#also can’t believe the number of the squad apparently scared of cats

[cutiromer0]

England have to win the WC just so they can take Dave home

[skvaderarts]

Soliloquy Chapter Eight: Realignment

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Chapter Eight: Realignment

Notes: This chapter is for Aureux on A03 for inspiring me with their comment and their awesome profile picture. Georgia O’Keeffe Squad for life! Thanks for the midnight inspiration. More like 4:50 am inspiration, but still. Same to you, He Who Wanders! And to Mallovarwen: I’ve noticed your lovely reviews! I get emails for them! I just can’t respond on FF.N for some reason. It’s truly odd. They just don’t show up! But I still enjoy reading them nonetheless! You’re great! Also, go check out BeansWithBones fics after you finish reading this chapter. She’s got some really original and unique stuff going on and you’ll probably love it. I know I did! The POV is just the coolest thing ever!

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Nero stared at him blankly for a moment as V let go of him and blinked wearily, his long eyelashes fluttering slowly as his eyes adjusted to the bright ceiling light. After a moment, he decided to try and sit up, immediately regretting it as a wave of vertigo hit him like a freight train. Nero reached out to try and steady him, catching him as he lurched forward. V closed his eyes and leaned into Nero, breathing heavily as he looked down towards the floor. The youngest Descendant of Sparda looked down at him, mystified by the situation he now found himself in. V wasn’t exactly the type of person to allow others to touch him. He must have been truly disoriented. 

After a minute or so, V attempted to push away from him, only to have the uncomfortable feeling return. He sighed and continued to look down, trying to force the nausea brewing in the pit of his stomach to subside. What on earth was wrong with him? Better yet, where was he? What was going on? His short term memory was more than a little bit foggy at the moment, but he hoped that would change soon. He was in no condition to deal with this and being incapacitate left him even more vulnerable than he normally felt. It was a feeling that he detested. The idea of being helpless frightened him more than any opponent that he could ever hope to face in battle.

For the third time in the same number of minutes, V attempted to lift his head. This time he succeeded, although he had to do so laboriously. Every centimeter felt like it took the passage of a full lifetime, his head an unliftable weight that he couldn’t circumvent. This wasn’t the first time that he had ever felt this way, but it was most certainly the worst. At present, he was simply trying not to throw up. That would certainly do him no favors.

After what felt like a lifetime, he finally lifted his head, his eyes heavy as he came face to face with… someone. His vision had been blurry ever since he had first made the mistake of opening his eyes, and this was no different. As he slowly blinked, he recoiled in discomfort as a familiar voice spoke to him.

“... Wow, V… you look like shit.” Nero said with more than a hint of concern tinting his voice. He hadn’t seen V look this bad since he had helped him through the Qliphoth after Malphas’s defeat. Although he wasn’t physically cracking this time (thankfully) he was notably pale, to the point that a few vanes in his face and neck were visible. You had to be close to see them -and he most certainly was- but they were still there. That was an event that he never wanted to relive. When V had tripped and fallen into his grasp, he was sure that he was going to drop dead then and there. And yet, here he was. He still looked dreadful, but he was alive, at least. That had to count for something. Nero scoffed to himself at the thought. Though he lacked the physical strength of basically everyone else in their family, his mental fortitude was immense.

It took a moment, but V seemed to register that he was being spoken to. The longer white-haired young man blinked heavily as if doing so would clear his vision, unable to truly make out any of his surroundings. In an unkind sort of irony, his hearing was hypersensitive, even the quietest of sounds grading on him and wearing at his mental resolve. To top it off, he felt relatively numb, his entire body unusually heavy. With the exception of his head, of course. He felt that way too well. To say that he was experiencing a sensory overload would be an understatement. And he was hating every single solitary second of it.

After a few deep breaths, he exhaled and blinked a final time, his eyes finally clearing enough for him to make out his surroundings. He was in an unfamiliar room with white walls and a bookshelf that was empty, save for several blankets that had been squeezed into the empty space. Two doors sat in front of him, one on the same wall as the bed that he had apparently just been sleeping in. The low droning hum of a ceiling fan could be heard above him, no doubt the source of the warm, bright light that flooded the room. But none of those things threw him for a loop in quite the same way as the sight before him. Much to his bemusement, Nero was down on one knee in front of him, using his left hand to steady him, his other arm being held by V in an attempt to steady himself. The younger demon hunter held him by the forearm, gently gripping him as if he thought that squeezing him any harder might dislocate V’s shoulder. And, to be honest, he probably wasn’t wrong. Nero was absolutely capable of doing something like that without really trying too hard.

V didn’t move as he stared back at him, confusion gripping him tightly. Was he seeing things? Where were they? What was going on? And why did he feel so awful? He searched his memory, but he couldn’t recall coming to… wherever this place was. Then again, he didn't’ remember very much aside from stumbling down a hallway towards Malphas’s lair after escaping her dreaded pocket dimension. After that, everything was relatively hard to decipher. There were flashes of later events, but no clarity. What he did know was what that he felt… lighter somehow. As if some sort of weight had left him that he couldn’t quite place. This was all very confusing to him, and that didn’t help his state of mind at all. And then a thought occurred to him, something clicking for the first time since he’d registered that he wasn’t alone in the room. Nero was trying to get his attention and he looked… concerned?

“... Nero…” V spoke with a sudden, harsh cough. His lungs didn’t seem to have the same amount of air in them that they once did,”... What… where are we?”

Nero sighed in relief. The other man had been looking at him for a few minutes now, but it seemed more like he was staring through him than at him. “Shit… for a second there I thought we’d fried part of your brain with that lighting bolt or something,” Nero joked, unable to shake the nervousness in his tone of voice,” You alright?”

V slowly released his grip on Nero’s arm, regaining the feeling in his fingers as he did so. It seemed that the feeling in his body returned to the parts he used. Regardless, he had no immediate plans to try and stand up. The sensation of falling face-first onto the floor was not one he was eager to revisit. “I… will be. Maybe. I’m… I’m actually not actually sure,” He confessed as he tried to process everything,”... Where are we? Is… is it over?”

V stole a few glances around the mostly empty room, taking in the quiet space he now found himself in. The clouds in his head were starting to dissipate, and he was now capable of conscious thought aside from whatever panicked thoughts his fight or flight reflex had conjured up. Nero let go of him slowly, noting that V watched him as he did so. To his perplexment, his handprint remained. The bright red indentation stood out harshly against V’s pale complexion, now so more than ever. After a moment, it darkened, indicating that it might develop into a light bruise. Apparently, V bruised easily. Nero wasn’t honestly too surprised to discover that.

Nero stood up and gestured towards the bed, nonverbally requesting permission to sit. V nodded sluggish, seemingly unbothered. As he joined him, he couldn’t help but note the irony in his actions. V had done the very same thing to him in his bedroom when they had first met not so long ago. He thought for a moment, processing his brother’s question. Magnolia hadn’t mentioned anything about acute memory loss from what he could recall. He decided to call her about that when he got the chance.

��You’re at my place in Fortuna. Thought you’d recognize it from that one time you broke in and scared the living shit out of me in the middle of the night,” Nero said lightheartedly, trying to break the uncomfortable air between them,” And yea, everything is over. It has been for a few weeks now.”

V squinted slightly as he took in Nero’s answer. A few weeks? Had he been asleep that long? Although he enjoyed the occasional cat-nap, that wasn’t like him at all. Had he been in comatose this entire time? From the brief flashes of memory that came and went through his subconscious, he was willing to believe that his injuries could have incapacitated him for that long. 

“... I’ve been asleep for several weeks? V asked in what Nero wasn’t sure was disbelief or confusion. He found him particularly hard to read. Vergil, he could at least get a rise out of if he pestered him enough. V was another story entirely. Although he seemed to be a bit more receptive in this particular instance, he was still a hard nut to crack. Even when his mental faculties weren’t all the way there (had they ever been?) He was still as pokerfaced as always. In a way, it was quite impressive.

Nero shrugged in discomfort. This didn’t seem to be a good time to remind him that he had basically died, but V wasn’t the type you could easily dissuade from getting the answer to a question. He sighed and leaned back on his arms, looking up at the ceiling for a moment to watch the ceiling fan spin idly before craning his head to the side to steal a glance at  V. It was odd. He had never really registered the fact that V had such vibrant green eyes before. Maybe that came from his mother’s side of the gene pool? After all, no one else in their family possessed that particular trait. Maybe it was a recessive gene? Or maybe his bleach white hair just made his eye color stand out more. He couldn’t really say. Then again, he had never noticed his hair color either. But that was different. It had been dyed or something at the time.

Nero combed over the proper way in his mind to tell his brother that he had literally been reduced to ash, but couldn’t find a polite way to say it. The amount of anxiety it caused him to think about it was frankly, perplexing to him. He didn’t normally really give a shit. But something about this just made him uneasy. He exhaled the breath he hadn’t noticed he’d been holding before resuming eye contact with him. There was no point in avoiding this conversation any longer. “You weren’t asleep… you were basically dead. We just got back from pulling your soul or something out of limbo or something a few minutes ago. During some conversation you had with Urizen, there was a huge blast and you kinda got atomized. Vergil said it had something to do with our souls transferring or something. Somehow that’s not the wildest thing he’s told me in the two days he’s been back from the Underworld, either… Um, V...”

The horrified, stunned look on V’s face could not be understated. He looked like he had just had the wind knocked out of him, discomfort clear in his posture. Everything he’d forgotten from the Redgrave City Incident suddenly came back with a vengeance, flabbergasting him. He slumped slightly towards the headboard, an unexpected desire to be further from everything around him suddenly overtaking him with such force that he couldn’t reconcile it himself despite the fact that he was experiencing it. Above all else, he felt the need to recoil and hide within himself. That had… not been the answer he was expecting.

His prior concerns returned as V began to breathe heavier than he had been a moment ago. While he wasn’t quite hyperventilating, he was clearly perturbed. He trembled slightly as Nero reached over and gripped his shoulder, barely fighting the involuntary urge to jerk away from the unexpected contact. He pulled the knitted blanket up over himself higher until the soft yarn brushed against the underside of his neck, the sensation snapping him out of the borderline panic attack that he felt creeping up the base of his spine. He glanced over at Nero, unsure of what to say or do for the first time in an immeasurably long time. He blinked away the burning sensation he felt in his eyes, unsure of why his pupils felt so irritated all of a sudden. With his free hand, he scratched his arm in discomfort. He wasn’t sure if he actually itched or not. He just felt the compulsion to do so.

Nero gripped his shoulder firmly, tugging at him slightly as if to shake him out of his current state. The longer he said nothing, the more uncomfortable and concerned he grew. Neither of them truly knew what to do in this situation, and it was dreadful. After a moment, V closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, his breath trembling as he did so. “... What else did he say?”

The youngest Descendant of Sparda cringed inwardly. He was now absolutely regretting saying that. V was just now calming down. He didn’t really want to push him any further than he already had. But, at the same time, it might be best to get all of the shock-inducing revelations out of the way at once. Fuck it. Why not?

“Well… Were apparently half brothers. I would have never guessed that looking at you, but I think I get it now,” Nero said as he gestured towards his brother’s hair. Their distinct white hair seemed to be a shared family trait.

V’s demeanor shifted again, this time taking a violent left into blatant befuddlement. For perhaps the first time ever, he went visibly wide-eyed, his entire body posture falling. Nero scoffed in surprise. It seemed that V’s unreadable demeanor could be shattered after all. He stared at Nero in a way that made his skin crawl, as if by doing so, he could glean some unknown information from him. After a moment, he nodded slowly, a distant look in his eyes that Nero couldn’t quite comprehend. He seemed lost in thought for a moment before he finally spoke, his voice betraying some unknown emotion.

“... I can see that,” He said knowingly, his train of thought clearly elsewhere,” After all, you do favor him quite heavily, and there is… something to you that I can’t quite put words to. It is a positive thing, to say the least, but still… there is something about you that makes me believe what he says is true.”

V looked away for a moment before speaking again, this time much quieter. “... And I would be lying to say that I am upset to hear this. I find you…” He stopped then, the words he wanted to say unwilling to pass through his lips. He had never been very adept at having intimate conversations with others. He most certainly wasn’t going to start with family.

The eldest of the two would probably never admit it, or perhaps he truly didn’t understand it, but he felt at ease around Nero. It was rare that someone simply took him at his word, and he did that readily without upset. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to in the slightest, but there was no denying the fact that he had come to find the younger man enjoyable to be around. Or at least tolerable compared to everyone else he knew. That was an incredibly short list to be sure, but still. It was substantial.

Nero’s demeanor softened slightly at the statement. He wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or unhappy about being reminded of how much he looked like their father, but V hadn’t taken the news as badly as he had taken the revelation of his untimely demise, so he was going to file this one away as a victory. Maybe, at some point, they could have a proper conversation about this. If there was one goal he had for their “relationship” it was to not develop the gigantic quagmire of unspoken misery and repressed emotions that Dante and Vergil had developed between them in the last few decades. Regardless of if either of them enjoyed doing so, they were going to actually talk about their issues like adults. Or, at the very least, handle things better than those two did. Then again, that wasn’t a very high standard to meet. They were both high functioning Neanderthals.

Just then, a soft knock bounced off of the bedroom door. A long red ponytail draped over the shoulder of none other than Kyrie as she peaked quietly into the room. Nero gestured for her to come in and she did so, closing the door behind her. As she turned to face Nero, she yelped in surprise as she dropped the small woven basket she was carrying in her arms to the floor. Nero reached for the basket, but she picked it up before he had the chance, brushing it off as she wrapped her arms around it. She turned to V with a warm, welcoming smile, a concerned look in her large brown eyes. 

“Oh! It’s so good to see you awake. You looked a little under the weather when Nero brought you in,” She said as she stepped forward, setting the basket down on the empty bedside table,” Sorry I couldn’t find anything else. I don’t know what size you wear. That, and the children are tripping all over me to meet you. I practically had to lock them in the coat closet to get away from them!” She giggled to herself at the ridiculous situation she had just found herself in. The children could be a handful at times, but they were funny.

V spared a glance in the direction of the basket and then returned his attention to her. He had no idea who this woman was, but she seemed to live here. Was this the woman Nero had mentioned before. Something that started with a C or a K that he couldn’t quite recall. Nero just looked at them both. While he could interject, this was more entertaining to watch. Why ruin a good thing.

As if she could read his mind, she hopped forward and extended her hand, eager to introduce herself. “Silly me, I forgot to introduce myself! I’m Kyrie, Nero’s girlfriend. It’s wonderful to have you here. I hope the clothes and blankets I brought you are comfortable. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you need anything. I’m here to help.”

Nero blushed slightly. She didn’t use that term very often. It was rare that they met people who didn’t already know them both. It gave him the warm and fuzzies inside, he couldn’t lie. Something akin to a slight smile crossed V’s face for a split second before he took her hand and kissed it gently, bowing respectfully as he released her tiny hand. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Kyrie. You can call me V.”

Kyrie smiled brightly and blushed, clearly flattered. Even in a town this oppressively religious, V’s old fashioned mannerisms stood out. Nero shot him a bewildered look that his brother returned, a questioning look of confusion crossing V’s face. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had done to offend him. V then leaned forward to pick up the basket, earning him startled shouts from Nero as Kyrie covered her eyes to spare herself the potential mental scarring she might induce by not doing so. V stared at them both for a moment before a perplexed look crossed his face. He then lifted the blanket, a few shaded of color returning to his pale complexion. He dropped the covers back onto his lap abruptly, scrambling to grab literally the first thing he could get his hand on in the basket. As it turned out, It was a pine green t-shirt. He immediately put it on before the obvious fact that it wasn’t going to cover the part of his body he was trying to hide occurred to him, earning him a self-deprecating groan. Sometimes he hated himself.

Just then, the door opened again and a small curly head peaked into the room. Kyrie immediately shooed away the curious child before going out the door after him, shouting something over her shoulder about coming back to check on V soon. Nero decided to join her if only to give V a moment of privacy. Keeping Kyle, Carlo, and Julios’ curious eyes away from the door was going to take more than just Kyrie alone. They were crafty little devils, after all. As he slipped out of the door, V stopped him. Clearly, he had something to say.

“... Nero… thank you.”

Nero allowed himself a small smile that V couldn’t see from his current sitting position. It had probably taken quite a bit for him to say that, and Nero knew that. He peeped at him from behind the door as he stepped out, trying not to let one of the children in as he did so. “Don’t worry about it, V. Put something on. Were not going anywhere.”

With that, the door clicked shut and V was left alone with his thoughts for the first time since he’d woken up. In a rare occurrence that he would only dare entertain when alone, he genuinely smiled to himself. No. No, they were not going anywhere. And for the time being, apparently, neither was he. For the first time in maybe his entire life, he felt welcome somewhere. And he was going to relish that. But first, he was going to put on some clothes. It was drafty in here and it was starting to become uncomfortable.

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I got to use “flabbergasting”, “gleaned”, and “befuddlement” in a sentence! My mom would be so proud of me… If I was ever deranged enough to let her know that I’m writing this. She’d be unironically horrified, but I don’t think she’d be surprised. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. Thanks for reading this chapter and for all the great conversations I’ve had with you this week! I’ll see you all again on the 27th of May with chapter nine. Wow. I can’t believe I’ve written nine chapters in one month. I haven’t done that since high school back when I struggled to write a thousand words per chapter and my descriptive abilities were non-existent. I have no words. Funny how much better I got at writing after I left school lol. Talk to you guys soon!