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maccreadysbaby · 4 months ago

Text

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

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

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maccreadysbaby · 1 month ago

Text

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: graphic violence, death

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!

so... redemption arc???? yes???? does he even get a redemption arc???

part fifty-one

❝ VICTIM ❞

MONDAY — OCTOBER 31 — 12:02AM

“WAKE UP, BABYBIRD. LET’S PLAY A GAME,”

Bentley blinked rapidly when he was suddenly forced back into consciousness against his will. He was surrounded by white — but it wasn’t the white abyss where the Secret Keeper took him. It was a room; with walls and a floor and a ceiling, all white, and a big metal door off to the side that had two keypads next to it.

Bentley, with a jolt of panic, jumped upright and looked down at himself. He was in one of the white jumpsuits from the facility, and both of his wrists were shackled to the floor on opposite sides of the white room by big, thick chains.

He couldn’t feel the water. He couldn’t see anything but the walls. He was trapped.

"No," He muttered, pulling against the chains, which did nothing more than make noise. "No!"

His head was absolutely pounding, throbbing with every passing second, and he felt like passing out and throwing up and dying.

“Good morning! Glad to see you’ve finally woken up!” The Secret Keeper’s voice chided, sending a stab of pain through his already throbbing skull. “I’ve made up a game I think we should play. Y’know, just to pass the time. It’s called: guess which of Bentley’s friends is going to die first!”

Bentley squeezed his eyes shut, shifting around on the white floor until he could pull his knees up and bury his head in them. He couldn't move his hands very far, so he rested them on his legs. “Leave me alone.”

The Secret Keeper laughed. “Don’t you wish it was that easy.”

And suddenly, a feeling came, almost like vertigo even though his eyes were closed. The brightness of the room changed against his eyelids. He forced his eyes to stay shut, forced his body to stay eerily still, forced his focus to remain on the legs of the jumpsuit he had balled up in his hands.

“Let’s introduce our contestants, shall we? There’s a whopping ten of them! I didn’t know Bentley Whittaker was able to make so many friends!”

“Wayne,” He corrected quietly.

“Look up!” The Secret Keeper suddenly roared, and Bentley felt a tug in his chest that drew his head up even though he didn’t want to. The chains were suddenly gone, and he was standing. He was standing in… the hallway of Gotham Academy? It was empty, and all the doors were closed but one, a few feet to his left. “Our first contestant, the obvious fan favorite, the one and only of the ten who’s been with you even longer than myself… Asten Evans!”

Two pillars of smoke were kicked up in the hallway, spinning for a few seconds before they became people. One of which Bentley would’ve been thoroughly pleased to never see again.

Jesse Todryk.

“Looks like someone found the Wayne. Doors open,” Jesse said, glancing back at whatever minion was following him with a smirk. His voice was louder than Bentley remembered, and it sort of echoed. He remembered him saying that exact sentence. Way back when Jesse had-

“Probably Damian,” The minion replied.

Bentley stepped forward, glancing into the open hallway door only to see… himself. His little self — what was he, ten? Eleven? — trembling on the floor of the school’s closet. Nico was right by his side, holding his arm but panicking all the same, his wide blue eyes stuck on-

Asten. He looked a lot younger. (How old was he when Bentley met him? Twelve? Thirteen?) He was on Bentley’s other side, but he rose slowly from the floor, moving for a nearby shelf and sliding a thick, heavy textbook off of it.

Jesse Todryk stopped in the doorway, spotted Bentley and Nico, and laughed sinisterly.

“Well! Isn’t it little mister-“

Bentley saw his little self flinch hard when Asten swung the book with absolutely no hesitation, the spine colliding with Jesse’s head with a terrible thunk.

“Vá queimar no inferno, seu filho da puta!” (Go burn in hell, you son of a bitch!)

Bentley watched in silence — his now self and his little self — as the bully slammed into the closet door and hit the floor with another thump.

“Jesse!”

“Oh my God, you’re going to get so suspended!” Nico exclaimed, still holding onto little Bentley, looking at Asten like he might cry.

Asten shrugged, letting the textbook thud on the floor. “It was self defense.”

“He wasn’t hurting us!”

“He was gonna!”

“The first friend little Bentley Whittaker ever had who was willing to hurt someone for him,” The Secret Keeper’s voice chided, sounding sickeningly sweet. “How cute, am I right?”

The school scene faded into a large swirling mass of smoke, only to be replaced with… the woods?

Bentley did a spin, glancing around. He was standing in a forest, a dark, nighttime forest. Smoke spun in the distance until it became people. Three of them, running full-speed through the trees, right at him.

He stepped out of the way when they got close — it was them. Little him, and little Asten, and little Nico. He and Nico were both bawling their eyes out, and looked like they were on the verge of absolute panic attacks, while little Asten was ushering them on from behind.

Was this when they were escaping the cabin? Didn’t Asten get caught in a-

Bentley flinched when a resounding metal SLAM! came, and little Asten hit the forest floor behind little Bentley and little Nico with a scream so shrill and agonized it still made his skin crawl even today.

The other Bentley and Nico rounded on him immediately.

“Oh my God!” Nico shrieked.

Asten, bear trap clamped down tight on his leg, only muttered under his breath: “Get it off.”

Bentley watched himself self stand uselessly off to the side, before dropping next to them, holding Asten up to the best of his ability.

He remembered being shocked that Asten wasn’t crying. If he had known back then just how much Asten cried to him now, how much closer they were, that they’d become brothers and lived together-

“These are freaking illegal-“ Nico muttered. Big and little Bentley watched him fiddle with the trap with nearly identical cringes on their faces, blood absolutely everywhere, coating everything.

That’s when the beam of a flashlight started panning through the forest. Glancing up, big Bentley saw a figure that looked freakishly like Dr. Keene stalking through the woods. (What would’ve happened if they were faster? Or if Asten had missed the trap?)

“Oh my God, oh my God,”

“Just…” Asten mumbled Portuguese under his breath. “Just take it out of the ground, and… and we’ll get it off later.”

“You’re going to drag a bear trap on your foot where? Onto a bus? A taxi maybe?!”

Bentley watched Asten pull the crowbar out of the tool-belt he’d been wearing and hand it to the other Bentley.

“Bentley,” Asten said seriously. “When he gets here, beat the hell out of him.”

Little Bentley stared at the crowbar with his eyes blown wide.

“The first friend to ever trust Bentley Whittaker with his life,” The Secret Keeper cooed. “Asten Evans was a lot of little firsts for you, Babybird. First partner at school. First sleepover.”

The forest faded away, and he was left standing in the white abyss, alone.

“But the question remains: will he be the first to die?” She giggled sinisterly. “He dies in so many ways across all of your futures, Bentley. Which do you want to see? Maybe simply freezing to death in his cell?”

Smoke swirled in front of his feet, spinning until it turned into Asten, laying on the floor, his lips purple, skin white, green eyes staring but unseeing. He had chains on his wrists that disappeared into the white, and a jumpsuit that matched Bentley's.

“Or maybe he’ll die right next to you, when they start extracting all of your blood to get what they need out of it,”

A stretcher appeared next to the frozen Asten. A stretcher with him laying on top, his eyes wide but unseeing, both of his arms hooked up to machines that were whirring, sucking blood out. They were spluttering now, like there wasn’t much left. There was a heart monitor off to the side, sounding a steady, long beep.

Bentley’s eyes started burning. He’d almost gotten them out of that place, but he didn’t. Then he’d almost gotten them out again, but he didn’t. What if this was really it? What if everyone really was going to die now? What if he'd failed for the last time?

He looked down at the white floor, distorted through the tears that gathered at the bottom of his eyes. “Please stop.”

“What? We’re only one contestant in! Let’s move on!” Both of the Asten’s swirled into smoke and vanished. “Why don’t we jump to… Valor!”

The white around him melted away, replaced by the blissful campus of Redwood Academy, outside of their building. The fountain and willow trees that he’d talked to Chloe under were there, in the distance, far enough that he could see it, but couldn't hear the water running. Smoke swirled on the benches there until himself and Valor took its place.

“All he ever wanted to do, all he ever did, was be a support system. He cares too much. Always has,” The Secret Keeper chided. Bentley watched Valor rise off of the bench and turn to past-Bentley. That Bentley stood, and Valor held out his arms. (Why did he think it was so stupid back then?) Valor hugged him.

“He was the strong one. The protector. You never got to see what went on behind closed doors.”

Suddenly, the campus moved and swirled and changed colors until it became a really fancy house, bustling with teenagers and loud music and bright lights. There were kids everywhere. It took a moment for Bentley to find Valor in the chaos, but he was there. In the home’s lavish living room, on the floor with his back pressed hard against the side of the couch, his wings wrapped around himself… shaking. The music died down and faded into the background so Bentley could hear the way he was gasping for air, the way he kept choking and coughing on sobs that no one else in the massive place seemed to hear. He was trembling, he couldn't breathe, couldn't seem to gather himself. A panic attack?

Bentley almost stepped forward to him, but she continued-

“He was the first friend to ever take a bullet meant for you,”

The scene swirled and changed to when they were in their dorm a short week ago, Valor standing in front of everybody with his wings outstretched as a shield against all the white-armored men. One of said men shot their gun, and Bentley hadn’t noticed then, but he was peeking out at the armored guys around Asten’s head and if Valor's wing wouldn’t have been there, it would’ve hit him.

“Maybe he’ll die when his blood gets drained,” The Secret Keeper started, and the scene faded away and the white nothing returned. A stretcher that looked just like Asten’s appeared, but with an unmoved Valor on top, staring, with the beep of a flatline next to him. “Or maybe he’ll go down fighting. That’s more his style.”

Another Valor appeared a few yards away. His wings were solid red and wrapped around himself, and the deafening, constant bam, bam, bam of assault rifles came, hitting his wings and ruffling the feathers. Blood was going everywhere. Bentley couldn't see who was shooting him.

His wings finally seemed to give out, and they fell completely limp, leaving his whole body exposed. For a second, he looked scared. He was already covered in blood and scrapes and bruises, and his jumpsuit was crimson. And then this... expression crossed his face. Something like realization. Like contentment.

Bentley looked away and covered his mouth when the sound of the assault rifles came back, more than one of them, sending probably over twenty or thirty bullets directly into his exposed body with no hesitation. Bentley flinched hard when he heard the thud. Valor’s whole body turned red in his peripheral.

Bentley choked on his own sobs, not even trying to make the tears stop flowing now. (Were they all going to die because of him?)

“Please stop," He choked, and his legs seemed to stop working, his knees buckling so he ended up on the white floor again. "Please stop."

“Let’s move on, shall we?” The Secret Keeper completely ignored him. “Contestant three — Summer!”

The Valors melted away again, and the white morphed until Bentley was sitting in the hall of Redwood Academy.

He blinked the tears down his face and hiccupped, trying to get ahold of himself. It was getting kind of hard to breathe. This wasn't real, she was just scaring him. This wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't-

“Poor little Summer. What a precious little girl,”

Two pillars of smoke spun far off in the Redwood Academy hall, and past-Bentley and Summer appeared there. They were the only two in the corridor, and she was touching his face, gently. “All she ever wants to do is save.”

The scene swirled into a different Redwood hallway, but Bentley and Summer were there, too — it was near the art classroom, after Tyler had attacked him.

“Wanting to save will be her fatal flaw. It always is with people like her,”

Bentley watched her move just like she had that day — gently touching his wrists, his neck, asking if he was okay. He lied to her. Why had he lied to her? Why wasn’t he just honest?

The scene melted away and changed to one of Summer running down the halls of the facility they were trapped in, kneeling next to various bodies and students laying around, healing them one by one, telling them where to go to escape and to yell if they needed her. She was crying, too — because lots of the kids she tried to heal, she couldn’t get to wake up.

Her blonde-ish hair was a wreck, half stained with red, and her hands and jumpsuit were, too -- though she wasn't injured. Maybe it was the blood of everyone she was trying to heal. She knelt down next to a limp girl on the floor, in a jumpsuit, too, and touched her, moved her hands around. When after a few quiet moments, the girl didn't move, she stood up with a defeated scream of: "Shit!" Muffled and thick with tears.

That's when four armored men rounded the corner into the hallway, where she was standing, alone.

They wasted no time.

Summer didn't even have time to turn and look at them. One of them lifted a pistol, and BANG!

Bentley closed his eyes when the bullet hit her right in the left temple, and a few seconds later, there was a sickening thump that made Bentley gag.

“She never gives up,” The Secret Keeper said. “She always tries to make everything better. Like you.”

Bentley sobbed into his hands, wiping rigorously at his eyes, trying to force the urge to vomit away. “Why do you have to torture me when... I’ve already lost?”

“Because it’s fun!”

Suddenly, the scene died away and the Secret Keeper materialized in front of him, sick and twisted looking, alone with him in the white. She reached down and grabbed his hair, forcing his head up to look at her. “Because you’re the reason my family keeps failing! You’re the reason my father is in prison! I’m not going to leave his goals to rot when I could be carrying them out myself!”

She was screaming merely three or four feet from him, but he hardly paid any attention, just looking at her from where he was sitting. Crying quietly, trying to make sure he was still breathing, quieting the urge to throw up on her shoes.

“You ruined my life! You took my dad away!” She roared. “Contestant four — little Vera Levante!”

The Secret Keeper shoved him so hard he almost fell over, vanishing from his sight again. Their surroundings changed without his consent -- the white room slowly becoming their dorm. His and Asten’s bedroom.

“You two certainly have something special,” The Secret Keeper's voice crooned, sounding especially twisted now. “No matter how much you want to deny it. No matter how innocent and inexperienced and detached from it all you claim to be. I can read your mind, Bentley. I know parts of you that you don’t even know.”

Bentley said nothing as his and Asten’s bunk beds faded into view. He and Vera were sleeping in his bed, her arms closed around him even though he’d been a disgusting sick disaster back then.

“You saw each other at some of the lowest, hardest times,” She continued, and the dorm fizzled away, replaced by another dorm. An empty one, where he and Vera were sitting on the couch, taking a selfie. “She’s the reason you’re here. The reason you met your friends.”

The dorm melted away.

“The reason you’re going to die,” She chuckled. “Maybe she’ll die protecting you. Maybe I'll kill her myself, right in front of you, just to torture you even more."

Three pillars of smoke swirled and spun in the white a few yards from Bentley. Two became him and Vera -- and the third, a little ways away from the others, became the Secret Keeper.

Vera was in front of him, between him and the Secret Keeper -- she was twitching oddly, like she'd been electrocuted. Was Vera in her head again?

Vera was in a white jumpsuit, too, her black and purple hair in a half-fallen ponytail that kept brushing the other Bentley's face. Vera's hands were behind her back, and it took him a second to realize its because she was holding both of his.

The Secret Keeper only twitched for a second.

Then, with a laugh that sounded more like an animalistic growl, she stalked over to them and grabbed Vera by the face, and her brown irises turned a sickening amber.

"Stop breathing," The Secret Keeper muttered.

"No!" The other Bentley shouted.

Bentley looked down at his hands when Vera started to choke, tugging at her clothes and clawing at her throat, trying to get whatever was blocking her airway out. He saw the Bentley in the scene trying to help in his peripheral, but it didn't seem to work. And that Bentley just held her until she choked to death.

The real Bentley, the now Bentley, the only Bentley, sobbed pitifully, bringing up his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, burying his head there to cry.

Everyone was going to die because of him.

"Everyone's going to die because of you!" The Secret Keeper screeched, probably reading his mind. The scene disappeared, leaving just her and him together in the abyss. "Everyone you love is going to die and there's nothing you can do to stop it! It's all your fault! LOOK AT ME!"

Bentley's head was forced up again. The Secret Keeper turned away from him and began to swing her arms wildly, in a manic, almost psychotic manner. Smoke began to billow and blow everywhere, and hundreds upon hundreds of little scenes began to materialize as far as the eye could see. Hundreds of little scenes of people... dying. Varian getting stabbed. Koa getting shot. Asten jumping in front of a bullet. Bellamy getting drained of his blood. Damian falling off a roof. Valor getting his head beaten in. Rockie getting his blood drained out. Bruce getting in a crash in the Batmobile. Jason getting his throat slit. Layla getting thrown off a Redwood Academy balcony.

Gently, someone grabbed Bentley's hand.

He flinched and whirled around, choking on his own tears and panic. Charlie was there. Crouched a mere foot from him, and as soon as their eyes locked, she lifted her finger to her lips in a shh motion.

Bentley stayed quiet, forcing his sobs down, his gaze flicking to the Secret Keeper, who was still flailing wildly in the distance.

He turned back to Charlie, her blue eyes only meeting his brown ones for a split second before she lifted her hand, a small tornado of smoke materializing in her palm.

He watched it spin there for a moment before it floated away from her, settling only a foot or two in front of him, on the floor. It spun and warped until it looked exactly like him, exactly like he did now -- sitting on the floor in his jumpsuit, crying, head tucked in and knees pulled up.

"I'll simulate your thoughts and reactions to stall her for as long as I can," Charlie said softly, reaching forward and grabbing Bentley's face to force him to look at back her. To lock eyes with her. "There's not much time, Bentley. He's coming." She said quickly.

"Who?" Bentley hiccuped, bringing a hand up to grab her arm. "Who's coming?"

Charlie looked up at the Secret Keeper in a panic, like she was waiting for her to turn around. "Listen to me, Bentley. He's coming, okay? I'm going to let you out of here. He isn't a bad guy, you have to trust him, okay?"

"Trust who?!"

"Just promise me you'll go with him, Bentley!" She shouted, frantically, eyes flicking back up to the Secret Keeper. "Promise!"

"I promise!"

As soon as he said that, he jolted back into reality with a small shout of terror, the white room coming into focus around him.

He was choking on his own sobs and could hardly breathe, forcing himself to sit up off of the white floor. It felt like forever that he coughed and spluttered and sobbed and choked and cried until a slam came from his door.

He looked up at it, dread pooling inside of him. Was this who Charlie told him to trust? Or people coming to kill him? Was he about to die or was he about to be saved?

Slam!

He forced his breaths to slow, his heard to calm. He forced his tears to stop and he sat still in the center of the room. If someone was coming to kill him, he'd have to fight back. Somehow, he'd have to.

Slam!

He couldn't let everyone else die because of him. He wouldn't. He was going to get out and he was going to get everybody out and everything was going to be fine.

Slam!

The screen next to the door, the one that scanned keycards to open the cells, suddenly glitched out, the screen malfunctioning and flickering a bunch of different colors until it finally went black.

The door slid open.

Bentley wasn't sure what he expected. He wasn't sure if he expected some random scientist, under Charlie's influence, or one of his friends that had been captured alongside him, or an armored guy coming to shoot him, or Dr. Keene's brother, or Batman, or The Secret Keeper herself. He didn't know who was coming, or how much longer he'd be alive, or if he was going to be tortured, but...

The person that came inside was the last person he ever thought he'd see again.

Bentley's eyes followed him carefully. He had a fire extinguisher in his hands, and he quickly made for the screen that opened the shackles on Bentley's arms and beat it and beat it and beat it with the metal canister until it was nothing more than a useless heap of metal on the wall. The shackles let go of Bentley's arms, hitting the white floor with a clack.

He rounded on him, then, his inhuman green eyes bright in the whiteness of the room. "Bentley..."

Bentley forced himself off of the white floor, every emotion he'd just shoved away coming back full force as he all but throttled himself forward, hugging Rockie so tight he thought he might strangle him. "I hate you!" Bentley sobbed into his shoulder.

"I know," Was all Rockie said, his metal-gloved hands coming up and holding onto Bentley, too. It felt so good at the same time it felt so... so...

"I hate you!" Bentley all but sobbed, choking on his own tears, balling up the back of Rockie's black hoodie in his hands. "I hate you... I hate you..."

"I know,"

Bentley couldn't even begin to comprehend everything happening inside of him. The sheer rage he felt being next to the one who betrayed them, the overwhelming relief that washed over him when he learned Rockie was okay. The far off urge to punch him across the face, and the more prominent one to hold onto him and never let go ever again.

"I'm so sorry," Rockie muttered, voice thick, muffled from the shoulder of Bentley's jumpsuit. "I fucked up. I picked the wrong side because I'm stupid, but I'm back now. I'm back now and I promise I'll get you out of here. I'll die to get you out."

"I hate you," Was all Bentley could manage to say, dissolving quietly into a crying disaster, and Rockie only held him tighter.

"I know,"

tag list that KINDA works lmao

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy @bookwarm0-0

@custommadeazula

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