21- Shape, Sound, and Sincerity

"You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance." - Psalm 32:7

You get in a car accident. Metal and wire and glass everywhere- horrible, horrific, terrible, terrifying. Alone. Let's assume you're lucky enough to make it out physically unscathed, not even a cut; you'll still never forget how it makes you feel. There's a chance every time you get behind the wheel again, pass by the spot on the highway where your car split the guard rail in two, or even if you see a car- there's a roll of the dice how tight your chest will clench this time and how much your heart physically aches like the time it happened. Once again, the car is spinning and the same debris from before flies into your face in hopes of destroying you, onslaughts of the phantom of your past.

Swirling in anxiety, drowning in doubt. Someone can only take it for so long. There's only so many times someone can live through it over and over again, and the first time alone could have killed you. This is the time where beings find how powerful they truly are. This is when they find their souls- their joys, their fears, their traits, their wounds.

There's only so long before you become human again.

The water traced down her fingers after it was thrown gently to her skin. The sound it made echoed in the porcelain, staining the old yellow basin with a trickle of black among the otherwise clear liquid. Its presence forced a sigh of dismay, beridding her of the consolations of truly clean drinking water. As the layer of dust and ink the studio paintonto her washed away little by little, Sammy saw there were some things that wouldn't abandon her. The folds under her eyes remained darkened, and a row of brown dots lined from her jaw to her forehead. She was a constellation of heavens he hadn't the blessing to see…

…Yet. Looking upon her was a reminder that dreams do come true, and they certainly will with Bendy's gracious hand.

The man took great care standing next to the mirror rather than in front of it; maybe he was vulnerable in her full view, unable to hide how carefully he watched, but it was preferred over the slashing stare of his own melting body before him if he had stood behind her instead. He uncrossed his arms as she lifted her head to breathe in once more, and suddenly black fingers were obstructing his view.

Sammy hadn't touched her yet, thankfully, before he discovered what he was doing. As the back of his hand obstructed the dots on her face and their accompanying eye, the other eye looked upon him. She was too tired, too numb to flinch yet again, but the man eventually pulled back all the same. Even in her acceptance of him- of his upsetting existence, his unholy form- he still felt unsuited to touch her again, at least not so soon.

"You…you have some left on your face, my friend," was his excuse. A true one, but it was an excuse.

After a second of blank silence, the woman minutely shifted her head to look in the mirror again. It was clear now there were still definitely stains left, and to his concern they didn't fuzz a bit when she smoothed her fingertips over them. Shoulders lifted and dropped with a blink, and she somehow looked more tired than before.

"I think I got everything I can, Sammy." He didn't blame her in this moment for some reason, for her casual reference to him by a name he hardly knew. It brought things upon him- things that were certainly his- and so came the admission of his ownership of a "Sammy." How truly terrible was it that he knew it? The answer was "very," of course, but as the woman's look rested upon him again, it somehow drowned in the deafening noise her mortality blared around him. How could such a solemn face make him feel…so, so much?

"Did you hear me, Sammy?"

A soft "ah" came from his throat in surprise, awakening him from the fantasy she was, the dream of being human so close in his grasp. "…Yes," the man managed to say, "…My apologies."

Her shoulders created a slope as one shrugged and the other drooped, leaving the bottom of her neck grazing the lifted side. He could have imagined it- it could have simply been her supple cheek pushing the rest of her face as her shoulder touched it- but a corner of her mouth lifted at him.

"It's okay."

It was the quietest voice that had ever emerged from the woman since they met. It was unsettling, and yet-…

Her smile widened and reached her eyes.

-…and yet so relieving.

"Let's go sit down, Sammy." That name again. That name.

She slipped out the doorway ahead, and he obediently followed.

His name…his name…

Realization came upon him as she led him to the living room yet again. Sammy saw the woman standing full height a fair distance ahead of him. Hands fell on her round hips and the flesh underneath easily gave way, gentle and weak to the pressure of her fingers. A line curved around her neck as it turned to look behind at him. A word…there was a word for this…What was it?

His head bobbed up and down over her before unburying lost knowledge of the world above. "You're…fat."

She laughed. She outright laughed, the entirety of her body bouncing with her voice, an amplifier of emotion that confirmed his statement. It was so much different than just a second ago; she changed so fast before his eyes simply by stating observations. How absurd.

"That's-…" the woman began before being interrupted by one last chuckle, "-that's a funny thing to say out of the blue!" Almost in agreement- maybe to express agreement- she gently placed a hand on her stomach. "Yeah, I am." There was one last pulse of a grin before it shrunk to a small smile for good. She still seemed so exhausted, but at least she wasn't quite so still. It didn't seem to suit the nature of such an easily moved body, he surmised as he saw the way it caved into even the gentlest of thumps from her fingertips as they lay upon her abdomen.

"I'll uh…I'll probably shed a few pounds while I'm here!" Just as suddenly as it came, the joy drained from her face in the reality of this joke. "…Oh. Oh no."

Her spine lurched forward a little and could be seen trembling her torso with fear, with sickness. She led herself back down to the chair, clutching her stomach not so gently one last time before laying face down against the surface of the table.

And again, how absurd. Maybe that was the word that described the woman best; it certainly was the one that described how he felt around her. He had solidified once and for all just moments ago that he would care for her, would indeed care for the lamb that Bendy found astray. He was rewarded only with two things: the first being the pain her presence brought- the torture of knowing that flesh and blood still could be among the ink, and yet not suitable for him even in his great patience; the second was her volatility, the way this woman pried, demanded, and sobbed for and against him. It was an inexpressibly uncomfortable, strenuous test his lord asked of the prophet.

Leaning against the rim of the table, in front of his lame sheep, sat a familiar face. Somehow, he had neglected to acknowledge the presence of a banjo not his own that had been in their counsel the moment they took refuge here.

His own chair creaked as he leaned into it, carrying in his arms an old- or rather the duplicate of- an old friend. By second nature, he plucked the finest of the strings- a bit out of tune, it was. Sammy adjusted the tightness and plucked again. Better.

A corner of her brow lifted from behind a layer of hair sprawled onto the table. He noticed her noticing him, of course, but all he could think to do was move on to the next string, and then the next, and then the next. By the time the banjo was properly tuned, her full face rested underneath her arms, looking up upon the musician in weary wonder as she laid the front of her body across the table between them.

There was so much anticipation up til this point. Of course, she was enraptured by the sound itself, and that led to the mystery of what he would do next. "Play the banjo" somehow wasn't the answer for her; it was going to be more magical than that. So otherworldly was it to hear music, even if it was one note at a time down a scale.

Sammy, on the other hand, was an anxious wreck enveloped by his own unwillingness to turn back. Of course, he was delighted to play- he always had been, as this was what his lord desired- but…but as each string sung out, he realized more and more it wasn't him he would be playing for now. Trouble was, he hadn't imagined playing at all, but it was clear as glass he gave her reason to expect otherwise. What a dilemma.

"…" Sammy intended to speak but was blank. It was, indeed, a very specific kind of emptiness, however. This was the space he was supposed to address her. "…" he couldn't speak again, unsure how to go on.

"…" she countered, glancing down at his tarry appendages over the banjo. The hypocrite waited with baited breath, with her unconscious eagerness of what lay in his hands. Sammy decided upon a trade, a long awaited one.

"Despite how much trouble we've gotten ourselves into over my name," Sammy said, lifting his hand from the banjo strings to creacte a fist and support his chin almost teasingly, "…you have so carefully ensured I would never hear yours."

The woman turned red immediately, and Sammy felt a strange blend of playful vengeance and true spite as he could visibly see recognition penetrate every pore of her skin and change its hue. It was too soon to smile himself, even in its great irony, but he finally said what needed to be said and it gave him solace. Awkwardness would always rise before it waned, as would humiliation and hurt feelings. Honestly, for all he knew, maybe she didn't need a name; the purpose of this wasn't to attain her name but to transfuse his frustration. And so, it was more than he expected when she finally spoke.

"I'm…I'm so sorry. It's…it's…I'm Francine."

His entire form tilted in surprise, looming over the instrument in his lap rather than holding it while keeping his head parallel with hers. She couldn't read him, but he read her; Sammy caught the flashes of emotion over her face, the sharp spikes of shame at being caught in her hypocrisy. …Guilt; he saw that. He leaned back once more in his chair, gaping mask still pointed her way. He was satisfied.

"Francine," he hummed. Francine nodded slightly in reply, and so his hand curled over the strings once more. "Well…" His head titled at her expressively. "I mustn't keep you waiting any longer, should I?"

And as music finally filled the apartment and sounds of beauty rather than revile swept around them, he quietly recognized how swiftly he had forgiven her, how soothing it was to feel a slight vibration in his seat as she tapped her foot to the rhythm, how her quick changes of mood somehow left him more solid than before.