Author's Notes: A short little comfort ficlet/drabble. If you're feeling down, I hope it can make you feel a little better.
Lying down, curled up in such a way makes Nero feel almost powerless. His body is long and awkward, an adolescent's nearing adulthood, but in his mind, when he reclines like this, he feels so young; so untouched, so pure. His conscious drives him to this state when he feels wronged; when he doesn't kill the demons quick enough and people complain, or someone gets hurt because there's so many demons and he can't stop them all instantly, and someone yells at him, or Kyrie gives him that look. The look that's set in stone, but the giver tries to soften the guilting blow with a slight twinge of a smile; the look that says, "I love you, so much, but I expected better from you. You fucked up."
It had all started after Dante had come, hadn't it? Now all of a sudden Nero feels like he has to achieve a certain amount; save everyone, save everyone easily, and save everyone in style. It was Dante who gave him his threshold camp, too, wasn't it? Dante had destroyed the Hell Gates, and in front of the crumbled plaques is where Nero lies; almost unconsciously it began. At first he thought it was just because the Hell Gates were far away from the people of Fortuna; if they intended to repair Fortuna Castle, and the border-lying villages, they had sorely overlooked them, or had yet to make their way to fixing them.
Nero is glad for this, more than he could ever know. Because he feels so true in front of the broken markers; he feels so inexplicably angry and frustrated, and yet morbidly sane from the recluse. Why does everyone try to make him feel like he's the bad one? Because he has a demon's arm; demonic blood running through his veins? Because he couldn't save Credo? Because he isn't as good as Dante?
No. The real reason why the Hell Gates seem to bring so much comfort, really, is because Nero sees them as a door; a door from the world of the humans, straight into that of the demons, although destroyed. And no matter how oblivious to the truth he is, he was raised a human, despite his arm, and Dante, although half-demon, half-human, seems all the more demonic, at least far more than Nero himself. Their first meeting, after all, had been explicably Nero the human, trying to save the people of Fortuna from Dante the devil, and as they say, first impressions tend to stick. So Nero likes to think of it like that, and in this way, he justifies why he hasn't gone to see Dante:
You're right here. After all, you're right here… right, old man?
Once he's said this in his mind, once he's scratched his nails into the dirt, he's ready to start a new day.