Dad

Dad

The blow to Dante's heart came in the middle of spirited sparring session with Trish. Their trademark leathers were discarded for more comfortable sweats and tees, and the pair ranged back and forth across the shop, with Lady acting as referee as both feet and fists flew. He'd always been a skilled martial artist, but Trish's inclusion into both his and Nero's lives over the last few years had given him both a partner in business and sparring, and in some ways, he was actually closer to Trish than Lady. Part of that, he suspected, was that she sounded, acted, and looked just like his mother...or, if he'd had a sister, she'd be it. Lady was a good friend, if more than a little demanding, but...Trish was the one person to understand.

He had had the upper hand at the time, a grin flashing under shaggy, sweat-darkened silver hair, and had brought his leg up in a manuveur he'd created....when in the space between one heartbeat and the next, a crushing weight dropped him​ like a stone. Dante fell to his knees, clutching at his chest in agony as he tried to fight past the overwhelming fear and pain dazzling his senses. ​The fuck?!

Dimly, above his head, he could hear Trish murmuring, and Lady's unnatural silence was unnerving, almost frightening...when the fuck is all this coming from?! I'm too young to have a freakin' heart attack...It was then, as he ran through every possible reason for this, that he came across the right answer. It was all coming from outside of himself, from...Nero. Oh, god.

He shunted the pain away, best as he could, and managed to get back to his feet, though he swayed so badly that Trish and Lady both had to support him while the stars cleared from his vision. It felt like an eternity had passed...until Trish forced his chin up so that she could meet his eyes.

"Dante, what the ​hell ​is going on? You just collapsed, and got right back up again." The calm in her voice was cracking now, worry and fear warring in her expression, and he felt his lips open to hiss out one word, one name.

"...Nero..." He felt her hands fall away, and Lady piped up, breaking the stunned silence.

"What? Trish, what'd he say?" Dante shook the last of the eerie numbness from his brain and turned towards the stairs, taking them two at a time, stopping only to change into something a little sturdier, and buckle on both guns and Rebellion. He swept back down past Lady as Trish matched him at the door. Glancing back, he tossed the keys at her. 

"You're in charge till we get back. We're going after Nero. " He didn't stay long enough to hear her response; he was already in the air, the demoness right beside him. 

"​The school officials might know something."  Her calm, cool voice always stabilized him, and that was never truer than now, black flames and white-gold fluttering over their wings, and he gave her a short nod. 

"​They'd better."

---

Nero woke with a jolt, only to go limp again as his instincts took over, thinking past the pain in his head and arm. Wherever he was, it wasn't at school, and certainly not at the shop...and the heavy breathing behind him was not his father. Carefully, so slowly that he hardly moved at all, Nero turned on the hard mattress he'd been thrown on to find a large, very hairy man, naked from the waist up, doing something with his back turned to the boy.

From the way he was moving, ​oh god, he's moaning​, Nero could guess what was to come next, and his blood ran cold, eyes widening with sudden terror as he fought the sudden urge to run, run and never, ever fucking look back. ​Oh god, no...Dad, Dad, Daddy, where are you?!  His gaze turned swiftly to the room he was trapped in, and his heart sank at the bars and locks on the windows. A grimy haze filtered through the bubbled, thick glass, barely lighting the room, and giving him no idea as to the time outside. 

And the door was no better, locked in three places and narrow. It looked heavy, too. There wasn't much else in the room; the mattress sat on an old box spring, and the only other light aside from the window was a small, bare bulb on a string, dangling over the doorway. There was no place for even a scrawny little boy to hide, and nothing he could use to knock the bastard out with. 

He was trapped; trapped with a man with only one thing on his mind, in a place where there was no one who could hear him scream. As the man turned, though, Nero's fists balled, and his pride and spirit rose in furious defiance, his instincts leading him to slip off the bed and pack up to the wall. Damned if he was gonna go down without a fight. Maybe if he fought back...if he kept himself alive...maybe he'd see his father again before a pedophile bludgeoned him to death. He scrubbed away a few tears with one fist, and raised hot, angry blue eyes to the grinning fucker on the bed. 

"Bring it, you fat fuck."

---

Dante let Trish handle the school officials; he was too angry, and he didn't need a battery charge on top of what was already happening. The police had been notified not even an hour ago, and were currently searching the whole of the slums and the warehouse district, following the directions from the demon-hunter. ​At least the DA knows me well enough to listen. Meanwhile, a girl in Nero's class had fingered four older boys who'd been bullying him for several years as having knocked her classmate unconscious and carrying him away. 

His things had been left behind, scattered under the table, even his hoodie, and Dante held them all now, backpack dangling from one elbow as he recrossed his arms. One of the boys had been found, and it had taken all of his self-control not to just go in there and terrorize the little shit...he took a slow, deep breath, closing his eyes and listening for a moment, satisfied that the detectives were doing his job better than he would have. 

"I don't care how​ cold it was outside, you should have been out here! Supervising!" Came Trish's snarl, her own calm shattered by the cavilier attitudes of the staff, and Dante accompanied that with a long, low growl. Damn straight they should have!

"W-We are a vigilant school! How dare you accuse us of not doing our jobs!"

"I'm not accusing, I'm telling! ​He was carried off who knows where, and he is​ in danger!"

"Because his father ​says so? I think not!" Dante snarled and strode forward, pinning the man to the wall. His voice was silky smooth, fawning even...until you heard the deadly steel underneath. 

"I know this because  unlike humans, my son and I are descended from the demon Sparda, who saved your great-great grandpappy's sorry ass a millenia ago. Now, Sparda fell in love with a human woman say...oh...twenty-eight years ago, and nine months later, my brother and I were born. Now, as twins, and as half-bloods, we had this weird bond thing that connected us to each other...and to our father. And ten years ago, I discovered that my brat and I had the same sort of bond. Useful, no?

"So, numbnuts, when I fucking tell​ you to goddamn do something because I know something's fucking wrong with my kid, you will goddamn do it​. Is that understood, dumbass?" A mute nod, the scent of fresh urine and bugged eyes were his only answer, and he dropped the man in disgust to stalk back to Trish, accepting the brief pat on the shoulder, squeezing hers in return. 

"We'll find him." Came her soft voice, and he swallowed the lump in his throat, fighting the urge to just...break down. 

"I hope you're right, Trish. I hope you're right."