic transformation, but his flesh still tingled and crawled like there was an army of fire ants just under his skin.
It started small. Barely a tickle as he'd pummeled his way out of Leviathan. By the time he reached Nevan, he'd begun scratching unconsciously at his torso, leaving red nail-streaks that healed just as quickly as he could etch them into his skin. Beowulf's fist left him feeling every pressured beat of his own heart in his throat, and after Geryon his limbs went sluggish, weak, like his brain couldn't quite communicate the movements they needed to make in time.
Now he stood before an ornate set of double doors.
His brain screamed at him to curl up somewhere safe and sleep until the end of the decade, but his legs dragged the rest of his unwilling body along behind them, to the lowest point in the tower. The pounding in his blood left no mystery as to what—or specifically who— was on the other side.
His palm laid flat against the cool metal, and he hesitated despite the exuberant thumping of his heart in his ears. Could he even beat Vergil like this? For all his brother’s rambling about power, unlocking his demonic side only seemed to make him slower and weaker with every step forward. Nevan, Beowulf, Geryon… they'd all been child’s play to defeat, but Vergil? He rubbed at the sore spot in his sternum.
“No turning back now,” he whispered to himself, teeth gritted. He couldn't just give up and go home. An unsupervised Vergil was a dangerous Vergil.
Dante took a deep, stabilizing breath and shoved the heavy door forward with as much might as he could muster. It didn’t give much. Barely enough for him to slip his body through sideways.
The room was a perfect circle with a ceiling so high Dante couldn’t see it through the inky blackness. Stone busts of demonic heads ringed the walls and loomed over the uncannily silent room, and one of those eerie angelic bells hung just a few feet above his head. The true focal point of the room was a raised, stone dais with several steps up. Shallow veins zigzagged sharply across its slightly sloped surface, all converging on a central point: a hole filled to the brim with blood.
Then the scent hit him. It was sweet and bitter at the same time, like a rich, dark chocolate, or maybe coffee if he had to compare, but no comparison could do it justice. It was oppressive. It was suffocating. It weighed the air down and seared his lungs with every inhale. The mounting itch ignited into a burning, aching sensation all across his skin.
At the center of it all was Vergil. He stood with his back to him. His chin was turned up, nose in the air, like a dog trying to catch a scent.
Dante took up a combat stance, Rebellion lifted high to mask his own insecurity. It wasn't pointed at Vergil's back for long.
“Dante…” Vergil’s voice slipped across the space between them, sweet and sharp.
A warm feeling, the ember at the center of his inferno, settled in his chest. He blinked and his exhaustion, his fear, the world itself melted away, but only for a second, because the look in Vergil's eye was anything but sweet.
“You should have gone home,” Vergil said.
“What can I say? Someone’s gotta keep you in line.” Dante mustered up his best cheeky smirk, despite the circumstances.
I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
What came next didn't require words. The two circled each other, and the difference between them was painfully obvious. Dante stepped with the tip of his right boot dragging numbly behind him. Rebellion's weight in his hand caused his whole arm to tremble. Vergil, by contrast, seemed to be in peak condition and he showed it in his measured, pristine steps. The look in his eye wasn’t competitive; it was predatory.
Dante's toe hit one of the channels in the stone and he stumbled. Clumsy, stupid. The corner of Vergil's lip twitched up. He didn't have time to wait for a perfect opening; each second he waited gave Vergil an even bigger advantage. Something had to break this stalemate.
He braced his hand on Rebellion’s grip and charged, a guttural roar accompanying the usual sound of his blade tearing through the air. He leapt, too telegraphed because he needed the momentum to make up for the lack of strength behind his muscles. The kind of thing that only worked by surprise, which meant it would never work on Vergil, but he had to do something.
His steel split the stone floor and Dante's eyes widened in shock. Something blunt slammed sharply into his rib cage. He slid back several feet before he found his footing again.
The skin on his exposed side faded from black to blue and back to flesh-colored as his ribs stitched themselves back together. The only wound remaining, as always, was the one to his pride.
Vergil stood rigid and proper almost exactly where Dante had seen him a moment before. The only sound passed between them was the soft click of Yamato returning to its sheath fully.
He'd expected to miss... but he hadn’t even seen Vergil move. He hadn't been that slow since they were kids.
Anger boiled up to cover his fear.
“Quit messing with me! Fight like you mean it!”
He swung his sword again, hardly caring if it hit its mark or not. It bounced harmlessly off of Yamato’s scabbard, leaving him wide open for another blow that Vergil didn’t take.
His breathing went manual and labored. The air had turned to bittersweet syrup in his lungs. He barely managed to stay upright using Rebellion like a crutch for his wobbly knees.
Vergil was going to kill him.
That didn’t mean he was going down without a fight.
He mustered whatever strength was left in his arms for another swing. The tip of Rebellion gouged through the stone as he struggled to heft it up. Sparks danced at their heels, and, as predicted, Vergil dodged deftly to the side as Dante sailed past him.
Fingers curled around his wrist and twisted, a shoulder met his own, and Dante was three somersaults in before he processed what was happening. Rebellion flew out of his hands and skittered across the ground to rest at Vergil's feet. The traitor. His leather coat shredded open at the shoulder and his raw skin grated across the uneven stone as he slid the final few feet to his utter humiliation. His left arm rested underneath him, wrist twisted at angles no wrist should ever be twisted to. His broken bones desperately tried to stitch themselves back together despite the gruesome angle. He was covered in blood, mostly Vergil's from the central pool and surrounding veins, but his own as well.
“I expected more of a fight from you, little brother.”
That haughty tone was enough to snap him back to his senses. His trembling arms forced him up to his knees, but his body would take him no further. His shoulders slumped in resignation.
Vergil toyed with Rebellion, nudging it this way and that with the tip of his boot, taunting him. For a moment he looked as if he was going to slide it over to him again, but then a smirk twisted on his face.
“You look good on your knees.”
He kicked Rebellion backward, away from Dante. The sword clattered down the steps and slammed into the wall.
A soft whimper escaped his throat. The tremors he’d been trying to hold back ripped through him all in an instant, and it took all of his will to brace his shoulders.
“This is cheating!” Dante snapped. “What did you do to me?”
Vergil may have won, but he wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of seeing him laid so low. He’d die with his head held high.
At least, that’s what his pride demanded. His body was a different matter. Vergil took one step closer, and the tremble exploded into a full-body shiver. He had to wrap his arms around himself to keep himself stable.
“Must I explain everything to you?”
Dante glared up at him.
Vergil waved a hand in his direction, wrist twisting with an overly-dramatic flourish.
“You’re in heat.”
“So?”
The word heat meant nothing to him, but his brother's brows furrowed in contempt, so he supposed it was something Vergil thought he ought to know.
Vergil inched closer. Panic flooded into him. He'd stepped across an invisible line in the sand, a line that sang death if he didn't stop it... but his muscles were jelly, Rebellion was far from his reach, and the only thing he could do was bare his teeth and snarl. His gums ached and his tongue slithered against coppery, sweet blood coating the backs of his bottom teeth.
Vergil’s progress halted. He took half a step back, but the uneasiness in Dante didn’t settle. His clammy hands and cool skin clawed at the zippers of his coat and jerked it shut around his shivering upper body, but it didn't help. It was like his body had stopped generating heat entirely. His vision grew hazier with each blink. Even his nose had abandoned all hope and gone numb from the assault on his senses.
The only sense that hadn’t failed him was his hearing. Vergil’s boots sang a gentle tap, tap, tap as he glided across the stone floor. The chorus rotated around Dante’s head in a perfect circle before his legs, now little more than a fragmented puddle of brown, drifted back into his vision.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. His fingers clawed at his sides, imbued with some undirected restlessness he couldn’t place, but he could no longer feel them. They were no longer attached to him.
Fabric rustled. His ears twitched. He sensed more than saw the trajectory Vergil's coat took as it flew toward him. His numb arms snatched it out of the air and he pulled it close against his chest, and the air grew a little lighter. His world grew a little clearer. He looked up, and Vergil smiled at him. Not a smirk, not a sneer. A smile. The kind that used to light up his whole world.
His heart thundered back to life.
“You’re mine,” Vergil growled. He took one long step right across his invisible line, but the sense of panic dissipated, replaced now with a pleasant burn deep in his core.
Vergil knelt before him and gripped his jaw in both hands.
Dante bared his teeth again, but the fire in him had transformed into something very different.
“I’m going to ruin you.”
Vergil crashed their lips together, and the burn exploded into bliss, and then shame, because he was pretty sure kissing his own twin wasn’t supposed to feel like his world had finally turned right-side up.
He pursed his lips defiantly, because letting Vergil’s tongue and teeth have their way felt like losing, and he was never one to give in without a fight. But then Vergil’s fingers knotted in his hair and yanked until his roots burned, and Dante gave him what they both wanted.
Vergil’s exploration felt more like a pillaging, and a clumsy one at that. He didn’t seem to care that his tongue and Dante’s lips came away bloodied. Calloused hands slipped under his coat and groped at his chest, his sides, his stomach, leaving trails of fire in their wake.
It was nothing he’d ever experienced, and everything everyone told him he should have. He squirmed, his pants growing increasingly tight and uncomfortable. His weak fingers twisted into Vergil’s shirt for purchase.
Vergil’s hands finally found their way to the holster strap across his chest connecting his coat. It was only attached by a few snaps, so it came easily when Vergil tore at it. One sleeve slid down Dante’s arm and exposed his bare shoulder.
Some warring instinct within him overwhelmed him. He tore away from Vergil's sweet suffocation and tugged his coat over his exposed chest.
“Now you want to be decent? When you’ve been running around like that all evening?”
“Piss off.” There was a difference between choosing to run around shirtless and having someone else tearing your clothes off. He shouldn't need to explain that to Vergil.
Before he could breathe, the back of his head met the stone floor. The crack that met his ears synced perfectly with the whole world blinking black for a tense moment. When his vision came to, Vergil loomed over him, fingers knotted in his bangs.
“You reek,” he snarled. He crushed Dante’s head into the pulverized stone and blood. “You should only smell of me. No one else.”
He squirmed, but the fight his body put up was a token effort at best. He was at his limit. Vergil won.
A pathetic whine passed from his lips. He squeezed Vergil’s coat to his chest protectively.
“Good.” Vergil’s thumb brushed against his cheek, and his lips followed shortly behind.
Heat shot straight to his cock. Something wet and sticky dribbled against his backside. He twisted his hips to get away from the sensation, but it was inside, clinging, sticking to his inner thighs.
That wasn't right. Was he bleeding? Dying? He didn't think he could die, but then, he'd never thought he could be this weak, either.
“S-something’s wrong… with me… I’m…” How could he even say it? I’m wet? His voice choked in his throat. “H-help…”
Vergil ripped his pants down and his eyes raked over his bare, soaked thighs. A pleased smile spread over his face. The bastard. Of course he knew.
“Not wrong. Ready for me. Made for me.” The calloused pads of his thumbs stroked Dante’s tears away, like how the ghost from their long dead past might have. “Don’t be afraid. You’re mine.”
Every tensed muscle in his body loosened all at once. Whatever remained of his defenses shattered with just those two simple words. You’re mine.
Vergil climbed on top of him, between his legs, gazing down at him like he was the sun, the stars, the oxygen he breathed, the blood that gave him life, the only thing he’d ever need. He glared at the edges of the room like even the shadows and stones themselves were intruders upon this moment.
Vergil sheathed himself with clumsy determination. Pleasure rippled through Dante’s body like pebbles disrupting the surface of water with each thrust, each scrape of his leather jacket against stone, each frantic slap of skin against skin. He squeezed his legs around Vergil’s midsection to draw him in closer.
“Ver… gil..!” He buried his face in Vergil’s coat to muffle his moans.
“Let them hear you,” Vergil growled. He ripped the coat away from his mouth, and followed it up with another punishing snap of his hips.
Dante bit his lip instead. Petty? Maybe. But his tongue had temporarily forgotten how to form words—truly a feat—and it was the only act of defiance he could manage when the only things registering in his mind were the sick squelches of their bodies rolling together and the euphoria shooting through his veins.
Vergil’s fingers found their way to the back of his head yet again and yanked his hair until his throat was on display. Anticipation mounted in him, for what,he didn't know, but the beast stirring beneath his skin did.
Vergil’s teeth snapped around his throat. The feeling shot through him like electricity and numbed what little sensation remained in his fingers.
Dante sputtered and choked. Blood gurgled in his throat as he fought to breathe through the pain. The teeth sunk well beyond a surface wound. They shredded his skin in a bloody mess, tore through his jugular, and even grazed his windpipe. Vergil’s tongue slithered along his adam’s apple to catch every drop of blood he drained as he drank deeply.
Dante’s vision went black at the edges, but just he was about to pass out, Vergil released his grip on his neck and his skin stitched itself back together again. The last remaining rivulets of blood flowed down his nape and settled into the collar of his coat. Dimly, he became aware of his own sticky seed coating his bare stomach, and the stretch of his body around his brother's cock. Vergil lapped at the healing flesh in a gesture that might have been apologetic, but Dante knew better.
He squirmed. A wave of something hot and sticky emptied inside of him and pressure mounted in his stomach. At first it was a pleasant sort of fullness, like he’d just finished a well-deserved meal, but then it grew more painful as his midsection bloated. He tried to pull away, but their bodies were locked together.
“Verge…” The desperate whine he unleashed was foreign to him. His entire body was foreign to him. “Let me go. H-hurts…”
“Shhhhh…” Vergil purred.
Vergil pressed his left forearm against his mouth, and his right hand slid under his lower back to help tilt his hips up. That helped, but not much. Dante dug sharper than human canines into Vergil's wrist in retaliation. The sharp gasp was reward enough, but Vergil's blood on his tongue was heady and sweet. Not the copper he was used to, nor the bitterness he'd expected.
He drank it down without thinking, and that eased the dull ache in his core. His body slowly relaxed again.
“That’s right,” Vergil purred. “Mark me. Make me yours, my mate.”
Vergil briefly pulled his arm back, inspecting the soon-to-be nonexistent damage done by Dante’s teeth, before he wiped away a dribble of blood on Dante’s chin.
Look at me! I hate it when you ignore me.
Dante whined and lunged again, picking his teeth over every inch of the bare flesh of Vergil’s forearm he could sink into, until the throbbing in the back of his head disappeared.
Vergil’s cock slid out of him with a wet pop , and Dante groaned. It hurt to have it in him, but it somehow hurt even more to have it out of him. He rutted against Vergil’s flaccid member, staining the front of his pants with his own wetness and Vergil’s spent seed.
“Later,” Vergil said. “Sleep now.”
He'd never listened to Vergil a day in his life, but his exhausted body took his command as permission. His world went black, the last thing on his mind the suffocatingly bittersweet scent that now clung to every inch of him.