100songs - 013. Someone's Watching Over Me / 30_beverages - 01. Water
Title: Killing Time
Fandom: Devil May Cry
Characters: Dante
Prompt: 001. Water / 013. Someone's Watching Over Me
Word Count: 1138
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: I'm obviously really cracked out and bored, because here I am, writing a crossover type thing, though, to be fair, I can see Silent Hill, Devil May Cry, and a few other series existing within the same 'world'. Besides, we all know we want to see the shade of Harry Mason. Contains spoilers for both Devil May Cry and Silent Hill/Silent Hill 3.
He'd taken a job from a strange client in a strange town, by the name of Silent Hill. To be honest, even in Dante's line of work, he'd never heard of the place, and for good reason, as he'd put stuff together for the trip. Just little resort town situated north of his own home town, that apparently was little more than a ghost town during the fall and winter months.
And ghost town had been right, as he'd driven in, in the early afternoon. The entire place had been engulfed in fog from the lake south of where he'd come into town, and he had yet to see a single person in the last...Hour or so that he'd been there. He was traveling by foot, because though Dante was reckless as hell, even he wasn't chancing his bike in that kind of weather, and it gave him a better layout of the town, as well.
Some vacation spot. It looked like any other small town on the east coast, to be perfectly honest. He wasn't impressed.
But he couldn't help feeling uneasy as he strode down a sidewalk, on a street named Bloch, past a church that, while it looked like any other in any small town, gave him a weird feeling. It was like something was watching him, and he honestly didn't appreciate that. And with the goddamned fog, he couldn't see anything, either.
His client hadn't been kidding about it being a tough job.
But that was fine. Dante had seen worse, in the last few years, so it would take more than some empty town to get him down. He was tough, or some other such bullshit, and the pay had been too good to pass up, anyway.
But as it was, he was still tromping around in a haze, trying to find something - anything, really - to tell him what the hell was going on with the town. It was more than just the creepy feeling; it was something in the air itself that had him on edge, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly what that was. He'd give anything, really, to run into one person to at least confirm his suspicions.
He didn't have to wait long, as he spotted a relatively non-descript guy standing in front of the police station, though he looked a little retro, to Dante. His hairstyle, slicked back carelessly as it was, was straight out of the mid-80s, as were the jeans and leather jacket, plus a vest, he was wearing. But he looked alright, though Dante's nose detected nothing about him but his simple presence. Which was why he approached casually, running a gloved hand through his own hair.
"Hey, dude. You from around here?"
The guy started, as though he hadn't expected anyone to come along (a fact which didn't surprise Dante in the slightest), before shaking his head and looking at Dante hard a long moment. "...No, not really. Are you lost?"
"Eh..." Dante, like every other man in existance, didn't like admitting to such things. But the guy looked on the narrow enough that, after a glance around, as though to confirm, no, no one was around, he shrugged, shifting his weight to one side as he paused a few feet away. "Kinda. I'm looking for, uh..." He patted at his jacket a moment, before finding a piece of paper in the inside left pocket, squinting at his own scribbled words. "The Silent Hill town center. You got any idea where the hell that is?"
In answer, the other pulled out a map that had been scribbled all over with red pen, and unfolded it, holding it out for Dante to take, as he pointed out the route. "Yes. All you need to do is take this road - it changes from Bloch to Sagen - and head up Simmons. It'll be on your right." He offered a small, good-natured smile, and waved for Dante to keep the map when the half-demon tried to hand it back. "No, no, you keep it. I don't need it, and you will, in this fog if you're new here."
Dante raised an eyebrow at that, but folded it and tucked it away in his jacket, anyway. "...Thanks." The guy couldn't know it, but a thank you wasn't something Dante offered freely or often, and the dude had totally just saved his ass. "You, uh, know what's going on around here? S'damn quiet."
"Someone once told me...Darkness is ravaging the town." The guy turned away then, making to leave. "You look out for yourself. That map'll show you everywhere you need to go. Alright?"
"Yeah, thanks." Dante glanced away, to squint up the road the map had indicated, before turning back to the other, with a, "Hey, I didn't get your na-" Admittedly, with the fog around, the guy could have walked off just a few feet, and Dante wouldn't have seen him, but the truth was, the feel of him was gone, as well. He stood there a moment, before pulling out the map once more and unfolding it, taking time to examine it. The print date was 1986, and the red ink was faded, as though it had been written a long time before, and it was worn and frayed, as though it had seen a good bit of use.
And that's when it hit Dante, and hard. The guy he'd been talking to hadn't been a guy at all. He was a shade, a spiritual impression made when something occurs of great psychological and emotional importance to an object, in that case, the town. Though, he'd be the first to say that the shades he usually ran into were of the recently dead. "Huh." More and more, he was starting to not like Silent Hill, because that had added a whole new level of creepy to the situation, and didn't make him question his client's motives a moment longer. "Fucking ghost hunt." He hated hunting down ghosts and the like, he really did.
With a sigh, he tucked the map away once more and started up the street, the clinking of his weapons the only noise in the otherwise quiet, foggy air. How he let himself get suckered into these kinds of things, he'd never know, but the fact was...It was nice to know there were some generous ghosts in the town full of them (so it seemed), who were willing to help the living out.
A person in his line of work didn't see that very often, after all.