I do not own Devil May Cry or any of the characters.
Slow Travel
Marcus winced as his chest throbbed painfully. They had only been moving for a little over an hour, but already his bandages needed to be changed. Aside from that, he had had to fight off three swarms of giant demonic mosquitoes with one pistol and had yet to make it out of the forest, which should only be a half hour trip. Kat was helping him any time they had to climb over a high root, and was staying at his side in case he got too tired and collapsed, which had happened twice already.
Finally, they stepped out of the trees and gazed out across a massive, flat stretch of desert with no cover anywhere that they could see. Marcus groaned, sitting carefully against a tree and leaning back against it. They would be sitting ducks for any demon that saw them for another three days at the speed they were going.
"I should change your bandages now," Kat said. "We might not get to rest for a while."
"No," Marcus said. "We'll be okay. We may not be able to hide from any demons that want to kill us, but neither can they. If nothing else, we can always turn Pandora into a sniper rifle and pick them off."
Kat nodded and sat beside Marcus, watching him worriedly.
"I'm alright," Marcus said. "Just need to rest a couple of minutes."
Kat nodded and waited in silence. After about half an hour, Marcus forced himself up using Red Queen as a crutch, and they started out across the desert. They travelled mostly in silence, both scanning around for any sign of demons looking for them. Aside from the mosquitoes, the trip so far had been unsettlingly quiet. Usually you couldn't take a hundred steps in the Demon World without meeting a devil. Suddenly, a cloud of sand spiraled up from the ground beside Kat before solidifying into a devil consisting of an emaciated humanoid with a white rag, a white cloth over their eyes, and a scythe held above him, ready to swing. Marcus pushed off with Red Queen, shouldering Kat out of the way just before the scythe split his front open, his bandages falling off as his blood splattered across the ground. The demon pulled its scythe around for a second slash but Marcus grabbed its face with his Devil Bringer, crushing it. The Red Queen remained stuck in the ground as Marcus sank to his knees, coughing up blood and holding a hand to his wound.
"Okay," Marcus groaned. "You can change my bandages now."
Kat moved to stand just as the ground below them cracked. Marcus's eyes widened and he lunged for Kat just as it shattered. As they fell, demonic insects, the same type that had been at the summoning circle Vergil came from, shot past them. Marcus reached out past them, the insects claws shredding at his arm as they passed. Then, his hand closed around Kat's, Kat squeezing his hand instantly, and Marcus held his Devil Bringer up, the spectral hand shooting up through the cloud of insects and grabbing Red Queen, halting their fall as the last of the bugs passed. Marcus looked down, seeing blood pouring out of the gashes on his arm quickly but seeing that Kat was unscathed aside from a scratch in her cheek. He sighed in relief, pulling them up slowly before lifting Kat up onto the ground above first. Then, she helped him climb up before he let his spectral arm fade.
"Are you okay?" Kat asked.
"Yeah," Marcus sighed. "Just a few cuts."
"Don't play tough!" Kat snapped, pulling out her green spray paint and fresh bandages. "At the very least that scythe did a lot of damage."
Marcus remained silent, gritting his teeth as she sprayed his wounds, also taking the time to spray his stab wounds again as well. Then, she carefully re-bandaged all of his wounds, his left arm now bandaged on the forearm from the gash halfway through the forearm as well as also being bandaged on the upper arm for a couple of particularly nasty gashes. Then, she started in on his torso again.
"Thank you," Kat said as she worked. "For saving me. I probably would have died if you hadn't pushed me out of the way."
"I couldn't let you die," Marcus said.
"True," Kat said. "Then you'd be stuck here."
"That's not what I mean," Marcus said. "I don't particularly care about being stuck here. Yeah I want to make sure my mother's okay, and I'd like a rematch against Vergil, but I don't care much about being in the Human World. There's nothing really for me there. Anyone I know who's not Dante or one of his friends thinks that I'm a freak because of my arm. Anyone who doesn't know about it dislikes me because I'm antisocial. Down here it's easy. Anything I see wants me dead. Except you. You're the only person who has been there for me since the beginning, no matter what. I couldn't let you die because I don't want to see you hurt."
Kat smiled, leaning forward to wrap the bandages around his chest again and kissed him lightly on the cheek as she did. He smiled slightly as well as she finished bandaging him.
"You must be cold without a shirt," Kat said.
"We're in the desert," Marcus chuckled. "Tonight maybe, but for now I'm fine."
Kat nodded, smiling, then helped him up, picking up the Red Queen and putting it against her back, smiling when it stayed there, then put his arm around her shoulders, helping bear his weight as they continued. They walked for hours, until whatever passed as the sun in the Demon World began to set and the temperature began to fall fast.
"We need shelter," Kat said, her breath fogging in front of her. "You'll freeze to death if we don't. Hell, I might freeze to death if we don't."
Marcus nodded, extending his spectral arm and smashing a hole in the ground, looking in and seeing that the cavern below reached down about a hundred feet before there was a flat floor. He wrapped his arm around Kat's waist, Kat wrapping both of hers around his shoulders before he used the spectral arm to lower them to the cavern floor. As he let the arm fade, his Devil Bringer glowed brightly, illuminating the cavern. Aside from the hole, there was also a tunnel out on one side, heading in the same direction they had been traveling, and they could hear water from down the tunnel.
"What luck," Kat smiled. "Shelter and water. Should we take the tunnel tomorrow?"
"It'll probably be cold, but yeah," Marcus nodded. "Probably best to use the tunnel."
Kat nodded, setting him against the wall of the cavern before sitting a couple feet away. Marcus tipped his head back, closing his eyes. Within seconds the cold began to get to him, his body trembling slightly, not full-fledged shivers but about to be. Before he could be concerned about that, he heard Kat sniff. He opened an eye, staring at her. She was silent, probably waiting to see if he was still awake. After another moment, she sniffed again, reaching up to wipe her eyes. She was lying on her side in the fetal position again, and again she was crying. Marcus had no idea why, but he didn't care why. She was crying and he somehow felt like it was his fault. After another moment of silence, she sniffed again before a muffled sob escaped her, Kat instantly covering her mouth. Marcus shifted over, lying behind her and wrapping his arms around her, gently pulling her against him. She gasped as he did, looking back at him, worriedly.
"It's cold," Marcus said, seeing a flash of relief cross her face before she nodded and turned her head forward again, settling against him, her warmth soaking into him almost instantly.
After a couple of seconds, he heard and felt her breathing slow as she drifted off to sleep and he smiled, soon following her into unconsciousness.
Marcus stirred, eyes slowly opening to find that it was day, sunlight drifting through the hole in the top of the cavern. Kat was still lying against him, his arms around her, but she was awake, waiting for him to wake up.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" Marcus asked.
"You need as much rest as you can get," Kat replied.
They remained like that for a while, Marcus finding he didn't want her to leave. Finally he pulled his top arm back and Kat pushed herself up, her shirt and vest miraculously free of blood, despite the red stain on his bandages. He pushed himself up slowly, gingerly, and Kat turned to him, undoing his bandages and tossing them aside as she pulled out more paint and fresh bandages. His right arm was fully healed now, along with his left upper arm, but his forearm and torso were still slow to heal. Kat shook her paint and he winced in anticipation.
"Is that really necessary?" Marcus asked.
"It's helping," Kat said. "You're still so weak that you should be healing only slightly faster than a human."
He nodded and clamped his teeth shut as she sprayed his wounds. Then, they started the usual process of her bandaging his wounds. As she worked, Marcus kept his eyes on her face, searching for any sign of why she was crying. She was definitely lost in thought, and looked like there was something bothering her, but he couldn't tell what. Once she was finished, she bandaged his forearm then helped him stand, picking up Red Queen as he retrieved the other two swords. Then, she took his arm over her shoulders and started down the tunnel, the temperature falling from chilly to bitterly cold quickly. At a guess, Marcus would say it was somewhere around thirty degrees. He could feel himself shivering, and obviously so could Kat, since she shifted closer and wrapped her arms around him, trying to keep him as warm as possible.
They continued to walk, both struggling to ignore the cold. As they walked, the sound of water slowly began to grow louder until finally a river fed into the tunnel from the left, filling a deep ditch on their left, taking up half the tunnel, and then flowing alongside them. As they walked, the water forced the temperature down even further, Marcus beginning to shiver badly.
"Maybe we should head back," Kat said.
"It's alright," Marcus said. "I'll get used to it."
"Or you'll freeze to death," Kat said. "Don't be stubborn. You can't survive this kind of cold in only a pair of ruined pants and some bandages."
Marcus shook his head.
"I'll be alright," Marcus said. "Let's just keep going."
Kat looked unsure but nodded, continuing. Marcus wasn't sure how long they walked. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours. The more tired and cold he got, the less time seemed to make sense. Before he knew it, they had stopped and were sitting against the wall, Kat rummaging through her medical supplies.
"I have an idea," Marcus said, picking up pandora and forming a shoulder-fired laser cannon.
He fired it into the ceiling at an angle, drilling a hole to the surface and letting in the sunlight.
"When we take a break let's do it up there," Marcus said.
Kat smiled at the simple solution and nodded. She wrapped her arms around him, taking Pandora, and he extended his spectral arm, pulling them out of the tunnel. Once outside, they lay in the sun, letting it warm them. After a couple of minutes, Kat helped Marcus back into a sitting position, pulling out more bandages and a spray paint can. She unwrapped his wounds and sighed.
"They're barely healing," Kat sighed. "This is going to take a while to heal."
"We've got time," Marcus said, picking up his pistol, Kat glancing at him.
"I don't want to get slashed again," Marcus said.
Kat smiled and nodded, before spraying his wounds and beginning to bandage them again. Marcus kept his eyes away from her, searching the desert around them as she worked. Just as she finished, sand began to rise all around them. His eyes widened and he grabbed her, throwing them both into the hole, leaving the rest of her spray paint and most of the bandages behind as they fell into the hole a second before dozens of devils with scythes arrived, all slashing where they had been. They tumbled down the hole rapidly, stopping just short of falling when he grabbed her arm and drove the sword Dante had given him into the stone. He let go, instantly catching the sword again with the spectral arm and slowly lowered them to the ground before pulling the sword back to himself and putting it on his back again. Kat hugged him, sighing in relief.
"I guess we're not going back, huh?" Marcus asked.
She shook her head sadly and looked down the tunnel, illuminated by his glowing Devil Bringer.
"How long do you suppose this tunnel is?" Kat asked.
"Long," Marcus said. "Probably all the way across the desert. We'd better get walking."
She nodded and they continued. After a few hours, Marcus's stomach rumbled. He grit his teeth, trying to ignore the sudden ache he had as his hunger made itself known. He hadn't eaten in days. Kat was dead, so she couldn't get hungry, but he needed food. After a few more hours, they stopped, Marcus needing to rest. Kat sat beside him and Marcus yawned.
"Try to rest," Kat said. "Hopefully we can find some food or fish tomorrow, once we're rested."
Marcus nodded, feeling sleep fighting to take him, but the cold denied him rest, his body shaking badly from the cold. He looked over at Kat, curled into a ball as usual, this time to try to stay warm but shaking just as bad as he was. He lay down, pulling her to him and after a moment of surprise, she felt how badly he was shivering and turned toward him.
"Close your eyes," Kat instructed.
He hesitated a moment but then did so, hearing her set Red Queen and her stencil tube aside. Then, he heard a zipper open, then silence. After a moment, he felt her lean into him, feeling the skin of her stomach pressing against him just below the bandages, her bra against his chest. Then, she pulled her sweatshirt down over both of them, covering their heads, upper torsos, and upper arms, since they couldn't get their heads out through the neck hole, and weren't willing to try. It was cramped inside of her sweatshirt, and they were undoubtedly stretching it out, but their combined body heat warmed the inside of the sweatshirt fairly quickly. After a moment, Kat shifted, the side of her head pressing against his chest before she gently tipped him backward, laying him down on her vest. he allowed her go guide him, since she knew where everything was better than him, given he had had his eyes closed, and after a moment, they were lying down with him on his back and her on top of him, his arms around her, holding the sweatshirt as low as he could get it.
"Better?" she whispered.
"Better," Marcus replied, giving her a brief squeeze.
After a couple of minutes, she drifted off, but try as he might, he couldn't. She was lying on his wounds, and it hurt. He wasn't going to say anything, but he couldn't sleep. Finally, after at least an hour, sleep finally claimed him. His sleep was fitful, his dreams filled with images of Vergil's demon form, Dante fighting him, and Nero's body for the first time since it had happened. When he finally awoke, it was to Kat shaking him gently, both still inside the sweatshirt.
"You were having a nightmare," Kat said. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Marcus said. "Thanks."
Kat gave him a worried look but he smiled reassuringly. She nodded and set her head back down and he set his head back, closing his eyes and allowing sleep to take him again, thankfully without dreams this time.
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