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luxaofhesperides · 5 months

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For the ghostlights drabbles: “Say my name” with a favor being called in?

Duke had saved Phantom years ago, back when he was just out of high school and working to take down a branch of the government that was kidnapping and experimenting on people, targeting magic users and metas. Phantom had been working on his own to take them down, and they met in the middle, trashing a lab and freeing as many people as they could.

They had managed to shoot his back, knocking him down and making him bleed a glowing green. Phantom couldn’t move, protecting two kids with his body, and Duke couldn’t reach them in time before they were taken away by another swarm of agents.

He was able to go after them in time, free Phantom and the kids, and evacuated the victims before Phantom rained hell down on the facility.

At the end, standing in the background as they watched paramedics treat the victims and take them towards the nearest hospitals, Phantom had turned towards him and thanked him.

Or rather, he thanked the Signal and offered him a bracelet with a rounded orb of ice, glowing faintly in the dark. If you ever need me, he had said, Hold this, and call me name.

Phantom vanished once the last of the victims were transported to a safer location, and Duke hadn’t seen him since.

He’s kept up with news about Phantom as best he can, but from what he could tell, Phantom is based primarily in Amity Park, Illinois, and the town is fiercely protective of their hero. News rarely leaks out of there, and with them running on their own servers and independent internet, it was nearly impossible to get in from the outside.

Phantom remained a curious and distant figure in Duke’s life. He holds onto the bracelet still, guarding it carefully and sometimes running his fingers over the ice that never melts.

But he doesn’t call in that favor. He’s never to.

At least, not until now.

Sucking in a breath, Duke prepares himself and holds the orb of ice in the palm of his hand. He’s in civies, unable to hide his identity for this, and closes his eyes. “Phantom,” he says.

For a moment, nothing happens. Duke blinks his eyes open and frowns, mind already forming new plans to contact Phantom. Then the ice goes bitingly cold, almost painful, and the temperature in the room drops dramatically. The ice lifts up from his hand, floating in the air, then cracks open.

White-blue light spills out of it, growing brighter as it seems to swallow up the room entirely. Duke hurries to back up, an arm thrown up to protect his eyes. His breath mists out before him and he shivers as the sound of ice cracking fills the room.

And then, just as suddenly as it started, the light disappears and the cold fades away like a bad dream.

Slowly, Duke lowers his arm and looks up at Phantom, floating in the middle of his living room with a crown made of ice, engulfed in blue fire, hovers above his head. He looks older, more regal, holding his head high.

He regards Duke carefully for a minute, then tilts his head and says, “Signal?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Man, I’m so glad you came.”

“You… need help with something? You’re calling in your favor now, right?”

Duke nods. He understands Phantom’s confusion; being in the hero business means that favors like these tend to be used only during the most hopeless of times, when the world is close to ending, when the chances of getting out of a situation alive is close to impossible. It’s exactly the kind of thing Duke was expecting to call Phantom in for.

Not the kid sleeping on his couch.

“You’re a ghost, yeah?”

Phantom blinks at him. “Ghost king, now. Why?”

“Well…” Duke rubs the back of his neck, nervously. “I didn’t really know who else to call, and I can’t do this on my own since I’m not a ghost. But this kid got attached to me and won’t leave, so now I’m taking care of her and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I don’t know why you think I have any experience with kids but—”

“She’s a ghost.”

Phantom stops short. “Ah. I see.” He floats down until his feet touch the floor, and then he’s standing like any other person. “Where…?”

Duke looks past Phantom’s shoulder, and Phantom turns to follow his gaze. Chelsea, the ghost girl, looks to be around nine years old and is fast asleep on the couch, curled up under Duke’s softest blanket.

“Signal,” Phantom says quietly, “What, exactly, is the favor you need from me?”

“You can say no,” Duke starts. “I get that this is a lot. But I need help raising her. And since you’re a ghost, I figured you could help me learn about the ghostly side of things. You don’t have to raise her with me or anything! Just… I would appreciate any help you’re willing to give me.”

Phantom doesn’t say no. He doesn’t say anything. He just stares down at Chelsea, an unreadable expression on his face.

On the couch. Chelsea shifts in her sleep, brows furrowing as she makes a choked noise in the back of her throat.

Moving on autopilot after so many nights of this routine, Duke kneels next to the couch, fishing one of her hands from beneath the blanket. He gives it a few reassuring squeezes, keeping it a slow rhythm to pull her gently from her nightmare. She settles down in just a minute, brow smoothing out as she continues to sleep.

The silence grows and Duke is all too aware that his heart is the only one beating.

He doesn’t hear Phantom move. Doesn’t realize he’s right next to him until he sees Phantom’s hand reach out towards Chelsea. When Duke looks, Phantom is sitting on the floor next to Duke, looking at Chelsea with something soft and devastated in his eyes. His hand hovers about her head for a long moment, then slowly lowers to rest on her head.

The touch looks gently, barely putting any pressure on her head, but it’s enough to make Chelsea’s eyes snap open, suddenly wide awake. She stares at Phantom with wide eyes, then sits up and looks between him and Duke.

“Who are you?” she asks in a small voice that makes Duke want to stand against the world to keep her safe.

Phantom smiles. It’s casual and charming and makes him look like anyone else, as if he’s not a powerful king from a realm unreachable to humans. “Hi there,” he says, “I’m Danny. I’m a ghost like you. Signal called me and asked me to meet you.”

The Ghost King is good with kids. Who would have thought?

Chelsea looks at him for confirmation and only relaxes when he nods. “I’m Chelsea. What do you mean ghost? I’m not dead.”

Both he and Phantom tense, carefully keeping their expressions neutral. She hasn’t told him much at all, just that her parents were gone and forgot her and she got hurt, so she wanted to stay with ‘Mr. Signal’ because he’s a hero and heroes keep people safe and he was the only one who was Black like her. Duke hadn’t had the heart to say no, and began searching for her family, only to find that her parents had fled the state, and likely the country, after killing their only child through neglect and a dangerous environment.

It was then that he realized that her powers were not because she was a meta, but because she was ghost.

It still hurts to realize how young she is, how much of her life had been stolen from her in an instant. Duke hadn’t been brave enough to broach the topic with her, instead choosing to let her grow comfortable in his presence, get them both settled into a routine now that he was her primary guardian.

“I know it sounds scary,” Phantom says, “And you may not want to believe me, but it’s true. I’m sorry that you died so young, but that just means you get to hang out with me and other ghosts from now on!”

Chelsea crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. “I am not dead,” she says.

“Cici, I’m sorry to say this, but you are,” Duke cuts in. “That’s why I called… Danny. You have new powers as a ghost, and he can help you get used to them.”

“I’m not dead!” she says again.

“Kid,” Phantom begins, but Chelsea shakes her head hard and hops off the couch.

“I’m not lying! Watch, I’ll prove it to you!” She closes her eyes and scrunches up her nose, concentrating. Her hands curl into tight fists by her sides, and the glow around her grows dim. Two faint, stuttering rings of light appear around her waist. They flicker and wobble in the air, as if weak and uncertain of their own existence, then split apart, one moving up towards her head while the other falls to her feet.

Beside him, Phantom sucks in a sharp breath, but Duke can’t turn to see what’s wrong when he’s trying to take in the sight of Chelsea suddenly full of vibrant color, looking more solid that he’s ever seen her, very much alive.

“See?” she says proudly, lifting her arms and doing a spin to show off her right she was. “I told you I’m not dead!”

“No, you’re not,” Phantom agrees, sounding shell-shocked. When Duke is finally able to look away from Chelsea to check on him, he looks awed. There’s the smallest smile on his face, just the slightest upturn of his lips, but it makes him look softer.

Duke turns his attention back to Chelsea before he can be caught staring. “Cici, can you come here for a second?”

She goes before he’s finished speaking, crossing the space between them in a single jump, then grins up at him. Her hair is a bit of a mess, the two buns he managed to get her hair into falling askew. He makes a note to visit the old aunties in the Narrows later to ask them to teach him how to do hair. For now, he holds out a hand and Chelsea drops an arm into it.

It seems to good to be true, having her be alive, but her pulse is steady and strong when he presses his thumb against the inside of her wrist.

“Well,” he says, leaning back and letting go of her arm. “You certainly proved us wrong.”

Chelsea doesn’t have much time to look smug before PHantom quietly says, “You’re like me.”

“What?”

“You’re like me,” he tells Chelsea. “A halfa.”

She tilts her head to one side. “What’s that?”

“Someone who is half human and half ghost. Both dead and alive.”

Duke blinks, taking in the words, then turns to face Phantom so quickly he’s worried he might give himself whiplash. Halfa, he said. Like me, he said.

And sure enough, two rings of light, bright and strong, appear around Phantom’s waist before splitting in half, moving over his entire body.

Gone is the Ghost King, all powerful and adorned in dark clothing with a crown of ice above his head. In his place is a guy who looks to be Duke’s age, eyes a deep blue and his black hair messy, feet set solidly on the floor. He looks completely normal, completely human, and no longer an impossibility.

“You still up for learning how to use all your new powers?” Phantom asks.

Chelsea grins. “Yeah!” And then, with a quick flick of her eyes going from Phantom to Duke that he almost misses, very innocently asks, “Are you going to stay with us then?”

“I… don’t know?” Phantom looks to Duke for an answer.

Already, Duke can see this going two ways. The correct way forward, the normal one, has Phantom popping in every so often, taking Chelsea out for a few hours to work on training her and her powers. It’s easy and routine and they can keep their boundaries uncrossed and be professional.

The other path is what Duke wants most that he shouldn’t impose onto the literal Ghost King. He could have Phantom living with them while he’s on Earth and out of Amity Park, having a place at the table, a section in the closet for his own clothes, a quietly domestic night together while Chelsea sleeps where they can get to know each other more, get to know each other outside of news reports and texts on a screen.

“You can stay with us if you want,” Duke offers, casually, “It might keep my apartment safe from her powers acting up on their own again.”

“Are you sure? I could always just fly in on the weekends or something.”

“I’d appreciate having you around. So you can help Cici.”

“If you don’t mind,” Phantom says, looking away. Like this, fully alive with a beating heart, it’s easy to see the blush steal away across his cheeks.

“I don’t.”

“I don’t either!” Chelsea pops in, looking far too gleeful by their awkward conversation.

Duke can’t help but laugh, feeling lighter than he had in ages. The relief of knowing that Chelsea is alive, for the most part at least, eases the guilt of thinking he had been too late to save her, that there was no chance she could have made it out and had a future, makes him feel weak. All the exhaustion of the past few weeks hits him all at once and he wants nothing more than to collapse in bed and sleep for twelve hours.

“Alright, squirt,” he says, reaching out to pat her head. “It’s late. We can talk more in the morning, so go to bed. In your actual bed this time, not on the couch.”

Chelsea stands up taller, ready to argue, but Duke gives her a Look™ and she quickly shuts her mouth, nods, and drags her feet back to her room (the former guestroom he can never give any of the other Waynes ever again, once they find out about her).

Sighing, Duke collapses onto the couch once he hears the door shut behind her. Phantom joins him after a few seconds, sitting tentatively on the edge of the couch. The cushion moves beneath his weight, another reminder of how solid and alive he is right not.

Duke wants to touch him, to reach out and feel for himself his pulse, the warmth of his body, his chest lifting with each breath.

He doesn’t move. He stays where he is, hands carefully still, and tries to think past the dizzying thoughts of she’s still alive, I’m not too late, he’s still here, he’s alive.

“Rough week?” Phantom asks, voice purposefully light.

“Something like that.”

“You should get some sleep too.”

“I don’t think I can. Not after everything. My mind’s too loud right now.”

Phantom shifts closer to him, hesitant in a way that Duke has never seen before in him, and asks, “Want me to stay with you until you mind quiets down some?”

“Yeah. I’d like that. Thanks, Phantom.”

“You know, if I’m going to be around so often as Chelsea’s halfa mentor, then you might as well call me Danny.”

Truth be told, Duke didn’t think that was his real name. He’s glad to know it’s not.

“Then call me Duke.”

“...Are you sure? You could still hide your identity from me.”

“Nah, I trust you. A name for a name, yeah?”

Danny smiles. “Duke,” he says, testing out the name, and it’s never sounded better than when it falls from Danny’s mouth.

“Danny,” Duke returns. He belatedly realizes that they’ve leaned towards each other, drawn together like gravity, stuck in each other’s orbit. It feels natural. It feels like this is where they’re meant to be.

Maybe he should be more cautious. They’ve only meant once before, after all. But he’s read all he could on Phantom and has seen how Amity Park loves him. He’s stressed and exhausted and trying to figure out how to look after a half-ghost child that’s already been dealt a bad hand in life. He should be keeping Phantom at a distance, watching over him carefully to ensure he isn’t a threat to Chelsea.

But Duke saw how he acted with Chelsea, so gentle and understanding and kind. That’s all he needed to see.

He may not know much about Danny, but he knows this: he is trustworthy.

Enough to entrust his identity to him.

Enough to entrust Chelsea to him.

It’s more than a favor; it’s a promise to walk this road together.

There’s no one he’d rather do this with.

“Thanks,” he says again, “For all of this. I know it’s a lot.”

Danny shrugs. “I don’t mind. Really. It’s nice to know there’s another halfa out there, no matter how she came to be one. Makes things feel less lonely.”

“Will you tell me more about halfas?”

“Later. Once you get some proper rest. We’ve got time, haven’t we?”

“We do,” Duke agrees, affection settling warm in his chest. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Learning how to control her new powers won’t be easy for Chelsea. Learning how to take care of her won’t be easy. Learning how to do things together, as Duke and Danny rather than the Signal and Phantom, won’t be easy. But Duke knows with a certainty he feels in his bones that they’re going to be fine.

So long as they’ve got each other, they’ll be fine.

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp fic #prompt fill #my writing #thought a lot abt what the favor could be but i could not resist the idea of surprise co-parents once i thought of it #here's a kid who clings to someone she knows is safe bc she is scared and alone!!#heres a stressed out hero trying to take care of a kid with no knowledge of how to do that!! and the kid is a ghost!!#heres a ghost king expecting to be used as a weapon and called in for a big battle suddenly finding another halfa!!!#so much going on here. so much to think abt with this!!!!!#i do love found family like this where they all kinda stumble into it and do their best to make it good #also could not resist making yet another oc. chelsea has my whole heart i love her <3 shes my daughter first #the bats dont know abt chelsea yet!! bc she can go invisble. its all been instinct every time they pop over to visit duke #soon she'll be able to control it and meet them properly #by properly i mean dukes gonna go over for sunday brunch and a little girl is gonna pop out from behind him like 'hi! im new!'#they will all love her of course. they will be shocked but happy!!#and a little less happy abt the GHOST KING duke has been hiding in his apartment that hes co-parenting with #sorry for the long tags im obsessed w this idea i want to Expand on it #maybe one day... with my other wips out of the way...

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ohbutwheresyourheart · 23 days

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I have far too many half-written things in my google docs that have never seen the light of day, so I've decided to start buffing up the best ones and posting them unfinished. Maybe I'll come back to them later, or if not at least someone will hopefully enjoy reading them as they are.

First up: fragments from a WIP based on the concept that Eva did not actually die when the twins were children; instead, she got caught in the magic field of a Geryon and sling-shotted to the middle of Devil May Cry 5. What I wrote revolved more around the aftermath, and Eva trying to come to terms with the modern world, her losses, and not knowing what happened to her sons.

The building is echoing once the buffer of trash is removed. High ceilings dissipating into shadowy un-shapes. Dark corners shifting like predators turning and twisting. It’s too like the manor in those early days before she tamed it as Sparda had; made it respect her for all she was a mortal woman.

Made it respect her because she was a mortal woman.

She feels so tired, though; too tired to start a fresh war. So Eva lives with the shadows and whatever they may hide. At least it’s not outwardly hostile. Even if it was, by rights she shouldn’t be comfortable here.

This domain, this world, empty of her sons.

----

Swollen and fragile all at once, like a wine glass held too long in hot water - ripe for shattering with a single thoughtless move.

Midmorning is an inauspicious time for any demon to appear; Eva uses the reprieve to walk the city streets. Capulet is smaller than Red Grave but still a decent-sized city in its own right, checking off all the requirements: university, libraries, museums, churches, arts district, cheerful cafes dotting the sidewalk…

A few months ago -- no, thirty years ago -- she would have delighted in browsing the art supplies store, or checking the museum events for child-friendly exhibitions (but boys you must behave), or laughing into her coffee as two eight year olds descended into extensive debate on the merits of chocolate cake over strawberry tarts.

Now she buys peppermint tea in a to-go cup and takes it to the park.

Capulet is unexpectedly windswept in August, errant breezes stirring up the parched over-long grass around her ankles and pulling her hair, strand by strand, out of the confines of her ponytail.

The park is quietish; the younger children are out in force but a university city never really feels alive during the summer while the students are away. She follows the winding gravel path towards the duck pond at the centre and circles it once, twice. Watches other mothers with children tossing breadcrumbs to the ducks; running; playing.

“Why don’t you go and play, boys? Just--”

“Be careful, I know.” Vergil’s eyes, already so much older than they should be. “Why even try when we have to pretend?”

She’d never come up with a good enough answer for him.

Trish finds her on a bench. She sits down without ceremony or preamble, sunglasses her one concession to the summer day but otherwise as unaffected by the August sun as she no doubt will be by the coming autumn chill.

(Eva is rapidly coming to dislike Trish. Not because she is a demon, per se, but because it’s so fucking demoralising to constantly see the perfect version of herself; an Eva who will never succumb to sagging tits or a bloated stomach or even messy hair.)

“Are you all right? You’re sitting there like a ghost.”

Eva sips her tea to save herself from an immediate response. The cup is almost empty and the dregs are cold; she doesn’t remember drinking it.

“I’m fine.”

“Mm.” Trish doesn’t look as though she believes Eva in the slightest, but thankfully doesn’t push the issue. “Well, in that case, I have a favour to ask.”

“Oh?” Eva becomes instantly wary. Even as despondent as she feels, she knows better than to thoughtlessly promise a demon anything.

Something flashes in Trish’s eyes, gone too quickly for Eva to define it. The slow smile that curls the corners of her lips is equally inscrutable.

“Don’t worry, it’s not a favour for me, exactly,” she assures her, waving a perfectly manicured hand (again that familiar burst of jealousy towards a creature that could control their human physical appearance at will; Sparda had never had a bad hair day in his life--). “Lady heard you’re quite the dab hand with magic and she wanted to know if there were any goodies you could make for her, or teach her, or… whatever, really.”

“Last I saw, Lady has a tongue in her head,” Eva replies coolly.

Trish’s smile widens. “Oh, she does, but she’s out of town this week and when I saw you I thought I might as well ask now as later.”

“Mm.” Now it’s Eva’s turn to give Trish a searching look. She taps her nails (not perfectly manicured by any definition of the term) against her empty cup, wishing there was some left; she could make use of a timely pause to sip her tea and give herself a moment to think. “Well, I’m happy to talk to Lady about what she needs when she’s back in Capulet.”

“I’ll pass the message on.” With one flowing, elegant movement, Trish gets to her feet and stretches like a languid cat. “I’d better get going. See you around, Eva.”

“Yes, see you,” Eva mutters to her back; Trish is already going, sashaying through the park like she owns the place.

Something about this doesn’t smell right and Eva has sense enough to be cautious.

And yet… When she returns to Devil May Cry, she spends time going through the cupboards she’s restocked and checking her herbs. She uses the laptop Nero and Nico set her up with and finds websites that sell the supplies she needs -- whether advertised for witchcraft or otherwise -- and prepares lists of useful tricks; things that used to give her the edge she needed to survive another night.

It might not be useful for Lady -- if, indeed, Lady even asked the question -- but it’s useful for Eva. Practically, because she can’t be too careful even now, and in the abstract; when she goes to bed that night, Eva sleeps better than she has in weeks. Her hands might be dry and her nails might be broken, but with her fingertips stained and smelling of herbs once again she almost begins to recognise herself.

----

To Eva’s palpable surprise, Lady does actually swing by Devil May Cry the following week.

“Trish told me she saw you,” Lady explains as she unholsters Kaline Ann and sets her down on the desk. “Did she tell you the kind of thing I was looking for?”

Because there is truth in this cover story that Lady and Trish have concocted between themselves. Yes, mainly they want to check on Eva, but it also never hurts for an old bitch to learn some new tricks.

And how does Eva look? Less like Trish than she used to; Eva has taken to shoving her hair up in a loose bun at the back of her head (the better, Lady assumes, to keep it out of her face now she was no longer playing lady of the manor) and has swapped her elegant black gown for a serviceable sweater and jeans. On her feet, Doc Martens. On her hands, broken nails and stained fingertips. In her eyes - fire.

“In passing.” Eva is - suspicious? Well, Lady can’t entirely blame her for still finding her feet with all of them, particularly Trish - though Trish herself had taken it as a compliment that Eva considered her enough potential trouble to be wary of.

“You’re welcome to anything I can teach you, although…” Eva’s gaze slides across and down to Kalina Ann. There is something distinctly hungry (covetous?) in her eyes. “You seem to have the offensive side pretty well covered.”

Lady grins, one firearms aficionado to another. “Give Nico a call if you want anything - you can’t beat the Goldsteins for guns and for you she’ll probably do it for free.”

That does it: the reserve cracks and Eva grins back. It is not the kind, motherly smile that Dante probably remembers. This is the smile that a tiger would give you if it could.

“Noted.” Eva pulls out a stack of books from one of the desk drawers. “Now, where do you want to start?”

It does not take long for Lady to be very, very glad she arranged this meeting. Eva is an absolute trove of knowledge. Much of it Lady already knows, and some of it is interesting but not strictly relevant -- Lady’s fighting style being much more full-on than Eva’s tactics lend themselves to -- but she still picks up plenty.

----

Nero is a dutiful, darling boy. He checks in with her, regular as clockwork, trying to disguise the anxiety in his voice. He doesn’t know how to be with her, but he tries nonetheless.

He asks her, often, to visit him in Fortuna; to meet his girlfriend and the children they have adopted. Eva demurs and lets him think she’s still putting off the inevitable label of grandmother. It’s not a total lie, but it’s far from the primary reason. Maybe, perceptive as he is (and he is; Sparda’s eyes staring at her, seeing straight through her despite the un-Sparda-ish mouthing off), he knows that, too, and is giving her time.

It’s just… what if they come back, and she isn’t here to greet them? What if they think she’s truly gone again? She can’t hurt her boys like that a second time. She can’t let them down again when they look for her, reach for her. God knows she was worth fuck-all to them then and even less now, as much protection as a paper cut-out, but if they know she’s willing to put herself between the two of them and danger, then… that’s something, isn’t it? However little, it’s something.

The latest attempt comes on a late autumn evening. October is slipping away, each dark evening bringing them a little closer to Halloween. The most enterprising of the local children have already ventured out trick-or-treating with the excuse that the 31st is a school night, and Eva watches troupes of ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties parade past the windows with a bittersweet smile. She bought a bag of candy but doesn’t really expect any trick-or-treaters; Dante, with good reason, didn’t take pains to encourage the local kids to come calling.

Nero and Nico pull up, a welcome interruption to her descent into melancholy, out of breath but radiant from their latest skirmish. They stop by Devil May Cry on the pretence of leaving word for Morrison that payment is due, but Nero could do that himself on the little computer phone he carries around with him. In reality, they’re checking on her.

Eva doesn’t mind, really. She likes the company, and the kids (God, she calls them kids, they’re not that much younger than she is) are energetic; it’s hard to be actively maudlin when refereeing a shouting match. Nico especially is nosy and almost impossible to brush off or offend. On every visit, she wheedles a few more secrets out of Eva’s recipe books. Lately, Eva has been amusing herself by giving her tidbits and letting Nico reverse-engineer either the process or the product. Usually, she gets it right. Occasionally, she comes up with something better.

Tonight, though, Eva feels even harder to cheer than normal. Nico is put off by a wad of cash to get takeout -- Sparda laid the bounty of the world at her feet, but Nero and Nico are giving her a world tour laden with grease -- leaving Eva and Nero alone for half an hour. Nero has unchecked notebook privileges, as long as he’s careful with them, and he flicks through the entries thoughtfully.

“How did you learn all this stuff in the first place?”

“It depends which stuff we’re talking about.” Eva leans over his shoulder, pointing to the pages. “Sparda gave me a lot of them; things he’d picked up over the years, I don’t even know where from. But this one -- here -- that was from a hunter I partnered up with a lot in the early days. These tisanes were from my aunt. I used to say she should have been born a mediaeval herb-woman, except they’d have hung her for a witch.”

But Nero has stopped looking at the pages. He’s looking at her instead; thoughtful, in a way that is so Vergil it makes her heart skip a beat.

“What were they like, your family?”

“My family...” How long has it been since family wasn’t Sparda and the boys? How much longer since it meant the house she grew up in, and the people who populated it? “Oh, they -- they’re long gone. Better not to dwell. I have the boys,” Except she doesn’t. “And you, of course.”

Nero isn’t diverted, not for a moment, and the tilt of his eyebrows is pure Vergil. But he lets it go for now.

They taper off into silence. It lasts for a few minutes, Eva turning over possibilities in her mind. The words, when they come, are nevertheless a surprise; something she hadn’t meant to let loose.

“My father was a twin,” she says abruptly. “He and my uncle were thick as thieves. I always used to hope I’d have twins -- they say it skips a generation, so I thought it was likely I would -- and then they’d both always have a friend.”

She lets out a hollow little laugh. A friend. What a fucking fairytale.

Where did she go so wrong? Yes, the boys had always had their spats, but Eva had chalked that up to a mixture of their demonic blood and the marked differences in their personalities, watchful but not truly worried. She tried to encourage them to get along, to talk out their problems, but had also comforted herself that it was something they would grow out of as they got older and developed a bit more emotional maturity. Siblings fought; it was perfectly normal. Even she and Elijah--

Eva squeezes her eyes closed. She can’t think about Elijah right now.

A warm, calloused hand covers her own and Eva opens her eyes to see Nero watching her, his expression unusually serious.

“It’s not your fault,” he tells her, quietly but with a forceful conviction behind his words that reminds her of Sparda. “Yeah, they’re idiots, and they’re both kind of fucked up in their own ways, but it’s not your fault. They’d be a lot worse if it hadn’t been for you.”

Is that true? Eva isn’t sure which is worse; that she has ruined her boys, or that they would somehow be even worse without her.

But none of this is Nero’s problem. Grandson, she reminds herself once again. Grandson. Not a peer, not a comrade to lean on. A young man she needs to protect.

Pull yourself together, Eva.

----

Eventually, Eva gets sick of sitting around Devil May Cry waiting for something to happen.

She has never been a passive person. Eva makes things happen. Ever since Lady asked for some tricks to help her on hunts, Eva has been building up her supplies again. Restocking her herbs, potions, and powders. Dusting off Dante’s collection of magic books (a surprisingly comprehensive collection; Vergil had always been the bookworm, while Dante was too much of a fidget-bottom to sit still for five minutes) and reminding herself of her favourite cantrips. Eventually, she contracts Nico to make her a pair of guns like her old ones.

The last time Eva felt so lost, she was drowning in grief for her husband and it ended in tragedy for her sons. She will not make the same mistake twice. Reaching back through the years, breaking down the walls she had so carefully built up, she remembers how it felt to be fifteen and alone; fifteen and desperate; fifteen and unstoppable.

Then she asks Morrison for some work.

As a young woman trying to break into this line of work, Eva had gotten used to the looks she elicited from these “brokers”. The initial amusement, thinking she’s joking. The surprise when they realise she isn’t. The patronising shake of the head as they assure her this is no work for a pretty little lady like her. Finally, the shock and anger as they hastily reconsidered their position with a gun jammed up against their throats.

Over time, she’d gotten a reputation for being an infernal bitch who was extremely good at what she did, which meant the work came easier. Eventually, by the time she met Sparda, she’d been running her own jobs without a broker at all - unless they were coming to her for a favour.

But that was then. Now she’s back to square one. Unproved. Untried. Untested. It’s aggravating but Eva knows she’ll have to just deal with it if she wants an in.

Because Eva is pretty sure she can talk Morrison into kicking a few jobs her way. Asking Lady, or Nero, or Trish to share, though? It will all be there - amusement, surprise, disbelief - and the worst thing of all is that they will be speaking not from baseless stereotyping but all too real knowledge.

Dante told us all about it, Eva. You barely lasted a minute when the demons attacked, isn’t that right? This is way too much for you.

No. She will work until she has beaten the softness out of herself. Until she can go back to them on an even footing. Until it’s second nature once again to have gunpowder on her clothes and the spark of magic at her fingertips. Until the Underworld has learned to fear Sparda’s whore again.

Then she will get their respect, rather than their pity.

Morrison drops by periodically for coffee and a chat. There hasn’t been any money-grubbing yet; Dante owns the office outright - Eva has seen the deed and it’s real enough - and the bills are being paid out of his last earnings. It won’t last forever, but it’s been enough to take one worry off Eva’s mind so far.

Instead, Morrison seems to simply enjoy her company, or maybe he just can’t kick the habit of showing up at Devil May Cry to see Dante. Whatever the reason, Eva enjoys his visits and his dry humour. What Morrison makes of her, she’s not sure; Eva had told him, in a tone that made it clear she was lying, that she was Trish’s long-lost sister. Morrison had simply chuckled and refrained from asking any questions.

That’s one thing Eva always did like about brokers; they’re the kind of people who don’t ask difficult, unnecessary questions.

“You’ve got this place looking real good, Eva.” Morrison looks around with genuine admiration and gestures with his lit cigarette to the spider plant growing ever larger in the corner. “Way better than Dante ever did. Mother of God, the state I’ve seen this office in… well. Maybe best not to elaborate too much there.”

Eva laughs, remembering how Dante always tried his best to weasel out of his chores. Even getting him to make his bed was a challenge. It seems he hasn’t improved with age.

“It’s certainly been quite the project. But, now that it’s done, I’ve been thinking I need something else to do.” Eva watches Morrison carefully, waiting for his reaction. “Do you have any work for me?”

Morrison smirks. “Getting bored already? Yeah, I got a few things on the back burner - the kind of stuff the other ladies think they’re too good for, if you catch my drift, and the kid really has got his hands full.”

...Okay, that was absurdly easy. Eva narrows her eyes, but Morrison doesn’t look like he’s trying to mock her. On the contrary, when he sees her expression, he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

“Hey, I don’t control the work that comes in! Besides, pay is pay, am I right?”

“I’m looking for hunting work,” Eva says pointedly, wondering if he’s mistaken her meaning.

“Yeah, yeah, I got you.” Morrison chuckles as he takes a drag on his cigarette. “What, were you expecting me to say no? If nobody will do the work, I won't get paid either.”

“I…” Eva is floored. All of her preparation, all that time spent rehearsing her arguments, and it turns out she doesn’t need any of them. “I was expecting, uh…”

“Pushback?” Morrison gives her a knowing look. “Do you really think I’d have lasted this long with those ladies if I trotted out that kind of line? As far as I’m concerned, if you hang around with Dante, Lady, and Trish, then you know what you’re doing and you can take care of yourself.”

Morrison pulls a notebook out of his pocket and rifles through it, humming under his breath. He tears out a page and walks over to lay it on Eva’s desk.

“Here are the details. Just give me a call when you’re done with them and I’ll arrange your payment. Damages come out of your cut, mind you. If everything goes well, I’ll see what else I have for you.”

----

It really is grunt work, but Eva doesn’t mind; she’s not arrogant enough to think she could jump single-handedly into something like Red Grave, guns blazing.

The job also isn't urgent - hence Morrison being lackadaisical about bullying someone into taking it - which gives her the leisure of reconnaissance and planning time.

An empusa nest out on some waste ground that a local developer bought before noticing his unexpected squatters. Straightforward enough, although Eva takes more precautions than she thinks are necessary just in case. After all, she’s seen her judgement is far from perfect.

But in the end, all goes smoothly. No nasty surprises. Just some nasty stains on the concrete from empusas blown to kingdom come. Eva grimaces at them, hoping they don’t count as “damages”. The land is being developed anyway, right? Surely they’ll be putting down fresh tarmac?

In the end, Morrison does take a cut from her pay, but it’s less than she feared and so Eva swallows it with as much good grace as she can muster. The stack of notes is a reassuring weight in her hand. Ballast, though for (or against) what, she’s not entirely sure. The important thing is that she’s done a competent enough job that Morrison leaves her with the details of another couple of jobs. In this way a reputation is built.

“Morrison,” Eva calls out just before he leaves.

Morrison pauses on the threshold. There’s a beat before he looks back at her over his shoulder and Eva gets the impression he knows exactly what she’s about to ask.

“Do you think he’s coming back?”

Because Morrison is not Trish, or Lady, or Nero. He does not know her connection to these people. To Dante. So he has no reason to lie to her or spare her feelings.

He sucks in a breath, considering. “You know, I’d gotten to the point where I never thought I’d see anything Dante didn’t come back from. So many times I thought he was in way over his head, only for him to walk away laughing. But this job… this felt different from the start. Gave me a sort of -- premonition, you might say.”

A soft hum; something that might have been a laugh, if there was any humour in it, and Morrison shook his head.

“The truth is, Eva, I don’t know. I really don’t. He could come waltzing back in here tomorrow, carrying a pizza and laughing at us all for ever doubting him. Or we might never see him again.”

Eva sinks slowly into the desk chair, feeling the truth of it in her bones. A tidal wave of exhaustion crashes over her, threatening to drown her in one clean swoop. Tired of worry. Tired of uncertainty. Tired of never even having the cold comfort of a body to bury. Tired of that tiny speck of hope that even now refused to be snuffed out completely because, however ridiculous it was to expect it, there was still the chance--

“I knew someone else like that, once,” she hears herself say. “He never did come back.”

Morrison gives her a searching look. He seems, for a moment, to be on the verge of saying something more, but in the end refrains. Instead, he tips his hat to her.

“You take care, Eva.”

“Yeah,” Eva replies distantly. “You too, Morrison.”

----

The work is important for more than Eva’s ego.

Her blood sings in her veins once again. The hum of power at her fingertips, like the whine of electricity. A promise, maybe even a vow if you were so inclined to call it such, that one day in the none-too-distant future a small slice of the world would once again turn at Eva’s call and beckoning. She has known this once before when playing lady of the manor. Now, the power is both weaker, for lack of Sparda’s force bolstering her, and sweeter, for knowing it is all of her own clawing and devising.

Her blood sings and Eva tastes iron and lightning on her tongue. Her fingers smell of metal and herbs and something no mortal can rightly put words to; the tang of the Underworld and the burning sulphur of demons.

When Eva looks at her reflection in the chipped bathroom mirror and sees an old, familiar light in her eyes, she knows it is time.

Very little magic needs to be complicated. The point is will, and the directing of it. For those unfamiliar with the craft then the trimmings of rituals and candles can go a long way in finding that direction.

For those who live long enough to become old hands, just the thinking, coupled with the right runes, is enough. Eva takes a sharp knife, a handful of herbs, and a silver-backed mirror (in this, old ways are better; a mercury mirror would work better still, but this will do for now)... and she searches.

Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, soul of my soul, I seek thee now. Come to me, come to me, come to me…

It is a powerful spell. Kinfinding may not be enough to physically draw her boys forth from the Underworld, but it should at least show them to her in the scrying mirror.

Eva seeks until her blood runs dangerously thin and her head pounds and her vision begins to darken. She seeks further still until she knows herself at the very precipice of what she can safely come back from… and only then, with great reluctance, does she let the spell go.

She has not seen them, either of them, even once.

----

Eventually, it feels meaningless to even keep up the pretence she thinks the boys are coming back.

What has happened to them is almost immaterial. The nightmare scenarios are so numerous that eventually they blur together into one long snuff film that leaves her numb. Like Sparda, they were there and then they were not. Like Sparda, she will never know what exactly happened.

Devil May Cry becomes part tomb, part cocoon. She has saved enough money to keep Morrison at bay for a while even after Dante’s funds run out, and she continues to take work for the sake of it, though she doesn’t keep track of her income versus expenditures. If or when the money runs out, she’s not sure. It’s pointless to think so far ahead. Perhaps she’ll just die, like she should have before.

A wife without a husband. A mother without sons. Once, she would have vomited at the thought of a woman identifying herself by the men in her life, but somehow it crept up on her over the years and now she’s left with gaping, bloody holes that gung-ho feminist rhetoric does nothing to paste over.

Nobody seems to notice the change in her philosophy. Though, she gets precious few visitors anyway. Trish and Lady leave her to her own devices, having apparently satisfied their curiosity about her. Morrison has tapered off their tete-a-tetes and only shows up when he wants money. Nero is a busy boy these days.

One night she dreams about them. The dream is very similar to the ones she used to have about Sparda; lifelike, almost lucid dreaming, where everything was the same - she is in bed, having just awoken - except he is there, smiling gently, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

Sleeping in, Eva?

Dreaming about the boys is very similar. She dreams she awakens in the night to a sound downstairs. There is no panic of a break-in; nobody bothers her these days. Voices, muffled, from the floor below. Eva calmly gets out of bed, registering even the rustle of the sheets and the cold, bare wooden boards under her feet. She pads slowly out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs.

There they are, standing in the centre of the office, illuminated perfectly by a strip of moonlight through the window. It is like a picture. It is too perfect and too easy. This is how she knows she is dreaming.

Still, for the first time in months, her heart eases.

They are talking softly to each other, too softly for her to catch the words (there is a limit, she concedes, to just how much even her vivid imagination can conjure). Eva doesn’t mind. She stands at the mezzanine and soaks them in.

Dante gestures to the stairs and looks up. He freezes as their eyes meet. Vergil, a half-heartbeat behind his twin, mirrors him.

“...Hey,” Dante croaks, the gesturing hand that had fallen still now awkwardly waving. “We’re home!”

This is more than she expected. Eva’s throat constricts. Even her dreams of Sparda were not so vivid or so long.

“You’re late, boys,” she manages after a moment. “Dinner was hours ago.”

She is trying for levity, trying to play her part in this scene, trying to piece together something happy for when she wakes up, but her voice cracks halfway through the sentence and she finds herself choking on a sob.

Dante is halfway up the stairs in a moment, hand outstretched to her. Eva, too, is reaching out to her little boy and she cries out when she finally has her arms around him again.

She does not get even a heartbeat of joy before the world collapses into shadows and flames. Dante dissolves, her arms closing around thin air, and the staircase morphs into an endless corridor to hell. Her boys are nowhere to be seen, but she can hear them screaming.

Or maybe she just hears her own voice, screaming herself awake.

There are more dreams, afterwards; more recognisable for what they are. Her life runs before her eyes in reverse. Searching for the boys. Watching Sparda walk away for the last time. The face of every person she never saved. Then, at last, the denouement: Elijah, torn open. Her father and uncle staring sightless into an abyss. Her mother reduced to so many scattered chunks of meat.

Eventually, because Eva is someone who makes things happen, not someone things simply happen to, she makes the decision to go back. She has faced Red Grave; faced the ruined manor. It is time to face much older ghosts.

It is a private matter, and so Eva tells nobody of her intentions. She lets Morrison know she will be out of town on personal business, timeline uncertain; she will give him a call when she’s back. He is free, in the interim, to pass her usual work on to other sources.

For anyone else (because she still hopes, deep down, that her boys will one day come home), she leaves a note on her desk.

Out of town for a while.

Eva re-reads the brief scribble and wonders what else to add before realising there really is nothing more to add. No forwarding address or contact number, because she does not want anyone to find her. Anyone who wants her, can wait until she comes back.

She makes it ten minutes out from the city before she turns back to scribble an address at the bottom of her note.

Just in case.

----

Plane tickets are cheap these days, and she has a passport courtesy of Morrison, but Eva elects to drive. Call her old-fashioned, or even just plain curmudgeonly in her old age (ha), but Eva likes the hum of a good motor much better than the press of noisy crowds.

Besides, she’d need a car at the other end of the flight anyway, where she’s going. She can even call it a vacation if she finds a motel to spend each night in. If not -- she’s slept in a car before and it won’t kill her to do it again, especially when the rental is much more comfortable than any old banger she’s passed a night in before.

Highways turn to country lanes as she veers further and further off the beaten track. The temperature drops, too; winter in the shadow of the Appalachian mountains is nothing to sneeze at. Eva has forgotten a lot of things over the years (too many things), but she remembers that. Funny how events and people slide slowly but surely from her mind but sensory impressions remain: the icy, pinesap-tinged tang of morning air in winter; the crackle of a fire; the warm doughy smell and pillowy softness of homemade dinner rolls.

Become someone else, she’d told her younger son as their world burned around them. Change your name, change yourself, and hide. Not easy, no, nothing like easy -- but possible, for the right price. For the price of giving up who you were before.

Except no bargain is ever so neat and no transaction ever so complete.

#devil may cry #dmc #eva #dante #vergil #nero #nico #trish #lady #i have a whole headcanon backstory for eva #shocking revelation: she did not have a good time before meeting sparda!#fragments from the google docs

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