Work Text:
It starts with a man walking into his shop.
No, that’s a lie. It starts with Morrison walking into his shop, telling him he has a job. The same old schtick as usual, nothing important there. Then the man walks in, and Dante’s world skips a beat. It’s almost like vertigo, missing a step when going down stairs, the way his stomach churns and his head spins as he looks at the man leaning against the wall. There’s something there — something not quite right with the picture. A half glimpsed connection that just won’t come into the light. It tastes like copper on his tongue.
He puts on his human face and smiles, charms Morrison and this new man, acts safe and sane and soft. The man, V, seems to almost be laughing the entire time. It rankles, makes him ache to push V down and show him where his place is. The urge is buried, as it always is. Human patron, no need for all that demonic posturing. He needs the job after all.
Dante gets up, sprawls across his sofa, languid, in control. Giving himself space, like a king on a throne. It’s hard to sprawl on an office chair, no matter how nice. V comes up to him, and without preamble knocks his legs apart with his cane. Dante lets him, amused at the presumption and reminded, strangely, of his brother. The demand for Dante’s attention, the careless invasion of his space. It niggles, metallic, in his throat.
V’s hand is warm on his chin, “Yes, you’ll do nicely.” Dante can’t help but huff, amused, “Thanks for the vote of confidence. This is my job you know.” Once again, V seems to be laughing at him without moving a muscle in his face. Dante’s claws rip holes in the sofa before he manages to get them under control.
“Not what I meant, but nice to know.” His eyes are so green — Dante expects them to be blue. “Lie down, Dante, I’m going to give you something.”
The next time he comes back to himself, he’s breathing in the smell of leather, and V is perched on his back. V’s voice is a lulling background noise, rising and falling in cadence — the sound skitters up and down his spine like the slice of a blade, and Dante suppresses the urge to rut into the sofa, to twist and turn and grind and— no. No, V’s only human and Dante has to control himself. Has to control himself, else he’ll hurt the man. But oh, it’s hard. V’s making him feel so terribly, terribly good.
One of V’s hands is in his hair, fingers tangled in the silver strands. His mouth tastes of copper, it’s impossible not to remember another man, another hand holding him still. Pain and pleasure and a desperate need to tie himself so close that they can never untangle themselves again. Close enough they could finally become one being. But V’s only human. Dante wants to whine, doesn’t want to show the weakness, so instead he bites his lip until he bleeds.
While the hand on Dante’s head remains soft and petting, V’s other hand is not gentle at all. Rather. it’s doing something achingly exquisite to Dante’s back. He likely should be concerned by the amount of pain V is inflicting upon him, he hardly trusts this man he’s only just met, but the sensations he’s causing have a flavour unlike anything Dante’s ever felt — sharper, and higher, and reaching through his entire being to hook into muscle and tendon and tear so sweetly. It builds and builds, wrapping around him until Dante is a panting, mindless mess.
He gives in to his body’s demands and rolls his hips into the sofa, chasing something, anything, more, until V’s hand tightens in his hair and he stops with a whine. Not able to suppress it, that time. A half-broken, “please,” tumbles from his mouth. A tut from V is his response, then a sigh that sounds almost fond.
“Always so impatient,” he tells Dante, indulgent, “just a little longer.” All too soon, far too quickly, he finishes whatever he’s doing and presses a bandage over what it is that he’s done to Dante’s back with paper tape. Dante barely notices, shivers running through his muscles and making him weak as a kitten. Weak enough for V to turn him over, sticky and red, then slowly explore his body, tracing his fingers over Dante’s chest and stomach, stroking at the hairs stuck with blood to his skin and licking at the streaks that stain his fingertips. Dante lets him do it, feeling almost drunk on the pain and the pleasure.
Finally, finally, V’s touch travels up his thighs, gossamer light, and begin petting at his cock. Lightly at first, teasing as he circles the head and follows the veins, then stronger as Dante whines and pushes into the sensation. When he comes, it’s a slow cresting wave, and he’s all too soon feeling cold.
V eventually cajoles him into bed, tucking him in like a child, and Dante refuses to let himself reminisce on how much this reminds him of childhood — Vergil sitting at his bedside when he was sick, ever the vigilant nursemaid, sometimes reading, other times writing in his notebook. He had scribed his name onto it in looping letters, etched deep enough into the leather that Dante could trace his fingers over the loops and whorls when Vergil was feeling generous. It was a habit Vergil never truly dropped when it came to the things that he owned.
The next morning, Dante wakes to an echoing and empty space. V is gone. Dante turns to look in the bathroom mirror before he showers, tugging at the bandage, curious about the pain V had managed to cause him the night before. Where he expects to see unmarked skin, there is a curling, looping V. In Vergil’s handwriting. He doesn’t need to pull the carefully hoarded notebook from its box to know it. The only thought ringing around his head is, “how?” as he drops to the bathroom floor, trying to breathe.
V returns some days later, because of course he does, he could never keep away from what he considered his. Not as Vergil, and not now either. Dante wants to be angry at him, he really does, but instead he finds himself on his knees at V’s feet, head pressed on his slender thigh as V once again pats through his hair. When he dares to glance up, V is looking down at him with something tender in his expression, and it aches deep inside Dante’s chest that he can only have this now, only this much. But he’s tired, he’s so tired, and he’ll take what he can get.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Dante looks up again, must make a face, because V laughs, quiet, more an exhalation than a merry sound, and cups Dante’s jaw. “Poetry, my dear. About conceit, and pride, and how time destroys all things,” he smiles, soft, pained, an expression that Dante has never seen on Vergil’s face. Half the time V is nothing like Vergil, the other half it’s like standing next to a ghost.
V moves to stand, and Dante is gripping at his hips before he can complete the motion. He lands back on the sofa with a whomp, air pushed from his lungs. “Da—” he starts to stay, shocked into silence by Dante’s soft, “please.” Before V can say anything in response, he keeps on, “Just one night, please stay. I can’t—” Dante takes a sharp breath, turns his head into the crease of V’s hip so he doesn’t have to see the disdain in his expression.
V breathes a sigh, hand once again resting in Dante’s hair. This is the part where he wrenches Dante away, most likely, calls him weak and unfit to fight. Vergil would have, he thinks. Dante’s already preparing himself for how much it will hurt.
“Alright. Just once.” V’s voice is rough, soft as a prayer. He curls over Dante, fragile, and human, and more than Dante has ever deserved. Dante presses closer, doesn’t acknowledge the tears that fall to wet his hair. It would mean acknowledging his own shakiness, and he can’t do that, not now. Not with Urizen hanging over their heads. It’s unfair. But then again, when have their lives been anything but.
V’s hand moves to cover the V inscribed in Dante’s shoulder. He grips it like it’ll keep them together.
They both know that it won't.