Title: Cruelty
Rating: M (Mind the rating, but read it anyway)
Pairing: Dante x Lady
Disclaimer: I don't own Devil May Cry or any of its characters. I wish I owned Dante though… Summary: Lady can be pretty cruel when she wants revenge…
A/N: This is my first M-rated fic so I'm kind of nervous about it. Please R&R! If you like it, send me a cookie! If you hate it, tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it.

Dante kicked open the door of Devil may cry and stormed in with hurried steps. He slammed the door shut causing the locks to shatter into pieces, but the silver haired man barely noticed it. He had far more important things in his mind right then.

Shit, shit, shit! Were the only words that came to his mind right then. How could I be so stupid! He cursed himself, remembering the incident that had caused him to have nausea in the middle of summer.

Okay, Dante, chill, Lady won't be able to come here as fast as you could, meaning you have at least a twenty minutes head start. Plenty of time to think out a solution.

Think, dammit, think!

Dante collapsed into the nearest couch and rested his head on the headrest. Thank god Vergil is out, or I'd have to tolerate his sarcasm as well.

I'm so screwed.

He and Lady had gone out on a job this afternoon when all of this started. Their employer had told them that there was a minor inconvenience in his mansion due to some demonic spirits, but upon reaching there, Dante and Lady had found out it was much more than that.

There had been a large throng of hell Vanguards, sin scythes, shadows and many other types menacing devils. Dante was very amused to fight the seven sins once again, but Lady found it highly difficult to keep up with him as he moved through the never ending waves of demons to the attic room of the mansion. They found the man there, a sorcerer in league with the demons, who had been trying to set a trap for Dante. He had called them in hopes of taking revenge on the man who had been killing the servants of his "masters".

The problems of being "the son of Sparda", Dante grimaced as he recalled the man's confession.

He had, of course, killed the asshole, then together they made their way back to the mansion gates.

That's when it happened…

A very, very, very HUGE fire demon had conjured out of nowhere, and before Dante could do anything, grabbed Lady who was caught off-guard, making her drop the Kalina Ann.

Out of desperation, Dante had picked up the rocket launcher and threw it straight through the fire demon's head. The bayonet had smoothly pierced the right eye and become stuck there, forcing the demon to release Lady from its clutches as it screamed with pain. She hadn't been hurt, as Dante managed to quickly catch her before she hit the ground.

But by the time they disposed of the demon, Kalina Ann was in…a less than perfect condition.

The demon was completely covered with fire and two hundred degrees of heat had almost melted Lady's favorite rocket launcher. Lady was lucky its hand was covered with armor or even she would have been incinerated.

"How could you be so stupid!" She had shouted at him. "One more minute and it would have completely melted because of the heat!"

"So would you have liked to get burnt instead of this stupid weapon of yours?" Dante had answered back with irritation, seriously, what the hell is with her and this launcher? "Why the hell do you get so itchy when it comes to this thing, huh? Do you use this as a dildo or something?"

That, unfortunately, had been the most unwise choice of words.

Lady had practically jumped on him and tried to strangle him to death, and if not for the swarm of hell prides that appeared at the nick of the time, she would have succeeded.

Just before the last demon fell under the rainstorm of Lady's guns, Dante made a run for getting out of the mansion. He didn't dare to face Lady again and get his head chopped off for his one stupid remark.

Damn you Dante, after all these years finally she was starting to warm up to you and you had to ruin everything with that big, fat mouth of yours!

Lady had, of course, made it her mission to hunt him down, so he had followed an alternative route back to Devil may cry, all the time being careful not be sluggish for even one moment.

But now, it seemed a real bad decision to come back here, considering the fact that this would be the first place Lady would check for him.

He held his head with his hands, desperately trying to think of a way to get out of this uncomfortable situation.

Then the idea popped in his head. Lady is mad at Dante, right? She would try to kill him if she got the chance.

But she won't do anything to Vergil.

Yes! Dante sprang out of the seat and hurried upstairs with a wild grin on his face, it seems he'd have to play the old trick he and Vergil used to do when they were kids, switching places. Sometimes they did it just for fun, and sometimes to escape potentially hostile situations.

Like now.

Dante all but flew to Vergil's room and took out one of his shirts out of the wardrobe. Vergil would get pretty homicidal if he found out Dante had dared to even touch his clothes, much less wear them, but it couldn't be worse than what Lady would do to him. Women can be so cruel sometimes, he thought. I saved her life, didn't I? The least she could do was to give me a chance to say sorry before she jumped on me!

He ran to Vergil's bathroom and got out of his sweaty old clothing. After a quick shower, he dumped them in the fresher and slipped into Vergil's rather expensive silk shirt. He couldn't help but smile as the smell of rich cologne entered his nostrils.

Vergil is such a princess, he thought. But at least this feels good on the skin, damn good.

The smirk on his face became wider when he noticed the several cans of hair gel on the bathroom cabinet. He took some gel onto his palms and used it to slick his hair back like the way Vergil always did. He moved back a little from the mirror to examine the results.

Bingo. I guess my ass is saved for today. Unless I screw something up.

He was coming down the stairs and tugging his amulet inside the shirt when he noticed loud thumping noises coming from downstairs.

Oh oh…

He reached the door and barely managed to not be smacked by the swinging door as Lady entered streaming with rage. She looked fiercely at him and said in a dangerous tone, emphasizing on every word,

"WHERE IS DANTE?"

Dante tried his best not to flinch, and was greatly satisfied with himself when he managed to reply in the falsely cold voice of his twin, "How would I know?"

He turned and walked over to the couch, then lazily sat on it. He took the newspaper from the nearby table and started to read it with feigned interest. Normally he never touched a newspaper, if he wanted to know something he just watched the news on TV or asked Vergil about it. But right now he found it a nice excuse to keep his eyes averted from the enraged lady in the room.

Lady stared at "Vergil" and asked incredulously, "He didn't come back?"

He answered with one word, never taking his eyes off the paper, "No."

Lady "humph!"ed with frustration, then sat beside him on the couch, "Lucky bastard."

He raised a silver eyebrow with forged astonishment, "Now what did he do to piss you off like that?"

"Never mind."

"No, what is it, really? Even with your lousy temper, I've never seen you be so irritated with him before. I would also like to point out the fact that if you gnash your teeth with a little more force, they might fall out of your jaw."

Wow, now I really sound like Vergil. All refined language and shit. Not to mention the gay outfit.

She glared at him, and he continued, "And I can see that you've become so overcome with anger you failed to grasp the fact that he would never be stupid enough to come back here, knowing that you would come here first flashing your gun that has a bullet with his name on it."

But I was stupid enough to do that.

She sighed, "Maybe you're right. In that case…"

Dante became alert by the incomprehensible tone of her voice, what the hell she is up to? Please say that you're gonna leave!

"…I'll wait right here till he comes back."

SHIT!

But all he said was, "Suit yourself."

They sat there for a long while with an uncomfortable silence between them. Dante looked at her with the corner of his eye, and was disappointed by the fact she didn't show any signs to go away anytime soon.

After a good fifteen minutes, Lady broke the silence, "He said perverted things about my Kalina Ann."

"What?"

"The reason I'm angry with him. He said…nah, you don't want to hear it."

"Well why does that upset you so? I mean, he says a lot of things, but this one seems to bother you way too much."

Lady sighed softly, then replied in a low voice, "It is the last memento of my mother. Her name was Kalina Ann."

Dante was a bit ashamed to hear this, he felt very guilty about what he said. "I'm so sorry." The words came out of his lips before he could stop himself.

Lady's head shot up in surprise. She could not believe what she heard. Vergil? She never thought Vergil would say something like this. She had worked with Vergil on a few missions after he started living with Dante, and knew he wasn't a completely heartless bastard, but she could never imagine him being so frank about his feelings. And why does he have to apologize? He didn't do anything…

Dante saw the astonished look on Lady's face, and kicked himself mentally for his mistake. Damn! I need to be more careful unless I want her to go hulk on me.

He stood up, intending to go upstairs and phone Vergil to tell him to not come back until Lady would leave. The newspaper fell from his lap, and he bent down to pick it up. As he bent, the amulet hanging from his neck came out of the collars of his shirt, dangling in front of his nose. He grimaced, not noticing that Lady's gaze was fixed on him.

Lady had known the Sparda twins long enough to know the history behind their amulets. She also knew that even though the amulets were almost identical, they were slightly different. Dante's amulet had a silver lining around it when Vergil's one displayed a pale gold border.

She had noticed that the amulet clinging from Vergil's neck had a silver frame. What the…? Am I seeing things? Vergil would never wear Dante's amulet, he has his own. And not to mention Dante would never just give him his amulet.

Unless…

Lady quickly analyzed the incident and came to the most apparent conclusion. Unless this is Dante.

Dante straightened up and caught Lady staring at him. His mouth was twitching to say, "See something you like?"

But instead, he just frowned, "What are you looking at?"

"Oh, nothing," Lady answered, now slightly amused at how well Dante was pulling off the pretence. They are, after all, brothers, twins even. "I just wanted to ask you if there is anything good in the fridge, I'm a bit hungry."

Dante eyed her uneasily, then answered sulkily, "I'll check."

He walked to the kitchen, Lady following him from behind. His eyes sparkled as he advanced towards the box of pizza sitting invitingly on the kitchen counter. But before he could reach out to grab a slice, he remembered.

Vergil doesn't like pizza.

What an a… WHO doesn't like pizza?

He sighed heavily, then walked up to the fridge and opened its door.

Hmm…tomato juice…no, Lady would get suspicious…iced tea…eww…chocolate cake…aha! Finally something that both I and the brain dead idiot are fond of!

He grinned wildly and carefully brought out the cake. After putting it on the table, his first instinct was to just grab a piece of cake and shove it down the throat, but as he was "Vergil" now he carefully cut two pieces and put them on separate plates. Lady accepted her plate and stared at him while he consumed his part of the chocolate cake.

He was doing a pretty good job, she had to admit, but now as she had a clear view of his amulet, she became 99.99 sure that this really was Dante, but she still wanted to confirm before she squeezed the life out of him.

She did, however, get a little angry with herself by the fact that she wasn't so mad at him anymore after his apology. He meant it, she could tell, and it was probably her fault she never told him after her life.

But she still needed to clear things up. So she stood up from the chair and went to the drawing room. Checking one last time that he was still in the kitchen, she brought out her cell phone from the back pocket of her shorts and dialed on Vergil's cell.

He caught right after the second ring, "Hello?"

"Vergil?" Lady asked in a low voice, still staring at the other "Vergil" who had come out of the kitchen and was climbing the stairs.

"Yes. What is it, Lady? Is there any problem there you and my brother cannot handle?" Vergil's stoic voice floated through the receiver.

"No, everything is fine. Um…where are you right now?"

"I'm taking care of the demonic infestation I had come to investigate in the abandoned warehouse at the end of the city; you know the place, right?" Suddenly he stopped talking, Lady heard a whacking noise, then Vergil's voice returned, "Forgive me for the interruption, but we cannot except good manners from low-level demons can we?"

"Right."

Another "smack!" Lady heard him murmur, "Disgusting vermin…Anyway I'm not sure how long it is going to take, so if Dante needs my help…"

He doesn't right now, but he will when I get my hands on him. Lady thought, not paying attention to him anymore.

Vergil was getting wary, why would Lady phone him in the middle of the night to ask such questions? He asked, "You sure everything is okay?"

"Yeah…see you later." She hung up the phone before he could ask anything else. She smiled to herself as she put her cell back in her pocket.

Dante Sparda, you are a dead man.

A/N: He he, seems Dante is really in deep shit this time.

Good luck, hotshot! (You'll need it)