I am soooooooo sorry for the delay, I should be stoned, I know, but I have so very little free time T^T

Aniway, I hope you like this new entry, hugs!

Chapter 19

Revenge is barren of itself; itself is the dreadful food it feeds on;

its delight is murder, and its satiety, despair.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

In the last chapter:

"Oh, talking about Vergil..." His twin had an expression that Dante would have killed to preserve for posterity; it was something between blowfish and scared deer with a little of a cocaine addict squirrel, if the tic in his left eye was something to go about.

Dante turned around a little to see him better.

— This is what it looks like —he declared, but Vergil couldn't close his mouth or his enormous eyes, even a little. Maybe his face would stay like that till the end of time.

At least it would be funny.

oOo

Vergil thought he was being the victim of a psychic attack, and his proud warrior soul felt shame to have fallen for it, but even then he could not act to stop it, or maybe he didn´t want to, damn the consequences. But, then again, if it was a psychic attack, shouldn´t his brother be out of the lovely picture? Or shouldn´t D look happier to see him and less like a very angry deer caught in the headlights? He DID NOT want to see his twin naked; certainly not together with D, even if he looked almost fragile and sinfully alluring without clothes. If it were a trick, the dhampir would be posing with only Yamato for cover, calling to him while resting in a sea of blue pillows...

So it was not a psychic attack.

The alternative was...

Oh crap.

His eyes refused to close, and Vergil didn´t blame them, not while that exquisite creature continued exposed like that just a few meters from him, not even if the very unclothed figure of his brother was in the panorama too.

Maybe I am in shock.

Did they...? "Obviously, you dimwit idiot" his brain told him, sneering. In what other way could they have ended up naked and together in the same scorched battlefield? Or it could be that they have been attacked by a bacteria that only devoured inorganic material; or their clothes could have caught fire in the melee...

His brain felt like pudding, and he very much did not like the jealousy feeling that was nestling in his gut.

— Staring is bad manners, Verg —said Dante, of course, and the bastard looked a step before laughing his ass off. Meanwhile, D rolled his eyes in a very deadpan way and, having showed what he thought of them, took his fingers to his lips and whistled elegantly for a few seconds.

This time, both Sparda twins looked at him, but the No-Life Prince ignored them with all the might of his indifference, and not even his nakedness took any force out of it.

The sound of clapping hooves made the twins stop watching him. The 3 cyber horses stopped a meter from the dhampir and then he stood up without bating and eye. Almost at the same time, Dante stood between him and his brother, shamelessly of his own bare skin.

—No peeking, Bro —Dante teased him. Vergil´s mouth didn´t seem to function properly, and if his eyes were to open a little more, he would surely lose them. Exasperated, the older twin closed his eyes and turned around for good measure, not trusting himself. It helped, but not the graze and whispering of clothes being pulled, or his brain offering images for him to go with the sounds. If his nose started bleeding, he swore to kill himself.

— What in the name of all the Kings of Hell happened here? —Vergil spoke at last, and if his voice sounded a little hysterical Dante didn´t mention it. He instead looked for his clothing, and smiled at seeing that his coat was more or less intact; the rest had died in the encounter —his smile widened—, and he forced himself not to watch D too much, the image was too tempting to not want to have an encore. He opened the saddlebags of his cyber horse and pulled a spare of clothes.

Addressing his brother´s question, his pale eyes searched for what had started said passionate encounter. The dagger that had almost killed him was very near them, but only the handle remained. Without moving his eyes from the thing, he asked in a serious tone:

— What the fuck was that? —Vergil followed his twin's glance, nothing for the first time the malevolent aura surrounding the seemingly ordinary object.

— An antimatter cursed object with the power of a small big-bang reactor —D answered, very somberly, and Dante looked at him surprised. The dhampir softened his expression and asked him—: Are you ok?

Dante smiled so brightly that D feared he would get heat syndrome from it; at the same time his almost unused stomach made a weird twist and he had to make and effort to not avert those gorgeous eyes. It was quite a challenge, but at least there was clothes and distance between them, not that helped a lot.

— Offended that a toothpick almost sent me to the afterlife, but I am fine —Dante smiled at him again, swearing that D looked almost shy, or nervous, or both, and Dante loved every second. He then remembered the awesome rush of power that had surged between them, and shuddered. Sex and blood had got him away from the abyss of Death, blessed be his demonic ability of feeding of energy. Absently he took his fingers to his neck. He could almost feel those fangs piercing his skin again, and he inhaled forcefully. When he looked at D, he was already putting on the worn-out long coat like cape that Lugosi would have died of envy for.

— I am still waiting —Vergil spoke, and this time he sounded more angry than impatient. He turned to look at them and was grateful to see clothes and not bare velvety skin—. I destroyed the central control of that thing, and when I was coming back here suddenly all of the soldiers turned to dust.

— I destroyed Valcua —said D, undaunted although there was fury and something else in his eyes. He was consciously forcing himself to remain in control, he noted, much to his chagrin; that was not a common occurrence, and it was not welcome, nor were the maelstrom of feelings that kept fighting their way to the forefront of his mind.

— I intercepted a dagger; a very cursed and not a dagger at all, apparently —said Dante, looking at his twin this time, and Vergil armed the rest of the tale. He didn´t want to ask for the details, that would be beyond awkward, but he saw the deep feeling in those eyes identical to his, and felt something that hadn't touched his heart for a long time now: fear. He had almost lost Dante, that was very clear, and that because his baby brother apparently was willing to die for D...

If the "dagger" would have killed him or not was debatable, but the other fact disturbed him a great deal. Vergil watched the dhampir checking the content of his saddlebags, and to him he looked as distant as the first time he settled eyes on him. What did it mean? What was going on between those two? Was it one-sided?

Life was easier when he had wanted to embrace his demonic inheritance. The blue-cladded twin released air noisily, getting a funny look from Dante. It wasn´t a common gesture in his brother, at least not since he was twelve.

— Valcua is no more —said D suddenly, wanting to distract himself from the chaos inside him—, but it would be prudent to investigate his lair. Someone else was pulling his strings.

That he wanted to utterly destroy the puppeteer was clear in the mortal gleam of his grey eyes.

Valcua was dead. Dante didn´t feel especially happy for that, maybe because that had been the reason they have teamed up, and now that reason was dust scattering on the wind. But on the other side...

— How´s your neck? —he asked his twin, and Vergil almost looked confused for a second.

— Now that you mention it... It is fine. I cannot feel him anymore —catching D and his brother after a session of wild sex had made him forget for a moment that small detail of the liberty of his soul and mind, it seamed. Vergil scowled, unsatisfied. He had wanted to tear the life out of Valcua himself, but it was impossible now. He just hopped D had given him a hideous dead. By the fury in his always composed voice, it seemed that way.

The Sparda duo climbed on his horses almost simultaneously and followed D to the fortress that could be seen looming over the horizon. D watched it and frowned; it was a very common scene for him, just a new unknown horror waiting, but somehow it didn´t feel the same as always. He closed his eyes, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "Focus on the hunt" —he told himself, but it was hard to do so...

Why?

He did not want to ask that question, not even to think about it, although it was too late now and he knew it. He had given his back to Life; he was not going to change that resolution now.

A powerful yawn drew him out of his gloomy reverie, and almost made the favorite son of Dracula let a look of horror to show in his heavenly features. D felt the telltale ripple in his left hand, and a second later the coarse voice of Lefty made the twins look in his direction:

— Oh man, I haven´t slept so well in centuries!

Dante´s glance went to D´s left hand, a grimace rising in his now a little green skin.

— Please tell me you weren´t there.

Lefty let out a nervous laughter, and D´s hand tensed dangerously.

— I went to sleep as soon as I was sure you weren´t going to kill is both! I swear! —the carbuncle said, and he sounded genuinely scared for his existence, but his frenetic voice was silenced by the powerful grip of his host and Lefty let scape a pained huff!—. Ok, ok! I may have peeped once or twice, just to double check! —he added, his voice muffled and pained—, but it was noting grave or too juicy, I was preoccupied!

Even Vergil felt fear in the face of the unearthly ire that surged from the "dhampir", although it contrasted almost comically with the "eep!" from the parasite.

— Not a word, or I will bury you on a volcano´s core —D´s tone could have killed by itself.

A gulp later, Lefty agreed frantically:

— Yes, yes. Jeez, but you are delicate.

— Better throw him into Hell´s deepest pit —offered Dante, and Lefty feared for his life when he caught the murderous gleam burning in the eyes of the demon Hunter. "Possessive much?" Lefty would have wanted to say that, but he loved life. He also admitted to be flabbergasted with what had happened. Dante had slipped like nobody before through the cracks in D´s armor, making him break his millenary celibacy and, not satisfied with that, he had also made D drank blood.

"Talking about popping two cherries with one stone..." But he was also worried about his host; he knew D enough to know that he was worried too. Centuries of denying what he was, of containing every little impulse, crush all of his vampire instincts while fighting the terrible hunger, just to fall in one single moment... What was going to happen to him now? He hoped nothing horrible, but he was certain not even Dracula would knew for sure. "If he hasn´t gone berserker yet, I doubt he is going to go mad later". The iron control of D was unheard of in both vampire and dhampir, so maybe they were both worrying too much...

Maybe.

Dracula had not named him his only success for nothing. That was something. On the other hand, he was still analyzing the effects that the half demon´s blood was having on D. He had jack squat so far, so complex it was, and D´s blood was a fearsome weapon on its own so there was that...

But Dante should have died ingesting it. There was that too.

Lefty sighed tiredly.

TBC ^^ Please review!