Vergil narrows his eyes at V's initial response, disagreement written on his face as he finds the man even more inscrutable than he did a moment ago. He understands his own instantaneous, unquestioned loyalty, love, and care for Nero, but he cannot fathom anything remotely similar being applied to him. Not even from this fragment of himself. But he does not interrupt with further questions. V must know it not to be a sufficient answer, and knows more questions will follow if he does not provide more. Vergil sits impatiently in his own silence until V is able to say more.
V begins with what Vergil already knows to be true, the common ground to try and bridge their understanding together. He's no more patient with it, but he follows V's words as best he can. He purses his lips, barely containing his protest. There is nothing that could be done for the boy or the demon. For Vergil, they both remain firmly in the past. And the half-demon...
"Your efforts are to be a waste then. I've no need for a savior any longer, V," he says. Notably, Vergil does not deny V the capability of saving and protecting him. Not aloud when it is hardly a worthwhile point to make. Vergil does not speak as though this a matter of strength and power because it simply is not. "Nero saved us."
Yes, he did not allow V to die at the hands of Malphas, nor Vergil to die at the hands of his own brother, and he did so with his own strength. But that is not where Nero truly saved them. Would V have ever possibly reached the conclusions that he had about his endless quest for power without the time he spent with Nero? Perhaps. There is always that possibility in that simply seeing what became of Vergil, seeing the rot and ruin of Urizen would have been enough to bring about that understanding. But Vergil would never consider it a guarantee in the absence of his son. Certainly, even if V had reached similar conclusions, there was no way forward for Vergil. He would remain lost still albeit in a different way than he spent most of his life. Wandering and aimless, how long would it have been before he fell back on old habits or worse? He's openly admitted it a few times by now, but Vergil cannot truly emphasize the importance of Nero on his resolve to be a better man, to allow that cast off part of himself that called itself V into his heart completely and fully.
"You may choose to care," he says, "I cannot stop you. But you bear false hope if you believe that I will so readily choose to care in return."
Vergil frowns a little, gaze drifting for a moment as he knows that requires more of an explanation. It is not fair to assume that V can understand it, especially not when he's adopted so close to an opposite perspective. He's not certain he's found the words by the time he speaks again, but he raises his eyes back to V.
"I cannot pretend as though you are not something to me. But what that something is, I haven't a clue. You bear no claim to my past, yet it cannot be said it is not yours. You cannot be without me. And by the same token, I bear no claim to your short life, yet it served as the catalyst for so much change in my own. I would not be without you.
"We know one another with far more intimacy than mere knowledge alone, but you are a stranger to me as I am to you."
And that is the trouble with it all. Vergil struggles with allowing himself to be so known. V must know it from his own reservations around such vulnerability even with Vergil. But Vergil chooses to do that with others. Which is not to say the lack of choice is the challenge with V even if there's no denying it as a factor. The important part of Vergil's choice to do so with others is that he's felt that trust in him earned in return. His vulnerability is so often a response to vulnerability entrusted to him. But what vulnerability does V have to offer in return? There is nothing that he can claim wholly his own by that measure. All of it lies within Vergil's memories and experiences, all his own matters that he does not need to be entrusted with because they are already his. Thus, V hovers somewhere in that strange line between known and unknown, familiar and stranger.
He looks away again to the fire. There is less hostility to his expression, and more a subtle uncertainty.
"You were quick to call me a liar, and I was quick to anger, so I did not say what I meant the other day. I was truthful when I said I did not feel guilt for discarding you." He glances at V, but does not allow his gaze to linger or to hold any meaningful eye contact. "I know what guilt is, and what it means to feel it, and I know that is not the feeling I have when I am around you. But I do not know what that feeling is beyond that.
"You were never meant to part from me. You were never meant to exist like this."
It just feels...wrong. Like looking into a mirror and knowing the reflection is distorted, but being unable to name specifically what it is that's off.
V is not a savior. Between the two of them, Vergil far more looks the part of Sparda's statues and the images those who worship him create. They want someone powerful and strong to be their savior. They don't want him. That's not the point of saving someone. Nor does the fact Vergil doesn't need saving stop him from wanting to do so. Far be it from V to step in on Vergil's behalf under most circumstances. It may even be Vergil didn't need V's help with the illness, but the opportunity was there. Given the number of times he ventured on that journey, he undoubtedly saved other people. That's the numbers game. He doesn't care about that, about them, save that someone trying to save them might save Vergil. It's—
He doesn't want to take Nero's place in Vergil's life, not as a son (awkward, so not the relationship between V and Vergil, for all they don't understand it) and not as a savior. He doesn't comment on Nero saving Vergil at all, just then, but a small smile curls at the corner of his mouth, pleased nonetheless that it's true.
It's hard to stay silent, but they wait for each other. They're trying to wait, in this moment. So V waits and ponders and does not speak, even as Vergil says more. Not until he's done. He's not eight. He has some patience.
Where in that laugh did Vergil hear an expanse of hope? Or is it V's persistence, unwillingness to give up on the matter, that reads like hope. V knows he means something to Vergil each time he touches the book, each time he reads the poetry on its pages, and he opens it every night. He feels whatever lies between Vergil and him every night. Yet he remains without hope that Vergil will allow himself whatever it is or allow whatever it is to grow. Hope is not always the point.
Only then does Vergil say something that tenuously crosses the divide between them. An acknowledgement, both of them and the confusing place it leaves them. V doesn't allow himself to hope but he listens. He understands, and to some extent he agrees. For how well they know each other, they also don't. Vergil doesn't understand him, somehow, despite there being every reason he should, so he can only extend the courtesy in the other direction. (Oh, he doesn't believe he misunderstands Vergil as much as Vergil thinks he does, but it is not the time, it will never be the time, to say that.)
So he starts with a peace offering. "Guilt may not be the right word. It's only the closest word I have. Nor have I found the right verse. A failing of language, perhaps a universal one, given our circumstances."
V shifts a little, flexing his fingers as his hand goes numb under Shadow's weight. The cat only adjusts and keeps it trapped. "I was never meant to exist apart from you or like this, but I have. I do. I did not ask to exist any more than anyone else, but now that I exist, I have that right, as much as anyone. That it would kill me and with me you in our world hardly makes us unique. People fail to live all the time, and it kills others.
"I cannot apologize for wanting to live. Neither of us would be here without it, and as importantly, I want to live." He wants to live long enough that a month and a half feels like nothing. He wants to live for forty-two years. He wants more than he'll ever get, and he knows that. He'll take whatever scraps he can fight for.
"I have been here longer than I existed in our world. If you need time to sort out what you want, so much as our host allows us, I will wait. I'll even cede the cafe back to you, should you wish," V continues softly. That last part hurts. He cannot help the slight flicker across his face. His affection for the place is true, regardless that he always hopes to run into Vergil there. It was Vergil's first. "My care for you isn't conditional on what you choose to do. It's mine."
Vergil's brow furrows a little as V says he cannot apologize for his existence. He was not looking for an apology from V even if he does disagree somewhat with the degree to which V has more culpability surrounding his existence than he acknowledges or claims. It's true that he did not ask to come to be, but it was still his choice to follow the Fox, to exist outside and beyond Vergil for his own reasons. And that does mean something. Beyond just the choice to exist, it means... Vergil purses his lips even as he tries to listen to the rest of what V has to say. He really cannot concentrate on it, however, as while he cannot fully articulate his discomfort with V by naming it exactly, he can at least pinpoint a source of it.
"You gave up," he says, and he says it bluntly. Vergil's gaze locks onto V, scrutinizing the other in the low light offered by the fire. "You say you care for me, but you gave up in choosing to come here. What am I to make of that?"
There's more implicit demand in the way Vergil asks his question. The likelihood that Vergil could somehow keep that out of his tone is unlikely though, so he makes no effort to mask that he wants an answer for that portion. Wanting to live is one thing. He cannot fault V for that. Feeling comfortable enough to want to stay because he knows this to be merely borrowed time and that he shall ultimately succeed is also not something Vergil takes umbrage with. But the fact that V followed the Fox in the first place? Vergil cannot see it as anything other than giving up on his mission, abandoning Vergil in the first place.
All V said, all he had to say and more he hasn't said, but Vergil slices it all away with those simple words. How like him. V, in his desire to live, hasn't thought about that part, not consciously. He hasn't had to. Here, he knows he succeeds. From his conversation with Nero, he understands how he got to the end, how he reached Urizen, and how they became the man sitting before him. It hasn't faced him as plainly as Vergil states. Nor the well-deserved demand in that question.
V's face stays nearly the same, except for the way his jaw tightens. His head goes quiet, and V sits with the uncomfortable fact that he gave up. For a moment, he saw certain death. If he moved and made a sound, Malphas would detect him and kill him before he could escape. If he faced her, he was too weak to win. There was no way for V to survive—not by his own power. It was about to be over so quickly. So when the fox came, when V had that single moment to decide between certain death and uncertain life, he chose life.
He had no way then to know Nero would arrive within seconds and save him. Nero saved him. It's the only reason he lived. It's the only reason Vergil lives. Nero saved them, the way they always wanted to be saved. V lacks the memory of it, but he can imagine it so clearly, save that Nero and Sparda merge in his mind. They stand before him as a child, and they defeat the demons. They're safe. He closes his eyes and grinds his back teeth slightly.
"I gave up," V spits out, like he's removing poison from a wound. "Whether I came here or not, in that moment, I gave up. There was no way out, and I do not have the power to do anything about that. I could not call Yamato. My familiars were too weak. I was too weak. I would have died, if survival were left in my hands. I knew that, and I did not expect anyone to save me."
The van was nowhere nearby. He assumed Dante and Nero were far ahead of him. It was him, only him.
"I chose to live the only way I saw. The only way that gave us a chance."
He tilts his head back and shakes it, not quite a laugh. "She chose the perfect moment. The worst one."
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V begins with what Vergil already knows to be true, the common ground to try and bridge their understanding together. He's no more patient with it, but he follows V's words as best he can. He purses his lips, barely containing his protest. There is nothing that could be done for the boy or the demon. For Vergil, they both remain firmly in the past. And the half-demon...
"Your efforts are to be a waste then. I've no need for a savior any longer, V," he says. Notably, Vergil does not deny V the capability of saving and protecting him. Not aloud when it is hardly a worthwhile point to make. Vergil does not speak as though this a matter of strength and power because it simply is not. "Nero saved us."
Yes, he did not allow V to die at the hands of Malphas, nor Vergil to die at the hands of his own brother, and he did so with his own strength. But that is not where Nero truly saved them. Would V have ever possibly reached the conclusions that he had about his endless quest for power without the time he spent with Nero? Perhaps. There is always that possibility in that simply seeing what became of Vergil, seeing the rot and ruin of Urizen would have been enough to bring about that understanding. But Vergil would never consider it a guarantee in the absence of his son. Certainly, even if V had reached similar conclusions, there was no way forward for Vergil. He would remain lost still albeit in a different way than he spent most of his life. Wandering and aimless, how long would it have been before he fell back on old habits or worse? He's openly admitted it a few times by now, but Vergil cannot truly emphasize the importance of Nero on his resolve to be a better man, to allow that cast off part of himself that called itself V into his heart completely and fully.
"You may choose to care," he says, "I cannot stop you. But you bear false hope if you believe that I will so readily choose to care in return."
Vergil frowns a little, gaze drifting for a moment as he knows that requires more of an explanation. It is not fair to assume that V can understand it, especially not when he's adopted so close to an opposite perspective. He's not certain he's found the words by the time he speaks again, but he raises his eyes back to V.
"I cannot pretend as though you are not something to me. But what that something is, I haven't a clue. You bear no claim to my past, yet it cannot be said it is not yours. You cannot be without me. And by the same token, I bear no claim to your short life, yet it served as the catalyst for so much change in my own. I would not be without you.
"We know one another with far more intimacy than mere knowledge alone, but you are a stranger to me as I am to you."
And that is the trouble with it all. Vergil struggles with allowing himself to be so known. V must know it from his own reservations around such vulnerability even with Vergil. But Vergil chooses to do that with others. Which is not to say the lack of choice is the challenge with V even if there's no denying it as a factor. The important part of Vergil's choice to do so with others is that he's felt that trust in him earned in return. His vulnerability is so often a response to vulnerability entrusted to him. But what vulnerability does V have to offer in return? There is nothing that he can claim wholly his own by that measure. All of it lies within Vergil's memories and experiences, all his own matters that he does not need to be entrusted with because they are already his. Thus, V hovers somewhere in that strange line between known and unknown, familiar and stranger.
He looks away again to the fire. There is less hostility to his expression, and more a subtle uncertainty.
"You were quick to call me a liar, and I was quick to anger, so I did not say what I meant the other day. I was truthful when I said I did not feel guilt for discarding you." He glances at V, but does not allow his gaze to linger or to hold any meaningful eye contact. "I know what guilt is, and what it means to feel it, and I know that is not the feeling I have when I am around you. But I do not know what that feeling is beyond that.
"You were never meant to part from me. You were never meant to exist like this."
It just feels...wrong. Like looking into a mirror and knowing the reflection is distorted, but being unable to name specifically what it is that's off.
no subject
He doesn't want to take Nero's place in Vergil's life, not as a son (awkward, so not the relationship between V and Vergil, for all they don't understand it) and not as a savior. He doesn't comment on Nero saving Vergil at all, just then, but a small smile curls at the corner of his mouth, pleased nonetheless that it's true.
It's hard to stay silent, but they wait for each other. They're trying to wait, in this moment. So V waits and ponders and does not speak, even as Vergil says more. Not until he's done. He's not eight. He has some patience.
Where in that laugh did Vergil hear an expanse of hope? Or is it V's persistence, unwillingness to give up on the matter, that reads like hope. V knows he means something to Vergil each time he touches the book, each time he reads the poetry on its pages, and he opens it every night. He feels whatever lies between Vergil and him every night. Yet he remains without hope that Vergil will allow himself whatever it is or allow whatever it is to grow. Hope is not always the point.
Only then does Vergil say something that tenuously crosses the divide between them. An acknowledgement, both of them and the confusing place it leaves them. V doesn't allow himself to hope but he listens. He understands, and to some extent he agrees. For how well they know each other, they also don't. Vergil doesn't understand him, somehow, despite there being every reason he should, so he can only extend the courtesy in the other direction. (Oh, he doesn't believe he misunderstands Vergil as much as Vergil thinks he does, but it is not the time, it will never be the time, to say that.)
So he starts with a peace offering. "Guilt may not be the right word. It's only the closest word I have. Nor have I found the right verse. A failing of language, perhaps a universal one, given our circumstances."
V shifts a little, flexing his fingers as his hand goes numb under Shadow's weight. The cat only adjusts and keeps it trapped. "I was never meant to exist apart from you or like this, but I have. I do. I did not ask to exist any more than anyone else, but now that I exist, I have that right, as much as anyone. That it would kill me and with me you in our world hardly makes us unique. People fail to live all the time, and it kills others.
"I cannot apologize for wanting to live. Neither of us would be here without it, and as importantly, I want to live." He wants to live long enough that a month and a half feels like nothing. He wants to live for forty-two years. He wants more than he'll ever get, and he knows that. He'll take whatever scraps he can fight for.
"I have been here longer than I existed in our world. If you need time to sort out what you want, so much as our host allows us, I will wait. I'll even cede the cafe back to you, should you wish," V continues softly. That last part hurts. He cannot help the slight flicker across his face. His affection for the place is true, regardless that he always hopes to run into Vergil there. It was Vergil's first. "My care for you isn't conditional on what you choose to do. It's mine."
He'll always have the book.
no subject
"You gave up," he says, and he says it bluntly. Vergil's gaze locks onto V, scrutinizing the other in the low light offered by the fire. "You say you care for me, but you gave up in choosing to come here. What am I to make of that?"
There's more implicit demand in the way Vergil asks his question. The likelihood that Vergil could somehow keep that out of his tone is unlikely though, so he makes no effort to mask that he wants an answer for that portion. Wanting to live is one thing. He cannot fault V for that. Feeling comfortable enough to want to stay because he knows this to be merely borrowed time and that he shall ultimately succeed is also not something Vergil takes umbrage with. But the fact that V followed the Fox in the first place? Vergil cannot see it as anything other than giving up on his mission, abandoning Vergil in the first place.
no subject
V's face stays nearly the same, except for the way his jaw tightens. His head goes quiet, and V sits with the uncomfortable fact that he gave up. For a moment, he saw certain death. If he moved and made a sound, Malphas would detect him and kill him before he could escape. If he faced her, he was too weak to win. There was no way for V to survive—not by his own power. It was about to be over so quickly. So when the fox came, when V had that single moment to decide between certain death and uncertain life, he chose life.
He had no way then to know Nero would arrive within seconds and save him. Nero saved him. It's the only reason he lived. It's the only reason Vergil lives. Nero saved them, the way they always wanted to be saved. V lacks the memory of it, but he can imagine it so clearly, save that Nero and Sparda merge in his mind. They stand before him as a child, and they defeat the demons. They're safe. He closes his eyes and grinds his back teeth slightly.
"I gave up," V spits out, like he's removing poison from a wound. "Whether I came here or not, in that moment, I gave up. There was no way out, and I do not have the power to do anything about that. I could not call Yamato. My familiars were too weak. I was too weak. I would have died, if survival were left in my hands. I knew that, and I did not expect anyone to save me."
The van was nowhere nearby. He assumed Dante and Nero were far ahead of him. It was him, only him.
"I chose to live the only way I saw. The only way that gave us a chance."
He tilts his head back and shakes it, not quite a laugh. "She chose the perfect moment. The worst one."