dante coltrane

Silence. Dante’s lips draw in, a tight line forming against his shadowed face, a darkness to hide the one that lingers in his head. But his hands clasp together, here not for himself but for the one he’d do anything for, even in death. “Does God make mistakes?”

.

Camilo’s asked himself the same question many times before — does God make mistakes? It would be prudent to answer ‘no’. He ought to protect and cultivate people’s faith, not make them question it. That’s his job, the role he’s chosen for himself. Ultimately it’s what Camilo settles for, after a drawn out pause, despite his private misconceptions. What good is a priest to a sinner seeking penance if not a word of truth passes between them?

WHERE: the train  WHEN: early evening WHO: open to anyone

"Let me guess," he told her, "you have a 'boyfriend.'" Always the convenient saying for girls like her, as if everyone was interested. ""Do you think all of us are the same?"

“Not worth my time, not even for a second.” She breaths under her breath, shaking her head as his question tapered off into silence. The blank easy to fill in - any of the guesses probably being correct. She was known for being erratic with her love life but for once she’d not tried a single thing with the handyman, he wasn’t anywhere near her type. Dante should know that by now but no doubt his rage was clouding his judgment as it so often did. The red mist. They both fell foul to it more often than they’d like to admit that was for sure. 

The jolt makes her do the same, hand that is on the gun retracting quickly so as not to trigger anything, gaze locking with his, sending a bolt of heat ripping across her chest thanks to its intensity. Fuck he had a hold over her that escalated to dangerous levels at some point - now being one of them. Her desire to please him overtaking everything else she could comprehend just so she could be the subject of his adoring glances instead of the ferocious fury that engulfed him right now. 

Eyes flicking over at the cowering, now crying man, he looked pathetic, she lifted a hand to Dante’s cheek caressing it gently with her thumb. “I love you, I love you so much.” She breathed, desire to lean in and kiss him only thwarted by the gun that was still hovering by the nameless mans sweaty temple. “I love him.” She declared more explicitly as she directed the comment towards the other, hand staying where it was even as her face turned, eyes sharp. “I love him, and you need to get the fuck out of here.” They just needed Dante to let go of him - that was the one thing - and she knew he’d scamper into the wind never to be seen again. 

Dante's role is of a higher grade on the food chain: a dog being pet by its keeper, cradled in affection. The affirmations release every cell stored in his lungs, flaring his nose, parting his lips, a release that can only come from the heaviest weight being melted by the very heat of her words. I love you. I love you. The air from the depths of his chest strum along his vocal cords. Relief. Gratitude. Happiness in a shade so dark it could eclipse her blinding light.

"Go," he speaks, movement only in his lips, direction clear, even when his vision is stuck on Zadie. There's hesitation that responds back, breaking him from her finally, wrenching the volume of his voice. "SHE SAID GET OUT! SHE DOESN'T WANT YOU!" His body jerks forward, in tandem to the man scrambling away, knowing that a second longer will have him racing a bullet. The sound of ragged footsteps falls away in the background, leaving behind the fortress well-defended, as it always has been, always will be.

Gently, he turns his head back to her, a forehead leaning against hers while his hand, still clutching its weapon, brushes at her ear. "Say it again?" he asks, his one ask. "Please?"

“You should have seen the way he walked in here like he fucking owns the place. Could’ve punched that smug grin right off his fucking face.” Shoulder muscles burning from exertion, Jack strains to lift the dumbbells one last time before dropping them onto the mat with a loud thwack. It’s cathartic to picture the weights crushing one of Colin’s body parts instead, the pent up frustration resulting from his recent interrogation by the DCI still fuelling an imaginative series of ways Jack might get his revenge. “Man has balls of steel and a brain of fucking straw.”

"He can try," he tells him with a head tilted up, letting the beads of sweat draw away from his face. "He's no different from all the other 'alphas' out there, marking their territory, proving their dominance." Only with a higher title than either one of them, and that was the infuriating part. "The best thing that ever happened to him was that shoot-to-kill from the way he acts. If one of us had done the same thing, you know what would have happened."

It was even less pleasant when someone loses their shit on their own phone like a lunatic and you catch it with your drunk-ass eyes and are trying to process just how shitfaced you got. Dante's actions were... spirited, to say the least. That wasn't any kind of accident, that was on purpose and she'd know because she'd destroyed more than her fair share of phones (hers and otherwise) in her lifetime.

"Yeah, gonna pass on that one, mate. You seem to have some rage issues going on and I'm not relishing the idea of replacing my phone because you got a bad response or whatever the fuck is going on. But uh.. are you like straight? You're going to be okay and not go off on a killing spree because I don't have the mental fortitude to perfectly remember your face when they pull me in for questioning and that would be a drag."

Luna was so cavalier about everything. You'd think she were immortal with the way she just spoke to people, but underneath it all the honest truth was that she didn't care enough about herself on a personal level to worry after her own safety. No matter how confident and sure of herself she was, part of that assuredness was in her own failures and the way she doesn't deserve good things.

This girl could never understand that. None of them ever could.

Dante's fingers sifted through the cheap phone, unable to jam out the sim while he listened to her, only to give up in the end. A new number could do him some good, anyways. Obviously, this one wasn't good enough.

"I wouldn't need to question you about myself," he told her, a trace of amusement in his voice as he looked up at her, pulling back the corner of his draped jacket to show the badge at his hip. London's finest shining in gold. Maybe now she could trust him. "But I don't blame you…" he went on, standing up before kicking the remnants of his phone to the side with soft force, just enough to let it slide beneath a dumpster. "It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones these days."

If he had to bet, he'd say she had her fair share of the latter by the look of things. He could just tell. Call it a talent.

"Do you live close by?" He shrugged off his jacket, holding it out for her to put around her shoulders like the chill of morning had something to do with her sickness more to do than the scent of alcohol pooling from her lips. "Let me walk you home before you make eyes with the wrong sort."

“Not waiting, he was on his way out.” 

That wasn’t the right thing to say. The sound of metal against his side as he yanked out his weapon made her take stock, licking her bottom lip silently watching the performance. The dance. The peacocking. It had been what she came to expect from Dante but it was the fire they both had in them that made things so exciting. Collateral damage might disagree but whatever. Eyes flicked to where the roses lay lifeless near his shoes like the stranger may well be in a second if she didn’t do something however small to try and diffuse the situation.   Stepping forward off the stoop one hand carefully placed against his chest where she could feel the fright train speed of his heart hammering under her palm, even faster than her own. Swallowing hard, she had to tread incredibly carefully now. “Baby…hey…hey…” Her voice was soft as she entirely ignored the third person there, looking at him alone. “The roses are beautiful, but this fuckhead isn’t anything okay? He hung up a painting and then I told him to fuck off, we both know he’s not worth it. You want blood? We’ll get you blood but lets make it someone who’s fucking worth it, yeah? Not just some asshole who hangs paintings for a living.” Moving her face so close to his she could almost brush the tip of his nose with her own, breath tickling her lips. “Come inside okay?” The hand not on his chest reaching up incredibly slowly for the barrel of the gun in an attempt to get it lowered, no idea if that might trigger him further. Pun not intended. 

Dante's nerves jackhammer through his body. Breathe out the wrong way and Zadie's frontstep gets bathed in red. His palm is already slick, the grip of his gun barely sticking to the dampened skin, not nearly as touched as the corners of his eyes. A bottle of emotions can only be shaken up for so long before it begins to explode.

And then she touches him, and there's a shift in the tide, there's a dam that begins to show its cracks. His chest nearly concaves from her fingers, a strength she probably doesn't even realize she has, as if he could be crushed by the gentlest brush of her. The mere presence of her could be enough to bring him to his knees. But she could never know that. Not truly. No matter those fleeting and darkened moments that lead him astray, that make him believe that skin is ice-cold, that she pulls his strings with malicious precision. No, in this moment, his trust is in the palm of her hand, taking his breath in a low exhale.

"He's not worth it…" he echoes back to her as his eyelids drift slightly before his vision is absorbed by her. "Or your time." His head tips forward, towards her lips, his nose stroking against them in the movement. "Did he try…" he whispers against her breath, the rest of his thought vapor in the atmosphere. Anything tried can fill in the blanks, enough of a reason for him to finish what he's already started, only to what degree? What punishment will fit the crime? The crime to think he's good enough to even try?

But he jolts back suddenly at the touch to his gun, staring directly at Zadie's eyes, sharper, attentive, wondering. Time stops, steeps in his gaze as he holds it with the woman who could tear his universe in two.

"Tell him you love me," he instructs. "Tell him"--Dante's mouth hovers over hers--"and I'll come in and prove it."

It had to be her. The mobile phone was glued to his hand, left an impression from how long it had been held, a callus forming in the pad of his palm from how many times it twisted around in wait. It twisted once more, screen up, lit up and dashing across Dante's face. Nothing. No. He heard that. He knew better. His thumb swiped at it, wild animal that's been taught one trick for the zoo, pouncing through the screens, closing them out, reopening, refreshing, reviewing, flicking off a speck of ash from the cigarette that dangled above by the edge of his lips with revolt.

Good morning

And no reply? It was noon.

Dante's cigarette was snatched away from his mouth, twirled between fingers, the smoke weaving through him. Once upon a time he hated the smell. Hated everything about it. Hated how it made his lungs feel like they were on fire. The cough that always lingered. But she liked it. The burning tip smashed into his thumb, baptizing the thin layer of skin that had covered over the old too familiar with the ritual.

SMASH

Good morning flickered, cracks formed from the impact against a brick wall, now lying helpless in the alleyway. Dante's breath was taken, siphoned out of him, a grey mist expelling his boiling point. For a moment, his mind cleared. He needed that, even if it was witnessed by another… a type of company that was unplanned for.

"I'm sorry about that…" he began, kneeling down to pick up the pieces. "I really have the worst luck..." Second burner this month.

Ding

Eyes glanced up, hovering up at the person for a moment before offering a breath of a laugh. "You wouldn't mind if I could borrow yours for a moment?"

"That explains it," he told her, refocused on what was important, as he yanked his phone from under her boot, even if it meant a piece of glass sliced open his thumb in the trade. What was a little blood sacrifice? "You know, the right guy doesn't think only about the sex. He actually values the girl for everything she has to offer him," he went on as he stood up, crimson dripping down and joining the glitter of a former phone screen. His hand shook off the droplets forming, the sting of the air giving another bite to the open flesh. "All I can say is sorry you're bad at choosing who you let in your bed."

Dante's thumb smashed into her buzzer. Again. Again. Again. The noise was dragged, enough of an electric pulse from his touch to think the whole place could spark on fire. Faulty wiring they'd say. Lucky that it didn't happen sooner they'd add. Time to rebuild and put the past in the past. But like a man sentenced to spend his whole life locked away, Dante could only be trapped in the agonizing state of the present.

"Stop it," he hissed through his teeth before the door finally opened up, just in time for his hand to tighten around the neck of the one he brought with him. A dog with a bird in its mouth, laying it at her feet, a broken wing to go along with it.

"Who is this?" She would know, no matter what the other had to say, throwing him to his knees to shut him up. "What was he doing walking here?"

“Jesus fuck, what are you doing?” The man dangling from her on again off again boyfriend’s grasp looking like he was about to shit himself, which was a valid reaction. He’d only left her apartment a matter of moments ago after helping her hang the new painting from the Liddell gallery only to seemingly be accosted despite his innocence. “My lover, obviously. You think I’m just siting around waiting for you?” Dicing with death, it was strongly exhilarating as Zadie looked directly in Dante’s eyes. His name always amusing at this point since his gaze was never far from an inferno. 

“He’s a fucking handyman, jealousy is a pathetic look on you, let him go.” Rippling two fifty point notes out of her nearby purse to thrust in the victims direction by way of silent apology for all this, still sneering at the man standing over him. 

"This is what you're waiting for instead? This?!"

If he thought that he'd be able to scramble for the cash and be on his way, he was mistaken. Dante's free hand snapped to his side, drawing out his own weapon, tip of the barrel scouring its path through his scalp like the block of metal that could crack through his skull with the pull of a trigger.

"How bloody pathetic is it now, huh?" His lips pursed, wetting them as the wave of adrenaline washed over, the calm it brought, the way it ebbed and had his blood rushing. "All I wanted to do was give you those roses," he told her, gesturing with his head to the side, the bouquet that got trampled the moment he smashed them down in favor of the man between them. "But now I can't! Because of THIS!" FUCK! He could do it right here. Right now! Try to stop him! TRY! No. No. No. Don't. He has to know. He has to know which one means more to her. FUCK! FUCK! The gun tightens in his grip. The thought that she'd choose wrong unbearable...

"Roses are red, and so is blood, Zadie… Which one! "