Chapter Text
Dante has missed a lot of important structural changes in the devil hunting business during his months of absence, and eventually Morrison calls Nero with a job, asking him to show Dante the ropes of the new group hunting format. Nero is baffled. Dante is unlikely to end up going on a lot of group hunts anyways. The mad power house will rarely get jobs with others when he can easily do them solo. And besides, there isn’t as much to show on a job, more so than before and after it, with paperwork and whatnot. They do not have to do a mission together to show Dante everything he missed. Also Dante is many years his senior. Nero is sure Dante could figure it all out by himself if he wanted. And yet. When Nero complains about all this to Kyrie, she seems enthusiastic and says Nero should use the opportunity for some family time. “Don’t you want to spend time with him?” she asks. And Nero can only sigh. Yeah, he does. But it’s been a shitty few months and he doesn’t trust the situation not to spring more bullshit on him. But whatever. He coordinates with Morrison and calls Dante to organize the hunt.
When Vergil shows up alongside him, Nero knows this mission’s fucked.
The job itself is pretty simple. Dante, Nero, (and Vergil, he supposes), as well as two other hunters are to track down the location of a coven of rogue witches and take them into custody. Summoned monsters were reported to be terrorizing the region and those will need to be taken out as well. The job requires that they stay in touch with local authorities, since the members of the coven are meant to be put on a fair trial, like any other citizens, which requires additional soft skills that Nero is supposed to teach Dante. Not that Dante would ever need any lessons in charisma, but reliable communication isn’t one of Dante’s strong suits, as Nero is painfully aware, so he can at least agree that this should be a good learning experience for his uncle.
Dante is being a bitch about it, though. Keeps teasing him, saying stuff like “Show me how it’s done, kid,” with a wink, and “You got it, boss-man,” with a salute, and Nero hates how much his ears burn at each of his jests. It doesn’t help that Nico is driving them and enabling Dante at every turn.
Thing is, Nero used to have a crush on Dante, after they met in Fortuna. Nero has stomped those feelings down hard in the years afterwards and almost forgotten all about them until the revelations of the Qliphoth tore his fucking chest open and made him paralyzed with guilt and shame for having been into his uncle at some point. Nero hates it. Never told anyone about it, either. Just his quiet suffering to bear.
Vergil, for all that it’s worth, is not jeopardizing the mission so far and seems to be grasping all the logistic requirements much easier than his twin. He mostly keeps quiet and stares at Nero, which puts Nero’s fucking teeth on edge and his skin on fire. When they’re alone at some point, he snaps at him.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Nero accuses.
Vergil only crosses his arms in front of his chest and looks at him dismissively. No reply.
“Say something, asshole,” Nero says.
“I am not the one with a problem in this situation,” Vergil says coolly.
Nero growls. “Alright. Whatever. I’ll make it your problem if you don’t stop staring at me, okay? It’s annoying.”
Vergil seems to try to stare less, afterwards. And honestly? Nero didn’t think he would. Low fucking standards, but Vergil’s cleared them. Nero breathes a little easier.
On day two of the mission, they have already taken out most of the rogue summons, and were able to capture one of the witches from the coven. They attempted to interrogate her for the location of the rest, but were unsuccessful in getting her to talk, even after overt threats. Which wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing, by the way. But Vergil’s mere presence can be considered a threat sometimes, and when the witch spit in Nero’s face at some point, his father got scary. The witch somehow remained stead-fast in the face of Vergil’s full-on demonic aura and his little monologue about all the parts of her body that are expendable for her survival, and Nero shivers just thinking about it. Crazy fucker. Nero doesn’t even want to scold him for his misconduct afterwards, just wants to stay far away from the guy. One of their fellow hunters somehow has the bravery to tell Vergil off for the threats and miraculously she survives that. Vergil just gives her an icy shoulder, but doesn’t even try to kill her for criticizing him. Nero’s impressed.
Either way, they pass on the witch to local authorities and continue hunting down the rest.
By day four they are only missing two more coven members, who may or may not have fled the city, and the devil hunter team is coordinating to split up to track them down before they get out of range. Nero dreads letting either Dante or Vergil loose on their own, let alone the two of them together, so reluctantly, the three of them remain a team anyways.
It’s awful.
His thoughts have been torturing him at an annoying frequency and seem to only be getting worse.
I should fight them. They’re so strong. I beat them before. Do it again. Fight them. Beat them down. Make them submit. They would look so good beneath me. Push their faces in the dirt.
Nero isn’t sure what to make of that. Yeah, he wants to put the twins in their place, but those thoughts seem… uncomfortably charged, somehow. He refuses to examine them too closely.
They’re insistent though.
Fight them. Their skin must feel so good to slice. If they’re in their devil forms, their scales would feel so good to break. Fight them. Fight them. Fight them.
Powerful. Fight them.
Claws in them. Teeth in them. Their blood. Everywhere. Would probably smell and taste so good. Fight them.
It is incredibly fucking distracting. Nero isn’t sure he’s ever been this unable to reign the thoughts back in. Some of it is probably because he partially agrees with the ideas. They’re fucked up and graphic, sure, but he cannot deny that he wants to fight the twins. A little sparring would probably be nice, despite the fact that he’s sworn himself he would stop all three of them from fighting. Sparring wouldn’t count, right? It’s just the intensity of his desire and the colorful commentary that makes him really, really uncomfortable and he feels a bit dazed as the thoughts keep washing over him.
Fight them. Crush them. Tear them apart. Tear into them. Bite them. Put them down. Make them submit. Win them. Claim them.
Besides being forced to listen to his own fucked up thoughts, Nero is also painfully, viscerally aware of the twins’ presences in his close proximity. Vergil’s eyes rake Nero’s body like an icy caress and Dante’s steady aura may as well be a lava pit, burning into his periphery. It used to not feel this way, to be around Dante. Is that another change, since his Devil Trigger? Cold blue and hot red flames lick up his sides. No matter how many meters he stays in front of or behind the twins, he feels them. They burn his skin and melt his nerves. He wants to crush into them, he wants his teeth in them so fucking badly.
Dante has taken over the lead of their expedition in the wake of Nero seeming vaguely out of it and acts perfectly normal. Vergil, however, gives Nero speculative looks every now and then that feel like jolts of electricity through Nero’s bones whenever his eyes land on him. He has to try with all of his suffering restraint not to bare his teeth at Vergil in challenge.
God, he wants to fight them so bad.
A shiver wracks his body, from his toes, up, up, up, his spine all the way to the crown of his head and he suppresses a low, frustrated whine.
The twins both abruptly come to a halt, and turn around to him slowly, looking concerned.
“What?!” he bites out. Annoyed with his discomfort and on a short fuse because of it.
“You okay, kid?” Dante asks, sounding worried.
“Fuck off, I’m fine,” Nero barks at him. “What’s up with you?”
“You sure? You were…” his uncle trails off.
“I was was what, Dante?” Nero asks, heated and annoyed. If his uncle could stop acting like a lunatic suddenly, that would really help. He’s feeling awful enough as is.
“Crying,” Dante says.
He must have a screw loose.
“Fuck off, I’m not crying. Are you insane?” Nero protests.
Vergil chooses to interject. He speaks with an infuriating forced neutrality, “Not outwardly. Your demonic energy is crying out.”
“What, like a battle cry?” Nero scoffs, trying to reign himself back in. Fight them. Fight them. Fight them.
Dante snorts and Nero shoots him a death glare.
“Nah, like a little bitch,” Dante says with a lopsided grin, and something in Nero snaps. A shock wave of energy bursts across the street, bright and blue and hot. It takes every last shred of Nero’s humanity not to rip Dante’s throat out on the spot. Nero’s wings are flared and he’s barely restraining himself from ending this fucker’s life, right here, breathing hard, battle ready.
Vergil glares at his twin then, too, several Mirage Blades poised to strike Dante, in warning.
“Stand down, Dante,” Vergil says calmly, and Nero is hair trigger close to jumping them both. They don’t move. Slow, predictable movements. No twitching. Electricity runs up Nero’s spine. He flexes his claws. All four of his hands in fists. The world is sharply defined. A growl in his chest, that Nero suddenly notices rumbles with the bass of hell. He’s devil triggered and hadn’t even noticed.
“Bit touchy recently, are we?” Dante smirks, and that’s it.
Nero is on him in an instant, claws set out to decimate Dante, cut him apart into a million pieces.
They roll across the floor, wrestling each other. Dante is triggered then, too, in his lower demonic form. Nero’s wings are set out to immobilize him, his regular arms set to cut open every single one of his arteries. He’s currently grabbing for Dante’s torso, trying to get hold of his rib cage to tear it out and snap his spine, when Nero belatedly registers that Dante is laughing. The rumble of a volcano bubbling in his chest. “Sorry, kid,” he chuckles.
Nero catches a glimpse of Dante’s throat as he does so and Nero’s entire focus snaps to it. Disregarding everything else, with all the power he has, he holds Dante’s shoulders down and snaps his jaws towards Dante’s jugular.
When Nero blinks, he finds himself flung into the wall of a building, shattering through it, concrete falling down around him. Sharp pain hisses through his body as his mind catches up with what just happened. Vergil had kicked him off of Dante like a soccer ball before his jaws could connect. Nero picks himself out of the rubble with a snarl and gets ready to pounce Vergil in retaliation.
Vergil remains in his human form. He looks at his son with cold eyes, standing between him and his twin. “You will not attempt to claim Dante.”
Whatever the fuck that means, Nero disagrees. He growls, wings flared, teeth bared in a threat display, and pounces.
Vergil doges him and sends a barrage of Mirage Blades his way. Nero just tanks them and keeps coming after him, ignoring the pain and the building stagger. Snarling, snapping, clawing after his evasive father, who focuses on him with calculating concentration.
Then Nero closes in on him. Close enough to grab. One spectral hand reaching for each shoulder, Nero is ready to tear Vergil in two, when Vergil enters his own Devil Trigger. His lethal, fully demonic form bursts forth with another shock of energy and staggers Nero completely that time.
Vergil crushes him into the floor, clawed hand around his throat, choking him, and keeping Nero’s arms pinned with his knees. The sharp tip of his tail is set against Nero’s sternum in warning. Mirage blades slam through Nero’s wings to pin them to the floor as well.
Nero snaps his jaws at him and struggles fruitlessly. Vergil’s hold is firm.
Come on, do it, crush my windpipe or I’ll bite your face off, Nero snarls inwardly.
“And here I thought Kyrie’s request for us to ‘get along’ meant that you rejected your demonic inclinations,” Vergil says, voice soft somehow, considering it rumbles with the purr of the underworld. Nero latches onto the name.
Kyrie.
“Get along”?
Fuck.
What was I doing?!
Shocked, Nero de-triggers and grows slack in Vergil’s hold. He panics, realizing he probably shouldn’t just make himself defenseless, when Vergil very well could still want to kill him, but thankfully, Vergil de-triggers as well, eyes him for a while, and after he seems to be sure that Nero won’t attack him again, he gets off of him.
Nero stays lying on the floor where he is. Mortified. Ashamed. Confused. Hurt. Tired.
He watches Vergil walk over to Dante, who sits lazily across the street from them, watching their fight with a smirk. Vergil helps his twin to his feet and grabs Dante close by the shoulder. Vergil locks eyes with Nero as he puts a possessive hand against Dante’s neck, then he licks a line up the column of his brother’s throat with his tongue. His canines flash briefly from beneath his lips. Nero sees Dante shiver and sag minutely in Vergil’s hold.
What the fuck.
Vergil lets Dante go then. Dante sways a bit on his feet but looks happy like a cat who got the cream, and Vergil drags his eyes away from Nero to turn his back to him, walking off, down the street.
Dante saunters over to Nero, lopsided smirk in place, and offers him a hand to pull him up. “You feel better, kid?”
“What the fuck,” Nero whispers very softly. He manages no other words, lets himself be picked up, and follows the twins, dazed.