A/N: Back to Chibi cuteness!

[The Adventures Of ChibiVergil – 2]

"Vergil." 5 year old Dante's voice once more rang out in the house, but the elder Sparda twin did not look up from his book –mainly because he knew that Dante didn't have anything important to say at this time of the day.

"Vergil. Vergil. Vergil." Dante was now shaking his brother's hand, and blurring his concentration on his book as the words shook with Dante's shaking. Wordlessly, Vergil did his best to shake off his brother's hands on his, but the younger twin was relentless. Vergil found his name repeated over and over again, and he had no doubts that Dante intended to continue calling him all the way until they had dinner, and perhaps even until after dinner, if he didn't acknowledge whatever his brother wanted to tell him.

"Daddy, Dante is annoying again." Vergil yelled to make himself heard above the din that his little brother was making. "I can't read."

"Dante, stop disturbing your brother." Sparda's voice faded into their bedroom from the outside, where the man was currently busy settling the bills for the family. Eva was currently out on a baking session with the neighbours, leaving only the men (or boys and a man) in the house.

"Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy." Vergil was thankful for the divergence of attention, because his little brother let him go now, running out of their bedroom. He did his best to ignore his brother's irritating calling for their father's attention, but Sparda was clearly as busy and uninterested in his son's million things of interest at the moment. It didn't take long for the boys' father to give up trying to ignore Dante, and Vergil heard Sparda's irritated command for Dante to go back into the bedroom.

"Vergil. Vergil. Vergil." The annoyance was once more back, and this time Vergil knew there was no escaping it as he finally put down the book, praying that whatever Dante had to say was short –though it had never been.

"What do you want?"

"Look!" Dante grinned at the fact that someone was finally entertaining him, and opened his mouth wide for his twin brother. Before Vergil could ask what he wanted in disgust, Dante put his forefinger on one of his front teeth and demonstrated it rocking back and forth on his gums.

"Don't put your finger in your mouth." Vergil scolded, because he had heard their mother scold Dante countless times for the same thing over and over again.

"Look! Isn't it cool?" Dante ignored the nag, shaking his teeth even more in a proud show.

"No, it isn't." Vergil answered coldly. "Your tooth is just going to drop."

"It isn't!" Dante protested. "Tooths don't drop out of your mouth."

"Teeth." Vergil corrected. "And they do. See this? Daddy pulled it out for me last week."

To prove his point, Vergil opened his mouth to his brother and pointed to the empty hole where his tooth had just dropped out a week ago. He silently neglected to tell Dante about how he had freaked out at first when he saw his tooth with blood sitting on Sparda's finger. He also didn't tell Dante about the Tooth Fairy, because he was sure that Dante would try to steal the money he had earned from under his pillow if his younger brother knew.

"Ew, you will have a hole in your mouth forever!" Dante twisted his face in disgust.

"Daddy said a stronger one will grow back. It will be an adult tooth, and when all the teeth in my mouth drops and grow into the adult ones, then I will become an adult." Vergil boasted. "I also have a shaky tooth here, see? I'm going to become an adult faster than you."

"No, I'm going to become adult before you!" Dante –ever the competitive soul –stomped his feet in annoyance.

"No you won't. I am older. I will become an adult first." Vergil rebuked. "You haven't even dropped your first tooth."

"I'm going to drop it!" Dante declared, not ready to lose. "I'm going to drop all my tooths and become an adult before you!"

"Show it." Vergil crossed his arms. "I bet you don't dare."

"I do it. I'll show you." Dante announced.

Five minutes later, the boys sat on the floor in the middle of their bedroom, a thread tied tightly around Dante's shaky tooth. The hand that held the other end of the thread gripped it tightly, but it trembled badly as the young boy crossed his eyes a million times trying to get a look at his tooth, but failing.

"You said you are going to be an adult. Pull." Vergil goaded, crossing his arms in a show of expectancy.

"I'm going to pull, I'm pulling!" Dante announced, but the fear was clearly written on his face. "I'm pulling!"

"Go on. Pull." Vergil taunted when the boy still could not bring himself to pull the string taut. "Adults are not afraid of a little pain."

"I'm not afraid." Dante lied through his (shaky) teeth. "I'm just preparing."

"Just admit it; you are afraid." Vergil balked. "You don't dare to pull out your own tooth."

"You didn't pull out your own! Daddy pulled it out for you!"

"I didn't cry!" Vergil protested, though only Sparda and he knew that it was a lie.

"I'm going to ask Daddy to pull it out. What if I pull and other tooths come along?"

"It won't. You tied the string around the correct tooth, didn't you?"

"I want Daddy to pull it!" Dante whined, because there was no out-talking his elder brother. If he was being honest with himself, Dante was badly regretting getting his brother's attention to tell him about the shaky tooth, because he was secretly terrified about having a hole in his mouth. What if the adult tooth did not grow back? Dante didn't want to be ugly without his front tooth forever when he grew up.

"Grow up!" Vergil yelled back.

Then, before his brother could react, Vergil pounced forwards, snatching the string and jerked it hard. The tension that had been there came loose rather easily, and Vergil was actually surprised to hear a 'pop' sound that he didn't remember hearing when his own tooth came off a week ago.

The twins stared at each other, frozen for a moment in startled realisation at what Vergil had done. The tooth, with bright red blood still coating the bottom half, laid on the floor between them, glinting innocently as they stared for a moment.

Then, just to make sure that it was the same tooth that had been shaky just a moment ago, Dante reached up and touched the area, looking at his finger when he felt something wet.

"DADDY! I'M BLEEDING FROM MY MOUTH!" Dante's yell was loud as the boy burst into tears immediately, jumping to his feet and running out of the room immediately. Silently worried, but not very sure what he could do -or could have done differently -Vergil picked himself to his feet and followed his brother out of the room.

It was easy to follow the sound of Dante's cries and Vergil emerged into the study room to find their father kneeling down in front of the bawling Dante, taking a look into the boy's mouth. Vergil knew that something was wrong given the way a small trickle of blood came from Dante's open mouth; clearly overflowing from the wound. Vergil didn't remember seeing that amount of blood when Sparda had pulled his tooth and couldn't understand what could have gone wrong with Dante's tooth.

"It's going to be okay, Dante. Stop crying." Sparda comforted, smoothing the boy's hair repeatedly to calm the crying boy down. "Close your mouth before your blood gets on your shirt and your mother ends up killing us all for dirtying your clothes."

"But... I'm bleeding!" Dante bawled. "Vergil made me bleed! He pulled my tooth out."

"I only did what Daddy did to me." Vergil protested with a frown, caught between feeling guilty for making his brother cry, and feeling indignant because he had only been trying to help Dante with his shaky tooth according to what he knew. There had been no bad intention to harm Dante -perhaps only a small desire to make Dante shut up about his shaky tooth.

It didn't take long for Sparda to understand what might have happened to the boys behind closed doors, and the laugh escaped his lips even before he realized it himself.

"Go to the washroom, Dante, and wash your mouth out." Sparda instructed with a smile that he could not help but wear, standing up and ushering the still-crying boy there. "Vergil, stay here. I'll talk to you after this."

Vergil shifted his weight from foot to foot, not daring to follow his brother and father into the washroom since he had a heavy sense that he had done something wrong -not that he knew exactly what had gone wrong. It had been the same procedure; just pulling out a shaky tooth. So why had Dante bled so much while Vergil didn't?

Leaving him alone made Vergil much shiftier, confused but also inexplicably guiltier, and he was almost ready to run out of the house to hide from his father when the two emerged from the washroom again, Dante all cleaned up and tears dried. As expected of the young boy, Dante seemed to have forgotten his hurt entirely and curiosity was making the boy poke at the tender gum in curiosity.

"Stop doing that. You don't want your gum infected." Sparda whacked Dante's hand away lightly in warning. "If your gums get infected, a little blood is going to be the least of your worries."

"Is the adult tooth really going to come out?" Dante asked, not poking but using his tongue to flick over to empty space instead, feeling strange not meeting resistance.

"Yes, but if you keeping trying to poke it, it will take longer than usual. Leave it alone for now." Sparda answered even though he knew that his advice wouldn't be taken by his young son. Vergil was supposed to be the more obedient of his twin sons, and Sparda had even seen Vergil poke curiously at his gums in the past week since his tooth was pulled out. Nobody expected Dante to be a completely obedient angel.

Vergil had inched closer to the door now, hoping that his father would have forgotten about him now that Dante seemed alright. Sparda didn't look angry at him for making Dante cry, but Vergil knew better than to trust his father's mood at the moment. He had seen his father when Sparda exploded in anger at a stranger who had tried to bully Dante and Vergil when they were younger, and the impression had stayed with Vergil forever.

"Vergil, come here. Dante, you too." The start of a lecture always started this way, and even though the two boys knew it was coming up, they had to swallow their protests as they lined up in front of their father, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor to be on eye-level with them.

"Firstly, Vergil, do you know why Dante bled so much when you didn't last week?" Sparda started easily, and even though he knew he probably was about to get a good scolding, honesty was a trait that had been instilled in him as Vergil shook his head.

"That's because your tooth was already very close to dropping off last week. Dante's tooth this time had probably just begun shaking not too long ago and was still largely attached to his mouth. So when it came off, it tore his gum open." Sparda explained, and though Vergil wasn't very clear on what his father meant fully, he got the general gist as he nodded and hung his head in shame.

"And Dante, I don't think Vergil would have done anything to you if you just allowed your tooth to shake loose yourself. But if you go around showing off your loose tooth, something like what happened just now will only repeat." Sparda continued, shooting his smiling son a glare. Dante had the wits to pretend to sober and tone down his smile again, though Sparda knew that the words were clearly reflecting off Dante's oblivious little bubble.

"I just wanted to become an adult before Vergil!" Dante protested in a whine. "He said he will drop all of his tooths and become an adult before I do! I don't want to be left behind!"

"It is still too early for the two of you to think about growing up." Sparda could not help his chuckle at his sons' childish want. He supposed such innocence and such a wish could only be afforded by children of his sons' age. In all honesty, everyone of Sparda's current generation probably wished that they could reverse-age back into childhood where responsibilities were non-existent. "Give yourselves at least another 15 years, then we'll talk about becoming adults."

"But I want to be an adult now!" Dante stomped his feet. "I want to eat all the potato chips and ice cream I can when I want to and sleep when I want to."

"You will be able to do that all in another 15 years. For now, you're going to have to listen to your mother and me." Sparda answered easily, then patted his sons' heads. "Don't worry about what happened today, Vergil. I know you were trying to help your little brother with his shaky tooth, but next time just ask me when either of you have shaky teeth, alright?"

Vergil nodded, thankful that he had escaped scolding because his father was understanding of his situation even before he could explain it properly. It was situations like these that made Vergil wonder how his father had been able to read his mind and see into truth of what had happened when he hadn't even been there physically. It was in times like these that Vergil wondered if mind-reading was a demonic ability that his father never told him about.

"To make up for what happened, teach Dante about what to do with the tooth you pulled out." Sparda instructed with a comforting smile to his son. "Now, off the both of you go and try not to make more trouble at least until your mother comes back."

The chances of trouble happening around the boys again was high, but Sparda was cautiously hopeful as he watched his sons nod, then turn to go back to their own bedroom again.

That was; until Dante tripped over his own feet and sprawled forwards. And because his brother had been directly in front of him, Dante's fall dragged Vergil along with him.

The sound of something small clattered on the floor, and Sparda blinked to see a new object appearing on the floor in front of him; white and half-coated with crimson red liquid.

"DADDY!" Vergil screamed, and Sparda sighed as he looked up from what he now recognised as another baby tooth.

Sure enough, his young son was bleeding from his mouth, and still sprawled on the floor, grinned Dante.

There was seriously not going to be an end to this tooth business, was there?

He hoped Eva had enough coins to act as the twins' Tooth Fairy tonight.