Devil May Cry - Dante - The Fool
Title: Waiting To Leave
Fandom: Devil May Cry
Character: Dante, with a brief cameo by Vergil (?)
Claim: Dante
Prompt: 01. The Fool
Word Count: 1428
Rating: PG, for slight Dante mouth.
Notes: Er, this is a take on a pre-manga Dante, at sixteen. Which, actually, would place this little ficlet at two years before the manga, before Dante has established himself as a demon hunter. No spoilers at all, which shocks the crap out of me. I usually throw in at least one.
He'd been forced to move again. In all actuality, it came as no surprise; Dante was used to drifting where the wind blew him, and he never truly settled much of anywhere, for the simple fact that who he was didn't allow for it. Well. He'd amend that, in his head. It wasn't so much who he was that forced him from place to place, but more who others thought he was. He still wasn't entirely sure if he could believe it, though his talents in areas of life that he shouldn't have confirmed it.
Dante was good about ignoring the obvious if it suited him.
His memories didn't make sense at times, either, which was another problem, another thing that made him seem a little strange to those who had the (mis)fortune of coming into contact with the white-haired young man. Physical oddity coupled with the fact that his behavior could be just plain strange certainly hadn't made him any life-long friends. That, and getting close to Dante usually equalled having a death wish. That, really, was the story of his life; everyone he came to care about either died or went away when they got sick of him, so he'd kept a policy of holding others at arms length, never letting them get through the 'bad boy' persona he played with, perfecting the shell he needed to both survive, and keep others around him alive.
But it didn't matter, because he was on the move again. Sixteen years old, and not a place to call home; it was unfortunate, but it was better than leaving others to die, simply from knowing him. But that was fine. He was used to being alone. He'd been alone for years at that point, since early adolescence, since his mother and brother had died, and he'd been left alone to make his way in the world.
But it was acutely cold, outside the train station where he waited for his ride to the next nowhere town, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet to keep warm. The sword strapped to his back (which earned him more than a few odd looks; luckily no one thought it was real) and the guns tucked against his back jangled and clanked together with the movement, because, as always, Dante was so clunky and loud. He didn't care much about that, either. Only a coward kept to the shadows and kept quiet, and wouldn't take their beating like a man.
He was hungry, but a real meal would have to wait until he got to where he was going. That was why he was also chewing idly at the stick of beef jerky he'd picked up...He couldn't remember. He'd stopped a lot of places, in between his old hole-in-the-wall of an apartment and the station. It really wasn't anything at all to make a dent, but that was just the way of it. It wasn't like he had a lot of cash to spread around, after all. He was lost in his own thoughts, wondering what, exactly, it was that he was going to do when he reached the next hellhole place; where he was going to go, where he was going to even live...Though that wouldn't be much of a problem, either. In his short life, Dante had had some experience with living on the streets, as well.
If nothing else, he had street smarts. Not much in the way of a 'formal' education, no, but he'd learned to survive on his own relatively unscathed, and really, in his line of business, as a total newbie to the dark underworld that festered beneath the glaze of normalacy of everyday life, that was all that mattered. He was making it - Barely.
A whimper at his feet caused him to start from his own troubled thoughts, and he looked around and then down, brushing the tangled white locks from his eyes as he spotted a dog, sitting at his feet and looking up expectantly at him, wiry-haired tail wagging fit to beat the band, face set in a doggy-grin while his tongue lolled about, even in this cold of weather. For a moment, Dante just stared at it. After all, animals had never been too fond of him, either going hyper-aggressive and attacking, or running away, so this was unprecidented. And then he reached up and took the stick of beef jerky from his mouth, lip pulling up to reveal an overly long canine, bared in something not quite a grin.
"Yeah? Th'hell you want, mutt?" The mutt in question, a reddish-brown, wiry-haired terrier something or other, only wagged its tail faster in answer, before giving a yip and rearing up, placing his front paws against Dante's knees, nose twitching in the air. For a moment, Dante just twitched, before looking to the beef jerky and the dog once more, and giving a deep-chested sigh. It was a shabby-looking creature, as shabby as Dante himself looked, and he couldn't deny a fellow vagrant, could he?
"Figures. You better make good use of this, you dig? Or I'm gonna be pissed off. I ain't gonna get nothing else for a while." He snorted and offered the jerky stick to the dog, who didn't hesitate a moment before pulling it away and making it disappear in a hurry. Dante snorted again, and held up his hands. "That's it, dude. All I got." He dropped his hands once more, against his jacket, and the dog offered him a pleased whine and a lick of the fingers, which made Dante wrinkle his nose. He couldn't help it really; he'd never had any animal do something like that, and it felt warm and wet and gross and sticky.
Clatter around the station pulled his attention away, as his train was finally arriving, and he bent and picked up his bag, giving the dog a quick scratch behind the ears. It was friendly enough, for a mutt. Bag secured on his shoulder, he started for the platform where the others were lining up, taking his place in line to get the hell out of town.
The boarding went quickly for once, and as Dante moved to settle in his seat, he glanced out the window, which happened to be facing the station, to find the dog still sitting there, wagging its tail. The only difference was, as the train jerked, almost knocking him from his feet until he caught himself on the back of his seat, was the person kneeling next to the dog. Dante couldn't deny he had very acute vision, and now was no exception. White hair, blue eyes...The same nose and mouth and chin and...The only difference was the person on the station platform looked so put together, and wore blue, instead of red.
He moved to press closer to the glass, for a better look, when the train jerked again, and he was knocked over for sure that time, sprawling in an unattractive fashion across the seats, before scrambling up once more, to take another look. Of course, whoever it had been was gone. Of course. Dante had heard of the phenomena, in a round about kind of way. Where, when a twin lost the other, they tended to 'create' them at the oddest times, to see them, just as solidly as if they were alive and whole in front of them.
That was all it was, because Vergil was dead. He'd died just like their mom had, and Dante was just imagining things. Of course...It was odd. He figured, if he was going to hallucinate like that, it would have happened before now, when he'd thought he'd detached himself from the past. He slumped down into the seat and pulled his jacket tighter around himself as the train finally really started moving, the station slowly slipping out of his eyesight. It didn't matter. He was leaving this place, hopefully for good, for a new start; a place where he could stake his claim as what he was and hopefully make a little cash while he was doing it. Maybe even enough to get his own place, so he could finally stop running.