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Vergil had left him to die.
That's all Dante could think of as the cold, wet concrete beneath his back permeated the leather of his jacket. His blood pooled at his side, mixing with the rain and forming puddles of diffusing red with dark halos. The dull throbbing in his chest made it difficult to think, with each aching pound seeming to sap his strength more. Dante was so cold and so weak. He was so tired, too. Surely it wouldn't hurt to close his eyes for just a little?
When he opened them again, the scene around him had shifted. He was in his father's study, hovering outside the entranceway. If he peeked around the bookshelf, he could make out Sparda's tall, impressive silhouette. And just like that, he was a child again, waiting nervously in the doorway, too intimidated to approach any further.
"You're late, Dante," came Sparda's booming voice.
Dante startled at the power behind it. An old, childish reflex. He'd never liked it when his father raised his voice, no matter the context.
"No matter," Sparda said. His voice was much softer this time. "Come in."
Dante approached hesitantly, not daring to defy him, but anxious nonetheless. Whatever Sparda wanted him for, it seemed serious. Dante didn't do serious. He tried to hold his chin up higher and square his shoulders. He wasn't a kid anymore, his fear was stupid. Dante navigated the maze of the library. It was a living cliche with its dark, towering shelves and low lighting. Old oak and elegant mahogany made up the chair and table. The clean tile made his footsteps ring throughout the room's echoing walls.
Sparda did not look up at him as Dante fell to his side. Instead, he continued writing in his red-bound notebook with that perfect calligraphy of his. Though, the man held up a finger to request his son's patience, which acknowledged Dante's presence, at the very least. Dante had never really been good at waiting. He shifted on his feet nervously as Sparda finished with his writing. That musty moleskin book seemed as though it was forever being filled by Sparda. Though, what notes he was taking remained a mystery. Dante had never thought to ask and it seemed pointless to pose the question now. There was the sound of the pen scratching, the clock ticking, and nothing else for a few moments.
Finally, Sparda turned to him and closed his notebook, smiling down at his son. The journal was shifted towards the end of his desk as the man finally faced his boy. Dante flinched at the smoothed-back white hair and those stern grey eyes. He'd forgotten just how much their father looked like Vergil. Sparda seemed saddened by the action but quickly brought his smile back up again.
"Your clothes are in quite the state. Have you been fighting with your brother again?" Sparda chuckled softly as he took in Dante's appearance. It reverberated a little in his chest like a cat's purr.
Dante only stared at him.
"You know that it upsets your mother so when you boys fight, don't you?" Sparda continued, unperturbed.
Dante's fists curled at the sound of the old man's chipper voice. His nails dug crescent marks into his palms. "You- you left," he spat.
Sparda frowned.
"You just fucking left us all there." His anger was white-hot in his chest, boiling in his veins. "Mom's dead. Vergil's gone all power-hungry, and here you are just yucking it up? Smiling, like nothing ever happened?" Dante's voice was hoarse and low, almost a growl. "Everything's gone to shit because you just up and left to get some demon cigarettes or whatever and never came back. We never got so much as a goodbye."
Dante had never really been one for expressing his emotions, but here sat the root cause of damn near every one of his problems and he wasn't dropping his only chance to give the man a piece of his mind.
"Are you done?" Sparda said, face impassive.
"No. All my life, I've been stuck cleaning up your messes. I've been targeted just for being your son, as if I ever wanted to be in the first place, father." Dante took a few deep breaths. "Alright, now I'm done."
Sparda reached out a gloved hand and cupped Dante's cheek. He wanted to wrench it off as much as he wanted to cling to it. Because as much as he didn't want this, he needed it so badly that it hurt. All he'd ever wanted was his father's approval.
"Dante," his father said his name like it was something precious. "I'm so sorry."
Dante had to avert his gaze. He'd never seen so much emotion in his father's eyes before. "Sorry isn't good enough, old man." His voice was dangerously close to breaking.
"I know it isn't. Believe me, I know. But it's all I have." Sparda was hunched over in his shame. The great Devil Lord, the hulking frame of a man was lowering himself before Dante. "You boys were so precious to me. Of all my many years, the time spent with the three of you was my favourite. As foolish as the notion of a devil playing house is," he chucked.
"Bullshit," Dante snarled.
Sparda retracted his hand, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Excuse me?"
"Bullshit. Proud of Vergil, maybe. He practically came out fully demonic and he's out there killing himself over it right now. But never me. Nothing I ever did was ever good enough for you."
"Dante," he said, his face falling. "My firecracker of a son. I loved your mother for her humanity, how could I have denied you the same?"
The room around him was fading, growing fuzzy around the edges. It was disconcerting, but Dante had eyes only for his father.
"I was never the best at expressing myself," Sparda continued.
"You can say that again," Dante grumbled.
"A cultural barrier, perhaps," he chuckled. "But I have always loved you." Sparda glanced up at the clock. "We're running out of time. Clean up your old man's mess one more time, hmmm?" A kiss, tender as an angel's from the devil himself, was pressed to Dante's forehead. "I'm so proud of you, my boy."
"I just wish I could've heard that from, y'know, you," Dante said.
"Who says you haven't?" Sparda replied, his eyes sparkling mischievously. "Go now. It is not yet your time."
When Dante awakened, lying atop the temen-ni-gru, he touched his forehead. A drop of rain clung to his face in the same place that Sparda had kissed it. A reminder of his father's love.
In the underworld, the battered and beaten body of what had once been a proud Son of Sparda lay dying.
Vergil was standing in a field. The long grass poked at his pant legs as it swayed in the gentle breeze. The sun was warm against his back. Birds trilled in the distance and there was the sound of children playing in the foreground. They were babbling to each other in the nonsense speech of toddlers and shrieking with the sort of joy that only a child knows. The source of the noise, two white-haired children in oversized shirts, trundled drunkenly. Their legs were not yet used to walking. He'd seen enough pictures around the manor to easily identify them as younger versions of himself and Dante.
Across from them, keeping watch, sat a woman beneath the shade of a tree. A shirt lay upon her lap and she hummed to herself as she mended it.
Vergil's heart froze in his chest as he registered that familiar shade of blonde hair. "Of course," he remarked bitterly. "An eternity with my mother. This is hell, after all."
The woman looked up at the sound of his voice and instantly smiled warmly up at him. "Vergil? It's a lovely day. Sit with me, won't you?"
If she was surprised to see an adult version of her previously toddler-aged son, she did not show it. Of course, she'd recognise him, even now. This had to be his personal brand of eternal damnation.
He drew up his icy walls around his heart and sneered. "Spare me," he hissed venomously at her.
"Vergil, I don't know what on earth has gotten into you, but I'm still your mother. You're not to talk to me like that," Eva chided.
The look of shock on her face twisted his throat.
"You don't have to pretend anymore," he growled.
"What on earth has gotten into you?" She repeated.
"What's gotten into me, is that you left me to die while you saved the only son you've ever truly cared about. And yet, you keep up this ridiculous façade. I'm a murderer now. No one will blame you for dropping your false pretences, so spare me, mother."
"Oh, sweetheart," she said so gently that Vergil's heart ached. "You must have been so afraid." She abandoned her sewing entirely and approached him with open arms.
"I was." His voice was thick.
"Tell me, Vergil. I carried you inside my body, I fed you from my breast. How could I have not loved you?"
"You tell me."
"I loved you so much. My proud, sensitive little gentleman. So much like your father."
For all his harsh words, he folded almost immediately. He'd needed to hear those words from her more than life itself. Eva pressed him against her chest and Vergil choked on a sob. Her voice was gentle as she hushed him. He had not wept since he was eight, but he didn't have the energy to be embarrassed. His mother held him with one hand and stroked his hair with the other. Vergil wished he could remain there forever, in Eva's warm, comforting embrace.
"I'm so tired, mother. Can I stay here?"
"I know you are, Vergil. But you have to keep going. Can you do that for me?"
"I'm so tired," he said again.
"I know. But I'm so proud of you, sweetheart," his mother said as she pressed a kiss to his hand.
The memory of his mother's love kept him warm for a time. It was the last thing that Mundus took from him.