Pls Stop Giving Me Romance Fics I Want Sibling Shenanigans Instead Pretty Pls
pls stop giving me romance fics i want sibling shenanigans instead pretty pls
More Posts from Dancingcapybaras and Others
laufey’s voice is so yummy
chappell roan get out of my head (i love you)
🚨Urgent appeal to every person with humanity🚨
Save us we die a thousand times every day
Since October 7, 2023, we have endured what mountains could not bear.
Since October 7, we have been suffering from the war and the siege. We have not eaten vegetables, fruits, or meat for a whole year. Save us.
We have been bombed every day since October 7th.
Since October 7th we have lost our dreams
Since October 7, we have been suffering from hunger, thirst and deprivation due to the siege.
Since October 7, we have been suffering from hunger, to the point that we have to eat animal feed.
We suffered from the lack of clean drinking water due to war and pollution. We live in an environment full of diseases
This is a small part of what we have lived and what we live every day
Save us from this brutal and barbaric war.🙏❤️🩹
Butterfly line number checked 913 here
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Please help me and my family, every help brings us one step closer to life. 🙏✋
AAAAAAAHH
literally had to take lil breaks in between reading ‘cause OU MY GODDD
Project: Killcode
batfamily + oc insert
tw: none
wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!
want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!
aha…. ha… ha… they’re not okay
part thirty
❝ HYPOCRISY ❞
SUNDAY — JULY 29 — 5:11AM
WHEN BENTLEY OPENED HIS EYES ON SUNDAY MORNING, IT WAS REALLY BRIGHT IN HIS BEDROOM. And warm. And the ceiling was really… orange? And weeping willow-y? And his bed didn’t feel like a bed at all?
With a sudden gasp, he sat bolt upright, panic and adrenaline flooding his veins like gasoline and sending a wave of volatile dread seeping through his entire body. His eyes flicked to the golden sunrise, to the fountain, to the grass he was sitting on, to the trees above him, to the building he was supposed to be in, to the Chloe that was laying on the ground next to him.
There was no way he had…
Chloe startled awake at his outburst, her face twisting up in confusion, eyes flicking around just like his had before she shot directly onto her feet. “Oh shit!”
Bentley pushed himself off of the grass, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. “Oh my God.”
It wasn’t super late in the morning, at least, judging by the dim sunrise. He dug his phone out of his pocket in a panic and, squinting into it, he was extremely relieved to see that he had no texts. It was 5:13am.
Asten was so back at the dorm already.
How had they managed to fall asleep out there? He couldn’t even seem to fathom deciding to sleep on the ground when he wasn’t even supposed to be outside in the first place. All he’d been thinking about the previous night was Chloe and how stressed out her breakdown was making him. He never once thought about going to sleep. And yeah, he’d been pretty tired, but… sleeping there hadn’t even been an option in his mind, yet somehow, he… they…
“How the hell did we fall asleep?!” She half-shouted, whipping her phone out of her pocket and cringing at the screen. “My roommates all knew I was coming out here to meet you! They’re gonna think we slept together!”
Bentley ran an anxious hand through his hair, glancing at her in confusion. “…Didn’t we?”
Chloe looked at him with this absolutely gobsmacked, absolutely appalled look on her face, before she seemed to realize… something. “I’m not even going to begin to explain that to you.”
Bentley had no idea what she was talking about.
“God, I… I’m so sorry, Bentley, I didn’t mean…” Chloe scrolled through something on her phone, her cheeks flushing red, cringe deepening. “I’m so sorry!”
“It’s… okay,” He replied, though the fact that he was practically already vibrating from anxiety proved otherwise. He was so dead. Asten was literally going to murder him.
“It’s so not okay! Can you even imagine the rumors that’re going to spread if I don’t shut them up fast enough?!” She basically yelled, tugging at her sort of messed up ponytail. “No, no, no. This is so not how this was supposed to go.”
Did she mean that everyone would think they, like, kissed? Or something? What did that have to do with sleeping next to each other?
When Bentley said nothing, but looked back down at his shoes, she continued: “Your roommates went to that party, right? There’s still a chance they’re not back yet — you should go, now. This is such a disaster…”
“Last time they came back before sunrise…” He trailed off.
“Shit. I’m so sorry, Bentley, I didn’t… and… God,” She ran a hand over her face. “Okay. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s all going to be fine.”
Bentley didn’t say anything just kinda… stood, thinking about how much Asten was going to kill him.
“Hey,” Chloe’s hands were suddenly on his shoulders, and he locked eyes with her, brown on brown. “It’s gonna be fine, just go now before anyone sees. And… and don’t sleep with anyone till you’re married!”
Bentley didn’t say anything to that (because didn't they just sleep together?!), but he did get out of his own head enough to comprehend that he needed to go back to his dorm. Like, yesterday.
So, without a word, he turned, and he went.
He was about halfway there when he realized he didn’t have his keycard.
Which meant someone would have to let him in.
“Shit,” He groaned as he came out of the stairwell on their floor, the sixth floor. He took a quick glance both directions down the long, wainscoted hallway, and when it came back empty, he quietly moved toward their door and whipped his phone out of his pocket.
He tapped on one of his very first contacts. It rang… and it rang…
“Bentley?”
Bentley sighed heavily, running a hand over his face. “Hey, Bell… I need you to let me into the dorm without waking anybody up.”
He heard Bellamy exhale. “That won’t be hard. I’m the only one here.”
Bentley creased his brow as he walked up to their room. “What? I’m at the door.”
Hardly a half-second after he spoke, the call ended, the lock clicked, and the door opened. Bellamy was standing on the other side — his hair was sort of messed up, and his big brown eyes were dull and sleepy. He was wearing some blue pajamas that reminded Bentley of the sailboat ones he used to wear.
“Sorry, Bell, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” He cringed as he stepped through the door, kicking it closed behind him.
“S’ okay. I don’t sleep much anyways,” Bellamy replied quietly, shoving his phone in the pocket of his pajama pants. Bentley glanced around the dorm, his gaze landing on all four of the bedroom doors that were just… sitting wide open.
“Where’s Varian? I thought he didn’t go to the party,”
Bellamy shrugged, walking over to the living area and plopping down on one of the couches. “I don’t know. Did you go to the party with them? I thought you were here all night…”
“I’m sorry, I would’ve stayed if I’d have known you’d be by yourself,” Bentley cringed (He was really good at this stuff, wasn’t he?) “But no, I didn’t go to the party — I had to talk to someone.”
Bellamy creased his brow at him. “All night?”
“I fell asleep on accident,” He replied, making his way over to the couch and plopping down next to him. “After I saw what happened to everyone last time they partied, I decided it wasn’t for me.”
Bellamy didn’t say anything, but just kinda looked down at his hands and fiddled with his pajama sleeves. Bentley could hear the little machines whirring beneath them.
“What’s wrong?” He questioned. Bellamy glanced back up at him, looking sort of surprised, but quickly looked back down.
“Nothing,” He muttered.
“Bell…”
“It’s okay, really. I don’t want you to feel bad…” He trailed off, and Bentley sat up a little straighter, turning toward him slightly.
“Feel bad for what?”
“I…” Bellamy started quietly, glancing at Bentley then down at his hands again, tugging at his own sleeves. “I… I had a nightmare and… when I woke up, nobody was here…”
Bentley internally threw himself off a cliff.
Of course Bellamy would. Why wouldn’t he? With Bentley’s relationship with luck, he was surprised his roommates didn’t just straight up die in the middle of the night.
Bentley exhaled heavily, watching as Bellamy continued to pick at his sleeves. “I’m really sorry, Bell. Was it bad?”
Bellamy just kinda looked down at his lap. “The dream wasn’t so bad, but then I got up and no one was here, and…”
There was a familiar little quiver to his voice that made Bentley feel even worse about leaving than he had about Chloe.
Bellamy sniffed lightly, turning away. “It was really scary…”
Bentley sighed lightly, lifting his right arm and draping it loosely round Bellamy’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left.”
“It wasn’t your fault I had a bad dream,” He shrugged, wiping at his eyes without turning back around. “It just freaked me out, is all. I thought you were at the party and I didn’t want to bother you…”
“You can call me for anything, no matter what I’m doing. I’ll answer — I promise,” Bentley replied, squeezing his shoulder lightly. “I hate that you were by yourself.”
“It’s okay… it really wasn’t a big deal, just… sometimes I can’t tell if I’m awake or asleep, and it made me really scared…” Bellamy continued, and Bentley frowned.
“That’s how a lot of my nightmares are, too,” He replied quietly, with a soft sigh.
Bellamy looked over at him. “I heard that you had one the other night. Was it bad?”
Images flashed through Bentley’s mind in quick succession — Varian bleeding out in Dick’s arms, Rockie getting shot right in front of him, Asten falling off the roof, Nico getting his head beaten in... “Yeah. It was bad.”
“I thought so. I heard you… screaming. But I didn’t know if I was actually awake so I… didn’t come out. I’m sorry…” Bellamy trailed off.
Bentley patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, Bell. I wouldn’t have, either.”
Bellamy sniffed again, glancing forward at the floor ahead of them with a few quick blinks, bringing a hand up to rub at his eyes.
“Do you want me to do the frogs again? You seem tired,”
“No, that’s okay,” He replied with a small shrug. “I’m not that tired.”
Bentley watched him, observing quietly for a few minutes as his blinks got progressively longer.
“Are you sure about that?” He asked with a soft smile, squeezing his shoulder lightly. “It’s okay to be tired. I’m tired and I just woke up.”
Bellamy smiled faintly in amusement, glancing over at him for just a split second.
Bentley sighed lightly. “It’s okay, you can go to sleep. I won’t go anywhere — I promise.”
"...are you sure?" Bellamy muttered.
"I'm sure. Unless you'd rather be alone,"
"No. No, being alone is..." Bellamy trailed off, picking at his sleeves. "Scary..."
A beat passed.
"My head hurts,"
Bentley rubbed his shoulder lightly. "Do you want some medicine?"
"No..." He muttered, fiddling with his fingers some more, like he was nervous about something. "Can I just..."
Bentley watched him carefully, but he never spoke again. He just sort of looked down at his lap. "Can you just what?"
Bellamy shrugged and looked away, abandoning his question entirely.
"You can ask. I can already tell you the answer is most likely yes," Bentley replied, earning a faint smile in response.
"I... was going to ask if I could..." Bellamy trailed off, continuing to pick at his sleeves. "If I could maybe..." His eyes flicked down to Bentley's shoulder, and suddenly, he seemed to understand.
"Oh, yeah," He replied immediately. "I'm not gonna say no to that."
“Are you sure?”
Bentley hummed. “Super sure.”
With that, Bellamy settled himself down on the couch and grabbed one of the blankets from the back of it, draping it over himself. Then, with an attentive glance to Bentley, subtly and tentatively moved until the side of his head came to rest on Bentley’s shoulder.
"Sorry if that’s… weird, I just…”
"It’s not weird," Bentley replied, smiling faintly as he adjusted his arm so it was comfortable for both of them. "I've probably spent more time in the last three years sleeping with someone else next to me than alone -- so I don't mind. It's actually nice."
“Oh… okay,”
A few moments of silence passed, and Bellamy settled in farther, adjusting his head against Bentleys shoulder with a quiet sigh. “Y’know, I… think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”
Bentley said nothing, only glanced at him. By the time he’d managed to work up a response, Bellamy’s eyes were comfortably closed, his breathing had evened out, and the machines on his arms slowed until he could barely hear them anymore.
If Bellamy kept talking like that, Bentley was gonna have to ask Bruce if they could take him home.
—
“-must’ve woken up and came in here,” Was the first thing Bentley’s ears registered when his senses started coming back to him. He was laying somewhere, but it wasn’t his bed. It was…
Oh yeah — the couch, in the living area. He wasn’t sitting up anymore; He seemed to be laying across it, and there was a blanket thrown over him that hadn’t been there before. Bellamy’s presence had all but vanished from his right.
“You think he noticed you were gone?”
“I hope not. He was dead asleep when I left,”
It was Asten and Valor whispering — though Bentley probably wouldn’t have been able to tell in his half-awake state if it weren’t for their opposing accents.
“Are you gonna tell him?” Valor questioned.
“Unless he noticed I was gone, no. I’m not hungover anymore, so it shouldn’t matter,”
He wasn’t hungover, so it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter that literally yesterday Asten had given Bentley a speech about not keeping secrets, and then did something the same night that he planned on keeping secret. (What kind of world was Asten living in where he could just… be all hypocritical like that? Bentley wasn’t allowed but he was?)
Bentley fought the urge to huff dramatically and, instead, stayed eerily still on the couch, pretending to sleep. (He was pretty good at that.)
“You’re welcome, by the way, for being the puke dad again,” Came a third voice, with a distinct Russian lilt.
“Yeah, yeah, thanks for waking up and coming to the hangover rescue. Where’s Koa and Rockie?” Valor questioned.
“Koa’s throwing up outside. I think Rockie’s out there with him,”
“Jesus, that kid gets sicker than anyone I’ve ever met in my entire life,” Valor sighed.
“He also gets drunker than anyone else,”
“Because he's obsessed with beer pong. He played it at least thirty times last night,”
Bentley just listened as the voices moved about the dorm, a few doors opening and closing and sounds bouncing around. An unidentifiable amount of time later, the distinct sound of the dorm door opening and closing pierced the air — it must’ve been Koa and Rockie.
A few more voices came and went — small talk, mostly. Bentley didn’t listen because he was too busy being absolutely pissed that Asten had the audacity to be such an arrogant hypocrite after he made Bentley cry about it the day before.
Eventually, the voices faded into the other rooms, and the dorm went quiet again.
Bentley, extraordinarily angry but not mean enough to disturb everyone’s sleep, forced himself back to bed on the couch.
He’d talk to Asten later.
Later came sooner than he wanted it to… but at the same time, took all too long to come around.
He shuffled back into his and Asten’s bedroom at nearly eleven in the morning. The dorm was practically dead — not a soul had come out into the living area since they’d all returned earlier. Part of him kind of wanted to cry (because he couldn’t be mad like a normal person.) and the other part of him wanted to, like, burn something down.
For now, he decided to find somewhere in the middle to float.
He went into his and Asten’s room, kicking the door closed behind him and glancing at the top bunk. Asten was laying up there under his blankets, but his arms and phone were sticking out, and his screen was on, signaling that he was awake.
“Hey, B,” He greeted casually. “Why were you in the living room?”
Bentley breathed in and out, staving down some of the anger that threatened to make him, like, yell. “Bellamy had a nightmare. We were both in there, but he left,” He replied curtly.
He pulled his desk chair out and sat on it, then heard Asten shift, as though he were trying to look at him from his bed. He must’ve given up because his head never appeared from under the covers.
“I didn’t hear you leave,”
Was he seriously trying to make Bentley think he was home all night?
Bentley shrugged with a short huff. “Not sure you could hear the door from Mason’s house, anyway.”
Asten’s head did pop out, then, and he sat up on the bed. “Did-“
“I’m not stupid, Asten. I was awake when you left, and I was awake when you were telling Valor you weren’t gonna tell me,” He huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “What the hell?”
Asten didn’t say anything, but worked his way off the top bunk and sat on Bentley’s instead, crossing his arms. He looked tired, like he’d just woken up, but sort of offended at the same time. “Not everything I do is your business, B.”
Bentley narrowed his eyes at him, wanting nothing more than to set his hair on fire. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie,” Asten scoffed.
“Well, you didn’t tell me the truth,” Bentley spat, leaning back in the chair. “There’s no gray area between an honest person and a liar.”
“What-“
“You just gave me an entire spiel over keeping secrets just to go and keep secrets. So what, you’re allowed to but I’m not? I’m supposed to let it slide when you do it, but you’re allowed to get upset at me? Sounds pretty hypocritical,” Bentley hissed. Asten’s eyes went cold again, his expression darkening.
“You have to tell me where you’re going because you’re an innocent little nepobaby who’s naivety will get you killed,” Asten spat back. “You don’t know half the shit that goes on in this world — I do.”
“… So, because you had a shitty life, the rules don’t apply?” Bentley asked, tapping his fingers on his arms. “You’re allowed to go do whatever you want and expect me to just sit here at your command like a dog?”
“I’m trying to protect you,”
“Bullshit. That just sounds good. If you were actually trying to protect me, you wouldn’t leave the three youngest roommates in the dorm overnight just to go get drunk out of your mind,” Bentley was practically fuming at the ears, but he made doubly sure not to raise his voice too loud. “I wouldn’t even care about you going out and getting wasted if you’d just tell me first!”
Asten rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Why’s it such a big deal all of a sudden?”
“It was a big deal to you yesterday,” Bentley replied. “But I guess that doesn’t matter, since you’re a hypocrite and all.”
Asten was glaring daggers. “Bentley.”
“Tell me I’m wrong,” He ordered, locking eyes with Asten and forcing them to stay there no matter how uncomfortable it was. “You said something. You did the opposite. Tell me you’re not a hypocrite.”
Asten was pissed — Bentley could tell. He had this cold sort of feeling that radiated from him when he was really mad; one that would make passersby afraid he was gonna punch them if they got too close. He opened his mouth to reply, but Bentley beat him to it.
“I may be younger than you, but you can’t walk all over me anymore. You helped train that into me,” Bentley muttered. “So if you’re allowed to go do whatever you want whenever you want without telling me, so am I.”
“Bentley-“
“And I’ll start by telling you, now that it’s convenient for me, that I snuck out of the dorm and stayed with a girl last night. All night,”
Asten’s horrendously-pissed-and-angry face cracked a little to reveal something like disbelief, and vaguely, shock. “Yeah, sure you did.”
“Unlike you, I’m not a liar. Ask Bellamy, he had to let me back in this morning. Or you can consult my call history and find where I asked him to let me in,” Bentley replied, pulling his phone out of his pocket and tossing it on the desk with a bam! “Or maybe you can dwell on the fact that I was sleeping in the living room in different clothes than I went to bed in?”
Asten didn’t say anything, but his mouth was open, like he was debating on it.
Then he huffed deeply, like he was really irritated. “Who was it?”
“Not everything I do is your business,” Bentley mocked, rising from the desk chair and pushing it in, grabbing his phone and shoving it back in his pocket. “I’m done arguing with a wall.”
“Where are you going?” Asten asked as Bentley approached the door.
He swung it open, glancing back at Asten just long enough to say: “Maybe I’ll tell you when it’s convenient.”
Then he left their room, and he left their dorm, going nowhere in particular.
Everything in high school was bullshit.
--
tag list that never works lmao
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Help My Mum Pursue Her Study 🙏
As any motivated and loving life woman, my mum have been a holder of different scholarships and she is active participant in many research visits and scientific missions.✌💪
She is also one of the 22 women from the developing world who have been awarded OWSD- PhD fellowship to pursue her PhD study. But now she is stuck in Gaza unable to achieve her dream.🍉😢
Please support our GFM campaign to help my mum flee out from the genocide and get her doctoral degree🤍💖🖤💚
i’ve come to the realization that, there is in fact, kung fu panda fanfiction
Project: Killcode
batfamily + oc insert
tw: ANGSTTTTTTT
wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!
want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!
IM SO SORRY BUT DONT TELL ME YOU DIDN'T SEE IT COMING
part forty-seven
❝ TRAITOR ❞
WEDNESDAY — OCTOBER 19 — 7:09PM
“BENTLEY, WAKE UP!” He barely heard the telltale voice of Charlie in his subconscious. “You don’t have time for this… she has your location, and they’re coming!”
“Bentley!” Came a different voice. A familiar one. One that was real, coming into his ears, piercing his skull with a stab of pain. He swore he felt someone touching him. Well, he could’ve swore, if he were coherent, which he was pretty sure he wasn’t. “Bentley, c’mon. Wake up, buddy.”
“Carry him,” Someone else’s voice came.
That’s about when Bentley’s body decided to kick back on, and the absolute exhaustion and misery that he was embodying came flooding back. Every single fiber of his being seemed to hurt after Titus’s teleportation, and he was so tired and so run-down he felt like he could die if he wanted to.
Instead of letting himself do that, though, he forced himself back into the land of the living with a miserable groan.
“Hey, buddy. You’re okay,” Someone was touching him — there was a hand on his forehead; it was gentle, and cold, and didn’t feel like skin at all, but he reveled in the touch nonetheless.
He forced his eyes to open, the Redwood Academy ceiling swirling and swimming in his vision, light fixtures spinning and twirling around each other before they finally came to rest in their rightful places. Rockie’s face was hovering above him — he guessed that explained the hand on his forehead not feeling like a hand at all.
“He’s waking up,” Rockie called to someone behind him.
Bentley went to sit up, but it just made his head spin with a few harsh throbs of pain, and he winced. Rockie’s gentle hand found the small of his back and guided him up the rest of the way, rubbing lightly across the back of his shoulders. “Easy.”
Bentley blinked a few times as the world went out of focus and came back again. They seemed to be in a dorm building hallway. It was lined with carpet on the floor and wainscoting on the walls, with extravagant light fixtures and all the luxurious things it always had.
Bentley’s eyes flicked across the various figures that were spread around said hallway. Rockie was next to him, rubbing his back lightly, and a few yards ahead of him was Varian sitting on the floor, conscious, with his head dipped down between his knees. Valor was next to him, wings still synched, still covered in blood, squeezing Varian’s shoulders repetitively. He was speaking softly but Bentley couldn’t tell what he was saying.
Sitting against one of the wainscoted walls was Koa, legs tucked in with the muzzle still synched tight to his face. His eyes were still brimming with tears that fell sometimes, settling on the top of the metal that was covering his mouth and nose. A few feet away from him, against the same wall was Asten, lips still blue, still shivering, arms wrapped so tight around himself passersby would probably expect him to fall apart if he unraveled them.
Titus was gone.
Something cold and mean seemed to surface in Bentley’s chest — something like guilt. Something that said this was all his fault. He tried to push it away, but he couldn’t, tried to clear his mind, but it didn’t work, and the distant whooshing of water and bump bump of pumping blood filled his ears.
Wait… the sound of… water?
“Our powers,” He muttered, glancing up at his counterparts with a deep breath in an attempt to right himself. “We can use them now.”
Valor was the first one that seemed to comprehend what he’d said, and with a quiet grunt of effort, the wires around his wings snapped with a soft sound. He stretched them out widely, now nearly solid crimson instead of platinum, and Bentley didn’t miss the way his face twisted in agony when he did. Would he even be able to fly?
Asten was the second, who’s hands immediately lit on fire so hot and bright that the residual heat sort of burned even from across the hallway. Koa jumped to move away from him so his clothes didn’t spontaneously combust.
“We’re on our floor,” Valor stated, still squeezing at Varian’s shoulders, glancing over at Bentley. “We just have to grab Bellamy and then get the hell out of here.”
Bentley nodded, forcing himself unsteadily off the floor. Which was actually a terrible idea, because the horrendous spinning vertigo came back, and he stumbled rather gracelessly — the only reason he didn’t hit the floor was because he fell directly into Rockie, who was quick to put his arms around him.
“Hey, take it easy for a minute, okay?” Rockie muttered, rubbing his back a little. “You did it, Bentley. You got us out. You can take a minute to breathe.”
It was excruciatingly tempting for Bentley to, like, pass flat back out, but he didn’t let himself. He pushed Rockie away with a grimace. “We can’t, they’re coming.”
Rockie’s expression twisted into one of alarm. “What?”
“They’re coming,” Bentley repeated.
And as if his words were a very, very unfortunate queue, the door to the staircase that was only a few mere yards to their left slammed open with a loud wham, and people in white armor came flooding into the hallway, maybe ten, maybe fifty. Bentley spotted the large black guns they had clasped tightly in their hands, and-
“Oh shit!”
Bentley threw his hand up as soon as he saw them, and water came gushing out from beneath at least half a dozen dorm room doors, building up between them and the men like a wall in a split second. The deafening bang! Bang! Bang! Of firearms came, maybe fifteen or twenty shots. The bullets flew full-speed into the wall of water and never came out the other side.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Bentley felt Rockie grab his shoulder and jerk him down the hallway, his mind staying strangely absent as he focused solely on keeping the wall up between his friends and the guns. He felt someone else grab his arm, someone cold. Six pairs of shoes thundered down the mahogany-lined halls of Redwood Academy like a herd of horses.
Like he was living some kind of deja vu fever dream, he realized Asten was dragging him down the hall as fast as he could, which was too fast for Bentley’s legs with his mind so absent, which meant he was stumbling all over himself, just like he was in the woods when they were running from Dr. Keene-
They seemed to literally crash through the door of their dorm, each of them filing in as fast as they could. Bentley and Asten were first — then Varian, who looked half dead and was bawling his eyeballs out, being shoved through the door by Koa, who was also bawling his eyeballs out, followed by the final two — Rockie, who looked pissed, and Valor, whose crimson eagle wings were twitching angrily on his back like he was getting ready to fight someone. As soon as they were in, Asten (and Valor, and Rockie) slammed the door shut and held their weight against it.
Bentley released the wall of water and heard it fall, flooding the hall outside with an inch or two of water. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t do much more than stand in the middle of the dorm blankly.
They were going to die. They were going to die.
“How the bloody hell are we going to get out of here?!” Valor shouted. Bentley heard the weight of people slam into the other side of the door, knocking all three of his friends off balance. “We’re on the sixth floor!”
Bentley turned his head, eyes catching on Varian and Koa, who were standing off to the side of the room. The metal muzzle on the latter’s face was rubbing at his skin and making it raw — Varian, now forced into coherent-ness by the chaos — was trying his hardest to get it off, but it was so tight and immovable that messing with it just seemed to cause pain. There was a sudden crack! of electricity, and Koa’s whole body seemed to writhe. He stumbled back against the wall and slid down into the floor, threatening to lose consciousness completely, the only thing really keeping his eyes from closing being Varian’s constant, panicky touching of the thing on his face. They were both still crying, though Varian was a bit more frantic.
Valor broke away from Rockie and Asten and left them to hold the door, his giant wings gusting air around the dorm as he used all of his super strength to drag one of the couches over to barcade it. Then the second couch, then some shelves, then he came out of his and Rockie’s room dragging an entire wardrobe behind him. Then the bunk beds.
And all Bentley could make himself do was stand there.
“Bentley,” Rockie said. Bentley turned, locking eyes with him, brown on inhuman green. Focus. Focus. Rockie was helping maneuver the furniture against the door with Asten and Valor, but he pointed at Bellamy’s bedroom door. “Go get Bell. Put some water at the bottom of the window that’s deep enough for us to land in. We’ve gotta go that way.”
Orders. Orders. Bentley could follow orders.
He turned, scanning the living and dining and kitchen areas, listening close. He heard everyone’s heartbeats, slamming and pounding in their chests, their blood pumping at an extraordinarily heightened rate.
And then something else joined the heartbeats — something thin and quick.
Tears. From Bellamy’s bedroom.
Bentley hurried in there, throwing the door open and glancing around the room. The beds were empty, the bathroom was empty, everything was empty and-
He turned on impulse, glancing at the wardrobe settled against the wall near the door.
Bentley made his way over to it and grabbed the knobs, but stopped. If he was hiding in there, would he want the doors ripped open? With a clear of his throat, Bentley knocked on the wardrobe. “Bell? It’s Bentley. I’m going to open the doors.”
Bellamy said nothing, so Bentley slowly opened the wardrobe one door at a time.
Bellamy, in his tiny eleven-year-old stature, was curled up in the bottom of the wardrobe, legs tucked in tight, head buried in his knees. He was wheezing and hiccuping more than breathing, and Bentley could see the little blue blanket clutched in his hands that he hadn’t needed to sleep with in a while.
Bentley crouched down in front of him. “Hey, Bell.”
His brown eyes only appeared for a second, red and watery.
“Bentley,” Bellamy sobbed, all but shooting out of the wardrobe and colliding with Bentley so hard he fell backwards onto his butt with a thud.
Bentley brought his hand up to rest on the back of his head, synching the other tight around his back as a burn threatened to surface in his own eyes. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Bellamy only seemed to cry harder at the embrace, digging his head down into Bentley’s shoulder. He was trembling almost uncontrollably, holding onto Bentley in an absolute death grip that was so tight it sort of hurt. “Please don’t let them take me back, Bentley, I don’t wanna go back, please, I don’t wanna go back-“
“Hey, hey, no one’s taking you anywhere,” Bentley replied, rubbing his back. What did Bellamy mean, he didn’t want to go back? “We’re leaving the school. We’re getting out of here.”
“Bentley, we gotta go!” Rockie shouted from the other room.
With a wince of sympathy, Bentley went about slowly attempting to peel Bellamy off of him. “We have to go, okay? The others are waiting for us.”
Bentley managed to unravel Bellamy’s arms from himself just enough to stand. He made his way back to the living area with Bellamy’s tiny hands balled in the back of his t-shirt for dear life, his quiet sobs still assaulting Bentley's ears and making him want to kill people.
“Bentley, the water,” Asten reminded him. They were still shoving stuff against the door, and Varian was still trying to pull the muzzle off of Koa’s face.
Bentley closed his eyes in deep concentration, listening to the water in the pipes of the building. Not three seconds later, gallon after gallon of water started pouring out of the dorm room’s adjacent bathrooms, crawling toward the window like snakes and forcing itself through the cracks and crevices to make a pool on the ground below.
Bentley exhaled heavily, forcing himself to keep breathing, reaching back and grabbing onto Bellamy’s arms. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go look out the window and see if the water is doing what it’s supposed to, okay?”
Bellamy didn’t have much of a response to that besides his incomprehensible sobbing, but he did move when Bentley moved, which was fine. They shimmied over to the bay window and looked out of it, in a feeble attempt to calm both of their nerves.
It didn’t work. It didn’t work because, if Bentley squinted, he could’ve swore he saw… people, out there in the nighttime darkness. People in white. Staring at the water running from their dorm window.
“Guys…?” Bentley tried, glancing back at everyone else momentarily. “They’re outside. We’re trapped.”
“What?”
“What?!”
Valor and Rockie and Asten all simultaneously moved, jogging over as though they needed to see for themselves. Valor was the first to make it, though, grey irises traveling across the figures outside with a quiet: “Shit.”
A loud bang came from the dorm door, and everybody turned to look at it.
All the furniture that they had stacked in front of it shifted from the force of whoever was on the other side. Rockie lurched forward and grabbed Varian and Koa by the arms, pulling them — one on his feet, the other across the floor — toward the bay window where they were all standing.
With a bang and a crack, more of the furniture moved, the crack in the door growing wider.
“We’re going to die,” Bellamy sobbed, his vice-grip still tight around Bentley’s waist. “We’re going to die.”
The banging came twice more, and an arm came through the crack in the door. Then a leg. Bellamy buried his face in the back of Bentley’s shirt, and Bentley reached back, ensuring that he was fully behind him. Asten suddenly settled in front of him, doing quite literally the same thing to make sure Bentley was behind him. Koa, who was now standing to Bentley’s right, stepped backwards, nearly falling into him after stumbling over a torn down curtain rod. Silent tears were rolling down his face and settling against the muzzle that had been manhandled onto him. He had a death grip on Varian’s wrists, who he also forced to stand behind him just like Asten had done.
Rockie was the only person on Bentley’s left side, and slightly in front of them, looking ready to kill, and Valor took up a spot in front of all six of his roommates. He extended his crimson wings out with a pained wince, wide like a shield.
With a deafening crack, all the furniture shifted, the door opened, and people in white armor started pouring through the door.
(They were going to die.)
Bentley held tight to Bellamy’s arms as the chaos ensued. There was a gunshot, and Valor’s right wing flinched and curled slightly inward, though it didn’t move from it's place in front of them. Asten snapped his fingers by his side, and one of the men with guns' entire body burst into flames. He did it again, and then a third, and then a fourth until there were almost half a dozen burning humans staggering around their dorm. A few more spilled through the door, but a myriad of purple crystals sprung up from the floor, spiking harshly through boots and into legs and some even high enough to pierce torsos, leaving the entrance to their dorm nothing but red.
“Turn on the EM for dorm one-seventy-four!” Bentley heard someone yell amongst the chaos.
Suddenly, the same wave of sudden weakness washed over them all that Bentley had felt in the facility. He failed to suppress a noise that sounded suspiciously like a whine, the sudden loss of strength making his already weak body practically beg for him to pass out already. He vaguely heard a thump from near him, signaling that someone had fallen, and he felt Bellamy’s arms tighten around his torso with an alarmed: “Bentley?!”
Black and multicolored dots came and danced in his vision, threatening to sweep him away. He saw Asten sway just a little where he stood, but it wasn’t clear how much, because the room was still spinning.
“Please don’t pass out,” He heard Bellamy mumble from behind him, a few dreadful sobs ripping up and out of his throat.
So Bentley didn’t.
He forced himself to stay awake and upright, glancing to his right. It was Varian who’d passed out again. Koa was now sitting on the floor with his back toward all the men, and he’d gathered Varian up in his arms to keep him out of view from the men with guns. Nothing in the dorm was on fire anymore, but more men in white came in to drag the blackened and burned and impaled ones out, a few more settling near the door with their guns aimed directly at the seven of them.
“Don’t shoot them, you idiots, we need them alive! Move out of my way,” A voice came — the same voice that had called for the EM field to be turned on. Bentley watched as a man forced himself through the door in a white hazmat suit, one with a black visor over his face so they couldn’t see who it was. His voice sounded… sort of familiar, though.
“Activate lockdown protocol for this dorm,” He called to someone in the hallway. Not two seconds later, sounds like machines in the walls started to ring through the dorm. Then he turned back toward Bentley and his roommates. “A2, come on.”
Bentley pinched his eyebrows together when the man continued to look directly at them, like he was speaking to one of them. The black visor over his face kept Bentley from seeing who his eyes were on.
None of them moved.
The man stepped forward again. “Don’t tell me you’ve grown… attached,” He said with almost a solemn tone about him. “I knew this was bound to happen, but no matter.”
“What the hell are you on about?” Valor was brave enough to ask.
The man in the suit ignored him. “You completed your assignment. You finished it, you did a good job. Now it’s time to come home. You can’t truly tell me you’d rather stay here than with the people who raised you, can you?”
Bentley glanced over at Koa and Varian. Koa was paying the man no mind, still holding tight to Varian, keeping him out of sight. Bellamy’s death grip on Bentley never wavered. He glanced over at Rockie, who was flexing and balling up his hands in his gloves, and then at Valor, whose wings were still spread wide ahead of them.
“Come on, A2. You knew from the beginning that this wasn’t going to last. Come on, son,” The man held his hand out toward them. “You did good, and for that, you are to be rewarded.”
Not even a minuscule piece of dust moved.
The man tilted his head. “You know the alternative if you disobey.”
Silence ensued.
And then one of them moved.
Bentley could’ve thrown up when Rockie gently pushed past Valor’s left wing, slowly making his way across the room like an injured animal going back to it's owner after being lost for a long time.
“Rockie?” He found his mouth moving without his consent, and Asten reached backwards, grabbing onto his shirt as if telling him not to say anything.
“Don’t bother,” Valor muttered from in front of them, something laced into his words that Bentley couldn’t identify. “He’s one of them.”
Bentley’s eyes drifted back to Rockie, who finally came to a stop in front of the man in the hazmat suit. Bentley could see him trembling in the slightest.
“There, there,” The man reached forward and rested a gentle hand on the side of Rockie’s head, and he seemed to cave to the touch faster than Bentley had ever seen him cave to anything, subtly turning his head into the contact. “This was how it was going to be no matter what. I only wish you weren't hurting because of it.”
Bentley and all five of his remaining roommates looked on in silence, various expressions across the their faces at the prospect of Rockie being…
A bad guy?
Bentley, in particular, found himself starting to cry, clutching at Bellamy’s arms in a meager attempt to comfort himself.
How was Rockie… a… Bentley thought he knew him really well? Obviously he didn’t know everything, but he thought they were close, because he was allowed to go places and hang out with him at his worst times. Rockie had never done anything to hurt them — it was the same kid who made Bentley walk on the inside of the sidewalk when they went to town. Bentley could’ve sworn on his life that he could never hurt them.
He guessed he was wrong.
The world blurred through the tears that were threatening to slide down his face. All five of them were silent as the man in the hazmat suit quickly embraced Rockie, soothingly patting a gloved hand on the back of his head for a split second before he shrugged the teenager off, guiding him into the hands of a man in white armor with a gun.
“Take him down to his room, give him the reward I prepared for him. It’s sitting in my office,” The man ordered. “If you do anything of ill intent to him, I will kill and send your severed head to your mother’s house.”
The one of the guys in armor nodded and grabbed Rockie’s arm, tugging him toward the door.
The last thing Bentley saw — and would probably ever see — of Rockie Winchester was his inhumanly green eyes, filled to the brim with crystal clear tears. Even through the watery haze, Bentley understood the words behind the desperate look he sent his way before he was dragged out of sight.
I’m so sorry.
Bentley was unable to stifle the soft sob that forced it's way out of him. Bellamy’s arms synched even tighter around his middle, and Asten’s hands twisted up in his shirt, both attempting to give him a measly little semblance of comfort.
“Ah, yes,” The man sighed. “The sting of learning a friend wasn’t really a friend at all. I do wish it didn’t hurt, you know. He wasn’t supposed to get close to you.”
“Why don’t you just fuck off?” Valor snapped. That’s when Bentley seemed to remember that he was Rockie’s best friend, and that he must’ve been taking this way worse than he was.
“Unfortunately for you, Rockie wasn’t the only one of your roommates who’s a double agent,” The man snickered. “In fact, his only role was to watch over the other. E9, come on, we’re leaving.”
Bentley could’ve swore the color started to drain from the world around him. He sent quick glances to Koa, and Varian, and Valor, but none of them seemed keen to move.
Bellamy tightened his arms around Bentley and buried his face in his shirt with a sob so heart-wrenching it probably hurt.
And that’s when everything seemed to click into place.
Please don’t let them take me back, Bentley, I don’t wanna go back-
The man sighed in distaste, his partiality toward Rockie obviously not shared for Bellamy. He turned toward his men (that seemed to be multiplying, as there were always at least three behind him.) with a flick of his hand. “Nuke them, take E9 to his cell for punishment. When you’re done put this dorm on full lockdown. No one gets in or out.”
And with that, the hazmat suit man left, leaving the men with guns in their dorm with them.
Valor moved forward, to do what, Bentley wasn’t sure. In a flash it was over, because there was another gunshot and blood spurted from his left wing, and he promptly stopped whatever he was doing.
Something clattered in the floor next to Bentley’s feet. Something round, and metal. He glanced down at it and shuffled away in a panic, only to realize it was a-
Grenade?!
Someone fumbled for it. Bentley didn’t even realize that Koa had it in his hand until he’d lobbed it back in the direction of the armored men.
It went off beside Bentley and Asten’s heads.
There was a flash of blinding light, and a pain so severe Bentley immediately hit the floor before he could even think. His muscles were convulsing without his permission, spasming, almost, and whatever it was had him writhing on the hardwood in sheer agony, like he was on fire. He felt Bellamy and Asten’s hands slip away from him in the chaos. Something was crackling and popping around them, making his hair stand on end, and that’s when he realized they’d all been electrocuted.
He peeled his eyes open through the searing pain, catching sight of Asten and Valor on the floor ahead of him. He tried to move but his muscles weren’t listening.
“Be—ntley,” Came Bellamy’s broken voice from next to him, on the floor. He felt someone weakly grab onto his shirt, but he couldn’t find it in himself to move.
Boots thudded up to them — white boots, and the footsteps sounded like bombs when compared to everything else Bentley couldn’t hear.
They did something behind him. Bentley felt the hand get tugged away from him, and a mere second later, they were dragging Bellamy past him, crying and all, by the scruff of his shirt.
“Bentley!” He shouted, with more alarm, but it was difficult for him to move, difficult for anyone to move. Bentley reached out and just managed to brush the tip of his sock before he was dragged away, out into the hall. The dorm door shut, and a loud sound came — like a lock on a bank’s massive safe. One, two, three, four more came, lock after lock, and a few loud slams came from behind them, the windows.
Bentley wasn't sure how long he laid there, writhing and convulsing from the electricity, but he did know that Valor was the first one that was able to force himself up. As soon as his body was online enough, he went about slamming himself against the door, trying to break it open.
Koa was the second to force himself off the floor, quietly tending to Varian with silent tears streaming down his face, and Asten was the third.
He spun around, shaking out his hands and twitching in a strange sort of way that let Bentley know his muscles were still spasming. But nonetheless, he reached for Bentley and pulled him into his lap.
"B, tell me you're okay," He muttered, sort of grappling at Bentley's clothes in an attempt to get him closer. The movement sent a small ripple of fire through Bentley's muscles when he tried to move them.
Rockie was bad, and Bellamy was...
Bellamy was gone.
The one person Bentley had sworn he's protect with every single fiber of his being had slipped away in a mere moment, shouting his name, even.
Bentley brought his hands up as far as he could dare, latching onto whatever he could. He balled up the fabric of Asten's jumpsuit in his hands and pulled his knees up so he was nothing more than a heap of limbs indistinguishable from Asten's own, and he cried so hard he thought my might vomit.
He thought he'd saved them all...
But he'd really just killed Bellamy.
--
tag list that KINDA works lmao
@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun
@xiaonothere
@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy @bookwarm0-0
Spin this wheel of ~300 AO3 tags three times.
Hi 👋 my 🍉 dear ⚘supporters ❤
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what do u mean i have to memorize all 50 states of the US of A in ASL
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☆ just a bundle of nervous energy ☆ call me Vela! ☆ 16 years old ☆ we do messy book rants, brain dumps, and all kinds of dumbassery
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