A New Home
Disclaimer: Devil May Cry belongs to people who are not me. I am making £0.00 out of this fic; it is written purely because I had some Dante angst.
Rating: PG-13
Part: One of Two
Authoress note: Let the slaving… I mean saving begin.
For all my reviewers, who without I would have surely given up a long time ago.
Chapter One
Nero was understanding how Vergil could have ruled the demon world.
He had long ago accepted that the whole raising the Qliphoth and to a lesser extent the Temen-ni-gru tower were Vergil's odd love language to his brother, an over-the-top demonic display of power to prove his worth to his little brother. Look at me, spend your time and energy on me. I am powerful; I am worthy, love me. Vergil didn't need to do those things to rule the demon world. He could have done it through ruthless efficacy alone.
Because boy, was he ruthlessly efficient.
While it was impressive in a weirdly mundane way, it was also sucking every ounce of fun out of work, and right now, work was everything.
Every single day Nero would wake up to the screaming of the alarm, kiss his still sleeping wife and fall out of bed. Stumble around the bedroom getting dressed and then stumble through the doorway to Dante's shop. Once in the shop, Vergil would hand him a coffee, a ring and a list of jobs. Right now, they were taking every single job, no questions, no passwords, every low-level, boring ass job.
They were even taking the jobs that were just potential demon activity. Vergil was charging a flat rate for one of them just turning up, so they made money either way. Though thankfully the bullshit jobs were few, Lady was doing the recon for all the work and she knew her stuff.
Vergil had built the system. He'd crafted three rings prior to the current deluge of work. The rings opened small portals. The portals only worked in the human realm and the rings needed recharging every night, so as Vergil put it, they were 'imperfect' but they did the job.
Ring, coffee and list in hand, Nero would head out. Reading the location of the job aloud activated the ring. Then he'd jump through the portal and get to work. Clear the job and move onto the next one, and the next one, and the next one.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
The worst of it was the way the jobs had to be run. Vergil was squeezing every single penny out of these jobs and that meant every single kill, every single demon corpse had to go back to Vergil. At the end of every fight, Nero would use the ring to open a portal to the shop's basement and drop kick the dead demons through. Vergil then did God knows what to them and came out with Devil Arms, an abundance of Blood Orbs, or ingredients for what Dante called 'Trinkets'. A trinket could be anything, an amulet that granted invulnerability for periods of time, a potion that made the drinker irresistible to the one they wanted or just a fancy-looking coat that was more durable than 'normal' leather.
Vergil, it turned out, was pretty good at making shit. Between him and Lady, their connections allowed them to sell these items as fast as Vergil could make them. Nero tried not to think about the potential evil they could put into the world via 'Trinkets', though he had forced the issue when Vergil explained succubi made great 'love' potions. Nero had to have a conversation about consent with his father that evening and Vergil stopped making the potions.
He would have complained at how Vergil was ruining the work. Nothing was fun right now. Everything was just exhausting and boring, but Dante was doing plenty of that already. Mostly he held his tongue because he could see that Vergil was working harder than any of them. Nero, Trish, Dante (with Yota in tow) and even Shadow and Griffon went out each day, completed their lists, then came home, ate enough to feed six family's and went to sleep for a few hours before doing it again. Vergil, as far as Nero could see, had stopped eating and sleeping.
While the five of them were out working, Vergil was holed up in the basement shredding the demons they sent his way, turning them into sellable goods. When they were eating and sleeping, he was charging up rings, organising the next round of jobs and making sure there was enough food in the house to feed them all.
If he wasn't half demon, he'd have burned out weeks ago, they all would have.
But what truly kept him from complaining too much was that there was a part of Nero that loved this. He loved how going out hunting, bringing home the bacon, and returning to the shop every day made him feel. He was useful; he was doing an important job for his family. Every evening when he handed over his completed list to his father and received a well-earned smile and a "Good job" made him beam.
He was pretty sure Griffon, and Shadow felt the same way as he did. They often beamed when they got a "Good job" from Vergil. Trish would dip her head and smile, but she was good at hiding how she felt, though Nero suspected she liked the praise as much as any of them. Dante very much enjoyed the opportunity to show off, but he was the first to get bored, the first to complain.
Nero tried to make it more interesting for them both, even challenged Dante to races, who could get through their list first. But even that got old after the second month.
"This has got to stop." Dante collapsed on the couch a moment after Nero arrived home with a completed list. "Even I'm fucking tired."
"Boredom is not tired, Dante." Vergil snatched a list out of Dante's pocket. "There's still one left. Go now."
"Can't you just shunt it too tomorrow?" Dante sounded more petulant than Nero had ever heard him before. Nero handed his list to his father, who glanced at it and smiled.
"Good job."
Nero beamed. His demons all but purred at the praise. He was a good provider for his family. He was strong and deserving of praise.
"Gerd Jerb." Dante mocked, reaching down to pet Yota, who was already asleep at his feet.
"Dante, go finish your list." Vergil stood firm. "You'll lose a portion of the fee if the job is delayed." Vergil kicked the sofa and then his brother, twice.
"Fine." Dante slumped upward into a standing position. "But I want beer and steak when I get back." Yota did not move from his spot on the floor. Dante smirked at him and gave his ears a brief rub. "Good boy, guard the house."
"You'll get piss and bread if you don't get moving now," Vergil snarled.
"I'll go too." Nero hopped after Dante. "We'll be done sooner if I help."
"Don't need help." Dante grumbled, but it was weak and Nero ignored it. "Southdown." The ring opened a portal, and the two went through.
"Alright." Dante stopped and turned to face Nero as soon as the portal closed. "What is it?"
"I'm that easy to read?"
"Yes."
"Fine, but come on, walk and talk." Nero shoved his uncle to get him moving. He could feel demons around here. The air was practically vibrating with them.
"Scared you won't get another 'good job'?" Dante snorted.
"What's wrong with you?" Nero frowned. "And don't start with the you're tired, everyone is tired Dante, everyone is bored, but most of us suck it up and focus on the goal."
"Maybe I'm just not a suck up like you."
"You're kidding right?" Nero laughed. Jerking to the right, he caught sight of a demon as it spotted them and fled. "You were well into this until about two weeks ago. What gives?"
"You're smart, you figure it out." Dante tore off after the demon. It was a small one, barely the size of Yota, and all legs and eyes. Nero rolled his eyes and gave chase to his uncle. Dante, however, was fast when he wanted to be and quickly gained a healthy lead. By the time Nero caught him, Dante was already kicking a couple of demons into the basement portal.
"You're mad." Nero huffed, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath.
"No shit, genius."
"Why?" Nero straightened and went to his uncle, who closed the portal and started forward. "Oi, I'm too bloody tired to play twenty questions."
"Look," Dante snapped, turning on him. "Instead of wondering about my mental health, maybe you should wonder about something else. Maybe you should wonder why you're not mad."
"Should I be?" Nero hated it when Dante got like this. But he knew the only way to get to the bottom of it was to play Dante's stupid game. "Fine, I'm mad too, I'm tired, everything is boring work, nothing's fun anymore. See I'm mad too."
"God0 for someone so smart, you're so dumb sometimes." Dante pulled out one of his guns and fired three times. Three demons fell out of the shadows a little way down the road.
"The just bloody tell me." Nero activated his ring and kicked the demons into the basement. "Help your nephew out."
"You should have figured it out yourself. But you're letting your demon do your thinking."
"What the hell does that mean?" Nero bristled.
"Your demon is so bloody obsessed with getting the Good Job from daddy that you're not seeing what's really going on."
"Dante, I swear if you don't start making sense soon…" Nero's arm glowed bright blue. His frustration growing. Dante looked at him for a long moment and seemed ready to fight, but just as suddenly as his aggression rose, it slid out of him.
"Sit." He pointed at a bench.
"But we need to-"
"It won't take long." Dante collapsed onto the bench heavily. "I'm mad at your dad, because he's up to something. He's up to something, and he's tricking you by using your demon against you. He was doing it to me, too."
"Explain." Nero frowned at his uncle. Vergil was up to something?
"His 'good job' comments are very deliberate, the words specifically chosen to trigger your demons happy centre, making your demon feel like a good provider, a strong, worthy creature, getting prise from a demon as high order as Vergil, or me, is always going to trigger lower demons."
"I'm not a lower demon." Nero sniffed. Dante laughed, the first laugh Nero had heard from him in a few weeks.
"Compared to us, kiddo, you're third in rank, I'm afraid."
"Who's first?" Nero smirked. Dante pulled a face.
"It changes depending on the time of day."
"Figured." Nero sighed loudly. "But you said Vergil was up to something."
"Yeah, look, I will spell it out, but when I do, you're going to want to wear a dunce cap. I'll make you one."
"Get on with it."
"Fine, how much money do you think we're making per job?"
"Small jobs, small potatoes." Nero shrugged; Dante shook his head.
"All the gear your pops are making and selling, your easily looking high quadruple figures per job. How many have you been doing for a day?"
"I dunno, five or six."
"Me too, so is Trish." Dante leaned back. "And this has been going on for what, six months now?"
"Oh." Nero was getting the picture.
"We had enough money months ago."
"You think Vergil's what? Stealing from us? And doing what?" Dante shrugged.
"I don't know. He won't tell me."
"You asked?"
"I used my big boy words, just like you taught me." Dante grinned. "But I've been getting nowhere."
"That's why you're slacking on jobs," Nero nudged his uncle.
"That's why I wanted you to come along today."
"You didn't ask you just- "
"Knew you'd offer and didn't stop you?" Dante grinned. "Smarter than you think me."
"Yeah, I'm starting to see that." Nero huffed. "Looks like I've got a conversation with my dad."
"I'll be your backup." Dante grinned.
"You told Trish or Lady yet?" Dante shook his head.
"New, I want to give him a proper chance before I get everyone on him. Though the more I think about it, the more I think he deserves the ladies on him, too."
"Let me try first." Nero chuckled.
"That was always the plan."
End Chapter
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