A Rock in the River

9- Because I Do Adore You

"Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life."– Isaiah 43:4

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There was something Joey told someone else a long, long time ago:

"They can be...unkind," he said, brow furrowed. "Even if they don't want to be. Because they believe they will always hurt others, even if they try not to. And such an assumption will indeed always circle them back to hurting others, because that is their being. Even if you shake them by the shoulders and tell them this isn't true, they will justify it themselves. They're righteous in their own toxicity."

His words were...hollow. Like wind through the hole in a tree. It was less like he was talking to someone in particular and more like he was narrating something in a story.

"And coming across them, knowing this, you want to save them. But darling, that might just take you down too."

He had no idea he was detailing his own demise, a fortune teller for everything he never wanted to be.

There was a time he wasn't like that, though.

There was a time...but maybe it was long gone.

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Now, Francine had noticed it before, but only in passing- like accepting that the attic will have dust, or that grass will have morning dew. In the same way, Joey's office had paper. It covered everything, not like a wrapping but simply in...a loose existence, like you fell asleep under a tree in spring and woke up in late autumn, all the leaves surrounding you but not yet carried away by winter's wind. And thus, once she knew what these flimsy remnants of life held within them- once she stared at plenty of them long enough- nothing was special about them anymore, not individually. A collective phenomenon, we take little time to pick up every severed leaf fallen upon the ground because we know why leaves fall; Francine knew why papers were kept.

She was wrong.

This was her third time here, and she was introduced to the ways of this realm, this...tiny, infinite space both empty and full. A place she had assumed was a variation of Joey's "prison." And all that was left of it now was a shrine to what he had adored, the reason why Bendy existed in all his awful glory. Children. Adoration. Creation. Inspiration. The latter three were given back and forth by the first, and regardless of age Mr. Drew loved them almost as his own.

...And sometimes he did entirely.

These drawings were pinned to his cage in beautiful remembrance of how far, far away he was from everything he wanted, everything this was supposed to be for. And there were so many that Francine simply never thought to look at the ones laid like shifting, thin bricks under her feet, or scattered on his desk like torn newspaper. It wasn't till now, with her eyes faded red and sore from the tears he made her shed, that she began to see what else Joey kept sacred here. As Sammy inhaled and exhaled, catching his breath after holding in for years on end, her eyes were caught as her cheek pressed against his cold, damp chest and was forced to study the floor.

These things were different.

"Guys?"

It was more the tone than the word that begrudgingly got the attention of a withering angel and an accursed songwriter, either not having heard it before or having not heard it in good time.

"What...-" Francine began to murmur, brow knitted as she gently pushed her cheek off of Sammy's cold, cold chest, "-Is...all this?"

And oh so hesitantly, Sammy let one of the only things he knew was here go, so that she could leave with waves of curiosity and come back with understanding anew. Maybe she could bring something to fill him again, was a sharp, brief sting that came to him without words.