Work Text:
Halloween should never fall on a Sunday. This was something adults and children could agree on, albeit for vastly different reasons. Who wanted to be out late on a Sunday heading into a Monday? Who wanted to be out on a Sunday heading into a Monday on Halloween? No one.
So, there Vergil was, trying to wrangle a four year old, exhausted even as soon as he woke up, on October 30th, 1999. And if his brother or father or, godforbid, mother rang his apartment phone one more time to ask when are you bringing “the baby” over he was going to have a goddamn come-apart and he would lay the blame of his mental breakdown solely at the feet of his family, along with all his other woes, for FUCKS SAKE –
The joys of single-fatherhood, he could almost hear Claudia say.
Ah, but thinking about the one-night stand from when he was eighteen just made his stomach sick, so he chose to think about kinder things.
Like how cute Nerone was in his little costume. He thought it was cute, anyway. And it was easy to put together! As Vergil threw together Nero’s breakfast, he thought about that and perhaps that was folly, because Nero conspired with the universe to tap-dance on his father’s last raw nerve.
“What do you mean,” Vergil sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, willing patience to flood into his being rather than the migraine that was looming, rather than the urge he felt to bash his face repeatedly against a brick wall. “You don’t want to be a Beanie Baby?”
“Dunwanna,” Nero said, plainly, with a shrug, even as he held the goddamn purple platypus toy, as though he was mocking Vergil.
“Nerone,” Vergil sighed, going to crouch in front of his son. Get on his level, make eye contact.. All that stuff that the parenting books said he should do. “You didn’t have a problem with it the other day. And it’s very short notice. I don’t think the stores will have something for you – ”
Nero gave Vergil a look that told the latter that the former had no concept of, let alone respect for, timeliness and short-notice availability.
“Grama make me a new one,” he said, plainly, with all the confidence of a child who had, thus far, not been let down by the infamous “Grama.” Vergil wanted to cringe, viscerally, but he kept his composure, even if it was by the skin of his teeth. Asking his mother to do anything for him, for his child, always felt like a kick in the pants. He had run off, gotten a girl pregnant, then that girl had run off, and he was left with several bridges he had lit fire to and an infant. Eva was gracious enough to extinguish the inferno, but those pathways always felt shaky under Vergil’s feet.
“Nero, it’s .. we can’t take advantage of your grandmother’s ability and willingness to sew things at the drop of a hat,” Vergil attempted, pinching the bridge of his nose, desperate to stave off the migraine that was looming behind his eyes with an icepick of raw fury and I’m twenty-two with a four year old pain.
That sound that Nero made, when he was inches from starting to wail, a high whine and his face, normally cherubic and bright, started to collapse and scrunch up, his mouth tight, as if it was a real battle to keep a poker face. Nerone, Vergil knew, could not play poker, and the boy wore every feeling in his chest directly across his face for the whole world to see, be it joy, sadness, disgust, anger ..
Perks of being a toddler, Vergil thought, sighing as he shut his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose to fight off that looming, lurking migraine. People care when you cry.
“Ooookay!” He said, trying to force his voice into a lighter pitch, a more up-beat tenor that would hide his frayed nerves and soothe Nero’s toddler-frustration. “Let’s get ready to head over to Grama Grampas, huh? Yeah, let’s go ahead and get our shoes on, huh?” He’d never get used to his “Dad” voice and a part of him had new-found sympathy for his own father, a figure he saw as far more intimidating than himself, no doubt having to do the same with not just one toddler, but two.
Not that Vergil’d ever voice as much to the man out loud. He wasn’t that sympathetic yet, but he knew his mother held out hope that firmer reconciliation would come as Nero grew older and time healed any lingering wounds.
.. Vergil thought his mother was a hopeless optimist, but, seeing as he needed to go beggar a costume from her with zero forewarning? He’d keep it to himself.
~*~
The cab dropped Vergil and Nero off at the gate. Vergil paid him through the window and adjusted Nero on his hip as he turned back to the long driveway leading up to the old, English-style manor that his father had infamously given his mother as a “wedding present.” He lifted the latch on the tall, iron gate and let one half of it swing forward, just enough for him and Nero to slip through, latching it behind him. Another jostle for Nero, higher on his hip, and then making sure his bag strap was on the opposite shoulder, and Vergil had no reason not to force his feet to move and carry him to the grand front doors.
He knocked, lifting the brass knocker formed into a stylish curling S, tapping it firmly against the plate behind it.
This October had been chilly, some tropical storm or another cooling things down noticeably during the shift from summer to fall. He was glad he risked the tantrum to put Nero in a jacket before he left their apartment. He was just kicking himself that he had forgotten his own.
The door swung open just after Vergil heard the click of the deadbolt and standing on the other side of the threshold was his father, still tall and lean in his early fifties, white hair combed back. Sparda looked at his elder son, quizzical, his violet-grey eyes squinting and bleary.
“Why didn’t you use your key?” He asked, opening the door wider so that Vergil could come in. Sparda wore a dark paisley print smoking robe, something made of either silk or satin, draping over his shoulders, and cinched at the waist over white pajama bottoms. Vergil had to remind himself that he needed to ask his mother for a favor and therefore antagonizing his father over why he was showing that much chest would be an ill-advised move. He thought about that as he plopped Nero’s not-a-diaper-bag-anymore down on the foyer’s floor, setting Nero on his little feet far gentler. He crouched, unzipping his son’s jacket, hoping he could keep him still long enough to get his shoes off as well, but Nero was already looking down the hall, clearly looking for any number of his favorite people who weren’t named Papa.
“I haven’t lived here for some time and me just using my key to drop in unannounced would be the height of bad manners, in my mind,” Vergil grunted, going to stand. The parenting books didn’t tell you about how the up and down of bending to talk to your child was murder on your back, to say nothing of the constant uppies that his child seemed to want.
“Vergil, we’ve lived here since before you were born,” Sparda deadpanned, sipping from a high-ball glass in his left hand. He hummed, licking his lips and then gestured for Vergil to follow, Nero already pattering off towards the kitchen, yelling for his grandmother.
“GRAMA, NERO HERE – !”
“Nerone, we don’t yell and we don’t run – “ Vergil attempted, following him before he even realized he was walking.
“If memory serves,” Sparda sighed, airy, pausing by the bar-cart just inside the kitchen. “You take your Manhattan’s wiiiiith .. “ He closed one eye, clearly thinking as he hummed. He flashed a finger-gun at Vergil with his right, smirking. “Barlo Chianto? I just opened a bottle this week, it’s in the wine fridge, though – ”
“I’ll abstain, thank you,” Vergil said, crossing his arms, going to sink into one of the stools on the far-side of the kitchen prep-island. Nero hadn’t found the elusive Grama but he had found Balder the cat and was currently giving the poor creature the kind of clumsy, heavy handed pets every besotted toddler gave to an animal they were allowed free reign to touch.
“What for?” Sparda scoffed, raising an eyebrow at him, pausing to drain what was left of his Old Fashioned.
“It’s eleven in the morning? Dad?” Vergil said, dryly, pulling a face at his father.
Sparda blinked and then shrugged.
“Well, shit.”
“Grampa, you can’t say that,” Nero piped up, helpfully. Vergil rubbed his face as Sparda gave a dramatic sigh.
“Ah, too right, Nero,” he tutted. “And as punishment for my crime, Grampa’s going to switch to French 75s instead of a Tom Collins .. ~”
“The fact that Dante and I made it out of diapers is becoming more and more of a statistical improbability,” Vergil muttered, feeling the dull ache of a migraine behind his eyes, not yet fully bloomed but threatening to, if his blood pressure did anymore theatrics.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Vergil said, louder, straightening in his seat, looking at his father more directly. “Is Mother out?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Sparda said, raising an eyebrow, looking at his son rather than the drink he was pouring. Years of entertaining old money politicians made Sparda a deft barman, even years later. “Last I saw, she was meddling about on the third floor, trying to find a particular box of ornaments in a particular closet. The exact details of said particulars are lost to the sands of time, but your mother insists she’ll know it when she sees it.”
“Ornaments?” Vergil repeated, frowning. Sparda nodded, lifting his champagne glass to sip, walking around the kitchen island with his dirty glass in hand, depositing it into the wide, deep farm-house style sink that Eva had to have.
“She wants to get a jump on .. You know .. “ Sparda glanced at Nero and then back at Vergil. “Winter holidays?” Like most toddlers, Nero got immensely excited about holidays and if previous years were anything to go by, hearing the word “Christmas” would hyperfixate him for a good three hours.
“Those boxes are heavy,” Vergil said, frowning at his father. “You’re letting her trudge through all that by herself?”
“Absolutely not,” Sparda scoffed, taking another drink. He shrugged. “Dante’s helping.”
Oh, joy, Vergil thought, not bothering to hide his displeasure from his features. Sparda caught it and rolled his eyes.
“You never said why you don’t just use the bloody key I’ve given you,” Sparda said, switching gears and changing tack.
“Because I don’t live here,” Vergil repeated, plainly.
Sparda, leaning against the counter, leveled his eldest with a knowing look, his glass held in front of him, already half drank. Vergil knew what he was going to say before he said it, and even so, he couldn’t brace hard enough.
“ .. It’s not as if we don’t have the room, Vergil.”
“The space isn’t the point,” Vergil said, quickly, this old argument, one they had hashed and rehashed a dozen times since he was eighteen.
“This is as much your home as it is mine, as it is your brother’s, your mother’s, Nero’s .. ”
“Nero and I have a home, Father, I assure you.”
Sparda looked as if he desperately wanted to tug at a hanging thread. Trouble was, father and son were far too much alike, and as they locked horns, they also met each others’ gaze. Was tugging the string and unraveling the sweater worth the emotional fallout that came along with it?
Seems Sparda had learned to pick his battles since Nero had been born .. He looked away from his son, taking a drink, saying no more for a moment, letting the dust settle before he tried to say anything else.
“Well,” he exhaled, tapping a finger along the rim of his glass before he looked back at Vergil. “What did you need your mother for? I don’t think she expected to see you or the grandbaby until later this evening? I’ve no idea when the trick or treating is supposed to start, we never get any kids but the ones to the immediate right or left of us, in truth.”
Vergil was grateful for the ceasefire.
“Nero is no longer pleased with his costume and he wanted to see if Grama would make him a new one,” he said, flatly.
Sparda had the audacity to snort, amused.
“Shit, where does he get that streak from?”
Vergil’s right eye twitched slightly, before he huffed a breath out of his nose and went to stand.
“Hopefully she can whip something up on the fly,” he said, turning to get Nero. “I hate putting her out like this, but you know the stores are picked clean .. Where’s Nero?”
Not in the kitchen, that’s for damn sure.
“Oh, he toddled out while you and me were talking,” Sparda said, draining his glass, head tipped back.
“So he’s just wandering the house?” Vergil huffed, heading for the kitchen door. He stopped, though, when it was blocked, though thankfully by his mother and a beaming Nero. Vergil was relieved, certainly, but also irritated, giving Nero The Dad ™ look. He went to take him from his mother, “Nero, what did I say about – ”
“Ah-ah!” Eva said, twisting to put herself between her son and grandson. “I found him, that means he’s mine for now~”
Vergil sighed, glad that his mother was the type of woman who adored children.
“You two were bickering again,” she said, not a question, shifting Nero up on her hip, smiling at him even as she addressed her husband and son. Nero, none the wiser, played with her necklace. “You know I hate it when you two bicker like that.”
“I wasn’t bickering,” Vergil said, sitting down again.
“No bickering, dear,” Sparda assured her, though it was in their usual tone: exhausted, frustrated, but if it was one thing neither would do, it was upset Eva.
“What’s going on?” Eva asked Vergil, looking at him, and he realized that she had ( as usual ) accepted their line of bull and was choosing to move on from it, if they would as well. “Nero doesn’t have a Halloween costume?”
“Oh, he has one,” Vergil grumbled, shaking his head. “He just woke up this morning and decided he didn’t like it.”
Dante ambled into the kitchen, T-shirt smudged with dust no doubt from diving into those storage closets in search of Christmas decorations with Eva. Vergil gave his brother a look and a small jerk of his head as a greeting, their usual acknowledgement of each other. He grinned, though, wider, at Nero when the toddler looked at him over Eva’s shoulder, waving as if he hadn’t just seen his uncle upstairs.
Dante, of course, waved back.
“Oh, good,” he said, lightly, heading for the fridge, opening it and going digging. “I was worried Lil Man caught a cab down here all by his lonesome~” He turned, holding a Coke bottle, nudging the door shut behind him with his elbow. His eyebrows came together, some concern in his expression even if he was careful to keep his tone light around Nero. “He doesn’t have a trick-er-treatin’ costume?”
“He does,” Vergil huffed, frustrated. “As I was saying, he doesn’t like it anymore and I don’t want to struggle to find the bits and pieces of whatever’s left at the drug store. They were hauling out Chri–winter .. Winter things last week.”
“Ma can make him one, can’tcha, Ma?” Dante asked, pulling his keys out of his back pocket, using them to open his Coke. Vergil felt that migraine twinge again.
“Well, I can certainly try,” Eva said, thinking. She smiled at her grandson. “Let’s go to Grama’s sewing room, see what we can do for Nerone, hm?”
Ever the domestic tornado, Eva carried Nero out of the kitchen, speaking to him softly, as if to get his input as she headed for the stairs. Once her voice had faded, Vergil relaxed, slumping slightly where he sat, groaning and rubbing his face.
“What’s eatin’ you?” Dante asked, frowning, taking a swig.
“He’s so spoiled,” Vergil muttered, worried that even saying so would manifest a big, flashing neon sign over his head. BAD PARENT! BAD PARENT! THIS MAN IS A BAD PARENT!
“He’s four,” Sparda tutted, shaking his head. “You and Dante were holy terrors. I don’t wanna hear it.”
“He can’t learn that just because someone has done him kindnesses like this in the past, even extraordinarily kindnesses, that means he can just ask them for things without consideration or forethought,” Vergil said, firmly, frowning.
“Again, I say: the boy is four,” Sparda said, giving Vergil an incredulous look. “Eva is his grandmother? Nero is her first grandchild? Do you know how rotten my mother tried to spoil the pair of you? And hell, there were two of you!”
“And if memory serves, you chaffed at Nana’s lavish gifts and constant supply of purse candy,” Vergil challenged, plainly.
“I don’t think it’s such a bad thing that Lil Man learns to ask people for help, personally,” Dante said, almost under his breath. Vergil’s head snapped over to glare at him, pointed.
“ .. I literally just assured Mother I wasn’t down here bickering,” he warned, deadly serious. Dante held his free hand up, mock surrender.
“Sorry, sorry, I forgot,” he muttered, the three of them lapsing into a short, uneasy silence. Dante broke it, clearing his throat. “What was he gonna be?”
Vergil didn’t want to fight with his brother. Not really .. And while he and Sparda were still struggling with their relationship in the aftermath of Nero’s conception and birth, they weren’t on bad terms. It was just too much heavy baggage that Vergil felt like he was lugging around, Nero on one hip, his not-a-diaper-bag-anymore on the other, and the weight of the world on his back.
“A Beanie Baby.”
Dante wrinkled his nose, a twitchy smile on his lips.
“Ew?”
“Ew?!”
“Which Beanie Baby?” Sparda asked, crossing his arms, brow furrowed, curious.
“Patty the Platypus?” Vergil said, looking at them both, baffled. As if this were a stupid line of questioning. “The Beanie Baby? Hello?”
“How was he going to be that?” Dante asked, scratching his head.
“I made it,” Vergil grumbled.
“Yeah?”
“Yes! Shockingly easy, actually. Purple sweatshirt and sweat pants, yellow gloves and shoes. I made a little bill out of cardboard? And the little heart tag they all have, I had one that was real big, went around his neck.”
“Oh, that sounds cute,” Sparda said, raising his eyebrows, surprised.
“Couldn’t he go as a ghost?” Dante asked, thinking. “Cut some eyeholes in a sheet, badabing, badaboom? Halloween costume?”
“I hadn’t thought of it,” Vergil muttered, rubbing his eyes, sighing. “Even so, I have no sheets that are all white, certainly not any sheets I can take scissors to – ”
“Is the platypus the Beanie Baby?” Sparda asked, appearing to be thinking very hard once more. “Did you boys have that one?”
“Beanie Babies are well after our time,” Vergil said, shaking his head. “Uh .. 95? I think?”
“I had all the Teeny Babies, I’ll tell you that,” Dante huffed, grinning. “So many goddamn Happy Meals.”
“What was the fad toy when you boys were little?” Sparda asked, suddenly shocked at his own shifting memory. “Why is the only thing I can think of is Cabbage Patch and Teddy Ruxpin?”
“Care Bears,” Vergil deadpanned, putting his chin in his hands, elbows propping him up.
“Yeah, I mean .. I don’t think the platypus is the Beanie Baby, bro,” Dante said, thinking on it. “Ain’t it the bears?”
“Well, then he’d just be a teddy bear,” Vergil said, frowning at his brother. I had a vision, damnit.
“The bears come in all kinda colors,” Dante shrugged. “You could slap a sticker on his chest, call him the uh .. Shit .. Uh .. I know they got .. Shit, man, all I can think of is the purple one. But hey, you got purple already, right!”
Vergil looked at Dante as if he had grown a second head.
“Dante, I am not going to dress my four-year old up as the Princess Diana Memorial Beanie Baby Bear,” he said, bluntly.
“Bro, why the fuck not?” Dante demanded, returning Vergil’s baffled look. “It’s iconic.”
“It’s ghoulish!"
“It’s Halloween? Hello? Big duh alert??”
“I’m going to see if your mother needs help,” Sparda sighed, pushing off the counter and leaving the kitchen.
Vergil and Dante lapsed into silence, and a part of the former wished that the latter would say something else stupid, if only to ease the tension of that moment, the same tension that seemed to sneak in between them whenever they were alone.
Instead, Dante chose to say: “You look good.”
Vergil winced, looking away from him. He swallowed, his throat working, summoning the nerve to look at his brother again.
“Thanks,” he said, with a bare shrug of one shoulder. “Nero keeps me on my toes.” He tried to smile, but it was a little wan and he gave up before it turned comical. Dante just nodded, his ability to smile through the awkwardness far better than Vergil’s pokerface.
“How’s uh .. How’s school?”
“The only saving grace is that they let me work on my degree while I’m teaching, so,” Vergil trailed off. “Other than that, not so bad. It’s slow going, but I’m going.”
“Movin’ forward is better than standin’ still,” Dante agreed, nodding. “How’s the book comin’ along?”
“Little brother, I don’t ask you these questions, do I?” Vergil sighed, closing his eyes, sagging where he sat. He could only attempt it for so long and Dante winced.
“You could?” He offered. “I don’t mind? Open book, me.” His smile faltered and it turned into something softer, more sympathetic. “ .. Dad misses you.”
Vergil had leaned on the island again, his hands over his face, willing the migraine pain to ease.
“I am aware.”
“Ma misses you.”
“Oh, yeah, twist the knife.”
“I miss you.”
Vergil was quiet.
Dante took the chance to fill in that quiet.
“Look, if the goal was to prove to all of us that you could do it, color us proven dead ass wrong,” Dante said, shaking his head.
“I’m not doing it because I am trying to prove a point,” Vergil muttered, rubbing his face, forcing himself to stand. Tromping over to his father’s bar cart to see if he had anything palatable. Dante raised an eyebrow at his brother, clearly incredulous. Vergil scoffed, rolling his eyes at him, lip curled in disdain. “I’m not only doing it to prove a point, anyway.”
“Well, why you doin’ it then?”
Vergil blew a strand of hair out of his eyes, falling forward from where he had brushed it back away from his face. He poured himself a mimosa that was 80% champagne and 10% orange juice.
“You would ask me that question,” he sighed, before he tipped the glass to his lips, swallowing it more like a shot, mirroring his father’s antics from earlier. “Would you hate me if I said I can’t remember?”
“I could never hate you, Verg.”
“There you go again,” Vergil muttered, shaking his head. “Reminding me how awful I am.”
“You ain’t awful, Vergil, and no one thinks you are,” Dante said, firmly.
Vergil gave him a frank look, but Dante’s own held firm.
For Vergil, it was still a bright, painful memory, his father’s raised voice and rapid-fire questioning, the night Vergil had broken the news that he had gotten a girl pregnant. Who was she? Where did he meet her? Why didn’t he use protection? Where were she and the baby now? What were they going to do now?
And that was probably what stuck the most in Vergil’s craw about the whole thing. The idea that this was now a family problem and not his, an eighteen year old fully grown person’s problem. A mere four years on and Vergil could see the folly of his younger self’s thought process.
“The less we dwell on that uncomfortable history,” Vergil sighed, rubbing his forehead. “The better, I think.”
“No offense, bud, but I think you need to take your own advice,” Dante said, with surprising gentleness. He smiled, though, softly, and shrugged. “I didn’t mind Claudia. She seemed okay .. Nero’s the best damn thing since sliced bread.”
“The winter holidays are coming up,” Vergil said, with a slow nod, thinking. “Perhaps this conversation is better addressed at Thanksgiving?” Dante’s softer smile split into a wide grin, his eyes lighting up brighter than one of Nero’s jack-o-lanterns and goddamn Vergil if he didn’t feel a warmth spreading in his chest to see it.
“Nothing says Thanksgiving like you and Dad bickering,” Dante agreed, winking. The thought of it was tempting .. Vergil could focus on school and work, Nero would have more space, he’d be home .. Perhaps it was time to eat humble pie, admit he needed help?
Maybe Nero had the right idea of it and it was Vergil who was the fool? It wasn’t that he was audacious or presuming to expect aid from his grandmother on a whim; it was trust. And more than anything, Vergil hoped that his son kept a firm hold on that trust, that hope, those purely good warm feelings and ideals, that trust, for as long as the world would let him. While Vergil couldn’t pull a rabbit out of his hat and produce Nero a new costume on the spot, by god, Grama could .. Nero had learned that much, in his four short years ..
Maybe I need to remember too?
“Here he is!”
His mother’s delighted announcement cut across Vergil’s introspection and even he, bitter stoic that he was, had to smile, seeing his son bound back into the kitchen, smiling ear to ear, in the unfiltered, raw way that children his age expressed joy.
“Papa! It’s me! The devil!” Nero proclaimed, waving a plastic pitchfork, his other chubby fist gripping the edge of a red cape fashioned around his shoulders.
“So it is!” Vergil said, and this time, the light tone wasn’t a mask to make Nero feel at ease. Eva, certified domestic goddess, had found a long black shirt and pants for Nero, put the cape around him from spare satin, used a headband and some rolled red felt around two cones to make horns. The tail was just a length of sturdy red cord and a belt around Nero’s middle, trailing from his bottom to end in a signature spade-shape. Veril mouthed thank you and a deeply relieved look at his mother, who just smiled, knowingly, clapping her hands.
“All better now, Nerone? Are you going to go trick or treating with Papa?” Eva asked her grandson, petting through pale hair as he swished his cape, giggling.
Sparda emerged behind his wife, dressed for the day finally. Vergil saw he had his keys, and silently asked why with a quirk of his eyebrow.
Sparda mouthed back candy and then pointed at Nero, who was blissfully unaware.
“Maybe,” Vergil grunted, softly, crouching by his son, taking his hands in his. “Nerone and Papa stay here at Grama Grampa’s for a bit? You can wear your costume the whole time, I promise? Play with Uncle Dante and Balder-Cat?”
Nero nodded, delighted, and whatever disappointment he had that morning at the idea of a different costume, it was clearly forgotten, replaced with the excitement Halloween at a doting grandparents’ house gave to a toddler. Vergil smiled, softly, kissed his forehead and then went to stand.
“You wanna watch spooky cartoons with Grama?” Eva asked, holding Nero’s hand. “We can make popcorn!” She turned bottle-green eyes onto Vergil, then, blonde eyebrow raised herself, her lips quirking into a small smile as well. “Unless .. Papa doesn’t want you spoiled?”
Ah, Mother, you are forever the sharpest ears in three states ..
“No,” Vergil said, surprisingly easy, surprisingly genuine. Eva looked softly surprised, pausing. “It’s Halloween. No better time for Nero to have some fun for a change. And for Grama Grampa to spoil him. Not rotten,” he added, giving Sparda a look. “But .. Halloween, children, and grandparents seem to be made for each other.”
Eva reached out with her free hand and touched Vergil’s face, a soft, matronly gesture of affection that Vergil had to try really hard not to lean into.
“Happy Halloween, darling,” she said.
Before Vergil could return the sentiment, loud and boisterous, joyful and carefree:
“HAPPY HALLOWEEN, GRAMA!”