So in an effort to get rid of my art block and try to get into writing some more, I'm putting together some general thoughts about Callie and Dante. I wrote these with the games in mind, but these can be applied to the reboot game and the Netflix show if we squint.
Absolutely feel free to send me asks about these two as well. I need the fuel. Please. I am begging.
Potential triggers include surgical practices, death, canon-typical violence, sex mention, friends with benefits mention, tattoos
Dante and Callie are two and a half weeks apart, and met when Callie was a few weeks old. See, Callie's mom Fran was Eva's best friend. Her bestest best friend in the whole wide fuckin' world. The kind of friends that plan out their lives cradle to grave. and have somehow stuck to it after all these years. Callie spent about a third of her childhood hanging out with the Spardas, becoming bestest best friends with the twins until the fire. Callie reconnected with Dante in DMC 3 and just like that, they were together for the next thirty-something years.
Just like their mothers, Dante and Callie were pretty much inseparable as kids. Pretty much the second that one was in the other's line of sight, the other would be sprinting up to hug them. Since Vergil was an indoor boy, Dante relished the opportunity to play with someone his own age. Meanwhile, Callie was an only child who was lonely at home, so she was equally ecstatic to be around Dante for as long as she could. But childhood stories are for another day.
After DMC 3, Callie and Dante were FWBs for a few years to cope with the grief of losing Vergil. Obviously, they end up dating, but instead of a big dramatic confrontation, they just…slowly forget they aren’t dating and one day they’re a couple. And they both seem to think they were dating from the very beginning and are (purposefully?) confused when people bring up they were just fuck buddies for a while.
Before they moved in together. Dante would like, super duper clean his room before Callie came over. I don’t know if it’s because he wanted to impress her or if he just wanted a clean space to get down, but he goes into a bedroom cleaning frenzy when he knows Callie’s coming to the shop. They didn’t always go to the bedroom when they screwed around so your guess is as good as mine.
They don't really have like...date-dates very often. I need to figure out how exactly their schedules are gonna line up, but dates are usually stuff like movie marathons or drive-ins or dinner at the diner that Dante loves. Every so often they'll head out of town for a job that Dante has to do and spend some time together there, but the good time usually gets overshadowed by whatever demon he has to fight. They don't really care and the demon ends up being an afterthought anyway. They're just glad to get to spend time together.
Dante will "babe, I got it" her all the time. It's like, she'll try to do something herself and he'll go "Nah, babe, I got it." And just. Never does it. Out of procrastination or pure virtue of forgetting about it. It's infuriating and it keeps happening. Callie's learned to ignore him whenever he says he has something and just do it herself.
Callie's a trauma surgeon, and works in the ER at the local hospital. She credits the development of her surgical skills to Dante being her "personal cadaver" -- a feat that he proudly flaunts to this day. Due in no small part to his indestructibility, Dante would let Callie practice small surgical things on him -- stitches, sutures, staples, intubation, IVs -- and even some more complex procedures when he was feeling ballsy. I have this lovely mental image of them lounging on the couch or in bed on a dark summer night, the light from the old TV casting an eerie glow on them, Dante eating pizza or nursing a beer with one hand while Callie practices a running whip stitch on his other hand.
Fun fact! Due to the nature of their work, Callie's had to admit Dante and Lady to the ER every so often. Being some of the most badass demon hunters ever doesn't automatically guarantee you'll never get injured, and it also doesn't mean people won't call 911 in the aftermath of an attack. Every so often, Callie will stroll onto the ER floor, pull back a curtain, and see Dante's smiling face on the bed, sitting in an ocean of blood with a bone or two sticking out of his body and a couple semi-panicking staff. Lady is ironically the more difficult patient because she usually just wants to get bandaged up and get out of there. Dante will do anything the doctors tell him to do and is very cooperative with the staff, all while throwing cheesy lines Callie's way.
Speaking of. Even though Callie is making reasonable bank and can provide for the shop, Dante refuses to let her help him with the bills. It doesn't even matter that Callie has lived there long enough for them to be legally considered married. He refuses to let her contribute financially to the bills in any way. “I’m your boyfriend, I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of you!” So Callie does the mature thing and pays his tabs behind his back.
They have designated days where they go thrifting and antiquing. It’s how they find stuff for the shop, it’s how they find Dante’s awesome outfits, and it’s just so much fun to look at all the cool shit people have donated or put up for sale.
They have a cat! A little bit after Devil May Cry, a depressed and lonely Dante spotted a kitten with a broken leg and decided to take him home. That cat is named Sampson, and he is the most grumpy little shit on the face of the earth. Dante is his chosen two-leg and Callie is just the spare. He warms up to her after she starts being home more, but she was a constant recipient of hisses and bites whenever she approached Dante while Sampson was nearby. Sampson dies around DMC 5 (he dies from natural causes at the old age of two fifteen) and Dante cried like a baby.
Bedtime for them is. Weird. It’s a fluctuating thing that changes as Callie adjusts to her work flow at the hospital. Eventually, she settles on the early and day shifts at the emergency room, so some days she’s waking Dante and the cat up at the crack of dawn. And don’t even get me started on the nights she needs to be paged in.
Anyway, Callie will fall asleep and spread all the way out like a starfish. Dante, meanwhile, will latch onto her no matter what and render her unable to move from that starfish position. Every time she gets in bed while he's asleep, he immediately gravitates towards her and starts to cuddle. Sampson sleeps at the foot of the bed, or he steals Callie's pillow and forces her to switch with the already-comfy or already-asleep Dante. There is no in-between.
My dear friend Penelope convinced me to let them get married, but I haven't put down an exact timeline for it. As far as the games go, I'd place it somewhere around or between DMC 4 and DMC 5. He really feels like the hopeless romantic guy who WOULD want a big wedding party, but kinda pushes that dream aside because he knows he wouldn't be able to afford it. Instead of rings, they get marriage tattoos -- Dante tattoos Callie's name on the back of his left hand, and Callie does the same but with Dante's name. And that tat gives him the butterflies more than any ring ever could.
How to not reunite with your childhood best friend-slash-girlfriend of exactly one episode after you were frozen in a tube for an indeterminate amount of time
