#i drew this a while ago and I have made way more art of joey and dari lol

[preggydump]

Long time lurker, first time poster. I never really post anything here, I usually just reblog but I've actually been drawing some mpreg art lately and I even typed up a thing, so I figured I'd share it!

Warning: mentions of religion (but in like a these awful people who used religion to justify their shitty view are in Hell for eternity type of way :) )

This is surely a mistake! And I am going to make whoever made this egregious error sincerely regret this outrageous mistake that they’ve made, there must be somebody around here that I can speak to get to the bottom of how this error is going to be resolved. And if they can’t help me, then I’ll find someone else who can! I’m a devout man! I’ve never sinned a day in my life! In fact I detested blasphemers and sinners, and I let them know the error of their ways! I’m not one of them! And I deserve to be treated as a man loyal to his church and family should!

“Heh yeah, that’s what they all say!” The burly demon interrupted Darien’s thoughts, his voice deep and even more unsettling than the fact that he’d seemingly read his thoughts. He’d never been inside an active volcano, but somehow he knew that’s what it reminded him of. “To be honest with you though, the ones who claim they’ve ‘never sinned a day in their life’ 99% of the time end up down here.” The demons sharp laugh of amusement brought up an image of volcanic rock crashing down of the roof of a wooden house. Another moment which Darien had never experience, but the memory sprang unbidden to his mind all the same. Shaking the false memories and the uncomfortable feeling that his thoughts could be heard in… this place… out of his head, Darien regained his composure. He would have to remain stronger than ever if he wanted his soul to remain intact while this mistake was being sorted out.

“Hmph! Then what of the 1%! Surely I belong with them, the other 99% are obviously liars and sinners.” He proclaimed as he stuck out his chin and crossed his arms in a futile attempt at establishing some sort of authoritative air. It was somewhat ruined by the fact that his feet would no longer listen to him, and followed the demon of seemingly their own accord. Not to mention, he could feel his new ear piercing jingle a bit against his cheek. It was a disgusting thing, not just because it was an unseemly ear piercing, but in the brief glimpse he’d seen of it before the demons used a device to insert it in his ear lobe, it looked like a tag of some sort, like those used for cattle or livestock. Darien tried not to shiver at the thought of what that may mean for his eternal future. Or at least his future until this mix-up was fixed, and he hoped and prayed that it would be fixed as soon as possible. The demon burst into howling laughter, which filled him with a deep primal instinctual fear that shook his resolve and memories of earth shattering and breaking that Darien, or no living thing for that matter, could have ever experienced in their lifetime.

“They were being sarcastic! Oh man, the 1%! Whew, the irony!” The demon wiped a tear of laughter away from his eye, a droplet of molten lava which flew a few feet away and sizzled where it landed. Darien’s jaw moved up and down as he tried to put on a brave face and argue, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. “And thoughts and prayers will do ya even less good down here than it did when you were up there, not that it even does anything up on Earth.”

“But I- Surely there must be a mistake…” Darien quietly said again, feeling smaller and more vulnerable than he ever had when he was a living man on Earth. The hulking demon gave him what appeared to be a sympathetic glance, which had the opposite effect of making Darien feel even worse.

“It’s not so bad once you get used it! There’s a bit of adjustment period, but that’s always how it is when something changes! Once I get you to your assigned sector there will be a team of expert demons to help you settle in-“

“Pastor Joseph?!” The demons attempt at consoling one of Hell’s newest residents was interrupted by Darien’s shout. They had just come across a gathering of demons and humans, conversing together in little groups. Darien instinctually began to sneer at the lot, obviously they deserved whatever fated torture they had been brought down here for. Much, much more than Darien himself did! But at the glimpse of a somewhat familiar face in the crowd, made Darien stop in his tracks. So shocked was he, at the sight of a long-time pastor of his church, in fact one of the best pastors they’ve ever had in his opinion, that he didn’t even notice his feet had suddenly decided to listen to him. The demon escorting him to his destination looked around confused for a moment but found who had caught Darien’s attention.

“Oh! You know Joey?”

“Joey?!” Darien asked incredulously. But sure enough, at the call of Pastor Joseph, the familiar face had barely paid the call any mind, not even to react as if to the buzzing of a bug. But at the mention of ‘Joey,’ he looked around for whoever had called, as if that was his real name, instead a taunting nickname these demons had obviously implemented as part of some undeserved torture. As his head turned, and their eyes met Dariens stomach twisted in shock. The pastor now sported a large pair of demonic horns, his eyes still a bright blue but now more serpentine in nature, and long tail ending in a spade protruded from his spine. But as Joey moved in the direction his name was called, Darien couldn’t help but gasp in horror as the most prominent change in his previous pastor’s appearance made itself visible.

Joey waddled towards them, his enormous belly swaying with his movement. So firm and round and heavy that he moved with one hand at the base of it to support it’s girth, the short jean shorts he wore doing nothing to provide any support at all. His short shorts were in fact completely unbuttoned, unzipped, and looked like they might rip apart at the seams at any moment with how they seemed to strain around his plump thighs and ass. From the front it looked like he was wearing nothing at all, except for the cropped, much too cropped, top. Even then, as Joey moved closer Darien realized even that small strip of cloth left nothing at all to the imagination. Not only was the top an extremely see-through sheer black mesh, but it in no way whatsoever hid the breasts that lightly bounced on his bloated belly as he walked, no- waddled. With the way it ended right on his swollen puffy nipples, the hem tenting out over them, that the top made them stand out even more. The bright red letters DILF embroidered on what little space the shirt had left, if it could even be called a shirt, was the only part that could be considered ‘covering’ anything.

Darien tried to step back as he recoiled in disgust and horror, but his feet had stopped listening to him again. Just when he believed the situation couldn’t be worse, that this must be some sort of horrible nightmare, for how could the holiest, most virtuous, pious man he’d ever known be down here of all places! And… and in such a state! He did not think he could feel more disgusted, more horrified, more repelled; he noticed that in Joe- no, Pastor Joseph’s ear was a tag, similar to one he’d briefly seen before it was forced through his very own earlobe. It was only a small comfort that at least they were not the same color, Joseph’s being an orangey-red, while Darien could just see the green glow of his out of the corner of his eye.

“Hey Gozomaal! It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve seen you here!” Joey-Joseph’s face lit up in a way Darien had never seen before, as he recognized the large demon whose name was apparently Gozomaal. Then he looked at Darien, an unabashedly confused look on his face. “And you, hmm I feel like I recognize from somewhere… have we met before?”

“P-pastor Joseph? I- Is that really you? It can’t be. There truly must… There truly must be something wrong here, there has to be some mistake now! Don’t you remember I was one of your parish, I followed your teachings, attended your mass every Sunday!”

“Oooooh.” A tiny spark of recognition had been ignited, but Joseph was obviously still confused. Darien tried to ignore how the priests’ hand roamed over the over-swollen dome of his belly, how a small bump appeared, the movement of whatever monstrous creature nested inside, and he rubbed circles over it as if to soothe it. “I sorta remember now, what was your name again? Derek? Erick? Mick?”

“N-no! My name is Darien! Please! You have to remember!” The human who was surely having the worst nightmare in his life, pleaded.

“Oooooh yeah! Silly me was gonna guess Dick next, but I think I was getting distracted with having this big hunk around. It’s been a while since you volunteered.” Joey winked and coyly pawed at Gozoma- no, the demon- as he swayed his hips to the side which made his chest and belly shift in a way that Darien felt obscene was too tame of a word to use to describe it. The demon gave a low chuckle of amusement.

“Nice try cutie, but I can tell you’re too close to your quota already,” Gozomaal playfully flicked Joey’s reddish-orange ear tag, who pouted in disappointment. “and nowhere near due. Besides, I’m at work, bringing this newcomer here to BB Intake.”

“Oh, you’re new!” Joey lit up in excitement again, disappointment quickly forgotten. “And we’re going to be in the same sector! Since I knew you from before, I can show you the ropes, where they hide the good snacks, which of the handlers give the best d-“

“But-but I don’t want to know the ropes! I don’t want to be here! I don’t belong here! A-and neither do you! You were a man of the faith! Where is your devotion? Where is your faith? Where is your cross?” Darien burst out in an angry desperate plea, no longer sure who he was trying to convince that he did not belong burning in the pits of Hell for all eternity. Joey blinked, his expression simultaneously blank and startled at the same time.

“My what?” His face contorted in pure confusion for only a moment, but for Darien’s hopes and fears felt like an eternity, before coming to a realization. “Oh, that old thing? I can’t remember why I decided to keep it around, I honestly forget it’s there!” Joey began to search and pat down his rounded form as if searching for some lost keys, at last spotting what he was looking for around his side and turning as if to display it. Darien felt tears of dawning horror, realization, and oddly enough, acceptance begin to pool in the corner of his eyes. He had somehow missed tucked under the mesh DILF crop top, the silver chain wrapping from behind his neck, around his right breast, one side of the chain completely disappearing where his belly pressed up against it, leading down to an old silver cross dangling over to his side.

“Sometimes it gives me a really nice, like, hot sensation though, like a burn? But in a good way, like a really good way, like in a really really really good way.” Joey winked and giggled. Though Darien hated to make himself look, sure enough there were faint red marks, roughly shaped like his cross, spotted along the side of his swollen belly and even on the underside of his… ‘boob.’

“But…But we don’t belong here…” Darien said quietly, somehow feeling more defeated and smaller than he had before they had come across Pastor Jos-Joey.

“It’s not so bad! I remember being scared too when I first got here, but everyone was so nice about helping me get settled in!” Where before he had tried to look away and ignore it happening, Darien found himself staring as Joey rubbing a soothing circle over a bump that had appeared right under his navel, his other hand still low on his ripened belly for support in holding his grotesque unholy passengers.

“Actually, the biggest change I had to get used to were the horns!” Joey cheerily proclaimed gestured to the not just one, but two sets of deep red horns growing out of his forehead, pushing back his still golden blonde hair. “The only punishment around here is that they never let you go past quota.” Joey put on an exaggerated pout and batted his eyelashes at the large demon Darien had almost forgot was standing there. He numbly nodded in shock, not sure of how else to respond.

“Alright, I think it’s time we get you to BB Intake, so you two can hang out together again soon, okay?” Gozomaal gently put a hand on Darien’s back and started to guide him the way they had been going. Above his head they winked at Joey “And I’ll try to volunteer again soon, but you know quota exceptions are out of my control. Nice shirt by the way!”

“Thanks, Trazron got it for me! And bye-bye Dari! We’ll have to hang out once you’re done with Orientation!” Joey cheerfully waved and contentedly waddled back to the group he had previously been talking to, most of whom were sporting bellies almost as rotund and full as his. There were even a few whose bellies were somehow even larger, a feat Darien had a hard time believing was possible.

Darien remained in shock until they reached their destination. Which didn’t actually take long at all, it was a much shorter distance than he might have hoped. Maybe if the rest of the journey had been a bit longer, he would have broken out of his reverie long enough to ask the demon, Gozomaal, some questions. For example, what did he mean by quota? What were those… creatures growing inside of Joey? What did they mean by ‘Intake’ and ‘Orientation?’ What were the earring tags about? What did BB stand for? In fact, no one had told him yet what his eternal punishment was going to be. Was this it? To see a devout holy man he’d looked up to and admired so debased and made up to be some slutty bimbo?

When they arrived at the building that was to be their destination, his mind begin to rapidly flip between glad and mad that he hadn’t thought to ask anything. And, as the deepest despair he’d ever felt in his existence overwhelmed all of his senses and sank deep into his bones, he read the sign painted over the door:

69TH UNHOLY ETERNAL BREEDING BITCH INTAKE and ACCLIMATION CENTER

[dot-cant-write]

A Different Chord - Sammy Lawrence x Reader (Part Five)

It’s getting busy at the studio, and you can’t find Sammy Lawrence.

A/N: In honor of BatDR not being dead, I have actually written stuff. (Sorry for the wait.)

————————————————————————

It had been nearly half a year since your lessons with Sammy began, and things were busier than ever in the studio. It had been at least a week since your last banjo lesson (though admittedly, they were turning into sessions where you told Sammy gossip from around the studio). One day on your break, you headed down to the Music Department to see Sammy.

Henry had practically kicked you out of the art department anyway, complaining that you’re too young to work straight through the day. He said he was gonna have to talk to to Joey about that. Breaks were practically nonexistent in the studio, after all, especially as of late. Joey Drew’s deadlines were becoming more and more imposing and strict. Now that you thought about it, everyone seemed more on edge lately. You rolled your shoulders back and moseyed towards the music director’s office.

When you got there, you were surprised to see that his office was empty. Maybe he was still with the band? You went down the hall to check. As you rounded the corner into the practice room, you frowned. The room was empty. The band must not be meeting today. Or maybe they were taking their own break. Either way, the practice room was empty.

“Don’t know where he went, kiddo. Kicked us all out awhile ago.” A drawling voice made you jump. Turning around, you found Norman Polk on the balcony, fidgeting with a projector.

“That Sammy Lawrence is a strange one, I’ll tell ya… Once he kicked the band out, he ran all the way up here. Heard him flip the projector on, then he ran all the back down here. He played some instruments or somethin’, and he hasn’t come out for a long time. Peculiar man, dunno what you see in him,” Norman continued. That was the most you’d ever heard him speak. Your face reddened a little at his words.

“He’s just teaching me how to play the banjo, Mr. Polk! Don’t get the wrong idea,” you defended.

Norman grinned like the cheshire cat. “I think you’d better tell him that. Never seen that crazy composer as happy as he is when he’s teachin’ you.”

You shook your head hopelessly, feeling the heat in your cheeks. “I’m going to go find Sammy, Mr. Polk.” With that, you exited the room and started searching around, ignoring what Norman had said.

You couldn’t find Sammy anywhere, oddly enough. You swore he never left the music department, and Norman mentioned he’d been in the band room, but there was no sign of the musician. Instead, you’d decided to settle down in his office and wait for him to return.

—————————

Sammy’s office had become a bit busier as of late. Joey Drew had pipes installed to carry ink for some weird sort of project, and the switch for the pumps was placed there. People often came in and out of the office, usually GENT workers or janitors like Wally. Sammy’s desk had also become a bit messier. It had been a lot busier in the studio and you hadn’t had as frequent lessons… Since when had it become so unorganized?

After turning Sammy’s radio on, you started to stack the sheet music scattered across his desk. There were a lot of ink stains on the music. Come to think of it, there were also a lot of ink bottles in his rubbish bin… Why was he going through so much ink?

You shrugged it off once you noticed a black notebook under the sheet music you’d sorted. Curiosity gnawed on your bones, and as you started to reach for the book—

“(Y/N), you’re in my office.” Sammy Lawrence appeared, leaning on the doorframe. He looked slightly amused.

“Um yup, sure am. It’s a disaster in here, you should hire a maid,” You joked lightly, hoping he hadn’t seen you reach for his notebook.

“How long have you been waiting here?” Sammy asked. Changing the subject.

“Only for a little while. Where have you been? Got time for a lesson?”

The composer only responded to the latter question. “Only a short one. Joey has me writing songs for three different Bendy cartoons, all due tonight.” His expression soured.

“Why not work on those then? I don’t mind.”

“You’re just a distraction, I won’t be able to write much while you’re here. Besides, I have… certain things I have to do. Alone,” he added hastily.

Odd. “Do you want me to leave? Am I too distracting?” You asked, waggling your eyebrows playfully. You tried to keep Norman’s words from creeping back into your head.

“Oh, can it. Quit being a child,” Sammy said, but you swear a smile crept up on his face.

“Make me,” you chided lightly. Sammy strode over to where you were sitting at his desk. He towered over you normally, but was even taller while you sat. Leaning down, the musician placed a hand on his desk. He stared straight into your eyes, smirking. He was so close-

The moment was over in an instant. Turning away, he chuckled. “That’s what I thought. Now please, let me work.”

You should probably tell him what Norman said…

You decided not to.

[creepyalienghost]

Christmas Prank War

Merry Christmas everyone!

———

Wally franks wasn’t the only prankster that worked in Joey Drew studios. Heidi and Porter were two of others in the many pranksters there at that studio. Although many wouldn’t expect Porter to have been one. He was always quit and acting in a more serious way. Heidi on the other hand was the totally opposite. She was loud and fun and extra. She never confirmed to the fashion and wear clothes her way and she never let any man speak down to her. Which is why Porter fell in love with her and she loved him.

It had started a few years ago when Porter saw Wally prank her and decided to help her prank him back. After that he came to love pranks would always do them with her. Which is why this December was a dream of theirs. Joey had stated it was prank war month. He would allow any and all pranks around the studio unless it cost him money. Heidi and porter glances at each other. He saw her eyes light up in a mischievous way. This would be fun.

After getting together and discussing ideas together for a while,they have decided to do a Christmas themed prank for their first one. “Hopefully they others won’t have the same idea.” Porter said.

Heidi thought a bit. “I think it would be far enough for us to do it first.” She replied with a wink. “But we can also sit a trap with it. Maybe with a bit of confetti as well!”

Porter smiles at her. “I love the way you think Heidi” he replied.

“Aww thank you hun!” She kisses him on the cheek. “Alright we let’s right what we will need for the prank.” She grabs a pen and starts listening the things. “Mistletoe is the main thing we will need.” She spoke as she wrote. Porter nodded watching her write. “String as well. And then confetti.” She said.

“Don’t forget about the tape, Heidi” Porter listed.

She gasp and pointed her pen at him with a wide smile. “Tape! I almost forgot that.” She replied and listened it. “Thank you.” She glances at him, her cheeks going a soft pink. “I think that’s all we need?”

“Great! We can retrieve the supplies tonight.” He said.

“It’s a date” Heidi replied and giggled at his now red face. “I’ll see you tonight hun.” She kissed his cheek once again before leaving.

“I- uhh i..yea.” He said stuttering over his words. “I’ll see you tonight.”

——-

The next morning they both drove to the studio a little bit earlier to set up their trap. Along the way, they were trying to decide on the location of where it should go. “I think it should be the door going into the music department.”Porter offered.

Heidi thought this open and nodded. “You right! The music department is the most active department! So many people go in and out. Good idea Porter!” He smiled at him.

Once they arrived they hurried to the music department and made sure it was all clear before getting to work. “Alright here put the confetti on top. I’ll do the string trap.” She handed him the mistletoe and confetti.

“Sounds like a plan.” He replied getting to work before someone sees them and ruin the prank. He carefully pours one of the many confetti packs as she starts to hum. Porter has said before that she should’ve been in the music department, singing. She had such a lovely voice for music however she told him drawing was her passion and how she grew up with it and around it. She also amazing at drawing to. She once showed him her sketches and he realized how much drawing was to her. She was amazing at it and deserved to have the world see her art.

It wasn’t long before they finished the trap for the first unsuspecting couple. Now all that was to do was to wait for people to arrived here. They waited by going next door for some breakfast so they don’t look so suspicious to the others. After getting her coffee and bagel she sat with Porter. “Hey who’s the one couple you wanna see the most get pranked?”

Porter chuckled and took a bite as he thought. “Hmm. Maybe Wally and Tom. How about you?”

She smiles widely. “I wanna see Allison and Susie.”

Porters eyes widen. “Don’t they despise each other?”

Heidi shakes her hand no. “I don’t believe they actually do. Well maybe at first but I seen the way they look at each other. They definitely like each other.”

Porter shakes his hand, laughing. “ studio drama!”

After half an hour flew by, they headed back the studio. By this time the studio was starting to get busy. Sammy Lawrence was key now unlocking his office, Wally Franks was starting his rounds and many others were already working or just arriving. Porter looked over to Heidi with a smirk. “Ready?

She smirked back. “ oh yeah!”

They both got in a hidden corner and grabbed hold of the string, ready. The first couple couple was Sammy and Jack. Heidi laughed at how red their faces had become. Sammy crosses his arms, being his stubborn self but eventually kissed Jack. Rules are rules after all. After resetting the trap they got Wally and Susie. Wally was so shy while Susie thought it was cute and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Heidi almost died of cuteness. On there brake later on they had caught both Norman and Tom by surprise. Never of them wanting to kiss the other but did once those around chanted. “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

The two both had a blast of their first day at the prank war and couldn’t wait for more to come. Heidi was already thinking of new pranks.

———

It was getting closer tours the holidays which means the nights we’re getting longer and the weather getting colder. Good time for some hot chocolate. But Porter also gotten an idea for park or his beloved Heidi.

With a wide grin he finished the real drinks and then sit up the trap. He started with filling water in an empty mug and quickly sitting it upside down with a piece of paper, sliding it out afterwards. Next her covered the top of it, which was really the bottom of the cup, with whipped cream and topped that off with some chocolate chips. Once he was finished he text Heidi phone and hides her real drink.

After a good minute she runs in and hugs him. “Hey Porter! Thank you for making me one.”

Porter chuckled and wraps his arms around her for a hug. “You are welcome my dear.” He kisses her head. “Hope you enjoy it.”

“Oh I well.” She replied heading to the drink. “You know i love some good hot drinks.” He picked up the mug and jumped out of the way of the water quickly then glanced at Porter who was now laughing. “Ohhhh I see how it is, hun.” She giggled.

Porter got her real drink and handed it to her as he still couldn’t stop laughing. “Here’s your drink.” He replied in the middle of his giggle. “I’m so sorry.”

Heidi sips it and raises it up a little. “Delicious love. Thank you so much.” She giggles as well then gets a smirk on her face. “ Consider yourself my next target.”

Porter stops laughing and stares at her. “W-what?…”

Heidi didn’t say anything else to him. She just winked at him with her smirked and left the break room.

“Oh …oh no…” Porter chuckled nervously. Who knows what she’s going to prank him with and when will it be. Nothing would be safe.

———

Christmas Day was here and Joey had given them all a few days off to enjoy the holidays. But the prank war wasn’t over. Heidi still has been thinking of ways to get back at Porter. And she finally got an idea.

It was early in the morning, The house was warm and the Christmas lights were twinkling and she was hiding all of his presents and then only placed one down and waited for him to arrived.

He came at around 10 in the morning and hugged her right as she opened the door. “Merry Christmas!” She said first followed by a kiss. “Please come in. I made us breakfast and coffee.”

“Merry Christmas!” Porter replied back, stepping inside her home. It was cozy and colorful. Art lined the orange walls, call little statues of figures were on her selves next to her books on art, paint and fantasy books and that wasn’t the Christmas items. Her lights were the multicolored lights instead of the white lights most people used. her tree was blue instead of green. And she made her own ornaments which was impressive.

After breakfast they two sat on the couch with Heidi a holding sliver Christmas gift with a beautiful light blue bow on It. His gift was the traditional green package with a red bow tied in the center. “Here’s your gift hun. Open it first.” Heidi smiled and handed it to him.

“Aww. Thank you.” He took the gift and began tearing through the paper. opening the box he stopped confused. There was a few lumps of black rocks in it. Coal.

“Pranked you!” She giggled and grabbing another gifted under the couch. “This is your real one.” She handed it him.

He chuckled, taking the gift. “Good one! I totally forgot I was on the list.” He replied and opened his real gift. Once he saw it he smiled widely. In it was two tickets to a band he recently had gotten into. “Oh Heidi. This were expensive! You shouldn’t have!”

Heidi came and sat next to him. “Don’t worry about the money hun. You and whoever you take deserves to have a fun night out.” She smiled and kisses his cheeks. “And it doesn’t have to be me ether.”

“Oh it just might dear.” He replied then kissed her deeply on the lips. “Merry Christmas Heidi.”

“Merry Christmas to you hun!”

[trashboatprince]

The anniversary for the Bioshock au was just this weekend (actually on the official anniversary for the game Bioshock, what a coincidence!), and my friends and I decided to do something for it today!

While they have chosen to redraw some of their original art for the au, I had planned to rewrite something I had written ages ago, but then an idea came to me!

So, you guys get a new fic!

Warning: mentioned experiments, mentioned body horror, sad thoughts

As always, Henry belongs to @inkspottie, Ross belongs to @thedobermutt, and Delta is my Henry!��

On with the fic!

--

Henry, Ross, and Delta made their way around the old lounge bar that they had broken into, with Henry looking for supplies, Ross scouting the area for any splicers or searchers hidden about, and Delta was securing the door, making sure no one got in.

Once the coast was clear and the door secured, they could finally relax, which Delta was so thankful for. They had gotten into another big fight and he needed to check to see if his suit was still in good order. He had only just changed into this one earlier in the the day since his other one was damaged beyond repair, he had to make sure this one was still good to go.

Trudging over with tired feet, he sat himself down on the floor by the large floor-to-ceiling windows, the glow of the city in the ocean illuminating the room for them. “Bendy, a little help?” He asked the Li’l Devil, who had been helping Henry look about. 

Bendy perked up and ran over, knowing exactly what to do. He started to help with unhooking the large tanks on Delta’s back as the Big Daddy worked on the suit. He needed to get out of it to make sure his examination was thorough.

Ross looked up from where he was sitting on a sofa, raising an eyebrow at the other man. “Delta, what are you doing?”

“Checkin’ my suit.” He replied, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. He hissed, shuddering when Bendy got the tanks disconnected from not only his suit but from the ports in his back. Never a pleasant feeling, uhg.

“Are you... getting out of it?” Henry frowned, walking over, his arms carrying the items he had picked up before depositing them on a table nearby. 

“Kinda have to.” Delta replied as he worked to get himself out of the suit. “Not for too long, not like when I was panickin’ earlier when I was, ya know, sorta dyin’.”

It had been an emergency, he needed a new suit, new tanks, he was sadly stuck with these things to live, due to what had happened to his body.

He stepped out of his suit, luckily wearing pants and a shirt under it, he wasn’t one for being indecent even in his own gear, but he knew the other two could see his arms, his neck.

They saw it earlier, when they helped him get into his new suit, all the scars and damage done by the Big Daddy project. He didn’t think much of it at the time, but Delta felt a little self-conscious now.

Oh, they had seen what INK did to the splicers, the damaged skin and minds, but Delta’s had all been controlled. He had been tested on, his face left normal for reasons he had never been told, but the rest of him was a mess.

And with his healing abilities due to the splicing projects, his wounds healed quickly, but still scarred, over and over again.

“Is...” Henry started, but shut his mouth.

“You’re fine to ask.” Delta replied, sitting down, letting Bendy hook the tanks back into his back, he held back a yelp at the sensation. He picked up one of the sleeves of his suit, looking it over, avoiding eye contact.

Henry coughed, before speaking again. “Is it... painful? The scars?”

“Stopped bein’ that way years ago, kid.” Delta replied, frowning at the cut he found, asking for the sewing kit he knew Bendy had stored in his hammerspace. 

“Is it from battles?” Ross asked. “Or from what Joey had done to you?”

“Both, mostly the latter.” The tallest of the trio sighed as he got to work on repairing the cut. “Nasty effects, splicin’, INK. I used to be a scrawny thing, ya know? About as skinny as you, Henry. But that wasn’t for long, had to be built like a damn tank for this work!”

He kept his eyes on his task. “I was normal for maybe a week? Just health exams, Norman told me, nothin’ serious, had to make sure everythin’ was in workin’ order. Then they started injectin’ INK. It was fine at first, felt healthy, even stronger and faster, then... it got worse.”

He still remembered when the effects finally kicked in, the horrible pain and heat of his body changing, too fast, too slow, broken bones and damaged skin. Delta looked at his hands, they were trembling, but he pushed on. “It sucked, I don’t know how long it was gonna keep goin’ for, I thought that it would destroy me before anythin’ could really happen. And then...”

He looked at Bendy, who was happily looking out the windows, watching the fish go by. “And then they had me meet Bendy and it was worth it, cause I had a purpose cause of all that.”

“It still wasn’t right.” Ross spoke, a deep look of concern was painted on his face. “You shouldn’t have been forced into this, you didn’t even have a choice.”

“None of us did.” Delta sighed. “Henry didn’t, I didn’t, and you sure as hell didn’t either, Ross. Drew did whatever he wanted to us because everyone here’s his plaything.”

He finished the repair and moved to look for more.

“It’s still not right.” Henry frowned, reaching for a candy bar on the table. “But when we get you up to the surface, you won’t have to worry about this stuff anymore.”

Delta looked up, then looked towards the windows. His eyes drifted to the tanks behind him, and he shook his head. “Guys, I know you want me to come with you when we’re done here, but... I’m not made for the surface anymore, I can’t even go an hour with my tanks off, I need the INK and PAINT. I need my suit.”

Ross shook his head, standing up. He walked over to Delta, looking down at the man still seated on the floor. “Delta, you have to have some faith in us, in Norman. We promised you that we’d get you to the surface, no matter what. Why do you doubt us?”

The Big Daddy blinked, then looked ashamed, rubbing at his bare arms. “I’m... not made for the surface, for a normal life. I dunno what Norman can do to help me survive up there, but what became of me... that’s impossible to change, I can’t go up there with these scars, I’ll look like a monster or somethin’.”

The older man sighed softly. “Look, I know it seems bad, but you’ll have us to help you, to be there for you. Yeah, some people will stare, but that’s on them, not you.”

“We’ll be there with you every step of the way.” Henry smiled a little. “And Norman said he’ll do whatever he can to help you survive without your tanks! You’ll be as normal as you can be! And besides, I’m not all that normal myself, we’re clones, and we’ve got...” He flicked his wrist, bolts of lightening came from his palm, before vanishing. 

“Yeah, after all of this, we’re in a similar boat with you, even if it isn’t exactly cosmetic.” Ross chuckled.

Delta looked at the two men he called his friends, a small smile coming to him. “You guys are so weird, but... alright, I mean, I dunno about this, but I would like to finally leave this place, there’s a sun I wanna see.”

“That’s the spirit, Delta.” The smallest of the trio smiled a bit more. “Now, no more of this, let’s just take the break we really need. I am not built for running around like this.”

“I hear that.” Ross sighed, sitting back down.

The Big Daddy looked at them once more, still smiling as he went back to work on checking for damage to his suit, listening to the others talk to each other. He’ll hold them to this, he wasn’t sure how confident he was that he’d get to leave Rapture, but it didn’t hurt to have a little hope. 

[youllallriseintheink]

Angel of the Ink Machine, Chapter 1: An Unlikely Encounter.

Alright, this was a long time coming. And by a long time, I mean I have literally had it in mind since Fall. As a result, I’m going to ignore new information from TIOL so that I can do it as I originally planned.

The premise of this AU is simple: Sammy leaves the studio instead of Henry, and as a result, Joey needs a new partner in crime. He finds one in Allison. Power struggles, sacrifices, passion, ecstasy and tragedy ensues.

---

Sammy never even bothered to formally quit the studio, and it fell on Henry to explain to Joey what had probably transpired.

“He told me a few days ago that he wanted to get Mr. Arch’s attention and maybe a job from him. Sorry to say, Joey, but I think he got what he wanted.”

Joey’s face twisted with disbelief and anger and then back to serenity. “No, Sammy loved it here! I’m sure he’ll be back soon- he’s probably just sick. And even if he isn’t, well, we don’t need him anyhow, do we, Henry? So long as we have each other.”

“Hm? Yeah.” Henry didn’t tell Joey that Nathan had made him an offer as well, and that he was beginning to regret not taking it.

After a few days, Joey accepted that Sammy was gone and promoted Jack to the head of the music department. It was better that way, anyhow- Jack wasn’t so demanding, and let Joey have more run of the music room when he wanted it.

For the next decade, things went along as usual. The studio grew, Henry remained Joey’s finest and most hardworking artist, and Joey even began to look into some dark magic that could help him make his vision for the studio a reality. Joey was, however, beginning to feel increasingly alone in his vision. Henry had grown bitter and distant to him over the years, and then quit. It was disappointing, but not a surprise. It left Joey feeling rather empty in the realization of how little he’d lost. The loyal, invaluable partner he’d once had had turned into just another artist years ago.

Joey needed another person who truly understood his vision. Sadly, he didn’t know anyone that could have fit the bill.

And then he found her.

The place he’d found her had been a speakeasy during the prohibition- a hub of all sorts of illegal affairs. Joey had come here for booze and the occasional round of cocaine during the prohibition and had discovered magic that way. Now, the prohibition was over, but criminals still came to peddle their wares, and Joey, a frequent user of magic now, still came to supply himself with books and reagents that couldn’t be found anywhere else. It was a sleazy place- dirty, greasy, full of prostitutes and men who looked like they could rob you. So it didn’t surprise Joey when a woman- mid-twenties, curvaceous, and on the tall side- approached him while he was buying potions. He figured it was just a prostitute trying to find a customer.

“I need three of the generic restorative ones.. And a vial of clean animal blood, and a liter of chloroform, please.”

The woman next to him chuckled. “You know that restorative potions are horrendously marked up, right? And you could get the animal blood... from an animal.”

Looking at the woman for the first time, Joey realized two things. First, the nearly knee-length pink dress and grey leather jacket she was wearing looked far too new and expensive and a bit too modest to be a prostitute’s, and she looked awfully healthy and clean for one. Secondly, he recognized her from somewhere. Still, he wouldn’t let the woman embarrass him. “Well, yes. But I haven’t practiced making my own yet, and I don’t want to test the first few on myself! And I just so happen to have plenty of money for them.”

The woman finally made eye contact with him. Light grey eyes, Joey noted. “Really? So, you been into magic long, Mr…”

“Drew. Joey Drew. And not too long. My specialty is in the demonic, but I’m experimenting with a bit of everything. Trying to figure out what will work with my vision. Yourself? Actually, why don’t we have this conversation somewhere more pleasant.” Joey paid the man for the potions, and the two walked out of the dark alleyway and into the city lights.

“My specialty is potions. I brew my own. I also really like charms.”

Joey’s eyes went wide. “Charms? You criticize me for buying potions, and you buy charms? There’s no way of even knowing if they work!”

“Well, unlike you, I’m not working towards any grand vision. I think charms work. I think they make my life better. And that’s good enough for me. Honestly, some magic users forget that magic is meant to enhance life, not fill some kind of void in it. Heck, I could say the same of some artists.”

“Funny you should mention art. I’m an artist. And my life’s goal is to reflect life in art. It seems we have a similar view on life, don’t we? It’s just that I want to be the one to show it to other people. Say- would you like to see a bit of my vision tonight?”

“Sure!” Allison said with a smile.

Joey took her to his car and held the door open for her.

“Oh. A gentleman. And a rich one, it looks like!”

“Yes. I own one of the greatest animation studios in the world: Joey Drew Studios.”

Allison giggled. “I’m no cartoon expert, but if it’s one of the greatest in the world, then why haven’t I heard of it?”

“Well, it might not be the very best yet, but it will be! Especially once the project I’m about to show you takes off.”

“Great!” Joey could see the excitement in her eyes, and he loved it.

“And what do you do, Ms. Pendle? I feel like we’ve met.”

Allison’s face darkened a little. “Well... I used to be a Broadway performer. I quit. You see, I have an ugly history with cocaine, and some of my coworkers were getting me back into it. I knew I couldn’t stay without it ruining my health... so I didn’t. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, though.”

Joey could remember her now- a backup dancer in one of the plays he’d seen. He committed everything she’d said to memory, knowing it could be useful later on.

Before long, they were at the studio, and Joey showed her to the pedestal room.

“Wow. You got your entire staff to participate in your rituals? That’s amazing.”

“Just a few of them, actually. But yeah, a little power goes a long way when you’re dealing with magic. And this isn’t even half of it. Come. I assume you aren’t a vegetarian witch?”

“Well, I’ve never slaughtered an animal for magic, but I’m up for it so long as it’s not too often. It’s no different than meat, really.”

“Fair enough,” Joey said. Maybe it was stupid to trust this woman that he’d met this same night, but he got a good feeling about her. He just had to share everything with her. The elevator wasn’t romantic enough, so he took her to the ink machine, suspended with chains, and watched the amazement on her face as it lowered until its top was at floor level. Joey stepped onto the machine and pulled Allison along with him. He held her waist as the machine lowered until it hit the floor of the very basement.

“Wait a moment,” he said, before climbing down the machine and running to turn on the lights.

Allison’s heart was beating a million miles a minute looking at all the pentagrams on the floor, the supplies on the shelves, and the strange machinery. A small part of her was glad she’d packed a knife in her jacket pocket, especially given the human-sized iron cages. Mostly, though, she felt like she’d died and gone to magic-user heaven. Joey had thought she wouldn’t be scared off by this, and was more than happy to be proven correct.

“This is amazing!” Allison beamed. “What do you use it for?”

“Well… nothing good, yet. I’m trying to create life, but there’s only been failed attempts. Let you show you my best one.” Joey led her to a supply closet that only he had the keys for. The door opened to reveal a metal cage and little else. When Joey clicked on the lights, a mound of black sludge, maybe a foot and a half tall, made itself visible. A cartoonish mouth floated down about where an ear should be, and two black mounds that vaguely looked like pie-cut eyes rested at its base. “I don’t know what to do to improve results,” Joey admitted. “Ultimately, I want to bring my cartoons into the real world. But can you imagine me presenting this old thing on a stage?” Joey laughed. “Wouldn’t exactly have them cheering, now would it?”

“Hmm... well, it’s a long shot, but a while ago while I was traveling, I stayed with a witch for a while and learned the recipe for a special potion. I kind of... stole the recipe from her, so I don’t know all about how it works, but it’s had all kinds of effects on the substances I’ve used it in in the past. I once burned all my hair off by mixing it with shampoo! So, you wanna to see what happens when you mix it with ink?

“Why not?” Joey said. He was sure to hear an earfull from Thomas the next day about some mechanical nonsense, but at that moment, Joey didn’t care.

“Alright,” Allison said, digging out a small vial of clear liquid from her bag. “Where do I put this?”

Joey directed her to the insertion nozzle. Allison put in the substance. Joey gathered some film of Bendy and added it in as well. And then, Joey started up the machine. What came out was an abomination- a strange, humanoid creature made of ink, its spine and joints jutting out at sharp angles from its body. It had Bendy’s horns, his smile, and one of its gloves, but the similarities ended there. It looked around at its surroundings before beginning to wander off.

Allison yelped. “What do we do? I’m sorry!”

“Don’t be,” Joey said in an extremely calm voice. “Just be calm. Find an iron cage big enough and open it for me.”

Allison did as she was told, and Joey calmly approached the beast as it took in its surroundings. “Hey, there, buddy. Come with me. It’s okay.” He offered the beast his hand and led him towards the cage. He and Allison wrestled the creature into the cage and locked it. Joey sighed in relief. “That could have been ugly.”

“Yeah. That was amazing. But I’m sorry for causing it!”

They made eye contact. “Don’t be! That’s the closest I’ve ever come to making a functional toon! I mean, it still needs something... but thank you.” Joey ran his hand over her arm. “Allison. You can sing, right? You sang on Broadway?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been looking for a person who understood me- this side, the artistic side, the lust-for-life side- for years. Would you like to join my studio as a voice actress and help me with this grand project? Help me to do what no magician has done and create sentient life with me?”

“Yes! I’ve been looking for the next adventure since I quit Broadway!”

She hadn’t hesitated. This could only end well.

“Okay. Now, I’ll want you as a partner in crime and voice actress either way, but would you like to go out to dinner on Friday?”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Oh, well, pentagrams and demonic machines were one thing, but dinner? Now you’ve gone too far.” A pause. “I’m joking, Joey. Of course I will.” Dangerous just so happened to be Allison’s type, and she knew she could handle this little adventure if it turned sour.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter thirty one: sets of twins

October thirteenth had come about and Sam knew for a fact that Joey was having a blast overseas in Germany. She pictured him with a big cake courtesy of one of the large luxurious bakeries over there that specialized in making cakes, and she knew he was to head off to bed that evening with his belly full of it as well as the dinner he so well chose.

Meanwhile, the arrival of the orange and red leaves on all of the trees made her think of the last days in which she and Cliff were together, right around that time in fact. A year ago. A year ago she had lost Cliff to the northern darkness and he became the hunter in the shadows left behind the aurora borealis. The walks to and from school only made the memory of him far more potent: but it was Joey's birthday when the reality of it all settled over her. Metallica had ascended into a whole other world of their own, but Joey and Anthrax remained right by her, right within arms' reach, just like the colors that changed on all of the trees around her.

The red and orange like the feathers decorated upon Joey's headdress.

She pictured him out front there on the stage with a little party hat upon his head much like Alex's birthday party, or perhaps he would wear one of those inside of his Indian headdress during their performance of “Indians”. The only drawback she saw with it however was that his birthday took place right smack in the middle of the week. Add to this, Sam, Marla, and Belinda didn't have a three day weekend like they so assumed would happen with Columbus Day.

“Go to school anyways,” Joey told her over the phone on the Thursday night before that weekend. “Make all the great art you possibly can for Monday. We need that great art of yours—all the red feathers and the Iroquois lore. The world needs that great art of yours.”

He then cleared his throat and sang to her in the softest, most gentlest voice she had ever heard him sing. She lay in bed all the while as well, and so when he sang to her, it almost felt as though he was singing her to sleep. Indeed, she nestled down in bed and pulled the blankets up to her chin as she held the cordless phone up to her ear. She pictured him laying in bed as well, complete with a cup of Mexican hot chocolate next to him. She smiled when he crooned the words, “Oh, Samantha” in a near whisper.

“That was so sweet,” she told him afterwards.

“That's the song I sang for my audition into Anthrax,” he explained, “it's called 'Oh, Sherrie', by Steve Perry from Journey. I just changed it to Samantha to kinda give it to ya and whatnot.”

“Aw.”

He then cleared his throat. “So any word on that big ass monolithic ginormous project you've got coming up?” “Nothing yet,” she explained, “although I'm supposed to meet up with Bill next Friday afternoon and talk it over more. At least I hope to get to see him. He told me he's going to pop into one of my classes just to watch me, but he never told me when it's supposed to happen.”

“Well, damn.”

They fell into silence for a seconds and then she spoke again.

“You know, I think you can actually come with me out to California,” she pointed out, “like—you know, we don't have to do the long distance. I might have to ask him about it because the whole thing about it being about school and whatnot. I say this because that was the mistake Cliff and I made. He didn't want to leave the Bay Area and I didn't want to leave New York, either. He actually got kind of defensive about it at one point. I remember that was one of the last things he and I talked about before Metallica left for their tour and we never fully finished it, either.”

“Wow, that sounds like there was a rift between you two,” Joey noted.

“I wouldn't necessarily say that,” Sam confessed as she slipped one hand underneath her pillow, right under her head. “But it was definitely something we couldn't address further than that, though. Cliff was so home grown with the Bay Area that it almost feels like a betrayal to him that he was killed in Scandinavia, somewhere that wasn't his home.”

“And if I'm honest, I kinda am, too, but with upstate.” He then cleared his throat again. “Although—make no mistake, though, Sam. If we were a lot bigger than we are right now, like if Anthrax truly was about to become something huge, I would probably reconsider that.”

“So for you, it's not just feeling at home and at peace in upstate New York but it's a matter of money.”

“Right! Exactly. We are kinda earnin', but it's not really a lot, though. No idea why this is, either. But we're barely getting paid, though, even while being on tour. Anyways, I gotta mosey on outta here—rehearsal starts in like three minutes. Also before I forget. I should tell ya this: be on the lookout for postcards.”

“Postcards from you?”

“From me, from Frankie, from Charlie, from Danny, from the girls, all of us. We're gonna be sending ya stuff while we're over here in Europe. Also, another thing I should ask you—how's Scott doin'? Have you talked to him at all?”

“I haven't seen him, no,” Sam confessed. “Like weeks—not since you auditioned for the guitarist position. Although I'm thinking of going over to his place and at least checking in on him and his fiancée.”

“You ought to. On the flight over here, Frankie and I were talking and at one point, he goes, 'I wonder how Scott's been doing lately. We sure haven't heard from him in a long time.'”

Someone behind him interrupted him right then and there.

“What's that?” Joey called back and he held the phone away from his ear. The person said something.

“Okay,” he told them, and he brought the phone back. “Anyways, I gotta go. You sleep tight, alright?”

“Of course,” Sam said. “And you guys don't stay up too late.”

He chuckled at that. “Alright—good night, Sam I am. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

And they hung up at the same time. She lay there on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling above her, and she listened to the falling rain outside of her window.

But at some point, she drifted off to sleep without putting the cordless back. There was a dream in there at some point, but she had no idea as to what it exactly encapsulated, especially by the time she woke up and Marla was cooking something in the kitchen for the both of them.

Sam had hope that the Cherry Suicides would have their day on Halloween for their annual celebratory show. She had no idea as to where they were playing that night, either, but she hoped that they would have those sugar skulls with them again.

Indeed, on Columbus Day weekend, she sat down with her colored pencils and her journal. She thought of Joey and that big headdress of red and white feathers perched high on his head, as if it was a crown. The crown in lieu of a party hat, the crown for his ascension into his twenty seventh trip about the sun, and thus she drew his head and shoulders. Those thick luxurious curls down from his head in such flyaway fashion and that big cluster of feathers all the way down to the floor. That rich scarlet for the base and the orange and golden yellow for the power of the sun.

She thought about Belinda's wishes to take her into stained glass. Perhaps it could be something genuinely wonderful as she picked up the Prussian blue and burnt umber colored pencils for the shadows under Joey's eyes and all about his face.

She thought about the glass in question, in how it all seemed so much brighter and more colorful when in the sun. All the times of walking to and fro about that front hallway of the school, where the morning sun shone through the stained glass. If only there was a way to bring it all forth with mere colored pencils.

Indeed, she brought the burnt umber to an angle and she began shading in his skin, a tone ever so light about his face. By his nose and the point of his chin, she gave it another layer and spread it out. Followed by another and another, until there she had the darkest, fullest shade of that lush, earthy brown for his sun kissed skin. The blue, meanwhile, added a touch more depth, especially to the natural creases on his face, around his nose and the corners of his mouth and his dark lips.

If only there was a way in which she could show this drawing to Joey, and if only there was a way in which she could translate this very drawing over to the world of stained glass. She had faith in Belinda and her power of convincing, however the whole suggestion about bringing leather crafting to the school seemed to have fallen on deaf ears at that point: neither of them heard anything about it since Alex's birthday party.

It was right there that she had forgotten to ask Joey about the guitar strap she had given to him for his birthday, and how it was faring for him with the overseas crowds. She pictured him at the front of the stages, with the microphone before him and the guitar slung over his shoulder, high against his body as it should be with him. If there was anything he could have given Alex credit for, it had to be that. The whole thing between him and Alex almost no sense to her, even to that moment in time, it made no sense to her.

The day following Joey's birthday, a Wednesday afternoon and the only time Sam had any time to herself during that quarter given Marla's whole hectic schedule on her own as well as all that she had to do, she spotted a pair of cards in the mailbox downstairs, one light rosy pink and the other a butter yellow. The latter had with it a small lumpy envelope the size of a playing card.

She turned over the yellow card where she was met with a clear, crisp photograph of a castle in Germany. To be near a castle once again!

But then she turned it over again in order to read that messy scrawl in blue pen.

“Sam—

my wife and I are trusting you with this key to our apartment, seeing as we owe you the record player with Spreading.

I hope all is well back home right now! I wish you were here with us—if you loved England, you'll love Germany and Holland even more.

Love, Danny”

She turned her head back to the mailbox and she took out the envelope. Indeed, she felt something hard inside, and she knew that she had been given a chance to listen to the vinyl records she so wished to listen to, mainly Spreading the Disease and also Live at Eindhoven. She then turned to the pink postcard, which had a photograph of a cobblestone street somewhere in Amsterdam. But right in the midst of the cobblestones stood the Cherry Suicides, donned in black hats and red veils as if someone had taken the picture right before the show and one of them tacked it onto the card. She then turned it over to read.

“Sam—

do you remember that tape we asked you to make for us? Well, we got accepted into the new merger between Megaforce and the other label with it! A bootleg tape is now a live album thanks to your help. It's not our debut album, but it's something to start with with us. Because of it, we're happy to tell you that you're the first in line for this new record. The Cherry Suicides: from Rhode Island with love—live in Boston 1987, is the full title. Be on the lookout for it around Halloween, believe it or not.

Be on the lookout for a live album from Anthrax and Testament, too—although I'm sure you already know about the latter. I don't know if Eric told you this yet, but that album isn't even supposed to come out over there in States until next year, so consider yourself lucky, my lady! Anyways, there's all kinds of good stuff from all of us! Things are in fact beginning to look up, and the four of us in particular owe it all to you.

Morgan, Minerva, and Rosita all send their love, and as do I.

-Zelda”

She smiled at that and she held both cards to her chest, a pair of twin cards, from two people she held so close to her heart. She then made her way upstairs with those as well as that lumpy envelope that Dan had sent her, and she was eager to make her way over to his place all to listen to those vinyl records.

Again, a pair of twins, soon to be triplets with the Cherry Suicides' upcoming live album. How exciting! The girls finally found their way with a new record, and it happened to be that bootleg tape that Sam had made for them while they toured with Anthrax and Testament as well.

She almost stumbled her way into the apartment but she caught herself before Genie greeted her at the door. Once she set everything down on the couch, she reached down and pet her little black cat head. She squinted her eyes at the feeling and she treated Sam to a low purr, and she squatted down before her so she could better pet her.

If she was to leave for California with Bill, then she would have to leave Genie behind as well, and this cat always greeted her in particular whenever she came in through that door. She erected her tail but left a small hook at the top as she rubbed on her knees. She turned around and gazed up at her with those soft golden eyes and that purr from within her throat, and Sam continued to pet her head and her back before her knees began to ache from the squatting.

No sooner had she stood to her feet when the phone rang.

“Oh, goodness me,” she told Genie, and she bowed into the kitchen and fetched the phone on the wall. “Hello?”

“Hello, daughter of mine.” She recognized her mother's voice on the other end.

“Oh, hi, Mom! I got home from school just now. What's happening?”

“I have some good news and some bad news,” Esmé began.

“Good news first,” Sam told her.

“The good news is in this past summer, starting from May, I have taken up writing. I handed in a sample of a manuscript to a publishing house down in L.A and I'm waiting to hear back from them. Your mother just might become a published author soon.”

“Oh, my god, that's wonderful!” Sam waved her hand about before her face, and then she remembered. “Now what about the bad news?”

“The bad news is—your father and I might be splitting up,” she confessed in a low voice. Sam then brought that same hand to her mouth to keep herself from screaming, or puking. Esmé let out a low whistle but she never said anything after that. The silence was deafening all around them.

“Why?” Sam finally managed to choke out.

“He tells me that things are just not right anymore,” she explained, “and they haven't been, either. Even I will admit to that. and just so you know, I never mentioned the man whom I used to know to him once before. But the human intuition is incredible, though. He and I—we talked it over together just this morning—and ever since then I haven't been able to completely process it yet.” She sniffled and Sam held a hand to her chest.

“Oh my god,” she breathed out. To think that her parents had been together for so long at that point as well: it didn't even feel right to her.

“But just—let's keep it between you and me, though,” Esmé advised her. “Unless Marla is really genuinely curious about it. I just—I don't know how else to tell you about this, either, other than straight up over the phone. If you were closer to us, I may have told you sooner before and you may have witnessed it as well.”

“Well, Mom—if it's any comfort at all—I actually might be back out there next summer,” she sputtered.

“Really?” Esmé paused. “What for? What happened?”

“Yeah, my counselor told me that my senior project is taking place out there. Like he planned it ahead of time, out in California, and he told me it's supposed to start like next August. So my junior year will end and then he and I prepare on heading out that way. With this—with hearing this, the one and only pitfall I can think of and see out of that is I'll be away from my friends here.”

“And you've settled into New York City, too,” Esmé added, “you seem so at home there, more so than you do here on the West Coast. But at least your father and I will get to see you again. This is actually something I've disliked about you living so far away from home, if I'm honest. I miss having you around us—and I know Ruben does, too. We both miss you dearly.”

“The other thing about it is I dunno how long it'll be, either,” Sam continued.

“And you'll be far away from Joey, too,” said Esmé in a grim tone of voice.

“I'll be far from Joey, too,” she echoed her.

“But wait, how does he feel about going out West? Maybe he can join you and Bill while you're out here.”

“I dunno—he and I were actually talking about that the other night. It's kind of Cliff was so reluctant to move with me, but Joey's more concerned with money, though. And just like Cliff, he's born and raised here in New York—you know, the whole upstate area where he's from. It's such a homey area, like the direct opposite of New York City in my opinion. You know, New York City is where the world comes to play and figure things out. Upstate is where the world bypasses it because everyone else pitched a tent there. So—I don't really see it, to be completely honest with you, Mom.”

“And it's a grueling task, too,” Esmé added, “you know the struggle the three of us went through three years ago.”

“How could I forget,” Sam quipped. “I was so happy to finally just lay down in bed afterwards.”

“Your father and I were, too, when we were staying at the hotel. I mean, we love New York for sure, and I do especially—in fact—come to think of it, one of the things that's driving the two of us apart is my desire to be back East, closer to you.”

“Really?” Sam pressed her free hand to her hip. “Well, why didn't you say anything before?”

“Well, because your father undertook so much when we were moving you over there. When we got home, Ruben said, 'we're only going over to New York for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I mean no offense to Sam at all, but we seriously can't do this all the time.' He never said anything to you because he didn't know how you would react to it.”

And Sam also thought about the previous conversation they had had before, in which Ruben might not have been her father after all. Indeed, it would also explain as to why she hardly heard anything from him unless the holidays rolled about.

“My publisher is also based out of L.A., too,” Esmé continued. “To make a huge decision such as that, a big grueling move across the family such as that, to move three thousand miles away now would be so frivolous and ultimately fruitless, in my personal opinion.”

“And it just wouldn't make any sense on top of that, anyway,” Sam pointed.

“Right, with you possibly coming out come the summer time as well. It wouldn't be right to me to have you out here for something for school only to have to pick everything up and swap places with you.”

But the news of her parents separating left Sam yearning for something else, something different. She barely paid any attention to anything more that her mother talked about after that; instead she thought of her next drawing. By the time she and Esmé bode each other goodbye for now, she returned to the couch to fetch her things. The lovely feeling she had had before had disappeared with the realization of what happened.

Even though her mother told her not to speak with anyone about it, Marla needed to know about it, and Joey needed to know about it. Aurora had built a home of her own and she hadn't heard anything from her since Alex's birthday party when she made it about herself. Her own best friend and fellow California girl wasn't even around to know about this thing that could alter everything and the world in which Sam knew about from that point onward. Her own best friend and whom she believed was her confidant.

Marla was more trustworthy with the arrival of all of this.

And it was right there that the tears began to fall from her eyes. She sniffled and brushed one away from her right, and she opened her book bag for her journal once again. To the page that followed her birthday drawing to Joey. She tried to keep the tears at bay as she put the first strokes of graphite down on the heavy graphite. But they still streaked down her face as she gave the drawing some dark hair.

Herself as a young child.

She thought about going into her room with the journal, but she had no reason to do so when she had the couch all to herself. She wept for herself and for the fact that she was never returning to childhood. She was never returning to Cliff. Even though she had no siblings to count on, she did feel as though she missed something. There had to be something right next to her all the while, someone else right next to her. She looked over at Genie, who had curled up in her usual spot on the couch.

Her golden eyes closed of the part of the way but she stayed awake.

Careful not to startle her, Sam reached over and petted her head again. She pinched those eyes closed all the way, which in turn made more tears bleed out from Sam's eyes.

She thought about Alex, in how she met him when he was still a young boy in school. He was still a boy to her, but even from a moment's glance, she could tell that he had grown so much in these past three years. The past four years, from when Testament first began life from the suburbs of San Francisco.

Four years since they came to the fold as Legacy, and she was right there when they changed their name. And now she had gotten their very first live album: it awaited her in her bedroom as if it taunted her from the darkness.

A legacy in its own rite.

And she knew that she would be near them once again come the summer time. But she returned to the journal to make that drawing of herself as a little girl. Through her tears, she made more markings that collected into the shape of something new. She had no idea as to how he looked as a child himself, but she knew the little pearl of gray hadn't made its grand entrance yet. That thick jet black hair and those big deep eyes that seemed to swallow her whole, even from the grains of paper, even from the softness of childhood.

She thought about the hug he had given her at his birthday party. Soft like a young boy still.

And yet she couldn't bear the thought of leaving Joey behind. To leave him there in upstate New York to his own devices. But then again, he had that guitar with him, and he had all manner of friends still within range of him, and he had his band as well.

His band.

Scott burst into her mind then, as did Dan Lilker. They had started Anthrax themselves, and yet they both had departed from their places. By some dark magic, Anthrax had become Joey's band almost overnight. He was the heart and soul for sure, but he had come into the fold well after they had started and lifted off of the ground. It wasn't like Alex, who had come into the fold with Testament right after their start and then watched them go forth.

To think Joey had been inherited a whole band from Scott all because of something that he did and something that Scott had dismissed time and time again. Something about it made her squirm in her seat a bit.

Granted, Joey was her boyfriend, and she knew that no matter what happened with Anthrax or with him, that she had to stand behind him on it, something that she had picked up from being with Cliff. But nothing about his position in the band spoke to her about it being his band, however. A stranger in a strange land there when it pertained to him. She couldn't help but compare the whole experience with Testament, either, the other quintet that was still a quintet themselves.

Chuck stood on the stage with his microphone stand and played it like he would a guitar, but at least that was part of the whole deal with them. She hadn't seen him pick up a guitar from someone who was obviously the opposite of him and then go forth with it out of sheer spite. She could hope all she wanted with Joey, but he had to come to his senses about his interaction with Alex at some point in the future. It was only fair to him, and it was only fair to Joey himself.

But on the other hand, she recalled as to how miserable Joey was without a guitar at his helm. She wanted him to be away from the alcohol, away from the drugs. She wanted him to excel as the true genuine artist she knew he was meant to be, that he had tucked away all by the constraint of time itself. He had to continue on with the guitar, and he had to continue on with Anthrax, with them as a four piece rather than a massive quintet like Testament or even Death Angel.

But he also had to come back down to earth. The kindness was within him: she could feel it, and she did in fact feel it with him. To brush away the contradictions like she brushed away tears, and she could perhaps crack the code with him. To dilute his venom like she would with watercolor and paint with it upon her canvas for all the world to see, and so she could say that she had danced with Joey Belladonna and gave him art.

She brushed away more tears as she completed the remainder of the two children on the page before her, the drawing of herself and the drawing of Alex. Two twin children, even though they weren't even a little bit related to one another.

If only there was a way in which she could contact him and not through the fan club only. He had showed to her those fleeting moments, those little nuggets, those glimpses to what resided behind those deep eyes. But much like with Joey, therein resided something more that he wasn't showing her. There was more to Alex than she had given him credit for, and more than Joey had given him credit for.

She then raised her head from the journal and she glanced back at Genie, who had curled up into a tight bun on the top of the couch and went to sleep.

Marla wouldn't be home for at least another half an hour.

She peered out the door to the porch, at the buildings across the street and the sliver of harbor beyond that. So much to New York she hadn't seen yet, and so much she hadn't done yet, but she wanted to do it all right then and there. She could feel the clock ticking, the end of the day coming. The end was upon her, just like how Cliff said it would be when he set out for the last time into Sweden. Beyond the drapes, beyond the veil, beyond the darkness.

To live in the great unknown and only find herself in a single small pinprick of it, but something else called her back. Even though she had pitched the tent herself there in Hell's Kitchen with Marla, the past called her back. The past to make peace with the present and ultimately the future.

Maybe it was in fact time to head on back home after all, but then again she had so much at her every whim and desire. There was no way she could leave now, but she also had to leave. To go with Bill to California and to be there for her mother and her father both as they sorted things out between them, and to find out more of the secrets they had kept from her all these years. Maybe it was time to head on back home, to be closer to her parents.

To be closer to the other side of the scene.

To be closer to Cliff again.

[mwolf0epsilon]

Sammy Joey and Norman explores a haunted location and things get crazy?

Summary: They say children can sense the supernatural almost as effectively as animals can. In Norman's case he's not a child, far from it, but he can recognize the familiar unsettling feeling of malicious intent hanging in the stale air of the theater... The same kind that clung to his childhood home since he could remember.

Some thoughts I had about the world of BatIM. Short but sweet is the way to go sometimes.

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[[MORE]]

     It took a couple of months for Joey to get bold with his business investments after Henry left. A full set of months of both the music director and projectionist fretting over a lot of the workload, since the new hires were often left without much direction whenever Drew holed himself somewhere to plot. Then one day the tiny studio was bustling with activity, art department in full swing working on comics and cartoons, and that devil of a man was talking about expansion.

Norman had immediately seen that what could follow such plans could only be a disaster waiting to happen, while Sammy and Wally were more concerned with the time they'd be spending cleaning after their boss's overly ambitious plans.

The studio was a fairly small building adjacent to an abandoned theater that had once been a popular spot. When shit hit the proverbial fan, however, and the economy collapsed... Well, a lot of businesses took a terrible hit.

The once proud theater had been reduced to an empty husk in need of both renovations and an owner that knew what to do with it. And Mr. Joey Drew thought himself that sort of gentleman. Far from it, Norman knew, but who was he but the projector repairman? A nimble set of hands and occasionally a heavy labourer?

"Think of all the space." Joey insisted. "The studio will need a lot more people to reach success, and surely we'd need space for them to work in."

"Can't argue with that, but I'm just one guy..." Wally had interjected. "How am I supposed to clean two whole buildings in a day?"

"You'll manage, and you'll get paid double for it."

"What about me? Am I going to be thrown into some office to write and record an entire studio's worth of silly songs?" Sammy asked.

"You'll have your own department, with a band at your beck and call, and a lyricist to spiffy up your tunes with some pretty words to play on the radio."

"And myself? What could yous go an' offer me t'butter up such a deal?" Norman knew he'd already lost this executive decision, but he liked to see how far he could extend Joey's generosity.

"A whole closet, full of projectors, spare bulbs and tools, rather than one burnt rag to work with. Some thick gloves in your size, to ensure you don't end up with fried fingers as often."

In the end, none could really argue with Drew, and neither of the three could help but fall into the temptation of such improvements to their working conditions.

So really, when Norman was invited to look at the theater with Joey and Sammy, he knew immediately that their hubris would bring them nothing but just desserts. Because something was definitely off about the damn thing.

They say children can sense the supernatural almost as effectively as animals can. In Norman's case he's not a child, far from it, but he can recognize the familiar unsettling feeling of malicious intent hanging in the stale air of the theater... The same kind that clung to his childhood home since he could remember.

His Nanna told him once, long ago, that Poppop hadn't moved on after he'd been put down. He'd remained, sitting in front of his beloved piano just... Watching. What exactly, she did not know. The piano? The household? The wife who'd relented to his merciful request?

Nanna had taken to appeasing him gently, loving a presence that felt suffocating and cruel to Norman, but that wished her no ill will. The same could not be said for the rest of the family.

Many nights the children awoke to an apparition of a large man with empty eyes trying to choke the air out of them. Many nights he crawled into his patents' bed, wailing and aching, with a bruised neck and terror in his heart.

In the morning Nanna would be seated at the piano, face hidden in her hands, begging quietly for her husband not to kill the little ones. Norman never understood how she could keep hurting herself by appealing to the inexistent good nature of something so blatantly apathetic.

The theater might not feel as cold and calculative as what he'd come to know as Poppop's hateful glare, but the projectionist could feel several disembodied eyes on them as soon as they entered. The sadness and desperation of their gaze freezing the blood in his veins.

He'd glanced at Sammy, observing the smaller man break into a cold sweat and going so far to cross himself and utter silent prayer when he thought no one was watching. The drop in temperature must have been noticeable if he could sense something off just as acutely as Norman himself.

Joey, however, did not seem to notice. If anything, he took in the decrepit sights and his face lit up with a smile.

"It's perfect."

They were doomed from the very start.

-

The Projectionist's nightmares were bothersome whenever it fell asleep. Often nothing more than visions of needless violence and fear that distressed it to the point it avoided nodding off as often as possible.

But, sometimes, there were stranger ones that it couldn't quite understand. Dreams where a tall man with a pickaxe lodged in his left eye stared at it with a certain interest.

There was an older lady too, one that looked at it with pity, and that told it to wake up and move, before the myriad of spirits took it to the pits of hell to suffer some more.

The Projectionist would wake up, urged to move, and just barely escape the grasping hands of the Ink that were trying to pull it down into the well of screaming voices.

The two people in its dreams would fade into the back of its mind, but certain sensations would bring them back.

Terror and rage evoking the figure of the man with one hateful eye, the one that looked to want to be anywhere but there. Peace and comfort reminding it of the woman with the concerned sad eyes and loving voice, the one that would sometimes put a hand to the face of the projector without so much as a hint of fear.

In a haunted studio, it was only fair that ghosts fought other ghosts to ensure the soul of a fragmented family member had the chance to one day pass on... Not that a beast like the Projectionist had the capacity to understand this.

If anything, it was more clueless to the paranormal than the Prophet that still crossed himself instinctively whenever the pipes cried too loudly. It simply liked the dreams that didn't make it want to cry, the ones with the nice lady that made it feel like a child cradled safely against a warm bussom during a stormy night.

Outside of this cyclical hell, their tormentor remained oblivious to what he'd wrought upon others long before he'd thrown them into the machine. Not once associating the disastrous rebellion of his own alchemical concoction with the influences of the other side. For all that Joey Drew believes in higher powers, he did not believe in ghosts...

[adobe-outdesign]

The Draw of the Pipes

The ink is not alive, there are not voices coming from the newly-installed pipe in his office, and Grant Cohen is not crazy. At least, that’s what he tells himself.

Loosely based off of the DCTL lore, but modified to play nicer with canon.

(AO3 link here.

TWs: Unreality, suicidal idealization, accidental self harm, body horror, and some mild/unintentional ableism from some characters. This is a fic about someone with depression losing their mind, so there’s a lot of talk about mental health related issues. Approach with caution if these themes may bother you.)

__________________________________

Distribution fees, $9,842.31. Marketing and publicity, $10,372.12. Special projects, $64,921.98...

The door opens.

Grant sighs, setting his pen down neatly at the edge of the paper. “Mr. Connor, please knock before you enter. I’m in the middle of tallying this year’s revenue and I can’t afford any distractions.” And for that matter, neither could Joey.

“Sorry. Just came in to tell you you can move back into your office now.” The taller man leans against the frame of the door, removing his ink-stained gloves. “The pipe’s in place. We’ll need to put the wall back later, but it might be a while at this rate.”

Grant presses his hands against his temples, trying to fight off his incoming headache. “Remind me again why we’re wasting money doing this when we can barely afford to pay our taxes this year.”

Thomas shrugs. “I don’t ask questions, I just do the work.”

“I know. I was being rhetorical, see.” Of course it was Joey’s fault. When wasn’t it?

Grant stands up from his temporary desk, silently rounding up papers and jogging them into a neat pile before following the mechanic back to his usual office. He nearly winces as he enters the room, eyes going straight to the mess that the construction had left behind.

“You couldn’t have cleaned after yourself a little?” The entire back wall had been torn down, bits of drywall scattered about on the floor, with a massive pipe filled with black ink set back into the cavity. “Garish” would’ve been the nicest word he could use to describe it.

“No point when we have to reconstruct the entire damn wall again anyway.”

Grant just shakes his head, setting the receipts down on his desk. “I guess.” Maybe it would seem less intrusive if he just didn’t look at it.

Thomas turns to leave and then stops, standing in the doorway. ���By the way, I should warn you that you shouldn’t get too close to the pipe. High ink pressure, exposed wall studs, that kind of thing. Could be dangerous.”

“I’m aware. I’ve already had to pay off several lawsuits from employees getting injured by exploding pipes.” He doesn’t mean for it to sound accusatory, but it probably did anyway.

“I already sent out a memo to the office telling everyone to stay out of the utility shafts. Nothing else I can do.” He pulls back on his gloves. “There’s a shut-off valve back by the right side, behind the drywall. You can use that to stop any leaks. Or refill your pens. But don’t-” Thomas pauses, looking back at the missing wall, as if there was something else he wanted to say. “Just don’t get too close to it unless you need to, all right?”

So am I supposed to touch it or not? Grant just shakes his head, too exhausted to discuss exactly what the mechanic meant by that. “Trust me, I have no intention to go anywhere near it,” he finally states.

Thomas nods, finally leaving, and Grant turns his attention back to the papers on his desk. He felt like something had been off about the conversation, but he didn’t realize what it was until later.

Not once during the entire conversation did Thomas look him in the eye.

__________________________________

Someone is knocking at the door, and it’s not making his headache any less painful.

“Are you still working?” someone asks, and he recognizes the voice of David, one of their auditors.

“I’m always working. You can come in,” he adds as an afterthought. David swings the door open with a bit more force than necessary, jacket already draped over one arm.

“Me and the fellas are headin’ over to Verdi’s to unwind,” he explains, leaning his arm against the back of Grant’s chair as he speaks. “You should come with! Bet they’ll be a lotta cute dames there.”

Grant attempts a thin smile, though it probably looked like more of a grimace with how much his head hurt. “David, I just got a divorce.”

“What do you mean, just? That was eight years ago!”

He ignores that statement but considers the offer for a moment. Going out for a drink certainly would be nice. Forgot all their financial problems for a bit, forget his headache...

“That doesn’t matter. Anyway, I need to stay here. I have to get these claims down to insurance by tomorrow afternoon or else we’ll all be in trouble.” In reality, he didn’t want to go because the last time he went out drinking he had ended up completely bent and crying into the arms of Toby, their paymaster. The man had acted sympathetic enough at the time, but Grant hadn’t been able to look him in the eye since.

“Your call. But hey, if you change your mind you know where to find us, okay?” David throws his jacket over his shoulder and leaves as quickly as he came in.

Time passes. Grant listens to the Bendy-shaped clock on the wall as it ticks down the minutes. God, he hated that clock. Joey had given it to him as a ten-year work anniversary present and had presented it as if it was a big deal, when in reality Grant was sure he had walked down to Heavenly Toys five minutes before to pick it up. Now it swings back and forth idly, as if mocking him.

Tick, tick, tick...

His writing was getting a lot lighter.

Grant leans back in his chair, looking at the pipe for the first time since he had fully moved back into his office. Thomas had said he use it for refills, but he had also said to stay away from it. Which one was it?

He studies it for another moment, contemplating and flipping his pen between his fingers, before sighing and getting up. If the damn pipe was going to be in his office, the least it could do was save him a trip up to the Art Department.

The pipe makes a strange groaning sound and he stops, remembering the multiple claims they had filed over the last few months regarding pipes exploding, but nothing else happens. It was just the glass creaking, he scolds himself.

He turns the shut-off valve slowly, and a smooth stream of jet-black ink flows from the nozzle and into the well in his hand. Grant returns to his desk, unscrewing the fountain pen. It was a bit of a hassle to refill it, but it was worth the effort - it had been a bar mitzvah gift years ago, and it was a finer pen than any others he had used over the years. He dips it into the well, twisting the end to draw the ink up into it, then screws it back together.

He takes out a handkerchief to blot off the top and somehow, while turning it around, stabs himself with it.

“Son of a bitch,” he breathes, holding his now-bleeding hand. He had refilled this pen hundreds of times before and had never managed to hurt himself with it. He wasn’t even sure how he had managed to do that.

He gently blots away the spot of blood, revealing a tiny puncture wound with a bit of black under the skin from where the tip of the pen had struck him. Grant shakes his head, annoyed at managing to injure himself while doing something so mundane, and goes back to his writing.

He had never written with ink that flowed so nicely, or looked so dark.

__________________________________

Grant swore his headache was getting worse, and the knocking at the door isn’t helping.

“Come in,” he calls out, lifting his hands from his head. The door opens a crack and in steps their file clerk, a timid young man in a cardigan holding a stack of reports.

“Your, uh, secretary told me you could take for a minute.”

“Yes.” He waits for a moment, but the man doesn’t seem eager to speak. “Well, go on. I don’t have all day. I have a meeting in 5.”

The man startles, like he hadn’t been expecting him to speak. “Uh, right. On these papers, sir, I think you got one of the numbers wrong?”

“What? Here, hand it over.” Grant briskly takes the sheet and sets it down, using his pen as a guide as he mentally calculates. $4,592 plus $319 equals $4911, that plus another $6,793 was $11,704, and that plus another $211 was-

$11,915. Not $11,825, as he had written down on the sheet.

“I’m- No, I’m sorry, that’s wrong.” He shakes his head and crosses out the number, recalculating the rest of the amounts quickly, the corrections looking bold and black compared to the rest of the ink on the page. He hands it back to the man. “Thank you for catching that.”

The younger man mumbles something about it being no problem and quickly darts out. Grant stares at the papers scattered about on his desk, head pounding.

He had worked at Joey Drew Studios for ten years, and had spent another 15 working in the finance business. He had never gotten a number wrong before.

__________________________________

“I’m not happy, Grant. Want to know why?”

Joey stands beside him, studying the “work hard, work happy” poster above his desk, which had partially fallen down at some point. The fact that he nearly had a foot and a half of height over Grant was intimidating enough, and sitting down only made the difference feel more extreme.

“Why?” he asks, not that he really cared but because he knew that that was what Joey expected him to say.

“Some people in the studio are starting to talk as if we’re in some kind of financial trouble! And they say they got that information from you!”

“Mister Drew, they were in overpay,” he explains patiently, scratching the wound on his hand. “I had to explain to them why we couldn’t provide them a check this week-”

“DAMMIT, THIS ISN’T ABOUT THAT!” Joey suddenly yells, slamming his hands down on the desk. Grant was very, very used to Joey’s sudden turns of mood, but somehow the sudden noise still manages to make him jump.

Joey takes a deep breath and is instantly back to his cheerful self, like flipping a light switch. “When people think there are problems, they start to get worried! And when people get worried, they start to leave! And if you don’t want to join them, you’ll stop talking about it. Got it?”

“I- Yes,” he breathes, looking down at his desk. Joey slaps him across the back, which was probably meant to be a friendly gesture but instead feels more like he just got hit.

“Good man! And make sure to make those Bendyland payments soon. Bertie won’t get off my back about it!” Joey chirps. He disappears out the door before Grant has a chance to object.

Well, it was official. His headache had been upgraded to a full-on migraine.

__________________________________

“I’ve told him before that we can’t afford to keep spending money like this. But he won’t listen to me, so there’s nothing I can do except cut the budget to other departments. And then that makes everyone blame me, see, even though I’m just trying to make sure we don’t all go bankrupt and end up out on the street.” Grant leans back in his chair, taking a drag off his cigarette. He didn’t normally smoke much, but right now he needs something to take the edge off. “And this migraine isn’t helping anything either.”

"Maybe you should take a break, sir. When was the last time you took any days off?” His secretary didn’t really need to sit there and listen to him, but she always did regardless. He appreciated it more than he tended to admit.

Grant sets down the cigarette in his tray, rubbing at his eyes. Why was he always so tired anymore? “I don’t have any more vacation days, if that’s what you mean. Used them all earlier in the year.”

“What about sick days?”

He scratches at the spot on his hand where he had stabbed himself absentmindedly. Was it just him, or was it bigger than it was initially? “I’m not sick, I’m just tired. Besides, I used all of my sick days up already.” He wouldn’t admit it, but most of those days had been spent on times where he physically couldn’t bring himself to get up out of bed. “And I can’t afford to take any unpaid ti-”

A thin, shrill scream cuts through the air, nearly causing him to double over in pain from his migraine. It was terrified and loud, like it had come from somewhere in the room with them. He jumps up from his desk - then stops, looking at Carol, who hadn’t budged an inch.

“What the hell was that?”

“What was what, sir?” She straightens her glasses, black curls bobbing as she looks around in confusion.

“The- What, you didn’t hear it?” No, she had to have heard it. It was so loud...

 She walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder, redirecting him to his desk. “Try to take a break and relax, Mr. Cohen. All of this stress isn’t good for you.” She says it kindly enough but there’s an edge to her voice, like she was concerned, or possibly even scared.

It was just stress. Of course.

__________________________________

At first, Grant thinks it’s an error. As much as he hated to admit it, he had been miscalculating things a lot recently, or maybe there was just an extra investment made at some point that he forgot to account for. He doesn’t start to seriously consider the debt a possibility until he recaculates everything, and even then he tries to convince himself there’s an alternate explanation, even though he knows it’s a lie. He stares at the papers in front of him.

$48,128 short.

Grant checks the numbers, checks them again, over and over until his vision is blurry and his head is pounding harder than usual. He may have made a mistake earlier, but not now. Between the overdue Bendyland payments, the taxes they still owed, and the massive amounts of money Joey had spent on that damn Machine, there wasn’t even close to enough money to possibly cover everything.

He scratches at the ink on his hand again, which removes the scab that had formed there. Grant was certain now he wasn’t imaging the stain getting worse - it had progressed from a small barely-noticeable spot into an ugly black mark about the size of a quarter.

As Grant stares at the final calculations he scratches at the spot more aggressively, digging his nails into it as hard as he can as he thinks about getting fired, about what would happen when Joey found out. He can feel the panic attack coming on but he can’t do anything other than hold onto the table for support. He’s sweating, hyperventilating, his chest hurts, his vision is swimming, it’s so loud-

1-2-3-4. He forces himself to breathe deeply, leaning back to stare at the ceiling, trying to think about anything but the debt. Slowly, the attack passes, and the noise that he had been hearing slowly dims and then disappears. He couldn’t afford a panic attack, not now. What he needed was a plan, something to tell Joey so he might not fire him on the spot. They could file a bankruptcy claim and see if they could win back enough in the settlement to pay off their investments, maybe try to save at least the animation department and work up from there...

But first, he’d have to tell Joey.

He continues to stare at the ceiling, listening to the clock tick on the wall.

__________________________________

One thing he had learned since he started working at Joey Drew studios was that everything was his fault.

Not literally, of course. His job was simply to budget the numbers as best he could and advise Joey on how to invest his money, which he never paid attention to anyway. No, it was the way everyone else perceived things that made him a scapegoat. If someone got an overpay notice and his name was at the top of it, they would blame him, simple as that.

That’s not to say everyone did. His fellow accountants knew he was just the guy trying to keep the company afloat. Some of the department heads understood as well, especially the ones who he had already spoken to, but even their sympathies dried up when the budget cuts started happening.

Grant leaves his office as little as possible, only darting out to use the bathroom or to grab his lunch. It’s still not enough to hide him from catching the angry expressions and whispered conversations in the break room.

“Company will go under any day now...”

“Finances slashed our entire department’s budget in half, yet we’re still expected to produce the same amount of toys! How do they think that’s even possible?...”

“I’ve been in overpay for over two weeks! I’m about to go down to Finances and strangle that Cohen guy myself, I tell you...”

He wanted to scream at everyone, tell them that he couldn’t do anything about the budget except tell Joey not to spend so much and that money didn’t grow on trees, and if it was up to him he’d give everyone a month’s worth of paid vacation and a raise! But he couldn’t do any of those things, so he just spends his time hiding in his office, waiting for the day to be over.

He was tired. He could barely sum up the energy to make something to eat - his last meal had been a piece of slightly stale bread from the fridge. He couldn’t bring himself to have any water, either. For some reason the thought of trying to drink it repulsed him.

He has so many meetings anymore. Angry face after angry face, demanding to know where their last paycheck was or why they had been let go due to downsizing or why they couldn’t hire any new help. All he can do is explain as patiently as possible that there’s nothing the Finance Department can do.

They think he looks terrible, he can tell just by looking at their expressions when they walk in. He spends all day sleeping, yet the constant nightmares keep him restless, jolting him awake. The one where he melted alive, that was a common one. The one where millions of finance reports pile up on his desk and cut him open when he tried to touch them, that was another. And of course there was the most common one, the one with the strange demon creature with overly long arms that either ripped him apart or dragged him under a pool of ink, depending on the dream.

“Why can’t you do anything about this?”

His head hurts, and he’s so, so tired.

__________________________________

Grant studies the memo in front of him. It was some sort of mandatory form to be filled out by all employees, and when he had first got it he had set it aside, figuring it was a standard evaluation form or something. It was only upon actually reading it did he realize how strange some of the questions are. For every straightforward question asking about how their experience in the office could be improved, there was a question about how often they worked late or how many family members they had.

Who is your favorite Bendy character and why? Choose from Bendy, Boris, Alice, or the Butcher Gang. Grant just shakes his head, wondering if Joey had finally lost it. Still, the question was marked as mandatory.

He tries to think back to the cartoons he’s seen. Despite working in the studio, he rarely saw the finished products they produced - the only time he bothered to watch them was when they were screened for the entire studio after completion. They were amusing enough, he supposed.

Grant rolls his pen between his fingers as he thinks. Finally he writes down “The little spider fellow. He’s charming in a way.” He resists the urge to write “Why are you making us fill this out?” under the comment section and instead folds it up, setting it neatly on his desk so he can drop it in the mail boxes on the way out.

As he sets the memo aside he notices that his injured hand looks worse than it did earlier. He holds his wrist, inspecting it under the dull glow of his desk lamp. The black area had gone from a tiny pinprick to a large black splotch covering most of his palm. It didn’t hurt, but it did feel slightly numb and cold to the touch.

Maybe it was infected. Could infections cause headaches? That would explain some things. He didn’t know much about medical care, but he did know that infections should be drained and cleaned thoroughly to make sure they healed correctly. 

He digs around in his desk, retrieving a letter opener from one of the drawers. It was one of the nice ones, with a carved wooden handle and a long pointed metal top. Almost more of a knife than a letter opener, really.

Grant takes out his handkerchief and lays it to the side of the desk. Cut open near the most infected part, drain any puss, and then wash and bandage the wound. Easy.

He selects a spot slightly above his palm and gently slides the metal point into the skin, wincing at the pain. He wriggles it a bit to make sure the opening is big enough, then sets down the letter opener and squeezes gently.

There is no puss, or any sign of an infection. What there is is a lot of blood. And then he realizes that his hand isn’t black, and it never had been - the wound was still a tiny pinprick in the center of his hand. What there was was now a much larger-than-intended cut on his palm, bleeding profusely.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters, pressing the handkerchief against the spot. It’s soaked through within seconds and he quickly pulls off his neck tie, wrapping it tightly around the wound. Stupid, stupid. What the hell was he thinking?

Grant darts out of his office and takes the back way to the restrooms, keeping his head low and his hand close to his chest to avoid any questions from onlookers. He carefully unwraps his hand as he slips into the men’s room, and for one terrified second he wonders if the bleeding will actually stop. He breathes a sigh of relief as he unwraps the blood-stained tie, revealing that the wound had clotted and dried.

He washes the area carefully, then splashes some cold water on his face. The previous injury was still just a tiny speck in the middle of his palm.

It was just a hallucination, he reassures himself, rubbing his face with a hand towel. He stares at his own tired eyes in the mirror.

No, only crazy people had hallucinations.

And he certainly wasn’t crazy.

__________________________________

Grant had long since given up on trying to get Joey to meet with him by asking him directly, as it was becoming increasingly obvious that the man was just flat-out ignoring him. He had instead tried sending a memo to his secretary, asking her to slot him in as soon as possible. Apparently that had worked, as Joey had unexpectedly barged into his office that morning, slamming the door open so hard Grant was almost surprised that it didn’t fall right off its hinges.

“All right, all right, I’m here. What do you want?” he demands, quickly brushing out his suit. He looked disheveled, and there was ink splattered haphazardly on his hands and face. “For all of your ‘time is money’ talk you sure do like wasting mine, Cohen!”

This was not good. Joey didn’t take bad news well when he was in a good mood - trying to talk to him about the debt when he was already irritated was sure to end badly. “Mister Drew, it’s about our current budget-”

“Hmm? The budget?” Joey licks his finger and rubs at one of the spots at his hand, not looking at the accountant. “I told you, just pull the money from the investors!”

This would be easier if it didn’t feel like someone was pounding a stake into his head. “Mister Drew, as I explained in my earlier memo we don’t have enough funds from the investors to-”

“Isn’t it your job to handle the damn budget? Pull the funds from Heavenly Toys, I don’t care! Just make it work!”

“You see, we can’t cut funding to the Toy Department because-”

“It’s always the same with you! Complaining about taxes and budget cuts and everything else under the sun! Stop dragging me all the way down here and do your goddamn j-!”

“WE DON’T HAVE ANY MORE GODDAMN FUNDS!” Grant screams, standing up from his chair so fast that it crashes back onto the floorboards. He stands there, breathing heavily as Joey stares at him.

He had worked at the studio for ten years. He almost never yelled at anyone, as he considered it unprofessional, unnecessary.

And he sure as hell didn’t yell at Joey Drew.

“I’m sorry,” Grant mutters, slinking down to avoid the taller man’s gaze. Joey was at least looking at him now - really looking at him, like he was just now noticing how terrible he looked, or the ink splotch that once again seemed to be covering his palm.

“No, go on.” He can’t read Joey’s expression.

Grant takes a deep breath. He had mentally rehearsed what he needed to say dozens of times, but his outburst had left him struggling to remember any of it. “We can’t pull funds from the Toy Department because there are no more funds, Mister Drew.” He pulls the piece of paper with the damning final calculations on it and holds it out to Joey, who grabs it with enough force to crumple it. “Couldn’t even cover it if I fudged the numbers.”

Joey remains silent, looking over the sheet. Grant clears his throat. “The best thing to do would be to file for bankruptcy. If we aim for a Chapter 7 case, we could have exemptions cover the debt, so we’d be able to keep the studio’s property. And it takes less time to complete than a Chapter 13 case, see.”

The other man rises from his chair, sliding the now-wrinkled calculations back onto Grant’s desk. He puts his hand on the shorter man’s shoulder, digging his fingernails into his sleeve. “How did this happen, Grant?”

Grant was used to Joey screaming at him. He could handle Joey screaming at him. This weird pseudo-calmness was not something he was used to. “I tried to warn you, Mister Drew. About the overspending-”

He stops speaking as Joey puts more pressure on his shoulder, making him wince. “You see, I’m not very fond of people letting other people steal from me.”

This conversation was not going at all like he expected it to, and the sudden twists were catching him off guard. “What? Mister Drew, I didn’t-”

Another squeeze on his shoulder cuts him off. “Oh, but you did! If I put someone in charge of watching my house while I’m gone, and they let someone walk off with my $3,000 Kandinsky, whose fault is it that my painting is gone?”

He leans down close to Grant, close enough that he can smell the aftershave he put on this morning. “Fix. It.”

Joey stands up and slams the door so hard on his way out that it sends that godforsaken Bendy clock smashing onto the floor, breaking it into a million tiny pieces.

__________________________________

“Be quiet,” Grant insists, even though logically he knows there’s no one else in the room with him. He can hear all kinds of noises though - people screaming, crying, whispering so quietly he wasn’t even sure there was any whispering at all. He struggles to focus on the typewriter in front of him, the words on the page blurring over.

“Be quiet!” he snaps at no one, and the noise seems to quiet down a little. He eyes the pipe on the back wall warily. It sounded as if the noise was coming from-

No, that was crazy people talk. There were no voices - he was just overstressed and tired. Grant takes a moment to rub at his tired eyes before turning his attention back to the typewriter.

We regret to inform you that Joey Drew Studios is going to be significantly downsizing within the next few months... 

His head feels like it’ll split apart completely if he doesn’t press his hands against it. Does the wording of this memo even matter? Everyone already hated him; it’s not like breaking the news that they’d all be out of a job soon would somehow make them change their opinions.

He turns his attention back to the pipe. The pipe... ever since that damn pipe had been installed he had been having these headaches, hearing the voices. But that didn’t make sense, did it? It was just a pipe full of ink.

“Stop it,” he hisses, one hand still pressed against his head. He uses his other hand to wipe away the sweat dripping from his brow as he stares down the pipe, as if expecting it to respond somehow.

The whispering... he can almost make out words, if he pays close enough attention. Something inside of him is pulling him towards the pipe, calling to him. He sets his head on the back of the chair, and as he does so he notices that his entire hand is black now-

Get outside. Get some air. Grant stands up unsteadily, knocking the chair over again and nearly tripping over its legs. The room swims unsteadily around him and there’s ink dripping down from the ceiling, from the walls...

The floor rises up to meet him and he grabs the trashcan from under his desk at the last second, retching into it. He takes a few deep breaths, trying to get rid of the burning sensation in his mouth as he opens his eyes again.

Ink.

There’s ink splattered over the inside of the trashcan, dripping from the crumpled papers inside and splashed up onto the metal edges. He wipes off his mouth and there’s more ink on the back of his hand, dripping onto his clothes. He can taste the saltiness of it in his mouth-

He might have screamed - he didn’t remember. Someone was grabbing him, dragging him away from the floor...

__________________________________

Grant wakes up slowly, waiting a moment for his eyes to focus. There’s wooden boards composing the ceiling above him. Still in the studio, then.

“Where am I?” he manages to croak. His voice is sore and his whole body aches. There’s something soft under him. A cot, maybe. A hand is holding out a wet towel and he takes it, pressing it against his head as he lies back down.

“You’re in the infirmary,” a voice he doesn’t recognize explains. “Your secretary brought you down. You have a fever.”

A fever. That was all?

He closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

__________________________________

Grant spends the next two days lying at home in a confused, feverous haze. He can’t tell if what he’s seeing are hallucinations or fever dreams, if he’s awake or asleep. One minute there would be ink dripping from the walls; in another there would be a strange looking demon in the corner of the room. The pan he had dragged in by the bed yielded no more ink, just water and stomach acid. You’re not crazy, he reminds himself, staring at his mostly-black hand. You’re just seeing things because of the fever. The sickness was comforting, in a weird way, just because it gave him an excuse.

By the third day the fever has broken, and he checks the thermometer just to be sure. It yields a normal temperature, but instead of getting up continues to lie in his bed, staring up at the moulding on the ceiling. Part of him feels disappointed that he didn’t die from the illness, and yet another part feels guilty for thinking that at all.

The very idea of going back to work is overwhelming - even the idea of taking a shower feels like too much right now. But this was unpaid sick time, and he couldn’t afford any more of it. Skip the shower, he reasons, managing to sit upright. He manages a quick change of clothes - an undershirt and a vest, but forsaking his usual tie and sleeve garters. He doesn’t dare look at himself in the mirror.

Grant barely makes eye contact with Carol, just mumbling an apology for scaring her as he slinks back to his office. He eyes the trashcan warily, but Wally must have taken out the garbage since then, as there’s a fresh bag in place of the old one. He sits down, straightening the papers on his desk. There wasn’t any ink to begin with, he scolds himself, shuffling through finance reports and several statements from the IRS. Something dark catches his eye and he starts moving papers aside, sliding the page out from underneath the stack.

It was the jet-black ink from his pen, certainly, and it’s his handwriting. He can even pick out a few familiar sounding words from the scratchy jumble of words - “taxes”, “48,128 short”, “time is money”. The pen was pressed down so hard in some areas that it had torn straight through the paper. But he didn’t write it. He didn’t remember writing it.

Grant abruptly crumples the piece of paper and throws it into the trash can, pulse pounding. He forces himself to take a few deep breaths. I must have written that when I was ill, he rationalizes, but he can’t shake the uneasy feeling settling around his shoulders.

He leafs through the rest of the papers with a sense of dread, but there’s nothing but bankruptcy forms.

__________________________________

Grant hadn’t noticed it with everything else going on, but his headache had dulled considerably when he was resting at home. Now it was back in full force, and the ticking of the clock only seems to aggravate it.

He glances at it to check the time, only to remember with a start that it had broken permanently when Joey had slammed the door earlier. He shakes his head, combing his fingers through his greasy hair. Didn’t matter. He was pretty sure it was after five, at least.

There was screaming, and it was so vivid it was hard for him not to run off to try to find the source of it. It’s not real, he reminds himself, turning to glare at the pipe in the wall. No, don’t look at it. Focus on the bankruptcy filing, but the words blur and become meaningless the more he looks at them.

“Hello?”

Grant almost writes off the voice as another hallucination, but it sounds vaguely familiar, and after a few minutes of grasping at thoughts he realizes it’s the voice of Sammy, their music director. He didn’t know him very well, but they had spoken a few times about budget issues regarding his department.

“Can we talk for a moment?”

Normally Sammy’s voice was nice sounding, smooth and calm. Now it feels like every word is pounding a nail into his skull. He winces, clutching his head with both hands.

“Now’s not a good time. Come back later. Please.” Grant’s aware of how pathetic he sounds, but right now he doesn’t care. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation, not in this state.

“...Very well, then. I’ll be back later,” Sammy mutters. When Grant finally lifts his head, the room is empty.

Strange. He hadn’t even heard the door open.

__________________________________

“So we’re going to be keeping parts of the department, see? And if we’re keeping the animation department, we’ll need some sound to go with the cartoons.” Grant scratches at his hand, focusing on the papers before him. “We’ll need to downsize, though. Probably sell off some instruments as well…”

Jack leans back in the wooden chair, which creaks ominously under his weight. He takes a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, revealing a rather obvious bald spot under his hat. “I guess. Never been very good at firing people though.”

“You’ll get used to it, don’t worry.” 

Jack leans forward again, resting his chin on his hand. His eyes drift downward. “What happened to your hand?”

“My-?” Grant holds the appendage up, inspecting it under the dim fluorescent light. It was completely black now, like he had dipped it into ink and the skin had stained long after it was washed off. He stares at the cut on his hand, a reminder that this was yet another hallucination, that there was no ink.

And yet Jack was staring at him, normally cheerful face lined with concern. What was he looking at? The original puncture wound, which had long since scabbed over? The cut across his palm? Or maybe-

“I, uh, cut it. On some glass from one of the pipes,” he mumbles, hoping that was a decent enough explanation for whatever Jack was looking at.

Jack shifts his weight uncomfortably. “Sammy had stains like that all over his body,” he confides. “Then he went crazy and disappeared.”

“Yes, well, I’m not crazy, so-“ Grant stops mid-sentence, suddenly taking in what the lyricist was telling him. Sammy had disappeared months ago - that’s why he was talking to Jack about this in the first place, because he was filling in in Sammy’s absence. How had he forgotten that?

“What?”

“Sammy. Sammy was in my office last night, he…“ Grant stands up to look over Jack as if he expected to see Sammy still standing there, but there’s nothing except for the pipe.

 Jack’s expression is somewhere between discomfort, concern, and fear. “Uh, no offense, but maybe you should consider taking some days off. I’m sure spending all day cooped up in here can’t be good for you.”

“He was here. He was here, I heard him-“ Grant looks around helplessly before slumping back down in his chair, holding his throbbing head. “He was here! You believe me, right? He was...”

__________________________________

The thing about rumors was that once they got started, there was no way to stop them. And after that meeting with Jack, there was all kinds of speculation being passed around that Grant caught in snippets and whispers in the halls. That he had gone crazy; that he had had a mental breakdown and that’s why he was out for a few days; even that he had rabies.

Perhaps the only thing worse than the rumors were the response people had towards them. Complaints and anger, that he could handle at this point. What he couldn’t handle was those complaints being replaced with sympathy or fear or sometimes both. People treated him as if he was fragile, like he would break if they said the wrong thing. Soft tones, simple wording, smiles from people who were supposed to be concerned for him but seemed to be more concerned of him. Grant hated that more than anything. He was not crazy, and he certainly wasn’t a child.

At their weekly department meeting, he puts everything into his performance. Dressing as best as he could, talking in fast tones and quickly and efficiently telling everyone what to do and how to do it. It was exhausting, but he was fairly certain he had convinced a good portion of the staff that he wasn’t crazy as they left the room.

“Nicely done, sir,” Carol greets, setting her ever-present clipboard down on the desk. Her appearance was impeccable as always, and it only made him look worse in comparison.

“You think so?”

“Better than your last few meetings have been, at least.”

“I’ll take it.” Grant rests his head on the desk, closing his eyes momentarily. “How many more meetings do I have today?”

There’s the sound of a paper flipping over as Carol checks something on her clipboard. “Six.”

Six meetings. He had only done one so far and he already felt like he was about to pass out; six was surely impossible. “Can you reschedule?”

She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “You’ve already rescheduled most of them earlier this week, sir.”

Grant sits back up, struggling to get the desk back in focus. “I know, I know. Forget it. I’ll try to figure something out.”

Carol studies him for a moment with her sharp eyes. She was all business all the time - it was almost impossible for Grant to imagine what she was like outside of work. “With all due respect, why haven’t you quit yet? It’s obvious you can no longer function at work anymore.”

Quitting. God, how he had fantasized about the idea of barging into Joey’s office and handing him his resignation, savoring the look he’d imagine he’d have on his face as he told him off for all of the terrible decisions he had made as a CEO. The very thought of it made him feel better, at least for a fleeting moment. 

“I have. It’s just...” he admits, then stops, not wanting to say any more.

“I take it that’s not an option?”

Grant remembers how proud his parents had been when they had heard what a high-end job he had snagged, how they had bragged about him to all of their family members. And he knows, deep down, that he simply will not be able to find another job as high-profile as this one, not like this.

But he can’t say that.

“I don’t think anyone will be eager to employ me after finding out the last company I managed financially went bankrupt,” he mutters, which isn’t a lie.

Grant sits in silence for a while, rolling his pen between his black fingers.

“I... I can hear things, sometimes,” he mumbles. He’s not really sure why he’s telling her this, other than the fact that she was there and listening and he felt like he needed to confide in someone. “It’s like the ink is... alive, or something. It wants me to be with it, I think, or a part of it-” He cuts himself off, burying his head in his hands. “Sorry. That doesn’t make any sense.”

There’s another uncomfortable bout of silence. Eventually Carol sits down on the edge of the desk, setting her clipboard in her lap. “Have you considered seeing a professional?”

She doesn’t say more than that, but he understands what she’s implying. “No, I can’t. If I told anyone else... they’d lock me away, I’m sure. I’ve heard of what goes on in those asylums of theirs; I wouldn’t make it out in one piece.”

“There’s no family members you can contact?”

He thinks about how disappointed his parents would be if they saw him like this, so tired and pathetic that he couldn’t even manage to do basic things like showering. He can picture the looks on their faces - his father’s stern look of disapproval, the disheartened look on his heartbroken mother’s face.

“No,” Grant mumbles.

She sighs, standing back up and straightening her pencil skirt. “I’ll try to clear your schedule for today.”

He nods, brushing his hair back. “Thank you.”

“And do try to at least eat something. You look thin.” With that she dismisses herself, leaving him alone in the room.

Grant stares at his pen, trying to remember the last time he had had a proper meal.

__________________________________

He was becoming increasingly good at avoiding people, slinking through the less-used halls and cutting through utility shafts to avoid the crowds. Now it’s inevitable that people see him as he shambles into the break room, and he does his best to avoid eye contact as he grabs a bag of nuts from the only non-bacon soup vending machine in the place. He fills a paper cup from the bathroom and finds a small secluded table tucked into the corner.

It couldn’t have been that long since I ate, or else I’d be dead by now, Grant rationalizes, but it feels like it’s been weeks since his last meal. Even when fasting he at least felt hungry; right now he feels nothing. In fact, the water seems downright repulsive, like a cup of lukewarm saliva. He tries to force himself to drink it, but a sudden convulsion causes him to gag and choke.

He straightens up, still coughing, and realizes that Thomas was watching him from the far table, with a look on his face that Grant couldn’t quite identify. As soon as they make eye contact Thomas looks away, quickly gathering his things from the table. But that one second is enough to know.

“Wait,” Grant manages to choke out between coughs. “Wait!” He abandons the table, scrambling after the mechanic as he darts around the corner of the hall. “What do you know about the ink! What-”

He stops short.

The hallway should have lead to the Art Department. Thomas should have been there. Instead he’s standing in an empty balcony in the center of a huge room with chains hanging from the ceiling. He brushes his fingers over the handrail in front of him, wondering if this was another hallucination, but it seems solid and cool to the touch.

Grant glances behind himself, realizing that the hallway leading into this room was completely different than the one he had just exited. Stop it, he insists to himself. Stop being crazy.

Cautiously he steps forward, walking around the perimeter of the balcony as he tries to get his bearings. There are no handrails in this section, just chains hanging down from the ceiling and descending into the darkness below. He leans dangerously close to the threshold of the wood, wondering what was so big and heavy to need that much support...

A loud grinding noise cuts through the air and he startles, stumbling back away from the edge at the last second. As the thing raises up, he notices the spicket first, then the pipes, then the ink flowing from it. The Ink Machine? He knew what it was - heck, he was the one who budgeted for all three versions of it - but he had no idea how huge this incarnation was. He leans closer, lost in thought. Why would Mister Drew spend that much money on something that just made ink? Joey’s spending may have been irresponsible and stupid, but he wasn’t irrational.

A cold sensation pulls Grant out of his thoughts, and when he looks down he sees that everything is covered in a strange black pattern, like spider webs. He runs his hand over the pattern on his clothes, but the darkness merely covers his fingers instead, like it was a shadow. No, no. Not now...

Grant takes a moment to breathe, willing the illusion away as he works his way back towards the hallway, dragging his hand against the walls to guide himself. The room seems to be getting progressively darker, and he can feel the hair on his neck standing up. Something was wrong-

He turns around.

It takes him a moment to realize there’s something standing on the other end of the balcony. Its body is emancipated, and so black it blends straight into the darkness, making only a few details visible - its face, its bowtie, the glove on its right hand. It looked like Bendy in a twisted way, like a terrible caricature.

It turns towards him blindly and starts slowly limping forward, one of its legs sticking to the floor and pulling away in long, gooey stands. Ink drips from it and puddles around the floor as it moves, the shadows on the walls seemingly following it. Run, Grant thinks to himself, knowing that he could outpace the creature easily. Instead he just stands there, paralyzed. He can feel something urging him towards the demon, the same strange draw he felt towards the pipe in his office. It was calling to him, and he couldn’t move-

Grant slumps down on his knees in a helpless panic as the creature approaches, getting close enough that he could see the drops of ink running down its skeletal figure. It tilts its head, its drawn-on smile vibrating, as if it were studying him. Slowly, it reaches a disturbingly human hand down towards him, sliding the ice-cold appendage under his head as he struggles to breathe. It curls its fingers, hooking its hand under his chin.

It turns its head again and taps his head up, once, like he was a child who had just said something amusing. It takes a step back, smile still vibrating, and walks directly through the wall beside him, the shadows vanishing with it.

Grant doesn’t remember how he found his way out of the department, or if anyone tried to stop him. All he remembers is running, running, running...

__________________________________

He had spent the weekend lying in bed, trying to lull himself to sleep, even though sleep just brought more nightmares of the strange demon creature. If he wasn’t asleep, he was crying; if he wasn’t crying, he was debating on overdosing on the pills in the medicine cabinet. The only real thing that stopped him was remembering that he had had the foresight to hide those pills on the top shelf when his depression had been less severe, where he would need a stepstool to get to them, and it was too exhausting to even think about fetching it from the garage.

And it was while he was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling with red-rimmed eyes, that he finally decided he had to quit. He simply wouldn’t survive otherwise.

The plan had sounded good in his mind - he would go into work on Monday, pack up his things, leave Joey a resignation notice, and check himself in somewhere to get help. It was only now, hitting the down button on the elevator, that he realizes that he couldn’t handle going back to work again.

As Grant steps onto the elevator, he notices the look the other occupant is giving him. Lacie, he realizes, one of the Bendyland workers. They had gone out drinking a few times before. Now she’s inspecting him with those sharp eyes of hers, taking a cigarette out of her mouth with gloves that were stained with either grease or ink.

You look terrible, he scolds himself, slinking into the corner of the elevator. When he was doing well mentally, he was an incredibly well-kept person - suit vests, ties, even taking the time to comb his mustache - because as far as he was concerned one’s appearance was as important to the job as their performance. Now he’s still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing on Friday, unbathed and unkept. Lacie continues to study him, as if she was debating on saying something, but the elevator screeches to a stop and she exits with commenting.

Carol doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised when Grant tells her that he’s quitting, nor does she seem bothered by him practically begging her to cancel his meetings for today. She just nods, her black curls bouncing, and he suspects she had already known this was coming for a while now.

Within the first half an hour of work he realized what a mistake this plan had been, and by the end of the first hour his head was pounding with another migraine. The walls swim dangerously around him as he pulls the cassette recorder from his desk drawer and sets it on his desk. Joey had distributed them around the entire office, claiming that they should use them to “express their feelings”, whatever the hell that meant.

Grant had only recorded one tape before, but now it seemed appropriate to do another, as surely a recording of his resignation would be better than a letter. He turns on the tape and tries to speak, but the words get lost among a sea of noise and screaming and he can’t remember what he needed to say or why he was saying it. He slams his hand down on the stop button and jerks around towards the pipe, which sits motionless in the wall.

“STOP IT!” Grant screams, even though he knows that the ink isn’t alive and that that’s crazy and everything he’s doing is crazy. He slumps down onto the floor, tears running down his face as he holds himself, as if he would fall apart into a million little pieces if he didn’t. “Stop it,” he begs. “Stop it. I don’t know what you want from me.”

The silence in the room is almost deafened by the noise in his head, but slowly he can make out a voice, a whisper, urging him to come closer. He can feel it, the need to be closer to it, to be a part of it. He shakily rises to his feet and stumbles forward, pressing his blackened hand against the cold glass.

The relief is instant - the overwhelming call of the ink is gone, the migraine suddenly subsided, and he understands that this is where he needs to be. He squeezes himself into the little cavity beside the pipe, curling up and resting his head against the glass. The noise is deafening, he can hear thoughts that aren’t his or maybe they were, but none of that matters anymore.

Grant drifts in and out of consciousness, struggling to keep some bearing on reality. He thinks he can hear the clock ticking but he has no idea what time it is, and it feels like it’s been days already but maybe it’s only been a few minutes.

He slowly comes to again and realizes that someone is standing there, trying to pull him out of the crevice. He struggles blindly against their grip. No! I need to be here! he wants to insist, but he can’t find the words. The figures shushes him softly and he hazily remembers how Carol had found him during his fever. Was he sick again?

He goes limp and the figure drags him out across the floor, propping him up against the wall. They roll up his sleeve and he can see that his entire lower arm had turned black, spreading out from his palm. His hand had tiny drops of ink clinging to the outside of it, and the veins above the area were dark. He wonders in a haze if the rest of his body was turning black as well.

“There, there, my sheep,” someone whispers, and some confused part of his brain recognizes Sammy’s voice again. His skin is icy to the touch as he puts a hand on the back of Grant’s neck, pressing something against his lips.

“Drink this,” Sammy insists, and he does so. The liquid is thick, salty tasting, and it burns his mouth slightly. He struggles to sit up, suddenly feeling a bit more lucid.

“Sammy...?” he manages to ask. The music director is covered in ink - it’s coating his entire body, dripping onto the floor, puddling around the Bendy mask he was wearing. Sammy merely shushes him again, wrapping his arms around his torso and dragging him to his feet.

“Can you stand?” he asks, and Grant nods, leaning against him for support. Sammy would bring him to the infirmary. He would be fine...

They walk slowly, Grant struggling to keep track of the hallways they were passing through. Some of them were familiar, some of them weren’t, some seem to lead to areas that logically they couldn’t connect to,

Finally they walk into a large open room, almost completely barren except for a few massive pipes running along the ceiling. Sammy guides him over to a nearby support beam and carefully pushes the other man away from him.

“Where-?” Grant mumbles, struggling to think, to processes what was going on. Something was wrong. They were supposed to go to the infirmary, weren’t they? Why were they here? He grabs at Sammy’s shoulder, only to recoil in disgust as his hand sinks into it, like he had just plunged it into a jar of molasses.

In one swift movement Sammy twists around behind the accountant, grabbing his hands and pulling them behind his back. Grant utters a protest and manages to pull free for a moment, but his movements are confused and uncoordinated and he merely ends up collapsing onto the floor.

“Easy, little sheep,” Sammy soothes, picking him up and dragging him over to the support beam, Grant struggling weakly as his hands are forcibly tied behind his back, then again against the pole. “Soon you will be in the hands of our Lord.”

Sammy seems to disappear for a few moments, and when he returns there’s a new voice with him. 

“...It won’t work anyway! And I don’t need another corpse on my hands!” Joey, that was Joey’s voice. Why was he here?

“He's already infected. We need to sacrifice him now, so our Lord can save his soul-”

“Damn it Sammy, stop talking like a lunatic!” Joey snaps. Grant can hear him pacing, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath his feet. After a few moments the noise gets louder as Joey approaches, kneeling and cupping the other man’s chin with his hand as he forces him to look up.

“Grant, look at me,” he demands. Grant opens his eyes slowly, struggling to get Joey’s face to come into focus through the haze. It was hard to breathe, like his lungs were filled with water, and he was so tired...

He gives up and closes them again as Joey removes his hand, mumbling something under his breath. The other man stands back up and is quiet for a few moments, the only noise in the room coming from a persistently dripping pipe.

“Do it quickly,” Joey snaps at Sammy as he leaves the room. “You know how I feel about this.”

Grant can feel someone tugging at the rope around his wrists, loosening it. “What’s going on?” he manages to choke out. Words seemed almost impossible to form, the sentences breaking apart in his mind and falling from his lips in confused jumbles. Confusion gives way to fear as he struggles against the ropes again, but he only manages to fall sideways, hands still bound.

“Don’t be afraid, little sheep,” Sammy whispers, grabbing him by the shirt collar. “It will all be over soon enough.” He drags him a short distance across the floor, then forces him to sit upright in a kneeling position. There’s a screeching noise behind him that stabs into his mind, sharp and painful.

In front of him is a vast black area, expanding endlessly outward, and it takes Grant a moment to realize that it’s not the floor that’s black, but rather a huge empty space that’s been completely flooded with ink. Looking up reveals the cause - a shattered pipe, dripping ink into the basin rhythmically.

Something slams into the floor behind him with a heavy crash and a burst of steam, and he manages to turn around enough to see the Ink Machine, lowered so it was sitting on the floor. It’s on now, and the noise it’s making is awful, like the machine itself was screaming.

Sammy grabs him from the back, forcing him to lean forward, and as he does so he catches a glimpse of some sort of strange symbol on the floor beneath him. The ink is less than a foot away from his face now - it’s impossibly black, blacker than anything he had ever seen before. The only movement on the surface is a few small ripples created by the tears rolling down his face, which are lost instantly in the black void. He wants to struggle but he can’t, not with the ink beckoning to him.

“Sheep sheep sheep, it’s time for sleep,” Sammy whispers, shoving him into the abyss.

The ink is ice cold, and the shock of it makes Grant involuntarily gasp, his last bit of air escaping from his mouth and disappearing up into the void. He can feel the ink getting into his lungs, into his throat, but he can’t struggle and it’s not because of the ropes binding him. His lungs burn, everything burns, and it was dark, darker than he would have thought possible.

He stops feeling the burning sensation after a moment, and then he stops feeling anything. He just keeps sinking, deeper and deeper...

__________________________________

It was cold. Cold and wet.

Someone was grabbing him, pulling him away from the wetness, and he squeaks in protest. It wasn’t fair! He wanted to go back to sleep!

He can hear the person speaking, but he can’t make out all of the words. Something about asking if he was awake. Of course he was awake! They just woke him up, didn’t they?

“Edgar?” they try again. He burrows his way into their lap where it’s warm and tries to look around, but he doesn’t have eyes yet. Whoever it was sounded nice, friendly, but there was a strange edge to the way they speak that he can’t place. He knew that voice, yet he didn’t.

The ink making up his body suddenly spasms, twists. All Edgar can do is squeak in pain as the ink contorts, warping itself into a different shape. His limbs stretch out, refining themselves into fingers, forming into bone and flesh. He stares, transfixed. Hands. He hadn’t had hands before, had he?

His thoughts are abruptly cut off as the figure swears, shoving him off of his lap. He hisses angrily, wheeling around to face them. Part of his face burns, and he can see now in blurry black-and-white. In front of him is a massive machine, spilling gallons upon gallons of ink onto the floor from its spicket. In front of that is the man, who steps back away from him, recoiling in disgust.

“Damn it, I knew it wouldn’t work,” he mutters under his breath, and Edgar recognizes the man as Joey, except that wasn’t possible. He didn’t know this person, did he?

Joey squats down on the floor, suddenly cheerful, holding out his hand in front of him. “Why don’t you come here?” His voice is friendly, but his face is not. Edgar backs away, dragging himself on his half-formed legs.

“Grant, come here.” The cheerfulness is gone now.

Edgar puts his hands over his head, which was pounding with a stabbing pain. He can’t think straight. Grant. That was his name, wasn’t it? No, he was Edgar, he had always been-

The pain reaches its peak as his head abruptly rips open along the top, forming teeth and a tongue. The human scream that spills from it isn’t his. He claws at the new mouth frantically, ink spilling into the floor. No, no, this was wrong-

“I said COME HERE, DAMN IT!” Joey storms forward, reaching a hand out to grab him.

He doesn’t have fangs anymore, but he remembers how to bite. There’s a metallic taste that fills his head and a sickening cracking noise as his teeth clamp down on Joey’s hand. He screams, recoling, then draws his foot back and drives it into Edgar’s side. The spider releases his grip as he skids backwards over the wooden floorboards, squeaking in pain.

“SAMMY!” Joey barks, clutching his injured hand and backing away from the inky figure on the ground. Edgar slowly lifts his head, looking behind him. Some sort of inky mass is rising from the sea of black in front of them, as if the ink itself were trying to escape onto shore. Slowly it refines into a masked figure, who lays another mass of ink on the ground gently. They slowly move whatever the thing on the ground was into a horizontal position, ignoring Joey completely.

“Sammy!” Joey snaps again, voice tinged with pain and rage. “Lock that... abomination up somewhere!”

The masked figure raises his head for a moment, studying Edgar through cardboard eyes before looking back down again. “Whatever form he takes, it is our Lord’s decision, is it not? It is not our place to go against His will.”

Sammy lifts some part of the mass up, and as the ink drips down Edgar can make out a hand. Sammy gently draws it across the figure’s chest, then does the same with its other arm. Edgar perks up. Someone dead? Some of his best friends were skeletons. Maybe they would want to play with him.

Edgar glances back at Joey, wondering if he would try to grab him again. Insead the man takes a few steps back, face contorted in revolusion, and Edgar realizes that he was scared of him, scared of his own creation.

He cautiously drags himself across the floor, unable to stand fully on his half-formed limbs. Unlike Joey, the masked figure doesn’t seem to fear him at all. “It’s okay, little sheep,” he murmurs, moving aside so Edgar can get close. “You can look.”

Edgar nudges the body once with his hand, then pushes against it with both limbs, trying to get it to wake up. But it remains motionless, save for the ink slowly dripping away and puddling down around it.

“This body was poisoned,” Sammy explains. The corpse’s mouth is still wide open, black even on the inside, and Sammy slowly pushes it shut. “You would have ended up like me. Trapped in the abyss, lost... But through the grace of our Lord, you were saved. Your soul was still there, so He graced you with a new body, a new form. You should feel very blessed... do you understand?”

He didn’t, not really.

Edgar stares at the corpse, transfixed. Something stirs in the corner of his mind, except he’s pretty sure it’s not his memory. He remembers it being cold, noisy, hard to breathe. He was drowning-

A body. A dead body. 

His body.

Both minds scream and claw at themselves in a panic, trying to get the ink off as it once again writhes and reforms. A searing pain shoots through the left side of their face, and half of the world is suddenly in color. Another throat and mouth form, this time in the correct spot, and they nearly choke on the excess ink. They manage to stand up as another limb forces its way out of their side, transforming into a gloved hand.

Get to the office, call for help...

Edgar isn’t sure why this is so important to his other mind, but he can feel his other self’s desperation as clearly as if it was his own. He rises to their newly formed legs unsteadily, his entire body aching. He looks around, half expecting Joey to still be standing there, but the room is empty save for Sammy and the Machine.

They stumble out of the room as quickly as they can, Sammy making no attempt to stop them. The winding hallways are strange and foreign to Edgar, but Grant navigates through them effortlessly, sometimes walking bipedally and sometimes scampering on all of their limbs. The halls swim around them dangerously, dripping ink - even their own body drips and leaves trails of it through the halls. They drag themselves through the doorway, eyeing the pipe on the wall uneasily, but the ink no longer calls to them. It no longer needed to.

Tape player. Use the tape player, call for help...

He grabs at his chair and uses it to pull themselves upward, blindly hitting buttons as another convulsion overtakes them. Grant tries to speak, but the noise catches in their first throat and comes out as nothing but a whimper. He starts tearing at the stitches over his mouth in a panic, a third limb starting to form out of their right side.

He thrashes around blindly in pain, unable to scream, knocking something off the desk and shattering it. Edgar is scared, crying, but the noise comes out as a strangled snarl. Ink separates from their back and starts to split down the middle to form two separate limbs, then stops. Grant struggles to stay lucid, to stop transforming, but he can’t do either.

Help, he tries again, but something is blocking one of their throats and he can only whimper again, gasping for breath. They clutch the table for support as the ink solidifies, forming flesh and bone, forcing them to cough up the thick ink that had been choking them. There’s excess ink dripping off of them, in their lungs, breathing for them. Edgar slumps forward onto the table, gasping for breath, mashing buttons on the recorder until it finally turns off. They lay there for a long time, Edgar crying, Grant in shock.

They start to write.

Over the walls, the floor, using the ink dripping off of their body. They write everything they can’t say, covering every inch of the surface, writing until their fingers are bleeding ink and they’re too tired to move. They write until the walls are as inky and black as they are.

It takes Edgar a long time to realize he’s screaming, and then he realizes that it’s his other mind screaming, the noise dying in their first mouth and coming out a nothing but a muffled whine. It hurt their throat a little, but Edgar just lies on the floor, not daring to move.

He stays there for a very long time, waiting patiently until the horror his other mind feels numbs back into shock, until the screaming quiets and then stops. He gets up slowly, cautiously, making sure the movement wouldn’t cause them to start screaming again. Their whole body aches, but he forces himself to move forward, slipping out the door.

This room gave them headaches.

__________________________________

Edgar was pretty sure that something was wrong with his other mind.

He doesn’t ask, of course, because Charley and Barley got annoyed with him if he asked too many questions. It was just a suspicion he had.

For one, his other mind had very confused thoughts, ones that didn’t make any sense to Edgar. Most of them were repeated, over and over; he couldn’t always remember if they were real or were just dreams. Sometimes he didn’t think at all, which was scary for both of them. On the other hand if he thought too much he’d send them both into a panic attack, so Edgar tried to distract him if he started thinking sad things again.

He pounces on a can of bacon soup, which he had been using as a toy for a few days now, because even though they were hungry Grant had refused to let him eat it. It springs out from under his hands and goes flying into the far wall, smacking Charley in the process. Edgar lets out a garbled giggle in delight, snatching the can from a distance before Charley has a chance to take it from him. Charley snarls, smacking his hand with his pipe in a rather un-Charley-like way.

Edgar had seen that kind of thing happen with his friends a lot. Suddenly they wouldn’t be his friends anymore and he’d have to wait patiently for them to wake back up, which wasn’t easy as he hated waiting. His other mind almost never forced him to do anything he didn’t want to, unless they were in danger or he felt Edgar was doing something foolish. Edgar suspected he was simply too tired to fight back.

He didn’t know much about his other half. He had learned from his memories that his name was Grant, and that he used to work here. He also liked numbers - he counted every day, keeping track of the minutes and hours as they passed, even though Edgar suspected he had lost count several times already. He wasn’t really sure why it was so important to his other mind anyway.

He tosses the can above his head with their mechanical arm, which ricochets off a rafter in the ceiling and clatters to the ground in front of him, and he stares at it, feeling inexplicably sad. His other mind was sad all the time - sometimes if Edgar was happy Grant would feel it, but sometimes if Grant was sad it would seep into Edgar’s feelings and make him sad too. And sometimes they’d even stare thoughts - he can hear him now in the corner of his mind. He was so tired. He needed to lie down, needed to rest...

Edgar stares at the can in front of him. It didn’t seem very fun anymore.

He picks it up carefully and sets it on one of the nearby hallway shelves, where hopefully it would be safe until he was ready to play again. He picks out a spot on a couch to lie down on, burying his head under his arms. His head hurts, which it does sometimes if he lets Grant think for too long, and he scratches at his second mouth unhappily before curling up to sleep.

Maybe Grant would want to play tomorrow. Maybe he wouldn’t feel so sad then.

Maybe.

[fernlom]

A gift to @ab-arts. I showed them this a while ago but never posted it. For those of you who missed my writing here you go, somethin fresh and new

——-

It can sometimes be weird being a Joey Drew. None of us look the same, and yet we all can just feel that we are the same. Being one of the more modern Joey’s only makes it weirder. Hi, I’m Atlas, and well...when i look into the multiverse I see proof of my Drew status everywhere.

I have gravity defying hair that most of us seem to have, I have my fears, doubts, but enough charisma to ignore them I guess. I’ve made deals with demons for power for my studio and made many mistakes, me and Henry are very close, and my sexuality is definitely not straight.

I’ve met quite a few other Joey’s, heard stories of some truly horrible ones, and others who are really just unlucky. Then...there are some strange ones. Let me tell you about one that I met.

…

So I was in my studio and was making my way to my office when I heard a loud crash coming from office. I run in and there is just this book, sitting on my desk. It was a cool looking book, it had my name on it in gold cursive lettering and was covered in stars, like a swirling galaxy for a cover. It was thick, the pages themselves gold. Curiosity had overcome me, like many Joey’s before me, and I picked up the book.

“Wait just a moment!” I heard a voice call out from behind me. I turn and face...someone. He was dressed in a black and white tuxedo with two film reels coming out of his shoulders, his right eye was pure ink, dripping out like a leaking faucet and his left eye was green, he wore a large black top hat, revealing the sides of his hair stark white. He had a full goatee made of ink, dripping like his eye.

“Uhmm...who are you?” I ask.

“JM Drew” he bows “curator of dreams and stories at your service.”

I should have known, only a Joey could look so weird.

“Uh-huh, what are you doing here?”

“I’m here for my book. That one in your hands there.”

“Uhm..this is mine? It as my name on it.”

“Oh you are Atlas?....you look so young for a Joey. Then again Felix looks like he’s 19 so I guess you are okay…”

“I’m sorry what is with this book?”

“It’s from my library! It’s more than just a book, it’s a portal to your world, and inside it tells your story! From beginning to gruesome, blood and guts filled end! Yeah, it’s not pretty for you. Don’t think I’ve ever witnessed such a gore filled death before.”

I couldn’t hand that book over fast enough, not sure if I actually trusted him, but I didn’t want to take that chance. He was strange for sure, but not really intimidating. He left soon after I gave him the book, left behind another book with me. His. Don’t think I’ll ever open it, but it’s nice to have.

[thelunaticbinge]

Kenny Omega is a Siren

And I am but a flailing sailor throwing myself onto the rocks.

I've been watching wrestling since I was about 10 years old, give or take. I'm now 28, almost 29. I fell in and out of watching it along the way, but have been pretty consistent for the past 6 years.

WWF/WWE has been the primary player in my story, understandably. I grew up in love with (and still am in love with Jeff Hardy).  I gravitated, as a kid, toward colorful characters and teams like Team Xtreme, and ones that were high flying dare devils.  The acrobatic, lightning fast nature of that style captivates kids easily, it can’t be denied.  I still love the style, and appreciate any performer that works that way.  It’s high energy and grabs the audience.

Despite this preferred style, however, I must admit that the actual wrestling wasn’t what initially drew me in, and it isn’t often what keeps me held nowadays.  Obviously, if I didn’t enjoy the physical aspect, I wouldn’t be watching, and I can recognize when someone is particularly talented at what they do in the ring.  But it was always the characters and the stories that pulled me in when I was younger, and which continue to do this day.  That being said, I’ve gravitated away from WWE in a lot of ways.  I appreciate so much of what the guys and girls do, and how hard they work, and how talented they are, and yet I’ve been terribly bored by it all lately.  The stories just aren’t there for me.  But that’s an essay for another day when I have more patience.

Fast forward to roughly a year and half to two years ago.  Enter Bullet Club/The Elite.  

I have far too much solitary time at my job so my mind tends to wander into daydreaming about what it would be like to meet some of these guys, or else what it would be like to sit down and actually spew my wrestling fandom story to some made up interviewer.  Doing this really helped me dissect what it is I love about Kenny as a performer.  Because I love him as a person too, but that much goes without saying.  I’ll get this out of the way right now so that I can be genuine and serious for the rest of this.  Most of what I explain in this essay lends A TON to the fact that the man is just sexy as fuck.  Kill me dead.

 God damn angel.

The first thing that drew me to Kenny was, in fact, his in ring ability.  As I said before, I don’t often over analyze what the wrestlers do in the ring aside from finishers or signature moves and if I like the way they look.  For instance, I think the RKO is one of the loveliest moves to watch.  Call me fake all you want, it’s fine by me.  I’ve been watching long enough to know what most moves are called and how an in-ring performance aids the story: I’m not uneducated, this is simply about taste.  I’m a plot person, a charisma and character person.

But Kenny is one of the special ones.

Something about the way he moves strikes a chord.  It took me a while to pinpoint what it might be, but I finally had an epiphany not too long ago.  He really does move like a video game character.  I grew up loving video games and while I don’t play as much anymore, I really appreciate how his passion for them bleeds into his wrestling style.  

And it isn’t just his moves, but his mannerisms.  I’ve seen a lot of people say they don’t like that about him; that he’s too over the top and goofy sometimes, and I just want to tell them, “That’s the point, though.”  He excels at being over the top.  Because depending on what he’s doing, who he’s fighting, what the current arc is, his mannerisms always make sense to me.  The deliveries of his finger gun, the “You can’t escape”, some of his crazy eyes.  I love it all.

I am 90% sure that the first match I ever saw of his was the one with Jericho at the Tokyo Dome.  So obviously I haven’t been around long as far as his career goes.  But if there was ever a match to fall in love at first sight with him, that was the one.

His moves, guys.  HIS MOVES.  The man is a machine.  But like a 95% organic, android machine.  Terminator, obviously.  Wink wink.

Think about it.  He is so crisp, concise, and articulate in how he moves.  He is both explosive and technical.  He mixes the powerful moves in with the high flying, manic style I’ve loved since I was ten in such a seamless way.  The one-winged angel is a great move for its established devastation.  Rarely have I seen anyone kick out of it, which is why I’m glad he never connected with it in the Mox match at Full Gear.  Mox was able to come out on top in his specialty match, and yet Kenny wasn’t lessened by having his finisher made ineffective.

But I’ve found that even though I adore Kenny’s finisher and his flying over the ropes and around the ring, it’s some of the other things he does that fascinate me.  For one, I adore the movement for his “You can’t escape” segment.  How, may I ask, does a person move like that?  And I’m not even talking about the moonsault part.  I provide a link to a twitter gif because I can’t save gifs off twitter.  Click HERE.

The man is like a gymnast with that stuck landing GOOD LORD.

To make up for the lack of an at hand visual, have this gif because I love it.

Secondly, the V-Trigger.  This is a signature, yes, but fucking beautiful to watch.  It’s speed and power and looks as life-ending as it does poetic.  Just ask Joey Janela.

Have I mentioned yet that I love Kenny’s run?  It’s so distinctive.  Especially when it first starts.  The high knee.  The acceleration.  The man is gorgeous in motion.  Just agree with me and we’ll keep trucking along here.

The one move, though, that really illustrates what I’m getting at here is one that should--at least to my not professional in any way eye--be fairly elementary.  I’m talking about the the snapdragon.

Please correct me if I’m wrong in saying this, but to my eye it seems like a move not developed for its power/match ending ability, but simply as a way to bring the opponent down and waylay them for a minute.  It’s a suplex of sorts, yes?  I imagine it isn’t meant to result in a pin.

But Kenny’s snapdragon is probably my favorite move he does.  The Speed.  The SPEED.  THE SPEED.  Whip-like and akin to the RKO in its tendency to strike out of nowhere.  I watched him do it 3 times in a row live in person and I could only stare with fucking heart eyes.  

He takes this move that should just be a trip up maneuver and makes it look like it could truly kill a man.  

This is the best gif I could find, my apologies.  Found on reddit.

Again, maybe the move was always supposed to spell obliteration for the opponent.  I don’t see it really outside of when Kenny does it.  But I think his style largely affects my view of it.

The motion of this man in his performance really drives home to me what so many people love about the art in wrestling.  I sit up and pay attention to the physicality in a way I don’t in other matches.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ll be up out of my seat for a lot of guys and gals, screaming and electric with the crowd when shit gets crazy.  But when Kenny is in the ring, I find myself really absorbing what he does because of how well he does it.  His talent has really connected with me, but I get it doesn’t with some people.  Well, maybe I don’t get it, per-say, but to each his own.  

I find that a lot of the qualities I find so enrapturing about his wrestling transition into what I love about his promos.  His work on BTE is often very different from the NJPW/ROH/AEW stuff.  His BTE stuff is usually humorous and endearing in weird, chaotic ways.  I find him funny and cute and sometimes a bit unhinged.  I’ve always liked a little crazy in my faves, let’s be real.

His in-ring promos hit a different nerve.

As with his wrestling, Kenny’s speech is crisp, concise, and articulate.  It’s been a while since I’ve watched one, but I call to mind his introduction of Marty into Bullet Club.  The wording he uses in such promos really elevate his character, especially when he’s got The Cleaner vibe going on.  But for me, its all in his tone, the inflections.  He’s quiet and you listen.  The promos are smooth, easy to track, and evoke emotion.

It’s been a long time since a wrestler has really snatched my attention in the way Kenny Omega does.  I find myself listening to my faves’ promos in both WWE and AEW more often than “listening” to their matches, and this often leads to me missing parts of the story.  Do some promos fall flat?  Sure.  Depends on the character much of the time, and if I dig the current rivalry.

It hasn’t yet mattered to me who Kenny is facing.  I pay strict attention.  And in turn I pay attention to what the other person is doing, too.  I love the wildness of Kenny’s matches--a wildness that isn’t only made obvious by his high flying moves, but by the subtler ones, too, as well as his mannerisms and expressions.  The man can lay you out with a one-winged angel, 1,2,3.  But first he’s going to tear you apart with a plethora of poetry in motion. 

[mitterstorm]

Dance For Me

Chapter 1

“Finally we are here today to seek and to receive comfort. We would be less than honest if we said that our hearts have not ached over this situation. We are not too proud to acknowledge-

You couldn’t take it anymore, just by standing here listening to that preach addressed his departure. Your knees feel weak and your eyes burn, but you refuse to make a scene, taking deep breaths while clenching your fists is helping you calm down.

Still, it’s not enough.

You want to scream again just as you did when you saw his body limp against yours, scratch your arms in attempts of making the pain and hurt go away. To drift your mind from these ugly feelings.

A sick way of coping indeed, teensy bit of self-harm ain't going to kill you. It helps you somehow, preventing yourself from breaking even further in a public place like the cemetery.

Finally, you regain control of yourself and shift back to the preacher. Unfortunately, he concluded, now you have to prepare for the worse.  

Henry, who is your most precious friend, is dead. His body was being carried away in the concealment of a coffin; he said his last farewell to you early in the morning when you ate breakfast with him, offering your company so he wouldn't feel alone, regain some strength by appreciation itself.

Something was up that morning; the old fart was more talkative than usual and flashed a smile here and there. You are at fault for not noticing from the start. You should have been more perceptive and observant; you are keen on people after all, especially when he gave you that look as if he was parting ways with you. He didn’t fight death, accepted it as embracing a hug from an old friend. That thought alone fills your head with doubt.

Was he even happy when he left?

 Did he feel satisfied with the life he lived?

 Were you enough?

 Fuck, you never would've imagined his passing will affect you this much.

<<You old geezer, why were you so kind to me? Why did we let ourselves get attached?>>

The time is near, you will eventually have to confront him with all of these people staring at you, but you need to be strong for sake. You are what’s left of his loved ones. Linda died long ago. They never had a chance to procreate and bring a new life, Joey went mad or something along those lines.

Just like the rest of the crew, and he didn’t make any friends while he was on service for the military. If he did, they were dead. He didn’t like to talk about it.

<<I tried to make you happy, make you feel at ease as you did for me>>

Yet he kept secrets from you, of course, you respected his wishes and didn’t pry any further.

However, it stung.

<<Now it’s not time to reminisce, there’s nothing to reminisce for me at the moment>>

They called your name to the front; you ran out of time. It’s your turn. Is your first time burying someone, yes, you have assisted other burials besides this one, but now you are who’s lost a loved one. Those past times were favors people close to you had asked a long time ago; they said it felt nice to have somebody there when someone else is missing in their lives. In other words, you were there as comfort. A shoulder they could use to cry and lean on.

Hesitant, you take away from the burier’s grasp his shovel and with a gulp. You start shoveling some dirt into the hole were Henry’s coffin lies.

<<Shit, I can’t stop trembling! Come on, stop being a pussy and get over with this!>>

Despite that, your body wouldn’t obey, it made you look clumsy. No matter how much you lied to yourself.

You are scared.

After burying Henry, your vision goes black.

Waking up tomorrow morning at home without a clue of how you got there made your mind fuzzy.

How fun.

You try to get up, but end up failing.

“Fuuuuuck! Why do I feel like absolute shit! Everything hurts!” These feel just like a hangover. Why does it feel like one? Did you go to a bar once Henry’s funeral ended? How much did you drink?

“Enough to blackout it appears,” You say under your breath. Of course, your dumb ass would go to a bar and get drunk to cope with the pain! An upcoming headache awaits you for being arbitrary, instead of showing apprehension towards the situation and mourn, as you should, your voice of reason zonked out. “I reek of booze. Agh, it stinks”.

No more addressing what happened yesterday; feeling like trash isn't doing you any good. Henry would have called you out on your bullshit.

"Stop whining like a whore and man up, chum! I'll buy you a drink. Later we can relax and cut you some slack, nothing a magsman like myself can't do".

“Ok boomer,” You said in a humdrum tone, at least it made you laugh internally. “lo and behold, this will be a shitty morning-err afternoon, it’s 1 PM, I thought it was too early to be awake”.

That means it’s time for brunch.

Must compel your stomach desires, eat a lot little of food. Therefore, you'll have to leave the bed, go downstairs where the kitchen is; you force yourself out of the comfiness that are your covers. So you walk out of the room barefoot towards the kitchen. You open the fridge faking interest with whatever is inside and close it, then repeat, only that this time you pay a little more of attention.

You grab the water pitcher and pour some in a glass, then look for oatmeal and toss three spoonfuls of it at the water, after that you chuck a spoonful of sugar and mix it. A simple drink full of roughage. It’ll suffice for now.

*Clink clink*

Metal hitting porcelain serves you as a white noise to rearrange your thoughts. Yesterday was hectic and had your mind high wire, you were thinking about the old man; how long have you two been friends? Five or six years more or less, you met each other by autumn at a hospital. On that occasion, you were merely an intern in the middle of their practice and had to change sheets, deliver meals, give them their meds and reassure they took them at the time the doctors had said. Like a nurse or carer (the difference it’s you possess more knowledge than one and can prescribe medication, it was also part of your duty as a trainee assisting the doctors with whatever you could). That’s how both of you came face to face with.

Mr. Stein was sick and injured. He needed to tend some wounds since they required special treatment. Battle scars, you didn’t know at the time, however, as days passed, you became close to him, he told you how he got them; the biggest can be found on his back.  

Unfortunately, a sharp pain arose, preventing you from wandering further in the past. You had forgotten about your headache, which it’s more noticeable now, you are sure there aren’t any pills left.

“I ain’t leaving being this crappy, besides I don’t feel like moving right now…” Your eyelids are heavy and keeping them open, it’s such a pain, so you shut ‘em in hopes of relaxing for a little bit. Leaning your back on the kitchen island while drinking your beverage, its coldness helping you somehow with the throb.

Once again, your mind wanders.

Thanks to it, you know where to find some ibuprofen.

“Are these the ones?” You asked while holding a box for him to see, squinting Henry finally recognized the packet.

“What’s it called again?” He questioned, rubbing his head to ease the ache a bit. His voice raspy because of a dry throat. His normal soft tone replaced by a croaky. He’s clearly suffering.  

“Ibuprofen.” You read aloud as you’ve been asked and turn back to look at him.

“Yup, that’s the one, lass. I know I’ve bothered you enough, but could you serve me a glass of water?”

“You old coot, not a bother at all. I’ll be back with your water in a jiffy”.

The pills are somewhere inside Henry’s studio. You can do that, going upstairs isn’t as demanding as buying them, cuz leaving home means changing clothes that look presentable and aren’t dirty. Henceforth, you don’t feel in the mood for seeing the outside.

“I should stop thinking of how lazy I am and look for those meds…” Talking to yourself it’s quite common, so you ain’t no stranger to these situations.

Therefore, you took a break from your bullshit and went upstairs where Henry Stein used to draw; he passed most of his time in there, secluded from the outside world, before military service, he worked at an animation studio owned by the man he once considered his best friend, Joey Drew was his name if your memory doesn’t fail you.

Your friend called him a bastard, never explained why only responded by saying: “He lost his mind.”

Nevertheless, Henry kept drawing cartoons, and sometimes, he would let you watch him sketch and answered your questions. He carried on with his old comics he left unfinished long ago. The same he had drawn back thirty years ago. The main characters are three little fellas: Bendy, Alice Angel, and Boris. Henry said they animated their adventures and later on, added side characters. The Butcher Gang, if you recall, also consists of a trio: Charley, Barley, and Edgar.

When Henry started storytelling, you felt like a kid back again, he could’ve marked your childhood just as the rest of animators who made those toons while you were a child. Oh, how you treasured these memories, you’ll never forget the time you spent together.

Evoking past times has helped to soothe your headache an itty-bitty, yet you still need to find the ibuprofen.

“Where could it be…” You asked to no one, hoping the walls may respond, even though it’ll never happen.

Seeking everywhere you soon turned the room upside down, papers on the floor resembling a carpet, art supplies rolling across the table (pencils, colors, pens, paintbrushes, blending stumps, etc.) and some books based on anatomy and animation were disorganized on their bookshelves. It all ended after you opened a drawer (this one didn’t need your touch, it was already a disorder) and found what you were looking for, and because of your rashness, more papers fell on the floor.

“Damn, what a mess…” You muttered under your breath a little irritated with yourself for being so careless while searching. You collected the papers and put them in order back again one by one, because of it you grew curious and read some of them, a letter grabbed your attention.

It was one of those fancy letters with a seal and all (what does it say? Seems of importance).

You don’t consider yourself nosy, just interested in its contents.

<<From Joey Drew? Huh, looks like your old buddy send you his salutations after all this time>>

Oh, you had no idea.

Henry knew about the letter, he already read it and did as they told him. The old studio where they used to make dreams come true transformed into a living hell.

‘DEAR HENRY

IT SEEMS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO SINCE WE WORKED ON CARTOONS TOGETHER.

30 YEARS REALLY SLIPS AWAY, DOESN’T IT?

IF YOU ARE BACK IN TOWN, COME VISIT THE OLD WORKSHOP.

THERE’S SOMETHING I NEED TO SHOW YOU.

YOUR BEST PAL, JOEY DREW’.

You finished reading the letter.

*Snrk*

Well shit.

Did you just read a confession or a love letter? Why not both? You don’t know why, but it feels like one.

“Okay, let’s stop right there. I can’t make jokes on circumstances as these ones”.

What could be so urgent for Joey to write a letter after thirty years of silence?

Should you investigate?

<<The letter could’ve been sent years ago! Henry surely read it; otherwise, it wouldn’t be inside a drawer of his studio, though there’s a possibility he didn’t, I doubt it. He must have seen his friend has written message>>

Okay, sure. Let’s suppose he didn’t pay any mind to the damn thing, you can pretend, now the real issue it’s the location. Joey Drew Studios must be closed (or broken down into pieces, you didn’t know if they decided to demolish the whole building).

“Wake up ___! Face reality, you shouldn’t be fantasizing, this ain’t some silly story with you as a heroine…instead of wasting my time, I shall swallow that damn pill and take some zzz’s”.

You left Henry’s solace and went to bed once again after you swallowed the pill with some water. A dreamless sleep greeted you.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bendy’s POV

“ん乇'丂 ムの刀乇”.

Even though he should be celebrating, the Inkarnate can’t seem to find any joy in his being, no emotion tried to overtake him. Why? He doesn’t feel anything. True, he may not possess all the emotions a human has, but anger, joy, sadness, and hysteria weren’t unbeknownst him. There’s no satisfaction nor sorrow towards his creator’s death, not even an ounce of regret. Ok no, he won’t sense any guilt for what happened to Henry, he deserved to die just as much as Joey, but he was grasping straws in here!

How’s it possible to not perceive the slightest of emotion within himself?

The Ink Demon was turning apathetic in regards to the subject; he didn’t have an answer as to why. One thing he’s sure of, his world turned dull no longer exciting as he thought.

It was as if the little dancing demon had opened his eyes for the first time, after all those years blinded by the dripping ink, before that, he only saw what his mind showed him. He finally realized how monochromatic his world truly is.

All is black and white for the demon’s eyes.

A wave of indifference invades his mind and his mind is fuzzy, he dissolves into his inky form and rests.

However, not for much.

“-aHahaHAhahaHahaHAhaha!”

Alice.

That bitch.

He despises her nearly as much as those liars, yet the little devil darling couldn’t give a damn about her right now. Let her laugh all she wants as the malady she’s. The Angel probably got the word, celebrating, unlike him.

Immersing himself even more inside the ink, he found…peace. He can work with that, serenity aids his jumbled thoughts; darkness envelopes him and swallows his body whole.

<<In the end…I feel empty. Is this how revenge it’s supposed to be like?>>

He can’t respond to that, how could he? He doesn’t even know what’s life supposed to feel like.

<<Their imagination cursed us all with life, they couldn’t take responsibility for their actions and show us how to drive through it>>

Back when he was the small little imp everybody loved, there were all kind of colors, unlike now. The studio felt warm in contrast to all the ink that surrounds it now.

The remains of those old days lurk inside the deep abyss as ink creatures, husks who replaced the humans that worked here.

Thinking about it got him tired, Bendy finds himself drifting from consciousness, he’s falling asleep.

“Was it worth it?”

<<Again that cunt>> Despite his thoughts, the Inkarnate didn’t feel irascible towards the narcissist woman. Actually, there isn’t much for him to perceive.

She’s not in here, she wouldn’t dare to step a foot on his domain. The wench had the nerve of placing her cutouts and posters; he destroyed a few just as she did the same. She is communicating with him using a damaged poster with her face.

“I know you can hear me, demon, don’t fake pretend.”

“Wんﾘ りの ﾘのひ ᄃﾑ尺乇?” He hopes to scare her, even though he knows it won’t work while using his beast form for some reason his speech turns nightmarish. Yet he doesn’t wield it often because of how difficult is controlling his instincts. Thoughts become more primal, talking it’s hard after a few hours transformed in it gets tiring, and he can’t measure his own force. He favors his inky form best: practical and gets the job done.

“I don’t”. So she’s just shitting with him, insufferable.

“Then why ask?”

“Spirit of inquiry. Your relationship intrigues me, up there in Heaven, we get curious as to why you didn’t kill him yourself. And don’t even try to justify your actions. You had many opportunities. The little errand boy nearly ends up killing you, he tried the same with me”.

After listening to what the Angel had to said, his permanent smile turned slowly into a frown. It’s never a good thing when the Lord ain’t wearing one.

“…”

“Well?”

The fallen angel is laughing at him.

“Not even you know the reason behind your acts of mercy!” He remains silent, it’s not like she’s wrong, the little devil does not why he was so resilient with Henry.

After that fiasco, she left him be.

Thanks to Alice’s short visit, Bendy finds questioning why she dropped by. They hate one another, true. She has eyes here and there, but it’s to keep him in line, so he won’t cross an inky limb on her domain. Unlike the female cartoon, he does not have any cutouts, posters, plushies, or ink servants near her place. He wants nothing to do with her. That’s why he finds it so unusual, it’s not like her.

Unless…

She fancies something he has.

<<If that bitch knows what’s good for her, she won’t be picking her nose in my business>>

Later he’ll do his rounds throughout the studio, maybe, the imp will find what she’s searching before she does, whatever it may be, he won’t let her have it.

He’ll make sure of it.

Who knows what her deranged mind has planned; he’s tired of the gruesome scenery this place is in, corpses all around, clones of his ol’ friend bring back unsavory images from the past. Oh, Lawrence, he’s a madman, made satanic circles as a way of showing his devotion towards the black devil. Thanks to Sammy, he has eyes in nearly the entire place.

Yes, he’s aware the musician it’s alive, but Sammy Lawrence continues being of use for him.

<<I’ll take care of him when I wake up…>>

He’s exhausted. However, he stays on his beast form sunken in ink.

The demon’s slumber it’s a peaceful one…

.

   .

   .

   .

   .

   Until you enter his kingdom.

 An animalistic rumble shakes the tinted walls.

 He’s coming for you.

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three days.

You paced on the issue for three days, until you finally had an answer.

“I’m gonna pay a visit to your ol’ pal, maybe he’s still alive…or not…” You lowered your voice in the last part; Henry called Joey a bastard and accused him of being mentally unstable, you trust his word, but what if…what if he changed? There’s a possibility he redeemed himself and went through a rehabilitation process to help him with his instability.

<<I need to look for the address and from there I’ll see what can be done>>

You googled ‘Joey Drew Studios’ on your phone and within seconds Google Maps showed up, you were going to click at it, but then something catches your eye.

An article and it’s quite old.

‘Joey Drew Studios, also known as the workshop. Is an American corporation and an animation studio of the Bendy franchise, established in 1929.

Founded by Joey Drew and Henry Stein in an unknown full date other than the year of 1929, Joey Drew Studios is located at Broadway, Brooklyn, New York City, New York.

In 1946, Joey Drew Studios was under investigation after reports of hazardous work environments, missing employees, harassment, and excessive back pay, as well the company's danger of being bankrupt, all of which are a result of Joey's mismanagement of the studio. Anonymous employees threatened to make labor unions over the poor conditions, which included unpermitted buildings, hazardous electrical wiring, and a plumbing system prone to bursting. In addition, there were excessive work hours, most of which were unpaid and several animators were unable to see their families in weeks, after being threatened with disciplinary action and termination if they were unable to finish animations on tight schedules.

There were reports of barricaded offices, employees locked up in work spaces, and complaints of crazy malfunctioning machinery. Despite the evidence against the company, Joey Drew remained firm that the studio has done nothing wrong, calling the accusations "preposterous" and "ridiculous", dismissing them as either complaint from menial employees, or feeble attempts by competing studios to discredit Joey.

On August 16, 1959, the law firm known as Snooks, Spitner and Snooks sued Joey Drew, having heard the rumors of Joey's mismanaging of his own workers. 12 days later, the studio was closed down in accordance to legal regulation 11 U.S Code § 1125 (which forbids the misrepresentation of legally established companies) as evident by the bankruptcy report found in Joey's apartment, as well as health and safety concerns directly by the mention of a health and safety board meeting schedule found in the appointment lobby.’

Oof.

<<That’s a lot to take in>>

Why the fuck would Henry’s friend would want to meet at that nightmare show? Has he learned nothing after all this years? And not only that, the sucker it´s/was an abusive prick with his employees!

<<Man, you weren’t joking>>

You fear a screw lose isn’t Joey’s only problem.

<<He sounds like an asshole, I don’t want to put up with his shit...I’ve got enough dealing with people like him on a daily basis. Sure, not everyone it’s an ass and there’s some decent/kind people out there, but handling jerks as the likes of him tires me out>>

Sometimes you aren’t the most patient person, it all depends. But this whole ordeal it’s too much for you.

<<The studio is in the big city, New York it’s fucking expensive. I don’t have the money for travelling that far, I’ll have to bid on my savings and package supplies for the journey>>

Crap. Three days and you didn’t think all of this through! How can you be so stupid?!

Now this looks like one of those impulsive decisions you take for being careless and inattentive.

<<How could Henry put up with me when not even I can stand myself?!>>

You need an adult, that’s what you ought to have beside you.

Your life is such a mess sometimes…

“Before spending money on my idiocy I should read more and prepare myself.” You mutter angrily to yourself.

That’s exactly what you did the next two days, finally you are ready for departing.

You grab your backpack and the car’s keys. “Cellphone in the front pocket, all that’s left is open the door, lock it and call Abby, easy.”

During those two days you made a few calls and went up for gas, it was going to be a long trip from Miami to New York. Sure, it ain’t that extensive, but you’ll be driving by yourself for approximately 20 hours. A place to stay, money, gasoline and food are big girl’s problems. Not counting the money you’ll spend on a cheap motel to rest your head.

“That or make a few stops on gas stations…maybe sleeping in the car won’t be that bad…” The good thing is you have options; you aren’t tied solely to one alternative.  

<<Abby won’t charge me for doing me this favor, another plus>>

She’ll guard the house in your absence and will call if any emergency transpires.

Now, you are free to go.

<<I hope I made a good decision doing this>>

The first 8 hours were a torment, bored and your ass felt numb of sitting for that long, the last time you remained that still was in high school, since you made your schedule. Your feet hurt just as your arms did. You made a stop for eating and going to the bathroom, after that another 8 hours.

Overall, the journey was relaxing, while driving you admired the views offered to you, savoring each sight. It helped you keeping away some melancholy.

You miss Henry, no matter how much you tried to distract yourself with this excursion of yours, the emptiness stays in the back of your mind.

Your wounds are still fresh, you haven’t mourned properly, because you don’t want to. That’s why you are doing this, to keep yourself busy so you won’t think about it. You need it, you ain’t prepared for it yet.

Soon you’ll be.

After a short nap (before that you made many stops, ‘cuz you’re a whining bitch who ain’t strong enough to control her fucking bladder), you started driving again. You have three or four hours left on the road.

Time to listen some music, you activate Bluetooth and connect your phone to the car’s stereo, finally you found a song of your liking in Spotify and play it. You spent the rest of the trip singing along; sometimes you’ll speed up a little bit on the spur of the moment.

Soon you got to your destination, didn’t waste time changing clothes, you collapsed on the bed in the motel and slept for an hour. After that, you washed yourself and got ready for visiting Joey Drew.

“Here goes nothing…”

You regret already coming here, silly you just ruined a change of clothes! Why is there so much ink? You’ll never get out the ink of your shoes, fuck! You have been here for less than ten minutes and all went to shit for you! It doesn’t help this place keeps giving you the heebies-jeebies! Every time you take a step on the creaky wooden floor it feels as if someone is following you, like a slithering sound. The ink splashes keep creeping you out, if it wasn’t black you would think it’s blood, Jesus Christ.

<<Thank God, the lights still work; it would make this place spookier if they didn’t>>

As you venture further deeper into the studio, a beast rumbles, shaking everything around you, more ink drops fall.

At that moment…

…you knew you fucked up.

So you hide.

Your mind provides you one last thought before going high drive

‘WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?!’

<<FUUU-

[scourgewins]

A Bendy and the Ink Machine and Good Omens Crossover (Chapter 1)

(I felt inspired to write the scenario in this roleplay brought up in this ask. I’m not sure how many chapters there’ll be; it probably won’t be a lot. I’m super nervous to post this for some reason! We’ll see how this goes!)

(Warnings: None)

Joey was halfway through writing his first name when he chucked his pencil at the far wall and dropped his head onto his desk, shutting his eyes. He opened them after a few seconds to let them travel slowly up the stack of papers next to him. He made a face of dismay, mustache bristling angrily.

“So much work…” he groaned quietly to himself, closing his eyes again. Maybe he could just will it all to be done. If he thought really hard, it would all be complete and he could do something far less mind-numbingly dull. When he cracked an eye open, the paper hadn’t budged and somehow seemed larger than before. Heaving a sigh, he lifted his head off the desk, noticing where he’d signed as “Jo” on the paper he’d been going over.

He couldn’t possibly be expected to do all of this. That was just plain inhumane. I need help…

He dismissed the thought as soon as it entered his mind. Everyone in the studio was working double-time to meet the next deadline. If he pulled someone to come help him, some part of the next cartoon would inevitably suffer. No, that could never be allowed to happen.

Perhaps one of his cartoon children could help. Joey’s face brightened then dimmed. Neither Bendy, Boris, or Alice could read or write fluently. Plus, they’d all become distracted within the first minute of helping; reading over reports and signing papers wasn’t exactly the kind of fun a toon went for.

He was truly on his own. Unless…

Now here was an idea!

He could summon a demon to help him!

Joey leaped to his feet and started to pull open the drawers of his desk, withdrawing his ritual book, some candles, and an inkwell and brush. Why hadn’t he thought of this before? A demon could read any sort of contract in seconds and forge any signature. He’d be done in no time!

Humming happily to himself, Joey got to work drawing the pentagram and setting the candles just so. He flipped through his book and found the passage on summoning a low level demon. No need for any major evil entities; those could be quite a handful.

Joey started to recite the chant, realizing too late a blob of ink had landed on a few of the words. Panicking, he improvised what he wanted to say, hoping his Latin was up to snuff.

I summon thee, demon of the highest level. (He said highest because the highest level of Hell belongs to the least evil of the lot. The lowest levels are where the really bad folks go. It was something he’d learned the hard way.)

The circle began to glow red hot, and Joey backed away quickly, hoping against hope whatever came out wouldn’t incinerate him on the spot. There was a whoosh as red hot Hellfire erupted upward. Joey felt his blood run cold despite the heat. That was definitely a bad sign.

He could see the vague figure of a demon in the middle of the inferno. They were tall, much taller than Joey. As the flames died down, the summoner was able to ascertain more details about what he had summoned.

The demon’s hair was as red as the flames lapping at it and stylishly slicked back from his forehead. For a second, Joey thought the gaping black circles on his face were his eyes, but on second glance could see they were sunglasses. The demon wore a full black suit, complete with a gray tie. His hands were stuffed in his pockets but withdrew to steady their owner as he adjusted to his new surroundings. Then he was straightening from the slight slouch he was in and locking eyes with Joey.

Joey held his breath and clutched his ritual book to his chest. Should I call for help? Maybe if I move fast enough I’ll make it to the door. Is this a high-ranking demon? Oh boy, I’ve really put my foot in it now.

The demon stepped out of the circle as the last of the flames died away. He eyed Joey up and down from behind his glasses, sizing him up.

Joey felt he should say something, “Uh…”

“Where am I?” the demon interrupted. He had what Joey believed to be an English accent.

“You’re in Joey Drew Studios.”

The demon rolled his hand, motioning for him to continue, “And that would be in…”

“Oh! New York… in the United States of America!”

The demon threw his head back to sigh loudly, “Of course! It had to be across the blasted ocean!”

He faced forward again and slouched into a more relaxed stance, not at all putting Joey at ease, “Look, I don’t do the whole ‘selling your soul’ thing, alright? And I’m not going to do you any demonic favors, so you can go right ahead and send me back.”

Joey blinked, “Well, uh, okay, Mister…”

“Crowley.” Crowley supplied through gritted teeth.

“...Crowley, I’ll see what I can do, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get the portal up and running right away.”

“And why is that?” Crowley asked after a beat, taking one menacing step forward. Joey took one step back and met with the wall. He pressed his back against it and tried for a reassuring smile.

“I can’t do a ritual immediately after finishing another one. I need time to recharge!”

“You look well enough to me.” the demon said.

“Yes, well, I’ve had practice. But it is always harder to send demons back than to summon them, especially one from so far away a place as… England, right?”

“How long will this recharging take?”

Joey pondered for a few seconds, “I don’t think it should take more than an hour, plus a few extra minutes to get the summoning circle back in order. You’ll be home in no time!”

“I’d better be.” Joey gulped at those ominous words.

“Yeah, uh, sorry again about all this. I just wanted a lesser demon to help me with some paperwork. Not that you’re lesser!” Joey hastened to add, “I just, um… said the wrong words…”

Crowley raised an eyebrow, “You wanted me to help with your... paperwork?”

“Not you! Some demon, yes.” Joey nodded to the stack on his desk, “It was becoming really boring.”

Crowley followed his gaze then turned back to him, ”Let me get this straight: you summoned a demon from Hell to assist you with office work?”

Joey nodded, “Yup!”

The sunglasses on Crowley’s face started to slip down his nose, enough for Joey to see slit-pupiled, yellow eyes underneath. The demon readjusted them and shook his head, “Usually people want me to give them a paper that they sign.”

Joey waved the notion aside, “Oh, I did that a long time ago. Feel free to roam the studio while I get everything back in order! He slapped a hand to his face, “Oh, silly me! You don’t even know what this studio’s for, do you?”

“No, and I don’t care.”

Joey ignored him. Generally, ignoring a demon was not a wise course of action, but Joey tended to get excited when talking about his beloved studio.

“This here’s an animation studio! We create state of the art cartoons for your viewing pleasure. Our title character is even a demon!” Joey gestured to one of the posters on his wall. Crowley gave it a once over then turned back.

“Not really into cartoons.”

Joey gasped loudly, “Not into cartoons?! That’s probably only because you haven’t seen one of ours before. I’ll have to have one of my employees show one to you, or, er, I guess they are all pretty busy…”

Crowley sighed, “Look, I don’t care about this little cartoon empire of yours. I’ve got a lot of work to do myself, back in London. I need you to send me back as soon as possible. Are we clear on that?”

Joey sagged in disappointment but still nodded.

“Perfect. I’m gonna go for a stroll, and when I come back in an hour’s time, I expect the portal to be ready.” The demon snapped his fingers and the door to Joey’s office flung open. Giving Joey one last commanding look, he sauntered out, the door slamming behind him.

Joey noticed he’d kept an iron tight grip on his ritual book and relinquished it now, letting it flop on his desk. He collapsed into his chair and again looked at the stack of paperwork. If it wasn’t for the circle still painted on his floor, Joey might have thought he’d imagined everything.

Alright, now to figure this out. Joey hadn’t been entirely truthful with Crowley. He did need time to recharge, yes, but the summoning had been fairly simple and he would have been okay to perform another ritual when he’d been asked. There was just the simple problem of Joey being not entirely sure what he’d done the first time. The ink blot on the page had forced him to recite Latin on the spot. He had a rough idea of what he’d said, but it had clearly backfired, seeing as how who he’d summoned was definitely not a lesser demon and definitely not one to be trifled with.

It’ll be fine, he told himself, You’ve got this!

For his own sake, he hoped he was right.

[one-and-a-half-yikes]

This AU Idea I never finished

ABYSS

CHAPTER 1 (no longer a thing RIP)

Henry Crosem liked to think of himself as a simple man. Ever since he was a boy he’d only ever had his sights respectively fall upon the category of:

Get good grades.

Get a good scholarship, specifically in the art field.

Maybe find himself a beautiful wife who could cook about as well as him.

They’d get married and have kids. How many kids Henry was never sure about, he just knew he wanted some kids. A couple of girls and a couple of boys.

Then he’d get old and have grandchildren. He would die happy with the ones he loved.

A simple, American way of thinking. Just living a happy life till the end of days. Nevermind the dreamers with big ideas and egotistical mindsets with business, business, business on their minds; all Henry wanted to achieve at was being happy.

Forever.

He had never imagined himself as someone who was an amazing artist. It just so happened he was capable of drawing cartoons the best. Everytime he put pencil to paper those sketches became outlines and those outlines seemed to almost always breathe life in them with their exaggerated facial expressions and happy-go-lucky smiles adorning their round, plump cheeks. Pie cut eyes colored in black held all assortments of emotions ranging from melancholy, angry, grumpy, sad, bored, irritated, you name it; he could draw it.

An amazing cartoonist is what they’d called him.

He’d do well working for Fleischer or Disney, they would praise to him.

Henry, however, liked to think otherwise. It had never been a case of what studio he would go to, more like what kind of college would give him the best experience of his twenties. There was never a goal to join a big studio, too much expectation to follow the rules, stick strictly to the guidelines, don’t go off script! If there was one thing Henry Crosem hated more than algebra as a whole, it was having his creativity diminished or restrained into oblivion.

With the creative liberty he gave himself, he had managed to create something quite amazing. Something you wouldn't expect to get pass the parent censors, but this was Henry they were referring to and so they didn’t question the sharp horns and gleefully, creepy (but not sinister) smile that adorned the white of its face.

It had been created, though it had no name. It would be four exact months before a name that would be recognized and feared in the land would be given to the cartoon character.

…

“Bendy.”

“Huh?”

“No, I mean the name - for the character - should be Bendy.”

Henry looked over at the voice who had spoken. It was a boy, well a man technically, but he had a few set features that made him seem like a boy, with a lanky build about him. His knees were knobby, and one even appeared to be slightly crooked (he was not wearing long pants like he usually would to hide such an extremity) and an angular and narrow face, his eyes were kind of big, and they were a bright brown swimming with mirth, his cheek bones portruded from the sides of his face, chin just a tad too sharp for one’s liking; his ears were pointy and big and stuck out like elf ears and his nose was sharp and curved up a bit at the end. To top it all off, he wore big, goofy-looking glasses that lo and behold, completed the nerd aesthetic to a fine degree.

Henry gave him a raised eyebrow and turned to look down at the little doodle he had created. “Bendy, huh?”

The picture itself was simplistic in design with “Bendy” waving enthusiastically at nothing in particular with a big smile on his face. Behind him lay a sweetly curved tail with the tip being drawn to look like the tip of an ink pen. A niche little design Henry was especially proud of.

Joey laid back into the bench he was situated on and shrugged, “It seemed like a good idea to me - I mean, it’s just..remember that essay from a few months back?”

“What essay?”

“The one where I specifically remember coming into your dorm room and witnessing you bashing your head on a table while muttering about how much you want to jump out a window.”

Oh. That one. Some time ago, three months actually, Henry had embarked on an amazing journey through literature, in which he was told to write an entire essay on character designs and how they should and must coincide with their personalities in some shape or form. The teacher had given the students permission to use their own characters they had created in the essay as an example, and naturally, Henry had picked the first ever toon he'd called an actual success. The little toon demon had had many names running through Henry's brain, but none had ever stuck, and when he had found one halfway through his essay and sleep deprived he'd accidentally misspelled the name, and what came of it was jumbled jargon of what should have been Bentley.

Luckily, it was his own work and so his teacher completely glossed over the typo when he'd turned it in, didn't mean anything to Henry who was a wreck throughout the whole endeavor and beyond. To hear Joey bring it back up again had him quite annoyed and embarrassed, which was always a good combination of emotions.

“I mean...that doesn't...really...sound - feasible?...” Henry stated, wincing at how his voice strained on the last word. He'd had a sore throat for a whole week, and it was annoying - agitating - at best.

Joey suddenly leaned in, eyes wild with excitement. “But, it could work so well! Like a pun!”

“...a pun?”

“Well, I mean, he's a toon; and they're pretty bendy aren't they?” Joey stated in a matter-of-fact tone. He shrugged.

“Well yeah-” Henry muttered, finding himself becoming a tad more convinced.

“Then it's perfect!” Joey exclaimed, arms flailing about. He almost fell out of his seat in the process of his jerky movements.

Henry snorted and rolled his eyes at his friends antics, then glanced back down at his crinkled, white paper. Hesitantly he reached for the pen he had laid down on the table, before lightly gripping it, and, holding it steadily, etched the word ‘Bendy’ into the paper.

“Bendy...huh?”

Well...it wasn't that bad of a name…

…

The name for the studio, was pretty lacking in creativity.

Joey Drew Studios.

It was bad enough that Joey's name was viable to turn into someone's pun of the week, but then to gleefully add it to the studio's name - considering on the fact that it was an animation studio to begin with - didn't make it better, and Henry so badly wanted to bury himself into the sandy and gravel parking lot.

Beside him Joey stood proud and tall with his hands on his waist looking up at the crooked sign reading his name in big, blocky letters. A smile, all teeth exposed, like it could light up a Christmas tree was plastered on his face, and with some carelessness, the man slammed a hand upon Henry's shoulder with more force than he had intended, especially for someone so skinny.

Henry looked, and his moss greens met excited browns that seemed to have a smile of their own. It was infectious in a way and the chestnut haired man smiled as well.

“With this, Henry. This studio; you and I...we're gonna go places...big places…”

Joey said it with confidence and bravado and Henry couldn't help but to believe him. Even if he thought that couldn't be further from the truth.

Even though some part of him felt like this was lie. A big lie.

One of many lies yet to be made.

…

The place itself was desolate and gray.

Faded, yellowed walls with torn and shredded wood, along with the pervasive smell of old ink was all that was left of a dream.

And Henry had long since cried about it.

Shuffling through the strangely quiet halls of the studio, he tried to keep his breathing as shallow as possible, especially with the aforementioned dust and...rotten wood, he hoped that was what that smell was. Stepping lightly over wooden boards so as to not immediately fall down another hole the man continued on, clutching a broken and bent pipe against his chest, if only if to feel secure if nothing else. His axe, which would be his third axe having been lost, had broken while in the midst of a fight with a hoard of searchers. He’d narrowly escaped death for the twentieth time before giving up and thrusting the rest of what was left of the weapon into the ‘stomach’ of one of the moaning creatures of blackness.

Didn’t mean anything though because he still ended up with a mouthful of ink that he just barely managed to stop from slithering down his throat. He scratched at his neck feeling an itching sensation welling up inside him.

Another coughing fit.

Not now! Not now! Henry cast his eyes around the space he was in but all he could see were blank walls with questionable dark stains splattered on them that definitely didn’t look like ink to him.

Walking just a little bit faster till he was going in a light jog he made it to the end of the hallway where he came across two passages.

A wheezy breath in the form of an exhale escaped passed his lips, releasing some of the pressure from off his chest. With a quickness, the man hadn’t known himself to have he slapped a thick hand against his mouth silencing any further noise less he make a noise loud enough to attract attention to any monsters roaming the halls and be killed off - that, and he didn’t even know of any other Bendy statues that could be down here. And besides that, he couldn’t afford to get into another fight, not now; not after having to deal with killing the only true companion he’d found solace in in this hellhole of a studio turned into a beast of nightmarish proportions by that fucking someone he thought he could trust. And then having to fight them afterwards when they didn’t get their way, Henry just slightly escaping the inky person’s grasp and making a beeline for the exit. Now he found himself incredibly deep within the studio, and at this point he was certain that there was no way of escape, all he could truly do now was survive, and maybe hope that he could come across someone else trapped here as well, although the likelihood of that being the case was quite small as far as he was concerned, and yet optimism had always been one of Henry’s defining characteristics. Now alongside being able to cheat death itself!

It was funny though really - the ink could destroy you or heal you, yet it could never figure out  which to stick with when it came to Henry, which technically gave him the advantage to do as he pleases, but there was a need to still be cautious around the stuff…

He wondered if that’s why Wally and Norman ended up sharing the same fate...

Henry shook his head, his faded, chestnut hair bobbing lightly with the motion. He couldn’t think about those things now. When he found a safe room to rest in he could reminiscence and cry like a bitch then, right now he needed to focus. The pressure in his chest had built up even more and the wheezes were turning into full on gulps for air as he tried to maintain composure, but it was kind of hard to do that when his lungs felt as if they could burst at any second, and he was sure that if he stopped now to let out a polite and quiet cough he would end just showing that it was truly possible for a human to projectile vomit from a distance.

But he couldn’t stop, and his coughing fit could very well leave him vulnerable to any ambush.

Better to be safe than to be sorry.

That’s what he told his daughter at least.

“But the spider looks so cute! Why can’t I touch it? It ain’t doin’ nothing!” A small girl with pale skin and dark hazel hair and intense dark blue eyes stared up him with a small pout, her brow furrowed.

“Only if you wanna get bitten!” Henry exclaimed sitting the tool box covered in oil. He’d been working on the family car has it had broken down for the third time in a row and he wanted to check it out and see if he could fix the problem himself before even entertaining the thought of going to a car shop to get it repaired. He turned to her and placed his hands on his hips, a steady, playful glare directed at her. “Your mother and I don’t have the means to pay another hospital bill because you’re feelin’ a little adventurous.”

The girl pouted just a little bit more to the point of where her bottom lip began to wobble, and with some cursed talent she managed to give off the impression that she was about to cry. Luckily, Henry had had plenty of time to get used to her ‘pouty face’ and so was able to ignore it. He waggled a finger at her with a stern glare, “Nuh-uh, ain’t happenin’.”

“Daaaaaad!” She stomped her feet on the hard packed earth causing small dust clouds to poof into existence. She balled her small hands into small fists and glared back at him silently. Her dark eyes reflecting a storm, yep, she certainly was her mother…

“Better to be safe than sorry my dear!” And he said this in what he considered to be a perfect match to the Wicked Witch’s voice from ‘The Wizard of Oz’, though of course his wife and child would digress heavily on that front.

So caught up in his memories, Henry completely forgot to pay attention to just about...well anything, and so when the first cough, which turned into a second and then a third came loose from his throat, he immediately collapsed on his hands and knees, inhaling shaky breaths and desperately wishing for some water to alleviate the misery his throat was under. Coughing seized for a moment before making a comeback faster than he could anticipate, and soon he was hacking and choking on bits of ink lodged in his throat refusing to come out anytime soon. Spat on the ground and looked in horror and the wet chunk of dried ink and blood glistening in the dim light of the hall.

He stood back up hastily, groaning and still spitting and hacking and wheezing and coughing. As he did this he could hear the sounds of heavy moans from behind, and he turned to see thin amalgamations of a half-human half-melted deformity crawling across the floor, its thin arms shivering as if they could collapse at any moment.

A searcher.

Although this one was small, where there was one, there would be ten more to count and Henry knew he definitely didn’t have the strength to fight them all off.

So he ran.

Or attempted to at least. Instead he hobbled a meger pace that would grandmas seem faster in comparison to a man in his late fifties.

He wasn’t anywhere near the end of the hallway when he heard a ghastly screech from behind, and, deciding that looking back was really stupid (he was going to die anyways though) he looked behind him to see ‘Bendy’ casually making his way out if the inky portal he’d created. From the looks of it, he was now more skinny than before, with what was supposed to be a spinal cord now looking closer to sharp spikes protruding from his back. His ribcage was more defined and poked through his ‘skin’ showing bits of white. If Henry dared to squint and look closer he could even make out bits of dark ‘flesh’ hanging off the ends of the white marrow.

The monster seemed to look to his left before looking to his right and staring dead at him.

Or at least he thought he was staring at him.

It paused, as if observing him, and then with a loud cry unlike all the others he’d heard before, it charged with clawed, inky limbs outstretched, ready to kill him immediately. At that point, still hacking up blood and ink, Henry allowed the creature to grip him, its claws digging deep into his flesh. He cried out in agony, but realized it was pointless because it was all the same dance and no amount of pleading or crying or begging would cause the pain to end; his suffering would continue onwards whether he wanted it to or not. And he was pretty sure this thing was just sentient enough to be able to understand how to sneak up and kill its prey, but not enough to have a moral conscience. Or at least that was the only theory he could come to.

Then again, was it really a theory? The amount of times he had been ambushed by ‘Bendy’ was immense after all.

Henry had long since stopped screaming, even as those wicked claws ripped flesh and skin from his white bones; even as he felt those same claws puncture a lung, causing him to gasp desperately for air; even as he had his intestines ripped violently from his stomach and in his faded moments of lasting life he watched the creature, with an ever present grin etched onto its face, crush his heart.

Blood was splattered everywhere, some of it old, and some of it new. Although if you asked Henry he wouldn’t be able to tell you the difference.

Henry’s entire body had been eviscerated and mutilated beyond recognition and could very well be described as a smears of red and chunks of flesh scattered about. Because that was basically what he had become, and still was technically.

Struggling through the tunnel of ink he could feel bits of his body wriggling and growing back.  It was at this point, as he grew a neck for his decapitated head, that he realized he had just mere moments ago been nothing but a floating mass of empty air, or better yet, if this world worked the way it evidently did, he had been nothing but a floating soul amongst the ink that was now regrowing a body. And that was kind of cool, but also terrifying.

Everyone else lost their soul to the ink and yet he was still here?!

He had died in the worst way imaginable. In a way that should not have ended with him emerging from the ink puddle next to the Bendy statue he had become familiarized with. Everyone else was gone, but even when he lost all his body parts his soul was able to go on…

Apparently, Joey was really fucking adamant about keeping him alive…

Fuck you, Joey...just- fuck you…

“Welp, twice times the charm I guess…”he muttered making his way back down…

Shit where the fuck was he?

He paused and looked both ways before a sudden realization dawned on him.

“Seriously, fuck you Joey…”

…

Successfully raiding a trashcan for food in a world dominated by inky creatures that didn’t necessarily need food to survive was always a blessing.

Which was incredibly ironic considering on the fact that this place ran on Satanic magic.  

At least Bendy liked to think so.

Curved, white claws dragged through rubbish pulling out scraps of meat and black, fleshy things covered in ink. The toon was sure it was worms. He shrugged and shoved the food in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Two more days before he would at least reach the sewer parts of the city, though of course he could cut that down to one-in-a-half if he snuck aboard one of those supply ships those Goldies were stationed in. But then again, everyone was looking for him most likely, or would soon.

Snatching a few more scraps of rotten meat covered in ink he shoved it deep into his pant pockets which were a dark, navy-green coloring with a dark, gray-orange coat wrapped snug around his top torso.

The toon jumped up and looked around wildly with oddly off-model eyes. He had stopped in one of the many alleyways designated throughout the city. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of shouting and yelling and the sounds of blaring horns.

Guards…

Great - more hiding. And just when he didn't feel like involving Boris in anymore danger than he already was…

And he didn't trust his magic to be cooperative with him at the moment with his nerves all frazzled.

[cyberflows-art]

Shoulder Devil

Oof! This sure took me a while! Not really because it’s long (although it kind of is, whoops!), but because I have terrible time management skills XD

I always plan what I’m going to say for this little introductions and then completely forget what I was supposed to say...

Well, this is my fic for the Joey Drew Studios AU at @ask-joeydrewstudios! I knew for quite some time that I wanted to do something for this AU because the characters are very well developed and consistent, the art is fantastic and it’s always a good time whenever I receive a notification telling me there’s a new post! I could spend a looong time telling you why I love this AU so much, but instead I’m just going to recommend checking it out! I wan’t sure whether to draw something, or write something, soooo I did both! Oh! I’m also going to put it over on AO3 and ffnet if that’s more your thing!

I really hope you like it!

Cough Don’t use or repost my drawing without my permission, please! Cough

It had been a very productive Friday in the studio. Most of the animators had managed to get ahead on their work, the voice actors had very smooth recording sessions and Joey found himself praising a lot of people when he checked on them. The ink spills where almost null, the projectors all in outstanding condition, the pipes hadn’t emitted any creaking noises or given any signs of damage. The toy department had just finished some new concepts for a limited edition line of toys that could boost their income quiet a bit. The studio was reveling in a contented mood, and the employees certainly appreciated the relaxed work environment, so different to the usual stress of having to meet an approaching deadline. But that productivity came at a price. 

A price called Sammy Lawrence.

Due to the presence of a certain prank loving toon, people who worked at Joey Drew Studios knew to have spare clothing at hand, even more so if you worked in the Music Department. But that usually meant just an extra shirt for the week. This day? Sammy had already had to change his shirt twice before lunch break. The first time was due to a bucket of ink being dumped on his head; the second because Henry just so happened to be passing through the same hallway as him with a bowl of (thankfully not boiling) soup, and Bendy just so happened to run by them and “accidentally” push Henry. The entirety of the contents of the bowl, of course, ended covering Sammy. From that point on, the positivity in the air was slain by Sammy’s irate aura and the employees instinctively stepped aside whenever he walked by. And now that he had finally been able to eat something and calm himself a little, he sat at his desk and grabbed a pen only to discover half of his stuff was coated in honey. He groaned in exasperation and cursed the substance while trying to detach the pen from his fingers.

Sammy didn’t know why the little brat suddenly decided to focus all of his attention on him, (this considering the music director was a favorite target), but he knew it needed to stop that instant. In fact, it should have stopped days ago. Since wednesday, Bendy had been making his working hours a living hell. It ranged from hiding random ingredients in his food, to messing with the lyrics in his incomplete songs, to hiding every single one his goddamn cigarettes in a different location each. The only reason he had managed to not fall behind was that he locked all of his important documents and work in the upper right drawer of his desk. He bet that the little devil would have turned them all into paper airplanes if he didn’t.

Grumbling, he stood up once again and started walking towards the nearest bathroom to wash his hands. Of course, it would be his luck that said bathroom was the one in the worst condition in the whole studio. The door, specifically, was a bother to open since there wasn’t enough space between it and the floor, making it drag noisily; not to mention the rusty hinges and knob people had tired of reminding Wally to oil. Maybe the fact that it was the bathroom closest to the music department had something to do with that. Sammy wouldn’t put it past the janitor to be petty like that. He would normally go the extra mile to go to a decent bathroom, but he had wasted enough time as it was, so he resigned himself and stepped in, careful not to close the damaged door all the way.

He got as far as rubbing the soap on his hands before the water stopped flowing from the tap. Frowning, Sammy tried opening and closing it, but quickly lost his patience and tried the other two. Nothing. Anger rapidly increasing, Sammy took a moment to count to ten, planning to calmly go to the bathroom in the floor above. But while he focused on counting, he failed to notice the rattling of the pipes in front of him. 5… 6… 7… 8… 9…  The sudden loud creaking finally caught his attention and alarms rang in his head when he saw all three sinks slightly shaking. He managed but one hasty step towards the door before the three taps were sent flying and three forceful water streams drenched him from head to toe. Sammy instinctively covered his face, desperately trying to maintain enough visibility to walk the short distance to the door. Unfortunately, with all the chaos he wasn’t able to notice the bar of soap that had landed on the floor, and thus couldn’t prevent stepping on it. He yelped when he felt himself tripping forward, barely being able to slam against the door with his shoulder rather than with his face.

A dull pain spread through his upper arm but nothing too serious. Sammy rubbed at it and stood up, his mind trying to process what had just happened. If he had had a moment to collect himself, rage and annoyance would have probably consumed him, but he heard something above the sound of the flowing water. Laughter. Really loud laughter. The door of the stall closest to the wall slowly swung open and hanging from the inside was the little devil himself. He obviously couldn’t hang there for much longer, shaking with laughter as he was, so he jumped to the only corner of the floor untouched by the water to continue from there.

“WOW, Sammy! I thought I had something great by breaking the sinks, but you made it even better with that soap bit!!!” he managed to say through his giggles. “You sure you don’t wanna be a toon? You’d make a great target for gags!”.

Sammy remained silent. He remained silent and looked at the mess around him, one of his eyes twitching. He remained silent because even if he was normally able to yell at Bendy for his pranks, he couldn’t believe the absolute stupidity of the whole situation. He remained silent because even if he would usually call the demon a little shit, he still had to remember he was a kid and at the moment he didn’t trust himself to not say something he could regret later. And the absolute least he needed that day was for Joey to visit him to berate him on his conduct. So he bit back the venom that threatened to escape from his mouth and limited himself to glaring at the demon as harshly as he could. Bendy’s laughter did wither under the look that Sammy was giving him (and the lack of an explosive reaction), but he kept a defiant attitude by crossing his arms and returning the stare with a smile. This only further irritated the music director, so he turned around to open the door, not wanting to see the smug brat’s little face anymore. He wasn’t used to repressing his anger, and since he was absolutely furious, he needed an outlet fast. Except… the doorknob wasn’t working. In fact, it felt pretty loose, probably detached from whatever internal mechanism was inside the door. He struggled with it, as if he could force it to work just by violently moving it, but he ended loosening it it to the point it came off. Sammy glared at it for a second before flinging it against the wall. He heard snorting behind him.

“What?” came Bendy’s voice. “Can’t even open a dooooor, Sammy?”

He then started blabbering about how Sammy needed to start lifting weights and eating more vitamins. Sammy sighed in frustration and turned towards Bendy to yell at him to undo whatever he did to the door so he could go tell Joey to ground the demon for the rest of eternity. He froze, however, when he saw the floor of the room. The flow of the water had considerably diminished, but it was still consistently adding more liquid to the floorboards. The growing puddle was silently creeping in Bendy’s direction, but the demon couldn’t be bothered to notice. For a split second, he toyed with the idea of just watching him notice and freak out about his crucial mistake. But a pang of guilt immediately hit him, knowing well that it would be the equivalent of letting a fire get close to a human. He was furious, but not even he was that cruel. Sighing, he sacrificed the one spot on his clothes that had been spared from the water attack to dry his hands. He crossed the distance between them, tuning out Bendy’s incessant rambling, and lift him up before the puddle could reach his shoes. Three seconds later, there wasn’t a dry spot on the floor.

“Hey!” Bendy exclaimed. “Put me down!! I don’t like bein’ carried around, ya hear me?! Let go!”

He then proceeded to poke Sammy’s head with his tail and trying to wiggle out of his hold. Sammy tightened his grip, afraid he might actually drop him and then held the demon to arms length in a way that wouldn’t allow Bendy enough movement to bite him (which he was known for).

“Okay, you little brat. You are going to look down for a single second and then I dare you to say that again to my face,” Sammy deadpanned.

“What, you think I wouldn’t?” Bendy crossed his arms. “Fine! I’ll look down and then I’ll tell you to your face to put me- Oh...”

“‘Oh’ is right.” Sammy glared at him as he stopped struggling to fall to his demise. “Now, if you could stop throwing a tantrum and fix the freaking door so we both can get the hell out of here, that would be great, wouldn’t it?”

“What?! I didn’t do anything to the door!!!”

“Oh, yeah? Then why won’t it open? Can you really not stop playing dumb even when you turned the floor into something you can’t so much as touch without melting?!” Sammy made him face the door, hoping that he would pull out a tool or something that would let them get out,

“Ugh! I told ya, I didn’t break the door! You’re the one that slammed his ugly face against it! Maybe that’s why it broke, huh?”

Bendy stuck his tounge at him and looked away with a huff.

“So what? We’re just trapped here now?!” Sammy looked at the demon incredulously. “Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted? Well, congratulations! I bet Joey will give you a trophy!”

Bendy scowled at him, but quickly looked away under Sammy’s scolding stare and resigned himself to pout in silence. This was doing nothing for Sammy’s mood. Now there was no way he wasn’t going to fall behind in his work. Besides, the water was already up to his ankles and the cold from being soaked was starting to get to him. His arms were also getting tired.

“Why am I even carrying you still?” he said more to himself. The little guy didn’t really deserved the effort after landing them in the situation they were in. He walked towards the stalls, hoping that he could set him down.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Bendy asked once he felt they were moving.

“I’m getting tired so I decided you are going to stand on one of the toilets,” he said matter of factly.

“WHAT? But… but toilets are filled with water!”

If Sammy didn’t fear he would drop him he would have smacked his own forehead with his hand.

“I’m not putting you inside the toilet, you moron! You’re gonna stand on top of the lid.”

“Ew! No way! Joey told me what goes in there and I’m NOT touching those things.” Bendy scrunched his face up in disgust and clung to Sammy’s hands, refusing to be put down. “And the water is rising so fast! What if it reached me if I was standing there? Oh no! What if it goes all the way up to the roof? What if nobody saves us?!”

Sammy rolled his eyes at the toon’s exaggeration. This wasn’t a worrying predicament, only an infuriatingly annoying one. At this point, he would even accept if Joey offered to teleport them out of there.

“Calm down, we are not going to drown,” Sammy told him. “The door isn’t fused to the floor. There’s gotta be some water leaking, and the moment somebody notices they’re going to-”

“WHAT THE HELL?”

Wally’s voice reached them right on cue. Bendy’s face lit up in an instant.

“Wally! Wally, we’re trapped! You gotta save us!” He yelled.

“Bendy? What-? How-? Oh, shoot! Are you ok? You aren’t like… half melted or something right?” Wally’s voice became a bit panicked with the possible implications of what he could find on the other side of the door. They could hear him frantically turning the useless knob.

“Thanks for the mental image, Franks…”

“Wait… Sammy?! How many people are in there?!”

“Oh no, just the two of us!” Bendy exclaimed happily, as if he hadn’t been freaking out just a few moments prior. “I’m using him as my personal island!”

“Uh, yeah, you keep doing that buddy…” Wally said. “How did this even happen?”

“Sammy broke the door!” Bendy immediately answered.

“Excuse me?! You’re the genius that thought exploding the sinks was a good idea!”

“He WHAT?” Sammy could tell by the distress in Wally’s voice that he knew who would have to deal with the mess. He would have found it amusing if his shoes weren’t completely submerged.

“Franks, my clothes are soaked and I am locked in here with a three foot tall nightmare incarnated. How about you get us out, and then you play detective?”

Sammy didn’t doubt the silence that followed was Wally trying to come up with a good comeback to not just accept an order from the music director, but in the end he had to acept this wasn’t a good time for that.

“Fine, fine,” he finally said. “You might want to step away from the door! I’ll get you out in a second!”

The door creaked when Wally pushed forcefully against it, but with no results, A groan of frustration was heard before repeated pounding against the wood, which the trapped pair could only guess was Wally either tackling the door or trying to kick it down. Bendy started cheering him on. After the fifth hit, one of the rusty screws of the upper hinge was sent flying while the other hinge got crooked and Sammy swore one of its sides got lodged into the wood frame. From that point on, nothing else even budged.

“... Maybe I won’t get you out in a second…”

“Wow, it’s almost like it’s important to do your job maintaining the building, huh?” Sammy said bitterly.

“Agh, shut up. Look, there’s an axe somewhere in the studio. Joey told me where it was, but I uh, kinda forgot where it is… I gotta go ask him.” Silence. ”Dammit. He’s not going to like this…”

“I would prefer it if you cut the water first. It’s almost up to my knees already.”

“Uh, right, right. First things first, and all that.”

“Hurry up, Wally! I don’t think Sammy has the strength to carry me for much longer!” Bendy called.

“Wha-? You little-!”

“Try not to shove Bendy into the water while I’m gone Sammy!”

Wally’s voice faded along with his hurried steps. Sammy’s shoulders sagged. Great. More waiting. He guessed he could try doing something productive. Maybe see if he could loosen the hinges. Oh wait! He couldn’t. He was carrying some dead weight. And as much as he hated to admit it, said dead weight was indeed putting a strain on his arms. He let himself lower them just a bit to get his blood circulating better, hoping that the demon wouldn’t notice. With his luck that week, of course he did.

“Uh, you did hear what Wally just told ya, right?” Bendy said glancing down and lifting his feet.

“Oh, sorry! It must be that I’m not strong enough to carry you. I could just drop you any minute now.”

Bendy pouted up at him. Sammy retaliated with a glare, but found that just looking at the demon reminded him of the terrible week he had had. He decided that he had enough of the staring contest soon after and looked around for, well, literally anything else he could do. He spotted the towel that was placed for people to dry their hands, which had miraculously been spared of the shower, and he got an idea for a solution for the tiredness of his arms. He crossed the room towards it and held Bendy in front of it.

“Grab it.”

“Huh?” Bendy gave him a confused look.

“Grab the towel.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Sammy lifted Bendy up so that they were looking eye to eye. “I despise carrying you as much as you despise being carried. So you are gonna take that towel, put it on my shoulder and sit there until we get out of here.”

“Why don’t you grab the towel if it’s your idea?” Bendy’s cocky demeanor started chipping away at Sammy’s last bit of patience, and he was desperately trying to remind himself he was supposed to be the adult. “Why do I gotta do all the work here, huh? How lazy of you! Are you sure you’re fit to be the director of anything?”

“Ok, that’s ENOUGH! Why are you being such a prick?! This whole situation was YOUR fault! Least you could do is cooperate with something as easy as this!”

Bendy flinched at the louder tone of voice, but he wasn’t deterred.

“‘Why are you being such a prick?’” he imitated in a high pitched voice, using his hand to simulate a mouth. However, he did grab the towel and threw it on Sammy’s shoulder, hitting him on the face (not so accidentally) during the fact. Making sure it was placed well enough that his wet shirt wouldn’t come in contact with the little toon, Sammy let him climb on his shoulder and he finally could put his darned arms down. His relief was short lived, though. Now he had a whining demon right besides his ear.

“That’s it,” he said not even paying attention to whatever Bendy was saying. “I’m quitting the moment we get out of this stupid bathroom…”

“Yeah? Well maybe you should,” Bendy suddenly muttered with a scowl. If he hadn’t been so close, Sammy may not have heard it. “That way you wouldn’t break Boris’ stuff.”

Sammy startled so forcefully he had to quickly hold Bendy in place so he wouldn’t fall.

“Break Boris’- What are you even talking about?” he asked frowning.

“Oh, just admit it!” Bendy turned so he was sitting sideways and could look at Sammy better, He poked his face in an accusing manner. “You broke Boris’ favorite banjo! You know how long he had been practicing a new song to show Joey? Like a month! You even know how long a month is? He had even prepared a mini stage in our apartment, and I was gonna do an opening act and Alice was going to be there too!” Bendy threw his arms in the air as if he could convey the grandiosity of their planned little show by waving them around. “It was going to be great, but then you went and ruined our good time! Boris has been so bummed out since Tuesday he won’t even play with me!”

Sammy was taken aback. Not only could he already feel the headache coming from all the yelling in his ear, but he also realized a very important thing. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Is that really why you have been insufferable all week? Because you think I’m the one who did that?”

“I know you did it! Joey said you are the one responsible of all music stuff, so obviously it had to be your fault! If you are innocent, why don’t ya prove it, huh? Oh right, because you can’t! You’re guilty!”

Sammy gave a big sigh, wondering if he was about to waste his breath.

“Tuesday? You mean this tuesday? The same tuesday I had to leave early?” He narrowed his eyes at Bendy and saw the devil’s confidence falter. “You know what happens on tuesdays? There’s a weekly maintenance of all the instruments. You know what else happens on tuesdays? The imbeciles that conduct those checkups often stay and organize a mini ‘act like an idiot’ party after the oh so hard work that task represents for them, even when repeatedly told not to. So more than likely, it was one of them that broke that banjo, and more than likely, if I find out who did it and made these days hell for me because of it, I’m gonna move heaven and earth to make Joey fire them! So there! I hope you are proud, because not only did you waste my time making me clean after your little ‘revenge pranks’ for hours and then make me lose hours of sleep to catch up on work, you also wasted your own time doing something completely worthless. I don’t think you even wanted to put the effort to find out who it was. I bet you just wanted it to be me, because for some goddamn reason you just want to make me quit. So congratulations! You might have just succeeded this time!”

Sammy took a deep breath once his rant was over and noticed at last how Bendy had gone really quite. He wasn’t looking at him and had his head hung low.

“So you really didn’t do it?” came Bendy’s meager question.

Sammy didn’t even dignify that with the obvious response. Instead, he focused on how the water flow from the sinks weakened until stopping altogether, Took Franks long enough. The silence that followed was tense, but Sammy greatly preferred it to having to deal with more tantrums from the toon on his shoulder. Sighing, he moved to the center of the room and settled for impatiently staring impatiently at the door. A chill went up Sammy’s spine, and he cursed his body’s inability to maintain a decent temperature. He would normally find it annoying, but with all that had happened and his head starting to pound, he had ran out of steam. He shifted his weight uncomfortably in place, his feet already feeling numb in his shoes. If he got sick and Joey didn’t give him some kind of compensation, he would make sure he never heard the end of it. Fortunately, he wasn’t needed the next day. Well, he was always needed since his department was filled with idiots, but they could usually handle by themselves whatever there was to do on the weekends, so he’d be able to rest until monday.

“Soooo,” Bendy’s voice broke the silence. It had been nice while it lasted. “Whatcha, uh, whatcha thinking about, Sammy?”

“Oh, nothing. Just wondering whether it’s worth it to write a formal resignation letter or just use the honey on my desk to paste a piece of paper that says ‘I quit’ to Joey’s office door.”

“O-oh…”

Bendy fidgeted in his place, refusing to look at him.

“W-well. You can’t do none of those!”

Sammy raised an eyebrow.

“Really now? And whose stopping me? Because it’s certainly not you.

“Because, uh, because…” Bendy frowned in concentration, before he snapped his fingers. “Because Boris would miss ya! Yeah! You wouldn’t make Boris sad on purpose, would ya?

Wait. Did Bendy actually think he was going to quit? Sammy threatened to quit almost daily. One would think that Bendy would know better. Nonetheless, Sammy decided to play along.

“Boris would miss anyone that worked here even if they had never talked with him. Maybe if I quit the experience will help him to get over it if it happens again, huh?”

Sammy was aware that sounded harsher than he meant it. Boris was one of the few people in the studio that he didn’t feel like yelling at all the time. But he couldn’t help but smirk when his answer had the desired effect. Bendy was trying to come up with another reason of why he shouldn’t quit. Was it immature of him? Absolutely! But he was standing in a flooded bathroom, clothes soaked, a literal little demon on his shoulder and no cigarettes at all. He figured he deserved to have some petty revenge.

“Uh, A-alice, then! Don’t you think it would be bad luck to upset an angel?”

“I already have to deal with a demon on a daily basis. I don’t think I have the luck of any angels on my side. Besides, I think it would only actually affect her if it was Susie who quit instead of me.”

“Wait, that’s it!” Bendy’s tail briefly formed the outline of a lightbulb. “Susie! You can’t leave her here all alone! That would make you the worst boyfriend in the world!”

Sammy huffed.

“We only spend time together on our break time, which we can still do even if I worked elsewhere.” He hummed thoughtfully. “Actually, she also does some extra work in some other places. Maybe she can recommend me to a boss that doesn’t practice black magic as a hobby.”

“Shoot,” Bendy said under his breath. “But- But you can’t leave because you are already Joey’s favorite director! What if you are not the favorite of your new boss, huh? Maybe he’ll hate you!”

“Oh? So I’m Joey’s favorite now?” Sammy asked in an intentionally bored but fake tone, crossing his arms.

“Yeah! He said that, ah, that you were the best music director in the history of forever! That you were better than Boteevan!”

“Beethoven.”

“That guy! And he said that, um, that he was considering giving you a raise! It’ll be such a raise that you will be on the top floor of the studio!”

Sammy… wasn’t sure Bendy understood what a raise was. But he shook it off.

“So, those were Joey’s exact words?”

Bendy nodded enthusiastically, his usual smile a bit strained and his cartoony eyes unable to hide the alarm he was feeling.

“So, if I were to go to Joey and ask him about it, he would tell me the exact same thing?”

Silence.

“...Yes… Maybe…”

Ok, Sammy had had his fun. Now Bendy’s nervousness and guilt about ‘causing’ him to quit was starting to become too obvious and the hand that he was using to keep himself stable was latching a bit too hard to Sammy’s shoulder. He didn’t want to cause the kid a meltdown (which got a very literal meaning with the toons when they were stressed). He was about to give in and tell him the truth when a loud cracking noise caught their attention. They both slowly looked at the door.

“What was that?” Bendy asked warily.

“I don’t know, but it sure didn’t sound like an axe to me.”

Sammy backed away slowly from the door until his back touched the wall opposite to it. They flinched when they heard the sound again, and a crack cut right through the middle of the door. Then again, and splinters were sent flying everywhere. Once more, and the door was split in two. Sammy instinctively grabbed Bendy to shield him from the raining debris that exploded as a result. All the remaining water gushed out into the hallway, but Sammy didn’t take notice, nor did Bendy. There was something far more important that had just appeared. Right in front of the destroyed door was an enormous mass of ink, so tall and wide that it wouldn’t have been able to fit through the doorway if it tried. It vaguely resembled the top half of a human, it’s hunched torso being its support on the floor. Hollowed eyes looked at them with a dead stare. Sammy didn’t even dare to breathe.

“What are you doing standing there? Move aside!” Joey’s order returned them to reality.

The ink monster immediately obeyed, granting the space needed for a very panicked looking Joey to run into the bathroom. His glasses were crooked on his face, he was breathing hard and he was clutching a book with such force that his hands were shaking. The instant he spotted Bendy in Sammy’s hands, his face flooded with relief. On Sammy’s part, he couldn’t take his eyes off the monstruosity that had just appeared before him, so still petrified in his place, he could only ask:

“What the hell is that?!”

“Oh, well Wally said the door was stuck, so I figured we would need a little help.” Joey answered, waving his hand dismisively. “More importantly, Bendy are you ok?!”

Sammy, realizing he was still holding Bendy as far away from the door as possible, cleared his throat and shoved him into Joey’s arms. He didn’t stay to see Joey smothering Bendy in a hug and checking him for any damage. Instead he headed towards his sweet freedom, giant monster outside or not. He still practically hugged the wall to not come close to that thing, though. He got out just in time to see Wally Franks arrive running and lean against the wall to catch his breath, muttering something about Joey being fast for his age. Sammy didn’t spare him a second before pointing to the ink creature and giving him an incredulous look.

“What about that looks like an axe to you, Franks?!” His voice was just a tad more high pitched than he would have liked, but he ignored it for the time being. Wally looked at him to respond, but couldn’t stop himself from snorting.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you were drenched!”

Sammy’s death glare shut him up.

“R-right, uh, so I told Joey what happened and I thought he was going to yell at me and then tell me where the axe was, but he just got all pale and then he grabbed that book and started running while yelling some weird crap on another language. Next thing you know, big guy over there is growing out of the ground and following him down the stairs! It was crazy!” Wally scratched his head. “Umm, I also think someone fainted when it passed in front of them…”

Sammy let out a sigh and rubbed at his head. The pain that had been receding was now returning tenfold.

“Sammy!” Joey called out to him while he, too, exited the bathroom. “I’m glad everyone’s ok, of course, but I would like to know… how did that happen?” He pointed at the destroyed sinks.

Nope. He was NOT dealing with that right now.

“Oh, I’m sure little prankster there will tell you what he did with plenty of detail. I’m going home early.”

He glared at Joey, daring him to protest. But just looking at the state he was in, his boss nodded.

“Of course, you need to go get some dry clothes. And I’m guessing I won’t see you tomorrow?”

“You guess correctly,” Sammy said as he walked past his boss, not taking his eyes off the ink beast, just in case.

“See you on monday?”

At that Sammy stopped. That had been Bendy asking. He turned around to look at the demon in Joey’s arms, who was looking up at him with pleading eyes. Sammy remained silent for a moment. He guessed he could just ignore him, but he had punished him enough already.

“Yeah, yeah. See you on monday. Unfortunately.”

At that, Bendy visibly relaxed. Sammy rolled his eyes and kept walking.

Monday arrived way faster than Sammy would have liked, but then again, that was nothing new. What was new, however, was that he found his office exceptionally clean. He hadn’t bothered tidying things up before he left on friday, but now the honey was gone from his desk, and there didn’t seem to be a paper out of place or a speck of dust on any surface. A report of what had been done on saturday and a list of future tasks was already waiting for him, too.

But what caught his attention the most was a colorful piece of paper sitting on the middle of his desk. It was a drawing. It depicted him conducting a band, with random musical notes (some of which weren’t even real notes) forming an arch above his head. He stared at it for a long while,slowly processing the fact that this was most likely some sort of apology. He shook his head. He couldn’t waste more time on this. He had work to do. Sammy was going to just put it away into a random drawer, but looking at it again, he changed his mind. He put it in the upper right drawer instead.

[youllallriseintheink]

Lasting Melodies, chapter 1: You Were Always There

I thought I’d make a story for Jack Fain and Sammy Lawrence, showing their snippets of their lives together from their first performance to Jack’s untimely death.

The first chapter is mostly going to be fluff. In the second chapter, ink-related angst kicks in.

I hope you all enjoy this.

---

In the backstage of a little theatre, Jack Fain sat in anxious silence, waiting to be called out alongside Sammy for their Vaudesville routine. During their practices together, he’d been able to push down the idea of dozens or hundreds of people staring at him for their entertainment, but now it was all he could think about. He looked to Sammy, who seemed much calmer, and offered him a little smile and a nod. Sammy had done many performances before, beginning with concerts as a child and teenager showcasing his prodigal talent. Sammy was the reason Jack didn’t simply shed the flashy vaudevillian getup and make a run for it- Sammy had never, at least as far as Jack knew, had a humiliating performance, and Jack wasn’t about to waste all the effort they’d put in and make it his first.

The announcer finally called them out. “Just focus on the routine,” Sammy said, leading Jack onto the stage.

The routine was no different than practice- in fact, the adrenaline of doing it before an audience made it easier if anything. It would have been poor performance not to look at the crowd, so Jack did, but they didn’t terrify him like they expected. They weren’t bored, or annoyed, or vicious, they were having fun. And Jack was having fun with them.

When the routine was finished, the crowd cheered.

“They love us, Sammy,” Jack breathed. Of course, the crowd had cheered for every performer that night, and Jack knew that. But it felt so good. People loved him! All their skill and effort had made people cheer.

Jack felt a little tug at his sleeve and followed Sammy’s lead backstage, slightly embarrassed that he’d almost overstayed his welcome.

“That was amazing!”

“Good!” Sammy replied. He was smiling, too. “I was starting to think you weren’t cut out for this, but you’re actually a real stage personality. Would you do it again with me?”

“Next chance we have.”

“Great. I’ve been meaning to ask you something, actually- I want to do shows like this for a living someday, but I'd want a partner for it. So, will you be my partner?”

“Wow, that’s an awfully big choice. I wanna say yes right away, but give me a little time to think about it. Okay? And thank you. I would have never been able to do this without you.”

“Heh. No problem. No one I’d rather be on stage with than you.”

Jack blushed. It was a touch awkward to have his crush and best friend praise him like that. “Thanks,” was all that he could manage.

---

As soon as Sammy walked in to their apartment, Jack could tell that he was in a bad mood. Jack put down the book he was reading and went to him. “Something up, Sam?”

Sammy sighed deeply. “I think we need to have a little house meeting.”

“Sure.”

“Okay. Well, I was fired by the movie theatre for,” Sammy made air quotes with his fingers, “‘unhinged and unprofessional behaviour.’ And let’s be honest- we’ve been at the musical thing long enough, and our names aren’t taking off. Remember that Joey Drew guy who offered to hire us as a pair? I think we should do that. It’s a way for us to be working on music together.”

“Well, it’s too bad that you want to give up on the performances, but hey, writing music for a living sounds like an improvement on working at the record store. Sure, let’s do it.”

Sammy smiled and nodded, then looked away. “There’s something else I want to tell you as well. I... well, I found your love poem.”

Jack was stunned. “What?”

Sammy took the folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Uh, here... sorry. You told me it was a song you weren’t finished with, and I took a peek, even though you told me not to, and it was probably an accident you left it in the open.”

Jack's heart raced, afraid of what this would mean for Sammy’s perspective of him. “Okay,” he began, in a tone one might use to calm an animal, “Now that you know about this, I understand if you want to set some new boundaries with me-”

“No! No- I found it months ago. Sorry I didn’t give it back- I just don’t think I convince myself it existed, otherwise. And I didn’t think I wanted to pursue this, but I just thought, you know, if I couldn’t pursue musical performance the way I wanted to, maybe I could have the other thing I wanted.”

Not quite stunned by disbelief, Jack cupped Sammy’s face with one of his hands, forcing Sammy to meet his eyes. “I love you too.”

Sammy pulled him into their first kiss. It was just how Jack had always imagined it would be.

---

Jack sat in Henry’s old desk, waiting for his turn to be called into Joey’s office. Joey had, for no obvious reason, scheduled Sammy in for a fifteen-minute meeting at nine, with him having a similar meeting right after. Finally, Sammy came out, not looking any more upset than usual, thankfully.

“You’re not getting fired, don’t worry,” Sammy said. “We’re gonna have plenty to talk about over lunch, though.”

“Okay.” Jack’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Any idea what his reason is for calling us in like this?”

“Frankly? I think you’re sitting on it,” Sammy said, rolling his eyes. Then he left.

This just confused Jack. There had been no secret that Joey was sore over Henry’s departure a couple days ago, but what could that have to do with Joey wanting to see them?

As soon as Jack had entered Joey’s office, Joey had sat him down with a nice cup of coffee. “So, this is just going to be a casual meeting, Jack. Just you and me talking- one artist to another, alright?” There was an air of longing and desperation in Joey’s eyes.

“Alright.”

“Alright! Excellent! So, as an artistic man, I’m sure that you understand that an artist needs a partner, right?” Joey reached out and stroked Jack’s hand with his finger. Jack took his hand off the desk.

“I’m actually with someone else.”

Disappointment was evident in Joey’s eyes. “Oh, I meant nothing of that sort. I meant a person I could share my dreams and my ideas with. To be loyal and dependable to me.”

“Okay. Sure. I can do that.”

“Alright, great. First thing- you spend a lot of time with Sammy. Tell me about him- what he likes, what he dislikes, what he means when he says ‘please give me space,’ and so on.”

The fifteen minutes passed, and subjects such art, dreams, and ideas went unmentioned. Jack and Sammy truly did have a lot to talk about over lunch, which they took in Sammy’s office for privacy’s sake.

“Wow. He was really that direct with you?” Sammy couldn’t say he was surprised. Though he hadn’t been that obvious about it, Joey had clearly been chasing Sammy’s approval.

“Yep. But the second I told him I was with someone else, he went right on to talking about you. I could just see him taking notes on how to impress you.”

“Pathetic. Well, maybe I should tell him that I’m interested in complete control over my department, who works in it, and when he visits it. Who knows, I might get it. And then you’ll have eternal job security.”

“And maybe I could tell him that you like something goofy to see how far he’ll go.”

Sammy smiled. “Please do. This I must see.”

The next day, Jack told Joey that Sammy’s favourite flower was a white carnation. When Jack came in the next day, there was a vase containing three white carnations on Joey’s desk.

Now knowing his power, Jack resisted the temptation to use it for about a week before he decided to wax poetic to Joey about Sammy’s supposed lifelong love of reptiles. The day after that, Sammy walked into their morning meeting to see Joey with a medium-sized snake around his shoulders. “Her name is Vivaldi,” Joey explained. “She’s a Bullsnake. Wanna pet her?”

Sammy did not, in fact, want to pet her.

After the snake incident, Jack’s daily meetings with Joey became more professionally-focused before ending entirely, and within a few weeks, Vivaldi’s tank, along with the snake herself, had disappeared from Joey’s office.

---

“What? Why...?” Tears were forming in Jack’s eyes. He couldn’t believe this.

Sammy ground his teeth. This wasn’t easy for him, either. “Because you’re the anchor that’s keeping me at Joey Drew Studios. I’m turning thirty in a month, and I… I don’t know whether to accept that I’m going to be working here forever or if I should move on to other options. But “other options” probably wouldn’t let me keep working with you. I need to remind myself that I can live without you, and look at what other opportunities are out there. So, yeah. We can still live together, and we can still talk as the job or as being roommates requires, but I’m going to try not being your friend or your boyfriend for a while, okay? It probably won’t be for more than a month or two.”

Jack wanted to say something- something like, “but I need you, too!” but he didn’t. “Okay,” was all he said. “I hope you get what you want from this.”

Sammy cringed at how defeated Jack sounded. He wanted to hug him, but he didn’t want to break their “no being friends or lovers” agreement within the first five seconds, so instead he left for his room.

Jack and Sammy soon found out that they were very bad at staying away from each other. People still used Jack as a go-between to get messages through to Sammy, and that alone meant they interacted almost on a daily basis. The two of them still needed a discerning eye to look over their music, and while there were others, there was no one they trusted as much or enjoyed the company of quite the same. Sometimes Jack would forget (or “forget”) about their break period and try to bring Sammy coffee and snacks, or check to make sure Sammy was doing alright during the deadline crunch- and sometimes Sammy would send him away out of principle, but just as often he didn’t have the willpower. Jack found himself entertaining fantasies of them drifting back together within a matter of weeks.

Then one day, Jack caught sight of Susie Campbell kissing Sammy’s cheek in the music room. “Other opportunities” indeed. Jack wrestled with himself over whether to say anything, but ultimately chose to keep it to himself. If that was what Sammy wanted, there was nothing he could do about it.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter one: double deuces

chapter one of book three, of course ;)

"tell me a story (will ya, will ya) a real good story (I won't leave till ya) spill your guts old man; leave out any secrets, hiding in the... any skeletons, and all your other sins any skeletons, in the closet! any skeletons, any misfortunes any skeletons, hiding in the closet! any skeletons, any skeletons in the closet!"

“Happy birthday, my dear friend.”

Aurora had taken Sam out to that Vietnamese restaurant for lunch on her birthday. Twenty two years old and she could feel the very essence of age over her head. In New York for two years and it all felt like a blur and the clear real thing all at the same time. In a year's time, she would be on the brink of her mid twenties: it all felt so ephemeral and so quick at the same time. It felt so odd to think that not even four years ago she was still in high school and she had gone into a strange brand new place in the meantime.

Four years felt like a lifetime ago, especially since she looked on at her black hair and she swore it was growing lighter over her temples. It could have just been the reflection of the glass in the mirror for all she knew, but when she went to brush her hair, she swore there were some light tendrils near the crown. As long as it didn't turn into a striking pearly white silver color, she knew she would be fine.

Aurora raised her white china tea cup for a toast to her. The soft aroma of the green tea comforted her, and she followed suit with her own cup.

Ever since she and Emile had gotten together, and ever since she had gotten that dress for Kirk's wedding the next weekend, Aurora had been dressing up more nicely: at the moment, she had a rich deep purple velvet sweater wrapped around her body and a little red rose tucked behind her ear. Despite the bitter New York cold, she started wearing more floral print tights to go with her skirts; Sam had to take a second look at her face to make out the sight of the black eye liner about the smooth edges of her eyes.

Sam herself meanwhile found herself drawn more to black—Aurora said it was because of her hanging out with Testament the past couple of weekends as well as Joey on certain days after school.

“I think it could also be because I'm in the arts,” she told her the day before. “Marla wears a bunch of black and Belinda has been wearing a lot of it, too.”

“Hangin' around the arts and hangin' out with a bunch of heavy metal dudes,” Aurora chuckled.

The art scene seemed so far away from her given she was a student and she even began to struggle with classes in recent days. Indeed, the thought of forfeiting college itself to live down in the real bohemian side of New York City was more tempting than ever to her. But she had nestled in the Bronx, three floors over Frank and down the block from Charlie and Marla. It was either pick up and go live alone in another part of town or stay there and continue to do what felt like spinning her wheels day in, day out. Sam tried to not let her thoughts cast a shadow on her own birthday, but she couldn't help but look at her own reflection in her tea cup and frown.

“Maybe it's all the doing stuff after school that's getting to you,” Aurora told her. “We haven't really seen Marla in the past few weeks.”

“No, we haven't,” Sam confessed as she gazed out the window at the snow drifts along the sidewalk.

“Well, if it's any comfort, I've been getting antsy myself,” Aurora said. “Emile wants me to move in with him but it's gonna be hard to do it especially if it's just him who's helping me with the move.”

“And you're going from Long Island up to the Bronx, too,” Sam added, “it was bad enough for me to get my bed up the stairs in that building.”

“It was tricky for me, too,” Aurora continued. “And you and I also moved across country, too.”

“And how—from around the same area, no less. Well, San Diego is way further south in comparison to Lake Elsinore, but it's near the same range, though.”

“It's all within range of L.A., that's for sure. L.A. and Riverside.”

“Hey, if Greg, Eric, and Louie can talk nonsense while they're in the studio, we can, too,” Sam pointed.

“Makes sense—Southern California exiles, the both of us.” Aurora raised her cup again to her and they clinked them together before they took a sip in unison.

“When's your birthday, by the way?” Sam asked her as she held her cup close to her mouth. “I can't remember if you told me or not.”

“May twenty ninth.”

“Oh, I see. I kept thinking it was in October for some reason.”

Aurora chuckled at that. “Well, I haven't really made it much of a point because my parents always treated birthdays different in comparison to that of American culture. I always wanted an American style birthday party growing up in San Diego but that's probably the one thing they brought over from the Korean peninsula is the way birthdays are treated.”

“And how's that?”

“When we reach a certain age, they have different celebrations for them. Like your first birthday is 'dol' or three hundred sixty five days since you were born, and that came from the fact Korea didn't have as good of protection on their newborns as we do here: so when you made it to your first birthday, it was significant. The family says a prayer for the kid and then they eat rice, seaweed soup, and rice cakes—my mom has a photo of me from my 'dol', I'll have to show it to you if and when we go out to San Diego together. They have cake and candles just like Americans, but the cake is far different—it's a lot more savory than it is sweet. And on New Year's, they eat a soup so they can finish up the age they are for the certain year. So you're actually considerably older on the peninsula than you are here. If you're ten years old, in Korea, you're considered eleven or twelve.”

“Wow.”

“And when you reach fifteen years of age, and you're female, you're considered an adult. That said, I'm glad I'm a born American because I can't imagine coming to New York City as a fifteen year old.”

“I can,” Sam said.

“You can?”

“As a boy.” She thought about Alex right then.

“Now, boys have to wait 'til they're twenty before they're considered adults.”

“So Alex would still be considered a boy right now?” she asked her. “Being eighteen?”

“Yes!” Aurora then burst out laughing and clapped her hands at that. “Oh, god, I just pictured him in the traditional horse hair hat that boys have to wear on their twentieth birthday, and I also just pictured him picking up a giant rock and lifting it over his head, too.”

“How giant are we talking, exactly?”

“One that dwarfs his entire body.” Aurora raised an eyebrow at that.

“I dunno, Aurora,” Sam confessed with a shake of her head, “—he's pretty thin but he's also got that little bit of baby fat left on him. He looks pretty soft.”

“Bet you he's way stronger than he looks.”

“Joey is,” Sam continued as she brought her cup back up to her lips.

“Joey is!”

“Mr. Hockey Player—yeah, that boy's tougher than nails.”

“Well—we are going to be in the Bay Area next weekend,” Aurora pointed out. “A whole weekend of doing stuff while Kirk and—Rebecca, I think is his fiancée's name?—while they're getting married. We all can just hang out and be a bunch of genuine friends together for a couple of days.”

Sam squinted her eyes at that.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked her in a low voice.

“You'll see. And maybe Exodus and Death Angel will want in on the fun, too. Fun with the 'little four'.” She flashed Sam a wink as she sipped from her tea once again. Right then, the sole waitress in the restaurant showed up at their table with their bowls of pho: chicken for Sam, vegetarian for Aurora. One more toast and they both dipped into their bowls of fresh hot soup.

At least that night she was to have cupcakes courtesy of Marla, forty dollars courtesy of Belinda, and a jovial phone call from her parents that night. Nothing more, nothing less, but at the same time, she wished for more and she knew that her flight back out to California that next Friday was the start of something for her. Something big and grand, like that next weekend in the Bay Area. It would take place on a day that wasn't her birthday, but it would be something.

Since it was Wednesday, after lunch, she headed back to school for the rest of the day and then back to her place in the Bronx. She stepped in through the front door: the first thing she noticed was the vase of yellow tulips on the table. They had lasted so long, and for so long in the heart of the first winter following Cliff's passing, but she noticed the wilt as it began to settle in on the yellow petals.

She would keep them there on the table until the pure yellow color vanished and they lost their smell, much like with the black hat Cliff had given her.

Sam took her seat on the couch with her drawing pad rested upon her lap. She was an artist in New York City, and yet she lived so far from the actual art scene. The boots still on her feet and yet she had no means as to how to look for it outside of her school work. Marla and Belinda had their way, for sure, but there had to be something more. There had to be, especially since she began to put her head down and put more work into her art for her classes. The struggle still came down on her, even as she gave her fish tails more scales and her humans more of a shading around their heads. It all seemed to slip away from the in between her fingers.

Everyone seemed to be doing better: her classmates received more praise, even Belinda who, at one point, admitted that graphites were a challenge for her as well. And yet, when Sam drew a self portrait surrounded by roses and water lilies, one of the comments Miss Estes left for her on the back side of the heavy grained paper was “lots of effort.”

She was eager for the flight out to the Bay Area by the time that early Friday morning rolled around, and she and Zelda were seated next to each other. She had packed that copy of Siddhartha with her but she had no idea as to when she would get to crack it open over the weekend.

Zelda had put on a plain white T shirt and fitted black jeans, and she had combed her short bob of black hair back for the flight. Apparently all she had packed with her were white shirts and black jeans.

“Don't you wanna look nice like at Cliff's memorial?” Sam asked her with a chuckle.

“I've got some suspenders and a tie to go with them,” Zelda replied. “It's a wedding for a friend of ours, and he said that we can wear whatever we like. So I told him that I'm gonna be full punk chick there. I'm guessing you'll be the artist?”

“Of course,” Sam replied, “the full black, baby.”

Zelda raised a hand to her for a high five and the light for the seat belts flickered on right then.

“I'll tell you this, Zelda,” Sam began.

“What's that?”

She peered over her shoulder to make sure Marla and Charlie paid no attention to them, given they were right across the aisle from them. Sam then gestured for Zelda to move in closer to her: beyond her and outside the window, she noticed the first few flurries of snow against the pane. She hoped they would take off soon.

“I'm getting kind of bored of New York,” she whispered to her.

“Really?” Zelda raised her eyebrows at her.

“Yeah. It's just—falling into the whole 'same old, same old' thing. I'm an artist, I should be able to go places with it all.”

“Absolutely, absolutely.”

“And I just—” Sam shook her head. “It's a great big city but I feel like there's nothing for me there anymore. Two years there and I'm not feeling it anymore. I'm glad we're going back out to the Bay Area for just this one weekend because I feel myself slowly going insane.”

“And why are you telling me this in a whisper?” Zelda asked her in a soft voice.

“Because—I don't know how to break it to Marla yet, or Belinda for that matter. Aurora kind of knows, but not in that sense, though. I made note of it to her but she didn't really suggest anything to me.”

“You can come to Providence,” Zelda suggested, “there's tons to do in Providence. Narragansett and Natick, too.”

“I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel trapped. Two years ago, I came here to the Northeast for a change of pace and it feels like it's trapped me sideways. There's no way out unless I really genuinely leave. The downside of course is—leaving you ladies behind and leaving Anthrax behind.”

“Yeah, and—we kinda like you, Sam. I do, especially. And I know Aurora does, too. And Marla.”

“Aurora is one of my best friends. Her and Frankie. They're my best friends. I don't know how I would handle leaving them both behind for a change of pace. I feel me and Marla drifting, if I'm honest. Can't really blame her, though—school's getting hard on her.”

“Well—whatever you do, Sam,” Zelda started again, “I'll support you on it. If nothing, you'll get the full support from me.”

“Thank you, Zelda. That—that means a lot to me.” Sam showed her a friendly smile.

Zelda shrugged. “I'm from Rhode Island,” she replied. “Moreover, I'm a punk rocker from Rhode Island. We look out for each other more so than these metal boys.”

They touched down in the Bay Area at five in the morning, and right as the sun began to rise right behind them. The thick fog surrounded the airport and Sam thought about the one and only Christmas she and Cliff spent together.

“Looks like San Francisco,” she muttered. “Feels like it, too.” She closed her eyes as they rolled up to the gate. She and Zelda stepped out of the airport first and she breathed in that marine air. She swore that New York was in fact her one true home, but there was just something about California that brought her more so into that feeling. That feeling that she needed to be there. All the fleeting thoughts led up to that moment there on the sidewalk.

Cliff's remains were not very far away from there, either.

She, Zelda, Marla, Aurora, and Belinda all stood at the curb as Charlie and Emile fetched their rental cars. All those men awaited them not too far from there, and Sam was eager to see Joey again given he flew in from Syracuse. That morning in which he and Belinda woke up before her and flirted with each other went through her mind every now and again. She never realized how much she wanted him until he put his arms around her and they locked eyes with each other. She needed to at the very least see him again: he also promised her a birthday gift.

Within time, Emile showed up with the little black car for himself and Aurora, while Charlie rolled up to the curb in a short dark green van. The four remaining girls piled inside away from the damp cold; Sam wanted to refer to him and Marla in the front seat as “Mom and Dad” again but she decided not to as she shivered under her jacket.

It wasn't New York, but Sam had forgotten how cold San Francisco could feel once the winter time set in.

“Okay, so we're going to a place called Marin Heights,” Charlie told them. “I think that's where the guys—Metallica—got the loft for us.”

“I've heard of it,” said Belinda from the middle seat.

“Me, too,” Sam added from the way back; Zelda huddled next to her and shook her head about. Sam had no idea as to why she didn't bring a jacket with her given it was winter in California. But instead, she peered out the small notch of a window to the Bay itself. She remembered that Testament were to film a music video out in Alcatraz, and those cold yellow lights from the island itself pierced through the foggy darkness. She wondered if they had finally wrapped up the recording of their first album since she wasn't able to sit in with them over the past couple of weeks because of school. She also wondered if she would receive any credit on it like with Stormtroopers of Death.

Charlie wound through the city until they reached the freeway, which in turn brought them up to Marin Heights, nestled back in the hills on the north side of town: they reached a switch back on the hillside so Sam was able to see the very top of the Golden Gate Bridge as it rose through the fog. The clouds themselves split apart so as to let the first rays of sunlight through and the metal of the bridge shone that bright amber color with the sunrise.

No wonder Cliff loved it there.

She sighed through her nose and turned her attention back to the road ahead of her as it turned away into the hills. Within time, they reached the top, and a small villa of little brick two story houses nestled back in the trees. She wondered if the wedding was going to be there as Charlie pulled up to the gravel driveway and stopped before the one closest to the street.

“I think this is us,” he informed them. “Or it might just be check in, I dunno.” He climbed out and then Sam and Zelda followed suit. The latter raised her lanky arms over her head and closed her eyes. Meanwhile, the former spotted a tall lanky boy with long black hair perched on a stone post on the other side of the driveway. He faced the other way but she knew those rich jet black curls anywhere.

“Joey?” she called out.

“Hm?” Zelda asked.

“Joey's over there.”

Zelda peeked around the rear end of the van and she nodded at her.

“Yeah, he is! Go get 'em!”

Sam then ducked around the end of the van and hurried over to him.

“Joey!” she called out. “Joey!”

He turned to face her with his eyebrows raised. He had lost a little weight so his waist was rather slim like Joey's, and the black hair dye held up, but she knew those deep eyes anywhere.

“Oh, hi,” she greeted him as she skidded to a stop before him.

“Hi,” Alex replied back to her with a thoughtful look on his face. “What's happening?”

“I thought you were Joey for a second.”

“You thought I was Joey?” he laughed at that.

“You have similar hair to each other.”

“His has more of a pile, though. Like right on top of his head. That big pile of ringlets atop his head.” He gestured to the crown of his head. “Even though I'm sitting down, I think he's a little bit shorter than me, too?”

“I think so?” Sam shifted her weight right there. Stray strands of his black hair lifted off of his shoulders in the wind and he ran his hand over the back of his head. He shivered from the feeling over his skin.

“God, it's cold out here,” he muttered as he adjusted his jacket.

“Yeah, it's pretty nippy. Not New York, but it's that California cold, though.”

“You know, both my parents are from New York,” he said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Both obscenely smart Ivy League professors. They came out here before I was born to teach over at Berkeley.”

“Is that why you had the gray streak?” she asked him.

“Nah, I have no idea where that came from.” He shifted his weight yet again on that post. He seemed uncomfortable sitting there but Sam had no idea where to go right then. Charlie's voice behind her caught her ear and she peered over her shoulder at his talking to James.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Alex told her as he shifted his weight a fourth time. “Aurora told the five of us last week that it was her assistant's birthday and she didn't know what to get you.”

“Aw, thank you—it was back on the twenty first, though.”

“Happy belated,” he corrected himself, and she swore he winked at her. Someone called his name and he looked off to the distance.

“Hang on—” he said, and he darted past her towards Charlie.

“Sam?” Zelda called out to her, and she jogged back to her. Aurora had climbed out of Emile's car right next to them and she shivered inside of her windbreaker.

“What's up?”

“Apparently the wedding is today,” Aurora announced.

“Today?” Sam was stunned.

“Yeah. Three o'clock. I guess Kirk's lady couldn't wait for it a second longer so they're doing it today.”

“So we get a full weekend of good ol' fun,” Zelda added as she clasped her hands to her upper arms.

“Exactly!”

Sam turned her attention to Alex, who was talking to Charlie about something. His black hair twirled in the cold winter winds. Even from a distance, he had such a grave expression on his face that it made Sam think he was much older than in reality.

Belinda had the right idea: he was very precocious. But now she had a little bit of insight into the boy in that he was raised by intelligent parents. It was a start with Alex and she could only wonder from that point onward.

Aurora and Emile led her, Zelda, and Belinda into the cabin behind Charlie and Alex, and once they stepped inside of the cozy foyer, Zelda was eager to turn on the heater.

“Terrible idea not to pack a coat,” she muttered as she hurried down the front foyer in search of the thermostat, “terrible idea not to pack a coat!”

Sam and Belinda meanwhile took to the narrow stairwell in front of them, and they made their way up to that second level: to the right stood a couple of rooms, while to the left was the bathroom and two more rooms. The door at the far end stood slightly ajar, such that when they reached the top, they spotted that head of black curls outside the doorway.

“Hey, Joey,” Belinda greeted him. That lopsided grin and those big brown eyes returned the favor, and Sam's heart skipped a couple of beats at the sight of him. He didn't appear to be ready for a wedding at all with his plain white shirt, extra tight blue jeans, and ragged white socks.

“There are my girls,” he said as he padded closer to them.

“Oh deary me, you're gonna be down the hall from us?” Sam teased him.

“Yup, me, Frankie, and Charlie and Marla. We're gonna be all here at the end of the hall if you need anything.”

“You know the wedding is today right?” Belinda told him.

“Oh, shit, is it really?” Joey raised his eyebrows at that.

“Yeah, Aurora just told us,” Sam added, and her heart sank at the thought of him barely being in the know of these things. “Three o'clock. So Bel and I are gonna get settled in and get dressed.”

“Oh, damn, thank you,” he told her, and his brown eyes sparkled at the sight of her. Cold as the earth and as engulfing as venom. He doubled back to his room and Sam pushed open the door in front of her. Inside stood a small bunk bed and a heavy wooden dresser underneath the window.

“Top or bottom?” she asked Belinda.

“You're older and got way more inside, so top,” she replied as she lay her purse down on the faded blue comforter upon the bottom bed. Even though they had plenty of time before the wedding, Sam wanted to clean up, and change her clothes and look her best. She hadn't been to a wedding in what felt like forever: there was one from when she was three years old, but she had no memory of it and she had no clue as to who even got eloped then, either.

Belinda offered to curl her hair and do it up extra nice, but she promised her there was very little to actually do up given her hair sat flat on her head. If only she could make curls into a crown like with Joey, but she had what she had in the form of a red wine colored dress and a thin black sweater over the top: the dress was a bit snug around her hips but she need not obsess over something as trivial as that when she remembered what Joey wanted to give her.

She was about to head on back inside of their room when she spotted him on the other side of the hallway with the five men from Death Angel, if she recalled correctly. Once again with the quintets and she would learn all of their names in the meantime. But he had a box wrapped in old faded red wrapping paper tucked under his arm and she hoped it wasn't just a wedding gift, especially since he still hadn't gotten dressed.

He laughed at something one of them said and he turned around.

“Oh, there you are!” he called out to her, and he scurried towards her. The tape on the edges of the box and the crooked look of the paper itself told her he wrapped it in a hurry, but she didn't mind at all once she slid her fingers under the edge of the paper closest to her. Careful not to tear it, she unwrapped it and lifted the lid. Inside was a pair of black leather gloves and a red and white knit scarf, the latter of which she ran her fingers over to find it softer than anything she had felt before. It was as soft as a cat.

“It's your own pair of gloves plus a scarf,” he declared. “I just think about how cold you always get upstate.” He shrugged at that.

“I love it, Joey! It's so soft.”

“It's cashmere.”

Sam gaped at him. “Cashmere,” she echoed him.

“Yeah—it was marked down, though. But it's cashmere. I wanted to give you something nice and good and good and nice.”

She slipped the gloves on and they fit around her fingers as if they were made for her. Joey offered to put the scarf around her neck; he stood before her, a country boy in a plain white shirt before a California girl in a dark red dress, and he wrapped the scarf around her.

“You look beautiful,” he whispered to her. “Happy birthday. Double deuces as of ten days ago!”

“Thank you—” She put her arms around him and she held him close. His slender little body was as soft as that scarf, and he smelled of fresh baked bread, something she would be willing to experience as long as he didn't have a drop of alcohol on hand.

Maybe there was in fact something more to life than being in that groove all the time. Maybe she could find a way to break out of her shell, and she could owe it all to him.

And she still hadn't told her parents about him.