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The last explosion lights up a Frost, blasting it into light motes that disperse in the air. Lady crows, “Seven!”, as she swings the Kalina Ann onto her shoulder. She grins, then begins to make her way out. Trish descends from a balcony outside the warehouse, shimmers of static electricity around her dying down from Nero’s vantage point near the rolling metal door. He saddles Red Queen on his back in a practiced motion. As they gather outside, he whips out his cellphone.
After the third ring, the call goes through. Music blasts through the speaker, accompanied by Nico’s squawk of “You done yet?”
Quickly, Nero pulls the phone from his ear and puts her on speaker. “C’mon, Nico, it’s been less than an hour.” He irritatedly glances at Lady, who smirks and shakes her head. Trish glances between them, eyebrow quirked, then leaves to walk over to the main street. “We’re all near the red warehouse next to the street. You gonna pick us up?”
There is a crashing noise from the phone, then the sound of an engine starting up. “Gimme a few, numbnuts. The warehouses ‘round here are like a maze.” She hangs up without a goodbye.
Nero sighs, pocketing his phone. “Only seven?” he asks, as they join Trish by the road.
She wrinkles her nose at him. “Only? I got the majority of the bunch. How many did you bag?”
He grimaces. “That’s not what I meant. There weren’t that many on this job to begin with, and Nico and I came all the way out here for this. After splitting, will this job even cover our traveling expenses?”
“Let me deal with the client. She thought it was a bigger job than it turned out to be. I wouldn’t have called you out otherwise.” Lady takes out her phone. “I bet I can still wrangle some good money out of this.”
“Have things been quiet in Fortuna?” Trish chimes in. “Maybe you should think about establishing a second location.”
Lady raises her eyebrows at her and sets a hand on her hip. She gives Trish an exaggeratedly pointed look. “And start cutting into our jobs on the mainland? Dante’s not around to pay his debts off anytime soon --” She cuts herself off and looks down. Trish glances at Nero.
It was too soon for him. Two years too soon for her comment, but too long for it to be true. He had only just met his real father right before he left, exchanging no more than a few paltry quips. Dante, after being out of touch with him for so long, had called him deadweight, told him to protect the world while he was gone, then jumped off the fucking tree. It was as if they were trying to get away from him, trying to get away from everything --
Nero shakes his head and examines a crack in the warehouse’s cement driveway. They’d been gone long enough. Vergil had the Yamato, and should have been able to get back home. To get Dante back home. To get back to their friends and family. If only he could figure out why they were gone for so long --
He looks up at Lady with a sharp frown. “They’ll be back soon. Vergil owes me a rematch.”
She folds her arms and looks at him with a reserved expression. “To get back his book?”
“Because he’s an arrogant asshole!” Nero seethes, slowly becoming more unwound. “He wouldn’t be satisfied with the fight we had, after fighting Dante! And there’s nothing for them down there, anyway!” He gestures, arms outstretched, making erratic hand movements to the structures around them. “Everything is up here! Dante’s shop is up here, you guys are up here, pizza and booze and books are up here…” he tapers off.
“You’re up here,” Lady quietly points out.
Nero glares at Lady, letting his arms fall to his sides. “It’s not that I need them to do the jobs. Hell, just one of you would have been enough for this one. I’m pretty sure Dante left me up here just for emergencies.”
He grimaced. That had slipped out… but it was true. He was up here to clean up after their messes from down below. But that was what Dante did, wasn’t it? Cleaning up after Sparda’s and Vergil’s messes? It ran in the family. It was his burden now.
“In fact, you’re right, Trish!” He was starting to get worked up again, irrational. “I should be traveling to other gigs. Setting up a new branch. Looking for the emergencies. Shit might be going down right now on the other side of the planet, and I’m standing here doing fuck all because I can’t be assed to search!” Here, it wasn’t just about the jobs.
Lady sighs out her nose. “You’re one person, Nero. So was Dante. You take on one job at once, clear it up, and move on to the next one. Clearing out warehouses and neighborhoods is just as important as fighting some demonic god. It saves people’s lives, either way.” She readjusts Kalina Ann on her shoulder, considering her next words. “He shouldn’t have given you that responsibility in the first place. I’m human, and I can take care of these missions just as well. We play our part in all of this. People all over make their living as devil hunters, and for the most part, we’ve got it managed.”
Trish turns back to him. “Considering the fact that our jobs have been so minor, doesn’t that give you hope that they’re keeping up their end of the deal in hell? I’m sure they’re fine.”
Nero closes his eyes. “Let’s just drop it.”
The two ladies give each other a look, then face the road. Tires squeal as the van hops the corner, and it jerks to a stop in front of the warehouse driveway. Muffled music can be heard from the outside, before Nico rolls down the passenger window and calls, “Made ya wait long?”
They all pile into the van haphazardly before Nico takes off again, the women on the couch sitting together in quiet conversation, the jukebox dominating all sound. Nero kicks his feet on the dashboard and lights a cigarette for Nico. He watches the industrial hellscape pass by outside the opened window. Metal light poles, chain link fences, the dull gray of corrugated metal siding, and strands of electrical wire threaded above fly by. Cracked sidewalks and old, rusted fire hydrants slowly turn to avenues sparsely filled with dying grass and trees, branches shaking slightly in the wind. The bright colors of neon lighting from the urban sprawl of various strip malls help him clear his thoughts and start to relax. He’s in familiar territory now.
Nico eventually turns down the street of a residential section, and stops in front of a small cookie-cutter style bungalow. She puts the van into idle, then turns to the two women in the back. “This is yer stop! Customer should be in there.”
Trish smoothly makes her way out, but Lady stops behind Nero’s seat and sets a hand on his shoulder. “We need you here, Nero. Us, and your family, and your kids. There are more things we need you for than just killing monsters.” With a quick squeeze of her fingers, she then makes her escape from the van and shuts the door. Nero hears her turn to Trish and mutter, “He needs more time at home,” before Nico pulls away from the curb and turns them toward the freeway.
“What was that all about?” Nico eyes him suspiciously, chewing slightly on her cigarette. “You gettin’ all angsty ‘bout workin’ again?”
“I’m not angsty.” He frowns slightly at her. “There were just a bunch of small fry at the job. They didn’t need me there. We didn’t need to come all the way out here.”
She worries at the cigarette around in her teeth and narrows her eyes. “Sounded like it was ‘bout something more than the job.”
He sighs, then deflects. “I’m worried about keeping us afloat, Nico.” He turns to her. “You know I can take on more than this. It would bring more money in for Kyrie and the kids, and we always need more for the orphanage. You would be doing better, too.”
She takes a draw on her cigarette and blows a gust of smoke at him. “I am doin’ just fine. Not all of my business is concentrated on these jobs, bud. I’ve been sellin’ weapons out the ass from my shop since before you got yer arm back.” She starts iterating her speech with a finger pointed straight at him. “This,” a circle of the finger, “is more than just about the money. I get ‘nuf just by havin’ ‘yer name attached to the business. You worried I’m gonna up and leave? My best customer’s Lady, an’ she jus’ bought an upgrade to her bazooka last week.”
“Keep your eyes on the road,” he grumbles.
She huffs and starts wagging her finger faster. “Quit tryin’ to steer off the main issue! Kyrie’s new job with the city council also means that yer not having money issues neither. This is something else.”
“Nico,” Nero warns, letting frustration creep into his tone.
“Do ya miss Kyrie? Think she doesn’t need you anymore? Want to impress her with a big job and lotsa money?”
Nero snarls, “Kyrie and I are getting along fine. Everything’s fine. I’ve got nothing to prove here, Nico!”
“Naw!” She throws up her hand. “You’ve been moping around for months! I can’t read minds, but I figure it’s one of two things. Either yer bored - these jobs ain’t enough for you because yer too tough for ‘em - or yer just depressed. There’s been no change on yer end, just same old, same old.” She pauses to take a drag of her cigarette, then turns into a freeway exit. The coastline is in sight. “Things have been lookin’ up for Kyrie, school’s goin’ well for the kids, my business is boomin’... But you keep doing the same thing, day after day. I get why you wanna go out and look for disasters, but that’s not the only option for ya, and it’s not what the kids and Kyrie need.”
“Kyrie and the kids already have what they need.”
“And what they need is you! Sometimes, ya need something constant when everything else is changin’! Ya don’t think tha’ Kyrie’s job isn’t affectin’ the kids? She’s spendin’ more and more time in the office, and when yer out on the job, Julio has to play babysitter alone in that house!”
“There’s nothing different about when I’m at home! I work in the garage while the kids do their homework or play in the backyard! There’s already food to be warmed up in the fridge, and the neighborhood is safe enough --”
“And ya don’t go out and play with ‘em when they’re playing frisbee or soccer in the yard? Help Kyle with math when his shitty teacher gives ‘im three pages of it again in one night? And when Kyrie comes home, aren’t you the one warmin’ up food while she unwinds on the couch?”
“I do all that, but that’s because I’m doing nothing else! They don’t need me, anybody could come waltz in and pick up what I’m doing --”
Nico jams her foot down on the brake and slams the van into the stop near the ferry’s loading dock. “The fuck you mean anyone could waltz in and do that?” She grips the wheel with whitened knuckles, furious. “You think that someone’s gonna come in an’ replace you? You and Kyrie have been together, what, forever! An’ if you think the kids are gonna be hunky-dory with some stranger comin’ in and asking them to call him ‘Dad’, after all the shit that they’ve been through --”
“Am I even a dad, at this point? They. don’t. need. me.” His jaw is starting to hurt from clenching his teeth.
Nico spreads her arms into the air, violently. “This is what dads do! Work in the garage! Fix up the house! Help make dirnner! Work on homework! Yer a good dad! They love ya! And now ya wanna up and leave when everything’s peaceful, everything’s workin’ out, things are lookin’ up --”
“I’ve got a responsibility --”
“Yer trying to cling to the whole ‘strength is a responsibility’ thing like fuckin’ Spider Man! Doesn’t help that yer Uncle Dante is playing Uncle Ben by trusting ya with the safety of the whole world!” She points her right index finger at the roof of the van to signal Nero to shut up. The van rumbles up to the ferry loading gate, and Nico quickly hands the toll-taker a few bills with a dry, “We’re back.” The gate goes up, and the van dips and rocks as they assume one of the many parking spots on the cargo deck.
“Yer responsibility,” she breathes in the fumes from a newly lit cigarette, “is to yer family. The world is the world, and it will take care of itself.” She crushes the end of the cigarette into her side ashtray, then takes it back up as the butt glows to life again. “And it’s not even about the responsibility, neither.” She settles down into the bulk of the seat, crossing her cigarette-free arm across her waist. Avoids his eye contact and stares out the front windshield. “You miss ‘em.”
Something snaps within him, and his eyes hurt. They burn. But it’s not fire, it’s water. He pulls his feet off the dash, roughly setting them on the rubber car mat. Looks at his boots. “I’m dealing with it,” he growls. He’s been managing his temper well, so far.
“You hid that poetry book in the glove box, and whenever ya think I’m focusing on repairs, I see ya take it out and look at it. But you never look inside.” she says quietly. Sighs. “It’s been a while. Let’s actually talk ‘bout it.”
His arms tense. “Let’s not.”
She ignores his comment. “I know ya wanna do something ‘bout this. Wanna be proactive ‘bout gettin’ them back. You’ve already lost a lot of people.”
“So have you,” he grates. His fingers clench into fists.
She frowns. “I’ve still got my uncle, Rock. We keep in touch. You’ve still got Kyrie, and the kids. We’ve got people to be around for.”
“I’ve got people to be around for, on both sides!” His voice is rising. “If they’re still alive, I’m not going to leave them down there!”
“They’re capable of leaving on their own!” She snaps, exasperated. “They’ll come back in their own time.”
He whips his head up towards her, furious. “It’s been two years, Nico! They would have come back by now! They’re the last real family I have left! I had to save them up in that damned tree, because they were trying to kill each other!”
She tenses up with a grimace. “They’ll. come. back.”
“How do you know that?” He yells. “Your dad didn’t come back!”
Fuck. He had been trying to keep it in check.
Nico glares at him with eyebrows obscured under the rim of her thick glasses, cigarette pinched between her index and middle finger, exhaling smoke. He needs more space. Swinging around from the passenger seat, he storms away from the van, loops around the vehicle cargo section of the ferry, and climbs his way up onto the top of the stern. It is cloudless and windy, and he is surrounded by millions of shades of white and blue. The blue of the sky, the blue of the ocean, the blue and white accents of the ship, the blue of his coat and white of his hair…
So he sets his pale arms on the blue and white railing and concentrates on that. Sighs out and breathes the colors back in, grappling with his swirling emotions. Aligns himself with the scenery. He’s been trying to be better with that. With emotional control. He’s not just some kid anymore, needs to play a better role for the family…
The spray of a wave hitting the side of the ship leaves his mouth tasting salty. It is like tears, or blood. He is here, now, whole. Outside, at least. Physically. They are down below. They are fighting, and searching for a way out; or they are bickering with each other, over the rule and empire of the dead and the demons; or they, themselves, are dead.
If he could make his way through the tower his father had raised years ago, or find a path down from the sinkhole the Qliphoth had left in that skeleton of a city, and then find them…
Would they be proud of him, for keeping the overworld, their home, safe? Would they willingly follow him back, as Orpheus their guide? Would he have to drag them, kicking and screaming, rend with teeth and claw until deathly reds became the lively blues that he now faced, diverse and vibrant, all around him…
Were they going to come back at all? Were they trapped? And if he did make his way down, navigate his homeland by quarter-birth, would he likewise be stuck in the seething morass, exchanging one family for the possibility of another?
Would his children be thinking of him as he thought of his father, two years from now?
Was he going to do to them what his family had done to him?
He sighs, then scrubs his face and up to his hair with his bare hands. Leans again, heavier, onto the railing. He had his responsibilities above, to both sides of his family. One, to play father with no experience or prior understanding to children who once had a real family. He had no role model to form some semblance of how to act, how to lead. He was already failing them, by considering to leave, by repeating the mistakes of his predecessors, again.
The other responsibility, the promise to clean up his blood family’s messes, bound him here even further. But the mess was his family. The mess was what he inherited, not just the strength and duty. The lack of communication, the abandonment, the loss. If he was going to clean the mess up, that’s what he needed to fix. The responsibility to each side ended up being the same promise, in the end. He needed to be home. To stay with his family, the one that was here now, fully formed, waiting for him. He had lost one, and now he was putting himself on the path where he could lose both.
So he opens his eyes, grudgingly makes his decision, and retraces his path back to the van. It seems that she’s rolled at the windows up, like a turtle that’s retreated into its shell. Nico is still sitting in the front seat, arms crossed, expression dark and heavy in the stony silence. He settles himself in the shotgun position, but doesn’t kick back as he had before. Hands in his lap, he leans back slightly, breathes out his nose, and turns to her.
“You’re right.”
“ ‘Bout what? That yer a dumbass who can’t see the forest fer the trees?”
“That I need to be around, up here, with my family.”
“Finally got it through yer thick skull?”
“Guess I need someone to knock some sense into it.”
Without turning her head, she eyes him, features turning glare into a softening frown. “Ya realize,” she says slowly, “I consider you to be part of my family.”
Guilt surges through him, and he turns his head up to the ceiling of the van. “You don’t deserve any of my shit. Any of this shit. I’m sorry.”
She sighs out, shoulders slowly relaxing. “Part of the job description.” She stays quiet for a while, looking at the dead lights of her indicators on the dash. Eventually she mutters, “Things will look up.”
Head still facing the ceiling, Nero closes his eyes. “We’ll keep moving forward,” he confirms.
They sit, keeping the rest of their thoughts to themselves, until the ferry’s horn signals that they are close to land. Nero can feel the moment where the inertia of the ship slows down, hears the rumbling of the mechanized grate that will bridge and connect the ferry to the island. He opens his eyes as he notices Nico shifting in her seat, getting back into driving position. She opens her mouth to place yet another cigarette in, but he nicks the lighter from the center console faster than she can react. She raises her eyebrows at him, but softly smirks and leans over as he gives her a light.
The van rumbles to life again, and they wait as the few vehicles in front of them cross the boundary between land and sea. Nero rolls down his window, and instead of pure blue, is greeted in tandem with the yellow rays of the sun and the marbled outcrop of the coastline. Familiarity sinks comfortably right to the marrow of his bones. The wind has died down, and it is warm enough that the swarms of people near the ports have rolled up their sleeves. He checks the clock on the dash. Carlo and Kyle are probably playing on the swings in the backyard, now.
He leans on the window with one arm, stretches feet on the dash, and closes his eyes. The smell of the bakery mixes with the tang of ocean musk. Then, the sounds of the fountain. From there it’s the clatter of the van running over cobblestones, brakes squeaking slightly as they start and stop, start and stop. Nico takes her time driving, gently steering the van through the curves and the intersections. He finds himself lulled back down, deeper into his consciousness.
Nero doesn’t realize he’s home until Nico snaps him back to awareness with a gentle nudge. He grabs his gear, then pauses. With some consideration, he opens up the glove compartment and places the book of poems into the interior pocket of his coat. Nico merely nods at him, so he bids her safe travel, steps out of the van. The path up to the two-story house is still wet from the rain that morning. He breathes it in, and opens the door. A rousing cry goes up to the tune of, “Dad!”
His kids are back from school, are waiting for him.
This is where he belongs.