Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was yelling coming from Joey Drew’s office. 

Everyone who had the misfortune of passing by winced and pretended that the papers in their hands needed intense scrutiny, or that the floor was particularly interesting today. 

No one could remember the last time Henry and Joey fought this badly, if they ever had at all. Sure, they bickered and teased, but it was obviously playful and neither ever seemed truly hurt by any of the words that passed between them. 

But now? Though muffled and just indistinct enough to be incomprehensible, the anger and genuine frustration was clear in both voices as they rose and fell in loudness. 

In the staff room just down the hall from the argument taking place, Susie nibbled on her thumbnail, fidgeting in her seat. Norman paced restlessly and Wally had been ceaselessly mopping the same square patch of floor for several minutes. Even Sammy— leaning back in his chair with a cigarette in one hand and his other arm across Susie’s shoulders— looked concerned. 

“Do you think they’re gonna be okay?” Susie asked. 

“I dunno,” Norman said, glancing at the door. “I’ve never heard them fight like this.” 

Very quietly, as though he didn’t want to jinx anything, Wally asked, “Do you think they’re gonna break up?” 

A crash shook the walls. There was silence for a moment, and then they heard Joey bellow “See! Do you see what you did? And you think I’m just gonna allow this to continue?” More silence, but they winced all the same. 

Henry wasn’t loud when he was truly pissed off. Not right away, at least. If they couldn’t hear anything, it wasn’t because Henry wasn’t answering. 

After close to thirty tense seconds of silence, Sammy said, sounding quite uncertain, “They’ve been together for so long. You don’t really think one argument could ruin all that, do you?”

Susie closed her eyes and tucked herself further into his side. “I hope not,” she whispered. “I don’t know what they would do without each other.” 

“I don’t wanna know,” Wally said, not even pretending to be mopping anymore. “Joey without Henry? That's just…” he shivered, and the other three mirrored the action.

No one ever wanted to see a Joey Drew without Henry Ross. 

Finally, they heard the creak of Joey’s office door opening, and then Henry’s voice, cold and low and loud all at once, said, “Y’know what, Joey? Fine. Fine. If you want me to leave that badly, then I will!” And with that, the door slammed shut, rattling the walls even more than the earlier crash. 

Eyes wide, the quartet listened in jaw-dropped shock as Henry stomped away. 

“Did… did we just—”

“No. No.”

“It can’t be. There’s no way…”

“Well,” Sammy said, pushing himself to his feet and swiping up his papers from the table he and Susie had been sitting at. “I gotta get these to Drew now that the storm’s passed.” 

Susie managed to reach out and grab his hand before he could walk away. “You’ll come back and tell us what you find out, right?”

If it wasn’t for the light flush on his cheeks, Norman and Wally would’ve thought him unaffected by her hopeful smile and big eyes. 

“Sure, yeah. I’ll be—” he actually had to pause and clear his throat, ignoring Norman’s snickering behind him— “I’ll be right back.” 

When Sammy reached Joey’s office, he rapped his knuckles on the wood the same way he always did. 

A low, almost hoarse voice called for him to come in. 

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting upon entering the room, but it wasn’t Joey sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. Sammy heard his boss take a deep breath before looking up at him.

Joey had dark circles beneath his eyes that Sammy knew indicated he was under a lot of stress. His hair and clothes were disheveled, skewed and messy in a way Joey rarely allowed himself to be— that was more Henry’s thing. But what really caught Sammy’s attention was the expression of utter defeat he wore. Maybe this argument with Henry hadn’t been the first one, after all. 

“What can I do for you, Sammy?” Joey asked, obviously trying not to look so— oh what was the word? Ah, yes— dead inside. 

“Just droppin’ these off,” he said, gingerly setting the papers on the edge of Joey’s desk. For once in their lives, it wasn’t a day to aggravate his boss. 

He tried to hurry out without making it look like he was hurrying out. As he turned to close the door behind himself, Sammy’s last glimpse of Joey was of the poor man looking sadly at a picture frame on the desk, one Sammy knew held a photo of Henry that Joey had taken himself during the Christmas vacation they’d all spent at Henry’s parents’ home. 

Back in the staff lounge, he told the others what he’d noticed. While they processed the information for themselves, he shook his head and said, “I’ve never seen him look like that before. So… empty.” 

“Is there anything we can do about it, y’think?” Wally asked, wringing his newsboys cap in his hands.

Norman shook his head and offered him a pat on the shoulder. “Maybe, but not today. The best we can do for Joey right now is to avoid bringing it up. So no mentioning Henry or their argument, got it?”

They all nodded.

• • • • •

Word of what happened quietly spread, and the studio at large agreed to pretend like nothing was wrong. 

Joey didn’t make it easy for them, though. 

He stopped some animators in the hallway to ask if they could look over Henry’s projects— he reportedly stuttered over Henry’s name— and give Joey the ones that didn’t need to be worked on immediately. When one of them hesitantly asked why he needed them, Joey apparently mumbled something about taking them home, and within an hour, the entire studio knew that Joey was already starting to gather Henry’s things in his mourning. 

At lunch, just as he was about to sit down, his employees watched him glance at the chair next to him where Henry always sat. They’d whisper later that they’d never seen someone get so sad as fast as Joey had right then. Their boss had quietly left the room to have lunch alone in his office. 

It seemed that no matter what subject came up in Joey’s presence, the mention of Henry was sure to follow. 

The worst happened later that day, when Thomas walked into the room with the Ink Machine to give it its annual Friday checkup. 

Given that he usually did it alone, Thomas came to an abrupt halt when he spotted Joey hunched over on one of the couches in the corner. Occasionally, one of the toons might still be in here when he arrived, but they were always quick to leave him in peace. 

Come to think of it, Thomas hadn’t seen any of the three toons at all today. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he couldn’t recall hearing anyone so much as mention them. 

Before he could stop himself, he asked, “Where’ve the toons been all day, boss?” 

“They went with Henry,” Joey said with a helpless little shrug. “I told him to leave, and he did.” 

Thomas bit his tongue to prevent the ‘wife got it all in the divorce’ joke that immediately popped into his head from slipping out. Unsure if there was a way he could respond without making Joey feel worse, he nodded and gestured stiffly at the Machine. “I was just gonna, y’know, do my weekly once-over.” 

Joey slipped further down the couch. “Go ahead, Thomas. I won’t bother you.”

Usually, Thomas could power his way through any awkward social interaction, but the silence in the room as he worked was makin’ his insides squirm. After several minutes of him subtly flinching at all the too-loud clanging of his tools, he nearly burst out, “So, whatcha thinkin’ about?” 

There was a moment of silence where Thomas wondered if Joey had slipped out unnoticed, but when he glanced over his shoulder, Joey hadn’t moved except to turn his head towards Thomas. 

“Just how I got Henry to finally agree to let me build the Machine,” Joey said with a little smile. “Do you remember how he refused to call it anything other than ‘that monstrosity’ for the longest time?”

“Yeah, boss, I do.” It’d been a source of entertainment for weeks, especially since Henry would always wink at any employee in sight if Joey wasn’t looking at him. Thomas was sure Joey didn’t know, even now, how excited Henry had truly been during the entire building process. 

Or maybe he did. Joey was the only one— besides Henry, of course— who knew exactly what happened the day the Ink Machine had been used for the first time. The secret of how it worked was only known between the two men, and the only hint the rest of the studio had gotten about it was that Henry had emerged after Bendy’s creation with tear tracks on his cheeks and a smile threatening to split his face in two.

The general consensus was that there hadn’t been any demons involved— Henry received a gift basket from all the employees as thanks for preventing Joey from doing something, quite literally, hellish— and that whatever the Machine’s secret had turned out to be was a happy surprise, to Henry in particular. 

By the end of that week, Boris and Alice had joined Bendy, and while the Ink Machine room was technically theirs, the trio went home with Henry and Joey every day. 

A question about joint custody popped into Thomas’s head, and he was quick to provide himself a distraction by asking, “You haven’t noticed any issues with the Machine, right?” 

“No. Thomas, it’s probably going to be a long time before we even think about using it again. You don’t have to do a weekly check.” 

Thomas shoved his head through an open panel towards the back. “I’d rather spend an hour a week maintaining it than spend ages later restoring it. It’s no problem, really.”

Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the time Thomas was in there, and if Joey noticed how he hustled out as soon as he was done, his boss didn’t mention it. 

• • • • •

When the day was finally over, Joey gathered up his things and began the half hour walk to the nearest bus stop, since Henry had taken their car when he left earlier. If he had called it quits at a normal time like the rest of the studio’s workers, he could’ve caught a ride with someone. Unfortunately, he’d become engrossed in the pile of work that he’d barely made any progress on after his and Henry’s fight. 

His heart ached from guilt and loneliness for the whole trip. 

By the time he reached home, it was dark out, and he was full-on trudging his way through the front door. 

Joey tossed his keys on the entryway table and fumbled out of his jacket. He was so tired, and since he’d elected to give everyone the weekend off, he could use the time to recuperate— and heaven knew he needed it. Groggy, he stumbled towards the bedroom, shedding the unnecessary bits of his clothing along the way, telling himself he’d pick up the scattered articles later.

As if his exhaustion wasn’t enough, the fight with Henry had really taken it out of him. While he wasn’t proud of what he’d said, he had to hope his decision would work out for the better. 

He stopped just inside the bedroom doorway, wearing only his undershirt, pants, and a single sock, which he dragged off right then and there. 

In the center of their bed, Henry slept, the toons puppy-piled around him. Bendy was sprawled across Henry’s stomach and chest, facing away from Joey as he silently approached the left side of the bed. On Henry’s right, Alice curled against him, one of her hands loosely gripping his arm in sleep. Boris, who still preferred to sleep curled up like an actual dog, was half on Henry’s legs above the covers, his own blanket tucked around him in the way only Henry could achieve. 

Joey smiled. It was adorable. He slowly sat down in the open space beside Henry, miraculously managing not to disturb any of them.

With a practiced touch, Joey pressed the back of his hand to Henry’s forehead. Still burning up. He sighed, staring at his boyfriend’s slightly flushed cheeks, the pile of tissues on his nightstand and around the garbage, the empty bowl of presumably either chicken or bacon soup, and worst of all, the special plastic bucket they used when one of them was sick, so as to limit the amount of vomit that needed to be cleaned up from the floor. 

Even from here, he could tell it wasn’t empty like it’d been this morning. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Joey whispered, feeling horrible and useless. 

He absently brushed Henry’s hair away from his face, not caring in the slightest that it was a bit damp from his fevered sweating. Beneath his gentle fingers, Henry stirred.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Joey quietly said once his boyfriend had blinked blearily up at him a few times. “How are you feeling?” 

“Worse than yesterday,” Henry croaked, his voice lost to illness and probably their screaming match this morning.

Just the thought of their argument made Joey’s chest ache worse with guilt. He opened his mouth to beg his better half for forgiveness, but Henry wasn’t done speaking. 

“You were right,” he continued hoarsely. “I shouldn’t have tried to go to work today.” He sighed. “I probably just made it worse.” 

“Hey,” Joey said, leaning closer to him. “Don’t say that. We both thought you were up to it after goin’ all night without a problem.” Henry’s eyes drifted shut as Joey shifted over to press a soft kiss to his forehead. “And I’m sorry, about everything I said. I was just so worried about you, and you can be so stubborn sometimes.” 

Henry managed to grin a little. “Too stubborn for my own good.” 

Joey laughed quietly. “Yeah. But I still shouldn’t have said all that, about you being… I lost my temper when I shoulda been trying to help you feel better.”

“It wasn’t all you. I shouldn’t have gotten so defensive. I knew I was pushin’ myself too hard, but there was just so much I had to do. Sacrificing my health didn’t seem so important at the time.”

Noticing Henry’s hand slide toward him, Joey intercepted it, lacing their fingers together before bringing the back of his boyfriend’s hand to his mouth, where he pressed a smiling, closed-lip kiss to the somehow ink-stained skin. “Can you forgive me,” he whispered without moving, “for being so harsh with you?”

Henry’s grip tightened. “Only if you can forgive me for reacting so terribly.”

“Then it’s settled,” Joey stroked the side of Henry’s hand with his thumb, “we’re both forgiven. Now, you’re not too warm, right?”

Henry shook his head. 

“Good,” Joey said, standing up just long enough to slide his pants off. “Because here I come.” He slid underneath the covers despite Henry’s weak protests and cuddled up against him. 

Brows furrowed in worry, Henry nudged him. “You shouldn’t, Joey, you could get sick.”

Joey shrugged as he got comfortable. “It’s been days now. I think if I was gonna get sick from your flu, it woulda happened already.”

They both paused, as if expecting something to happen. After a moment, they made eye contact and dissolved into giggles. 

Henry, trying not to jostle the toons too much, asked, “Did we just actually wait for a gag?”

“I think we did. I don’t know about you, but I was fully expecting to sneeze at least five times right there,” Joey said, chuckling into Henry’s shoulder. 

They were quiet for a bit, just enjoying each other’s presence. Joey watched Henry’s breathing deepen a bit, growing closer to sleep. Even though it was taking effort now to keep his eyes open, Joey whispered, “I brought some of your projects home in case you start feeling restless. The whole studio’s got the weekend off.”

Henry hummed. “That was nice of you.” 

“It was very selfish, actually. I wanted to be able to stay here and take care of you, without having to worry about what was going on there. And I don’t want you to overwork yourself if you think you’ve fallen behind.” 

“Selfish or not, thank you.” 

Joey smiled— or perhaps he hadn’t stopped smiling. Tired as he was, simply being with Henry was enough to make him feel loads better. “How were the kids today?” he asked, knowing that Henry still got a bit flustered when he called them that. To head off any protests, weak as they were these days, Joey shifted around a bit so he could run his fingers through Henry’s hair.

His sick, sleepy boyfriend deigned to briefly open his eyes to send Joey a look that screamed I know exactly what you’re doing but I’ll let you get away with it because that feels nice, so keep going and I won’t say anything before settling back down. 

“They were very helpful,” Henry said, “and very worried. It’s the first time I’ve had something worse than a little cold around them, and I kept having to remind them that I’ll get better soon. I think they were all a little afraid that I’d just keel over or something.”

Twirling a lock of hair around his finger, Joey tugged playfully. “Aha, I see. So this wasn’t so much a puppy pile as it was a method of restraining you.” 

Blindly elbowing him, Henry laughed, though a cough stole his lungs for a moment after. “They tricked me into sitting down just after lunch, and then they were all over me. Haven’t let me up since.” 

“I’ll reward them thoroughly, then.”

“As if they need the encouragement.” Henry shook his head good-naturedly, stopping with his face slightly angled towards Joey. Forever in each other’s orbit, they were. 

“Tell me the highlight of your afternoon,” Joey said. 

Grinning with his eyes closed, Henry told him, “I made another dad joke today. They were all terribly impressed.” 

“Only you would be so proud of that.”

“Hush, and let me enjoy the memory of my wordplay. What about you, though? What was the best moment for you?”

Joey considered Henry, how close to sleep he probably was. “I didn’t really have a best moment,” he finally said, “because you weren’t there.” 

“You’re a sap, Joey Drew.”

“Mmm,” he said lazily as he nuzzled against Henry’s cheek, “only sometimes, I suppose. But you can’t tell anyone, or my reputation will be ruined.” 

“Heaven forbid that happen. But did you seriously not have a single thing that made you even the slightest bit happy all day?”

After giving the question a moment’s though, Joey answered, “If I actually had to pick one, I’d have to say it was the look Sammy gave me just after you left and he came to deliver some papers. The one time I’m not even trying, and he looks traumatized beyond belief. There’s nothing fair about that, because I couldn’t even properly enjoy it, since I felt sick to my stomach for sending you home the way I did.” 

“Well, we can’t have that, can we? If I’m feeling all better by Monday, you have my full permission to give him a friendly little scare.”

Though he didn’t share his plans right then, Joey hoped Henry would be amenable to being dipped in front of Sammy for a welcome back to work kiss. That, or he’d call Sammy to his office and literally sweep Henry off his feet— and onto Joey’s lap— in front of their music director. 

That second one might get him into trouble, but it’d be worth it.