Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with the Devil May Cry series nor its characters (damn you, Capcom! Tee-hee, just kidding ^_^). It'd be pretty evident if I did though, there would be secret optional endings revolving around hot mansex :).
A/N: IMPORTANT! From this point forward, unless otherwise mentioned, Dante is now referred as the younger and the shorter of the two.
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Chapter 2: Beginning Anew
The afternoon sun filtered brightly in through the curtains, shining directly into the young hunter's eyes and causing him to stir slightly. He rolled sluggishly rolled onto his stomach and shoved his face into his pillow, trying in earnest to let slumber keep him prisoner for at least another hour or so. But it proved to be all in vain as he felt Nero shifting around, most likely to tell him to get up. He sighed in replace of his usual long yawn.
"Hey, kid, I had the worst-" Dante began to tell Nero of the dreadful nightmare he'd had, pausing abruptly as he realized something in his voice was amiss. He sat up swiftly in alarm. He was still eighteen. He let himself fall back against the bed in frustration that it was in fact not a horribly gruesome nightmare about falling into some stupid Fountain of Youth. Only this sort of thing would happen at Devil May Cry, he convinced himself.
Nero rolled over, still groggy from his restless night, and tossed an arm around his lover's chest. His face twisted distastefully for a moment before drowsily opening his eyes. His reaction was a little more… lively.
Before the teen could turn his head to his partner, he heard the older boy audibly yelp and somehow managed to fling himself off the bed, resulting in a relatively loud thump sound. Dante sat up to see Nero double over with both hands on the back of his head, cursing himself and the nightstand that injured his head. The younger hunter laughed out loud "You too, huh?"
Nero glared Rebellions(1) at him, he slowly crawled back onto the bed "Yeah," he nodded, reclaiming his seat next to Dante "I usually have dreams about you turning into a giant pussy but I never thought that it'd happen."
The 'pussy' fought the urge to punch him, smirking instead "What can I say? I've always aspired to be exactly like you."
"Shut up, shorty." He chuckled, laying back onto the bed.
"Or what?" Dante purred suddenly, teasingly stroking Nero's bare chest.
The older boy flinched, smacking his hand each time it advanced toward him "Hey quit that, it's weird."
"Aw someone fell off the wrong side of the bed this morning." He mocked as he found a way between Nero's legs and leaned over him.
He quickly blocked the unwanted advances with his bringer "What the hell…Dante?" he hesitated saying his lover's name, as if the boy over him were someone else.
"Aw, come on, kid, it's been days and I'm horny." He stated shamelessly, tugging at the other's boxer briefs as he attempted to kiss him.
"Nah-uh," Nero said swiftly, easily throwing Dante off and letting him fall on the floor (and hit his head) just as he himself had done only minutes before. "you're cut off 'till we figure out how to change you back."
Dante remained on the floor as he rubbed the back of his head in earnest "Seriously? What for?"
The bedroom door opened suddenly, Lady's curvy figure emerged with crossed arms from the shadows in time to witness the dispute between the two young men. "Lemme guess, the impossibly loud and concentration breaking noise coming from in here is Dante?"
"Find something to wear, Dante. We'll be downstairs trying to figure out what happened to you." Nero said as he stood, offering his bringer to the younger male.
"Sounds good." he said, taking the other's hand and pulling himself to his feet. He rubbed the back of his head again, trying to lull the ache in his cranium "Damn that really hurt."
"Shouldn't have laughed at me, asshat." Nero chuckled, before following Lady downstairs.
"Now what've I ever done to deserve this." He said lightly with a sigh. He glanced around his room briefly as he tapped his bare foot against the cold floor. "If I were my old clothes, where would I put me?" he muttered thoughtfully to himself, standing there for another good minute. After a long mental debate, the hunter shrugged and simply began to dig through his closet. He never really imagined he'd ever thank himself for being too lazy to throw anything away, but he would certainly be doing it today. He held up a raggedy old pair of black cargos to inspect them. They had a few small moth holes and were majorly wrinkly from being trapped at the bottom of his closet for at least a decade but he figured those were the least of his problems.
He tossed them at the foot of his bed and immediately regretted it as an impossible amount of dust flew up into the air. "Great." He mumbled sarcastically, waving his arms around in attempt to clear some of it. Seeing that it was only making it worse, he braved the massive dust cloud of allergen educing evilness and hastily moved to open his window.
He ran his fingers irately through his pallid locks before turning to his right to hunt through his dresser drawers for a shirt. Before long, he began sneezing and coughing causing him to end his search early and just grabbed one of Nero's. With clothes in hand, the young hunter made his way downstairs to shower and instantly gained amused looks from his comrades.
"Is that…dust?" Nero stifled a laugh, he met him at the door and ran his fingers through his boyfriend's dirty hair inquisitively.
In the blink of an eye, Dante's hand whipped out and smack Nero's forehead "Mosquito." He lied, contentedly walking passed his tormenting lover to his destination.
The older boy shook his head and rejoined the girls in their search through old books for information on Dante's little… setback. "So this is really what Dante looked like when he was young, huh." He asked in the form of a statement, slumping slightly as he sat in Dante's chair.
Lady looked up from the book in her lap, she and Dante went back a long ways, knowing him longer than any other person on Earth. "Yeah, I mean, he's not nearly as annoying, even though that in itself isn't saying much."
Trish smirked, crossing her legs as a table of sorts to rest her head in her palm "What's the matter, Nero? Not finding Dante attractive anymore?"
He scowled at the tease, chewing at the inside of his mouth as he thought about it "No, I mean he's cute, I jus-"
The girls giggled in unison, making the twenty-year-old uncomfortable, Lady poked at his leg "Aw, someone has a boy crush!"
"Come on," he said lengthily, putting the book in his hand on the desk "can you take me serious for just a minute please?"
"I can spare a minute." The brunette teased, hands politely placed in her lap.
"Thanks." He said, for what it was worth. He raked his claws through his hair "I still love him, it's just that this Dante isn't the Dante that I fell for, ya know? I feel like it's not him even though I know it is."
"Don't worry, sweetie," Trish said, rubbing his back consolingly "you'll warm up to him."
"That's just it, I don't want to. I want my Dante." The male continued, ignoring Lady making comments about him wanting to have 'girltalk'.
"It's not like I did this on purpose, kid." The younger hunter said with irritation laced in his tone, leaning against the bathroom door in a defensive fashion with jeans hanging loosely on his strong hips.
Nero winced at the grimace plastered on the younger hunter's face. It was his fault after all, he had gotten so caught up in trying to beat Dante in the slaughterfest that he had exhausted himself and nearly got them killed. Nero sat up in the chair, mouth slightly agape "Dante-"
"Can I borrow this?" he interrupted, not caring enough to hear his apologies, as sincere as they may have been. Averting his azure eyes as soon as Nero nodded, the teen pulled the white beater over his head.
Lady pursed her lips at the awkward tension the two males were creating; she drew a heavy sigh and lightly said "Great, now we have two brooding hormonal brats to deal with."
"Ah shut your face." The shorter male said as he walked to the desk, turning his attention back to Nero "Find anything interesting?"
The latter shook his head in defeat "No, we even checked that joke book you have; Overly Elaborately Ridiculous Demonic Traps of All Time That Always Fail just to see if we could find some ideas. Still nothing."
Dante nodded slowly, chewing on his bottom lip as he thought. He had been so caught up in kicking Nero's ass at demon-slaying he never got a good look at it. Even afterwards he was so pissed all he wanted to do was go home and sleep "Well, what can you tell us about it?"
"I dunno, the whole thing was kind of weird. I felt captivated toward it, like I wanted to touch it even though I knew it was demonic and something bad would probably come of it." He sighed, not knowing what else to tell them about it. "…Why the hell would a demon want to build something like that? They don't need it, so what's the purpose?"
Lady nodded, tapping her chin with her index finger "Yeah, demons are immortal. Hey what about you guys?"
They looked at her inquisitively, Dante being the first to pipe up, as usual "At this rate I'll probably never find out. What's it to you?"
She rolled her two-toned eyes at his slow thought process "You two are half human and if you aren't immortal, maybe the demon that made it is too and made it to keep their human side young."
"That makes perfect sense! Except one thing doll, we don't know if we are or not. The kid here is only the third half human demon I've ever met, myself being one of them." He said, omitting from mentioning the third person; his deceased brother, Vergil.
Trish caught Nero opening his mouth, an inquisitive look plastered on his face, she knew he didn't think sometimes and he was about to piss Dante off. The blonde said the first thing that came to thought "-So why are you still calling him kid? Aren't you the same age now?"
"And? I'm still me under here so he's still a kid. Speaking of which, why are you in my seat-" he said, turning his attention back to Nero who was currently gripping the bottom of the seat as hard as he was able to prevent the former from being able to reclaim his seat.
"I was here first!" Nero called out as Dante tried shoving him off.
He sat in his lap, trying to pry his fingers and claws from their death grip "First you won't let me fuck you and now you steal my chair?" he barked "Get up!"
"No!" Nero bucked his hips up to try and knock Dante off. He gave a mortified paused as he heard an unfamiliar female voice clear her throat, as to get their attention. The male reflexively grabbed the younger's wrists to restrain him, which to his surprise –and satisfaction- was all too easy.
"Um Excuse me, this sign outside said this was Devil May Cry." A middle aged woman stated, she was frail and almost sickly, a framed picture was clutched firmly in her arms.
Trish stood up, offering an apologetic smile "Yes, it is, please come in."
"Yeah, sorry it's not always a zoo in here." Lady said, crossing her arms and cocking her head accusatively at the two quarrelers.
"Are you Dante?" the woman asked Nero meekly as she walked up to the desk, still holding tightly onto the picture.
He barely muffled a snicker, as he finally shoved Dante off his lap "He is, I'm just a seat warmer."
"It's warm now thank you," Dante half whispered "Now get up, I'm working."
"Finally." Lady flashed a catlike smirk.
"Now what can I do for ya?" the owner asked as he took his seat.
"I'm Mrs. Jones." the woman handed him the photograph "It's my daughter, Kinsley; she's gone missing."
"Look lady, we're not a lost and found. You're gonna have to gimme a little more than that." He said nonchalantly.
"Yes, there's more to it than that, she went to work for Sailor's Delight, a cruise ship escort service." She said quietly, pulling a tissue to her teary eyes.
Dante looked at the young figure behind the glass in his hands. She was small, her large green eyes were filled with innocence. He had a feeling there was much more to it than what she'd just told him…or at least hoping. "Hard to believe a sweet looking girl like your kid here would choose that kind of profession."
She paused for a long moment, the short conversation was clearly taking a toll on her emotions. The fine lines on her forehead deepened and disappeared each time she knitted her eyebrows as she spoke "She went with her best friend, they've been inseparable since they were young. When Jessica told her how she'd heard that their escorts lived like royalty there and that she wanted to work for them, Kinsley went with her without giving it a second thought." The woman stifled a sob "I received one call from her two days ago, she said she thought her life was in danger, the escorts there disappear after a few weeks. The owner told her not to worry about it and she said the woman was strangely cold, like she had something to do with it. Kinsley swore the owner is one of those devils. I haven't heard from her since-" the mother sobbed, the fear of her child's life in danger being too much for her to contain herself any longer.
"Hm," Dante sat in contemplation as the weighty feel of his friends staring at him in anticipation seemed to slow his final decision. "We're not cheap." he handed the photo back to her "Do you know where her friend got that information on it?"
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(1) In every game Dante gets stabbed with his own sword, that being said, instead of daggers Nero stared Rebellions at Dante for laughing at him.
After typing a few modifications to chapter one, only to realize my last source of internet is gone (I was using wifi and lost it, and now dial up won't even work.). In my despair, I decided to go ahead and write chapter two which was supposed to be them going through various sources and Nero trying to get used to Dante's new skin. I originally was saving Mrs. Jones showing up around chapter three or so, but decided to go ahead and start their first adventure as Teen Devil Hunters. I really hope this chapter came out alright, I haven't proofread it and don't really feel like it. And, of course, I love everyone for feedback :)