Darker London

It was that weird, timeless time between Christmas and New Years, Joss was lying awake beside Hope in her bed listening to the rain thrash against the window above his head. He had slept a little, but really only long enough for Hope to fall asleep as well, and she slept so much deeper than he did.

He got up slowly, carefully trying not to wake her, and went to find somewhere in this house he could read somewhere, out of the way. Living in Razvan's house for so long - longer than he'd lived anywhere else in his life - meant the size and grandeur of the Kemp manor wasn't as intimidating as it might have been. Besides it was hard for a house that contained Hope and Liz to be intimidating, and Emma was perfectly nice.

( ... )

Thomas would follow Peter anywhere, so it was little wonder that he trooped behind his best friend into the depths of the hospital, without question. It was a place he didn't recognise, dark and foreboding, but Peter must have a good reason to show it to him? "Haven't seen back here before," Thomas mentioned, as Peter led them into a holding cell down there. Did you just build this? Is it for Magnus if he wakes up?"

( It's not for Magnus )

Hope made her way to Joss' church house, though she didn't rush. He had wanted time to destress from the work day, and Hope enjoyed just kind of meandering around the tube stations and getting off a few stops early to walk the rest of the way there.

Night stained the sky by the time she reached the doorstep, huddled into her red faux-fur coat. She had Joss' present all tucked up in her bag, and she was wearing a Santa hat. She hoped she looked cute and festive! Apparently since she really wanted to have a slightly serious conversation and maybe cute and festive would make it better? She rang the doorbell and waited, bouncing around a little to keep warm.

For the long flight back to London, the survivors of the auctioneers had been sedated (by choice) so they could rest up. There was no need for them to be feeling trapped in a tiny plane for hours.

They were then transported to Peter's hospital and set up in four private rooms that were next door to each other. They could have their run of the place if they wanted, but privacy as well. Razvan, however, found that he didn't so much want to be alone after so long in that damn cage. Instead he left his room behind and made his way unsteadily into ALicia's room. Both Trent and Reggie were set up across from them. "Hey," he said gently. "How are you feeling? Do you want me to show you are? We could go get some food. I sort of want to eat every thing in the entire world."

Placeholder for Thomas and Spectre to talk in the backyard on Christmas whoooop

The call came through when Daria was wrangling a pasta bake into the oven, the voice from her phone on the bench announced Lily calling. "Crap," she said, since Agatha, in her carrier on Daria's front, was also starting to cry. "Alexa, answer that," she said, closing the oven with her hip. Getting something that could answer phone calls without Daria needing to use her hands had been one of the best decisions in her life. And worst, sometimes, because a, Phoebe and Cassandra both knew how to use it and b, the names Alexa, Agatha and Alastair were a fucking mission to keep straight.

"Hi Lily, I'm just making dinner - crap," she said again, realising that the oven itself wasn't on but the stovetop still was. "You're on speaker but no one else is around."

"I need you to come here," Lily sounded distinctly un-Lily-like, that is, audibly upset. "Right now."

( ... )

Alex couldn't keep still as she waited for Cai and Danny to arrived at the house, she was a mass of nervous energy centered around an uncertain stomach. Liz and Emma had lent her several suitcases and this morning Alex had gone out and killed the time by buying herself a green trench coat with wonderfully deep pockets.

Aesthetically, the coat made her feel like a spy from the 1940s. The rest of it - the suitcases, the waiting, the company, the thought of screaming at her mother - made her feel wild and feral and cut loose. It felt good, knowing that the anger toward her mother was going to have somewhere to go, but it also felt uncomfortable and unpredictable.

When Cai's car came rolling up the drive, Alex climbed down from where she'd been balancing on the railings around the porch and threw open the side doors to the van. No time to waste! The empty suitcases were already inside, the van just needed people. "Hey!" She said, too nervous to be patient. "Let's go!"

"Hold your horses," Cai said, pulling an empty bag out of his own car and locking the boot. Zoe descended the porch stairs to meet them, empty backpack on her own back. "Alright?" he asked Zoe, since last time he'd seen her in person she'd been pretty much wrecked by her vision and last night talking to her online she hadn't sounded much better.

"Yeah, we're good to go," Zoe told him, making her way over to join Alex at the van.

"Hold my horses," Alex repeated, incredulous, to Danny and Zoe. "What does he think I've been doing all morning?"

"Shopping?" Zoe offered, with a nod to the coat, and Alex good-naturedly flipped her off.

Zoe went to her room early, under the excuse that she was going to sleep because she was exhausted. The exhausted bit was true. She did climb into bed, but fully dressed, music playing on her laptop as she tried to read.

It was too much - she turned the music off, but that only extended her concentration for another couple of sentences. She pulled up a set of her flashcards, and managed half a dozen, but on the seventh her mind gave her an image of cages in the dark, instead. There'd been someone sobbing in the distance of the warehouse, Zoe had never seen their face but couldn't get them out of her head.

( ... )

Finding instructions to build a pipe bomb was ludicrously easy, so much so that Nova did it while sitting on the toilet at the safe house, scrolling through an instruction page and writing down what she would need. It was still early in the afternoon and there was plenty of time.

So Nova borrowed the van and left the safe house, saying she needed a break. No one would have been surprised - she had spent the last week stalking around like a caged panther with too much energy to burn.

The hardware store stocked everything she needed to make the bomb (criminally easy) and buying it all together didn't even flag her on some sort of register.

( Read more... )

Although she still technically lived at Victoria Lane, Astrid spent most of her time at Miles house, where her bedroom continued to gain more and more of her own character, more and more items migrating slowly over. Once a week (sometimes more) she slept in Miles' bed, but mostly she stuck to her own. She was still very careful not to be too much in his space, just in case he got too annoyed with her. Astrid didn't want to get kicked out.

She'd brought her guitar over in the hopes that she would start playing it again, but as yet she'd barely been able to touch the strings. She hated that Toby had taken music away from her. It used to bring her such peace, and now all she could remember were those long days when he'd locked her away and she'd sung desperately at the door to try and win his favour back, her throat feeling torn and raw by the end of it, her voice almost gone.

Astrid had thrown a blanket over the guitar so it didn't watch her.

( I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold )

There had been another potential buyer the previous day, and while they had been standing, Razvan had passed out and landed hard on the floor of the cage, his head slamming against the bars. That had earned him punishment by cattle prod, though after they had all been given the smallest amount of food.

Now the captors returned, and signalled for them all to stand again, and Razvan was seriously considering whether or not it was worth it to pretend to faint again. Sure he would be shocked painfully, but if they got more food afterwards- And then the captors said the words which flooded him with relief.

"Stand up again, you pieces of shit. Another buyer coming through." And then, when he was making his way back to the door he said over his shoulder, "this one's a priest. So fucking weird."

Razvan sagged against the bars in relief and he signalled to the others. "It's my friend," he whispered. "He's here, fucking finally. Gonna have to act like I hate him. Safer. But it's my friend. I'll get us out of this."

Standing was torture.

After being drained by Alicia, Razvan had slept for hours. He hadn't even had the energy to eat the soup they had given him until he woke up and it had long gone cold and congealed. It did nothing to sate his hunger either, instead it made him feel queasy.

He wanted more.

And then their captors had come to rattle their cages and inform them they all had to stand because a buyer was on their way. Razvan's body was wasted and while he made it to his feet by using the bars to pull himself up, once there he swayed dangerously. His head was so heavy and it pounded against his skull. He moved closer to Alicia's cage, while the captors were focusing on other things.

He was just going to avoid what happened yesterday.

"Alicia," he whispered. "If they try to take you-" God he hated the idea of it, but Alicia could die- "-if you let me what was it, borrow your spirit? I can try to help you. I can't do it without touching you." And he knew he couldn't break out of the cage so honestly he had no idea what he was going to try if that was the case. But he had to try something, right? "Standing. So difficult."

Zoe sat down on the cushioned window seat in Cai's room, looking around her, over Cai's universe styled quilt and his messy bookshelves and the soft worn rugs on the floor. "I missed your room," she said, feeling sentimental but a bit silly about saying it. Cai flopped down onto the floor at her feet, arms resting on the windowseat as he looked up at her.

'I missed you in my room," Cai said, having no such qualms about feeling silly. Zoe had been pretty adamant that she was coming over to visit instead of the other way around. "How's Alex settling in?"

( ... )

Ray was standing over him and there was nothing Flynn could do about it. He couldn't run, because letting Ray fuck him was the only way he could keep a roof over his head. And without the roof over his head, he would end up as desperate and lost as he had been those six years he'd spent on the street. It wasn't a choice at all ready. Flynn had to let Ray do whatever in the hell he wanted, and he had to pretend he didn't detest every second of it.

( Karmic Trauma )

Placeholder for Peter and Aly

While they had been provided with water, the only one of them who had been fed anything since the granola bars was Alicia. And Razvan understood that it was not only because she didn't need to be kept as weak as they did due to the threat of soulsucking, but also because Alicia wasn't immortal and the three demons were. He got it, sure. But fuck did he want something to eat. Literally anything.

( Mmmmm )

Leaving Paddington at rush hour meant Alex had someone in the seat beside her most of the trip, though it was no comparison to the tube because she'd paid for this seat. The tired looking woman beside her got off at Reading and Alex stretched out a little, finally free to finish her rum and coke in a coke bottle without worrying the woman would report her. The coke said Alex on the bottle because she wasn't immune to stupid marketing, although she'd peeled most of it off by the time the train terminated in Bedwyn station.

She'd only chosen it because she'd never heard of it before, and once she was off the train it was obvious why. Great Bedwyn was one of those places where the word 'village' was a bit of a grasp and 'parish' was much more apt. She started walking, since she had no other plan, looking for something to do (and, probably, eat, since it was past seven thirty and she'd skipped dinner because her mum was freaking poisoning it.) The first street she took wound past little houses that didn't even touch each other and ended up on a street called Farm Lane that trailed off into the darkness, losing streetlights, heading, Alex imagined, for farms.

( ... )

It hadn't been a particularly restful night for Razvan. Someone in the complex, far in the distance, had spent nearly the entire night sobbing. He had only fallen asleep through pure exhaustion, his hands clamped over his ears. He was awakened by footsteps outside his cage, and when he blinked his eyes open, he saw what he had been dreading.

Captors with cattle prods.

He scrambled up and into a corner of the cage, his back pressed up against the bars. "No! Nonono! Look, I'll cooperate!" The words tumbled out of his mouth, but the captors didn't pay the slightest bit of attention as the shoved the cattle prods between the bars and turned them on.

Electricity arced through his body, pain flaring and twisting him into awful positions. He didn't even realise he was screaming until the shocks stopped. He was left panting, dragging heavy and desperate breaths in and out until the shocks started again.

His captors shocked him over and over again until Razvan couldn't even move and his vision was tunnelling. They immediately moved on to the other demons, though they didn't bother with Alicia, considering she couldn't soulsuck anyone. Razvan felt like he shoud be fighting them, telling them to stop hurting his companions. But all he could do was whimper and cry.

When the door opened again, Razvan had been dozing on the floor of his cage. He sound woke up, loud and definitive. He opened his eyes to see several people swarm into the container, dressed all in black. They were shouting directions at each other, but he was so completely out of it, it was hard to pick out any one thing.

( Awfulness )

I'm here Cai messaged the others as soon as the signal returned to his phone, running up the escalators from the tube up into Paddington Station itself. The tube had been packed and the escalators were a crush (but, luckily, a crush that let the left half of itself actually move) and there must have been hundreds of people on the platforms. He felt his heart sink a little - there was no way he was going to be able to spot Alex in this crowd, if she was still here.

Still, he pushed his way through, elbows first and apologies after, toward the main ticket office and stopped under the huge hanging departures sign. The next train departed in seven minutes and was going to Hayes and Harlington, in eleven minutes one was going to Cardiff Central, in eighteen, Worcester Foregate.

He pushed toward platform three, Hayes and Harlington, trying to spot her from the other side of the barriers, couldn't, swore loudly, and crushed in behind a man in a suit as he swiped his ticket through the reader. He heard the man protest but was already running across the platform, his chest burning, searching for her. Couldn't see her in any of the windows but there was a lot he couldn't see, there were just too many people.

The crowd thinned out quickly, everyone on this platform had to be on this train in three minutes and everyone was very frantic about it. Cai wondered if he should but couldn't imagine Alex going to Hayes and Harlington, although he was having trouble doing any imagining at all through his panic. He should stop, and think, or - there was a conductor talking to him, now, asking if he was getting on, and Cai's eyes went wide and he very thoughtfully ran away.

He put it down to adrenaline, jumping over the barriers. He'd never done that before but this time there wasn't a rushed man to slip in behind. He felt guilty but also, he wasn't actually stealing train travel, he was heading back to the main platform and the main mass of people and it was against the rules but was it actually against the law?

His phone buzzed but he wove through several more groups of people to get away from platform three and anyone who might be after him before he checked it. Zoe was ten minutes away. Danny should be closer. Cai put his gloved hand against the pole and stretched up onto his toes, trying to see his brother - or Alex - through the crowd.