[Part of Vergil wants to dismiss the notion that it's been weird or difficult. Or, at the very least, the latter. There's been more difficult things in Vergil's life with significantly less benefit to it than getting to know his son, and trying to figure out with him how they might fit into one another's lives now that they know of each other's existences. But just because there's been more challenges than this, that does not mean it has been easy. For either of them albeit likely for different reasons. So, Vergil says nothing to the contrary even if the recognition and the expressed gratitude...]
[Well, they're admittedly part of that weird aspect of all of this. It has not been often and certainly not in a long, long time that Vergil's efforts have been met with positive acknowledgment never mind overt gratitude. He has to look away from Nero for a moment as well when Nero claims to see him. As much as Vergil knows so much of his circumstances were of his own making, he knows his self-imposed isolation was only truly tolerable because he did not allow for the possibility of an alternative. Without his mother, without his father, and without his brother, he carried himself as one who was always destined to be alone in the world, cutting off and burning every possible bridge others might try to form before it could even begin.]
[Except... Just once, he didn't. Even if he ultimately did not possess the courage or strength to stay back then, to allow himself that want of being understood and seen once more, he could not deny that just once, he let himself indulge in that feeling of being wanted and loved. The proof of it, after all, was seated with him at this very table now.]
[Vergil swallows thickly, tempering the swell of emotion in his chest for the moment.]
Even if based upon your own reasons, you had chosen to reject and refuse me as your father, there would be no greater fool than me if I were to abandon you again, Nero. [There would be no factor of ignorance that would have led to that outcome as it had in the past. And it never could have been through any fault of Nero's regardless of how gentle or harsh his rejection of Vergil would have been. It would have been purely Vergil's own shortcomings, a lack of strength and courage, that would lead him to make such a poor choice as that in those circumstances.] I am not here or doing any of this because of guilt or a drive to rectify the past, or out of a sense of paternal duty and obligation to my kin.
[He looks at Nero again.]
I am here because you are more important to me than you will likely ever understand.
no subject
[Well, they're admittedly part of that weird aspect of all of this. It has not been often and certainly not in a long, long time that Vergil's efforts have been met with positive acknowledgment never mind overt gratitude. He has to look away from Nero for a moment as well when Nero claims to see him. As much as Vergil knows so much of his circumstances were of his own making, he knows his self-imposed isolation was only truly tolerable because he did not allow for the possibility of an alternative. Without his mother, without his father, and without his brother, he carried himself as one who was always destined to be alone in the world, cutting off and burning every possible bridge others might try to form before it could even begin.]
[Except... Just once, he didn't. Even if he ultimately did not possess the courage or strength to stay back then, to allow himself that want of being understood and seen once more, he could not deny that just once, he let himself indulge in that feeling of being wanted and loved. The proof of it, after all, was seated with him at this very table now.]
[Vergil swallows thickly, tempering the swell of emotion in his chest for the moment.]
Even if based upon your own reasons, you had chosen to reject and refuse me as your father, there would be no greater fool than me if I were to abandon you again, Nero. [There would be no factor of ignorance that would have led to that outcome as it had in the past. And it never could have been through any fault of Nero's regardless of how gentle or harsh his rejection of Vergil would have been. It would have been purely Vergil's own shortcomings, a lack of strength and courage, that would lead him to make such a poor choice as that in those circumstances.] I am not here or doing any of this because of guilt or a drive to rectify the past, or out of a sense of paternal duty and obligation to my kin.
[He looks at Nero again.]
I am here because you are more important to me than you will likely ever understand.