55- Locked

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." - Matthew 6:21

There was a time that now felt so, so far back when Francine got her first clue that everything changed. As poetic as it would've been, it wasn't when she had first walked through that old wooden front door, unwittingly shutting out the last rays of natural light she'd see for who knows long as she pulled it closed behind her. Nor was it when the dread of the studio- at this time a feeling of unease rather than horror- had unsettled her so much when rooms were locked away on this introductory floor. Even when it felt like each eye of every poster- every cutout- was crawling over her back when she wasn't looking, that wasn't when she knew things were fundamentally different.

Knob after knob that either gave way or didn't, it wasn't until one door stayed shut that had opened for her before that fear for her cousin surrendered to fear for herself.

Not until the front door that let her in kept her from getting out, only for the floor to open beneath her like a dragon's mouth.

It's a very specific fright to barricaded from safety, from a known haven. A certain tingle down your neck that makes you feel like you're being watched. One Francine didn't expect to feel again.

But here they were.

A grunt roughened the inside of Sammy's throat as he tugged and pulled with all his might at the saferoom door, but it would not budge. It simply groaned back, metal pushing against metal as locks and boards kept it in place. With each back and forth of this noisy but meaningless conversation, Francine felt a frown dig deeper and deeper into her cheeks.

It, of course, remained as he finally gave up.

With a final release of the door's handle, his arms fell limp by his sides. The mask that had returned to his face stared blankly at the scratches, rust, and stains upon its surface…and yet a painting could still convey dismay.

Somehow, someway, the door had itself locked once Sammy had left to wander, dealing with the feelings she left him to stew in.

Their safe place was gone.

Doesn't it say a lot that this wasn't what bothered Francine the most? The anxiety she had and the definition of "safe" were very, very different from when she first arrived. The shift from being deathly worried about her physical safety had steadily dissolved to the inevitability of severe emotional upset.

Sammy had discovered only shortly before the woman's efforts to make the bedroom of their apartment a place of comfort…a remnant of home.

And now he was discovering what it looked like to watch her lose it all a second time.

But if it was really so horrible, really so indescribably painful…she hid it well.

She had to.

For her own sake.

As the man saw her eyes slide to the floor, her hands slowly fidgeting over the texture of her backpack straps, he felt he had to say something…but what could ever make up for this besides the haven's return?

He didn't know how, but this had to be his fault. He was the last one to leave, after all- and the blackness that choked his sight and led him to wander into that in grey, papery archive had left him unknowing what happened between then and when he sat among the colors of her old life. He still remembered looking down at the mahogany cloth cascading over his arm as he sat upon the hammock.

And then it was just…gone.

All left with him was his own, oily corpse and the miraculous gift that Bendy-

And then he remembered that even if it wasn't much, he had something more than words to give after all.

"My friend…" Sammy nearly whispered. Normally his voice was as icy as his touch, but this was…soft. Warm. Like trying to hold someone with just the breath from your lungs. It's remarkable how empathy can make the same tone, same notes upon the scale, sound different upon one's lips than it usually would without it.

He saw her chin turn back up. She still wasn't facing him with her body, but now at least their eyes met once again. It made him sigh in some discomforting mixture of relief and remorse, its release seeming to slide down his spine.

The way she gazed up at the man taller than she- the tips of her shoes pointed to touch each other, and her fingers clasped just hard enough upon her backpack straps near her chest that you could see the smallest of indents being made- made even someone as long lost as Sammy to see that this was a stance of childish vulnerability. It was like a student being taken to a new school for the first day, witnessing their home close up behind them as they wait for the bus to take them away for the longest hours they'll ever experience.

But Sammy in all his hundred-so years of being alive and dead knew that even if she was young, to call her a child would be a disservice and a dismissal of all the growing up she had done…and helped him do too.

And that's why even if she wouldn't tell him why she kept her secrets, he trusted her in doing so…at least for now.

The physical presentation of this resolve was so beautifully daunting that it rendered them silent.

Upon his palm and underneath his thumb rested a surface not black and slick with ink but with glass, the reflection of the prophet's scarred mask and her dirty face staring back up at them, looking so very tired. Like a picture frame, their heads were encircled by a rosy border.

Even dulled and darkened in the phone's screen, Sammy could see a pair of eyes slowly but surely widen.

And she could see the teeth behind the visage of Bendy bare as he reacted to her reaction.

And then they both reacted to that.

"I'm sorry-"

"It'll be okay-"

Both at once, both cutting the other off as the surprise of it all made both sets of shoulders rise in a flinch and their heads twitch back up to see the caster of these reflections.

A flurry of blinks from Francine and a slightly gaping mouth behind Sammy's mask.

Suddenly a curve warped upward upon her face until it pushed her cheeks towards her eyes, far enough that you could see her teeth too.

Instead of hiding the growing glossiness between her eyelids, it emphasized it.

With a hushed "come on," both hands finally left her chest- one to take the phone he offered and the other to push its palm upon his back, urging him to finally walk away alongside her to leave lost things be.

But she couldn't help but gaze over her shoulder one more second as they did, her possessions secure but out of reach maybe forever, much like her family.

She didn't stare long, though, because she unconsciously accepted that sometimes a soft place to fall is a person and not a room.

And Sammy kept alongside she despite his reservations, understanding maybe better than anyone else ever could about how much more precious the presence of another soul can be than any treasure you could find.