Phobias

-Lady Luce-

A/N: (Old authors note from 2006/7 when this was first written). This fic is very AU and OOC. I blame it on two things, one; Cobalt Demoness who gave me the idea… and two, my own insatiable love of angst.

Athazagoraphobia: Fear of Forgetting

A devil may cry when he looses a loved one… Dante didn't really need her to tell him that, and then again was it really the devil crying? Or was it his human blood which made him weak, which he had oh so foolishly embraced and was now feeling the full effects of. Vergil had told him countless times, warned him, and maybe for one of the few times in his life he agreed with his twin. At least then he wouldn't have to feel his heart being torn in two.

Lady had only seen the tip of the ice-burg. He'd run from the place where his brother fell, maybe it was because he was tired from the long battle or because it had been Yamato's blade which parted his flesh, but his hand still stung. He could feel the viscid liquid running down his finger-tips. The tower was in craggy ruins when he landed, still standing, but broken like ice cracking under-foot on a frozen lake before it finally gave way. He'd fallen through half of it, a blur of grey stone and alien lights, and hit the floor hard enough to kill a mortal man. It might have given him a concussion, in the chaos around him he couldn't really tell, nor did he care.

Instinct had guided him along the spiralling corridors, the burning need to survive which he was beginning to wonder why he had when everything around him only fell into ruin like the crumbling tower. He didn't realize he was crying until the uneven floor finally sent him sprawling across the hard stone in front of him. At first he assumed that it was blood, but it was far too thin and a swipe across his eyes only confirmed the fact. The small moment of realization was all he needed and despair ate into his core until he couldn't find the strength to stand again. He had to leave, get away before he was buried in this hell-hole forever, but instead he clung onto the precious stone in his palm and slammed his fist against the ground until his knuckles bled. Everything was gone; he hadn't realized it until now, until Vergil took that one step backwards into oblivion rather than return to the human world with him. Then again his brother was always an arrogant bastard; he'd rather die than admit defeat.

He sniffed and laughed, a strange sound when there were still tears streaming down his face. He swiped at his eyes, blood smeared across his face and he didn't care; maybe it'd get that girl off his back, she seemed to have an aversion to it. That was unless she too was lost among the rubble now.

It took a great effort to find his feet again. He was thrown this way and that by the falling tower and in the end he wasn't at all sure how he made his way out, but that wasn't the important thing.

The tears had dried up by the time he met her, he'd scrubbed at his face until all evidence of them – and most of the blood – was gone. He didn't think that he had any more left to give, but it turned out that he was wrong. Maybe it was looking at the empty landscape which had once been a city, a now silent waste land, a grave-yard of scrap-metal. The broken, hollowed out, skeletons of cars and homes and people crushed to dust amidst it all. He'd never thought of himself to be poetic in nature, but an overly romantic part of him saw his own heart in the barren charcoal sky.

Not that he could take it all in really, eyes wide and staring because they weren't seeing what was before him. His brother's voice reverberated around his empty mind, boomed in the deepest part of his subconscious and the cut on his hand stung again.

"Are you crying?"

Tears in front of her, like he cared, like he should care, but he did as he lowered his gaze and turned his head muttering some lame excuse because damn it all if he was going to explain himself to her or if she thought she deserved an answer.

A couple of weeks and he still remembered that conversation; it was one of two he didn't think would leave him as long as he lived.

"Even a devil may cry when he looses a loved one?"

"Maybe."

Maybe but he already knew, because this wasn't the first time he'd lost someone he cared about. His father first, just disappeared in the dead of night never to return again. His mother had been vague on the subject and he'd become needy, clingy out of fear of loosing her as well, but she'd promised she'd never leave him. People shouldn't make promises they can't keep. Finally a brother he'd lost so many times he was still under the illusion that his twin would return. Until he remembered it all, reminded himself of the reality and let the cold steel bite into his palm again just to show himself that it wouldn't heal. Because every time the scar faded he cut it open.

The first time had been an accident; at least he'd kid himself it was, but the second and the third, purposefully, slowly, because he never wanted to forget, even if it meant the torment of reliving the same moment with perfect clarity. Everyone, everything had left him in a place he suddenly knew he didn't belong.

Everyone except her; and eventually he'd be thankful for that because someone actually did care enough to make sure his own morbid past-times didn't destroy him.

He'd never really contemplated the fact that he could be anything close to suicidal. His fighting style was reckless he knew, he slipped up once every now and again in favour of pulling off a new move, threw himself back into the fray when any mortal would have admitted defeat ten times over. That was just the thing though, he was inhuman and he took the advantages for granted, he'd never wondered about his ability to heal, to survive a fall which would have left a human a broken doll on asphalt; a pretty stain. He didn't know how it worked and he never really paid much attention to the fact that it did, but what if he didn't want it to heal? What if he actually wanted to see the scars to remind himself never to be so stupid again? Would they stay like a haunted memory or would he have to force the flesh apart just to feel something – even if it was only the warmth of blood running over his skin.

Was it indulgence, which in the end, forced him to the very brink of it all? Did he enjoy it or feel he deserved it? Emotions flew in maelstroms around his head until he couldn't pull them apart, like the intertwining juxtaposition of pleasure and pain. It was lost on him, but he did it anyway, because there was nothing beyond it because it was his lithium a brief cure to the invading cancer which haunted his nightmares.

Standing in the dim glow of a flickering bedroom lamp staring at his own gaunt reflection and the shimmer of a silver flame catching the blues of his irises. Contemplating things beyond his grasp until it all fell into the serenity of a simple flick across his palm, silver parted air with a sibilant hiss, met flesh and bone and tore through with the ease of skilled hands. Hands which were not created to inflict torture upon their own being and cried blood at the perversity of such implementation.

It was the first time he'd gone further than that hand, up his arm in a daze eyes fixed on the deadly silver. Part of himself was amazed he'd fallen so far, another had been expecting it. Ribbons of red sliced his forearm, drew blood across pale skin, burned for a moment and then healed so he had to go over it again, drive a little deeper into the flesh. Do it because it makes you feel, do it because it feels good, because you deserve it because you remember…

He found it hard to understand the real reason it had all bottled down to this. It had to come out somehow, and if you didn't let it out then the mask started to crack. Maybe he was paying for his silence this way, but he wouldn't change it. He preferred the silent atonement rather than trying to talk about it like she had tried to get him to do so many times.

Dante was sitting on the bed when she found him. Shirtless, he could get at the skin better that way. He sat perfectly still, catatonic, ribbons of red ran down his arms, his chest, like some macabre war paint. The bloodied blade was clutched in his hand; he was staring at himself in the mirror. She was silent at the door watching, waiting, because she was suddenly frozen.

He moved, raised his free hand, lifted the knife to his palm, slowly, hand slightly shaky. He must have been doing this for a while if he was actually shaking from the ill affects. Or maybe he had finally cracked and the tremors were simply those of a broken mind in conflict with itself. Dante pressed the knife to his palm drew the blade deep and across with a wince and a sigh.

Lady couldn't honestly comprehend what she was witnessing. This wasn't Dante, he wasn't like this, he wouldn't do this… She knew he was still hurt no matter how much he hid it, but she'd never thought that it would come to this. He couldn't truly be hurting himself, she'd shot him in the head after all and he'd lived, but it made her feel sick all the same. Bile built in the back of her throat as she took in the sheer amount of blood. It was everywhere, across the floor, the mirror, the bed, in his hair. She wanted to speak, to break the spell, the trance he seemed to be in, but she was caught in the tension, she couldn't believe she was seeing it.

The feeling shattered when he cried out. He raised the dagger and drove it into his abdomen, twisting it into the wound, choking on the pain. He slipped off the bed, dropped to his knees and Lady was moving before she knew what she was doing.

She was across from him, pushing him back by his shoulders. He hit the edge of the bed hard, sliding back confused and disorientated. His eyes widened as he realized there was someone else in the room, as he saw her, saw the anger and worry in her bi-coloured eyes. His hand still clutched the knife in his gut where blood burst like a star around the wound. She batted his hands away yanked the dagger free and he gasped fingers curling in order to stop himself from snatching her hands, body tense.

She threw the knife across the room, away from him, she didn't realize she was crying until she spoke and her voice cracked, hysterical even. "Is this what you want? You want to die? You just want to give it all up like that?"

The corner of his mouth twitched, he raised his head groggily to meet her eyes with his own inhuman ones. In the darkness they shone with a strange ethereal glow and a frightening finality. "I didn't know you cared."

It was a backhanded blow; she didn't know she cared either. Even crouched here on the floor in front of him, quite possibly saving his life she didn't know if she cared. There was something in her which hated seeing him like this, which felt anger and betrayal and nausea all at the same time. She didn't even know him too well, not enough to give a damn and here she was crying over something which didn't even concern her.

"I don't," she answered finally, harshly because it made her feel better. "And I'm glad I don't. I don't care what you do to yourself, but I care that there are people who need you."

Dante didn't seem to have anything to say to that. She wondered if he'd even considered how selfish his motives were. That he was quite possibly the only thing the human race has which was close to a saviour and he seemed so desperate to end it all. And to think if she hadn't of let curiosity get the better of her… she didn't know what she had been expecting to find up here, something she'd regret, but not this…

"Since when…" Dante's words were sparse as he breathed around the healing wound. "Did I give a shit about humanity?"

Her palm connected with his cheek, sent his head sliding to the side, but only because he hadn't expected the blow. Or maybe he had and just couldn't be bothered to prepare for it. Lady's face was flushed with anger and her eyes were burning as his head slowly turned back to her. "Well maybe you should think a little harder, there are people in the world who care about you."

"People like you, you mean?" Dante asked almost teasing. Or he would have been teasing if his voice wasn't so completely devoid of life and emotion.

Her eyes narrowed, her hands balled into fists. She didn't know if she cared or not, if she wanted to love him or hate him. Save him or let him carry on with his own self destruction.

"Maybe once," she replied callously, sniffing swiping at her eyes as she both nodded and shook her head at the same time. Maybe what she was saying to him was true, but she couldn't believe that she was admitting it now. "Before you lost yourself Dante, maybe…"

"You mean before you realized that I'm fucked up is that it?" Dante asked his tone biting – at least there was some emotion. "What, were you disappointed? Wanted your knight in shining armour and got me instead? Well I'm sorry I'm not a hero and I never pretended to be one."

Lady watched him with pursed lips, felt a tear trace the curve of her face, shook her head slightly. "You're pathetic," she spat pulling herself upright, marching across the room and collecting the knife. She returned her strides heavy on the floor, dropped the blade into his lap. "I thought you were stronger than this, but obviously I was wrong. Go ahead, do as you please, I don't care anymore."

She said it all with emotions in check, heart racing and still she couldn't help herself from stopping at the door speaking the words that could save him or destroy him.

"All this does," she started softly, she didn't know if she wanted him to hear her, "all you're doing now is admitting defeat. Your mother died to save you, your father left to save you. We have lost so much and if you want to let all that go then that's fine take the coward's way out." As she spoke her voice rose with renewed vigour, she didn't care what happened to him, but she cared that he knew how wrong he was. "If you do this, you forget them you forget their sacrifices and you are leaving them not the other way around."

With that she left the room, left him there with the blade lying in his blood soaked lap. His eyes hadn't moved from it since it hit his pale flesh, astonishment clear on his features. Lady half wanted him to get up, say something, do anything. Instead he stayed stock still, taking in the blood, the knife, her words and she left the room with a heavy heart. She wasn't strong enough to save him if he had given up all hope of trying. If by the morning his heart had stopped beating she would have to live knowing that she had handed him his absolution.

A/N: I wrote this SO long ago and I finished it off just now. It's my new ambition to finish off all my old stuff and post it up here because I feel like I have some unfinished business - and I miss this fandom and my fic writing days so terribly!

Thank you for the reviews they do still, after all this time, mean a lot to me!

-Luce