For the prompt list, can you do "You always do this" between any of the Spardas? Take your pick and give us some family dramedy :)
Vergil ought to have known his brother was up to something, simply by the fact that everything was so quiet. Silence was never Dante’s preferred way of doing things, loud and bombastic as he was. But perhaps, Vergil was so desperate for some peace and quiet, he’d deluded himself into thinking his brother was busy bothering his mother, or playing in the backyard. And so he relaxed, enjoying his book as he sat on the antique couch, his legs dangling over the side savouring each and every word.
Of course, it couldn’t last.
Like the whine of a thousand locusts, he heard it.
“Veeeeeergil… I’m bored…”
“Read a book then.”
Dante gave the look like Vergil had suggested he eat a jar of olives for fun.
“No, I wanna do something fun...like,” he pursed his lips, thinking hard, before his eyes lit up. “How about a race? The first one to the playground, wins!”
Vergil paused. It was tempting, beating his brother at yet another thing, but he was in the middle of his book, and was just getting to the good part where the shipwrecked protagonist, Johnny Truegood, had been captured by the Pirate Queen, Red Bess.
“Not right now, Dante. I’m busy.”
His brother pouted for a moment, before a sly smile crossed his face. “If you race me, and I win, you still get my dessert tonight. And if YOU win, you get my dessert for the rest of the week.”
Well, Vergil thought as he placed a bookmark between the pages, Whatever Red Bess has planned for poor Johnny, it won’t be strawberry shortcake. And the look on Dante’s face when he ate the delicious fluffy treat in front of him would be totally with it.
“Alright,” he said, and his brother’s face lit up in glee, “if you insist... On your mark...get set… GO!”
What happened was incredibly anticlimactic. Instead of speeding for the door, Vergil’s feet hit the hardwood floor, but went no further. The sensation of falling, and then a heavy THUD, as his head hit the floor. For a moment he heard nothing, saw nothing, but gradually, he heard the insane cackling of his brother. “Verg, I didn’t think it would work, but holy smokes it did!” And now his brother had fallen to the floor, laughing like an insane circus clown.
Vergil attempted to get back up, if only to punch him for laughing at him, but his feet just wouldn’t move. The reason was simple, his shoelaces from both shoes had been tied together in a tight knot.
“You-” Dante wheezed between giggles, “you were so into your book, you didn’t even notice me slipping under the couch….I can’t believe it!”
Okay, perhaps he couldn’t get up in a dignified manner, but he could still roll over, quick as a flash and begin delivering a beating his brother would never forget.
After their mother had found them in the middle of their all out brawl… neither of them got dessert...for a month.
*******
Almost forty years later….
Vergil sat on yet another couch, this time reading a book, called “The Internet for Dummies”. Had it been Dante who’d have given to him, he’d have been skewered with several spectral swords. But this time it was a gift from Nicoletta, with an added hurried explanation from Nero that the title was a marketing thing, not intended as an insult. So far, the reading had proven...interesting. Whole libraries of information could be found in the span of an instant, without the aid of some decrepit, scheming, wife-murderer.
Dante had come into the room, whistling, and after a second to peer over his shoulder, sat down at his desk, and began to call a number.
“Hey Nero,” he smiled, “How’s things with your old lady?” a pause, as he was most likely chewed out by his son for calling Kyrie that, “Sorry, I won’t call her that again, anyways, how’s things on the island?” He nodded thoughtfully, and then his eyebrows shot up. “Oh, yeah, he’s here.” He covered the speaker, and got Vergil’s full attention, “Nero wants to speak to you.”
Well, as interesting as the book was, it could wait. It had been a week or so since he and his son had talked, and he would never decline an opportunity to have a conversation. It wouldn’t make up for his absence for most of Nero’s life, but his son seemed to enjoy their talks.
He stood up, with the intention of grabbing the speaker from Dante’s outstretched hand, but instead, the familiar sensation of falling, and then his face hitting the stained wood, followed by the incredibly irritating laughter of his brother.
“Holy shit Verg...you REALLY are oblivious when you get into a book.” He hung up the phone. “I didn’t think you’d fall for my acting…but I shouldn’t have been surprised.”
Vergil’s eyes shot down to his feet. No knotted shoelaces this time, but something much more infuriating. Dante had somehow taken the straps of his boots, and strapped them to the opposing boot.
Vergil growled.
‘You always do this.’
He began to shoot out an arsenal of spectral swords, but Dante had already made a hasty retreat, cackling madly.
His knees, and ego bruised, Vergil slowly got up. What he should have done, taken off his boots and chased after his little brother, to remind him what a beating was, but instead, he smiled.
It wouldn’t take long before Dante realized that earlier today, Vergil had superglued olives into all of his little brother’s jacket pockets….
