Archive of Our Own

After the whole Qliphoth ordeal, it took a bit of time for the city to start settling back into a normal pace and routine. Despite the fact that it had seen some serious action over the years, having it ravaged so violently by roots of a monstrous demonic tree wasn’t exactly an every day event. The chaos and destruction sown by the Qliphoth’s roots was still something that parts of town were yet to recover from, the poorer parts more obviously so.

When a few months had passed, though, things were finally starting to get back on track. People’s everyday routines started to normalize again, the rebuilding work on the buildings was coming along just dandy and the usual slew of demons were in the streets, instead of the infestation that they had had on their hands in May-June.

The season had changed to autumn recently and while there was still no sign of Dante coming back yet, Lady wasn’t planning to let that bother her. After all, this wasn’t the first trip to Hell and back for this particular half-demon, and he had infallibly returned the previous times as well, not at all worse for wear. So she was sure he would show up sooner or later, acting as if nothing had ever happened and he hadn’t even been missing at all. With that firm belief in place, there was only one thing left for her and Trish to do while waiting.

Namely, holding down the fort and dealing with any demon menace in sight and taking on as many jobs as she could to cleanse the human world of the bastards.

After three-four months of diligently working at cleaning up town and the surrounding area, though, Lady was starting to pick up that something wasn’t exactly right with her everyday routine of cleaning up demons. More particularly, she was starting to get the feeling that demons were actually hesitating when engaging her in battle. Which, if it had been a one-time occurrence, she would’ve dismissed as her mind playing tricks on her or just being silly. But when it started becoming a pattern and her work started getting easier due to the fact the demons were being lenient when dealing with her, Lady started feeling that something was off.

It didn’t help that Trish was getting smart with her about it either. Like the other day, when they were dealing with a bigger quarry than usual, which also curiously enough seemed to not want to actively harm Lady in any way.

Trish scoffed after they had dealt the killing blow, somewhat amused.

“Damn, Lady, you sure drive those boys crazy nowadays, don’t you? They can’t even tell their asses from their heads anymore. Kinda makes the work a lot more demanding for me and easier and stress-free for you. How lucky to be you now.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lady replied, annoyed. 

Trish threw her an incredulous look over her bare shoulder.

“What do you mean, “What am I talking about” - don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?” 

Sure. Something was off. Lady could tell that much. The demons were behaving oddly - though not Trish - but well, they were demons. She wasn’t specialized in demonic behavior and frankly, Lady didn’t really care to know about demons either. The stories of Sparda her father had shared with her when she was young as well as her daily job with the demons filled what little need for demon knowledge she possibly ever needed in order to be better at killing the ones that were a serious threat. 

“Humor me. Tell me what exactly it is that I must have noticed besides the fact that demons are acting weird today?” Lady said, taking a stern look at Trish.

The blonde shrugged noncommittally, figuratively backing away from a fight she wasn’t planning to pick.

“My folks in the demon part of the town have been losing their collective shit whenever you are involved or in the vicinity ever since the Qliphoth escapade. It’s not just the half-demons and such who are trying to coexist with humans. It seems your unique charms are not lost on the hostile demons as well.”

Lady listened without interrupting Trish as she said her piece.

“Just saying,” Trish added when the huntress remained quiet.

“I didn’t know there was a demon part in this town, or that you had folks in there,” Lady muttered with a sour tone. 

Trish smiled, her little smirk being more on the smug side. 

“Well, yes, darling Lady. You never asked. I never told. You’re not too keen on knowing things about demons and frankly, I recall someone vowing their life work to be slaying all demons. I couldn’t possibly let you kill or harm my folk in this down, could I now?” Trish explained casually. “I’m not too keen on taking you there now either, when you seemingly have this weird effect on demons, so please, no asking for sightseeing.”

“I’m not doing anything differently than I have for the past 20-something years of putting demons out of their misery. If you know what’s causing your folk to lose their shared shit around me, just say it,” Lady muttered, already annoyed that Trish was doing this. She always did it. Kept secrets, hid things. Preferred privacy, as Dante had put it when she had complained about that side of the demoness to him once. 

“Hey, don’t look at me! I haven’t got a clue what it is either. If you want answers, I’m not your woman, nor your demon. I’m just telling you what I can see. I mean, anyone with eyes can see it,” Trish defended herself, waving her gun casually in Lady’s direction. 

The huntress took a furtive look down at her own body but, unsurprisingly, didn’t see anything different there.

“I still don’t know what you are talking about,” Lady muttered darkly with a sigh, picking up Kalina-Ann from the ground. “Let’s just head back to Devil May Cry. This day has been crazy and I just want to forget it and go to sleep.”

Trish hadn’t pressed the matter any further that day but she had definitely put the idea and the doubt in Lady’s head. When she thought back on it, the first time that things started being wrong and feeling odd was definitely after she went off on a demon hunting gig after the Qliphoth ordeal. And ever since then, things in her fights with demons had mostly felt off. With what Trish had said, perhaps it had only been the female demons who had put up a fight against Lady since then? A curious--and disturbing--notion. But… somehow weirdly plausible.

After that, as though on cue, the following week Lady started receiving some really odd items. Either delivered to her by mail to her personal address (a disturbing idea, that someone she didn’t know had her home address and could do whatever they pleased with that information; worse still, that this “someone” was likely of demonic persuasion...), or with her name to the Devil May Cry main office. But rather than the weirdness that she was receiving anything, it was the gifts themselves that were the worst part of it.

The first one had been some demonic trinket oozing malicious energy. A foul item, which was in sore need of sealing. Lady dealt with it rather quickly, never to be seen again. Another was some kind of summoning circle drawn in what was definitely the blood of something - she could only hope it wasn’t human blood, because that would be both hellishly hard to scrub out of her carpet and just outright rattling to think about. Honestly, she drew the line when someone thought it would be a really bright idea to gift her with a freshly gouged out goat heart and leave it on her desk in the Devil May Cry office.

The huntress was so furious that day to have her week-long work on a case inside a file destroyed by the oozing blood that she went on a rampage killing any even remotely aggressive-looking demon in town that she laid her angry dichromatic gaze on.

When Lady got back to Devil May Cry after having satisfied her craving for demon blood to be shed, she slammed the door behind her so hard some of the shelves inside the office rattled. Trish looked up from her magazine and gave a little nod to the mess that was still on the desk. 

“What did I tell you? Driving them absolutely crazy.” She turned the page and added sassily: “Absolutely fascinating. I wonder what makes you such a great catch for them to even dare enter here , in our demon-hunting agency, just to lay some gifts for you to find from them!” 

“Argh, I wish they would just stop doing that . I don’t particularly enjoy having animal hearts around, or getting newts and snakes delivered to my damn doorstep! Revolting!” 

“I thought all girls liked gifts,” Trish commented, clearly amsed by Lady’s fuming face and the hilarity of this odd situation. Her gaze stayed on the magazine as the huntress walked to the office desk and slammed her palms on it.

“I. Hate. Blood. It stinks,” Lady hissed. “I don’t want any more recently beating hearts, dead animal carcasses, blobs of content I don’t even dare to recognize or any other weird shit appearing in front of me. If your folks are doing this, tell them to stop. Now !”

This time Trish’s head did rise up from her magazine. She gave Lady a calm, nonchalant look.

“I have nothing to do with this, so keep me out of it. Even if it was my folk, I’m not their queen. I can’t control or command them. That’s Hell’s King’s job. You, unfortunately, have to figure this mess out by yourself.” With that smart-aleck addition, Trish fully intended to return to her magazine browsing, entirely unperturbed by the bloody cardiac mess on the desk before her.

“I’m destroying the gifts! I’m killing demons who come even close to me! I’m putting demon repellents around my house and this still keeps happening! They ruined my recent reports and my front door carpet! I had to burn it with gasoline!” Lady shrieked, gesturing the air with her hand angrily.

“I’m afraid that’s all you can do for now,” Trish muttered, turning her attention back to the open spread. “Unless you find the source for this sudden increased demonic activity in your general direction.”

“You can’t be serious,” Lady cried, burying her face into her palms in her agitation.

Unfortunately, Trish had been serious - and right. There wasn’t really anything else that Lady could do beyond what she already had done. She’d cleaned out the town from any demon even remotely looking like he could be at fault for the annoying “gifts” she was receiving. If it continued even after this cleansing, she had no clue how to approach this aggravating problem. 

The situation remained mostly the same, all to Lady’s dismay and horror, because there were more carcasses, body parts, unidentified demonic objects and some other nightmarish “gifts”, until November, when Dante finally decided it was time for his prodigal return. 

His explanation of what he had been up to for the past 6 months that led up to his return was vague and it seemed that he intended to keep the story about how he actually managed to come back from Hell this time around to himself. But neither Trish or Lady were having that, so they pressed him for the details until he finally coughed up the information.

He strolled to Devil May Cry with Vergil surprisingly at his heels, who was squeezing Yamato closer to his side as Dante paraded in to the shock - or delight - of Lady and Trish. The way Trish looked at Yamato being there - on Vergil’s hip, where it shouldn’t have been - made the older twin wrinkle his nose, together with a shocked look upon realizing whose face the demoness was carrying. To avoid any bodies or excessive blood loss from ensuing, Dante soothed the electric mood by answering Trish’s and Lady’s questions regarding their return. 

After their first several weeks of mainly fighting each other, Vergil and Dante’s little squabble in Hell at the Qliphoth’s root started attracting demons of all shapes, sizes and degrees of aggressiveness. With that going on, there was no chance of them having the leisure to use the Yamato to seal the damn thing since they were much too busy fighting off demon horde after demon horde to do so. Although, admittedly, Vergil did have other weapons in his arsenal as well, there was no way he was going to give up on the mightiest trump card up his sleeve.

In some months, they came to see that there was no way their initial plan was going to work out the way they had hoped but fortunately for them, a rather powerful demon had been attracted by the racket they had been making incessantly. Just to get the twins out of its hair, it had given them the needed guidance in order seal the Qliphoth even without the Yamato’s help, and after that had been dealt with, it had opened for them a portal just to be sure they actually left.

Neither Dante or Vergil had tested it to know for a fact, but Dante seemed pretty certain that demon must have also sealed them away from entering into Hell for the foreseeable future. They were really in luck that a demon rather adept at sealing magic had taken such a strong dislike for their presence and shenanigans in its general neighborhood, Dante joked.

Rather than their curious adventures in Hell, both Trish and Lady found Vergil’s presence there to be a very peculiar type of experience. For one, he remained mostly statuesque the entire time that Dante was telling them the tale of how they’d come to be back upon the human world. 

Neither of them seemed particularly worse for wear, except that they both stunk like demon guts from a mile away, their clothes were in tatters and the visible parts of their bodies were smudged in dirt, sweat and what can only be described as miasma-filled muck from Hell. The whole Devil May Cry had to be aired for a few hours after their return as the miasma-filled muck together with demon guts left a permeating stench in the room, lingering surprisingly long even after both brothers were shooed out of the premises. 

Lady’s last encounter with Vergil hadn’t been on the best terms, though one could call it memorable. She didn’t know if Vergil kept his distance because of those events back in the Temen-ni-gru and she wasn’t about to try prying, because she was happy to give him his space if he gave her hers. Dante, though, was vastly different from his composed brother in greeting her. He gave Lady a big, strong hug after he had cleaned and groomed himself, holding her in the bear hold for a good while.

“You smell nice. Better than Hell does,” Dante grinned down at Lady when he finally let go of her. 

“ Way to set the bar low, Dante,” she told him jokingly with a barely contained smile that was threatening to erupt across her face. “But , thanks, your scent palette increased tremendously by a simple shower, too,” Lady replied, patting his back. Then, her attention turned to Vergil, who was brooding a good distance away from her. “I guess I should say hi to you, too.”

Vergil’s eyebrow twitched slightly when addressed. He stayed perfectly still, arms crossed over his chest almost defensively as he leaned against the wall nearby. He regarded Lady guardedly from across the room, his face betraying none of the thoughts that must have been going through his mind.

“Good day,” Vergil said in a simple greeting to Lady with his usual poker face. His perfectly immaculate facade of cold indifference acted like a neon sign with “Do Not Enter” inscribed on it.

Lady wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about having this particular half-demon specimen around, but he was Dante’s family, so she wasn’t about to be extra rude if he didn’t provoke her. She still vividly remembered to this day how upset Dante had been when thinking he had lost his brother back after the Temen-ni-gru misadventure. 

Plus, after the rather hectic months that she had had, thanks to the demon craze around her, it was actually kind of nice to have an obviously male demon who was less than impressed with her presence in his vicinity. At least Vergil , of all demons, seemed to be completely immune to whatever was going on with all the other vermin in town. And that was some heartening news, because if Vergil and Dante were immune to it, maybe she could find out how to cancel it out for all the other pests around her.

“Don’t feel too bad about him. He loses all his fancy words when dealing with strangers. He’ll loosen up--eventually, but until he does, he’s a bit of a wet blanket to deal with.” 

Dante’s follow up on Vergil’s tight-lippedness was very unappreciated by the older twin, who was sending him his best, most venomous glares from across the room at his explanation to Lady. She cocked a curious brow at Dante, and threw Vergil a challenging little stare. More curiously still, having her focus on him again seemed to make a muscle in Vergil’s cheek twitch oddly, in a tic of sorts. 

“But I’m not exactly a stranger, am I?” she pointed out defiantly, eyeing Dante levelly. 

“Yeah, well, maybe not but you gotta admit, you are most certainly not a friend.” This seemed to address the matter as fully as Lady needed because she simply nodded her agreement and moved past the topic. Which was a good thing, because Dante had already lost interest in it in favor of a much more pressing matter that was intrusively making itself known to him. “Have you done something with your hair, Lady?” 

She looked up at him with her beguiling, dichromatic gaze and something in his chest seemed to throb to life. What a puzzling experience - it had never happened to Dante before and he had spent a good twenty-something years in the girl’s presence!

“My hair ?” Well, that was an odd question. Over the years, she had tried a few times to change her hair style minutely, but Dante had never noticed. Now, she wasn’t doing anything, yet he was noticing? She didn’t understand at all. “No, I haven’t really done anything to it. Just the same old hairdo that I’ve had for as long as I can remember. Why do you ask?” She asked, eyeing Dante weirdly. 

Dante shook his head while keeping his gaze locked with hers. In fact, he was staring into her eyes so closely that Lady was starting to feel uncomfortable under his scrutiny. But, being her stubborn self, she refused to back down from… whatever that was. The huntress kept eye contact despite the fact she was starting to feel a little warm in the cheeks.

“I don’t know. Just, it looked like you had done something to your hair. Aren’t men supposed to compliment the women for their new changed looks when they spot them?” Dante replied with a small grin. “I don’t know, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it feels like something is different about you. Did you change anything else?” 

Lady chuckled at his antics, shaking her head back at him.

“Nope, nothing different in the past 6 months you haven’t been around. If something feels different about me, maybe it’s because you changed, not me.” 

“Hmm… Maybe.” Dante relented when he couldn’t find a name for whatever was going on that felt different with his friend/colleague. “Whatever, it’s not particularly important - the point is , you look fantastic, and you smell divine ,” he enthused as he grabbed her in another bear hug that all but knocked the wind out of her lungs. Lady tried not to be too self-conscious about the way he buried his nose at the base of her neck when he took in a lungful of said “divine scent” of hers to prove his point. “And I am so glad to finally be back here.”

The huntress chuckled, stepping away from Dante before he could make another grab for her. That was enough touchy-feely-ness for her for one day, thank you very much. Any more of that and she might actually start acting like some silly, besotted school girl and Lady honestly couldn’t have that.

Dante’s expression brightened and he swung his hands to his sides, grinning from ear to ear.

“Now, who’s up for pizza? I haven’t had any in half a year, and let me tell you, I am about ready to kill someone for a really good one! A show of hands, who’s eating?” 

Just as Lady was opening her mouth to say something, she heard Vergil’s derisive scoff from across the room. It seemed that so did Dante because his gaze lifted to look at his brother as well. 

“Distasteful. Your food choices are absolutely abominable as always, little brother.” 

Dante rolled his eyes at the obvious taunt. 

“Vergil, it’s a simple “yes or no” question. My house, my rules. If you’re not having any pizza, then that’s great because there will be more for us. Right, Lady?” The inquisitive look that Dante gave her in that moment caught Lady off-guard. Especially so due to the use of “us” in the sentence that implied a Lady and Dante together which was something she wasn’t considering as a thing. But now she was put on the spot and had to give a quick response, so--

“Yeah, totally. Pizza sounds great. Count me in.” Although Lady wasn’t hungry, it would’ve been just rude not to side with Dante on this one, when they were obviously having a very low-key brotherly showdown right there, right then.

Pleased with her response, Dante moved to throw his twin a victorious, smug smile that beckoned him to retort in any way. Instead of rising to the challenge, Vergil shook his head and pushed away from the wall he had been leaning on.

“Foolishness. I refuse to partake in it. You knock yourself out - I’m leaving.” 

“Where are you going?” Dante demanded to know when Vergil yanked the door open with more force than necessary.

“Anywhere but here. I cannot stand the stench in this premise.” The door slammed promptly after this interjection from Vergil, the resounding slam putting an end to the conversation quite successfully.

Lady couldn’t help but notice that Vergil had seemed all too eager to leave even before the topic of pizza had been brought up but she didn’t really understand and couldn’t fathom at all why that could be. She didn’t even care to know to begin with, so she didn’t plan to pursue that train of thought at all. 

It wasn’t like she knew Vergil or any of his antics to begin with. Perhaps he was just like this all the time. As Dante didn’t seem too bothered by his brother’s sudden disappearance, Lady brushed this off as something that was likely Typically Vergil. He was back on Earth, in Dante’s office with people he didn’t know and he seemingly wasn’t interested in making friends with them. Lady could sort of understand that. Maybe if she was in his situation, she would do the same thing, who knows.

But the comment that the office she had taken such diligent care of while the boys were gone stunk? Unacceptable !

“That’s rich, coming from one of the reasons why this place stinks today in the first place!” Lady scoffed, yet still going to open the windows of the Devil May Cry office wide once again.

Dante watched her move with much more rapt attention than the simple action really demanded. 

“Mmm… yeah,” he agreed, but he had a feeling that the stench of demon guts and Hell-muck was not what was aggravating Vergil. 

After all, they had been steeped in it for months and it hadn’t bothered his brother the least. But now that they were in the human world, he couldn’t stand to be around Dante and his “foolish” shenanigans? Something was definitely up and he would eventually find out what it was. He just hoped he would also manage to find out what exactly it was that was different about Lady. He could almost swear there was something--it felt like it was just on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t quite phrase what it was. 

A rather aggravating feeling, really.

But, oh well. He’d figure it out eventually. In the meantime, he could enjoy some perfectly domestic times with his friend and the most amazing piece of human food ever created - pizza!

The very next day Lady returned back to Devil May Cry to deliver some things she had borrowed from Dante’s treasure trove of artefacts - specifically, items she had needed due to all the overly curious demons pestering her lately. Now that he was back, she felt like she should return any items that didn’t belong to her and she didn’t immediately need. After all, Lady wasn’t some petty thief or an annoying relative who just did with people’s belongings as she pleased. If she needed any of his things again, she’d make sure to ask Dante and borrow them again, now that he was around to be asked.

It was by no means just an excuse to have a legitimate reason to drop by Devil May Cry on a day off for Lady, nor a clever plot to have even more legitimate reasons in the future to interact with him based on her need for any of his artefacts. Definitely not.

On her way to Dante’s Lady killed two demons and almost had a half-eaten seagull drop from the sky hitting her on the head, which she luckily dodged at the last moment. She tossed the bird carcass into the garbage nearby and practically jogged the last spurt to Dante’s office to avoid any more nasty surprises, slamming the door behind her with an audible huff.

“Goddammit!"

“Oh, Lady?” Dante walked to the front door from his tiny bar corner. Seeing the huntress, his expression brightened until he noticed her sour mood. His brows furrowed as well upon taking in her stormy expression. “What’s wrong?”

“You tell me!” Lady huffed, tossing the dark bag she was carrying to Dante, who caught it with ease. “Demons are like… hunting me wherever I go and dropping me gross gifts and I can’t make it stop. I was just bombarded with a dead seagull and you do not want to know what happened to my front door carpet.”

“They are?” Dante’s head tilted in nonplus. He didn’t even ask what was in the bag or why Lady was there. He closed the distance between them and took hold of her upper arms. “You want me to deal with them?”

The way Dante asked that, the way his voice carried a weird tone of aggravation and threat sounded unnatural to Lady. She took a look at his serious face, shivering under his intense scrutiny which seemed to drill deeper and deeper into her. Lady felt the need to break eye contact before he could pierce her very soul with that penetrating gaze of his and the odd edge it carried suddenly.

“No. No, it’s fine. Annoying only. I’m good.” Lady brushed it all off as something in Dante didn’t seem right, and she wasn’t too keen on finding out what it was. Perhaps he had grown too used to killing demons right and left while being in Hell and needed a little time to get out of that mindset. “I asked Trish about this but she didn’t know what it was either. So, it’s… I don’t know. The Qliphoth probably messed with their heads.”

Dante’s lips pursed and unlike what Lady had expected, he didn’t immediately let go of her. She was about to ask what was going on when Dante grinned in his usual style, and patted her upper arms.

“Well, you know who to turn to if it becomes a problem. It’s my job to protect you if you can’t handle something on your own.”

“Excuse me?”

Dante blinked, withdrawing his hands from Lady and wiping them on his thighs. He cleared his throat quickly under her expectant and curious stare.

“I mean, you’re a human. A badass human, though, mind you, and you know that I tip my hat to you for those demon slaying skills. But still a human. I’m a demon hunter so I deal with the demons who try to harm and pester humans. Right?” Dante casually smiled. “And we’re friends. Long-time friends. What kind of a friend, a man and a demon hunter would I be if I left you in trouble? My mother didn’t raise me like that. She’d turn in her grave and come to haunt me if I let that happen .”

Lady watched Dante joking about Eva, which was pretty much unheard of. Perhaps Vergil’s presence was causing some issues for the legendary demon hunter, too, and he was trying to cope with suddenly having a family, with a brother and a nephew, after being alone for decades. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lady replied curtly, unconvinced, but deciding against pursuing the topic any further. She proceeded to point to her bag to tell him what she had borrowed from Dante, but he beat her to it when he spoke first.

“I knew you would come here today, as I noticed some of my stuff was missing, so I saved you some pizza.”

Lady’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“You saved me pizza?” she repeated, feeling that something was very much off. Had Hell made Dante’s head softer? Or was he feeling guilty for leaving her to deal with his office while he already owed so much money to her? “You have not had pizza in six months and you saved some for me?”

Dante shrugged with a chuckle.

“It has your favorite toppings.”

Favorite toppings. A weird explanation but Lady wasn’t going to question it today.

“....Alright, since you went to the trouble to save it for me, I guess I’ll have it . Thanks,” Lady agreed after a short hesitation, watching how Dante’s expression lightened - perhaps a bit too much for just a few slices of yesterday’s pizza. Perhaps he was just happy to be back home?

Dante’s leftover pizza was just the first of the small surprising things Lady received from Dante soon after his return. One day he called her to drop by, and when Lady found her way to the office she had pretty much called her home for the past half a year, Dante offered a thick, brown envelope for her.

“What’s this?” she asked and Dante dropped to sit on the sofa next to her, his arms spreading over the armrest behind her . “And why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” she muttered whilst prying the envelope open. 

“Too hot today,” the devil hunter replied easily, flexing his body as he sat. Lady snorted, keeping her eyes away from him.

“Dante, it’s winter.”

Before she could pursue his nonsensical comment about his state of undress, her attention got whisked away completely. Because the envelope revealed that it held a thick wad of cash. Gasping, Lady took the money pile into her hands, going through the notes with smaller gasps.

“I hope that’s enough. It should cover all the debts I owe you, plus a little something extra for taking care of my girl here while I was gone. I bet you paid for the electricity and water for me?” Dante explained, his pleased gaze on Lady, who couldn’t believe her eyes.

“You….You’re paying your debt?” she wheezed, whipping her head to Dante. 

“Take it as a gift,” Dante simply said with a small wave of his wrist, his grin spearing wider and wider. “It’s the least I can do for my favorite human in the whole Redgrave - well, the whole world, actually.”

Lady’s eyes narrowed slightly as she measured Dante up and down. Something was off. She almost wanted to ask if Dante had hit his head or if someone in Hell - perhaps Vergil? - had hit him with a shovel in the head or something similar, but she kept her mouth shut. Dante looked way too pleased with himself and frankly, Lady found it… almost adorable. She swallowed with a hint of a blush, tucking the money back into the envelope.

His favorite human in the whole world? She? Lady wasn’t sure what to do with that, but for the time being, she settled on trying to even out the slight skip she could feel in her pulse. Preferably before a traitorous blush or something worse started showing on her face.

“I see. Thank you. I can really use the money.”

The door to Devil May Cry opened with a big swing without further warnings. Nero’s huffed muttering was heard before he greeted Dante or Lady out loud.

“Dante, dad’s being difficult. Help me out,” Nero asked with the irritation of a young man, marching with a determined pace toward the sofa. 

“I am not being difficult,” Vergil’s voice carried from the doorframe. He closed the door behind him with a miffed expression. “We’re not getting Dante involved in this. I have my hands full with one idiot already.”

“Hey, that’s your son you’re talking about!” Lady gasped horrified, leaning to look past Dante at Vergil. Nero came closer to the sofa, his head turned to Vergil and hand pointing at Lady.

“You heard her!” Nero agreed angrily, taking a step closer to Lady when Dante’s outstretched boot pressed into the boy’s lower stomach, seizing him.

“ That’s close enough . Stop right there,” Dante warned with a dark tone, his eyes narrowed and piercing Nero. The way his chin had pressed down with unblinking eyes made it look like Dante would indeed do something if the boy didn’t keep his distance as advised. 

Vergil’s Yamato with its sharp blade was at Dante’s throat in a second, forcing the devil hunter to lift his head up.

“ Watch who you are taking that tone with , Dante,” Vergil hissed, standing tall and menacing with his eyes fixated on his brother. 

Dante’s unblinking glare shifted to Vergil and he let out a displeased noise which sounded more like the growl of a demon than a normal human grunt. Nero and Lady looked at the scene in disbelief but before they got to react, the odd, unnatural expression on Dante’s face disappeared, melting into his usual carefree small smirk. He dropped his boot off from Nero and chuckled, eyes closing.

“You’re right, Nero. Your father is a pain in the ass,” he agreed, chuckling again with an amused snort when Yamato’s blade pressed closer against his skin. “Put the toy away, Vergil. We have a human nearby who can get hurt if you go swinging it around.”

Lady watched the scene unfold in complete befuddlement , her gaze meeting Vergil’s when they both contemplated Dante’s behavior. Then, Vergil relaxed his hand and shoulders, retracting his sword and placing it elegantly back into its sheath. 

“And you put some shirt on in the presence of a woman. What would mother say if she saw you like that?” 

Dante groaned.

“This is my home. I do as I please.”

Vergil’s only response to his idiot brother’s even more idiotic comment was a dismissive snort before turning his attention shortly to Lady. From what little experience she had with their brief previous encounters, she had not expected to be the recipient of the older twin’s attention at all. This is why Lady felt quite odd under Vergil’s sudden intense scrutiny.

“My condolences for my idiot brother and the fact you have seemingly somehow tolerated his baffling incompetence since Temen-ni-gru,” Vergil simply said, his eyes staying locked with Lady’s the entire time he spoke. It had already been weird to receive his attention and to have him speak to her of his own volition, but to have his piercing gaze so riveted to her was just unnerving. Especially when she’d fully expected him to ignore her existence altogether for the foreseeable future.

“It’s fine,” Lady swallowed and the way she said it, it sounded more of a question than a statement. 

Dante’s hand came to Vergil’s chest, pushing him further.

“You heard the lady - as she says, it’s fine. Now, out of my office, you two, unless you actually have a proper reason for coming here”, Dante grumbled. Vergil swatted his brother’s hand off with a low growl.

“Don’t touch me.”

If she was being completely honest, ever since Dante raised his boot to keep Nero away, Lady had been watching what started to transpire in the premise with her breath held. By the time the brothers started getting physical with each other with their weird behavior, she was already feeling lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. If Lady were to judge simply by expressions alone, she could tell that Nero was just as flabbergasted with what was unfolding before him as she was. 

The whole thing was so bizarre that it made her want to hit something, or someone, out of sheer frustration. The fact that they made it so much worse with how the tension was becoming palpable and the air between the two Spardan sons was practically crackling with electricity was making Lady’s head spin.

“Okay, I’m off,” Lady informed everyone, pretty much jumping to her feet from the sofa when the atmosphere started becoming unbearable . 

She could tell that this was somehow related to her and she was starting to worry that whatever made the demons go crazy around her was affecting Dante, too. And if it affected Dante, it most surely had to also affect Vergil and perhaps even Nero. She didn’t want to stay behind to find out. And if her hunch was right, removing herself from this situation ought to diffuse the tension in the premise.

If it didn’t, at least she wouldn’t be there for the terribly confusing fallout that could follow.

Before she could make herself scarce, Dante’s hand shot out with staggering speed and grabbed her wrist to stop her. The suddenness of the hold stopped her in her tracks and Lady couldn’t help but notice the unusual force that she felt from Dante’s grasp on her skin at that moment.

“Wait? You’re leaving? But you just got here,” Dante protested in disbelief, holding Lady’s hand in his firm grasp. 

“I feel like I already stayed too long. No; definitely overstayed my welcome, and you have family matters to settle, too” Lady replied, her tone somewhat miffed.

“That’s not true at all. If anyone is overstaying their welcome, it’s them-- ” Dante started to say while motioning to Vergil and Nero with a dismissive nod in their direction. Then, he stopped, only to scoff with a frustrated snort.

Lady just couldn’t believe what she was hearing from her longtime friend. Once upon a time, he had grieved so greatly the loss of his family at his own hands that he had shed tears. Now, that same family was right there, in his life, in his office and all he had to say was that they were overstaying their welcome ? The huntress could barely believe this was the same Dante she knew and cared for.

Lady put a placating hand atop Dante’s that held her wrist, and she gave him the most reassuring look she could manage. It was likely her imagination, but she could almost swear that the moment her hand landed on Dante’s, his grip on her relaxed like an unwound cord.

“Dante,” she started calmly, leaning in a bit when speaking to him. Lady could tell she had his undivided attention because he leaned forward as well, in a sign he was listening. “I will be here tomorrow, and the day after, and whenever you need or want me to be. I have some errands to run now. And you have what sounded like a family spat for refereeing on your hands. Perhaps you should pay attention to what your nephew has to tell you, hmm? He’s come all the way from Fortuna for this, and came to ask for his uncle’s help.”

Lady patted his hand reassuringly, and gave him a small smile which he reciprocated instantly. Really weird. One moment he was cold, next - he was hot. This was definitely very, very odd from Dante. Nothing like Lady had witnessed before and it made her worried for him.

As soon as Lady had spoken, Dante relaxed, letting slowly go, his fingers brushing faintly over Lady’s palm and fingers as he retreated his hand. He wiped his hands on his pants, clearing his throat. Even though her mind was floundering a bit from the evanescent caress that he’d released her with, it was impossible for the huntress to miss the little gesture of Dante’s she had witnessed once before, upon the day of his return from Hell. He’d also wiped his hands after having let go of her then, too. 

It was a really peculiar thing, the fact he seemed to feel compelled to “cleanse” himself or something after having come in direct contact with her excessively. What were they, five, and did she have cooties or something? It was bizarre enough of an action that had happened not once but twice already and it confused the hell out of Lady, and only served to intensify her worry for her long time friend. Was she reading too much into it? Or was she not reading enough into it? She felt so lost that she missed her chance to ask him about it.

“Sure, of course. You’re right. If you have stuff to do, I don’t want to keep you from it,” Dante agreed smoothly with a large beaming grin. It was an expression she was used to seeing on his face, yet there was something more suave about it now, and for some reason it made him look more handsome than she was used to.

Lady swallowed with difficulty at the way her throat had suddenly clamped shut, or at least that’s how it felt. She mirrored Dante’s smile and gave him a firm nod.

“Good, I’m off then. Leaving you to your family drama, which I honestly want no part of.” 

She marched towards the door with a determined step, pausing only when she took hold of the handle. It could be that she was imagining it, but she honestly felt like some of the tension crackling in the air had already dissipated, yet she could swear there were at least two sets of penetrating gazes upon her back. A shiver ran along the length of her spine because she knew what she meant to say would be like pouring gasoline on a fire if her hunch was right - that Dante was also affected by the same thing that was making the demons around her crazed. 

But the alternative was that she kept her mouth shut and the next time she came to Devil May Cry, she actually found him half-naked there or something. A shiver that was not from the thought of how cold that would be in winter ran the length of her spine at that unhelpful mental image of Dante. Then Lady banished the idea never to be revisited again. Having him parading around in a state of undress was just so much worse in so many ways that she just had to bite the bullet here. She had to say it, even if it ended up sparking a new awkward altercation between the two brothers who were unusually on edge.

“And - I seriously cannot believe I’m saying this,” Lady prefaced what she meant to add with a tired huff, “but Vergil is right.” The silence that followed her statement was deafening, and could be cut with a knife. “Do put some clothes on, Dante. It’s December…” 

Lady shook her head in disbelief while giving Dante a quick once-over again before letting herself out of that ridiculous situation she wanted no part of.

Her departure left the owner of Devil May Cry in something of a stunned silence. Since he had been solely focused on Lady while she was speaking, Dante had completely missed it, but upon hearing her agreement with him, Vergil’s back had straightened even more than usual. 

Nero was not as oblivious to his father’s subtle reaction as his uncle seemed to be. And, because he had witnessed it, the boy was even more perplexed at what in the world had just happened. 

Lady had honestly hoped that the weird encounter in Dante’s office when he paid back his debt to her would be a one-time kind of thing. Perhaps he had woken up on the wrong side of the bed that day, or eaten something foul and it had made him act up in an awkward fashion. Dante was behaving too weirdly even for his usual weird self.

It certainly didn’t help that somehow, Vergil was now apparently either part of Devil May Cry or a some sort of honorary member. Lady didn’t mind it too much, though - having a very powerful half-demon half-human as part of the crew and on the side of righteousness was a great thing. Especially since it meant he wasn’t out there, wreaking havoc upon the poor unsuspecting humans with his all-powerful demonic shenanigans (one demonic tree was more than enough for a decade, she believed). 

The downside, and the crux of Lady’s issue, came in the form of Dante’s edginess in his brother’s presence, though he clearly did his best to hide it from the huntress. He seemed to be annoyed simply by the fact that Vergil was there, in the same room with him, which confused her . Well, somewhat. She did remember what had happened in the past. 

However, she couldn’t really understand what in Vergil made Dante so annoyed all of the sudden. Whenever Lady visited the office and found the two brothers there together, Vergil would just be leaning against one of the walls inconspicuously. His arms would be either crossed over his chest or keeping himself busy with reading the book that V had been carrying around all the time. She really didn’t see any reason for Dante to get irked like that and frankly, she wasn’t too keen on getting in between whatever was going on with the twins.

If there was one constant thing, it had to be Vergil’s continued utter indifference . Despite all the awkward annoyance and displeasure that his twin exhibited at him, the older son of Sparda maintained that same cold, stony facade, seeming completely unmoved by Dante’s discontent, huffs and scoffs . For that, Lady was grateful because at least something in her world seemed to stay true to how it should have been. If Vergil started to freak out for some reason, then she would be extremely worried. 

Another one of Dante's curious behavior quirks came in the form of his greater agreeableness to get more work done in a shorter amount of time. Whatever request came in, he accepted without too many questions. He didn't even try to pick and choose from the work that came in like he used to. If Lady had a mission that she planned to take on, he volunteered himself very quickly to partner with her. It was surprising, but Lady accepted his help gratefully. Knowing that someone like Dante had her back was extremely reassuring and made even the riskier jobs a walk in the park - especially when the demons had taken an unwelcome “liking” in her.

Though, having Dante there next to her on a hunting job wasn’t the only new perk Lady discovered. For some reason, she found that fights didn’t tire her up as much as they usually did. It was easier to avoid demon onslaughts, predict their next moves towards her, switch positions and surprisingly, Kalina-Ann didn’t feel so heavy either. 

At first, Lady thought that she was just in great form - definitely not because Dante was there and giving her so much attention lately, gosh, it made her feel like a teenager again, minus the desire to shoot Dante in the face. It had been a perfectly believable reasoning, but would have made sense if she had off days as well. But when it didn’t go away, and Lady stayed on top of her demon hunting game, it started seeming less likely that it was just her tip-top fighting form at play there. 

The way Lady slammed the demon rushing towards her against the wall took her breath away. The way she followed up the next attack with the most graceful full body flip, shooting three demons at the same time before they could even blink, whisked all the air out of her lungs again . 

However, it also took her balance away. 

One slip and the huntress was stumbling towards the ground, noticing way too late a big, airborne demon approaching her like a bullet from the dark sky from the corner of her eye. It had its friends with it, of course. These demons never traveled alone and Lady, being the demon magnet that seemed to be now, didn’t make this any less dangerous. She cursed under her breath, reaching for her gun instinctively while knowing it would be too late. 

But before she could come to any harm from the unexpected onslaught, Dante intercepted the oncoming threat . The raw rage, the sheer strength he demonstrated upon these flying rats approaching Lady took her breath away once more, making her feel a bit lightheaded . She had seen Dante fight before . Many times. Lady had fought him herself before, too. Yet now, the way Dante hacked and slashed apart the demons with what seemed to be a single swing, carried a sense of power and protectiveness in it, the likes of which she had never witnessed from him before . 

Baffled, Lady staggered a bit while recovering her balance just as Dante finished making quick work of her would-have-been assailants. To her surprise, other than her footing, she also needed to do some quick gathering of her wits and ragged breathing before resuming her battle stance. While Lady was busy doing that, Dante turned and gave her his most charming smirk which made her efforts of collecting herself embarrassingly harder by a full moment more.

“Thanks for having my three. That could’ve ended unwell - I really didn’t see those bastards at all until it was too late,” Lady confessed, feeling some warmth flooding her cheeks at the admission. It was unlike her to be so caught up in combat to get tunnel vision, to the point where she potentially exposed herself to danger, and she made a mental note to fix that immediately. 

But her self-admonition was completely drowned out by the loud buzz that ensued in her brain when Dante gave her a mischievous little wink with his smirk widening to a full wolfish smile. Lady’s mouth suddenly felt dry and it must’ve been from her nervousness of her close-shave with those demons. Most certainly not from her demon hunting friend’s dashing handsomeness when he aimed that devilish charm her way in the heat of battle. Most certainly not .

“Hey, don’t mention it. That’s why I’m here and what partners are for, am I right?” Dante said with that same disarming grin before jumping in face-first to keep the fray away from her while she picked herself up. 

Which, thanks to him, she now needed a bit more time with, damn it! Lady was grateful that he shifted his focus to the demons because her heart that had clenched in her chest seemed to need it in order to start beating at more normal intervals. She was most certainly not entranced with his swordmaster style that appeared more graceful to behold than usual. Lady took a few steadying breaths, straightened up and adjusted Kalina-Ann against her side with a determined huff. She jumped back into the fight with even more determination, driven to show Dante that she wasn’t just some damsel in distress but a partner he could most certainly count on to have his back.

What she failed to notice, being concentrated on the fight to avoid another slip, was how Dante’s eyes followed her every move closely, a newfound excitement reflected in his intense scrutiny.

Lady was good. She had always been good when it came to slaughtering demons and defending herself. But the way she had moved just a moment ago, spinning and whirling like that, was out of her normal repertoire. It made Dante’s stomach tight, his inner demon whispering into his ear sweet, purring promises he could read from Lady’s body. Those promises shouldn’t have been there that heavily, not being as inviting as they now were. It was doing things to him and frankly, Dante did his best to keep his poker face and act normal.

But it was hard. Difficult. Demanding. Vergil’s presence and the way he occasionally lifted his gaze to take a look at Lady when he thought no one would notice rubbed Dante the wrong way. There was no way he would be this possessive or jealous of his own brother for a woman who, unfortunately, was not into him. Or Vergil. Or at least so Dante hoped. 

Whatever was going on with Lady, it was affecting Vergil, too, which Dante found most curious albeit annoying. At first, he had brushed the huntress’ concerns off as indeed lesser demons having their heads messed with due to the Qliphoth event but then, whatever was affecting them started to seep under Dante’s skin. Sweaty skin. Hot skin. Into his lips and chest. He couldn’t believe that he had actually growled under that heat on his skin at Nero the other day. The boy had nothing to do with this. 

Neither could he believe just how quickly his mood got sour as soon as Vergil was in the same room with Lady and him. Perhaps it was the reason why Dante felt this odd need to impress Lady, to protect her, get her gifts, and ensure somehow that she was….

...only his.

“What’s with the long face?” 

Lady’s curious voice next to Dante made him quickly blink and straighten his back.

“Seems that you got more of them than I did, ” Dante hastily replied, pointing at the smoking corpses around them. Lady peered at them, pursing her lips.

“You think so? I’m pretty sure you got more,” she muttered uncertainly with her hands on her hips. 

“You were on fire today, Lady, despite that little tumble there,” Dante remarked, suddenly scooping the huntress under his arm. He stared at her face with a pleased smirk. “It was almost magical to witness.”

Lady tried not to blush. He was being touchy feely again. Damn him and his disarming smirks - he was making it extra hard for her to fight down that stupid blush!

“Yeah, surprised even myself,” Lady agreed, turning her head away from Dante to pretend she was looking at the scenery of the dead demons instead of trying to ignore his intense … something… oozing from his frame pulled flush against her side . “Guess I’ve needed to dodge so many demons lately that it rubs off on me like this.” She paused in contemplation , frowning. Lady’s attention fell in front of her feet as her lips pressed tightly together. “The demons were more aggressive today than usual. Targeted mostly me, or so it felt like. What’s going on...?”

“Nothing to worry about, I’m sure,” Dante said, patting Lady’s upper arm. “Let’s go. How about strawberry sundaes? Or better yet, some ammos?”

“Ammos?”

Dante simply shrugged, keeping his arm still snugly around Lady.

“You used quite a lot of ammunition today. What do you say? My treat.”

Lady inspected Dante’s face with a small, unsure frown, like weighing if he was serious about getting her a refill on her ammunition. When the eager look on his face didn’t go away, she relaxed with a deep sigh, nodding her head slowly.

“You’re right. I could use some ammo. Thanks.” Lady patted Dante’s hand on her shoulder with a gentle caress filled with her genuine gratitude for his thoughtful suggestion .

The spark that had been dancing in Dante’s chest lit with an electrifying buzz. He kept his cool, starting to lead the way to the exit of the area with Lady still under his arm. Her nose wrinkled as they walked along.

“I’m fine. It was only a small slip,” she said slowly, stopping Dante. He turned to Lady, confused, until he chuckled.

“Aaw, come on. Is it too bad if I want to look after you?” Dante cooed, squeezing Lady playfully closer against his side.

“Dante.”

“Fine, fine! Too bad. Here I thought you might be feeling cold and I was ready to offer my body’s warmth to you while also protecting you against other demons that might find you interesting today,” he said and unhanded her.

He intentionally left out the part where one of the demons interested in Lady today was him. Instead, he laughed at the huntress’ comical scoff and allowed her to lead the way. That way she wouldn’t see how his eyes would stay on her, admiring her moves with every step she took like he was seeing them for the first time. 

“What did you do?” Vergil asked from Dante when Lady had gone to shower to get rid of the dirt she had gotten on herself during the fight.

“What?” Dante sourly asked, trying to ignore Vergil’s existence. “And I’ll do you one better - why are you here? I think I told you Lady and I could handle this case.”

“She smells like you. Faintly, but still.”

“Sure she does. We just fought together. Is that a problem?” Dante asked, shooting a piercing glare at Vergil who kept his distance from his brother. 

“Does she know you’re intentionally rubbing yourself against her?” 

Dante groaned.

“No one’s rubbing anything against anyone. And you didn’t answer me - why are you here?”

Vergil’s thin lips pressed tighter together as the brothers measured each other with their thousand yard stares. Dante broke eye contact first with a wave of his hand, scoffing angrily.

“How about you, hmm? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you throwing those longing looks her way. For now, she hasn’t seen them herself, but you’ll freak Lady out if she notices. And if you freak her out , I’ll be upset. Very upset.”

Vergil’s growl rising from his throat was sharp and barely audible.

“I’m not staring, and I am most definitely not longing!” Vergil defended himself, keeping his composure quite well. Something forlorn flashed in his eyes, just enough for Dante to capture it. His brother may have been a pain in his side when it came to Lady lately, but Dante decided that whatever wound that little comment of his had reopened, he would not demand Vergil explain himself in that moment. He had no idea what his twin was thinking or remembering just now but the flash of genuine yearning in his features kept Dante from pursuing the matter.  

The legendary demon hunter may have been miffed with his brother and his shenanigans when it came to Lady, but he was no villain. He also was no saint that would let him star in his own personal melodrama when Dante still had a bone to pick with him on the topic of Lady though! He cleared his throat, once again grabbing Vergil’s meandering attention.

“At first, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. But then I saw it happening again and again. You know what? I hate it. You have to stop doing that or there will be consequences,” Dante pointed his finger at Vergil. The latter straightened his head, eyes narrowing.

“Like you growling at my son and trying to prevent her from leaving? Such a gentleman,” Vergil noted icily, his sharp eyes squinting mockingly at his twin . 

The corner of the demon hunter’s mouth twitched. The shower in the bathroom behind Dante’s office desk turned off and both men turned their eyes at the closed bathroom door. Dante took a deep breath, missing how Vergil squared his shoulders, too.

“She’s doing this. Somehow. I don’t know what it is. Just… behave yourself.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Vergil asked coolly and at his rhetorical question, Dante couldn’t help but chuckle, shaking his head. 

Lady walked out from the shower with a sigh of contentment , drying her hair while clad only in a towel wrapped around her torso . Both Dante and Vergil stiffened and became virtually statuesque when they first saw her in her state of undress, both equally shocked into being unable to react. Both recovered at almost the same time, with Dante swallowing hard and willing himself to shift his gaze away to the best of his ability, while Vergil slowly turned around on his heel. Lady’s hand stopped as she halted in one spot, her mouth dropping agape.

“W--What, Vergil?” she gasped, blushing slightly from embarrassment. “I… I’m sorry, I thought Dante was here by himself.”

“My brother invited himself in - into my territory,” Dante hissed, his eyes turning to Vergil. “And despite my asking him twice already , I still don’t know why he’s here.”

A small and low warning growl came from Vergil’s direction and in her flustering, Lady had a hard time wrapping her mind around what was going on. Were they really going to have another one of their passive-aggressive sibling standoffs, while she was right there, virtually naked , right in the middle of it? 

“You heard the lady, brother. She didn’t expect you here. You’re making her uncomfortable. Off you go like a good little demon, then, before I have to make you leave, alright?” Dante commented derisively with dry humor in his voice as he made a shooing motion with his hand towards his twin. 

Lady swallowed hard but despite the fact she was usually not a fan of their little shows of microaggression to one another, she was honestly grateful from the bottom of her heart to Dante for “standing up for her” in this situation, or whatever it was that he was doing. Normally, she didn’t mind Vergil’s presence but this was a bit too much even for her. She wouldn’t go as far as saying he was unwelcome there at that very moment, but Vergil’s continued stay was definitely going to be an uncomfortable experience. From the looks of it - for all three of them.

Lady couldn’t quite tell because the older son of Sparda had turned his back to both her and Dante, but he seemed to be caught in some kind of internal struggle or something. He didn’t move nor make a sound for a good several seconds. When he did move, it was to slowly put his hand on the base of Yamato’s sheath at his side, gripping the scabbard so tightly that it made his knuckles turn white with the effort.

Before the situation could become any more edgy, Vergil huffed loudly and ran the hand that was not upon the Yamato through his hair in a flippant fashion. 

“Very well. May it be known that I would never prefer to be boorish and overstay my welcome.” The words were so deeply steeped in his aggravation that they came ground out from between his clenched teeth. “I’ll come by later to discuss the matter that brought me here to begin with, Dante.”

With that curt explanation, Vergil marched toward the door with all the ceremoniousness of a soldier heading off to war or something. If she wasn’t still feeling uncomfortable, Lady may have found his gait a bit amusing. As it was, she was only immensely grateful that he chose to be understanding and actually volunteered to make himself scarce.

“Sure, no need to rush. In fact, if you forget to drop by at all, I won’t hold it against you, bro!” Dante called after Vergil, who apparently heard him loud and clear because the door to Devil May Cry practically slammed shut behind him. Once his twin was out of the picture, Dante turned around to throw Lady a triumphant, beaming grin--having completely forgotten for a moment that she was still wearing only a towel around her midriff. “There. That takes care of that, am I right?” 

And in looking towards Lady, Dante fell into a trap of his own making. Because her cutely blushing face and her expressive eyes slowly blinking up at him felt like they were peering down into his very soul. He felt stripped of all his bravado and all his masks as she looked up at him in her barely-clothed state, the towel doing very little to conceal the shapely curves of her body.

His heart tripped on a beat and a knot tightened in his chest when he was reminded why he had needed to chase out Vergil in a hurry to begin with. Even though her flushed expression was delicious beyond compare, Dante was also not a boorish guy who would just openly ogle at a lady in the nude--or close enough to it as it was. He demonstratively ignored his demonic part which seemed to have other ideas of how this situation should unfold--Dante would never --and shifted his head away so he would not be tempted to look down at her towel-clad form any further.

“Um… Would you, uh… like to have my coat or something?” Dante thought to offer clumsily in an attempt to smooth over the situation. And to still his racing heart, if possible.

“Actually,” Lady said, taking once again an unsure look at the front door Vergil had marched out from, “I came to ask if I could borrow a shirt or something. I don’t want to go back home with just the leather jacket on.”

When her head turned slowly back to Dante from her contemplations of what was going on, her eyes landed on a black shirt being offered to her. She gave a boggled look at the shirt and then, a curious, small head-tilt to shirtless Dante.

“Is this your only somewhat clean shirt?” she asked jokingly, not taking the offered shirt yet. The demon hunter blinked, baffled.

“Oh, right. Clean shirt,” he muttered, crinkling the shirt between his hands into a ball hastily. Lady’s eyebrow cocked with a concerned frown.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah. I’ll get you a shirt, just a second,” Dante wiggled his finger at Lady to underline that he was going to handle this. Just a second. The shirt would be there. 

Lady watched Dante hopping up the stairs to the second floor, the concerned earlier frown staying securely on her face. The shirt he had taken off was not back on him but left as a bundle on the office desk, for some reason.

“What the hell is going on?” Lady muttered to herself under her breath when she was certain Dante was far enough not to hear her. This was not a big deal. She had borrowed his shirts before. She had slept on the sofa of Devil May Cry on nights after Temen-ni-gru when the world was too heavy and cruel for her to handle. Dante had never even batted an eye to her requests or to her presence, and now…

Was the Qliphoth messing with Dante’s and Vergil’s heads, too? They had, after all, gone to Hell to cut the tree down and thus been at close proximity to the gargantuan devilish parasite.

Dante arrived with the shirt behind Lady in record time . She took the offered clothing item, signaling her friend to turn around. He did so, his hands rising to his hips, while Lady got herself dressed, thinking that perhaps it was best to try to find some answers if this continued for too long. 

“Sorry about earlier, Dante. I wasn’t expecting Vergil to be here and we’re not yet on such good terms that I’d like to walk around wearing only a towel when he’s present.” Lady decided to see if she could pry something gently out from the legendary demon hunter. That man was stubborn and kept his lips glued together if something bothered him - except, apparently, with Vergil, but she reasoned it was because they were twins who had, like Dante had said, always fought each other. “And hey; thanks. For telling him to go for now.”

Dante turned his head to take a small peek over his shoulder when he heard Lady thanking him. He let out a short chuckle, training his gaze on something in front of him.

“No need to thank me. I promised to look after your behind, especially with demons, and that includes my brother,” he murmured.

“That doesn’t mean you should go fighting with him or growling at Nero.” The huntress walked to stand in front of Dante with bare legs, arms crossing slowly over her chest as she waited for his answer. He averted his gaze with a familiar smirk.

“They barged in at the wrong time. We were having a moment there,” was his succinct explanation.

Lady snorted, amused.

“A moment?” Then she shrugged, pursing her lips thoughtfully, eyebrows rising. “Well, on the other hand, you paying your debt with some extra was a moment, now that I think of it.”

“See?” Dante’s hand gestured playfully at Lady, his grin widening. She mirrored his expression, beaming brightly back at him.

“You’re right - I could totally get used to sharing more ‘moments’ like that with you. Do I have to sign up somewhere, or?” Her light teasing tone seemed to do the trick because Dante’s face blanched and he looked a bit troubled.

“Please, no. Having more moments like that particular one would mean that I rack up a huge debt to you that takes years to pay off again. I don’t know if I can live that way anymore!” he enthused dramatically, making her roll her eyes and laugh at him. Hearing the reaction he had been aiming for from her, Dante failed to smother the wide grin from spreading on his own face.

“Didn’t seem to take you that long to come up with all the money, plus interest!” Lady argued goodnaturedly. Her point made Dante’s face fall theatrically.

“Oh, you only think that because you had no idea how deep into my reserves I had to dig in to scrounge up that much cash!” When Lady opened her mouth to say something else, Dante beat her to it by adding quickly: “And speaking of reserves, what do you say for some dinner? I’m just dying for some of that high quality liquor and sundaes at the old man’s place!” 

Lady regarded her friend with a lopsided smirk and shook her head at him while going to pick up her shorts to don them on. Couldn’t very well go to a bar with just Dante’s shirt on.

“Sure. I’ll come. Only if you’re treating,” she told him jokingly, fully expecting Dante to back out of his offer to her. He did take in a hissing breath, holding his chest as though wounded.

“You drive a hard bargain, milady! But, just because you showed me such a delightful battle earlier, I will give in to your charms and cover your food and drink this time! It’s only fair. Just don’t make it a habit to be treated, okay? I don’t think my wallet can take it.” 

Lady laughed merrily while they made their way out of Devil May Cry together and heading towards the pub. 

Her ringing laughter wasn’t tinted by a sudden trepidation that had made her heart skip when he said “milady” there and she had heard it as “my Lady” - most certainly not.

Once out of Devil May Cry, Vergil stalked off down the road, fuming. Having been practically forced to leave with his tail between his legs was not something he enjoyed doing, but there hadn’t been any other card he could’ve played there. Dante had been painfully right for once, and the woman had indeed portrayed with her overall body language and the tension in her voice that she didn’t want him there. And all of that was without even factoring in the subtle change in her scent - from seductively sweet and enticing to one that also carried a note of discomfort. 

Vergil couldn’t pretend that he understood why she suddenly smelled so alluring ever since he came back from Hell - he had been in her presence before and this scent had never before been part of her. Was it that his demonic senses had gone haywire from those months in Hell battling hordes upon hordes of demons with his brother? 

The pull in his gut whenever Lady was around was nothing he couldn’t ignore, nor were the inexplicable ways that his pulse seemed to get all jumbled when she did something minor like aim her curious dichromatic gaze his way, or smile, or laugh in his presence. It was puzzling and instinctual - that much he was certain of, because the moment he was outside of her presence and that enthralling scent that she was giving off, his mind cleared and returned to its usual razor-edge sharpness.

He would’ve been content to continue ignoring whatever was at play there for however long--preferably until that smell got rinsed off of her--but Dante’s words to him had really opened a festering wound. It was a painful topic that he had chosen to ignore for the entire time since he got himself back together again those 6 months ago at the Qliphoth. 

Vergil was not the yearning kind of man, and he was most certainly not yearning for that woman devil hunter. Whatever was at play there, it was disingenuous, because he wasn’t doing it himself and she was not having such an effect on him unless physically present. His greatest clue in that sense (however he disliked admitting it, even just to himself) was the fact that Vergil had felt this type of emotion genuinely before. There was a time in his youth--which felt centuries ago by now--when he had yearned for another.

The woman from Fortuna who had provided him with a roof over his head and a place to stay while doing his research on his father and the Order of the Sword. The same woman who had shared her living space, her bed and her warmth with him, the one who had apparently bore him a son without his knowledge. 

Vergil swallowed with difficulty and halted his angry striding. This was a topic he had avoided touching upon in his mind, because it would bring him only grief of various sorts. There was only one woman he had ever taken down his guard to in his life so there was no doubt who she was. Worse still was that he had not only let down his guard to her enough to relent to her constant attempts to entice him during his stay in her living space, but that by the time he had relented, he had done so willingly. Gladly. He had wanted her, just as much as she had wanted him. He had not only let his guard down but he had even let her in , within his most private of personal spaces - his heart, which he had believed incapable of being anything other than cold and frozen by then.

The only thing that could move Vergil and spur him to action for the decade after his family had been brutally slaughtered had been the thought of power and revenge. Nothing else mattered, nothing else held any importance, as long as he could get revenge on Mundus and the demons who would do his bidding to kill a woman as innocent and lovely as his mother. 

And it was before this bitter and stone cold version of himself that she had appeared - his benefactor in Fortuna, who was part of that ridiculous Order herself and a devout “believer” in the religion that glorified his father. At first, Vergil had mocked her about her devotion but no amount of his sassy, sarcastic remarks affected her. Instead of taking the hint and leaving him alone, the woman stayed beside him.

He had no idea what exactly about him had appealed to her--he had lived with her for months and he had never really understood how that curious mind of hers worked--but she got under his skin. He started looking forward to their little banters after he’d had a tiring and unproductive day of looking for clues and stories in the libraries of Fortuna. 

Vergil knew--painfully well--what genuine longing felt like because he had felt it every time when she would smile and bat her lovely eyelashes his way. He felt the tug in his gut every time something he said made her ringing laughter echo in the premise. He felt the knot tighten in his chest every time she looked up at him salaciously, and in the way his spine tingled with an electrifying thrum when he’d take her wantonly. Her face, her voice, her scent, her body, her very soul - it all diluted into him, dyed him in her colors and made him yearn for her. To have more of her. To spend more time with her, until the desire started encompassing all of him.

The older son of Sparda would be lying if he claimed that those months with her had been anything other than the happiest, most fulfilling time of his life ever since he was eight years old. And it was no secret that the reason that was so was her - she was the one that made everything better. Simply by being herself and by being there.

She was making him weak with emotions , and he hated it.

Vergil didn’t want to do this soul-searching because in opening the lid on that box inside himself, he discovered to his utmost horror that--although he most certainly did not yearn for Lady and her attention in a real sense--he did very much still carry that flame for the woman in red from Fortuna. Years had passed, he had gone through the most horrendous and traumatic experiences of being Mundus’ plaything for two decades, which felt more like two centuries. Yet now, so long later, when he was free and looked within himself, he still found that same yearning for her smile, for her laugh, for her touch. The same way he did when he was a teenager.

This was a realization he would’ve preferred to stay ignorant to. But now that Vergil had realized this, he couldn’t help the slew of questions that brought with it: where was she? How could he find her? He knew next to nothing about her for the past twenty-something years of her life.

The worst part of all this yearning was that not only could Vergil tell that his reaction to Lady was disingenuous but that he still carried in him that genuine feeling for another. What was even worse , if he could see her right then and there, his favorite lady in red before him, he wouldn’t hesitate to reach out for her.

“Preposterous!” Vergil hissed to himself angrily upon the realization, warping to a nearby roof. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, furiously stomping his usually graceful landings. “How can that be?”

Somehow, during his many jumps, Vergil had ended up on a rooftop overseeing the entrance to a bar. He wasn’t sure what had pulled his attention from his thoughts but when he noticed his brother’s back and Lady’s laugh as she pushed at Dante’s shoulder playfully, that same duplicitous need coiled in Vergil’s gut and made him growl deeply. He did not want this woman’s presence messing with his head right then. 

He took out the Yamato and sliced a cross in the space on the rooftop he was crouching on. As he sheathed the sword slowly back into the scabbard, the cross opened up into a dimensional portal that awaited his passage through it invitingly. With one last grudging look at Dante and Lady with the corner of his eye twitching in irritation, Vergil turned around and walked through the portal. He did not want the sweet, fake promise that this woman’s scent elicited in his gut. There was only one that he had ever wanted and he would not be led astray.

Vergil needed to cool his head and he knew just the place to go to in order to achieve that.   

“Oh, I have missed this so much!”

Lady watched with an amused smile, leaning against her hand how delightedly Dante dipped the long dessert spoon back to his ice-cream, his eyes dreamy. She popped one of the cheese coated french fries from her fries basket into her mouth.

“You look like you haven’t had a sundae in decades,” Lady joked.

“Trust me. Those months in Hell felt like decades,” Dante replied, his eyes never leaving his dessert. 

The huntress wanted to ask more, hear more details of his trips - perhaps find out what was wrong with Dante and Vergil all of the sudden between the lines. But since they had just avoided one collision between the boys, and the oldest one of the brothers had left the devil hunting office with a rather sour look in his eyes, Lady made up her mind not to bring up any of that stuff. Not now. 

Right now, she wanted just to eat in peace with Dante, the same way as in the old times. They had spent many hours at this particular bar, eating and drinking together, and probably crying when each of them was there on their own . Lady had never asked about that either; did Dante arrive here to drink and cry alone like she occasionally had done when the past hurt too much, sneaking into the furthest of the corners with her glass?

She popped another fry into her mouth so as not to think about anything else salty other than the food she was having .

The waitress brought in the rest of their orders and Dante requested one more sundae. Lady pulled her plate closer to her and laughed.

“If you eat just ice-cream, there won’t be any room for all that food in front of you.”

“No worries about that. I’m starving,” Dante informed jovially , pushing the empty sundae glass away from him to dig into his triple patty hamburger. “I’ve been really hungry lately. Guess the new demon power I acquired demands more fuel.”

Lady’ s hand stopped midway toward her mouth with her fork full of food.

“A new demon power? Why do I hear about this just now?” Lady asked, nonplussed.

Dante casted a quick glance at Lady, soon turning his attention back to his dinner.

“It’s this full form of my devil power. Didn’t realize I was holding it back that much. You know how Vergil became V when he stabbed himself with Yamato? Well, I tried the same with Rebellion and guess what? It merged the human and demon together,” Dante explained, demonstrating his point by putting his palms together. “So, I’m still adjusting to it and its appetite.”

Lady blinked. Was that what bothered Dante? Was it bothering Vergil somehow, too? But if so, it didn’t explain why demons were gifting her and attacking her in such swarms. They were lucky none had found them on their way to the bar and for that, Lady had been happy. 

“Of course you would go and stab yourself,” Lady shook her head with a chuckle, deciding it was best just to concentrate on this nice, quiet moment now. 

“You know me,” Dante simply grinned back, half of his burger already somehow gone. Was he even chewing? She couldn’t help but mirthfully ponder. “I’m alwa---”

Dante’s sentence cut midway when the glass on the table behind Lady broke into millions of shattered pieces from a demon onslaught. The big, weird lizard-bird-like demon stumbled on the table to get up among the slippery plates while people around it scattered away, screaming hysterically. In its mouth, it was carrying a smaller, lifeless demon. 

“Oh no,” Lady jumped to her feet instantly , hastily backing away from the assailant as it turned its head to her. “No gifting. Not here.” 

She didn’t have her guns. She had nothing . Just the too big shirt of Dante’s and her shorts and combat boots, which would, if angled right, do some damage but not to a demon of this size. The demon cooed with a half-croaking purr to Lady, cocking its head repeatedly with its gift bouncing its dead limbs with the movements.

“I’ve got this.” Dante was in front of Lady, pressing her with his hand behind his back for cover. “You’re really popular nowadays, Lady. Should I be jealous?”

“Hah, very funny,” Lady muttered, letting Dante’s back glue against her. “I’ll get the people out.”

“No! No, stay behind me. We know what it wants from here and to be honest, I’m not willing to share you with it, ” Dante halted Lady with his palm before she even got to move from her spot. “Everyone out! We’re professional demon hunters! We will handle this! Someone turn off the lights so it can’t see!”

Whoever was still remaining inside gathered their belongings and rushed out. Screams and yells accompanied their hasty escape . Lady hoped her heart wouldn’t have taken an extra skip when Dante said he wasn’t willing to share but she didn’t want to read too much into that comment. She didn’t have the luxury to dwell on his words either while they were still in an improvised skirmish that she was hopelessly undergeared for. After the lights turned off, only a tiny light from the street arched its way into the room.

The demon started to walk slowly towards Lady on its four legs, and Dante backed up, urging her to move, too. The huntress expected Dante to find a better spot for a fight without damaging the bar too much as that would cost him. A lot. Too much. Well, it would cost her, too, as it was somehow her fault that she was attracting this unwanted demonic attention. Was there an off-switch somewhere in her? If so, Lady wanted to find it soon as the demon just kept approaching them and Dante kept backing away. The wall nearby was coming closer and closer to them.

“Dante,” Lady whispered urgently when the wall was a bit too close. His hand was spread to his side to shield her, eyes nailed to the demon.

“ Don’t worry , I’ve got this,” he hissed. 

Lady’s back pressed against the wall and she got squeezed between it and Dante’s rear. He stopped, standing in place with his hand still covering the huntress. She had no idea what her friend was up to, as she couldn’t see what was going on: she had ducked her head down; so she did her best to listen. Listen to the demon’s odd vocalization, Dante’s breathing, her own thundering heartbeat. Lady shouldn’t have gotten this excited about this, she wasn’t some damsel in distress needing Dante’s help, but right now, she was so grateful for that wide back that shielded her. 

The demon growled and to Lady’s surprise, Dante replied with a similar demonic growl at it. The demon dropped its gift on the floor and roared angrily at the legendary devil hunter, shaking its featherly neck scruff into a widening mane. Lady couldn’t believe her eyes when her friend summoned up his demon wings, spreading them to their full length. He never showed those in public and Lady was pretty certain that was the reason why Dante had asked to turn off the lights. People outside didn’t need to see what was going on inside the bar. 

But, why didn’t he want to fight the demon? It should have been easy for him.

Lady’s eyes widened in realization. She patted Dante's waist quickly, to find out that he wasn’t carrying either of his guns. 

“Where are your weapons?” she hissed at her half-demon friend, trying to haphazardly feel out something even close to a weapon from his clothes. No matter where she looked, all she could feel was just Dante’s muscular body, tensed up from the standoff with their assailant.

“Didn’t know you were going to be this popular tonight,” Dante replied with a surprisingly calm and even tone , still staring down the demon across from them . 

“I have absolutely no idea what this is,” Lady defended herself with an angry hiss, blushing now for some reason she couldn’t name. 

“This guy probably has a crush on you,” Dante joked with an amused tone. “It’s a male, it has a gift, it came here for you. Sounds exactly like a romance novel kind of thing.”

“Please, don’t even joke about something like that!” Lady gasped with a horrified small squawk. “ There is no way I’m going to settle down with a demon!”

Dante tried and failed spectacularly to ignore the sharp stab that speared his chest at Lady’s statement. He understood perfectly well what she meant, of course he did - it had been a good-natured little joke on his part that had spurred her to make that comment after all. But it didn’t change the fact that he was very certain she meant it with every fiber of her being. Being half-demon himself had never been as despicable as it was in these little moments.

But he didn’t have the time to dwell on the painful jab Lady had unwittingly delivered with her words because their assailant didn’t seem to be backing down despite the fact Dante’s form and wings were superior and held much more power. The demon gargled and hissed at the legendary devil hunter with a ferocity that spoke of danger and harm it was willing to bring upon him - even at the cost of its own life, if need be.

Dante’s brows narrowed as the hair on the back of his neck bristled. Right now, all that mattered was making sure that Lady got out of this situation safe and without a scratch on her, despite how mad with base lust this demon seemed to be. He had given her his word and although this onslaught was unexpected, it was his responsibility to resolve this mess he’d made.

Dante growled gutturally, his form lowering into a semi-crouch before the demon in front of him. His arm remained extended to shield Lady from their assailant’s view. He would get her out of this situation without issue if it was the last thing he did.

“Well, if this particular suitor is unwanted, then it’s a gentleman’s job to get rid of him,” Dante said with a low grunt before launching himself with impressive speed and agility at the demon, to the absolute astonishment of Lady. 

“Dante!” she called after him in an alarmed tone. 

Lady knew for a fact that being a half-demon made him significantly sturdier than humans, and that he had been through many, much more dangerous fights. However, another thing she knew was that in none of those ridiculously risky battles had he gone in completely unarmed. Without any of his weapons other than his sheer demonic strength and bare fists, she was horrified to consider how this altercation could end.

After jumping forward toward the demon with his impressive speed, Dante managed to catch it off-guard enough to land a solid blow to its jaw. The demon hurtled towards the other end of the bar and slammed into the wall, thankfully not creating any dents. The devil hunter cursed under his breath and reminded himself that not only should he handle this while taking as little damage as possible, but he had to make sure to keep the property destruction to a minimum as well. 

Before the demon could properly recover, he jumped in to deliver a rolling upward kick to it, which pushed it from the ground and toward the ceiling. Before it could collide with it, Dante let his body be enveloped by his full demonic form, grabbing a hold of the demon and delivering a series of super heavy blows to its head, successfully disorienting it. Before it could gather its bearings, Dante threw it with impressive force into the ground and jumped into its center with a solid kick. 

Just before he could continue his assault to keep the infernal being from moving, Dante received a slash from its claw-like paws that kept him from delivering the pain he had intended. There was a shallow gash on his chest where the demon had nicked him, and Dante snarled in annoyance at his inattention that led to him getting hurt. 

The temporary halt in his offense was enough to give the demon a chance to recover and go on the offensive itself. They started trading blow for blow, with Dante blocking and parrying as many of the creature’s attempts at his face and torso as possible. Despite his valiant defense, his shirt was coming up the loser of the duel when the demon’s sharp nails clawed and snagged on it, tearing small piece after small piece of it off.

Dammit, he actually liked this shirt! This demon was just sealing its fate and digging that grave deeper for itself. With each subsequent blow that Dante threw, the force he packed was starting to resemble the force of his punches and kicks with the Balrog. He was starting to get tunnel-vision and the only thing on the forefront of his mind was that he needed to decimate this foe as quickly and as efficiently as possible, for Lady’s sake. He couldn’t allow her to come to harm, he would not allow it.

Dante snarled again when his heavy kick connected with the demon’s front, knocking the wind out of it. It stumbled backwards and he exploited that opening to make a solid grab for its neck and wrangle with it in a close quarter scuffle. 

Unbeknownst to Dante and his one track mind of defeating the evil before him, Lady was watching the ensuing battle with growing amazement. She had been scared for her long time friend upon discovering that he had none of his myriad weapons on him, but now she was feeling a bit silly for having worried at all. Sure, initially he had resorted to this full demonic power that he had mentioned to her in passing just minutes earlier, but he had done so only to keep the demon from smashing around into the tables and tableware. He had dispelled the power soon after making it surface, but it had already been a moment too late. 

Lady had witnessed it first-hand and upon seeing it, a knot had tightened in her chest and knocked the wind out of her. She didn’t understand her body’s reaction to the sight but there was something within her that was screaming and clamoring to run her nails down that chest and chiseled back of Dante’s in that very moment. And that was just so weird, because they were in a dangerous situation - they were both unarmed and this demon was not one of the pushover types that they could overpower with their eyes closed. 

Yet instead of being wary of the situation and being on guard, Lady felt something stirring in her chest and a carnal need for… for something she didn’t understand, rearing its head. Whatever it was, it made her pulse quicken not because of the adrenaline coursing through her veins but because of this new feeling that she hadn’t asked for.

The fact that Dante’s shirt and pants kept getting nicked and shaved off in his scuffle with the demon wasn’t helping her floundering attention any. In fact, if doing anything, it was making her confusion in the situation even worse, because she could catch a glimpse of his muscular chest peeking through the gashes in the fabric, of his toned legs within the black leather pants as he jumped and delivered swift kick after swift kick to their foe.

Lady swallowed with great difficulty, wondering what was so wrong with her that she was practically drooling over her friend and looking at him with lustful eyes when she had seen him fight many times before. Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything other than the burning need to launch herself at him and straddle him right there and then, no questions asked.

Lady’s face flushed bright red at that last thought because that was definitely not okay . Thankfully, her train of thought got derailed when Dante gave a triumphant whoop from the other side of the bar, disengaging from the now limp demon. She looked up at him and felt a surge of pride and appreciation at his graceful approach towards her after having felled their enemy.

“Whew, that should teach you. The girl said no, so you should’ve taken the hint and backed away, buddy,” Dante commented derisively over his shoulder before stopping right in front of the breathless Lady who looked up at him with her eyes large with wonder. Her face and body felt hot when his piercing gaze roved over her. A shiver ran down the length of her spine when his hand cupped her cheek gingerly. “Are you okay?” 

“Uh huh… fine…” Lady mumbled intelligently, her mind not quite working yet. It was still in its lust-addled haze and she had to smack herself mentally to come up with a more convincing response because she could see the worry still swirling in Dante’s gaze upon her. “I’m great - not a single scratch on me. Thanks to you. See?” 

Dante nodded appreciatively and instead of removing his hand from her face as he usually would, his thumb gently caressed her cheek and caused her tummy to do a somersault inside her body. There was an electric thrum in her bones from being so close to him after his heated barehanded battle with that demon.

“Good, as you should be, too.” The smile Dante gave her in that moment felt like it was positively melting through her very soul. “It’s more than I can say for myself, I guess. The damn bastard tore my shirt apart. And it was one of my favorites, too! I should’ve smacked him about some more before putting him out of his misery for this!” 

Lady’s eyes dropped to the mentioned clothing garment that was indeed slashed wide open at the front, doing a terrible job of concealing Dante’s toned chest and upper abs from her probing eyes. She licked her lips when she felt her throat suddenly drying at the proximity she had to that same chiseled form she had been watching raptly earlier. 

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe he did you a favor? You’re really rocking this disheveled rugged look, if you ask me.” Who said that? Was it she who did? Lady had a hard time telling because she felt like her head was swimming in some kind of warm and fuzzy liquid. She felt like there was some sort of new gravity pulling her in closer to Dante and she felt powerless to resist it.

Dante, for his part, lifted his gaze to lock with hers, one of his brows cocking curiously at her words. He wasn’t exactly sure how to take that but it was definitely a very honest compliment on his appearance, wasn’t it? His chest tightened at the way Lady was looking at him and from the close proximity of her body. 

The fact she was wearing his shirt - despite the fact it was freshly washed - did not help his case. Especially since she made it look criminally good on her wondrous curves, and letting her toned shapely thighs peek out just under its hem.

Dante cleared his throat and raised his gaze to meet hers again, excitement and trepidation coursing through his body for a reason much different than the earlier demon scuffle.

“Do I? Really?” he murmured quietly, noticing for the first time that his hand was still cupping her cheek. Normally, he would’ve taken it away immediately upon noticing but this time, emboldened by… whatever it was she was doing with her entrancing eyes, instead he simply caressed her cheek with his thumb. 

“Uh huh…” Lady muttered, leaning into his touch and her eyes half-closing in a salacious way that made Dante’s heart skip a beat.

Did she just…? Did she lean into his touch? Was she okay with this? She was, wasn’t she? Lady, of all women, wouldn’t be complimenting him on his “disheveled rugged look” unironically if she didn’t mean it, least of all stay in his proximity when he was being all handsy and touchy-feely if she didn’t approve of it. Right? 

Was his thinking still straight, his reasoning still sound? Dante honestly just couldn’t tell. Her enthralling scent was right there before him and it was seeping into his bones and brain and making it impossible to tell if he was still thinking right or his mind had gone haywire with lust. What he did know was that it felt like her face was coming closer by the second and instead of pushing him away, her eyes were sliding shut and her voluptuous lips parting. His pulse was fluttering in excitement as he leaned in the rest of the way to close the distance between them, to press his mouth against those luscious lips --

“Oh, thank God! You dealt with it!” the bar owner enthused upon opening the door to the place. 

Both Lady and Dante felt violently yanked into a world that wasn’t just their own, where they were still in the middle of their favorite bar, which was plunged in darkness. Although not for long, because as soon as the owner had established that the fight was over, he marched inside and flicked the lights on. 

Lady took a difficult step away from Dante and shielded her eyes from the sudden light, letting herself adjust. She let her friend do all the talking with the bar owner who thanked him profusely for his efforts and offered to pay him for salvaging the situation that could’ve ended very badly for the ordinary man. 

The legendary devil hunter merely laughed good naturedly and politely declined the offer--probably because it didn’t sit right with him to benefit from a predicament that Lady had been at fault for, no doubt. Instead, he told the old man that if he put their dinner tonight on the house, it would be just the perfect reward for their trouble - a counter-offer that the bar owner took heartily.

After disposing of the two demon carcasses until they withered away in the back alley of the bar, Dante and Lady sat next to each other on the bar in a silence that was much more charged than ever after their almost-kiss. It took them a couple of false starts to get back on their usual wavelength, but neither could really put their heart into their small talk because all they could think about was what would’ve happened if the bar owner had been a minute later with his entry.

Dante wasn’t able to let go of Lady’s words which she had hastily yelped out when the demon suitor had been too keen on getting to know her better. Her opinion shouldn’t have been such a surprise to him – after all, he had made a promise to Lady to help her with exterminating all demons in the world, and he’d been actively helping her with that task in the past few decades. 

But this time, it just hit too close to home. Dante was now, more than ever, even more of a demon, and that should have given Lady more reasons to “not be into him like that”. 

He washed his face angrily and took a look of his own reflection in his bathroom mirror, frowning deeply. The man staring back at him looked like just an ordinary human but was far from it.

Lady knew who he was. Knew what he was. The huntress had accepted him as a friend and frankly, with the past experiences she had with demons, that was the best title Dante could even hope for.

But he would be lying to himself if he pretended that he had never wanted more than that.

It was a risk. A risk too big if things went south, and because of the fear of screwing things up and scaring Lady away for good, Dante had somehow managed to keep those tempting thoughts of her that made him feel all warm and bothered at bay. 

Contrary to popular belief, Dante was not a fool - at least not enough of one to be completely oblivious to his desires when it came to Lady, and about that “something more” he wanted to become for her. He had had one too many fantasies, one too many provocative dreams featuring her in suggestive positions with him, through no conscious desire of his own, to be able to remain oblivious, even if he had tried to. But Dante had always managed to trump that carnal desire that had been trying to sneak its way into his bond that he considered sacred with Lady. 

Yet lately something had shifted and now she was constantly on his mind. Regardless whether she was physically there or not, Dante was always thinking about Lady, and the lovely lilt of her voice, the curious brow she would quirk when intrigued, the melodious sound of her laughter when a joke he made hit its mark, the lovely shape of her plump lips. She was relentlessly smiling at him, talking to him and in his fantasies, desiring him as much as he desired her. 

And now, when things had taken a small step toward something better at the bar - something he had been hopelessly yearning for - they had been interrupted, and Lady had clammed up again. 

When she didn’t bring up the want for a kiss on her own, Dante didn’t mention it either. His mother would rise up from her grave to smack him a good one if he went too far with any woman, especially with Lady, who respected and trusted him.

It was not his right to mistreat that trust.

“Goddammit, Lady,” Dante cussed, leaning against the sink with his elbows, running both his hands into his messy hair. “What do I do with you? What do I do with myself?”

She smelled so good. So, so good. Insanely, sinfully good. She was strong and capable of defending herself - such an impressive feature for a mere human - but today, Dante had felt a sense of some manly pride to be able to keep Lady safe from the overly friendly demon. 

He hated to leave her alone at her home after the bar event, but she had insisted that she was fine. The fact she had retrieved her weapons and arsenal from Devil May Cry on their way back had probably played a big part in granting her a sense of security, no doubt. Feeling remorse for his earlier boldness , Dante had pondered, when Lady closed the front door to her place , if he had read too much into her lips and crossed the line. Or scared her. Or made her upset somehow. If she was upset, he would be twice as upset .

The demon inside of him was also acting restless and he had to hold it down, especially today after the adrenaline rush and the inviting little tilt of her pretty head towards him. It growled and purred, sending hot mental visions to Dante’s mind’s eye. It tugged his muscles, it whispered into his ear and burned his chest, making his lips dry. It told him how impressive Lady was, how such a small human woman could keep up with the pace of the demons and Dante, how she could take him by the horns and handle everything he could dish out right there, on that bar counter, effortlessly. 

It told Dante to admire how his way too big shirt’s collar fell softly off from Lady’s shoulder, how it revealed her perfectly toned arms and legs. It told Dante to admire those scars she had received over the years of her stellar demon hunting career , as proof of how capable and powerful she was. Almost like a demon herself, yet all the more impressive because she had nothing demonic running through her veins .

His demonic side really, really yearned for Lady. As much as his human side did, too. Dante had thought he would tell her, maybe as a little hint, how much he had missed her while he was in Hell. Wrap it into a small joke when they met again after he came back on Earth, hoping she could read between the lines. Flirting, yeah? That’s what it could be called. Yet as Dante would veil it in humor, it would be a safe bet - even if his light flirtation would not be to her taste, it would be okay, because he’d be able to play it off as a joke and tease her for taking him seriously.

But he hadn’t been able to do it. Not with Vergil around, as somehow his presence irked him so very much when Lady was there . Somehow Lady put Vergil on edge, too, but not exactly in the same way as she woman-handled Dante without her realizing it.

“Dante, you’re in such a mess,” he muttered to himself, slamming the surface of the mirror with frustration. It vibrated a bit but didn’t break. He was pretty sure he heard the demon in him chuckling at the heat in his stomach that had pooled there when he thought about Lady and that almost-kiss so much.

He wanted to touch her again. Feel her warm skin, kiss and lick all her scars to tend them instead of cleaning them with alcohol as he had done in the past when she had gotten hurt. The demon in him wanted to protect what it thought belonged to it. There were so many scars on her, possibly more than he knew, and the demon – or the man – in Dante kept insisting he had done a poor job with protecting Lady and he should step up his game. Thus, he had shown the huntress that she could trust him, that he would keep her safe no matter what. He would provide not only cover but also ammo, clips, weapons, anything she wanted or needed .

Though, to Dante’s misery, his gifts to Lady hadn’t really registered the way he had hoped. He had even contemplated that perhaps he should give her something more “romantic” but he failed to see how that would impress her – and the demon part of him wanted nothing more than to be impressive in the eyes it fancied best. 

She hadn’t even complimented his wings when he’d unleashed them in her presence .

Dante wiped his face with his palm.

“I need to get a grip. Get it together, Dante. You don’t want to be a pain in her side like those other demons, do you? If she wants a friend, then be a good friend, the best friend she could ever want.” He let out a heavy sigh and looked at his determined expression in the mirror. Dante nodded and steeled himself to keep at bay the mental image of her succulent lips and how they’d likely feel velveteen against his. 

After all, friends did not fantasize about making out with their friend, and neither would he. 

Lady couldn’t sleep, although she had laid in her bed for hours already. She kept fumbling with the shirt Dante had lent her in her palm next to her head, staring absently ahead . The shirt smelled like Devil May Cry did. It smelled like Dante did. It was his and belonged to him, and its scent made her so acutely aware of that fact in the dead of the night she couldn’t get a wink of sleep . 

Dante was doing something to her. Something unusual, something weird. Something which made Lady think of him a lot more than she normally did. Something which made him find his way under her skin in new, intriguing ways. She did her best to push that aside as Dante was her friend - her best friend . Lady knew him and the only way she could wrap her mind around what was happening was to think that he was likely just being nice and considerate. Perhaps to compensate for the fact that he had been in Hell and left things in Devil May Cry in Lady’s and Trish’s hands.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t Lady seen or heard anything similar happening between him and Trish? Like the presents, compensation, nice comments and thoughtful consideration directed at her from Dante to make up for his absence for all those months ? 

The huntress turned to lay on her back with a deep frown etched on her face. In changing position, she instinctively brought the shirt to her chest, rubbing the soft fabric of it between her fingers in a motion that felt soothing to her racing thoughts, while she stared at the ceiling. It was beyond any doubt that she was the only one receiving the sudden attention from Dante, and the fact in itself was as flattering as it was confusing for Lady. 

Yet was it possible that she had let that get to her head, and it had caused a temporary insanity in her? Which led to her allowing herself to be caught in a moment of a racing heart and flushed sides at the bar, finding Dante’s parted lips too alluring and inviting not to lean in towards them?

How had she allowed herself to act like that? Dante would tease her about this lapse relentlessly, she was absolutely certain. Except, he hadn’t. At least not yet. If Lady was being honest with herself - and she wasn’t sure how safe a bet honesty was for her at this time - it almost looked like he was disappointed they got interrupted . But that couldn’t be the truth, right? Perhaps Dante had just wanted to have his revenge for that time in Temen-ni-gru’s library when she had not accepted his move on her. Right? That seemed like the most plausible reason to her garbled mind.

What annoyed her more was that now she didn’t know the answer. She didn’t get that kiss. No matter where it would have led to - either to Dante finding a new soft spot to tease her about or her ending in his lap - it was gone now. Lady had to admit she had wanted to see how that would have played out. At least take a peek at how it would have gone . Turn the thought around in her mind and see what the demon suitor had dealt as a card to her hand when it forced Dante to take a stance for her. Even just one single glimpse at that possibility .

And now, she felt way too self-conscious to go for that kiss again. The moment had been ruined for good and what was worse, there might not be another opportunity like that coming anytime soon, if ever again.

Lady squeezed the shirt tighter against her chest. Why was she so bothered about this so much? About such a silly thing as a near- kiss with Dante? With Dante! Of all the people! Better yet , why was she so bothered in genera l by Dante and his actions, or lack thereof ? 

Why did she keep repeating in her head how he had shielded her at the bar at his own expense without hesitation? She couldn't get out of her mind how he had leapt into action before Lady had even fully realized what was happening. He sensed danger and immediately interjected himself bodily between her and the source of the threat, despite knowing full well he was unarmed. And there it was again - that traitorous little tremor in her pulse just at the memory of Dante's valiance.  

It wasn’t the first time the legendary devil hunter had saved her hide but lately, him doing so made Lady feel hot. And that itself annoyed her , because she didn’t know why it was happening. It hadn't happened before and yet now it seemed to be the norm? What was with that?! What had changed? 

Was it Dante’s new demonic powers giving him some extra seductive vibes? Had he caught something from Hell and infected Lady with it, too ? She instinctively touched her forehead to feel her temperature for a possible fever, but all seemed fine and perfectly normal .

“Dammit, Lady! What’s wrong with you?” she hissed at herself, letting her arm fall over her eyes. 

She just couldn’t stop Dante from appearing in her mind whenever she closed her eyes. But Dante… He wouldn’t feel the same about her. They had known each other for so long that if he had been interested in her, he would have done something about it by now. And the fact that he hadn’t, only spoke to Lady in volumes of how this feeble hope of hers was in vain. 

The worst part about this all was that Lady was starting to believe that his peculiar behavior lately didn’t have anything to do with Dante himself, or any will of his own , but with her weird… condition… that was pestering not only her but also the demons around her.

She hoped she wasn’t hurting Dante too much with this all. Causing him any harm was the last thing she wanted and thus, Lady kept her mouth shut about her intrusive thoughts when it came to the devil hunter, and told herself that whatever she was feeling had to be some Qliphoth after- effect or something similar. 

Lady knew she would feel better if she just slept tonight. She just needed to sleep well and eat well tomorrow, and perhaps go for a refreshing jog after breakfast. If she just did those, she would feel good as new. Of course, she had learnt her lesson from tonight and she would go on that jog with a gun - just in case another demon would find her a bit too interesting.

She could hear how something made a small thud sound at her front door. Turning on her stomach, Lady brought a pillow over her head and pressed it tightly over her ears.

She would deal with that demon gift tomorrow morning. Whatever the hell it would end up being, it would have to wait for to get some much needed rest .

-----------

CONFRONTATION

The following day, when Vergil sauntered into Devil May Cry in the morning, he did not expect the type of reception he received from Dante shortly after his arrival. 

Following the rather short-lived encounter he’d had with his brother due to Lady parading out from the shower only in her towel, Vergil had to cut his business short and he meant it when he promised that he’d revisit the talk he wanted to have with Dante soon. The evening after had served to help Vergil’s spirit calm down considerably, but from Dante’s furious expression, his younger brother hadn’t had the same luck.

It seemed that the legendary devil hunter had been restless even before Vergil entered. Yet as soon as the older son of Sparda was within sight, Dante started pacing back and forth before his desk, visibly fuming. If Vergil didn’t know better, it felt like his brother had been waiting for him just so he could demand the answer to his next question.

“Where the hell have you been?!” Dante hissed out angrily, shooting pointed, inquiring glares at his brother with stormy eyes. However, he was more agitated than reasonable because he started pacing again before Vergil had a chance to prepare a response. “The one time when I could actually use your help - and you’re nowhere to be found!” 

“If I recall correctly, you were the one who threw me out from here, claiming my person was no longer welcome. It is your space, and I am not the kind of uncouth brute to ignore your demands at your premises - especially where that human woman is concerned, since you know her best,” Vergil responded with a clipped tone. His sharp eyes were squinted, following Dante’s pacing warily. 

There was a minute tilt of the older twin’s head - an angry tic, as he was reminded of the unpleasant encounter that had raised the need for him to revisit some topics he’d rather have steered clear of. 

“At the time I was chased off, neither of you seemed to be in any need for my… assistance , of any kind. You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that if you’re going to be verbally lashing out at me, brother .” Vergil’s scathing quip caused Dante to halt mid-step, and get glued to his spot in outrage.

“Specific, huh? Oh, I’ll be very specific with you, big brother .” Dante spread his arms to the side dramatically. “While you were dilly-dallying somewhere, Lady and I got ambushed by a feral large demon. We were unarmed . There was so much demonic energy flaring while we fought it that I thought you’d be there even if I didn’t want you around. And since you never let go of Yamato - hell , you probably even sleep with it, for all I know - we could’ve really used your help there!”

Despite Dante’s barb about Vergil’s obsessive possession of the Spardan heirloom, which would normally get a rise out of him without rhyme or reason, the content of Dante’s complaint raised his brother’s wariness much more than their usual banter ever could. Vergil’s eyes widened slightly, and he raised his chin from his defensive position he had unwittingly assumed.

“You got attacked? While you were with that woman?” the older twin questioned with a guarded expression.

“Yes, and by the way , her name is Lady,” Dante interjected with a scoff.

“Did she get hurt?” Vergil asked next, completely ignoring Dante’s miffed comment. 

His question made the younger twin freeze upon the concern voiced for Lady’s wellbeing. Dante pierced his brother with his unblinking scrutiny as he measured him up, weighing something in his mind wordlessly.

“No,” Dante responded at length, the edginess leaving his tone and the rigidity of his posture relaxing. “Luckily enough, she had a handsome devil nearby who was there to protect her even barehanded. But it was a close call. Needlessly so. If she had been hurt in that fight, I would have come for your ass.” 

Vergil’s gaze dropped to his feet and he gave a thoughtful hum. He had felt that his leaving the area had been justified, considering the circumstances, but Dante made it sound like the situation had been dire. His brother had never been one to ask Vergil for help or to go to him for anything - the older twin could recall that vividly, as it was true since their early childhood days. Even when they became teenagers in Redgrave and found out about each other, Dante never wanted to see him, not to mention asking for any help from him for anything at all.

Getting scolded so sternly by Dante about this now made a muscle in the corner of Vergil’s mouth twitch with the complicated feelings it incited in him. Projecting the image of an unreliable burden was not something he would ever intend, because it was against everything he stood for in his life and his quest for power. Vergil would also never admit this to anyone - even to himself - but he did want to be the kind of person his family could and would want to rely on. And that most certainly included Dante, in his time of need.

And Vergil hadn’t been there. When both Dante and Lady had been vulnerable and in need of his strength. He squared his shoulders and straightened up his back before clearing his throat.

“It would appear that I’ve made a slight miscalculation,” Vergil muttered under his breath in response, mostly to himself. 

“Yeah, very slight one,” Dante chimed in bitterly, causing his brother to throw him a nasty glance in response. “Where the hell were you anyway?” He reiterated his question from earlier angrily, now even more curious as to the answer.

Somehow, after Dante’s whole self-righteous (if fully justified) behavior so far that morning, Vergil felt more petty and inclined to withhold the answer to that question to himself. There was no way he was going to just volunteer the “I was visiting my son and his wife-to-be because I felt the urge to have some of her divine handmade herbal blend of tea, and enjoy their soothing company while I’m at it”.

“What does it matter? I was unavailable, hence you had to fend for yourself,” Vergil snapped with a dismissive wave of his hand. Dante eyed him sternly with an unblinking gaze.

“Because, depending on the response, that would either make you incompetent, for not feeling all that demonic energy sparking during our right, or an ass, for choosing to ignore it despite feeling it flaring,” Dante clarified cleverly, making his brother’s expression turn more sour. “So? Which is it?”

This was honestly none of Dante’s business right then but being called incompetent was not something Vergil would ever take - especially from his brother, of all people! It would be like a pot calling the kettle black, if it were true - and it wasn’t! Vergil would not stand for it.

He let out a heavy sigh of defeat and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger before finally deigning Dante’s question with a response.

“If you must know, I was out of town. Visiting Nero and Kyrie at their home in Fortuna.” Vergil’s honest answer seemed to catch Dante off-guard, because something between puzzlement and surprise replaced his frustrated look that had seemed etched on his features for the past few minutes. Vergil gave his twin an expectant stare. “What does that make me then, out of the options you were considering?” 

The frown on Dante’s face didn’t disappear, but the hard lines of his features softened quite a bit as he deliberated his own response.

“Well, neither incompetent nor an ass, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t expect you to know what’s going on in Redgrave from all the way in Fortuna, I guess,” Dante acquiesced, shifting his attention to the floor. 

Some of his righteous displeasure with his cumbersome brother having found no ground to hold, he let his vexation with Vergil go as best as he could. After all, Dante had been the one jesting half a year ago about Vergil needing to catch up with his kid and his family. Who was he to say something else now? 

“You managed to defend the wo-- Lady , despite my absence though?” Vergil ascertained with an inscrutable tone that Dante was unable to decipher. 

“Yeah, I did. Had to use a small demon trick for it but I handled it. Thank your luck that it wasn’t a horde of demons or something worse than that.”

Vergil threw Dante a long, curious look which the younger brother felt held a hint of disappointment and distaste in it as well. 

“Why does a demon hunter - pardon - legendary demon hunter, leave his weapons at home when he goes out to dine with a woman, who seems to have a peculiar streak of attracting demons?”

Dante raked his hair as an attempt to find a coherent answer to Vergil’s unfairly excellent question. He had already pondered that matter himself multiple times since the previous night. Because he could be mad at Vergil all he wanted for not being there to cover his ass, but if Dante had been thinking and brought some of his arsenal along, his ass would not have needed any covering to begin with.

“I… I don’t know. I thought it would be peaceful for once. It’s not like something like this has happened before. Lady and I have shared nights out without issues before so…” Dante explained, floundering with his words, looking like he had a hard time believing his own reasoning. 

To Vergil, it sounded more of an excuse for screwing things up than a legitimate reason that had been given any consideration in advance. If anything, the older son of Sparda was more inclined to believe that Dante hadn’t given it any thought at all before dashing out of the front door after Lady, his tail wagging all the way. 

He could also see that Dante was still confused by what was happening around Lady - or with Lady, Vergil didn’t have all the details but he knew something was happening between his little brother and that human huntress. 

And whatever that something was, it was affecting him, too.

“I believe I owe you both an apology then. For this particular matter,” Vergil added hastily before his admission could be taken the wrong way. “I should’ve been there, and I wasn’t.” He sniffed audibly, the nervous tic of a head tilt surfacing again before he smothered it away. “Nevertheless, if that woman is important to you, you should look after her better.”

“Hah. That’s rich, coming from you,” Dante spat bitingly, embittered by having Vergil touch upon something that was a sore spot for him. 

In turn, his scathing comment found its mark too well, as he seemed to have hit a painful spot for Vergil, too. Dante could tell immediately from the way his brother’s face turned to stone and his eyes betrayed a look of profound sadness and anguish - he had crossed a line he hadn’t meant to.

“Do not get smart with me about things you know nothing about,” Vergil ground out between clenched teeth with a ferocity that screamed at Dante to back off from this topic if he knew what was good for him.

Which was just as well, because Dante already regretted his poor phrasing. He hadn’t meant to pour salt into any of Vergil’s open wounds, so he put his arms up in a placating sign, signalling his surrender.

Vergil righted his posture sharply, smoothing down the front of his vest and straightening out his coat by its lapels.

“Anyway, I did not come here to talk about our private lives or the women in them,” the older son of Sparda said acerbically, hoping to get his point across to Dante about his unwise choice of words. His twin didn’t need to be told twice, as the fight had already left him. “What I came here to talk about is Sparda manor. Our home.” 

“That’s no home of mine,” Dante said with an angry growl, turning on his heel to walk away from his brother towards the other side of the room. He felt the need to keep the expression on his face away from Vergil, along with the strong urge to get some more physical space between them upon the surfacing of this topic.

“I thought as much,” Vergil surmised as a matter of fact. His tone became wistful. “I would like to take it. Renovate it to its former glory, if possible.”

“No!” Dante spun around suddenly, surprising both himself and his brother with his abrupt (and strong) reaction. He blinked with his finger still pointing at Vergil, who chuckled before Dante could speak again.

“I thought you didn’t care about it,” Vergil noted, oddly amused to witness this scene happening - with a front row seat, no less. Well, Dante had always been the one with the thick skull and lazy brains, in Vergil’s not-so-humble opinion.

“I don’t. Just… It’s not only yours,” the legendary devil hunter mumbled half-coherently, but intelligibly enough for the other man to hear him.

Vergil nodded, showing his understanding for what Dante couldn’t properly verbalize. He then looked around Devil May Cry with a thoughtful hum.

“You have a nice space here, Dante. Enough for two. Well, more, if you wish,” Vergil spoke slowly, deliberately. He left his spot to walk around Dante’s office with a calm pace, hands clasped behind his back. “But what about me? Would you have me live on the streets like some stray?”

“No, that’s not--”

“Nero and Kyrie have many children in their care, in their shelter. Unofficially though it is,” Vergil added as an afterthought quickly, before his tone became wistful again. “It reminds me of our father. How he looked after the humans even when he gained nothing from doing so. It would appear my son has inherited more of that side of our father than either one of us did.” 

Dante watched Vergil’s back thoughtfully, remaining immobile where he stood. The devil hunter couldn’t see his brother’s expression but he could practically hear the slight smile in his tone and words.

“Are you saying the Manor would make a good orphanage?” Dante questioned, unsure if he was following his twin’s train of thought. Vergil spun on his heel so he was facing Dante again, giving a long pensive hum at the query.

“Well, I guess it could be turned into that, too,” Vergil admitted after a moment of consideration. Then he waved with his hand in a dismissive manner. “But I was thinking more of a quaint, quiet place for myself. Perhaps with enough space for my son’s large family to stay should they wish to visit Redgrave. Having met them recently, I’m certain they will drop by - announced or not, even if I tried to prevent them from doing so.”

Despite his choice of words about the matter, the soft look in Vergil’s gaze and expression didn’t hint at any desire on his part to turn away the guests from his own extended family, or even of them being any bother at all. Dante’s head tilted towards his shoulder with a frown as he deliberated what he was hearing.

“Okay, this is getting weird so I have to know: who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Dante asked in an uneasy tone, rushing to stand before Vergil to examine him for any actual damage. “Did you hit your head? Are you feverish or something? Or did Nero maybe poison you?”

Initially, Vergil patiently tolerated Dante’s theatrical show of concern, but by the end of his brother’s skit, the older son of Sparda was rolling his eyes.

“Are you done?” Vergil demanded mockingly, disregarding the stare still full of wariness in the demon hunter’s eye. 

“Not really. You didn’t answer the question. Now I’m honestly wondering what’s the chance of a doppelganger kidnapping his original and leaving him gagged in a dingy closet somewhere, so he can take his place or something of the sort.” 

It was testament to Dante’s skill at making a good joke that Vergil couldn’t tell at all whether his brother was serious about this worry of his or he was jesting. Regardless of which it was, Vergil didn’t care. He rolled his eyes again and gave a disparaging scoff in response to Dante’s musings.

“I am not ill, nor indisposed in any way, you fool,” he informed coolly, swatting Dante’s hand away when he reached out to put an open palm against his forehead. Vergil’s glare in response made a muscle in the corner of the younger twin’s mouth twitch, giving away his ruse. “And even if my son had a harebrained idea like poisoning me, I really doubt Kyrie would stand for him doing so in her home, in her very presence.” 

Dante nodded sagely in response, recognizing the truth of his brother’s words. He also couldn’t help but note that Vergil didn’t need to be told twice to refer to Kyrie by name - an issue that he seemed to have when talking about Lady. A curious fact, which he filed away for revisiting when he gathered some more information as to why that could be.

“Yeah, that’s fair. I really doubt that murder would ever be on the agenda if Kyrie has a say about it,” Dante agreed with a nod. “That girl is so nice, she’s practically a saint. And an amazing hostess, as I’m sure you’ve learnt already. I’ve never had better cookies than the ones she bakes in my entire life.”

Vergil nodded pensively as well, caught in reminiscence about his visit to Fortuna.

“Quite true. I don’t think it’s possible for somebody to be a better host than Kyrie.” If Vergil noticed the grin that almost broke out on Dante’s face before he managed to smother it down, it was impossible to tell. He honestly couldn’t help it, though - he’d never heard his brother sing someone’s praises so openly. And a human, at that! “Rather than the cookies, I found the herbal blend of tea that she offered much more delightful. Hard to believe that she makes it herself - the taste was just divine. And most certainly not poisonous - that much I can guarantee,” he surmised at length, throwing the devil hunter a critical look.

Dante raised his hands in surrender, trying to placate his twin’s temper before it had a chance to flare.

“Don’t look at me - you were the one acting weird. My suspicion was entirely justified, and you know it!” 

Vergil deigned Dante’s comment with only a scoff before settling to look away in the distance, outside the window of Devil May Cry with a melancholy expression on his sharp features.

“I’m weary, Dante,” he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper as though he were confiding a great secret in his brother. Which was just as well, because hearing something like that from Vergil, of all people, had not been something Dante had expected to hear ever. “I just want to have a place to rest, and relax. A place to go home to. A real home. I want to be home.”

Dante’s expression filled with emotions, the leading of which seemed to be guilt, from what Vergil could see in the reflection in the window’s surface. He heaved a great sigh, massaging his neck as he pondered the matter in earnest.

“I guess that’s fair…” he murmured to Vergil, who turned to look at him again. Dante nodded as he held his brother’s meaningful gaze. “But you have to know that things don’t work here the same way they do in Hell. If you want that property, you’ll have to do some legal work. You can’t just march in there and lay claim to the area, killing everyone who dares to trespass afterwards.”

Vergil chuckled at the mental image Dante’s words elicited in him. The younger brother looked at his twin with a small smirk in response but a warning look in his eye all the while. Vergil shook his head to rid it of the amusing ideas he had been given.

“I wasn’t planning on doing anything of the sort, so you won’t need to worry. I heard from Nero you know a man named Morrison who could possibly help. Apparently, you have other beneficial contacts in this town on top of that,” Vergil said slowly and deliberately while gauging Dante’s reaction to his words. The younger son of Sparda nodded in affirmation, causing a feeling of calm to flood Vergil’s being. 

Although he certainly preferred the feeling of being relied on and having his help sought, the older twin couldn’t deny that it was most reassuring to have close family with knowledge, connections and good human-relations in town. 

“Fair enough, I’ll do what I can. But this is really big. You’re going to owe me at least two favors when we pull this off,” Dante noted impishly, holding up two fingers in front of Vergil’s face, who slapped his hand away with a grunt of distaste.

“Greediness, Dante, greediness. Didn’t you owe me? I recall our match in Hell ending with a score of 2672 - 2671 in my favor.” 

Dante rolled his eyes and placed both of his hands on his hips while eyeing his brother sardonically. 

“It was a draw, and you know it.” 

Vergil couldn’t help the smirk that lifted up the corner of his mouth in response to Dante’s clever remark. The devil hunter mirrored it with a cheeky smile of his own.

“Son of a---!”

Lady closed her mouth quickly as the oozing slime this demon had spat on her head tried to get into her mouth and that was the last thing she wanted now. 

What she wanted was to shoot that delighted looking piece of shit into the next dimension with Kalina-Ann but before she got to reach for her weapon, Dante’s Balrog fist connected with the demon’s head, sending it flying to the other side of the street with no hope of ever walking again.

“Someone got a little demon kiss, I see,” Dante grinned but the grin didn’t reach his eyes. Lady shook her head and wiped her face hastily.

“I did not see that one coming,” she mumbled, shooting a few other demons nearby before they got their chances to spit on her. They fell with a croak on their spots and whatever the rest of the demons were up to, they scattered in a hurry when they noticed what Dante did to their friends.

“It’s good that I came to fetch you from the station, isn’t it? Even though you refused and I was a bad boy who didn’t listen to you,” Dante offered, chuckling at how the slime-covered Lady looked at him with a murderous glare.

“I should have, should have, known this would happen. I hate this,” she complained, peeved, shaking her hands to get off the slime that was dripping down from her head. “These demons are getting more and more creative with their approaches.”

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned,” Dante put his hand at Lady’s lower back, urging her gently to move forward. “A hot shower will do and after that, we can discuss the thing you wanted.”

“I’m getting tired of this,” the huntress grumbled, starting to walk towards the direction of Devil May Cry with determined steps. 

“...Sorry, I should have gotten to you earlier than that new suitor,” Dante said with tightly pressed lips. Lady waved his apology off with a flick of her hand.

“It’s not your fault, Dante. You’re not my babysitter and I don’t need one. I just want things to return back to normal, to how they used to be before that Qliphoth mess. You know, at this point, I almost feel like smacking Vergil in the head for all of this. Can I do that?”

Her musings earned her a small laugh from Dante.

“As much as I’d love to see Vergil getting scolded by you - even more so getting smacked by you - perhaps we should leave the guy be.”

“...Yeah, you are right,” Lady agreed with a sigh, remembering that whatever was going on, it most likely affected Vergil too, and she doubted he would have wanted to land himself in such a predicament. Moreover, if she was the cause, she didn’t want to aggravate the older of the Sparda twins. She knew Dante and how to deal with him pretty much inside out, but Vergil? He was a mystery that did its best to remain unresolved .

Right after arriving at Devil May Cry, Lady made a bee-line for the bathroom, catching a towel Dante threw at her on her way. After washing her hair, face, neck and hands, the huntress left the washroom to arrive at the table where Dante had placed fresh pizza and fancy looking glasses.

“I didn’t know you had these,” Lady remarked while she looked at the glasses with an amused smirk. Dante was filling them with soda.

“These… Well, these were ours. From back then. You know.”

Lady’s eyes widened.

“From your home?”

“Yeah. I told you how I snatched as much stuff as I possibly could, though when I was a kid I couldn’t really take much with me.” Dante tapped the side of one of the glasses. “Vergil and I had our Sunday morning breakfast juice from these glasses. I guess they were mom’s favorite ones, too.”

“You took glasses with you when you were a kid and kept them?” Lady mused, feeling like she should be extra careful with the glass Dante was offering her. 

“Nope. I got these just recently. I found the manor, Lady. It was hidden well, perhaps by demons' magical work. Far, far behind ruins and crumbling roads and buildings, and to be honest, I didn’t even know the place still stood up. I went there again… well, just to visit. Discovered that these were there, among other things that had not been raided. So, I took them. I guess, now that Vergil is here too, perhaps we get to have a Sunday breakfast with these again.”

Lady listened to Dante’s explanation with a heartwarming feeling swelling in her chest , watching delightedly how his expression melted into something soft and forlorn while he told her of his little treasure finding.

“By the way, you look nice with your hair down.”

Lady blinked, completely dumbfounded by Dante’s sudden change of tone and topic. The wide grin on his face as he said it was no less dashing than his introspective and self-reflective expression had been earlier, and that didn’t help her get her bearings any easier. She cocked her head, clearing her throat with a little chuckle.

“Thanks. I guess?” 

“Things will get gloomy if I walk too far down memory lane so let’s think about something else. Like your hair. Good thing the slime the demon spat wasn’t acidic.”

“Oh no, it could have been!” Lady gasped, realizing that Dante had a point. Her free hand rose up to her moist, messy hair. “If it had destroyed my hair I would have sent it beyond Hell.”

“For good hair, then?” Dante proposed with a smirk, slightly toasting his childhood glass towards Lady. She had to laugh at that when she raised her glass up to his .

“For good hair.”

The huntress took a sip from her glass, thinking how much this little object had seen, how much it had been through . She pondered how mornings had been for Dante and Vergil when they were younger. For her, the mornings had been nice before her father’s obsession with Sparda’s power and whatever else had messed up his mind all of the sudden. After that, everything in Lady’s life had become hazy, depressed, angry. 

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Dante asked, placing his glass on the table. He drew the closest pizza box while listening to what she had to say.

“I’ve been pondering if there’s a way to somehow neutralize the Qliphoth effect on demons. I’m also curious if other people have reported similar things as what I’m experiencing.”

Dante’s head cocked with pursed lips. He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“Not that I’ve heard of. Though getting them off your back would be good, I agree with that. Can’t be fun to live while watching over your shoulder constantly.”

Lady knew Dante was speaking of his own experience with Mundus. She didn’t want to bring that subject up so she just nodded, pretending not to see any correlation between this aspect of what she was going through and his life . She tapped her fingers gently against the glass’s surface.

“Yeah. I’m concerned if this is something that can spread to other people. And what if I’m calling forth more demons from the cracks that lead to Hell? Should we go patch those holes?”

Dante’s hand cutting the pizza in even pieces stopped for a second.

“Together?” he asked, turning to look at Lady. She blinked, shoulders tensing.

“Uh, yes. Well, I could use help. More eyes to spot the cracks, more hands to seal them and well, you know, with these demons breathing down my neck now...” Lady explained, gesturing in the air with her free hand.

“You’re absolutely right. That is unacceptable. I’m the only demon who’s allowed to breathe down your neck. I’ve been doing that for all these decades and I don’t like it if someone else takes that position from me,” Dante remarked cheekily with an impish smirk, his eyes back on the gigantic pizza. 

Lady blinked several times again, trying to relax her shoulders. He surely hadn’t meant that comment the way she wanted to read between the lines of it.

“So it’s a yes?” she asked with a slight uncertainty .

“Of course. I promised to help you with erasing demons and this is a great opportunity to continue that job.”

It was true, yes, but when Dante said it now, it made Lady’s heart flutter with trepidation and warmth spreading through her chest . Oddly enough, she didn’t resist the sensation as it flooded he r.

“When are you free to go?” Dante asked, stuffing his mouth with half of the pizza slice. Lady never stopped to wonder just how wide his mouth actually was, no matter how many times she witnessed that almost demonic devouring of anything he happened to eat.

“I’m actually free today,” Lady replied. She reached for her share of the pizza, sliding closer to Dante to reach it. “If you’re free to go, that is?”

“Even if I had some other stuff to do, I’d never say no to a date with a pretty woman,” Dante grinned from ear to ear.

The huntress froze for a second. That sounded just like Dante and all, but now when she thought about it, she actually didn’t know anything about his love life. Not that he would have been the type to brag about it but when that thought popped into Lady’s mind, it got stuck there, making her suddenly annoyed .

“You surely won’t have any issues with women asking you out,” she commented off-handedly.

“Never. I love women.”

There was a sharp, burning stab in Lady’s stomach. It traveled up to her head and somehow her hand holding the juice glass started to feel a bit weak. She blinked, swallowing down the searing sensation of an upcoming heartburn. She got an urge to get up and go to the bathroom, maybe wipe her face with something cold. The burning feeling wasn’t going away and she, of all women, shouldn’t have been this weak. 

Lady stood up slowly, placing the glass gingerly on the table. Dante’s head rose from his plate to the huntress who was straightening her back.

“Are you okay?” he asked, worried , around the slice of pizza .

“Just some heartburn. Excuse me,” Lady replied with a quick swallow, turning hastily on her heels to pass the living room table from its other side. She hit her foot on the table’s leg, tripping over it, but Dante was there in a second, catching her mid-fall.

“Woah, careful, babe. Can’t kill any demons if you break your arm or leg,” Dante commented breathlessly , helping Lady to stand upright again . 

She looked somehow off, ill of sorts . Concerned, Dante placed his palm under her bangs, his lips parting when he felt just how warm her forehead was.

“Damn, Lady. You’ve got a fever!”

“No, no, I’m fine!” She resisted, trying to escape from Dante’s hold but failing miserably when the step she took didn’t really connect with the floor like it should have. Lady had to take a hold of Dante to prevent herself from staggering forward. 

“No, you’re not fine. On the sofa. Now,” Dante said sternly and maneuvered her around, steering her by the shoulders , basically pushing her down on the sofa unceremoniously . 

“I hate this,” Lady croaked testily, too weak to resist Dante’s manhandling . He picked a thick blanket from somewhere and threw it over her.

“I’ll get you a warmer shirt,” he said, leaving before the woman could say that she was fine with her own shirt. 

A small shiver running over her body told her otherwise and when Dante returned with one of his warm long sleeved shirts, Lady accepted it with a less grumpy expression than expected. In all honesty, the legendary devil hunter had expected more resistance from his unexpected patient, but he was happy to have her receive his care and attempts to help her without too many complaints. 

“I don’t have painkillers here for obvious reasons but I’ll go fetch some from the nearby pharmacy. Will you be OK here meanwhile ?”

“Dante, I’m not dying,” Lady muttered, despite actually feeling like dying. Her muscles were aching now and she was scared how quickly the illness, whatever it was, was spreading. “I’m sure this is that demon slime’s doing. Demonic fluids and humans don’t really match.”

“Let’s see how well the demonic fluid does with ibuprofen,” Dante patted her shoulder, bending to lean to Lady’s face. “Anything else you want or need?”

Dante’s concern for her well-being warmed Lady’s cheeks, together with her fever. She shook her head shortly.

“I’m good.”

Her friend eyed her with deep concern, staying bent down while touching her shoulder. Then, he stood up with a groan and pointed at Lady with his finger.

“I’ll be back ASAP. Try to get some shut eye if you can. That seems to work on humans always, for any illness they have .”

Frankly, Lady liked that idea. The sickness was making her not only feverish but also fatigued. It was sucking out her energies and making her eyelids heavy. Her limbs followed that command and started to weigh more and more, and the comfortable sofa under the warm blanket was really, really welcoming. The huntress let her eyes fall closed when she heard Dante leaving, shutting the front door with haste.

Lady stirred on the sofa, her eyes fluttering open slowly . Dante was leaning towards her, touching her shoulder again. She didn’t remember falling asleep.

“Here, I got your medicine,” Dante spoke softly, offering a single painkiller in his palm to her. She sat up in slow motion, taking the pill and reaching for her juice that her caretaker had put on the table in front of the sofa . After swallowing, she huffed sadly and buried herself back under the blanket.

Dante squatted in front of her face, looking into her tired eyes.

“I called Trish as she knows more about these things than I do. She said the slime was just some friendly demonic ‘Hi, nice to see you!’ greeting and it was expecting you to spit back at it as a sign that you had accepted its gesture. She also said you just need to sleep and stay warm and the fever should be gone by tomorrow evening.”

“That’s good,” Lady rasped out , sounding like she had caught a proper flu. “Or not. I got demon bacteria. Eew.”

“At least your nose is not running,” Dante offered playfully.

“No, but it’s cold and my head hurts,” Lady whined, burying her head under the blanket with a dramatic huff. Dante patted her shoulder compassionately and laughed.

“If you can whine, that means you’re fine,” he noted, urging Lady to sit up. She did so, eyes closed and lips pouting. Her eyes opened when Dante sat next to her and scooped her into his arms, pulling her down on top of him on his chest.

“Still, I promised Trish I would keep you warm and safe, especially if other demons find you a bit too interesting today, and you know I’m a man of my word.”

Lady took a small, curious glance at Dante’s face. He cocked his eyebrow and shrugged, his usual small smile lingering at the corner of his lips. She relaxed, albeit a bit slowly, into his embrace . It wasn’t the first time he’d held her like this - in fact, he had comforted her often in the past. But when all these things were happening now, when there was this odd pull in Dante which beckoned Lady deeper into his arms, she pressed her reddening cheek against his chest and hid her face, hoping it didn’t look too suspicious. She didn’t need to blush right now.

After all, this didn’t mean anything. It was just Dante doing his Dante-things and looking after her like he had promised to Trish. Nothing else. Nothing to read between the lines or understand wrong. Lady reminded herself that she didn’t want to ruin their friendship by getting too into this “Hold Me, Dante”-business.

“Too bad I wasn’t there earlier. That demon got you first,” the legendary devil hunter said softly to Lady, rubbing her back. “Sleep. I’d invite you to sleep in my bed but I’m not sure how comfortable you’d be in it. Maybe it has some half-demon germs as well which would be harmful in your current state,” he said with a light tone, rubbing soothing circles into her back.

“Hah, really funny,” Lady muttered but didn’t resist Dante’s claim. 

After all, the two of them, in his bed, like this, right now? No. Nope. Absolutely not. There would be no way Lady could keep her face straight and not start to think about the time they almost kissed at the bar and all other stuff going on in her head. Fever made thinking even harder and more taxing. She didn’t want that. He would strip, he surely would, if they went into the bedroom or what was worse, she might catch herself stripping Dante. She swallowed.

“ But I make a good mattress, too, even if I do say so myself,” Dante flexed with a sigh, pushing his legs straighter so that they intertwined with Lady’s on the couch in a way equally comfortable for him and the huntress both . “I’m warm, I’m strong, I can sing and tell good bedtime stories, I even keep demons at bay. Seriously, Lady, what else could you ask for from a good mattress?”

Lady had to chuckle at his silliness. She allowed her head to relax, together with her shoulders and arms. 

“That sounds less like a “good mattress” and more like a five star mattress,” she agreed with a small smile.

“And it's all yours,” Dante grinned down at her, wrapping his arms around Lady tighter.

She didn’t reply to that and for a second the demon hunter thought he had crossed the line. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything like that to her, especially now when she was sick? Lady remained securely in his hold, though, so Dante soothed himself, noting that if she really didn’t want to be here or listen to his “commentary”, she would have left already. Or smacked him hard, or even shot him in the head. 

Lady was excellent at making her points clear and now, she just rested there calmly on top of him, her head turned so that he couldn’t see her face. It warmed Dante’s chest more than he dared to admit, to know that in one way or another, Lady was either alright with this intimacy or liked it. He hoped it was the latter. Since that was the case for Dante himself.

He rubbed her back slowly, soothingly, over the blanket. When Lady shifted in his hold , Dante’s initial shock of screwing this up turned into relief as she simply repositioned herself , shifting her legs and pressing her head more snugly against his chest. The half-demon hoped, really, really hoped, that his heartbeat wouldn’t tip him off to Lady. She seemed to relax into his care and touch and for that, Dante was happy.

He had made up his mind long ago. He’d resolved himself to protect Lady and look after her, no matter what . Even if she didn’t feel the same way about him as he did for her , he would still stick around and be there for her. Watching Lady being in bad health tried to hit Dante with a bat of remorse for not looking after her better but he couldn’t just hover around her like a shadow without it becoming suspicious or annoying Lady. 

No matter how much the other demons going after the huntress irked and annoyed Dante, he had to keep his cool. He had already slipped from his balance when they had come back from Hell with Vergil and he bared his fangs at Nero. Not to mention all the murderous glares he’d directed at Vergil when his brother and Lady shared the same space.

Lady wouldn’t accept that. Well, didn’t accept that. He wanted nothing more than to be worthy of the kind of attention she felt like giving him.

“Thanks, Dante. For this all.”

Lady’s compliment warmed the devil hunter’s heart, bringing him back from his thoughts to the present moment. Dante ignored how her sweet voice went straight to his chest, rising with a slow creep of color on his cheeks. 

“Don’t mention it,” he murmured softly, caressing her back. “Seriously, what wouldn’t I do for you?”

That wasn’t a real question, Dante knew as much. But he played along with Lady’s silence , letting just his warm hand to speak to the huntress with slow caresses and comforting touches, enjoying this rare intimacy with her. 

She had always been alluring and beautiful in Dante’s eyes, ever since they had first met in their teenage years, but after his arrival back home from Hell, Lady had just grown somehow more exquisite and gorgeous . It was hard not to let the demon within Dante purr audibly when he breathed in the huntress’ fascinating scent, burying his nose into her hair and taking a long and deep dreamy inhale.

Lady tried to ignore Dante’s nose in her hair and his arm around her waist, and that lazily rubbing palm on her lower back. She tried to convince herself that she shouldn’t let the bar event happen again. She shouldn’t let her primal urges get the better of her and cajole her into leaning up to kiss the devil hunter. Those urges shouldn’t paint pictures of Dante’s body underneath hers into her mind, without that black shirt of course, preferably sweaty and hot. He never seemed to get out of breath - would she be able to achieve that if she had her way with him ?

Swallowing, Lady hoped Dante didn’t sense just how hot and bothered his closeness was making her. Something in her was off, too, when it came to him. She couldn’t blame the twins for being handsome and easy on the eyes, but Dante… He shouldn’t have bothered her this much. 

They had known each other for so long, she had seen him half-naked multiple times - actually that was pretty much how they had met in the first place. Yet now, the sheer mental image of Dante in his jacket without a shirt for the good old times’ sake made Lady’s cheeks flush. Shyly, she took a peek at him from under her lashes , her heart skipping a beat when their gazes met unexpectedly. He had been peering down at her as well, and when she looked up, Lady noticed the intense gaze in his eyes.

That was almost the same look Dante had given her in the bar. But, this time, it was more determined, more beguiling . She had a strong feeling that Dante wanted the same thing she wanted now; to have a retake of their thwarted first kiss.

Lady swallowed the dryness from her mouth. His lips were so close, parting slightly when their eyes met . His hands were still resting too near her bottom, staying there immobile . Her body felt hot where his hands were, and that heat was seeping at an alarming speed deeper and further into her being . To every limb, to every fingertip and toe, up to her throat and down to her stomach, circling around her heart and hastening its beats. 

Lady couldn’t help her gaze slowly dropping to Dante’s lips, lingering there for a moment until she chanced a glance at his eyes. He was staring at her with a smouldering gaze, something she hadn’t expected to ever be on the receiving end of from the devil hunter . 

Something else she hadn’t expected was that his intimate scrutiny would hit her loins that strongly, causing a searing heat to coil in her gut , urging her to bring her head closer to Dante. She could feel his soft breath fanning against her moist lips. Her eyes started to flutter closed, followed by his slowly shutting eyelids. Her hold on Dante’s shirt tightened as she stretched her neck closer to him. 

Just as their lips touched evanescently , barely getting to brush against the other’s , the front door of Devil May Cry swung open with a loud bang .

“Dante!” Trish cried out, interrupting the couple. Lady immediately ducked her head down and Dante threw the blanket over her.

“Y--Yeah?” Dante called and the demoness noticed now that they were on the sofa, behind the corner. She rushed over, stopping abruptly in her tracks as she stood before the couch .

“ Wait . Did I interrupt something?” she asked dubiously , pointing her finger at Dante who was still holding Lady on top of him in his embrace . 

“Hmm?” The legendary demon hunter hummed questioningly, trying to look as innocent and confused as possible. “No, what is it? You came in a horrible rush.”

Whether his refusal and facade had been convincing enough for Trish or not, Dante didn’t get to find out. She shook her head when reminded of why she had stormed in to begin with.

“I thought over what you told me about Lady’s incident and I recalled that there is another similar demon type in Hell, except that’s far more dangerous to humans. I wanted to make sure Lady’s indeed alright.”

Dante rose up on his elbows, and Lady slid lower on his chest, still curled up under the blanket.

“What? More dangerous?” he said with a taut tone, lined with worry at the sudden potential threat to the huntress’ well-being. 

“I need to know if the demons had blue dots on their backs,” Trish said, turning her head to the bundle that was Lady on top of Dante.

“No dots,” an audible mumble was heard from under the blanket. “I’m fine, Trish. It’s only a minor fever, headache and some muscle pain. Thanks for your concern.”

“Oh, good. That’s a relief to hear. I’ll leave my antidote here just in case. Otherwise, I’ll trust you into Dante’s tender care.”

The demoness gave Dante a little wink and there was a mischievous smirk on her lips when she said that. Her impishness earned her a small scoff from Dante. He ushered Trish to leave with a casual wave of his palm.

“Thanks. I’ll let you know if things change,” he said.

“Oh, please do,” Trish replied with a smug grin, turning on her heel to leave Dante and Lady alone together once again .

When the demoness had closed the office’s door behind her, Lady peeked into the room from underneath her blanket. When she was sure that the coast was clear, she pushed the fabric off her head, trying to school her features into a poker face . 

But the mood was already gone. She could sense that and Dante seemed to quietly agree with her evaluation . It was a most torturing realization - to know that she’d been so close this time she had almost touched him, only to be prevented from pressing her lips against his once again. The burning knot in her stomach tightened traitorously, making her loins throb with dissatisfaction at the interruption. Her hot body didn’t seem to agree with her decision that the mood had been ruined with how slowly it was cooling off from the near-kiss this time.

Lady blamed her fever for it. For the sake of her sanity, she had to believe that the only reason her cheeks refused to stop blushing and her hammering heart refused to still to a normal pace was that she was sick.

Dante chuckled, tussling her hair. 

“It was kind of Trish to be worried about you. You see, Lady, not all demons are bad.”

The huntress pressed her head back to Dante’s chest, humming.

“I guess you’re right…” she agreed, thinking that for a half-demon, Dante was an especially kind person.

And illegally hot.

The afternoon of the next day, Dante had already started the procedures for helping Vergil acquire the land of the Sparda manor. The older twin had been busy running the errands he had been tasked with addressing, finding most puzzling how many little pieces of paper were needed just to own an average-sized plot of land in the human world.

Vergil had just finished his legal work tasks for the day and was headed to Devil May Cry to convene with Dante and get his next assignments. When he arrived at the office though, instead of finding his brother there, he found the premises plunged in darkness without anyone around. He gave a soft grunt, figuring that his twin, who had never had any regard for punctuality, was once again running late.

Instead of losing any nerves over that realization, Vergil simply let himself into the office and headed for the small bar. As he was pouring himself something non-alcoholic to drink though, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and immediately dropped into a fighting stance, his hand instantly on the hilt of Yamato.

Only after getting a good look at the offender did he realize that there was no uninvited guest over at the agency. It was only Lady who was lounging on the couch in the dark corner of the office. She seemed to have been napping before Vergil entered the premises like a shadow. Immediately when she roused and started moving around the half-demon felt the pull in his gut that her presence and peculiar scent seemed to be procuring unconditionally from him.  

He slid his eyes shut and took in a deep, steadying breath which was torturously filled with the alluring aroma that infallibly wafted off from her being regardless of what she was doing. Vergil cracked the kink in his neck before correcting his posture properly. 

“What’s going on? Why am I up?” Lady mumbled aloud while gathering her bearings. Then she noticed Vergil in the corner and realized why her subconscious had promptly awoken her from her nap. “Oh. Vergil. Hi.” 

“Hello,” he greeted cordially in return. “I didn’t notice you there, and I certainly didn’t mean to wake you.” 

Lady rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with a hand, shaking her head at Vergil. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she rasped out groggily, feeling her engines slowly starting to catch up to reality. Her response was followed by a brief period of silence that was punctured only by Vergil pouring water in a cup and taking a sip from it.

“How do you do?” he asked her at length and she answered habitually.

“Fine, I guess. Could be better, could be worse. And yourself?” 

It took Vergil a moment longer to consider his answer - long enough for Lady to actually hear him properly, with her mind wide awake.

“Fine as well, thank you.” 

The silence that came after the exchange felt deafening and quite a bit uncomfortable for Lady. In fact, the whole concept of exchanging platitudes with Vergil , of all people, in the middle of Devil May Cry, felt so foreign that she couldn’t help but wonder if she was still sleeping and having a very odd dream.

“I heard that you recently had an interesting misadventure with Dante, when you were both caught unarmed during a demon attack downtown.” 

It was a good thing Lady wasn’t drinking anything, unlike Vergil who spoke around the edge of his cup, because if she had, she would’ve sprayed her drink. The reminder about the other night made a multitude of feelings suddenly resurface, none of which were connected with the real misadventure the half-demon was referring to but rather to the evening and restless night that followed it.

“Yes, thankfully that ended better than expected. I’d rather not think back on it, though, if you don’t mind,” she muttered hastily, hoping he’d agree to drop the topic.

She honestly did not need to bring back the obsessive thoughts about her almost-kiss with Dante again, after she had just managed to squash them successfully after more than 24 hours of tireless efforts.

Vergil eyed her curiously from across the room and read wrongly into her discomfort and unease. It was impossible for him to read Lady’s mind to know what was truly troubling her, so instead he felt responsible for having been part of the reason for her plight that night. He had left her and Dante defenseless against a demon, and, what was worse, she could have been killed in that scuffle. 

Although he was not interested in Lady the way Dante apparently was, Vergil was not keen on feeling inept and like he had disappointed someone who had needed his strength and presence. Guilt was not a feeling that sat well with him, so he cleared his throat sharply before speaking next.

“Very well.” 

He turned away from her and procured a little box from one of the pouches on his belt. It was an unimpressive-looking simple box but he touched it reverently, tracing the outline of it pensively before making a decision. Vergil nodded in a barely perceptible way to himself before turning to ask Lady:

“Would you like to have some tea?” 

The question came so unexpectedly that Lady felt like her head was starting to reel. 

“Uhhh…” she grunted intelligently, before mulling it over properly. “I… guess I could have some?” 

It really did sound more like a question than a statement, but the answer seemed good enough for Vergil because he set about starting the kettle and boiling the water. 

Once the steaming cup of tea was placed before her on the little coffee table, Lady eyed it as if it was the most bizarre thing in the world. She threw a furtive glance at Vergil who set his own cup of tea on the table as well, sitting down across from her at the table. 

Although the tea itself was likely not the real oddity here, the feeling of being offered tea from the half-demon who almost destroyed the entirety of Redgrave a little more than half a year previously was a very awkward one. Still, it would be rude for her not to have her beverage after he’d taken the trouble to prepare it for her--plus, tea sounded great for her tired and aching body, so why not?

Lady lifted the cup to her nose and gave it a dainty sniff. It smelled like a herbal bouquet, with a dash of floral tone to it. A very peculiar combination, the likes of which she would’ve never believed would be the type of tea that would be enjoyable for Vergil.

As she deliberated her first sip of the teacup, Vergil took a hearty gulp from his own.

“I understand that I was behaving in a rather unacceptable manner the last time we met. And all of our previous encounters. Not to mention that I was unavailable when needed,” he explained slowly. It appeared that it cost him considerable effort to verbalize each sentence, although Lady couldn’t understand why that was. 

“I don’t follow what you’re talking about at all,” she told him bluntly before foregoing all her suspicions and taking a brave sip from the tea. It slid perfectly down her throat and felt like it warmed up her very soul when it went to her stomach. A bright smile spread on her face. “Wow, but this is really good tea. ” 

Vergil gauged her expression carefully, looking for traces of pretense or a lie and seeing none. 

“Is it to your liking?” he asked at length, venturing for confirmation.

“Oh, definitely. I haven’t had tastier tea in years! Whoa.” Lady took another hearty sip from her tea, relishing in the sweet delight it brought to her with its warm liquid. She was still recovering from her demon goo escapade yesterday and this tea did wonders to help her along to getting back to 100%.

“I’m glad to hear that, because it’s yours,” Vergil said then, setting an unassuming box on the table between them. 

Lady licked her lips and set her teacup down before picking up the box and inspecting it. She found it to hold more teabags inside the little container - at least as many as fifteen from what she could count on prima vista. 

“Is this… this tea?” she pointed at her now almost-empty cup. Vergil nodded curtly in response.

“Indeed. This tea is a herbal blend prepared personally by my future daughter-in-law, with herbs she grew and picked herself from her garden,” Vergil replied with a gentle hand gesture towards the box. Lady eyed the object and the bags within it with even more profound surprise.

“You… got this from Kyrie?” she managed to say despite her puzzlement.

“Yes, just the other day. She and Nero have a wonderful garden behind their home.” Vergil lifted his chin, looking softly into the distance and his gaze glazing over as he gave into some daydream. “Perhaps someday I can have one, too.”

What a baffling thought. Gardening and Vergil didn’t really sound like a fitting combination to Lady but on the other hand, she couldn’t say that she really knew the man. As they seemed to be opposing forces with Dante, it somehow made sense to her that if Dante was never the type who could garden or would even be interested in it, then it was very probable that it would be something Vergil found delight in.  

“And since it is to your taste, I would like you to have it.” 

The half-demon speaking up again snapped Lady out of the mental imagery of how Vergil would do gardening (well) and how Dante would do gardening (badly). She looked at the older Spardan descendant indecisively, lifting the box of tea to her eye level. It really was great tea, but…

“Isn’t this tea… I don’t know, important to you? Kyrie gave it to you, so--” 

Vergil interrupted Lady’s polite refusal with a wave of his hand.

“Nonsense. Kyrie gave it to me, and as its owner now, I am free to do with it as I please.” He then gave a little sniff while straightening his back further. “If you enjoy it, then I insist that you keep it. Take it as a token of apology, if you must.” 

His claim made Lady raise a curious brow. Apology? What did Vergil ever have to apologize to her for? He didn’t seem to treat her any differently than any other person who had the misfortune of having to deal with him. And if the half-demon didn’t seem at all apologetic for his behavior towards the rest of the world, what made her any different than the rest? It boggled her mind.

Could it be possible that this was just a ploy, to convince her to accept yet another demonic gift that she had not expected, nor asked for? But, thinking in this vein, she really couldn’t see Vergil as the kind of demon who would go around gifting her things just because of… whatever was going on with her due to the Qliphoth ordeal. She was sure this tea was more important to him than it was to her, and yet his insistence for her to have it regardless made her hesitate.

This whole afternoon had been one odd occurrence after another. Firstly exchanging pleasantries and small talk with Vergil , of all people, then him offering to make her tea, sharing said tea with her and now finally - offering said (divine) tea as a token of his apology to her. It was definitely not the weirdest thing that had happened to her today, but it was certainly the culmination of all the weirdness that came before.

It was odd that he was giving her gifts but then on the other hand, not as odd or disconcerting as regular demons dropping their unholy gifts at her feet. If he insisted that she keep it - and Lady saw no harm in doing so - then she might just as well do that. Plus, she considered it was for the best that she got along well with Dante’s brother and Nero’s father, on account of his role in both men’s lives and their importance in hers. Somehow she had a feeling their paths would cross a lot more in the future.

This was why Lady graciously accepted the gift, hoping that her suspicious mood while she deliberated the offering wasn’t visible in her facial expression throughout the full minute she was considering it.

“There really is no need for any apology. I honestly thought Dante was alone and the fault is mine for that.” Vergil shook his head at her statement and Lady didn’t understand what he meant to say with that, but he didn’t speak a word more. So she allowed a small, barely-there smile to lift up the corners of her mouth as she continued: “But thanks anyway. I’ll keep it, since you want me to, and it’s great tea. I… appreciate the kind gesture,” Lady said, holding the box now with both hands. 

She expected that her acceptance of the offering would be met with some sort of smugness or rejoice on the half-demon’s side. Instead, Vergil gave her a grunt that was closer to a scoff as he picked himself up from his seat at the table across from her. 

“There’s no need for thanks - this is a simple matter of course.” He turned on his heel and walked toward the door of Devil May Cry, pausing to add something only once he had reached the entrance. “You should save your kind words for Dante. Your appreciation of his gestures would be held in much higher regard if you were to aim it properly at him than at anyone else.” 

Lady quirked a confused brow at Vergil’s cryptic statement, which only served to bewilder her. She wasn’t sure what the older son of Sparda was talking about but she did get the distinct feeling some kind of invisible wall just went up between them after the amicable little tea drinking moment that they’d had.

“I… see?” 

Vergil only gave a curt little nod of acknowledgement in her direction, in a way of bidding her goodbye, apparently, because he let himself out of Devil May Cry the very next second without looking back at all. He left her wondering what in the world had just transpired. She couldn't help but wonder if this confounding afternoon exchange really did take place, or if she was still dreaming weird things.

A couple of days later, Lady was accompanying Dante while he was taking care of some errands downtown, while she also needed to restock on some goods from the shops. The legendary devil hunter had offered his services in helping carry her heavy purchases, and, as she saw no reason to decline, Lady went along merrily with his suggestion. 

After all, having him there meant that she could take care of even more matters that needed attending to. The huntress was no slouch and she could take care of her own shopping but there was no denying that having Dante’s demonic strength at her side would make everything faster and easier. 

“Vergil is actually quite the gentleman , isn’t he?” Lady mused out loud unexpectedly as they walked along the street. Her dichromatic gaze was pinned ahead, at the expanse of the city spreading out before them .

Dante’s nose wrinkled immediately , and he peered at her from the side with an outraged expression on his face .

“What? How do you figure that?” Dante could not recall any gentlemanly actions from his brother as far as Lady was concerned - at least that he had been witness to. Why would she say that? Lady wasn’t a person who just said things at random! This sounded like bad news.

“The other day, we actually had a pleasant conversation and he was really civil - unexpectedly so, I’d say. He also practically apologized for having been there while I was only in my towel, even though that was clearly not his fault.” 

Dante eyed Lady warily out of the corner of his eye and something about the mirth dancing in her lovely features as she spoke to him about his brother being “quite gentlemanly” rubbed him the wrong way.

“You’re becoming buddies with that sourpuss? How did this happen?” he asked, visibly miffed. Lady brushed it off as Dante just not wanting to hear about Vergil now for whatever reason but he was no boss of hers.

“ Not sure I could say that - he’s hard to get a read on. But it was nice of him to give me this really nice herbal tea.”

“Tea?” Dante reiterated, baffled . “What the hell do you do with tea? You don’t need tea. What you need is ammo, guns, knives, bandages, grenades.”

Lady gave her friend a curious look and sized him up carefully. He was definitely not the boss of her, nor could he possibly know what she needed . His phrasing threw her off a bit, but she was in a great enough mood from his cooperation with her shopping trip that she was willing to let that slide.

“I had forgotten how nice it is to sit down with a cup of soothing tea after a rough time,” Lady smiled. “Can’t wait to get back home, take a shower to wash all this dirt off and then make myself a cup of tea.”

“Didn’t think that Vergil would give you stuff,” Dante muttered bitterly when he realized that Lady had liked that gift , despite its uselessness in the devil hunter’s eyes . Since when had she started to like soft stuff? What about the debt he had paid? All the ammunition he had given her recently? What was with this whimsical gift of some dried, dead leaves which sparked a happy glint in Lady’s eye - and stabbed Dante right into the gut? 

“I was surprised, too! But, with all these weird things going on around me right now, I just counted this as one of those odd happenings. I mean, he’s your brother? You tell me what’s going on?”

Dante’s brows knitted deeper together. His brother had joined the endless line of demon suitors gifting Lady and that didn’t sit well with him. The more he thought about it, the heavier his heart and the sharper his bitterness in his chest grew.

Unacceptable! How dared Vergil do this? Make Lady smile like that! 

That was Dante’s job, not Vergil’s! That smile should have been directed at him and his gifts! Certainly not Vergil or any gifts he had to offer - especially impractical, useless gifts like dead plants in a bag!

“ I have no idea but you can be sure I’ll ask him next time I see him ,” Dante commented drily , squeezing his palm into a fist. Lady failed to sense any of the ominous promise in the demon hunter’s words because she had already moved on to a new topic that interested her more than pondering Vergil’s oddities. 

Dante, for his part, embraced any change of topic that would direct Lady’s attention away from any other potential demon suitor--especially one that shared the same blood as him. He appreciated the chance to be the one to bring about her lovely smile and melodic laugh with his light jokes as they walked along the street side by side. 

Doing so made him quickly forget the unpleasant taste in his mouth that had been brought about by Lady gushing about Vergil’s “gentlemanliness” in his presence.

The next time Vergil and Dante met was for their scheduled tour of the Sparda mansion and what it currently looked like. 

Neither brother was prepared to go evaluate the damage and reconcile with his memories on his own, which is why they had agreed they would make the trip together. After all, they had to survey the place not just from sentimental perspective but also for the case Dante’s connections would make to the human municipality - the current owner of the manor.

It was late morning when they met up outside the stone wall separating the mansion (or what was left of it) from the world. When Vergil looked up and met his brother’s gaze as he approached him at the entrance gate, the older Sparda scion could feel some tension coming off of his twin’s frame. He hadn’t expected that Dante would be more shaken to revisit their old family home than Vergil was, but he was not about to judge him for it.

The older twin rose up to his feet from his seat - a large rock that had fallen off the stone wall from nearby - and greeted his brother with a nod. When he didn’t receive any recognition for his greeting beyond a taut little nod from Dante, one of Vergil’s brows quirked curiously.

“Did you learn from your people if there is some particular format or order in which we should do this… little tour of ours?” Vergil asked in an even, calm tone which seemed to only aggravate Dante further, which his twin found really odd. Did Dante get up on the wrong side of the bed today?

“We’ll get to that in a bit,” the legendary devil hunter said dismissively, shocking his brother a bit with his flippancy. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of their being in front of the manor? Vergil could honestly not understand what other matter could be more pressing at the current time. “Before we start with the business we have here, there’s something I want to hear from you directly.”

The seriousness of Dante’s tone made some of Vergil’s wariness siphon out of him. He was not planning to antagonize his benefactor and, for once, he was willing to be as cooperative as possible - because Vergil was quite certain Dante was likely overreacting to something he must have misunderstood or misheard.

“What do you want to discuss?” 

“It’s about Lady,” Dante said, unsurprisingly for Vergil. 

Because of course it was about that woman. Every issue he had been having with Dante in the last weeks had always been revolving around her. Nevertheless, he kept his face perfectly neutral upon hearing her name, waiting for his twin to continue and make his actual point, so Vergil could refute it - civilly and politely. That way they could continue with their actual (and important ) work at the mansion.

“She mentioned something about you gifting her with some tea the last time you met. Is that true?” 

The way Dante spat out the word “tea” felt like it was something dirty and vile. Vergil would likely have found that funnier if he wasn’t too busy getting ready to talk. His mouth had already opened with the words at the ready when he realized that Dante’s question was not one he could answer with the perfectly phrased response he had. The older twin paused, closing his mouth mutely, deliberating his next words anew.

“As a matter of fact, I did, yes.” 

He had already forgotten about that. After giving Lady his gift from Kyrie in a way of apology, the very next morning Vergil dropped by Fortuna under some pretext so he could get a new batch from his future daughter-in-law. It had led to a rather lively morning, what with their kids being rowdier during breakfast than Vergil had expected. With all the adventures there, not much else had been retained in the older brother’s mind when it came to his first box of tea. It had served its purpose of absolving him of his guilt, and that was all the importance it held for him.

However, upon seeing the stormy quality Dante’s expression took on upon Vergil’s confirmation, the latter could tell some damage control would be needed to the situation.

“I did give her the tea I got from Nero and Kyrie as a token of my apology for your misadventure with that demon in the bar you were so upset with me about the other day.” Vergil lifted his sharp gaze to meet his brother’s eyes, which were glaring daggers at him with renewed vigor. “What of it?”

“What of it?” Dante echoed in a disbelieving and outraged tone. Vergil looked on calmly at him, refusing to be taunted. “Boy, Vergil, you’re really such an asshat, you know that?” 

Despite himself, the older twin couldn’t help but do a double-take at the unexpected--and baffling--epithet. 

“I’m a what now?” Vergil asked in befuddlement, caught up in imagining a rump with a hat like Dante’s Faust on it, and what exactly it would need a hat for. That was supposed to be an insult, wasn’t it? He had a feeling it was but he honestly had no clue how to be offended by it when it just elicited the most ridiculous mental image instead.

“You know damn well what!” Dante all but roared in response, drawing Vergil out of his perplexed reverie. “Why are you going around giving Lady gifts? I can’t really do much about all these random demons that seem to be getting crushes on her left and right but I expected better from my own flesh and blood ! Out of all the unwanted suitors I need to deal with, you are definitely the one I expected the least I’d have to contend with!” 

Vergil listened to his brother’s tirade calmly, lifting his hands up in a gesture that could be either surrender or an attempt to placate Dante’s temper. Whatever it was, it did succeed in making the legendary devil hunter stop his outraged speech, instead settling for breathing deeply in, his nostrils flaring in his anger.

“Brother, you are not hearing me and you’re letting your imagination run wild. I already explained to you - I am not gifting your woman anything.” Vergil explained slowly and clearly, hoping to get his point across to Dante who didn’t seem charmed at all. “Just the other day you were breathing down my neck for not being there when you needed me. The one in actual danger there was the wo--” When he saw the warning glare in Dante’s eyes, Vergil quickly corrected himself: “ Lady , and therefore she was the one I had really wronged with my absence. I gave her the tea because she enjoyed it, as a token of apology. That’s all it was - nothing more, nor less.”

“Bullshit that’s all it is,” Dante spat out resentfully, starting to pace back and forth like a caged lion. Vergil used the moment when his brother’s back was turned to him to expel a heavy sigh. “You’re trying to impress her and win her favor with gifts, just like the slew of other demons practically knocking on her door! But what’s worse, it’s working, because she actually likes that damn gift! And it’s absolutely useless! What the hell does she do with tea? Pour hot water on demons and sprinkle dried dead leaves in their eyes? ” Dante enthused, outraged.

Thankfully, he was angry enough to miss the smug expression that briefly bloomed on Vergil’s face upon hearing that his gift was well-received enough for it to have reached Dante, a complete third party to the whole thing. But whether he was good at giving people things they appreciated was not the point of this conversation, and flaunting that in front of his furious younger sibling was the worst move he could make. So Vergil schooled his expression back into neutral and placating before speaking up again.

“Dante, you are being irrational. I am not even interested in her that way - why would I be giving her any gifts to win her favor?” 

“That’s exactly what I want to know. I’m still waiting on that answer, Vergil.” 

The older twin shook his head and massaged the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index fingers.

“I already answered your question, brother. You do not want to accept it - fine. But then how about you answer my question.” Vergil squared his shoulders and stood just a pace away from Dante, staring at him defiantly in the eye with an unblinking scrutiny. “If it bothers you so much that other males are approaching her, why don’t you claim her as your own? That will turn away any other potential suitors much better than your little temper tantrums behind her back and around her ever could.”

Vergil could see that his barb met its mark perfectly, because it halted Dante’s angry warpath very successfully. He could see the hesitation in his younger sibling’s eyes. When the uncertainty overwhelmed the legendary demon hunter, he broke eye contact first.

“I am… not trying to take her as my own.” His statement elicited a sharp bark of a laugh from the older twin. Dante sent a scathing glare at him from under knitted eyebrows. “Don’t laugh - it’s true! We’re friends! We’ve been friends forever. I’m just… trying to stand up for her as a proper friend should! Lady’s bothered from all of these unwanted gifts she’s receiving from these eyesore demons, so I’m trying to help her put an end to it!” 

Vergil gave a hum of agreement, his penetrating gaze boring holes in Dante’s temples - he could feel his brother’s stare on him and it made him feel restless. Like he could see right through the devil hunter’s pretenses.

“Sure, that’s very chivalrous and commendable of you. But didn’t you say it yourself - she actually enjoyed the tea? So it’s not the--Lady who is bothered by this, but you , personally. No?” Vergil circled around Dante with a calm pace like some sort of vulture. “And why would a friend, who is not interested in this woman like that, be so bothered by such a frivolous thing he would make an issue of it enough to get into an argument with his brother over it? Help me understand here, Dante, because I seem to not follow.” 

This is exactly what Dante hated about Vergil. His older sibling was petty, childish and emotionally immature 9 times out of 10, but that ten percent of the cases when he was actually dangerously insightful and unable to refute made him such an infuriating individual. He wished he could wring his neck but there was nothing he could say back to him, because Vergil was absolutely right. Being forced to face his jealousy was not something Dante had been keen on when he set out to confront Vergil about his gift to Lady this morning.

“I can see you are enjoying this, but it’s not as simple as you’re making this seem!” The devil hunter exclaimed, hoping his brother would stop circling him like a hyena waiting to pounce on fresh meat.

“How exactly is it complicated? You fancy a woman and want her for yourself. You approach her and make advances, yet never decisive ones. Tell me, how exactly is the solution to your little conundrum not simple?” 

The smartass tone Vergil was taking with Dante was rubbing the younger twin the wrong way. Of course, in little Vergil-land everything made sense by setting your sights to the short-term goals and gains. That was not how the real world worked--that is not how interpersonal relationships work, as Dante knew very well.

“You want to know why it’s not simple? Fine! I will humor you!” Dante growled. “We’ve known each other for decades. You think I’d go and sabotage whatever we already have going on with Lady? Our friendship? She’s never shown any interest in me like that and I respect her wishes. Besides, if you didn’t know, she hates demons. All of them.” He kept a pause, looking square into Vergil’s eyes. “You know what we did with Lady when we met? We made a promise: she would kill every single demon on this planet and I would help her to do it. You seriously think she’d warm up for a half-demon like me, Sparda’s offspring no less? She shot me in the face when we met. Twice!”

Vergil listened to Dante’s outburst calmly, letting him blow off some steam he had clearly been holding in for too long.

“Knowing her opinions about demons, the friendships we have is the best I can ever wish from her. I can’t risk jeopardizing something real and meaningful over momentary insanity, Vergil. If that was an option, I would have already made my move.”

“Momentary insanity, you call it? Hm.” Thankfully for the younger twin, his brother chose to start slowly pacing away from him with his hands now clasped behind his back. “While you are completely right that there is something else at play here--something which is clouding her scent in some… demonic, alluring quality that cannot be denied. I have noticed that myself and, contemptible as it is that it messes with one’s head and senses, what you are suffering from, brother, is not it.” 

Vergil stopped abruptly in his spot, turning to face Dante with an unreadable look on his face.

“While it’s undeniable that the effects of the change in Lady are affecting you as well, your core problem is that you already wanted her even before that. Long, long before that . And now, with this amplification of her allure to all demon males, you are having a much harder time hiding your true intentions from her and yourself. There is nothing momentary about your two decade-long pining, brother. You are a fool to pretend otherwise .” 

It stung, because Vergil had no clue about things and yet he was hitting the nail right on the head. And about things that were honestly none of his business, no less!

“Now, you’ve repeatedly accused me of staring at her with longing--feelings that I most certainly do not harbor for your woman.” It hadn’t made an impression on Dante the first time Vergil had referred to Lady that way because he had been too pissed at the time, but hearing his brother call her “his woman” made a pleasant knot tighten in his gut. “But I do know longing, Dante. And I can recognize it when I see the way you look at her. Maybe you’re right and I don’t get the complexity of it, and it is unfortunate that her stance on demons in general is so unforgiving. But I honestly don’t understand why you’d remain ignorant your whole life if your feelings could be mutual or not just for fear of reaching out and taking what you desire.” 

“This is the real world, Vergil. In it, we can’t just stretch our hands out and grab whatever we want! Lady is a person with her own wants and needs and I already told you she hates demons --” Before Dante could go on the tangent he’d started, Vergil interjected sharply.

“I am not saying to just grab her and have your way with her with no regard for her stance on it, you fool. That’s despicable.” 

Vergil spat the word out like it was venomous on his tongue. 

“All I’m saying is that you should stop making excuses and stop hiding behind your buffoonery. Just be upfront and tell her how you care for her. Even if it affects your bond, it will not do more damage than the insanity you are driving yourself into by frustrating your yearning for her when you keep her so close. Either put some distance between the two of you, or tell her how you feel. What you’re doing now is pointless and imbecilic. You are helping nobody - least of all yourself.” 

He kept a small pause, eyes fixated on Dante. 

“ And if her visceral hate for demons is your main concern in keeping your feelings under a lid... I think that a woman of her caliber would have decapitated you already if she loathed you. You’re far from a demon, Dante. Always have been.”

Dante couldn’t really understand Vergil’s idea in telling him all of these things and preaching to him like that. If he was speaking the truth and indeed had no romantic interest in Lady, why would he bother telling Dante all of these things? The devil hunter couldn’t understand. He had never really spoken to Vergil about topics like these, so he was greatly out of his depth.

“It also seems I must remind you that the other day, when she was coming out of the bathroom, looking indecent, she did so believing that she would only meet you outside. If she was as disgusted with the idea of you as anything beyond a friend, do you really believe a woman like her would be parading around you--a demon, something you both claim she loathes--practically in her underwear?” Vergil queried patiently, dissatisfied of having to remind Dante of his failures but seeing that it was imperative in the current situation. He had a point to make and he would drive it home in his little brother’s thick skull regardless of the personal cost to him.

“I--” Dante muttered, unable to speak. Vergil was… speaking to him like that? When his brother’s solid hand landed on Dante’s shoulder with a reassuring weight, the younger son of Sparda locked his gaze with his twin’s. There was a profound softness and kindness that he was not used to witnessing from Vergil in his eyes.

“She’s a human, Dante. A human demon huntress. A fragile, small being. One little accident on a hunt gone wrong and there will be nothing to reach out for anymore. The demons are on the move, targeting her now in masses, unless you mark her. Is that what you want, that potent for a permanent loss? Is that the risk you want to take over the risk of telling her, letting her give you her answer? Give you closure for this, whether it is a bullet in the head or something sweeter?”

Dante couldn’t answer. He stared in front of him with wide eyes, looking like something was dawning upon him the longer Vergil spoke.

“Dante, she is right there. If you reach out, you can touch her. If you reach out, she could maybe even be yours. That’s a blessing the likes of which you don’t seem able to appreciate. So believe me when I tell you this: your happiness could be right within your reach. All it would take is a leap of faith. Tell her, and then let her decide your fate. But don’t stay in limbo for the remainder of your long life. It will be so much more excruciating if you never found out.” 

It floored Dante to realize that his brother’s drive was actually Dante’s happiness. Of course, they bickered a lot and they horsed around like any normal twins would--well, maybe sometimes even more than that. But they rarely had such straightforward heart-to-heart conversations like that. Dante couldn’t even recall another time when Vergil had openly shown concern for him and his well-being like he had done so now.

It moved him more than he could express in words and all he managed while trusting his voice and expression was to place his palm atop Vergil’s on his shoulder. His brother nodded at him and the devil hunter mirrored the movement. They were in silent agreement.

“Good. Think about that. And in the meantime, how about you help me out in resolving this human mess with our childhood home?” 

Dante chuckled aloud, letting Vergil pull his hand away from his shoulder as he marched towards the front gate of the Sparda manor. 

“Of course. I did give you my word for it, didn’t I? I always keep my promises.”

“I’m counting on that,” Vergil said over his shoulder with a smirk. Dante chortled again and jogged up to fall in stride with him.

They set foot through the gate at the same time, and were swallowed up in nostalgia, melancholy and a twisted sense of longing over what could have been, simultaneously. But having the other just an arm’s reach away helped in keeping both of them from drowning in the heavy feelings.

“So! Procedure. Let’s get to it!”

Vergil did not need to be told twice.

Vergil’s sudden pep talk the other day had taken Dante by surprise so effectively that he had had problems with sleeping. He had been avoiding Lady on purpose, feeling way too conscious to meet her face to face until he had calmed down. 

Vergil’s supportive older brother moment had made Dante think things. Properly, thoroughly, with the same precision as his twin perceived things when he set a goal in his mind. As much as he had wanted to argue back, Vergil had had a point. He had hit Dante where it hurt the most, forcing his eyes to open to the things he had tried to deny and brush off as something as simple as a small, temporary crush he would get over .

One didn’t nurture a small crush for someone over twenty years. One didn’t get jealous and upset for their own brother for common, civilized acts around the woman. One didn’t feel how the hair in the back of their neck stood up when there were other men in one’s territory with the woman. 

Swallowing from the uneasy realization, Dante had to admit to himself that Lady hadn’t shot him in the head in Temen-ni-gru but straight through his heart. And the wound was still open, yearning for Lady, and whatever had happened to her when he was gone in Hell with Vergil, it made the yearning even harder to ignore and endure. 

Closing his eyes with another uneasy swallow Dante remembered Lady’s beautiful body on top of him, relaxed and warm. Her lips brushing softly over his right before Trish had barged in and ruined it all. Dante had wanted to scold the demoness for that but he knew better - it was a bad idea because it would only clue Trish into what was going on. And Dante couldn’t risk having her say something unnecessary to Lady before he had a chance to do it himself.

If someone should tell Lady, it should be him. Not Trish, nor Vergil.

Looking down at his open palms Dante muttered to himself with a sad smile.

“I wouldn’t mind holding you like that for the rest of my life, Lady. If you only let me.”

The demon in him purred in agreement, reminding Dante how good Lady smelled now and how much other wonderful things two demon enchanced beings would do with their bodies.

Dante shooed that unwanted thought out from his head and groin.

Perhaps Vergil was right. Perhaps he should take the leap of faith and open his heart for Lady. The demon within him yearned and desired her every single second he was awake and the longer he fought that carnal need, the harder it strangled him. The last few days had been agonizing and Dante was happy when Lady hadn’t popped her head into the office in a while. There was a pull to rush to the huntress to make sure she was safe with this all going on, and a desire to stay away from her, because if he met her right now, Dante would blurt things out without further thoughts, ruining his whole plan.

He had a plan, right? Didn’t he?

Frowning with a displeased scoff Dante realized he had no idea how to take that leap of faith into Lady’s arms - well, hopefully into her arms and not into the grave of their friendship. Leaping to Hell was easy but the younger son of Sparda had never been the one who was good at expressing his truest, innermost feelings. With a subject this delicate with too much at stake, Dante contemplated if he should indeed just leap back to Hell and hope a day or two there would clear his head and nostrils properly . 

Well, if Vergil had done it, confessed to a woman - and had even been accepted by her ! - he wouldn’t be any worse. He would at the very least tell Lady!

...As soon as he figured out how to do it with the needed delicate approach.

Lady noticed the new suitor, a disgusting oozing demon, the likes of which she had never seen before. She took aim at its rapidly approaching body and shot, hitting Dante who ran across the bullet’s line without a warning. As soon as the bullet pierced him, Lady gasped, dropping her hand down.

“Oh shit, Dante! I didn’t see you!”

“I appreciate your bloodlust-screaming-killer mood for the demons but how about targeting the real baddies?” Dante said, casually ripping the last demon in half with a punch of his fist. When the demon fell on the ground and the whole mess was over, Lady hurried to Dante. She looked at the spot where the bullet had gone through, leaving a hole in his shirt.

“Damn, did it come out?” Lady asked, circling around Dante, her hands traveling on his body. Dante did his best to ignore how hot her touch made him feel. He took a calm breath inside without Lady noticing anything and closed his eyes while Lady searched through his backside.

“I think it’s jammed inside. I’ll dig it out when we get back to Devil May Cry,” Dante muttered casually, wincing then mentally.

He! When he got back to Devil May Cry! He hadn’t intended for Lady to follow him but for Dante’s luck, Lady missed his Freudian slip. Her concentration was fully on the injury she had inflicted to Dante.

“Goddammit! Sorry, I didn’t mean to shoot you. You’re way too quick to move.”

Dante mulled should he say what he just noticed out loud to Lady. Seeing Vergil’s face in his mind Dante decided to be honest.

“You’re never apologized before for shooting, stabbing, or cutting me by accident. If I recall right, last time this happened, you screamed something along the line of: ‘Dante, you bastard! Stay out of the way or the next bullet might hit your eye’. Well, thinking now, that’s kind of caring on its own to worry for my eyesight but it’s really not an apology.”

Lady froze in her spot, still touching Dante.

“You’re way too reckless when you fight,” Lady tried to sound convincing in her reasoning why this time was different. “If you don’t want an apology, then I won’t apologize.”

Dante was more or less expecting Lady to reply to his comment with another bullet, maybe through his foot, but she didn’t reach for her gun. Instead, she circled back to stand in front of Dante, her hands still on his body. The concerned look she casted for Dante was also something Dante had not seen coming. From the close range, her face looked gorgeous despite the dirt, sweat and little bloodstains. His hand rose up to Lady’s cheek on its own, his thump slowly wiping away a smeared blood stain. Her lips parted but she didn’t flinch or move away from his touch.

“Thank you, Lady, for your concern. It’s nice to know that someone cares. The bullets can kill me, but I’ve never said they wouldn’t hurt. I accept the apology,” Dante spoke with a soft case, a small smile on his lips. His thump made a one little caress on Lady’s cheek slowly, as she watched him with surprised, wide gaze, until an apologetic small smirk flashed on his face and his eyes dropped down, together with his hand. As Dante turned his back hesitantly to Lady, his head drooping slightly, Lady’s heart started to beat even faster than it already was racing in her chest.

Dante bit his lip when Lady couldn’t see his face, cursing himself for starting to cross the line again. Vergil’s motivational pep talk had been motivating indeed but this wasn’t the time nor the place to start to pour one’s heart open for their crush.

“Dante, strip.”

Lady’s unexpected comment halted Dante on his spot. He turned hastily around, seeing Lady holding a knife in her hand.

“I’ll shoot you, I’ll dig the bullet out. I have all the medical equipment needed with me – thanks to you,” she murmured the last part and to Dante it looked like she would have blushed a bit. “Let’s put your gifts in good use. So, come here, sit down and take off your shirt.” 

Her hands on his naked body were the best and the worst idea now but Dante couldn’t let Lady see that.

“It’s fine!” he tried, gesturing his body with his hands. “I can get it out.”

“The only way you can get the bullet out is through a mirror from that spot,” Lady pointed at Dante with her knife. “Let me handle it. I’ll be gentle.”

Sweating Dante realized that it was the best idea to do as Lady wanted. If he resisted her help too much, she might get suspicious and demand answers which he was not ready to give to her. If he had to choose - and he had to - sitting down while Lady dug out the bullet sounded far less scary than speaking about his feelings with her. Maybe the pain would dull his senses enough so that the demon wouldn’t get too excited about Lady's close proximity. 

“Ah, fine,” Dante surrendered, heading to lean against a nearby wall while taking his shirt off. “Better to get it out before the wound heals and closes up.”

“Shit, I forgot about that! Quickly, I don’t want to dig the misplaced bullet through the healing flesh,” Lady ushered Dante hastily to land his behind on the asphalt. Dante chuckled, heaving as he sat down.

“Worried about hurting me more?”

Lady didn’t reply. Just scoffed while rummaging through her pockets for everything needed. She cleaned the wound, Dante dramatically complaining how it hurt to lift the mood. Lady smiled with a corner of her mouth but her concentration didn’t break. It worried Dante - it meant Lady was blaming herself for this accident unnecessarily. He should have seen where that gun was pointing at. Not that he minded. The bullet would come out on its own eventually if he didn’t get it out himself, but since Lady had never actually witnessed that to happen, he surrendered to her care. After all, if Dante’s gut feeling was right, it was important to Lady to feel that she had done the right thing to redeem her mistake. 

And, if a little bullet fishing from his chest was making Lady happy, Dante would gladly allow her to do that. Dig and dig with her heart’s content, until she felt she had done enough to help him. 

The way her knife ankled deeper into Dante made him wince slightly, neck tensing.

“Damn, Lady, are you torturing me? I didn’t know you were a sadist,” he joked, looking at Lady’s blood covered hands and how focused she was, all the way up to her tensed shoulders and narrowed eyes.

“Sorry, it’s deeper than I thought,” Lady apologized with a tone which made Dante immediately feel bad about his comment. He patted Lady’s thigh next to him with his hand on the opposite of the injured side. 

“You’re doing good. It’s only a slightly annoying feeling,” he said, feeling like it was the best to correct his earlier statement. “Imma let you continue and keep my mouth shut.”

“Wow, that’s the first time,” Lady replied, slightly humored now, but her humor disappeared soon, all to Dante’s worry.

Dante lolled his backwards against the wall and closed his eyes with a hum, deciding that while his blabbering mouth would keep his own thoughts distracted from where they immediately went if he quieted down, his constant talking would only distract Lady and frankly, he wanted to impress her. Help her out by being very cooperative with her idea. After all, he had already submitted into it instead of brushing Lady’s concern off as nonsense.

He knew it was the devil. He knew it was the wordless call of Lady. These two had joined their hands together into a liaison to lure Dante in and after resisting both his inner demon and Lady’s invitations, Dante was starting to reach his limit. He exhaled longly in through his nostrils with tight lips, earning a worried quick glance from Lady.

“Sorry, tell me if I hurt you too much.”

“It’s fine,” Dante said, lying only half-way through his lips. Her knife inside his flesh was fine. His own knife desiring to get inside Lady’s flesh was not fine. 

He shouldn’t have found this scenario as sexual as it appeared in his mind but the demon inside him was whispering into his ear how fearless Lady was. How powerful. How quick to act without hesitance. How beautiful. The human part inside of him was whispering into his other ear how caring Lady was. How nurturing. How tender. How beautiful. She combined the qualities of a human and a demon, impressing them both in Dante. The demon also reminded him about Lady’s blouse and how it had unbuttoned a bit too low in the midst of the battle without her noticing it.

His hand was staying near Lady’s leg, fingertips brushing her at the spot where he had let his hand fall from her thigh. Softly his fingers traveled back on her thigh, his hand gluing carefully on her leg. Lady didn’t react to it. Still his eyes closed, Dante dared to give a small caress on her thigh, hiding it behind a little grunt of faked pain. He swallowed.

“I can see it. Just a little longer,” Lady said, tilting the knife around.

“Take as long as you need,” Dante breathed out, lips parting. Her scent was starting to get overwhelming and he wanted to stay in its hold. Let it wrap him into a new world, propping his mind and groins, summoning the demon claws on his hand on Lady’s thigh. The longer she would work on him, the happier Dante would be. He took in another deep inhale, his chest heaving. Lady’s hands stopped, wiping blood off from his chest with a cloth she had pulled out from somewhere.

“You’re bleeding quite a lot,” Lady murmured with a deep frown, sticking her knife back in Dante. 

Swallowing, Dante summoned a fake grin on his lips.

“Yeah?” he asked, pretending he didn’t know that he was bleeding because his heart just couldn’t stop its rapid hammering, causing the excessive bleeding.

“Perhaps the bullet hit a big vein…” Lady kept murmuring, mostly to herself. “But I’ve seen worse on you. You won’t faint. Just… try to stay still, okay?”

Dante hummed a reply deep from his throat and it came out a lot huskier than he had intended. His claws dug softly into Lady’s pants on her leg, his nose taking in that strong scent of hers.

He wanted her so, so bad. Right here, right now. 

Kittens. Puppies. Daisies. Ice in pants. Vergil’s annoying mutt. The broken tile above the bathroom sink. Spiders. More ice in the pants. Anything Dante could come up with in his head so that his excessive blood would find its way to critical body parts. Lady let out a breath which washed over his bare chest, jerking something in his stomach.

Do it. Do it. Take her. She’s yours. She wants it. Can’t you smell it?

“There!” Lady cried with happiness, holding a bullet between her fingers victoriously. Dante’s eyes snapped open as soon as she had exclaimed the bullet to be found. “Look at this little bastard. It was hiding well.”

Dante’s eyes traveled from the bloodied bullet on their own to Lady’s face, capturing her eyes. There was a flash of something in her gaze when their eyes met. She gave him that soft look underneath her eyelashes Dante had seen in the bar after his encounter with a demon suitor, when they had almost kissed each other. The memory of her body on top of his rushed into Dante’s mind, his lips parting slightly.

“Better the bullet in me than in you,” Dante said quietly, remembering also Vergil’s pep talk of Lady’s fragile human state. His hand rose to Lady’s face, cupping her cheek tenderly. “I’d take thousands of bullets for you.”

Lady’s eyes widened. So did Dante’s as he hastily retreated his hand, swallowing.

“I mean, one wrong hit on you and you’ll die”, he corrected himself, hoping Lady wouldn’t have gotten the hint. He was not ready to talk about what laid in his heart.

To his luck, Lady swallowed his lie. 

“Thanks,” Lady muttered, turning her head away from Dante’s touch. He let his hand fall slowly down, pretending that her reaction didn’t hurt him.

Vergil had to be wrong, right? Lady wasn’t interested in him. She even moved away from his touch. She was treating him because that’s what friends do and it would be absolutely wrong to get any funny ideas now - but the heart in his chest couldn’t stop beating with a hastened speed, no matter how much Dante tried to speak sense to it. Lady was close and it was driving him insane with desire.

Lady kept her eyes on Dante’s wound, fighting a blush. It was  not time to get blushy and too imaginative with Dante’s reassuring touch and kind, chivallirous words. He was looking after her ass because he valued all promises made and for some reason, Dante was taking their old Temen-ni-gru promise extremely seriously recently. Lady reasoned it was because he was worried of all the demons and if Lady could keep up with them - and apparently he had all the rights to be worried, as she had let her focus slip and shot Dante instead. His chest kept heaving and she could feel his skin being hotter than normal. She wanted to ask if Dante was in pain but the endless bloodstream took all her concentration. 

It was not time to turn on by those abs now. She wrapped the wound, ignoring the closeness of Dante’s body the best way possible.

“That should stop the bleeding. I’m not too worried knowing you, but Dante, if---” she managed to say with a composed face, until she lifted her chin to look at Dante’s face and saw the way he looked at her. His eyes weren’t the usual, kind, almost non-chalant eyes she was used to seeing, but sparkling, intense, holding her gaze with ease.

“Yes?” he asked, voice huskier than Lady had anticipated. She swallowed.

“--If it bleeds too bad, don’t go running around but rest, okay?”

“It’s sweet you’re so worried,” he smirked, wiggling his eyebrows. “This is the first time, really. What gives?”

He had meant it as a joke but when Lady’s eyes widened and she blushed, turning her head quickly away with a small huff, Dante’s heart leaped up to his throat. 

She must have had a crush on him. Damn it, Vergil. He was right after all.

“I just felt guilty,” Lady muttered, bouncing up on her feet. 

“You have shot me earlier. You didn’t seem guilty back then. More like, gleeful?” Dante offered, his excitement rising higher and higher when Lady kept avoiding his eyes. The demon within was purring softly.

“I didn’t know you back then but I do now,” Lady replied, knowing what Dante was referring to. 

“And it turned out that I’m a very skilled, nice, handsome devil after all?” Dante asked with a grin, hearing the beat of his heart in his ears by now. This time, Lady took a quick look at Dante, shrugging as she did.

“I guess you’re OK,” she admitted, smiling the way she always did when she was pleased with something. Dante had a hard time to press a little gasp down to his throat and tell his groins not to start to burn now when Lady wasn’t turning his flirting down. If he was being honest, it looked like Lady was actually flirting back to him with her eyes. The moment they had spent on his sofa came crashing to Dante.

Lady watched how Dante kept staring at her, every passing second their eyes were locked making her heart happier and happier. It looked like Dante might have wanted to let his devil out for her - she just somehow knew the demon was purring somewhere there - but she reminded herself that this was just Dante’s antics. He always liked to tease her and their flirts were never anything but just jokes between friends. But god dammit if Lady didn’t want it to be something else! If she didn’t want to finally kiss Dante, here and now, but the people gathering to see what the commotion now had pushed those wishes out from Lady’s radar. She patted Dante’s bare upper arm, smiling at him once again.

“Yeah, you’re fine,” she nodded, not knowing whether she was referring to Dante’s condition or to Dante himself as a human, a man and a demon.

While getting Kalina-Ann’s blade off from a fresh demon carcass Lady could hear another one approaching her from behind with the same, loving intentions as the previous she had just sent back to Hell. However, before she got to shoot the new friendly suitor , Trish surprised her by taking it down as it approached the huntress with singing growls, and a gift in its hands. Lady greeted Trish with an expression full of her perplexion .

“I wasn’t expecting to run into you,” Lady said.

The demoness smiled, closing the space between them. She cast a look at the carcass at Lady’s feet.

“More fanboys , I see?” 

“Nuisances, that’s what they are,” Lady muttered peevishly, kicking ill-temperedly at the disappearing demon corpse’s flaccid arm by her foot.

“Well, you’re near the demon part of the down,” Trish simply replied, placing then a hand on Lady’s shoulder. “I would advise you to direct your pretty little nose to some other direction than forward from here. You’ll have a few too many suitors after you if you cross just a few blocks down the way .”

Lady’s lips pursed while she contemplated the consequences that would befall her if she wandered into a demon infested area.

“I don’t remember there being demons before in that area ,” she said, earning a knowing little hum from Trish.

“Let’s just say that the demon population is growing and they wish to spread a little further from their initial area. The Qliphoth did some serious damage there, too.”

“Speaking of the Qliphoth,” Lady began, turning to face Trish. “Do you think that what’s happening to me is due to the demon tree? Everyone's been so weird ever since that damned thing was gone. Demons, Dante, Vergil--”

“Wow, Vergil, too?” Trish interjected , stopping Lady ’s tirade suddenly. It was almost comical how the demoness basically backtracked her steps to turn around and face her friend, an impish little smirk on her face. “This one I need to hear. Do tell me more.”

Lady cleared her throat, squaring her shoulders. Trish was clearly looking way too much into an off-hand comment she had made without really meaning anything by it.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Lady told her friend honestly with a shrug. “He’s been a bit difficult, he annoyed Dante, and then he gave me tea from Kyrie’s garden to apologize. Though I’m not sure what he was apologizing for to begin with, since all’s good on my end, but as it seemed important to him, I just accepted,” Lady explained matter-of-factly. 

To her bemusement, Trish’s mirth with the situation only seemed to grow with the demon huntress’ recount of the recent events.

“I bet Dante has been roasting him. Imagine, Vergil! Gifting you like that right under Dante’s nose!”

“No it’s not--- Well, I mean, Dante was a bit surprised and miffed but his idea of proper gifts for a woman are guns, ammo and such. He’s been on edge anyway, so it’s nothing new at this moment,” Lady tried to reason, though she wasn’t sure if the one she was actually reasoning with was Trish or herself. 

“Sure he is. How could he possibly not be on edge? You’re basically attracting every single demon male in a kilometer radius of yourself and that definitely will not sit well with Dante. That kind of thing can put any man on his toes!” Trish said with a light smirk. “Although, at least, he seems to be not at a complete loss through his little predicament. The other day you seemed really cozy there in his arms.”

Lady blushed beet red .

“It wasn’t anything like that----”

“It wasn’t? Damn, my demon senses must be off then, because I could have sworn there was something sweet going on there .”

Lady didn’t say anything. She had the impression elaborating any further might dig her into an even deeper hole and expose her to plenty of teasing from her fellow huntress.

“Lady, I’m saying this, as a friend and as a demon. I can see that you’re already starting to get a feeling for what it is, although you’re a bit off-mark. Whatever happened to you with Artemis, it’s serious because it ’s affecting all male demons. They’re attracted to you and it seems to be something outside of their control . But the one who was harboring feelings for you even before this all went down is Dante. You can’t pretend to have noticed nothing at all when it comes to his demeanor lately .”

Trish’s challenging look was all it took for Lady to recall a myriad of different little moments: the odd compliments Dante had given her, much more frequent than usual; the gifts and little (or not so little) gestures that he kept aiming at her every chance he got . It all came rushing back to her. Lady tried to vocalize something, but she didn’t have a chance to because Trish continued her sermon .

“I’ve known Dante about as long as you have. I am a demon myself, well-versed in all things demonic, complete with my own demonic senses, as you know. So with this said, trust me when I tell you this: he displays all the demon courting rituals of males towards the females they are interested in. Territorial behavior, annoyance and aggression towards other males, scent marking, physical closeness, gifting. It’s all there, Lady.”

Trish’s explanation was so factual and delivered with such surgeon-like precision and no nonsense that it left Lady feeling at a bit of a loss how to unpack what she had just heard. There could be no argument that if Trish said so, then there must be plenty of truth to her statements.

“... You think my time in Artemis is what’s causing this?” Lady queried, not being able to take on the other subjects her friend had just laid bare in front of her.

“You did spend a month as a living battery for that demon,” Trish elaborated conversationally. She chose to good-naturedly give Lady a bit more time to stomach the rest of what she had shared and allow her to steer the conversation towards the more practical aspect of the demon huntress’ recent predicament. “And it’s a unique, high ranking one. Which is why it could and must have affected your DNA somehow, making you slightly demonic. Possibly permanently.” Trish nodded thoughtfully at her surmission, turning her inquisitive gaze to Lady now. “Have you noticed anything other than the twins’ shared interest in you?”

Lady tried to ignore Trish’s smug small grin that broke out on her face at the end of that question and to concentrate on her query only. Her eyes widened when she went through her prior experiences of the last puzzling weeks , realizing something.

“ Actually, now that you mention it, I had a feeling that my reflexes are faster than normal and I don’t tire during battles as quickly as before,” she gasped, looking at her hands, mystified by the revelation . “Kalina-Ann felt lighter but I didn’t really think much of it when I first noticed .”

Trish chuckled at her with a knowing little smirk playing upon her lips.

“And there you can see more clearly what about you charms Dante and has him wrapped around your pinkie .” Trish kept grinning, tapping Lady with her pointed index finger on her chest. “You’re a real badass for a human, Lady. That will enchant any demon. The display of power, the strength to take care of one’s self, to be a worthy and powerful mate. All of these qualities--and the fact you have them and display them all in spades--make you a very desirable partner to demon males. And, Dante, as the guy who already had a huge soft spot for you, is anything but immune to that. ”

“...I highly doubt Dante is actually courting me,” Lady muttered, looking somehow sad and concerned despite her blush that had found its way to her cheeks. “ I mean, we’re friends. We’ve been friends for the majority of our lives. He’s not interested in me in such a way.”

“Really?” Trish stretched the word curiously, starting to circle around Lady slowly with her hands behind her back. “Can you deny that Dante has acted territorially , shown aggression towards other males, demonstrated possessiveness, tried marking you with his scent and attempted to keep you close more than usual ? Knowing him, he has also most likely slipped in a few compliments and sweet nothings here and there but you ignored them because you thought he was joking, right? And hasn’t he always gone to you when he needed some help - like some extra money in a time of need? Have you ever considered that he turns to you for this because he trusts you most with his vulnerabilities, and no one else ?”

Lady winced. She had indeed completely disregarded all of the signs that Trish spoke of, and never paused to consider Dante’s compliments that seemed to spring up in conversation more often nowadays . But he couldn’t possibly mean….

“ You’re only considering my acquaintance with Dante and how well I can read him and his quirks but you’re overlooking a crucial detail, Lady: I’ve known you, too, as long as I’ve known him. And that means I can read you, too, Lady, regardless whether you like it or not.” 

Trish gave her that same know-it-all smirk that made her huntress friend feel like the demoness could peer right into her very soul, beyond all of the little white lies that Lady told herself to be able to keep the status-quo that she could live with comfortably, without rocking the boat too hard. Trish seemed to have a different idea and didn’t appear willing to stop before she drove her point home properly with Lady.

“I have seen how you look at him. I have seen how well you two get along and how perfectly you match. How you complement each other on the battlefield. I’ve seen you crushing on Dante for the longest time though you’ve been excellent at hiding it from pretty much everyone. Dante himself most likely doesn’t know about it - if he did, he wouldn’t continue displaying his interest to you so timidly with his gifting and body. He would have already claimed you as his true and only mate. He is, after all, a demon.”

Lady shook her head, still resisting the idea that Dante had feelings for her. It didn’t make any sense to her at all. Because, if Trish was right and he did have special feelings for Lady - he was, indeed, a man and a demon. Wouldn’t that mean that he would have… at least done something overt about his romantic intentions towards her? 

He hadn’t really made any moves on her so far. At least none that were completely lacking ambiguity and could show her that, yes, he did want her the way that she wanted him. (And, yes, if he felt the same way, then she was big enough of a person to admit--even just to herself--that she wanted him. Badly.) Yet somehow, this wonderful scenario seemed very farfetched to her.

“ I don’t know, Trish. Dante might just be acting weird because of this demonic effect I have on him. We can’t be sure he has feelings for me.”

“Are you doubting me? Calling me a liar?” Trish gasped dramatically with an accusing tone, stopping her circling around Lady’s stiff form for a second. 

“No! I didn’t mean it like that!” the huntress exclaimed, horrified at the prospect of having her denial taken wrongly by her friend. 

She knew she could always count on Trish’s expertise when it came to demons, their behavior and peculiarities. Lady had relied on her knowledge--and her ass saved by it--on more than one occasion. There was no way she would disrespect that fact. Plus, Trish was many things, but a liar was definitely not one of them--and Lady despised liars with vehemence, so having the demoness labeled as one was the furthest thing from what she wanted. 

Trish nodded appreciatively at Lady’s reaction, pleased with her re-evaluation of the situation and her earlier words.

“Then listen to what I have to say because I’m not lying and trust me, no one in this city knows the demon stuff and behavior better than a bewitching devil called Trish.”

The demoness continued her round around Lady, stopping right in front of her to deem her with a level , motherly look.

“Would it be that bad, Lady? To live with Dante, as a couple? You’re already having each other’s backs, working as a perfectly oiled machine, a flawless team, and you both clearly care about each other - a lot. Dante might not be that bad of a partner to spend the rest of your life with, right? He’s nothing if not one of the strongest beings on Earth and Hell, and one of the kindest, too.”

Lady couldn’t help her blushing and her pulse’s quickening pace at Trish’s words .

“ Not to mention your time as Artemis is affecting you, too. If you ask me, I would advise both of you to resolve this quickly, before this becomes a bigger mess than it already is .” Trish emphasized her statement by resuming her determined pacing around Lady in a circular manner, acting a bit more like the predator she could be if she only wanted to.

“How?” Lady queried in confusion. She pondered if there was some quick fix that her demoness friend could impart on her that she had somehow failed to mention so far. Probably just for the sheer fun of grilling Lady for her amusement until putting her out of her misery by enlightening her.

She wouldn’t put it past Trish to have done that. But if she was planning to share this invaluable knowledge with her now, the demon huntress was eagerly awaiting to hear it.

A wide, impish grin rose to Trish’s lips. She turned around, looking playfully over her shoulder at Lady.

“Oh, you know. Like that sofa embrace but with a lot less clothes and a lot more movement.” Trish even had the gall to give her friend a mischievous little wink at that.

“I--I won’t sleep with Dante!” Lady shrieked in what should have been outrage , but the way her voice broke in the middle of the sentence betrayed the truth of her feelings on the matter to Trish. 

“He will sleep with you if you ask. He’s probably just waiting for you to give the word.” Trish laughed good-naturedly at a thought that occurred to her. “He’s probably already this close to ripping your clothes off after holding himself back against your scent and those unconscious invitations of yours for this long. That's what demons do. And, higher demons, like Dante, mate for life, and they’re very physical. Once the pact is formed, he’s yours forever and you’re his. Which is so much less complicated than your human relationship messes. Much truer and more loving, don’t you think?”

Lady tried, oh god, she did try not to picture herself sleeping with Dante. But it was hard. She failed, failed miserably, as like Trish said, the connection with Artemis for the month had left its imprint on Lady. She hadn’t realized it before but when Trish laid it bare in front of her, she understood where that new, alluring call of Dante’s was suddenly coming from, intensifying the crush she had had on him for the longest time since she could remember. 

Sometime after the Devil May Cry had been christened, she had realized that her feelings were more than just friendly. However, Dante was important to her. Chasing him away from her life with a confession was too painful to even consider . 

In a normal situation, confessing her feelings should at least give her a chance at a happy future, but Lady was well aware that when it came to Dante, the situation concerning matters of the heart was not normal. She clearly remembered what had happened to Lucia and Beryl, both capable and powerful warrior women crushing after the devil hunter, who had laid their feelings bare for him. 

They had been forgotten and the connection between Dante and them had disappeared slowly, withering away until it had been completely severed .

Lady didn’t want that. She would continue doing anything and everything to prevent it from ever happening to them and their bond . She was ready to keep fooling herself, lying to herself and denying herself for as long as she lived, if needed, as long as that would guarantee she would never lose Dante. He was the most precious person to her.

“Trish… I am not trying to call you a liar or saying that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I trust your judgement without any discussion usually but… What if you’re wrong this time? What if, for some reason, your senses are mistaken? I can’t risk losing Dante over something we might be terribly wrong about.”

Lady’s tone was pleading, as if she was trying to make a point to herself more than to Trish. The demoness stopped her circling around her and gave Lady a long, scrutinizing look.

“Okay, I’ll bite and humor you. Let’s say, purely for the sake of argument, that I might be wrong. Maybe you’re right and it’s really just your Artemis after-effects affecting Dante and altering his behavior.” Trish’s deadpan expression and sardonic tone gave away just how unlikely she believed this scenario to be. “Even if that were somehow true, how exactly do you believe that you saying something about your feelings for him would make you lose Dante for good? Honestly, worst case, he might be awkward around you for a few days - a month at most! - until things go back to what counts as normal for you two,” the demoness said with a dismissive scoff.

Even though she wanted to buy into the point her friend was trying to make, Lady shook her head in denial. 

“ No. You’re wrong about that. He wouldn’t just brush it off. We’ve seen it happen before, Trish. Both Lucia and Beryl told Dante about their feelings. He didn’t accept them and now, they’re not even acquaintances anymore. I don’t want that to happen to me.”

Although Lady’s reasoning could be sound, it had one crucial fault in it that she seemed completely oblivious to. Something Trish was not, and it was why she simply rolled her eyes dramatically at the demon huntress’ statement.

“The difference between Lucia and Beryl and you is that neither Lucia or Beril is you. Dante gave them the cold shoulder because he had already chosen you.”

Lady and Trish locked their gazes, unblinkingly staring each other down. Lady’s dichromatic eyes were searching Trish’s for the truth and for her conviction of her statement. She was met with the demoness’ steadfast, even look, full of her complete certainty of this simple truth. 

Could it… Could it be possible that Trish was actually right? That all of Lady’s skittishness and her fear of taking a leap of faith--and into Dante’s arms, come what may--was actually the result of her misunderstanding of his intentions all along? That he’d actually harbored feelings that were more than friendly for her as well, just as she had, for about as long as she had. Yet because he, too, believed they were friends, and he cared about her deeply, and didn’t mean to lose what they had, he had kept his feelings locked away from her? 

Was such a dream-like scenario even in the cards for them? It seemed too good to be true to Lady.

“I find that hard to believe,” the huntress chuckled, feeling a soothing warmth spreading within her chest . If Trish was right and Dante had indeed turned Lucia and Beryl away because he had his heart set on Lady , then her chest would swell with pride and pure happiness.

Funny. She hadn’t realized that she had been jealous of Lucia and Beryl. She had been a bit annoyed about Trish in the early days, too, but realized soon that Dante wasn’t interested in a woman who was a living replica of his dead mother. 

“Dante was right; you are a stubborn one,” Trish huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “When you’re that afraid of losing him, then you should act upon it. Trust me when I say this: it will not ruin your relationship. You will only gain a super hot half-demon, who will gladly hop into your bed if you just say the word to him and he’ll be more than happy to permanently keep you warm there.”

The way Trish delivered that last sentence with a smirk finally earned her a little chuckle from Lady. Her shoulders relaxed and she let her fingers, which had curled into firsts without her noticing it, relax slowly. Somehow picking this topic apart with Trish had eased her mind and given her heart .

“Dammit, Trish! You make a really compelling point. You know that ?”

“Hey, I’m a demoness. I’m supposed to tempt people into all the fun things you call sin.” She kept a small pause, smirking playfully at Lady. “Or Dante, in this case.”

Lady chortled, shaking her head. It was hard to argue with Trish. She had really keen senses. Keen eyes, keen ears and the most busybody nose Lady had ever known someone to own , despite Trish’s attempts to pretend she didn’t really care about gossip, others’ love lives and such. 

If Trish claimed, with her compelling certainty, that Dante had something more than just friendly feelings in his heart for Lady, then she would listen to her demon friend. She owed it to her, and she owed it to herself. Lady had been running from her feelings for years, and now it was time to stop pretending she was blind and daft, and turn to face the music.

Come what may.

And, on the complete off-chance (by Trish’s estimates, which were never really wrong when it came to demonic behavior) that her feelings were not reciprocated, she would choose to trust that this would be something her bond with Dante would be able to recover from. When putting the situation in this perspective, it certainly seemed like she had so much to gain and everything she could lose she could have back if she just worked hard enough at it.

Lady nodded to herself, her confidence in the chosen course of action swelling in her chest the more she deliberated it.

“Fine. I’ll speak with Dante. But if it backfires and something horrible happens, you’ll owe me permission to kick your ass to Hell and back, Trish,” Lady said, pointing her finger at the demoness.

With a cocky smirk securely on her lips , Trish crossed her arms and tilted her chin up.

“Deal.”

Telling Dante and confronting him with the subject weighting Lady’s heart was one of the hardest things she had ever needed to do in her life. She went through different scenarios in her head, from extremely bad to extremely good, and how to react to them for a few days before mustering up courage to go to Devil May Cry after its closing hours. Once again Lady reminded herself that Trish was a reliable source of support and what she had told Lady the other day had to be true. 

It had to be.

Otherwise she seriously would drag Thris back to Hell and seal her there permanently. Perhaps move in there herself, too, next to Thris, so that she wouldn’t need to meet Dante face to face after the embarrassing reveal that he didn’t take the way Thris had assured.

She sent Dante a message, asking to have a moment of his time in privacy without Thris or Vergil around, as she wanted to talk. To her surprise, Dante replied that he wished to talk with her, too. About something that had bothered him.

Dante was casually looking at Lady with his arms crossed over his chest, head tilted slightly to the side when Lady found her way inside the office at the agreed time. She immediately noted his finely sculpted arms through the thin fabric of his shirt, sleeves rolled up like always, and she wondered if she could be embraced by those arms soon or would they toss her out from the office for good?

“You don’t look so well,” Dante noted, when Lady had searched for the right words a bit too long. “Let me get you water. Or whiskey? You look like you could use a drink.”

“Y--Yeah!” Lady agreed, thinking a little drink might actually ease her nerves. “Make it double.”

“Wow, someone’s in trouble. Can I help?” Dante grinned over his shoulder, pouring a glass for both of them.

“Ah… About this… ‘condition’ I have now. I spoke with Thris the other day. She figured out what it is,” Lady began with a short swallow. “Thris theorized that the month I spent as a living battery to Artemis somehow altered my DNA, and now I’m like one of the demons to other demons, and they’re crazy in love with me.”

“Ah, so the demons after you are suitors after all,” Dante smiled shortly, looking into his glass with a pondering look in his eyes. “Vergil suggested something like that, too. Not exactly with the same words but he also theorized that demons were courting you. Can’t say that it hadn’t crossed my mind before our talk with Vergil.”

“It was a surprise to me,” Lady muttered sourly. 

Dante gestured to her to follow him on the leather sofa.

“Do you know what Vergil suggested as a treatment?”

Lady’s eyes brightened. She slid closer to Dante.

“There’s a treatment?” she gasped. 

Dante kept his head down, tapping the surface of his glass.

“He said I should mark you. As my own. My partner. That way the demon suitors will leave you alone as they don’t court claimed partners,” he cleared his throat, turning then slowly his attention to Lady. There was a certain dark seriosity in his pale eyes which Lady didn’t miss.

“That’s… That’s what Trish was kind of saying, too… That’s what I wanted to talk about,” Lady mumbled with a deep blush, surprising Dante. She didn’t want to hear what he was going to say so hastily Lady continued. “I think it’s a good idea. I mean, I wouldn’t mind it if it’s you, Dante. Any other demon is no but you.. You are you, you know?”

Dante hummed with an agreeing tone but didn’t say anything. Lady’s attention turned back to her glass. She hadn’t drank any of the whiskey, as much as she had felt a need for it earlier. Now, the glass with its content interested her the least. Her chest suddenly felt heavier.

The glass on her hand was suddenly removed by Dante’s fingers, placed slowly on the sofa table. 

The glass on her hand was suddenly removed by Dante’s fingers, placed slowly on the sofa table. He reached to kiss Lady, capturing a surprised hum into a deep, passionate kiss.

“I can’t hold back any longer,” Dante muttered huskily, trying to lock his eyes with Lady’s. Her attention was on his shirt, pulling it off from him, revealing his stomach.

“Me neither,” Lady agreed, her face red but body already whirling with passion so much that she didn’t care anymore. This was it. There was no reason to resist or fight, now when Dante and her were on the same page. She was calling him to her – had been calling him for many months – and Dante was more than ready to answer.

Dante stood up, throwing Lady over his shoulder like she’d weighed nothing. Dante’s bed creaked with a sad whine when Lady was tossed on it, Dante’s heavier body following Lady’s fall on top of her. Somehow, he had managed to slip out from his shirt during Lady’s landing. He settled to kiss and suck Lady’s neck, inhaling deeply that alluring sense that had been tormenting him in a loose noose for too long. When she whimpered his name, it set his chest ablaze.

This really was the woman he loved. The woman he had been eyeing all these decades. The woman he wanted to make his own, his beloved, his mate.

He hated when Vergil was right.