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Knife in the Dark: Scene 10With city centre parking rarer than dodos, Blaze caught the white and green electric Metrolink tram to Piccadilly Gardens where she was meeting the others. A little worried that she might have got her outfit wrong for hanging out with such a young crowd, she was relieved to see Stellar was wearing something very similar. The blonde girl seemed to have adopted Blaze and made a great effort to see that Blaze wasn't excluded from choosing where they were going. The sun was going downand the shimmering sky had the heathen hue of a woman on fire. They made an ominous looking group, pacing Piccadilly in a pack, quite obviously up to no good. Other punters crossed the road to avoid them, or were forced to weave their way around the gang, as Indie and co. refused to give ground to anyone. When they finally dropped down a few stairs into a dark and space-age bar, it was surprising that a fight hadn't broken out on the way.
"Get the drinks in mate." Indie ordered Street, who nodded and accepted a handful of cash. "What do you want Blaze?"
"Coke please." Blaze replied, tensing as she sensed yet another showdown between Indigo and herself.
"With?" Indie pressed, staring her down. "Vodka? Whisky?"
"Ice and lemon." Blaze smiled shakily. "I don't drink."
"Weirdo." Indie muttered, his sentiment echoed in the faces of the others. Street pushed past Indigo to the bar with Clover, both looking back over their shoulders and shaking their heads. Blaze refused to rise to Indie's insult. She had her reasons and they were nothing to do with these kids.
Other than that, the night was turning out to be much less hard work than Blaze had thought. Carly was a friendly drunk, hugging people she didn't know and telling them they were great. Stellar spent all her time running round after her sister. This wasn't easy for two reasons, one that Stellar was no less inebriated, and two because Carly kept changing her form when nobody was looking. Blaze had quite a good chat with the tiger-pawed Callum, finding out that yes, meat pie and chips in a tray with gravy was still readily available around here. But the conversation tailed off eventually and Callum left. Quietly weary, Blaze wondered if she could make a break for it yet?
"So this Professor Xavier bloke?" Blaze nearly dropped dead from surprise. She hadn't expected Indie to speak to her voluntarily, let alone politely and about the Professor. Yet here he was, placing his half drunk pint of bitter on the table and sitting down next to her. "He's a good leader? I mean; you feel like he understands you or summot?"
"Of course." Blaze answered sincerely. "Sometimes I think he understands more than he wants to, and not just because of his telepathy. He's a very astute man."
"Funny that innit? People, especially mutants, always looking for someone who understands them better than everyone else…" It was a rhetorical statement, so Blaze changed topic.
"Stifle mentioned that there used to be a lot more of you, but that you wont tell her where the others have gone?"
"She's right." Indigo agreed, frowning as he kept a weary eye on his gang as they milled around the bar and dance floor. He supped his pint eagerly as Blaze continued to question him.
"Why wont you tell her? I don't understand why you don't trust her after she's spent so much energy trying to help you." Blaze twisted in her seat to face Indie. He didn't return the gesture, and the intensity of his personality seemed to hum on the air.
"Would you trust someone who could sap your powers away at the snap of her fingers?"
"Trust her?" Blaze tread to lighten the mood a little. "If she promised to take my powers away, I'd be her slave forever."
"Not funny." Indie looked at her sideways. "Look I just know too much about Stifle to be comfortable around her. She's…complicated."
"You still haven't told me what your powers are Indie?" Blaze asked softly in her best you-can-trust-me-I'm-a-teacher voice. "Or how you got them?"
"I got into a fight with my brother." Indigo answered after a moment. He placed his hands palm down on the tabletop. If Blaze was surprised that he was being so forthcoming she didn't show it. All she did was make herself more comfortable, leaning on her elbow at a right angle to Indigo as he continued to explain.
"I punched him in the face, hard. He got this whopping purple mark like a big bruise. But it didn't go down and as far as I know it never went away. Worse than that though, when I touched him I knew just how much it hurt, the punch. I knew how annoyed he was at me and how upset that we were arguing in the first place. I was ill for days. I couldn't shake the feelings, his feelings. I lost it for a bit. I couldn't handle it, it was mental."
"You're an empath?" Blaze asked cautiously. Indigo just nodded, looking at his hands on the table.
"Tactile empath. I have to touch for it to work. Crap huh?" He glanced at Blaze, trying to make a joke of it. Blaze didn't smile, and Indie sank back into his glumness again. "But when I do touch people, I leave marks like tattoos on whoever I touch."
"So that's why everyone has tattoos?" Blaze asked. "You did them, trying to get to know them better. Trying to be an understanding leader?" Suddenly she warmed to him, seeing how in taking on other peoples emotions Indie left himself vulnerable. No wonder he was so untrusting and defensive all the time. "This happens every time you touch someone? It sounds like what Rogue does…"
"Not that I have a clue who Rogue is, but yeah it's every time." Indie answered, letting the conversation die gracefully. Almost casually he let the back of his right hand brush Blaze's elbow with a feather light touch. She jumped at the sensation. It was like being zapped with a tiny electric current. And yet it wasn't unpleasant. As soon as the contact was gone, she wished it wasn't.