8Disclaimer: I don't own Bayonetta.
A/N: Getting my feet wet with these two.
For heartumbles. Sorry this took me so long to get out. I'll write you something better later on I swear.
Xxx
Empty Streets
Xxx
Jeanne raised the glass of wine to her red lips, flickering heavily mascaraed eyes to the occupant across the table from her, "You could come live with me."
They were seated across from one another on a rooftop overlooking the glittering lights of the city. It had been a few months since the destruction of Jubelius and their subsequent prevention of the near extinction of mankind. Not that either of them really cared about the latter much.
Bayonetta fingered the rim of her drink, crossing her slender legs in thought, "Is that an invitation, my dear?"
It wasn't as if she hadn't already invaded Jeanne's personal space over the past few months. But, this was the first time Jeanne had extended a formal invitation out to her. She had grown tired and weary of her little Cereza—well, she wasn't quite so little anymore, now was she?—gallivanting around with those common criminals and thieves that she had fondly called her friends.
Of course they were always near one another with their constant incineration and massacre of angels, but it wasn't the same. There were nights when Cereza—Jeanne simply hated the aforementioned name, Bayonetta—would slink off without a word and disappear for days on end, only to return through Jeanne's bedroom window and ask her if she could stay for a couple of nights. Five hundred years had lapsed; shouldn't they have spent a little more time together doing things that didn't always involve brutality and blood? Jeanne sighed inwardly at the thought of it all. The raven haired beauty across from her couldn't have realized why it upset her so much. Her dear Cereza's memory was all screwed up and Jeanne was partially, or completely to blame, for that one.
Jeanne set her wine glass down and smoothed the napkin out in her lap, "Yes, it is."
Bayonetta's eyebrows rose in curiosity, "And just what sprung this about?"
"I would rest better knowing you had a place to lay your head when you return from whatever it is that you do for weeks on end with those unsavory characters that you seem so fond of." Jeanne answered. Besides, it's the least I can do for you after all these years.
"I suppose it could be nice having a place to lie low at once in awhile." She swiveled her drink around, gazing down at rosette colored liquid, "I'll consider it."
Xxx
Two days later in the middle of the night she appeared in the archway of Jeanne's window drenched in the blood of angels.
"So? Dare I ask which room is mine?"
Xxx
Jeanne hadn't hoped for much in the beginning.
There wasn't much to go on in a relationship where one partner barely remembered anything that had happened five hundred years in the distant past and the other was clambering for ways to get the relationship back to what it originally was. She would be patient when it came to Cereza as she always was. Or at least tried to be. They lapsed into a relationship that the humans had affectionately referred to as roommates. Although neither understood the term exactly as they occupied the same living space, but with separate bedrooms. Shouldn't it have been living mate? Neither Jeanne nor Bayonetta cared to lament over the finer intricacies of mankind and their stupid labeling of things.
When the two of them weren't gallivanting off in Purgatorio, Jeanne was off lecturing at a university across town, while Bayonetta lounged away on her living room couch watching what humans of the current era thought was entertaining. Bayonetta had somehow picked up a god awful addiction to reality television, starting with the weekly daytime shows where paternity testing ran rampant to trashy twenty year olds slinging each other through the mud at night. As if she needed any more stimuli to aid in the neurodegeneration that had occurred over the last twenty years.
There were still nights when Bayonetta would disappear from the apartment and reappear in the waking dawn. She'd always make the same entrances, slinking quietly across the apartment like a domesticated cat in fear of being caught by its master. If she knew Jeanne disapproved of her behavior, she didn't let it show save for the expensive Italian coffee from across town and French pastries she always brought home with her as a peace offering.
Jeanne needn't question where she went or what she was doing. After all, she was an adult, wasn't she? She had spent twenty years by herself, navigating the world as she tried to find some clue alluding to her lost past. Even if she had found that link she had been looking for, it didn't mean she had to give up the life she had been living. Besides, even if her memory had returned, a big chunk of it was still fuzzy. Like static on a radio, getting louder and louder until she could barely hear herself think anymore. Every station that she had turned to gave back the same static signal. Nothing she did seemed to clear itself up to finally reveal that big chunk that she was still missing.
But she knew Jeanne knew what it was. And she too would learn what it was soon enough.
Xxx
"Another stray?"
"That's rather rude, wouldn't you say?"
Jeanne looked at the purring black ball of fur splayed across Bayonetta's lap and frowned, "Where did you get it?"
"A charming little pet store down on 4th." She answered, running a hand along the kitten's spine, "I was thinking of calling her Atrum."
"This is a stereotype we've been trying to shed for years, Cereza."
"Is it a crime to want a pet? A little bit of companionship for the times when you're away?"
Jeanne rolled her eyes at Bayonetta and turned away from her as she stalked off toward the kitchen, "I could say the same thing."
"And just what do you mean by that?"
Jeanne shook her head, "It's nothing."
Xxx
"Come with me tonight?"
Jeanne looked up from the papers she was grading in the study to Bayonetta who stood poised in the arch of the doorway. She turned to her side, leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest and stood expertly in a pair of spiky, black stilettos, leather pants that left little to the imagination and sheer top. For once she was missing her signature glasses, and her hair was braided down the left side of her head and tied back with her customary red ribbons. …For a minute Jeanne almost thought she was her younger counterpart … her Cereza.
"Where?"
"Being coy, are we?" She sauntered into the room, moving slowly as she ran her fingers along the spines of books that littered the bookcase nearest to her, "You know where, don't you?"
"If it's to socialize with that ruffian group you kindly refer to as your dear friends, I'd politely like to decline, thank you." Jeanne scribbled something in bright red pen on the paper she was done with. That was the fifth D+ she had given in one night. Honestly, were the youth of today as much of a lost cause as people claimed they were?
"Jeanne, all you do is sit around in this boring old room of yours, scribbling little doodles or whatever it is you do on those sheets of paper," She sighed, walking over to where Jeanne was sitting and placed her hands on her hips, "How about a little fun and excitement once in awhile? You're barely six hundred years old. Live a little, will you?"
Jeanne looked up at where her darling little Cereza was poised above her and let the current paper she was holding fall into her lap, "I do have fun. When out I'm with you on your daily little hunts of those incessant beasts you seem so intent on entertaining."
"It's not my fault I love a good roughing up every now and then. It's a matter of supply and demand, really." She gestured to the papers in Jeanne's right hand, "Unlike these. What's so fun about reading poorly written literature produced by humans?"
"I used to think that maybe they could prove me wrong in my thinking that their entire race was as stupid as I believed," Jeanne looked down at the papers and then chucked them off into the desk at her side in disgust, "But I've come to see otherwise."
"I see my point has been made," Bayonetta crossed her arms back over her chest, "So? I indulge in those little dinner dates of ours that you're so fond of. Why not repay the favor, hm?"
Jeanne glanced up at the woman across from her, the way in which her eyes were settled in determination and the defiant crease in her eyebrows. She could use the break… and it would give her a chance to watch after Cereza for the night and prevent her from getting into any type of unsavory antics. …She could also use this little nighttime adventure as a bonding experience. Even if the memories weren't coming back or were slow to return, no one said she couldn't try and expedite the process.
Xxx
Witches don't get sick.
Witches don't get hangovers.
No, that was a lie. Phenomenal cosmic powers didn't get rid of the evidence of your stupid choices in the morning. So Jeanne had had a little bit too much to drink … one glass of Pinot noir too many. Or was it that drink that Cereza kept pouring down her throat that had done her in? She could hear her voice from last night yelling in her ear: (WHO THE FUCK DRINKS WINE AT A CLUB!?). If she was going to dress up like an over sexualized tart, she was going to drink the part too.
Jeanne groaned and her stomach lurched at the memory. God, it hurt everywhere.
Bayonetta appeared in the bathroom with Atrum at her heels and a bottle of ginger ale as a peace offering. She sat opposite Jeanne who was propped up on her side by the claw foot tub. The black kitten meowed affectionately at Jeanne and curled up at her head. Well, at least one stray was attracted to her.
Xxx
They were having dinner again at some café in midtown when Jeanne realized that perhaps Cereza knew more than she was letting on.
"Cereza." Jeanne began, noting how Bayonetta still seemed to flinch slightly at the foreign name, "…Has anything come back to you?"
"Nothing really." Bayonetta shrugged, "Remembering the past would be nice, but I'd rather live for my present as it stands now."
Jeanne stirred her pasta in thought, "Truly, you remember nothing?"
"Nothing save for the time you sealed me. A few sporadic memories of our childhood, I suppose." Bayonetta chewed thoughtfully on her fork, "Some other things that don't make much sense…"
Jeanne's eyebrows lifted curiously, "Like what?"
Bayonetta skewered a piece of chicken to inspect, "…Things."
Xxx
She made breakfast for Jeanne the next morning.
Odd for the fact that the dark haired woman was never up past the hour of noon and if she was, then she certainly would have gone back to sleep than rise with the sun. Jeanne barely got the chance to thank her before she was conjuring up a portal to Purgatorio and flipping off into oblivion, the sounds of gunshots and screaming angels filling the air.
Xxx
Breakfast became a normal fixture for Jeanne every morning, but Bayonetta would never stay. She would always catch a glimpse of her in the morning jumping through the same window as she always did. She would return home late, claiming fatigue and retire to her room for the remainder of the night without another word to Jeanne. She became less talkative at their weekly Sunday dinners and finally she became a fading presence in the apartment as it had been before she moved in.
It didn't take long for Jeanne to catch on. She knew that the memories were finally coming back to her and this was her way of dealing with whatever was going on in her mind. Jeanne would just have to occupy her time with other ventures until Bayonetta came back to confront her about everything. Maybe then they could talk.
Xxx
They didn't talk with words, though.
Bayonetta always was more for the hands on approach after all.
A week before summer came to end; she crawled into bed with Jeanne in the middle of the night. She pressed a finger to Jeanne's lips to keep her from saying anything and then proceeded to sink beneath the sheets, dragging all unnecessary clothing with her.
Xxx
"So you know, then?" Jeanne asked, staring up at shadows the city light's painted along her ceiling.
"…I started remembering more when I moved in with you." Bayonetta replied, "Little bits and pieces. Sounds, too. That's all they were at first … but then I started dreaming and well…" She turned to look at Jeanne in the darkness, "They really were too vivid to simply be considered just mere dreams."
Oh.
"Jeanne, you were so uninhibited back then. What happened? Has old age really got you that tightly wound up?"
"Excuse you?"
"Well the latter is certainly true," Bayonetta thought out loud, turning to Jeanne with her usual coquettish grin.
"…What do you want to do?" Jeanne asked, weary at what direction this conversation would take.
What if she didn't want to stay with her as they were five hundred years ago? She had waited so long for her Cere… no, Bayonetta, to come back to her after all these years … what would it mean if she no longer felt the same way anymore? She was a completely different person now. Jeanne couldn't expect her to stay around as things were now. Even if she still saw her as Cereza… Cereza was still there, but this person was different in so many ways. But, she couldn't bear the thought. She didn't want to think about it.
"…Well," Bayonetta began as she finally gave her an answer, "I'm still quite fond of stuffed animals, if you must know."
