Sammy x Henry: The beginning

Chapter five: Ink and Love

1931
Sillyvision Studios was the most thriving animation studio the country had ever known; it had expanded beyond belief since it was first founded, with many more employees carrying out the countless tasks every day.

Samuel Lawrence was doing an amazing job as music director, providing the musicians, singers and voice actors alike with excellent guidance. Meanwhile Henry was busy coordinating and animating the episodes, while occasionally designing new characters for the show as well.

Joey was running the studio in his own way: with dreams and belief. His endeavours cost the company tons of money, but most of them would eventually end up being succesful, like the toy factory he had built.

Susie had taken on the role of Alice Angel, a character Joey had selected specifically for her. Her singing lessons had taught her to sing in an absolutely angelic way, astonishing the audience everytime she was featured in one of the cartoons. She became rather vain because of this however, and the fact that she was dating Joey did nothing to better the situation.

It had been about a year and a half since Sammy and Henry got together, but so far they had managed to keep their relationship hidden pretty well, apart from Wally knowing about it. The janitor was fortunately capable of keeping a secret, so noone else in the studio knew. The musician and animator even lived together, telling the people in their neighbourhood that they were just friends living in the same house; so far nobody had doubted or asked about it.

It was a warm summer day, and everyone in the studio was complaining about the heat; Joey wouldn't give them a day off however, and just told everyone to keep working.
"Our viewers need to be entertained with more new content, otherwise they'll probably end up watching that crap Walt Disney is producing! I won't let that man steal our spotlight, not today, not ever!"

Although the studio was thriving, it seemed to be in some sort of competition with Disney's animation studio, another company producing high quality cartoons. This absolutely drove Joey mad, which led to him introducing all sorts of crazy measures to the employees; from punching-in machines to make sure everyone was on time, to posters spelling 'Work hard, Work happy' to encourage the workers to do so.

But that day, Joey came with a brand new brainchild; a way to provide the animators with more ink in order to speed up the animation process. He proudly presented it to some of his top workers, including Sammy and Henry, who were standing across the room from each other to prevent anyone from becoming suspicious.
Joey pulled away a piece of cloth, uncovering what seemed to be a large vial of ink standing in the middle of the room, with several pipes coming out of it. "This is it guys; the ink machine! Or at least a prototype of what I have in mind. It's going to provide the animators with more ink than they could ever dream about!"

Henry stared at the strange device, not sure how to feel about it; why did they suddenly need this much ink? What was wrong with just using small bottles? "It looks great Joey, it will probably be of use." He forced a smile; he knew better than to upset Joey, the man would lose his temper pretty easily nowadays.

Joey smiled widely. "I'm sure it will be! And the best part is I'm starting it right now, so you and your department will discover its usefullness right away! Now, back to work you go, there is still a lot to do!"

Samuel walked out of the room along with Henry, shaking his head. "This 'ink machine' sounds like trouble already; but I haven't got time to worry about it, the orchestra is waiting."
He looked around him, making sure the hallway was empty, before giving Henry a quick kiss. "See you after work, darling~" He paced back to the music department, leaving behind a flustered Henry.

The rest of the day wasn't exactly pleasant; the animators were supposed to try out the benefits of the ink machine, but it didn't work like it was supposed to. Sometimes the flow of ink would just stop completely, leaving the workers empty handed and unable to draw, while at other times there was too much ink for them to use, and the pipes would start to leak.

Because of this, Henry was more than glad when the day was over, and was just finishing a few more sketches when one of the pipes located above his desk suddenly began to make noise and gave in, bursting completely, covering the man and his work in ink entirely. After a few moments of taking in what had just happened, he opened up his eyes, the only part of him that wasn't covered in ink because he was wearing his glasses; everything else was absolutely drenched with the black liquid. He tried to wipe some of the ink from his face, but without much result. Trembling slightly, he got up, leaving behind the mess that was his desk, before walking towards the exit; he was glad most employees had already gone home by now, so they wouldn't see him in this state.

However, there was one worker who always stayed after hours to clean up the messes of everyone else: Wally Franks. As soon as the janitor laid eyes on Henry, he burst out in laughter.
"What the hell happened to ya, mister Stein? Ya look like some ink monster!"

At this Henry couldn't hold back his tears of pure frustration anymore. "Just...go clean my office, please." His voice was shaking, and he paced out of the building right after, his face buried in his hands.

Wally watched him leave. "Geez, you people have really been taking things too serious lately! Crack a smile once in a while." He sighed before resuming to clean the hallway.

Samuel had been waiting for Henry at his car, but his jaw dropped when he saw his ink-covered boyfriend coming out of the studio, his concern growing when he noticed the other man was crying. As soon as the animator got close to him, the musician wrapped his arms around the smaller man, holding him close, not caring about his clothing getting smudged with ink. "What in the world happened to you? You're completely covered in ink!"

Henry cried onto Sammy's shoulder. "One of the pipes in my office burst and spilled ink all over me and then Wally said I looked like an ink monster and-"

Samuel got hold of Henry's chin, cutting him off. "Sshht, it's alright. You couldn't ever look like a monster, you're still handsome as ever, even like this. And for the ink part, well, we can take care of that, don't worry darling." He smiled softly at the other man before retrieving a blanket from his car. "Here, just sit on this so the car won't get all dirty, we'll get you home and clean in no time."

Henry smiled shakily and took the blanket. "Thanks Sam." Instead of just sitting on it he wrapped himself up in it, even covering his head, before sitting down in the passenger seat.
He kept trembling the entire way home, still upset about the incident, feeling his drenched clothes stick to his skin.

As soon as they arrived home, Sammy ushered the smaller man to the bathroom, opening up the tap to let the bath run full before undressing Henry and himself, considering his clothing was stained with ink as well at this point. He just threw everything in the laundry basket, planning on washing it later, before getting in the bathtub and helping Henry in as well.
Letting the other man sit between his legs, he began to pour water over Henry's head and body to remove the ink that had latched onto it, causing the bathwater to turn pitch black after a while.

After having cleaned Henry as well as possible, Samuel noticed that the other man was sitting bend over, holding onto his knees and still rather tensed up. Without saying a word, he placed his hands on Henry's shoulders and began to lightly massage them.

After a while it took effect, as Henry closed his eyes and leaned against Sammy's chest. "Thank you Sam, thank you for always being there for me when I need you. I love you."

Samuel smiled, wrapping his arms around Henry's chest. "I love you too, and I'll always be there for you darling, no matter what." He first kissed Henry's head, and then his neck, making the smaller man smile as well. "I don't care how crazy everything gets, one thing is for sure: I will stay with you and love you, until the end of time."