revivalproject | [Event] The Messes We Get Into

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[Event] The Messes We Get Into

WHO: Tommy Shepherd, Alec Lightwood, Open
WHERE: Warren Gathering Area, Warren Maze Route
WHAT: Some Pre-Exploration Fretting, and some Maze Exploration
WHEN: November
WARNINGS: Dangerous traps in Maze thread

1. Touching Bases (Since Grass Is Unavailable) | Open

Octobers suck. Which of course went without saying. That had been true of this place since just short of the beginning of being the captive of aliens. They left Tommy's skin itching with nervousness.

He just wasn't used to it rolling over into the next month. He wasn't used to being forced to stay underground so long (okay maybe he was). He sure as hell wasn't ready for being down here and feeling so off and on sluggish (another lie, he was very used to it).

Okay, if he was honest, he was just mopey and annoyed and missing his brother and his boyfriend and his mentors and his list going on and on. Which was probably why, just about once every day, Tommy did his rounds. Literally running as fast as his unstable powers would allow so he could check in. Especially after his boyfriend disappeared on an adventure like an ass.

"Hey," he says, jogging up behind a familiar face probably not for the first time since they had come down here. He reaches out to pat a shoulder, not bothered if he got dodged either. "How you doing today? I'm thinking about making a stir fry from supplies. Rice or noodles your preference?"

2. Desperately Seeking Boyfriend and Failing In Style | Closed to Alec

The news comes on the network. There are doors open. Maybe. A chance to find someone important to him. Tommy doesn't even hesitate to make his plans. He doesn't check in with his brother, he doesn't let other people know that he's going. He just gathers what supplies he feels he needs and runs off full speed down the corridor. Bolts off at a jog, then a blurring blare of speed.

The problem is that he doesn't know the right way to got to find his missing friend, his missing boyfriend. Frustrated Tommy ends up sticking his head in a few different paths before running back to check the next. To look for any sign that the people he cared about had gone down one path or another. It's frustrating and his lingering fear and concern makes him indecisive.

Which leaves him freaking out when he hears something heavy and metal slamming back up the corridor. Cursing he races back up the path, past a figure standing there, and to the now closed bulkhead. Which he pounds on.

"Come on! What the fuck! Open up!"

Which of course it wans't going to do. And so Tommy just cursed again in frustration.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Alec also doesn't like being underground like this. The past few weeks have been horrible, actually; the creatures everyone called zombies reminded him too much of Forsaken for comfort. And he didn't exactly feel comfortable enough to share his concern with anyone else, shoving those emotions down deep where they belong. Shadowhunters didn't have time for feelings.

Still, at least the underground caverns seem mostly safe, if lacking in creature comforts. It's actually pretty uncomfortable for Alec to be around so many people in a communal living arrangement. He's far too much of an introvert for this to be sustainable, and that's part of the reason he decides to explore the newly-opened tunnels. The other (larger) part is, well, worry. Alec doesn't have anyone here south whom he's close. But what if Izzy got brought here and was trapped? Or Jace? Alec can't live with the idea of doing nothing to help them and even though he's relatively unarmed, he can't just sit idle.

So: tunnels. Alec takes nothing with him except the clothes on his back (looking worse for wear by now but at least the leather of his jacket is sturdy) and his stele. A sturdy branch had served him well as a quarterstaff over the last few weeks and he brings that too, though he's not sure how much longer it'll hold up considering it's already showing signs of wear. But he's barely fifty feet into the tunnel before the entrance slams shut and something streaks past him. He turns in the wake of it, surprised to see Tommy there.

"Hey," he starts cautiously as he heads back to the door. "I just came through here... is it stuck?"

The voice. Right, there was another person. And Tommy knew already that it wasn't either of his Billys. Frustrated, he turns to look at the guy.

Right. New one. With a sigh he runs his fingers through his hair and tries to calm down.

"Bulkhead. They won't reopen easily. And the ones in places like this are reinforced in a way that prevents even me from phasing through, so I can't take us back to the other side."

This is all a new experience for Alec: being stuck down in these caves, these doors sealing off parts of the space. He frowns and steps closer, placing a hand flat against the door.

"Locked? Or something else?" The surface doesn't feel unusual to him, but then again it's not like Alec has some magical lock detecting touch. It just looks and feels like a door to him — a very solid, sturdy type of door, but still a door.

"Locked. And something else," Tommy groans in annoyance, knocking on the door one more time. "Fuck."

He had wanted to find his Billys. And now he's got... Not Billy.

"Fine. Whatever. Looks like their will is at play here. So we just have to deal with this shit."

"Okay," Alec replies, pulling out his stele. He traces the unlocking rune against the surface of the door, the stele leaving a glowing mark in its wake. The glow fades out almost immediately after Alec completes the rune though, and he still can't budge the door.

"Weird," he murmurs, mostly to himself. "That should've worked."

Okay, that was cool. Tool that writes on any surface with glowing ink. Probably magic or something.

"There are plenty of places that do stuff like this. Bet I couldn't even blow that thing up."

"Well that's annoying." And definitely suspicious. Alec hasn't been around long enough to know nearly enough about the kinds of shenanigans that occur with life alongside the Agrii, but he's not so sure he likes what he's seen thus far.

"This happens a lot? We're just locked away from the main area and everyone else?"

"Not a lot, but more than often enough to be annoying. Which is to say sometimes."

Not recently. And that makes him angrier. Tommy kicks at the door one more time. He needs to get to his Billys.

"My important people are out there, and I wanted..."

he wanted to find them. Tommy sighs.

"Come on. They're not going to let us go back, and I can't protect you as easily if you stay behind."

"Great." Maybe there's a pattern to it? Or maybe Alec's just unlucky. That definitely fits more with how his entire time here has been: unlucky. Or perhaps it — and being here in general — is just a kind of punishment. That certainly fits the way Alec's life goes.

Though Alec doesn't know how to feel when Tommy mentions his important people. Sympathetic a little, because he knows how it is to be separated from the people he cares about. Jealous, because at least Tommy's people are here while Alec has no way to get back to his. And horrible, because he knows the jealousy is an unfair, ugly emotion and he's having trouble suppressing all of it.

Tired. He's probably just tired.

He doesn't have time to worry about it though, because if the door won't open there's no sense standing around waiting. Alec is far too much a man of action anyway, as opposed to someone who can just wait around. Better to at least explore; they might find something useful.

"I don't need you to protect me." Which he's told Tommy before, so either Tommy doesn't listen or he doesn't believe Alec. Yet another frustrating thing about this place, but then again Alec can't even get the door open.

"Yeah, until you can prove that, I'll still watch out for you," Tommy counters.

He's seen enough people claim that they can handle themselves without being able to back it up before. He hates having to haul their asses out of the metaphorical fire after that. They get annoyed when he says 'told you so'.

"Come on. There hasn't been danger down here before, so we'll probably be fine and it will be a moot point."

Alec has to resist the urge to roll his eyes where Tommy could see it. The guy would probably get along swimmingly with Jace; Alec's not sure how to feel about that. "Fine. Whatever."

But if there are any demons down here, Alec's just going to have to find a way to deal with it and ensure Tommy doesn't get in the way or get hurt.

"So you've been down here before?" He wonders if it was just exploring or something else. "Enough to be familiar?"

Maybe he would get on with Jace. Maybe it would turn into a pissing contest. There would always be the risk of that with someone as insistent to be noticed as Tommy was.

"Not this part of down here," he says with a shrug. "There's always different parts. The area we got led to by the walking tumbleweed? Yeah, been there. But now my boyfriend went wandering off into these depths, my brother too. And I was going to find them. It's going swimmingly."

It might in fact be a pissing contest. But at least that would keep the two of them occupied.

"Ah." Alec wonders if the door was closed before, or something else prevented people from coming this way. But he doesn't ask, just like he doesn't ask Tommy to elaborate about the boyfriend. Alec's convinced he's here as a punishment for kissing a man at what was supposed to be his wedding; suggesting as much to Tommy isn't going to help either of them.

"Do you have something of theirs?" he finds himself asking before he can even think about it. "I could try to track them." Which might not help in the tunnel if there's no connecting passages, but Tommy seems worried enough that Alec feels a little bad.

Yeah, suggesting that Alec was here over the whole kissing a guy at his own wedding would just get Tommy wanting ALL of that tea. He can't help it. He loves gossip.

"Yeah, I guess I do have something of theirs. Wait, how much of theirs does it have to be? Because my twin and I share blood. Probably. Sort of. It's weird magic stuff."

Given the guy's rune attempt, he probably understands magic is real so Tommy doesn't have to explain that shit.

"As for my boyfriend, well... there's a gift he gave me just before the zombie shit started."

"Blood won't work, I'm not a warlock." And Alec would like to avoid making someone bleed if at all possible. Is that even hygienic in these tunnels? "Especially if there's some magic already at work in there. I can't unravel all of that."

Nor would he want to. It sounds messy, and Alec doesn't mean in the physical sense.

"Okay, give me a sec." The stele comes back out, and Alec burns the tracking rune into the palm of his left hand. Then he closes his hand around the gift, closing his eyes too while he concentrates. A faint glow surrounds his fingers, distinct only because of the dimness in the tunnel already.

"I can feel him," Alec murmurs, eyes still closed. "He's... moving. I can't tell exactly how far. To the left, but... below us, somehow." Shaking his head, he opens his eyes again and holding his hand out for Tommy to take his gift back. "It's hard to pinpoint location not knowing exactly how these tunnels are laid out."

"Oh man, never say that word around my brother," Tommy says reflexively. "It means liar, or betrayer. He's just a witch."

It really is a reflex at this point. Because the guy might be from a world where warlocks mean something else entirely. Still, he stops to look at the guy and sees the weird stick come back out.

Really weird stick. Looks like something someone cosplaying as a wizard would use or some shit. But he's paying attention. He nervously hands over the birthday gift necklace that had first been a birthday gift to his boyfriend, and waits. At least the glow makes sense. Magic all glows in his experience.

Still, the news makes his shoulders sink with relief. He hadn't even realized how tense they were.

"So he's... alive? Fuck. Thank you. Whatever magic you did, thank you."

"Ah." Alec pauses, then offers up a shrug. "Where I'm from, witch is the word for the fakers, the charlatans or the ones playing pretend. But I'll try to keep it in mind as his preferred term."

It's all just language anyway, right? Even if language is really freaking weird sometimes.

Still, Tommy seems a little more at ease after receiving the news. Alec did that much right at least.

"From what I can tell, yes." Alec puts the stele away, opening and closing his palm a few times to work out the stiffness from the burn. It'll fade into nothing soon enough. "Warlock tracking, actual magic, would probably tell you more. But I guess if we want to head toward him we have to think about tunnels that go down and to the left. If we're given those choices."

It isn't even just a preferred term for his brother. It's an accurate description compared to calling him anything else. But Tommy wasn't going to get into the discussion on it because honestly, he didn't pay full attention to it all.

But for a Minimoff, well, 'just language' is never that simple.

"Down and left. Down and left," Tommy mumbles to himself. Yeah, that sounded like something they could pay attention to.

"Come on then, let's see if we can find that!"

Good thing they don't really need to have that discussion. Or maybe any discussion really; they've got a pretty clear direction now. Or as clear as Alec's tracking can determine, and the tunnel they're in doesn't have any branches — as far as he's able to see anyway. But they're still near the entrance so maybe they just need to explore a little more.

"Yeah." Alec nods; movement is almost always better than standing around. "Let's go."

Too bad the tunnel right now doesn't seem eager to give them the chance to choose their directions. But damn, Tommy is buzzing with energy. He should just run this whole thing, but he can't leave the guy alone. Fuck.

"Yeah, going. Just... I don't know. You know any good paces to move quickly? I'll try and keep to your speed, but you can't keep up with me so it's going to be a whole thing. At least I can scout ahead."

Is that bad, or good? No choices also mean that there's no wrong choice, that they have to proceed as they can simply because they can't leave the path. That might not be bad, all things considered.

"I can move faster than you think." Faster than a human anyway, though nothing like a living lightning bolt. Alec stretches his arms overhead, shoulders rolling back as he lowers them again and pulls out his stele. The speed rune is relatively simple to draw, one Alec uses fairly often. He doesn't flinch when he burns it into his skin and stows his stele again. Caution is probably the better bet, in his mind, but he doesn't think anything he tries to say is going to make a difference to Tommy.

"Let's go."

Can he? Tommy will be the judge of that. He keeps walking.

"Show me what you've got, handsome."

Because he's going to modulate his own speed based on other people.

What is it with people on this planet and weird flirting-adjacent comments? Alec looks away at the whole handsome thing, uncomfortable. He doesn't know that he'll ever get used to it, and he doesn't know how to feel purple to stop without treading too close to things he doesn't want to talk about.

At least they have a task to focus on; that should help. He sets off at a rune-enhanced jog, a pace that he can sustain for a while. It won't be as fast as Tommy might be able to go but it's certainly faster than a regular person.

It's just Tommy and who he is. Is that really such a problem? And Tony he supposes. Maybe that Eddie guy. Billy. okay, so some of them just do it.

"Well damn, pretty boy, you're fast," Tommy says as he speeds up to keep pace with the Shadowhunter. "Useful magic that."

Maybe it's not a problem for most people. But Alec's not most people, and he's not going to explain that he's not most people either. Nothing good at all will come from that conversation. Better to just be uncomfortable, and hope Tommy gets distracted by something else. Considering that they have something of a goal, distraction shouldn't be too hard to accomplish.

"I know I am." Could move faster, but Alec doesn't want to tire out. A slower but sustainable pace is smarter. "It's not really magic."

desperately seeking but not boyfriend shaped

now now, he's perfect boyfriend shaped. just the wrong specific shape

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