⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
📍 Location: Dante's Room | Abandoned Safehouse
🕯 Year: Winter 2006 | Midnight + 4
🎯 POV: Shared — Wanda / Jean / Dante
🛡 Sin System Status: Soft Contact Recovery Protocol Initiated
⚠ Anchor Stability: Fluctuating | Integration Fragile — Emotional Mergepoint Hovering
"You don't hold a man made of fire to ignite him.
You hold him to remind him he still has skin."
—
The chamber was dim.
Fire had long since guttered out. Cold crept through the stones, turning silence into something brittle — something that asked *permission* before echoing.
Dante lay shirtless on the edge of the bed, his back to the wall, head tilted slightly toward the window. His breathing was shallow — not from being tired, but because he was on guard.
He hadn't slept.
Not since the Rift.
The brand on his shoulder still glowed — a faint molten orange burned into his skin like a mark that would never fade.
He heard the door before it opened, but he didn't turn.
Wanda stepped in quietly, her robe pulled low, one hand sliding along the doorway as if touching something precious that was about to be destroyed.
Her voice was soft and low.
"I'm not here to bring back what you've buried.
Just to keep it warm."
Dante didn't reply. He closed his eyes for a moment — just long enough for his guard to slip.
> [Sin System Recognition Sync: Wanda Maximoff +0.6% → 85.4%]
> Emotional Tag: "Sanctuary Gesture / Silent Reclaim"
> Bond Conflict: Paused
> Dante Anchor Drift: 54.2% → 55.5%
She moved slowly — slow enough for him to stop her.
But he didn't.
Wanda slipped under the sheet beside him, not facing him, not asking for anything.
Just… offering presence.
After a long silence, she said:
"You were never mine to hold.
But I tried to make your name feel like home."
Dante's voice was barely there:
"Maybe I needed one."
She didn't cry.
She just took his hand, laced her fingers through his, and held on — to the warmth, and to the emptiness.
▫▫▫
*Hours passed.*
Somewhere down the hallway, Jean stirred.
She knew Wanda had left the room. She didn't follow.
She waited — until the night seemed to close around them again, and Dante's pain eased from a burn to a dull ache.
Near dawn, she stepped into his room.
Wanda stayed still.
Dante's brow shifted slightly, but his eyes didn't open.
Jean's voice was quiet, close enough to touch:
"I don't care if she's here already.
I didn't come to fight her.
I came to kiss the part of you that stopped letting me try."
She moved to his side, her eyes following the brands that crossed his back and trailed down to his ribs.
Her fingers touched the largest one.
He shivered — not from pain, but from knowing.
She bent slowly and kissed the mark.
A soft press.
A vow.
"If I have to love both halves," she whispered, "I will.
But you have to let me touch the one that still flinches."
He breathed in — not deep, but real.
Slowly, he turned his face a little toward her voice.
The moment didn't turn into more.
Not yet.
But for the first time in days—
Dante didn't pull away.
> [Sin System Update: Jean Grey Sync +0.7% → 66.7%]
> Emotional Type: Empathic Invasion Accepted
> Mutual Yield Condition: Reached (Heat Level Tier II)
> Anchor Integration: 55.5% → 57.1%
▫▫▫
No one left.
Wanda stayed on one side.
Jean on the other.
They didn't touch each other.
Only him.
One hand rested on his shoulder.
Another traced lightly over the scar on his back.
And Dante — fierce, war-burned, devil-forged — let them hold him.
Not as rivals.
Not as fire.
As two truths he'd finally stopped trying to carry alone.
▫▫▫
Outside, snow fell quietly over frost-dark branches.
Inside, soft breaths rose — a different kind of truce.
Not born of peace,
but of need.
The kind that didn't ask to be held…
only stopped pushing it away.
> [Sin System Phase Complete: Dual Anchor Permissioned Contact Achieved]
> ❖ Wanda Maximoff → 85.4%
> ❖ Jean Grey → 66.7%
> ❖ Dante Sparda Anchor Integration → 57.1%
>
> Emotional Conflict Forecast: Temporarily Suspended
> Bond Phase: *Weight Held Together – No Victory Claimed, No Intimacy Lost*
And in the quiet…
Dante whispered a name.
Not for the women touching him.
But for someone who had not yet been born.
"Lioré…"
There was a pause.
Both women stilled — but neither pulled away.
Wanda's throat tightened.
Jean's lips parted in recognition.
Neither spoke.
But their fingers shifted against his skin at the same moment.
Because maybe the child existed only in dreams for now.
But the man between them?
He still wanted to be worthy of both hands.
___________