Chapter Text
“We’ll only do it for a minute, just to get you comfortable.”
Bendy hesitated, wringing his hands, “I dounno…”
Henry smiled and tapped the side of the bucket in front of him, “It’s less then half of what you had before, it’ll be fine just for a test.”
As much as Henry hadn’t wanted to mess with Bendy’s ability, recent events taught him a very important lesson; they couldn’t just ignore something as big as Bendy being able to turn into a giant ink monster, especially when said ink monster form was prone to lashing out. And with how much ink there was everywhere, keeping Bendy’s page ink free would be next to impossible. And since they were in somewhat of a controlled environment, Henry figured it was as good a time to test Bendy’s limits.
Hence, the bucket he’d stuck under a leaky pipe and filled with ink.
Bendy shuffled his feet and looked warily at the bucket, “….I guess it wouldn’t be to bad of an idea.” He looked back at Henry. “But if I go all…crazy again, you promise to get away from me?”
“Sure thing bud,” Henry smiled, fully intending to stay with Bendy if things did go wrong.
Bendy took a large breath, chest puffing out like a little balloon, “Okay…I’m ready!”
Carefully, Henry dropped the paper into the bucket, watching as Bendy slowly sunk down into the ink. Almost instantly after the last bit of paper disappeared the ink started to bubble. It started as small bubbles, but climbed quickly to a more rapid boil until it exploded upwards and Henry found himself face to face with Bendy.
It was defiantly still his Bendy but it’s not quite the form he was expecting. He expected something more akin to the hulking mass of ink that he’d seen previously, maybe a bit smaller but overall then same. What leaned over him was a thinner Bendy, with lopsided horns and head slightly to big for his body.
It wasn’t the malnourished and bony thinness that the other ‘Bendy’ was. Bendy’s edges were still soft and smooth with the only sharpness being his horn tips and his only visible pupil. Henry breathed a mental sigh of relief when he took in Bendy’s face and body language and saw no signs of the crazed grin or demonic glint in the demons eye.
Bendy looked down at himself and then at Henry with a small, hesitant smile.
Henry grinned back, “Feeling okay?”
Bendy nodded and made a gargling noise that sounded vaguely like ‘yes.’
“See? I told you it would be okay,” Henry reached up to pat Bendy’s head, right between his horns. His hand came away sticky with ink but Henry kept grinning. “We’ll have this transformation of yours figured out in no time.”
Henry frowned at the soup can Boris had set in front of him then at the stove sitting right behind said wolf’s chair, “How come you never warm it up?”
Boris paused in shoveling his soup into his mouth. He tilted his head and looked at Bendy, whining quietly.
“He don’t know how ta use it,” Bendy explained. “It works different then the ones in our toons.”
Boris whined again and put his head on the table.
“Hey, it’s alright Boris,” Henry smiled and gave Bois a quick pat between the ears. “I can show you how it works and we can make some hot bacon soup.”
Boris perked up at that and nodded eagerly. Henry chuckled at the enthusiasm as he stood, collecting Bendy before moving to the iron stove. He opening it up and was happy to see a reasonable pile of wood inside.
He handed Bendy to Boris, “Wait here a second,” and headed to the bedroom. It only took a few moments to find a pack of matches and test one. He trotted back to the stove and showed Boris, “You have to be careful with these. I’m not sure how fire will affect you but I’m sure it’ll hurt.”
He showed Boris how to strike a match, how to start a small flame with bits of scrap paper and use that to light the wood in the stove. It took a few minutes to get a good fire going.
“And now for the soup,” Henry dumped three cans of soup into the large pot on the stove. “Should warm up in no time.”
Boris nodded, eyes still glued on the stove.
Henry chuckled as he scrounged up a ladle. He gave it another minute before scooping it out and placing two bowls of now hot soup on the table, “And there we are. Hot bacon soup.”
Boris sat down, eyeing the steaming bowl as he handed Bendy back to Henry. He picked it up and took a slow, tentative sip.
Henry almost busted out laughing at how quickly Boris’ face morphed from skepticism to pure joy.
A small chuckle did slip out as Boris guzzled down his soup, “That good?”
Boris licked his bowl clean and beamed at Henry.
Bendy giggled as the wolf jumped around the table to wrap Henry up into a bear hug.
Henry peeked around the corner of the hallway, axe held at the ready and muscles tense in anticipation.
That other ‘Bendy’ was close, he knew it was close. He could almost feel its presence sending icy chills down his spine.
The studio was silent, not even making the usual white noise of the building settling or the ink pipes groaning. The hallway was almost pitch black, seeming to merge with the ink coating the floor and walls.
Henry edged forward, still tense and ready for an attack.
He barely got two steps before the floor gave way beneath him.
He screamed as he fell, down into nothing but inky darkness.
The presence he’d felt seemed to grow as he fell, stronger and stronger until Henry felt like he was suffocating. He twisted in the air, trying to find the demonic copy of Bendy. But he couldn’t see anything but more blackness.
There was a groan, only it wasn’t the groan of pipes straining or old wood settling. It sounded more alive, more real, like some kind of animal but there wasn’t anything to make the sound and Henry was still falling, faster and faster and faster-
He startled awake with a strangled noise, nearly twisting out of the cot and onto the floor. He caught himself before his face could greet the floor.
Henry sat up, breathing heavily as he blinked to clear the fog from his head. He looked around, took in the small room that was clean of ink, the old bulb that gave off enough light to see the room clearly, the ticking of the novelty clock on the wall-
“Henry?”
The little dancing demon that was sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
Henry shook himself, willing away the remnants of his dream, “Hey bud, did I wake you?”
“No,” Bendy blinked groggily a few times before focusing on Henry. “I had…a weird dream. I think I was in the studio? But not on my page or the wall? And it was dark and creepy and I think the…other me was somewhere.”
Henry frowned, “Yeah, pretty weird.” Could have been a coincidence. People had common junk in dreams all the time. And the studio was pretty much all Bendy knew about the real world so it would make sense that he dreamed about it.
Bendy blinked again and frowned, “How come you’re up?”
Henry shrugged, “Weird dream. There was a lot of falling.”
“Ohhh, that’s doesn’t sound fun.”
“Nope,” Henry agreed as he picked Bendy up. “But I’m okay now.”
“Yeah,” Bendy yawned. “Me too….but I don’t feel like sleeping.”
“Me neither,” Henry stood. “Let’s see if Boris is up for more tic-tac-toe.”
“Okay,” Bendy grinned. “Can I play the winner?”
“Sure thing bud.”
Henry walked into the main room, mentally deciding to forget about his strange dream. After all, he thought, no need to invest energy into something that was probably nothing.