(no subject)

[sealie]

The light from Blair’s cell phone ebbed and died. Jim froze as complete and utter darkness enveloped them. He could feel blackness pressing against his skin.
Where was an orb when you needed one?
“Jmmm?” Blair mumbled.
Even squinting yielded nothing. Jim ground his teeth. Evidently, regardless of his sentinel abilities, he needed a modicum of light to see. No light entered the inner depths of the caves.
Darn, Jim swore inwardly. He was effectively blind.
Blair rocked on his shoulder, uneasy.
"Settle down, Sandburg," Jim hissed through gritted teeth, his hand feeling for the cold, wet earth wall.
Jim clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. The minute sound echoed subtly around them.
Interpreting the sound was a synesthesia nightmare. Explaining it to Blair would be an exercise in frustration.
'Yes, Blair, I'm really a vampire, I can navigate by echo-sounding, but I see it in red and black colours.'
Blair settled.
Perhaps it was best the kid wasn't altogether present. Jim didn't want a new chapter of his thesis documenting the next half hour of torturous progress.
Following the echoes, Jim forded ahead slowly. The tunnels took on a new quality as he navigated the twists and turns, becoming quite adept at avoiding the hazards. The problem was the uneven ground. At one point Jim nearly dropped Blair as his ankle started to roll, but he caught himself in time, scraping his right palm.
A metro train passed through tunnel in the rocks overhead. The seismic vibration, simultaneously blasted his eardrums and skin. Jim curled up to the floor.
Blair shrieked as Jim scrabbled at his ears.
Jim saw star blasts as the rumbling train careened over metal tracks. Then, blissfully, it passed.
Slowly, Jim sat up, he batted at his ears and heard nothing.
Shit, he was deaf.
How could he echo locate without his ears?
The hopelessness weighted heaver than his guide.
Jim closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, beating back the feeling. He was a Ranger, damn it. Even before this Sentinel shit turned his life inside out, Jim was no stranger to difficult missions. Blair may be just a college kid but he was the best second in command Jim had ever been teamed up with.
'This is just another day in the life of a ranger, Ellison,' Jim thought. 'Get off your ass and do it.'
Struggling to his feet, Jim stood again. Bits of dirt clung to his torn palm as he followed the wall. Blair whimpered as he pulled him back into a fireman’s carry. Progress became even slower. The tunnel turned sharply to the right and he went with it. The air became staler somehow.
Shit. He'd taken a side tunnel back there at the turn. Before he retraced his steps, Jim picked up the faintest of faint lights, equivalent to a dying firefly. Yet, it was light.
How? He'd gone round in a complete circle.
He was back at the criminals' store room.
He wasn't as good at black and red echo sounding as he guessed. This definitely wasn't going in Sandburg’s thesis.
Okay, it wasn't ideal but Blair was getting cold and tipping unerringly into shock. They had to get out and following Coates and his cronies was the next best thing.
He skirted past the antechamber which held the products of their thievery.
The low light from small camping gas lights illuminated his way.
He passed the plaque that had started this whole Enid Blyton-esque adventure and felt Blair stir on his shoulder.
The kid struggled, and ungainly, Jim swung him down. Blair pointed at the stone plaque, his mouth worked, but Jim couldn't make it out.
Urgently, Blair hop, jumped out of his hold -- face creased with pain -- towards the stone plaque.
Jim immediately caught him and brushed up against the stone tablet.
‘It’s amazing how effectively crap you are.’
“What?” Jim spun around. Trying to hone in on the disembodied voice.
“Crap? I believe that it is an Anglo Saxon word. It means that you’re really really bad this sentinel stuff.”
“Are you channelling, Sandburg?” Jim demanded
The roman sentinel stepped out of the ether.
“Lucius.” Jim acknowledged.
“James Joseph Ellison,” the sentinel returned.
He could feel the weight of his guide pressing against his side, but he knew that they had stepped a fraction to the widdershins of normal and stood in the spirit world of the avatars of his dreams.
“Has the sentinel truly been lost in this advent of modern man?” Lucius asked.
Jim cocked his head to side. Blair would be better at taking this conversation to the nub.
“Truth to tell. I don’t have a clue. Blair would say: yes.”
“Blair is your guide as Marcus’ father is my beloved guide.”
“I don’t know if I would say: beloved.”
“You are indeed lost to the way of the sentinel,” Lucius observed.
“I don’t like the weird crap.”
Lucius solidified, and Jim saw a man much like himself albeit shorter and dark haired and darker skinned. Okay there was no physical resemblance but like recognised like. The guy had had a family, Jim remembered. Kids and kittens. A wife.
“You fear that which you already know.”
“Talking to ghosts is going to get me locked up."
"Your fear even shows when you speak."
Jim started to get pissed. The guy was calling him a coward. "Listen, pal. You have no idea what being a sentinel is like in my time. In case you don't have a direct connect wherever you come from, not all roads lead to Rome anymore. Things have become... complicated."
But as Jim's burst of ire cooled, he heard his own excuses and cringed inside. "Listen, could we discuss this another time? Blair's hurt. I need to get him to a doctor."
Lucius' gaze switched to the younger man. His hard, disapproving expression softened. "I know. Of this we have no quarrel."