Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Henry, always, runs and hides from the “thing” he had made so many years ago. Wait - no - he did not make that, that creature. Coming back to the old workshop was proving to be a fatal mistake. Sammy has been turned into a cultist, Susie is probably that demonic Angel (Alice), the workers are probably those “Searcher” things, and Joey is nowhere to be seen.

Henry had destroyed the last cutout, that was in the Heavenly toys, with the axe Alice gave him. Then Alice said over the speaker:

"Ah, now that was fun! Oh! But I forgot to mention... He hates it when I do that. I would hide if I were you.~" Ink begins to run down the walls, Henry runs to the miracle station, opens the door and gets in to hide as it limps into view.

Then, the shuffling sound stops. Henry holds his breath, afraid to make even the slightest noise that might give him away, and tightens his grip on the Fire Ax. The inky black creature looks around and wheezes, "Henry... I know you're here...." Its voice is rough, jagged, inhuman.

Henry's lungs start to burn, he tries to let his breath out as quietly as possible. His breath is shaky and less than silent. Henry slowly inhales and holds his breath again, praying the monster didn't hear him.

Bendy starts to chuckle. It escalates into maniacal laughter. "I hear everything, Henry. Every creaking board, every rustle of paper and..." Bendy looks right at Henry then he leaps to the miracle station and rips the door off its hinges. Henry screams in spite of himself. "Your breath." Bendy rips him from his pathetic hiding place and picks Henry up by the neck, choking him. Henry’s ax drops to the ground and he grabs Bendy's wrist as he wheezes for air. "Bendy... please..." Henry chokes out. Bendy's face does not change, Bendy just smiles.

Abruptly, Bendy casts Henry aside. His head hitting the ground, hard. Pain shoots through the back of his skull and his vision starts to go black. No- I can't- not here! I survived the war! I can't go, not yet. As tears well up in his eyes, Henry desperately tries to stay conscious. He desperately grasps at his memories, trying to keep himself conscious. But, this effort brought back some... unpleasant memories. The last thing Henry sees before these memories take over are the droopy, sad eyes of some humanoid ink creatures (though he vaguely realizes they are not the searchers). Then, the darkness envelopes him.

The bombs going off close to him. The darkness of the night. The terror. Henry had been on the night watch. It was dark and cold, but they were used to that. However, on this particular night there’s a humming, whistling sound -- it’s soft and distant. Then, Boom! The sudden thunderous blast is close. Boom!! Again, closer now. Everyone is now fully awake and realizes it’s a night bombing. All the soldiers run and dive for cover in some shallow nearby trenches. Some just lay on the ground, frozen with fear. Henry is able to get to a trench. He lays in the loose dirt, his face pressing into the ground. Nameless dread is coursing through him. Until….

 Henry wakes up with a jolt when something cold is splashed over him. Henry tries to stand up but he couldn't. He looks around and finds he is tied to an armless chair in a fairly dark room, the wall in front of him has posters hanging on it they're in frames and are evenly spaced from each other. They are every cartoon Bendy's been in. The toon himself is standing near the corner he is facing the wall with his arms folded behind him. Henry's ax is also by Bendy, it's leaning against the wall. As if to taunt him saying “What are you going to do without me?”

"Sammy, untie him." Bendy says, his voice is now more smooth but it's still, somewhat, scratchy.

"But, my lord-" Sammy starts to protest, his voice comes from behind Henry. Wait, wasn’t Sammy dead?

"Now." Bendy growls and glares, sidelong, at Sammy, Bendy's tail sways menacingly back and forth. Sammy is quiet for a moment then the ropes, that are tied around Henry, go slack. Henry is still, his mind murky and sluggish, well as still as he can be, as he is shivering. "And give him a blanket, then you are dismissed." Henry hears Sammy walking. A rush of cold air hits him and a soft object hits Henry's side. Henry is slow to react, just barely catching the object, it's a wool blanket. The door opens then closes. Henry wraps the blanket around himself, the blanket is itchy and thick but Henry’s not complaining. Everything is silent after that, the groans of the building filling the void of silence.

"Do you know what it's like to just sit for twenty-some years?" Bendy asks, not looking at Henry. "Just marking off the days. After you left, Henry, Joey got that damned machine. He brought us to life and made us think he was a GOD." Bendy is starting to melt, his tail lashes back and forth, angrily. And yet he continues, "Whenever we disobey or talk back to him, he would grab us, mostly by the back of the neck or by the hair for Alison. And take us deep, deep into the studio. And lock us in a room- no a closet. It was so dark and cold and quiet. I thought I was going to go insane just sitting there." Bendy grabs the axe with his right hand and starts to pace. "For some reason, we couldn't move while that damned room, I think he may have put a pentagram in there. But still. We never really did anything to deserve that treatment!" Bendy roars and punctuates the sentence by slamming the ax into the wall, the blade digs deeply into the wood. Henry jumps when Bendy does this. Bendy starts to lose his composure, as he melts. He starts to laugh, and, with his free hand he clutches the left side if his face.

"Do you want to know what I did to him?" The ink demon asks his voice craze. Henry is almost too scared to ask but curiosity gets the better of him. "W-what?" Henry chokes out.

"I killed him slowly and painfully." Bendy pulls the ax out of the wall he laughs and looks Henry, who is terrified. Bendy walks towards Henry, still smiling. "You're no better than him, Henry. You left us." Bendy holds the ax with both of his hands and raises it over his head. Henry just stares at Bendy like a deer stares at headlights. Bendy stops, he lowers the ax. "No, I don’t want to kill you I need you alive." Bendy says and looks down. "Henry. I..." Bendy sighs, though, his mouth doesn't actually open. "I want- need you to help me." It is obvious that Bendy is having some trouble asking for help. "What do you need Bendy?" Henry asks, trying to get Bendy to spit it out. He stands up but Bendy still has at least a few inches on Henry.

"I want you to make me more facial expressions." Bendy says, he seems really embarrassed. Henry is so surprised by this, he almost laughs. Henry chuckles softly "What are you laughing at?!" Bendy growls.

"I'm sorry, it just caught me off guard." Henry says and take a breath and calms himself "I haven't drawn in a while, but I'll try it's the least I can do." Henry says and reaches up and pats the space in between Bendy's horns. "Thanks, old man." Bendy purrs mischievously, Henry sighs and smiles "Sad but true."

Chapter Text

Henry had sat at his old desk for a few hours, making more facial expressions for the toon demon, who had moved the Bendy cutout and was sitting on the ground in its spot. Oh, and Boris was with them, well kinda, Boris was still scared of Bendy. So, Boris is in the music department with Sammy. Henry sometimes ask Bendy small details, like if he would have sharper teeth when mad or would he prefer fangs. Things like that. Henry is getting the last emotion done and he has and is dreading doing it: Agony.

"So, old man, what did you do after you left?" Bendy asked out of the blue. Henry set his pen down, to give his hand a break and leans back. "For a while, I was a father." Henry says and smiles sadly. The ink demon catches on to his wording. "Was?" Bendy questions. "Yeah." Henry does not go any further than that, he just picks his pen back up and continues drawing. Bendy wants to know what happened but he didn't press on, understanding some subjects are touchy. Henry's mind wanders as he drew. Remembering. His daughter. She was so sweet, so adorable. She was a child when the illness struck. Henry still remembers every detail of his daughter; her bouncy brown hair, the way her eyes were always full of wonder and hope, how she would "Kill" the "Mighty beast" (AKA Henry).

Henry gets lost wandering through the memories. He faintly hears someone calling his name. Henry doesn't acknowledge the sound, however. It rings out again, and again and again. Then Henry is snapped out of his trance when something slaps him and hard. He almost ends up on the ground but he just barely saves himself. Bendy had slapped him.

Bendy still has his arm in the follow-through position and he's breathing as if he was sprinting. Then Bendy lowers his arm and shouts at Henry. "WHAT THE HELL, OLD MAN?!"  Bendy roars "You scared me half to death!"

"Sorry Bendy." Henry says, Bendy sighs and squats down. "Are you sure your okay?" Bendy asks, his voice sounding genuinely worried. "Yeah." Henry says. Even though Bendy doesn't believe the old animator he stands up and does not press on. "I'm going to go turn the ink machine on." Bendy says and walks away. Henry sighs and gets the last of the emotions done. He grabs the drawings and walks to the ink machine and sets the papers on the shelf, then he waits for Bendy. When Bendy comes back the ink machine is on, the gears churning and old ink being forced into the huge machine but it's just waiting. No ink is coming out of it. Henry and Bendy trade looks. Then Bendy grabs the stack of papers and jumps off the balcony, landing on the floor below. Bendy walks to the edge of the chasm that ink machine came from. Bendy draws his arm back then shoots it forward stretching across to the pad/catcher and puts the drawings on it. His arm retracts, it returns to normal, and he climbs back up to the balcony.

Henry watches the ink machine, then ink begins to gush out of the machine. It covers the papers, some of the ink forms a blob -sphere thing- that (If it is in a perfect sphere) is probably about 1 ½ inches in width and length. The ink machine slowly stops the flow of ink. The blob bubbles, and then stops. The ink demon watches the ink intently. It moves, it backs up and "jumps" over the chasm. Moving quickly, it wraps itself around the chain, that's next to the balcony and moves up it. It jumps to the railing it's in front of Henry it moves over so it's in front of Bendy. It starts to reach out to him. Suddenly, it launches off the railing and sharpens into an almost pike, and impales Bendy.

Bendy falls to his hands and knees but doesn't try to pull it out. Henry rushes over to Bendy "Bendy, are you alright?!" Henry moves to remove the ink pike.

"Don't." Bendy growls. "But, it's hurting you!" Henry insists, the pike began to sink and fuse with Bendy sits down and breaths, this time he actually opens his mouth. Bendy chuckles, like an actual person- or, rather, ink creature, "It's been so long since I've breathed." Henry smiles then a voice interrupts them.

"Errand boy! WHERE ARE YOU?!" The devilish angel roars over the PA system. Henry sighs "I should probably go back to her."

"No, you don't have to." Bendy remarks. "Well, I should at least return her ax." Henry says Bendy sighs, "Well, I can't stop you but if I attack you just know, I'm not always fully in control. Okay?" Henry nods then gets the ax and go down to the angel's lair.

Bendy searches the studio for Henry but he couldn't find him anywhere. Bendy couldn’t find Boris either. Sammy said Henry had taken Boris with him to level 9.

Just accept it, he doesn’t care about us, he never did. Bendy’s demon sighs. Stop. Bendy snaps, it retreats into the corners of their mind.

Bendy calls the lift but it doesn’t come. Bendy looks down and sees flashes and sparks. Bendy jumps down and uses his claws to dig into the wall of the elevator shaft to slow his descent. Once, Bendy gets to bottom of the elevator shaft he finds the crushed elevator. Bendy slides into the room that the elevator leads to and looks around. Bendy finds some blood. It’s him; it has to be. Bendy looks around and sees the hall.

Only one way to go. Bendy thinks and walks down the corridor and takes a left and enters the archives, he sees the lost ones and sighs. Bendy walks through it, knowing nothing would dare attack him. The demon makes it to the door only to find it is closed. Bendy sees a book is stuck out from the bookshelf, he goes over to it and pushes it back in. Bendy hears the sound of a light bulb coming on and he looks back at the door, the lights bulbs that are above it one is on.

So, that’s what I have to do. Bendy looks for other books that poke out and pushes them back into place. One the last book the light bulb for that one, burst. But the door still opens. Bendy sighs and shuffles around and past the broken glass. Bendy walks up the steps of the cavern and goes to the bridge and instead of taking the cart he uses the rope to just climb across. Bendy continues on. Then, Bendy hears something….Running? Follow by screeching? Wait the Projectionist! Shit! Bendy opens a portal and runs through it and appears in Maintenance, the demon rams through the door and punches the Projectionist.

The old animator was scared out of his wits when the Projectionist tried to get to him before there was a loud crash and Bendy punched the Projectionist. Next thing Henry can process is that Bendy has one foot on the Projectionist’s shoulder and is pulling his head… projector? It comes off with a ripping sound and Bendy throws it at the little miracle station. The ink demon starts to look down at the Projectionist but stops and looks at Henry instead. Bendy smile becomes happier and he waves at Henry, the animator sheepishly waves back. Bendy, content, picks the Projectionist’s body and leaves.

Henry left the miracle station and goes to the haunted house. He pulls the lever down and pull the last one down and goes to the front of the haunted house and sits on the stairs for a moment and collects himself. The evil laughter not helping at all. Then he goes into the haunted house.

The cart Henry’s riding in, starts to leave the ballroom, but there’s just darkness in front of him. Then, two large gloved hands come out from the shadows and a monstrous Boris come forward. "Boris!!! No, no….What has she done to you?!" Henry gasps sadly, Boris barks at Henry. The old animator stands up and pets Boris’ snout. Henry falls back as the cart jostles and Boris picks it up. Henry tenses up “Boris...please...you don’t have to do this.” Then Henry, along with the cart, fly across the ballroom. Henry hits the ground, landing, somehow, on his left side with a sharp crack . The pain wasn’t unbearable but it hurt to high hell. Henry got up quickly and barely got out of the way of a charging Boris. The mutilated wolf hit the wall and turns around, he clutched his stomach as ink begins oozing and squirting out from his chest cavity. Henry sees a glob of ink, he grabs it with his right hand and looks around, Henry spots the ink maker. The animator sprints over to the ink maker, and puts the ink inside of the bucket and goes over to the other side he changes the dial to the gent pipe and pulls the lever and runs away from the machine for a moment. So that Boris doesn’t destroy it.

Boris charges at Henry again. Henry makes sure to get away once Boris gets close enough. Then Henry grabs the ink glob. (And rinse and repeat)

Henry picks up the gent pipe, he feels like he is about to kill Boris. Henry doesn’t want to kill the wolf, despite the fact that Boris has hurt Henry a lot, blood coming from a gash on his arm and just above his hairline, not even mentioning the bruises. Henry goes up to the monstrous wolf, who was kneeling as ink gushes out of his chest. “Boris, I'm so sorry.”

Then the wolf speaks softly, “Please, just kill me.” Henry stops, he stands there in shock. “Please.” He whines.

Henry stands for a moment before raising the pipe and delivers the final blow. Boris acts as if he is still under Alice’s control. Falling back with a loud thud. As Boris dissipates Henry looks down on the wolf, his eyes sad. Henry didn’t even hear what Alice is saying, or rather yelling because that angel has no inside voice. Henry starts to feel weak as the adrenaline that was keeping him alive starts to die down. Blood is dripping off the animator.

Henry turns around, once the wolf is gone and sees Alice running towards him. The animator can’t move his mind is becoming fuzzy and slow, black dots are appearing in his vision. Alice is at least a foot away when she gets run through the chest with a sword. Alice gasps and the sword is pulled out and Alice falls to the ground. Henry looks at the person.

Allison .

Henry smiles softly, blood oozing and dripping off his arm. Blood is coming from a gash just above his hairline. The old animator passes out.

Bendy rushes around level S trying to find the old animator. Bendy goes into the haunted house and arrives in the ballroom to see Henry fall to the ground. Bendy then sees Allison.

“Allison, what did you do?” The ink demon snarls, he bares his fangs. “I didn’t do anything to him.” Allison replies her eyes narrowing and she tightens her grip on her sword “Tom, take him to the safe house.” Allison hiss, Tom nods and gets Henry on his back.

“YOU’RE NOT GET AWAY THAT EASILY!” The true ink demon roars, an evil grin on his face. The demon launches himself at them, Allison grounds herself and raises her sword so it’s facing towards Bendy. There’s a loud crash and Bendy finds himself pinned to the ground by a fluffy, quadruped creature, it growls at Bendy. Then Bendy has a haze memory of this thing, before getting knocked unconscious.

“I’m not carrying this.” The quadruped growls at the Angel and wolf. Allison sighs and stands up straight “Stop treating him like a monster, you know what happened.”

The quadruped snarls it’s tail lashing back and forth “Yeah? And? I got it worse.” The creature hisses. Just take him. Her other half says. Fine but I won’t like it. The creature rolls Bendy over to his stomach using her paw. Then leans down and picks Bendy up by the back of his neck, very akin to how a feline picks up her kittens. Then the creature leaves the way it came, which is through the closest window to the ‘exiting’ gate.

Chapter Text

Henry slept soundly for the first time in many, many years. Henry drifts in and out of sleep, the first time he wakes up he sees Allison patching up his wounds and inaudible murmurs. The next few times it was so dark, he feels something laying next to him, it’s purring. Darkness consumes the brunet again.

When Henry finally wakes up he finds that he is laying in a cot. He feels very refreshed but famish and dehydrated. Bones still ache . Henry thinks to himself. He sits up, the thick wool blanket that was on him slides to his waist. Henry looks around: there’s a cabin steamer trunk next to the cot it has a candle on its top left corner as well as some folded up clothes. Other than that the room is almost the exact the same as the room he had in the safe house.

Icy air crawls up Henry's spine. The man shivers and realizes he's not wearing his shirt. Henry swings his legs over the side of the cot. Henry looks at his legs, he’s still wearing his trousers. Henry looks at his arms, white bandages wrap around his forearm and down at his chest. Henry pushes himself up and stretches. Then, he grabs his shirt and sees that it has been sewn back up, as there was a multitude of rips and holes in the shirt. Henry puts the shirt back on and sees his boots right under the cot Henry puts the ink-stained boots back. Henry ties the boots up, nice and snug, as his late mother would say. He moves to the door and slowly opens the door. The door creaks loudly, Henry mentally curses the old building. Once, the door is open Henry looks around. The hall to his right leads into the main room and to his left a dead end with one door on his of the hall and two doors on the other side of the hall. This place looks much cleaner than the other safe house, as well as the rest of the studio, for that matter. Henry slowly leaves the room and walk down the hall, towards the main room. Henry stops a few feet from the ending of the hallway, he hears two voices. He creeps to the end and looks around the corner. There's a fence with metal strips making a diamond pattern, pillows lean against the ‘wall’ and a hammock hangs down loosely. In the other corner of the room, a circular table is in the corner with three chairs, only two in use currently. Allison and Tom are sitting across from each other, they held cards in their hands. Two bacon soup cans and an Alice Angel plush sit by the back of the table. Allison’s sword is leaning against the wall by its master.

“Fold.” Allison sighs and tosses her cards on to the table as she leans back in defeat. Tom’s deep, gravelly voice chuckles and he lays his cards down. Allison stands up quickly causing her chair to fall back. “You cheated, you bastard!” Allison accuses she pointed at mech wolf, who is grinning and shrugs as a response. “Fine, take them.” The angel sighs and picks her chair up and sets it down then sits in it. Then she looks over at a where Henry’s watching “Oh, you’re awake,” Allison says as she gets up and goes over to him. “Are you feeling well?” The angel asks, Henry stands up from his previous crouching position. “Yeah, bones still ache but other than that I’m fine.” Henry smiles softly.

Bendy has been tied up for the last day. Or has it been two days? Three? Bendy has lost count at this point, he also couldn’t tell how much time had passed. Bendy has been tied to a post, he’s been in a sitting pose the whole time, in a dark room. Today, when he woke up, he was confronted with two creatures standing under a light. The one that is standing closest to the demon, is a humanoid. She looks about in her early twenties, though there’s an air about her that says otherwise. Her silverish hair shines under the light but casts shadows over her face so Bendy can only see her creepy smile. Her posture is straight and her arms folded in front of her. Her void black dress falls just above her knees and the sleeves cut off at her elbows. She's not wearing any shoes but she didn't have any toes.

The sheep thing behind her has dark grey curly fur, it’s muzzle doesn’t have fur, instead of being a lighter shade of grey, and no mouth but it has a rabbit like a nose. It’s ears resembling that of a lamb’s ears, overall it looks like a child made this creature.

“Hello, Bendy, old friend. Long time no sees.” The humanoid purrs, her voice is silk and honeyed. Despite her smile, her words drip with venom and hate. Bendy looks at them, his memory hazy. The woman walks up to Bendy, she knelt down by him and puts two fingers under his chin. She forced him to look at her “You haven’t forgotten us, have you?” She asks and stands up “Well, that’s too bad.” She says something comes back to Bendy.

“...Star?” Bendy asks, his demon growls from the shadows of Bendy’s mind.

Star’s empty smile widens “The ink demon remembers!” Star looks down on Bendy, her smile fades. “Then why did you make the last thirty years a living hell for us?”

Henry sits at the table, eating some bacon soup as Allison and Tom chat between each other. “Where’s Bendy?” Henry asks suddenly after he swallows the soup that is occupying his mouth.

“The… eh… amalgamates are interrogating him.” Tom says, he seems uncomfortable saying amalgamates. Henry stood up “What? Why?” Henry shouts, he doesn’t wait for an answer as he began to walk towards the hall leading to the bathroom as that’s the only they could be. Allison grabs her sword and put the blade to Henry’s throat. “Just sit back down,” Alison growls. Henry recoils and he slowly backs up, “O-okay.” Henry sits back down.

Mother's love for her children.

Mother's grief for her children that are no more.

Mother's descent into depression signs a contract with a monster for her children to be again once more.

Mother's heartache, loving her remade children but guilt won't be erased.

Mother's death, guilt became too much, depression, sorrow, despair, misery wouldn't quit. Gunpowder laced air, death came knocking.

What happened?

An hour, maybe two, later.

The air is tense. Like electricity gathering, cackling. Everyone is in the main room. Aris is in the hammock, grooming her fur with her tongue. While Star sits under the hammock, she's watching Henry and Bendy. Allison is shuffling cards, and Tom is tinkering with his mechanical arm. Both of them are sitting at the table, Tom has moved the middle chair towards Allison, who is sitting on the opposite side of the table from Henry. Henry, sitting in the chair that is a few inches from the wall, is sketching in an old sketchbook he found. The ink demon is sitting next to him, he’s leaning against the wall, seemingly ignoring everything. There's also two lost one's sitting by the wall in between where Star and Aris and the stove. They're silently playing cards. (AW SAD BOIS! TwT)

“Stop staring at me, Star.” Bendy growles dryly not looking at the other ink creature.

Star brow furrows “Stop me.” She provokes, her words slow but sharp. The tension buckles. Bendy growls and stands up. He stomps to Star, who was standing by then. They walk towards each other and stop a few inches from each other. Everyone is watching them, except Aris, who is still grooming her fur but her one of her ears is faced towards the action, while the other swerves around for seemingly no reason. Star looks to the place where his eyes should be, her eyes filled with hate. Bendy winds his arm back preparing for a punch. Bendy’s fist flew forward, Star grabs his fist. Bendy leans toward her, “Come on, doll. We both know who will win this squabble.”

Star snarls and stomps her left foot. A global of ink comes down from the ceiling, it forms into a rapier. Star grabs the thin sword with her right hand and brings it up to Bendy's Bowtie, Star’s eyes reflect dry intent; to kill. Bendy hisses and tries to back up, an ink tendril comes down from the ceiling and wraps tightly around the demon's neck, it snakes around the upper half of his body. It constricts pinning his arms to his side. Star raises her blade to strike Bendy. Henry gets up and runs to them.

“WOAH! Star stop!” Henry yells as he gets in front of Bendy. Aris wraps her tail around Star’s waist and moves her sister towards the corner where she's laying. Henry asks Bendy if he's okay, Bendy nods and walks back to where he was sitting before the fight (rather squabble but whatever). Bendy and Star are glaring at each other. “What did Joey do to you guys?” Henry shudders, everyone looks at Henry. It feels like he just said something taboo, that feeling of wrongness . Then everyone looks down. Back to silence.

“Joey was once a good man with good ambitions, who had ideas and dreams.” Aris, surprisingly, is the one to shatter the crushing silence. Her voice is young, probably about five. She doesn’t look at anyone her gaze focused on her forepaws. Henry sits down having a feeling that this is going to be a very long story. “At least, that’s what we heard. The Joey we knew would pit us against each other, beat us, trap us in rooms with pentagrams that would do different things to us, he would use us as lab rats--No! Slaves.” Aris’ shutters but she continues. “He started making new employees sign contracts that gave their soul to him. Joey was cruel, harsh, unforgiving, broken shell of a man with a heart darker than the void itself. Even Mr. Lawrence, who didn’t like any of us, disapproved of what Joey did to us. No one liked or approved of his actions, at least openly. But, they were scared of him as well, they couldn’t stand against him. And neither could we. Until one of us snapped and he got what he rightfully deserved. I can't remember who did it, my memory there is blurred, like smeared ink.” Aris sighs she jumps down from her hammock and lands on the ground with padded feet, the ground creeks softly under her. “I'm going to our room.” Aris states and begins to walk away.

“I was the one to get him.” Bendy states dully. “Joey, correct?” Aris asks without looking at him. “Yes.” He responds Aris nods “I see.” Is the creature's only reply. Then she walks down the hall Henry's room is down.