Archive of Our Own ^beta

“The conversation between your fingers and someone else’s skin.
This is the most important discussion you can ever have.”
Iain Thomas

Being a demon hunter with the perks of demonic powers of your own can be awesome. You are faster, stronger and more resilient than any human. And it remains awesome even after nearly thirty years of living with said powers and taking down things that could be labelled as 'cosmic horrors'. Conversely, being a witch with the power to alter the world, a redeemed demoness with lightning at your fingertips or a one-woman demon annihilation army – all of whom get to hang out with you from time to time by the way – must be equally awesome.

These were facts of life for Dante.

And yet, a combination of Mother Nature and chronic bad luck is one of the few things that can still get to you.

Whatever it is that runs the universe must have a very childish sense of humor, because that was the only satisfying explanation he could think of concerning the state they ended up in. He regretted his choices for the last half of the week.

Sure, the job seemed typical at first: Kill a possibly demonic creature holed up in a reservoir behind the dam at Old Hicksville, Middle of Fucking Nowhere.

But maybe there's more to it. Or maybe it'll be boring as fuck. And the place is pretty far off. So you ring up an old acquaintance to gang press her into joining in the fun: a short, ginger witch with a mouth like a sailor and a car that can go the distance. You set off on a road-trip to the little backwater.

You find out that this is all a lot bigger than you initially thought. Discover that a bunch of loons, calling themselves some weird cult-ey name, are pulling the strings. Yet another over-puffed jerk with a smattering of supernatural know-how, suddenly thinking he's Gandalf, pulls demonic powers out of his hat. Deal with a bunch of possessed people too twisted to be saved.

Realize that the lurking thing is in fact a massive-ass aquatic demon – nothing really new there. Big climactic fight that ends up in said reservoir, make an effort to NOT destroy everything because holy crap that is a big dam and a big reservoir and let's not drown that town downriver with a massive natural disaster.

So all in all: Kill said mega-demon, mop up the last dregs, quip a bit and ride off into the sunset for pizza and drinks, right?

Not quite.

The demon died alright, that was never a problem. Neither was the cult; Tess and Dante were both old hands at dealing with over-ambitious humans meddling in things they shouldn’t, by now. The aftermath though, was a different story. All that watery chaos did a number on the slopes of the reservoir and through a series of geological happenstance that Dante could not hope to parse and some unexpected mishaps that he was too embarrassed to admit to being part of, he and Tess had ended up being swept up by a mudslide.

Real mudslides are not even remotely as fun as the eponymous cocktail. You think of mud as a sticky, gummy thing that just lies in puddles. Mudslides aren't like that. They flow like water but they're solid and hit like a Mack truck. A slurry of water, dirt, stones and whatever other debris gets caught up in the rush – like trees swept away from the torrent. And the mud gets everywhere.

Frankly, it was a blue-eyed miracle (to borrow one of Roy's expressions) that Tess didn't drown in that quagmire or that Dante didn't somehow end up skewered on a log. Their dignity suffered more battering than they did. They had dragged themselves out of the mudslide, spluttering and spitting mud and water, covered head to toe in muck – muck so thick that they resembled earthen statues. Both of them had been flabbergasted at their experience. They were professionals, dammit! Pros don’t get caught up in mudslides!

The mud torrent had carried them a good couple of kilometers downriver so they had to trudge it back to town on foot, just as a nice, big fat thunderstorm was brewing up in the horizon. Clouds heavy with rain and crackling with thunder loomed ahead, ready to wreak some havoc on their way over the area.

Neither felt like undertaking the long drive home, in the state they were in. By silent mutual agreement they made a beeline for the only motel in the podunk of a town they had just saved. They stared the lady at the reception in the eye as they explained away their appearance as a hiking accident - because sure, people who go hiking totally dress like they did: big red duster and ludicrous chaps over red jeans and a damn skirt and top ensemble. At least Dante had snagged the guitar-case he hid his sword and guns in from Tess’ car on the way into the motel. No need for overly awkward questions.

They both balked at the information that every room but one was booked – something about a local hunting festival – and they could have it.

Tess protested. She grumbled. And she scowled. But there was no other way. Dante didn't care one bit. They had been housemates before after all. But that was over ten years and a lifetime ago and they were no longer stupid teenagers, snapping at and sassing each other to death over spilled milk and at least they had separate rooms. Now, so soon after her return from Italy, they were practically still strangers.

It was gonna be a disaster. But at least it wasn't gonna be boring.

The reception lady had given them some extra towels and extra soap and tiny bottles of shampoo. They had marched to the room, lonely single bungalow-type thing set aside from the main building, and marveled at how motels manage to take a decent-sized room and cram it with some second-rate furniture and make it cramped: One double-bed, one miniscule sofa, two night-tables, some lamps and a TV that just screamed bad reruns.

The bathroom was little more than a box wedged into the room itself. Dante didn't even feel like joking about sharing the shower; he’d barely fit in that tiny stall on his own. She passed up the offer for first dibs for the bliss of washing because she reasoned cleaning up her clothes would take longer than his would. Now, Dante was no household genius but his personal cleanliness was a matter of pride - being filthy rankled his sensibilities unless he was covered in the blood and gore of demons (or his own). At least those were expected from a damn good fight and made him feel like he’d accomplished something but... mud? Not so much. It took some doing but he got himself cleaned up and his clothes mostly clear of the offending slush that was just starting to crust.

While he scrubbed up, they exchanged snarky observations about the job they'd just completed and the mess they got into, through the paper-thin door. They chuckled like kids about the absurdity of it and the aquatic demon and commiserated about the lack of challenge from the cultists and the even more gross lack of imagination on the cult leader's part. They even agreed to order pizzas because after that mess they had been through, they were both famished.

He strutted out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, intent on teasing her, but she looked so tired and miserable sitting on the dinky couch that he decided to let it slide. Conceding that she had come out of the mudslide worse for wear, what with the tumbling around and smacking into tree logs and other debris before they got out, he let her wander into the bathroom and shut the door unopposed. He listened to her grumble while he dialed up the only pizza diner in the town. He’d asked the reception lady for the number earlier for just such an occasion. He ordered three pizzas for himself (no olives, full meat) and one for Tess (extra mushrooms), aware that she’d probably get full before finishing it – more for him! He also threw in two orders of fries and beer for both of them. He would’ve preferred whiskey but as the town was supposedly famed for its local brewery, what the heck.

They continued the conversation through the door, talking about relatively safe things: like what toppings she wanted on her pizza. About Trish and Lady and their escapades, how the two women had already made a game of 'kidnapping' Tess for jobs, girl nights or shopping runs - often one and the same event. About Nero and the kid’s hot-headed nonsense that had already required Dante to go get him out of some trouble – and the antiquated absurdities about witches that the Order had seen fit to cram his head with. Tess found them laughable and sad all together. They talked about her haunted loft and what a pain in the ass it was to clear out.

The one thing they did not talk about was them. What it was like to have parted as moody teenagers who never knew what happened to each other until they clapped eyes on the other over ten years later. They didn’t talk about the incidents that threw them back together. They didn’t talk of the manipulation and dirty secrets and hidden agendas that been involved. They didn’t talk about how it was for her to be back, in a half-empty loft because she hadn’t had time or money to furnish it yet. They didn’t talk about the lost years.

They were trying so hard to pick up from where they left off, to avoid that massive rift. In that rift they had experienced moments of weakness and had fallen prey to anger. They had both done some unforgivable things to each other.

Done with ordering their dinner, Dante stretched out on the bed, intent on taking a good long nap as soon as Tess stopped banging around in the box of a bathroom. “Hey Twig, you getting any close to done in there?”

“Aw stuff it,” she groaned. “It’d be easier to get this done if my everything wasn’t sore as hell. I bet that by tomorrow I’m going to be one giant bruise.”

Dante chuckled a bit but then asked a little more somberly: “Hey at least you ain’t bleeding from anywhere, right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Couple of scrapes. Water just makes them sting, that’s all.”

A few minutes after that she finally came out of the bathroom and Dante perked up at last. She had commandeered the biggest of the towels and wrapped it around herself tightly while she dried her hair in a smaller one. He fought back a smile. He always liked her fearless attitude but he had half expected her to balk at walking around him in nothing but a towel. She caught him looking and stared back coolly.

“Look, we both know you’re going be a butt about us being naked so I’m just not bothering with the prude thing. Just remember that I make curses stick,” she said but she was half-smiling.

He chuckled. She knew him so well. “You wound me, Twig. When have I ever been anything less than a perfect gentleman?”

Then he grinned at her indulgent eye-roll. All the same, he watched her. But he was less interested in the frankly delightful way the towel was clinging to her thighs or the length of said towel that guaranteed a grade-A glimpse if she bent over. What he really was watching was her skin. She was right about the bruises; he could already see the places where they’d appear, the tell-tale tender-looking redness and where the purple and black hues would show up in a day or so. He’d wondered for years, but she really had freckles all over. They were fainter than those on her face and shoulders, but he could see galaxies of them all along her arms and legs. He wondered if there were more of them further up…

She moved across the room and a reddish mark on her left shoulder-blade stood out to his eyes. He smiled. That was a birthmark and if he tilted his head a little bit… yep, the shape was almost like an apple!

“Why’ve you gone quiet?” she asked, looking over her shoulder while still drying her hair, now hanging over her other shoulder. “You usually don’t know when to shut up.”

“Just admiring the view, Twig,” he said truthfully with a grin.

“In other news, water is wet,” she snarked back.

He feigned indignation and hurt. “Aw c’mon, Twig. I’m lying here in nothing but a tiny towel because I knew you’d want the big fluffy one. You’re getting all the eye-candy so why shouldn’t I?”

She just snickered and shook her head. “Yeah, yeah…”

He grabbed the edge of his towel and tugged it. “Should I throw it off?” he pressed, grinning evily.

He then proceeded to laugh at the startled noise and scandalized glare she directed at him.

Satisfied at last that her hair would be as dry as possible under the circumstances, she tossed the smaller towel on the heap of dirty and damp ones they’d already used. Just before she shook her hair to their natural place down her back, Dante caught sight of the large, jagged scar running all round her neck and his chest tightened. He certainly made a big show of having seen all manner of horrors so far. However, watching your long-time friend becoming possessed by a vengeful, insane ghost, who proceeds to forcibly remove a seal from your friend by violently ripping it off her neck, along with a good deal of skin, is another matter. Laughing that off would take more apathy than he could muster.

He propped himself up on his elbows. He often wondered: if her familiar was as skilled a healer as he was and witchcraft could achieve so much… why did she even have scars? Moreover, why was he always so fascinated by scars? Sometimes he assumed it was because he had none to speak of, just two faint marks, one on the palm of his hand and the other smack dab on his chest – both the last mementos he had of Vergil before…

He blinked that thought away. It was more than that, though, had to be. Wounds heal but scars… scars can still hurt; a different kind of hurt that cuts deeper than a blade. Scars are memories – of pain, of sorrow, even anger. Having none often made things blur in his mind. How to remember every little skirmish and fight with demons if nothing is left behind to tell the tale? Fight over fight becomes lost because the body won’t remember and the mind just sees them all as one and the same. Scars are a comfort. They’re a reminder that you’ve survived. If you have none, does that mean you’ve never experienced what wounded you? Or does it mean your body is washing it off, never to speak of it again?

“Hey, come on. Scooch over a bit, you barge. Give me the top-sheet.”

How appropriate that she broke the spell of his thoughts – her job being to cast spells. She was standing by the bed, still in the towel, looking tired and impatient. He looked up at her and saw the rosy scar choker around her neck again. She must have noticed his gaze because her shoulders shrugged uncomfortably. He’d never quite seen it this much since she got it. She always hid it under scarves or actual chokers. The lack of either (she lost the choker she wore in the mudslide) somehow hammered home the fact that she really was stark naked under the towel.

He slid closer to the side of the narrow bed. He glanced at the sofa. Yes, that ‘sofa’ was so small and so worn that even Tess wouldn’t fit on it and she was too decent to demand he cram himself there. She yanked the top sheet out from under him and turning around, wrapped that around herself and over her shoulders.

“What are you doing?” he chuckled. “You look like a Roman.”

“Thank you, I’d return the compliment and say you look like a Greek statue but I’m pretty sure you’re too huge by their standards,” she teased and plopped into the bed, having tossed away the damp towel. “Aaah, finally,” she groaned in relief. “I almost can’t feel my damn legs.”

She proceeded to rub her calf muscles irritably. He saw it briefly, just as her hand passed over it, massaging the protesting muscle. A scar on her right calf, like some creature had dragged its teeth along her skin and left a mark – deep one too, judging by how clear the scar’s outline was.

“Where did you get that?” he asked bluntly.

She stopped and turned to stare at him. “The what now?”

He moved over – right into her personal space as usual – and gently took hold of her leg, pulling it on his lap. He sat beside her and examined her scar, then absently rubbed her leg as she had been doing.

“The scar, Twig,” he said airily. “I want the story. D’you get bit by some ghost dog or something?”

She stared back, all scandalized for a moment, her body tense. He thought she’d pull her leg away and probably kick him, but instead she relaxed and let him massage the sore limb. “Cat, actually. A warlock’s familiar. Early years of my shenanigans in Italy. I got careless.”

“Big cat,” he commented, eyeing the size of it.

“That’s what I thought at the time,” she groused. “Foul-mouthed little bastard, too.”

The scar was smooth and not quite as pink as her neck. It had faded into a darker color and the skin over it wasn’t as supple. There was another scar on her shin, smaller and thinner but newer-looking. He traced it with his fingers all the way up to the knee.

“What about this one?”

She cringed, scrunching up her nose cutely. “My own damn fault. I had to learn the hard way that some houses have dangers a lot more down to earth than ghosts. Nail on a broken wall in a haunted house. Ruined my favorite jeans, too.”

She never commented on how odd what they were doing was. Sitting side by side on a narrow motel bed, naked except for a towel and the bedsheets and discussing her scars.

“Ouch,” he quipped blankly. “Hope you had all your shots.”

She smiled thinly.  “Yes, Roy grumbled as much at the time.”

Her skin felt soft, slightly damp from her shower, and warm. His fingers passed over the tender, injured parts more gently, aware of her soreness. He reached over and caught her right hand. Small, compared to his, with slender fingers. Her knuckles bore signs of combat and evidence of past singeing. 

“And this?” He thumbed the long, thin scar along the back of her hand, crossing the whole back of the palm from the ulna to the knuckles.

 Still she did not protest this examination at all. “Knife-fight,” she said proudly. “First proper one I ever had. Hurt like a bitch. I still won though.”

He laughed. “You have witchcraft and you can set things on fire at a whim, why would you get in a knife-fight?”

She sighed. “Fighting with other wiccans is tricky, sweetheart. They expect witchcraft. And this particular person expected the fire, too. So I had to get in close and personal,” she nodded through his chuckling. “They’re not usually that good with hands-on fighting, wiccans. That one kinda was.”

“Teaches you to think you can dive into a fight like I can,” he mused. “This one?”

He was getting a bit excited there, like a fascinated teenager asking about someone’s tattoos. He slid his fingers over her other arm, to a grouping of about four large scars under her shoulder; they had slightly different angles but all of them the same rosy pink.

“Tree branch,” she said, and whapped his head lightly as he laughed. “Don’t mock it. I was fighting demons and got thrown against the tree. Hurt like hell going down. Did a number on my back too but those have mostly faded by now.”

She stoically watched him examine her. The goosebumps he was feeling on her skin could’ve been from the cold – or from the contact of his fingers against her skin. He didn’t know. He liked the thought of this innocuous touching making her react. He could see no more scars on the uncovered parts of her legs and arms, just a lot of freckles and bruising skin and reddened and puffy scrapes. She really had gotten pretty battered in the mudslide.

“Let me see,” he demanded.

“What, my back?” she chuckled. “Yikes, you’re serious,” she added, staring at him. “Why the examination, doctor?”

“Scars are hot, Twig, didn’t you get the memo?” he countered, plucking at the sheet clinging to her back and tugging it gently to encourage her to shed it.

She giggled but still kept the sheet clutched to herself. “You don’t have any, do you?” she asked.

It was an innocent question but it brought out an uncharacteristic hesitation in him. “No,” he said. “Not really.”

She turned his hand over and thumbed the scar on his palm. It was paper-thin and hard to see in the creases of his hand. Her hands were cool against his. She said nothing; just examined the scar and he knew it in his gut that she knew. Not because her Deep Sight divined it; she just knew. After all, she’d met Vergil.

“Dante… does having no scars bother you?” she asked.

He flinched. He never was any good at anticipating her blunt, armor-piercing questions. How she pulled that off remained one of the great mysteries of their acquaintance. Most of the time, her comments were innocent, just subtle reminders that once in a while he screwed up and that sometimes he forgot all sense of tact. But once in a while, her poignard questions made him angry because they forced him to think about painful and loathsome matters like his messy family or his sentiments about his half-demonic nature. Her words stabbed, even when she was purposefully gentle about them. And she was fearless enough to ask them and right often enough for it to be frustrating. This time, though… her question just startled him. He had never actually thought about what she’d just asked him, not seriously.

“No,” he said. “I’d be covered in them, otherwise. Wouldn’t be half as handsome as I am now, don’t you think? I dunno, maybe one or two wouldn’t be bad. I don’t know, Twig.”

He saw her cringe. She always disliked it when he got evasive like that. Still, she accepted it and let go of his hand. She let him drag the sheet down off her back, holding the front end against her. The first scar he found was on her thigh, above the knee. It was quite large and uneven. His fingers ghosted over the surface. It followed the curve of her thigh.

“Burn,” she said without him asking. “Fire is very unpredictable even when you control it, you know. I was fighting some demons and some burning debris flew around, caught me in the leg.”

Her face was red and it was starting to travel down her shoulders but she still bent forward a little to let him study her back. More freckles everywhere, fainter and further apart but still there. The texture of her skin was smooth and silky. Her hair was still damp and he brushed it aside. An alarmingly large but very faint scar stretched along her ribs on the side, normally hidden by her arm. A scar of the same faintness stretched across her upper thigh on the same side – clearly one event.

“This one’s damn big, Twig. What the hell happened?”

“It looks worse than it was,” she said faintly. “I got knocked down and dragged along the ground during an investigation. The dead were more restless than I expected.”

“Twig, you got more scars than you should,” he said sharply. “What about this one?”

His fingers traced a fairly big and uneven scar on her back, below the shoulder-blades. It was old and had a dark, almost brownish hue against her pale skin.

“Another burn,” she huffed. “Got it when I put down a very big demon—and now you’re starting to sound like Roy,” she protested at his tongue clicking. “I don’t have that many scars.”

Dante shrugged with a wan smile. “They’re all over you and I haven’t even seen the front.”

“The fro—“ Tess groaned. “Listen, I don’t really have more or less scars than most people. I think… they look like a lot to you because you don’t… you know, get any.”

He balked at that a little. He knew she didn’t mean her statement that way by her tone but it was a bit hurtful in its bluntness. It didn’t stop it from being true, though.

“You really do have more, huh?” he asked.

She stared at him over her shoulder, holding the sheet over herself tightly. Her green eyes were undecided. She bit her lip. She was flushed crimson but he could still see the cute burst of freckles across her nose. For the first time he noticed a thin scar over her left eyebrow. By the shape of it, stiches had been involved.

He motioned to cup his hand around the back of her head and bring her in close but she swatted it away gently.

She regarded him very cautiously. “Why are you really asking about them?”

He didn’t answer immediately. For some reason, all the wit and sarcasm had drained straight out of his head. He had no funny one-liners.

“You haven’t said jack all about what you did for ten years, Twig,” he said and frowned. “You always just brush it off. Even now you’re being vague and I am willing to bet money that most of these scars are from far worse situations than you’re actually telling me.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. Since when were you interested in the minutiae of my life, anyway? You’re the one who says chasing spooks is dull,” she protested.

“They’re your scars, Tess,” he growled. “Things that happened to you and you won’t tell me about. Are you – what, embarrassed that you’re not goddamn invincible?”

It was hard getting it out but there it was. They stared at each other silently – he in irritation, she in dull amazement. She didn’t resist when he yanked the sheet away – just went redder and folded her legs under her. Freckles cascaded down her neck into the valley of her breasts, interrupted by a jagged little scar that passed over her left breast.

She tensed as his fingers ran over it. “An Assault tackled me just before I killed it. It cut me pretty good before it died.”

He ran his fingers over a small, curious stich scar that sat just above the crook of her thigh. “This one’s funny-looking,” he observed.

Her choked snicker surprises him. “Uh… operation. Dull, right?”

On the contrary, he leaned back and stared her in the eye with mild confusion. “Operation? As in, surgery? What the heck did you do to yourself that needed an operation, Twig?!” He sounded baffled.

“I didn’t do anything. A stupid thing called appendicitis happened. Nice little infection. I had to have my appendix removed,” she sighed.

He stared at her in the eye with a troubled expression. “You… seriously lay on a slab, knocked out, trusting some old kook of a doctor to cut you open and not kill you?”

Tess stared back for a moment and then reeled back, laughing. “First of all, a woman operated on me, she was young and very nice! And for crying out loud, Dante, look at it. It’s tiny. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t even stay in hospital for too long.”

He sulked at her. “All the same, that’s weird.”

She patted his cheek like a doting mother. “Look at you. Felling monsters and finding the prospect of surgery a terrible fate. Your healing rate’s spoiled you.”

He smiled thinly at her. There was a last scar on her abdomen, below the right breast, and to the side. It was large and jagged, its edges spreading like a grim flower. A smaller but similar scar was on her back, in a straight line from the one in the front. Entry and exit. His fingers paused on it, on her tense skin and he couldn’t bring himself to look at her in the eye.

“It’s fine, Dante,” she said gently. “You know this one.”

He stared at it, frowning. Angry at himself. Avoiding the memory of the event; what he was feeling then as opposed to now. “I shot you,” he muttered through grit teeth.

“We’ve been through this,” she asserted. “We’ve got it out of the way. Yes, you shot me. And I lied to you. We were forced to play someone else’s game. It’s done.”

Abruptly he pulled her into an embrace and tucked his face into the crook of her neck. She froze and tensed. Her hair smelled of cheap shampoo with a lingering hint of earth.

“Hey, hey—what…?”

“We really fucked up that time, didn’t we?” he muttered.

She sighed impatiently. “Haven’t we always been like that? At least we sorted it out.”

“You forgave me too easily.”

She laughed evily and wiggled her arm free to slap his back. “Who said I have? I plan to guilt trip you over this till the end of time, buster!”

“You’re evil, Twig!” he mock-sighed. “But I guess that’s what I get for fraternizing with witches.”

“Damn straight—hey, you do remember we’re naked, you perv, or was this your plan all along?”

He smiled. He lightly kissed the scar around her neck and she squeaked in surprise. Immediately she tried to back off but he held her there. A second kiss produced a further twitch and a shrug of the shoulders. He nibbled the skin carefully with his lips and out came some confused babbling. As he suspected! He pressed his lips on the jagged pink skin.

“This is why I really like scars,” he said and grinned wider. She twitched nervously with every word.

“What the hell are we doing…” she groaned and smacked his back repeatedly with her hand. “Gah! Stop it, you’re doing it on purpose you lech.”

“Guilty as charged, Twig,” he responded and kissed her neck again.

Her jittery laughing was really entertaining and he would’ve gotten carried away had not a hurried and angry knock on the room door startle both of them.

“Pizza delivery!” called an irritable voice.

“Busted,” Dante commented flatly.

“Oh good, food!” Tess said but then her face contorted into a mask of horror as realization dawned. “Wait, no. We’re naked. We can’t open the door—“

Dante grinned evily as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “What are you talking about, sure we can. It’s pizza, who cares about clothes.”

Tess however gasped and, grabbing the sheet, pounced out of the bed, succeeding only in getting tangled and falling over the side of the bed with a squeak and a fit of nervous laughing. She decided to stay there, trying to stop her cackling. Dante swiped his wallet from the couch and without even pausing to adjust the towel, opened the door.

It opened into the crisp evening air of the little town and a grumpy, soon-to-be thunderstorm sky that rumbled and flashed with lightning. A jaded and irate-looking pizza delivery boy – well, young man, he can’t have been a day over twenty-one – stared back and up at Dante, holding the two hotboxes stacked on each other and bulging with contents in one hand, and a sixpack box of signature brewery beers in the other.

“You took your sweet time,” Dante said with a smirk, which widened upon hearing Tess’ exasperated snort from inside.

What followed became a bit of an urban legend in the little town for quite some time. As Dante reached out to grab the hot boxes, while telling Tess to get out from behind the bed, his towel slid off. Nice and neatly, it skulked right off him, easy as a cat snatches a snack from your table.

The pizza boy just stared back, unfazed by the sight of an absurdly tall, naked man with white hair – in fact he looked thoroughly unimpressed.

“That’ll be $22.50,” said the pizza boy.

Tess, who had peeked over the side of the bed, just burst into a laughter one might call hysterical. She tucked her face into the crook of her elbow, pressed into mattress as it was, and started laughing.

Dante paid his situation no mind, paid with all the dignity he could muster at the time and shut the door on the pizza boy with a grim determination that the universe does indeed have a thoroughly childish sense of humor.

As did Tess, apparently because she was still giggling and whooping. “Hey, you gonna stop that cackling, you crazy hyena or can I eat your pizza too?” he said, making no effort to cover up again.