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mokulule · 2 hours ago

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What I Didn't Know I Lost - Part 4

Fandom: Devil May Cry Gen fic, Vergil & Nero Summary:

Weakened from his defeat as Nelo Angelo, Vergil has been in the grasp of Agnus and used to create the Angelos. Through a twist of fate he manages to get a broken Yamato early, but he's not entirely there mentally. Teen Nero has a no good bad horrible day and gets kidnapped for his trouble.

Part 1 | Masterpost

Nero woke with a gnawing hunger in his stomach and a mouth so dry and icky it felt like something had died in there. His teeth were the worst, what he wouldn’t give for a toothbrush, and some food, and some water. Honestly just water sounded heavenly about now. Cold refreshing water. He groaned and rolled away from the warmth and onto his back. These dirtbags really weren’t much better than the ground, but felt it a bit better outside of the spot he’d packed hard with his weight.

He tried not to think about how he’d been basically hugging his kidnapper for warmth the entire night.

The barest of light was slipping through the various cracks in between planks, illuminating the shed he vaguely remembered them seeking shelter in. Nero looked at the dark ceiling, doing his best to order the confusing events of yesterday - heck the last two days.

Nero was no longer on Fortuna. He had been both kidnapped and rescued in turn. Nero inexplicably knew that he was safe, at least from demons in his kidnapper’s presence, though clearly not safe from starvation. Something that wasn’t so surprising considering his kidnapper didn’t seem to have any sort of needs other than holding his sword.

Also he had petted Nero’s hair.

That one was pretty much beyond Nero’s ability to explain, and it awoke all kinds of feelings that were better left buried, so Nero decided to ignore the event entirely.

Nero couldn’t stay lying here, he really needed to find some water or a dirty puddle would start to look tempting.

He got up and stretched, sparing a glance for his kidnapper, unresponsive, sitting crosslegged with the unsheathed blade in his lap. Somehow even with so little light it still managed to catch and reflect it.

Nero stared for a moment, drawn to the play of the light dancing across the wave pattern on the steel. If he just reached out, it would give him-

Nero took a step back shaking his head to clear it. Fuck, it was hypnotic. He turned and went for the door. The sudden light when he opened the door was blinding. He squinted and raised a hand to shade his eyes. The sun was high in the sky, not so strange it was past morning, who knows how late it had been.

There were actual people around the park. A woman with a dog jogging on the path. Some guy was reading a newspaper with a to-go coffee cup on the bench next to him. An elderly lady with a pair of young children, possibly her grandchildren were feeding ducks by the pond. It was different from Fortuna, particularly the way they dressed, but it was just regular people living their lives.

Nero couldn’t help but laugh. Up to this point it could have all been some kind of strange nightmare of kidnappings and demons, but no this was reality. Punctuated by the real people who didn’t live Nero’s mess of a life.

The jogger stopped at a drinking fountain drawing Nero’s attention. Immediately he limped towards it. He should also probably at some point have a look at the wound. It would be bad if it got infected. Not that he really had any way to prevent it even if he did look at it.

Someone in a business suit gave him the kind of disparaging stare he was used to from back home, as he walked past him while on the phone.

Finally he reached drinking fountain. The cool water hit his dry mouth and he didn’t think he’d ever tasted anything better. He never wanted to move away from this drinking fountain ever again.

Eventually, when Nero’s belly felt so full of water it felt like he could jiggle it if he tried, he put his head into the stream of water and started to wash off the worst of the grime from his face. He rubbed his teeth with a finger, and idly scratched at the worst of the plaque with a nail.

A shadow fell over him and Nero didn’t even need to straighten back up and look to know who had joined him. He sighed and did it anyways. In the stark daylight the similarity between the two of them was again all too clear and Nero’s heart ached that he couldn’t get any answers. After a moment of passively observing Nero, his kidnapper turned around and presumably started walking in the same direction they’d been going the entire time.

Nero sighed, stuck his hands in his pockets and started limping after him. Perhaps his kidnapper was part homing pigeon, it made about as much sense as the rest.

They were out of the rich neighborhood and into the city proper at this point. And it was definitely a city, large buildings of various architectural styles lined the streets from older highly decorated generally square buildings to smooth surfaces of steel and glass that rose up in strange light reflecting shapes that felt more like attempts to defy expectations than homes built for people. It was at least interesting enough to look at.

Another thing that made it clear this was a city was the sheer amount of people. In the sunshine Nero was all too aware he was following a practically catatonic demon man in a tattered and blood splattered cloak. He had already lost count of the freaked out looks his kidnapper had gotten as people walked in a wide berth around them.

It did not help that his kidnapper was walking with a sword either. They couldn’t know sword was broken - not that that make the sword any more terrifying, but most people would consider a broken sword like that more akin to a nice, which seemed a little let threatening. It wasn’t long before Nero pulled up his hoodie and hunched his shoulders.

It could only be so long before this city’s equivalent of the Order of the Sword got called.

Several hours later, Nero wasn’t sure whether to doubt the efficacy of their authorities or what it took for people to report to them here. Nero understood just minding his own business, but it was a strange difference from Fortuna.

They were passing across a plaza where a big market was held when Nero’s stomach made itself known with a loud growl. Nero had been doing his best not to think about the gnawing hunger, and also fully intended to continue to do so, but evidently the noise was enough to draw the attention of his kidnapper. He stopped and turned around passive eyes landing on Nero’s stomach.

Nero felt himself growing bright red under the attention. It was a relief when his kidnapper finally turned back around, but the relief was short lived and turned to horror as he walked over to a stall selling baked goods and just grabbed a handful of buns. The stall owner protested, but was evidently victim of the dead gaze cause they quieted with a strangled noise and took a step back.

Apparently satisfied with his intimidation, he turned back around and walked, that same steady walk as always back to Nero - as if he hadn’t just terrified some stall owner and stolen their goods, as if every single person in the crowd wasn’t looking at them right now - and then he dumped four sugary buns in Nero’s hands.

Nero’s heart galloped, and the blood rushed in his ears as he watched the crowd watch them, wide eyes and frowns. Any moment now surely something would happen. Time stretched and it felt like an eternity, and then it snapped, as Nero’s kidnapper resumed his trek and the crowd parted for him. Nero hunched his shoulders so his face was further hidden in his hoodie and hurried to follow.

The unnatural hush of the crowd followed them and Nero only relaxed once they were off the plaza down a smaller road. HIs shoulders fell down in relief. He remembered all too well the slaughtered knights on the docks. If they had provoked Nero’s kidnapper in a crowd like that… He shuddered just at the thought of it.

He looked down at the sweet buns, and disquiet or not, he was starving. The first bun was gone in just a few mouthfuls of freshly baked, soft, sweet, and spiced bread. Nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cardamum - autumn spices, he decided as he finally slow down enough to actually chew. It was so good. He closed his eyes momentarily and took a deep breath through his nose at the swell of tangled emotion.

Was Nero just imagining it or was his kidnapper more aware? Was there a chance he’d recover enough faculties that he could answer Nero’s questions? He tried desperately not to let himself hope, but he had responded to Nero’s hunger, that was already way beyond what Nero thought possible just earlier today.

He took a bite of the second bun as he pondered. He still really should find a way to get home, figure out where he was at least. The issue with that however was that while Nero was currently allowed some degree of freedom, it was likely that if he strayed he would just be retrieved again. He could have asked some people on the street, but the thought of drawing even more attention than they already did ran cold down Nero’s back.

His kidnapper was the evil he knew, an evil who might not be so evil after all - at least not when it came to Nero.

They had passed several bright red phone booths but Nero didn’t have any money on him, not that it was likely it was the same currency, and who knows how much a collect call would cost Credo and Kyrie - yeah he was not gonna be doing that.

He sighed and put those thoughts aside, instead wondering how long they’d be walking today. His leg at least felt a little bit better today, though he’d not had a chance to look at it.

Judging by the position of the sun, his kidnapper’s favored direction was mostly south, they could be going somewhere or maybe it was just a migratory pattern, like birds flying south to overwinter. Nero would not mind warmer weather that was for sure, but it would be a bit exasperating if he’d taken them away from still comfortably warm Fortuna to this cold kinda damp place only to realize his mistake and decide walking back was the best option.

Nero huffed, amused despite it all. The random thoughts of a bored mind.

It was late enough the streetlights had turned on, when the end of the small street they were on were suddenly blocked by three cars with blinking blue lights. Six people wearing similar dark colored uniforms exited the cars rapidly, one person stepped forward calling out.

“Put down the sword, and put your hands up.”

Nero looked in alarm from his kidnapper to what was clearly this place’s authorities that had finally been called. His kidnapper of course simply continued walking.

“He doesn’t understand,” Nero called, holding up his own hands.

Nero’s words didn’t even seem to register. Instead guns were drawn, cocked and pointed towards them.

“Stand down or we will open fire!”

It felt like a rock fell into Nero’s stomach. He looked desperately from his kidnapper walking unwaveringly to the idiots with no clue what they were dealing with.

“Don’t shot!” It was the best he could articulate with terror gripping his throat. How was he supposed to even warn them? What words could encompass the sheer impossibility of what Nero’s kidnapper could do? How they would even see him before they died.

There was a long drawn out moment encompassing two more inevitable steps, and then the first shot was fired.

A bang quickly followed by a clang and the deafening silence afterwards as the hapless, idiots tried to understand what had just happened. That Nero’s kidnapper had drawn the broken blade so unbelievably fast and reflected the shot.

The air around them tightened and Nero gasped at the pressure. He felt more than saw the way they realized their mistake, the sudden terror in the air, but instead of running - oh they should have just run - they all fired their guns.

A cacophony of gunfire and clangs rang out until one by one their guns were emptied of bullets, like the countdown of their last moments alive. Nero’s kidnapper shifted his feet low in that by now all too familiar pose. Nero couldn’t breathe, everything zeroed in on that one moment, that blade singing for blood.

Then it snapped.

Nero didn’t even know he’d been running, didn’t know how he could have possibly moved that fast. One moment he was frozen in terror. The next he was standing in front of that first yelling idiot, arms spread out, his kidnapper in front of him breathing heavily, the blade paused only an inch from the junction between his neck and shoulder, where it would have otherwise sliced him apart had his kidnapper stopped just a fraction of a second later.

Nero’s jaw trembled. His heart pounded so hard in his chest he couldn’t breathe.   “Please,” he begged forcing the air out, “no more.”

Slowly, he reached up, and pushed on the hands to remove the blade from so close to his neck. They allowed themselves to be moved with no resistance and Nero dared look up to actually meet his kidnapper’s eyes; they were blown wide, whites showing all around and the blackness of his pupils almost swallowing the blue. Nero had no idea what was going on inside that head of his, but right now he looked as terrified as Nero felt.

Somehow, that brought peace to Nero and he let go of a breath in a relieved sigh. It gave him the courage to gently encircle his fingers around his kidnapper’s left hand, leaving the blade only in his right, and then he took the hand properly and turned around.

Nero intended to look up to face the terrified man he’d shielded, but quickly found that the man’s legs had collapsed underneath him at some point and he was now sitting on the ground. The gun dropped uselessly at his side. The others were cowering behind car doors.

“We’re leaving,” Nero announced. “You shouldn’t follow. I don’t know if I could stop him again.”

Nero waits for some sort of acknowledgment but when nothing happens, he starts walking between the cars, pulling his kidnapper along behind him.

The calloused and bigger hand was warm in his and there was a humming, strange and warm feeling or energy in Nero’s chest he could’t explain. Like if he wanted to he could grow wings and fly - but of course that was ridiculous.

And that's part 4 done. I'm having fun. Are you having fun? What sort of obstacles will we meet next on the father son bonding roadtrip?

I would love to hear what ya'll think :)

Subscribing to the story can be done at the masterpost

#devil may cry #dmc #pre dmc4 #Vergil Kidnaps Nero #nero #vergil #dadgil #see we're slowly getting there

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