I wish I could tell you where this came from. But I genuinely don’t know how to explain this. It's... a short story?
I don't know why but for some reason, I've been obsessed with the idea of memory. And also what Vergil's mind would look like post-DMC5.
After DMC5 and VoV, I believe Vergil's more in touch with his feelings than before, which is good, but recovery is (unfortunately) not a straight line.
He spent the last few decades chasing power. That was his focus. Now he's no longer focused on power. He has all of this headspace. What would he think about? Sure he still needs to repair his relationship with Nero and Dante, but what else would he worry about? What does he care about? What would stress him out?
So I decided to do a sort of writing "exercise"? I wanted to write down a scene that demonstrates him internally NOT doing well. And the scene exploded into this story.
Is this story OOC? Probably. Is it stupid? Yeah most likely. I've never written a story before.
Maybe I'll feel second hand embarrassment after posting this and proceed to never write stories again and stick to analyses only, but I think it's worth a shot posting this.
(Also this story is told from a 3rd person, but also partially Vergil's perspective. It also takes place after DMC5 and the twins have returned from hell for some time)
Vergil can feel Dante staring at him. He’s been doing that a lot in the past hour. Most likely because he doesn’t want to lose sight of Vergil. And he doesn't want to do that because he is afraid of how Vergil is going to respond to the fact Nero had screamed at him to leave him alone.
Hours later, Vergil has still done nothing. He is just sitting in the Devil May Cry office and reading a book. The same book, over and over again.
He can also hear his brother’s mind turning. Of course, he can.
What is Vergil going to do?
Is he going to continue doing nothing? Is he going to explode in anger? Is he going to run?
Vergil might be his twin, but he isn’t the same eight-year-old boy from all those years ago.
It’s been years since the whole Qlipoth event in Redgrave, but after that whole situation, along with time spent together in hell, the two realized that there’s still a lot left to learn about the other.
After all, Vergil, despite being calm and somewhat difficult to upset, once became extremely upset over something that was so insignificant-
It was something so frivolous.
One time, both Dante and Vergil, while successfully eradicating all the demons, ended up covered in mud because one particular demon kept thrashing around and throwing mud everywhere. It was a cowardly move, trying to blind the twins with a spray of mud.
Actually, it was laughable. The demon thought mud was enough to stop the sons of Sparda after everything they had been through-
After it was over, Dante, despite being a dirty mess, threw his head back and laughed. The two of them, caked in mud- it reminded him of those fights they had in their mother’s garden.
And when those fights happened, mother wasn’t amused because it meant most of the time, if not all, part of the garden was destroyed.
To make up for their actions, they had to spend hours (in reality, it was really less than one) removing the crushed flowers and adding new seeds...
Their mother would return and ask if they'd learned their lesson. The twins, being absolute angels, would say they did and that it wouldn’t happen again (They were really good liars. They were definitely doing it again tomorrow).
Then she’d get a hose and wash away all the dirt and sweat. Vergil wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but that was kind of fun getting sprayed with water and watching the dirt wash away.
And it was especially funny that one time when Dante decided he didn’t want to become clean and ran away… only to fall face-first into the dirt.
Those were good memories.
Vergil responded back by asking if Dante remembered that during one particular fight, Vergil somehow managed to hit him so hard that he ended up with a swollen forehead. He kind of looked like one of those Oranda goldfish...
Which led to their mother panicking because her son’s face normally didn't look like that. After Dante's face went back to looking normal, she was even more horrified to find that they also crushed her beautiful gladioli-
They were lilies. Dante was pretty sure they were lilies.
Vergil was confident that they were gladioli.
He had seen a drawing of a gladiolus in a random old horticulture book lying around and admired how regal it looked. He had turned to mother and told her that her garden would look much more magnificent if they had some.
It definitely didn’t have to do with the fact that he wanted to see one in person. It definitely wasn't a childish desire that he wanted to know if the real one looked as good as the one in the drawing.
When spring came, she managed to find some gladiolus bulbs. She spent a whole afternoon fussing over where to plant them while Vergil and Dante watched her out of curiosity. And when the gladioli bloomed in the summer, they looked like-
Lilies. They were definitely lilies.
Dante kept insisting that they were. Mother was upset because she spent so long caring for them. Vergil almost cried during her scolding.
Was his older brother’s memory going rusty? Did old age finally catch up to him? Looks like Vergil prepared for his grandfatherly duties in advance before Nero finally decided to have a kid-
Vergil didn’t respond, and Dante got the hint to shut up.
What flowers did mother grow in her garden?
She grew a lot of them. Every year, the garden was different.
At some point, the backyard was filled with blue hydrangeas, yellow tulips, ivory roses...
If she grew gladioli like Vergil remembered, then what color were they?
No, they were pink. A very pale pink, so pale-
Mother did grow white lilies at some point.
Did she even grow gladioli?
Did his mother ever grow a specific type of flower only because her son suggested it?
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she never grew those flowers because she didn’t care that much for Vergil.
Did she care less for him than he had actually believed?
Then, if that never happened, how many conversations with her were real?
Sparda lived for 2000 years, maybe even longer, so it made sense that Vergil and Dante would live much longer than a normal human.
Dante and Vergil knew what their parents looked like. Of course they did. They would continue to do so. There was Dante’s portrait of Eva, and even though they didn’t have any photos of Sparda… Well, all they had to do was look in a mirror.
But the memories. The moments. The details.
All of those could be lost without any warning.
It had been 3 decades. In a few years, it would be 4. If Vergil couldn’t remember one little detail, how many more would he forget in the next few years? The upcoming decades? The upcoming centuries?
How many memories would he remember when he was 200? 300? 500?
At what point would he solely remember that he once had a childhood, and that was it?
When would he forget all of those moments? The time they spent under that tree? All those times the twins fought in their mother’s garden? Or when the two fought over books?
In their home, there was once a library that held a little over a hundred books. It belonged to Sparda.
Vergil used to spend a lot of time there. He liked the smell of old paper and looking at the faded ink. He enjoyed reading the words, especially the ones that wove together ideas and sentiments to create something profound. He liked watching his father sit at his desk reading. Sometimes he’d read whatever he had in his hands out loud to Vergil and Dante.
It was one of the few places he went to for comfort after Sparda died. For a moment, he could pretend his father was still alive, sitting at his desk, reading.
And that library is gone. It’s just a pile of ash now. The demons burned the house down. They killed-
The people who knew of Sparda and Eva knew them as the Dark Knight and his human wife. The Traitor and the Traitor’s human wife.
To Vergil, they were mother and father.
The only proof that they were more than a demon knight and a human woman is in Vergil’s mind.
Would he forget all of that, too?
If he couldn’t remember whether the garden had gladioli or not, then he would eventually forget everything.
At some point, he would forget everything, and his mind would make something up to fill in the gaps.
At what point was Vergil going to forget that his parents were his mother and father, and not the Dark Knight and a human woman?
How do you shove all of these thoughts into a few sentences? How do you tell someone about all of this?
How do you make yourself look brave while sharing these thoughts when in reality you’re afraid?
For some stupid reason, he can’t remember, Vergil, out of the blue, said something to Dante. It’s snarky and somewhat demeaning.
And suddenly, what had been a good day with a successful job well done, was overshadowed by a nasty argument. At some point, Dante was yelling, and Vergil was yelling back-
In the end, Vergil stormed out of the muddy field and, instead of returning to Dante’s car, walked the entire 60 miles back to the office. He left as if he were an angry, inconsiderate teenager instead of a fully grown son of Sparda-
The calm, poised Son of Sparda, who had cut down thousands of demons and survived years tortured by Mundus, was breaking down because he couldn’t remember whether his mother grew a specific type of flower in the garden behind their home. It’s shameful and pathetic.
They were only flowers. Why did it matter if it turned out that mother grew lilies instead of gladiolus-
Why did he get so upset over a bunch of flowers?
It's silly, it's stupid, it's a sign that Vergil is losing grip, he's becoming a weakling-
The next day, while Dante was sitting at his desk reading a magazine, and Vergil was sitting at the farthest end of the couch, Dante nonchalantly said that… maybe, just maybe, they might’ve destroyed the gladioli, not the lilies. It was such a long time ago, and the two flowers look kind of similar (they don't, Vergil's not an idiot).
But it was a silent admission that Dante was wrong.
He was wrong, so they can put it all behind them, right?
Even though Dante gave a (silent) apology, it didn't make Vergil feel any better.
He's going to go find Nero.
UPDATE: If this story was confusing, especially what was actually happening, here's a breakdown of the chronological events and some extra details on why Vergil and Nero even fought: DMC Short Story #1 Extra
