darker_london | You might never be coming home (Zoe, Cai, Peter, others?)

Zoe took a taxi back to Cai's to pick him up. He didn't want to take the car today; he didn't trust himself to drive. Not after Zoe told him what they were going to be doing. They sat in the back of the taxi together and didn't touch and barely talked.

"It's going to be really bad, isn't it?" Cai asked, though he'd seen Peter's warning. Of course it was going to be bad.

"We might see something that can help," Zoe said, though she didn't sound hopeful. The day had drained all that out of her. It might come back, but she doubted it would be tonight. Tonight was just going to get worse and worse.

"Dom was at the doctors today," Cai said, after a couple of blocks of silence. Zoe turned to look at him, her attention a question. "He's looking really good," Cai said. "It's the quietest of heart murmurs."

"That's good," Zoe said.

Cai shook his head slowly. It wasn't that he didn't think it was good news; it was. But. "But there's still going to be a funeral," he said.

"You don't know that," Zoe was whispering. "When was the last time we had that vision?"

Cai shrugged, shaking his head again.

"Getting him to the doctor might have changed things enough."

"Maybe," said Cai.

They rode in silence the rest of the way to Peter's. It wasn't far.

Cai climbed out of the taxi and looked up at Peter's house, pulling his hands into his sleeves though it wasn't cold. Zoe paid the taxi and stood beside him for a moment. "Ready?" she asked.

"Ha ha ha," said Cai, but followed her up the driveway and into the house. Zoe let herself in, not wanting to announce herself by knocking, and made her way to Peter's office.

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Ever since having the horrible vision of Danny, Peter had sequestered himself in his home office, and worked at not drinking himself silly. The poor kid was only just eighteen. That there were people in this world who could inflict that kind of pain on those who were undeserving always made Peter feel horrified and helpless.

He looked up when Zoe and Cai entered, and he tried his best to give them a smile, though it ended up looking like a grimace. He had a headache and he massaged his temple before standing to greet them. "Do either of you want something to drink?"

Zoe looked right at him. "I think I'd rather do this on an empty stomach," she said, and Cai nodded.

"Water's good afterwards," he mentioned. "But I have a bottle in my bag so I'm okay."

"How bad is it?" Zoe couldn't help but asking. "Did he look... how did he look?"

Peter's first instinct was to protect the people he loved from terrible things. Unfortunately that was in direct conflict with his propensity for being completely honest. Zoe was going to have to see everything in a moment anyway, if this worked the way she had said it could. Perhaps having a warning would help?

No. No, nothing could really help, beyond them figuring out where poor Danny was.

"It's- He's- He's got some injuries," Peter said, his words laced with lament. "He was, uhm- He was locked in a chest."

Zoe closed her eyes, her body tensing up. She jumped violently a second later when Cai exclaimed loudly "What the fuck?!" He stared at Peter in disbelief. "In a chest? He - Danny - Danny is locked in a chest?! Oh holy Jesus," he breathed, sitting down hard on a chair.

Zoe opened her eyes and looked at him for a moment, but it was too difficult to watch him react like this so she turned her eyes away. It could have been so much worse than a chest. She tried to feel steely, hard, cold and prepared. It made her voice sound thin and businesslike and kind of mean. "Do you want to try to see it again in here?" she asked Peter.

"When his uncle leaves he locks Danny in a chest." That wasn't the worst thing they could see by far. "Look- If you two don't want to do this, I understand. It's- It's horrible. And I hate to make you see it too." It didn't really matter where they did it, he just needed to know they really were willing.

Cai almost wanted to laugh when Peter asked if they wanted to. Of course they didn't want to. "We don't have a choice," he said, flicking his gaze to Zoe to see if she agreed. Grimly, she nodded. "Danny doesn't have a choice," Cai added. Cai tried really hard to be as businesslike as Zoe. "We should sit, in a circle, so we can all hold hands. Peter you'll... you'll have to concentrate on it again, really hard. And it might not work. We might just see something about you. Are you... okay with that?"

To that, at least, Peter could nod easily. "My life is an open book." And it was. Several of them he would lend to anyone in the know who asked.

He moved to the floor and waited for the others to join him. They were so young...just kids. God, he was a terrible person, inflicting this on the both of them. He wanted so much to change his mind; to move on instead. But he couldn't. Not if it meant getting to poor Danny faster. That's what they were here for, and Peter couldn't risk him. He understood that the others didn't want to either.

He held his hands out and nodded. "I'm so sorry," he said again, because he didn't feel right without apologising.

Cai was very worried about this. He didn't have much to compare it to. It wasn't like the feeling you got before you had to take a test you weren't prepared for, apart from the undercurrent of anxiety. He wasn't even dreading it as much as he'd dreaded his mother's funeral because that was, at least, a peaceful thing. It wasn't like either of those things but anxiety and dread were definitely present.

He held out his hand to Zoe, and could hardly believe that it was only a few hours ago that he'd been kissing her. For a moment he wanted to give this all up and just kiss her again, here and now on the floor of Peter's office. Kiss her hard and with abandon and forget the rest of everything.

Zoe laced her fingers through his and he held on tight.

"I'm ready," breathed Zoe, lying through her teeth.

Peter took both their hands before he closed his eyes tightly. He was very good at centering and focusing his thoughts, having been trained by so many years in the clergy. It was no trouble to center in on the horrible vision he had had not two hours ago.

It felt a little like falling at first, and then there it was. Flashes of those disgusting images playing out in front of him again, like someone had hit rewind on his brain.

Danny sat at the foot of a bed, curled in on himself. His leg was chained to one of the posts and he clearly couldn't get away. He looked thin and pale, and there was a long gash on his left cheek. His hands and feet were bandaged, though there was no explanation as to why. Only Danny, chained and crying-

-Greg's fingers laced themselves in Danny's hair as he pressed the younger boy into the mattress and Danny cried out-

-Danny was being shoved towards a black chest and immediately he started to scream. "No! No, don't put me back in there!" Greg, however, was unyielding and Danny was pushed unceremoniously into the chest. "NO! Stop! I'll be good, please! Please don't lock me in!" As the lid of the chest was closed and locked, marks that were clearly made by fingernails scratching against it could be seen-

There was more, but Peter's breath became shallow and he tried so hard to slow it all down. There had to be some detail somewhere they could use to find the poor boy.

She'd been prepared for this. She knew this was going to happen. There was no excuse to panic, no excuse not to take in as much detail as possible. Peter had warned her. She'd been ready.

And Cai had wanted to be ready, but he'd known from the moment that Zoe called him that he wasn't. He still had nightmares about the first time he'd seen Danny's past, though he hadn't told anyone this because it wouldn't do any good. Seeing it in real time was worse than he remembered.

As much as he tried to slow it down, the flashes still came.

Greg punching Danny hard in the face for trying to push away from him-

-Danny spitting in Greg's face and Greg wiping it away, smearing it into Danny's eyes-

-and eventually, the fight going out of Danny. Instead of trying to scramble away from Greg, he simply submitted. He let Greg take what he wanted to and afterwards he simply lay there while Greg praised him-

Peter pulled his hands away, immediately using them to cover his mouth. He felt like he was going to be sick all over again.

Cai don't know how he moved so fast but as soon as Peter let go of his hands he was up, and found himself in the corner of Peter's office. Dizzy and sick and mirroring Danny's lack of ability to fight, he stumbled and braced himself against the wall, but eventually sank down to the floor on his knees. He kept his eyes painfully wide open, as if staring at the skirting board would help wash the images from behind his eyes.

Zoe stayed where she was on the floor, but slowly pulled her hands back toward her body and tucked them safely under her arms. The images crawled over her skin like Greg's hands, and his voice in the last images, telling Danny how good he was... that would stay in her head for a very long time. She didn't notice she was crying till her sob forced her to take a great breath and bought her fully back to herself.

Zoe struggled to stop crying, wiping away tears as soon as she felt them and fighting to keep her breathing even but they kept coming, sob after sob. Her previous crying session this afternoon seemed to have paved the way for this one, and she didn't have much strength left to contain herself with.

"I'm sorry," Peter repeated when he was sure he wouldn't vomit. He wanted to hug Zoe, but refrained. He didn't think she would want to be touched. "Did-did either of you see anything that could help us find him?"

Zoe couldn't answer for a while. She wanted to stand up, but she couldn't do that either. She put both her hands down flat on the floor and - with a really furious expression on his face, eyes closed - forced herself to take one slow, deep breath after another.

Cai remembered what he'd said earlier about water, and crawled over to his bag to pull out his bottle and drunk deep. It didn't help as much as it usually did. In fact he wasn't sure it helped at all. "Zoe?" he whispered. her eyes flew open and he winced at how scary she looked. "Water?"

She shook her head sharply but, after another moment or two, reached for the bottle. He rolled it over.

"Where," she said, after drinking, and a little more breathing. "Where would someone get a chest like that?"

"It looked old," Peter said with a shake of his head. "He might have had it a while or he might have gotten it an at antique shop. There was a window behind him and I could see trees outside. I don't understand why visions aren't specific. It's fucking frustrating."

"Hah! You're telling me!" Zoe exclaimed, huffing in frustration as well. She loathed her visions more than usual lately.

"Wasn't he hiding from the police?" Cai asked. "Do people normally carry round big chests with them them they're on the lam? Maybe we could go round antique shops, with his picture. Maybe someone will recognise him? Maybe he's left a delivery address."

It wasn't much to go on, but it was something. "We can try that," Peter nodded. "From what I know, he's been hiding from the police for years. I could get his photo from Paul... Thing is...I'm thinking he's probably taken Danny somewhere removed from the city. I could see trees. I suspect he's been hiding in a smaller town...maybe for years."

"They have trees in London," Cai said, hoping against hope till Zoe pointed out "He said he was in the back of a car on a rough road, he's probably not still in London."

Cai looked down at the floor again. They could hardly try all the antique shops in all the towns in the United Kingdom. It was a stupid idea even to hope they could try all the antique shops in London.

Cai looked so discouraged and honestly, Peter didn't blame him. "I- The only thing I can think of is seeing if Bentley can help. He's more a more powerful seer than I am. Maybe he'll be able to trigger a vision? I hate to involve anyone else, but if it could help us find him-"

Cai wanted to say yes! Yes! Get him immediately! but the thought of forcing someone else to witness what they'd just witnessed stopped him. It was not that he was against it - it was the fact that he wasn't as against it as he thought he should be, and the guilt he felt from this made him hold his tongue.

"It can't be worse than what Danny's going through," Zoe said, and Cai looked at her in admiration. That was the perfect response.

"She's right," he said, looking at Peter, the expression inhis eyes that of a hopefully puppy.

At that, Peter nodded. "I'll call him," he said, standing so he could head for his phone. Once there, he dialled Bentley's number, explained the situation, and hung up again.

"He's coming. Abby's bringing him."

As Peter made the call, Cai crawled across the floor to be closer to Zoe. He sat on his heels, a few inches away. "You look like shit," Zoe said, quietly so she wouldn't interrupt Peter, quietly so it was just between them.

Movement flickered across Cai's mouth, not quite the beginning of a smile. "You look like an actual superhero."

"Shut up," whispered Zoe. Cai reached out with a hand covered by his sleeve and squeezed her fingers. Her stomach turned, and she pulled her hand away, pressing her fingers against her eyes like pressure could stop her crying again.

Cai sat on his hands. "Sorry."

"Forget it," Zoe shook her head. Peter finished on the phone, told them Abby and Bentley were coming.

Cai looked up at Peter from his spot near Zoe on the floor. "I'm going to have to see it again, aren't I?"

"Maybe not," Peter said, hopefully. "Sometimes Bentley can summon visions at will. So really, it...it could go either way. I hope not. God. God, I hope not."

Cai nodded, closing his hand around his silver cross. He felt like he was a really long way away from God right now. "I will if it helps find Danny," he said. He didn't want to say it, but he did. Cai reminded himself of the bullet in his chest that hadn't killed him. Life was painful, sometimes unbelievably painful. Leaving Danny with that man would be worse, Cai kept telling himself that.

"The more times we tried to see the funeral vision, the more information we got, each time," Zoe pointed out. "This was only the first time we saw it. The second might be..." she let it hang. Watching a funeral over and over again was one thing. Watching your friend at the mercy of an actual human monster over and over was quite another.

"It might be different," Peter nodded and then the three of them lapsed into silence.

It didn't take long for Bentley to arrive, all nerves and too much energy. Abby walked with him to the office, but left them alone so they could focus. "Hey," Bentley said to the unfamiliar Cai, and then he nodded at Peter and Zoe. "Sorry you lost someone. I'll try to help."

Zoe had spent much of the wait in the bathroom, running cold water over her hands and splashing it on her face. Her eyes felt a little better, much less red and puffy than they had been but her head still felt like it was in the middle of one of those metal clamps. She wanted to have a shower, one really hot, really long shower, and though she probably had time before Bentley arrived and no one would mind if she did, there was no way she was taking off her clothes anywhere that wasn't her own house.

She wouldn't say she was feeling better, by the time Bentley showed up, but she wasn't as close to tears as she had been. She nodded at his words, as Cai got up to introduce himself. They didn't shake hands. "It's good to meet you," Cai said, all manners. "Sorry it's under such crappy circumstances."

Bentley didn't even know what to say to Cai, so he just nodded. "I'm going to try to see something, but it might help if you let me see what he looks like? Peter said you can do that?" Bentley gestured towards the floor and gave Cai and Zoe a questioning look. "Does that work for you?"

"I can - sort of," Cai said, hesitating before he sat down again. "Mostly I piggy-back on other peoples visions though, or their past or futures. But I can try." He pulled back his sleeves.

"Or I could show you a photo," Zoe suggested, frowning. "Or will that not work?"

"We'll try it this way first," Bentley said with a nod. "Psychic link is better. Both of you can project the image of him and we'll see how it goes. You too, Peter?"

Peter nodded and he took his place on the floor again. He held his hands out and Bentley took them immediately. "I can't promise anything, but I'll do what I can," Bentley said quietly before he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. "You two just maybe...think of his face and how he makes you feel?"

Zoe refused to let herself hesitate in taking Cai's hand; she clamped her fingers down on his and squeezed her eyes shut like a child trying to think. How did Danny make her feel? Protective, to start with. He amazed her with how he'd come through his abuse and turned into such a kind person. His generosity was something to be marveled at. She loved the way he loved his dog. Then there was the all encompassing horror of the images of him, abused again and again by his uncle. The chest and the chain and the bed. If Bently couldn't get a psychic reading off her now she was going to be so annoyed.

Bentley simply focused on letting whatever images might surface work their way to him. It wasn't long before his eyes rolled back into his head (not that it was obvious, since his eyes were closed) and a vision him him hard. He didn't know if the others could see it, but to him it was as clear as day.

Danny had been waiting for Greg to step through the door and when he did, Danny was ready. He tossed a bucket of questionable liquid at Greg and used the shock to lock Greg in the room while he tried to escape. Danny's frustration at being unable to get through the front door was obvious, but he tried to find other ways to escape, even as Greg freed himself and started towards him. A window shattered and Danny tried to climb through it, but to no avail. Danny was caught at the last minute, his hands and feet bleeding liberally, and he was dragged away-

-a barely conscious Danny rolled over, trying to shift himself away from Greg who was stretched out across his bed in post-coital bliss. Greg's hand reached out to touch Danny's back and a look of pure ecstasy crossed the man's face as Danny simply passed out-

"Incubus-" Bentley hissed, horrified by what he had just seen. "He's an incubus."

As soon as Zoe felt Bentley's vision pulling her in through Cai she yanked her hand away like she'd been burned. She hadn't intended to, but instinct has kicked in, and self-preservation, and as soon as she started to see Danny again her mind bucked, she panicked, and pulled her hands away.

Shit! She was so shit at this! Useless useless useless! there was a horrible selfish part of her that just wanted to back out and let the other three take care of it. A stupid part of her she hated, but also really, really wanted.

Cai felt Zoe disconnect but he was still holding Bentley's hand, and he was too far gone into the vision too quickly to pull out, though he probably would have, if he'd had the chance.

The aftermath of the vision was bad. Cai didn't know if it was because Zoe wasn't with him or because he'd had too many visions today or because of the content of the visions. But the nausea hit him hard, and darkness crept up around the edges of his vision. He did hear what Bentley said but his own wellbeing was at the forefront of his mind. He needed to lie down, so down he went.

Somehow a cushion found its way under his head. He suspected actual superhero Zoe, but his eyes were closed, so he couldn't be sure. "Cai?" a voice whispered. Hers. "Alright?"

"'right," Cai murmured. "Just need to be very very still please."

Zoe nodded and let him lie there as she focused her attention on Bentley. "His uncle is the incubus?"

Bentley watched poor Cai collapse. He knew the feeling. To Zoe, he nodded. "Yes. He's draining him. I- I didn't see anything useful, I'm sorry. I don't know where he is, but that man is an Incubus. Danny was fighting at the beginning, but he's being- They use people up."

Peter stood and started pacing as he hissed a few choice swearwords in German.

Zoe pressed her lips together, and held up her hand with two fingers up. She wanted to say something but her voice was behind her brain right now. Like she needed to send out a search party to find it. "Two things," she said, when her search party came back. "Incubuses, can they be sensed? Like demons? If someone's nearby can they sense him? And - second question-" Zoe came close to losing her voice again. "'Use people up', does that mean he's running out of time?"

"They can be sensed," Peter said, coming back to the group of them. "I'll send out people to do sweeps right now." He reached for his phone and started texting furiously.

"It-" Bentley sighed and then he nodded. "If that man isn't careful, yeah. And it doesn't look like he's exactly pacing himself."

Zoe winced at his phrasing. Pacing himself. He's not pacing himself as he rapes my friend over and over. Cai made a choking noise and she thought it must have been a reaction to the news as well but when she looked down she saw her hand was gripping the back of his shirt, pulling it tight across his throat. She released it immediately, hissing an apology. Her hand felt cast adrift with nothing to grip though, so she sat on it.

Cai opened his eyes for a moment - nope, world was still spinning - and closed them again. "How long do you think he has?" he asked, terrified, but too sick to put much emotion into his voice.

"I- I don't know, it's hard to tell if the vision was current, future or past. How long has he been gone?"

"Ten days," Peter whispered. "It's been ten days. Incubi aren't easy to- It depends on how often-" Peter groaned and rubbed his eyes. "I don't know how long Danny has, but every day he's still missing, he gets weaker."

"How long have other people lasted?" Zoe asked, wishing she'd read more on incubi. Demons angels ghost and psychics, yes, even werewolves, and some vampires. But incubi? She'd never come across one before. That shouldn't have stopped her, though. She should have read everything. "What's the shortest time - do you know? Have you got records of it happening to other people?"

Peter bit his lip and nodded. He didn't want to answer, but once again he was hardly going to lie to Zoe and Cai. "I do. Sometimes people can get so wrapped up in incubi or succubi that all else falls away. There are records of people just wasting away within a week or so. It depends on other things as well. If Danny's being fed or being allowed to sleep. That will give him strength." Quickly, Peter went back to texting.