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There’s a monster at Lady’s fingertips, a beast with the face of a man and the smile of a devil.
(The first few times they had sex, she kept her guns holstered at her hip. Then she tied Dante to the bedpost, and he was courteous enough to pretend the ropes could keep him down.
It would give her enough time to shoot him if he acted up, she figured.
Once, on something like a whim, she aimed at him. Put the barrel of one of her guns between his lips, pushed past his teeth, hard enough that the metal scrapped against the roof of his palate.
She felt his hips twitch, his cock grind harder into her. He grinned; his hand tangled with hers.
He pulled the trigger.
You’re a freak, she told him when his face reconstituted in a bloody grin.
He laughed, grabbed at her waist to get deeper into her.
You’re a hunter, aren’t cha? You should know that when you aim, you’d better be ready to pull the trigger.
She shot him again and again until he came, a hissing, shaky laugh leaving his lips as his body trembled and twitched.
Her orgasm that time, as she sat on his insolent mouth and he ate her out with saliva and blood and her own fluid smearing across deceivingly human features, was sharp and intense enough that she felt like she’d died.)
They’re not together. Love is not something that demon hunters do — not good demon hunters, at least. They hunt and they bleed; they drink and they fuck. She pays him for his help, when he deserves it, and she hassles him to get her due the rest of the time, because Dante and money don’t mix. Sometimes, they spend weeks without talking to each other.
They have an unspoken agreement. She’ll take him out shopping or drag him to dumb social occasions under the cover of a job just so he’ll stay immersed in humanity’s banal lull. When the crowds are too much, they’ll watch TV or drink in dingy pubs instead. Mundane things. Mortal things. In return he cracks jokes, goofs around, hunts and fights with her with such levity that she can’t help but smile. He reminds her that their job and the power they wield can be fun.
She keeps him grounded, and he keeps her cheerful. Not a bad trade, all things considered.
They both know she’ll kill him if he slips toward the wrong side of his heritage.
He trusts her.
(Dante’s pliant under Lady’s hands when they’re together and she knows the reason why. It’s easier to control the beast when he gives himself up and lets her use him as she sees fit. Even so, the monster he’s reining in always rears its head, makes him curl his lips or tighten his clawed grip before he steels himself and bares his throats anew.
She’s not afraid, not really. Fear is something natural to her trade, innate to any human facing a demon; it’s a weapon in her arsenal, something to use for an adrenaline boost or a spike in speed. She doesn’t care.
And she trusts him, too.)
She understands Dante’s turmoil when the strange goth kid with the suspicious demon familiars announces Vergil’s return. She’s lived through it herself, the iron resolve to kill one’s family, and she doesn’t care to imagine Arkham’s return. Comfort is not her thing, though, and it’s not Dante’s, either — much better to drown sorrow or regrets in alcohol’s cold oblivion.
But it’s a job, and then it’s one of her rare defeats. It’s frustrating to be so weakened that she has to stay on the sidelines — even more frustrating when Dante and the revived Vergil just fuck off to the Underworld.
Not that she cares (or would confess to caring, anyway, and that’s the same thing). She makes herself at home in his office in his absence, rearranges the furniture and tears down the pin-ups to replace them with male equivalents — Trish helps her choose with impeccable taste. A petty revenge, maybe, but petty is just her style.
After a few months, Dante and Vergil return. They don’t tell anyone; Lady and Trish learn about it first, when they enter the office and find Dante dozing at his desk while Vergil reads on the sofa.
Dante grins at them.
“Hey. We were keeping two bottles of champagne for the occasion. Want a glass?”
Lady shoots him in the head.
(She doesn’t hate Vergil. She resents the Urizen part of him for vanquishing her, she wants to deck V for fooling them, and she despises his past ideals and what he did with his life — but he’s Dante’s problem.
Mostly he just pisses her off. Out of affection for Dante, because she's known him long enough to feel the nervous tension hidden under his easy grin, she restrains herself from picking a fight with Vergil the first few times they met. Curbs her temper, drinks in silence as Trish and Dante exchange artificial pleasantries.
She can read other hints in Dante's body language, too, as well as the other asshole’s. The way their gazes meet too often, or Vergil’s tension when Trish sits on Dante’s desk to eat his pizza. Dante sleeping on the couch, head pressed against his brother’s thigh as if by accident; Vergil paying for the DMC’s utilities even though he’s renting his own flat.
She knows Dante too well, and sometimes it’s a pain.)
“So,” Dante says one evening, “wanted to tell you that Vergil and I are fucking.”
He looks at her, wary of her reaction. They’re drinking in the corner of the grungiest, most miserable pub they both know; naturally, it’s their favorite one. Lady is half-drunk and Dante is barely tipsy — he fakes it well, but she knows him just as well.
Lady shrugs. “I knew.”
He rubs his nape and take another large swallow of whisky.
“You’re in love,” Lady adds.
She wouldn’t be as blunt if she was sober, or maybe she’d be harsher. She’s not sure. Dante startles and looks uneasily at her. It’s not often that she sees him unsettled; she finds petty pleasure at the sight.
“I don’t care, Dante, you do you. We’re hunters, not role models.”
“Huh. Yeah.”
The background noise of the pub is loud enough to drown out their conversation, and even if it wasn’t, most of the regulars here are too drunk to care. Another reason why they like the place.
Lady takes one more sip of beer and looks at Dante. She just can’t picture him with his brother. He’s too lax and Vergil too rigid. They’d get on each other’s nerves all the time — unless they’re just fuck buddies.
She’s not jealous, she tells herself. Jealousy’s for kids, and she’s far too old for that kind of nonsense. So what if Dante threw himself into the arms of a guy who did nothing but lie to him at best, try to kill him at worst? His business. They’ve never interfered in each other’s affairs. She’s not about to start now.
“We’re still fucking?” Lady asks, and instantly regrets doing so. Drunkenness isn’t always her friend.
Dante looks taken aback, and then he smiles with that bullshit “of course I expected that” expression of his.
“Thought you’d never ask!”
Lady grabs him by the front of his T-shirt and kisses his dumb lips.
(They have sex on Dante’s bed, and it smells like him and Vergil. She grips him hard enough to leave bruises, bites deep enough to make him bleed, but it all regenerates too soon for Vergil to see.
She takes him first, barely prepares him before she stretches him full with one of the plugs he still keeps in their box under the bed. He arches and she holds him down with a hand on his torso, snarling.
He’s polite enough to pretend she’s strong enough for it. Good boy, she grins breathlessly against his sweat-slicked torso, and he snickers.
She edges him, alternating firm pressure and light caresses from the root of his cock to its sensitive head, until she recognizes the way his breath shudders on the edge of orgasm; then she orders him to fuck her face first against the pillow, roughly enough that she will feel it tomorrow.
I’ll shoot you in the throat if you cum first, she promises.
He grins against her nape. I’ll do my best. Wouldn’t want to get blood on those sheets, I washed them oh– two months ago?
Gross. Shut up and make me come.
He obeys, sharp, grinding thrusts deep inside her as she grabs at her arms and muffles her moans into the pillow.
She hopes that her perfume and her sweat will pervade the sheets enough for Vergil to recognize her smell. Vengefulness lines her pleasure with something darker, harsher.
She comes breathing in the twins’ mixed scent, gun and sword oil, leather and humanity, and the subtle hint of monster that puts her on edge.)
The next time they go to Devil May Cry, she glares at Vergil and he stares back at her. For all of Dante’s assurance that his brother has settled, and for all the almost-softness he shows in front of Nero, there’s still something dangerous and cold about Vergil.
“I want to fight you,” she informs him.
Dante’s face twists into something like panic. It’s the first time she’s seen him like that; it’s hilarious enough that she almost laughs.
Vergil’s expression does not change; he nods, barely, as if moving too much was unworthy of him.
“Not here. Dante will complain if we wreck his shop, and your firearms are destructive.”
“Because your sword isn’t?”
He raises a brow at her. “My sword is precise.”
“My guns always strike their targets.”
“I don’t doubt it, when they aim at lesser beings.”
“Okay, okay!” Dante exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re both very threatening and scary and I’m trembling in my boots. I’d love to see a duel between the two of you, but there’s just one problem: Lady is human and I like her in one piece.”
“I’m fine,” Lady snaps, irritated that Dante is trying to coddle her.
“She knows the risks,” Vergil agrees.
“You’re both arrogant pricks.” The insult sounds almost affectionate, though Lady can feel Dante’s resigned irritation. “Fine, whatever. I’m not even going; you indulge in your dick-measuring contest on your own."
“Fine with me!” Lady answers cheerfully.
Vergil shrugs and looks at Dante. Something passes between them, Dante’s gaze briefly serious and focused.
The older of the twin turns back to Lady.
“Shall we?”
“After you.”
(The twins' training ground is a Yamato slash away, among the dilapidated ruins of Red Grave City. They fight and Vergil shows no mercy, which is what she both expected and desired.
She didn’t think she’d win, not against the man who can go toe-to-toe with Dante. Victory is not the point; making him earn that victory against a “mere human” is. Making him bleed, if briefly. Seeing these pale, discolored eyes widen with surprise.
He’s being careful, though. The cuts he inflicts are superficial; as he fights her, he focuses on brawling and incapacitating rather than the quick, deadly slashes that he specializes in. He’s heeding Dante’s request. That is unexpected.
He still kicks her ass, though.
Are you satisfied? He asks, calmly, once he’s pinned her to the dirty ground with both arms twisted behind her back and her face in the rubble.
Very. Just need to grab a bite to eat, fuck your little brother to unwind, and my day’s complete, she replies cheerfully.
His grip tightens and she grins through the pain.)
They both go back to Dante’s shop. The door has been left open, because Dante has no sense of self-preservation; Vergil’s nose wrinkles in disapproval.
“He never changes,” he says as if to himself.
Lady doesn’t think he’s the type to voice his thoughts in front of someone else, though. It’s an olive branch, the first time he’s spoken to her without prompting, and she accepts it for two reasons. One, Dante probably wants his two partners to be on civil terms, and two, she’d never refuse an occasion to complain about Dante.
“He’s a mess,” she agrees. “I told him about a hundred times to lock his door, but he forgets. Never gets anything stolen, though.”
For all of Dante’s apparent relaxation, he slides from sleep to awareness as easily as he breathes. Lady can’t count the number of occasions she thought she’d surprise him, only to be met by a swift evasion and a knowing grin.
“He’s too careless,” Vergil agrees.
“Love you guys too,” Dante drawls from the sofa where he’d been napping.
Vergil phases to him and attempts to grab him by the throat, but Dante has already jumped away. Lady crosses her arms and watches them play cat and mouse until Dante lets his twin pin him against the wall, forcing himself pliant and lax under his hands.
“I didn’t know we were talking about love, brother.” Vergil’s voice is tinged with sarcastic amusement. Dante grins. They’re both very carefully lighthearted. From that, Lady understands how close they are to violence — pain — or both.
“Please, Vergil, I was kidding. We don’t talk about love, here, we’re demons.” Suddenly, Dante’s tone softens, and seriousness briefly grips his feature. “Glad you’re both in one piece. Gonna tell me what that was all about?”
“Pride,” Vergil and Lady answer at the same time.
Vergil throws her a quick glance, as if shocked to see himself in unison with a human. Lady smiles charmingly at him. When she was young, she tended to glare or shoot at most problems; now, she can value the offensive worth of a cheerful composure.
Dante gives them a lopsided smirk and tilts his head. “Happy now?”
Vergil’s hand grips Dante’s throat just a bit harder and Lady shrugs. Dante looks at the both of them.
“So…. We doing this or what?”
They stare at him. His smile widens into a cocky grin and Lady’s fingers itch with the need to shoot him.
The most frustrating part of Dante… is everything about him, but chief among them is the fact that he always manages to take her aback.
***
They both focus on Dante at first — a common desire to unite them, their need to wipe that cocky grin off his face. Vergil drags him to the bed and hold him down while Lady undresses him; he fights back just enough to be a pain. Lady grabs his jaw and bites his lips, pressing between his legs. She wants to fuck him first so that Vergil will feel how much his brother has been forced open for her, by her. She grips Dante’s erection and massage it roughly; he moans with honest pleasure, the muscle of his belly quivering from her touch. Still in control even as he allows them to run the show.
She meets Vergil’s gaze.
“I want to take him first,” she says. A demand.
His eyes harden and Lady’s fighting instincts suddenly tune into awareness, warned by something in the rigidity of his stance, the sharpness of his expression. Dante’s hand touches his brother’s chiseled features, fingertips tracing the shape of his lips.
“You’ll want my mouth while she does that, yeah, Vergil?”
And Vergil’s stare is suddenly on Dante’s face, hunger carved black on ice-blue pupils.
“Yes,” he agrees.
Lady smiles.
“How do you want to see your brother fucked?” She asks Vergil.
His breath hitches audibly. It’s the first time she’s seen him so off balance, a shade of human pink on his marmoreal features, and it twists something hard in her guts — makes her want to see more.
“On all fours,” he commands.
She can feel Dante’s grin when he obeys. She signals to Vergil, who hands her the lube. Both men are much bigger than her, two demons at the apex of their power, and she misses the weight of Kalina Ann at her side — the gun at her waist is far from enough if Vergil decides to act up.
Dante never needs a lot of preparation, if only because he gets off on pain. This time, though, Lady’s determined to be slow, lingering at every step of the way. She caresses him from the inside, letting him feel each inch of pressure — keeping it pleasurable, but not too pleasurable. He groans a protest and tries to utter his objections, but Vergil’s hand in his hair pushes him flush against his brother’s groin. Dante chokes, throat visibly clenching around the intrusion, and Lady swallows against the hot glow of arousal. The lewd, breathless noises Dante makes, ravenous in his attempt to lap and lick and take as much as he can of his brother, are maddening enough on their own, but she wishes she could see his face as he sucks Vergil’s cock.
She makes him take four fingers, thrusting deep and slow, adjusting her rhythm and pressure to the way Dante’s body tenses and quivers around her knuckles. Vergil has pulled his brother off his dick, pinning his tongue with his thumb to keep his mouth busy, and is watching his expression with something close to reverence as Lady slowly makes him come apart.
She stops to attach her strap-on, choosing the biggest of her collection just out of showiness — a dark blue, ridged thing with a slight curve. Dante struggles against his brother’s grip to protest the pause as Vergil watches her curiously. She spares him a bright smile and presses on the small of Dante’s back so that Vergil will have a better view as she spreads his twin open and pushes into him.
Dante’s enough of a showman to give her a loud, throaty moan, twisting enthusiastically to get her deeper into him. Vergil grabs him by the hair and she grips his hips to keep him in place — starts with slow, deliberate thrusts that grind against his prostate before she pulls out, going a few centimeters deeper each time.
Dante pants, moans, twists, struggles against the hands that hold him. She has to grab him hard enough that her nails scratch the skin before he forces himself into submission. Vergil’s gaze goes from Lady to Dante, caressing the planes of his brother’s face while he keeps his tongue pinned — not that it prevents Dante from making noises, pants and gasps and enthusiastic moans. Vergil murmurs something and gives Dante his fingers to suck, attention still laser-focused on the way Lady wrecks his brother.
Usually, she’d be fucking Dante roughly but today she makes it last, changing her rhythm whenever his voice trembles and he gets too close to orgasm. The strap-on presses against her clit each time she grinds deep inside him, small pangs of pleasure. She’ll have him eat her out when they’re finished; right now, topping him is enough, watching the way he reacts to her every move — watching Vergil’s quiet arousal as he stares at them. When she judges Dante desperate enough, she pulls out and enjoys the sheer frustration in his cry.
She grins at Vergil. “I don’t think he’s earned the right to come just yet. Want a turn?”
She meant to offer him a go at Dante. He looks at her strap-on and raise an eyebrow.
“Why not.”
It takes her a second to understand his answer—a second more to realize he’d accepted her unintentional offer to peg him.
Fuck is the first thing that comes to her mind, liquid heat burning in her belly. She prays she doesn’t look as horny as she feels, but the small smirk on his lips dashes that hope.
“You have any experience taking it, big boy?” She asks provocatively.
If Dante taught her one thing, it’s that bravado is always a valid solution when she’s feeling off her game.
“Obviously,” Vergil answers as if the question was self-evident.
He begins to take off his vest, deftly undoing its straps. Dante sits up to stare at him, breathing hard, wiping at the saliva still wet on his chin. His face is flushed, his eyes glazed, his teeth very white between curled, grinning lips. His hunger is obvious, barely under control, and Lady’s fingers itch with the need to grip her pistol just in case — but it’s Dante. This monster is hers. She’s pushed him farther, harder, and he’s never turned on her.
“Want... some help, Vergil?” He pants.
Vergil smirks at his twin.
“You don't know how to take those off.”
“Can tear ‘em.”
“Don’t try my patience, brother.”
There’s an edge to Vergil’s voice that Dante seems intent on ignoring. Lady’s instincts are hyper-focused on the two demons — the two men. She can feel their bloodlust simmering under the surface. Usually, she’d let them fight, but right now she’s pretty much intent on taking what Vergil’s offering her.
“Dante,” she snaps. “Let him.”
“You’re no fun,” Dante protests. “First you edge me, then you don’t let me help! I’m feeling really unloved here.”
Something wild dances in his eyes, burning through the icy tinge of his irises. He's breathing hard, keyed-up.
Lady pats her guns as an unfriendly reminder.
“You told me you didn’t want blood on your sheets, right? Then act like it.”
He groans loudly but forces himself to settle down, eyes roaming from Lady to his brother and back with the same hunger. Vergil takes off his vest, revealing strong, sensual lines that Lady itches to draw with her tongue and fingers — she’ll be damned if she’s going to show too much lust in front of him, though, not when he’s so irritatingly calm about the whole affair.
Vergil finishes undressing with quick, efficient economy. He bends to fold his clothes and Lady doesn’t see Dante moving — yet suddenly he’s lunging at his brother. Fangs, not teeth, tear through Vergil’s throat like paper. The elder twin reacts with a snarl, demon claws sinking into Dante’s shoulders, and the hunter keens with something that is not entirely pain. Lady’s already aiming at both their heads.
She shoots five times, because the first few bullets don’t immediately stop them.
There’s a brief silence. The twins don’t collapse but they do freeze, luminous eyes riveted on Lady. Her heart is beating against her ribs like a jackhammer, adrenaline humming through her veins.
Dante’s half-human face splits into a grin and he slides back to the form Lady knows best, flopping on the bed. His mouth, and Vergil’s, are splattered with their brother’s blood. “Guess I deserved that!”
“Dumbass,” Lady snorts. She recognizes the sharp thrill of fear among the mix of feelings and wants that clenches her belly. No matter. She’s a demon hunter. She’s used to dealing with it. Used to dealing with beasts.
Vergil is quiet, breathing hard, and he’s watching his brother with a cocktail of arousal and killing intent that just won’t do. Lady cocks her gun; the noise is enough to drag his attention back to her.
“No fighting in my bed.”
He tenses and she glares at him, keeping her gaze straight and her head high. She’s not about to bow to a demon. If this is going to happen, it’s going to be on her terms.
Finally, he relaxes, and his killing intent recedes. Lady allows herself a small sigh, slightly lowering her gun.
“How do you want to take it, big boy?”
“On my back.”
So he can keep her in his sights. Fair; she’d choose the same. She lets him lie down against the sheets before she touches his knees. His muscles tense. Dante hold Vergil’s hand and kisses it with unexpected tenderness, licking at his palm and sucking at his fingers. Vergil shudders on his next exhale.
Lady takes advantage of his distraction to stroke his thighs, gently pushing them apart. She’s not accustomed to softness, but they both need it this time. She reaches for the lube and generously lathers her fingers before she brushes from his perineum to the opening of his body, letting him get used to the idea of her intrusion. Dante caresses and cajoles his brother, kissing and sucking his lips, earlobe, throat, sliding down — a path of greedy tenderness that seems eons away from his previous savagery. She can still feel violence under his skin, though, contained and then exorcized in loving gestures; one wrong move and he’ll tear through flesh. Frustration and Dante don’t mix well.
Vergil’s breath hitches when she pushes a finger inside of him, a low growl rumbling in his throat. Dante kisses him, winces slightly, cups his head to deepen their embrace.
It’s good that their attention is so focused on each other, because Lady needs an instant to recover from the sheer lust pounding between her temples. She wants to fuck him so bad — to see him clench and twist around her, to hear his growls, fuck, his moans from what she’s about to do to him. She wants to break his cold facade through the pleasure she chooses to give him. There’s revenge in that, taking back the power Urizen stole from her, but there’s also pure desire.
“Having fun?” Dante smirks at her.
There’s blood on his teeth. Vergil bit him as they kissed. Lady grins back.
“Maybe.”
It’s power, slowly finding the spots that make Vergil’s breath catch. Power, watching his tension and his need grow thrust by thrust, grinding in him just to see the slight arch of his back. He keeps a tight leash on himself but he can’t control everything, small pants and low gasps escaping as she caresses him open from the inside, pressing against sensitive inner walls. She hesitates, glancing at her strap-on. Dante’s used to this size. However, his brother —
“He’s taken worse,” Dante assures cheerfully.
Vergil’s growls turn into a hiss when she thrusts in him, letting well-fucked flesh clench against the dark latex of the toy. His lips curl, cheeks flushed with pleasure; Dante soothingly caresses his face, pinches and rubs at his nipples with fingers wet from blood and saliva.
“Come on,” he goads Lady. “Make him give us a little voice.”
“Didn’t need your encouragement,” she snaps back.
She forces herself to stay slow at the beginning, sensing the way Vergil’s muscles jump as the ridge and thickness of the toy slide in and out of him.
“Rougher,” Dante says — a command.
For once, Lady obeys, following the harsh pace that Dante loves. Vergil’s hands clench into the sheet, breath fucked out of him thrust after thrust. Just seeing him feeling it, the cracks in his control — the growls and the shivers, the way the tension in him ebbs and flows when she hits a sensitive spot —
This deep, this hard, the strap-on does press against her clit just firmly enough, long enough to edge her toward orgasm. She ruts against Vergil, small strikes of warmth hitting her deep as she watches him become more immersed in his own pleasure. Dante temporarily abandons his brother to kiss her shoulders and fondle her breasts, hands soft and precise — he knows the way she likes to be touched, rough and affectionate, pulling on her nipples and rubbing the planes of her belly –
Lady loses herself to the moment, hyper-focused on control and power and pleasure, harsh and demanding. She comes first, her thrusts faltering as white-hot ecstasy shoots through her nerves.
She stops to catch her breath and meets Dante’s gaze. The asshole is at least partly responsible for making her finish first, touching her just the way she likes it.
“Can you stay inside him?”
He’s asking nicely, for him, and she’s curious enough that she nods, gripping at Vergil’s hips. Dante grins, eyes latched on his brother. Vergil’s panting, face flushed, struggling for control where Dante would have demanded more.
“I waited all this time just to see you fucked,” Dante tells his twin, “so you better be grateful, Vergil.”
“I’m honored and moved,” Vergil deadpans breathlessly.
Dante laughs and straddles him, impaling himself on his brother’s erection with wanton avidity. Lady unfastens her strap-on and pushes the dildo deeper, fucking Vergil with sharp, short thrusts.
She’s seen Dante masturbate with his fingers or their toys. She knows how his face slackens in pleasure, the way he reddens from his cheeks to his ears to his throat and chest when he gets aroused, the hazy lust in his eyes. This, though, is Dante having sex with another — with his brother — in front of her; Dante at his most depraved, his most hungry, riding Vergil as his twin tears red slashes in his thighs and hips and caresses his back and arms with inhuman tenderness.
There are two monsters in Lady’s bed, panting with pleasure and pain in human voices as they share human kisses. The air smells like blood, sweat, sex, the chemical smell of lube and the acrid smell of gun smoke.
She feels no fear. She wouldn’t feel embarrassed if she did, but she doesn’t.
She’s Lady, the demon hunter, the walking arsenal, and those beasts are her prey.