Author: Moiranna
Title: I've Seen Hell
Rating: PG-13
Realm: Devil May Cry
Pairing: kind of implied Dante x Lady
Characters: Dante, Lady
Genre: General, tragedy
Warnings: Language, some violence
Word-count: 781
Summary: In which Dante faced some of his ghosts. Some things never really went away.
Notes: Drabbled together after listening to the soundtrack to the BBC series "North & South." Title courtesy of the song "I've seen hell."
"I've seen hell."
The words came out of the blue, late one night after Dante and Lady came back to the Devil May Cry after a particularly gruesome hunt. A cluster of demons had taken over an orphanage; killing or maiming every child inside, possessing those they couldn't instantly break.
It had taken them hours to clean up the mess, and by the end of the fighting Dante had been stabbed multiple times by a possessed child not seven years old.
Taking a pull from her beer the heterochromic noticed the weariness in the other devil hunter.
"Yeah? The real deal or metaphorical?" That she knew the answer was irrelevant, something told her that he needed to get this out of his system.
Dante snorted though the sound held no mirth. "Both." He was silent for a while, sucking beer, gaze introverted. "After mom was murdered I ended up in an orphanage."
Lady said nothing. Back after the Temen Ni Gru had fallen she'd done her research on the silver-haired man sprawled out gracelessly in the chair opposite her. She knew of the multiple foster homes and of his rather lengthy track record, so she had a general idea of his upbringing.
"First one I was in had an infestation like this one." The elder took another drink of his beer and then absentmindedly started peeling at the bottle label. "I killed them all and burned down the building so it looked like an accident."
Lady raised an eyebrow. This had been left out of the reports she'd read.
"This cut too close to home," Lady summarised, to which the half-devil nodded. For a few moments she considered what to do and say because there was something wrong in how Dante acted.
"How'd you get through it last time?"
There was something distinctly offsetting in Dante's smile at that and Lady barely kept herself from pulling her gun on him. Something was peeking out behind Dante's normally controlled face, and she was reminded of that if pushed too far off the edge there'd be dire consequences.
"The only way I knew back then. Violence."
Trying to ignore the way that her pulse was starting to pick up Lady rose, heading to the kitchen to pick up two more beers. When she returned and offered Dante one of them her instincts had stopped screaming at her, even though that otherworldly energy still peeked out from behind Dante's eyes.
"Did it work?" She asked flatly, staring him dead in the eye and daring him to do something while at the same time projecting that he needed to back the hell down because they were safe dammit.
Dante blinked, cocking his head to the side while studying her. She'd always found that when he did that she'd done something strange and he had to figure out just what she meant. Eventually he picked up the offered bottle from her hand and toyed with it.
"No." Word precise, no hesitation.
"Thought as much," she muttered. Running a hand through her hair she considered her options. What she finally concluded on didn't surprise her, she could live with it. "So what are you planning on doing to get out of this hell?" She queried.
"What are you suggesting?" Otherness toned down but still present.
She snorted, for a moment toying with the idea of actually going through with what popped up in her head.
"I could always empty a clip into that thick skull of yours, but something tells me the change would be abysmally small."
He didn't even deign that with a reply, just made a vague circling motion with his index finger, indicating wordlessly for her to get to her point. "I can help you get the worst out of the system, but I'm not your therapist. I can't heal you, Dante. Only make the journey a little smoother."
For a minute he was silent, just watching her. She could practically see the cogs turn in his head and what little she could read didn't exactly reassure her.
"No." It sounded almost reluctant and for half a second Lady wondered how much it took him to say that. Closing his eyes for a moment he took a deep breath, then stood and headed towards the door. "Thank you."
She almost didn't hear him say it, the words faint. But she did, and read, correctly, just what it was he wasn't telling her. As the door closed behind him she knew that for some time Dante would be mostly unavailable, lost in whatever outlet he chose, but that when he was ready he'd return. That though in hell she was his gateway back to reality.