#smokinstyle

[spirestar]

starter for @smokinstyle

Aerith doesn't organize her flower beds. Nothing should grow in Midgar anyway and she'd rather let nature take its course. If anything dies, it wasn't meant to grow just yet. If anything thrives, the Planet must've made that spot just for it. There's something less lonely about giving them the room to grow. Maybe because they'd like the same thing sometimes but only have Sector 5 to traipse through day in and day out. She sits in the pews and watches what little air filters in through the chapel's cracked windows bend the stems of the flowers this way and that. Peaceful amidst the tiny pocket of quiet the building provides. Sometimes that peace almost feels fake. All the rest of Midgar turning cogs and running machines and citizens working their fingers to the bone or hiding away. It feels wrong for respite to be possible only for the few who walk in and let themselves exist in it.

Well. Not everyone does that, though, do they? The front door creaks open behind Aerith and the boots that poke at the floorboards don't make familiar footfalls--She doesn't get many visitors as it is, but she knows the difference in sound between the worn soles of her neighbors and the firm plodding of the Turks' loafers. They turn their head and make a perfect penitent profile on the pew, one hand occupied with a half-bow tied stem for a wreath she's trying to start work on. "Hello?" They squint a little to see the figure entering better as he eclipses the doorway, light only poking beams at him instead of haloing him with how much space he takes up.

Aerith has never seen him before, she realizes immediately. They'd remember someone like this. Bright red coat and white hair. How many weeks has it been since anyone new entered the Sector? Buried themselves away under the Plate to hide? He can't be Shinra... right? Her shoulders straighten a bit and she smiles, friendly even though she'd like to frown and poke for immediate explanations; Is he--Is that blood? Aerith sets down the stem on her lap. "Do you need something, sir?"

[songsofreason]

@smokinstyle said: ❝ there’s going to be payback, you know. ❞

He turns the case file over in his hands, eyes unflinching. It feels a bit like playing with fire every time he takes one of these things; but what else can he do? He doesn't have any other skills. It feels too late to learn to do anything else especially when he's already one of the best in this field. In another life he could have been a librarian. Maybe a poet. That feels like a frightening dream to let himself consider. He closes his eyes for a moment. He's lucky Devil May Cry is tight-lipped otherwise the rumor--no, the truth, own up to your horror--that Vergil was Urizen the Demon King and the man who destroyed countless lives in Red Grave would run him into the ground a third time. There will one day be someone who meets Vergil for a job and asks if he's related to Dante and why he hasn't been around / where he's been / why Dante never talked about him before. And there will be a day that someone doesn't believe his lies and does a little too much digging and figures it out. And then the good days will be over again.

It's honestly amazing no one has come for revenge yet. Vergil certainly deserves it. He breathes in sharply through his nose. Hits the manila folder with the back of his other hand a few times. It's just like Dante to try and pawn off a job he doesn't want onto Vergil and turn it into some sort of condescending 'warning.'

And it's just like Vergil to ignore it. "Thanks for the case, brother." His words come as drily as they possibly can, turning his body away from Dante squarely, trying to cut off the conversation with a literal cold shoulder, eyes not once glancing or turning to fix on his twin but lingering staunchly on the folder instead, refusing to give Dante anything more than he already has. "I'm a better fit for it than you are."

[heartinhands]

YIPPIE mirror emoji ......... pretend im on dante <3

hello my friend whom i am making an exception for closing the asks for KJSDFKJDj @smokinstyle

dante's perfume would have notes of: guava, black pepper, bergamot, vanilla, tequila, sandalwood, gunsmoke, leather, suede.

basing this one a little off the one i did for gabe's nero but with a slightly more adventurous/controversial edge to it with the tequila as well as eliminating the earthy vibes i gave nero's with the creosote to make it be fully warm in scent profile. for obvious reasons. i wanted a similar fruity opening for dante though, but where the passionfruit in nero's would be more tart, the guava would read more ripe and inviting. similarly i wanted the leather and suede to be a soft, skin-similar but not skin-like drydown that the other harsher notes blend back into; the scent of a well-loved leather jacket that someone's worn a lot over the years but it's still an empty shell that a human is supposed to inhabit (mirroring dante's struggles w humanity here a little). and also like standing beneath a fruit tree in a hot leather jacket because you refuse to take it off. why would you do that? idk. but that's the image.

i have a perfume oil (funnily enough it's for johnny silverhand) that has a tequila note in it and i was scared i'd hate it at first but i really like it a lot LOL it's got a fun burn to it but because tequila is made from agave it still reads kind of sweet so i think it's perfect here.

[venefikus]

A DINNER WITH QUAN CHI — @smokinstyle

"Your appearance is... unexpected." Quan Chi speaks each syllable of the word as if he were tasting it, seeing if it pleases him or not. It was a surprise, but not an entirely unwelcome one. Certainly was an interesting sight to have one of Sparda's spawns find his way here. "Please excuse the mess, but I was preparing for a feast."

A table ready, dishes upon dishes resting a top of it, an extravagance few could afford so deeply in these layers of hell. Meat, fresh produce, fruit, cheeses and wine. He would eat until he had his fill and then the scraps would go to his wraiths and revenants - a privilege unearned by their part, but he was ever so gracious.

"Business or pleasure?" Quan Chi asks, a smarmy glint to his eye. "Whichever it may be, I would be a poor host to not invite you to indulge. An honor on my part - it has been some time since I have hosted for Sparda... and now, his legacy."

[devilbreaker-a]

@smokinstyle said "so you changed your mind about it?"

"that's what i wanted to do from the start!" he remembers these feelings all too well, was it too much but if there was one thing is that maybe he doesn't know how parental relationships work but siblings he can tell, and nero would never once dream of things getting so badly that he goes on a crusade to kill credo. they talked, settled their differences, changed for the better and let that experience help them grow even if credo was so deeply secretive with him at the order.

at the very least he knew before all of this that nero was a talker with the right people. "i don't know what went on with you two, and maybe i do want to know in due time but it makes me really fucking sad that your relationship got to this point that you talked about killing him so freely." he remembers credo's face the moment he saw that sword through his chest and felt a lump in his throat start to form that he desperately needed to get out. "i'd do anything to have my brother back."

[heartinhands]

@smokinstyle said: may success soothe your conscience. vash hewwo pookie bear

Bionic fingers reach for the little manila envelope that is Vash's promised pay for assisting on the mission. He tucks it away into one of his many, many pockets, smiling softly at Dante's quip, the other man leaning back in his chair, legs kicked up on his desk.

The truth of the matter is that a soothed conscience feels like the last thing that will ever be available to Vash, he's about 150 years too late for feeling Whole now. He's made peace with that a long time ago, but it doesn't stop his heart from hurting just a bit when Dante makes his joke. Regardless he must hold onto that ticket to anywhere Rem once spoke about and believe in it. It's the last thing he can do. Vash shrugs pathetically, shoulders more worm than human, still smiling. "Success, I don't know...but a night at the bar just might. Hehe!" Vash isn't quite great at inviting people to hang out with him, the heart of an introvert pushing at his penchant for loneliness, so the intention isn't fully clear, but he's hoping Dante will tag along with him--the mission was pretty fun. "Do you have any places you'd recommend?" Preferably where people won't gawk at his ensemble of an outfit.

[heartinhands]

@smokinstyle said: fine. die if you want to. caseoh vc if only my big strong leon s kennedy was laying beside me in the bed right now shirtless with a thong on he would protect me u_u

"I'm not saying no to help," Leon reasons, gun still leveled Dante's way, "What I am saying is that when I see a guy get stabbed in the chest and live, they're usually a B.O.W.." He's not even surprised by the bloody show (literal) that Dante had just put on after he'd gotten impaled on a whole damn sword, opting instead to pull himself up through the handle and the hilt instead of, oh I don't know, just grabbing it and pulling it out of his heart the easy way. Leon has seen about 100 too many people get resurrected only for him to have to be the one to blow their brains out a second time.

He gestures callously with the gun, although its sight still stays trained on Dante's torso. Not that Leon expects a bullet to do anything, but he also hadn't expected it to do anything when he wandered through RPD in '98. Wryly: "Forgive me for being cautious. Hey, question, what strain of virus is it that turns a guy's hair white and gives him a penchant for skull motifs?" It beats Las Plagas that's for goddamn sure.

[devilbreaker-a]

@smokinstyle said "you seem to make a lot of enemies around here."

it's almost like he's having a sort of deja vue right now, dante wanted to meet him somewhere, he got overwhelmed with the cheer amount of people coming for him and just got sidetracked. an errand or two to do and there he finally was in front of dante, a lot more blood than what he had when he met vergil though.

nero shrugs "really feel like i've been here before already, demons just keep coming after me over and over and i just fight them off because what else are you supposed to do dante"