InsaneJournal

WHO: Ty Blackthorn and Kit Herondale
WHAT: Third time is a charm for poking around in the sewers, but this is not what they expected.
WHEN: Wednesday, December 20, morning.
WARNINGS: None!
STATUS: Complete!

Ty had already been here twice. Once by himself, just a peek, and then once with Kit. Nothing had been found either time.

But he was determined. He might have missed something the first two times, or time was just-- weird. There had to be more information, and Ty was going to find it. But he wouldn’t go back without Kit or Julian, he’d promised, and things were different in Blackthorn Hall now, with the information about Livvy coming to light, and Ty just quietly waiting for the other shoe to drop if Julian would realize he was mad at his younger brother.

He would much rather focus on this. And kiss Kit, but that had a tendency to happen in much nicer places than sewers, at least.

Ty had his hand on Kit’s side - an innocent hold to help steady him down the ladder. It lingered there on Kit’s hip, but he was determined to keep to the mission. He had a backpack with some essentials - just in case - along with his stele and seraph blade handle both tucked into his jeans. “Do you have your witchlight?” Ty’s still wasn’t here in Vallo, but he had known Kit had his and the thought had already made the pit of his stomach flutter. It was one of their earlier memories he liked to relive in his head. “I have a backup, just in case.”

The backup in question was a flashlight that looked like it could murder someone, and weighed a ridiculous amount as Ty pulled it out of his pack. It was not subtle.

Kit wasn't about to tell Ty that he didn't exactly understand what they were doing. He had thought that they didn't need to come back down here again when they had already poked around after the situation in November. He felt like they had scoured every corner, searched for every clue, made a thorough sweep of this little corridor for any signs of another person or magic. But Kit also knew that he could be woefully obtuse and he was doing anything to get out of the house with Ty.

So, let's try again, Kit had agreed. And now here he was climbing down a ladder into the sewers again. Hopefully, unnoticed. If anyone thought they were up to something bad, this trip was going to be immediately cut short.

His hand brushed against Ty's at his hip, a little sign to say he was good as he made it down the final rungs. He did a little hop onto the dry stone—which should have been the first red flag that something was weird, as it had been annoyingly damp the last time they were here. But again, he was too busy thinking about the closeness to Ty and not losing him in the dark. He nodded, realized Ty couldn't really see him, and then he mumbled out yeah, as he pulled out the witchlight. The one Ty had given to me. The one he never took it off his person if he could help it.

He closed his hands around the stone, and when he unfurled his fingers the stone was glowing a bright white light. "I don't think we'll need the back up," Kit said, knowing exactly what the backup was. "Unless we need to actually fight something with—whoa."

Were they sure they were in the right part of the sewer?

Ty whipped around to see exactly what Kit meant. He looked down - no sewer water. Then to the walls, which were straight, and looked up at the ceiling, flat overhead.

He turned on the flashlight even though Kit had the witchlight out. He wanted a closer look at the beams, and the walls, and the flooring, and Ty started to take careful steps to examine every inch space of the room. “It wasn’t like this two weeks ago, but this space isn’t new.”

It was real, though. Ty reached out touch solid surfaces, and dust came away on his fingers. He reached back into his backpack to pull out his camera and notebook for documenting - but he couldn’t do both at once, so he passed the camera over to Kit. “Do you think it’s a pocket dimension? Maybe they were using magic to cover it up before and we interrupted something. Maybe--”

Ty had a lot of options to shuffle through, a world of theories had just opened up in his brain and he started scribbling notes. “We’re going to need to get the magic people in here to see if anything can be traced.”

Kit took the camera, but he didn't exactly start taking pictures. His eyes were following the beam of Ty's flashlight and his own hand with the witchlight. He wished they could illuminate the place better so they could see it all at once. But what Kit was seeing didn't help ease the confusion and slight fear that had come over him. Kit inched closer to Ty to give him some light for writing down notes and to not get separated in the small space.

"But why would we interrupt it now and not the other two times?" Kit asked earnestly. He was turning toward Ty for an answer, because Ty would work it out better than Kit could. He was still stuck on the fact that this place looked so completely different. Were they even still in the sewer at all? He squinted up at the ladder they dropped down from and tried to mentally follow a route to...

"Is that a door?" Kit said before realizing he was just going to draw Ty's attention to it, and Kit was not ready to go through other weird strange doors. His hands were full and he couldn't grab Ty in a preemptive wait motion. "Magic people first. We should ask magic people first, Ty. We don't know what caused this at all, and I don't want to—" Mess something up. Be lost forever. The possibilities were endless. "Get stuck. What if it's another portal?"

Ty frowned a little at being gestured to wait. His eyes had darted towards the door, he wanted to look, but he also wanted to document where they were now. “Pictures, Kit.” He was half a second away from taking the camera back, if he had to, but that would leave Kit with a free hand to pull him out of the room before anything terrible popped out.

So he kept scribbling, and looking, and peering close to the walls and the floor. Ty had the distinct feeling that he had to take all of it in now, because whatever this was felt so temporary. “We’ll get the magic people in a second. What if it all goes away? What if we get the magic people and then it’s all gone? Pictures.”

Ty admittedly knew he had a tendency to get hyperfocused, and he was doing that right now. He walked up to the door, and pulled his sleeve up to activate two of his runes. Clarity and hearing were both within easy access, as Ty had used them numerous times to spy on people, or in his investigations. Now was as good of time as any, even if it caused Kit a little panic that he might open the door. But all Ty did was press an ear to the door. “I don’t hear anything on the other side.”

Ty was right, but Kit was still nervous about it. The whole spot felt strange, unsettling, like he couldn't quite shake the phantom limb of the place. He was at least glad that Ty had mostly heeded his wait, even if Ty was pressing his ear to the door. That was as close as Kit could stomach for Ty, before he dutifully stepped close to him rather than away. Yes, the place might disappear if they left, but Kit didn't want it to take Ty with them. Kit had seen enough horror movies where things just smashed-and-grabbed through doors.

"Just because you don't hear anything doesn't mean something isn't there. Maybe they're listening to us." He hoped they weren't ambushed by sewer dwellers. Mole people. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. All were a possibility in Vallo that Kit did not want to think about.

He decided to focus on his job, which was the camera, and not being attacked. "What if this place is like unable to be captured on film? You know, like vampires and mirrors," Kit was saying, as he snapped more pictures. The flash lit up the whole room, illuminating structural supports, old weapons, a tack board with—

"Ty," Kit whispered, as if now, suddenly, they had to be quiet. He gestured aggressively with the witchlight toward the board with a single sheet of paper on it. "What is that?"

On the off-chance that they were listening, Ty looked over and smiled a little at Kit, before saying into the door. “If you’re listening, hello. I am Tiberius Blackthorn and we’re investigating a series of strange phenomena.”

That seemed to be about as much as Ty was willing to say, at least. He’d debated throwing out a fake name but the only one that had come to mind right away was Sherlock Holmes and that was likely to get recognized by even sewer dwellers. Maybe. Ty wasn’t sure what kind of books they got down here.

His gaze followed Kit’s, and he moved over to the wall, snagging the witchlight as he went. He held it up to the paper, and leaned in. “It’s a map of the sewers. I think. It doesn’t match the map I made last time but I’ll have to double-check.” His eyes caught onto some hand-written words and Ty sucked in a breath. “Kit.” I saw you was in the corner, but it was the BE SURE in bolded and underlined letters that really drew his eyes in. “Is it a message for me, or someone else?”

Kit winced as Ty said his full name. Kit had spent so much time of his youth using fake names and lying through his teeth with Johnny, that Ty just putting it out there to possible strangers made all those instincts flare up. He was at least glad that Ty was moving away from the door and not trying to open it. Yet. He knew it was only a matter of time.

He was quick to follow Ty who had the witchlight, keeping his whole body near Ty's back, in a protective way like a cloak. Even if Ty was capable, Kit still felt the need to hover and stay close. He was like a shadow attached to Ty. He knew that was what other people thought of him too, and Kit quite frankly, didn't care.

His whole body went cold at the sigh of the map, at the message. "It has to be you," Kit said, unhelpfully. "Right? This whole place looks abandoned, but this was intentional. A warning, maybe." A threat, Kit's brain supplied, again, unhelpfully. At that moment he squinted his eyes against the dark and tried to look around the small room again. They had gone over every corner with a light, but it didn't stop Kit from feeling like they were trespassing and about to be in some serious trouble.

"We should leave, take the map with you, but I don't think we should be down here any longer without backup." And for the first time since they came here, Kit sounded scared. "Ty, please."

Ty could be practical, smart, and calculated. But he could also be headstrong and take way too many risks for someone his age. He stared down at the words for a few more seconds, before gently folding up the map and tucking it into his pocket. “It might not be me.” He was, as far as he knew, the only one delving deep into this whole thing, but he also still felt like he hadn’t gotten anywhere with the information he’d been given.

Hopefully, the map would give him more answers than questions.

There were backpacks laying around, open and seemingly empty. Overturned stools. Places where dust was void because things had been moved. They’d cleared it all out, except for the map. “If it was meant to be helpful, they wouldn’t have left, right? It might be a threat.” He didn’t want to leave. He wanted to open the door, to follow where it goes, to figure things out, and go on this path without risking everything disappearing on them.

But Ty couldn’t do it alone, and he didn’t want to risk getting Kit in trouble with his parents if they got into trouble.

He frowned. “Okay. Let’s go- But only if we’re going and getting them and coming right back. I want the magic team to look at everything but I want to be here with them when they do, okay?”

"It might not, but we don't know that for sure," Kit said. How was he the realist in this situation? He felt woefully underprepared as a teenager to handle big pockets of alternative dimension magic with people who had seen Ty during the portal chaos. Then again, he had summoned some fae magic to stop a battle, and so Kit might have not been as defenseless as he often thought against the Shadowhunter and Shadowhunter-adjacent problems.

But still.

He realized that Ty was offering him a compromise, and not being headstrong about staying put. Not telling Kit to just leave if he was so worried. This was growth between them, and Kit was able to compromise in return. "We go, we come back with the magic team," Kit agreed. "I don't think it would be right to not be here. And if something is on the other side of the door, it's not just us against them. Or it."

Kit extended his hand toward Ty. It might have been confused for shaking on a deal, but really, Kit just wanted to hold his hand, keep Ty in his grasp, and know he wasn't alone or leaving him behind.

It may not have been meant that way, but Ty did shake the hand that was offered.

Then he realized what it was held out for, and kept his fingers wrapped around it. He could do both. He looked around a little more and frowned again, not wanting to leave all of this behind and somehow feeling as if it might be the last he saw of the room like this. He started for the ladder anyway, because they’d just shook on it.

Though Ty stopped at the very bottom and turned back to Kit. “You made sure to get a lot of pictures, right?”