Archive of Our Own ^beta

Early morning skulked into the room through cracks between the half-closed window shutters and pricked at his eyelids as he lay in the bed. It made Dante squint his shut eyes a little to try and shrug off the sunlight that was trying to entice him into wakefulness. He had a feeling that the invasion of daylight into the room must have softened the otherwise chilly, crisp air of November, all of them conspiring to nudge him awake. Despite his quiet protestation and his effort to just drift off back to sleep, the cool air and the light made his eyelids twitch softly and semi-conscious, he breathed in deeply. He rolled over on his back slowly as his right arm came up sluggishly to rest over his eyes and an annoyed, sleepy grumble issued from his throat.

Still half-asleep, he was vaguely aware that it was day and felt surprised that for once, he’d slept through the night rather than the day. Surely, like any 'creature of the night' worth their name, Dante hated waking up in the morning. Besides, many nights were devoted to hunting and fighting demons. Other nights he’d be wasting time in whichever drinking hole or sleazy dive that caught his fancy, or gorging on pizza and watching whatever the TV had to offer. Without opening his eyes and breathing out lazily, he rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. His head gave a small pang of soreness that was not all that unfamiliar to him.

With enough drink, even half-demons got mild hangovers. He was never a booze hound, but he certainly liked a good drink when he could get it. Fortunately (or not, depending on the situation) being part-demon had the added perk of an unnatural metabolism, be it for food or alcohol. It took a lot more than an odd beer or two to get him dizzy and he thought that to get a hangover he must have imbibed in an amount of alcohol that would borderline on the obscene, and very likely, illegal as well.

Still emerging from the thick mists of sleep and the fog of alcohol, he knew he wasn't completely aware or conscious. He never was a particularly heavy sleeper but he certainly enjoyed it and this drowsy state of semi-oblivion was neither entirely new, nor completely unwelcome. As memory started to return, he recalled the taste of beer. Well, that was a start; at least he knew what he’d been drinking. He scratched his chest and yawned widely, stretching his jaw in an almost ridiculous manner. As soon as that enjoyably long yawn extinguished itself in a feeble huff, he opened his eyes at the sound of a muffled, sleepy mumble that was not his own. He blinked a couple of times to focus on the bare wood of the ceiling’s support beams and the lone bulb that served as his cramped bedroom’s light.

No, he'd probably imagined that other voice. The bed was old and sometimes it creaked in funny ways. And then there was the wind, sometimes in the morning it got up to downright surreal noises.

He absently turned over to his other side, closing his eyes again to go back to sleep, yet his arm bumped into something. That snapped him into focus; a sort of reflex reaction from the hunter who suddenly detected an anomaly in his environment. He opened his eyes and inspected the other side of the double-sized bed. Usually the whole width of the bed, creaking springs, frame and all, was entirely his to enjoy and enjoy it he did. Yet that morning the left side of the mattress was occupied by something warm and soft. He tensed a bit, biting his lip; he could feel his leg touching another’s leg under the covers.

Oh, right...he thought and a small grin etched itself over his lips as further memory bustled forward. I got lucky last night...

His bed-partner was still asleep, judging from the soft breathing. He quietly pulled himself up to his elbow and combed some unruly white hair off his face to get a better look over the piled pillow as memory finally snapped fully awake and he recalled most of last night.

And I mean, very lucky.

His smirk widened as he saw a disheveled mop of long and messy red hair on the head of the woman hogging the pillow beside him. Tess was still fast slept with her face almost buried in the pillow, one arm under it and the other slumped right beside it, lying with her chest pressed against the mattress and her legs spread out lazily. She was sleeping soundly, not even having stirred from all the racket he made while waking up.

Dante watched her in silence and laying back down the bed quietly, decided against waking her up. Sleep was a big deal for her too, especially given her lifestyle. With her second sight, nightmares and visions while asleep were routine occurrences, leaving her with migraines and insomnia. He’d seen her go an entire week without a wink’s proper sleep because of disturbing visions she absolutely had to resolve. Those days also made her particularly cranky.

Besides, she looked ridiculously endearing when she was asleep. Her cheek was squished against the pillow in a funny way and her lips were parted in an adorable pout while a bit of her hair that was hanging low over her forehead gave the impression of a hood, making him think of Red Riding Hood. He never called her that to her face, though, because she death-glared him.

Might as well let her enjoy it. It's not like I'm in any hurry either.

He craned his neck and finally looked around into the room; the shutters were closed, light coming in only through the cracks. He shuffled briefly to stretch luxuriously; he felt himself naked under the sheets and smirked a bit, a little awkwardly too. He glanced about and caught sight of his pants lying at the foot of the bed, next to one of his boots. He looked around the room as much as he could without getting up but for the life of him couldn’t locate its twin. He gently lifted the sheet and blanket, only covering him up to the navel and peeked down towards their feet. Yep, she was in her birthday suit too and his smirk widened as he mused the sweet curve of her ass and the soft lines of her legs. He let the covers drop back in place and settled down to relax as it all came back to him now.

Maybe it was all down to the bad weather. The city was experiencing one in a series of the worst rain and hailstorms in the last five years. It was so bad that even he felt put off. He’d been on the job, flushing out a nest of Assaults. Tess had apparently been alerted to the same infestation because they bumped into each other right before the fun started.

“Are you here to steal my job?” she’d scoffed a little.

“What do you mean, your job? I got here first, Twig!” he’d replied.

They’d bantered for a bit, playfully, mock-arguing about whose job it was, until they dropped it and agreed to just get it over with together and meet back at his place for pizza. He agreed largely because he figured he could do with some company through the evening. It certainly beat just getting drunk and passing out on the couch all by himself. He barely remembered the process of wiping the demonic lizards out. Uninteresting fights like that never really stayed in his head, even with having Tess around. He had no doubt that she’d been a sight for sore eyes – she always was when she fought, a gorgeous mix for ferocity and grace and fire. Lots of fire.

No, it was afterwards that stayed with him. While it was starting to rain, they made their way back to his office, Tess taking the opportunity to once more pester him about something she often brought up. She was always a curious one and ever since their turbulent reunion and her return to the city, she’d often asked him about his life during the ten years since they parted ways. She never asked vague things either and Dante, determined to never be very concerned with the past if he could help it, took a habit of teasing her. He’d tell her to ask her second sight or drop vague hints that would never give her enough to go on. That drove her up the wall and she'd glare at him.

He’d done more of the same teasing last evening while they stepped inside a pizza diner to get some take-away pizza boxes. But he’d sort of decided that he’d run the length of his rope with that joke now, suspecting that she’d resort to some kind of wicked scheme or other to get him to talk. So he relented and promised to tell her a bit that very evening. She was so pleased that she paid for the beer herself and didn’t mind when he got an extra sixpack to keep for later.

It wasn't that he was unwilling tell her about some of what he’d been up to all this time; he just liked to rile her up like that. Besides, he knew how sore the whole forced separation thing had been for Tess – he hadn’t fared much better either, but he kept it inside. Being part-demon or a witch really doesn’t count for much when you’re a teenager; when you’ve finally found somebody you want to call friend and hold on to…and then it’s all gone. Super-nature is nothing to how much it hurts to lose a friend to uncertainty. Returning wasn’t as easy as he’d imagined it’d be, either. She outright told him that she needed to get to know him all over again and in a sense, he felt the same way. A near decade was nothing to sneer at; they had both changed a lot.

Dante stretched again, tensing his back and arms and then cracked his knuckles a little as he stared at the ceiling lazily. He suppressed a chuckle. The weather took a turn for the worse while they ate and started cracking open beers. It started raining hard with bursts of thunder while he related to her some of the incidents he’d been involved in. She let him tell her exactly as much as he wished and just listened; she only interrupted him to ask something on occasion. But when he asked her about her life at the time, she clamped down a little before he got her talking about – among other things – a former monastery swarming with wraiths somewhere in continental Europe, the Rosengard coven and what she called a very embarrassing affair involving a witch-killer and ‘the dumbest warlock she ever had the pleasure of beating up'.

Bottom line, we just didn't want to admit we'd missed each other... he thought and smirked again, a little awkwardly. But doing that to a warlock who'd already made a deal with demons...I'm glad I don't piss her off that much.

He glanced over at her again. Tess moved a bit, turning her face towards him while rubbing her cheek against the pillow. Some of her hair had flopped over her face, hiding her eyes but Dante grinned at her droopy mouth and tiny content sigh. She was either faking it really well or she really was still fast asleep – Dante was more inclined to believe the latter.

I wouldn't put it past her. We had quite a good time last night... he thought slyly as he propped up his pillow a bit and reclined on it.

Musing the curves of her body under the covers, he thought of last night, when the rain was pouring down like there was no tomorrow and they were...busy. Absently he scratched the side of his nose with his fingertip while smirking, recalling her form straddling him playfully and the feel of her skin under his fingers as she bent down over him, her hair tumbling around her face. That was most definitely an image he was going to cherish. He almost chuckled as an amusing thought went through his head, that he'd like it if he could run into more women who'd get on top like that, but weren't trying to kill him...

He couldn’t remember exactly how they got into that situation, though. The last thing he remembered clearly before all that was them talking and drinking. She was probably a little smashed by then and he must’ve been dizzy. He actually recalled getting a hidden bottle of Jack Daniels he kept stashed for days like these. But after that things got a little hazy. Had he started it? Or was it something he said? He probably had started it, though. He always seemed to get more flirty when he’d had a couple more drinks than normal and he recalled that too much drink made Tess a little…clingy.

But he kept drawing a big ol’ blank about the details and maybe it didn’t matter. Tess was always a little reserved about this kind of thing – not prude, she could be as flirty as him, but she was still wary. Dante thought of himself as being casual and relaxed about sex. He liked playing up being an utter shameless, annoying flirt but in reality, he was rarely interested for real, or invested much in that. Whenever he was interested, most of the time he got no response or worse yet, a negative one. Of course, that could be partly because he was part demon.

Dante had always suspected that most humans could in fact sort of sense that there was something off about him and kept their distance without quite knowing why; maybe it was some primal, visceral remnant of an instinct that broke through reason and rationale. A leftover of the survival instinct that told humans what was potentially dangerous to them.

Dante yawned again and this time he brought his hand over his mouth to suppress a loud huff that might disturb Tess. He rubbed his lower lip softly, recalling the teasing nip she gave him when he rolled them over and got on top himself. That happened several times, if his memory served correctly, the two of them vying for supremacy in a sort of ridiculous game.

They always did that, antagonizing each other in a friendly manner. He always liked that about her; that she would really make an effort to keep up with him and often succeed. In all likelihood, that’s what had happened that led them to this. A joke, spurred on by drink; head-butting that snowballed into intimacy and resulted in waking up with a hangover and a witch snoozing in his bed.

He looked at her again as Tess squirmed with a small whine and turned a bit, the sheet retreating from her shoulder and revealing the soft skin that he had grabbed at and massaged and kissed. He wasn't sure how long they'd been at it, but he thought it was late evening when they got to the bed and still night when he passed out.

Eventually hunger and a desire for coffee made him move quietly and reaching over, he rested his hand on her thigh and slowly moved it upwards, dragging his fingers over the curve of her ass, smiling a little as she squirmed with a little whine. He gave her butt a light squeeze over the covers and she replied with an endearing 'murr' sound and a squirm.

"Wake up, sleepy Twig," he said teasingly. "Or I might take advantage of you..."

"Screw you..." Tess blurted sleepily with her face still in the pillow, making him scoff before she sounded like she yawned. "Mmmrgh...sorry. What time is it...?"

"Some time, I guess," Dante replied and ran his hand up to her back. "Still morning though. I think," he added after a moment's deliberation.

"Hmm..." she huffed and then yawned again; she raised her head off the pillow and stretched, while Dante smirked a little at the state of her hair. 'Bedhair' indeed.

"Then good morning, I guess..." she said sleepily, still keeping her eyes closed and settled back down on the pillow. "Please tell me you have aspirin somewhere..."

"I think I might, Twig," he chuckled lazily. "If we're lucky, I also have coffee."

"Coffee sounds good..." she huffed, rubbing her eyes, but making no indications she planned to actually get up yet. Even under the heavy influence of lingering sleepiness, her bright green eyes were striking. "We'll get to that eventually... It's cold," she muttered, still reluctant to part with her comfortable spot under the covers and pulled them over herself again.

"Take your time, Twig, I'm not in a hurry," Dante said, lying back down on the bed again himself. "It's a nice...nah, it's a very good morning..." he went on, almost under his breath as he linked his fingers behind his head.