dante "walking dumpster fire" rantanen | riku (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
darkinferno) wrote2017-02-01 01:54 pm
darkinferno) wrote2017-02-01 01:54 pm
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[ic inbox]
Dante Rantanen
"Hey, you've reached Dante. I'm not in right now--you know what to do."
VOICE | TEXT | VIDEO | ACTION
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you better be okay
8/26 (at like 2:30 am) (prepare ur inbox i'm not sorry)
8/26, 4am
whats a guy gotta do to get some sleep
4:20 am
fuck im so tired i actually made that joke
cant sleep thuogh
4:43 am
are you a heavy sleeper or a light sleeper
hope rufus is ok
4:51 am
do you think it got rid of the damage on people too
if anyone in the city got killed while all those monsters were running around did they come back to life
or are they just gone now
will it be like everything else with retrospec, will all the people without it just think that person never existed in the first place?
5:03 am
look at all this ignore it im full of shit
im gonna try and sleep again i guess
8:37 am done! i think
text me whenever you get this i guess im nto sleeping agian
[He says. Before being a dumb fucker and mixing medicine + alcohol and passing out until 5:30pm. Dante makes great choices, obviously.]
i'm done with you
--swer, dammit. Oh? Dante?
i feel like that's a lie??
Prompto.
Hey.
What's up?
[It's a casualness he doesn't really feel.]
are you assuming that i'm a liar?????
I haven't seen you in ages. I'm on my way to yours.
i am just assuming that we would both be v sad if this CR was abandoned
Okay. I'll have the door open.
[And he will! Whenever Prompto makes it to Birch Hills, Dante's lying on the couch with his phone, idly scrolling as though he's actually paying attention to it. The apartment isn't a wreck by any means, but it's untidier than it's been in the past when Prompto's been here: the scraps of the suit he showed back up in town are in a pile near the door where he stripped down as soon as he got home, there's a blanket that's been thrown on the floor behind the chaise sofa, and pillows piled in a chair. The coffee table has a couple empty glasses, ibuprofen, NyQuil, and a bottle of whiskey that's 3/4ths of the way gone already. He doesn't have the energy for any of this, okay...
Dante himself is in pajamas, dark grey pajama pants and the lightest t-shirt he could find. His hair's a mess and he's got dark rings under his eyes, but he doesn't look as bad as he did a few hours ago. Small miracles!
Once he realizes Prompto's there, Dante sits up, dropping his phone to the coffee table.]
Hey. You made it.
[Man... they both survived this whole ordeal. He almost can't believe it.]
I'm glad you're okay.
imagine............
[he scoffs, but he can't uphold this scowl for long. as it were, he grins and helps himself inside, bringing dante in for a hug. you think you can be friends with prompto, go missing for days, and not get a hug out of it? what foolish reality have you been living in...?]
[when he pulls back, he's smiling]
Could be worse.
[he's got bruising purple and yellows on his arms, on his temple, and some scratches and healing superficial cuts and scabs.]
[also, he knows noctis enough to not mind the mess too much, although he makes a note of it. he walks in, kicking some pillows about a bit before plopping himself down on an armchair]
Messed up your sleep?
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He doesn't know how he managed to find a bro like Prompto, but damn if he's not incredibly lucky to have managed it.
It looks like they're both banged up a bit though; Dante's got a number of cuts and scrapes of his own, though by this point all of his worst injuries have been healed by either Izuku or Ardyn (the latter to Dante's resignation...). He drops back down to the couch as Prompto picks a chair for himself, running his hands through his hair.]
Yeah... something like that.
What were you up to while the rest of us were gone...?
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[a thoughtful hum, and then he's picking up his feet to remove his shoes. time to get comfy.]
My team was off in the subway. Y'know, the one up for remodeling we never can go into anymore? Full of monsters and strange rooms. One of the Retrospec workers got seriously prissy over nothing with us, so we got monster duty a while. [shrug] So, tons of monsters and eating parties at the end of each week.
You?
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Seriously prissy? You didn't have to deal with Jim, did you?
[He can't help the face he makes when Prompto asks about his own adventures. Look, they should just talk about Prompto's adventures, those are probably a lot better...]
Our team... our team was okay. We started out trapped in these mines, but there was this door that took us to a bayou instead. We hung around there for a little while...
[Fuck. Why is it so hard to talk about? Prompto's his brother, it shouldn't be hard to admit to all this. He talked to him about the darkness, about how he'd apparently lost himself to it... why can't he talk about this? Dante's studying that bottle of whiskey on the table, but he's making a concentrated effort not to rely on that crutch tonight. Not to find the will to talk about it, at least.]
There was this mansion in the bayou. We managed to find some stuff about Retrospec up in the observatory, but that was after everything else happened. I'm not sure any of us have even looked at everything we found yet.
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[he doesn't go any further on what his team did, because he's actually more interested in what dante went through--when he and the rest disappeared. he notices there's something underlying that's really bothering dante, though, and so prompto is being extra observant.]
A mansion.
Did you get to bring the stuff back?
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But he nods at Prompto's question, pointing toward the coffee table. They've made copies for all of the members of their team, a contract between a C. Vanderweele and another party whose name is too blurry to really make out and a stack of blueprints detailing the Retrospec building as it was originally designed. In spite of what they've seen of the building, it looks as though it reaches much further than any of them could have ever dreamed, stretching beneath the city, multiple levels down, and then erupting back into the open outside of the city limits where other buildings are stationed aboveground.]
Yeah, it's there. Some contract and the blueprints for Retrospec's HQ in Tisse. You can take a look if you want.
[For a moment he lapses into silence, but then he'll glance back up at Prompto.]
Did... anything happen? To your team, I mean. Grell said you guys had to blow up a monster.
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[dante's hesitant]
We had to blow up several monsters. That's basically all that happened: monsters.
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Wish I could say the same for us. That mansion... [He looks away, rubbing at the back of his neck self-consciously.]
That mansion was hell. The only good part of it was finally finding a working shower.
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[he expects more, but dante really is hesitant, not saying much at all. prompto takes in a deep breath and then leans further back on the chair]
So... is it something worth talking about, or would you rather not?
open the floodgates ig ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i'm sorry for the length of this!!
But when Prompto takes a deep breath, Dante does as well, glancing away, then down at his hands (unscarred, thanks to Ardyn), and finally back up at Prompto.]
Yeah. Sorry. It's just... a lot.
[Where does he even begin? He frowns, trying to decide... and he's just gonna force himself to say it, putting the facts out there for Prompto to hear.]
It was haunted. There was a family that had lived there, the Spinnatos... we don't know why, but the nanny poisoned their kids and the parents blamed each other for it. Every... every room we went in, there was something. A trap, or--or some sort of game.
[He's pulling his feet up onto the couch, resting his folded arms on his knees and folding into himself as he remembers.]
That's what happened to me and this other kid, Toushiro. We went into one of the bedrooms and the next thing you know, we were both tied up against the headboards and this ghost was dropping from the ceiling on a noose challenging us to play Family Feud against each other. He threatened to kill both of us if we refused. I tried to throw the game, but... I messed up. [Dante squeezes his eyes closed; it doesn't get any easier to admit, no matter how many times he says it.] The last question was about the Spinnatos and what had happened, and I... I realized what had happened to them.
He killed Toushiro. He... there were these giant blades over top of us that kept dropping lower, like a countdown if we didn't answer fast enough. When I realized that the parents had blamed each other because the servants were already ghosts, they... stopped. And then the one over him dropped straight down into him and I couldn't do anything...!
[One hand goes to his hair, running through and pulling at the roots as though it might help somehow. All he can see is the look of terror on the other boy's face just before the blade had dropped, the way he'd been pleading, the tears on his face... it's his fault that he'd had to go through that. He'd fucked up. He hadn't been able to throw the game because of his big mouth.]
They turned him into a ghost too. I had to carry his body with us until we got back to the city. And Ghost, he... I don't know how, but he took away everything I'd remembered so far. I couldn't summon my sword, I couldn't fight, and then we had to fight this wraith and all the other ghosts trapped in the manor and I couldn't do anything. And those other ghosts, they could--they could possess you, make you fight against everybody else...
Freya almost killed me before we managed to get the ghost out of her. I would've killed Ritsu if he hadn't been able to force it out of me. I don't know how many of us got possessed; there were so many of them and the wraith had these poisonous nails that could make your entire body shut down...
Even when we managed to kill her, it was only because Ryoji got stabbed. When it pierced his chest, something... something happened. We were able to take her apart piece by piece until she was gone. But by the time we got back to the city, Ryoji was dead.
[Because they hadn't been able to protect him.
Because he hadn't been able to protect him.
Dante takes a moment to breath, taking in a long, slow breath that comes back out with a bit of a shudder to it. There had been a lot that happened in Hell Manor, and he's definitely having trouble processing all of it. Sorry, Prompto--he isn't trying to be a downer, but it's hard not to be right now.]
Re: open the floodgates ig ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i'm sorry for the length of this!!
[when dante ends his tale, prompto gets up and joins him on the couch, wrapping arms around him, trying to pull dante away from the otherwise upsetting memories. it's okay now, he hopes to transmit with his action. no doubt it was terrible, but dante and the rest are not in that manor anymore.]
That's fucked up.
[what else can you say]
But, listen... Nothing that happened was your fault. You didn't do anything to put any of you in that house.
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But there are times where Prompto is closer than any of them, and right now, as Prompto joins him on the couch... it's one of those times. Dante unfolds without needing to be urged, letting Prompto close and even hugging him back, leaning into him. Prompto is one of the few that Dante trusts enough to let in even now, when he's fighting so hard not to crumble into a million pieces.]
I... I know. I just... can't get it out of my brain.
I keep seeing it happen and I can't tell if it's a memory or a nightmare, whether I'm doing it or if it's the other me--I found out she was right, that witch. He did lose his heart to the darkness. And something possessed him because of it, made him try and kill his friends...
I don't know whether it's me fucking up or him controlling me and forcing me to attack them or if it's one of the ghosts... I can't tell. All I know is that they're hurting because of me.
[He's not sure if he's even making sense any more--it's all falling out of him in a rush, all the fears and worries that have plagued him for weeks, since even before they made it inside of the mansion. He just... he doesn't want to be used to hurt any one. And Dante's afraid that no matter what he does, it's what's going to wind up happening.]
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From what I understand, he wasn't heartless to begin with. You said it yourself, something possessed him. [him, because it's not dante. it isn't him.] If you were anythin' like him, you wouldn't be hurting like this too, you know?
[it's okay, even if it doesn't seem like it.]
[prompto rubs dante's back, in what he hopes are soothing circles]
And if you really think he's controlling you and forcing you to do things you don't want to do, then we'll take measures for it, right?
No matter what, you aren't alone, buddy.
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