Author's Notes: Despite hardly mentioning him yet in my main work, "Hymns" Joey is actually my most developed character! You may have seen him before if you browse tumblr- I have a lot of wonderful fanart of him! Since this website won't let me link, I'll instruct you to go to the blog "pipesflowforeverandever" and look up "gingie," which is the nickname me and my friends gave my Joey.

Oh, and a few more details! This location is real and not exaggerated, a place called Mackinaw Island I've had the honor of visiting. I also feel it'd be a good idea to mention that my Joey is of Celtic heritage and my Henry is Asian-American, since these details didn't come up opportunistically.

Henry could hardly see through the slits his eyelids made, fighting almost in vain to keep them open at all as wind and his bangs whipped about vigorously. His stomach ached as it rammed into the railing with the bouncing ferry. Whose idea was it to ride to the island on the upper deck of the ship? Joey, of course; Henry had planned on sitting in the peaceful inner chambers, sketching the waves as they lapped up towards the window. Henry supposed that was a good representative between the distinction between he and his business partner, the contentment of serenity as opposed to jumping in the eye of the storm.

Not that Henry wasn't enjoying himself anyway, of course.

He let a smile creep his lips only to fall as he heard a shrill, familiar yelp. The young man turned his head to investigate. What is that over there, a large cloud-?

His eye was besieged once more by a flash of cream accompanied by a soft but firm blow. Fortunately, the rail of the upper deck prevented a flailing Henry from tumbling overboard, but he felt his raised hand graze against something. Instinctively, fingers clasped down and met a texture firm yet smooth like cloth. His poor, poor eyeballs eventually gathered the might to open once more and inform him it was exactly that- cloth.

A hat, to be precise, and its owner was standing in front of him, grin as wide as its brim.

"Joey, what made you think that wearing this on a boat would be a good idea?" Henry really meant the question, but it was one inevitably soaked with the care and amusement of the most substantial friendship he ever had. As such, Mr. Drew simply let out an enthusiastic chuckle, the wrinkles near his eyes more prominent as the corners of his mouth pushed upward. The marks of decades of laughter had imprinted themselves upon the cartoonist's face, proof that some people only grow more beautiful with age.

"Good catch, my boy!" Joey's voice rang, muted like bells clinking in a wind tunnel as it struggled to be heard. How utterly ridiculous the studio director was, Henry realized once again. Mr. Drew was an individual of short stature- even shorter than himself, and Henry wasn't exactly what Americans considered to be tall. His usual "public" attire was replaced by what could only be considered its vacation counterpart, wrapping around his figure with the breeze. It was a light peachy-pink suit, brown and cream highlights in the tie and pocket handkerchief reminiscent of shells. But if it was a suit meant to match their nautical circumstances, it certainly wasn't working. Definitely much more to fit whimsy than function.

A playful glint shone from Joey's gaze as his hat returned to his head, informing Henry that this was exactly what he wanted.

"I knew what I was getting into, Henry! It'll be worth it!"

Ah yes, Henry would have to continue to trust his friend till the end with this. He had been asking himself the whole time why he didn't ask Joey more than a few questions about where he was taking them and why; it probably made sense to assume that- well- Joey would just say so. But Joey wasn't like other people, was he? Henry's almond eyes squinted just a bit more as he let out a soft exhalation of a laugh. He should have known. Just as Henry was a little too passive, Joey was a little too adventurous, but neither of them seemed to mind in the end.

And that's why they were on a ferry this moment, an island in the distance beginning to sharpen in focus if one could see past the mist sprayed at the boat's side. A grasp fell upon Henry's shoulder as the old man approached, encouraging him to look back over the railing with him. Finally came the slightest of explanations:

"You're going to love this, just you wait! I can't wait to see how it's changed over the years!"

Ah, so Joey had been here before after all.

They were the last to step off, shoes clicking onto the wooden dock as luggage came in hand. Speaking of luggage, all Henry had known up till this point was that he would need it- a weekend's worth to be precise. Where were they going, anyway?

The gentle sigh of the lapping water below filled Henry's ears, black hair tickling his forehead as it swayed to and fro. Henry closed his eyes for a second and let the lake air drift into his nose until he could taste it in the back of his throat. He was a city boy, born and raised, but not necessarily by choice; he was hardly an adult after all, and finally he was taking in the world as he always wanted. Never expected it to be so soon early in life, though.

The man it was all thanks to soon interrupted this peace, and Henry felt a hand at his back trying to push him forward.

"Come on, my boy, it's just this way, just this way!"

Admittedly, Joey was eccentric, delighted, and most of all, excitable. But even so, this was unlike him. He was a man of aesthetics, someone who wasn't afraid to stop in his steps as quick as a dime just to turn his chin up and appreciate where he stood. And they were truly in a place worthy of such admiration. As Joey grabbed his free hand and began to pull to the front of the dock, Henry did his best to take in the sights.

A cloudy sky, but not so cloudy that the bright blue didn't shine into their eyes, running over colorful rooftops like a fairy tale. On the shore was a shop with rows upon rows of bikes, waiting on a long slab of cement a foot or two above the waves. He let himself look straight ahead past the obscuring view of his older friend's top hat, but not much could be seen; once they finally moved through the last gateway, an arch overhead was weighed so heavily with shadow that the light at the end was blinding all in front of them.

What came to be was truly a fairy tale after all.

Flowers, flowers everywhere, their fragrance surrounding them the moment they entered a realm backwards in time. They were in the trees, in the railings, in the windows of every home. He had never heard the clip clop of horseshoes hitting pavement before, at least not so close. The carriages they pulled were striped like circus tents, touting the names of inns and restaurants, assumed to be the short buildings that lined the street with pastel signs and windows full of-

No way.

His head turned and turned and turned. This was impossible. He counted.

One. Two. Three.

…Six?!

His feet took a mind of his own. Eyes wide and emptied of all but disbelief, Henry began to walk down the street, shoulders brushing past those of other tourists. He looked and kept a tally, triple checking he wasn't repeating any one.

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

And another and another and another.

Finally, he reached a point where the shops ended. He stood at the last one, a light pink and brown shack somehow both untidy and obviously cared for. It was much more evident now that the perfume of petunias was tinged with something else. A different sort of sweetness. Its source sat right on display through the glass of the shop, just like all the others he counted.

"Seventeen fudge shops!"

One of the ginger man's arms wrapped round Henry's side while the other was thrown up into air, thinking nothing of dropping his luggage to do so. His youthful companion blinked, finally able to tear his eyes away from literally piles of candy. An isle of fudge shops?!

"…And you found the right one," Joey answered more quietly. Henry knew this gentleness. It was familiar. It was the one that always came alongside a smile as warm as the sun, its light matched in the glint of half-closed eyes.

And certainly, there they were to look back at the boy now.

"…The right one?" Henry replied in a tone matched in all but Joey's confidence. The cartoonist nodded in reply, dimples deepening even more.

"This is the place." And before Henry could even ask, Joey once again read his mind. "This is the place it all started."

The bells of the shop door tingled in song, a small but chirpy "hello!" ringing from the counter. A teenaged girl stood there with a tired, wary gaze. Her dark eyes widened just a touch at the sight of these two men- or surely just the one that looked like the cartoons he made.

"Hello!" Mr. Drew answered for the both of them, "I'll be sure to buy something in just a moment but give me a second!" With the last word, he rose and fell from the tips of his toes and a point of the finger to the sky; the point soon fell in front of his nose, however, as his sight squinted, making a panorama from corner to corner.

"Joey-"

The point rose once again, accompanied with nothing but the silence he demanded. Henry rolled his eyes until they fell on the worker, a shrug from his shoulders and a grin that screamed "whaddaya gonna do, huh? That's just Joey Drew for ya." She kept her unattached demeanor, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. These guys were certainly different; that much was something to appreciate.

Especially when one of 'em looked like he lived in this shop in the first place.

"Oh, of course!" And suddenly they were dashing to the front counter, a glass display at the girl's left side. His fingertip finally found its destination, touching just above-

"The Mama Melt Forever Chocolate Center Cookie!" he yelped like finding buried treasure, "Exactly how mama used to make it!"

A half scoff, half laugh came from the corner.

"You mean like how mama used to make it," the girl quipped, "That there is a secret recipe."

"I know," Joey returned with just as snarky a tone, "My mother made it."

And she was either too flabbergasted to reply or felt too sorry for a crazy old man to argue, simply letting a "pfff" buzz through her lips as the redhead asked for two.

Soon they were outside once more, one hand for a bag of clothes and one hand for a cookie each. The clouds had grown heavier and just as they stepped underneath them, a drip fell on Henry's nose.

Joey commented how the island was crying because it missed him so much.

"Come on!" the gentleman said with an encouraging wave five times younger than he, "It's time to go home!"

"Home?" Henry blinked once more. "You mean the uh- the hotel, right?"

Joey's shoulders drooped in playful exasperation and his honey irises met eyelids as he looked up at comrade. "Hotel- home- same thing! Same thing when you're on vacation! Get into the spirit, my boy!"

And so at his best friend's heed, Henry allowed an eyebrow to raise and his own smirk curl. "Fine, Joey. Tell me where home is."

He couldn't believe it.

He still couldn't believe it.

The Grand Hotel. Literally so grand that it was the! Grand Hotel.

And they were not only inside it. Not only staying there.

The sun was setting and the rain had left them, and Henry's suitcase fell along with it to the porch floor, radiance kissing his dark locks and pale skin till it was lined with fire. The highest room in the best hotel on all this magical island, the summertime equivalent of a penthouse apartment. His back was turned to the inside of the room- twisting, golden architecture fit for royalty. That alone was enough, but this…-

Henry twitched his head a little to see if it was a dream, but the sunset over an endless lake remained, an ocean of candlelight underneath a sky shifting from orange to indigo. Geraniums teased the bottom corners of this sight, planted at the balcony where Henry stood.

Where they stood.

"Isn't it something?" came a sigh. It was steeped in…hm. Joy? Whimsy? Memory. "We made it," Joey continued in quiet victory. He looked to his partner. "And we made it again."

Henry's brow furrowed, and he studied the man with hair that matched the sky. No, he'd need help to solve this riddle.

"Joey, this is all spectacular but- but-…" He shrugged once more in defeat. "You gotta tell me what's going on!"

Something in his peripheral. Henry looked down and saw a rosy hand, a circular thing slipped in thin paper between its fingers. Ah, he'd forgotten about the cookie.

"Good?"

Henry had hardly taken a bite when his shoulders pulled up like a marionette. "Amazing!" he gasped in a rare moment of verbal excitement, "It's still gooey in the middle but- but it's been hours. How- How did they-?"

Joey's own brow flicked up and down in a split second of humor. "It's hers." He somehow grew…gentler. "It was Mother's."

And soon the old man's elbows were leaned over the railing, his gaze leaving Henry to look not at the tide ahead but simply towards it, as if the quickly darkening sky above now projected his reminiscences.

And with the way Joey talked, Henry could almost see it, too.

"She invented it. The cookie with a chocolate center that never ever got hard. Always fresh. Always melted." One of his hands absentmindedly curled his thumb and index finger together in a point, as if explaining to someone ahead that wasn't there. "That was her creation." His shoulders lifted in a silent sigh. He missed her. He may have been a middle-aged man, but that could never stop a boy from loving the woman who raised him. Eventually, strength returned to him, and eyes sparkling with fairy dust and passion fell back upon Henry. "We have our creation, too."

Henry's blue-grey collar skimmed against his neck in a tickle, wind suddenly but tenderly rustling again as if that word was a summoning. He didn't have anything to say though; not yet. He knew there was more that'd come from Joey.

And he was right.

"She-" Joey coughed just a little, almost bashful at this next statement, "she made a lot of money selling the recipe, you know. And this was the first place they took it to. Test run, you see. And we followed right along with it to celebrate. Wouldn't have had the money otherwise, of course."

Ah, so that's how he knew this place. He had an awareness that Joey came from a poor family, so Henry had always wondered how he came to start the studio in the first place. Who'd guess it'd be such a story to tell?

"…Henry."

The man whose name was called was taken aback. This tone was different. Mr. Drew was a genuine man, certainly.

But vulnerability was a beautiful thing indeed.

Stars started to twinkle in the sky behind Joey, like sprites playing tag as the breeze toyed with his hair, and his round glasses were slicked in growing moonlight. The man himself was certainly enveloped in an aura, Henry surmised. The young artist wasn't a religious or spiritual sort, per say, but Mr. Drew? Mr. Drew made it seem like anything you believe can be seen.

And that was how he felt this very moment, only the slightest of smiles laid across his face.

"She gave me her legacy, Henry. When she died she- she gave it all to me. 'Be magical,' she said," And there was a flash of something deeper on Joey's expression, something words couldn't describe. "'Be magical, my dear, sweet boy. There's enough inside you to fill the whole world.'"

His smile grew and suddenly his gaze was no longer mindless but truly directed at the boy in front of him.

"And I think you and I can do just that," he confessed in the softest voice Henry had ever heard.

It was then Henry noticed that either Joey's hand had never stopped reaching out to him or that he had put it back between them once more.

"If I have a legacy…I want it to be not mine but ours. Bendy is-…really something. Marvelous. Spectacular. He's- oh, I can't describe what you've made, son-!"

Both men blushed a bit as they realized one called the other his son.

…No.

No, that wasn't a mistake, was it?

"H…Henry…"

For once the great spellcaster Joey Drew was at a loss for words. Good thing he didn't need them.

Henry was the one to clasp hands this time, the one to assure, the one to be bold. Tension in Joey's knuckles, and then release.

A handshake of partnership unfolded into a hold of commitment. It had been without description all this time, how they were two lost souls that never felt quite in place, never felt quite like someone understood till the other came along. They were polar in many ways, yes, but they both wanted the same thing:

"Let's make the world a more magical place."

And that was the day Henry began to feel like he was really his son, that he had a dad who loved him after all. And finally, finally Joey knew he wouldn't be left alone anymore. They'd be separated over his dead body.