79- Dearly Coveted

"But this is a people plundered and despoiled; All of them are trapped in caves, Or are hidden away in prisons; They have become a prey with none to deliver them, And a spoil, with none to say, 'Give them back!'" - Isaiah 42:22

What does it mean to care for what you love?

Well, something in Joey decided that it was to lock it away, deep where no one can hurt it again. Hopefully, not even him.

Especially not him. Men aren't supposed to be gods.

And only God knew what was next.

Francine felt her jaw clench shut with not a force her own but by that of impact. Unnatural wind ripped through her hair until it stung the sides of her face, the dried ink left unwashed clumping strands together and creating tiny whips that left its bitter taste- the same horridly familiar taste as when Bendy revived her- upon the corners of her lips.

And then in flashes of darkness:

Whap.

Dink!

THUD.

The sounds of someone crashing back first into something that was unsuitable to soften such blows. She could have debated, however, that maybe nothing- not a mattress, not pillows, not even a bed of the most delicate flowers- could have made such ungodly power ease its clouts. After all, for a grown woman- a woman of generous weight, no less- to be carried away from one existence to another like a paper crossing the road with an afternoon's breeze? Perhaps only magic could explain.

And as her skull rattled, she remembered once more that unlike those of the studio with such magic to their name, she had none.

It was indistinguishable how long she stayed down, up, or sideways as all sense of gravity left along with any trust in Joey Drew. Why would she want to open her eyes? Her family was gone. The world she tried to know was something she nor anyone subjected to it had never really known- maybe could never know at all. And the father that adored a daughter was now burned in her mind in the worst way, morphing from someone who acted out of selfless love into someone that acted out of possessiveness. His image was somehow still the same while it warped beyond recognition- much like how he never changed at all to turn out so horrid.

Eyes with the soft light of kindness began to gleam with the gold of a miser. A smile stretched sweet like taffy then as sinister as the one upon below the demon's horns, slathered and dripping with blood and ink.

And those hands.

Those fucking hands.

She let them touch her…put his fingers under her chin like a dog. Covered her eyes so she couldn't see. Held her hands not to comfort but to never let her she had trusted them, because they were gentle…warm…human-!

Maybe they weren't human hands at all to bind such a spell because look and see where they had led her now. More alone than ever in her whole damn life.

…Or so she thought, up until something gripped her wrist.

And just as the day they met, Francine screamed with the most primal fear and twisted up to see black grip onto her skin. A man with a scratched, wooden face and an unmoving smile met her gaze, and this too meant something different after this sick, macabre excuse of a fairy tale.

As Sammy and Francine looked at each other yet again as she scurried to sit up and lean her palms against loose paper atop wood floors, maybe it didn't mean anything to have learned a moral in the end of this. Friendship, kindness, empathy…she had given it. She had learned it, and she had earned it. And so did he- the broken man gasping as her brief shouts at him faded away, again hurt somewhere in his soul that she had reacted to him as a horror rather than someone intending- truly intending- to help.

The two friends- one new to this world and one very, very old- felt an eternity of fables snap in the air and melt away. Thanks to Joey, every single step in journeys short and long that crossed paths now meant nothing.

Because nothing could be what this was, and nothing was what they could do as the emptiness, hopeless, and utter deprivation of meaning swirled with the remnants of panic and revelations.

All that was left wherever the two found themselves- amid darkness thick over secrets but empty with their forced reveal- was each other. And so, with neither knowing what this life was intended to be at all let alone in the future, all they could do in the now was take in each other as the sole presence, the last essence of anything left.

One candle sat by them, lit.

A soft glow made Sammy's black skin shine yellow, betrayed the little shakes in his shoulders, stunted breaths, and the desperate grip of his knuckles as the fire showed Francine yet again how human he was- human he'd never be again thanks to someone that at one time they both had trusted.

Having met in the middle, the two upon their knees then held each other, praying to whatever cruelty controlled them that it wouldn't take the other too. It wasn't the puddles- not death, nor bodilessness, nor a succumbing to the ink- but it might as well have been, because just as Sammy promised himself over and over, it was his duty to stay no matter what his lord demanded of him.

And now, it was clear, also in spite of him.

Touches that meant everything to people who lost it all yet again, unsure even if another hug was worth it as her gasps filled the black space with hurt, as Sammy silently felt faith slip out of his heart and leaving him empty of everything except what he could keep in his arms.

The candle was taken, grip only gentle with weariness, and the flame was carried in gloved hands to light the dry wick of a second.

The grim fuzz of light crawled across the shape of Alice's knees as she gripped them to her chest, putting the candle to the floor and fixating her single eye on it; maybe it was only set aflame as a distraction, not for sight. Her stare- wide, vacant, wild. To describe her mind and emotions would be impossible just as it was for the two embracing in front of her, as it was a betrayal of something even beyond life and death itself that an omniscient narrator couldn't even begin to understand.

But it only took one look at her face to feel it, instead.

"Joey," she whispered, all she could recognize even after everything she had done to put Francine first. "Joey," she hissed again, voice shaking almost as if she loved him like a father yet again. It made Francine raise her head, and it made a man that didn't even remember Joey curl his fingers tighter, afraid he would take her away again.

And as Alice continued her muttering- "perfection," "how could you," "how could I," "I'm Alice, I'm Alice, I'm Alice"- the hum of magic, curses, or both drummed all around without the sight of any walls. Francine peered over Sammy's melting shoulder, biting her lips because god she'd be sick if she let that bastard take another sob out of her, and she let the space enter her soul, eyes shifting here and there around the few shapes in her peripheral thanks to friends in suffering.

Black.

Black.

Black-

And as she searched for something to be there, something came.

A third candle lit, Sammy holding tighter with one arm briefly as he reached for the first stack of wax and tilted it into a third, so supernatural in a place where the candles often lit themselves.

Even with complete nothingness being there before, the change from nothing to something was hard to notice through the blur of tears, budding at the corners of her eyes and threatening to burst. As she moved her arm to wipe it away, the man restraining her first gave forceful resistance…and then seemed to slink into limpness. She gave it mind briefly, hearing his wet palms slap the floor and merely make shadow glossy with similarly colored ink, but the apparition ahead was hard to ignore.

This flame sat peacefully, almost as a memoriam on a desk-

Her stomach twisted into a knot.

-The same desk where Mr. Drew sat her down and just like a fae, asked her for her name and everything that came with it. The radiance itself almost seemed to create within the bounds of its light, because where there was the infinite now sat the familiar.

She only looked away so long, but it was enough to spot a dull, cream-colored smudge a ways away, one last candle. The christening fire was taking in her hands, wax cooling just enough to pool near her hands but dry there rather than burn.

She stood up, shuffling papers under her backstepping shoes in shifting weight.

The fourth candle was lit, the first gently set next to it.

The woman rose her head and looked back from where she walked from, noticing again not only the desk but what was behind it as she came to a thin table and tilted. What was there left her no idea what to think.

No idea how to feel about the fact that the shelves of her room and all the intimacies she had left of home had either followed her here or were delicately set down.

Didn't have time to, it turned out, as a shout rang out and a crash quickly followed.

Now that boundaries of the room were completed, an empty picture that frame next to a closed, ornate door fell victim to the smile that used to be within it. The glass that held nothing but dust now cracked as Sammy's mask was discarded, a pathetic, blindly delighted expression as scarred and faded as the man it was made to manipulate. So many more of it stared back. It weighed upon his shoulders until the man that had only just stood up and abandoned it once and for all could feel the guise of his master coming back. The drawings Joey showed Francine of how so many children thanked him for his care were now witnesses to the worst sin of all, and Sammy could only fall back to his knees and cover the remnants of his face. Even a blind man knows when to be afraid of what he's seen.

The maskless prophet curled into a self now vacant of whatever he used to have, a form he gave to his god with a purpose no more, and there was nothing Francine could say to that. To the person who was so strong for her, who held ground with faith to anchor them in the ocean's storm. Now that was gone with nothing left to believe in its place.

And then it was the room. How all that was important including her own flesh and blood was discarded not even into the trash but something beyond- something where things that knew love could never be loved this far away from home. How it tried to carve the heart out of her, display it on the shelf like another item that belonged to Joey Drew. How yet again, it would never be the same, but this time…it had managed to get past her wall of determination, empathy, and self-assurance. Joey Drew was a storyteller, and those words of his wove her downfall. The claws of his horror story's finale dug in deep and slashed away and away the sense of who she was, the sense of how this was supposed to be.

It was supposed to be about learning you don't have to be alone.

About accepting yourself even if you aren't what you want to be.

About becoming friends.

And most of all, it was supposed to be about convincing a god to let his people go.

But their god told her loud and clear he'd never do that, in his demented mind that for whatever reason found this hell acceptable, Joey would not tolerate being alone even if it meant he'd end up being the loneliest of all.

She turned her head when he couldn't stand the sight of him anymore, Sammy cursing the entity he once found beloved, a savior to release him now the devil dragging him down by the ankles; and he always had been…he always had been…

The poster of that little boy looked over her like an angel- his perfect dark curls, his brown skin and sparkling eyes. "I'll wait for you," she used to think, "I'll wait for you to come home if it means you're still just fine."

And now if he was okay- if maybe the redheaded bastard's lie ended up being true anyway- that's what Gabby would think of her. Joey allowed her to believe- to have a bubble of another reality where she was a hero that would make her way home when really, when she should have been wondering when the dream would stop and she would finally die.

And so, in the audience of two people justified in their own isolated suffering, and of all the things both hers and not hers meant to be coveted forever, she just took these thoughts and broke down and cried.

That was enough, though. It took a while- it took many breaths from inky, choking lips underneath eyes that never wanted to see anything ever again, but eventually each guttural cry subsided more and more with each breath; the clawing of his own face tugged dents into his cheeks that crawled down from under shallow, empty sockets down to a jaw that almost seemed to shed black tears to his clothes and the floor. After uncovering where eyes should have been, Sammy in his blindness began to see in the cloud of his agony the colors of something left to his accursed name.

The man stumbled until he could hear sounds of fresh wounds right in front of him, nearly stepping on her toes as shaking shoulders rose with hesitation and arms bent to whatever position was supposed to make this one thing alright again. Oily lips parted, a bead of his liquid body stuck between them to partially cover back up an open mouth, but it soon snapped in two as he broke silence in order to comfort her.

…In order to console the last piece of himself to clutch onto belief. It was both a selfless and a very selfish need- to hand onto this as rage and agony tried to pull his mind back down to hell, the very place he spent every minute praying to keep at bay.

Maybe his faith in his master was gone, but the only way he could exist was to have faith in something. And so the bitterness remained but did so in his unsure, frantic kindness- fleeing headfirst into a snowstorm knowing behind there were wolves of his own regret prowling and closing in.

"Francine," he nearly gargled her name, tongue itself seeming to melt into his throat too as Sammy kept himself from falling apart, "Francine."

He couldn't see her hands in front of her own face now, but for her not to stop her own lament in order to hear another's was striking enough to slap him across the cheek. It was only thanks to weariness that he held on, that the prophet hurt in a way that made him want to help rather than blame himself for how she was.

"Francine, please-!" His elbows bent without his approval Where were these godforsaken hands supposed to go? "I-" Those thin, black masses he called fingers finally stopped hovering at an invisible, pristine aura around her shoulders and sunk stains into a light blue shirt. His first hug was instinctive, one meant to snatch her away if anything dared to come for her again; to do so again not in protection but in comfort was different entirely to him. "I need you-" Needed her to what? He didn't know. Perhaps he simply needed her; that wouldn't have been untrue. Memory of the last time he chose to slip of his mask came forward, Sammy awkwardly trying to mimic the kind of touches she gave to assure him then.

"Please," he begged without knowing what for, hands coming off so one may pause before putting his palm over one set of knuckles covering her wet eyes and so another could reach around her back and feel gags of sadness press her spine into his fingertips with every lurch that came with sobs.

She wasn't stopping. She had to, though. She had to or else he'd rot further into this abyss the lord left them in.

The man learning once again to love a friend looked back once more to the examples given to him, and he saw that with every sorrow he had succeeded at pushing back just a bit more, she had returned it with a smile.

If Alice saw the series of expressions that came across him at this perplexity, she certainly didn't feel the need to comment; he was left alone with his racing thoughts and the person whose enjoyment in their horrid life helped him break an unspoken promise to Bendy to treat it as a life not worth happiness.

At first, the obvious; her grasp was pried off her face and onyx thumbs found the corners of the woman's lips. He didn't try to force them to rise up, though; a smile is so much more than the direction your mouth is turned. A look of desperate relief in hopes his touch was enough soon became panic, his brow sharply rising as he only heard her cry even louder.

Something else- something else-

He remembered them at the piano, her soft appreciation and budding pride as he laid a melody across its keys.

A nod to himself- almost as if giving himself permission to go ahead- before he swallowed back cries of his own to somewhere deep in his chest for another time, and he bent himself forward in such a way that the stray hairs atop her head became stuck to his forehead; still holding her face, Sammy felt his throat move and lips fumble as he made himself close without allowing her to hear or feel how much stress clogged up inside every inch of his body.

But even as those empty sockets sunk low like closing eyes and quivering breath tried to sing, he did not feel her truly smile again. She quieted- and that was good, he surmised- but it was not in his mind yet success. Not until every little bounce from crying ceased and the one good thing still with him returned would he be at peace.

All be damned, he couldn't let this slip away, one last floorboard beneath his feet as he watched every other break to pieces.

"My friend-" he pleaded, voice smoothly but abruptly shifting from lyrics of willow trees, "Francine, look…!"

What came with smiles? Sammy furrowed his brow as he glanced backward yet again, and he found her laughter, not only lighting up her face but the entire room with it.

The candles flickered with a soft fade, turning the gloss of his body yellow with their light and made clear movements as he lifted his skull and stared sternly at nothing behind her. Things from before became sprawled out ahead:

Lying on the floor, telling him the ceiling was pretty.

Hands on her hips, saying with such casualness that she'd lose weight from starving.

When she saw what he didn't- what his expression did unmasked as he felt his features contort into a squint.

She laughed every time. What was in common?

…

…

Silly. She was being silly!

And that meant that he'd have to be silly too, at such a horrid time as this. But what else did he have? She could find joy before amid what they had believed to be the worst of things; he owed it to her now to find the same glimmer of diamonds in the darkest coal.

"Look!" he repeated again, at first removing his hands only so that she could, in fact, look, but soon finding he'd have to busy them to succeed. "I'm- I'm going to-"

And then, yet another time that blessed sound came from her mouth rang in his ears once more. It was slight, but the little bubble of a giggle popping into Francine's voice was enough for it to be engraved into time.

The woman, tears still running down her face but with hands remaining pushed aside to uncover eyes, finally pried a sliver of them open in compliance…

…Just before shooting wide open at what would befall them next.

"These glasses!" he exclaimed, shifting a long forgotten but ever-present object out of the fold of his pocket. "That's what you called them…didn't you? To help see!" The cheer inserted was so forced that it hurt. "How ridiculous if I were to put them on, as if they could-"

But they did.

A tone still subdued shattered into a shout, one that echoed far, far beyond the fake walls entrapping them. The pair of glasses gave a small scream of pain of their own, the material of its name cracking just a bit more as they were thrown in front of Francine's jumping feet.

Sammy stood there- limbs outstretched and dripping, and lungs heaving like he had run a thousand miles- as his sight left him once more.

No, it wasn't literal sight he had again. That would never come back. It was the kind of vision no one wants to live without; the kind he hesitantly prayed to have again, that Francine chased a god to find, and one that he himself wandered into sin for even the smallest glimpse through these lenses.

He could remember.