Girltalk Roulette [Devil May Cry fanfic]
Sep. 26th, 2012 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daidoji_giseiDumping this here for now! I'd love comment but am not holding my breath.
If you are not familiar with DMC, I think there are only a few things needed to know to make sense of what is going on.
1. In the DMC universe there are humans and demons, but the dividing line is somewhat fluid: mortals can lose their humanity, and demons can gain the ability to love (a defining characteristic of humanity).
2. Lady is human. Her father, Arkham, sacrificed his humanity in his quest for power.
3. Trish is a demon who acquired some humanity. She also bears and uncanny resemblence to Dante's mother, and this is not accidental.
4. Dante is the son of Sparda, the demon who defended humanity by single-handedly kicking all the demon armies out and raising a barrier between the two worlds. His mother was human, and he keeps a photo of her on his desk at all times.
5. Lady, Trish, and Dante all work as demon-hunters, keeping humanity safe (and paying the rent) by hunting those demons who come to the human world to do violence.
Girltalk Roulette
"How much longer do we have to stay here?" Lady threw down the pool cue in frustration and strode to the center of the room. "It's been hours!"
"So leave." Trish laid her cue down and walked towards the desk in the back of the room.
"I don't go back on deals. I told him I'd be here and I will be. But if I had known it would take this long I would have brought some books." Lady started to pace out a circle in the center of the room.
"Hmm." Trish sat down at the desk, pulled out Luce and started to fiddle with it. "Well, if you are tired of pool we can try conversation. Let's talk about you and Dante."
Lady stopped and gave her a scowling look. "Nothing to talk about. Not in a million years. And just why would you consider this a good topic?"
Trish slid the safety off of Luce with brisk movement and waved the gun in Lady's direction. "Because I'm bored. Because I get excitement from danger." She laid the mouth of the gun against her head, point blank and finger on the trigger, and gave Lady the kind of smile that revealed her nature to any devil-hunter worth the name. "And because when you are a demon of my strength, Russian roulette doesn't deliver a high enough level of risk." She snapped the safety back on and sent the gun spinning across the room.
Lady caught the gun easily and studied it. "Ok," she said finally. "I'll play your game. Ask a question."
"Are you attracted to Dante?"
Lady laughed. "Easy one. How could I not be attracted to Dante? Those classic cheekbones! Those amazing blue eyes! That hair that begs to have fingers run through it! And that body! And then he goes and clothes it all in those suits of his!" She paused and dramatically fanned herself with her free hand.
"But you keep him at arm's length. Always."
"Yeah." Lady looked at Luce again, as if considering giving it back, and then shrugged. "It wouldn't be casual between us. It could never be casual between us--how we met, what we are now: it would have to be real, even if we tried to lie to each other about it beforehand. And...and that would never work." She started pacing again, with a fast, jerky gait. "When I try to think about Dante, really think about him, all I really think of is how much alike we are, and why. Because both of our fathers were demons." She stopped abruptly, face turned away from Trish. "But only mine was a monster." She tossed the gun away.
Trish caught it, spun it around a finger, caught it again. "Well?"
"Same question, back at you."
"Yes, I am attracted to Dante," Trish said. "For all the reasons you are, plus a few that only make sense to a demon."
"But you also keep him at arm's length."
Trish reached over and turned the photograph that sat on the desk around so that Lady could see it.
"Oh yeah," Lady said. "That is awkward."
"On both sides," Trish said. "We are better off as friends. And sometimes, partners."
Lady cocked her head slightly, as if listening for something unsaid. "If it's just your looks, why not change them? Shouldn't you be able to shapeshift?"
"If I was a normal demon--insofar as there are normal demons--yes. But Mundus spawned me for a particular purpose, and for that purpose I needed this shape only. You asked me once why I didn't switch to my demonic form: this is my demonic form. I can't change it."
"Plastic surgery, then. Humans do it all the time."
Trish shuddered and put the gun on the desk. She sat there, breathing deeply, and then she slowly put out a hand and picked Luce back up again. "I can't," she said. "I remember Mundus making me, remember him moulding me to satisfy his purpose. I can't have that done to me again, even if the purpose is mine. I can't."
Lady walked over to the desk and put out her hand, and Trish passed the gun over to her. "What do you find most annoying about Dante?"
"How can I possibly choose?" Lady asked. "There are so many options! But his eating habits are up near the top. How can he possibly survive eating nothing but pizza and strawberry sundaes?"
"Well, he is half-demon," Trish said. "We can have some fairly odd feeding patterns."
"Oh yeah?" Lady asked. "What's yours?"
Trish gazed placidly at the ceiling. "You probably don't want to ask that question."
"Noted," Lady said. "But you are right, I hadn't considered that it might be a demon thing. I don't think that can excuse the state of his office, though. How hard can it be to pick up a pizza box and throw it out?"
"It doesn't help that Patty just enables him by cleaning all the time."
"I thought about trying to talk her out of it," Lady said. "But she's twelve. How else can she tell him she loves him except by cleaning his office? It's not like we have better ways of telling him." She tossed Luce away.
"Hmm. " Trish put a hand out and caught it. "Same question?" she said, and received a nod from Lady. "He complains. All the time. He complains about not getting his nap, about not getting jobs from Morrison, about the jobs Morrison brings him, about his pizza, it goes on and on and on. You can't imagine what it is like living with someone like that."
"I suppose," Lady said, "but honestly, I just tune it out." She walked over the the pool table and sat on the edge. "Humans need ways to burn off excess emotion, and I'd rather listen to him complain about olives than have him wear black eyeliner and listen to gothpunk."
"Dante...in black eyeliner?" Trish stared into the distance with a rapt look on her face. "Lady. We must make this happen."
"Now that you mention it, he probably could carry the look off..." Lady trailed off into her own private reverie. "But he'd never agree to it."
"So we ambush him, tie him up, and apply it to him."
"I'm not sure the two of us together could manage that. He's strong even by demon standards, and I'm only a human."
"I don't know about that," Trish said. "He might enjoy it."
Lady started fanning herself with her hand. "This is not a safe topic of conversation."
Trish laughed. "Make it a wager in a poker game, then."
"Dante would never accept a bet like--Wait. What am I saying? Of course he would accept a bet like that."
"I am relying on you," Trish said.
"Consider it done." Lady put out a hand and Trish tossed the gun back to her.
"Could you kill him?" Trish asked.
Lady blinked in surprise. "I...I can't even imagine why I'd ever need to." She looked down at the gun in her hands and thought of Arkham. "But if the impossible ever happened, if he betrayed his humanity and became only a demon, I'd do it. I wouldn't hesitate." She absently tossed the gun from one hand to another, thinking. "I'm not sure what I could use to do it, though. Six-inch naval guns, I guess--no, too slow. Surface-to-surface missiles, self-guided. Lots of them." She tossed the gun to Trish. "Same question."
Trish caught the gun and frowned. "I shouldn't have asked that."
"So put Luce down," Lady said.
"The coward's way out," Trish said. She swung her legs up so that her feet rested on the desk, dropped the gun into her lap, and leaned back to consider Lady. "I could never kill him. Never. And if he became a demon I would go and swear myself to his service, and stand as his general while his legions overran the mortal world." Her voice had lost all of its human tones.
Lady put her hands palm-flat on the edge of the pool table and leaned forward slightly. "And I'd be there to stop you."
"I'm sure you would be," Trish said with a smirk. "For the pitifully short remainder of your existence." She gave Lady a challenging stare, and the other woman matched it. The room was silent until the refrigerator compressor switched on and hummed its way though a cycle. Neither woman moved. The compressor switched back off, and the silence returned.
The telephone on the desk rang, and for the first two rings neither woman reacted. Then Trish sighed and picked the gun up out of her lap, her eyes never leaving Lady's. She dropped the gun on the desk, broke eye contact, and picked up the phone. "Devil May Cry," she said briskly. "Oh, it's you. What have you got?" She listened. "Right. On our way." She dropped the receiver back in its cradle.
"And?" Lady said. She had jumped up from the table and was performing a quick last check of her guns.
"Dante's located the demon, it's big but not that big, and it's hiding out in the wooded area of Archangel Park." Trish put Luce away and started putting her jacket on. "It also has--as expected--a large number of smaller demons with it, and four schoolbusses filled with children are pulling into the park even as we speak."
"Well, this ought to liven up our day," Lady said. She swung Kalina Ann over one shoulder and headed for the door.
Trish followed, putting on her sunglasses. "Remind me afterwards to pick up some eyeliner."
"Trust me," Lady said, "I'm not forgetting that."
Trish pulled the door shut and turned to face Lady. "It's good to have friends who understand you," she said.
"Yeah," Lady said, smiling. "It is. And now, showtime."
If you are not familiar with DMC, I think there are only a few things needed to know to make sense of what is going on.
1. In the DMC universe there are humans and demons, but the dividing line is somewhat fluid: mortals can lose their humanity, and demons can gain the ability to love (a defining characteristic of humanity).
2. Lady is human. Her father, Arkham, sacrificed his humanity in his quest for power.
3. Trish is a demon who acquired some humanity. She also bears and uncanny resemblence to Dante's mother, and this is not accidental.
4. Dante is the son of Sparda, the demon who defended humanity by single-handedly kicking all the demon armies out and raising a barrier between the two worlds. His mother was human, and he keeps a photo of her on his desk at all times.
5. Lady, Trish, and Dante all work as demon-hunters, keeping humanity safe (and paying the rent) by hunting those demons who come to the human world to do violence.
Girltalk Roulette
"How much longer do we have to stay here?" Lady threw down the pool cue in frustration and strode to the center of the room. "It's been hours!"
"So leave." Trish laid her cue down and walked towards the desk in the back of the room.
"I don't go back on deals. I told him I'd be here and I will be. But if I had known it would take this long I would have brought some books." Lady started to pace out a circle in the center of the room.
"Hmm." Trish sat down at the desk, pulled out Luce and started to fiddle with it. "Well, if you are tired of pool we can try conversation. Let's talk about you and Dante."
Lady stopped and gave her a scowling look. "Nothing to talk about. Not in a million years. And just why would you consider this a good topic?"
Trish slid the safety off of Luce with brisk movement and waved the gun in Lady's direction. "Because I'm bored. Because I get excitement from danger." She laid the mouth of the gun against her head, point blank and finger on the trigger, and gave Lady the kind of smile that revealed her nature to any devil-hunter worth the name. "And because when you are a demon of my strength, Russian roulette doesn't deliver a high enough level of risk." She snapped the safety back on and sent the gun spinning across the room.
Lady caught the gun easily and studied it. "Ok," she said finally. "I'll play your game. Ask a question."
"Are you attracted to Dante?"
Lady laughed. "Easy one. How could I not be attracted to Dante? Those classic cheekbones! Those amazing blue eyes! That hair that begs to have fingers run through it! And that body! And then he goes and clothes it all in those suits of his!" She paused and dramatically fanned herself with her free hand.
"But you keep him at arm's length. Always."
"Yeah." Lady looked at Luce again, as if considering giving it back, and then shrugged. "It wouldn't be casual between us. It could never be casual between us--how we met, what we are now: it would have to be real, even if we tried to lie to each other about it beforehand. And...and that would never work." She started pacing again, with a fast, jerky gait. "When I try to think about Dante, really think about him, all I really think of is how much alike we are, and why. Because both of our fathers were demons." She stopped abruptly, face turned away from Trish. "But only mine was a monster." She tossed the gun away.
Trish caught it, spun it around a finger, caught it again. "Well?"
"Same question, back at you."
"Yes, I am attracted to Dante," Trish said. "For all the reasons you are, plus a few that only make sense to a demon."
"But you also keep him at arm's length."
Trish reached over and turned the photograph that sat on the desk around so that Lady could see it.
"Oh yeah," Lady said. "That is awkward."
"On both sides," Trish said. "We are better off as friends. And sometimes, partners."
Lady cocked her head slightly, as if listening for something unsaid. "If it's just your looks, why not change them? Shouldn't you be able to shapeshift?"
"If I was a normal demon--insofar as there are normal demons--yes. But Mundus spawned me for a particular purpose, and for that purpose I needed this shape only. You asked me once why I didn't switch to my demonic form: this is my demonic form. I can't change it."
"Plastic surgery, then. Humans do it all the time."
Trish shuddered and put the gun on the desk. She sat there, breathing deeply, and then she slowly put out a hand and picked Luce back up again. "I can't," she said. "I remember Mundus making me, remember him moulding me to satisfy his purpose. I can't have that done to me again, even if the purpose is mine. I can't."
Lady walked over to the desk and put out her hand, and Trish passed the gun over to her. "What do you find most annoying about Dante?"
"How can I possibly choose?" Lady asked. "There are so many options! But his eating habits are up near the top. How can he possibly survive eating nothing but pizza and strawberry sundaes?"
"Well, he is half-demon," Trish said. "We can have some fairly odd feeding patterns."
"Oh yeah?" Lady asked. "What's yours?"
Trish gazed placidly at the ceiling. "You probably don't want to ask that question."
"Noted," Lady said. "But you are right, I hadn't considered that it might be a demon thing. I don't think that can excuse the state of his office, though. How hard can it be to pick up a pizza box and throw it out?"
"It doesn't help that Patty just enables him by cleaning all the time."
"I thought about trying to talk her out of it," Lady said. "But she's twelve. How else can she tell him she loves him except by cleaning his office? It's not like we have better ways of telling him." She tossed Luce away.
"Hmm. " Trish put a hand out and caught it. "Same question?" she said, and received a nod from Lady. "He complains. All the time. He complains about not getting his nap, about not getting jobs from Morrison, about the jobs Morrison brings him, about his pizza, it goes on and on and on. You can't imagine what it is like living with someone like that."
"I suppose," Lady said, "but honestly, I just tune it out." She walked over the the pool table and sat on the edge. "Humans need ways to burn off excess emotion, and I'd rather listen to him complain about olives than have him wear black eyeliner and listen to gothpunk."
"Dante...in black eyeliner?" Trish stared into the distance with a rapt look on her face. "Lady. We must make this happen."
"Now that you mention it, he probably could carry the look off..." Lady trailed off into her own private reverie. "But he'd never agree to it."
"So we ambush him, tie him up, and apply it to him."
"I'm not sure the two of us together could manage that. He's strong even by demon standards, and I'm only a human."
"I don't know about that," Trish said. "He might enjoy it."
Lady started fanning herself with her hand. "This is not a safe topic of conversation."
Trish laughed. "Make it a wager in a poker game, then."
"Dante would never accept a bet like--Wait. What am I saying? Of course he would accept a bet like that."
"I am relying on you," Trish said.
"Consider it done." Lady put out a hand and Trish tossed the gun back to her.
"Could you kill him?" Trish asked.
Lady blinked in surprise. "I...I can't even imagine why I'd ever need to." She looked down at the gun in her hands and thought of Arkham. "But if the impossible ever happened, if he betrayed his humanity and became only a demon, I'd do it. I wouldn't hesitate." She absently tossed the gun from one hand to another, thinking. "I'm not sure what I could use to do it, though. Six-inch naval guns, I guess--no, too slow. Surface-to-surface missiles, self-guided. Lots of them." She tossed the gun to Trish. "Same question."
Trish caught the gun and frowned. "I shouldn't have asked that."
"So put Luce down," Lady said.
"The coward's way out," Trish said. She swung her legs up so that her feet rested on the desk, dropped the gun into her lap, and leaned back to consider Lady. "I could never kill him. Never. And if he became a demon I would go and swear myself to his service, and stand as his general while his legions overran the mortal world." Her voice had lost all of its human tones.
Lady put her hands palm-flat on the edge of the pool table and leaned forward slightly. "And I'd be there to stop you."
"I'm sure you would be," Trish said with a smirk. "For the pitifully short remainder of your existence." She gave Lady a challenging stare, and the other woman matched it. The room was silent until the refrigerator compressor switched on and hummed its way though a cycle. Neither woman moved. The compressor switched back off, and the silence returned.
The telephone on the desk rang, and for the first two rings neither woman reacted. Then Trish sighed and picked the gun up out of her lap, her eyes never leaving Lady's. She dropped the gun on the desk, broke eye contact, and picked up the phone. "Devil May Cry," she said briskly. "Oh, it's you. What have you got?" She listened. "Right. On our way." She dropped the receiver back in its cradle.
"And?" Lady said. She had jumped up from the table and was performing a quick last check of her guns.
"Dante's located the demon, it's big but not that big, and it's hiding out in the wooded area of Archangel Park." Trish put Luce away and started putting her jacket on. "It also has--as expected--a large number of smaller demons with it, and four schoolbusses filled with children are pulling into the park even as we speak."
"Well, this ought to liven up our day," Lady said. She swung Kalina Ann over one shoulder and headed for the door.
Trish followed, putting on her sunglasses. "Remind me afterwards to pick up some eyeliner."
"Trust me," Lady said, "I'm not forgetting that."
Trish pulled the door shut and turned to face Lady. "It's good to have friends who understand you," she said.
"Yeah," Lady said, smiling. "It is. And now, showtime."
