Ups and Downs

by Blackmoondragon1415

'Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, how do you measure, measure a year' A what-if plot based around the Henry and the Ink Machine AU on Tumblr by thelostmoongazer.

5. Ch4: Devil Woman

A/N: Hi, all. Kind of belated, but I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and is gearing up for a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, stellar Solstice, etc., basically, whatever it is you're celebrating, joyous time and tidings to you. As before, I of course do not own the game Bendy and the Ink Machine, nor the characters, those are the property of TheMeatly and Mike Mood. I also was not the one to come up with the Henry and the Ink Machine AU idea, that honor goes to thelastmoongazer on Tumblr, definitely go give that art a look, it's been a wonderful inspiration to me!

Now, as for this chapter, I will say that I started plugging away typing this up pretty much right after watching some play-throughs of the game, though after I got to a certain point I had to look at how best to divvy things up a little to make it easier to read. Don't worry, the second part's coming along great, I'd just be here until next year trying to get things together if I kept it all as one big word dump. Trust me though the next one's probably gonna be about as long as this one is.

Well, enough about the details, enjoy the chapter, feel free to leave critiques or comments, and stick around for the ending note, I have something of an idea I'd like some feedback on!

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Devil Woman:

His arm was starting to hurt by the time he got to the closet, a hand pulling open the wooden door just in time for Bendy to be jarred forward by a firm push at his back. He was…gasping, emotionally raw, but at the same time more upset than afraid, though it took him a moment to remember why.

"Bendy, I am very ashamed of your behavior. I have told you before that we cannot have these outbursts."

"Joey-!" He tried through a tight throat, but his creator smoothly talked over him.

"And until you calm down, you will be staying in here. If you continue to raise your voice at me, it will be for longer."

And the door slammed shut in the toon devil's face, the sound of the lock clicking cut the last thread to the outside world as the small broom-closet was drenched in black. For a minute, Bendy simply stood in the darkness, before backing to the wall just to give him something to orientate himself with. He wasn't scared, not by a long shot. He'd just…have to keep quiet for a while. Then Joey would come and unlock the door.

At least, that was how things had gone the last few times. For some reason he couldn't shake the niggling feeling that things were going to be different this time around. Even still, the small toon settled with his back to the not-so far wall, leaning partially on some brooms and tried to keep quiet against the emotions that stewed in his gut.

"Don't tell me you ain't thinkin' it! Drew's gone too far with all this, an' who the hell knows how he made that thing, or why!"

"Look, Josh-."

"All's I'm saying is, Drew and his lil' monster can stay the hell away from me-!"

"'M not a monster…" Bendy mouthed into his knees, grinding his knuckles against the sides of his head as though that would drive the unwelcome recollections away. Even so, he remembered with perfect clarity exactly what he had told the man, the one who spoke those things in almost the toon devil's own voice.

"SHUT UP! I don' wanna be near you anyways! I don' wanna be near any a' you!"

"See, Harry, with pipes like that, why the hell does Drew need me? Heck, if he keeps goin' the way he's goin', he ain't gonna need you or Susie neither!"

"STOP TALKIN' ABOUT ME LIKE I'M NOT HERE!"

"Maybe ya shouldn't be, ever consider that?"

It'd grown hard to remember what happened, though Bendy could recall a distinct buzzing in his nonexistent ears. But in the next moment a handful of pens had found themselves across the room, and everyone was shouting, Bendy's own words getting mixed in somewhere with the rest but he knew what he'd yelled.

"I DIDN' ASK JOEY T'MAKE ME, I DIDN' ASK ANYONE T'MAKE ME, YOU SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

Which was when a hand had descended down onto his shoulder with enough force to rattle the toon's frame from its emotional and physical meltdown, and Bendy looked up and back into the face of Joey Drew, who had hobbled into the room at some point during the shouting match. His creator had always had that air to him that demanded some level of respect and quiet, though with those very stern, cold eyes silently boring into his own, Bendy could only say that the sight of the man had lit a real spark of dread somewhere in his inky guts.

"I apologize for my creation's erstwhile behavior." Joey had said to the workers, including Bendy's still-fuming tormentor. "I will be dealing with it presently, and it will not happen again."

The firm emphasis on the last phrase was what had the devil struck mute until they'd gotten to the closet. Reverberations of it kept him in silence for the time being.

But, Joey would come back and let him out, right? He had to. Joey wouldn't forget him, at least Bendy knew he hadn't before.

…He didn't always listen to him, but at the very least Bendy could concede that his creator certainly would remember that the toon devil existed and would let him out. Probably. Hopefully.

He'd just have to stay away from those people and this wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't be shut in the closet if he just avoided the things that made him upset. If he didn't get upset, then Joey wouldn't have any reason to shut him in here. Simple, but foolproof logic in the devil's mind.

For the moment though, he'd just have to wait. And keep quiet. He could do that, he'd already been doing a pretty good job of it so far.

Even still as Bendy tried not to let a subtle, nagging sense at the back of his mind have too much leeway in its insistence that something was wrong, he could feel the time passing outside. Or at least, it seemed like it was. Couldn't exactly tell much from inside a pitch-dark closet. Not that his own body was much help; Bendy found himself starting out of a light doze more often than he'd like, the brief bouts of sleep skewing his perception of time along with the growing sensation of emptiness in his stomach. Had it been thirty minutes, an hour, three hours? Hadn't he been quiet enough?

He started again at the sound of voices outside the door, though he knew just from listening that they weren't the calm, measured tones of the studio head. Instead it sounded like-.

"-Be down there in a bit Sammy! Geez, gimme five minutes t'get set up first!"

Then the door was thrown open and suddenly light flooded into the tiny closet, causing Bendy to let out a yelp and cover his face against the stinging assault on his eyes. At the same time, a much louder holler from overhead caused the small devil to try to ball up even more. Though if he were worried about Wally lashing out at the unexpected intruder in his supply closet Bendy found out pretty quickly that he needn't have. The janitor had leapt back from the devil, almost crashing to the floor before he realized that while the thing in the closet was alive it wasn't about to jump out to get him.

"Uh, hey, kid…" The lanky young man tried, pushing back the cap on his head from where it had slipped over his eyes. "…y'lock yourself in there or somethin'?"

The devil opened his mouth before remembering what Joey had said, and closed his jaw with a click of his teeth and shaking his head. Wally cocked his head at the silence and response alike, eyes alit with wary intrigue.

"Y'wan' me to go get Mr. Drew?"

Somehow Bendy's response to that could only boil down to a firm shake of the head, eyes widening slightly as he both realized what he'd done and started to puzzle through why.

He was still in trouble, meaning if he went to Joey now and tried to talk to him he'd be admitting that he had disobeyed the studio head, and given that his stunt last night had made Joey lock him in the closet for what was starting to seem like the whole night Bendy could say that he certainly didn't want to try getting Joey mad now. He also couldn't quite believe his own daring, what if Wally went off and told Joey that Bendy hadn't wanted to come to him? Would he be in worse trouble either way?

However the reply seemed to have left Wally at a loss for what to do, and for an instant the janitor's eyes roved up and down the hallway for some inspiration when suddenly he caught sight of someone at the far end of the hall.

"Hey, HEY! Henry, can y'come here for a momen'?"

Henry? Henry was here? The name caused a small thrill of relief to run through Bendy's ink. Henry was good, safe, he was the guy that Bendy went to if he had problems.

However…

"We want Henry to be happy, right? So I need you to be on your best behavior, Bendy, can you do that? If not for your old creator, then can you at least do it for Henry?"

If he stayed away, he wouldn't get upset, and then he wouldn't get in trouble and Joey wouldn't have to be mad. And then, no one would be disappointed or upset, or ashamed…

Just, stay away.

Henry's face peered around the doorframe, eyebrows furrowing slightly in what seemed like confusion as he caught sight of the little devil still huddled up in the closet.

"Bendy?" He asked, quietly taking a knee to be more level with the small toon. Despite the calm, quietly concerned gaze of the animator, Bendy still couldn't relax and certainly didn't want to even open his mouth.

"Are you hurt?" Henry tried, eyes sweeping over the small frame. Bendy paused before he reasoned that he would probably be better off answering at least some of these questions, at least until Henry was satisfied and left. And, well, no, he wasn't hurt…

However, if Bendy were hoping that a shake of his head would dismiss the man, he was sorely disappointed. If anything, the lack of speech seemed to make the animator more troubled.

"Did you lock yourself in here?" Henry tried next, to which Bendy shook his head. A minute look of suspicion and irritation flashed over the man's face, causing the small toon to ball up even more as his mind raced. What had he done, why was Henry mad at him, was he in even bigger trouble now, please don't tell Joey…!

"Bendy, what's wrong?" Henry asked, catching the mute look of panic settling into the devil's features. The simple question sparked a new wave of fear to percolate the toon's rapidly devolving ink, and he started shaking his head with a new edge of frantic energy. No, no, nothing's wrong, everything's fine, please don't tell Joey…

"Bendy." Henry said, a hand reaching out to land firmly on a small, inky shoulder, jarring Bendy from his frenzy and riveting his eyes to the animator's light blue ones. "It's alright, Bendy, you're alright, I'm not angry."

The man simply let the words sit for a moment, hand quietly resting on the toon's shoulder, before taking a deep breath and trying a new tact.

"Look, you're probably hungry, right? How about we go get something to eat?"

Food, did sound pretty good right now, but, he couldn't leave, he…he had to be still in trouble, that was why Joey never came back. Right?

That, or perhaps the devil was in so much trouble that his creator had…had no intention of coming back.

"Bendy, it's alright, you're-." Henry started to say before a loud holler of 'FRANKS' echoed up the corridor. Behind them, Wally jumped, hands leaping up only to freeze in midair as he realized there were still two people in between him and his cleaning supplies.

"C'mon, let's move…" Henry murmured, quietly reaching out and easily lifting the small toon up in his arms before Bendy could react. Without really thinking, the man tucked the devil up against his chest, straightening and stepping aside to let Wally grab his things and hurry after whatever disaster Sammy had happened upon. The janitor did neglect to shut the closet door behind him before he rushed off, though with the way the music director was hollering, Henry couldn't say he blamed him. It was then that the man realized that Bendy had been quiet since Henry had rather unceremoniously removed him from his hiding place.

"Bendy? Everything alright?" He asked, looking down at the small toon who'd silently slumped against the animator, resting his head on Henry's shoulder. Bendy simply looked up at the man for a moment before letting his eyeline fall and giving a small nod. Inky arms had quietly crossed in front of the small frame, the devil's posture closed though he leaned into the welcome relief the animator offered. Letting his eyes slip shut, Bendy feigned sleep even though it felt like his nerves had just been wrung out to dry. He could hear Henry give a quiet sigh from over his head, the noise almost lost in the general hubbub of the studio.

"Bendy…" The animator said from somewhere over his head, an odd timbre to the tone causing the devil to frown. It sounded…watery, with a faint gurgle like Henry was speaking through a clogged throat. The little toon also noticed that the man's arms had started to take on a different, goopier texture, the very feel of it unnerving him enough to turn his head away from Henry's shirt, pie-cut eyes opening as he focused on the face overhead.

And immediately felt the air leave his lungs in a wheeze. The pale features of the animator had been entirely overtaken with ink which seemed to seep from his eyes, mouth, and nose.

"Bendy, wake up…" Henry almost groaned through the stuff, the black goop completely enveloping his face, and starting to drip down onto the toon in his arms. Bendy felt like he couldn't move, couldn't even scream as ink started to pour down over his head-.

And with a gasp the devil almost inhaled a mouthful of fur, coughing for a moment as he tried to get his bearings and figure out why he could hear someone crying, though calling it that did it no justice. The noises were a mix between sobs and breathless wheezes, though he got the impression that if the person doing the crying were able to get more air into their lungs there would be more wailing than wheezing. The second thing was that he was being held, but whoever was doing the holding was shaking so fiercely that he was almost bouncing in the person's lap.

The clues didn't make sense, there was no situation that he could think of that would have someone holding him in this way, but a moment later, memories crashed back in.

"B…Boris?" Bendy asked at first, mouth feeling thick and uncooperative. His limbs jerked as they tried to reorientate themselves, reaching out for the distraught wolf. And Boris…still hadn't answered, but he was moving and breathing, so it couldn't be that bad, right?

"Boris, wh-what's wrong? A-Are you-?" As Bendy spoke, his hand finally managed to connect with some part of the taller toon, fingers brushing across Boris's chest just enough to feel a raised line under the wolf's fur. The very instant the sensation registered, the devil abruptly found himself tumbling out of his friend's lap, only realizing once he hit the floor flat on his back that Boris had shoved him.

The impact of the toon hitting the floor rattled the legs of a table behind him, and there was a sudden crash of metal hitting wood that had both jumping out of their skin. Bendy looked to the side and his eyes narrowed at the sight of tools scattered all over the floor. They were all a grimy mess, streaked with black ink and quite possibly rust, though when Bendy looked to Boris, the observation suddenly took on a completely different tone. The wolf's eyeline had jerked up when the toolbox had fallen, his wet eyes riveted to the dirty pieces of metal but looking distant, haunted, everything that Boris was not supposed to be as his breath spilled from his muzzle in gasping sobs.

But the clincher was in how the taller toon's hands were clasped in his own fur, right over that spot that Bendy could remember having streaks of white rather than the normal solid black. It was almost like the wolf were trying to hold himself together in more than just the emotional sense…

Bendy pulled himself to his feet, sick horror and protective anger urging him to kick away all of the tools, get them as far away from Boris as he could. There was still a grogginess soaking through his brain, which was probably why he didn't think to simply put the things back in the toolbox until the last bit, a heavily stained saw, had shot out of sight to the other side of the table. Not that his concern was really with cleanliness, given that the moment the tarnished metal was gone the devil turned and stumbled the few steps it took to get to Boris. The wolf's breathing had grown, not quite manageable, but had eased down from the frantic gasping it had been about a minute ago.

"B-Boris, Boris, it's okay. It's me, pal, it's Bendy." The little toon babbled, not daring to try touching the wolf directly again. The broad, inky shoulders flinched, before pie-cut eyes seemed to lock onto the devil. Bendy let out a yelp as Boris abruptly reached out and wrapped the other toon's smaller frame in a hug, pulling him close and practically crushing the devil against his chest. The wolf buried his face into the shoulder of the Bendy's coat, shoulder's shaking for a moment before a new round of sobbing finally forced its way out into the open air. Bendy only found himself idle for a few moments, before he started trying to extricate his arms enough to reach around the wolf's frame in what he hoped was a good approximation of a hug.

The crying didn't have the same gasping quality that the mess from before had, but it was no less messy and now sounded like the wolf had just seen a cavalcade of instruments set on fire (or perhaps remembered the feeling of tools biting into his skin), and broke Bendy's heart to hear. At first, he simply locked his arms around the wolf's chest in a squeeze before the memory of the straps around the taller toon's form caused him to loosen, hanging for a moment before Bendy changed his tact and tried to rub circles into the fur under his hands.

It took a few minutes for the wolf to fully calm, though eventually the ragged gulps of air eased to a more natural, if still rough series of breaths that had Boris's chest rising and falling at an easy, normal pace, the heartbeat against Bendy's ear going at a steady rate. Bendy still kept his arms locked around the wolf's chest, hands doing the best they could to rub circles into Boris's back despite the shortness of his arms. Henry used to do it, it had to work here, right?

It gave him no end of relief to feel the lankier toon's arms relax, Boris's head lifting back up while one arm let go to rub at a puffy eye.

"You okay?" Bendy questioned, pulling back and searching the wolf's face for any lingering signs of distress. Despite the obvious tear tracks, and the fact that Boris definitely did not look one-hundred percent the taller toon still was able to give the devil a wane smile.

"'m okay."

Bendy knew it probably wouldn't be a good idea to venture back out into the monster-infested studio, though spending more time in it than they had to seemed like an even worse idea.

"Should probably get goin'." The smaller toon murmured and pulled himself up from Boris's lap, though he swayed a little on his feet, exhaustion still seeping into his ink with the faint feeling of dizziness making the room wobble around him. In fact, the entirety of Bendy's body felt sore, concentrated mostly at his side and legs. The sensations caused him to stumble, hands grabbing at the wall for stability.

"Bendy, you okay?" Boris asked, voice still a little raspy though the concern was still very much apparent. Bendy nodded, trying to slap on a reassuring smile as he turned to the wolf.

"Y-Yeah, 'm fine."

"Your head still hurtin'?" Boris asked, the question entirely throwing the devil off his attempt to hide the problem.

"Wait, when did I…?"

"B'fore you, you passed out, you said your head hurt." The wolf explained, gesturing to his own head as he quietly scanned the devil's face, looking for some sign of sickness or injury. Not that Bendy could remember anything that might have led to this, except…well, no water, no ink, and no proper food for who-knows-how long. Still, he'd been fine for quite a while before then…

"Hey, Bendy." Boris abruptly chimed, the devil swaying a little as he turned to look to the wolf who had his hands held out to him. Even with thirty years gone by, it was a gesture that Bendy recognized quite well, though with the long years and the changes they'd wrought, the devil had an honest moment of crisis as he considered. On one front, though being mistaken as a child had been helpful to him in most situations out on the streets, the ending fact remained that he really didn't feel like much of one anymore. He had come to hate being talked down to, the overly smothering concern, and being steered around like he didn't have any agency in the situation at hand. At the same time, this wasn't just some shmuck who thought he was doing a good deed or some nutcase looking to carry off a kid, this was Boris. His buddy, who didn't have the long years of hardship that the devil had, who was waiting for his say-so, and had done nothing but help him since they'd found each other.

Not to mention if he refused, Boris might think it was because of what happened earlier, and Bendy certainly didn't want the wolf blaming himself over that. So, the devil just gave a breathy sigh of 'okay' before plodding his way over to the wolf, and letting himself be picked up.

"Don' forget th' axe." Bendy slurred as Boris hefted him up, the wolf fumbling for a moment between his fellow toon and trying to get a serviceable hold on their improvised defense. It took a little bit of juggling before Boris ended up with a balance that fit, and he started over to the door before realizing he still needed a hand free to turn the knob.

Propped up against Boris's shoulder, Bendy blinked for a moment at the hesitation before looking over at the door, and reaching around to turn the knob himself.

"Y'didn't haveta do that." Boris whispered as he went through the now-open door. "I coulda gotten it."

"'S fine, 'm bein' a freeloader here anyway, might as well make m'self useful."

"You're plenty useful." The wolf replied, to which Bendy's only answer was an exhausted hum as he huddled against Boris's shoulder. The conversation ran dry as the pair moved further down the hall. Though Boris did glance back down the direction they'd come from, he couldn't see any sign of pursuit from that end. Maybe nothing had gotten through the door…

Though the hallway didn't seem to be taking them out, the slight slant to the flooring hinting at their heading towards a lower level rather than the way up to the next floor that they'd been hoping for. Eventually though, the pair happened upon a doorway at the end of the hall, the wood musty and a layer of dust on the knob. Bendy reached around, gloved fingers slipping a little on the grime before his grip tightened enough that he could open the door. It swung open with no trouble, though the space beyond was dark and reeked of ink. Not to mention, the sounds of machinery faintly grinding away somewhere beyond was enough to have the wolf's spine stiffening a little, Bendy's tail coiling close as both sets of pie-cut eyes tried to filter through the murky black.

"Maybe we should go back…" Bendy murmured, though something about the darkness seemed almost familiar to Boris. Like he'd just walked into a part of the studio that he came to everyday, though as far as he knew he'd never been allowed back here.

"I don' think we can." The wolf replied. "There were a lotta, monsters 'n things. An' the big one might not've left."

"Big one, th' one wi' white on its chest?" The devil enquired, Boris nodding in response.

"Yeah, it might still be waitin' there for us to come out."

"Alrighty, forward then." Bendy conceded, hunkering down in preparation for the trip that neither of them really wanted to go on. Both toons tensed as Boris stepped over the threshold, the darkness pressing over their eyes. Then the wolf's foot hit something that clunked when it fell over, the sound making them both nearly jump out of their inky skins.

"What'd you kick?" Bendy whispered as Boris felt around with his foot. The taller toon frowned as he took note of the dimensions; small, barely over his ankle but it felt tougher than wood. Metal maybe?

"Not sure, here, I'm gonna…" The wolf started as he knelt, letting Bendy feel around on the floor for the object. The devil pawed at the metallic surface for a moment before he discovered a switch, light beaming into the dark to reveal an ink spotted wall.

"Guess I'll hold onto this." Bendy murmured into the silence, Boris nodding his ascent as he maneuvered the smaller toon in his arms so Bendy could light the way ahead. With a little more assuredness, the pair moved through the dark, ink-reeking halls, as the noise of dripping and machinery grew louder and louder. Bendy couldn't help but frown at that, one reason being that it wasn't helping with the various aches and grogginess he was feeling, and the other being that the steadily rising background noise made it hard to hear if something was in the hall ahead, or behind them.

However, Boris felt he had a better grip on things the further the pair went. Something about these halls just felt familiar, to the point where he was guessing turns and picking out familiar landmarks. Familiar, but still very alien as Boris did not remember this from the days when the studio was running. So, when had he been down here…?

The stench of rubber ink grew stronger and stronger, Boris fighting the urge to cover his nose and Bendy frowning as he tried to beam the light around. The walls seemed to be slicked with ink in most places, the off-white paper looking blacker the further they went, with ink even starting to drip from the ceiling. The hallway itself did not help, the darkness and blackened walls almost claustrophobic as it constantly turned and wound around, all the while the floor slanted under the wolf's feet as it carried them down. The flashlight nearly didn't do them any good, the beam too weak to really project and the walls of the hall too dark. Not to mention that Bendy's arms had started to tremble with the strain of holding the heavy flashlight, exhaustion beginning to get the better of the little devil. The dull aches and pains he was feeling were growing more and more prevalent too, and though part of him desperately wanted to sleep it off Bendy fought the urge. He had to stay awake, Boris needed someone watching his back.

You can't afford to let him down again, you're lucky he hasn't left you yourfaultyourfault…

However, the next corner the pair rounded opened up on a short hall leading out into what looked like a larger room, another corridor visible directly across. Before Boris could try crossing, a half-remembered warning stopped him just as Bendy spoke up.

"W-Wait, Boris…"

The devil beamed the flashlight around, the floor of the room shining oddly in the light. Boris took a cautious step forward, before noticing that the stench of rubber ink, which his nose had started to become inured to, was back with a vengeance. On a hunch, the wolf poked the head of the axe downward, and watched with growing dismay as it slipped under what was starting to look like a veritable pool of ink. A pool of ink that stretched from one end of the room to the other and seemed a lot deeper than appearances would have them believe given that Boris had sunk the axe in up to the very end of the handle and he still couldn't feel the bottom.

Bendy meanwhile had maneuvered the flashlight so it would be out of the way while Boris felt out the depth of the ink, and happened to catch sight of a cassette deck on the floor next to the wall.

"Hey, Boris." The devil started, pointing towards the object. "Try listening t'that. Might be somethin' useful."

"Listen to what?" The taller toon asked as he leaned back from the pool, eyes catching sight of the cassette deck a moment later. "What's that?"

"People put tapes in 'em, kinda like records, and they use them t' listen to things. L-Like, music." Bendy mumbled the latter through a yawn that forced its way through his explanation, causing Boris to frown worriedly. The devil wouldn't meet the taller toon's eyes, instead indicating the tape deck. "I'll be fine, jus' let it play. Press th' middle button."

Boris put the axe down for a moment to follow through, tensing a little at the crackling voice that filled the air a moment later.

"It's dark and it's cold and it's stuck in behind every single wall now. In some places, I swear this godforsaken ink is clear up to my knees! Whoever though that these crummy pipes could hold up under this kind of strain either knows something about pressure I don't, or he's some kind of idiot. But the real worse part about all this, are them noises the system makes. Like a dying dog on its last legs. Make no mistake, this place…this…machine…heck this whole darn thing…it just isn't natural. You can bet, I won't be doing any more repair jobs for Mr. Joey Drew."

The tape cut with a pop, leaving the two toons in silence.

"…Who was that?" Bendy asked, brow furrowing as he looked to Boris for a hint. The wolf thought for a moment before something seemed to click.

"I think tha' might've been the repairman. I saw him once. I think his last name was C-Connor, maybe?" The smaller toon blinked at the explanation, as a faint memory of Joey squirreling him out of sight when a burly man in overalls had started poking at a burst pipe in one of the halls popped into his mind. He'd had to stay in the studio head's office for the whole day during that visit, and was only let out once Joey seemed sure that the other man had gone. Bendy hadn't questioned it at the time, given that one of the first things Joey had told him was that other people could be dangerous and they might try to hurt him. In retrospect though it seemed strange, as Joey seemed to feel fine with letting Bendy and later Boris and Alice run around the studio in full view of the rest of the staff.

It was odd, but didn't really help them with what they were faced with now. Both sets of pie-cut eyes looked back out at the room beyond, still very much flooded with ink. Bendy stared out with exhausted, itching eyes and gave a quiet sigh.

"You're sure we can't jus' go back?"

"…There's a place we can rest up ahead." Boris answered after a pause, voice sounding distant and yet very firm in the stated fact. If Bendy felt more awake, perhaps he might have questioned it more, but right now, in between aches, exhaustion, and the feeling of weakness starting to creep into his limbs, the devil just gave the scene a slow, quiet blink and another sigh.

"Alrigh', Boris. I trust you. Lead on."

The murmur was answered with a slight squeeze from the wolf's arms, the brief hug followed with another low vocal rumble.

"Thanks, Bendy. An' hold on, we'll be okay."

And with that, Boris quietly took a few, hesitant steps forward, wincing a little at the feeling of the boards sagging under his feet. The room through the doorway wasn't that big, but the flood was definitely more than a little intimidating, from the reek to the somewhat uncomfortable implications that the wolf could think of when it came to them, toons made out of ink, walking through a room drowned in the stuff. Still, the doorway ahead hung like a tantalizing bit of hope in the inky floods, with the promise of safety somewhere beyond.

The wolf carefully stepped into the mire, leg sinking up to mid-thigh height. He couldn't help pausing a little at that, something telling him that the pool should be much deeper. Shifting his grip on Bendy and the axe, Boris tried to plod ahead as carefully as possible while his legs felt like they were moving through syrup.

Bendy for his part mostly just allowed the shifting, caught somewhere between wanting his eyes closed, because the smell and sound of all the ink around them was downright disturbing, and wanting to see what was going on in case something leapt from the muck.

They had gotten about two-thirds of the way across the room when Boris took a step, and immediately sank up to his chest with a yelp. Automatically the wolf lifted Bendy higher, over his head with a hand clenched around both the neck of the devil's jacket and another around his ankles. Boris could hear a startled gasp from the smaller toon, though it was somewhat overlooked as he struggled with the completely discomfiting sensation of ink soaking his overalls and fur.

"Boris?!"

"I'm fine!" The wolf almost warbled out, getting enough of his wits back to take a sliding, gloopy step forward, trying to figure out where the end was to the hole he'd fallen into. But there was nothing, no edge, no sign of stable, higher ground. Praying that there wasn't going to be another drop and trying to judge if he could safely throw Bendy to the doorway should there be one, Boris tried to shuffle forward as carefully and quickly as he could. Thankfully Bendy didn't try to move, small frame stiff with fright as he tried to give the wolf as little trouble as possible in getting across. The few feet seemed to take years, but eventually the pair pulled themselves out of the mire to be back on the mostly stable wooden floor. Boris put Bendy down as he knelt and tried to get his breath back, the devil immediately doing his best to help clear some of the gloopier ink stuck to Boris's overall straps and fur.

"Boris, you alright?"

"Y-Yeah, 'm fine, I…" The wolf gasped out before something occurred to him, hitting home hard enough to earn a pause as Boris briefly stared ahead with an expression of disappointment and pure exhaustion as his head lowered to clunk against the floor.

"What? What's th' matter?!" Bendy asked, a note of tense bemusement in his voice as he tried to figure out what was wrong.
"…I dropped the axe." The wolf finally mumbled into the wood, the statement putting the smaller toon's moment of panic on hold as he tried to figure out exactly what had been said.

"S-Sorr…wait, what?"

"The axe. I dropped it. In there." Boris groaned out, a somewhat ink-drenched glove pointing back at the flooded room as he sat up, about to run a hand over his face before thinking better of it. Bendy looked from the dark ink to the wolf, before a small, nearly hysterical giggle bubbled out.

"You big i-idiot, I thought y'got hurt or somethin'!"

"O-Oh no, no I'm fine, I jus' thought, we need th' axe, right?"

"Not enough t'go back in there, pal." Bendy mumbled back in reply, eyes tiredly turning from the ink pool to the still glopped-up overalls, hands fumbling as they still tried to clear some of the black murk. The devil's head wobbled on its nonexistent neck as pie-cut eyes stared blearily ahead, something that Boris noticed with a deepening frown.

"Then…let's keep goin', Ben. So we can get out of here, right?"

"Yeah." Was all Bendy felt able to get out, eyes blinking groggily. Though Boris tried to be gentle about picking the smaller toon up again, he still heard a light noise of surprise before Bendy hunkered down for the ride.

"Th-Th' flashligh'…"

"Don' worry, Bendy. I've got it." Boris replied, grabbing the after-mentioned object off the floor and slowly trekked down the hall. The next leg of the journey passed in near silence, with only the noise of the machinery and ink filling the void as it came from all around them. Some of the nervousness had left the taller toon's frame as somehow, he knew precisely where to go. One more left, then a right, and through the archway into a lit hall, which dead ended at a metal door. Boris really only fumbled for a few moments, eventually putting down the flashlight before he was able to unlock the door.

It was kind of unintuitive how he went about it, though somehow the wolf knew exactly what to do. He felt like this wasn't as…alright, as it seemed, but the thought was put on hold by the door swinging open, Bendy squirming weakly as Boris briefly bent down to grab the light and go through the doorway.

"You're still awake?" The question slipped from the wolf's muzzle before he really could think on it, though he couldn't say he'd be happy if Bendy were keeping himself up when he obviously needed the rest. Not that it was new, really, the smaller toon often tended to push himself until he dropped, a habit that he had as far back as Boris could remember.

"N't sleepin'…" The devil mumbled back, unwilling to open his eyes though he did shift a little in the wolf's arms.

"Maybe y'oughta be." Boris shot back, his voice quiet but with a familiar sense of long-suffering affection bleeding into the tone. Bendy could feel the corners of his mouth turning up in a smile, and his tail gave a lazy, contented flick. The wolf gave the small frame a brief squeeze of a hug, ears perking up as he had another flash of intuition.

Boris walked into the room, turned left into a small corridor, sidestepped some dripping ink, and passed what looked like a bathroom to get to the last room, pushing open the ajar door to reveal a cozy makeshift bedroom with a hammock strung up over a trunk. A flicker of motion under his eyeline made Boris look down, just in time to catch Bendy blearily peering about.

"Are we 'n someone's h-house?" The devil asked, the last part of the question breaking up in a yawn. Boris almost shook his head in reply before realizing that it would probably be better if he actually said something.

"I don' think so. Least if it was, they're long gone."

It seemed true enough, and didn't need any strange recollections on Boris's part. Everything was covered in a slight layer of dust, though before Boris could shake out the hammock Bendy just gave a quiet chuckle.

"'s okay, y'can leave it. Slept in worse places…"

"If you say so." Boris murmured, the frown from before settling back into his face at the implications of what Bendy was saying. Still, he pried off the devil's shoes before putting him in the hammock, turning to look for a blanket but was beaten to it when Bendy groggily shuffled out of his baggy coat and tucked that over his frame. Boris briefly paused at the sight, eyes drawn to the exhausted, almost unwell look to the small devil's pale face before something occurred to him, and he quickly leaned down to open the trunk.

The majority of the stuff inside seemed like odds and ends, and though interesting it was the last third of the things that fell into the category of what the wolf was looking for. He came up with one can of bacon soup, and what looked like five unopened ink wells.

He hated to disturb the smaller toon, but…

"Bendy?"

"Hmm?" The devil groaned, eyes flickering open at the questioning tone in Boris's voice, and immediately lighting on the small, untouched inkwell in the wolf's gloved hand.

"Wh-Where'd…?"

"In the trunk, there's a lot here. Maybe it migh', help you feel better…" The wolf trailed off, a little worried by both the silence and the dazedly uncomprehending stare from Bendy, though the devil eventually seemed to snap out of the daze and gave Boris a weak but thankful smile.

"Prob'ly will, thanks Boris…"

Bendy didn't quite manage to push himself up into a seated position, a little thrown off by the rocking of the hammock. But once Boris handed the devil the inkwell, Bendy threw it back, draining the whole thing in three gulps. The devil just managed to hand the empty inkwell to Boris before he flopped back, limbs shakily pulling under the shelter the coat provided as his eyelids fluttered closed. As Boris closed the trunk, he could hear the faint sounds of Bendy's snoring start to join the low hum of dripping ink and fainter sounds of machinery and couldn't help a relieved smile.

Though, now that that was taken care of, Boris was becoming uncomfortably aware of how the drying ink was sticking to his clothes and fur. He stayed in the bedroom a moment longer, making sure that Bendy was alright and well and truly asleep before he quietly left, leaving the door open in case the devil were to wake up. Heading down to the bathroom, Boris felt that sense of deja-vu start to slip in again as he walked over to the sinks, staring for a moment at the cracked, misted glass of the mirror in front of him. Turning on the faucet, he waited as the water went from a murky grey to a clearer, cleaner look. Peeling off his gloves, he automatically reached under the sink for the soap, and stopped with a worried pause when he realized what he was doing.

Maybe he was overthinking it. He wanted to get himself clean, after all. Still, Boris felt himself battling down a sense of unnerved anxiety as he blocked the drain of the faucet, letting it fill with water before putting the soap and his gloves in, fingers kneading the suds into the fabric. Those were done in a few minutes, and Boris left them hanging over one of the other faucets so they could dry. The overalls were a downright nightmare, the partially dried ink on the inside pulling at his fur as he took them off and emptied his pockets of two smeared-with-ink soup cans. Placing his shoes to the side as an afterthought, Boris went to work with the soap, scrubbing and slaving at the clothing as he steadily managed to make the ink-murked fabric clear back to an off-white. The boxers he was wearing under that were much easier by comparison, though once that was done came the somewhat awkward task of trying to clear the ink out of his own fur.

However, there was a somewhat pleasant and odd discovery as Boris found that there was a considerably less amount of ink caked in than he thought there would be. A small amount of black came off his tail, legs, and feet, but it was nowhere near as bad as it had felt. Checking over the rest, Boris tried to feel for any gunk stuck to his back, his hands ghosting over his front with a shiver as they passed over a vertical line under his fur.

Swallowing, the wolf quickly moved on to wringing the water out of his boxers and gloves, though he knew that it would take a while for the overalls to dry. Somehow he knew there was a spot he could use out in the hall, and distracted himself from thinking too much on how he knew that by doing his best to clean some of the gunk off his shoes before he hung the overalls in the after-mentioned spot at the end of the hall. Once he'd gotten that done though, Boris stared around for a moment, posture drawing in on itself before he turned and sidestepped a drip of ink to head back to the bedroom.

Bendy hadn't moved a whit since the wolf had left, face still blissfully relaxed in slumber. With a small, relieved smile Boris sat on the trunk next to the hammock, simply opting to relax while he a few free minutes. Though that didn't last long as even though he knew they were safe in here, there was a part of him that couldn't help but be anxious about… well, everything. Somehow he knew that the stove required more than a little attention to be properly started, that the second toilet in the bathroom was always out of order, and that there was a stockpile of bacon soup hidden about the place. He knew the noises of the pipes overhead, the rumble of the machinery as it ground and clanked away, he knew so many things about this place, but somehow all of those recollections felt hazier than they ought to be.

It was downright maddening, and more than a little strange because they also reminded him of-.

No, no don't even start thinking about that. Not now.

Despite managing to cut off the thoughts before they could turn dark, Boris still pulled his legs up, arms wrapping around his knees as though to ward off a chill.

A faint noise from somewhere over his head made the wolf flinch as he looked up, eyes widening a little as he noticed that the expression on Bendy's face had changed, the devil's brows furrowing as his face pinched with what looked like unsettled dread. Boris stood up, immediately reaching out though his hands hung in the air next to the hammock, unsure of what to do. However, another bit of foggy reflection occurred to the taller toon, something that he knew the hammock was good for when feeling unnerved or afraid.

He gently gave the side of the hammock a little push, the slight motion causing Bendy to give a small, surprised snort as the devil's eyes shot open. Pie-cut pupils roved before focusing on Boris, who tried to give an apologetic smile just in case he'd woken the devil up. But Bendy merely gave the wolf a small but very relieved grin, his eyelids sliding closed again as he quickly fell back to sleep. Boris waited for a beat before trying again, keeping the movement of the hammock light and gentle as he pushed it into a calm rock. Once he felt that the smaller toon was sleeping soundly again, the wolf left to make sure his clothes were dry so he could get dressed properly.

---

It was awhile before Bendy so much as moved, though he definitely could say that he felt loads better than he did when he initially fell asleep. For a minute or two he just stayed curled up in the hammock, listening to the dull roar of machinery overhead coupled with what sounded like a fan going. Turning his head, the devil found he could actually see the fan in question through half-lidded eyes, gaze fixing dozily on the caged whirring blades before he realized something was amiss.

Boris wasn't in the room. Now, this in and of itself should not have been too alarming, Bendy could vaguely remember there being a ways between the door they'd come through and getting to this room, meaning there were probably other rooms the wolf could be in. But, with everything that he'd been through in the past several hours, the fact that Boris was not in immediate view caused a thrill of foreboding to settle into the smaller toon's ink. Shakily sitting up, and stiffening a little as that made the hammock rock sharply back and forth, Bendy peered towards the door, about to call out but stopping as something occurred to him.

If something was wrong, then yelling and screaming was probably the last thing he'd want to do. Instead Bendy considered the space below the hammock, and tried to ease himself off to stand on the trunk. Given the manner in which the hammock moved it took a few uneasy minutes of the devil trying to find a balance between shifting and not shaking the hammock to the point where he felt like it was going to flip him out. Eventually though he was able to slide off, his cloven feet hitting the wood with a clacking thump. As he reached up to grab his coat off the hammock, the sound of someone rushing to the door behind him caused the devil to start and whirl around, just in time to see a familiar canine face peek through the door.

"Bendy? You alright?" Boris asked, coming in when he realized that the smaller toon was awake. Bendy for his part just tried to hide the signs of his earlier anxiety, of course Boris had been in the other room. He'd been panicking over nothing…

"Y-Yeah, fine. Feelin' loads better, actually. Thanks for haulin' me in here, know I wasn' makin' it easy."

"Y'weren't any trouble, Ben. I'm just glad you're feelin' better." Boris replied, though the calm moment was interrupted a moment later when both toons' stomachs let out some incredibly vocal growls of hunger. The pair looked between each other for a moment in surprise before dissolving into giggles at the comical coincidence.

"C'mon…" Boris managed through his own round of laughter. "I can see 'bout makin' somethin'…there's a stove in the other room…"

"Makin' food? What exactly is there t'eat down here? Wait, don' tell me…" Bendy groaned, as the answer occurred to him. "…bacon soup?"

"Well, yeah, whoever was here last, looks like they saved some, an' I've still got the two cans…"

The little devil eventually gave the matter a heavy shrug, conceding that being able to eat something hot right now would probably be a step up from everything they'd been through up until this point. Not to mention Bendy was kind of curious as to what the rest of the place looked like as he hadn't exactly been very attentive when he was carried through before.

So, after putting his shoes on Bendy followed Boris, padding his way down the hall and around small puddles of ink, looking about and catching sight of what looked like a bathroom to his left. The wolf turned out into what looked like a front room, and Bendy stopped for a moment as he peered about at everything. A vague memory of asking Boris if this was someone's house came edging at the devil's mind, and he could remember why he had asked. The whole place did indeed look like a strange, makeshift home, with a table and chairs on the opposite wall, and a stove with a waiting pot sitting atop it. The rest of the room was pretty bare, but it was those elements, coupled with the clear effort to make the place as safe and livable has possible by meshing off the pipes, that had Bendy wondering if someone had been down here all these years. And, more disturbingly, what had happened to them. If Boris had been…out of commission this whole time, then who would have been down here to set this up? Just from the looks of things, this would have taken time to put together, probably a lot longer than it would have normally depending on when everything started going wrong.

"-Bendy?" The little devil snapped to at the sound of his name, and realized that he had been standing in the middle of the room for the past minute. Boris was next to the stove, looking back a little worriedly at the smaller toon.

"Heh, sorry, pal. Kinda let my mind wander a bit. What were y'saying?" The airy bit of bravado didn't clear all of the concern from the wolf's features, but Boris let the matter drop easily enough.

"Jus' gonna try gettin' this lit, was wonderin' how much soup you wanted."

"Eh, y'don't haveta give me that much, I know you prob'ly want a fair share."

"Well, we've got about five 'r so cans…don' think that'll be a problem."

Bendy briefly looked over the cans stacked on the table, before something occurred to him and he walked past Boris to scrutinize the soup cans a little closer. Head tilting a little in confusion, the wolf came up behind the devil and was about to ask what he was doing when Bendy reached out and rubbed at the label of one of the cans in an investigative way, looking skeptically at his still-clean finger.

"I cleaned 'em, Bendy. What, you thought I'd be pourin' ink in the pot or somethin'?" The question was punctuated with a teasing poke to the horns, something that Bendy waved off with mock-annoyance. Well, given that the wolf's overalls and gloves were looking far cleaner than they had when he'd last seen them it seemed fair that he'd gotten to the cans too.

"Yeah, yeah. Pretty sure 'em both gettin' doused in ink is enough reason to be careful. You.. maybe want any help gettin' set up?"

"'s alright, Bendy. You c'n relax. 'Sides, the stove's a little hard to get runnin'."

"C'mon, how hard can it be?"

"Yeah, you're definitely sittin' this one out now. You're not jinxin' the soup."

"I wasn't-I'm not jinxin' soup, Boris!"

"Didn't Sammy used t'call what you just said a 'phrase that invites disaster'?" Boris shot back, and though Bendy couldn't stop the brief crack in the cocksure façade at the mention of the music director, he does do his best to reply back.

"Yeah, well, I bet I could do a good job of makin' soup anyway. With or without disaster-invitin' phrases."

"Siddown, Bendy." Boris finished the argument with a gentle but firm push to the devil's shoulder, steering him to the table and making sure Bendy was firmly in his seat before turning back to the temperamental stove. The wolf had already gotten the heavy flashlight set up and beaming light into the belly of the metallic beast so he could see what he was doing. However, it wasn't long before Boris had the distinct feeling that something wasn't right.

"Need any help?"

The wolf extricated himself from the oven to see Bendy looking down at him, the too-wide, utterly innocent grin on the devil's face matched by the thoroughly unamused look on Boris's own.

"Bendy?"

"Yeah?"

"I c'n handle the stove. Park your tail in th' chair."

"C'mon, I promise not t'use any more disaster-invitin' phrases! An' you know I don' do well with sittin' still when stuff's happenin'!"

A pause, before Boris let out a sigh that reverberated through the metal of the stove, pushing himself back in.

"Alrigh', but I'm gettin' the stove workin'. You c'n help with the soup once I'm done."

"Oka-." The reply was half out of Bendy's mouth as he turned around when suddenly a loud crunching and a plume of smoke burst forth from the internals of the oven. On the stove above, a fire flared into life underneath a somewhat dented pot. However, Bendy's concern was more for the wolf that was hacking up a lung as he tried to pull himself from the bowels of the metallic monstrosity.

"B-Boris, you okay?! Where'dya get that ink from earlier, we can-!"

"'m-." The taller toon started as he sat upright, another cough cutting him off. "'m fine, Ben. 'sokay."

"W-Well, how 'bout some water? I c'n getcha some water!" The devil offered, voice easing off from the earlier panic, though it obviously wasn't enough considering Boris started shakily patting him on the shoulder a moment later, like he was the one that needed help.

"'s fine Ben. Here-." The wolf pushed himself to his feet, moving around Bendy to grab one of the chairs and yank it down to be next to the stove. Boris indicated the cans as he turned to head off to the bathroom, Bendy staring a little helplessly in his wake.

"Jus' put th' soup in the pot, Bendy. I'll be right back." The wolf ground out, voice still sounding gravely and choked nearly to seizing in another round of coughs. Boris padded his way down the hall and into the bathroom, quickly turning on the tap and waiting for the water to clear before trying to take a drink. At first, the wolf tried cupping the water in his hands before realizing that they were a little too unsteady from the barely suppressed coughs that left his whole frame shaking, and opted to just push his muzzle under the flow of the faucet. The cool liquid was a balm to his spasming throat, easing the scratchy dryness that had blown in with the overpowering smell of grease. For a bit, Boris just let himself quietly soak in the sound of the water and let that clear the various odors of the machinery. Then the wolf pushed himself back up, a brief itch flaring up making him scratch at the center of his chest before he realized what he was doing. The feeling of the raised line under his fur running from the top of his chest to about mid-stomach caused Boris to shiver, while the implications of what he had done crashed in.

He'd never been down here before, but he knew where to go. He'd never seen this place before, but knew nearly every nook and cranny as though he might have been the one living here. But, he couldn't have been, surely. He'd…he'd know outright then, if that were the case. He'd know for sure. Not to mention, though he hadn't even thought of it right then, but the smell of the machine, the oil and controlled burning had shaken something loose in the taller toon's mind.

It still felt as hazy as the rest, but there's a strange clarity to it that puts it on par with, with Joey. It was, in fact, eerily like that memory, but instead of Joey there was someone else, someone who changed a little every time but he could clearly remember seeing horns, and a bit of a halo, like Alice's but not quite, and…an eye glowing a hot, baleful yellow as it stared down at him and he wanted to move, he wanted to run but he couldn't he couldn't move and-.

Boris shook himself as he felt his eyes start to burn and the air start to rush from his lungs in a gasping wheeze. He forced himself to grab at the sink, feel the shape of the porcelain through his soggy gloves. Staring down at it, he made himself breathe. Just breathe, and not think. He couldn't do this again, not with Bendy in the next room. Bendy who had been away from home for years, and came back weak, worn, and terrified. What happened upstairs was an accident, he'd gotten too wrapped up in the memory. If he didn't think, it wouldn't happen again, right?

"Boris?" Came suddenly from his left, along with a tentative knock on the doorframe. Boris was glad to say he didn't start at the sudden noise, but judging from the way Bendy was staring the wolf figured he still looked a fair bit rattled.

"I-I put th' soup in. Are you…alrigh', pal?"

The smile Boris slipped on still felt like a glass precariously balanced on the edge of a table, but there was a real edge of relief to it.

"'m fine. W-We should prob'ly go check on that…" The taller toon mumbled, shuffling stiffly out of the room with Bendy at his side. On autopilot the wolf made for the pot of soup on the stove, wiping the grime off a nearby ladle and using that to stir the lumpy broth. Beside him, Bendy clambered up onto the chair, both eager to help but stymied by the drop in Boris's mood. Feeling the smaller toon's gaze on him, Boris turned, opening his mouth as though he had something to say before the words quietly seemed to choke themselves off. Instead, Boris put the ladle down and reached out to Bendy, sweeping his friend into a somewhat desperate hug. For a moment, the smaller toon was stiff as a board, from both the lack of warning and the speed at which things had changed. Things had been downright jovial in here a moment ago, or at least, it had started to seem like the old times, why did things have to end up so different…

But then Bendy relaxed, letting out a breath that he almost didn't realize he had been holding, doing his best to hug Boris back. Another few seconds passed before the taller toon let out a shaky breath of air, and spoke.

"'m sorry, Bendy."

"F-Fer what, needin' a hug? Don' be sorry, you're fine, I jus'…kinda realizin' it's been awhile."

For a while they simply stood there, eyes closed as they tried to bury themselves in the confidence and comfort familiar company brought. But, after a few minutes had gone by, Boris suddenly sniffed the air, and quickly switched his hug into a side-hold as he reached out and grabbed the ladle to stir the almost-burning soup. So absorbed was the wolf in the task that it took Bendy clearing his nonexistent throat for the taller toon to realize that he hadn't actually put the little devil down.

"Ah, sorry, Bendy, here-."

Bendy accepted the apology with good grace, even allowing himself to be plopped down on the chair, though his eyes still showed some of the upset that he had been feeling a moment prior. Boris had looked…not as bad as he had upstairs, but coming close to the same ballpark. And Bendy was definitely wishing that he hadn't…frozen up like he had. He didn't know why, this was Boris, his best pal. His best pal who definitely looked like he'd needed the hug. Bendy just…

The devil hid a sigh, shoving the brief feeling of disorientation aside as he rationalized the somewhat tumulted thoughts and his reaction. It had been a long while, he hadn't been expecting Boris to kinda lunge at him like that, and it wasn't like he wouldn't see the wolf again so there was time to get used to...being back in someone's company.

They were getting out together, and they could figure things out. That's what they always did before, and Bendy at least liked to think that that hadn't changed.

Besides, despite the fact that the bacon soup had been sitting in the studio for the past thirty-odd years, the smell starting to come from the stove was definitely a step up from the somber mood that had been gripping the room before. Boris too was starting to look a little less tense, Bendy already being able to spot the tell-tale signs of the taller toon enjoying the scents in the air, ears perking up as his tail gave a few energetic swishes.

"Izzit almost done?" The devil asked, leaning a little closer to the pot to see the bubbling stew within. Boris gave a quiet smile at the trying-not-to-be too obvious eagerness in the smaller toon's voice.

"Think so. Jus' about." The wolf mumbled, giving the soup a few more good stirs before deeming it edible and turning to get the bowls, only to come face to face with Bendy who had grabbed them and was holding them up with a keen smile, eager eyes focused on the pot as his tail flicked back and forth. The sight brought a mirroring grin to Boris's face, and the taller toon reached out to grab one.

The piping hot soup almost felt like heaven to Bendy after the hell he'd been through for...he wasn't even sure how long. The sludgy feel was helped by the heat, and Bendy ended up nearly scalding his tongue in an effort to eat it before it went cold. Boris too seemed to have a similar opinion, both bowls empty before long and filled back up again with more from the pot. This time both ate a little slower, actually savoring what they could from the meal rather than scarfing it down. Once both bowls had been emptied a second time, Bendy sat back as he quietly savored the feeling of being somewhere safe, fed, and most importantly, not alone. Boris's eyes had found the record player on the shelf, hands moving to tinker with the aged parts to see if he could make it work.

It was then that the little toon noticed something that he was amazed he hadn't picked up on before. There was another hallway that led off to the right of the stove, perhaps to another room?

"Hey, Boris..." The devil started, head cocked on a nonexistent neck. "…what's down there?"

"Hmm? Oh. I...don' think there's anythin' down there, no doors or anythin' like that. Maybe a storage spot 'r somethin'?" The wolf replied, half distracted with the record player. Though the explanation did make some sense, it didn't satisfy Bendy's curiosity. Pushing himself off his chair, the small toon kept his voice light as he made his way to the hall.

"I'm just gonna go see what's down there. Holler if y'need me."

He barely waited for Boris's reply of 'alright' before walking forward, easily rounding the corner and coming to a dead halt. Well, the taller toon had been completely correct, there wasn't much back here that was useable. Unless there was something in the barrel behind him, but Bendy was a little more preoccupied by what was on the far wall.

It looked like some sort of weird collage of the posters that he'd seen all about the studio, the ones that advertised the shorts that were made. However, the manner in which they were put together was, well, more than a little disturbing, especially with everything that Bendy had seen so far. The part that drew his eyes the most was what looked like one of the images of Boris on the Sheep Songs poster, which was torn up into pieces and pasted in not-quite uniform fashion on the wall. It wasn't completely disorganized, but there were definitely a few scraps of paper that were out of place with the rest of the picture, as well as some notable space in between all of the pieces. Next to that was an image of Alice, though the angel's picture appeared to have been streaked with ink. It was not enough to obscure who it was, but enough that it was an obvious, deliberate gesture. Arranged around the image of Alice were several smaller images, the smiling faces that Bendy's printed counterpart displayed in the show posters. These too were a little defaced, with lines running down from their pie-cut eyes, almost like whoever put this together was trying to depict them crying.

But what bothered Bendy was the two pieces of paper placed above the piecemeal image of Boris, one a ripped, sole image of the leering grin present on Bendy's promotional image, and a strip from Alice's poster depicting just her horns and her halo. The two scraps occupied similar positions above the image of Boris, almost as though they were either watching or had some sort of leeway over whatever someone was trying to say about the wolf. It was hard to tell if the images were all interrelated, but for the moment Bendy couldn't help but wonder if this had been designed to scare, or tell whoever might be looking at it something important.

The devil's dark widow's peak furrowed as he tried to figure it out, walking a little closer to see if he had missed anything. Boris was, broken, or had been broken, though the presence of the grin and the part of Alice didn't seem to make much sense. The position seemed to hint at some kind of involvement, like the pair causing something that cracked the wolf apart into pieces. Was it saying that Bendy and Alice had both had something to do with it directly?

Well, the small devil conceded that he could see himself being depicted that way, what with all the cult worship, but didn't see why Alice would be there. And, why in only those pieces, wouldn't it have made more sense to put the whole picture…unless it just wanted to draw attention to those features specifically…

The Alice one was another conundrum, and he had no idea what the artist was trying to say by doing that to the poster. Alice was…rubbed out but not really? Alice was hidden? Alice was somewhere with ink? The Bendy faces didn't help; were they meant to be crying over Alice or were they supposed to imply something else? Then again, Sammy had been wearing a mask of Bendy's face, maybe that was what this meant…

Did that mean there were others like Sammy out there? The thought almost made the devil reconsider leaving the little safehouse, though he knew that eventually supplies would run down, and they'd have to leave to search for more, which if they did that more and more meant that they would up their chances of running into more crazy ink-covered nutjobs. The best option would be to get the hell out of dodge as quickly as possible, but how they were even going to do that now…

Looking down, Bendy caught sight of another little thing, a drawing barely large enough to be covered by his hand. It was a very simple image, of Bendy's head but with a more natural smiley face drawn instead of the leering grin. Around it was a circle, all drawn in ink with no assistance from a poster. The lines were a little smudged, and the image hard to see with both its size and the fact that it was dragged down in a smear, but the shape of the head and the smiley face were easy enough to make out. In a slight trance, the devil reached up and with a gloved hand quietly mirrored the gentle downward swipe, dragging his fingers over the small doodle.

Was this supposed to mean him, somehow? Any why did the person who made it smear it like this? It didn't look or feel like it had been done roughly at all…

The sound of crackling music starting up from the sitting area made Bendy jump, hands flying away from the wall art as though it burned. It took the devil a few moments to realize where the noise had come from, though immediately he felt a little foolish. It was just Boris, only Boris. He had to stop being so jumpy before he gave himself a heart attack.

Not that he was lacking for excuses in that…

Turning away from the collage, Bendy walked back out into the main room, almost back to his seat before Boris suddenly spoke up.

"Bendy, you okay?"

The little devil's neckless head jerked as he turned to look, catching the growing concern in Boris's face as he stared down at Bendy. Several things occurred to the smaller toon, that Boris had no idea what was sitting in the alcove, and Bendy wasn't sure he wanted the wolf to see.

"Heh, nothin', just…was thinkin'." Black shoes shuffled on the wooden floor as Bendy skirted back to his seat, pulling himself up onto the chair.

"Thinkin' 'bout what?" Boris asked, voice gentle but not letting the matter go. The devil stared down at the table for a moment, trying to work his thoughts into something he could use for debate if he needed. If he were a shrewder guy, Bendy would say that the lack of needing to explain a plan or bring up tougher points would be something that he missed about being alone.

"I…Do, you wanna stay here?"

The manner in which Boris's head jerked caused Bendy to jump, both toons meeting each other's eyes with twin expressions of surprise and creeping dread.

"N-No!" The wolf blurted out, voice leaping between shock and an urgent fear that had Bendy scrambling to apologize, to divert the upset that he saw though he wasn't completely sure of where it was coming from. Albeit, there was some, insidious little whisper in his mind that said Bendy was the one at fault.

"S-Sorry, sorry Boris, I'm sorry, I won'-I didn't…"

"N-No, it's…you don' havta be sorry, Bendy, I-I jus' I thought you wanted…I thought you w-wanted t'get outta here, why'dya change your mind?"

"Wh-No, no I didn't, I jus', I was jus' wonderin', with everythin' out there, maybe… I dunno, I'm jus'…" Bendy rounded of the somewhat rambling explanation by propping his somewhat drippy head on his hands, fingers kneading at his scalp for a moment in an effort to dispel some of the rattled and frayed nerves.

"I want t'get out. With you." Boris murmured from across the table, causing Bendy to look up from his huddle, staring for a beat before a heavy sigh finally slid out of his mouth.

"I wanna get outta here too. This place is…alright, bu' th' longer we stay, th' more likely somethin's gonna wind up gettin' us sooner or later. We need t'get out. T'gether." The last word was added with a much more steady air, a wane smile making its way across the small, pale face as Bendy looked to Boris, the wolf reciprocating the gesture as both let out a calming breath. The lull carried for a few more seconds before Bendy spoke again.

"Jus', we'll wanna get ready first b'fore goin' back out. Where'd you get th' ink from before?"

"In th' trunk." Bendy nodded at Boris's answer as he pushed himself off the chair, already going to the bedroom. The wolf had just drawn level with the little devil when suddenly Bendy stopped, expression falling as something occurred to him.

"An', we're gonna need somethin' else."

"…Like what?"

"We're gonna need a weapon. We lost the axe, remember?"

"Right, right." Boris replied, the slight embarrassment at the earlier accident still stinging a little in his mind.

"Alrigh', here's what we're gonna do. I'll get th' ink an' make sure we c'n carry it without somethin' happenin'. You, think maybe you can find somethin' we c'n use if somethin' comes after us?" Bendy asked, turning a little hesitantly to Boris. Still, if there was anything regarding the near-episode and tension from before the wolf didn't seem to hold it against the devil, instead letting his brow furrow in thought as he considered the problem.

"I'll see what we've got. I mean, th' flashlight's pretty heavy, but we're prob'ly gonna need that…"

Bendy tried not to keep the smile that formed from looking too relieved as he turned back to the hall.

"Alrigh', you think on it, lemme know if y'need anythin'. I'll be gettin' th' ink."

"Sure thing, Bendy." Boris replied, the distracted though still good-natured tone warming the devil's mood as he hurried from the room, noting the sound of Boris in the hallway behind him as he settled down to work. Finding the inkwells was no trouble, but it took Bendy a moment to figure out what to do to cushion them, eventually catching sight of a folded blanket at the bottom of the trunk. Silently offering an apology to whomever had lived here, Bendy pulled out the blanket and with a bit effort started to tear strips off, wrapping them around the small glass bottles until he felt they were properly cushioned. He was just figuring out how best to carry them when a sudden grinding noise followed by a crunch came from the bathroom, causing the devil to jump and turn back to the hall.

"Boris, you alright?!"

It took a few agonizing seconds before the wolf replied, though if there was any bit of relief to the situation it was that Boris didn't sound the least bit afraid or hurt. If anything, he sounded downright jovial.

"I'm fine, Bendy! Jus' found…nevermind, I'll tell you later!"

Alright, well, as long as it didn't sound like the wolf was dying or anything…

Bendy hurried to get the rest of the inkwells bundled up and put away, two to a pocket. He could faintly hear Boris moving from the bathroom to the main room, heading out a moment or two behind the wolf. However, as he came back into the front room, the devil came to a halt for a moment as he caught sight of Boris, or more particularly what Boris was holding up triumphantly in his hand.

A pipe. A pipe that looked suspiciously like it came from the bathroom.

"Uh, Boris?"

"Yeah, Bendy? Look, I found something! I mean, there was a plunger in the bathroom but I was battin' that against the wall an' figured we needed somethin' a little heavier, an' that's when I noticed the pipe! Whaddya think?"

Though there were a few queries waiting on the tip of his tongue, Bendy let them die at the completely proud smile on the wolf's face.

"I think it's great, Boris, good call." He tried not to think too hard on the idea of the bathroom flooding, though he figured if it was he would have already seen some evidence of it by now. They decided right away that Bendy would carry the pipe and Boris would get the flashlight, mostly based on the fact that the metal box was a little too heavy for Bendy to safely run with if they should need to.

However, now came the moment that both toons were somewhat dreading. At first, Bendy was a little confused at the fact that the door had no knob, before Boris took out a toolbox and withdrew a lever. The wolf placed it onto the panel next to the door, his hand hesitating for only a moment before pulling the lever down.

The manner in which the door swung open made both toons tense, though the fact that there was nothing there was both relieving and rather worrying in and of itself. Bendy let out a breath, reaching out and grabbing Boris's hand, a modicum of relief bolstering him when the wolf lightly squeezed his fingers back.

"Ready?" The devil asked, pie-cut eyes turning slowly up to look the taller toon in the eye. Though there was a slight tremble to the answering grin, Boris's voice was steady as he answered back.

"Good t'go."

And they stepped out, turning at the corner to come to a hallway. It appeared empty of anything that might hurt them at first glance, though the presence of what looked like a wooden booth of some kind caused Bendy to hurriedly revoke that thought.

"Boris, what's that?" Cause, the wolf had to have walked right past it before, right? Sure he hadn't stopped to look at it at the time, they'd kind of been in a hurry, but maybe Boris had seen something like it before all the bad happened.

Still, the taller toon looked as stymied as Bendy felt, head tilting a little as he considered the rectangular box.

"No idea." The comment made the devil turn back to the wooden booth, eyes narrowing at the sight of an oval drawn on the front. It was only then that he realized there was a sign on the top, curiosity drawing Bendy a little closer so he could read it.

"'Little Miracle'…" He paused, squinting over the small print of the last word. "…'Station?'"

Maybe it was meant to be some kind of crazy merchandise thing for Alice… the wording on the sign seemed to be pointing that way. Even looking at the oval again made the little devil realize that it was probably meant to be a halo. Though, what would someone even use this thing for?

Catching sight of what looked like a handle Bendy reached out, gloved hand trying to keep from openly trembling as he gripped the wooden bar and pulled outward. For all his nervousness though, Bendy needn't have worried; the booth was empty, the only thing present being a little bench inside for a person to sit on. Still, he hardly felt the need to go in, letting the door close before his head turned to the right, and he noticed a doorway. A doorway which had nothing but black sitting beyond it.

Swallowing down another bout of nerves, Bendy briefly glanced over to Boris, and noticed that the wolf still held the flashlight in his hands. Though the taller toon's attention was more focused on the booth, a hand tracing the inky line of the halo on the front. Hesitatingly taking his eyes off the doorway, Bendy tried to piece together the expression on Boris's face, the task not quite hard but what he found didn't make much sense. It was a strange look, of some recognition but mired with other emotions that took a few more moments to pull apart. The wolf's ears folded down, his tail tucking close to his legs as his shoulders minutely slumped. Boris's hand quietly pulled into a clenched fist, knuckles resting against the wood as his head bowed, everything in the taller frame going tense as a finely-tuned fiddle. Now the wolf's face was a little easier to read though the manner in which it was twisting in a mix of discomfit and dread immediately made Bendy feel as though he had to intervene, whatever was happening.

Reaching up, the devil hesitated only a moment before wrapping his fingers around Boris's arm, nearly drawing away when the wolf gave a small jerk as he snapped out of whatever daze he was in and looked down to the devil.

"You alrigh'?"

"Ye-Yeah, I was just…" Boris trailed off, features darkening with what looked like indecision before catching sight of the door. "I'll tell you later."

The first few steps beyond the doorway were by far the most harrowing, the light from the flashlight taking way too long to illuminate the far wall. And, as it lit up a wall of shifting mechanic parts, Bendy couldn't help but wonder just what Joey had changed in all the years, or what some of these machines were used for. Neither toon dared to speak as they steadily plodded on, though Bendy reached up and found Boris's unoccupied hand. As his fingers wrapped around, the wolf's hand closed, giving the little toon's fingers a light squeeze. And though Bendy knew that if he tried to look up he wouldn't be able to see the wolf's expression, he liked to think it was Boris's way of reassurance.

The mere fact that Bendy wasn't here on his own already made things better by leaps and bounds, keeping his feet steady and his hands from trembling too much. It made him more able to just observe though when corner after corner yielded nothing but moving mechanisms and drips of ink from the ceiling, the little devil couldn't help but wonder where exactly they were that all this was needed. True, he'd never been down here, but he'd also never heard anything about it either, which seemed odd given how big this part was. Not to mention with the presence of a bathroom it seemed stocked for workers…

Turning another corner, the pair ended up in a knoll, and as Boris beamed the light around a shape began to come into visibility next to a doorway. At first, Bendy thought it was just another cutout. Certainly seemed that way from its feet, but as Boris let the light from the flashlight travel higher, the beam illuminated a sign it was holding. Spelled out in big white letters on a black background were the words 'WANDERING IS A TERRIBLE SIN', and both quickly discovered that that wasn't the only difference this cutout had. Panning the light up higher revealed that the normal pie-cut pupils were replaced by a pair of staring eyes with irises and proper whites. The leering smile was still very much the same, though the whole face was further distorted by the presence of inky streaks under the eyes, at the corners of the smile, and running down from its forehead.

Bendy's fingers clamped down tightly on Boris's hand, the wolf squeezing back in response though neither said a word, or seemed at all inclined to look away from the creepy image. Slowly the pair tried to inch their way to the right where the hallway continued, still keeping their light trained on the cutout as though it would suddenly move if left in the dark. It could have been Bendy's imagination, but he thought he could hear something, just faintly as they passed. Like a weird, whispering noise under the sounds of the machinery grinding and clanking away around them. He didn't dare speak to ask Boris if he'd heard it too, instead keeping his mouth shut, feet moving, and tried not to think on it too hard. Eventually though, they did have to point the light forward again so as to see where they were going, the cutout behind the corner by then. However the tension it instilled didn't leave, and as they came to another part of the hall where a light flickeringly illuminated some more machinery, another noise sounding from under the usual hum caused both toons to nearly leap out of their respective skins and dash through down the hallway, the smaller toon's feet practically flying on the floor to keep up. Machine parts, barrels, and other odds and ends flew past as they ran, and though Bendy didn't dare look back he thought he could still hear the whispering noise coming from somewhere behind, perhaps accompanied by quick footsteps, or was it the toons' own echoes crashing in on his ears?

Either way, when they finally dashed into a lit area, with a door slamming closed behind them, both were undeniably more than a little relieved. Though Bendy had the urge to sit down against the wall and catch his breath he didn't dare, instead looking to the also panting wolf standing next to him.

"B-Boris?" He ground out, voice wheezing though whether it was from windedness or terror he couldn't really tell. Very likely both at this point. "You alrigh'?"

"Yeah, 'm fine." The taller toon forced through what sounded like a dry throat, trying to give Bendy a reassuring look. The devil's face almost felt able to return it, before he looked past the wolf and laid eyes on the fact that there was another door on the opposite end of the room, this one also closed tight.

"Oh no."

"What? What is it?" Boris asked, ears perking up as his head turned to see what Bendy had noticed. The little toon walked past, putting his free hand on the door as though that would make a doorknob magically appear but to no avail. As Bendy fruitlessly plugged away, doing everything from looking for a button to pulling at the seam in between the two doors, Boris hung back, eyes surveying the closed door in front to a grate to the left, something starting to form in his mind. Despite the hazier, piecemeal nature, much like the rest of the worrying memories that he had been dealing with since he'd gotten down here, Boris didn't let himself be too bothered with it right now. Not if it could help them get out of here.

Bendy had just made up his mind to try seeing if they could jam the door open with something when the sight of Boris walking from his side to the grate caught his eye. His mouth opened to ask the taller toon what he was doing when Boris gave the metal cover a few tugs, pulling it clear from the vent beyond. Pie-cut eyes fixed on the darkness for a moment before turning to face Bendy, expression calm considering what he was about to do.

"Bendy, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna need the flashlight for a bit."

The devil handed the heavy thing over with no resistance, not quite believing what he was seeing until Boris was starting to ease himself into the vent. The sight snapped the devil out of the daze, and he immediately scurried forward to stand next to the opening.

"B-Boris, wait, I don' think y'should be wanderin' off-!" Bendy tried, leaning warily in to look. Boris couldn't really turn around, but he did try to call back to the devil.

"It's alright, Bendy, I know how t'get it open. Just stay there an' I'll be right back!" The echoing holler was followed by a few more clunks as Boris crawled further forward, the taller toon vanishing into the dark. Swallowing down the thrill of anxiety that the sight brought, Bendy withdrew from the grate and stood back, though he couldn't take his eyes away from the dark space.

And ended up being startled by the grinding noise of the door opening at his right a few minutes later. Bendy stiffened, his tail lashing agitatedly at the sight of the new opening.

Well, that was good, Boris had opened the door. That was a good thing.

Except the wolf hadn't come back yet, and Bendy was growing thoroughly unnerved by that and an image of his own face on the wall at the other end of a short hall beyond the now-open door. Why did Joey have to use that particular image every time? That smile was giving him the creeps…

Still curiosity did beckon Bendy enough to get him to move to the end of the hall, trying to peer around the corners at either side of the self-portrait. What he managed to make out was even more confusing, on one side there was what looked like a doll of himself, but downright enormous. On the other side, a similar doll of Boris sat.

Speaking of which, the sight reminded Bendy of the fact that he still hadn't heard a peep from the taller toon. Quickly backing up, the devil immediately went back to the grate, peering into the darkness to see if he could catch some hint of the wolf. The idea to try climbing in after Boris occurred to the smaller toon, but after remembering the way that Boris had had to hunch down just to fit he decided against it. No need to do something that would very likely get them both stuck…

"Boris?" Bendy called cautiously into the dark, listening closely for something, anything, that might tell him whether or not the wolf was alright. However, as Bendy listened, he picked up another noise coming from somewhere in the room beyond. Like…someone humming?

Though Bendy could place neither the tune nor the person behind it, there was something very familiar about the voice. Familiar enough that the little devil found himself venturing beyond the open doorway, quietly walking out through the small hallway and gaping as he found himself in a massive room. The ceiling seemed almost endless after the claustrophobic suffocation of the hallways he'd already traveled through, the feeling only heightened by the presence of both the giant pair of Bendy and Boris dolls, as well as planes hanging from the ceiling. He could see another, slightly smaller but still very massive Bendy doll sitting on the edge of what looked like some kind of fountain with the label 'Heavenly Toys' placed over where there would normally be water dripping down, except the water was ink and that ruined some of Bendy's mild awe at seeing the place.

Still, he definitely knew that there hadn't been anything like this thirty years ago. If there had been, he'd have heard about it at the very least, right? If not from Joey, then maybe one of the staff mentioning it to the others surely. He would have heard something…

Actually, now that the devil was out in the open, he realized that there was no sign as to who had been making the humming noise, what looked like a catwalk behind the fountain appearing completely bare of anyone, or anything, which seemed pretty much the same for the rest of the cavernous room. Looking to the side, Bendy abruptly caught sight of another one of those 'Little Miracle Station' booths, frowning a little at it before he moved a little closer to the gated pathway in the middle leading down the center of the room. He'd deal with that in a moment, but right now, he was stuck between trying to listen to see if he could figure out where the humming had been coming from, and going back to make sure Boris had gotten out of the vent okay. Was it his imagination or was the sound still there, hidden under the grind of machinery and the bubbling of the ink as it gushed down the fountain?

Maybe whoever it was had moved away from the room?

Bendy's unsure but curious path led him down the center of the walkway as he strained his ears, his eyes lighting on the enormous Boris doll with a somewhat bittersweet smile spreading across his face as something occurred to him. Looked like, despite what the devil had thought earlier, the wolf did end up getting a toy made of him; production just never got off the ground.

A sudden squeak from under his foot caused the thought to cut off, Bendy nearly jolting out of his skin before he realized where the noise had come from. He'd stepped on another doll lying on the floor. At first, Bendy just thought it looked a little strange, before he picked it up and got a closer look at it, discovering that it's head was missing. What was even more subtly alarming, was who the doll looked like.

It was Alice Angel. At least, he thought so. The little black dress and shoes seemed like a big enough give away given that as far as Bendy knew, there was no one else it could be. And though Bendy could say he was somewhat glad Alice got her own doll, the state he'd found it in was more than enough to unnerve him.

Wait, the humming earlier…it sounded feminine, could it have been…?

"Alice…?" Bendy practically breathed, unwilling to push his voice to be any louder even as his feet moved to take the stairs. The catwalk behind the fountain was empty, but the presence of a door at least gave him a direction, even if the cables running across the floor from a switch were more than a little ominous. Peering around from the doorway, the devil caught sight of more machines in a room at the end of a short hall, though these weren't running. Across the room, Bendy noticed shelves, stocked with what looked like toys. Padding cautiously in, the little devil poked about through the room dominated by giant machines and a worktable, taking note of some spaces behind the shelves. However, from the way they were positioned, he couldn't simply slide through to them, and for a moment Bendy was stumped. Stumped, but not stopped.

The toon devil carefully walked about the room looking at the still wheels of the machines, eyes finally lighting on a switch attached to one that the cables from outside ran into. Maybe, that could be helpful…

Going back out to the catwalk Bendy found the lever the cables connected to, gingerly tugging the old mechanism down into the 'on' position and scurrying back to the workroom. He was instantly met with a dull but prevalent grinding noise, freezing for a moment before he realized it was coming from the giant wheels on the machines. The fact that they were even making sound at all was harrowing enough, the idea that it might attract something nearly causing Bendy to run back out to flip the lever back before he noticed something in the wheel next to the switch. A toy plane, jammed into the space between the belt and the wheel. On a whim Bendy quickly reached in and pulled it out, the grinding noise lessening as the wheel began to move unhindered.

Upon examining the rest of the wheels, he found there were toys shoved into all of them in one way or another. Wincing a little, Bendy managed to extricate another decapitated Alice, the leg of an Alice doll, and a head from one of the Boris dolls, even resorting to nudging them out with the pipe if they were out of his immediate reach. Though the sight of his pals mangled, even in doll form, caused a squeezing sensation to grip Bendy's insides he kept his expression calm and instead tried to focus on the quiet hum of the fixed toy machines. Nothing had happened, everything was mostly fine, he was fine, Boris was-.

Oh no he forgot about Boris.

The thought rushed Bendy back down the catwalk, through the giant toy room and back to the grate, still worryingly empty. Kneeling and peering into the dark, the little devil's pie-cut eyes fruitlessly tried to see some sign of the wolf crawling back through, but found nothing.

"Boris?!" Bendy shouted, the hollow echo of the grate the only thing answering back. "Answer me, please pal! You there?!"

Still nothing, and the smaller toon's anxiety was starting to go through the roof. Where was Boris, was he hurt, what if he was dead not again not again this is all your fault-.

Bendy paused, head turning back to the vent and noting the way it led off into the dark. He, he was overreacting. Maybe Boris couldn't come back this way. Maybe there was another opening somewhere that the wolf had had to go to, Bendy just had to find it!

Emboldened by the idea, the toon devil tried to race back up to the workshop as quietly as possible, peering about for a moment before remembering the switch. The first tug didn't reveal a door, but it did open up to an odd little knoll, in which was a desk and another tape deck. Even though the urge to find another vent, to find Boris, was still very much present in Bendy's mind, he still hurried over to give the thing a listen. Who knows, it might tell him something useful…

"I don't be seein' what the big deal is. So what if I went and painted some of those Bendy dolls with a crooked smile? That's sure no reason for Mr. Drew to be flyin' off the handle at me. And if he really wants to be so helpful, he could be tellin' me what I'm to be doin' with this warehouse I got full of that angel whatchamacallit. Not a scrap of that mess be a-sellin'! Probably have to melt it all down to be rid of it all…"

The voice that came on was accented, lively, but no one Bendy remembered, that along with the content immediately throwing him off somewhat. However, once the tape had clicked off, his thoughts began to spin into conjectures, his widow's peak furrowing as he tried to think. He didn't know who that was, honestly had no idea how his own dolls were made when he was here, though Bendy could say he was familiar with Joey's…habits regarding perfection on things. More so than he'd like.

To be honest, it wouldn't have really gotten to him if some of the dolls were painted wrong. It might have looked like him, but given that he was sure if the man, the toymaker, had been painting toys all day then it seemed all the more likely that some were going to be a little different as things wore on. And he was right, really, so what if they did? Some kid would still get a doll at the end of the day, which is what they were meant for, right?

…Right?

Shoving the thoughts away, Bendy was about to leave, before he looked a little to the side and noticed that there was a dish with what looked like a pulsating little blob in the shape of a Bendy doll. He only realized it was ink when he reached out a hand to it, the brief touch causing the shape to jump and shift into another, this time the doll of Alice. Alright, unnerving, but seemingly harmless, Bendy thought as he glanced about before tapping it again, this time creating a small Boris doll. He had no idea how toys were supposed to be made, but he was pretty sure this wasn't it…

Inadvertently he ended up giving the thing another tap, the new shape that sprung up a fair bit different from the ones before. It took Bendy a while before he was able to identify precisely what he was seeing, though what he'd at first thought was a trunk, he came to recognize as a nozzle.

The ink machine. He was staring at a miniaturized version of the ink machine.

Reflexively, the devil reached up and gave the blob another tap, a little relieved when the familiar image of a Bendy doll leapt into existence. However, the sight had been more than enough to make the toon leave the workstation alone, moving back to the switch again and giving it another tug. This time, as the shelves slid by, the gap opened up a small hallway that led to a closed door. Both hopeful and dreading, the little devil crept over, hesitating only a moment before letting his fingers close on the knob. The room inside appeared to be another dead end, though for the moment the observation was put on a temporary backburner as he stared from poster to poster and crate to crate, seemingly full of merchandise depicting Alice Angel. There was even a shelf of dolls on the other side of the room…

'He could be tellin' me what I'm to be doin' with this warehouse I got full of that angel whatchamacallit. Not a scrap of that mess be a-sellin'…'

It was one thing to hear it, another to have it hit him in the face like this. Part of Bendy couldn't help but feel a bit of sadness for the angel. Despite them not getting along initially, mostly due to antics on his part, he never wanted her to…be forgotten, tucked away in some dark corner of a dingy little room like this. However this didn't really look like a storeroom, more like some sort of showroom, with a stage made from a frame painted to look like a television set and opening up on what looked like a dressing room. On the other side a door with a halo-wearing star sat, the room almost forlorn in its abandonment like a decrypt playground or empty family home.

Though the thought was sobering, Bendy knew he couldn't stay here long. If Boris was somewhere ahead, then the toon devil needed to get to him as quickly as possible. Bad enough they were separated in here, it would be even worse if he let it continue any longer than he had to. Catching sight of a door on the left wall in front, Bendy gave a sigh, squared his shoulders and levied the pipe over one as he began walking towards it. Then the lights turned off, the click-induced plunge into darkness nearly making the small toon leap out of his skin. Just as quickly, the TVs all around the room clicked on, all with an image of the resident angel's face showing as a song started to play. The sound was tinny, the words a little hard to make out at first, but Bendy could place them pretty quick. He'd heard Alice practicing this a dozen times or so before her big debut, he could remember reassuring the angel that she was gonna be great at the song…

"I'm the cutest little angel, sent from above, and I know just how to swing.

I got a bright little halo, and I'm filled with love…

I'm Alice Angel!"

Looking around, Bendy realized with a start that the door had closed behind him, effectively trapping him in the room. Dread turned to outright fear when he realized it was locked. Dashing over to the other door, he found that it was in the same state as the first.

"I'm the hit of the party, I'm the belle of the ball, I'm the toast of every town.

Just one little dance, and I'll warm your heart…

I'm Alice Angel!"

Ink was starting to drip down Bendy's face as he pulled frantically at the knob, the metal unyielding against his shaking fingers. His tail lashed as he spun around, dashing to the first door and pulling again as though it might release him with enough force but it held firm. The click of the light inside the stage across the room did give him some more light to see, but the fact that it happened at all just caused the little toon's pulse to reach a new tempo in his building panic.

"I ain't no flapper, I'm a classy ditch, and boy, can this girl sing!

This gal can grant your every wish…"

And with a crash, something slammed into the window of the TV, Bendy freezing in fright as he took in the look of the newcomer. It was almost like someone had taken the softer, more approachable features of the angel and twisted them into something older, with the entire left side of the face looking like a melted wax doll or a leering skull, it's one bright yellow eye glinting as it stared at the terrified toon across the room. Its features warped in a snarl as it shouted, voice a mix of shrieking feminine tones and something much darker, the lights flickering wildly.

"I'M ALICE ANGEL!"

The lights went out just as a crash of broken glass echoed throughout the room, leaving Bendy stiff as a board against the door as he listened to the maniacal laughter echoing off the walls. His jaws forced themselves apart as a cry of terror finally escaped from his lungs, his shaking frame hunching down to protect itself as the pipe lifted against an attack he knew had to be coming.

But eventually, the laughter began to die down, the silence following almost worse, because really, what could come next once she was done laughing but him getting pulverized or something equally gruesome?

"I see you there." Well if that was exactly what he didn't want to hear. But she was hardly done. "A new fly in my endless web. Come, let's see if you're worthy to walk with angels."

And the lights came back on, the door flying open behind him. Bendy didn't waste a moment, despite the newcomer having apparently gone, and bolted back through the workshop.

---

Boris pulled himself from the vent, stretching to alleviate the tension cramping up his arms and legs. For a moment, the wolf was completely content being out in a place where he could properly move, though that feeling tampered down somewhat when he realized that Bendy was gone. A bolt of panic started to flare in Boris's chest, carrying him through the open doorway at a quick walk and then a run as his ears caught a faint myriad of sounds up ahead, one of which sounded like a scream.

Though the sight of the enormous toys of both himself and Bendy did cause Boris to stare he didn't stop moving, dashing down the center aisle and taking the right staircase, coming up to the catwalk just in time for Bendy to crash into his legs and make him drop the flashlight as the rest of him followed suit. The pair landed on the metal in a heap, Boris recovering first to sit up with a worried, irritable snarl.

"Bendy, I told you t'stay in the-!" The anger died almost immediately as it arrived, once the wolf noticed that Bendy was shaking like a leaf in a wind tunnel, the devil's mouth forming words but with no sound to give them voice. They passed through one right after the other, too fast for Boris to even have a hope of reading them even without the dribbling ink starting to make its way down Bendy's face from his browline. Once the devil realized who he'd run into, he started grabbing at the taller toon's hands, small fingers trying to wrap around the both of them while he pointed back at the workshop and the showroom with a shaking finger.

"Bendy wha- is somethin' back there?" The wolf asked before noticing that the smaller toon was starting to hyperventilate in his panic as well as try very hard to pull Boris back towards the stairs. Not sparing a moment to speak, the wolf simply hefted Bendy up before dashing away, nearly halfway through the room when he caught sight of a familiar-looking booth in between the two doors leading back to the hall. Making a snap decision, Boris skidded to a halt, trying to open the door and get himself and Bendy inside with as much quiet haste as possible. Settling down on the bench, Boris tried to calm both himself and Bendy down. The devil had gone quiet, seeming to take a conscious effort to steady out his breathing though the shakes hadn't quite dissipated. Not really knowing what else to do, the taller toon simply kept his arms wrapped around the smaller frame, a hand rubbing up and down over the upper part of Bendy's spine.

"Boris…" Bendy whispered, voice trying for steady but falling a little short. Taking the brief squeeze in the hug, the devil continued. "I-I saw…I saw…"

"'m listenin', Ben. What'd you see?" Boris asked, after the silence had dragged on for more than half a minute. The wolf could feel the devil's frame renew its trembling, shoulders tensing under the coat. "It's alright, Bendy. I'm here, it's alright."

"A-Alice…" The devil said, voice wet and strangled. "I-I saw…Alice…"

The mention of the name caused Boris to stiffen, a strange blend of emotions running through his mind before he was able to speak. Alice…invoked concern, anticipation, hope, but also…dread. Lots of dread. The wolf didn't let himself think on it too deeply, more worried about Bendy and quite possibly Alice for the time being.

"You saw Alice. Alright that's, that's good-."

But Bendy was shaking his head, pulling back to look Boris in the eye. The devil looked absolutely wretched, tear tracks just barely dry as the smaller frame tensed tighter than a drum.

"No, no, B-Boris, it was…she was…she wasn' alright, she was wrong, everythin's wrong, she just, screamin' an' talkin' not like herself an'…it's m-my fault…" Bendy's hands had come up to clench against his head, pressing against the inky skin as the shaking renewed. Boris watched the motions with growing alarm, finally rewrapping the smaller toon in a grounding squeeze against his chest.

"Bendy, don'…don' say that, it's not your fault, b-bu' what were y'talkin' about? What happened to Alice?"

"Sh-She looked, different, Boris." Was all the smaller toon could get out at first, before managing to take a couple deep breaths.

"She didn'…look like us no more, didn' look like a toon, she l-looked like a…like a…" Boris almost opened his mouth to speak, to nearly demand the rest of the explanation from Bendy but the fact that the smaller toon was shaking so much, and sounded close to breaking down again made the wolf decide to wait.

"Sh-She looked like a, like a human, 'r a statue but not p-put t'gether righ'… Her face, Boris, it was all…" The motion Bendy made took a moment for Boris to figure out, the devil shakily pulling at one side of his face as his eyes stared anxiously up at the wolf, imploring for him to understand.

Not that Boris really knew what to say about that. Though Bendy looked like he'd definitely seen something terrifying, the wolf had a hard time even imagining what was being described. Alice, but human, or statuelike, but all messed up?

It, sounded almost too strange to be believed, except…

…groaning through half-lidded eyes, pain reverberating through his body has he stared up at a singular glowing eye looking down at him from above, a faint warped giggle accompanying his slide into darkness…

Boris shoved the strange reverie aside, catching sight of the horror ebbing away in the face of confusion in Bendy's expression right before the wolf swept him up in a hug.

"Boris…?" The smaller toon asked, voice growing steadier but still overladen with concern. "Is, is everythin' okay? Well, I mean, are you okay, y'kinda…didn't look it for a minute there…"

No response, and Bendy spoke up again.

"Was, was it because of what I said? With Alice? I'm sorry, I didn' mean t'scare…I mean, I jus'…"

"'s alright, Bendy, it wasn't that, I jus', I've…I dunno…"

Well, he probably would need to say something about it at some point, and Bendy and him, they'd never really kept secrets from each other before now, not really. Not to mention, this was kind of scary for the wolf so even with the thought that he was burdening Bendy unnecessarily, he took a deep breath and started talking, trying to figure things out as they went.

"I've been, I've been kind of…rememberin' some things, but they don' feel like memories…Like, I knew where everythin' was in the safe house, I knew how everythin' worked, an'…it's like I know this place but I don', I've never been down here!" Realizing how loud he had gotten, Boris immediately quieted down, both toons tensing a little as they listened for any noise outside of the booth. The wolf even peered through a small slat in the door, seeing nothing that would herald any impending danger.

"I dunno exactly what else is down here, but we gotta go. Soon as we can." Boris murmured, looking back down just in time to see Bendy nod in agreement.

"Sure not gonna argue with you on that, pal. Look, I dunno what's goin' on either, bu' y'know I've got your back, right?"

"An' I got yours, cause that's what pals do." Boris finished, a quiet, relieved smile spreading across his face. The grin turned a touch mischievous as he added: "Provided you're not runnin' off again."

"Hey, trust me, think it's better if we stick t'gether from now on so I won' be goin' anywhere. No worries there." Boris's smile grew wider at the reply from Bendy, a hand coming up to tousle the devil's nonexistent hair. Both sat in companionable silence for a moment, before they looked at each other, coming to the quiet conclusion that they couldn't stay here. Not much longer, at any rate.

Boris reached out, pushing the door open as he peered about, both toons easing themselves out of the booth with care. However, nothing in the cavernous room was out of place so they quickly made their way to the stairs and back to the catwalk, finding the now-dented flashlight where Boris had dropped it. Picking it up, the wolf gave the switch a try, finding that it still worked with a slight bit of flickering to the light before he turned it off.

However, now there was nowhere left to go but forward, and Bendy pressed a little closer to the taller toon's side as they went through the workshop and to the door of the showroom. It was still the same as Bendy had left it, broken window and abandoned crates and posters aside. Boris looked around at everything, quiet dejection starting to seep into his expression at the sight of the old ink-stained posters and abandoned toys. Bendy couldn't quite shake the dread that was seeping through his frame, eyes turning from one thing to another as though the nightmarish being from before would suddenly make a reappearance. But, even though there was no return performance, the door that Bendy had seen across the room was now open, leading into what seemed like a hallway. Boris allowed himself to be pulled with little to no resistance, but that didn't stop him from passing a sad look around at the empty room before leaving.

The hall went for a few turns, before forking into two paths, in between which was a sign. One pointed to the left, reading 'THE DEMON', the other pointed right reading 'THE ANGEL'. The sight made both stop, staring from both the signs to their respective hallways with mild confusion and trepidation.

"D'ya think they go t'different places?" Bendy murmured aloud, glancing up at Boris to see the wolf's head tilt, ears following the motion as the taller toon squinted at the signs. The wolf looked down at Bendy following his question, giving considering glances to both hallways.

"'m not sure. Maybe we should try both?"

Though Bendy was a little loath to try it, he had to admit that checking both was probably smarter…however…

"Alright, but let's not go that far in. Jus' check t'see if we can tell where its goin'." The devil took another moment before trying to outline a plan. "I'll take the left, you get the right?"

"Sure thing." Boris replied, moving away from Bendy to the indicated door, the smaller toon waiting a moment before moving towards the left hall. He'd barely gotten to it when he heard what sounded like a door slamming shut, and a muffled, familiar yelp.

"Boris?!"

"Bendy!" The wolf's voice was faint, accompanied by banging. Running back out, the devil saw that a door had closed over the entrance to the other hall, presumably with Boris on the other side. Bendy dashed to the door, banging on the metal for a moment before trying to lift it from the bottom. From the clanging coming from the other side, Boris was trying to do the same, but neither was making any headway.

"Boris?" Bendy called through the door. "It's not moving, just keep goin' through. We'll try t'meet up, alright?"

"Okay." The wolf answered back through the door, after which Bendy hurried down to the other hall and tried to rush on through. Tried being the operative word, given than he immediately walked smack into a room that was flooded by ink, with furniture such a drawing desk and a few chairs strewn about. Across the room, staring at him with its usual leering grin, was another cutout.

With a deep, hissing sigh through his teeth, Bendy started to walk through, somewhat relieved that the stuff didn't go past his knees. However, as the smaller toon tried to go on his way with as little grimacing as possible, he caught sight of an ink-stained chair, on which was perched a cassette deck. Despite the fact that the feeling of ink flooding his shoes was more than a little uncomfortable, curiosity beckoned just enough for Bendy to shuffle a little to the left and give the tape a listen.

"There's nothing wrong with dreaming. Wishing for the impossible is just human nature. That's how I got started. Just a pencil and a dream. We all want everything without having to lift a finger. They say you just have to believe. Belief can make you succeed. Belief can make you rich. Belief can make you powerful. Why with enough belief, you can even cheat death itself. Now that…is a beautiful, and positively silly thought."

Bendy stared as the sound cut, eyes aimed in the direction of the tapedeck even as his mind went so much further back. That voice was one he'd been familiar with since the day he was made, and though Joey had been sort of on his mind when coming back here the events of the past while had pushed his creator to the back of Bendy's thoughts. Hearing that speech, with that voice, was starting to bring everything back to the forefront. The times Joey would sit him down with a book to get him to read or talk about this or that with either the studio or something else. Like the time when Joey told him about how there were pictures in the sky, or how people would make up stories regarding just about anything. He'd talked about snippets of all kinds of names, from weird ones like Orion to normalish ones like Arthur. Joey had never really explained very much, apart from saying things like Orion was a great hunter and Arthur was a king, but the way the man had talked about them had lit curious little fires in the toon's mind, and though his questions had gone to Henry eventually, he didn't really remember what the explanation was that the other man had offered. Joey hadn't been bad, really, but…

"Now, can I rely on you to behave, or are you going to make me have to turn to other measures Bendy? It's your call."

Thirty years later and the memory of two jars of colored ink, green and yellow, sitting on a stately wooden desk still pricked at Bendy's memory. He never remembered disagreeing with Joey, his creator had a way of making sense on a lot of things. But the small toon could definitely remember feeling smaller between the pair of colored inkwells, and the quiet, considering stare the studio head had leveled at him from across the desk. Even still, it hit the toon devil like a train that this was the first time he'd heard anything from his creator in thirty years, and after everything he'd come back to-.

Bendy shook his head, sighing and shoving the quiet forlorn thought away into some corner of his mind. He couldn't do this right now, he needed to find Boris. The toon wolf was his main concern.

Joey would, he'd figure out Joey, at a later date. Right now, Boris needed him more, the thought pushing its way higher onto Bendy's mental ledger as he remembered a prone, tall form on a slab, and gasping wheezes of air as eyes stared forward but didn't seem to see anything in front of them. He didn't run, but there was a new quickness to his movements as he went to the end of the room, pulling himself out of the ink and walking onward with the pipe held at the ready. Resolutely ignoring any emotional reaction he might have had at the sight of an oversized image of his face plastered to the wall, Bendy did his best to shake the excess ink off his shoes and legs, heading to a door and hurriedly pulling it open to continue on.

---

Boris wanted to move, really, and knew somehow that staying still was a terrible idea even with his current situation, but something about the room he found himself in kept him from simply walking onward. The manner in which everything was set up felt almost, memorial-like. Like if he bumped something over by accident there would be hell to pay from some faceless person who would step out of the shadows at just the wrong moment. It was reminding him uncomfortably of Joey, who always seemed to know when something was going wrong in the studio, and had a very uncanny habit of knowing when something dishonest was happening behind his back. Though, Boris almost wished for something like the book and corner incident now, at least then, things were simpler, he knew where he stood…

…and Joey didn't cut-.

Stop thinking. Please don't think.

Casting about for something to distract his mind, anything to keep from thinking of his creator and all that entailed, Boris caught sight of writing on the far wall, down what looked like a hallway. Shifting so he could properly see, the wolf read slowly, piecing together each letter.

D-R-E-A-M-S, dreams, C-O-M-E, come, T-R-U-E, true.

DREAMS COME TRUE.

Something about the phrase seemed to stir some of those ominous precognitions into a ready whirlwind which sat at the edges of the taller toon's mind, more than ready for him to pay it some attention. Though for the moment Boris simply opted to walk past it, and up to what looked like a couch, bookcase, coat-rack, and an Alice cutout. If it weren't for the presence of a candle, Alice doll, and tape-deck set up on the couch rehammering in the feeling that he shouldn't be in here, it would almost be homey. However, he remembered the recording from Thomas Connor, and curiosity tugged at the wolf just enough to cajole him into pressing the play button.

"Everything feels like it's coming apart. When I walked into the recording rooms today, Sammy was there with that…Allison. Apparently, I didn't get the memo. Apparently, Alice Angel will now be voiced by Miss Allison Pendle. A part of me died when he said that. There's gotta be a way to fix this!"

Even in the first few words, Boris had placed the woman speaking. Susie Campbell, a voice actress, one of their best, Sammy had said. But what she was saying, he didn't remember her being replaced, unless it was during those days immediately after Bendy ran away…

Granted, everything had been crazy during those weeks, with Boris meeting Henry at the door only to be regretfully told again and again that no, he hadn't found Bendy yet. The wolf often hadn't slept well, with no news leading into hazy, distracted days. True, he was still down in the music department, but when Bendy'd left he'd stopped talking to everyone down there. Except Sammy, of course, but the music director was usually pretty busy. Maybe he'd seemed more stressed, but the same could have been said of Henry, Alice, himself, heck even Wally's mood seemed to drag with the fate of Bendy up in the air. The only person who carried on as they always had, with no outward change in mood was-.

Boris's shoulders drew in, ears lowering as his tail tucked in at the very thought of the name. Joey. Joey barely changed. Henry did tell him what had happened with Bendy, but from what Boris saw, Joey didn't…care. He didn't go out to look with Henry and occasionally Sammy, didn't change one bit of his routine or behavior, and maybe asked once if Bendy had been found.

Back then, Boris had just figured that maybe Joey was looking in his own way, just doing it on his own and not telling anyone, and continued helping his creator with whatever he asked, and then he'd gone and just-.

The wolf forcibly cut the thought off, drawn back into reality by the fact that one of his hands had come up and fisted itself in the fur on his chest, pulling uncomfortably at the inky strands. A faint wheeze had also started to build in the taller toon's throat, causing Boris to take a moment to just breathe.

He didn't have time for this, standing here. He needed to go and find Bendy. Given how things had gone the last time they'd been separated, the wolf wasn't willing to risk something else happening to the toon devil. He moved on, putting Susie, Joey, and those tumultuous days at the studio out of his mind as he caught sight of a door at the end of the knoll. Though he kept his steps light, Boris hurried to give the knob a firm twist before rushing through, and nearly smacking someone with the door judging from the noise of quickly retreating footsteps in the hall beyond.

For a terrifying moment, Boris had no idea what had made the sound, and his grip tightened on both the flashlight and the doorknob in case he needed to duck back inside. Then he looked down and caught sight of Bendy with his back pressed to a door on the opposite end of the room, pipe upraised as the smaller toon's features twisted in equal fright. Then the pair recognized each other, running from their respective refuges to meet in the middle with dizzyingly happy relief.

"Ben, I'm sorry, I didn't mean t'getcha with the door-."

"Boris, are you-?"

"-why're y'covered in ink?!"

"The room was flooded, nevermind me, are you-?"

It took the pair a few seconds to realize that they were effectively talking over each other, though when the thought occurred to them both toons let off speaking, a twin pair of sheepish smiles taking the place of words for a moment.

"Sorry, Bendy."

"'sokay, Boris. Jus'…" The devil replied, taking a second to steady himself before continuing. "…y'are okay, right?"

"Yeah, it was, well, fine. Nobody was in there. Just…" The hesitation in the wolf's face was enough for some of the earlier light mood to drain from Bendy, the devil trying to read into Boris's expression to see if he could get some hint of what was coming.

"…What did y'see when you were goin' through?" The taller toon asked, the question throwing the devil off for a moment before he found an answer.

"Jus' a lotta ink, desks, some chairs, an'-." Bendy nearly divulged on the presence of the tape deck, and what was on it, before realizing that the recording might create more problems for the both of them and clamped his mouth closed with a click of his teeth.

"Bendy?" Boris asked, both befuddled and a little worried by the sudden silence.

"It's…it's nothin', look, let's keep movin'. We still need t'find a way out." The smaller toon tried to redirect the conversation, even moving down the corridor that the pair had found themselves in just to get away from it. Upon glancing back for a second and noticing that the nervous, worried look hadn't quite slipped off the wolf's muzzle, Bendy slowed his pace. As they rounded the corner, Boris spoke up again, voice more than a little hesitant.

"It's just…nothin' attacked me but I walked into a room that felt like…like J-Joey's office, remember? How he didn't wan' us touchin' the books an' had lit candles everywhere?"

"Yeah, I remember." Bendy murmured back, gaze flicking to another 'Miracle Station' booth as they walked past it. Though questions as to why these things were around were popping up in the devil's mind, his main concern was for Boris. He certainly hadn't missed the way the wolf's voice warbled when saying Joey's name. Guess they were bringing up their missing creator after all…

"E-Except, it had Alice stuff, like a doll, an' a cutout with her on in instead'a you. An' there was one of those, tape decks. It had a message on it from Susie."

"Oh." Was all Bendy could really say to that, his memory of the employees not great enough to be able to pick out any specifics in regards to the name. At the end of the hall was a metallic panel with a light shining at the top, looking somewhat like an electrical box. Still, it wasn't sparking or making noise, so Bendy didn't pay it much thought. The next corner that the pair turned put the somewhat silted conversation on hold for a few moments, as the hallway took a decidedly more eerie turn with the presence of what looked like a cloud of mist hanging in the air. Squinting, Bendy tried to pick out what was beyond it, or if whatever that was would be coming through to meet them.

Near as he could tell, though, there was nothing there but more hall, at the end of which was a closed door. The pair remained silent as they walked through, the change of tone dialing up the tension in their ink-compose frames. Stopping in front of the door, both hesitated before Bendy reached out to the knob, turning it with quiet carefulness as he lightly pushed the door open. The room beyond seemed like a dead end at first, before Bendy noticed what looked like another hallway on the left.

However, as both toons stepped over the threshold of the door, the sudden appearance of a cutout popping out to look around the corner made the tension snap like a frayed rope. Bendy knew he had jumped, and judging from the gasp coming from behind him he was pretty sure Boris had done the same. He didn't dare risk looking away to check, raising the pipe in his hands and cutting a wide arc to look down the hall to see if there was anything else lying in wait for them. The first thing that Bendy discovered was that the 'hall' was a lot shorter than he thought it'd be, the presence of a door making that nervous energy from before build in his frame again. It wasn't helped by the fact that the cutout was just leaning innocently against the wall as though it had never moved to begin with.

"Don' care if y'look like me, I'll smack you with th' pipe. I'll do it." He hissed, taking a few steps closer as he made ready to go through the next door. Bendy could hear Boris's heavier footsteps right behind him, though he still glanced back at the wolf as his hand closed around the knob.

"Right behind you, Bendy." Boris whispered, holding the flashlight like he might throw it at the next thing that tried to jump out at them. Which, Bendy ruminated, was probably a decent plan, given that he knew from experience that the thing could be pretty heavy. Passing a wane grin to the taller toon, the devil faced forward again, and opened the door.

The room beyond was certainly bigger, but the presence of ink splattered liberally over the floors just didn't seem like a good sign no matter how either of them looked at it. The ramshackle shelves seemed slightly less ominous, though Bendy could say for certain that he didn't like how it made it hard to see if there was anyone else in the room. Overall, the place seemed like a storage room for toys, as the presence of Boris, Alice, and Bendy dolls scattered about implied. Albeit, it seemed to split into two ends, with one going off to the left of the door and the other continuing forward. And this was where Bendy was really starting to dislike those shelves again because it was making it hard to see if there was another door about somewhere. It didn't necessarily help that the quiet that the rest of the studio was dominated by had been replaced by the rhythmic ticking of a row of Bendy clocks on the far wall.

"Guess we gotta split up again." The devil remarked, keeping his voice down as he looked back to Boris just in time to see the wolf quietly follow him over the landing, carefully closing the door behind him with a glance to the cutout still against the wall. At Bendy's comment, the taller toon looked up, having not quite heard what was said.

"Huh?"

"We'll need t'split up to look for a door. I can't tell which way we gotta go."

Boris hesitated, expression pinching in what looked like disagreement as his hands clasped the handle of the flashlight with silent pressure.

"I-I don' think…I mean…"

"Alright, pal, we don' gotta split up." Bendy said, cutting the dilemma short. Of course Boris wouldn't want to split up, look at what ended up happening last time, how could you be so stupid-.

Biting down on the mental trainwreck before it could continue, the devil tried to flash the wolf a reassuring look, doing his damnedest to smooth over the earlier upset. Not that Boris really showed much of one once Bendy had nixed the idea, the taller frame noticeably relaxing once it became clear they weren't about to run the risk of being separated again. The pair agreed to try the left first, though apart from a bit of hope with an almost corridor, there was nothing really of note. Just more shelves and more toys.

"Y'know, I think this one is about as big as you." Boris suddenly said, pointing out a larger Bendy doll leaning up against the wall. Glancing at the doll in question, the devil gave the wolf an exaggerated pointed stare. Boris's response was to give Bendy an utterly innocent smile back, right before deciding to add to the earlier observation.

"Look, yer practically twins!"

"I know I'm short, Boris, y'don' gotta rub it in." The smaller toon ground out, widow's peak a flat line over his eyes as he stared ahead. His eyes caught sight of what looked like some kind of plumbing thing on the wall as the pair made their way back through to the entrance to the room. Three tubes with a wheel underneath each, and some kind of panel on the wall, the door to which was opened to an empty metallic nook. Each tube was made of glass, though it was so cloudy it was hard to tell if the substance inside was water or ink. Probably the latter, all things considered. There was also a marked dot on each tube at about the middle, which the liquid inside matched in level.

"Hey, Boris, what're those?"

The wolf turned to look, though Bendy could see no dawning comprehension at the sight of the mechanism.

"Uh, not sure, looks like a valve for somethin'…"

"Maybe it broke, an' that's why there's ink everywhere." The devil thought aloud, Boris giving a nod at the observation.

"Maybe."

The pair moved on, finding another door at the end of the toy room past the wall that the clocks were oriented on. Bendy was somewhat relieved to leave the grating noise behind, though the next hall led the pair straight into another problem. It didn't take them long to find another door, albeit this one was closed with what looked like something similar to the mechanism that Bendy had seen before getting into the music department. Thankfully this one was much more obvious than hunting around some rooms for buttons, with cables on the floor leading to a box with a lever, and another set leading off down the hall.

What was occupying Bendy a little bit more at the moment was the presence of an enormous statue sitting at the end of the hall next to the lever box. It was a three-dimensional image in the same likeness of the cutouts, propped up on a pedestal and all lit up just so there could be no mistaking who it was supposed to be depicting. For a moment, all the toon devil could do was stare at the sculpture, a sudden memory of what Sammy had told him reverberating like thunder through his mind.

We your servants have long awaited your return…Your sheep, my lord, have long since been awaiting your return, for you to set us free from this prison…

And now, with a real, physical monolith to that sitting in front of him, the small devil felt the walls were closing in around him, the harsh freedom of the outside seeming so far away. He could remember the monsters he'd seen, the pleas the half-formed torsos of ink had made to him, Sammy, the thing in the jar, Boris's mangled body, the complete lack of Alice and Henry, the strange gaps in his memory that he'd never noticed somehow, it all rushed back and crashed down, making him feel so small and horribly adrift in this place that was home but wasn't. It was all so horribly wrong, and one way or another, it all came back to him, to this ideal that he was supposed to become no matter how much he dug in his heels.

Lost as he was, Bendy almost didn't notice how Boris too had stopped with the devil, also looking up at the statue with worried incomprehension. However when the wolf looked from the apparent monument to the real-life version standing next to him and noticed the distant, worn, and upset stare the devil was aiming at the statue, a few trickles of ink running down from his brow, Boris immediately reached out to the smaller toon.

"Bendy…?" Boris asked, the devil whirling from the statue to look up at the taller toon. Distantly he noticed the concern forming on the canine muzzle, though it didn't occur to him for a few minutes that it was being made over him.

"Bendy, are you alright?" The wolf murmured, kneeling to be more on the smaller toon's level. More automatically than anything, Boris pulled the devil into a side-hug, downright relieved when Bendy gave a deep breath and let his head rest on the wolf's broad shoulder. After a few moments of silence, the small toon gave a nod, croakily speaking up.

"Yeah, 'm alright." Almost as though he were trying to prove it, Bendy pushed himself upright, pointedly not looking at the statue as his gaze fixed on the cables running along the floor.

"W-We'll need-There's prob'ly another switch down that way. We'll jus'-." Perceptiveness aside, Bendy's attempt at flicking the switch next to them was met with failure, the lever simply sliding back into the off position. Both toons stared at it for a few seconds before Bendy let out a heavy sigh, Boris already having a sneaking suspicion regarding what the devil was going to say right before he said it.

"Think they might need t'be flipped at th' same time. You take this one an' I'll find the other one."

Which meant that Bendy had to go and follow the other cable to wherever that went, taking him down the hall. Though the odd reveries from before still unnerved Boris, he quickly strained to remember if he had any memories pertaining to this area at all that would hint at what to expect. But nothing came to mind, and though part of him wanted to protest, Boris also knew that Bendy likely wanted to be out of this room as quickly as possible. So he simply nodded, going to stand next to the lever.

"I'll yell when I found th' other one, that way we'll both know when t'throw 'em." Bendy offered, walking up the hall with a hurried step. Boris watched him go, before passing a glance back to the grinning statue. Though the cutouts did startle him, they didn't feel quite so big and menacing as this statue did, something about it just setting off an alarm in the wolf's mind. It was a thought that he quickly put on hold, gaze snapping back to the hall beyond as he strained his ears for some signal that Bendy had found the other switch.

Bendy, for his part, had carried on up the hall, coming to a corner and pausing for an instant to take another deep breath. He couldn't think about it right now, it just hit too hard and he needed to be aware of what was going on around them. The devil couldn't let himself get that distracted, couldn't let Boris worry when the wolf already had a lot to carry, didn't need his problems gumming everything up on top of that, otherwise…

Boris would be better off without him…

Peering down the steam-hazed corridor, Bendy caught sight of another poster sitting at the end of the hall, though this one was different from the ones he'd been seeing so far. For starters, this didn't depict him, Boris, or Alice in any way, instead focusing on three different characters, ones that hadn't been brought to life with the rest of them. At least, not as far as he knew.

Following the cables, Bendy came closer to the end of the hall, catching sight of the switch as he let his eyes ghost over the title on the poster; 'The Butcher Gang'. Cheery, and though he had perhaps the vaguest memory of them Bendy couldn't place if the name was accurate or not. Drawing level with the switch, Bendy was just about to reach out to the lever when suddenly something burst through the paper of the poster, startling a scream out of the devil as he flung himself back a few stumbling steps to land on his rear. The light shining above the picture illuminated the thing's face perfectly, and though it was definitely a bit mangled with a stitched-shut eye, Bendy detachedly placed it as one of the characters of the Butcher Gang, the human-looking captain guy from the center of the poster. However, that thought was lost as it dropped down from the wall and pushed itself up to hobble down the corridor after him. Hurriedly the devil scrambled to his feet, raising the pipe out of instinct as it came too close. His first hit did no damage, the shambling wreck merely stumbling back a few feet before hopping forward again, noises like a growling animal pouring from its agape mouth. With a desperate, wild cry, Bendy swung again, his feet automatically carrying him out of grabbing range as the strike hit but nothing happened apart from a brief setback on the patchwork wreck's part. The toon devil's back hit the wall just as he heard a rapid pounding down the corridor to his left, something smashing into the wreck's head as it tried to shamble after him and sending it crashing to the floor.

Nary a second later Bendy felt someone's hands come crashing down onto his shoulders, the sudden contact making him jump and whirl around with the pipe narrowly missing Boris's midsection as it cracked against the wall instead. The sound and impact jarred Bendy back into the moment, helped along by the fact that the wolf had sprung back when he'd nearly been struck, arms upraised with panic still written across his features.

"Bendy, it's okay! It's me, it's Boris!"

It felt like it took too long for Bendy to actually say something to that, though it was some chilled comfort that the first words out of his mouth were a somewhat unsteady ''m sorry', followed by a babbling stream of stuff that the devil didn't really think on, just said in the hopes that something would make the nightmarish situation better.

"I didn' mean to, I did- was stupid, 'm so sorry, I didn' think, 'm sorry-."

"No, no, I'm fine, Bendy. It's okay. A-Are you okay? When I saw-I thought that-." Boris's voice trembled a little on the last few words, Bendy watching as the wolf's arms shifted as though they were gearing up for the motion of a hug, and were seemingly stopped by something that the devil couldn't readily see. The very sight of it caused a brief flutter to take hold in Bendy's chest, his own arms dropping the pipe and reaching out with a jerky motion that seemed to be all the permission that Boris needed. Immediately the wolf knelt, sweeping the smaller toon up into a hug that was both calmingly encompassing and exceedingly gentle at the same time. For a brief few seconds, the familiarity of it was all that was needed for some wall to come down, Bendy practically burying his face in the wolf's shoulder as he squeezed back like the taller toon would simply let go if he didn't.

A sudden squishing sound from behind him made the devil stiffen again, head spinning around just in time to catch the tail end of the patchwork wreck's dissolution into ink, the substance seeming to vanish into the floor under them. The only thing left behind was a metallic object, the flashlight. Boris had come running up the hall when he'd seen what was happening, and had thrown the flashlight at the thing.

Mystery solved, Bendy creakily turned his head back around, perfectly fine with going back to the earlier situation as he both tried to get his breathing under control, and savored the faint, fleeting feeling of safety that the hug provided. Even as a part of him insisted that he should stop, should try to make sure that Boris was alright, your fault you stupid idiot you almost hit him with a pipe…

"Boris?" The devil murmured, wanting to be sure but still unwilling to pull away.

"Yeah?"

"Y'sure you're okay?"

"Y'didn't hit me, Bendy. I'm fine." The wolf replied, the calm tone to the deeper voice coupled with the words causing the anxiety from before to unknot in the smaller toon's chest, if only just a little. "Ar-are you okay?"

"'ll be fine." Bendy mumbled after a few moments. "We still gotta flip th' switches…"

"I can do this one." Boris immediately offered, though the devil was already shaking his head, not having forgotten about what lay at the opposite end of the hall.

"No, no I'll be fine. Don' wanna go back with th' statue. Doesn' mean good things…" Didn't make much sense rolling off the tongue like that but Boris only paused for a bit before giving a quiet 'alright' and letting Bendy go.

"There…aren' gonna be more of them?" The wolf asked as he stood back up, the lack of an answer from Bendy causing the taller toon to go for the flashlight again.

"Look if somethin' does come out…I'll start screamin' an' then you'll know I'm in trouble." Though the tail end of the remark had been meant to be funny, Boris wasn't laughing, instead beaming the somewhat flickering light down the hall, and aiming it at the hole that had once been a perfectly good poster. Nothing jumped out at them, but the wolf's ears and tail didn't change from their respective lowered or tucked positions.

"Boris…" Bendy started, some of the careworn heaviness he was feeling seeping into his tone. "…we gotta go. An' we can't leave until we get that door open."

The taller toon finally conceded on that point with a weighty sigh and a nod, turning and heading back down the hall, throwing the occasional glance Bendy's way just in case something were to leap out of the shadows again. The devil, for his part, tried to keep himself looking far more confident than he felt, waiting until Boris was at his respective lever before darting to his own. Flipping the levers went off without another hitch, the sound of the door grinding open cajoling Bendy into a run back down the corridor to meet Boris.

The room beyond looked like some kind of office, the chairs stacked away on a table and a couple of cans of bacon soup sitting on a desk on opposite sides of the room. Bendy half-expected Boris to pick those up, and wasn't disappointed on that score. Catching the somewhat teasing look the devil was giving him, Boris merely pocketed the cans and tried not to let the heat climbing in his face show too much. Still, he didn't walk ahead, opting to stay with Bendy as the devil trekked through the next…well, he wasn't sure he'd call it a room. More of a space, with moving gears and parts present on both sides and ink dripping from the ceiling. Making sure he wasn't about to accidentally clip a gear, Bendy moved through to the opening on the other side, ending up on what looked like some kind of wrap-around pathway leading to some stairs. And at the bottom was a larger room in which sat-.

"Boris!" The devil whispered even though the wolf was practically at his shoulder. Darting to the edge of the railed walkway just to be sure of what he was seeing, Bendy felt a smile break out over his face as he recognized the familiar metal cage. It was the elevator, or at least, an elevator, one that led up into the ceiling.

"What? Wha-?" The taller toon was saying before he drew level with Bendy, pie-cut eyes catching sight of the metal lift cage.

"D'ya think that's th' same lift?" Bendy asked, tail twitching with hopeful excitement as he quickly scanned the rest of the room. Nothing moved, not even a twitch of an inky monstrosity in sight. This was…almost too easy…

"It...It might be, I'm not sure." Boris answered. "We could go check. Maybe it is."

The faint hope carried the pair through the walkway, passing what looked like a pair of bathrooms and another weird plumbing installation before heading down the stairs. It definitely looked like the lift from upstairs, especially up close. Kinda smelled like it too…but the fact that this was here still seemed far too convenient. Finding a button mounted on the side, Boris managed to get the doors open, both toons hesitating for a moment before walking into the metal cage. Catching sight of a sign across the room that spelled out 'LEVEL K' next to another Lil' Angel Station, Bendy was about to check the buttons when suddenly the doors closed, and a voice suddenly started to come through on what seemed like an intercom over their heads.

"You're so interesting…so different…" The speaker was female, the only possibility coming to mind in Bendy's case being…well, the 'Alice' he'd seen before. Was she controlling the elevator?

However, given the devil's last encounter with her he couldn't say if that was something worth celebrating over, especially when it was taking them further away from their way out…!

"I have to say, I'm an instant fan." The feminine tones purred as both toons dashed to the button panel on one wall, Bendy's fingers nearly bruising with how hard he was pressing the 'door' button. He was almost a little afraid to go about trying the rest, labeled 'K', 'P', '11', '9', and '14', given that he didn't recognize any of those floor names, the lift had always gone from the music department to the animating department as far as he knew! And if 'K' was first then that had to be the highest this lift could go, right, wasn't that how it worked?

"Looks like you've got a date with an angel!" The cheery observation made the pair pause, pie-cut eyes cutting to glance at one another as they both tried to figure out what that meant, neither really wanting to say anything just in case their mysterious speaker could hear them. "Come to me now, level 9. Just follow the screams."

Well, alright then if she was going to phrase it like that…

Bendy took a few steps back from the panel, watching as floor after floor slid by with the lift sinking deeper and deeper into the studio, with levels '11' and 'P' rolling past them in short order. The sight of more statues orientated near the elevator stops caused Bendy to shy away from the cage doors. The devil ended up with Boris's leg pressed against his back, though when the smaller toon chanced a glance up, the wolf was peering about as though seeing if he could find where the intercom was, ears back and eyes a little wider than normal. Reaching back, Bendy found the taller toon's unoccupied hand and gave the longer fingers a reassuring squeeze. Boris briefly started at the sudden contact, though he didn't try to move away, even leaning a little over the smaller toon, an arm draping around to almost shield Bendy though the presence of the heavy flashlight made the movement a little awkward. For the moment, the pair simply took what shelter they could in the other's presence, watching as the walls slid by around them.

Eventually though, the lift came to a halt, the metal grating opening up on a walkway with an enormous space beyond.

"Come on, step out of your cage. There's a whole twisted world out here." With nowhere else to go, the pair did, feet hesitatingly finding purchase on the wooden floor outside. The walkway was railed, with steps leading down to a large room with a bridge running across a sizeable gap filled with what looked like ink. But what drew both toons' eyes was across the bridge, a huge, statued advertisement of Alice Angel from the torso up holding what looked like a sign in its gloved hands at the top of a wide set of stairs. Immediately both sets of pie-cut eyes turned to stare at each other, a shared question already forming in their minds.

"D-D'you think that's-?" Boris started, Bendy completing the thought.

"Where Alice is?" The devil turned his gaze back out to the monolith, trying to think through both the fear at how the last few minutes had drastically changed their situation, and the promise of seeing their fellow toon after being separated for so long. However, what had happened in the showroom…was she even going to, want to see them? Would she try to attack them?

At the same time, Bendy couldn't deny the fact that he wanted to at least try to see the angel. Maybe things weren't as bad as they had initially seemed, she hadn't seemed to know who he was. Perhaps she just didn't realize, thought he was someone else…

Granted, after what happened with Sammy Bendy wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing. Still, he had to try. Boris had turned out fine, maybe Alice could end up the same way too.

"Boris?" Bendy suddenly said, pushing back from the railing. The question caused the wolf to jolt a little, turning to look towards the smaller toon with worry clear in his face.

"'m gonna see if I can find Alice. D'you want t'-?"

"No, no I'm coming." Boris interrupted, immediately coming over to the top of the stairs before realizing that Bendy hadn't quite gotten to that point yet and stopped, looking a little sheepishly back at the surprised devil.

"Ah, s-sorry-."

"No, no, by all means." The devil replied, a cheeky if not somewhat wane smile flashing over the pale face as he too moved to take the stairs. In slightly better spirits, the pair descended down to the bottom, Bendy stopping as he caught sight of another tape deck on a shelf pushed off to the side. Boris had to press the button because of how high up it was, though Bendy couldn't help but wince at the gravely, loud voice that seemed to fill the space. Mr. Connor again, sounded like.

"These blasted elevators…sometimes they open, sometimes they don't…sometimes they come, sometimes they keep on going to Hell and back. I keep telling these people, if Mister Joey Drew keeps cutting corners like this, someone's sure to end up falling to their death. And it sure ain't gonna be me. I'm taking the stairs."

"Alright, lesson learned. We leave the elevator alone." Bendy murmured as the tape clicked off, an unspoken 'unless we really need it' hanging off the tail end of the second sentence. Then again, the manner in which the lift had simply dropped down to this floor hinted that if they tried to use it, they likely wouldn't be getting very far. They'd probably have more luck finding another way out.

"Alright." Boris murmured, still keeping close to the devil's side as the pair turned to the bridge. As they drew closer to the stairs, Bendy could clearly read the sign the angel statue was holding, the faded letters spelling out 'SHE'S QUITE A GAL'. The devil wasn't sure if that had always been a tagline for Alice when it came to the cartoon, though it did sound familiar for probably that reason.

It seemed to take an eternity for the pair to actually get to the door, the ambiance around them littered with the sounds of rushing ink under the bridge and the creaks of the floor. The sound of the door opening, loud and grating as it was, made Bendy jump and caused Boris's free hand to latch onto the devil's shoulder either to steady the smaller toon or drag him backwards should something fly out at them. But, there was nothing, just an empty hall leading in.

Bendy stared up at the statue overhead, letting his gaze fall to the hallway and taking a deep breath, reaching up to rest a hand on the one still planted on his shoulder. Glancing up, the pair shared a look and a nod, before stepping over the threshold into the hall.

This too was quiet, save for the grind of moving machine parts that occasionally stuck out of the wall, causing the pair to press closer together as they went. There was no sound up ahead that seemed to indicate someone coming to meet them, so apparently they had to go to…Alice, it seemed like. Though the smell of ink was still present, it seemed to grow stronger the further they went, almost like it had when they'd happened upon the flooded room from before. Eventually, the hallway opened up into a large room like the one they'd just left behind, albeit the focus for both Bendy and Boris was less on the room, and more on what was lying strapped to a slab illuminated by an overhead light.

It was practically a mirror image of what Bendy had found upstairs, of Boris in all his ribcage-exposed, eyes crossed out, very much dead glory. The devil felt as though the air had been sucked out of his lungs, frame stiff and tense as his eyes widened though he so desperately did not want to see this. The scent of ink in the air had grown to an overpowering stench, making it seem as though this had been done recently, like Bendy'd arrived just too late to save the wolf.

But, that didn't make any sense because Boris was…

It suddenly struck Bendy that he couldn't feel Boris's hand on his shoulder anymore, the realization coupled with what sat in front of him making him whirl around just in time to see Boris stumble backward with wide, staring eyes as he too looked at his prone doppelganger, the flashlight hitting the floor with a clunk as it fell from the wolf's nerveless hands. Even though the taller toon had already gone as far back as the wall of the hallway, Bendy could already hear the wolf's lungs begin to work overtime in their stressed state, a hand coming up to fist itself in the fur over Boris's chest. The other fumbled for a moment before clenching over the first, shakes starting to vibrate through the tall frame as Boris pressed himself to the wall though he was unable to look away from the horror in front of them.

Immediately Bendy felt some of the tension redirect itself, his legs unlocking enough that he wheeled around back to Boris, almost charging straight to the distressed wolf before remembering what happened the last time he'd startled Boris when he was like this. Still, even as he paused, Bendy knew that he couldn't let up, there had to be something he could do, some way to get Boris to…look away…

"Boris, Boris!" The toon devil shouted at first before remembering their mysterious speaker and quieting down, drawing as close as he could while still giving the wolf space. Bendy jumped up and down, trying to put his waving arms in Boris's view while he continued to talk, keeping the volume at conversation level. "Boris, look at me. Don' look at that, jus'-jus' look at me, please? It's gonna be alright, Boris, but y'need t'listen to me…."

Bendy couldn't help but feel his stomach twist a little at what felt like a bald-faced lie, because there was nothing alright about this. It didn't feel alright, and it probably wasn't going to for a while to come. However, the steady hum of noise didn't seem to be doing the trick, tears starting to trickle down the wolf's face as pie-cut eyes stared distantly ahead. It was almost like Boris was just…beyond reaching, like the very sight had broken something in the taller toon. Albeit, Bendy was hardly about to give up on his pal and, taking a chance, he came closer and clasped the wolf's clenched hands in his own.

The contact did make Boris jolt, eyes slamming shut as a breathy gasp louder than the rest emerged from his lungs. And, as they opened, their line of sight lowered, until Bendy could see them focusing on his face. He tried to put on a smile but couldn't get his features to cooperate, instead the twitching loosened some wetness that had been gathering in the devil's eyes, the tears mixing with the ink that had long-since started running down his face.

Even still, he tried to talk, had to, it was the only thing he could do.

Your fault…

"B-Boris, I'm here, jus' look at me, alright? Don' look at any'a that, don', you're here, I'm here, and i-."

It's alright. The phrase on his tongue but not in his mind, and before Bendy could stop himself the words were switched around and what came out of his mouth instead was-.

"I-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Boris, pal, I-I dunno…" I don't know what to do, I don't know how to fix or make this better. But Bendy jolts away from saying that, instead trying to get back on the reassuring tack that actually felt like he had some control over the situation. Like he could maybe pretend for a bit he could make things better for Boris somehow… "I-I gotcha Boris, 'm here, jus' look at me alright?"

For an anxiety-provoking few moments, Bendy couldn't tell if what he was saying, if anything he was doing, was actually helping, before Boris's eyes blinked again, this time looking far more natural as his breathing seemed to make a conscious effort to calm. Sliding down against the wall, Boris let his eyes slide closed again, fingers unclenching from his chest to wrap around Bendy's, tremblingly holding on as though the little devil was his one safety line in this uncertain metaphorical sea. The smaller toon could feel the pounding of the wolf's heart under his fingers, definitely faster than it should be though the fact that it was there at all was a great relief. However, as Boris's eyes started to open again, eyeline drifting from the devil's face, Bendy immediately felt a stab of panic take hold, trying to put his head up a little higher just so there was no chance the wolf could see what lay in the room beyond.

"Boris, Boris, jus'-don' look at that, keep lookin' at me, okay? Eyes here." Shakily Bendy pulled a hand from the huddle, using it to steer the wolf's head down to rest on his shoulder, especially after hearing a reedy sniff and a whine from the taller toon as the canid muzzle twisted in nauseated disgust at the still very prevalent stench of ink in the air. Bendy wasn't sure if his jacket and scarf smelled much better, but at least it was a barrier to the other stinks, and he knew that nose wasn't just for show. Briefly, his memory casted back to a time thirty years ago, when the wolf had a blanket given to him as a gift that he came to use every night. Boris had tried to explain to Bendy why it had been so important, though the explanation boiled down to it 'smelling right', something that had baffled the devil at the time until he'd gotten out in the world and actually saw a dog in action. One of the main things he noticed was how they smelled everything, like it was their way of figuring things out about the world. He almost wished he could share the epiphany he'd had with the wolf, though it…really didn't seem that important now. He just hoped his scarf and coat were a good enough substitute for whatever it was the blanket apparently had.

It did seem to be doing some good, the almost quiet tears and shakes from Boris beginning to ease, the wolf's fingers giving his a gentle squeeze as Bendy carded his other hand through the dark fur on the taller toon's head.

"'m here, Boris, I gotcha." The devil murmured, feeling a relieved smile break across his face when Boris nodded into his shoulder. A faint creak coming from somewhere behind made the smaller toon stiffen, Bendy doing his best to look back without jostling Boris to see where the noise had come from, and finding nothing in sight.

Oh, right they were in a potentially dangerous situation…which was partially what spurred the following out of Bendy's mouth.

"Boris, I want you t'go back out and wait for me by the elevator."

"Wh-What?! No, Bendy, I can't let you just-." The wolf protested as he shakily got to his feet, trying to prove that he was more than ready to keep going. The effect was ruined somewhat when the taller toon's eyes cast up ahead before widening, the wolf's ears lowering as his head bowed with a shaky swallow.

"Boris, no, y'need t'go. I promise I'm comin' right back." The devil replied, pushing at Boris's legs to get him moving back to the entrance. It was definitely a testament to how overwrought Boris was that this method was making some headway.

"B-Bendy, I'm sorry…I can't just, I can't-." Boris started, before something seemed to occur to the taller toon. "Wh-Why don'tcha just come wi' me? We can jus'…go."

"I don't think that's a good idea Boris." The devil replied, his thoughts formulating themselves as they fell out his mouth. "If whoever that is can control the doors an' can see what we're doin'…they might close the doors if it looks like we're gonna leave. An'…I can keep goin', but I don' want you t'haveta go through this. An' actually, here, you can hold onto this for me, alright?"

The latter Bendy punctuated by winding the worn scarf off his neck, pressing it into Boris's still trembling hands. The devil wasn't completely sure how well it would help, but if he couldn't be there to calm the wolf down in person then maybe having something of his might help. Still, even with the scarf clasped securely to his front, Boris was starting to dig in his heels even though a glance back to the room made his ears lower and tail tuck close to his legs again, frame quivering slightly against Bendy's hands.

"I'll be fine. I got the pipe, right? Somethin' tries to do anythin', an' I'll…I'll break their kneecaps 'r somethin'. Nobody's gonna get the drop on me. Jus' go back, alright? I'll be right there in a little bit." Bendy tried, giving Boris one last, light push before letting go completely, taking a few steps back. The wolf looked about ready to turn to go after the smaller toon before Bendy gave a stern frown.

"Go back, Boris. Go on. Please." And, though some part of the devil hated to play this card, when Boris refused to move the words simply tumbled out of his mouth. "You trust me, right?"

"Yeah." The wolf answered, face pinching as his eyes turned towards the ground. However, the taller toon looked back to the devil's face, a determination seeping through the wolf's pie-cut eyes. "If you don' come out in ten minutes, 'm comin' in after you."

"Fair enough for me." Bendy's reply felt a little choked, though he still gave Boris a small smile before turning and continuing onward before the wolf could stop him. Though he heard what sounded like a gasp, Bendy didn't catch any sign that Boris was trying to follow, something that spurred him past the macabre display they'd run into and to a gap in the railings. A plank led off over the ink, connecting to another by resting on a barrel, the same arrangement seeming to go across the pool. Bendy swallowed, both because he couldn't shake the thought that he really, really didn't want to fall into that mess, and because the dead body was far from the only one in the room. The entire place seemed to be one grisly catalogue of dead toons, either strapped to boards, lying in the ink, and a few cases of some dangling from the ceiling, some of Boris, others looked to be characters from the Butcher Gang. He caught sight of some that looked like the one that had chased him in the hall, and others lying strapped to other slabs, really only glancing at them so he wouldn't lose his nerve. The idea that Alice could be up ahead, the angel in some sort of trouble, spurred him on. A crackle of static was Bendy's only warning before whoever had been speaking before started talking again, voice disturbingly calm considering what was strewn around him.

"Look around. It took so many of them to make me so beautiful. Anything less than perfect was left behind." It was the same female speaker, the one in the elevator. What she was implying turned Bendy's ink cold, causing him to go a little faster over the bridging planks, a sudden image flashing through his mind's eye of Alice in the same position as Boris, eyes silent and still with her chest pried open…

And still whoever it was kept talking, though what she said next made very little sense to the devil.

"I had to do it. She made me."

"Who is 'she'?" Bendy mouthed, glancing back just to make doubly sure that Boris had not followed, and also that the door was still open. Hopefully the wolf had gone, though the very thought of Boris made something slide into place in Bendy's mind.

The picture in the safehouse, the weird collage of Boris's poster. Did the person who made it mean this? That Boris was broken into 'pieces', or copies of himself? And put back together…

The question was, why would someone do it in the first place? Had Joey not been the one to hurt Boris? Though that didn't make sense with how the wolf reacted to the studio head's very name so likely Joey had at least been involved…

Bendy stopped, realizing he'd walked straight past a juncture in the planks without noticing. One path lead to a closed metal door on the other side of the room, clearly where he was meant to go. The other path lead off to a little spot with a shelf and a desk, on which the devil could make out a cassette deck coupled with what looked like a doll of Alice.

Taking a brief chance with the thought that maybe the recording could give him some hint as to what he was dealing with, Bendy hurriedly shuffled across to the desk, quickly hitting the play button to start the tape.

"Who would've thought? Me having lunch with Joey Drew! Apparently times are tougher than I thought. For a moment there, I thought I'd be stuck with the check. But I gotta say, he wasn't at all what I expected. Quite the charmer. He even called me Alice. I liked it."

The last line curdled Bendy's ink, making his face crinkle into a frown. That was, Susie, right? Cause if that was the case, he really didn't like what she was saying regarding Alice. Sure, they were cartoons, but…they were alive. They were real. What Susie was implying, or whatever satisfaction she was gleaning from what could have been a mistake on Joey's part, seemed very very wrong to the devil.

Was this part of the reason why Alice was…like this? Did they do something to her?

And you weren't there to stop it, you weren't there to protect them….

Swallowing heavily, Bendy turned back to the plank bridge just in time to see the door open into another hallway. Looking back just to check that Boris still wasn't trying to follow, Bendy did his best to square his shoulders before taking step after step forward, feeling like the world was moving him along at far faster a pace than he was comfortable with. On the far wall of the hallway, a poster for Alice Angel's debut episode sat, just like the one he'd seen in the music department. Right next to it stood a cutout of the angel, Bendy's eyes lingering on it for a moment as he came round the corner, and locked sight with something down the hall. At first, he couldn't identify what was happening down the corridor, only able to make out what seemed like a tall, dark, sort of familiar figure standing next to a raised panel, with a slab to the left, and something strapped to it. A hand came up to wipe at his face and eyes, maybe it would help him figure out exactly what he was looking at, but he still couldn't quite make out any specifics. Taking one step forward, and then another, Bendy could also hear what sounded like…crackling? Zapping? Almost like a downed wire before the electricity was cut. Though it seemed to take an eternity, a few moments later the devil was crossing the threshold to the other room, making out more details the closer he came. The scene in front of him looked to be on the other side of a window of some sort, the figure stuck to the slab appearing to be the same, or at least one very much like, the thing that had tried to get him back in the hallway with the poster.

And the figure standing next to the panel, well, the devil kept staring but he wasn't sure if he could be entirely certain of what he was seeing. It was the same Alice that he'd seen before in the showroom, the one who'd shouted her name at him and broke the glass in the fake television set. It was as how he had described, statue-like but melted all on one side, with the added detail of her halo seemingly stuck in her head. The panel she was standing next to, Bendy figured with a cold snap, looked to be part of some sort of electrical system and what they were being used for was the patchwork toon strapped to the table. The zapping, crackling noise was electricity being funneled through the warped frame, the Butcher Gang character giving off little snarls and wheezes, thrashing in what looked like pain as it was being shocked, not enough to kill, but definitely more than enough to hurt.

But what made Bendy's stomach drop was the fact that while she hadn't stopped shocking the mismatched toon-monster to death, her head was facing in his direction, with a solitary, yellow eye staring right at him. The expression on her face was hard to read, that fact alone making Bendy want to skitter back towards the door, though when his back touched cold metal instead of open space the devil knew that was no longer an option.

"A-Alice…?" The name slipped out of Bendy's mouth before he really could think on what he was saying, unable to rectify this nightmare in front of him with the memory he had of the angel. The one who accepted his apology when he was being a complete jerk, the one who could keep up with him while dancing and wasn't too tall, even commiserated with him when the other workers at the studio took to making teasing jokes regarding the love-birds status the pair had in the cartoons which they'd both found creepy and uncomfortable. This couldn't be Alice, because if it was, then she'd been the one responsible for the sordid scene he'd just left behind, for killing Boris over and over and over-.

And now he was locked in the room with her. Bendy would have laughed at his dashed attempt to play the hero to the younger toon if this wasn't horrifically terrifying and psychologically scarring.

However, something in the warped angel's face seemed to loosen at the sound of the stammered name, and she released something on the panel that caused the electricity running through the room to stop. Though Bendy was somewhat glad for this, he couldn't tell if the patchwork toon on the table was even alive, or just unconscious the way it slumped back. However, if he were to strain his nose enough the little devil could definitely make out the smell of something burning.

"Hello, Bendy…" The angel spoke, her voice a layered menagerie of sounds that had the tension running through the small toon flail a little with uncertainty. It sounded a mix of strangely warped and at the same time, human, feminine particularly. He did inch away from the door a little, though the pipe he still kept upraised more out of reflex than any desire to use it. She…she looked too much like Alice, and after what had happened in that hallway with Boris, the devil didn't think he had it in him to hit her. Albeit, a somewhat darker voice in the back of his head wondered if he would be forced to if she tried coming after him. It wasn't like he could run…

"Hm. Now we come to the question…Do I kill you? Do I tear you apart to my heart's delight? The choices of the beautiful are unbearable. How's a girl to choose?" The warped angel broke off her introspection with a giggle, though Bendy couldn't think of a less-funny situation. Well, if he wasn't sure that Alice had been responsible for the horror show back in the other room, then this focus on beauty stated from her own mouth pretty much cinched it.

"Take this little freak for instance!" Alice suddenly barked, head jerking towards the still Butcher Gang character with a predatorily accusing air. Bendy jumped at the sudden snap in her voice, trying to pay careful attention to what the angel was saying just in case it heralded the conversation taking a turn for the worse, even as it already made his stomach churn with terror. "He crawled in here…trailing his tainted ink to my door!"

Bendy became uncomfortably aware of ink dribbling down from his brow, caught between both wanting to wipe it away and keeping his hands where they were so as not to draw attention to the loose liquid.

"It could have touched me, it could have pulled me back!" Alice said, leaning over the panel as her voice abruptly leaped from the smoother, older tones to that of the one that was so familiar to Bendy, the voice that Alice had as he remembered her. It was enough to pull the devil a little closer as his mind raced. Was Alice…in there, in some way? Looking up from the panel, she continued to speak, using that same voice…

"Do you know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles?" Alice asked, to which Bendy had no answer. Not that she seemed to expect one, voice dropping back into the older, human tones as she continued. "It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices!"

Bringing a hand up to her mouth, the singular eye seemed to stare off into some other place, some other time, rather than at the panel in front of her.

"Bits of your mind, swimming…like…like fish in a bowl!" She said in Alice's voice again, the panicky, disorientated tone bringing Bendy a little closer, the pipe in his hands lowering as despite his wariness, despite the terror of being in the same room as the person who murdered his best pal. It…it sounded like Alice, and if this happened after he left, after he left the both of them behind for someone to do god-knows-what…he felt responsible, he had to at least try to reach out to the angel. He had to see if she was still there.

Your fault…

"The first time I was born from its inky womb, I was a wiggling, pussing, shapeless slug. The second time, well…" Alice hissed, the words crashing over Bendy's ears though it took him a moment to register what was being said. The first time…? But Alice was made before he left, and as far as the devil knew, she hadn't come out the least bit wrong…Joey had said she was perfect, which rankled him at the time until he and Alice had managed to resolve their initial bad start…

"It made me an angel!" She finished, the shift in tone causing Bendy to jump a little as his mind worked overtime trying to sort through the information he was being given. Alice had been made before he left, had come out fine, but she was saying that it took two tries, and from the sounds of things this had happened after things had…gone wrong. The devil suddenly recalled the recording he'd found outside of the hallway leading in here, the one with Susie talking about eating with Joey and being called…

All at once, a new possibility crashed through Bendy's mind like a trainwreck. Though if he was right, then he might be in worse trouble because then…

"I will not let it, touch me again. I'm so close now, so almost perfect. And now…you come to my door, Bendy." Alice, if that was even who she was really, suddenly said, the mention of the smaller toon's name causing him to jump along with the sudden change in the warped angel's voice. Whatever anxious trance she'd been in, she'd managed to pull herself out of with the vocal shift, and that one, yellow eye was staring right at him again. The empty, almost skull-like look to the other half of her face hardly helped, but the fact that she didn't seem to need to blink, that was unnerving enough along with the calm tone she'd suddenly taken on.

"I-I don't want any trouble." Bendy started, the few seconds of tense quiet following the shift in the one-sided conversation. "I ju-I jus' wanna leave this place. I don' wanna stay here."

That was all the devil felt able to force out of his suddenly very dry throat, feeling a trembling starting to make its way up his arms as his mind jumped ahead. He'd come in here to save Alice, only to find that she either wasn't there to begin with or so far gone that there was nothing even left of who she used to be. Not to mention, from what she was saying, he could easily count as one of those things trailing 'tainted ink' into her domain. Trying not to eye the slab that the silent mismatched toon was still strapped to, Bendy opted to keep talking. It hadn't necessarily worked for Sammy, but it seemed to be the only thing that the toon devil was able to do.

"T-Trust me, th' last thing I wanna be is underfoot right now, so really you got nothin' to worry about. You let me leave, an' I'll be outta here like a shot, no questions asked. 'Sides we all know how well angels and demons get along, an' I think we're both a bit too busy t'be distracted by somethin' like that. So, Alice…" It felt so wrong saying that name when it was becoming more and more apparent it didn't fit, but if he wanted to get out of here intact, Bendy knew he definitely needed to, at the very least, tell her what she wanted to hear. Besides, it wasn't like he was lying about wanting to leave…

"…y'can make a mess of me in here, 'cause you know how much I drip when I'm stressed, or y'can let me leave."

At first Bendy couldn't tell if anything he was saying was getting through, if he wasn't three seconds away from a grisly demise, but the bright-yellow stare eventually dimmed as 'Alice's' gaze turning back to the panel for a moment in seeming thought.

"Yes." She hummed after a few minutes had passed. "I will spare you. For now. Better yet…I'll even let you ascend and leave this place. If you will do a few eensey weensey little favors for me first."

Bendy's first thought, of course, was of what kind of favors the warped angel would want him doing, the mock wheedling tone she was using definitely not helping that matter given that he was fairly certain he was not supposed to refuse. Thinking of Boris outside though, who was probably waiting anxiously for the devil to come back and now that Bendy thought about it he definitely didn't want the wolf and the angel meeting, the small toon gave a quiet nod and managed to kick his voice into something workable to give a more audible reply.

"…Alright."

"Then return to the lift, my little errand boy. We have work to do!" And with that, the warped angel pressed a button on the panel, causing shutters to drop down to cover the window just as the sound of the Butcher Gang toon being violently electrocuted started to fill the room once more. And now Bendy could definitely smell something burning, maybe hair…or perhaps fur…

The toon devil lurched away from the source of the smell, whirling around just in time to see the door behind him open, letting his body move on autopilot through the hallway and back out to the ink-flooded room. Even though one of Bendy's hands was occupied by the pipe, he still tried to cover his ears, anything to block out the sounds of electricity crackling through the air as something that was almost like him writhed in pain. Stopping right in front of the plank bridge, Bendy tried to take a moment to collect himself, though he could only calm down so much before the image of Boris strapped to a table, having the life shocked out of him before being cut open, flashed in his mind's eye.

He had to get out of here. He needed to get out.

Retaining just enough caution to not try running, Bendy started to make his way across the planks, catching sight of another member of the Butcher Gang lying faceup in the ink, this one almost looking like him if it wasn't for the toony, stitched-shut lips, its eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. What made the devil's stomach give a nauseating flip was the fact that one of the pie-cut eyes was replaced with a normal eyeball. He tried to look away from that but the next thing to come into view was another slab, with a silent, mangled body of Boris strapped to it. Looking in the opposite direction just made Bendy see the desk, with the tape-deck containing Susie's recording still in it. The one where she seemed to think of Alice more as an ideal, and not an actual toon running around the studio with him and Boris.

The collaged image from the safehouse immediately flashed through Bendy's mind, the one of Alice being obscured with ink. Had Susie seen her as competition? Had she actually…?

The thought made Bendy flinch, hunching downward with an arm folding over his stomach as though to stop his insides from squirming through sheer willpower alone, more ink beginning to run in rivets around his eyes. Even still, the devil couldn't help but think about how deep the ink was in this room, wondering if there were other copies of Boris submerged in the murky darkness under his feet.

Maybe that was where Susie had thrown Alice, after she'd…

Bendy felt a gasp rattle its way through his lungs, the air in the room suddenly not enough for him to breathe, though he'd been doing fine before even with the fumes. Even with his legs suddenly feeling like jelly, the devil simply…sunk inward, blocking out the thoughts, sights, and smells of what was around him, and worked on putting one foot in front of the other. He had to get out first. Once he got out, he could see Boris, and things would be better.

Just keep walking, don't look, don't smell, and don't think. Boris is waiting for you, you gonna let him down? Just keep putting one foot in front of the other…

---

(Jump to second paragraph if you want to know what the heck the thing was I wanted your opinion on. I just got rambly as all hell.)

Alright, and trust me, I'm going to get the second part up as quickly as I can. I'd say it's about 60-70% of the way done, at 23,348 words not counting the parts I jumped ahead to write, and after that I'd just need to give it a good editing sweep. Only fly in the ointment is I'm going to be out of the country next week and I'm not sure if where I'm going has a connection to the Net. I've also been keeping busy IRL, between work and, well, big news is I've been working on a short story, which I completed a while ago and someone sent me word of a writing contest they thought my work would be a good fit for. I already got the editing and submitting part of that done, made sure everything was all good paperwork-wise, so right now the only things on my list of 'things to get done by the end of the month' are the next chapter and a gift-piece that must be done before Christmas otherwise I will have shamed my inner sense of responsibility.

And now that that ramble is out of the way, I was thinking of doing a kind of event thing on my tumblr, which is nemo-draco dot tumblr dot com. Basically a kind of Q&A for the characters, not canon to the story or anything but I haven't really done anything like it before and I was thinking maybe I'd keep the ask box open for 5 days to a week and respond IC-ly in written form, and yes you can ask anonymously too! I generally have figured everything out, just want to see if there's any interest from anyone.

Thank you all very much!