⍟ Broken Strings {A Chaos Theory x Male Reader Story - Ben}

𝟹. 𝙳𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚊𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚑

He glances up at Darius, but he doesn't say a thing, "It won't be good."

"Which means finding the others before they do."

"Y/N?" Sammy glances up at him.

"I don't know for sure," Y/N sighs, "But I don't think we can afford the risk."

"Well, it's settled then," Sammy nods, "We have to warn them."

"Yes, great!" Ben beams, "I was thinking we--"

The room goes silent as Sammy charges out of the kitchen, leaving her pie and oven mitts.

"Sammy, where are you going?" Darius asks as they follow after her.

"We can't just leave straight off! Gotta get some supplies for our trip." Sammy huffs, pushing the door open.

Y/N's eyes linger on the desk chair in the plain bedroom, specifically on Brooklyn's old jacket hanging off the back of the chair. It's from the last time she visited, before...

Sammy shuts the door, "Kenji's place is on the way to Yaz's, he keeps changing his number, but I can call Yaz while we're on the road."

She moves towards the hall closet, rummaging through it, "I think there's a map around here somewhere... service is terrible from here to Wyoming."

She hands Y/N a big box of supplies and continues down the hall.

"Sammy, stop," Darius pleads, "Please, just, stop..."

"Stop and what, Darius?" Sammy whips around, tears in her eyes, "Stop and think about Brooklyn dying, or my family not speaking to me!?"

"Or Yaz pulling away from me!? No... I-- I can't stop. I won't."

"Sammy, I--" Y/N pauses when the lights suddenly switch off.

"I just fixed the breaker last week," Sammy huffs, "Carl..."

"If he's messing with Bumpy, he's getting more than a mud pie." Ben says sternly, pulling flashlights out of the supply box.

"Arsenic pieee." Y/N suggests in a sing-songy voice.

Ben shoves a flashlight each into Darius and Y/N's hands and stomps down the hall.

"We'll go check on Bumpy, you help Sammy with the breaker." Y/N pats Darius on the shoulder.

"On it." Darius nods, following Sammy though the house.

Darius and Y/N make their way outside, their footsteps light as they examine the front yard with their flashlights.

"There he is," Y/N whispers, shining his flashlight on Carl's truck where it sits pressed up against the fence.

"Guess he wasn't bluffing," Darius grits his teeth, "We know that's you, Carl!"

"Leave Bumpy alone!" Y/N adds as the two men creep towards the car.

Y/N puts his hand out to stop Darius when he notices something is off, Carl's in the car but he's hanging out of the door, clearly unconscious.

The two men gasp and duck behind some hay bales, quickly shutting off their flashlights to avoid detection.

Holding his breath, Y/N peaks around to see an antrociraptor. It cranes its neck and screeches into the night sky before skittering out of sight.

"The raptors," Y/N whispers, sitting back down, "They found us."

The men both go silent when they hear the raptor poking around, they peer over the hay to see it sliding past Bumpy's enclosure.

"Bumpy," Y/N gasps, "She's a sitting duck in her pen."

"We've gotta help her."

"I'll take care of it," Darius pats him on the shoulder, "Go get Ben and Sammy, meet up at the van after."

Y/N nods and slips away, keeping close to the side of the house as he makes his way towards the kitchen from outside. Just as he's about to make a dash for the door, he hears a light tapping noise.

He turns to see Sammy and Ben at the kitchen window, clearly already shaken up.

Y/N lets out a breath of relief and motions towards the van. After a second, Ben and Sammy nod in understanding and disappear from view.

He keeps moving along the barn and towards the van until his path is blocked by a raptor. He holds his breath and turns back the other way, only to hear the heart-stopping crunch of the dinosaur moving towards him.

He's unable to fight the urge to turn around and lands face to face with the antrociciraptor. Without wasting a second, Y/N turns on his heel and dashes into the barn.

He almost trips over himself as he moves to hide behind bales of hay. Y/N covers his mouth, trying to remain undetectable as the raptor pokes around the barn looking for him.

He crawls around, dodging the creature's line of sight as it knocks over hay and sniffs around.

The air is tense as Y/N senses the clearly intelligent dinosaur homing in on him. It sticks its head underneath a bale in its search and Y/N jumps at the opportunity. He shoves over the stack of hay bales onto the raptor and makes a run for it out of the barn.

He sprints across the grass, relieved when he hears no sign of the dino coming after him.

Y/N makes it to the van and slides into the passenger's seat.

"Where are they!?" Ben cries, looking through his rearview mirror.

"I thought you were--" Y/N pauses and looks back to see Darius and Sammy running towards them.

"Go, go, go!" Ben shouts out the window as the pair run, a raptor closing in on them.

The creature almost reaches Darius and Sammy, but Bumpy swings her tail violently, knocking it to the ground.

The two of them leap into the back of the van, "Ben, let's go!" Darius taps on the floor of the vehicle.

Ben pauses, looking back at Bumpy.

"She'll be okay, Ben. She can take care of herself." Y/N urges, resting a hand on his boyfriend's arm.

Ben doesn't say anything, but he seems to agree as he silently speeds off down the dirt road.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

"So... this is really happening?" Sammy asks in a small voice as they safely roll down the road.

"Yeah," Darius sighs and shares a glance with Ben, "It's happening."

"Well," Y/N leans back into his seat, "Let's go see Yaz and Kenji."

"Uhm," Ben adjusts his hands on the wheel, "Do you have a map to get to them? Cause we ...do not."

"Actually, yeah." Sammy reaches into her coat pocket, "It fell outta Brooklynn's jacket when I was hiding from that muscly raptor."

She opens up the map, Y/N and Darius both lean over to see.

"Not sure why she had it..." Sammy adds.

"She marked all our addresses." Y/N smiles.

"Hey, check that out," Darius' eyebrows crease, "That address in Colorado, whose is that?"

"Mmm, that one is Kenji, but the one right near it, I dunno." Y/N examines the markings.

"The date and time she wrote down, that's..." Darius goes pale, "That's not long before she died."

"If she wasn't gonna see Kenji, where was she going?" Ben asks, his eyes on the road.