darker_london | Reinforcements (Indigo, Cai, Alex, Danny etc)

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Reinforcements (Indigo, Cai, Alex, Danny etc)

For as long as she could remember, Indigo had known as much as she needed to about her family.

When she was very little, she lived with a big group of them, a few other cousins older than she was, a few aunts and uncles who were also cousins. It was one of them – it must have been one of them who told her that her parents were cousins, and two of her grandparents were half-brother and sister. She’d known that, and known that it was a shameful secret, for as long as she could remember.

Her mother had moved out of the house before she started school, and they’d lived with Indigo’s father in London till Indigo was strong enough to make it hard for him to beat up her mother.

It was kind of… liberating, knowing that she should have never been born. Especially after puberty hit and things started to… manifest. She’d horrified both her parents, and herself, to begin with. But horror only lasted so long till it turned into a dark fascination. Most kids hit puberty and started to turn into adults.

Indigo hit puberty and started to turn into an abomination.

That was her dad’s word for it. And as much as she’d hated him, she didn’t hate the word. It made her feel powerful.

That was one of the reasons she and Alexandria got on, Indigo thought. Neither of them should exist, and they both knew it. Xan was only a human, of course, and the circumstances were different, but it boiled down to the same thing; by rights, if things were fair, neither of them should have been born.

Lucky for their existence, the world wasn’t fair at all.

If things were fair, then Imogene wouldn’t keep ending up with butthead men. First her dad, then two more boyfriends who she was obsessed with trying to fix, then Rachel’s stupid father, who fell under the same category, but had inexplicably been promoted to husband. Imogene was certain she could make people better, but her techniques included ignoring any wrongdoing on the part of the men, which sucked for Indigo, because she was the one bright enough to see that anyone would take advantage of her mother, her rich, pretty and kind of stupid mother, given the chance.

Right now, Imogene was having a lie down.

It had been a big day for her.

Butthead husband was unconscious in their king sized bed. He might have even been concussed from when Indigo dragged him up the stairs. Maybe even irrevocably brain damaged. Indigo lived in hope.

(Except Imogene would probably love caring for a brain damaged husband. Someone utterly reliant on her. Gross. Indigo never wanted anyone reliant on her, just like she never wanted to rely on anyone else.)

While Imogene had her lie down, with her scented oils and infusions and dolphin noises, Indigo had been gearing up to enjoy having the house basically to herself. Rachel was gone now, taken away in a police car, hopefully for good. She'd cried a lot, and had insisted that the police check on her father, but Imogene had worked her magic and when they looked through the house for the purportedly unconscious father, they found no sign of him. Nor any sign of a fight. Imogene was good at cleaning up.

Indigo liked to think Rachel was manhandled into the car for causing that little bit of extra trouble.

Anyway - it had barely been fifteen minutes since Rachel had left and Imogene had gone upstairs, when the buzzer for the front gate sounded in the hall.

Of course it was another man who had to come along and ruin it. Cai’s voice, intruding on her peace. She told him to piss off and after a bit of pitiful pleading, he did.

Then less than five minutes later, somehow he'd convinced Alexandria to join him. Xan! What was that girl thinking? Indigo watched from her window as Xan swung her legs off her bike, leaned it up against the fence.

Indigo stormed outside before Cai had the chance to poison her mind.

Cai came jogging over from his car when Alex arrived, saying "Thank you, thank you," before her feet were even solidly on the ground.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You've been crying," she commented.

Cai smiled thinly, not denying it. Other guys might have, but Cai was pretty honest about his feelings. Which made it all the more infuriating, and baffling, when he refused to tell her why he'd broken up with her. "It's been a... bad day," he said.

The day was almost over, though. The sun had left a stain in the sky, and streetlights were beginning to come on. Alex wasn't sure what to say, but Cai stepped closer, and said again: "Thanks for coming, Alex-andria," he corrected her name half way through saying it.

"I didn't come for you," Alex said, doing her best to sound aloof. The front door of the house slammed shut and here was Indigo, closing the distance between them. "Is he bothering you?" Alex asked Indigo, as her friend unlocked the iron gates to let her through.

"I'm not trying to bother anyone," Cai insisted, stepping toward the gates, which Indigo had locked again after Xan with a clang. "All I want to know is if Rachel's here - if she's alright."

He wrapped one hand around the gate, but turned, because a car was pulling up just behind him. He recognised Danny immediately, and breathed a sigh of relief. Reinforcements!

Threaded | Flat

Danny half-fell out of the car the moment his mother parked, and, once he righted himself, he sprinted towards the group. Cai looked terrible, like he had been crying, and Indigo looked like she just might have been the one to cause it, all righteously angry. Danny wasn't even sure how Alex fit in to the equation, but none of it matter anyway because his girlfriend was missing.

"What's happening? Where's Rachel?" He said, instead of greeting anyone. Then, because Cai was his brother and Danny couldn't actually hug him, he said, "you alright? Just worried about Rachel?"

Cai nodded yes, shook his head no. "Fill you in later, " he said. "M'alright for now. Been here about ten minutes, don't know anything yet..." Cai felt a bit useless, and kind of betrayed by Alexandria, though he told himself he had no right to feel that way.

Danny gave Cai a worried look, but there were other things going on right now. He turned to Indigo and narrowed his eyes. The past week had been a pile of fucking shit, and he wasn't going to take anything from Rachel's step-sister. Danny didn't get mad often; it basically took a concerted effort from the person he got pissed off at.

"I know what you are," he growled at her. "So either you tell me where my girlfriend is right fucking now, or I tell everyone I meet what the fuck you are. Do you hear me!?"

"What's he mean?" Alex asked Indigo, quietly, and close enough to her ear that the others wouldn't be able to hear. Indigo huffed through her nose, and turned her head so Danny wouldn't see her lips move.

"Mum had her arrested," she whispered to Alex, her back to the visitors. "For stealing." Alex's reaction was visible - her face was bad at hiding anything. Shock rippled across her face, her mouth wide open. Alex had not been asking about Rachel, when she asked what Danny meant, but it was enough of an answer to digest for now, holy shit! Arrested!

"Alexandria," Cai pleaded, his hands wrapped around the iron bars of the gate. "Please, it's not fair to keep this from us. We need to know where she is, it's important!"

"It's not fair for Danny to threaten me, either!" Indigo snapped, glaring at him and then Danny. She was freaked - what did he mean he knew what she was? Did he really or was he just fucking around? Had Rachel actually told him, the dumb bitch? What would she have to do to him if he did know? Her heart was pounding and her stomach churned with nerves, but she wasn't going to let him see that, not if she could help it. So she sneered at him, instead. "To come to my house, in the dark, with a group of people to outnumber me? Is that fair, Cai? Are you being fair, Danny?"

"Yeah Danny," Alex folded her arms in front of her chest, standing with Indigo. "Threatening younger girls is a dick move, you pig."

Indigo couldn't hide her proud smile. Go Xan!

Danny wanted to wring their fucking necks, but he was useless at anything physical. Violence was pretty high on his list of things he hated too, but goddamn they were infuriating. "Are you fucking kidding me?! Rachel is my girlfriend and I need to know if she's okay! Anyway, who is threatened by the truth? Only people with something to hide," he said, arching his eyebrows at Indigo. "If you weren't hiding something, it wouldn't matter. Tell me where the fuck my girlfriend is."

Indigo stepped forward to the gate and put her arms through the bars, resting them on the crossbeam, her wrists gently crossed. Cai released the iron bars and stepped backward. It wasn't that he was afraid of her, as such... he just didn't want to be within arms reach. Alex came forward too, near the bars, though she was wishing she had something to throw. She didn't think she could be as intimidating as Indigo, though she wished for that ability.

"I don't know where the fuck your girlfriend is," Indigo said, mirroring his arched eyebrow. It was even a little bit true - she wasn't sure exactly. "Why don't you get her tagged."

"You're lying and it's fucking cruel," Danny hissed at Indigo. "And you're just okay with this?" he shot at Alex, his eyebrows raised. Where Cai stepped back, Danny stepped forward, not threatening, but refusing to be threatened. He was within arms' reach for sure. "What would it cost you to tell us?"

From behind him, Deirdre and Razvan strolled over as casually as possible for two demons who had been lurking nearby. Deirdre caught Indigo's eye and arched an eyebrow at her. "Everything okay, Danny?" she asked when he turned to look at her.

"Deirdre, hi. Uhm. I don't know you," he said to Razvan, but he trusted Deirdre to keep the hatted one away from him. "They won't tell me where Rachel is."

Deirdre glanced at the young demon, a curious look on her face. "Why not?"

At the arrival of the other two demons, Indigo pulled her arms back through the bars. She could feel what they were now that they were this close - they were the same as her, the same as her dad and those cousins. The male one even had the right colouring to be family.

She stepped back from the gate. She didn't like the way this was going at all.

Alex stepped forward to fill her place but Indigo grabbed her by the back of her shirt and yanked her backwards. That and the look on Indigo's face was enough to make Alex feel really uneasy. She puffed herself up with bravado, hoping Indigo would follow suit. "Because why should she?" she snapped at oh-shit-that's-Lydia's-sister. Alex turned down her snappishness when she realised who Deirdre was. Maybe she could reason with her. "These guys turn up at Indigo's door yelling and swearing and threatening - Danny just stormed right up and started threatening her without even asking nicely first, just treating her like shit right off the bat. Why would we tell someone like that anything?"

Deirdre glanced at Danny who was pretty much the least threatening person in existence. Cai didn't look scary either, but that didn't mean they hadn't said something stupid. "They're panicking about their friend and girlfriend," Deirdre said, trying to play the rational adult. She'd gotten better at that since having kids. "Think how you would feel if someone you cared about disappeared and someone withheld the information from you. Just think about it. How would you react to that?"

Then to Indigo, she said, "I'll calm the boys down. They just want to know where this Rachel is."

Danny just gave Deirdre a grateful look. He was going to buy her a present later.

Indigo gave Deirdre a cynical look; she was trying to get her to empathise with this dickhead? "It's not going to make any difference," Indigo glared at Danny. "You're not going to be able to see her anyway."

At the other end of the driveway, the front door slammed and Imogene, wrapped in a white silken robe, strode toward them. "Indigo!" she snapped. "Get away from the gate!" She'd sensed the demons from inside the house.

Indigo's face darkened even more, and she opened her fists before clenching them into tight, shaking balls. Imogene went to wrap an arm around her daughter to calm her down but Indigo jerked violently away. She didn't need calming or comfort from her mother, not now and definitely not in front of these people.

Imogene looked Deirdre up and down before her attention turned to the other and her frown deepened. "Razvan," she said, confirming Indigo's fear that they were, in fact, family. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Razvan recognised his cousin straight away and when she mentioned his name, he tipped his hat to her. "Cousin Imogene, you're looking well. I'm just along to support Red here," he said, pointing at Deirdre. "Didn't know you were in the country."

Deirdre held up her hands after glancing the angel up and down. So Rachel's step-mother was a Dumitra, hmm? Interesting. "Look, I'm here with Danny who just wants to know where his girlfriend is. The boys were panicked that she might have been hurt. Instead of helping, the girls seem to be lording the information over them for some reason. Maybe it makes them feel superior. Whatever the reason, it's counter-intuitive because as soon as we know where she is, we can leave. This is only prolonging our presence here."

"What she said," Danny added with a nod.

Imogene hit her daughter with a withering and disappointed look, which Indigo returned in kind, with a bit of anger and exasperation thrown into the mix for good measure. Alex didn't say anything, she was a little bit afraid of Imogene, although Razvan had a certain gimmicky charm.

"That girl continues to be nothing but trouble," Imogene muttered to herself, a hand pressed against her forehead. "She has not been hurt, I assure you," she said, raising her voice so that everyone could hear. "But it's family business."

"He threatened to tell everyone 'what I was' if we didn't tell him," Indigo told her mother, putting air quotes in to act like it wasn't such a big deal. "Thought you should know that."

"Did he," Imogene looked right at Danny. "Well that was stupid of him."

"She's been arrested!" Alex blurted out, unable to bear the growing tension between the two groups. She covered her mouth with her hands as Indigo glared at her, but then decided that no, she didn't deserve to be glared at! "They're going to find out sooner or later, aren't they? And this will make them go away!"

Danny wanted to shout at Imogene that keeping the truth from her step-daughter had made her believe she might be crazy and that kind of shit wasn't okay, but Alex finally spilled the beans and he promptly forgot everything else.

"What?!" Danny shouted in horror. "W-what in the fuck for?"

"Danny," Deirdre said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. The moment her fingers brushed his skin, he shrieked and jumped sideways before giving her an apologetic look. "Sorry," Deirdre said immediately. "I just think that maybe we should go. We can call my friend Paul and he can give us more information. He's a Detective Sergent."

Razvan raised his eyebrows and asked, "you causing trouble here, Imogene?"

"Me?" Imogene snapped, outraged. "She's the one that's been stealing! There's been no trouble in his house till she started acting out."

Razvan just rolled his eyes and looked at Deirdre tiredly. "Right. I'm sure the normal teenage girl is a real trial when you have someone like your daughter in the house," he said his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"OKAY, TIME TO GO," Deirdre announced loudly, because she hardly wanted to have them all stick around long enough for Razvan to get into a fight with his cousin. Sure, watching her kick his arse might be funny, but it wasn't what Danny and his brother needed. "Come on, boys."

"What the FUCK does that mean?" Indigo stormed toward the gate and yanked it open. "Someone like me? What the fuck do you know about me, huh?" Cai lept out of her way as she stomped toward Razvan, drawing herself up to her full height, her fists at her side.

Imogene stayed where she was on the other side of the gate, her hands over her mouth, but Alex ran forward with Indigo. Cai tried to step in front of her to keep her away from the demons, but he wasn't going to actually touch her, and she hit him with such a furious glare that he didn't even try.

Razvan watched Indigo's fury and then he did probably the worst thing he could possibly do; he laughed. "Oh my dear little cousin. It feels so good to give in to it when it all first starts, doesn't it?"

"Okay, Dickhat, that's enough," Deirdre cautioned.

"This here is a family situation," Razvan informed Deirdre. "Take the boys and go, hmm?" He looked back at Indigo, grinning. "I've been at this longer than you, niblet. You might want to remember that."

"I don't give a fuck how long you've been at it," Indigo growled, the whites of her eyes stained now with black. "I don't care if you've been at it a thousand fucking years. You still don't know me."

"Because you're a unique snowflake?" Razvan asked her, delighted. "Of course you are, sweetheart. Of course you are."

"Fucking hell," Deirdre hissed when Indigo's eyes changed. She moved forward to pull Danny and Cai away from the confrontation. For their ears only, she said, "I don't think this is going to end well. We should go."

Cai nodded, agreeing with Deirdre completely except for one thing. "We can't leave Alex here," he whispered back to her, watching his ex-girlfriend sneering at Razvan, his gimmicky charm lost on her now.

Control; that was what Imogene preached, control. Yet Indigo was so furious at this utter dickhead trying to lord it all over her, like ever other fucking man she'd ever met. Except worse. Family. Know it all family. And punching him was going to be completely pointless, of course he was going to be stronger than her, but she couldn't help herself. She punched him right in the gut.

Razvan took the hit, and then he grabbed her wrist hard, his grip tight and strong. "That tickled, love."

"Razvan, cut it the fuck out!" Deirdre screamed, since Alex didn't look like she was going to leave Indigo's side any time soon. "Or I'll come punch you in the gut and it won't tickle."

At that, Razvan looked suitably afraid.

Alex wasn't scared. She should have been scared but she wasn't. Xan wasnt the kind of girl to back away from a fight, especially not one between her friend and an older guy, cousin or not. She let out a cry like a wildcat and launched herself on Razvans shoulders, hoping her slight weight would unbalance him. At the very least, she managed to knock his hat off.

Razvan laughed harder as the human attacked him and he held her at arms' length. Sure she knocked his hat off, and he hated that, but it was really funny to be attacked by two hormonal, teenage girls.

"Okay, children, time for me to absent myself. But keep trying, darlings."

Keep trying he said, and called them children and darlings. There was no one Indigo hated more, not right at this moment. And he had Xan in his grip, which was purely unacceptable.

Indigo was still high from draining her step father, not more than an hour ago, otherwise she wouldn't have dared. But her mother was right there, this untapped source of power she knew would make her strong enough to make a difference. And she was angry and insulted and he had Xan and he was laughing that was not okay.

It was an instinct, reaching for that power; an instinct as well as a skill. A little like walking - you learn how, and then your instincts kick in when the ground starts to slope sharply downward and you find yourself speeding up, faster and faster as gravity and momentum team up against you, till your brain couldn't keep you up if it wanted to and it was all up to your reflexes to keep your feet underneath you.

Indigo's brain couldn't have figured out how to drain her mother; she couldn't have done it consciously, but right now, in her rage, it was instinct. Imogene felt the yank and stumbled forward - her hand clutching her robe to keep it closed - and -

And hadn't grown up a Dumitra to let that kind of shit get the better of her. Indigo was still practically a toddler - she had four years of being an active demon, that was nothing, especially compared to Imogene's age. Toddlers could still be knocked right off their feet with a well aimed kick.

So Imogene kept her soul, Indigo kept her impotent rage, and Alex (who was discovering a new kind of terror in Razvan's iron and immovable grip) kept trying to fight, using her long nails to try tear him up. "Razvan," Imogene said in a cold, authoritative voice. "Release them both."

The voice didn't seem to have much effect on Indigo, but it stopped Alex in her tracks. Suddenly, Imogene was as terrifying as Razvan. Terrifying and almost too bright to look at, she commanded the street - or at least she commanded Alex, who froze completely, like the most primitive part of her suddenly realised how dangerous the predators surrounding her actually were.

Razvan gave his cousin a withering look. "Oh really, Imogene? You think you can intimidate me?" He released Alex anyway, but only because Deirdre actually scared him and she had told him to stop too. Deirdre and Imogene together could probably fuck some shit up. "Enjoy your handful," he said, pointing at Indigo.

Imogene returned his withering look in kind. "I'm not trying to intimidate you," she said, as Alex backed off quickly in case Imogene turned her attention her way. Cai stepped in to meet her, hovering just out of arms reach like he thought she needed him. Alex swallowed hard. She didn't know what she needed right now, but Cai's concern wasn't high on the list. She looked over at Indigo, because she knew at least that Indigo was her ally.

But - Indigo didn't look quite right. She was curling in on herself, not hugely dramatically, just like she had period cramps or something. That's what it looked like; the kind of crippling cramps where you wanted to squirm painfully around on your bed moaning but you had to keep a straight face because you were at school.

It wasn't cramps - Indigo's heart was beating too fast. Shuddering really, rather than beating. Her skin felt so alive, so aware, like it was sharp. Her wrist pulsed where Razvan had gripped her. She struggled to keep herself contained - she could barely keep herself standing up straight. At least her wings hadn't made an appearance. Small mercies.

Before Indigo could straighten herself out, Imogene had drawn her arm back and smacked her across the face so hard it rang out, the sharp crack of skin on skin echoing against the high brick wall behind them. Alex screamed and grabbed onto Cai, and Indigo found herself on her hands and knees on the footpath, her face on fire, deafened by the roar of blood in her ears. Heart going shudder-thump-thumb-shudder.

Cai wrapped his arms around Alex, sparing no thought at all to how it might trigger a vision, how he hadn’t been this close to anyone for weeks, how Alex smelled and felt even better in his arms that he remembered. Later he would spare plenty of thoughts on this subject, later thoughts of her would keep creeping into his head in the midst of his worry for his family, but right now he grabbed tightly onto her, both of them backing up fast till he was behind Deirdre.

All this before Indigo could get to her feet. It wasn’t the pain so much as the shock. And her heart was going fast – well her heart had been going fast for the last hour, since she’d drained Harley – but the extra fraction of it she’d drawn from her mother before she stopped her made it go faster, faster and faster till it felt like it filled her whole chest, from throat to navel.

Deirdre's jaw dropped when Imogene smacked her daughter hard. She didn't move forward, keeping Danny, Cai and Alex safe behind her, but she couldn't just say nothing. "HEY!" she yelled at the angel. "What the fuck, don't hit her!"

Imogene ignored Deirdre, standing over her daughter. "Stand up," she said, but Indigo was already trying. She used the wall for support to begin with, then stood on her own, straight as she could stand, in front of her mother. "Don't you ever try to do that to me again," Imogene said, even and calm.

Alex could see Indigo's arms shaking, and the look on her face was still one of a girl repressing quite a lot of pain. Her eyes looked totally black, but they were losing the light fast, so it could have been Alex's own eyes playing tricks. She'd pulled away from Cai again, but not far.

Imogene put her hand on Indigo's shoulder and angled her toward the gate. "Go inside," she said, her voice still even. Indigo twitched her shoulder away from her mother but did as she was told, slamming the gate behind her so hard all the iron rattled in its hinges.

Imogene looked at the group. "You can all leave as well."

Deirdre licked her lips, not wanting to leave Indigo here with Abusey-Angel. She was supposed to be looking over Danny and Cai though, and so she let it go.

She turned to the boys and Alex and said, "where to now? I can call my friend Paul?"

Threaded | Flat

Reinforcements (Indigo, Cai, Alex, Danny etc)

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