Disclaimer: I don't own Devil May Cry or Paranormal Activity. Rated M for language, violence, blasphemy, sexuality, and weird/disturbing content.
A/N: Sorry for the wait. It's well-established that I fail at updating regularly, mostly because I'm always at work, but also (specifically for this fic) because I'm a big chicken, and I don't want to think about horror films before bed. Anyway, thank you to everyone (XoStrawberrykissXo, MarinaEverlasting, Blood of Dusk, Varanus, KuteInsanity, RimZtheNonForgiveR, Emily, Da'Burgh73, BattleGoddess126, Xain Vandel, UnknownAlien, Ivory Tears, ClouDy SkieZ1, ALittleBitOfHocusPocus, zenbon zakura) who took the time to review; I really appreciate it. Oh, and please note that you don't have to have seen Paranormal Activity to understand this story. I've only seen the first one, so no worries about any sort of complex plot interaction there, haha. :D
Hmm… I'm choosing to write this as a kind of established pairing (yeah, again) although unlike AutoEroticism, I want Dante and Lady to be still at the stage where they're not really comfortable around each other. This should go a bit faster now 'cause I have my plot more figured out. And it's going to slide back and forth from each perspective, 'cause I fail. Proper characterization is a bitch. Lyrics are from Wild Strawberries' Careful.
Hail Mary
She don't really love you
She don't understand
What she's got between the precious creases of her hands
The touch was feather-light, as though a gossamer thread of spider's silk had drifted across the room and brushed against her bare skin. The huntress dozed on, caught between sleep and wakefulness, dragged under by sheer physical and mental exhaustion. Lady fought it; she had plans for this evening, contacts to meet and information to research. But she'd been on her feet all day, chasing a skeletal creature through what must have been every dark alley in the entire goddamn city, and it had been easy to sit on her sofa afterwards, relaxed from her shower and wrapped in a towel.
She hadn't been sleeping well lately, but then she'd only had this apartment for a few weeks now, and unlike Dante, she needed time to adjust to new places. The building had its quirks; sometimes doors stuck in their frames and refused to open, other times they insisted on opening when there was no breeze or draft to push them. She'd had no further episodes with her shower stall, although her landlord swore on his life that he'd checked the pipes and found nothing amiss.
Lady sighed and stretched languidly, unable to open her eyes or focus her thoughts. She wasn't afraid of an old building's strangeness, and even if it did have a malevolent ghost or two, which she doubted, it wasn't anything she couldn't handle. She drifted further towards sleep, her mind's half-hearted protests unable to coalesce into coherent thought. The room grew slightly colder, and the lithe woman shuffled down deeper into the couch cushions, her exposed flesh chilled by the draft.
The second touch was as soft as the first, barely registering in Lady's subconscious. Smoother than a breath of air, gentler than an exhalation; it was more the idea of a caress than a caress itself. The slightest, almost imperceptible change in pressure and temperature against the huntress' pale skin produced a shiver, and Lady murmured drowsily, almost completely enveloped in slumber. What might have been fingertips skimmed over her leg, stroking the side of her knee, sliding up her exposed thigh to trace her scars.
The woman's eyes fluttered, sightless, as weariness defeated her. She slid into a hazy, dusky dream, her head lolling limply against the arm of the couch. The touches began again, starting at her ankles and slowly stroking up her calves, insinuating themselves into her dreamscape as gently as a lover. A tongue brushed behind the crook of her knee, and in her dream Lady gave a pleased gasp. It moved further up her legs, slick searing heat caressing her skin and flooding her senses.
Aroused, the huntress stirred in her sleep, lost in the reverie. She felt a warm breath exhaled slowly against her flesh, ghosting over her inner thighs. A sigh escaped her lips as she felt the flick of a tongue against her clit, the noise turning into a groan as the wet muscle thrust into her. It was followed by the press of teeth, and Lady hummed contentedly before the thought registered in her dreaming mind. Sharp. Like needles. The teeth are sharp. Wha-?
Her body jerked as she forced herself to wakefulness, the faint blush of arousal colouring her scarred skin. Lady sat up blearily, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, suddenly cold. What the fuck was that about? She reached to turn on the lamp on the end-table, swinging her legs over the edge of the sofa, and startling as the soft glow illuminated the room. Angry red scratches marred her skin from hip to ankle. Her towel lay crumpled on the floor six feet away.
"So you think there's something here with you?"
Dante sat in her cramped kitchen, perched on a barstool and looking utterly massive in the small space. He rested his elbows on the countertop, hunched under the low-hanging lights. His scarlet trench-coat pooled around him, maybe a bit too warm for the weather yet, but still useful for concealing illegally-modified firearms. The slayer yawned and stretched, appraising her with frosty eyes, probably half-miffed about being woken from his nap by her phone-call.
Lady turned to rummage through her fridge in search of alcohol. She didn't look at the man, choosing her words carefully. "I'm not sure. There've been incidents, but, it's like…" she stopped. "I can explain them away, if I try. Technically, nothing's happened that couldn't be explained rationally. It's an old building, and I have nightmares sometimes, and maybe I scratched myself somehow." The huntress paused to examine her nails, cut nearly to the quick. "I'm probably just spooking myself," she admitted, straightening up in time to catch Dante staring at her ass.
Warning him off with a dark look, she held up her findings. "Carlsberg or Bud? That's all I have for beer. Might be a bottle of Riesling around, I can't remember if I drank it."
"I hate wine," Dante muttered, taking the proffered beer. Lady kicked the fridge shut, sending a flurry of paper take-out menus and gym hours to the floor. She left them where they fell and took the stool beside Dante, resting her bare feet against the rungs of his seat. He flicked a sidelong glance towards her, as though he was surprised she'd gotten so close to him.
Ten months ago, when they'd first crossed paths, she never could've imagined how they'd end up. They were probably an odd partnership, polar opposites in some ways, but perfectly compatible, she figured, in others. And she wasn't afraid of him, not one bit, despite the fact that he always seemed to expect her to be. Lady wasn't made of glass, but she was unsure how many more black eyes Dante would need before he was convinced of that fact as well.
"It's probably nothing," the slayer mused, bringing the young woman's thoughts back to the situation at hand. "Demons don't play around, for the most part. They're blunt. To the point. If it can't run you down and tear you to bits, it's probably not interested. A demon's too impatient to, I dunno, fiddle with your shower taps. If it were that close, it would've just attacked you."
"That's what I figured. And I don't think I'm haunted, so don't give me that look," Lady punctuated her statement with a kick at Dante's shin, and the man tried to stop smirking at her. She took a sip of her beer, her mismatched eyes meeting Dante's playful ones. Great. Now he looks mischievous. I'm going to have to kick his ass to get him to leave. "I'm probably just over-tired. I chased that skeleton-thing all over hell and creation. It was a bitch to kill once I cornered it, too."
"So what happened tonight?" Dante asked softly, one hand dropping down to rest on Lady's knee, calloused fingers drifting over her bare skin. When the huntress didn't immediately swat him, he left it there.
Lady took a gulp of beer before answering. "I got home, took a shower-"
"By yourself, no demons?"
"Shut-up, asshole." Another kick. "I was tired, so afterwards I sat down on the sofa for a minute. Maybe stretched out for a nap. You know how it is when you're not really awake or asleep? Well, I kind of thought something was touching me, but I couldn't wake up enough to do anything about it. And then I think I was dreaming for a while, I don't know. But when I woke up my towel was halfway across the room and there were scratches all over my legs."
"Weird," Dante mumbled, his pale eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Lady's skin. "They're gone now, though." His thumb traced over the scar on her thigh, brushing against the hem of her skirt, and the young woman forcedly stifled a gasp. She twisted away abruptly and stood, setting her drink aside.
"They were there when I woke up, and they didn't look like the type of scratch that just fades in an hour, Dante." Lady began picking the scraps of paper off the floor, reorganizing them based on which martial art the dojos and gyms advertised, and whether the take-outs delivered for free. She didn't look at the half-devil, and Dante took the hint.
"I'll look around before I go, okay?" The slayer finished his beer and stood, careful not to damage anything in Lady's tiny kitchen. While the décor was a strange mixture of red teacups and bullet-casings, he had a pretty good idea that she'd be pissed if he broke so much as a light-bulb. A small statue of the Hindu goddess Kali, Destroyer of Demons, leered from its place beside a coffeepot. An old Colt .38 Special hung on the wall behind it. Dante nodded his approval and turned to face Lady.
"Yeah, if you would, just…" Lady shrugged, looking half-embarrassed. She led him through the modest apartment, moving with a dancer's grace. Dante sauntered after her, shuffling sideways to keep his shoulders from bumping the walls in the narrow hallway. He inhaled deeply, catching a whiff of incense and gun oil and some decidedly female shampoo, but little else.
"There's nothing here, babe. Not a trace of demons 'cept for all that blood on your clothes and maybe a touch of something in those old books over there. But nothing that could do anything to you."
Lady nodded at that, looking as though her thoughts were far away. She stood barefoot in her bedroom, studying a crimson stain on a piece of body armour, seemingly oblivious to everything around her. Dante cleared his throat, and saw her startle for an instant before she repressed it.
"You're probably just tired," he suggested, almost feeling awkward. He sat down on her bed to provoke her, but the huntress just rolled her eyes and tossed the piece of Kevlar at him.
"I'm over-worked," Lady declared, stalking back towards him, her usual attitude reappearing. Dante was almost relieved to see it, for a moment. The slender woman glared at him, folding her arms over her breasts. "If you'd get up off your ass and help out more, I wouldn't be in this predicament."
"If you stopped doing extra jobs for free, you'd be better off. You'd be surprised what people can put up with if they know they'll have to pay to get rid of it." Dante stretched out, flopping back onto Lady's sheets and hearing the box-spring creak under his weight.
"I'll get them all, eventually," Lady stated matter-of-factly, only a hint of venom in her voice. She was staring at a Zenpainting, but Dante doubted it was soothing her.
"There'll always be more demons," Dante yawned, closing his eyes. "Devils too. But there's nothing here as far as I can tell."
"Yeah, you're such a great help. Get the fuck off my bed," Lady snarled dryly. When Dante opened one eye in response, she flashed him a grin so quickly he might've imagined it.
"Fine." The slayer rolled to his feet. "Ingrate."
Lady trailed him back to the kitchen, and he weighed his chances of getting gutted with a kitchen knife if he kissed her goodbye. Dante decided against it; she could be pissed off for months if he overstepped his boundaries, and he didn't know where he stood with her half the time anyway. Any display of protectiveness on his part made her furious, and given that knowledge, he couldn't figure out why she'd called him at all.
He stopped halfway out the door, turning to look at the huntress. She appeared, as always, tiny and fragile and utterly defenseless, and he knew, unequivocally, that she'd beat him bloody if he ever told her that.
"'Night, Lady. Call if you need anything." It was all he could say, really.
She nodded once, curtly, and then he closed the door and was gone. Despite the warm glow cast by her ragtag collection of lamps, the apartment turned gloomy the moment the slayer stepped out of it. The shadows cast around the small assemblage of rooms seemed strangely oppressive, and the temperature suddenly felt ten degrees colder. Lady shivered involuntarily and went to check the thermostat.
"Just a fuckin' baby. I need a drink."
I'm going to get this worked out, I swear. I just gotta get in my groove, and then I might actually have half-decent, consistent characterization. Maybe. And if you can forgive me for taking so long to do anything with this, please review and tell me. Or if you can't, flame me instead. I'll be over here, being lame and drunk. :P
