Disclaimer: I do not own Devil May Cry.

I've started a livejournal group for this pairing, dantexnevan! Come join and share the (rare) love of these two very hot people. There's also one for spardaxeva.

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Sometimes periods where he didn't get any business were signs that something big was about to go down. Sometimes they were random. This one hadn't been random.

An evil clone of his mother. As though he didn't already have an evil twin.

Vergil had recognized him before he'd recognized Vergil.

"The first time I saw him again after Mom died, I didn't recognize him. He had these funky bandages and was wearing green. I should have figured it out, but I was suppressing a lot of my memories. I remembered Mom dying, but I didn't remember about Dad or that I had a twin." He took another drink and Nevan refilled the glass. "After Nell, I told you about her, she made the girls, died, I remembered who I was, but I still didn't remember him. The thing I was suppressing the hardest, the memory that hurt the most, was that my brother had died. Weird, huh."

"He was your best friend and nestmate, sugar. You said your mother kept you away from other children, so…" Nevan shrugged.

"If I'd recognized him then, I could have done something and my friends wouldn't have gotten killed. If I'd recognized him this time I could have, I don't know, grabbed him or something." Dante chugged the glass again. If he kept it up he might get buzzed. Or maybe it would be all in his head, psychosomatic.

Nevan shook her head. "Mundus isn't that kind. He wouldn't want to lose his trophy."

"He didn't want to get his ass kicked, either, but that didn't stop me. It was close, damn close. If Trish hadn't shown up," Dante mimed cutting his throat.

"I'll have to thank her," Nevan smiled.

"She's a lot like you. Hasn't got fire, but she's got spark. I'm wondering if she's one of your long-lost relatives. There were also enemies I'm going to call Plasmas. All the good names have been taken… bats that turned humanoid."

"When Mundus defeated our parents he took everything. Thank you for finding Alastor."

"No sweat. Some blood, but no sweat." Dante smiled. "Trish isn't a devil arm, though. Could you show her around? You're the expert on being a human female here."

"Sure, sugar." He nodded thanks and drank, she refilled it.

"I did it." Dante's smile grew.

"You sure did."

"I beat Mundus."

"I just wish I'd been there to see it."

"Sorry, Nevan, but I had to focus on Force Edge. I managed to unseal it. Thanks to Vergil. His amulet got left behind." He looked a little downcast.

Nevan knew why. She'd heard Vergil say he would never give the amulet up. Of course Dante was a son of Sparda, but him giving away the amulet seemed so final.

"Mundus escaped, though. He'll probably be back in another two thousand years. I wonder if I'll be around then."

"Count on it, Sugar." The truly powerful devils lived until something killed them. The other hybrids had been made to do human things like age, she had learned, but she was certain Sparda had done his best for his children.

"I told him my son would beat him when he came back, but I don't want them to have to do it. I don't want to have a kid just for the sake of the world." He didn't want another orphan with a destiny.

"Well, you've got plenty of time to think about it, Sugar. No rush. Although you're a very eligible bachelor. If it was easier to make portals I bet some lady devils might come courting," Nevan teased.

Dante winced. "And wreck the city if I turned them down. Trish asked on the plane and I said I really should have a kid with a human."

"Sure, sugar?"

"Well, maybe. But Trish has a crush on me. I don't know how to deal with it."

"Tell her you're not interested."

"But I don't want to break her heart just when she's growing one. What if she decides to try to kill me? Or… I want her to be more than a servant, and if I say I don't want to marry her will she think I don't care about her? I do care about her, even though I just met her."

"You're growing up so quickly, but you still miss your mother." She looked at him with sympathy. "Hecate was harsh, but… Well." She shrugged.

"Family is family. Maybe if I just act uninterested she'll decide I'm too much of a pain to bother with."

"She's probably never known kindness, Sugar. Never known love besides mating. The more you care for her the more she'll want to be your mate. She'll try to buy even more love."

"Mundus told her to try to get in my pants." Dante glared at nothing. "She was made after Mundus caught Vergil so she's nine or less. Depends on how much foresight Mundus had. He's an idiot, so he probably didn't plan this that far in advance."

"I'll try to help her learn she's free now."

"Hell, she's fixated on me. Her whole life she was meant to entrap me, programmed to do it." Dante shook his head. "It could take years."

"You'll manage, Sugar. You've even made Beowulf like you. You're good with people of all sorts." She laid a hand on his arm and squeezed, smiling.

He smiled back. "Thanks for taking care of everything."

"Well, we just had to celebrate your victory." They sat in the middle of the debris of the surprise party Nevan had escorted them home to.

"I beat Mundus. Me, the Legendary Dark Knight Dante." He grinned at her, the boy he once had been showing in his face. "I could retire now if I wanted. Move to the Bahamas."

"His generals will not be happy he was defeated again," Nevan warned, shaking her head.

"Yeah, you're right. I'm going to be fighting until something kills me." He swished the rum around in the glass and downed it.

Nevan refilled it again. "You should get to bed, sugar. As soon as they get their feet under them they'll attack here."

"Which is why I should stay awake."

"Dante, Dante. We're all here. You saved the world, let us take care of you and Trish."

"Trish can take care of herself."

"She's sleeping too," Nevan reminded him.

"She's earned it. Had a long couple of days."

"You have too, Sugar. Just like you, looking after everyone but yourself. Remember after the tower?"

"Yeah, you had to sing me to sleep like you were my mother or something." That made him think of how Nevan looked nothing like Eva. Unlike Trish. He wondered if he'd dream of her death again. The nightmares had lessened, but after this? He shook his head to shake off the thoughts. "You were great today."

"You handled me well, Sugar."

"Not just when I played you, the singing. Damn, I wish we could just run away and start a real band." He started humming under his breath the song he'd paid some people to record for him so he could put it on his jukebox all those years ago.

Nevan joined in, singing wordlessly, like the echoes of a heavenly chorus. When the song was over Dante bowed. "Damn, I'm good."

"At all sorts of things, Sugar." Nevan leaned forward and patted him on the head. "You're such a cute kid. So precocious."

"I resemble that remark," he admitted cheerfully.

Outside the sun was rising, light coming in through a high window. Dante leaned back in his chair and started another song.

In the guest room upstairs, Trish could hear the music through the floor. The walls were thin: you could hear everything in the rest of the complex from everywhere, Dante had told her when she had said it was noisy. It was deliberate so people would know if there was an attack.

Dante was strange, treating a succubus with such respect, maybe even more than he gave Trish. Surely he wouldn't… he deserved better than a succubus, he had to know that.

Even if the music was like nothing she had ever heard.

Another song, and Dante broke off laughing. "We really should record something. But there's too much risk of someone finding out who we are, and then what we are. Crazy stalkers." He shook his head.

Nevan laughed. Her control over her voice allowed her to hide the demonic sound when she talked to humans, but now that echo was there in full force.

"What's so funny?"

"You, Sugar. You know, anyone sensible would be… thinking that the world owes them."

"I get paid. I'd better get paid for this, I used up hell knows how many bullets."

"Not just that. Everything you do, you're always thinking of others. Like not pushing Trish away even though humans have that incest taboo, and it must be unpleasant."

"Hey, I'm doing this for my vengeance."

"Vengeance for people other than you. Your mother, brother, friends? You put weaklings before your own pleasure."

"Following in my father's footsteps." He shrugged it off. "It's all been done before."

"Hmm." She smiled, reminiscing. "Like I told you, sugar, your father was a handsome devil, but you're no slouch yourself. He spent millennia training and had his full power. You're barely a teenager, still growing, and you defeated a warrior prince strong enough to conquer our world. Don't sell yourself short."

"You're right."

"And you're a growing boy and need your rest." Her arm went around him and she tugged him up lightly.

"Okay, okay." He snickered.

Outside there was a roar and they both turned towards it. Five deaths and then Cerberus roared again, in triumph.

"See, sugar? We'll look after our big boy." She pinched his muscular arm.

"Thanks." He yawned and let her lead him up to his bed and unbuckle his armor, warm hands and warm breath, as they'd done a hundred, no, more, times before.

He would never have believed he'd be so comfortable around a demon, but this was Nevan. He kicked off his boots and threw himself on his bed, then winced. "Damn, hope I didn't wake up Trish."

"She'll be fine, Sugar." Nevan sat down on the bed next to him.

"Are you planning to stay here until I nod off to make sure I don't do something else instead?" He smiled at her. "Mother hen."

She laughed. "Please, I have to do plenty of that for my babies here." She pet one of the bats hanging from her little black dress with the red belt.

"So why aren't you going to patrol?"

She pat him on the head.

"What?" he asked.

"Just making sure, Sugar, just making sure." Her hand stilled on the crown of his head.

"Hey, it's me. Who else sings and plays as good as I do?"

"Your touch is distinctive, Sugar." She hummed, playing with his hair. "You beat Mundus."

"Nevan, it wasn't… Yeah, it was that close," he told her when she raised an eyebrow. "But I did it. It's over."

"You should have brought all of us."

He shook his head. "I didn't want to risk you guys. What if he'd beaten you and taken you back? I'd hate to have to fight you again."

"We wouldn't have fallen that easily, Sugar." They would have been fighting to protect him. Even Beowulf wouldn't be eager to rejoin Mundus, though he would claim he fought so hard to avoid the shame of losing. She smiled cheerfully and resumed petting him, the fruit of long practice at hiding her feelings in the life she'd lived before Sparda had sealed them away.

Grateful to him, even more grateful to his son.

So strong, so handsome. Her savior, the world's savior. She started humming idly, under her breath.

"You look like the cat that got the canary," Dante told her. What was she up to now?

"Why Dante, I haven't got anything. And there are better things to prey on than little birds. Only a few mouthfuls for my darling bats. Now stop talking, close your eyes, and sing until you're calm enough to rest."

He snorted. "Yes, Mother."

She slapped him lightly. "Don't remind me of the one that got away."

Though she had her eye on a bigger fish in the sea, she thought as he chuckled and then sang with her.

She picked the song, he echoed her. It was an obscure enough dialect he wouldn't know it was a love song.