#Nero Post Devil May Cry V

[flockoff]

In a another world, Peak of Combat has a plot that involves Time Travel Shenanigans which puts V in one of the Funniest Situations.

[kaet-draws]

5 years of Devil May Cry 5? thats craaaazy

[storytellering]

Hi tumblr how we feeling about some 4N cosplay ⚡️

photos taken by @fadiesismin

[dollivication]

you will be mine - lenka

(song was literawy made for v…..)

[deus-and-the-machina]

you know the contrast between how Vergil is presented vs thinking too hard about Vergil’s story is pretty funny. Man’s reputation is this iconic badass, the pinnacle of what video game rivalries can be, the coolest guy to play as, the guy who breaks every game he’s added to,

and then you go to the story and like. man’s lost his free will and autonomy at 19 and then came back a fractured man half of which was a lovecraftian eye beast the other half of which was a chronically ill goth man. and then he reunites and hes in like his 40s now I believe but legit the last time he was actually in a game where he wasn’t being mind controlled when he was 19 which is both sad but also thinking about how this guy who’s considered one of the top badasses of gaming has never really lived life outside of being a teenager.

Anyways this is the secret comedic potential of post DMC5 for Vergil because not only has the human world probably changed a fair bit in terms of technology, if he’s sticking around Dante he’s gonna actually have to learn in depth how taxes and grocery shopping work. Amazing.

[skrunksthatwunk]

devil marbly carbly ft me trying to figure out how to draw all of them in real time

(the dubstep weed jacking off shirt is from a meme i would source if i uh. remembered it sorry </3)

[dailyweezer]

Day 119: Devil May Cry

(Requested by @thestinkiestratman)

[quasarden]

Follow me on Twitter for the best DMC shitpost content.

Also known as “Your dad and uncle are fighting on the front lawn again, and you just got the kids to go to sleep” and V. That’s just how V is.

[tricksterik]

OUR giant one fourth-demon boyfriend

[ohbutwheresyourheart]

fragments from the google docs continues with: Nero's mom has a little chat with everyone's favourite goth kid, and she knows her ex well enough to sniff him out even when he's up to his stupidest hijinks yet.

Adaline has stepped out - she needs a breath of air not tainted by fear and guilt, please God just give her that much - and so she is the first to see them.

Her first impulse is to tell Morrison it can wait. Or, if it can’t wait, to send whatever job it is Lady and Trish’s way. Devil May Cry doesn’t need the money and the thought of leaving Nero -- or Dante leaving her -- is, for the moment, incomprehensible. Even for an evening. Even for an hour. She will fall apart. She will shatter like glass.

Then she sees the figure following -- limping -- a step or two behind Morrison, and holds her tongue. It’s rare that a client makes their own way to Devil May Cry; Morrison likes to act as go-between to keep the jobs coming through him. His pockets would empty fast if there was no need for a middle man.

So she keeps her peace, sipping from her glass of wine held in a hand that is only ever so slightly shaking, until Morrison comes close enough to see her in the dim glow of the neon sign. He tips his hat to her, as is his custom, but Adaline is hard-pressed to fetch up a smile as is hers.

“Always a pleasure, Ada,” he begins conversationally. “I realise this isn’t the best of times, but… well, we have a bit of a doozy by the sounds of it. Might even be connected to what happened here.”

Adaline’s toes curl inside her shoes and her grip on her glass tightens; the chardonnay glitters a kaleidoscope of colours as the neon lights refract through it. She says nothing.

The figure behind Morrison -- a young man, maybe only Nero’s age, dark-haired and covered in tattoos -- keeps his head bowed. In one hand he clutches a cane; no affectation, he’s leaning on it quite heavily. In the other, he holds something else, although Adaline can’t properly see what it is.

“May we…?” Morrison nods towards the door.

“Who are you?” Adaline asks the boy. “Why are you here?”

At first, she thinks he isn’t going to answer, but eventually he finds his tongue. His voice is low and slightly husky. Eventually, he does her the courtesy of looking at her. A pretty boy, with pale green eyes; she recognises the shape and colour from somewhere, though she can’t presently think where.

“My name is V. I am here because I have some information about a powerful demon lord poised to wreak havoc on this world. It is something I thought an equally powerful demon hunter ought to be aware of.”

Again, Morrison makes a movement towards the door. “Probably easiest if we don’t have to repeat the story…?”

The last thing - the absolute last thing - Adaline wants to do is let them across the threshold of Devil May Cry. This boy brings trouble, she can feel it. She wants to run inside, batten down the hatches, and keep what is left of her family safe from whatever trouble is building outside.

But Dante never will; she knows him that well by now. Dante never saw trouble in his life without throwing himself into the middle of it. Deep down, Adaline knows she has (just, barely) too much of a conscience to let the world burn for the sake of her boys. Not for the first time she thinks of how much easier life would be, without caring. Without that little bean counter in the back of her mind, totting up life and death. The rippling, unknowable consequence of so much as an afternoon off at the wrong time.

She downs the last of her wine and nods towards the door. “By all means. God knows, he needs some occupation. Why don’t you boys talk about money first? And we’ll talk about… everything else.”

It’s difficult to tell, at first, who is more disconcerted by the proposal. Morrison, however, is a wonderfully uncomplicated man and the rare opportunity of browbeating Dante into promising away his earnings before he’s even earned them without Adaline there to intervene is a powerful incentive. Nodding again to her, Morrison strides into the building.

And so they are two. For once, Adaline doesn’t care to hear the details of payments and cuts and debts, which is all Morrison will be talking about for now. She’s much more interested in V.

He’s gone back to avoiding her eyes as much as he can, fiddling with his cane and what she can now see is a large, though not particularly thick, hardback book. Something about it catches her attention, but it’s too dark to make out the details.

Moving as discreetly and unhurriedly as she can bear to, Adaline lets one hand drop to her side, and then behind her back; out of sight, she casts a series of cantrips. V himself -- his body; his being -- is untouched, but to Adaline’s eyes only his tattoos glow a faint purple. Perhaps the surprise shows on her face, or else he is magically attuned enough to feel the cantrips probing over him; he raises his head, offers a half-smile tinged with an emotion she can’t quite place.

“I assure you,” he says, “I am no demon, nor am I here to launch an ambush.”

No demon, maybe, but something in V is of the Underworld. Adaline’s consolation is that she knows anything she can pick up with a cantrip, Dante will smell on him.

“Forgive me if I seem discourteous,” she says with only a moderate amount of irony. “Someone tried to kill my son two days ago. It’s put me somewhat on edge”

There: V is good, he schools his expression again as quickly as he can, but Adaline sees the flash of panic; the momentarily widened eyes, the white-knuckled grip on his cane; the look of a man caught out.

“I’m… sorry to hear that,” he manages, but it’s too little too late.

Still with one hand behind her back, Adaline prepares to conjure more than a cantrip. “Who are you?”

V holds up his hands -- one still clutching his cane, the other held awkwardly to keep the book under his arm from slipping away -- and the attempted calm is replaced by no small amount of fear. Genuine fear, too, as far as she can tell, unless the boy is an excellent actor. While Adaline can’t smell fear rolling off a body like a demon could, she considers herself a decent interpreter of body language.

It calms her, just a little; anything afraid of her is no match for Dante.

“A friend. Or,” he adds, seeing her disbelief, “If not a friend, at least not an enemy.”

“Someone else walked up to this building once and said the same thing. It ended up causing us a lot of pain.”

They say, the two of them, that they wouldn’t be without Trish now -- but if it was between Trish and Vergil? That bean counter again: life and death, death and life. Pray they’re never given the option.

She’s scaring him: the boy with the demon tattoos looks ready to peel off. Adaline shakes her head, reminds herself he’s only Nero’s age -- if there’s a plot at work here, V is the intermediary rather than the mastermind -- though Nero would be furious to know she still thinks of him as a boy, not a man. Even if it’s a ploy, a trick, they need to know who is after them. Of course they first assumed… But it can’t be… Or is she fooling herself? Maybe the wine was a bad idea.

“Fine. I--” Adaline gropes for the words. “We need to know. Especially if it’s really all that bad.”

V relaxes slightly; lowers his hands, looks at her with something like compassion. He’s just a boy, she reminds herself again; look at him, this boy with his tattoos and his postmodern goth aesthetic, with his cane and his book and something demonic carved into his skin, something he might not even know of or understand. Bound up in a world of trouble beyond his capabilities. Even if that trouble is to do with whatever attacked Adaline’s son, V did not break into Devil May Cry and tear Nero’s arm off.

Those eyes, though. There’s something about him; something she can almost touch, almost taste. Something she feels like a bigger idiot every moment for missing.

“Had I the choice, I would not bring trouble to your door,” he says. His voice is low, genuine; Adaline finds she believes him. Or, at least, believes that he believes it.

She sighs. Exhaustion is settling into every muscle after two days of adrenaline-fuelled anxiety. The wine was definitely a mistake.

“We should probably head inside. They ought to be finished squabbling over money by now.”

V glances at the door; what he sees must confirm her suspicion, because he nods. He shoots her a quick smile and bows: it’s over-exaggerated, a dancer’s flourish; head down as far as his waist, arms outstretched, his cane flicking towards the door.

“Ladies first.”

It’s a charming display, but Adaline isn’t in the mood to be charmed. Especially not when charm so often disguises an intent to hurt. Again, that impulse against all good sense to turn the boy away and batten down the hatches with Dante and Nero. Her brain is running through all of the possibilities, even the most outlandish ones.

Okay, Mundus is dead (or as close as they’re going to get to killing him) and his corpse is slowly rotting in agony, but what if some other demon lord got the same idea? Mundus sent an underling to tempt Dante into danger once before, why fix what isn’t broken?

If that’s the case, whoever has taken Mundus’s place has even learned not to rely on painted doll replicas (and what if that’s why V seems so familiar? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something… green).

V looks up with a smile but his face falls when he sees Adaline still looks decidedly unamused.

“Let’s hear what you have to say,” she says, leading the way into Devil May Cry.

Dante looks expectant, almost excited; Morrison looks satisfied. Those two states don’t normally coincide. Adaline wonders how much money is involved here, and where it’s coming from. V doesn’t exactly give the impression he’s swimming in cash. Then again, this is Dante: he gripes about money from time to time but he’d work for free if the pizza place didn’t demand payment. Adaline happily funds him but he has a few shreds of chest-beating masculine pride about paying his own way that surface now and again.

Adaline circles around the desk to set her glass down on it, briefly makes eye contact with Dante, and leans against the wall behind him. She nods to Morrison as he leaves with a few final words about bringing in Lady and Trish and sets herself to watch. Now that she’s taken her own measure of their newest client, she’s interested to see what Dante makes of him.

Not much at first. Dante leans back in his chair, posturing boredom with the merest glimmer of interest.

“So,” he begins without preamble, “What’s your name?”

V stands in the centre of the office, the book open in his hand and his gaze pointed down at its contents.

“‘I have no name; I am but two days old’,” he says. In the ensuing pause, he snaps the book shut and looks up. “Just kidding. You can call me V.”

Adaline isn’t looking anywhere in particular. It is pure chance when her eyes fall on Eva’s photograph. It’s been on the desk as long as the desk has been in Devil May Cry, and Adaline stopped really seeing it years ago. She knows Eva is there, watching them (watching over them?) but familiarity breeds indifference to the contours of her cheeks and the exact curve of her jawline.

Or the colour of her eyes.

V is watching her when she looks up again; he’s quite still, but his grip on his cane is white-knuckled. His eyes are wide. Helpful: it lets her check the colour again.

Adaline remains impassive to the best of her ability. After a moment, during which she sees V’s Adam's apple bob frantically in his throat, he becomes impassive too; he looks away, deliberately turning his attention back to Dante.

For Dante’s part, if he’s noticed the brief, silent struggle, he gives no indication of it. Humming, he lazily sets aside his magazine and stretches.

“Okay, V... Why don't you tell me everything about this job?”

There’s a slight pause before V answers. He gives a little shrug, his lips pursed, as if to… well, Adaline isn’t quite sure, but his nonchalance strikes her as over-acted. In fact, if he is bringing them information about a job big enough that Morrison is nervous about Dante going it alone, isn’t ‘nonchalance’ the last thing in the world V should be feeling?

“A powerful demon is about to resurrect and…” Again, the briefest of pauses, as if the explanation is so obvious that V can barely bring himself to voice it, “We need your help, Dante.”

Dante lets out a bark of laughter. Either he’s giving an Oscar-worthy performance (and people rarely realise it, but Dante is a good actor when he wants to be; the man practically has a degree in misdirection) or he’s not picking up on any of the inconsistencies and questions Ada is. In stark contrast to her own anxiety, Dante is languid and lackadaisical. He pushes himself out of his chair and strolls over to the couch, still chuckling.

“Now that’s a familiar tune,” he quips. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that exact line before?”

V doesn’t look offended by being blown off so easily. He shifts slightly, grip on his cane visibly tightening. Despite her suspicions, Adaline has an impulse to offer him a chair; he looks genuinely in pain. Before she can, however, he walks towards Dante, intent.

“This is… special.”

“Special,” Dante echoes disbelievingly, a hint of amusement colouring his tone. “Okay, what’s so special about this one?”

It’s about this moment that Adaline realises V has almost completely turned his back on her and she can no longer see his face.

“This demon is your… reason. Your reason for fighting.”

Something shifts in Dante’s expression. He doesn’t enjoy being jerked around and doesn’t suffer fools, but he’s enduring V’s dancing with more patience than Adaline would have expected. Is he finally realising, as she has, that there’s more to this than meets the eye? Or did Morrison just flash more money in his face than usual? Adaline can’t think. His reason for fighting? His reason… your reason--

I have no name; I am but two days old. How -- poetic.

Poetry. Murmured half-under his breath; the one indulgence in an otherwise spartan life; the book she had picked out for him, unearthed in a second-hand store--

“This demon got a name?”

“Vergil.”

[corvidcircus]

Imagine

if you will...

massaging your Sparda boy of choice

Dante

Swedish/deep tissue/reflexology

has to trust you quite a bit to allow one

suuuuper cocky, making stupid puns and jokes

it's mainly to cover his nervousness, this man has had very little comforting touch for... a while

probably likes faintly scented or unscented oils/lotions

fruity or floral scents screw masculinity i wanna smell pretty -dante at some point probably

use more pressure. more. double it. more than that. a little bit more.

this is like trying to unwind knots from gilgamesh over here

mans is tense

will fight falling asleep to enjoy the feeling

once he gets into it, expect lots of noise

moans, grunts, sighs, ect.

purring? purring.

if you laugh he'll probably play them up a lot

might ask for suggest another one after a hard job

Vergil

deep tissue/sports/shiatsu

will only accept one from someone he wholly trusts

ok kids, can you say touch starved?

skittish, jumpy, you'd absolutely have to ease him into it

NO ACUPUNCTURE

plz take your time with Mr. Grumpy

his knots have knots

pov: you're massaging a marble statue

would probably like earthy or minty fragrances,

very? confused??? as to why this feels? so good??

eventually starts making quiet little sighs and groans

purring you feel but can't hear

makes a thin keening whine when you finally relax the gordian knot between his shoulders, will vehemently deny doing so until long after he is six feet under

you will have to look for the signs to see if he needs wants another

Nero

Thai/sports massage

more open to this, but will definitely not let a stranger do so

not overly touch starved, will appreciate the gentle touch immensely, though

boi is very energetic, wants to pull his weight do something

thai is a very active massage, using (assisted) yoga, stretching and pressing

with less demonic blood, some injuries are left sore or tense after healing (especially joint injuries)

will not mind incense or oils, as long as they aren't very strong

prefers calming mellow floral scents, or slightly spicy, earthy ones depending entirely on his mood lol

when relaxed, lets out little trills somewhere between a sigh and a purr (nobody tell him he hasn't noticed yet)

most likely of the three to zone out during this kind of thing

if it helped, will point-blank ask you if you are willing to do it again before instantly turning bright red at nico's heckling

Bonus: V

hot rock

not very comfortable with touch as is, will only agree to one from a partner or close friend

please be gentle with our goth boi, he is but two days old

likes warm, natural scents

unlike the rest of this list, is physically and emotionally human, meaning heat helps

keep skinny goth kid warm, relax muscles, and soothe pain?

hi, this is my first imagine/headcanon thing, plz lemme know if you like it/want another

[deftonessex]

I NEED FRIENDS WHO LIKE DMC AUUUGHHH

[quinttyz]

the devil hunter

the scholar nun

the mysterious one

[dandansposts]

trans did vergil wrt nero below cut baybey!!!!!!!

tl;dr vergil knows he has a kid but hasnt seen that kid since he was a newborn by dmc5. v feels like theyre more entitled to being nero's parent than anyone else in the system for reasons

let us get some basics out of the way. vergil is trans, he's asexual, and he has DID according to me. i also think he's autistic. also according to me, eva was a witch and while she did teach both her sons how to use magic as a sort of companion activity to sparda training them in combat, vergil was the one who really took to it; dante for the most part didn't have the attention span for the kind of book learning needed to learn the ins and outs of magic. he can do some basics, has taught himself some things as he's aged, but doesn't really consider himself to be a witch. (witch being a gender neutral term here)

vergil, on the other hand, hyperfixated on it even after eva died, though from there it would have become more v's thing than anyone else's. v considers themself as well as the system as a whole to be a witch, but there's some discrepancies between alters based on opinions on eva and degree of attachment to her memory. (v's a total mama's boy (gender neutral) and i wont be argued w about it. source of strife btwn them and vergil. delicious)

i'm going off my headcanons so i will be including nelo angelo in this, as well as altered pronouns from canon, so

pronoun list:

v: they/them

vergil: he/him

griffon: he/him

shadow: she/her

nightmare: it/its

nelo angelo: he/him

nero: he/they

dante: he/him

vergil system collective pronouns: they/he

yeah im an enby nero truther as well and what of it.

basic summary of events leading up to nero's conception is this:

vergil is in his late teens. he is attempting to transition via magic though this is entirely homebrewed, entirely a spell of his/v's own making, and entirely untested

this backfires horrifically, almost killing them in the process. the ramifications of this leave them physically weak and as we all know this is unacceptable.

prior to this the plan to raise the temen ni gru is already in the works but this just spurs them on. weak, recovering slowly bc as previously stated they nearly killed themself, they head to fortuna looking for information; if you're gonna find anything on ancient demon towers and hell gates its gonna be in the dusty church basement libraries of thee sparda cult id think.

i have 2 branching theories here but the end result is pretty much the same and results in them getting pregnant and carrying baby nero to term. theory one is Unpleasant and i'm going to leave it at that but theory 2 is a sex for information type dealie. makes more sense to me for vergil to view sex as a largely transactional thing and not really have a problem with using it to get info. given that he kinda, y'know, is an orphan and i imagine hasnt had any sex ed, i'm really operating under the assumption that he doesnt really know where babies come from? or at the very least isnt fully aware that this is a risk.

demon baby proceeds to wreak havoc upon an already very weak vergil; abortion attempts are made but are unfruitful. information quest continues despite this.

to make a long story short v is the alter who's most present at nero's birth; they're the one who first lays eyes on this baby, they're the one who holds him, who cleans him, who has a horrible little panic attack wherever the fuck this happens bc what in the fuck tbh. i imagine here, vulnerable and tired and extremely weak, they see Baby and theyre like oh.... youre small and defenseless and yet you have caused me so many problems.... my baby now

power quest takes precedent, nero is abandoned in fortuna days after being born. v later claims to have been against this but at the time would have agreed that power comes first; how else are you going to protect yourself or your baby when you're a heavily traumatized half demon teen dad

raising the temen ni gru becomes a pretty much suicidal endevour from here. it's stupid and dangerous and will probably end with them dying awful and bloody but they've just experienced true weakness; it's power and therefore safety and stability or death. canon pretty much happens from here.

now. i have done a lot of world building on witches in my dmc headcanons and am SO willing to talk about it but the necessary information here is the ability to practice witchcraft is generally inherited mother to daughter (strictly in the biological sense) as it was a gift bestowed upon human priestesses by demons prior to sparda cutting the human and demon worlds off from each other. eva's family goes waaaaaay the fuck back as the original priestesses of sparda's family line. vergil and dante both inherit this ability but crucially so does nero, despite the fact that according to me he is for all intents and purposes amab. chalk this up to either nero being intersex or vergils fuckshit genetics messing with things. either way, nero inherits this ability. or if you are taking my ideas and running with it, which by all means please do, and you decide he's a trans man, that literally works lkke i dont care all that you need to know here is nero inherits the ability to preform witchcraft from vergil.

a very good friend of mine has allowed me to bounce ideas off him and has given me many ideas so should i talk about neros witchcraft at any point, a lot of the credit for the ideas goes to him.

and if he is reading this and would like me to credit him for his baller ideas he should dm me on discord but ANYWAY.

i am now going to breakdown how each alter relates to nero. i feel its worth it to note that no matter what happened in fortuna to create nero, the whole pregnancy was probably pretty traumatic and dysphoria enducing.

as i'm sure most DID havers and systems can tell you, interpersonal relationships when you are like this can get wildly complicated. you're balancing differing opinions and outlooks and gut reactions and it can be really difficult! so it follows, to me at least, that vergil & co have a very complicated relationship w/ their kid post DMC5 and just. super complicated feelings about nero In General.

vergil

now, vergil has extremely limited experience with people and a very narrow, very warped view of what family means. he also has a massively warped moral compass and tends to put self preservation above all else. this is really obvious when he doesnt have the other alters holding him back; he would have killed both dante and nero if they weren't so durable just because they got in his way. that said, it's not like he doesn't care about them. dante's his twin brother, the one thing he wants more than anything is for dante to join him and i imagine it's similar with nero.

(unfortunately nero's a little too much like his uncle to join vergil's crazy power quests but y'know.)

he absolutely would not have been a good dad to a small child but with nero grown up and not dependent upon him for anyrhing, i can see vergil really being the one who tells nero about their family, about where they come from, and just all of the history there, which like... nero's an ophan, i can see that being very important to him.

i also think the whole arm thing like... in vergils mind, thats a mercy. he didn't try to kill him, just ripped off his arm bc he Needed the yamato for self preservation reasons. like, you get in his way, vergil will kill you. he didnt kill nero, to him that is almost positively a mercy and i imagine he has significant difficulty understanding why nero might hold that against him- vergil's been torn apart and remade and just destroyed more times than he probably remembers, like... this isn't anything to him.

as for interactions with infant nero, i can see vergil having a similar Oh... My Baby initial reaction as v, but this is Vergil- he needs to be strong, and if he can't protect himself, how's he supposed to protect a baby? i think he's fully aware that the temen ni gru quest is almost certainly a suicide mission, but in his mind, he has no choice.

in summary, i think he tries. i think he is a terrible father but i think every decision he's ever made has just been him Trying in his own fucked up way. whether or not he ever has much of a relationship with nero is entirely up to nero.

v

v is really interesting to me wrt nero. i see them as viewing themself as being somehow more entitled to being nero's parent than anyone else. on top of that, v is manipulative, they're cagey, they're the first alter who actually talks to adult nero, they're the kind of person who'll tell you only what you need to know to the point where it's basically a lie of omission.

this is all self defense, but it's still something that makes them wildly unpleasant to be arnd. couple that with feeling like nero Belongs to them, they actively sabotage other alters attempts to get to know their kid (until confronted about it). the non-humans are just "familiars", vergil and nelo angelo are "dangerous", etc. they honestly probably dont even really tell nero that they're All Vergil, Technically. this is probably something nero finds out from either dante (thinking nero already knew) or griffon (just telling him bc vergil doesnt think it's relevant information and v is actively keeping that from him)

that all said, v cares very deeply about nero and about what he thinks of them. they love him Dearly, would do anything for him, and genuinely just want what's best for him, though their idea of what's best for him doesn't always match up with reality.

they'd delight in sharing their witchcraft with him, in sharing the history of that, sharing everything they know, just... Teaching him like eva did them.

as with vergil they are just doing their fucking best. they just kind of happen to be an asshole. they also just happen to be emotionally unavailable. these things make interpersonal relationships difficult. i imaginr they also make connecting with your long lost son extremely difficult as well.

griffon

as v's kinda direct protector, griffon's heavily entwined with their bullshit but that does Not mean he puts up with it. post dmc5 and post hell, griffon? he is not pulling punches. nero wants Truth, in all its gory details? he should talk to griffon.

out of all of them, griffon's the most... mentally sound, shall we say. he's generally levelheaded, he's very silly, and is the most openly affectionate aside from shadow.

he very much considers nero to be Their son, rather than His son; nero's as much his as he is any other alters, they're all nero's dad, full stop.

how he shows affection, however, is by relentlessly bullying and he Definitely takes it too far and nero Definitely does not always understand that he's joking.

what v won't admit and what griffon has given up trying to tell them is that he was just about as present during nero's birth as They were, they are Very closely tied as alters, but . well. u try telling that to a wildly unstable witch.

shadow and nightmare

to be honest, i don't have a whole hell of a lot to say about them. they love nero, they both consider him the system's kid, etc, but they don't tend to front unless there's some.kind of imminent danger be that psychological or physical.

That Said, shadow can be VERY snuggly if you catch her fronting outside Danger Time. she's extremely sweet and loving to anyone she likes, and she Likes nero, that's her BABY.

angelo

and finally we come to the one that is entirely headcanoned. i'm gonna keep this relatively brief bc im running out of steam anf patience to keep.typung this but angelo's intial gut reaction to nero is about the same as it is to dante, which is just . sheer, gut wrenching terror followed by the worlds most aggressive fight response. consequently i Do think he's gutted nero once or twice.

as he begins to recover, begins to get out of the mundus brainwashing and starts to really just. be a person, if nero is willing to let him in he is the most fatherly. he's gentle but firm, he's patient, he's the kind of person who will do little things for you just because he wants you to be happy. i also don't see him pulling a v; he's very honest, very humble, and *very* willing to apologize and admit to wrongdoing- for fuckssake, he gutted his son, who he really does want a relationship with. gotta start somewhere, u know.

i can talk more about system interpersonal relations but as a tldr v Does Not Like Angelo Whatsoever; angelo represents the single worst time in their life, and he's also just everything v isnt.

anyway. thank you all for reading if youve gotten this far. if you wanna hear about anything else i may have mentioned in passing i am ABSOLUTELY willing to babble about my dmc headcanons.

[skvaderarts]

Petrichor Chapter 68: Homesick

Chapter 68: Homesick

Note: Gosh, I feel terrible today. Sorry if this has more errors than usual as a result. My brain isn’t working. I’m finishing this up right before uploading it because I want to give you guys something this week and I was already half done, but gosh, I feel like crap. My bad. Let me know if this needs a second edit.

(-~-)

Meanwhile in Fortuna…

Dinner, like always, had been utterly delectable.

The topic of potentially moving to the mainland eventually came up, much to the confusion of the children and the bewilderment of Nico. She wasn’t against the idea. In fact, she was all for it! Sure, she loved the little place that she’d come to call home, but change had never been something that scared her, especially positive change. And leaving everything behind to start over somewhere new without their past to hold them back couldn’t be anything but positive. She was just shocked that Kyrie had been the one to suggest it. She just seemed to be rooted in this place. Perhaps that was why she wanted to start over someplace else. Nico knew nothing of Kyrie’s past, but it seemed painful.

Opting to retire to the front stoop after utterly decimating a minimum of two plates of food, Nero was surprised to open the door and find that the space was already occupied. Sitting on the stairs looking out over the rest of the street was Nico, seemingly just hanging out. Apparently, he was going to have company for a few minutes because he could use the fresh air.

“Man, you were on that phone earlier forever,” Nero said teasingly as he closed the door behind himself. Her phone call with Rock had lasted quite a while. He hadn’t clued into the details, but he was pretty sure she’d been filling him in on everything that had happened since she’d left. Perhaps it was better to mail him a self-written book because he was going to need it. The poor man probably had so many questions.

“Oh, shut your trap. No, I wasn't!” Nico said as she folded her arms, kicking her legs up on the banister. After a moment she let out a long sigh, throwing her head back and resting it on the railing. “I was, wasn't I. Damn.”

Nero sat down next to her on the opposite side of the stairs. They weren’t that wide, but there was enough room for them not to touch. “Yep. Sure were. We were there for an hour, give or take.”

Nico looked surprised but didn’t dismiss or disagree with the statement. Somehow that sounded about right. She’d had a lot to say during that conversation, and it seemed like it probably would have taken about that long to get everything off her chest now that she thought about it. And the million questions he’d had for her sure hadn’t made that time any shorter.

It was kind of funny to think about, really. She wasn’t the kind of person who had long, drawn-out conversations, especially over the phone. She’d just had a lot to talk about this time around, presumably. Or maybe there was a little more to it than she’d care to admit. Maybe…

“I guess… maybe I just miss him. Miss the shop and everything, ya know?” Nico said, not really sure if she was talking to Nero or herself. Maybe both. Just putting it out there made it feel more real, though. Made her feel more certain about it. Yeah, that was probably what it was. She just hadn’t thought about it until then.

Nero thought about it for a moment and nodded a single time in understanding. He wasn’t going to admit it, but that was kinda how he’d felt when Dante had left that Day in Fortuna after everything that had happened. For a second there he’d felt like less of an outcast. But as the days and weeks had gone by, he’d almost wanted to go looking for the man in the red coat. He heard from him again not too long after, but for a while there something had just felt… different. And it had come back with a vengeance during the six weeks after the Redgrave City Incident when Dante had been in the Underworld with Vergil. 

It was much less a case of homesickness and more a general longing to see Dante again as a whole, even if the older devil hunter did drive him crazy at times, but the sense of displacement was similar. Both Nico and Nero knew what it felt like to be separated from a core person in their life, even if it was under vastly different circumstances.

“You know… It's okay to cry about it.” Nero said in as serious a tone as he could muster considering how hard he was trying not to laugh. He half expected to get strangled for throwing that particular joke back at her at a time like this, but he couldn’t help himself. It was just too tempting. And he’d been almost correct, although the vehicle of her revenge had been a simple punch to the shoulder as opposed to a full-on strangeling.

“Oh, don't you start-” Nico said as the vestiges of a small laugh escaped her lips. Okay, that had been a good one, but to hell if she was going to let him know that. Instead, she let out a sigh and shifted sitting positions, putting her feet back down on the stairs. It was easier to strangle him from this angle if she needed to.

Silence fell over them for around two minutes, the two of them just enjoying the silence. Nero had been surprised that she hadn’t been smoking when he’d opened the door, something he’d noticed she seemed to be doing progressively less these days. Was she trying to quit? He wouldn’t ask, but he did wonder. And while he was at it, there was something else on his mind. Something that maybe he should ask her about.

“Do ya think you'll ever go home? Go back to how things were before all this happened?”

Nico turned around to face him, seemingly taken aback by the question, but not in a way that indicated that she was genuinely angry. Maybe more shocked that he’d had the nerve to ask than anything else, but not mad. It was a fair question. He was probably just wondering when the grocery bill was going to go back down.

“The hell do you mean “go home”? I am home, jackass!” She said with a genuine laugh, playfully shoving him towards his side of the banister. Fortuna had been the last place she ever could have imagined making a friend, but it had happened nonetheless. And as things stood, she had no such plans. She’d make Nero disappear before she did. “Rock is still family, don’t get me wrong. We're both Goldstone's and all that and he taught me practically everything I know, but… I've got a good thing here. I'm not gonna just leave.”

The shift in her tone of voice to something a bit more serious and sincere at the very end of her statement didn’t go unnoticed. Good. She better not get any ideas. But she wasn’t done giving him a peace of her mind and he knew it, so he just put his hands up in defeat and opted not to interrupt her. He’d interject once she was done if need be.

“I came here to make sure that my deadbeat daddy was actually dead and gone. Quick in and out trip, ya know? But it didn't work out that way. And for once I'm glad things didn’t go the way I was hoping it would.” She said as she looked back at the front door of the house. She was glad that she’d shadowed one of the boys back to Nero’s garage door. She was glad that she’d met him; met Kyrie and the other two kids. She was glad that they’d welcomed her into their home. No one had done that since her mother had died and Rock had decided to take her in as his own. It was a rare sort who looked at someone they didn’t even know, especially someone related to one of their enemies, and decided to just throw caution to the wind and try their luck. And she’d been lucky enough to meet two of them in one day. “Besides, you and I both know all your crap would break the second I leave and you wouldn't be able to fix it so you're stuck with me! You, me, and V. We might as well be Devil May Cry 2.0!”

Nero chuckled at the statement. She was half right. Red Queen probably would have ended up getting fixed eventually, but she’d certainly sped things along to an unbelievable degree. And she’d played a big part in getting the van up and running. And she’d created the Devil Breakers in such short order. In fact, as handy as he was, he was just going to have to admit defeat and let her have this one. Yeah, all his crap probably would break if she wasn’t around to do maintenance on it. And then he’d have to go back to the days when he had no one to tinker with or talk shop with. And that would suck.

Hell, they were probably the only two people in town who even liked guns, let alone who knew how they worked. Whatever one-in-a-million chance that had ended up bringing them together in the first place would probably never happen again with him and anyone else. He wasn’t going to squander that. They were a match made in hell, but in a good way. And that was rare as far as both of their lives went.

“What about Lady and Trish? They a part of Dante’s team, or are they their own thing since they only show up as backup and he's got Vergil now? Wouldn't they be the original 2.0 team?” Nero inquired humorously. “Team 1.5 at the least, right?”

Nico seemed to linger on this for a second before realizing that he might be onto something and that she didn’t really have a comeback to that assertion. Shoot. She hadn’t thought about that.

“Shit. Okay so maybe, but they don't have a sign so I'm calling dibs. Dante isn't gonna fight me. He likes that hat I made him.” She said with a confidence that Nero could only laugh at. She was right, though. Dante didn’t even know how to talk to Nico half the time, let alone stand up to her if he needed to. He just couldn’t overcome her unique brand of charisma. None of them really could. 

That was kinda why he liked her, to be honest. She didn’t let anyone walk over her. They probably would have been great friends growing up. Just two little troublemakers running around town driving all the fanatical religious folks absolutely hatstand. And it would have been a great time, too. Maybe V could have just tagged along behind them as the obligatory quiet kid in the friend group. Maybe he would have joined in. Nero had no idea how his personality had been when he was a kid. He just knew that they all would have probably been fast friends. And now that he thought about it, he was kinda sad that he and V hadn’t ended up in the same orphanage. That was the true tragedy.

Nero could’ve protected him from so much bullshit. He would’ve been happy to.

“You’re probably right,” Nero said with a hearty chuckle, punching his thoughts aside for the time being. He couldn’t change the past, even if there were parts of it he certainly would have liked to edit. People that would still be here if he’d had a say in it. Or more of a say in it, at least. Like Kyrie’s entire family… 

“Speaking of V, you heard from him since he left town?” Nico interjected, fully interrupting his thoughts. It was probably for the best, to be honest. He didn’t need to go back down that rabbit hole of miserable memories. “I… kinda miss him if I’m bein’ honest.”

“You getting all sentimental all of a sudden?” Nero said, a heavy layer of sarcasm lingering on his words. Truth be told, no, he didn’t have the slightest idea where he was located. He’d heard something about him leaving town before he’d actually left, but Nero had long since forgotten the details even if he was pretty sure he probably shouldn’t have.

“Heck no! I'm no such thing. But I do kinda miss when he was here at the house, ya know? He's… a good listener. I could dump all my problems on him.” She said with a shrug. He’d sat with her in the garage one day as she’d given him all the gory details about exactly where and when Vergil had stolen Nero’s arm despite already having most of them himself. But he hadn’t bothered to point that fact out. He’d just been enjoying her company, and she’d been enjoying having him around, even if he’d looked like he was going to keel over from exhaustion the entire time since he’d just come back from the dead quite recently. Those two weeks he’d been at the house recovering before shit had hit the fan on their little family vacation had been… fun.

Nero considered making a joke for a moment before deciding against it. She was right about that. His older brother was an excellent listener. And to be honest, he'd missed him ever since he'd moved out. Nico was right. He just hadn't really thought about it until then.

“Yeah… You're right about that.” Nero said with a sigh. V was nothing if not a good listener. And he remembered everything. Every little silly story the kids had told him. Every insignificant date. Every minuscule, unimportant detail. It was one of his best and worst qualities. Great for everyone else, but certainly awful for himself. “Got some problems to dump on him?”

“Yeah, you.” She said with a small snicker, earning her an eye roll from her companion. He’d walked right into that one. They both knew it.

“Now that you mention it, I think I miss him, too. Maybe I'll see if I can call him tomorrow before we leave. No idea where he is or how I’d do that, but it's worth a shot. Maybe someone knows where he is.” Nero said as he stood up, ready to go help round out the little ones so that he and Kyrie could have some semblance of peace for the rest of the evening. It hadn’t been a busy day, but he was still ready to relax.

“Try Magnolia. I bet she has Sirrus’s number, and he definitely knows where V is. Fella follows him around like a shadow. I don't think he can help himself.” Nico snickered to herself knowingly. Sirrus couldn’t hide the way he looked at V if he tried. Hell, he might already be doing that. And if he was, he was utterly failing, but in a good, very entertaining way. The poor man was utterly smitten, and who could blame him? There was a lot to like about V. Too bad the target of his infatuation was either completely unaware, or brushing him off, and she was 100% certain it was the former and not the latter. V wasn’t that passive-aggressive.

Now that was a statement that Nero wasn’t going to disagree with. But he liked that about Sirrus in a weird way. At least he knew that V was safe when none of the rest of them were around. He could take care of himself for the most part, but in a pinch, it was good to have someone as uncharacteristically loyal as Sirrus at your side. He was unyielding and uncompromising, and utterly merciless towards people who pissed him off. And those people just so happened to be the same people that they didn’t like, either. “You know what, that might not be a half-bad idea. I'm going to bed. You coming inside?”

Nico shook her head. She wasn’t ready to head in just night. She was going to take it all in just a little while longer. It was nice out. The dead of winter was rapidly approaching. She wouldn’t be able to hang out outside without a jacket like this for much longer. “Nah, I'm going to hang out for a while. Need to think.”

“Sure thing. See you tomorrow, then.” Nero said with a friendly nod before turning away. She waved at him over her shoulder as he headed back inside, the door closing quietly behind him followed by the sound of several sets of footsteps and the laughter of multiple children. And then a characteristically loud thud. Yup. The kids had just tackled him. Again.

She shook her head and leaned back to get another look at the night sky. Why would she ever go anywhere else?

(-~-)

Aw. This was unexpectedly wholesome. I like Nero and Nico. It was about time we checked in on them! As always, I hope you liked the chapter! See you in the comments and take care! I’m going to go eat dinner and turn in for the night. I’m beat! See you on 4/5/2024! Bye bye!