Title: Tears
Subtitle: What are friends for?
Rating: PG-13
Realm: Devil May Cry
Pairing: None
Characters: Dante, Lady, Vergil
Genre: Angst, sentimentality, drama, brotherly love/hate
Warnings: Character deaths, some minor language
Word-count: 1362
Summary: She'll never admit it, but she cares for him
Notes: Written as a companionfic to "Rain," though they can be read individually.
Dedication: to Meterios, the only one I'm not ashamed of crying in front of.
The rain was pouring down in buckets. Lady cursed as she ran through the darkened streets, having given up on shielding herself as a passing-by car had splashed water all over her. Scanning for any signs of life she saw only deserted streets, not a soul out in the pouring rain. People, it appeared, were smarter than she was, she thought with passing annoyance.
Rounding a corner she skidded to a brief halt before continuing, her eyes on the scene in front of her, and she remembered precisely why she had rushed away from her dinner. The hasty glance at the kitchen calendar with the six words scribbled down had been reminder enough.
A lone figure stood on the rooftop of Devil May Cry, staring up towards where Temen-ni-gru had risen and then fallen once more. Every item worn drenched to the very core, however it was in no way apparent that the figure up there ever noticed this. His silver hair lay plastered against his face, and some of the strands blocked his view, but from the vacant look in the blue eyes it appeared that he did not care.
"Dante."
A few seconds passed by, and she begun thinking that perhaps the rain had swallowed her words, when he turned around and looked at her, not one bit of his usual devious air around him. It seemed as if all the light had gone out of his eyes, and in her own way she could understand perfectly well what it was that went through his head.
Lady looked at him for a few moments, then scoffed to herself and shook her head, placing a hand on her hip and gazing at him with her chin raised.
"You're going to get sick if you keep standing in the rain like this. Get your ass back in, because I'm not going to listen to you whine about having a cold. You still owe me a hell of a lot of money, Dante."
Dante's lips twitched a fraction and he finally seemed to gather himself, and then it was as if she hadn't seen him stand like that at all.
"Like I'm ever going to listen to a woman that shoots me in the head, Lady." He tapped his forehead as if to visually remind her of what she had done to him.
She snorted and shook her head to herself, turning around to climb down the ladder and then get in to the moderate heat inside the Devil May Cry building. Not bothering to ask for permission or anything like it, Lady went into the bathroom and fetched a couple of towels, drying off her hair. She glanced down at her dripping wet clothes, paused for a moment but decided to leave them on for the time being, even though she knew it would have been better to take them off and have them dry. She'd have to get home after this, and then they'd only get wet once more.
Exiting the bathroom she found that Dante had just entered the building, and she threw him a towel, raising an eyebrow when it hit him square in the face. He sputtered for a moment, removing the offending article from his face before he realized what she'd done, bursting out in a eat-shit grin, casually towelling off the worst of the rain from his face and neck.
He gave an aww, chucks sound, holding the towel in a mock gesture as if she had given him the most prized possession ever. "Why won't you just admit that you love me?"
"Fat chance, Devil-boy," she said with a glare, then turned towards the pool-table to rack up for a game. She kept busying herself as she heard the wet, squelching sound as Dante peeled his leather coat off of himself and presumably threw it towards the coat-hanger. It fell on the ground with a wet thud, quickly following by Dante's cursing. Judging by the sounds, since Lady didn't turn around to watch Dante make an even bigger ass out of himself, he finally seemed to get his coat in place, and she heard his footsteps walk towards the staircase and presumably towards the bathroom. She wasn't the slightest bit surprised by what came next.
"I'm hitting the showers. Will be back in twenty."
Snorting to herself she cracked the table, watching cue-balls part in all directions. "You've got ten minutes," she called after him. "Anything over that and I'm leaving, doubling your debt in the process."
She wasn't certain, but she thought she muttering something about that she was mood killer, even though they went through this routine almost every time she had to call in a favour from him. The gurgling of the rusty old pipes some moments later told her that he was, in fact, in the shower, but she tuned out all sounds to focus on putting that cue-ball into the left-hand corner.
Almost done with her game she heard footsteps behind her, and glanced briefly at her wristwatch, then bent over the table to pocket number fifteen to the middle-left. There was still two minutes left before the time was up. Impressive.
"You're getting out of shape," Dante commented, leaning his butt against the pool-table.
Lady looked up at Dante for a moment, catching a glimpse of yet another pair of leather trousers (how Dante could afford those anyway considering what he owed her was beyond her knowledge) and water dripping down from his hair and torso that Dante half-heartedly tried to towel off.
"Why is that?" She murmured, pocketing the eight ball right next to Dante.
Dante plucked up said eight ball, threw it in the air once and lazily catching it. "Usually," he begun, spinning the thing around on the table, "you're already done with the first game and well into the second round by the time I get back."
Lady didn't respond to that, only begun picking up the balls from the various pockets and setting them down in the plastic triangle for a new round, and Dante added in the eight ball and reached for another cue. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing, just leaned back against the wall and allowed Dante to split, pocketing number three and seven.
They played in silence, and though neither of them would admit it, they were even. Then suddenly Lady sloppily missed, the white flying wide up in the air. Dante, standing just by where it went, caught it, threw his friend a look before setting it down and pocketing it, thus ending the game.
"So," Dante said, breaking the comfortable silence, idly twirling the pool-cue between his fingers. "What beastie do you want me to kill this time, then?"
Lady placed her cue in the stand, making sure not to show any outwards reaction towards the bitterness and resignation she had heard in Dante's voice.
"None, actually," she said, holding out her hand to take Dante's cue and to put it back. "I dropped by to make sure you haven't run off with my money."
Dante snorted, walking over to plop down on the couch. "How graceful of you. But, as you can see, I'm still here."
Lady caught the hint and left, pleased with that Dante had yet to discover the box she had left behind, containing a book about care taking of swords and a nice brand of polish. Stepping outside, she saw that it was still raining.
Her trip back home was wet, and once home she allowed herself a long soak in the shower, though the cold inside lingered. Stepping into her kitchen she leaned back against the kitchen-counter, her eyes closing briefly before they looked at the flashy calendar that Dante had given her last Christmas. He had grinned widely as she had leafed through the images of various dangerous-looking guns with descriptions of just what they did. She had paused at the date they were at now where Dante had written – in his usual half-unreadable scrawl, Dante's birthday. Later on, after he had stumbled out after several hours of drinking, she had written four more words.
One year since Temen-ni-Gru.