58- Only We Know
"Give strong drink to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more." – Proverbs 31:6-7
Maybe it shouldn't have been so unexpected where the studio led to her next. It brought out of the gloom a line of eggshell white- a form that grew as light shifted to reveal more and more of a statuesque shape ahead. An oval waxed much like a moon does as the month goes on until the brim of this curve touched its base, haloing above a shade of orange-red that seemed to become brighter the closer she got. And as she observed the figure that waited in the shadows, her eyes flew side to side in inspection.
That's because suddenly, a sound had filled the air. Rattling. Metal? Windchimes? It was a high-pitched tingle- almost like fairies flew invisible overhead until the space around Francine was encompassed with the music of their dust.
As her sight settled, so did the wordless voices of the ethereal. Light dawned until it touched the walls, and the sound of magic became a slowly drifting sound of shifting paper.
Her eyes adjusted just in time to see a sourceless wind cease to push the thin layer loosely plastered vertically about her, and drawings all around finally stilled so they may stare.
She stared back.
Smile after smile after smile. The same one with those familiar, angular eyes above bared teeth.
Face upon face grinned upon her. Many were crude. Some were nearly perfect- and a few were hardly recognizable at all.
But they were all, undoubtedly, Bendy.
And at some point she had unwittingly stepped into a silent standoff, the nature of it uncertain to be hostile or simply awed. Too much paranoia or just enough awareness made it seem like each childish replica of the studio's master was looking right at her.
It was interrupted by a gasp.
Up until now, she had been too distracted by the reveal of the environment to see as the darkness unfurled to not only give her a new world, but someone to share it with.
But unlike these walls, the person entrapped by them was one she was acquainted with.
"I…" he began with a soft voice subdued by astonishment, "…Hadn't expected you back so soon…!"
And then the strange murk of the room fully pulled back, candlelight upon the floor gifting the woman a being that maybe she had unconsciously wanted to see again all along.
"Maybe never," Joey Drew added under his breath.
Inexplicably, the studio had allowed Francine to find the very person it had fought so hard to keep away. It was flabbergasting, even when putting aside the supernatural manner in which she had arrived. The last time was a struggle; the moving wood stood in her path like jungle vines coming to life, only able to be kept at bay by the culling of an axe's rusting blade. To simply…give him to her now was...preposterous to a woman weary of battling for every piece of humanity she had ever found since she arrived.
It seemed that this scrap of an old life was just as surprised to see her, too, judging from the way his golden eyes stretched wide behind ink-stained glasses.
"H…hey."
An utterly dumfounded mumble of a greeting she gave in response, still not done processing who and where the studio brought her too.
As the seconds ticked by, a balance shifted. Francine remained frozen in her bewilderment while something dawned upon Joey's lightly wrinkled face. He…softened- as he saw something in her, in this situation that they had been dropped into like experimental rats meeting in the middle of the same maze.
"It's…good to see you."
Now there was no proper way to describe how much this meant to the ginger spirit. Someone that admitted he was scared for anyone to witness let alone speak to him again- lest he bring them more harm. He was fearful of the same now that Francine was in his presence but maybe…maybe she didn't know him well enough for her keeper be quite as submissive to his apprehensions.
It would continue to agonize him either way, seeing a precious soul risk all she had just to walk further into his abyss.
But despite this dread, undoubtedly it was- truly- good to see her; he had to admit that.
Rosy knuckles slowly uncurled their fingers, instinctively rising to an occasion that he had never expected to see again.
Dumbstruck with nothing more she could say nor do, Francine gave Joey the first handshake a human's grasp had given him in almost a century. She caught a glimpse of a streak across his palm of a different tone than the rest of his skin, but soon the pull of his expression caught her attention instead.
Wide eyes under a brow furrowed with perplexity met those behind glass; they saw them pinch up as a huff of a laugh briefly graced his lips with disbelief, flickering up and down as a soul choked dry of companionship for so, so long drank in the person before him and the impossible touch of her hand.
Eyelashes fluttered with slow but numerous blinks, Francine stunned and gaping at the short man with the awkward but certainly cordial mannerisms.
"Please, sit with me, won't you?"
As Joey gestured behind him, Francine noticed a large box- a desk. It was a smooth sort of finish- not the scratchiness of the other furniture of wood she had come across, and there was a chair on each side of different, grander styles than she'd seen here before.
Only heaven could say how much relief was seeped into the sigh that accompanied her back sinking into soft, supportive cushioning. Even if she had just come from a couch, days upon days of wood and thin cloth had left a gaping desire for surfaces more fitting for living. With her breath's release, eyelids shut, and a slightly pouted lip remaining open as Francine felt her spine's reprieve.
Joey, however, still stood as he approached the opposing seat. The sight of her like this seemed to grab him, brow curling downward with concern as his mouth stretched back in something right between a frown and a gentle grin.
You could hear papers shuffle beneath his unhurried feet as he adjusted himself behind his own chair, arms folded to rest across the top with his glasses shining sharp over a softened face; he was observing.
He didn't get to speak with his consequences so often.
"Are you comfortable?" Spoken almost unfathomably quietly, half a laugh at her quick adjustment and half choking on the sight of it. Finally, her eyes opened again and refocused upon the ghostly cartoonist with a reserved nod.
Whatever curved his mouth now chose to drop it.
"I'm so sorry," he replied in nearly a whisper, he being the reason she missed this softness at all.
Side to side her eyes rolled across the floor until eventually discovering what he meant; and even as she understood, she still had no words. Simply numb and drawn to meet his gaze again despite her inability to respond.
His own eyes blinked with the self-consciousness, the guilt of it, and the grip upon his sleeves tightened and fumbled as he eventually turned his head away with overcoming feelings.
A few breaths of silence, the two of flesh and blood again alone with his sins.
…And maybe hers too.
"Now, you must have come for a reason."
That made her chin almost jump to look up at him, drifting back down just a second before.
Across from Francine, Joey was still keeping his lean on the back of that chair; his legs crossed behind him, toes tipped to the floor as most weight went to his front and upper body. His chin still turned to the side, but there was no doubt that the one visible eye of his profile was upon her.
"Why are you here?"
That question again, so soon- much too soon. A heavy sigh fell from her lips, so very exhausted of it.
"I'm here because I was looking for someone…-"
Francine's voice trailed off, one last nearly shameful look to him before shaking her head and closing her eyes.
"I'm sorry…it's just…a lot to remember and I'm really tired-"
"Darling, no!" And lids opened back up to see worry fall down his face like a rainy day with no umbrella, a light exclamation to match. The older man shrugged with his interjection as best as he could with how his arms were positioned. Apparently he then noticed his own confusing tone, his left fingers soon coming to his mouth in unison as if to hush himself.
"What I mean is…Why did you come to me, wandering all on your own like this?"
The absolute opposite of what Alice had done; Joey was gently inquiring about the nature of her current thoughts and travels rather than demanding she validate her very existence. Such consideration briefly sent her reeling, but the woman managed to compose a reply.
"I'm…really tired," was the repeated answer, "I can't get back to my bed and I wanted somewhere to rest."
And then for the first time for maybe his entire new life- a real, full smile graced his lips.
"How does it feel?"
A pause before realizing, the cushions smothering her back and underarms; and when she did, a curve came to her face too- a weak one, just for a second.
"Nice."
It finally reached his eyes, crow's feet growing tighter together and those once well-earned laugh lines reclaiming their fame long, long lost along with all he held dear.
"Good."
Another breath of silence. But of course, we are socialized to enjoy such genuine smiles as his no matter how strange the circumstances of their coming may be, and so Francine had no choice but to return it with her own. But soon she found it was more than instinct, and so uncomfortable with her own inexplicable feelings of peace, her eyes fell shyly from his face down to the table-
…Something upon it, starting to become visible as light slid down its smooth, curved surface. A vase? A vase with-
"Flowers…!"
And there they were, a clump of blooms sitting in front of her. Even dried- even withered far, far past death into the pale browns and yellows of autumn…there they were.
Before she even recognized it, the petals were fading at her fingertips, her arm outstretched so the back of her hand may delicately immerse itself into a simple pleasure she had unconsciously expected to never have again.
Francine couldn't deny sensing the stretch of her lips pull further and further up as she did.
"You think often about other people, don't you?"
Just beyond the plants so old they seemed to have turned into paper themselves, a man of a complimentary shade of cream had given a blunt observation in the form of a question, worded in such a way that it necessitated a reply.
One eyebrow raised, Francine's hand pulling back as her attention was altered yet again. "What makes you say that?"
"Well," he began with a bit of a cough, stepping around the back of the chair so he may mirror her seating, "When I asked you about yourself, the very first thing you told me was that you arrived because of someone else." Before she could interrupt to give some sort of clarification- how, she didn't know yet- he continued.
"But what about you?"
And that gentle expression upon his face suddenly seemed much more knowing. Hers, however, only lurched further into bewilderment.
That was enough of a response for him.
"You've been here for a bit of a while, my dear girl." Mr. Drew tipped his hat off his head with a tired yet obviously practiced flair, looking it over with half-lidded eyes as it dangled between his middle finger and thumb upside-down. "And I haven't once heard you talk about what you were like-"
He set the hat down next to the glass jar between them, a petal or two falling inside its void with the barely a bump he caused in doing so.
"-Only…what others were like." Fingers tented together and one leg crossed over the other, Joey looked past his hands upon a woman so, so much younger than he thanks only to forces beyond comprehension.
It was incredible how such a short period of time had made purely human things incomprehensible, too.
People always questioned Francine's survival here. Often they denied her what made them feel secure in this hell- or only very, very hesitantly shared it. It was as if Bendy's preservation of her was a slight to them, and honestly?
Sometimes she wondered if she'd have been better off like however they were instead of retaining what they envied.
Only in her darkest moments.
She pushed that back and away, a crisis to deal with another day. Right now was something else, something…important. She had been questioned as a being but not always thought of as a person. And until Joey pointed it out, she never recognized it quite like this.
How…stressful this alone had been.
And indeed, in others' ignoring and ignorance of her own plights, pains, hopes, and history- she had chased after those of everyone else.
As if she could piece them back together. As if they could piece her back together.
As if the collage their memories formed, once complete, would blanket over the sickening sight of everything she had to leave behind.
"Frankie…"
His voice was so hollow yet so, very warm. Those honey irises weren't staring at Francine in wonder- they looked upon her with acceptance.
He understood her kind of sacrifice like no one else could. Only he knew what it was like to be so selfless.
"Tell me about what makes you who you are. Not Sammy, not Susie, not the ink demon." And then he shifted his whole body forward, as if getting closer to her somehow helped.
It…did.
"Tell me about Francine."
And for the first time in however many weeks she'd been talking to spirits long severed from lives of old, she was not only allowed but invited to tell her story instead of merely elaborating how she was connected to their curse, linked to the misery of this universe. As she had proved of everyone else, now it was her turn to be unique in who she was and who she wanted to be in her life to come. She let Joey and the drawings listen instead of speak over her.
Some of it hurt, some of it healed, but it all flooded from her heart so, so readily.
Mr. Drew prayed that having her remember herself could get this wonderful young woman to forget that the beings around her used to have something to their name- if they could even recall them. It wasn't her job.
It wasn't her duty to find what they lost, he firmly decided then and there.
Her name was Francine Vahl, and she was a college student with a cat named Neptune, and she had vines of morning glories and moonflowers that tangled over each other in the back garden.