Author's Note: This chapter is part of a two-parter in celebration of the Hymns AU turning a year old today (or November 9)! Expect the next chapter tomorrow on the anniversary! It's going to be very special. I heavily recommend that this chapter should be read only directly after or very shortly after reading the one before it, "A Jealous God." If you are reaching this chapter and have had a break in between this one and the one before (probably longer than a day or so), I think it would be an excellent idea to refresh yourself on the previous chapter before reading this one in order to receive the full impact.
Thank you, guys, for sticking around. This story isn't over yet, I still have so much left to do before it concludes.
77- Diptych
"He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." – James 1:8
What's there to live for after you die?
Joey Drew Studios knew the answer to such a…contradictory notion far too well.
Especially so the man after which a buildings of burnt dreams was named.
A scream cut short rang out once more as if it never stopped at all as its owner was thrown to the floor. It echoed- echoed, echoed, echoed. From the perspective of eyes skewed shut, it seemed to go on forever.
The old artist knew it did.
After all, her words did ring deep into his heart; of course, they had to go on forever wall through wall if it went on forever through him.
That's how it all worked.
The man's lips trembled, but he clenched his fists. His heart pounded, but he forced his gaze soft as her screaming voice began to stop, now heaving breaths one by one like coals into a fire. Such growing quiet was either the beginning of peace or of something much more ominous. He wouldn't blame her either way, but of course hoped for one more than the other.
He didn't ask for this himself, but he supposed he simultaneously did.
He screams for her.
"Be calm. Be still," he prayed, kneeling next to the woman as she arrived not to his office but to the place Francine and Joey first met. In the corner of one eye, the demon remained- barely, barely within sight, shadows covering it until it was like it was on the edge of reality.
In the corner of the other, an ocean of ink had grown unsettled. Awareness- an awareness of change.
He could handle change. He had to.
A tinge of pink caught his gaze, the sudden arrival causing the bag in her clutches to skid across the floor, straps touching the ankles of a table where he sat the woman down and confessed his sins.
Even if he hadn't confessed the all, it was still right. It was still right.
Her before him now was proof that ignorance was bliss.
What was he going to do now-?
No, he knew.
That's why she was here.
"You're safe."
He falls silent.
…Control.
He had control.
That's what he told himself just as Francine finally broke free from the shock, jumping back while laying on the wooden shore with a gasp. Her eyes widened with an expression Joey had seen from her before, but not like this- not for him directly.
Horror.
As she scrambled back with her bare hands, uncaring if palms became splintered with the movement, Francine gaped at the man, somehow comprehending who he was yet not even grasping a sliver of his true nature at all.
The man behind it all.
The man who took her.
The man who would not let her go.
Joey swallowed back bile as a shine in her eyes told him what he already knew- that she knew. A mouth opened to scream again- right back at him- but that wouldn't help at all.
No, that just wouldn't do.
For every hyperventilating yelp came a shush; the more panicked, sharp her breath became, the softer, firmer arrived his. Francine's shoulder lurched back but shock left her muscles still thawing, and so a reaching father's hand found its place to rest upon her as the other had a single finger come to his lips.
The stolen woman finally had no breath left with which to gasp and cry, and so the force of fear ran from her tongue to her eyes despite the blurring tunnel vision of adrenaline.
A rosy face leaning in closer, cheeks streaked with sideburns the same color as the hair under a black-stained hat. A bowtie of deep blue was strung around his neck like the most gorgeous of nooses. The hand that touched his lips was scarred across the palm, and golden eyes twitched with worry behind half-closed lids.
She had seen all this before, but he couldn't hide yet again that the same light that shone in the ink when you never looked at it too close was the same that slid across the serenely panicking irises ahead.
That sliver of sight into a soul unsteady began to close once more, though, as seconds passed. Finally, her gasping slowed as she marveled at him until it was quiet enough for Joey to begin to speak-
"WHAT THE FUCK?!"
As soon as Francine had the sense to focus she had the sense to question. A gentle grasp at her shoulder was promptly thrown aside.
She strikes him. His mask almost falls off yet again.
"Darling-" A level tone tinged with worry quickly interrupted once more.
"What the hell?!"
Clambering to her feet, her eyes somehow stayed wide while being pinched with outrage, her fingers clenched, too- but not to calm.
She hadn't calmed at all.
"You- you- you…!"
So accusatory. The waves of their black and brown beach rose just a bit higher before meeting the surface.
"…You lied to me…!"
Like a dad coming to comfort a daughter learning that Santa wasn't real far too soon for her age, the pain in his gaze mirrored hers, both sets beginning to gloss over.
"I know. I know. I'm so sorry-"
"NO YOU'RE NOT!"
They leave. She won't say where she's taking them.
"Now darling- I told you not to go about wandering for a reason," Joey responded coolly, palms raised up in a gesture of comfort. Of course, it did nothing of the sort.
"Yeah! Of course you did." Maybe the sound from her throat was lesser in volume, but the hiss it produced was somehow so, so much worse- so…venomous. She had every right to be. The young woman's eyes searched over him, taking in every detail with new understanding. "…You didn't want me to know what you're doing."
And then.
Only then-
Did she grasp that knowing you don't know is only the beginning of knowing at all.
And the ways of a woman kept alive only by her desire to comprehend, to shine her flashlight onto each and every dusty cobweb of lost memories and forgotten souls, took over once more.
Only this time, it was so much more personal. The vulnerability made her skin crawl, only now realizing she who had longed to make herself such to others had been visible inside out to Joey likely from the very first second she swooped across the gaze of a cardboard cutout.
Francine felt her blood swarm at her bent elbows and locked knees as the most complex word of all came upon her tongue:
"…Why?"
Hands still up twitched slightly, gently, just a bit closer towards the girl, accompanied by a minute cock of the head. He had done this for so long, Joey didn't even comprehend where such a question could even go.
"What do you mean, Frankie-?"
"YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, STOP FUCKING WITH ME!"
He leaves them alone in his cove.
Perhaps it was that invasion of privacy- her name, he knew her goddamn name because she fucking told him, of COURSE she had to tell him, and she didn't even know he was right there listening when she whispered it to Sammy- that made her so loud, so bitter and impatient.
If she had waited since she arrived to know why she had to stay, what did that mean for a man who had eighty years to ponder what he had done? What was she but a drop in the bucket?
But even a drop of rain from above can send ripples through an ocean.
Joey cringed, a soft rattle up his spine visible as shoulders tightened and fingers curled shut in front of his chest. With coming anxiety, the cream-colored ghost used the tension upon his body to roll his shoulders back, stand tall, and raise his chin so the unnatural glow of the room made the ink spots upon his glasses more visible than his eyes.
The ink ocean behind Joey witnessing this stopped its small, crashing waves, the upset moving to ripple further in the distance- deeper away into the endless cavern that echoed hurt feelings. The force of it simply made black water lap at the soles of his shoes once more.
He knew this moment was coming for not only as long as she had begun to catch on but for maybe years- decades…and yet he still needed time to compose his thoughts.
Francine, in all her breathlessness, was helpless but to wait for an answer. Everything she puzzled together had to be coaxed piece by piece, but Joey held still so many in his selfish hands.
Where to begin? Life? Death? Together? Alone? Each point in his miserable existence felt so poignant to how he ended up standing where he was now.
But there was, after all, only one reason she was standing where she was. And so a tale with no first page was flipped to the last chapter, praying that a girl of great empathy could show sympathy instead- for herself, for the twist in the story that made his stomach turn upside down with both the rush of hope and the dread of if nothing had changed at all.
He did know her so, very well to expect such.
"I've told you time and time again that this curse is…different with you, Frankie. That it's been kinder." He shook his head. "But you've had no idea what it was like before you stepped in and calmed it down. You deserve to know…why. Why it's different."
And a power beyond his own curse grasped his throat and choked out new belief.
"It's because you are."
And what could she say to that?
So a man forcing himself silent for about as long as a person lives and dies finally let go and spoke all he had adored and dreaded thanks to an intruder of whom he had grown fond.
"In all my years there's never been someone who…arrived for someone else. Out of…kindness. Selflessness, darling- it's not…common. In fact, it gets snuffed out about as soon as it comes to candlelight- like a flame pinched as soon as it's lit. It…grabbed me, Frankie. Grabbed me before anything worse that already happened to you could come and drag you away. Your cousin…oh, that poor boy. You wouldn't have come if you didn't hope to find him here- if you didn't want him back. And even unknowingly…not even if you died trying."
The shadow of his hat- a symbol of his hiding- slid over his nose with a slight downward tilt of his head. Finally, finally, rosy fingers trembled as they clutched its brim, and the darkness over his eyes fell off as a cream, ink-splotted top hat was brought down to his chest in order to contain a heart overflowing.
"And to the very first being you met within this otherworldly nightmare come to consume flesh…you said you didn't want to hurt him…! Do you know how many people arrived, Frankie? Arrived and screamed- and rightfully so- but never once considered that the abominations before them were victims, too?"
She could feel his wandering, marveling gaze as if she was something special. It made every pore of her skin goosebump, like he was trailing a finger over every spot.
But of course, he had seen every spot.
Every moment.
From the beginning.
"And your loving touch only grew and grew as each horror came upon you. As each soul of my studio came and called themselves a monster, you stepped forward and corrected that they were not only a person but a friend. Even to me, and I know very well I'm the only one worth calling a monster at all."
A chuckle. It reached his crow's feet- crinkled his face. He hadn't smiled until she came, and it was so very bittersweet every time since but especially so now.
"If the curse is an infection, then at times you…you seem to be the cure. Did you ever notice how upon your second visit to Susie that a staircase was gone when you walked in, but upon your return to Sammy's waiting arms it had healed underneath your feet? How the lights glowed warmer and warmer as it drifted to kiss your skin? How the boards stopped to creak, and the pipes began to hum instead of screech their horrible song?" Another, firmer huff of a laugh- not in humor but in a hollow pain. "Of course not. The world simply seems as good as you feel, my dear. That's the truth."
That hesitant smile eventually found its reason to fade, the glitter in his eyes not leaving but dulling as eyes became slits and left only so much space for hopes and dreams to show.
"And so such a sharp turn into destruction couldn't slip past your nose. The more you found, the more your calm decayed. By the time you came to find me I simply…couldn't allow it any longer."
Stressed fingers gently readjusted around his hat to help recompose.
"Not if it meant that you'd be in danger again."
And with his confession done, a redheaded scalp lost the vulnerability so shortly gained, and that shadow once more like a curtain closed concealed a bleeding heart.
"I don't…expect you to understand, Frankie. This is all far beyond anyone else can understand. What I've done to keep you and this studio safe and sound isn't something any human being is supposed to imagine…but here I am, and here you are."
The woman felt a hand come to her jaw once more- but this time she had an awareness this was not only a touch of care but of possession.
"I've…realized that it's best if you stay with me now. That's why you're here. It's…the best for you, Frankie. I promise."
The palm upon her proved pliable, allowing her mouth to gape like eyes weren't wide enough to take in everything he said. But finally- it served its purpose and gave her a voice. It may have been a whisper, but it arrived so very loud.
"That's a lie."
Joey gasped as a soft expression jerked out of his grasp, transforming as a snarl curled across such a delightful, loving girl's face. It was like watching an angel come down to earth just to tell you your sins.
"Henry came for you."
…But Joey did deserve to hear what he had shut out.
"I was never safe at all."
…The atrocities this man allowed to befall not only his studio but everyone forevermore.
"And if you expect me to think that the guy who keeps me fucking trapped here is the person who wants best for me then boy do I have some news for you."
They call for the demon down empty halls. They almost cross into the other.
"Stop. Stop, darling-"
"NO! You can't stop me! NOT ANYMORE!"
He punches the barrier.
Joey grimaced, briefly screwing his eyes shut with a furrowed brow until the impact ceased.
"I'm not special at all! People died! People like me! YOUR OWN SON FUCKING DIED YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"
Haunting silence. The kind that cuts the core out of souls, the kind that forces time to stand still.
"…You're…so much like him, you know," Joey murmured to that, half praying to interrupt and still her rage and half speaking only for himself, like he was dusting off a bookshelf of memories kept in his chest.
"…Maybe that's why you're alive."
A pause.
A step back.
"You goddamn twisted bastard."
She was so disgusted that Francine didn't notice the demon slipping away.
But he did.
She notices, and now so does he.
"Darling, don't go too far-" Joey pleaded, shaking his head and reaching his hands out once more, a touch of desperation reaching his eyes as the cartoonist attempted to coax her back- closer, within his reach if need be.
His pulse began to shake his jaw. Why was he so-…?
A spot. A familiar spot finally distinguishable- but of course, the color pink is something hard to miss upon a world stained black, white, and gold.
Instinctively, much to her opposition's dismay, Francine stomped on the strap of the bag that came into her peripheral now that she had moved further from Joey and closer to the truth, keeping her possessions in place. If- if he- if he really had so much control- could keep her by himself alone like she wasn't a person but a china doll to keep prim and proper and placed where he pleased- boy was he gonna get a fucking kick in the face.
He is fighting back.
Two things in the bag- two things that wouldn't do anything for her that was good. They both alarmed him, but for very different reasons.
Another pink object emerged into her clutches.
"What- what are you doing?!"
His distress was tangible, and it made Francine sneer in victory. She was right. She was right.
Maybe it couldn't help anything but her own sanity- maybe it was at the expense of others- but if this was all a falsehood from the beginning, well…
She was right to not be alone.
"Do you really think that you can keep me-?! That y- that…that you can really just…keep me in this fucking place?!" Her hands pressed the phone screen on, making quick work of entering her apps. The glow of the device seemed to shine like her confidence- both futile yet so very strong.
All she had left.
"Well maybe you can! Maybe you fucking can!" she cried, frown pushing so far back it pinched her eyes nearly closed. "But you can't keep me alone! You never could!"
So bitter, so pained. So-
Joey's stare grew more panicked as she realized what she was contemplating.
"Darling- darling please-"
"Darling please WHAT?! I didn't want my family to know I was gone! But if I'm really gone forever what's the fucking point?! I'm NOT going to be here with YOU! I'm gonna tell them, even if they can't come!" Her breathing was heaved, and a luster came over her eyes-
But once more, she refused to cry.
"I'm not gonna be alone! You can't MAKE me be alone!"
"Frankie, it is pointless- please!"
The more his agitation shook his tone, the surer hers became.
Defiantly she pressed the call button and begged her mom would pick up even after tricking her into believing her daughter never wanted to be found.
"Please find me," she worded to herself, praying to God that she could even hear her mother's voice again. Voicemail- even a voicemail- please…!
God answered, a god hoping to spare any more pain, having lied and hid so much only for it to become worse before his eyes by his own hand.
"…She won't be there."
"Shut the HELL up!"
Francine turned her head away, biting her lip and stomping the ground as the call didn't…even go to voicemail.
It was like it was dead.
…
…
Francine swallowed something truly horrid down and checked her last messages.
Me (10:12 PM): I need to do some thinking, Mom. Having him gone made me realize some things. Im going to be gone for a while. Take care of him, take care of yourself mama
Mom (10:13 PM): I dont understand
…
Wh-what was…?!
A trembling finger scrolled up.
…
Mom (10:04 PM): What are you talking about?
Mom (10:05 PM): Answer me
Mom (10:08 PM): Frankie where are you
Mom: (10:08 PM): stop being moody and come home. im sick of it. We miss you. cme see Gabby
Mom: (10:09 PM): hes been asking to see you. Don't do this now when we need you. Dont do this to him.
…
Why did her messages…
...Look like that?
Mom(9:45 PM): We found him behind the grocery in the next town over
Mom(9:49 PM): He's scraped up on the knees and we're taking him to the doctor but Gabby looks alright
It was…darker.
The text was never that dark, that rich with black-
A second attempt started before searching the texts continued to ring dead, Francine numb to the sound and blood filled her ears.
Mom(9:40 PM): Frankie we found him!
"You're alone, Frankie."
Joey folded his hands guiltily over her heart, barely visible behind Francine's phone. Just like all else consumed by the ink, the dead was brought back to life…
…And it was at Joey's mercy.
He could manipulate video, he could manipulate text, but he couldn't fake a mother actually picking up a phone and answering her child.
Not when there was never service at all.
Tears finally broke trembling lashes.
"I'm so sorry. I only wanted you to not worry about them-"
Never had a louder scream rung out, a woman broken to pieces all over again repeating history.
Joey was unfazed as a flash of pink grazed the side of his head, a cell phone plopping into the ocean of ink behind him.
There was so much more to dread hitting him in the face.
She breaks a cutout.
And history repeated itself once more in a way entirely new. The ink behind Joey couldn't resist keeping up an illusion of peace- of things better than they really were. It was all he had, so it was all it did.
The liquid void pulled back, then forward. It skimmed past his shoes and all the way to her toes.
When it pulled back, the ink that took away had given it back, fake assurances from both herself and someone not her mother beaming up with the same lie as it had always been.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered once more, but the tears in his eyes meant little to her. His twitches, his grimaces- his reactions to the world changing meant nothing to she who saw the world change too.
"IS HE EVEN ALIVE?! WAS GABBY EVER FUCKING ALIVE AT ALL?!"
Hands came over his mouth, as if he was the one that had the right to be sick to his stomach.
A long, long silence as her demands quaked the walls and made the ocean flow back and forth, stronger and stronger.
So much. Too much. Stop it, stop it, stop it-
His arms suddenly flew around as the outcries of many done wrong filled his ears and eyes and demanded his heart on a stick.
"I NEVER KNEW! I HAVE NO IDEA! STOP MOVING! STOP FIGHTING! THERE'S NO USE, IT'LL ONLY GET WORSE-"
She wasn't moving at all, and so a woman already out of her mind with heartbreak after heartbreak.
But he only had to say one thing to bring her back to a fight:
"I would rather have you trapped here than die!"
Shaking fists and teary eyes clenched shut, Joey finally screaming back at the world that screamed at him.
Why was he so surprised that it would only return to him yet again, one's truth traded for another's?
"WHY DO YOU GET TO CHOOSE THAT FOR ME?!"
Francine's final question echoed- but it wasn't her voice. Something that could only be described as otherworldly began to burrow into the walls- somehow fill a never-ending cavern like the foghorn at a lighthouse calls for safety to its shores.
The demon appears again, right behind Joey.
…This lighthouse at the shores of eternity called for he.
And something finally broke on the edge of her consciousness.
She remembered the demon.
And all he had done.
And all he had done was for Joey.
Francine didn't look at Joey again. She simply stared at that never-ending smile- that grin of false security as she reached down for the second thing she had kept- had hoped to never use again but had retained in secret just in case- that would only make things worse.
The ax in her hands swung ahead as she made a dash.
It again went past Joey and aimed for ink.
So much happened at once that her adrenaline hardly allowed for understanding, but it was so haunting, so telling, so important that she couldn't missed it if she tried.
As the demon held the weapon in one gloved hand, it appeared to put forth effort. Not effort to keep it in place- it was always going to be stronger than she- but it shook, it groaned, it trembled…
…Much like Joey did by her side.
Of course, it would take a lot to calm yourself down if you saw an ax flying towards your face.
The beast mirrored the agitation of the man he shadowed, a twitchy grip finally- with control- grasped the ax and discarded it to the side and far, far away from her reach.
The demon regained stillness and lost bloodthirsty ways, the core of a man's soul responding to blows of steadying breath and closed eyes.
But Joey never truly did calm down.
Never had.
That's why this place was like this.
The heart of a man is so visibly unstill once one steps inside and allows their deepest desires to reign as king.
Joey cracked open eyes to a woman who truly understood now- understood that his heart and soul enveloped her, had watched over her long before they met, without her consent.
And that couldn't be taken back.
No matter how close he kept her from searching for more.
No matter how much he hid her away from those who wanted her back.
All so much. Too much. Too many strings left to tie before someone tripped over them, too many paths to block before destiny gushed past like a flooding river, too many minds to manipulate in order to keep them from leaving the places Joey deemed them safe to be.
And that's why the world began to fall apart like it never did before, even worse than it did for his beloved son.
Life's frail thread snapped in two as a man already with a crack waiting to be broken finally shattered inside out, until the ocean fell and barriers dropped and a man who wished never to be seen like this was seen by all.
The demon could only smile as it did, the trial of Joey Drew beginning as he and his lies became bare to all he had hurt and kept away for so long.