Intense Is An Understatement - Blog Posts

OHSHITOHSHITOHSIT

but fr why is bentley’s powers actually so terrifying?? why am i just realizing that NOW??

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: gore?

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!

its kinda short but THIS SCENE IS SO INTENSE

part thirty-six

❝ DEFENSELESS ❞

MONDAY — AUGUST 6 — 6:44AM

BENTLEY DIDN’T HEAR OR SEE THE SECRET KEEPER AGAIN.

He stayed in Bellamy’s room for almost the entirety of Saturday and Sunday, and when Monday came around, he begrudgingly got himself ready for class in the wee hours of the morning. Asten didn’t talk to him. He didn’t talk to Asten.

He just… didn’t think about anything. Ignoring his problems usually worked…

When the seven of them went to breakfast, the cafeteria was oddly emptier than usual. But they also went a little earlier than they typically did, so Bentley didn’t think much about it. Varian bounced around like the social butterfly he was, everyone talked, (except Bentley and Asten) and it was normal.

And then, when they went to first period, it suddenly became kinda not normal. Because his and Koa’s English classroom only had about half the students it was supposed to, leaving lots of desks completely empty and the room much quieter than normal.

The two of them took their seats in the back of the class, eyes bouncing across the empty chairs.

“Where is everybody?” Bentley questioned. Tyler was still there, (because of course he’d be.) and probably about a dozen other kids, if his estimating skills were accurate. It was so few they could probably put one student at each table and still not have one at them all.

“I think a lot of kids are sick,” Koa shrugged, sitting down next to him and dropping his bag on the floor. “From what I’ve heard, whatever’s going around is super contagious.”

Bentley cringed. “I hope we don’t get it. I’ve heard it’s rough.”

“Same,” Koa replied. “Some of mine and Var’s friends have been sick as dogs for, like, an entire week. They said one of the nurses comes to their room to check on them everyday. Awkward.”

“Why don’t they just send them home?” Bentley questioned.

“Most of these kids don’t have homes to be sent back to,” Koa replied, and Bentley didn’t say anything. “We’re some of the lucky ones.”

A moment of quiet passed, before Bentley muttered: “Oh.”

“Yeah. You’d be shocked how many parents decide they don’t want their kids once they start to show their powers,” Koa mumbled, plopping his binder on the desk with a whack.

Bentley wondered if that was what happened to Koa — he’d said he lived with Artimi; He never spoke about his parents in the slightest. In fact, the only one of their roommates that ever talked about their parents was Varian. (And Bentley guessed himself, too… but did it even count if Bruce wasn’t actually his dad?)

Bentley flinched when a piece of crumpled up paper whapped him in the side of the head, falling onto their worktop with a quiet sound. When he glanced up, Tyler was smirking at him.

With a brief inhale, Bentley grabbed the paper and un-crumbled it to the best of his ability, glancing down at the words scrawled across it.

How long should I wait until I tell the whole school about your overnight hangout sesh with Chloe Singh, Redwood’s biggest whore? I bet everyone will wonder what happened when you two disappeared together…

Bentley stared at the words, dragging his eyes across the letters one last time before he looked back up. Tyler had this smug look on his face like he’d done something really cool, and he wiggled his eyebrows in Bentley’s direction.

How had he figured that out? Bentley had only told Asten, and Asten didn’t know what girl it was. Chloe said she hadn’t told anyone and forced her roommates into silence. Did she lie to him, too? Or did her roommates talk anyways?

Of all the people who could’ve found out…

Bentley crumpled the paper back up and shoved it in his blazer pocket. He felt Koa’s eyes lingering on him, but he didn’t look over — he just looked at Tyler and then down at his desk.

That was all he could think about until the end of the class period, when the bell rang and he and Koa went out in the hallway to head to their next class. Maybe if he straight up sprinted, he could-

“Hey, Wayne!”

Bentley groaned dramatically, turning with a patented eyeroll to look behind him. Tyler was catching up with them, a dorky grin on his face like he had some good news to share. Bentley was not in the mood for him. He was so not in the mood for him that he almost thought about literally killing Tyler on his approach, but he assumed that wouldn’t be moral.

“I am not dealing with you today, Abbott,” Koa called over his shoulder, barely sparing a glance at him.

Bentley saw Tyler’s eyes narrow, and he spat: “Then it’s a good thing I wasn’t talking to you, asshole.”

Bentley turned back around and kept walking — so Tyler grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around, forcing their gazes to lock. Bentley jerked his shoulder out of his grip and huffed loudly, the familiar sound of water in pipes gracing his eardrums.

Tyler looked down at him like he was ready to give him hell, but suddenly, his face changed a little. “Don’t lose your shit, test tube meta. Put those eyes away.”

Bentley scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”

Tyler lifted his pointer finger to the center of Bentley’s forehead and shoved him back a step, and he suddenly had to refrain from drowning him in his own blood. “When you get all pissed, your eyes start glowing.”

Bentley just glared at him.

“That’s how I knew you made my drink explode. Those stupid blue light-bulbs on your face,” Tyler snickered. “It’s a dead giveaway if I’ve ever seen one.”

Was that how everyone always knew when he was listening? His eyes started glowing? He’d always wondered how everyone knew when to ask what he was hearing…

“I have no interest in talking to you right now,” Bentley muttered, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Good for you; I don’t care. But your little bodyguard can go ahead and get lost,” Tyler replied, glancing over Bentley’s shoulder at what he assumed was Koa.

Bentley glanced backwards at him; He was giving Tyler another death glare. “Just go ahead, I’ll be right behind you.”

Koa’s seafoam green eyes flicked between him and Tyler a few times, before finally, he turned and made his way out of the building behind the final straggling students.

Tyler sighed. “Now that we have the hall to ourselves…”

“How did you find out about me and Chloe?” Bentley grumbled, tightening his crossed arms over his chest. Tyler laughed; literally laughed.

“You know all my favorite subjects, Wayne,” He shook his head with a smile. “Let’s just say a little birdy told me.”

The word birdy only worked to piss Bentley off more. “Well, if you know that much, then you know exactly what happened. Or, should I say, exactly what didn’t happen.”

Tyler shrugged. “I do. But that doesn’t mean everyone else will once the rumor spreads like wildfire. Soon everyone will be talking about your little rendezvous with Chloe. And rumors typically get more drastic as they go on… I’d sure hate for it to get passed onto administration; Maybe even down the grapevine to your dear friends in Gotham? Wouldn’t that be something?”

“What do you want, Tyler? Other than to inflate your ego until you can’t fit it on campus anymore?”

Tyler snickered, his eyes bouncing across Bentley’s face, glowing with sheer arrogance. “Who said I want anything other than to watch you squirm?”

Something… moved, in the back of Bentley’s mind. Like something had clicked into place without him having to think about it, like a thought, a fact had just been dropped directly into his brain from somewhere else. A manageably dull pang of pain came with it, throbbing momentarily on the base of his skull.

He blinked. “You’re jealous of me.”

How did he know that? He wasn’t sure, but somehow he knew it was correct. 

Tyler’s expression changed very quickly from amused to cold, and angry. “Why the hell would I be jealous of you? You’re a little shrimp.”

Bentley shrugged. “Maybe because I managed to befriend all the girls you can only pull when you’re dreaming,” He replied, eyes traveling over Tyler’s frame -- his fists were clenched by his sides, and Bentley suspected that he was about to be punched or something. “Just by being a decent human being. Something you’re obviously incapable of doing.”

Tyler made a sound akin to a groan of frustration, and in an instance, vines came shooting down the hallway mid-air from one of the exit doors. The green, slither-y things latched onto Bentley’s ankles and wrists in a death grip, and he gasped lightly when they jerked him off the floor and up into the air, tugging all of his appendages in different directions like they were about to rip him apart -- just enough to cause a little pain at each joint.

“Test me, you little bitch,” Tyler growled, and the vines tightened enough to probably make Bentley bruise. He could hear the water in the pipes, Tyler’s blood pulsing through his veins, the liquid inside the vines keeping them alive.

Tyler was glaring at Bentley like his eyes would sprout lasers that would kill him on the spot.

Bentley glanced up at the vines, tugging against them to no avail -- all it did was claw at his skin and make it hurt worse. The vines were so strong they hardly moved when he wiggled against them. “Let me go.”

“No, I don’t think I will. It’s time you learn to respect your elders,” Tyler replied. A vine sprouted out of virtually nowhere and slithered around Bentley’s head, looping over his mouth and making it impossible to speak. His head was forced perfectly forward, and he tried to squirm again, but the vines didn’t budge at all -- not a part of him moved an inch.

He focused hard on the water in the pipes, and he felt it come pouring out of all the faucets in the nearest bathroom a few halls away, accompanied by a loud gushing sound.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Tyler tutted. Bentley tried to make the water move through the bathroom door, he couldn’t -- there was a wall of vines in the way. He couldn’t bring it up through the ceiling or down through the floor or through the walls without damaging the school building. “You can’t swim your way out of this one, Wayne.”

The vines around Bentley’s wrists started to tighten purposefully, and spin, rubbing his skin raw in a matter of seconds -- he might’ve cried out if the vines weren’t over his mouth, but he couldn’t, so he just grimaced and made a muted noise at the unquenchable burning it caused. 

“I’m going to make you wish you were never born,” Tyler grumbled, a dark smile twisting up his lips. The vines that were around Bentley’s head began to sprout smaller ones, and a few of them forced his mouth open and crawled into his throat, making it almost impossible to breathe. He choked on them but he couldn’t cough, couldn’t do anything other than try really hard to breathe through his nose. His eyes watered from the silent choking until the reflex tears fell down his face.

“Aw, don’t cry, Wayne,” Tyler mocked in a high-pitched voice, cocking a brow at him. “It’s only your airway. You can survive without it for… well, eight minutes, maybe?”

Bentley could hear his own heart pounding, almost double the pace of Tyler’s, and the vines in his throat made him gag. He tried to force the water between the vines that were in the bathroom doorway, but he couldn’t -- they were wound too tightly.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He could hear the water in the pipes and the dew on the grass and the blood in Tyler’s veins pounding, pounding, pounding-

Tyler’s face suddenly lost every arrogant, amused expression, and Bentley heard his heart keep pounding and pounding and pounding until it was beating way too fast. Tyler staggered backwards slightly and brought a hand up to his nose -- when he pulled it away, it was bloody. 

“What the hell are you doing to me?” He grumbled, panting like he’d been running a marathon. Bentley only watched as blood surfaced in his ears and started to pour down the sides of his face, and he grabbed at his shirt where his heart was. “Stop it! I can’t- can’t breathe.”

Bentley felt the vines inside of him double in size, completely closing off his airway. 

Tyler was trying to knock him out.

At the complete absence of breathing, Bentley panicked -- Tyler started blinking rapidly, and tears of blood started to run down his cheeks. 

“Stop it! You’re going to kill me!”

You’re going to kill me!

He remembered the last time someone said that to him -- it was her. The Secret Keeper, when she had him hanging by a noose off the edge of a building, when she had crimson running from her ears and her eyes and her nose. Her. A criminal. A supervillain. A murderer.

Tyler wasn’t any of those things. He was just a kid.

Bentley focused on him again just in time to see him hack up a mouthful of blood all over the floor.

So he stopped.

He forced the sound of the water to fade from his mind, he slowed Tyler’s blood back to its normal pace, and the water in the bathroom climbed back up into the sinks. He focused and focused and focused until everything went quiet again -- until he was the same defenseless Bentley he had been before he'd gotten superpowers at all.

Tyler continued to cough for a few moments before he regained his breath, spitting on the floor a pink-ish, bloody saliva. He used the sleeve of his blazer to wipe the red away from his eyes.

He looked up at Bentley, shocked, then down at the blood all over himself and the floor. “You just tried to kill me!” He shouted. Bentley tried to focus on him, but he couldn’t -- the lack of air was starting to make his lungs feel like they were on fire, and everything around him was swimming in and out of focus.

Another shout from Tyler: “You just tried to kill me!” Was the last thing Bentley heard before the world faded to black.

Should he have continued to defend himself?

--

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