PSL . Laura, Dante
Jun. 19th, 2025 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
red_oniIn the evening, a grey-painted van tore up the driveway of an abandoned chapel at the edge of town. Parked at a diner down the street, Dante dropped his spoon at the bottom of a sundae glass and dropped his cash at his booth. It had been a pretty dull stakeout and finally getting to meet his targets sounded like a fun time. Cultists, desperate to find arcane secrets and powers from hell? He loved giving those kinds of jackasses a good scare.
Striding through the dark, a ways from the footpath that crossed up the hill, he'd come to a half at the edge of the trees. Wine red leather and a great silver sword hung over his shoulder, he wouldn't stand a chance playing a stealthy game but by the time he'd gotten to the top, they were gone.
Dante hunched beside the parked van and looked over the footprints left in the mud, lips squeezed into a scowl. Mixed with the big footfalls, there were smaller ones. There wasn't much detective work to do there. Dragging his hand over his face and letting a dark thought go. He'd seen another set of prints round the back of the church but they looked spaced out enough to just be another crazed adult. Someone who really, truly cared about the lives of the children that were taken would have planned their move carefully but he wasn't the rational type. He'd crossed his arms with one another, shoving his fingers between the massive archway doors and ripped them off their hinges with splintering cracks. He'd lunged forward, his pistols from behind his back and taking in the scene with a wild and toothy grin.
There were kids, huddled together between hooded people with different weapons. No smell of blood--not yet. They'd turned to look his way and he'd seen wild expressions of fear that made him think with no small amount of glee that it was, no doubt, going to be the scariest thing they'd seen in their entire lives. He fired twice, punching a hole in one man's hand as she'd leaned over one girl with a knife, reaching out to drag her away from her friends. What stole Dante's smile hadn't been that moment of fear on the girl's face but the way she'd moved her face away when four platinum blades burst from the man's chest.
He'd locked eyes with Laura, held in place for only a moment by a flash of genuine shock. A hooded figure beside the door lunged at him in that opportunity only to crumple at the floor when Dante shot the knife out of his hand and elbowed him halfway through the wood-framed wall he'd come from. Was that Laura?. She looked like she'd lifted that guy up with a bunch of stilettos. There was muffled screaming, people were pulling out bladed weapons that looked like they were made of fire and Laura was already moving onto the next guy. The flashes of light coming from the end of his pistols, as he'd punched holes in people that were well on their way until turning into demons, had lit the room up well enough that he knew for sure--Yeah. That was Laura and the knives were coming from her hands. In the back of his head he'd just thought, almost embarrassed, that he'd been so busy with work he hadn't texted her for a month.
They could talk after.
Striding through the dark, a ways from the footpath that crossed up the hill, he'd come to a half at the edge of the trees. Wine red leather and a great silver sword hung over his shoulder, he wouldn't stand a chance playing a stealthy game but by the time he'd gotten to the top, they were gone.
Dante hunched beside the parked van and looked over the footprints left in the mud, lips squeezed into a scowl. Mixed with the big footfalls, there were smaller ones. There wasn't much detective work to do there. Dragging his hand over his face and letting a dark thought go. He'd seen another set of prints round the back of the church but they looked spaced out enough to just be another crazed adult. Someone who really, truly cared about the lives of the children that were taken would have planned their move carefully but he wasn't the rational type. He'd crossed his arms with one another, shoving his fingers between the massive archway doors and ripped them off their hinges with splintering cracks. He'd lunged forward, his pistols from behind his back and taking in the scene with a wild and toothy grin.
There were kids, huddled together between hooded people with different weapons. No smell of blood--not yet. They'd turned to look his way and he'd seen wild expressions of fear that made him think with no small amount of glee that it was, no doubt, going to be the scariest thing they'd seen in their entire lives. He fired twice, punching a hole in one man's hand as she'd leaned over one girl with a knife, reaching out to drag her away from her friends. What stole Dante's smile hadn't been that moment of fear on the girl's face but the way she'd moved her face away when four platinum blades burst from the man's chest.
He'd locked eyes with Laura, held in place for only a moment by a flash of genuine shock. A hooded figure beside the door lunged at him in that opportunity only to crumple at the floor when Dante shot the knife out of his hand and elbowed him halfway through the wood-framed wall he'd come from. Was that Laura?. She looked like she'd lifted that guy up with a bunch of stilettos. There was muffled screaming, people were pulling out bladed weapons that looked like they were made of fire and Laura was already moving onto the next guy. The flashes of light coming from the end of his pistols, as he'd punched holes in people that were well on their way until turning into demons, had lit the room up well enough that he knew for sure--Yeah. That was Laura and the knives were coming from her hands. In the back of his head he'd just thought, almost embarrassed, that he'd been so busy with work he hadn't texted her for a month.
They could talk after.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-18 04:22 am (UTC)Laura was a first but, even as he began dusting the ash from his gloves so he could be rid of the last fragments of that demonic artifact, he felt like he wasn't totally at the end of his road with her. The disgust and distrust he expected to radiate from her ever word wasn't exactly absent but it wasn't directed at him. It felt no different than talking smack about a creep on the street.
Placing that hand on his hip, he offered her a sigh. The smile was set aside for the moment but he didn't seem particularly unhappy with it gone. Instead, he only seemed a little empty--as if he just needed to keep himself busy for one reason or another.
"You ought to write their eulogy," Gaze drifting from the church to the woods opposite of the road, he squeezed one eye shut. The sad feeling welling up in his guts was unpleasant but he hadn't the slightest clue of how to actually deal with it. He just knew that he didn't like having that domino-effect of secrets being revealed thrust on him so quick into any evening. "You feel like talking to the cops or going for a hike around the neighborhood instead?"