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She’s still sitting on that couch the morning after the fact. Initially, after all was said and done, Dante had tried to take her back to the orphanage, but Patty had refused. She wasn’t loud or abrasive or snarky about it either, instead opting to tug on Dante’s coattails with a grip befitting that of a demon and not an eight year-old girl. That was what had truly made Dante acquiesce– that quiet plea of desperation. A begging so inert and so needed to ask for it with words alone would undermine its significance.
Dante’s familiar with those kinds of pleas.
So, he allows it. Morrison drives them back to the office, and Dante sits in the back seat, his head propped up on his raised elbows like he’s taking a quick nap on the ride there. In truth, he’s watching the kid with a surgical focus, his eyes never blinking, hidden behind silvery bangs. Patty doesn’t stir. If Dante couldn’t hear her heartbeat snugly in her chest, he would’ve worried she wasn’t breathing at all.
The rest of the ride is silent.
By the time they step out of the car, the sun has fully risen, warm rays beaming down on them. It's a contrast to the sickening cold feeling Dante has drawing knots in his chest. Morrison gives him a look, eyes sliding to the girl pressed against his side, and Dante nods. He knows.
That’s how they get to where they are now. Dante’s feet are propped up on the desk, his head leaning back in his hands once more. And, once more, his steely gaze rests on Patty.
After a moment of watching her do nothing, listless, Dante sighs, sliding his boots off his desk.
“C’mon, kid,” his voice rumbles across the silent void they’ve created. Idly, Dante rues every time he cursed Patty’s eccentricity. He would do anything for a break in the dull, nothingness that spans between them now. “You gotta get some sleep. Can’t just sit there all day.”
He stands up, approaching her as she shakes her head slowly. Her eyes are a murky blue, drooping from more than one kind of exhaustion, and oh, Dante knows that expression. He’s intimately familiar, in fact, with the blue eyes of an eight year-old who’s lost everything.
Who’s seen their mother die before their own eyes.
Dante sits beside her with a grunt.
After a moment, he adjusts. Readjusts. Sighs.
“Kid…” Instinctively, his hand moves of its own accord to reach out and… console her? Comfort her? Maybe just to fix the stray lock of hair that’s fallen out of place and sits atop her nose, making it twitch every so often. He’s not sure. All he knows is that, whatever it is he was hoping to do, he can’t bring himself to. The proffered hand falls morosely back into his lap, and he swallows.
He is so, so bad at this.
“I’ll get you some pillows,” he decides, recalling that he’d saved some of Patty’s old decorations in a box under his bed as he rises.
“Don’t,” Patty’s quiet, chalky voice calls, and Dante immediately sits back down. She breathes in shakily, and her hands begin to tremble. “I don’t… I don’t wanna be alone.”
Dante opens his mouth. Closes it. He leans back against the couch, swinging an arm along the edge of it in some stunted fragmentation of a hug. “I won’t go.”
When she leans closer to him, Dante knows he’s done something right. Probably.
His fingers twitch, urging him to do something, to fix this, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t even know if he can.
“Dante,” her voice breaks and, oh– oh, Dante wants nothing more than to scoop her into his arms and hide her away in some invisible bubble of the world, where she’ll never know pain again because how could she? What type of a world demands that she should? “Do you think I’m silly?”
“You’re an eight year-old girl,” he says. “All eight year-olds are silly.”
“But right now?” Patty fiddles with the hem of her sleeves, and Dante belatedly realizes there are stains of his blood marring the white fabric of her dress. Shit. He doesn’t think he has any clothes for kids in his closet. She might have to suck it up and deal with wearing one of his sleep shirts for the time being, no matter how over-sized and tattered it may be.
“What do you mean?”
She sniffles, and Dante’s muscles seize up again. “I mean… I never knew my mommy. I only just met her, but now she’s–”
Patty’s voice cuts off and she leans over, trembling violently as she musters up all the will in that tiny body of hers not to cry. It renders Dante speechless just how strong she’s had to be all this time– an orphan at birth, finally meeting her one surviving parent only to then watch them die in front of her. Yet still, she holds herself together better than Dante– the full grown man– does.
It’s… a very grounding realization.
Harrowing.
“No,” Dante intones softly, his arm sliding off the couch as his body shifts to face her, to shield her from the world and all its demons– real, human, and whatever other cosmic tragedies the universe likes to throw at them. “It's not silly at all.”
Even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one.
“But– but I’m scared.” Her breaths are ragged and sharp, and she still has yet to let a single tear fall. “Scared that if I– What if when I start, I can’t stop?”
“Then…” Finally, finally, he brings his hand up to push that stray hair back into place, allowing it to rest at the side of her face, fingers gently carding through her golden locks. “Then, I guess I’ll need to buy a lot more tissues.”
He forces himself to smile as her face crumples up and she lets go of whatever dam was holding back her waterfall of tears.
Patty curls into him and, with a surprising lack of reluctance, Dante curls back, enveloping her into his arms until she’s practically sitting on his lap, her cheek pressed against his chest as tears soak his vest. His arms wrap around her hesitantly and awkwardly – she’s so much smaller than he is, and besides maybe Trish, he can’t quite recall the last time he’d hugged someone. His mom, maybe. Or, Ver–
“You’re really bad at this,” Patty mumbles, echoing Dante’s earlier thought. The statement shakes him out of reverie so much so he can’t help but laugh, squeezing her tighter as his chest shakes.
He rubs her back lightly, thumb stroking her shoulder blades. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“It’s okay,” she responds, her tiredness evident in her tone. “This is fine, too.”
Dante shakes his head. “Not that.” He’s well aware his capacity for comforting someone will forever be lacking. “I’m sorry I didn’t save your mom.”
Not couldn’t– didn’t. There was a choice. And, in the end, if the same situation presented itself once more, he would choose Patty every time.
He doesn’t know what his own mother was thinking when she laid down her life for him, but he can imagine it was similar to what Patty’s mother felt for her.
Mothers laying down their lives for their children. Would the cycle ever end?
Patty’s eyes well with tears again, and Dante reflexively tightens his hold. “I forgive you,” she whispers before sinking into sobs again.
Dante holds her until the fire in her engines finally runs dry and she collapses into a deep sleep, curled up on Dante’s lap. Even then, he doesn’t move. His legs feel like static from lack of use, and he still makes no move to get up. The pain of causing her to wake up would far surpass the momentary pins and needles sensation he’ll suffer later on.
“Kiddo,” he says the next day, after he’s gotten out of the shower to find Patty sitting on the stairs, eating his strawberry sundae. “As nice as it is having a little cleaning fairy here, all fairies gotta go home sometime, yeah?”
Dante hears the clink of the glass as Patty sets it down. “I don’t have a home,” she points out.
“You know what I mean, kid.”
Dante grimaces at the lack of a response, tossing the towel he was using to dry his hair on his desk. He saunters around the corner to come sit on the steps with the kid, elbows propped up on his knees. Patty pouts and looks away from him.
“If you… don’t wanna go back,” he says slowly. “It's understandable. You know, I’m sure that your older counterpart would still take you in, if you asked.”
Patty mimics his posture, tucking her knees to her chest and propping her chin up on her arms. Dante can admit it; she’s real fucking cute when she’s annoyed at him. The effect is exacerbated by the fact she’s wearing his shirt– which fits like a dress on her. She’d complained about it but, well, it's better than wearing bloodied clothes. At least it's soft.
“I don’t wanna go with her,” she whines.
And, okay, Dante can understand that. It’s not as if the woman was particularly worried about Patty’s well-being when she used her as a scapegoat, even if she apologized for it. But, still: “Why not? She’s got more money than you’d know what to do with, even with your fancy tastes.”
Patty straightens, crossing her arms and closing her eyes in that self-righteous position she uses when she’s about to scold Dante for his lack of manners. “I’m not the kind of woman who only cares about money.”
Dante has to stifle a laugh at ‘ woman.’ The girl barely reaches his hip. “Coulda fooled me.”
She shoots him a glare for that but otherwise ignores him. “Besides, she lives so far away. If I’m not around, who’s going to look after the other kids at the orphanage?”
Dante wants to point out that that should be the responsibility of the workers there, not a child who hasn’t even reached double-digits. But, he doesn’t. Because he knows it wouldn’t make a difference.
He was her age once, too, when he decided to place the weight of the world on his shoulders.
At the very least, he can be grateful Patty’s aspirations are more formative than destructive.
“More importantly,” he teases, “who’s going to clean up this place if you’re gone?”
“Dante!”
“What? And here I thought you liked cleaning up, seeing as you do it so much.”
“That’s only because you make a mess of the place as soon as I finish!”
“Oh? Well, how about this.” He reaches over and tickles her sides, making her squeal with laughter. “I’ll learn to pick up after myself if you survive this!”
“Dante!” She shouts between bursts of giggles, finally sounding her age. “You jerk! Like you’ll ever–!”
Her fingers pry at his hands, her legs swinging in the air to land kick after kick on him. She doesn’t have the strength to hurt him, and besides, fighting is a form of affection amongst the Sparda family.
Not that Patty’s–
Oh.
Dante releases her, giving her a moment to catch her breath.
“Well?” She snaps.
“Well, what?”
“I survived it.”
“Mm.” Dante makes a show of thinking for a minute. “I think what happened is you surrendered and I, mercifully, let you go.”
“That is not what–” Patty cuts herself off to lunge at him. “Dante!”
He laughs and grabs her, holding her up in the air at arms length. “Sorry, little lady. Looks like you’ll be cleaning up after me for the foreseeable future.”
Dante lets her sleep in his bed, that night. It’ll be more comfortable for her, and it’s not like Dante uses it very often if he’s honest. He doesn’t think too much about it.
“Well,” he remarks, tucking in the comforter around Patty in a vague memory he has of how his father did the same for him and his brother, oh so long ago. “It’s no five star hotel, but at least it's not the couch.”
“It’s huge!” she says.
Dante smirks. “Well, have you taken a look at me recently?” He pats the lump in the blankets where her legs are. “Go to sleep, Pattycakes.”
He turns the lamp on the bedside table off and starts for the door, only for a little voice to call him back.
“Um, Dante?”
He submerges a sigh. “Yeah?”
“Do you think… If I go back to the orphanage, I’ll ever be adopted?”
Dante’s night vision is better than most. Once his eyes adjust to the dark, he can see the outline of her little face, almost as clearly as he could in broad daylight. And may it never be known to the adversaries of the world that the sole weakness of the Legendary Devil Hunter Dante, the exterminator of demons and the sealer of Mundus, is the sad eyes of one Patty Lowell.
Dante drifts back to her side almost instantly.
He pulls himself onto the side of the king-sized bed not occupied by Patty, folding his arms over his chest as he stretches out his legs.
“I think,” he starts, with deliberation and care. “That anyone would be more than lucky to call you their daughter.”
He feels Patty stiffen beside him. Quietly, and oh-so fragile, she murmurs, “I don’t think that’s how Mommy felt when she died.”
The lump in his throat tightens.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he whispers, as soft as he’s said anything. Because, as horrible as he is at emotional vulnerability, he knows the necessity of these words more than anything. Every moment with Patty makes him feel twenty years younger, and he doesn’t blame her for that. It’s a product of the repetitive nature of the world.
And the responsibility of the elder to change it.
Patty won’t turn to isolation and reckless abandon like Dante has, he swears himself that.
He’s failed too many to let it happen again.
Not to Patty.
God, Sparda, whatever the hell binds the universe together, please, not her.
“She knew that,” Dante continues, ignoring the thickness in his voice and the burning of his eyes. This is not about him. This is not about him. “It’s a parent’s job to protect their children.”
“But she didn’t have to die,” Patty’s voice breaks, and Dante doesn’t have to look over to know she’s crying.
“I know,” Dante murmurs, reaching over to scoop the girl into a one-armed embrace. She curls into his side, and Dante rubs her shoulder. “I know.”
The night carries on as they stay like that. Dante figures she’ll wear herself out eventually and fall asleep like she did the day prior, but she doesn’t. Instead, when her tears dwindle down to the occasional sniffle and hiccup, she speaks again.
“Dante?”
“Mm?”
“I want to stay.”
“I–” His eyes widen, his breath caught in his throat. “I don’t understand.”
But he does. He does. He just doesn’t want to admit to himself what he knows he’ll have to.
“I don’t want to go back to the orphanage,” she states bluntly. Her head tilts up to look at him, blue meeting blue. “I want to stay with you.”
And it–
It fucking–
It kills Dante that that’s probably the one and only time in his life he will ever hear those words spoken in his direction. Not even Lady and Trish could check that box.
And he’s going to have to decline her.
Not because he detests having her around, not because she’s a burden. But because to be around Dante is to paint the loudest, most obnoxious and gaudy target on one’s back. Ernest wasn’t safe, nor was his village. Nor Nell, nor Grue and his daughter– not even his own mother was safe from her son. In the end, his blood damned them all. That’s how it is. To be Dante is to be alone.
For anything else will end in tragedy.
He can’t do that to Patty– she’s suffered too much. Hell, she already went into the Underworld to rescue Dante, for Christ’s sake. He’s already damned her once, he won’t exacerbate it by raising her too.
No matter how badly he–
“Dante?” Patty’s voice snaps him out of his ruminations. “Dante, you’re crying.”
It’s only the rain, he wishes to say, but he has no excuse. Not here. Not anymore.
“I’ve never seen you cry before.” She touches his cheeks, in awe when her hands come back wet.
“Sorry, honey,” he tries for nonchalance, but it comes out heartachingly genuine. He grasps her fingers gently in his own, extricating them from his face as he gives her a smile he’s sure she can hardly see in the darkness.
Patty slinks away, chewing on her lip in a thoughtful manner. She really is too cute sometimes.
Dante gives in just for a moment and pats her head. “Go to sleep, Patty.”
She stops and, for once, does as she’s told. The night is silent. Dante stays awake, listening to the sound of her heart beat and watching the rise and fall of her chest until morning comes, and he slips away like he was never there.
It’s better this way.
But the words never fully reach him.
“As much as I love having my own personal maid around, you gotta go back sometime, sweetheart,” Dante tries again over breakfast. He’s, somehow, scrounged up some bread from who knows where to feed the kid. There was no mold, and he toasted it extra long, just to be safe. The drawback to that is dealing with a bougie kid that sends him judgemental eye-daggers with every too crisp bite.
Well.
You win some you lose some, in Dante’s experience. At least he put butter on them.
He pours Patty some milk as he speaks again, “Seriously, you know me. I don’t have the money to fend off a child abduction charge.”
Patty says nothing.
Dante sighs through his nose. “C’mon, kid, why’re you giving me the silent treatment?”
“You lied to me,” she says, not loudly but firmly.
Christ. The last time Dante had pissed her off this much hadn’t gone so well– he wasn’t looking forward to a round two.
“About what?”
She slams her hands down on the table, making the plate and silverware jitter. “That anyone would be lucky to have me as a daughter.”
That draws Dante up to short. “It… wasn’t a lie, Patty,” he says sincerely, confused.
“Then why–!” She cuts herself off, taking in a too-sharp, too-wavering, breath. “Then why did you get so upset about… about me…”
She never ends up getting the last part out, but it’s neither here nor there, because Dante understands the meaning regardless.
“Kid…” He leans over, his eyes softening as he watches Patty bristle– trying so hard to mask her hurt with maturity, so much like another uptight eight year-old Dante used to know. “It’s… It’s not you.”
He backs away, no longer able to withstand looking at her.
“Living with me… that’s not the kind of life you want, kid. I’m not–” A father. “--someone you want in your life like that.”
“Because you’re a demon?”
And because he has no money, no experience raising children, no emotional stability, and an alcohol problem he seldom if ever acknowledges.
But–
“Yeah.”
That’s close enough.
“Well.” Patty stands up, planting her hands on the table, her eyebrows knitted together. “I don’t care. You’re still Dante.”
That might be the worst part about him.
“And I still want to stay with you.”
“Patty…” You don’t understand. Sweet girl, you don’t understand.
“So what if you’re a demon? I’m the descendant of a sorcerer.”
That… in all honesty, only serves to drive them further apart. Sorcerers are at odds with demons, and sure, Dante kills his own kind, but–
His identity is something even he, himself, has never been able to come to terms with.
And that’s just another nail in the coffin.
Descendent or not, Patty is the most ordinary of people he knows, and Dante would sooner drive Rebellion through his own chest before he allowed himself to taint that.
“Patty–”
“No!” She shakes her head, tears building in her eyes, and– oh, how many times has he made her cry these past few days? “I don’t care! I don’t want to go back to the orphanage, and I don’t wanna go with anyone else either. I want to stay with you, Dante, please. I don’t care if I have to clean up after you all the time, or wear your smelly shirts, or eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! I just want to– I want…”
She sniffles and rubs her eyes.
Dante stands up, rushing to assuage her hurt before he can even register it. When he comes close enough, Patty’s hands fall from her face to reach out for him, and Dante doesn’t make her wait a moment longer. He hugs her back, one hand bracing the crown of her head while the other lays atop her shoulders.
“Why?” is all he can muster up. It’s as good a question as any.
“Because you understand,” she answers, looking up at him with her chin propped up on his belt buckle. “You’re the only one who does.”
In a moment he can only describe as inconceivable, Dante kneels down and scoops her up, sitting her in his arms so she’s at eye level with him.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he rasps, and it's a painful admission. Painful because, as invincible and indestructible as he is, he has never been able to extend that status to anyone else.
Patty frowns. “All you do is protect me.”
If only it were that easy. Dante smiles, brushing the bangs out of her eyes. He should have Lady come over and trim them up for her again.
“Dante,” she begs and sits up straighter, her little hands on each of his shoulders, and, oh, Dante can’t say no to that look. “I’m– I’m scared.”
Don’t be. God, don’t be. I’m here. I’m here, aren’t I? “Of what, kid?”
She twists in his hold, uncertain. At last: “I don’t want to be alone.”
And if that isn’t the final blow– his heart can’t take it anymore.
For the barest moment, Dante says to hell with everything, and clutches Patty as tightly as he can. He buries his nose into her hair before setting his chin atop her head, and if he were a better man, he would’ve placed a kiss there too. But he’s not, so he doesn’t take more than he deserves.
He rocks her like a baby for a few, precious moments, before finally setting her back down.
She holds onto his wrists like a lifeline.
“I’ll figure something out, alright?” He promises. “You won’t be alone.”
I swore to myself you wouldn’t end up like me.
Patty nods like a great weight has been taken off her shoulders, and it’s all Dante needs to solidify the thought he’s been suffocating in the depths of his soul this whole time.
He meets Morrison at the park. Patty is a ways away, feeding the ducks as they wade in the fountain, still within eyes’ view.
Dante tells Morrison his plan. The latter takes a long drag of his cigar before he responds.
“You know, Dante, in all my years of knowing you, I never thought you’d finally let someone in. And, hell, a kid at that. Figured it’d be a woman before anything else. But, then again, you’ve never had much finesse with women. Makes one wonder how you ended up with such a respectable little girl.” The man laughs.
Dante frowns, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Just tell me if you can make it work. And throw that out before the kid comes over.”
“Fatherhood’s already become you, I see,” Morrison jeers, and Dante shoots him a glare. “And, it’ll be a pain with your status and reputation, but I can put something together to make it work. It’ll cost you, though.”
“You’re my broker.”
Morrison shrugs. “I’ll put it on your tab.”
Dante relaxes. He watches Patty pick up one of the ducklings that got lost, carefully depositing it in the water with its siblings and mother. “I’m surprised you’re not going to tell me it's a bad idea.”
“Well, you’ll need to be smarter with your money, and take care of yourself a bit better, but it’s not a terrible idea.” He turns to Dante, his expression full of mirth. “Anyone with eyes can tell you adore the girl, Dante. And anyone with eyes can tell you she adores you too. The two of you make a good pair.”
Dante huffs. “She’s nothing like me.” That’s why I love her.
“She’s more like you than you think, Dante.”
Patty turns around, waving gleefully once she sees Morrison, and races to meet them. Thankfully, Morrison blows out his cigar and tucks it behind himself before Patty gets there.
As the two greet each other, Dante reminds himself that there was a time before all this. A time when he smiled like that too.
And that, maybe, that part of him wasn’t completely stripped from him over twenty years ago.
By some miracle– or, more accurately, a combination of Morrison’s scarily good negotiation and forgery skills and the neglectful nature of the orphanage Patty was a part of– they let him foster Patty.
The upstairs of Devil May Cry has two rooms, one of which Dante had been using as storage up till this point. Now, it's been completely renovated into a little girl’s room, filled to the brim with all her overly cutesy decor. Her closet is filled to the brim with clothes, too, and more to come, he’s sure. Little lady’s not going to be this little for long, and if her tastes keep up like they are, it’s only going to get worse once she reaches adult sizes. In any case, Dante thinks he’s going to be sick if he sees one more frill or bow. He also can’t bring himself to care all that much.
She’s here.
She’s his.
More importantly, though, he’s hers. In a way he’s never allowed himself to be for anyone.
As much as Dante saved Patty from the forces that lurk in the darkness of their world, so too did she save him from his own dark forces.
They make a good pair, in that way. A good team.
Patty’s already declared herself his assistant, so, no harm no foul. As long as she doesn’t try to enter the devil hunting field, Dante thinks it’ll be alright.
She has him to protect her, after all.
“Dante, start the movie!” His little assistant whines at him, and Dante smiles, turning on that old, shitty T.V. so they can watch some shitty musical Patty insisted on watching.
She’ll never let him live it down if she finds out he secretly enjoys theater, so he makes an effort to drone on and put off their movie night.
But, knowing Patty, she can probably tell he likes it anyway. He’s not so good at hiding his emotion around her, he’s found. For better or for worse.
So maybe that’s why, when he plops down on the couch beside her, an arm slung around her shoulders, he makes no attempt at masking his smile, nor the inexplicable joy lighting his eyes as he starts the film.
Maybe he’s not a good man. Maybe he doesn’t deserve this. Certainly, he doesn’t deserve her. But she’s here anyway, and Dante won’t push her away and fail this sweet, precious child of his either.
He’ll do right by her.
For once, that promise doesn’t seem as impossible.