Thank you very much again for all your reviews, you are all so awesome!!!! So here is chapter 3 all nice and done and now I can get on to writing chapter 4!

Furesesse1 – Hehe thanks, and I'm sure Dante will get exactly what he wants... eventually!

Blackblade444 – We all love a mean Dante, or any kind of Dante really... Nero loves it really :P

KawaiiYue – Glad you liked it and yes, Dante has a very dirty mind!!! ^^

Bitbyboth – I'm glad it cracked you up, we need Dante to cheer up all the angst!

SirenaLoreley – I'm pleased my writing style is clear, I do wonder about it sometimes... and yes, Dante's thoughts are going to get even naughtier! ^^

Shiya64 – Don't worry, your reviews do not suck! All reviews are awesome! And yes indeed, we may be seeing some of Dante's possessive side

Thanks again and enjoy!! ^^

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Chapter 3 – Unexpected Roadblock

They'd been on the road for about an hour now and Nero was already fast asleep. Things had gone well back at the town; he'd been able to quit his job and hand over the keys to his flat with no trouble. Dante pulled into a petrol station and stopped by the only available pump to fill up his car, the other being occupied by a large Range Rover. They still had at least another two hours to go before they returned home. Home. He wondered if Nero would ever consider Devil May Cry to be home. He observed the younger slayer closely as he waited for the tank to fill, an absent smile on his face. The kid's silvery hair almost covered his eyes, a few soft strands catching in the icy breeze that blew momentarily through the station. His pale skin looked comfortingly warm and it almost seemed to glow under the gaze of the winter sun hovering low on the horizon. Nero looked so beautiful, but Dante couldn't ignore how cute he was, curled up in the passenger seat and wrapped in his blue denim coat.

Once the car was filled, Dante removed the pump and headed into the small shop to pay for the fuel. When he returned to his car, it was to his displeasure that two women were pointing at Nero and whispering. One of them giggled girlishly and blushed, sending a wave of feeling through Dante that he'd only felt so strongly once before. The same thing he felt when he thought of the kid being with Kyrie. Was it jealousy? He frowned slightly and cast a disgruntled look at the women before getting into the driver's seat. He glanced at Nero again, who shifted and smiled softly into the hood of his red jacket. Without waking him, he gently brushed some of the hair away from his eyes, his breath hitching in his throat slightly as he caught the feel of skin beneath his finger tips. The kid was his and no one else's. He sighed as he left the petrol station and returned the motorway; he'd really fallen for Nero. It was difficult to deny it now. It had truly been love at first sight.

"Hmm... Dante..." Nero's sleepy voice reached his ears.

Dante nearly drove the car off the road when the teen's voice gave him the distinct impression he was dreaming about him. But he regained his composure when he heard Nero stir and sit up, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes and yawning.

"You're finally awake then, sleepy head," Dante teased.

"Can it old man," Nero grumbled. "How long has it been?"

"About an hour, so another two to go."

He groaned. "That long."

"Sorry kid, I know I can do a lot of things, but I can't make time go any faster."

"I just want to go home."

Did he really think he was going home? "I wouldn't hope for that just yet," Dante replied with a small chuckle. "The plumbing needs fixing and I can't afford that right now, so no hot showers. I bet your crappy flat even had hot water."

At that instant, he smirked as he thought about how he could make Nero's showers a little warmer...

"Can't you fix it yourself?"

"Hey, do I look like a plumber to you?"

"You said you can do a lot of things."

"Tch."

Nero smirked. "Maybe it's a good thing that I'm coming with you after all. With the two of us doing jobs, we'll get more income so you can get someone in to fix your plumbing. Guess you needed my help after all."

"I didn't say you had to work for me, but it's sweet of you to offer."

Nero blushed. "I ain't sweet."

"No, I'm serious! It's sweet that you want to work for me."

"Stop saying that! I told you, I ain't fucking sweet."

"Not when you speak like that, anyway."

"You should be glad I'm helping ya, so quit teasing me."

Dante smirked. "Whatever you say kid."

Nero grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like 'not a fucking kid' under his breath before turning his head to look out of the side. He rested his arm on the car door and laid his chin against it, closing his eyes as the cold wind refreshed his tired face. He was glad that Dante rescued him from what was becoming a very gloomy existence, but he'd never tell the elder that. He'd never hear the end of that man's arrogance if he did.

"What the hell?" the other man's voice sounded preoccupied.

Nero dropped out of thought and looked around him, seeing that the motorway was now stretched across a bridge over a wide river with the traffic piling up ahead of them. Great, now this was going to add more time to the already too long a journey. So much for wanting to get home as quickly as possible and settle down into a new life with Dante at Devil May Cry. With Dante...

"Stop day dreaming kid!" Dante cut in.

"Sorry," Nero glanced at him. "Guess this means more than two hours then?"

"Damn it, can't you smell that? Or have a few months of delivering pizza dulled your senses?"

Now that he thought about it, he could definitely smell a strange scent in the air. All the normal smells were around; fumes from the cars mixed with oil grease, but it went deeper than that. He could smell fear and on top of that, bloodlust and something...

"Demons!" Nero gasped. "Backing up all this traffic?"

"Not quite," Dante replied, thinking for a moment. "I believe..."

At that moment, a large, ash grey claw appeared from underneath the bridge and slammed into the side of the road. An almost fluid black shadow spilled out over the road from the clawed hand and several Mephisto floated up out of the concrete. It was no wonder the traffic had been backed up; the air was so thick with the presence of this shadow that even humans would be able to sense the danger. The larger Demon still hidden underneath the bridge was obviously responsible for summoning the Mephisto.

"Alright kid," Dante began with a devilish grin. "Time to show me those moves of yours."

"What about you?" asked Nero.

"Someone needs to drive, so you prove to me that you've not fallen behind!"

Nero grinned. "You're asking for it old man."

Oh yes he most certainly was. Dante drove between the traffic until he could pull into the hard shoulder and sped along towards the small swarm of Mephisto. Nero stood up in his seat, reaching back behind it to retrieve Blue Rose, take aim at the devils and shoot them all down. Dante swerved to avoid one as it nearly hit the car, but Nero hand things under control as he snatched it with his Devil Bringer and slammed it into the road. As more of the Mephisto were shot down easily by Nero's bullets, the larger Demon had crawled up onto the motorway. It wasn't as big as they expected; barely reaching twenty feet and its oversized hands and long arms looked clumsy. It lowered its horned head and slightly twitched the mandibles protecting its face as it observed Nero with deep purple eyes, making the kid's demonic arm glow wildly.

Their gaze was pulled away from each other as Dante drove out in front of the backed up traffic, most of the people getting out of their vehicles to flee. The Demon tried to swat them with its massive hands, but its movements were too slow to out manoeuvre Dante's driving. Nero grabbed hold of the wind shield, cracking the glass as he held on to try and stop himself falling out of the car. Balance was tricky with Dante driving like this.

"You're steering this thing too madly!" Nero yelled.

"Do you want to become a permanent mark on this road?" Dante shouted back.

There was another jerk this time as the hand nearly got them, sharp nails raking off some of the paintwork. "Fair point."

"Go kick its arse, I need to park this somewhere."

"You're worried about your car now?!"

"I ain't walking home kid!"

Nero grumbled and reached for Red Queen behind the passenger seat, holstering Blue Rose to keep his demon arm free. He leapt from the car and grabbed hold of one of the Demon's horns with his Devil Bringer, glad to be free of that ridiculous speed. Dante drove off, a clear line ahead of him as Nero now held their opponent's attention. But he wasn't getting away for long; a Mephisto floated up beneath him and lifted the car into the air with ease.

"Oh come on, don't do that!" Dante growled.

The Mephisto propelled the car a small distance and it hit the ground with a crash, the left front wheel flying off and bouncing over the side of the bridge. Dante jumped from the car before it skidded to a halt, arming himself with Ebony and Ivory to swiftly take care of the Mephisto. He glanced back at his car sadly, hating to think how much it would cost to repair it.

"That was a damn good car too," he grumbled.

Further ahead, Nero was finding the Demon to be a little tougher than he expected. Although its movements were very slow and clumsy, it was armoured like an armadillo and even Red Queen was struggling to cut through it. He rolled away as the Demon's left hand tried to squash him into the road and he reached out with his Bringer to grab onto a horn. Screaming in frustration, it tossed its ugly head and Nero flew into the air, revving Red Queen as he aimed to hack off its tail on his descent. The blade sliced through the thick hide and severed the long, flailing tail clean off. The Demon screamed again, Nero being tossed to the ground on his back as it whipped round in fury. He reached for Blue Rose, but a large hand knocked him further back along the road and he dropped the gun some way from his feet.

"Crap," Nero uttered.

The Demon went for him again, but Nero felt a rush of cool air as someone jumped in front of him in a flash of red. Looking up, he saw that Dante was now stood between them, a small smirk playing on his handsome face and his twin guns aimed at the devil.

"You ain't playing fair," he said lazily as his blue eyes fixed on the Demon's purple ones.

It let out a blood curdling cry, spreading wide its pincer-like mandibles and showing off several sets of razor sharp teeth. Dante grinned and fired several rounds of bullets into the now unprotected face, fountains of blood raining down onto the road. The Demon backed away with a roar of pain, trying to protect its face but the damage had already been done. Dante leapt after it and took aim once again, firing the last round of bullets to finish it off. The defeated creature collapsed to the ground, spilling more blood onto the concrete until its body fizzled away into nothing. With a brief sigh, Dante holstered his guns and walked over to Nero, who was getting to his feet and rubbing the back of his head.

"Not bad kid," he noted. "But you can't beat me like that."

Nero scowled. "Its armour was pretty tough, you know."

"No excuses; you find its weak spot and take the opening when it comes." He bent down and picked up Blue Rose. "Here."

Nero's face turned a faint shade of pink as he took his signature gun from the elder hunter and holstered it. He glanced back down the road, just about managing to make out people slowly returning to their vehicles through the thinning darkness. Thanks to the strange shadow conjured by the Demon, no one would really have been able to see anything.

"Shall we get going?" he asked.

"Err... yeah..." Dante replied, suddenly remembering his car.

The two men walked back to where the Mephisto had thrown the red sports car, which was now exceptionally well scratched. The damage could have been a lot worse, but there was no way they'd be driving home with a wheel missing.

"Dante," Nero didn't sound impressed. "What...?"

"Mephisto," Dante responded with a shrug.

"How careless!"

"I told you to take care of them!"

"I did! Don't make this out to be my fault!"

"Whatever, just help me with this, will ya?"

Hiding a quick snigger at ruffling the elder's feathers, Nero helped him push the wrecked car into the hard shoulder. He sat down on the hood, watching the traffic slowly get started again as Dante phoned for a rescue service. He looked up at the sky, glad for the sun and lack of clouds since they might be stuck out here for a while. If it was raining, they'd both end up really pissed off and not much good for company.

"They shouldn't be long," Dante explained as he came back and sat down next to Nero on the front of his car. "There's a small town about fifteen minutes off the motorway, so we can stay there while they fix this. So long as they don't ask questions."

Nero snorted. "That'd be fun."

"Let's hope they have somewhere decent to stay there."

"Well, you can't say the journey wasn't interesting."

"At least I didn't destroy the bridge."

"Then you'd be in trouble!"

Nero laughed, but stopped abruptly as Dante shoved him off the hood and onto the concrete. He glared up at the older man, folding his arms and looking as though he'd been mortally wounded. Now it was Dante's turn to laugh, but he still looked so cute.

"What the fuck was that for?" Nero exclaimed.

"That's what you get for laughing at me," Dante replied.

"You'd better not be like this when I'm living with you."

"How would you like me to be then?"

Nero blushed as he got to his feet. "You'd better not say any weird stuff again."

"So you wouldn't want me to keep you warm in the shower?"

"Seriously, you are a pervert!"

"You didn't say no."

"Of course I said no!"

Dante smirked as Nero sat back down again, being careful not to sit too close to the elder. So long as he thought he was only trying to annoy him, there was no harm in saying such things. But what if Nero started to think he was messing around all the time? He didn't want to ruin any chances he had with the kid, so maybe he should ease up a bit.

"Nero..." he said suddenly, trailing off a bit.

The younger looked startled. "What? You never call me that!"

Dante shrugged. "Thought I'd give it a try."

Yes, he was very serious about Nero. But teasing him was just too much fun. His trademark smirk had returned by the time the tow truck arrived and both men got off the hood of the car.

"You'd better pray you can afford this," Nero muttered, then paused. "Dante."


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And what a quick end to a really lame demon! I have a better one planned... I hope you enjoyed and I will update asap!