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Morrison stared at the two devil hunters as Lady stood with her arms crossed, and Dante sat as though he didn’t care one way or another, although from how his heel tapped on the ground Morrison knew it was just a facade.
“You wanted me to look over a contract?” Morrison asked, taking his hat off and placing it on the coat rack. “You two know I’m not a lawyer, right?”
“Neither is she,” Dante said.
“Why do we need those blood suckers,” Lady said, “Just tell Dante that this contract is more than fair.”
“What is it about?” Morrison asked.
“Here, let me just read it,” Lady snatched it off the table and began, “clause one, Lady and Dante’s personal arsenals will remain separate and distinct unless otherwise agreed, including verbal contracts. Without at least a verbal contract, neither will use each others weapons unless under dire circumstances.”
“When have I ever wanted to use your weapons?” Dante protested.
“So there’s nothing wrong with it!” Lady shot back.
“I’m saying there’s no reason to include it! That just feels like you don’t trust me.”
Morrison cleared his throat. “I don’t see anything wrong with that, and Dante, don’t pretend you haven’t coveted Kalina Ann.”
“I was admiring her,” Dante said, “Is that illegal?”
“Thank you Morrison,” Lady said, and went on, “All property owned by either party will continue to belong to each respective owner, until the death of one party, in which case, the property will default to the remaining party.”
“You don’t own any property,” Dante protested, “This is just your way of trying to get my office.”
“Why would I want your office?” Lady said, “And I do own one ruby mine upstate!”
“You own a ruby mine?” Dante asked, “since when?”
“Well, I’m thinking of selling it,” Lady admitted, “But I have all sorts of properties you’d know about if you listened to me!”
“Not this again,” Dante complained, “I don’t want your ruby mine!”
“And actually,” Morrison started, “Dante still owes me for the loan for this building.”
“What?” Lady asked, “Since when?”
“Since I needed to borrow a truck load to get it repaired,” Dante reminded her, “Back when you relied on me?”
“That was over ten years ago,” Lady said, and squinted at Morrison.
Morrison, unsure why she was so upset, went on, “And Trish has some legal right because she technically lives here too now. They have all sorts of squatters rights.”
“Whatever,” Lady said, “I’ll worry about that later.” She scribbled on the piece of paper.
“You can always crash here though, put that there,” Dante said, “Even if Trish or Morrison, or whoever is owning it technically.”
“Fine.”
Morrison waited for her to be done.
“Clause three,” Lady said eventually, “should one of us become pregnant, the child will be supported by both of us equally. Either monetarily or through child care.”
“I got a womb I don’t know about?” Dante asked, but then waved it off, “Yeah yeah, of course. God help that kid though.”
Morrison was a little confused by that clause, but since Dante wasn’t fighting it, he supposed Dante and Lady were close friends. He didn’t know much about their personal lives, well, besides Dante’s lack of one, but it made sense Lady would want some sort of help if she had a child.
“Clause 4, exclusivity,” Lady said. “If this clause is broken, the one who did not break it is allowed to shoot the breaker.”
“Only if they want to?” Dante asked.
“Wait, what sort of exclusivity?” Morrison asked.
Dante narrowed his eyes like it was a dumb question. “I can’t exactly sign two of these at the same time. I’m fine. I’m not going to break it.”
“I won’t either,” Lady said and moved on. “Clause 5, if one party want to break this contract, after a trial period of one year to attempt to reconcile differences, if the party still wants to break the contract, it will be broken.”
“Fine.”
Morrison continued to frown as they continued through the rest of the clauses, wondering why he needed to be there. It seemed like they already agreed, and the few insults hurled back and forth were more for show than out of actual spite.
Finally, Lady nodded, and Dante drew out a pen. He and Lady signed, and then thanked Morrison for showing up. Morrison, still confused about the affair, donned his hat.
“Morrison,” Dante called, “can you come with us to the courthouse to turn this in?”
“Why do you need to turn it in?” Morrison asked.
“Oh, well, this one is just a personal thing,” Dante agreed, but held up a manila envelope. “This one does need to be filed. Tax stuff or something.”
“And you need to go to the courthouse?” Morrison asked.
“I dunno,” Dante said, “Lady thought it would be nice if you came with us, and we’re getting drinks after.”
“Been a while since we shared a drink,” Morrison said.
“Easier now that Patty’s out of our hair.”
“You say that like you don’t miss her,” Lady teased, and grabbed both documents.
Morrison suspected he had only been invited along because he had a car that worked, and drove to the courthouse, Dante and Lady childishly attempting to kick each other over leg room in the back seat. Why Dante chosen to sit in the back rather than the front, Morrison wasn’t going to ask to find out.
Once inside, Lady spoke with someone, and Dante was called up as well. Morrison hung back, not needing to hear the particulars.
“Well, with that I pronounce you,” the clerk started, only for Dante to sneeze loudly, obscuring the rest of the sentence.
Lady glared, and Morrison glanced at the clock, wondering if they could get happy hour.
When he glanced back, Dante and Lady were headed back his way.
Dante stretched once he was back in the car, his arm across the back seat almost touching Lady’s shoulders. Lady didn’t comment, only smiling in agreement when Dante said, “Finally that’s over. That was way more complicated than it should be.”
“I’m ready to celebrate.”
“Babe, you know it,” Dante said, and then to Morrison said, “Thanks Morrison. It means a lot to both of us.”
“No problem,” Morrison said, “I’m happy to help.”
They arrived at the bar just in time for happy hour, and Trish was already at a table, smiling and waving them over. They had their drinks, talking about work, and then a little play when Trish spoke about a mysterious island she had traveled to.
“The most incredible thing,” Trish was saying, “was the food at the gas stations.”
“Gas station food?” Lady asked.
Trish nodded. “It was spam, rice, some sort of teriyaki sauce, and seaweed, and it was incredible.”
“Spam and seaweed?” Lady asked with crinkled nose.
“You’ll need to try to it.”
“Trish, did you just go to Hawaii?” Morrison asked.
“Why… I do think that was the name of the island,” Trish said.
“Okay, we need you to change your definition of mysterious,” Dante said, then to Lady asked, “hey should we go there in celebration?”
“Hawaii?” Lady asked, “Huh… I went once when I was young, but we didn’t leave the resort, and my father—” Lady stopped talking. “I wanted to go surfing, but my mom said it was too dangerous.”
“It was mysterious,” Trish insisted, “There were chickens everywhere! As well as Hello Kitty! With a tan!”
“Oh well, if there’s Hello Kitty,” Dante teased. “And yeah, I could totally give you surf lessons Lady.”
“Surf lessons?” Lady asked, “Do you even know how?”
“Rockets, surfboards,” Dante said, “I bet it’s all the same.”
“I actually think rocket surfing is more difficult, if you can believe it,” Trish confirmed.
“I’ll see if there are any jobs there,” Lady said, “We could write it off as a business expense…” She sighed and stretched. “Oh, my taxes are going to look so nice this year,” Lady relished.
“And you’re going to do my taxes without complaining,” Dante agreed.
“Wait, this was all to get Lady to do our taxes?” Trish asked.
“Yup,” Dante said, “Well, and a few other things.”
Morrison furrowed his brow, but didn’t press further. Before more could be said, the song changed to one that Dante and Trish made eye contact for. Trish pushed Lady out, and Dante took her hand, leading her to the dance floor. Normally it took a few more drinks to get Lady dancing, but it seemed the contract being signed and formalized had put her in a good mood.
“I’m happy for them,” Trish said, “I feel like they’re one step closer, you know?”
Morrison assumed she meant one step closer to being more like grown ups, from moving on past the trauma that had kept both of them in a bit of a purgatory maturity wise. Trauma Morrison could only guess about. He knew a bit more of Dante’s history, but Lady was still a bit of a mystery.
“You wanna dance?” Morrison asked the demoness.
Trish smiled, “I thought you’d never ask.”
They joined their mutual friends on the small dance floor, eventually swapping partners for the next song. Lady was actually smiling for once, and not her cavaliere warrioress one, but the soft one Morrison thought was reserved for Dante and Patty.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so happy about a contract,” Morrison commented.
“Never signed a contract like this one before,” Lady admitted, “It hasn’t gone exactly how I thought it would, but…” She smiled again.
“Can I cut in?” Dante asked, and Morrison thought he’d leave the dancing to the young people. Eventually, everyone except Trish was a little wasted, Dante and Lady falling over each other, Lady constantly trying to touch Dante’s face, and Dante occasionally attempting to bite her. It was so bizarre, Morrison didn’t know what to make of it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen their almost juvenile flirting before, but now that they were thirty or close to it, Morrison wasn’t exactly sure on Lady’s birthday, it just made Morrison more sure whatever they were to each other wasn’t romantic. It was almost more than that.
Trish drove them back, Morrison in the front seat, Dante and Lady in the back seat again. Those two were still all over each other, giggling and chuckling like Morrison hadn’t seen since Patty was still around more.
He missed the girl a bit as well, but he could tell her less frequent visits to Devil May Cry were dampening Dante some. Lady as well, but she hid it better.
“Morrison, you want me to drive you home?” Trish asked.
“I don’t want you to walk home in the dark,” Morrison said.
Trish smiled, likely amused at Morrison’s insistence on treating her like a young woman, and not like an ageless demoness. “I won’t be sticking around anyways,” Trish said, “I was going to pick up my bike and head out.”
“That’s fine.” Morrison said, too tired to think. Ugh, he was getting too old to drink like this. He really needed to remember his professional barrier.
In Devil May Cry, Morrison passed out on the couch, and feel asleep instantly, shoes still on. He woke up some amount of time to a very full bladder, only to overhear a shout from Lady upstairs.
“That all you got?” she exclaimed, her voice being followed by a gun shot.
Dante let out a noise of pain, and Morrison assumed the two were fighting. They didn’t do that as often, but it wasn’t like that casino boat was the first time he’d seen Lady point a gun at Dante. The first time he’d seen her pull the trigger, but from his understanding it wasn’t the first time she had shot him.
He got up and found the bathroom, relieving himself, then falling back asleep to the occasional thumps and exclamations from upstairs. Those two were so strange, fighting when they could easily be f—
Morrison woke up in the morning with a rather bad hangover. Dante came downstairs, hair a mess and shirtless. “Morrison,” Dante said, brow furrowed, “I thought Trish drove you home.”
“You must’ve been out of it,” Morrison said.
“Huh, yeah…” Dante said, and then apologized, “We were sort of loud last night.”
“Not like that’s anything new. I think Lady is the only one I’ve seen draw that side of you out,” Morrison said, “No, I only woke up once and it was because of my bladder. Your ah, late night scuffle didn’t bother me much.”
“Well that’s something at least,” Dante said, but then Morrison, adjusted his clothes and said his goodbyes, slightly embarrassed to have passed out on a couch at his age.
Those two crazy kids, Morrison thought as he pulled away from the office.