TW: Brief scene of attempted sexual assault
Reader discretion is advised
"Death to the Red Army!"
One of the rebels shouted before throwing a molotov through the window of what once used to be the renowned Roten Fuhrer pub establishment, causing it to go up in flames. Well, more flames than it already was anyway.
Dante watched anxiously from across the street as rebels defiled the former Red Army station with fire, bricks, and toilet paper. The outer walls were dripping with blood. Hanging from the side of the building the bodies of three Red Army soldiers dangled from their necks; sacks over their heads with the word 'pig' written over each of them.
A clear warning to ward off enemies.
Maybe coming here was a mistake…
"This is… horrible!" Dante gasped.
"Speak for yourself; I am enjoying the f#cking circus catch on fire at last!" Reagan whistled next to him, admiring the destruction of his former captors with wicked glee in his eyes. "Damn. What I wouldn't give to have some smores on me right about now."
For a moment Dante was speechless. He had never, ever, not once in a million years, imagined there could be someone who could take enjoyment out of watching others suffer without feeling a single shred of remorse.
He wanted to grab Reagan by the throat and shake him, scream a million things at him: What is wrong with you? Don't you have any loyalty? Or empathy?
From what little he gathered piecing Reagan's past together, Dante understood he'd been through some sort of abuse by the hands of the Red Army, and even way before then given his behavior, but that's no excuse! You should never take gratification from someone else's suffering, even if they did inexcusable cruel things to you.
Revenge was never worth it.
It only serves to corrupt and destroy, and before you know it, you're passing on the torch of cruelty for the next person to follow along the same path and repeat the cycle.
"That's awful." Dante told him.
Reagan gave him a surprised look. Not an "oh no! I didn't realize I was being a jerk!" kind of look; more of a "oh? You have opinions? That's disappointing" kind of look.
"That's a really awful thing to say, Reagan." Dante continued through gritted teeth. "I know you don't like the Red Army, but surely you feel some level of empathy? Look at this! No one deserves this kind of fate! Don't you feel bad for these people?"
"Feel bad for them?" Reagan suddenly hissed contemptuously. "Feel bad for them?! Are you kidding me, Falls?"
His harsh voice made Dante falter and flinch, his sudden courage failing him.
"Now why would I feel bad for anyone else? Huh?" Reagan snarled. "Those people are free. They can come and go and do whatever they want with their lives. They had their entire lives to play, eat, make friends, and have thoughts of their own without any repercussions. They aren't the ones who had to go through an entire lifetime of nothing but abuse and be stuck with a narcissistic entity inside their heads that wants to repress and control you for all of eternity! My life is the most unfair of all! If anything, they should feel bad for me!"
"I do." Dante rasped, teary eyed.
Reagan hesitated. "So you agree that my life is the worst?" He asked him suspiciously. "You don't even know half the things I've been through."
"I don't need to know every detail of your backstory to understand you as a person." Dante said, glancing away.
"Does this terrify you to your very core?" Reagan questioned with a smirk on his face, watching the color drain from Dante's face. "One wrong move and you're probably getting a worse fate than being strung up as a f#cked up scarecrow. There will be no judgment on my part for calling it quits now, Falls."
Dante shook his head and narrowed his eyes at Reagan. "No. I have to do this."
Reagan frowned. He was admittedly impressed by the Agent's bravado and determination, but it was pointless. "Surely you must've realized by now that this case is a scam. You're putting your neck on the line without any leads, evidence, or resources. Literally you got nothing to go on since the very start, and yet you insist on dragging me around on a leash. Your stupid heroism is going to get you killed."
Rather than dignifying Reagan with a response, Dante felt his communicator go off in his pocket. He picked it up to read the new update on the case wide eyed. "The Green Rebellion and the Red Army apparently agreed to a peace meeting that's going to take place three days from now."
"Does this mean I'm free?"
Dante faked contemplation for a hot minute. "Uh… no. We still have work to do here." He replied. "We should investigate the rebellion and find out what their plans for you are, and what their secret weapon is."
"Where do we start, Agent?" Reagan nodded at the vacant street in disarray ahead of them. "Do you plan on interrogating the first rebel we find? I doubt they would be willing to talk to you, a refugee, about their organization."
"We have to go about this carefully." Dante murmured, eyeing up and down the street.
Interrogating the locals might be useful, but ultimately pointless. There's no guarantee they know anything about the renegade organization that took over the country. They can't risk attracting too much attention to themselves; especially after the fiasco at the ferry - so going around and interrogating rebels was off the hook. They could try and snag one of them to a secluded place and interrogate them there, but… Dante was not one for interrogations.
That's the one area in his line of work that he was weakest at.
"If you wanna avoid a fate worse than death, now it's your chance to voice any bright ideas."
Reagan appeared pensive. "You know… I think I might know someone who could be involved with the Rebellion."
"You only mention that now?!" Dante exclaimed.
"He hates the Red Army as much as I do, if not more so." Reagan went on. "I think if I were to talk to him alone we might have a chance of coercing information out of him. Favors for favors so to speak."
"How do we find him?" Dante asked.
"You're in luck, Falls. I happen to know this decrepit town like the back of my hand - I know where we can find him." Reagan paused, smirking. "But it will be pretty dangerous. Plenty of rebels patrolling the streets… Are you sure you're up for this?"
Dante's stare hardened. "Of course! Take me to your lead."
Reagan shrugged. "Aiight! But just remember if we get caught, you're deaf and I don't speak English. Follow me!"
He began to lead the way down a set of narrow streets crisscrossing the interior of the town. He wasn't kidding when he referred to the town as decrepit - this whole neighborhood looks as though it had seen better days. Broken windows, vulgar writings on walls, paint long since eroded by time and weather exposing the brick and cement behind, and trash everywhere. Dante felt uncomfortable in this setting.
What was perhaps even more unsettling is the fact that Reagan appeared to be so at home in this environment. He strolled through the streets as though he owned the place, chin lifted without a care in the world. And maybe to a monster like him there truly is nothing to fear, but Dante couldn't help but wonder about his history with this place.
"You grew up around here?" Dante blurted, hoping to make small conversation to distract him from the awful setting.
Reagan hummed. "Something like that."
When he failed to elaborate on that, Dante changed the subject. "So this source of yours… is he reliable?"
"As reliable as he can be during these times of war." Reagan replied cheekily. "Word of warning though; he is not the friendliest chap around these parts unless you have something worth of value to give him in return. Speaking of which; how good a liar are you?"
Dante hummed. "Ordinarily, not great. In a life or death situation, I'd say pretty good."
"Good. Cause if this hunk of a man finds out who you work for, you can say bye-bye to your pathetic, single life-" Reagan stopped abruptly and Dante stumbled into his back.
"Reagan, what?" Dante stopped, his eyes widening. "Oh no."
The apartment complex in front of them, standing directly across the street, was in shambles. The top half of the building was missing. Broken windows, eroded paint… Frankly they would be impressed if there were people still living inside it. Everything was deadly quiet as well. The breeze that swept down the street was cold and unforgiving. Not a single sign of life to be detected.
"What is it?" Dante whispered.
Reagan didn't answer him. He was stiff. Rigid. His green eyes staring unseeingly at the building in front of them before he took off running.
"HEY-!" Dante cried out and followed after him.
Barging into the place, Reagan climbed up the rickety steps to the first floor and stopped. The place had been ransacked. All the apartment doors were busted open forcefully from the outside. Reagan entered the first apartment to his right cautiously. He peered around the familiar green, eroded walls with unease. What once used to be a charming little home was now a decrepit, abandoned flat.
A crack of broken glass under his heel stopped Reagan in his tracks.
Lifting his foot and looking down, Reagan saw a broken picture frame and bent over to look at it closer. Three familiar figures were in the picture, all wearing different coloured hoodies and smiling at the camera. There was a fourth figure as well, but they had been ripped out of it for some reason; the only thing left of them in the picture was a hand in a red sleeve.
"What happened here?" Dante breathed as he joined Reagan, inspecting the place with wide eyes.
Reagan's gaze shifted from the picture frame in his hands to the crumpled papers littering the dusty floor. Wanted posters from the Red Army, to be exact. One for Eddie, and another for ginger.
"Oh, they must've been captured." Dante said, following his line of sight. "Did you know them?" He asked softly, trying to gauge Reagan's facial expression.
Reagan swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, and with a face devoid of all humor he suddenly stood up and stormed out of the building.
"Hey, wait up!"
He took off running without looking back to see if Dante was keeping up with him. He didn't give a damn if it looked like he was trying to escape. Reagan couldn't believe, not even for a second that Eddie had been captured by the Red Army. He knew there was some sort of connection there between him and Red B#tch and freaky eyes, but surely Eddie was smart enough to see the signs and get the h#ll out of dodge before things went to sh#t? He couldn't have been captured. He couldn't!
"What's this? Feeling sad now, are we? ~" The voice teased, curling around his throat. "Where was all this concern and guilt when you first started using him all those years ago? Whatever happened to feeling sad for no one but yourself? ~"
Running for several blocks now, Reagan spotted a cheap neon sign of a pub across from him. It was called the Deus Ex Machina pub. Panting, Reagan made his way inside. He really needed a drink, now more than ever before.
He made his way up to the counter, sat on one of the vacant stools and asked for a beer.
The chime of the bell at the door alerted Reagan his companion caught up to him, and sure enough, Dante approached to take a seat beside him. "What's wrong?"
Reagan shook his head stubbornly, trying to stamp out the emotions that threatened to swamp and flood him. "So much for our big lead." He said instead, his voice hoarse.
Dante stared at him sympathetically. "I'm really sorry, Reagan. For everything." He murmured.
"Why are you apologizing?" Reagan hissed. "You didn't do anything to me."
"I don't need to have done something to you in order to empathize with you." Dante pointed out. "And I know how much you despise the Red Army. Because of how they treated you. I don't know what your history with those people were, but knowing the Red Army got to them-"
"Stop."
"No, I'm serious! I know this can't be easy for you." Dante pressed, crestfallen. The bartender returned with his drink, and he watched Reagan take a massive gulp of it; downing half the glass in one go. Dante fidgeted. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
"Definitely not." Reagan licked his lips to wipe the foam off his face. He didn't want to discuss his feelings, much less speculate them with someone else when he hardly understands it as is.
Dante hesitated but after much consideration he decided to drop it. He ordered a drink for himself and just sat there, mulling over what just happened and wondering what the best play moving forward would be from here.
He watched Reagan drink, order another beer, drink, order another one, rinse and repeat until he lost count of how many beers Reagan drank while Dante was merely sipping from his first drink.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" Dante whispered. "Get mad drunk or high off your mind to the point of puking your guts out in the end. What do you accomplish from this?"
Reagan slammed the glass on the counter after he drained it of all its contents. "It makes me numb." He swiped a tongue around his face to lick off the foam.
Dante frowned. "So what do we do now?"
"We?" Reagan echoed and snickered. "There's no we. As far as I'm concerned, you're on your own."
"We don't have to do anything right away. Please, take as long as you need to process things and recover." Dante said quietly. "I know how hard this must be to you-"
"Oh will you shut up already?!" Reagan snarled. "God, this whole facade you put up about caring for me and my feelings is just pathetic. I have been putting up with it since we partnered up, but I can't stand it anymore!"
"I'm sorry! But-" Dante flinched, startled.
"Can't you do anything on your own? You're supposed to be an agent! For the love of God, I've seen children fend for themselves better than you." Reagan went on with a sneer. "Tell you what; why don't you go take a hike and leave me the h#ll alone? Huh? Think you can manage that, Falls?"
Dante realized with a sinking feeling of dread that Reagan's anger was mostly fueled from frustration and whatever leftover emotions he felt back at the ruined building, and now he became the prime target for him to lash out on.
Reagan stared him down. "Go ahead. Call for backup! I dare you." He spat. "There's nothing left for me at this point, and you'll be doing the whole world a favor." His emerald eyes were glazed over, staring at nothing, and his mouth gaped in a soundless wail.
Dante shuddered with despair, and with one last sorrowful look at Reagan he whipped away with low whine and stormed out of the pub. Why did I ever think I could reason with him? He thought, trying and failing to wipe tears from his eyes.
Watching the agent flee out into the streets, Reagan turned back to drink by his lonesome; trying in vain to shove down the feelings of guilt and sorrow that persisted through his veins with more alcohol. Goddamnit. How did I end up with this frozen heart of mine? He thought numbly. Amusing enough, Dante's annoying voice managed to drain all the joy out of getting sh#tfaced. And when did I start caring about what some silly little agent thinks about me anyway?
Stumbling his way through the darkened streets, Dante didn't know where he was going, he just needed to get as far away from Reagan as possible. It was a mistake to have partnered up with such a sick, twisted individual. God, what was I thinking? Of course he wasn't going to comply with anything I said.
He veered into a narrow alleyway and stopped, seeing a couple of shadowy figures up ahead stop and turn to walk in his direction.
The hairs on the back of his neck raised in alarm. Sensing something bad was about to happen if he continued to go this way, Dante turned away to head to a different direction only to be surrounded by six strange men rounding up on him.
"Hey, cutie, where do ya think ya goin'?" A man with dark hair and even darker eyes slurred as he waltzed up to Dante, eyeing him up hungrily with a smile that promised nothing but trouble.
Dante's breathing quickened as he tried to barge past one of the men blocking his path, only to be shoved against the wall. He narrowed his eyes sharply, but gasped when he was ambushed. These men were all taller - bigger and older and way less merciful than him. So it was only expected that his wrist would be grabbed, and Dante would find himself pressed tight to a stranger's chest as rows of ugly yellow teeth grinned down at him as intrusive hands palmed his waist and chest.
"You're a feisty one, aren't cha?" The man holding him asked in a rumbling cockney accent, gripping Dante's wrist so hard he feared it would fracture. Loud rambunctious laughter rang in his ears from the other men as Dante struggled, trying to pull away but to no avail. Tears were obstructing his vision as everything blurred together and Dante's rapid gasps for air weren't doing a sufficient job of filling his lungs with air. I can't breathe!
"You like feisty, huh? Wait till you see how feisty I can be."
Dante suddenly buckled to the floor in a helpless heap as the man holding him was knocked aside with a hard slam to the side of his head. The other men didn't get the chance to retaliate either.
Reagan narrowed his eyes into slits as he surveyed the scene in front of him, not hesitating for even a second before he battered the nearest guy to the ground and promptly moving on to the next. He was swift, precise, and cunning in his movements. The men rounded up on him the moment they registered someone was trying to take them on, but their weak #$$ punches and kicks barely did a dent on Reagan and he was quick to dispatch them one by one.
He kneed a bald guy in the groin, eliciting a harsh drawn out groan of pain before he stomped on his foot and headbutted him; a delightful, sickening crunch accompanying the man's cries of pain as his nose broke.
A different guy tried to rush him with a knife. Reagan grabbed his wrist and snapped it effortlessly. As the guy screamed, Reagan swiftly jabbed him in the throat with his fist and pummeled him to the ground.
A hard punch to his left eye momentarily winded Reagan, but he was quick to recover, grab the man by the throat and slam him repeatedly against the wall until he bashed his brains in. Reagan turned furiously towards the last two men left standing, strategically positioning himself between them and Dante, waiting for them to strike; only for them to turn tail and flee.
Reagan spat crossly after them. "P#ssies!" He turned and crouched down to help Dante to his feet. "Did they hurt you?" He panted.
Trembling, Dante blinked up at him with glistening, wide blue eyes. "I think… I know you better now." He whispered. "Thank you for saving me."
"You two!"
They both jumped in alarm. Instinctively, Reagan shoved Dante behind him and stood glaring at the new group of people that blocked their exit with guns pointed at them. These people wore ragged everyday clothes, along with green sashes tied around their heads, waists and forearms.
"I've seen you skulking around town, poking your noses where you shouldn't…" The man in charge of the little group snarled, eyeing them both distrustfully. "I knew there was something off about you from the moment you stepped off that ferry. You're coming with us! Green Leader will know what to do with the likes of you."