~Who’s your Daddy? ~

The knock on the door wakes the red-clad demon hunter awake from his dirty fantasies. Outside is pouring –a perfect time for sleeping –and he grumbles incoherently as he removes his bare foot from the mahogany desk. The knock comes again, more urgent this time.

“Coming! Can’t you just bloody wait?” He yells grumpily, shuffling his feet like a zombie and threading fingers through brilliant silver hair.

The door to the gloomy, dark office opens, but there is no one outside. The demon hunter looks left and right, unbelieving that he had been played a prank upon.

“Fuck those stupid kids…” He curses beneath his breath and was going to close the door before he spies something on the floor.

A tiny little head poked out from the messy bundle of cloth, just a meager amount of hair sticking from its small head.

“What the fuck?” The demon hunter, now fully awake, stares at the basket on the floor, frozen and unmoving. As if on cue, the little infant opens it eyes, brilliant blue eyes meeting reality after a peaceful sleep. The infant smiles brightly, glad for a face to be welcoming him back to reality, and reaches tiny arms towards the man.

“Just a joke…” The demon hunter tells himself and shuts the door quickly behind him, shuffling quickly back to his desk and chair.

Outside, rain pours and a particularly frightening flash of lightning strikes, followed by a thunderous boom. The child begins to cry from fear.

“Hell no… give me demons, damnit, not kids!” The demon hunter covers his ears with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut to drown out the annoying wails.

A full half hour passes before the demon hunter’s tolerance breaks. He yanks the door open, grabs the basket handle and jerks his delivered package in, settling the infant and his cocoon on the low table as the demon hunter planted his ass on the couch.

The child continues to wail.

“For the sake of fucking god, shut the fuck up!” The man yells, and it miraculously works. Wails and cries stopped altogether, and the man looks with surprise over at innocent, curious blue eyes staring back at him, as if the child could not understand what pissed him off so.

His eye catches a piece of jewelry in the basket along with the infant. Reaching over, he finds a ring that is distantly familiar. With the infant and ring is a single piece of paper, tucked safely at the infant’s side. The demon hunter reaches over, eager to know more about this magnificent nuisance that had suddenly descended into his day on his doorstep.

“Dante,” it says, “A present for you.”

He crushes the paper within his hands. “Fuck.”

The infant looks at him, the crushed paper within his hands, and back at the murderous look upon his face. Lips puckered and innocent brows drew up in a nasty scrunch.

“Fuck.” The demon hunter repeats, but it’s too late.

The infant opens his mouth and begins to wail again.

****************************************************

Years Later…

The front door to the office closes with a slam, and the demon hunter stirs from his deep sleep, cursing aloud at the ruckus made.

“I’M HOME!” The screaming voice of a mischievous boy into his ear jolts him awake, and his hands fly to whack the boy on reflex. In a routine movement, the boy sidesteps the disciplinary smack, grinning from ear to ear as the elder man with a black face sits upright.

“One day, I’m going to get a pin large enough to pin those lips shut and have myself a good sleep.” Dante swears at the boy, watching as blue eyes glittered brightly at him.

Threading lazy fingers through his silver-white hair, Dante leans back against his chair again, but this time not ready to go back to sleep yet.

“What do you want now?” The demon hunter had learnt how to forecast the moves and attacks of the different leveled demons, but he has never learnt exactly how to predict the randomness of this boy who lived with him. Even after ten long years, there was still no asking what the boy would ask next.

The boy holds on to his grin, glad that the older man understood him. He leans into Dante’s personal space and extends a demanding hand.

“The teacher wants us to pay for a school trip, Dante. You can have no more delays.” The boy informed the older guy, but Dante only yawned and stretched.

“Tell me what bills I haven’t paid didn’t tell me that I don’t have any more delays? Every single one of them, kid, and this ain’t going to be different.”

The boy tugs the man’s sleeve. “You have to pay. I told everyone I’m going already.”

The door opens and closes again, and the demon hunter looks over at the newcomer before brushing the boy off his sleeve.

“Look, your walking money bank is here. Go take money from your mama.” Dante sits upright long enough to grab a leftover pizza from the box at the desk, then leans back again to chew at its corner.

The boy, knowing he would squeeze nothing from this lazy man, runs over to the woman who had just walked in.

“Lady, I have this school trip in my school that I really really want to go! But Dante’s not going to pay. Can I have some money to go? Pretty please?” The boy begs, flashing the woman innocent puppy blue eyes. Though he was years younger than her, he was almost the height of her shoulders already.

Lady smiles. “Sure you can. Go rob a bank, and then come tell me the results.”

Puppy eyes and innocent face immediately goes black and angry.

“What is wrong with you guys? I’m actually trying to learn in this fucking school! I dress up like a fucking clown everyday and talk to fucking retards trying to actually learn something! Can’t either of you support me?” The boy explodes; the innocent and mild-mannered side of him gone. Beneath that nice exterior, was a boy who had taken after the man who cared for him.

“No one asked you to go to school.” Dante waves the anger of the boy away, having dealt with such tantrum before.

“I don’t want to be a loser like you!” The boy shouts back harshly at a man who had taken care of him for the past ten years, not that Dante actually cared.

“Then earn some money for me and show me.” The demon hunter shifts his position, looking as if he would just fall back to sleep in the middle of the boy’s angry tirade.

“You know what? I will! I will come back with so much money that you will be begging me for it!” The boy yells ambitiously, and before anyone of the two adults could say anything more, he runs out without a second look back.

Lady stares after the slammed door, then back to the man who seems ready enough to fall back asleep.

“You could be ruining his future like this.” Lady reminds Dante, while the man only snorts in reply.

“He’s going to find his own way. Kids like him always do.”

“Like you?”

“Just like me.” Dante agrees, and Lady was silent for a long moment.

“You sure he’s not your kid? You still don’t know who his parents are?”

“No. Whoever his parents are, they need to be told that white haired and black haired people shouldn’t mix, or they’ll end up with his white-streaked black hair.”

“You have white hair. Someone you fucked?”

Dante made an irritated grunt. “Could be Nero or Vergil. I would remember if I fucked someone and left a piece of myself there.”

Lady sighs, shakes her head and walks away.

“You never know, Dante. He could be yours.”

***************************************

Years later…

The door to the office closes again, and he looks above the top of his magazine, watching as the black haired boy walk in with an even blacker face.

“Deal fell through?” He asked, though there was no real need. The expression on the boy’s face speaks for volumes.

“Don’t talk to me about it. I’m going to murder someone if anyone asks me about this again.” The boy fumed by himself, planting his ass on the couch and slamming his wallet on the table. He unclipped his holsters to his guns and swords with a few snaps, flinging his weapons on the table with as much noise as he could, as if it could express his displeasure.

“You couldn’t even if you tried.” Dante reminds the kid, but shuts up at the glare received from the eighteen year old.

Truth be told, Dante had never been prouder for this kid. The kid who turned up crying on his doorstep was now a fully-intellectual man, with degrees and diplomas to his name. The kid had martial arts training under his belt, but above all –and this made Dante the proudest –the kid was a demon hunter. All of which, had not been given any financial help by Dante who was kept perpetually forever in dept.

“There should be a god-damned rule for all hunters. No deposits, no installments. I’m going to demand cold, hard cash up front the next time.” The kid swears aloud to himself, making a promise that Dante knew the kid would break anytime. Like him, the kid had a soft heart to the troubles of others, though Dante would rather die than admit it.

Sometimes, this kid reflected so much of him that Dante wondered if he really was his kid. Blue eyes definitely matched his, and Lady’s words eight years ago could be true. It could have been some brunette Dante had sex with, and left without a single look back. But there was just no other evidence.

“Take a tip from papa Dante. If anyone wants part-payment, back off. They’re going to see that they need you, and you’re probably their last choice.” Dante finally gave some actual advice, but the kid snorts.

“And let the business go to you, Lady or Trish? I know I’m not their last choice, Pops.” The kid replies sarcastically, but Dante hides an internal smile. ‘Pops’. He never knew what it felt to be called ‘Pops’, to be called a father, for he had never found anyone to stick by him. Only the boy, but the boy was no woman.

“We could run Devil May Cry together. You push the job to me, I double the pay, and we get money.” Dante wagers to the kid, but the young one merely laughs.

“You’re just going to suck my money. I know your idea of pay and mine differs –big time.”

“We could agree on 50-50.”

“How about 90-10, in my favor? I know you’re not going to do anything, so stop pretending to help. When was the last time you carried that sword to slice a demon anyway?”

“Not so long ago. Probably last month.”

“You’re going to do better than that, Pops. Lady’s getting on her age, and it’s going to be time she wants her retirement money.” The kid reminds, and as if on cue, the door opens.

“Fuck, no. I don’t have money to pay you, Lady. Go hound the kid.” Dante curses, not wanting to see the woman walking in.

“Dante…?” Another feminine voice replied, and Dante sighs in relieve.

“Thank the gods. Who are you? If it’s anything about hunting demons, you can go find that kid there. He needs a job.”

“Still not working, Dante?” The female replied, and Dante finally looks over to the woman standing at his desk. She had long black hair, and an expensive looking dress. Her curvaceous figure did nothing to reveal her age, but he knew this woman was getting on her age too. Even worse, he knew this woman.

“Patricia?” He asks, searching for a form of recognition from her.

She smiles and nods in reply. Patricia then spins around, looking at the kid who was still sitting on the couch, wondering who this woman Dante recognized could be. Eyes glittered with sudden tears, and the kid stares with surprise as the woman runs over to him at the couch, flinging her arms around him.

“My son!” She cries, hugging him and forcing air out of his lungs.

Dante pushes his chair back.

“Your son? He’s your son?” The demon hunter repeats, unable to believe it. Patricia was this boy’s mother?

“Yes! I sent him to you with the other side to this ring, Dante. I knew you would take care of him!”  Patricia retrieves a ring from her pouch, and sure enough, it was the exact same ring that had come with the boy.

“Wait, you’re my mother?” The shocked boy could not help but stare. This woman was her mother? The mother who abandoned him?

Suddenly, a sinking feeling fills Dante’s stomach. He remembered Patricia. Patricia had started out small, as a waitress in his favorite strip club. He had gotten really drunk once, and spent one crazy night on her bed, driving her so hard he was almost sure she would have died from orgasm if not for his help in keeping her very much sane and alive. Then he had gone through foreplay early in the morning the next day while in the throes of a hangover, before the slow, sensual sex began. She was the special woman whom he had spent more than one night with, but she disappeared afterwards.

Why was Patricia so special?

When he fucked her, he wasn’t sober enough to put on any protection. In the morning, throughout the foreplay, he had tried to remember that crucial piece of information, but always lost it when she did a blowjob on him. The slow sex was also done without a condom.

“Hell. Fucking heaven and hell. No. Patricia, please say he’s not…” The dots connected quickly, and Dante suddenly found himself unable to walk towards the mother and son before him.

Patricia turned around and gave him an encouraging smile.

“He’s your son! Didn’t you know? I thought you knew! Why else did you take him in? He’s your flesh and blood!”

The two males in the room stared at each other, sudden realization flitting through their eyes.

The kid was Dante’s.

The kid’s daddy was Dante.

The kid made an effort to give a grim, uneasy smile to his newfound father.

“Who’s my Daddy now?”