unstable au ben made by my friend @tomatoshapedstars hehe i had to doodle the hug from our infodump/roleplay
and now for the moment you've all been waiting for: time to talk about ft!rook :3
in the omniverse time period (six years post-forever knights kidnapping) rook and ben meet. since gwen and kevin are going to college they decide to find ben a partner for the alien stuff as per usual. they do not tell rook about ben's trauma, much to ben's relief and excitement. he finally has a friend who thinks hes normal!
if you have read my little oneshot then you know that doesn't last long at all, and rook eventually finds out when they encounter the forever knights and ben has a panic attack. ben tells rook the barebones of what happened and rook tells him that hes still the same ben, even if hes more messed up than rook knew at first. yippee!
and then ben develops a crush on him. he falls HARDDDD. he has multiple mental breakdowns about it because 1) the only time he's tried asking someone out it ended with them unintentionally dehumatizing him and 2) he doesn't believe he's good enough. he knows factually this is untrue, but he still can't shake the feeling that rook is just amazing and he's not.
little does he know rook has been crushing on him far longer and is just EXTREMELY subtle about it. the epitome of fell first and fell harder. he does not know what the breakdowns are about, but hes seen one of them. he comforted ben as best he could when it happened and it did help a lot.
ben only ever EVER says anything that could be taken romantically when he has a concussion or has been running on extremely little sleep. it takes until hes heavily concussed for him to confess and bro does not remember doing so after he's gotten medical attention. rook has to ask him about it and ben cries a bit but they talk it out and get together <3 will probably write a oneshot on that sometime
rook is one of the few people ben is very physically affectionate towards because of his fur! it feels nice to him <3
also bonus sexualities in forever trapped: ben is bi, transmasc, and ace, and rook is bi, ace, and has an unlabled gender!
I wrote a bit for what I am now dubbing my Forever Trapped AU! This is when Ben meets Rook and how Rook finds out about the trauma Ben went through because of the Forever Knights :3
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It was going so good.
When Ben had met Rook, he was expecting him to know what happened all those years ago. The issues he faced because of the Forever Knights were still present after all, no matter how much time had passed. He thought Gwen would’ve at least told him a little bit.
The thing was, Rook didn’t know a single thing. He only knew the Forever Knights as some villain of the week. A menial foe the (in)famous Ben Tennyson left for his partners to deal with. Rook was a clean slate, he wasn’t going to act all weird around him (except for the small idolization he had, but that would fade fast). In the eyes of Rook, Ben would be… as close to normal as he ever could be.
That fact alone made him want to cry happy tears and hug the living daylights out of him. That wasn’t very normal though, so he played it cool. Rook was a bit strange sometimes, but hey so was Ben. He was funny (in a deadpan-sarcasm sorta way, which Ben had too!), and an amazing fighter, and they got along great! Rook was basically his best friend at this point, and they teased and laughed at each other just like best friends do. He couldn’t be more happy, and he must’ve texted Gwen at least a hundred thank you’s and another two hundred for Grandpa Max and Kevin for this. He was slightly nervous to be without them at first, but with Rook and his newfound normalcy he felt like he could take on anything that came his way.
Unfortunately, nothing good lasts forever. Especially with Ben Tennyson.
The day had started normal as ever, deceptively normal. Ben woke up, brushed his teeth, took a shower, ate breakfast. Then he got an alert about some goons or whatever trying to infiltrate a local museum. Seemed like a typical villain of the week, some easy shit for Rook and him to wipe the floor with. He was dead wrong, of course.
That’s where he was now, at the museum; locking eyes with the leader of the Forever Knights (what was left of them) and feeling so, so impossibly small. If he could go back and do something different he might’ve rather crashed the prototruck than be here, now. It was already bad enough that his vision was blurring because he was holding his breath again, but Rook was here. He could see his blurry shape to the side of him, probably confused as to why he was frozen in place. He wasn’t supposed to know. They were supposed to be normal friends. It had been going so well.
“It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen my most informational experiment after it escaped, I almost couldn’t recognize its human disguise.” the knight said, not to Ben but to his followers. Ben tensed up bad at the way he talked, it’d been so long since he last heard himself talked about like that. Six years, six years had passed and here he was; frozen in place like the terrified kid he was when it first happened. He hated how they didn’t even address him. He hated himself for being so scared, for almost believing he could be normal. He hated how Rook was standing there, probably looking at him all concerned and wondering why his normally cocky and semi-reckless partner was acting like this.
His vision was going dark, he needed to breathe he needed to BREATHE-
He felt a hand on his shoulder and immediately shoved whoever it was as hard as he could away. The sudden action caused him to start breathing again, faster than usual but at least he was breathing. He blinked a couple times, his chest heaving and he realized he shoved Rook. He hadn’t expected the reaction and fell onto a glass casing, which was now broken. If he hadn’t had his protoarmor, if he had landed wrong-
The Knights took this opportunity to grab both him and Rook, using some strange device they had found to open up what looked to be a large steel box, and locked them inside. Ben scrambled to get to the door before it shut but to no avail. He was stuck here, he was too scared to do anything so now both him AND Rook were getting kidnapped and Ben didn’t know if he could do that again. He definitely couldn’t let Rook go through that. He should’ve done something, anything. His nails scraped the metal of the floor as his breathing quickened, his chest getting tight and his eyes burning.
“Ben? What is going on, what is wrong..?”
He tensed, shoulders going stiff as he watched Rook cautiously make his way over to where Ben was sitting. He was trying desperately not to make that stupid gasping noise you do when you hold back a sob. He couldn’t even respond to him, he couldn’t say anything because it was all happening over again.
He noticed Rook’s expression, it wasn’t fear like Ben’s was, it was confusion, and concern. Like he dreaded. It caused a pain in his chest, because he just wanted to be normal with him. He didn’t want Rook to have to see this ugly side of him. Before he knew it, he choked on a sob and then all the tears started to flow out of him like a river. He tried to bury his head between his knees, keeping his face out of sight. Rook would know why he had those perma-eyebags now. He would know everything and all his normal would be gone. Rook would hate him for lying, for pretending he could be just like how people saw him. The hero, Ben 10 who was brave and cocky and never backed down.
“...Ben, may I touch you? I do not want to scare you like last time.”
He lifted his head up a bit to respond, but no words came out. It was like they were all stuck in his throat, turning to air as soon as they were about to be spoken. He looked at Rook again, thinking about it. He nodded very slowly, lowering his head again. He wouldn’t hurt him. He wouldn’t.
Rook wrapped an arm around him, making Ben hold his breath for a second, but starting to breathe again shortly after. The touch was distracting him, making him focus on something else. Rook rested his head on Ben’s shoulder. His hair was soft, he could feel some of it. Slowly but surely he got used to his hold, his tense shoulders relaxing. His breathing was mostly normal except for the occasional hiccup, and he was still crying. He didn’t want to be different, he didn’t want their friendship to change. He just wanted to be his best friend, his normal alien fighting best friend.
“Are you feeling better?” Rook asked, barely a whisper. Ben nodded, faster this time. He did feel better than earlier, at least a little bit. Rook seemed content with this information, humming.
And then, Rook started to purr.
Ben barely noticed at first, it was so soft. But gradually it got stronger, and Ben’s eyes went wide. He didn’t know Rook could purr, he knew he was cat-like but this was full-on cat behavior. He looked at Rook, who looked at him back.
“Cat purrs provide many health benefits… one of which is to lower stress. Mine may not be exactly the same, but I thought it could help until you wish to talk.”
It did, it did help a lot. He still felt a nagging dread but it was easier to manage now. It wasn’t all consuming and trying to destroy him from the inside out anymore. He swallowed, opening his mouth to respond.
“...Thanks, partner…” his voice was scratchy from crying, and he could barely talk above a whisper. He was close enough to Rook where he didn’t have to, however. He breathed deeply, trying to calm himself more.
“Of course,” he said gently, sickeningly sweet and it did something to Ben that he really didn’t want to unpack now. “Does this count on our tally of me saving you?” Rook asked, lightheartedly.
Ben let out a short, raspy laugh, “you wish, Blonko.” He felt the other’s purr get slightly stronger at him saying his chosen name, and he smiled a bit. This was a good distraction.
They stayed like that for a while, probably 20 or so minutes before Rook spoke up again.
“Do you wish to talk about it now?”
Ben hesitated, it was… a lot to talk about. Especially while he was here in this… containment cell…? He wasn’t sure. He eventually nodded his head, deciding it was better to just get it over with.
“When I was young, like- a couple weeks after I had gotten the omnitrix… I busted it. I got turned into Grey Matter and couldn’t turn back. This… guy found me and kidnapped me, and for a while it was just some villain of the week type shit… until it wasn’t.” he paused for a second, taking a breath. “Grandpa Max and Gwen didn’t find me in time, I got sent to this castle-type place, run by the Forever Knights… they don’t like aliens. They uhm…” his breath hitched a bit, recounting what had happened, “they did a lot of… experimenting. I was there for a month before I escaped…”
He took a deep breath, finishing his recount of events. He didn’t tell Rook everything, but he didn’t need to, he got the gist. He didn’t need Rook to know about the dissections, the lobotomy thing, any of the details.
“I just… I didn’t want you to know. You were the first person I got close to who didn’t, and I really liked being normal friends with you. I didn’t want that to change because of my dumb issues…”
Rook squeezed him a bit, gently, “your issues are not ‘dumb’, nor will they change the way I view you. You are still my friend, and my partner.” he said simply.
Ben felt his eyes well up a bit, but grinned and wiped them away. He said it like it was obvious, and it had been. It had been obvious, Ben could just be a little dense. That was okay though, it was all okay right now.
“Thanks dude,” Ben said, lightly punching Rook’s chest affectionately, “wanna get out of here? I think these Knights are about to get a visit from my good friend Way Big.” he grinned widely, nerves still all shaken up, but he could deal with it now.
some school paper doodles! plus updated scar chart for ben :3
also some revonnahgander earring/cuffs lore?? i thought about it randomly and it took hold of me. the benrook scenario is noncanon to the au but i thought it was cute :3
