Trapped in History

3

Alec did not answer them even though it was quite rude not to do so. He did not really care about answering questions, though he would later. For now he had other things to attend to, such as at this very moment, right now, he had a sleeping Parabatai, and the rune would not last for forever. Honestly he was lucky it was lasting at all, with everything that Jace went through, he figured that the boy would have passed out even if he had not used the Rune on him in the first place. Still, he needed to act quickly and, keeping an eyes on the boys behind him whilst watching them carefully he assessed them making sure that they were unlikely to attack, he finally calmed and turned back to attending to Jace. 

He knew that when Jace woke up, he would not allow him to heal his wounds with runes, because Jace was awfully stubborn and it was one of those stupid things that his father had ingrained in him. Some of the teachings that Valentine had taught Jace stuck with him, despite the amount of times that Alec and the others had tried to tell him that was just not how they worked. Furthermore, he was a nightmare in the infirmary, and Alec was not stupid, he knew full well that Valentine harmed the boy, and likely did not use healing rune at all out of sheer ability to not do so. Not to mention just the sight of seeing his Parabatai strung up he knew there were likely at the very least rope abrasions on his wrists that needed healing. 

Being so utterly focused on his Parabatai was only expected after not seeing him for months and feeling his pain. Granted, it was just a smaller portion of it, but that really did not make things better in all honesty, and for those very long months knowing that his Parabatai was going through torture, it had been a sort of torture all its own. The fact that Jace was willingly going through it to save him and their family made everything so much worse. It was because of that, however, that he did not see how one of the sword carrying boys walked out of the room to get presumably the head of this institute. Alec had other things to worry about, as he carefully began peeling his Parabatai's shirt from his skin, and wincing at the sight of the injuries. He closed his eyes, regaining his composure, and instantly began drawing healing rune after rune after rune. He did not stop, his eyes serious, and focused. 

He did not hesitate to snatch the arm of the arrow carrying boys, icy eyes meeting gentle blues, as they had moved forwards likely in some sort of ill guided attempt to help him. His protectiveness was roaring, complicated emotions filling him at seeing his Parabatai in such a state after feeling his pain for months, and this was definitely not a good time to try and interfere. He had to remember that these people likely had no idea that him and Jace were parabatai, but he also did not have the frame of mind to really care about that.

 He grabbed the bow wielder's wrist and was squeezing it tightly, locking his eyes into a stare. He almost snapped joint with how tightly he was holding, but the boy admirably did not react, simply giving him a slight bow of the head and moving away from Alec and Jace. Alec released his hand as he moved backwards. The boy simply gave a small pitying smile, and Alec calmed himself down, knowing that the stranger was standing far enough away from Jace. He continued healing his Parabatai. It was wearing him down, as he was using his energy for the runes, instead of having the runes use Jace's, and Jace had quite a few injuries that needed Runes, but Alec continued, not caring. 

It was only when Alec was about to pass out alongside his Parabatai that the boy who had granted them entrance to the institute finally told him to stop. Alec would have retorted, but he knew that the other was correct. Jace was mostly healed now, and Alec needed to be awake if he were to protect Jace. He was not entirely gone, after all. He may enter these overprotective states that sometimes did more harm than good, but he was lucky. Jace could go entirely feral, and though they were not sure why or how, he figured it had something to do with Valentine, it almost always did. 

Furthermore, despite being in an Institute and being apparently granted asylum, he would like to say, seeing fellow Shadowhunters was a relief, but Alec had no idea where, or even when they were. He did not know what Jace had done to move them to wherever it was that they were now. Not to mention, after everything they had been going through, seeing Shadowhunters was no longer as comforting as it may have been before.