Anne's eyes peeled open, reluctantly. She didn't know how long it had been. She badly needed to relieve herself again. She thus endeavored on an epic quest to accomplish this. After wincing some she ended up crawling her way there as verticality was a bit much for her still.
Damned...eternity...of...twelve...feet...
She got there, did her business, and for variety, crawled back. Hit a desk, tried for vertical for a moment, pulled open a drawer... My, whosever's place this was had a thing for letter openers. And rubber bands. And twisting around paper clips. And hmm... Anne supported herself on one arm on the desktop, looking inside, shuffling at the photograph.
It was an old one. Or had seen some experiences....she felt a cold shock as she saw the two people in it. One of them, the woman in red...looked a great deal like Trish. Not completely...the lines of her face was softer in places where Trish's were sharper and narrower, but the similarity was still beyond denial.
Anne looked at the other person in the picture. The man...the silver-haired gentleman with the archaic clothing and the monocle, and the attitude of quiet dignity. She was staring out at the picture-taker serenely, lovely face gilded in the sunlight, but his eyes were on her, as though she were his entire world, and it was a wonderful one...
Anne's eyes burned, looking. Something swam under the ragged patchwork of memories that made up her self, threatened to breach the surface...something painful. She shoved it down, the picture trembling in her hand, and not just from weakness.
Then startled, as footsteps made their way up the stairs. They were too heavy to be Trish's. A little cold stab of fear hit her at the image of being caught by the place's resident in flagrante looking at personal items, and she shoved the photo quietly back into the drawer, then flopped down on the floor again, hissing in pain as still unhealed wounds were jogged. She'd gotten a mind-boggling foot and a half back to the couch when the door opened, giving her a panoramic view of two shiny black leather boots and some red leather above their tops.
"What the heck are you doing on the floor?" a vaguely familiar voice asked dryly.
Anne tried to get her field of view up some, as she was lying flat on the floor. "I so admired the pattern of your carpeting I had to look at it up close. Plus me bladder was complaining about accomodations so had to fix that. You haven't vacuumed recently, have you?"
"....No." Pause. "What does *that* have to do with anything?"
"It smells dusty."
There was a slight snort and she squeaked as she was unceremoniously but gently picked up, hustled over, and placed back on the couch. She got a vague olfactory impression of a slight undertone of cigarettes to the leather and a visual one of a black-strapped red vest. "You...are weird." The attached face hove into view above her, wearing an expression of bemused testiness on its narrow, angelic features to go with the voice. She realized absently she'd seen the face before and recently. Even more recently than when she'd actually seen the face's owner in person.
"I believe I worked on it....er?" One brass-knuckled glove was grasping one of her wrists, firmly, turning the underside up. His eyes were narrowed underneath that eerily reminiscent silver-white hair.
"So..." he remarked evenly. "When did ya try to kill yourself?"
Anne stared at the healed, livid scars.
"I....don't know."
He stared at her, pale eyes boring mercilessly into hers. "You'd think you'd remember trying to attempt suicide. If you can remember where to get gyros on campus, you think you'd flocking well know how and why you tried to off yourself."
"I don't *know*." Anne started to tremble, seeing the blatant physical evidence, and finding nothing to correspond inside.
His grip tightened on her wrist, almost painfully. "*Tell*me."
"I don't *KNOW*!" she half-screamed at him, shaking. "I don't know a *damned* thing! I don't know where or when I was born exactly I don't know where I went to school, I don't....I don't know way too much! I didn't even fucking know I *tried* to kill myself until that!" She wrenched her wrist out of his hand by raw leverage, hiding her face in her hands, the words spilling out of her in a sudden tide of black pain. "Damn it, quit it. Go away. Give me enough damned time to heal and I'll be out of your damn life." She went and shook for a while, hoping that if she ignored him enough he'd disappear.
There was a very lengthy silence.
He said quietly, "You can't until you find out the rest of your memories."
"What the hell do *you* care?" she spat back, voice strangled.
She felt a sudden weight thump onto the couch, just past her feet. She got a glimpse of red leather through her trembling fingers, and somehow just *knew* that he was looking at her. Pity? Contempt? Condemnation? God knew what.
"Dante Sparda," he said after a couple of silent minutes.
She was taken aback, one wild teared eye peeking through her fingers. "...what?"
His face was quiet. "'S my name. I don't go flinging it out to anybody. If you want to know why I care, if you *have* to know why I care, what happened to you isn't natural, and I get a bee in my bonnet about that kind of thing. Call it understanding from personal experience. So, sorry, Annie, you're not getting rid of either Trish or I until we figure out what's going on."
"Oh."
"So quit moving, because you're not healing any faster wandering around. Or shaking us. Want some pizza?"
Anne wandered around mentally for a minute or so, completely at a loss after that non sequitur, impulses and subconscious memories at war. Her stomach let her know it wasn't injured by growling. "Uh. ...yeah." She paused. "Where am I?"
The weight relieved itself from the couch. She peeked through fingers, cautiously lowering them when she saw an image of red leather coat and pale hair disappearing through another doorway.
Dante called back, "Washington, District of Columbia, one of the really ripe sections of town. Another reason you don't want to go out of doors alone. But hell, the rent's cheap for DC. Want more specifics, above my business. I do some PI work." There were some scuffling around noises.
"Should I be eating this in my ah, condition?" Anne paused after her question. "And will I need to pay you?"
Dante wandered out again, hauling a two-liter of Coke, a box of obviously cold leftover pizza, and a pitcher of water. "Nah. Consider it free. All of it. And I have faith in my, er, ability to gauge your being healed."
"Where's Trish?" A bit nervous again, eyes flickering about.
Dante lookd at her strangely and made a face after a second. "Sheesh. Do you think *everything* comes with strings attached?"
"Wha?"
"Makin' observation. Yes, beautiful, you're easy on the eyes, but I'd like to think I have enough control over myself that my partner doesn't need to be around all the time to protect your virtue." Anne flushed, mortified. "Besides, finding out what's the deal here is going to be its own reward, if you think I'm gonna really need one." Dante offered her a plate with some cold pizza with one gloved hand. "Want some parmesan with that? I'd have heated it except the nuke is broke."
Dante contemplated the smeary light through the window reflecting off the cymbals of his office drum set a few days later. The tableau was framed through the crossed toes of his boots as they were propped on his desk. Under the dull rumble of Alice In Chains being played at volumes fit to wake the Underworld, he heard the muted whirr of Trish's USB printer coughing up random sheets of information for the office vertical files. Trish herself was glowering at a pad of Post-It Notes, chin propped in one hand, the other idly doodling on the pad with a pencil.
"So, Trish."
"Myah?"
"How's Annie doing?"
"Much better. She's going under her own power now, though she still seems to tire easily. Not too badly, considering. She's healing well enough."
"Think things there are a little screwy?"
Trish snorted a hollow laugh. "Is the sun warm? Are bears Catholic? Does the pope--"
"Me and my questions. No, really."
"Yes. "
"S'not just me then. Something did a number on her. Not just the memories, either. Pardon my French, but she seemed to be a case even *before* that."
Trish looked up, frowning. "Really? She seems like a nice enough girl, aside from the memory loss and being kind of uh...eccentric."
"Trish, she tried to kill herself at some point in the past. See the scars? Nemmind she doesn't remember it. And she's twitchy around me, acts like I'm going to hurt her, and acts like there ain't no free lunch."
Trish....frowned further. "That's......weird. We're seeing different things?"
"Maybe." Dante pondered further. "S'ironic. You're the one that was created the full demon and you've seen less of how people really are. Whereas I'm the cynical bastard."
"No saying I'm a full demon now." She frowned even more, layering it on top of her previous frowns.
"Point being, she looks a lot to me like someone that's been abused in the past. Not a bad person, but..." He trailed off. "I don't know if that's a factor or not." He went and flipped a pencil off his chair armrest, letting it bounce off the wall eraser-first. "Man, I've gotten to be a mouthy bastard recently."
Trish collated things and flung the bound pile at his desk, landing it three points even and knocking a beer bottle off Dante's desk. "I don't know, you're still the same lovely, charming, pissanty SOB I've known *this* whiile. It's so cute."
"Bite me."
"Mundus will take up the macarena first."
There was a pause of nearly a full, fascinated minute.
"...I'm not going there, Trish."
"I'm so sorry, Dante."
"You *better* be." Dante shuddered.
"You started it."
"Did not."
"Did to...what were we on?"
"Maybe she thinks she's safer around you because you're female too. Whichever guy did that to her needs some hurting."
Trish made a small wry heh noise. "I suppose we don't mention the Sword and Motorcycle Incident to her so she keeps her illusion?" Dante's mouth widened into a smirk. Trish stuck a tongue out at the smirk.
"Duh." Dante then leaned back further, shifting his attention to the ceiling, eyes distant.
*Genetics are destiny, my ass,* he muttered to himself. *If dad bought into that, I wouldn't be here. Plus all I have to do anymore is take the Blue or Yellow Metro lines out to get an eyeful of the big hole in the Pentagon that proves pure humans can be as bad or worse than demons, never mind the day to day crap I deal with. Evil's evil.
*S'worse, just for being so banal. Banal like slitting your wrists or beating up on someone because you can and they can't fight back. The other evil I can beat hell out of easy. The stuff going on here....I can't. Yet. * He closed his eyes.
*Damn, where did things get so complicated?*
Damned...eternity...of...twelve...feet...
She got there, did her business, and for variety, crawled back. Hit a desk, tried for vertical for a moment, pulled open a drawer... My, whosever's place this was had a thing for letter openers. And rubber bands. And twisting around paper clips. And hmm... Anne supported herself on one arm on the desktop, looking inside, shuffling at the photograph.
It was an old one. Or had seen some experiences....she felt a cold shock as she saw the two people in it. One of them, the woman in red...looked a great deal like Trish. Not completely...the lines of her face was softer in places where Trish's were sharper and narrower, but the similarity was still beyond denial.
Anne looked at the other person in the picture. The man...the silver-haired gentleman with the archaic clothing and the monocle, and the attitude of quiet dignity. She was staring out at the picture-taker serenely, lovely face gilded in the sunlight, but his eyes were on her, as though she were his entire world, and it was a wonderful one...
Anne's eyes burned, looking. Something swam under the ragged patchwork of memories that made up her self, threatened to breach the surface...something painful. She shoved it down, the picture trembling in her hand, and not just from weakness.
Then startled, as footsteps made their way up the stairs. They were too heavy to be Trish's. A little cold stab of fear hit her at the image of being caught by the place's resident in flagrante looking at personal items, and she shoved the photo quietly back into the drawer, then flopped down on the floor again, hissing in pain as still unhealed wounds were jogged. She'd gotten a mind-boggling foot and a half back to the couch when the door opened, giving her a panoramic view of two shiny black leather boots and some red leather above their tops.
"What the heck are you doing on the floor?" a vaguely familiar voice asked dryly.
Anne tried to get her field of view up some, as she was lying flat on the floor. "I so admired the pattern of your carpeting I had to look at it up close. Plus me bladder was complaining about accomodations so had to fix that. You haven't vacuumed recently, have you?"
"....No." Pause. "What does *that* have to do with anything?"
"It smells dusty."
There was a slight snort and she squeaked as she was unceremoniously but gently picked up, hustled over, and placed back on the couch. She got a vague olfactory impression of a slight undertone of cigarettes to the leather and a visual one of a black-strapped red vest. "You...are weird." The attached face hove into view above her, wearing an expression of bemused testiness on its narrow, angelic features to go with the voice. She realized absently she'd seen the face before and recently. Even more recently than when she'd actually seen the face's owner in person.
"I believe I worked on it....er?" One brass-knuckled glove was grasping one of her wrists, firmly, turning the underside up. His eyes were narrowed underneath that eerily reminiscent silver-white hair.
"So..." he remarked evenly. "When did ya try to kill yourself?"
Anne stared at the healed, livid scars.
"I....don't know."
He stared at her, pale eyes boring mercilessly into hers. "You'd think you'd remember trying to attempt suicide. If you can remember where to get gyros on campus, you think you'd flocking well know how and why you tried to off yourself."
"I don't *know*." Anne started to tremble, seeing the blatant physical evidence, and finding nothing to correspond inside.
His grip tightened on her wrist, almost painfully. "*Tell*me."
"I don't *KNOW*!" she half-screamed at him, shaking. "I don't know a *damned* thing! I don't know where or when I was born exactly I don't know where I went to school, I don't....I don't know way too much! I didn't even fucking know I *tried* to kill myself until that!" She wrenched her wrist out of his hand by raw leverage, hiding her face in her hands, the words spilling out of her in a sudden tide of black pain. "Damn it, quit it. Go away. Give me enough damned time to heal and I'll be out of your damn life." She went and shook for a while, hoping that if she ignored him enough he'd disappear.
There was a very lengthy silence.
He said quietly, "You can't until you find out the rest of your memories."
"What the hell do *you* care?" she spat back, voice strangled.
She felt a sudden weight thump onto the couch, just past her feet. She got a glimpse of red leather through her trembling fingers, and somehow just *knew* that he was looking at her. Pity? Contempt? Condemnation? God knew what.
"Dante Sparda," he said after a couple of silent minutes.
She was taken aback, one wild teared eye peeking through her fingers. "...what?"
His face was quiet. "'S my name. I don't go flinging it out to anybody. If you want to know why I care, if you *have* to know why I care, what happened to you isn't natural, and I get a bee in my bonnet about that kind of thing. Call it understanding from personal experience. So, sorry, Annie, you're not getting rid of either Trish or I until we figure out what's going on."
"Oh."
"So quit moving, because you're not healing any faster wandering around. Or shaking us. Want some pizza?"
Anne wandered around mentally for a minute or so, completely at a loss after that non sequitur, impulses and subconscious memories at war. Her stomach let her know it wasn't injured by growling. "Uh. ...yeah." She paused. "Where am I?"
The weight relieved itself from the couch. She peeked through fingers, cautiously lowering them when she saw an image of red leather coat and pale hair disappearing through another doorway.
Dante called back, "Washington, District of Columbia, one of the really ripe sections of town. Another reason you don't want to go out of doors alone. But hell, the rent's cheap for DC. Want more specifics, above my business. I do some PI work." There were some scuffling around noises.
"Should I be eating this in my ah, condition?" Anne paused after her question. "And will I need to pay you?"
Dante wandered out again, hauling a two-liter of Coke, a box of obviously cold leftover pizza, and a pitcher of water. "Nah. Consider it free. All of it. And I have faith in my, er, ability to gauge your being healed."
"Where's Trish?" A bit nervous again, eyes flickering about.
Dante lookd at her strangely and made a face after a second. "Sheesh. Do you think *everything* comes with strings attached?"
"Wha?"
"Makin' observation. Yes, beautiful, you're easy on the eyes, but I'd like to think I have enough control over myself that my partner doesn't need to be around all the time to protect your virtue." Anne flushed, mortified. "Besides, finding out what's the deal here is going to be its own reward, if you think I'm gonna really need one." Dante offered her a plate with some cold pizza with one gloved hand. "Want some parmesan with that? I'd have heated it except the nuke is broke."
Dante contemplated the smeary light through the window reflecting off the cymbals of his office drum set a few days later. The tableau was framed through the crossed toes of his boots as they were propped on his desk. Under the dull rumble of Alice In Chains being played at volumes fit to wake the Underworld, he heard the muted whirr of Trish's USB printer coughing up random sheets of information for the office vertical files. Trish herself was glowering at a pad of Post-It Notes, chin propped in one hand, the other idly doodling on the pad with a pencil.
"So, Trish."
"Myah?"
"How's Annie doing?"
"Much better. She's going under her own power now, though she still seems to tire easily. Not too badly, considering. She's healing well enough."
"Think things there are a little screwy?"
Trish snorted a hollow laugh. "Is the sun warm? Are bears Catholic? Does the pope--"
"Me and my questions. No, really."
"Yes. "
"S'not just me then. Something did a number on her. Not just the memories, either. Pardon my French, but she seemed to be a case even *before* that."
Trish looked up, frowning. "Really? She seems like a nice enough girl, aside from the memory loss and being kind of uh...eccentric."
"Trish, she tried to kill herself at some point in the past. See the scars? Nemmind she doesn't remember it. And she's twitchy around me, acts like I'm going to hurt her, and acts like there ain't no free lunch."
Trish....frowned further. "That's......weird. We're seeing different things?"
"Maybe." Dante pondered further. "S'ironic. You're the one that was created the full demon and you've seen less of how people really are. Whereas I'm the cynical bastard."
"No saying I'm a full demon now." She frowned even more, layering it on top of her previous frowns.
"Point being, she looks a lot to me like someone that's been abused in the past. Not a bad person, but..." He trailed off. "I don't know if that's a factor or not." He went and flipped a pencil off his chair armrest, letting it bounce off the wall eraser-first. "Man, I've gotten to be a mouthy bastard recently."
Trish collated things and flung the bound pile at his desk, landing it three points even and knocking a beer bottle off Dante's desk. "I don't know, you're still the same lovely, charming, pissanty SOB I've known *this* whiile. It's so cute."
"Bite me."
"Mundus will take up the macarena first."
There was a pause of nearly a full, fascinated minute.
"...I'm not going there, Trish."
"I'm so sorry, Dante."
"You *better* be." Dante shuddered.
"You started it."
"Did not."
"Did to...what were we on?"
"Maybe she thinks she's safer around you because you're female too. Whichever guy did that to her needs some hurting."
Trish made a small wry heh noise. "I suppose we don't mention the Sword and Motorcycle Incident to her so she keeps her illusion?" Dante's mouth widened into a smirk. Trish stuck a tongue out at the smirk.
"Duh." Dante then leaned back further, shifting his attention to the ceiling, eyes distant.
*Genetics are destiny, my ass,* he muttered to himself. *If dad bought into that, I wouldn't be here. Plus all I have to do anymore is take the Blue or Yellow Metro lines out to get an eyeful of the big hole in the Pentagon that proves pure humans can be as bad or worse than demons, never mind the day to day crap I deal with. Evil's evil.
*S'worse, just for being so banal. Banal like slitting your wrists or beating up on someone because you can and they can't fight back. The other evil I can beat hell out of easy. The stuff going on here....I can't. Yet. * He closed his eyes.
*Damn, where did things get so complicated?*
