52- The Second Face of a Blind Prophet

"As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." – 2 Corinthians 4:18

There's a certain given level of unpleasant intimacy when you make yourself vulnerable to a friend- a certain breathlessness. It's scary. It's new; even if you've done it a thousand times before, revealing something about yourself will never find its sting in wane. This is because the unraveling of the mystery of a human being isn't too far from a cut in the skin; it's a fresh opening, time and time again, and if it's in the same spot more than once than it will eventually begin to scar, to callous. Only then can it numb- that is, if it doesn't simply hurt more instead.

Now it was true that it was merely a fact to Sammy that he could only see through the image of his lord. It was also true that it was so ingrained into his life of devotion that he had thought nothing of it- to the point that it was just as unremarkable to mention it as it was incredible for Francine to hear. So this was not his vulnerability.

Then what made him feel so?

What was it then, that made the space between his shoulder blades tingle with unease, his heart's pulse run up and down his neck with the flight of anxiety?

As he and his rediscovered companion stepped into the band room yet again, he let her go in first. Unexpectedly, he noticed this discomfort crawl into his chest, and as the door fell behind him, so did his arm fall to grip the other; slight dints of pressure appeared under his fingertips into the soma just above his elbow. He walked in a slump, head craned forward and down- the thin painting of Bendy looking into the room where tones of worship reigned supreme.

Sammy felt it staring. It always did, and most of the time it was…comforting. An assurance that he was always cared for, never alone. But today as the cutout in the viewing window looked down upon its believers, what was always assumed to be a loving gaze now pierced instead of cradled his soul.

To say he no longer had faith was incorrect. To say that the ink demon could not be his savior was incorrect.

And it was the same if he had said he knew how to feel about these things.

It made Sammy lower his mask and look inward at the woman who sat herself upon the stage and picked up her- or rather his- instrument of choice, assuming that another violin lesson was what they had come for.

That is, until she observed that he didn't come any closer.

…Well, it wasn't like she was going to be able to pay attention anyways. Not after what he had just said.

Her eyes became half-lidded and the expression upon her face scrunched with thought. She noticed the way his head fell almost somberly down from its look to the devil's visage.

And so the recent revelation of his mask and the past upset about her chasing after the demon finally blended, and Francine thought she understood why Sammy's mood was so low.

Emphasis on "thought."

Still in her seat, she set the violin down onto the chair beside her, folding her hands upon her lap and steadying her gaze towards the fellow disciple as she searched for words.

"You…really can't see without it?" Spoken hesitantly, mildly; as perplexed as she was, she had slid into a care that shaped what she chose to say. Francine had admitted to herself that she knew there was a conversation they needed to have but had no direction for her to find it on her own, and so he let him choose the path with however he would respond.

Again, a casual shake of his head. And then silence. He still only stood.

"How long has it been like that…?" Francine wasn't sure if she really wanted to know.

It was somehow unfortunate she still would not as Sammy gave a subdued, hollowed, "I don't know."

Unbeknownst to her, something had clutched his heart. As he opposed her with his mask and felt the same face burn into the back of his head from above, he had begun to identify it.

What he found filled with him with dread. It wasn't the mask that bothered him…

It was what lied beneath it.

His frown deepened and opened slightly; his slouch grew tighter as he made himself smaller.

Disgusting.

Appalling.

Unworthy to live.

…Unworthy to die.

"Hey."

A soft breath of a noise drifted from his throat, and the darkness that occasionally choked his sight and mind faded away to take him another day. She was here to push it back just a little bit longer.

Her hushed voice made Sammy flinch, shoulders raised and one hand moving closer to his chest. But oddly, she hadn't interrupted him to speak; she was only staring. Why was she only staring?

And then the prophet saw in her eyes- a sort of…sharpness. Not a pinning one like that of his lord and what was made in his image. Somehow her mortal eyes gleamed with…worry. With kindness.

To remind him that she was here, and so was he.

That was all it took for a wall to break down that he had neglected to repair for a very, very long time.

"I…must confess." He shifted, and it shifted something inside her; tenderness wasn't…his strong suit- neither for her nor for himself.

And suddenly…he was entranced. A spell was cast into the air, and it drew him closer and closer. The face that blessed him with sight loomed ever nearer, and with it never leaving her own face as the focal point, it lowered as Sammy began to kneel in front of her- not all the way, but enough for him to be just short of lining those monochromatic, flat eyes with her round ones.

There was a time before when he did something like this- when she was suffering from the revelation it wasn't only she and him that were trapped here, and all he could do then was let his mask's gaze allow her to see his faith; he never took it off, in hopes that seeing through the eyes of his god may make clear the road to release.

Now as the chipped paint presented itself to Francine, it carried a vastly different meaning.

And indeed, it was justified.

"I haven't…" And he had to decide. He already had before unconsciously to even begin this sentence, but it was so weighty with these things inside of him that it was worth second guessing. And so as she gaped at him, so was he at her; the flecks of brown that lined her jaw…the slight tremble in her lips with the force of them pursing…a strand of hair astray from the rest, falling in next to an eye with a shine splattered over a glittering iris-

And then he was sure, because to see her was to see what was eating him away- always had, and always would.

"…Ever been able to see without it." As much as this shocked her- melted her even- Sammy knew and Francine could assume this was half a truth. But for now, they ignored the fact that there was once a time that Bendy didn't consume every corner of his sight.

There were more things to think about than that.

And finally, the woman realized he wasn't looking at her but at the details of mortality. They had always radiated like beams of glory from above; it was why the projectionist clasped her cheeks, why the angel stroked her hand, and why the prophet pondered every touch she gave and allowed. Because she was something they wanted.

Feared they never would have again.

The very idea left her breathless, but maybe it should have all along…since she did that very thing to them by merely existing.

And he wasn't even done. That wasn't even what he had so bravely come forward to say.

"I've never seen my face without it."

No, the woman would never understand what it was like to be taken by the ink. Not at all.

Having nothing she could ever say to that, Sammy had no choice but to continue.

"In the mirror-…" He shuddered. His slimy, drippy, mucus-like body didn't even need to be in his view again for it to make him sick. "-I can only ever see this…cursed, wretched body, and these black-greased lips behind the slit of these teeth."

One hand came up to the part of his mask to which he referred, and those same lips rolled together as he contemplated something that threatened to make him feel even more horrible than what he just described.

"I've…never seen my own face."

A man could never be more troubled.

And a woman could never be more speechless.

Of course her eyes trembled in their sockets, and of course his skin started to drip again. Such is how the body releases what the soul can't contain.

But sometimes there's something stronger that causes the heart to move the body against the will of the mind.

Sammy now had not one hand at his mask but two, and- what? What were they doing?

And then the mask came off.

Strings of black stretched across the growing space between the wood at the syrupy black it glued itself to, stretching until the lines caved in the middle and either fell back onto his ink or joined that of the floorboards. Shining pearls of wet shadows dribbled over his fingers, tracing knuckles of the same shade until they collected upon his forearms, invisible among the rest of him.

Finally, finally…after all this time…his façade lowered before her and Sammy allowed someone with all he wished for to judge he who had none.

And a weary, wary smile began to grow as it finally had a complete face to match, appearing only as absolute anxiety left nothing else to do.

Her own hand came to her mouth, gaze wide as she studied him with disbelief. He couldn't see- just as he promised- but he somehow could still sense this change, and so the curve of his lips slowly but surely faded, unsure what to make of this change in her aura.

…And likewise, she now could witness Sammy too express feelings and intentions without a single word.

The eternity of a few seconds it took for her to speak made his chest feel both empty and so impossibly heavy, something between a sigh and a grunt involuntarily uttered as he began to panic.

"Oh Sammy…"

It was all she could say.

Even without eyes, he was somehow so…so remarkably human. An oily head with only a mouth and indents for expression still conveyed something so delicate, so subtly tender as he made one of his worst secrets exposed, dreading a future with its release but somehow still knowing it should be done. She was helpless to how this made her feel- to experience the very same emotions etched with and onto the ink looking back.

Mesmerized, there was nothing left to do but to lose herself to the whims of humanity.

A faceless face literally melted in her into her fingers as one hand shakily rose to first touch his cheek- testing if what she saw was real- before holding it. At her caress, the slight dents where eyes should have been almost seemed to widen, and a bead of liquid clung between his lips as they parted to inaudibly gasp.

"I…" Francine paused, tilting her head in amazement. "I don't know how to begin to explain this…"

God only knows what that could mean, and so he was sick with both trepidation and…something else. He couldn't name it and it still scared him, but it wasn't something he wanted to deny. Who could say what kind of disgust, what kind of hatred for what he was now rested just inches before him? And yet he still anticipated it.

A gulp moved down his throat, trying to swallow the dismay.

"Sometimes, when things aren't what we want them to be, what we still have is…blessed."

It was an abrupt thing to say amid all this raw, unearthing pain. Now, Sammy had removed his lens of faith as a confession- a maybe needless admission that somehow felt right and necessary to do as the nature of the soul often begged of their owners. This was all he intended; he wanted to make himself bare to her scrutiny, his horrors visible to her conscious. Heaven knows why, but it was still all he could do and all that had to be done.

But he didn't need to say what he was really asking her to do for him when it was written all over his face.

Sammy wanted to know what he looked like. Who wouldn't?

Certainly, she'd want the same.

"Your face is…different than before, I think." It was only politeness that kept her from saying it was for sure. "You don't…really have a nose; and there's just-…some small inward bumps where your eyes are supposed to be."

His chin turned further up in astonishment as she went down the list of his appearance, the side of his jaw shedding some black onto her palm as it did.

"But!"

And both she and him recognized his flinch with the sudden chirp in her tone. Then he heard something that he must have been mistaken about. It was impossible.

Sammy heard her laugh.

"Like that! Just like that!" Another of that incredible sound. "That's amazing!"

Amazing?

"Somehow you're still so…" And something in the air seemed to hush absolutely everything. "…Human."

Sammy's shoulders rolled back and his neck tilted backwards in complete and utter awe.

Human.

He looked…human.

No cartoon eyes…no pointed horns…

Human.

"You're wonderful, Sammy."

And then there was the first true, audible gasp. He was gaping, his mouth silently moving to shape that adjective over his tongue- the last thing he thought she'd ever say- a word he believed he may never hear as long as he lived. But then-

Suspicion.

…Only one way to find out.

"You're lying."

Again, he could not perceive it visually, but an unnamable sense knew the rest of her body had retreated along with that touch upon his cheek. A soft thump; the woman had put her hand to her heart.

"N-no! I-…I…"

Silence.

"…Listen, Sammy." He felt her fingers return, lightly and cautiously grazing one of his shoulders.

"I'm sure this isn't who you were before." Oh, how brief it was to try to avoid the glaringly obvious. "I know you know that. I'm not…going to make you believe you're something that you're not."

A pause, one that was intended to give her breath but had failed; it only filled her lungs with more words she wasn't sure should be said.

"Even though you're-" She had to fight for a second to even find a descriptor. "-liquidy. You're inky like this…"

She didn't dare to add that all this was only remnants of who he used to be. In that veracity's place, her fingers squeezed.

"You're still- somehow-…you."

But maybe no matter how tender she could be, no matter how much she tried to convey what she knew without a doubt just by seeing him-

"…I don't understand."

"That's the hard part to explain."

Yet another stretch of quiet. Sammy felt his brow furrow until the pressure on one shoulder was abruptly matched upon his other. A mutter. Barely audible.

"Maybe this is a good way to start."

And soon would come the longest moment of his life.

"Wonderful," she stated firmly.

Ink in the dents shifted as sharply as her voice, conveying almost…moving his gaze around in confusion. The man's upper lip lifted, baring more teeth. It stretched in a frown and created bumps- dimples- that pushed the oily flesh of his cheeks toward the pair of shallow holes.

"Do you feel that?" It wasn't a whisper, but it was still like a wisp of wind, like she had to be quiet for him to identify what she already did. "Your face. That's your face."

The look upon him became more extreme. "I…?" And then- he felt it. He felt his face move. It did so to express without his permission- on its own- involuntarily.

A small "hm" chimed in the air somewhere near and ahead.

"The look on your face tells me you get it now."

Then suddenly but oh so lingeringly slow, the grasp upon him shifted from fingers to palms and led down and around his back; Francine pulled herself into him.

"I'm so proud of you for staying human."

And then again that unbearable sting. Embarrassment. Helplessness. Vulnerability. His stomach turned upside down.

She was holding him, he realized. And there was a reason that when she had done so recently before that he did not hold her back.

He noticed his heart race as he realized where she was. She must have been able to hear it. And he was mortified. In turn, she didn't say so…but the perception of a slight upward movement at his chest said it all. She was smiling.

Of course he had to do something, even if everything this cursed life had taught him cried that this wasn't right.

His arms lifted right ahead, but they were careful not to return her embrace. Sammy couldn't see them right know, but the eternally dying prophet knew these appendages were unchanged. Still dripping. Still black. Still ink.

And yet.

The dark being's elbows bent and eventually, smothered fingertips were laid upon her back. But they were thrown back just as soon; his cold touch had made her shiver.

He took a step back to allow her to finally release him, as she must have wanted-

"No, no! It's…okay."

"…"

His arms hung back in the air behind her again, hesitant with every ounce of doubt in the world, not daring to invade past an invisible barrier once more. In reply, the lean into his chest became stronger. He could feel the force of it reshape him ever so slightly.

"It's okay."

"…"

"It's okay."

And Francine repeated it over and over, each utterance somehow gentler than the last. Not demanding, not scolding.

Just…truthful.

So finally, wet palms touched her back once again.

…

…

And there was no shiver.

Sammy did his best to mimic the comfort his friend gifted to him, folding his arms around her back. It wasn't intended, but the man found that he was pushing her into himself, as if doing so made him more human than before.

It was okay.

Maybe even if that was a lie, just for now…he would believe it.

And all that heard Francine's assurance would try to accept, lest they lose the hope that kept them from crumbling apart.