A/N: Okay, so I put the rating at M, mostly because of the implications, but there are no lemons, or explicit scenes of violence in any of the chapters. There is a het pairing, although I'll leave it a surprise, but no homo pairing. In a later chapter, there will be the rape scene mentioned in this chapter. Again, not particularly explicit, but for sensitive readers, I'll try to have a "jump-to" point, so that you can enjoy the story without missing any plot points.
Naturally, I don't own any of the Devil May Cry stuff (more's the pity).
This story is completely written, and it will consist of six chapters in total. If you notice any mistakes or have questions, drop me a line. Please review, even if you hate it; I could use a good laugh at flames and trolls. ;P
This is a Devil May Cry fanfic version of "Beauty and the Beast"; "real world" AU, standard disclaimers about ownership, although if Capcom wanted to sell me the rights, I have some really good ideas for DMC 5... ;P
Quiet Beauty, Roaring Beast
Chapter 1
She found him in an alleyway, seemingly broken and bleeding, and not far from the alleyway where she herself had been found broken and bleeding to death only a year or so ago. The verisimilitude alone had been enough to send her rushing to his side, and had been enough to keep her there even once she saw that he was definitely not human. She paused only a moment at that revelation, but as he collapsed, she caught him, yoking her shoulders under his arm. He struggled, roaring and hissing at her.
She frowned, and determinedly whispered, "I'm trying to help, don't make this harder. You're bigger than I am."
He seemed to understand, or maybe he was just too weak to fight any more, she couldn't really tell. Luckily, her apartment wasn't too far away, and she managed to get him to the third floor.
As late as it is, at least I don't have to worry about the neighbors seeing me dragging a monster home.
She grimaced at that thought, wondering if her neighbors' reactions or the mental phrasing she'd used bothered her more.
She propped him gently against the wall so she could fish her keys out of her purse. He was standing a little better, and didn't seem to be bleeding quite as much. She belatedly thought of the potential blood trail they'd left, but shrugged it off. Glancing down the hall at the ragged and stained 'rug', she had to grin to herself - no one would notice a few more spots or dribbles anyway. She unlocked her door and helped him inside, belatedly (again) wondering if inviting him into her home was such a good idea after all. She shrugged (again), dismissing the thought as moot.
"Lady!" she called as loudly as she could, which was really just a hoarse whisper, but her cat appeared anyway, being used to her mistress' lack of voice.
She had gotten the cat just after the incident, partly to stave off loneliness and partly to stave off despair. She'd been drawn to the kitten because of its story; it had been a rescue kitten, much abused according to the vet at the shelter, and it had mismatched eyes.
"I don't think she's blind in that right eye, but it does have significant enough damage to cause heterochromia," the shelter vet had said.
She'd laughed, a sort of coarse wheezing, causing the vet to turn a puzzled smile at her.
"I love it! I'll take her and call her 'Lady'."
She'd grinned at the joke, but the vet obviously didn't get the reference.
Must not play many video games, then again, he doesn't seem the Devil May Cry type anyway.
Two very different hisses broke into her stray thoughts: Lady and her new friend were staring at each other menacingly. She frowned.
"Lady, be nice. The poor thing's been through enough tonight, can't you see he's hurt?"
She looked up at him, noticing he didn't seem very hurt at all, anymore. She started to worry inwardly, maybe this was a bad idea, when Lady abruptly turned around, sticking both her nose and tail high in the air, as if saying 'whatever' to the whole situation.
What the hell, if the cat's not bothered, I shouldn't be either.
She smiled at her guest.
"Would you like to get cleaned up? Eat? Drink? Sleep?"
He looked at her sharply at first, growling low, but stopped after a moment. She was having a hard time deciding whether or not he even understood her. True, he seemed feral, but bestial? He responded a little too well not to have intelligence.
Maybe he's foreign.
She laughed out loud at that thought, foreign indeed! Her laughter startled him, restarting his low growling, but she waved her hand, trying to reassure him.
"I was just wondering if you understood, or if you were foreign, but I guess that you are definitely that."
She reached for his hand.
"Come on, I'll show you the bathroom; we'll see how bad your wounds are."
In her bathroom, he had his first incident. A large mirror hung over the sink, and when the lights came on, he screeched and punched it. The mirror spiderwebbed but didn't fall, luckily. "What the hell are you doing?" she 'screamed' at him.
He took a swipe at her with a clawed hand, but pulled back at last moment, missing her face by fractions of an inch. Small fractions, in few numbers.
Her eyes wide, finally realizing just what was standing in her bathroom, she backed up, knees colliding with the toilet. She thumped on the toilet rather gracelessly, watching the monster in front of her. He looked at his hand, then at her.
"All I was trying to do was help. Please don't hurt me for that."
Tears trickled down her face. He reached for her, slowly, tracing his finger down the track the tears had left and then made a strange keening sound. Puzzled, she slowly stood up in front of him. He was very near her and made no move to back away. Feeling more-than-a-little uncomfortable at his nearness, and for some reason feeling very aware of his maleness, she skirted to the left.
"Okay, so I think we learned a valuable lesson - you don't like mirrors, yeah? No more mirrors. Not too fond of them myself now that I'm not the fairest one of all. How about we check you for injuries, okay?"
She nodded questioningly and grabbed a washcloth off the shelf when he didn't respond.
She cocked her head.
"Are you wearing clothes?" she asked, more to herself, really, than to him.
Shaking her head, she reached around him towards the sink to wet the towel. Cleaning him up went rather uneventfully after that, mostly because after she got the washcloth wet, he took it from her and started wiping at himself with it.
"Okay, so you do understand. How about I fix something to eat? I just got off work, and usually eat now anyways."
Half an hour later, he came into the kitchen and sat down in a chair.
"Hope you like frozen pizza and tomato soup, 'cause that's about all I have right now."
She smiled cheerfully, placing a mug of soup and a plate with half the pizza on it in front of him. He grinned, a feral, rather frightening sight, really, and tore into the meal with vigor, but no manners. Her smile faltered a little, but she sat down to her food without comment.
Lady hopped onto the table, miffed that she wasn't being fed, and sniffed at his mug. He growled at her, swiping the mug out of reach. The cat, startled, jumped back, bristling all over before turning her back on him, as if trying to regain her lost dignity and composure.
"I'm sorry, Lady, I'll get you a bowl of warm milk, okay?"
Placated, Lady sat on the table, bathing.
"So, my cat's Lady. My name's Lily. I kind of get the idea that you can talk even less than I can, so I'm trying to figure out what to call you."
She looked at him. "Can't tell me your name, huh?"
He made a cry, soft, almost sad in quality.
She nodded. "Didn't think so. So, what to call you?"
He had become agitated, pulling at something around his neck.
She frowned. "Hey, don't hurt yourself. What is it?"
Coming around the table, she pushed his hands away from whatever he was clawing at. It looked like a necklace resting on his collarbone. It was some kind of black metal carved with some strange-looking runes or ideograms that seemed to be glowing, or at least part of them were. The symbols went all the way around the collar, but only a few of them on the right-hand side were glowing with a dark, somehow bruised-looking light. One word, written in what appeared to be English, was carved above the runes in the center: DIAVOLO. Those letters, too, glowed, but with an evil-looking dull orange.
" 'Dee-ah-voh-loh'? What's that mean? Is that your name?"
He made the same keening noise that he had in the bathroom.
She frowned again.
"I'm sorry that I don't understand you. Can I call you that? Diavolo?"
She smiled. "It's kind of nice, the way it rolls off the tongue, Diavolo. Don't you think?"
He looked up into her smile and grinned in that same scary way he had before. She pulled back a little.
"I'll just take that as a yes, yeah?"
She yawned.
"I'm kind of tired, and I need to go shopping tomorrow, so how about I get you a pillow and blanket. You can sleep on the couch. The lamp there is a touch one, so it's easy to turn off. Don't worry about Lady, she won't bother you. Do you remember where the bathroom is?"
He grinned again. She nodded, left, and returned a few minutes later with two blankets and a pillow. One blanket she spread over the couch and placed the pillow at the end. The other, she spread over the first, only to fold it back a little, making a homey, if homely, bed on the couch.
"Well, good night, Diavolo," she told him, making her way to her bedroom, pausing just long enough to scoop up Lady and close the door.
She heard noises and, forgetting at first about her new friend, she froze, various paranoid and somewhat morbid possibilities running rampant through her mind. One particular keening reminded her of him, and she grabbed a quick covering before slowly opening her bedroom door.
Straining to see in the darker living room, she tried to tell if he were okay or not. He looked to be still asleep.
Is he having a bad dream or something?
She stepped deeper into the room, her eyes slowly adjusting. A quick look-over of his form on the couch answered her question. Eyes widening, she mentally shook herself.
Not a bad dream, then.
He was erect and going through the motions of correcting that issue.
She backed up slowly, not wanting to disturb his privacy any further. She bumped her door, making a small noise that was just enough to wake him. She looked away, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you, I was just, you were making noises, and I thought you needed something, or were,... I'm sorry."
She glanced back up with a smile, only to find him standing abruptly in front of her.
God, he's tall. He's still aroused, too.
He started sniffing her, as though only now realizing that she was the opposite gender. She backed up again, more than a little unsure of what to do. He reached for her gently, growling very low, almost like a purr. He pressed her body to his, kissing her. She could feel, well, everything, and she figured she knew where this was going.
Brief flashes of memories skittered through her brain.
It was late, not really more so than usual, and yet there was an unusual feeling in the air. She was very uneasy, and wanted to be safely at home; to that end, she cut through an alley that would save her a block or two. But we often meet our destiny on the road we take to avoid it...
She pulled away from him, scared, maybe of him, maybe of the memories of that night. Had she thought she was over it? Well, the news van just pulled up and reported otherwise. He growled, irritated, and reached for her again. She ducked, crying.
"Please, please don't hurt me. I've, I've already been raped before..."
She trailed off, the absurdity of the argument hitting her.
You can't rape me, because no one gets raped more than once, that's a rule, right?
She shook her head, then lifted her chin, pointing at the mangled scar across her throat.
"I have a scarf collection to hide it most times, but I got this about a year ago. Souvenir from my last rapists. Good thing they did a lousy job, didn't kill me, just destroyed my voice box. Almost bled out, though. A nerd coming back from the bar found me, saved my life."
She jabbed another finger at it.
"Don't recommend that to anyone."
His eyes followed her finger movements, then returned to her face. He purred again, petting her head gently before leaning in to kiss her again. She blinked in disbelief. He was strangely reassuring, and she relaxed because of it.
He continued kissing her, lifting her chin, not for her mouth, but to kiss and lave the scar.
Compassion? What kind of monster is this guy?
She closed her eyes, enjoying the attention he was giving her. He looped an arm under her behind, effortlessly picking her up. His mouth found hers again, and somehow, they were on her bed, with him on top. He was a little rough with her, and demanding in his need, but he didn't hurt her, not even when he penetrated her.
A little slice of ecstasy later, she murmured, "That was wonderful, Diavolo," just before falling asleep in his arms.