Fun Banter alert! Fun Banter Alert! :D Enjoy!

Lor

I can't believe I volunteered for this shit. The cigarette pack in my back pock were a comfort, but not by much. I had an entire carton of them back in my little containment-unit-room-thingy. Somehow I had convinced Hunnigan and her crew of scientists to hold off for a day. I needed the time to re-coop. I sighed as the metal containment door slide shut behind me. It was a thick bastard, blast proof and radiation shielding. Was this really worth as many cigarettes as I wanted tax-free? … … … … …. … …. ….maybe…. …. …. … ….but even that might be a stretch.

The room was cold concrete, every inch of it. According to Hunnigan it was three feet thick with an added layer of lead metal sheeted behind it for extra oomph. They kept Vergil on a slab of padded concrete at the center of the room. His wrists were pinned in place by hard, metallic manacles. They looked as if they'd been bolted into the concrete. They were probably made out of the same metal my handcuffs had been made out of. I wondered how the hell they expect him to leave this place when they bolted him to the furniture…unless they were never intending to let him go… Bright spotlights centered on Vergil and his shirtless nature. Why the hell did they take away his shirt and boots but leave the pants? Why the hell was I the one to wind up in a nursing gown? In the icebox of a room, the lights were the only weak source of heat. The tip of my nose was already chilled after several minutes. Slowly I approached the concrete slab.

Vergil was laid out Jesus style. He looked pale as death and just as healthy. Slowly I made my way to his side. A couple of IV drips and heart monitor were attached to him. The IV drips, however, had that red crap, Quietus. So did the other tubes attached to him. Where the hell are they getting this shit? How much of it do they have already stock piled? It was disconcerting to see that the stuff was actually working on Vergil.

"I'm decreasing his dosage now," Hunnigan's voice rang out through the intercom system. She was waiting in the observation bay with Leon. The small tinted windows near the ceiling of the room didn't do much to comfort me. I flipped them a thumbs up over my shoulder and waited. One minute flowed into the next. The bleeping sounds of the heart monitor didn't waver in their consistency.

"He should be surfacing in the next few moments," Hunnigan commented. Several more moments went by and Vergil didn't move. Impatiently, I reached over and yanked on the IV tubes none too gently, removing them from his arms and legs. The heart monitor was the next in line. I let the slew of them drop to the ground, before taking a step back from the metal slab. It would stand to reason that the closer Vergil was to waking, the closer I was to dying…or feeling excruciating pain. I sighed. The bastard still wasn't moving and I couldn't feel my toes.

I took a deep breath and inched my way closer. Clearing my throat, I gently punched
Vergil on the shoulder.

Something hard punched a hole through my guts. Grunting, I managed to stay on my feet, though I was offering a kow-tow to Vergil's concrete slab. The first thing I registered was a nice small creator in Vergil's concrete slab. Goddamn boy. Vergil had actually torn his metal manacle out of the cement. It had been attached the concrete by half a foot of bolt. Vergil, the fuck, not only ripped that free from the bed but he was stabbing me with it. I took a shallow breath, feeling pain as I filled my lungs.

"You are such," I grunted, "An incredible asshole." My nails dug into his bare shoulder as I tried to keep my balance. I felt metallic copper in the back of my throat. Oh goodie. I'm bleeding again. Even if I had been expecting it, this was not a pleasant feeling. Unlit cigarettes are not worth this…

"Lauren," Vergil said softly, his voice in my ear. I could feel the warmth of his skin, even in this freezer box. He took in the drab cold room, his gaze dancing from me back to the room several times.

"You must like it when I'm on my knees," I asked him, wincing. My legs started giving out. With my free hand I gripped the wrist of the hand he jammed into my insides. "Goddamn, that's twice now." Blinking Vergil studied me for a moment, as if he needed a minute to process the insane speed at which he just annihilated my insides. As usual he was quick with his rebuttal though.

"You're on them so often, " his voice petulant. "Although I'd have to admit that there's a particular sense of satisfaction when you're on them for me." Motherfucker. I growled, my face inches from his. Vergil took in the room and his own shirtless situation. "Where is this?" He demanded, keeping the manacle's bolt end as still as possible.

"We were drugged," I retorted, my knees giving out, "remember?" I leaned on him then, gurgling blood. Gritting his jaw, Vergil briefly closed his eyes as if summoning the memory. I noticed then that the idiots hadn't even bothered with his feet, not that it would have mattered. "They wanted to talk to you. I told them you'd kill them." I grunt, feeling a sticky disturbing wad bundle itself in my stomach. "Now you're killing me."

"Someday I'll end you violently Lauren," Vergil said coolly opening his eyes.

"But not today," I report, wincing. "I'm a cute chew toy." Wordlessly, with a twist of his wrist, the pain was gone. Like cutting butter with a heated knife, that's how smooth it felt. I breathed a small breath of relief. The pain was gone, but the damage wasn't. Not yet anyways and if he removed the metal spike, I would bleed out. However, he needed me at the moment and we both knew it.

"Who are they?" He demanded, flexing his other still shackled hand. In a moment that shackle was a bent piece of shrapnel. Sitting up fully, he swung his legs over the edge of his concrete bed. Carefully, Vergil pulled me into a sitting position onto the concrete slab, keeping the metal bolt safely tucked away in the wound. His insurance policy if I wanted to be annoying. The wound itself began to slowly heal.

"I vaguely remember asking you to piss off and walk in the other direction," I said. "But of course, what's common sense coming from me?" My balance was off and my feet dangled, inches from the ground. I leaned against Vergil's shoulder trying to recover my senses and take what heat I could from him.

"Since when do I take advice from you?" Vergil retorted. I chewed on that for a moment and then decided I had no fucking clue what the hell the nut was talking about. How was that advice? That was me asking-begging if you want to be technical about it. Who said anything about advice?

"I don't get you," I grunted. "And they happens to be the human race, generally speaking."

"Are you wasting my time for your own personal satisfaction?" Vergil asked, his voice laced with disgust. Skeptics galore here.

"Can we pretend that I'm bleeding to death?" I snapped. Blood was gushing over my knees now and falling onto the floor. Even with out the pain, I didn't feel so well. Vergil placed his other free hand over the wound on my back, stemming the flow. Gee thanks for going the extra mile there Mr. Personality.

"Why am I here Lauren?"

"For the science fair," I said rolling my eyes.

"You're not answering my question."

"You stabbed me."

"You'll live." He had the nerve to look disgusted with me.

"I'm bleeding to death."

"It's a flesh wound." Vergil sighed, a hint of wariness in his voice. "Please don't tell me we have to do this again."

"Dammit, the hell we don't. You punctured my flesh and made a wound."

"You caused your own misery."

"The hell I did! If your sorry ass could keep your pet demons in hell, you wouldn't be here," I snapped, half-turning to face him. "I mean seriously, what the fuck, Vergil? How does someone like you screw up ruling hell?" Vergil cut me off with the slightest twitch of his arm. Pain radiated through my core. I grunted.

"I shouldn't be the one to remind you that a lady should demonstrate a demure sense of grace," Vergil said smoothly. "Take responsibility for your actions."

"According to you I'm not even subhuman," I snarked. "Don't tell me to act like one of your garter wearing, succubus whores. You know you're fucking lucky to be awake at all Vergil." I paused, gagging for a moment as Vergil twitched the bolt again, as a silent warning. "They saw what we did to your pet. You made someone very nervous with what you did."

" 'Someone?' " Vergil repeated. " 'They?' It may be difficult, but try to use adult words and labels." You want a label eh?

"I dunno, as far as labels go, half-human dick-"

"Quite wasting my time," Vergil growled, jerking the bolt to the side. My ruptured spleen pissed itself at that. Still I had to chuckle, after gagging up some flem and blood.

"Then quite wasting mine," I forced a smirk at Vergil. "I don't leave this room alive, neither will you."

"You think mere humans could keep me here?"

"They seem to be doing a good job of it as of late," I commented dryly, opting to stomp on his pride for a second time. Vergil raised an eyebrow. He was bearing the insults better than I had hoped he would.

"And what are their terms?"

"There's an infection. Its spreading across the whole damn world. They think we're special or a part of it because of what we can do."

"Ha," Vergil barked out a dry laugh, "Those fools haven't seen anything."

"That's what I told them," I replied, sighing.

"And why does this concern me?" I snorted.

"You mean to say, 'why shouldn't I kill them,' right?"

"I never said that," Vergil said ruefully, the smallest traces of a cold smirk at the corner of his mouth. I shot him a dirty look.

"You didn't have to. Out of curiosity, how long as the infection been raping your paradise Vergil?" I asked. He narrowed his eyes at me, losing his smirk. "How long have there been infected demons in hell?"

"Get to the point." The bolt in my stomach moves again, scrapping against tender new healed growth. I tried to remember to breath.

"A while then eh?" I chuckled. Vergil made my insides scream with another finely placed twitch of his arm. "A cure," I gagged out. "The prize is a cure. You help them without annihilating them, and they'll hand over a cure. Milk the agreement for what its worth and even your fucked up mind will find some advantages to being an ambassador from hell. Taking over earth, isn't that what your black little soul has always dreamed of?"

"Don't presume-"

"Feed that bullshit to someone who believes you," I cut him off. "Now get this fucking bolt out of my gut and patch me up." Vergil chuckled.

"As you wish little Lauren." The bolt slid out far too easily for my tastes. I could barely support myself at that point. Groaning, I leaned forward, willing my stomach to heal. Vergil slid off the concrete block, de-shackling himself in the process. He turned to me, studying me with sharp eyes. "You're a fool to think I would help humans so willingly."

"You'd be a bigger fool not to see what it is they're offering," I commented, sucking in the first deep breath of that conversation. "That shit knocked you on your ass didn't it?" At that Vergil chuckled.

"You'd better hope I come to find these humans useful," he held out a hand to me. I took it, sliding off the concrete slab and landing on uncertain feet. Vergil turned away, taking in the high observation windows. His voice was a low growl when he spoke next, reminding me of the very serious undercurrent of our banter. "You'll be the last to die if they disappoint me."

"Third time the charm, Lancelot," I growled back. Though at this rate, I'll still come back from the dead as a zombie.