At The End of the Day

All disclaimers apply.

Note:Claim for the fanfic100 Livejournal community. Will I actually reach one hundred? Pfft, hah, yeah right. But if I gotta attempt it with anybody, I might as well with these two. As usual, comments and criticism are welcome. Enjoy.

060. Drink: Hold your liquor and hold your tongue.

-

"It's an interesting idea," she said. "Domesticity."

Dante paused mid-swipe of his whetstone on Rebellion's blade. It seemed like he was cleaning and polishing it all the time for no real reason at all, just to indulge the habit. That was the upside of a generally complacent sword in comparison with moody thunder gods incarnated that were always pristine and just insolent enough to offer up a zap if a whetstone came anywhere near them.

But he was in a good mood. Cigarette smoke in his lungs, a pint of whisky next to his hand - the good stuff for once, Macallan single malt scotch, not the cheap crap he usually sucked down like ambrosia - some metal song blaring from the stereo on the other side of the room. Black Sabbath, he guessed.

Trish was to his right, lounging on the beaten-up sofa, legs crossed, her arm stretched along the back and her slender fingers tapping against the battered leather. Dante wondered if she even knew she was following the rhythm of the song. He decided she didn't. She didn't like metal, or music in general. It was probably a devil thing. But it was possibly a Trish thing, because she was strange like that, and it was why he liked her.

He examined the blade in his hands for the umpteenth time for imperfections, shrugged and went back to cleaning it. "I think that's just the booze talking," he said, knowing as he said it what she was going to say next.

He was right. "I don't get drunk," she said, very slowly, as if breaking down basic math for a second grader.

"You'd have to be drunk to start talking like that." Dante took a long drag of his Marlboro. The bitter smoke felt warm and somehow comforting, and he held it in for a few seconds before releasing it in a long, slow exhalation though his nose. "Domestication. That's what you do to pets. Want a collar, Fido? Mind losing your balls, Fluffy?" Another strike along Rebellion's edge, and it was finally looking usable again. Damned acid-spewing demons. "Or cows," he added. "We eat cows, you know."

"I'm just saying," Trish said a trifle defensively. It was hard to tell, because her defense always seemed like a sneaky offense, and he had to be on his guard when she came off as subdued. "The concept of routine. What's considered normal."

Still considering his sword, Dante tossed the butt into an ashtray and took another swig of whisky. He was working up to a comfortable evening buzz, soothing enough to actually let his mind try to follow the course of his partner's logic. "Normal's relative. Like art."

"Don't tell me it hasn't occurred to you."

He considered lying. He didn't think she cared whether he was telling the truth or not if it didn't pertain to business. But alcohol and nicotine were great for easing barriers, so he let a little honesty filter through the usually stalwart defenses. "Maybe when I was younger," he admitted. "Pre-demon head decoration, I think. Just not anymore."

Rebellion shone brightly in the dim lights, and he ran a thumb along its edge to test the sharpness. It sliced through his skin easily. Good as new.

Without warning, he raised the sword and hefted it through the air in Trish's direction. Her eyes were closed when it came flying toward her, but she caught the hilt in one hand without so much as a falter, and set it up on the rack built into the wall over her head. That was Force Edge's old spot, but it didn't fit there anymore since it stopped being Force Edge, and she kept the Sparda elsewhere.

"I thought it was a human thing," she said thoughtfully, finally opening her eyes to study him.

Dante refilled his glass slightly too much, amber fluid sloshing over the rim. "Demon head decoration?"

"Domestication. So many of you seem to want it so bad."

"Insurance. No one wants their shit pulled out from under them."

"But that's what happens anyway."

"Which is when you get to the next step: Blissful denial." Ah, Macellan, the only way to live. He lit another Marb and decided that this could be one of the levels of heaven. You know, if a choir of angels sounded anything like Judas Priest, which was currently blaring from the speakers. Maybe a really nice part of purgatory, then. That was the place where all the cool people went in the Divine Comedy, anyway.

"The favorite pastime of your species." Trish sounded amused and probably looked the same, but Dante didn't see because he was too busy lounging back in his chair, eyes closed, feet kicked up onto his desk, more relaxed than he'd been all week. All month, if he was honest.

"Give me one of those," she demanded.

After blindly searching with one hand, he managed to find the pack of Marbs on his desk and held it out to her. He felt her pull one free, and was about to search for the matchbook, too, when he felt a hand fall on the armrest of his chair.

One eye open. She was leaning close to light her cigarette up off his own. Both eyes open. Her long hair fell over her shoulder to brush against his leg. He liked it best like that, when she didn't pull it back, but he had no intention of ever admitting it. It would sound strange coming from him, and even stranger being directed at her. She considered any compliments somehow suspicious, told him to save it for one of his pin-up girlfriends. They liked the compliments much better, but none of them deserved them as much.

He declined too long of a glance at her cleavage. She always had to wear the generously low-cut, tight leather anything - as if that wasn't bad enough, strapless or backless or, somehow, both. How nothing she wore ever fell off would remain one of the greater mysteries of the universe, right up there with platypuses and country music.

Cigarette lit, she sat down on the edge of his desk. After a couple of drags, she said, "Why do you like these?"

Dante shrugged and decided to look elsewhere for the sake of his sanity, but the sight of her lingered on his retinas in photographic negative. "No one likes them. But they're easy to get used to, and they look good in black in white."

"What?"

"Film noir. Detective and the dame. Gotta love it." He smiled around the filter in his mouth. "We are a living, breathing cliche."

Trish snorted quietly. "And here I thought I liked you better when you're drunk."

"Everyone likes me better when I'm drunk. Brings out my charm."

He breathed out a huge cloud of smoke, ashed his cigarette, uncrossed and recrossed his booted feet on the desk, and grinned at her. She gave him a look that clearly called him an idiot without her needing to utter a word.

But she said it anyway, deadpan. "Idiot."

In response, he lunged forward, caught her around the waist with one arm, and hauled her off her feet and into his lap. They both lost their smokes and Dante nearly knocked over the whisky, which would have been a crying shame. Later on, he would claim the booze made him do it, not only because such a move was bizarre, it was also remarkably stupid. In all likelihood, she would electrocute him, lighting his hair on fire and giving him an undignified, full-body twitch for rest of the night.

Sure enough, Trish's knee-jerk response was a jolt that made his eyeballs tingle and the inside of his mouth taste like copper wire.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Good question, he would have liked to have known himself. "Either seducing you," Dante said, considering, "or having a psychotic episode."

"The inclination to seduce me at all requires a psychotic episode."

"Aw. You don't give yourself enough credit. You're very fuckable."

Trish rolled her eyes. "Like I need to hear that from you." But, surprisingly, she didn't zap him six ways from Sunday. She merely balanced herself on his right leg, leaned forward, grabbed the bottle and poured herself another glass. Then she shoved the nearly empty bottle at him. "Here. Keep drinking yourself into a stupor."

"Will do."

She wasn't moving. This fact wasn't exactly lost on him - if fact, it was gnawing on the back of his brain like a rabid wolf with no intention of letting up.

Alastor, witnessing all of this from his perch on the far wall, made a pithy remark about Oedipus. Nevan, leaning next to the drumset, reinforced this with some Freudian logic. To which Dante responded with the mental equivalent of a rude hand gesture.

He really needed to find himself weapons that couldn't talk. Or at least start storing them in a back room somewhere. Maybe a trunk.

Trish rested her elbow on his shoulder and they both polished off the rest of the whisky in the sort of companionable silence that could only come from alcohol. Or so Dante assumed it was the alcohol, because the other possibility was just too unsettling to think about, and he was too buzzed to be unsettled.

His whisky-addled mind drifted in fuzzy contentment from one thought to another. The music of the moment was a classic by Iron Maiden, the phone had chosen the perfect hour to stop ringing and give him some much-needed peace, his partner was as soft as she looked, and no, he wasn't drunk enough not to appreciate that fact, and yeah, he wanted her more than he'd wanted anyone in his entire life. In that order.

And knowing just how hopeless that was added spice to entire concept.

"So, if you could have it," she said suddenly, "would you take it?"

Dante almost jumped out of his skin. "What?"

"Normalcy. If you had a choice."

That wasn't what she was asking. He didn't know what the real question was, but he had the acute suspicion that she was fucking with his head - a not at all unfamiliar feeling when it came to his partner. In no state to reciprocate mind games, he just said, "Nah. All that well-adjusted shit is overrated. I like my life just the way it is." Although one or two things could be improved.

"Demon heads and all?" she wondered, looking at him with blue eyes that somehow seemed wicked. Then again, she was always wicked.

He smirked. "Demon heads and all."

"You humans. So novel."

Dante grabbed her by the hair and laved the side of her neck with his tongue. In retaliation, she delivered a good dose of electroshock treatment which probably caused more than a few vital neurons to go permanently haywire. But it wasn't like he was using them, anyway.

When he managed to uncross his eyes and remember who he was, he was on his back on the floor, with x-number pounds of devil straddling his hips, staring down at him with equal parts curiosity and amusement. As if she was trying to figure him out and having fun doing it. He aimed to please, after all.

"Bitch," he said pleasantly.

"Ass."

"S&M doll."

"Sword fetishist."

He smirked. "Can't argue with that."

She rested her hands on the floor on either side of his head and leaned down over him. So much for not staring at her tits. Her mouth proved to be more interesting when she thoughtfully licked the edge of her upper lip. Long canines. Longer tongue.

She never could make things easy on him.

"What?" he asked.

"Just..." Trish seemed to weigh her answer. Dante just tried not to move with their parts all aligned like this. "I like this," she said finally.

"This?"

"This."

Fucking with his head, that's definitely what it was.

"No matter how weird it is?"

"Maybe because it is."

And just for a moment, for one beautiful, terrible moment, there was nothing, just her, and the way she smelled, and the way she felt.

Then it was over and she was Trish again, sliding away from him and saying something. It was no doubt sarcastic and mildly insulting, but he wasn't able to really focus on it. He figured that was because he was in the middle of an epiphany, and it was very distracting.

He wanted this, nights like this, days like this, a hundred more strange moments where nothing mattered.

He wanted her. Not the devil, or the woman with the too-familiar face, or the femme fatale in black leather, or anything else she came off as at first glance. Just her.

The instant of sudden unspeakable clarity passed. Dante found himself moving before the rest of him could catch up, heard himself saying, "Let's patrol."

His partner eyed him curiously as he went about gathering weapons. "Just random?"

"Why not?" He twirled Ebony around his finger with casual flair before settling the Colt into his thigh holster, along with its sister. "Got plans?"

She grinned. "I'll cancel."

"Wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

"I'm used to it. Life with you is nothing but inconvenient."

"Yeah, you love it."

At the end of the day, it was just shy of perfect.