Chapter Text
“Come on, Lady. Just a little farther.”
She coughed, biting down a painful laugh. “You said that…six…miles ago.”
“And that means this time it's closer to being true.”
She stumbled as her knee gave out and her ankle almost twisted, and Dante finally gave up on supporting her and instead scooped her into his arms. She cried out partially in pain, part protest, but he didn't let her go.
“I'm sorry but right now I'm more worried about how much that mask has failed than your wound. You can shoot me later.”
“Hold you to that,” she grit out, her arms wrapping around his armored neck as she breathed shakily through a mangled respirator and the bleeding of her side. Of all the places to get stranded bleeding Makai was decidedly one of the worst, where breathing was a challenge and everything was built to hunt.
Dante had no mask, his lungs quickly adapting in trigger to support him in the toxic air, but should he turn back they'd both be struggling. Good thing he'd also adapted to living more comfortably in trigger. Ten years of practice did that.
He took them farther and farther underground, the haze of lava flows and dim light giving way to darkness that only Dante’s glow alleviated. His wings cast a haze of heat and illumination down a fissure of rock, and when they approached an edge that rushed with a cold current of clean air Dante paused at its precipice, filling his lungs with a grateful gasp.
Just because he could survive in the toxins didn't mean it felt good.
Mary also sagged, her head resting against his collarbone, her hand pulling the ruined mask to hang around her neck. She shivered, and Dante held her closer.
“Well, it's cold or poison. And we've gotta lay low for twelve hours until Nero and Trish can meet us at the next rift.”
Mary curled up against his body closely, burrowing fingers into the soft spot where a heat haze bled from between scales. His breath fogged like steam.
“Cold,” she said. “Just don't let me go.”
“Never.”
He turned his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead, and then flaring his wings, dropped them into the dark.
He found them a low cave in the wall where there was a solid back and only one entrance that anything without wings would struggle to access. Sweeping inside and landing gracefully he knelt, scanning for the least wet place to set Mary. He was wearing their supply pack, and without putting her down it was going to be difficult to go through.
“Okay, I know I promised–”
She grit her teeth and nodded. “Just be fast.”
He was. Soon he had a bedroll, two packs of rations, and their medical kit all out and Mary settled on top of it. She leaned against the wall, biting back whimpers as she peeled ruined clothing and body armor out of the gash.
Dante knelt before her and tried to keep most of his worry off his face, spreading his wings part way both to radiate heat and to give them better light. The less artificial light they used in a place like this the better.
She looked bad, and he pulled supplies, stomach churning while he tried not to think about incurable infections and Makain parasites. Plenty were bloodborne and plenty had dormant eggs buried in caves. Nora had identified at least four that were compatible with humans and had made it out of Makai. The Plaga in Spain….
“Hey, Dante?”
Her voice broke into his spiral and he froze, meeting her eyes with a roll of gauze between his claws.
She gave him a small smile, sweat highlighting her pain despite the cold, her hand reaching out to stroke his cheek.
“Breathe, okay? I can't get out of here without you and I wouldn't want to.”
He sought her eyes, unaware until her breathing slowed that his was too fast. Seeing his own glow reflected in her eyes, seeing the way it shivered.
Her fingers slipped from his cheek to touch his chest. “You're flickering,” she said gently, and he was aware of the way his glow caught in the sweat that ran across her temple. “I'm going to be okay.”
He took a deep breath. Nodded. Tore his eyes away from her face and focused on helping her the best he could.
He worked in silence and she suffered quietly until there was no more to do but wrap her up in his arms and in his wings and wait for morning. This he did gratefully, sinking into the bedroll and pulling her so close anyone looking would think he was the only one in the cave. His trigger easily enveloped her, and when he closed his wings around them both like a cocoon she sighed in relief, relaxing into him as her head tucked against his chest.
He watched her, eyes soft as the light of his heartbeat slowed. Soon the glow was low and steady, faster with concern but no longer flashing bright with adrenaline and anxiety.
Lady's eyes were still sleepily open, and she gazed at the fissures of volcanic light that gilded her demon’s chest. Fingers playing gently along the rough edge that split up towards his left shoulder she hummed.
“We're going to be okay,” she murmured, and then resting her fingers in the soft membrane her eyes flicked up to look at his face. “I'm glad you're feeling calmer,” she said, gently running her fingertips back and forth along the sensitive fissure. Dante hummed and sighed, giving her a gentle squeeze. He rest his head down where they could look almost eye to eye.
“I love you,” he said. “You're not allowed to get hurt like that anymore.”
“I agree, but you can't tell me what to do,” she said, brushing the underside of a spike jutting from his jaw. “If I never get hurt again like this it's because I decided.”
He snorted a tired little laugh. “Of course.”
She cuddled in closer and sighed, resting her head below his chin. Her fingers settled in the largest fissure, warmed pleasantly by the flow of moniko beneath, and they fell silent.
“I like that I can hear them,” she murmured some time later when Dante thought her long asleep. “The other valves in your heart. When you're in this form. We don't cuddle often enough while you have wings. It's always the thick of battle and I forget how soothing your full heartbeat is.”
“I didn't realize you liked it,” he said softly, his knuckles absently tracing across her back. “Not too alien for you?”
She frowned and looked up, but he was avoiding her face.
“Dante, look at me.”
He did, and the little spark of withdrawal there hurt her.
“I love you. You. All of you.”
Her hand pressed against his heart and she held his eyes with her own until that distance died. “Of course I like how your heartbeat sounds. In and out of trigger. Always. I wouldn't trade it for the world. I wouldn't change it either. Your wings are gorgeous, you are gorgeous.”
Her tone was not flirting or teasing. She was deeply serious, and Dante experienced for the first time what tears felt like at the edges of a demon's eyes. True to form, they did not fall, but they were there.
He bent his horned head and pressed his lips to Lady's. Long and gentle and warm. She returned the kiss, tracing the ridge of the horn and then burying her fingers in the soft white spines at the base of his skull.
She looked up at him, her gaze soft. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“Thank you for letting me.” He pressed one more kiss against her forehead. “Get some sleep.”
“You too,” she said, settling in again with her head resting against his chest. The six valves rhythm of his trigger heart washed over her, and bathed in the firelight of his resting pulse, she slept.