peachybatim - Tumblr blog

peachybatim · 1 year

Text

Subject 418

Audrey wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

It didn’t really look like the lost ones. Granted, she couldn’t see the front of it since it was sitting with its back to her. But it very clearly wasn’t one. Unlike the lost ones, who are skeletal and misshapen, this was… well-formed. Smooth. Actually shaped almost like a human, and a fit one, if the muscles were anything to go by.

But it didn’t look like Allison, either. Or those twisted butcher gang members. It was unique.

Maybe that’s why it was in here? It doesn’t look dangerous… all it’s doing is sitting and plucking on a banjo. But then again… that’s a similar line of thought to the one she had when she saw Bendy for the first time.

She only realized just how long she’d been staring when the banjo suddenly stopped.

At first she thought perhaps it was just pausing to consider what to play next, as it seemed to do quite often. It almost seemed like it didn’t quite know how to play it, but the way it held the instrument, with such care and respect… that didn’t seem right. The ink takes memories. Muddles them up and pulls them away from you. Maybe it took music away from… whatever this is.

“I know you’re back there,” it—he?—spoke. A man’s voice, low and nearly whispering, almost inaudible through the thick glass. “I can feel your eyes on me.”

He sounded so… hostile? No, that wasn’t it. Hostility is an active thing, something that is pointed at someone else. This was more… bristling. Like a cornered animal.

Which she supposed, in a way, he was?

Not that she could do anything to him from out here even if she wanted to.

When she didn’t respond for a moment, he turned. Not all the way around, just his head, and she saw…

He almost looked like the ink demon. A wide, toothy smile of jagged teeth, and no other facial features to speak of.

Though as she looked closer, it became clear he wasn’t smiling. He was sneering. He just… doesn’t have lips. Just teeth.

“What are you looking at?” He hissed, turning to face her more fully, and revealing a single wide, glowing yellow eye. “Come to gawk at the “false prophet”? Come to see the fallen shepherd, the demon worshiper, or whatever other names you’ve come up with for me? Are you here to mock me like all the rest?” His voice grew louder as he grew more and more agitated, something rising in it that sounded like more voices speaking, more than just his.

There was something distinctly strained to it. Defensive and pointed but so very distinctly hurt, and it sounded like he was trying and failing to strangle that feeling down.

“No!” Audrey waved her hands, trying to diffuse some of the tension. “I was just listening to you play! I don’t even know who you are.”

His eye narrowed.

He huffed a heavy sigh, the tension draining from him, and he turned back so only the side without the eye was facing her.

“You must be new here,” he said, somewhat somberly. “Surprised you haven’t heard of me.”

Audrey shrugged. “Almost everyone I’ve met has tried to kill me. That’s not exactly a good environment for starting conversation.”

And that made him laugh.

Maybe? It sort of sounded like it could’ve been a laugh.

“If you’re going to listen to me play, stop breathing so loudly.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Do I need to speak up?”

“I was just breathing normally.”

“Then stop.”

She could not even begin to parse the request that was being made of her.

“I can’t just? Stop breathing? I kind of need to do that!”

He stared at her blankly for a long moment. “Count yourself lucky then,” he said bitterly.

Man.

What is this guy's deal?

A while passed of him continuing to play, and Audrey trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

He seemed to be getting… frustrated. Hesitating even more often. Arms becoming more tense.

Eventually, he stopped abruptly again, and for a moment she thought for sure he would throw his banjo onto the floor. But he didn’t. He sighed, and gently, gently set it down, with care and reverence and obvious longing.

And then he sat back down in the chair, head in his hands. He didn’t speak, didn’t make a sound. Just sat there.

“What’s your name?” Audrey asked, a little hesitantly.

His shoulders slumped a little, and he turned so his eye was facing her. He had a pupil now. He didn’t before.

“Sammy.”

“Sammy…” She looked at the banjo on the floor, thought about how he treated it with such care, and a few things clicked into place. “Sammy Lawrence?”

Sammy was on his feet and at the window in an instant, eye fixed intently on Audrey and his hands pressed against the glass.

“You know me?”

“…not personally.”

Sammy groaned, and slid down the window, his hands and forehead leaving inky smears down the glass.

“I suppose it was too much to hope.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sammy just made a noise, something resigned and tired.

“…you have something many of us down here envy,” he said after a few long moments. He had his back against the wall underneath the window.

“What do you mean?”

“A face. An identity. A self.” He sounded sad. “You know who you are.”

“That’s… not as true as you might think.”

He gave a bitter chuckle. “No, of course it’s not… nothing’s ever as good as it seems.”

“…why are you in here?”

“I don’t know,” Sammy said softly. So, so softly. “This Wilson… he wasn’t always in power here. We used to bow to a different power.”

“The ink demon.” This much, she knew.

Sammy nodded, ever so slightly. “My… my lord. I thought… we thought that he would save us. Set us free… but now? I’m not… sure anymore.”

She didn’t know what to say.

“I served him. I served him faithfully for so long, and… and nothing. I sacrificed so much. So much for him, and nothing. When we all cried out to him, to save us, to hear us. Nothing.” Sammy’s voice was beginning to shake.

She didn’t interrupt. She just listened.

“And when Wilson ordered all of the ‘demon followers’ to give up their faith or be destroyed. Nothing. And when Wilson’s keepers found the lost harbor, and my flock was rounded up and slaughtered like animals! NOTHING!” His voice split again, just for a moment, before falling away into the sounds one makes when trying not to sob. “They even took my music department. They even took…” he never finished that sentence. Whatever he was going to say was too painful.

“And the Ink Demon still did nothing. Even when we begged for his aid, called out to him with our dying screams, he ignored us,” Sammy spat. “I can see now… how misguided I was. How misguided we all were. But this… we never deserved this,” his voice quivered with his desperate effort not to sob.

“I just don’t understand… why I was different. Why I was spared.”

“Some shepherd I was…”

“I’m so sorry Sammy…” Audrey said softly.

He just moaned in response. It sounded a bit like a searcher.

“I don’t think you should blame yourself,” she said, placing a hand on the glass next to Sammy’s head. “I’ve seen what they can do… I don’t think there was anything you could’ve done.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sammy gave a resigned shrug. “But it doesn’t change anything. In the end, they’re all lost to the puddles. And I’m in here, with nothing to do but think about it.”

“And play the banjo.”

“Oh please. You heard me,” he sighed. His voice was still a little shaky. “I barely remember how. Just another sacrifice…”

He looked at his hands, and upon leaning so she could see them, Audrey saw that they weren’t human. Three fingers and a thumb, like a cartoon.

“I used to be so talented,” he muttered. “So much before the ink’s call is lost to me, but that I remember. And even if I didn’t, the awards on the wall in my music department all have my name on them… but now it feels so foreign to me. My hands don’t remember where to go, and my mind lags behind. It doesn’t feel right to be playing alone…”

“I wish I could help you,” she sighed. “But I’m an artist, not a musician.”

“I wasn’t asking you to,” he responded, a little sharply. It might seem rude, but given what she’s heard about him, read in newspapers and Joey’s memoirs, this is how he’s always been. Snappy, even when he didn’t mean it all the way. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“The same as what…?”

Sammy didn’t respond for another long moment.

“You know my work, don’t you? Surely you know I was never a solo act.”

She had to think for a moment before a name came to her.

“Jack Fain, right? Your lyricist.”

Sammy nodded, ever so slightly.

“He was more than that,” he said softly, so softly. “I know he was. I don’t remember what we were to each other. But I know he was important.”

He started to shake again.

“He’s—“ He made a choked sound, curling himself up tighter. She could see him starting to drip. “—he’s gone…”

“Won’t he reform?” Audrey asked, and then realized a moment later that perhaps that wasn’t a very tactful thing to say to someone this obviously distraught.

“You don’t get it,” Sammy moaned. His voice was shaking, almost a little wet sounding. “Of course you don’t get it, you’re too solid.”

“It’s not so simple, no… not so easy for those of us without a real form.” He was still shaking, but his voice had changed. Shifted back to a low whisper. She shouldn’t be able to hear him so clearly through the glass, but it sounded like he was speaking right into her ears. “The puddles are swimming, churning with thoughts and feelings and memories. If one wants to be reborn as themself, they must carefully pick their own mind out of the cacophony. Try to remember where they end, and the puddles begin. All while it tries to pull you deeper, deeper into darkness, the wills of the lost dragging you further, until you lose yourself… like crabs in a bucket.”

“You’re never quite the same when you drag yourself from the well… if you manage to.” His voice shifted back to normal, no longer sounding like it was in her head. “And my Jack… he was never a fighter. Preferred to hide himself away.”

Another silence fell over them, this one heavy.

Audrey wasn’t sure what to say for what felt like a very long time.

“…he wouldn’t happen to wear a bowler hat, would he?”

Sammy shot up again, face and hands once again pressed up against the glass. His single eye looked a bit like it was melting, yellow trails dripping down his cheek.

Oh. Those were tears.

“Have you seen him?”

“No. But I did find his hat,” Audrey said tentatively. “And it wasn’t in the music department. So he might be hiding somewhere new.”

Sammy sighed. “Maybe… but I’ve never seen him without that hat,” he slumped a bit, beginning to slide back down the window. “Someone else probably took it.”

“Well… would you like me to bring it to you?”

Sammy perked back up, like a dog that heard its name called. It was… pretty hard to read his expressions. His eye didn’t seem to emote much, and as far as she'd seen, he didn’t open or move his mouth at all, even to talk.

But that suggestion seemed to brighten his mood. Just a little bit.

For a moment, it seemed like he might thank her.

But then he pushed himself off the glass, and turned his back to her again.

“Do what you want,” he said over his shoulder.

Then he walked over, picked his banjo back up, and sat down again.

“I’ll be back soon.”

Sammy just made a noise in response, clearly done talking.

The quiet sound of Audrey’s footsteps as she turned and left the pit were accompanied by the quiet plucking on a banjo… just a little bit more confidently than before.

#THISSS ARGRG I LOVE THIS SOSOSOSOSO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!#SAMMY IM LOVE YOU SM MY KING WELL GET YOU YOUR (presumed) BOYFRIENDS HAT DWDW #< speaking of that i love how this fic sets up finding jacks hat to be an optional sidequest #if you do it you could get a memory or a thick ink vial to upgrade with! itd be so Cool if sammy was like this iN THE REAL GAM- *gets shot*#sammy lawrence #audrey drew #jack fain #coffeecake #< thats the sammy/jack tag right?????

449 notes · View notes