completely unremarkable and just short of being clever

"Got Your Number (2/?)" (PSYCH/SPN, PG13)

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:16:11 GMT

Title: Got Your Number
Author: Britani Gael rocknload
Fandom: Psych/Supernatural
Rating: PG13
Words: 3744
Summary: Crossover; while investigating a series of strange deaths, the Winchester brothers head to Santa Barbara, where they seek help from a local psychic, Shawn Spencer.
Author’s Notes: Beta'd by jaxjacoby, written for psychoutnabout.

Part one.

The plan was to talk to Detective Lassiter – meaning the head detective around here, and also the guy in charge of investigating the Rodriguez murders. Meeting with the cops is never the way to make Dean’s day, but they have to start somewhere, and Sam’s already booked the easy job.

Problem is, Detective Lassiter isn’t in. Would it be alright to speak with his extremely pretty partner instead?

Oh, hell, why not?

“I’m sorry.” Detective Juliet O’Hara says, wrinkling her forehead in a way that’s kind of adorable. She’s blonde and cute and definitely a cop, and her eyes are sharp as she looks at him, drumming her fingers on her desk. “I wasn’t even aware that Mr. Rodriguez had any family in the area.” She winces. “I mean, besides…”

“My cousins, I know,” Dean says, fake-suppressing a fake-shudder. “I was heading up here to see if I couldn’t find some work, and I stopped by Uncle Jim’s and…”

“God, I’m sorry,” she says. “Someone should have contacted you.”

“I don’t blame you guys,” Dean says. How could he? Even he didn’t know he was going to be a nephew until this morning. “You must be busy. It’s just… I’d like to know what happened, is all.”

She hesitates.

“I understand,” Dean says, and he does. This is sensitive stuff. He leans back and glances around. “Me and Uncle Jim, we weren’t all that close. But I read what the papers said, and I don’t think he did it.”

O’Hara chews on her lower lip.

Usually cops make the list of Dean’s least favorite things, but at least a couple of them are actually trying to make the world a better place – just like him and Sam – and he doesn’t like taking advantage of the well-meaning people like Detective O’Hara. Problem was, those are the easy ones, and it only takes a word: “Please.”

She pauses a second longer, and then she nods. “Maybe you can help me.”

She pulls a yellow legal pad out of her desk, and a pen to go with it. Dean recognizes that now it’s seriously interview time, even if the pen’s got a pink flower taped to the end of it.

“It’s so no one takes it,” O’Hara says, waving the pen. She must’ve seen him smirk.”

“Ah.”

“Was your uncle involved in any illegal activities, to your knowledge?”

“Nope,” Dean says, which is true. Well, almost. Rodriguez isn’t really his uncle.

“Was any member of the family?”

“Don’t think so.” The trick to an interview is to get information instead of give it – and it’s not as if he can tell her anything that’ll help. Except maybe to watch out for the teeth of the undead. “But,” he says, lowering his voice and leaning forward, “there were always rumors.”

She follows suit, leaning forward and whispering. “What kind of rumors?”

“You know,” he says, knowing she doesn’t. He’s making it up on the spot. “About the occult.”

She blinks.

Okay, no hits there. But she doesn’t think he’s nuts for suggesting it, either, and that’s something. He chuckles half-heartedly. “I mean, I don’t know if it’s even true—if you guys didn’t find anything…”

“We didn’t.” She nibbles on the end of her flower-pen, and Dean kind of whishes she wasn’t a cop. Again. “We didn’t find anything at all.”

He raises his eyebrows, an expression he imagines looks confused, yet thoughtful. “What do you mean?”

“The house was empty. Everything was gone, except for the, ah… victims.”

Aha, he’d like to think. A classic sign of the whatchacallit monster, which has a record in the myths of every culture on the entire freaking planet. But, no. He’s got nothing. “Weird,” he says, shrugs. “Crazy stuff?”

“What kind of rumors have you heard?” she asks.

He doesn’t have to answer that, because the phone on her desk starts jangling.

“This is O’Hara,” she answers. The receiver grumbles something, and she frowns. “Gus? What do you – no? I can’t, I’m with…”

“Oh, don’t mind me.” Dean says.

She doesn’t. She swivels around in her chair so she’s half turned away, which doesn’t make a very good sound barrier. “I know it’s important,” she says, “because it always is.”

The phone grumbles.

“I can’t,” she says. “I mean, I shouldn’t.” O’Hara covers the receiver with her hand. “I’m not going to do it,” she whispers at Dean. “I’m not supposed to.”

That, of course, means she’ll do her friend this favor just as soon as Dean turns away. The corners of his lips twitch. “I won’t tell.”

She talks back into the phone. “Okay, Gus. I’ll try to take care of it later. Just give me the number, and I’ll call you back.” She scrawls it down at the top of her legal pad, and doodles a big boxy rectangle around it. “KAZ 2Y5, okay. I’ll talk to you later.”

She hangs up. It takes her a second, which gives Dean the time he needs to stare at the series of letters and numbers and think, God fucking DAMNIT.

He’s smiling when she looks back at him.

“So,” she says. “Mr. Young—”

This time it’s his phone that rings. He checks the caller ID even though he knows who it is.

“Sam,” he answers. What he really wants to say is where the fuck is my car but he settles for, “Can’t really talk now. I’m at the station.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “How’s that going?”

Dean glances at O’Hara, but she’s on the phone again and not listening. Probably. “Just peachy,” he says. Sam knows that translates to, I’ve got nothing.

“I have something. There’s been another incident, at the morgue. Not far from the police station.” Someone says something in the background. “Three blocks,” Sam says.

“Who’s with you?” Dean asks.

“The psychic. We’re heading over there now, can you get here?”

“The psychic? Is he legit?”

The line’s quiet for several seconds. “I don’t know.”

That’s just… peachy. “Great,” Dean says, forgetting for a second that’s he’s supposed to be too bereaved to use sarcasm. “I’ll head over now.” He moves to hang up, and then thinks better of it. “Sam, before you go.”

“Yeah?”

“Make sure you feed the meter.”

Another pause. “Um, Dean? What are you—”

Dean talks right over him. “Yeah, I seriously can’t afford to get another ticket.” Not one of their code words, but hopefully this would give Sammy some kind of vague warning. “It’s my car, you know.”

Sam’s quiet again, and Dean can hear some kind of pop crap coming in over the radio. Then, “Okay, I’ll take care of it.”

“Right.”

Dean and O’Hara hang up at the same time.

“Listen—” Dean starts.

“I’m sorry,” O’Hara says. “I’ve got to go. There’s been a…” She bites her tongue; that’s probably not the stuff she’s supposed to share. “An incident.”

“Another murder?”

She stares at him, even as she grabs her keys and pulls her bag over one shoulder. “How did you know that?” she asks.

Dean gestures at his phone. “That was my brother. We read in the papers that there was some kinda psychic involved, so he went to see him, and—“

“Shawn?” O’Hara asks. “You mean Shawn Spencer?” She’s got a funny look on her face, like the wheels in her head are turning, and Dean has no idea what the hell that means.

So, “Yeah.”

She gives him a puzzled look.

If she runs the plates this situation could spiral pretty easily – Dean can’t even figure out a way to get the job done while having the dodge the police, too. Things are probably going to get ugly, and fast, and all Dean can think to do for now is to keep O’Hara in his sight.

This probably isn’t going to work, but, hell, anything’s worth a try. “Hey,” he says, catching her just as she starts to walk away. “Do you think I could catch a ride?”

Never in Sam’s life has waltzing onto a crime scene been so easy.

Sam follows as the psychic ducks under the yellow tape and strides through the sea of blue uniforms as if he belongs there – more than a couple of the cops nod approvingly. One of them even smiles and waves.

“Hey, Buzz,” Shawn responds, just as cheerily.

“So,” Sam says. He scans their surrounding uncertainly – there’s for sure a body or two around, but everything looks so… surreal. Maybe it’s just the sunny California weather. “The cops, they’re completely okay with what you do?” Truth is, he’s not even sure what it is that Shawn Spencer does, or if he’s even really psychic.

“Mostly,” Shawn says. He shades his face against the sun and peers at a crowd of people near the entrance of the morgue. “Is your brother on his way?”

Sam hadn’t told him that Dean was his brother. That didn’t mean he’d read his mind or anything, but how else could he have figured it out? This guy was definitely nothing like Missouri. And he still seemed to know things he couldn’t.

“I think Dean’s coming, yeah.”

“Awesome. You want to see the body?”

Want was a strong word. “It’d help. But the police…” They were all over the place, and without a hell of a convincing story he wasn’t going to get close.

Shawn waves his hand casually. “Don't worry about them.” He touches his temple. “Today, they are feeling… kind. Friendly. Open in heart and mind. They wouldn’t think of—”

“Spencer!”

Shawn sighs. “I apologize for my gross generalizations. Allow me to introduce Detective Lassiter.”

Sam recognizes the name – he’s the officer quoted in the paper – and the detective clearly recognizes Shawn. Lassiter approaches with his hands in his pockets and a scowl on his face; however, he doesn’t look remotely surprised. “Spencer, what—who is this?” he asks, casting his glare on Sam.

“My new assistant,” Shawn says. The way he lies without missing a beat reminds Sam a lot of Dean, but it still bothers him.

“Oh?” Lassiter says. “Did the old one decide to get a real job?”

Shawn rolls his eyes dramatically. “Gus has a real job. In fact, he has several.” He raises his hand and begins to count off on his fingers. “He’s a salesman, a secretary, and assistance, a money… counter… person, and I’m told he’s incredibly successful in the art of Internet poker—”

“Spencer, stop.” Lassiter closes his eyes and rubs his temples, and when he opens them again Sam is almost certain the man’s casting a sympathetic look in his direction. “What’re you doing here?” This time the condescension is gone – Detective Lassiter is really asking a question.

“Looking,” Shawn says.

“At?”

“Sir,” Sam interrupts. “I understand that you found some bodies under unusual circumstances just a few days ago.”

Lassiter freezes, and when he answers he’s looking at Shawn but talking to Sam. “How the hell do you know—”

Shawn shakes his head.

“It wasn’t him, Detective,” Sam says. He knows Dean was pretending to be a relative of the deceased as a cover, but here that’s not going to be good enough. “I kind of—I do a lot of research into things like this. I read the story in the papers and thought it sounded real similar to something I researched out in Tucson, Arizona, so I…”

It’s so weak. Dean would kick his ass if he knew he was making up such a pathetic cover, but Shawn and the detective are exchanging another significant glance. At first Sam thinks they’re about to kick him off the crime scene, but then he realizes it’s something else altogether. They know, he realizes. The two of them know something about this is so far off the map they’re never going to be able to chart it.

“And I think I can help,” Sam finishes, lamely.

Detective Lassiter points at him. “You’re with him.” He points at Shawn. “Keep out of the way of real police work, or I’ll have you both arrested.”

As Lassiter walks away, Shawn pumps his fists. “Alright, you’re in,” he says. “Now what?”

Now what? Sam frowns, glances around. He’s still not sure if they should check out the body, and he’s not sure it’d tell him anything anyway. “Do you sense anything here? Any kind of bad energies?”

“Sense. Huh.” Shawn glances around, and then he puts his hand to his temple like a movie psychic. “It’s definitely a repeat of last time, I’m sensing that. Besides, every single cop that was on the last scene is here, too. And they’re keeping the press out. And the body’s in the same position. There’s another one inside. And your brother’s here.”

He’s nothing like Missouri – but how the hell is he managing to figure any of that out? The body’s not even visible, Lassiter didn’t say a word, and there must be thirty or more cops here. Can he really remember every single face?

Sam turns to look for Dean.

No sign of him, but a green VW bug has just pulled up, and a woman with long blonde hair climbs out of the driver’s seat. Shawn starts towards her. He also pulls a chiming cell phone out of his pocket, checks the display, and shoves it back into his pocket without answering.

“Avoiding someone?” Sam asks.

“A couple of them. Jules!” Shawn positively beams, throwing his arms out.

Jules smiles at Shawn, but pauses when she sees Sam. “Where’s Gus?” she asks.

“He’s, well... very busy,” Shawn says. “I’ve hired a substitute for him, today, this is Sam. He’s very good at… seeing over people’s heads. Which is important for detective work and stuff.”

The passenger door opens, and Dean steps out.

Sam blinks in surprise. He hadn’t seen Dean in the car – though he guesses it wouldn’t be impossible to see him from that far away. And also to deduce that Dean is his brother, even if Shawn has certainly never met him and they don’t really look that much alike. Maybe.

Detective Lassiter’s attitude is starting to make a bit more sense. Shawn Spencer is nothing if not a headache.

Sam heads over to Dean.

“Do those two know each other?” he hears Jules ask. “Is that his brother? He mentioned—”

“Ah. No,” Shawn answers. “Definitely not. But I felt a peculiar vibe coming off of that man, and so I sent him over to…”

“So,” Dean says, once Sam’s close enough to hear his hushed tone. “We got more zombies?”

Sam nods. “Looks like two more. And Shawn told me on the way over here, they were definitely dead. The cops aren’t saying anything, but the woman who manages this place was in hysterics.”

“And Shawn’s—”

“The psychic guy, yeah.”

Dean frowns. “So, either we’ve got people coming back from the dead for the fun of it—”

Sam shakes his head. “I’ve never heard of bodies reanimating by themselves, but we could check Dad’s notebook…”

“—Or,” Dean continues. “We’ve got someone on this side of things causing this.”

Sam thinks about it. Having a living, breathing enemy to deal with would be a nice change of things – but the living are harder to deal with, since there’s no magic words you can use to get them to stop. Still, “Yeah,” he says. “Probably that.”

“Well, that’s great,” Dean says sarcastically. “Freaking fantastic.”

Someone screams.

Sam and Dean sprint across the lawn, reaching the door to the morgue just as Shawn Spencer comes careening out of it. He’s stumbling along with his hands out in front if his face and his eyes are rolled back, like he’s sleepwalking, and shouts, “Life! Life!”

Policemen and women scatter out of his way.

“I want—brains, no, wait! Not brains!” He raises his hands above his head. “The feel… of the sun… so nice.” Shawn smiles contentedly. “I didn’t ask for this, no, I want…”

He staggers to the right, and then the left.

“What the hell?” Dean hisses. “He channeling a spirit or something?”

Sam doesn’t dare answer that.

“No, no! Gus, Gus, it’s too strong!” Shawn buries his face in his hands, and behind him, Detective Lassiter is doing something similar. “I can’t—I want—this.” He mimes a beating heart. “It’s all… it’s all wrong. This place, this time—”

“Shawn?” The blond woman, Jules, asks. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not—meant—to be.” Shawn puts his hand to his forehead. “Good-bye—cruel—cruel world—” He collapses to the ground, flat on his back, his position exactly the same as the body not fifteen feet from him.

“Dude,” Dean says. “That was for us.”

He could have sent them an email, Sam wants to point out. It would have been a short note: Check the place and time of death, victim killed by heart attack. That was, if he’s guessed Shawn’s message correctly – but something told him that Shawn wasn’t exactly subtle.

“He’s not psychic,” Sam says. “At least, I don’t think so. He’s just… I have no idea. Not stupid, though. We can’t trust him.”

Jules kneels beside Shawn and tries to shake him back to his senses. Shawn responds by twitching like an epileptic.

“You know what?” Dean says. “I think I like him.”

Gus is waiting for him outside his apartment.

“Really, Gus,” Shawn says. “Rarely are you so proactive.” He’s trying to ignore the death glare and it’s mostly working, even after Gus ripped off his trick. He’s been screening his calls for a reason, after all.

He unlocks and opens his door, and Gus follows him inside.

“Shawn, what’s going on?” he demands.

Shawn drops his helmet and his jacket on his kitchen table, and heads to his fridge for a beer. “You want anything?” he asks.

“Shawn.”

“Fine, I think I’ve got some Dr. Pepper.” He rummages around behind the carton of expired milk. “And honestly, Gus, I have no idea what you’re talking about. There isn’t anything going on.”

“Really?” Gus is still glaring at him. “Then how come you haven’t answered your phone since you ditched me this afternoon?”

Shawn comes out of his kitchen and hands Gus the soda, which he accepts warily. Which Shawn thinks is ridiculous, because how on earth could he tamper with a sealed can like that?

“Dude,” he says, “I didn’t ditch you. I just, you know…” He waves his hand. “I had stuff.”

“Stuff.”

“Yeah, stuff.”

Gus is still looking at him.

“C’mon, man,” Shawn says. “Don’t look at me like that.”

But Gus just keeps staring.

“Okay, alright, fine.” Gus never, ever believes that anything Shawn does could maybe be for his own good. Like tricking him into losing the spelling bee, or stealing that Godawful windbreaker, or not telling him that there was something really wrong going down in Santa Barbara. And not something wrong like it’s raining without there being any clouds or getting pulled over while doing five under the speed limit, which reminds him… “Hey, did you get those plate numbers?”

Gus nods. “Yeah, I gave them to Juliet.”

“What? No! Gus, she’s a cop!”

“Yeah, so?”

Shawn doesn’t see why he needs to explain to Gus how it’s bad for business, having other people figure stuff out before he can. But Jules is pretty busy with the whole zombie uprising thing and won’t get to helping Gus out for at least a day. Probably. Plenty of time.

“Okay, that doesn’t matter right now,” he says, sitting down and tapping himself on the temple. “I’ll just have to figure out a way to work that into my—”

“Shawn!”

Shawn looks up. “Huh? Oh, oh. Yeah. Don’t you think it’s weird? First there’s the thing with the Rodriguez guy, and then those two guys show up to check it out?”

Gus is blanking out. “What two guys?”

Man, he’ll have to go all the way back to the beginning. “Listen, that guy that showed up at the office today? He’s got a brother, and their names are Sam and Dean, and they’re super paranoid. Sam wouldn’t even tell me their last name.”

Gus still has that skeptical expression on his face, but Shawn can tell he’s getting into it. He can’t help it, he’s Gus, and he’s loved solving mysteries ever since they were kids. He slides into the seat next to Shawn – the only other chair in the place – and says, “What, you asked him for his last name?”

“No, but you could tell it was on the tip of his tongue, and he just… anyway, he didn’t tell me much, but it sounds like the two of them just look into stuff like this. They don’t have jobs, this is all they do.”

Gus still isn’t following, though, and Shawn wonders if there’s anything important that he’s left out.

“Stuff like what, Shawn?” Gus asks. “What kind of stuff do they look into?”

Shawn shrugs. “You know. Your kind of stuff.”

Which could mean anything. Books, cartoons, computers, pharmaceuticals, comics, trivia… “What does that mean?” Gus asks, apparently on a similar train of thought.

“You know,” Shawn repeats, making a vague motion with one of his hands that conveys nothing at all. “Ghosts?”

Gus looks at him.

“What?”

“Shawn, that’s not my kind of thing,” Gus says indignantly, sitting up straighter.

“Yes it is! You’re the one with the, the books and the EM whatever reader and the Ghost Hunters DVDs!”

“I got those for Christmas, Shawn! I got those for Christmas from you.” He’s caught up in the argument, narrowing his eyes like he always does when he’s getting annoyed – and that’s great, because he just might forget— “Wait a minute, Shawn, you’re saying these guys… investigate… you know, stuff like that?”

Shawn hesitates.

He’ve got a lot of stories balanced in his head right now. He’s got a hobbyist from Arizona, a cousin who’s never met his brother, two guys who are all business about the dead, psychic powers which only work some of the time, people who don’t stay dead, Lassy’s we don’t say a word, and not all of those are even lies, really, but it’s enough to start confusing even him.

There’s also the truth. As much as he knows, anyway.

He leans forward. “Okay, Gus, it’s like this. How many times did you see Night of the Living Dead?”

"When At War" (Tales of Symphonia, PG13)

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 03:40:28 GMT

Title: When at War
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1954
Summary: After the Kharlan War, before the Renegades – Kratos and Yuan disagree on right and wrong and just how far they’re willing to go.
Author’s Notes: Found on my hard drive and brought back from the dead. I’m not certain about the characterizations of Yuan and Kratos I had going here – wrote this a long time ago, after all – but I liked what I saw and ran with them.

* * *

“When you have killed many people
You weep for them in sorrow—

* * *

Yuan often thought he losing his mind and maybe he really was, because he could have sworn Kratos had a personality before he started wearing that cursed charm on the back of his hand. He’d had a temper, he’d occasionally used foul language. He’d even made jokes, and laughed when jokes were told in his presence. And then Mithos had asked him to use the exsphere and it'd nearly killed him and when he finally woke up he was never quite the same.

He was the new Kratos. So much improved you could mistake him for a robot.

“I am loathe to rebuild the structure,” Kratos was saying. “Not until the problem is resolved. I believe it would be detrimental to our purposes to have these renegades burning one Church of Martel after another.”

It had only taken a few hundred years to make Tethe’Alla believe that salvation was within the four walls of the churches Cruxis had constructed nearly everywhere; Sylvarant was taking more work. A convincing movement of rebels was spreading throughout the country, insisting that the religion was a lie and worse: a conspiracy of evil.

They were convincing because they were right, of course. Their hobbies included destroying artifacts of the false religion, and lucky for them that the most obvious symbols were made almost entirely of wood.

“I don’t really understand what the problem is, here,” Yuan said. “Just send a horribly frightening prophet to declare the truth of the word of... Lord Kratos, or whoever. I don’t actually care.”

Kratos glared. “That won’t work.”

“Then I’m out of ideas.” That actually surprised him, more than a little. And as loathe as he was to ask Kratos to explain himself… “And why won’t it work?”

“Mithos believes they are receiving inside information. They won’t believe an angel if they know what it really is.”

“And you know it for a fact. That’s why you brought me here.”

Kratos nodded.

Itwasme, Yuan was tempted to shout. It hadn’t been, of course. He was tired and apathetic and he still didn’t want to die, especially not at the hands of his former friends. Kratos wouldn't have believed him, anyway. They wouldn’t be having this conversation if Kratos had any doubts about his loyalty. Still, the implication suggested a traitor of a rank much higher than the average Desian idiot or mindless angelic doll.

Someone was asking to be taken apart, creatively and painfully. Mithos was still a child, yes. His imagination knew no limits.

Yuan sighed through his teeth. “What would you have me do?” he asked.

“I’ve been intentionally releasing false information to various branches of Cruxis—including you. Forgive me,” Kratos said, without inflection or remorse. So that explained his faith in Yuan's loyalty. “I wasn’t as cautious as I might have been, and the traitor started catching on. However, I believe I’ve found him out.”

“Oh? Enlighten me.”

“Menaius.”

Yuan paused for a beat. “Are you serious?”

Lord Menaius was a Grand Cardinal, and had been for the last hundred and fifty years. He was easily the most respected, most influential of all the Desians, and his loyalty would probably be rewarded with the possibility of ascension to heaven – or it would have been, had he not betrayed them.

Yuan could hardly stand him, naturally. He could hardly stand anyone.

Shocking as it was, he didn’t doubt Kratos was right. He couldn’t remember the last time the man had been wrong.

“I am very serious, and I’m certain.”

Yuan crossed the room, and sat down behind his desk. He rubbed his temples and he dearly hoped that none of the blood to be spilled would be his own.

“All right,” he said, after a long moment. He looked back at Kratos. “What would you have me do?”

He could see it already, he didn’t need to wait for Kratos’ response. They would draw their battle plans, they would march on the human ranch, and they wouldn’t even bother consulting Mithos. They hardly needed to, after all. Even Yuan could tell what their orders would be.

—Kill them all.

* * *

They fought with their wings out. It had nothing to do with practicality – fighting the renegades mean they were fighting on the ground, with swords and machines and magic. But when the attackers wore white wings and the victims were earth bound, it changed a massacre into divine retribution.

Appearance changed everything, and Yggdrassill didn’t know the meaning of hypocrisy.

It didn’t matter. That man wasn’t even here.

“Sir?”

“What is it?” Yuan snapped, looking over his shoulder at the team that had assembled behind him. Desians, dressed in heavy armor and lined up in neat rows, ready to kill.

“Lord Yuan, sir,” the captain said nervously. “We’re ready to move into the ranch.”

Menaius had turned his ranch into a center for his uprising, and apparently he turned all his resources toward keeping that a secret, since his defenses were pitiful. Under Kratos’ command the angels had battered down the outer walls in less than an hour.

The man was nothing if not efficient.

“I’ll head in,” Yuan said. Anything was better than watching this.

The captain nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll inform the army—”

“No.” Yuan waved him off. The last thing he wanted was an army behind him, a thousand sets of eyes watching his every move – he didn’t even know what he was planning on doing. Absolutely nothing, most likely. “Give me a scouting party.”

“Sir?”

It showed how little authority he had, that men like the captain even thought about questioning him. “You heard me,” Yuan snapped, and he didn’t even wait for a response. He started forward, and he wasn’t halfway down the hill when he heard the scurrying of a dozen booted feet behind him.

Back when their plans had been grand and their foresight short, Yuan had contributed eagerly. He’d laid out plans for fortresses in careful detail, and he’d thought of everything necessary to secure them. It’d seemed so insignificant at the time – while Mithos and Kratos were building institutions, Yuan had merely been building places to put them.

But now, as he surveyed the ranch of his own design, he wondered if it’d been so useless after all.

“Awaiting your orders, sir!”

Yuan ignored the voice behind him, because he knew where Menalus was, and he knew how to get there.

The Desians at his back had to march quickly to keep up with his pace. He led them through hallways, he unlocked doors, he avoided hidden traps. No one was patrolling the corridors he was using, and the few renegades unfortunate enough to find themselves in his path were easily cut down.

It was all so easy.

Yuan went through the motions as if he was sleepwalking, and when he found himself in front of the final door, he was a little surprised. His fingers still reached for the keypad, and he typed in a code that could open any door built by Cruxis.

The door slid open.

Lord Menaius was a tall, stocky half-elf – and he did not look surprised to see them. “So,” he said, when he saw Yuan. “You’ve come.”

Yuan stepped into the room, surprised to see no security and no guards. “I have to say, I expected more than this.”

“My men are all defending against your assault,” the man said, wearily. He stood up and walked around his desk. “Shall I bow to you, Lord Yuan, or would that be too much?”

Yuan glanced over his shoulder, at the entire team of Desians hovering behind him. With these men, the fight would be fifteen to one. Menaius would not have a chance at all.

“Leave us,” Yuan ordered.

The captain gave him a puzzled expression. “Sir?”

“Tell Kratos where I am,” he explained flatly, “and get the hell out of here.”

The Desians stared at him for a moment, stirring. It was irregular, sure, but Yuan knew they wouldn’t dare disobey a direct command from one of the Seraphim, and sure enough, they left.

Yuan waited until the echoes of heavy footsteps faded, and then he faced Menaius.

The half-elf was standing his ground – there was no fear on his face. "My renegades will not go away.”

"I know," Yuan said. His own words surprised him, even as he knew they were true. The seed of doubt had been planted, and because it was based in truth it would never die. Not matter what he, what Kratos, what Mithos himself did.

The truth was that Mithos did not serve the half-elves, that their lord and savior did not care about them. Mithos lived only for himself, and would continue to do so as long as it took to ensure a woman already killed would never die.

Menaius looked surprised. “If you know, then—“

“Then it doesn’t matter.” Yuan had brought his weapon, his double bladed sword. He twirled it in front of himself with a flair, and then swung it behind his back. He was ready. “I don’t care.”

Menaius drew his sword.

It was the shortest, most important fight Yuan ever fought.

Yuan struck first, stepping forward and swinging his sword. Menalus parried awkwardly, ducking under Yuan’s second strike, and then he took a step back.

Yuan snorted. Only a fool backpeddled in a fight – might as well admit you’ve lost already. He felt pity, but he took advantage of the misstep; he unleashed a flurry of swings and slashes, only pausing to give his opponent his fair turn.

Menaius blinked, and then he lunged forward. The attack was slow, clumsy, aimed high and wide. Lord Menaius simply wasn’t trying anymore.

Yuan narrowed his eyes in concentration, and then he swung his weapon.

The blow caught Menaius across the torso, it shredded through his armor and cut flesh, Yuan knew because he could hear it. Menaius dropped his sword without a sound, his eyes were wide and his jaw was slack.

Yuan lowered his weapon.

“I do this…” Menaius looked down his chest, at the mess of blood and torn flesh. “Lord Yggdrasill… is wrong. That is what…” He slumped, supporting himself on his weapon, his breaths coming in rattling pants. “This is… what I know.”

Yuan stepped toward him, he raised his hand and felt the warmth of electricity flow between his fingers. “I know,” he said. “So do I.”

He killed him with a flash of lightning; the body of the Cardinal hit the ground, heavy with the weight of his armor.

“That was neatly done.”

Yuan turned suddenly, expecting a platoon of Desians, all witnesses to his spoken treason. Instead all he saw was Kratos, dressed in his white costume and spotted in red.

“Kratos, I—“

“I didn’t expect you to reach this far, this soon,” Kratos said. “I would have sent more men with you.”

Yuan narrowed his eyes. “You—“

“I’ll file a report immediately,” the man said stiffly, and he turned to leave.

“Kratos, wait.”

Kratos stopped in the doorway, turned to look again. “Lord Yggdrasill will be pleased,” he said, and then he left.

He’d heard.

Not even Kratos was cold enough to send his friend to his death without any kind of expression, and Yuan knew that Kratos was not going to report his betrayal. That was outrageous, unthinkable – and yet, really, was it so different from everything he’d done before?

Kratos fought to preserve the situation as it was, exactly, to a fault. He would do absolutely nothing, and he did not know the meaning of irony.

Yuan laughed bitterly. He could not help it.

* * *

—When you win a war
You celebrate by mourning.”

Tao Te Ching, Verse 31

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 02:13:03 GMT

0/4.	1/5.	2/6.	3/7.
4/8.	5/9.	6/10.	7/11.
8/12.	9/13.	10/14.	11/15.
12/16.	13/17.	14/18. "Baby Steps"	15/19.
16/20.	17/21.	18/22.	19/23.
20/24."Hypocrisy Rules"	21/25.	22/26.	23/27.

"Got Your Number (1/?)" (PSYCH/SPN, PG13)

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:56:00 GMT

Title: Got Your Number
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Psych/Supernatural
Rating: PG13
Words: 2992
Summary: Crossover; while investigating a series of strange deaths, the Winchester brothers head to Santa Barbara, where they seek help from a local psychic, Shawn Spencer.
Author’s Notes: Beta'd by jaxjacoby, written for psychoutnabout. This is a runaway plot bunny that was only supposed to be a one-shot, so I don't know how long it's going to be or where it's going. I do know that it's a hell of a lot of fun to write.

Shawn doesn’t think of the word zombie until much much later. This is perfectly natural, he thinks, because honestly, who thinks about zombies on a day to day basis? Even spending an entire day at the sight of a freaky multiple muurder isn’t enough to get his mind working on the topic of the undead. No, at the time, the word he’s thinking is burrito.

As in, he could really go for some burritos right about now.

Shawn coughs theatrically and glances around the white-walled room, noting that he’s been left alone with a corpse and that probably hasn’t happened on purpose. The voice he hears drifting in from the next room confirms his suspicions: “Just where the hell is Spencer?”

He kind of wishes Gus hasn’t gone off somewhere to throw up, but he really can’t blame him. Even if that was more than an hour ago.

Making mental notes of this room isn’t going to be hard.

It’s exactly square and it has featureless walls, no furniture, and the floor is stark white linoleum. The body at Shawn’s feet is one of five in the house, all about the same, except the others are the wife and nearly grown children of Jim Rodriguez. They aren’t grisly or gross. What they are is really freaking weird, and he needs to talk about this out loud, and this is why he needs Gus.

But on with the checklist.

This guy – his name is Jim Rodriguez – he’s average height, average build, light brown hair, dressed head to toe in business casual. Normal enough. But though he’s clearly dead there isn’t a mark on him; his hands are curled into fists and his arms are crossed, and he has a huge smile across his face.

No, not a smile. This is clearly a smirk.

And that’s what’s weird. The unholy smile is scary.

“Spencer!”

Yeah, he’d totally been left here on accident. Shawn sticks his hands in his pockets and spins around, making sure to paste a goofy grin on his face.

Lassiter’s entered the room alone – Jules is still in the study, probably taking notes. His look says that he is Definitely Not Amused, but just because Shawn can see everything doesn’t mean he can’t ignore the bits he doesn’t like. He puts a hand to his temple. “I sense you’ve been looking for me,” he says.

Lassiter acts like he hasn’t said anything. “Why are you still here?”

“Um,” Shawn says, dropping his hand. “This is my job, isn’t it? Am I in the wrong place?” Did I hallucinate the last year of my life?”

Lassiter sighs heavily. “I don’t have the time for this.”

“Oh my God! If this isn’t my real job, then where is my Oscar Meyer wiener—“

“Spencer, you are over your head. Go home.”

Shawn blinks; Lassiter definitely isn’t kidding. Okay, so maybe this is a bit more… serious than the crimes he likes to solve, but that doesn’t mean he can’t handle this one, too. “Haven’t we done this dance before?”

“This is a different kind of crime, Spencer,” Lassiter says, stepping next to Jim Rodriguez and staring down at him with a frown. “There’s a real sick bastard responsible for this one.”

Shawn wants to point out that he knows his own last name and save Lassy the trouble of tacking it onto every other sentence, but he knows why the man’s frustrated. He’d overheard one of the forensic guys say something about poison and he doesn’t need to be a cop himself to know that this doesn’t go near enough to explain things.

So Shawn decides to rub it in. “You can tell your buddies at the lab that this isn’t poison.”

“Really.” Lassiter’s tone is so sarcastic Shawn can almost but not quite miss the hints of curiosity in his face – the slightly raised eyebrows, the pursed mouth. “Okay,” he says. “Just how did you divine that?”

“Easy.” Shawn points at the body. “The only way poison could cause that expression is if Jack Nicholson is somehow responsible.”

Lassiter looks at him.

“What, you never saw Batman?”

Lassiter points at the door. “Out.”

“Fine, fine.” Shawn casts another quick glance around the room – and he has no idea why, because seeing it once means it’s in his head for good, and he can look at it again any time he feels like it. Which is probably going to be never. This crime scene is wrong on a lot of levels, but that’s why he’s looking.

He still can’t figure it out.

“Spencer!”

“Going!” He squeezes his eyes shut because it seems like that’s the only way he’s going to be able to pull himself away – he needs to find Gus, and they need to talk. No way the guy’s still feeling queasy. He starts for the door. “If I feel anything, I’ll know who to call.”

“Spencer!”

Shawn turns around. “Lassy, I know what my—” He breaks off with a strangled noise, and then, “Oh.” Lassiter’s shouting something and Shawn can’t make it out. “Oh.”

Jim Rodriguez blinks up at him.

Oh.

It’s like a movie. Jim Rodriguez is staring at him with cloudy eyes, he’s struggling to get to his feet, and Shawn’s just watching him with a kind of distant fascination. He’s still staring, fixed on Shawn for some reason he’ll never tell. His skin is gray and his joints are obviously locking up but Jim Rodriguez just keeps on trucking, finding his shaky balance as he takes a tiny step forward.

And another and another.

Shawn’s surprised when his back hits the wall.

“Spencer, get down!”

Shawn ducks and shuts his eyes, and then it’s all explosions and gunpowder smoke.

“Dude, look at this.”

Dean’s much more interested in the greasy eggs and bacon masquerading as breakfast this morning, but he glances across the counter at the laptop screen anyway. “What am I looking at?”

“The news.”

“Is this about the missing kids in Fresno?”

Sam shakes his head and takes a swing of orange juice. “No, that turned out to be nothing.”

Dean rolls his eyes at that – their last job was a haunting in Lake Tahoe, so it’s not exactly like California was out of their way, but it’s still lost time they could have spent driving to someplace with some work. “So, what am I looking at, then?”

“Just read it, Dean.”

Dean makes a point to not wipe the grease off his hands before he slides the computer towards him, leaving ugly fingerprints on the screen as he tilts it forward. “Suit yourself, man,” he says, cutting off Sam’s sputtering protests, and he starts reading.

It’s not very interesting.

“So some cop shoots some guy,” he says after a minute, going back to his eggs. “Hate to say it, Sammy, but violence ain’t exactly a hallmark of the supernatural.”

Sam snatches his laptop back, and while Dean’s pretty sure he’s not an idiot that’s not what his brother’s face is telling him right now. “Did you even read it?”

“Sure. Santa Barbara, right? Some realtor killed his whole family and attacked the cops.” Dean waves for the check, which he’s not entirely sure he can cover, not if the Vince Morrison flavor of Amex doesn’t pull through for them. “Sounds real awful but not our kind of problem.”

“The guy was already dead, Dean,” Sam says, talking real slow and patient-like.

“Where’d it say that?”

Sam scrolls down the webpage. “It doesn’t. This is the news. But look here.” Dean reaches out with his greasy fingers, and Sam changes his mind. “You know what? Nevermind,” Sam says, holding the computer out of his reach. “Just listen.”

Dean waits for twenty solid seconds. “Well?”

“Just making sure you were listening,” Sam says, and then he starts reading. “What struck authorities as especially strange was the fact that Rodriguez had been proclaimed dead at the scene hours before the attack. Detective Lassiter—”

“Who’s that?”

“The officer who shot Rodriguez.”

“And Rodriguez is the zombie.”

“I knew you didn’t read it.”

Dean shrugs.

The girl with the check comes, so they hush up with the zombie talk long enough to hand her the card. Dean’s considering just sliding away while the girl’s ringing it up – he’s really sure that card’s not going to work, and he doesn’t have another one with the same name on it – but Sam’s fiddling around with the keyboard again. “There’s something else.”

“What?” Dean asks.

“Before the cop shot him, Rodriguez was apparently attacking a psychic.”

“Huh.” That isn’t really surprising. Like he’s warned Sam time and time again, ghosts and other nasties tend to be attracted to anyone with those special connections – hell, even knowing about the supernatural seems to be enough to guarantee it mucking up your life. “You got a name?”

“Yeah.” Sam pulls up another window. “Shawn Spencer. I guess he’s kind of well known around there.”

“He legit?”

“No idea, but he works with the police. We’ll have to be careful if we talk to him.”

Because if he is the real thing, he’ll know what they are already – but if he isn’t, he can turn them into the cops faster than their head can spin, and that’ll be bad all around.

“Thanks for joining us this morning,” the waitress beams at them, returning the credit card and holding out a pen. “I hope everything was alright.”

“It was great,” Dean grins, not sure he’ll ever get the taste of oil out of the back of his throat. He takes the pen and scrawls in a generous tip. “So,” he says, glancing at Sam. “How far is it to Santa Barbara?”

Normally, Shawn loves being on the television – he’s got his every planned appearance saved on his Tivo – but this time not only has he refused to talk to any reporters, he’s refused to talk about it period. Gus isn’t sure if he’s more upset about almost getting killed or owing his life to Lassiter. Knowing Shawn, it’s probably both.

Whatever it is, it’s made Shawn act weird for days, and Gus has no idea what he’s supposed to do about it.

“So,” he says, standing in Shawn’s office and trying to remember that they’re running a business here, however shoddy their practices might be. “We aren’t taking the new case? The one with the record store robberies?”

Shawn puts his feet up on his desk and gives Gus a pointed look. “Oh, I don’t know. Does that sound even remotely interesting?”

“Not really, but—”

“Then no.” Shawn is staring up at the ceiling and obviously not really listening. “They don’t need our help for this one.”

“Okay,” Gus says, reaching for cell. “I’ll call the chief and say that sorry, we think some crime is just too boring for us. Please feel free to call again.” That’s not really what he’s going to do. As soon as he walks out of here he’s going to call Juliet and tell her that Shawn’s obviously traumatized and maybe ask for some advice.

Shawn’s never refused to solve a case, even if he bemoaned some of their criminal lameness the second he stepped out of the police station. More worrying was the fact that he’s barely done anything for four straight days, and Gus has never seen him sit still for that long.

Well, maybe that one time in fifth grade – but he’d had chicken pox and Henry had forbid him to leave the house.

“Shawn,” Gus says, because he still hasn’t gotten a response. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“Not at all.”

“Shawn.”

“What?”

Gus counts to ten in his head, and then, “If you’re not planning on doing any actual work, then why are you here?”

“The phone at my house keeps ringing. And I like it here. You know, we’ve really done a lot of good with this place.” He gestures around the office. “These windows, the paint! It’s—”

“Your dad’s started calling me,” Gus says, interrupting what was sure to be a distracting string of irrelevance. “He says you’ve been avoiding him since Saturday.”

Shawn shrugs.

“You were on the news! He’s worried!”

“Dude, my dad doesn’t—would you say I’m a stalkable person?”

It takes Gus a second to track this sudden change of subject, and he blinks.

“Tall, nice hair.” Shawn nods towards the window, and like an idiot Gus turns around to look. Sure enough, there’s a very tall guy out there with incredibly nice hair, and maybe he’s twenty-four. He looks like a college student, and not really all that interested in Psych.

“He’s eating a hot dog,” Gus points out.

“He’s been here twice already,” Shawn counters. “The second time I thought he was lost, but now? I think I have an admirer.”

The problem with Shawn is that he’s almost always right, so often that you can argue with him and he won’t care. He knows the odds are in his favor. Gus doesn’t even bother with anything but the most half-hearted protests unless it’s a question of judgment, a leave-the-bungee-jumping-to-the-professionals issue he can’t trust his friend to work out the hard way.

And now, straight to pattern, as soon as he opens his mouth to disagree with the whole stalker theory, the very tall man gives them both a furtive glance through the window. He catches them both staring at him—

“Gus, don’t look!”

—and before either of them can try and look nonchalant, he’s walking.

“Come on, man,” Shawn says, jumping to his feet and heading for the door. “We don’t want to lose him.”

And straight to pattern, again, Gus is out the door right behind him. “We don’t? Why not?” Long Legs is pretty good at faking casual, because he looks completely calm and ordinary as he’s striding away so fast they have to half-jog to even start to catch up.

“Because he looks friendly,” Shawn says, and then he cups his hands around his mouth. Gus suddenly realizes that this is a judgment issue but a fraction of a second too late – Shawn’s already calling, “Hey! You! Guy! Slow up! I mean down! I mean—which is it, Gus? Slow up or slow down?”

“He’s coming back.”

Long Legs must know he’s the one getting yelled at, but he hesitates for a second or two before he turns around, and he doesn’t look all that thrilled about it. Gus doesn’t know why. Once he gets a little closer he’s even taller than he looks and it’s obvious he could fold both of them in half, twist their heads around and string up their teeth to decorate his Christmas tree – with his bare hands, without even trying – but he looks only a shade short of nervous when he approaches them.

“Wow,” Shawn says. “He is completely faking that.”

Gus is about to ask him what he means, but then Long Legs is in earshot.

“Excuse me,” Shawn says. “I couldn’t help but notice—”

“Yeah,” Long Legs says sheepishly. “Sorry about that. I was kind of caught by surprise, and—”

This is everything a psychic needs to hear.

“Stop,” Shawn intones, touching both his temples. He jerks around sharply to the right, and to the left, and his eyes are rolling around behind his eyelids and before anyone can interrupt his pseudo-seizure he says, “I sense… that you are about to lie to me.”

Gus sucks in a breath.

“You’re right,” Long Legs says, his eyes slightly narrowed. “How did you know?”

Gus lets his breath out.

Long Legs scratches the back of his head and looks around. “Do you… know anything else?”

Shawn might. Probably not, even though he’s looking at Long Legs significantly. That means he’s got a hunch he’s soon to work into a theory, but for now he nods and nods again. “I think,” he says, “that you should tell me why it is you’re really here.”

Long Legs looks around again – looking for someone, probably, though Shawn would know for sure. “My name is Sam,” he says finally. “I need to talk to you about something that might have happened to you a couple of days ago.”

“Of course,” Shawn says, and you’d have to be his best friend to notice the hint of distress on his face. “We should go somewhere private to discuss it.” He sounds so very businesslike.

Long Legs—Sam looks around again, and reaches into his jacket. “Sure, but I gotta—”

Shawn nods sympathetically. “Just tell him you’ll be a few minutes. This won’t take long.”

Sam’s pulled something halfway out of his jacket pocket, and the something is a pretty nice cell phone. He pauses at the comment, and says, “You knew I was going to make a call?”

“I certainly did,” Shawn said. Not a lie, though he’d been guessing on the pronoun for sure.

“Where do you want to talk?”

“Back at my office.”

Sam nods.

They start walking and Gus starts following, when Shawn cuts him off with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He feels a sinking feeling in his chest when Shawn tells the new guy, “I’ll catch up with you!” and lets himself fall behind.

“Shawn, what are you doing?” Gus asks.

“I’ll explain later,” he says, and then he leans in and whispers. “He’s driving a black hotrod, old. Might be an Impala. I don’t know where he left it, so take a walk around the block and get the plates.”

Gus doesn’t ask how Shawn knows that; he just takes it as a fact and starts walking with a sour look on his face. He knows he’ll find the car and he knows it’s going to be important somehow, and he knows that as soon as he’s done he’s going to get lunch.

And it doesn’t bother him, getting left out of this again. Not in the least.

To part two...

"Baby Steps" (SPN, PG13)

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:32:23 GMT

Title: Baby Steps
Author: Britani Gael (rocknload)
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: PG13
Characters: Dean, Sam, John
Words: 4075
Summary: Pre-series; fourteen years old, Sam gets to tag along on his first mission -- whether he wants to go or not.
Author's Notes: Thanks to my mother, and the music, I have fallen absolutely in love with this show. This is my first attempt at playing with the boys, so forgive me trying to nail down their characters.

“I don’t want to go.”

Dean looked at his brother – already well over six feet tall, but still way too young to pull off that sulky glare – and then he glanced in the other direction, towards the rusty cemetery gate not ten yards awy. He looked back at Sam. “You picked a hell of a time to start voicing your complaints.”

“I mean it, Dean.”

He slammed the truck of the Impala shut and tossed Sam the shotgun, which the kid caught and nearly dropped. Dean chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll bet you do.”

Sam followed him as he walked around the car. “I’ve got stuff to do, Dean. I’ve got homework. It’s not like the two of you need me here and—”

“You got a problem, you can take it up with Dad. Not with me.”

Sam resumed his stony, sulky glare, and upped the ante with a stony, sulky silence. Dean checked his pockets to make sure he’d brought enough ammo clips and tried to remember a time when he brother hadn’t been a teenager. He was pretty sure he’d liked him better back then.

“Dean! Sam!” That was Dad, he’d already stormed the graveyard. It was time to go.

“You know how to handle a shotgun, Sammy,” Dead said, sliding the box of rock salt shells across the hood of the car. “You just stand back and let Dad do his thing, and you’ll be back him in time to finish off that whole textbook, if that’s what you want.”

Sam sighed, and shoved the box into his jacket pocket. “What kind of monster are we dealing with, anyway?”

“Not a monster, it’s a ghost.”

“Same difference.”

“Don’t let Dad catch you saying that.”

“Dean!” That was the tone in their dad’s voice that said there would be no more bullshit.

“Be right there, Dad!” He swung his backpack onto his shoulder and started towards the gate, moving with purpose. “Let’s go.”

Sam followed. “C’mon, man, what is it? Don’t I even get to know what we’re up against?”

You didn’t ask, is what Dean wanted to say, but instead he gave the straight answer: “It scares you. To death.” He spoke with a sardonic grin, watching his brother for his reaction. “You know, like that one guy said? You only gotta be scared of fear itself? Who said that?”

Sam rolled his eyes.

They picked their pace up to a jog, and by the time they hit the gate they were full out running. Dean scaled it easily, flipping over the top and hitting the ground in a crouch. He landed just in time to see Sam scramble over with significantly less ease, and almost face planting in the process.

“Shit,” Sam muttered.

Dean chuckled. “Guess it’s gonna take some time to grow into those long legs of yours.”

“Shut up.” Sam brushed off the front of his shirt even though it wasn’t dirty, like he was trying to take off the clumsiness, and then he dropped his perpetual scowl to give Dean a questioning look. “Hey, how come you never went for track or anything? You would’ve been good at it.”

“Don’t know,” Dean said, and shrugged. “I had better stuff to do than school.”

“DEAN!” And that tone was definitely a final warning.

“We’re here, Dad, we’re here,” Dean called, and he was jogging again, across the graveyard.

John Winchester was standing by an old, crooked headstone that had the name Sarah Jean Masters carved into it, looking more than pissed off – which was what Dean expected, after keeping him waiting that long. “Sorry, Dad,” he said, as Sam pulled up beside him. “Me and Sam were just—”

“Boys,” John said, cutting him off. Dean recognized that this was the start of a lecture, and was more for Sam’s benefit than anything else. “What we’re dealing with here is nothing special, just your garden variety angry spirit.”

Both brothers nodded.

“It’s killed a couple people, but it’s not going to get anyone else, especially not tonight. What we’re doing might draw it here, but if we work quickly – Sam, are you listening?”

Probably not, since it was all things he’d heard already, over and over again, but he still straightened up. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” John said. “The salt will hurt it, but burning the bones is the only thing that will kill it.” He glanced at Dean. “You have the lighter and the fluid?”

“Of course,” Dean answered, patting the backpack dangling off his shoulder. “And the salt and stuff, too.”

John nodded. “Let’s get to work, then. We don’t have much time.” He didn’t think the ghost would show up – he’d told Dean that already, or else he would’ve left Sam at home – but this cemetery was still in use, still properly maintained. The lamps along the paths were going to help with the work, but they greatly increased the odds of being seen.

“Now what?” Sam asked, and he looked surprised to suddenly have a shovel in his hands.

Dean accepted his shovel. He knew if he groaned he’d be a bad example to Sam, so he managed to bite it back. “Now’s the fun part,” Dean said.

“Now,” their father said, “you guys are going to dig.”

This sucks.

It was harder than it sounded, digging six feet straight down into packed dirt. After three hours of this work, they were standing in a hole as deep as their shoulders, Sam’s back hurt like a bitch, his arms burned, and even his blisters were getting blisters.

Dean was still digging like a robot, at exactly the same speed he’d started. It was kind of creepy, thinking about how many times his brother had dug up a grave.

Sam wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead. “Can we take a break?” he asked.

“You should know better than that,” Dean answered, stilling keeping up with that robotic motion: shovel into the ground, dirt over the shoulder. “No rest for the wicked.”

They both kept digging.

It was about fifteen minutes later when Sam’s shovel hit something new, something that made a hollow thunk, and he’d seen enough late night horror flicks to know that that meant. “Hey, I think I’ve got something.”

Dean stabbed his shovel into the same spot; again, the thunk. “Looks like Sammy hit pay dirt.” Dean looked up. “Dad?”

John nodded. “You boys take a second to catch your breath.”

As if he’d been waiting for the cue, Dean dropped his shovel and hauled himself up out of the grave. Now that he was standing in the light he looked pretty ridiculous, covered in a heavy coat of dirt from head to toe.

He turned around and offered Sam a hand up.

Sam waved it off. “I can get out on my own, thanks.”

Dean shrugged, and then he sat down, watching. “It’s harder than it looks.”

Sam’s first attempt proved Dean right; the edge of the hole crumbled as he grabbed it, and he tumbled right back into the pit. He swore, and he swore about louder when Dean started laughing.

“What’d I tell you,” his brother said, offering his hand again.

This time, Sam took it.

Dean pulled him out, and they both took a seat, dangling their feet in the grave. Sam swung his legs, staring down. He felt a little proud of himself, stupid at that sounded. How many kids could say they got to dig up a body on a school night?

God, he was screwed up.

He glanced over at his brother. Dean was obviously used to this, and he didn’t even look tired. Dirty, yeah, but he wasn’t even breathing hard. He just looked bored. The break Dean had asked for hadn’t been for himself, he was fine. It’d been for Sam.

The tiny bit of pride he’d felt evaporated.

John crouched next to the grave, and jumped down into it. He’d let Sam and Dean do all the digging so far, but now he picked up one of the shovels and starting scraping the dirt off the coffin lid.

His motions were even more mechanical that Dean’s. They were both practiced at this. At digging up corpses to set them on fire.

“What’s the matter?” Dean said, clapping Sam on the shoulder. “Thought you’d be happy to get to this part.”

“What part?” Sam asked.

“The let’s-torch-this-mother-and-get-ourselves-home part.”

Same made a noncommittal noise.

Dean sighed through his teeth. “Damnit, Sammy, what the hell is your problem?”

“What?” Sam asked. The confusion in his tone wasn’t faked.

“You’re acting like a brat.”

“I am not.”

“I don’t even get why you’re so angry. You’re pissed off you’ve gotta come, you’re pissed off we’re here, you’re pissed off we’re about to finish – which is it?”

“You don’t even know—”

“Stop bickering, both of you,” John snapped. “We’re not done here, yet.”

That probably meant he wanted them to drop back into the grave and finish uncovering the coffin, but for a moment both brothers kept sitting there fuming.

John’s head snapped up, and he looked like he was about to snap, probably keep the both of them under house arrest until he’d forgotten what he’d grounded them for – and that’s when Sam saw it.

It was over his father’s head, maybe a couple hundred yards back, maybe further. It was hard to judge, because he wasn’t sure what he saw.

He leaned towards Dean. “Did you see that?” he asked.

Dean frowned. “See what?”

“See what?” John repeated, about twice as harsh as Dean had said it, and Sam wished he hadn’t seen anything at all.

He pointed. “I saw something moving, or flashing, or something. Right back there.” He pointed.

“I didn’t see anything,” Dean said, quickly and loudly.

“Gee, thanks,” Sam muttered.

John looked over his shoulder, but he wasn’t going to see anything because there wasn’t anything there anymore. Maybe he’d ducked behind a headstone or just disappeared, or maybe he was seeing things.

“I’ll check it out,” Sam said.

Dean immediately stood. “No, I’ll—”

Sam bristled, but before he could snap back a retort his father was speaking for him. “Sam can check it out,” John said.

The shotgun was sitting right next to Sam, he picked it up and stood. “I’ll be right—”

But John interrupted him, too. “You see anything that looks wrong, you call for help, you hear me?”

Sam deflated slightly but didn’t show it, or he tried not to, anyway. “I’ll be fine!”

Dean gave Dad a look, and Dad gave it right back. Sam wanted to yell at both of them that he wasn’t some stupid kid, but whining about them thinking he was just a brat wouldn’t help his cause. Besides, Dean had been right, at least a little.

Maybe he had been acting kind of like a brat.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, shouldering the shotgun, and then he started walking.

“Why’d you let him go off by himself?” Dean asked, not even bothering to keep his voice down or wait until Sam couldn’t hear him.

Dad’s answer came back faintly. “He’ll have to learn these things eventually, better when we’re both right…”

And then they were finally out of earshot.

He picked his way between the headstones, sweeping his eyes back and forth. It took only a minute to reach the spot where he’d thought he’d seen the whatever, and he peered behind the headstones. Nothing.

Figured. If Dad really thought there’d be something here, he would’ve sent Dean.

“Do you know?”

Sam spun hard, swinging the shotgun to point it straight at a young blonde in a red sundress.

“Do you know?” she asked.

She was pretty. She was really pretty, almost the same age as him, and she looked completely solid – he knew she’d be like that, he’d seen ghosts before, but he’d never seen a ghost that looked this real to him.

“Do you know?” she asked. Dad said ghosts liked to repeat themselves a lot. “Do you know what they did to me?”

“Um, no, not really,” he said, taking a step back, but the shotgun was already coming down, he was lowering it without even thinking.

She kept coming towards him, walking slowly, her hair blowing back even though there wasn’t any wind. “They took me,” she said. “I was walking down the street to school and they grabbed me, they dragged me into their car.”

Sam swallowed.

“I think people were watching. I think someone saw.” She kept walking towards him, almost close enough to touch. “But it doesn’t matter. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t do anything at all.”

The shotgun slipped out of his hands.

He didn't know what was happening, because Dad had never told him about anything like this. She took a few steps closer and she leaned right up against him, and he wasn’t even trying to get away.

And it wasn’t because she was pretty, either.

“You know what?” she whispered, right in his ear. “I was scared. I was so so scared.”

He tried to push her off, his hands on her chest, but no matter how hard he shoved it didn’t make a difference. He might as well have been going right through her. “I’m—I’m sorry!”

She reached up, carefully brushed his bangs off his face. “You’re not sorry,” she said. “You’re not sorry yet.”

He knew that he was supposed to call out for help, for Dad or Dean – he should’ve done it a long time ago, actually. But he knew he couldn’t talk, his breath was stuck in his chest. He was suffocating, he couldn’t breathe, and she put her hand on his forehead.

“You’ll know how I felt,” she said.

And after that, feeling was just about all he could do.

Dean had decided a long time ago that this was the suckiest part of the job – it was the easiest way of getting rid of a ghost, sure, but it was hard work. They also risked getting caught by the human element, and there was no cover story that didn’t end in people thinking the Winchesters were sick freaks.

Not that Dean cared much about what other people thought, but it was irritating as hell.

Now they were hunched over the coffin, clearing the last of the dirt off, and Dean thought it’d been a neat trick, how Sam had gotten out of this.

“What’s taking your brother so long?” John asked.

“Sam?” Dean stood up and peered into the night, barely able to make out the figure. What the hell was he doing all the way over there? “It looks like he’s… talking to someone, but I don’t see—shit.”

He dropped the shovel.

“Dean, hold on!”

He pulled himself out of the grave, stopping only to snatch the backpack he’d filled with ghost fighting crap. He could kind of hear his father’s voice, either the real thing of the voice in his head. Times like this, they were both saying pretty much the same thing: hold up, Dean, keep your head.

He after his brother. “Sam!”

It only took a minute, and when he got there Sam was just standing there, perfectly normal, perfectly fine. Great. Dean had overreacted and made an idiot of himself. “Sam?” he asked. “What’d you see?”

His brother didn’t turn around, or acknowledge that he’d heard a word. Dean felt goose bumps coming up on his arm, and he reached up to grab Sam by the shoulder. “Sammy, you’re freaking me out. What—”

Sam turned, and the look on his face stopped Dean short.

“Dude, are you crying?”

Sam jerked away, taking a few stumbling steps. He didn’t even seem to know Dean was there.

“Dad! Could use a little help, here!”

Sam was clutching at his head, raking his fingers through his hair; the only sound he was making was a low whine from the back of his throat. His movements were becoming more jarring, more violent, he was ripping out hair, his fingers were coming away with blood on them.

“Sam!” Dean shouted, right in his brother’s face. But Sam’s eyes were blank, streaming tears, and Dean knew he wasn’t getting through. “Dad, I need your help!”

Sam made a sound like he was choking, and sank down to his knees.

“Sam!” He grabbed Sam’s shoulders, following him down to the ground. He shook him hard, but that didn’t do anything except make Sam’s head rock back and forth on his neck. “DAD!”

Sam’s eyes rolled back into his skull and he flopped onto his back.

“Sam, Sammy, you’ve gotta listen to me! I can’t help you, I can’t—”

Something dragged Dean away. It grabbed him by the arm and hauled him back, too strong to resist. He was sure it was the ghost, and now this was it, he was going to get mind-fucked too. “Let me go, you song of a—”

“Dean!”

The voice – the tone – snapped him back to his senses, and he realized he was looking at his father.

He scrambled to stand, painfully away of Sam at his feet. “Dad, what do we do? What do we—”

“Where is it?”

“It’s in him or something, it’s killing him!”

John grabbed him by the shoulders, same as Dean had done to Sam just a second ago. “We can’t help him this way!”

It seemed to take forever, but it probably didn’t, even if you were measuring time in choking gasps from the ground. Then the realization hit him, and he started patting down his pockets. “The lighter,” he said, numbly. “You need to burn the bones.”

He was looking in places twice, three times. He checked his front pockets, back pockets, shirt pocket, and he started over again, moving faster every time.

“Dean, pull yourself together and—”

“I can’t find it!” He dropped to the ground, crawling over Sam, reaching for the backpack he knew he’d dropped somewhere around here. He found it a few feet away, pulled it into his lap and started going through the pockets.

His hands were shaking so bad he could barely work the zippers.

“Dean!”

“I’ve got it!” He pulled out the lighter and the bottle of lighter fluid too, and held them out to his father, who snatched both out of his hands and took off, back towards the grave.

“Stay with your brother!”

“Ye—yes, sir.” Not like he needed to be told that twice.

He crawled back to his brother, who was shaking way worse than Dean was, more like convulsing. He was hyperventilating, too. His hands kept creeping up towards his face, and Dean got the horrible idea that maybe he’d try to pull out more hair or put out his eyes or something, so he grabbed Sam’s wrists and held them down.

“Sam, please, just snap out of it.”

But he wouldn’t, even if his motions were getting a whole lot weaker.

“Sammy!”

And then he went still.

“Sam!”

Dean’s fingers found Sam’s neck, and at the same time he jerked his head around. He could see his dad in the distance, staring down into the grave, his face lit up by the orange flickering flames. And he could feel Sam’s pulse, going like a jackhammer but still going strong.

Dean sighed, and sat back on his heels.

“Dean!” John shouted, and that was the tone that meant he was so furious he could hardly speak.

Dean knew what was coming.

He kept his head down as his dad strode over, because he could see the anger in the way the man was walking. Dean had fucked up, he’d fucked up maybe worse than he ever had before, and he knew he deserved what he was going to get.

But if he was going to get a word in, himself, now was the time.

“Dad?” he asked, just as his father reached him, just as he heard John suck in a big breath. “Is Sammy going to be okay?”

Whatever John had planned on saying, that just about killed it. He let all that air out in a heavy sign, and then he crouched next to Dean. He checked Sammy’s pulse, heard him breathing, shook him a little, and then just let his hand rest on the side of Sammy’s face. “Your brother’s going to be fine.”

Dean looked at the ground. “No thanks to me.”

“We’ll talk about that later.”

They carried Sam back to the car together, which was hard because he was taller than both of them. At least he was skinny. Dean waited there with him while John cleaned up from the job, leaving the grave like it was but grabbing their stuff.

Dean watched him go and come back, listened to Sam in the back breathing like he was sleeping.

When John got in the car, he slammed the door hard.

Dean groaned. “Is it later already?”

Sam’s first thought was that he felt like he’d been run over by a truck.

His next thought was he had no idea where he was, but that was a feeling he was used to. A quick glance around reminded him that this was the latest crap motel room, the one they’d been at for weeks. He sat up slowly, expecting it to hurt, and it did.

Most of the pain was in his head, though, weirdly enough.

Dean was sitting in an armchair across from the bed with his arms crossed, watching him.

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked.

Dean scowled. “Not like I’ve got a choice. We’re grounded. No leaving the room, and if we try and watch the television Dad says he’ll bust it.”

“Grounded?” Sam couldn’t think of a single thing he’d done to deserve grounded, so he thought maybe Dean had done something bad enough to get them both in trouble. “For what?”

“For what,” Dean mimicked, rolling his eyes. “For screwing the job up so bad, that’s why.”

The job.

“Oh, man.” Bits and pieces were coming back – the arguing, the digging, the girl and her dress, and suddenly he felt kind of cold. He lay back down on the bed. “Crap,” he said.

“Exactly.”

Sam pulled the blanket up around his neck.

Dean gave him a funny look. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You know,” Dean started, after a really long silence, and that probably meant that he was trying to ease onto a topic that made him uncomfortable. “You had me and Dad kind of worried.”

“I don’t remember very much.”

“Really worried, I mean.”

“Yeah, Dean, I get it. I’m sorry.” Sam knew his brother was trying to say something in convoluted Dean-speak, but he was too tired to try and figure it out. “I’m hungry.”

“Want a soda?” Dean asked. “We’ve got Mountain Dew and Diet Pepsi.”

“No food?”

“Dad’s coming back with some KFC.”

“Pepsi’s fine.”

Dean crossed the room to the mini-fridge, grabbed a Pepsi for Sam and a Dew for himself.

“Dean?”

“What?”

“Is it always going to be like that?”

“Is what always going to be like how?” He tossed Sam his soda, because he was an asshole like that, and now Sam couldn’t take a drink without getting Pepsi all over his face.

So he tapped on the top of the can with his fingernail. “Hunting. Is it always going to be like that?”

“Oh, hell no.” He was standing by the window now, peering out through the blinds like some kind of criminal.

“Why not?”

“Because if you give me another heart attack like that, I’ll kill you.” He snapped the blinds shut. “C’mon, I think we can get away with some TV. Just listen out for Dad.”

“I don’t think—”

Dean sat down next to him. “Scoot over.”

“Who invited you?” Sam snapped back, full of pretend indignation. “I was here first!”

Dean made a big show of sighing, and then he leaned over and shoved Sam right off the edge of the bed, onto the floor.

Sam did the only thing he could do, to save his pride. He shook up his Pepsi and opened the can – right in Dean’s face.

And it was a good thing that they’d forgotten to turn the television on, because in the noisy chaos that followed, they never heard their dad coming.

"Kind Connections" (SPN/DMC, PG13)

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 16:41:53 GMT

Title: Kind Connections
Author: Britani Gael (rocknload)
Fandom: Supernatural/Devil May Cry
Rating: PG13
Words: 1293
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Dante
Summary: Planning on hunting a monster, the Winchester brothers end up befriending him instead.
Author's Notes: Written because it was decided that Dean and Dante just have to meet up one day. Nothing could stop them.

They came here to take out a monster and now they were taking him out for drinks, something Sam was having a hard time wrapping his head around. It was Dean’s idea, too, which was the part that made it all the more confusing. Dean was usually pretty keen on the difference between people and monsters.

And this man was definitely some kind of monster.

“Hey, can we get another beer down here?” the demon in the man-suit called, chuckling and shoving his shocking white hair off his face.

“Make that two,” Dean chimed in, flashing the cute waitress a grin. He and the monster had been vying for her attention all night, and Sam honestly couldn’t tell who was winning.

“Hell,” the monster said, glancing at Sam. “Make it another round. It’s on me.”

“No thanks,” Sam said. “I’m done.”

The monster shrugged.

He called himself Dante. Yeah, like Dante Alighieri, which was a joke and a half. As if that wasn’t clue enough to the rest of the world, he had that hair, and those chilling blue eyes. The combination looked otherworldly, creepy even, but no one seemed to notice. No one except Sam, anyway.

Maybe the coat distracted them. It was hard to miss, what with it being bright red, leather, and nearly as long as the man was tall.

“So,” Dean started, and meaningless gesture that accompanied the word nearly sent some bottles flying. “You ever face a shape shifter?”

Dante paused with his bottle in his mouth, his expression glazed. He was almost as drunk as Dean was, probably. “Shape shifter?”

“Y’know, looks like a man, but only ‘cause it stole his face?”

Dante considered that, then took a long swing. “Yeah, I know the kind. Nasty sons of bitches.”

“You’re tellin’ me.” Dean took a long drink himself. “Those things fucked my life up more than all the rest, I think. Framed me for murder, tried to kill my brother, here – hey, aren’t you drinking anymore, Sammy?”

“Someone’s gotta drive,” Sam said. He thought about adding the fact that Dean had done enough drinking for both of them, and in fact had been doing that quite a bit recently, but didn’t bother. It wasn’t worth it.

Dean leaned forward, lowering his voice like he was plotting something. “How’d you kill it?”

“Kill what?”

“The shape shifter.”

“Oh, him.” Dante tipped his bottle back. “Hacked him up ‘til there wasn’t enough left to change into anything.”

“That works?”

“You got a magic sword, it does.”

It was hard to tell whether the guy was serious or not. Dean was the same way half the time. More than half the time. Hell, if Sam didn’t have the advantage of being Dean’s brother, he had a feeling he wouldn’t get the guy at all.

He didn’t have any leverage like that here, so he asked, “Magic sword?”

“Sure,” Dante answered, grinning. “I’ve got a whole collection, back at the office.”

Dean laughed, the monster joined in. Sam didn’t, because he was pretty sure Dante hadn’t been joking.

“I hate them the most,” Dean decided suddenly, loudly, and for a second Sam forgot what he was talking about. Oh, shape shifters. Right. “I hate ‘em more than all the rest put together. Well,” he said, considering. “Well, ‘cept demons.”

Sam glanced at Dante. He was too busy gulping down cheap beer to answer.

“Those’re the worst,” Dean continued. “They’re just… they’re the fucking worst, man.”

Dante finished his drink and slammed the bottle down on the tabletop, making everyone within fifteen feet of them jump. Sam thought for a second that he might be mad, but no, he still had that dumb grin. “How the hell can you two stand each other?” he asked.

“Whnn?” Dean said, sounding like the words were just running out of his mouth. He got like that when he was drunk, really drunk, or if he’d hadn’t slept for more than seventy-two hours.

So Sam translated. “What are you talking about?”

“Living out of a car, seeing the same face day after day, same thing day and night.” Dante frowned, and it really seemed like he was talking to himself more than anything else. “Even if it was my brother – shit, especially if it was my brother – seems like it’d get old.”

He wasn’t wrong, it did get old sometimes, but that wasn’t the point he was trying to get at. Problem was, Sam didn’t know what the point was.

Dean’s head was on the table, and Sam was pretty sure it wasn’t coming up again. But Dean surprised him, looking up, almost sitting up, even. “He’s my brother, y’know?” he managed thickly. “Gotta look out for him.”

Dante looked at him for a long time, his eyes completely clear and lucid, and Sam realized he wasn’t drunk at all. “’Course,” he said. “I get that.”

Dean nodded sleepily, and then he put his head back down on the table. Now it really wasn’t coming up again.

That hung in the air, the silence stretching out a few seconds longer than it should have. Dean was snoring.

“I really should get him back to the motel,” Sam said, standing.

Dante stood up, too, and tossed a few tens onto the table. “I’ll help,” he said.

Between the two of them, they didn’t have much trouble getting him out to the parking lot, and shoving the collection of limp arms and legs into the passenger side of the Impala. Dean settled into the seat without a fuss, immediately slumping forward and drooling on the collar of his shirt.

“He’s gonna regret waking up, tomorrow,” Dante said, as Sam shut the door.

“No, he’s gonna make me regret he woke up.”

Dante flashed that same carefree grin, that was about as much of a lie as everything else about him. He never insisted that you believe it – that the smile was real, that the clothes were normal, that he was human – but he made damn sure you did anyway.

It was almost comforting, in a way. because that too reminded him a little bit of Dean.

“So,” Sam asked. “What happened to your brother?”

Dante shrugged. “Dead.”

Sam flinched, though he’d kind of been expecting that. “Demon?” he asked.

“Could say that.”

There wasn’t much more to say, not to that, so they stood in awkward silence with nothing but the wind to fill in the gap. Sam gave it a minute, then two, and then he started, “Well, we should get—”

“Hold up, kid,” Dante said, and handed him a piece of paper, torn around the edges and about the size of a business card. “The number of my shop’s on the front. Password’s on the back.”

Sam peered at the paper, and the thick block letters that spelled out Devil May Cry. “I don’t get it.”

“Nothing to get. You need any information, or you and your brother get over your heads in this demon shit, you give me a call.”

Sam turned the paper over, and then put it in his back pocket. “Why?” he asked.

“Why the hell not?” Dante pulled out a set of keys. “I know things you don’t, that I promise.”

“Everything we’ll ever need to know about magic swords?”

“Could be.” That silence also stretched out for a few seconds, and then the guy stuck his hands on his pockets and walked off. “See ya around, Sam.”

“Yeah, you too.”

He got into the car, glancing over at his sleeping brother. They hadn’t put his seatbelt on him, he realized, so he leaned over to do it now.

“We goin’ home, Sammy?” Dean slurred, rolling his head to rest it on the window.

“We’re going to bed, anyway.”

It didn’t matter, no response. Dean had fallen back asleep.

“Devil May Cry,” Sam muttered, turning the ignition, watching the Harley pull out of the parking lot in the review mirror. “Right.”

Saiyuki RELOAD: Bad Habits

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 08:43:58 GMT

Title: Bad Habits
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Saiyuki RELOAD
Rating: PG
Words: 814
Character: Sha Gojyo
Summary: Gojyo muses about recent events, and what it means to be short a party member.
Author’s Notes: Spoilers up to Even A Worm #28.

* * *

Smoking alone was something Gojyo had gotten used to real quick, because he needed the nicotine to get through the day and he needed to smell of smoke to feel like himself. It was a bad habit, a nervous habit, and he and Sanzo hadn’t done much to discourage each other over the last year. Now Sanzo was gone and he was still up to a pack and a half a day.

Didn’t matter. He hadn’t planned on living that long, anyway.

He pulled another cigarette out of the pack and lit it – cheap fucking lighter, it was nearly out of fuel – and stared into the night.

Smoking by yourself was lonely, yeah, but it was better to do it out here in the alley instead of up there, in the room. Sometimes he had to get away from that noisy kid and, yes, even Hakkai, his best friend, the mother hen. Sanzo had been good for that, for not being the two of them. He was the guy Gojyo understood least, his was the absence Gojyo would have picked before either alternative, but at least he’d been someone to smoke with.

“Y’know what’s funny,” Gojyo said to himself, except not really. “You’re probably doing this exact same thing, somewhere, aren’t you?”

The thought of Sanzo buying his own cigarettes and smoking them by himself amused Gojyo for about four seconds, and then he took a deep drag. “Missing the hell out of us, aren’t you, Sanzo-sama?”

The smoke curled against the black sky. “’Course, that wouldn’t exactly be your style, now, would it?”

He could picture the response that question would get him, and it was the same response he was getting now: silence.

“Nah,” he continued, knowing his voice was loud enough for any passerby to hear and just not caring. “You, Sanzo, are just sitting somewhere, smoking your damn cigarette, acting like you don’t care about anything. Like you don’t got a care in the world.”

He took a drag, so sharply even his smoker’s lungs rebelled, and he had to bite back a choke. “And hell, maybe you don’t got a care in the world. After all, we’re doing just what you wanted. We’re heading West, just like you said we should, even when you’re not here kicking our asses to do it.”

He was damn near close to smoking the filter at this point, the smoke tasted sour, but he was on a roll now, and what was the point in stopping? “I thought we needed you, y’know. I thought the monkey needed you, I thought the stupid quest needed you. But you ain’t here and thing move on just the same anyway.”

He dropped his cigarette. “Guess things worked out after all.”

The butt flickered on the ground, and Gojyo ground his heel on it. “Fuck you, you self-righteous son of a bitch.”

“Gojyo?”

Goku was peering around the corner, eyes wide. Not as wide as they’d used to be, the kid had done a lot of growing up since his master had left them high and dry. Gojyo and Hakkai had both done a lot more looking out for him, but it wasn’t the same, and damnit, that was Sanzo’s fault, too.

Goku was looking at him. “How come you’re sitting out here talkin’ to yourself?” he asked.

“Wasn’t talking to myself,” Gojyo answered, shoving the pack of smokes into his jacket pocket. “Just having a smoke, that’s it.”

“But I heard—“

“Guess we were wrong ‘bout those super-senses, then, ya dumb monkey. Wasn’t talking to anyone.” He shrugged off the concerned gaze and grinned. “Guess it’s time to call it a night, huh?”

Goku kept that funny look on his face, even as Gojyo was walking by. So as he stepped past the kid he reached out and down, and messed up that chestnut mop.

“Hey!” Goku sputtered for a second, and then Gojyo heard the following footsteps, the muttered insults, laughter that wasn’t forced. He chuckled himself as he ducked Goku’s casual swipe at his head, an attack that was never meant to connect and wouldn’t have hurt if it had.

The bickering would continue to the room, with slaps and shouts, and Hakkai would maa maa at them and they’d give up and fall asleep eventually – but the fight would last longer than it might’ve, and they wouldn’t have any lumps on the back of their heads when they woke up. Because things were almost the same as they’d always been, but just not quite.

Things weren’t the same, they wouldn’t be. But it was all routine, a soothing habit, like the taste of tobacco and the smell of smoke, and some habits die hard.

* * *

Tales of Symphonia - Not Alone

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:35:58 GMT

Title: Not Alone
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Character: Yuan
Recipient: penginchan
Words: 328
Song: “Not Alone” by All That Remains. I didn’t hear this song until it came up on the shuffle – stupid Bryce put it on to my playlist without persmission, alone with a tone of Metallica and Alice and Chains. But after hearing it I loved it so much, so something good came out of this meme!
Author’s Notes: Not my best, kid. Deal with it.

no more are the days that I will fear

It was a big comet and Kratos made poor company. The man never should have left the planet – outer space wasn’t a proper home for those who had anything to leave behind. After only weeks Yuan was willing to do almost anything to escape his friend’s near suffocating depression.

Luckily, he didn’t need to go to extremes. Kratos was perfectly content to mope in his own corner of Welgaia, and Yuan was free to explore pretty much everywhere else.

Not that any of it was new to him.

He walked the stark hallways and twirled his ring around his finger with every step — it was his new nervous habit — ducking around corners to avoid the angels. They sometimes spoke, spouting fragments of their old programming.

We await the coming of the Age of Half-Elves, Lord Yuan!

He always shoved past them, tempted to destroy them but tired of pointless death. He’d killed every one of them once already, surely that was enough. He used to think that he was the only one in Cruxis that had those lives on his conscience – discovering he didn’t share the burden alone didn’t make him feel any less lonely.

Twirling his ring around and around, he was certain he’d trodden on every spot on this entire

It was a big comet, and he always found himself in the same place anyway. Kratos glanced up when Yuan returned to the tiny room.

“Humph,” he said, and returned to his reading.

Twirling his ring, he settled down into the chair across from Kratos, watching the man but not saying a word. He didn’t need to force conversation, it would come on its own, and soon they would run out of things to talk about. They had, after all, an eternity.

He twirled his ring, and stared up through the window. At the sky, and the stars.

As if they didn’t know each other well enough already.

I’m not alone

* * *

Sky High - You Give Love a Bad Name

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:17:44 GMT

Title: You Give Love a Bad Name
Fandom: Sky High
Characters: Layla and Warren
Recipient: goyutasama
Words: 520
Song: The “You Give Love a Bad Name” remake by Atreyu, from the Mr. & Mrs. Smith Soundtrack, embarrassingly enough.
Author’s Notes: This fic… very loosely fits the theme of the song. It still inspired me to write this, though – never would have thought of it without blasting my eardrums with this song repeatedly! I’d need to spend a hell of a lot more time writing these characters to get them down, this is, alas, my first attempt.

* * *

“Remind me why you’re here again?”

Layla squirmed under Warren Peace’s glare, trying to focus on her book and ignore him, but it was hard. She was sitting on his bed, after all, in his room, at his house – she didn’t need to be told that this wasn’t the greatest of ideas. If it wasn’t abundantly clear already, she got reminded every time Warren looked at her.

“We’re trying to trick Will, remember?” she answered. “He won’t believe you’re taking me to the dance if I never see you, will he?”

“Listen,” he said, dropping down onto the bed beside her. “I’m all for tricking Stronghold, but do you see him around here?”

He gestured around his room. It was surprisingly neat, unsurprisingly decorated in shades of red and black. He’d spent the last twenty minutes on his computer in the corner trying to ignore her, apparently he couldn’t even tolerate that anymore. “No,” she answered. “He’s probably with Gwen.”

“Yeah, probably. So I don’t get—“

“Listen, Warren,” she interrupted. “I told you I’d try and make this as painless as possible.” Next time she’d go over to Magenta’s house and just say she was at Will’s – no, that wouldn’t work. She was tricking everyone, remember? So she’d hang out by herself for awhile tomorrow after school. “Please, just ignore me. I’ll stay here for twenty more minutes and tomorrow when Will asks me where I went after school—“

Warren rolled his eyes. “If he even notices you’re not at home.”

Layla bit her lip and ignored him, going back to her book. She wished he wasn’t sitting so close – she couldn’t ignore him that way.

“Listen,” he said.

She didn’t answer him, pulling her book closer to her face so that the words almost blurred on the page. She heard him sigh heavily, and then lean forward, so that she definitely couldn’t ignore him.

“Kiss me,” he said.

“Wh—what?” she yelped, jumping to her feet. She snapped her book closed and held it against her chest, looking at Warren like he’d lost his mind. She realized that her response hadn’t been the most… polite option, and she cringed.

But he didn’t look offended. Instead, he was laughing, and Layla realized he’d been joking. “See? You’re not up for this,” he said.

“I—I so am,” she insisted, feeling her cheeks flush.

“Really?” he asked. “How, exactly, are you planning on pretending to be into me for an entire night if you can’t even handle that?”

She couldn’t even look at his smirking face, laughing at her, so she looked at the ground. “I’ll figure something out. This is something I have to do.”

He laughed again, and then stood up. “Yeah, sure you do. I’m getting a soda. Want something?”

“I—sure.” She managed a small smile – her embarrassment was already starting to face, he really was a nice guy – but he didn’t see it, he’d already walked out the bedroom door, downstairs to the kitchen.

Maybe the dance wouldn’t be the nightmare she was anticipating.

She smiled wider, to herself, and she followed him downstairs.

* * *

DDD - ALIVE AND KICKING

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 05:16:44 GMT

Title: ALIVE AND KICKING
Fandom: Dramadramaduck RP
Character: Rufus ShinRa
Recipient: parcus
Words: 359
Song: “Alive and Kicking” by Nonpoint. Nonpoint is a very angry band, and that’s why, in my head, their lyrics must always be tr anscribed in the capslock of rage.
Author’s Notes: I don’t feel entirely comfortable writing someone else’s character, I figured it’d be a lot more fun for parcus to read about one of her characters than someone else’s.

* * *

I'M STRONGER NOW EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING THAT YOU DID/STILL ALIVE AND KICKING—

Well, they were right about Rufus. While the names they pinned on his new situation were all wrong, they were on the right track – he definitely wasn’t the same.

And he liked it that way.

Sitting behind his desk, he saw even his own office with new eyes. The colors of the carpet and the paint on the walls seemed brighter and clearer, and the scenes he saw through his window were a source of constant amusement. There were advantages to being disgustingly rich – one of those advantages was a penthouse office with a hell of a view.

Another one was the power to reach out and take whatever he saw and wanted.

He’d always had that power, of course; alive or dead he was Rufus ShinRa, and he practically ran this world. It had taken this enlightenment to make him understand the extent of this power, and he hadn’t even started with the new ones, the abilities his transformation had given him. By the time those clowns from Ichigo’s world managed to get over here, it would be far too late to stop him.

Which made the mocking over the Internet that much more fun.

He smirked as he sent his latest message, leaning back in his chair as he waited for the predictable worried and indignant response. He chuckled. “It won’t be long before I’m done with these stupid games.”

Someone’s going to stop you, just you wait!

That annoying cloud of a witch was swooping around his head again, chattering in his ear; he waved her away absently. Wuya, undeterred by his attack, continued to circle, and Dark Nation started growling.

She was sometimes amusing, and generally irritating, but she wouldn’t stop him. Of course she couldn’t, no one could. Not Renji, not Yunalesca, not Kadaj or Yazoo or JENOVA or Dante or Sakura or Colette or Cloud or even his own noble Turks, or anyone else on Gaia. He was confident he could take even Sephiroth himself – how could any of those people touch a dead man? Even if they came all at him at once.

And he hoped they would. Because tearing them all apart just might be the most fun he’d had yet.

—I'M BETTER NOW/I'M AWAKE NOW I CAN SEE

* * *

Psych: set nine for 1fandom

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 05:45:25 GMT

Title: In Between the Lines
Fandom: Psych
Author: Britani Gael
Theme Set: Ninth
Rating: PG
Words: 1751
Disclaimer: It’s a wonderful show and I don’t own it. Alas.
Author Notes: Mostly Shawn-centric, for I adore him. This is a little late – but I’m happy with how it turned out.

* * *

01. Crave
Lassiter took his coffee black and he drank it every morning to get through the day – though recently, the job was giving him headaches whether he got his caffeine or not.

02. None
One by one, his doubters were won over, and Shawn had to wonder what he would do when he managed to convince them all – take the show on the road?

03. Glue
Shawn’s favorite prank of all time was Gus’ least favorite by far – but the zeal Shawn told the story never failed to get a laugh out of everyone that heard it.

04. Wet
“I saw this storm coming,” Shawn insisted, loud enough to be heard over the thunder and pounding rain – if that was true, Gus wanted to know why the psychic had gone out in tennis shoes and a light T-shit.

05. Fame
He was elated the first time his name appeared in the paper – and the next time and the next and the time after that, because to Shawn Spencer, fame never got old.

06. Instant
Every instant Shawn had ever seen was stored in his head like a Polaroid photograph – he was sure someday it’d drive him absolutely nuts, but for now the pros outweighed the cons.

07. Hold
Shawn was lucky with the girls, or so he liked to imagine – though despite all the girls he’d been with, he’d yet to really date one.

08. Fish
Shawn was eight when his father took him on their only fishing trip; the mind numbing boredom failed to kill him, but falling out of the boat nearly did.

09. Don't
“Spencer, don’t you dare—“ But it was too late, Spencer already had that God awful light in his eyes, and Lassiter knew that if he was going to drag him off this case it was now or never.

10. Ego
Shawn wasn’t cocky, he was right – always, every time, about everything! – and sooner or later everyone else was going to figure that out.

11. Flow
Shawn wouldn’t say he rehearsed his performances, but there was a certain flow to his acts that only came from practice – not that he didn’t have his critics: “Cut out the act, Shawn, there’s no one else here!”

12. Dream
“It came to me last night in a startlingly realistic and extremely well-timed drea — you just want me to tell you, don’t you?” Spencer said when he saw the look on Lassiter’s face, and all the officer said in response was, “Yes.”

13. Action
“That’s the guy, that’s him!” Shawn shouted, before he was rudely cut off; “Let the police do the real work, Spencer!” Lassiter snapped before running down the suspect himself.

14. Enough
“Shawn, I am done dealing with you!” Gus had shouted, and maybe a bit prematurely – Gus had been twelve years old at the time, and more than a decade later he had yet to even faze his best friend.

15. Green
“Shawn, do you think green’s my—“ Gus started, smoothing his shirt in front of the mirror; Shawn interrupted him with, “Please, Gus, never ask me that question again.”

16. Metaphor
He’d kept that dog house for more than a decade and not even he knew why – until Shawn had come knocking on his door, demanding another favor.

17. Teach
He’d squirmed, he’d whined, he’d done everything he could to tune out the lectures – it took Shawn’s new job to make his realize that despite everything he’d tried, he’d learned his father’s lessons anyway.

18. Demand
Shawn’s brilliance never failed to irritate Henry; his son could have been anything he’d wanted, and instead he’d used his gifts to make sure he turned out to be nothing at all.

19. Inspire
“When I grow up, how can I get a job like yours?” the kid had asked him eagerly, and Shawn had to bite his tongue on the first answer that popped into his head: Drop out of high school.

20. Unrequited
Lassiter wasn’t surprised when that package had been returned unopened, but he had to admit – only to himself – that he was more than a little disappointed.

21. Classic
When Gus had opened his birthday present you could have knocked him over with a feather – sure, he’d talked about wanting Amazing X-Men #8 for months, but who would have ever though Shawn actually listened?

22. Far
He’d had a bad feeling, but Gus knew he’d made the right decision to screen his calls: “Gus, Gus, pick up – or don’t, but if you get this message, you don’t know where I am, you don’t know where I’ve gone – in fact, just tell them you never met me.”

23. May
“I don’t think a birthday is enough, I think I’ll take a birthweek – on second thought, maybe I should take the whole month off – why are you looking at me like that, Gus?”

24. Breadth
For most people the distance between a true story and a completely ludicrous fabrication was far and wide; to Shawn Spencer, they were just a hop away.

25. Wrench
Shawn barely spent any time at his own apartment, and Gus knew exactly why – he constantly forgot to clean up after himself, was forever running out of groceries, and didn’t even know how to fix a leaky faucet without help.

26. Hope
Whenever the theatrics started, the crowds were staring, the clock was ticking – Gus tried his best to stand by his friend, but really, all he could think was, Please be right Shawn, please be right…

27. Scent
It worried the “Super Smeller” how easily he could now recognize his least favorite scent: blood.

28. Pastel
“Working on your manly image today?” Shawn asked with a smirk; Gus knew better than to try and argue the difference between a salmon shirt and a pink one.

29. Artist
Gus kept his hobby a secret, of course he had to; no way would Shawn or anyone else think his comic book fan drawings were artwork.

30. Sorrow
Henry never got to say goodbye to his son, but at least he got the message the kid was leaving directly from Shawn… or rather, from Shawn’s best friend’s cousin’s boss’ ex-girlfriend – and he knew in Shawn’s mind that didn’t even make a difference.

31. Path
“Gus, have I ever led you wrong – and by ‘wrong’ I mean in a deadly or otherwise permanent way.”

32. Wood
“If they haven’t figured us out yet, what are the odds they’re going—oh, come on, Gus, like knocking on wood ever helped anyone.”

33. Acceptance
He’d known since Shawn was four that his son was nothing like him – it took another twenty years for him to realize that maybe there was nothing wrong with that.

34. Yet
“I’m going to figure out what your trick is, Spencer,” Lassiter swore, and not for the first time – sometimes it worried Shawn to know that eventually the man was going to be right.

35. Shiver
O’Hara was determined to show her new partner how tough she was on their first stakeout, and couldn’t believe she’d failed to anticipate the pouring rainstorm; she rubbed her arms and shivered for nearly ten minutes without complaint, until Lassiter had gotten tired of “listening to her teeth chatter” and let her use his jacket.

36. Hero
The first time Lassiter heard someone call Spencer a hero he almost choked on his coffee – couldn’t anyone else see that he was the most self-serving man on the planet?

37. Body
Detective O’Hara remembered the first body she saw, years before she ever became a cop; whenever she doubted her career, all she had to do was think back to that and remember it was in her power to pin a neat and just resolution on such a messy and undignified end.

38. Man
Karen loved every minute of her job, but sometimes she had to wonder – would she have to work so hard for respect if she’d been born a man?

39. Pretend
All he had to do was pretend so hard that even he believed it, and the rest of the world had no choice but to follow; that’s how it seemed, anyway, even if Gus was always standing in the background, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

40. Curious
He wasn’t psychic, he couldn’t be psychic, it was completely impossible – but it there was another explanation for what Spencer knew, Karen Vick would be happy to hear it.

41. Different
“Your name is Burton?” a five-year-old Shawn had asked before bursting into hysterical laughter, and Gus had responded by punching him in the face – after an introduction like that, it was hard to believe they were even friends.

42. Smooth
“Not interested,” O’Hara answered without hesitation; “Oh, calm down,” Lassiter snapped back, “I wanted to go over the Adel case, I wasn’t asking you on a date.”

43. Right
Gus rolled his eyes at Shawn’s suggestion – not that flipping for first shot at the girl was a bad idea, but did Shawn really think he was going to forget about his trick coin?

44. Damn
“I didn’t know you swore,” Lassiter commented absently after O’Hara shut the door on her fingers; she ignored him, and wished she wasn’t so damn clumsy all the time.

45. Desire
In the fifth grade a kindly teacher had gently asked him, “Shawn, what do you want to be when you grow up?” – all he could do was stare at her blankly and realize he wasn’t going to have much of a future.

46. Ritual
Gus liked his real job, he really did – there was something soothing about the monotony of it – but he had to admit, the time he spent in the Psych office was a lot more fun.

47. Color
Shawn liked to claim he was color blind – a tragic condition, really, which explained the fact that stop signs were completely invisible to him, and red lights the faintest of suggestions.

48. Visit
Henry had been apprehensive when he saw his son at the front door, and drilled him for fifteen minutes on what he wanted; it was only hours after the visit that he realized Shawn had stopped by for no reason at all.

49. Belong
Shawn didn’t miss his mother, he’d never really had her – but sometimes, he had to admit, he missed having a father.

50. Bully
Sometimes Shawn felt just a twinge of guilt – but he knew that if he just talked fast enough, Gus couldn’t say no to anything.

Tales of Symphonia - End

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 05:20:20 GMT

Title: End
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Words: 100
Rating: G
Author’s Notes: Written for goyutasama. =P

* * *

He knew this was going to happen.

“I held out—long as I could,” he said, sinking to his knees. The exsphere on the back of his hand was glittering madly, he knew what was going to happen next.

The exsphere had stopped time, but it couldn’t save him anymore.

He’d done everything he could to keep the world safe just a while longer. But there wasn’t anyone left to help him, there was nothing to stop the stone from absorbing his consciousness.

That was a sacrifice he’d known he was going to make.

“It’ll be good to meet you… Mom.”

Tales of Symphonia - In Excess

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:33:26 GMT

Title: In Excess
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Tales of Symphonia
Words: 100
Rating: G
Author’s Notes: My attempt to write a drabble of exactly one hundred words.

Sometimes he talked to Martel. Not the one in the Seed, the one in his head – the one he’d married. Or hadn’t, according to the most recent revision of history. It was hard to remember, usually he didn’t bother trying. Usually it was all he could do to recall even an echo of her voice.

“They’ve made a goddess out of you,” he told her.

“Oh, stop,” she said, and laughed. “Don’t be silly.”

He knew he was going crazy. He expected it. It was only a matter of time, after all.

And he had an abundance of time.

Devil May Cry - Degrees of Separation

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 22:58:58 GMT

Title: Degrees of Separation
Author: Britani Gael (sterlingsylver @ lj)
Fandom: Devil May Cry 3
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. What if Vergil had won the final fight in the Underworld, instead of Dante? What if he’d lost to Mundus anyway? Seven years after Devil May Cry 3, Vergil returns to the human world – and bring all sorts of problems, demons, and enemies with him.

Warnings: Some DxL history here, and also original characters.

* * *

Chapter Seven: Confrontations

Vergil looked like a kid.

That’s what struck Dante first, as he strode back to his desk and sat down in his chair, reaching into a drawer for a bottle of tomato juice. Of course, he didn’t feel nearly as casual as he was acting, but the way he figured it, he already had the advantage. Because Vergil looked like a kid.

His coat – it was the same coat he’d been wearing in Temen-Ni-Gru – was completely shredded from the waist down, and Dante was sure Rebellion had delivered that slash across the fancy shirt. Strands of hair fell into his face, black circles hung under his eyes. Ironically enough, Vergil looked like hell.

Dante leaned back in his chair and took a swing. “So, bro,” he said. “How long’s it been?”

Vergil stared at him. It was funny to see his so speechless for once. Finally, he answered. “Five days.”

Dante choked on a mouthful of tomato juice.

He sat up sharply, wiping the juice off his chin and doing his best to cover his surprise. He tried to think of something witty to say, but then Vergil scowled and turned his back.

He was tapping his foot nervously, which was beyond strange coming from Vergil.

“Okaay, so,” Dante said. “What happened with your big plans in the Underworld?”

“I challenged him. I lost.” Five words. Dante wondered what it’d cost him to say them.

It was very wrong that he was kind of enjoying this.

Maybe it was because he’d had never once managed to beat his brother, and therefore couldn’t imagine anyone else managing the task. Wish I’d been there to see it. “And so you ran like a coward, and brought all the demons back to Earth.” He leaned back in his chair, and rested his feet on the desk. “Feel free to correct me when I get the story wrong.”

He couldn’t see Vergil’s face, and he could still feel the man glowering at him.

Temen-Ni-Gru was only five days ago? Impossible, that’d make Vergil nineteen years old. Well, he looked it, but that was beside the point. This Vergil was for real, though. If his winning personality didn’t give that way, then the glowing amulet on his chest sure did.

And the sword. Couldn’t forget the sword. Both of them.

Not only was this really the real Vergil, but Vergil was in a whole lot of shit. Dante could tell because he was here. Yeah, both of their lives were crashing down around their ears, but Dante was having too much fun to let Vergil’s bad mood get him down. “And now you want me to get involved, save your ass, and—“

“I want no such thing,” Vergil snapped, spinning around, his eyes bright with anger.

“Then, dude, what the hell are you doing in my shop? There’s really not room for you right now.” Dante winced as something crashed in the room behind him. “Really not room.”

“Taking in strays, now, are we?”

Dante shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

“I wasn’t talking about your… prisoner.”

Dante sighed, and then he wearily got to his feet. “Listen,” he said. “My kid is not on topic right now, and he won’t be unless I bring him up. Got it?”

In response he got stony silence.

“That’s not to say I’m not grateful,” Dante continued. “In fact, that’s just about the only reason I’m not ripping your skull out of your head for traumatizing him like you did.”

“If you gave him an excessively sheltered childhood, then that’s hardly my responsibility.”

“V’s five.”

“Then you’re treating him as if he was human?” Vergil snorted. “The way he whines and carries on, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was.”

He hoped Vergil wasn’t about to do something stupid, like imply V wasn’t really his kid, or that he was weak for not fighting off a horde of demons, or any other BS. Dante really wasn’t in the mood to beat the shit out of him, even though it probably wouldn’t be hard at this point. So, he changed the subject – for now. “So, where’ve you been for the last seven years, Vergil?”

If it threw him he didn’t show it on his face. No surprise, Vergil had probably been wandering around town for at least a few hours, and he wasn’t stupid. “Where do you think I’ve been, Dante?”

“Are you ever going to answer a Goddamn question?”

“I didn’t know you were one for words.”

“You want me to beat it out of you, then?” Dante stepped around the desk, raised his hands in a way he imagined was both casual and threatening. But probably just the latter, actually. “I’ll warn you beforehand – I can’t promise I won’t enjoy it.”

Vergil glared. “You have yet to beat me in a fight.”

“Take a look at yourself. It won’t be hard.”

Vergil met his gaze for several long, tense seconds, and then he looked away. “I’ve been in the Underworld, as you well know. I’ve been evading various demonic servants for days, I killed many of them, I am very tired. What do you want me to tell you?”

Dante shrugged. “That helps a little bit. What about those white demons? Lady was talking about them – I’ve never seen them before.”

“Lady.” His tone was flat, not betraying any sign of curiosity.

“Arkham’s daughter,” Dante explained.

“Hn.” That gave him something to think about, at least for a second, and then he continued. “The demons you’re describing work directly under a devil called Sergius. He takes orders from Mundus.”

“Who wants your head on a plate.”

“More or less.”

Dante had worked out most of that already. It would be pretty damn unfortunate if Vergil didn’t know much more than he did. “What are they called?”

Vergil blinked. “What are what called?”

“Those demons.”

“I don’t know. Why would I name them?”

Dante smirked. “Well, you named all the other demons, so I thought—“

“Be quiet,” Vergil snapped.

“Oooh, sensitive?”

Fun as this game was, Dante knew he’d taken things just a step too far. Vergil’s pale face colored just slightly, and then, “You had no idea, Dante,” he hissed. “You have no idea what our father was capable of.”

“And you do.”

Vergil reached for the sword on his back. Just a reflex, though, because he dropped his hand in a second. “I’ve claimed his power,” he said.

“So,” Dante replied. “Dad was a champion at getting his ass kicked and crawling away from it on his hands and knees?”

It said a lot that Vergil didn’t move for his sword, instead he went after Dante with his fists, and Dante hadn’t seen him that mad since they were both about nine years old. Grinning, Dante sidestepped his attack, grabbed his arm and slammed Vergil down onto the desk.

It shocked him how easily he pinned Vergil, even as the man snarled and struggled. Dante leaned over him. “Dude, you’re dead on your feet.”

Vergil stilled. “Let me up, Dante,” he said, his voice low.

“Huh. No.”

He started thrashing again, shouting – well, no curse words that Dante had never heard before, but it was still pretty damn funny hearing them come out of Vergil’s mouth. And still, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t even get his forehead off the desk.

It must have been killing him.

“Dante!” he yelled.

Dante sighed. Then he let Vergil go.

Predictably, the man charged him again. So Dante stepped back, and decked him as hard as he could.

Vergil hit the ground face first, and lay there without moving. Still, that was no guarantee he was really unconscious, so Dante nudged him in the side with the toe of his boot.

More like kicked him, really.

Nothing. Good.

“What are you planning on doing now?”

Dante glanced at Lady over his shoulder. She was standing in the entrance of the shop, and her expression was disapproving, but more than likely that was because she wanted to do the honors. He knelt down next to his brother and hauled him up by the arm. “Well, Verge’s room is taken, and the couch is taken. As much as I hate the idea of putting him in my room…”

“You really want him sleeping here?”

Dante pulled the arm over his shoulder, and stood back up, shouldering Vergil’s weight without difficulty. “I don’t think he’s slept at all since we last saw him. He’s not going to rest unless I make him, and if he doesn’t rest he’s going to get killed.”

“How long has it been for him?” So she’d noticed, too.

“Less than a week.”

She considered that. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. He was being cryptic and annoying.” He shrugged, which wasn’t easy with Vergil on his back. “I don’t know if time in the Underworld flows differently, but I guess I never really thought about it before.”

She nodded after a moment, obviously distracted.

“Kid’s upstairs in bed,” Dante offered, tilting his head towards the stairs.

“Is he sleeping?”

“Yeah.”

“Did he say anything about what happened?”

“Not to me.” And that bothered him a little bit, but again he couldn’t blame the kid.

She nodded once, thinking, and then without a word headed up the stairs. She disappeared into Verge’s room.

Dante sighed, shook his head, and started up the stairs himself. Ironic as it was, it was time to put his kid brother to bed.

* * *

Verge was still tired when Mom woke him up – he heard her come in through the door, and he shot straight up in his bed because he couldn’t be sure if it was her or maybe something else.

But it was her, and when he saw her he sighed. “Hi Mom,” he said. It sounded stupid but he didn’t know what else to say.

Mom didn’t mind, she sat next to him on the bed and hugged him, and he hugged her back. He didn’t know when he started crying but he tried to keep quiet about it, and Mom rubbed his back and smoothed his hair.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

Verge sniffed and nodded against her neck.

“Did you get hurt?”

“Yeah.” He sat back on his bed, rubbing his arms without thinking about it. All the marks were still there, white and going away but still there. “Dad already saw,” he added miserably.

He wished he’d been braver.

He knew Mom and Dad wanted him to say what happened, but there really wasn’t anything to say. The demons only talked to each other in their creepy voices and they didn’t say anything important anyway, they’d hurt when they’d grabbed him but they’d hurt that man more. That man knew more than him, but maybe he wouldn’t say.

Verge didn’t think he liked Dad very much.

“Did Dad hurt that man?” Verge thought he probably did even though he wished he didn’t – he liked that man even if he wasn’t very nice. The man wasn’t bad, either.

Mom looked surprised. “Why would you think that?”

“’Cause I think that man’s a little scared of Dad.” It seemed weird to Verge that anyone would be scared of Dad – he almost never yelled, and Verge didn’t get in trouble for anything, even when he was really bad.

But that man didn’t even want to hear about Dad’s name. He hated talking about him or hearing about him and he’d looked at Dad real funny when they’d met.

“They had a bad fight,” Mom said. “A long time ago, before you were born.”

“Did Dad win?”

He expected Mom to say yes. Of course Dad won. But she shook her head slowly. “No,” she said. “No, he didn’t win.”

“Then how come he’s scared of Dad?”

“I don’t know that he is.” She looked at his door instead of his face, and she was maybe lying to him. Verge hoped she wasn’t. “But he probably should be. Especially if he hurt you.”

She didn’t say a question but Verge knew she’d asked one anyway. He shook his head. “No. He’s really mean and he scared me some but he didn’t hurt me. He saved me from lots of demons and I think he knew who Dad and you were the whole time but he acted like he didn’t.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“How come?” He looked up at Mom, but she was still looking away. She was probably thinking about whatever Dad and that man were talking about. “Do you know him, Mom?”

“Not really. Just what your father told me.”

“But you met him.”

“Once.” She didn’t want to talk about him anymore. Maybe Dad would say more, but probably not. Dad didn’t like to talk about stuff that wasn’t video games or comic books, or sometimes Mom. Lots of times when Verge asked him questions he was pretty sure Dad was lying when he answered.

Verge yawned, and put his head back down on the pillow. “We can’t go home, can we?” he asked.

He knew they couldn’t. The demons that had got him were still around, were maybe still looking for him, and also that man and Dad too, probably. Mom was really good at fighting but she wasn’t like Dad. Verge had never seen Dad fighting but Mom said he could beat anything.

But not that man, the one with the same name as Verge. He didn’t look that strong.

“You know we can’t.” Mom said. She pulled the blanket up over him. “We’re safer here.”

“Even when that man is here?”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“No, but you and Dad do.” He was glad to see Mom, but he was so tired, he just knew he was going to fall asleep. “I think he’s just mean.”

Mom laughed softly. “He is mean, isn’t he?”

“Uh huh.” He closed his eyes. “He told me that if I didn’t stop talking about you and Dad, he’d make it so I’d never say anything ever again.”

Mom stopped laughing.

He didn’t want to see how Mom looked at that, so he kept his eyes closed like he was asleep. In a few seconds Mom said a few bad words, pulled the blanket up higher so he’d stay warm. Then she stood up and walked out, and if he’d really been asleep the way she shut the door would have woken him up for sure.

Mom and Dad were different. Dad was strong and safe, because he was strong and because he never let Verge get hurt if he could help it. Mom was comfortable and even if she was sometimes mean to Dad she always knew what to say to Verge.

He loved them both lots but he didn’t like it when they kept things secret. Like they did all the time, almost every day. Today was worse. He didn’t know why.

He fell asleep. Really, this time.

* * *

“How are the Vergils?” Dante asked.

Lady looked up from the book she was reading, as she sat at Dante’s desk. He had taken to pacing the front of his office, which was driving her nuts. She’d managed to keep her mouth shut about it, though. The last thing she wanted was to start another fight with him. “They were both asleep, last time I checked.”

Dante nodded, as if that had told him anything. “And Mara?”

“Asleep, too, or faking it.”

“She’s not a part of this. You should let her go.”

That was out of the question. She’d probably never catch Mara again, and the world was far safer with her locked up in here. “No.”

“You planning on explaining—“

“No.”

“I don’t buy her being dangerous.”

“No.”

“That wasn’t even a quest—“

“Shut up, Dante.”

He stopped pacing. “Whatever. Vergil’s going to wake up, soon.”

She shut her book. It’d been a memento from her father’s library she though might help her, but so far it’d told her nothing she didn’t already know, and nothing about the current situation. There was no mention of Sergius, and all information about Sparda was written in glyphs she couldn’t read. “It’s only been a few hours.”

Dante shrugged. “He’s not really asleep, I knocked him unconscious. He’ll wake up the second he’s physically capable of it.”

“Are you going to ask him anything else?”

There was so much to ask him. What happened after he’d gone back into Temen-Ni-Gru, why he’d hardly aged a day, how he’d come to rescue Verge. Lady even had another one for him: Why he’d bothered carrying Dante out of the Tower. Fat chance of getting an answer to that, though.

“I don’t really see a point to that,” Dante said. “He’s not going to answer anything.” He laughed. “I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Lady thought about that. “What if I asked him?”

“He’d probably kill you. So I’d have to stay there and protect you, and that brings up the whole issue of me being in the same room as him.”

“I can take care of myself, Dante.”

The look Dante gave her then was so condescending she didn’t even bother waiting for his response. She stood up and marched up the stairs towards his room. She didn’t need to wait for him to draw her a map – it’d been hers too, once.

“Lady, hold up,” he called after her.

“Fuck you.” She didn’t wait for him to respond to that, either. She slammed the door to his bedroom open.

Vergil sat up immediately at the intrusion – so Dante’d been right. He looked startled only for a second, and then he narrowed his eyes. “You,” he said.

“You,” she said right back. Surely she had more of a reason to hate him than he had to hate her.

“I don’t have time for this,” he snapped. But he made no move to get up, perhaps because he couldn’t. He probably didn’t want to risk falling flat on his face in front of the daughter of his most hated enemy. “I have nothing to say to you.”

She approached the bed. “That’s too bad, because I have things to ask you.”

He shut his eyes.

“The boy you rescued,” she continued, as if he wasn’t deliberately ignoring her. “Where did you find him?”

“Ask him yourself.” He opened his eyes again, this time to glare at her. “I have no interest in appeasing you.”

She had to remember that whatever he said, he had saved her son. “Vergil,” she said, hating the pleading tone in her voice. “Please.”

He understood. “The child is yours.”

She nodded once. It was the last thing she wanted to get into with him, but she felt she owed him something, even it was just acknowledgement that he was talking.

He chuckled darkly. “Little Mary Arkham, in bed with a devil. Your father would be proud.”

His words were drenched in sarcasm, but she knew he was actually telling the truth, and so did he. Her son was the grandson of the legendary Sparda, her father would be proud. She also knew that Vergil was being so antagonistic because he was trying to make up for spending the last several hours helpless. It was still hard to resist rising to the bait.

“So,” he continued. “How are you liking being Dante’s little wife?”

She curled her fingernails into her palms. “I’m not his wife.”

“Oh? His whore, then.”

“Vergil.” Dante was standing in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. His tone was cheery, his face clearly wasn’t. “Glad to see you’re up and at ‘em.”

Vergil scowled at Dante, and he rolled over in the bed like a spoiled child.

“Good talking to you too, bro.” He beckoned Lady over with a wave of his hands.

“Dante, leave him alone,” she said, but she walked over to him. It wasn’t like the conversation had been accomplishing anything, anyway.

Dante prodded her back as she walked down the stairs, as if he was determined to wear away her very last nerve. “All right, I’m going,” she snapped.

He didn’t say anything until they were standing back in his office. Like he didn’t want Vergil to overhear. Then, “Sorry. I forgot he could be such an asshole.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t.” And she hardly needed rescuing. “He’s just… angry. And lashing out.”

“Lady, we’re not talking about little Verge, here. That there’s a full grown man.”

“He’s nineteen, Dante. How mature were you when you were nineteen?” He didn’t need to answer that, because at nineteen he’d been worse than Vergil and she’d been there for it. “He knows you’re stronger than him now, and it’s bothering him.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“Why?”

“You noticed he’s carrying two swords, right? The one he’s not using is the Force Edge, sweetheart.”

She let the pet name slide. “That’s the sword he won from you.”

Dante narrowed his eyes. “It’s not like I even wanted it.”

“It doesn’t matter if you wanted it, Dante, what matters is—“

He look on his face stopped her cold.

At first she thought he was angry at what she was saying, but no, she knew that look, she knew that stance. He slowly reached behind him, and drew Ebody and Ivory.

Something was coming.

“Go get Verge, Lady,” Dante said quietly. “Get him now.”

She pulled a pistol herself, and glanced at the door. There wasn’t anything here that she could sense, but she didn’t doubt him for a second. She took a step back, and then another. And then she turned and sprinted back up the stairs.

* * *

Devil May Cry - Degrees of Separation

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 06:18:49 GMT

Title: Degrees of Separation
Author: Britani Gael (sterlingsylver @ lj)
Fandom: Devil May Cry 3
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. What if Vergil had won the final fight in the Underworld, instead of Dante? What if he’d lost to Mundus anyway? Seven years after Devil May Cry 3, Vergil returns to the human world – and bring all sorts of problems, demons, and enemies with him.

Warnings: Some DxL history here, and also original characters.

* * *

The sun was rising on Vergil’s sixth day without sleeping, if he hadn’t lost count somewhere. His situation was as grim as it had ever been – he never imagined he could fall this far. He was on the run, injured and exhausted, and just to make matters worse—

The boy started tugging on the sleeve of his new sweatshirt. “I don’t like this. It looks funny.”

“And I’m starting to hate the sound of your voice,” Vergil answered flatly. If the streets weren’t so deserted the boy probably would be too frightened to speak – but, no, there wasn’t anyone at all, and Vergil’s presence alone was apparently not very intimidating, not to this child.

The boy yawned. “I think you stole it. You don’t look like you have any money.”

“I did no such thing,” he snapped. Vergil hadn’t stolen it, he had acquired the jacket using the only currency he now possessed: fear. His threats and blackmail had gotten him an assortment of random facts and useful knowledge.

It had led him here. And it had given him the coat for the child, because he had been complaining about the cold, and because Vergil didn’t want to be stopped by the police. The boy’s wounds were fading fast, but still obvious, and Vergil wasn’t in the mood for anymore pointless killing.

“If you tell me where you stole it from, my mom can pay them back. I think she has lots of money, even though I can’t get a Playstation and I have to eat the same sandwich for lunch everyday, even though most of the other kids at school get fruit snacks or candy or—“

God. Enough. “Do you recognize your surroundings, child?” Vergil asked.

The boy stopped talking, and stopped walking as well. He looked around. “Um,” he said. “Not really.”

Perhaps because he had never been here, but that was too much to hope for. More likely he just didn’t pay attention. “Do you even know where it was I found you?”

The boy cringed, but nodded. “I know it’s called, um, Tema Neat Crew. My mom says most people can’t see it, and it’s a bad place to be. I’m not supposed to ever talk about it.”

“Your mother wasn’t wrong.” It certainly sounded like an explanation a mother would give a curious child, and it confirmed some of his suspicions. How else could the humans of this city continue their lives around the monstrosity, unless they were completely unaware?

He could have used this child for more information, he realized. But it was too late for that, now. They turned a corner.

Recognition lit up the boy’s face.

“This is where—“ And then he took off, tearing down the street. At the end of the block there was rundown building, bars on the windows and a flashing neon sign right at top.

Devil May Cry.

Fitting. Dante had always been the weaker one.

The boy reached the door long before Vergil did, and started pounding on the glass with small fists, ineffectually. Vergil rolled his eyes as he approached, and tried the handle.

Unlocked. How very unsurprising, that Dante would bar his windows but forget to lock his door when he left. Granted, his brother might have had other things on his mind.

The door swung shut behind them as they stepped inside, again the boy charged ahead and started shouting. “Dad? Dad!”

Vergil stood in the center of the room as the boy ran around the office, surveying his surroundings. Like the rumors had suggested, Dante was now making a living running this “shop.” Either that, or he starting up a garage band, judging from the pile of musical instruments in the corner.

The room was a complete, disgusting wreck.

The desk in the center of the room was stacked with beer cans and lose papers, the walls adorned with the heads of demons and other foul creatures. Vergil wondered how Dante managed to get them stuffed. The occasional random bullet hole completed the picture, along with the layer of fine dust that covered nearly every horizontal surface.

“You live here?” Vergil questioned flatly.

“No, I don’t live here, I only live here sometimes.” The boy didn’t share his discomfort, in fact he was as animated as Vergil had so far seen him. “I have my own room, it’s upstairs, and I guess Dad is out looking for me or something, because he’s not here now, and—“

The front door crashed open behind them, and both Vergil and the boy turned at the sound of the noise.

The figure stormed into the center of the room, a sword strapped to his back and a firearm in each hand, pointed as the presumed intruders. “Who the hell—“ Dante broke off and the sight of them, and stopped in his tracks.

Both of his gun hands dropped, along with his jaw. He looked at Vergil and at the boy and back again. Vergil met his gaze unwaveringly.

Dante was Dante, but he was clearly not the same brother Vergil had faced only a few days ago. His hair was longer, messier, he’d traded his red coat in for one so similar that Vergil had to wonder why he’d even bothered. But most striking was the change to Dante’s face – his brother was older. Years older. It surprised Vergil how much irritation that caused him, knowing that his younger brother now had nearly a decade on him.

Vergil realized that this was not the future. He realized that he had died at Mundus’ hands after all, and now had an eternity to look forward to in this very personal hell.

At least he had the benefit of seeing Dante shocked.

“Dad!” The child ran for his father.

Dante grabbed him and hauled him up, holding him with one arm and curling his other hand around the back of the child’s head. The gesture was sickeningly affectionate, and if Vergil had had any doubts about “Verge’s” paternity, they were now put to rest.

“Dad!” the boy chirped, before lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Daddy, that man looks just like you.”

“Yeah,” Dante said, shifting his gaze from his son to stare at his brother. “Yeah, I know.”

The child was content to cling to his father, and again he had Dante’s full attention. Dante brushed the hair out of the boy’s eyes and asked, “You okay, V?”

The boy nodded.

“You brought him back?” Dante asked Vergil.

Vergil nodded once. Dante would certainly find out whether he admitted it or not, and it simply wasn’t worth lying about.

Dante put his son back on the ground, and took a deep breath. “Vergil,” he said. “Thank—“

“I’ll be outside,” Vergil sneered, and he turned around and left.

* * *

Vergil was alive.

Dante and V both flinched as the man slammed the door on his way out, and through the glass Dante could see Vergil’s shadow outside. Lurking. So he was alive, and apparently as much of a colossal jerk as he ever had been. Which was fine, because he was alive. They both were. Holy shit, things were getting strange. And to think, he’d only come back here to grab Beowulf.

He ran a hand through his hair and knelt down in front of the kid. “Are you really okay?”

Verge didn’t answer. “Dad, how come that man has the same name as me?”

“Well, kid,” Dante started. That was a little tricky to explain, and it was pretty obvious Vergil hadn’t bothered doing any of the work himself. Verge didn’t even know who the guy was, but it wasn’t like any of that was surprising. “It’s like—“

“Well,” called a bitter, angry voice, its owner nowhere in sight. “It’s this all just—fucking—adorable.”

“Dad, who’s that?”

“Honestly, I have no idea.” Well, he knew her name. After that, it was all Lady. Now that they had Verge back Dante didn’t have any reason not to find out just what her beef with the girl was.

“You better let me go,” Mara continued, “or I’ll tell—“

“Mara,” Dante yelled at the back room. “If you don’t shut the hell up, you’re going to get shot again, I promise.”

She grumbled, fell silent, and then it sounded like she started thrashing around, knocking the sofa into the wall with a loud crack.

Verge jumped a mile.

Dante’s attention snapped back to the kid, who had never been this jumpy since the day he’d been born. Verge looked tiny, swamped by a dirty child-sized jacket that was still a few sizes too big, and his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Verge,” Dante began, setting his arms on Verge’s shoulders. “I need you to tell me—“

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I know, but—“

“Leave me alone.”

Dante pushed the small jacket back, and hissed at what he saw. Verge’s clothes were practically shredded in places, in others long gashes tore the cloth. He ran his fingers across a cut on Verge’s chest, and the kid shivered. “These are claw marks,” Dante said.

Verge stood there passively, even as Dante pushed the jacket all the way to the ground and pulled the T-shirt up over the kid’s head. The material was dark, so he couldn’t see the blood, but when he brought the shirt near his face he could smell it.

“Damn it!” He balled the shirt up and threw it onto the ground. Verge’s entire chest was covered in fine lines – tiny scars were the only evidence of wounds already nearly healed, and would probably disappear within hours. That didn’t change the fact that his boy had been hurt, and hurt badly. “Why didn’t you—“

Verge cringed and shrank away. “Sorry,” he whispered.

Dante caught him by the shoulders, when the boy tried to squirm away he pulled him into his chest. “No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he said quietly. “You’re okay, it’s okay, it’s not your fault…”

He waited for tears. They didn’t come.

After a minute of silence, Dante pulled back. “I’m going to call your mom, okay?”

No answer. In fact, Verge wasn’t even looking at him; instead he was focusing right on the ground. With an inward sigh, Dante picked him up and carried him across the room. He set the kid down on the desk next to the phone.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, V?”

“You would’ve…” Verge bit his lip. “You would’ve come, right?”

Dante froze as he reached for the phone. “Jesus, kid, of course I would have.” He couldn’t stand the idea of Verge not trusting him, even if he deserved it. “Your mom and I – we were going crazy, okay? We’d do just about anything to keep you safe. Understand?”

Verge didn’t even pause. “Would you kill someone?”

What? Dante hesitated, and decided that honesty was the best policy, here. “Yeah, I would.”

“Even someone… someone not bad?”

Just what the hell had Vergil done?

“V, listen. Are you listening?”

Verge nodded.

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“A lot.”

“I know, Daddy.”

“If you know, then don’t worry about it.” He messed up the kid’s hair. “I’ll take care of everything, Verge, I promise.”

He picked up the phone and dialed from memory.

* * *

Lady shot the last demon in the forehead before her cell phone rang twice – she fumbled with the phone with one hand as she shoved her gun into her belt, and managed to open it. “What?”

“C’mon, is that any way to answer the phone? Let me guess, you’ve got a problem with telemarketers? You know you can just submit your number to the—“

“Dante,” she snapped. She’d been at this for hours, she hadn’t found a clue and she’d been injured twice, and she couldn’t believe that Dante was even back at home. Much less joking. “I do not have the—“ It dawned on her. “Oh my God, you have him back.”

“I have him back,” he said, smugly. “He’s right here.”

“How—is he all right?”

Dante hesitated. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” She heard a creak behind her, and she spun and fired several shots left-handed. The Hell Pride shrieked and disintegrated.

“I don’t know, Lady. He’s just…”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” a voice interjected. Loudly.

She held the phone between her ear and her shoulder, allowing her to draw her machine gun and fire with both hands. Between shots, she asked, “Is that Verge, Dante? Let me talk to him.”

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Dante said.

In the background, she heard Verge whining. “I want to talk to Mom.”

“Hold on, kid.”

A series of portals opened over her head. Crap, she’d been sure she’d had them on the run, and now there wasn’t even any point in fighting them. She dropped both guns and rolled out of the way, and when she was clear pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it.

“Is this a bad time?” Dante asked.

She shielded her face from the explosion. “Just spit it out, Dante.”

“I want to talk to Mom!”

“Just a minute, V.”

The smoke cleared, and Lady carefully stepped around the room, making certain this time that the job was really done. “Can’t it wait until I get there, Dante? I’m on my way now.”

“It could, but you’d be pissed. And I really couldn’t blame you.”

“Then what is it?”

A long pause. Lady bent down to check under an assortment of tables and odd objects, but didn’t see sign of a single demon.

“My brother’s standing outside,” Dante said. “Right there, right now. I have a hunch he can hear me.”

Lady stopped short. “What brother?”

“Oh, come on, what the hell brother do you think I’m talking about? You don’t think I’d’ve mentioned it if I had more than the one?”

Lady checked her ammunition and then holstered her weapons, doing both in silence because it gave her time to think. When she was finished she stood still for another few moments. “Let me talk to Verge, Dante.”

Dante didn’t say a word, and Lady heard the shuffling of the phone being passed between hands. Then, “Mom?”

She already knew Verge was all right but actually hearing his voice was the confirmation she’d been waiting for – she felt the hours and hours or stress and anxiety fade away. “I’m here,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Uh huh.”

He was quiet for a long time, and the only thing she could hear over the line was his soft breathing. “Are you coming over here, now?” he asked in a small voice.

“Right now,” she assured him.

There was another long silence. “Mom?” he asked again.

“What is it?”

His voice dropped even lower. “I want to go home.”

She was stepping outside when he said it, and she winced. “We’ll go home as soon as we can, okay?” Poor Dante… “For now, just do everything your father says. I’ll be there right away.”

“…Okay. Um, bye.”

More shuffling, and then a click. She looked down at her phone display and the message blinking up at her: Call ended.

She shoved the phone back in her pocket. Nothing she could do about it now, except get over there just as fast as she was able.

* * *

Dante took the receiver Verge handed him and placed the phone on the cradle carefully, keepings his eyes on the shadow outside the door. Now he was going to have to deal with that, and it wasn’t something he was looking forward to.

He sighed, and then put a hand on Verge’s head. “C’mere, kid.”

Verge complied, without even a word about the nickname, and crawled into Dante’s arms. The talk with his mom seemed to have reassured him, and well, that was good. Dante stood and started up the stairs. “You’re probably pretty tired, huh?”

Whatever had happened to the kid was probably going to give him nightmares for the rest of his life, but despite all that, he nodded. “I didn’t sleep for a long time.” He hesitated. “Because, um…”

Dante shook his head. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Verge bit his lip. “Okay.”

Dante couldn’t blame him for not wanting to be here anymore. Between the psychopath stalking the front porch, and the lunatic tied down in the backroom, Devil May Cry wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine in this neck of the woods. In fact, right now it was source of the problems of this entire city.

“Are you gonna go talk to that man?”

“In a little while.” Dante opened the door to V’s room and made sure to shut it behind him before he crossed the room, and set Verge down on the bed.

Verge burrowed under the covers and reappeared in a second, curling up on his pillow. “He’s not very nice.”

“Got that impression, did ya?” Dante pulled a chair up to the bed and dropped into it.

“I still like him, though.”

Now that was almost newsworthy. Ah, well, Dante figured that in the whole wide world, there would have to be someone, somewhere, that liked Vergil. “He’ll be thrilled to hear that.”

“I don’t think so.”

Dante leaned back in the chair. “I’m gonna stay here for a little while, and then I’ll be downstairs. All right?” He waited for Verge to nod, and then he continued. “Anything even a little weird happens, I want you to scream bloody murder. All right?”

Verge nodded again, his eyelids fluttering. The kid must have been dead tired, to fall asleep so fast. Hopefully, that accounted for his blank expression and his complete lack of anything to say.

Dante stayed and watched him until he was sure Verge was asleep, he could tell by the breathing. Then he stood up slowly, kept his steps quiet, opened and closed the door very quietly. And as soon as the door was shut, he leaned against the wall and rubbed both temples.

Because, Christ.

Vergil had better have some answers, and he damn well had better be willing to share them. If not, then so help him…

Dante found him waiting outside.

“So, bro,” he said, leaning against the doorframe. Vergil kept staring into the street like Dante hadn’t said anything at all.

Typical.

“You gonna answer me, or just keep zoning out like a freak?”

“Obviously I can hear you, Dante.” He said the name like it was a cuss word. “I don’t know why you need me to acknowledge it.”

Yeah. This was going to be a fucking breeze.

“Whatever, Vergil,” Dante responded. “If you want to be all pissy, that’s just fine with me. But you better step inside, ‘cause we’re due for a little chat.”

Vergil snorted.

“Now.”

Honestly, he expected more of a fight, but this time he didn’t get it. Vergil didn’t say a word, and followed him inside.

* * *

Kingdom Hearts - There's Nothing Behind These Dancing Eyes

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 01:04:15 GMT

Title: There's Nothing Behind These Dancing Eyes
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Kingdom Hearts II
Words: 3389
Rating: PG
Summary: [one shot] Before he was the ninth member of the Organization, he was just a little punk from Twilight Town.
Author’s Note: I've had this idea since the beginning of summer and it's sat on my harddrive ever since, just almost finished. Finally got off my ass and wrote the ending. I've since found out that the story doesn't exactly fit into canon -- so perhaps it's best to consider it AU?

* * *

Medy outgrew Twilight Town almost the moment he turned seventeen. It wasn’t a gradual thing – there was a day he was perfectly happy with his life. It wasn’t like he had it hard. He spent his time cutting class and squirming out of homework, he used those extra hours and minutes skating down alleyways and screwing around on his guitar and talking his brother out of tomorrow’s lunch money. His teachers thought he was a delinquent and his parents didn’t really have time for him anymore, but at least he was never bored.

And then he woke up the next day and nothing was the same at all.

He felt like he was suffocating. The city was too cramped, he tried to tell himself. The buildings were too small, too close together. Except that wasn’t it. He could hitch a ride to hang out on the beach, he could sneak into the woods by the creepy mansion. And even there he could feel the sky closing in on him.

So he didn’t do either of those things. Not anymore. Not until yesterday, when the sneaking and the slacking just felt so pointless he couldn’t do it for another minute. So he’d come out here to the beach, even if the sky was trying to choke him. He just needed to think.

And that’s when he figured out his life was stupid.

“Hey, Medy! Medy.”

The voice wasn’t shouting, but it was thick with irritation and Medy knew without a doubt that it was his younger brother. That’s why he didn't bother turning around. Or answering.

The shuffling footsteps came to a stop directly behind him. “You’re in trouble, you know.”

Medy took his eyes off the ocean long enough to roll them. “That’s news?” Except it was news, to him, so he couldn’t help but ask, “How come?”

“Maybe because you didn’t come home for a day and a half?”

“Oh.”

No answer, so Medy sighed and looked up.

Hayner was doing his best to look stern, which wasn’t working. Hayner didn’t do stern, any more than he did serious. He seemed to know it, too, because he gave up on it after a few seconds and dropped down to the sand. “Mom thinks you have a girlfriend. I said no way.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Dad thinks a girl dumped you, and that’s why you’re always so depressed now.”

Medy gave Hayner a sidelong glance. “And you said?”

“Maybe.” He said it with a smirk, so he probably wasn’t surprised when he was eating sand a moment later. “Hey,” he whined, pushing himself back up and spitting. “You pushed me!”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Hayner narrowed his eyes, probably considering tackling Medy and knocking them both into the surf, but then he relaxed. “How long’ve you been out here, anyway?”

Medy shrugged.

“It’s not any different, you know.” He pointed out at the ocean. “It’s the same everyday.”

That wasn’t true. Medy had been out here for hours already, he’d watched the sky change from blue to orange to black and the water change to match. But even if the details changed, Hayner was right. It was the same ocean and it was never, ever going to change.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, and shrugged again. “How’d you know I was here, anyway?”

“Didn’t. Mom said I had to find you, so...” He sat back comfortably in the sand. “Pence and Olette and me looked just about everywhere. We even went by that weird house before I thought to come here. I didn’t think you liked it much here.”

“I don’t.”

Hayner rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You’re being weird.”

Medy was sick of talking about this. More than sick. So, “What happened to your face?”

“This?” Hayner reached up and gingerly touched his right eye, which was swollen and slightly off color. “Seifer says no one’s allowed near the mansion, so he hit me with one of his stupid sticks.”

“Seifer says.” Seifer was a local kid who thought he could make up any rule he wanted and then carry it out however he felt. Medy had wanted to smack him more than once, but he didn’t, because he wasn't a bully. No matter how annoying Seifer could be, he was still only, what, fourteen?

“Actually, he hit me first.” Hayner scowled. “And then he said it.”

“That wasn’t cool.”

“When Seifer yells first, I usually duck. But, y’know? That house is really weird.”

Medy had stopped caring about the mystery house when he was about nine, and it was apparent that the house was only so mysterious because no one lived there. He was also still annoyed about his brother getting beaten up. “Really,” he said, without much interest.

“Yeah. Nobody ever goes in or out, but I know someone’s in there.”

“Really?” he repeated. “How?”

“Because I saw the lights turn on, that’s how. Olette’s seen them, too.”

“Yeah, and maybe you’re both seeing things.”

“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” Hayner snapped, in a tone that clearly said he did. He stood up, and brushed himself off. “I have to go. Are you coming?”

Medy thought about it. “No.”

“Mom’ll be—“

“I’ll be home later. Okay?” he asked. He didn’t really mean it like a question.

Hayner scowled and looked down at the ground. "Whatever," he muttered, kicking up a small cloud of sand up as he said it. He stuck his hands and his pockets and started heading back home.

Medy looked at the ocean.

He couldn't figure out a problem unless he knew what it was – and right now, he didn't. All he knew was he wanted out. And he didn't even know what that meant.

He glanced over his shoulder to see if Hayner was really gone. He was. Sighing heavily, Medy covered his face with his hands. And then he looked back at the water.

He definitely wanted out.

He thought about what Hayner had said, about the lights on at the mansion. It was probably wrong, Hayner probably had been just imagining things, if he wasn’t outright lying. No one had lived there in near forever, and it wasn’t like anyone ever moved into Twilight Town. Or left.

But if someone was living there now, really, maybe they came from somewhere else?

It only took fifteen minutes for him to get back to town, five more to find himself standing in front of the gate of the massive house with every light turned off. Just like it always had been. Hayner was an idiot.

No. He was the idiot.

Medy cupped his hands over his mouth. “Hello?” he shouted. He didn’t get an answer, just like he figured. “Hello?”

Stupid, stupid.

He turned to leave, but before he even took a step his eyes fell on a rock, the size of his fist and right in the middle of the path. He bent down and picked it up, and felt the weight of it in his palm. It was heavy.

He stood up slowly. Then he turned around the chucked it.

He wasn’t the most athletically gifted, but his aim was alright. More than alright, because the rock sailed clear over the gate the over the yard – before crashing through a window on the top story.

His first thought was to run. But, hey. No one lived there, right?

No one came running, no one shouted. No lights came on. That was as good of proof as any that the house was empty. He’d have something to brag about to Hayner when he got home, definitely. He turned away again.

The gate creaked open behind him.

He jumped at the noise and turned to look, but it was already open before he could see it move. “Hello? HELLO?” He cast a furtive glance behind him. If anyone heard or saw him like this, they’d think he was nuts. Or breaking in.

But even if he hadn’t gotten an answer, that gate was basically an invitation, right?

“Anyone there?” He kept talking as he walked up the path. It made him feel better, anyway. “I’m sorry about the window, I only... Hello?”

The yard was neat, except for all the stuff. There was a soccer ball on the lawn Pence had lost here ages ago. The kite was Olette’s. Medy was surprised Hayner hadn't gone over the fence for both of them, but his brother was right. This place was weird. Probably better that he didn’t.

He wasn't even sure why he was here.

The door was fancy, wide, intimidating. Medy hesitated at the bottom of the steps for a moment, staring. What, was he supposed to knock?

He took the steps two at a time and went straight for the doorknob. It turned in his hand and the door swung in, he stepped in and shut the door behind himself before he could really think about what he was doing. It’d been getting dark outside but it was worse in here. He closed his eyes and it hardly made a difference; he leaned against the door, breathing hard.

Sometimes Medy felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Sometimes he felt a tickling in the back of his brain. He was feeling almost the same thing now, but something was different. It wasn’t coming from himself. He was feeling something inside the house, maybe it was the house. It was crazy but he was sure he was right.

He opened his eyes.

He could see a bit better in the dark, now. This was the foyer, and there were doors all around, and stairs, too. The mansion was even bigger on the inside that it looked from outside. He wondered what the trick was. He wondered where to start.

Maybe he should clean up the broken glass?

He walked toward the center of the room. It was creepy. This place was totally creepy. He glanced behind him – and then he nearly passed out. There was something standing only a few feet behind him.

It was a man. Maybe. What he knew for sure was that it was wearing a black shroud – cloak? – that went from the top of its head straight down to the ground. It walked like a man and when it was nearly close enough to touch him it talked like one too. “Ah, poor boy. Are you scared?”

Was he scared?

Hell yes. He wanted nothing more than to take a step back, but he knew that if he tried his legs would shake like a little girl’s and he’d fall right on his ass. So he stood his ground as if he was actually brave and stared at the cloak’s complete lack of face. “No.”

The voice laughed. “Huh. Of course you aren’t.”

He wasn’t taking any more steps, so Medy decided now was as good a time as any to interject. “What is this place? What are you—”

The cloaked man sighed. “Yeah. Gee, I’d love to just tell you everything, but – Hey, look at that!”

Oldest trick in the book, right? But Medy’s head jerked anyway and then he spun full around. A cloud of—black... nothing was growing behind him. He stared for a second and then he backpedaled as fast as he could, forgetting all about the man in black. Until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“That,” the voice said in his ear, “scares the crap out of you. Doesn’t it?”

Yes. “No.”

“I’d tell you not to make me laugh, but—” He chuckled. “—too late for that. Anyway. Listen, kid.”

Medy was listening, even as the threads of darkness started worming their way out of the hole.

“See, we’ve been in this place for, I don’t know. A while. We’ve been here and not once has anyone come knocking on our door.”

He pushed Medy forward. Just a step or two.

“And you know why? Of course you do. It’s ‘cause they’re scared of this. They’re scared of us.”

He pushed again, and this time Medy thought to plant his feet. It didn’t work, he just slid a few feet and then he could feel and hear the dark energy just as well as he could see it.

“And also,” the man continued. “I don’t think anyone else was quite as stupid as you.”

And then he shoved Medy into the dark.

“Bye-bye, now.”

* * *

Hayner wasn’t surprised when his brother dragged his butt home late that night. He was surprised that Medy snuck into his own house, and didn’t talk to anyone, and slept for the next sixteen hours straight. Missing the next day of school, even.

Weirdo.

* * *

Things had been strange.

Medy hadn’t been at school since—since it had happened. He didn’t know what had happened. After the black had cleared he found himself standing outside the mansion, outside the gate. He was breathing hard but at least he’d been able to see again. He’d run the whole way home.

And now things were strange.

He hadn’t gone to school, because now he knew, he knew school was pointless. He was never going to need it. He didn’t know what he was going to need, but not school.

He wandered around Twilight Town in a haze, wandering from place to place and not staying anywhere, and he felt like he was seeing the people here for the first time. Their lives were so pointless, their world so small. He moved between them like a ghost, they didn’t notice him, and he’d always been that way.

He didn’t know what the darkness had done to him. He didn’t know if he liked it.

He could hear the sounds of a fight.

Medy didn’t even put it together until he turned the corner, he was nearly on top of it, the kids were right in front of him. Seifer and his gang, same as always, three on one. “Mind your own business,” one of the snapped at him. He didn’t notice who.

He blinked, and he almost did go away, mind his own business. Same as always.

Except this time it was Hayner they were beating on.

Things had been strange. Things had been… fuzzy. And then he saw his brother’s face.

It was like someone flipped a switch.

His hand shot out and caught Seifer by the collar, he dragged the punk away from Hayner, who jumped back with a startled yell. Medy pulled a fist back and all out punched Seifer in the face, hard enough to snap his head back and send him to his knees.

He knew he was a bad person when he saw the blood come pouring out, pattering on the sidewalk like rain. Seifer was so shocked he started bawling on the spot. Rai and Fuu both jumped in front of him, shouting angry words Medy couldn’t make out and trying to block him from view. They did a lousy job. Medy could still see him choking on sobs and wiping at his eyes furiously, as the blood coursed down his face.

Hayner stood back, eyes wide. Staring. He looked like he thought Medy had completely lost his mind.

Shit. He had.

He bolted.

He knew where he was headed without much thinking about where he was going. So he almost took a turn he shouldn’t and had to stop and think. Maybe Hayner shouted something – no, probably Seifer. He couldn’t hear it, anyway. He hunted for the entrance to the woods.

“Medy, wait!”

Despite the five years between them, Hayner was easily the faster runner. He liked to rub it in, repeatedly, what terribly shape Medy was in. Whatever. Medy was surprised Hayner would want to speak to him at all for the rest of his life, much less now. Much less chasing him down for the privilege.

“Medy!”

He kept running until he knew he couldn’t get any further, he could hear Hayner coming up almost directly behind him. He turned then, probably too soon, because Hayner ran straight into him and they both tumbled to the ground.

Medy groaned, and tried to get up. Hayner shoved him back to the ground.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hayner shouted.

Medy sat up and shoved Hayner right back, nearly knocking him into a tree he pushed so hard. “Get off me, will you?”

He stood up and brushed himself off, and his hands were shaking. Whatever.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hayner repeated, pushing himself back up to his feet.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” Medy snapped. “Dumbass.”

“You’re lying!”

Medy hit him.

Not like he’d hit Seifer. He’d probably never hit anyone like that ever again, because he didn’t like blood or hurting people either. He just wanted to goof off and get left alone, what was wrong with that? So he smacked Hayner across the face and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Hayner touched his face where he’d been hit, and gaped at him.

Medy didn’t know, either.

“Stay away from me,” Medy said. “And stay away from the house.”

“I don’t underst—“

“Don’t go near that house! Ever. Understand?”

Hayner was looking up at him with wide eyes, like he could just tell his brother was gone and wasn’t ever going to come back. “Medy,” he said. “Let’s just go home now.”

“Not now.”

“Why?”

“I’ll be home later,” Medy lied. “Okay?”

Hayner nodded, and he didn’t believe him either. Medy could tell by the look in his eyes, blank and depressed and just slightly unforgiving. Hayner took a step back, and then he turned and ran.

Medy watched him bolt, and then he ran, too. He went the other way.

In no time, he was right in front of the house. The gate had been open – they weren’t waiting for him, were they? – but the front door wasn’t, and he started pounding on it with his fists.

“I don’t know what you did to me,” he yelled. “But I don’t like it!”

The door swung in.

He looked both ways real quickly, and then he stepped inside.

The house was still darker, maybe a bit darker than it’d been yesterday. He almost ran into the wall once, before he remembered where he was going. He retraced his path from the previous day, he found his way back into that room.

First thing he did was march straight to the center, he knocked over a chair with his foot. Why was there furniture here? There wasn’t anyone here. And there really wasn’t anyone here, he looked around for that same man, but the room was empty. Except for the furniture, and he kicked the chair again.

“What did you do to me?” he shouted.

“What are you doing here, little mouse?”

Medy jerked around, peering into the dark, trying to focus. In the shadows above him he could make out a figure dressed all in black. The same guy from before? Probably.

Medy took a deep breath. “I’m not afraid of it,” he shouted up at the figure.

There was a moment of silence. “Oh, I understand. You’re the little boy who tried to play in the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of it,” Medy repeated. He wasn’t lying.

“I see,” the man said. It wasn’t the same one he’d met before – this man had a smooth, quiet voice that made Medy want to shiver. He extended his hand, and then he closed his fingers into a fist.

The threads of darkness started at the ground this time, they wrapped around his feet and crawled up his legs. He wanted to squirm, and he fought the urge to cut and run. It was a reflex that took only a few seconds to die.

“Well, that's curious,” the figure said. He lowered his hand but the black kept coming.

Medy felt a peculiar numbness in his legs, now completely swallowed. It wasn’t going to be okay, he knew. This was not okay. But, as the darkness closed over his ears, his mouth, his face and his eyes, he thought he could maybe be okay with it.

“I—“ Medy started. But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t see. He couldn't—think...

“Very curious. You truly aren’t afraid of the darkness.”

His voice sounded very far away.

“Then drown in it.”

* *

*

Dexter - "Second Thoughts"

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:09:46 GMT

Title: Second Thoughts
Author: Britani Gael
Fandom: Dexter
Words: 849
Rating: R
Summary: Dexter has a dilemma.
Author’s Note: Have seen only the first episode. However, I have seen it twice. I am not a fan of blood and gore, and the show disturbed me a lot – and yet, I could not help writing this. Somewhat stream of consciousness, rated R for a reason, but if the show doesn’t bother you then you should be able to stomach this.

* * *

He had to think.

I didn’t do it you have to believe me it wasn’t me I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about

A confession was part of the game Dexter always won, his own insight going up against that of the killers – but the guilt worming through their hearts and brains and eating their own thoughts alive day after day after week after month, it always took his side in the end. They always told him, the words bubbling out from between their lips before the blood started flowing in exactly the same way.

They told him because they wanted to, before they died.

Please stop oh my God stop I don’t know what you’re saying why are you doing this

It was inconceivable. He’d already made one cut – more than one, because he’d gotten the blood from the face and put it on the slide which was in his pocket, and then he’d very carefully separated half of the right leg from the rest of the body, and blood was pooling on the plastic and between the layers of Saran wrap.

It always bothered him, because it was his trophy and yet so much of it ended up on the ground, smothered in plastic, soaking into the dirt in various landfills across the city and outside of it, too.

I swear I swear I don’t know who that woman is I never saw her Hail Mary full of Grace

He had no right to complain; he got to spend all day everyday around blood. He measured and looked and prodded, he got so close he could smell it and he could smell it so well he could imagine he was tasting it.

Smell and taste were closely related senses, after all.

He had to think.

Why had this man not confessed to his crimes?

So Dexter put the gauze back into the man’s mouth and noticed the tears streaming down his face, and that part wasn’t usual, because seven out of ten of his victims had spent most of their last hours of life crying. But this man hadn’t told him that’d he’d done it, he hadn’t tried to explain their sins away, hadn’t said that he just couldn’t help himself. Dexter never approved of that excuse, because he couldn’t help himself either, and that didn’t excuse his compulsion, not to them.

He stepped back from the table and stripped both gloves off, put them in a garbage bag. He rubbed his temples and his mouth and he thought, even though the muffled shrieks and pleadings were trying to distract him.

He thought.

He had before him a serial rapist – one of his least favorite types of killers – tied down and wrapped up and not confessing, despite the evidence.

Bloody clothes in his house, suspicious reading materials. The autopsy photographs clearly proved that a man of his height and build had taken down each of those tiny, pretty girls – he lived alone, and not just in a technical, literal sense. He lived completely alone, he had no friends, no women, few professional contacts, and his only frequent visitor was his brother—

Of course. Why hadn’t Dexter thought of that?

This man had been set up by his own brother.

Dexter chuckled to himself, shaking his head. Of course. Same height, same build, constant access to this man’s house and tools, and likely he shared his antisocial tendencies. Except the brother had taken it a step further – to murder.

So close, but he’d taken a nasty wrong step, made an arrogant assumption. He’d pay for that mistake, too, because each of these murders took careful planning, he had to set up each move like a grandmaster at a chess board. Location, props, plan of attack, the set-up he loved so very much. He’d picked the wrong victim, and now he had to start over.

At least he knew now which victim was the right one.

It’d only set him back a week.

He pulled a fresh pair of medical gloves out of the box, pulled them on and snapped them on his wrists. He liked doing that, it made him feel like a professional. The game was over now, so he selected a different knife, a larger one.

He usually saved this part for last.

He pulled the gag out of the man’s mouth.

“What are you doing?” the man yelled. “What the hell are you doing?”

Dexter ignored him, he wasn’t used to being talked to while he worked and therefore didn’t like it very much. He smoothed his latex coated fingers across the man’s throat.

“What are—“

He was working out of order, but he knew he had no choice, and he used the whole of his strength to bring the knife down across his throat.

It was a very neat beheading.

On the way home he stopped at a gas station. He didn’t fill up his tank; he smashed the slide into pieces with the bottom of his shoe and threw the pieces away.

He still wasn’t sorry.

* * *

Devil May Cry - Banter

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 09:04:48 GMT

Fandom: Devil May Cry
Title: Banter
Author: Britani Gael
Theme: #16; on top
Pairing/Characters: Dante/Lady
Words: 1233
Rating: PG-13
Author’s Notes: Dialogue heavy. The first three quarters of this was a blast to write, the last few paragraphs were painful and took longer than I’ll admit to.

* * *

“So, you’ve never done this before?”

Dante gave her a look. “You’re kidding, right?”

Lady straightened her top and raised her fists in a classic fighting position. She shifted her stance, leaning forward and keeping her weight off her rear foot. “Well, you don’t look like you’ve had a lot of… formal training.”

He matched her stance and rolled his eyes. “I know how to spar. I used to wipe the floor with my brother every day after school, I’ll have you know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe it, babe.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’ve got experience.”

She side kicked him in the chest.

He landed on his back in the padded floor of the dojang, and quickly flipped off his hands back onto his feet. “That,” he said, “was a cheap shot.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes.

“I’ve gotta admit it, though. You’re pretty damn fast.”

She went for another kick but he was a step ahead, dropping to one knee and sweeping her other leg out from under her. Lady regained her balance quickly enough to handspring backwards and managed an awkward landing. He rushed her.

She dove to the side, and out of habit reached for pistols she didn’t have.

Dante turned to face her and wagged a finger. “Nuh uh uh. You’re the one who said no weapons.”

“Can’t you shut up for just a second?” she asked. She stood up, back into position. “I wanted to train seriously.”

“And you invited me? I’m touched.”

“Don’t be.”

Smirk. “But what if I want to be touched?”

“You’re… impossible.”

“Only when I want to be.”

She didn’t fall for his bait; instead she waited, bouncing lightly on her toes.

“Come on,” he said. “You’re gonna make me work for it?”

She waited.

“Fine.” He aimed his kick low, another sweep, and she sidestepped and jabbed with her rear fist. He caught her hand and twisted her arm around, behind her back. She went with the movement and continued the circle, swinging her elbow towards his face.

“Son of a—“ He let go of her hand and stumbled back, and was still cursing when he snapped his nose back into place. “This shirt was new, you know.”

“I thought you’d be used to the sight of your own blood.”

“That doesn’t mean I like it.”

She shrugged.

“You realize this means war?” he asked.

“I’m terrified.”

“You should be. I can cheat, too.” He dropped his fighting pose and his arms, letting them hang by his sides as he cocked his head.

She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I am not cheating.”

“Well, you sure aren’t playing fair.”

Lady shrugged, and then did a cart wheeled to the side, landing on her feet and striking out with a sweeping kick of her own. He laughed and flipped over her head, over her kick, and landed behind her.

She spun fast and blocked the punch to her midsection, leaving herself open to the blow aimed at her face.

“That would’ve broken your jaw,” Dante commented, as Lady stumbled back. He’d pulled the punch, a lot, but the glancing blow still had set her vision spinning. “You should be more careful.”

“Shut up,” she snapped, and then she attacked.

The flurry of punches and kicks caught him by surprise, but it hardly made a difference. He danced backwards, blocking each attack with his hands.

She kept it up for a minute, maybe a minute and a half, and then her stamina started running out. That was, of course, what he was waiting for, because he wasn’t about to get hit in the face again.

He caught one of her hands and used it to spin her whole body around, pulling her back to him and holding her there with both arms. “Jackpot!”

“Jackass. Let go.”

His arms tightened around her waist.

“Dante, don’t—“

He picked her up without difficultly, turned her in the air, and took them both to the ground.

Lady glared up at him. Both of her arms were held down by both of his hands, and he was straddling her chest and grinning widely. “Get off me, Dante,” she said.

“No.”

“I mean it.”

“Come on, that’s not in the rules, is it? Aren’t we supposed to count to ten or something?”

She kicked him in the back with both knees.

The blow knocked the air out of his lungs, and he fell forward onto his hands. Ignoring his complaints, and his weight on top of her, she started squirming out from underneath him, using her now free hands to try and shove him off.

He recovered fast. “Um, ouch?” He blinked when one of her flailing hands accidentally landed across his face, and again when she did it on purpose. “Cut it out!”

“Are you ever planning on getting up?”

He faked a yawn. “Why? Except for the slapping me bit, I’m comfy.”

She hit him again. “Well, it’s not going to stop, as long as you’re just going to lie there.”

“What, you want more?” He easily caught both her hands with one of his and pinned them down onto the mat, above her head, where she wouldn’t have the leverage to do anything about it.

Her eyes narrowed to angry slits. “Dante, don’t you fucking da—“

Her protest was muffled by his mouth. He kissed her too hard and in a second it went even further than he’d meant it, she stopped struggling and he let go of her because he wanted to touch her face. And then she pulled him closer with her hands on his neck and his hands moved down to her breasts, she was pressing up against him, he was going too far and she was letting him.

Dante liked to try to and lighten the mood between the two of them with his cheesy innuendos, but when they both knew he meant every word it sucked the humor out of the whole act. Lady was nice to look at but she was better as a friend, and in another second he was going to ruin that.

He rolled off her, catching her hands and pulling her up with him as he got to his feet. Lady turned her back on him and fixed her shirt, and drew the back of her hand across her mouth like she was wiping him off her. When she faced him again, her face was still red. “That,” she said, “was cheating.”

He snorted. “You liked it.”

She said nothing.

“Look,” he said. “I can’t take it back.”

Nothing.

“And I wouldn’t.”

More nothing.

“Can we just start this over?”

She shook her head.

He sighed.

“But,” she said, “that’s not exactly the end of the world.” She started towards the exit, picking up her gear bag off the ground and opening the door. “I’ll be here at the same time tomorrow, and you better be, too.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because next time I’m planning on pinning you.”

He raised his eyebrows.

Lady looked back over her shoulder. “And no cheating.”

His shoulders slumped as he walked, following her out of the building. “Damn, Lady, you take the fun out of everything.”

“It’s a gift.”

“If you say so.” But he was smiling as he followed her out of the building, because he hadn’t screwed this up. At least, not yet.

* * *

Devil May Cry - Trick of the Light

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 00:30:25 GMT

Fandom: Devil May Cry
Title: Trick of the Light
Author: Britani Gael
Theme: #04; diabolical
Pairing/Characters: Dante/Lady
Words: 773
Rating: PG

* * *

She ran.

Lady ducked around a corner and pressed her back against the wall, breathing hard. She could still hear the sounds of battle in the distance, the fight was still raging. The devil was still winning.

She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the cold stone floor. She had a weapon in each hand, Uzi and pistol, and she placed them both on the ground between her feet – she wasn’t going to need them anymore. Lady wasn’t a coward, not by a long shot, and she couldn’t believe she’d run away.

The shrieks and screams stopped.

She tensed at the sound of approaching footsteps, but didn’t move to stand. Instead, she kept her eyes on the ground, even when a pair of heavy motorcycle boots came to a stop in front of her.

“Hey,” he said.

She wanted to apologize for bailing on him, maybe make some joke about leaving all the work to him for once. But she couldn’t and so she wouldn’t, she just nodded once. “Hey,” she said.

He tapped his foot, waiting for more. When he didn’t get it, he sighed. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said.

“You didn’t.”

“Well, in that case, what the hell’s your problem?”

She didn’t exactly expect him to be sympathetic.

The battle had been going their way for most of the day. Demon hunting with Dante was getting to be routine; they cleared the castle room by room, methodically loading and reloading their weapons. Occasionally one would get too close and he would pull out his sword or whatever devil’s arm he’d brought with him today. But overall, this job was just too damn easy for him to bother.

Until they’d walked into a trap, a tricky ambush and Lady soon was dealing with more claws and blades than she new how to dodge. Dante had shouted something – now she knew it was a warning – and then he’d let his other side take over.

She’d never seen it before.

His demonic form was blood red, it was terrible and powerful – more powerful than any monster she had ever taken down. Seeing him in the midst of all the rest, ripping the Scythes to pieces and obviously loving it, she had to wonder. What was the difference?

Dante was a devil. And he was still tapping his foot.

“Did you get hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

“Thanks to me, huh?”

Lady jerked her head up with every intention of wiping the smirk right off his face, but to her surprise his expression was calm and serious. He wasn’t trying to piss her off, for once. He offered her his hand, and despite all her reservations took it without hesitating.

He pulled her to her feet.

“Thanks,” she said, bending down to pick up her guns. She holstered her weapons and took a deep breath, because it had to be said: “Dante, I hunt demons. I hate them.”

Dante grinned. “Well, that’s what makes me special,” he said. “’Cuz I’m the exception, right?”

That’s when she hesitated.

If it hurt him he didn’t show it, and in fact she couldn’t read his face at all. He took a step closer, and she reflexively took a step back, which put her against the wall with no where else to go. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and looked her right in the eyes. “Do you trust me?” he asked.

He knew she did. He still wanted to hear her say it. “Yes.” And she wasn’t lying, either, because she wasn’t remotely afraid of him. Not even when he had her pinned up against a wall, not even when his face was only inches away from hers.

He leaned forward.

She didn’t turn away.

Chuckling softly, he pulled back. “Then trust me.” He took his hands off her shoulders and stuck them in his pockets, starting down the hallway with a definite swagger in his step. “C’mon, babe, we’ve got a lot more rooms to get through.”

Still leaning up against the wall, Lady felt confused. Disoriented. Dizzy. She had no idea what had just happened, but she was suddenly irritated as hell.

He glanced over his shoulder. “You coming?”

“I—“ Scowling, she started walking and stormed past him. “I’m taking the lead,” she said, pulling out a pistol and checking the clip. She still had plenty of ammo, just like she had the last time she’d looked. “You can stand back, for once.”

“That's what I've been waiting for, Lady.”

And she couldn’t see him, but she could have sworn she heard the smile in his voice.

* * *

Devil May Cry - Degrees of Separation

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 17:48:19 GMT

Title: Degrees of Separation
Author: Britani Gael (sterlingsylver @ lj)
Fandom: Devil May Cry 3
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. What if Vergil had won the final fight in the Underworld, instead of Dante? What if he’d lost to Mundus anyway? Seven years after Devil May Cry 3, Vergil returns to the human world – and bring all sorts of problems, demons, and enemies with him.

Warnings: Some DxL history here, and also original characters.

* * *

Leaving the Tower was quickly becoming Vergil’s best option, and he was holding off on it as best as he could. His problems were here. His solutions were probably here. He enemies were here.

The library in Temen-Ni-Gru was the best source of information on the demonic, the magical, and the supernatural. He’d actually regretted not having time to stop there before, but the last time he’d been here he’d had other priorities – namely, finding Arkham before his idiot brother managed to die at the madman’s hands.

It hadn’t been out of kindness. Vergil wasn’t stupid: he’d known he didn’t have the strength to take on Sparda’s power alone.

Now he didn’t have to conquer Sparda’s power – he had it. He needed to control it.

He needed to do research, and that was why he was heading for the library. He just wished he was doing it alone.

Two paces behind him, the boy sighed.

“Make that noise again,” Vergil said, “and I will ensure you are unable to in the future.”

“My dad says it’s not nice to threaten people,” the boy said. “I know ‘cause one time my kinda cousin Jeremy stole my Wolverine and I found out and I told him I’d hit him a lot if he didn’t give it back, ‘cause I could ‘cause I’m a whole lot stronger than him, and I got in trouble and my dad said—“

Vergil stopped in the hall, and looked right and left, making double sure he knew where he was going. Getting lost with someone to witness it would be more than he could stand. “I tire of hearing about your father. And your mother.”

“How come you don’t like my dad? I don’t think you know him, his name is—“

“Do not finish that sentence.” The library should be up ahead. Probably. Damnit, he had just been here, and nothing had changed. Remembering shouldn’t be this difficult. “This way,” he muttered to himself.

The boy’s eyes lit up. “What’s that way?” he asked.

Vergil walked on without answering.

It didn’t matter – the boy followed him anyway. In fact, once they reached their destination the boy darted ahead and bolted through the doors. Vergil rolled his eyes before following.

Once he entered the library, he felt the dull rage grow.

He was going to have to change his plans.

The entire library was torched. Destroyed. Ruined. It looked like someone had set a bomb off in here – bookshelves were toppled and blasted. The walls were charred to the ceiling, scorch marks discolored the stone floor.

“This book was on fire,” the boy said, running up to him and holding out a book. He dropped the document in question, and it disintegrated when it hit the floor. “And that one, too. I think they all were on fire.”

“Yes,” Vergil said, through gritted teeth. “I can see that.”

“I was just saying—“

“Be quiet!”

This had obviously been deliberate – and it had happened after the last time he had passed through here. The library he remembered showed some signs of destruction – actually, it’d shown signs of Dante. Vergil could still see the bullet holes in the wall. But that hadn’t been like this. And as dearly as he wanted to blame his brother, he was an unlikely culprit.

“What are these books about, anyway?”

“Demons and horrors,” Vergil answered absently. Searching the library for some sort of answer had been his last recourse. Without an answer he could not use his father’s power, and without the power he could not defeat Mundus. He knew because he’d tried already.

The only thing the Force Edge had given him was just enough power to escape with his life.

He had fled.

“If you want to know about demons, you should talk to my mom and dad. They know lots and lots about demons, and monsters and stuff. Mom says when I’m older I can—“

“Mention your parents again, and their names will be the last words you speak.”

Maybe it was the chill in his voice, but the boy stopped talking, and Vergil’s threat hung in the air in absolute silence.

The boy’s shoulders shuddered violently, and he abruptly turned away, folding his arms across his chest.

This Verge had been prattling on consistently for about an hour, and though Vergil had tried to tune him out he had still learned far more than he’d wanted to about the boy. He was five. He enjoyed comic books. He lived with his mother and visited his father. He was instantly comfortably with Vergil on sight alone and smelled of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda.

Though in Vergil’s mind he had only been away from this tower for five days, it was quite clear that more time had passed in the human world. He could find out, he could simply ask the child for the year. He could ask the child for his father’s name.

He could – if he wanted to. If it would tell him anything he didn’t know already.

“If you know who my parents are,” the boy said, once he was finished hyperventilating, “you should let me go home.”

“I am hardly standing in your way.”

“I can’t go by myself. The demons will find me again and I’ll die. They’re looking for me, they said so when they—“ He broke off, shivering.

Children were so weak, it disgusted him. It reminded him that he’d been just that weak, once. “If it comforts you, I doubt your parents will miss you. After all, they looked after you so well the first time.”

The child burst into high pitched sobs.

Vergil glanced at the door, half-expecting a horde of demons to come bursting through, drawn by the noise. He considered cutting the child down and ending all of this – but he was only considering it in the abstract. He’d known for some time that he wasn’t going to kill the boy, just like he had never thought of killing that irritating little girl. Alice.

It’d hardly be sporting.

“If there are any demons about, you are going to bring them here,” Vergil said.

“It’s—it’s not Daddy’s fault—“ the boy choked out. “It was—I knew it was safe inside but I heard—“

“You willingly left the protection of your home?” Vergil asked coldly.

The child nodded, keeping his back to Vergil and picking at his ruined sleeves.

“Then you deserve what happened to you.”

Instead of upsetting the child further, Vergil’s words seemed to calm him down. The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve and turned back around. “I—I know,” he said, and nodded.

Now that the noise was gone, Vergil was better able to think.

Without the benefit of the library, he had no choice but to regroup and do his research elsewhere. There was only two places he’d known of in the world that had the information he was seeking – one such place was the Vatican. He’d gotten in there before, but now he didn’t have the time.

The second was the private library of Arkham.

It was unlikely that the books had survived, since it had seemed Arkham’s lunatic daughter made it through the ordeal. He doubted she would want to keep any reminder of her father around – and he could not blame her.

However, if the library had survived, it would be located in this city.

And if he did manage to find it, the odds of him running into that woman were quite high. And if she had remained friends with Dante over the… what? Months? Years?

He gave the boy a quizzical look.

The boy was still wiping his eyes, and he squirmed uncomfortably under Vergil’s glare. “What?”

“Nothing.” In any case, this Tower was the last place he needed to be. It was nearly night – he could pass through the city below unnoticed. He would have to. His current state of dress – the shredded clothes, the blood coated garments – meant he was ill-suited for civilization.

And since the boy would undoubtedly following him, he was suffering from a similar problem, as well. They would need the cover of darkness to pass unnoticed.

“I’m leaving,” Vergil said, turning towards the doorway. “If you intend to follow me, you had better not slow me down.”

“O… okay.” He nodded repeatedly. “I won’t, I promise.”

“Hn,” Vergil answered, and then he stalked off. If he was lucky, he would remember the shortest way out of this tower.

And if not, he would be walking in circles for a long time.

* * *

Mara woke up with a headache bad enough to kill.

She opened her eyes and tried to sit up. She couldn’t.

No wonder. She’d been beaten in the head about three times and shot today. It was really amazing she was still alive. But there was no reason why breathing was so damn hard. She inclined her head just a little bit, and then she looked down at herself.

“Motherfucker,” she shouted.

Ropes crisscrossed almost her entire body, wrapped like snakes around her feet, her ankles, her stomach and chest. Her arms were folded across her chest and tied there, her legs were tied together at the ankles and knees. The ropes were heavy, and scratchy, too.

Her eyes were about all that she could move; she rolled them around her head and saw nothing she hadn’t before. The room was practically empty and it was a total dump – the couch she was tied to was nasty and old. This place fucking smelled. God.

What the fuck. What the fucking fuck. What had she done to deserve this?

This closet of a room had no windows and the door was shut, but she could just barely turn her head enough to see the slivers of light that came in through the doorframe. It was daylight, and it symbolized freedom. Too bad she was wrapped like a mummy and tied to a fucking couch.

How had Houdini done it? Escaped from all those fancy traps? She’d read something about it in a Stephen King book about vampires but it’d been so long she’d forgotten the method. Books about monsters had become less appealing when she’d starting running into the things in real life.

Nothing was worse than that horrible lady with her demented eyes. Mara hated those eyes, they were creepy and she was pretty sure they’d started showing up in her nightmares. In fact, she could swear she’d seen them there before… Christ, maybe she was psychic now or something.

God, she was seriously about to cry. She just wanted to get out of here. She needed to get the fuck out of here.

Was running really the answer? Fuck yes. That woman and her albino boyfriend were clearly psychopaths, and Mara needed to flee just as soon as she was able. And yet. She wasn’t quite ready to live the rest of her life sleeping with one eye open, waiting for—for freaking Beatrix Kiddo to come barging into her life straight out of a nightmare sequence. Only with more weapons, and less blonde.

Mara, she would say. You and I have unfinished business. Her freaky eyes would have an evil glint, and Mara would be helpless against her onslaught – and against her rocket-on-‘roids. She would make a moving and futile speech for her life, and the lady would shoot her into tiny bloody pieces.

No, chop. Beatrix Kiddo-style.

And scary as the lady was, her boyfriend was about a hundred percent more frightening than her. Mara had seen him take about five steps and that was enough to know he moved like a predator – his hair was too white and his eyes were too blue, something about him was off. That was how she knew he was the father of the Kiddo’s son, she’d seen the kid once and he had the same blue eyes. And cheek bones. And they shrugged in exactly the same way.

Mara might be hyper observant, but that was going to do about jack shit for saving her life.

Her powers mostly worked by reflex – until the lady started hunting her she’d never really thought about them. She’d thought maybe she was telekinetic, but no. And she couldn’t fly. She couldn’t move anything except herself and anything she happened to be holding and she couldn’t teleport either. It was just… magic. Fucking magic. And she was beginning to suspect that was the lady’s entire interest in her.

Oh, and also the reward. But, shit, if it was just money Mara sure as hell could steal enough to double it. No price on her life, no way.

She started struggling – which really meant wiggling around just the little bit she could manage. She was at that for about thirty seconds, when one of the ropes wrapped around her chest slipped up around her neck.

She froze.

“I will fucking kill you!” she yelled.

The building was empty. She would have heard something by now.

“Fucking kill you!”

The second there was a way out, she was so out of here. She’d move to Canada. Mexico. Whatever.

“I hate my life!”

There was no way she deserved this. No one on this planet deserved this. Adolf Hitler didn’t deserve this. Genghis Khan didn’t deserve this. Marilyn Manson didn’t deserve this. Mara was sure she wasn’t thinking of the right name on that one, but whatever. He didn’t deserve it either.

“I’m going to get out of here eventually!”

She hoped that little kid got his brains eaten out. That’d teach ‘em.

* * *

“Oh my, what an adorable little boy,” the old woman cooed from the doorway, bending down and grinning like an idiot. “He looks just like you, yes he—“

Getting here had taken several hours on foot – and getting out of the tower had taken most of that time. Lucky for them most of the demons had retreated with Sergius. Or more likely, they weren’t in the Tower because they were combing the city, looking for him.

Vergil remembered this old haunt as a place to trade rumors and information regarding the Underworld and the occult; it hardly seemed to have changed, and yet it was something of a switch, coming in here with a… toddler in tow. “It’s not mine,” he snapped. Don’t even suggest it. “I’m here for information, information regarding—“

“I’m not it,” the boy said.

Vergil glared, and then cuffed him in the back of the head. “Do not interrupt me.”

“Ow!” the boy whined, much more dramatically than was necessary, because in truth Vergil had hardly touched him. “That hurt!”

The woman gasped. And then she scowled. “How dare you treat your own son like that!”

This was a hindrance he had not been anticipating. He was never going to convince her that the boy was not his son. And could he really blame her? A DNA test would almost certainly agree. And why else would he be traveling with a child, at this hour? Thinking of it in those terms, claiming the boy as his son might be the preferable option. Pity he had no intentions of doing so.

“The child is not mine, and I’m looking for—“

She slammed the door in his face.

Vergil jerked back, narrowly avoiding getting his nose broken. He could hear the woman ranting on the other side, and he glared down at the child. “I do hope you have a home to go to.”

“I don’t know where we are.”

“I fail to understand why that has suddenly become my—“

The door swung open.

An elderly man stood in the doorway, his head lowered. “I apologize,” he said. “My sister can be a little—“

“I don’t care,” Vergil snapped. “I’m looking for information about a man named Arkham, and if you don’t know anything then I’m wasting my time here.”

The man beckoned Vergil with his hand. “Yes, yes. Come this way.”

Vergil paused warily, but beside him the boy darted forward, so eagerly trusting that Vergil had to fight not to roll his eyes. He followed them both, eyeing the bar as they passed through it. It was a seedy place, full of drunkards and half-naked woman – the kind of place he could imagine his brother enjoying.

Vergil cursed under his breath. If Dante intruded unwanted in his thoughts again, he was going to be punished most severely. In the unlikely event their paths crossed.

“Where are we going?” the boy asked.

Vergil started to tell the boy to shut his mouth, but the old man spoke first. “I have a quiet room in the back, where we can talk.”

Vergil’s skin prickled with suspicion, but he remained silent. This couple was probably little more than human, and even if they weren’t the odds that they could pose a threat was than unlikely.

They were escorted to a small hallway that looked like it led to the bathrooms, but the old man opened a door, revealing a tiny meeting room, complete with a table and several chairs. A young man was waiting in there for them, standing in the corner of the room with his arms crossed.

Vergil was uncomfortably aware of how closely the boy was standing next to him as they entered the room, and the young man smiled at them as they entered. “Hello, there,” he said. “Cute kid.”

The old man locked the door behind them, and Vergil felt the boy tense up. So he wasn’t stupid, that was refreshing. “Chase,” the old man said, referring to the younger man already standing in the room, “have you—“

“I’ve got this, Dad,” Chase snapped. He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small handgun, which he calmly pointed at Vergil’s head.

An entire family. Beautiful.

Vergil stood up, sneering at the weapon. In Dante’s hands firearms were a formidable weapon – in anyone else’s they became nothing more than a human trifling. “It’s time for us to leave, now.”

“Not quite,” Chase said. “It’s like this – an old guy offered us quite a sum of money if we could give him anything on a guy matching your description.”

“Wonderful,” Vergil said. Sergius, doubtless. That would be why he had assumed human form – to better move among humans and collect information.

“And I bet if we came up with the guy himself, we’d be able to bargain for even more.”

“A logical conclusion,” Vergil replied, evenly.

“If you’re willing to beat his price, though, we can talk business.”

Vergil cast his eyes around the room, then he lowered his eyes. “As you wish. We can talk… business.”

Vergil drew his sword and cut so cleanly the young man never saw the attack coming; his decapitated head hit the table with a disgusting smack. The old man’s eyes widened – he had time to do nothing else – and Vergil hurled the Yamato across the room, impaling him through his chest, against the wall.

“Trash,” Vergil said, retrieving his sword. The body slumped to the ground. “Let’s go.”

Getting no response, he turned around.

The boy was standing stock still, much as he had on their first encounter. His eyes wide, and despite that his face was expressionless. He was staring right at the dead body of the old man. “You—you killed them.”

“Obviously.”

“But—but—“ Tears were welling up in his eyes.

Vergil did not have the time for this – and he would never have the patience. “You have two options,” Vergil said. “You can stay here, or you can come with me. Those are your only choices.”

“I’ll… go with you. But—“

“Very well,” Vergil said, stepping towards the door and opening it. The old lady was standing on the other side, and when she saw the scene behind it she started screaming.

“Oh my God! Oh my God, you—“

The entire bar turned around, and again the boy started crying, covering his hands with his face and stumbling the way he thought Vergil was. He was almost correct, close enough that Vergil reached out, grabbing his shoulder and steering him in the right direction. He shoved past the old lady.

No one else in the bar moved to stop them. Obviously, no one else cared, and they left her alone to sob in her grief.

He shoved the boy out the door and slammed the door shut behind them.

“Wh—where are we going now?”

“I don’t know,” Vergil responded. And the truth was, honestly, he didn’t. He did know what his first order of business was – he needed to get rid of this child, immediately.

* * *

Devil May Cry - Best Unasked

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 04:49:01 GMT

Fandom: Devil May Cry
Title: Best Unasked
Author: Britani Gael
Theme: #35; memory; photo; for 30_romances
Pairing/Characters: Dante/Lady
Rating: G

* * *

“Who’s this?”

It’s the first time she’s ever seen Dante freeze up, and he doesn’t do it with style, unlike everything else he does. He stares at her for almost a solid second with his mouth open, and then he grabs the picture out of her hands. “Nobody,” he says.

Lady cocks her head and looks at him. “Dante, I think you’re lying to—“

His face stops her.

He sets the frame carefully back onto the desk, and makes sure the woman in the picture is facing away from her when he does so. “It’s… not you,” he says, lamely. “I just—“

“You promised me dinner,” she interrupts, crossing her arms and tapping her foot. She’s already decided to change the subject; in fact, she wishes she’d never brought it up at all. They both have pasts better left buried, and Lady’s the last one who would ever pry into his. “We’re running half an hour late already.”

His relief is obvious – Dante loves attention, but getting put on the spot is something entirely different. He grabs his coat off the back of his chair, shrugs into it, and holsters both pistols with his usual flair. Heaven forbid he go anywhere unarmed, though Lady is hardly one to talk. She has a nine millimeter strapped to her thigh, under her skirt, and she knows the most dangerous thing they’re going to encounter tonight is cheap Italian food.

Seeing that he’s finally gotten the lead out, she turns towards the door. She’s reaching for the door when she’s jerked to a stop, halted by Dante’s arms snaking around her waist and across her shoulders, pulling her against him in a possessive bear hug. He rests his chin on her head, and they stand there.

He has her effectively pinned, and she looks up at him, annoyed. His eyes are closed. “What?” she asks.

“Thanks,” he says. “For, you know, not asking.”

“Hey,” she responds. “I have a dysfunctional family, too, remember?”

* * *

1character; Lady

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 22:43:48 GMT

Title: Maybe In Another Life
Fandom: Devil May Cry
Character: Lady
Theme Set: Zeta
Disclaimer: Capcom owns Lady and Dante and Vergil and Devil May Cry. I am practicing run on sentences now, since I suspect I’ll be abusing them for the challenge.

01. Swords
She never used a sword, not once – she couldn’t afford the time it would take to train in its use, she didn’t have the upper body strength to wield it effectively, and she had no intentions of being second best at something else.

02. Sorcery
Lady wanted to believe it was magic that turned her father evil, that he’d been seduced by the dark arts; in the end she had to accept that it was just him, and he’d been there all along.

03. Rogue
He’d offered to work as her partner, and though she’d hated to do it she’d had no choice but to turn him down – Dante didn’t and never would need her, and she worked alone.

04. Parti-colored
If she could change anything about herself she wouldn’t erase the scars, she’d change her eyes; they were the last thing that tied her to him, and ensured she would never be able to blend into a crowd.

05. Divination
Lady asked the fortune teller for a palm reading and the old woman stared at her hand with a puzzled face; the lines spoke of no family, no grand adventures, no lovers, no children – and even when pressed, the woman refused to say what she saw in Lady’s future.

06. Pillory
“Kinky,” Dante said when he found her, tied up and chained down in the lowest dungeon, and she shouted him to shove it and get her down – she was only supposed to be the bait here, but she was eager to get her hands on Kalina Ann and start kicking some demon ass.

07. Chant
Every morning she woke up with her new name on her lips – a reminder that she’d left her old life behind, even if she’d spent the night seeing it in her nightmares.

08. Castle
There weren’t any demons in this castle, there weren’t even any ghosts; it was Lady’s idea to set off the grenades and holy waters anyway, and bill the owner in full.

09. Brocade
An elaborate tapestry in the hallway had caught her eyes, and she’d stood staring at it while the demons snuck up on her from behind; after saving her life, Dante cheerfully informed her that she had gotten caught in a glamour spell, and that he was, of course, immune.

10. Priestess
She was descended from a legend in a fairy tale, and her blood had the power to release the demon world – try as she might to save humanity from evil, she knew that the best favor she could do for the world was to end her bloodline and die.

11. Dark Knight
Way back when, she’d seen him around her house – Vergil was a cold man with haunting eyes, and Mary was a little girl he hadn’t even noticed – and if only she’d known what he was, if she’d had any warning at all, then none of this might have happened.

12. Evocation
She’d heard some terrible sounds in her life, she’d had to listen to demons scream and humans die, but nothing had ever chilled her as much as the voice of her father: “Let’s welcome chaos.”

13. Market
Lady spent the morning lecturing Dante about the disorder of his home, the piles of laundry on his floor, the papers on his desk, and the fact that he had nothing to eat except old pizza; she was shocked to find herself doing his shopping for him that afternoon.

14. Ordeal by Fire
The nitro for her bike had been a smart purchase, it gave her an explosive weapon and the bursts of speeds had saved her life more than once; all of that was forgotten, however, the one time she’d accidentally set her skirt on fire.

15. Ordeal by Water
She’d nearly drowned with a lesser demon caught her by the leg and dragged her under the surface, and Dante had watched the scene without even bothering to conceal his laughter; until that moment she’d forgotten he was only half human, and he’d forgotten the water could actually kill her.

16. Dragon
Lady didn’t care much for material things but she guarded Kalina Ann like a dragon; it meant more to her than most could understand, because it wasn’t just a weapon, it was her mother.

17. Giant
The demon looked massive, intimidating, monstrous, and she was clearly out of her league – but it’d only taken one rocket from Kalina Ann to bring it to its knees.

18. Trickster
After all the years of training and all the blood shed, it’d taken only cheap theatrics and a lie and a name to turn her around – she couldn’t believe she’d been tricked again.

19. Dungeon
Lady was far from stupid, but the complexity of this dungeon was turning her in circles; she gave up and knelt down on the ground, and after making sure no one was looking, she drew a map in the dirt with her fingers.

20. Scroll
The scroll she found was quite a find, the ancient text was filled with arcane symbols and promises of great power at greater prices; Lady felt no remorse as she watched it burn.

21. Elemental
First the dragon shot fire at her, and then ice, and then fire, looking for her weakness – Lady crouched behind the boulder she’d turned into a shield and wondered when this creature would figure out she was human, and therefore weak against everything.

22. Ale
Lady couldn’t hold her liquor and she knew it, and it wasn’t because she was a woman and it wasn’t because of her small frame – she just didn’t get any practice, because she didn’t see the appeal in drinking alone.

23. Stew
She could cook exactly three meals: spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni and cheese, and a thick meat stew – and if Dante didn’t like it, he could find someone else to mooch off of.

24. Staff
Demon hunting didn’t always pay well, and occasionally Lady had to find other work to pay the bills; she got fired every time, but in her world any man who grabbed her ass deserved hot coffee in his lap.

25. Lore
She’d heard the story so many times but until she met Dante she’d been sure Sparda was a myth; if a legend could be truth, then maybe putting her faith in a hero wasn’t so stupid after all.

26. Artifact
It was an antique, an ancient cruiser and she knew she was nuts to trust it – but once she’d paid for the modifications and paint and seen the final result, Lady told herself it would take an army to separate her from her motorcycle.

27. Guild
The invite didn’t come in the mail, it was written in blood and it had been slid under her door; how many rejections would it take before these guys realized she had no intentions of joining any kind of “crew?”

28. Lantern
She cursed when her lantern smashed, and then she fell completely silent – now she couldn’t see her enemies, but the demons could still hear and smell her.

29. Chest
Her new work outfit was primarily practical, the tight body suit gave her freedom of movement and it didn’t get in her way – and yes, she knew how good she looked in it, thank you very much.

30. Alchemy
No one ever suspected Lady had a knack for things mechanical; she’d done all the work on her bike and her rocket launcher herself, because these things meant her life and she couldn’t trust anyone else.

31. Potion
She hesitated before she drank it; they’d told her it would make her stronger and faster, but how many steps was it from this to turning into her father?

32. Doppelganger
She hadn’t noticed the similarities until Vergil stared right at her and called her a fool; on reflection she had to wonder why the eyes of the elder twin had seemed so young, and why the younger’s eyes looked so old.

33. Arrow
It was an arrow to her thigh, of course it hurt, but the job wasn’t done yet, so she had no choice but to snap off the shaft and bandage it up; she could only run with a limp, but that was still running.

34. Map
She’d been lost for hours, so either the crudely hand drawn map was dead wrong, or the true directions were obscured by the pizza sauce stains; either way, if she ever managed to find this shop, Dante was going to wish she hadn’t.

35. Coin
She finished the job in record time, by herself and the only property damage had been a busted window; but when it came time to collect her paycheck she just didn’t have the heart to charge the old widow a single cent.

36. Crusade
Kill all demons, that was her reason for living – and sometimes, late at night, she had to wonder how long it would be before she didn’t have anything left except a mission.

37. Witch
She didn’t know a single magic spell and they still called her witch; Lady had no idea why they didn’t just go all the way and call her a bitch.

38. Duel
She was fighting him with everything she had, she was pulling out every trick she knew – and one glance at his smirking face told her that this was just a game, and she was not a challenge.

39. Boots
She tried tennis shoes once – the leaping and falling were starting to get to her knees – but one slip in a puddle of blood, and she was back to her faithful boots.

40. Chalice
Once she figured out the puzzle of this room she grimaced, but she rolled up her sleeve without complaint – demons were always thirsty for her blood, but filling a chalice with the stuff brought back some painful memories.

41. Offering
She’d asked him, once, why on Earth he would try and kiss her; a shrug was the only answer he offered.

42. Sacrifice
She’d given him her most prized possession when she didn’t even think he was coming back; it wasn’t really a sacrifice, because if he didn’t succeed, did any of this matter?

43. Stained Glass
She didn’t know what had happened, she remembered she’d gone flying – it wasn’t until she looked around and saw the blood and broken glass that she realized she was bleeding to death.

44. Diadem
She’d found the delicate silver crown in a hoard and kept it in her apartment for years; keeping it had been theft and it was probably cursed anyway, but putting it on her head was the only thing that made her actually feel pretty.

45. Epic
Her life was one adventure after another, one mission after the next, and every decision she made had the potential to change her life or end it; sometimes, Lady wished she could just be normal.

46. King
He wanted to be king of all the world and everyone in it; though her heard ached for Dante, she was glad Vergil was dead.

47. Servant
She was spitting blood when she heard his offer, and if she wasn’t in so much pain she would have laughed – Lady was no one’s servant, not even when the price was her life.

48. Fae
The people in this village called them faeries but Lady could tell a demon when she saw it – maybe the tiny wings threw everyone else off, but these creatures had little horns on the tops of their heads and were armed with canine teeth.

49. Prophesy
After her father’s death she found translations of the Demon Sword Document hidden in his things; on the third page it spoke of needing the blood of the vengeful maiden, and she knew she was reading about herself.

50. Destiny
It’d been such a routine mission, and it seemed so stupid, but as she watched the blood flow from the deep wound in her side Lady had no regrets; this had been her life, she’d known what she was doing, and it wasn’t like she had a home to return to, anyway.

Devil May Cry - Degrees of Separation

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 19:53:01 GMT

Title: Degrees of Separation
Author: Britani Gael (sterlingsylver @ lj)
Fandom: Devil May Cry 3
Rating: PG-13
Summary: AU. What if Vergil had won the final fight in the Underworld, instead of Dante? What if he’d lost to Mundus anyway? Seven years after Devil May Cry 3, Vergil returns to the human world – and bring all sorts of problems, demons, and enemies with him.

Warnings: Some DxL history here, and also original characters.

* * *

“What is this?”

The man stood in the center of the room, with thick black hair rolling down his back and dressed in a crisp white suit. Vergil had never seen the form, but he recognized the man anyway – Sergius.

Even as a human, he was a hideous creature.

“What is this?” Sergius bellowed, and the throngs of demons surrounding him shifted and cringed. “You search for hours, and this is what you bring me?”

The room was one Vergil had not yet seen, it was built like a cathedral with high, ornate ceilings and elaborate statues everywhere. The white demons stayed on the ground, close to their master, while Pride demons clung to the ceiling and shrieked.

It was a messy scene. Ironic that Vergil could stand here in the center of it all, when it appeared that the object of the search was, in fact, himself. The demons directly next to him paid him no attention, though Vergil was fairly certain that if they had been armed with scythes that story might be different.

Hiding in the demons was the perfect plan, really, since it made him difficult for Sergius to see, and impossible to sense. Not with all these demons present.

“I send you after the spawn of Sparda!”

Vergil snapped to attention. With a search parameter like that – he pushed through the crowd, trying to get a better view.

“I send you after the spawn of Sparda and you return with this—this useless human garbage! Is this what you think I wanted? Is it?”

Crouched in front of Sergius was a small figure, shivering. The devil lashed out with a brutal kick, knocking the figure backwards, and the child crumpled silently to the ground. Vergil felt his disgust with Sergius growing; he knew the devil was a cowardly opponent, and apparently attacking a human child was not even beneath him.

“This—“ He kicked again, and this time the child cried out. “Get rid of this, and then I want you to tear this entire city apart. Do you understand?”

Of course. There had been few demons in the tower, because Sergius had assumed Vergil immediately fled.

Imbecile.

Vergil shoved his way to the front of the crowd.

“I will send you out and you will bring me what Mundus wants. Do you—“ Kick. “—understand me?”

The child started crying.

“—Mund—uus—serv—“

“—F—F—Find—“

“—Kii—kill—the—chi—chi—iild—“

“Sergius,” Vergil said, loudly, taking his place right in front of the rows of demons. “I see you’re as unable to take care of your own business as I imagined you were.”

The child, a human boy, jumped to his feet at the sight of him. A white demon caught him by the shoulder and forced him down on his knees, the claws bit into his shoulder and the blood flowed freely. He whimpered.

Sergius stared at him for a moment. Then he laughed. “Vergil, I thought you’d come back.”

“You certainly did not,” Vergil scoffed.

“Nonetheless, it fits into my plans nicely.”

Vergil doubted that, too. Sergius anticipated battles like he would fight them – by trickery, overwhelming his opponents, and, when the going got tough, fleeing. Catching Sergius by surprise might have been the best thing to happen to Vergil in an entire week.

He rolled forward to avoid the pride demons that had launched themselves at his back. A swing of Yamato cut them down, and he didn’t even bother looking.

Then a set of claws hooked on the heavy sword strapped to his back.

The weight sent him to his knees – down on his knees in front of Sergius – and he reflexively summoned his ghostly swords. They pierced his back, destroying the demon and driving sand into the wounds, and he ground his teeth.

The white demons took that opportunity to swarm.

The fought with their teeth, and they were damn heavy. He needed his hands to get back on his feet, all the while the things were tearing his coat and flesh. When he shoved himself back up he swung his sword wildly. Almost desperately.

No, not desperately.

The demons fell around him, their blood soaked his clothes and his hair. He could smell it.

Sergius was within ten feet of him. He smiled. “There’s a great power, there,” he said, and he was talking about the heavy sword. “Why don’t you use it, Vergil?”

“I don’t think I need to,” Vergil replied. “Not to deal with you.”

Sergius laughed out loud.

He decapitated the demon that was holding the boy, and the row of white freaks that stood behind him. The boy fell forward with a gasp, and again jumped to his feet.

Vergil turned to face Sergius. “This is your lucky day,” he said over his shoulder. “You can run, now.”

The boy stood staring, his eyes wide and his hands shaking. Whatever Sergius had said, he looked completely human and utterly useless. Vergil turned back towards the mess of demons, resting his fingers lightly on the hilt of the Yamato. “I’ve caught you, Sergius,” he said. “Unless you’re going to run. Again.”

The devil gave a raspy laugh, and the demons surged in front of him. Of course he was going to run. He’d have a portal open before Vergil could cut down half of his minions.

Gritting his teeth, he adjusted his stance. He was going to take them all on.

“Daddy!” The boy grabbed onto his coat and buried his face there. Vergil looked down in horror, prepared to peel or beat the child off – but then the second wave came from above, and he did not have time.

He swung his sheath in a vicious circle over his head, clubbing the demons out of striking range.

He grabbed the child by the hair and shoved him to the ground at his feet.

Then he drew his sword.

He wanted to take them all on; he wanted them to taste their own blood before they died at his hands, individually. Screaming. But a tiny voice told him he didn’t have the strength to carry on that long. It was a voice he generally ignored.

Now he was getting that message from every muscle in his body. The child’s interference had given him the second he needed to realize that if he didn’t end this battle now it was going to end in his defeat.

That was not acceptable.

His fingers curled around his sword, and he concentrated. The demons were almost on him. They seemed to be moving in slow motion.

He concentrated, and at the last second he smiled.

“—Die.”

It took a burst of strength, being everywhere at once. He cut through the air at a speed faster than he could think, his enemies falling from his blows even as he was two, three opponents beyond them. The effects of Judgment Cut were still rippling through the air when he landed, and he landed hard.

Three seconds, and more than a third of Sergius’ minions were dead.

The rest were fleeing, tearing into a series of portals behind their master. They had no way of knowing that the massive attack could well be the last Vergil was capable of. That if they continued their onslaught now, he would die.

Sergius was glowering at him, his eyes a deadly red. “We will finish this later, traitor’s son.” The last of the demons had nearly vanished, Sergius was clearly giving them orders of a sort with his mind.

“We could finish this now,” Vergil shouted. He tasted copper and spat on the ground, hoping he was bleeding in his mouth and not internally.

Nothing was healing like it should.

“I fight on my own terms,” Sergius said.

“As do I.”

“Your long dead master kept you in the dark about many things,” Sergius said. “You don’t have the strength to use your father’s power.” And he vanished into the portal, taking the last of the demons with him.

Vergil charged after him, but that was a reflex, and he stopped after a step. Sergius was long gone, and now there wasn’t anything to be done except wait for him to appear again. Next time, next time he would be ready, he would—

“Um, mister?”

Vergil spun hard, wincing as he did, even though his instincts told him there was no threat. And, sure enough, there wasn’t. Instead, the child was sitting perched on a pile of rocks. The boy flinched at his sudden movement, but relaxed. And then he jumped to his feet, just like he’d done before.

“Um, thank you for saving me before, and I was wondering where are we, ‘cause—“

“You aren’t any use to me,” Vergil said. “Shut up.”

The boy sighed. He was injured, bleeding. His clothing was destroyed. But the wounds across his torso were superficial, and apart from them the boy appeared completely healthy. That was odd, because he’d been in the care of demons for hours, at least. “You saved me, anyway,” he said.

Vergil sneered. “It’s a decision I’m coming to regret.”

The boy was young, yes, maybe six. Even so, he couldn’t have missed the tone in Vergil’s voice. He just didn’t seem to care. “Um,” he said. “You looked really strong killing all those demons. My mom is really strong too, and I’ve never seen my dad fighting, but—“

“Be quiet.”

The boy sighed heavily, again, and sat back down.

Sergius had escaped again, and Vergil had lost track of how many times this was. All of Mundus’ minions caused him problems; Sergius was easily the most irritating. Vergil had defeated thousands of demons under his control, but had yet to cross swords with the devil himself.

And for the last five days, Sergius’ sole reason for living had been to make Vergil’s life a living hell.

Vergil couldn’t guess what Sergius’ purposes for the boy had been. But it was quite clear that he didn’t resemble anyone Vergil knew – and he found the fact quite reassuring.

Unfortunate that the boy took that glance as permission to speak.

“Mister?” he said, standing up again. “Um, who are you? I never heard of you, but you really look like—“

“I’m no one you know.” Demons were still about, he could feel and smell them. If he left alone, the child would die. It was as simple as that, and certainly not his problem.

“My name’s Verge,” the boy continued. He might have seemed calm, if he wasn’t speaking so fast he was almost impossible to understand. His hands were still shaking, beads of sweat were forming on his face. “Are you sure you don’t know my dad? He’s got hair that’s white just like yours, even though he’s not old, and you aren’t old either, and anyway—“

“Verge,” Vergil repeated.

“It’s short,” the boy said. “My dad doesn’t like my whole name so he never ever calls me it, and no one else does either. They call me Verge or V or,” his voice took on a tone of haughty irritation, “kid. I told Dad I don’t like it but he does it anyway, and—“

“I don’t care,” Vergil interrupted. He didn’t plan on having the child around long enough to have to call him any name at all.

“Oh.” The boy sat back down on his rock and frowned. “It’s okay, everyone says I talk too much, even Mom doesn’t listen to me sometimes… Can I go home now?”

“I don’t see how that has anything to do with me.”

“Oh.” He hung his head miserably. “Oh.”

Vergil looked at the child for a second. He didn’t feel a trace of pity for him; in fact, there was something about his mannerisms that irritated Vergil on a disturbingly deep level. He turned to leave without a word, and heard the child gasp behind him.

“Are you leaving now?” the boy asked.

“I would think that was abundantly clear.”

“Can I—Can I follow you?”

Vergil snorted. “I seriously doubt you can keep up.”

In a second he would realize he had given the child permission – but that was a second too late.

* * *

Lady gave Dante about thirty minutes of silence. Maybe forty. Then she couldn’t stand doing nothing anymore. “I’m going to wake up Mara.”

Dante crossed his arms and peered down at their hostage, who was looking pretty pale. “So the shock wore off, along with all of the painkillers?” he asked.

“I didn’t give her any painkillers.”

Dante wondered how he felt about that. Not great, but not all that broken up, either. He reached back and pulled out Ivory, which he trained on the girl’s head. That didn’t make him feel bad, either. “You said she wasn’t dangerous, right?”

“Not to us. But she stands a good chance of getting away, again, so we might have to shoot her.”

“Because she can fly.”

“She can’t fly. It’s more like...” She paused. “Do you remember—” She trailed off and shook her head. “Never mind.”

He opened his mouth to ask her about that, but Lady was already bent over the girl, shaking her roughly by the shoulder.

Mara groaned. “Go... away...”

“Mara, you have to wake up, now.” She looked at Dante. “You’re silent coercion, Dante. Silent. That means you don’t say anything.”

“Yeah, Lady, I get it.” He resented the implications there, but knew when to shut up.

She shook Mara again. “Mara!”

“Shut up.” The girl sat up partially, and blinked at them blearily. “You’re not my mother. My mother is nicer than you. You’re—“ She blinked extra-hard at Lady. “Oh, God, you’re you.”

Lady sat down at the edge of the bed. She still had a gun curled in her hand, which made the gesture a lot more threatening than maternal. “Mara, we need to talk.”

Dante tried to loom menacingly. He didn’t think he was very good at it, but that didn’t seem to matter. Mara was already so incredibly and obviously terrified of Lady no silent coercion was needed.

Mara covered her eyes with her hands. “You shot me, you psycho bitch. You shot me and now I’m going to die.”

“You’re not going to die, kid,” Dante said. Lady glared at him. “Fine, I’ll shut up.”

“I know I’m not going to die,” Mara snapped. “But it hurts like hell. What, lady, you couldn’t spring for some fucking Tylenol?”

“The gunshot wound isn’t that big of deal,” Lady explained calmly. “It was the blow to the head that knocked you out.”

“Oh. Oh.” Mara probably hadn’t realized how much her head hurt, distracted by the sharp pain in her thigh. But now she was rubbing her temples and whining even more.

Lady had a way with people that reminded Dante of, well, his brother. Striking up a conversation with either was a good way to get yourself killed, and watching them try and converse with someone was pretty painful. Lady probably had no idea she was doing such a bang up job, and as long as she was hanging onto her nine millimeter he wasn’t about to explain, even if she did have it pointed at the ground.

“Mara,” Lady said. “You told me something before we were attacked.”

Mara sank down into the couch. “I wasn’t attacked. I was sleeping in a warehouse.”

“Fine, when I was attacked—“

“I want to go back to sleep.” She meant it, too, her eyes were starting to drift shut. “Your sofa smells funny.”

“Mara!”

“Hnn?”

“You said someone was following me!”

Mara opened her eyes. “Thought I said I was following you.” She rolled her eyes up at Dante, and gave him a funny look. “Hey, your finger isn’t on the trigger, is it?”

It wasn’t.

Mara flipped up off her hands and landed on the wall, like an insect. And like an insect she scrambled across the wall on her hands and knees and made it through the doorframe and into the next room, where Dante heard her tumble to the floor.

“Dante,” Lady yelled. “Go after her!”

“What? It’s not like she’s going to get far.”

“Hey!” the girl called. “I bet I’m faster than you’d think!”

And her voice did sound farther away than Dante expected her to be, so he grabbed Ebony and ducked into his office.

Mara was limping and hobbling, all right, but she wasn’t doing it across the floor, she was on the ceiling, and making good time, too. She kind of yelled when she saw him, or maybe she saw Lady behind him, and then she tripped over his ceiling fan and fell flat on her face. On the ceiling.

And then gravity went back to normal and she fell on the floor.

Dante was feeling pretty relieved that he didn’t have to shoot up his own shop, but then Lady shoved right by him with murder of her face. Mara knew what was coming because she turned her head just in time to avoid getting kicked in the face.

She caught it in the head, though. “Ow, stop it!”

“Mara, those demons that were following me? They came back here and kidnapped my son. So you’re going to tell me everything you know about them, or I’m going to—“

“Kill me. Yeah. Ow.” She lay back down on the ground. “But if I do, you’re going to let me go.”

Dante was about to agree with her, wholeheartedly, but Lady was already shaking her head. “Mara,” she said, “I’m afraid—“

“No more stalking. No more bounties. No more fucking shooting. I never want to see you again. Okay? Okay?”

“All right,” Lady said, too quickly, because she was lying. She wasn’t very good at it, and pretty obvious. Dante wondered what the hell she was doing, because it was obvious Mara wasn’t going to buy it.

“It’s mostly those freaks with the big heads you saw, remember?” Mara said, talking to Lady. Dante guessed Mara did buy it. “They’ve been crawling all over the whole damn city, not just after you. And I don’t think they fight, they just look for stuff.”

“They didn’t mind you following them?”

Mara rolled her eyes. “You guys are fucking retards. They aren’t looking for me, they’re looking for S—Spa—Spaar—“

“I get the point,” Lady snapped.

“So they could care less what I do. Very single minded. Kinda like your almost mute boyfriend with the forty-five.”

Ebony and Ivory weren’t forty-fives. Not by a long shot. But if Lady was willing to let the boyfriend thing slide, Dante guessed he could stand to let Mara get away with that, too.

“What about the wards?” Lady asked. “This entire house was layered in them, and the monsters still got around them.”

“And I don’t know how they got past your stupid wards. People set those up for me all the time and they never freaking do anything.”

“They’re for demons, that’s why.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about them. Hey, maybe your kid just got up and walked out the front door? Don’t ask me, I don’t know.”

Lady stopped at that, and she spun on her heel and glared at Dante.

“What?”

No answer.

“He didn’t sneak out, Lady.”

No answer.

“Jesus Christ, Lady, you think I would let him just walk out into this part of the city? What kind of father do you think I am?”

“A lousy one, obviously,” Mara said. “And, hello, I’ve got one more thing to tell you.”

“What?” Dante and Lady said in unison.

“The freaky demons have a leader, guys.” She started to get to her feet. “A really ugly guy, looks like he’s human but dollars to donuts he’s not. They call him S–Se–Serg–“

“Mara!”

“Sergius! They call him Sergius!” She stood up straight, Dante suspected she managed it with some help with her powers. Her hair was doing funny things around her head. “That’s all I know, that’s all I fucking know. Can I go now?”

She was telling the truth, and that sucked because she hadn’t given them near enough. Dante sighed, and then he put his guns away. “All right, I guess you can.”

Lady nodded. Then she flipped her gun in her hand and smashed Mara in the temple with the butt end of it.

The girl fell back and cracked her head hard on the wood floor, arms and legs spread out like a kid making angels in the snow. Dante puzzled at that for a second, scratching the back of his head.

“Funny,” he said. “How come I say she can leave, and you hit her in the head until she stops moving?”

Lady ignored her. Mara was a tiny thing, so Lady could pick her up pretty easy, and she carried the girl back into the guest room. “We’ll be gone when she wakes up,” she was saying. “We should tie her down or something, so she won’t get away.”

“Uh, Lady?”

“We have a name. I can try to research it, and we can both see if we can find anything about these demon attacks. It’s not much, but we have a name now and—“ She dumped Mara on the couch.

Something else was going on here, and Dante was pretty sure he needed to find out what it was, and quick.

“Dante, are you going to help me tie her down, or are you going to keep staring?”

He rubbed his temples. “Rope’s in the closet.”

He would find out. Just… later

For now, he was going to be killing demons.

* * *

Devil May Cry - Degrees of Separation

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 03:12:09 GMT

Versus - The Beginning/End/Beginning of It

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 07:09:56 GMT

Title: The Beginning/End/Beginning of It
Author: Britani Gael (sterlingsylver @ lj)
Fandom: The Ultimate Versus
Rating: R; violence and implied rape
Summary: [VERSUS]; After surviving the forest, Prisoner KCS2-303 starts down the path of destruction.

* * *

nanimo omoidasenai

He couldn't see – the blood ran into his eyes, thick and smooth, it burned and he blinked and he still couldn't see. But he could hear, no matter how hard he tried to block out the screams, he could still hear.

"Shut up," he shouted. At her or at them, he didn't know. He lunged forward with one fist and hit nothing; they laughed at his lumbering attempts to fight blind. "Knock it off!"

A fist connected with his face. He hit the ground, hard, colors flashed behind his eyelids as his skull smashed against concrete. They kept laughing. She kept screaming.

Less, now.

He'd never seen them before, not until fifteen minutes ago. He'd never see them again. They were finishing with her, they'd gotten what they wanted. Her cries faded into soft whimpering.

The laughing didn't fade. Another kick, a harsh one to his ribs. He never lost but he'd lost something today, something important, even if he didn't know why or how or why. The blood in his mouth and the pain in his chest meant he couldn't breathe, and that was okay because he didn't need to. He knew he could survive worse, he knew because he had.

He could hear them circling, their boots making soft sounds on the pavement.

"Don't! Please, stop, please—" She was crying. It made him sick, and he was thankful someone slapped her silent.

He couldn't see, but he knew what was coming. He anticipated the next blow, rolled with the kick aimed at his kidney and shoved off the ground, back on his feet.

Five? Fifteen? It really didn't matter.

He reached out blind, again, this time he caught a fist full of hair and slammed it against the wall he knew was directly behind him. Before the body crumpled to the ground, an arm closed around his neck, the elbow folded at his throat.

He could take them apart one by one. With his hands. It really didn't matter.

He broke ribs with his elbow. He shattered his opponent's arm with a lock over his shoulder, he heard the spine crack against that same brick wall. And he was dead, too. They were all dead and just didn't know it yet.

A face came apart in his fingers and the screaming started all over again.

She was screaming. It'd fallen to him to protect her and it was his responsibility that she didn't get hurt and he didn't remember when it'd happened and he didn't remember when he'd agreed to it. They were screaming too, and someone tried to run when he caught them by the hood of their windbreaker. Just a kid, probably. He screamed, too.

"Stop it, you have to stop it!"

He couldn't see, but he could hear their feet, he could sense the stumbling and panic, he could hear her voice crack at the sound of splintering bone. He hit their knees and they couldn't run. Her footfalls were softer than the rest, he could hear the rustling of her sleeves as she pressed herself into the fight.

He wanted to move away from her, he never wanted her to touch him again for the rest of both of their lives. But there was so much pain here already, he could almost lose himself in it.

He already had.

Skin under his fingernails, he shoved them like claws into a pair of eyes. A solid punch could stop a heart. He didn't know how many there were. The footsteps were in chaos, too many were trying to squeeze out of this tiny alley. His hands were slick with blood, an arm slid its way out of his grip and the terrified man was out of range. The punk had run and he was safe.

The fury at deep in his chest, he could hardly breathe with the weight of it, and he turned toward the rest. There was a pause, he could hear them sinking against the furthest wall. And then one reached out and grabbed him.

With her, he knew better than to react.

"You have to stop," she sobbed. Her hands were on his face, and like magic he could open both his eyes and see. He could see her matted hair and shredded blouse and exposed breasts, which he wouldn't look at and still they made him feel like vomiting in the street.

"Please," she begged. Her voice was dropping, she leaned against his chest and curled her fingers around his shirt. "Please don't kill them. Please don't do this.”

It almost worked. Like an old habit, a lit cigarette, a favorite coat. "I won't—" he said. But wouldn't he? Wouldn't he do anything, kill anyone, hurt everyone? He grabbed her shoulders and shook her so her head jerked up and down.

He looked right in her eyes. "I won't lose."

He shoved her, but some habits die hard and so she ended up behind him, away from the four young men who stood with their backs flat against the wall. He could see them, now, he could see how small they really were.

He felt her grab at his shirt from behind, so he spun and casually backhanded her across her face. She fell back, down, her hands over her mouth instead of covering her chest.

They knew they weren't going to get away. So the four street punks who were only standing there waiting to die decided to take advantage of the distraction. They rushed him.

Her voice hurt him, it always had. He could always hear it and he always had to listen. He wondered that he didn't hate her. He turned someone's head around. His neck snapped like dry wood.

He did hate her. She was the cause of everything.

He didn't enjoy the blood as much as before, when he could only feel and taste it. Or hear it, when he sunk his fingers into a stomach as if he had a knife.

It was so easy after that.

When he turned around there were enough bodies to jump from one end of the alley to the other, and never once have your toes touch the blood soaked ground. She'd stopped screaming. Finally, she was letting him have a moment's peace.

She cringed as he approached. She was curled up against a wall and she was shaking, and she wouldn't look at him.

"Shut up," he snapped, though she wasn't saying anything. He dutifully took off his coat and dropped it on the ground beside her. She didn't take it.

"Get up."

She shook her head.

"Let's go."

She started crying.

He grabbed her by the shoulders again and hauled her to her feet, swearing all the while. She didn't fight him. He draped the coat over her shoulders awkwardly, and when he had it so she almost looked all right, she grabbed his hands.

"It's my fault,” she said. “I'm sorry, it's all my fault—"

He jerked away. "Of course it is," he said. "I already knew that."

He turned to walk away, and she was slow to follow. But she did follow.

She was never going to stop.

She never had.

She never would.

They'd done this all before.

It was never going to stop.

He could still taste the blood in his mouth.

He didn't hate it.

I can't remember anything

* * *