Trente-Deux[The faithful drown together.]

\

He only stopped because he'd run out of breath. He didn't budge when he felt a presence in front of him. Maybe it'd be better if Bendy killed him here and now. Maybe it'd be permanent.

"Henry."

Well… that wasn't Bendy. He didn't look up. "It didn't work."

The presence got closer and crouched in front of him. "That's obvious."

"I'm sorry."

Cool hands grasped his shoulders, fingers drumming gently.

"I'm supposed to fix this. That's what everyone thinks, and I can't-"

"Hush." Sammy leaned in with open arms and wrapped the man in his inked embrace.

Henry broke quietly and hugged back. Ink seeped into his hairline.

The ink man's grip grew tighter, charcoal fingers threaded in faded auburn hair.

"Sammy, what the hell are we missing?"

A cool sigh. "I wish I knew, my little sheep. It must be big, if it's the only thing holding us back. If it's big, it should be easy to find."

"Then why can't I find it?"

"Mm…" His hand paused. "Let's go."

"Where?"

"The harbor. We can think better down there. My flock won't hurt you, my little sheep."

"I failed, Sammy. Of course they'll be angry."

The ink man hummed lowly. "They'd have to get by me first."

Henry sniffed. "No… first is the ink machine." He blinked slowly and held up a hand to stop the ink man from saying anything. "I can't go anywhere without starting it. It… it shouldn't take long."

"Henry-"

But he pivoted and went after the dry cells. "There never was a choice."

/

Despite every memory returned and every trait to spring back to life, Sammy knew the studio layout still. engraved into his very bones. It made the trek to the lost harbor easier than anything. Easier than getting Henry to cheer up.

To crack a smile. To speak. To do something other than hold his hand and blindly follow.

It ached, knowing his little sheep was so heartbroken. So devoid of the calm hope and glances over glasses to see straight through him.

But they made it. Sammy decided it best to let the man rest on the cot in his private room. Away from prying, doleful eyes of the gloomy, lumbering searchers and lost ones.

Henry sat on the cot, eyes to the floor and hands grasping the edge.

"You could lie down?"

"No."

"You're certain?"

A huff.

"Mm. Very well, my little sheep. But… I'm here. Should you need me." Like he'd leave him alone after such a defeat. He grabbed the strap of his banjo and spun it forward. "I could play you something? It… might help." And he didn't know what else could do.

"Okay."

A one-word answer was better than nothing. So he played. Calm things, gentle things, nothing faster than Willow Weep for Me or How Deep Is the Ocean. The soft spot he had for love songs shown through as the clock on the wall ticked time away.

But Henry was still sullen, and after about an hour, Sammy stopped, wishing he could do more. He slid the banjo back to sit behind him, and he sighed quietly.

Then, a knock at the door.

Henry looked over and blinked. "Who could that be?"

"I'll get it." The ink man strode to the door and pulled it open a crack.

Outside stood two angels, two wolves, a searcher with a nice hat and a Projectionist… and the horned angel was at the front and absolutely at a loss at seeing him.

Sammy's lip curled. "Well?"

Allison's wide eyes lowered. "Well… what went wrong? Any ideas?"

A scoff. "No, we don't have any ideas. If we did, we'd have come to you."

Tom stepped forward with a growl. Norman stood to his full height and watched those before him carefully, cables ready should someone step wrong. Buddy at his side pinned his ears back. Susie stayed far enough away from Buddy but close enough to Norman, not looking up from the claws of her hand.

A rather fine lump slipped forward and halted before Sammy, hat in his hands and eye holes wide.

The musician pinched the bridge of his nose and rasped, "Whatever. Just get inside before the flock asks questions." He turned on the last word and stalked back over to Henry on the cot.

Jack found a corner and parked himself in it, waving to Henry and affixing his hat.

Henry nodded, not looking up. "Hey, Jack."

Allison and Tom entered too, the others opting to stay outside, though Susie lingered near the door.

"Henry?"

The cartoonist looked up at her and frowned. "Yeah?"

She fidgeted. "Do… do you have a plan?"

"...no." Soft enough to be near silent.

"So… that's it?" Her voice lay low from desperation. "After all we've done, you're giving up on us?"

Sammy growled and stood to full height, threads of calm snapped completely. He stomped toward Allison and Tom with a snarl. "If you saw even a modicum of the litany of shit this man has gone through to bring everyone to the same page, none of you would press him! I've been at his side far longer than any of you have, but have I given up? No! Give the man a break!"

Susie rolled her eyes at his dramatics. "Oh, please. You served the ink demon because you thought he'd set you free, too." She sneered his way. "You follow anyone who gives you hope-"

"Stop it." Allison turned and looked her melted double in the face with a hard scowl. "If you're not going to help, leave."

The false angel scoffed. "Make me."

The Projectionist who'd lingered by the door this whole time, lumbered forward. Sammy raised the axe with a warning growl, only to have the Projectionist skirt around him, his light blazing and fixed on the broken man on the cot.

"Go ahead, Norm," the cartoonist muttered without looking up.

A heavy, gloved hand slapped his shoulder a few times… maybe to comfort? But the amalgam tilted his projector to the side, lifting his free hand, index finger extended to the roof. The sentiment was clear. He turned out of the room and left, wrapping a cable around Susie's closest arm.

"How dare y-"

Norman growled but didn't stop, and Susie stumbled out after him. Buddy followed close behind.

The horned woman blinked and let out a slow puff of air. "Okay. We're close. There's nothing else we could do on the clone's part, and everyone you've encountered down here, Henry, is on your side."

"For now." He sighed. "Until the next plan doesn't work."

"I…" She shook her head and stepped forward. "You've got to believe that, Henry! No one's mad at y- okay, Susie is, but I think that's her normal mood."

"It is," the ink man confirmed.

"So, let's figure this out. We handled clones, memories are mostly back, everyone is ready… but the part I'm missing is the lair."

The cartoonist looked up at her. "The lair? Why?"

"You're the only one who goes into that room. We know we can't go in, none of us can safely cross, but… I think I have an idea." Allison hummed in thought. "Henry, what happens in that room?"

"The Ink Demon turns into this huge… thing. It gives chase and I can't get it to stop. Even last time, it chased me down. Trust me, I've tried talking to it."

"After that?"

"I wake up in Joey's apartment, and he points to the door to this place." Henry sighed and leaned back. "I can't get the front door open to leave. He gives me a speech about how I should've pushed him a little harder… like it's my fault this happened." He gestured at everything with palms up.

The horned woman nodded, a thin hand to her mouth in thought. "So, we did miss something. Someone. We've been working together for a while now, but who do we run from? Who do we avoid? The Ink Demon."

Sammy perked a little. "He's not like us. He has no soul. He never did."

"But that might be why he's the last piece to the puzzle. It's the only piece left."

"Allison, he has no soul. We can't save something with no soul."

Her nose wrinkled. "Maybe not the way we did the others, but we can't rule it out. It's worth a try."

"Maybe." Henry huffed a chuckle. "Or maybe the gold ink is right about me bringing death."

Beside him, Sammy bumped him with his elbow gently, brows furrowed. "Not so. I'm not dead yet. No one here is. We haven't lost anyone this loop, or the last ones either."

"Maybe… but maybe this could have been avoided if I hadn't left at all."

The horned woman shook her head. "You can't know that."

"Joey sure thinks it's my fault."

From her place in the doorway, back against the frame, Susie sighed. The twisted angel rolled her good eye. "It's not all about you, Henry. Hard to realize but it's true."

"Will you buzz off already? Go play with a corpse or something," the ink man snapped.

Susie raised her arm to show Norman still had a grip on her. "I'm on a tight leash. Couldn't leave if I tried. But seriously, Henry? If Joey wants to harp on this place being all your fault, that's his idiocy showing through." Her golden eye flicked to his face. "Everyone fell for the veneer. You aren't special."

"But I'd been pushing him since before I even called him my pal." Pushed him to stay a little later to get something done. Pushed him to ease off the high balls and get food in his gut. Pushed him to be kinder to people working for him.

Susie growled. "You could have pushed him to his knees before Christ and he'd still be a piece of shit!" At the Projectionist's warning groan, she drew back. "No amount of setting yourself on fire would keep him warm, errand boy."

Allison shot her double a look, then frowned back at Henry. "So… what now?"

Sammy frowned, brows scrunched. "I… I think you might be right." He looked back over at Henry. "The ink demon's the only thing that makes sense at this point, and it barely makes sense as is."

Allison's brows lowered, but her dark mouth smiled.

Henry looked up, exhaustion scrawled across his frame.

Sammy continued, amber eyes dark. "It didn't seem possible. The Ink Demon needing saving like everyone else down here? He was worshiped because he was alive without a soul… and back when I was under his spell, I thought giving him one would… Fix him?" He shook his head. "But honestly, what did I know?"

"He's acted different in some loops, but he can't talk. He never had a voice." Save for the movie. "I've talked to him, but he just… I don't know, he refuses the help?"

"But he was yours." The horned woman took a small, barely used sketch pad from her belt and pulled a pen from behind her ear. "The more I remember, the more links I find-" she pointed at Henry with the pen she pulled from behind her ear- "You made the characters. You made Alice, Boris, and Bendy?"

A nod, and a raised brow. "I did."

She flipped to an empty page. "Here's what I think. The more you interacted with this place, the more changed." She quickly scrawled a halo, a dog bone, and the outline of Bendy's head. "You, uh," she stalled and looked to Sammy. "What did you call them? The pieces of souls in some clones?"

"Fragments… and I think I see where you're going." He smiled at the drawings. "Continue."

Allison nodded and turned back to the paper. "Right. You've found the fragments of souls lost to clones, and you've found two Boris's and two Alice's that are the two sides of the character's personalities. The musician and the prophet? Two parts of a whole. Buddy and Tom? Two parts of a character. Same for Susie and I. Ink and machine, in tandem. Two sides of a coin! All that's left?" She drew a line through the halo and the dog bone, then drew a question mark inside the Bendy head. "Him. The devil himself. All in one place, too."

Henry swallowed. He'd already accepted his survival was purely cartoon logic woven into a world Joey crafted… but now the real question. "How would I even get through to him?"

"Is…" The horned angel gave Sammy a shy, curious look. "Is he deaf? They say he hears everything, but I've made a racket and had him wander by."

A head shake. "No. He hears everything, but ignores the ordinary." Sammy shrugged. "For all I know, this muddled mess of loops is just his latest idea of background noise."

"Then… Henry. You might have to do something he can't misunderstand."

"The only thing I can think of is The End reel." He rubbed a hand against his forehead with a pinched scowl. "I put it on the projector in his lair, it shows The End, Bendy disintegrates, and I wake up in Joey's apartment."

Sammy blinked. "Then… do something with the reel."

"I can't. It's one of those fixed things I can't fight, like with Norman and hiding in the booth before he broke his pattern, or starting the machine."

The ink man held up a finger. "But it's your pattern, and you are the key to so much change. Norman broke those patterns because of you and I!" He gripped Henry's shoulder and his eyes went wide. "You need to at least try. Do anything but put it on the projector. Throw it, break it, eat it for gods' sake!"

Henry blinked. "I'm not gonna eat the film reel, Sammy."

"It's a change from bacon soup." His sentence broke into chuckling, but he cleared his throat with a smirk. "That's your part. Now, our part?"

"Destroy the machine when the next loop starts. Right." Allison smiled fondly at Tom. "It's not some indestructible nightmare, is it?"

The wolf shook his head with a scowl.

"So… axes, pipes, wrenches? Would those be enough?"

He nodded, then pointed to the paper and pen expectantly.

The horned woman passed it to him and nodded.

Tom drew a bunch of tools from axe to wrench on the paper, then circled it a couple times.

"So… all of them? Every tool we can find?"

A nod and a thumbs up.

"Good! Okay, then we-"

"Then we what?" Susie groused slowly from the doorway with folded arms. Several heads snapped in her direction. "The machine only goes down to the demon's lair after it's started. I've seen it come from above, but not where it's from."

"I know where it sleeps." Sammy muttered. "Suspended on chains and hovering out of sight until started. I can go to the place where it waits and… I don't know, make noise until you all find it?"

"Why not just lead us there yourself?"

"Someone has to be there at the exit in case it doesn't work." He needed to be there for Henry if this fell apart at the seams and they were left with no way to go forward. In his heart, no longer foreign to him after so long, he knew this would work. There was nothing else to try. "Besides, if I'm already up there, you can find the exit."

"If you lead, who's bringing up the rear?"

The tired searcher in a hat raised a flipper with a melted smile.

"You sure?"

A nod.

"Thank you, Jack. Okay. We have a plan." Allison's smile grew as she pointed with a lithe hand Henry's way. "You destroy the reel, and before the next loop starts? We destroy the machine."

Henry huffed a laugh. "And if this doesn't work, feel free to cut my head off."

The horned woman gathered her things with a small smile. "We can get started on this whenever you're ready, Henry."

The cartoonist nodded and stood. He flinched at the twinge in his back. "I need to talk to Sammy alone for a bit. Not long. I'll be out after that."

Allison's brows lifted with her smile. "Sure thing. We'll see you out there." She headed for the door, and Tom was quick to follow, shutting it behind him after Jack slimed his way out.

"Sammy."

"Sheep?"

Henry drew a breath and fully looked at the man. "You'd know better than anyone if Bendy were really gone, right?"

Sammy gaped, but nodded. "I would. Even if he's not my lord, I still feel him. Like a noose laid around my neck. The further from him I get, the looser the noose."

"So… if this loop is the one, and you can't feel Bendy anymore next one? That's it. That's your cue to gather everyone and destroy the ink machine."

"Yes." The ink man gave a slow nod and stood. "Yes. That sounds fantastic."

Henry waited a moment to be sure there was no one waiting to listen in. He drew a breath and stepped closer to Sammy. "So, the plan's clear?"

He gave a curt nod. "Very." Sammy folded his arms behind his back. "What loop?"

"This one? Three hundred and thirty-three."

"Halfway to Hell. It's fitting, if you think about it."

"I try not to." Henry groaned. "If this is just the halfway point, you can hit me with that axe all you want next loop."

Sammy smiled. "No. No more loops." His amber eyes glowed, and he drew close. "I can feel it, Henry. This is it."

"You said that last time." The cartoonist peered up at Sammy over his glasses. "What if-"

The ink man raised a fingertip to hover before Henry's mouth. "No more ifs. No more loops. This is it. Just believe."

Sighing softly, he nodded, and he pulled away the fingertip. "Alright." Henry swallowed, jaw set. "I'll see you on the other side, Sammy."

Sammy nodded, gaze flicking from Henry's mouth to the doors. "You'd better, my little sheep."

... that was it, then? That couldn't be right after all they'd had to do. "Sammy."

Golden eyes looked to the side. "We can't delay."

"I'm not delaying anything."

The ink man squinted. "Then what are we doing?"

The cartoonist peered over his glasses, lips drawn tight. Then, quick as lightning, he grasped Sammy's overalls in both hands and pulled him down for a hard kiss.

Sammy stayed still with arms spread like a bird in mid takeoff… then he melted into the warmth and softness he'd been hoping for. He pulled the man tightly to him and dug his fingers into the muscles of his back.

Henry pulled back and felt Sammy clutch his arms. He smiled fondly and put their foreheads together. "No one around. Thought you might want one."

Inked hands rubbing mosstone arms, the musician muttered. "I leave blackness on whatever I touch." Henry didn't deserve the scorn of those who couldn't understand. Contempt boiled in his gut, familiar and foreboding. "I'd tell the world if I could, but having them think less of you… I won't stand for it."

The cartoonist lay a hand to Sammy's cheek. "I don't give a damn what they think about it. If- when this works, they won't have a say in it, anyway."

The musician placed a hand over the one against his cheek and turned his face to kiss the palm. He needed the warmth, the reassurance Henry's firm hands gave.

"Besides." The cartoonist peered over his glasses and felt his cheeks warm as he muttered, "I kinda like it when you leave marks."

Sammy felt himself blush, amazed that he could even do that, before pulling himself reluctantly from the hand to his face.

Henry pulled his hand away, only to find Sammy holding onto it like the lifeline it had become.

The one problem with having a heart was he couldn't ignore its movements in his chest. It thundered like a war drum and danced in his throat… so suddenly as it started his hands trembled. "I… Henry. I-uh. Damn, of all times to forget how to speak!"

"It's okay." A warm smile spread across Henry's face. "You don't have to say anything."

He grit his teeth and gave him a pained look. "But I do! This is-" The ink man grumbled, mouth a tight line and brows sunk low. "It's important!"

"Sammy. I know. Trust me. I know." Henry's tired smile could have lit the world. "And, I love you, too."

He made a sharp, sad little noise, eyes bright in the dim room. He nodded and smiled. "Let's end this the right way."

\