[Vergil wakes and his eyes snap open with his next sharp inhale. There is no dramatic flinging of blankets. He does not abruptly sit up or reach for Yamato. Instead, he lies there in near-perfect stillness save the way his heart hammers in his chest and he blinks rapidly at the darkness of his bedroom. He's alone. In his bedroom. Alone and in his bedroom. He repeats that several times in his head, almost as if repeating it could somehow make reality more true than it already is before he allows himself to breathe again. His next breath is slow and controlled, and shaky over the effort. His lungs burn slightly, wanting air faster than he's allowing with the way his pulse still races, but he ignores it and rolls onto his back to make the urge easier to ignore, to get a deeper breath with his next as he stares up at the ceiling. Vergil tries to give his mind something to latch onto rather than the panicked, animalistic fear that flooded it upon opening his eyes. It's a rare occasion that Vergil not only welcomes the sound of his brother's snores emanating from the other bedroom, but is grateful for just how loud his brother is when he sleeps. It's far fainter with doors and a bathroom between their rooms when compared to the three of them crammed in Vergil's studio apartment, but still enough to give Vergil something further to ground himself. He catches his breath before pushing his hair out of his face, wiping away whatever remnants of tears lingered in his eyes.]
[He wants very much to just roll back over and go back to sleep then and there. It already feels plenty childish enough being this affected by a nightmare in the first place. To not be able to let it rest and go back to sleep leads him to feeling all the more juvenile and pathetic, but he cannot stop his mind at the way it reaches for the fragments of the nightmare.]
[Vergil does not remember clearly how it began. He remembers Beatrice had been there, but likely only remembers her presence in the dream because she had been visibly pregnant. Vergil walked away from her too soon in what he remembers of the dream for her presence in the dream to bear any particular weight, to pursue... Something. Something caught his attention down an alley. A moving shadow that he felt compelled to pursue. There's where gaps in his memory of what happened begin again. He remembers thinking faintly that he should go back to Beatrice after a while, and that she's probably wondering where he went, but there was no way back. Almost like one of the Fox's infuriating trials wherein the only path is forward. But then there's little more that he remembers until at some point, he found Nero.]
[Just as how he did not question how exactly his son could at once still be in his mother's womb and fully grown beside him, Vergil did not notice it in the dream at the time how much Nero was not acting like himself leading up to what followed. Going over it with his waking mind, Vergil recognizes now just how serious and cold Nero had been. It should have been obvious that something was wrong, but in the dream, Vergil followed Nero blindly until the ground beneath them began to crack and swell and shake. It was only when it crumbled beneath Vergil and he found it so difficult to be nearly impossible to move that it finally struck him that something was wrong. Vergil tried to reach solid ground. He called out to Nero, reached for him desperately. But Nero merely stood there, passively watching Vergil fall.]
[Vergil doesn't know if there is a gap in his memory of the dream, or if it simply was the circumstance that Vergil found himself when he finally stopped falling into the dark, but he remembers the last of the dream with more clarity.]
[His clothes were soaked not just from the pool that they fought in, but his own blood. Every part of him ached and, to his shame, there was a part of him that merely wanted to lie there, to let this be the end of it. The duel he was locked in with the knight opposite him was to the death, and he was losing. Vergil said nothing to the taunt of weakness that runs in his veins. Nor did he look to the speaker. He knew already that it did not come from his opponent, but rather Vergil's true target, who he was meant to slay after cutting this knight down. Mundus. Ignoring the demon king entirely, Vergil pressed the broken tip of Yamato into the ground and he rose once more with strength he no longer possessed. But Mundus was quick to deny Vergil his warrior's death.]
[Squeezing his eyes shut, Vergil sits up, pushing the blankets off and swinging his feet around to touch his bedroom floor. The horror of the nightmare was not what ultimately became of Vergil. That was secondary. Familiar. A commonplace nightmare made from memory even for how...unpleasant it is to remember. This, however, was a first. Head in his hands, Vergil tries to shake the image of the other knight from his mind. Nero was the one beneath the helmet. With a subtle red glow to his eyes, skin so pale that nearly every blue vein in his face is easily seen. Little more than a shambling corpse for all the life that appeared to be possessed within him, his expression just as impassive as the one upon the helmet he donned. He did not know Vergil, and he cared for nothing, following Mundus' orders just as the rest of Mundus' puppets did. For all that it was not real and he knows it is not real, Vergil cannot not help but still feel his heart break in ways he did not think were possible and his stomach twists itself into knots at the mere thought of it. Standing, Vergil walks over to his bedroom door, but pauses once his hand touches the doorknob. Light is still filtering at the bottom of the door from the living room. Which means...]
[Nero is potentially still awake if he hasn't fallen asleep on the couch instead of making it to his own bed.]
[Standing there for a moment in his indecision, Vergil decides to slightly alter his plans and chance it. He can probably slip into the bathroom unnoticed, splash some water on his face, get back into bed to read until he can sleep again, and be fine. Hopefully, Nero is passed out on the couch, and will remain none the wiser, but even if he's awake, he may very well not notice or think anything of it. Quietly, Vergil opens his bedroom door.]
no subject
[He wants very much to just roll back over and go back to sleep then and there. It already feels plenty childish enough being this affected by a nightmare in the first place. To not be able to let it rest and go back to sleep leads him to feeling all the more juvenile and pathetic, but he cannot stop his mind at the way it reaches for the fragments of the nightmare.]
[Vergil does not remember clearly how it began. He remembers Beatrice had been there, but likely only remembers her presence in the dream because she had been visibly pregnant. Vergil walked away from her too soon in what he remembers of the dream for her presence in the dream to bear any particular weight, to pursue... Something. Something caught his attention down an alley. A moving shadow that he felt compelled to pursue. There's where gaps in his memory of what happened begin again. He remembers thinking faintly that he should go back to Beatrice after a while, and that she's probably wondering where he went, but there was no way back. Almost like one of the Fox's infuriating trials wherein the only path is forward. But then there's little more that he remembers until at some point, he found Nero.]
[Just as how he did not question how exactly his son could at once still be in his mother's womb and fully grown beside him, Vergil did not notice it in the dream at the time how much Nero was not acting like himself leading up to what followed. Going over it with his waking mind, Vergil recognizes now just how serious and cold Nero had been. It should have been obvious that something was wrong, but in the dream, Vergil followed Nero blindly until the ground beneath them began to crack and swell and shake. It was only when it crumbled beneath Vergil and he found it so difficult to be nearly impossible to move that it finally struck him that something was wrong. Vergil tried to reach solid ground. He called out to Nero, reached for him desperately. But Nero merely stood there, passively watching Vergil fall.]
[Vergil doesn't know if there is a gap in his memory of the dream, or if it simply was the circumstance that Vergil found himself when he finally stopped falling into the dark, but he remembers the last of the dream with more clarity.]
[His clothes were soaked not just from the pool that they fought in, but his own blood. Every part of him ached and, to his shame, there was a part of him that merely wanted to lie there, to let this be the end of it. The duel he was locked in with the knight opposite him was to the death, and he was losing. Vergil said nothing to the taunt of weakness that runs in his veins. Nor did he look to the speaker. He knew already that it did not come from his opponent, but rather Vergil's true target, who he was meant to slay after cutting this knight down. Mundus. Ignoring the demon king entirely, Vergil pressed the broken tip of Yamato into the ground and he rose once more with strength he no longer possessed. But Mundus was quick to deny Vergil his warrior's death.]
[Squeezing his eyes shut, Vergil sits up, pushing the blankets off and swinging his feet around to touch his bedroom floor. The horror of the nightmare was not what ultimately became of Vergil. That was secondary. Familiar. A commonplace nightmare made from memory even for how...unpleasant it is to remember. This, however, was a first. Head in his hands, Vergil tries to shake the image of the other knight from his mind. Nero was the one beneath the helmet. With a subtle red glow to his eyes, skin so pale that nearly every blue vein in his face is easily seen. Little more than a shambling corpse for all the life that appeared to be possessed within him, his expression just as impassive as the one upon the helmet he donned. He did not know Vergil, and he cared for nothing, following Mundus' orders just as the rest of Mundus' puppets did. For all that it was not real and he knows it is not real, Vergil cannot not help but still feel his heart break in ways he did not think were possible and his stomach twists itself into knots at the mere thought of it. Standing, Vergil walks over to his bedroom door, but pauses once his hand touches the doorknob. Light is still filtering at the bottom of the door from the living room. Which means...]
[Nero is potentially still awake if he hasn't fallen asleep on the couch instead of making it to his own bed.]
[Standing there for a moment in his indecision, Vergil decides to slightly alter his plans and chance it. He can probably slip into the bathroom unnoticed, splash some water on his face, get back into bed to read until he can sleep again, and be fine. Hopefully, Nero is passed out on the couch, and will remain none the wiser, but even if he's awake, he may very well not notice or think anything of it. Quietly, Vergil opens his bedroom door.]