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Chapter Text

This is a tale that will only get worse if left to run amok, she notes when the man she tries to run over with her bike dodges her with a showy backflip and manages to land on his feet. Her attempt is lukewarm at best, but it lets her know everything she has to and she hates this already. It's a tryhard.

Annoyance makes her halt close to the door. Show-offs are always a bad sign. And sure, this one practically oozes out the kind of stupid cock-sure energy that prevents him from simply stepping to the side and avoiding collision in a simpler and more reliable manner. Moron: picking your fights is half the battle. For this type of idiot life is cheap; she couldn't care less if someone finds their existence meaningless and is enough of a coward to make others responsible for bringing it to an end, hire themselves a personal grim reaper or trick someone into it for naught, but the same recklessness applies to the lives of anyone around them. She is not a nameless number, a caption of fine print under a newspaper item of a raid or a treasure hunt or whatever gone wrong, so she lands to the side and fires Kalina Ann without looking back when he blubbers out something inane about crashing parties. He's welcome, she'll do it for free this time.

They guy does what people like him do. Sigh. Considering his earlier stunt, it's not like she seriously believes she'll hit him from this distance, not even with her excellent blind aim − no, it's a warning shot, a generous one at that. She just wants him to lay off. The stranger then refuses to react accordingly. Good balance and reflexes, poor judgement: he rides the missile like a skateboard, which is fitting for someone so immature. Unfortunately, his timing is sound too, so he doesn't stay with his vehicle to the bitter end and get squished like a bug. The bomb goes off; a wall explodes; the guy lets out an excited whoop.

Do another backflip and fall on your head, see if she cares.

There's no time for this. She gives him a final glare, hoping that he'll get the message if she writes it out for him with a crayon. Since he doesn't − he makes a dumb face and saunters closer only to pause and stay rooted to the spot when it finally dawns on him that she's trying to get to the door behind his back −, she changes plans. No chance this will get resolved quickly. Men like him, they enjoy being contrary until they really get hurt. He will draw it out and take her time hostage with his antics and eventually cries like a girl when she lets him know she's not willing to play the only way he'll listen to. Pain has a way of making things simple and clear, even for these heroes.

Yeah, no. She's on a mission here.

As satisfying as it would be to hit him, she abandons the easy way in and takes the highway by driving through the hole the man punched into the building. While she doesn't see it, she just knows he watches her go, maybe makes another daft comment. With his injured ego, it's probably the only tool he has to get some sleep at night; ugh, he'll likely jerk off to the memory as well. It's gross, but then again, she's had worse. If he comes after her, however, she won't be nearly as nice.

This is how they meet.

She has always hated those stories where a woman meets a man and suddenly her life is all changed. Usually the change in the point of view is literal: either the pair gets hitched and her universe narrows down to the kitchen and the bedroom while her kids grow up and see the world and her hubbie is always working or fucking his secretary or both. The wife abandons all her hopes and dreams to play a domestic goddess and to satisfy the needs of her jealous deadbeat spouse. Quaint. Or then they never become a postcard of a picture-perfect nuclear family and this forces a stay-true imprint on her as well − he has a family somewhere already or can't get over his fear of commitment until he ditches her for a younger and more gullible victim. Doesn't really matter. The woman spends all her years mourning a guy who never gives a shit about her or their maybe-children, just the ego boost and getting his dick wet, and she's one of the lucky ones if she eventually finds herself alone and alive at the end. It's bullshit but it's far too often true.

She hates that it's sort of how hers begins too. She owes him nothing, though, he's not her knight in shining armor and other questionable sartorial choices. It's not like she hasn't been fighting for ages to carve her own place in the world: she's a self-made woman, a person with a background and the starring role in her own tale. In that respect, everything stays the same. But she meets a man and her life does change. It's not because of him so there's no direct correlation, just the makings of a stupid cliché. She makes things better for herself after that, so maybe it stops stinging eventually.

Later, years after the first impressions have mostly faded on both sides, she's occasionally reminded of this brief meeting anyway. Nostalgia's a bitch. She remembers thinking he is a good-looking individual, but that's not anything to write home about, that's her noting that a vermin has a shiny outer shell before squashing it and blasting its brethren to bits with her cannons. In the past, the thought flickers on and off within the space between two breaths. Looks are a line of defense and attack. She has weaponized hers, she looks attractive and gets the upper hand on the enemies who fail to realize she's no less dangerous for it. The guy would make a pretty stain; and then what? She's not looking for a quick fuck and she definitely doesn't have time for anyone patronizing. There are no damsels in distress, just bad writers who think someone's vulnerability means lack of an agenda.

She forgets about him.

--

Her trek through the tower is surprisingly painless. She'd expected wild goose chases for keys, solving magic puzzles, the usual spiel, but most doors fly open before her. It makes her suspicious, but she'll take the gift now and blow up the horse the second it starts moving. Anything too good to be true never comes without a price.

That doesn't mean the demons don't try to raise hell, though. There's plenty of them, but they seem sleepy and disorientated like they've just woken up from a long nap. Since the place seems ancient with its cobwebs and general state of deterioration, it's probably what's happened. None of them cause real trouble: no bosses, only swarms of lesser fiends. It's nice of them to gather in clusters − they're making her job easy for her. She's almost having fun.

The only true setback she meets is losing the motorbike early on. Such a rookie mistake: she gets too carried away with parrying the attacks of a few skeletons and their rusty scythes, ignoring a slow mook that's lugging around a coffin of sorts. It's not that she isn't aware of it being there and sneaking up on her. It's just very, very slow, and she doesn't expect it to be damn near blind as well. Still, it's her six and she should've dealt with it sooner. A loud crash shows her her error; the iron maiden collides with the bike and totals it effortlessly. She cusses and curses even after decimating the demons and continues by foot. There goes the last of her possessions. She's making good progress nevertheless, it's alright, this isn't about money, she keeps reminding herself.

After a while, it gets hard to judge how many floors there are left to climb. It makes sense to guess everything takes place at the top of the tower, so while the details of the happenings are fuzzy to her, she's confident in her plan. Where else would it be?

The room she finds herself in, now littered with empty husks of devils and shells of her ammo but otherwise containing merely some stone columns, has taken some damage. As a result, there's a gap in the wall. When she gets closer, the breeze of fresh air tells her it's actually the outmost wall. Nice and convenient.

Outside, the dusk clouds blot out the sun and make it hard to see in the dark. She walks to the edge of the ledge and takes a look. A sense of vertigo hits her; the world beneath her feet is obscured, but she seems to have just passed the middle point. Even from the distance, some wails can be heard from the ground level. It's senseless waste − everything that she expected from him.

She stops to take stock of her equipment. Sitting on a large piece of stone with her back to the chasm, she re-ties the laces of her boots, reloads and lets her poise relax for a brief moment, secure in having a good vantage point. It's going better than anticipated, even with the bad start. Naturally, because she knows Arkham much, much better than she'd like, all it does is make her wary. Nothing worthwhile is ever too easy, she thinks as she gets up to head back to work.

Ah. Speak of the devil.

"Well, well," his booming voice purrs from behind her back, no greetings necessary. She startles. There is nothing but a long fall there: there's no way to get to the spot by human means and without her noticing it. His research has been successful, then. She wants to spit on the ground, or preferably in his face, but her throat gets dry and her pulse rappelling inside it is wild and painful. The involuntary reactions are natural, it's her body doing its job when a predator got the jump on her. It's alright, it's okay, she's got it, just breathe and aim.

She knew it'd come to this. Hard to kill someone with your own hands if you never get to meet them, after all. Just… not so soon. Not yet.

The barrel of her pistol meets him before her eyes do. The face she's aiming at has changed and looks the same, a nightmare come to life. New scars won't hide how he's nothing but a skull underneath a thin layer of skin. Bash out the brains and he's just bone and dead tissue. He's lethal, likely more so than ever, and yet he's also decaying rapidly; there's every reason to be afraid, but her boogeyman is dying and she's stronger than her fear.

"You've grown stronger," Arkham slithers, mirroring her thoughts back at her. It's the same tone he'd use to call her beautiful, branding her like a cow, to be a copy of her mother, his. She's not amused about the fact that he's implying he has been watching her for god knows how long either. Not unexpected, though.

"Go to hell," she gives her first and final warning. When she pulls the trigger, and she knows it'll come to that, she won't be playing.

Arkham ignores her threats and keeps mocking her for pointing a gun at her 'kin'. He lost the right to that claim ages ago. "Your dear papa," he says. Like she's a child and he could force her to call him anything he wanted. Father. Papa. Eventually, she suspects, it would have been 'husband'.

Yes, she had loved him as Mary. Yes, Mary had a father and a mother and she'd loved them. Mary had a little lamb and she's gone and all she has now is her hate.

She gets angry. It's infuriating to admit. Not unexpected. There's nobody like him, only he can make her lose it with a few words because he's the one who's made them hurt. There's no one else in the world, just the two of them, the metal of her piece pressing against her fingers sharp and cold even through the leather of her gloves. Yes, she's had enough.

She pulls.

Her bullets soar into thin air. This close, she can't miss. It's true − he's not entirely human anymore. He must be happy, so goddamn proud of himself.

"You break my heart," Arkham croons. His gnarring voice is seemingly coming from everywhere. Her pulse ticks furiously. You break my heart when she refuses to dress up in her mother's dress. You break my heart when she's beaten black and blue and is swallowed up by the folds of silk, a hand caressing her temple and brushing against the bruise and skin it has created. When she gets her hands on him, she tells herself, she breathes and spins and searches for him frantically, when she gets her hands on him, she'll break his face and drive the bayonet through his chest but won't be finding a heart within. Where is he?

"After all, it was I who gave you your name."

Where is he?

There isn't still anything around her so there's only one option, no matter how crazy it sounds. Her guns find him standing on the ceiling − like a pillar or a fucking bat. Without batting an eye, he keeps going. "My darling daughter," Arkham says. Oh, she's his daughter now, is she.

She's flustered and wants to throw up. She's got to do it, now, shoot.

He makes a rictus because he forgot how to smile when he butchered her mother. The expression is one of the ugliest things she's ever seen, and she's seen it all. Somehow, this is going wrong, she manages to think before it truly does.

Arkham drops the book he's been carrying on her face, not forcibly enough to break her nose but enough to offset her balance. Her fingers twitch in vain − she gets it, she's too late.

The next thing she knows, her left wrist is crushed in his grip and she has no time to pull it free. Without delay, he flings her over the edge as if she didn't weigh anything at all. It happens faster than she can really realize, but her instincts are screaming and her focus falters but doesn't shatter. She keeps firing at him the entire time because if she's to die today, she'll take him with her. Despite everything, it's almost a relief when she loses the sight of him.

She falls.

The plunge is long enough that she could devise a plan.

She's not going down like this.

She could − no, the grapple hook won't work, the walls are too smooth and she can't aim like this.

Kalina Ann − she'll use it to --

Her fall stops short. There's suddenly a violent tug running through her whole body and a bolt of agony in her ankle. It empties her lungs and disorientates her for a long second, making it difficult to find out what's happening. When the daze resides a bit, she realizes she's lunged out of the frying pan straight into the fire.

It's the guy in red. He's caught her and is holding her body with one hand, painting a curious expression on his face. It's fake. He's a fake. This isn't something a human could do.

Damn it. It's a demon.

There goes her hope. No way she'll be able to kick its feet under it without being tossed back into the abyss. She curses her rotten luck and thanks her quick reflexes that have already pointed her weapons at the foe that's apparently very intent on being meddlesome.

It jokes about the situation in spite of the guns immediately shoved at its mug. Inconsequential drivel, but it's delivered as if it's trying to hit on her. In reality, it only sounds like what it is, the thing trying to ridicule her. It's a fraud in every aspect. Not a real person, incapable of feelings, bad at imitation.

"Let me go," she warns it out of courtesy and dizziness. It's unpleasant to dangle upside down at someone else's mercy and have your blood pack into your head.

The creep doesn't quit yapping at her.

Fine. She prefers to take her chances. She shoots it in the brain, it drops her and topples backwards. She knew that would happen but is still sorry it won't be falling down too. Then she has no time to spare for trivial annoyances.

Instead, she saves herself by hitting the wall with Kalina Ann and wedging the cutter deep into it. Fuck − the recoil of it hurts like hell. It's good, it tells she's still here and human. Hanging onto her launcher and trying to gather her breath, she's interrupted by the demon again. It takes a peek at her over the ledge. What an idiot. She delivers another bullet in its head, wishing it was silver. This gives her time to get on top of her howitzer and get a better aim at the hostile. She perches on her only lifeline and counts how the seconds pass.

When it reappears, it's donning a couple of holes in its forehead. As a marksman, she's a little proud. The look it throws down at her is incredulous; then its expression turns blank and it leaves her be. Not used to getting rejected, huh? At least it got the message. For now.

Back on firm ground, she rubs her wrist once, then never does it again.

--

As the day progresses and things get progressively more fucked up, she has to acknowledge him, it, it. It's a demon, basically an animal, the only thing worse than a man who has no sense of boundaries and enough entitlement to think she'd give him the time of the day merely because he exists. It's not even a despicable human so she doesn't kick it in the nuts when it gets into her personal space. It'd probably enjoy it, the freak.

When the giant whale that had been floating around the tower drops at her feet dead, she knows to expect trouble and isn't all that surprised to see the demon cut its way through the giant red eye. The smell is disgusting and the devil is drenched in blood. Looks are deceiving: these are its true colors, no matter how much it tries to shake it all off in front of her and her weapon, fixed at the back of its head.

"Wait," she commands. She's not ashamed to admit she's out of her element here with all this diabolical nonsense. It'll give her some explanations if she makes it.

"If you're asking for a date, forget it," it says and tries to swat her gun away half-heartedly. She's so sorry she apparently wounded its pride by refusing to beg it for help a while back. It would explain why there's something off about it, why it's so downtrodden; its voice is flatter and hollow and its eyes are harder, no cries of excitement now. Oh, poor thing. It's upset and having a bad day. It should man up and find its balls, if it's even got them − she's not interested in what kind of configurations these mongrels have in their pants.

She should be more careful with her thoughts.

Just one throwaway look at her chest and she's back to the house and the bed and the darkness, listening to how heavy his breathing gets when he stands in the doorway and neither of them believes she's asleep. The next day, she cuts her long hair off with scissors meant for freeing happy animal shapes from sheets of colorful paper. Afterwards, he hits her in the face. She knows next time he'll lick the blood away so she never gives him the chance to do it again.

It was one of the last things she had been given by her mother, her hair that ran down to her hips. Like the bonnet of some fucking Little Red Riding hood, hah. When she saw the strands of it lying lifeless on the floor at her feet like her mother's, she could tell her childhood, such as it was, had truly ended. She had cut them off and severed her last connections to a normal life. Sometimes she wonders if Arkham knew what he created. She who fights monsters will become one herself, after all.

This demon looks at her chest and thinks it knows something, that it has her all read.

It's not an ally. It will have no power over her. It will only make her angrier.

"Date a demon? I'm not that desperate," she says viciously. Its mouth ticks.

They're interrupted and get into a fight with other demons. The cur's not useless in this, even if it keeps asking her stupid questions out of habit. They're both aware it doesn't need to call her anything because they're neither fighting each other nor not-fighting − they're temporarily on the same side, purely out of convenience. If its tone was clearly mocking earlier, now it's talking just to make noise. She doesn't give a damn why; maybe she caused it, maybe she didn't, it's all the same to her.

Despite all the swagger, the thing is quick to dump everything on her. "I'll leave this to you!" it yells and enters the building.

Pitiful. Good riddance.

--

Lady. Running through the halls of the tower, she thinks about names.

"Whatever, lady."

Lady.

She's infuriated she actually likes the title so she steals it. She likes to weaponize what's used to demean and belittle her because nobody expects it from her. She already has plenty of aliases, of course − she needs IDs and that's what business demands. No one is interested in buying the kind of service she provides from a woman at first, not until her fame carries enough weight. She started off with a male one, then switched to a generic demon hunter codename when word of her competence had gotten around and most of her clients had stopped making a show of getting a young female to solve their problems. Now, she could make Lady work.  

It's not like this creature understands things like that, what it feels like to have things stolen from you. Real monsters don't feel the sense of loss even if they're capable of greed, like Arkham or this irritating little worm tailing her. The latter clearly wants something here and she has no idea what that could be. It bothers her; unknown quantities pose a risk she's not happy to take.  

At least what Arkham wants is clear. He stole her family, her mother's time, her intact skin, even her eyes. Kalina Ann was known for her beautiful grey eyes − never mind anything worthwhile that made her the woman she was, her fearless personality and overwhelming empathy for those who never deserved to have a drop of it, her passion for making every possible thing by hand. They saw a beautiful woman making pretty, useless trinkets and laughed with warm condescension, just like they see a pretty, useless trinket and a pretty, useless thing when they see her wearing the necklace her mother crafter for her. Never mind the amulet utilizes crystallized demon blood or something like it to alert her against the presence of the same beasts it was made of. It's a stupid thing to cry after when she's got real problems, but she hates to see her own colors replaced by his when she looks in a mirror, as if the hair and the markings he has carved in her aren't enough. The bluish green from his original eyes, the man he once was or at least pretended to be. The red from his inhuman experiments with blood, the sort of fake-deep shit she detests.

The other scars, like the bullet wound on her lower thigh, she wears with pride, even though she is ashamed to have been hit. They're hers, a result of her own victories and mistakes. When this is over, she'll be able to do that with the old marking too. She overcomes and makes them into trophies.

Some nights are still bad. She wakes up and feels shackles and hands pinning her wrists down. She feels a needle digging into her eyeball and a thick viscous liquid spreading inside her head. She doesn't cry but her tears burn nevertheless.

"My darling Mary."

The nightmare ends today, she'll make sure of that. She'll kill it before it kills her.

--

Again, her barrel meets the back of the demon in red. This time, she wastes a warning shot.

Lady finds the piece of shit that's supposed to be her father killed, lying at the brute's feet. A stripe of blood under him tells her he's been stabbed. The broadsword the creature is lugging around jeers at her: she's too late.

It's too late.

She questions him. She's denied a straight answer. Fucking bastard − this means something. She attacks it, wants to hurt it even when she knows she can't.

It seems glad for the distraction, plays along, refuses to shut up and get serious.

She's no match against it. This is clear from the start but doesn't stop her. She has to take the disappointment out on something, the grief of losing. It was her hit, the only personal one she'll ever have. It has no idea what it took from her, and so she shoots and jumps and keeps getting up from the floor. Lets it know that it'll never be a human even if it tries to look like one, like it obviously tries to, because it can't understand what it has done to her.

We have something in common, it says.

I have a dysfunctional family too, it says.

It's useless. It won't get even that. This is useless.

It's disappointed when she stops and lets it go. Her pain won't be its entertainment; it leaves to do whatever it's here for and she doesn't ask. She doesn't care.

Then she's alone.

--

Arkham speaks. Her hands shake. She sets out to kill another devil, finds another purpose.

--

You're such a sweet child, just like your mother.

She tries to ignore what hearing that does to her. Darling Mary, an image of his wife with her eyes and hair and clothes. Which is the mother, which is the daughter? But it's not him, her father or her blood, it's the corruption whispering at him. Sickness, not an innate fault. It doesn't undo anything but it's not them, so she'll get their revenge.  

Vergil.

--

Vergil is the blue to the red of its twin. With their swords clashing and raised against each other, they are a perfect reflection; for a moment, Lady halts and sees how they dance on their own blood to a rhythm she can't hear but still senses. They're so close that the blades seem like an afterthought − they fight like they want to tear one another apart by their nails and teeth, but every move is mirrored back so precisely that it looks effortless and natural, almost drowning out the bloodthirsty desperation of it all. For a moment, it looks beautiful.

Neither of them breaks their eye contact to even glance at her when she fires Kalina Ann. Vergil dodges the missile with a flick of its katana and they share an annoyed look when they actually come to realize they've been interrupted. The demon she's not chasing tells her to go away, finally dropping the act and abandoning any attempt to sound mocking.

They're back at it before Lady can reach them. When the red one parries an attack, Lady catches a glimpse of its eyes. It's alive in a way it wasn't before, but above all, it's afraid. It's the first sincere emotion she's seen the demon express.

Guided by her hatred, Lady tries to close the distance between her and her target. She's flung to the ground so easily she's not sure how it happens. She blocks the mean-looking sword with her gun and screams at Vergil, who looks contemplative for a second until it turns its back on her like she's not worth the effort of focusing and making an actual swing at her. Its single-minded focus is back on its kin in a flash. More blood is shed; they forget the steps and still make each other bleed in synch.

"Is that what you think?"

Lady is left to bite her teeth and wait for an open, trying to swallow the doubt.

It turns out she doesn't have to.

--

It's Arkham. It's always been him.

--

Lady is, once again, merely a sacrifice to him. Good girl, pure and innocent, just like her mother. When he pierces her thigh with the bayonet, she wants to yell how she got rid of her 'purity' the first chance she got so that he'd never be able to take it as well, but she won't give him the satisfaction. 

Shapeshifting, inhuman strength, spellbreaking, Sparda being a real demon. Nothing surprises her anymore.

"Don't be a bad girl, Mary, or you can expect a spanking from daddy later!"

Her head hurts. She can't feel her leg. She tries to focus on something else than her body.

The way Arkham forces himself deep into Vergil's personal space and fondles its fancy Japanese sword tells her a thing or two. He's found himself another pretty little thing to toy with. She doesn't feel any pity for the devil and sure as hell doesn't want to wonder how far he's gone with this victim. She swallows blood.

The ritual is successful. Arkham is raised above the clouds; the world crumbles around her.

The red demon stops her fall for the second time. She accepts the hand because she needs a ladder and time is running out. It still doesn't understand anything.

She's back to where she started. She must kill him.

--

The trek up is painful. Her makeshift bandage doesn't do much to stop her from bleeding. She'll survive if she stops, takes time to patch herself up and gets rest. She climbs and climbs and climbs.

Lady crawls inside the first window she comes across, leans against a bookcase and pants. It can't end like this.

She tries to stop the demon when it predictably follows her. It threatens her to drop her weapons because it has for some reason decided to do the deed itself. She's delirious and hurting and goes all out on her stubborn foe, knowing it'll cost her a lot, maybe even the leg. Since the thing's pretty shaken too, she's able to draw it out longer than she's imagined.

She empties her gun one last time and doesn't even hit it anymore. The empty clip doesn't prevent her from clicking the trigger feverishly when it creeps closer. Do your worst, she thinks and holds her trembling chin up. You can't hurt me.

She's pressed against the rack; the demon corners her almost gently. The gesture is flirty and intimidating in nature, but her aggressor is merely going through the motions, too tired to convince itself that it believes it means it.

"I'll take care of him," it says quietly. Neither of them knows exactly who he's talking about. It moves its mouth closer to her face, and it seems to be deriding itself as much as her.

"Why do you care so much?" Lady asks. It's a moment of weakness for her, she might as well poke the dragon to see if she can make it tick too. When the demon speaks, its voice twists at the words 'my brother' and she knows she's succeeded, even when it ridicules her for the thousandth time by claiming it wants to stop Arkham and Vergil's apotheosis because of her.

She gives it Kalina Ann and takes its name. When it replies, she freezes for a second.

Dante.

Can't be.

But it explains a lot.

It isn't the name the legendary demon hunter uses, but this is Lady's playground. She's in the know, she has connections, she hears the rumors. Every person in the business that's worth anything has heard of the hunter. The general consensus is that he or she changes aliases like socks and does all kinds of jobs to throw any tracers off. But all the big ones, the impossible ones, carry the same signatures if you know how to look for them. She thought she'd track the legend someday.

Dante. Huh. Lady gives it the gun.

She doesn't know if this is a creature that's capable of killing its own kin, if it wants to, but if she can do anything to convince it, she'll do it. "Dante, please free my father," she pleads and wonders is emotional manipulation ever works on these freaks. She's not above it.

It's worth a shot.

--

Eventually, she kills him. She cries. She hasn't killed her past but she's carved herself a future with the bullet lodged deep inside his head, his life flowing out of his bashed skull and broken body until it's nothing but blood.

Father. The monster that took everything away from her. Just a weak little man, too crippled to protect himself. She wanted a fight and now he's taken even that from her. He'd be dead even if she didn't snuff him out. For the last time, she is Mary and he is her father. This is their family. She laughs.

She kills him.

The less said about that, the better. She's free − it'll feel like a victory tomorrow.

Takes a while to get used to it.

--

The plan fails. She's at last taking a moment to rest and figure out how to go about the cleanup when the red demon stumbles back to earth.

She's exterminated a fair share of leftovers already, but it's far from over, Lady thinks and tries to estimate how long her ammo will last. What time is it? There's so much ash in the air that it's painted the sky gray. She can hear how a building collapses somewhere. What a shitshow.

Suddenly, there's movement behind her back. It's got to be some kind of devil crap: there's nothing there but a mountain of rubble. Her gun greets a now familiar figure.

"What an ordeal," the demon notes flatly, acknowledging her with a little nod. The tone is as colorless than the one it used back in the library when it promised to 'take care' of things.

The other demon is dead, then. Good.

These creatures − the devils, Arkham − are so fucking selfish they never realize there's always going to be collateral damage. Actions have consequences, a child knows that, knew that. Her father never sacrificed a human, he murdered three and then some. This thing seems to have woken up to this only now that it's lost something that means anything to it personally. Though luck. It'll either learn its lesson or kill itself, which honestly should be the same thing as far as she's concerned. If it'll keep going the way its sibling had, she'll go after it and slay it herself.

It gets closer to where Lady's standing. Then it stands there empty handed and seems to be having trouble with just existing. It probably couldn't harm her like this, but she keeps an eye on it while she lowers her handgun reluctantly. There's something pained in it that she recognizes, the expanding emptiness that that'll blow up into ugly panic eventually. The… helplessness.

She hasn't planned this either. The after is a brave new world.

It's carrying Kalina Ann on its back. Frankly, she didn't think it would return it and was ready to lose it. The launcher might be named after her mother, but it's just a weapon, even if it's a very good one. She won't be getting carried away by thinking sentimentally about something her life depends on. It's nice to see it again anyway.

"You're still here?", it says dumbly while clutching her gun. Lady holds back and doesn't ask where else it thinks she'd be. She'll only waste her breath if she makes an attempt to teach it anything about humans. Most people are unable to defend themselves from these beasts. She can do that and she hates them − where else she'd be.

"I need that back," she says.

"Right," it replies. It makes no move to hand it over.

"Don't just stand there," she says. Kinslayer or not, she's not coddling it.

It makes an unfunny joke while finally doing what it's told. She pretends she doesn't hear how deflated it sounds because she's still generous like that and doesn't need the awkwardness.

They survey the desolate landscape and chat about the hordes making a comeback. There's no sign of the previous facetious veneer; she's glad. They've both seen too much today.

When she glances at the hunter next to her to determine if she could bring up the topic of its reputation, maybe ask some questions, talk shop, it parts its lips and lets out a tiny mute sound.

It's −

"Are you crying?" Lady asks. She tests the ice with the tip of her foot, already fully prepared to step on it.

She doesn't feel bad. Why would she? It is a victim of its circumstances that Lady's only related to by a tangent that has now been cut off for good; they could even be of its own making, who knows, who cares? Lady doesn't want its biography, its sob story, its burdens. She's a complete stranger that feels uncomfortable to be caught in such an intimate moment − just like anyone would, except she's smart enough to know when she's trapped and guilt-tripped. Her first survival instinct tells it to fuck off because she's not fooled by displays of its emotions any more than by the bravado and words it keeps using to cover up how lost it is deep down.

But this is not how demons behave.

Devils never cry.

This is not how a predator behaves.

It's not drawing attention to it. It denies it when she presses the matter, blames the nonexistent rain, turns away and lashes out at the demons that try to creep up on them with action that's too frantic, empty boasts, excessive use of force − a missile launched against a fly. It doesn't take the bait she offers it: maybe somewhere out there even a devil may cry when he loses a loved one, don't you think? Go on, take the floor, try to get me to pity you and tell me your sorry little history. Make me sad, get my defenses down, use me.

It doesn't. Maybe, it says, ignoring the shot it's given. It shouts like it's surprised its voice doesn't break and cleaves at the hostiles as if it's afraid of what happens when it's supposed to put its weapons down.

Its face is otherwise annoying and perfect, but the eyes are dead. When it turns them to her, they look through the veil of hair that's fallen over them in the fray. The full-body flinch that follows seems genuinely involuntary. She watches how it raises its hand to its mouth, how its muscles tense and how it stares at it long enough that the hysteria bleeds into its fingers, makes them tremble − how it inhales violently and rakes the hand through its hair to push it back like a human would yank off a blade in the leg, then pulls the strands back to the front. Neither shape seems to fit it. It does it again, lets go, allows the hair to fall over its forehead on its own. Lady feels detached. The pair of scissors in one of the pockets hanging on her belt is burning a hole through the fabric.

No, this demon is something else. This is your new reality, she wants to say but doesn't. Get used to it or you've lost the game. That's how it goes, always, and she doesn't feel bad for it because it won't change anything. Instead, she takes it up on the offer it throws at her without any initial intention to follow it through − she leans on the last wall standing while it rummages through the ruins of its digs for a bottle and even a pair of glasses and climbs after it to sit on top of another ruined building. While it pours their first drinks, she inspects the wasteland beneath their feet so that she won't notice it spilling the whiskey as if already drunk. The destruction has bought Lady her revenge; while she's not responsible for it, she downs her glass with the surviving brother, allows it to fill it again. She's not in a hurry anymore.

So, Lady meets a guy and her life changes. What she doesn't realize immediately is that it isn't the beginning of her tragedy.

Dante, however, is another story. He's in the middle of his instead.

Chapter Text

This partnership of theirs and how it comes about − it's stupid, like most things in their lives, but while she can laugh all she wants, it's undeniable that "their lives" somehow becomes a thing. As much as she'd like to claim innocence and blame the other party, she's at fault too, which means she's stupid as well. With the company she keeps it's practically a requirement, isn't it? She'll deal.

Here's a handy process diagram of the trainwreck. Once upon a time, a lady meets a guy. They clash and butt heads over instant, mutual animosity, cross swords both in words and with guns and make some unenthusiastic attempts at homicide and flirting. In the end they're still conveniently united against a common enemy. Well, almost common and there are several enemies; it's complicated since real life rarely fits into the frames of a fairy tale. Anyway, they're the only ones left standing when the dust settles: where to now, they ask and note the question is a shared one. The solution isn't as obvious as it might appear post-trade. Ultimately, their individual stories have different conclusions even with the superficial similarities. Lady is successful in her quest by killing a relative of hers and considers survival a bonus, whereas Dante fails by having to slaughter his brethren and is alive in spite of himself. They could part ways when it's all said and done − the circumstances bringing them together have ceased to exist and neither of them is looking for the romantic "all's well that ends well" that might be expected of them after the hassle.

The slightly cracked glass in her hand, reflecting her drunken perplexity and lack of plans back at her, is the first sign of the development. Lady knows nothing about tomorrow today and it's a blessing that she doesn't have to. Freedom is a strange state of mind, it tastes like dried fruits and has a strong alcohol burn. There is merely a morsel of idle curiosity in her when she swirls her nth serving, the brandy, around, so it's difficult to imagine that this is where they'll come back to time and time again, that the creature pinning her to a bookcase is going to be a permanent fixture in her tale. But shit happens sometimes and only some of the accidents are happy. She winds up where she is by choice.

Lady meets a demon. She finds… something. Someone.

She also gets to keep her leg, which is a plus. 

--

In hindsight, accepting drinks offered by a demonic stranger isn't the most sensible choice she's ever made. It never was a good idea, no use defending herself by harping on Dante for picking the wrong beverages. She reserves the right to complain a bit nevertheless. The spirits they inhale while watching the sun slowly shed the shroud of soot obscuring it are typically high in alcohol, fine. She gets a bite indeed: damn, it's a hell of a lot meaner than expected, a proper overkill. Bottles keep coming, and while Dante guzzles down most of them, the boozing leads to Lady blacking out at some point. While she is being far more careless than she can afford, it's not the biggest leap of faith she takes with him.

The hangover eventually wakes her up with a swift kick in the head. It's a warm welcome to her new situation, all things considered. She hasn't been murdered, robbed or molested, she thinks as she rolls over to notice the reason for the miracle. Having dismantled his coat to fashion a makeshift blanket for her, Dante's still there, looking at the now visible skyline like it's promised to explain in detail why everything's gone wrong for him. There's a deliberate, careful distance between them. For some reason, she sticks around.

They're both alone and in varying states of shock. The difference is that she's happy despite the initial conflicted emotions. The big bad wolf is dead by her hand, and that's the end of that. The curtain falls; mother has been avenged, her liberty is restored, she's her own heroine and lives, finis. Now it's just a matter of getting to her happily ever after, and honestly, she has no idea how to go about that. It's maddening to admit her life's been revolving around a rotten man for years. That's not the entire truth, she thinks vehemently − she did it for herself, she's been training, growing stronger and pushing herself to her limits because it's useful. But, her headache reminds her, she's also spent so much time imagining this moment and sacrificed so much for it that she has no safety net to fall into.

The truth is, Lady's at crossroads. Every direction around her is unfamiliar, but it makes her feel better when she can literally smell how much worse Dante has it. Mind you, it smells of obvious alcoholism. She's not a nice person, she uses him, he doesn't care. At some point down the line, they click. It works.

At first, her actions are driven by practical concerns. Tracking Arkham and getting prepared was insanely expensive. Lady sold everything she owned to buy intel and supplies. She's got no place of her own anymore, just the clothes on her back and her weapon collection that's diminished to what she can carry − ah, she recalls the bike's gone too. It's the streets then, and they aren't kind to someone like her. Sure, she can hold her ground better than most against anything, but it's impossible to rest when she's got to sleep with one eye open for the first hint of trouble. It's no wonder she jumps at the chance that present itself in the shape of Dante the demon hunter in the beginning; the later stages require more explaining.

It's not that easy in reality, of course. Since the walls of his office have come down somehow, Dante's kind of homeless too. They quickly conclude his bureau is a lost cause: there's no fixing the building without constructing a new one on the spot.

"This is pretty thorough demolition. What happened?" she asks and kicks a pile of rubble that may have been a bearing wall. The tower alone didn't cause this, that's certain.

Dante's explanation of the events isn't very helpful. "I sneezed at it," he says and gestures vaguely at the ruins.

He could at least have the decency to pick a more convincing lie. It's a theme with him, she learns.

"Right. Just so you know, I don't find you being a demon with demonic powers and strength and crap amusing at all," she says.

Dante glances at her mutely. Shaking his head at something, he salutes the debris and bids final goodbye to his home. Lady approves: it doesn't seem like he's given it too much sentimental value.

"Mm, me neither. Hey, want to get introduced to someone?"

It turns out they already have mutual acquaintances; some would call them meeting destiny, Lady calls it their world being a sad little circle jerk. Dante takes them to Morrison and begs the man to arrange him new headquarters. Morrison shrugs apologetically at Lady and her indignation. He's well-aware she's been interested in the (in)famous huntsman but never told her he dealt with him so personally. "What can I say? A gentleman's got to keep his promises, and besides, it's bad praxis to talk too much in this industry. You're a smart one, you would've gotten it someday." He makes it up somewhat by being helpful.

They end up christening the new apartment with booze. What else would they do. Lady finds herself on the floor afterwards, circled by a mountain of cardboard boxes and an actual blanket thrown haphazardly over her body. She has distant memories of telling Dante about her living conditions and feels glad it's probably the most embarrassing she got. Fortunately, they aren't the kind of drunks that bond over shitty autobiographies, so she gets to keep some of her dignity.

"You can bunk here if you want to," her host says nonchalantly while searching for a painkiller. He's got a lot of garbage for someone who doesn't seem to need anything. "I've got no use for the spare room. Just pull your weight at the jobs and I don't mind.”

She accepts the pill and refuses the offer. Dante doesn't get upset at her being so ungrateful or whatever.

"Your loss." Right. As she is about to witness over and over again, he can't help himself and leave well enough alone.

He makes another suggestion. "Come to think of it, I happen to have cash on me now. I can lend you some and you can pay me back by working with me for a while. Interested?"

No, Lady isn't thrilled to be tied down by a debt when she's just freed herself from one yoke. She's got to think of the big picture, though: what are the alternatives? The sum is not that high and the apartment she gets with it is dinghy, drafty and hers. She hangs around the base of operations often anyway, but in her tiny hole of a flat she has her freedom and is less dependent on Dante's continuing goodwill than by boarding with him.

Speaking of the agency − Dante renovates the place with frantic energy and makes it livable only to trash it when his depression takes a turn for the worse. Contrary to the popular belief, it doesn't start with skulls pinned on the walls and the plaster crumbling away, although it's true that the more professional and pleasant look can't last. Dante's soon forced to acknowledge he's much like his former office in terms of stability, beyond salvaging. Before that, the cycle repeats itself a couple of times and she watches it unfold like a spectator sport. Build something up to tear it down, exercises in madness. To each their own.  

One day, she comes to deliver him his latest payment and finds out he's gotten some neon lights installed above the front door. "Devil May Cry," she says to him as a greeting. Dante flinches and deflects by picking up the phone and ordering them pizzas. It's probably the first time he's eaten in a week.

When he finally gives up and lets DMC become the sty it's meant to be, he doesn't get any less manic. The objects of his focus change, the disordered behavior remains. Lady suspects he doesn't sleep much, merely takes these little power naps and then either works or distracts himself with his pastime activities until exhaustion compels him to hit the hay again. As a half-breed he can probably dick around like that with no lasting physical damage.

And yet. A real crash has to come, she remembers thinking at the time. Soon, most likely, since this is not sustainable by any means. In retrospect, she underestimates him. Dante's dysfunctionality is a well-oiled machine that's been chugging long before she set foot in his weekdays; she's technically correct in predicting a collapse, but it happens because things actually find a way of getting worse, not because of Dante running out of steam.

--

"Settling down" has never been a part of Lady's vocabulary or her plans for the future, as nebulous as they've been. The tunnel vision she's had going on for so long has basically made her concentrate on killing Arkham and killing Arkham only, so whatever would happen next has always been of little interest to her − if she survived that, she could survive anything, so why worry? If she had thought about it, she'd likely have guessed the legend of Lady and the tramp would consist of her bailing once the debt has been repaid and never looking back. She would have been wrong.

Dante gets them champagne and is more jumpy than usual for a week after the last settlement of the loan. Then he adapts, stops expecting she'll walk out within the next five minutes. This is the only instance of him getting character development between ages nineteen and thirty or so. 

As time goes by, Lady still isn't in a hurry to get on the road again. As trippy as it is, she can always come up with more reasons to stay than go, and the former multiply when weeks become months and years. She tells herself not to get too comfortable and thinks she succeeds in keeping a reasonable distance, for which she should also be thanking Dante the hermit, but the bottom line is that when she searches for a date in the note he has left her and feels something foreboding chocking her, it's almost ten years later and she's changed along with her circumstances.

The main thing she'd blame is their co-operation being so lucrative. Compared to her former enterprises, she's not overstating anything by calling it a goldmine. Astoundingly, they make quite the team once the engine starts running and they get used to reading each other's moves. Before long Dante, confused about her not taking a hike but cool with her presence, lets her tag along to any mission she pleases and is careful to hand over her split. Given that he gets a decent amount of traffic, takes whatever bullshit people throw at his way and has some compulsions to feed, they're very productive.

On top of that, the benefits bleed into her private business ventures. The hunter of hunters has contacts everywhere, well beyond what she'd imagined possible. He is too antisocial to utilize them properly, which frustrates her until she gets herself involved. Dante has no qualms about her abusing them, so they're hers now, at her disposal as well as his, and her reach grows gradually until their underworld seems like a giant spiderweb and she's sitting in the middle of it. She wants something, she can make it happen. It's exciting, satisfying. She won't ever become powerless again.

Then there are the reasons that are more directly related to Dante and his person, ugh. Lady confesses that part of it is demon hunting being plain fun more often than not when he's on the case. She recognizes his work in the stories that circulate around, and while there is plenty of hot air there, many of the details she'd deemed implausible turn out to be true. Although it boggles the mind that the untidy bum in his ratty boxers is a son of the knight Kalina Ann liked to tell her about, he deserves the titles he's been given.

The first time she gets to observe Dante fighting without interruptions is a moment of reflection. They're facing a gigantic fiery reptile she refuses to call a dragon and a pack of its offspring some months after they got together. The beast is the strongest she's ever run into and she's curious to see where this is going. They split up without having to exchange a word, which leaves the smaller animals to Lady and the grand prize to him. The critters are disposed of quickly: the spikes and sharp claws make them look more dangerous than they truly are. Lady is cleaning her bayonet and cursing gastric acids when it occurs to her she could give him a hand. Instead, she leans back.

There's no reason for Dante to be serious with this fiend. That could be said about any foe she's seen with him so far, barring his twin and possibly Arkham. Even though he does things like unconsciously stumping cigarettes on his bare arms, these tell-tale displays of self-neglect and lazy masochism, he's painfully aware of his limits and thus isn't actively suicidal. He can easily pull off the aloof attitude even with a high demon like this. Giving her a loan instead of buying new toys to test out means it's just him, his old broadsword and the twin guns that never need a refill. In other words: while it takes the slightest bit of effort unlike their previous duo missions, from his point of view it's a forgettable, relatively minor scuffle.

This is not what Lady sees. She can point out the demonic influence but also the raw talent and years of honing the skills that are now put to use. Dante in action is a thing of beauty. She's captivated by the fluidity of him switching between the blade and the firearms in the middle of a nimble leap; his impeccable timing, the way he weaves his counterattacks into aggressive defense; the dexterity required to maneuver the steel so precisely in a manner that looks so spontaneous; how he taunts his target playfully while dodging the fire, reactive, responsive; how effortless this is for a person to whom simple existing seems like an insurmountable pain at times. In a battle, he doesn't stumble over his own limbs − he interrupts a blow that would cleave him into two should it land, knows what's coming better than the aggressor itself, steals the attack and makes it his, uses the impact to guide his sword to the neck of the creature and beheads it smooth as water. Bathing in the blood spurting from the severed veins, he turns and gives her a nearly genuine grin. Guts and glory.

In some imaginary parallel world, it might be easy to fall for him. She can see it happening. It would be complicated. They don't have to be.

In this one, Lady watches and admires but the spark is weak, she'll kill it. This tentative relationship they have going on, one she is hesitant to name, is worth more to her as is. She smiles back and means it.

Besides. At this stage she's merely a spectator, but a mere glimpse informs her she'd be playing the second fiddle till doomsday. Dante is already too preoccupied with his personal demons. Demon.

--

So, the financial side of things is order and she's enjoying the jobs. It's understandable that it takes a while for her morbid curiosity to wake up. It's kept her alive so far, so when it does, she listens to it. Lady considers simply asking him: "What did your brother do to you that made you like this?" What holds her back is her hunch that he'd clam up. This is the something he's running away from.

Why Vergil? It can't be just the dying. You don't mourn anyone for decades, least of all an estranged sibling. No − this is a permanent way of being for Dante. Why?

The observation isn't one she could make instantly. In many ways, the aftermath goes as predicted. There are all the trappings of basic survivor's guilt with a side of trauma drama. He startles at reflective surfaces and insists on dressing in an even angstier way than before, what have you. Unremarkable, normal-ish symptoms of a normal problem.

It's more than that, though. To put it simply, Dante is fundamentally broken as a person. It takes a while to get. It makes her doubt. The money's good for her, yes, but the compensation would not be worth it in the long run if she had to watch an unhinged individual whining and feeling sorry for themselves and nothing but. Endless pity parties get old after a while if you don't have a savior complex, and she'd be the first to admit she's not an empathetic or nurturing soul by any stretch of imagination. It comes with the job and the upbringing. When she has enough savings to get by on her own and then some, she could fuck off and leave him to wallow in his troubles since she isn't going to try and save him.

Her decision to stay is a sum of many causes. Lady will confess this out loud over her dead body only, but okay, Dante's got redeeming qualities. He's genuinely funny. He gets shit done. He's loyal. While his motives are far from altruistic − she recognizes it because hers aren't that either −, he's generous because he doesn't give a damn about wealth, no matter how much he gripes about paying a bill. Despite the unpredictable nature of their trade, they quickly develop a routine. Dante's eager − no, let's call a spade a spade − desperate to accept any mission. Sure, he bitches and moans when he gets the equivalent of retrieving a cat from a tree on his desk. He still does it because he needs the distraction of doing something and being able to buy additional distractions. It's escapism. She benefits from it.

It also helps that Dante's not that happy to be a hybrid. Starting to call him by his name takes a while and referring to him as a "he" inside her head is an even longer process, but Lady gets there. She likes not having to explain herself to him. If she's going on a bender to combat a nightmare or boredom, she won't be judged; Dante either gets it or knows better than to ask. If he thinks she's feeling down, he suddenly has a new assignment for her or just talks her ears off and fills her head with his inane chatter. She doesn't need this but it's − nice. For the first time in her life, she can afford such luxuries.

They aren't some kindergarten BFFs and thus don't do bars and office nights every day. They do hang out often enough that she can't claim to be lonely. Dante occasionally has valuable insight as far as supernatural bullshit goes, so she learns a thing or two too. He's got great stories about his adventures in general, and some of them she can even verify. She's building a puzzle and finds it surprisingly entertaining.

Once she has access to his belongings, Lady snoops around. Of course she does, she's got to cover her bases if this is the card she's going to be betting on. Using her networks to connect the dots, she finds out about the newspaper clippings from some Red Grave City rag, the fire and the manor burning down, allegedly killing the mother and her two sons. While there's a shrine for the mom in the photograph he's framed, Dante doesn't keep those articles around himself. Morrison, however, does; if it's a secret she's not meant to know, he shouldn't do such a lousy job of locking his windows. No mentions of a father. Figures, the daddy issues are self-evident and the Sparda she's heard so much about doesn't strike her as the fatherly type.

It doesn't seem like the twins spent a lot time together after the incident. Dante emerges alone as a series of names whispered in smoky cellars and shadowy alleys afterwards, all tied to demon hunting and other shady businesses. Cage fighting, a hired gun, private eye, anything to keep his head above the water. He must have been shockingly young when he started, even younger than she was. Lady can respect that.

The evidence paints a clear enough timeline, but it's still the barest of bones. What does she even know about their sibling rivalry and Vergil as a whole? Besides the fact that he was obviously the evil twin and managed to be a colossal prick even in comparison to his brother, that Arkham's gaze traced his hips like hers, she can only guess. Dante's open to questions in theory but his replies are useless. While he's reliable in his actions, he lies to the degree that nothing he says can be taken at face value. He's a dead end, Lady's on her own.

She has… theories. She's not a fan of them. Unfortunately, Dante's not proving her wrong, so the inkling nags and nags at her.

--

"Now that you mention it, I've heard of you before," Dante says when Lady's telling him how a mission she did way back when caught Morrison's attention. They're at a point where she doesn't even seriously wonder why she's doing it.

"Oh? What did you think?"

"I dunno. I don't think much of anything, really."

He's as flippant as ever, but she believes him to an extent. It's a no-brainer that Dante doesn't want to spend time inside his own skull. The function is clear, but the methods he uses to avoid that are often bizarre, like she's looking at a nature documentary without a voice-over. It's either tragic or amusing, she hasn't decided which.

Some of his more exotic habits must be old coping mechanisms. That's the best explanation she has for stuff like the numerous books he has and doesn't read. Well, he could be doing that, but it's not likely. She never catches him at it and the spines are uncracked when she goes through some of them. Checking the titles reveals that there's no rhythm or reason to their contents, except they're all non-fiction and very random. Astrophysics, creationism, mechanics, microbiology, dictionaries, homeopathy, none of them things Dante has shown even a passing interest in. Throwing her hands up, Lady's forced to conclude he just likes the concept of having a bookcase around. He doesn't shove her against it, it's not a big deal.

Weirder yet is the hoard of musical instruments he keeps buying and discarding. Hoarding devil arms she gets, she's a bit of a connoisseur herself. But regular ones? As far as Lady's aware, the only creative outlet Dante really has is doodling graphic, gruesome pictures of headless bodies while on the phone. At least the constant blaring of the jukebox and the loudspeakers makes more sense; the noise of the muzak he chooses to play drowns out any thoughts. He even sings when he's inebriated, a nice voice that he ruins by being or pretending to be so fucking wasted. It's actually a spectrum for someone with demon blood, insobriety. Dante doesn't usually get truly hammered in anyone's presence but must be having a constant buzz with all the neurotic swigging he does. His income, his prerogative − as long as it doesn't affect anything else, she leaves him to torturing his liver. But Lady doesn't witness him using the instruments even at his drunkest or "drunkest".

When he hauls in his third guitar in as many months, her nosiness takes a rare win. "Do you even know how to play?"

"Nope. Don't have to; holding it and looking pretty is enough to get the ladies − sorry, women."

It would be a slightly better diversion if he, you know, got laid. Ever. "What women?" Lady comes close to asking. "No need for the show, you buy yours," she could add for good measure, but she's not feeling like discussing the excessive amount of erotica lying around his workplace.

Some peculiarities she just chooses to ignore for the sake of her sanity. On one occasion, Lady tries to find out why there's all of a sudden a large sigil etched on the floor. Is it a demon thing? Vandalism? A drunken fancy?

"What's it do?" she inquires.

"Boils eggs. I'm a walking catastrophe in the kitchen, could burn water," says the man who made her a passable hangover omelet like a week ago. She doesn't know what she expected.

"It's a ward. Helps to keep intruders at bay," he explains later, unprompted. Seems reasonable enough, which is shy she doubts it's true.

Distractions. They're weird and unhealthy but mostly harmless, so whatever. He lumbers on without a brain just fine.

--

As infuriating as he is, Dante is much more likeable when he drops the straight guy act and deflates like a sad, gay balloon. Because that's what he is, right? None of this adds up otherwise.

The woman who asked them to slaughter the non-dragon and its smaller companions tries to chat him up. She's gorgeous by most standards and her apricot dress suits her complexion even if her snotty attitude isn't doing her any favors. Lady is entertaining the notion of asking her phone number when she drapes herself against Dante's shoulder, complimenting his bravery and musculature. Her gaydar makes an angry, downcast bleep.

"I'm − taken," Dante says, nearly convincing in his nonchalance. He dusts her off like he's done this before.

"Oh," the patron says. She gives Lady a measuring look from her beat-up shoes to the blue splatters in her hair, her calculations as visible as her initial disappointment. "Congratulations."

Lady detests the assumption but doesn't bother correcting her. They'll never see her again after they've seen their payment, she's not the only one to ever make it and. She's surprised by the choice of words. He's lying, clearly. Still.

There's a thought.

Can't pretend it hasn't crossed her mind before.

Dante doesn't get fond of his blatant tall tales enough to recycle them. His lies mutate all the time, often even within a single conversation. This lie, it doesn't. "I'm taken," he says when a male model hits on him in a gay bar that they frequent for its appealing happy hours. Not "I have a girlfriend" or "I'm straight". "I'm taken", always, never "I'm married", "You're not my type", "I'm a widower and still grieving", "Sorry babe, I'm not into humans", "I don't mess with clients", "Fuck off", none of the million other ways he could put it to turn someone down. It gains the weight of a prayer because it's the one thing he never changes.

I'm taken. Lady wishes she didn't understand as well as she suspects she does.

--

Never, not even once does he name him. As a rule, Dante doesn't refer to Vergil in any way, neither directly nor implicitly; the times he does corrode into her memory as rust-bright stains she can count with her fingers. The refusal to face the ghost head-on grates on her nerves, but she sort of realizes why it's a rule for him when she witnesses him breaking it.

It's approximately the one-year anniversary of the tower ordeal. Lady's sleeping better than in ages, Dante's general mood has soured. It's difficult to describe at first and mostly very subtle, which is unsettling because Dante is not a subtle person. He gives no indication of ever being aware of the day creeping closer, but there comes an evening when he's sitting on the moth-eaten sofa, clutching a jug of booze, surrounded by a division of drained containers. He's drunk now, honest-to-god drunk, and it's somehow hard to watch when he fakes a smile and laughs about having a small nightcap. She doesn't say no when he invites her to join him.

Sitting on his desk and quietly sipping what she's given, she listens. Dante talks, says a lot by saying nothing of substance.

"There was this poem, I was read it, y'know? Well, a lot of them, all the time. I was read stuff, lots. Often Latin, pretentious as fuck. But this one I like. Mm, I found it again later, 's short so I learned it, odi et, it goes − fuck, why don't I remember, I know it, et…"

His voice fades into a strangled silence. He looks for it in the swill he's holding and finds no answers.

"Why can't I remember?"

Lady keeps her mouth shut. His unfocused eyes are wet; he looks like he wants to cry but has no idea how to begin. The following day, he will conveniently be unable to remember any of this too.

"I just… I want to. I don't want to remember. It's good to forget, I need − I'm afraid all the time that I forget the last things I've got, that I don't, that the end never comes. I'm a fraud."

Even in his stupor, he doesn't allow himself to give him a shape with his words, so Vergil remains a nameless weight above him.

This will harm him over the long. His inability to deal with whatever there was going on between the two of them prevents him from healing, but she's unsure if he could get over it if he tried. She's not his shrink, it's not her place to order him around.

That said, Lady refuses to be his enabler either. She calls him out when he tells her an anecdote a year or so later, or what he seems to deem a joke at the moment. The punchline relies on him being an only child. This sort of storytelling is something Dante does a lot to fill the stillness, to keep himself in constant movement, so the specifics of the tale are lost to her and don't matter. She won't pry, but he doesn't get to pretend like this, not when it's making her his accomplice.

She says: "That's bullshit, Dante, we both know that. I was there. I saw you. You were identical."

The bravado shatters for a long second. Everything in his face freezes, the glass wall in front of his eyes gets thicker.

"Would be nice to be so sure," he replies, his voice rough and quiet. Then blinks at her and launches another humorous story as if it's nothing.

She has an answer. Would be nice if she didn't.

--

Lady hasn't got any siblings, living or dead. Thankfully − she knows not everyone would have left. Could she have done what she did if escaping would've meant abandoning someone at Arkham's hands? Would it have crushed her or only made her resolve harder? Impossible to say. She has no reference points, no standards whatsoever for normal blood relations of this type. She's probably not completely alone in that.

Something went wrong between the twins and it did a number on Dante. Her suspicions become more damning until they start to seem more like proof. What could be the smoking gun appears on one of the times she finds Devil May Cry seemingly empty.

He's actually crawled to his bedroom to pass out today, she marvels. Or he's in the cellar, getting shit-faced in isolation. No clubbing with him tonight in any case, Lady's got to cancel her plans. She turns to leave, but something grabs her attention. There's a thick porn mag lying abandoned on the floor. The cover makes it clear it's about lesbians; wow, such a basic male thing. It's disgusting. She's not interested in any of this. Normally, she could pass it with a shrug and wonder why he bothers spending his money on useless rubbish. What stands out is that some of the shiny pages have been torn off and shredded or crumpled into balls. It's not really the trash that's conspicuous in itself either…

Lady gets a feeling. She crouches down and opens one of the bundles. Faced with a naked woman that has terrible bolt-on tits and piercingly blue eyes, she senses something get stuck in her throat. The next one reveals a blue-eyed model as well, the third two platinum blondes. Cold colors, a cold stare.

Most of the cutoffs have light shades in their irises, extremely pale skin or fair hair, some all of the above. There are a couple of Japanese women too and, almost hilariously, one older mannequin that has naturally greyed, silvery locks. When she flips through the issue with a mild fever in her fingertips, none of the girls preserved in it have those features. The pattern continues when she looks around and sees the posters hanging on the walls. Posters, the fucking posters − she complained when they started to show up and was met with deaf ears. The first one to materialize was the woman with an eyepatch, dressed in bikini bottoms and black stars slapped on her breasts to both preserve a modicum of modesty and to titillate the male gaze, a suggestive rocket rising towards the sky behind her. She multiplied through parthenogenesis and is now accompanied by her plastic sisters.

On the walls, in the magazine. Only brunettes and redheads with dark features, women who are safe. In the scrap pile, blondes and twins and wintry ice queens in shades of katana steel. Hiding in plain sight. Zero men. She sees an image.

There are only two of the castoffs that don't fall in the neat, obvious categories. She looks at the clippings and doesn't want to understand but tries nevertheless. It has to be about the mouth, in the proud line they have set their jaws.

It's a shield, just like she thought it was.

She feels like she needs to throw up, but her stomach and esophagus are completely dry.

Did they −

Were they −

Or is it just Dante wishing they were?

Lady can't imagine herself welcoming Arkham's advances. The visceral disgust she experiences at the thought convinces her she would've never done that, even if she hadn't made her move in time and he had gone too far. She'd rather killed herself than let him, plain and simple and her every priority and survival instinct damned. But she's not Dante.

She leaves the rolls of paper open. They don't talk about it. Life goes on the same way as before.

--

Eventually, she realizes Dante's not merely killing time and counting the days until his death by whatever that manages to shoot him down, though that makes up a big part of his misery. No. He's waiting. For what?

When the other shoe does drop, she's not there.

--

Almost ten years into their relationship, the front door to DMC is locked. It's not early enough to be morning anymore − it's business hours, it should be open if he's present. She's unsure why she's sensing a bad omen looming over the building when she produces the spare key from the crack above the frame. Prolonged exposure to a wraith has made her more sensitive to that sort of shit, perhaps.

"Dante?"

As expected, no one answers her. He's not home. It's nothing special.

The feeling grows stronger.

The first thing she notices is that the pool table has been upended. The colorful billiard balls lie scattered on the floor along with a dart or two, a cue stick is missing, broken glass glitters in the light. Nothing that can't be repaired, though. It's a bit strange: he usually ends up destroying the furniture that gets in his way when he's having a fit. Lady's used to finding half the officed razed to the ground, either by him or an enemy precious enough to think they'll find these tactics intimidating. This, on the other hand, looks out of place. When she steps inside, it becomes apparent that there has been a small fire. The room has a faint smell of rubber and smoke, and there's a fair amount of dried blood as well. That's not too uncommon. But where is the owner if not here, erasing the evidence of his progressing decomposition?

He goes on solo missions every now and then, of course, but what he doesn't do is leave the digs in this state. For all he's bad at hiding them, Dante doesn't like showcasing his episodes. For fuck's sake, he even keeps his actual alcohol stash and empty bottles in the basement that she never visits. He needs the pretense in this.

This is unnerving.

At least there's a hasty note he's scribbled on the back of a receipt from the liquor store. He's apparently bought only ten bottles of the strongest swill they have, so money's tight, Lady notes idly as she flips the piece of paper to check that the curly script doesn't continue there. Nope, it's short.

Something came up.

-D

Not ominous at all.

There's no date anywhere. He always leaves a dating. Lady left the city for a week and a half and they didn't meet for a couple of days before that, and the blood's dry − how long has he been gone? Something about this makes her feel on alert, so she goes home, gets her necessities and sets camp in the spare room. In the middle of the night, the sound of the door slamming wakes her up.

Looking like death warmed over, the man of the hour is one step away from doing a nosedive. His feet hold him because he's not really walking on his own: Dante's dragged inside by a stranger that looks exactly like the person in the photo. Her outfit is much more revealing, but there's no mistaking the face; a spitting image of the woman in the red shawl, Dante's mother.

No, scratch that. Fuck, it's a demon. Lady may have missed how her amulet reacted to Dante at the start, but she sure as hell sees how it keeps flashing now.

"Dante, what the fuck is this?" Lady asks, equally pissed off and worried. Nothing about this is normal.

"Trish, this is Lady. Lady, Trish," he grunts and slumps on his chair with some assistance from alien. The blonde in question places herself next to his desk and looks at her like she owns the place.

"I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady. I've heard a lot about you," she says, oblivious to how inappropriate her cheery tone is in the situation.

"Don't you patronize me, demon. What's going on?"

Dante rummages through the drawers, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Dante!"

He picks up two glasses and a bottle. He sets them on the table and tries to pour the liquid into the appropriate depressions. His hand slips, as if he forgets to press it closed round the object he's holding, his bonelessness making him clumsy and his pallor polishing his skin wet. The bottle drops, the booze spills; reddish liquor of some sort forms a pool on the table. Dante stares.

"Dante!"

The stranger seems to take pity on her. A shame it's good for nothing. "Mundus, the emperor of the underworld, was resurrected twenty years ago, long after his powers had been sealed away by Sparda. He attempted to gain control over the human world once again by opening a hell gate on Mallet Island. Dante triumphed over him and put an end to his plans for now."

A load of nonsense. The way it/she/the fuck speaks is grating as well. She's such a fake Lady's getting flashbacks to meeting Dante, who in his current form is acting as if he doesn't hear the conversation going around him at all. "Let's have a drink," he pipes out. He gets ignored.

"Yeah, he locked horns with another devil. And then what?" Lady doesn't buy for a second she's being told the whole story. As much as she hates to admit it, this has Vergil written all over it somehow. Dante's too apathetic to truly react to anything else, and it doesn't take much detective work to notice he's shell-shocked and spiraling.

"I don't understand the question. Dante won this time, but the evil will still return some day. Other than that, I can't predict what will happen next," the woman frowns.

Lady decides to dismiss her. She's out of her depth and entirely useless, an outsider.

"Dante. Tell me what really happened."

"I already told you!" the demon cries out. She's this close to snapping "shut up" at her. As if Dante cared about the end of the world enough to become distressed, don't make her laugh.

"Dante," she presses, trying to corner him. Dante makes an attempt at lifting his head at her direction. His fringe is clinging to his forehead stubbornly, but the hollowness shines through the strands of hair. While there's no direct eye contact, she can't help spotting how bloodshot his whites are. Somehow, she doesn't get the impression he's been crying, and yet he looks so much worse than he did on the day they met.

"A drink," he repeats as a broken record.

There's still a wrong number of glasses, now filled to the brim with crystal-clear booze. Dante scowls at the drinkware as if the thought occurs to him only now. He solves the problem by grabbing the bottle and muttering a half-assed "cin cin" before inhaling its contents, pushing the shots towards the women.

Lady downs hers quickly, hoping to get things over with. Predictably, Dante's breaking out the good stuff for an occasion. The blazing on her tongue screams it's some kind of pure ethanol, the exact type a mystery she's not keen to solve. Dante has a shit taste.

The she-devil coughs, spills half her shooter on her bustier and makes a face. "This is vile."

"Yes. You'll get used to it," Dante says colorlessly. He slams the empty bottle on the table with enough force to make it splinter. If he notices the shards digging into his palm as he keeps crushing the thing inside his fist, he's not letting it show. The red stain grows bigger. The alcohol rushing into her head is converting into fear.

"What happened," Dante says, pronouncing every syllable clearly and scalpel-sharp as if he's carving them into his own flesh by talking, the unwavering stability in his voice frightening when his body is barely able to contain the shaking rising up from his spine, "is that he wasn't dead because Mundus decided to turn him into his mindless plaything, and I, like I always do, didn't see anything until I had already killed him for real. All these years, he wasn't dead, but he is now. So, in other terms nothing's changed, nothing actually happened."

So. Vergil. Being right is not a victory.

Lady's not scared of Dante, that he would lay a finger on her. Of course not, he guides his urge to destroy inwards. His emotions are an insatiable hate sink, there'll be none left for anyone else; he's a danger to others if he's paid, otherwise only by accident. That doesn't mean it isn't a wise idea to be anywhere else but here when and if he goes nuclear. 

What could Lady say to him, anyway?

To the credit of the newcomer, she does not seem to be blind. "Can I talk to you in private, Lady?" she says, not oblivious to the fact that the time to get out is now.

Dante is still bleeding when the door closes between them.

Outside, Lady shoves Trish against the wall as soon as they reach the backside of the building. She goes slack without a fight, making a sound as the impact forces the air out of her lungs. She's tall. Her impractical heels don't help. Her getup is tasteless and serves no purpose in battle, corsets and constricting leather, it's insulting. Lady knows nothing about her, so she knows it's completely irrational to have such a strong reaction to her.

"Okay, let's chat! I'm done playing nice. Now I want some answers and you're going to give them to me or I'll blow your brains out," she tells the creature, underlining her message with the handgun pointed at her stupid smug face. "First off: what did you do to him?"

"I did nothing!" she claims. She's more distressed at Lady's words than the threat to her life. Fucking hellspawn, where do they find these things and why do they come to her.

"I don't believe you. You're a fucking demon, I know your kind," Lady accuses. Too much pointlessly exposed skin, there's not a lapel she could grab to shake her.

The monster stares back at her with wide eyes and an unhappy mouth. "Mundus created me to lure Dante to the island. He controlled my mind. I had no choice but to follow orders until I was freed from his influence."

"A fake demon? That's even worse."

She finally gets a response − the body under hers ticks angrily and a hand moves to grab her wrist. She shoves it away with the butt of the gun. Trish lifts her chin up in defiance. "Mundus created me to be his slave, but I am a demon as much as anyone else."

"So you're a shapeshifter like the rest of your ilk, then? Show me your real form, you coward."

"This is my real form, I don't have any others." The demon waves her hands around in demonstration, which only makes her aura crackle and glow yellow against her paleness and the redness of the brick wall.  

"Don't lie to me. Let's see if I can beat it out of you," Lady says. Trish ducks the first strike.

That's how they proceed to kick the shit out of each other in Dante's backyard while he's busy having a mental breakdown. The kicking is pretty literal in this case, her opponent likes to get real nasty with that. It's the goddamned heels. Lady's glad she had enough sense to put on her trusty, sensible boots before running downstairs.

Yeah. She is a little ashamed afterwards.

It's ridiculous. Lady's supposed to have matured, she's a grown-up now. She thought she'd be above catfights and hair pulling. Apparently she isn't. She can come up with reasons and justifications for lashing out the way she does, but she makes a point of being honest to herself because somebody in this clusterfuck has to. Ultimately, she's doing it because she wants to take her frustration and anxiety out on something. This paints a great target.

It's exhilarating. Trish is tough, very fast and agile and ruthless, but she's not − she's not Dante, who is always pulling his punches when they have a tussle. Lady's aware she must be somewhat tired from the long day she's undoubtedly had. Full demons regenerate rapidly, so she's not letting it show. She favors her pistols, legs and fists over her powers at first, but when she notices Lady's not someone she can just walk over, she isn't above to resorting to fancy magic tricks. It's also her downfall. When she abandons the kid gloves and starts trying to stun Lady with electricity, she slows down enough for Lady to get the jump on her. Her melee skills have definitely improved during her time with Dante, she thinks as she hears a bone breaking.

When she pins her down and sits on her thighs, they're both panting heavily and Lady's breath is rattling, prickling her throat. "You're good. I like you," Trish says and wipes off the blood coming from her nose. It'll heal.

"Shut the fuck up and fight me," Lady hisses. It comes out as a wheeze, but the intent's there.

"No. This was fun, but I am not your enemy. I am here for Dante."

Lady still wants to punch this bitch. She's making it harder by being this damn calm with a metaphorical knife on her neck. Doesn't anyone have a survival instinct these days?

"He should've killed you himself," Lady huffs. Her anger's fizzling out. The emotions beneath it aren't ones she'd like to experience now, so she tries to cling onto the aggression.

The demon looks sad. "Maybe. I am glad he didn't."

Just − It's such a Dante thing to do, pure idiocy. He kills his brother by accident and fails to kill someone even he knows he's supposed to get rid of. Lady might laugh if she wasn't so tired.

"Shouldn't," she has to take a pause and try again, needs to get some oxygen flowing in her system. "Shouldn't you be stronger than him? He's a mutt but you're not human at all."

"The blood is important, but strength isn't merely about its purity; the origin matters as well. Unlike him, I am no descendant of Sparda."

Didn't this supposedly powerful Mundus use his own blood to create her? Never mind, Lady doesn't care. The point is to yell at the intruder until she goes away, dies or Lady's mood improves by other means. "What use will you be to Dante then? This is pathetic. Why don't you just crawl back where you came from?" she spits out. Her grip on the weapon is as unsteady as her pulse and patience and sweat makes her eyelids sticky. 

"Dante helped me and saved me, hence I owe him my life. He has my undying gratitude."

Oh, that's rich. Trish here is not only a hand-made demonic puppet but also a sentimental idiot. She would fit right in, be an excellent partner for another fool. Dante must dig the familiar features.

"He can't drink or eat that, he won't give a fuck. You'll see. But actually − if you like him so much, you can have him. I can't babysit two demons."

"No! I need your help, Lady," the woman pleads. When her hand crawls on top of Lady's thigh, she swats it away. Don't.

"For what?"

"To help him. I have to repay him," she replies.

Dear god, she's serious. There's got to be an angle.

"Help him? How?" Lady says, allowing her suspicion color her tone. The devil is clueless, though, she might not even notice. Thankfully, the hand stays down when she answers.

"Dante is in love with Vergil. Due to Mundus' corruption and glamor, he could not recognize it was him when they were battling each other; he realized the truth only in his death. I haven't learned much about humans and this realm yet, but it's clear to me that the loss will affect him severely. I want to ease his pain."

Ah.

She's not wrong. Lady can't deny the relief of hearing the observation declared aloud. He is, isn't he? Dante is in love with Vergil. Someone else has seen what she's been seeing for years.

That doesn't mean this is good. The demon emperor could have planted the idea in his minion's head to trick them or something. There aren't any magic words that will bring Lady's guard down so quickly, these certainly won't. She knows, she hopes she knows, that Dante won't be killing himself over this directly, but he doesn't need any infiltrators encouraging him and fucking him up further.

"Why do you figure that? His feelings being like that, I mean," Lady asks carefully.

"It's obvious. I have two eyes, don't I?" When Lady glances at her to check if the number is correct, she meets hers boldly, full of determination.

It's − interesting.

Lady makes a noncommittal sound. Dante's secrets are his to keep, especially those he has never actually spelled out to her; she won't trust them to a stranger by confirming or denying anything.

Still. This, she concludes, has the potential to change things. If she proceeds with caution −

"You can't help Dante," Lady groans, rolling off her prisoner and letting herself fall to the ground. Her body aches when she addresses the darkened sky, longing for a brandy. "I'm not even talking about you here. Nobody can. Dante can't help Dante because he thinks he deserves to suffer and doesn't want to get better. If that's your goal, believe me, you're wasting his time and doing him a big disservice."

"There must be something I can do."

"Depending on you, there might be."

Lady is not feeling guilty because she isn't in any way responsible. After all, she didn't trick Dante into destroying his twin and himself. She's got no illusions about her presence making any difference in the outcome. Had she wanted to, she couldn't have prevented Vergil's death, and why would she prefer him alive? A demon slain is always a good thing, even more so when the fucker in question dedicates itself to world domination and hurting Dante. Most likely Lady couldn't have done the deed in his stead either, to spare him, and the chances are he'd never forgiven him for that anyhow. She wouldn't have had words of comfort for him, doesn't have them now, won't become someone else to invent them. Isn't inside with him now. What would be the point of guilt?

She wasn't there. The puzzle has is starting to reveal shapes but she's still missing pieces. It isn't guilt, but she feels she should've been with him anyway. Funny how that works.

"Here's how this'll go. First, you're going to tell me everything you know about Vergil and what went on between him and Dante; lie and I'll fucking gut you. Then you're gonna answer a question."

"I swear I will speak the truth and nothing but," Trish says solemnly. "What is the question, though?"

The smirks that spreads on Lady's face feels less forced than expected. "How do you like killing other demons?"

Chapter Text

If this was some other story and they were some other people, maybe adding Trish into the mix would really change things for the better. Lady hates whatifs, so she does her best to stay away from them in general. It's never actual doubts, more like an ambient buzz − something like Dante's backdrop babbling, except more annoying. The questions, shit she doesn't truly believe in. What if she didn't shoot Arkham instantly. What if she made him talk, beg some more, grovel, made him reveal every dirty little detail, drew it out, let him wallow in his defenselessness at her feet, took away all his dignity in the face of certain death. What if she kicked his broken ribs, jabbed a knife in his eyes to take his own colors away, became his mirror in bloodlust. What if she had left Dante behind the first chance she got. The questions obscure her vision instead of giving her any insight. Why speculate when everything around her is a reminder of the roads she's taken and has been content to take? It's not doubt. Nevertheless, she plays with this particular thought sometimes. It serves no purpose; maybe Dante's masochism really has rubbed off on her.

In an imaginary setting, Trish glides into their ecosystem seamlessly and finds her role all by herself. Seeing her transformation from a mindless killing machine into a killing machine with a human-like persona makes Dante realize a thing or two about himself and helps him fix his emotions. He processes his past, thinking through every shitty thing his brother has made him suffer once with great care, and gets up from the floor, ready to start crafting himself a present and a future. With their combined efforts, they make a killing indeed − Dante begins to enjoy slaying demons not as a distraction but as an art, and soon, he buys himself a fancy house where nothing reminds him of what he's better off discarding, now that he's made his peace with it. A new man.

He could even fall into love, or at least into bed, with Trish. Maybe he learns there's such a distinction, that it doesn't have to involve feelings. At first, Lady doesn't like it, how it makes her skin crawl, but she can't deny it's an improvement overall. As fucked up as it is for him to desire a woman with his mother's face, the artificial familiarity − or blue pills and blindfolds, whatever, she doesn't care − is what he needs to get past his single-target homosexuality. He's been subjecting himself to conversion therapy for decades anyway, it's not like being gay is an identity for him. So, with the help of another demon he develops a normal-ish sex life that doesn't revolve around images of his dead twin brother, great. Maybe he develops feelings that are almost natural, maybe it's mutual. Lady sees the relationship she could've had with him herself. She's glad it's not the way things played out for them.

None of it happens, of course. It's an insultingly naïve fantasy that does none of them justice, alright, she's guilty. A question remains − is it what he was gunning for when he pardoned the minion, all the same? Was it his fantasy first?

When she watches Trish settle between her legs and threads a hand into her hair, she might feel conflicted if Dante hadn't been gone for months already.

--

If what happens in the backyard isn't exactly Lady's proudest moment, she's only a little more excited to dwell on the stages that follow. Trish cracks the bridge of her nose back to its intended position and speaks. Her gaze is uncomfortably intense now that her unfashionable sunshades have been forgotten inside the building, so Lady fixes hers at the sky that's slowly turning peach-pink with the dawn, lies on her back and lets the tale wash over her. Seeing that it offers little new and lacks substance, it's pretty much a bedtime story. It unfolds jerkily; the demon can't quite put the plot or her words together. She starts at the beginning and tries to describe the first moments after her own creation, none of Lady's concern, then jumps to the big bad they banished, lingers in the details of how the creature Vergil had become died. A pawn like Trish wouldn't know jack, no. When she tries to inquire if the twins were ever intimate, she gets a fish-like blink and a diatribe about Dante and Vergil being brothers and growing up together, which doesn't answer the question she was asking. Anyway.

"So," Trish chirps while picking herself up from the ground. "What are we doing next?" Lady ignores the hand she offers and gets up on her own, tidies her jacket up. Even when lying down, she's been thinking on her feet, and if they get to a point where silly grudges and annoyances start to matter again, Dante's got a hell of a debt to pay. She's mad at him for making her think about the scenarios where that doesn't happen.

"If you're serious about the wanting to help thing, we could use your skills. Currently, though, I don't fucking trust you, no matter what Dante's been doing with you. I'll treat you like the enemy until you prove yourself an ally, like it or not." In reality, it's not an offer she could refuse and live. Trish tells her she's committed to the idea in her stilted manner, and because Lady's in too lenient a mood to put a bullet in her frontal lobe regardless, they leave together.

Lady takes her to a hideout, the one that's the second nearest to Dante's place and includes a single-person bedroom, a tiny toilet and a kitchen slash living room. A double suite in a hotel would be nice for sure, but she'd be kidding herself if she thought this would be over anytime soon: it's the best she can do under the circumstances and without wasting too much resources on what she can only hope is a milk run. On their way there, Trish asks her about the plans she's got for her, out of her depth when Mundus isn't bossing her around anymore. Good for her if she isn't opposed to following orders. "Dante may have coddled you because he's a gullible moron, but I'll call the shots now. You'll know what you gotta know," Lady tells her. As expected, Trish falls into line neatly.

The air inside the apartment is a little stale and they'll have to visit a store if they want to eat anything not preserved in a can, but it's more than adequate for this. While Lady inspects the flat just in case, Trish stands still and looks around, overwhelmingly curious yet trained well enough not to nose around without permission. She looks unnatural in the bad lighting, the impractically long hair standing out in its yellowness, her long face drawn and as pale as her green eyes − like a sinister elf, a fucking vampire. Suddenly she realizes where Dante got it from, the otherworldliness. Here's a spooky body double of his deceased mother plaguing her digs in current year, meek in a way that could be affected or not, happy to get invited in. The demon should be ill at ease because she's dancing on thin ice, yes, but in addition she has the gall to look vulnerable.

This − this is Lady's problem now. Goddamnit, Dante. The idiot had no idea what to do with Lady when he served her a drink and more or less accidentally made her his partner in crime. Luckily for them, she's capable of leading herself, thank you very much. Learning squat, he's gone and acquired himself a less self-guided urchin without the intention to housebreak her himself. There aren't enough words in Lady's vocabulary to describe how much she resents him for dumping this on her as if he's convinced they'll get along fabulously purely by the virtue of being female and having something akin to a soft spot for him, or at least enough insanity to be able to stand him for more than two minutes in a row. As it stands, there's not a whole lot inside her head apart from the blur of drowsiness, least of all speech.

"I don't know how much rest you artificials need. Tough luck if you can't sleep like a human: your drama woke me up and I'm too exhausted to deal with this shit now, so you're gonna to spend the night lying on the couch anyway. Stare at the ceiling, twiddle your thumbs, meditate, I don't care. This is a safehouse, you wouldn't learn anything by sweeping it in any case. If you sneak out without my say-so, I'll be shooting you at sight. One slip and it's fire at will, and trust me, I don't miss. Am I making myself clear?"

Trish opens her mouth to protest, but something in Lady's expression makes her close it. A functional sense of self-preservation, excellent. It's a rare sight around here. "Yes, I understand." They can move on from there.

Lady considers tossing her a spare pillow or even a sheet. Her generosity is unnecessary; the demon folds herself on the sofa with movements that seem fluid enough for a factory-made being in themselves but get ruined when she cranks her arms over her chest so mechanically that Lady has to wonder if she somehow heard her earlier thought about ghouls. Is she yanking her chain on purpose? Does she even know what vampires are and is she aware she's looking like one, all dressed in black and lying in a coffin? Lady's pinches the bridge of her nose to rein in her headache. It spreads to her temples when the vamp wishes her good morning so cheerfully she's nearly having second thoughts. She'll skewer her with a stake if she catches a whiff of her leeching her vitality or planning to drink her blood, swear to god.

"Wait, I forgot! What shall we do about Dante?" her detainee pipes up when she turns towards the bedroom. Her smile feels sharp enough to cut glass. "We'll keep an eye on him and roll with the punches. There's never anything else to do. Welcome to Devil May Cry, Trish."

She leaves the door slightly ajar. Listening to the motionlessness of the other room, she slips into slumber quickly enough. No dreams, just silence. A couple of hours later, she crawls to the bathroom to drink some water from the tab. Rubbing her eyes and thanking the blackout curtains that'll allow her to go back to bed for a bit longer, she can't be bothered to remember she's got company now.

"Good afternoon, Lady. Can I get up already, please?" Trish's pleasant greeting startles her when she emerges from the bathroom. Lady leans on the frame, relatively sure she's not experiencing a cardiac arrest despite her pulse going haywire; silver bullets, go to remember to buy those. There's a pair of eyes inspecting her in the middle of the darkness. When the light streaming from the toilet lamp hits them, the irises glow like a cat's. Creepy.

"No. Go back to sleep."

Inaction makes Trish jittery, she's soon to discover. To spare herself some hospital trips, Lady gives her a paperback one of her one-night stands forgot to take with him or her, she can't recall which. It only crosses her mind that the demon might not know how to read when she sees her baffled expression, but neither of them mentions it, and several days later, Trish asks for another book. Lady gets the feeling she isn't used to receiving any acts of kindness, never mind that her actual goal is to make her shut up and let her snooze. There's no reason to turn her down, though, especially since she plays nice enough. Who knows what a full-blooded devil might feed on in the wild, for example. Lady recalls Dante mentioning eating daemon flesh is a no-no to him − c'mon, it would be the same as eating people, basically cannibalism, Lady! −, but she's relieved when Trish at least pretends she's fine with TV dinners, she won't starve. Getting rid of a body is always a hassle.

She'll get to magicking corpses away at any rate, but she's getting paid for it: Lady has to start taking up jobs sooner rather than later. Morrison's goodwill, try as he might to deny its existence, means DMC will survive a brief hiatus, but her private contracts can't wait infinitely. Trish has been behaving and dropping her off in daycare won't be possible as long as Dante's acting up himself, thus she accompanies Lady like a shadow. Might as well earn her keep while she's under her supervision. At this point, it's not surprising that they, too, are a good match on the battlefield: she's fast and competent at both close combat and crowd control, which leaves Lady plenty of time to deal damage from the distance. It's almost irritating to have this rubbed in her face again. The universe is going all "oh, so you're prejudiced against demons? Here, have one that complements your own strengths and weaknesses just so" to spite her, ignoring that it's not bigotry when it's true and she wouldn't give a fuck if it were.

All in all, wrangling the tag along goes slightly better than expected. Good that something does.

--

Of course they pay him a visit the day After. Well, Lady does. "Wait outside," she tells Trish when she fishes for the key and marvels that the whole block hasn't gone up in flames already. Is it rude? Probably, but so is waltzing into their lives without an invitation. She's in for a ruder awakening if she expects to be welcome everywhere.

Her hands are not shaking when they futz with the lock; her apprehension is steady and heavy and slow. She enters, Trish gets wiped out of her mind, and then it's just the two of them, how it should be and not.

What, exactly, has she been anticipating? She can't quite tell. She's been dreading it, no point in lying about that, and trying to avoid picturing anything because speculating is no use until she has some concrete evidence to build on. Inside, it gets hazy. Her thoughts spin to a sudden halt, and while she's aware of her hand pulling the door closed behind her back, for a moment it's as though she's entered a physical stasis as well. The windows have gotten dirty enough over the years that the light they filter comes through weak and thin, but it's daytime, relatively bright. She can see dust swirling in the stuffy air like always, the desk and the red stains dotting it, the glass that used to be a bottle scattered all over the surface, Dante's folded hands, yet it takes her a while to get past the horizon of expectations and make sense of the scene. Maybe she didn't believe she'd find him doing much of anything, but she'd witness the memories of motions; more blood spilled; toppled tables and bottles; live coals. Prepared to face the wrath in his movements, Lady hasn't realized she should be wary of passiveness.

There's nothing out of place. The furniture is unharmed, so is the proprietor. Dante is sitting where she left him yesterday as an obedient ragdoll. For all appearances, it looks like he's been there the entire time she tussled with the newbie and slept. The trembling is gone, his grief never erupted, he's so still it's impossible to say if he's breathing. Her shoes make noise when she shifts her weight, his glass eyes remain unfocused. Lady counts seconds. At the three-minute mark, she thinks she detects a flash that could be a blink.

Okay, round two of survivor's guilt. She came here with a purpose, and now that she's checked him out, she should walk him through the steps. She should start with telling him off. "You can't collect strays, Dante: you can't take care of them, you can't take care of yourself,” is what she wants to say. Dante isn't in the condition to handle truths − when is he ever, really −, but he's dropped a dangerous creature that already has a solid past of backstabbing in her lap and she's pissed. By saving Trish, he made her his responsibility and didn't pay any heed to the fact he doesn't do those, can't. Lady would love to kick back and let it blow up in his face, can't. No way she'll let Trish loose without monitoring when she's armed with knowledge of them and their operations. She could tell him to snap out of it and sort out his own messes, but he won't. Wonderful.

Clearly, it's hit him harder than first time around. She's unsure how to proceed. This wasn't in the program. Here's the payoff for trusting in people and their predictability, that'll teach her. Fucking demons, she thinks and watches how her presence doesn't register to him at all. He's among his ghosts again, and currently, Lady's one of them.

Hope. It's the hope that's killing him, the second chance he thinks he had. He deals death and deals with it but Vergil's life destroys his, clings to his feet and shrieks at him in the corners of the room. Is this him facing it or closing his eyes to the facts? What she should say is it wasn't your fault. You didn't know. You couldn't have known. Lady can't know that, he could've meant to put the revenant to death, but there's enough dishonesty between them to drown a fleet in already. Dante lives off it, doesn't he? By this point it would do no harm to drown him in sugar.

She's bad with words. Today, it frustrates her. Dante sits unblinking, unreactive and unseeing. She can't bring herself to lie. When she voices her thoughts, they sound both harsher than intended and too mild. "I don't know anything about him because you never told me − I only know what I saw, and what I saw isn't worth dying over. Your brother did everything he could to drag you down with him, Dante. Are you really going to let Vergil win?"

She's about as superstitious as she is kind, but there's something disturbing about the way a name that hasn't seen the light of day in decades rings when it's finally spoken in the open. It rolls off her tongue with a physical mass, almost. It's a cave of a room but too full of crap to echo, Lady tells herself, hearing her lines resound. Her shoulders are tense when she leans against the door and waits. Is he?

There's no reaction. He's too deep inside his despair, doesn't hear her.

She'd like to claim the tightness in her throat isn't relief, but she isn't in the habit of lying to herself. Lady is relieved because these are unknown waters and like this, there are no limits to what he might do. Nothing happened, the spell isn't broken, and while she isn't afraid of Dante in the sense that she'd fear what he'd do to her, she has to admit she's afraid of what Dante would do to himself.

She loses her sense of time. Watching and feeling powerless is as pointless as her one-sided conversation. The quiet sits wrong between them, a stranger. She's kept Trish waiting, but she doesn't comment on it when they head back, and it doesn't matter.

Lady can't save him from himself, correct. What's changed over the years is that she'd like to keep him afloat.

--

They visit him the day after that too. Trish asks for permission to join her, psyching herself up for a no. It's the brows and the pout; she's overdoing it though, should take lessons from Dante, master of guilt tripping and kicked puppy looks. Her face lights up when Lady shrugs her whatevers, which feels like an inappropriate reaction considering. With her lack of grace, social skills and common sense, heaven knows what she'll get up to − somehow, it's not too difficult to imagine her babbling at the poor troubled bastard, you're doing so well already sweetie, let Mommy help you −, but Dante has to face the music eventually. If he's bothered by his own handiwork, these situations are easy to avoid. Just kill everybody.

Ah, there's your blood. It's not fresh and would in any case be overpowered by the smell of booze and bile that trail along with it from upstairs to the spot where the lord of the manor is slumped on the floor, naked save for his gloves and one stubbornly laced boot. A respectable amount of spirits has been guzzled down, the number of bottles around him is nothing to sneeze at. Shrapnel crunches under their heels like snow. This mood is a bit easier to handle, sort of.

She's taken the liberty to snatch the backup key and tells Dante as much. The answering grunt seems communicative. Yesterday set the bar very low.

"Are you alright?" Trish chirrs, hovering a few feet away from him and radiating an urge to get closer and poke at the bear either physically or less literally. The nudity doesn't hold her back, Lady supposes, it's likely her demonic intuition or whatnot. That's what his body language spells out to regular mortals, at least. Stay away.

Dante groans again. This time, it's a word: "No." Lady tries hard not to be impressed by the rare display of honesty, never mind that the evidence is undeniable at any rate. When has she turned into someone with expectations, low as they seem to be?

"Why are you even asking him that?" she says. Trish huffs. Is there a spark of resigned humor in her or is Lady imagining things?

"It makes me feel useful."

What can she say to that? Luckily for them, Dante has a way with words, rescues them from a standstill, their hero. "'m out of booze."

--

After that, the times bleed into each other a little. It's the fifth or the seventh one, her arms are full of alcohol crates and birds are singing. Trish can try and communicate with them while she's busy, Lady thinks and walks into a nature show of her own; today, what catches her instant attention are the flowers.

Inside the glyph on the ground grows a rose bush. In the humbler Japanese roses she's seen, individual heads get lost in the shrubs, but these flowers sprout like vines, each blossom shooting up towards the ceiling on its own distinctive stalk. She's not greeted by a cloying floral scent because the plants aren't real; the colors, red and green, are as translucent as astral weapons but less stable, flickering on and off, disappearing for a blink every few seconds like busted Christmas lights in a display window. Faded as they are, the hues paint a bright contrast to the lifeless husk they're shading. Dante lies in curled a heap in the middle of the faintly glowing circle, his long limbs tucked inside the outer line. Lady knows better than to think he's passed out.

Hesitantly, she takes a step closer, two, one at a time until she's close enough to touch. When she reaches for a floret, its petals pass through her fingers, feel like nothing at all. He's made them himself, something so beautiful and desolate.

Beneath the branches, Dante watches her with tired eyes. "Helps to keep intruders at bay," she quotes an ancient lie.

Dante doesn't reply or avert his gaze, both inflated and dull. His hands are crossed over his chest, highlighting the hollow spot where his amulet used to rest against his breastbone. According to Trish, he gave her the sword that ate it up; Lady pretended to be surprised. They still feel the heavy gravity of its absence.

"You won't banish your demons by embracing them and refusing to call them by their name, Dante."

Dante says nothing. When the lock clicks closed behind her, he's still nestled in the same position. Absences. She only realizes how close he's let her when she's been shut out by him.

When she wakes up in cold sweat, Dante quivers behind her lids not unlike his conjurations, thorns in his eyes.

--

A tenth visit never comes. The telephone on the bedside table rings in the middle of the night.

"Devil May − the office burned down," Dante's exhausted voice salutes Lady as Trish passes her the receiver, her excitement at action having already changed into seriousness. "What's going on?" she mouths at her. Lady ignores her.

"How?" she asks, tired.

"I burned the office down," he elaborates, wiping away any hasty scenarios she might've cooked up about their enemies getting to him. The silence lasts a minute too long.

"Did you mean to?"

Dante swallows back whatever bullshit rises up into his mouth first. The connection crackles like static on TV. "No," he replies eventually. Lady believes him, but it doesn't matter.

"Where are you?"

The find him leaning against a phone booth within a stone's throw of ground zero. No need to get closer: the smoke can be seen from several blocks away. His miserable demeanor isn't out of place at a disaster site, yet in times past his reaction would've been more cursing and less… this, a non-reaction.

Dante nods when he sees them approach, the motion raising a cloud of dust. At least he's clothed and on his feet. He doesn't apologize for waking her up because she doesn't expect him to, and she hates that they both know it. Trish is the one to break the silence with her questions. The "are you okay" gets a hum, the rest fall on deaf ears.

Morrison takes one look at their sorry band and picks up his phone without a word. Lady would like to claim it's the general dejection they share that tells the tale, but Dante's still covered from head to toe in soot like a dirt-cheap Cinderella; how nice of their host to take pity on someone who's doing his best to coat his office in ash and abject misery. Fixing them up with new headquarters again, he says, a hint of fatigue detectable in his tone as well, will take his guys forty-eight hours. They part ways on Morrison's doorstep − in the meanwhile, Dante can bunk wherever, he doesn't ask and she doesn't offer.

There will be fire as long as there's something to catch it. She could be comforted by the incident − it's not the first time it's happened, so it's not likely to be the last either. The cycle begins all over again. A week later, he has four walls, a roof and fluorescent signs in the same quarter of the city as always, just a few streets away from the wreck of his previous abode; there isn't much to salvage when they examine the area as things have cooled down, but the surviving dartboards, books and mysterious cardboard boxes find their way into the new address. He keeps the old name too, Lady doesn't read too much into it. It's what home feels like, she thinks when the lights welcome her back. Bittersweet, comfortably outdated.

--

Dante, she comes to acknowledge for the thousandth time, is a liar in everything, even in names.

Devil Never Cry. But he did, the first time around. She saw.

Devil May Cry. But he doesn't, not since the tower. After that, she hasn't seen a single sincere, unrestrained expression of grief from him. It's always mixed up with something else, dulled by spirits, diminished into a subordinate clause he can't even bring himself to speak.

It's just the rain, in a way. It doesn't matter, wouldn't change things if he wept his tear ducts dry. She just − can't help noticing, the way she already did back at the ruins of Temen-ni-gru. On the days when his body gets into a lockdown and he won't spare her a glance no matter how loudly she curses at him, it would be easy to wish she'd been less observant, deemed him a predatory monster like the rest of his ilk and left. Instead, for a moment Lady wishes she could truly regret her decision to stay, then does something productive. Thing is, she's happy with her life even when she's unhappy with his.

She doesn't cry for him either. He doesn't owe it to her to feel better, but in turn, Lady isn't indebted to make him feel worse. Sometimes, there's a feverish glint in his eyes, something akin to a challenge; maybe he wants her to hurt him, she would know how. Even if he'll ask, she won't be his judge, jury and executioner. Dante manages fine on his own.

Home is not the walls. It's the crushing helplessness residing inside them, brandy burning her palate.

--

As far as she knows, he doesn't carve sigils and plant immaterial flowers into the soil of his newest office. If he does, he does it in the privacy of his cellar, which is fine by her; whether the lack of demolition is due to respect for the efforts Morrison put into the arrangements or his own depression turning less manic is anyone's guess. It's remarkable how identical the blueprints of this place are to the property Dante razed, Lady notes as she hauls in a case of hard liquor and adds another item to the tally. A basement slash mancave, two floors, hideous yellow wallpapers and unadorned concrete. She hopes Morrison enjoys the nice diamond-filtered vodka she got for him and thinks of it fondly the next time they'll have to go to his door tails between their legs. She didn't leave a message, but unless he's in the habit of letting just anyone break into his swanky penthouse and peruse his personal diaries, he knows who it's from; not everyone is aware his poison of choice is something as girly as cosmopolitans when he looks like he chugs smoky whiskeys by the pint. Even such a hardened businessman as him sometimes appreciates gestures more than money.

Speaking of their finances: since the rest of the world isn't on a sick leave and bills keep racking up, they need to get the legendary hunter out in the field again. Easier said than done, Dante's position keeps being largely horizontal. He's more disgruntled with his inability to pull himself together than she is. To Lady, it's just sad. Predictable but upsetting, reminds you of a young bird that's fallen from its nest, or a turtle that's capsized. You'll know it's not likely to get back to safety, yet you can't help watching it fail. You feel bad.

Today, Dante's buzzed by nine o'clock in the morning because Lady decided to get him drunk while Trish would ransack his library. It used to be more of an entertaining number: once upon a time, she'd get a song or a series of anecdotes, now it's them lying on the sofa and the carpet with the jukebox screaming at the top of its lungs to fill the space between. She's been wondering if the song's remained the same for the past fifteen minutes; the lyrics, delivered by continuous shouting, are no use in determining much of anything when she can't make out even a phrase.

"I'm trying," he says as he drains his flask. His lies sound less convincing than usual somehow, and that could be why Lady doesn't feel charitable enough to ignore them. Maybe it's the blood smeared all over the staircase that bothers her too. He must've tried sleeping again.

"Is it me you're trying to convince or yourself?"

He grumbles to both acknowledge the issue and brush it off. Lady wants to call him an asshole for making her worry, but it's not news to him.

"You don't have to lie to me, you know," she points out measuredly, glances at her nails. She's been keeping them short again, too fed up with men to consider picking any up anytime soon. Dante cracks an ugly smile when she reaches for a glass. Trish's steps patter on and on upstairs.

"I don't know how to be someone else yet, but I'll let you know when I do, Lady."

They'll talk shop tomorrow, or the day after that.

--

On the worse days, the moments of inertia and hours upon hours between one mission and another, she's so incredibly glad it's not her. One man's personal tragedy is another's cautionary tale − she could've ended up the same way if she hadn't made it a priority to first deal with her issues and then promptly discard them. She, at least, hasn't fought for nothing.

--

"Are you alright?" Trish asks for the thousandth time. Dante's pinched yes comes from somewhere below the desk. For the most part, he's been taking his drinking underground again, managed an independent trip to the liquor store at some point. An upside − his isolationism means they won't have to spectate an actual drug abuse saga, just the ravages of King Alcohol. Behold.

"You're lying," Trish accuses, deciding against pointing a finger at the legs, the only part of his body not fitting underneath the table. What a clever girl. She either ignores Lady's snort or doesn't get what she means by it. A wise move, that. She's getting smarter, starting to see she won't be able to waltz into this clusterfuck and straighten every kink out by wishing very hard and waving her fingers, but it's a process. Maybe Lady should really get that TV she's been thinking about buying; soap operas could teach her newest pet demon a thing or two about interaction and honesty.

Dante grunts. There's a loud, hollow thud, the sound of a head hitting wood when it contains too few brain cells to realize even a demonic skull won't go through solid objects without a fight. It thumps back to floor level, curses gently and eventually replies: "What gives you that impression, Trish?" Trish doesn't get the sarcasm, so for the next five minutes, they listen her to drone on about all the ways he and his lifestyle suck. It's Tuesday. These are the best years of his life and since he doesn't have it in himself to go after the demon king, he's apparently spending them haunted not only by his memories but also the remote possibility of the Mundus character making a return even when he has absolutely nothing he could lose anymore. He did use to do other things than drinking every now and then.

What the constant intoxication does is, among other things, allow some of his old personality to shine through: when hammered, he's slightly more extroverted again. Some nights ago, he tried to open up with predictable results. "I find myself playing the same story on repeat. It's a goddamn limbo −," he gritted out but got shaken by how clear and sheer his bitterness rang even in the middle of his slurring. A hasty swig of booze stifled the thought before it went anywhere, and it wasn't a novel observation in the least. They're getting nowhere fast.

"Do you like being this unhappy?" Lady's frustration blurts out in the present. What a joke, too late to take it back, she regrets it as soon as she hears herself. This is why she surrounds herself with people who are all too eager to do all the talking.

Dante, a good sport, takes the low blow in stride. They've seen worse from each other, he's seen her at her lowest and ugliest without comment. As down as he is, he's never needlessly cruel with her, doesn't seek revenge even when it'd be just. "You got me, I'm practically married to my misery. Don't tell anyone though, people like thinking they have a shot at me," he says and Lady remembers why she likes him. She silences Trish's questions with a look and gets them a round of something greasy and boozy.

Next week, they take him out on a mission and he survives, a little green around the gills in white sunlight but seemingly alive in a way he's forgotten about in the bleak cosmos of his office. If Lady ignores how curt he is with the clients and how he avoids bringing along Rebellion, his former best friend, they've nearly gone back in time: he hacks and blasts foes into pieces with contrived gusto, indulging in a little Dutch courage to maintain the performance. Hey, it gets the job done. When most outstanding invoices have been dealt with, he wastes all his money on a new wardrobe, storing the clothes on the back of various armchairs as usual because he still doesn't have an actual closet for them. Trying to rebrand himself through his looks is a ritual by now, really, although in Lady's opinion, he could use a more drastic makeover. It's noticeable, the gloominess, that he's decidedly not okay, acts as a repellant. Other people can't read the signs but steer clear of him out of pure animal instinct. In bars, he's rarely hit on, and if someone's drunk enough to insist in spite of his mannerisms broadcasting how off-limits he considers himself, they stop short the instant they see his creepy sunken eyes.

What's missing is humor. His stupid, stupid little jokes have vanished into thin air and Lady never thought she'd feel so weirded out by his seriousness − it's what she'd been hoping to witness early on, isn't it? It's shit. The solemn wall he's built makes him an alien and it's slowly doing her head in. Dante is never not mourning, yet he hasn't worn it like this before, as a shield. It makes him vulnerable. It can't go on forever. It tells a lot when even the newcomer has noticed the switch, as socially stunted and relatively new to his antics as she is. "I've just realized Dante's been rather reticent," she tells her after a few weeks that Lady has spent gritting her teeth at every lull in their conversation, silences that wouldn't have formerly existed. "He kept talking all the way to Mallet Island − I barely got a word in edgewise! While it was a blessing back then, with me trying to trick him and avoid blowing my cover, now I am starting to find it strange." Lady replies with a noncommittal sound. Words have a tendency to fail them.

He does talk less in general, about as mute when they're alone as in public. Used to talkative companions, Lady's almost glad to have Trish pick up the slack and blabber her ears off in her quest to discover the secrets of proper human conduct. Consequently, Lady's close to freaking out when he shows the first hint of joy since forever. It sizzles out as quickly as it came, and if the cause wasn't as ridiculous as it is, she might call it heartbreaking. Dante makes a triumphant comeback from his brief chitchat with a customer − who, in hindsight, did look like he was short on cash, damn it −, lugging around a bag of fake coins with a Trish-shaped figure of a woman printed as the heads, albeit some of them are defective and have two identical sides to them. Finally lost it, did he? Well, yes, but also no. The beauty of the counterfeit money he accepted as payment for the job is that he can have it make his decisions for him. All those pesky mental maneuvers can be replaced by simple physical actions, what a bargain. Observe? He'll rescue your cat and water your lilies, yes. Reverse? No, he won't have coffee with you even if it's your treat. One could think he'd learn a coin trick or two so that luck could excuse him from things he doesn't want to do, but honestly, Lady can't tell if he's bothered. What's important is that the lottery also minimizes the amount he needs to speak. Now he can communicate by flipping a token and maybe plastering a one-liner on top if he's feeling feisty, and credit where it's due: his quips have somehow managed to get even lousier. It's your lucky day. Crap like that doesn't interest me. Adios. Whatever. The same bollocks repeated over and over again. I love this, this is what I live for in a new package. It's almost like he isn't even trying, ha ha ha.

She's rarely felt as much like strangling someone with her bare hands as the first he does it to her, answers her question with a toss. Her fury burns bright and sudden now that there's finally an outlet for it: don't you dare disregard me like that, like I'm just anyone. Maybe he sees the look in her eyes; he refrains from doing it again and makes various grunting noises the mainstay in their dialog. Neither of them gets what they want, so they're even. Story of their life.

--

She's on a solo mission in a neighboring town when it really hits her she could leave. Just board any train after taking out these overgrown rats she's been hired to kill and never go back, or go back to retrieve some belongings she'd rather not leave behind and then take off. The thought sinks into her like a physical blow; she bends over and has to take a moment to breathe it out, find her center of mass again. It's true. She's free, nothing is holding her back, she doesn't owe anyone a damn thing, she could beat it, she has the power, no one could stop her. She clutches her knees, inhales, reties her shoelaces to regain control of her body again.

Dante would trudge on without her, would not call, would not come looking after her. This much is certain. Probably wouldn't cry either. Lady would lose her golden goose and the one thing to ground her after her nightmares, but his contacts could be persuaded to follow her if she greased their palms. Everything in their world is for sale. The rain already stopped.

She remembers what he looked like in the middle of the rubble, his hair drawing a shadow on his face and illuminating it when pulled back. There's no chance it wouldn't haunt her. She wasn't there, but she wants to, now. Lady's gone and gotten herself involved.

She's come to care about him. It's old news. Fuck.

When she returns to the safe house, she's in for a second realization. Trish is curled up on the sofa next to a giant pile of women's magazines and a car repair manual, tells her she's happy to see her again so soon. Trish, who makes her own money by pulling her weight and thus could get her own lodgings − she, too, could scram. Somehow, Lady never gets around to suggesting it.

--

"Does he ever," Trish speaks up. She chews her words and turns them around in her mouth for a while, not because she's looking for a subtle way to put it but because she's not quite sure what she's talking about.

"Does he what? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. You've seen the full extent of what he does by now," Lady remarks drily, not looking up from the rifle she's taking apart. The few occasions when the end of the world has landed on his doorstep aside, Dante leads an amazingly boring life for someone who does homicide for a living.

"Does he ever have intercourse with anyone? I mean, in the sexual capacity."

Lady sighs. She's thought about his mating habits and the lack of mating more than the healthy amount of "not at all", but she supposes curiosity is understandable. "As far as I know, no." What she knows goes much farther than she'd like, honestly.

Trish mulls over her response. It doesn't seem to have come as a surprise even though she'd obviously preferred to hear something else. Hopefully, she won't be sharing with the class if she's considered proposing him herself. "I'm having a hard time understanding it. He's attractive, so many would be willing to take him to bed. The bed he has is huge, it's going to waste if he doesn't sleep in it in any meaning of the term."

"You've been snooping around his bedroom?" Lady asks, focusing on side notes instead of the actual topic. Trish's slow smirk lets her know she's lost this round even before the reply. "Haven't you?"

"It isn't always that simple," she capitulates. She did, the first instance she could. His mattress is huge. "Not with humans, at least. Don't tell me what demons do, I don't need the mental images."

"Hmm."

A couple of nights later, Trish announces she's going out to engage in sexual activities with a random individual found on the dance floor, in those exact terms. "Too much information, but good for you," Lady says, wishes her luck and forbids her from bringing back any test subjects or details. It dawns on her she hasn't hooked up with anyone in ages. She promises to get worried if she starts sounding like Dante too.

--

Trish tries to take up other hobbies as well. Their missions grow longer since DMC is still standing after the previous one and the next, but accepting one complicated project means more money than doing several entry-level gigs, thus there's more free time in between. The stove being portable sets limits to Trish's cooking experiments, visual arts are out of the question because Lady refuses to sniff paints and there's not enough space for martial arts, so reading's the handy choice, though. Seeing that her previous experiences with librarians are less than stellar, Lady may not be entirely comfortable with having so many books around, but banning them isn't right. She can't pinpoint the moment when she starts to think of her guest as an actual person, real people. It must be gradual. Like with Dante, it just happens and they've got to suck it up.

"What are you reading, anyhow? You're always so captivated by the stuff," she horns in one afternoon when they're waiting for a call.

Trish flips a page. "It's a fairytale. The book has many of those. I think I am learning a lot from them."

Lady decides not to mention she meant her reading materials in general, more broadly; it's her fault for not being specific enough. It's not that interesting anyway − she's occasionally eyed the backs of the piles but doesn't recognize any names and isn't curious enough to pry. Associating with Dante has taught her all the multisyllabic book words she needs, really.

Ethics might not be her strong suit either, but wacky demon interpretations could still be good for a cheap laugh. "What's it about, then?"

"I haven't finished it yet so I cannot begin to guess; that information is only available at the end when the author reveals the morals. So far, there's been a mighty, benevolent king who loses his loving wife to an illness caused by the heavens − human physiology is so peculiar! Before she dies, she tells her husband to find himself a new spouse, this time someone who is both wiser and more beautiful than her. Apparently, the queen's wisdom lies in her thinking it's impossible to fullfil her last request, but that is factually incorrect. It's very easy, actually. Hmm. Currently, the king is planning to wed his daughter, who is indeed prettier than her mother, I'm told. There's no explanation why she is so frightened about this and tries to avoid it by consulting a fay she's related to too. I wonder if she helps the princess see her father is quite the catch. The marriage --"

"Trish," Lady says. Her voice sounds foreign in her own ears, calm. She remembers the first time Arkham called her by her mother's name. She'd thought he had slipped until he did it again, and again. "Get rid of the book. I don't want it here."

"Lady? But − why? We don't even know if there's a happy ending yet!"

"No incest. Get that shit out of here, now. I'm not telling you a third time." There is nothing romantic about the reality of inbreeding. Just look at where it's gotten them; Dante has fallen apart at the seams because of it, and while she's left standing, she has the scars to prove just how much daddy loved her.

Happy ending? Don't make her laugh. Dante doesn't need that kind of ideas.

Recognizing what's good for her, Trish carries the book all the way down the stairs to trash it. When Lady takes a cursory look at her collection sometime later, it seems like the stacks have gotten a little thinner overall. Gee, how many stories about kissing cousins does one woman need. If she was in the least bit superstitious, she'd claim breathing gets a little easier after they've been disposed of. As it is, Lady gets Trish a copy of a joke book that a brunette who turned out to be a cold fish in the sack had tried to sell her once, not as an apology but as a suggestion: find worthwhile stuff to occupy yourself with, this isn't the hill you want to die on. She slips the tome into a pile and neither of them ever refers to it. Eventually, when it makes its way into an actual bookcase, its spine is decorated with cracks and colorful slips of paper stick out from between the pages. Stupid people believe in fairytale endings. They might as well laugh at them.

--

It's true she's been feeling antsy, lately. Dante's run-in with his brother and the subsequent ill effects have brought the topic closer to the foreground. She had her questions and despite her involvement in the events, Trish wasn't able to answer the most of them. What made him like this? Pixies will explain sweet fuck all.

Was he molested? She wasn't, and she's the one she can thank for that, but she can't help feeling a sick twinge of sympathy at the thought. Something in her knows she would've never stood for anything beyond the regular type of physical violence, someone would've met their death if Arkham had touched her like Dante wishes to be touched now, but she's also aware that it happens. By whom − his mother, brother, the gardener, a parson? Fitting the theory together with the visible symptoms is a struggle. Stockholm syndrome, maybe? It's been established Lady doesn't really read. She did try, once upon a time. When the dreams were in an acute state, she found a publication about the psychology of childhood abuse. It… didn't have the effect she hoped it would, but that's neither here nor there. When she looks at Dante, what applies, what she remembers is that the children who have enjoyed some aspect of their exploitation in any way are those who become the guiltiest adults, not those who abhor every second of it and fight against the aggressor with all they've got.

What came first? The feelings or the remorse? Lady doesn't know Vergil but can see him taking advantage of Dante's emotions, which he should've been blind not to notice. She doesn't know him, but she detests him all the same and recognizes it's irrational of her. Wasting energy on hating people is useless, no matter how emphatically she won't ever be "forgiving" Arkham, laughs in the face of the entire concept. Still − if Vergil suffered as the corrupted form he'd been turned into, Lady can't claim to be overtly sorry for the poor, poor monster. No one deserves the treatment she got and Dante may have received as well, yet when Dante keeps flinching at his reflection year after year after year, she comes close to hoping Arkham had forced himself on Vergil so that he would've known what it's like to be powerless at someone else's hands. Squandered potential makes her angry; she'll never know what kind of person Dante could be if he didn't have a sibling to fuck it all up for him.

Just what did Dante see in his twin? There must've been something, a single redeeming quality that the bastard decided to sacrifice later on. Her initial judgement of his brother wasn't entirely correct, was it, not that she blames herself for making it. Who did he see in him, who did he think he was, who does he love to this day? "Narcissism" and "himself" are wrong answers when Lady's never come across anyone who hates themselves as bitterly as Dante does. Occasionally, it's as if he has no other emotions at all. Perhaps she's wrong and it's megalomania despite everything; maybe Dante really did believe he could redeem someone without a soul. Hope.

--

Arkham saw her in Vergil. This discovery takes time to acknowledge and then some to digest. It's revolting in every possible way, that's a given. As much as it smarts to compare herself to a treacherous snake, as if she's suddenly looking to excuse his actions and regarding them as similar to hers, it seems necessary. Lady's not one to shy away from something useful just because it's unpleasant. She will feel better for it, be better.

What was it that lured Arkham to a new victim? The looks, yes, the youth, no question about that. Vulnerability, perceived or imaginary? No doubt. These are the easy answers.

For the most part, she wonders what it was because Dante has never seen it in her, he never had any interest in pursuing Lady. If she knew, she couldn't even remove it: she has to own her past. She's not him.

The perseverance, her face replies from a mirror with all its blemishes and victory signs. Arkham wouldn't have had much interest in Dante for all his muscle and beauty because ultimately, he's both weaker and stronger than her, bends and bends without ever coming to the tipping point, gives up, lies back, lets everybody walk all over him, thinks of England. It's more fun to break something that resists only to shatter all at once, a spectacularly brilliant failure.

Lady doesn't want to be Vergil, yet another person to abandon Dante. Their relationship's got to be mutually profitable or she bails, but till then, he'll have someone to watch over him.

--

Trish gets better at conversing and other social customs. This is made more apparent by how Dante stays the same, regressed into an automaton pumped up with a handful of single-line monologues. He's at a stage where even Vergil wouldn't enjoy toying with him, and one of his coins would be as adept at telling if he realizes it himself as his long-time business associate, the closest he's got to a family member.

--

Trish's self-determination reaches disturbing heights when she returns from the grocer's and, in the place of a general how-do-you-do, notes: "We should have sex." The way she says it, it's a statement of a fact.

Instead of chocking on the lovely stout she's been nursing or spitting it all out in surprise, Lady gets still and senses the beer trickle down her throat. Distantly, she feels a cog turn in her head too, but she has no idea what it's connected to.

"'Should'? Why?" The rationale seems like the thing to focus on. Trish sets down the plastic bags and explains to her it would be convenient, adding that she "needs a purpose" while shoveling the spoils of her trip into the minibar. Do they really need three cartons of milk?

"And this is it? Your purpose is to, I don't even know, to become a sex doll? What the fuck, Trish?"

"No. I want to feel useful." Lady is pleasantly surprised she doesn't voice the 'you look like you could use it' she's thinking about so loudly. Trish is learning. Trish looks at her a lot, true, but it'd be hard not to in this box they've holed up in.

Lady could tell her she's not desperate, and even if she were, not desperate enough to date a demon. It got her nowhere with Dante and won't get her anywhere with her; Trish isn't applying for a girlfriend, she'd be quick to point that out. At this point, her being a part of the Sparda clan, kinda, seems like the bigger problem. Christ. "You look like his mom. It'd be weird."

Trish closes the fridge door. "Would you like me if I dyed my hair a different color?"

"Trish, lay off. I don't need you acting like I'm some fucking charity case or whatever this is."

"Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind later. Pizza today?"

--

"How's he holding up?" Morrison asks her one day. He likes to savor his Cubans in company, but he hasn't been coming down to Dante's for a smoke due to obvious reasons for a while now, so Lady visits him under the common pretense of shop talk. It's not that far from truth when they're gossiping about Dante, he's an important asset and so on. Lady blinks when she realizes she has no idea how to answer, no matter if she's in the mood to be dishonest or speak the truth.

--

Time comes when Dante disappears. As dire as things have been, it's a surprise.

--

Dante is not coming back.

When you travel to remote places to slay people and creatures most don't believe in, it's normal that completing objectives might take its time. Dante going off by his lonesome is normal, and at first, they don't notice the alarm bells. He leaves a proper note this time and has stuck a pin into the globe on his desk to mark his location. It's far but not far enough that it'd take him more than a few days to return. A fortnight in, it's getting difficult to see past all the red flags. Big operations require planning in advance, she hasn't heard a word from him, not a single rumor is making rounds in the underworld; it's a small case, she reasons, and things have gone wrong. At first it's normal, then it's anything but.

Out of a mostly unvoiced agreement, they decide they'll stop waiting once he's been gone for six months and nothing's broken radio silence. Unlike some, Lady doesn't have the endurance not to move on. Six months and she'll stop waiting for him.

Lady measures the floor of the office with her steps and tries to envision what it'd be like to call it hers. She should call Morrison just in case, ask if Dante left behind a will. Every corner of DMC is familiar to her; if there's a testament, it's somewhere else. It would make sense if he left the premises to her, yet she's unsure if she wants them, like this or in general. It might be easier to walk. She doesn't call. It feels final.

She's lost a benchmark, a comparison point, stability. She's angry. It's been three months.

They, Trish and her, have sex. There's not much to tell, it just happens. Her offer stands; her lipstick-red mouth is hot when she kisses her lips and even hotter when it finds its way down, makes the faded bullet scars on her inner thighs flush. She has clever fingers once she's been properly declawed and Lady can let them inside her, and she sighs prettily when pinned down from the wrists, and fuck her, it is convenient.

It's just sex, it's casual and means nothing, has no strings attached. That's why it's good for Lady. She's not stuck, frozen in place, "taken".

Four months after his disappearance, they take a spin on Trish's brand-new motorbike and, being out and about, decide to check up on Devil May Cry. Lady's not asking her why she's spending her earnings on wheels instead of an apartment because it isn't her role to interfere, just expresses concern about the chances of the chopper getting stolen in the disreputable neighborhood around the hideout. It's late; business hours are over like Trish keeps reminding her. The lights are out, the windows dark. Nobody's home. Nevertheless, there's something nagging at Lady. It's not paranoia when it turns out to be warranted.

The front door flies open and a woman rushes out in a red flash. That's the first thing that registers: the hideously unnatural hair color and the fact that no human moves like that. When the stranger halts and lets out a surprised yelp, her face twisting with sorrow, she has two guns pointed at her forehead.

"You're gonna have a little discussion with us if you want to keep your brain inside your skull. Tell us why you're here and what you did to him," Lady says slowly, pronouncing every threatening syllable with care and clicking off the safety of her pistol very loudly. Trish mirrors the movements by her side. There's a flare of electricity lighting up the air around her. Oh. The intruder's a demon too, then; Trish is sensing her energy and putting up her own wards. Lady ought to pull her necklace over her leather jacket if the vermin have become bold enough to ambush her on her home turf.

"I −," the stranger begins, then falls silent, her gaze shifting between the two of them. Her posture slumps. Foolish. If the housebreaker expects the gesture to endear her, supposedly the picture of harmlessness, to them, she's gravely mistaken.

"Where's Dante?" Lady presses, her nerves coiling tighter and tighter around the trigger.

"I don't know," she replies, a touch of desperation in her tone. The foreign accent is so thick that even such a simple sentence is almost lost in translation.

"Bullshit. Nobody comes here by accident and you're a fucking hellspawn. Something happened to him." It's not like they don't know already, can't put two and two together. Maybe it's better if they get a confirmation, though.

The redhead makes a sad face. "Ah, you are his friends. I see."

Trish cuts in before Lady manages to bash the expression into something far less condescending with the butt of her gun. "Start talking or we'll blow your head off. I can tell you're not strong enough to take us on, demon." She emphasizes her message by aiming another semiautomatic between the stranger's eyes, ice-cool and collected. She looks good like this, Lady might think under different circumstances. Dangerous.

Back against the wall as she is, the visitor is still refusing to defend herself. Her chin drops when she exhales the way people who've lost the last shreds of their optimism are wont to do. The hair falling over her eyes does nothing to hide how a single, dramatic tear is spilling over to her tanned cheek. "There isn't anything to tell," she says, the inward look in her eyes telling she's talking to herself now. "I came all the way here to make sure it's true with my own eyes, that he hasn't returned home. He has the demon powers so he would be here by now, and when I heard the motors, I thought -- but I suppose I knew he didn't make it back."

Trish snarls. "That's not good enough! We know about that already, so you had better get into details…" Her indignation peters out when Lady lets her hands fall to her sides. She doesn't have to see Trish to be able to tell she's throwing a questioning look at her.

"Does it matter? He's gone. This isn't news to us, we really did know. Let her go or interrogate her if you want, I don't give a damn."

Lady regrets her decision, just a bit, when the woman throws a pitying glance at them as she slinks into the darkness. Bitch. She'll get what's coming for her one day if she keeps begging for it. 

Four months, then five. Trish stops spending her nights on the couch.

--

Dante does come back.

"Ladies." He saunters in with an absent-minded greeting as if he's merely dropped by a convenience store. Lady's relief is drowned out by her rage. Through the humming between her ears, she hears Trish gasp. It's been five months and thirteen days.

He doesn't offer any real explanations, not that anyone expected him to. "Was on a mission," he says on his own initiative, having immediately made beeline to a safety box he's stashed under the sofa and dragging lines of mud all over the floor. When combing through its contents doesn't yield him the results he's after, he turns to a chest of drawers and makes a pleased noise when he finds the sack of phony coins. "Got it done, had to travel, am here now." What he doesn't say is as loud as his actual speech: I know that face, I can feel you making the face, why are you looking at me like that?

Lady hasn't budged or said a word to acknowledge him, just lets him feel the weight of her stare on his back. He knows what he's doing.

"Dante," she replies to his hellos as she watches him cram a handful of tokens in his pockets. An eventful trip, it appears.

He closes the doors and hovers on the spot without facing her. "Lady."

Somewhere next to her, Trish inhales sharply to signal she's about to butt in. Lady draws faster.

"It's been six months."

"Has it?" Dante says in a buoyant voice that implies he's either fully aware or has guessed about as much. He knows what he's done but lacks the means to address any of it.

She's spent too much time around him. Her ire deflates into disappointment she shouldn't be feeling in the first place. Did she hope he'd changed despite everything? Against her best judgment, yes. She did.

When Trish asks him what took him so long, Lady gets up from her chair in the corner and leaves. It's better that way for all of them and the business, that she goes away before she says something they'll regret. Her walking meal ticket walks the earth again, all's well that ends well.

Closing the door with pointed caution, she's not fast enough to escape Dante's non-reply. "Every hero has a weakness, Trish. Mine? Redheads."

--

Trish has become perceptive enough not to try and start anything when she crawls into the apartment in her footsteps an hour or two later, just helps her empty the bottles of wine she's uncorked in the meantime. If Lady felt more gracious, she might be impressed. As matters currently stand, she pours her a glass and lets her scoot next to her on the sofa. With Trish, idling around is different; she's quiet but present in a mildly curious way, and it's taken her a while to get used to it, to notice it's not obtrusive.

On the third night, Lady lets her join her in the bedroom. Why not? Dante coming back hasn't changed things, after all.

--

"I'm going out tonight," Trish informs her bluntly. It's been approximately five days since the incident, she hasn't really been keeping a record.

"Sure, whatever," Lady replies. She's not her keeper anymore. Trish is a big girl, she can do what or whom she wants. Demons don't even have to worry about protection, diseases or unwanted pregnancies, and wow, she's getting way too savvy about this shit.

She feels her stare bore into the back of her head. Trish speaks very, very slowly and carefully, like talking to a simpleton, or to Dante. "I will go out and won't come back until two o'clock at night, Lady."

Lady waves a dismissive hand at her. She lets out a nettled sigh, then forges ahead. "I will be hanging out in the ritzy new bar downtown to find out if the hearsay about it being haunted holds true. So if you have any business you'd like to attend to solo, I won't be there. You know, anywhere near our usual territory, the old industrial district."

"You've still got to work on your subtlety, sugar," Lady snarks without looking up from her notebook. No wonder she's about as discreet as a bull in a china shop when she's essentially grown up among explosive personalities and literal explosives. There are many things that could and maybe should be said about her and Dante, but currently, the only topic she's willing to touch is him still owing her ten grand plus interest for the insurance premiums alone.

Trish lets out a flowing laugh, suddenly delighted. Now Lady's eyes do snap to meet hers. She's been trying out facial expressions lately, donning various grins and smirks like dresses. For the first time, her amusement seems spontaneous enough to be sincere. "Subtlety? What for? It would just be lost on you and Dante."

Lady can't fault her for the stupid joke when she can feel her mouth crook into a small smile. Huh.

At seven o'clock, she's sitting in the armchair she's been dubbing hers forever and a day and watching Dante keeping his hands busy with bottles and glasses so that he won't be wringing them nonstop. His awkwardness is the incredulous sort today. It's blatant he'd be more comfortable if she had fucked off for good after his latest stunt; this is clear evidence of someone giving a damn about him, which is not something he can handle with grace.

The clock ticks. "I visited Hell," he says.

He swallows, continues. "Could've been just limbo, dunno. I'm not an expert." They both ignore the following pause and the identity of "the expert" they're both thinking of. Vergil leaves but won't go away.

There's every reason to tread lightly. Dante's in a weird, fragile mood. Nothing has led her to believe he's using euphemisms and being metaphorical about the truth, lying.

"What was it like?" she asks. Tick, tick, tick, says the time.

"Empty," he says eventually. 

"You came back," she states and asks.

"Yeah."

She downs the last of her drink, wondering if he'd really believed he'd find any remains. Dante gets up and gets her her nth second helping, sits on the ground next to her. The alcohol swirls in their glasses and her head, the clock hammers on. She's still so angry.

"I wasn't sure I would," he admits.

His right hand fidgets with a coin. Head, tails, up and down. Out of the blue, it occurs to her Dante has been extremely careful to always wear gloves. It isn't something she's been consciously aware of, but now that she looks back, the pattern is flawless. She's seen him buck naked, every square inch from his chest to his ass and toes over the years, his dick, yes, but not his palms. The hand that now rests on his lap is bare. Dante himself seems like he doesn't notice. His left palm lies open on his leg as if it had nothing to hide; she has a hard time telling whether he's too drunk to notice or it's intentional, if he's allowing her to see. She's seen him stabbed through his stomach, his neck torn open, bleeding, holes in his forehead, shoving his intestines inside himself. This upsets her more, a small thin scar splitting the skin in two. It's more widescale.

She doesn't need to ask to know why, but she wishes she did. As Dante blathers on about something completely unrelated, she stares. A minute passes, becomes two. His voice tightens little by little until it snaps. Dante abandons the pretext, breathes tersely, says: "I have to bury myself, there is nothing else for me to --." Now his tone is calm if pained, but it gives out in the middle, as if it has nowhere to go from there.

She wants to see anger from him. It would be healthy, he should get it out of his system, she wouldn't even mind if it was directed at her. What Vergil did to him always runs deeper than imagined, yet she can't make him mad at anyone else but himself. Dante will only destroy himself, either by inaction or active self-hatred.

Lady tells him the truth, a version of it. She doesn't do it gently; it's not them. "Your guilt has as much value as that coin." Yet you take it with a smile and let it erase you.

Dante is silent for a long time. It's one of the rare quiet moments they ever share with ease. Usually, Lady finds comfort in his constant babbling, their pasts of bad touches and betrayals momentarily pushed back. When he speaks, he sounds entirely too sober.

"I know."

In the grand scheme of things, all this − the aftermath − is a single blip on the radar. It's a phase, basically. Cornered, Dante defaults to his old habits after a brief stint of panicking. Lady once broke a porcelain vase as a kid, glued it back together and tried to paint over the cracks. She got beaten up for it anyway, but that's beside the point. No, the point is she knows a quick fix when she sees it. It's merely taken Dante some time to tape the pieces into a shape that resembles his previous frame. The work is sloppy, that's all. This isn't healing.  

Dante, a little less intact and more damaged than he used to be, sheds his skin to become what he was when they met. A bloody goddamn phoenix. She sees a loop closing and wonders how many times he's done this before.

--

Things don't really get better after that, the appearances do. Dante readopts his teenaged persona brick by brick and jibe by jibe until an easy, loose leer appears on his face at the pull of a trigger, as if it'd never left, as if it didn't remember a time when his eyes joined it to form a genuine expression. Outfits come and go, his pretension gets progressively more flamboyant. He eats up the attention it gains him and retreats further into himself behind it; the more open his behavior seems to become, the less there is of him to see. Lady can't tell what he thinks. Lady can't tell if he thinks. The surface-level life is the new normal, a funhouse mirror of the decade after the tower; she's never seen anyone adapt like that and hopefully never has to again. Dante's got to be a survivor because there is nothing else for him to be, and it's easier for all of them to bear than his apathetic comas, and it's wrong. Ten years pass between the landmarks. When she focuses on individual moments, their existence is measured in seconds and faked grins, but time trickles past her fingers gunshot-fast if she lets go. At some point, they've moved out into one of Lady's bigger apartments, she doesn't remember there being a conversation, and DMC has acquired new neons. Money, as always, is good for her.

Ten years pass. Then Dante gets an obsession.

Chapter Text

Trish is wearing a face. Or more accurately, she has one underneath the painted mask and janky bob cut she's veiled herself in, an expression she isn't simulating, and it's making focusing on the enemy soldiers harder than it has to be. Lady turns away, chucks a grenade at the feet of the nearest approaching cluster and tries not to dwell on how resilient the crumbling wall they're hiding behind of is or isn't after the latest projectile attack, fingers twitching when another band of white armors falls but none one is screaming. So much death and it's still so silent, too silent.

"These creatures. Lady, I don't know if you've noticed, but they're not coming from the breach like the little scarecrows were. And while they're donning the Order's insignia, they aren't your average guardsmen either." A cuirass explodes in their vicinity: her ears are ringing, the edges of her vision blur with rushing fog, yet Trish's voice cuts across everything and cuts far too sharply, given how hesitant it is, quiet. "There's something seriously off about them. They aren't breathing. They aren't human. They aren't alive."

Lady notices. Detonations and collapsing bodies aside, none of it smacks of a sight she's taken in before, but with the pointers blazing a trail for her, the details add up. She hasn't encountered these golems before, but others have, have fought and beat and surrendered their heart to. One of the knights, a hollow head, lands on the ground at her heels, the final glowing flashes of light racing through the rough, veiny, tarry, bark-like texture peeking through the apertures at the sides of the helmet. Red, purple, blue. It's empty. It isn't guilt she's feeling. It isn't her fault. She spins back to Trish, shouts.

"Where's Dante?"

MIA, presumed defunct. Dante is thirty-eight and currently unavailable, has been for quite the while.

--

What to say about the interval between Dante's disappearance and the next key event in his queue? Madness is wordless. Words, besides, are cheap, only good for assault or defense under limited circumstances and even then, a derringer would do better. Lady would prefer to skip the entire ordeal and go straight to the desserts and monster-tree fruits, but alas, it's something she lives through and has to come to terms with.

The year they prevent Hell from breaking loose on an island and try to ignore the niggling déjà vu is the heigh of, well, Dante's descent into all-out wackiness, but maybe the word she is looking for is the 'nadir' – because a descent usually goes southwards, doesn't it? Then again, she later learns that some underworld flowers may bloom wrong side up, 'the upper echelon' is way down and she's getting a migraine from nothing ever making sense – and maybe there aren't any words for the features of her shared existence she's trying to lay out for inspection in the first place. Wordless, she keeps saying that. Or maybe it's just her: she's not a penman or bookish despite of rubbing shoulders with many who are, and honestly, it seems that she's even messing up with the plotline, getting ahead of herself, if this is what she's starting off with. Chronology, that's the thing. To follow fairytale logic to the depths it's been taking her, she's got to give the saga a clean order: a story has a beginning, a midpoint and an end.

Naturally and unnaturally, everything began for Dante in the childhood he's never spoken honest talk about and ended when the tower's bones collapsed at the latest, but Lady guesses the dim depressive period he has between his late twenties and early middle age can be viewed as a story onto itself, too. Like, there are milestones and whatnot. Act one, he visits the devils' kingdom and has to finally acknowledge even Hell won't have Vergil, that Vergil is gone forever. Act two, he initially copes by forging a false face and wearing it always, subsequently by getting a fixation, getting distracted. Act three, the grand finale: an ancient evil resurrects and nothing is the same afterwards. She's now getting into the second phase.

Time passes between landmarks, ten years. Vie de Marli, Fortuna. It's not the worst decade in Lady's CV by any account or stretch of the imagination, far be it from her to misrepresent her position and whine about troubles she doesn't have. Hunting is a seasonal sport and after a massive demonic outbreak it's as a rule quieter for a time, so they're in a recession for the most of it; she's got her side hustles, however, and the trend has been for long that they both generate more income and keep her busier than the ventures she shares with other DMC stockholders. She brokers, she spies, she wins ground from the most influential syndicates and celebrated freelancers, she wonders if she's found herself a calling. In some quarters, her fame and infamy have outshined those of Dante, the legendary. Ridiculous. While she might smirk into her drink whenever something folkloric he has done in the past is now being attributed to one of her code names in the public perception of the ganglands, not as prone to conceit as most but not entirely immune, it's not getting to her head to any significant extent. There's no victory where there's no competition.

She isn't misrepresenting the situation. The assignments Devil May Cry gets before the job that Morrison drags to her doorstep to launch off chapter three aren't the stuff of myths, mead and money, and in parallel, the entrepreneur certainly isn't moving a finger to track down any bigger fish to fry between raising a vodka and making come-hither gestures at randos he's going to turn down the second he's supposed to follow through, not that there's ever any winning with him anyway. Dante does what he has to, no less, no more. A glaring example would be the girl he ends up saving in the course of a different operation, Patty. Lady bets he's been made aware of the tricky circumstances surrounding her soon as there's gossip out there, dealing with the fallouts of demon summonings gone right and wrong is his very damn trade and all, but nope, he can't be bothered to act on his own, search for the kid and adopt a new rescue – not until the whole ball of wax is dropped into his lap by coincidence, whereupon he realizes it's a solid opportunity to twist the knife in his wounds and acquire a follower who's the same age he was when he lost his relatives, or something, who knows how he justifies anything anymore. Lady's pleased that the child survives and is seemingly holding no grudges, judging by how eagerly she crashes their fast-food frenzies and picks up the phone to tell her reluctant champion about the dresses she's bought. She's just not a fan of Dante's MO.

She has been so concerned about his lack of personal growth that pure regression knocks her for six. It's not progress. She has very few clues what that would look like for Dante, but a Blitz could see it isn't this, this is taking a great leap backwards. You don't repair things by forcing them to be something they aren't and your feet won't stop hurting if you chop your toes off to make a small shoe fit you better, for fuck's sake. Actual reconstruction requires knowledge of the nature of the thing, its history and what it is supposed to do. Lady is conscious of that but is not a fixer. Neither is Trish, no one in his corner is. It's, again, up to him, which is why they're doomed, fucked, not going to make it in one piece.

Dante doesn't want to be repaired. Dante doesn't want to introspect. He rebuilds a broken vase, shoddily, the tape is there for the whole world to behold, then acts as if it's a magic crystal eight ball, and not only that, also expects said world to play pretend with him.

Lady hates this persona.

--

"She should know better" is the stupidest background of them all. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas: she knows better and she wishes the newest Dante version would go away. In life, she knows but doesn't get, you always get what you want but should consider the object of your wants more carefully, at least that's that case when you're someone like her, someone like Dante. If Vergil's ultimate goal was to get to lord over his twin, he could be featured on the list as well. In his death, he does hold absolute power and nothing less, merely can't enjoy the perks of it. Too bad, so sad.

At first, when signs begin to show, Lady makes the mistake of assuming it might be good for him in the long run. The pretension protects him from his own pain, hence it must have some value, right? Be more outgoing, exercise and shower regularly in spite of receiving psychic damage from having to see naked shapes in the mirror, ditch the funeral-y halo, practice people skills, just, generally do a total 180 and quit moping and going moldy in the dark alone – most sorry sacks and shut-ins would benefit from such measures, a lot or a teeny tiny bit. Wrong. Dante is not most people. No; he trains, grows muscle and a manlier jaw, dresses up so suggestively clients need to be told he's selling a service and not himself, replaces the rehearsed repartees with endless gab gab gabbing that grates on her nerves just as much if not more, drinks socially and gloats aggressively, but while at it, he makes it clear he's being insufferably, unbearably, unrealistically insincere in order to take the sting off. It isn't even remotely good.

Lady keeps an eye on him and rolls with the punches. There's never anything else to do. She observes him in pubs and at work, composes tentative cost-benefit analyses on napkins. Occasionally, she tastes bile. Arkham and his clown disguise, she remembers. She hasn't really, actively, thought about him in years, but she is thinking now, each time she detects an anomaly. A boisterous outer layer masking secret hunger. Scarring from genetic failures, phony dress-up parties. What does it remind her of?

It angers her. It's difficult to illustrate what he's like. He's never had a stable personality or an ounce of candor, surely, but they had a mutual understanding of one another. He's untouchable. He moves with swagger and doesn't seem to care if the crowd picks up on him not being fully human. Sometimes the crowd freaks out. There are bar brawls, many. Someone gets offended, either by the peacocking or being strung along, Dante wipes the tables with the troublemaker, they all get themselves banned. His tune is harsher, louder of course but also higher, crueler by an octave. He displays a viciousness in his actions that he hasn't been disposed for previously. He's -- entertaining to be around, catty, zany, full of absurd remarks. He's a friend, still. He pays them well, overspends. The Dante they have doesn't make messes for them to clean, is hassle free and housebroken in comparison to his former basement-dwelling selfs, yet somehow, it's like a breath of fresh air when she finds him passed out on the floor without pants once, a rare blast from the past. She pokes him with the tip of her boot, he groans. "I miscalculated," he admits groggily, and that's that. The following day, he's thrown out all his tomes, only preserving the porny cut-outs and mags. Business continues as usual, whatever counts for that in this era.

He's not suicidal. Is he? She really, really can't tell anymore, what he thinks, if he thinks, if he thinks about blowing his top off and plans to, with intent. Always a danger to himself, but more than usual, enough to be worrisome?

She asks him, eventually. Dante, is everything okay? You came back. You can tell me if it isn't. I might be able to relate. Something like that. He looks. He bats his lashes, swivels back and forth on his gaudy cowboy boots.

"Peachy," he claims. "Mostly out of debt and I get to wake up every morning to do what I love for a living, hunt and kill demons, why wouldn't I be. I'm absolutely crazy about it. I'm peachy. Hey, where's the sidekick? She borrowed my shotgun, I want it back."

She swallows her objections and cusses. She doesn't say: You have friends, Dante. Not many, and all of them are making a horrible blunder by giving a damn, but they would be there for you, if only you could let them in. Silences are so loaded with him now.

Ultimately, subhuman or not, this miserable bastard is still the individual who understands her better than anyone. Her history, her functions. Where she's coming from and why it is sometimes difficult to figure out where she's going. The fragility of everything she's had to fight tooth and nail for. She can afford to, but does not want to, lose him. At least, not until the expenses outgrow the benefits.

They make attempts. Maybe he will shake it off quicker if he's shown they were mostly okay with him being the kind of disaster he used to be. Go to the movies as a trio. Dance at clubs. Invite him to dinner, Trish cooks and doesn't poison anybody. Buy him Christmas presents, send cards from the more exotic journeys.  They aren't fixers or his handlers, but they've made an invest they'd rather not write off yet.

"We could get him a boyfriend to cheer him up," Trish muses in the wake of one of their clever ploys bombing, can't remember which. "Setting up a blind date should be easy if we slip the gent a photograph, he's handsome."

Lady doesn't quiz her on her notion of 'blind' but does express cynicism: he'd probs shit himself at the mere thought and wouldn't go, but if he went, he'd scare the gent away within minutes so that he wouldn't have to actually bang a living being he didn't meet in the womb. Best to leave him be. Trish harrumphs.

"You always say it's best to take an initiative, except when it comes to Dante. Why?"

It's a good question. Is she not being true to herself? Are her readings even in the neighborhood of correct these days?

Has she started making excuses for him?

--

'Handsome', Trish says. Lady's used to him being pretty and covering it up, but it must be true. It's something other people notice, too; he isn't giving them the chance not to notice him.

He still isn't getting any. Well, there are some improbable scenarios out there, he's had a private sensual life and kept it under the wraps all these years, or he's a serial killer, murdering call girls he's lain with left and right without anybody catching on, but she doubts them. You usually have a sixth instinct for these things, 'don't let crazy stick its dick into you' and so on. Though, she does get the distinct impression he's a stickee rather than a sticker or an adventurous ambidexter and feels disgruntled, but off she goes. Anyhow, instincts can be fooled for a second and that's what's happening nowadays. Each of their trio gets chatted up in sleazy dives, Lady less than she used to back when she was visibly a minor, Dante more than when his sulkiness and crazy eyes would repel all but the drunkest admirers. Her faith in humanity won't be restored, so he may lead them on all he likes without her butting in and explaining he's basically a eunuch and waste of a decent cock – because lead them on he will, no other way of putting it. A flirt or not, he never accepts a number, always leaves alone. "He's, ah, taken," she comments if she's approached about it by a jilted suitor, ignoring the incredulous looks it gains her. He isn't acting the part, yeah.

Lady knows the stereotype. The 'gentler sex' can't do no strings due to hopeless sentimentality and emotional frailness, a male on the other hand will find the role of the village bicycle empowering. Crock of shit, goes without saying, but that's not the point. While having had her fair share of flings isn't a symbol of pride for her, pride or dishonor, the fact has made it clear to her that it's not for everyone. Having casual sex with strangers takes a certain degree of detachment. She wouldn't usually recommend it to someone strapped for cash in terms of self-regard, and what's more, she doesn't exactly take pleasure in imagining what kind of fucking he could get off on. It'd be degrading, and violent, and probably unsanitary and deeply unhealthy in numerous other regards. Shudder as she may, she could make an exception and advocate for it if it'd help him and if she wouldn't have to picture what it'd be like for the other party. He's sexy but so pitiful, just look at him.

Would it help him to get laid? She's on the fence. What is Dante if not emotionally brittle, a fanciful fool? Confronting the actuality of his twisted little libido and that of a partner may well shatter him. At the same time, it might be a welcome confidence boost. His body has brough him so much suffering that any amount of satisfaction could bring him to his knees in a positive sense. Maybe he doesn't need Vergil to be in working order, he just needs to pay someone to treat him bad for an hour a week.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Everything is a flip of the coin with him. It's tiresome. Every couple of months, she considers and reconsiders leaving him behind.

Morrison can't relate. "I don't know, mesdames. See, I vastly prefer this Dante to the one twiddling his thumbs on a pile of unpaid bills. He pulls in good cabbage, he's a real live wire, a ladies' man. Can't you just drug him and let him sleep it off it if it ruffles your feathers?" he gibes during their weekly cocktail night, dropping an olive in his martini glass with a pompous wave of the hand. Long-suffering, Lady deliberates on flinging hers at his smug sneer. Has he been taking his meds, has he become so old he needs to take them? What fucking ladies is he seeing?

Morrison hasn't ever had a tough guy following him outside to the smoking area, letting him know god hates fags because he, Morrison, is a woman, several feet shorter and less brawny, and because the guy doesn't have a death wish or the balls to say it to Dante's face. Morrison doesn't get fed up with confrontations that could easily be avoided, tell the coward god hates everyone and excuse himself without mentioning he can think of a hundred ways to kill a man right that instant, and that's not counting the tricks he could play with the dozen different weapons concealed on his person. Lady does; that's more than enough proof there is no holy smoke and no redemption for any of them.

"Can you hellborns even get high?" she asks the specialist. Trish swallows three gulps at once, smacks her lips.

"It depends. How high are we talking? Dante can fly, I'm afraid I'll have to jump."

The withering look Lady shoots at her seems to do its bit. "It's a joke, babe. I am aware what 'getting high means' in this context, it has to do with intoxication. It is possible to tranquilize anything with enough narcotics, or electroshock therapy, but he would probably only be cranky and more unmanageable after waking up from his coma. I know I would be."

"Ah, the voice of reason, much appreciated. Listen to your missus, Lady. It's Dante. Sooner or later, a shoe will drop on his head from the high heavens and he'll come around, you'll see," Morrison reassures them sagely, blowing out bitter vapor with each exhale. On their way out, Lady steals a box of his favorite cigars to even the score.

Trish bumps her on the hip as they mount her bike. "Are you feeling well?"

"What are you, my therapist? I've got it under control, don't fret. Just hits me sometimes how glad I am for not having slept with Dante, jeez," she sighs, gripping a trim waist and hiding her head in a leather epaulette, deservedly petulant. Trish can likely detect it's not all there is, can't grasp what else there might be. She does, howbeit, offer to give her a massage and maybe something extra to make her lighten up. She's gladder to accept. The back-and-forth having become so natural for them, it's kind of funny to think that their number-one asset has stayed blissfully oblivious to them being romantically involved.

--

Romantically involved, essentially common-law married. Her skin is breaking out in hives at the phrasing years and years into their affair and she hates how inbred the whole diagram of their relationships is, really does, but the absurdity of it all does have her lightening up. Breaking news: she isn't all that ladylike in her conduct and won't mince her words to spare anyone's feelings. Dante should be thankful she's got a sense of privacy and isn't supplying him with X-rated stories about his mother's body double. But this isn't about spite.

After nearly ten years, she's still involved with Trish. She still looks like his mom and it's the most outlandish state of affairs Lady can see herself being content with, yes, but it's -- a healthy relationship. How about that, huh. Over the decade, the arrangement they entered for the sake of practicality matures until she forgets when she's last questioned herself about it. Exclusivity isn't ever in the talks, she won't frustrate herself with a labelling gun and they refuse to ruin a good thing by yapping about it too much, so she supposes she could have as many one-night stands as she desires without repercussion, but what would be the point? The 'missus' waiting for her at home is guaranteed to be more to her liking than any throwaway tryst she might stumble into at random.

Trish seems to agree. "I like everyone," she states in a serene lilt when asked whether she's into men as well. Great for her, not what Lady was after. "I like you the most, though. Pad thai tonight?"

Falling for Trish – falling for anyone, for that matter; she always thought she was going to be a lone wolf, and perhaps she even found some solace in the me-against-the-world setting at times – surprises her as much as it changes her. She changes, she won't mince. Aside from the Dante-induced tenseness, she's in broad strokes more laid back, less crabby and a hint less stubborn, drawn out of her clam somewhat. She sleeps better than ever in the bedroom they share with someone next to her, someone strong and fierce, a monster mighty enough to fend off whatever there's lurking under the bed, and when she doesn't, when she's fitful, Trish handles the nightmares gracefully, doesn't make a fuss. They have tea at four AM, throw a quilt over themselves and the sofa, dig up a book for her to read aloud, she's got loads to choose from. Lady finds herself buying her shit. Pricey ammo, the hollowpoints she likes. Wrenches and engine grease. Nail polish. Jackets for her to try on and dainty lingerie for them to try out together. Here. I thought of you when I saw this. Specifically, I thought of your awkward laugh and unguarded joy and, and then I got so disgusted with how sappy I was being that I had to leave the store asap. You're welcome. It's not romantic like films are, reality isn't unrealistic on that front. Trish can be fucking annoying and she herself loses her temper every now and then, doesn't always have the patience for Trish's inexperience with Planet Earth she perhaps should have, but by and large, her efforts seem to be making concrete differences for once.

By the time Fortuna rolls around, it's beyond obvious to her Trish is a person. Lady might go as far as to claim she's on average a good person, but coming from her, it's not the compliment someone more gullible might regard it as. Opposites attract? It wouldn't be unheard of, would it. She examines her motives for being comfortable with her to ensure they aren't the same as the ones that have Dante pining for his unreachable, unattainable illusions. It puts them into perspective.

Trish, quirky as she is, is or has become a character of her own right, has a past, has her own interests and flaws and grievances, all of which exist independently of anyone she happens to be partnered up with. The same does not seem to be true for Vergil. Vergil is forever nineteen and cannot do a damn thing to correct the wrong ideas Dante has about him. Vergil only exists on Dante's palm now. Fortunately. Lady wishes he were alive for her to kill now and then, but not being delusional, she knows she wouldn't stand a chance against him. It's fortunate.

Trish is very genuine when she's not horsing around, earnest. There are language barriers, faulty interpretations, but an open book is an open book. It might explain why Dante tenses a little in her presence knowingly or unknowingly, given how he's used to people like his sibling who lie every time their lips stir and how he more than anyone should be seen as one of those people. Trish is unlike anyone either of them has ever known in that.

There is more to her and them than the comparisons. Trish is uncomplicated. Mundane stuff is amusingly dramatic with her and dramatic stuff plays out without unhelpful theatrics. Weirdly enough, Trish feels safe to her while never being boring.

Trish is energetic, eager to please, endearing, but not undignified. She has a self-esteem. Lady respects her in a way she's never respected Dante.

Trish is – innovative. Very hands-on, a great kisser once you've gone through the trouble of walking her through your expectations, more fun in bed than a wet blanket like Dante would be. She hates being disappointed in bed, she can smell it: if he had the blood pressure for a non-Vergil lifeform, he'd be the type to starfish on his back for 120 glorious seconds, weeping and apologizing after coming before his partner even got it in properly. Blegh. But this isn't about him, not really.

Trish is not a rebound or only a means to be reminded of the bullet she dodged by not getting involved with Dante, though she is that too. At the end of the day,  her eyes are green in late sunlight and when she smiles with them, she looks nothing like the portrait she was modeled after.

Lady doesn't believe in love.

During their association, she has trusted Trish with so many tasks and bits and pieces of herself that it'd feel silly to claim she's kept a distance.

Lady might believe in Trish being a good call, in Trish wanting to stick around.

--

There are risks involved with letting the woman from Mars be the one responsible for the black ops, needless to say. Once upon, she might've called it a momentary lapse, but that doesn't hold much water anymore.

The Fortuna situation has been brewing for a while. Trish has been curious, it's in her blood to be, but she's allowed Lady to leaf through her reports in her corner of the apartment in peace, studying her novels and occasionally producing a cup of coffee for her flatmate to down in between pages. Eventually, Lady has gathered her intel and is starting to hear whispers about unconfirmed daemon attacks in the region, so it seems like the proper stage to bring others in.

They discuss logistics, schedules and strategy before going to Dante's, side by side at her desk, hunched over a map. Undercover? Undercover sounds good. Trish delights in the brochures about their annual church-music festivals and more or less proves her theory about nobody sane or normal ever wishing to attend them. A few weeks' immersion in the local customs can't be avoided with a group this weird. Espionage it is, it's settled.

"Please let me do it?" Trish gushes with her fingers crossed and hands balled up, the request appearing out of the blue. "Infiltrate the Order. We only need one operator and I volunteer, can I please have dibs? I've yet to have assignments of this sort somehow."

They idolize demons, send them a demon, eh. Ingenious. Lady, rightfully so, pauses. The girl she was with a gun in her grip and a dead father at her feet screams at her split-second judgment: are you getting soft, Mary?

Identity crises are someone else's specialty. She had had to be Mary and up to a certain point, it was useful to be her, but in the present that's a neutral fact and not something to get strangled in. She's moved on. Though, it's never not weird to note she's much more of a team player than she used to be in the sense that she not only hears out other propositions in case there's information to be obtained from them but is also willing to entertain alternatives. Earlier, she would've steamrolled this nonsense and proceeded with her own schemes. She herself would be the best choice, Dante could do it in his sleep, Trish has so far had her hand held by the two of them. The training wheels will have to come off one day, no doubt, but is the time now?

"For real? I'm excited," she proclaims, grin sparkling bright as her hair. "I have been researching human personality types and modes of interaction for so long, it's thrilling to get to put that insight to a practical test and create an alias – oh, I must get the dictionary, I get to pick a name. I will bring you back a jar of sunchoke jam, according to the flyer it's a provincial delicacy over there."

Lady listens to her babbling on and on about the field trip and concludes it's a decision worth making, impending cleanup be damned.

The Order of the Sword. She has ears on each tavern wall and wiretaps in every pie passed around in the industry, but in truth, she finds out about the nutzos of the month more indirectly, to her moderate shame. As it happens, she's had her sights on a haunted pistol whose owner, unfamiliar with devil arms, is convinced it's cursed and might thus be inclined to sell it cheap; the plan is to give it to Trish so that she won't have to steal from Dante all the time. The owner gets robbed before the item is auctioned, however. He's too hysteric to provide any useful info when she phones him, just bleats about monocles and engine-powered lances. Fine. It gets less personal the more she investigates. With some digging, the organization turns out to be less of an entirely unknown entity in the circles and more of a bore, loony yet relatively harmless fanatics. They self-isolate. Nobody cares about village folk performing religious rituals in a remote castle town, for the most part. Not even if they, like, hold beasts as gods and dream about ruling the universes. Maybe Trish won't stand out so bad in a tightly knit community of crusaders who must view each and every outsider as a freak.

She learns about the cult and the disappearing weapons, but in the big scheme, those are hardly a cause for concern and intervention, to be frank. What really fuels her curiosity lies elsewhere. Namely, there is a not-nonexistent chance they have Dante's brother's katana at their disposal.

When they get him involved, she doesn't tell him. Manipulative? May well be. It isn't nice of her, whatever. Him getting his hopes up for nothing wouldn't be nice, either. Were she truly vengeful, she'd pass up on the opportunity and let the trail go cold, the relic vanish into thin air.

Dante is glib, stuffs his mouth with junk as they rest their case. Lady isn't shocked when his knowledge on the connection between his sire and the town is lacking. The moment Sparda comes up, he stiffens up and glances around as though searching for an escape, suddenly more interested in the pizza than the promise of a fight. Lady tortures him with details for being so predictable.

"Well, then I'd have something to keep me occupied," he relents in the end, as if there were any doubt he'd accept the gig, for the reasons he unexpectedly nominates himself. Dante must keep himself occupied. He does what he has to.

That's it, then. Making showy exit from the office, Trish leaves for Fortuna weeks in advance and Lady coops up in their condo, running other professional errands in the meanwhile. The two of them are accustomed to being apart, but traditionally, it's been her on the road and Trish staying at their place.

It's the longest she's spent alone in the house since they moved together. Her sleep suffers a bit; awfully quiet.

--

They, she and Dante, catch an early train to the site in due course. The train's a dingy old thing, almost charmingly dated; she recalls killing a lot of time in ones like it as a child, the olden days when she could pretend to be older than she was and drop the act when the game no longer felt fun. She'd nick her mom's broad-brimmed hat and walk along the long bustling corridors in pearls, people-watch, get a kindly elderly woman buy her an ice cream and sit on the tall canteen chairs for hours, swinging her legs, opening and closing the blinds on the windows. These are nice memories to have.

There are shutters on these windows as well, the old type with gaps between the slats. Dante is in a mood openly, which is rare: when the sun rises, the light paints stripes on him as it surges through the cracks, but instead of leaning back and basking in the warmth, he gets restless, mmhs, shifts, draws the curtains.

"Hey, I was watching the view," she sounds off. Now he does incline his head against the backrest, fixing his crouched pose and creating a rift between their opposing seats. His smirk is lopsided, doesn't fit his tone.

"We had a closet in the lobby," he says. What he says doesn't really have anything to do with anything. "For dish towels and crap, because the main kitchen and dining room were nearby. First floor. It had doors kinda like this. I survived the fire since I hid in in it, saw my mother burn to death on the other side in it too. She was already dead at the time, but I didn't quite believe that till I took a closer look at the wounds."

He trails off. Lady gets up and drinks a coffee in the buffet car. When she gets back, Dante is asleep. They arrive at the terminal at eleven. Fortuna, end of a line.

Chapter Text

As a holiday destination, Fortuna is not interesting. Nothing about Fortuna is interesting if you take Sparda stock and hell gates out of the picture, she might add. The fact it's a right clusterfuck is completely unrelated.

Dante wakes up when the train jerks and arrives at the station. Outside, they wait for the small herd of passengers to disperse; he squints at the horizon, the island a clunky homburg hat on it, chews his molars around an imaginary ball of gum. The quietly unsettling mood persists slightly weakened from what it was before the brief siesta.

"Doesn't look so bad to me. No apocalyptic skyscrapers, no flying cetaceans, ginormous centipedes. Have you been feeding me a story, Lady?"

Lady scraps her paper cup into a trash bin and tries to recall which figures were printed on the ferry schedule she didn't remember to take with her from the canteen. She's not sure what to make of the horrid little lullaby he sang to her, so she thinks nothing of it, hoping she won't have to think about it for long either. Did he himself feed her a line just to see what her reaction would be, was he angling for the sympathy of someone who suffered similar sights at a similar stage, did he offer her a speck of truth completely at random; since there are more options than clues, it's meaningless to take stabs.

"You're my nearest and dearest paypig, what do you reckon?" she drawls.

"You wound me. Want me to say something to Trish for you? I," he cracks his padded knuckles, "get the feeling the two of us will be meeting real soon. She does have a way of making these strolls in the park more riotous, our gal."

"Sure. Her favorite trashy TV show, she'll be all ears for that. Tell her that the couple she's been rooting for broke up last week in it. It was very stagy, too."

"Will she cry?"

"I dunno. You're the expert on that, I've never made her."

"Is this the national Busting Dante's Balls Day and no one told me? Oof. Oh, wait, that's every Tuesday for you, all year round. Fair enough, guess I deserve it."

They negotiate. Dante will be chasing the bait blade and whatever unlucky loon that happens to be wielding it at the moment, roger that. Trish – is somewhere there, in the fray, nearly within reach – is muddying the waters so that he'll have room to operate and also, not that he knows it, sniffing out the Yamato on the down-low. That leaves Lady with the shortest, least fanciful straw. Of course.

Announcing he can't be bothered to wait for the boat, Dante throws a two-finger salute and takes off, coattails flapping in the wind. No doubt, he's slipping on his best game face in real time and will terrorize the townies and gremlins alike with it, but while it's effective against passersby, in her heart of hearts she finds him the most demonic in moments like these, the liminal states. Fully transformed Dante is too slick and squeaky to be scary to her, everything flows off him like from a duck's back and the amount of interaction he has with his environment drops down to zilch. Standard Dante only inspires pity. Being in the thick of the transition between the two makes him, on the other hand, wildly unpredictable, a radically unknown quantity for sure. Good grief, there are too many layers to him and she's gotten far too adept at telling them apart.

The ferry bobs up, the ride is uneventful. She forgets the landscape as soon as it drifts by and is thankful she hasn't been too affected by the first-hand accounts her companions have relayed to her, Mallet and some such. Fortuna seems barren from afar: always with the forsaken hunks of rock in the middle of nowhere, seems to be Dante's fortune. Her though, islands only make her envision how she'd be bored to tears if she were actually vacationing on them. Lady has no skeletons in these closets.

Her impression of the location doesn't change at the city gates or as she wades through the avenues towards the center, on the lookout for the civilians she's agreed to evacuate. Somewhat pretty on the surface, she rates, but deeply dull. A few cafés spritzed here and there. Clothing stores decorated with dowdy, frumpy, baggy garments on the window mannequins. The occasional newsstand, nothing but regional curiosities and dusty moral sermons in the headlines. A huge white church in a spot that'd be prime real estate for commercial construction anywhere else – and from what she can gauge by peeking over the walls, a stony wilderness occupying the remainders. The fortresses and lush jungles are pins she gets to place on the map in her head only when it's all said and done, might as well not exist. She doesn't get to travel, she's on babysitting duty.

What exists – there are demons. The local fauna, scarecrows in patchy burlap-sack pants, welcomes her warmly already at the first crossing and keeps popping up every step of the way so insistently it's evident something wicked is about to go down within hours, tops. Focusing on eliminating the pests doesn't make sense for her, so she tries to be quick and concentrate on the main chore, only squish the bugs that get in her hair: the horde has numbers on its side, but it's so weak it's easily defeatable to any half-serious warrior and won't pose a problem to her allies, no matter how busy they get with their gigs. Rah rah, go team.

She kills a bit, she sizes up the surroundings, she's ready for anything. There's only one obstacle between her and the task she's supposed to fulfill. The issue is, there aren't any commoners to rescue, not a single soul on the streets. She wanders and feels a little lost.

Where is everybody?

--

There's no glory in doing what must be done in emergency situations, but there is Gloria in Fortuna. Goddamn it, Trish.

Some Hell is unleashed. From what Lady gathers during the chaos, the residents had flocked together in the holy house of worship and a spiritual leader got himself assassinated in the middle of a Sunday ceremony, prompting a mass exodus and a general mobilization of the army, and it's a heavenly miracle of sorts people aren't stampeded to death in droves before they get sliced up by the monsters. She's out of the loop: is the fire coming from their side, was this her crew's doing? A certain sign seems to point towards that.

Among the cavalry of knights to arrive, there's a woman, singular. Frankly, she'd be a sore thumb even if she had more female colleagues, even without the porn costume. A cheap spray tan and heavy kohl in a sea of cheeks that have never known a makeup brush. An unnatural hair color, highlighted by everyone else veiling their skulls with modest hoods and bulky helmets. A shade of blue that does not occur naturally in her contacts as well. Actually impressive battle technique. Lady takes care not to glance at her too often so as not to summon her any closer by accident, but when there's a lull in the warfare and the lane she takes leads her to a dead end, dumpsters and a damp cardboard box some poor schmuck probably lives in, she does not head for the hills despite being followed, noisily. The unpractical footwear keeps offending, not that it slows a devil down any.

Lady slits the throat of the final strawman with a brisk swing of the bayonet and swirls around to glare at her tail. Her distaste isn't reserved for the dress, though it is quite possibly the tackiest, most unreasonable working uniform anyone's ever dreamed up, including those meant for escorts, and she isn't jealous of Trish in it, but she is feeling irritated all the same. Times like these make her long for a more analytic frame of mind, being more in touch with the fuzzy emotional crap. She's always on board if something gives them an edge, yes. They're not each other's property, no. Trish is allowed to choose to prance around in outfits this fugly and revealing – or was the getup chosen for her? Could go either way, honestly –, yup, above all in front of puritans who have to procreate in the dark with their clothes on and who'd likely let her get away with murder as long as she's flashing some ankle at them. And cleavage and stomach. Butt. It's a hideous dress alright, but Lady gets she's not the target group for it and isn't bothered in earnest, so what is it, why's she riled up?

Ah. It isn't giving her any trouble to admit she's into Trish as she is, in her soft-worn sheepskin pants and black biker jackets that do nothing for her sickly blonde complexion. It's what 'her' Trish has always looked like. But, 'her' Trish is also a shapeshifter, who was supposed to invent a cover, a fresh one. Gloria is not fresh, the combination of elements she's made up of reeks like burnt cinderblock and roses. An unexplainable suntan, blue eyes and a platinum mane are not and will never be new.

Fuck that and him, Lady isn't letting the old flames get to her. Click, click, click, glorious Trish struts down the alley with her chest out, spine stilted and sagging under the weight of the pose. It's comical, she's trying so hard. The hillbillies won't know what hit them.

"Savior's greetings, milady," she bows and bursts out laughing at her own cleverness. The absence has apparently blunted Lady's harsh looks somewhat, because then she continues to pointing out: "I dyed my hair a different color. Do you like me now?"

"That's not hair dye, that's evil sorcery," Lady snarks, but it is good to be with her again. She won't grumble about the peck Trish plants on her jaw if PDA won't become a habit, either. They deserve to have a moment.

When the moment stretches out, one of them taking in the other and maybe being a bit too grouchy or mushy about it, Trish winks her eye. She does it with the second too a tick later, just to drive the message home. Doof.

"My eyes are up here, see?"

"You're only supposed to say that when someone is staring at your tits, sweetie," Lady instructs her.

"I am not unaware, but I suspected it might get you staring at them. Why aren't you?"

"I don't need to, I know what your breasts look like."

Trish leans down from her heights, a ridiculous beam on her shimmery lips. "Oh?"

"I've even touched them," Lady answers in an equally ridiculous low undertone. Flirting with this one requires an odd sense of humor, but hey, dating demons is bound to cost you.

"You have? It's been a long time, I have trouble remembering." Trish sways on her toes a little and tilts her own chin with a coy tap of the finger. She probably thinks the effect is seductive. It isn't, and Lady is a chump for finding her cute nonetheless. "Remind me?"

They kiss. It kind of goes against her policies on privacy. She's not an animal. She doesn't do public places. She's missed her, more than she likes, a lot. She slides a hand inside the skimpy one-piece, just for a minute, to cup a breast and brush a thumb against Trish's nipple, to feel Trish shiver and open her mouth, to sense Trish's heart beat for her loud as it pleases. If she closes her blinds, she doesn't have to pay attention to the disgusting orange-turquoise accents, the scanty underwear and the kitschy lace on Trish lovely hips, and like that, Trish can be what she is and they them, nothing more or less.

Their duo hears the throng approaching before it catches sight of them. It's a shame to have to split up so soon, but then again, Lady appreciates the thought there's something waiting for them at home. The critters squeal as they're zapped and blasted to bits with a grenade: the buildings blowing up several blocks away inform her Dante's making headway with his investigations. Good on him to keep busy. Shit is getting real, somewhere there.

"May the Savior be with you," Trish says and curtsies as they decamp. This time, the wink turns out well.

--

The shit gets real. There are more guards out on the streets, but the newest batch seems… strange to her, oddly mechanical, unresponsive, as if they're spaced out on meth and unable to feel pain. Elite troops, top-of-the-class bruisers? Unlike the old watchmen, these have hidden jetpacks of some sort – no, it's the shields, they transform – and some, the golden commanders, float above ground thanks to wings built in their coats of mail. They skewer the tiny ghastly demons nicely enough, so they're technically on the same side with her, but she's steering clear, safer than sorrier.

She reunites with Trish ahead of time, too. The disguise could really go die in a ditch already, but given that she seems to be having fun with it, Lady will zip it till they're out in civilized public once more. In private, she might be up for unzipping things, they'll see.

"Hi again. He said he'd deal with the monoliths by himself, so here I am, prepared to do my civic duty," Trish chirps, crackling with energy that makes the scalp tingly. Lady assumes she didn't protest too much. It's fine by her, she can use the company.

Shortly after, the late spiritual leader guy springs back to action as a humongous statue that may or may not be imitating Sparda to a degree. She sighs: they can never complete a mission without a fifty-foot-tall something towering on the sky, can they? Again, she's fuzzy on the details, but this causes the infantry to forget about the people and attack the two of them instead, so the clashes become more interesting but also frustrating. Her personal amusement isn't worth the casualties.

They split, take out enemies from two directions, circle the plaza and dive behind the same run-down wall when reinforcements show up. The tension between her temples makes her eardrums ache. Even before Trish tells her that the brutes they're trading punches with bear striking similarities to fallen Vergil, the Angelo, she finds herself wishing they are the only ones targeted by them.

"They aren't alive."

Red, purple, blue. Lady shoves the armor piece away. She assumes the worst, but they must push on. If Dante reacts poorly -- but they must push on.

--

Churches, angels and devils, Jesus rip-offs, chrissakes. Not mixing with religion any more than Dante does, Lady sneezes when a bunch of oldies blesses her with a snatch of gospel text as thanks. It's not a common occurrence at least, as the townies mostly cower in the face of guns and congregate, kneel and pray rather than protect themselves if left on their own devices. The gutlessness is enough to make her dislike them on principle, but it's unexpected how extremely bad they are at demons in spite of putting them on every pedestal and mantelshelf. If lady luck wills it, they've merely been brainwashed by their cartoonishly villainous leadership and will learn something from the experience.

On the topic of Sparda, his only surviving son fails to respond to this. Now, if he was smart, if he had more than zero business acumen on him, he could strike a sweet deal with the Fortuneans where he becomes the king of the losers and his subjects supply him with a constant stream of praise or booze or both, his pick. Is it any and all daemons they worship or only the specific bloodline? Could she perhaps interest them in a Trish and get the royal treatment by proxy?

She's being snide because it worries her. According to the rambling dispatch she receives from the last person to have spoken with him, he's been hoarding again – arms, fidget-toy stuff. The hell gates have churned out some baddies for his entertainment, it appears, although they can't hold a candle to even his run-of-the-mill opponents if they're anything like the biggest big bad of the day, the copycat priest. Trish says he's otherwise behaving normally, which means he's masquerading, which means he hasn't stumbled into the white knights yet or has and is traumatized through and through, pick your poison.

Lady believes her. She's about to retreat underground, go hunker down in a bunker with the other puny humans who can't risk being around when the stone idol topples; at the hatch that'll lead her to the sewers, she looks around one last time and there he is, a red dot on top of a dome, from the sound of it giving lip at the Savior. Well, that answers it.

The Savior. She ponders about it while lying in wait in her smelly sanctuary. It takes so long. It's puzzling to her why Dante doesn't trash it instantly. Toying with the prey won't account for it, the death toll is too high for him to putter around. Only later she realizes he hesitates because he's unsure how it'd affect the –

There's the kid. Lady's spotted him in the melee now and then without tuning in on him. He isn't important. Someone always wants to play the hero, she's not going to be surprised by that or him ignoring his countrymen dying around him in favor of showboating for his helpless little girlfriend. The hair should ring a bell, alright, but she sees him conducting himself with all the unwarranted self-importance only a teenaged boy can have and pigeonholes him as One of Those Guys, the bin where she placed Dante before he'd begun weeping on her.

Trish shouts into the drain eventually to announce the danger has passed. Lady helps a limping villager to the surface, hugs Trish briefly now that she's sporting her own skin again, flexes a bit to get her limbs awake and casts round for the third member of their band. He's standing on the steps of the cathedral. He's watching the kid.

On second thought, there's a lot more about him that should jog a memory or raise questions. However. The ugly glowing claws, reptile-like hide and facial structures notwithstanding. The bottom line. The first thing she notices is her error. Dante isn't watching the kid, all lovey-dovey with his damsel in distress and ignorant of the audience. He's watching the kid hold the Yamato.

She can't help it. She curses.

"Trish, we've --"

A hand grips her by the jacket. "Wait, I don't think it'll pan out the way you think it will. Let him sort it out on his own."

Grabbing Trish's wrist but halting, Lady tries not to surrender to dread. There are too many things here that could screw him up for good. Vergil's – sword. Vergil's -- she can't tell. She's certain he's not Dante's. She has no proof for her claim, yet she's never been so sure about a hunch.

The young couple bills and coos at its leisure. Ultimately, the bubble pops and the dude rubs his neck in embarrassment, then swings the katana on his shoulder and marches up to Dante, who freezes, cocks his jaw at him and starts to jive on his feet like he's cool and detached and certainly not the most uncomfortable he's ever been. They chat, very curtly. Lady watches him turn the blade down when it's offered to him, Trish's hand in hers dry, not clammy like her own fingers. He couldn't be quick enough to hoist the Sparda sword off to her once it'd been pulled out of the savior machine, Trish reports, and now he seems to shrink from another relic just as intensely.

The boy, about as bewildered by the display as Lady herself, yells to his back. "Dante! Will we meet again?"

No one cares to reply to him. It doesn't matter whether he can read the room regardless; he's got his princess and chivalric tale to return to, doesn't need a glorified handyman to change jack for him.

"Well, at least someone knows how to get the girl," Trish gibes, stuck in the let's-get-Dante-a-date mode a million years after the tactic tanked. Dante doesn't seem to detect the clasped hands and doesn't sound like he minds the quip too much, which is surprisingly zen of him. He's, normal. What's posed as normal at present.

"My balls, they are busted. Truly and utterly crushed," he laments. Due to neither of them being in the mood to find out how literal their pet ET's understanding of the line happens to be, he wonders if there's a dog wagon or such at the railway station, he's hungry. Trish jumps into a monologue and they're off, more than willing to blow this joint. Predictably, there's no farewell party held in their honor, no grateful convoy kissing them goodbye. One more ruined residential area, another upcoming payday for their creditors.

One last glance: it's become instinctual for Lady to scout out blackmail opportunities. The teens are at it again, reminding her she'll have to step down and seek new employment. Not yet, not tomorrow, but her joints aren't getting any younger and she'd rather retire from the action than die a huntress, betrayed by a body that's designed to get more rickety, less reliable, wear down. In the not-so-distant future, she will have to start thinking about an exit plan.

Even at the age of the lovebirds, she was never like them, but she's nearly a forty-year-old woman today and it feels old, good old but old. Arkham had liked them young; she's outlived his schemes and her mother, Kalina Ann's cycle having been nipped in the bud at thirty-four, and occasionally a black dream seizes her, whispering she'd be dead, long dead by now, because he would have tried to have a child by her and disposed of her once her figure wasn't the fairest of them all anymore. Her lineage ends with her, nothing of him will remain: had she wasted her lot on bearing grudges, she couldn't ask for a better revenge.

Trish calls out to her. Dante's mom was her peer at her untimely demise too, so while the duplicate had been more mature when they met, the gap has been growing smaller and smaller, she's been catching up. Trish is weirdly ageless in the face, ages differently than Lady. They're equals now, but who knows. You don't live old in their trade, but if she makes it, it'll be interesting to see what will keep her company apart from the wrinkles and grey furs.

"Lady, you coming or what?"

"Yeah, yeah."

One last glance. By accident, the boy's eyes meet hers. As far as she's aware, Dante doesn't cross paths with him until six full years have passed.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to leave the arm to a stranger?" she pokes him at the town door.

"No. Yes." He swallows. "It's probably a very bad idea. Let's go."

"What do you intend to --"

"I intend to get drunk. Are we done here?"

They are, for the time being.

--

There are great many reasons why Lady prefers being at the helm of their shipwreck. Now and then, she's overtly cautious. Trish proved she could handle herself without the management breathing down her neck and the world didn't end when she let go of the wheel, which is good to know, but then she went and listened to Dante on something, terrible judgment of character. No one should ever listen to Dante. His ships sink.

Hot dogs aren't the rage in the boonies. The entire train depot is empty, presumably owning to the word getting out about the crisis. He is hungry, or nauseous: his stomach churns audibly in spite of Trish doing her valiant best to talk over it.

"They were out of jam and I'm bummed, but I got you a set of throwing knives. Lookie, it's got a gem on it…"

On the train back to their city, he grows pale and fluttery. In standard practice, he strips away his borrowed wings after an errand, getting the more withdrawn the nearer he is to a hidey hole where he can be alone and nude, maybe breathe. It's the closest he gets to the Dante who was. Now though, his restlessness increases mile by mile.

He wrings his hands, gargles, "I've made a mistake." He doesn't spell it out. He's made so many it's beyond her to pick just one. Never matter, she thinks, kicking back, shushes Trish with a snappy gesture. It'll explode in their faces soon enough.

Trish goes to get her bike from the parking zone where Lady drove it prior to taking off to Fortuna herself. Her excitement for the ride and the first evening they'll be having for themselves in forever is contagious; Lady spares her a smile, so immersed in the anticipation that she only notices Dante is still standing on the curb with her after a number of minutes. She's not feeling him, sorry. She turns to go and check what's taking her carriage so long.

Dante grips the sleeve of her coat. When she shoots him with a question mark, he doesn't look her in the eye. His midface is shaded by the fringe that's been lowered by sweat, but the feverish, dead heat in his veins makes a lasting impression.

"I need to -- get her back," a voice speaks. It's not his. It's too gravelly to be his.

"Yamato. It's a bad idea. We have to go back."

She swears, but only on the inside. She rolls her shoulders. She pats Dante on the bicep, disjointedly, grabs his cuff and uncoils his digits, one by one.

"Alright. You sleep on it, then we'll see." If he troubleshoots himself in the brain tonight, it's his funeral.

"Lady," he says, urgent undercurrent bubbling to the front, but when she dares him to explain, ask for her help, give her a reason to take his untold anxieties seriously now now now, his posture droops. He walks away.

Dumbly, she hangs there for a few whiles, wrist warmer than the rest of her body in spite of the lack of skin contact. Her knight in shining leather arrives on her metallic steed and complains about there being some stragglers on the loose they've got to put to sleep, asap. What are the chances of that. The scuffle does take her mind off things; when she's wiped her gloves from blue gunk, she isn't thinking about anything but Trish's attentive mouth on her, Trish's thighs parting at her request, Trish's nails in her hair. It's not willful ignorance if she's denied her answers and if she's got a beautiful woman to bed.

For the record. She's still not in the habit of making her lovers shed tears. Lady 100, Dante -1.

--

A wellness check is in order the following day, of course. Eager as they are to make up for the lost time, much as she doesn't owe her survival to anybody, a sizeable chunk of their bread, butter and cushy style of living does hinge upon Dante scraping by. Morrison might turn on the waterworks if he croaked, Patty certainly would. Trish insists.

"He may not have had to slaughter anyone of note this time, but it was hard enough on him anyway to interact with physical mementoes of his sibling. The weapon, the young man with somewhat similar visual attributes. If you're worried, you're entitled to be," she warbles as she dresses and sunbathes in the mirror to apply her trademark lipstick. Lady is moderately less inclined to tumble out now that the bunk isn't as cool as it's been and she's allowed to be lazier and a tad less vigilant, so she might as well keep the conversation going.

"What was up with that, anyway? He, the teenager who's got Vergil's lance now, also had some devilish traits piled on him, the mangy arm first and foremost, obviously. I've never seen anything quite like it before," she contemplates.

Trish's brows pucker up. "I did not get a proper scan on him. I was using heavy glamor to conceal my true identity from the Order and Dante kept blocking the signals with his aura even after I had dispensed with it, he really was all over the place. It was queer, I agree, but honestly, I didn't consider it significant at the time."

"Well, it's still not significant, but we earthlings have a saying about knowing the enemy," Lady replies. She gets a bra thrown at her; okay, okay, she'll get up too, jeez. "I mean, supernatural ogres are the enemy by default, I don't know what to make of the guy specifically. What breed of demon do you think he is?"

"Demon? That boy? Lady, you've been hunting us long enough not to be that silly."

"Oh, give me a break, will you. You said it's odd yourself – how am I supposed to diagnose anything when I was either with you or Dante the entire time and when the lesser beasts were setting off my amulet constantly? It was your job, anyhow."

Trish lays a palm on her shoulder to make her stop moving. It's highly unnecessary, Lady can deal with the hooks on her own perfectly well. Lady can also let others do nice things for her, now and then.

"You are not wrong, the necklace wasn't going to work in Fortuna. How to explain it, hm. I did not think getting a read on him was crucial, forsooth, but more importantly, I didn't bother because he felt entirely human to me, nonthreatening. He could hold his own against the petty visitants, but Dante slew all the Old Ones, without breaking a sweat I imagine, and the rest were exceptionally puny indeed; the sword was immensely stronger than his spirit and you would have bested him in a fight due to your vast experience. Even if there's something more going on, there's very little demon in him."

"'Very little' demon is still hell of a lot, ugh. Could he be a descendant of Sparda too, just, I dunno, remote? Dante's third cousin and twice removed?" she says, and seeing Trish's quizzical pantomiming, adds: "Come on, don't play stupid, you saw the similarities between them. Pigs'll fly before Dante procreates, but his brother -- well, what do we know? Fucking hellish bullshit, we're never safe from it."

"Them being distant cognates does not seem fundamentally impossible, I suppose," Trish puffs out. "The blood dilutes fast after the first generation, at any rate."

"How do you explain the pimped-up limb, though?"

"I don't."

"Trish, fuck's sake, humor me. Like, did something in him react to the Yamato's proximity? Did the sword corrupt him? I'm out of ideas."

"Perhaps. There is something funky about the whole picture. The Angelos had this peculiar signature on them, maybe it's connected. An abandoned early prototype, just one that was never fully demonified? I would need a better look to be sure."

"You're saying he's… an artificial human? Who'd want to create that?"

"I wonder," Trish says and doesn't take steps to elaborate.

Lady decides she doesn't care. It's not her beeswax until it is, and even then there are few issues that a 12-gauge slug to the forehead wouldn't settle. If the guy goes bad, they'll hear about it and they'll put him down, simple as that.

--

The sword may or may not have pushed the people of Fortuna around, but it cannot be denied that it did corrupt somebody beyond cure. An hour later, they enter DMC and find Dante in the middle of a genuine mental breakdown, the only thing she can call it. It dawns on her quickly that he's been protecting those around him from this in a way up until now.

He's climbing the walls almost to the letter, pacing back, forth and around, knocking bells and whistles off the shelves, heaving, convulsing, trigger flitting on off on, off balance and his rocker. He doesn't ease off on the door opening behind him, merely presses on, picks up an axe she's never seen before and, with a haunting howl that sounds like it's tearing his soul apart at its release, destroys the multipurpose suitcase gun he'd just acquired. The ensuing fireworks, smog and scalds barely register to him.

"Fuck!"

Operative decision: she isn't going to confess she'd been clued up about the katana in advance, today or ever. She doesn't feel sorry or truly surprised, but she observes, her eyes wide, him throwing a bottle at the ceiling, how it shatters and his expression melds with the bleeding cut on his cheek, his scream and his voice running out. It's still the sudden capsizing that plagues her for weeks.

"What was I thinking?" he creaks from his slumped position on the carpet.

Lady has no idea what he's referring to. "You weren't."

"I wasn't," he repeats, unhearing, to himself. Backstage, Trish extinguishes the smoldering floor planks and scraps so that the mortar won't kindle. Lady will grant it's a fine initiative.

"It was temporary insanity. A moment of weakness. I can't be expected to box clever when I'm under pressure, can I? I need her back."

"You gave the devil-worshipping countryfolk an incredibly powerful superweapon from Hell, Dante. What do you gamble, they're going to accept you have seller's remorse and give it back to you willingly?"

He growls. "If I have to crawl over their corpses to reclaim what is rightfully mine, so be it."

"You do that."

Lady knows him well enough: he won't. If he did, she couldn't stop him, anyway. Meh. She makes her exit, her docile shadow in tow, deaf and blind to the racket picking up in volume behind them again. No battered child or abused wife should ever be made to feel grateful for the beatings taken, but the toughness she's gained and been shaped by has its uses in her profession and pastimes. Dante's sadly become both a corporate affair and a hobby.

There's being stern out of necessity and then there's being brutal for brutality's sake, self-preservation versus total lack of common decency, however. This Dante is callous to a new extent and honed to be so slippery-sleek her fingers wouldn't press a print on his neck if she went and did what she wanted and choked the crazy out of him, not that her hand could even close around it, his pipe. He's gotten stocky. It's really getting on her nerves.

When Trish tells her about an episode involving her, him and a former general of the Order who'd jumped ship and gotten skewered for it, she actually gets a little mad. From how she frames it, they, two immortals among men, were cracking jokes left and right while the religious nutjob lay dying at their feet, vulnerable, wounded, painfully human, and if that's how it's been filtered through her rosy blood-spattered glasses, Lady counts herself lucky for not having been there for the real deal. It's only an anecdote to Trish and that in itself is revealing. They wouldn't be able to tell why she considers it disrespectful or why it matters that she does, when the man himself matters not, when she knows they wouldn't do it to her. But it shows. This, profound and gleeful disregard for humanity's limitations, human life itself.

The situation isn't beyond salvaging, fortunately. Trish bunks on the couch for a term very obediently – doesn't apologize, having been schooled many times over that she isn't supposed to do it unless she understands the need for it – and goes down on her even more nicely afterwards, so Lady doesn't hold it against her. Trish doesn't know better, still, and never might; it's unthinkable to her to fear an ugly death more than a good one. Many people would fear her, too. She started off without autonomy, but she didn't really lose it, she's never truly lost anything, and can't be afraid of loss. Lady prays she won't ever have to change.

Dante, though. Dante knows what it's like to lose someone and keep losing.

Dante, though. Now there's a hot mess.

--

As a matter of course, things go from bad to worse. Uh-huh.

Usually, repentance is slow in Dante. He's got his steel plating and it absorbs the shocks, meaning it'll take time for the stuff to find a crack, seep in. They've got protocols and routines for that, it'd be alright, ish. Yamato? His regret is instant, compulsive.

He's agitated. "They experimented on her, like she," he mutters, but the rest is unintelligible. Telling him to quit walking in circles might help, if he listened.

"Inanimate objects don't care, Dante. Their filthy hands or yours on it, it's none the wiser." She doesn't tell him it's better this way. He knows. They both know it's fool's gold, it's not the blade he craves. If he had it, he couldn't stand it.

He's always been a slave to his delusions, right, but not this consumed by them. Addictions. Lady, someone who has never depended on anything but her lust for life after childhood comforts were taken from her, isn't the right person to speak about them, but no one asked her.

"Her," Dante says. Lady stares. "'She's none the wiser'. She's a – she's a she."

Addictions, as she sees it, are based on denial and disassociation, but engaging in those isn't the driving factor. You engage, deny and disassociate, because of what you're not feeling when you do so.

He sits down on his chair. Out comes a litany of senseless babble:

I don't think she sang to me that day

but now she wasn't present like she had been

when we went up against the jester, she'd been so

alive, and

"She hasn't forgiven me."

Vergil. It's always Vergil.

"Dante. It's a sword."

"No," he declares. "You don't understand. Even I don't really understand it because I never had that type of connection with a devil arm, with anyone, but. She was so cold, she didn't use to be. There's nothing else left, in the underworld or topside, she's the last shred there is and she shut me out."

She understands something. If the story was true. She has her reservations. If it really happened like that, it's nevertheless only an excuse. It's him who's shut the world out, put it behind a cupboard's doors.

"What does it matter if she's cross with you?"

It's a fucking sword. He'd fuck it. This is not a mental image she wants to have by any means, but once the photograph develops, her retinas are ruined. He would if he could, be beheaded and penetrated, the order of punishments of little consequence to him.

Dante crumbles. "It doesn't."

Hiccupping with a squelchy throat, he looks away.

"I can't forgive me."

He goes into a catatonic state after that, one fortnight, two. Humming and hmming at their chatter, he sits and molds, glassy unblinking pupils aimed at the clutter in the corner of the desk, incapable of focusing on anything external for longer than five seconds. The thought of the Yamato drains his vitality and so he has none for thoughts of Vergil and people who look like his illegitimate children. Jackpot, in his mind?

--

Speaking of, Dante refuses to contact the boy they met in Fortuna. Nero, was his name.

One afternoon, Lady is collecting the mail and chances upon a ringing phone. Bleep, bleep, bleep. Dante picks it up, blanches, passes it to her without a peep.

"Devil May --"

"Fucking finally, someone answers! Been attempting to reach you like a bunch of times, don't you think it's kinda of bad for the business? Technical issues, your answering device conked out on you?"

'Yeah, we've fixed that,' Lady would assure an actual paying client. She's spared from forming a reply to this one: at the other end, someone honks the horn of a car, tires screech, the guy rips himself away from the receiver to holler at a Jane Doe who responds to him by swearing like a sailor. It sounds heavy for an amateur.

"Nero, get your fuckin' ass --"

He flips the phone to his mouth again. "Oh shit, they've got demons in here. Shit, I've got to -- listen, I'll call you later," he says and hangs up. The line captures a couple of gunshots before falling silent.

"He'll call you later," Lady forwards the message.

"Great," Dante groans. With his head tucked in his arms, his mien could be anything.

She doesn't quite have the tools to suss him out yet. Somehow, she rests assured she will, in a minute.

--

The second time she has the privilege of speaking with the teen on the phone happens much like the first one. A week's gone by, she's checking the envelopes for anything expensive, explosive or laced with anthrax, the telephone rings: Nero introduces himself using almost suspiciously goody-goody language, says he wants to talk with Dante. By now, it's obvious Dante doesn't want to talk with him, which leaves her in an awkward spot – she smells money for some reason, hence a more diplomatic comeback would be great. She settles for advising him to call them again, mainly because it'd also be great if Dante wasn't bleeding profusely in the background.

She kicks the largest shards of the jug he smashed with his dumb strength under the drawers, whistles for attention. It's too convenient that the boy only gives DMC a bell whenever she makes an appearance.

"The kid, Nero. How many times has he called you?"

"Depends." His shifty gaze veers from the closing gash to his lap. "Today, this week, in total? It -- several times every day."

"And you hung up every time?"

He shrugs. Okay.

So that clarifies it. She's assumed their services haven't been in high demand lately due to the seasonal features of their jobs, but it seems like he's been turning down missions so that he can wait for the calls, the do nothing when they come, unable to bring himself to go forward, any direction outside the limbo. He drinks, eats, naps, has nightmares and probably strokes it to his familiar ghost at the table, his muscles withering away and his growing hobo beard doing away with the worst of his prettiness.

I'm afraid all the time that I forget the last things I've got, he confessed years and years ago. She'd say: he has her, and Trish, and Morrison, Patty, repeat customers. Something stops her. Does he really, has he in years. Her allegiances, pragmatic and self-serving, may have started to shift.

She has his back and has variations of him but only as long as the cons do not outweigh the pros. Currently, they're closer to a tipping point than ever before, and truthfully, she's at sixes and sevens on how to feel about that. Where to – up to him.

They're all so very tired all the time.

--

On the third time, she hops on the desk and sits there until he answers the phone himself. He says hi, hems and haws, taps a fountain pen against the tabletop at a neurotic beat, cuticles inky blue, while the discussion carries on somewhere over the rainbow.

In the end, he folds and flees like she knew he would. "Listen, kiddo, that's great but I have to take a dump. You talk to my business partner, she'll tell you what."

Lady rolls her eyes, accepts. The puppy wags his tail and barks long-winded greeting into the mike.

"Tell me, why are you trying to reach out to us in the first place?" she asks when there's an opening for her to get a word in edgewise. It turns out Nero is looking to set up a subsidiary. "Like a daughter company, yea?" He sounds sincerely excited; maybe there's potential there, maybe he'll become a passable person after he's done with puberty and all the navel gazing related to it, maybe. Maybe Beauty and the Beast got driven away with pitchforks and he actually needs it. Hah. She gives him the ok to use the brand name in his ventures. Dante nods once, the case is closed.

She has Morrison cranking out the paperwork and taking care of the boring practicalities. Nero promised them a cut, makes good too after the teething troubles have been tackled. An exterminator's work is never done, it seems.

The calls stop. Dante just won't budge.

--

One night, Trish lends her the motorcycle so that she can retrieve a whodunit she left at the office while she steeps her feet in a honey-scented bubble bath. Trish left, Trish's feet. Lady retrieve.

"Slacker," Lady whispers against her lips as the bye-bye kiss drags on.

"Nuh-uh, it's for your own good, treasure. Don't you want to hear how the mystery we've been solving this month ends?"

She sort of does, granted that the making out they're going to do in the wake interests her more. Sucker. She goes her merry way and arrives at a building with dimmed windows. Inside, lamps turned on, she notices immediately he's not there. For a cold second, she fancies he's bolted after Nero after all, but that's impossible, he can't have grown a pair or a backbone. That leaves one option, him being downstairs. She's got free rein. Oh. Oh no.

Lady noses about. It's what she does. She finds what she expects to, but it hurts more than expected. There's a lump of fabric stashed under the frames on his workbench. She straightens it on her palm, the leather groans, hardened; a glove she recognizes from her bygone youth. She finds a scar she recognizes. Deja vu, they call it.

Oh. She pulls the drawer open and finds out it's full of drawings of the Yamato, technically very good drawings from what she can tell. Her hand spasms. They are hard to look at, chilling, like death warrants written on skin.

No. They are gorgeously executed. Intricate. Painstaking or flowing rapidly out control, the sketches switch styles and evolve before her eyes, mock-ups and renderings too detailed for her senses to keep up with. Thousands and thousands of thin, twisting blue lines, droplets of light splattered on shaded ridges, so much care and attention and devotion and greed and hatred put into the craft, she's reeling. A journal, yellowing loose pages. There are hundreds of the figures, all drawn from memory, all insane.

They are horrifying. Lady couldn't get a plainer window into his despair if she tried. Dante, fuck.

Airsick, she riffles through them for a single sliver of sanity, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless grain of sand in her shoe. She's struck with the urge to see how he would draw Vergil. Stupid. She knows he wouldn't dare. With the graphics out in front of her, she's certain it would help her understand what in Vergil could someone, anyone, love this pathologically.

Loyalty is admirable and vital to their continued co-existence. Obsessions, on the other hand, are never not lethal.

She climbs down to the cellar, hands the glove to the carryover crouching on the floor surrounded by pens, caps and spiderweb, static space. He scrunches it in his fist, breathes.

"It's been. I saw her a decade ago, she was tainted and monstrous, the same as her master. I defeated them both."

She sits down next to him. They hug their knees, his glazed whites gleam.

"He was still beautiful."

It is one of the handful of times Vergil rises all the way up to his tongue and out, stripped of his titles but not his face. She will remember it to the end of her days.

Dante lets loose the sound you make when you're about to start crying violently, the raw wet hiccup of an injured self-concept. It does not lead to anything. They sit in the dark till they don't. Trish'll read to her sometime else.

--

Devil May Cry. She hates, hates that it's the name he's chosen for his sickness.

She, sometimes, hates him. Not only in the capacity of a loved one to whom he is doing this, but for being who he is, being damaged the way he is, refusing to recover, dooming himself to be damaged by his uncaring undead brother at every sunrise and nightfall. Dante could be someone. A real person. Dante could live. He chooses not to, each day. He never ever improves.

She has always known there's no changing him. Their introduction changed her life for the better and she hates she doesn't regret it. As uncomfortable as it was at the demon-ravaged gateway, deep down she'd like to see him cry, one more time. See him feel something, unrepressed. For once.

Dante has touched her and left a mark. Unless they adjust their courses, it will scar just like Vergil and Arkham's affection. She can't escape the feeling she's pressed against a wall again, his weight and suffocating sadness.

Above all, she hates Dante for making her think in metaphors.

--

You always say it's best to take an initiative, except when it comes to Dante. Trish is not an idiot, she's proved herself repeatedly.

Alcohol has been a central feature in the journey they've been on, hasn't it? Lady skims through her liquor cabinet. White lightning is a staple. Too unmemorable. Beer won't cut it. She smuggled some sacral wine from the cloister in her handbag, but it feels pointlessly malicious. He did walk into a trap she could've helped him avoid, she let him. She saves the grapes for later. She goes and meets a dealer and asks for gift wrapping. The dealer slaps a bow on the label, on the house.

"I bought you this hooch," she yells in his foyer. "Pure ethanol, your fave. We're going to drink it in perfect silence and then we're going to have a chat, you and I."

Brow raised in apprehension, Dante watches her wave the bottle in her hands. He throws his hands behind his neck, lies back on two chair legs while she fetches herself a seat and plops down, opposite side of his desk.

"Oh, you shouldn't have. You know I'm a sucker for a chick in need, no need for bribery."

"Shut up, I said were drinking in silence," she grits. Her dedicated armchair coughs out a tuft of filling. Instead of slowing down and penning a note for later notice, she unscrews the cap. Two parties, two drinks.

"Okay." He accepts the tumbler he's threatened with, studying her over its rim. "What are we drinking to, though?"

She doses the booze. She puts her elbows on the table and leans forward. It's a challenge. "Crossroads."

"Mm-hm," Dante says and touches glasses.

She's a bit tipsy when they finish. It allows her to be unforgivingly blunt, find the words. "Dante. You've got to stop, stop or do something about it. Travel to Fortuna, steal the Yamato, or admit you've made decisions you regret and leave it at that, either goes. Break out of the fucking closet any way you can. Carrying on like this, you're killing us both and I won't allow that to happen to me. I can't put life on hold like you do."

He pats his chest unconsciously, digs up a piece of metal. Lady will scream.

He sets the coin on the counter but doesn't look at it, he looks at her. Head-on. It's heads, on all sides.

"Right. I've, I lost her."

He smiles so painedly it must be genuine.

"She was never mine."

She cannot place the true nature of the sentiment her chest soaks in from the inside, just burns ice-cold with it, or the feeling he emits. He thanks her for the gift and is polite. With the jukebox blaring in the corner, they fritter the night away agreeably, just like good old times.

Tomorrow, Dante stops spoiling for the Yamato and kills the perky persona. The problem is, it's late. He's the same he was after the tower for six years, but it's not permanent.

You always get what you want. She wanted to get old Dante back, she didn't specify which, or that she would've liked to keep him.

She's out of sorts when she returns, not drunk anymore but touchy. Trish, dressed up in her shabbiest t-shirt and tousled by her fingers, under the stuffy sweaty bedcover with her, tries to commiserate.

"I believe I love you," she announces against her spine. Lady resents her for it.

"Why," she asks, even though it's not a question.

"I don't understand what you mean," Trish says.

"Yeah, you don't."

"I – maybe it's obvious? I thought you should know, in any event. Furthermore, it seems unwise to do what Dante does and deny it."

"I know you do, yes, but you don't know me as well as you think if you suspect I have to be told. Also, don't imitate him or base your decisions on what he does or doesn't do, that's just a braindead move. You're not him, we're not him. Let it go, Trish."

She sounds confused. "It wasn't my intention to make you angry."

"Angry? I am not angry."

"You are trembling. I can feel it."

"For your information," Lady crows, taking a soothing breath, "I'm not angry at you for saying that, I'm livid because Dante made it seem necessary. Speeches don't mean shit and I'm not a baby for you to pamper. Stop mirroring him."

"Alright," Trish caves in. She has nothing else to say after that. No apologies; she is learning.

In the morning, she wakes her with a kiss, chiding her for having pushed her all the way to the side in her sleep by spinning around so much. She's got a lipgloss stripe on her collarbone. Blood red, but it suits them.

"I don't need you," Lady mumbles to the nape of the neck, the tiny silken curls making away from her hairline.

"No, but you like to have me," she replies, confident and calm.

She does. So long as she does, she can have this.

--

Love. Even under its gun, she still doesn't believe in it.

Lady values loyalty. Dependability. Solvency. The ability to solve issues, kick ass and turn new leaves whenever the old narrative doesn't satisfy. Love comes last. Love is what you turn to when you and your faith in someone are all out of other saving graces.

--

There's a word for them, her and Dante.

Romance? No. Not them. Off the table, never in the cards, they've been lucky enough and seen it it's not worth trying. Her attraction to his appearance has remained latent and clean, appreciation for an artistic trinket.

Friendship? That's what she's been calling it whenever there's a pause in her thoughts that has to be filled in with letters, first with caution and bit by bit more defiantly.

As she picks a fallen scale from her eye, realizing why the sensation strikes her as so familiar, it's evident there's more.

"Big job," Morrison says to her one May. "Cash up front," she translates. Bless her naivete.

--

Dante is family.

Family always lets her down.

--

For twenty-five years, she has stayed. All those uncelebrated anniversaries, through the clenched teeth, she's supported him and been supported in return, and when she's stirring their last drink dedicated to a life-altering event, she struggles with breaking a pattern. But. But that's her getting ahead of herself again. May rolls around wearing plain clothes: act three.

Between that and Fortuna, not much has happened. Six years. In the grand scale, it's nothing for their trio. Two of them are happy together, the third wheel gets by. One may have imagined they'd get to continue being assholes to each other for all eternity.

Then, of course, Vergil comes back from the dead and whatever she and Dante had dissolves in her brandy glass like Temen-ni-gru's briny ashes.

Chapter Text

Lady learns that Dante has unplugged his phone as well as some other choice appliances the selfsame day she tries to reach him to inform him about a malfunctioning encryption device she's been using in their communications with the more suspicious unfriendly fences. Distracting herself from the symbolism, she homes in on him breaking one of the few unspoken rules she's had the required patience to establish with someone like him: if you possibly can, answer the fucking call.

"It's been half a decade, more. He's not gonna ring you up anymore," Lady tells him straight as she finds him seated at his desk, skinny legs propped up on its edge as if he had confidence in himself. Trish was right, subtlety be damned.

She eyes him sternly to top it off. There. Funny how his machismo shrivels up and dies under the flimsiest gaze and jab imaginable.

"No. I don't expect him to." He tortures his cricking neck with a stretch. The legs have already slid back under the table where they belong. "That's not what I'm here at my cubicle for, Lady."

Pitiful sunlight streams through the dinghy windows and highlights his lack of an expression. When speaking technically, it's a lifeform in its ultimate energy-saving mode she's looking at, but there's ultimately no energy in it left to spare or no cause whatsoever to save it for. Dante's definitive act of giving up on the world is unostentatious and humbly artless enough to make her miss the forms of him she hated when she was younger, and she supposes a little less perceptive, than she is today. You'll need only so many illustrations made by a madman to get wise.

Dante has stopped paying his bills, too. Not to say, he's made a decision and stopped categorically, he doesn't have the kind of spine or guts or conviction of belief that you need in order to do basic thing like set a conscious course; it's more that the manual side affairs of life have completely fallen off the wayside in neglect while he gathers mildew on his nasty desk chair. Lady pictures him, sitting in the dark all day long, and then doesn't, shivering away from the gruesome imagery.

She inquires what is that's gnawing at him then. It's not like he's developed any fancy new raisons d'être after crawling out of the womb and noticing he feels incomplete without a free mate, so what could possibly make him worse so late in the game? Even beyond the withered muscles, he's lost a concerning amount of not only flab around his paunch but also weight he can't afford to be so wasteful with, to the point of the loss turning his face oddly concave, hollow eyes sunken further and further into his head and the gloomy ringlets they're surrounded by. His shoulders feel narrower than those his shadow wears stubbornly, like he did the playful fake sexuality from his late thirties until it couldn't buoy him any longer, or something. It's in his posture – absence of poise. One can be impressed by him showering without washing himself away through the holes in the drain.

He isn't eating. He isn't drinking his calories either, when his dented form seems to collapse upon itself inwards underneath a tattered grey-blue shirt he seems to have insisted on wearing since their last gig together. Idly perturbed, Lady wonders about the number of new drawings that have turned up to fill the desk's cabinets without thinking about her own reaction to them if she'd command him to open them up for her scrutiny, because she won't and it's a futile exercise if she ever heard of any, to try and make him see reason for self-improvement via dropping all the excessive self-harm. She didn't ask about the bandages on his wrists and lower arms when they appeared and god only knows she isn't asking now.

This is a forty-something-year-old man. It's ridiculous.

"You're thinking, he's going to say 'nothing'," Dante says, smarting but pretending he's playing things coy and cool. This is a statement he should steer to a conclusion with a continuation of some or any kind and he knows it. Lady, well.

You were supposed to answer to me always.

It doesn't matter what excuse he comes up with for anything. Simply, she just isn't going to wait and be disappointed again.

When she looks on her way out, the smutty calendar on his grubby wall shows the time of X years too late, years too old.

Right.

--

The great beginning of the divide: an interruption.

--

Lady has her mouth to Trish's pelvis and the tight button of her slinky leather slacks when the telephone rings in the backdrop, Trish's heavy breathing nowhere near loud enough to drown it out. This is what she gets for meddling and meaning well – she jinxed it and brought it upon herself, didn't she. No good deed goes unpunished by karma in their realm.

"Ignore it," Trish moans at her lips, warm enough to leave an impression when they'll inevitably distance themselves and become the pros they are. Grunting, Lady murmurs nonsense into her mouth, kissing her quickly before shoving her aside gently as she can to move from the kitchen and its cozy private atmosphere to the living room, where the blasted thing keeps screeching at them. Coming, coming.

She sighs out loud as he finds a seat with some kind of dejection that has become part of the operations down the line thanks to the company she keeps. She then motions Trish to join her on the cramped couch and lets her get to the phone first, to her purring delight.

"Password, please?"

It's Morrison, with a job. Trish places her cheek on Lady's shoulder and her chin on the nooks of her neck, balancing the receiver on the armrest on the left. The quality of the call shouldn't suffer too much, it's an expensive piece of electronics, Lady finds herself noting instead of being the adult in the situation – huffing and grabbing the device to turn down whatever advances her pet demoness is making towards her now, that sort of thing. This isn't how you solicit sex and she doesn't want to dole out a free spectacle, not for their jovial associate, not anyone else.

Trish doesn't get deterred, perhaps detecting her companion's lingering arousal. She ponders something for a moment – Morrison excuses himself briefly for a coughing fit, not for the first or the last time –, and gestures towards her half-opened pants. It is clearly an invitation to undress her from the waist down, so undress her Lady does. She isn't explaining it to herself anyway whatsoever.

"It's big and you're getting paid up front, ladies."

"Mm-hm."

It's an embarrassing display. Irrational, Lady, irrational.

She leans over Trish's lap, pulls down the zipper with her teeth and is careful not to make too much noise, though Trish's silent gasp feels deafening against Morrison's trusty baritone. She smells slightly salty and sweaty already underneath the cloud of a familiar zesty perfume: she will use hers and complain about if it she can't find anything novel and exciting with earthy notes and synthetic flint in it, yet her particular chemistry brings out the sweet brandylike undertones Lady's own complexion fails to emphasize, their end results smelling different but noticeably similar if you happen to know what's going on between them, which not everyone does, apparently. Smelling herself off Trish paints an absurd window into her choices in life, be as it may that she's stopped minding this brand of absurdity a long while ago. It's actually a bit sexy in the here and now. Her perpetually hairless body makes no secret of her being wet, too; like this, Lady is close enough to her to be able to take full advance of it with her mouth, but rather than go down, she focuses her attention on their friendliest fence and abandons the idle curiosity of how she's never had to witness her shave. Not that Trish has witnessed her at it, either: she likes a modest bush.

"A new client?" she asks. "Do tell us more."

The question allows her to quietly push her freshly declawed fingers inside Trish, not think about it too much, just feel her out as she squirms, exhales deeply and goes pleasantly lax at the second joint to penetrate her. "Silence," she hisses at the devil, who to her credit would normally be whining from the bottom of her throat by now. Business as business, pleasure as private: she could be fucking her more actively when she gets another digit in, but Trish likes it slow and she would really like to hear what has Morrison so excited he's getting all choked up, preferring to think it's excitement and not approaching lung cancer that has him hacking his pipes so frequently. So, this leisurely pace of it has to suffice for the moment.

It appears he needs their resident Underworld expert to verify "if there's anything to it". They have a guy, calling himself a fan of their work, who insists on a budding apocalypse and claims to be prepared to pay for them to stem the tide. "Up front!" Morrison repeats, a broken but spirited record. It isn't far from a regular Wednesday, they conclude in unison, but they've experienced basic gigs turning bad enough times to still be on their guard – a supposedly powerful demon is about to resurrect if the patron is to be believed, which could spell trouble or amateur hour. It's anyone's guess at the point they're in.

Silently, Trish nudges her braceleted wrist against Lady's fist and when it unfurls in obedience, laces her digits into her unoccupied ones firmly enough for the touch to tingle like a mild electric shock. Lady lets her other sneaky hand glide to her own opening, where it finds her clit to tease. Thumbing its cowl idly, she flushes and huffs but luckily stays silent otherwise. Less preoccupied than she is, Lady keeps working her fingers in and out of her, out and in.

Morrison describes their guy some more, fixating on a few choice oddities they don't see often in their clientele. The silver cane stands out: the monsters they deal with rarely leave witnesses behind to begin with, much less intact, but usually, if they have injured their future customers, it's fresh wounds they're bearing and the equipment tends to be cheaper, quickly acquired and put together in a pinch. This dandy of theirs clearly carries a fair share of secrets, a state of affairs that is bad for business. They ought to proceed with some caution.

"I see." Trish giggles to end the one-sided diatribe. "What is he wearing?"

It's a good thing no one but Lady ever thinks to pay serious heed to her many social faux pas. Fauxes pas? She hasn't got a dictionary around, she's not the type. All too indulgent, Morrison states the man isn't in attendance at his fine establishment for him to have a gander on at present, but he wagers he'll be donning the same get-up of a sleeveless leather coat and baggy pants he showed up to his doorstep in. "Last time I saw him, which incidentally was also the first time we had the privilege of meeting, he was going around without shirt on him, thin as a dog's whistle. Trust me, ladies, you won't mistake this guy for anyone else."

Idiot, Lady still wants to hiss at Trish while he blabbers on. You're not supposed to ask that about a third person, a person you're not personally interested in a romantic capacity, that's a pickup line and you should save it for when I'm abroad and phone home vexed and lovelorn and when the smallest stupid remark from you brightens me up for the duration of the call no matter how fed up with everything I am at the moment. You should not prolong this convo, either. Stop it.

In revenge for the misstep, she swats Trish's own nails away from her nub and rubs her briskly until her toes curl steeper than her smile, her spine tautens and a stun-surprised inhale escapes: "Ah."

Trish having her climax is a sincere act. She frowns, bites her mouth, throbs around Lady and zeroed in on her pussy, crushes her fist just a bit too tightly: a demon who never forgets herself yet can't quite relate to her human colleague's fragile bones and heightened sense of pain. Admittedly, it's part of why the sight's so sensual overall. She's beautiful with the blush on her cheeks, even galvanizing. Hers.

A part of Lady understands the possessiveness of the infatuation that has kept her slaying partner locked up not only inside his dismal trap of a psyche but also behind a physical wall when it comes to the rest of the universe around him. It's easy to want Trish to always feel this good, never leave. She kisses her with a sticky mouth and hopes their saner partner mistakes whatever sounds he hears for alcohol and badly concealed yawns related to the ravages of age, feeling sorry but not truly penitent.

"Tell me," she implores, "more about your expectations for the job, taken at face value."

In the following thread of conversation, a non sequitur related to an old mission they had around as decade ago gets Lady all distracted; she's got scars the remember it from. That bad, really? Huh. She discusses it with Morrison, though her eyes are locked elsewhere and a chunk of her mind has a different set of cogs turning on the background. Meanwhile, having recovered and flicked her freely flowing hair behind her spine, Trish climbs to the floor again and opens Lady's fly all the way, encourages her to lift and roll her hips so that she can sidle her panties down her ankles properly. Once she's nude below the belt, she spreads her legs and waits.

"I see. What's your personal opinion on the client so far, overall? Trustworthy?"

Trish dives down. Her jaw slides smoothly, only hints of tentativeness in her movements on Lady's skin, and before she knows it, the tip of her tongue slips in as though by accident, inside the slit and soon obscenely deep in her. She bobs her head, returns to her opening to brush it shallowly, delves in where Lady is hot, and her shivery stomach meets the tip of her nose in between breaths, sips and sighs, damp from her awkward excitement and all the holding back she's doing. From day to day, tension grows in her like this knot of stress, and eventually she'll either snap and have her tantrum or allow Trish to ease it away with her skilled caresses like so. Ah.

She reminds herself, I'm not frigid for originally opposing this. I'm professional. I have respect. But she revels in Trish's slick touches and discovers for the umpteenth time she's in spite of their sometimes literally fire-forged camaraderie momentarily closer to contempt when it comes to their affiliate than any form of esteem, and the closer they get, the further she drifts away from matters at hand. Maybe it's that she's older and getting too old for her trade with its routine-disturbing twists and turns. She's thinking about retiring again, she could do it comfortably by now. Maybe she's taking too many pointers from unsociable sources.

Closer. She leans all the way back to watch Trish eat her out so eagerly over her own rising and falling chest. Looks down as she licks her open nice and hungry, pointy beak bumping against her pudenda here and there, when she loses herself in her depths.

She's buzzing with too many unspoken platitudes; too many incomplete sentences compete for her consideration; she needs to correct course before it's her alone in the middle of all these sensations she's given, buried alive among people. Dante's poisons have pierced her like she once assumed he might want to invade her, but she isn't him, still. She has her tongue, her courage, her tact.

"In nutshell, he's paying a handsome price for us to put our game faces on very short notice. I, for one, am game," Morrison says with a loud rattle of his cigar box; a tell-tale sign the conversation is winding down. "Trish, come to my place tomorrow at three o'clock sharp to check him out for me?"

"I'll go," Trish smiles into her sheathe when she's made sure they've said their byes and hung up, the smug satisfied cat. An edge of hoarseness has crept into her sultry voice. It's hot hearing how she affects her. As for the comment, she expects to feel a twinge of her usual kneejerk obstinacy: this is my job, but it isn't, it's theirs, Trish's. Life as a show she's supposed to run is drawing to a close. She could kick Trish out of her bed and apartment today or the day after and be free; she knows she won't.

After glancing aside to the silent phone, she stretches to hook her thighs around Trish's powerful midriff, flirtatiously, making any protests she might have for the sake of protesting null and void. It's Trish's job.

"Can I come with?" Lady pants softly. She, on edge, grinds upwards to catch Trish's tongue on her most erogenous spot, allows her a mouthful, to seal her in steamy warmth.

"It depends."

As she speaks, the delicate inner side of her lip pushes and skims against her clitoris, somehow giving rise to a memory of her lapping at it through a pair of thin stockings once. Her focused eyes carry the tiniest tinge of yellow, the thrill of danger, till her expression melts into a devilish smirk.

"Trish, I said 'come with'."

She sucks the hood, in due concentration.

"Dante's absinthe is coming in tomorrow, though. Think he can handle delivery all alone?" she remarks at long last. Lady isn't thrilled.

"We should quit enabling him. He wants to get fucked up, he can do it on his own."

"With what money?

Dizzy of a sudden, Lady gazes down to her unofficial girlfriend, golden tresses falling off her shoulders like a sunset, and feels compelled to conclude that Dante doesn't fit into their picture anymore.

"Get up."

Her shiny lips turn sullen. "You didn't finish."

Trish is actually excellent at telling. Not weighed down by the dumb vanity that drives so many men and possessed with more or less the same anatomy, intimate and otherwise, she knows what Lady's orgasm looks and feels like not only from experience. On her worst moments, the attentiveness feels a little tethering. This is commitment for you, she sighs without showing any agitation and lets it all go unsaid and unacknowledged like it deserves.

"I know. It's fine. Some other time. Love you. Let's get you in a bath and head out for kung paos."

It's May second and things will never be 'fine' in the way they have been afterwards.

--