Notes: GoogleDocs chewed this right up, so half my time was spent adjusting this damn thing. I needed another story like I need a hole in the head. *writes this anyway*
"There's a benefit to losing...you get to learn from your mistakes." -Megamind
I. The End
For Henry, it starts in terror.
For convenience's sake, this is how it stops too. There's something comforting in that, and also overwhelmingly frustrating that he wants to lie down and cry, right there in the hall leading to the devil's throne room.
He doesn't, though. He presses on.
This is his 600th and some attempt, which is probably wrong but he's not willing to debate on the finer points of his prison, and Henry has started giving up. No, he's past giving up. He's so far giving up he's come back round the other way. And now he's back to giving up again, for his second time. He's found new ways to die, creative ways to win, and so on and so forth. The script never changes, no one is coming to save him, and he can't get out of here.
These thoughts used to worry Henry. Now, they just bore him.
Humans craved patterns, and yet were innately terrible at dealing with them.
He has dragged this particular run out far longer than usual, spending longer with Boris, who is going to die anyway. (But not before Boris tries to kill him, which he does twice until Henry gets back into the groove of fighting to survive.) No one, not even Boris, seems to notice poor Henry is acting different than usual. There were a few times Bendy had missed his usual cues, but the tired animator chalked it up to Bendy being Bendy.
Henry stops, listening outside the door for any change. He nearly turns around, wondering how long he can live in this hall by himself, suspended mid-finale just to piss off Joey. Keep him waiting.
But Bendy is waiting also. And previous experience has taught Henry that waiting makes the demonic entity far angrier than he already is.
Henry stares, considering the doors, before pushing in.
Joey's rant starts, as it always does. The words are burned into Henry's brain, seared behind his eyelids. He takes the reel, Bendy's reel, heavy in his hands and watches with dull finality as Bendy's demonic form appears, right on cue as sickly grin seems strained, almost hesitant before Bendy settles into his usual actions. His already grotesque form twists and contorts. It sounds like bones snapping, like sticky cartilage expanding, and it's all become so familiar that Henry doesn't step back. Beast Bendy stopped being scary, because nothing was scarier than reliving this nightmare over and over. Or of being forced to be utterly alone for most of it while doing so.
Because Henry doesn't recoil like he should (or is expected to), the beast's swing sends him that much farther. It hurts, but far less than it should, his ribs broken and his torso sliced open from the careless claws.
When Henry lands, he doesn't get up.
He's alive, though, he isn't lucky enough to not be. (And even if he was, he would still wake up to the moment before this, and have to endure it again. So really, luck didn't play a damn part in his life, did it?)
Henry has tried everything. At least, he thinks he has. He's tried hiding the reel, breaking the reel, even ignoring the reel. (That had been interesting, Bendy had all but thrown him into the throne during their fight, as if telling Henry to hurry up.)
He's tried everything, and he's so tired of trying everything that he doesn't want to try anymore. His body isn't aging, and apparently he's become resilient enough that one hit from Bendy's biggest and baddest form is no longer enough to do him in. He'd be proud, if he wasn't so goddamn tired.
Henry notices the papers that go flying from him, along with the Seeing Tool, which has seen better days than this run. His packet of papers are thicker than normal, stolen from the first floor and stitched together to make a makeshift sketchbook that he's long since filled but couldn't bare to get rid of. He would lose it, anyway, after the game reset. But right now, in this run through, he had something that reminded him of a better chapter in his now endless life.
Immortality. Don't believe the hype.
By some miracle, the handmade sketchbook lands open, pages fluttering. A full sketch page of Bendy, the original Bendy with cute pie-eyes and little smile, is now staring up at the ceiling.
Henry isn't watching, isn't aware when the monster's claws snatch the interesting noise-making-thing, the papers crinkling in his too tight grip until he adjusts and drops the clumsily made sketchbook.
The floor shakes as Bendy lumbers over to him, and that, Henry is wholly aware of. The artist turns his head, flopping in exhaustion against the cold ground and staring with foggy eyes upwards, and upwards. Even without having to look, Henry is aware he is bleeding out. He tells himself he's to focused on Bendy to look, not because he isn't sure if he bleeds blood or ink anymore.
Like the Ink Demon form of Bendy, this monster is eyeless, but Henry knows the monster is staring back. He knows not because he created Bendy-he did NOT create THIS Bendy-but because he's studied the creature on his longer runs, sketched his three versions on the walls. Bendy is the only monster here who hunts with some sense of intelligence, giving Henry a lot to think about, and just as much to fear. But that intelligence also made him...interesting. Unpredictable, at least to a point.
Henry pushes the reel toward Bendy, his good arm only managing to make it scrape a few feet between them. After some consideration, Bendy knocks that aside, too, just as he had done to a full grown man a moment ago.
Ah. So he's going to kill Henry, who will be back in a few seconds anyway to start this whole thing over again. Fine, fine. Henry just wishes Bendy would get on with the show.
"So do it…" Henry rasps, hating himself for sounding so weak, especially in front of this monster.
Bendy growls back in answer, but it ends in a contemplative hum, and he seems rather distracted. That, still, isn't new. Although...unless Henry is mistaken, usually Bendy was distracted during other parts of their terrible dance. The beast Bendy usually went all out, hyper focused and more aggressive than his slimmer, human form.
"C'mon." Henry is the one who growls now, little human teeth bared and somehow managing to look even more pathetic than usual. "What are you doing, Bendy?"
A strange sensation is taking over Henry's cold and hurting form.
This? This is New.
New was many things, either Bad or Good, but usually it was so rare Henry never got to learn about it.
New had stopped happening, and maybe that's when Henry's spirit started to die.
The beast is ever closer, all edges and bulk and muscle. But Bendy moves far to fluidly like this, a rather rugged sort of gracefulness as he gets in close, bending down to hover his teeth over Henry's chest. Henry jerks, but is far to weakened to move back, and all he does is manage a twitch. This causes unbelievable, hot-white pain and he squeezes his eyes shut as he gasps, hissing as Bendy studies him with far to much awareness. He decides, no matter what, he won't cry anymore. He will die like a dog for the thousandth time but he won't cry over it. It's just spilled ink.
"Just get it over with." Henry blurts out when he can talk without throwing up. "Please-just fucking get it over with, Bendy, I'm so goddamn tired of this." He stopped asking a long time ago if Bendy was, too.
Bendy wasn't humane enough to tire of all this murder and stalking and hunting.
...right?
Then Henry feels a claw press into his stomach, and that does make him cry out.
Nevermind. Bendy playing with his food? Or toying with him, or making wounds hurt further? No, no, that wasn't New at all.
Then the pressure lifts as quickly as it had come, and Bendy's low growls peter off for a second. Their staccato rise at the end almost makes Bendy sound...apologetic. Hesitant.
When Henry's sight loses the dancing spots and dizzying fade-in-and-out, the beast is closer. Now, Henry can see the sketchbook in Bendy's grip, the pages torn. The page he's gripping is one of him, though there were many others. Henry sees the page, and he gapes back.
This is it. He's losing it. The last of his marbles. Half-dead and at the complete mercy of something that doesn't know mercy, and this is what causes him to snap. It's a clean break, Henry allows himself that much, the loss of his sanity and the gain of something else.
He laughs, broken and weak, and he finally cries, stronger but longer.
"You remember that, do you? B-Bendy-that version of you." Henry doesn't know what makes him talk. But Bendy hasn't lost his temper and killed him, and right now that's exactly what Henry wants him to do. He's in so much pain…
"Look, look, just kill me," Henry pauses to gasp, his lungs protesting, which must mean he punctured something, "a-and you can keep the sketchbook, okay? Deal?" Henry bargains, and he doesn't know what on this good earth makes him say those words.
Bendy doesn't respond. The creature can't even give him this one fucking thing, and it makes Henry's blood boil.
Henry sits, or at least, gives a good attempt. But moving his middle is not something his body wants to do, and he's essentially crippled. Henry falls backwards, spine down and wheezing as he struggles to keep awake. He opens his mouth to bitch Bendy out, to goad him until the beast is angry, so Bendy will finally kill him.
His venomous words die before they leave his mouth, when something thick and wet smacks messily into his wound...and gives two careful laps.
A brief moment of confusion, then sharp burning pain. Henry cries out, eyes screwed shut, teeth clenched. The demon doesn't stop, and that alone is turning Henry's veins to ice.
Of course he screams, a broiling mix of agony and fear, because Bendy's never eaten him alive before! Cold darkness very nearly takes the animator, his shock and fear driven noises dwindling as the wound abruptly begins to numb. The loss of pain is enough to calm his frantic heartbeat, enough to make him squint up at Bendy whose been looming over him the entire time. Henry's face is one of puzzlement, and he realizes dimly his expression matches Bendy's.
Bendy is close enough Henry can feel the hot whuffs of air on his face, can smell the wet ink of the monster's breath. The creatures studies him, grumbling softly but stopping when Henry doesn't answer. Henry can't. He's done.
Henry is almost asleep-or dead, maybe, since the two are interchangeable now-when Bendy stands directly over him and lowers down.
Helpless, small and lost, Henry allows himself to curl up into the sudden, sheltering darkness. Bendy's hide is solid, hardened and smooth like a shark's skin. More of the warm weight settles over him, tucking him into a warmth Henry hasn't felt what he's pretty sure is an eternity. He drifts into nothingness, listening to the dull thud of something he doesn't understand until its his last thought of consciousness.
'He...he has a heartbeat.'
Henry sleeps.
He has no concept of time, but the fact he awakens still on the floor of Bendy's lair-and still under Bendy, holy shit-is a shock for Henry. He was sure he was dying, would be dead even as he slept, but he isn't back at the statue. He isn't back at the door, either, which means Joey's fucked up little game hasn't reset.
This, obviously, is New. Scarily New.
Henry lies there, refusing to open his eyes for a long while. Bendy seems aware he's playing possum, even gives him a playful nudge once or twice, but soon leaves the man alone. Well, as alone as he could get, lying prone under the monster's mighty girth as Bendy's attention shifted to something apparently more enticing. Henry takes the moment of reprieve to collect himself. He checks, for the third time, whether he is dreaming or not. (They were so real these days, so terribly Real.) But this is not one of those Dreams, he is awake and he has to face the world, sooner or later. What's left of it, anyway. Moving away from the impossible facts of his current situation, Henry begins a calm if confused assessment of his body.
Nothing hurts. His legs are a bit cramped, but he's also lying under a monster three times his size, and even though Bendy's clearly being gentle he's still big and can't help that. When Henry finally musters up the last of his few remaining nerves, he looks to see that Bendy is settled like a sphinx, and has his head craned over his shoulder. He's watching one of his cartoons, tail tapping with a beat only he remembers, as all the films are now silent, playing on a loop without their audio.
Nothing hurts, and he is miraculously and suspiciously alive.
Because of Bendy. This unbidden thought strikes him like the Projectionist's light, causing him to freeze in some internal, instinctive terror. What he does next takes every last ounce of courage he has, and he's praying to gods real and fake that he isn't about to break some strange magic spell.
"...hey." Henry says tentatively.
Bendy swings his head back down, thick neck pulsing as he thrums a low note of an answer. Well, Henry isn't in crippling pain, and he can breathe alright (all things considered) so he decides to take what few chances he has left.
"Can I, uh, can I get up, or…?"
Bendy gives a rolling yawn that would make a lion lose its nerve, and simply stretches and stands.
A yes, then.
Henry rises too, on shaky, watery legs and stumbles to the nearest wall to lean on it. The reel lays to his left, untouched, forgotten. Bendy ignores it entirely, in favor of reaching for the cobbled together sketchbook. His noises turn to what Henry can only pin down as 'affection' and the man watches in stunned silence as the beast runs its claws reverently along the sketches of his original version.
After a beat of silence, Henry notices he is being stared at again, by the creature with no visible eyes. Yet somehow, he knows.
"You remember me." It's not a question, and Bendy's answering nod is enough to make Henry feel lightheaded. Henry wants to cry again, either from relief or from shock, he doesn't know. His throat is tight, impossibly so but he finds he cannot cry anymore. Not right now, anyway.
Slowly, his shock gives way to terribly distracting and firm Curiosity, as is often what happens to humans when presented with something New. Especially depraved humans, and after 600 times of the Same Old Thing, Henry certainly is the picture perfect definition of Desperate.
Henry stays firmly where he is, aware of how important body language is to Bendy. A lowered shoulder or frown could be taken as an offensive gesture, and Henry's not about to shatter this budding sense of comradery between them. It was an Impossible thing, but isn't that exactly what Joey kept preaching about? The impossible becoming possible?
Joey had enough Dreams that Came True, Henry suddenly decides with a burning ember of rage and hurt. Now it was Henry's fucking turn, and if it meant taking Bendy and earning his trust and using it against the old man, then so be it.
Henry didn't make this Bendy. But he could learn to accept him, maybe.
The animator stands, quietly, eyes raking over Bendy's true and terrible form, with the sharp, practiced eye of someone who watches to Learn and Recreate.
As Henry's physical capableness changed during his many, many run-throughs, so did Bendy begin to rework his last and final form. He's far bigger, but mostly the same color. He's rounder in the chest, barreled and powerful. He even walks on all fours, using a long spaded tail for balance and tight maneuvers that allows him to keep up with the far smaller Henry, who soon learned that Bendy was learning how to better stalk him. His Inky, humanoid-demonic form is nothing like this gorilla-like behemoth, and to be honest it hadn't changed much at all.
No, Bendy seemed only interested in altering this one, for whatever reason.
Bendy is still himself, still terrible and black and a mouthful of sharp teeth that draw into impossibly wide grimaces and sneers, but right now he's merely shuffling through Henry's filled sketchbook. His tail taps the floor absently, rumbling a conversation to himself. Bendy shoves aside some sketches of Alice, making what appears to be a regretful whimper, but snarls at the sketch of the Projectionist, and rips one of Sammy clear in half. Any other drawings, especially ones of he and Boris, are collected and stacked in a careful, loving pile off to the side.
Henry watches this, wondering if there's any hope for a man who's lost his sanity and is about to try to make friends with his demons.
Henry's sketchbook is completely taken apart within the hour, and the man has long since settled to sit with his back against the far wall to watch in growing bemusement. Bendy either noticed or didn't, but Henry is sure he did. Few things escape Bendy's awareness, especially concerning his favorite thing to prey upon.
Bendy is going through his collected pile a third time, when Henry summons some more nerve and breaks the silence.
"What do we do now?" Henry has to ask, initially unwilling to interrupt Bendy and make him angry. But the monster's anger seems to have gone out like a dying pile of ashes, and he only spares Henry an unconcerned snort that he pitches over his shoulder. He is far to busy adding the drawings he's stolen to his pile, trying to make sure they're all safe but visible.
"Bendy-look at me-we can't stay in your lair forever," Henry argues, weak but growing firmer the more he realizes Bendy no longer seems out to kill him.
'And why not?' Bendy's grunt of unconcern is clear as english to the man.
"I've got to eat at some point, and Joey…" Henry trails off, watching Bendy's tail begin to thrash. "Right. You remember Joey, too, don't you?" The animator prompts.
Bendy's answer is to take the tape recorder and throw it against the wall, shattering it upon impact from the force.
"At this point, if I could get my hands on him I'd wanna do that, too." Henry sighs and rubs his forehead tiredly. This was getting them nowhere, and he wasn't in the mood to piss Bendy off anymore.
"Maybe we can get out of here?"
Bendy rounds on the man, facing him fully and snarling in askance and confusion.
"No-no I mean, ALL the way out of here." Henry explains ignoring his race heart. He raises his hands in surrender as Bendy stalks over to him, making sounds that demand an explanation. "The studio-out of the studio, Bendy. Me and you. Together."
Bendy is silent, which isn't usually a good thing. Henry stays stone-still, staring at the wedge shaped, nearly featureless muzzle of his once-creation. He's not willing to back down, not when his-and Bendy's-freedom is at stake.
Then Henry remembers the drawings, and he licks his lips nervously, an idea coming to plan.
"We can bring Boris." Henry tells him, and Bendy freezes in surprise for an instant. "Yeah, yeah we can find Boris, make sure Alice doesn't get him, and we can get the hell out of here with Boris. And if someone else wants to go we can try, maybe-"
Bendy growls now, and Henry remembers how Bendy dealt with the sketches of the other creations.
"...we can cross that bridge when we come to it, then." Henry appeases, and Bendy seems to pause thoughtfully. He rumbles, the tone low and inquisitive and suddenly turns his attention on the reel.
"We'll have to reset everything first, yeah…" That part Henry was worried about. Well-he was worried about a lot, but the lie to himself was helping.
"Are you okay with that…? Bendy...do you trust me?"
Bendy's answer is physical. After all, he was a silent character in his cartoons. Actions speak louder than words, literally, for Bendy. Not matter how far he's transformed from his cute, original design.
The reel is picked up by claws longer than the man's forearm, and dropped gingerly into Henry's grasp.
For Henry, it ends with hope.
so hey theres art of these two (esp if you need help picturing how I imagine BeastyBendy) iI'd tag this but we all know how FFN feels about THAT lmao. Its on my art blog, charlieslowartsies under the tag: batim