A little colored sketch I did of Rupro for a DnD collab long time ago. This is like the first ever fullbody of him and I hope his cowboy-ness comes across good!
A week ago, he had still been sleeping. He had let himself steal a few hours at night. Frightening as the nightmares were, confusing as waking up somewhere else could be, he had been telling himself it was necessary. Just something to suffer through. A few hours of fitful, awful sleep were better than no sleep at all. He missed being able to believe that.
—
Ben wasn’t sure if he was awake.
Jacob was talking, but there was no sound. Ben wondered when he fell asleep, and immediately started to panic because he shouldn’t be asleep. He scanned the room. What could wake him up? He saw a knife on the table and reached for it. It turned into a sword once it touched his hand, the blade suddenly long and sharp and already bloody.
“Ben?” Jacob’s voice cut through the illusion. Ben was holding the remote to the TV. He put it back on its spot on the coffee table.
A cat weaved around his leg, mewing softly. The time on his phone displayed 5:38am. Had he really be sitting here for three hours?
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Got lost.”
“Have you not gone to bed yet?”
Ben blinked. “I just woke up.”
—
Ben couldn’t remember how many drinks he’d had. He also wasn’t sure why he was drinking. A memory floated to the surface— standing in the liquor store the night previous with an assortment in front of him— but he wasn’t sure if he could trust it. He fished in his pockets until he found a receipt, but the words slid off the paper before he could read them.
He was sitting on the steps outside his apartment because his bed was a trap and he was a timebomb. It was starting to matter less and less, though, where he was. Even now, when he closed his eyes he felt himself start to go under, sleep hooking itself to him and pulling.
He pressed the cool bottle to his neck and forced himself to stare, unblinking, into the early morning sky until the moment passed.
—
The last text he got from his manager: I assume we won’t be seeing you at all this week?
—
He was supposed to see Ariana today. He was supposed to see her yesterday, too, or the day before, or the day before, and before. All the times previous, he’d run off. No, no, all the time previous, she’d kissed him and then turned her back. Ben shook his head because the thought stopped making sense.
She was coming soon, he thought. He cradled a coffee, his third that day. His he-didn’t-even-know since he stopped sleeping.
He hadn’t exactly planned on stopping entirely, but the ride back from Boston convinced him. He had fallen asleep before they even pulled out of South Station. His dream had been filled with death and he’d woken up an hour later only because the person next to him shoved his head into the window. According to the rightfully spooked passenger, he’d been about to stand in his sleep, muttering for someone to come back, come back.
He just couldn’t do it, after that.
Ben yawned, rubbed his eyes, finished his coffee and ordered another. The door opened, opened, opened. He was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined this entire meeting.
The door opened. A tall thin boy walked inside. Ben jerked back and nearly fell out of his chair.
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible.
Colin sat across from him and smiled. Blood leaked from his teeth. Ben watched his neck tear open, saw the moment the windpipe shattered. Colin was talking, but there was no sound.
Ben barely made it outside before he started retching.
—
The last text he got from Hazel: How are you doing? Are you sleeping better?
—
Skin crawling, hands numb, mouth dry, the whole world was fuzzy at the edges. A rapid heartbeat rattled his entire body. Ben kept touching his face as if that might remind him where he was and why he was crying.
—
He didn’t know what to call it besides a compulsion. A quiet urge, a small, pleading need that he could ignore, but only for so long.
Do the right thing the right thing the right thing.
He didn't know what that meant, half of the time.
Do it do it do it.
It was more than his conscience. It was like there was someone else inside his head, whispering at all times, murmuring so constantly it turned into a low hum. This is wrong, correct, do this, stop that, stop, yes, no, no, no, tell him, talk to her, answer her call, tell him tell him tell him.
He thought it might be better to bury all of this with him. But every time the thought occurred another, more urgent one took over. Do not die before you tell him don’t let him remember you fondly.
His arm was burning. He didn’t remember doing it but that didn’t make it any better.
He looked it up. After a few days awake your brain started to microsleep. You lost pockets of time, your brain shut down while you stayed up and blinking. He was sure this is what was happening to him. He was microsleeping through the day, through conversation, through a relapse.
You have to tell him tell him tell him tell him tell him.
He didn’t know what to call it besides a compulsion. Some far away desire shouted from another room. Something that made sense even when it stopped making sense. Waking dream logic, maybe, or just some ingrained comfort of seeing blood beading against his skin.
—
The last text he got from Ariana: I heard you're back from Boston, let me know when you're free.
—
"When was the last time you slept?”
Ben was in a place that looked like the infirmary and his hair was being pushed back by someone who looked like L.
I don’t know, he told her, unsure if he said it out loud. Hadn’t he just been in another city? Now every minute was an hour, a day, another week awake.
“Can you try sleeping for me, Ben? Even if it’s just for twenty minutes? If you want me to wake you up after a certain amount of time, I can.”
Ben shook his head. Little lights danced in his vision.
L offered soup, and he accepted. But when she walked away to go heat some up, he left.
—
The last text he got from L: Please come back Ben I’m worried about you.
—
Ben was upright on his bedroom floor, hands pressed to his eyes, thinking about all the people who were dead who didn’t deserve to be while he was still here, wasting away.
He could see so clearly the exact moment the life had left his eyes. They followed him, unseeing, everywhere.
It was so unfair, it was all so unfair, and everything about him wanted to make it right.
He couldn’t fix everything but he could do this, he could put the person who should have died first, five years ago, into the ground. He could do that.
—
Are you still up?
He was 13 again and trying to remember the number for a hotline he’d never actually call.
I just checked the time and you definitely aren’t still up.
I’m really sorry.
You shouldn’t be fighting for me this hard.
—
The last text he got from Danny: The taffy is amazing love you Benny
—
He was several drinks deep and had just talked himself off a ledge. The cat woke up when he stumbled from his room and out the front door.
The time on his phone displayed 3:42am. He didn’t remember which way Danny’s house was but he walked anyway.
—
He was in the woods, somewhere, when his mother visited him.
Ben jerked back so quickly he tripped over himself and fell. He caught himself on his hand and it sent a jolt of pain up through to his shoulder. Nemesis settled in front of him. His heart nearly came out of his throat.
“Ben.”
“Fuck you.”
“Ben.”
“Fuck you!”
“Bentley.” Nemesis took her son’s face and angled it upward. His eyes couldn’t focus on her face.
“Fuck you,” Ben repeated. His words tumbled out of his mouth. “Are you that old woman? Was that you, fucking taunting me? Showing me how much I failed you?” Ben’s mind was spiraling on rage. His whole body felt alive with it. He was more awake than he’d been in days. “Fuck you. It’s always you. You’re the reason for everything.”
“Bentley, you are not asleep. I have not visited you in dreams.”
“Fuck you, fuck you.”
She let him go and towered over him. “Bentley, I am sending you away. Do you want to sleep properly again?”
“No.”
“No?”
Ben was on his feet again, somehow. He turned away from the vision of his mother. She was in front of him again in an instant.
“Fuck you!” Ben shouted. “Fuck you. I’m not doing shit for you.”
“You must.” The goddess knelt in front of him. “Ben, open your eyes. You will go to Chiron tomorrow and tell him—”
“I will not do anything you ever fucking ask me! Do you get that? Smite me kill me torture me I don’t give a shit I won’t I won’t I won’t—”
“Calm down,” she said. Ben realized that he had been screaming, and stopped. “You have no choice,” she continued. Ben realized that he had no choice. The fight slid out of his muscles.
“Where am I going?”
“Newfoundland. There is something draining the life out of the earth. You are getting a glimpse of what this feels like. What is happening is causing imbalance, as I’m sure you can tell. Those responsible need to be corrected. You will go and take care of this how you see fit.”
“Fuck you.”
“Bentley.”
“How I see fit? Fuck you. Why did you make me like this? Fuck you, fuck you.”
“It is not my fault you act against your own morality.”
“Fuck you, fuck you! You let us all die. You let—”
“I am making up for that now. You are helping.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do you not think you could stand to practice your execution of justice?”
“Fuck you! You let him come back here and you didn’t stop him from killing someone and you didn’t stop anyone from dying and you didn’t stop me. He wasn’t a lesson, he wasn’t a practice round he’s dead, he’s fucking dead and I did what I saw fit and because of you I will never, never never never be able to— fuck, fuck, fuck fuck f...” Ben was sobbing. He couldn’t form words anymore.
“I am not asking you to kill anyone, Bentley.”
He didn’t answer.
“You know how to ease this burden.” She watched her son cry. “Go to Chiron tomorrow.”
—
Ben was a coward.
His wrist was swelling and tender, so he fumbled one-handed in the hanging planter and somehow, found a key.
He missed the lock three times before he made it inside.
Ben was a goddamn coward. He’d come all the way here clutching his confession close and now, when it was time to speak it, he could not bear to. Danny was asleep and blissful upstairs and Ben was a nightmare come to destroy his happiness. He wanted to die all over again.
He was on a couch, staring at the ceiling, hyperventilating into a pillow so no one would hear. Had he even closed the door, or had he simply marched inside and collapsed here? Had he woken the house up? Was Danny waiting just out of sight, watching Ben and weeping, crying over someone he shouldn’t?
—
Ben would tell him, but he waited until morning.
Except when he finally moved, the day was already halfway over. The sun sagged in the sky and the couch was sinking into the floorboards. A voice was whispering into his ear over: murderer murder murderer murderer murderer. Ben felt as though he were on fire, but he struggled to his feet anyway.
He walked, and walked, and walked, and finally made it outside, into a blistering sun, where he found Danny digging a hole into the ground.
“Thank you for everything,” Ben said. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Danny kept digging.
"Can we go back inside?” Ben reached for Danny’s hands.
Danny turned to face him, and he was crying.
“You missed the funeral.”
Ben realized with horror that he was dreaming.
—
The sun sputtered out, like last time. A hand pulled him to the pavement.
“Looks like they missed one,” Colin hissed.
An old woman was laughing, cooing, choking him.
He was in the middle of Manhattan and nothing was familiar, and he was staring into the face of something between a woman and a monster.
“You must really have a death wish,” she said because he couldn’t.
He heard a car horn blaring in the distance and a man shouting that he should have listened, he should have gotten out of here when he had the chance.
“Do you even know who you’re up against here?” Colin and the woman asked, their voices layering over one another. “I could scramble your brains and then crack your skull open like an egg.”
“Your fate is decided.” Ben forced the words out. His throat burned. “I decided it. You deserve to die, so you will. It doesn’t matter what you do.”
Danny, I should have told you this as soon as it happened.
He was in the middle of Manhattan, and everything was too familiar, and he was staring into the face of someone he knew. Chase Peterson stared back at him, looking shocked even as his fingers tightened around Ben’s throat.
I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, sorry.
He couldn’t breathe. He was dying in a dream but somehow, he knew his body was, too. He was fighting for air, thrashing on Danny’s couch as his brain started to shut down. The whole dream went spotty.
I won’t be around for your birthday.
The old woman pulled Chase off of him. He gasped as air returned to him. Ben scrambled to his feet and watched himself walk. He was lightheaded, dizzy, but moving anyway.
He was inside and outside of himself at the same time. Corpses stared up at the sky all around him. He stalked forward, and Chase was trying not to show on his face just how scared he was, and Ben was telling himself to stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop—
“You don’t deserve such a quick end,” he rasped out, weeping as he kicked Chase and felt the crunch of a nose breaking under his boot.
I’m sorry I made you fight so hard for me.
A sword went through his throat.
Colin died, and then he smiled at Ben.
He was bleeding everywhere, over everything. The whole world went inky red, red, red. Ben was screaming, but there was no sound.
All I can hear are the notes of nightfall. I never thought night would sound like this, but now that i’ve heard it; it makes perfect sense. The trivial notes are played by shadows that keep calling me and as i lay here at nightfall all i can do is give in.
