r. the debt series. 1/?. dante/nero.
Title: In Debt.
Fandom: Devil May Cry.
Characters: Dante/Nero.
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: Overall R-rating for adult language, violence. This chapter is rated PG-13 for mild language and violence.
Wordcount: 1,985.
Warnings: Slash in later chapters. Spoilers for DMC4.
Summary: Nero pays Dante a visit at the Devil May Cry shop looking tremendously snazzy. Some things change. Some things stay the same.
A/Ns: Nero's costume is stolen from the white coat concept art. Loads of world-building stuffs taken from all four games and the official anime.
Part II
*
Dante isn't at all surprised when the front double doors of his shop are blown right off their hinges.
But maybe he's just a teensy bit surprised to see the kid standing stock-still in his doorway when the dust settles, motionless but for all the intensity rolling off him in thick, inevitable waves. Dante can see that he's burning up underneath that coat, flushed a pretty pink in the most boyishly charming of places, and as Nero huffs and puffs where he lingers threateningly over the threshold, Dante can almost smell him - singed hair and toasted leather, white hot. Electric.
Lucky for them both he's got wooden floorboards.
"Neat trick," Dante salutes from where he sits perched at his desk, lean legs kicked up along the flat surface, "but I've seen it before."
"I want answers," Nero flatly announces. Both hands are gloved in black leather and empty, hanging open at his sides. He's a quick draw, that one. Dante remembers this well.
"Nice coat too," Dante whistles, arms crossing lazily behind his head while he takes him in. In truth, it is a nice trenchcoat. Long and pristine white with large silver buttons running halfway down his narrow front, and accented with intricate silver trimming across the spread of his shoulders. A neat and elegant uniform. Dante quirks his mouth into something of a grin. "New?"
"Answers," Nero repeats, his voice calm save for an audible impatience. There's a promise lurking in the husky graininess of Nero's voice and Dante hears it like this: Nero's words will grow sharper the longer Dante forces him to talk, as if the very act of speech can hone his throat like a whetstone to a steel's edge. It's a promise and a threat and Dante rarely deals in the former, but he just so happens to be an expert on the latter, possibly because there's more fun to be had when all bets are off. "You got 'em," Nero continues as he takes a careful step forward, his buckled black boot hollow on hallowed ground, "And I want 'em."
"Must've cost you a pretty penny, that coat," Dante muses, head canting. Still, he sits, uninterested. Waiting, possibly for the rotary dial telephone, the sole object on his desk, to ring and bring him something better than chump change for something better than another run-of-the-mill devil-hunting job. But no, that'd be too fair, and he knows damn well what Luck is and what she isn't. She's a woman all right, Dante's as sure as a good shit after a few cups of coffee, because she gets off on stabbing him in the chest just like every other woman he's known. "Business booming back in quaint Fortuna? Lots of reconstruction money, I'll bet," he smirks.
"How can I get to Mallet Island?" Nero asks, another dogmatic step taken forward. He moves stiffly, as if there's cement caking his legs, weighing him down. The closer he gets to Dante's desk the clearer his face becomes, and even though his expression is impassive it's a forced façade, and a flimsy one at that. His desperation leaks through like tears through a tissue.
"No, I'll bet you got that coat for free," Dante postulates, an especially pensive finger tapping his chin. "Came with the new job description, huh?"
"Whose dreams have I been having?" Nero ignores him, all but speaking through his gritting teeth now. Somehow he's managed to get himself halfway across the room and Dante's visibly impressed by this fact. He's still been moving slowly this whole time and yet there he is, close enough for Dante to see the silver insignia embroidered along the arms of his coat. Maybe the kid grew longer legs too when he decided to grow up. Dante's heard that this happens on occasion.
"Nero," Dante speaks his name with cool acknowledgement. He sweeps one arm out from behind his head and forms a graceful downward arc as he bows in his seat and ducks his head in mock-humility. "Your Holiness," he says with such fucking deference.
The entirety of his desk shakes when Nero brings a tightly squeezed fist down mere inches to the left of where Dante's got his ankles crossed. "Why has my devil arm gone back to normal!" he shouts, his voice warbled and spectral, unnaturally deep as if it's not even his own, more hellbound than holy.
"Tch," Dante tuts as he lifts his head, and what he sees there surprises him less than his ruined front doors. There's fiery hot breath warming his face and electric blue energy ruffling his hair back and away from his temples, and for a second he wonders if he's going to be consumed by the phantom pulsing possessively around Nero's gently flickering form. This isn't news to his eyes, this devil trigger, but the intensity of the transformation is monstrous. For the first time since Nero decided to pay him a visit, Dante wonders if he should despair. "Probably because you don't need it anymore," is his honest answer. "And hey, watch where you're dropping those things. Could have broken my foot," he mutters as he kicks his feet down off the desk.
When Nero snorts out, "Boohoo. What, you taken up ballroom dancing since our last little house party or something?" Dante tuts again and stands to watch the kid absorb all that phantom energy back into his body like a hungry sponge.
"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it. Been pumping a little demon iron lately?"
"Nah," Nero finally shrugs those fancy shoulders of his and proceeds to dust his gloves off. "Who needs iron when you've got steroids?"
Dante huffs a faint laugh through his nose, his eyes locked on Nero's own. "Things change, kid."
"Ain't that the truth," Nero casually replies, his own gaze just as steely.
Silence.
And then, "... I can't help you," Dante offers after a long, dangerously quiet face off.
"You're the only one who can," Nero counters.
Dante can see the kid's hackles rising already. Maybe some things don't change at all, he thinks.
More silence.
And then, "Dante," Nero urges, his voice deceptively composed.
Dante can hear the cracks in his resolve already, and it occurs to him then that the kid isn't just desperate. Desperation is for greedy and empty men alike, but Nero isn't either. What he is, Dante can see, is entirely too whole for his own good. Even though he thinks he's got nothing left to lose.
"How's the misses?" Dante ventures, and he rightfully gets a meaty, reflex-quick punch to the face for daring to go there. It takes him a moment to recover, and that is surprising. Shaking the daze from his brain, Dante touches his fingers to his left eye and says, "Huh," when they come away with blood. He wipes the red smear off on his coat and peers back at Nero with his good eye. The kid's heaving dangerously and his lips are tight, no apology to be found there. "That good, huh?" Dante snorts, but this time he catches Nero's thrown punch in the curve of his palm and doesn't let go.
When Nero throws a third punch with his other fist, Dante catches that one too and soon they're standing there, hands locked together, arms forming an arch over the space of floor between them.
Nero snuffles like a raging bull and Dante leans his head back in case the kid decides to get any ideas about headbutting. "We can do this all night," Dante grins, and suddenly it's all pretty damn absurd, them standing there like that. As if they're playing a child's nursery game. London Bridge is Falling Down (my fair lady.) Except there's no one else to play along with them. No one to capture between their falling arms, and not for the first time in his life Dante wonders if there were supposed to be three sons instead of just two. He laughs into Nero's face because he can, and Nero growls wildly back at him.
It amuses Dante to realize that they're both near hysterical for two given values of the word.
"Don't fuck with me, Dante," Nero grits out as he shoves his fists, pushing Dante backwards, "I'm not here for that."
"Could have fooled me," Dante grits back, hands tightening around Nero's fists for leverage as he jostles him back towards the ruined doors.
There's a startled gasp but Nero recovers quickly. "You know what I want," the kid heaves out, feet scrambling to catch enough of a hold on the floor to keep him from toppling backwards. His brow, previously so sturdy, twitches stubbornly, his snarling lips quivering with the effort to stay tight.
For some completely insane reason, Dante decides to take pity on him then. Unlocking his elbows just enough to let Nero back on balance, he gently asks, "Will it help things to know?"
When he goes sprawling backward onto the floor of his own damned shop, his sanity returns to him. Sitting up with a distinct curl to his upper lip, Dante tuts once more. "Tch. I just threw your ass a bone, kid. I see you haven't learned not to bite the hand that feeds you."
"Guess not," Nero shrugs, one arm reaching back over his shoulder for what Dante presumes to be the hilt of a sword. The sword. Yamato. Ungrateful little pissant.
Suddenly, Dante sighs. "I dunno what I'm thinking, keeping a rabid puppy like you around. There's a sofa but that's mine, so it's the floor for you if you're going to cramp my style-"
"-who says I'm staying here?" Nero blinks, thoroughly confused and visibly irritated by this fact.
"Well, we sure as hell aren't about to have our heart-to-heart today, kid. I've given you enough of my day off already," he casually explains, as if every day without work isn't technically a day off anyway. "Before you decided to blow the house down, which, by the way, I'll be adding to the tab you'll be running up here in no time in the form of money for damages owed, I was just on my way out to treat myself."
"Is that right?" Nero cooly replies, his mouth quirking into a bitter smirk. "Off for a day at the baths, were you?"
"Hey kid, don't pawn your fantasies off on me," Dante huffs out as he pushes back up onto his feet. "Mine only consist of strawberry sundaes."
"You bast-"
"Ah ah ah," Dante waggles one finger at him. "This bastard's just offered you a place to stay while you walk your endearing little path to self-discovery. Rent's pretty pricey in this neighborhood but you're welcome to try the hotel just down the street. They charge by the hour."
"You would know that, wouldn't you."
"Course I would," Dante winks as he stretches his arms up over his head and cracks his knuckles. "Oh, and be nice to Patty when she comes 'round. It's in your best interest. Girl's about yea-high and goes right for the shins. Ouch." Dante spares him a sobering look as he heads for the front of his shop to survey the damage done.
"Fine. Sure. Fine," Nero grumbles, his hand hovering near his thigh holster as he stands just beside Dante's desk, his back to retreating man. The Blue Rose feels heavy against his leg, just begging for his touch, and hell if it wouldn't feel good to fire off a few rounds right at the bastard's back. "Damn it," Nero eventually hisses, moving his hand away after a bit more thought on the matter.
"What was that?" Dante calls from where he's crouched at the doorway, running his thumb along one twisted metal hinge.
Nero turns around, arms reluctantly crossing over his chest. He sighs. "Got any blankets around here?" he calls back.
Fandom: Devil May Cry.
Characters: Dante/Nero.
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: Overall R-rating for adult language, violence. This chapter is rated PG-13 for mild language and violence.
Wordcount: 1,985.
Warnings: Slash in later chapters. Spoilers for DMC4.
Summary: Nero pays Dante a visit at the Devil May Cry shop looking tremendously snazzy. Some things change. Some things stay the same.
A/Ns: Nero's costume is stolen from the white coat concept art. Loads of world-building stuffs taken from all four games and the official anime.
Part II
*
Dante isn't at all surprised when the front double doors of his shop are blown right off their hinges.
But maybe he's just a teensy bit surprised to see the kid standing stock-still in his doorway when the dust settles, motionless but for all the intensity rolling off him in thick, inevitable waves. Dante can see that he's burning up underneath that coat, flushed a pretty pink in the most boyishly charming of places, and as Nero huffs and puffs where he lingers threateningly over the threshold, Dante can almost smell him - singed hair and toasted leather, white hot. Electric.
Lucky for them both he's got wooden floorboards.
"Neat trick," Dante salutes from where he sits perched at his desk, lean legs kicked up along the flat surface, "but I've seen it before."
"I want answers," Nero flatly announces. Both hands are gloved in black leather and empty, hanging open at his sides. He's a quick draw, that one. Dante remembers this well.
"Nice coat too," Dante whistles, arms crossing lazily behind his head while he takes him in. In truth, it is a nice trenchcoat. Long and pristine white with large silver buttons running halfway down his narrow front, and accented with intricate silver trimming across the spread of his shoulders. A neat and elegant uniform. Dante quirks his mouth into something of a grin. "New?"
"Answers," Nero repeats, his voice calm save for an audible impatience. There's a promise lurking in the husky graininess of Nero's voice and Dante hears it like this: Nero's words will grow sharper the longer Dante forces him to talk, as if the very act of speech can hone his throat like a whetstone to a steel's edge. It's a promise and a threat and Dante rarely deals in the former, but he just so happens to be an expert on the latter, possibly because there's more fun to be had when all bets are off. "You got 'em," Nero continues as he takes a careful step forward, his buckled black boot hollow on hallowed ground, "And I want 'em."
"Must've cost you a pretty penny, that coat," Dante muses, head canting. Still, he sits, uninterested. Waiting, possibly for the rotary dial telephone, the sole object on his desk, to ring and bring him something better than chump change for something better than another run-of-the-mill devil-hunting job. But no, that'd be too fair, and he knows damn well what Luck is and what she isn't. She's a woman all right, Dante's as sure as a good shit after a few cups of coffee, because she gets off on stabbing him in the chest just like every other woman he's known. "Business booming back in quaint Fortuna? Lots of reconstruction money, I'll bet," he smirks.
"How can I get to Mallet Island?" Nero asks, another dogmatic step taken forward. He moves stiffly, as if there's cement caking his legs, weighing him down. The closer he gets to Dante's desk the clearer his face becomes, and even though his expression is impassive it's a forced façade, and a flimsy one at that. His desperation leaks through like tears through a tissue.
"No, I'll bet you got that coat for free," Dante postulates, an especially pensive finger tapping his chin. "Came with the new job description, huh?"
"Whose dreams have I been having?" Nero ignores him, all but speaking through his gritting teeth now. Somehow he's managed to get himself halfway across the room and Dante's visibly impressed by this fact. He's still been moving slowly this whole time and yet there he is, close enough for Dante to see the silver insignia embroidered along the arms of his coat. Maybe the kid grew longer legs too when he decided to grow up. Dante's heard that this happens on occasion.
"Nero," Dante speaks his name with cool acknowledgement. He sweeps one arm out from behind his head and forms a graceful downward arc as he bows in his seat and ducks his head in mock-humility. "Your Holiness," he says with such fucking deference.
The entirety of his desk shakes when Nero brings a tightly squeezed fist down mere inches to the left of where Dante's got his ankles crossed. "Why has my devil arm gone back to normal!" he shouts, his voice warbled and spectral, unnaturally deep as if it's not even his own, more hellbound than holy.
"Tch," Dante tuts as he lifts his head, and what he sees there surprises him less than his ruined front doors. There's fiery hot breath warming his face and electric blue energy ruffling his hair back and away from his temples, and for a second he wonders if he's going to be consumed by the phantom pulsing possessively around Nero's gently flickering form. This isn't news to his eyes, this devil trigger, but the intensity of the transformation is monstrous. For the first time since Nero decided to pay him a visit, Dante wonders if he should despair. "Probably because you don't need it anymore," is his honest answer. "And hey, watch where you're dropping those things. Could have broken my foot," he mutters as he kicks his feet down off the desk.
When Nero snorts out, "Boohoo. What, you taken up ballroom dancing since our last little house party or something?" Dante tuts again and stands to watch the kid absorb all that phantom energy back into his body like a hungry sponge.
"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it. Been pumping a little demon iron lately?"
"Nah," Nero finally shrugs those fancy shoulders of his and proceeds to dust his gloves off. "Who needs iron when you've got steroids?"
Dante huffs a faint laugh through his nose, his eyes locked on Nero's own. "Things change, kid."
"Ain't that the truth," Nero casually replies, his own gaze just as steely.
Silence.
And then, "... I can't help you," Dante offers after a long, dangerously quiet face off.
"You're the only one who can," Nero counters.
Dante can see the kid's hackles rising already. Maybe some things don't change at all, he thinks.
More silence.
And then, "Dante," Nero urges, his voice deceptively composed.
Dante can hear the cracks in his resolve already, and it occurs to him then that the kid isn't just desperate. Desperation is for greedy and empty men alike, but Nero isn't either. What he is, Dante can see, is entirely too whole for his own good. Even though he thinks he's got nothing left to lose.
"How's the misses?" Dante ventures, and he rightfully gets a meaty, reflex-quick punch to the face for daring to go there. It takes him a moment to recover, and that is surprising. Shaking the daze from his brain, Dante touches his fingers to his left eye and says, "Huh," when they come away with blood. He wipes the red smear off on his coat and peers back at Nero with his good eye. The kid's heaving dangerously and his lips are tight, no apology to be found there. "That good, huh?" Dante snorts, but this time he catches Nero's thrown punch in the curve of his palm and doesn't let go.
When Nero throws a third punch with his other fist, Dante catches that one too and soon they're standing there, hands locked together, arms forming an arch over the space of floor between them.
Nero snuffles like a raging bull and Dante leans his head back in case the kid decides to get any ideas about headbutting. "We can do this all night," Dante grins, and suddenly it's all pretty damn absurd, them standing there like that. As if they're playing a child's nursery game. London Bridge is Falling Down (my fair lady.) Except there's no one else to play along with them. No one to capture between their falling arms, and not for the first time in his life Dante wonders if there were supposed to be three sons instead of just two. He laughs into Nero's face because he can, and Nero growls wildly back at him.
It amuses Dante to realize that they're both near hysterical for two given values of the word.
"Don't fuck with me, Dante," Nero grits out as he shoves his fists, pushing Dante backwards, "I'm not here for that."
"Could have fooled me," Dante grits back, hands tightening around Nero's fists for leverage as he jostles him back towards the ruined doors.
There's a startled gasp but Nero recovers quickly. "You know what I want," the kid heaves out, feet scrambling to catch enough of a hold on the floor to keep him from toppling backwards. His brow, previously so sturdy, twitches stubbornly, his snarling lips quivering with the effort to stay tight.
For some completely insane reason, Dante decides to take pity on him then. Unlocking his elbows just enough to let Nero back on balance, he gently asks, "Will it help things to know?"
When he goes sprawling backward onto the floor of his own damned shop, his sanity returns to him. Sitting up with a distinct curl to his upper lip, Dante tuts once more. "Tch. I just threw your ass a bone, kid. I see you haven't learned not to bite the hand that feeds you."
"Guess not," Nero shrugs, one arm reaching back over his shoulder for what Dante presumes to be the hilt of a sword. The sword. Yamato. Ungrateful little pissant.
Suddenly, Dante sighs. "I dunno what I'm thinking, keeping a rabid puppy like you around. There's a sofa but that's mine, so it's the floor for you if you're going to cramp my style-"
"-who says I'm staying here?" Nero blinks, thoroughly confused and visibly irritated by this fact.
"Well, we sure as hell aren't about to have our heart-to-heart today, kid. I've given you enough of my day off already," he casually explains, as if every day without work isn't technically a day off anyway. "Before you decided to blow the house down, which, by the way, I'll be adding to the tab you'll be running up here in no time in the form of money for damages owed, I was just on my way out to treat myself."
"Is that right?" Nero cooly replies, his mouth quirking into a bitter smirk. "Off for a day at the baths, were you?"
"Hey kid, don't pawn your fantasies off on me," Dante huffs out as he pushes back up onto his feet. "Mine only consist of strawberry sundaes."
"You bast-"
"Ah ah ah," Dante waggles one finger at him. "This bastard's just offered you a place to stay while you walk your endearing little path to self-discovery. Rent's pretty pricey in this neighborhood but you're welcome to try the hotel just down the street. They charge by the hour."
"You would know that, wouldn't you."
"Course I would," Dante winks as he stretches his arms up over his head and cracks his knuckles. "Oh, and be nice to Patty when she comes 'round. It's in your best interest. Girl's about yea-high and goes right for the shins. Ouch." Dante spares him a sobering look as he heads for the front of his shop to survey the damage done.
"Fine. Sure. Fine," Nero grumbles, his hand hovering near his thigh holster as he stands just beside Dante's desk, his back to retreating man. The Blue Rose feels heavy against his leg, just begging for his touch, and hell if it wouldn't feel good to fire off a few rounds right at the bastard's back. "Damn it," Nero eventually hisses, moving his hand away after a bit more thought on the matter.
"What was that?" Dante calls from where he's crouched at the doorway, running his thumb along one twisted metal hinge.
Nero turns around, arms reluctantly crossing over his chest. He sighs. "Got any blankets around here?" he calls back.