Oh boy, we're back. As always, Bendy and the Ink Machine is the property of theMeatly, and the AU of Henry and the Ink Machine is from the mind of thelostmoongazer on Tumblr. Also, certain bit here is from upperstories on Tumblr. Anyone overly familiar with the AU will likely know what I'm talking about. Bit of a shakeup in this chapter, with a few different things starting to kick off, so I kind of waffled on it a little wondering at first if I was being too obscure, then too obvious, before just deciding to roll with what I was doing. You all let me know if it's working. Especially seeing as we're deviating from the main storyline a little.

Thank you all, and enjoy!

Hijo De La Luna:

Bendy floated, free of pain and mind a quiet, blank fog. It was…calm, peaceful, and for what could have been either minutes or hours the devil was content to simply drift.

However, there was something coming from a ways off in the black, almost like a faint pulse, the thrumming reverberating in the small toon's bones. At first, it just added to the calm, and Bendy ignored it. Albeit the longer it went on, the stronger it grew, and with the steady rising in strength came…noise, that also brushed on the edge of the little devil's senses. They sounded like indistinct voices, but there was one that started to separate itself from the rest and stood out to Bendy's ear.

"Please, I just need more time…You can't let him have them, just…please…"

It sounded wretched, pained, and exhausted, but it was so achingly familiar.

Henry? Bendy knew that his mouth had moved, though no sound escaped from his lips, the name going unheard as the strength of the humming briefly spiked enough to set his teeth on edge. Mixed in were all sorts of lower and higher sounds, ranging from clicks to hissing to rumbles of what sounded like thunder. Perhaps there were words, but they were so entrenched with the other noises that Bendy hardly had a chance of deciphering what was being said, if anything at all.

"Please…" The whisper grew desperate, and Bendy ached to do or say something, but no matter what he tried he couldn't move or speak. "Please…just make him head somewhere else, make him…lose interest, please, I-I can't…"

"Please…" At first the word sounded like an echo, before Bendy placed the different voice and tone. It was…Alice? It sounded like her, free from whatever corruption lay in the warped angel he had seen. Bendy tried to fidget, and though it did feel like he was looking around he couldn't see much of anything. Just murky darkness. There wasn't even a sign of anything near him-.

Another rumble reverberated through the toon's frame, though the part about it that worried him, would have made him shake or curl up to hide if he had more energy, was how close it sounded. Before, it had felt like one of those passenger planes he'd see passing overhead sometimes, or far off thunder. Now…it sounded like it was right above him.

Bendy really only had seconds to process that before a hand suddenly landed on his head, the sudden contact causing him to stiffen up. However, if he were waiting for it to rake down over his face, or pull on him at all, Bendy was thankfully disappointed. The hand was long and thin, sort of like Boris's, but somehow even more so than the wolf's own hands, something that Bendy wasn't sure was possible. The fingers themselves were resting on the top of the little devil's head, with the thumb pressed to a spot just above his brow line, exceedingly gentle as it rubbed lines into the inky skin. It was sort of like how he'd seen parents interact with their children over the decades he'd spent out on the streets. For a moment, Bendy wasn't sure what to make of it. The closest anyone had come to interacting with him like this was Henry, and that had been so long ago. Was this-?

"Henry?" Bendy murmured, head turning weakly as though the man might just step out of the black around him.

"…Bendy?" The trembling of anxiety in his own name made something stir in the devil's chest, his hands twitching as they tried to reach out, to see if he could find the animator. Surely he had to be close if they could hear each other, right? But, for all intents and purposes, the devil's limbs felt as heavy as bricks, and stayed at his sides.

"Bendy, where are you? I need to…I can't find you, you need to tell me where you are!" Though the near-frantic edge to the normally calm voice made the devil want to panic too, because if Henry was having a meltdown then things were definitely bad, the brief snaps of speech did bring some hope to the toon's foggy mind. Henry was here, he was here somewhere, and he was looking for them. He and Boris weren't alone. They just had to find Henry.

Though, just as Bendy opened his mouth to answer, the hand at his forehead suddenly lifted away, and a solitary fingertip pressed down at the center of his chest. Trying to shrug away from it wasn't yielding anything, and the longer it stayed the more Bendy registered the sensation of…falling, but more in slow motion, like he was being pushed carefully downward.

But, wait, no, he didn't want that right now because-.

"Bendy! Answer me, where are you?!"

Henry. He needed to reply to Henry, so they'd be able to find each other. Not that things were going to be that easy because whatever made the rest of him so heavy had extended its reach to his vocal chords, the devil struggling just to make an iota of noise.

"H'ry…" Bendy forced out, slumber taking ahold again and blanking his mind. But, it was not quick enough that he didn't hear a reply.

"Bendy, I'm coming, it's going to be alright. Just stay with Boris and I'll come find you."

It's going to be alright, I'll find you. Bendy tried to hold onto that sentiment the further down he dropped, familiar weight settling into his frame as he felt, well, less floaty and more like he usually did. Just as the airy feeling started to fade entirely, a series of images flashed through his mind, almost too quickly for Bendy to really piece together. The wheelchair, sitting abandoned in a dusty closet, a glowing infinity symbol as the centerpiece of a larger design, much like the ones that he'd seen laid out on various walls and floors in the studio, followed by more. The rest were glowing, simplified images of what looked like a record, quickly followed by a broken chain link, and an inkwell followed by what looked like a shield.

His senses greyed out before Bendy really could give them any thought, and it felt like a long while before he was able to open his eyes. His left eye still wouldn't work, but the right stared out at the room for a moment as his brain tried to catch up. He hurt, everything was in a state of dull pain, but there were a few things warring for attention in his thoughts, one was how he ended up in this condition, another was how he'd gotten here, and the last-.

"H'ry?" Bendy murmured, a foggy certainty in the devil's mind that he had spoken to the animator, that Henry was here somewhere. However, when the mumbled summons went unanswered, the encroaching realization that he'd probably just dreamed it made a heavy feeling of isolation press stronger on the smaller toon.

Except…no, wait, that wasn't right, because he was with-.

A faint nasally snore from over his head made Bendy glance up as best he could, pie-cut eyes locking onto the prone form of Boris, wrapped up in an old blanket and slumped in a chair. Though the wolf was definitely asleep, his expression looked anything but relaxed. There was a faint furrow in the taller toon's brow, eyes flicking about under their lids with a feverish jitteriness. A faint memory of a similar scene in a Lil' Miracle Station prompted Bendy to reach out, a hand shakily clenching over the blanket that Boris had wrapped himself in, and probably the pant leg underneath it.

"Bor's, pal…" The little devil started, voice whispery at first before he tried again, a little louder. "B-Boris-!"

The jolt that the wolf's frame made knocked into the cot that Bendy was in, making it rattle alarmingly under the smaller toon as Boris sprang from sleep. However, though the taller toon definitely seemed awake to Bendy's admittedly foggy mind, there was a brief moment where Boris didn't seem to know where he was, eyes darting all about before focusing on the devil's face.

"B…Bendy…?"

"'ey, pal." Bendy murmured, though his words were somewhat lost as Boris shakily eased himself down to give the smaller toon's features a closer look. Not that Bendy could blame the wolf for his worry, as the devil knew that he probably looked a fright.

"Ben, how's, how're you feelin'?" Boris finally forced out, voice a little worn on top of worried. The observation made the initial response die a little on Bendy's tongue, the devil eventually trying to force a smile despite the fact that it made the left side of his face hurt and compounded a headache that was starting to throb through the smaller toon's skull.

"Jus' fine, Bor's." But even with the exhausted attempt, Boris still didn't look completely convinced, ears low as he carefully watched Bendy's face. Unable to offer any more reassurance, the little devil opted to change the topic. Besides, he didn't remember coming in here… "W-Where are we?"

"I-I don' know." Boris rushed out, Bendy's swimming brain struggling to follow as the wolf kept talking. "I…I wasn' payin' attention, b-b'fore, when I was runnin' f-from…I think we're on th' same floor, as where the elevator came down, bu'…I really, I don' know anythin' else."

Even if the words took an extra minute to register, the still frenetic, anxious tone in them was apparent even to Bendy's pain-fogged ears.

"'sokay, pal." He found himself murmuring, reaching out to the wolf from the cot. Even still, Boris continued on the heels of a heavy swallow, voice trembling as he spoke.

"No, 's not. W-We're lost. I got us-."

"It's okay." Bendy broke through, trying to make himself sound as firm as he could on the matter. Boris fell quiet, though the instant he noticed that the devil was trying to pat at what he could reach of the wolf's shoulders the taller toon did his best to gather the smaller frame to himself with as little pain as possible. Bendy still couldn't help a hiss or two from sliding out, and his everywhere still ached, but when he found himself in the same position as he had been for much of this insane adventure, one that had always had some level of grounding safety to it, he couldn't help but relax.

However, as the devil shakily reached around under the blanket to wrap Boris in as much of a reciprocating hug as he could, he noticed an odd slickness to the wolf's fur, like sweat or grime. The confusing thing about that was the fact that the room's air was mildly chilled against Bendy's face. Maybe the blanket was too warm? It certainly felt thick enough…

"Boris…" The devil tried, frowning a little at the clumsy, thick feeling to his brain and tongue that he just couldn't shake. "…you okay?"

"Y-Yeah, Ben. 'm fine." The wolf mumbled, curling over the smaller toon. Still, it wasn't enough to block out the sight of a heavy, haunted look nearly etching itself into the canid features. Abruptly, something came back to Bendy, a flash of flying upwards and smashing into the ceiling, hearing someone pleading that they could just take them, please, just leave 'im alone! And he dropped towards the floor, hearing that someone screaming his name-

Bendy managed to jolt out of the memory, though even the vague recollections caused a deep pang in the devil's chest as he managed to piece together the facts. He'd tried to stop 'Alice' from taking Boris but had ended up worse off than he'd been following the elevator dropping with them in it, which was definitely an achievement. Not to mention, the wolf had watched the whole ordeal unfold, while being unable to do anything about it.

Your fault, little parasite, burden, look at what's happened because of you...

Bendy couldn't stop the feeling of dampness from starting to build up at the edges of his eyes and the crease of his brow, fingers clumsily clutching at what he could of the wolf as words failed him. Seeming to sense the upset, Boris simply hugged the little devil as tightly as he could without causing any more aggravation to Bendy's wounds. The wolf hardly seemed able to speak himself, the taller frame starting to shake as nearly-silent sobs rattled through one after the other.

It was unclear if the moment carried for minutes or hours, but eventually the pair finally managed to calm. Whether it was due to an actual sense of calm or mere exhaustion, it was hard to say. The two states were nearly indistinguishable at this point.

It wasn't until Bendy opened his eyes, peering through bleary vision across the room, and at a familiar painted grin tucked in with some boxes in the dusty corner, that his brain started to work again.

"B-Bor's…?" The hazy, if wary question, not to mention the tension that started to putter fitfully to life in the devil's frame got the wolf's attention, Boris stiffening in kind as he looked to where Bendy was looking. Before Boris could register the cutout, something else seemed to occur to the wolf, frame tensing around the devil as his gaze seemed to flip-flop between both sides of the room.

"Boris?" Bendy tried, still fighting a weird blanket of injury-numbed stupor that gripped his head and mouth. "Wh-What's wrong?"

"I, I don' know how I know, but…but I don' think we're alrigh' here, we need t'go-."

It was a rather sudden change, one that had Bendy peering all about the room. The only thing that the devil found unsavory was the cutout, his mind a little torn on how to handle it. Though the cutouts themselves hadn't caused 'Sammy' to show up, destroying them had, Bendy couldn't help a feeling of suspicion settling in his stomach, his frame going stiff as a board in Boris's arms. Something started to creep into the wolf's expression as his gaze went from the cutout, to a spot on the wall to their right.

"Yeah, we need t'go." Boris murmured after a moment, though a glance at where the taller toon was staring told Bendy nothing. The wall looked ink-stained, dilapidated, but no different than any of the others in the studio. But something about it had definitely whipped the wolf to action, the taller toon gathering himself together before bundling the still-puzzled devil in the thicker blanket. Just as the wolf exited the room, Bendy caught sight of the beginning of a dark haze creeping into being at the end of the hall. Not that Boris seemed to need any help, the taller toon quickly bolting down the hall to almost fly around the next left turn. Despite the fact that bouncing around in the wolf's hold was only helping so much with the cottony feeling miring his brain, Bendy did his best to listen for any sign of pursuit. Was the hissing from something on their tail, or from the pipes overhead? Was the constant dripping getting louder, or was it just because things were echoing so much in the confined space?

The hallways seemed to grow darker and dingier, not helping with the devil's efforts to see if there were any inky tendrils stretching out from the walls behind. Boris did his best to throw off any monsters by taking another right, though it still felt like the pair had company. However, there were no other ways to go in the hall, barring a partially open door at the end.

Ignoring a growing rumble of machinery grinding and clattering about, Boris dashed the last stretch it took to get to the room, pushing open the door with his shoulder and nudging it closed behind him. The room was only lit with flickering emergency lights, not to mention stuffed with old boxes, but there was a familiar shape in the center of it all that drew the pair's eyes.

In the cramped, musty, damp room was another ink machine, running fitfully as ink sputtered from its spout, as well as various other spots around the nozzle. It was almost the same as the one from upstairs, except for the simpler, aged look to the frame, and some cables and pipes leading up into the ceiling rather than down. Perhaps if the little devil hadn't had the experience he'd had in the music department, as well as noticed the plans for the machine lying around, he would have been more surprised. At the moment, he was mostly just worried about what it could mean, there being a working, running ink machine sitting down in what was apparently the lowest level of the studio, off in an isolated corner like this. However, Bendy only got the chance to look at it and consider the idea for a minute, before Boris's arms suddenly squeezed tightly around him.

"Boris, what're-?!" The devil started to hiss, only to catch sight of the manner in which the wolf was staring down at his feet, or something on the floor, with growing horror building in his features. Glancing down himself, Bendy noticed that the floor of the room was entirely slick with a sheen of ink, probably leaking from the machine they were standing near. However, the more he stared at the puddle, and his faint reflection in it, the devil noticed an odd distortion rippling around his and Boris's mirrored frames, the glimmers of the dim lighting abruptly narrowing down to familiar points, shining in the darkness like the glow of a thousand eyes all fixed on them-.

"Boris, Boris, run, run please-!" Bendy started to babble despite himself, an almost elemental fear causing his insides to turn to ice as he stared at his reflection, even as its eyes grew far too dark and huge and staring, the frightened expression morphing into a frozen, horribly familiar smile, he could hear whispering the more he stared, heard chittering voices murmuring Bendy Bendy Bendy…

It was so transfixing that Bendy barely noticed when Boris abruptly gasped, head suddenly snapping to look back at the door they'd come through before hurrying forward as quickly and carefully as he could. Nearly blending in with the ink-splattered wood was a door, bordered with stacks of old boxes and what looked like spare machine parts. Thankfully it wasn't locked, Boris nearly twisting the knob off in his frantic spurt of energy and dashing inside to a small hallway, with a stairwell in front of them leading down, and another door to their right.

The instant the door closed behind them, the pair were beset by another sound, that of the old ink machine starting to make a noise not unlike a roar. It was almost like the cobbled collection of mechanical parts and ink had suddenly taken on the might of a force of nature unto itself, the howling thunder nearly rattling the door off its hinges. It was a sound that the pair could only remember in one prior memory, about a month before Alice had been made. They'd actually been eating breakfast that morning when the ink machine had suddenly set off with a droning grind like an air raid siren. And, much like it had then, it nearly debilitated the pair, Boris trying to cover his ears while still holding onto Bendy. The devil himself fumbled between his aching limbs and the fact that he was being pressed to the taller toon's chest, eventually pressing one side of his head into the wolf's front to shut out the noise. Stumbling about, Boris miraculously managed to avoid slipping on the stairs as he fled down, though there were a few close calls as he came to the landing, which practically had a layer of ink unto itself. The room looked to be where a lot of the runoff from the machine was going, though judging from how it wasn't rising past ankle height there had to be another drain somewhere that they weren't seeing. It was understandable given the number of boxes in this area too, further proving the idea that the rooms were meant for storage and not much else.

Albeit, as the roar of the ink machine upstairs faded with distance, another sound started to become audible to Boris's ears, the wolf straightening at the noise. It didn't sound like the gurgling ink, or the dripping pipes. Not even the steady grind of the machinery that was in the walls around them, no, this was something different, something out of place in the constant hum of background noise. It sounded almost like a person, a person taking in gasping coughs of air. It was very tiny and weak, but the wolf could hear it plain as day.

"Boris?" Bendy whispered as the wolf took a careful step forward, the voicing of his name reminding Boris that he wasn't alone.

"I hear somethin'. Over there somewhere." The taller toon replied shortly, pointing in the direction of a row of boxes stacked so high that not even he had a chance of seeing over them.

"Maybe we shouldn'a come down here."

"No, no, I think it's a person, Ben. It sounds…" Boris started, trailing off as he reached the end of the row and edged around. The noise was a little louder back here, and with the new barrier to block the sound of the machine upstairs the pitiful coughs and gasps were all the more audible. Now even Bendy could hear them, the little devil going silent as he peered about for the source. There was nothing that either could see, but there was another row of boxes equally high set up in front of them. Perhaps whoever it was was on the other side.

As Boris inched around the second row of boxes, the back of the room came into view, lit by a flickering emergency light that sat in the seam where the wall met the ceiling. It lit up a backwall nearly filled with old furniture, sans one part directly under the light that was broken up by a table. A table, the pair realized, that was inscribed with what looked like another one of those inky spell-circles, some of the border having been dripped on by a leak from one of the pipes overhead. And, in the center of that…

The twitching, jerking motions the little shape was making went in time with the gasping coughs, the tiny figure, a toon, fighting with something unseen for what looked like its life. Boris hurriedly started to move forward, though Bendy couldn't help but be a mite bit more cautious after everything he'd been through. But unlike the globby, malformed monsters, this one had actual shape, and it wasn't mismatched like the Butcher Gang. As Boris drew close, the tiny head turned, Bendy blinking for a moment at the look of it. It…almost looked like him. He could just make out a set of small horns, pointing downwards instead of up like his own. The face, at least what Bendy could see of it, was also a pale white like his own, the lips parted as weak little pants and coughs rattled their way loose, like the other toon was struggling to breathe properly. As the pair stared, the tiny being seemed to clue into there being someone else there, a mitten-looking glove weakly flopping in the pair's direction. Instead of merely gasping, the mouth started to form silent syllables, words. Even in the low light, at least one of them could be read, a weak little 'help' forming on the tiny creature's lips.

Bendy felt something inside himself grow cold with the ensuing realization; the other toon was cognizant, enough to react in a human-like manner to get help. It was the first sign of benign, not-monster-fied life that Bendy had seen since arriving in the studio, apart from Boris. And, from the looks of things, it (he?) was in trouble.

Boris reached out, fingers just about to land on the tiny toon before the wolf suddenly yanked his hand back, yelping in pain.

"Pal, what-?!"

"I-It burned me!" The wolf whined, checking over his hand. Bendy couldn't see any marks or injuries, but from how Boris had moved, he knew that the taller toon hadn't been fooling. Swiping a hand over his head, and wincing as the movement jostled his bandage, Bendy was about to reach out to Boris's hand just to be sure when another cough broke up the inspection, the tiny frame on the ink-covered table shaking even worse than before. They had to do something, get the toon away from where he was, but what could they do, they couldn't touch the table, with the circle-!

The circle, the circle was made with dried ink. The border of it had been damaged and while it gave Bendy an idea of how to help he knew that wiping it away would take too long. Acting on impulse, Bendy reached up to his forehead, dabbing for a moment at his runny, unbandaged brow before smearing what ink he'd managed to gather on his fingertips over the circle, interrupting the intricate design. The moment the design was blotted, a feeling like an inaudible pop rippled through the air, punctuated by the tiny frame at the center suddenly giving a gasping jolt to life. However, it didn't take long for the heaving gulps of air to turn into somewhat desperate-sounding sobbing, which snapped both Bendy and Boris back to the situation at hand. Well, at least now it seemed more than obvious that the tiny toon was not about to leap up and hurt them in some way…

"Hey, hey, 's alright, lil' guy…" Bendy tried, straining his voice in an effort to sound as soothing as possible despite some hoarseness. Boris moved first, reaching out with an unoccupied arm to the tiny frame. However, just as the wolf's fingers brushed against the minute devil's shoulder, the tiny toon started, trying to bolt upright while turning to look in their direction. Not that Bendy figured the other devil could see very much, given that the other's eyes were hidden behind a curtain of leaking ink.

Still, blind or not, it was clear that the tiny toon was completely terrified out of his wits, judging from the gasping pants that were emerging as the frail-looking frame vibrated. Even more worrying was how the minute devil was starting to edge back, shakily but enough that Bendy and Boris could see an inevitable fall happening. The table didn't completely meet with the wall, after all.

"Hey, buddy, it's okay." Boris rumbled first, seeking to head off the impending disaster. "'salright, we're not gonna hurt you, promise."

"Yeah, kid, like he said." Bendy jumped in, pushing past the cottony feeling to put every ounce of calming comfort that he could in his voice. "Look, we'll tell you who we are, w-would that help?"

The question did get the tiny toon to pause in his shuffling, head tilting quizzically at the idea before giving a little bob of a nod.

"Uh, 'm, I'm Bendy, an' th' other guy here's Boris. What's your name?"

For a moment, the tiny devil seemed unable to answer, before seeming to come to a decision and scooting forward slightly, pointing in Boris's direction.

"…your name is Boris?" Bendy thought aloud, incredulity etched in both his and the wolf's faces. However, it appeared he'd been off the mark with his guess, as the other devil's head shook back and forth for a moment and caused ink to flick about. Still, the little guy was pointing in Boris's direction again, more insistently this time.

"I don' understand what you're tryin' t'say, buddy-." Boris started, only to be cut off as the last word sent the tiny toon into a slightly muted frenzy of insistent pointing. This time, Bendy felt like he'd gotten the message.

"Buddy? Your name's Buddy?"

The response was…less than heartening. The tiny figure grew still, withdrawing somewhat as the small face turned downward in a show of either shyness or guardedness, Bendy wasn't entirely sure. It did remind him a little of a small child, from what he remembered of seeing them out in the world. After a moment, 'Buddy' gave a vague sort of shrug, the implication that the pair puzzled out being that he either didn't have a name or wasn't sure what it was to begin with.

Well, despite how the tiny toon looked they couldn't exactly call him 'Tiny Bendy'…

"'salright, kid. Buddy it is."

"Nice t'meetcha, Buddy."

The dual acceptance did seem to smooth over the earlier nervousness, the tiny devil's head raising a bit and a small, quivery shadow of a smile passing over the pale, ink-streaked face. However, with that out of the way, they were all left in something of a quandary. Well, partly a quandary, Bendy had at least one possible move forward in mind.

"D'ya wanna come with us, kid? We're tryin' t'get outta here. Outta th' studio." He added, as the second sentence didn't promote more than blank not-staring from the tiny toon. At the clarification something in Buddy's face seemed to slacken in surprise, before the minute frame shakily shuffled closer, giving a few nods. Boris snapped to just in time to catch the tiny toon at the edge of the table, shuffling Bendy a little so he could eventually hold both devil toons at the same time. The closer vantage point gave Bendy a better look at Buddy's head, along with the ink that liberally coated the top half of the similarly pale features. Fighting down a shudder, the devil couldn't help but ruminate that, well, he'd wanted a new direction to head in, this seemed like a good start.

"How's about we get outta here, try that other door we saw?"

Boris nodded at the suggestion, about to reach out to the tiny devil before pausing and actually speaking to the miniature toon.

"Hey, Buddy? I'm gonna pick you up, okay?" The wolf only continued once Buddy had nodded to show he'd understood, gently reaching around to scoop the minute frame up, drawing Buddy to rest a little higher up against his chest from where Bendy was. The movement seemed almost too hesitant, Bendy quickly speaking up.

"Y'can put me down, pal, if you're havin' trouble-."

"No, 'sokay, I'm fine." Boris quickly replied, only turning to leave once he seemed satisfied that he wasn't about to drop either of the two devil toons. It was a little awkward moving back around the boxes with the extra passenger, but Boris managed. As they ascended the stairs, Bendy noticed that the noise of the other ink machine had partially gone down. Still, it was loud enough to make the landing around them rattle, the little devil quickly reaching out to the door once Boris was close enough. Thankfully, it wasn't locked, and opened onto another staircase going up.

Though their path up was more than a little cautious, it turned out that not a one of the trio needed to worry. The small room, resembling that of an office converted into a partial storeroom with a few boxes here and there, was mostly ink free barring a stain or two on the walls and in the corners. A light softly glowed from a spot above a desk, and Bendy could make out what looked like a cot against the back wall. It was, for the moment, a perfectly good spot to take a break.

The idea was something that Boris seemed to share as well, given how the wolf's steps into the room became more and more sure. However, as the taller toon set the pair down on the cot, Bendy couldn't help but notice how much the lanky frame drooped, a quick glance up at Boris's face revealing that the normal blush was somewhat obscured by a feverish dark grey that was spreading over the canid features. The wolf's eyes were also starting to go grey at the edges, like he'd been up for hours.

"Boris…" Bendy started, feeling something sink in his chest at how the taller toon's head belatedly jerked over to look in his direction, expression attentive but wane. "…y'feelin' okay, pal?"

"…Y-Yeah…" Despite the affirmative, the growing croakiness to the wolf's voice seemed to contradict Boris's certainty. "…Jus' tired."

"…Maybe y'oughta siddown, pal. C'mere." Bendy's frown deepened at the jerkiness to the wolf's limbs, Boris all but collapsing to sit on the cot next to the pair. Buddy jolted at the shaking Boris accidentally caused, pressing close to Bendy for a moment before he realized that nothing new had come to join them. By that point though, Bendy already had a thought in mind for how to carry on from here. Despite the fact that his injuries still stung, and the multiple whacks to his head were definitely still an issue, if the cottony feeling he kept noticing was any indication, the smaller toon did his best to hop down from the cot to the floor. He only realized that he might need to say something after the sudden shift made Buddy start, Boris straightening as well once he realized what the little devil was doing.

"Ben…?"

"Just gonna check the desk, 'sokay, I'll be right back." Bendy offered in an attempt to mollify the pair, even gently steering Buddy over to Boris to give the tiny toon someone to cling to. Upon actually touching the wolf, Buddy seemed to key into something being wrong, a mitten hand reaching up to press against Boris's front. It was only after the lanky frame jerked that Bendy realized that that might not be a good idea, and quickly wheeled back to steer Buddy's hand away.

"Kid, don't touch him there." Despite the fact that Bendy was hardly being overly sharp nor harsh, the minute devil still froze at both the hand wrapping around his own and the tone, a faint flinch juddering through his features as though he expected something worse than a mere admonition. "Buddy, it's…you're not in trouble, Boris just don't…he doesn't like bein' touched there, so just be careful about it, okay?"

"Sorry…" Boris suddenly spoke up, a faint timbre of strain in his tone that ran separate from the croakiness, and one that Bendy could sadly say wasn't unfamiliar.

"'sokay, pal. Y'don't…it's not your fault." Bendy could say with complete certainty that it was more than a little strange to hear that phrase coming from his own mouth, but he would rather go find 'Alice' and let her light him up like a Christmas tree than let Boris blame himself for getting ripped apart. Especially considering what he'd managed to glean regarding the circumstances… "Just sit tight, I'll be right back."

Besides, it wasn't as though the desk was in another room. Just a few steps away, and as luck would have it, the drawers were not locked.

It also seemed as though Lady Luck favored the trio even more, given that one of the top drawers that Bendy opened was entirely filled with inkwells. It wasn't a very deep drawer, and the jars were all lying on their sides, but the devil toon could count at least ten. And, in one of the bottom drawers, he found another batch of linen blankets folded up, probably to use with the cot. There was a layer of dust on everything, but the fact that they were here at all…

"Bendy?" Boris suddenly asked, attention drawn by how the smaller toon had come to a complete halt, staring at the windfall with nothing but pure amazement on his face.

"There's ink in here." Bendy's voice might have been difficult to hear given how hushed it was, almost as though the devil worried that the sight would vanish if he commented on it. Boris caught it just fine though, even in his addled state. Albeit, it just confused him as he tried to figure out what was so special about there being ink in some nook.

"There's ink everywhere though." The wolf whined back, not understanding before Bendy seized an inkwell out of the confines of the drawer, lifting it high for the taller toon to see.

"No, Boris, inkwells! There's gotta be at least ten of 'em in here!" Bendy quickly turned back to the drawer as he attempted to grab as many as he could. Given that the little devil's hands weren't exactly enormous, it was only about three, but the enthusiasm hardly faded as Bendy kept talking. "We can't carry 'em all with us but that's fine, we can use some'a these now!"

Bendy quickly whirled back to the cot, stumbling a little due to his injuries but never letting the smile fall from his face. Boris's expression slipped into a shadow of the incredulity that the little devil had been wearing just a moment ago, staring at the inkwells Bendy was bringing as though he didn't believe them to be real.

"How…y'sure they're all good?"

The question did put a damper on Bendy's enthusiasm for a brief moment, the little devil setting down two inkwells, so he could crack open the third. It was almost strange how the sight of the familiar black liquid sloshing around inspired such complete elation, especially after everything they'd been through, but somehow Bendy was managing it.

"…Yeah, I think they're all good. None'a 'em are empty or anythin'."

"Is, are there bandages in there?" Boris suddenly asked, the question catching Bendy off-guard for a moment before he looked down at the tiny devil still clinging to Boris, eyes still obscured by leaking ink, the message getting across loud and clear.

"Well, there's some blankets in here. We can tear 'em up t'make bandages, like y'did with these." Bendy mentioned, turning back to the desk drawers as he indicated the bandages still wrapped around his head and the rest of his frame. He grabbed the top blanket, feeling out the material before bringing it back over to the cot just in time to hear Boris quietly murmur.

"It'll be alright, Buddy, we're just gonna clean up your face. We'll be real careful, promise. It's, it's just not good t'have your ink leakin' like that."

The tiny toon did seem to understand, though even the small sounds of Bendy coming back with the blanket was enough to make Buddy jump, peering in the direction that the noises were coming from. Not that Bendy was sure how much Buddy could even make out with his face looking the way it was…

"It's okay, it's just Bendy. Thanks, Ben." Boris took the blanket from the little devil's hands before tearing off a piece about the size of a handkerchief. The wolf was about to say something to Buddy, probably a warning that he was about to start cleaning the tiny toon's face, before Bendy jumped back in. It hadn't escaped his notice, after all, that Boris was still looking uncomfortably unwell. If Buddy was injured, it might be a better idea to let someone with steadier hands do the work.

"Boris, it's okay, lemme do it." Bendy murmured, the taller toon looking dazedly confused for a moment before relinquishing the cloth. "Just take a break for a minute, pal. It'll be fine."

"…okay." The wolf mumbled, settling back against the wall as he watched the proceedings with half-lidded eyes. Trying to at least put on an air of emboldened confidence, Bendy turned his attention to the minute devil.

"Alright, Buddy, just hold still for a minute, okay? I'm just gonna clean up your face." Bendy waited for Buddy to give a nod, hopefully understanding what he was about to do before reaching down to hold the tiny toon's face still as he rubbed the cloth over the ink-covered portion of the pale features. Though Bendy was trying to be as careful as possible, he couldn't help but notice how Buddy flinched and stiffened under the cloth, a faint, barely-there noise like a garbled whine squeaking out.

"'m sorry, kid, 'm sorry. I-'m almost done, Bud, almost-."

Boris snapped back into the moment once Bendy cut off, growing worried at the nakedly aghast look on the little devil's features. Craning down to see the minute toon's face, the wolf felt his own expression tense in similar horror, a gasp catching in his throat.

With the ink cleared away, Buddy's eyes could now be seen, except, judging from the fact that they were sightless, notched pale orbs rather than the usual dark pie-cut pupils, it was unlikely that the minute devil himself could do much seeing. There was also a tiny tuft of hair or fur somewhat matted to the ink-streaked forehead, the ink itself seeming to come in part from a collection of small but deep cuts all around the top of the tiny toon's face, particularly around his eyes. Even though he felt frozen by the development, Bendy's mind raced. How had this happened? Why? Buddy seemed intelligent, definitely enough that he couldn't be mistaken for some monster…unless…this had been done on purpose?!

"Oh, Buddy…" Boris suddenly whined from overhead, both devils looking up at the wolf to see that the taller toon's ink-shot eyes were growing wet, a hand having come up to rest on his chest, over his scar. As Buddy moved, Bendy only just noticed that the tiny toon's frame was shaking, though whether it was from fear or pain he couldn't tell. Not that he had anything to worry about from Boris, as the wolf's only inclination was to carefully reach around with his unoccupied arm, at first looking as though he'd like to rest it on Buddy's head before thinking better of it and lightly placing his hand on the minute devil's back, gently rubbing his thumb across the comparatively tiny shoulder blades. The gesture did seem to calm Buddy somewhat, though the miniscule frame still shook slightly even under Boris's careful hand. He also seemed more than a little unnerved by the strange pause gripping the room, the ink-streaked face flipping back and forth between both toons' general directions.

Eventually, Bendy just opted to take pity on the miniature devil, raising a hand to wave it in front of the notched white orbs.

"…Buddy, can you…see?" The little devil croaked, a thought entering his mind at that moment as he stared at the pale face and features so much like his own. He couldn't help but wonder, had these wounds been meant for him?

Buddy, for his part, appeared to stare in Bendy's direction for a second before sort of tilting his head as though he wasn't sure whether to give a direct yes or no.

"…Sort of?" Bendy guessed, finding he had hit the nail on the head when the tiny toon gave a halting nod. It also drew Bendy's eyes to the fact that the wounds, as well as some spots on Buddy's browline were starting to weep ink again. The development was something that Boris noticed too, given that the wolf shakily moved to rip off another strip of the linen.

"Alright, kid, it's gonna be fine. Boris is gonna patch you up, an' we'll give you some ink so you'll stop leakin' everywhere, okay?" At Buddy's eventual nod, Bendy felt something relax a little in his stomach, feeling bolstered by his own directions. Ink would have to do something, right? Maybe, maybe the cuts weren't open long and that's why they were still leaking everywhere! Yeah, then if that was the case, then ink would patch most of it up and they could maybe, hopefully, save Buddy's eyes.

It was something to shoot for, at least.

"Lemme know if this is too tight, Buddy, alright?" Boris asked as he wound the strip of linen around the tiny toon's head as gently as he could. At a replying nod, the wolf continued, drawing back once he was done. Buddy silently reached up to feel at the bandage, padding lightly with his mitten gloves. Another nod of a response passed before Bendy thought of something.

"Hey, kid. Next time when you wanna tell us that somethin's alright, then do this." The little devil instructed, gently taking hold of the tiny toon's mitten hand before shaping it into an approximation of a thumbs-up. "See? Easy, right?"

Buddy gave another nod, nonexistent gaze pointed wonderingly in the direction of this new lesson, his other hand feeling out the exact shape of the gesture.

"'Xactly. Now, Bud, here's some ink. Drink it all down, alright?" The inkwell Bendy opened found its way into Buddy's hands, the tiny toon feeling around for a moment before he located the top and steered it towards his mouth. Once the entire thing had been emptied, Buddy was already starting to sway, Boris quickly looping his hand around behind the minute devil so he wouldn't simply flop backwards. Gently easing him down onto the cot, the wolf covered the tiny frame in what was left of the linen blanket before turning to Bendy.

"Gotta change your bandages too, Ben. At least that one." The taller toon pointed at the still-displaced bit of cloth on Bendy's head, the little devil glancing up at the indicated spot before giving a conceding sigh.

"Alright, pal. But then we're gettin' some ink into you."

"An' you." Boris shot back, stubbornness clear despite the apparent drain on his own energy and demeanor, the wolf even punctuating the declaration by crossing his arms and staring the smaller toon down.

"Alright, alright. Not fightin' you on that, pal. We'll all take a break." Boris's expression softened at Bendy's words, a faint smile starting to form in its place. After Bendy got another blanket out of the drawer, the wolf quickly got to work, doing his best to tear off strips and replace what was dirtied or askew. Bendy bore it all with good grace, keeping in any vocalizations of pain so as not to wake Buddy, or upset Boris. Eventually, the little devil was rebound, feeling very much like one of those mummies he'd always heard about from far-off deserts. Just as the wolf was handing him another inkwell and draping his coat on the edge of the cot, Bendy realized that Boris had yet to take one for himself.

"Hey." Bendy not-quite-snapped, though the tone was sharp enough that it got the taller toon's attention. The somewhat belated jerk that Boris made as he started just solidified in Bendy's mind that he was doing the right thing; the wolf was definitely not at his best. "You gotta get one too, pal. You're restin' too."

"…Alright." Boris sighed out after a moment, grabbing another inkwell and coming back over to the cot with a supply of at least four. After each drank down two, the pair muzzily moved about with getting bedded down, both making sure that they would not accidentally roll over and crush Buddy while sleeping. However, strangely enough, Boris seemed to run out of energy first, the wolf lying back on the cot to stare at the ceiling with glassy eyes. Seizing the moment, Bendy placed one hand on the taller toon's forehead, the other resting on his own as best he could without messing up his bandages.

"…Ben?" Boris dully asked, before seeming to clue into what exactly the little devil was trying to check. Not that it was very hard, as there was definitely a temperature radiating from under the wolf's fur. "'m doin' okay, Ben. Don' worry."

"You're runnin' a fever, pal, I think worryin's gonna happen anyway." Bendy lightly jibed back with Boris finding that he had no answer, due to both a lack of imagination and the fact that he was nearly asleep.

"…Sorry…" The wolf breathed before finally slipping off to slumber, Bendy only managing to stay awake for a few moments more before he too dropped off. It was a little cramped on the cot, between him, Boris, and now Buddy, but they managed, the closeness settling in as a shield against what lay in the studio beyond.

He wasn't sure exactly where he was going, but he knew that he needed to hurry. The halls seemed to wind and twist around him, the wolf's feet flying over the floor as he kept running. Vague memories blossomed in his mind, of voices, maybe Wally or Sammy saying things like 'accident' and 'acetone', things like 'Joey's office', but that was bad, that was really bad, because…because…

The specifics weren't clear, but Boris knew that whatever the reason he needed to hurry. Even though there was something in his mind that said that no, Bendy was fine, the acetone had grazed him but it hadn't left serious burns. But how could he know that…?

The wolf nearly skidded on the floor in front of the familiar wooden door, reaching out to grab the knob—no, no that wasn't right, he had knocked back then- and pulled the door open.

Like a stench sealed inside for a decade, the image that met the wolf knocked him reeling. Instead of the usual desk and chair, the room was instead occupied by a familiar slab, except it wasn't the wolf lying there, it was a familiar little devil, frame partially melted and eviscerated, silent and still with pale white eyes staring blankly out at the wolf. For some reason, the scream beating at the inside of his throat wouldn't escape, the sight emblazoned on the backs of his eyelids even as he blinked. Boris's hands nearly vibrated as they pressed to his mouth and wrapped across his front, tears cascading down his face in lieu of the cries that just wouldn't come. Eventually, something managed to unstick enough for a name to slip out, with barely any hint of a voice behind it.

"…Ben?"

But the devil wasn't going to answer, he couldn't, because he was-.

A hand landed on the wolf's shoulder, making him jump with a shrill yelp. His neck snapped to look, eyes blowing wide and breath stammering in his chest at the sight of a familiar figure leaning on a cane, dark hair partially hanging in his eyes. From behind a pair of spectacles, Boris could see the calm, considering dark gaze, right before Joey Drew flipped the wolf onto his back with a strength that he should not have been able to have.

Choking back a cry, Boris stared up at his creator, an odd green miasma appearing around them as his muscles locked up, the taller toon's outward reactions tapering off. He couldn't move, he couldn't cry out, he could barely react with more than a slow, rhythmic blinking of his eyes as glints of metal appeared in his vision, descending on him like a flock of ravenous birds. After a moment of cutting and pulling and prying Boris could see white where there should be black, feeling as though his frame was too long, too unwieldy, that something was wrong, something wasn't right, what was wrong with him-?!

And, above him, Joey's eyes were starting to ooze something dark and gloopy, his face pulling into a leering grin as his hair started to draw up into two distinct points. Before he realized it, Boris managed to raise his hand to try to shield himself, and was surprised to see dark points starting to come through the fingertips of his white gloves. A hand closed around the wolf's wrist, pulling the sight from his attention, and riveting his eyes to the fact that Joey's face was nothing more than a mass of ink, the light glimmering oddly over the dark slime.

"I will not allow you to die." The words were Joey's, but the tone was strange. It echoed, distorted by an odd timbre of rumbling and chittering, though the same complete certainty thundered through along with the odd power. As Boris watched, the face came closer and closer to his own, the ink starting to drip down-.

-Causing the wolf to jolt with a gasp, the cot rattling under him as he bolted into a groggy wakefulness. As an answering groan rang out from the space next to him, Boris nearly ripped the blanket as he pulled it away, a hand shakily patting at his front before the feel of solid fur and skin registered.

"Bor's…?" The bleary voice coupled with a hand pressing to the wolf's forehead made Boris jerk anew, right before he registered the uncomfortable heat roiling through him, nearly fit to make him broil under his fur. The hand itself was downright cool by comparison, Boris instinctively leaning into the touch for a moment before he realized who it was; Bendy. As the wolf stared up at his friend's face, the image from his nightmare flooded back, of Bendy silent and still, eyes like white portholes as they sightlessly stared at him, almost accusing, asking why didn't you stop him, why didn't you listen, why didn't you trust me?

"Boris? What's wrong?" Bendy spoke again, voice clearer as alarm started to filter through, Boris only then realizing that tears had started to slide down his face, his frame becoming wracked with sobs as he reached out and pulled the little devil closer to him. There was an odd garble of noise that the wolf's ears didn't quite process, some of it seemed to be coming from him, but for the moment he was entirely caught up with the overwhelming tide of recriminating sorrow, the should-haves and whys swirling about his brain along with the memories of sightless eyes, malformed and torn apart inky frames, and strange, distorted voices.

Even though his body felt like it was in the middle of a full-scale meltdown, the wolf could feel a familiar set of hands resting on his shoulder and trying to comfort him as best they could. There was also another set of hands, less familiar and much smaller, patting at his arm.

The sensation was so confusing that Boris drew back for a moment, looking down to see where the extra hands were coming from. Along with the still-concerned features of Bendy, the wolf also found that Buddy had somehow gotten tucked up against him, the tiny devil patting at his arm in a groggily comforting way despite being only partially awake.

"Boris, it's okay." Bendy suddenly said in the quiet, the wolf dazedly looking to the smaller toon as Bendy reached over and carded a hand through the wolf's head fur. For a moment Boris was entirely thrown by the words, until he realized that he could feel the dried tear tracks on his face and remembered how and why he'd burst into tears. "It's alright, pal, 's just a nightmare. I'm here, okay? I'm not goin' anywhere, an' you're okay, alright? You're gonna be okay."

That, that seemed nice, and even in his feverishly addled state Boris knew that Bendy wouldn't lie to him about something like that. It did make him feel better, a little less brittle and a little less broken. The fact that both Bendy and Buddy were present was also a balm to the wolf's soul, Boris letting himself soak into the feeling of lying on the cot, Buddy's mitten-glove resting on one of his arms as the tiny devil slept, and Bendy's hand still kneading at his head as his friend continued to whisper reassurances. The gentle noise and touches were sensations that the wolf clung to as he slid off into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

With Boris dropping off, Bendy found himself the only one awake, sitting up at the head of the cot with Boris's head practically in his lap. He felt like he couldn't do much else, with the newly-named Buddy so visibly vulnerable and Boris…affected in this sort of a way. Like if he stayed awake, he could keep the trouble all away, even as it pounded relentlessly on the metaphorical doors of this calm.

…Well, at least Boris's temperature seemed to be going down. It was one of the two miracles that the little devil could say he was thankful for, the other being that nothing seemed primed to find them in here (was it because of the machine outside?). Buddy was a whole different conundrum right now, though Bendy could say that for the moment he felt confident that he wasn't regretting leaving the tiny toon in that circle. The state of Buddy's eyes though, now that was a whole different ballgame entirely. Given that most of the ink creatures would vanish once killed, Bendy could figure that the minute devil was probably a step up from those, more like him and Boris (even though there was only so much that could be gleaned from someone whom he hadn't heard talk yet), and that what was done to Buddy's eyes had been-.

Bendy cut himself off, fingers stilling in their absent motions ruffling Boris's head fur, the parallel between what he had been thinking and actual events that had played out to at least one of the toons he was next to. What happened to Boris had been a calculated show of force, with clear purpose in mind though Bendy could safely say that he wasn't sure he would, or would want to, learn why it had been done. If he was going to guess, though, the little devil would ruminate that it seemed like someone had just wanted to, to cut the wolf open, see how he worked on the inside, 'Alice's later forays notwithstanding. Perhaps it could have been the same for Buddy?

A calculated show of force, for a purpose that wasn't clear but could be guessed at, perhaps for the purpose of seeing how a certain part worked. Or maybe the point had been just to see what would happen. What it didn't explain was why Buddy had been in that circle. Unless that had been part of some test too, Bendy wasn't sure he'd put it past this place.

Heck, the fact that Buddy existed at all was something to process, as to Bendy's admittedly limited and probably out of date knowledge, there had been no other toons apart from himself, Boris, Alice, and the Butcher Gang. Where was Buddy supposed to fit into things at the studio?

Granted the fact that the minute devil, despite the differences in design, definitely resembled Bendy gave him a possibility to go on. And, given that as far as Bendy knew Joey had been the only one to make toons, the entire line of thought left a sour taste in his mouth. Had the studio head tried to…replace him? With a toon that he then mutilated? What the heck had he been thinking?!

Well either way, come hell or high water, Bendy knew that he and Boris definitely had to get out of here, along with Buddy. He could figure this out when they weren't running for their lives in this godforsaken mess of a studio.

An hour or so later, Boris started to shift as sleep ebbed, though he couldn't help but wonder as to why he could hear someone snoring above his head. Blinking pie-cut eyes open, the wolf's expression furrowed at the sight of Bendy, slumbering away while having propped himself up against the wall, a hand still resting on the wolf's head. Easing himself out, Boris sat up, stretching a faint stiffness out of his arms and back as he took stock. He hadn't exactly had the presence of mind to notice much more than the cot, and now with a clear head he couldn't help but try to pick out some details.

Namely how strangely homey the space was, even with the boxes tucked away on one side. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes Boris pushed himself up, doing his best to avoid shaking the cot and waking up the other two toons. Glancing back, the wolf frowned at the sight of the uncomfortable sleeping position Bendy was in, turning back to carefully try to ease the little devil to lie down onto the cot. Though the smaller toon gave a groggy fidget or two at the handling, Boris was able to settle Bendy down before covering the little devil up with one of the blankets. That taken care of, the wolf turned to look back out to the room, going over to check the desk himself. Bendy had left the drawer open, the inkwells still gleaming in the glow from the emergency lights. There were five left over, hadn't Bendy said there were ten before?

They'd have to be careful with these, goodness only knew when they'd find more…

Nudging the inkwells out of sight, Boris turned to another drawer on the lower part of the desk, pulling it open to reveal the somewhat diminished store of blankets. Digging a little more, the wolf found that tucked under the cloth was a quartet of bacon soup cans, the windfall causing a smile to blossom over the canid face. He couldn't say he was hungry, exactly, but it had definitely been a while since he'd last eaten. Heck, while he knew it had been a while since Bendy and himself had eaten, he had no idea how long it had been for Buddy.

Maybe food would help the tiny devil in some way? It was worth a shot, for sure.

"Bor's?" And, well, speak of a devil, the wolf thought as he looked over to the cot just in time to see Bendy dozily sitting up, trying to both stretch and rub at one of his eyes at the same time. The resulting maneuver was a sort of interesting-to-watch mishmash of the two actions, Boris unable to keep the faint grin from growing at the sheer comedy of the smaller toon's conflicting impulses.

"I'm over here, Ben. Y'feelin' better?"

"'ll let you know in a minute." The little devil mumbled in answer, nearly ready to shuffle himself to the floor before he remembered Buddy, who was still asleep on the cot.

…At least, Boris hoped the minute toon was asleep.

A faint worry started to brew in his mind as the wolf left the soup cans atop of the desk, coming back over to the cot to check on the tiny devil. Bendy, for his part, merely looked confused until it became clear what Boris was doing. Just as the wolf reached down to press a few fingers to Buddy's comparatively tiny forehead, the faint touch made the minute devil spring clumsily to life with a breathy gasp and a renewed bout of trembling. Though the initial reaction made both Bendy and Boris reel back, the wolf quickly sought to calm down Buddy, doing his best to keep his voice hushed and soothing despite his own nerves.

"Buddy? It's okay, Bud, 's just me, it's Boris."

Though Bendy wanted to say something, he kept quiet with the thought in mind that Buddy probably wouldn't be reassured by multiple people speaking up at once. Either way, it seemed like Boris's voice was calming the tiny devil down somewhat, the shakes stopping and the raspy breathing easing down into something more regular.

"Y'alright, Buddy?" The wolf asked, ducking down to look the minute toon in the eye even though it would be a one-sided gesture. At the answering nod, Boris found he had another question. "How're…your eyes feelin'?"

This one caused a little more activity, as Buddy quickly reached up to pat at the bandage covering the upper half of his face. Albeit it did not seem as though there was any change given the tiny devil's eventual shake of the head, something that Bendy could honestly say didn't surprise him. It was disheartening, to say the least, but it didn't surprise him. Luckily for Boris, Buddy's injury prevented him from seeing the emotions that flashed across the wolf's face, ranging from shock to a nearly verbal exclamation before Bendy waved to get the taller toon's attention, making a 'calm down' gesture before speaking.

"It might just be too old for ink t'fix it. It's okay, we'll do the lookin' for you, Bud. Boris here's already had plenty'a practice keepin' folks smaller than him out of trouble."

The reminder of better, simpler times did tease a smile from the wolf's face, though it was edged in a teary brittleness that Bendy hated to see. Buddy, for his part, simply looked back and forth between the pair, or where their voices were coming from anyway, before nodding his ascent.

"Alright." Bendy continued. "That bein' settled, we still gotta get outta here."

"But, I don' know where we are, Ben. I got us lost, remember?"

"Yeah, but we're not gonna make any headway on fixin' that sittin' in here. An' from what I've been seein' so far, the only way to avoid most trouble is to keep movin'. We nearly got snuck up on in that last room." The little devil pointed out, Boris giving a nod at the observation and recap of what had happened to their last 'safehouse'. "I'll carry th' ink in my jacket again, look around for anythin' we can use t'keep any monsters off'a us."

"…Okay." Boris replied before he glanced over at the desk and remembered his own discovery. "Ben, I did find some more soup. Did'ja want t'have it now or just carry it with us?"

"Well, we haven't exactly had shortages of it. It's kinda everywhere." The smaller toon mumbled as he moved away from the cot, before a tiny bit of motion drew his attention back to the last member of their party, who had been silently listening to the proceedings thus far. "Y'gettin' hungry, Bud? Y'wanna maybe have some soup now?"

Out of all of the responses Bendy was hoping to get, a tilted head and a somehow eyeless version of a quizzical stare wasn't one of them.

"Y'never had soup b'fore, Buddy?" Boris asked, picking up on the tiny toon's confused expressions and mirroring it with one of his own.

"D'ya wanna try some?" Bendy asked, grabbing one of the cans off the desk. It wasn't as if he didn't have to come back over there for his jacket anyway…

The tiny toon glanced in Boris's direction before turning his head to Bendy and giving a hesitant nod. Though Buddy jumped a little at the sound of Bendy cracking open the metal can, the minute devil's gloves carefully took hold of it before he tried to sip at it like a soft drink. Bendy couldn't help a slight snicker as Buddy nearly recoiled from the gloopy stuff at first, choking it back as Boris threw him a look. Not that it took the tiny devil too long to recover, Buddy taking a few more prepared swigs as Bendy threw on his coat and headed back over to the desk to get the inkwells.

As Bendy tore up strips of the remaining blankets to cushion the glass bottles, he noticed Buddy try to offer the partially finished can to Boris, the wolf not having the heart to turn the tiny devil down and taking it with an entirely earnest thank you.

By the time Bendy had managed to properly situate the inkwells the soup had been devoured, Boris looking up to see that the desk now only had soup cans.

"I'll carry those, Ben."

The little devil looked up in semi-confusion at the statement, before he glanced over at the remaining trio of cans and it clicked. Turning a somewhat humored if worn smile to the wolf, Bendy responded,

"Yeah, probably best if y'do, pal. Don't think I got any more room."

Smiling in return, the taller toon got to his feet and came over, leaving Buddy alone on the cot. The tiny devil peered blindly around, Bendy noticing the sight and coming over as Buddy started trying to levy himself down from the cot. At a jolt from the minute devil, probably at the sound of footsteps coming near, Bendy quickly realized that he should probably say something.

"It's okay, kid, just me. Want some help?"

There was a belated beat of silence before Buddy gave a nod and a shaky thumbs-up, pushing himself away from the cot in Bendy's direction and feeling about. Not that the smaller toon had any inclination to make the endeavor difficult, quickly reaching out to steer Buddy to his side. Going a little slower than before, the little devil made his way back to the desk with the tiny toon in tow, Boris watching with a slightly somber look as he shoved the soup cans into his pockets.

It was one of those moments where two people didn't have to say anything, a singular thought leaping between gazes like an electric current. With it came a steeling effect, the thought that while the pair had survived the warped angel once, there was no guarantee she wasn't still out there and that they wouldn't meet up again. Not to mention the walking ink and the black and white ink monster.

The risks firmly in mind, the pair left the office, heading down the stairs and stopping at the door to the room with the ink machine. It only struck Bendy right then and there that the noise had died back down to a steadier rumble, the earlier roar completely gone.

It didn't stop the trio from hurrying as fast as they could through the room, Boris even picking up a suddenly lagging Buddy to hold to him as they went. The tiny toon seemed a little confused by the change, though thankfully didn't fidget overmuch. Getting back out to the corridor only left them with one way to go, Bendy hurrying along while reaching back to grab Boris's hand just to be sure that he wouldn't lose the wolf. Funnily enough the next corridor was a similar sort of scene, with the trio being in the far back end of it, and no sign of any monsters.

The reminder made Bendy grit his teeth, as he'd completely forgotten to ask Boris if he'd noticed anything back in the safe room that they could have used as a weapon. Granted, if the wolf hadn't said anything, it was likely that there simply wasn't anything. Not to mention it was a little hard to go back and rectify that now, Bendy instead reluctantly dropping the thought before focusing on how to move forward. From what he remembered, Boris had taken a left off the hallway that had the office they'd been in, but the question was, did they really want to go back that way? Especially if the 'walking ink' was lying in wait…

But, even still, they did seem to be heading somewhere, the hallway starting to look just a little bit bigger, the wooden design streamlined into something more industrial-looking, Bendy picking out metal design supports bordering the corners where the walls and the ceiling met. It was leading down to what looked like a bigger room, a room with a lot of steam and dripping ink…

Boris seemed to key into what exactly they were looking at before the devil did, though Bendy had to say that in his defense, he had been fairly concussed the last time they'd been in here. In front of them lay the twisted wreck of the elevator, ringed by ink dripping from the ceiling, the trio treading lightly as they entered the room. The fact that Bendy could feel cold ink dripping on his head made him long for his hat though they quickly left the elevator behind, Boris notably relaxing as they took the only other hall leading out of the room, the door bordered on the right by a sign that declared this to be Level S. Two things struck Bendy as he walked, one being that this had to have been the hall that they'd seen 'Alice' walking down, and that there had been a lack of any sign regarding how the fight between the warped angel and the black and white ink monster had gone. Maybe one of them lost and melted away? Or perhaps it had been a stalemate? Glancing back at the room didn't yield any clues, a quick look down revealing more ink, but had that been from when the monochrome monster had flown into the room? It did seem mostly dry, though they'd been in that part of Level S for a while. Probably long enough that anything crawling away from the brawl they'd left behind had a while to lick their wounds and regroup.

Meaning they might have to deal with either or both. Joy.

"Ben?" Boris quietly murmured as they continued down the hallway, the little devil looking up and blinking in confusion at the questioning stare the taller toon was aiming at him. He didn't realize why Boris might be looking at him like that until it occurred to Bendy how much his expression had soured while he was thinking on their prospects. While he had to admit that it was important that Boris have some idea as to what they might be facing ahead, he didn't want to stop their press forward to bring it up in detail, instead deciding to abridge a little.

"Think we might have company up ahead somewhere. Keep an eye out." The devil whispered, pointing down at the ink trail on the floor. Peering downward, Boris gave the sight a nod before heading on, Buddy unknowingly mimicking the movement even though the tiny toon couldn't really see much of anything. The hallway remained silent, but the thought of something leaping out of the woodwork made them cautious as they came to a junction, the hall splitting to go to the left and the right. In front of them was a sign, indicating that someplace called the 'Archives J-L' was to the left, with 'Finances' and a name, Grant Cohen, heading to the right. With Boris glancing to him, Bendy made the call that seeing as they could actually see where the left-hand corridor ended up they might as well try that. However, one roadblock came in the form of the fact that there was no way to get the door open.

"Oh, c'mon…"

"Y'sure this is a door, Ben?" Boris asked, the question putting Bendy's irritation on hold for a moment as he juggled figuring out the obstacle ahead and trying to explain.

"Yeah, it's like a vault or a door on a submarine. There should be a wheel in the middle that opens it."

"Like in that book?"

"…Which book?" Bendy absently asked as he looked at the empty socket where the wheel should have been. It didn't look broken, maybe they just had to find the wheel?

"Th' one with the numbers in th' title. Where a guy ended up on a submarine an' talked t'th' captain, an' he had a weird name that meant somethin'."

"Wait, 20,000 Leagues?"

"Yeah, that was it!" Boris responded, pointing at Bendy as though the little devil had physically brought up the title. 'Looking' between the two was Buddy, the tiny toon not really understanding what precisely was being said but eager to listen.

"Yep. Anyway, if we can't find the wheel maybe we gotta find somethin' t'trip th' mechanisms inside. It's worth a shot." Bendy thought aloud, peering about the nook, even darting a few steps back to examine a chest of drawers simply tucked up against the wall. Seriously, why was that even there…?

"Alright. Would it be lookin' like one'a th' valves maybe?" Boris asked, shifting Buddy in his arms as he followed Bendy's lead.

"Probably somethin' like that, maybe a lil' darker. It might match with th' rest'a th' door." Bendy replied, throwing a glance down in the direction of where the elevator had been before deciding that the wrecked room would be a last resort. There was, after all, an entirely different hallway standing right in front of him. With Boris close behind, the little devil rounded the corner and immediately paused at the sight of a cutout leaning against what looked like a dead end with a door on either side.

"Bendy?" Boris whispered, one of the wolf's hands closing over the shoulder of the smaller toon's jacket. The little devil couldn't tell if Boris was being quiet because he thought something would happen, or just simply the connotations the thing had following their earlier experiences. Either way, he needed to answer.

"It's alright, pal. Just don't mess with it. Let's try both'a these rooms."

The door to the left was locked. The door to the right opened with ease. However, given what they found on the other side, Bendy almost wished it hadn't. The first thing that they saw was the writing on the walls, the most visible word of the lot being 'MONEY' scrawled over and over. It was interlaid with other phrases, Bendy able to make out things like 'TIME IS MONEY' and random jumblings of numbers here and there. Briefly, the smaller toon's eyes cut to the sign on the side of the door next to the wall; MANAGEMENT.

This was Grant Cohen's, the guy who took care of the financial side of the studio. This office had been where he worked. And, at the moment, it looked like an utter mess. An utterly insane mess.

Insane being the operative term considering the scribblings on the walls. Peering about the room Bendy's first focus was on the part where the wall had been broken in, thinking that it would be a perfect place for someone to hide if they wanted to get the drop on the trio. Thankfully, the space was pretty much occupied by a pipe, also drawing Bendy's attention to the fact that the floor was made of dirt, the earthen surface stretching out to the other side of the room. Among all the brown he caught a glint of something metallic, tucked away in between the pipe and what looked like a rock. It wasn't stuck, the little devil easily able to reach in and pull it out.

And, better yet, it looked like a dead ringer for the wheel that should be in the door down the other hall. Bendy turned around with a smile at his luck to tell Boris the good news, just as the wolf curiously pressed the play button for a cassette deck sitting atop a desk against the wall, partly in a bubbling puddle of ink.

The noise that erupted from the aged recording made all three toons jump, Boris ripping his hand away and taking a few steps back as though he had been burned. There were no words, only sounds of a scuffle, things crashing, glass breaking, with the underlying cries and gags of a man that sounded as though he may have been fighting for his life. With what though, wasn't clear.

Until the last few seconds, as the noise cleared, a deep, gurgling rattle taking the place of the man's voice. The struggle died down entirely, the speakers filling with the dripping of ink. There was one final splat, like something putting its gloopy, heavy limb to the office floor, before the tape cut entirely.

The resounding silence hung like a tense shadow over the room, Bendy's eyes darting back to the writing on the walls as he tried to reconcile what he'd just heard with what he was seeing. Grant Cohen, it had to have been him in the tape, him turning into whatever it was he'd turned into. Some kind of ink creature for sure, an ink creature that could likely be on this very floor lying in wait somewhere for them to stumble upon.

It could have just been a trick of the acoustics in the creaking studio but for a half second Bendy thought that he could hear another noise, like faint whispers, beginning to filter into hearing, what they were saying indistinct, but it didn't matter because it almost reminded him of that night, thirty years ago, in Joey's office, of moving darkness and ink with chittering noises and a sort of voice saying his name over and over and over-.

With barely any thought but the instinctive knowledge that they were in danger here pounding through his head, Bendy quickly took the few steps across the room to Boris's side, grabbing the wolf's free hand and hurrying out of the wrecked office. Thankfully there was no resistance from the taller toon, Boris even matching Bendy's stride with ease. The trio left the other door alone, no desire to see what might lie behind it. As they were coming back around to the other hall, Bendy's eyes glanced down to the elevator, a brief thought crossing his mind as to if they would have been lucky enough that any ink monster could have been sitting in the shaft when the elevator came down. Then at least they wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. The little devil forced himself to let the thought go on the grounds that on one front, it felt wrong to think of someone who had been so gruesomely changed dying in such a manner, and on another, it didn't seem like they were bound to be that lucky.

Thankfully the wheel fit the axel on the door, so at least Bendy could say that something had come out of that…mess back there. It took the little devil a moment to realize he'd probably need both hands to actually turn the thing, as he didn't really have the leverage (or strength, not that he'd admit that) to move it more than a few inches.

The instant Bendy let go of Boris's hand, the wolf moved to grab the other side of the wheel and helped the devil to unlock the door. With a click of the mechanisms, the door swung inward, the pair hurrying over the threshold into the darkened space before the lights abruptly came on, the door swinging shut behind them.

The scene lit up before the trio made them shrink back, Bendy noting with extreme anxiety that there was no other wheel on the inside to let them back out. It left them cornered with the sight before them, of a stage in the center of the room with a Bendy statue in the back, and a collection of dark, inky-looking figures in various poses in front of the monolith. Some were kneeling, nearly shying away from it like the statue exuded some kind of physical force. Two of the figures were even holding onto each other in what looked like fear. Above them was a banner, spelling out 'HE WILL SET US FREE' in black lettering.

It took Bendy a few moments to notice the sounds of some sort of lullaby, coming over what might've been speakers tucked away somewhere in the room. He also was starting to feel a constricting pressure on his coat-shrouded shoulder from how hard Boris was squeezing it. The realization made Bendy snap back into reality with the alacrity of someone having a bucket of cold water thrown in their face, his head spinning to look around at the wolf. Boris's eyes were focused on the display in front of them, expression fearful as his fingers nearly pulled the little devil back a few steps. Buddy too seemed to be noticing the tension, the tiny toon's head swiveling about before eventually just opting to pat at Boris's arms, pale face twisted in dread. Not that Bendy was idle either, reaching up to grab the wolf's hand while doing his best to hurry around the stage, all the while keeping his eyes on the strange figures prostrated around the statue bearing his likeness.

Despite their stillness, Bendy almost felt like if he did not watch them something would happen. Like they'd move or something, like in a horror picture. And, while it seemed a little strange to think of things in those terms, Bendy had to concede that one, he was a living cartoon character, and two, things in the studio had already gone above and beyond a natural and sane level of bad. Not that it made him any surer as to what he was looking at in regard to the figures and what they might be, but it did cement the idea that they had to get out of this area as quickly as possible.

That idea was somewhat hampered by the fact that the next room was nothing but a bunch of bookcases, ringing the wall with a smaller ring around a more private-looking little space. Which contained a cutout of all things, propped up against one of the bookcase walls. Interspersed between the shelves were vault doors, just big enough for Buddy to comfortably fit inside, most of them open and empty. Deciding to completely avoid interacting with the aforementioned cutout, Bendy rushed around the outer ring, skidding to a halt in front of what looked like a door with Boris nearly tripping over him.

"Sorry, pal, sorry." The little devil reflexively apologized, even as his insides sank as he noticed that there was no knob on the door. A push revealed that it certainly wasn't about to move either.

"…It's okay, Ben." The wolf wheezed, more than a little thrown off by all the sudden starts and stops. Buddy, who had been nearly balled up in the taller toon's arms, uncoiled a little at the somewhat more relaxed tone, listening in on the conversation. "Is it not openin'?"

"No, no it's not. Think it's locked 'r somethin', but there's no knob. I dunno how t'get this open." Bendy explained, feeling like he was edging close to babbling. However, at the explanation Boris looked thoughtful for a moment, before his eyes drifted to a spot on the bookshelf by his shins, where a book was sticking out. Partly acting on a whim, and perhaps a somewhat hazy flash of…something a little like the deja-vu from upstairs, Boris reached out to push it back in. A soft click at the top of the doorframe drew the toons' attention to a series of five lightbulbs crowning the top of the door, one having just lit up.

"Oh. Guessing that's how we get it open. Good call there, pal." If anything, Bendy was happy that someone was remaining calm, he wasn't sure he would have figured that out for a bit otherwise. While a part of him couldn't help but wonder if this was another case of Boris having…made it down here in some form or fashion, the little devil figured that it didn't really matter one way or the other. "From the looks of things there's about four more we gotta find."

The perhaps semi-logical thing to do would be to split up, as that would be the best way to cover the most ground and get this done faster, but with everything that had happened before, well, Bendy knew better than to bring that idea up.

Not to mention the little devil could see another book sticking out a little way behind Boris. Pointing it out, Bendy skirted around the wolf to push it in. The pair brightened marginally at the sight of another bulb lighting up, though as Buddy's head started to swivel about in askance at the lack of noise, Bendy figured they better at least let the tiny toon in on what was going on.

"'s okay, Bud. We just found a way outta here."

"Yeah, we're-." Boris started, before abruptly straightening up, ears perking as the wolf suddenly seemed to key into some sound that Bendy didn't, or perhaps couldn't hear.

"Boris, what's wrong?"

"I…" The taller toon started, before cutting himself off to listen again. "It sounds like there's somethin' big creakin', it kinda comes and goes but I keep hearin' it…"

Luckily for Bendy, his vantage point let him see into the inner circle of the Archives, and the sizeable lamp hanging from the ceiling.

"Maybe it's that?" The assumption seemed partly sound, at least, but even after checking, Boris didn't look too convinced. Buddy did seem to be 'looking' in that direction though…

"Maybe…"

While the lamp may or may not have been the source of the noises, it also drew Bendy's attention to a table in the center of the little circle, on which sat a few books, and another tapedeck. Granted, after the last Bendy wasn't really sure he wanted to listen to this one, but usually there was something worth hearing, like with Sammy's sanctuary. Maybe this one could give them a direction, maybe somewhere they could try to head to once they were out of here.

The low, feminine voice drifting from the speaker set a faint jolt of ice through the little devil's veins, given that it reminded him of another message he'd heard a while back, on Level 9.

"They told me I was perfect for the role. Absolutely perfect. Now Joey's going around saying things behind closed doors. I can always tell. Now he wants to meet again tomorrow, says he has an 'opportunity' for me. I'll hear him out. But if that smooth talker thinks he can double cross an angel and get away with it, well, oh he's got another thing coming. Alice, ooh she doesn't like liars."

Well, if there was any confirmation regarding what he'd already begun to suspect about 'Alice', the little devil figured that this might be it. Personally, Bendy thought the reason that Joey might have let Susie go was because of this equating herself with the real toon Alice, the one that he was pretty sure she had met at least several times. Not to mention the manner in which she was talking was bordering on creepy in and of itself.

But still, the studio head had invited her back for an opportunity, or so she said. Maybe that had been when…

"Ben?" Boris whispered, drawing the little devil back into the real world to peer over at the wolf.

"Sorry, pal, I…I thought there might be somethin'…"

"It's okay, Bendy. It's…" Conflict briefly warred over the canid features before Boris simply decided to have out with whatever was on his mind. "She sounded sad, when, with th' one in th' room, where we got separated, when she was talkin' about how she lost her, her role t'Allison. I just…I wouldn'a thought she'd…that she'd do…"

Though Bendy couldn't be sure whether or not the wolf was referring to the apparent multiple run-ins he'd had with the warped angel, or just what she'd become overall, the little devil immediately moved to step in, maybe to alleviate at least some of this mess.

"Boris, it wasn'…sometimes y'just don't know what'll set somebody off…" It was something Bendy himself knew all too well, given how he'd occasionally run into someone on the street driven there by more than just lack of physical necessities. Given that he was already on alert when it came to guarding himself from other people, he quickly learned to read what he could about a person just on sight, which did help him avoid some situations that could have turned messy.

Still while the thought might be helpful with Susie's situation that was a passing issue, the more immediate one still being how they were going to get out of this room. And they had a much bigger space to look for books in, though Bendy quickly spotted another book on the lower shelf and moved to push it in.

The moment it slid into place, a tingle ran through the little devil's frame, causing him to jerk upright just in time to feel the room start to shake under his feet. Looking up, Bendy could see the chandelier swinging dangerously around, the various safe doors clattering and slamming in a disorientating cacophony. And, rising above it all was a shrill, piercing scream. It sounded familiar, though as the devil turned to see where it was coming from, his eyes landed on the cutout that had been sitting up against the shelf.

Only, it didn't look like a cutout anymore. Though the lights were moving and flickering, with the shaking and flashing blending into a whirling havoc, Bendy could see the now-three-dimensional figure standing in front of the bookcase, looking as though it had stepped out of a mirror. Unlike him though, it was smiling a big, too-wide smile, its eyes enormous and too dark as ink dribbled from them like tears. Just then, Bendy caught a new sound that came in lower than all the rest, a strange sort of whispering, chittering, his name being murmured over and over by what sounded like a thousand voices, Bendy Bendy Bendy-.

-Causing Bendy to snap out of his daze with a gasp. The little devil's lungs working overtime for air as his eyes stared at the cutout, now back to its smiling, two-dimensional normalcy. A thud ringing out from behind made Bendy leap nearly a foot in the air as he spun about and felt his heart jolt to his nonexistent throat for a completely different reason. Boris had toppled over and was lying flat on his back on the floor, eyes closed and unmoving.

Buddy, who had been set down on the table, was also fearfully staring down at Boris, or more likely where the sound of him falling had come from, before trying to clamber down off his perch.

"Bud, Bud here, lemme-." Bendy nearly gibbered, hurrying over and helping the tiny devil the rest of the way down to the floor before kneeling next to Boris. The wolf was completely insensate, face flushed grey and breath coming in shallow pants. When Bendy reached over to get a closer look at the canid face, he felt heat burning through the skin under the fur coat.

Fever. Boris was running another fever. He had to bring it down somehow. The wolf couldn't drink ink like this, but maybe there was something, something cool somewhere that he could use-.

"Stay with him, Bud. I'll be back in a minute." Bendy ordered, voice relatively calm and sure despite the panic reverberating through him in time with his racing heartbeat. Dashing out of the circle of shelves, the little devil peered about before running out into the other room. There had to be something, like a towel, or some dripping water, something cool that he-.

It wasn't until Bendy had run entirely past the stage that he noticed the change, though he halted both his movements and thoughts as he turned and stared at the display head on, still lit up with spotlights, and still containing a horribly familiar statue of himself. The only major difference was that the lanky, ink-covered figures that he was pretty sure weren't initially statues, were gone.

Bendy's head nearly revolved entirely off of his neckless body with the speed he moved to look, peering in every direction for some sign as to what had happened, including towards the ceiling. But there was nothing, no sign as to what could have transpired, nor where they could have gone. It was about then that the little devil decided that rationality was entirely overrated and decided to follow his instincts, which entailed running straight back to where Boris and Buddy were. It was only through a faint modicum of self-restraint that Bendy didn't start screaming as he went.

Buddy 'looked' up at the sound of Bendy's shoes squealing on the floor as he slid to a halt, crashing into a kneel next to Boris's prone form. For the moment, the smaller toon completely ignored the tiny devil, focusing his attention on the wolf.

"Boris, Boris, pal, we need t'get up, we need t'get outta here, please, get up, we need t'go an' I'm not leavin' without you but we really need t'go-." In retrospect, Bendy knew that he was babbling and probably sounded like he was a few skips away from some land of insanity, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Instead, he carded through the fur on the wolf's head with one hand, shaking the lanky toon's shoulder with as much gentility as his hysteria allowed.

"Boris…kid, stay awake, hang on, alright? Just, do that for me…please?"

He tried to stay awake, but it was so, so very hard. His eyelids kept closing and his left arm felt weird along with his throat, all painful and numb at the same time. Part of him wanted to let go, slide off where things didn't feel funny and his body didn't feel like one massive ache. Sleeping was good, sleeping would make things better, he knew, if he just let himself sleep…

…But the Sad Man was there, and from the tremble in the other's voice he knew that he'd better listen. It wasn't an angry tremble, more of an upset tremble, like the time with the wall and paper. It was enough to make him want to listen, to want to try, but the more he fought sleep the more he felt he was being dragged down into it, the sensation enfolding him in an inky, all-encompassing black…

"Kid, no! Stay awake!" The bark coupled with a jolting shake rattled him back to wakefulness, enough that he registered being picked up. Was the Sad Man carrying him home? Good, he didn't…didn't think he'd be able to make it right now…

"Boris, Boris, I'm sorry, I know you're tired, I know it probably hurts, but you need to stay awake, you have to! Please, Boris!"

He was trying, really. He was never really able to tell the Sad Man things like the Sad Man told him, but the Sad Man was usually pretty good at figuring out what he was thinking. Why was the Sad Man being like this now? Why did he sound so scared?

Not that there was really enough energy left to donate to that problem, as despite the Sad Man's wants, and his own efforts, he could feel his eyelids irrevocably sliding closed, frame slumping in the Sad Man's hold.

The Sad Man was still talking, the noise indistinct in his ears, but for the moment he tried to cling to it, even as the darkness dragged him down-

-"Boris! Wake up, please! Boris!"

The garble of noise coming from Boris's throat in reply made something tickle, causing him to cough as he came to. His head was pounding, along with everything else, and his chest itched something terrible. The wolf had already shakily reached up a hand to scratch when the person leaning over him swam into view, the features a dead ringer for-.

"Ben'y?"

The next words weren't completely clear to the wolf's ears, but he could maybe make out the tail end of what sounded like someone whispering 'Oh, thank you' in an almost teary, grateful tone. Before Boris could even process it, Bendy leaned in, seemingly trying to get a closer look at the wolf's face.

"Pal, how-what, when did y'start runnin' a fever again? Why didn't y'say somethin'?"

"'m runnin' a fever?" Boris groaned, though he ruminated that a fever would certainly explain why he was feeling so achy and woozy. "Sorry, I didn'…I didn' know somethin' was wrong until…"

When had he started feeling so poorly? Boris fought with his still-hazy mind to remember, the only thing that he was able to come up with was the moment right before Bendy had pushed in the book that had been sticking out. The room had suddenly gone all wobbly before winking away into darkness, and he'd dreamed that-.

Boris blinked, face crinkling as he tried to think things through. What had been happening in that…that dream? Was it a dream? Despite the fact that he hadn't felt…lucid, hadn't felt clear, it still felt vivid enough that Boris had his doubts. But…he didn't remember anything about finding anyone…sane down in the bowels of the studio, and nothing about his arm or neck. Granted, those weird memories weren't perfect but still…

"Boris, what's wrong?" Bendy asked, the tense question drawing the wolf's attention back to reality. It was only then that Boris realized the manner in which his face was twisting and making the headache he was already nursing worse. Letting his expression loosen, the wolf nearly relaxed entirely, maybe to the point of nearly dozing off again before Bendy panicked and gave Boris's shoulder a shake.

"Boris, Boris, don't sleep, alright? Stay awake, pal!"

"'m not!" The wolf yelped, sitting upright and nearly falling back again as the room swam heavily around him. "'m…'m not, 'm, 'm jus' dizzy…"

"Alright, th-then here, sit back against the shelf, pal, okay? I'm gonna get the door open an' we're gonna leave. Just stay awake, pal, please, don't sleep."

Boris honestly wasn't sure how much he could promise. The room still felt like it was swaying under him, his head seemed like it was stuffed with cotton and his whole frame ached. He felt like he'd been stretched by his wrists and ankles, his insides more than a little squirmy and nauseous. Still, with Bendy looking so tightly wound, not to mention the fact that from the little devil's tone he might as well have been pleading, the wolf could only offer his best effort at a comforting smile before giving a nod.

"Okay, Ben. Don' worry. I'll stay awake." Boris added as he backed up to rest against the bookshelf. A flicker of motion drew the wolf's eyes down to where Buddy was standing, the tiny toon hesitating for a moment before shakily reaching out, feeling for where Boris was. Bendy caught on to what the minute devil was trying to do, steering Buddy's mitten gloves over to the wolf.

"'s okay, Buddy, 'm right here." Boris murmured, arms feeling like wet noodles as they picked up the tiny toon, resting Buddy against his front. It almost worried Boris a little when Buddy froze up, the minute devil stiff as a board against the taller toon's chest. Before the wolf could so much as comment on it though, Buddy relaxed, a tiny glove rubbing over the inky fur in what felt like an effort at comfort. Boris wasn't about to turn it down, partly curling around the minute devil as Bendy gave the scene a brief once-over, before darting back into the shelves to hunt for more books. Internally, the smaller toon went over the situation in his head, trying to re-orientate himself. They'd found three, there were five lights, that meant that there had to be two more about for him to find. Granted, if that didn't work or if all this turned up another dead end, he figured that maybe they could try to hunt down however the heck the other, the people had gotten out.

Even if the very thought of that made something in Bendy want to squirm away from the idea.

The little devil's feet nearly carried him past the next book, tucked away on a higher shelf. Levying himself up on one of the open safes embedded in the wall, Bendy pressed the book in with the rest, internally bracing himself just in case something else was going to happen.

When the atmosphere carried on, silent and still, the little devil couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief, even as he internally circled around…whatever that was that had happened back there. What even was that, what had he seen? The first thing he could remember was the, the shaking and the screaming, the memory of the shrillness to the sound bringing to mind the recording he and the others had been listening to only minutes before.

Bendy's feet stilled in their path around the outer ring of shelves, the thought occurring in his mind that there might be a way that the recording and the weird vision were related, at least in part. After all, they'd heard a recording with Grant Cohen being changed into an ink monster, would it really have been so outlandish to think that, maybe, Susie had met a similar fate, in this very room? Maybe this is where she had been actually made into 'Alice', when she'd been reborn a second time.

While the assumption could make sense, even disjointedly, the latter half of the vision was still more than a little confusing, and frightening. It had been an image of himself, that Bendy knew, but the, the way it had been smiling, the ink leaking from its eyes, and the sounds. It all reminded him of that other, strange moment when he'd been in the room with the other ink machine, right before they'd found Buddy. Not to mention that night thirty years ago, finally rattled loose from wherever he'd managed to tuck it away in his mind…

Bendy could hardly say that he was an overly superstitious sort, but that imagery was starting to become too coincidental for him to ignore. Question was, was it a message or a threat? Or was it just him finally losing it after all?

"B-Ben!" Came a croak of a holler, a cough filtering through before the speaker tried again. "Bendy!"

It didn't take him long to recognize who was calling, Bendy flying back into the inner ring of bookshelves like someone'd lit his tail on fire.

"Right here, pal, what's wrong, are you okay-?" The smaller toon started, right before he noticed a smile trying to shakily form on the canid features. Though Boris's frame was trembling a little with the coughs that were fighting to get out, the wolf still pointed at a spot just above the desk where another book was sticking out.

"Thanks pal." Bendy said after a moment, Boris's coughs easing with the decrease of strain on his throat. With the last book pressed into the shelf, there was now the somewhat arduous task of the trio heading over to the door. Boris didn't let Buddy down, the tiny toon hardly seemed to mind that, but the wolf's attempt to get back on his feet was still painstakingly slow. Bendy also noticed how Boris kept grabbing onto the shelves with a hand, like the wolf needed orientation to simply stand up. Hopefully there'd be another office or something behind this door they could rest in for a bit, he really wasn't comfortable pushing Boris when the wolf was so obviously not well.

The faint hope for a break was immediately dashed, as the trio went through a small hallway leading out onto a makeshift catwalk. This ringed…Bendy wasn't even sure he'd have called it a room. This was honestly more of a cavern or cave, though when the little devil peered over the side he found that he couldn't even see the bottom. More ominously was the fact that hanging from the stone 'ceiling' were several cages, the chains creaking as they swayed gently. There was nothing in them, thank everything for that, but the fact that they were even there to begin with was more than a little disconcerting.

Either way, no part of this looked like the ideal spot for a break, something that Boris seemed to agree with too despite the fact that the wolf still looked very feverish and sickly. Bendy quickly looked up as the taller toon started to head along down the catwalk, steps still plodding and a little unsteady. Noting that the catwalk didn't exactly have any safety rails, the little devil hurried after the wolf, hoping to at least steer Boris so that he was closer to the wall, despite the occasional box and debris sitting against it. The instant the wolf's eyes caught sight of Bendy coming up on his left, nearer to the edge of the catwalk, the taller toon's arm zipped out and grabbed ahold of the devil's coat sleeve, dragging him over to the wolf's other side. Bendy let out a yelp that echoed off the walls, actual words soon to follow once it sank in what Boris had done.

"Hey, pal, what gives?! I was fine!"

"Y'looked like y'were gonna fall, Bendy!" The wolf whined back, expression nearing on petulant as they came to a set of stairs.

"I wasn't gonna fall, Boris, I was tryin' t'make sure you weren't about t'go over the edge! You're th' one that looks like he's gonna drop any moment now!"

"'m fine, Ben."

"Yeah, an' I'm a millionaire. The coat's just for rustic charm." The little devil snarked back, Boris pausing in his ascent up the steps to give the smaller toon an unamused look. It drew Bendy's attention to the fact that the wolf's eyes were starting to go inkshot at the edges, the smaller toon unable to keep himself from giving a last thought. "Maybe y'oughta save some'a that worrywarting for yourself, pal. Y'look like y'could use it."

"'m s'pposed t'be watchin' your back though." The words were nearly sullen, Bendy now seeing the expression behind the sickliness. Boris's posture and features had drawn inward, the wolf's face turning downcast as he scrubbed at his eyes with a free hand, almost as though he was trying to clear away any mental fog the fever was bringing. The sight, along with the words, softened the little devil's earlier mood, and had him bite back a faint sigh as he skipped ahead to keep up with Boris. True, he didn't want his pal pushing himself when it was clear he wasn't up for it but given the circumstances Bendy couldn't fault Boris for his desire to be useful. Besides, maybe to the wolf it had looked like he was going to fall.

"I know, an' y'are. You're doin' great at it, really. But that's, that's a two-way street, pal. You watch my back, an' I watch yours too. That's how it works." And right now, Boris looked like he might be needing someone watching his back. The last wasn't said, but the implication was clear, the wolf pausing again to look down at the smaller toon.

"…Alright, Ben." The wolf murmured, expression still dour enough that Bendy reached over and took Boris's free hand. The taller toon jolted up out of the low mood, pie-cut eyes locking onto the sight of Bendy holding his hand with at first surprise, before the expression melted into a tired kind of contentedness. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, pal." Bendy responded, before he glanced down and remembered the other member to their little party. "Y'doin' alright there, Bud?"

The tiny toon jolted at being addressed, though Buddy recovered quickly enough and gave a shaky thumbs-up. Both the wolf and the little devil chuckled, Boris giving Buddy a light squeeze of a hug and Bendy reached over to ruffle at the minute devil's nonexistent hair.

"Hey, I actually get t'do this t'somebody now." Bendy couldn't help but quip, Boris giving a slight snort before taking his hand out of Bendy's to reach over and do the same to the smaller toon. "Hey, pal, c'mon that wasn't-."

The mirth was somewhat dispelled when the wolf's chuckles suddenly made his throat catch, a couple wet coughs rattling through the lanky frame as Boris tried to cover his mouth. The fit passed in just a few moments, though the mood was entirely soured, and forced them to continue on to find somewhere to stop. Their path took them past a pipe sticking out from the wall, a pipe that happened to be draining ink down into the chasm below. The trio steered clear of the slightly splashing liquid, Bendy catching sight of a cutout seemingly stuck into the rock wall. Passing next to it brought the lower part of the little devil's cardboard likeness resting on the catwalk, up against the wall, into view. The sight made Bendy wonder if the cutout had been deliberately shoved into the wall, but if that had been the case, then why was it necessary?

Or maybe he was overthinking it and someone had just done it for kicks. Either way, it didn't really help them any. The next part of the catwalk was definitely a lot sturdier, something that helped Bendy's nerves, but it left them in kind of a strange spot. For one, there was a hallway leading off into…somewhere, and some kind of a machine to both their right and their left, the latter next to the edge of the catwalk. Judging from the manner in which there was another platform, they could get across, somehow.

What Bendy eventually did find was that there was…something of a standard way across, in the form of a sort of cart thing on a rope running from one crank to another. One on one side of the chasm, and the second on the other. However, when the smaller toon went to try to pull the lever, he quickly realized that, one, it wouldn't move, and two, there was a gear missing off the side of the crank. He could see where it was supposed to fit on the machine, but a quick look around told Bendy that there weren't any loose gears, and nothing he could use to try to mimic one that would make the thing go.

It was more than a little frustrating, the little devil nearly clunking his head into the metal in aggravation. Granted, it did seem like they were being left alone, at least for the moment, so it wasn't like they had to rush to piece things together. Maybe he could find something to use down that corridor, or another way around…

Even as he thought that a sudden, gravely cough sounded from behind, echoing off the walls of the cave. Immediately, the little devil turned, face falling as he noticed that the wolf's demeanor had just grown more and more sickly with each passing minute. The taller toon was wavering on his feet, Buddy 'looking' up at Boris's face with trepidation in his features.

Even though there wasn't a monster ready to chase them, there still was a sort of timer running that the little devil had completely neglected to take into account. Boris just didn't have time for Bendy to figure out how to get across, the realization hitting home as the smaller toon watched the wolf try to lean surreptitiously against the rock wall, face still flushed and breathing coming in exhausted pants. Snapping to at the sight of the taller toon shuffling Buddy in his arms to scratch at his chest again, Bendy quickly made a decision as to what to do next.

"Boris, siddown for a minute, okay? We're takin' a break."

"…Really?" The wolf asked, even as he slid down the rock wall to sit on a trunk next to the other machine. In his arms, Buddy cocked his head on his nonexistent neck, features radiating confusion. "Bu', there's nowhere t'hide in here."

"I don't think we gotta worry too much right now, and I know. I just…" The devil hesitated for a moment, knowing what he was about to say would no doubt be met with some opposition. "I just think y'should take five, maybe have some ink. You're, you're not lookin' too good right now, pal."

"No, I can't." Boris replied straightaway, and though the taller toon did shuffle around with the purpose of someone who wanted to get back to his feet, he didn't actually make any headway. "Bendy, I don't want you bein' on your own, 's not safe down here, what if somethin' shows up-?"

"If somethin' does happen, I'll deal with it. Right now, y'really look like y'could use th' ink." The devil punctuated his observation by drawing one of the inkwells out of his pocket, holding it out to the wolf. Boris looked between the inkwell to his unoccupied hand, still lethargically trying to tame the itch present under his fur.

"…Okay..." The taller toon eventually responded, reaching out to take the inkwell and clumsily uncorking it. When Boris moved to only take a small sip, Bendy spoke up again.

"Pal, it's okay, just take th' rest of it."

"B…But I thought we needed t'save these…" Before Boris was even finished speaking, Bendy was shaking his head in reply. Trying to put on a calming air, despite the fact that he felt anything but, the little devil spoke up.

"We also need 'em t'fix up any problems we got, otherwise we're carryin' 'em around for nothin', right?"

"Yeah, I guess…" The wolf hummed, peering about for a moment as though to make sure that nothing was sneaking up on them before downing the entire inkwell. It didn't take long for it to work, Boris slumping sideways to rest on the trunk. Bendy came to sit down next to the wolf's impromptu bed, reaching out to grasp the taller toon's hand. The little devil wasn't about to admit it aloud, but he definitely was starting to feel some of the strain of trying to be calm when, for all he knew, his best pal was in serious trouble.

The only times when he could remember getting sick enough to have a fever this bad was when he and Boris had eaten something left in the break room that Henry had said was spoiled. It was something that Bendy became acutely more aware of when he was living on the streets and trying to find edible food wherever he could manage. Especially because the sickness had hit the little devil particularly hard, given that while neither toon could stop throwing up Bendy had a considerably lower threshold for losing liquids. It had also been the longest time that either toon had been sick, the entire, sordid ordeal lasting about a week before Bendy was finally back on his feet, with Boris having recovered a day or two before. It was strange, in retrospect, how certain snapshots of the experience stuck in Bendy's memory while the rest was a feverish blur-.

-curled up on the floor, Bendy could hear Boris whimpering from somewhere close as the wolf juddered his way through the sickness that swamped the pair. While the taller toon seemed to have a bit more energy to him, Bendy had long since lost his ability to do anything other than lie on the floor and stare at whatever point of the room his head happened to be turned towards. His head pounded, his stomach swam, though it had little more to actually throw up. He'd already pretty much emptied everything he could all over the floor next to his cot. If there was anymore his body thought it could bring up, Bendy was sure it would…turn him inside out or something.

The little devil was dazedly drawn back into reality by the fact that Boris had turned to him, the wolf's face wane but panicky in the semi-darkness. The door suddenly opening caused light to flood into the room, Bendy torpidly craning his nonexistent neck along with Boris to see a pair of shadowy figures standing in the door, one quickly turning on the lights before racing into the room. Bendy was able to make out Henry, his expression fighting to stay calm as he took in the complete disaster area the room had become overnight. The animator turned to say something to the other person, before reaching down to pick up the nearly-comatose devil. Bendy barely had the energy to do much more than lie there in Henry's arms, things greying out as his head flopped to rest against the animator's shirt.-

"…Ben?" Boris abruptly murmured, eyes blinking and half-lidded even as they tried to seek out the little devil's face.

"Sor-Yeah, pal?"

"B'careful, okay?" The wolf requested, right as his eyes finally slid shut, congested snores drifting up from Boris after just a few seconds. It didn't escape Bendy's notice that even with the faint humidity in the air, probably from all the ink draining, the lanky toon still shivered like he was in a freezer. Without thinking on it too much, the little devil shrugged off his coat, draping it over Boris's shoulders in an effort to ward off the chill.

Bendy nearly forgot about Buddy, only being reminded at a sudden blur of motion to his side as the minute devil scurried over to Boris's makeshift bed. The smaller toon let Buddy pad about to feel at the coat and one of the wolf's hands, before he decided to go forward with the idea he'd been working on earlier.

"Buddy, I need y'to wat-keep an ey-…" Bendy trailed off, entirely stymied as to how to present what he wanted without drawing attention to the tiny toon's injury. Buddy, for his part, simply tilted his head in partial confusion, not understanding why the other devil might be second-guessing himself.

"Just stay with Boris, alright? An' holler if he wakes up." Bendy finally settled, lifting Buddy up to sit on top of the trunk next to the wolf's head, before turning to head down the hall and almost missing the brief flash of repulsed discomfort flickering over Buddy's face at the mention of hollering. "Look, if y'don't wanna yell, just start bangin' stuff t'gether an' I'll know t'come runnin'. Alright, kid?"

The compromise appeared to pacify the tiny toon, Buddy giving a quiet nod as he settled himself down right next to Boris. As Bendy glanced back before going down the hallway, he noticed that the minute devil had started to pet the wolf's head in an effort at comfort.

The sight was quickly swept away as Bendy headed further down the corridor, keeping his footsteps light and an eye out for anything that might mean him trouble. The next turn the hall took brought the little devil to what looked like a dead end, with an enormous pipe running from the ceiling of the alcove-like spot to the floor. Walking into the room didn't reveal any obvious doors or ways to continue on, but there was a lever on the wall, and another valve behind the pipe.

Opting for convenience, Bendy decided to try the lever first, and nearly regretted it on the spot when it caused the upper piece of the pipe to raise up off of the floor, revealing a bubbling pool of ink. Efforts to try to close it were found to be nearly impossible, as the lever was now deciding to be stuck and wouldn't move in either direction. Which left Bendy with just the valve, and a decision to make that suddenly seemed a lot more looming.

However, with the thought of the sickened wolf in the other room and the blind minute devil who were both relying on him, who would be trapped in this hellhole if he didn't find some way to keep them able to move along, Bendy forced himself to try. The valve turned easily enough, though the reaction it caused nearly frightened the little devil clear out of his skin. A faint vibration went through the earthen floor of the room, and a shape burst upward from the pool of ink contained in the bottom part of the pipe. Bendy's gasp was partially drowned out by a gurgling moan the shape made, the noise causing the image to click in the smaller toon's mind; it was one of the swollen ink monsters.

Bendy stayed pressed against the wall, too terrified to move as the inky shape hovered in the pool, right before its head turned and seemed to catch sight of the little devil. Before he could even scream, the swollen ink monster gave a groan, reaching up to its back and pulling off two handfuls of what looked like globbier blobs of ink. These it simply released once its hands were over the side of the pipe, letting them fall to the earthen floor before plunging back down into the mire. The little devil stared for a moment, bending down somewhat to pick up the ink while trying to keep his eye on the still bubbling murk.

This left Bendy with a blob of ink in each hand, and more than a little confused and repulsed by what had just happened. Reluctantly studying the stuff made him uncomfortably aware that it had more the consistency of a slime than a liquid, almost like some kind of gelatin. But, why would a monster want to give him this? He almost wished there had been some sort of speech, the lack of it after everything that he'd been through on the upper levels was eerie.

Had it been trying to help him? But, if that was the case, then what was he supposed to do with this stuff?

Either way, Bendy was doubly sure he didn't want to stick around, just on the off-chance something less benign was going to come up out of the ink next. Hurrying back out the way he'd come in, Bendy was gratified to see that Boris had not woken up, though Buddy was still very much awake, and 'looking' up in askance at the sounds the little devil was making.

"It's fine, Bud. Just me, everythin's fine." Bendy murmured, trying to force some ease into his voice despite the fact that he was feeling none of it. However, as he caught himself fruitlessly trying to make eye contact with the tiny toon to convey some of the earnestness he wasn't feeling, Bendy's eyeline happened to drift just a little behind the pair to see the machine that he'd half-noticed before. From the angle that he was looking at it, Bendy could see what looked like a lever on the left, with what appeared to be some kind of slot in the front dropping into the machine itself. Coming around to the right revealed some sort of dial, on an image of what looked like a cup. Putting one of the ink blobs into the slot in front, Bendy hesitantly flicked the dial, passing what looked like a bone before he came up on an image of…what was that, some kind of stabilizing thing?

He honestly could not have said what it was one way or the other, for all he knew the crank for the bridge could have been missing more than a gear so he decided to give it a try. Coming back around to the lever, the little devil gave it a pull and realized his mistake in not trying to warn the sightless member of their group when the sudden clamor of noise from the machine made Buddy jump and cower.

"I-It's alright, Bud, it's just-." Bendy's explanation was stopped cold when, with a final clank, an object sprung from the bottom part of the machine with color seeping into the initially inky shape. What it was clicked only a moment later; a radio. Bendy had to stare at it for a few minutes just to be sure that it was indeed there to begin with. Placing the other handful of ink into the slot, the little devil bent down to pick up the radio, hefting it up to give it a closer look. Partly on a whim, Bendy gave one of the knobs on the front a twist and ended up nearly dropping the thing when music suddenly blared out of the speaker. Thankfully managing to not let the radio hit the floor, Bendy managed to turn off the music, head jerking to look over at Boris to be sure his mistake hadn't woken the wolf up. The taller toon frowned in his sleep, shifting about for a moment before resettling. Still, while most of the feverishness had cleared, Boris's expression was still somewhat mired by restlessness. Worried that the wolf might be headed for a nightmare, Bendy left the ink in the machine and the radio on the ground and came up alongside the trunk. Picking up on the noise, Buddy started to reach out in the little devil's direction, Bendy quietly taking one of the tiny gloves in a hand while he carded Boris's head fur with his other.

"'s okay, Bud. Just, just checkin' on Boris. He's been, alright while I've been gone?"

At a nod from the tiny toon, Bendy was about to give his own in return before he realized that doing that wasn't likely to be very effective.

"Alright, thanks Bud. You been okay? How're your eyes feelin'?"

The minute devil felt out the bandage on his face, before giving a somewhat hesitantly shaky thumbs-up, almost as though he was a little afraid of what Bendy would say or do if he answered no.

"…It really feels okay, Bud? It's alright if it's not, 'specially if you're hurt. If it's hurtin' y'gotta let us know so we can help fix it." Despite himself, Bendy felt a sort of comforting smile try to form on his face, his hand letting go of Buddy's to rest on the minute devil's head, kneading in the sort of way Henry used to do. Though a small shake went through the tiny frame at the first hint of contact, the tension in Buddy eased. Bendy wasn't certain he would say that the tiny toon was relaxing in his presence, exactly, more that Buddy appeared to consciously note the nervous energy, and exhaustedly tried to dispel it for a while. Bendy steered the slumping Buddy forward, letting the minute devil's head rest against his shoulder. The change did cause Buddy to tense up again, but after a minute or two with nothing happening, the semi-exhausted slump set back in.

He could just let the tiny toon lean against the trunk, or Boris, so he could get back to the ink processing-machine-thing, but for the moment, Bendy let Buddy stay where he was. Not to mention, the brief downtime did start to stir some of the curiosity that had been flickering in the little devil's mind since they'd happened upon the tiny toon.

"Hey, Bud, can I ask you somethin'?"

The minute devil shifted, head partially tilting up to 'look' in the direction of Bendy's voice before giving a nod.

"…Where'd you come from?" Bendy blurted out at first, before realizing the limits of this one-sided conversation and quickly amending. "Wait, no, that was a bad question, strike that. Just…were you always in that room? The one Boris an' me found you in?"

Though the entire thing had Buddy looking more than a little confused, the tiny toon's expression cleared into something a bit more unreadable, if not somber, at the eventual clarification. At the answering headshake from Buddy, Bendy spoke up again.

"Can I ask another question, Bud?" Waiting for the tiny toon's go-ahead, Bendy continued. "Were your eyes always like that, and can you talk at all?"

This caused a reaction that Bendy knew straightaway he didn't like. The tension in Buddy's frame returned tenfold, the tiny toon growing stiff as he protectively curled on himself, the mitten gloves clenched over their attached arms. Despite the fact that he'd started to tremble a little, like the mere question had brought some miasma of memory into the space, Buddy gave a quiet headshake to the first part of the question, and sort of wavered on the second half.

"Alright, Buddy, alright. 'm sorry, I didn' mean t'make you, t'make you scared. Y'can calm down, I'm not gonna ask any-." The little devil's speech cut as, in his attempt to calm the tiny toon down, he'd rested his hand on Buddy's head again. The mere contact caused the minute devil to jump and pull away, an audible gasp of fright shattering the efforts. It unfortunately made Buddy knock right into Boris's head, the wolf giving a snort as the impact jolted him awake.

"Wuzzrong?"

Given that Buddy wasn't about to say anything, heck it looked like the inadvertent mistake had made the tiny toon ball up even more than he'd already had while shaking like a leaf, Bendy took it upon himself to try to answer Boris.

"No, nothin's wrong, pal. It was my fault, sorry, I didn' mean t'wake you, y'can go back to sleep if'n you want."

"No, no it's okay, 'm up." Boris replied, pushing himself upright, Bendy's coat falling to rest partly on the wolf's lap, the sight making the taller toon pause before he recognized the clothing for what it was. A faint smile creased the canid features, Boris handing the coat back to the little devil for him to put on. "I'm feelin' better too, Ben. Don' worry about it."

"Y'definitely look better, pal." Bendy offered, a reciprocating grin lighting up his own face as Boris pushed himself back up to his feet, the wolf looking around for a moment before his eyes landed on the corridor that Bendy had just been exploring.

"Is that where we hav'ta go?"

"No!" Bendy nearly shouted, immediately lowering his tone when the holler made both Boris and Buddy jump, the wolf's nearly content expression miring with worry. "No, I mean, I already checked, there's nothin' back there, it's a dead end. We gotta use this."

The little devil turned to point out the crank-bridge, hoping that the distraction would keep Boris from asking what exactly he'd found down the other corridor. However, when he looked back to the wolf, Bendy was dismayed to see that the concern hadn't quite faded.

"Alright. Is everything, are you alright, Bendy?"

"Yeah, yeah fine. Just…" The smaller toon found himself pausing, remembering what he'd been doing before he'd gotten side-tracked. "…hold on, we can't use it yet, I gotta fix it first."

"You gotta-? Why, what's wrong with it?"

"There's a gear missin'. I gotta, hold on…" Bendy tried to explain, before realizing that it probably wouldn't make much sense if he tried to outline it verbally. Better to just show the wolf and deal with the resulting questions. Turning the crank, Bendy stepped back as the machine gave a few clatters and clanks, before spitting out an inky shape which formed into a gear just the right size for the crank. Throwing a glance up at Boris, Bendy felt himself cringe a little at the look of pure confusion and mild trepidation flashing over the canid features, before the wolf turned to look at the little devil. Buddy, for his part, stayed atop the trunk listening to the noise.

"Bendy, how'd you, what's, how'd you do that?"

"It's…it's some kind of machine, takes ink and makes stuff outta it, I made a radio a minute ago-." The explanation halted as Bendy looked around, only just realizing that the radio was nowhere in sight. "It, it was just here. I just had it…"

Shaking his head, Bendy opted to just continue rather than get hung up on the details. After all, they'd already spent enough time in here.

"A-Anyway, we just gotta fix it an' we should be good t'go." Bendy finished, hefting the gear in his hands and bringing it over to the crank. Behind him, he could hear Boris murmuring for Buddy to hang on as the wolf picked him up again. Easing himself out on the little platform the crank was on, Bendy fitted the gear into place and scooted back to the safety of the more stable ledge. Grabbing the lever, the little devil fought with the somewhat stuck mechanisms before he managed to yank it down into the 'on' position. The creak of the crank beginning to work heralded success, though as he looked at the manner in which the little cart slowly crept across the rope Bendy was almost sure he might end up regretting his efforts.

It definitely didn't help that the cart wasn't very big, it taking a moment for the trio to load themselves aboard in a way that didn't feel like the whole thing was about to tilt. It eventually ended up with Boris standing directly in the center, leaning down to stay under the ropes holding the cart up, with Bendy standing close to the wolf's legs. Buddy was clinging to Boris's front, the wolf still cradling the tiny toon in an arm as he held onto one of the ropes. The crank seemed to start to turn of its own accord, the cart heading back across the way it had come with the creaks ringing abnormally loud in the cavernous space.

However, just as the cart made it to the center of the line, the mechanisms stopped with a jerk, the toons swaying dangerously as everything ground to a halt.

"Wh-What's goin' on?" Boris yelped as he fought between staying still and moving, Buddy giving a small hiss of terror through his teeth as he clung to the wolf, and Bendy looking around at everything from the line to the two cranks on either side. He couldn't quite see the gears properly, nor did he feel safe enough to move around to get a better look, but from what little he could see Bendy could tell that the gears weren't turning, instead merely jerking back and forth.

An image of the three of them plunging down into the darkness below flashed through Bendy's mind, the little devil clinging to the wolf's pant leg as though he could keep them up through desperation alone, all the while his mind buzzed with thoughts that it was his fault his fault they relied on him and he'd let them down useless useless burden bad luck you never should have been made-.

But then the cart started to move across the line as though nothing had happened. All three toons relaxed, nearly sagging in their spots as they were overwhelmed by relief. The trio couldn't get out of the cart fast enough once it clunked against the opposite crank, both Boris and Bendy stumbling a little on rubbery legs as they disembarked and tried to get their bearings.

"Bendy…you okay?" Boris managed once he'd gotten his breath back, eyes taking in what he could of the little devil's face. He honestly couldn't tell if the dribbles of ink ringing the smaller toon's eyes were due to fear or something else, though at this point he would have chalked it up to what had just happened. The near shock filtering through the little devil's pie-cut eyes was making the wolf worry though. Kneeling down next to Bendy, Boris barely pressed a hand to the coat's shoulder before the smaller toon gave a worryingly large jump.

"Y-Yeah, 'm fine. I just need a minute." Bendy managed once he'd recovered, Boris resisting the urge to pull the little devil in for a hug partly on the grounds that he wasn't sure it would help matters. Not to mention, there was the last member of their party to look to. While Buddy had loosened his grip on the wolf's overalls and fur, the tiny toon was still huddling close in a worryingly tight ball, pressing his face into Boris's front with air still hissing through his teeth.

"Buddy a-are you-?" Boris started, before realizing that asking that was probably a moot point. "It's alright, Bud, we're alright, we made it, t-take deep breaths, alright? Can you do that for me, Buddy?"

The quiet murmurs and gentle instruction were enough to get Buddy to steadily uncurl, ragged breaths easing into something more stable. The wolf was so intent on his efforts that he missed how the words at first caused Bendy to hurriedly look up, the little devil worried that perhaps something had happened to the tiny toon, before the sight of Buddy whole and unharmed in the wolf's arms registered. Either way, the minute devil slowly eased himself from his shelter in Boris's fur, head tilting back for a moment before a mitten glove reached out to pat the wolf's front and giving a thumbs up, the tilt of the tiny toon's head giving away the questioning lilt to the gesture.

"Uh…" Boris hummed at first, not understanding for a moment before it clicked. "Oh! Yeah, Bud, I'm fine. I'm okay."

Though he'd gotten an answer, Buddy wasn't totally satisfied, twisting a little as he reached about, the reasoning becoming clear to Bendy nary a moment later.

"I-It's okay, Bud. I'm right here, I'm alright too. Everythin's fine." The little devil soothed, putting out a hand for the tiny toon to grab onto, the mitten feeling out the slightly larger glove as though everything could be discerned from just an examination of Bendy's right hand. And, with his concern over the tiny toon sated, Boris quietly rested a hand on the little devil's coat-shrouded shoulder in his own show of solidarity.

However, while Bendy wanted to keep the calm moment going, especially after everything he'd been through in the past half an hour alone, he knew that they had to keep moving. Giving the wolf's hand a returning squeeze, the little devil pushed himself upright with Boris not far behind.

Sitting directly across from them was a metal door, left partially ajar. With Grant's tape, not to mention the possibility of 'Alice' or the black and white ink monster in mind, Bendy carefully pushed it open, only to reveal a decrypt, aged hallway. Walls with crumbling plaster ringed the toons on both sides, the end of the corridor too dark to really see much of, but with nowhere else they could go the trio had no choice but to continue forward.

They didn't get much more than five feet when Bendy registered a faint vibration running through the floor again, the sensation his only warning before the abandoned hallway winked out of his vision, only to be replaced with a swimming image of the same hallway that was decidedly much less abandoned. Dark, ink-covered arms reached out from the walls, grabbing at whatever they could of the trio. Rising to a pitch was a steady chorus of whispers, the words not entirely distinct but hauntingly familiar, Bendy only sparing a moment to register the sight before his hand flew back to latch onto Boris's overalls, the little devil nearly hauling the wolf forward on sheer adrenaline alone as he tried to run. His legs wouldn't completely respond, the jog turning into a stumbling amble, the whispers growing louder in his ears for a moment as something big hummed closer and closer-.

And then the sight faded, the hallway silent and still once more. Bendy's breath came in near pants as he looked frantically about, drawn back into reality by both the fact that it felt like he had perfect control of his facilities again and that Boris's hand had come down to clench over the fabric of his coat sleeve. The pair locked eyes for a moment before they decided to run to the other end of the hallway as one, Bendy just catching sight of a familiar, hulking machine as it slowly lowered past the doorway as they came closer.

The pair clattered out onto another rickety catwalk, the little devil struck by what he'd seen as he both tried to get his breath back and get a better look at the space below them. Edging forward, Bendy peered over the side just in time to see the ink machine fade into the black as it dropped even lower down the shaft. Taking a step away he couldn't help but crane his head back, peering upward at the realization that this likely went straight up to the animation floor, where he'd entered this nightmare. The little devil had been about to impart this knowledge to Boris, before a horribly familiar voice sounded from somewhere around them, crackling through an unseen, aged intercom system.

"I see you there, my little errand boy. Your angel is always watching. What is it that keeps you going? Is it the thrill of the hunt? The thirst for your freedom?" With no speaker or source to direct his frustration at, Bendy instead glared upward. Not that 'Alice' was done speaking. "Or, perhaps…you're looking for someone, someone in particular?"

The question made the pair stop, glancing at each other in tense askance.

"What's she talkin' about?" Bendy whispered, Boris shaking his head with half a shrug in response. Buddy pressed close to the wolf's front, expression twisting in anxiety at the menacing voice as Boris did his best to quietly calm the tiny toon down.

"Certain ones were prized the most and allowed to keep themselves a little better. The Projectionist was one. Sammy, was another. They were considered the best, weren't they? Indispensable to the goings-on at the studio. But they were hardly the only ones. After all, someone had to draw all those pretty pictures, didn't they?"

There was no more said, though the implication came through as clear as the first bolt of morning light. Both the devil and the wolf looked between each other, eyes wide as a silent question zipped between them.

Did 'Alice' know where Henry was, and more importantly, did the warped angel have the animator at her mercy?

And that's that. Guessing we have our new objective, maybe? Also, just to let everyone know, I'm going to be updating the whole of Chapter 1: Where The Demon Sleeps, and giving Chapters 2 and 3 a proper sweep with some additions to reflect the updates to the game (and an added scene in Chapter 5). I may try to stagger it with the full rewrite of Chapter 1 and then posting Chapter 7 before going ahead and doing the other adjustments. Either way, hoping to get everything done before the last chapter of the game is released.

Thanks once again, and if you like feel free to leave a review! Hope you all have a great day and a wonderful weekend!