Cohabiting Half-Demons, Nero POV - Part 1
Fandom: Devil May Cry
Ship: Nero/Kyrie will technically be present, though the focus is really on family.
Summary: It's roughly six months post DMC5, Nero has held off a steady stream of demon attacks as a result of the weakened barrier between worlds. Then he discovers Dante and Vergil are back from the Underworld and nobody bothered to tell him! He's wanted them to return since the moment they left, but now he doesn't actually know how to deal with them. He doesn't even really know them or their history, not really - and yet somehow, it seems Nero has the singular brain cell between them.
This is meant as a complimenting story to Cohabiting Half-Demons. Nero really has his own journey going on mostly in the background of that, and this is that story. I intend to write it, so it can stand alone, but for the full picture and the full train wreck that is Dante and Vergil, Cohabiting Half-Demons is essential.
Nero finds out his remaining blood family has returned from their Helltrip from Nico.
The news comes in at the tail-end of a three day job of exterminating what amounted to demonic electrified gelatinous blobs. He is already not in a good mood. Every nerve ending in his body feels zinged or zapped and there’s slime in places, he does not want to consider.
He is very done. It’s been one job after the other for the past six months and this one was the jello topping of a veritable mountain of demons.
He just wants to go home, shower and spend a little time with Kyrie and the boys before he’s called on another job. It shouldn’t be too much to ask!
“Hey, chin up, Lover boy,” Nico starts, Nero is only half listening, something Trish had said that she’d heard from Lady and then very suddenly Nero’s attention snaps onto Nico.
“Uh, how about you try listening?”
“Not the time, Nico.”
“I said that Dante will start taking jobs again, so you will get more time-“ Nero’s face must have done something because suddenly Nico’s face contorts in horror, “You didn’t know they’re back.”
“Yeah, your daddy too. Shit, Nero, I really thought you’d been first to know.”
“A couple of weeks, maybe? I don’t know!”
“Yikes, yeah, heading for Babel.” She turns on the turn signal and changes lanes to the loud protest of the car they cut in front off. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
The drive to Babel is relatively short, though it is absolutely opposite direction of home from where they’d been. Nero cannot bring himself to care.
They’d been gone six months, leaving Nero to clean up the mess on this side and they cannot even be bothered to tell him they’re back! Nero is definitely angry, no he is furious and he very carefully focuses on that, instead of what other feelings might be lurking ready to assault him.
They hit traffic just outside of Babel, rush hour and an accident being the cause. He can hear yelling up ahead through his rolled down window. It is not that they aren’t moving at all it’s just way to slow for Nero’s current state of mind and the pressure building in his chest.
He sneers. Grabs the stupid ass book, that he’s cared for and even tried reading, off the dashboard.
“Just head towards home, when you can. I’ll catch up.” Nero says shortly, before opening the door and jumping out.
The car next to them blares its horn as if him stalking in front of it in the span of two seconds delayed it from getting to its destination in a traffic jam. He throws the driver the finger, then keeps eye contact with the red faced yelling stranger and triggers. He’s never seen someone go from red to white so fast, realizing their mistake. Nero grins, something naturally menacing when you have very sharp teeth and then uses the idiot’s car as a stepping stone to take off. Nico’s laughter chases him.
Flying is something he could get used to if it didn’t take that much energy. For now though it serves as a vent for that entirely unpleasant ball in his chest, and he his the energy into speed.
Now that he’s close and he knows to look for it Dante and Vergil are like fucking beacons, lighting up his senses. A growl works its way through his inhuman throat. He is raring for a fight.
He lands in front of the Devil May Cry, let’s go of his trigger, and instantly regains a bit more of his human senses. Something that doesn’t stop him from stalking up the steps and slamming open the double doors.
Dante who had evidently been caught in the middle of… changing a light bulb? Stands on top of a tall step ladder in the center of the office, and he greets Nero with a delighted: “My favorite nephew!”
It stops Nero dead for just a second. Those words could have so easily been Dante’s typical brand of sardonic, that man was practically made of sarcasm - he didn’t have a genuine bone in his body that wasn’t wrapped in a thousand layers of deflection like a particularly obnoxious half-demon onion. But this had been said so genuine, approaching glee, like he simply couldn’t contain his happiness at seeing Nero beneath his stinky layers.
So Nero stops, just for a moment because he does not comprehend this, until his attention moves to Vergil, who, drawn by the commotion, enters calmly from the kitchen with a steaming cup in his hands.
He looks perfectly put together - not a wrinkle on his clean dark blue coat, white hair, less dusty grey now, smoothed back in that style he favors - like their stint in Hell had been some sort of luxury resort vacation rather than the constant fight for their lives Nero had imagined - Dante too actually looks remarkably newly showered.
“Nero,” Vergil greets flatly and walks over to the couch and sits down calmly and straight-backed. Then, he has the gall to raise an inquisitive eyebrow at Nero.
As if to ask him what he’s doing here and Nero is suddenly very aware that he’s here straight from a job, and there’s congealed slime on his neck, and seeped into his clothes and he needed a shower two days ago. His eyebrows fall into a scowl, and he pulls up all his anger instead of the confused mix of frustration and relief that prickles his eyes at seeing them here, alive, the fucking idiots.
“You assholes!” He yells, “I-“ missed you, he instantly aborts that line, it’s too pathetic, he doesn’t want their pity. He wants to be mad! Not to mention he barely knows either of them, what is there to even miss? “I can’t believe you! You fuck off for sixmonths - six months - leaving me to clean up the bloody mess, that you made. It’s been crawling with stupid demons, and then you come back here-”
He turns to Dante, with his stupid, strange, happy smile, that only serves to piss off Nero even more. “Are you so decrepit you forgot my number, old man?”
The infuriating smile at least have the grace to turn sheepish then, but Dante doesn’t actually say anything, so Nero continues to stab deeper, spitting: “Or did you just not think I deserved to know you were back?”
The reflexive grin - Dante’s mask slamming back into play - tells Nero he hit his mark. He takes a breath, looking between them, from the way Dante’s grin mocks him to Vergil’s disapproving scowl, waiting a beat to see if they have anything to say. Anything to defend them, something to either feed his anger or assuage it, but nope.
“You’ve been back for two weeks.”
“One week,” Dante interjects, raising a hand.
“I don’t care!” Nero snaps, and stomps over to loom over his father. Vergil tilts his head up, but doesn’t acknowledge Nero in any other way. He just watches him, still scowling, like Nero is a great inconvenience, distracting him from his - Nero breathes in, eyes narrowing in bafflement - lavender tea?! It’s ridiculous and infuriating, and Nero itches to grab him and start a fight, but he’s drinking fucking lavender tea, and it’s not like on the top of the Qliphoth at all. It was simpler there. Nero had a purpose. Now he doesn’t know how to act at all! Tension winds up to his shoulders, pressure builds in his chest. He glares straight into his father’s eyes with his own matching frown.
Nero’s patience cracks first, of course.
“I found out from Nico,” he says, a last bit for some sort of reaction. “You couldn’t even be bothered to tell me yourself.”
Nothing - except maybe now the disapproving scowl is even deeper. Nero huffs humorlessly, shoulders falling. Why is he even trying? He drops Vergil’s precious book into his lap. “I figure you at least want that back.”
With that he turns around and walks out the still open doors.
“Adios, yourselves,” he spits bitterly, triggers, and takes off.
I hope you enjoyed :D I'm super curious to hear any thoughts?
I am only procrastinating a little by writing this, next part of Cohabiting Half Demons include dinner at Nero's, so exploring more of Nero's POV will help me solidify some things (at least I tell myself that XD Or it might just be the other way around, that some of the conversation I've written for that, solidified this, so I had to write it, sorry I don't make the rules.)
As usual this is just a draft, and subject to change before the Ao3 version.
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