Title: See you in hell
Series: Devil May Cry
[AN]: The story switches between the past and the present, and is told in Dante's point of view.
[Disclaimer]: I do not make a profit from this, nor do I own the characters or the franchise.
- - - - - - - -
It was cold. He always found it amazing how freezing temperatures seemed to distill smells in the air, freeze them in space. Some say it's the heat that enhances smell, that pungent odours, the smell of blood, the smell of decay, are worse in the dead of summer, but he had to disagree. The smell of death was always worse in the cold, like the smell was frozen right into the very air around the body.
He inhaled deeply, in spite of the smell, thankful that he didn't have a weak stomach, else he would be seeing everything he had eaten in the past twelve hours in reverse, and was thankful, because he was sure that he would never want to eat pizza again if he had seen it as half-digested mush, even if it was his favourite food in the world.
The cold air burned down the length of his throat, stung as it filled his lungs. He took another deep breath, however, this time, a breeze drifted through the half-open window, and with the second frigid breath, he in-took the warm and putrid smell of fresh blood. Suddenly he became extremely aware of himself, his body, every nerve, in excruciating pinpoint exactness, and realized that compared to the rest of his body, his hands seemed to burn with heat. He lifted his hands and saw, in the dim blue light of a disappearing moon, deep red blood dripping from his pale fingers.
-
"Hey, Trish." He stated flatly, throwing a large envelope onto his desk before falling into the leather chair. Trish merely nodded at his greeting, preoccupied with some other business she never found it useful to disclose. By this point, he wasn't even interested in the reason.
He lifted the receiver off of the hook, but before he could even lift it to his ear, Trish suddenly had her hand on his, pushing the phone back down.
"Before you call for the pizza I know you were just about to order," she stated slyly, "There's something I think you'll find interesting."
"Would you just spit it out, Trish? I'm not in any kind of mood for your games." He replied dryly to her flirtatious advances. He dropped the receiver onto the hook, and pulled his hand back.
"Oh, did somebody wake up wrong this morning?" She asked, feigning hurt. When she saw the look in his eyes, however, she dropped the ruse and got to her point. "Testy." She commented quickly before continuing. "We got a call in earlier this morning. I almost didn't answer it, like usual, since we have no caller I.D.," she coughed meaningfully after this comment. "But I just answered it out of good humour, although I lost it when she was the one on the other end."
"She?"
"You know, that little hunter-for-hire, tramp 'Lady.'" Trish sneered the name through her lips. It was never a hidden fact that the two of them never got along. Whenever they were forced to work together, it wasn't uncommon for them to try to outdo each other, although they always ended up tied. She didn't see a change in Dante's expression, so she continued. "She called earlier today, first thing out of her mouth was your name. Once she found out it was me, she didn't say much else, besides asking me to pass on the message to you that she called."
"That's unusual for you, Trish." He replied, not revealing any interest their conversation. "I know about your rivalry. I would have figured you would have just let it pass." She grimaced at his comment, true as it was, she was offended.
"On any other day, but she swore she would show up if I didn't tell you, and God knows, nobody wants that." Her hands shook as she replied.
"You know," He stated, nodding at her shaking. "Jealousy doesn't suit you."
At that comment, she huffed and stormed off into another room of the store. He just laughed quietly to himself and again picked up the phone.
There was a knock at the door about a half an hour later. Dante had half-fallen asleep in his chair, and figured Trish wasn't as angry, and attempted to see if he could get her to answer the door for him. Best method: pretend to be asleep. The were a few more knocks on the door, more agitated, and louder than before.
"Jesus, Dante! Answer the damned door, will you?" Trish's shrill voice called from the room she had holed herself up in earlier. When the were a few more knocks, Trish flew from her room. "God, how lazy are you? I know you're not sleeping! Dante, I've been with you for years, that trick doesn't work." She yelled, moving toward the door to answer it. Interrupting another knock, she pulled the door open, freezing in her tracks.
"See, it got you to open the door. Works everytime..." His voice trailed off when he saw Lady standing in the open doorway, Trish grabbing the handle with enough force, he was sure he would find an imprint of her hand in it later. "Well, maybe I dailed the wrong number. Pretty sure I called the pizza place." He looked her once over. "Unless you work there now."
"Shut up, demon." She snapped, pushing past the two of them into the main room, stopping in front of the desk, which she sat herself on top of.
"Well, you invite yourself over and tell us to shut up? Who do you think you are?" Trish demanded. She stared at Dante the whole time she spoke, trying to get him to kick her out.
"Trish, that's enough. Just... go into the other room for a minute, or something."
Feeling slighted, Trish angrily stomped out of the main room, glancing back at Dante once before slamming the door shut.
-
Where did it turn so badly? The stark, heart-wrenching smell of iron drifted through the air, and he could have sworn it swirled like red smoke from an otherworldly fire. There was no sense of reality left in him; he felt like he was falling, like in those dreams where you feel like you're falling through your mattress, into thin air. That sense of heavy gravity that only happens in vertigo, or even when standing stark still and the ground wants to swallow you up, so that you just tumble forever. If he wasn't so physically strong, his knees would be quaking. Emotionally, they were however. His body and mind just didn't sync sometimes.
What do you do when something like this happens? Is it just like every movie ever made where the one left standing was supposed to cry out, beg for the other's life? Cradle them, bloody, in weak and trembling arms? Or was he the one who was supposed to turn and leave? The one who walked into the shadows with a sense of completion? Was he the victim, or the killer?
-
All he could manage out was 'what's new?' Some stupid, unoriginal line out of the book of 'How to start a conversation.' She seemed in a rush and at the same time was uncharacteristically sluggish and confused, not sure where to turn or what to say. She sat down in his chair behind the desk and he just leaned up against the file cabinets Trish was rifling through earlier. He was staring down at the floor boards in the silence, affected by Lady's agitation. He raised his head to she her cradling hers in her hands. Still, he said nothing.
He didn't know what to do.
"Something terrible is happening."
-
A noise cut through the silence; harsh, pained, strangled. It had come from his own throat. Could the victim be the same as the killer? Was it possible they could co-exist in the same body, the same mind, side-by-side? His fingers twitched, unsure what to do with conflicting signals firing in his brain. The victim wanted to touch the blood, the body, a hope that it was all an illusion, and the killer wanted to grab the form and shake it to pieces.
"It seems you are more capable than I thought...brother."
-
"What are you talking about?" He said, still watching her distressed movements. His intuition flared with a wave of apprehension. He could feel something creeping back, like a darkness seeping into his soul, poisoning from the inside out. He knew what was coming. And he knew something was going to happen.
"Don't tell me you can't see it coming, demon." She said, weary. "He's coming back. He's coming back and he's going to kill us all."
-
He couldn't remember what had happened. He felt as if he had just woken up from a dream, the nightmares that feel too real and threaten even after you've woken up. He wouldn't have even noticed that he was walking if the scenery had been changing as he passed out of the building, painted red with spilled blood and infected with everything malicious in human nature.
Did this make him the killer now? Or was he more the victim? He wasn't sure anymore, and he wasn't really sure that he wanted to remember what had happened.
"Going so soon, brother?"
-
"How is that even possible?"
"Anything is possible. He's just as stubborn as you are. How could you have ever thought he would give up on what he wanted because you sealed him in with all the demons? You really just gave him the power to overcome us!" She looked like she was ready to cry, and he could picture the sound of the wail that would rip from her throat. Even as a figment of his imagination, the sound wrenched him. "God knows what he's capable of now..."
He didn't say anything.
"How can you stand there brooding like that?" She demanded, shoving herself out of his chair. "Say something, dammit!" She cried, as she stood in front of him. He wasn't used to this side of her. "What are we going to do?!"
"I don't know."
She slapped him.
-
"How can you leave now? The party's only starting." A cool, clipped voice wafted through the cold air. "You know you have no choice anymore don't you?"
No choice?
"I bid you to kill her, didn't I? And didn't you obey faithfully, Dante? Just like a trained dog? I control you, can't you see that? As long as half of Sparda's blood runs through those polluted, mutt veins of yours, brother, I own you."
"Go to Hell, Vergil." He muttered, but voice was nearly silenced. He couldn't come to terms with what he had done, and he wished for that dream of falling. He wanted to fall forever so that he could never remember what he had done to her, the blood he had spilt, ripping her apart when she trusted herself to him.
"I'll see you there."