#usually wally is the one to sit with him and happily get his arm bones squeezed into dust <3

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Hey do you think ya can explain Barnaby and his illusion smoke a bit? It seems really cool and I don't remember if ya talked about it in depth before

sure! this got a bit longer than i expected!

so i was thinking that Barnaby seems like more of a hands-off kinda guy when it comes to altercations. would rather sit back and make funny commentary! so if he Had to get involved, i imagine it would be from a distance and still in an Entertaining Way!

thus - illusion magic! for this au i've been picturing that he got his paws on some illusionary herb in his early teens. for making people laugh, you know! and help out with the farm - illusions could distract animals, convince them to move on to different pastures, calm the chickens for egg-collecting, etc!

Ms. Beagle didn't really approve, since smoking is harmful, but lucky for the both of them this particular plant doesn't deal as much damage when smoked as normal smoking materials would - like tobacco! something to do with the magic properties! so Barnaby mostly used it for chores (when his mama wasn't paying attention, ofc - it's still a bad habit in her eyes) and entertainment purposes.

how it works: on its own, it doesn't do much when burned. it's not like illusions will waft out of the pipe's bowl, or that sniffing it will give someone hallucinations. in order for it to work properly, the user has to inhale properly, form the Intent of what the illusion should be / look like / behave, then purposefully blow the smoke out with that thought firmly in mind. the reach of the smoke depends on the force of Intent, and the intensity depends on the amount inhaled. those that breathe it in / are surrounded by it will see hallucinations of whatever Barnaby - or whoever the user is - wants them to! it can be literally anything! whether or not the target is fooled depends entirely on the individual, but the herb is potent enough that most are convinced that what they "see" is real (auditory hallucinations only occur if the target breathes in the smoke)

upsides: this form of magic is great for distractions, cover, deescalation, and that kind of thing. if needed, Barnaby could stop a fight with one exhale! it's a pretty powerful trick! it also means that Barnaby has built up a tolerance to illusion magic over the years, so where most of the party would be tricked, Barnaby would be unfazed. the only one with total immunity to the form of magic is Wally!

downsides: if Barnaby uses too much in too short of a time, it will get to him. and since he breathes in the largest amount - undiluted at that - it can fuck him up! using it sparingly / using repeated small amounts doesn't do anything. the most it will do is make him feel slightly untethered, but he has an easy time ignoring it / shaking it off.

in mild cases of the magic getting to him, it's like a bad trip. his proprioception is messed with (basically he gets uncharacteristically clumsy & off-balance), he feels like he's falling, anxiety spikes, and his vision is just... off! there are blind spots (im talking actual blind spots, not spots of black), things are moving in ways that they shouldn't, he has mild auditory hallucinations. the others can help ground him by talking to him, touching him, and confirming what's real and what isn't.

in bad cases, it's like that but 10 times worse. on top of all of the previous symptoms being worsened, he gets extremely vivid hallucinations, and they're very often not fun! it's a simultaneous feeling of dying, going insane, and not knowing what the fuck is going on. Barnaby loses sense of where he is, who's where, what's happening. he can get lost in the hallucinations - he has no way to know that they aren't real. in these terrible trips, no one can really help him. they can't get through the hallucinations, and if they do, the magic morphs Barnaby's perception of them and they end up adding to the effects. honestly the best thing for him is to let him rest somewhere with as little sensory input as possible & leave him be until he starts to come down. physical contact does help, since Barnaby understands on an instinctive level that illusions can't touch him, but it doesn't help half as much as it does w/ the mild trips. and again, the presence of someone can make the hallucinations worse.

so! suffice to say! he doesn't like using the herb all that often, and it's why he Stays Out Of It unless absolutely needed. he has two pouches of the herb - one with the strong stuff, reserved for emergencies / one with just a tiny bit of it mixed in with Barnaby's own personal blend for recreational/everyday use. (he also has an emergency tobacco stash in his pack, but that's only for when he's completely out of his usual blend <3)

extra lil scribble that didn't make it into the lil doodle post... i broke his wrist...

#the undiluted one is the blue/purple/pink smoke #while the personal blend changes color depending on his mood #and the personal blend does Not cause illusions! #the herb is included in the blend for cosmetic effects - colorful smoke! - and it has calming affects #so its. yeah its rgb weed last person nailed it on the head #rambles from the bog #wh fantasy au #the other day i was thinking about howdy's first adventure with the neighborhood #and i was like 'ok situation where barnaby has to use a tad too much of the magic' #and i amused myself imagining howdy's shock and panic when barnaby - steady graceful barnaby #staggers a little. looks up at the trees/skies. goes 'oh no' and promptly stumbles and falls on his face. and then just does not get back u #he has to go get poppy to make sure he isnt hurt / also howdy would Not be able to half-drag barn back to camp on his own #that dog is dead weight and staggering all over the place - if they can even unstick his claws from where he's anchored himself #sometimes barnaby will feel the unpleasant trip Incoming and he'll just. lie down right there and then #facedown. gripping the grass like his life depends on it - and also whoever's closest #frank always leaps out of the way when barn starts to Sway bc he does not want to sacrifice his arm for a solid few hours #usually wally is the one to sit with him and happily get his arm bones squeezed into dust <3 #a common thing is barnaby will be like 'the trees/sky is melting and the ground is turning inside-out' #what does that mean! no one knows! he cant explain it when he sobers up!

[star-going-supernova]

The Nightmare’s Just Begun

This is what happens when I write while in a less-than-stellar mood—primarily anger. Title from the song Monster by Skillet. And a bit of a fun fact: the pain I describe is all from personal experience, just exaggerated a bit for the story.

Warning: this is not a happy story. There are clear and detailed depictions of gory violence and pain. Murder and injuries ahead, so proceed with caution. 

read it on Ao3

When Bendy opened his eyes, he thought everything was going to be okay. The hit to his head that had knocked him out didn’t matter, because Henry was standing right in front of him. He’d get Bendy out of whatever mess he was in now, he just knew it.

But then his gaze drifted past Henry and locked on Joey in all his crimson madness. He grinned at his Creator, cruel and victorious.

“You’re awake,” Henry said. “Good. I was worried I hit you too hard.”

Bendy’s stomach flip-flopped and bottomed out, and his heart felt lodged in his throat. “What?” he whispered hoarsely— because no. No, Henry couldn’t mean what it sounded like.

Henry smiled, and it was full of condescension. “Did you really think that just because I came out on-model that I’d automatically be on your side? That I would forsake my friends, my family, for you?” He shook his head and tsked. “You’re a fool if you thought I’d care.”

Trying to find words to voice his thoughts proved impossible. How could you articulate such heartbreaking betrayal?

He had never seen Henry’s eyes— usually so bright and warm and caring— look so terribly, horrifically cold.

“Just remember, you made me this. You gave me the potential to stop caring.”

With those ominous words ringing in the silence— something about them seemed familiar, like Bendy had forgotten some important detail— Henry turned away to face what Bendy realized with growing horror was an actual pile of toons. His friends, his employees, nothing more than bodies ready for slaughter.

Bendy’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, his breath lodged in his throat.

Henry seemed to come to some decision, one that lifted one corner of his mouth up in a wicked smirk as he looked back at him. “You know what would be fun?” he asked, approaching Bendy. “Making you feel them die, so you can suffer for your sins.”

Eyes flaring, Henry pressed a single finger against Bendy’s chest, over his racing heart.

“Let’s see how you like it, pain worse than death but with no mercy waiting at the end of it.” And without giving Bendy a moment to even try and process that, Henry turned back, snatched up one of the unconscious toons, and slowly began to tear one of his victim’s arms off.

There was a delay, a long second where Bendy thought maybe Henry had done something wrong, but then—

He shrieked, his body convulsing, as he felt his bones and cartilage creak under the unimaginable pressure, and a sharp, shearing pain wracked through him as his muscles stretched taut like a rubber band before snapping just as easily. Eyes clenched shut, his back bowed and he lost all sensation in his left hand, and it felt like ice was overtaking his shoulder in shards, piercing and severing his ink.

With a popping splat, the toon’s arm came off their body like a chicken wing being split open. Ink erupted over the trio from the force of it, and Bendy went limp as though paralyzed. He couldn’t move his arm— in fact, he couldn’t feel it at all. If he wasn’t capable of seeing it right there on his body, he would’ve believed without question that Henry had just torn his own off instead of someone else’s.

Henry’s hand wrenched his body forward. “One down,” he whispered. “And so very many to go.”

Bendy couldn’t have contained his whimper if he’d tried. “Please,” he begged the angel. “Please don’t.”

Behind Henry, Joey spoke up for the first time in a while. “Why should we stop,” he snarled, “when you never did?”

After releasing Bendy, Henry tossed the remains of the toon at his friend, who promptly began stuffing the corpse into an ink-filled container. “It’ll dissolve now that it ain’t stable anymore,” Joey said when he caught Bendy’s gaze. “Whoever that was will just melt away. You lot are almost even less alive than we are.”

“Oh,” Henry said suddenly from where he was surveying the large pile of toons. “What have we here?” Watching the horror grow on Bendy’s face, he dragged Alice out from beneath someone else. “Look what Susie must’ve dragged in.”

“Henry, please,” Bendy begged him. “Please, you can do whatever you want with me, just— please stop hurting them!”

“Don’t you get it?” With a careless flick of his wrist, Henry sent Alice’s halo spinning upwards, where it zinged to hover over his own larger one. “I’m already doing whatever I want with you.” Turning to Joey, Henry shook Alice’s body. “Got any suggestions?”

Maintaining eye contact with Bendy, Joey said, “Tear her throat out.”

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Henry wrapped his hand around Alice’s slim neck. He paused there, motionless, and for every silent second that passed, Bendy grew more and more tense. He could barely even see with the way his tears were blurring his vision, but Henry had already made sure that wouldn’t be a problem, hadn’t he?

Why watch the systematic destruction of everyone Bendy had ever known and cared about, when he could feel it all instead?

Henry’s fingers dug into her ink like claws, and he buried them deeper and deeper to the sound of Bendy’s cracking scream.

It felt like hot pokers ramming through his throat, colliding and searing his insides. His voice faded in and out and his body understood his vocal cords to be slowly ripped free like fragile threads being snapped. The pain extended into his head, and the back of his mouth began to peel away like flimsy paper, following after the bulk of his throat. His spine bent as Henry dug even farther in, as though trying to full on decapitate him by simply ripping away everything between his head and body, for as little as he had there in comparison to Alice.

His head lolled brokenly as Alice’s ink splattered over him, her own head connected to her body by only the thinnest of threads.

The world faded in and out around him, disjointed and blurry. If Henry and Joey were talking, Bendy couldn’t hear it.

With no way to tell how much time was passing, much less if he was even truly conscious as the minutes ticked by, Bendy just sort of floated. What little of his mind that was still working kept replaying the last few moments like a looped cartoon scene.

They were gone. They were all gone. Alice, taken so completely right in front of him, Boris was who knew where, and so many familiar faces had stared dead-eyed up at him from the pile of soon-to-be and already-were corpses.

A dull pain started in his lower stomach, weak and almost pleasant compared to having his throat torn out. The pain gradually grew until his body moved without his input, hunching as much as he could in his restraints, curling around the sharp, pulsing sensation. He groaned and began to come back to himself.

It felt like something was trying to break out of his gut, like a bomb was going off in slow motion, tearing him apart without killing him.

He heard laughter right in front of him, and through his slowly diminishing willpower, Bendy managed to raise his head.

Sitting on the floor, Henry grinned back at him. Beside him, Joey was happily digging through the gory mess of a toon’s torso.

“Thought you’d given up on us,” Henry said, “so we decided to give you a little wake up call.”

Joey twisted his hand, and Bendy cried out as the pain briefly spiked, something in him bursting like a balloon that was squeezed too hard.

“You missed it,” Henry continued. “While you were taking your nap, Sammy and Wally stopped by with Boris. Of course, Boris was already dead— Sammy tore his heart out to save Wally, wasn’t that nice of him?— but that means all the Creators have been accounted for.” He smiled at Bendy with his treacherous isn’t everything wonderful smile.

Bendy dropped his head, curling up again.

“Are you having fun, Joey?” he heard Henry ask. There wasn’t a verbal answer, but from the way Bendy’s insides burned, he could take a good guess.

Drained in a way he’d never felt before, of life and hope and any will to live, Bendy tried to let go, tried to just slip away. It was surprisingly easy. Darkness, pain-free and deep, crept over him like a living thing.

“Oh, Creator,” he heard Henry say. “Leaving so soon? We’ve only just barely gotten started.”

He ignored him, and forced himself further away from this living nightmare.

“Bendy,” Henry said, his tone full of dangerous warning. “Stop it.”

Hands wrapped around his shoulders and gave him a firm shake. Strangely enough, though, the action was gentle.

“Bendy?”

It had to have been working. Henry’s voice sounded so far away. Was he dying, or just losing consciousness?  

“Bendy!”

All at once, it felt like his bonds had melted away, and without so much as thinking about it, he swiped at the menacing figure he felt leaning over him. Henry managed to dodge the attack aimed at his chest, but Bendy’s right hand connected with his face.

In that moment, he woke up.

Falling over himself, he scrambled blindly away from a hoarse, pained cry, fully expecting to see a mutilated toon that hadn’t been unconscious to the world before being ripped apart by either Henry or Joey.

Instead, he was faced with a room empty of corpses. Even Joey had vanished, nothing more than a fading remnant of a nightmare, leaving only Henry in sight, kneeling on the floor. He was hunched over, clutching the left side of his face.

The pain was gone, Bendy realized. He could move again. It was only a dream.

Nevertheless, he refused to take his eyes of the angel before him. Panting harshly into the silence, he waited for some sign, something to tell him that he was for sure where he should be. His heart felt ready to burst out of his chest.

After a minute, Henry slowly straightened, unerringly turning to face Bendy even before his head was fully raised. He’d done that before, Bendy knew— he seemed to have some innate ability to always know exactly where his Creator was— but it’d never unnerved him so much as it did right then.

In his mind’s eye, he saw Henry cold eyes and cruel smile. Could he actually escape a creature that could track him so easily? Had he sealed his fate when he brought Henry to life?

A flash of color that didn’t belong dragged him away from the question lingering at the edge of his mind— could he even trust Henry? His eyes widened at the sight of the angel.

Three long, deep gashes were carved into his face, grotesquely splitting his skin. The topmost started at a high point of Henry’s hairline, cutting down through his eyebrow and over the bridge of his nose. The second went from his temple to top lip, narrowly missing his eye. The third split his lower cheek from the edge of his jaw to the corner of his mouth, fully puncturing the skin in some places, displaying the edges of his teeth. Crimson oozed from each, dripping soundlessly to splatter on the floor.

“Bendy?”

Bendy tore his transfixed gaze away from the jagged wounds to meet Henry’s eyes. For a moment, he thought he could see fear within them.

Fear of him? But— but Henry was the monster. He was the one going behind Bendy’s back, fraternizing with the enemy, he was the one planning to hurt Bendy and all his friends.

He flexed the fingers of his right hand, feeling something sticky on them. He looked down, and without feeling guilty like he expected, saw the terrible red smeared across a hand that wasn’t familiar to him. There were even bits of skin caught beneath his claws.

Claws?

Finally taking in the rest of himself, Bendy realized he was larger. More human proportioned, with longer limbs and sharper angles. Going by the length of his legs, spindly as they were, he’d guess that he’d tower over any of the humans.

The first thought that entered his mind was good, then I’ll be able to defend myself when Henry turns on me.

When, not if. He knew now, he understood, what his creations were capable of.

“Are you all right?” Henry asked quietly. He didn’t move from his position on the floor, carefully watching Bendy. “You started screaming in your sleep.”

Instead of answering, Bendy shot back, “Why were you awake?”

Giving him a strange look, Henry slowly stood, flexing his wings. “I was on first watch, like we talked about.” He made an aborted reach for his injured face before repeating, “Are you all right?”

Bendy stared at him long enough for Henry to narrow his eyes. What was going through his creation’s head? “I’m fine,” he finally said.

“Wrong answer.” Henry stepped forward, though he immediately drew up to a halt when Bendy flinched away. “Bendy? What did you see?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

Brows furrowed, Henry shook his head. “You’re not acting like yourself.”

Struggling to his feet— made difficult by both the tremors leftover from his nightmare and the new, strange limbs— he snapped, “And how would you know, huh?”

Hurt flashed across Henry’s face and he recoiled slightly. “Bendy—”

“How did this even happen?” Bendy asked, gesturing sharply at himself. He’d been right. He practically dwarfed Henry the way the angel did to him normally.

Each word spoken carefully, as though expecting something to set Bendy off, Henry explained, “The ink— your ink— is malleable. That’s why Joey and the others want it.” He nodded at Bendy. “New bodies. I suppose whatever you saw in your dream was enough to make you…”

He trailed off for a moment before whispering with a half-hearted shrug, “A defense mechanism, I’d guess.”

Bendy nodded silently. He wondered if he should try returning to his normal body.

After watching him for a few long seconds, Henry fiddled with the edge of his wing. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? It’s supposed to help. Anything, please,” he nearly begged, looking like he desperately wanted to reach out to his Creator.

A day ago— even just a few hours ago— Bendy would barely have hesitated to confide in Henry, to accept whatever comfort the angel might offer, whether in the form of a wing hug or words of reassurance. But now, all he could see was the gory damage those hands were capable of.

“I don’t really remember what it was about,” Bendy said, fully aware that it didn’t sound even halfway convincing. Far be it from him to spill his guts— metaphorically this time— only to have Henry smugly confirm his worst fears. Unless, well. With Henry still obviously shaken and injured, and Bendy being so much larger— would it be better to confront him now and deal with the consequences while he had the advantage?

“Do you want to try and go back to sleep?” Henry asked, oblivious to Bendy’s internal debate. There was still doubt in his eyes, but he seemed willing to look past this whole incident. “Or do you want to keep moving?”

“Let’s walk for a bit,” Bendy said. Anything to keep him from being trapped in a confined space with the angel.

Taking a deep breath, Henry nodded and headed for the door, holding it open for Bendy as he always did. But that would put Henry behind Bendy while they walked, and— yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

“You first,” Bendy said, leaving no room for argument.

Henry’s wings tensed up in what he recognized as a defensive action, and Bendy knew. He knew that Henry got the message— that Henry was a large part of the problem. He knew that in those two words, he’d managed to fracture the friendship that’d been growing between them. He knew that if Henry truly was plotting against him, he wasn’t doing himself any favors, and might even be solidifying Henry’s decision to betray him.

But he couldn’t bring himself to care. As he followed Henry into the hallway, his own body feeling so unfamiliar, he wondered— which of them was the real monster?

#batim fic #Toon Angel!Henry #batim bendy #the Sinners and the Saints AU #star's stories #life and times of star