Headcanons about the Spardas: Romance edition.
Valentine's is almost upon us and I got to thinking about romance and the boys.
Dante might believe himself to be beyond or even undeserving of love. Romance isn't something he's really thought about but despite everything, deep down, Dante is a romantic at heart. He is a little soft when confronted with displays of genuine love but he never believed he'd find it himself, then Tess happened.
He's still rather in disbelief and frankly, he still sucks at expressing himself but at least he's trying. The hardest part is getting over himself. He's got a certain 'street cred' to consider and working part that is still difficult. It's even more difficult to work past his reservations about keeping someone so close to himself. Every romantic gesture of Dante's is tinged with some fear. Fear of loss, fear of rejection, fear of screwing up.
To his mind, romance has a big physical aspect for Dante so there's a lot of touching. The problem is that he sucks at PDAs. He'll get incredibly awkward about something like hand-holding but easily sweep Tess up for a Hollywood dip in public. He often fights himself to not just drape himself over her. Personal space? What's that? He loves being romantic in the middle of a fight, like kissing Tess' hand while they're in the middle of a scrap with demons or winking at her while he takes down a foe. He loves presenting her with flowers. He's had to learn to strike a fine balance between over-the-top expressions of romance and not scaring the poor woman because Tess is easily embarrassed and kind of a flighty person when too much attention is directed at her!
Despite his theatrics and adrenaline-junkie tendencies, Dante's favourite romantic gestures are small and heartfelt, like chilling out with her and doing nothing much. He likes to give her massages, especially after she's been pushing herself in fights. As much as he loves the excitement of battle and the hunt, it's nice to get away from it all for a while.
He's lucky Tess likes dancing because he's not above sweeping her off into a ballroom dance out of nowhere, or indeed, in the middle of a fight. It's a physical thing, it's like a well-choreographed fight, what's not to like about it? And he knows for a fact that it's romantic! He's exhausting but Tess goes along with it because it makes him happy and it makes her happy.
He's still figuring out the right amount of cheesiness he can get away with. He likes to tease people who're obviously in love, like Nero, but he's actually happy to see love blossoming in a world threatened by demons.
Nero takes after his uncle and is a big romantic and it's all directed towards Kyrie. He's in an actual healthy relationship and he's had a lot of time to learn how to express his feelings, even though he still struggles with PDAs because he's actually kind of shy about them.
He likes romantic gestures and tries to initiate them for Kyrie but he's very easily flustered. There has to be absolutely no other audience for him to make a move or he's liable to get embarrassed, frustrated and angry in that order. He definitely blushes when Kyrie makes the first romantic move and he needs a moment to regroup before he can reciprocate.
He loves getting her flowers when he can, even if it's just a bunch of daisies he picked up along the side of the road because they were cute. Kyrie's the type to feel sorry for cut plants so he tries to get her potted plants instead, since they live longer and carry the potential for multiple flowerings per year.
Nero views romance in a kind of almost chivalric way, she's his angel and he's her knight but he will never, ever say that out loud. He gets a little annoyed when people poke fun at him for his romance. He likes to take her on simple little dates when he can, like dinner and the movies (if he's got the patience to sit through a film).
He's more understanding towards people who do crazy things for love because hey, he's probably one of them.
Let's get the elephant out of the room. Vergil is not a romantic, he doesn't do love or romance. He'll tolerate people, at best. He's a very broken individual with very twisted ideas he has to work past before he even considers opening himself up to anybody. The guy barely knows how to socialize normally, let alone display affection in a way that doesn't involve a sword.
I like to believe, however, that somewhere, someday he might find a shred of humanity for himself again and find someone he'll actually care about. Maybe. He's going to have trouble being respectful because there's very little Vergil respects, like power. But if his respeact is earned, I think his affection would express itself with very subtle ways. Should that ever happen, I think Vergil might be almost endearingly old-fashioned; chivalric, even.
He'll dedicate wins to his partner. He'll quote poetry. He'll leave flowers in books. He'll kiss their hand. He'll do anything but directly say what he feels. He'll struggle with being seen being romantic and some PDAs. He just can't handle it, so don't try to force it. Hand-holding will probably be the best you can expect out of him.
He's very easy to embarrass. And that makes him very cranky.
