Like Devils

Author's Notes:  Written and inspired by a role playing plot over
AIM with a friend!  It's also a compilation of a few vignettes I wrote,
inspired by our plottings. Can anyone appreciate this pairing?  If not,
then don't read.  It's a cross-over, taking place in Dante's world. 
The little stories aren't supposed to go in any particular order.  But they
are supposed to describe their relationship.  Vergil will eventually come
in later.  

For background, I'll say this much:  Dante was paid to go after a demon
called Chaos - but it was actually Vincent, caught in a rampant cycle of
destruction and unable to break free.  After defeating Chaos, Dante and
Vincent shot each other, but what was meant to be a killing shot to Dante missed
and hit him in the leg instead.  Dante took Vincent, brought him back,
tortured him, raped him (because he's pretty) - and after that Dante realized
Vincent wasn't a shape-changing demon but a man tortured by science and magic to
make him a monster...

Well, what's a demon slayer to do with a science freak on his hands?

Fuck him and make him his partner in crime, of course.

The first story is first person Dante. Don't know why.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

~Ice~

He was a pillar of ice and no mistake.

It was hard work, cracking into that sunnuvabitch's exterior and trying to take
a look inside, trying to find that secret dark place where those awfully human
tears had come from. He wouldn't let me in at all, insisted like the stubborn
jackass I knew he would be that he wasn't worth it, he wasn't beautiful or human
or worth the effort and time I was planning on putting into him.

It wasn't just about the money anymore. Sure, it was a lot, taking him down, and
it was hard work, and easy to think he was just another job.. but then he had
cried, shamelessly, hopelessly, as I buried my fingers into his skin and reveled
sadistically in his resulting pain.

And in the end, once we finally reach some sort of understanding, I think I'll
be able to rest easy knowing I did not make the biggest mistake of my life
letting him stay alive.

Vincent Valentine, he said. "Before you kill me, I want you to know my name.
It's Vincent Valentine."

And his eyes closed, waiting for the bullet to catch him between the eyes and
kill him but good. Nothing like that happened. I laughed in his face and said,
"Kill you? You think after all this I'm going to kill somethin' as pretty as
you? You're stupider than you look if you think that's true."

And after that, we fell into a new place with each other, looking across the
expanse of world and time. He was something new... as perfect and timeless as a
vampire, with scars that went farther than the horrendously obvious metal claw
that was his left hand, and the eyes that were crimson and almost inhuman. But
taking in the whole, the complete picture of Mr. Valentine, he seemed perfectly
and tragically human to me.

Now it was days since he'd run away. After we'd fucked twice, under some bizarre
circumstances, after he'd drank my blood and tricked me with his damnably
wonderful prettiness and his scent and his touch and voice, he ran away.

I hijacked a ride straight out of Nibelheim and chased him to a place called
Midgar - supposedly some great horrible thing happened, because it looked like a
giant zit had popped and all the skin had crumpled in on itself, bleeding what
was left of poverty and the pathetic human condition.

I thought to myself, I said I wouldn't hurt him anymore. I saw something
different. He wasn't a monster... something inside of him ruled his body, and I
was planning on seeing to it that he didn't hurt anyone. Or (and this part of my
mind confused the shit out of me) that he didn't get hurt.

He sure was making it hard to look after him though. He begged me, laying
underneath me, in my arms, to take his pain away. Well, I'd do it. I'd do it any
way I could except for that bullet that had been destined for his brain cavity.
Someday, maybe... I doubted it... I might give him that bullet. But I wouldn't
let him go; I wouldn't let him leave me again. I craved the taste of him and the
sight of him, wanted the goddamn man to open up to me without being my prisoner
and without me having to spill his guts just to get him to, well, spill his
guts.

My arms twitched, and my irritation flared as well as my desperation.

Word spread around. A black-haired man in a cloak had gotten on a bus, and went
to the Midgar. And I tailed the bus for six hours.

I waited, looking as the people started to stream off like a school of giggling
girls, all of them young teenagers. He'd stand out like a sore thumb, I was
certain. But I was wrong. I didn't see him. Not even a cloaked figure, nothing,
I had his clothes back at the mansion, how the hell did he why did he--

I turned around. There he was, frozen, staring at me. Then he started walking
across the street. I jumped off the bike to follow, hands twitching at a trigger
I wouldn't touch yet. I pulled Ebony from the holster and gave it a precursory
kiss to the muzzle, sneering.

"Got you, you thrice-damned sexy shit. You ain't gettin' away twice."

I put him in my sights and started the chase.

~Fire~

He was a wildfire.

Underneath his calm, chilling need to cause pain, Dante Sparda was a fire that
could spark with just a word, a look... and he would burn till the sun rose,
burn away the gunman's carefully constructed layers he wrapped his soul with to
protect it, or to protect others from it. Peel a rough fingernail underneath
Vincent's primordial skin of self-loathing and wrench at his heart, demanding
his attention, demanding his full and complete senses to listen to him, like a
burning flame that stood painfully close by.

It was harder to ignore. In the Shinra Basement, it was torture - but that was
before Dante knew that Vincent was no monster, but human, painfully so,
and had shed the tears of pure agony Dante siphoned from his protesting nerves
as blade and fingers cut and savagely tore apart his flesh. 

He remembered the way his blood tasted.  The first time he'd pressed his
tongue against those open wounds, bloodthirsty and half-mad with the waves of
hot, sheer agony that was pouring out of the supposed demon from Hell.  He
was hard-pressed to find demons of Vincent's quality - demons he could enjoy
while they were still kicking around, rather than slay.   He fucked
his body and his mind, ravaging what was left of Vincent's flesh as he hung from
Dante's wall, crucified there and tied, chained.

He tasted something in his blood that made him wild with hunger.  He
didn't know that what he was really rolling around under and over his tongue and
in his mouth was tainted human blood.  Nature had twisted Dante's psyche
and body into a killing machine, by unholy design - Sparda's genes and human
genes in one fell swoop gave him full command of his demon and human faculties.  
To that end, Dante was horny, hot-headed, hungry and restless all in one turn.

But Vincent was a man-made monstrosity.  Not that Dante would ever now
use those words.  Vincent was beautiful, even when he was bleeding to death
slowly, even when he was quivering and straining against the chains to escape
the slow dragging fire of pain chewing up his nerves.  Those red eyes, not
quite human but yet burning inside with that stubborn, calm fire.  As if he
was expecting to die - fuck, maybe even welcomed it.

And when Dante wormed his fingers into the gaping hole he'd cut into his
ribs, and Vincent cried out, spattering blood onto his face, he had seen the
"demon" cry.

That singular tear, followed by another, cleared a saline track of whiteness
through the blood on the black-haired man's face.  Human tears.  The
blood tasted wonderful but now it left a sick feeling in his stomach.  All
Dante could remember thinking was, Oh shit.  I've really fucked myself
over now.

He put a ward on him then. With his own limited magic, burning a carven design
into his flesh to keep the demons at bay every fifth sunrise... five days of
safe quiet, no killing, no blood... no loss of control.   He'd given
him a gift, to make up for the shit he'd done to him.  The burns were
painful. He'd taken the man's belt and stuck it between his teeth for the pain. 
"Bite down hard,"  he commanded, before taking the searing torch of his
fingertips to his skin.

Vincent seemed delirious.  He'd begged for no more pain.  He
invited, writhing and calmly commanding it was better to see him dead.  It
just annoyed Dante, but not enough to put him out of his misery.

Instead, he cut him down from the wall.  Instead he had put him on the
table, tore off his pants, and fucked him until the pain was gone.  Covered
in blood, even in his state, Vincent found some pleasure in it, crying out,
clawing at him, until he came, exhausted, and passed out.  Dante cleaned
himself off afterward, slightly numb, confused, watching him sleep till he took
liberties to clean Vincent off, too.

Vincent slept for two days after that.  Two days of comatose, that
healed all of his wounds to nonexistence save for the burned scar tissue in his
chest.

And from there, the pair spiraled into half-mad, half-hate, almost love and
dangerous fascination with each other.

"I'll protect you," Dante said.

"You should have killed me," Vincent replied.

They lay wrapped together in the dark quiet before morning, a stillness so deep
Vincent could sink his metal claws into it and pick it apart. But he didn't want
to. He still half-believed Dante would kill him in his sleep, would lose
patience, lose hope, and in battle on the Fifth sunrise, when the warding spell
burned into his skin would open, spilling black fluid, spilling is strength and
either of his four monsters might emerge.

Dante snorted. "Would you shut up about that? I told you--"

"I know." Vincent closed his eyes. He felt the snowy-haired demon hunter stretch
a long, strong leg across his thighs and press close, oppressive, invading, but
not unwelcome. They'd made love like this for the past two days, traveling,
sleeping at night, traveling again, lost in each other, neither of them sure
what they were doing - but they were *doing*, and that's all that mattered...

Vincent caressed the man's shoulder, turning to press his lips to his cheek, and
instead found his lips, his hard, needing mouth, and he wondered as he did time
and tiem again if this was what they called love - it had been so long, Lucrecia
dead and disappeared and just a ghost of a memory... and if it wasn't love, then
Vincent would have it anyway, because it was better than suffering is sins
alone.

* * * * *

Dante lifted his hand. The fingerless, black cut-off gloves touched the other
man’s forehead first. A brief intake of breath; bone-white, slightly muscular
fingers sank into strands of perfect ebony, trailing a stubborn lock away and
tracing a slight scar along the forehead that followed his hairline.

They were close, sprawling and tangled like quiet leopards upon Dante’s favorite
couch. The demonslayer had cleaned up that day with his companion Vincent, so
that the main room where people came in to ask for their employment didn’t have
to look at the pigsty of one terrifically male occupant and his starving artist
partner. And no one was the wiser that they were lovers and not just friends and
allies who had been demon hunting for one month. Today was their day off, by
silent consensus, to relax and to enjoy each other’s company and to tell each
other, not by words, but by touch that they loved each other and that was never
going to change.

The only wretched stain in their picture-perfect, pseudo-marriage was Vincent’s
secret. It happened yesterday. Happened every fifth sunrise.

Vincent closed his eyes slowly. Every caress through his hair was like the waves
upon a desolate shore, promising warm, clear waters and a sunny day. When he
opened his eyes again, they were still blood rubies set in porcelain doll skin;
Dante felt a thrill in his bones when he saw them. How could such dark, demonic
eyes belong to a guy like Vincent?

He stroked his hand through the other’s long, luxurious onyx hair again. Vincent
purred. The process repeated.

Eventually Dante turned his head toward the TV, watching whatever happened to be
on. Vincent was half-asleep in his arms, wrapped in a warm, thick cotton
comforter that Dante stole from one of the upstairs bedrooms. His chest rose and
fell slowly, feverish skin slightly dotted with overexertion.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that if Dante were to unwrap Vincent from
that warm blanket, reveal the gunman’s perfect skin, he would see the spiraling,
jagged scars where he had burned the Demon Sigil into his flesh to keep the
monsters that ravaged Vincent’s body. It did not matter that no matter how many
times Vincent changed into the demon called Chaos, whose power was next to only
a few of the higher monsters, because Dante would always love him.

It happened yesterday. Dante still had the scars to prove it.

The sun had risen yesterday morning like always. Neither of them had slept that
night. By quiet, sad negotiations, Dante would try to lock Vincent into the
basement and put Demon Sigils there, too, to keep Chaos inside.

Once Vincent was quiet and secure, Dante got his guns, Ebony and Ivory, and his
family’s sword, Rebellion. He sat outside the door with his back against the
wall with his long legs stretched out in front of him, clad in the thick,
protective leather that he wore only when he was killing Hell’s minions. He
tapped the long black barrel of Ebony against his forehead in sweaty-palmed,
anxious wait.

The minutes ticked by with sluggish, fever-inducing slowness. The grandfather
clock upstairs was ticking, and Dante shifted, wiping his hand through his hair,
sleeping whenever he could stand to close his eyes. He imagined that the shadows
were moving, that something in the air was changing around four in the morning.
But that was probably only demon-heightened senses on overdrive, straining to
find something wrong that wasn’t there.

At five-o’-clock in the morning, Vincent awoke.

This time, the air had changed.

Dante stiffened, rousing himself from sleeping pillow of anxious vigil. He
noticed the smell in the air. It smelled like demons had taken a dump inside the
room and left their stench to stink up the place. It was agonizing to think of
Vincent as a demon now; Chaos was coming, there’d be hell to pay, and that was
that.

Then there was the heat. It pressed upon his skin like a layer of oily steam. He
stood up slowly, turning to observe the Demon Sigils on the door, and he heard
Vincent waking up, moving around… the gunman’s breathing turning hard and sharp,
as if each one took a chunk out of his throat and filled his lungs with blood.

Oh, god, Vin, Dante ranted helplessly. I want to be in there holding
you when it happens. I don’t want to leave you alone through this.

There was soon a scratching, scraping sound as the man inside the room started
to groan and gasp. Then splitting, followed by a surprised, despairing scream.
It sounded that much worse behind a thick layer of wood and metal and stone,
like hearing a man getting a vital limb hacked off without any anesthetic. A
thud, as if Vincent had fallen, and the screaming didn’t stop; neither did the
tearing, shredding, crackling sound as Vincent struggled to save his clothes as
his spine and arms and shoulders molded and stretched, and the wings bursting
free – Dante could almost remember them from five mornings before: thick, heavy
and disorderly things that could have encompassed one whole bedroom with
vein-riddled, velvet blackness.

The quality of Vincent’s choice changed. No longer screaming in relentless
torment, he was howling with rage and unbridled freeness that made Dante’s skin
crawl.

Let the door hold him in, Dante thought worshipfully. Please let that damn door
hold him.

He pulled Ivory from the holster at his hip. His fingers shook; that almost
never happened. But they shook anyway as he clenched his teeth and narrowed his
cool blue eyes, and for a second his half-demon blood (he had to thank his
father Sparda for that) changed his eyes to a cool, calculated red that mirrored
Vincent’s own.

He raised his arms and pointed at the door. The Demon Sigils were blazing blue
and violet, little dots of light racing around the spirals of magic that Dante
had drawn. With a crashing bang, the door jerked on its hinges and the sigils
sparked. The crash came again and again. Dust fell from the ceiling above Dante.
The door groaned on its hinges; Sigils sparked.

Then the slithering voice like the words of Satan: “Aha, demon slayer. These
sigils – you think they will keep me?”

“Sure as hell hope they do,” Dante growled. “Just stay the hell in there, pal. I
ain’t in the mood for your crazy demon rape today.”

“That’s too bad,” came the voice like Lucifer. There was a luxurious scraping,
and Dante imagined the black-skinned monster Chaos tracing a claw along the
wooden door lovingly, massive, horned head bent as dark lips curled back from
its white, pearly fangs. “Let me out; we can play nicely, I promise.”

“Nope.” Dante licked his dry lips, grinning, and he pulled the hammers back on
his long-barreled, modern Desert Eagles. They were Blessed weapons – never
needed reloading, never needed cleaning. These ought to put a smile on his ugly
mug, Dante thought grimly.

There was another roar. And another crash. The door creaked and something
snapped that sounded like the sigils were breaking…

Vincent, he thought as the door began to crumple outward. I love you.

And that was all before Chaos burst loose, and the cracking roar of gunfire
filled the corridor.

Vincent stirred in his arms. Dante hissed unpleasantly; his back still ached.
Vincent’s eyes flashed open and he leaned up, looking at him with obvious,
glowing concern.

“Are you alright?”

“ ‘M fine,” the demonslayer assured him. “Just sore. I’ll be okay.”

Vincent wasn’t convinced. He leaned close, until they were almost nose-to-nose,
and Dante’s entire field of vision was swallowed up by those two ruby red orbs,
irises black and deep like the eyes of night.

“Dammit,” Dante grumbled weakly. “Told you! I’m fine.”

Vincent smiled then. He shook his head, black locks falling free, before he
leaned close, and kissed him.

Another week. Yeah, I’m fine. We’re still alright...

All that needed to be said in that kiss was said in silence. Lips and tongue,
voice mute, just their bodies close together and warm and human, thoughts of
demons long gone. For five more morning.