@marks-of-weakness asked: ❛ i never thought it would come to this . ❜ || DEATH OF AN OPTIMIST
Father is a funny word for him. No matter how wrapped up in the bitterest of truths that it is. That it comes right to the tip of his tongue is a shame as it is a regret when Nero hears the distinct, deliberate pattern of Vergil’s footsteps on the floorboards--louder than the rain against the window, louder than his thoughts--and when cold crawls down his spine (phantom pain beating in his arm like it does in his chest.) Yes. A funny word. Strange, unthinkable, even. But one Nero doesn’t speak again. Nero doesn’t even turn at first, watching the grey, rain-addled world outside where there is nothing happening within to watch at all. He waits. He knows somehow that Vergil will speak first without Nero uttering so much as a breath.
And predictably, he does. Perhaps made uneasy with the drab, lazy quiet, or with the thoughts turning by in his own head. Nero can admit that he feels altogether quite the same, today. Slightly, Nero’s head tilts to glance him over one broad shoulder as the other man’s words ring in his ears. “Oh yeah?” He queries, voice rough from disuse, gaze passing briskly over the figure that stands at his back, cold blue all the way down to his eyes. Nero huffs, fingers drumming the windowsill with idle contemplation. “Then how did you see things turning out?”
Barely a question that needs an answer, anyway. But Nero wonders in what ways he might give one. A memory rears its head at thinking as much, the image of a smaller, paler, gentler self that liked to explain and talk as much as he liked to remain a mystery. A few words that he said that seem impossible to be coming from the same heart and soul as this man’s now. A few words that make Nero turn in his seat entirely with the weight of his curiosity.
“...You told me some things, y’know. Things you wanted. Things I bet you don’t wanna say out loud now it’s all over. Makes me wonder what you really wanted this whole time, if you’re even honest enough with yourself to know...” Protection and love are even funnier words than “father” to imagine right here, right now. But he remembers them, as he remembers V’s ailing face and empty smile so full of honesty that Nero didn’t even begin to understand. Staring at Vergil looming in his place, he’s not sure if he is glad to understand now or if he is not.
“Well...” A huff, Nero’s dawn-blue eyes turning back to the rain-battered window, “like it or not, this is how things turned out. So better get used to it, huh?”















