A/N:
Weeeell, here I am~! :D Told you guys I would update soon~. ...And I told you this story was a bit too long to be a one-shot.
Justaguest: Thanks a lot for your kind words~ :3. Receiving this review has been very inspiring to keep this chapter as entertaining as I could, so hopefully the suspense from the previous chapter now culminates in a satisfying, funny way :3. Thank you a lot for reading and leaving feedback. To know other people's opinion and/or inputs is very much appreciated.
Heeh, of course, things will end well, but...
The Morning After
Chapter 2: The Other Point Of View
Lady held her head with one hand as the other held a mug full of tea. She was sat on one of the many tables of a humble restaurant she usually went to eat breakfast when she didn't want to make it herself, be it because she was tired, as this was today's case, or because she was lazy. As she remembered the events of last night, she felt her stomach churn, nervous and very unsure. She would snort if she had the strength to do so. Lady, feeling unsure? That was something she hadn't felt in a while. It was an alien concept, or it should be, at least.
Why should she feel nervous? She went on and on about how there was no reason for her to feel that way, but her mind kept betraying her. Her conscience was crystal clear, there was nothing that should make her feel that way. ...Right? All these thoughts were improving Lady's headache. If anything, they just made it worse, and the more her head hurt, the less sense everything did.
She wondered idly, if she should go to see him. After all, she left him alone after all that... it didn't feel right.
Wearing a pair of big and black sunglasses that covered her eyes from the sunlight, she looked like an over-stressed celebrity running away from the media. The truth was that Lady wasn't hiding from annoying cameras and flashes, but from the sun, her mortal enemy for the rest of the day. Her head felt as if it was pounding at the rhythm of a techno song...
"Rise and shine, honey," someone beamed at her, making Lady almost jump in surprise and drop the hot, undrinkable tea over herself. "I've got something to give you."
...And now she had a cruel, annoying devil in black to make it worse. The huntress in white seemed to attract very interesting people, unfortunately...
Lady teared her eyes away from the mug and looked at the grinning she-devil.
"You don't look so good, honey." she jested.
"Ah, it's only you... Morning, Trish." The woman said without much interest. She focused her gaze on the tea again.
Trish shrugged and sat on the seat in front of Lady's without bothering to ask for her permission.
"Not so happy to see me, I see."
"You guessed well. All this time you've been apart from Dante has done you some good."
"It's only a shame I can't say the same." She teased back.
This time, Lady took her sweet time to stare at the blonde instead of ignoring her, she who suddenly popped out from the nothing. At that time she didn't notice the bag she had on her hands, but rather on how she was staring back at her, in that cynic, cold way of hers that made Lady think that she was being mocked of. It wasn't a strange thing to think when Trish's eyes were laughing at her, and Lady knew this woman knew something she didn't and rejoiced in that fact. It was hard for something to escape the blonde's attention. She thought she knew everything and everybody.
"How did it go last night~?" the demoness asked, grinning knowingly. "Good, eh?"
Lady massaged her temples before changing her expression to one of utter (and fake) happiness. If she hadn't had those black sunglasses covering her eyes, the act wouldn't have been as believable as it was.
She laughed bitterly.
Sincerely, there was nothing to feel happy about last night.
"Was it really so bad?" Trish inquired, sensing the dark aura of disgust hovering around Lady. "This hasn't been the first time you've been left alone with him, if I recall."
"..."
"What happened? Did he got drunk or something?" She chuckled with malice, letting Lady know she got off to her pained expression.
"No, not at all. It was fantastic." She drawled.
"Well, obviously..." Trish mumbled lowly as she swept a hand back to her hair.
Lady's face became pink and she was frozen stiff after her head shot up to glare at Trish. "S-stop smirking like that at me, dammit!"
"Smirking like how, Lady?" She tilted her head, feigning ignorance.
Lady fell silent, not wanting to share her story with Trish.
No, definitely not telling anyone...
Lady stared at the woman serving the drinks from head to toes. It wasn't due to the fact Lady was mistrustful towards that middle-aged woman -why would she? SHe'd been pretty kind. And it was absolutely not because Dante was paying her more attention than he should be, -no, no, perish the was simply that she was humoring Dante more than necessary and more than she liked. She was happy about the amount of money she got from the job she and Dante accepted, but on her face, there was a scowl.
They were supposed to be there, celebrating that they had accomplished an important mission that had quite the suculent payment, and they had been doing that until now, until Dante started to drink those chupitos that that woman had made for them as 'a special gift' for the best hunters of the town, and since this was a new bar in a pretty shaddy and dangerous city and it wasn't really that big of a place, she wanted to atract them, Lady thought, so both of them would be usual customers, even more so if they had money to spend, as she had come to know thanks to Dante big mouth.
Lady's vision was blurry and her head hurt a little, and she hadn't drunk much from those, but Dant did drink a lot already, and it wasn't half past twelve yet. Oh, Dante was almost drowning himself on them, since alcohol was like water. It was funny how he despised smoking but saw drinking alcohol as something perfectly okay. Maybe it had something to do with his healing factor or something... Or he was just being stupid again.
"Isn't that a bit too much?"
"It's never too much for me. What? Are 'cha worried, little lady?" He smirked devilishly.
"No, you can drown in a bottle for all I care." She folded her arms, but there was no way she could fool Dante with her disapproving scowl.
Dante stared her through half-lidded eyes. "Filthy liar..."
"Just don't get ahead of yourself." She stomped on his foot as if it were something that someone would usually do to a friend. The heel of her boot digged into his foot, but Dante didn't bat an eye at that, he didn't hiss, as it wasn't painful in the slightest, but looked up at her questioningly with a slight frown. "The one driving is me."
"What was that for?"
"I have to house-train you." She threw at him with a smirk of her own.
"Haha. Funny."
"Really? You usually tell me I have no sense of humor."
"Have fun with that, Lady."
"I already am."
Dante turned his head, and when he did, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the woman of the drinks. What was worse, the drinks seemed to get more attention from him, and Lady feared she would end up being his maid tonight.
It looked like she had no other choice.
Tch.
"This is the bad guy of alcoholic drinks." The woman said pointing at the cups on top of the bar table. "This and next round are still on the house," she concluded with a small unreadable smile.
Something about the thirty year old woman unnerved Lady, for reasons unknown. She was giving him way too many alcohol heavy drinks, more than necessary, more than Lady wanted Dante to drink. She knew he had his shady past with alcohol, back when the Temen Ni Gru ceased its insane demonic activity and Vergil was no more. Lady wasn't a masochist and she didn't want to endure the rants of a drunk half-devil again.
Really, Lady had never understood why people like to dink those things so damn much. It makes no sense. Alcohol dulled your senses and made you act and look like a moron. They don't taste remotely nice, either. They are bitter, some taste like cologne, others like medicine, and they burn your insides.
Dante whistled.
"Good stuff." He turned to look at Lady, who was still scowling, once more. "Hey, babe, what's up now? Penny for your thoughts? You're awfully quiet, little one."
Lady couldn't help but scoff a little at the nickname. "My, are my thoughts only worth that much?"
"Since you stole half of my payment and the tabs are on me, yeah, they do worth that much, babe."
Dante grinned easily at the bartender, who had been waiting patiently at the bickering couple.
"Make us two." He demanded, jabbing a thumb to his black-haired companion.
Lady knew it wasn't that easy for Dante to get drunk. She knew that tequila was like water for him but keeping an eye on the half-breed was never a bad thing.
Though she didn't mind it too much for now, as he seemed to be pretty conscious of himself now and he wasn't being too much of a pain in the ass, she feared it might get worse, which would lead to unpleasant scenarios such as her babysitting Dante for the rest of the night because he wouldn't want to get off of her.
She glanced at the woman, then at Dante.
"You sure you have enough to cover all that?" The woman asked before leaving to attend other customers.
"Damn straight~." With that, Dante took the two drinks on top of the bar table and drank them in one gulp.
"Dante," Lady started "I'm not gonna take care of your drunken ass if you pass out. You're advised."
Of course, Dante didn't listen. He asked for another round as he grinned at her.
"Oh, so that was it? Lady, babe, we both know you wouldn't be as cruel as to let me die here." He said, turning his head to her.
Lady hummed as she folded her arms.
"How can you be so sure, devil-boy?"
"Now, babe, obviously because you'd miss me if I died. Your life would be hella boring and sad without me to annoy you every step of the way. I know mine would be."
She raised an eyebrow. "As if you were the center of my world, Dante."
He laughed. "Glad you see it my way."
"Whatever makes you sleep at night. ...A bit full of yourself, aren't you?"
The hunter laughed at her remark and shook his head. "I'd rather want to be full of you."
Maybe it had been a good idea to put on her sunglasses that night, because even though the bridge of her nose was getting redder, it covered a great part of her face, thus making it harder for Dante to see the look of embarrassment and contempt she send him.
"What? I'm speaking the whole truth." Dante asked innocently -though the wide smirk on his lips was everything but that. "D'you want a photo album of me or something or are ya just content to stare at my perfect face?" He leaned closer to her.
Lady growled, eyes tightening into slits as the red blush spreading through her face became even redder than it already was.
...
The bartender came back with the drinks after serving the other guys at the table. By that time, Lady was already hitting Dante in the head repeatedly for reasons she didn't know, and probably ones she wouldn't want to know.
"Ah..." The bartender didn't know what face she should make and what she should think of... this. She left the drinks on top of the bar table and stared down at them.
This wasn't violent enough to be considered a drunken brawl, so she couldn't kick them out of her place. The woman serving the drinks would have done something to help the white-haired male if it weren't for the fact that Dante, oddly enough, seemed to be enjoying the assault.
"Stop laughing, dammit!" She gritted as she continued. "I can't have a normal conversation with you, can I?"
"Pfft—ow, dammit woman! —ow, ow, ow! Why are 'cha hittin' me now? Ow! What? You like it, don't you?" He left out big moan. "You little sadist -Ow!"
Lady hit him dozens more on his head, and the more he laughed or tried to speak to her, the harder she hit. He had to admit he loved the violent outbursts of his woman. She tried to act all cold and hateful towards him, but pffft. Dante knew it was not that way.
It was cute for Lady to show this part of her personality, the kind of violence that didn't involve dismemberment and was due to emotional impulses~. Though if someone heard him say that he found Lady hitting him with her fists cute, then he would be tilted as a masochist.
"What part of shut up don't you understand!? Just die!"
"Did I hit a neeerve, babe?" Dante laughed harder, infuriating Lady even more than she was. "I mean, C'mon, it's not like we're total strangers..." He said, voice barely a whisper due to the loud music, as he reached a hand to her cheek. "...so it wouldn't be that strange for us."
"W-what are you doing, you creep?" She stopped her assault for a moment. Dante had leaned up, as he'd been thrown on the ground by Lady's brute force. He had his lips pressed against the shell of her ear now and his teasing smirk would've made Lady want to rip his face clean off if she had caught a better glimpse of it.
"I'm merely expressing my sadness, babe. Does all this violence mean that other night of intense passion we shared meant nothing to you?"
"...That never happened," she said dangerously, her eyes narrowed. She started to kick him again.
"Ooow...!" He moaned.
"That never happened and you know it! Die, dammit!"
She hit him harder. It was alright, though. It wasn't painful at all and even though his lady was glaring at him darkly and the red shade in the bridge of her nose extended through her whole face.
The black-haired woman with straight hair sweated. She took this spectacle as something recurrent and normal and stayed behind the bar-table.
"Hee, you're so into me." Dante breathed out hotly in between kicks that felt more like insect bites. "You know, this is hardly efficient~. I get off to this, little Lady. This ain't nothing."
Dante knew he deserved the abuse he got, and was glad they were in a public place, or else he would have had to dodge a barrage of stray bullets.
Even though a chuckle escaped her lips, that didn't stop her from hitting him as Dante ducked and sometimes let himself get hit for shits and giggles.
...
She'd turned on her heels and went to the pool table to concentrate on something else than the half-drunk devil, bidding her goodbyes in the form of a punch in his right arm that he laughed off.
The bartender whistled after being the witness of the huntress' anger management issues. "A fiery woman."
Dante watched her go, eyes pinned on her shoulders at first, now traveling downwards until reaching her creamy legs. "You bet." He sighed and shrugged. He didn't tear his eyes away and hoped she wouldn't catch him. "Cannot have her any other way." He concluded with a speck of a smile, barely there, and drank his yellow-ish drink in one gulp.
"That's too bad, big guy."
"Yeah?" He croaked. "Tell that to the hellcat that punched me." Another drink went down. "Yeah, it's fine for her to go in a schoolgirl fetish, but try to tell her something and she will cut your cock in tiny pieces." He shook his head and rolled his eyes.
"How cold."
"Nah, not really. She's just a hellcat."
Dante chuckled to himself as watched her start playing, knowing all too well she would kick those guys' asses.
"Another?"
"You read my mind, babe. You're much more kind than the vixen I have for a friend."
...
"Heeey, baby," he said, not slurring at all... He looked attractive when drunk, anyways, his eyes all sleepy and his cheeks slightly flushed.
...
Eh.
Not really. It wasn't like she was staring at him or anything. At all. Dante, on the other hand, was.
He eyed her over, practically dissecting him with his eyes.
This didn't look so good for Lady.
"Dante, what did you drink?" Lady asked as she helped him keep himself in place.
Clinging to the bar table as if it were his lifesaver, Lady went to check on Dante, leaving the pool table abandoned. Lady knew something like this would happen sooner or later. Ever since he started to drink, he hadn't looked so good, and he'd been telling her too many crude jokes than usual. Granted, he did that to all women, and with Lady he has always been this more intentional, but she knew Dante's mood was changing to a more... 'friendly' and 'sensual' one if the color of his face and glazed-over eyes were anything to go by, not to mention he didn't take long to take a hold on her hips and hold on her for dear life.
Under normal circumstances, he would be trying to joke around and make small talk, tease her, engage her into some kind of sexual conversation... but it seemed all that took too much effort to him. It was easier to stare at her.
"Dunno." He mumbled.
Lady sweated. A simple alcoholic drink wouldn't have done that to him. Not even a few would have done that much damage to his system. It was hard to get him as drunk as he was now, she knew by personal experience. It was impossible that he could get piss drunk under the ten minutes she's been out to play pool. ...Unless he drank three bottles of pure ethanol in a row.
And she thought he could be left alone.
"You're impossible." The disapproving scowl of hers appeared on her face again. Dante found her pout amusing and grinned.
"Yeeaah."
"Let me rephrase myself. How much did you drink?"
"A... few."
"A few what?"
Without answering, as it seemed it was hard to formulate a coherent reply, he closed the gap between them and tore a kiss from her lips, skipping formalities and going straight to tongue.
The woman complied, twisted her head to give him better access, but then something sparked on her mind and she stomped on his foot, making the man to bit her lip as he growled in slight discomfort. She used that to put distance between them, and glanced to his disheveled self, genuinely confused.
She kicked him in the head when he tried to get shorten the distance between them again. So many thoughts were running through her mind that, at first, she didn't know what to say. Thus, she stared back, dumbstruck, as he looked at her questioningly with his glazed over eyes, speaking volumes of lust and affection, and a bit of tiredness, too, that she supposed was because of his drunken state.
"The fuck are you doing?"
Dante wasn't looking, he was merely aware of what happened around him. Just him, the feeling of her lips against his and a burning feeling in his gut... However, he could picture the disapproving scowl in her pretty face. He wasn't going to say sorry, because he couldn't apologize for something he didn't regret.
"Love you." He mumbled against her neck.
"Dante" she started, "you're drunk." She sighed somewhat sadly. She caught her tone and quickly slapped herself mentally, but it was already too late.
"Yeah, I know. And tomorrow I'll have the worst hangover in the entire fucking planet, but I'll still love ya."
Lady stared at him dully before rolling her eyes, sighing. The revelation sunk so deep in her that she didn't mind him pulling her close to him, a hand on her waist and the other on top of her abdomen and his head resting on top of hers, a sleepy expression on his face.
He was really drunk.
...
Unfortunately, things didn't go too well when Lady tried to get Dante out of the bar and away from alcohol. Just when she managed to make Dante walk straight, he somehow stumbled a bit, being unfortunate enough to hit a girl and knock her over. It was to be expected, given how crowded the place was and how Dante seemed to have forgotten how to walk properly. The girl had several drinks with her, probably for her friends or for a group of people that came with her. The sound of her falling was unnoticed thanks to the loud music, but Lady saw her fall and heard her say, loud and clear:
"You asshole!" She yelled as she fell.
"Why do you always drag me into things like these? I hate you. You always make things so fucking difficult... This is ridiculous. You're ridiculous."
He stumbled as he walked by her side and struggled to say:
"It just happens naturally, babe. Thing is, I know ya just love this side of me~. Don't lie..." He pressed himself closer.
"You're such a pain..." She spat somewhat angrily, though she relaxed under his touch and didn't try to shake him off of her, when he grabbed her arm.
"Baabe" he fell down on her, obviously on purpose, "I'm not kidding." Then he squeezed her, leaning against her to plant several sloppy kisses on her burning cheeks. She gagged at the smell of alcohol emanating from the pretty white-haired man.
"Ughhh, get off me, get off, get oooff!"
It was even worse that she couldn't bring herself to say no. No matter how destructive it could be, Lady couldn't deny him anything when he was like that. Under normal circumstances, if Dante wanted to do something self-destructive and utterly stupid, Lady wouldn't bother stopping him, as it was a lost battle, and would let him run with it, as the result was almost always something worth laughing at, but this time, whether it was by his confession or just by how much of a mess he looked, she couldn't leave Dante alone. She sighed and decided she would help him get home because... well, Dante was her idiot, no none else's. Just hers.
"Love me."
"It's three a.m. I'm not going to buy you pizza."
"...Just for tonight?" He whispered.
"No."
… As for the rest of the night? Her memories were rather blurry. She remembered the woman Dante knocked out yelling at them, Dante going on and on about how much he wanted her to stay with him, the crappy offense to the sound that was the music of that damned pit of spasming people pretending to dance, lasers blinding her from all directions... and what more? Ah, and her trying to get him out of the bar, ignoring the woman Dante had knocked off, who was now yelling at them. Maybe she couldn't remember because her mind shut those memories deep inside her subconscious to avoid a trauma. Just remembering all the cheesy stuff Dante said with that 'straight' face of his was bad enough.
When Lady managed to take Dante with her towards the exit after some moments of struggling, her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were beet red, she was frowning moodily and her right eye twitched.
The intoxicated half-demon stared at her through his glassy eyes, but regretted it the moment he saw the look in her bi-colored eyes that told him nothing good would come out of that.
"Babe-"
"I hate you." She interrupted.
"Nah, ya don't. With dis face? Can't be."
"Dante, you're drunk." she repeated as she tugged at his coat, gently, despite her increasing impatience and homicidal impulses. A handful of people waiting outside the small pub were staring at the bickering couple, and hell, it was unnerving. "Unless that piece of charcoal you call a brain has anything new to contribute, please just shut up and be useful. Let's go."
"Hey, hey! What if I say no?"
"I don't give a rat's ass."
"I thought 'e were friends!"
'Respect' was the least anyone could have for him. Not in this state as he was being dragged out of a bar by a woman several inches smaller than him.
"Don't remind me of that..." She'd said, but kept walking towards the exit.
"Quit it!"
"No. You might be drunk, but you can still feel pain."
"Wha-? OoOOOoOowww! You fuckin' bitch...!"
All too tired of playing as his personal maid, she pinched his right ear as she dragged him with her.
"We're going home, you'll sober up and that's final. Let's not get in details as to how you got drunk in the first place. Something tells me I won't like it."
"No way...!"
"Yes way."
"...'M not tired." He moaned.
"Are you sure, devil-boy? You would be groping me if you weren't. My bike's not far from here, so don't you dare fall asleep on me." She continued as she paid little to not attention to him and his incoherent words, sounding more like growls and nonsensical laughter.
Dante's mind had gone through a short thought process before he could be able to raise a single finger in the air in agreement:
"...Point."
Fortunately for Lady's patience, he did not protest when she told him to sit on the back seat and hold on to her so he wouldn't fall as she drove him home. She tried to drive fast, sensing Dante wasn't feeling too good. Immediately after reaching their destination, the moment he set his feet on the ground after her, her fears were confirmed.
Dante's face was of a strange green color, and so, Lady went to check on him out of the niceness of her heart.
"Eh, m'not feelin' good, Lady..."
Lady blinked. Did he snap from his drunken state so soon? He called her name instead of some stupid nickname.
Ha. If only that was the case... ...
...Because just like that, without warning... he squirmed, fell to his knees and barfed on her boots.
On her boots.
Lady didn't have time to react.
It first stated as an inoffensive gurgling sound coming from his stomach, then manifesting in the form of an almighty mangera of bilis. Wasn't he supposed to be a half demon? Stronger, faster, more resilient to pain? Surely, if he could take a sword through his chest as if it was nothing, why the hell couldn't he hold his alcohol? He shouldn't be drunk in the first place, right?
Lady needed more than a few seconds to accept reality. Dante simply moaned in pain as he stood up, his face regaining a bit of color, showing that he felt much better after vomiting on his pissed off friend. A pissed off friend who was wearing white.
It... took everything in Lady not to kick him in the stomach out of reflex -but then again, if she did, that would make Dante feel more sick, which would lead to him vomiting again on her. No, she couldn't kick him. She shouldn't. She counted to ten very slowly to contain her building rage, her breath coming in heavy exhales of air. It took her more than ten seconds.
"...I almost get blinded with lasers, a crazy bitch has been yelling me through our entire way out of that place and I drove a drunk half-demon only to get vomited on my boots and... and... I'm gonna kill ya."
She didn't, though.
She helped moving Dante from the floor instead.
In the end, she had to drag him to his bedroom and take off his clothes because they were all stained in vomit. He'd been meek and tame, slurring something in a low, husky tone of voice, some kind of indecent proposition, but Lady wasn't paying attention, so she only heard his voice resembling that of a hissing snake. He didn't pose resistance at Lady's slender hands pressing against his chest as she unzipped his pants -eyebrows twitching, nose wrinkled, with the straightest face she could make as she worked. Unlike what most women might think, Lady had to say -and she had the authority to make that claim- that it was possible to have the most anti-erotic moment with Dante regardless of his cute white hair and being half-naked.
If only she had a third arm to cover her nose...
"Sssstay, Lady." He grinned then, not looking like the kind of ill person he should be looking like after deploying the contents of his stomach, which consisted mostly of liquid rather than food, onto his friend or... whatever she was, and the smaller woman wanted nothing more than to wipe it off with all her might. "Please."
Unlike what Dante' foggy mind might have thought at that moment of 'lucidity', the smell of vomit and alcohol wasn't arousing to anyone. Besides, even if she had wanted to comply, which she didn't, he fell asleep the moment after he asked.
"How did I let him talk me into this?" she'd whispered to herself. "Yuck, what a mess. Thank you very much, you jackass." she gagged.
"You're welcome~." He threw at her from the bed, giving her a thumbs up, going back to a deep, deep slumber.
She left him there, grimacing both at the image of him sprawled on top of the bed and the memories of all the stuff that she'd been through that night, playing in her mind. She sighed, thinking she was really luckless when it came to him. Tomorrow, Dante would not remember anything that he had told her tonight.
Before leaving, she looked one last time at that handsome face that she'd avoided to look at as a teenager, contorted in a grimace of discomfort as everything around him seemed to be spinning, even in dreams. She sighed softly again, tiredly.
"You idiot..."
...I'm definitely not going to talk about this to anyone. Least of all to Trish. Yup, definitely not telling her.
Lady had a far-off look in her eyes as she remembered how the night went.
"So I'm guessing this was your ideal night, huh." The blonde continued, knowing she would get nothing from the headache-y lady. "Surely it wasn't so bad."
Lady snorted unpleasantly.
"No, not at all. It was my dream come true." Lady continued, downplaying what she said. As if she didn't have enough problems of her own, now she had to deal with unresolved romantic issues... … No, scratch that. Romantic wasn't the best word to describe the kind of fucked up -forever in denial- relationship she had with him.
Things always had to be so difficult, when they really shouldn't be...
"Yeah. You know, Lady, it kinda baffles me that a half-demon got so drunk in so very little time. You sure he wasn't lying you?" Trish grinned deviously.
Lady didn't have time for jokes.
"I hate you."
"Haa, thanks. You know, you can stay with him aaaall you want, I'll be more than happy to let you. I know you like it."
Lady rested her fist on her cheek and glanced at Trish once again, ignoring her previous statement and focusing on the strange package she was carrying.
Trish, ever so sharp, noticed that the little human was almost going to burn a hole through her, and said:
"Interested in this thing, aren't 'cha?"
"...What's that?" Brows furrowed, Lady asked the she-devil what she had in her hands as she pointed at it, a white bag that contrasted sharply with the black of her clothes.
"Duh, a present. What else could it be?" The blonde replied as a matter-of-fact.
Lady, with mistrustful eyes, frowned harder at the blonde. Why would anyone want to give her something? More importantly, why would Trish want to give her a present? And if she wanted to, which was rather strange, what would it be?
"You're kidding, right?" Lady snorted as she pointed at the white bag in Trish's hands.
"No, I'm not. This, my dear, is a present. See?" Trish held up her present in front of Lady's face and shook it up and down, revealing that yes, it had something inside, and yes, it was for her.
The brunette blinked, not quite understanding why, of all things, Trish was giving her a gift.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Ah well, you see, Trish, a present is usually given to someone as a token of your appreciation," she explained as a matter of fact, pretending that she was talking to a twelve-year-old instead of a grown up woman. It made things much more easier, really... "So this... well, I'm not sure what to say." Lady looked at Trish as if she were the biggest idiot on earth. She pressed one hand on her forehead as she smiled uneasily. "You bought something for me? Really? Are you ill or something?"
"Hold on, sweetie; this isn't mine."
"Enlighten me. Who's it from, then?"
At that, Trish smiled a little smile while she turned her head to her right, staring at a random point of the street, something Lady didn't quite like. She whistled a strange tune to herself before replying:
"A certain demon with white hair and a penchant for red gave it to me. Said I had to track you down and give it to you. Didn't tell me why." She said almost innocently. Almost. Despite her dainty looks, Trish was a fine bitch, and most certainly, a bringer of bad news.
"Ah, right." At that, Lady laughed sarcastically. "Just when I'm having the mother of all migraines? How convenient, when I'm too tired to kick his ass. Well, after all these convulsive years of putting up with him, I doubt anything else could surprise me today, not even a present from him."
Trish shrugged.
"Eh, what would I know about his decisions? I don't live in his head. Don't ask me. Perhaps he thought it would be less likely you would throw this to his face if I gave it to you personally, now that you're all meek and tame."
She sipped a bit of the tea, that had cooled down to a drinkable state, before continuing. "Who asked him for a gift? I sure as hell didn't."
"Hm, dear, if he had asked you, it wouldn't be a surprise. That kinda breaks the magic of presents." She pointed out idly.
"It's strange, that's what I mean. You never received a present from him, did you?"
"That's not true. I did. One day I woke up with a ticket for free pizzas and burgers under my pillow after I found my stack of new-brand weapons destroyed the day before. Dante and his clumsy fingers. He can't treat my babes delicately. Does that count?"
Lady's lips parted to form a slightly surprised 'oh'.
"Look, if you want to throw it after opening it, do so for all I care. But don't beat me around and just take the damned thing. A woman has things to do and I'm no one's personal matchmaker."
"Fine, whatever, whatever."
With all that said, Trish forced the 'present' on Lady's hands unceremoniously.
"Aren't presents supposed to be good things? I thought you would be happy." the blonde continued. "That's how humans react when given one of these, and I have to say, the pizzas weren't bad."
"Coming from Dante? No, from a drunk Dante?" Reluctantly, Lady started to look for her 'present', that was inside the white, almost transparent bag Trish gave her. "It could be a dildo with a red ribbon attached to the glans. Or something. Tampons, for example. Last time he told me he had a nice thing for me, he gave me a box of tampons and left laughing." She drawled. "These are not tampons, right? 'Cause if they are, I'm gonna make sure he swallows every single one of them."
"How harsh... But I beg to differ with your theory, Lady: the dimensions of the box are too small to have a dildo inside. Or tampons; it's way too thin."
Lady swayed her hands dismissively.
"Enough chit-chat. I can't afford to lose time over this. Whatever it is, let's see it."
Trish let out a pleased hum as she looked up at the sky in a silent prayer.
"About time. C'mon, open that so I can leave."
Lady chewed idly at a nail as she glanced at the blonde, frowning. She waited some time for the blonde to get the idea that she wasn't wanted, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen soon.
"Actually," she started "you could leave now. No one asked you to stay."
"And? I've been carrying that with me, so I'm in my right to see what's inside." And so, Trish moved closer to the table so she could see in more detail what was Lady's gift.
Lady took a deep breath and took out the enveloped box inside the bag. She will do what she's always been doing ever since she started to hunt: overcome her fears and problems with willpower and determination.
It could be perhaps a new necklace, or something really tiny given the thin, rectangular shape of the box. Ah, that would be lovely, but she was surprised that Dante would have these kind of details with women, especially with her, she who was the epitome of being a cock-block. All that sounded like it was too perfect to be possible. Dante was in severe debt, where did he get the money to buy her something like that? And why? It wasn't like him to have those kind of ideas. He as the king of cheesy one-liners, but that was as far as it went... All these facts added to the tension building in her stomach.
She unwrapped the box cautiously, as though she was expecting something to jump from it and attack her. It wouldn't be that strange, really. All the while, the she-devil's eyes followed the movements of her slender fingers with curiosity, silently urging her to be faster. There wasn't much paper covering the tiny box, so neither women should wait much to see what was inside.
The swirl-pattern paper fell to the ground. Lady didn't bother to pick it up. Instead, she proceeded to the next step: opening the present in a dramatic way. Sweat formed in her forehead, her little hands trembled, her breath caught in her throat and she suddenly became slightly sick. Trish, who watched the whole scene, almost thought there might be an ominous Latin chorus of middle-aged men chanting in the background behind them.
So much tension over a simple, tiny gift...
"Open that, dammit!"
The Latin chorus banished. With a quirk of her lips, Lady unpleasantly opened the box, so absentminded that she didn't try to hide the fact that Trish had startled her.
The shorter woman gulped now that the present was finally opened.
She stared at the little artifact inside, and so did Trish, leaning against the table to take a better look at it, her voluptuous breasts pressing painfully against the metallic surface.
As Lady frowned, Trish bit her lip and... smiled.
Little guttural sounds came from the blonde's throat.
This was...
…
...
Lady laid down the box on the table, next to the mug with the tea, and pinched her gift with her thumb and forefinger, almost as if the mere existence of her present was offending her... which, as a matter-of-fact, it was.
Trish bit her lip harder, holding the snorts.
It was... … A baby-test.
A motherfucking baby-test, a predictor.
After inspecting the object for a long while, Lady broke the muffled snorts coming from Trish with her own voice.
"This... This is a joke, right?"
That was all Trish needed to burst into laughter. She cackled loudly at Lady's shocked/unamused face, clutching at her flat stomach in an attempt to contain her laughter as she slumped back to her seat; "Lady, you poor thing, don't make that face. Coming from him, this is very romantic~. You should feel special."
The situation was not what was embarrassing Lady, because to be honest, she'd have burst in a laughing fit, too, in Dante's face, but Trish's laughter sounded so loud, so sincere, so mocking, that made her feel like burying herself underground, not to be seen.
As she heard the she-devil cackle, long strings of insults and curses ran through her mind as her entire body shook in a mix of embarrassment, anger and pity.
As any sensible person would do under these circumstances, she facepalmed. He was so fucking full of himself, she desired nothing more than to kick his ass with a pair of new brand boots with stilleto heels that he will obviously buy for her, until his butt-cheeks became shaped in the form of their sole. What was she going to do? She could barely get mad at this. This was too pathetic, too sad to get pissed off at.
This was her fault for dropping her guard in front of him just because he was feeling sick. See, that's what happens for being a good, caring person! And to make things worse, Trish wouldn't want to shut up.
Who did he think she was? Besides, what kind of human would be pregnant right after the night she had sex? The fucking symptoms don't show after weeks after.
"Y'know, this is rather.. pffftt... sweet. Don't you think so...?" As her laughter faded a little, Trish went back to her usual devil-may-care attitude and tried to calmly speak up as Lady started to walk away from her, probably having in mind to pay the half-devil a visit and scream at him. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Lady clicked her tongue at the blonde, frowning moodily as she did so as a show of how very little she cared about what she thought or didn't think about her, but the taller woman never heard her show of disrespect. Trish saw, however, how Lady stood up from her seat and walked away from her, getting farther and farther from where she was, predictor in hand as the other was on her left hip, ready to kick half-demon asses.
Trish bit her lip again.
"There goes a exemplar mother," she snickered to herself. She was quite happy that this was just a misunderstanding, to say the truth. She could only shudder at the thought of a son between Lady and Dante. That defied all laws of time and space, surely. This was what nightmares were really made of, and as such, rather nightmarish visions of the kind of offspring Dante and Lady would have danced across her vision, his voice a distant echo:
"Auntie! I'm bored. Let's do something!"
"Daddy is the best!"
"Auntie Trish! I accidentally burned the kitchen down! You'll help me fix it."
"Auntie, the swords talk!"
"I'm boreeeedddd, auntie."
"I wan ice cream!"
"I want MORE ice cream!"
"It wasn't me, I promise!"
Auntie auntie auntie auntie auntie auntie auntie auntie-
Trish was starting to get sick as her head spun the more she thought about it, getting ready to vomit. Her eyes fluttered.
"Miss."
Fortunately, a nearby voice interrupted all the horrible images displaying in Trish's mind before she could go mad thinking about what would be of her if she suddenly had to be the maid of Dante's son.
Trish gave off a sigh and looked up, arching an eyebrow at the waiter that had come closer to her, silently asking him what was what he wanted, to which he replied:
"Would you want us to give you the bill?"
Trish blinked and pursed her lips then, not quite understanding the man at first, but realization hit her after a matter of seconds, that Lady had left without paying.
Extra:
Trish sighed, an action she did way too many times in a day, one that was becoming a tedious routine. She couldn't help it, though, when everything Dante did ended up being a train wreck.
"So I didn't get in time, huh? I must have missed all the fun."
"Why do you women get off at my pain?" The rough voice of Dante retorted to the aloof, mocking she-devil with no humor lacing his words. He was leaning against his chair, his legs resting on top of his desk as he always did and a magazine covered his face. Even if Trish couldn't see his face, it was clear in his voice that he was not in a good mood.
"You know, I'm not really sure."
She closed the door behind her, and slumped down on Dante's infamous red couch. Trish grimaced a little when resting her hands on the leather, feeling some kind of a sticky substance resembling that of drool...
"It was that bitch's fault."
"Who?"
"The waitress, that evil woman. Now I remember. She tried to poison me with her drinks, I tell ya."
"Oh, come on."
"Oh, oh, yes, she tried, you just don't know the details."
"No, no, no, don't say anything else." Trish shook her head. "I'm done with your petty problems for today. Whatever it was, I don't think it happened that way..."
"Yeah, it did." The half-demon said lowly, the old magazine still on his face, muffling his voice. "100 percent sure she was a demon. Or something."
Trish sighed. Again.
"Whatever. That's not important anymore. Anyway, I gave Lady that thing as you told me to," she snickered as she cleaned her hands on her black leather pants. "It didn't go too well."
"Tell me something I don't know, babe."
At her right, there he was, Dante. The hunter grumbled in a way Trish wasn't used to hear and with that, he gave himself a bit of impulse to sit in a normal position so he could see his partner's face. As a natural result, gravity started to do its work and the magazine fell from his face, letting the blonde see the red marks on his face and a very suspicious red hole in his forehead that almost looked like a bindi.
Dried blood. It was dried blood.
Well, talk about over-reacting. A bit extreme, even if it came from Lady...
Trish eyed him suspiciously.
"And what did you do?" Dante groaned, letting his companion know that the beating he got from Lady wasn't entirely because of the little 'mistake' he made with the baby-test. "You cannot lie to me, Dante. You don't know how to. You're too much of a little kid."
"Will ya quit picking up with me, babe?"
"Only when you don't make it this easy." She said flippantly as she fixed some rebellious strands of golden hair getting in her eyes.
"..."
"Awww. Someone has been hurt in his fee-fees."
"Nah, Only in the face." He rubbed his temples.
Trish tried not to laugh at the half-devil as he stared at her unblinkingly, with pursed lips and a frown to match. Trish's laughter all but died off when her mocking eyes locked with his glaring ones. He was scary when he wanted to be, though it was hard to take him seriously when in a situation like this.
Little by little, her smile turned into a grimace as the visions of his offspring came to her mind.
Ugh.
Thank goodness it was all in his head. ...Although, Trish really wanted to tell him that the symptoms of pregnancy don't show immediately after having sex... Well, by how Dante was looking at her, she figured she shouldn't laugh at him as she'd done with Lady.
"Hey, Dante." She shrugged, closed her eyes to contain all the cruel jabs that were coming to her mind, knowing that her man-child friend wasn't in a good mood. "I'm curious... Tell me something."
Dante's head raised in acknowledgment and hummed. He looked at her with bored eyes as he touched the faint red mark of Lady's hand printed in his cheek. It would soon go away, though.
"Yeah?"
"Why do all your ideas suck?"
...
A/N:
Theeeere you go~. I'm sorry I couldn't get it posted sooner. I had one of the worst headaches of my life (migraine), so I had to lay down and rest for a week, but as you can see, I had this story almost done, so I didn't have to write too much stuff and I was able to get it done pretty fast ;A;
And now I have to wait to go to the doctor because I have the feeling I might have some small problems with my eyesight... ;A;
Ah, as you can see, the flashbacks look like they're all over the place, but it's intentional, it's not just me being messy for the hell of it. It's supposed to be Lady's own drunken memory, so it should be choppy and with very little important details.
Thanks for reading and thanks to the people who added this to their favorites/follow list :3 Thank you all! :D Feedback is appreciated~.