Sometime in the late 1920s...
Keys lightly bobbed up and down in their temporary dance, sending out an echo to the man meant to hear them. Sammy Lawrence let his left hand flow absentmindedly to play the baseline while his right paused in hesitation before maneuvering to let whatever sprung up in his mind be heard. The record he was recording his ideas on wasn't infinitely looping for him after all. Blue eyes flicked across black and white keys, the mind beyond them thinking only of clefs and harmonies, dynamics and rhythms, counting and key changes and instrument parts and motifs-
Most of all, there was feeling.
He'd said it countless times before to both himself and others: being a composer didn't mean you wrote music. It meant you wrote feeling. Even if what it gave was momentary. Joey Drew had been intrigued by the statement, Henry Stein impressed, and Susie Campbell excited. What Sammy found amusing was how he got a different reaction from it each time. The blond supposed it didn't matter too much, everyone explored music differently and he enjoyed the job he had, especially considering how on edge things seemed to be lately. It would pass. For now, he had successfully finished recording his set of ideas for what to bring to the band next, the ninth recording in his collection of that type. Sammy grinned to himself, letting the record stop and cease its "listening."
"Sounds nice like always."
Sammy turned around to see the door leading into the main performance room open, revealing a tall man with dirty blond hair and sparkling green eyes that suited his calm smile. Sammy nodded back politely, although his own smile smoothed away.
"Thank you. ...Did you happen to need something though? It's nowhere near break yet."
" 'Little Devil Darling' went well, and it gets a little boring drawing singing chickens and chairs after a bit," Henry shrugged. "I came down to show you something anyway." With a stifled laugh, the animator moved forward and pulled out a paper from his pocket, handing it to Sammy, who blinked at it in curiosity, curls of blond falling into his face from where he sat at the piano bench.
It was a sheet filled with the same drawing of Bendy forming a chart. An emotion reference chart, precisely. Or more like a lack of one. No matter what the letters read, "happy," "sad," or "angry," the cartoon demon kept the same face every time, a wide grin. Sammy found himself chuckling from the paper at first and then bursting into laughter, pushing the paper back into Henry's chest.
"Oh my lord, priceless. Truer words were never spoken, or rather truer art was never drawn."
Henry laughed too, his smile replicating that of the music director's. "At the meeting we just held earlier Joey put down my idea to have Bendy show some other expression when we advertise him, so I guess my annoyance powered me to make this."
"Ha! Wonderful. Would you mind if I let the band see it?"
"Sure thing, as long as Joey doesn't see it."
The rest of the week at Joey Drew Studios was happily spent with the band passing around a certain drawing with a note attached reading "Do not let Joey see this," shooting jokes about Bendy to each other all day. By the time Sammy had finished making his ninth "Doodles" recording a full song for everyone to play, each person in the room with an instrument smiled up at him fondly, and he in return- Henry still got his rightfully earned praise of course. Even Norman Polk, Jack Fain, and Wally Franks had picked up on the joke despite how they were relatively new. Joey himself, meanwhile, remained oblivious. If one thing was clear, it was that laughter didn't just reach the audience of the cartoons.
***
"See Boris, this is why ya gotta love Henry! He even got Sammy to lighten up! Betcha don't see that everyday huh?"
Bendy smirked triumphantly with a gloved hand on his hip while turning to Boris- the wolf was eating away at a sandwich with an entertained expression beyond his snout.
"I think what he did was lovely! Even if we always look the same in the posters."
"Shut yer trap angel, y'aint even in the show yet, Henry JUST designed you!"
"BENDY-!"
"Whoops! Sorry~"
Boris continued to eat his sandwich happily while the two chased each other, joining them once he was finished.
YOU ARE READING
Batim Oneshots/Short Stories
Fanfiction"And in its own this creature only he could witness was... Bendy. With that same flat grin that could mean so many things, things Sammy craved to understand. The same grin HIS Bendy would sometimes flash, and even flaunt before he began to love Samm...
