Author' Note: This is my personal baby, this pairing. and yes, Zeke is from the Haunted Mansion. He's from the Disney Video Game Haunted Mansion. He's the 19 year old version of the Caretaker, from the disney world ride. I figured that Dante and Zeke were a little bit alike. and it does fit, in my mind. yes, this is boy/boy, so if you don't like it, don't read it. and please, be nice if you're going to flame at all. this pairing is one of my crossover OTP's
Guilty Pleasures
Dante didn't have many. Guilty pleasures, that was. Enemies, girls, debt, he had that all in abundance. Though, looking at the half naked Ezekiel Halloway(known to friends as 'Zeke' and enemies as 'Light-bearer') he had a feeling he could increase the miniscule number of things so bad they made you feel so good, by one. "Hey, my silent pretty boy, get your ass over here" He gestured for the scarecrow thin and gawky young man to come over, who simply glanced over his shoulder at Dante, and smiled.
Fears
Zeke was afraid of a lot of things; he'd be the first to admit it. He was afraid of the dark, of ghosts (ironic considering he found, purified and protected spirits for a living), of death, of fighting, but he wasn't afraid of Dante. Dante was in fact, probably the only thing the quiet caretaker of the "Haunted Mansion" as Dante had dubbed it, completely and totally unafraid of. And given he was part demon, well, it was a little perplexing. Zeke had fought a demon before, was scared shitless of demons, and yet, the smirking white-haired badass who'd kicked down the massive double-doors to the mansion and literally bowled the much thinner and weaker man over with his entrance, seemed to be the interesting exception. And when they were in more intimate positions, like Zeke being held almost protectively on Dante's lap as the larger man stroked his hair, the orphan turned hero found he was quite glad that the one thing he wasn't scared of, was Dante.
Spirits
Dante could handle ghosts. For the most part. It was weird, but he could take them, sure it was hard sitting back and not slashing the impure creatures that kept coming at him, but as had been explained in full by the creepy Madame Leoda, the freaky head in a crystal ball that Zeke kept in his satchel, "Impure souls still had the chance of being saved, purified by the Lantern of Souls, and only demons and devils were beyond saving" Both he and Zeke had ignored the sharp glare she'd given at Dante at the last bit. No, Dante could handle the impure souls and ghosts Zeke had to save. The only ones he couldn't handle? The six damn dead ninnies who'd taken it upon themselves to be babysitters and guardians of sorts to Zeke.
Though right now? Well…He kept glancing at the walls and ceiling as he leaned over the blushing Zeke on the bed and slipped a hand under the other's shirt, Zeke practically purring as he arched into the touch, his face coming up to meet Dante's and- "Would either of you dearies like something to eat?" Dante shouted in surprise and pulled back, hand withdrawing from Zeke's body like he'd been burned while the light-bearer in question moaned and turned onto his side, arms wrapped around his head as he curled into the fetal position. Dante actually pulled his gun out and cocked it at the chuckling ghost floating back through the ceiling. Zeke, still curled up, kicked him lightly and Dante looked down. "I wasn't going to actually-" Zeke chuckled softly and kicked him again. Dante smirked. "Okay, yea, at least it was the grandmother one. And not the gunslinger or pirate again" He couldn't be bothered to remember their names. Zeke started laughing full on, which was rare for him, and reached up and out to grab Dante's jacket and pull the bigger man on top of him. Dante grinned and put the gun away before kissing the side of Zeke's face and neck. The ghosts had better not come in right now, because nothing was going to stop the two from doing what they wanted right at this moment.
Silence
In the mansion, and several times when Zeke actually ventured out of it to help Dante with angry spirits infesting a job, or his Devil May Cry "shop" (this happened quite often, apparently, but Dante never bothered getting Zeke for it until it was so bad you could practically walk on the souls), Zeke found that Dante talked when it should be better to keep silent. Espionage jobs, (which Zeke had a natural talent for) hiding, especially hiding, Dante talked. A lot. So maybe he did it to mask his nervousness of having a situation out of his control, where he couldn't shoot slash and kill, and yea, he had a point about the lantern, but running away from officers, and needing to avoid lower demons and ghosts at the same time, not a good thing to be doing, talking. They needed the lantern, it kept the darkness at bay and was the only thing that purified and captured the ghosts, but Dante's mouth? They could do with it silenced.
Zeke huffed as he tried for the umpteenth time to cover Dante's mouth, and the white-haired man pulled away. He'd tried several tactics to get Dante to shut up, and nothing had worked, and they were currently in a situation with two groups of police men coming from opposite sides of an alley way. There were niches, but no other paths. Zeke looked around wildly as Dante quipped about shooting a path through the officers. They were not making more souls for Zeke to purify, no freaking way. Out of ideas, Zeke grabbed Dante and kissed him soundly, pulling him into one of the deeper niches and gasping softly against Dante's mouth as he was pushed against the uneven wall. Zeke hid his lantern under Dante's jacket, compensating by gripping the other's shirt tightly and obediently opening his mouth when Dante indicated he wanted to enter.
Zeke and Dante paused when the police got to where they had been a few moments ago, and Dante peered over his shoulder as the officers milled around looking for them. "Do you think they scaled the walls?" "The spidery one? probably. But Dante? I bet he opened a portal or something and escaped like that. Either way, they aren't here. Let's go" Dante and Zeke had hands over each other's mouths to keep from erupting in laughter. The price of infamy. When the police had left, down the path Dante and Zeke had been coming up in, Zeke took his hands off of Dante's mouth, who promptly opened it to comment. Zeke raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Hush" Dante blinked, and then grinned. "But they called you-" "hush"
Voices
Ezekiel Halloway was a man of very few words, as Dante knew very, very well. In fact, he'd thought the young man was mute for a good few months of knowing him, he spoke that little. The first time he'd heard Zeke talk was when some lesser demon had been carrying Zeke down the hall towards a hole in the floor, far enough down to really injure him, and he'd blasted the thing with his lantern before looking back at the man chasing after and struggled as the wounded demon gripped him tighter. "Dante, help!" Dante had almost fallen over right there, but managed to shoot the thing and catch Zeke before he fell into the pit. Zeke had clung to him and said shakily; "Thank you very much" Dante's reaction was, predictably, "You can talk!" and then, after a moment "You're a tenor!" and the New Orleans man had sighed, a little amused that the first reactions was about the depth of his voice, not the fact he had a prominent accent, and very different from what New Orleans were shown to have in media. A Yat accent was typically only the Caucasian dialect, and what Zeke had. He had to explain this to Dante later, who'd spent several hours fruitlessly trying to figure it out. (He'd guessed German, Chinese and Yiddish before Zeke took pity on him and told him what it was). He'd also found it funny that Dante didn't seem to notice that Zeke's voice was rather raspy from lack of use, a roughness that fit well with his accent. (Actually, Dante had, and found it sexy. He just wasn't going to say anything because Zeke tended to scare easy, especially over compliments)
When Dante could get Zeke to vocalize, he was a happy man. When he could get Zeke to go from sounds to words, he was on top of the world, never mind actually getting a full sentence. Though when he could get a full sentence he was energized enough to take on a whole demon horde. Zeke, of course, didn't really see what the big deal was. Then again, he'd spent three years with only ghosts and a psychic in a crystal ball for company, so talking hadn't really been necessary when Leoda could just read what he was thinking. And besides, he was very good at getting across what he wanted, without actually speaking. Oh, he knew Dante could testify if he wanted, that Ezekiel Halloway was very good at getting across what he wanted, body language did wonders.
Families
Dante had decided early on that he didn't like Zeke's ghostly "family" very much at all. And Zeke was rather wary of all the women who considered Dante a brother or friend, and he wasn't sure what to think of Nero, who maybe or maybe wasn't Dante's nephew. And in turn the ghosts didn't much like their charge's lover, and Dante's friends and Nero weren't sure what to think of the quiet, cringing red-head who could take out a demon twice his size with his lantern with a single thought, (it was named "Beacon of Souls, but even Zeke just called it the 'soul lantern') and purify spirits that were usually trying to eat, kill, maim or seduce him on a regular basis. The ghosts didn't like Dante for his heritage, his abrasiveness, dark sense of humor and lighthearted way of going at the world, often while doing things the ghosts and Madame Leoda found reprehensible. And nobody who met Zeke could really come to terms with the fact that one minute he was hiding behind Dante's trenchcoat and the next he was wielding holy magic and glowing white when he'd charged the lantern too long.
It was surprising to both "families" that Zeke, purified by the lantern to almost angel status, and Dante, a half-demon, actually got along well enough to date each other. Another perplexing thing was the amount of communication. But, as Zeke had once pointed out to Lady (who'd stared at him open-mouthed because she hadn't realized he could speak) "You don't have to speak to get across what you need" and after an incident of Zeke actually dragging Dante around the office by his ear until he ate a proper meal of more than pizza, and Dante having saved Zeke from getting ripped apart by an angry gargoyle (he'd had a nasty chest wound though, and Dante had stayed by him till he'd healed enough to get out of bed. The star-shaped scar on his chest still gave Zeke a little trouble though, and Dante did a pretty good job of masking slight worry), the ghosts and the Devil May Cry group had decided that maybe they were worthy of being part of their families, after all.