#changed the price a bit since it's a bit too low for Dante

[namelessgakusei]

EP. 2.1 Lead us not into temptation

Devil May Cry x Reader Insert

Warnings: It's DMC. Based on the New Netflix Series. Spoiler warnings for the actual show. Not proofread. It's hard to find gifs so have a pic instead.

EP. 1.2 COMBUSTION (prev.)

EP. 2.2 And deliver us from evil (cont.)

Synopsis: Mercenaries are hired, and a bounty was put over your heads. Enzo still insists on being your Dad despite it being untrue.

"My God. It's worse that I imagined."

Inside a certain conference room in DARKCOM HQ gathered various kinds of mercenaries, from rugged and scarred to spotless newbies, all waiting for orders about their target. On the other side of the room stood the five members of the DARKCOM Elite Ops, watching guard as they practically sneered at the group of people in front of them.

"An entire horde of—"

"Monsters." A fight broke out between the mercenaries, making one of the Ops members sigh, commenting if this is really the species they are trying to save. Thankfully, the appearance of the Vice President shut the commotion down, leaving the mercs gaping as to why an important person in power is standing in front of them. But as the room dimmed, Baines disregarded their shock, opting to go straight to the point and reveal the primary objective.

A red shard serving as a pendant.

"It is an item of critical importance to our national security." All the mercenaries fell back to their chairs, focused on the briefing of their mission. "However, seeing as this item officially does not exist, we need it retrieved off the books." Baines' expression hardened. After providing the amulet's location, he too revealed the current owner, showing the estimation of his abilities. "He's a man the US government considers a top-level threat."

"He is extremely volatile and prodigiously gifted in combat. Engage him only with the full brunt of your firepower."

Baines' eyeglasses reflected the light from the dim room, and after a pause, raised his head up, showing his grim expression. "His name is Dante."

The sight of Dante's grin all over the screen made the mercenaries guffaw at his ridiculous portraits, clearly underestimating him, saying that this much number of hired men is an overkill. However, a burly man that sat at the farthest corner of the room spoke up, his body littered with metal prosthetics as he looked at his comrades in pity. "Laugh while you can... You won't be much longer."

"I met Dante once. Worked with him on a protection job." This mercenary recounted the events of his previous jobs, confirming that Dante indeed is on a whole another level from the usual men for hire, and that if it wasn't for Dante, he would've been long dead. "And you'll all be dead soon enough if you go after him. No... You won't even be able to take a step within a hundred foot radius if you have the intent to harm him, not when he has that monster with him at all times."

The Vice President's eyes narrowed, and another set of pictures appeared on the screen behind him, showing another hunter that's comparatively calmer in their photos.

You.

"You meant (Y/N)." The sound of your name made the mercenary wince, the memory of your meeting still fresh in his mind. That uncanny smile of yours that did nothing but unsettle seasoned men like him, those that are all too familiar about the underworld, whenever you look their way. You fight well, like you've mapped out every single possibility that could happen, and it creeps him out. You're too prepared.

He still remembers how your eyes bore to him, scrutinizing his worth in mere seconds, like he's nothing but an item for you to appraise. It's like you know too much but chose to keep quiet, waiting for the right time to use your cards, a bona fide information broker within the world of Devil Hunters. "I'm not risking my life by hunting the two crazy bastards." He grunts as he stands up, a look of resignation on his face as he meet eyes with Baines. "Ain't no amount of money you could offer that'd be worth—"

"Five hundred thousand." That much made the mercenary stop himself from opening the door. "The bounty is 500,000 for whoever brings in Dante with the amulet." Baines' expression is unreadable, the light from the screen casting shadows on his face. "An additional 250,000 you also bring in (Y/N)." He fixes his glasses as he continues to negotiate, already knowing how to piqued in their interests. "And a bonus if they're both alive for questioning."

That enough made everyone grin and behave, even the mercenary from earlier became enthusiastic at the amount.

"We will be deploying a civilian asset to keep them distracted as you move in." The screen changes from your face to Enzo's. But the elephant in the room wasn't about the bounty on your heads, it's about the presence of DARKCOM's operatives at the side of the room, barely moving nor reacting to anything. One of the hired men even questioned their use if they'll be doing the all work anyways, having the gall to ridicule them as the rest laughed. The lone hooded soldier narrows her eyes at one of the mercenaries, before breaking into a knowing smile.

"These soldiers will be in the field, overseeing the operation. You'll deliver the package to them." Baines explained while running his eyes around the room, giving one last look at the number of cannon fodder for this mission. "The contract opens as of midnight tonight."

"That's all." The light returned to the room and one by one, the mercenaries stood up to leave. There was shuffling just outside the door, leaving many irritated grunts and huffs from the passing men, the source is the overly eager soldier wearing a DARKCOM Special Ops uniform. It's Anders, having fully recovered from his previous injuries and is now the newest member of the unit despite their Lieutenant's skepticism. He brought along with him the asset that shall be used to aid the extraction mission, a noisy Enzo, who complains about not getting a decent food during his stay.

The broker immediately shut up when he saw the people inside the room he was ushered in, laughing nervously while asking for a clarification about what he should be doing later tonight.

The air was tense around the building that night. Inside your shared apartment was the unnerving stillness, devoid of the sound of the TV or Dante's arrogant claims that has something to do with pizza and arcade while you lounge on the couch, unimpressed. It was too dark and quiet, a sight that only happened whenever the two of you are away on long term missions, usually in another city or so. But Enzo knows that he didn't give you anything after the set-up job, so it's a surprise for him when he opens the door, only to be met with nothing.

"(Y/N)? Dante? You here?" Nothing. The weight of the briefcase felt foreign to him, even if it just houses the usual monetary reward for the job. "(Y/N)...! It's your Pa! I've go—" A gun was shoved to his temple, with an annoyed voice breaking the otherwise stillness. "You are not my Dad."

You sneered at him with faux-disgust as he stumbled backwards in surprise, chuckling nervously while trying to keep you calm, only for another barrel to hit the back of his head as Dante smirks at Enzo's predicament. "Y-you are here! Thank God!" Your "Pa" sputters while raising his hands in surrender, saying that it's a relief since he thought he missed you. But your obvious suspicion remains on your face, before lowering your gun and sighing, Dante didn't, however.

"Hey, Enzo. How've you been?" His sing-song tone betrays his own doubts about the broker's sudden appearance, one that didn't got missed by the latter as he spun towards the young man and tried to get him to lower his weapon with humor.

Dante didn't.

"Wish I could help you out there." Your calm stance greatly contrasts the uneasy atmosphere. Seated on the couch with your legs crossed and an arm lazily draped over the back, you smiled brightly at your mentor. "But see, I've heard something funny from the walls. About his last job."

"Our last job." Dante corrects you without looking, leaning closer to Enzo as he keeps the gun on the man.

"Of course." You chuckled lightly, instead of the usual smugness known to only by close confidants, before returning your gaze to Enzo. "It turned out to be a setup so a shapeshifting demon baby could try to steal my necklace." Dante finished your words, closing in and jamming the barrel of his gun to the older man's neck. The broker turned to you for help but all he saw was your knowing, closed-eyed, smile. "It's the most curious thing, isn't it? You know how possessive he gets with that pendant."

Enzo laughs nervously, finally confessing that he might have set Dante up. But that it wasn't really his fault, no! He's just a middleman, a nobody, he swears! "It was the guy who gave me the job! The White Rabbit!"

The White what? Your face scrunched in confusion as you cocked your head to the side. "Like Alice's?" There are demons with animal-like creatures, but most of them opted to learn to try to pass off as human, so for Enzo to use the word the, it means that this isn't some common demon. Your question made him nod furiously. "He's the one who set the whole thing up!"

"See, he comes into my office, talking all smooth, a-and I'm mesmerized!" Of course, you sighed in exasperation. With how sweating your adoptive father is, you're fairly certain that he's telling the truth. "So you're saying you only sent me into a trap because a demon that looks like a giant rabbit tricked you into doing it?" Dante emphasizes by pushing the gun to Enzo's mouth, despite the broker practically begging the two of you to believe him.

"Dante." You sighed and stood from your seat, going over to them with a disappointed look for Enzo. In response to your words, Dante's previously furrowed brows relaxed as he pulled his gun away and stands up. "All right, that checks out."

"What are you doing here?"

The older man nearly sagged to the floor in relief, before pushing the briefcase to the table, saying that it's the second half of the fee for the setup job. "Just 'cause the job was fake don't mean you don't get paid, right?" Enzo shrugged and beamed at the sight of the wads or cash inside the briefcase after he opened it, caressing the money with such gentleness. "Pure, uncut, American green. And all you have to do was fight a baby for it." He beams at the scowling Dante.

"And my brother." Dante's jaw squared as he frowned. "The shapeshifter showed up again later disguised as him." Meanwhile, you inspected the money the moment Enzo got distracted, closing the lid upon confirming the legitimacy before noticing something off. "Nothing like how he'd actually look now, but still, it was a good effort." There was a blinking device at the bottom of the suitcase. A transmitter or a tracker, you don't know, but you went over to the window to throw it away, catching glimpses of people moving around the rooftops. Typical. And as expected.

Enzo tried comforting Dante by reaching out for his arm but the younger man pulled away. "I keep telling you. What's my only rule?" He looked at the broker with annoyance as he rummaged behind his desk. You walked back to the couch while stretching, donning your coat and grabbing your own briefcase, equipped with weapons you made on your own. "I'll take any job that pays, especially if it involves killing demons. Just long as I can do it with (Y/N), and not care about anything else." Enzo heard it too many times that he parroted it back. "I know, I know. But I have you the job, not them." Dante lifted his head from the table with a deadpan, making the other shrug and drop the argument. "So you and me, we're all good now, yeah?"

"You know I look at you two as my own children." Enzo turned around to beam at you, faltering upon seeing you drawing the curtains close. "Not my dad." You replied with a flat tone, making him slump his shoulders. "I would take a bullet for you two! ...Maybe not a bullet but a blade, like a little jab." He nods and turns back to Dante with such... conviction. "Point is, I would never set you up like that on purpose."

"So there aren't multiple teams of mercenaries outside, closing in around us right now?" You cocked your gun and raised a brow to your adoptive father.

Dante grinned.

taglist!: @mischiefmanaged71 @tamashithe2nd @im-just-a-simp-le-whore @96jnie

[jamiesfootball]

more leverage/tl thoughts. any time they need someone undercover in sports or labor, they send eliot. which of course makes sense. for eliot. and also probably au roy.

but consider: jamie is NO good at any of that stuff. he can do a lot of sports, especially anything where you have to be fast or agile, and he takes the boxing job - though he has to fight roy on it, but roy is on his last legs and they all know it. but when it comes to labor jamie doesn't know how to do shit, and he's prissy too. doesn't like getting his hands dirty. he's totally comfortable in his own sweat, sure, but he even gets a bit squeamish at blood he was the one to spill especially if it gets on him (this was never a reason roy cited for why he didn't think jamie should be their new hitter, but in hindsight it's Very Obvious lmao).

anyway, so the team is always like yeah you send in the hitter to fill an undercover role in labor, because his asset is his body, right? wrong. there's a gradient when jamie switches from hitting to hacking, a small transitional period of time where he's doing both, but roy always has to step in for any "hitter" job that isn't... well, hitting. he gives jamie all kinds of shit for being a gen z city boy who doesn't know how to change a tire or whatever, but tbf he's glad for the excuse to only be part time retired lol.

& then when they bring isaac(?) on to be roy's replacement since jamie didn't work out (and roy never stops saying he told everyone so about that), he doesn't know how to do a lot of labor stuff too, but he's happy to learn - unlike jamie, who would do the work of course but he'd whine about it and even when he shut up and bore it you could still tell he hated every second - but usually they don't have time for him to get fully trained in stuff so they have roy on comms talking him thru it and jamie always chimes in with totally wrong info just to be obnoxious aksjfks.

My hand didn't slip so much as it went ice skating, stayed out past curfew, and forgot why we were here in the first place:

"How are you so bad at this?” Roy asked over comms, and it took every bit of his restraint for Jamie not to throw the big-scissors right through the mark’s window.

Bad enough that he had to put up with the older man critiquing his fighting style on a daily basis, and the smugness when he pinned Jamie in a headlock, and the eyerolls when he thought Jamie was being purposely ignorant about some complicated maneuver.

(And he wasn't being deliberately obtuse. Roy just knew more obscure fighting techniques than God, and appeared to think that Jamie should have learned capoeira on the back streets of Manchester while reading a dictionary.)

That's what Jamie had to put up with if he wanted to get better. That was the price of having a stable gig, one that paid per diem even when they weren't on the con. Ted basically paid him to hone his craft, on the off-chance it'd be useful to him later. Jamie banked money, his bones didn't break, and the only note on his head these days were the sticky notes Roy left on his forehead when Jamie nodded off in the breakroom.

("I think it says 'Dante's Inferno,'" Keeley said as they shared a stolen sandwich; Roy really was a good cook. She squinted at the tiny, furious handwriting. "Do you think it's a clue?")

He understood the old man was frustrated; his grandad knee had the structural integrity of a broken bottle that'd been glued back together. He'd be stuck in Beard's weird, smelly little van for at least the duration of the job. But it didn't give him the right to be a dick to Jamie about yard work. Where did Roy get off thinking Jamie had ever learned to prune a rose bush?

"You can't cut it down that low or you risk it having to grow up from the graft."

Jamie yanked the big-scissors back from a deadened stalk. “Then you should’ve swapped me with Keeley,” he hissed.

A while ago she'd been gagging over the comms. Her and Ted had a long debate--the kind Jamie could never get away with--about whether she actually had to clean the mark's bathroom as part of her reconnaissance. Yes, the tank was an excellent place to hide stolen jewels; no, she'd never found one there in her life.

Jamie wondered if the housekeepers wore maid outfits. Keeley would look dead fit in a maid outfit. He'd look dead fit in a maid outfit. Anything would look better on him than the gray, stiff-collared maintenance uniform Beard had presented him without comment.

The earbuds made it sound like Roy was right behind him, whispering disapprovingly, "Keeley's on the inside so she can crack the safe when she finds it. And you're supposed to be keeping a lookout on the armed guards. Focus." The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Focus, he said. Like Jamie had the luxury of forgetting that not ten metres away stood a burly man armed with an assault rifle and a blind spot in the cameras. All Jamie had was a pair of big-scissors and a prickly old bastard in his ear.

Honestly? He'd rather scrub the bathroom.

Jamie could scrub the hell out of a bathroom. Hell, he could scrub a carpet so well the landlord would never find the bloodstain. Roy might get high and mighty when Jamie admitted that he'd never used a drill or whatever, but Jamie knew the ins and outs of patching holes in the wall. He couldn’t change a tire, but he could steal a hubcap in under thirty seconds. He couldn’t slice an onion, but he could make twenty pounds at the grocers stretch for two weeks. Crouched eye-level with the rose bush and with a hidden spycam on his top button, him and Roy faced the same barren pot of twigs. Somehow Roy could see the instructions that would guide it to blooming, but Jamie couldn't. To him the rose bush was a dead thing, simple as that.

The big-scissors in his hand curved sharp and short with a thick handle for wielding. He was sure they had real a name for them, but he was also pretty sure his dad used to have something similar around for threatening the debtors who ran late on payments.

He could use a hammer. Roy never asked him if he knew how to use a hammer.

He made another go at the rose bush and got himself pricked for his trouble.

"Shit!" he swore, and over the comms Roy demanded to know, "Are you bleeding?"

"Don't leave DNA," Beard added. Jamie startled; he'd forgotten about the creepy weirdo entirely.

Danger shifted to his left. The guard rounded towards him, boots crunching in the gravel. "Hey! Is there a problem?"

Roy swore. Beard warned him not to engage.

Jamie rose to his feet with his best charming grin slapped on like a plaster over a nasty prick. He held his bleeding hand out like an offering, and with the other he slipped the big-scissors into the sleeve of his shirt.

One of Rebecca's first rules of the con: if you're uncomfortable, use it to make the mark uncomfortable.

He squeezed the big-scissors tight. "Yeah sorry, mate. Got a bit of a nasty cut--don't want it to infect. Could you point me somewhere I could clean up?"

[alrightberries]

dante’s inferno

request: wassup homie could you maybe write a college au fic where levi and reader are rommies, then one day reader brings home an adopted cat without levi's prior knowledge? You could decide what happens next lol. Tysm 🥺

❈ pairing: levi ackerman x reader

❈ genre: fluff, semi-crack ❈ word count: 4k

❈ summary: college au. in which you bring a stray cat to your dorm and your neat freak roommate won’t let you keep it.

alternatively: a compilation of college shenanigans where you and levi are best friends who are bad with feelings (ft. an unamused cat named dante)

❈ trigger warnings: profanity. mentions of alcohol and smoking. implied smut.

a/n: this was supposed to be loosely based on the nine circles of hell according to inferno by dante alighieri— hence the title— but i did my research wrong so now it’s loosely based on the seven terraces of purgatory according to divine comedy. i’m keeping the title tho.

Inspired by this art by @ryuichirou on tumblr.

Permission to repost art was granted by the artist. Do not repost/edit the art without explicit permission from the artist.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

i. first terrace: pride

“We’re not keeping it.”

“But why?”

“We’re not keeping it.”

“But why.”

Levi’s tongue clicks in annoyance. His eyes glance next you where the offending creature lay on your bed; tail curling, paws kneading at his your favorite fleece blanket. Quite frankly he’s a little offended when the little shit has the audacity to glare at him back.

He’ll never admit it, but his ego’s a bit bruised because the cat’s glare was slightly better than his.

“I said no,” he firmly replies, looking back to you. “It’s bad enough I have to share a room with an anarchist who has no respect for boundaries—“

“One time, I forgot to use a coaster that one time!”

“—and now you expect me to share a room with a dirty fur ball who does nothing but eat, shit, and sleep?”

“He’s a cat, Levi.” You murmur, scooping the cat into your arms. “And he has a name,” you give a nervous smile when you see your rommate grit his teeth. He feels a headache coming.

“You named it?”

“Dante is not an ‘it’.”

Levi makes a move to step closer but immediately stops when the ‘Dante’ hisses at him.

“Aw, he likes you.” You coo.

“Clearly,” he replies unenthusiastically. “Listen,” he sighs. “I respect your cat’s pronouns but that doesn’t mean he’s allowed to stay. Or do I need to remind you of the mac and cheese incident?”

Okay, maybe he was on to something. If you got caught with a pet in the dorms you’d breach your third and final warning, and you’d be forced to dorm off-campus. The fact that you were still here after the mac and cheese incident was solely because Levi pulled some strings (aka asked Erwin, golden boy of the campus who owed him a favor, to pull some strings).

But you couldn’t just let Dante go. There was something about him that felt so familiar; something about his black fur, thin silver eyes, unamused snarl, and overall grumpy demeanor. Especially endearing was the way he’d grumble and pretend to be annoyed whenever you tried to cuddle him but would complain if you stopped.

You just couldn’t figure out who or what he reminded you of.

Maybe you would’ve figured it out too if you weren’t so distracted with watching Levi and Dante stare at each other. Your eyes dart back and forth between the grouchy cat sitting on your bed and your grouchy roommate sitting on his desk. Both were slightly crouched over with their heads tilted up in a show of dominance; they were engaged in what seemed to be a glaring contest, gunmetal irises unamused and mouths taut in a snarl as they protected their territory.

You sigh. You really, for the life of you, couldn’t figure out why Dante felt so familiar.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

ii. second terrace: envy

Levi is not jealous. He’s not.

At least that’s what he tells himself as he sulks alone on his bed. His arms are crossed and his lips are in a pout, eyebrows knitted in distaste, occasionally glancing to your side of the room where you sat up on your bed. He’s sure whatever movie you chose to watch together is interesting and all, but right now all he could pay attention to was that stupid cat. Sitting on your stupid lap. Getting its fur stroked by your stupid hand. Getting all the love and affection his stupid self should be receiving.

It was him you should be cuddling, not Dante. Saturday nights were reserved for him and you, not you and a cat while he happened to be in the room. He’s been trying to make a move on you since high school and he can’t fucking believe he’s losing your attention to a cat. Sure, he’s always been too chicken to make a move and had to suffer seeing you get together with assholes— as per your type during your emo high school days— but this was a new low. He can’t wrap his head around the concept that he’s losing his longterm crush to a motherfucking cat.

When you coo at how adorable the fleabag was for what felt like the 50th time that night, Levi decides he’s had enough of the cuddle-hogging piece of shit.

Wordlessly, he crosses to your side of the room and lifts the cat from its perch, ignoring your protests as he sets it down on the floor and tells it to ‘scram, you little fuck.’ He uses a hand to dust your lap free of any microscopic cat particles Dante probably left behind before lying down his head down once he was satisfied. He grabs your hand to put it on his hair.

“Stroke.” He orders, eyes closing.

“What? No! You pushed off Dante.”

“He was in my spot.”

“You couldn’t have given up your lap pillow for one night?”

“One night?” He scoffs and turns to look at you. “You’ve been abandoning me for two weeks. That disgusting, tic-infested, rabies-carrying slob has no business sitting on your lap.”

“He’s not disgusting, you gave him a shower before you agreed to let me keep him. And I took him the vet to make sure he had all his shots. He’s clean, Levi.”

“Tch, good. Now throw him out and let him find someone else to freeload from.”

“Okay, what’s going on?” You guffaw. “You’ve been grumpier than usual. And why’re you being such an ass to Dante? He’s just a cat.”

“Don’t think he’s special in some way. I’m an ass to everyone.”

“Then why does it feel like you’re always extra mean to him?”

He doesn’t reply. His lips are downturned into a frown when he looks away with a click of his tongue, and you realize with a sigh you won’t be getting an answer from your cryptic roommate soon. Your fingers start mindlessly stroking his undercut when you get lost in your thoughts— a habit you developed through years of Levi using your lap as a pillow. He always complained the first few times you did it but you knew it calmed both him and you, and that it put both your minds at ease. Moreso Levi right now, apparently.

You’re keenly aware of how he seems to curl up into you the more you keep going. You watch as his shoulders slump down when you stroke the side of his face, and his eyebrows relax slightly. From your angle, you could even see the way his eyes close in content. Maybe even a tiny smile if you were being delusional.

Your lip twitches upward.

“Oh my god, Levi, are you jealous of a cat?”

“Shut up and play with my hair.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

iii. third terrace: wrath

“You owe me a new cravat.”

You blink up at your roommate. “What?”

“You owe me a new cravat.” He repeats. He pulls from his pocket a white piece of fabric— barely recognizable— torn into shreds, releases it mid-air. It gently lands on your open palm.

“Wait, did Dante do this?” You ask, eyeing the slik in your hands.

“Unless you went feral in the middle of the fucking night and decided to cut up my clothes, yes.”

“Oh my god, Levi, I’m so sorry. I swear Dante will never—“

“You actually owe me three cravats,” he interjects. “The first two I overlooked since they weren’t that expensive but I draw the line here.” His lips are downturned into a frown, eyes poorly concealing his clear distaste. “This one’s my favorite and it was made from silk.”

You eye the fabric in your hands once more before nodding in understanding, setting down the once beautiful cravat before taking out your wallet. It was only fair that you paid him back; he was being more than generous with letting your cat stay and keeping it a secret, and now you wonder how many bad things Dante’s done that Levi’s overlooked or simply never brought up with you.

“Sure, I’m really sorry. How much do I owe you?”

Levi doesn’t say anything. Instead he pulls out his phone and types something on what you could only assume was google, most likely looking for the same brand of the cravat your cat had just torn into shreds. You weren’t entirely sure how much those could cost, but surely you could afford—

“What the fuck!” You screech, eyeing the page with very, very hefty price tags listed. Holy fucking hell where did he even get the money to buy something so expensive. Gulping, you nervously look up at your unimpressed roommate. You already knew he was taking it easy on you; his aura was the only thing intimidating, at least he wasn’t giving you the murder eyes. And even though he was a man of his word, you were thankful he hasn’t reported Dante.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that Levi looked pissed beyond belief.

“Uhm... can I pay you with a check that’ll definitely bounce?”

“You will pay me in cash.”

“Fuck, fine!”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

iv. fourth terrace: sloth

Levi silently works on his desk. His laptop’s open in fromt of him, numerous notes from classes and books from the library surrounding him. The gentle sounds of clicking and clacking echoe throughout the room as fingers typed at the keyboard, eyes concentrated and lips pulled taught as he focuses on his task. He’s on a roll. He’s almost done with this part of his research, nothing could snap him out of this, he just needs to—

“Levi, when do you think Dante will come back to me?”

He stops typing and grits his teeth.

This is how it’s been the entire night. Ten minutes of peace before you ask him some stupid questions that could’ve been answered with common sense.

“Fuck if I care.”

“Do you think it was something I did?”

He resumes typing. “Yes.”

“Do you think he’ll come back?”

“No.”

“Even after all we’ve been through?”

“Still no.”

“I miss him,” you sigh. “I miss him so much.”

“Then you shouldn’t have left the door open.”

It’s been a week since Dante escaped the dorm and Levi doesn’t understand why you’re still so depressed about it. I mean, you only lost a cat that you loved and treasured and treated like family. Surely a week of moping around in your pajamas and eating nothing but chips and soda was catharsis enough.

He hears you shift in your burrito blanket, presumably to turn away from him so you can sulk into the wall next to your bed. Good. Now he can get back to working on—

“Levi do you think Dante-“

“Enough.” He grits, slamming his laptop shut.

“Where’re you going?” You ask, eyeing the way he hurriedly stuffs papers and books into his bag along with his laptop.

“Out.” He replies, grabbing his keys and his coat. “I can’t stand this shit anymore.”

Your head is burried in your blankets when he slams the door shut and all you could do was slump down because great. You lost Dante, and now you’ve royally pissed off Levi.

Great. Just fucking great.

Unlike your cat, however, your roommate comes back hours later, just before curfew. He doesn’t bother with a hello— he never does— and neither do you, opting to stay hidden underneath the sheets. Though suddenly, there’s a dip in the mattress followed by a pur next to your head.

Could it be?

“Dante?” You murmur, lifting your head from underneath your cocoon of fabric. Small black paws and silver eyes meet your gaze. “Dante!” Immediately sitting up, you pulled him to your lap, scratching his little head and cooing about how much you missed him as he purred and curled into to you.

Levi would never say it, but he missed seeing you smile at the little fleabag.

You turn to look at your roommate. “How’d you find him?”

“Asked around the campus. He wandered into another dorm building and probably thought it was ours.”

“Well yeah but... I thought you hated him?”

“I do.” He replies instantly.

“Then why’d you find him?”

“I hate him, not you.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

v. fifth terrace: avarice

“I fucking hate both of you,” Levi grumbles, staring at the dorm.

Towers of boxes lined his supposed to be clean dorm room. He had a hard time prying the door open since it was blocked, and he wasn’t even sure how the boxes weren’t blocking out the light from how high they were piled. Dante’s sat on a stack of box directly next to the door, purring and flicking his tail around. Levi squints his eyes and glares at the little shit.

“You especially.”

“Mrow?”

Levi’s day had been, with no irony or sarcasm at all, amazing. He got a good grade on his research paper; the guy in front of him at the cafe accidentally ordered an extra serving of (coincidentally, Levi’s favorite) tea and gave it to him for free; and he got full marks for the presentation he’s been worrying about for weeks. His class even got dismissed early so he had an extra hour for lunch. He knew you didn’t have classes, so in honor of his great day he thought he’d do something nice and take you out for lunch. His treat, of course.

But any trace of his good mood vanished when he went back to the dorms and got greeted to a room that looked like it came from an episode of Hoarders.

This is what he gets for trying to be nice.

“Levi! Is that you?” You called out.

“What the fuck happened?”

You laugh sheepishly— at least Levi thinks you do. He couldn’t see you beyond the hundred boxes that took up your shared room. He hears some rustling and the sound of things being moved around before finally your head pops out from behind a wall of brown, smiling at him apologetically before walking towards him (and tripping a few times).

“Remember when I said I’d order some toys for Dante as a surprise?”

Levi’s eye twitches. “Don’t tell me—”

“I accidentally ordered 10,000 instead of 10. Online shopping struggles, am I right?” You nervously chuckle at his pissed off face. Levi was not in the mood.

Your smile widens as you make twinkly gestures with your hands. “So uh... surprise?”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

vi. sixth terrace: gluttony

The clinic is still when you first entered.

The harsh smell of alcohol and sterile metal makes your nose grimace, and the coldness of the thermostat brings goosebumps to your arms. Behind the wall, somewhete in the waiting room, cats are hissing, dogs are barking, and you could even hear the sound of birds angrily chirping and rattling their cages.

Dante cowers in fear on the silver table, and your heart aches. His ears are down and his fur’s standing on its ends, but you couldn’t comfort him. Not right now, at least. The veterinarian still needed to do a few more checks.

You gulp, “how’s... how’s Dante looking, doc?”

“Not good,” she murmurs. Her eyebrows are furrowed, and she takes a deep sigh as she eyes the information on the chart. “It’ll take months before he can walk properly again, possibly more if we don’t do anything about it soon.”

“Don’t tell me... is he—-”

“I’m sorry, my dear,” she sighs. “But your cat is heavily obese.”

The corners of your lips twitch down into a frown, and your palm is warm when you start to stroke Dante’s fur. He calms down a bit from your touch, less on edge but still guarded as he warily eyes the doctor’s gloved hands.

“But I don’t understand,” you reply. “I’ve been following the recommended diet you put him on, and I haven’t been feeding him anything other than the cat food and vitamins you recommended. How’s he still obese?”

“Well, we could look into other solutions, but for now I think we ought to look at whether or not Dante has an underlying health problem.”

Levi tunes out the chatter between you and the vet, bored eyes staring into nothing. He’s leaning against a wall and he’s watching the cat carrier. Your bag’s slung over his shoulders and your coat’s in his arms, and he was sure you didn’t even need him to be here for “moral support.”

He mentally scoffs. You probably just needed a chauffeur to drive you for free, and honestly, Levi would rather feel like a chauffeur than a coat rack.

His eyes make contact with Dante’s, and all the fear in the cat’s eyes is suddenly gone, replaced with a steely glare and bared teeth. A warning, one no one else notices but him.

Levi gives him a solitary nod, understanding what Dante wanted to say.

Don’t tell Y/N I’ve been sneaking to the neighbors.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

vii. seventh terrace: desire

There’s something about the buzz of alcohol and nicotine that makes Levi confident—- the liquid courage in his veins and the smoke in his lungs clouding his judgement. Perhaps that’s where he finally gets the balls to cross the room, drunken eyes on your equally intoxicated ones, before he pulls you in for a kiss.

The kiss starts slow, with lips just interlocking and lightly testing the waters. But then he feels your tongue make its way inside his mouth and your fingers weave into his hair to tug him closer, and Levi loses the last threads of inhibition he has. His tongue massages yours and one of his arm wraps around your waist, the other comes down to grope and knead your ass. He feels you walk backwards and your hand pulls at his tie, dragging him with you. Suddenly he’s trapping you against a wall, lifting one of your legs up to wrap around his hips so he could grind his crotch into yours.

Levi doesn’t expect his first kiss with you to be like this; messy and full of tongue and spit, full of fingers clawing at clothes and small grunts escaping your lips. He was hoping it’d be more romantic, with warm cheeks and fingers softly intertwining, shy kisses exchanged through little smiles.

But he’s not about to complain—- he’s wanted to be with you for years, and god he loved having you like this. Loved having you all hot and desperate, trapped between his firm chest and the wall. His cock is hard in his pants, and he just about growls when he feels you start to undo his belt, the fly of his pants coming down as you got on your knees and stared up at him with innocent eyes as you pull out his aching boner. There’s a cheeky grin your face when you pump at his length, and your tongue peaks out of your mouth before—

“Levi, are you okay?”

His eyes snap open, and he’s greeted to the sight of your worried face directly above his.

“Fuck!” he yells, and his forehead slams into yours when he flinches away. “Sorry, sorry” he quickly ammends when you yelp in pain.

He’s covered in sweat, he notices. Chest heaving, heart beating a little too loud for his liking, and he silently pulls the blankets over his cum stained boxers when you sit beside him.

God, he was really hoping you wouldn’t notice the fact that he came in his pants like a high schooler. And it was before dream you even got to suck him off. How much more pathetic could he be.

“Are you okay?” He asks, and you nod.

“Yeah, m’fine, it’s just...” your eyes are distracted, staring off into space. Fingers trace his thighs, and you sigh. “You were having a nightmare,”

Levi blinks. “What?”

“You were having a nightmare,” you repeat. “Kept tossing and turning and groaning in your sleep. And you kept making these... funny faces,”

“...right,” he nods. Sure, a nightmare. A nightmare he never wanted to wake up from.

It takes about ten minutes to reassure you that yes, he was fine, don’t mind the way his cheeks are flushed, he was just... shaken up from his nightmare, is all. Then you’re back to bed, sleeping the night away, and twenty minutes later he’s on his way back to bed too; this time with a fresh pair of boxers and a content look on his face, all thanks to him finishing off his fantasies in the communal bathroom during his shower.

The door makes a quiet click when he shuts it behind him, and he freezes when he catches sight of Dante sat up on your bed, tail flicking behind him as he gives Levi a knowing look.

Levi squints his eyes, and he threateningly whispers, “you tell no one.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

epilogue

The half empty room brings a frown to your face, and all you could do was pout as you sealed up the last of the boxes.

“Why do you have to leave again?” you ask, and Levi turns around as he finishes folding the last of his clothes. He shrugs. “Cats aren’t allowed in the dorms.”

You owed him your entire college career, that much was sure. The RA’s found out about Dante, and Levi had taken the fall to spare you. He wasn’t required to move out since it was only his first strike, but he insisted on doing so so that Dante wouldn’t be alone, saying he already found an apartment nearby and he’ll never hear the end of it from you if he didn’t take Dante with him.

Bullshit. Levi had a soft spot for Dante, you knew that much. He wasn’t doing it for you, he was doing it for himself. Though normally you’d be overjoyed to know that Levi really did secretly like the cat he pretended to hate so much, this time, you were just pissed. You couldn’t believe a fucking cat was stealing away the guy you’ve been in love with since high school. Sure, you were too much of a coward to ask him out, but he was basically your boyfriend already—- the entire campus knew you inadvertently had dibs on each other.

“Yeah but... do you have to leave me alone?”

“I asked you to come with me, and you said no.” He points out. “I still don’t see why when we’ve been roommates since we were freshmen.”

“It’s different off-campus!”

“How?”

“Because it’s like... it’s like we’re moving in together, y’know?” you reply. “And it seemed wrong to move in with you when we’re not even dating.”

“Let’s do it, then.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighs, handing you a spare key to what you could only assume was his new apartment. You glance between him and the key in your hands, and he rolls his eyes when he realizes that you still don’t get it.

“I know we’re doing this backwards since couples don’t typically move in before the first date,” he says before gesturing to Dante. “But we already have a son, and I know you’re his favorite parent. We can share custody until you can move in with me.”

You blink. “What?” Your brain stopped working when Levi referred to you as a couple, and you’re pretty sure your heart stopped beating too. At this point, anything he said went in one ear and out the other. He flicks your forehead.

“Hey— ow! What was that for?”

“You weren’t listening.”

“And you’re being a prick!” you grumble. “It hurts, y’know.”

He scoffs. “What do you want me to do? Kiss it better?” he scoffs.

Your mouth moves faster than your brain, “I’d rather you kiss me.”

Wait. What?

Before you could go back on your words, Levi shrugs. Warm palms gently grab your cheeks, pulling your face closer to his. Your eyes widen and you momentarily freeze, brain definitely not working anymore. He hesitates when you don’t make a move, but then you’re shyly leaning forward, and that was all the confirmation Levi needs.

“If you insist,” he whispers, and suddenly your words die on your tongue when his lips interlock with yours.

alrightberries © 2020. do not modify or repost.

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[queenmuzz]

Down Where It’s Wetter

A Spicy Sequel to Deep Blue Sea

Read it on Ao3 Here

Note:  This isn’t quite as soft, so if you’re uncomfortable with that, I would suggest skipping it.

One and half months.  Or you had assumed that’s what it had been since your miraculous transformation.  Time was a bit of a more nebulous concept in the merworld, where tides and temperatures were the main source of timekeeping.

Speaking of temperatures.  Over the past few weeks, you’d felt a bit off.  What had started out as a low-grade fever now felt like a raging inferno, to the point you were surprised you weren’t surrounded by a bubble of boiling water wherever you went.  

And the itch!  No, not an itch, that would infer that it was your skin or scales that were the cause.  But no, this irritation wasn’t just skin deep, no pun intended, this went further, deeper, almost to a part of you that couldn’t be biologically explained, such as your soul.

You hadn’t really spent much time with the merfolk, aside from the brothers, being quite shy, but they seemed amiable and quite welcoming.  There hadn’t been a human addition to the population in a generation, you had heard an elder say, so you were a person of interest, but they gave you plenty of space, to let you gradually feel comfortable among them.  

That being said, you had no one to ask about your ‘condition’.  You’d observed many of them, and none of them seemed to suffer from your affliction, or if they did, they either considered it normal, or were very good at hiding it.

Or worse, they didn’t suffer from it at all.  Was it a side effect of the transformation?  Or was it something more permanent?  You hoped it wasn’t the latter.   What if it was some sort of Little Mermaid painful price to pay, just in reverse?  It worried you so much that you were failing at being a mermaid.

You wanted to ask Vergil about it, but you’d found out two things.  First, he’d been a bit distant lately, and seemed to be out hunting, (fish...and your father’s ships, which you had begrudgingly agreed to on the condition that he try his best not to hurt crewmembers.  He had... acquiesced to your request)

Secondly, and most worryingly, your symptoms seemed to intensify exponentially when he was around.  You didn’t have any idea why, but just his presence caused your fever to flare out, and the urge to scratch something, anything, anyONE got to the point that you were wanting to gouge out chunks of rocks on the sea bed.

And now your scales were changing… The white of your tale wasn’t quite white anymore, it seemed irredcent, like a mother of pearl, that when you swam in the sunlight, you shimmered like a pastel rainbow.  And the jade green scales? They’d become a  deep, dark green, the colour that was almost onyx, with the corresponding rainbow oily sheen on it.  The colours would get increasingly intense and contrast more when Vergil was around, and now you were certain he had noticed.  He’d taken one look at your tail a few hours ago, and swam off rather hurriedly, claiming he could hear a school of anchovies somewhere nearby.

So, now you were forced to ask the one person that you could trust.  Dante.  He was currently playing hide and go seek with some octopus amongst the kelp (and losing, his red tale stood out rather sharply among the greens and blues and browns) so after he had been outwitted by the camouflaged invertebrate yet again, you’d caught his attention.

“What’s up mudskipper?” he asked, and you hesitated.  This was a lot harder and embarrassing than you thought it would be.

“Dante….I have a rather… personal question…”  you started, and this time, the increased heat you felt wasn’t due to whatever you had been suffering.

“Ahh, you finally broke down and are asking about your heat.  ‘Bout damn time too, I thought Vergil was the most stubborn guy I’d ever met”

“Wait,” you asked, startled, “I’m in heat?”

“Yup” he began piling up a pillar of rocks, one on top of each other, before pausing, “wait, humans don’t have them?”

“NO!”

“Huh, strange.  Wonder how you guys managed to keep making babies.”

“Wait,” you said, realization dawning on you, “You knew I was in heat?”

“Well duh,” he said, as he placed the seventh stone on the top, and backed off as it wobbled. “I mean, how is it NOT noticeable?  You’re giving out the smells, and your colour changes basically scream ‘CLAIM ME!’ to any merfolk an ocean away.  In any other situation you’d be having an entire shoal of prospective mermen and mermaids skulking around” He tempted fate by placing an eighth stone, and to his amazement, it held.

“Wait, that makes no sense.  I haven’t seen a single mer-person for several days,” you said, as you watched him concentrate as he found a nice flat stone to put on as a topper. “And that doesn’t explain why you don’t seem to be affected at all.”

He stuck his tongue out as he gingerly placed the flat rock on top, before backing away slowly, smiling as it held.

“Well, there’s an easy reason for that,” he  explained, satisfied with his work.  “Everyone knows you’ve been claimed by Vergil.  In the old days, stories told that there’d be fights to the death over a mate, with the one who survived proved that he or she was the fittest to breed with their prospective bondmate” he chuckled at your horrified look, “Of course now we’re much more civilized, and we realized losing half the population to stupid fights was incredibly dumb, so we kinda modified it.  You still have to prove your worthiness to your bondmate, just in a non lethal way.  Prove you’re faster, stronger, that you can provide for them, stuff like that.  And basically we all know there’s no one that even has a shot with you, so they stay away.  But for me, you’re practically family already, so I’m not even bothered by it.  Vergil on the other hand….” he smirked. “The poor mer’s practically been a krill’s distance from spearing you…” he chuckled, “heh, ‘spearing’.  Anyways, he’s been resisting his primal urges, he mumbled something about, ‘humans having different ways of expressing consent’ or something… anyways.  One of you have to get worn down by the tide, or I’ll never get a moment’s peace.”

You stared, finally understanding.  After all, you had desired Vergil for a while, but hadn’t known how to breach the subject.  The ways of communication between merfolk was incredibly different, with smells, colours, and sounds being woven into their spoken speech.  When you spoke, you felt like you were only saying every other word.  Vergil had assured you that you would eventually understand, but it seemed that you had a bit more to learn.

“If… let’s say…. I wanted him… how would I be able to let him know?”

Dante shrugged, “just follow your instincts and trust the currents of your body.  Verg will get the message.  In fact…” he smiled devilishly “I know how to get his attention right now…”  He placed his hand on your shoulder and gently, softly caressed it.  

Before you could react, even protest, you heard the clatter of rocks, as the pillar, which had been standing tall, collapsed, the stones chattering as they scattered on the sea bed.  The reason was obvious, Vergil floated, his scales a dark shimmering blue, much more intense than you had remembered them.

“Dante….” his voice was low and growled, like water crashing over countless small stones.  “Get away from her.”  Yamato’s blade glittered threatenly in the sunlight.

Dante’s response was typical of the merman, a smile, a shrug, and then a click of tongue, before swimming off, with just a “Have fun guys!”

So there you were face to face with Vergil, the heat within you almost unbearable, your scales shimmering in the sea-filtered light.  You could see how tense he was, like a coiled spring, on how he was suppressing his true nature.  You closed your eyes, attempting to follow Dante’s advice, and follow your new instincts….

“Sifa?” Vergil’s voice, still tense, but attempting to remain calm.  And just the sound of it caused a flare within you.  You needed to get away from him….but something in you didn’t fear him… you wanted to test him.

“Catch me if you can!”  and before he could respond, you swam off as fast as you could into the kelp forest.  You could make out an animalistic growl, which just excited you as you disappeared among the swaying fronds.

The surge of adrenaline flowed through your system, quelling the heat within you momentarily as you snaked through the dense kelp.  You could feel the thick leathery leaves give way to you as you rushed, this way and that, up to the surface, then down to the depths.  Fish darted out of your way out of alarm, (and that octopus Dante couldn’t find retreated in a cloud of ink) and even a nonchalant sea turtle decided to mosey out of the way, sensing the the electricity 

Behind you, and then above you, the sound and smell of Vergil searched for you, a primal grumbling coming from him.  You still hadn’t quite gotten the hang  of swimming (You still had to resist the urge to kick your now nonexistent feet to propel yourself) so you’d never be able to outswim him yet, so eventually, you chose to hide, to conceal yourself among the thick green ropes. The unmistakable rustle of leaves came from somewhere near you.  He was close, so very close.  The tension in the water, the hunt caused a thrill in you, something primitive and exciting.

The rustling stopped, and you held your metaphorical breath, trying to still your heartbeat.  Had he discovered your location?   Had your stealth caused him to move on?

“I found you”

You had no time to flee, no time to even react as you felt the cords of kelp wrap around your midsection, yanking you towards him.  You halfheartedly struggled against the binds, only to be stilled by a hungry, all consuming kiss.  It’s effect was instantaneous, and something deep in your brain, some age-old mer behaviour… bah, why were you thinking like this?  Just give into it!

His mere touch smothered the burning in you, but now another flame inside grew in you, not painful, but one that fed off the feelings you felt.  His touch, his kiss, his taste… everything fueled the blazing inferno.

“Mira Sifa” you barely heard his voice over the thundering in your head, over your heartbeat shuddering.  “You have no idea what you’ve done to me.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing” you murmured into his ear, nibbling his earlobe.

Your fingers gripped his back, and you could feel your fingernails tearing into his skin, and the faint smell of blood drifted through the water, as they healed quickly.

His reaction was immediate.  A snarl, and he threw his makeshift kelp lasso away to grip you tightly, and you could feel his fingertips pressing into your hips, clenching you so hard that you could feel pinpricks of pain as his nails dug into your flesh.

“Mine..” came his guttural voice, echoing in your skull, like rocks scraping against each other. “All mine..”

“Yes..” you were barely able to rasp out as his dark sapphire tail wrapped around you so that you couldn’t move, even if you had desired to, “All yours..”

“Mine to claim,” he muttered dangerously, as his hands, now free to do what he wished, roamed your body, “Mine to breed”  One of his webbed hands began circling your breast, pinching and flicking at the nipple like a nibbling fish, while his mouth suckled on the other, his razor sharp teeth grazing against sensitive flesh.  You threw your head  back in ecstasy, letting you be carried away by the torrent of feelings.

Your eyes snapped open as his other hand slithered down to your lower regions, and deftly fingered a slit, nearly inconspicuous among your vibrant scales. You felt one, then two fingers slipped in, his thumb pressing in on a particular bundle nerves that set off a chain reaction down your spine.

“Vergil-ah” you managed to slip out as his teeth gently bit down on your breast, the pain dancing on this side of pleasure. Your hips attempted to grind against his hand, to get a little bit more friction  , but his tail coiled around you tightly to make movement nearly impossible.  It almost frustrated you to no end, but then it clicked at what he was doing, he was trying to show you that he could take care of you.

Well, two could play at that game… 

His fingers moved more rapidly, and now you felt his growing hardness against you, and you cautiously reached  out to grasp it, to caress it in your palm.  It was unlike anything you’d ever seen, coming out of a slit similar to yours, dark, nearly black, blue, aside from light blue veins that seemed to glow in the semi darkness of the underwater forest.  

He jerked his head backwards as you slowly began stroking it, a hiss of pleasure escaping through his teeth. It was ridged with velvet soft scales , and was practically scorching to the touch, and you marveled at its texture with each soothing fondle, your thumb brushed against the tip, drawing a satisfied groan out of him.

As he fingered you, you reciprocated, your strokes matching his speed as the pressure in your core intensified.

Then suddenly, with a sound of a distant waterfall, he snarled and stopped.  You froze, confused and worried that you’d done something wrong. 

“Enough games”

And without warning, he withdrew his hands, cutting off your pleasure, uncoiled his tail and with one fluid motion, thrust deep into your core.  You couldn’t help it, a pathetic mewling sound escaped from your throat as your body tried to encompass his girth.  It was almost too big, too much.  Almost... Vergil paused for a moment, to let you get your bearings, and only when you wrapped your arms around his neck, your fingers digging into his scalp, did he continue his assault.

Your senses shut out everything.  The pressure of the shifting currents, the gentle brush of kelp fronds, the sound of the distant surface crashing on rocks.  Nothing else mattered but the swells of pleasure that washed over you like the pounding of surf on sand.

You clung tightly onto him for dear life, your nails scratching at the nape of his neck, no doubt leaving bloody trails that would disappear momentarily.  And with every frenzied swipe, some primordial urge was appeased.

You were reaching your peak, and his grip on your hips tightened to the point that it pierced flesh, which just intensified what you were experiencing.  Lust drunk, you nuzzled yourself into the crook of his neck, taking in his scent and taste of his skin. “Mine...” you hissed out as you came, yanking on his hair so his neck was exposed, and bit down, the rich taste of blood gushing into your mouth like a saltwater spring.  You could hear the pulse of his heart, the gasping of lungs, and his crushing grip.  Nothing else mattered, except you two, right here, right at this moment.

You were in the eye of the storm, boneless as he had his way with you, drifting along the currents, and then you heard him whisper “Yes...yours” and felt a sharp pain in the junction between neck and shoulder, as he bit down hard.  It hurt, but the sensation of him filling you with his seed was more than enough to convert the pain into something more, something sacred and binding.

And with that, the crushing waves seemed to recede as he released his grip on you, but still held you tightly in his arms.  He began to lick your shoulder, to clean up the blood from your almost already healed wound.  You shuddered as you came down from your high, your fever gone, and the itch satisfied. Vergil felt cool to the touch, a welcome relief after your weeks of misunderstood agony.

“I’m sorry” you murmured as you licked up the blood remaining on his shoulder. The action that seemed so strange a few months ago now felt as natural as if you’d spent your entire life doing it.

“Mmm?”

“I made you wait for this, not understanding what you and I were going through.  It looks like there’s still a lot I need to learn about being a mermaid. ”

He leant back, pulling you on top of him, stroking your back, lifting your chin to face him, a soft smile on his face.  “For you, I would have waited a lifetime.”  He entwined his tail around yours.  His had returned to its sapphire blue, and the mottles on yours were slowly going back to the beautiful jade colour you were so entranced by.  The inferno that had blazed inside you had diminished to a flickering flame, still there, ready to be fueled by your hunger later, but satisfied for now.  The itch had been scratched, and his mere touch was balm to you, your skin, to your very soul.

“I must confess, I wished to tell you, but it would come across as I was pushing you into something that you might not feel comfortable with.”

You chuckled, resting your head on his chest.  “Ah, I see that’s why you left it to Dante to explain.”

He grumbled, “I would have rather not…but desperate times…”

You laughed as you closed your eyes, both of you drifting off to sleep among the swaying leaves that softy swished around the two of you, the only witnesses to your sacred act.

[noelgarcias]

[ tommy martinez, cismale & he/him ] did you know that NOEL GARCIA was on full disclosure? yeah, apparently the TWENTY FIVE year old CHEF was hiding HE’S LIVING UNDER A FALSE IDENTITY TO AVOID HIS PAST. i never would’ve expected it from our resident ARTISAN. i wonder how they’ll deal with this, considering how PASSIONATE & STUBBORN they are. // written by pepper: twenty three, est, she/her.  

it is i, pepperoni mcpony back once again to bring you yet another messy ass muse. i am once again on that new muse juice, but also kind of on the recycled muse juice like i’ve used this fc and this name before but it didn’t work out, so i’ve changed a lot about him and revamped him and so now he’s better than every babeeyyy. down bellow will be a bit about noel, or rather dante if we’re being technical. you can just call him noel though. full disclosure (badum tss sdkjsdkj) this is gonna be messy as hell, because noel’s inspo is more scattered than percy’s but we’re gonna push through folks.

BIO ;

okay so noel’s family is kind of inspired by the quinns (from ‘you’ on netflix), the castillos (from how to get away with murder) and like henry gouldings family in crazy rich asians. 

dante isaac campana was brought into the world in madrid spain with a silver spoon dangling out of his mouth. you’d never guess from looking at him, what with his hobo chic style and generally unkept appearance but it’s the truth. he came in this world out of a well paid surrogate as the second child of the infamous sofia and gabriel campana. and he wanted for nothing because of it, his parents made sure of that.

gabriel was a ceo and sofia was a wildly successful author, and from the moment noel could breathe his parents had his whole life set up for him. after all they wanted their son to be successful and they planned to make sure of it. a hefty trust fund in his name, to be accessible at the age of eighteen. a place in the family business that he would fill the moment he finished university. they even had an arrangement for who noel would marry eventually, before he was even old enough to understand what the concept of marriage was. it was all planned out for noel without the slightest bit of input from noel himself, and dante  was just supposed for accept that. the funny thing is at first he did.

after all he was young and he had no reason not to. he loved his parents deeply at first, and they probably loved him in return, even if they had a bit of an odd way of showing it. dante’s parents were the type to shower their children in superficial affection. buying them things. kissing and hugging them when there was someone around to see. encouraging them only when it came to pursuits that they approved of. sure noel could draw, and learn guitar, and learn piano, as long as those things were just hobbies. as long as he didn’t forget the plan because The Plan was law.

dante only became aware of how conditional his parents love for them was when his elder sister started to slip under the pressure they put on her shoulders. anya campana was about fifteen at the time, and dante, six years her younger, had to watch as his sister crumbled. anya had always cared too much about what their parents thought of her, about impressing them and making them proud. it didn’t help that her parents made it clear that they would not accept anything less than excellence. the pressure drove anya to substance abuse, just to take the edge off, just to make things easier. it wasn’t long the weight of their parents expectations had drove anya to a full on addiction, all in the pursuit of success. but of course when dante’s parents found out they had no sympathy for her. only disappointment. their father had every plan to make anya, his eldest, the head of the company when she came of age, but that ‘slip up’ cost her the role. instead the position would be given to dante, and anya would be sent quietly to rehab. it was an eye opening experience for dante, honestly. to see just how replaceable their parents saw them.  

the truth is the campanas were fake. plastic. sure they smiled in the public eye and the relationship between the siblings at least was genuine, but the truth was gabriel was cheating on sofia when he thought no one was looking, and sofia had openly slapped each of her children across the face at least once, usually when she got a bit too much wine in her. the older dante got the more and more he felt his love for his parents becoming more of an obligation than anything tangible. 

when dante was thirteen, around the time anya’s second stint in rehab, all hell broke loose in the campana household. initially dante thought that his mother had uncovered one of his fathers many affairs again, but instead it was much worse. his mother had discovered his father had an illegitimate child with dante’s favourite childhood nanny of all people. considering sofia couldn’t have children herself (hence the surrogate for both of the campana children) and even gabriel was struggling with impotence, this was a shock and a slap in the face. only emphasized by the fact that dante’s ex nanny had passed away, leaving dante’s father as the kids legal guardian. 

and so suddenly dante had a younger sibling. it was a situation that took getting used to but it wasn’t long until dante adored them, and the feeling was quickly mutual. while dante’s father could barely interact with the child without inciting his wife, and dante’s mother treated them with coldness, dante and his sibling became painfully close due to circumstance. 

for years it went on like that. the three campana siblings all attempting to impress their parents for different reasons. his youngest sibling to feel less like an outsider, dante just because he knew no other way, anya because she desperately wanted to get back into their parents good graces. but anya never could do anything quite right, always somehow ended up messing up spectacularly and publicly. until one day, anya disappeared.

dante and his younger sibling were the first to notice. his parents just assumed that anya was on another bender, and when the siblings brought this to their attention that’s exactly what they said in reply. but they were wrong. in 2012 anya campana was kidnapped and held for a ransom of one billion dollars. dante can still remember getting the ransom call. he can still remember the sheer panic, the cold fear. and he can still remember his father refusing to pay the money. trying to negotiate with the kidnappers, as if anya’s life was just another deal. he can remember begging his father just to pay the money, because it wasn’t like they didn’t have it. but his father was convinced he could get the kidnappers to lower the price, or that the police would find anya before he had to pay it. they didn’t. anya campana died in the winter of 2012 at the hands of a couple of common criminals, all because their father apparently had his own idea about the worth of each of his children. 

dante was furious and disgusted and grieving. his sister, his confidante and likely one of the two people in his life to love him unconditionally, was gone. dante officially snapped when his mother had the audacity to write a book about the experience. by the time the book was picked up by a publisher, dante had packed his bags, liquidated his trust fund, taken his younger sibling and fled spain with two new identities for them both. his sibling was under the age of eighteen at the time, so the campanas really could have called the police and reported dante for kidnapping, but dante knew that his parents wouldn’t risk making a scene so soon after the spectacle that anya’s death was. he and his sibling would be safe for a while as long as they laid low. and they did. dante -- now known as noel garcia-- and his sibling moved to san francisco and have been keeping a low profile ever since. 

honestly, noel adapted to the american dream like a fish to water. having a new name, having no one in this continent knowing who he was, finally being out from under his parents thumb -- it was all so freeing, and noel really dove head first into that feeling. ever since he’s just been living the life he always dreamed of having. doing exactly what he wants and nothing less one hundred percent of the time (which is exactly how and why he got married, and is still married honestly). he lives his life on pure free spirited impulse one hundred percent of the time, with exception of rare show of responsibility he puts into helping raise his younger sibling. he tries to live his life in a way he hopes would make his sister proud. he’s determined to live enough for the both of them. 

somehow, despite the multiple private investigators his parents have undoubtedly sent to find them, they’ve remained undetected. that is until full disclosure decided to expose him. now noel is just waiting for the day one of his parents shows up at his door demanding he come back to take over the family business. he isn’t looking forward to it, but he is kinda looking forward to finally telling them to fuck off, which is really the only silver lining. 

PERSONALITY ; 

god who knows folks like i said dkjsdjksd noel is a mess in my brain

PASSIONATE THOUGH! god he’s so passionate, like noel just feels everything on 10 one hundred percent of the time. The type to get teary eyed over a dead bird, but also the type to like stay up five days straight working on a project because he can’t get it out of his mind

despite this thinks romantic love is a straight up myth lmao because of his parents relationship, so we love a contradictory king. a bleeding heart but also a philiophobe. 

nurturing honestly? but only with people he actually cares about like his sibling and wife. a dad friend i suppose. 

but also impulsive. like the type to suggest going to vegas on a whim and get WILDLY FUCKED UP DRUNK, but also that really coherent drunk who can be doing body shots one minute and be trying to gently coax someone else to drink water the next. 

thinks he’s funny! sometimes he is tbh. very sarcastic honestly.

a big ol’ flirt just naturally. also bi, so equal opportunity for everybody. 

very touchy feely tbh because he’s a tactile person.

a live and let live kinda guy like actually,,, so close to a hippie that percy is triggered. 

a bit promiscuous but he’s okay with it. he’s a hoe but he knows it you know. 

the most generous person when it comes to money and kindness. the type to sit down with a homeless person and end up giving them his jacket, five hundred dollars, and a new outlook on life. 

the type to hold a grudge until the day he dies, but also the type of person who can’t NOT help someone who needs help you know. like he hates his parents but if his mother called him tomorrow like i want to see you one last time before i die, he would fly out to spain to see her smh he might not talk to her the whole time because he’s petty and like ‘there, you’ve seen me’ efjkdsfj but he’d do it. 

very liberal. literally can’t talk to conservatives without wanting to physically fight them. has definitely gone to a protest and gotten arrested for punching a nazi. luckily was released before the whole living with a fake identity thing could be found out. 

HEADCANNONS ;

alright now onto the fun stuff.

deaf in his left ear and has been all his life. it’s kind of difficult for him to hear a specific person talking in a crowd of too many people, especially if you’re standing on his left so he might straight up text your instead. also if you’re standing on his left side in general, he might turn to face you better to hear you.

noel’s occupation is a chef at a restaurant but in truth at heart he’s an artist. like his art is his heart, and it’s actually very popular and he gets a lot of offers from people wanting to buy it but he can never part with anything he’s made so he always refuses the offers, no matter how much money the customer is bidding. he has refused offers on grounds such as ‘i didn’t like the vibes he was giving off’ or ‘that asshole was wearing a jack johnson shirt’ or even, once ‘pretty sure i saw that guy in a dream once. he fucking sucked.’ so most of his art decorates his and evie’s apartment instead, and he’ll even give some to friends for free. noel actually wants to become a full time artist but considering how picky he is about who actually buys his art, it’s unlikely because he’ll literally make no money. hence, being a chef. no matter what noel enjoys seeing people enjoy his food, so it works out. 

actually learned to cook from his family chef, and hasn’t really had time to get any professional training but he really wants to. he has absolutely snuck into culinary school very briefly before just to sit in on a few classes. just pretended he went there and made a bunch of friends and learned a lot of stuff, and even taught some culinary students a few things. but he was eventually discovered and kicked out rip, but it was a great time while it lasted.  

honestly pretty good at anything having to do with his hands, hence the artisan label. noel is the type of person who knows nothing about like mechanics but can like fix something if you put it in front of him. likes to make furniture as a hobby so hit your boy up if you want a sexy chair. also makes sculptures and does a bit of pottery, like your boy has his fingers in more than a few pots

intelligent in the way that he just has a lot of pretty well informed opinions like if you want a fun fact don’t go to noel but if you want a good insightful conversation he’s your man.

a big defender of the environment.

has a bunch of tattoos. i imagine him with at least one sleeve and he’s probably starting another. is seriously considering a neck tat. his parents would hate it and that just makes him love it more.

honestly got married a bit because it was a choice he got to make for himself that his parents had no control over. the thought of his parents still believing he will be playing into the arranged marriage they had laid out for him only for him to tell them he already married his bandmate was super satisfying.

doesn't do drugs at all, the most hell do is smoke weed. used to see his sister at her worst (aka withdrawal symptoms, two overdoses) and so he doesn’t even want to be close to anyone who does drugs, cause he can’t do that again. 

if you watch jenna marbles i want you to know that noel is julian in the kitchen and julian in the kitchen only

surprisingly has a green thumb? can revive almost any plant with relative ease

never learnt how to ride a bike tbh

surprising the type to get into physical fights when he’s drunk, which he hates, because it reminds him of his mother. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS ;

younger sibling ; if you’ve guessed that i’m going to put a wc into the main for noel’s younger sibling than you’ve guessed right but if anyone here wants it before i put the message into the main let me know!

claire to his brad ; ... please. i’m begging here. noel is a chef but i haven’t decided where and i really want him to have a chef friend or baker friend who he just messes around with in the kitchen. maybe they even make amateur funnily little gourmet-makes-esque youtube videos where noel doesn’t show his face because he doesn’t want his parents to see but sdkjsdkj he’s like julian behind the camera, making comments and having a good time. give me this.

a virgo ; speaking of julian, noel does have julian energy and so he therefore probably needs a jenna. please give him someone to help with his impulse control. someone to say, hey, maybe you shouldn’t deep fry that turkey in a huge vat right outside your apartment in the middle of may. maybe you should just take a nap. you know?

a love hate relationship ; honestly i just want someone who noel actively despises but still helps out anyways. like he doesn’t like who they are a person, but he can’t leave them alone, because they’re usually in some sort of trouble and unfortunately noel just can’t watch people implode. 

one night stands / hookups / previous dates ; noel’s marriage is open but since he was keeping his whole marriage a secret in the first place these people probably wouldn’t have known that at the time sdkjsdkj but noel is perfectly willing to explain that now that full disclosure has exposed them and he’s got no more secrets to keep. 

a best friend ; or two! i’d love a bromance for him and another close friendship that doesn’t have to be a bromance, just someone who he’s really close to. 

okay this has gotten hella long so i’m gonna stop now but like this if you want to plot and i’ll come running! and to anyone who got all the way to the end of this... you’re the real mvp. <3

[violetsmoak]

Appetence [2/?]

AO3 Link:https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251420/chapters/47997634

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Red Robin is investigating the disappearance of a friend and stumbles into a spot of supernatural trouble. He doesn’t expect to be saved by Jason Todd, miraculously alive five years after his death and now with the inexplicable ability to commune with the dead. Meanwhile, when Jason returned to Gotham he meant to maintain a low profile and not get involved with Bat business. That was before he found out how hot his Replacement is.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: N/A

First Chapter

Canon-Compliance: Alternate Universe; Jason still died but was not found by Talia when he was resurrected. All other events mostly follow the same chronology as New Earth continuity, with mentions made to events in New 52

Author’s Note(s): Enter Tim. And Tim's investigation. And Tim's tendency to make bad decisions.

Beta Reader: I’ll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

Red Robin crouches on a rooftop in the Bowery, watching the thief he was just interrogating scramble from the alley. He was a bit harsher than usual tonight—the full ‘hang ‘em by the feet’ routine that’s more Batman’s thing than his, but he’s getting frustrated now.

Dante’s been missing for a week now, and in this town, that’s never a good sign. And if no one’s seen him…

His gut and five years of stalking the night as a vigilante are telling him he shouldn’t get his hopes up about finding his friend, but he can’t work up the courage to stop. To just, pack up and head back to California.

Things between him and the Family are…tense.

Bruce hasn’t quite been able to look at him without suspicion since the whole incident with Captain Boomerang and Freeze. Dick’s as focussed on Damian as ever, and whatever attention he has left over has been going to mentoring Duke. Steph and Tim are in another extended “off” period of their on-and-off-again relationship, Damian’s…Damian. And Cass isn’t around often enough to mitigate any of that.

As much as Alfred assures him it’s not the case, Tim’s been feeling more and more like Gotham doesn’t have anything for him any longer.

He never thought he’d ever feel like that.

Gotham is dank and dark and terrifying, but it’s home. It’s flying through the air and running across rooftops and diving into trouble at the last second to save the day. It’s everything he wanted when he was a kid, secretly following Batman and Robin around with a camera almost as big as he was.

But every year now, it feels like the city is a little danker, a little darker, a little more terrifying. A lot more hopeless.

Part of him thinks that hopelessness started growing following Jason Todd’s murder. Tim did his best to be there for him, but it’s been an uphill battle. And every year, the fight for Gotham’s soul becomes an even bloodier war of attrition, consuming more and more innocents.

Reminded of his goal tonight, Tim decides to involve himself more directly.  

He rappels down to the alley floor and resigns himself to several hours of canvassing a hostile neighborhood. Though fear is an excellent motivator for some, for others a different approach is needed.

People are unlikely to tell a stranger—even a rich stranger—anything worthwhile. Especially here in the Alley, where throwing money at problems get people’s backs up. There’s a sense of pride down here, and an us-versus-them mentality that even the most destitute ascribe to.

And vigilantes are pretty firmly in the ‘them’ column.

Tim has better luck than most here; Red Robin has been frequenting this place a lot over the years, almost from the moment he put on the cape and tights. The other capes never bothered much with it—except for Jason, who when he was Robin made a point of ending his patrols with a quick check of his former home. Tim sometimes thinks that maybe his tendency to come here is an homage to that, a way of keeping his predecessor’s legacy alive.

Of course, he’s never said anything like that to anyone in the family. Even years later, the grief is still too raw. If he’s asked, Tim maintains that he’s cultivated a careful network of informants and contacts in the Alley, and nothing more.

I mean, it’s not like I can go wandering around Crime Alley in the middle of the day.

Tim Drake-Wayne’s face is too recognizable, causes too much trouble. People are desperate here, might try to grab him and use him to extort money from Bruce—and he’d have to let him because he’s not supposed to be able to handle himself. Bruce would come, of course, or whoever’s nearest that Oracle can get on the comms, but it would mean interrupting actual crimes in progress, with actual people who are in danger.

A worse alternative would be if whoever has Dante—and Tim’s sure someone has him because the kid wouldn’t just vanish on his own—they might harm him. Because Tim is the adopted son of the man funding Batman, and if they think he might cause them trouble, most people willing to kidnap are also willing to murder.

All of which assumes that they haven’t murdered him yet.

Tim’s plan of approached hinges on the locals actually being in a helpful mood tonight, but he soon discovers that’s not the case. No one’s feeling talkative tonight, even when he ramps up the intimidation a little.

Either there’s someone out there they’re more afraid of, or they really don’t know.

It’s only in the early hours of the morning when he’s considering returning to his Park Row apartment in defeat, that one of the working girls finally takes pity on him.

“Watchin’ you go back and forth is makin’ me dizzy,” Rhonda says. She’s been working the corner of Park Row and Fifth since before Tim’s time, and though she rarely goes out of her way to get involved with the capes, she does tend to be bluntly honest if the situation is right. “Who you lookin’ for?”

“This kid. Or anyone who’s seen him,” he says, pitching his voice into his approximation of Bruce’s Batman growl. He holds out the glossy picture he’s been flashing around all night; he took it off a security camera and increased the size of. “He was working at the bodega on the corner of Parker and Main just outside the Alley.”

“A bit weird for a cape to give a shit about some kid from ‘round here. Don’t you freaks normally deal with the bigger freaks?”

“Have you seen him or not?” Tim insists, ignoring the jab.

“Who’s he to you, sugar?” she asks, glancing at the picture Tim brandishes. “And don’t give me no bullshit.”

Tim sighs, knowing better than to test her; she’s got Alfred levels of talent when it comes to lies.

“He’s a friend of sorts,” he explains. “Sort of…a protégé. I’ve been looking out for him the past few months.”

Which is sort of true, though not in the way he’s implying.

During WE’s years board meeting to examine the various applications for the Scholarship Program, Tim took note of an applicant whose overall qualifications were outstanding and whose even on paper looked like a major boon to the company.

But the Board of Directors took one look at Dante Garcia’s prior assault conviction at age twelve and decided to toss his application. Without even reading the excellent essay the kid wrote to explain the reasons he had been fighting (to defend a friend from a police officer with a grudge). Or how the experience made him want to become an advocate for those who couldn’t afford it.

It was a brave move, being upfront about the criminal record, but likely Dante knew it wasn’t exactly something he could hide. His record wouldn’t be sealed until he was eighteen.

Tim tried to argue that one mistake made for good reasons shouldn’t deny a bright kid the opportunity and that Dante was clearly of the same caliber as Tim, just without the last name to help him.

(He hadn’t mentioned that Dante reminded him of another boy from long ago, given a second chance and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.)

He was still outvoted.

From the way the old bastards were looking at him, Tim felt sure it was more because of who he was than who Dante was.

The petty bastards never did get over the fact they have a teenager for a boss.

In spite of the Board not agreeing with his vote, Tim already decided he intended to help Dante. He tracked him down to speak to him in person and get a better measure of him.

He was immediately impressed upon their first meeting, especially when he discovered how easy it was to converse with him. He has an intelligence that reminds him of Duke, but his attitude put him in mind of everything he knew about the second Robin.

“I’m going to figure out a way to get you a scholarship,” he told him two weeks into their acquaintanceship. “Even if it’s not from the Foundation, we’ll figure it out. I’d be willing to hire you on at the Neon Knights if you’re interested. Criminal records aren’t exactly a deal-breaker there.”

(Especially since most of the people working there were once part of or are in the process of escaping gangs.)

“That sort of thing will look good on a resume and open doors for you, including getting you into events and putting your name out there,” Tim continued. “The Knights also sponsors educational initiatives, so you can get your general credits out of the way and eventually transfer into a college program of your choice.”

Dante stared at him, suspicious. “Why you doing this, man? You don’t know me from Adam.”

“Because I was taken in by a man who didn’t think someone’s last name or financial background should be an obstacle to greatness,” Tim replied honestly. “My brothers and sister came from harsh backgrounds, but he didn’t let that stop him from taking them in and trying to help them achieve their potential. They’re all good kids that could have gone a very different way if he didn’t get involved. Because he had the ability to do so. Having influence means nothing if you don’t use it to do good.”

“So what’s the price of this?”

“That you’ll be expected to pay it forward. And you’re already going to be doing that when you get your degree and start helping people. You’llhave the influence. Just keep your nose clean and away from the gangs, and you have a real shot, kid.”

“Excuse you, white boy, you’re my age. None of that ‘kid’ shit with me.”

Tim laughed.

It had still taken time after that to convince Dante that Tim’s offer was legit, but once he decided he was trustworthy, they’d started hanging out more. What started with Tim sponsoring a kid with huge potential turned into an actual friendship—and he didn’t have many of those with people who weren’t in the caped community. There was something about that he wanted to protect.

When Dante’s mother called him one day in tears, explaining that Dante had never come home from work and the police wouldn’t let her file a missing person’s report until 48 hours had passed, Tim didn’t hesitate to get involved.

At first, he’d worried that Dante’s disappearance was related to Tim—had someone discovered his identity and then decided to use his friend as leverage? The likelihood of that was low, however; anyone who did know his identity would come at him more directly, or at least have contacted him with some kind of threat.

Which meant what happened to Dante wasn’t vigilante related, but simply bad luck.

That doesn’t make Tim any less intent on figuring out what happened.

His thoughts must be projecting through his body language somehow because Rhonda’s usually sharp eyes soften a bit and she sighs. Looking around, she ensures there’s no one nearby, and then says, “You need to talk to Salvatore.”

“Who?”

“He’s a pimp, hangs out down the corner. He hooks, too, which is fucking weird. Does it because he likes it,” she says, making a disgusted face. “He tends to be the guy that’s always the last person to see someone before they go missin’, if you know what I mean?”

“You think he’s involved?”

“Nah, he’s too paranoid to do that. Likes to keep his hands clean, or pretend to. But he’s right near where your friend disappeared. And…” She hesitates here, sizing Tim up, and then nods to herself, “He’s got a rep. Lures new boys on the street into the business. He’s got a scary success rate at it, too.” She shivers. “Makes sense, he’s a scary motherfucker. Lots of his kids go missin’, but he always had some excuse. Letters and texts and shit provin’ they left the city or somethin’. No one knows how he does it, so you get him to talk, you’ll find out what you want to know. But I don’t see it happenin’.”

“Still. Thanks for the information,” Tim says and digs into his belt for a wad of cash. To his surprise, Rhonda shakes her head.

“Anyone sees me takin’ that from you right before you go after Salvatore, they’ll know I talked. No one’ll think I’d be stupid enough to give anything up for free. You come back a few days after you deal with that bastard, I’ll take it then.”

“That’s oddly trusting for someone like you.”

“Honey, you’ve been watchin’ these streets long enough I know you’re good for it. And catch me or anyone else ever telling you jack shit ever again if you stiff me.”

Tim snorts. “Fair enough. What’s this guy look like so I can find him?”

“Trust me, you’ll know him when you see him. Just don’t tell that creep anything ‘bout me sendin’ you in his direction.”

She doesn’t wait for his answer before sashaying away, returning to her activities for the night.

Tim keeps to the shadows as he heads to the corner Rhonda indicated, thinking he might have to wait around for a few hours—or even return the next night—if he’s going to find his next suspect.

It turns out he doesn’t need to.

A man who can only be Salvatore is leaning against the wall at the mouth of an alley, fiddling with his very expensive looking phone.

He is a tall, muscular, almost impossibly good-looking man with high cheekbones, intense blue eyes, and a full, cruel mouth. There’s something in a way that mouth lifts at the corners that makes Tim’s stomach thud, memories of a similar grin and devil-may-care laugh he only ever got to see through the lens of a camera or across a crowded ballroom.

But this isn’t him. This guy looks more like a crocodile than a robin.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” the man purrs when Tim materializes beside him, eyes flicking up and down Tim’s form with a look that does nothing to dispel the predatory image. “Looking for a pick-me-up after a hard night’s work?”

Tim ignores the innuendo dripping in the man’s voice.

“I’ve been given the impression you’ve seen this boy,” Tim says coolly, holding up his photo. “That you were the last one to see him. I need to know what you know.”

“I’m sure you do, baby, but I don’t come cheap, and neither does anything that comes out of my mouth,” Salvatore drawls.

Tim shrugs; if it’s money he wants, that’s not a problem. “I’m sure we could come to an arrangement.”

“Oh, I know we can,” Salvatore chuckles. “But not here.” His eyes flick around like he’s scoping out someone watching; his irises flicker strangely in the dim streetlight. “Not where someone might see us talking. I could lose customers for talking to a mask—and I’m all about discretion.”  

“They’re already seeing us talking.”

“And as far as they know, you’re just asking about the price of the goods,” Salvatore purrs, moving so slowly as to telegraph his moves and stroking his fingers across Tim’s chest plate, and down. “Can’t imagine seeking justice satisfies all your urges, does it, little bird?”

Tim’s hand snaps upward, clamping around Salvatore’s wrist and exerting just enough pressure to earn and choked gasp of pain. “I am here for information. Nothing more, nothing less. Either you tell me what I want to know, and I compensate you, or you tell me what I want to know and leave here with a bunch of bruises that will definitely affect your bottom line. Assuming I don’t drag you to the nearest precinct in handcuffs.”

“Baby, I’m almost tempted to take you up on that,” Salvatore says, licking his lips. “But I also know there’s worse on the streets than me. Who knowswhat your friend might have stumbled into?”

Tim’s jaw clenches. “Meaning?”

“Meaning we’re doing this little info exchange my way, and that involves not being out in the open. This is private business, after all.”

This time Tim’s nose curls, sensing an implication there. Either this guy’s not too bright, practically broadcasting his intentions to a vigilante, or he knows something important enough he thinks Tim will do anything for it.

Tim considers him, trying to evaluate how he wants to play this. Obviously, he doesn’t trust Salvatore, but he needs information even if it’s the vaguest of statements.

Salvatore’s clearly unarmed—no weapon’s hiding anywhere with that little clothing. And Tim was trained by Batman and Lady Shiva.

Buddy, aren’t you in for a surprise.

“Fine,” Tim says. “Lead the way.”

Salvatore’s pupils dilate, once again catching the dim light in a manner that makes them seem like they reflect.

Then he jerks his head toward the dark, shadowy alley behind him.

Against every instinct of self-preservation that managed to survive the brilliant idea of a twelve-year-old becoming a vigilante, Tim follows.

⁂

Next Chapter

[delennsatai]

DMC Gen Week: Day 1

Wounds Deeper than Flesh

Summary: Some introspection about relationships in between/during scenes from the game. Part of @dmcgenweek​

Day 1 Prompt: Injury/Healing

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20010805

“You both need me to defeat Mundus,” Kat whispered through a swollen lip, shifting to keep her weight off the arm she suspected was broken, still pulsing with pain. “And you need each other.”

That’s right, Dante. We do this together, or not at all. And not at all is unacceptable. Vergil couldn’t help letting a smirk creep onto his face, as Dante looked up at him from where he sat, perched on a wooden crate in the safehouse where they’d retreated. The loss of the Order’s HQ—and the whole Order with it—was a setback, to be sure, but ultimately irrelevant. He’d planned for this, years ago. His contingencies had contingencies.

The one thing he didn’t have a contingency for was losing Dante. Kat was right—he wouldn’t be able to finish this if his brother walked away now. They were so close. He couldn’t let that happen. So...what was the one surefire way to keep Dante invested?

Kat, of course. He’d known from the beginning that bringing her in on this would help him catch Dante’s attention, but he hadn’t expected such a swift and forceful attachment. Much as it rankled to realize it took his brother less than a week to secure as much loyalty from her as he’d earned over years, he could use it to his advantage.

In the silence that stretched between them, he retook control of the conversation, extending the hand not resting on the Yamato’s pommel to offer Dante a hand up. Unnecessary, obviously, but the reversal warmed him. They were true equals, now. Nothing could stand in their way. “…she’s right. What’s done is done, let’s put it behind us. Victory is within our grasp.”

“…fine.” Dante clasped his gloved hand and stood, then pointed a finger at him. “But no more stunts like you pulled on the pier.”

“Of course.” He met Dante’s lingering, stubborn gaze with his own cool one, two identical pairs of eyes communicating volumes without words. A conciliatory gesture would appease him, Vergil thought. “Kat’s hurt. We should tend her wounds at least enough to make sure she has the strength to walk us through what she’s learned.”

Dante’s posture relaxed a bit, as he turned toward Kat. “You all right with that?”

Her lips compressed into a thin line, but she nodded, looking a little relieved despite her bold words a few minutes ago. It was time Vergil didn’t think they could really afford, but if it kept Dante on board… “Would you like to do the honors?” he said, directing his brother toward a door on the opposite side of the room. “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

“Uh…what, me?” Dante glanced between them. “I don’t know the first thing about first aid. Unless it’s anything like playing doctor.” He flashed Kat a suggestive smirk and Vergil saw her smile despite herself. A stab of irritation lanced through him. Would it kill Dante to take all this seriously for five minutes? This was Vergil’s life’s work hanging in the balance. Their vengeance. Their family. He couldn’t follow the way Dante’s mood seemed to shift like a stray breeze—berating him for doing what was necessary (and, frankly, the only intelligent thing to have done) one minute, then flirting the next. He was distracted, clearly. Vergil would have to remove the distraction.

“Never really had to deal with that kinda thing before,” Dante continued. “Always healed pretty fast on my own.”

“I’ll handle it,” Vergil reassured him. “You should secure the perimeter, keep watch. Make sure no demon collaborators caught our trail.”

Dante’s eyes strayed to the gloves Vergil wore, like an unspoken question, obviously wondering whether they meant he had some kind of medical experience. Of course not; learning to treat injured humans would have been a waste of his time. After all, he healed just as quickly as Dante did. But it was hardly rocket science to apply a few bandages. “You got it,” his twin replied, grabbing his coat from where it hung over a ratty old armchair and shrugging into it as he sauntered out the door.

Vergil went into the bathroom to retrieve the kit from the medicine cabinet, but paused in front of the mirror to consider his reflection. Not so different from looking at Dante, in some ways, but in others... That defiant challenge he so often found looking back at him from his brother’s face felt like an uncanny valley, an expression he wasn’t used to seeing on a face that was otherwise just like his own. He spared a moment to try it on—call it a little experiment, he thought. He lifted his chin, drew his eyebrows low, set his jaw just so. Eerie.

He tucked the little metal box under one arm and left the mirror behind. They may have worn different expressions, but their blood and their history—their purpose—was the same. Dante would see that, when they defeated Mundus and took back the world that should have been theirs all along. He’d be a fool not to.

***

Kat is in no state to do anything. Dante’s words echoed in her mind. But she’d been through worse. The real blow had been hearing the two of them argue; it wasn’t like Vergil to get so heated over someone else’s opinion, and Dante… He still didn’t quite understand the stakes. He hadn’t been living and breathing this resistance the way she and Vergil had, he couldn’t have known all they’d sacrificed to get here. And yet, his worry was for all the people Mundus had hurt in his outburst, for the collateral damage their plan had wrought. For her safety. It was hard to fault him for that. She knew Vergil was right, that killing two birds with one stone had been the best move. But she hadn’t been so out of it that she’d missed Dante taking bullets to protect her out there on the pier, when she was too woozy and weak from pain to protect herself.

Vergil emerging from the bathroom interrupted her train of thought. He looked the same as ever: focused, confident, poised. But she’d heard him raise his voice not five minutes ago, defending himself against criticism. Since when did Vergil give a shit about criticism? “He’s just worried,” she said quietly.

“He shouldn’t be.” Vergil flipped open the kit and got to work, tilting her chin up with a finger to study the cuts and bruises on her face with those ice-blue eyes. “We finally have the upper hand. Mundus is done.”

That’s not what I meant. She tried not to flinch when he started disinfecting the places where her wounds had split the skin. His touch wasn’t rough, but she wouldn’t call it gentle either, and there was something strange in the way wearing gloves in what otherwise might have seemed like a moment of closeness, of kindness, distanced him from her. Had he changed, since they’d found his brother? Dante seemed to bring out a side of Vergil she’d never seen before. More prone to taking risks, and less present whenever his twin was elsewhere. “We’re really here, on the cusp of winning, just like we always planned,” she said. What would he do, she wondered, once it was all over? “Seems like it’s been a long time, doesn’t it?”

“It has been. A very long time.” He lifted her left arm experimentally, and she sucked in a breath through her teeth, wincing. …yeah, that was broken, all right. But a broken arm was a small price to pay for freedom. She would do her part until the job was done, pain be damned. Until humanity was free. “You and Dante seem to be getting along well,” he commented, watching her while he rummaged through the kit for something to use as a makeshift sling.

“I trust him.” She hadn’t meant for the words to come out so simply, so baldly, but she realized in that moment that it really was that simple. She hadn’t had anyone to trust except for Vergil and her other friends in the Order for so long. And before that, hardly anyone at all. She certainly hadn’t told anyone but Vergil about…the nightmares, or how she’d survived them, before she and Dante had opened up to each other in the car.

“Is that all?” Vergil leaned closer to slip the bit of cloth under her arm. With his face so close, she could see herself reflected in the pale blue of his eyes. Battered, exhausted, but determined to see this through. His tone was businesslike, but why was he asking in the first place? Did he think she would get distracted by his brother’s ridiculous flirting?

“No, that’s not all.” She fixed him with a chiding glare. “I trust you, too. And you can both trust me to have your backs.”

The corners of his lips turned up with the hint of a smile, before he stepped around the couch to fasten the two ends of the cloth together behind her neck, forming a sling. She felt the latex of his gloves brush the back of her neck as he loomed over her from behind. It seemed oddly cold. “Yes, you’ve done well,” he said.

Don’t worry, Vergil. I won’t let you down. She slid her feet off the couch and stood, steadying herself on its dingy leather arm for just a moment before carefully making her way over to sit in front of the chalkboard leaning up against a few crates. “Go get Dante. I’ll show you how you can get to Mundus.”

***

Red. Red filled his vision, filled his world. His heartbeat was loud and erratic in his ears, and his own face snarled down at him as his strength left him, pain and numbness fighting for supremacy over his body. But it wasn’t his own face, not really. It was his twin’s. Did Dante really hate him this much? Enough to kill him? Hadn’t they walked through fire together to get here? Hadn’t they saved each other’s lives? Hadn’t he given back everything his brother had lost? Where had it all gone wrong?

The chill of betrayal speared through him more brutally than Rebellion did in that moment. His blood seeped into the ground where he lay—his blood, the blood of Sparda, blood they shared. Did that mean nothing to Dante?

He thought someone spoke, but he couldn’t hear the words. Then, with a sickening lurch, Dante pulled the blade free, leaving him gasping for breath as his power kicked in sluggishly to start closing the gaping, bleeding hole in his chest.

…and then Dante had the nerve, the gall, to offer him a hand up. As though this were a wound he could heal with such a meager olive branch. As though it could ever heal at all. But he took the hand, more because he needed it than anything—and that hurt, too, that need. He’d lost. Again, like he always lost to Dante. In front of Kat, no less.

No, there was no way to repair the real damage Dante had done to his heart today. His flesh might heal, but his soul never would.

[demonslayvr]

VERSES RUNDOWN.

'fore blazing home came atumbling  ;  there was a family of four  (  childhood v. )

PRE GAMES  /  NOVEL’S  /  MANGA’s.   pretty clear  --  this is any interaction that has been plotted or otherwise during dante’s childhood til the fire.  by default he’s going to be about 6 - 8 years of age with the latter age at least a couple months before the fire.  

quite indeterminate yet the bang of a gun and the slash of a sword still remain a constant ( undetermined v  )

PRETTY OBVIOUS.   i haven’t made a decision where shit goes yet thus its undetermined.  will change during thread once we plot more on it or i figure something out myself.

not everything has a simple ending.  crashing demons is easy but other things ? that can be tough  (  multifandom v  )

GENERAL CROSSOVER / MULTIVERSE v.   pretty generic verse for when either dante himself or another character   outside   of the devil may cry canon gets tossed comes inside it.  i’ll probably branch off if and whenever i make verses for  in - fandom specific  threads when i build something for each one of them but this is it for now.  sometimes this verse tag will accompany another one  ;  which just means whichever verse he’s in and what you should follow development wise is connected. basically just a multi - fandom tag for crossover threads,  lads.   

die trash man  ;  take your sword and SHOVE IT  ( crack  )

GENERAL CRACK.   as the package says it’s just a verse / tag for crack whenever it happens.  sometimes it may 

a flash to a past that holds bitter air.  pain was a story here.  you wish not to go back   ( post dmc5 / alternate interaction v )

ALTERNATE INTERACTIONS.   pretty much like with the multifandom verse tag this one is simply going to go with   any   other version of himself dante interacts with.  might get latched onto with another verse tag just for my own sanity but  . .  yep.

low feelings  ;  simply moving along to find dangers and distractions ( devil may cry one v. ) 

SET JUST BEFORE,  DURING OR AFTER DMC1 AND BEFORE FOUR.  pretty much as the previous sentence says lads.  he’s an angstee boy but not as angsty as his two self i guess lmao.  but yeah,  this verse is a huge back track in terms of development and how he is in the verse   below  this one.

bang bang bang kiss of the gun & blade ; where are we?  (  post dmc5 - main )

POST DMCV.   follows the full OG dmcv canon til end  -  depending on interaction this could mean that any vergil written with and dante are in hell still doing whatever the fuck they please   or   after the fact and home and going on with their lives.  or trying  ;  considering vergil is back in his life and alive.  this is also the   DEFAULT   verse of the blog.

there's a fire in your veins that speaks your losses yet you continue to bend in remembrance (  atla / lok v.  )

SHUNNED.   known for killing his twin brother,  his very name and even more so in taking jobs to pay the bills   --  jobs that more so upset the delicate balance between the human and spirit realms.  

dante sparda   comes from the fire nation  -- his father a previous high general in the army  ; one that tried to broker peace in a time where it was unheard of while the fire nation ruled. his father met eva when he was traveling the earth nation and secretly begun a relationship with her.  their love was beautiful,  eventually in as much secret as possible eva bore two young boys:  vergil and dante sparda.

happiness was not to last however as wind was caught of the affair and the children,  leaving eva and the young sons to go on the run with sparda defending their escape.  the name sparda was drug through the mud as the man was never heard from again after that night. unknown what became of him as deflected firebending set the house ablaze.

short years pass,  spending it on the run from those who want to end the chapter of embarrassment  --  but it finally catches up.  one evening eva comes running,  telling her boys to go  --  to run and hide.  forget their names but stay at each other’s side.  the twins do as told and don’t look back  ;   the last time they see her.  however in their escape they end up separated,  captured by soldiers of the fire nation.  dante’s anger and despair of losing his entire family causes him to lose control  ;  lashing out on the soldiers that caught him and running away

“ you must change your name  ;  forget your past and start a new life as someone else.  “

that he does.  he changes his name and disappears,  alone.  fast forwarding a couple years he’s a spirit hunter  ;  taking jobs that rid   “  evil spirits  “  that cause issue or problem for anyone that pays a good amount.  a mercenary that cuts down those who’ve wronged the wrong person  ;  non and bender’s alike.  his father’s sword,  rebellion,  at his back to assist and create a dancing display of fire just as much as his bending.  he’s a difficult one to get close to but once you cool him off   (   haha )  he’s a loyal friend and ally.  

with the war over at the end of the series he’s more vocal of who he is  --  even though he was  previously   but with some of the fire nation’s  “ norms  “  kind of relaxing from fire - lord zuko’s rule   . .  he’s his father’s son.  his mother’s son.

lok  verses are basically  . .  kinda the same.  except i guess he’s older   . .  ??

pay off the debt to save your skin  ;  something within broke and former gentle soul crushed under weight ( dmc 2.0 v )

CANON DIVERGENT.  dante snapped,   perhaps it was inevitable  -  perhaps losing too many people tore what little the cambian could handle to pieces and the person that emerged from it was more a threat than he was before.  after the events of devil may cry 1 after realizing that he had  ( supposedly   )  killed his brother there was something in him that couldn’t handle it and everything begun to crumble.

in this timeline something in him changed, and while it wasn’t immediate  –  little things when he would have been understanding over a situation didn’t sit as they should.  but it happened quickly.  with trish’s betrayal he didn’t help her,  allowing her to get crushed by the tumbling rocks  ;  simply standing there and watch it happen.  its drawn out,  with him coming over to crouch beside her as she struggled to heal.  in his allowance bore cruelty,  snarling that she should have known better to betray him  –  mundus shouldn’t have done what he did and expect him to now not try and go after him.

he,  as he does in the normal timeline,  states that while she looks like his mother that she has no soul,  no fire and for that she’s just a puppet.  he shoots her more than once,  killing her   –   the last time he sheds a tear.  he reaches mundus,  who commends him for his actions yet the hybrid isn’t having it.  the fight with mundus goes about the same but with dante  killing him   for ultimately forcing him to murder his brother,  being the one who set the orders to   burn down   his home  –  twice   –  and turn his life upside down.

he goes through the portal mundus opened to  try   and escape and ultimately assumes himself as the  new king  of the underworld.  he still runs his business since even though he’s king there will always be factions that don’t   like it   due to his bastard blood and he’s more than happy to snuff it out.

his attitude is   mostly   intact   (  though this is said   loosely   since he’s less talkative and jovial   )   though now it’s unsettling at times since his jokes and humor can be a bit morbid  – let alone how his aura feels.  its dangerous and uncomfortable to be around  ;  his care for humans as a whole is almost non - existent except for a small inkling for lady.  

BIG NOTE:  THIS TIMELINE IS SET AFTER DEVIL MAY CRY ONE,  KIND OF   SKIPS FOUR    (    though it   IS   likely nero still exists but dante doesn’t care much about it  or know   )    SLIGHTLY INVOLVES TWO    ( aka:  dante gets annoyed that some idiot human is making helicopters messed up with demonic juju and wants to become king.  so he kills arius  )  AND INVOLVES   SOME CONTENT   OF FIVE.  

to enact your revenge most had been taken  ;  body & mind broken so it could begin   (  witcher v  )

———–   destiny.  you hear it more than you’d like to admit.  destiny is what brought your parents together  ;   one monster and the other a witch.  two were born,  twins and raised in care by the witch til fate came to pass and ripped the three of you left apart.  in trying to halt destiny the father,  sparda,  had done his best to hold it off  ;  disappearing one afternoon when the boys had been young   ——–   so long ago.  his hope ??   that staying away would bring a kinder reality and future.

fire and blood,  a mother doing best to protect her children was found disemboweled on the floor within the crumbled castle foundations.  the youngest child was told to hide,  hide away and if the mother didn’t resurface   . .  to run.  she didn’t,  but the youngest fought his way out of the castle   —-  skills of his mother surfacing with an aptitude for beast slaying in the same scope.  his father’s sword,  created by hellish and beastly means was his and aptly used to start a revenge   —  to   KILL   demons in his mothers name.  and in his brothers   —   as both were believed to have perished in the attack.

in a short time and with training the young hybrid killed demons for a price   ;   eventually catching the eye of a witcher.  the nature of the hybrid himself and the skills he held were of interest   —   brought to kaer morhen to be trained as a witcher.  almost losing himself in the process yet he endured,  it further altering his physiology that was already different with the hybrid nature he had.

with the trials and effective torture to   be   a witcher an astounding success he buried into the extensive training to pursue the beast that slayed his family while also being a monsterslayer for hire.  

———–   destiny.  you hear it more than you’d like to admit.   destiny and fate has brought you here.  brought you a thought lost ache in your heart for the family lost all to avenge them and   kill   the beast that killed   them.   you feign your disinterest,  your lack of care but there is much of it in soul.   destiny   is a cruel mistress,  son of sparda.  yet perhaps she may gift you the   KINDNESS   to provide retribution if you are to   live   long enough.

Notes 1:    with his father’s blood and how he is part beast,  his body temperature is more abnormally hot than normal  –  able to reach just below lava temperatures without it seeming to create any problems for him.   Notes 2:   his magic is mostly fire based,  secondly offensive  (   akin to geralt’s in show how it can push things back,  etc  ).  with the fire being used to distract he’s referenced to a dragon at times which he ignores. Notes 3:   dante’s still trans because i say so   ;   while magic used to be used to help him pass he’s since has procedure through coin to get effectively top surgery  —  the scars easy to pass off due to his occupation.  bottom surgery hasn’t been attempted but with becoming a witcher,  like the rest,  he’s infertile. Notes 4.    he’s   school of the wolf   because i said so,  wolves are cool and it has geralt so sue me  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

you wished you could forget ; everything else seems to blur but not him. not the brother you lost. (  IT v.  )

AFTER THE FIRE  you found yourself in foster care with your brother in tow. foster turned into adoption with the family that adopted the two siblings ended up bringing the two of them too derry,  maine.  immediately the youngest sibling knew something was off about the town  ;  the atmosphere unsettling but kept it to himself,  not wanting to blow the change he had with his brother at having a new life.  (   he and vergil are still cambion’s,  but their power is,  like,  kinda not as Large as it is normally.  still half demons tho folks.   )

the youngest had trouble settling in a new town,  smaller than the last  –   economically  (  as he and his twin were upper class before this )   and town size in general with more seeming conservative values.  he was lucky to find himself in a slightly liberal and understanding household as he was a transgender kid who no one knew any less of. something he was more careful to keep to himself.

everything was fine,  the brothers settled in and all was well until it wasn’t.  exploring the woods and the barrens  –  finally opening up to his brother that things were strange in the town and he could feel something off.  they went looking but in doing so  . .  there had been an opening of weakness for the two  –  distractions and a trap.  their mother,  burned and in pain asking for their help  ;  of course the two came closer.  there was a small difference in this faux recreation and trauma that dante noticed  –  calling out for his brother to stay away but,  unfortunately the youngest saw the eldest fall victim to the trap  –  terrified and running away when he couldn’t do anything but possibly fall victim too.

time passed,  school continued on with whispers and comments on how the twin had probably did it himself,  causing the kid to isolate himself from everyone even though he knew what he say.  adults didn’t believe him but there was a group that seemed to have had a run in with this   . .  fuckin’ clown.  

(   going off:  smol™ dante getting involved with the losers after he straight up talks to one of them about what happened and what he saw  /  big™ dante having gone off like the rest of the losers doing his own thing aka kill other demon / eldritch things as normal kinda sorta and then re - meet up with them  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

same person but different mistakes  ;  still wrought pain upon brothers ( altered outcome / divergent v. )

CANON DMC DIVERGENT.   pretty much a what if  /  reversal if dante led the life vergil did instead of vergil himself.  it’s pretty much the same events but with dante the cause of them or involved instead of vergil.  his attitude is close to what 2.0 dante is but not entirely there in terms of destruction.  however he is still trying to deal with the aftermath of nelo angelo fame and dmcv’s whole thing.

ARISE ;  for you are reborn into something greater.   ARISE    baricontralto angelo - fight.  ( post dmc 5 div. nelo angelo dante v  )

HE HAD BEEN COCKY. the cambion had been cocky upon returning back with his twin from the underworld   ;   cocky that with his twin that nobody could beat them if they simply worked together.  and he was right.  he was right up until he was wrong and time,  well  . . time wasn’t kind.    it had been nine months   since their return from the underworld from cutting down the qliphoth and in that time a   familiar blue amulet   found itself back in dante’s possession.  it had been lost for several decades,  having been lost to the boy during the day he had come home to find gavreel and the family slaughtered on the lawn.

he kept it close,  he knew the meaning   –  he knew that there was   peace   again but  .  . he knew the danger of once again having this but would not dare get rid of it   –  he’d ride the coaster until it stopped.  he’d be happy to have this shred of happiness and he felt he was finally allowed to have something   –   happy to have his brother back and have some semblance of family.

that was,  well,  until he   lost   the amulet.  he didn’t notice that he did,  believing it was still in pocket during a small run in with demons  ;  a job that he had taken alone   –  it seemed that fate was playing her hand that day.   it had been dropped during an evasion and was lost upon his shift ahead   –  he didn’t even spot it.  the job became less easy,  it tiring him considerably as the  small group   of demons became larger   –   and while it was initially a challenge   . .

it soon became taxing.  as the larger the numbers the more exhausted the demon hunter became,  the more he started to slip up.

it was only then did he realize that this was no job.  it was a   trap   and he was caught in a net he couldn’t tear himself from.  a familiar feeling emerged,  one he   hadn’t felt   for decades.  a demonic force that he had thrown fury at that same time.  he hadn’t been this week before.  he knew who this was and   . .   he was in trouble.  this trap had been calculated and he had fallen into it hook,  line and sinker.

the distraction of the feeling,  of the demonic energy rising in the space leaves him vulnerable  –  attacks slicing at his back,  his arms and legs   –   a lucky slash to his throat leaves him struggling and gripping his throat.   he hits his knees before he realizes he does  ; he ultimately   —   unintentionally   —   bows    to the demon king before he passes out, demonic weapons and claws slashing into his back.

the next   redacted years   in the demon world are a nightmare that  post   angelo dante would have trouble remembering for all that happened are buried deep in repressed memories.  the years blur together,  but dante holds for a long time  –  dante suffers,  he burns,  he aches,  he struggles    –   he perseveres.  for a time anyway.   he recalls and holds onto the trade out  . .  that this could have been   vergil   here instead of he.  last minute changes,  bouts of laughter as he accepted the job and ran out the door.  

see you soon   he had said.  but the jovial air had long past.  memories begin to muddle,  to ebb and fade in and out as things became foggy.  a struggle to remember  –   a struggle to fight but   . .   not all fights can be won.  this one eventually was lost.

out of years of torturous pain and bloodshed arose a new pet,  a puppet that was loyal and true.  one that slaughtered doppelganger after doppelganger of brother and self,  of friends and allies that the king knew that the former knew.  he was satisfied that his little puppet would do just fine.  that perhaps he could lure in his old   ;   have the complete set  –  for use of the younger did fine in breaking the elder.

this soldier has two forms  ;  one that fed to his devil trigger (   generic nelo angelo  –  not much power is used for it  –  basically it’s dante on the regular tapping into demonic power with his first devil trigger.  he’s stronger than normal,  having given into his addiction to human and demon blood and grown more powerful because of it  )  

and another that feeds into his   sin   devil trigger  (  essentially the  ‘  dragon  ‘  -  esque look.  however its almost imperfect in how the black scales have become the darkish red  / brown  ;  something not quite right.  scales do fall off without warning from time to time, revealing a near lava like flow underneath.   )  

baricontralto  . .  a name to be used to not arouse suspicion  ;   a soldier that would destroy armies and bring cities to their knees in the name of his master.   time would be swift for the pawn to be used,  for the king himself was pleased.  he was cocky with his new toy  . .   and it wasn’t long before he was to be used   . .  

despite all your losses & destruction ; despite trauma &  trials  . .  my darling boy you’re still you. (  undertale v.  )

[  fight  ]                     [  act ]                    [  item  ]                   [ mercy  ]    

                                     ↳   [  dante sparda ]                                      ↳   [   check  ]

IT WAS UNPRECEDENTED.  a human and a monster coming together and falling in love.  falling in love after the war to a human   witch   that found herself in the closed off underground after a tumble.  sparda protected eva from the monsters at first,  keeping her under his care  –  yet the umbra witch found herself using her powers and skills to assist in healing a monster in peril.  

keeping eva out of harms way was  . .  difficult due to her humanity being a source of contention.  monsters wanted to escape.  eva rather enjoyed being alive.  in the end eva’s healing magic to save and protect those around her and her love and the fact that she was  older   and not prime use to open a proper exit to the human world.  asgore swore eva off limits to monsters as she was kind and a healer to them all.

in time sparda and her married and she bore two children  ;   hybrids   –   part monster and part human.

but not even the king’s word could stop those who still feared humans and humanity.  those who held   rage   toward a species that had caused so much trouble and locked them away for thousands of years,  if not more.   a fire erupted into the underground,  started at the quaint yet spacious house and spread further throughout the underground.  by the time it had been put out  –  eva had been recovered,  dead,  in the home attempting to escape herself but the boys nowhere to be found.  with her last ounce of magic she had sent her boys away,  far away and out of the underground and topside.

now alone and separated from his remaining family and traumatized by the attack to his home the hybrid remained alone  –  growing up such until he found himself protecting humanity against   other   monsters   ;   demons.  demons and monsters that had managed to stay in the human world but grew dangerous and lost themselves.   dante sparda grew to love his humanity yet slowly accept the monster part of himself.

with a job giving him   whispers   of the brother he thought he lost through his own hand now somehow residing in the underground  . .  he flew in to investigate,  still holding some anger over what had been done to his family yet   . .  holding   determination   and patience to deal with the rumors and what he’s about to come across.

[junker-town]

The Jaguars only have themselves to blame for the Jalen Ramsey debacle

Jalen Ramsey has requested a trade from the Jaguars.

In the last two years, the Jaguars have made all the wrong moves and alienated their best players.

Jalen Ramsey was every bit the player the Jacksonville Jaguars hoped he’d be when they drafted him top five in 2016. But now the two-time Pro Bowler is headed to the Los Angeles Rams.

The good news for the Jaguars is that the trade ended up getting them the haul they were after. About a month after Ramsey first demanded a trade, the Jaguars relented with a trade to the Rams that nets them first-round picks in 2020 and 2021, as well as a fourth-round pick in 2021.

The bad news is that a great player — the only First-Team All-Pro they’ve drafted in the last 13 years — is gone.

His Week 2 sideline spat with Doug Marrone wasn’t the reason Ramsey requested a trade. That was just the tip of the iceberg. It was a brouhaha with a Jaguars executive after that game — reportedly executive vice president Tom Coughlin — that officially caused the cornerback to ask to be on another team.

The reality, though, is that the cornerback’s frustrations with the Jaguars were brewing for a long time. And frankly, how could they not be?

Twenty months ago, the Jaguars played in the AFC Championship against the Patriots. Had it not been for a poor officiating call in that game, the Jaguars likely would’ve gone to the Super Bowl too. In the nearly two years since, much of that roster has fallen apart.

Jacksonville did everything possible to alienate its best players and create the mess it currently has on its hands. When Ramsey asked for a trade, they had won just two of their last 14 games, and all that losing had taken its toll.

“I just want to fucking win,” Ramsey said in a press conference less than 24 hours after reports surfaced of his request. He didn’t say much else during his presser, a change of pace for a player who’s refreshingly honest — sometimes to a fault — about his thoughts. This time, he didn’t have to spell things out, though.

It’s clear Ramsey lost faith that the Jaguars are an organization capable of turning things around. If not for a shockingly strong start to the career of sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew, the Jaguars very well may be a winless team right now. It’s not hard to understand why Ramsey wanted out.

Just one defensive player has received an extension in the last 2 years

Jacksonville’s 2017 season was a success because of its elite defense. No team in the NFL allowed fewer points, yards, plays, or time of possession per drive than the Jaguars that year. That defense forced a franchise-record 33 turnovers and finished with 55 sacks.

Six Jaguars made the Pro Bowl then, all of them defensive players: Ramsey, Calais Campbell, Yannick Ngakoue, Malik Jackson, Telvin Smith, A.J. Bouye.

Yet, the one player who was rewarded handsomely for the Jaguars’ deep postseason run was turnover-prone quarterback Blake Bortles. He signed a three-year, $54 million contract with Jacksonville that included $26.5 million in guarantees, despite finishing that 2017 season 20th in passer rating.

It, unsurprisingly, blew up in the Jaguars’ face.

Bortles didn’t magically transform into a quarterback worth that kind of money. He continued to throw too many interceptions and struggled when injuries wiped up much of the offensive talent around him in 2018. He was released after the season and the Jaguars are eating $16.5 million in salary cap space just to have Bortles off the team.

The significant investment for the Jaguars in the 2019 offseason was again at quarterback. The team dished out a four-year, $88 million deal to Nick Foles with $50 million guaranteed — bidding against themselves in the process.

Why did the #Jaguars pay so much for Nick Foles if there were no other big bidders? We discussed here. pic.twitter.com/QOiulR6dcH

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) March 11, 2019

It’s not the Jaguars’ fault that Foles suffered a broken clavicle less than 10 minutes into the season. It is their fault that the overpriced contract is a big reason why salary cap space is running low.

It wasn’t until the end of August when a key defensive player finally got a contract. Myles Jack — a player who wasn’t a member of the Pro Bowl sextet in 2017 — signed a four-year, $57 million contract before the 2019 season began.

But in the time between that AFC Championship run and Jack’s extension, much of the dominant defense was gutted. Defensive tackle Malik Jackson and safeties Tashaun Gipson and Barry Church were all released, defensive end Dante Fowler Jr. was traded to the Rams, and cornerback Aaron Colvin left in free agency.

Ngakoue, who tallied 29.5 sacks in his first three seasons — more than any other player in his draft class — held out from training camp in hopes of a new contract and didn’t get one. Ngakoue isn’t even half the mercurial personality that Ramsey is, but voiced his displeasure about how the negotiation played out.

#Jaguars DE Yannick Ngakoue: "They had a chance to sign me for a long-term deal but it didn't get done. It is what it is. I love football, love my teammates, and I'm here to play games." Could a deal get done before the season? "It's out of my hands. I don't even know."

— Phillip Heilman (@phillip_heilman) August 4, 2019

Ramsey also made his desire for a new contract known in 2019 and was told it wasn’t even worth asking.

Jalen Ramsey says he has been told by the Jaguars that he won’t be receiving a contract extension this year

— John Reid (@JohnReid64) June 11, 2019

That decision made sense with Ramsey under contract through the 2021 season, thanks to the fifth-year option on his rookie deal.

However, three of the four players picked ahead of Ramsey in the 2016 NFL Draft — Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Ezekiel Elliott — have already signed lucrative extensions that make them among the highest-paid at their respective positions. Meanwhile, Ramsey is making about $3.6 million in 2019, despite having a strong argument as the top cornerback in the NFL.

While he wants a raise, Ramsey brushed off the suggestion that it’s the reason for his trade request. But he did mention that he was happy to see Jack get a contract extension, and told the media multiple times that Ngakoue deserves one too.

Ramsey’s dissatisfaction with the Jaguars’ roster-building strategy was understandable, especially when the team was terrible on the field too.

The Jaguars’ coaching is failing the talent

One of the most surprising aspects of Jacksonville’s fall from grace was the amount of coverage busts allowed by the previously dominant defense. For some reason, the Jaguars opted to play a puzzling amount of zone defense in 2018, leading to coverage lapses.

That’s been true in 2019 too. The Chiefs carved up the Jaguars in Week 1, recording 491 total yards and 40 points due to gaping holes in the Jacksonville secondary.

TWO FIRST QUARTER TOUCHDOWNS FOR SAMMY WATKINS ‍♂️ @sammywatkins pic.twitter.com/1WclllgsjN

— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) September 8, 2019

The Jaguars defense has too many veteran players to make those kind of mistakes, but it’s also worth questioning why the team is playing that way. There was no secret sauce to Jacksonville’s success in 2017: It bullied teams up front and locked down receivers with a pair of top-flight cornerbacks.

Ramsey is fed up with the team not getting back to what made it great in the first place:

One of the best pure cover corners, Jalen Ramsey wants to play man-to-man and lock a WR down. One issue has been having him play zone https://t.co/7RIlT8bx4X

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 16, 2019

Doug Marrone’s decision to ignore Ramsey’s pleas for a challenge in Week 2 initially seemed like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Jalen Ramsey is not happy, part II pic.twitter.com/FzJUJR7N3t

— Rivers McCown (@riversmccown) September 15, 2019

Ramsey denied that was the case.

“Requesting the trade was something that has kind of been building for over a little bit of time,” Ramsey told Nate Burleson. “It was more about the front office and the organization.”

According to Ramsey, it was a postgame meeting with the front office was sealed the deal. “Some disrespectful things were said on their end that made me definitely walk out and call my agent as soon as I walked out,” Ramsey added.

Alas, nearly two years of bad choices by the Jaguars led to the molehill quickly becoming a mountain.

A trade became an inevitability

This saga didn’t have to end with Ramsey getting traded this season. The Jaguars were asking for two first-round picks and change, and that’s what they got mostly because they had no sense of urgency to move him for anything less than that price.

It helped too that the whole damn league wanted Ramsey.

I'm told Jalen Ramsey is fine playing TNF tonight, but a source just told me he doesn't anticipate being a member of the #Jags next Sun. Teams like KC, BAL, MIN, OAK, PHI, SEA hv all made substantive inquiries, but my understanding is almost every team has at least placed a call.

— ig: josinaanderson (@JosinaAnderson) September 19, 2019

Owner Shad Khan advocated for keeping the cornerback. According to the Associated Press, Khan had several meetings to try to resolve the conflict and was reportedly ready to give Ramsey the contract he wanted.

But Ramsey didn’t back down on his request. He told Burleson, “I’m not sure if I’ve played my final game for the Jags yet or not, but my trade request still stands.”

Still, it seemed like a situation that could be resolved in the offseason — especially after Ramsey helped the team beat the Titans, 20-7, in Week 3. It looked like Ramsey planned to continue to play good football for the Jaguars all year. It was, after all, in his best interest to continue proving he’s worth a pricy investment.

Having Ramsey on the field was a good situation for the Jaguars to keep benefitting from. But it was also in Ramsey’s best interest to stay healthy, so when his back wasn’t quite feeling 100 percent, there was no reason in his mind to play through it. He sat out the Jaguars’ last three games and the defense struggled as a consequence.

His absence pushed the trade request into an inevitability and now he’s a member of the Rams. The Jaguars got their asking price, but before they celebrate too much, they should ask themselves how they ruined such a good thing so fast.

[symbianosgames]

Before the Nintendo Switch was released on March 3rd, the developers who were among the first to bring their games to the new console described themselves as having been “gagged.” Nintendo had forbidden them from saying anything public about the process of developing games for the Switch.

After March 3rd that gag was removed and many of those silenced developers have been able to speak up. But forget any association with kidnapping that the word “gagged” may have. Those developers aren’t telling horrific stories of being locked up in development hell. On the contrary, the consensus is that the Switch is “the least demanding Nintendo console” to develop for yet.

This is no small feat given that the whole idea behind the Switch is that it doesn’t serve one console experience but many. It can be placed in a dock and transmit to a TV like a traditional home console, but it can also be taken out of that dock and played as a handheld, and from there the two Joy-Con controllers can be detached from the sides of the screen for multiplayer sessions. 

All of these transformations happen in a snap, too, so developers have to ensure both an instant and smooth transition. Except they don’t. “Usually, you have to think about a second screen or some kind of feature that requires rethinking your game from the ground up,” says David D’Angelo of Yacht Club Games, the studio behind Shovel Knight. “The portable/console transition [of the Nintendo Switch] just works and is seamless!”

The notion that it “just works” is repeated by the other early Switch game developers. “The switch between the handheld and the console mode was the first thing we tried. It worked on the get-go. Nothing to do for us, the display changed from TV to the LCD (and vice versa) without any specific code,” says David Bellanco of Game Atelier, the studio making Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. 

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

“After the first test we just had to handle the change of gamepad mode and make it work at 720p resolution in handheld mode," adds Bellanco. "That's it, really! It's very easy to have the game working in those two modes.”

This is a big relief for all. The big question for most developers when it came to the Switch is how many small adjustments it would take to get their games working well on both a large TV screen and a smaller handheld one. But it seems Nintendo has performed a magic trick by almost entirely eliminating the potential hassle of that process.

The only minor note on this topic came from Brian Provinciano of VBlank Entertainment, who is making the open-world action game Shakedown Hawaii for the Switch. “One difference is the need to handle the old TV ‘safe area’ when in console mode, but not in handheld mode. TVs by default cut off the outer edge of the screen,” Provinciano explains. “If you don't leave extra padding, half of the score might be missing, for example. So, if you run your game identically for both, you'll notice a bit of a border in handheld mode. The alternative is to use a different camera, and use different HUD/UI placement for each.”

Shakedown Hawaii

Other than that the Switch has arrived as a blessing for these developers, especially Dant Rambo of Choice Provisions, who is currently working on rhythm game sequel Runner3. With its BIT.TRIP series alone, Choice Provisions has developed seven titles that were released for both the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo 3DS. That was a lot of work. But in having dropped that dual console approach with the Switch, and instead releasing a hybrid, Nintendo has thankfully lessened the development work for multi-platform studios like Choice Provisions.

“After years of spreading ourselves thin focusing on several platforms at once, it’s been an incredible relief to focus all our efforts on just one platform, and for it to be so easy to develop for,” says Rambo.

Given that the Switch is a hybrid console, being for both TV and handheld gaming, one of its biggest tests is the power and performance of the hardware. Consoles have always been judged by their processors and graphical output: the bigger the better. But the Switch is a different kind of machine that requires a new measurement stick. 

For Valerio Di Donato of 34BigThings, who is working on futuristic racing game Redout, “the Switch is first and foremost a mobile console.” What that means for him is that, while the Switch’s custom NVIDIA tech does have “some real power,” it’s not necessarily trying to compete with other consoles on that front. Instead, Donato looks at the Switch in its own category and with its own goals.

“I think NVIDIA did an amazing job with the GPU of this console and you can't simply find anything that matches it in terms of GPU power and portability at this time,” Donato says. “I would probably have preferred to have something to spice it up once connected to the dock instead of just unlocking additional power on the same components, but I'm assuming something like that would have skyrocketed the costs.”

The other developers had no complaints whatsoever about performance or power but this is largely due to the low demands their games put on the hardware. “Shovel Knight is not the most power hungry game in the world, so we haven’t spent the time really investigating the bounds to wish you can push performance on the Nintendo Switch,” says D’Angelo. “That said, the specs outline a very powerful machine at that size and price - we’re impressed!”

The only potential exception in the group was David Bellanco, whose game Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is a 2D platformer like Shovel Knight, but happens to be a little more heavy going on hardware. But the Switch passed that test too. “Before we got our hands on the hardware, we were concerned about the mobile chip: fill-rate is important for a full HD 2D game (lots of alpha blending is really taxing on any GPU),” Bellanco says. “But the performance is excellent and the game is running 1080p at 60fps. We can keep adding graphical features to the game without fearing any optimization trouble.”

It’s not only the physical hardware of the Switch that has helped to make game performance so smooth and optimization so easy for these developers. The console’s integration with third-party engines is also a big contributing factor. “The Nintendo Switch is compatible with Unreal Engine and Unity engines, and our games being mainly developed on those graphic engines, it is really convenient for us,” says Stephane Longeard of Microids, who is developing adventure game sequel Syberia 3 for the Switch. “We can also count on Nintendo’s support during development process as well as Unity’s.”

[embedded content] Syberia 3

Donato adds to this that if you’re already using Unreal or Unity then “porting the game should feel exactly the same as porting it to any other console: each has its quirks and workaround to fight and you will still need to pour a lot of work into it, if you care for a decent porting.” 

If you’re not working with Unreal or Unity, but are instead using your own game engine, then evidence so far suggests there shouldn’t be any big issues there either. Kai Tuovinen of Frozenbyte, who is bringing roguelike action-strategy game Has-Been Heroes to the Switch, speaks on this. 

Has-Been Heroes

“We didn't have almost any difficulties with making Has-Been Heroes for Switch, our own engine has been pretty flexible and easy to adapt to it, and we managed to get the game running at 60fps at 720p portable and 1080p docked,” Tuovinen says. “One of the things we stressed about in the early stages was how to make the resolution change dynamically from the handheld's native 720p to 1080p when going from handheld to docked and vice versa. This turned out to be a non-issue in the end, and it works great.”

One of the Switch’s defining features is its two Joy-Con controllers. They have been criticized by some users for being so small, at least in comparison with traditional game controllers, and this was a concern for some of the developers at first, but that soon passed. “We were a little worried at first that hand cramping could occur if you played for a long period, but that hasn’t been the case,” says Rambo. “They’re really neat little controllers.”

What most players agree upon is that there’s a luxury in being able to have your hands separate while playing a Switch game. Each Joy-Con has its own face buttons and analog stick, but also come with an accelerometer and gyroscope motion sensor so they can be used independently. You can play with your hands down by your sides or you can split them between people during multiplayer games.

The developers also found this to be a major boon while playtesting their games on the Switch. “The biggest surprise was how nice it is to play with the separated Joy-Cons, one in each hand,” says Provinciano. “Even with games designed around a traditional controller, it feels pretty good having the freedom to rest each hand and arm wherever. I'm pretty into ergonomics though, so I might be extra inclined to like it.”

Greg Wohlwend found a similar behavior occurred among his team at aeiowu as they worked on rolly roguelike TumbleSeed for the Switch. “We'll often detach [the Joy-Cons] when playing development builds when we're all in the same place working on the game together. That way we can pass them around when testing out different feels in the rumble or whatever else,” Wohlwend says. “That's really handy. We pretty much use the Switch as it wants to be used, unplugging it and doing some bug-testing on the couch is a nice change from sitting in the desk chair hunched over.”

TumbleSeed

The biggest complaint about the Switch’s controller from users since the console’s release is that the left Joy-Con has trouble maintaining a consistent wireless Bluetooth connection at certain distances. But the developers didn’t come across any similar issues with connectivity or the inputs of the controllers themselves.

Bellanco sums up their impressions on that topic when he says, “It’s pretty straightforward. We have here the same number of inputs as the Xbox One and the PS4 controller, so we didn't have anything to change.” The only slight hiccup experienced with the Joy-Cons came from Donato: “We had to change the mapping of one single button and everything worked automatically, but that's mostly thanks to Unreal Engine and the Switch integration,” he says.

What practically all of the developers that were questioned got very excited about was the HD Rumble feature built into the Joy-Cons. It’s an advanced version of the rumble functions that modern game controllers have in that it allows for multiple sources of vibration to be felt within the controllers. One of the mini-games in launch title 1-2-Switch, for example, has players tilt the Joy-Con in order to feel how many balls are rolling around inside it. There are no balls inside the controllers but the HD Rumble gives the impression that there are many.

“I think the best new thing about the Nintendo Switch is the HD Rumble feature. We can have real stereo vibration with an accuracy level we didn't witness on the other platforms,” says Bellanco. “We only have it implemented in some limited cases for now but this feature is something intend to use more in the game.”

Wohlwend gets especially giddy when talking about the HD Rumble feature as it suits the focus on movement in his game TumbleSeed. “The HD Rumble is the big feature we're diving deep into. Because our game is very physical and you're constantly rolling around trying to avoid holes and attack enemies you want to know as much information about how fast you're going, where you are on the screen ALL THE TIME. So HD Rumble gives us that ability to communicate that sense or feeling to the player.”

Omar Cornut of the studio Lizardcube wasn’t initially so enthused by the HD Rumble but when showing Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap at GDC his perspective was changed. “We will put more resources at getting the haptic feedback right,” Cornut says. “As we found out with various demos shown last week [at GDC], the rumbles on the Joy-Con are really nice and it’d be a shame to not take advantage of that. It’s a little talked feature but with the right software design, people will really like it when they feel it.”

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap

It’s still early days for the Switch, but the developers working with it that were spoken to have been almost universally positive about their experience with it. They’ve found it to be a modern and overall pleasant package to work with. The biggest hope they have for the Switch’s future is for Nintendo to stay on their toes by continuously improving the software and listening to developers in the years to come. 

When asked to rank the Switch against other modern consoles, many of the developers put it on par with the PlayStation 4 in terms of ease to work with. And they all seemed to agree that it’s the best Nintendo console for developers at this point. “The tools and hardware are much better than they were for the Wii U, so devs from the previous generation should look forward to digging into the Switch,” says Provinciano. “Nintendo's also been good with support whenever I've had technical questions.”

These thoughts are mirrored by the team at Frozenbyte who, like Provinciano, have developed for a number of different Nintendo consoles. “It has been easier to develop for than Wii U, mainly because of better documentation and the whole ecosystem has been thought out much more from a developer perspective - our programmers have been praising the API as well,” says Tuovinen. “It is so much nicer to work on a platform that has been designed well, not just from the hardware perspective but from the development perspective too.”

Another veteran of developing for Nintendo hardware is Bellanco, whose final thoughts are more mixed. “I've worked on several Nintendo platforms over the years, from the DS to the Wii U. Working on the Nintendo Switch is like night and day,” says Bellanco. “Nintendo did a very good job making it easier to develop on the Switch. It's very straightforward, I push play on my visual studio, it runs on the device and I can debug very easily.”

However, Bellanco still thinks that Sony is better with the SDK, but views Nintendo as rapidly catching up in that department. He finds the API easy to understand and the documentation that came with the Switch to be helpful, but not perfect. He wasn’t hugely critical but did say that Nintendo “could improve their docs; some API or features have limited docs. I like samples, I always want more samples.”

This was followed by Cornut whose criticism wasn’t aimed at Nintendo as much as it was all current console manufacturers. “I keep saying it, and it is daydreaming at this point, but the first console manufacturer who will allow programmers to publicly release code that uses their API (even if the actual libraries and release process are still fully under their control, like Apple does) will make a huge leap in term of development quality,” says Cornut. “Right now console developers can’t easily share code or discuss issues because, well, no one can release their code. It’s a mental switch that first-parties have to flip in their head, but it would be a small revolution.

Out of them all, it is probably Wohlwend that had the most damning complaint of Nintendo and the release of the Switch. “Don't release a new Zelda while we still have to finish TumbleSeed,” he says. “That's just mean.”