Author: Moiranna
Title: Truth – if you Dare
Theme: #32 – Confusion
Rating: R
Realm: Devil May Cry
Pairing: None
Characters: Dante, Trish, Vergil
Genre: tragedy, family
Warnings: gore, torture
Word-count: 733
Summary: What happened to Vergil after he fell? Dante wanted to know, but in truth he didn't. Trish still told him, and Dante regretted the decision. Post DMC1, graphic descriptions of what happened to Vergil between DMC3-1.
Notes: Written for twinempaths at tumblr since she brought up one of my headcanons about Dante and collars and why he hates them.

Dante was drunk. More so than he normally allowed himself to become. He was more than aware of that he really shouldn't do this, that this was stupid and he was just torturing himself further. He had just gone through Mallet Island and barely survived. They were dead. Gone. That last chapter finally closed. But a part of him still had to know. What had actually happened? He had been wondering that for years. Had caressed the old scar in his palm and gone through the endless options, always drawing a blank.

Clutching the bottle of Jack Daniels tight, his voice still somehow steady he took a deep breath.

"Trish, what happened to Vergil?"

The she-devil was in a similar state of inebriation, lying sprawled out on the couch, delicately passing tiny bolts of lightning between her hands, transfixed on the movement of light.

"He died." Her voice was strangely calm though it seemed like she spoke as from a great distance.

Dante just scoffed. "I know that. I'm the one who ran a sword through him."

Trish laughed, though the sound was hollow and without any mirth. She held out a hand for the bottle, and Dante passed it to her. She drunk deep. "Your brother died almost five years ago. Nelo Angelo was just an empty shell. Mundus made sure of that."

Dante said nothing, just reached for the bottle. Trish rescinded it without any remarks. In the silence she heard the unvoiced question. A deep sigh and she yanked the bottle back, draining it. Her eyes closed, eyes moving behind the closed lids as she remembered.

"He was still wounded when Mundus caught him. Huge gash over his belly. Your doing, I suspect. Still came after Mundus, wanted to defeat him." Trish paused, another hollow hiccoughing laugh leaving her throat. "It didn't work. Mundus just toyed with him. And after that… it was just a long game of how long it would take until he cracked. It took a month before he made Vergil scream. Another three before he finally shut up. He…"

She swallowed convulsively, and Dante just watched her, his eyes empty and lifeless, already regretting the question. His mouth was drier than a desert; he wanted desperately to move, to get away and to be anywhere but here. To understand just what had happened.

"He… Mundus turned Vergil into a pet. Kept him collared and dragged him around by the leash of a long steel chain. His legs were consistently broken to keep him from running away, so often he was dragged along the floor by his neck. And when Mundus realised that Vergil could regenerate his skin he made it into a game to see how much skin he could remove before he'd actually kill him. All except his face. Mundus loved that face, kept saying that something so pretty shouldn't be tarnished."

A visible shudder left Trish as she opened her eyes and the bottle she still held shattered in her hands. Dante still sat in the armchair next to the couch, and hadn't Trish been able to pick up his frantic heartbeat she would have thought that he had turned into stone for the lack of movement.

"Don't make me continue." Words low, pleading.

Dante rose, disappearing into the back area of the Devil May Cry, appearing a couple of minutes later with a bottle of vodka. It was already half-empty, and he passed it to her without any further ado.

Brushing glass from her fingers Trish tipped the bottle back, almost choking at the acrid taste. Still she drank. Their eyes met as she lowered the bottle, and she read the expression in them correctly. She shook her head and exhaled long and slow, trying not to cough from the burning liquid.

"Mundus made sure to break him. Every way possible. Body, mind, soul. He would humiliate him at any given opportunity, forcing reactions out of him. Rape… was a common occurrence. And what eventually broke him was that he started to like it. The torture, all of it. And then he really didn't care. And after that Vergil just disappeared into nothingness, an empty shell where there'd been life."

Her voice faded into nothingness, and Dante knew that this was all he'd learn. Still he was too sober. Damn those genes. Damn that he couldn't kill Mundus again. Damn Vergil. Damn everything.

There just wasn't enough liquor in the world for this. Dante's only solace was that Vergil was gone. That this couldn't continue. But if this was relief Dante didn't know what to think or do.